By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  But the Mage asked no more questions. He merely said, “Ah,” and continued to lead the way to the Daughter’s main hatch. The Deathwing hung suspended above the brightly lit deck of a landing bay, gripped in metal claws extending from the overhead. They climbed down a temporary stairway to the deck, then went via white-painted passageways to a cabin much like the one she had left behind on the Deathwing.

  The Mage ushered her in, bowing, and said, “If it pleases you, Mistress, wait here. My First shall attend you shortly.”

  “And if it doesn’t please me?”

  Her host looked startled, or at least as startled as anyone who wore a full-face mask of black plastic could manage to look. “You are free to come and go as you will, Mistress. If you require anything, it shall be provided.”

  “I want to see the others from my ship,” Llannat said. “Now.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” the Mage said. “Pray accompany me.”

  He led the way again, this time to another level, and from there to a series of rooms. He slid open the first door and stepped back. A force field shimmered across the opening. Llannat looked in—there were Lieutenant Vinhalyn, Chief Yance, and all the rest of the Daughter’s crew, but not Ari.

  “Is this everyone?” Llannat asked.

  “There was another,” the Mage responded. “A big man. He was hurt in the fighting. But he will be well.”

  “What will you do with these?”

  “What you command, Mistress.”

  “Llannat Hyfid!” Lieutenant Vinhalyn called out through the force field. “Whose side are you on?”

  “The right one, I hope,” Llannat called back. “I’m playing all this by ear.” To the Mage she said, “Show these the honor you show me.”

  “As you wish,” the Mage responded.

  He flipped a panel control and the force field vanished.

  “Now,” Llannat said, “take me to the other man. I wish to see him. Then I will speak with your First.”

  The Mage bowed his head. “So it shall be. Do you wish your geaerith for the interview?”

  “Geaerith?” Llannat asked.

  “Your … ah, your mask,” the Mage replied, and tapped his plastic face covering.

  “Yes,” Llannat said. “I suppose so. Yes, fetch me one.”

  Klea had taken a seat at the long table, as had Owen, but nobody, so far, had done so much as lift the covers off the serving dishes. There was red wine in crystal goblets, which nobody was drinking. Klea had taken a sip of hers, enough to determine that it was a long way from purple aqua vitae or Tree Frog beer, and had let the goblet stand untouched thereafter.

  Jessan and Doctor syn-Tavaite were still missing and the Domina was getting restless. Finally Beka shoved back her chair and stood up.

  “I could have sworn Nyls was too practical to miss dinner,” she said. “I’ll have to send the robots—”

  Before she could finish, the far wall of the dining room shimmered as the holoprojection rearranged itself into a carved wooden doorway. The door opened, and Jessan and syn-Tavaite entered the room.

  “I thought you were lost,” Beka said.

  “Not exactly.” The Khesatan moved to stand by the table at the Domina’s left hand, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he picked up a glass of wine and drank off almost half of it without stopping. “We found another way into the base—that false door is a real one if you’ve got the Summer Palace landing field illusion up and running in the docking bay. And after that, Doctor syn-Tavaite showed me her laboratory.”

  “For making replicants?”

  The Domina’s voice sounded brittle, almost uncertain—Klea wondered if she was, after all, afraid of what she hoped to do. Funny—the way Owen talks, his sister isn’t afraid of anything.

  Jessan drained the rest of his wine. “Yes.”

  “Was there—”

  “A replicant in a stasis box? No.”

  “You’re sure you looked everywhere?”

  Klea thought she saw Jessan shudder. “Oh, yes.”

  All this time, Owen had been looking at the new doorway with a curious expression. “Which room is on the other side of that wall?” he asked. “Is it the laboratory?”

  Jessan shook his head. “No—it’s another room from the Summer Palace. The Great Hall, if I remember my art history correctly. Allegorical frescoes on the ceiling, armorial carvings on the hearth … .”

  “The hearth.” Owen stood up. “I wonder—”

  The door opened for him when he touched it. Through the gap, Klea saw the paneled room with the great fireplace, brightly lit by glow-globes in wrought-metal sconces along the walls.

  “Well, well, well,” said the Domina. “Today has been just full of pleasant surprises.”

  Owen was already standing by the hearth when Klea and the others joined him. “Here,” he said, pointing to the carved patterns that he had called the arms of Entibor and House Rosselin. “Look behind here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jessan replied. “It’s all illusion, remember?”

  The Khesatan extended both hands into the projection that made up the wooden overmantel. “There’s nothing back here but smooth wall.” He moved his hands over to the right, and they sank into the embroidered tapestry that overlaid the rich wooden panels. “Nothing here either. No cloth, no wood, just metal.”

  “We’ll see,” said Beka. She raised her voice. “Base: switch off the holoprojections.”

  The illusion vanished. Klea saw that the entire room was a featureless cube of polished steel. The only relief from the stark blankness was provided by sliding doors at either end and recessed light panels in the ceiling. The steel walls were all of one piece, unmarked and unmarred.

  “All right, Owen,” Beka said. “Do you still say this is it?”

  “It has to be.”

  The Domina frowned at the steel walls for a moment, then reached inside her jacket and pulled out a marking stylus. “Base: turn the projections back on.”

  The fireplace, the hangings, the leaded-glass windows all reappeared. “Here we go,” Beka said. “Let’s see what happens.”

  With the stylus, she outlined the carved slab. The top of the scribing tool appeared to sink into the stone and vanish without leaving a mark, but she kept on working. When she’d finished, she took a step backward.

  “Base: projections off.”

  Once again the fireplace disappeared. On the wall where it had been, a square black outline remained.

  “Right,” Beka said. She raised her voice again. “Robots, fetch me a mask and a cutting torch.”

  Owen looked at her. “Bee, you aren’t going to—”

  “Quit sounding like Ari,” she replied. “I own this place; I can do what I want with it. And I’m fully qualified in hull repair.”

  One of the maintenance robots trundled up, carrying a cutting outfit. “Your tools, my lady.”

  “Thank you.” Beka picked up the mask and fitted it over her face, then pulled on the thick gloves. “Don’t look, people, if you don’t want flash burns.”

  The Domina picked up the torch and keyed the self-starter. A brilliant flame sprang from the nozzle, and Klea had to look away. For a few minutes the steel room was full of the hissing sound of the torch and the smell of hot metal. Then the hissing stopped, followed by a metallic clang.

  Klea looked up. A square opening loomed in the wall, an opening the same size as the carved hearthstone had been. And beyond the opening, revealed by the action of the cutting torch, was an empty, gaping hole.

  The Domina flipped up her mask. “There,” she said. “Be careful how you look inside—the edges are still hot.”

  “I’ve done as much work around the spacedocks as you,” Owen replied. Carefully, he extended his staff into the gap in the wall. A few seconds later, the same pale white light Klea had seen come out of the staff earlier lit up the opening.

  Owen bent forward. The uncanny light fell onto his face, making him look suddenly older.

  “You we
re right,” he said. “There’s a stasis box in here. It has a transparent top.”

  The Domina seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Her features were pale and tense. “Anything inside it?”

  “Yes.” Owen paused. When he went on, it was in a voice Klea had never heard from him before. “It’s got Mother.”

  PART FOUR

  I. GYFFERAN SYSTEM SPACE: RFS VERATINA; UDC FEZRISOND; RSF KARIPAVO

  ASTEROID BASE

  GYFFERAN FARSPACE: SWORD-OF-THE-DAWN

  “THIS is how it’s going to work,” Metadi said.

  With Tyche and Quetaya, he was standing at the ’Tina’s main battle tank. The infantry colonel was already in his armored p-suit, with the helmet cradled underneath one arm.

  The General illuminated an area inside the tank. “There’s our axis of attack: the place the main Gyfferan fleet is heading toward, and the damaged units are limping away from. We’ll make our first dropout over here, and listen on the passive detection gear for electronic combat noise—lightspeed and hypercomm signals, fire control and ranging beams, energy flares, you know the drill. When we find some, we’ll take another line of bearing, then jump at right angles to it. Do it a second time, get another bearing, and where those three lines cross we’ll have our fix on the action.”

  Quetaya frowned at the display. “Even based on the sketchy info we’ve got, it looks like a bad time is being had by all in that little corner of the universe. Driving straight in could get us fired on by both sides instead of just the Mages.”

  “It’s a risk I’m willing to accept,” Metadi said. “I want to find the Mages’ flagship and take it out, not just cause random damage.”

  “If the flagship goes and we go with it,” she said, “what’s that going to gain us?”

  “Us personally? Nothing but a starpilot’s grave out here in the dark. And some glory, maybe, but glory’s cold. The important thing is, we’ll have bought the rest of the Space Force a bit more time.”

  “You do have a way with words, General,” said Tyche. “Nobody could make an attack like this one sound like fun, but at least you make it sound worth the trouble.”

  “Years of practice, Colonel. Years of practice.”

  “I’m off to join my recons, then,” said Tyche. “See you again when the dust settles.”

  “There’s a pub on Gyffer,” said Metadi, “or at least there used to be. The Seven Orbs. I’ll buy you a drink when all this is over.”

  “Drinks, aye.”

  The colonel saluted and left CIC. Metadi resumed his seat at the TAO’s station.

  “All units stand by for hyperspace translation on my signal,” he said. “Ready to jump … go.”

  The stylized planetary system in the main battle tank suddenly boiled with activity in the region of the system’s gas giant. The blue dots that signified the warships of Metadi’s task force broke out of orbit, streaked up to jump speed, and vanished from the realspace diagram.

  “So you still won’t do it,” Beka said to Owen.

  They were back at their evening meal in the Entibor room, dining by candlelight around the long table. Nobody had much appetite, it seemed, even after a prolonged stretch on the ’Hammer’s space rations. The knowledge of the stasis box waiting for them in the next room, and the memory of what it contained, were too much with them for anyone’s comfort.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Owen said. “I said that I couldn’t. I don’t know how to reach the Void on my own—even assuming that’s how the work is done. An Adept’s no good for this, Bee. You want a Mage.”

  Down at the far end of the table, next to LeSoit, Doctor syn-Tavaite met Beka’s glance straight on for the first time, and shook her head. “Not I. My part was done already. The Masked One would have kept me longer, if more was needed.”

  Beka frowned. Moodily, she began drawing lines on the tablecloth with the tip of her dagger. If the fabric gave way under the pressure, the Prof’s robots would know how to mend it. He’d always thought of things like that, and had prepared for them well in advance … . She looked up.

  “The Prof knew he was going to buy it on Darvell; he’d already told the robots that the base was mine by the time we left. Back before that, he had Doctor syn-Tavaite make a replicant for him, and the first thing he did with it was seal it away and go looking for me. He must have wanted me to have the replicant. And if he wanted me to have it, he must have seen a way for someone else to—to finish the process.”

  Jessan smiled faintly. “I’d hate to count the amazing leaps of logic in that statement. Just the same, you’re right; if we don’t work on those assumptions we might as well retire from the fight and take up flower arranging.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Beka said. “I think.” She tested the point of her dagger on the pad of one finger, and watched the yellow candlelight flow up and down the blade. “All right. Owen says we need a Mage, and Doctor syn-Tavaite says that she isn’t one. Fine: if there’s one thing the civilized galaxy has too many of right now, it’s Mages. All we have to do is borrow one of them for a while.”

  Ignaceu LeSoit set down his wineglass. “And convince him to bring about the defeat of his own side, of his own free will and out of the kindness of his heart? Good luck.”

  “Frankly, Ignac’,” Beka said, “I don’t care how the Mage in question feels about it—if we have him, I can convince him. The hard part is going to be catching him.” She looked about the table. “Anybody have an idea where to go hunting?”

  “There were Mages on Nammerin,” Klea said.

  “And on Pleyver,” said Owen, “and on Ophel and Artat and probably any other world you’d care to name. There were even deep-cover agents on Galcen—sometimes their workings would disturb me there.”

  “You said Pleyver?” Beka broke in.

  “Yes. I met some there, if you remember—including at least one Great Lord. And Pleyver is in open rebellion against the Republic. There are almost certainly Mages on Pleyver.”

  “Yes …” Beka thought for a moment, then smiled. “I wonder if Pleyver would trade me the use of one Magelord for the safe return of their councillor?”

  “If I were running the show on Pleyver,” LeSoit said, “I know what I’d say to a proposal like that. I’d tell you to keep the councillor and welcome to him.”

  “Well, you aren’t running the show out there,” Beka told him, “and we won’t know until we try.” She looked around the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve made up my mind. We leave for Pleyver first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Admiral—we’re approaching the Gyfferan system.”

  “Very well, Salagrie.” Admiral Vallant turned to face his aide. “We’ve done what our allies requested by coming here. Now we act on our own.”

  Vallant was in his office aboard Fezrisond. The map-cube on the corner of his desk held a holographic representation—vastly shrunk—of former Republic space. The diagram, in white dots within a black matrix, showed the Infabede sector highlighted as an irregular turquoise blob. Gyffer and its assorted dependencies, occupying a portion of space between Infabede and the rest of the galaxy, were currently highlighted in pale green. Other points of interest were picked out in red.

  The admiral regarded all of this with satisfaction. On the whole, things were going quite well: Mandeyn and Artat were nearly surrounded and should soon come under his control, and as soon as the Gyfferans saw reason, his reach would extend to within striking range of Galcen itself.

  After that, no matter what the Mages had gained, he would control even more. They would have to negotiate with him.

  The comm link on his desktop beeped. “Gyfferan scouts approaching, Admiral. We’re being hailed.”

  “Tell them that we’re here to defend them against the Mages,” Vallant said. “And get our ships within range of all of their units. I want to capture as many as I can. We’ll need them later.”

  There was a pause. Then, over the link: “Gyffer requests to know
the reason we had units hiding in their system, Admiral.”

  “Find out what they’re talking about.” Vallant looked at his aide. “If our intelligence section sent anybody out here without clearing it first …”

  “If they did,” said Salagrie, “they didn’t run it past me.”

  The comms tech on the other end of the link came on again: “Gyfferan scouts report that RSF Veratina was spotted on sensors earlier today, making a jump run. They know she was assigned to your fleet. They demand to know why you were spying.”

  “Tell them they’ll get their explanation.” He paused, and addressed Salagrie again. “But I wasn’t spying. At least not that way.” He leaned toward his aide. “Find out where Veratina is right now. Captain Faramon is going to have some serious explaining to do.”

  Llannat’s masked guide took her through more white-painted passageways to a large room that was, plainly, the sickbay of the ship. Some of the equipment was unfamiliar; most of it, though, looked like ordinary Republic technology, several decades out of date. She went over to the bed where Ari lay.

  He looked pale and uncomfortable—the bed was even less adapted to his huge frame than the standard-issue Space Force models had been—but he was awake, and the change in his expression when he saw her did much to ease her own inner pain. His left arm lay unbandaged outside the sheet; she smiled at him and took his hand.

  “You look like hell,” she said. “What happened?”

  “I got shot,” he replied. “Nothing too bad. They have me patched up with gauze and tape—first-aid stuff, really, but I don’t see any healing pods in here, so I can’t complain.”

  “Well, I can,” said Llannat. She turned to her guide. “Is this the best treatment your medics have to offer?”

  Her guide made an apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry, Mistress, but we have only a limited supply of eibriyu on board.”