The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

And behind him—his partner, or the person his partner had died to become, not from some vague sense of obligation to the galaxy or life-as-it-was—or to honor the oath she had never, in truth, taken—but for him.

  Duty required him to move forward. Duty required him to leave her to die.

  She took rear-guard, he told himself. She knew the risks.

  And maybe that was so—and maybe it wasn’t. She’d known there were risks; she’d known, if he were to trust her, like she’d asked him, that there were good odds that neither one of them would finish this campaign alive. Rear-guard, though—Cantra yos’Phelium had never been a soldier.

  He closed his eyes.

  A co-pilot’s first care was for his pilot, which left the pilot to care for the ship and the passengers, if any. That was a protocol Cantra had known well.

  Trust . . . her voice whispered, faint and husky.

  He threw away all she had done—for him alone—if he turned his back on duty now.

  “Advance, Soldier,” he told himself. And again, “Advance.”

  His feet at least knew an order when it was said, and he was enough of a soldier—yet and still—to not wish to bear the shame of having been ordered thrice.

  So, he marched, shoulders square and hands ready, across the dusty floor, and into the maw of energy.

  TAY’WELFORD HAD FARED roughly at the hands of the crowd; a bruise darkened one cheek and there was blood on his robe. How much of the blood may have been his, Maelyn thought, was unclear. Certainly, he was not impeded in the speed with which he spun and locked the door, nor in the certainty with which he raised his blade and touched its pommel to his heart in ironic salute.

  “You made a dangerous gamble, did you not?” He inquired, advancing upon her slowly. “Did you think to find me so easily unseated? I am no green boy, maddened by his first dissolving. You, however—the last of a flawed line, and encapsulating all of them. Rash, heedless, vicious. Stupid. So stupid to have come here . . .”

  She gave a step—and another—before him, and that was wrong. He was trying to get her against the chairs . . . Biting her lip, she did not yield a third step; belatedly reaching to her sash and pulling the truth-blade free.

  tay’Welford inclined his head. “So you will fight now, will you?” He moved, blade flashing; she countered, clumsy and ineffectual, felt the pain on the right side of her face, and stumbled back a third step and a fourth, gasping. Her free hand went to her cheek, came away smeared with blood.

  Her opponent laughed. “Such an interesting choice. Meek, ineffectual, and ludicrous. It fetters you, does it not? In a moment, you’ll find that it has killed you.”

  “I don’t understand you!” she shouted at him, feeling the chairs against her back. She would have to attack, move him out of the way, get to the door—

  She lunged.

  Surprise drove him back a step, his blade weaving a bright dance, countering her attack, breaching her defense, slicing through cloth and into her arm.

  Screaming, she lunged again, his blade was fouled for a moment in her sleeve and she scored a strike of her own—red blood blooming on the side of his robe; he grunted, staggered, and she was past him, running for the door.

  She pressed her hand against the plate, but the blood on her palm fouled the reader and the lock remained engaged. Sobbing, she turned, back against the door, blade up, hilt slick with blood from the slash on her arm.

  tay’Welford smiled, crouched, one hand out, ready to grab her if she tried to dart past him, knife held almost casually in the other.

  “What shall I do, to sweeten your passage?” he murmured, eyes bright and utterly devoid of pity. “Ah, I know. Listen closely—I want the sense of this to strike deep, before I complete the lesson.” His smile widened.

  “‘Twas I killed Garen. She died as she had lived—a fool, and begging me not to harm you.”

  Trembling, she stared at him, seeing a curious waiting in those bright, pitiless eyes, unable to think of anything but that she was about to die at the hand of a madman—

  Pay your debts, baby, a woman’s voice seemed to whisper in her very ear. There ain’t no living with yourself, if you don’t.

  Tears stung her eyes; she blinked and they ran down her face, mingling with the blood.

  tay’Welford laughed, softly. “Yes, very good. Savor that a moment; I want you to die blighted.” The knife moved, leisurely.

  She ducked, taking the strike on her shoulder, coming in under his guard and setting her blade in his throat.

  “Veralt,” she hissed, though what the sense of the word was, she could not have said.

  His eyes widened, hand rising—and falling as he slumped to the floor, bright eyes fixed and dull.

  She stood there for a moment, swaying and bloody, then haltingly turned to deal with the door.

  FIFTEEN

  Landomist

  THERE WAS A MOMENT of extreme unpleasantness, as if he were being dismantled, molecule by molecule, followed by an instant of agony as he was abruptly jammed back together.

  Jela’s boots hit solid ‘crete. Inside his head, he saw a wall of fog rolling in from the ocean, obscuring cliffs and tree tops. Then, in the fog—a shape, small and indistinct, rapidly growing into a black dragon, flying strongly, breaking all at once out into the light . . .

  “Over here, M. Jela,” Master dea’Syl called softly.

  Shaking the memory of his transit away, he took quick stock. They were in a cargo shed, dim and in none-too-good repair; the light sources being the holes in the crumbling metal roof, and the pale, flickering orange light from the shortcut. The carry-chair hovered some two dozen steps to his right and ahead. He could see the outline of the tree, and the old man’s silhouette . . .

  “Where is Pilot yos’Galan?” he asked, moving forward quickly.

  “Here,” said a faint voice, and the boy stepped out of the deeper shadows beyond the chair.

  “The pilot had a difficult passage,” Master dea’Syl said smoothly. “And no shame to him. Many strong stomachs have been humbled by that walk, short as it is.” He raised a frail hand. “We are within the port, M. Jela. It is now yours to lead and mine to follow. The door is fifteen paces to the left of your position, and may require persuasion which I believe you are qualified to apply. While you are about that, I will deactivate the portal.”

  “Right.” He moved forward, located the door, tested the ancient opening mechanism and found it as the old man had suggested.

  “Stand back,” he said to Tor An, who had followed him, perhaps to offer aid. “I’m going to give it a push.”

  As it happened, three pushes were necessary to open it to a width the carry-chair could negotiate, and as the luck would have it, the roof didn’t come down on them as a result. Jela went through first, then waved his companions out.

  Before them spread the glittering expanse of Landomist Port. Jela looked to Tor An.

  “Where’s your ship, Pilot?”

  “Near, I’d think,” the boy said, standing forward briskly enough despite his pale face. “Ship’s fund was scarcely able to bear the cost of a berth in the private yards . . .” Eyes squinted against the light, he surveyed the situation, then raised a hand, pointing.

  “There! The Dejon Forty-Four in the third six-row. You can see the star-drake—”

  Jela looked. The ship was old, but in good repair. Sharpening his eyesight somewhat, he made out the words Light Wing, painted in bold bright letters along her side, and beneath, Alkia Trade Clan, Ringstars. The sigil, up near the nose, was a sinuous, winged reptile, a bright, stylized star held in each fore-claw.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and took a breath, trying to ease the dull ache in his breast. She deserved better of him, he thought, and another image formed inside his head; the slim, lethal golden dragon the tree had settled on as a description for Cantra, riding the high currents, questing and calling. He closed his eyes—sent a thought of Rool Tiazan receiving the linked pods which had sealed their alliance.
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  Again, the golden dragon, alone and calling for her absent comrades.

  She took rear-guard, he thought, and carefully built another picture: Wellik as they’d last seen him, dour and tall; a single brown star very nearly the color of his skin tatooed high on his left cheek. The tree projected interest. Encouraged, Jela continued with his picture, building the rest of Wellik’s office, star map and briefing table—and there, right next to the captain’s own desk, the tree, sitting honored and safe—

  The office dissolved; Wellik shifted form and became Jela himself, covered in sweat and sand, battle-blade to hand, cutting a trench ‘round the tree’s scrawny trunk. He bent down, got his hands under the bulb, heaved—and felt the strength of those roots, gripping the planet tight; no effort of his could possibly move it . . .

  “Captain Jela?” Tor An yos’Galan’s voice was tentative, as well, Jela thought wryly, it should be. He opened his eyes and manufactured a smile.

  “Sorry, Pilot. Truth told, my passage was a little rough, too.”

  The boy’s tight face eased a little. “I understand,” he said.

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  SHE HAD DONE THE best she could to bind her wounds, cutting strips from tay’Welford’s robe for bandages. Still, she was none too steady on her feet as she made her way down the quiet hallway, until she found a service door.

  It opened to her palm, and as luck would have it, the corridor beyond was empty. Not that it was likely to remain that way. Painfully, she pushed onward, breathing shallowly and ignoring the ragged blackness at the edge of her vision.

  Past the recycling room she went without encountering anyone, though she heard voices as she approached a branching of the hall. She proceeded slowly and peered ‘round the corner, spying a group of the Tower’s tiny servitors pushing trays and serving carts away from her down the right-hand hall. Leaning against the wall, she closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing until she could no longer hear them, then straightened and went on at a jog, bearing left, following the gleam of track set into the floor.

  Can’t be far, she thought. Can’t be far. Her undamaged hand moved, groping in her sash for—for . . . But Jela would have it, she thought, as her feet tangled and she fell hard against the wall. She got herself sorted and her feet moving in synch again, walking, now, just that, and all but unconscious until a bit of cool breeze against her slashed cheek woke her, and she smiled.

  The hall curved gently, widening into a work area. Empty delivery carts lined one side of the room; a cargo pallet, half unloaded, was in the center, attended by several of the Tower’s busy servitors. Another pallet, empty, was poised on the track by the sealed hatch, waiting to take the ride back to port for more goods.

  She staggered forward, ignoring the high-pitched shouts and the scurrying of the servitors. One got between her and the pallet, and she pushed him out of the way, feeling a distant pang as he fell and cried out.

  More shouts; she ignored them, even when voices not so high nor so childlike joined in. She extended a hand and hit the manual trigger a good one before she collapsed onto the pallet, bruising her slashed face, and wrapping her hands around the lifting bars as the hatch opened and the powerful suction grabbed the pallet and threw it at the port.

  “Your contact,” Jela said to Tor An yos’Galan, “is Captain Wellik, at the garrison on Solcintra.” He put a gentle hand on the boy’s arm. “I know you have no love of soldiers, especially the X Strains, but I personally vouch for Wellik. He’ll see and hear you.”

  “If,” the pilot said, voice taut, “I am allowed to see him, rather than being summarily shot.”

  “He’ll see you,” Jela said, as if there were no doubt of it, “because you’ll have the tree with you. Wellik will recognize it, and—”

  A series of pictures flared inside his head, hard enough to hurt, strong enough to obscure the sight of the ships and the port around him: The golden dragon, voice faint, calling against the fall of night. From the darkening sky, the black dragon swooped, behind and beneath her, bearing her up, moving them both toward a distant cliff-edge and the tree growing there, the scent of seed-pods clear and enticing on the wind . . .

  “M. Jela, are you well?” the old scholar asked sharply.

  He shook the pictures out of his head, and blinked the port back into existence.

  “Disagreement among the troop,” he muttered, and took a hard breath. “Pardon, sir. It’s been a long campaign.”

  “Longer for some than for others,” the old man said tartly. “If you are wounded, sir, you endanger the mission by concealing it.”

  Wounded? Almost, Jela laughed. In his head, the golden dragon drooped, wings dangerously close to the uneasy surface of the sea . . .

  He took another breath, trying to ease the tightness in his chest, and looked again to Tor An yos’Galan, who was watching him with a startlingly sapient gaze.

  “Perhaps,” the boy said softly, “I will not have the tree with me?”

  Jela sighed. “You’ll have a token, instead. And Wellik will see you, Pilot. My word on it.”

  “Ah.” There was a small pause, then. “Very well. Let us have it that Captain Wellik will accept the token and consent to see me. I am to tell him—?”

  “You are to tell him that Jela sends him the master of the equations, who is sworn to aid us in our project. You will say that Jela asks him to turn over to you the full amount Wellik owes from the last card game he played with Jela. You will then do as he instructs in regard to the master, after which, having been paid—which you will be!—you’re free to pursue your own life.”

  They were at the base of old Light Wing’s ramp. Jela held up a hand to stop the carry-chair and fixed Tor An with a stern eye.

  “Do you agree to this commission, Pilot?”

  The boy sighed, looked to the old master, and sighed again. “I agree,” he said, tiredly. “But what of you—and the tree?”

  “I—” Jela stopped. Duty, he thought—and shook his head. “I’m going back to the tower.”

  Tor An’s lips parted, eyes taking fire. “To bring away Scholar tay’Nordif?”

  “If I can,” he said reluctantly, and looked to the old man, expecting—ridicule, perhaps, or censure.

  Liad dea’Syl inclined his white head. “We all must do as our heart compels us,” he said, softly. “Allow me to lend you this chair, M. Jela. It can move much faster than a man afoot, even an M Series soldier at a run.”

  “Thank you,” Jela whispered, and stepped ‘round to the back of the chair. For the tree, he formed an image of Wellik as they had last seen him, holding in his wide palm a leaf from the tree. He raised a hand; two leaves detached themselves as his fingers touched them.

  “Thank you,” he whispered again, and carried the tokens to Tor An yos’Galan.

  “Now, M. Jela,” Master dea’Syl said, as Jela carried him up the ramp to Light Wing’s hatch, “pray attend me. The shortcut, as you style it, has been deactivated. However, there is still a quicker way to the tower than the slideways. Speed you to the market section, yonder—” he pointed out the long line of gleaming warehouses, bristling supply tubes and conveyers— “and follow the signs for the tradesmen entrances. Each tower has its own entrance, and you will be quickly brought to the Osabei dock by this means. After—you will contrive, I am certain.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Ahead, Tor An yos’Galan, the cat draped like a stole ‘round his neck, triggered the hatch and proceeded them into his ship—Captain’s Privilege. Jela carried the scholar within, through the lock and down the short hall to the piloting room.

  “Here,” Tor An said, folding out the jumpseat. “I regret there’s nothing better, Master, but—”

  “But a singleship is meant to be guided by one pilot’s hand,” the old man finished. “My piloting days were long ago, child. The jumpseat is well enough for me; I will enjoy observing you at your art.”

  Jela placed the old man carefully, stood back, saluted—

 
; “Go, M. Jela!” Master dea’Syl snapped.

  “I’m gone!” Jela responded—and he was.

  THE SMALY TUBE SPAT her pallet out; it lofted and slammed onto the feeder-tracker, the mags locking solid. Groaning, she raised her head, saw the stacker up ahead, opened her hands, slid off the pallet and dropped through the gap in the mags. She heard shouts, distantly. Then her head smacked ‘crete and she didn’t hear anything else.

  EYES NARROWED AGAINST the wind of their passage, Jela raced the carry-chair toward the gleaming line of warehouses. The tree, lashed to the cargo-plate, bent and danced, leaves fluttering like scarves. He caught the edge of an image of storm, boiling clouds and driving rain, and an echo of jubilation.

  Speeding, he reviewed his plan, such as he had one. First, to the trade transport, then to Osabei Tower. After he was in Osabei Tower—there were too many unknowns to usefully plan. The main objective—to recover Cantra yos’Phelium or, as he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe, though it was the most probable—her body. And if he had to take Osabei Tower down stone by stone to do it—well, he’d been ripe for a fight for days . . .

  He was among the warehouses now, pushing the carry-chair for all it could give him—and more. His eye snagged on the pointer to the tradesmen walks, and he whipped the little craft around, dodging between a robofreighter and a port ambulance, while the tree cheered rain-lash and lightning.

  Inside, the path went along a catwalk, to keep casual strollers out of the line of work, Jela thought, and sent the chair up the ramp at a brisk clip.

  From the tree, an urgent sending—the golden dragon, one wing folded beneath her, blood bright against gleaming scales—

  Jela braked and looked down, sharpening his vision on the figures in medic ‘skins bent over a—blood on her hair, blood on her face, blood soaking her tattered robe—

  “Cantra!” he yelled and threw the chair into reverse.

  “What’re they thinking of up there?” The shift boss yelled at Jela. “She came through the smaly! Damn lucky she didn’t get crushed, or knocked loose or—”

  Jela pushed past the man, as gently as he could, “Hazing,” he said shortly. “The scholars are having a party.”