by Sharon Lee
Tor An took a careful breath. "What is it," he asked carefully, "you would have me do for you?"
The scholar lifted her face and smiled at him and his heart lifted.
"A small thing, Pilot, I assure you! It is necessary that I undo the harm that mine enemies have done. I must assure my master that I am true and hold him in no less esteem now than when I sat at his feet and snatched the pearls of wisdom as they fell from his lips. The best way to do this, of course, is to send a gift." She looked at him expectantly.
Tor An blinked. "A gift," he repeated.
"Indeed! And here we may marvel anew at my patron's wisdom and foresight! For I will tell you that I did say to her, when she would press upon me the specimen she had engineered with her own hands and its keeper-kobold—When I did protest and ask what a poor scholar might do with such trappings of wealth and plenty, do you know what she said to me, Pilot? Why she said, 'I have faith, Maelyn, that you will find a good use for both.'" She smiled at him again, her chin resting on the cat's head.
"A good use for both," she repeated. "And so I have found an excellent use for both! They shall be my gift to Master dea'Syl, which will assure him of my constancy and my unflagging respect."
"You mean to make your master a gift of Jela and, and the tree?" Tor An said slowly.
"Certainly!" The scholar said. "The tree is a worthy gift—indeed, I have its pedigree, which you will of course bear with you and place into the master's own hands."
"And—Jela?" Tor An inquired.
"Jela tends the tree," the scholar said patiently. "It is the role for which it was designed. Surely, you don't expect that Master dea'Syl will wish to get dirt under his fingernails from tending a plant? Of course not," she answered her own question. "So it is quite settled. Tomorrow, when I betake myself to my office and my work, you shall bear the tree—Jela, of course, will carry it—with its pedigree and the letter I shall write for you, in secrecy, to Master dea'Syl. Will you do this for me, Pilot? I swear you will be well-rewarded."
"I wonder," he said, somewhat breathlessly, "how I will find my way...secretly... to Master dea'Syl."
"Ah, that is the fortunate circumstance! Scholar vel'Anbrek will serve as your guide. You will meet him at the proving grounds tomorrow morning as the Day Bell sounds. He will take you by the quiet ways to the master's rooms."
"I—see," he said, though he was moderately certain that he did not. He shot another look at the slumbering soldier, though how anyone could sleep through—and there, a broad hand was outlined against the shadow, fingers spelling out say yes.
Tor An cleared his throat and brought his gaze back to the scholar. The color had returned to her face, though the shock-marks still showed livid.
"I will be happy to perform this service for you, Scholar," he said, softly.
Twelve
Elsewhen and Otherwhere
THEY RAN, ROOL SIFTING the ley lines so quickly they blurred into a single strand of event, all possibility melded to one purpose. He trusted her to keep them viable as they phased from plane to plane and concentrated upon the pattern of the lines, choosing this one, rejecting that, sorting consequences at white-hot speed.
There! He snatched a line, whipping them into the seventh plane, snatched another, phased to the third, glissaded to the fifth. The lines sang about them as small probabilities shifted, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, water was turned into wine.
And still the Shadow pursued them. Suns froze where it fell; planets trembled in their orbits. The fabric of space stretched thin, the ley lines themselves beginning to attenuate.
Rool chose a slender line describing a pocket possibility, rode it to the end, dropped to the fourth plane and doubled back, directly through the tattered skirts of Shadow.
It was a bold move—very nearly too bold. Cold touched him, burning his essence as a kiss of frost will blacken a flower. At the core of his being, he heard her scream.
Blindly, he chose a line, another, a third—phased, and fell to his knees onto silken silt, her slender body cradled in his arms.
"Love?"
Her eyes fluttered, amber and dazed.
"You must not risk yourself," she breathed.
He laughed, short and bitter, and lowered her onto the soft silt.
"I risk myself and wound my heart," he said. "Quickly, do what you must to replenish your essence. We dare not—"
She extended a thin hand, placed cool fingers against his lips.
"Hush. What place is this?"
He lifted his head, blinking in the glare of the local star—and again as the breeze flung grit into his face. All around was desolation—rock, wind, sand. Three paces to the right of their resting place lay a huge, bleached trunk, the stubs of what had once been mighty branches half-buried in the silt.
"The homeworld of the ssussdriad, or I am a natural man," he murmured, and looked into her dear eyes. "Art ready, love? The Iloheen will not be long behind us."
"I am ready, yes," she said softly, and took his hand, weaving her small fingers between his.
He bent his head and kissed her small hand. "We phase, then," he said, and gathered himself, noting as he did that the Shadow's kiss had done more damage than he had—
"No." Her will rang across his, anchoring him to the physical. "Here. This place. This time. This plane."
He looked at her, dread filling him; raised his head and looked out over the desert once more. Sterile, dust-shrouded, devoid of any tiniest flicker of life...
"I cannot prevail here," he whispered.
She laughed, high and gay and sweet. "Of course you cannot," she said. "And neither can I."
"Love—" he reached for her even as he extended his awareness, searching for the shape of a likely line—
Static filled his senses. He snapped back wholly to the dead world, the dying sun, the gritty breeze.
"We are found," he said, and his lady smiled.
"The great Iloheen comes to us," she murmured. "Help me to rise."
He lifted her to her feet, and braced her while she gained her balance.
"Behind me now," she said, "and cede yourself to me."
He stepped back, took one deep breath of sand-filled air, closed his physical eyes, and centered. Before him, glowing gold within the ether, was the channel. He threw open the doors of his heart, and sent his essence to her in a tide of living green.
Static distorted the galaxy. The dying sun flared through a quick rainbow of color, growing large and orange. The gritty breeze gusted and died.
A Shadow fell over the land.
Foolish halfling, the Iloheen sent. Didst think to elude ME?
The cold grew more bitter still, until the very light froze in its path, and Rool Tiazan tasted the tang of oblivion. His lady, bold and courageous, held them aloof, his energy pooled and secret behind her shields.
Have you no answer for the one who gave you life? The Iloheen's thought struck her shields like a storm of comets—yet they held. They held. And still she kept their true seeming hidden, showing them obdurate and dull, waiting...
Be unmade, then, flawed and treacherous child!
Darkness fell. The stars froze, screaming, in their courses. The ley lines shriveled, sublimating into the blackness. Rool Tiazan felt his body begin to unravel, the golden channel that linked him, essence-to-essence with she whom defined the universe and all that was good among the planes of existence—the golden link decayed, frayed, un—
In the darkness of unmaking, his lady dropped her shields.
A lance of pure light opposed the darkness. The stars sang hosanna; the fog dissipated; and the ley lines reformed, binding the universe and all that lived into the net of possibility. Rool Tiazan felt his heart stutter into rhythm, and drew a breath of warm, sweet air.
Darkness thrust, light countered—fire rained in frozen flames at the congruence of their fields.
Again, darkness struck. The light feinted, twisted—and struck! The Iloheen howled, and withdrew,
winding its dark energies into one thick skein of oblivion.
His lady, cool and slender blade of light, closed the channel that linked them.
Rool Tiazan screamed as the Iloheen's blow gathered and fell; saw the brave blade rise to meet it—
—and shatter, into nightmare and ice.
He screamed again as his essence unraveled, and his consciousness splintered into dark teardrops.
Thirteen
Osabei Tower Landomist
"She's mad," Tor An said to Jela's broad back.
The soldier grunted as he shifted tree and pot out of the corner, preparatory, Tor An supposed, to delivering it to Master dea'Syl, whoever and wherever he might be. How they were to transport the tree was another question, for if there was a cargo pallet or luggage sled within the confines of the scholar's quarters, it was masquerading as a desk, or a chair, or a cat.
"Mad," he repeated, with emphasis. Jela, the tree apparently situated to his satisfaction, straightened and turned 'round to face him.
"You say that like there's something wrong with being mad," he commented.
Tor An glared at him, and the soldier laughed, softly, soothing the air between them with his big hand.
"I'm not the one to complain to about the scholar's state of mind," he said. "Think about it—I'm here to steal a set of equations that might save the galaxy from an enemy we can't possibly overcome."
Tor An caught his breath. "Is that certain? I thought—the soldiers were being pulled back to a more defensible—"
Jela sighed. "The soldiers are being pulled back to defend the Inner Worlds because the Inner Worlds bought the High Command," he said, with a sincerity that was impossible to doubt. "The Inner Worlds think to buy themselves free of the fate that overtook the Ringstars, but what they've bought—at the price of countless lives and numberless planets—is a few years, at most. The decrystallization process is going faster, according to my information; it's as if whatever technique they're using, it's cumulative, so the more space the Enemy decrystalizes, the more they can decrystalize..."
Tor An glanced aside. The cat was sitting on the counter; he extended a finger, received a polite nose-touch. "So, are we all mad, then?" he murmured, skritching the cat's ear.
Jela laughed, a low, comfortable rumble deep in his chest. "Well, let's see. We're in a fight to destroy an enemy that can't be defeated." A pause, as if he were seriously weighing the merit of this statement, then, "Yes, Pilot. We're all mad."
Tor An sighed. "What shall we do?" he asked, the cat purring against his fingers.
"Unless you have an idea that seems more likely to move us along the road to victory than the one the scholar gave us, I suggest we follow our orders."
Tor An thought, briefly, of the back garden at home. He wanted nothing more, in that moment, but to sit under his piata tree, nibble on a fruit; perhaps nap, and awaken some while later blanketed in fallen leaves, safe, cherished and protected.
Gone forever, he thought. And if there were a chance—even a vanishingly small chance—that he might preserve someone else's tree and garden, was that chance not worth taking?
And it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.
Reluctantly, he stopped skritching the cat and picked up the sealed packet the scholar had left on the counter. He weighed it in his hand before slipping it away into an inner pocket, and turned again to face Jela.
The soldier gave him a critical look, for all the worlds like Melni making certain that he hadn't done his shirt up crooked, back when he was still in the schoolroom, and held up a blunt finger.
"You're missing a very important accessory, Pilot. A moment, if you please."
He moved across the room, absurdly light for so bulky a man, rummaged in the scholar's rucksack and was back, holding in his big hand a discipline bracelet the twin of that which Scholar tay'Nordif wore. Tor An frowned.
"Problem?" Jela asked.
Not quite able to mask his distaste, Tor An took the bracelet and turned it over in his hands, looking for the hair-thin wires that would pierce his skin and bond him to—
He looked up and met the soldier's bland black eyes.
"Two problems, in fact," he answered crisply. "One, you are not a kobold. Two, this bracelet lacks the coding wires. It won't work."
"Well," Jela said, untroubled, "that makes it a match for Scholar tay'Nordif's, now doesn't it? And as for me, I'm a kobold, sure enough." He rubbed the ball of his thumb over the ceramic threads woven into his chest. "If it falls that way, discipline me, Pilot. I'll trust your judgment."
Tor An sighed, and used his chin to point at the tree. "How are we to transport that?"
"I'll carry it," said Jela.
"Carry it? It must weigh—"
"I'm strong, Pilot, never fear. I've carried that tree since it was shorter than I am."
"But—"
"And we'd best be going," Jela continued, moving over to the subject of the discussion and flexing his arms. "It wouldn't be polite to keep Scholar vel'Anbrek waiting."
He went down on a knee, wrapped his arms around the pot, heaved—and came to his feet, tree cradled in his arms. "After you, Pilot," he said, under no apparent strain.
Tor An took one last, reflexive look around the room. Not a very tidy room, truth told, and Lucky nowhere in sight. The first irritated him—he was a meticulous lad—and the second saddened him—he would have liked to have stroked the cat one more time, for luck.
Well. He pushed the unaccustomed annoyance of the bracelet up over his shirt until it stuck, and smoothed the sleeve of his jacket over it. Jela stood, face slack and stupid, holding the tree as if it weighed slightly less than nothing. Tor An sighed, went forward, opened the door and led the way down the hall.
* * *
"True pilot timing," Scholar vel'Anbrek snapped, "cut to the last fraction of a second." He moved off hurriedly, robe flapping around his legs. "Come along, we must needs be away from the arena before it begins."
"Before what begins?" asked Tor An, moving determinedly to the scholar's side. A quick glance over his shoulder reassured him that Jela was keeping up, even at his stolid "kobold" walk.
"Ah, she didn't tell you the whole of it, did she? Just as well. This way, now, and be quick!"
They rushed single-file down a hall so thin Tor An's shoulders each brushed a wall. A single ceramic track down the center of the floor—a supply tunnel, Tor An thought. Another quick glance showed Jela proceeding sideways, somewhat the slower for the tight quarters. Ahead, the scholar darted right into another tunnel.
An alarm sounded, frighteningly loud.
Tor An stumbled, but the walls were too close to allow of a fall. At least this time he did not mistake it for a ship's system in ultimate distress. This time, he knew what it was—and his blood grew cold.
"Scholar tay'Nordif," he gasped and the old man turned his head, with no decrease in speed.
"Come along, Pilot! This is more important than a single scholar—or even a whole Tower full of scholars too blind to see aught but their own comfort and petty quarrels. This way!"
He dodged into a left-tending hallway as the second alarm sounded, opened a door and waved them inside. "Keep a good hold on the strap! This lift is calibrated for cargo."
It was a nasty trip up, and how Jela bore it, with no hand free to steady himself, Tor An could not imagine. The alarm sounded for the third time during the short, brutal lift, and then they were following Scholar vel'Anbrek down a tunnel the twin to those below-deck, the track set into the floor shiny with wear.
"In here!" the scholar snapped, and pushed through another door.
The hall beyond was dim, the air slightly sour, the track dusty with disuse. Their passage disturbed moths and cobwebs—and then the scholar halted, put his hand against a section of blank wall like all the rest of the blank wall up and down the tunnel—and waited. Tor An came up beside him and a moment later Jela arrived at his shoulder. Still the scholar stood with his hand against the wal
l—which suddenly showed a moire pattern of golden motes—and disappeared altogether.
Scholar vel'Anbrek stepped through the opening. Tor An hesitated, then bethought himself of Scholar tay'Nordif, risking her life in order that this opportunity be made available, and followed the old scholar into the unknown.
* * *
THE SEATS FILLED quickly, many of the scholars with breakfast cups and pastry sticks in hand. There was a murmur, a rising wave of voices exclaiming over a third challenge coming so close upon the heels of the others—and then rising again, as those who had already downed their first cup or two of morning tea recalled that the challenge which had deprived the Tower of Prime tay'Palin had been but the last of many...