Crystal Dragon (37 page)

Down.

No, he was—there. No—

No.

The fighting stilled—the Enemy had the field.

The tree screamed. Or she did, or all the tiny dragons in her head.

Her fingers moved on the board.
Dancer
leapt, spun on its axis and flared, flames incinerating soldiers where they stood. Her fingers moved again, and she flew as low as she dared over the field, sweeping with flame and jets, sweeping again, and when all was obscured by streaming fire she savagely slapped the lift to orbit button, and relished opening the armament switches. Firing Jela's precious cannon she launched the Jayfours still on board across the seething mine shafts, dropped flares and test rounds—whatever there was—until the magazines were empty.

It wasn't until
Dancer
was safely up and out that she realized she was crying, silently and steadily.

THE SCREENS SHOWED BLACK; the only sounds in the tower the soft mutter of machinery, the whisper of the ventilating system—and the ragged breathing of the woman in the pilot's chair.

She sat with shock webs engaged. It had come to her that it might not be safe to let those straps loose just yet. No telling what she might do—she'd thought that without stipulating what it might mean. She was cold to the point of shivering, and her chest ached, like she'd been working too hard in thin air—
hyperventilating, that's what
, she told herself, raising a hand to brush at her face. Her fingers came away wet.
Deeps
.

Behind her closed eyes, an image formed, tentatively: the shadowy outline of a too-familiar black dragon.

"Don't," she snarled, or tried to, her voice thin and unsteady in her own ears. "I'll break you into toothpicks if you try me now."

The dragon-image faded, and she was alone in her head. Alone on her ship. Alone—

"Shift changes, Pilot," Jela said, his voice easy and warm. "Time to get some—"

"
Stop it
!" she screamed, surging upward—the straps grabbed her, pressed her into the chair, and she fell back, eyes shut but seeing it again—Jela falling, rising, shooting, losing the gun, cutting someone, down...

Dead.

No harm in grieving a good friend lost
, Garen whispered from memory.

"No harm..." Cantra whispered, ragged. "I think—" she cleared her throat. "Garen. Listen to me, now, I've got something in my mind. I know you done it for the best, and we gave it a good run—but I'm thinking what you did there at Tanjalyre—I'm thinking you skimped on the planning. What was the use of flying under the Director's scans when Veralt found you anyhow? What's the use my carrying on, all alone and not fit for it?
Dammit
, Garen..." Her voice choked out, and she wilted sideways against the straps, like she had ribs stove, or maybe'd taken a bad cut. The tower faded—maybe she passed out, or maybe she just fell asleep, exhausted, adrenaline-lagged as she was—no matter, really, other than to say that when she blinked back to consciousness, she wasn't crying any more.

She straightened and released the webbing, though she didn't try to stand up. Her muscles were like water, and she felt ...unconnected... to the reality around her.

Saving one.

"You," she whispered.

Call it a change in the air inside the tower—whatever. She knew it was listening to her. Jela's tree, that she'd promised to take to safety. Whatever that meant.

"You," she said again. "You tell me straight. I'm figuring Jela was bred sterile—military wouldn't want those special tailored genes crossing out to the general population, now would they?"

Silence, saving ship noise; no pictures took shape behind her eyes. Cantra sighed.

"Right. I'm also figuring you didn't find that little fix too much of a challenge, considering all else you put yourself to—and accmmplished. I'll just mention the tiny inconvenience of my own deliberately non-fertile state."

More silence, the air in the tower fair a-quiver with attention.

Cantra levered herself onto her feet and walked unsteadily to the end of the board. One hand braced against the wall, she stared at the tree, noting more than a few leaves drooping and showing some brown along the edge, and a couple undergrown pods turning yellow on the limb.

"You tell me the truth, now," she whispered. "Am I carrying Jela's true and biologic child? Yes or no'll be fine, stipulating I don't want to hear his voice."

The air in the tower shifted in some indefinable way, and the top branch of the little tree snapped, as if in salute.

"
Yes
," her own voice whispered raggedly back at her from the walls. "
Jela's true and biologic child
."

She closed her eyes. Took one breath, then another—and another, concentrating on keeping them uniformly deep and unhurried.

"I see," she said at last, opening her eyes. "I'm grateful to have the information." She pushed away from the wall.

"I'll be in my quarters," she said.

ENERGIES MOVED IN slow, scintillant waves, melding and separating; nothing more than a turgid eddy among the exuberant forces that defined the leading edge of the galaxy.

A star fell into the eddy and was instantly absorbed, cleverly woven ley lines confining its renegade brilliance.

"Again?" The lady lounged on her velvet chaise, a dope stick in a long, gem-sprinkled holder in one indolent hand; the other tucked beneath her head. She considered him out of half-closed emerald eyes, her hair a honey swirl against the tasseled pillow; her long limbs sheathed in light. Beside the chaise, her submissive knelt on the thick rugs, his back crisscrossed with old scars and new stripes, his will concentrated on the form and the substance of the cage.

"Lady." Rool Tiazan said respectfully. "I come to you once more at the behest of my dominant."

"Who perished foolishly, which might have been the greatest folly of her existence, had she not first performed a greater." The lady paused to draw on her dope-stick; illusion, of course, as was everything in this place, saving the cage formed of ley lines. "It astonishes one, the choice to insure the survival of the lesser part. Surely, she might have more easily preserved herself, and absorbed your energies at the instant of your destruction."

"Such a course would have served my purpose not at all," his lady said tartly, moving to the fore within their shared essence. "Sister."

The lady on the chaise blew a smoke ring, and watched it waft, blue and fragrant, toward the cage. Rool gave it attention, but it was merely a diversion, and not a threat.

"Rool Tiazan's dominant retains existence," the lady on the chaise said, thus informing the invisible and ever-present corps of her sisters. She shifted, her hair moving seductively on the pillow. "What errand brings you here, then? Sister."

"I would ask," his lady said, "that you coordinate your action with mine, and with that of Lady Moonhawk."

"Why would I wish to do this?"

"Because it becomes increasingly plain that the Iloheen cannot be halted by any one of our actions. Only by acting in concert do we hold a chance of gaining our goals."

"And yet we each of us hold goals which are fundamentally different," the other lady pointed out.

"In outcome, perhaps," his lady agreed. "However, we are united at base: The Iloheen must not go forward with their destiny. On this we agree."

"Indeed. And yet I say again—our desired outcomes diverge greatly. Lady Moonhawk wishes to steal a mite of the Iloheen future and seal it away for all life to share equally. You—you wish to run away. And I—" she smiled slowly, showing small, pointed teeth. "I wish to depose the Iloheen, and take up dominion of this galaxy."

"Sister, these goals are not incompatible. Allow me to explain. Rool."

Carefully, and masking his distaste, he made contact with the submissive, and downloaded the relevant data into the dull, half-crazed mind. He withdrew and the dominant on the chaise blew a smoke ring. It settled about her submissive's head like a misty crown. She drew again on the dope stick and the ring thickened, tightening until the submissive moaned.

She smiled, eyes half-closed. "I...see," she said after a moment. "The calculations of energy are very fine, are they not? Are you able to produce your share? Sister."

"Of course. Sister."

"Ah." Another smoke ring, this one
not
a simple diversion. Rool extended his thought and nullified it before it intersected with the lines forming the cage. On the chaise, the lady smiled, languidly amused.

"The word of a sister to a sister," she observed lazily, "is of course inviolate. However, your ...situation, if you will allow me, sister, is so ...odd, that I fear me I will require something more." She sat up, suddenly neither languid nor lazy; the ley lines spat and hissed, as power amassed in a thunderhead of possibility.

The cage contracted, poison rising in the heat from the lines. Rool exerted his will, knowing that she would see the effort it cost him; leached the poison and stilled the contraction.

His lady's sister laughed.

"Rool Tiazan!" She commanded him; and he shuddered to hear her.

"Lady," he answered, forcefully projecting calm.

"You will bind yourself to this promise: At the Moment, you will wholly support my action."

"There is another yet to convince," his lady spoke briskly; "who will also wish to seal our bond with power. It is mete and fitting that guarantees be made. Therefore at the Moment of the Question, you shall one-third of what you have measure here and now of our worth, in support of your Answer."

Power rolled and clashed. The lady's thought enclosed him, violating him on every level; and he would certainly have screamed, had she left him any means to do so.

An eternity of torment passed—and he was released. He collapsed within the poisoned walls of their prison, bleeding energy from a thousand wounds.

His lady's sister relaxed into the chaise, her eyes bright and cruel, crimson smoke wreathing her head.

"We are in accord," she said. "Have your submissive weave a strand to mine, so that I may draw my portion, when it is due."

"Indeed. Rool."

Unsteadily, he did what was needful, spinning out a thread of his essence to weave into that of the scarred, mad submissive."It is done," his lady said. "Look for contact—soon, I think, sister. The process accelerates."

"So I have noted, as well. Simbu, relax the energies."

The cage wavered, lines loosening. Rool collected himself and snatched them out of that place, a star blazing thinly against the flickering purple of the Rim, and then gone.

TOR AN YOS'GALAN MOVED down the hallway at a pace just slightly less than a run, passing many soldiers, Ms and Xs; Ys and natural human. Most ignored him, some acknowledged him with a casual salute or tip of the head. None molested him, for which he believed Captain Wellik was to thank, though that large, brusque individual swore otherwise.

"Don't judge all soldiers by a bunch of rowdies with a withdrawal order on their belts. Troops here are disciplined, and we know our duty—to hold this world against attack, and to guard the civilians, should attack become imminent."

Though he could hardly credit it himself, Tor An had developed a liking for Captain Wellik, who remembered Jela fondly, and received Scholar dea'Syl with reverence. He had immediately installed the scholar in spacious apartments within the garrison, gathering each and any small thing the old man could think to want. Captain Wellik had even taken the third member of their party in his long stride, merely observing that Lucky was an exemplary name for a cat.

The hallway opened into the garrison commons, and Tor An allowed himself to stretch into a real run.

That he had stayed on as man of all work for Scholar dea'Syl—was reasonable. The old man was comfortable with him; he had young legs and a willingness to be of use. And—it wasn't as if he were needed elsewhere.

Today's errand necessitated a trip down into the town, to the wine-shop of one Tilthi bar'Onig, there to pick up the Scholar's mid-week order. Of course, there was no real reason for Tor An to go himself—the errand could have been accomplished by any one of the soldiers attached to the garrison quartermaster's office. However, it was a tonic—so said Master dea'Syl, and Tor An found himself in agreement—to be able to leave the garrison and walk among civilians.

"Mark me, I have been a prisoner," the old man had said to him, as he sat in the window of his apartments and looked out over the evening commons. "You might say that everyone is bound by duty, and thus each stands a prisoner in his own jail—and you would be correct. To a point. Do you know what that point is, young trader?"

This examination was familiar enough. Tor An had looked up from the newsfeed, and considered the old man's silhouette.

"Choice, sir?"

For a moment, there had been no response. Then Scholar dea'Syl sighed.

"Choice," he repeated, as if it were some rare and precious gem laid out on the trade cloth for his consideration. "You've been well-schooled, I see." He'd held out his glass then, not looking away from the window.

"Be a good lad and fetch me some more of the same."

Tor An slowed to a brisk walk, and waved his pass at Corporal Hanth on the gate, as his partner Jarn was engaged with a—

Tor An spun on his heel.

"Scholar tay'Nordif!"

The woman in trade leathers did not turn her head, and Tor An hesitated. Perhaps he was mistaken, he thought. It had taken him some days not to see Jela in every M Series soldier he passed; perhaps this lady—tall and slim, with pretty tan hair and strong profile—perhaps this lady merely had the seeming of—

"I'll explain myself to Captain Wellik, and none other," she was saying, her husky, laconic voice bearing a Rim accent—and that was certainly wrong. Maelyn tay'Nordif had spoken with a scholar's finicking care, her voice high and clear.

"You can call him here or I can go to him there," she told Jarn. "Either way, your job's to clear me, and what you need for that is this:
Jela sent me
. Send it on. My name's—"