by Ann Maxwell
“Before you kill us,” said f'lTiri, “remember that we are slaves like you. Like you, we had to obey men we hate.”
“I’m not planning on killing you,” said Rheba. “M/dere will just knock you out. By the time you wake up, the rebellion will be too far along for you to warn anyone.”
I’sNara moved slightly, drawing a rich snarl from a clept. She stared at Rheba with clear, colorless eyes, but when she spoke there was emotion in her voice. “Let us go! We have a right to try for freedom too!”
“Slaves don’t have rights,” said f’lTiri, his voice flat. “Don’t ask anything, tura i’sNara.”
Emotion drained out of i’sNara, leaving only emptiness. She did not move again. F'lTiri’s body twitched as though he would go to her, but a clept’s bared teeth made movement certain death.
Rheba hesitated, wanting to trust the Yhelle illusionists, yet not wanting to jeopardize whatever chance the Act might have. “Can you appear to be J/taals?” she asked suddenly.
The illusionists wavered, then reformed. There was a murmur of surprise as the J/taals found themselves holding what appeared to be two other J/taals. The clepts rose to their feet, sniffed, then snarled again. The illusion was visual only—touch, smell and hearing were not affected.
Rheba looked at Kirtn. He whistled a puzzled affirmative. Whatever she had in mind was agreeable to him. Like her, he had seen enough death on Deva to last him ten lifetimes.
“You both know the Act,” said Rheba in a clipped voice. “You’ll be demons. If you say or do anything to call attention to yourselves, the clepts will kill you before any Loo lord can stop them.”
The captive “J/taals” murmured agreement They had no doubt of the clepts’ speed and ferocity.
“I don’t think anyone will notice two extra demons,” she said. “Except Dapsl. Where is he?”
“The Whip is with Lord Jal. Your mercenaries made him uncomfortable.” F’lTiri smiled, revealing the small, hard teeth of a J/taal. “When the gong sounds for us, he’ll be back.”
Rheba swore in Senyas. Fssa translated it into Universal and then into J/taal, embroidering her epithets with a Fssireeme’s creative glee. “Shut up, snake,” she snapped, “unless you know how we can get Dapsl to see two less J/taals.
Fssa was silent.
The captive J/taals shifted. The air shivered, then reformed around . . . nothing. The Yhelle illusionists had vanished.
“What–?” gasped Rheba.
A strained voice came from the place where i’sNara had stood. “This is our most difficult illusion. We can’t”—J/taals reformed and the voice became less harsh—“hold it for long, but it should get us onstage. Once there, Dapsl would not dare to stop the Act. The Loo-chim kills Whips that displease it.”
A gong sounded four times. The penultimate Act had ended.
This time Rheba did not hesitate. “You’ve just joined our Act. At the end of it, when Saffar kisses Hmel, the fires won’t dim out. I’ll send fire across the whole weather shield. That’s the signal for the rebellion to begin. In the confusion it will be easy for everyone to get offstage and into the tunnel. Ilfn and Lheket will be there. Follow them. If you’re still with us when we reach the spaceport, I’ll give you a ride home.”
F’lTiri laughed softly, a surprising sound from a J/taal face. “No wonder the mercenaries worship you. You’re as mad as they are. A ride home . . .” His voice broke on the last word and something close to fire burned behind his colorless eyes. He bowed his head. “We’ll follow you, J/taaleri.”
Dapsl’s strident voice came from the direction of the stage ramp as he shoved through the crowd, nerve wrangler dripping violet fire. At the first sound of his voice, both illusionists vanished. Other than the clepts’ great interest in two empty places in the room, it was as though the illusionists had never been in the room at all.
“You—i’sNara,” said Dapsl, pointing his whip at Rheba.
“Hurry it up.” The whip flicked over her hood, pulling it down. “Get that hair moving, damn you!”
Rheba had an instant of fear that Fssa would reveal himself. She felt the snake slide down and wind securely around her neck below the hood. Warmth flared on her skin as Fssa shifted his color to match the myriad golds of her hair and skin. She shook her head, freeing her hair. It lifted around her head in a silky, whispering cloud. The gesture cost her energy she could not spare, but satisfied Dapsl.
He turned his attention on Kirtn, looking at the Bre’n critically. “The scorched fur is a good touch, but you’ve still made the damned beast too handsome.”
Kirtn almost smiled.
“Well, it’s too late to adjust the illusion now. Go on, get on stage. If the female polarity is disappointed by the looks of the real furry, I’ll send you to her instead!” He glared at the rest of the Act. “Move!” he said in guttural J/taal. “The twin gong will sound and we’d better be ready! M/dur, where’s that damned crown?”
Rheba froze. She had forgotten about Rainbow.
M/dur reached inside his robe and pulled out what looked like a heavy, pitted necklace. It shifted in his hands, becoming thicker, more dense.
Dapsl glanced. “Why the bitch ever wanted that ugly thing in the first place—” He began making restive motions with his whip. “Onstage,” he said harshly. “Onstage!”
Rheba led the Act out of the room and up the ramp, hoping that no one would stumble over the two invisible illusionists in the rush. At every second she expected a cry of outraged discovery from the Whip. She was so intent on gaining the sanctuary of the stage before the illusionists lost their invisibility that she shoved roughly past a lord who was standing on the ramp. Too late she realized that the man was Lord Jal. She looked back over her shoulder. He was staring at her oddly, as though he suspected that reality rather than illusion had jostled him. Before he could protest, the Act gained the stage in a silent rush.
The gong rang twice. The Act began.
XXVI
Onstage the air was cool, smelling of rare perfumes and a whiff of lightning. Overhead, an invisible dome quivered silently, shielding the audience from random drops of rain. Thunder sounded suddenly in response to unseen lightning. The shield thickened, then relaxed; it was designed to supply only enough energy to meet the needs of the instant.
Rheba reached for the shield with immaterial hands. Her hair whipped and sparkled. Instantly she withdrew, leaving only the most meager tendril connecting her to the shield. She let energy trickle down, then shaped it to the requirements of the Act.
As the Act unfolded, the shield surged again, deflecting the building storm. Rheba’s fires leaped with the unexpected increase in power, drawing a gasp from the Loo audience. Silently she fought to damp out the unnecessary power. After several moments the shield—and the Act—returned to acceptable energy levels.
A part of her kept listening for Jal or Dapsl to give away the game, but no words were spoken except by Fssa. Dapsl stood just offstage, his whip lashing restlessly in his hands. If he suspected anything he kept it to himself. Nor did Jal reappear, although as a slave Act owner, he had a seat in the third row. The seat was empty.
Power surged as thunder rumbled overhead. Instantly she damped down. Even so, Kirtn’s outline flared in great tongues of gold. She put Jal and Dapsl from her mind, concentrating only on controlling the unruly, unpredictable energy source. After a struggle, she managed to capture enough energy to keep going until the end of the Act when she would be forced to tap the shield once again.
She stepped into the center of the stage, going through the motions of Saffar struggling with and then seducing Hmel. Thunder hammered the stage an instant after lightning slid over the protective shield. The audience did not notice; the saga of Saffar and Hmel was more compelling than mere lightning.
Purple and orange flames leaped around the J/taals, drawing a gasp from the watching Loos. If Dapsl noticed the two extra J/taals, he said nothing. Kirtn/Hmel reached between the writhing demons and brought out
the crown. When he set it on Rheba/Saffar’s head, the crown blazed with all of Rainbow’s pure colors. The crowd sighed with pleasure.
Rheba whistled the last notes of Bre’n harmony, then turned her face up to Kirtn’s. As his lips closed over hers, she allowed the demon fires to die. The crowd murmured in wonder as a lacework of burning gold light grew around the couple on stage. The light was not called for in the Act, nor did she realize that she had created the brilliant net of fire. All she knew was that she burned when Kirtn touched her, and he seemed to touch her everywhere.
Kirtn lifted his mouth and looked at her with eyes as gold as her akhenet lines, eyes ablaze like the fire dancer burning in his arms. With a wrench, discipline returned. Her eyes watched him, seething with nascent fire, urging a consummation that she could not name.
Dance.
The silent Bre’n command swept through her mind. The stage trembled with repeated thunder. Beneath the Loo-chim’s hands, the gong rang four times, signaling the end of the Act and the beginning of the Hour Between Years. Rheba laughed and reached for the rippling weather shield, drunk with fire dancer passion.
As she turned to face the astonished Loo, there was a soundless explosion of fire around her. Streamers of flame leaped from her hands. Her robe shriveled to ash and fell away, leaving her naked but for the akhenet lines blazing over her body. She laughed again, sheer delight at the energy coursing through her; and flames surged, limning her and the Bre’n in frighting tongues of fire.
Fssa spoke from her lashing hair, his voice as deafening as thunder and more terrible. The Act did not understand the words that scourged the Loo, castigating them for carnal sins. The Loo moaned and swayed in terror until the Imperial Loo-chim stood, surrounded by guards. Energy weapons glittered in the unnatural light.
Dance.
More emotion than command, Kirtn’s presence inflamed her. Fssa laughed maniacally, reveling in her incandescent hair. As lightning skidded on forked heels across the dome, she reached for more power—and brought down the end of the world.
The shield had surged to meet the demands of the storm; what she touched was raw force too powerful to channel, much less control. Reflexively she threw away the energy, deflecting it out across the amphitheater in gigantic dragon tongues of destruction. The screams that came where fire touched were drowned out by the awful roar of untrammeled energy blazing out from her hands.
Vaguely she heard Kirtn’s voice yelling at the Act to get out! off the stage! into the tunnel! run! and she felt Fssa ripped from her hair by a Bre’n hand; but it was all at a distance, a dream from another life. The only real thing was the shield raving over her head and the raw hot death deflected by her hands.
Energy weapons added their blue blaze to the hellish fires. She felt the coherent beams of light being born, growing in tight lines toward her, world slowing until she stood aside from herself and watched the individual atoms of deadly light form lines lengthening toward her. They were so ordered, so perfect, lethal in their exact resonance.
She curled the light back upon itself, atoms marching in a different rhythm, perfection destroyed. The beams went from blue to yellow-white, energy scattered, harmless. Then she touched the core of light and the weapons fused, useless. It was more efficient than merely deflecting the energy, and not too much more difficult.
Bre’n laughter curled around her, savage and infinitely sweet, wrapped in lightning. As though in answer, the storm broke with awesome ferocity. Shield power doubled, tripled, quadrupled, became a solid ceiling overhead. Too much power. She screamed and writhed like a snake on a spit but there was no relief, only energy molten in her, burning her. She deflected all but the smallest part of it, and even that part was agony. There was nothing but the primal roar of unleashed hell. The amphitheater was a white inferno capped by a shield seething at maximum output
Like a wounded animal, she struck back at the source of her pain. She turned energy from the shield back on itself as she had done with the weapons, creating countercurrents of force the shield was not built to withstand. Like her, the shield could deflect or use most of the energies battering it; but, like her, the shield always retained a part of the energies that touched it.
Assaulted from without by lightning and from within by a fire dancer, the shield exploded. Instantly rain slashed across the unprotected amphitheater, vaporizing where molten rock pooled sullenly. In the blue-white glare of lightning, Rheba looked out across the audience. The seats were empty of all but rain hissing over hot stone. She stared along the empty rows in disbelief. She had burned the slave lords of Loo to ash, and now a rain dancer’s storm was taking even that bitter remainder away. There was nothing left. Like Deva.
Ash and gone.
And the rain was tipped with ice that numbed to the bone. Dazed, unbelieving, she let Kirtn lead her from the steam-wreathed stage. She looked over her shoulder once, as though expecting the amphitheater to be filled again with the aristocracy of Loo, expected again to smell expensive perfumes and see Dapsl standing aside with his whip overflowing violent pain. She had hated them, all of them, but she had not intended to destroy them so completely.
She stumbled on the slick rock. Kirtn caught her. Silently she clung to him, needing his strength more now than she had a few minutes before. He carried her away from the stage.
The ramp into the tunnel was slippery with sleet. Rheba had deflected heat back out over the audience, protecting the slaves behind her at the expense of the slave masters in front. That was all that had saved the tunnel complex from becoming a crematorium.
The tunnel was deserted but for the people who had been injured in the first panicked flight from whatever had happened onstage. The injured screamed or moaned or were silent. Kirtn did not stop to help the casualties; there was nothing he could do for them. He accepted the fact grimly, knowing that the tunnel, like Deva, would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his long life.
The archway into the park was open, unguarded. Icy rain swept in on each gust of wind. Thunder belled in the enclosed hallway. Kirtn hesitated for an instant, then plunged into a night stalked by lightning. Rheba struggled in his grasp, silently demanding.
Put me down.
He set her on her feet, waited to be sure she was in control of herself, then led the way through the park at a hard run. Thunder came like battering fists. They were blinded by lightning that was too hot, too bright, too often, a violence that shattered buildings.
“Lheket’s out of control!” shouted Rheba, then realized that was why Kirtn was running her mercilessly through the night. Ilfn needed them.
Beyond the park, the streets were a chaos of storm and rebellion. In the black-and-white brilliance of Lheket’s hell-bringer, slaves paid off debts with a brutality that made Rheba grateful for the darkness between sheets of lightning. Destroying the weather shield over the amphitheater had caused an energy surge that had slagged the city’s power source. Imperiapolis was a city of darkness and death, powerless.
A group of men leaped out in front of Kirtn and Rheba. Lightning revealed their number and their savage intent but not whether they were Loo or slaves. Without breaking stride, Kirtn hit the group. Lightning reflected in his demon eyes, and his hands were a deadly thunder. Rain washed away the attackers’ screams.
Fire dancer and Bre’n ran on, untouched. Lightning lanced down so close that they smelled the stink of scorched stone and heard the hiss of vaporizing rain. Thunder was instantaneous, a hammer blow that drove them to their knees. Lightning slashed again and again, stirring the sky to a frenzy. Thunder became a living destruction tolling endlessly across the city. They could not stand and there was no place to hide. They held each other and waited to die.
Suddenly, silence and darkness closed over them. The wind moaned in long withdrawal, pulling the storm in its wake. Rain fell steadily, unmixed with ice.
Lheket’s dance had ended.
Rheba pushed herself to her feet wondering if the storm had been controlled at
the cost of Lheket’s life. She refused to think about it but tears blinded her just the same. Kirtn’s hand caught up hers, guiding her. Overhead, clouds reflected the ruddy light of fires burning out of control. That was all the light Bre’n eyes needed. She ran beside him, blindly trusting his sight
The spaceport seemed to retreat in front of them, carried off by clouds of steam writhing up from gutted buildings. Distant explosions sounded. The city smoked and seethed and devoured itself, fed by the hatred of slaves.
The spaceport was a shambles. It was impossible to tell the derelict yard from the main berth area. Ruined ships lay like toys, scattered by relentless lightning. Fires burned. In their sullen light, ships were black and scarlet Kirtn ran between the ships without hesitation, his eyes fixed on the Devalon rising out of the crimson light ahead. Protected by the larger hulks surrounding it, the Devalon had survived the storm. Kirtn and Rheba ran toward the haven promised by their ship.
Three shapes appeared out of nowhere, barring their way. Before Kirtn could react the shapes melted back. Clepts leaped up, making odd sounds of pleasure. The J/taals reappeared again, so close to Rheba that she gasped. She had forgotten how quick the J/taals could be—and how deadly.
M/dere bowed and handed Rheba a glittering shape. Fssa. With a cry of delight, she snatched up the snake and braided him into her hair. M/dur bowed and gave Rainbow to Kirtn. Rainbow pulsed with color, alive with the power it had absorbed before Kirtn flung it to the safety of J/taal’s hand.
“The rest of the Act?” demanded Kirtn.
“At the ship,” whistled Fssa.
“Ilfn? Lheket?”
A Bre’n whistled answered, but the whistle was not Fssa’s. Ilfn stepped slowly out of the dense shadows in front of the Devalon. In her arms was Lheket, unmoving.
“Alive,” whistled Ilfn proudly.
Kirtn’s answering whistle was a mixture of relief and rue. “Next time, don’t let him dance if we’re out in his storm.”