Triplet

by Timothy Zahn

  “That, or else replacements will be sent back before morning. We’re not quite sure which, or whether it’s the same in all cases.”

  “Why don’t you try marking one of them?” she asked. “Or better yet, why not get someone inside the—did you call it Forj?”

  “It’s the local Dark Tower,” Ravagin explained. “ ‘Forj’ comes from the initials of the four protectorates surrounding it. Actually, we have tried marking some of the repair jobs—the results have been inconclusive. As for getting into Forj—” He shrugged. “Well, the getting in part is possible, or so say the legends. The problem is that all the actual repair work is done in sealed modules within the Tower itself, and trying to break into one gets you escorted out by a set of trolls in double-quick time.”

  “And that’s what frustrates everyone? The fact that you can’t watch the magic technology being repaired?”

  “And can’t seem to disassemble any of it without ruining it; and can’t find any equipment outside the Dark Towers to analyze it with anyway; and therefore can’t bring a single scrap of this technology out to the Twenty Worlds. And for most people, the more they see of Shamsheer, the more the fact that this stuffs beyond their reach gnaws the hell out of them.”

  She snorted gently. “Pure, unadulterated greed.”

  Ravagin flicked an irritated glance at her. “Greed, yes. Unadulterated, no.”

  “Perhaps.”

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes. From the other end of the street a second party added counterpoint to the sounds of the first, and pedestrian traffic in front of the way house picked up as people began traveling back and forth between the two foci of entertainment. One of the fascinations this culture held for sociologists, Ravagin knew, was that of a still largely medieval setting where even the peasant class had real quantities of leisure time.

  “Would you really have let that jerkface hit me?”

  Ravagin brought his mind back. “Yes,” he told her honestly. “If he’d chosen to exercise that right it would have been the simplest and safest way out of that mess. And don’t think it wasn’t a mess—we could have gotten into serious trouble out there.”

  Danae’s face twisted into an irritated grimace as she stared straight out over the rail. “And since I’d gotten us into it in the first place I needed the lesson anyway?” she growled. “Maybe; but I’m not sorry I did it. Maybe you could sit by and watch that woman get hurt, but I couldn’t.”

  “Which proves all by itself you didn’t really understand what was going on,” Ravagin countered, fighting against his own irritation. “If they’d gone so far as to actually hurt her, they would have been the ones in trouble. And they knew it. Shamsheer law is strongly set up along the eye-for-an-eye philosophy, applied evenly to all people. Especially in the Tween cities, which are generally at least a little more democratic than the protectorates.”

  Danae pondered that for a moment in silence. “Well … maybe I did go off a little prematurely,” she admitted.

  “Prematurely, hell,” he told her bluntly. “You could have gotten us both killed out there. And it is not going to happen again, or I’ll abort this trip and take you straight back to Threshold. Understood?”

  She glared at him. “You don’t have to beat it to death,” she said icily. “I was wrong, I admit it, and I promise to stay fully on track from now on. Happy?”

  “Ecstatically.” He hadn’t really intended to bring this up quite so soon, but after that thickheaded play this afternoon the more caution he could plant in her the better. “I’d be even happier if you’d explain why you’ve got a professional bodyguard trailing along behind you.”

  She jerked, actually spinning to look over her shoulder. “What—? Damn him. It’s Hart, right? Where is he?” she growled, facing Ravagin again.

  “If my instructions have been listened to, he’s still back on Threshold. But some of my colleagues may have more trouble than I did turning down the cash dripping off his fingers.”

  “Damn. But he can’t find us here … can he?”

  “Not as far as I know. Are you saying he’s a danger to you?”

  “Not a danger, no. But definitely an annoyance.” She sighed and seemed to slump in her chair. “He’s been dogging my every move ever since I left home, watching out for nonexistent danger and smoothing my road for me whenever he could.”

  “So why don’t you send him away?”

  “Because I’m not the one paying his salary. That comes from my father—and Daddy Dear sees monsters underneath every bush.”

  “Maybe he knows something you don’t,” Ravagin grunted.

  “Like …?”

  “Like maybe something new has come up. Some reason he suddenly didn’t want you here alone.”

  Danae snorted. “Daddy Dear’s a chronic worrier, and paranoid on top of it. And if you listen to him—” She broke off suddenly. “Anyway, just because Hart’s here doesn’t mean there’s anything in particular to worry about. Especially while we’re on this side of the Tunnel.”

  Ravagin pondered for a moment. She was right, of course—whether her father was afraid of kidnappers or assassins or God knew what else, there was little chance such dangers could reach into the Hidden Worlds. And yet … “You’re probably right,” he admitted after a moment. “But I think we should take some extra precautions anyway, just in case. Hart’s veiled warnings may have been just talk, but he may have known something he didn’t want to tell me.”

  “The bottom line being …?”

  “The bottom line being that we’re going to cut short this part of the trip. Instead of the two-day tour of Missia City and the Feymar Protectorate I’d planned, we’re instead going to head directly to Darcane Forest and the Tunnel to Karyx.”

  Danae shrugged. “Fine with me—like I said, I’ve had all of Shamsheer that I want.”

  “I hope you can keep that attitude,” Ravagin warned. “In a lot of ways the laws and customs of Karyx are harder and more violent than those of Shamsheer.”

  “Perhaps—but at least there I won’t have the problem of being unarmed in an armed society.” She glanced pointedly at the scorpion glove dangling from his belt and got to her feet. “Well, if that’s all you wanted to talk about, I’m going to go get something to eat.”

  Ravagin felt his lip twitch as he looked up at her. “Help yourself,” he nodded. “I’m going to stay here a bit longer, I think. Remember that we’ll be heading out early in the morning, so don’t get to bed too late.”

  “Not likely,” she said dryly; and with a brief nod she was gone.

  Ravagin sighed as he settled back into his chair. So she wouldn’t be unarmed in an armed society, would she? He’d lost track of all the people he’d escorted to Karyx who’d started with that same confident—hell, arrogant—attitude. Who’d truly believed that their brief training had properly prepared them to command the spirits of that world.

  She’d learn. Eventually, they all did.

  Closing his eyes, he listened to the sounds of Kelaine City at play … and wondered how music and laughter could be so depressing.

  Chapter 8

  THEY LEFT JUST AFTER dawn the next morning, under the dour eye of one of the city’s justice officials, and headed eastward into the sun and a day that was promising to be as clear as the previous one had been. Again, Danae experienced a mild case of acrophobia as their sky-plane flew in and out of wispy clouds and the occasional flock of birds; but within a short time the fear left her, and she was even able to lean her forehead against the invisible edge barrier and gaze at the landscape below.

  It was, for the most part, fairly unremarkable. With Kelaine City behind them and the borders of Ordarl Protectorate still ahead, the area they were passing over was sparsely inhabited. There were occasional villages—most, Danae noted, equipped with stone or sharpened tree trunk walls to discourage robber gangs—each one surrounded by areas of cultivated land. But most of what she could see was the same type of undeveloped landscape that
had been around the Tunnel exit. “Hard to believe they’ve been living here for four thousand years or more,” she commented.

  “Hm?” Ravagin glanced over where she was looking. “Who?—oh; Shamsheer’s people? Well, I’d take that number with a cautionary footnote, if I were you.”

  “Why? You think they haven’t been here that long?”

  “I have no idea how long they’ve been here,” he shrugged. “Neither does anyone else, no matter how confidently they throw figures back and forth in the journals. Certainly there’s never been any physical evidence found, and if the people themselves have legends about their arrival, I’ve never heard them.”

  “But it is certain they were brought here from Earth, isn’t it?” she persisted. “I’ve read that they are true humans, not some close copycat alien race.”

  Ravagin turned a patient look on her. “Danae, one of the first things you need to learn is that we don’t know nearly as much about the Hidden Worlds as we pretend we do. Yes, the people of both seem human enough; yes, all their organs and nerve centers are in the right places; yes, a Dreya’s Womb seems to work as well on someone from the Twenty Worlds as it does on a Shamsheer native. But the definition of human boils down to genetic structure, and the only way we’re ever going to find that out for sure will be to kidnap someone and drag him naked and screaming through the Tunnel for a complete DNA scan. At the moment that’s what’s called an unacceptable procedure.”

  “Even if you drugged him so that he didn’t realize he’d been anywhere? That way—”

  “Drugged him with what?”

  “With—” She snapped her mouth firmly shut. “Right. Damn; I keep forgetting about the telefold.”

  “Everyone does. Don’t worry about it.” Ravagin nodded ahead at the row of jagged peaks cutting across their path. “Those are the Ordarl Mountains up there—well be crossing the western border of Ordarl Protectorate as we pass over the foothills and skating just inside the northwest edge of the hexagon for an hour or so.”

  Danae nodded; she’d already noticed that the foothills coincided with the abrupt return of civilization. Half a dozen small villages could be seen clustered along the line there, their inhabitants no longer needing to rely solely on numbers or barricades for defense against robber gangs from the Tweens. “It still seems like they should have been able to build up a bigger population than this after even a couple of thousand years. Especially with such advanced medical facilities as Dreya’s Wombs available.”

  Ravagin snorted, his eyes giving the area around them a slow sweep. “What is this, a two-person seminar on unanswerable questions? Do us both a favor and save them for the last chapter of your dissertation, all right? We’re going to have enough practical questions to keep us busy.”

  Danae gritted her teeth against the sarcasm that wanted to get out. Don’t get mad girl, she told herself firmly. So he’s lost whatever academic curiosity he ever had—file the fact and drop the subject. “All right, then—let’s hear one of these big practical questions of yours,” she said.

  “Let’s start with how well you can imitate a demure Shamsheer-bred woman,” he said. He had risen up on his knees and was gazing over her shoulder with a tight expression on his face. “Because in about half a minute you’re going to have to be one.”

  Startled, she twisted around to follow his gaze. Behind them, two men on another sky-plane were rising swiftly up to intercept them.

  Robbers! She inhaled sharply through clenched teeth, hands curling into impotent fists at her sides. “What are we going to do?”

  “Whatever they say, of course,” Ravagin told her. “Look at their tunics: blue/red/gold. They’re soldiers from Castle Ordarleal.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Danae.” He shifted his eyes back to her face. “And I meant what I said about being quiet and demure—especially the quiet part. Ordarl’s castle-lord doesn’t much care for strangers, female strangers in particular. You look like you’re even thinking of butting against his authority and we’re likely to wind up spending one or more nights in the castle’s cells.”

  “But what the hell do they—?”

  “Shh! Greetings, soldiers of Ordarl Protectorate,” he called abruptly. Danae turned to look, a little shaken that the other sky-plane had made it within hailing range so quickly. Her first impulse—to urge Ravagin to try and outrun them—died stillborn.

  “Greetings to you, travelers,” one of the soldiers called across the narrowing gap. “We would be honored if you would accompany us to the ground.”

  “We would be pleased to comply,” Ravagin answered, raising one hand to point. “Sky-plane: follow the sky-plane at my mark: mark.”

  Their carpet slowed abruptly, allowing the other to pass beneath it, and then settled into place a meter behind it. One of the soldiers turned back to the front of his sky-plane and murmured something; the second kept his full attention on his prisoners as both vehicles made a sharp turn and dropped toward the mountains below.

  “May I inquire as to the purpose of this delay in our lawful trip?” Ravagin asked politely.

  “Whether it is lawful or not is yet to be determined,” the second soldier said. “I would be honored if you would place all weapons and magical devices before you on the sky-plane.”

  Ravagin sighed and began to unfasten the scorpion glove and knife from his belt. “You, too,” he muttered to Danae. “Your firefly’s considered a magical gadget.”

  Danae pursed her lips tightly, slid the ring off her finger and dropped it in front of her. “Has it occurred to you that once we land the force-field wall won’t protect us anymore?”

  “If you’re suggesting we run for it, forget it,” he murmured back. “They could have a dozen more sky-planes on top of us before we could get past the border … and there are ways for a group of sky-planes to force down a lone one. With or without leaving its passengers in good shape.”

  Danae gritted her teeth and shut up.

  They landed minutes later in a grassy lea between two impressively craggy mountains. A handful of tents had been set up at one end and more of the liveried soldiers could be seen going about various tasks. “Looks like a semi-permanent base,” Ravagin commented as the sky-planes came to rest and the two soldiers got to their feet and motioned the prisoners to do likewise. “I wonder if the castle-lord’s been having trouble with raiders coming in through cover of the mountains.”

  “Maybe,” Danae murmured back. “Does that help or hurt us?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Greetings, travelers,” a voice came from behind them, and they turned to find an older man clumping toward them from one of the tents. “What errand brings you over the Ordarl Protectorate?”

  “We journey from Kelaine City to the Darcane Forest, sir,” Ravagin told him with a courteous nod. “Is Ordarl Protectorate now forbidding travelers to fly over its land?”

  “Ordarl Protectorate objects only to black sorcerers practicing evil within its territory,” the other said grimly, eyes boring into Ravagin’s. “What are your names and professions?”

  “I am called Ravagin; I claim no city or protectorate as my home. My companion is named Danae. As to business, I do service as bearer of private messages between distant places.”

  The officer’s eyebrows raised. “Indeed? Do your clients distrust the sanctity of the crystal eye?”

  Ravagin shrugged. “My clients’ thoughts and fears are their own. I merely provide a service to those who wish it.”

  The other’s gaze shifted to Danae. “And you?”

  “The lady is—”

  “I am traveling to visit relatives in Darcane Forest,” Danae interrupted him. “The man Ravagin consented to escort me, as none of my closer kin were interested in making the trip.”

  “Indeed.” The older man’s frown deepened slightly, his eyes flicking over her clothing. “Where is your home, noblelady?”

  “In the Numant Protectorate, to the west of Castle N
umanteal,” Ravagin said, taking control of the conversation back from her. “May I ask what form this black sorcery takes?”

  The other looked over Ravagin’s shoulder. “What do you find?” he asked.

  Danae glanced back to their sky-plane, where the two soldiers were examining the devices they’d left there. “Nothing out of the ordinary, O Captain,” one said, holding up the scorpion glove. “Our Ravagin is indeed a far traveler; I have not seen one of these weapons in a long time.”

  The captain pursed his lips and returned his attention to Ravagin. “You do not seem to have the scent of black sorcery about you, I’ll admit. Still, I would expect a careful messenger to carry stronger weaponry.”

  “Precisely what I expect others to think,” Ravagin said calmly. “The best defense, I have found, is not to be attacked in the first place.”

  Surprisingly, a smile twitched at the old man’s lips. “A subtle philosophy indeed, Ravagin. I do not believe I would trust it, myself.”

  Ravagin shrugged. “I am still alive.”

  “True.” The other cocked an eyebrow. “It would be interesting to see how long you remain that way. But that is of no immediate concern. Tell me, are the magical devices in Numant Protectorate showing signs of sorcerous interference?”

  The question seemed to take Ravagin by surprise. “I—am not sure what you mean. What sort of interference do you refer to?”

  “Widespread failures, for the most part,” the other said. “Devices, too, that appear to have ceased functioning but then are whole again without making the journey to the Dark Tower.”

  The memory of the automated aerial caravan from Kelaine City the previous night flashed into Danae’s mind. Widespread failure? she wondered. Or was that just the normal breakage rate? A quick mental search of what she’d learned about Shamsheer gave her nothing either way.

  Ravagin, too, seemed a bit uncertain and pondered the question for several seconds before answering. “I don’t recall hearing word of such unusual failures,” he said at last. “But you must understand that by the nature of my profession, I am seldom in any one place for long and do not talk to a great many people.”