“Let me defer to my elders then, Thane. I, the child, ask forgiveness and stand corrected. I don’t think.” Aldhelm spat out the words.
“Give me your vibro, then.” The Thane held out his hand, and the light-fungi bathed it with an odd coloration. Glancing down, the Thane saw his palm as a dead and withered thing, devoid of power and impact, decaying and impotent. It isn’t working—this is all wrong. I should have let the others separate them and have sent Aldhelm off to cool his temper. Just let the incident go at that with nothing said. Too late, too late. You have to play this charade out now.
Aldhelm glanced at the Thane’s hand. “The vibro?” he asked. And he stared at the Thane in mute challenge, making no move to hand over the weapon.
Anger fought logic inside the Thane, anger allied with a need to prove his own competence to himself and sweep away the doubts that had come to bother him more of late. He glanced at Aldhelm, at the vibro, at the muscular body confronting him. It would be easy to simply stand there, hand out; Aldhelm would give in from the force of the Hoorka-kin watching at the Thane’s back. The younger Hoorka was in the wrong and knew it—and it would be a strengthening of the Thane’s authority. All he need do was wait.
But he couldn’t wait.
Without a word, the Thane pulled his tunic over his head as a small, rational part of his mind shrilled alarm. He held the bunched cloth in his hand, then threw it at Aldhelm and leaped to follow. He heard Valdisa’s voice crying wordlessly as he struck out at the man.
The Thane’s attack knocked Aldhelm to the ground, the Hoorka still trying to free himself from the tunic. They fell in a tangle of limbs, the Thane with both hands on Aldhelm’s knife arm. Aldhelm thrust the blinding cloth aside and levered himself with his powerful legs, driving and turning so that the Thane found himself below the other man, still holding desperately to the vibro hand.
By the Hag, he’s strong. I’ve made a mistake. I can’t take him. The realization came even as he brought his knees up in a reflex motion, searching for groin or stomach. But Aldhelm had anticipated that maneuver and had moved quickly to the left, his body braced against the pressure of the Thane’s grip. The Thane let go his hold of Aldhelm. The sudden loss of support toppled Aldhelm. The Thane brought interlocked hands down between the man’s shoulderblades and scrambled to his feet.
Too low. I hit him too low and too late.
Aldhelm regained his footing almost as quickly, but Valdisa and another of the Hoorka took him by the arms before he could move to attack the Thane once more. He glowered angrily, but didn’t struggle.
“Let him go. Let him try to finish it.” The Thane was breathing heavily, feeling weaker than he should for the amount of exertion. His mind still shouted its admonition, but the adrenalin—the excitement of the fight—had taken him. He felt he had to carry through this farce or face an unresolved problem. But if you lose . . . No, I won’t lose. He nodded at Aldhelm. “You wanted this, kin. Let him go, Valdisa.”
“Thane—”
“Let him go!” The voice was like the slap of a whip on flesh. She released Aldhelm. The Thane stooped and picked up d’Mannberg’s vibro from the floor of the strip and checked the setting. “Come on then, Hoorka.”
Aldhelm didn’t move. The rage had gone from him, and his eyes searched the Thane. “You don’t have to do this. You’ll lose, Thane, and it will prove nothing.” His voice was suddenly soft and penitent. “What do you demand of me? My apology to Ric? He has it.” Aldhelm nodded to d’Mannberg. “My vibro? Here.”
Aldhelm held his weapon out to the Thane, hilt foremost.
The cavern was silent, the Hoorka watching. Valdisa stirred, her voice low and pleading.
“Thane, take it.”
“No!” He shouted the word. I can’t. Don’t you see that? “You wished to practice, Aldhelm. I need the exercise myself. Defend yourself, Hoorka.”
They came together in the middle of the strip. Their hands locked, the vibros clashed once, then twice more before Aldhelm, grunting with the effort, threw the Thane back. The Thane stumbled, his ankle turning beneath him, and he swung his hands wide in an attempt to maintain equilibrium. Aldhelm did not hesitate to take the opening. He came at the Thane as the older man strove to recover his balance. The Thane brought his vibro up a fraction of a second too late: in a flurry of sparks, he turned the blade, but the searing hiss of the vibro tip marked his side. He grimaced in pain as he parried and prepared to meet another thrust, but Aldhelm had moved back, waiting.
The Thane, his side aflame, saw that the Hoorka was holding his vibro too low and he thrust at the opening, coming in over Aldhelm’s blade. He met flesh, and saw with satisfaction a red welt form high on Aldhelm’s shoulder. He continued his attack, following his advantage as the excitement flowed more swiftly in his veins. His body seemed to have shed some of its years, shed even the weariness of a minute before. He thought, oddly at variance with his earlier pessimism, that he might have a chance. Aldhelm, yes, was stronger; still, experience . . .
Aldhelm backed and parried, the Thane following eagerly. Near the back line of the practice strip, Aldhelm kicked out with a foot, almost sending the Thane to the ground as his heel brushed the Thane’s knee. Now it was the Thane who retreated as they circled, feinting and jabbing without making contact. The cavern floor was becoming slippery with their sweat, the footing uncertain and treacherous. A drop of perspiration burned its way into the Thane’s left eye. He blinked it away. At the edge of his vision, he could see Cranmer filming, with Valdisa beside him, her face showing her concern.
Old man, old man, hurry this farce. The Thane’s breathing was harsh and too quick, accompanied by a thin wheezing. He knew he must make a final move, win or lose, very soon. The euphoria had been false, the adrenalin weak. His body would all too soon succumb to the punishment.
Aldhelm thrust again, coming at the Thane with his arm extended. In deflecting the blade, the Thane felt a searing pull at his side where he’d been touched by Aldhelm’s vibro, and knew that he could not retain his mobility much longer. Time would award Aldhelm victory. The Thane judged his distance, waited for the slightest relaxation in Aldhelm’s defense. When he thought he saw the opening, he attacked.
Vibros snapped and snarled, clattering against each other. The Thane drove his other hand, fisted, toward Aldhelm’s stomach as the younger Hoorka tried to twist away, his eyes wide with the vehemence of the Thane’s attack. But the Thane’s fist found its mark, though the blow was partially deflected by an instinctive shielding by Aldhelm’s forearm. Aldhelm fought for breath, pushing back against the Thane as their vibros slid—with an aching, high-frequency squeal—along each other’s lengths. The Thane felt more than saw the blades disengage. Too close to Aldhelm, he moved to parry the expected riposte. He found nothing.
Again Aldhelm’s vibro burned him, this time slapping at the skin over his heart. He screamed in inarticulate agony as Aldhelm’s open hand drove into his chin, thrusting him backward. The Thane fought for balance, arms flailing, and fell with one leg underneath him. He broke the fall with his elbows, but the breath was knocked from him. Aldhelm flicked off his vibro as the Thane struggled to breathe.
Aldhelm stared at the Thane with an unreadable emotion on his face. His mouth worked and he started to speak; he suddenly shook his head and threw his vibro to the ground away from the Thane. Limping slightly, a hand kneading his bruised shoulder, he turned from the Thane and walked away.
Chapter 7
A SINGLE SMEAR OF LIGHT.
Cranmer rubbed his hands over his eyes to clear them, not sure of what it was that he saw in the darkness before him. The rubbing only produced the blindness of retinal colors—a pulsing orange blob that slowly went purple. It was several moments before it faded and his eyes readjusted to the darkness. He peered into the cavern-night ahead of him as if trying to pierce a thick fog. His thumb fidgeted over the switch to his hoverlamps but he kept them unlit, waiting in the dark of Underasgard.
; Yes, it was still there.
There were shifting colors—gold to yellow-green like the liquid shades of a late afternoon sun in summer, a light that was pierced by bars of black that seemed to enclose it. To one side was a darker silhouette like an irregular hill. It took a moment for Cranmer to synthesize the abstractness of the scene, and then it all fell into perspective. The light, a hoverlamp set on the ground; the bars, the skeleton of the ippicator; the hill, the hunched shoulder of the Thane covered with his nightcloak. The hoverlamp must have been set inside the body of the ippicator, oscillating slightly and giving out only a dim illumination, for the light died before reaching the walls of the cavern. Cranmer hesitated and started to turn back, not wanting to disturb the Thane’s obvious meditation. In turning, his shoe scraped rock loudly, and the black shape of the Thane moved and rose.
“Thane?” Cranmer called out, resigning himself, and hoping that a knife was not on its way.
Shadows raced over rock as the hoverlamp inside the ippicator flared into sudden brilliance, striping the distant roof with the distorted image of the skeleton.
“Cranmer? Damnit, man, identify yourself when you sneak up behind a person.”
“Yah. You want a companion? If you don’t care for company, sirrah, simply say so. I could always pretend I was looking for the kitchens and got lost.”
The Thane shrugged, not seeming to take notice of Cranmer’s attempt at levity. Cranmer took the shrug for assent. He switched on his lamps and moved over the broken ground toward the ippicator.
The Thane said nothing as the scholar approached. His eyes were fixed on the hoverlamp inside the skeleton, a shadow from the ribs across his eyes like a mask. Cranmer, amidst the noise of disturbed pebbles, came up to stand next to him. He stood there, shielding his eyes from the glare and glancing from the Hoorka to the ippicator. The Thane touched the control belt and the light dimmed once more and began to oscillate, like a caged, golden fire.
“It’s cold here.” Cranmer could think of no other overture to conversation, and he was sure it sounded as inane to the Thane as it did to his own ears. The Hoorka was obviously disconsolate and moody—it seemed part of the introspective man’s nature, but Cranmer had never seen it so naked, without any attempt to mask the melancholia. Cranmer, after waiting what seemed an appropriate time for a reply to his comment and receiving none, sat on the stones next to the Thane. He could feel the chill of the rock through his clothing.
Cranmer made another attempt at conversation. “You know, after you showed me this skeleton, I went back to my rooms and checked with my data-link to Center. Seems the latest theory in favor states that the ippicator became extinct not before, but during the Settling. The Neweden Archives are in such poor shape that it can’t be verified—the Interregnum did that to the records of a hundred worlds, I know . . . But evidently the ippicators couldn’t compete with us or adapt well enough to survive. They had to be dying out long before the Settling, but there were reports of ippicator sightings in some of the wilder regions. I don’t know . . . You would think that some of the Settlers would have made some effort to save the beast, if only for its physical appearance, if the theory is true.”
The Thane grunted a monosyllabic reply.
Silence. The lamp flickered inside the ippicator.
“Valdisa received a new contract,” Cranmer said.
Now the Thane moved. He seemed to note Cranmer for the first time. His head turned and dark eyes moved under the shadow of his brow. He stirred, stretching slightly. “She knows what to do with it,” he said finally. “You didn’t come back here just to tell me that.” His voice was a challenge, a question.
“No. When I noticed you’d gone, I thought it’d be easier to speak with you back here, away from Hoorka-kin.” Cranmer paused and the Thane looked back at the ippicator.
“Speak, then,” he said, gruffly.
“You’re probably not going to be pleased.”
A shrug. “I’m not pleased with much at the moment.”
“Anything I say is said as an outsider, I know. To the Hoorka-kin, I’m a lassari and an offworlder, but I do have an interest in and a liking for Hoorka. I don’t want to see the kin destroyed any more than you would, and not simply for selfish reasons. Hoorka could die now, at this moment, and I’d simply incorporate that extinction into my eventual work. It wouldn’t alter the interest in it that the academic community would have. But I wouldn’t want to see that. Truly.”
“Why do scholars have such a burning need to preamble their statements to death?”
“Because you don’t seem to be taking criticism very well, and I want you to understand why I speak.” Cranmer spoke sharply, mild irritation in his voice that awakened echoes in the rocks. He softened his voice. “Thane, I know I’ve no right to speak, which is why I’m being so circumspect, but I thought you’d be better able to listen to me than your kin. Quite simply and brutally, Thane, you’ve been stupid. You don’t seem to think of yourself as guild-elder of the Hoorka, and what alarms me most is that you don’t seem to care a great deal. Your decisions of late have been at best mediocre. You’re putting crises aside rather than dealing with them.”
Cranmer looked at the Thane’s face, searching for a reaction.
Nothing.
“Your handling of Aldhelm . . .” Cranmer shook his head, his hands cupping air. “You didn’t do much to dispel anyone’s uneasiness. Even if you’d beaten him, what good would it have done? I don’t pretend to understand the subtleties of Neweden kinship, but even this violent world can’t believe that a physical victory symbolizes the truth of intellectual assertions. Or do you think it does? What are you thinking?”
“My thoughts are my own.” Curtly, without a glance.
“But your actions are Hoorka’s. Do you remember that? Or do you just sit here feeling sorry for yourself?”
Now the Thane glared angrily at the smaller man, who looked back with a calmness he didn’t feel. Then the Thane twisted his head away with a savage motion, his eyes intent once again on the ippicator. “I made Hoorka into the guild-kin it is. My father was lassari when he came here, but I made myself a niche in this society. My actions should be Hoorka’s. Do you dispute that?”
“Yah, to a degree.” Cranmer, feeling the heat of the Thane’s gaze, hastened to explain. “I’ve told you my thoughts before. I don’t say you should step down—though if this continues, that might well be my counsel. I suggest instead that you do something and quickly. Act more decisively. You endanger what you’ve built: you might bring it down with you, destroy all you’ve strived for.”
“Is that the extent of your advice?”
Cranmer lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “I suppose.”
“It’s easy to see flaws, no matter how beautiful the gem that encloses them. Can you tell me how to cut and polish this stone to remove all the imperfections?”
“I can point out those imperfections as you work, and that’s to your advantage. I suppose you know that your little fight with Aldhelm was a grave mistake.”
The last words seemed to finally kindle the building wrath inside the Thane. With a whispering of cloth, the Hoorka leapt to his feet, the nightcloak swirling. Cranmer threw up his hands in instinctive defense.
“I don’t need your advice,” the Thane shouted, the words ringing in the cavern. “I don’t care for your manufactured guilt, either. I can furnish enough of my own.” And with a much-practiced motion, he drew and activated his vibro. Its humming filled Cranmer’s ears. The Thane’s arm drew back, poised for an instant, and then he threw the blade. It sped true.
With an arid crack, the vibro severed a rib from the ippicator’s shoulder and lodged itself deeply in the animal’s spine. The vibro’s low hum died as dust settled to earth.
Cranmer found himself lying on his side, arms hugging himself. He sat up slowly, his breath loud and quick.
The Thane’s shadow was huge on the cavern wall behind him as he stood, his hands at his side, his head
down, the feet slightly spread. The Hoorka raised his head as with an effort, glancing at the weapon impaling the dead beast.
“You’ve said nothing I haven’t thought myself, Cranmer.” He strode over to the ippicator and pulled on the hilt of the vibro. It came loose easily. The Thane held the weapon in his hand for a moment, staring at the broken rib on the cavern floor. He put it back in its scabbard.
“Did I frighten you, scholar?” The Thane came over and sat next to Cranmer. His voice had an odd jocularity. “Good. I scare myself. I’ve done so many dumb things of late.”
The Thane allowed a slight smile to lift the corners of his mouth. “And I become rather too maudlin and melodramatic, also,” he continued. “No, I don’t need your advice, my friend—I’ve counseled myself with the same words you’ve used, and perhaps more harshly than you might suspect.”
“Have you thought of resigning as active head?”
For a moment, the anger returned to the Thane’s face, creasing the forehead and inflaming the broken veins of his cheeks. Then it died, as quickly as it had come, as if there were no longer any internal fuel on which it could feed. “Yes,” he answered. “But events are moving. The Hoorka are involved in a crisis that I can see forming, and I can’t bring myself to trust anyone else. Aldhelm—yes, he’s a leader and the kin would probably follow him if I gave them leave to do so, but he needs tempering or he’ll break under the pressures. He’s too quick to make his choices and he tends to see things in some two-value logic of his own devising; no shades or degrees, just Right and Wrong. And Valdisa—I’m afraid that I diffused her effectiveness by being her lover. The kin might think I’ve named her as my successor only because of my affection for her. Sartas—he’s far too headstrong, too argumentative, and not all that well-liked. And myself . . .” He put his hands out, palms upward. Cranmer saw calluses there. “I suppose I have my own problems,” the Thane said, “but I made Hoorka. It’s my onus, my responsibility, and I need to make the decisions. If I fail, at least I can only blame myself for that failure.”
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