He half-dragged, half-carried it out, aware of it only as lighter than he, and shorter, and still alive, for it tried feebly to help him. There was no telling if it was human or not; here in the borderland between k'sheyna and the Pelagirs, that was not something to take for granted.
But it had saved the dyheli, and that was enough to earn it, in turn, aid.
The mist reached greedily for them; he reached clear air at the edge of it; sucked in a lungful, felt his burden do the same. Both of them shuddered with racking coughs as a wisp of mist reached their throats.
He stumbled into safety at the same moment that the other collapsed completely, nearly carrying Darkwind to the ground with him.
Him?
At that moment, Darkwind realized that this was no male. And as he half-suspected, not human either.
'Run!.. Vree screamed from overhead, with mind and voice, and Darkwind glanced behind to see the mist licking forward again, reaching for them, turning darker as if with anger.
From somewhere he found the strength to pick her up, heave her over his shoulder, and stumble away at a clumsy run.
He ran until exhaustion forced him to stop before he dropped the girl, fell on his face, or both. Vree scouted for him, as he slowed to a weary walk, muscles burning, side aching. He figured he must have run, all out, for furlongs at least; he was well out of sensing range of the evil mist, if that still existed and had not been dissipated. That was all that mattered. By the time he came to a halt, in the lee of a fallen tree, he was sweating as heavily as the dyheli bucks.
He knelt and eased his burden down into the grass beside the barks-tripped trunk of the tree, and didn't bother to get up. He sat right down beside her, his legs without any strength at all, propping himself against the tree with his back against the trunk.
For a long time he just sat there, his forehead against his bent knees, wrists crossed over his ankles, every muscle weak from the long run, relying on Vree to alert him if anything dangerous came along. Sweat cooled and dried, his back and scalp itched, but he was too tired to scratch them. He was only aware of his burning muscles, his aching lungs, the pain in his side.
After a while, other things began to penetrate to his consciousness as his legs stopped trembling and the pain in his side and lungs ebbed.
Birds called and chattered all around, a good sign, since they would have been silent if there had been anything about to disturb them.
He began to think again, slowly. His mind, dull with fatigue, was nevertheless alert enough to encompass this much; as a nonhuman and an Outlander, she was not going to be welcome in k'sheyna. She was not, as he recalled from the brief glimpse he'd had before he had to pick up and run with her, a member of any of the nonhuman races k'sheyna had contact with. And unknown meant 'suspect' in the danger-ridden lands beyond the borders of the Vale.
Now what am I going to do with her? he wondered, exhaustion warring with the need to make a quick decision. I'd better take a closer look at her. We aren't inside the Vale yet. If she isn't badly hurt, maybe I can just leave her here, keep an eye on her until she comes around, then make sure she takes herself off, away from the Vale.
He raised his head and turned his attention to his silent companion-still unconscious, he saw. As he turned her over to examine her, everything about her set off ripples of aversion.
Not only was she nonhuman, she was only-too-obviously one of the so-called ' Changechildren' from the Pelagirs, creatures modified from either human or animal bases-at their own whims, frequently, if the base was human; or that of their creators if they were modified from animals. It was what the Tayledras had done with the bondbirds, and what they had done to horses on behalf of the Shin'a'in, taken to an extreme. An extreme that many Tayledras found bordering on the obscene-perhaps because of the kinds of modifications that had been done at the time of the Mage Wars. It was one thing to modify; it was quite another to force extreme changes for no good reason, be the base human or animal.
His experienced eye told him which it was; there was only so much that could be done with an animal base. You couldn't grant equal intelligence with humans to an animal, except over the course of many generations.
It had taken the hertasi many generations to attain enough intelligence for a rare mage to appear among their ranks, and that event itself had been centuries ago. Human base, modified to cat...Even unconscious, she oozed sexual attraction, which made him both doubly uneasy and pitying. That attraction-it was a common modification, based on smell and the stimulation of deep, instinctual drives in the onlooker.
Whether he decided ultimately on pity or revulsion would depend on whether she'd had it done to her, or done it herself. If herself-Already he felt a deep, smoldering anger at the idea. I may pitch her back into the damned mist.
Those who modified themselves for sexual attractiveness were generally doing so with intent to use themselves and their bodies as a weapon.
