by Ann Maxwell
“I’d hoped that was it,” breathed Ilfn. “Our ship is the same.”
“Is it here?” demanded Kirtn.
“No. If it were, Lheket and I would have left as soon as we got out of the Fold!”
“Then where is your ship?” asked Rheba.
“I don’t know.” Ilfn’s dark eyes became hooded, looking back on pain. “We answered a call for help as we came out of replacement. It was a trap. The Autumn Moon was left in orbit around a dead planet called Sorriaaix. They abandoned the Moon when they couldn’t learn its secrets.”
M/dere’s movement brought life’s attention back to the present. The J/taal’s claws were tracing random marks around the amphitheater, disguising the meaningful marks of tunnel, park, spaceport and ship.
“That animal is ruining the diagram!” cried Dapsl, pushing through the people crowded around the map. He tried to snatch away the plasheet, but Kirtn’s hand held him back. Rheba felt a moment of panic as she tried to remember what languages they had been using. Had it been only Senyas and J/taal? Or had they forgotten and slipped into Universal, which Dapsl understood? How long had Dapsl been watching—long enough to see the map before M/dere disguised the additions to it?
“Careful,” said Kirtn. “Don’t you know that J/taal claws are poisonous?”
It was not true, but Dapsl shrank back anyway. The clept venom was real enough; it still shone bluely on M/dere’s claw tip.
“What’s she doing?” demanded Dapsl. Then, when M/dere resumed making random marks, “Stop her!”
Kirtn shrugged. “Why? We don’t need the diagram anymore, and scribbling on it seems to amuse her.”
Dapsl fell silent. His shrewd eyes swept the diagram as he struggled against the hand holding back his wrist. Then he stopped moving, studying the plasheet as though he had never seen it before. His braid ends bounced as he turned on Kirtn, “Let go of me.” His voice was cool and hard, a voice they had never heard him use. “I’ve done everything I could for this Act, more than any other Whip could have. But you wouldn’t know about that,” he said, sweeping the group with a single contemptuous look. “None of you is civilized enough to appreciate a Loo Whip. You’re no more than animals.”
Dapsl pulled free of Kirtn and stalked out of the room.
Kirtn looked at Rheba, who shrugged in lithe imitation of the Bre’n gesture and turned back to the map. “What about the guards? When do we leave the stage, and by which exit? Will anyone be able to help us fight our way to the spaceport?”
Ilfn hesitated. To the rest of the people, she appeared uncertain. But Rheba and Kirtn knew Bre’ns; it was obvious to them that reluctance rather than uncertainty held her tongue. Kirtn whistled coaxingly. The sound was so unexpected and yet so beautiful that Lheket’s head came up and turned in Kirtn’s direction. The boy answered the whistle in a lower key, a pure ripple of sound that brought an approving look from Kirtn. The boy repeated the whistle in yet another key. Ilfn gave in and began to speak.
“The end of your Act will be the signal for the beginning of the rebellion. The instant the Hour Between Years is struck, slaves will pour into the streets. Most will only be celebrating, I think. Others will be fighting their way to the spaceport. Almost everyone in the city will be half-phased by then—Imperiapolis’ drugs are varied and strong. By midnight, everyone is dancing in the streets, firing off smelly rockets. The commoners and slaves wear elaborate costumes patterned after Loo myths: From what I was told, the streets are chaotic. Only foot traffic is allowed. That’s why we won’t be conspicuous. Slaves are expected to dance and get phased out. Maybe it’s the Loo way of testing slaves’ Adjustment. I don’t know. But during the Hour Between Years, there is no law.”
“Weapons,” said M/dere impatiently.
Ilfn closed her eyes. “None. Sirgi—my contact—doesn’t have any. Or if he does, he isn’t sharing them with Lord Puc’s whore.”
Kirtn’s lips flattened. The sound he made brought the clepts snarling to their feet. “Who is this man that he believes he’s better than you?”
“A red furry from a heavy planet so far away he can’t even point to its direction in the sky.” She shrugged and smiled. “He’s short, strong, and half-bright. He’s also very determined to get home. He was a priest there, or some such thing. He has a very small opinion of women, slaves or not.”
“Does he know about our J/taals?”
Ilfn’s smile changed indefinably, dangerously. M/dere examined her suddenly, plainly reassessing the Bre’n woman’s usefulness in the coming fight; the J/taal smiled, pleased. The smile was very like Ilfn’s.
“I failed to mention our J/taals,” murmured Ilfn. “Not that it really matters.”
“Why?”
“Your fire dancer is the most deadly weapon on Loo.”
Kirtn began to object, then did not. What Ilfn said was true. Of all the Senyas akhenets, fire dancers had the most potential for destruction. Silently he promised himself that he would not let it come to that for Rheba. She had seen and suffered too much already; turning her into a killer would destroy her.
“Can we trust the other slaves?” asked Rheba quietly.
Ilfn hesitated, saying much through her silence. “So long as they need us, yes. Sirgi is very interested in the Devalon. I explained several times that even if he could get inside the ship, it wouldn’t respond to anyone but the akhenet team it was built for. I don’t know if Sirgi believed me. In any case, I had to promise to take as many slaves with us as we could hold.”
“I’d do that whether he asked or not,” said Rheba.
“I told him that. I don’t think he believed it, either.”
Rheba whistled a sour note. “What else?”
“Nothing. They’ll wait by the first outside arch. When we come, I give the code. Then we’ll be in the park. After that getting to the spaceport is a matter of luck.”
“We know all about luck,” Rheba said. “We learned on Deva.”
Ilfn’s eyes reflected that bitter knowledge. She said nothing.
“I’d feel better if there were a source of energy in the amphitheater for me to draw on—even moonlight,” said Rheba.
“No moons,” said Ilfn. “They don’t rise until after the Hour Between Years.”
“When you were outside today, how did the sky look?”
“Dry.”
“Then they won’t have the weather shield activated,” said Rheba. She shifted her attention to Lheket. a rain dancer innocent of akhenet lines. “Can he at least call clouds?”
“No,” said Ilfn quickly.
“Why not?” asked Rheba, her voice cold. “He’s akhenet, isn’t he?”
“Untrained.”
“Whose fault is that?” she snapped.
Ilfn spoke softly, though her expression was forbidding. “He’s only a child.”
“He’s old enough for simple rain dancing. On Deva, he would have been apprenticed to an akhenet farm years ago.”
“This isn’t Deva. There aren’t any other dancers to help him.”
Kirtn interrupted before Rheba could answer. His whistle was low, penetrating. “What are you afraid of, Ilfn?”
“I—” Her whistle fragmented. She spoke Senyas, then, each word clipped. “I’ve never allowed him to dance. I don’t know if he can, without training. And where is the Bre’n family, the Senyas family, the akhenets paired to help him in the first dangerous attempts? He’s very strong. If I can’t control him, I’ll have to kill him.”
Rheba remembered the ease with which Lheket had drawn power out of her, his reflexive thirst for the rich currents of force that were an akhenet’s birthright. There was no doubt about his strength. And no one knew better than she what would happen if a strong, untrained akhenet blew up in their hands. She had seen it happen more than once on Deva, toward the end, when everyone was desperate for akhenets to help hold the deflectors. The result had been almost as terrible as the sun itself. Unless death was the only other choice, it would be better to leav
e Lheket’s power dormant until they could devote themselves to easing him into his potent birthright.
“Ilfn is right,” sighed Rheba, then repeated the words in a Bre’n whistle that was rich with resonances of acceptance and regret. “I can sustain the Act using only our akhenet energy. Once we’re out of the amphitheater and tunnel complex, there will be other sources of energy for me to draw on. But I don’t like it. Inside that amphitheater, I’ll be about as much use as an empty gun.”
She looked longingly at Lheket. The blind green eyes looked back at her, unfocused. Yet he always knew where she was—like a flower following the sun, he sensed her turbulent energy. As she sensed his—a silent pool, potential dormant, seen only in a slow welling of power from its depths. It was tempting to tap that power, but she would not. Awakened, Lheket was as dangerous to them as an unstable sun.
Rheba sensed someone behind her, standing in the archway that led to the rest of the compound. She turned suddenly. Dapsl was there, and with him Lord Jal. Next to the lord was a pale, dark-haired woman of medium height. Her face was devoid of expression.
Lord Jal made a small gesture with his hand. Dapsl and the woman remained standing while the Loo lord approached Rheba. The woman’s eyes never left Rheba, as though it were important to memorize every nuance of her. Casually, Jal’s hand brushed Kirtn, then Rheba.
There was an instant of sleeting pain, then Rheba froze. All voluntary control of her body was gone. She could only stand and stare in the direction her head had been turned before Jal touched her. She could not speak. She had to struggle to do such semiautomatic things as swallow or blink. Though she could not see Kirtn directly, she sensed that he, too, was held in the grip of whatever drug Lord Jal had used on them.
Before anyone realized what had happened, the lord moved among the J/taals. Because their J/taaleri was silent, apparently unconcerned by Jal’s presence, the mercenaries made no move to protect themselves even after M/dere had passed on a silent mental warning as her body froze.
Jal brushed against Ilfn with his hand, rendering her helpless. He ignored the blind child as he took a dart gun from his robes. He held the muzzle of the gun against Rheba’s throat where her pulse beat slowly under her tawny skin.
“Whip, tell M/dere that if her clepts move, I’ll kill Rheba.”
Dapsl relayed the commands in broken J/taal. It became obvious that he understood the language much better than he spoke it.
“Now,” said Jal. “Release her voice.”
Dapsl nervously walked up to M/dere, touched her neck with an invisibly fine needle, and backed away hurriedly.
“Tell her to make her animals lie down,” said Jal, the gun held unwaveringly at Rheba’s throat.
Desperately, Rheba tried to gather fire, but her akhenet lines lighted only sluggishly. The drug had taken her mind as certainly as it had her body.
M/dere grunted harsh commands. The clepts dropped to the floor as though struck. They watched Jal out of hungry silver eyes, but did not move.
“If you speak without my invitation, I’ll kill your J/taaleri. Say yes if you understand. One word only.”
Dapsl barely finished his stumbling translation before M/dere spoke.
“Yes.”
Jal looked at Dapsl. “You were right, Whip. Rheba is their J/taaleri, though how that came about—” He made a dismissing gesture. “It doesn’t matter, now.” He turned back to M/dere. “I haven’t harmed your J/taaleri, so there’s no reason to be rash,” he said, ignoring Dapsl’s halting translation of Universal into J/taal. “In fact, you should thank me. I’m doing your job—saving her life.” He turned with surprising quickness and touched Rheba again. He supported her as she sank soundlessly to the floor.
The clepts made chilling noises, but did not move. Nor did M/dere speak, for Lord Jal’s gun was never far enough from Rheba’s throat to ensure that a clept could kill him before he killed her.
“She’s perfectly safe,” said Dapsl from the doorway. “The drug is harmless. And so is she, now. Lord Jal wouldn’t be so stupid as to ruin a valuable slave.”
M/dere remained silent. The clepts looked at her, then put down their heads and stopped making any sound at all.
Lord Jal bowed slightly. “I counted on the J/taals’ famed pragmatism. I abhor wasting slaves.” He looked at the two slaves waiting in the doorway, Dapsl and the strange woman. “Did you see enough, i’sNara?”
“Yes, lord.” The woman’s voice was colorless, as devoid of feeling as her white face. She came and bent over Rheba, studying her face, her long hair, the vague golden lines that ran over her hands and feet. She pulled up Rheba’s robe, revealing more lines on legs, arms, torso. “Does she work naked?”
“Sometimes,” said Dapsl. “But that would be difficult to duplicate. Her skin designs are very complicated. And they pulse obscenely.”
“A robe, then,” said Lord Jal.
“Yes,” said i’sNara absently.
Kirtn watched the stranger hover over Rheba, but he could do no more than make tearing attempts to move a single finger. His efforts did little more than darken his copper fur with sweat. From time to time Jal looked over at him, making sure that the drug was still working. The woman straightened suddenly. The air around her seemed to go slightly opaque, as though something were condensing around her body. She blurred, reformed, and the air was clear again.
But it was Rheba who stood there.
Lord Jal walked around her without saying anything. After the second circuit, he stopped. “More eyelashes, i’sNara. And the hair—can you make it seem to move by itself?”
Kirtn watched with nausea coiling in his stomach while i’sNara duplicated Rheba’s long, dense eyelashes and gently dancing hair.
“Good. Mmmm . . .” Lord Jal walked around her again. 'Straighter posture. She’s a proud bitch. Yes, like that. Now walk.” Lord Jal watched. “No. She’s stronger than she looks. I wish I’d been able to bring you to see the Act, but after what my Whip told me, I didn’t want to risk wasting any time.”
“You did well to immobilize them without having to waste a single clept,” said Dapsl.
Lord Jal grunted. He looked at M/dere. “Tell her to have that clept on the far side of the room walk up and down—but not close to us!”
Dapsl said a few words in the J/taals’ grating language. M/dere spoke. A clept rose and prowled the length of the room, never getting close enough to Jal for a killing leap. i’sNara/Rheba watched silently.
“That’s enough,” said Jal. As soon as the clept lay down, he walked over to M/dere, touched her neck and froze her speech organs again. He turned back to i’sNara. “Rheba walks like that clept. Graceful, but not delicate. Her strength shows in her balance.” He smiled absently. “Now that I think about it, she’s a handsome wench. Just more trouble than any sane man would want.”
I’sNara/Rheba walked. Kirtn could not control the sickness that swept through him when he saw Rheba’s lithe movements duplicated by a soulless slave.
“Good.” Lord Jal turned and looked at Kirtn. “Listen to me, furry, and pray that you aren’t as stupid as you are strong. Your rebellion hasn’t the chance of a raindrop on the sun.”
Kirtn went cold, but his stance did not change, could not change. He was prisoner to a slaver’s drug. All he could do was listen while his hopes of freedom were destroyed one word at a time.
Beyond Jal, Dapsl’s broken J/taal words came like a grating echo as the Loo beat flat their hopes with steel words.
“Slaves who are unAdjusted enough to even plan rebellion are executed. But in less than two days, you’ll be the Imperial Loo-chim’s problem. They’ll reward me very well for this Act, enough that I’ll never have to hear Lady Kurs call me half-man again. I’m not going to let a slave’s foolish dream come between me and my freedom!”
Lord Jal looked at the Act, frozen in anguished tableau, and Rheba unconscious at his feet “As you’ve probably noticed,” he continued dryly, “i’sNara is a Yhelle illusioni
st of the Tenth Degree. She is also mine. And now she is Rheba to the last eyelash. She’ll be Rheba on Last Year Night, a fire dancer down to the least flickering flame on the clepts. No one but you will know that an illusionist rather than a fire dancer is performing in the Act. No one in the audience will separate illusion from Act.
“Nor will you rebel at the stroke of midnight. If you do, Rheba will die. If you don’t perform well, Rheba will die. If anything happens in the Act or during the Hour Between Years that displeases me or the Imperial Loo-chim, Rheba will die. Do you understand me, furry?”
Jal’s hand snaked out at eye level. For the first time Kirtn noticed the transparent gloves the Loo wore, and the needles impaled at each fingertip. The hand touched his neck, and muscles quivered, responsive again, but only enough for speech.
“Answer me, furry.”
“I understand.”
“Do you also understand that if word of this little deception gets out, the Act will be executed?” asked Lord Jal, his tone casual but his eyes hard as glass.
“Yes,” said Kirtn. It was all he said, but the barely suppressed violence in his voice made Lord Jal step back involuntarily.
“Remember that,” said the Loo lord, “or before you die I’ll separate you from your furry hide one thin strip at a time.” He turned his back and pressed a stud at his belt. “Be yourself,” he snapped at the illusionist.
I’sNara’s appearance wavered, then became Yhelle again. In a moment, a guard appeared at the archway, called by the signal on Jal’s belt.
“Lord?” said the guard.
“Pick up this slave,” said Jal, nudging Rheba with his foot. “Follow me.”
“Yes, lord.”
Kirtn raged silently, helplessly, as he watched Rheba vanish down the hallway, carried off like a sack of grain at the command of a Loo lord.
XXII
The stone floor was cold. The chains around Rheba’s ankles, wrists and neck were made of a metal alloy that drained heat out of her everywhere it touched. The clammy stone walls and floor were a little better, but she did not appreciate that fact. She was unconscious, curled in a fetal position on the floor, instinctively trying to preserve body warmth.