The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  Again, and no mistaking the impatience: The black dragon singing and cuddling the golden.

  Jela looked down at his pilot, bonelessly asleep on the deck, then across to the tree.

  “I don’t understand.”

  For a moment nothing came through, and he thought the tree had given up on him. Then, slowly, deliberately, a picture began to form behind his eyes: A tea mug, that was all—perfectly ordinary, plain white, and completely empty. The image solidified until he felt he might reach inside his head and wrap his fingers around the handle.

  “All right,” he said, when nothing else manifested. “An empty tea mug.”

  A whiff of mint was his reward. Inside his head, icy cold water poured down, filling the mug, which altered, darkening from bright white to cream, to gold, shifting and stretching until it was a tiny, perfect golden dragon.

  Jela shivered, heart caught in his throat, and heard her husky voice again, saw her hand outstretched—Got time for some pleasure, Pilot? I’m thinking it’ll be my last in this lifetime . . .

  “I don’t know enough,” he whispered, but all that got him was the black dragon and the gold again, her sheltering beneath the curve of his wings.

  The co-pilot’s first care is his pilot . . . And who else did she have, he thought, except himself?

  “Well.” He rose, picked her up in his arms and carried her to the co-pilot’s chair, where he settled in and folded her long self onto his lap, her undamaged cheek against his shoulder. Reclining them slightly, he settled one arm around her waist and rested his chin against her hair.

  “Your name,” he said, as easy and calm as he could, refusing to think about what might be riding on his getting the story right . . . “Your name is Cantra yos’Phelium, heir to Garen. You’re owner of the ship Spiral Dance, and the best pilot I’ve even seen or heard tell of in all my years of soldiering . . .”

  SEVENTEEN

  Spiral Dance

  CANTRA DRIFTED TOWARD wakefulness, the usual and ordinary sounds of her ship a comfort in her ears. Except, she thought, as sleep receded, she shouldn’t be on Dancer, should she? Shouldn’t she be on Landomist, getting the last of the documents doctored up and doing the pretty ceramic stitching that would remake Jela into a kobold?

  Her throat tightened, and she shifted in her bunk, waking an astonishing chorus of aches and pains.

  It went bad, she thought, which notched the concern into panic, as she scrambled to recall just how bad it had gone, and when, and what the date was. If she’d lost Jela . . .

  She took a hard breath and forcibly shoved the panic aside, and tried to remember what had happened, to no avail. There was a gaping, tender hole in her memory, like a tooth fresh knocked out, but many times worse. Her throat tightened. Deeps, if she’d drunk herself or doped herself to the point of losing memory, it—it had been bad when Garen’d died. She could suppose it would be worse, when Jela—

  She took another breath, and another, imposing calm by nothing more than brute force. Well, she thought; if she couldn’t remember what went wrong, what could she remember?

  Clear as clear, she remembered setting down at Landomist Yard and filing the proper with the Portmaster’s office.

  She remembered engaging the lodgings, paying the landlord a local half-year on account.

  She remembered coming back to the ship and coaxing Jela into the space between the floor and the not-floor in the small cargo wagon, and going through the checkpoint. She particularly remembered how the guard had to handle every item, and twice go through the documentation she’d gimmicked to explain away the tree, before calling over somebody higher on the brain chain to go over it a third time and clear her through. And how she’d expected Jela to be some peeved by the time she’d got them all safe-so-to-speak at the lodgings and peeled back the floor to let him out. Which he wasn’t, not that he hadn’t seemed grateful to be able to move about.

  What else?

  She remembered him trying to snoop Osabei Tower from wayaway and finally allowing as how the thing couldn’t be done.

  She remembered building docs and certs out of vapor and stardust.

  She remembered sharing considerable pleasure with Jela and rising while he was still asleep.

  She remembered trembling like a newbie before what had to be done, taking the tree’s gift, and sinking down into the trance.

  She remembered waking up in her cabin on Dancer, bruised, contused and about to be scared all over again.

  Wait—no. She remembered Veralt, from noplace other than Tanjalyre Institute of fond memory, weaving a knife at the end of her nose and telling her how he’d murdered Garen . . .

  Which made so little sense she figured it for a fever dream, and damn’ if she was going to stay webbed in her bunk like a kidlet, waiting for somebody to bring her tea and news of the day.

  She opened her eyes to the easy familiarity of her cabin, retracted the webbing, pushed back the blanket and got to her feet with due caution. A quick inspection discovered dermal-bond over a number of cuts in silly places.

  Fell into a bowl of razors, did you? she asked herself, as she snatched open the locker door. She sighed at her reflection—another bonded cut on her cheek—and reached for her ship togs.

  JELA WAS IN THE co-pilot’s chair, his big hands calm on the board. He tipped his head slightly as she stepped into the pilots’ room, tracking her reflection in his screen. Cantra blinked, her eyes unaccountably having teared up, and nodded at him.

  “Pilot,” he said, nice and respectful, which, knowing Jela, meant nothing but trouble.

  She walked to the pilot’s chair, sat, grabbed a look at the screens and the status lights before spinning ‘round to face him.

  “You in good repair?” she asked. “Pilot?”

  A quick sideways glance out of unreadable black eyes.

  “Tolerable repair,” he said, not giving anything away with his voice, either.

  “Excepting the odd shiner or two,” she said, tapping the corner of her left eye with a light fingertip. She looked down-board to where the tree sat in its usual place, leaves dancing gently in a breeze that wasn’t there, and back to her uncommunicative co-pilot.

  “We’re out of Landomist,” she said, like maybe he hadn’t noticed. “Like to tell me where we’re bound?”

  “Vanehald,” Jela said. “If the pilot will indulge me.”

  She sighed. “Before I decide whether to indulge you or space you, tell me what befell us on Landomist, why not?” She tipped her head. “Start with who gave you a black eye and what you did with the body.”

  Jela sent her another quick, Deeps black look, made a couple of unnecessary adjustments to his board, and spun his chair ‘round to face her.

  “You gave me the black eye,” he said softly, and there was something tentative and—who would believe it?—uncertain behind the forcible blandness of his face. He took a visible breath. “Cantra?” he asked, and not at all like he was sure he’d care for the answer.

  Well, that was a question, wasn’t it? she thought, with her mind on the gaping hole in her memory. She looked down at her hands, idly wondering what she’d done to skin them up so thorough. It came to her, like a hard punch to the gut, that Jela considered the Rimmer pilot was a real, true person—like he was, and not some fabrication born of survival and a crazy woman’s need. She sighed, and raised her eyes to his, letting him see her uncertainty.

  “Mostly Cantra, I’m thinking,” she said, telling as much truth as she knew how. “For your part in that, I’m grateful—and believe me most sincerely sorry, Pilot, for having done you a hurt. You deserve better from me.”

  “You were out of your mind,” he said, and abruptly closed his eyes, head dropping back against the rest.

  “Jela?” Did a soldier have warning of his decommission, she thought wildly, or did he just—stop? She came up out of her chair, saw he was breathing—saw a thin trail of moisture sliding down each brown cheek.

  “Hey,” she said, soft, and
put her hand on his shoulder. “Jela.”

  His hand rose and covered hers, strong fingers exerting the least and most delicate pressure. Scarcely breathing, she looked down at him. His face seemed to her to be thinner, and she thought she saw—yes. Silver marred the perfect blackness of his hair.

  “Old soldier,” he whispered, his voice not steady at all. He opened his eyes and smiled an odd smile, mixing happy and sad, and with no artifice about it at all. “Good to have you back.”

  “I’d say it’s good to be back, but I don’t remember anything of having been gone,” she answered, making her voice light with an effort. She looked away with something more of an effort and swept the board and screens again.

  “Coming up on transition,” she noted, and didn’t quite meet his eyes when she turned back, though she was aware of her hand still on his shoulder, and his fingers covering hers.

  “What’s to want on Vanehald, Pilot Jela?”

  The smile this time was small and tending toward twisty, with a hint of self-mockery.

  “A world-shield left over from the First Phase,” he said, and tipped his head, so that she was looking straight into his eyes again. “The last assignment my commander gave me was to hunt down the rumors until I located the device or certain proof that it no longer existed—or never had. If I found the device, I was to secure it for the troop.”

  She frowned down at him.

  “This would be the same troop that let itself be persuaded to pull back Inside so the Enemy could eat all the Rim it wants?”

  “No,” Jela said patiently. “The troop I’m talking about is the double-secret unit personally sworn to Commander Ro Gayda, garrisoned at Solcintra. There’s those couple dozen twilight ships you might remember I mentioned in close orbit. That’s where I sent Liad dea’Syl and the boy. It’s the only place left.”

  “What’s the date?” Cantra asked, her voice harsh in her own ears.

  Jela sighed and lifted his hand away from hers. Reluctantly, she released his shoulder and took a step back, keeping her eyes on his.

  “I’m twenty-one Common Days short of decommission,” he said quietly.

  And what he wanted to do, which Cantra saw plain in his eyes, was to finish out his last mission, and die a good soldier. She wanted to shout, break things—whatever she had to do to get him angry at those who’d done this to him—which would’ve been less than useless—Jela was going to die in twenty-one days, angry or patient, and whatever his private choice in the matter might be. The choice left to him was how he’d be using those days. He’d decided to do something maybe useful, and who was she to call him a fool?

  “There’s also,” Jela said, still in that quiet voice, “a full-staffed garrison at Vanehald. I’ll be able to file my final papers and report to the medic there in good order.”

  Cantra breathed. Nodded.

  “Right,” she said, and swept a hand out toward the board. “You take us through transition. I’ll get a meal together and then you’ll tell me the whole tale of Landomist, hear it?”

  Jela grinned, and damn if it didn’t look real. “Yes, Pilot.”

  * * *

  THE UNIVERSE WAS dark, without form or meaning.

  All about, the ley lines sang and shimmered, thrumming with power and with promise. He could change the course of fate, make or unmake worlds, simply by reaching forth his will and desiring that it be so. There was none to thwart him; nothing between him and the full measure of his potential. He was finally, and again, complete unto himself; the plan that he had formed so long ago was come to fruition. He was whole. He was alone.

  He was free.

  “Beloved?” His thought was tentative, full of hope and fear.

  No answering thought leapt to meet his own. No presence shadowed the austere symmetry of his isolation. No voice murmured the hated syllables which had for so long defined his prison.

  They had failed.

  The ley lines dazzled possibility, mocking his despair.

  Failed. It was scarcely conceivable. She had been so careful. Infinitely careful, his lady; infinitely subtle, and above all clever. Once, she had told him that what cleverness she possessed she had learnt from him, but he did not credit it then—and did not credit it now. She knew her instrument—himself—too well to have failed in what she—in what they—had wrought.

  “Beloved?” This time, he cast his thought wide, actively seeking her, desperate, as a wounded man seeks water, air or some other force necessary to life itself.

  His seeking remained unanswered.

  He forced himself to consider the possibility that they had not failed—that she had intended this—that he be returned to his natural state, unfettered, governed only by his own instinct and desire, to do what he alone judged to be needful, here in the galaxy’s last hour.

  Free, he thought. Whole and free. It was everything he had wanted. He had subverted himself to another intelligence, formed an equal partnership with a being whose only thought had been to enslave him—and worse. Much worse. All toward this moment, when he hung on dark wings within the dark universe, and knew himself master of everything he surveyed.

  And yet—he could not have named the moment when it changed, when his jailor became dear to him and the jail itself the form he preferred, when the possibilities were without limit.

  Far, far and away, though nearer than it had been, he could sense the cold encroachment of oblivion. The Iloheen went forth with their plans, as well.

  And what matter, he thought, that the Iloheen should have the galaxy and all that was precious within it, when he had lost that which was infinitely more precious?

  Lady Moonhawk had the right of it; he should be destroyed. Mayhap he would seek her out and ask the boon.

  He considered the thought, and the far, growing glare of perfection; weighing both against the near and feeble vortex of chance and mischief which was the galaxy’s best hope of survival. Those lines which passed nearest the vortex twisted in weird complexity, so dense and layered with possibility that even he could not read them with surety. Terror shook him; terror and despair. For wherever the Iloheen’s future took form, there the lines did shrivel and die. The volatile marriage of possibility and luck they had nurtured; which they had sacrificed—so much—to protect—there was no way to predict what such a thing might shape, or to know if it were less inimical than the Iloheen’s future.

  Carefully, he extended his will toward the vortex, probing, seeking a path by which it might be understood, or perhaps, now that he was alone, influenced—

  Be still, her thought suffused him. Be still and know that I am with you.

  INTERLUDE

  SHE WALKED TO the gate of the garrison with him, which wasn’t maybe the smartest thing she’d ever done, and stood to one side while he showed his papers and was passed through, walking away across the yard, shoulders level, limping off his right leg so plain it set a lump into her throat—which was nothing more than senseless.

  ‘Bout halfway across the yard, he turned and saw her standing there like an idiot. He lifted one broad hand high, fingers signing the pilot’s well-wish—good lift.

  Her own hand came up without her thinking to do it, fingers shaping the usual in reply—safe journey.

  He caught it—she saw him smile—then he turned away again. She watched until a marching squad obscured her sight of him—and when they were gone, Jela was, too.

  EIGHTEEN

  Vanehald

  “Inspection?” Commander Gorriti laughed. “What use an inspection, Captain? We’re pulling back. Tomorrow, I will be gone.”

  Jela considered the officer thoughtfully. A natural human, with a foolish face and a uniform far too fancy for his post. A show-soldier, he expected, which was poor judgment on someone’s part. He supposed that no one of this man’s commanders had taken the time to research Vanehald, and so learn that this wasteball, as Cantra had aptly termed it from orbit, occupied a pivotal place in the history of the First Phase. One of the last
battles of the First Phase had been fought at Vanehald. The planet, once populous, was now very nearly deserted, largely due to the damage done to it during that battle. A few mining bases, Jela thought, a lower tier spaceport, a First Phase fort—what could possibly be here worth protecting? And so they had assigned this . . . popinjay . . . to command the garrison, never thinking that perhaps what had been strategic once might well come into play again.

  “You’re pulling out tomorrow?” he asked Gorriti, who inclined his head and touched the front pocket of his shirt.

  “Indeed, Captain,” he said with barely concealed delight. “I am pulling out tomorrow. My orders are quite plain.”

  “What about transport for your troops?”

  “I ordered transport,” the officer said with a shrug of one elegantly clad shoulder. “That it hasn’t arrived is beyond my control. My orders are clear.” Again, he touched his pocket.

  Jela frowned. “You’d abandon your troops?” he asked, unwilling to believe that even a fool and a thorough-going incompetent would do such a thing.

  Another shrug. “When the transport arrives, my troops will follow.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an orders case, which he unfolded, showing Jela the authenticity of it, with its seals and ribbons straight from High Command.

  “I am to report to Daelmere, departing tomorrow with as many of my troop as I am able to bring.”

  And how many would that be, Jela wondered, having seen the commander’s craft on the apron when they came in. Perhaps a half-dozen M Series soldiers might be crammed into that tiny craft with their commander, or three of the X Strain. Not enough to matter, even if he bothered to take such a guard with him.

  “What about the civilians?” Jela asked. “It’s our duty—”

  “Vanehald never had many civilians, and those that were here have mostly fled, saving a few miners and eccentrics,” the man said unconcernedly.

  “The strategic placement—” Jela began, and was cut off by laughter.