Shadowkill

1

Shadith prowled about her room, going round the bed and back again in the narrow floorspace left for her to move in, window to door, door to left wall, back again.

Memory. Funny thing. Still can’t remember how I did it… or why… set up this forgetting…

She shuddered as another image intruded…

Cut his throat?

Skinned him?

Hung herself on the rope she braided from his skin?

Gaaah! Don’t think about that.

Memory. Lizard. I set up the trigger to trip the next time I saw Kikun and got it tripped by a six-inch garden lizard. That’s a giggle. My mind’s more creative than I thought. Just as well, Kikun’s a long way off, dead maybe. No… Li’l Liz is too slippery for that… I hope.

All right, all right, now’s not the time, but I’ve got to get out of here. Stop leaning. Drifting. I know a lot now, my name, friends’ names. If I can get a call out, someone will come. Call…

That means getting to that city, what was it? Nirtajai. That’s not so easy.

Won’t get easier if I sit around and do nothing. Drifting. Can’t do that any more.

I’m safe here and comfortable.

Comfort’s an illusion and nobody’s safe.

Do it now. Now. Start working at it, anyway. There’s lots I can do to get ready…

She paced, the movement cooling her rage and impatience, planning how to get back to the port city and win access to a skipcom so she could call someone to come get her. In essence it was the same problem she’d had on Kiskai, but there she’d had Rohant and Kikun to help. And Asteplikota. And mobility. She wasn’t stuck off to hell and gone with the only transport available walking around on four legs.

She stopped at the window and scowled down at what she could see of the main court and the skimmer that mostly filled it. It was a gray and gloomy day with scattered spatters of raindrops pattering against the walls and the skimmer’s dome.

Stow away? No.

He’d have thought of that, the Artwa would.

This kind of society, no way the Irrkuyon would trust their precious persons to unsecured transport.

Kitchi-kooing round the Artwa? Since he had a thing for dark girls? No.