The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  Luken pursed his lips. "I'll speak with the boy," he said eventually, "and let you know his wishes." He sent a sharp look at Daav. "Not that he isn't fond of his cousin Er Thom, nor that young Shan doesn't look a likely child. But I would dislike going against the boy's strong inclination, if he has one."

  "Certainly." Daav inclined his head. "You do well by us, cousin," he said in sudden and sincere gratitude. "I find you honor and ornament the clan."

  Luken blushed, dark gold spreading across his cheeks. He glanced aside and picked up his glass.

  "Kind of you," he muttered, and drank.

  It took two rather hefty swallows to recover his address. He glanced at Daav.

  "I'll hear from you, then?" he said hopefully.

  Daav inclined his head. "I expect you may hear from me as soon as tomorrow."

  "Good," said Luken. "Good." He rose. "You're a busy man, so I'll be taking my leave. Thank you."

  "No trouble," Daav said, rising also and coming 'round the desk. He forestalled Luken's bow by the simple maneuver of taking him by the arm and turning him toward the door.

  "Allow me to see you to your car, cousin . . ."

  IT WAS RATHER LATE.

  Daav had no clear notion of precisely how late. He had put the lights out some time back, preferring the room in firelight while he drank a glass or two in solitude.

  Firelight had become emberlight and the glass or two had become a bottle. Daav leaned his head against the back of his chair and thought of his brother's cold face and unwarm bow.

  Gods, what have I done?

  He closed his eyes against the emberlight and strove not to think at all.

  "You're going to have a dreadful headache tomorrow," the sweet, beloved voice commented.

  With exquisite care, Daav opened his eyes and lifted his head. Er Thom was perched on the arm of the chair across the counterchance board. Someone had thrown a fresh log on the fire. His hair gleamed in the renewed brightness like a heart's ransom.

  "I have," Daav said with a certain finicking precision, "a dreadful headache now."

  "Ah." Er Thom smiled. "I rather thought you might."

  "Have you come to cut my gizzard out?" Daav asked, dropping his head back against the chair. "I believe there's an appropriately dull knife in the wine table."

  "I don't know that I'm particularly skilled at gizzard-cutting," Er Thom said after a moment. "Shall you like some tea?"

  "Gods, at this hour? Whichever it is—" He moved a hand in negation. "No, don't disturb the servants."

  "All right," Er Thom said softly. He rose and vanished into the fringes of the firelight. A minor clatter was heard from the direction of the wine table. Daav wondered somewhat blearily if the other had decided upon the knife after all.

  "Drink with me, brother."

  Daav opened his eyes. Er Thom was before him, limned in the firelight, holding two cups.

  "Thank you," Daav said around a sudden start of tears. He accepted a cup and drank—a full mouthful—swallowed—and laughed. "Water?"

  "If you drink any more wine you're likely to fall into a snore," Er Thom commented, lifting his own glass. There was a gleam of purple on his hand.

  "Reinstated, darling?"

  "My mother attempts to accept the outcome equitably." He smiled. "She speaks of—perhaps—accepting the child."

  "Gracious of her." Daav sighed. "Will your Anne be happy with us, do you think?"

  The smile grew slightly wider. "I believe it may be contrived."

  "Hah. So long as my work as delm is not entirely confined to scrambling planetary traffic and threatening my kin with chains—" He shuddered and looked up into bright violet eyes.

  "The window was—distressing."

  Er Thom inclined his head. "I apologize for the window," he murmured. "But there is no way to close it, you see, once you are climbed through."

  Daav grinned. "I suppose that's true."

  Er Thom tipped his head. "May I know what Balance the delm may require of me?"

  "Balance." Daav closed his eyes; opened them. "How shall the delm require Balance, when it was he did not listen to what you would tell him?"

  Er Thom frowned. "I do not believe that to be the case," he said in his soft, serious way. "How should any of us have expected such an extraordinary occurrence? Recall that I gave nubiath'a! Indeed, it may be that such—adversity—as we met with enlivened and strengthened our bond." He bowed, slightly and with whimsy.

  "Delm's Wisdom."

  "Amuse yourself, do." Daav tried for a look of severity, but his mouth would keep twitching in a most undignified manner. He gave it up and grinned openly.

  "All's well that ends well," he quoted in Terran, "as your lady might agree. Tell her: Be fruitful and multiply."

  Er Thom laughed. "Tell her yourself. We shall want the delm to See us tomorrow, after all."

  "Whatever for? I distinctly recall Master Healer Kestra informing us that your arrangement is beyond the ken of command or Code."

  "Ah, but, you see," Er Thom said earnestly. "There is local custom to be satisfied. I would not wish to be backward in any attention the world might deem necessary."

  "Certainly not. Korval has its standards, after all."

  Er Thom laughed.

  Chapter Forty

  The first attack was a hammer-blow at the Ringstars. A dozen worlds were lost at once, including that which was home to the dramliz and the place the Soldiers call Headquarters. There was rumor of a seed-ship—as high as a hundred seed-ships—sent out from Antori in the moment before it died. Much good it may do them.

  Jela says The Enemy means to smash communications, then gobble up each isolated world in its own good time.

  Jela says anyone with a ship is a smuggler, now. And every smuggler is a soldier.

  I've never seen anything like this . . .

  —Excerpted from Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book

  IT WAS EARLY, the halls yet empty of scholars, save the one who walked at Er Thom's side. When they came to a certain door, he stood away, and watched her bend over the lock, quick brown fingers making short work of the coding.

  Straightening from her task, she flung him a smile and caught his hand, pulling him with her into a tiny, cluttered office smelling of book-dust and disuse.

  Just within, he paused, holding her to his side while he scanned the shabby and book-crammed interior. Satisfied that they were alone, he allowed them another step into the room, then turned to lock the door.

  Anne laughed.

  "As if we were in any danger among a crowd of fusty professors!"

  Er Thom bit his lip. Of course, she did not recall. He had not doubted the wisdom of immediately summoning a Healer to ease Anne's distress. To be abducted at gunpoint, to have one's child and one's own life threatened, to make one's bow to necessity and take a life—these things were certainly best quickly smoothed from memory and peace restored to a mind unsettled by violence.

  Yet now it seemed that in doing her the best service he might, he had placed her in the way of future peril. One madman with a gun did not necessarily argue another, but it was only wise to be wary.

  And difficult to be wary when the memory of past danger was washed clean away.

  "Er Thom?" She was frowning down at him, concern showing in her eyes. "What is it?"

  He caught her other hand in his and looked seriously into her face.

  "Anne, I wish you will recall—I am in very earnest, denubia! I wish you will recall that Liad is not a—safe place. There are those who love Terrans not at all. There are those who actively hate—who may seek to do you harm for merely being Terran, or for the direction your work takes you . . . Liadens—there is pride, you understand. It pleases many to think Liad the center of the universe and all others—lower. With some, this pleasure becomes obsession. Korval's wing is broad, but it is far better to be vigilant, and avoid rousing the delm to Balance."

  "Better to be safe than sorry," Anne murmured and inclined her head. "I under
stand, Er Thom. Thank you." She hesitated; met his eyes once more.

  "I knew how to use a pistol, once. I'm willing to brush up and carry a gun."

  He smiled in relief. "That would be wise. I shall teach you, if you like it."

  "I like it." She grinned, squeezed his hands and let them go, crossing the room in three of her long strides and taking a framed flat-pic down from the wall between two reverent palms.

  "Er Thom," she said, as she lay the frame face down and began to ease the back away. "Aren't you Liaden?"

  He drifted over to the desk, watching her face, downturned and intent upon her task.

  "We are Korval," he said, softly. "You understand, we are not originally from the Old World—Solcintra, it was called. Cantra came from the Rim, so it states in the logs, and her co-pilot in the endeavor which raised Liad—young Tor An had been from one of the Ringstars, sent to Solcintra for schooling. Poor child, by the time his schooling was done, the Ringstars were no fit place for return."

  Anne had raised her head and was watching him intently. "Every other clan on Liad can trace its origins to—Solcintra?"

  "Yes, certainly. But Solcintra was only one world in what had been a vast empire." He smiled into her eyes. "And not a particularly—forward—world, at that."

  "You know this," she said, very carefully, "historically?"

  He bowed. "It is of course necessary for one who will be Korval Himself—and for one who may be delm—to have studied the log books of Cantra yos'Phelium, as well as the diaries of the delms who had come before."

  She bit her lip. He had a sense of—hunger?—and a realization that, for one who studied as Anne did, such information as he had just shared might be pearls of very great price.

  "One empire," she murmured. "One—language?"

  "An official tongue, and world-dialects. Or so the logs lead one to surmise." He showed her his empty palms. "The logs themselves are written in a language somewhat akin to Yxtrang—so you see they are not for everyone. Korval is counted odd enough, without the world deciding that we are spawn of the enemy."

  "May I see them?" Anne's voice was restrained, intense. "The logs."

  Er Thom smiled. "It is entirely likely that you will be required to see them, beloved."

  Her face eased with humor. "Home study for the new Dragon," she quipped, and turned her attention once more to the task of easing the back from the rickety old frame.

  This went slowly, for Anne seemed as intent on keeping the frame in one piece as the frame itself seemed determined to fail. Her patience won in the end, however, and the frayed backing was set aside.

  Atop the pic-back lay one thin square of gray paper.

  Anne picked it up, frowning at the single row of letters.

  "What is it?" Er Thom wondered, softly, so not to shatter her concentration.

  "A notation," she murmured. "I don't quite—" She handed him the paper, shaking her head in perplexity.

  A notation, indeed, and one as familiar to him as his brother's face.

  "Lower half of the second quadrant, tending toward eighty degrees." He read off the piloting symbols with ease and raised his eyes to Anne. "Alas, I lack board and screens."

  She stared at him. He saw the idea bloom in her eyes in the instant before she caught his arm and turned him with her toward the overfull bookshelves.

  "Lower half," she murmured, moving toward the shelves, her eyes on the books as if they might up and bolt if she shifted her gaze for a moment. " . . . of the second quadrant . . ." She knelt and lay her hand along a section of spines, eyes daring to flash a question to him.

  He inclined his head. "Just so."

  "Tending," Anne ran her fingers lightly, caressingly, down the spines. "Tending. Toward eighty de—Dear gods."

  It was a small, slim volume her forefinger teased from between two of its hulking kinsmen, bound in scuffed and grit-dyed leather, looking for all the worlds like someone's personal debt-book that had been left out in the rain.

  Anne opened it reverently, long fingers exquisitely gentle among the densely-noted leaves, her face rapt as she bent over this page and that.

  Er Thom moved to kneel beside her. "Is this the thing you were seeking?"

  "I think . . ." She closed it softly and held it cupped in her hand as if it were a live thing and likely to escape. "I'll have to study it—get an accurate dating. It looks—it looks . . ." Her voice died away and she bent her head sharply over the little book with a gasp.

  "Anne?"

  She shook her head, by which he understood he was to be still and allow her time for thought.

  "Er Thom?" Very unsteady, her voice, and she did not raise her face to his.

  "Yes."

  "There was a man—a man with a gun. I—the grad student. He killed Doctor yo'Kera. For this. To suppress this." At last she raised her head, showing him a face drawn with sorrow and eyes that sparkled tears.

  "He wanted the information from me—threatened Shan." She swallowed. "I killed him. Fil Tor Kinrae."

  "Yes." He reached out and stroked her cheek, lay his fingers lightly along her brow. "I know."

  She bit her lip and looked deep into his eyes, her own showing desperation. "They're going to come and demand balance," she said. "His clan."

  Er Thom lifted an eyebrow. "More likely they will come and most abjectly beg Korval's pardon for the error of owning a child who would abduct and threaten yourself and our son." He moved his shoulders. "In any wise, it is a case for the delm."

  "Is it?"

  "Indeed it is," he returned firmly. "Shall I fetch you a Healer now, Anne?"

  "You did that before." She bent her head and reached out to take his hand, weaving their fingers together with concentration, the ring he had given her scintillant against her skin.

  "I think," she said softly. "I think I'll try it without—forgetting. It's not—it seems very—misty. As if it happened a long time ago . . ." She looked up with a smile. "If things start to slip, I'll let you know. Okay?"

  "A bargain. And in the meanwhile you shall practice with your pistol, eh?"

  "I'll practice with my pistol," she promised, and glanced down at the little book she held so protectively. She looked back to Er Thom's face. "Will—the delm—want to suppress—assuming it's real!—this information?"

  "The last I had heard, the delm was advised by his grandmother in matters such as these," Er Thom said carefully. "That being, you understand, Grandmother Cantra. Her philosophy, as seen through the logs, leads me to believe that the delm will not wish to suppress anything of the sort, though he may very well have certain necessities with regard to the manner in which it is made available to the world." He inclined his head. "For the good of the clan."

  "I—see." One more glance at the book, a brilliant look into his eyes and a warm squeeze of her hand. "Well, it's too valuable to stay here, so I guess I'll just drop it in the delm's lap before we go on our honey-trip." She grinned. "Which reminds me, if we don't move soon, we're going to be late for our own wedding."

  "Now that," Er Thom said, "would be very improper. I suggest we leave immediately."

  "I suggest," Anne murmured, swaying lightly toward him, "that we leave in just a minute."

  "Much more appropriate," he agreed, and raised his face for her kiss.

  SCOUT'S PROGRESS

  For the binjali crew:

  past, present and future

  Chapter One

  Typically, the clan which gains the child of a contract-marriage pays a marriage fee to the mating clan, as well as other material considerations. Upon consummation of contract, the departing spouse is often paid a bonus.

  Contract-marriage is thus not merely a matter of obeying the Law, but an economic necessity to some of the Lower Houses, where a clanmember might be serially married for most of his or her adult life.

  —From "Marriage Customs of Liad"

  "SINIT, MUST YOU read at table?"

  Voni's voice was clear and carrying. It was counted a good
feature, Aelliana had heard, though not so pleasing as her face.

  At the moment, face and voice held a hint of boredom, as befitted an elder sister confronted with the wearisome necessity of disciplining a younger.

  "No, I'm just at a good part," Sinit returned without lifting her head from over the page. She put out a hand and groped for her teacup.

  "Really," Voni drawled as Aelliana chose a muffin from the center platter and broke it open. "Even Aelliana knows better than to bring a book to table!"

  "It's for anthropology," Sinit mumbled, fingers still seeking her cup. "Truly, I am nearly done, if only you'll stop plaguing me—"

  "If you keep on like that," Aelliana murmured, eyes on her plate, "your teacup will be overset, and Ran Eld will ring down a terrific scold. Put the book aside, Sinit, do. If you hurry your breakfast you can still finish reading before your tutor comes."

  The youngest of them sighed gustily, and closed the book with rather more force than necessary.

  "I suppose," she said reluctantly. "It is the sort of thing Ran Eld likes to go on about, isn't it? And all the worse if I had spilt my tea. Still, it's a monstrous interesting book—I had no idea what queer folk Terrans are! Well," she amended, prudently sliding the book onto her lap, "I knew they were queer, of course—but only imagine marrying who you like, without even a word from your delm and—and kissing those who are not kin! And—"

  "Sinit!" Voni put a half-eaten slice of toast hastily back onto her plate, her pretty face pale. She swallowed. "That's disgusting."

  "No," Sinit said eagerly, leaning over her plate, to the imminent peril of her shirt-ribbons. "No, it's not disgusting at all, Voni. It's only that they're Terran and don't know any better. How can they behave properly when there are no delms to discipline and no Council of Clans to keep order? And as for marrying whomever one pleases—why that's exactly the same, isn't it? If one lives clanless, with each individual needing to make whatever alliance seems best for oneself—without Code or Book of Clans to guide them, how else—"