The Goda War

by Deborah Chester

  Davn appeared in the doorway, ducking inside and standing there a moment to survey the room. He saw Brock watching him and came over, picking his way with care over the pallets.

  “I’ll need your help,” he said without preamble.

  Brock looked at him warily. “I do not understand. A few minutes ago you were accusing me—”

  “That will be gone into later.” Davn cut him off with a chopping gesture. “We’re about to open communications with the Colonids. If you’re present, that will make us look even stronger.”

  Brock sat erect, ignoring the throbbing which immediately resumed in his chest. “What have you done?”

  Davn grinned, his teeth gleaming whitely against his beard. “We pulled it off. We have Governor Ton himself. And we’re going to exchange him for the nairin.”

  Brock stared at him in disbelief, then anger surged through him. “Impossible! It must not be done!”

  “Look—”

  “No! I tell you, no! Are you mad? Tregher betrayed the Held. He gave the defense keys to Daijahl Imperial to the Colonids in exchange for his own safety. In his dying breath Suprin Utdi condemned his son.” Seeing all of them staring at him, Brock swung his eyes to each face. “None of you must risk your lives further for the black one.”

  “Lies!” shouted Davn, red-faced. “You are the traitor. You let the Colonids kill the suprin. And now you try to discredit the nairin in an effort to distract us from your own cowardice.”

  “Arkist Davn!” said Rho, coming to his feet with an angered rattle of his folded wings. “This is the dire-lord whom you so accuse.”

  “Yes, and it is the dire-lord’s place to die before his suprin,” retorted Davn. There were several murmurs of assent. “And look at his arm. Look at the bracelet he wears. Look at the dagger he carries. They belong rightfully to Tregher, our new suprin. The dire-lord does not guard them for the successor, he wears them as though they are his own possessions. He slanders Tregher with lies. Next he will say Suprin Utdi named him as successor.”

  “Indeed I do wear the goda band,” said Brock, scrambling to his feet. He held up his arm for them all to see although the movement aroused the burns Anza’s medications had soothed. “Could I do so had Utdi himself not given it into my keeping? I served him unto death. I serve him now. Tregher has betrayed us. He was renounced by Utdi. I swear that to you on my honor as a dire-lord.”

  One of the other warriors, a Chaimu whose eyes were glittering a fierce red beneath his jutting brow plate, took sufficient courage from Davn’s scowl to jeer: “And will a Sedkethran lead us as our suprin? A Sedkethran? A child would be more fierce—”

  Fury exploded within Brock. Just as Davn swung out a hand at the Chaimu and said, “Take care,” Brock seized the curved dagger from Rho’s belt and was upon the Chaimu with reflexes none of them could match, pinning the warrior back against the wall with the blade against his throat.

  “You are a fool,” he said through his teeth, his eyes blazing into the startled ones of the Chaimu. “Do you truly dare challenge a dire-lord? Do you?”

  The man remained silent, and Brock released him, tossing the borrowed dagger back to Rho. There was silence in the cramped room. The eyes ringed him.

  Brock let out his breath loudly, refusing to let anyone see how dizzy his attack on the Chaimu had left him. “So.” His gaze swung to Davn’s.

  But the newan stared back stubbornly. “You have made your claim,” he said, breaking the quiet. “But I am free to choose. And I choose to serve Tregher. We will make the exchange at dawn. Will the dire-lord help us?”

  Brock lifted his head. “Us? Do you choose for all who are here?” He moved back to his pallet and bent to unsheathe the ceremonial dagger. The bard crystal blade flashed in the light as he held it aloft. “The Superior Life was passed to me, not Tregher. Do not think of me as Sedkethran. I am a Held warrior. I have proven that. So choose. Are you going to follow Utdi’s choice, or are you going to follow the man who sold you to the Colonids?”

  For a moment no one spoke or moved. Then Rho moved from the ranks to stand at Brock’s side. Brock expected others to join him, but no one else did. Their eyes swung uncomfortably away from Brock’s.

  Davn’s chest swelled. “You are answered, Dire-lord. So much for a Sedkethran’s personal ambitions. So much for your accusations against Tregher. Guard that dagger well, for at dawn the trade will be made and you can then turn it over to Suprin Tregher.”

  5

  Humiliation, raw and hot, poured over Brock. He was supposed to be sleeping, but he could not sleep. The bunker was empty except for the wounded. The others had all gone, gone to sell their allegiance to a traitor.

  Only one porta-lamp glowed softly, providing a dim illumination for Anza as she woke up at periodic intervals through the night to check on her patients. He was aware of her movements, but he ignored her. His face stayed turned toward the wall. Had he been physically capable, he would have flicked into interstitial time and stayed there where his shame could not be witnessed.

  He reached out and ran his pale, slim fingers up and down the damp wall. And thus ended the reign of Suprin Brock, he thought, letting his hand fall back to the pallet. Forgive me, Utdi.

  “Dire-lord?”

  Anza’s soft voice startled him. Reluctantly he turned his head to look at her as she knelt by his pallet.

  “I am sorry you are not able to sleep.” Her dark eyes gazed at him with a hint of a frown. “We cannot spare the power for a suspensor bed.”

  “Understood.” He hesitated a moment. “There is no danger of drifting into solid matter.”

  “Because of your injuries?”

  He dropped his gaze in an affirmative. Normally a Sedkethran could not sleep on any solid structure because of the possibility of drifting out of sequence with reality. But how did she know so much about his culture?

  “Basic emergency procedure training for variable species,” she said, anticipating his question. “An injured Sedkethran must be set up on suspensors. An injured Chaimu must be inverted with the head lower than the extremities. An injured Slathese must never be placed on his back. An injured Varlax…” She smiled and brushed her uneven hair out of her eyes. “Need I go on? I also spent two months on Felca for an observation residency.”

  He blinked and looked at her with new respect. “This is rare.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of how your healers look on ordinary medics as barbaric quacks who rely on guesswork, scanners, and erratic drug effects to take care of people. I think a residency is granted once every century. But I went and I learned a great deal from the magstrusi, in spite of their damned arrogance and all those stupid taboos!”

  She crammed her hands into the deep pockets of her smock. Her vehemence seemed to fade as swiftly as it had appeared.

  “Forgive me,” she said, shaking her head. “I should not—”

  “Say what you wish,” he said, amused. “Your words do not insult me.”

  The pink of her cheeks deepened. “But you’re—”

  “I am a warrior, not a healer.” He stared through the gloom at his hands, unable to take pride in that statement now. “But…I wish I could have saved him.”

  “Oh.” Impulsively she reached out to touch his arm, and unexpected sensations of compassion flooded into him from her. “You cared for the suprin, didn’t you? I mean, we all respected him but you grieve—”

  “A Sedkethran does not,” he snapped, the denial flying from him like the lash of a magstrusi’s whip.

  She drew back as though struck, and he turned his head away in shame. She had not deserved that.

  “The dire-lord is weary,” she said. “Have I permission to go?”

  “No, I…” He hesitated, unable to find the words. Loneliness engulfed him. He realized that all of his pride at having escaped Felca and its harsh self-repressions was ill-founded. For although he was among the highest-ranked after royalty in the Held, that very position made him unapproachable and just as
alone as he had ever been. Why didn’t he stop reaching for what he could never be?

  “I swore to him that I would not fail him a second time,” Brock said softly, refusing to look at her as though that would hide the deep shame he was revealing. “I swore that I would not let the Colonids destroy the Held. Yet, look at me. I have one follower, and he stood at my side out of pity. If the people refuse help, what can I do?”

  She made no sound. When he finally brought himself to look at her, he saw tears running down her face in long streaks. Of all those belonging to the Held, only the human species wept.

  He touched her face, the paleness of his fingers almost translucent against her darker skin, and the warmth of her tears burned his fingertips.

  She sat without moving, her gaze far away. “My sister was a breeder on Mabruk,” she said. “She bore for the highest-ranked newans, but most of the time she worked as a tender for the Chaimu children. She loved the little ones so…so very much. She was good and kind and loving. She wasn’t interested in wars or political philosophies. She just wanted to care for the little ones, to give them life, to bring them up, to laugh with them, hug them. Those Colonid bastards k-killed her. They just came in and blew everything to bits. They—” A sob escaped her. She buried her face in her hands.

  The wrenching sounds of human sorrow were ugly. Brock watched her, grieving inside for her. He was not the only one who had lost. They had all lost. He frowned at the goda band on his wrist, thinking of what it stood for. The godas were the most horrible weapons ever created. They had never been used. The fact of their existence had almost passed into legend. No one wanted to believe that anyone would be willing to unleash such destruction. Brock drew in an unsteady breath as he rubbed the band with his fingers. The code numbers played through his mind in a horrifying litany. Did he have the right to use them? Did he have the right to force the people of the Held to accept a responsibility they no longer wanted? If they chose to accept defeat, was he not wrong to push them away from that choice? They wanted Tregher. They did not care what Tregher had done. They wanted only to cling to tradition, the last remaining piece of what had been their way of life.

  Brock sighed. He could unlock the goda band from his wrist and leave it and the dagger here on the pallet for Tregher after Davn made the exchange.

  His fingers curled around the band.

  “Dire-lord,” said Anza through her tears. She looked up and he saw her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Her face was wet, and her voice shook as she said, “I wanted to stand by you earlier. I want the Held to go on as it was. I want revenge for my sister. I want Tregher to pay for betraying us. But what good would it do to resist? They’ve won. But you refuse to accept it just as much as Davn does. What good is fighting when there is no chance to win?”

  Brock’s eyes lifted to hers. “If there was a chance, a terrible chance, but nevertheless a way to defeat the Colonids would you fight? No matter what it meant? Do you want to fight for freedom, or live as a Colonid slave?”

  “You’re alone,” she said, staring at him. Her dark eyes glistened black behind her tears. “What can you really do?”

  He tapped the band on his wrist, his eyes meeting hers with a grimness that made her audibly catch her breath.

  “But that’s a legend. They don’t really exist, do they?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how could you? You’re a Sed—” She broke off and swallowed. “You’re a warrior.”

  “Yes. It is a terrible choice, Anza. Am I wrong?”

  Her eyes widened as though she could not believe he had actually admitted doubt. And then conviction suddenly blazed upon her face.

  “No,” she said. “You are not wrong. And I will help you to beat them, Suprin.” She reached out and traced the swirled scar on his cheek. “Shall I remove this?”

  How long had that proud scar stood as a barrier between him and the life he had abandoned? Without it he would be naked, forced to fight for a place all over again.

  “No one will ever believe a Sedkethran has dared reach for the throne,” he said slowly. “But the entire galaxy recognizes this scar and what it stands for. I must wear it until we are free again.”

  She nodded and started to rise to her feet. “I’d better check on my other patients—”

  “Anza,” he said, aware of the present stream of time. There was not much left. “We must go before Davn returns with the nairin. Your patients will have to be abandoned. Can you, as a sworn medic, do that?”

  She shook her head, her dark eyes like glass. “I will help you go before Davn comes back, but I can’t leave my patients. And I can’t leave…Davn.”

  She looked at him with raw misery. “He is very stubborn. If you could only convince him—”

  “No.”

  “No.” She sighed. “I’ll find Rho for you.”

  Brock waited until she had ducked out of the bunker into the tunnel before he gathered himself tightly within the Disciplines, seeking the self-control necessary to ignore the pain that would come when he stood up. But his abilities, while high-scaled, had always been erratic. He had been marked for advanced training in an effort to bind his talents into usable form. He left Felca before that training was completed. Since then he had learned his own methods, grafting them onto the teachings of the magstrusi. At this moment, however, he could not seem to grasp anything. Whether it was due to exhaustion, the skial he had experienced with the suprin, or weakness from his injuries, he was not sure. But as he forced himself upright, clinging to the wall for support, he felt his consciousness splitting into multiple timestreams. This was a mystic talent under strict repression. Magstrus Olbin had sealed it when Brock was a child. There was not supposed to be any way to release it, yet suddenly it was freed, perhaps accidently by his efforts to maintain the Disciplines without benefit of his atrox.

  He rose to his feet in the gloomy damp bunker. They had to hurry. He could worry about his mental condition later. Where were Anza and Rho? What was taking them so long?

  He rose to his feet in the cavern of ice lit by a vaulted ceiling opened to the sky of Felca. Around him sighed the thousand voices of the wind through the crystal harmonies—quartz formations in precise geometric arrangement studding the walls. It was the day of Change; when he left the cavern he could never again acknowledge parents or family or home. He would be nameless, assigned a number and a barracks, both of which would rotate randomly so that he could never become familiar with or attached to a new identity or location. Other races called Change adolescence, and its duration varied. From a childhood of harsh discipline and enforced lessons softened by the kind remoteness of family, he would enter a stretch of constant testing and uncertainty until he was mature.

  Brock shivered in the cold which was below comfort. He was naked, fogged by the condensation of his own breathing. He crouched back down in the center of the vast cavern, feeling very small and frightened as he listened to the ethereal voices of the wind singing in whispers about him. Fear was not permitted, he tried to remind himself and dug his fingers into the frozen slush beneath his numb feet. It was getting colder, but he could not shake off the illogical conviction that as long as he remained inside here he was safe. When he stepped outside, Change would begin. And he did not want to go…

  He rose to his feet in the overheated audience chamber of Held Suprin, dizzy with the heat and fumes from the incense braziers, deafened by the hissing of metal brands glowing red in the fire, and stretched with tremendous pride at having been chosen from all the candidates to replace Dire-lord Marsk, a coarse, aging Varlax who had died during mating leave on his home world. The chamber was packed with curious honorables, wide-eyed cadets in new Heldfleet uniforms, members of the court proper, skulking Fet assassins, jesters, region servants, minor officials, and the red-cloaked warriors of the suprin’s notorious Death Squad. The murmuring swelled, undulating back and forth through the crowd. No Sedkethran had ever been chosen before. No Sedkethran had ever been seen shielded an
d armed before. A few aged honorables, dried to living husks by skial and puffing on noxious sift-pipes in protected corners of the chamber, nodded wisely to each other and tapped their bony nose ridges as if to say, remember the legends of antiquity when the Sedkethran Corps stood among the fiercest of the Held’s auxiliaries.

  But legends were only legends. Brock stood on the small dais, conscious of being the center of a thousand eyes. He was clad in the heavy charge armor of a warrior; his helmet rested on the floor between his feet. High above him the Superior Family sat in their gallery: the suprin, two of his favored dalmas, a selection of children, and four resplendent Gwilwans, scaled purple and vivid green, glowing in the light with their fangs bared and their eyes gleaming insanely as they stood rattling their chains about the suprin’s throne. On the dais with Brock were the brazier heating the brands, two arkists with ceremonial knives held ready to strike if cowardice was shown, and the masked chief assassin of the Death Squad now drawing on his heat-proof gloves.

  There must be no flinching, no sign of pain. Brock steeled himself as the brand was selected from the fire and lifted toward his face. His eyes remained locked upon the tip glowing white. He heard the hiss of the metal on fire, felt the heat upon his skin as the chief assassin aimed with care. He must not flinch, not by the slightest bit. For it would show for the rest of his life, his cowardice branded upon him in a blurred scar. He must not flinch.

  “Prepare yourself,” said the chief assassin, his voice muffled by mask and artifice. Identities within the Death Squad were close-guarded secrets.

  “I am ready,” said Brock and closed his eyes as the brand seared into his flesh…

  He rose to his feet, struggling against the weakness of a body grown old. Giant trees towered above him, the girth of their trunks telling their immense age. Briars and vines snaked together in a treacherous undergrowth, walling him in. There was moist warm air upon his face, and the subliminal throb of a jungle living, hunting, and dying beyond the leaping flames of the camp fire. He held out a withered hand as though to ward off what stood waiting in the darkness about him. A sound startled him and he whirled around, having to catch himself by clinging to the tree at his back. The bark was hard like metal and razor sharp. Blood ran across his hands…