Honor's Paradox-ARC

by P. C. Hodgell

  She reached down and carefully picked up the swamp adder. Phantom light seeping down the smoke hole gleamed on restless, gilded scales.

  “Were you sent to me for protection again?” she asked the snake. “What is Shade up to this time?”

  No answer, as usual, except for a flickering black tongue and a mad, orange glare.

  She settled Addy a safe distance from Jorin in the warm depression left by her body, dressed, and slipped out of her chambers. One floor down, the cadets slept in their canvas-partitioned quarters. Below, the common hall lay empty and silent. Out onto the boardwalk . . .

  Jame shrank back. Against the northern side of New Tentir, the Randir barracks were stealthily astir where a number of cadets waited in the shadow of the arcade’s tin roof. The moon in its last quarter caught Master-Ten Reef’s sharp features as she turned toward a figure darting across the square. Whispers followed, and a hand pointing southward. The waiting Randir streamed out of the shadows like a pack of direhounds running mute on the trail.

  Jame followed them out the southern gate. There to her relief they turned east toward the river instead of into the treacherous moraines. Downstream lay a bridge and across it to the south a woodland backed up against the toes of the Snowthorns. If the cadets hadn’t been so intent on their prey, they might have heard her following them for the wood was dark and full of snares for the hasty foot, but no one looked back. When Jame caught up with them, they were crouched behind a rank of bushes under a spreading maple newly leafed out. Jame climbed the tree and edged out onto a bough over their heads. The limb creaked under her weight. One Randir glanced up, but didn’t see her among the broad leaves. The others’ attention was fixed on the glen before them.

  Moon and starlight glimmered on two figures there—a hooded man astride a pale horse and a dark, slim girl, one hand on his bridle, earnestly speaking to him. A breeze rustled through the clearing and the rider’s outline seemed to flutter. The mare’s ears pricked toward the bushes. She shook her head and mouthed her bit.

  The branch creaked again and slightly gave way.

  The Randir drew their bows.

  “ ’Ware arrows!” Jame cried, a moment before the bough broke, dumping her and its leafy weight on top of the Randir.

  Many were knocked flat. Some, however, let fly. Most of their arrows went wildly astray; others, however, streaked across the glen. The mounted figure seemed to disintegrate into a swirling cloud of jewel-jaws, moon- and shadow-hued. A sword flashed, cutting all but one of the missiles out of the air. The remaining shaft ripped through the hood between head and shoulder, snatching it away from Randiroc’s pale features and white, shaggy hair. He had swung Mirah to cover Shade. The mare danced in place for a moment, then sprang away before the Randir could notch another flight. Whatever happened, Randiroc would not fight the children of his house.

  As Jame struggled out of the tangle of limbs, human and arboreal, she thought she saw the Randon Heir still standing there across the clearing. Then he turned and fled. Some Randir fought free to pursue him. They had barely sped away when a second wave of cadets barreled into those still on the ground. Rawneth’s supporters and her opponents fought fiercely, in silence, while Jame wriggled free, only to find herself in the grip of the ten-commander who had put Shade down the well.

  “They’re after him,” she gasped.

  The commander released her. “Then go.”

  Jame ran through the trees toward the sound of fighting, to find the supposed Randir Heir in the hands of his enemies. Jame dropped two cadets with fire-leaping kicks and a third with earth-moving before they realized they were under attack. The other three turned, blades in their hands. Their prey, released, crumpled to the ground.

  “This is no business of yours, Knorth,” said Reef.

  Jame maneuvered for position, noting their stance and weapons as they spread out to surround her.

  “You’ve struck down a fellow randon in unequal combat after an ambush,” she said. “That should concern everyone at the college.”

  “Would you tell, then? Go away, little Highborn. Quickly. Before we deal with you as we have with this renegade traitor.”

  The one behind her lunged at her back. Jame slid aside in a wind-blowing move, caught the other’s wrist as it shot past, and broke it. The attacker’s momentum sent her stumbling into her mate. Both went down as other Randir began to stagger to their feet. Reef feinted, then slashed, ripping Jame’s jacket as she leaped backward.

  Voices called out behind them. Reef backed off, turned, and fled, followed by her companions.

  Jame rushed to the fallen “lordan.” Not to her surprise, the latter’s features were in painful flux back to Shade’s. The changer clasped her stomach, trying to hold back a tide of blood. Her hands and the ground beneath her glistened darkly in the moonlight. Jame held her.

  “You should be changer enough to close this wound.”

  “What does it matter?” Shade spoke through clenched teeth, and gasped as a spasm of pain shook her. “Ah! I would have bound myself to him, but he refused.”

  “He didn’t refuse because you’re tainted. I’ve told you: you aren’t.”

  “Why, then?”

  Trinity, much more of this foolishness and the Randir would bleed to death through sheer stubbornness. Jame scrambled after her wits.

  “Think about it,” she said urgently. “The way he lives, in hiding, always on the run—how could he accept a follower?”

  “I could serve him at the college, in the field, anywhere.”

  “He would still be responsible for you, and he can’t be. Look at all the trouble I’ve had supporting Graykin, and we’ve been under the same roof all winter.”

  Shade stared at her. “That scruffy little Southron is bound to you?”

  “Yes, but for Perimal’s sake don’t tell anyone. It was an accident. You said once that you didn’t need to be bound to anyone any more than I do, but you can still serve him without that. Look how useful your skills were to him tonight, and may be again in the future. Some day he and Rawneth will clash. Then he’ll need all the allies he can get. Will you consider that, and please stop bleeding?”

  Shade was still for a moment. “All right,” she finally said. Her face contorted with effort. Then she sighed and removed her hands from the former wound.

  Jame looked up to find that they were surrounded by a circle of silent, watchful Randir.

  Two of them stepped forward and helped Shade to rise. Weak from blood loss, she sagged in their steadying grip.

  “This is our business now,” said the ten-commander, “and our sister. We will care for her.”

  They left, bearing Shade with them.

  “I’ll send Addy home,” Jame called after them. “Shade?” But they were gone.

  Jame sat back on her heels and considered her torn, blood-soaked clothes. More work for Rue, if she could even save the slowly rotting fabric. Perhaps the changer’s blood wasn’t corrosive enough yet to dissolve steel, but it had certainly ruined yet another bit of Jame’s limited wardrobe.

  But oh, what had she said? Now the Randir knew that Graykin was bound to her, and no lady was supposed to bind anyone, never mind that Rawneth did. That settled it: whether he wanted to hear or not, she had to tell her brother before someone else did.

  VI

  The next morning at assembly, a wan Shade appeared, in company with many battered faces and some broken bones. However, it seemed that no one wanted to report the night’s events to their house. That, thought Jame, was just as well, given their lady’s reaction the last time an assassination attempt on the Randir Heir had failed.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Out of the Pit

  Spring 57–58

  I

  The days to Summer’s Eve melted away.

  It was full spring now, the wind-combed grass on the hills a vivid green speckled with bluebells and dancing golden campion, the apple orchard a drift of sweet blossoms. Birds sang and bees throbbed drun
kenly through the air, sometimes bouncing off inauspiciously placed tree trunks. After classes on the afternoon of the fifty-seventh, Jame walked through a high meadow beyond the northern wall, idly gathering wild flowers and watching butterflies for Jorin to chase.

  With three black tokens and two white, she was failing Tentir. Only one day of potential tests remained—tomorrow—if she meant to ride north to the hills on the fifty-nineth of Spring in time for Summer’s Eve.

  Moreover, she hadn’t yet been tested in the Senetha or the Sene, the two related disciplines besides the Senethar where she could hope to excel. What if they came on the last day, the most important of her college career, when she was gone?

  Should she go at all? Where did her responsibility lie, in the hall or in the hills?

  On the face of it, the answer was simple. Tori had placed her here against all advice, against even his own common sense, with the sole requirement that she not make fools of them both. If she failed, would anyone care why? They would say that she was and always had been unfit, also that Torisen was a fool to have proposed her in the first place. If a fight with the Randir was coming, even possibly a civil war, did she dare weaken his position in any way? She wasn’t just any Kencyr, either, as Ashe had once pointed out, but a potential Nemesis. Someday one third of the Kencyrath’s destiny might depend on her.

  She considered what would happen if she did indeed fail Tentir.

  The Women’s World certainly wouldn’t take her back, nor did she want to go.

  Nonetheless, lords would fight for her contract, the Ardeth and Caineron hardest of all. Dari with his rotting teeth and breath of a rotten eel, Caldane himself, perhaps . . .

  G’ah, think of something else.

  The cool wind, the sun hot on her face, a froth of white bells at her feet, and Jorin crouching behind a tuft of grass insufficient to hide him, ears pricked to the drowsy drone of a bumblebee. His hindquarters wriggled, one paw came up, and he pounced, barely missing.

  “You wouldn’t have liked the taste anyway,” she told the ounce as he plumped himself down and began to wash as if nothing had happened.

  Tori could still take you as his consort. How would you like the taste of that?

  Jame felt her cheeks flush.

  Yes, she loved her brother, but in that way? Scraps of dreams returned to her, the sort that Timmon favored but could never control, the sort that left her abashed but tingling.

  Is it so bad, after all, to be a woman?

  Perhaps not, but in the context of property? For a Highborn lady, there was no other way.

  Then there was Rathillien.

  Ultimately, the Kencyrath’s fate might depend as much on its relationship with this world as on the coming of the Tyr-ridan. The Four had started out hostile to her people, with good reason given that they saw the Kencyrath as invaders. The Eaten One might be content with her Kencyr consort for a season, but the Burnt Man favored no one except perhaps the Dark Judge, and Mother Ragga still had doubts. Nothing would turn her against the Three People faster than Jame’s failure to attend Summer’s Eve, not to mention the consequences if Chingetai failed again to close his borders against the Noyat and other tribes farther north under the Shadows’ sway.

  Maybe there had been some way for Jame to escape her northern entanglements, but if so, she hadn’t found it.

  Face it, she told herself glumly. Your loyalties are divided, and you have no one to blame for that but yourself.

  On top of all that, she also had to meet Gorbel’s challenge on Summer’s Day. That morning at assembly the Caineron Lordan had formally issued it before the entire cadet body while the Commandant had looked down expressionless from his balcony.

  “Run away,” Fash had advised with a grin while Higbert snickered behind him. “Now.” Both obviously expected an easy fight. “D’you think you stand a chance against even one of us on horseback, much less eight?”

  Jame had ignored him.

  Her own house had been harder to snub. Reactions there ranged from horrified shock to a gallant if somewhat desperate defense from her own ten: the lordan had pulled off miracles before; now—somehow—she would do so again.

  Brier had given her an appraising look. “Is this fight to the death?”

  “Not so far as I know”—with a passing thought to her uncle Greshan’s fate. “More likely to the shame, which is quite bad enough.”

  In the end, though, their anxious chatter had driven her away into the high meadows, to be alone and to gather her thoughts, so far without success.

  . . . run away . . .

  What if she went to the hills and failed to return in time to meet Gorbel’s challenge?

  Fash would laugh and Gorbel would be disappointed in her. So would her own people and all the unlikely friends she had made during her sojourn at Tentir, the Commandant not least. Would even her brother’s honor survive such a blow? He had tacitly supported her by letting her stay at Tentir for the past year. She owed him for that . . .

  And was about to fail him unless she earned at least one more white token. If she didn’t win one tomorrow, despite everything, maybe she should try again the day after and let Chingetai enjoy whatever mess he was sure to make of things.

  She wished she could ask the Commandant for advice. Once before, he had made it clear that her duty lay with the Merikit, but this time he had said nothing, and much more hung in the balance.

  A thought struck her: was this her personal Honor’s Paradox? True, Torisen hadn’t ordered her to do anything dishonorable, nor was he likely to unless through ignorance of her true situation. However, she was being called on to exercise personal responsibility, and what was the paradox if not a test of that?

  So her thoughts rolled, back and forth, between the hills and the hall, one last time for each.

  “Huh,” said Jame, squinting up under a hand at a sun now in decline. Her face felt tight and hot from so long in its rays. Night creature that she had been before, she should have remembered how easily she burned by day, especially at this altitude.

  She whistled up Jorin, who was happily engaged in batting an ants’ nest to pieces, and they went down to the college for supper. On the way, Jame detoured through Old Tentir and left the bouquet of flowers outside Bear’s door. She could hear him snuffling at them through the bars as she retreated.

  II

  The next morning Jame was roused early by the college stirring.

  “What’s happened?” she asked Rue, who brought her a mug of ginger water in a state of high excitement.

  “They say that Bear has escaped. Search parties are forming.”

  Everyone scrambled into his or her clothes and down into the square where dawn set aglow the eastern sky, and breath smoked on the crisp air.

  The Commandant walked before them, his long coat swishing at his heels, his hands clasped tightly behind him.

  “You have all heard the news. This is our business, we of Tentir. Here it started, here it ends. One of our own is lost. He must be found.”

  The cadets were sent by squad to search the school, focusing on Old Tentir. Ten-commands inched into the labyrinth bearing torches, keeping within sight of one another. Some tied themselves together with strings that all too often snapped. Others marked the walls with chalk. Soon the plaintive cries of the lost began to echo hollowly.

  “What if he’s turned savage?” whispered Rue, creeping on Jame’s heels, giving voice to a fear that haunted them all. “I mean, who could blame him? But we’re the first people he’s likely to run into.”

  Jame didn’t answer. It seemed to her altogether possible that Rue was right, that the man had again become a monster, but oh lord, what then?

  Her ten was assigned to a spot not far from Bear’s quarters, deep within the old college. They passed his door; it had been smashed open from within, its shattered boards spattered with the blood of broken knuckles. Shredded flowers lay strewn across the threshold.

  Beyond, the walls closed in around them, i
nnocent but empty, lined with doors. Most were unlocked, yielding to rooms vacant except for dead spiders trapped in their own webs and white, scurrying things that shunned the light.

  “Watch the floor,” said Jame.

  They were farther in than most went and the boards beneath them were furred with dust.

  “Here,” said Brier.

  They saw the prints of large, bare feet and fallen petals leading up to a wall, disappearing into it.

  “Now what?” said Brier.

  Jame fumbled around the skirting, looking for the catch. A panel gave, a hidden door opened.

  Graykin had only revealed a few of Tentir’s secret ways to her, of which this was one. Bear presumably knew them all from his time here as commandant, so long ago. The cadets gingerly descended the narrow, dark stair, batting at cobwebs, and found themselves in the public corridor that led between Old and New Tentir to the north gate. Here the footprints disappeared, but surely that was only one direction in which they could have gone.

  “You can return to your quarters now and get some breakfast,” Jame told her command. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Brier loomed over her, frowning.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “I had better be, hadn’t I? Bear is Shanir, aligned with That-Which-Destroys. So am I. If we can’t deal together, who can? Besides, he’s my senethari.”

  Brier grunted. “So be it. Good luck to you.” She led away the rest of her puzzled squad.

  Jame slipped out the side door and crossed the training fields. Beyond was the wall and the apple orchard, adrift in white blossoms. Above was the meadow where she had gathered the wild flowers.

  She didn’t see Bear at first because he was kneeling in the deep grass, but a wisp of silvery gray caught her eye and below it she discerned his craggy profile. When she cautiously approached, she saw that his lap was full of early daisies. Clumsily, with blood-scabbed knuckles and his great claws clicking inches from his fingertips, he was trying to make a daisy chain. She knelt before him.