Nightsword

by Margaret Weis

  “I’m sure,” Griffiths said with open contempt. “Look, you might just have some trouble using that …”

  Griffiths let his voice trail off as the barmaid returned with the soft clatter of hooves. She leaned over the table, setting each steaming drink down before the humans. Griffiths just couldn’t take his eyes off the centaur’s chest.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Flynn said with what seemed to be genuine concern. “You don’t look very well.”

  “I’ve … I’ve never seen anything like that,” Griffiths gaped. “They’re huge but they, well, they don’t sag at all!”

  “What’s huge?” Flynn puzzled, sitting back in the booth and putting his feet up on the small table. “What are you talking about?”

  “The barmaid!” Griffiths said. “Her—you know!” Griffiths held both hands out in front of him, cupping his hands symbolically.

  Flynn puzzled over this for a moment. Suddenly his head fell back, his laughter roaring throughout the cavern. “Her breasts? Of course, they don’t sag, you idiot! She’s a centaur. By the Nine, where are you from, Griffiths?”

  “It’s … well, it’s a long story,” Griffiths said, half to himself. He reached across the rough-hewn table and pulled the massive, steaming flagon towards him. Things weren’t working out quite as he had planned. “Look, the fact is that Merinda’s expense account isn’t going to be of much use for very long. We’re … well,” Griffiths let his voice drop below low, hoping to keep their conversation private. “We’re fugitives from justice!”

  “What?” Flynn’s voice echoed from the distant recesses of the upturned flagon. “Fugitives from what?”

  “Fugitives from justice,” Griffiths repeated from between clenched teeth. Damn these biosynth translators, he thought. Why don’t they work right when you really need them? He tried several other phrases, hoping the translator in his head would catch up with his words. “We’re on the lam. We’re running from the law. We’re wanted criminals.”

  Flynn slammed his flagon on the table—the force of the noise attracting irritated looks from several of the bar’s customers. “Wanted criminals!” he yelled.

  “Geez.” Griffiths shuddered, glancing furtively around him as he cradled his drink. “Keep your voice down, will ya!”

  “You and Merinda?” Flynn bellowed, laughter spilling between the words. “Fleeing from the law? Hah!”

  “Shut up, damn it!”

  “Oh, you wet-nosed little pup,” Flynn laughed as he tousled the astronaut’s straw-blond hair.

  “Stop that!” Griffiths squawked indignantly.

  “Just where do you think you’re drinking, anyway? This isn’t some haunting lounge on Ja’lel! None of the constabulary comes within five levels of this part of the warrens, and you’re equally unlikely to find any company in this place that hasn’t had more than one run-in with the law in some part of the stars or another. Look here,” Flynn said, standing up in the booth and suddenly addressing with a booming voice the meager crowd around them. “May I have your attention, citizens of the empire! I find myself at the same table as a wanted criminal, a desperate, fierce creature who would just as soon kill me as look at me! Won’t someone please call for the local watch? Who shall come to my rescue in this time of peril?”

  The level of apathy, rampant in the room, remained unchanged. Of the twenty-odd patrons in the cavern only four or five faces turned toward Flynn’s impassioned, loud speech in the vague hope that they might find it entertaining. They looked disappointed.

  “What shall I do?” Flynn went on with overblown, melodramatic flare. “I am undone! Please, bold adventurers of Ophid’s Tavern! Do not let me meet such a foul end in the dark Pleasure Warrens!”

  The centaur barmaid turned toward Flynn wearing a puzzled expression on her face. “Flynn! You haven’t had enough yet for such antics! Sit down and shut up, will you? All this talk about constables is annoying the customers—and me as well!”

  Flynn shrugged an apology and sat slowly back down in the cavern booth. He turned his smug face back toward Griffiths. “As you can see, there really is little interest in hauling either of us before any magistrate you can name. So what if you’re a wanted criminal? So what if you’re fleeing the law? Half the people working the docks here are wanted creatures by some government and the other half are lying about it. Relax, drink your grog while it’s hot.”

  “Yeah,” Griffiths answered, gazing down into the foamy flecks roiling at the top of his drink. “I guess you’re right. How long until Merinda comes around?”

  “Ah, the fair lady Merinda Neskat?” Flynn said, sitting back suddenly in the booth, an equal mixture of disdain and regret in his voice. “She should be up and around in a few days …”

  “A few days?” Griffiths said suddenly, leaning forward over the table. “We haven’t got that long. Once word reaches here from the Omnet, they’ll shut us down quicker than you can say …”

  “Didn’t I just tell you to relax, boy?” Flynn said, laying his large hand on Griffiths’s generic jump suit to calm him down. “We’ll take care of Merinda—and you, too, while we’re at it—all in good time. You’ve come for old Flynn’s help and here I am to give it to you. So, tell me, what could be so important as to make such a fine, upstanding citizen as yourself into a fugitive from the Omnet?”

  “I don’t know,” Griffiths said hesitantly. He had only met the man a few hours ago and nothing he had seen thus far gave him any reason to trust him. Indeed, there was something about him—in his smile that was too bright and inviting, or his mischievous eyes—which Griffiths just could not bring himself to trust. On the other hand, argued the more methodical side of his brain, the man was the one Merinda had specifically come to see. It was obvious that they knew each other in the past and Merinda certainly seemed to trust him. On the other hand, their relationship had been long ago and people do change over time. Merinda just might be wrong about this Evon Flynn. On the other hand—he realized that he had already used three hands in his argument.

  What he really wanted, he thought, was a drink.

  Oh, he realized, he already had one.

  Say, the fumes from the grog are pretty enticing.

  “Just relax,” Flynn smiled. “You take a drink, sit back and take your time. Old Flynn will be more than happy to listen to your little tale. That’s what us Librae are supposed to do best, you know!”

  Somewhere in his head he had a nagging suspicion, but it wasn’t nagging him loudly enough. Besides, Griffiths had always held his own in any officers’ club on Earth. This local ale couldn’t be so bad.

  Griffiths tipped the flagon back. The amber liquid—warm and delightfully bodied—coursed down his throat. It seemed to spread itself to warmly enfold him in its embrace, its warm fingers traveling upward toward his face. He began gulping the sweet liquid.

  Bang!

  He was staring at the underside of the table. The back of his head hurt, but that was all right, since the colors the pain made were so pretty and added to the moving patterns that made up the table overhead. He could see wonderful images emerging from the underside of the table. Oh, look, a horsy! He smiled. Over there is a dragon! Ah, isn’t that cute! That one over there is a grik-looper! He had no idea what a grik-looper looked like but he was convinced at the moment that it looked just like what he saw.

  The table started to move against his will but his own mental powers seemed incapable of stopping it. Griffiths cursed the fact that he had never completed mental telepathy college, though he could not remember ever enrolling in the nonexistent school. Suddenly the face of a female centaur was leaning over him and speaking from high above him. She was a giant of amazing size.

  “Is he going to be all right?” her gigantic voice thundered.

  “Aye, he’ll be fine,” came the voice of a second giant, only now coming into view. It was Flynn the Giant. “He just doesn’t get out much.”

  “Well, make sure he’s got the coin to pay for this,” the h
uge centaur replied, drifting out of his sight.

  Flynn the Giant picked him up and sat Griffiths back upright in the booth. The perspectives began to settle down to normal size. Griffiths seemed to find it difficult to focus either his eyes or his mind.

  “Good Lord,” Griffiths said shakily, “what was that?”

  “Are you feeling a little better?” Flynn asked in a most friendly voice.

  “Well, yes, actually, I do.” It occurred to Griffiths that he wasn’t feeling anything at all.

  “Well, there you have it then!” Flynn said, carefully slapping Griffiths on the back, so as not to propel him too far forward. “So, Spacer Griffiths, what brings you and my good friend Merinda Neskat to this dirty hole in the middle of nowhere?”

  “We’re in search of the Lokan Fleet.” Griffiths looked at Flynn as though he had to explain the obvious for the hundredth time. “Isn’t everybody?”

  “Yes, they are,” Flynn laughed, “but none have ever known where to look for it.”

  “I do.”

  Flynn turned slowly toward Griffiths. He eyed the man as though he had just seen him for the first time. “Do you now?”

  “Sure,” Griffiths said. He couldn’t stop talking about it. It seemed like the neighborly thing to do. “I’ve got the entire map of their course right here in my head. Got it straight from the Mantle of Kendis-dai.” Griffiths reached out to grasp the front of Flynn’s tunic but was having trouble gauging the distance. He was relieved when Flynn grasped Griffiths’s groping hand and planted it where Griffiths had aimed. Griffiths could then pull Flynn closer and speak conspiratorially. “I know where the whole thing is—the fleet, the Nightsword—all of it.”

  “That’s a grand prize, indeed,” Flynn whispered back in a rough voice, half to himself. “With that Nightsword, a man could rule the stars—there would be no price high enough. So, when do you figure on going after it?”

  “Can’t.” Griffiths nearly cried as he spoke the word. He was overwhelmed with disappointment.

  “There, there now,” Flynn said with a comforting pat on the astronaut’s back. “Tell old Uncle Flynn why not.”

  “Well,” Griffiths sniffed, a little unsure as to why he was acting this way. “I know where the map leads to—I just … I just … I just don’t know where it starts!” Griffiths suddenly broke down sobbing into Flynn’s shoulder.

  “Ah, there, there, now,” Flynn said, cradling Griffiths in his arms and rocking him back and forth slightly. “I’ll bet old Flynn could help you out with that one!”

  “Could you?” Hope, it seemed to Griffiths, exploded like a nova just a few feet above them. Quite suddenly, he couldn’t remember what he had just been talking about, but the pain in his head was growing to Olympic proportions.

  “Sure I can help you!” Flynn said confidently. “I know these stars better than anyone you’ll find. I haven’t been just picking up dust here in the docks. This is just part-time employment. We just need to get connected to the right people and we’ll make sense of that map in your head! When we do—by the Nine!—we’ll find old Lokan’s fleet yet!”

  “Did I … did I tell you about the map?” Griffiths asked, his eyes wide.

  “Of course you did, Griffiths!” Flynn said through a grand smile as he turned back to the barmaid.

  “Bruthn! Two more hot Sartagon grogs!”

  20

  Minister of Peace

  Dedrak Kurbin-Flamishar lay on his stomach, the massive doublet open, his wings spread relaxed across the expansive polished marble floor. Columns surrounded him, each one finished in brilliant blue enamel and defined brightly by inlaid gold and jewels. These supported a coffered ceiling finished in a fresco of armored dragons flying in a cloud-streaked sky. Beyond him, the platform of office was left empty, its ornamental alcove abandoned for the informality of the floor. A gentle breeze drifted through the massive arch at the left of the chamber, which opened onto a balcony, beckoning flight over the volcanic peaks beyond. It was a picture of draconian repose, but it was a studied picture composed with great effort. Dedrak Kurbin-Flamishar was anything but relaxed.

  “This entire business makes my tail twitch,” the dragon rumbled to himself. Indeed, his tail was twitching behind him, flipping his elegant kilt this way and that, causing the fabric to fall about his haunches in a most undignified manner. Each of his wives knew that it was the first sign of something troubling him, and each of them knew better than to disturb him when his work had become such a mystery. Dedrak was the Minister of Peace for the Tsultak home world. It wouldn’t do to have him upset in public.

  Dedrak’s head lolled over a massive pile of scrolls of various sizes heaped unceremoniously on the floor before him. This one contained a deposition. That one contained a testament. Still others contained reports, witness statements, transaction records, port records, and a host of other minutiae which had, thus far, failed to yield a clear picture of anything except the dragon’s own deepening perplexity. At last, with a deep rumble, Dedrak let his head fall to the cold floor with a rush of wind. Papers and scrolls floated lazily amid the scarce dust particles as they settled once again toward the floor.

  “Draf!” Dedrak swore loudly under the assurance that none of his wives were near enough to hear him. “Humans! Can’t live with them; can’t eat them!”

  The cascade sound of chimes caught his sudden attention. He was struggling to get to his feet and put himself in some sort of more dignified posture when he noticed who had entered the large official suite his office afforded him. He relaxed once more down to the floor.

  “Ah, Celdric, it’s only you.”

  “Only me,” the massive blue dragon returned with a glint of humor in his eyes. He was an ancient one. His rows of crowning horns were well-worn and, in many cases, cracked and broken. He had seen service before the migration. “Such disrespect towards an elder of the clan! I should turn you in for violations of the New Crud!”

  “That’s ‘New Code,’ Celdric,” Dedrak warned solemnly. “You should remember that it is also a violation of that selfsame body of law to disparage the New Code verbally either in public or in private.”

  “You going to detain me, Minister?” the blue countered, closing one eye tight while ogling Dedrak with the other.

  “Me? I think not,” Dedrak snorted. “By the time I was finished reading you the formal charges, you would probably be dead anyway.”

  Celdric trumpeted his laugh. The sound was earsplitting and sincere. The enormous sound shook the pillars in the hall. It was an honest, terrible laugh which entertained Dedrak completely and would have struck terror into the hearts of any other creatures present who were unfamiliar with the Tsultak ways.

  “Only too true, my young friend,” Celdric replied, his jowls curling upward as he smiled, baring his yellowed rows of sharp teeth. “Even so, the life I have lived is honorable and filled with all the joys this life can bring. You’ve a long way to go before you will enjoy my happiness!”

  “Am I not aware of it?” Dedrak said, a weary sadness creeping into his deep voice. The Minister of Peace reached up without thinking and tugged at the high collar of his ruffled shirt, which, unfortunately, was about half a size too small. “You lived in the days when our kind were warriors. You knew what it was to fly naked in the sky. You hunted the hunt. You had only one wife.”

  “You would go back to such a time?”

  “Ah, Celdric, those were the days when dragons were dragons. We were the rulers of all within the flight of our wings. Now, what are we?” Dedrak gestured with his open claws at the paperwork arrayed before him. “Now I get fat lying within these castle walls doing human work! You know well that my position was once known as the Blood-master. Now, in our more enlightened time, I am the Minister of Peace, playing at idiotic diplomacy with a human emissary. The fool thinks he is frightening because a globe of darkness surrounds him everywhere he goes.” Dedrak shook his massive wings and sneered in disgust.

  Celdric’s head w
as weaving from side to side in disapproval. “It is a human galaxy, Dedrak. They are the dominant species now, whether we like it or not. If the Courts of Tsultak are going to ever have any prominent say in the affairs of the stars surrounding them, then we must learn this unpleasant fact.”

  “Yes, Celdric,” Dedrak said with resignation as he absently pushed his foreclaw through the papers on the floor. “So it has been explained to me in no uncertain terms by a representative from the council herself. I would it were so, however, that these humans were a bit more combative and a great deal less cunning.”

  “What is it?” Celdric asked, stepping slowly around his younger master to get a look at the papers. “What is troubling you?”

  “This Sentinel, as he calls himself.” Dedrak shifted slightly in his discomfort. “He comes from a distant part of the stars—more distant than any I have yet encountered in my offices. He claims to represent a mighty political movement which challenges the authority of yet some other human entity known as the Omnet.”

  “Have I not heard something about this Omnet?” Celdric pondered aloud.

  “It is quite possible you have heard their name before. They arrived here with the early trade ships, offering knowledge of distant stars. They still packet their information entertainments to us regularly, although there are few of our own kind who pay any attention to them. The council has someone to watch these briefings—or whatever they are called—and decide if there is anything useful in them. Their information is almost entirely human-based, however, and has only passing use or interest to us in general.”