‘Then I just tuck you in my pocket and we go kill Ghend?’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that, Althalus. You’ll understand better, I think, once we’re inside each other’s minds. The first thing you have to do is empty your mind. Open it up so that I can get in.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Think about light – or dark – or empty. Turn your mind off.’
Althalus tried to empty his mind of thought, but that almost never works. The mind can be like an unruly child. Tell it to stop, and it works that much faster.
‘We’ll have to try something different,’ Emerald said, her ears laid back in irritation. ‘Maybe –?’ she said a bit uncertainly. ‘Go to the south window. I want you to look south at the mountains of Kagwher. Pick out the closest one and count the trees on it.’
‘Count trees? What for?’
‘Because I said so. Don’t ask silly questions, just do it.’
‘All right, Em, don’t get so excited.’ He stood up and went to the south window. The nearest peak was only a mile or so away, and he started counting the snow-covered trees up near the top. The snow blurred the outlines of the trees, and that made counting them very difficult.
‘Move over just a little.’ Her voice seemed to be murmuring in his right ear, and he jerked his head around in surprise. He couldn’t feel her on his shoulder, but he could almost feel her warm breath on the side of his face.
Emerald was still sitting on the bed a dozen feet away. ‘I asked you to move over, pet,’ her voice sounded inside his head. ‘I need a little more room.’
‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed.
‘Shush. I’m busy.’
He felt a kind of surging inside his head as if something were moving around in there. ‘Quit fidgeting,’ her voice told him. ‘I’m not taking up that much room.’
Then the sense of intrusion began to fade and he felt the gentle rumble of her purring within his mind. ‘Now you are mine,’ her purring gloated.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded in alarm.
‘You don’t have to talk out loud any more, pet,’ she breathed inside his mind. ‘Now that I’m in here, I can hear your thoughts; and you can hear mine, if you’ll just take the trouble to listen.’
‘How did you do that?’
‘Just think the words, Althalus. There’s an awful echo in here when you think them and say them at the same time.’
‘Are you really in there?’ he sent his thought inward.
‘My awareness is. It’s also over on the bed, but it’s easy to be in two places at once with your mind.’ There was a kind of tickling sensation over his left ear. ‘It’s bigger in here than I thought it’d be. You’re more clever than I’d imagined, and you’re really rather poetic’.
‘Will you quit rummaging around in there?’
‘Not a chance, pet. Cats are curious, didn’t you know that?’
‘How did you manage to break through so quickly? I thought this was going to take a long time.’
‘So did I, to be honest. I was pushing at the barrier before you started counting. I couldn’t get through it, though. As soon as you started counting trees, the barrier went down.’
‘Does that mean that I’ll have to say, “one-two-three” every time I want to talk with you this way?’
‘Not any more, pet. I’m in now, and you’ll never get rid of me.’
‘It’s going to take some getting used to. I’ve never had somebody inside my head before.’
‘Is it really that unpleasant?’
‘Not really.’
‘Now I’ll be with you wherever you go.’
‘I wasn’t going to leave without you, Em. I’d been meaning to talk with you about that. I’m not going anywhere without you, kitten – even if that means that the world goes all to smash. The world doesn’t matter; you do.’
‘Please don’t say things like that, Althalus.’ Her voice inside his head had a melting sort of tone. ‘You’re making it very hard for me to think.’
‘Yes, I noticed that.’ He considered it. ‘When you get right down to it, though, this is where we’ve been going since I first came here, isn’t it? You started out by talking to me out loud, and a talking cat isn’t the most natural thing in the world. All we’ve done is take that one step further, so now you won’t have to waste all those thousands of years teaching me how to use the Book. We could leave right now if winter weren’t settling in.’ He looked at her with one raised eyebrow. ‘Now that you’ve opened the door, all sorts of things are coming through,’ he said aloud. ‘I don’t want to seem critical, Em, but you shouldn’t really be having those kinds of thoughts, you know.’
She glared at him for a moment. Then she jumped down from the bed and stalked away.
‘Are you blushing, Em?’ he asked mildly.
She turned and hissed at him.
PART TWO (#ulink_ee0670c7-c163-521a-b1da-7b051fe95720)
The Gathering (#ulink_ee0670c7-c163-521a-b1da-7b051fe95720)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_311bceb1-53f0-5dca-a3f4-b63ad5db2a26)
‘Stay out of there, Althalus! What’s in there is none of your concern!’
‘You’re the one who opened the door, Em,’ he replied mildly. ‘It swings both ways, you know.’
‘Just mind your own business and quit snooping. You have to start paying closer attention. When I tell you which word to use, I’m sending a picture of what the word’s going to do. You must have the picture in your mind as well as the word. The word’s just a sound, pet. Nothing’s going to happen if all you’re doing is making noises. Now try it again.’
‘How much longer is it before we have to leave?’
‘About a month – six weeks at the most. As soon as spring arrives, we go, whether you’re ready or not.’
‘We have to pick something up in Arum?’
‘The Knife, yes.’
‘Is that the knife I’ll use when I kill Ghend?’
‘Will you stop that?’
‘Isn’t that what this is all about? Ghend’s interfering with what Deiwos is trying to do, so I’m supposed to get rid of him. It’s not really all that uncommon, Em. I’ve done it before. I’m primarily a thief, but I’ll take on a murder if the pay’s right. I thought that’s what you had in mind.’
