said.
Teray’s eyes were drawn automatically to her wounded hand where it lay in her lap, covered by her other hand. He looked at it, then back up at her quickly, in surprise.
“What did you do?” It was a foolish question. He could see what she had done. Her left wrist now ended in a smooth pale cap of new flesh. The thing that had been her left hand lay shriveled, detached in her lap.
“It was ruined,” she said. “I had it doubled into a fist when the Clayark fired, and the bullet hit at
just the right angle to destroy it.” She held up the severed hand. It was literally nothing more than dried skin and bone?a claw. A misshapen claw with at least three of the fingers held on only by shreds of dried flesh.
“Looks like something mummified,” said Teray.
“I took everything I could use from it before I shed it. I’ll have another fully regenerated in about a month. If …“She shrugged.
If she lived another month. He was grateful to her for not finishing. “So long?” he asked quietly.
“It won’t be that long. Not when you consider that it’s not the only thing I’m growing.” She smiled slightly.
He did not return her smile. He found himself staring at the smooth, new cap of skin. It was easier to try to figure out how she had done such a thing than it was to think about the things she kept saying. “I’ll get you something to eat when it’s ready,” he told her. He wanted her to eat and be as strong as she could. Coransee’s people had located and lured in several wild rabbits. They were preparing now to roast them.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’m not very hungry. In effect, I just ate my hand.”
He grimaced, both repelled and pleased. However she had managed it, she had kept her strength. She could fight.
She looked at him silently for several seconds, then looked away. “You have an edge,” she said
quietly. “You’re a latent healer. I’m sure of that now. Your teachers were either completely incompetent or too far from you in the Pattern to be able to work effectively with you. Or maybe they were just afraid of all that raw new strength that you could have accidentally killed them with.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “What are you talking?”
“I don’t have time to say it slowly, Teray. You’re untrained so I don’t know how much good your talent will do you. But he has almost no healing ability. You saw how he killed the Clayarks?”
“Yes, but…”
“What you learned easily, he can’t learn at all. He’s tried.”
“Amber…”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help realizing that you were about to go after him. And of course, he knew the moment I did. He’s coming now.”
Her last words echoed Iray’s months before, when he had fought Coransee for the first time. He looked around, concealing sudden fear, and saw Coransee striding toward him. He spoke to Amber quietly. “All right, it doesn’t matter. But you get out of here. Wait your turn.”
“I don’t want a turn.”
He touched her face. “I’ll try to see to it.”
She left, glaring at Coransee as she passed him.
She was with her ten guards before they realized that they were on duty.
“I thought you’d be ready sometime today,” Coransee told Teray.
Teray considered getting up to face him, then rejected the idea. If he stood, he would have to waste part of his attention keeping his feet. He leaned back against the building wall. He was tightly shielded, as ready as he could be.
“Did you really expect Rayal to help you?” asked Coransee softly.
Teray held his face expressionless. He was almost used to Coransee invading his mental privacy by now. “If you knew I had called him, why didn’t you attack?”
“Why should I have? Only someone who had spent all but the last few months of his life in school would believe he could get help by calling on Rayal.”
Teray hit him.
The blow, not one of Teray’s hardest, bounced off Coransee’s shield. Teray struck again, testing the strength of the shield. It was like pounding with his fists against a stone wall. He remembered with longing the muteherd Jackman’s eggshell shield.
Coransee hit back, rammed Teray’s shield, not testing but trying at once to demolish. Teray’s shield withstood the blow.
Teray realized already that neither he nor
Coransee would be pounded into defeat in the usual way. Something more was needed.
Teray swept his perception through Coransee’s brain as though through the brain of a Clayark.
For an instant, Coransee frowned, seemed disoriented. But he was recovering himself even as Teray swept again. Somehow he deflected Teray’s second sweep. Then abruptly he struck back.
As quick as Teray’s sweep had been, the Housemaster almost caught him unshielded. And that deflection…
Safely shielded, Teray tried to understand what had happened. It was as though he had tried to land a physical blow and had had the blow blocked by his opponent’s arm. It was not like running against the solid wall of a shield. No Patternist could lay a mind shield around his physical body. But apparently a strong Patternist could strike out with part of his strength to deflect attacks against his body. An attack that could be sensed could at the same time
