A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows df-7

by Poul Anderson

  At dusk they returned to the log building, cooked dinner together, sated huge appetites, and took brandy-laced coffee to the hearth, where they settled down on a shaggy rug, content to let the blaze they had kindled light the room for them. Red flames crackled jokelets of green and blue and yellow, sent warmth in waves, made shadows leap. The humans looked at each other, at the fire, back again, and talked about their tomorrows.

  “—we’d better stay around the house hereafter,” Flandry said. “Your father’s man could scarcely have gotten an appointment today, but he should soon. Your uncle’s aides can’t all be traitors, assuming I’m right that some are. Two or three, in critical posts, are the most I’d guess possible. And they themselves will see no reason to stall his brother-in-law’s personal business. In fact, that’d look too queer. So I expect we’ll get word shortly; and Miyatovich may want us to move fast.”

  Highlights crossed Kossara’s face above her cheekbones, shone in eyes, glowed in hair. “What do you think he’ll do, Dominic?”

  “Well, he’s tough, smart, and experienced; he may have better ideas than I. But in his place, I’d manufacture an excuse to put myself somewhere more or less impregnable. Like your Nova-class warship; she’s the biggest around, Dennitzan or Imperial, and the pride of your fleet damn well ought to have a solidly loyal crew. I’d get the most important persons, including us, there with me. And, oh, yes, a copy of the microfiles on everybody who might be involved in the plot, Imperial officers and locals who’ve worked themselves close to the Gospodar’s hand in the past several years. A clever, widely traveled captain of Naval Intelligence, such as—ahem—could help me get a shrewd notion of whom to suspect. I’d order fleet dispositions modified accordingly, again on an unalarming pretext. When this was done, I’d have the appropriate arrests made, then broadcast a ‘hold everything’ to the populace, then wait on the qui vive to see what the interrogators dig out.”

  Memory made Kossara wince. Flandry laid an arm about her shoulder. “We’ve a stiff way yet to go,” he said, “but we should be home safe by blossom time.”

  She thawed, flowed into his embrace, and whispered, “Thanks to you.”

  “No, you. If you’d lacked courage to visit Diomedes, the strength to stay sane and fight on—Why quibble? We’re both magnificent. The species has need of our chromosomes.”

  “Lots and lots of fat babies,” she agreed. “But do you mean it about spring … we may have to wait that long?”

  “I hope not. The creaking sound you hear is my gentlemanliness. I’m sitting on its safety valve, which is blistering hot.”

  She touched a corner of his smile. Her own look became wholly serious. “Are your jests always armor?” The question trembled. “Dominic, we may not live till spring.”

  “We’ll take no chances, heart of mine. None. I plan for us to scandalize our respectable grandchildren.”

  “We’ll have to take chances.” She drew breath. “I can’t become pregnant till my immunity treatment’s reversed. Tonight—We’ll not deceive Father and Mother. The first chaplain we find can marry us.”

  “But, uh, your cathedral wedding—”

  “I’ve come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does, next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now.”

  He seized her to him.

  A flash went blue-white in the front windows.

  They sprang up. The light had not been blinding, but they knew its color.

  Flandry flung the door wide and himself out onto the porch. Cold poured over him, sharp liquid in his nostrils. Stars glinted countless. Between shadow-masses that were trees, he saw the craterside shelve away downward into the murk which brimmed its bowl. Distance-dwindled, a fireball yonder lifted and faded. The cloud pillar following appeared against a constellation just as the thunder rumbled faintly in his skull.

  “That was home,” Kossara said out of numbness.

  “A tactical nuke, doubtless fired from an aircraft,” responded a machine within Flandry.

  The danger to her flogged him aware. He grabbed her arm. “Inside!” She staggered after him. He slammed the door and drew her against his breast. She clung, beginning to shudder.

  “My love, my love, my love, we’ve got to get away from here,” he said in a frantic chant. “They must have been after us.”

  “After you—” She tautened, freed herself, snapped at steadiness and caught it. Her eyes gleamed steel-dry.

  “Yes. But we’ll take a few minutes to pack. Food, clothes, weapons.”

  Defiant, he also tried phoning the manor. Emptiness hummed reply. They trotted to the shed where the car was, stowed survival gear within, trotted back for more, boarded.

  The cabin tumbled from sight. Flandry swept radar around the encompassing darkness. Nothing registered. A traffic safety unit wasn’t much use here, of course, but at least this bubble carrying them had a prayer of crawling to safety before the military vessel that did the murder could find it.

  If—“Wait a second,” Flandry said.

  “What?” Kossara asked dully.

  He glanced at her, dim in star-glow and wanness off the control panel. She sat hunched into her parka, staring ahead through the canopy. The heater had not yet taken hold and the chill here was no honest outside freeze, but dank. Air muttered around the car body.

  He dropped near treetop level and activated the optical amplifier. Its screen showed the wilderness as a gray jumble, above which he zigzagged in search of a secure hiding place. Though belike they had no immediate need of any—“I’ll take for granted we were a principal target,” he said, quick and toneless. “Snatching us from the household would be too revealing. But if the killers knew where we were, why not come directly to our lodge? If they even suspected we might be there, why not try it first? My guess is, they don’t know it exists. However, we’re safer in motion regardless.”

  She bit a knuckle till blood came forth, before she could say: “Everybody died on our account?”

  “No, I think not. Your father, at least, had to be gotten rid of, since he knew the truth. And there was no being sure he hadn’t told somebody else. I dare hope the enemy thinks we went out with him.”

  “How did they learn, Dominic?” Through the curbed hardness of her voice, he sensed dread. “Is Aycharaych in Zorkagrad?”

  “Conceivable.” Flandry’s words fell one by one. “But not probable. Remember, we did consider the possibility. If we were to land on the taiga, Chives must proceed to the spaceport, simply to maintain our fiction. Wearing his mindscreen would make him overly conspicuous. Anyhow, Aycharaych wouldn’t fail to check on each newcomer, and he knows both Chives and Hooligan by sight. I decided the odds were he went to Dennitza from Diomedes, but having made sure the mischief he’d started was proceeding along the lines he wanted, didn’t linger. He’s no coward, but he knows he’s too valuable to risk in a merely warlike action—which this affair has to bring, and soon, or else his efforts have gone for naught. My guess was, he’s hanging around Zoria in a wide orbit known only to a few of his most trusted chessmen,”

  “Yes, I remember now. Talk on. Please, Dominic. I have to be nothing except practical for a while, or I’ll fall apart.”

  “Me too. Well, I still believe my assessment was confirmed when we made such trouble-free contact with your father. Chives had been in Zorkagrad for days. Aycharaych would have found him, read him, and prepared a trap to spring on us the minute we arrived. Anything else would have been an unnecessary gamble.” Bleakness softened: “You know, I went into the manor house using every psychotrick they ever drilled into me to keep my knowledge of where you were out of conscious thought, and ready to swallow the old poison pill on the spot should matters go awry.”

  “What?” She turned her head toward him. “Why, you … you told me to leave the rendezvous if you didn’t return by sunset—but—Oh, Dominic, no!”

  Then she did weep. He comforted her as best he could. Meanwhile he found a place to stop, a grove on the rim
beneath which he could taxi and be sheltered from the sky.

  She gasped back to self-mastery and bade him tell her the rest of his thoughts. “I feel certain what caused the attack tonight was the capture of your father’s courier,” he said. “He must have been interrogated hastily. Aycharaych would have found out about our cabin, whether or not your father explicitly told his man. But a quick narcoquiz by nontelepaths—” He scowled into murk. “The problem is, what made the enemy suspicious of him? He wasn’t carrying any written message, and his cover story was plausible. Unless—”

  He leaned forward, snapped a switch. “Let’s try for news.”

  “The next regular ’cast is in about half an hour,” Kossara said in a tiny voice, “if that hasn’t changed too.”

  He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy music. He held her close and murmured.

  A woman’s countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it. “Attention!” she screeched. “Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just received word from a spokesman of the Zamok—officers of the Imperial Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And … and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina Dolyina area—neighborhood of the voivode’s residence—attempts to phone there have failed. The voivode was, is … the Gospodar’s brother-in-law … No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or—Stay calm! Don’t move till we know more! Ex-except … the city police office just called in—blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I repeat, blast shelters will be open—”

  Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, “If ever they hope to provoke their war, they’ve reckoned this is their last and maybe their best chance.”

  The newsroom vanished. “Important recorded announcement,” said a man in Dennitzan uniform. “A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in Zorkagrad or vicinity.” What must be a portrait from some xenological archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. “He landed eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago” (the computer must redub every 18.8 hours) “he was identified, but fought his way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him, do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of 50,000—”

  Air hissed between Kossara’s teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes before he said stonily, “That’s how. Somebody, in some fashion, recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That meant—any contact between your family and the Gospodar—yes.”

  Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.

  Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but level-toned, “I’ve thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we might try to do.”

  XVI

  Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.

  All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black, pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and distances.

  Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom, while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb, tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the three on the honor-dais.

  Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy … How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache, frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today’s heaven.

  Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his arms. “Silence!” he called. “Hark.” When he had his desire, he brought his gaunt, scarred head forward and told them:

  “You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed. Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.

  “Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might welcome Merseians—untrue—but mainly because they see us as well-nigh powerless against their crews—true.

  “Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can be forestalled. Yet we’ve netted a flailfish. We need care as much as courage.

  “To most of us, what’s gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night’s tale of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We’d have stood bewildered until too late for anything—this was intended—had not Kossara Vymezal and Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.

  “The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more knowledge.

  “In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwish-ers, who know exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them, knowing what we do.

  “This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you: Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to move.”

  Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.

  Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living thing that did.

  Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.

  I dare not ask for more. Amen.

  Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so cold.

  Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots. Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred sight of autumn fields, rattl
ing and clicking. Waves thundered in, rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.

  Do I comprehend that they are gone?

  If only things would move. They had hours to wait, safest here, before the ychan chiefs could be gathered together. Flandry had offered her medicines from his kit, for sleep, for calm and freedom from pain, but when she declined, he said, “I knew you would. You’ll always earn your way,” and when she told him she would like to go out for a while, he saw she needed aloneness. He saw deeper than most, did her Dominic, and covered the hurt of it with a jape. If only he did not see right past God.

  In time? I’ll never preach at him, nor admit outright that I pray for him. But if we are given time—

  They had had no end to their plans. A house in the Dubina Dolyina country, an apartment in Zorkagrad; they could afford both, and children should have elbow room for body and mind alike. Quests among the stars, wild beauties, heart-soaring moment of a new truth discovered, then return to the dear well-known. Service, oh, nothing too hazardous any more, staff rather than field Intelligence—nonetheless, swordplay of wits in the glad knowledge that this was for the future, not the poor wayworn Empire but a world he too could believe in, the world of their own blood. Ideas, investments, enterprises to start; the things they might undertake had sparkled from them like fireworks …

  It had all gone flat and blurred, unreal. What she could still hold whole in her daze were the small hopes. She shows him an overlook she knows in the Vysochina highlands. He teaches her the fine points of winetasting. She reads aloud to him from Simich, he to her from Genji. They attend the opera in Zorkagrad. They join in the dances at a land festival. They sail a boat across Lake Stoyan to a cafe beneath flowering viyenatz trees on Gar-landmakers’ Island. They take their children to the zoo and the merrypark.