sleeping mind and all the memories of servants in it. No, I cannot have a memory of a servant telling him something. They do not speak to him unless they need to, for they fear him. But a memory of him overhearing them - yes, that I can do. There are plenty of those, and they will be less obtrusive, for he listens to the servants speak when they do not think he can hear them.
The memory, he decided after some thought, should be just a little vague. Perhaps if Falconsbane had been sleeping?
He selected something that had happened in the recent past, a recollection of a pair of servants coming into Falconsbane's room to tend the fire, and waking him. That time they had been gossiping about Ancar and Hulda and had not known he was awake. It was a good choice for something like this; Mornelithe had been half-asleep, and had only opened his eyes long enough to see which of the servants were whispering together. It was another measure of how damaged he was that he didn't think of the servants as any kind of threat. The old Falconsbane would never have been less than fully alert with even a single, well-known person in the same room with him, however apparently helpless or harmless that person was.
He took the memory, laid it down, then began to create his dialogue. It wasn't easy. He had to steal snippets of conversation from other memories, then blend them all in a harsh whisper, since Hardornen was neither his native tongue nor Falconsbane's. He did not think in this language, so he had to fabricate what he needed, making his dialogue from patchwork, like a quilt.
He kept Falconsbane sleeping deeply as he labored through the night. If he had been able to sweat, he would have; this was hard labor, as hard as horse-taming or riding night-guard. It was so much like weaving a tapestry - like he imagined the legendary history-tapestries were. But at last it was done, and he watched it himself, to examine it as a whole with a weary mental 'eye.' He was so weary that even his fear was a dull and distant thing, secondary to simply finishing what had been asked of him.
The two servants entered the room; the memory of this was only the sound of the door opening and closing. They were whispering, but too softly to make out more than a word or two - 'show, ' and 'faire,' and some chuckling. Then - a bit of vision as if Falconsbane had opened his eyes and shut them again quickly. A glimpse of two men-servants, one with logs and the other with a poker, silhouetted against the fire.
'. . . what could be worth going back there? ' asked one, over the sound of the fire being stirred with the poker.
'There's a dancer. They call her Lady Cat, and she looks half cat. I tell you, when she's done dancing, you wish she'd come sit on your lap! When she moves, you can 't think of anything but sex. She 's supposed to be a slave; she's got a collar and a chain, but she doesn't act much like a slave, more like she owns the whole show. '
Another laugh, this one knowing. 'I'll bet she does! I'll bet she does things besides dance when the show closes, too!'
'Well, that's what I mean to find out - '
Sounds of logs being put on the fire, then of the servants leaving the room and closing the door behind them.
It looked good, what vision there was behind it. It sounded good, solid and real. Well, now to wake Falconsbane up, and make him think the little conversation has just now occurred.
He woke the Adept with the sound of the door closing, and a little jolt, then left the memory out in Falconsbane's mind where it was the very first thing he would 'see.'
And it worked! The Adept thought he had actually witnessed the entire conversation!
He watched as Falconsbane mulled it over, wondering if this so-called 'Cat Lady' was a carnival fake, created because of his own growing notoriety, or was real -
Oh, no - oh, no. She can't be a fake - he can't even think she might be a fake. Quickly An'desha shunted that thought away, guiding Falconsbane's sleep-fogged mind in the direction he wanted.
No, of course the cat-woman wasn't a fake. No one would dare counterfeit a Changechild, much less counterfeit Falconsbane; his own reputation would frighten anyone who dared to try it! No, it had to be real, and if it was real, there was only one creature it could be.
Nyara, An'desha whispered, keeping his own terror of being caught under tight control.
Nyara. Falconsbane's claws tightened on the bedclothes, piercing holes in the cloth. She had run eastward, after all! Probably she had started running when he had escaped death at the hands of the cursed Shin'a'in, and had not stopped until she had been captured. Now was his chance to catch her and make her pay for her treachery!
But I must hide her existence from Ancar, An'desha prompted.
But of course he would have to hide her very existence from Ancar. He would have to slip out of the palace, go alone and unobserved, and take her himself. If Ancar learned about her, he would want to see her, and the moment he saw her he would know she was Falconsbane's handiwork. Ancar was not the fool Falconsbane had thought - although a fool he certainly was - and he would certainly use Nyara as an additional hold over his
