by Sharon Lee
“After meeting with the grandmother of Syl Vor’s sister, I apprehend?”
“My plan is to ascertain their location and their intentions.”
“Do that,” Pat Rin said cordially. “I will be most interested to be informed of both.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was a thing of beauty and elegance. Ink blue with a subtle silver stripe, it snapped close ’round his shattered leg, an exoskeleton that transformed ruin into beauty.
“It is…a jewel,” Rys murmured. “Rafin, this is art!”
“It is less art than a man’s natural leg, but it will do what you ask of it, as your own strove to do. Well, Brother?”
That last was to Pulka, who was on his knees, running his fingers down the woven metal, testing the fastenings and fingering the thin tubes.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Dreaming did not lead me astray. The hydraulics?”
“Bench tested well. The fighting cock will now test in place, and we will make what adjustments are necessary. If you are satisfied with the construction, Brother?”
“Past satisfied. It is as Rys says—this is no ordinary fabrication, Brother; your skill surpasses my dream.”
“Half of the fabrication is the material,” Udari said. “The discovery of that lies with Rys.”
“True!” Rafin nodded. “I had hoped for a coil of aersteel or a skein of carbolite. To find a knot of refined bintamium—I tell you nothing but the truth, brothers, when I say that I dared not to dream so large. Here now,” he said to Rys, going to one knee and stretching out his arms like a fond father to a toddler. “Come to Rafin, little one.”
Rys closed his eyes, the better to find his balance. The brace was so light that he scarce felt its weight. He pressed his enclosed heel down, felt gyros engage, and heard a small sound, as emitted from time to time by his glove. Micro-engines, he thought, smaller than his thumbnail.
“Well, do you intend only to stand and display your beauty to passersby?” demanded Rafin.
Rys smiled. “I was seeking my balance.”
“Seek it in flight, my cock! Come to me now so that we might see the function of your jewelery, eh?”
Rys nodded and stepped forward.
Two steps he made before the unexpected spring in his bejeweled leg betrayed him into a stumble, a twist, and a graceless collapse into Rafin’s ready arms.
“Too much energy, eh? Here, let us find the weight of you upon the world. Udari, your arm! Steady the small one while he walks the length of the pressure ribbon. Wait!” Rafin had hurried to his bench; there was a storm of short snaps as he brought various functions to life, then a shout.
“Now! Walk now, Rys!”
Walk he did, the spring not so much of a surprise this time, but still, he needed Udari’s arm.
“Too much push back,” Rafin said. “Also, our fledgling is lighter on his feet than I had judged. Sit him on the bench; I will adjust.”
* * *
“Why do you learn these?” Kezzi asked, flipping back through the silhouette pack.
“So that when I am a pilot, I will be able to identify the ships around me.”
“Doesn’t the ship have a program for that?”
“Yes, but sometimes programs go awry,” Syl Vor answered, shifting restlessly in his chair. “It’s why we learn to do the math and form the equations for navagation, even though there is a nav-comp on the ship. At least, I haven’t gotten to piloting equations yet—but I will!”
“Because you are going to be a pilot.”
“Yes.”
Kezzi looked up. “You should rest,” she said. “Your arm hurts you.”
He glared at her, but she knew him well enough already to see that it wasn’t his best effort.
“Who said that my arm hurts?”
“Your eyes say it, and the way you press your mouth together,” Kezzi told him. “You might as well rest today, you know. Tomorrow, we’ll be at school again, and you won’t want Pete or Luce to see you tired.”
“Well…”
“Just lay on the bed next to Eztina,” Kezzi said. “I’ll sit and talk to you, if you want.”
“How did you know my shoulder was dislocated?” Syl Vor asked, stretching sideways across the bed so he didn’t disturb the cat.
“Because I’m apprentice to the luthia.”
“The luthia is the medic?”
Kezzi sniffed. “The luthia is much more than a medic,” she said haughtily. “Anyway, because I am her apprentice, I have dreamed many injuries and how to treat them.”
She sat cross-legged on the bed by his knee.
“Syl Vor?”
“Yes.”
“I was just thinking—if you had the silhouette of a particular ship, that—that had become lost, could you find it?”
He frowned.
“Find it? I suppose—but not from the silhouette. The silhouettes are ID tools—I told you.”
He paused, frowning up at the ceiling.
“If the ship were lost then you would need to know where it had been and where it was going and whether it had been seen in-between, and—oh, many things! Also,” he added, stifling a yawn, “you would need a grown-up pilot.”
“But it could be done.”
“Well…yes.”
“Do you know any grown-up pilots?”
He laughed.
“Is that funny?” Kezzi asked, bristling.
“No—yes. Our whole family is pilots. Except Grand-aunt.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Now you do,” he said, sounding cranky.
Kezzi sighed and turned the subject, thinking that the pain in his arm and her ignorance were together putting him out of patience.
“Why did you protect Rudy?” she asked. “He doesn’t like you.”
“No, nor I don’t like him,” Syl Vor said drowsily. “But it was wrong, two-on-one.” His eyes were more than half-closed now.
“Why did you—help Rudy?” he asked.
Kezzi sniffed. “I didn’t help Rudy,” she said, watching his eyes drift fully shut. “I helped you. You’re my brother.”
Syl Vor smiled, and turned his head to snuggle his cheek against the pillow.
* * *
“Luthia, will you witness?”
Silain turned from her inventory of the death chest, and considered the shadow at the entrance to her hearth-room.
“On whose account?” she asked quietly, which was the ritual answer. Droi knew the rituals—all of the rituals, for she had a receptive and tenacious mind—and she had asked in full form.
“On my account,” she said now, and Silain felt her spirit waver. To witness on Droi’s account might mean anything from a murder to a badly seasoned dish.
“We have a death upon us,” she said, giving warning that, if the witnessing wwould be long, it would need to wait.
Droi bowed her head.
“Well I know it,” she said, abandoning the ritual, as Silain had hoped she would. “I would dance Dmitri through the door with a light heart, Grandmother. I merely wish to know if I carry the balancing number.”
Silain put the memory stick, carefully, back in the chest. So, the child had taken matters into her own hand—not surprising, really, and perhaps even a good and wise thing, for Droi’s Sight, while often terrifying, was rarely wrong.
“Did you have Rafin?”
Droi shook her head. “I didn’t think of Rafin, and when he proposed himself, I didn’t want him.”
This was encouraging; the child of two such fierce souls might have been more than the Bedel in their present state could support. However…
“Did you go Outside?”
“No,” she said sharply, and then laughed with genuine humor. “Or yes. Rys gave the seed.”
Rys, who looked to be Bedel, for all his slightness, who claimed true kinship with several of the kompani, and who found acceptance with others. Rys himself might well have been the balancing number, except—
“He has only ha
lf a soul,” Silain pointed out.
Droi laughed again, not so humorous this time.
“It wasn’t his soul I wanted.”
Of course not.
“The seed was willingly given?”
“It was.” A close and pleased cat-smile appeared. “And with vigor.”
“You told him that the child was for the kompani.”
“Luthia, I did so.”
“Then come forward and let us see if you’ve caught a Bedel soul, Daughter. Did you use the draught?”
“Yes. I dreamed it first; I wanted no error.”
Droi would not let such a detail escape her—and dreaming the formula first, so that there would be no error? Of course. That was her way: careful and thorough. Had her Sight not been so dark and so heavy, Droi would have been the luthia’s second apprentice.
“Come here, Daughter, and quickly. Dmitri fades into that other world even as we speak. His children pray with him now, but I must return.”
“Yes,” Droi said and stepped forward.
Silain unshipped the healing unit, and tapped in a code while Droi slipped her hand into the sampling glove.
Silain counted to ten, the machine beeped, and the codes marched down the readout.
Droi, who had learned to read the codes before the luthia had found it necessary to end her ’prenticeship, sighed.
“A catch for the Bedel,” she said.
Silian sighed as well.
“A catch,” she acknowledged, considering the numbers, “but not a strong one. I recommend a dram of the holding tonic.”
“Yes,” said Droi, her eyes very nearly wholly green.
“Jin will mix it; I must go to Dmitri. Drink it fresh, with no other food or drink, then rest on your bed. You will likely sleep; that is well. When you wake, you may rise, and dance Dmitri across the threshhold.”
* * *
Adjustments were made, and again; the push-back ratio adjusted.
Rys found his balance, and, for the first time in…a very long time, walked without support, first, at the center of a smiling triangle of his brothers, and then again, in lonely state, about the forge, his steps quiet and properly timed.
Rafin showed him how he might call for more energy from the brace, by pumping his foot up and down and engaging the hydraulics to do more.
“But use it with care! You will spin in circles if you give one side more power than the other.”
Rys laughed, and suddenly dodged ’round Pulka, executing a quick and intricate piece of footwork before leaping into the air and bolting for the ramp.
“Catch me!” he cried, as if the new leg had not only made him whole, but dropped him into boyhood.
Pulka, of course, did not run, but Udari did, and Rafin, pelting after him out of the forge and down the ramp, their laughter bouncing around them from ceiling and walls. At the end of the ramp, Rafin spun, as if to grab him. Rys twisted, danced around, behind—and fled back toward the forge, the others scrambling in his wake.
He threw himself into the rocker under Pulka’s astonished eye, grinning as first Udari and then Rafin dropped to the floor nearby, fair quivering with high spirits.
“One thing,” Rafin said, shaking his head as if he would dash water from his hair. “One thing, little one. That brace will not tire as a human leg will tire. Listen to your flesh and blood and do not allow the machine to push you beyond what you can bear.”
Rys, leaning back in the rocker, nodded.
“It is like the glove,” he said, “both a great gift and a great peril.”
“As life itself,” said Udari and rose of a sudden, his lips still bent in a residual smile. “Brothers, I am sent forth by the luthia’s word to fetch the youngest of our sisters from the City Above.”
Rys rose from the rocker immediately, and stretched out his ungloved hand.
“I will walk with you to the gate,” he said. “Brother.”
* * *
She would have had him rest, but Syl Vor insisted that he walk with Kezzi and Gavit to meet her brother and Malda.
“Tomorrow morning, let’s meet as we did this morning,” he said, as they walked, “and go into school together.”
She thought about that. It would be best not to meet Pete or Luce—or worse, Pete and Luce—alone. In fact, if she never saw either of them again, she would, be well pleased with the bargain.
“Pitched them two out onnere ears, ain’t they?” Gavit asked from behind them. “Fightin’ in school?”
“Mother said that Ms. Taylor wished to give Luce and Peter a second chance,” Syl Vor said. “She said that she thought they’d learned their lesson.”
Gavit snorted.
“Your ma, she agreed to that, did she?”
“Yes,” said Kezzi. “She said that the teacher knew her classroom best, and that we—Syl Vor and me—could take care of ourselves, and…”
“…and if they fail to use their second chance to advantage, they will have to face the Patrol,” Syl Vor finished.
“Oughta had to face the Patrol years ago, the both of ’em,” Gavit said. “Might be I’ll have a talk with your ma, Silver. Meanwhile, here’s your brother, Anna. Make sure you tell him what happened today, hear me?”
“I will. Syl Vor, rest your arm.”
“It’s all right now,” he said. “Good evening, Nathan and Rascal.”
“Good evening, small dragon and Streetman Gavit.”
“Hey,” Gavit said.
“Remember, Anna,” Syl Vor said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow where we met today.”
“Yes,” she said impatiently. “I’ll remember. Go home and rest your arm!”
- - - - -
“What was it you were to tell your brother?” Udari asked as they walked among the gadje.
“When we went into school this morning, there were two boys beating a third, and Syl Vor put himself in front of the third. He broke one boy’s arm.”
“Well done,” said Udari mildly. “And the other?”
Kezzi sighed. “I cut him behind the knee. And I am to tell you, Brother, that I am not to bring this knife that I have to school anymore.”
“The teacher says this?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will this evening provide you with another knife. What else about the fight? You, I see, were not hurt. Was Syl Vor?”
“His arm was dislocated, but…” she paused.
“But?”
“But he stood there, with his arm dislocated, and his, his soul—I could see it, bright as an Affirmation, that he would fight more, if he had to, and they wouldn’t—he was determined that they would not prevail.” She took a hard breath. “It was why I cut Luce behind the knee, so Syl Vor wouldn’t have to fight anymore.”
“Well,” Udari said, and walked a hand of steps in silence. “Do you know what I think, young sister?”
“That I should have gone for Luce’s eye?”
“No, that would have been too much. What I think is that you are as fortunate in your brother as I am, in mine.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The Bedel came noisily together at the center of the common space, and sat in the exuberance of light produced by more than a dozen hearth-stones.
Rys sat between Jin and Memit, with Udari on Jin’s left, all of them in brilliant finery, seeming like so many bright birds flocking. He himself had no cause to be ashamed in this splendid company, as he wore a scarlet shirt and a deeply embroidered indigo vest that had come from out of the depths of Udari’s chest. Rys thought they must have belonged to his brother when he was a boy. That same brother was this evening handsomely turned out in a yellow shirt and a plum-colored vest lavishly embroidered with red flowers.
A shadow moved between the hearth and those gathered—Silain, dressed all in white, crimson tassels on her shawl, and a broad band of yellow embroidery around the hems of her long tunic and skirt.
She held a baton as long as his forearm high over her head, and paced ’round the hearth until eve
ry one there had seen it. The chattering laughter stilled, replaced by expectant silence.
Slowly, Silain lowered her arms.
A smaller shadow detached itself from the inner edge of the circle—Kezzi, Rys saw, wearing a red blouse over a long dark skirt as thick with embroidery as his vest, and a gay yellow sash ’round her waist.
She took the baton from Silain-luthia’s hand, holding it reverently between both of hers. It seemed, at first, an odd office for a child—and then not so odd at all. After all, Kezzi was the luthia’s apprentice.
The luthia’s apprentice, then, brought the baton to Alosha the headman. Like the luthia, the headman was all in white, and he sat cross-legged and calm just a hand’s span inside the circle.
He received the baton and began to speak.
“The kompani gathers to celebrate Dmitri, who has stepped from this world into that kinder place, the World Unseen. When the Memory Stick comes to your hand, speak as your heart prompts you, sisters and brothers. Let us remember Dmitri, our brother. Let us remember him well, and with laughter!”
He passed the baton to the woman sitting just behind and on his right.
Dmitri had been well-loved by the Bedel, if even half the stories told of him were true, and laughter frequently attended the baton as it make its way ’round the circle.
When it came to his hand, Rys made to pass it on, thinking it could only be an insult, that one who was not of the kompani and who had no story to tell, should speak.
Memit, however, thrust it back on him, so it seemed that he must either speak or enter into a brawl. He took a breath, fingering the baton, feeling slides and nubs beneath his fingers—controls, as if it were a recording device, in truth. His thoughts grew, not cold, but cool, and he bowed his head.
“I meet Dmitri as he leaves us, a shadow in the doorway between worlds,” he said slowly. “A man of heart, and of skill, whose eagerness to attain that kinder place speaks of a soul unburdened by care. Yet, even as he goes, he pauses to teach a young brother, through the memories of his brothers and his sisters, what it is, to be of the Bedel.”
Despite the coolness of mind that had produced this, he swallowed with difficulty around the sudden lump in his throat and thrust the baton blindly in Memit’s direction. He felt it slip through his fingers at the same time an arm came ’round his shoulders in a hug and Jin murmured in his ear, “Well said, Rys. Your heart does you credit.”