Gama and Hest: An Ahsenthe Cycle companion novella (The Ahsenthe Cycle) Read Online Free Page B

healing but is poisonous. Reln says he’ll never push me to do anything I’m not ready for, but he wants me to start treating soon. That’s worse than gathering. What if I give someone the wrong medicine and harm my corenta-kin?”
    Usually females and males did a bit of every kind of work the first few years after emerging, then settled into what they liked or did best. Reln had taken Prill as his student almost as soon as she’d emerged. She’d never had a chance at anything else.
    “Do you know why Reln chose you?”
    She shook her head. “I’ve wanted to know, but I can’t insult him like that. It’s practically the same as saying he made a mistake. It would throw us out of harmony.”
    Hest, who’d sat quietly until now, said, “Seems like the two of you aren’t in harmony anyway.”
    Prill’s neck broke out in a mass of purple-gray and some blue-black spots. “We will be. I’ll make sure of that.”
    Hest smiled kindly. “By finding the bits of the work that you enjoy.”
    Prill nodded. “There are parts I like, parts I’m good at. I have to pay attention to them and not to what frightens me.”
    Prill clasped her hands together in her lap. Hest caught Gama’s eyes and rolled his own.
    Gama half shrugged, leaned forward and touched Prill’s neck. “What else bothers you?”
    Prill opened her mouth and sucked in a large breath. When she spoke, the words rushed out. “These things that are happening. The stars that disappeared and then came back. Reln says not to worry about the nervous brez, but brez never get skittish. We even say ‘happy as a brez’ when someone is totally contented.” She stopped suddenly. Her gaze darted between Gama and Hest, then dropped to her hands, still squeezed together in her lap. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Reln is making a mistake. It isn’t safe here. We should go.”
     
    -=o=-
     
    The already-loaded sled waited for them outside the storage room. Hest took his place inside the rope ring.
    “Only four salt blocks today.” Gama stepped in beside him and grabbed the rope with both hands, determined to be fearless. “Come on now, pull.”
    The day was warm and pleasant. Soft-bodied insects with whirring, fluttering wings flew past as Gama and Hest dragged the sled across Reev toward the gate. Gama tried to let the beauty of the day keep away her worries, but they slithered back.
    “Hest, what do you think happened yesterday at the meadow?”
    He hiked up his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. We saw the sky shimmer, but no bang followed, so maybe it was nothing. A natural happening we’d not noticed before.”
    “You’d think someone would have long since mentioned a shimmering sky, if they’d seen one.”
    Hest leaned forward, straining against the rope, putting his whole weight into pulling the sled. “We see the entire sky turn purple from time to time, but we don’t run around telling everyone and pointing up.”
    “But the shimmer came before the boom. The boom wasn’t anything normal.”
    “Maybe the boom and the shimmer have nothing to do with each other,” he said.
    She gave him a harsh look.
    “You’re always sure of everything, Gama. It still doesn’t make it true.”
    “I’m not always sure, but when I am, I’m usually right.”
    Hest rolled his eyes — as close as he was going to come to admitting the truth of that to her face.
    They’d reached Wall, and waited as it opened its main gate to let them pass.
    What do you say ? Gama sent. Does the sky shimmer from time to time ? Do you see it so often you don’t remark on it ?
    The gate shut slowly behind them. She stopped and looked back.
    The sky never shimmered that I recall , Wall sent. And my memory is very long .
    “Still doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the boom,” Hest said aloud.
    Gama frowned at him. They trudged across the meadow in silence. Trying to make sense of the strange occurrences of the last days was like trying to catch the wind in her