Shadows and Shades (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®)

by Lee, Sharon

  He considered her. Carpets woven of certain esoteric materials did sometimes collect ill humors in storage. It was doubtful that this rug, which he had already tentatively classified as a Tantara of some considerable age, woven with vegetable dyed zeesa-wool thread that wore like ship-steel, had collected anything more than a little must, if that.

  He glanced from her pale face to the rug. Yes—certainly it was an older Tantara, a geometric in the ivory-and-deep-green combination which had been retired for a dozen-dozen Standards, and in an absolutely enviable state of preservation, saving a stain on a wide section of the ivory-colored fringe.

  Bending, he ran his hand over the nap near the stain—stiff fibers grazed his palm. Whatever the substance was, it had gotten into the rug, too, which meant that there would be more to repairing the damage than simply replacing the fringe. It was odd that the carpet had been rolled away without being cleaned—and unfortunate, too. Most stains could be eradicated, if treated when fresh. A stain which had set for dozens of years, perhaps—it might be impossible to entirely remove the mar.

  "We will need the kit for this," he said briskly, straightening. "I'll fetch it while you do a preliminary inspection."

  "Yes," she whispered, and he sent another frown into her pale face.

  "Nova," he said, touching her hand. "Are you well?"

  "Yes," she whispered again, and turned away to find the clipboard.

  Irritated, he strode off to the supplies closet.

  The diagnostic kit was hanging in its place on the peg-board wall. Despite this, Pat Rin did not immediately have it down and hurry back to the work area. The stained rug had languished for years without care. A few heartbeats more would do it no harm.

  Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes and took stock. The headache was the merest feeling of tightness behind his eyes, his stomach was empty, but unconcerned. In all, he had managed to come out of last evening's adventures in fairly good order. His present irritability was not, he knew, the result of overindulgence, but rather the presence of one of his pilot kin, innocent herself of any wrong-doing—and a poignant reminder of all that he was not. Nor ever would be.

  "Be gentle with the child," he said to himself. "Did Luken show temper with you, thrust upon him unwarned and very likely unwanted?"

  But, there. Luken was a gentle soul, and never showed temper, nor ever raised his voice, no matter how far he was provoked. He had other means of exacting Balance.

  Pat Rin took another deep breath—and another. Opening his eyes, he could not say that he felt perfectly calm—but it would suffice. He hoped.

  One more inhalation, for the luck. He had the kit off the peg and headed back to the workroom, and his assistant, and was brought up short on the threshold.

  Nova stood in the center of the rug, shoulders and chin thrust forward in a distinctly truculent attitude, surveying the pattern.

  "It is a beautiful rug, indeed," she said nastily, as if speaking to someone who stood next to her rather than one on the other side of the room.

  "Indeed, show off the pattern. Tell us that it is an antique Quidian Tantara, unblemished, heirloom of a clan fallen on hard times, a clan of rug dealers who have kept this treasure until the last, until your wonderful trading skills brought its true glory to us! And how like you to bring it here as subterfuge, hiding the truth of it, magnifying yourself to the detriment of others, and to the Clan. Almost, you got away with it...."

  What was this? Was she speaking to him, after all? Had she discovered a pedigree card tucked into the end of the rug? In fact, from his view now, it might well be a Quidian, the rarest of ...

  She turned and stared directly at him.

  "How many times more will you fail?" she shouted.

  Pat Rin froze, caught between astonishment and outrage. How dare —

  "One failure should certainly have been enough," he said, struggling to keep his tone merely courteous and his face smooth. "That there are more can be laid to your father's account."

  "Kin will suffer for your lapses!" Nova snarled, moving forward one slow, threatening step.

  "Yes, very likely!" he snapped, all out of patience. "But never fear, cousin. The clan will not suffer because of me. I will make my own way."

  "You fail and fail again, always blaming others," ranted the girl on the rug, as if he hadn't spoken. "You will die dishonored and your kin will curse your name!"

  Now that, Pat Rin thought, his anger abruptly gone, was coming rather too strong. It wasn't as if Korval had never produced a rogue. Rather too many, if truth were told—and most especially Line yos'Phelium. Taking up trade as a gamester was the merest bagatelle, set beside the accomplishments of some of the honored ancestors.

  He came to the edge of the rug. Nova continued to stand at menace in the center, her attitude too—old, somehow. Too tense. And now that he brought his attention to it, he saw that her face was tight with an adult's deep and hopeless grief—and that her eyes were black, amethyst all but drowned in distended pupils.

  Too, she stood in something very close to a fighter's stance... and was not quite looking at him

  Pat Rin frowned. Something decidedly odd was going on. Perhaps she was acting out some part from a melant'i play? Though why she should do so, here and now, was beyond his understanding.

  He held the diagnostic kit up before those pupil-drowned eyes.

  "Come now!" He said, with brisk matter-of-factness. "We'll be at work into the next relumma if we stop every hour to play-act!"

  The blind, grief-ridden face turned away from him.

  "How many times will you fail?" she whispered—and the voice she spoke in was not her voice.

  Pat Rin felt a frisson of horror. He cleared his throat.

  "Nova?"

  "Die dishonored," she mourned and sagged to her knees, palms flat against the carpet. "Cursed and forgotten."

  He caught his breath. This was no play-acting. He couldn't, off-hand, think of any swift-striking disease that caused hallucination. There were recreational pharmaceuticals which produced vivid visions, but—

  "Cursed," Nova moaned, in the voice of—The Other. And there was no drug that Pat Rin knew of which would produce that effect.

  Come to that, it was not unknown for Korval to produce Healers, though such talents usually did not manifest until one came halfling. Not that this ...fit... bore any resemblance to his limited experience of Healer talent.

  Dramliza?

  But those talents, like Healing, usually came with puberty. And, surely, if one were dramliza....

  Crouched on the rug, Nova looked distinctly unwell. Her grief-locked face was pale, the black eyes screwed shut, now; and she was shivering, palms pressed hard against the carpet.

  Clearly, whatever the problem was, she needed to be removed from the carpet, and brought away to a place where she might lie down while he called a medic to her—and her father.

  Pat Rin put the diagnostic kit on the floor and went forward. When he reached the grieving girl, he knelt and put his hands, gently, on her shoulders.

  "Nova."

  No reply. Her shoulders were rigid under his fingers. He could see the pulse beating, much too fast, at the base of her slender throat.

  Fear spiked Pat Rin—the child was ill! He made his decision, braced himself, slipped his arms around her waist and rose, lifting her with—

  The quiescent, grieving child exploded into a fury of fists and feet and screams. He was pummeled, kicked, and punched—one fist landing with authority on his cheek.

  Pat Rin staggered and went down on a knee. Nova broke free, rolled, and snapped to her feet, the carpet knife held in a blade-fighter's expert grip.

  Blindingly fast, she thrust. Pat Rin threw himself flat, saw her boots dance past him and rolled, coming to his feet and spinning, body falling into the crouch his defense teacher had drilled him on, ready to take the charge that did not come.

  Nova looked at him—perhaps she did look at him—and tossed the blade away, as
if it were a stylus or some other harmless trifle, ignoring it as it bounced away, safely away, across the rug and onto the workroom floor. Niki, brought down from her comfort-spot by the noise, stalked it there, tail rigid, and smacked it smartly with a clawed paw.

  Slowly, Pat Rin straightened, forcing himself to stand at his ease.

  Something terrible was happening, and he was entirely out of his depth. He should, he thought, call the Healers now. And then he thought that he should—he must—get her off of the rug.

  Perhaps persuasion would succeed where force had failed. He took a breath and shook the hair that had come loose from the tail out of his face. His cheek hurt and he would make odds that he would have a stunning bruise by evening. No matter.

  He cleared his throat.

  "Nova?"

  No answer. Pat Rin sighed.

  "Cousin?"

  She raised her head, her eyes were pointed in his direction.

  Ah, he thought. Now, how to parley this small advantage into a win?

  He shifted, and looked down at the carpet. An old carpet, a treasure— a Quidian Tantara, the pattern as old as weaving itself. How Luken would love this rug.

  Alas, he sorely missed Luken and his endless commonsense just now. What would he do in this eldritch moment? Cast a spell? Trap the offending spirit in a tea box?

  Pat Rin looked up.

  "Cousin," he said again, to Nova's black and sightless eyes. "I ...scarcely know you. If you must treat with me this way, at least show respect to our common Clan and tell me clearly which melant'i you use. "

  He bowed flawlessly, the bow requesting instruction from kin.

  Something changed in her face; he'd at least been seen, if not recognized.

  "Melant'i games? You wish to play melant'i games with me? I see."

  Chillingly, she swept a perfect bow: Head of line to child of another line.

  "Lisha yos'Galan Clan Korval," she said in that strange voice, and bowed again, leading with her hand to display the ring it did not bear. "Master Trader. It is in this guise, Del Ben, that I became aware of your perfidy in dealing with bel'Tarda."

  Del Ben? The name struck an uneasy memory. There had been a Del Ben yos'Phelium, many years back in the Line. Indeed, Pat Rin recalled, there had been three Del Ben yos'Pheliums—and then no more, which was ...peculiar... of itself. He remembered noticing that, during his studies of the Diaries and of lineage. And he remembered thinking it was odd that a yos'Phelium had died without issue, odder still that the death was not recorded, merely that Del Ban vanished from the log books between one page and the rest...

  Nova's black eyes flashed. She laughed, not kindly. "Look at you! Hardly sense enough to see to your wounds! Well, bleed your precious yos'Phelium blood out on the damned rug if you will, and live with the mark of it. This—I am old. I am slow. I could never have touched the man you wish to be. But you—always, you do just enough to get by, just enough to cause trouble for others, just enough—"

  "Bah," she said, interrupting herself with another bow: Cousin instructing cousin.

  "This one? Well, cuz, I had thought myself well beyond the time of my life where I must marry at contract. But not only will I wed a bel'Tarda because of you, I will bring them into the Clan because of you."

  Pat Rin froze—what was this?

  She swept on, a child chillingly, absolutely convincing in the role of Clan elder.

  "Ah, yes, smirk. I have seen the contracts. Tomorrow, I will sign them. Do you know that the dea'Gauss and bel'Tarda's man of business met this week? No—you might have, had you checked your weekly agendas, but when have you ever done so? Did you know that, between them, they decided that your life was insufficient to Balance the wrong done bel'Tarda?"

  There was a laugh then, edgy and perhaps not quite sane. "Do you know that we are forbidden by Korval to kill you? But no matter, cuz, I am to both carry the bel'Tarda's heir, who will replace the man who suicided as a result of your extortion, and to oversee the rebuilding of their business—likely here on Liad!—since the heir and his heir died in the fire. The only proper Balance is to offer our protection, bring them into Korval, and insure that their Line lives on. For you—you nearly destroyed the whole of it! And you?"

  Another frightening bow, this one so complex it took even Pat Rin's well-trained eye a moment to decode it: The bow of one who brings news of a death in the House.

  Pat Rin, mesmerized, saw the play move on—

  "You may see the Delm, if you dare, or you may choose a new name—one that lacks Korval, and one that lacks yos'Phelium. You may eat while you are in this house, you may sleep in this house, you may dress from the clothes you already own— but you will bring me your Clan rings, your insignia, your pass-keys. Bring them to me now. If you will speak to the Delm I will take you, else....

  "Hah, and so I thought, " she said, spitting on the rug.

  "Remove this rug and bring me the items I named... Know that if you leave— if you go beyond the outside door— it will not readmit you."

  With that the girl-woman kicked at the rug and stormed off of it, turning her back and crumpling into the pose Pat Rin had seen before....

  "I shall take the rug!" Pat Rin announced with sudden fervor, not certain that she'd heard.

  He rolled it quickly, slung it manfully across his back in the carry he had learned so long ago from Luken, and hustled it out into the hall, where he dumped it hurriedly on the back stairs to his loft room, and clicked the mechanical lock forcefully.

  He snatched the portable comm from its shelf and rushed back to the door of the display room, where he could see the girl huddled in sobs amid the ribbons that had once bound the cursed rug.

  His fingers moved on the comm's keypad and he wondered who they had called. A faint chime came out of the speaker....another—and a woman's voice, speaking crisply.

  "Solcintra Healer Hall. Service?"

  * * *

  THE HEALERS—a plump, merry-faced man and a thin, stern woman—arrived. The woman went immediately to Nova where she crouched and wept against the floor. The man tarried by Pat Rin's side.

  "Did you move anything?"

  "I took the carpet away, as she commanded," he said. "I locked the carpet knife in a drawer."

  The Healer inclined his head. "We will wish to see both, later." He glanced about him and used his chin to point at the ceiling camera. "Is that live?"

  "Yes," Pat Rin murmured. "Shall I—?"

  "We will want a copy of the recording, yes, sir," the Healer said. "If you could have that done while we are examining your kinswoman, it would be most helpful."

  "Certainly," Pat Rin said, and the Healer patted his arm, as if they were kin, or old and comfortable comrades, and strolled away across the floor.

  Glad of being given a specific task, Pat Rin moved to the control desk, keeping an eye on the huddled group. The Healers blocked his sight of Nova, but, still, he was her nearest kin present and the Code was explicit as to his duties—until her father arrived to take them over.

  Behind the control desk, he touched keys, taking the current camera off-line and activating the back-up. He accessed the first's memory, and started the preliminary scan.

  Murmurs came from across the room as he worked, but the thin, hopeless sobbing had at last ceased, and Pat Rin drew a deep breath of relief. The Healers were here; surely they would put all to rights—

  The sound of rapid footsteps sounded in the hallway, a shadow flickered in the doorway, and Er Thom yos'Galan was in the room, face set and breathing as easily as if he had not all but run down the long hall—and quite possibly all the way from Port. He paused, scanning, discovered the Healers, kneeling together on the show room floor, took a step—and checked, turning slightly until he spied Pat Rin behind the desk.

  His mouth tightened and he came forward. Pat Rin touched the 'pause' key and drew himself straight.

  "Where is your cousin?" Er Thom asked, without greeting, in a voice so stringently calm that Pat Rin felt a
small shiver of pity for stern and commonsense Cousin Er Thom.

  He inclined his head. "The Healers have come. Already, I believe the situation improves."

  Er Thom glanced over his shoulder. "Could you not have moved her from the floor?"

  "She...did not know me," Pat Rin said carefully, and put light fingertips against the cheek Nova had punched. "I had tried to move her, earlier, and she fought like a lyr-cat protecting her litter." He took a breath. "It seemed best not to make a second attempt, with the Healers on the way."

  "So." Er Thom drew a careful breath of his own. "What do you?"

  "The Healers requested a copy of the tape."

  "Tape?"

  Pat Rin swept a hand out, encompassing the showroom. "We were making an inventory of the rugs you had sent from the Southern House," he murmured. "The camera was on, of course."

  "Of course," Korval-pernard'i said politely, and cast one more look at the Healers. Pat Rin could all but see his longing to go to his child's side—and then saw discipline snap into place. A wise man—a man who wished the very best outcome for his wounded child—that man did not interrupt Healers at their work.

  Er Thom took a hard breath and stepped 'round the corner of the desk.

  "Show me the film," he ordered.

  * * *

  THE FEMALE HEALER had gone, taking Nova, Er Thom and the copy of the work session recording with her, leaving her partner to examine the carpet knife—which he proclaimed harmless—and the carpet.

  "Ah, I see," he murmured, as for the second time that afternoon Pat Rin unrolled the thing on the showroom floor. The Healer stepped onto the carpet, and Pat Rin tensed, half-expecting to see his face twist into that expression of angry pain.

  But whatever haunted the rug appeared to have no hold on the Healer. He knelt, carefully, at a corner and put his hands flat on the ivory-and-green pattern. Closing his eyes, he moved his hands over the rug, walking forward on his knees as he did so, as if he wished to stroke every fiber.

  Pat Rin, relieved that there would apparently be no second playing of the tragedy, removed himself to the control desk once more, and began to shut down for the day. He would inventory the remaining carpets tomorrow, he told himself. Alone.