“Any change, Dorios?” he asked as he sat down.
“No reaction at all, but she still breathes.”
“Then I shall take over. While there is still breath, there is hope.”
Dorios left. Laron bolted the door behind him, then returned to the bedside. Ninth was dead; before him was just a body that functioned. Form without spirit, life without sentience. Still, even this form was a gateway. The being from another world. Elltee. She was a floodgate, and when opened she would pour a torrent of scholarship into Verral. It would be Ninth’s monument. There were a few communication problems to solve, like that of untranslatable words, and things in Verral totally outside Elltee’s experience, but all that was trivial. Her accidental experience of darkwalking must have been beyond comprehension, and the gods alone knew what she had been told by the elemental pretending to be a—ghost!
Laron sat perfectly still for a moment, hardly breathing, stunned by the sudden realization. “Dork,” Elltee had said. “An overfocused scholar or natural philosopher with limited social skills … take themselves a bit seriously …”
Velander.
But Velander was dead, thought Laron. He had seen her die.
Laron tried to recall that day in the ruins of Larmentel. Something had been torn to shreds in the etherworld as he had been darkwalking. Something that had called his name. Velander? The succubus had stolen her body, leaving her defenseless against the raptor elementals … yet what was a spirit? Memories, experiences, personality, etheric energies, and reserves that allowed it to reside within a body. The raptors would have slashed away nearly all the etheric life and fabric of Velander—leaving what? Life without life force.
A sort of fuzzy bubble on a glowing, orange string. Laron took out the locket that he wore around his neck and opened it. He stroked the mounting of the flake of greenish glass. This had an orange axis line, when viewed from the etherworld. He had never looked at it closely. He had been so busy, he had been putting it off until he was ready to begin his thesis. It had never been in the iron casket. Velander might have clung to it with whatever scraps remained after the raptor elementals had finished with her. Was she still there?
Laron removed the girl’s scarf and examined the circlet and oracle sphere he had put on her so many months ago. The settings were unchanged, but, then, that was no surprise. Only he and Ninth could change them, and he had ordered Ninth to leave them alone.
Laron hesitated. In a way he was almost reluctant to learn the truth. What if he was wrong? Worse—what if Velander had survived, but had faded to nothing by now? Stretching out on the floor, he spoke the words of power to detach and go darkwalking. He detached, and left the pain of his badly bruised body behind. In the odd reality of the etherworld he could see the shapes and lights of dozens of etheric devices and autons nearby. That was hardly a surprise; he was in Yvendel’s Academy, after all. He knew what to look for. It would be nearby: a straight, orange line, no more than a hint of gossamer. Laron probed amid the sparkles and tendrils, as if walking through a rainshower of bright, glowing gems. It took some time to locate the axis, for it had faded considerably. The pale hint of shimmer was even more faint.
“Velander,” he called into the blackness.
He strained for any reply. There was the faintest of mewls, like the cry of a kitten. Laron was not entirely sure that it might have been wishful thinking on his part.
“Velander, this is Laron.”
“Laron.” The word was softer than a whisper, but quite distinct.
“Velander! Do not speak again, or try to move. Save your life force—I can help you, it’s not too late.”
Laron’s words were based on hope rather than fact, however. All the etheric filaments that had linked her spirit to its body were torn off, and her reserves had been stripped away, too. This was like the legend of the princess whose father discovered she had a secret lover. He swore the boy would never know another kiss from the girl, but she disguised herself as a page and stole into the execution chamber. After the headsman had struck her beloved’s head from his shoulders, she darted forward and picked it up. The eyes blinked, and the lips moved for a moment as he recognized her, then she placed a kiss on his lips while his life lingered. In sheer outrage the king had then ordered her executed on the spot, but neither the bards nor their audiences cared about messy little details like that when heroic romance was involved.
In Laron’s case there was, in fact, no romance involved; this was Velander, after all. On the other hand, that made it all the more … More what? Velander? She had nobody. She had been vicious, vindictive, opinionated, self-righteous, spiteful, scheming, and totally without real friends. Now she was helpless, and very definitely alone and in distress. Alone. That was the worst of all. The core of Velander’s spirit had lasted a lot longer, but her position was little different from that of the princess’s decapitated lover. Death was not inevitable, because it had already taken place. The echoes of life were merely reverberating, but for how much longer?
Laron wove filaments around the fading essence of the girl, and there was barely a tug as she came away from the orange axis line. The oracle sphere worn by Velander’s body floated in the sparkle-studded darkness, solid with the inertia of the flesh merged with it. Countless thousands of etheric attachments beckoned, but less than a dozen were left to Velander’s spirit. Velander. He had very nearly bitten her and flung her body overboard when they were on the Shadowmoon. She had betrayed Terikel, she had stupidly fooled about with his circlet and oracle sphere. He could never love her; even respecting her would be quite a strain, and anyway, she was not even alive.
But I am all she has, thought Laron.
With the sheer, bloody-minded persistence in the face of annihilation the legendary princess had once shown, Laron attached the eleven filaments remaining to Velander.
“You are back in your own body, Velander,” he announced.
“Laron … only you … never doubted …”
She believed in him. Why? All he had done was put her spirit back into her body so they could die together. Still, Laron was nothing if not incurably romantic. Even though in life Velander was the sort of girl he would have crossed the street to avoid, she was now helpless, and Death’s cold hand was descending toward her shoulder. Laron extended tendrils of his own life force, bridging attachment points with the echo of Velander’s life.
“Hungry, cold …” murmured Velander.
“That is good, discomfort is life!” Laron said eagerly.
It was a lie. Discomfort was actually life under stress. Enough discomfort could kill. Does having one’s head struck off involve much discomfort? he wondered. He knew his extra attachments would not last; they would have to be renewed. Eventually the strain would kill him. This was like old times, when he had been the pale shimmer of a life that had already been lost, yet was sustained by borrowed life force.
Borrowed life force, thought Laron. He returned to his body, which was lying on the floor. His limbs felt heavy from the loss of the vitality that he had spared to Velander. He stood up slowly, then looked down at the candlelit body of the priestess. The oracle sphere was sustaining her body, and given proper care it could live on for decades. On the other hand, once Velander was truly gone, the young alien sorceress Elltee could possess the body in further visits, pouring knowledge of the cold sciences into Verral from her own world. Once Velander was truly gone. Only then. People would be impatient for that to happen. Who would have the task of snuffing her out?
Laron leaned over Velander, gazing down at her pale face. A tear fell from his cheek and splashed on her lips.
“So many others deserve death more than you,” he said sadly, then added, “even though you are a self-righteous, insufferable little dork.”
Laron sighed, squeezed his eyes shut, then lay down again and spoke the words of darkwalking.
“Velander, can you hear me?” he asked the remains of her spirit. “This is Laron again.”
; “Laron …”
“Velander, you are going to have to trust me. I must know your truename. I shall be truthful with you: There is little hope. Only one path remains open to us, and it is a path that has never been taken before. Succeed or fail, I shall be hated and hunted throughout all of Acrema and Scalticar, but I am willing to try.”
“Laron … wish I could say … I love you … but it would be a lie.”
“That is a relief. Now, will you tell me your truename? Can you trust me?”
“I already trust you … Without you, what am I?”
With Velander’s truename echoing through his mind, Laron again returned to his body. With the furtive haste and controlled terror of a thief slipping out of the royal bedchamber with the sleeping monarch’s crown in his hand, he got to work. His legs trembled and his knees felt like springs as he held Velander’s hands to the circlet, spoke her truename, then pushed. The circlet came free. Laron reapplied it with his own hands.
“Now there is no going back,” he said as he drew his knife.
Laron decided to stay a week more in Diomeda, waiting for the freebooters and bandit deserters from the defeated army to be run down by the Diomedan militia’s lancers, and allowing the roads to dry out. He was, of course, in hiding and wearing a disguise. With seven centuries of experience behind him, he was quite good at disguises. He had bought a horse and cart, and spent the days collecting bodies and weapons from the muddy fields to the west of Diomeda. The bodies he took to a barge, to be stripped of their armor, weighted, and sunk at sea. The armor and weapons went to the city marshal’s storehouse, to be cleaned and repaired by his artisans.
There was no announcement that the body of Ninth had gone missing. A senior initiate had found the body dead in the morning, with the throat cut and Laron gone. Yvendel ordered that the circlet be removed, but it remained somehow locked onto the head of the dead body. The rector was intrigued. Circlets always became detached when the host body died. She ordered a detailed study to be made of the phenomenon. It was to take place the next day, after the body had been given the appropriate rites the following dawn. Early that evening, Velander’s body vanished.
Quite a substantial reward was offered for Laron, by word of mouth. The circlet was worth enough to cancel the national debt of many kingdoms, and anyone who found it would not be foolish enough to trade it for any reward that the academy could offer, but Laron—alive—could be questioned about its location. Several dozen weedy teenage boys with acne were hauled into the Academy by hopeful bounty hunters, but the reward remained unclaimed.
Miral was above the eastern horizon but the sun had not yet set in the west as Laron unloaded the last of the rotting bodies from his cart and heaved them onto the barge. He wore a rag over his mouth and nose, and everyone avoided him because of the stench. As disguises went, it was perfect.
I had my life back, he thought as he paused to rest, gazing at the little schooner. I had said farewell to being a wolf among sheep, I had been welcomed back to the fold. Baaa. I had said farewell to sleeping while Miral is down, and had offered greetings to dark skies full of glittering splashes of stars, unchallenged by Miral’s light. I had tasted rabbit roasted on a spit, and the sour pleasure of ale. Best of all, I felt the warmth of a seductive embrace by soft warm arms. Now nobody will dare to try to seduce me. Did I really give all that up for Velander?
The bargemaster walked up to the wagon, jingling coppers in his hand. He was one of the few people in the city who smelled as foul as Laron, and so did not shun his company.
“Many more out there?” he asked as he counted out the fee for the day’s bodies.
“Still some dozens, but they’ll be buried as where they be lyin’,” explained Laron. “Graveworms been munchin’ ’em, they’re too far gone.”
“So, big bath for us all?” the bargemaster laughed.
“Nay, I’m back ter haulin’ nightsoil,” said Laron, shaking his head. He pointed down along the pier. “What’s the big battle galley down there, tying up?”
“She’s Scalticarian, the Megazoid. Goodwill visit, probably, eh? Well, I’d best be on my way with this load.”
Laron barely heard him. He was watching Lisgar, who had hurried down the gangplank, fallen to his knees, and begun kissing the timbers of the pier. They were followed by Roval and Terikel, who were holding hands. Now a second, far smaller vessel, approached the pier. The Shadowmoon. Laron noticed that quite a large number of people were glancing at it, then pretending to do something else. Yvendel had alerted the bounty hunters of the city that Laron would probably try to board the Shadowmoon or contact its crew. On the decks were Norrieav, Hazlok, and D’Arto.
Laron felt a tear leak from his eye and soak into his mask. They had been through so much together, and now he did not dare approach any of them. He wanted to exchange stories with the crew, to buy drinks for everyone, to stay up all night with Roval discussing castings and javat, and most of all to bow before Terikel and petition to begin studies as a Metrologan neophyte. They might as well have been docking on the shores of another continent.
“Intent and cargo, sir?” called an official as Norrieav jumped onto the pier to tie up.
“Just taking supplies and commissioning repairs,” responded the boatmaster. “We were damaged in a storm, but the Megazoid found us and escorted us here after a few running repairs.”
Terikel and Roval walked along the pier and stopped before Norrieav.
“How was the Megazoid, Worthy Elder?” the boatmaster asked.
“Compared to what happened to us during the—the storm, it was paradise,” said Terikel. “I shall have my toenails extracted through my nose before I ever set foot on the Shadowmoon again.”
“So you will return to Scalticar on the battle galley?”
“Yes. I imagine that Learned Wensomer will require the comforts of the Megazoid as well. What about you?”
“Oh, once the repairs are done and a new gigboat has been built, I will bring the schooner south at my leisure.”
Laron caught himself unconsciously rubbing at a fang under his mask. He hastily lowered his hand.
“I thought Laron would be here to meet us,” said Terikel, looking about with her hands on her hips.
That was too much for Laron. He climbed back onto the wagon, flicked the reins and set off along the pier. The crowd parted hastily as he approached, and he gave not a hint of recognition to his old friends. He passed the small, chunky Shadowmoon, then the immense and streamlined Megazoid. They reminded Laron of a swan’s dumpy chick beside its large and graceful mother.
The darkening city was crowded as Laron drove his cart toward the west gate. In one of the plazas the masons were packing up for the day. A statue of the former king had been removed some days before, and a new inscription stone had been mortared into place. It read, In Memory of Rax Einsel, Royal Engineer to Queen Sairet and Prince Forteron. The city gates were about to be closed for the night as Laron arrived.
“Oi, bungo, off to harvest more bodies from the fields?” called a guard as he approached the wagon.
“Ter ye they be bodies, but they’re my bread and butter,” Laron called back.
“Ach, rancid swine! You’ll put me off dinner. Isn’t it a bit late to be gathering the dead?”
“Aye, that’s true. But I’se been evicted from me room on account of me smell. Got a tent and roll in the back ter sleep in the fields.”
“Dangerous in the fields, beyond the walls.”
“Dangerous?” laughed Laron as the guard glanced over the tailboard of the wagon. “With all them ‘orrible murders in the city? Two strappin’ bully-boys wi’ their throats torn out, and that furrin’ student, er, um—”
“Master Starrakin.”
“Yeah, like wi’ ’is head torn off—and them’s the only ones we knows about. Reckon it’s a demon, I does.”
“So you prefer bandits and desert wolves?”
“Ach, I’ll just lie still. One sniff and they’ll think I�
�m dead.”
“Pah, on your way,” laughed the guard, “and good luck for the night.”
Laron drove the cart out across the muddy battlefield, then reined in on the low hill where the invading army’s command tents had once stood. Amid the rubbish and wreckage were the waterskins, provisions, money, and fresh clothing he had cached there earlier, and he quickly had everything loaded onto the wagon.
Climbing back onto the driver’s bench, he looked east to Diomeda. He knew the buildings would obscure the docks, but he still had a pang of disappointment that he could not see them. Taking a small plate from his robes, he stroked it with his thumb. It was his badge of rank as an officer on the Shadowmoon.
“Farewell, Shadowmoon, and thank you for everything,” he whispered, then flicked the reins and set off along the road that ran west beside the Leir River.
The slaver D’Alik had been lucky in his flight from the pursuing Sargolan lancers. The rain had begun, and while it made his journey over the desert difficult and uncomfortable, it also washed away the tracks of his horse. His merchant house in the river port of Urok was quite modest, but it was safe and discreet. Over the weeks following his arrival, he gradually wound up his affairs while he waited for a caravan to arrive from the north. He sold his slaver license to his local steward after hearing that Diomeda had defeated the Alliance army, and that the Sargolans had actually signed a treaty with the Torean invaders.
At last the rain stopped. Barges were more common on the Leir River, now that the Sargolan blockade had been lifted. At last a particular caravan arrived, both camels and their drivers caked in mud. He sent a message to the caravan master, then had his nine remaining slaves escorted to the docks.
Barge traffic was mostly one-way on the Leir. The barges themselves were crudely constructed, designed to float down on the current with cargoes of wine, timber, and other such things that were in short supply in the coastal city. At the end of the journey the barges were broken up, because the wood used in their construction was worth several times more in Diomeda than the cost of hauling them all the way back to the mountains. There was often some room left over to pick up additional cargo on the way down, especially if it was light.
Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 57