Free Legacies by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

nightsheep weren’t good for human eating either, but when they died or were killed, the fleece and skin were always put to use. Did the sanders hunt to provide food for the sandwolves? Or did the sanders hunt for another reason and the sandwolves followed to get a meal?
    â€œDon’t know. Sanders sometimes carry off animals, and sometimes, they just kill them, leave them for the sandwolves. Never seen one eaten by a sander.”
    Alucius dismounted and handed the gray’s reins to Royalt. For a moment, he looked down at the dead lamb before lifting it, heavier than it looked.
    â€œHere…I’ve got the rope,” Royalt said.
    Alucius tied the lamb behind his saddle, on top of his saddlebags that held food he wondered if he could eat later. Then he remounted.
    He had sensed something, almost a violet-redness, in the part of his mind where he felt things with his Talent, but the feeling had come and gone since they had left the stead at dawn. He hadn’t realized that the feeling represented lurking sanders, but now he knew. The soarer had felt the same, except for the differing “color” of the image his Talent sensed, more of a green. Most people he had met felt “black,” although his grandsire and the other herders had flashes or flecks of silver and green running through the blackness. Scrats and grayjays were just thin flashes, brown for the scrats and bluish gray for the grayjays.
    Even though he had not known, somehow, exactly what those violet-red feelings had meant, Alucius felt guilty about the death of the lamb, even though he had done all he could once he’d understood. Was life like that, seeing and often not understanding until it was too late? Or was that the curse of the Talent? Did others just not see?

15
    Alucius was standing by the shed door, holding it open in the early summer twilight as Royalt herded the nightsheep flock back into their evening quarters. Once the last yearling was inside, the youth closed the door and slid the bolts in place.
    â€œThank you,” said Royalt. “How did the spinnerets work today?”
    Alucius walked alongside his grandfather and his mount. “I had trouble at first, but I got the hang of it after a while. Grandma’am came out and watched—”
    â€œShe was supposed to rest.” Royalt snorted. “That was why you stayed here.”
    â€œShe couldn’t rest until she was sure I was doing it right.” Alucius laughed. “Then she went back to the house.”
    â€œWhen was that—midafternoon?” The older man reined up outside the stable.
    â€œNo. She did watch for a glass, though.” Alucius grinned. “Mother came over from the processing vats, and they both decided I was doing it right, and the thread was fine. Mother checked again a couple of times, but I only ruined about two yards of the first bobbin, and she thought she could run it back through processing.”
    â€œYou have to learn sometime.” Royalt dismounted from the big bay.
    â€œI’ve been watching, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked, and…you know. The shears are less trouble. You just make sure everything is straight, and the slower you cut, the easier it is.” The youth laughed. “About a half a glass after noon, just after I got back to work, someone came in a wagon, but I don’t know who it is, because I had to clean out the spinnerets for the night. Mother checked a few times, and said we’d have company for dinner. An old friend and her daughter.” Alucius rolled his eyes.
    â€œIt might not be so bad. Except you’re still sweet on that other girl. Kyrial’s oldest.” Royalt laughed and clapped Alucius on the back. Then his expression turned serious. “Something was bothering Lamb today. He kept looking eastward at the plateau.”
    Alucius glanced back over Westridge toward the Aerlal Plateau, rising like a fluted wall across the