thefiremargins

Fire Margins
Sholan Alliance #3
Lisanne Norman
DAW Books, Inc.
Donald A. Wollheim, Founder
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
DAW Books
is proud to present
LISANNE NORMAN'S
Sholan Alliance
Novels:
TURNING POINT (#1)
FORTUNE'S WHEEL (#2)
FIRE MARGINS (#3)
RAZOR'S EDGE (#4)
DARK NADIR (#5)
STRONGHOLD RISING (#6)
Copyright © 1996 by Lisanne Norman.
All Rights Reserved.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1039.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
ISBN: 0-88677-962-6
Electronic format made
available by arrangement with
DAW Books, Inc.
www.dawbooks.com
Elizabeth R. Wollheim
Sheila E. Gilbert
Publishers
peanutpress.com, Inc.
www.peanutpress.com

For Tal, who started it all.
And Mike, for all his support during the dark years.
Special thanks must go to two people:
Judith Faul, who has lived through just about every scene with me.
And, of course, my editor, Sheila Gilbert, who has the rare gift of being able to accompany me on my journeys to Shola.

Exclusive E-book Introduction

With two books now completed, I made a list of all the threads, or unresolved story issues that were part of the larger picture, left from Fortune's Wheel. It was about now that I realized my series was generating vast amounts of background data that would need to be kept in some sort of easily retrievable order as I was constantly going back to it to look up who met whom and where they met! I also needed a calendar for Shola so I could keep track of the passage of time. I had begun to get organized— after a fashion, but not as organized as I needed to become.
Coupled with that came the realization I needed to work out the actual Guild and government system on my world, as well as the social position of the two most important Guilds in the series; the Telepaths and the Brotherhood of Vartra. Along with doing all this background work, looking up the compositions of various large governing bodies like WHO and the UN, and the medieval guilds, I had started work on Fire Margins, and it wasn't working!
On the 5th failed attempt to write the very beginning, I finally sat back and asked Kusac what he wanted to do about Vanna having been kidnapped.
"Finally you're asking me!" he said. "About time. I'd never behave the way you've had me behaving. I'd do ..."
And so the beginning of the new book finally got off the ground. For those of you wondering how Kusac could possibly influence the way I wrote the book, consider this: I created him, he's part me because all authors put something of themselves into every character, but mostly he's himself because over the first two novels, he has evolved and changed from how I initially saw him. If I've done my job well and constructed a character even I can believe in, then deep down in my subconscious, I know how Kusac will behave in any given situation. All I had to do was get in touch with the person he is and listen to how he wanted to solve the problem rather than impose the way I, Lisanne, would do it on him. Simple, isn't it? Well ...Yes, and no.
This was the book in which Kusac began to take control of his life rather than let events dictate what he and Carrie should do, and right from the start, he intended to do it all his way— not Kaid's, and not mine. Kaid has a large part to play too. At the end Of Fortune's Wheel, I put in a hint of Kaid's feelings toward Carrie, and in this novel, you see inside his mind for the first time and get an inkling of just how mysterious and complex a character he is.
It's a political novel, dealing with the politics of Sholan society on one level, and the politics of relationships on another as Kaid's past comes back to haunt him while he's drawn, almost against his will, ever closer to Carrie, and Kusac. It was also time for me to flesh out a lot more of the world in which my Sholans live, and though hard work, I enjoyed doing that.
With my characters needing to travel far back in time to break free from the rigid Guild system on Shola, I needed to look at their religions and how the ancient rites of one of them could hold the secret to time travel. The title, Fire Margins, came from the name of that rite and forms part of the title theme for the series— a margin is a boundary or a defining space. Fire Margins takes my characters into a world of fire and danger where they can be destroyed, or tempered and made stronger.
It would have been easy to look at ancient religions and then base my main Sholan religion on one of them, but anthropology is among my interests— how the earliest civilizations evolved, and interacted with each other. Sholans had evolved on the plains, not up in trees like us, which is why they have digitigrade legs, jointed for four legged locomotion. They would have a better chance of survival if they were omnivores, with meat as their preference, rather than evolving as only carnivores. So they must have gone through a Hunter Gatherer stage just as we did.
I discovered religions evolved to fit the life style of the community, and one of the earliest religions for hunter-gatherer communities included a tribal shaman. I also found that this term has been taken over by the New Age people to mean something very different from what it originally meant. Research brought me to a specific book, and to a small news group on the internet, then eventually to one of the real modern day shamans who agreed to correspond with me.
Shaman is an Innuit term, the Innuit being a specific tribe of Eskimos with a history going back to the earliest times. Much of what is called shamanic today owes nothing at all to the Eskimo people from whom the very word and its meaning has been taken. Suffice it to say, I gave my word not to use wholesale anything I learned from the person prepared to tell me about real Shamanic beliefs. He quite rightly didn't want to see something in which he believed deeply reproduced in a novel. So all that remains of what I learned is the boundary of fire through which my characters must pass in order to reach their past.
In the first two books, I had given myself several clues as to how Sholan religion had evolved since the days when the ritual of the Fire Margins had been created. If that sounds strange, if I say that I never create anything for their culture until I have to because if I do and later need to change it, I can't, that should make sense. Once I've put it into a book, it's there, written in stone, unalterable. In the first book, Kusac refers to Vartra as their Creator God. I was beginning to realize just how very meaningful that phrase that was going to become.
I settled on a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses because it's the way we as a species mostly evolved, but rather than make religion a driving force on Shola as it still is on Earth, I decided to de-politicalize it and make it more of a personal thing. There are no state recognized religions and forms of worship on Shola, at least since their Cataclysm. I picked a Greek style religious system because my Sholan culture already owed much to the Cretans. I decided on a core of main deities— adding to the Green Goddess and Vartra — and created a couple of stories for them, notably the Midwinter festival tale you will read in this book.
That done, I needed to look at the Brotherhood of Vartra, the secretive Warrior Elite of Shola who once a year have the right to go to the Warrior Guild to recruit likely candidates. Those chosen often are unsure as to whether they are being blessed or cursed because membership means turning their back on the world they've known and giving their total loyalty to the Brotherhood.
Obviously the Brotherhood has Ninja style overtones, but basing it on the Japanese warrior culture was an easy way out of actually taking the time to create something alien to us as Westerners. Once again, I made my Sholans firmly rooted in traditions analogous to our Western culture. My many years re-enacting Dark Age battles came in useful here again, because I've tried my hand at more than a few different European combat disciplines. Believe me, Western based martial arts are just as effective, though not as well known, as the Eastern ones. One of them is the good old English Quarterstaff, as used by Little John in all the Robin Hood legends.
With the Sholan calendar, government, religion, their Warrior Elite, and the ancient religious ritual for traveling back in time all worked out, all that remained to be done was write the actual storyline!
This novel became the most complex and the longest one I'd done. I think it still is because I was dealing with not only so much new material, but using the new skills I was learning, thanks to my editor's help, namely those of weaving multiple plots within plots. Drafting the ideas out on paper and making them mesh with each other so that each character's story line intersected at the correct point in the fabric of the overall novel wasn't easy.
As well as looking deeper into Kaid's past and how it impacts on events in this novel, we learn more about his foster-son, Dzaka, whom we met in Fortune's Wheel. Kusac's two sisters, Taizia and Kitra, have their parts to play too, meanwhile more and more mixed Leska pairs are forming, bringing even more trouble from Master Esken at the Telepath Guild. And Ghezu, at the Brotherhood, has his own plans for these mixed Leskas.

* * *

Wanted by the Telepaths, the Warriors and the Brotherhood, each with their own political agenda for this new breed of mixed species Telepaths, Kusac and Carrie know they have to break away from all they have ever known and strike out on their own to carve a new life of freedom for themselves and their descendants. The path is dangerous, no one who has taken it has ever survived. To accomplish it, they must have a Third, a Warrior, sworn body and soul, to protect them with his life, as was done in the days just after the Cataclysm.
Pivotal to Kusac's plans is Kaid, once a member of the feared Brotherhood but expelled by them ten years before for reasons no one, least of all him, will discuss. Will their risk pay off, or are they gambling everything by even considering as their Third someone who may be flawed and unreliable?

Lisanne Norman
March 2000

http://www.sff.net/people/Lisanne

Prologue

"Approaching the trading world now, General M'ezozakk," said his navigator.
"Inform Priest J'koshuk that his skills are needed," said M'ezozakk, watching as the planet grew larger on the main view screen.
"No need, General, I'm here," said the priest, stepping out of the bridge access corridor. Behind him the door ground noisily as it closed.
"Hasn't anything been done about that damned door yet?" M'ezozakk demanded testily, ending on a sibilant hiss of displeasure.
"No, General. Maintenance and engineering are monitoring the hull patch continuously lest it is breached again. We can't afford to lose any more ..."
"I don't want excuses," snapped M'ezozakk, his crest rising as he turned to look at the First Officer. "I want results! If it isn't fixed within this shift, I'll throw you to J'koshuk to play with!"
The officer's skin paled visibly, his tongue flicking out nervously as he glanced at the carmine-robed priest who now stood to the left of the General.
"I'll see to it personally, General," he said, ducking his head down in a low bow of obeisance.
"Do so." M'ezozakk turned back to the screen. "Wait," he said. "On your way, see that the captives are cleaned up. We need to get a good price for them. Make sure that they understand this, because if they don't cooperate, I'm sure J'koshuk could spare a few last moments with them."
"Yes, General," said the officer, beginning to sidle toward the exit.
"We're within communications range, General," ventured the crew member manning the comm unit.
"You realize our information regarding this world is minimal," said J'koshuk quietly, leaning toward the General "I can't be sure that the language we have on our data banks is their universal port language."
M'ezozakk turned his unblinking gaze on the priest. The vertical slits narrowed slightly. "Are you telling me you don't think you can communicate with these ... savages?"
"By no means, General," said the other, his tone more conciliatory. "I don't yet know just how ... basic ... that communication will be."
"Your position gives you many privileges, J'koshuk. Should I, on your advice, have detoured to this world and be unable to accomplish our mission, those privileges can be rescinded. I believe Mzayb'ik has ambitions ..." He left the rest of his sentence hanging.
"If I cannot communicate with these barbarians, General, then none of Mzayb'ik's ambitions will help you," said J'koshuk, his own eyes narrowing as he bowed his head slightly to the General.
"If you can't make yourself understood, then his lack of knowledge would hardly be an impediment," M'ezozakk said smoothly.
"We're being hailed from the planet's surface, General," the comm interrupted politely.
M'ezozakk relaxed back in his seat. "Are the cargo shuttles ready?"
"The shuttles are ready, General," said his security offi-cer. "Shuttle One awaits your command for the automatic launch. Shuttle Two is fueled and ready. It awaits the crew and captives."
"The comm is yours, J'koshuk. I'll watch with interest while you negotiate with these beings," said M'ezozakk waving his hand lazily in the direction of the main viewer. "Open a channel to the surface," he ordered his comm officer.
J'koshuk bowed again, barely concealing the mixture of anger and fear on his face.
Let him hate me, just as long as he also fears me,
M'ezozakk thought.

* * *

The cuboid sat at the back of the room, beyond the reach of the four Sholans. The Valtegans hadn't been about to let the unclean bodies of their captives go anywhere near their holy object. They'd lived alongside it for weeks, its brooding presence reflecting their mood just as it reflected the light. Just why they'd been kept there, Jeran had never been able to figure out. He had noticed that the ordinary troops on this vessel were even more afraid of the cuboid than of them. That was another puzzle. Why should the Valtegans fear them? Four half-starved and beaten Sholans chained to the floor hardly represented much of a threat to them, surely.
At first, Miroshi had tried to work out what the cube was. The mental exercise had diverted her thoughts from anticipating the next session with their tormentors. It had been futile, though. There was little she or any of them could glean from its featureless surfaces. It just
was
.
A short time before, the Valtegans had come and taken it away, carefully hauling it from the room on its obviously frictionless base. With it gone, they'd all felt easier. It was as if a weight they hadn't realized was there had been lifted from them. He still felt a sense of unease about it though, as if it was connected to them in some way he didn't understand.
The sound of the door opening roused Jeran from his reverie. It was all he could do to raise his head, ears facing forward, and look toward the noise. He saw the priest first, then the five armed soldiers behind him. He let his head fall back to the deck floor as the priest hissed out an order.
They wanted all of them this time. Usually they were taken singly. Maybe the damned lizards had tired of their uncooperative captives and their nightmare was finally about to end. Death held no fear for him any more: death meant freedom from their torturer, J'koshuk.
His body tensed, waiting for the kick or the blow— or even the shot that would finish him. Instead, he was grasped by the neck and hauled to his feet. A yelp of pain escaped him as the nonretractible claws dug into his flesh. So much stronger than the Sholans, they made no effort to temper that strength when handling their captives. His uniform jacket was stripped off him then, just as abruptly, he was released. Naked apart from his pelt, he staggered, trying to keep his balance, but he was too weak to stand. The heavy chain attached to the rigid metal collar round his neck dragged at him, pulling him down to the floor again.
He'd barely had a chance to see the same had been done to his three companions when they were hit by a jet of freezing water. Claws extended, his feet scrabbled against the metal-plated floor as he tried at least to get up onto his haunches. He'd expected to be killed, but not by drowning! Turning his head away from the stream of pressurized water, he bit down hard on his lower lip, trying not to yell curses at them in the few words of Valtegan he'd managed to pick up over the weeks they'd been on board.
Turning back to look at the others, he saw that even Miroshi had roused herself enough to try and keep her head free of the water. Their captors had quickly realized she was the most vulnerable member of the group and had targeted her for their special attention. What they'd done to her would have been despicable even had she not been a telepath. Her mental scars, like those on her body, might never heal.
Jeran's chain was just long enough for him to reach her and while the water was playing on the other two, he crawled along the floor toward her. The jet hit him again. Ears plastered flat to his head, he held her close, turning his back to take the worst of the torrent of water, lending her what little strength he had in an effort to keep her from falling back down to the deck.
The water stopped suddenly, gurgling as it flowed down the drains to the reservoir. He let Miroshi go, not wanting to add to her pain by continuing to touch her. As he turned back to the guards, one of them stepped forward and threw a bundle of cloths at him. Jeran grabbed at them instinctively, managing to catch them before they fell onto the wet floor.
The guard snapped an order at him. Confused, Jeran shook his head, blinking as he wiped his forearm across his eyes. The officer at the door spoke and the guard stepped forward. Leaning down, he snatched a cloth back from him and began rubbing it across his own arm.
The officer spoke again, this time addressing Jeran briefly, then they all turned and left.
Tesha looked over at him. "What did he say?" she demanded, curling her tail, which now resembled a piece of old rope, protectively round her haunches.
Jeran handed two towels over to her. "We're to dry ourselves."
"Even I got that!" she said acidly, passing the other to Tallis.
"I didn't get it all, but it had something to do with us being put down on this planet we're orbiting in exchange for ... supplies, I think," he said, hunkering down beside Miroshi again.
She stirred, taking the towel from him.
"Can you manage?" he asked.
She nodded, beginning to wipe the cloth along her arms.
"So why the cold shower?" asked Tesha, shivering as she began to rub herself.
"Don't want the goods to be seen covered in matted fur and dried blood," said Tallis bleakly as he made an equally half-hearted attempt to dry himself.
"There was an implicit threat concerning J'koshuk," added Jeran.
"He's selling us," said Miroshi, speaking for the first time in days. "He said if he doesn't get a good price, he'll give us back to J'koshuk."
Tesha broke the silence that followed. "Well, what do we do? Make a break for it so that they kill us, or go down to this world like tame rhaklas?"
Jeran began to dry himself, trying not to knock the scabs off the half-healed wounds. His fur was matted into the cuts on his face and arms but there was nothing he could do about it.
Before he could answer, the door opened again, this time to admit the ship's medic, flanked by two guards, one carrying a tray holding four beakers.
"Eat," said the medic as the guard came over with the tray. "Been cooked. Need eat. Soon you leave."
A beaker was thrust at Tallis. Reluctantly he took it, sniffing the contents. "It
has
been cooked," he said, surprised. "It's some kind of stew, not raw meat."
Jeran was given his. It wasn't worth the beating that would ensue if he refused it. He raised the beaker to his lips.
As he drank, the medic came over and deftly grasped his arm, pressing the hypo gun against it, then he was gone. A brief surge of giddiness, then almost immediately he felt a warm glow spread through him.
"It's some kind of sedative," he said, watching Miroshi flinch as the lizard touched her. There was no point in objecting.
The guard collected the empty beakers then followed the medic out, leaving the soldier with his rifle trained on them.
Tesha sat down suddenly. "I don't feel so good," she said faintly.
Jeran looked up, seeing her inner lids beginning to show at the edges of her eyes. "You'll be all right," he said, aware that he should be feeling more concerned than he was. With an effort, he kept his mind on what he wanted to say. "You know their drugs do strange things to us, especially you. It's not lethal. They wouldn't kill us like that. There's no amusement for them in it."
"If you focused your thoughts, you'd be able to control the effects of the drug," said Tallis.
"I can't, you know that," said Tesha, wrinkling her nose. The skin visible around her eyes had an unhealthy greenish tinge.
"You just won't ..." began Tallis.
"Stop it, both of you!" said Miroshi tiredly, sinking back onto the floor. "Must we fight among ourselves? All we've got left is each other, and we may not even have that for much longer! In Vartra's name, shut up!"
Jeran moved over to Tesha, the chain dragging behind him. "Leave it, Tesha," he said quietly. "Just ignore Tallis. Being telepaths, it's been worse for them. Every time they've been touched, they've been mentally tortured, never mind what they've done to them physically. It's only when they use drugs on us that Tallis and Miroshi can feel they're fighting back."
"I know," she muttered, leaning her head against his shoulder. "It's been bad for all of us. What do you think our chances of being rescued are?"
"If they know we're missing, they'll make an effort to find us, but from the size of those craft we saw around Szurtha, I'd say they'll have a lot more to worry about than the four of us."
"They're coming back," said Tallis, ears flicking in distress as he moved closer to the other three.