Aldhelm slapped at the table. The meaty thwapp of flesh against wood cracked loudly in the room; heads turned as liquid sloshed over the edge of mugs. “I’m assuming only that we’re interested in surviving on Neweden.”
“Yah, but to abandon the code isn’t the way of survival.”
The Thane’s voice, quiet but emphatic, gave him the attention of the Hoorka Council. As he spoke, one finger stroked the lip of the mug in front of him. “If we violate the code,” he continued, “we’ve lost our integrity—which is exactly the claim Vingi already makes against us. Everything we’ve set up, everything we’ve struggled to build, would be a sham. And we wouldn’t survive it.”
The last sentence was directed to Aldhelm. The Thane’s eyes brushed past the scarred cheek of the younger Hoorka, where a red-brown scab marked the line of a vibro gash. Across the table from the Thane, Valdisa flashed him a quick smile. He returned it with a slight raising of his lips.
Aldhelm’s arm slashed at the air. “The code is good for Hoorka. I don’t dispute that. It works well enough for most contracts we deal with. But it has nearly failed us in the Gunnar/Vingi conflict. If it threatens to fail us again, we should be prepared to break those rules. Don’t you see, my kin? We can break the code and live with whatever guilt that brings us, or we die. We’ll accept whatever punishment She of the Five might send us. That’s quite simple. The choice seems easy—now—to me. Thane, you remember your anger with Sartas and myself . . . I don’t think you would have been too upset if we’d broken the code but killed Gunnar.”
Yes, I remember. And he’s right—I was more angry with the failure, and I had no right to be. “I remember, Aldhelm. But I also told you that I was glad you followed the code. I am not going to be swayed on that point—would Hag Death be pleased that you consider yourself her equal?”
“And if Gunnar would live, what then?” Aldhelm shook his head. “If the guilds ever thought we’d joined with another guild, we wouldn’t have the people to answer all the declarations of bloodfeud.”
A susurrus of argument filled the room as everyone tried to speak at once. The noise echoed through the cavern. In the end, it was Valdisa’s clear voice that broke through and held.
“I see your reasoning, Aldhelm. I do. But I can’t agree that what you suggest is the right course. The code may be an artificial set of rules created by the Thane, but even he doesn’t hold himself free to break them or release himself from them. For good or ill, we’ve based our existence around them, structured the fabric of Hoorka about the code. Sometimes the created must transcend the creator.”
(At his recording equipment, Cranmer started, hearing his own words to the Thane so closely paraphrased. Had she overheard that, he wondered, or was that simply her own ironic choice of words?)
“Transcend the creator, or simply destroy him?” A beat. Aldhelm sipped from his mug again. “And his creation with him. And all his kin.”
Valdisa shook her head, exhaling loudly.
“Aldhelm, listen to me,” the Thane said, fighting to rein in his increasing anger. If I were stronger, this wouldn’t be necessary. Once, standards ago, no meeting would have been needed or called. I wouldn’t have explained myself to anyone, nor would they have asked—my kin would have followed without question. When did this vacillation start? “Eorl was brutally murdered last night by a pack of cowards. No feud, no formal duel, no honor. Do you think it’s because some unknown people don’t like the code? No, I think it quite the opposite. It’s symptomatic of our problem. We’ll be beset on all sides if it ever becomes known that we’ve stepped aside from a rigidly neutral stance. Things such as Eorl’s death might become commonplace. And the easiest way to insure that no other guild finds the Hoorka untrustworthy is simply never to sway from the code.”
“Was it to retain our neutrality that you went to talk with Gunnar? Please, Thane, spare me your altruism.” Aldhelm’s voice held barely-controlled contempt. “Eorl’s death may have been a chance accident. Look where it took place—Brentwood. I know we’re all thinking of Gunnar and Vingi—but we’ll pay the cost of Eorl’s death when his murderers are found. My suggestion that the code be ignored wouldn’t be common knowledge, not as long as kin can trust kin. Once, and then only if it becomes necessary, would we tamper with the code. No one would be shouting it through the streets of Sterka. It will save us more trouble. If Gunnar would live . . .”
“And if the Li-Gallant should want to kill another political rival, then what? Would we examine every contract with an eye for its possible effects on Hoorka and make that the determining factor as to whether a victim lives or dies? Damnit, man, we’re only a level above every lassari cutthroat in Neweden now, whether you care to admit the truth of that or not. Would you sink your kin back down to that level once more?” The last words were a shout as the Thane’s temper at last broke through his control, thrashing and boiling.
Again, Aldhelm gestured violently. What had begun as a simple meeting seemed to have become a confrontation, a power struggle, and the other Hoorka watched in silence: interested spectators.
“No, I wouldn’t drag us down, as you say.” Aldhelm’s voice now matched that of the Thane in volume. “I can agree with Valdisa on one point. The created has become more important than the creator. To insure its—our—safety, we have to do something rather than cower behind the sacred code. I’m sorry, Thane, but if Vingi feels that he has proof to link us to Gunnar, no matter how circumstantial or ambiguous that proof is, he’ll not only have the Assembly outlaw us, but he’ll have every assassin hunted down and executed. Your Regent d’Embry won’t lift a hand to stop him—she won’t interfere with local politics unless she stands to gain something by it.”
“What does that matter, Aldhelm?” The Thane shook his head. “The Alliance has nothing to do with the contract.”
“The Alliance can sit and wait to see if we’re what we claim to be.”
“And you counsel us to become something else.”
“I want us to live. Look at the facts, Thane!” Aldhelm struck the table with fisted violence and rose to his feet.
(And what of the vaunted Hoorka composure, the icy calm that is supposed to distinguish the Hoorka from other guild-kin? Remember that the thirty-first code-line states that one shows his inner faces only to Hoorka-kin. One can let occasion dictate manners, and one can be honest with kin.)
Aldhelm stalked across the room. His voice was suddenly low and tense with emotion. “Whatever the Li-Gallant’s contract is, we fulfill it. That’s my advice, and I know others here would agree.” His index finger pointed at each of the Hoorka around the table in turn. “The Thane can’t sleep with all of us.”
The Thane’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood in fury, his hand on the hilt of his vibro. He unsheathed the weapon. But Valdisa was on her feet, also, before the low hum of the Thane’s vibro began.
“Sit down, Thane,” she said. Her voice brooked no argument, though the Thane remained standing, holding his activated vibro as he stared at Aldhelm. Valdisa strode across the room to Aldhelm; she held her own blade, real-steel and nearly as sharp as a vibro, point foremost in her hand. Standing before the impassive Hoorka, her dagger touched cloth a few centimeters below his waist.
“You’re not so good as to be untouchable, Hoorka.” She spat out the words, her face twisted by emotion. “I can take you, and I think you realize that. If you’d care to chance your luck, just inform me and I’ll arrange a meeting for our duel. Otherwise, watch your tongue—it seems to be disconnected from your mind. I demand”—her knife jabbed at him, pricking his skin lightly—“an apology for that last inference; or you’ll give me satisfaction in a more physical way. Your choice, no-kin-of-mine.”
Their eyes met and locked, and it was Aldhelm who looked away first.
Aldhelm stepped back from the woman, glancing down at her knife hand and the unwavering tip of her blade. He looked at the table, to where the Thane stood, one hand still on the hilt of his vi
bro, though the weapon was now in its sheath once more.
Aldhelm’s voice was hesitant. “I spoke too quickly . . . I let my passion for Hoorka . . .” He shook his head. “Valdisa, Thane, you have my apology. My kin should feel sorrow for my outburst.”
“I appreciate your fervor,” said the Thane, “but if you say such a thing again in my hearing, you would do well to look to your blade.”
“I spoke without thinking, Thane, as Valdisa pointed out.” He nodded to her. “But I still hold by the rest. Thane, you’re floundering. You chastised Sartas and myself for failing to kill Gunnar, but you won’t listen to me when I suggest that your chastisement was right, and that we should indeed slay the man. Do you simply enjoy contradicting me, or don’t you know your own mind? We’ll have another contract for Gunnar, if we know Vingi at all. If we—you—choose wrongly, then the Hoorka will die and become lassari scum. You’ve had my counsel. Make your decision as you will.”
And with that, the Hoorka turned to bow to Valdisa—her face still contorted with anger—and walked from the council room.
The closing of the door reverberated in the caverns.
• • •
That night.
Sleep never really came to the Thane. He hovered in a twilight landscape between sleep and waking, worry and oblivion; drifting back and forth on some tidal flow he couldn’t control and prey to the misshapen creatures that lurked there. His thoughts were formless and chaotic, as elusive as the chimera of sleep that he chased: a gossamer wisp. The Hoorka lay on his bed, eyes closed to the gray roof of Underasgard, trying to keep his restlessness from waking Valdisa, who slept beside him.
Visitors from the formless dark came:
He saw the vibro arcing toward Aldhelm’s face, moving with an aching slowness and haloed with silver reflections as if seen through a flawed and cloudy glass. Though he tried, he couldn’t hold it back or turn it aside. The blade cut into flesh, leaving a gash that grinned white and bloodless for a moment before—like lava from a fault—the blood welled and flowed. He dropped the blade as the blood stained the side of Aldhelm’s face. He could only mutter, over and over, that he was sorry. Very sorry.
He was sorry that he remained so unsure, so uneasy in his role as Thane. The remainder of the Council meeting had gone badly, destroyed by the acrimony between Aldhelm and himself. The ghost of the younger Hoorka had remained in the room, casting a pall over the talking. Only Valdisa seemed sure of her stand; she defended the code against the hesitant questions of the others while the Thane half-listened, lost in selfish brooding. The others . . . they didn’t know how he felt. Could it be that it is necessary to sacrifice the principles that were their foundation? Could it be that survival depended on knowing when to set aside rules? No, please . . . no. If he felt he had a choice, he might choose to simply flee from it all.
The Thane, an ippicator, ran alongside a stream. Green foliage was crushed under his five hoofs, the earth turning black as they pitted the turf. He could sense it, deep within him: the Changing, the day the world would alter itself. The sky was heavy with feeling. Even as he raised his head to look, the clouds dropped the seedlings—the Breathers of Flame—and they descended to sit heavily on the hills above the river: the Change-bringers. He ran along the river, nostrils flaring as he breathed the scent of . . . something new, something fresh. He knew: this would change him, and his fellow ippicators knew it also; as he ran to the Change-bringers, others of his kind joined him. The thundering of their hooves shook the earth, sent birds into screaming flight, battered the trees. But the mud along the riverbank was treacherous. He fell, mewling his sorrow at not being able to see the Change. The muddy waters closed over his head as he bellowed in anger to the bright seedlings on the hill. Water filled his lungs, choking him . . .
The Thane looked into the waters of the river and saw that he wore the face of his true-father. The face was young—and he was young once more, just dismissed from the task force that had gleefully joined in the rebellion that followed the suicide-death of the dictator Huard. All his life he’d been trained and honed for that one task—to assassinate that hated despot—and now the madman had taken that life purpose away from him with one stroke of his knife. Chaos, his mentors had always said, is to be preferred to ordered tyranny, to routine tortures, to the rape and plundering of worlds for the satisfaction of one man’s twisted whims. If chaos must follow Huard’s death, then let there be chaos. But Huard had given no one that choice between order and chaos. He’d removed himself suddenly and without warning: the years, the indoctrination, the education, the training, the fanaticism—all were wasted, meaningless. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. He’d watched five of his teachers immolate themselves on a huge pyre, feeling that their earthly task was now finished. They, at least, had seemed pleased. Everyone with any power or ambition now greedily tried to snatch up their portion of Huard’s riches. Garbage pickers. He’d drifted, a trained killer with no reason to kill, a weapon without a target. And he’d eventually come to Neweden, a nowhere world. Yet still a world that could tolerate him only because he was unguilded, lassari, and Neweden would take no special notice of him for that reason. Young, sure, proud—filled with channeled arrogance. Pride that Neweden slowly leached from him. He lived with a lassari woman already cowed from birth, and they had a son. To that son, he gave the knowledge, the training he’d had. On Neweden, if nowhere else, that would be a boon beyond imagination.
The young man had become much like Aldhelm. Aldhelm wasn’t of the original Hoorka, who’d been little more than a motley set of half-criminal lassari. Most of those the Thane had originally gathered to him were gone now, dead or drifted away when they found that the code prevented them from grasping the power or riches they wanted. The Thane had been strong, he had been stubborn, he’d listened to no one but himself. Like Aldhelm.
(The Thane, restless, rubbed his eyes with knuckled hands. His movement stopped the dreams for a moment. He touched Valdisa, felt her breasts and idly stroked a nipple until it swelled and hardened. He drew his legs up, cuddling with her spoon-fashion. He closed his eyes: the dreams had waited in the dark for him.)
Chaos had followed Huard’s death, long decades in which worlds were sometimes out of reach, with no contact from the other worlds of humanity. Colonies were sometimes forgotten, sometimes lost. But the Alliance had come, loosely re-structuring the order of human space, allowing a proliferation of variety but placing the rein of order on chaos. Like all governments, it worked sometimes.
Sometime, he knew, he would have to retire and pass on the figurative scepter. But there had always been one more thing to do, one more minor crisis to settle that, when ended, had engendered another. Now came a major cusp, and he was left with uncertainty and the onus of leadership. He had even lost his name somewhere along that path he’d followed and he was left with nothing but a name/title that was heavy with responsibility and—yes—vanity: Thane. He wanted the burden. He didn’t want it.
He did.
Possibly.
In time, he slept, and the dreams left him.
• • •
And the next morning . . .
The annoying whine of the doorbuzzer woke the Thane. Valdisa, head pillowed against his arm, stirred next to him. “Yah?” he said, tasting the raw settlings of last night’s mead in his mouth. He kept his eyes closed.
“A new contract, Thane, with payment enclosed.” The doorshield muffled the voice. It sounded dark and distant.
“From whom?” He opened his eyes to see Valdisa staring at him with sleep-rimed eyes. She smiled, closed her eyes again, and snuggled next to him. From beyond the doorshield, he could hear the rustling of parchment, the tearing of a seal.
“It’s from the Li-Gallant Vingi, sirrah.”
“He’s giving us another chance at Gunnar, then?”
Silence freighted with affirmation.
• • •
“The Hoorka-thane is here, m’Dame.”
“Send him i
n.”
“Yes, Regent.”
The desk worker turned from the holo, glanced at the Thane, and pointed to a door across the lobby of the Center. In the high, vaulted ceiling, a glittering spheroid rotated slowly, sending winking lights across the walls and floor.
“Take that corridor, sirrah,” he said. “Then enter the third door on your left.” The Diplo, halfway through his directions, bent his head to sort through the microfiches on his desk. Varied lights from the receiver set into the desk swirled across his features. He didn’t look up again, seemingly forgetting the Thane as the Hoorka, his face set in a scowl, turned and walked to the indicated corridor.
As he walked, he felt resentment building. The cool, impersonal efficiency of the Alliance irritated him like an annoying sound just below the threshold of hearing, sandpapering the bone just behind the ear. Walking into the Diplo Center was to walk out of Neweden’s social structure and all that it implied. It took an effort to restrain himself from simply cursing and walking out again, except that he was afraid that such a grandiloquent gesture would be wasted on these people. They simply didn’t care. Hoorka do not beg, he thought, but he was here not to beg, only to ask advice. He—and his world—simply weren’t used to the cumbersome machinery that cocooned a sophisticated society: the words were Cranmer’s, from one of the innumerable long talks that had filled their time together. They struck truth. Neweden had been too long isolated from the mainstream of human culture. Enough generations had passed for them to become used to their slower pace, for customs to diverge. Enough time for them to feel resentment tinged with envy at having to confront that sophistication once more.
The Thane counted doors: one, two (with the image of a mother reaching out loving hands toward him—Nordic model, indeterminate features, and not well-crafted), three—there a doorshield dilated, and he turned to stride through.
The Regent’s office was not the mirror of his dream image. No, the room was too spartan, an arid oasis in the verdant desert of the Center. The ostentatious splendor was missing—the lack of it caused him disappointment rather than satisfaction, for it made it more difficult to maintain his scorn for Alliance practices. There was an animo-painting on one wall and a soundsculpture in a corner. The desk (from behind which the Regent motioned for him to enter) was stripped of any bureaucratic clutter. An inverted d’Embry stared from the varnished surface. She waved a yellow-tinted hand at the only other piece of furniture in the room, a hump-chair extruded from the floor.
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