by David Drake
Which wasn’t very long and wasn’t really true, either. I remembered the way I’d stepped back and let the kid run wild when he first came to Dun Add.
“Me, though,” Osbourn continued, “I do a lot of dumb things, so I’m going to say what Lord Pal probably thinks you’re too smart to need. And maybe you are, but—the Leader will send a regional governor with the colony and garrison. If you’re not managing to get along on your own, the governor’s going to knock heads. Chances are he’s going to impose direct rule on the estate of whichever of you is making the problem; and if he decides you both are, he’ll have authority to simply take Histance over.
“If one of you scrags the other before the governor arrives, the governor’s going to knock the head off the one who’s left. That may mean sending a regiment of the regular army for a month or two, but he’ll do it.”
Osbourn paused and grinned at the landowners. I thought Lord Herbert might have been on the verge of saying something, but Count Thomas laid his hand over his son’s lips.
“I hope you’re all too smart to have needed that,” Osbourn said. He made a slight bow and gestured our visitors toward the open hatch.
We watched as they went off toward their domains. When they were out of earshot, Osbourn said quietly, “I didn’t want one or the other to decide to pull something after we’ve left.”
“Thank you, Osbourn,” I said. For a moment I wasn’t sure how to go on. Then I said, “The Commonwealth is bloody lucky to have you. And so am I.”
Which I planned to say to his cousin May as soon as we’d gotten back to Dun Add.
CHAPTER 24
One Step Further
When we were back on the way to Dun Add, I found myself chatting with Lord Osbourn—really for the first time. The boat wasn’t designed for socializing, but I sat on the edge of my compartment and he sat across from me on his. Our knees were out in the aisle but slightly offset from one another because the passage wasn’t wide enough for us to face directly.
The truth is, when I closed my eyes I kept having a vision of the monster’s jaws as it bent to chew my face off. I rubbed my temples.
“I’ve thanked you for killing the creature,” I said. “Chances are I’ll bless you every morning when I get up. I’ve been in tough places before, but I mostly didn’t have time to think about what was happening. I just charged forward and got stuck in.”
It wasn’t really that simple, but it felt that way when it was happening. My training took over. My only conscious decision was to fight instead of running, and there generally hadn’t been much way to run away even if I’d wanted to.
My attempted grin felt a bit lopsided. “This time I couldn’t move with the thing sitting on my chest, and I had plenty of time for imagining what was about to happen.”
“I’m glad I saw the artifact, sir,” Osbourn said, politely looking away. Praise embarrassed him. I was liking the kid more and more as I got to know him better. “I knew hacking at the body wouldn’t do much because that’s what I’d done with I first met it, so I just cut at the thing I could see that was different. Though I thought it was a weapon.”
“Good thinking,” I said, wondering if I’d have thought to do the same thing. Probably: it was different and repeating the same action wasn’t going to bring a better result. Good for Osbourn, though.
“Sir, do you think you can repair it?” Osbourn asked.
I started to say, “No,” but I hadn’t seriously considered the question. I got up and went to the cabinet in the bow where I’d put the artifact. Baga ignored me, lost in the universe he was guiding the boat through.
I handed one of the pieces to Osbourn for him to look at while I scanned the other in a light trance. It was amazing in its complexity; every other atom in its construction was missing—for anything I could see. I first thought it meant the rest of the thing was in Not-Here, but then I realized that—
I came out of the trance with a laugh. Osbourn, looking at me, said, “Sir?”
“I just thought that the universe might be more complicated than I know,” I explained. “And then wondered why I was surprised to realize it.”
I gestured with the piece of spindle I was holding. The two sections were identical to glance at. “The fact that something isn’t Here doesn’t prove that it’s Not-Here the way we mean it,” I said. “Maybe there’s other places that we don’t know about.”
Lord Osbourn’s expression didn’t change. It struck me that he understood but didn’t really care.
“Well, the short answer,” I said, taking back his half of the spindle, “is that I can’t fix this, no.”
I walked forward and put the pieces away. “I’ll show it to Louis in Dun Add, but I doubt he could do anything with it either,” I added as I sat down. “He’s got the wrong sort of mind—it’d take somebody like me, only a lot better.”
I smiled again, though there wasn’t much humor in what I was thinking. Osbourn said, “You mean, like Master Guntram, sir?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Except when I thought of Guntram, I could just about hear him saying that it was a bad idea. Which it is. The folk—whatever they were, maybe the Ancients—were better Makers than we are. They couldn’t tune the device—”
I gestured forward to where I’d put the bits. “—so that it wouldn’t turn the fellow they used it on into a monster. I don’t guess we’d do better.”
“The monster maybe wasn’t human to start out with, though,” Osbourn said. He wasn’t arguing, just pointing something out.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what it started out as,” I said. “It was an animal when it finished, and I don’t see it going any other direction for people. Guntram may see things different.”
Chatting with Osbourn had settled me down. I said, “I’m going to work on this clock I brought along. I’m looking forward to being home, though.”
I lay down beside Sam and entered a deep trance. The monster’s mouth gaped in the background of my mind.
I’d been following our progress in the boat’s sensors. I couldn’t control it the way Baga did, but I was more fully aware of what it was doing than he was. When I saw we were approaching Dun Add, I came out of my trance.
Lord Osbourn was staring intently at me from his compartment. I gestured to him and said, “We’ll be landing shortly. I need to report to Lord Clain and tell him to prepare a colony and send out a garrison right away. Or maybe I ought to go straight to the Leader.”
“I’ll get back into training,” Osbourn said. “I think sparring with Sergeant Dessin did me a lot of good. Sir, if he came to Dun Add, would you recommend him for the Aspirants’ Hall?”
“I let him keep the Black Death’s gear,” I said. “With that, Dessin shouldn’t need any help to get in—if that’s what he wants to do. Are you sure that it is?”
“Well, I kinda talked to encourage him,” Osbourn said. “He’s a solid fellow and he’d be more use to the Commonwealth as a Champion than he is as muscle for a hick landowner.”
The boat shivered to rest in what I knew was landingplace on Dun Add. Usually when we settled onto a node, I went into a trance and checked our surroundings. Here I didn’t see a need for that, so I immediately opened the hatch before Baga even turned in his seat.
The Herald of the Gate was trotting over to toady-up to me. The few people who travelled by boat were all rich and powerful enough to crawl to, if you were the sort of person who crawls. There were other spectators too, some of them folks who’d just arrived by the Road and likely had never before seen a boat arriving at a node.
But in the crowd of strangers I saw a figure wearing a white garment as clear as clouds scudding in a summer sky. “Lord Osbourn,” I said. “I’m afraid that I’m going to leave the Herald’s business to you. I see the Envoy who took me to Guntram’s friend a couple times in the past. I figure that’s what she’s here to do this time too.”
“Yes sir,” he said. “Ah—do you want me to report
to the Chancellor also?”
“No, I’ll do that when I get back,” I said. “Though I’d appreciate it if you told your cousin May that I’ll be home as soon as I can get there. I’m hoping for word on Master Guntram.”
I followed Sam out the hatchway. The Herald moved in front of me, but he bowed. That allowed me to get past without an incident, and since Lord Osbourn was there as my deputy there’d be no problem. Osbourn was better-born, after all; and anyway, he didn’t seem to mind the nonsense the way I did.
I was raised to value courtesy, and I do. Fancy gestures and poncy language don’t have anything to do with real courtesy, and I’d sooner that they didn’t have anything to do with me.
“Mistress?” I said to the Envoy. I wished I had a name for her, but there wasn’t any need.
Sam sidled firmly against me. He didn’t bark or snarl, but I could feel his body trembling as he eyed the Envoy. To me she was simply a cold-featured lady, no more threatening than a statue is, but my dog was seeing—smelling? Feeling?—something else.
“I have come to take you to Master Guntram’s friend,” the Envoy said. “Take my hand and we will go.”
I looked around. “Are we going to step right off into the Waste?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Come.”
Nobody was paying special attention to me, so it probably didn’t matter. Walking off hand in hand with a strange woman wouldn’t lead to questions later—and it didn’t matter if somebody did ask me.
“All right,” I said, taking her hand. “Come on, Sam.”
“You do not need your dog,” the Envoy said. “Use my eyes, as you did before.”
“Sam needs me,” I said. “I’m not going to leave him to wander, and you didn’t give me time to stable him or make other arrangements.”
The Envoy stepped off without speaking further. I switched to her eyes as she directed, feeling the Waste close around me like the air of a heated room.
The Road was a bright streak to our right, spreading into hundreds, then thousands of branches as my eye tried to follow it on. The Road must fill the Envoy’s mind like fine thread stuffed in a walnut shell. Was there any room for ordinary thoughts?
We tramped on. I kept my right fingertips touching Sam’s neck. I needed the contact with something from my world. The Envoy was real and might even be human, but I had far more in common with my dog.
The white blur of a node appeared sooner than I expected it to. Either the Envoy was taking me to a different location than she had the night of the Founder’s Day celebration, or my fear of walking out into the Waste that time had made the trip seem longer.
I don’t apologize for being afraid of dying in the Waste. I’ve seen what that means, and I had no reason to trust this cold woman’s good will.
We stepped onto what I thought was the same node as before, a scree of stones like a beach. I wondered if the sea ever lapped in from the Waste, coming from whatever part of Here was adjacent to this shore.
The Beast waited for me, his shape shifting slightly as his body trembled between Here and Not-Here.
“Sir,” I said, bowing slightly. I felt amazingly relieved to be out of the Waste. For years I’ve prospected for artifacts, but the only time I’d felt as nervous about getting back to Here is when I’d walked off the edge of Gram, hoping to find the place from which the raiders were coming. “You have news about Master Guntram?”
Thanks to you, I do, the Beast said in my mind. You sent a female of my own species to me, you’ll recall.
“Yes,” I said. “Though to be honest, I just wanted her to go to somebody who could take care of her. Which I could not.” I swallowed and added, “She’d had a hard life. I wanted it to get better, but I didn’t know how.”
Because I recognized your wish to be kind, the Beast said, I did not kill the female myself as I would normally have done with a member of my clan who was so badly injured. Therefore I know the location of your friend and my friend.
“Did the Female know where Guntram is held?” I said, frowning in surprise. I didn’t see how Guntram could have been held on Severin. There’d been no sign of another cyst, and Guntram certainly wasn’t in the cyst the Female had been freed from. I’d been part of that cyst while it was trying to absorb me, and I’d have known if it had ever had contact with Master Guntram.
She did not know, the Beast said. But she could speak—that was the word in my mind, but I suspect it meant “communicate”—to the human female whom you call the Envoy, and the human female told me how to find the cyst holding our friend Guntram.
I took a deep breath. “Thank you, sir!” I said.
It was your own action that made this possible, the Beast said. Your own kindness.
“Sir, will you guide me to the place Guntram is?” I said.
Yes, but I cannot help you enter, the Beast warned. I greatly want to help my friend Guntram, but I cannot enter a cyst.
“If you get me there,” I said, “I’ll get in. If I can’t do it alone, I’ll come back with Louis and every man in his shop.”
That was really a prayer. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine that I wouldn’t be able to free Guntram.
In my heart I knew that I’d entered the cyst at Severin only after a much greater Maker than I had cut the intelligent core out of it. That cyst had been dying for at least ten years. The node which had been sealed off from Histance wasn’t really a cyst and didn’t grow closed again when I started to force entry. Entering it was a tricky piece of work and I was rightly proud of it—but it wasn’t a patch compared to breaching a real cyst, a self-sealing organic whole.
But I was going to try.
I will guide you, the Beast said.
“Oh,” I said. “There was one other thing.”
I removed the cloth bag that I’d lashed to my belt and handed it to the Beast. “Sir,” I said as he opened it. “This is an artifact that a creature we met was carrying—or perhaps it’d been implanted in his body. It healed any injuries and I guess illness or age, even…but not perfectly. The creature had become a monster.”
Why are you showing this to me, friend of Guntram? the Beast said.
“Sir, I’m giving it to you,” I said. “My companion had to cut the artifact in half and kill the creature in order to save me. Maybe you can fix it or even make it work the way it was supposed to.”
In my mind I heard the ripple that I took as meaning the Beast was amused.
So, the voice said. You think I am a Maker, friend of Guntram?
“The pieces are yours regardless,” I said. “But I believe you are, yes.”
The trembling chuckle again. And so I am, the Beast’s voice said, but it doesn’t mean the same thing among us as it does to humans. With us it is a religious act.
“Do as you please,” I said. “All I want is to free Guntram from wherever he is.” Then I said, “Ah—can we leave tomorrow? I’d like to settle some things in Dun Add. But if we need to go right now, I’ll go.”
I owed explanations to a lot of people—not just May, though particularly May. But if it was a matter of getting Guntram back, I’d do whatever I had to.
The Envoy will come to your boat at midday tomorrow, the Beast said. The pieces of the healing artifact vanished. I couldn’t tell whether the Beast had absorbed them into his body or if he’d placed them somewhere in Not-Here that I couldn’t see. We will go then by the Road to the cyst which holds my friend Guntram.
I bowed again. “Then I’ll get back to Dun Add now,” I said. “And I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
Sam, the Envoy, and I walked back through the Waste. The Envoy didn’t step out onto landingplace with me and Sam.
CHAPTER 25
On the Way
I got to the townhouse a lot later than I’d meant to, but I’d decided that I needed to lock stuff down properly at the palace before I went out on the Road again. I wouldn’t be back for a long time, and there was a better than fair chance that I wouldn’t be back at all.
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A lighted lantern hung from the left doorpost of our townhouse, which was unusual; and standing beside it was Dom, peering up the street. When he saw me coming toward him he turned and pushed the door open to bellow, “Lord Pal is here! He’s coming!”
I didn’t recall that ever having happened before. I hadn’t been sure how May was going to greet me, especially so late after I got in with the boat. I squared my shoulders and strode on, feeling a lot more positive than I had when I left the palace.
As my mouth opened to greet Dom, he bowed deeply to me and said, “Welcome home, milord.”
“Thank you, Dom,” I said as I walked in. May threw herself into my arms.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “I’ve had a bath kept warm and also a roast in a low oven in case you wanted to eat immediately. What do you wish?”
She was wearing shades of frothy pink, not a favorite color of mine but truly delightful on May. Clothes always looked better on her than they would on a model, and she was her own seamstress so the fit was always perfect—for what she wanted.
Lady May generally wanted to look cuddly and desirable. I hugged her close, thanking heaven that her mood tonight was what I was seeing. I know how short I fall from what I wanted to be—and from what May had a right to expect.
I’d been lucky in a lot of ways since I came to Dun Add. Meeting May was a big part of my luck.
“It was a good trip?” she said.
I backed away slightly so we could look at each other. “It worked out all right,” I said. “There’s peace on Histance again, and I figure that will last if Jon puts a colony and garrison in the node we opened while we were at it.”
I grinned, thinking back on the situation. “You know…?” I said. “If things start going right, then they can run quite a ways the way you’d want them to. The trick is to get them started.”
“The trick…” said May, tugging me toward the padded bench in the sitting room, “is to have somebody like you starting them.” Then she said, “How long will you be in Dun Add, my lord?”