Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

The Gathering Flame (38 page)

BOOK: The Gathering Flame

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“How do I know you aren’t one of those agents yourself?”

The man looked apologetic. “Some things you have to take on faith, I’m afraid, at least for now.” He made a formal bow and extended his hand. “My lady, will you come?”

If he isn’t Nivome’s man, she thought, he’s probably a friend, at least for the moment, and I can trust him. And if he’s lying, and he is Nivome’s man … I still have my blaster.

“What the hell,” she said. “Lead the way.”

Jos couldn’t sleep. Instead, he paced the corridors of the Summer Palace all through the rest of the night. The anger that had caused him to turn his back on Perada and leave her apartments faded soon enough, leaving behind only a flat weariness. He might have gone back—he didn’t think that he was so stupid-proud he couldn’t admit to saying everything wrong that could possibly be said—but going back wouldn’t help get Ari to Maraghai, not when the boy’s mother was dead set against the idea.

It had to be done, though. Jos had given his hand on it. Besides, he’d seen the reports at Central—the withered crops after the Mage raiding ships had passed—and he knew what they meant. The Magelords had decided to treat Entibor as they had treated Sapne, and nobody on-planet would be safe.

Ferrda will take the kid; Ari’s mine by law, anyhow, and if that’s good enough for me it’ll have to be good enough for the Selvaurs. Then Perada will have her alliance, and Ari will be as safe as anyone’s going to get … and I can go fight Mages, since that’s all that anyone seems to think I’m good for.

The decision didn’t make him any happier, but at least it gave a direction and a sense of purpose to his thoughts. The main problem was the lockplate, and beyond the lockplate the phalanx of nursemaid-bodyguards. Shooting the lock open would take care of the first step, and he supposed he could always stun any member of the nursery staff who chose to interfere—but anything violent was likely to draw instant attention, and it was a long way from the nursery wing to the landing field.

What I need
, he thought, relieved to confront a practical problem for a change,
is an ally. Somebody who’s willing to act in the Domina’s best interest whether she knows what her best interest is or not—and someone who’s willing to take on Gentlesir Nivome do’Evaan.

Put that way, the choice was obvious.

Jos found Ser Hafrey sitting in the morning room, a graceful chamber overlooking a vista of gentle, forested hills. The rising sun filled the room with warm golden light.

“Good morning, General.” The armsmaster came to his feet as Jos entered—he might almost, Jos thought, have been waiting for him to arrive.

“I suppose so,” Jos said. “Ser Hafrey, I need your help.”

The armsmaster didn’t look surprised. “In what fashion?”

“The child, Ari …”

“Her Dignity’s placeholder. A fine boy.”

“I want to get him off-planet.”

“To seal your agreement with the Selvaurs. Yes.”

“Dammit,” said Jos. “Does the whole Summer Palace know about that treaty by now?”

“There are no secrets, I’m afraid. One picks things up, here and there.”

“I suppose so. But it’s not just the treaty I’m worried about. The war is going to heat up real soon now, and no one on Entibor is going to be safe.”

Hafrey looked faintly amused. “I thought making it safe was your responsibility, General.”

“Yeah—but things are going to get a lot worse before I can make them any better. I’ve seen what happens when the Mages decide to get mad at a place, and believe me, getting away from it is the only thing to do.”

“You think Maraghai will be immune to such tactics?”

“No. But when the plagues come, they’ll be set up for Selvauran biochemistry, not human.”

“Don’t you mean ‘if the plagues come’?”

“I prefer not to bet on that sort of thing,” Jos said. He paused and looked out the window. A red bird was darting from branch to branch in the trees nearby, making a crimson flash of movement like a blaster bolt in a dark alley. After a while he said, “I thought for a while yesterday that I might be able to take ’Rada into space with me … .”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Hafrey said. The note of sympathy in his voice was, as far as Jos could tell, perfectly genuine. “No reigning Domina has ever left the planet, and—because this is Entibor—habit has become custom, and custom has taken on the force of law. To leave the homeworld would be to abdicate all power. And she will not do that.”

“I guess not. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

The armsmaster looked thoughtful. “You’re not a man with a strong attachment to any one world, General—no free-spacer can afford to be—so perhaps you don’t understand how deeply such things are felt on Entibor. Did you know, for instance, that in certain stock phrases and legal documents, the words for ‘death’ and ‘exile’ are considered as equivalent? A Domina is bound by that tradition, no matter what her own desires may be.”

“Well, that explains why ’Rada decided to fly all over half of space before she came here.” Jos was silent for a moment. “Will you help me, then?”

“Her Dignity will not be pleased.”

Jos let out his breath in a long sigh. “Thanks anyway. I’ll do the best I can on my own.”

He turned to go.

The armsmaster held up a hand to stop him. “Timing is everything, General. If you were to wait here alone for, let us say, fifteen minutes, and then pay a visit to the nursery, you might very well find that no one is there except your son.”

“My son … fifteen minutes, you said?”

“That should be long enough. Further I cannot go, and still maintain my oaths to the Domina and to House Rosselin.” The armsmaster bowed to him—the full bow of profound respect. “Good day to you, General. And good luck.”

Jos waited for fifteen minutes by his chrono, then left the morning room and set out at an unhurried pace for the palace nursery. The lockplate answered to his ID at the first touch, and the door slid open.

Inside, everything was silent and empty. Jos wondered what Hafrey had done to achieve this sudden depopulation, then thought better of wondering. The armsmaster’s reputation wasn’t a sinister one, exactly, but people sometimes got an uneasy look on their faces when they spoke of him. Even ‘Rada, back on Pleyver—“
He’s always been loyal to the House. Veratina trusted him
”—better not to think about ’Rada, either.

Jos moved through the deserted nursery until he reached the dayroom. Ari was there, awake and warmly dressed, sitting in a pool of sunshine from a low window, playing with bright-colored blocks. As Hafrey had promised, the child was alone, although a packed and sealed carrybag waiting conspicuously on the table nearby hinted that he hadn’t been left that way for long.

When Jos walked into the room, the boy looked at him and threw his arms in the air. “’adda! Uppie!”

“All right, kid, here’s an uppie for you,” Jos said.

He slung the carrybag over his shoulder, then picked up Ari and left the day room by the door that led to the outside. Nobody was in sight there, either. He didn’t meet anyone on the walk to the hovercar, or on the long drive to the landing field on the grassy meadow below the palace.

He’d expected to find the landing field empty as well, except for the small aircar he’d flown up from Central HQ—but the armsmaster was as thorough as he was resourceful. As Jos drew near the perimeter he heard the deep rumbling noise of a Fleet suborbital courier coming down on jets.

The vessel had hardly settled on its landing legs before a hatch opened in the passenger section and a ramp swung out.

“Looks like our ride,” Jos said. In the infant-seat beside him, Ari sat wide-eyed and silent. Not even the hasty transfer to the courier, or the noise and pressure of the takeoff, caused him to do more than fret briefly.

Another fifteen minutes—a few more than thirty, all told, since Jos had left Hafrey in the morning room—and the courier was landing at the field in An-Jemayne, where
Warhammer
was berthed. A quick walk across the hardpack, and Jos stood beneath the battered, familiar hull of his own ship. A Fleet officer wearing the lace and braid of somebody’s flag lieutenant stood by the ‘
Hammer’
s main ramp.

It took Jos a moment to recall where he knew this one from—she’d been in the reception area the day he’d taken command at Central HQ. She gave him a snappy salute as he came up.

“Ready to lift, Captain.”

“This ship takes three to lift, minimum,” Jos said. “And five is better. I’ll need to call in my crew.”

“Ship,” said Ari, quite distinctly. “Uppie!”

“I have navigator, engineer, and gunners qualified with antique spacecraft standing by,” the lieutenant said. “Your duty officer gave them permission to enter.”

“Antique,” said Jos, bemused.
Hafrey must have connections all over the planet, to pull something like this together on short notice.
“I like that.”

Another young officer—one of the Fleet-happy pups from House Kiel—came dashing up before he had finished speaking. The pilot from the courier, Jos supposed.

“Here’s the last,” the lieutenant said. “He’ll need to leave the planet as well.”

Jos looked hard at them both. “Does the fleet admiral know what you’re doing?”

The lieutenant and the courier pilot glanced at each other, and the lieutenant said, “She didn’t ask any questions, sir.”

“I see,” said Jos.
I guess Lachiel meant it when she said that she’d back me.
“Just as well. Come aboard, both of you. Let’s go.”

ERREC RANSOME: CAPTIVITY

(GALCENIAN DATING 970 A.F.; ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 34 VERATINA)

E
RREC RANSOME awoke feeling lethargic and oddly detached from reality. The light of morning shone in through the translucent walls of the snug prison house where the Mages kept him in such unwanted comfort. He sat up and stretched, wondering why he felt so fuzzy, and tried to pull the events of the night before out of the fog of memory.

Then he recalled. He had tried to hang himself, using strips torn from the tunic the Mages had given him.

Looking down, he saw that the clothing he wore was whole and unaltered. If he had ever torn up any garment at all, it wasn’t this one. He raised a hand to the side of his neck. No rope bums marred the flesh underneath his fingers.

But I remember. I remember it now.

He stood and walked outside. The tree he had climbed to make his attempt was there, but nothing about it spoke of what he had tried to do. The stout branch overhung the gravel path as it had always done, but his makeshift rope, if it had ever existed, was gone. He wondered again if he had dreamed the attempt, or hallucinated it.

I am insane,
he thought.

Then he shook his head violently, though the movement brought on a brief whirl of vertigo.
No. What I know I did is what really happened.

He remembered it all—the pain in his throat as the noose drew tight, the burning as his lungs fought for air, the black tide rising behind his eyes as he lost consciousness.

Why am I still alive?

His knees felt weak underneath him. He let himself sink down onto a sun-warmed stone bench at the edge of the path, and dropped his head into his hands. He hadn’t understood, before, how closely his captors were watching him.

He had been intercepted. He had made a mistake. He had worried that a longer drop would break the improvised rope rather than breaking his neck. And the Mages had come. They had come, and they had saved him.

Anywhere else, that would be an admirable act. Not here. He could not accept it here.

He could no longer climb the tree. Even from where he sat, he could detect the force field around its upper trunk and branches. He stood and walked back to the little house where he lived. Lived. They were intent that he should live.

Well, then, he would live. For the moment. He went inside, lay down on the bed—as always, anonymous hands had made it up, silently and invisibly, while he was out of sight in the garden—and allowed his mind to wander. The Mages had not learned how to imprison that, had they?

Alone with the currents of Power in the universe, he stretched forth his senses along those pathways that the Adepts of Galcen had shown to their students, looking for the guards that kept and tended him.

New minds were there, not the simple uncomplicated ones he had corrupted to his will before. These guards were stronger; they understood Power in their own terms. Ransome waited in the shadows of their thoughts, touching first one, then the other—gently, gently, fleeing farther into the dark at the slightest hint that the watchers might be aware of his presence.

Much that he found in their minds he did not understand. Some things, such as their willingness to use the currents of Power as tools, like physical objects, he found disgusting. That the Mages could even contemplate doing so … it was hideous, to disturb the natural order and make the universe respond to small, imperfect creatures like them. Like him.

He recoiled. Then he drew nearer again. If he was to escape, it must be through these men. He would test them. He would trap them.

He took a shard of rock he had found on the gravel path, a sliver of flint with a point to it. After dark, when the air had cooled, he lay on his pallet with the stone tooth in his right hand, watching the vague shadows cast by the trees outside against the translucent walls. With a sudden movement he flung his right arm across, jabbing the shard of flint into his left wrist, reaching for the artery.

Pain blossomed along his arm. Blood came, making the flint slippery in his grip—but not enough blood, not yet. He sawed the flint back and forth, making the wound deeper. His breath came in ragged, sobbing gasps. At last the blood spurted up around his fingers, lukewarm to the touch and smelling sickly-sweet, and he let the flint slide out of his grip.

The blood kept on flowing, soaking the sheets beneath and above him. Errec felt his body sink into a deadly lassitude. He made no effort to fight it, but lay back against the pillow and let his mind go free. His breathing slowed, his heart slowed, his body cooled. But his masters on Ilarna—and on Galcen—had taught him well. This time he would not lose consciousness. He would watch.

Before long, the translucent wall panel that masked the door into the garden slid open. Two Mages entered, black-robed and black-masked like those who had destroyed the Guildhouse at Amalind Grange. One of them began at once to work on Errec’s mangled wrist, applying a glob of reddish jelly and smoothing it into the wound.

The second Mage stripped off one of his black gloves and placed a hand on Errec’s forehead. The technique was a familiar one, even allowing for the twisted nature of the Mages’ beliefs. The man was touching a dying body, searching for the spirit within and striving to hold it in place while a physician did the necessary work—a dangerous technique, even among friends, and a mark of how important Errec Ransome was to his enemies, that they should risk it to keep him alive.

No hint of triumph colored Errec’s apparent passivity. His mind was far away, and very quiet, waiting … . The Mage opened himself and reached out farther, touching the fleeting spirit and bringing it home.

Now
, Errec thought. He let his mind follow the path of their physical contact, arcing across the infinitesimal gap between skin and skin, racing along the pathways of the Mage’s arm and body to inhabit him utterly.

If the Mage working over Errec’s lacerated wrist noticed that his companion had stiffened briefly, he gave no indication of it. Without looking up, he said only, “I think I’ve got him patched up again. Want me to change his clothes?”

The one touching Ransome’s forehead didn’t respond. Behind the man’s plastic mask, his face was beaded with sweat.

“Hey,” said his partner after a moment. “Are you all right?”

The Mage took his hand away. “Everything’s fine here. Let’s get moving; he’ll come around before too long.”

The two men did the rest of their work in silence: cleaning up the blood that had soaked their prisoner’s sheets and mattress, putting fresh clothing on him, and departing as quietly as they had come. In the morning, Errec woke up between new, unwrinkled sheets. He looked at his wrist. Once again, the flesh had healed without a scar.

He smiled. This time it didn’t matter. He’d made the necessary beginning, and everything else would follow.

He only had to wait.

BOOK: The Gathering Flame

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