by Sharon Lee
Val Con paused just inside the door, unwilling to add to the confusion.
Despite their energy, and the noise, the children were not simply being nuisances, he saw. In fact they were putting plates, baskets, and eating utensils onto trays for transport to the dining room.
“Super big,” Syl Vor said moderately, an expansive hand gesture demonstrating large.
“Coming out!”
Beck said that too late, and Val Con was too far away to help as the attempted warning was drowned out by Kezzi’s raucous and triumphant, “Hugemungus!” and its accompanying arm-spreading display.
Kezzi’s descending bare hand and wrist swiped the side of the bread pan, the pan and rolls barely saved from the floor by Beck’s clattering shove of the hot metal onto the stove top.
“Kezzi!”
Syl Vor was ahead of Val Con; Kezzi stood silent, staring at the burn, angry red against dusky skin, smile closing to a grim grey line of pain.
“Oh, sleet, child, come here, we ought to ice that!”
Syl Vor stood back at Kezzi’s silent motion as if he read a hand-sign full of known meaning…
“Let be,” Syl Vor told Beck. “She needs to see it!”
“She needs ice; bring her to the sink…Child, you’ll blister in a minute!”
“No! I can do it.”
Kezzi backed up her “no” by turning her back on Beck, her face a study in concentration.
Val Con stood near, left hand flickering toward the Scout first-aid pouch that was not, after all, on his belt. Kezzi gestured with her unburned hand, and he felt a familiar prickle along senses not…often engaged. There was meaning in the child’s motion, weight, a sense of purpose, of gathering energy. It was, in fact, very like something he had seen—or sensed—before; very nearly as if he could see Kezzi’s intent coalescing…
Kezzi looked at him then and shook her head.
“My…my older sister does this. I can do it. I need to remember—and you need to be quiet.”
“Your pardon,” he murmured, dropping back a step so Syl Vor might squeeze between them. The wound was still visible, and the glittering of energies. He had seen Anthora do something very like, more than once—
“What’s amiss?”
As if his thought had brought her—which wasn’t entirely impossible—Anthora herself strode through the door, no sign of the wool-gathering innocent she was thought to be by many Liadens, but a potent dramliza, pulling up her power as she approached. Val Con dropped back another step, eyes narrowed against a glister that was more sensed than seen…
Syl Vor slipped to Kezzi’s side as Anthora extended a hand.
“Let me see it, please,” she said. Her voice was not loud, but it brooked no argument.
Kezzi looked up, face betraying surprise, even as she raised her hand to show the injury.
“My sister does this,” she repeated, but quietly. “I’m certain I can recall it. I only need…”
Anthora waggled her palm for attention.
“Peace, cousin, peace! Self-healing is no easy matter even for one practiced in our art—as I learned to my own dismay. I offer willing assistance. You may watch and learn. Have we a bargain?”
Kezzi’s face was drawn, Val Con saw. She nodded once and allowed Anthora to support the wounded arm.
“Now, there is a progression to healing a physical hurt, and it must be followed precisely.
“First, the body is aware that it has been wounded; that awareness increases the difficulty of what we would undertake. First, then, we soothe the hurt…so.”
She raised her free hand, holding it palm-down, near, but not on, the afflicted area.
Val Con saw a sparkle of frost—or perhaps snow—and Kezzi sighed, deeply.
“Yes…” she murmured, her eyes half-closed. “Now the body will not fight.”
“Yes, exactly. Now we may continue with the process. For so small a wound, we may use a simple exchange method, which is very quick. First, we form a net and lay it over your wound; and then another, over the precise location of the wound, only on my hand…so. Then we bring the energies together…”
There was a pinpoint flash. Kezzi gasped as the angry wound vanished, leaving no mark; Anthora drew a deep breath and, for an eye blink, her wrist showed red. Then that mark, too, was gone. Anthora released Kezzi’s arm and looked into her eyes.
“Did you see?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kezzi said. “Yes. You do it differently from my sister, but the feeling is…very near.”
“There are often several roads leading to the same tree,” Anthora answered, and added: “For a more serious wound, the right route might be through sharing with a sister dramliza, or many sisters. Study hard, that you see each healing moment as its own.”
Val Con heard a scrape of feet and impatient motion…
Beck was hovering, bowl in hand, face tight.
“Dear, do you need ice? I can hold dinner….”
“No ice,” Kezzi said, holding up her unmarred arm.
“Thank you, Beck,” Syl Vor added, with a glare at his foster sister, who wrinkled her nose ferociously at him.
“Thank you, Beck,” Anthora echoed. “I believe the crisis is past.”
“Sure looks like it,” Beck said, turning back to the stove. “It’d be something fine, if I could have my kitchen to myself now. Boss don’t like to have dinner late.”
III
It was her turn to be delm-for-a-day, and Miri stood in the window overlooking the inner garden, sipping coffee, thinking about loose ends and missing persons.
Val Con was getting concerned about his father’s extended stay with the Uncle, and while Miri’s general feelings about Uncle himself weren’t quite so conflicted as Val Con’s, she could see his point.
He was also getting…call it irritated…about the continued lack of Theo. She wasn’t real clear there if it was a sibling thing—not having been burdened with siblings herself—or a little tussle of wills between Val Con and Delm Korval, though he was a past expert at keeping his various melant’is separate, having been born to the practice.
It could, she thought, watching an orange-and-white cat stalking what looked like a fallen leaf among the shrubberies, just be that he considered himself responsible for all Korval kin everywhere, in-clan or out. As a former sergeant, she was inclined to think that was the level he was dealing at—which would explain the worry behind the irritable edge. Stupid girl was a target; he’d told her to bring her ass back to base, and where was she? Out trying to get herself dead, her ship captured, and her crew murdered, that was where.
Yeah, that fit.
Well, the plan to let Theo have a few more days before they brought in the heavy guns and have Kamele send a pinbeam seemed prudent and patient. What they’d do if Theo ignored her mother, too, Miri didn’t quite visualize, but she was sure she could keep Val Con from taking ship himself and dragging his sister back to Surebleak by her scruff.
Pretty sure, anyway.
The cat had pounced on the leaf and flopped over on her side, the better to gut it with her back claws. Miri shook her head. She’d never had much to do with cats, though she was coming to have an appreciation. Jelaza Kazone, the house, was home to maybe a dozen cats, maybe more. She still wasn’t sure she’d seen the whole company. According to Jeeves, some were shy, and some just preferred to fend for themselves and not be beholden to humans. Jeeves wasn’t the reason that there were cats at Jelaza Kazone, but he stood as sort of a cat ombudsman. He maintained that the cats came to him with such complaints and suggestions as they might have, and who was she to argue?
The orange cat was resting on her side now, her prey clutched to her chest, eyes slit in satisfaction. In another minute—or six—she’d decide the leaf needed more killing, or she’d fall asleep where she was, or get up and go do whatever it was that cats did when humans weren’t looking.
Miri sipped coffee.
So, they mostly had a strategy for dealing with Theo—or wit
h the absence of Theo—and that could go off the table for eighteen days.
Getting Daav yos’Phelium home—that was something trickier.
The Uncle had his own business to attend, which he’d told them right at the beginning of the present situation. And while a man surely had to attend his business, they were reaching the point in time where they had to be asking themselves seriously if Daav was a guest, receiving necessary care from an ally, or if he was a hostage against something Korval had and the Uncle wanted.
The rule of thumb, as she understood it, was that neither Korval nor the Uncle could afford to take strong issue with each other. That resulted in—not an alliance, so much, as a policy of nonaggression. Which didn’t mean that neither side tried to gain advantage, now and then.
The cat in the garden suddenly rolled to her feet, threw a startled look over her shoulder and charged into the shrubbery.
Miri grinned and turned away, heading back to the desk.
It would be really useful, she thought, if they knew what the Uncle wanted. If it was anything less than the keys to Jelaza Kazone—or, all right, a ship, and maybe depending on which ship—Korval was probably willing to give it, in order to reclaim their elder.
And, she thought sitting down and putting her mug next to the screen, if they could figure out what the Uncle wanted, then offering a gift would gain them points—street cred, like they said on Surebleak.
For whatever good that did anyone.
She sighed, leaned to the screen, and paused, as she recalled some others of Korval left unaccounted for.
“Jeeves?” she said to the general air.
“Yes, Miri,” he answered from the same location.
“Any word yet from Tocohl, Hazenthull or Admiral Bunter?”
“Miri, I have heard nothing from any party.”
“Is that starting to get a little long?”
“It is possible that they are still in transit—we know, for instance, that Hazenthull was going to make a composite Jump.”
“Right.” She sighed. Hurry up and wait, Robertson.
“Keep me posted, all right? I want to hear as soon as something comes in.”
“Yes, Miri.”
“Good,” she said, and touched the screen, her attention already on the message queue.
* * * * *
“My sister agrees to meet you,” Kezzi said. “She will be at Joan’s Bakery on the day after tomorrow during the quiet hour—alone, she says, because she is no luthia.”
The child looked—not apologetic, no. One could not expect one of the Bedel to ever allow a gadje to see them in the least bit discomfited. No, she merely looked sour, as if the terms were in slightly bad odor.
“I thank you,” Val Con said solemnly, “for taking my message to your sister, and for bringing her reply to me.”
He had come by Nova’s on purpose to find if Kezzi’s gardener sister had agreed to meet him, and was on balance more relieved to receive an answer in the affirmative than he was irritated by nuance.
“I wonder,” he said, “if your sister has a name.”
Kezzi considered him with a certain amount of grave curiosity, as if trying to decide if he had made a joke or offered a fatal insult.
“Most people do have names,” said Syl Vor, who made their third at the little table in the corner of the kitchen. “It’s polite to ask.”
Kezzi shot him a goaded look, before returning her attention to Val Con.
“She will name herself to you.”
And very likely that name will be false, he thought. The Bedel did not willingly share their true names with those who were…other than Bedel, and therefore unworthy to hold such precious information.
“I see,” he said. “How will I know her?”
“She will know you,” Kezzi answered, her attention now on her plate, which held slices of green apple and yellow cheese.
“Well, then,” he said lightly, “all my concerns are answered.”
“Ought we to go with him?” Syl Vor asked.
Kezzi raised her eyes.
“We will be in school at the quiet hour,” she said, and though she did not append “fool” to the end of the sentence, it was nonetheless easily heard.
Syl Vor slid a piece of cheese onto an apple slice and looked up, treat balanced delicately between forefinger and thumb.
“In fact,” he said composedly, “we will be in geography. I just wondered if it might be more important for us to help Uncle Val Con. Your sister may not know him as well as she thinks, but you will know her.”
Kezzi sighed, as one beleaguered.
“She said ‘alone.’ And I don’t point out my kin on the street to—” she swallowed the last of her sentence, and threw Val Con a conscious look.
“…to people who she might decide she doesn’t want to talk to,” she finished, which was really a rather graceful recovery. They might eventually succeed in teaching the child manners, after all.
“Your concern does you credit,” he said to Syl Vor. “However, I will be quite safe with Kezzi’s sister. She is a busy woman, I make no doubt, and would not have rearranged her day in order to meet me unless she was interested in what I have to say.”
He turned back to Kezzi, who was, to all appearances, concentrating wholly upon her snack.
“Advise me,” he said. “Is it appropriate to bring a gift? If so—”
Kezzi interrupted him with a shake of her head.
“No gift,” she said firmly. “Only honor the terms, and be polite.”
Val Con inclined his head.
“I believe I may manage that,” he said. “Thank you for your advice.”
That won him another considering stare out of black eyes.
“You’re welcome,” Kezzi said surprisingly, and popped a slice of apple into her mouth.
* * * * *
“Day after next?” Miri said. “Want me to cover the office?”
“Has the delm nothing pressing?”
“Well, that’s sorta the point. You remember Ms. kaz’Ineo?”
“One of our storefront qe’andra, is she not?” He frowned slightly. “Clan Pinarex. Her delm desired her to find if Surebleak had need of them.”
“That’s her. Looking to expand. She’s taken herself a ’bleaker ’prentice, name of Jorish Hufstead. Used to be a cornerman for Penn Kalhoon, so he’s got real street-level experience. Prolly the best-qualified ’prentice we got, save for not being able to read so good, but they’ve been working on that.
“Anyhow. Been real useful to her on the side of ’bleaker law, such as it ain’t, and together they’ve got what they think might be a base contract for simple transactions. The other storefronts’re looking at it now, before it goes to Ms. dea’Gauss and the administrators.”
“This is excellent progress,” Val Con murmured. “But—?”
“But,” Miri said, with a nod to him, “Ms. kaz’Ineo would like the ’prentices, as a body, to see a good old-fashioned Balancing up close and personal. Seems Jorish Hufstead is of the opinion that ’bleakers’re gonna need more bend in the contracts than Liadens normally like. Says personal circumstances have gotta be taken into account, or else it’ll look like the deck’s stacked.”
Val Con frowned. “But the fact that the terms of the contract, as agreed upon by both parties, are explicitly upheld, insures Balance.”
Miri laughed.
“Is that too Liaden?” he asked.
“No—well, maybe. But the whole idea of Balance is gonna take some work. ’Bleakers don’t believe in Balance; they believe strongest gets most and best, ’cause that’s all they’ve ever seen.”
She sipped her wine.
“What it all comes down to is that Ms. kaz’Ineo—as a teaching qe’andra—would like her and me—as the creator of this particular monster—to have tea, afternoon after next, to try to come to an understanding of all the relevant necessities in the matter.”
“And thus sitting in as Road Boss while I go into town to
meet Rys’s sister suits the delm’s schedule well.”
“Well’s prolly overstating it,” Miri said dubiously. “But it does mean we can keep the office open. Mind you, if we’re considering all the necessities involved, you might not see me for a year or two, after.”
“Surely no more than six months,” Val Con countered seriously. “Recall that I have observed your problem-solving abilities firsthand.”
“Which oughta be enough to scare you, right there.”
She finished her wine and put the glass aside.
“Either way it goes, I’m free to be Road Boss while you go deal with Kezzi’s sister.”
He inclined his head.
“Since it serves Surebleak above all else, I accept your offer.”
Miri laughed, and he leaned over to kiss her cheek.
* * * * *
On wings of gold he soared above life, dancing with the universe as it expanded, ever and always. Time surrounded him, fluid and multistranded. The past stretched in his wake, the brilliant reflection of the present in which he danced. Before, there was an endless, unwritten expanse, a-glitter with possibility.
It came upon him that he might angle his wings just so, and turn his dance into a race, stretching into infinity. Into the future and—
There came a tug, a sharp pull along his limitless vanes; he shrugged and it was gone, fallen away into the brilliant past.
Before him lay all the edges of the universe, its underpinnings and complex motions, and all of time in which to learn it. Joy lifted his glory-bound wings.
A ripple passed over the universe, instantly present throughout, an unseemly wave here, there a tangled knot burrowed into the chaotic elsewhere of some other universe bound in crystal, flecked with death.
The ripple ran through every golden beam, through each ray of joy.
Dark it was, and cold; and where it passed, the blaze of life was…lesser. The expanding dance of the universe faltered, his wings wilted, and he felt himself begin to fall…