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her core a banked furnace of undischarged anger. She couldn't serve transfer
in that condition. Reluctantly Digen let her go.
She gave Im'ran's wrist a little squeeze. "Take him home for me, Im', and
keep care of him."
Digen came out of his daze to find Im'ran stationing himself at his left,
staring after her. "What's downstairs, Digen?"
"I don't know. Storerooms, the armory, some offices oh, their memorial. She
could use an hour or so there right now. She's just buried her house." On
their flight from Westfield they had stopped at a public memorial, where Digen
had laid to rest his own house. "She'll come when she's able. This is
something she has to do alone."
Digen looked to the shiltpron player, who had raised the tempo back to the
raucous, provocative level. "Let's get out of here, Im'. That's vile."
On the paths under the trees, it was so dark that Digen had to guide Im'ran
by the elbow. The fanir's nager was grave, brooding. Digen said, "Talk to me.
Keep my mind off things." He guided Im'ran's fingers along the soft swollen
ronaplin glands. "I've never been so high intil in my life, and I'm not used
to denial anymore. I've fallen out of discipline. That's some admission from
the Sectuib in Zeor, huh?''
"The Sectuib in Zeor? Digen, Ilyana will pledge to you now she'll come back
with us, and everything will be all right." As he spoke, Im'ran leashed
Digen's need and brought it under firm control.
Digen paused at a bend in the path, shaking his head. "She's got a long way
to go before she can pledge the opposite of Rior. Believe me, I know that path
backwards and forwards now. It may require more strength than she has in her,
after all she's been through."
"You made it. She will 'somehow."
"I wish I could believe that, because she's all I have left of value in my
life. Except you and the Tecton will take you away the minute we get back."
"Yes, I suppose so."
Down in the valley, houses were still burning brightly. One collapsed in a
shower of sparks, some catching in the stubble of harvested wheat.
"You realize," said Digen, "we'll have to prevent them from raiding again."
"Yes," said Im'ran, "of course. We'll think of something."
At that moment the main hall blew up.
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Gouts of fire burst upward, bulging the walls outward, sending roof and walls
flying like stick kindling. The flash and roar reached Digen and Im'ran a
split instant before the furnace heat washed over them and a rain of burning
sticks came down out 'of the sky to set trees, underbrush, and houses afire. A
second explosion and then a third rent the air, a veritable geyser of fire
leaping upward and outward from the hall.
Digen screamed.
The moment of Ilyana's death ripped through him as if his nerves had all been
torn out by the roots. He screamed and screamed, as if his own body were a
burning torch. And he never felt himself hit the gravel.
Ilyana's arms under his laterals, her lips against his, nageric linkage more
firm than ever in life. "I'm sorry, Digen, I'm sorry to leave you like this.
But Zeor is still pledged to you. You must go back, bring Rior's
idealstoZeor to the Tecton finish the job, Digen finish it for both of us. We
must not fail."
She thrust him inexorably away from her and flashed past him, her voice
fading "Unto Zeor, and Rior Forever!"
Digen felt himself falling, falling, falling into a black pit of death and
torment. Falling and falling, screaming out, llyana, don't leave me! Ilyana!"
Falling and falling, his screams inarticulate, his panic boundless, Digen
raked out to every side to save himself. Something& pushed back. Something
bounded him, limited him, caught and held him steady.
With a shock, he was in his body, numb and bewildered, his heart pounding
with fear, but he held firm. The fanir's nager linked hard and deep into him
as never before. Digen's throat, raw with spent screams, rattled once more,
and then, Im'ran made full lip contact, all barriers flat open to Digen's
draw, all Digen's laterals secure to Im'ran's fields.
Selyn began to flow, without Digen's active will. The sensation was instant
balm to each cell it touched, and it awakened a blaze of selyn hunger in every
cell of his body. He drew then, full out on pure instinct. A moment, and then
the flows unbalanced and Digen shook all over with incipient shen, but before
the tension had fully gathered, the flow righted under Im'ran's will, fed
across Digen's scarred lateral with perfect synchrony. Digen drowned again in
the glory He can see !
And this time Digen didn't stop short of his full-capacity draw. Im'ran
supplied every dynopter Digen could take with a comfortable margin left over.
But, strain as he might, Digen could not get the flow to divert into the junct
pathways, burning and aching though they were.
Im'ran gave him an orhuen consummation transfer in the strictest Tecton
style, and held firm against all Digen could do.
He came out of it with his handling tentacles digging crushingly into
Im'ran's arms, shaking the Gen so hard that their lip contact broke off. There
was blood against the Gen's teeth from Digen's ferocious straining for that
one last bit, the junct touch.
Im'ran waited patiently for Digen to pry his own tentacles away from the
contacts. Digen, stiff with strain and gasping audibly, dismantled his grip
while all about them trees had begun to blaze. The very air reverberated to
death cries, a nageric pall rising from the towering flames at the center of
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the conflagration. Ash sifted down all around them.
Digen caught his breath, choking, and touched the Gen's bruised forearm.I did
that . "I'm sorry."He gave me his all, and it's not quite enough.
A burning branch fell behind them and Im'ran flinched, saying, "Let's get out
of here."
Digen shook his head. "You go. I can't move."
Im'ran got his shaking legs under him and struggled to stand. He reached down
and took Digen's hand, to pull him to his feet. The moment their flesh met,
the nageric static of orhuen postreaction snapped like static electricity
discharging. Swearing, Im'ran pulled at Digen's coat until he had the channel
on his feet.
Tilting Digen's limp body into a fireman's carry, he heaved him up to his
shoulders and made for the outskirts of the settlement. Somewhere down that
long tunnel of fire and ashes, out of the valley, down the cliffside path,
through drenching waterfall and across the open forest, Digen lost
consciousness. The oblivion was the greatest blessing ever bestowed, for it
wiped away the insistent liturgy in his head:Why didn't he just let me die ?
Chapter 21
THE WAY HOME
Digen woke to the sun on his face and the quiet chatter of a mountain stream
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