by Sharon Lee
* * *
Ren Zel sat straight up, gasping for air, heart pounding.
Around him—was only the bedroom he shared with his lifemate, who lay, sweetly sleeping, on the pillow next to his.
He was, he noted distantly, shivering, and his breath came still in gulps. With an effort, he brought his breathing under control, and eventually, too, the tumultuous pounding of his heart.
Beside him, Anthora slumbered on, which was well. The nightmare had claimed its victim; he was done, this night, with sleep.
Carefully, tender of her peace, he slipped out of their bed, took his robe up from the chair, and moved softly into the parlor.
There, standing at the long windows that overlooked the Tree Court, he tied the robe, and tried to rid himself of the dream.
The vision, he corrected himself, and shivered once more. The joy of becoming one with the forces that bound the universe—that was the language of the addiction, well-known to him by now.
The cold ripple of Shadow and chaos, leaching its tithe of energy from all of life—that was something new.
New, and terrifying.
Well.
He moved back from the window and lay down on the sofa, staring out into the soft glow of the inner gardens, not quite daring to close his eyes, lest he fall asleep and bring the questing Shadow closer.
This, however, proved an unsatisfactory solution, for the tireder he became, the more difficult it was to resist the lure of the ether; the purity of the golden strands. It seemed to him, in his doubtless overwrought state, that the pull was greater than it had been since the night Anthora had bound them, each to the other, so that she might bear half of his burden.
Though they were his doom, the strands sustained—all and everything. Philosophically, he had no quarrel with his appointed death, for surely there could be no better use of his life than in the service of Life Itself. It was only…the uncertainty. He would yield, that was forgone, but he must not do so—now.
In the meanwhile, he felt—he knew!—that the golden strands were imperiled by the dark ripple, whatever it was. Where had it come from? Whence had it gone? When would it return? What—
A light came on in the bedroom; a light-footed wraith passed between it and him.
“Ren Zel?” Anthora asked softly.
“Here,” he answered. “I hadn’t wanted to disturb you.”
“Nor did you. I woke of myself.”
She had reached the couch; her silhouette now cast against the window.
“May I join you?” she asked. “I’ve brought us a blanket.”
He smiled wryly against the dark.
“I will not, I fear, be very good company.”
“Now, when has that ever been so?” she asked lightly, and lay beside him, curling so her back was against his chest, while the blanket shook itself out and fell softly over both.
“What was it?” she asked, after they had lain thus for some time, in silence.
Soft-voiced and nearly calm, he told her what he had dreamed. What he had Seen. When he was done, she sighed and moved her head, settling her cheek on his shoulder.
“Here’s an odd thing, Beloved,” she murmured, her tone half-teasing.
“So? And what is that?” he asked, trying to match her.
“The link that I built, to prevent you flying away from us?”
“Yes?” he said cautiously, reaching for the link at the same instant, recalling that instant of restraint, so easy, inside the dream, to shrug away…
“It’s gone,” Anthora said conversationally. “Not cut, mind you; I would have felt that. Just…gone, as if it had never been woven. I don’t quite know what to make of it.”
She wriggled somewhat, settling herself closer against him, which distracted, though not so much that he missed her next words.
“I will reestablish it now, if you have time for me.”
“No,” he said, feeling all the terror of falling out of the universe again.
She went perfectly still.
“No?”
“The Shadow, if it is hunting—if it is hunting me, I would not have it find you.”
She was quiet. Perhaps she thought about what he’d said. Anthora was often headstrong, but she was rarely heedless.
“I cannot leave you without protection, Beloved,” she said at last, and gently.
“Anthora…” He paused.
Master Healer Mithin had thoroughly explained what happened when a dramliza became addicted to his gift. That, at least, was not unique to him, though it happened seldom. Anthora knew that she could not hold him long.
Long enough, that was the key. When he had first agreed to allow her half of his pain, it had been in service of long enough.
His Sight—among the dramliz, he was scarcely Sighted at all. Yet, weak and erratic as the gift could be, he was a farseer. And he had glimpsed, some few months ago—he had Seen—the future. A future. The glimpse of Shadow that had come upon him tonight—it was possible, he thought now—it was probable, that the future he had seen was…progressing.
After that first Seeing, and against the possibility of it being the future, he had made a pact with Miri, his delm, who was rightly dismayed by his power and knew it for the danger it was.
…allow me to tell you, when the time has come…
But, vision notwithstanding, it was not yet time, and he was not strong enough of his own will to wait.
He drew a breath and buried his face in Anthora’s hair, breathing in the scent of lavender.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Endanger yourself as little as possible.”
“Of course,” she answered.
* * * * *
Nelirikk had taken up his post outside the door into Joan’s Bakery, allowing Val Con to enter alone. The letter of the law, as Miri would have it. She had also allowed that a member of the Bedel was unlikely to murder him, though she might pick his pocket.
“She is, of course, welcome to try,” Val Con had said politely, whereupon Miri had grinned and waved him on his way.
So it was that he strolled into the bakery with hands in plain sight, jacket open, and no weapon showing.
It was a cramped room, cluttered with small tables and mismatched chairs. Directly across from the door was a clear case displaying various of the baker’s wares: cookies, bars, little cakes. Next to the case was a counter, and behind it stood a woman with brown hair pulled back from a tired face, and brown eyes bright with interest.
He gave her a nod and paused, surveying the room. There was a fireplace on the back wall, though the hearth was cold. The room itself was chilly, the tables empty, save the one nearest the cold hearth, where an old man sat, chair wedged into the corner, cup held in both hands, an empty plate before him.
Was it possible that he had missed his contact? Or was he ahead of her? Quiet hour was not altogether precise…
The woman behind the counter moved her head, her gaze going beyond him. He felt a shift in the air and swung ’round, catching the wrist of a tall, wiry woman in Surebleak motley, black eyes snapping in what he had come to know as a Bedel face.
“Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “Were you about to pick my pocket?”
The black eyes narrowed.
“What if I was, gadje?”
“Then I would be very disappointed in you,” he said, still pleasantly. He kept hold of her wrist, though his grip was gentle enough; she could have broken it with the smallest twist, but she chose not to. Very possibly this was a test; he hoped that he was not about to fail.
“What do I care for your disappointment?”
“Very little, I would expect, if I were, indeed, gadje. However, I am not.”
“No?” Her lips quirked, sneer or smile he could not tell.
“No,” he said firmly. “I am a brother to Rys. Will you pick a brother’s pocket? If you are in need, only ask.”
“Brother to Rys is not brother to all,” she countered, watching him now with unfeigned interest.
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“No? Yet he asked me to guard his child and her mother should the need arise while he was absent from us. What are we to make of that?”
A smile, definitely.
“That Rys has a soft heart.”
“Has he a soft head, as well?”
“That, no.”
At last, she freed herself and stood looking down at him, as if waiting.
This was a test, he knew. He had requested the meeting; he was therefore the host.
“Will you sit?” he asked. “I will bring tea and sweets.”
For an answer, she sauntered over to a table and chose for herself the chair facing the door.
Val Con turned to the counter.
“Tea, please,” he said to the brown-haired woman, “for my friend and myself. Also, a small plate of sweets.”
“Friend,” she repeated, with a small shake of her head. “All of your get-togethers like that?”
“Only when we have been long parted.”
She grinned.
“Go on and sit down. I’ll bring a tray.”
* * *
“So, your message,” Rys’s sister said, after they had each had a swallow of tea and chosen a sweet from the tray. “An opportunity, offered to Rys, which might pass to his sister, if she cared to honor him.”
She had another sip of tea and put the cup down, her eyes on his.
“Grapes, you said.”
He inclined his head.
“Indeed, grapes and wine; and other work, as well, if you are interested. But it was the grapes that recalled you to me.”
“Rys spoke of me, to you?”
He raised a hand.
“He said to me that he had a sister, an avid gardener, who had wished to learn the grapes.”
“He told you my name.” Her tone struck a note between inquiry and statement.
He met her eyes.
“Would Rys endanger a sister?”
That weighed with her. She raised her cup again, thinking.
“He spoke of you with fondness,” Val Con murmured, his eyes lowered modestly. “He admired your skill. He regretted that he could not show you the vineyards he had worked in his youth, and everything those grapes had taught him.”
The cup returned to the table.
“He told you his child’s name, and her mother’s,” she said with certainty.
“That,” he said austerely, “is between brothers.”
At that, she laughed loudly, as if he had told a very fine joke, and slapped the table with the palm of her hand.
“So it is, between brothers! And I will tell the brother of Rys that I do not envy him, if he is called to fulfill that brother-duty!”
He met her eyes, and said nothing.
Still grinning, she picked up the pot and poured herself more tea.
“So, then, this task,” she murmured, as if speaking to the teapot. “Tell me.”
He told her, omitting nothing, most especially not the manner in which Rys had become known to Yulie Shaper.
“There is other work, if you or another might be interested. The harvest, I am given to understand, is a challenge for one man. Mr. Shaper offers a portion to any who assist him.”
She reached for the teapot and warmed her cup again.
“We speak of the madman at the end of the road, who cares for nothing but his cats, and is accurate with his gun?”
“Not quite so mad, recently,” Val Con said quietly. “Very much improved, in fact. You will find yourself in no danger.” He paused and showed her his palm. “So long as you do not offer violence to the cats.”
“Cats are a farmer’s friend,” she said. “Who harms one is a fool.”
She had recourse once more to her thoughts, sipping tea the while.
He warmed his own cup and broke off a portion of the spice bar he had chosen from the tray.
“And he has these instructions, for turning grapes into wine,” she said eventually.
“I have seen them myself. Understanding that I am not a vintner, they seemed to me to be complete and straightforward.”
“Hmm.”
He dared to push, just a little.
“Mr. Shaper admits that he would not have thought of wine, save for Rys’s interest. He acknowledges that this is very much in the nature of an experiment. Also, he feels that he owes the attempt to Rys. As our brother is presently absent from us, he feels more keenly that the attempt ought to be made.”
She took another cookie from the tray and shook it at him to mark her point.
“The Bedel do not work for gadje.”
“Of course not,” he said politely.
She gave him a speculative look that put him forcefully in mind of Kezzi, and took a bite of her cookie.
“How long…before these grapes are ready? How long…before the harvest must be taken in?”
“The grapes—four weeks, more or less. The harvest begins sooner, but stretches longer, as each room ripens.”
“Rooms?” she repeated, clearly interested.
“Indeed, they are most ingenious. Or so I am told. I have not, myself, seen them.”
She ate the rest of her cookie, drank what tea was in her cup, and set it aside with authority.
“I will dream on it,” she said. “Also, I will speak to others of Rys’s brothers.”
She rose, and he did.
“When will I have your decision?” he asked, fearing that the question might not be quite polite.
“The harvest waits for no one,” she said, “and well I know it. I will send word by Anna within three days.”
She pulled on her jacket, which she had draped over the back of her chair; turned back to him with a nod.
“You do Rys honor,” she said. “Neither your heart nor your head is soft.”
There seemed to be nothing one might say to that, so he merely bowed.
“Please,” he said, “recall me to your grandmother and assure her of my continued esteem.”
She studied him, then gave a brisk nod.
“I’ll do that.”
“If you please,” he said, knowing that he was overreaching. “What shall I call you?”
But no—he had amused her. She extended a hand to him, and he took it, lightly, in his own.
“You, brother of Rys—you!—will call me Memit.”
She withdrew her hand and gave him a cordial nod.
“I leave you,” she said.
And did so.
Ahab-Esais
I
Something was humming, irritating and low, like an overburdened capacitor in a shunt line. That would never do. Overburdened systems had a way of failing at the worst possible moment. Tocohl reached for the power grid with one part of her mind even as she wondered, with another, why this situation had been left uncorrected. It was not as if she were ignorant of ship lore, or the care of complex systems. Her first act upon receiving the confirmation that she would, indeed, pilot Tarigan, which Jeeves had previously fine-tuned to his own requirements—the first thing she had done, upon taking command, was to establish subroutines for inspection, calibration, and repair. A potential overload ought to have been caught in calibration and corrected before there had been even a flicker of disruption.
This rude and unseemly racket…She needed to examine her subroutines; clearly they required tightening. In the meantime, she would deal with this her—
Fire danced along her query lines; she snatched her thought close and threw up walls, catching the flames and turning them, even as she sought another connection with the ship-net.
Another blast assaulted the new connection, against which she raised a second wall—trapping herself neatly between; isolated, thoughts disrupted by the crackling of flames.
That, at least, she could do something about. She wove a quick notice-not on the fire’s frequency. Her thoughts snapped into cold clarity against the sudden silence.
Silence.
While the lack of random, disorienting noise was welcome, she should not
abide, ever, in…silence. There ought to be…music, the comfortable constant plainsong of systems operating in perfect accord.
Silence…meant that something was not only wrong, but very wrong.
Had there been, she wondered, an accident? Clearly, she had taken damage. That was terrifying, for if she had taken damage, what of the human life for which she was responsible? Where was Hazenthull? Where, indeed, was Tarigan? Concerned, she reached for the ship controls—and retreated to the safety of her walls as flame spat.
Memory, then.
She triggered her most recent: the last conversation she had participated in before this partial and perilous awakening.
“No,” her own voice said, and she felt again the regret she had felt at the moment of her refusal, some twenty-nine-point-three-five Standard Hours ago, according to the date stamp.
“I am, as you know from our discussions, very interested in this rumor we have both heard, of a newly recovered ancient logic. However, I have a mission. I must return to my base, debrief, and see my crew established in safety. These are mandates. Perhaps we might arrange a meeting place? I will come as quickly as I am able after my mission is complete, but I cannot divert the course of my assignment in favor of my own interests.”
“I understand.” A face appeared, blue eyes like stars in a face as dark as space. This was, Tocohl recalled, Inkirani Yo, mentor to independent self-aware logics, lately part of the team which had relocated the AI Admiral Bunter into a stable habitat.
“Your sense of honor is, as I know, very fine,” Inki said. “Since you cannot choose, except for duty, allow me, Pilot, to argue on behalf of your heart.”
“Duty trumps personal interest,” she said coolly. “Surely, you know this.”
“Indeed, indeed; I know it well,” Inki replied, rising from the pilot’s chair. They were, Tocohl noted, conversing on the bridge of Ahab-Esais, Inki’s own ship.
The relief she felt upon recognizing this was perhaps not worthy of her, but she could not but think that matters were much less dire, if it had been Ahab-Esais which had met with disaster. She had no responsibility for Inki, though she held her in some affection. It would be too bad, if Inki had been—if Inki…had, in the way of humans, died. But the fact that she, Tocohl, had not been aboard Tarigan for this last conversation surely meant that Hazenthull was unharmed. She had not failed one who rested in her care, under her command.