Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

by Lee, Sharon

  “Soon, Jon. Be well.”

  “And you, child,” the old Scout murmured. “And you.”

  The door cycled as he approached, admitting a familiar, pudgy form.

  “Daav.” His hand was caught, and he was drawn into an embrace as gentle as it was speaking. A heartbeat only before Clonak released him.

  Daav stepped back, raising his hands with fingers spread wide.

  “I am just on my way away,” he managed.

  Clonak nodded and turned with him, back to the door.

  “I'll walk with you, if you'll have me,” he said.

  “It's only a step to my car,” Daav murmured, “but if you crave the exercise . . . ”

  Outside, it was a sunny, cloudless day, chilly but virtually windless. Aelliana had been dead for thirty-three days.

  “Old friend,” Clonak murmured, as if he had heard Daav's thought, “there are no words to express—”

  Daav's hand shot out on its own, and gripped the other man's arm, tightly—and released him. “Don't, Clonak.”

  There was a small silence, before Clonak nodded. “I will of course respect your wishes,” he said stiffly.

  Daav bit his lip, ashamed of his churlishness.

  “Forgive me, old friend,” he said, with what gentleness he could muster. “You loved her, too—”

  Clonak took his arm. “I loved her—and love her yet. However, my concern of the moment is my friend, who seems to be fading as I look at him. Are you well, Daav? Do you need—note, I do not say 'want'—a Healer?”

  He shuddered and tried to pull away, but Clonak did not relinquish his arm.

  Trapped and goaded, he sighed. “The Healers will cause me to forget those things that—that perhaps cause me not to thrive. I—we had so little time! How can I forfeit even one moment?”

  “Get down!” Clonak shouted, augmenting the command with a firm push.

  Daav hit the ground, rolling, into the shelter of a delivery van, pulled his weapon, and peered out.

  A pellet struck 'crete six inches from his nose, cutting a tiny gouge in a spurt of dust.

  “Stay down,” Clonak snapped from beside him, “and do try not to be a target.”

  “Too late,” Daav murmured, though he did withdraw to a position of more prudence behind the van.

  Clonak slid something back into his belt. “My crew will be here soon,” he said. “Just keep your head down, Daav.”

  “Crew?”

  “Security crew,” Clonak said briefly. “I'm team leader.”

  “So—a practice run.”

  “Practice makes perfect,” Clonak said in Terran. “Who's marked you out as a target, Daav?”

  “The Terran Party.”

  Clonak frowned and shot him a glance. “The Terran Party . . . ” he began.

  “ . . . are wingnuts,” Daav finished. “Yes, I've been told. They do, however, carry a grudge, and apparently believe that killing me will kill the proof of a common ancestor for Terran, Liaden and Yxtrang.”

  Clonak stared at him. “They're a little late getting the message, aren't they?”

  “Most of the organizations the information was sent to ignored it, so far as I am aware. The Terran Party went to the trouble of finding who I was and setting snipers on me.” A pellet struck the side of the van they sheltered behind. “Also, they were kind enough to murder Aelliana.”

  Clonak said nothing. No one came to claim the van they sheltered behind; no pedestrians or other traffic disturbed them.

  No one shot at them.

  The device on Clonak's belt vibrated; Daav heard the faint hum.

  “Got them,” Clonak said. “Want to come along and hear what they have to say?”

  He thought about that, weighing the anger that was twisted, twined and inseparable from his grief.

  “Yes,” he said.

  It was, as he had suspected, the information packet he had sent out to various Terran and Liaden supremacist organizations, detailing the common root. The Terran Party had taken umbrage and word had come down that “Daav yos'Phelium” needed to be taken out.

  Hidden, he had listened while Clonak questioned both of the . . . people . . . that Clonak's team had harvested—questioned them closely. Their target was “Daav yos'Phelium,” dangerous madman. Clans meant nothing to them, nor did the Scouts or Solcintra University. It was as if they truly believed that the annihilation of Daav yos'Phelium would destroy the information they found so alarming.

  Idiots, he thought, stalking along the river path in Trealla Fantrol's wild garden. He had made his excuses to Clonak when it seemed that he must rise and kill them with his own hands.

  Balance—but of course it would not have been Balance. The two women taken by Clonak's team were ignorant; they followed orders and collected their pay. Killing them would have as much to do with answering Aelliana's death as drowning two kittens.

  When his mother had been murdered, and Sae Zar, he had removed Ganjir from Korval's trade routes, forever. It had caused some difficulty, he had heard, which had failed to gratify him. Had the planet died, its population starved to answer Korval's deaths, yet it would not have nullified those deaths, nor returned Chi and Sae Zar to the arms of their kin.

  So it would be with Aelliana. Balance with the Terran Party could accomplish nothing.

  Might not Terra take exception to the wholesale slaughter of her folk? Aelliana asked.

  “Assuredly she would,” he answered, “and to set Korval against Terra is something that we are surely mad to contem—”

  He ground his teeth together, looked around him at the empty pathway and crossed to an agreeably placed bench. Sinking into it, he closed his eyes.

  This happened, too often. He had thought, with time, his halved soul would grow weary of attempting to simulate what was lost. Dreading the day it happened, yet he had supposed that the instances of his “hearing” her would grow further apart, and eventually, over . . . time . . . fade entirely.

  Instead, he seemed to hear her voice more often, and more clearly, as he gained in strength. He tried to suppress it, to hear through it, but the effort left him exhausted in heart and soul. He told no one, not even Er Thom—especially not Er Thom—and that subterfuge further exhausted him.

  Perhaps—perhaps, he thought, he should have the Healers. They would . . . Aelliana would be wrapped in mists, as if an old memory that no longer had the power to move him. He would forget the sound of her voice, her phrasing, her laughter; forget the color that mounted her cheeks when she was angry. He would be—reft and alone, the joy they had shared something that need no longer trouble him.

  He took a breath and brought his attention forcefully back to the problem at hand. Daav yos'Phelium had a price on his head—he was in fact a hunted man who endangered those remaining of his loved ones by his very existence. Did Daav yos'Phelium vanish, then the hunt would cease.

  It would, naturally, need to be a widely publicized disappearance, but he thought he might manage that. There was also the matter of Aelliana's Balance. Certainly, the woman he loved would never have agreed to the slaughter of innocents, even if he found himself willing to pursue such a course.

  No, he thought, recalling the interview with the two women. The enemy here was not Terra—it was ignorance.

  He might, after all, be able to deal with ignorance.

  Sighing, he settled himself more comfortably on the bench, his head resting against the trunk of a silver ash.

  Perhaps he fell asleep. Perhaps it was another sort of seizure, which ceded comfortable oblivion, rather than pain and terror.

  The stab of a headache brought him to himself again, but he was not drowsing on the bench by the river path.

  He was sitting on the family patio at Trealla Fantrol, Val Con tucked onto his lap, the two of them bent over a book. By the count of pages, they had been reading together for some time.

  Of the time between his stopping on the bench and this moment, he had no memory . . . at all.

  “Fa
ther,” Val Con scolded, leaning forward, to tap the page. “Here. The nighttime garden was full . . . ”

  Daav caught his breath.

  “Your pardon, my son; I am . . . a little sleepy. So—” He focused on the page.

  “The night-time garden was full with moonlight, and the brown cat had no lack of partners for her dance . . . ”

  It was not a perfect solving—far from it. And yet, they could not find a better, he and his brother and Mr. dea'Gauss between them.

  True, it removed a source of danger from within the heart of the clan, and undertook a Balance in Aelliana's behalf that moved Mr. dea'Gauss to a murmured “Excellent . . . ”

  Unhappily, it separated Daav yos'Phelium from every source of comfort and rare joy left in his life. That Daav yos'Phelium was sliding daily into a benevolent madness was something he did not choose to mention. There had been two more episodes of waking into a situation he did not recall; and the instances of hearing her voice were, he was certain, increasing. Sometimes, in the drifting grey mists between sleeping and wakefulness, he would feel her lying beside him, her head on his shoulder, her leg over his. He would scarcely breathe, striving to draw out the moment, which always ended too soon.

  “Timing will be everything, Mr. dea'Gauss,” he had said at their last meeting, where Er Thom and Daav signed the papers that made Er Thom Korval-pernard'i—holding the Ring and the Clan in trust for Val Con.

  “I understand, your lordship. It shall be done appropriately.”

  “Of course it will, sir. You have never failed us.”

  Mr. dea'Gauss had inclined his head, and said nothing.

  The last meeting had also established that Kareen had been offered the Ring in trust, and had refused it. The Ring should pass entirely, she argued; since there was an adult in the Line Direct to take it up.

  There was, of course, precedent for this claim, Kareen being expert in such close readings of the Code.

  It was all done now, though, and at last, saving one more thing.

  Val Con held his hand tightly as they walked down Jelaza Kazone's public hall to the Delm's Hall.

  The lights came up as they crossed the threshold, each portrait illuminated individually.

  He and Val Con walked slowly, down the long line of Korval's delms. Most frames were inhabited by one face, often stern, rarely by two.

  Like the one at the very end.

  Daav yos'Phelium and Aelliana Caylon, the Eighty-Fifth Delm of Korval, the inscription ran, and there they were—a good likeness, as the phrase went. He, piratical and sardonic; she, open-faced and intelligent. They were holding hands, Korval's Ring and the Jump pilots cluster side by side.

  Val Con sniffled, and Daav dropped to one knee beside him.

  “I miss her,” the boy said.

  “I miss her, too,” he answered—and caught the child close as Val Con threw himself 'round his neck.

  “And I'll miss you. Father—don't go!”

  “I must, child. I endanger all if I stay.”

  “But if you go, the clan can't protect you!” Val Con cried, which was closely reasoned, for one so young.

  “Sometimes, it is the clan that requires protection,” Daav said slowly. He closed his eyes, holding his son tight. “The clan is people, denubia; never forget that. We can only protect each other. Sometimes, in order to protect those others who are the clan, a person must do something that is very hard. The clan asks much because it gives much.”

  His mother had used to say that. He had often been of the opinion that the clan took more than it gave—and yet . . .

  “When will you come back?” Val Con demanded.

  Gods.

  “When I can,” he said carefully. “It may not be for a very long time. You'll have Shan and Nova and Uncle Er Thom and Aunt Anne, and so very much to learn. There will hardly be any time to miss me.”

  Val Con sniffled again, clearly indicating an opposing view.

  Daav picked him up.

  “Look again,” he urged.

  “All right,” Val Con said after a few moments.

  “Good. Now, come with me, of your kindness, Val Con-son. We must make an entry into the Delm's Diaries.”

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  Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

  Chapter Forty

  To be outside of the clan is to be dead to the clan.

  —Excerpted from the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct

  Daav yos'Phelium, once-delm of Korval, was dead—a matter of an error in the unrevised edition of the ven'Tura Tables, which, once embraced, had sent his ship tumbling into a sun.

  Jen Sar Kiladi heard the news, but really, it was of but passing interest. More pressing was the need to find a position for himself—and that right quickly.

  He had written letters, to colleagues, to former students, to rivals, begging their condescension and pointing them to his applications. He had fortunately gained a place for the coming term as an Expert Lecturer on Cultural Genetics at Searston University, thanks to the very kind office of a former student, now an influential alumnus.

  He was bound there now, and how fortunate that he had indulged his whim, back when he was a graduate student and had time for such things as whims! A first class pilot's license was a useful tool, and if the good ship L'il Orbit was not as posh as some, it was everything that a research scholar who had lately taken the decision to bring his insights to the classroom could need—or afford.

  He finished his last packet and queued it to send. He had one more to compile, then he could quit the wayroom and return to L'il Orbit. Time had gotten a bit tighter than he had wished and he was going to have to fly hard in order to reach his Expert Seminar by the date and time stated in his contract.

  Kiladi reached to the keyboard, his fingers fumbling enough so that he botched his command. He sighed. He was very tired, but he dared not make use of the thin bunk provided. There was . . . only . . . this one . . . more . . .

  He couldn't have been asleep long—the screen was still live when he blinked into consciousness once more.

  Relief that he hadn't lost his search was quickly replaced in quick succession by puzzlement and joy.

  A long string of dense math filled the screen, both familiar and all but incomprehensible.

  “Aelliana?” He scarcely knew he spoke, his heart was beating so that he thought a rib might break. “Aelliana, is it really you?”

  You are not, her voice said so strongly that it echoed inside his head, going mad, and I wish you will listen to me. We are lifemates, and I will never leave you, Daav. I swore it.

  “So you did.”

  He looked again at the screen. Almost, he could understand the premise, but the argument, while elegant, left him baffled. Clearly, it would require study—and if he were able to produce this sort of work while he was asleep, then madness was the least of his troubles.

  It is not a perfect bonding, I think, she said. At first—van'chela, it must have seemed to you that I had truly gone. Everything was so strange, and you were so ill . . . When I learned how to make my voice heard . . .

  “I denied you,” he whispered. “Aelliana, how has this—the Tree.”

  It would seem so, she said. Daav?

  “Yes?”

  You must sleep before you fly, van'chela. Please.

  Kiladi, he would risk, but—Aelliana? Not a second time.

  “I will,” he murmured. “I promise.”

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  Contents

  Epilogue

  Chancellor's Welcome Reception

  for the Gallowglass Chair

  Lenzen Ballroom

  Administration Tower Three

  University of Delgado

  This is more tedious than receiving the guests at your sister's Festival Eve ball, the voice only he could hear commented.

  It was fairly said, he allowed, bowing yet again, this time to a sandy-haired woman with trembling hands. As much as he might otherwise deplore her, even
he acknowledged that his sister possessed impeccable taste.

  The sleeves of the sandy haired woman's blue robe were innocent of braid, which marked her as junior faculty. Her name, which she offered in a trembling whisper, was “Irthyn Jonis, Comparative Mythology.”

  “Scholar Jonis,” he murmured, and she smiled nervously, dipped her head and made an escape.

  He straightened, one hand resting lightly on the head of his stick. A very good stick it was, black ironwood, collared in silver; the grip bound in leather, so that it would not easily escape inattentive fingers. Simple though it was, it signaled his status to others of the community, and was otherwise useful.

  Do you think, asked the voice inside his head, that's everyone?

  It might, he thought, glancing about him, very well be everyone. He hadn't counted, though he supposed someone might have. Dean Zorminsen was in deep conversation with First Director Verlin at some remove from the reviewing station where he and his auditor stood. Likewise, there were clumps of scholars all about, none seeming particularly interested in the new tenant of the prestigious—no, he was wrong.

  Two junior scholars were coming toward him, arm in arm. Lovers, he thought, or at the least old and comfortable friends, one dark and rounded, the other angular, her hair a wispy, middling brown. They approached with firm steps, heads high, the dark-haired one allowing a pinch of cynicism to be seen, her friend openly curious.

  Ah, said the voice inside his head.

  The dark-haired scholar slipped her arm free and stepped forward first, showing him the palms opened like a book, which was the style here.

  “Ella ben Suzan,” she said, in a fine, no-nonsense voice, “History of Education.”

  He bowed the bow between equals.

  “Scholar ben Suzan,” he murmured, committing name and face to memory.

  She gave him a firm nod and stepped aside, tarrying a half-dozen steps out to await her friend.

  “Kamele Waitley,” said the friend, bringing pale hands together to form the open book. “History of Education.”

  Ella ben Suzan's voice had been fine, but to hear Kamele Waitley speak was to wish for her to speak again, perhaps to recite some poetry or—