Artemis Invaded

Adara gathered that she was less than welcome within Leto. If she were honest with herself, she felt relieved rather than insulted. She didn’t like the stuffy, enclosed underground complex. Then, too, she felt certain that within Leto’s confines she could never hope to make contact with Artemis—a task that was proving far more difficult than she had imagined it would be.

When I didn’t want her in my head, she popped in and out at whim. Finding out about those blind spots seems to have unnerved her to the point that she doesn’t want to “talk.” She’s there, though. I can sense her nightmares.

So Adara spent most of her time outside, going into the complex only when Griffin needed an extra pair of hands or Adara’s ability to see clearly with very little light. She was contemplating whether she needed to forage for something to augment the fish for dinner, or whether she should seek out a particularly dense cluster of mushrooms and try to reach Artemis, when an excited image from Sand Shadow burst into her mind.

Two men were lumbering their way up the steepest part of the trail to Maiden’s Tear. A small boy walked behind them, his step light despite evident weariness. Each led a horse, the boy’s doubling as a pack animal.

Behind the humans and horses ambled a large bear with golden brown fur. The bear paused every few paces to sniff the air, confirming that no threat was near—although to one who did not know bears, it might have looked as if she was hoping to sniff out something particularly tasty for dinner. Adara recognized the travelers at once. The man on point was her own mentor—and foster father—Bruin Hunter. The big, bald man behind him, head bent down, gaze apparently fastened on nothing more than the rise and fall of Bruin’s soft-booted feet, was Ring. The boy was Bruin’s student, Kipper. The bear was Honeychild, Bruin’s demiurge.

Adara gave a startled cry. What was Bruin doing here? And Ring? Ring was the last person she thought would undertake such an arduous journey. Had he been driven to it by his peculiar gifts? Was Bruin his guide?

Adara considered telling Griffin and Terrell about the new arrivals, then decided to go meet Bruin and his companions alone. What if whatever had driven Ring was something he would prefer to keep from Griffin or Terrell? She could not imagine that the information was to be kept from her. If so, Ring would not have considered Bruin as a guide. Some, misled by Ring’s peculiar manner of speech and awkward appearance, might make the mistake of thinking him slow-minded, but she was under no such illusion.

Action followed thought. Soon the huntress was sprinting down the slope to meet the new arrivals, intersecting Sand Shadow along the way. The puma sent her confident assertion that by now Honeychild would have scented them and passed the information along to Bruin.

For all that it was anticipated, the reunion was no less joyful. Adara had not seen Bruin since they had parted after their visit to Lynn’s small community. Bruin had returned to Shepherd’s Call with Kipper, his newest charge, while Adara and Terrell had turned in the direction of Spirit Bay to guide Griffin to the Old One Who is Young.

Fate and distance had kept them apart since. When Adara threw her arms around Bruin and felt his familiar bear hug in return, she realized her eyes were wet with tears.

“I’ve missed you, you old bear,” she said, releasing him and giving him a quick inspection. He looked much as he should, bearlike in build, his reddish-brown hair shaggy about his face, silvering at the tips. However, Adara thought that there were lines of worry, even of grief, that had not been on his weathered features before.

Adara turned to the others. “I’m glad to see you, too, Honeychild. Well met, Ring, Kipper…”

“Glad to see you, too, Adara,” Kipper said, his voice soft with awe. Adara didn’t doubt that since their brief initial meeting he’d heard more about her, if not from Bruin, then both from the residents of Shepherd’s Call and from Bruin’s students. Adara could be humble, but she didn’t see what good would be served by pretending that she wasn’t well known in her own community—and for more than her adaptations. Most hunters were male. Huntresses, especially those with demiurges, were rare indeed.

Ring’s only response to Adara’s greeting was to shuffle his feet. Up close his physical oddities were more obvious. He avoided not only eye contact, but looking directly at anything. Although the group must have been traveling for weeks, he retained a certain unhealthy softness that was at odds with his large frame. This fleshiness extended to his hands, which were overlarge, and his lips, which were thick.

He was holding one hand over his eyes but Adara knew this wasn’t to keep the out the sunlight, but to block visual stimuli. Ring was precognate, the gift both powerful and unpredictable, so that every step the man took was through a maze of shifting probabilities.

Adara would have loved to learn more about what brought her mentor and his companions to this isolated place, but she took pity on Ring. Her questions could wait until they were safely in camp.

“We’re almost to the top of the worst of the trail,” she said, moving to the front of the group. “After that, there’s a lovely meadow where you can mount up again. We have a good campsite under the trees, so our gear isn’t in plain sight.”

“That’s wise,” Bruin said approvingly. “Where are Terrell and Griffin?”

Ring spoke, his voice flat, yet the words very precise. “In the heart of the mother from whose womb death was born too late to give life. Who yet will bear death or life, depending on the father’s song.”

Bruin looked apologetically at Adara. “He’s been saying things like that for weeks. Nonsense, I would say, except that we know better than to dismiss what Ring says without consideration.”

Adara had been distinctly startled by Ring’s words. “Not nonsense, not all of it.” She placed a gentle hand on Ring’s arm, patting him reassuringly. “The part I don’t understand makes my blood cold. Let me get you to camp. Griffin and Terrell are inside the mountain. The seegnur had a complex there.”

“Not quite,” Adara hedged. She didn’t want to explain here in the open. “I didn’t fetch them before coming to meet you because I wanted to make sure that whatever message you carried was for all of us.”

Bruin chuckled. “And here I thought it was because you were so eager to see your old Papa Bear.”

Afraid she had offended him, Adara sputtered reassurances, but Bruin waved her down. “No need to worry, ladybug. You haven’t hurt my feelings. I’m glad to see you haven’t lost the good sense I spent so long drumming into you.” He turned to the other man, “Ring? Can the others hear what you have to tell or is it only for Adara?”

“Tell? Tell?” Ring looked puzzled. “Ring must be here, else disaster will come, but tell?”

Adara felt no impatience. The hulking man seemed almost a boy in his confusion. She turned to Bruin. “Bruin, the day that you can’t locate an established camp in a little bit of wood is the day we tuck you into a rocker by the fire. You’ll find meat and drink waiting. Help yourselves. Sand Shadow and I will get the others.”

Without waiting for her mentor’s reply, she sped up the hillside, lightly as a cat, and loped through the tall grass toward the tunnel into the mountain. Sand Shadow ran alongside, a sleek shadow of palest gold.

Griffin could hardly believe his ears when Adara told them that Bruin had arrived—bringing with him none other than Ring.

“Kipper, too,” Adara said as she all but herded Griffin and Terrell out of Leto’s complex. “I don’t know anything more than that—only that Ring was adamant that he needed to be here. I directed them to our camp, then came to get you.”

Despite his pleasure at the thought of seeing Bruin, along with a very real curiosity as to what could bring both the hunter and Ring all this way, Griffin found pulling himself from his researches almost painful. He thought about suggesting that the visitors come to him, so that he wouldn’t waste any time, but a lingering sense of priorities made him put the suggestion aside.

Bruin had welcomed Griffin into his home when Griffin was an unknown quantity. He had continued to offer him advice and support—as well as food, drink, and shelter—even after Griffin had proven potentially dangerous. Asking Bruin to attend upon Griffin’s pleasure, when doubtless Bruin was finally having a chance to relax after a long day on the trail, would be beyond rudeness. So, promising Leto he would be back, Griffin followed Adara and Terrell down the tunnel.

The air outside the cavern held the freshness of early evening. After the stale air within Leto’s complex, the scents of pine and wind-stirred grass were intense, the colors of grass and the purple hues of shadowed mountains vivid. Birds darted over the meadow, probably chasing insects, chattering to each other with such animation that Griffin felt he’d understand them if he listened just a moment more. It felt good to walk so that his legs stretched out, rather than picking his way from console to console, so good that Griffin almost regretted when they reached the camp.

“Kipper located where you pastured your own horses and Sam the Mule,” Bruin said after greetings had been exchanged. “He took our horses over to join them. All but Ring’s are from Helena’s herd originally, so I think they’ll get along fine.”

“Molly will make sure of it,” Terrell said with a laugh, “although Midnight will think he’s in charge. I see you’ve made yourself at home. Thanks for setting the journey cake batter on the fire. Do you mind business while we eat? We’re alive with curiosity as to what brought you here—but I’m starved!”

Bruin leaned back against Honeychild, sipped from a tin travel mug filled with the mint tea they kept steeping in a jug in the stream, then gave a shuddery sigh. “I can only tell what little I know. Some weeks ago, a runner arrived in Shepherd’s Call with a note from Lynn. The note said that Ring had been speaking of things she couldn’t understand, other than that he was insisting that dire things would happen if he didn’t reach you three as quickly as possible. She’d been putting him off, saying she had no idea where you were. All she knew was that the Trainers—they’ve kept in touch—said you’d left Spirit Bay some time before. That apparently stopped Ring’s nagging—Lynn’s word, not mine—for two days. Then he started insisting that I knew where you were, that I could take him to you.”

Adara nodded. Before they had left Spirit Bay, she’d written Bruin telling him in terms only he would understand where they were going.

“Lynn asked me to come at once, to see if I could quiet Ring. I did so, sending my boarding students home earlier than planned, because I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be back to Shepherd’s Call anytime soon. Brought Kipper, of course, because he’s living with me now.”

“And you were right,” Adara prompted gently, “that you wouldn’t just be going to Lynn’s, speaking with Ring, and coming home again.”

“And I was right,” Bruin agreed. “I couldn’t make any more sense out of what Ring was saying than Lynn could, but we’ve all reason to know that his nonsense makes good sense once you know how the parts fit together. If he felt it was urgent for him to get to you, then it was urgent to me, too.”

They all nodded and looked where Ring sat leaning against a tree, his eyes firmly shut. Griffin remembered how Ring had told Lynn to catch the fish to lure the bear, so that the bear would come to Lynn’s stronghold. That fish had been Kipper; the bear, Bruin; two people Ring had never met and so apparently could not put a name to. Yet for all his lack of clarity, Ring had been right. The bear—and his companions—needed to hear what Lynn had to say. Without the information they had garnered from Lynn and her band, they would have gone into Spirit Bay unwarned about the Old One and …

And, oh, how different the future would have been … Griffin thought. The Old One might yet be pursuing his twisted experiments beneath Mender’s Isle, and the rest of us? We’d either be dead or prisoners.

The problem with Ring was that he saw reality in so many configurations—including visions of scenes that he himself might or might not understand—that something as simple as writing a note based on his information was impossible.

He didn’t expect a reply. Indeed, he’d thought Ring was asleep, but Ring’s deep, flat voice rang out immediately, though his eyes remained screwed shut.

“If Ring is not there,” he pointed with unerring accuracy in the direction of Leto’s complex, “there is no hope. Slavery will come again. Many, many, many will die in body, many more in soul. Even if Ring is here…”

He lifted a big, almost flabby hand, then, holding it palm down, rocked it back and forth as if it were a scale that would not settle.

No one spoke. After a long pause, Ring continued. “If the cats do not breathe in the dusty orb, if the thread does not learn that it binds tightest when it is knotted firmly into itself, if the dreamer does not wake from the visions, then even with Ring, with Bruin, with Kipper, still there will be disaster.”

Ring breathed out so hard that little droplets of spit sprinkled the air. “You can go without causing disaster, but if you stay and are prepared to walk trails unimagined in all your years, then, yes, there is something for you to do.”

Griffin wanted to ask more. “Cats” could refer to Adara and Sand Shadow, but the dreamer, the thread? Did they also refer to those two? They had jointly dreamed of Artemis. Or did this refer to him and Terrell? Maybe the dreamer was Leto. She had slept for five hundred years and struggled daily against her sense of what should be, rather than accepting the new reality.

Terrell touched Griffin’s arm, shaking his head. “Ring is completely exhausted. I think, too, speaking is harder for him than you imagine. I suspect that each word he speaks subtly changes reality for him.”

“Yes,” Griffin said, nodding slowly. “I can see what you mean. Words—even carefully spoken words—nail ideas into place. Worse, not everyone is going to interpret a concept the same way.”

Bruin said softly, “For a long time he didn’t. His mother, Narda, came to talk to me about Ring when she learned I would be his guide. Apparently, Ring didn’t speak for so many years that everyone assumed he was mute. When Ring did start speaking, it was in full sentences, all very carefully crafted, and mostly regarding very concrete matters, such as what he wanted to eat or not eat. It was only a year or so before he helped Winnie and Mabel to escape that he began to express himself on abstract concepts.”

“A good thing,” Adara said. “If the Old One had realized what Ring was capable of he would never have been so careless.”

Griffin felt a sudden shock as ideas connected. “The Old One was breeding the adapted in the hope that he would hit on someone who could operate the equipment the seegnur left behind. Now Ring insists he has to be here—and he indicates that his reason for being here is connected to the mountain … to Leto’s complex. I wonder if the Old One crafted better than he realized.”

“Not now,” Terrell interjected firmly. “Didn’t I just finish saying that Ring needs a break? He’s been on the road for days. Ask him tomorrow. If his reason for coming here is connected to Leto, then I suspect you won’t have trouble getting him there—you’ll have trouble keeping him away.”

Griffin nodded, but even as he settled down to a game of marbles with Sand Shadow and Adara, he could feel his impatience growing, fed by a strong sense that time was running out.

When they heard the voices, the Old One held up a finger for silence. Although the language being spoken was one neither of them could understand, by listening they could still learn something about whoever was in the subterranean facility. After a few minutes, Julyan felt certain there were three people, all male. When they moved, there was a splashing sound, so, although the complex was no longer completely flooded, it was still wet. After a while, he became aware of a regular thudding in the background.

They crouched, listening, until the voices became fainter. Then the Old One lowered himself into the hole. When his feet had located the rungs of the ladder built into the wall, he paused only long enough to indicate that Julyan should follow, then vanished into the gloom. His progress was so silent that Julyan guessed he had used the old sailor’s trick of lightly grasping the side rails and sliding down, rather than climbing. There was no splash, though, so the Old One must have perfectly controlled his descent.

He would, thought Julyan, a trace resentfully. He chose not to slide, not trusting that he would be able to stop as silently, but his soft-soled boots were nearly soundless against the rungs. When he reached bottom, he discovered that the tunnel was no longer flooded, although a thin layer of sandy mud remained.

I never noticed, but the floors must have been built at an angle, so water would run off to the sides. Makes sense, if you’re going to build a complex that’s partly under water, as well as underground.

The tunnel was dark. None of the lanterns that had been hung along the walls during the Old One’s tenancy seemed to have survived the flood that had surged through these corridors when the Old One had sought to drown his enemies.

And drowned a fair number of his allies—or at least lackeys—instead, thought Julyan. He pressed down an uncomfortable thought that perhaps the Old One had intended those drownings to rid himself of those who had witnessed various aspects of his peculiar breeding project. It would be very much in character.

The Old One was just visible in the gloom, a slim, dark shadow against greater darkness. He pointed down the corridor to where a faint yellow light showed, then turned and began walking in that direction. Julyan followed, curiosity driving him as much as any fidelity to the Old One—curiosity not only about the nature of these newcomers, but as to what the Old One intended.

Julyan had a hunter’s excellent memory for places. Within a few paces, he reestablished his orientation and padded along almost as confidently as he had in those days when the Old One had reigned here and, as his second, Julyan himself had held nearly supreme power. No man had dared cross him, no woman disobey him. Perhaps those days might yet return.

A warm barrier stopped Julyan in midstep—the Old One’s arm, extended across the corridor, just before a curve. Julyan halted, waited for a soft-voiced command, but apparently the Old One only wanted him to stop here where they were concealed by more than darkness.

They had closed to where conversation could be distinguished. Although Julyan could not understand what the men said, every so often a word was almost familiar. The cadence, too, was familiar enough that he thought he could garner the emotional context, even if the actual meaning was shrouded.

They were close enough, too, that unique qualities in the three voices could be isolated. Julyan had an excellent ear. His pitch was so perfect that Bruin had speculated that the gift might be an adaptation. As he listened, Julyan quickly distinguished the differences between the voices, as he might have between different pieces of music played on the same instrument.

The voice that spoke the most often and with the longest strings of sound was the deepest and just a bit gruff. This man spoke with confidence, but something in how he spoke made Julyan think he was relating information rather than conversing. Since this gruff voice was often accompanied by the sound of water sloshing and the water had gathered along the edges of the walls, Julyan thought that this man might be examining the corridor, then reporting his conclusions.

The voice that spoke the next most often was only slightly less deep, but held a clear note that made it carry effortlessly. Although this man’s statements often ended with an inflection that made Julyan think they were questions, these were not the questions of doubt or uncertainty, but those that probed for information.

I know that sound well enough, Julyan thought with a trace of bitter humor. This man’s voice is deeper and more resonant, but he sounds just like the Old One—not only does he ask questions, he expects prompt and accurate answers.

The voice that spoke least frequently was lighter than the other two, although still distinctly masculine—a baritone that flirted with tenor elements. This speaker played with his voice more than the other two did. Gruff Voice reported, Clear Voice queried and assessed, but this last voice drawled and teased. When it asked questions, Julyan didn’t think he was wrong that many of these held a hint of mockery or testing.

That the other two could ignore this voice, not reacting to jibes or twists, seemed to indicate a long relationship between the three. They knew each other well, each responding within the patterns of habit.

The Old One kept them standing there listening for so long that Julyan was tempted to hunker down and rest his feet. Only the desire not to smudge his clothes with sand and mud kept him upright. He guessed that the Old One was seriously considering confronting these three men, and Julyan wanted to make the best possible impression when they did so.

Julyan was weighing the odds that the Old One would wait until he could learn more against the advantages that could be gained from an immediate confrontation, when the Old One tapped his shoulder, signaling in the silent code they had worked out long before that the Old One would go forward and that Julyan was to follow a few paces behind, his stance that of a bodyguard.

Julyan adjusted, made sure his long knife was loose in its sheath, and straightened so that his height and muscular strength would be immediately visible. He also schooled himself against squinting, knowing that when they turned the corner they would be in the light cast by the other group’s lanterns.

For the sake of his own self-esteem, it was good that Julyan had made these preparations, for what they saw when they rounded the corner was enough of a shock that he might have gaped like a townee who’d just walked into a bear’s den, mistaking it for a tunnel.

Three men—one dark-haired, one with pale golden hair, and one with hair in curls of bronze—had swiveled as one and were holding some sort of hand weapons on the Old One and him. There was nothing about the smooth curve of polished material to proclaim them as weapons—no sharpened edge or obvious projectile—but Julyan had no doubt that these were weapons.

The dark-haired man stood nearest to the wall, where he had opened a panel. He was ankle-deep in water but didn’t seem to mind. He said nothing, nor did he move anything but his eyes. The blond-haired man was also the tallest. He had taken one step toward them as he drew his weapon, announcing himself not only the leader, but the sort of leader who did not remain safely in the rear while others fought his battles.

The man with the bronze curls held his weapon with a casual ease that seemed to indicate that he didn’t think he would need to use it. Julyan was not fooled. This man was not simply deadly; he was the sort who would shoot you in the back as easily as breathing. While the other two men were startled to various degrees, this man was amused, pleased by the new turn of events. He was the one who smiled when the Old One stepped forward and spoke.

“Greetings, seegnur. I am called Maxwell. I know something of this area. How may I be of service to you?”

The arrival of Bruin, Kipper, and Ring changed the dynamic of the camp. Ring joined Griffin and Terrell inside while the hunters remained mostly outside. Bruin expanded Kipper’s training by making the boy responsible for setting snares and weaving fish traps, tasks the boy assumed with focused determination.

“Was I ever so grim?” Adara asked. She and Bruin had retired to a sheltered bluff where they could keep an eye on Kipper without the boy realizing how closely he was being supervised.

“Worse,” Bruin assured her. Then he chuckled. “No, simply different. By the time you were Kipper’s age, you had already been in my charge for two or three years. You were determined to best your peers, thinking that any less would shame me.”

Adara smiled, rolling onto her back and watching the clouds scud by, sky sheep in blue pastures. “I remember. It was so easy to be the bright little show-off when all your students were older than me, but when they started to be my own age or—worse—younger, that was a strain.”

“I knew, though I doubt that any of those you measured yourself against had any idea how high a standard you had set for yourself.”

Adara plucked a blade of grass and began to chew the sweet, white end. “No doubt.”

Bruin’s tone shifted. “I was pleased to learn you had stopped to visit your family.”

“What did she tell you?” Adara tensed, swinging herself upright so she could see her mentor’s face.

“Enough to add to my sorrow that I was innocent enough to trust the Old One for so long. What Lynn told us a few months ago had prepared me. I’ve had letters from Lynn since—and, of course, from you as well, but…”

His voice trailed off. Adara felt his sorrow as if it were her own. She tried to imagine how she would feel if she learned about Bruin the sort of things he had learned about the Old One. Her heart spoke without bothering to consult her thoughts.

“Do we ever know what to believe? Is it safe to believe anything we’ve been told about anyone or anything? There are times I wish I could melt away and vanish.”

Bruin frowned. “What brings this on? It cannot be what we have learned about the Old One. I know you were never as attached to him as I was.”

Adara wrapped her arms around her legs, pillowing her chin on her knees. After a long pause, she found words for feelings she hadn’t even realized were troubling her.

“When I was small, I was taught how the seegnur made this world and set everything upon it in a right and proper way. I believed this and was content.”

Bruin’s expression was knowing as he voiced an uncomfortable truth. “More than content, you were affirmed in your own importance in the way of things.” He waved down Adara’s protest and went on. “Why shouldn’t you be? Of all those upon Artemis—human and beast alike—the only ones who are even hinted at as being equals to the seegnur are those who follow the professions, for those in the professions were created to directly serve and guide the seegnur. You can serve without being an equal, but you cannot guide. True?”

“And on top of this,” Bruin went on relentlessly, “you knew yourself destined for a profession—that of hunter—as soon as you realized how your adaptations set you apart. To that point, your journey was much like my own. I only tell you what I myself remember, except that in my case I came from a family that usually threw up at least one adapted hunter a generation. I was eagerly awaited, but not unusual. You, however, were unusual and, because of your parents’ wisdom, you came into the hands of those who would cherish you.

“I said, ‘to that point,’” Bruin continued, “and by that I do not mean the difference between our families. I mean that quickly enough—especially after you were in my care—you realized that even among those in the professions, even among the adapted in the professions, you were special.”

“No. Long before that. You realized you were special because you would be a huntress, and those are rare indeed.” Bruin sighed and made himself more comfortable where he leaned against a tree trunk. “I remember when you began to notice how few girls there were among those I taught. Your awkwardness didn’t last long, changing into pride that never—quite—became overbearing.”

Adara nodded. She remembered, too. At first she had thought that the difference was simply that fewer girls wanted to learn to hunt. Hunting was, after all, a messy profession, with more than its share of blood, guts, wet days, cold nights, and lacking the little comforts that it seemed—to her at least—girls treasured more than did boys. Later, she had realized that fewer women were born with the adaptations that were thought to indicate suitability for the hunter’s way: night vision, an empathy with animals, and—most telling—the claws that she still considered both blessing and bane.

“I preferred pride to the shyness that came upon you when you first began to notice boys as something other than classmates and competition,” Bruin said. “I still regret not moving Julyan along before he could make such an impression on you. He was beyond needing my teaching, but he wished to stay. I was a lazy enough bear to have grown accustomed to his presence. I should have realized that he was precisely the type…”

Adara made a sound of protest and Bruin dropped the subject, returning to one almost as uncomfortable. “So from the first times you heard the tales of how Artemis was created, you already set yourself among the higher ranks. Although I know you resented your parents sending you away, my taking you on confirmed you in your sense of being someone select, above the common level of humanity. And now?”

Adara forced herself to speak, although, in truth, Bruin’s casual representation of her own arrogance was extremely uncomfortable.

“The seegnur … We were taught they were wise and powerful … Now, Griffin … He does not call himself a seegnur, but his bond with Terrell seems to confirm that he is at least of their stock, if not of their wisdom and power. What troubles me are the stories he tells of those he calls the Old Imperials. These must be the seegnur at the height of their perfection, but they seem far from perfect, far from the gods we have been taught to revere and serve.”

“Yet that has always been a contradiction within the lore,” Bruin said easily. “We learn of the Creation, but we also learn of the Fall. The one is as legend, the other history. Why do you think I always make certain my students see the scar on the mountains above Shepherd’s Call? We have no evidence that our creation is as we were told but, for those who know how to recognize the signs, the marks of the Fall are easily found.”

“Yet even those were battles worthy of gods!” Adara protested, although, if pressed, she would not have known whom she challenged. “A single woman brought down the side of a mountain. A handful of armed warriors slaughtered hundreds. Yet Leto—Leto speaks of those she remembers as if they were much like you or me. When she talks of their studies, their experiments, I cannot help seeing them as much like the loremasters, although with larger libraries and more elaborate tools. I cannot see them as gods!”

“In part. Honestly, these feelings make me grateful that Leto dislikes me. I can stay away and feel I am not being a coward, but here, you and I alone, I admit it. When I am there, I feel the foundations of the universe shaking.”

“I can understand why,” Bruin said. “You have believed yourself among the elite from before you could put words to the concept. What is it to be the chosen of such petty gods?”

Adara looked at her mentor, surprise tingeing her deep affection. She was so used to thinking of Bruin as the hunter—bluff and hearty, a bit gruff, but never unkind—that she often forgot that in his younger days he had been a prize student of the Old One Who Is Young. In those days, Bruin had frequented the company of the loremasters, exploring philosophy and theology, discussing the ways of right living in the absence of the seegnur.

“I cannot fairly judge her.” Adara shrugged. “It’s hard to feel comfortable about someone who doesn’t like you.”

“Yet you speak of Leto as ‘her’ and as ‘someone.’ You accept then that she is a person?”

“It’s impossible not to,” Adara said, fumbling for words. “Griffin accepted her as such from the first and I … Well, there’s Artemis.”

“Another disembodied person,” Bruin said. “Are you certain Artemis is—well—real? Terrell and Bruin can communicate in sleep. Are you sure that this ‘Artemis’ is not some peculiar demiurge, reaching out to you as once Sand Shadow did?”

“At first. Not much lately, not since she discovered her ‘blind spots.’” Adara had told Bruin about this soon after his arrival, for Artemis’s reaction was interwoven into their discovery of Leto. “But we have communicated when I was wide awake.”

“As you do with Sand Shadow,” Bruin said. He gave a gusty sigh. “Forgive me, but it is easier for me to believe you have located some peculiar demiurge than that you are communicating with an entity who is an entire world.”

“I can only tell you what I feel—what I know—to be true,” Adara said stubbornly. “If only you’d been there as Sand Shadow and I were … I think the seegnur created an intelligence to manage this planet in all its complexity. I think that when they were attacked, Artemis must have been put to sleep as Leto remembers being put to sleep. Something woke her, much as Leto was awoken—probably something Griffin brought with him.”

“Why did the seegnur need Artemis?” Bruin said. “I can understand Leto. She was clearly tied to that complex, but Artemis? The world continued to function even while she slept.”

“I don’t know,” Adara said, “but, just because I don’t know doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Many things I thought I knew have been proven wrong. Why should something that doesn’t fit into that worldview automatically be wrong?”

“You have a point, ladybug,” Bruin said. “Something Terrell said made me think that you were supposed to be working on your link with Artemis. Have you been?”

“Not as much as I should be,” Adara admitted. “I told myself that I needed to hunt and forage since Terrell and Griffin were closeting themselves in that complex but … I’ve been afraid. I keep trying to hold on to the fringes of the world as I knew it until I dragged Griffin from that landslide.”

“Kipper and I will hunt and forage,” Bruin said, shoving himself to his feet. “You are free to go … Go and find Artemis. Perhaps it is Ring’s urgency tingling in my nerves, but I don’t think he made me bring him all this way for no reason. Best we gather whatever understanding we can. These old bones feel a storm building. We’d better prepare before it breaks loose and rocks our world to its foundations.”

Who did I serve?

What is my purpose?

If service is my beloved,

Why can I not remember

his face?