Free Honor's Paradox-ARC by P C Hodgell Page B

companion was doing out in the snow. The last time he had seen Death’s-head, the rathorn had grown a pelt as shaggy as a wolf’s, but still, all that cold, cold ivory . . . !
    Jame missed working with the colt and felt his aching cold through the bond between them enough to deepen her own shudders.
    However, she was also glad not to go outside Tentir more than necessary.
    For one thing, she had proved to be more susceptible to frostbite than most Kendar, not surprisingly given her slighter build. Bits of her froze almost casually, over and over, and each time had to be reawakened to throbbing life.
    For another thing, she didn’t want to encounter the Dark Judge, if he really was haunting the college’s environs. The colt’s senses gave fleeting suggestions of this, but in general, rathorn and giant cat kept their distance from each other. Some nights Jame thought she heard that terrible voice pleated with the wind, wailing wordlessly. Such hunger, such desolation! Was he only lashing out in his eternal pain, or did he think that judging her would make him whole again? Certainly, he longed to pass judgment on such a nemesis as she had proven to be, however innocent. What really drove him mad, however, was that he couldn’t strike at the root of evil itself, Gerridon. In an agony of self-revelation, the great cat had told her that no Arrin-ken could enter the halls of the Master’s monstrous house swallowed by Perimal Darkling until the coming of the Tyr-ridan.
    Another memory, another voice, this one harsh and halting: Ashe had said that, according to legend, only a Kencyr could kill one of the Three. Jame feared that she was becoming the incarnation of That-Which-Destroys, the Third Face of God. It would be ironic if the Judge were to blast his last chance at revenge by destroying her, and it would indeed be the last: once there had been many potential Knorth nemeses—now there was only her.
    But time passed and the howling on the heights abated, if it had ever been there at all. Jame began to doubt what she had seen and heard, both with the Dark Judge and with Vant among the Burning Ones. How likely was the latter, after all? A trick of the firelight, a shard of free-floating guilt.
    As for the blind Arrin-ken, let him mind his own business. Be damned if she was going to run scared of a phantom bully, however bloodthirsty.
    Meanwhile, she continued to work with Bear, after badgering the Commandant into letting her into the randon’s cell to deal with his overgrown toenails and claws. She found that since she had last seen him, he had virtually destroyed his lodgings. Had he finally grown aware of how squalid they were, or simply succumbed to an extreme case of cabin fever? She thought that she saw improvement in him now if only in that he no longer tried to kill her during lessons and began to teach again. Once in a while, he actually spoke a word or two. Was it only wishful thinking, or had the scar on his forehead lengthened as his cleft skull finally began to close? Still, how could he really improve while tightly mewed in and isolated as he was most of the time?
    Timmon continued to court her, if a bit absent-mindedly. Now that his instructors were holding him to schedule, he had less time and energy for amorous pursuits. As the easiest course, he had again taken Narsa into his bed. Jame worried about that. Surely the Kendar knew that he was only using her, but he had woven his charms so well that she probably didn’t care. Whenever Jame saw her she looked happy, though with a certain uneasy, feverish gleam in her eyes.
    Gorbel grumbled through his days, making up for his clumsiness with dogged determination, often with the pook Twizzle in the corner regarding him button-eyed and panting, occasionally shifting within his skin the better to deal with one arcane itch or another.
    Fash watched everyone with his wide, white smile and his cold eyes.
    At last came a day when the wind changed from the north to the