Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction)

by Scott, Melissa

  "How are you feeling?" Tatian was standing in the doorway, arms braced against the walls to either side.

  "Like somebody hit me," Warreven answered, and was rewarded by one of Tatian's quick grins.

  "I wonder why?"

  Warreven smiled back, cautiously, newly aware of bruises, and reached into another cabinet for a bottle of sweetrum. He uncorked it, drank, flinching as the liquor hit the cuts on his lip. The raw sugar taste of it seemed to cling to his back teeth, but it took away the bitterness of the doutfire. "Maybe because somebody did. Has Malemayn called, have you heard anything about Hal?"

  "He called around noon," Tatian answered. "Oddyny'd been over to look at 3im. He said there hadn't been any change, that he'd call if there was. He left a number at the hospital, though, if you want to try that."

  Warreven took another swallow of the sweetrum, started to nod, and felt the muscles of his neck tighten painfully. "Yes--it's not that I don't trust you, I just want to talk to him myself."

  "I figured," Tatian said, and stepped back out of the doorway.

  Warreven slipped past him, still carrying the bottle of sweetrum, vaguely surprised that the off-worlder's presence was so reassuring. Maybe it was the very matter-of-fact way that he'd stepped in, the ordinary, reasonable common sense of it all--which hardly seemed to be common anymore. The media center was lit, both screens turned to news channels, and Tatian cleared his throat.

  "You seem to have made the narrowcasts."

  "Me?" Warreven looked at the screens. Both showed the Harbor Market, crowded not with merchants but with the same sort of crowd that had been dispersed the day before. Even the rana band was back, half a dozen drummers now, and a pair of flute players, perched on a platform that looked higher and less stable than die previous day's stage. People were dancing--any time there was drumming, people would dance--but beyond them crates and spent fuel cells and all the other debris that collected on the docks had been dragged into a crude barricade. Tough-looking dockers--and not just dockers, Warreven realized, but men and women in ordinary clothes, with only the multicolored rana ribbons to mark them as something different--leaned against it, blocking all access to the Gran'quai.

  "Officially," Tatian said, "they're continuing yesterday's protest against the ghost ranas. But the main thrust of what they're saving is, if you and Haliday aren't safe, no one is."

  "Wonderful," Warreven said, and took another swallow of the sweetrum. The pain was starting to ease, even the headache, and the lights were beginning to show faint, rainbowed haloes. It was going to be difficult to balance comfort and sobriety.

  "The code's there," Tatian said, and pointed to the table beside the media center. He had found the remote as well, Warreven saw, and stopped to collect it, then turned to the couch, shoving aside the quilts Tatian had left neatly piled there. He sat down, setting the bottle beside him, and ran stiff fingers over the remote's control surfaces, bringing up the main screen and then the new codes. The menus flickered past, a montage of text and symbol, bringing him first into the hospital's main system, and then into a secondary paging system. He entered the last segment of Malemayn's codes, and waited. The communications screen went blank, except for a time display; in the screen beside it, the drummers moved in frantic rhythm, following a chanter's gestures. His shadow fell across the heads of the dancing crowd, stretched to the edge of the empty Market. As he turned, jeering, to the camera, Warreven could see the Trickster's mark vivid on his cheek.

  "Raven?" The communications screen cleared with the word, and Malemayn's face appeared at its center. Warreven could see white walls behind him, and the occasional out-of-focus figure of a nurse or doctor, elongated shapes in pale green: still calling from a public cubicle, he thought, which meant Haliday wasn't well enough to have a private room. Malemayn sounded worn out, and the stubble was dark on his cheeks. Warreven touched his own face, feeling the coarse hairs starting, and wondered if he would be able to shave himself in a few days, once the swelling went down.

  "How's Hal?" he asked.

  "Stable," Malemayn answered. "No change from what I told Tatian. That off-world doctor, Oddyny, she was here again, and she says he, 3e should be moved over to the Starport as soon as 3e's able, which should be in a day or two. Ȝe's still unconscious, but Oddyny says not to worry. They're keeping 3im under to let the treatments work."

  Warreven allowed himself a long sigh of relief. He hadn't realized, until that instant, just how frightened he had been. "So 3e'll be all right?"

  Malemayn nodded. "Oddyny says it's going to take a month or so, but 3e'll be fine. How are you?"

  "Sore," Warreven said, and Malemayn laughed.

  "You look like death. No, you look like the Doorkeeper."

  Warreven looked sideways, found his reflection in the glass of the nearest window. With the black bandage covering one eye, he did look a little like the popular drawings of Agede the Doorkeeper, the spirit of death and birth and change. "Thanks," he said sourly, and did not reach for the sweetrum. Agede was always drawn with a cane and a bottle; there was no need to complete the resemblance.

  "The tech said you should be sure and reschedule your appointment, have your eye looked at sometime tomorrow."

  "Reschedule?" Warreven scowled at the invisible camera.

  "They wanted to see you this afternoon," Malemayn said. "I mentioned it to Tatian, but he thought--we both thought--it was better to let you sleep. The tech said you should be sure and come in tomorrow, though."

  Warreven nodded, not looking at the off-worlder. He wasn't entirely sure he liked Tatian's looking after him, wasn't sure he entirely disliked it, either. But then, it had been Malemayn's decision, too.

  "I'm going to stay for another hour or so," Malemayn went on. "Oddyny said she'd be back to take another look at Hal, and she said she'd have time to give me an update then. And then I'm going home and get some sleep."

  "What about Hal?" Warreven asked, a little too sharply. The old fears rose in his mind: Haliday left alone, unconscious, the doctors deciding to castrate, or simply not to save, 3er ambiguous body, all because there was no one there to protest--

  "Relax," Malemayn said. "I made it very clear, and Dr. Jaans was with me, that Hal's to be treated like they'd treat an off- worlder. I left a couple hundred megs with the ward nurse, too."

  Warreven nodded, appeased. "That ought to be enough."

  "I'll pay more if I have to," Malemayn said.

  "Let me know what I can put into the pot," Warreven said.

  Malemayn shook his head. "We'll adjust this through the partnership. Once this is all over. Æ, Raven, I don't know how we're going to keep working, with Hal in the hospital and you supposed to be being seraaliste--"

  He broke off, shaking his head again, this time in apology, and Warreven looked away, embarrassed. "I know, Mal, I'm sorry. For what it's worth, it wasn't my idea."

  "And this wasn't Haliday's either," Malemayn said. "I know." He sighed, looked down at something beneath the camera's line of sight. "Look, I've got to go. I'll call you if there's any change, any news at all, but if you don't hear from me, everything's fine."

  Warreven nodded again. "Give Hal my love," he said, softly, even though he knew Haliday couldn't hear the message yet. Malemayn nodded, and broke the connection.

  "I hope you don't mind my not waking you," Tatian said, after a moment. "I went in and looked, but you were pretty well out of it."

  In the main screen, a shay filled with mosstaas pulled into the Market, and Warreven caught his breath before he realized it was a clip from the day before. "It's all right," he said, still watching the screen. "I think sleep was probably the best thing for me."

  "That's what I thought," Tatian agreed.

  The image in the screen changed again, returning to the live feed. Warreven frowned, trying to figure out where the cameras were stationed--on the Embankment, maybe, or on the Customs House balcony--and the off-worlder cleared his throat.

  "Look, it's maybe no
ne of my business, but you might want to think of moving Haliday now. If 3e's well enough, of course."

  " Æ." Warreven tipped his head to one side, felt the muscles tighten, but the pain was distant now, deadened by the sweetrum and the doutfire.

  "You know your planet better than I do," Tatian said, his voice abruptly formal. "I'm not presuming to tell you your business. But this doesn't look good to me." He gestured to the screen.

  Warreven looked again, seeing the line of dockers and ranas mixed together, the crude barricade--and also the drums and dancers, a pair of flute players now leading the performance. "It's still a rana, still within the law," he began, and broke off, hearing the absurdity of his own words.

  "So was yesterday," Tatian muttered.

  "I know." Warreven stared at the screen, seeing not these dancers but Faireigh, hearing her voice soaring easily above the other voices. Go down, you snow-white roses, she had sung, and Tendlathe would never forget that, any more than he had forgotten Lammasin's insult. Or Warreven's own, the insult of his existence. Warreven suppressed a shiver, looked away from the screen. "What have they been saying, what's the Most Important Man doing about this?"

  "Staying clear," Tatian answered. "Oh, they said about an hour ago that he's meeting with the harbormasters and the head of the mosstaas, supposed to be deciding if this is interfering with trade, but as best I can tell, he's waiting for it to die down on its own."

  "That's smart."

  "Not necessarily." Tatian glared at the screen, and the image shifted to a pan along the length of the Gran'quai and the boats tied up there. "See there? It is interfering with commerce, and the pharmaceuticals aren't going to put up with that for long."

  Warreven frowned, for a moment not seeing anything different, and then realized that the usual traffic of dockers' drags and devils was completely absent. No one was off-loading; the ships' crews were idle, or with the dockers at the barricades. "It's only been one day," he said. "Does that make enough of a difference?"

  "Not one day," Tatian said, grimly. "But if this isn't settled--well, I already spoke to my people. They said the Big Six are starting to get a little nervous. They're shipping a good million a day right now, and they can't risk losing the harvest."

  Neither could the mesnies, Warreven thought. They would be putting pressure on Temelathe to end this, too, especially the conservative mesnies of the Equatoriale--and with the pharmaceuticals and Tendlathe also pushing to close down the protest, Temelathe would have a hard time balancing all those demands. And if there was more trouble--if Temelathe tried to send the mosstaas in again, tried to disperse a legitimate raria after they'd singularly failed to stop the ghost ranas and their violence.... The people at the Harbor wouldn't stand for it two days in a row. They would fight, and then Temelathe would have no choice but to turn the mosstaas loose on them. And that would give Tendlathe the excuse he needed to act.

  "What about Tendlathe?" he said aloud. "Where's he supposed to be?"

  "With his father, I guess." Tatian looked at him, his expression very serious. "Look, did you mean what you said--God, was it only the day before yesterday? That Tendlathe was behind the ghost ranas, and Lammasin's murder?"

  Warreven laughed. "Despite what Hal thinks, I don't say things like that lightly. Yes, I think he's responsible--and I told him so to his face--which didn't exactly endear me to him, I suppose. But we'll never prove it."

  "So he's responsible for this, too?" Tatian waved his free hand, the gesture taking in the bandaged eye, the second bandage hidden under Warreven's tunic. "Beating up you and Haliday?"

  "Probably," Warreven answered. It hurt more than he'd expected, admitting that, acknowledging that the man he'd grown up with had almost certainly arranged the attack, was the person who'd planned not just the beating but the ritual humiliation. "He--Tendlathe thinks that we--the wrangwys, and you off-worlders, too--aren't really human anymore."

  Tatian made a small, mirthless noise. "Funny. There're people in the Nest--other off-worlders--who think the same about Harans."

  Warreven smiled in spite of himself. "God and the spirits, I'd like to see Ten's face if you told him that." This was hardly to the point, and he forced his mind back to Haliday. On the screen, the dancers were twisting themselves into a long spiral, a country dance that wound into a tight knot and then usually dissolved into laughter and cheerful chaos before it could unwind again. The dockers on the barricade were watching, but distantly, their attention on the roads that led down from the Embankment. "You may be right about moving Hal," he said, and reached for the remote. "I'm assuming the port is defended?"

  "Of course." Tatian looked back at him steadily, defying him to be insulted. "Nobody spends this much money on a backward planet without making sure they can protect the investment."

  "Under the circumstances," Warreven said, "I find that reassuring." Under other circumstances, it would be less so, but he put that thought aside for later consideration. He touched the keypad, recalling the codes Malemayn had left.

  "I'm relieved," Tatian said. He paused. "What's Tendlathe's problem with herms anyway? I--well, I was at the baanket, remember. The presance really bothered him."

  Warreven shrugged, watching codes shift on the communications screen. "I don't know," he began, then shook his head, ignoring the faint thrust of pain. He owed Tatian more than that, after all the off-worlder had done for him. "That's not strictly true. We're built a lot alike, look alike--you've seen him--and everybody knew I was a herm, so he got teased a lot. And then the marriage didn't help." Because he did want me, at least a little, Warreven realized suddenly, but it wasn't something he could say, sounded too conceited, too much like a cheap romance.

  Tatian was nodding thoughtfully. "There was always a lot of gossip in the Nest about him. A lot of people think he's a herm."

  "I'm glad he doesn't know that--" Warreven broke off as the screen changed, displaying Malemayn's image. "Mal, I'm glad I caught you before you left."

  "So am I," Malemayn answered. "I was going to call you."

  "Is--" Warreven broke off, suddenly afraid, and Malemayn shook his head.

  "No, Hal's fine. But Dr. Jaans says things are strange in the city; she wants to move 3im tonight."

  "Trust Oddyny to have her finger on the pulse," Tatian muttered.

  Warreven said, "That's what I was calling you about, actually. I--we've been watching the news channel, and I thought Hal might be better off at the port if anything goes wrong."

  Malemayn nodded. "That's what Oddyny said. I wanted to tell you first, though, see what you thought."

  Warreven shivered. "I think too many people are saying it's the right thing for us not to do it."

  "I've seen some of it," Malemayn said. "Everybody's watching it here, too. Have the mosstaas moved in at all?"

  "I haven't seen them," Warreven answered, and glanced at Tatian.

  "The last I heard, Temelathe was supposed to be holding them off."

  "Well, that would be the first good news in all of this," Malemayn said sourly. "I'll tell Oddyny we agree."

  Warreven nodded. "Thanks."

  "Not a problem," Malemayn said, and the screen went blank.

  Warreven sighed, touched the keypad to shut down the communications system. "Are you hungry?" he asked, and was surprised to find that he himself was.

  They ate in near silence, just the occasional words from the media center to break the stillness, watching the light fade over the Harbor Market and outside the flat's windows. Warreven listened for a while to the newsreaders' chatter--nothing new, still no word from Temelathe or Tendlathe or the mosstaas, though the Big Six were rumored to have asked for a meeting with Temelathe the next morning--and then pushed himself up off the couch and went out onto his porch, taking the bottle of sweetrum with him. It was almost empty, and he could feel it slurring his movements, but at least the pain had receded. He leaned against the railing, the land breeze eddying past, warm against his shoulders, looked through the deepen
ing twilight toward the Harbor Market. In the pens next door, the land-spiders trilled and purred, disjointed bits of sound, but no one came to comfort them. That was unusual--the spinners were always very conscientious--but then, this night was hardly ordinary.

  It was still hard to believe that Tendlathe was doing this--that Tendlathe, whom he'd known, man and boy, for almost twenty-five years, had put him and Haliday and everyone like them, firmly outside the human race. But that was the problem, of course: he himself had never been boy nor man, except perhaps in law, and that had meant that Tendlathe had always had forbidden possibilities--impossibilities, by his definition--dangling before his eyes. And it hadn't helped, Warreven admitted silently, that he'd enjoyed teasing Tendlathe, had made no secret of the fact that he would sleep with him, as long as no change of gender, of identity, had been required. And I would have done it, too, and cheerfully, up until a week ago.

  He heard the chime of an incoming call from the media center, but didn't turn his head. Something wasn't right, something more than the restless spiders next door. The air was damp and heavy, a haze of light hanging over the Gran'quai, but that was nothing unusual. He tilted his head carefully to one side, listening, and then realized what it was. The streets were silent, none of the usual murmur of traffic on the ring roads or down by the harbor. It was as if Bonemarche was waiting, everyone either already at the harbor, with the ranas, or hiding in the safety of their houses--

  "Warreven?" Tatian was standing in the doorway, hair and beard turned brighter gold by the lights behind him. "There's a call."