by Robin Owens
She broke it, stepped away, turned to run.
Was grabbed around the waist. She hesitated. She was pregnant, couldn’t ’port, couldn’t fight. That might harm the baby. Rage mixed with despair filled her.
“Get her!” The high shriek came from T’Anise but didn’t sound like a sane man at all.
“Shunuk!” she cried mentally and with all the breath in her lungs.
Shunuk! Raz yelled telepathically. Raz had just thought of the fox. Whose mind was clouded by the bloodlust of killing.
His words were echoed by Del.
She was afraid yet didn’t call on him. Terror flooded him.
Shunuk, go to Del! Raz was too far from the labyrinth. He cursed steadily. He didn’t know the area well enough to pull over and ’port.
He sent all the Flair he had into powering the glider, overrode the top speed limitations. He could burn it out, drain his Flair, but Del needed him now.
The big guy stuck her in the back of the glider, with T’Anise. Del swiped her nails down T’Anise’s cheek, and he squealed. “Get her out of here. Put her up with you, fool.”
Del raked at T’Anise again, missed, got blood on a papyrus and tore it as the guard grabbed her around the waist again. He stuck her up front in the passenger seat.
Shunuk! she called again. He didn’t answer.
Raz did. Del! T’Anise—
Del wanted to slam her mind against Raz, against the shuddering pain of hearing his mind voice. He has me, at the Great Labyrinth—
An open-handed slap rocked her head back and destroyed the mental connection.
“Go!” screeched T’Anise, hurting her head. “Keep slapping her if you think she is mindspeaking.”
The guard turned his head and grinned at her, his gaze lingering on the bruise rising on her cheekbone.
Del tamped down her fury, her fear. She couldn’t fight back. She grabbed the webbing and said the shielding Word. Neither of the men donned the shields.
Silver glider. Del risked a short spurt to Raz and Shunuk.
“Go to T’Anise southern estate,” the large guard ordered. The console navmap flickered but didn’t show the whole route.
T’Anise’s man leaned back and looked at Del, letting the glider run automatically. He stank of sweat and she recalled the odor from the Cherry’s kitchen in Gael City. That was what had alerted her.
He was one of the thieves and had killed the other man.
The privacy shield was down and T’Anise said from the back, “Now, D’Elecampane, you will tell me everything you know about the Tabacin Diary, of the maps you have made for the Cherrys to find Lugh’s Spear.” T’Anise’s breath whistled in and out. “I will be famous beyond belief when I discover Lugh’s Spear. I will never be forgotten, Anise will never be forgotten, even when I die and the Family is no more. I will be the most important member of my Family, ever. Everyone will remember and honor me.”
“Not so much when history shows that you stole and murdered for such an honor,” she said.
The guard slapped her again. Smiled.
He’d like killing her, too. She kept her hands from covering her belly in a betraying gesture. “All right, I’ll tell you,” she said. “The newssheets were right about the journal. The Cherrys told the truth,” she said through puffy lips; a cut dribbled warm blood down her chin. “There were no maps in the diary.”
The glider turned south, accelerated from a crawl to slow.
This time the slap had her ear ringing as she turned her head.
Shunuk hopped high, so she could see him in the window as he ran along the side of the vehicle. It wasn’t moving too fast. Yet.
She opened her link with Raz a little more. A rush of staggering love and fear inundated her, pulsing with the word, HeartMate, HeartMate, HeartMate.head.
Another blow to her head.
“Can’t. Think.” She gasped.
“Be a little easier on her,” T’Anise said in an annoyed tone. “She’s not as tough as we thought. We’ll get the information.”
A red-furred beast appeared on the hood of the glider, scrabbled, wide eyes and sharp teeth.
T’Anise screamed.
The guard flinched.
Del lunged forward, found the emergency lever and pulled.
The glider stopped, the men went flying, the guard hitting the console, the front window. Thumps came from the back.
Webbing cradled Del, moved with her. Kept her safe.
Landing gear failed and the glider fell to the ground.
Del was out of the glider in an instant, running toward the labyrinth crater lip, ready to slide down. She’d lose the men.
“Del!” It was Raz, leaping from Cherry, running toward her.
She waved to him, turned back and ran to the silver glider, slamming and sealing the back door on T’Anise. His face purpled with rage. She hurried to the other side of the glider and sealed that back door, too. T’Anise shouted Flaired Words, but Del’s spells held.
He pounded on the windows. “You don’t understand. I must be the one to discover Lugh’s Spear, the lost starship, so I can increase my Flair. The ancients knew all about Flair, and it’s all locked up there, in that starship. Nuada’s Sword has been no help. When I find Lugh’s Spear, riches and knowledge and Flair and fame will be mine. I will never be forgotten!”
The man was mad.
There was the sound of flesh on flesh and Del swung to see Raz smiling fiercely, jabbing his fists into the face and stomach of the guard, ignoring his own blackened eye and bleeding cheek.
The man hit his head on the upper edge of the door opening and Raz pummeled him back into the vehicle. Raz slammed the door and said a Word and the glider was sealed shut. He pulled his perscry from his pocket and snapped a report to a guard station.
Then he came to her, his eyes narrowing as he saw her swollen face. His stride lengthened and he feathered his fingers over her cheeks. “Lover,” he whispered. “HeartMate.” He brushed a kiss on her mouth and the yearning inside her flashed like fire. “Mine.”
She let herself lean on him.
Shunuk hopped around them, barking. You are here, stup man.
“Yes, I am here.” Raz drew a little away, his eyes an intense blue. “Be mine, Del. Don’t ever leave me again.”
“Things have changed,” Del managed.
Raz frowned. “We need to get you to a Healer. ’Porting on three. One, my HeartMate—”
“No. No ’porting.” Del stepped from his arms, kept her gaze locked on his. “I’m pregnant.”
He stared at her.
We will have a human kit, Shunuk affirmed.
Raz folded to the ground. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, thumped himself on the chest as if loosening his voice. “Pregnant?”
Del opened the link between them wide. He was stunned, as she had been, but there was no revulsion, no horror, just plain shock.
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m starting a Family early.” She lifted her chin.
A wash of love came from him to her. He cleared his throat. “We are starting a Family.”
Rosemary kitten pranced over. I am Family.
Shunuk yipped, I am Family, too. Del and me and Raz and you . . . and the other Cherrys.
“My parents,” Raz said, dazed.
Del turned and began walking back down the gliderway to the Great Labyrinth and her stridebeast, ignoring the pounding and swearing from T’Anise and his man. They couldn’t even rock the glider, evidently didn’t know of the emergency lever.
Raz caught up with her and slipped an arm around her waist, looked down at her. “I love you, Del. Don’t walk away from me.”
She eyed him sideways. “Or else?”
“Or else I’ll have the next person we meet be priest or priestess and recognize my HeartMate vows to you.”
She felt a smile curving her lips, closed her eyes for a few steps. All she could feel from him was love. “What of your career?”
“You
, we, are more important than my career.”
“Same here,” she said, then touched her stomach. “So is the baby.” Then she turned and looked at him fully, saw his mobile face radiating love. He lifted her hand to his lips.
“My lover, my love, my HeartMate. Bond with me.”
She had to cough to clear her own throat. “Yes. About our home—”
“My home is with you.”
“I have some ideas on that.”
Del had three sets of pillows propped behind her as she lay on the bedsponge in Raz’s suite in T’Cherry Residence. She felt stupid. Selfishly, she wanted to be back at her own house. But Raz and the other Cherrys had hovered over the new HeartMate and the prospective first child of the next generation.
His mother and sister had actually cooed over her. His father, T’Cherry himself, often took breaks from his work at home to come up and check on her.
They’d convinced her that she would be easier served in T’Cherry Residence. She wasn’t used to being served, but everyone was worried about the baby, including her, and she should have the best care.
She still felt stupid.
She shifted and muttered. From what she could tell with her own body, all was well, but she wouldn’t jeopardize this child.
Her and Raz’s child.
At least there wouldn’t be continual bed rest. This was only precautionary after the frightening and active events at the labyrinth. T’Anise’s mind had cracked beyond all mending and he had been placed in D’Sea’s, the mind Healer’s, most private facility. His estates had been confiscated.
His guard and distant relative had been more interested in the treasure Lugh’s Spear might hold than his lord’s wish for glory. The big man had been tried for murder, found guilty, fixed with a DepressFlair bracelet and exiled to an island. Like others with the same fate, he wasn’t expected to live long. When the FirstFamilies acted, they moved fast and deadly.
Del was still concerned about being tied to the Blackthorns through Doolee—they tended to hover, too—but was becoming resigned to a lot of Family around her. At least she liked the Cherrys and the Blackthorns . . . and the Clovers that she’d met, Mitchella Blackthorn’s birth Family.
She had a large Family again, who would have thought it? She wasn’t quite ready for them all, but she was stuck.
For a while. Until the property in Verde Valley was ready. Since she’d done much of the original arrangements and Raz insisted on it being a mutual HeartMate partnership project, he took an enthusiastic lead now.
Del glanced at the timer, he’d be back from negotiations with Amberose and her agent soon. The final negotiations. If they couldn’t agree on the casting of the play and having it open at the new Cherry Theater of Verde Valley, that particular project would be scrapped.
Since Raz was muttering about hiring a playwright for a story about the Tabacin Diaries, that wasn’t too bad, except Del felt the press of time.
She shifted in the bed. She felt fine. The baby was fine. There had been myriad tests, resulting in this one eightday of bed rest. Which was becoming more tiresome with every second.
She sighed and picked up the ancient divination cards Raz had given her to amuse herself.
At first she just looked at the people in the foreground. She smiled when she saw hints of features in those she knew. T’Ash. Ruis Elder. Vinni T’Vine. Then a river and hills caught her eye and she began to pay more attention to the backgrounds and landscapes of the cards.
Here, as Raz had said, was Lugh’s Spear, looking not at all like Nuada’s Sword. An older type of ship or something. She tried to figure out where it might be, but there wasn’t enough detail. So she set that card aside and began sifting out those that showed more geographic features.
Her heart began beating hard as she started to recognize the areas, the journey Tabacin had described . . . surely that was an edge of Fish Story Lake, those were the Bluegrass Plains. Del put them in order, though she was still frustrated. Just not enough detail. She had a copy of the diaries, too, and flipped through them to the few scenic sketches . . . Tabacin had been afraid of the outside world, had preferred to draw people, especially if they paid her for likenesses.
Frowning, Del lined up the cards in the order of the journey, east to west, then south to north. Her hand hesitated over the ten of wands. Surely that was their valley. Verde Valley. Her head went a little dizzy. Verde Valley. An old, old name. As old as the Lugh’s Spear colonists?
The door creaking open had her jolting. “Sssh.” Raz came over, leaned down and hugged her. “Just me.”
From the wild sense of triumph that pulsed from him, Del knew they’d gotten everything they’d asked for. She grabbed his face for a hard kiss and he returned it enthusiastically.
He raised an eyebrow at the large cards spread over the bed, shrugged and straightened, paced to the window and back, too restless to sit with her.
Del grinned and when he turned, he matched that.
Rosemary was hopping up and down on his shoulder, as far as her “stay” spell allowed.
Raz said, “Not only did we get the cast and the director we wanted, but ...”
“But?”
“Amberose herself will come to the theater opening and mix and mingle.”
“Wonderful. That will be a big draw.”
“Yes. She is interested in a ‘country’ theater. I got the impression that she might have an estate near there.” Raz winked. “Good for types that don’t care for the city much.”
Del nodded. “Good for nobles driving a glider from Druida to Gael City and their southern estates. With the landing pad we will put in, it will serve airships, too.”
“And as people become more adept with teleportation, it can be a stopping place,” Raz said casually. They’d discussed all this. He paused and his eyes gleamed. “And ...”
“And?”
“I happened to take a copy of the Tabacin Diaries with me, talked to her about the story. She’s hooked. I think she’ll write it.”
“Wonderful!”
Raz was pacing again, rubbing his hands. “After the Evening Primrose Theater does Heart and Sword next year, audiences will be ready for more colonist tales. We can premiere the play when Heart and Sword closes up here.”
“If it closes; the Gael City production is still going strong.” She hesitated. “Are you sure you want to premiere Tabacin at our theater? We agreed that you would take some runs here in the city.”
“We did.” He came over and played with her fingers. “But if our inn and theater go well, I will rethink that. I’d like being a big fish in a big pond. We own much of the valley, but not all, and I can foresee an artistic community growing here.”
“Huh.” Del wasn’t sure about that.
Raz glanced at the cards, his brows drew together. “What’s this?”
He’d observed it, too, the distinctive crooked mountain against the sky, a view they could see from their home in Verde Valley. He picked up the card. “I never noticed this before.”
Del gestured to the cards. “I think this is the journey Tabacin made. I even think Lugh’s Spear colonists stayed in our valley for a while, named it maybe.”
Raz’s mobile face had gone still. The link between them was wide and his emotions of awe and love for her rushed through it. Del flushed.
“You are wonderful.”
I want to SEE! Rosemary shouted. Unstick.
Flicking fingers and murmuring a Word, Raz dissipated the “stay” spell.
Rosemary hopped onto the bed, staggered around the cards, disarranging and flipping them.
“Rosemary!” Raz chided, grabbing her.
But knowledge exploded in Del’s brain as she noted the backs, the minuscule symbol that looked like Lugh’s Spear on one card. “Wait, wait!” She panted. She gathered the cards and began laying them out, back side up. Shuffled them around.
“What?”
“It’s a map!”
“A map! It doesn’t look
like a map to me, just bands of different colors, pale yellow to deep purple.”
“But it is! Tabacin mentioned that the leader of the colonists, the Captain of Lugh’s Spear, showed them a map and progress they made on it on their trip. The map he would have used would have come from the ship, been taken by Lugh’s Spear.”
Raz stared, shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
“It’s a little fuzzy,” Del admitted. “And the woman did like her color palette. But I recognize the scale, and we also have the map that was transmitted from Lugh’s Spear to Nuada’s Sword.” She pointed to a big purple blob. “Look, this is the edge of the Deep Blue Sea.” Touched another purple area. “And Fish Story Lake.”
Her finger quivered as she touched the card with the symbol of Lugh’s Spear. “And there is exactly where they landed,” she whispered.
“We have a map,” Raz said blankly.
“The map. The map to Lugh’s Spear.”
“Just as we’d always been told,” Raz said. He put a hand on her shoulder. “If you want to go ...” His voice was expressionless.
Yearning twisted inside Del. If this had been only two months ago . . . but two months ago she hadn’t known Raz and none of this would have happened.
“I love you.” Her voice was thick with conflicting emotions. “And I love our child and the thought of more children with you. They can’t be jeopardized.” She squared the cards, lifted her chin, and returned the love she saw in her HeartMate’s eyes. “The discovery of Lugh’s Spear has waited this long, it can wait until our children can make such a trip. The logistics of finding it, maybe excavating or raising it, will take massive planning.”
Raz bent down and kissed her tenderly on her lips. “My HeartMate, my woman, my wife, the mother of my children. I can only love you more each minute.”
Sounded like mushy actor stuff to Del, but it touched her all the same, and dammit, that was just what she felt, too.
A month later Raz stopped the huge and heavily shielded glider just before the pillared gateway of their Verde Valley estate. Del opened the door and got out. She heard the voices of workers putting the last touches on the hotel for the grand opening at Full Twinmoons just after the new year in a few weeks.