Trader's Leap (Liaden Universe Book 23)

by Sharon Lee

  “You decided to be conservative,” Padi said, not meaning it, perhaps, to sound quite that sour. Priscilla gave her a wry smile.

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Lina says that I’m to stay here, because that’s conservative.”

  “That was not Lina’s decision alone,” Priscilla told her. “We all three talked about it, and decided that a day or two of isolation would best serve the ship, the crew, the Healers—”

  She smiled again.

  “And you.”

  “Me,” Padi repeated, thinking of her usual schedule, her studies, the reading—

  “Yes, you,” Priscilla said. “A few days to allow your gift to—settle—will help you settle. There’s always a period of dislocation after a talent arrives—even a small and well-behaved talent.”

  Padi grinned, half unwilling.

  “And I have not got a small and well-behaved talent.”

  “No,” Priscilla admitted, and then, very Father-like, really, “though that can hardly surprise anyone.”

  “Now,” she said briskly. “The master trader is concerned that you’ll fall behind in your studies, which he won’t allow. Tomorrow, you will resume your work—he has, I believe, sent a reading list to your screen. While he expects that you will complete the list, he cautions that you must not stint the exercises Lina brings to you.”

  Padi caught her breath.

  A reading list. She had scarcely looked for such a gift!

  She inclined her head.

  “I swear that Lina’s lessons will come first,” she said earnestly. Perhaps too earnestly.

  In any case, Priscilla laughed and rose, bade her dream well—and left the cubicle.

  So, that was that. Priscilla was gone, and Lina was sleeping in the next cubicle—and that was an inconvenience for Lina, too, who had her own quarters and bed-friends, which she would surely prefer to a cubicle in sickbay, while she kept close watch over a surly newborn dramliza.

  Padi sighed and stretched out on the cot. The lights dimmed obligingly, and the music she’d chosen from the library wafted softly on the cooling air. She pulled the blanket up over her shoulder, tried to settle her head on the pillow—and sat bolt upright, staring at the man in the dark, much-patched cloak and breeches, who was leaning very much at his ease against the wall, moving a worn red gaming token over the back of his hand.

  Her eye was drawn, and for a long moment, she could not look away.

  Father played this game, with a marker very like. Across the back of his right hand, the red token would walk until it reached the end of its path, whereupon it would—vanish, only to appear again, walking along the back of the left hand.

  The token vanished. Padi drew a breath and looked up into the stranger’s face—

  But he was not a stranger, or not entirely so. No matter his hair was black, and long enough to braid, instead of crisp and white; nor that his eyes were black, rather than silver blue; and his clothing tattered, when Father was never anything but impeccably groomed—the face, the stance, the way the token marched across his hand—one received the impression that the man before her could have been Father in only slightly different circumstances, and besides—

  She had seen him before.

  “You,” she said quietly, aware of Lina in the next cubicle, and the monitors, which would pick up her voice and also supply news of a third person in the unit.

  “You never told me your name.”

  He looked to her, one eyebrow raised, a shade more sardonic than Father might be, as if, for this one, there had been too much strife, and too little food, too often in his life, which hardships had worn away a layer of gentleness, exposing a lean edginess.

  “There was scarcely time for introductions,” he said now, and his voice was precisely Father’s, smooth and beautiful, like being wrapt in velvet silk.

  “There’s time now,” she pointed out, when he said nothing further.

  “Agreed. I am called Lute. What is your name?”

  She considered him.

  “I think you must know my name,” she said carefully.

  “Ah, do you? Have they taught you yet that names are to conjure by?”

  Padi frowned. “That may be the case with the . . . tradition in which Priscilla came to terms with her gifts. Liaden dramliz receive their gifts from a different source.”

  There was an arrested pause.

  “A different source,” Lute mused, his eyes on the game token, which walked to the edge of his hand, tumbled off—and vanished. Almost, Padi saw where it went—felt, perhaps, a tiny flash of power as it displaced itself.

  “That is an interesting question of philosophy, child. Do you argue that the source of talent, of energy, of magic . . . limits itself to the rules of culture?”

  Padi bit her lip.

  “I would argue that the dramliza shapes the power, according to her character and her need,” she said slowly. “You’ll understand that I am . . . unschooled. But the lessons I have thus far received suggest that there is no single rule set.”

  Lute nodded gravely. “There is something in what you say.”

  Padi sighed. “I did say I was unschooled.”

  He bowed his head.

  “I was fairly warned. Heed me though, child, you are already past pretty games of philosophy. Yours was a wakening heard ’round infinity. You shattered the meditations of saints, brought senior practitioners to their knees, and felled novices like so many skittles. Possibly, you woke the dead. Surely, the Living Names, and others of their sort, heard you. We are all fortunate that the Iloheen failed the crossing to this universe, else that world would have been engulfed and every soul living there unmade.”

  She stared at him, stomach suddenly cramped, and fingers icy. She had endangered a world? Simply by doing what all of her elders assured her was the correct and responsible thing to have done?

  “The Iloheen?” she whispered. “Who are they?”

  He shook his head.

  “No one who will vex you here, and I am a brute to bring that threat before you.” He extended a long, supple hand. “Shall I take it away?”

  “No.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you. I think I’d better remember everything I can.”

  “Wise, as well as bold. To return to the point—you have given the entire waking universe notice of your power. Will you give them your true-name as well, or will you invest in another, as your shield and armor?”

  “As I understand it, I erred greatly in hiding myself away,” she said slowly. “If the . . . whole universe has already heard me, then I am identified, am I not?”

  “You erred in hiding yourself from yourself,” Lute said sternly. “That is never wise. Misdirecting an enemy is merely self-defense.”

  He tipped his head. “What is your name, child?”

  She blinked at him thoughtfully. “Are you an enemy?”

  “Would your father have sent an enemy to protect you in his absence, even in extremity?”

  “He might have,” Padi said seriously. “If he felt you would adhere to the terms.”

  Lute laughed.

  “True enough. I strive not to be an enemy, and I take the task which was laid upon me seriously—to protect Shan yos’Galan’s daughter.”

  He had, Padi admitted, helped her when she had been under attack by agents of the DOI. And Father had said he had asked him to go to her and do what he could to protect her.

  She looked up to find him watching her out of night-black eyes.

  “My name is Padi yos’Galan.”

  “Thank you,” he said solemnly. “Will you allow me to give you a gift? I swear on my name that it will be entirely benign.”

  “What is my benefit?” she asked, trader-wise.

  “You will sleep as sound and safe tonight as I may arrange, which will, in turn, allow me to pursue the task your father laid upon me.” He put his hand over his heart and bowed slightly. “Heart’s ease is my benefit.”

  “Surely, he can’t h
ave meant for you to guard me—forever,” Padi objected.

  “Very possibly he did not, but we cannot be completely certain. You will ask him as soon as may be, and we will make adjustments.”

  Padi weighed her ignorance, the past actions of this man, and the fact that Father had trusted him.

  “Done,” she said.

  “Excellent. Lie down, please, close your eyes, and take three deep breaths.”

  She curled back under the blanket, closed her eyes, and opened them again to find him leaning close.

  “Why hasn’t Lina come in to find why you are here?” she asked.

  He smiled slightly.

  “Because I’m not here, of course. Close your eyes.”

  That was easy to do, when her lids were so heavy. Padi sighed, took a breath; another—

  And slipped over into sleep.

  Tarona Rusk

  Langlast Departure

  * * *

  The pilot met her with weapon drawn, despite she had given the correct codes. This comforted her, even as she reached into his heart and made him love her.

  He lowered the weapon.

  “The others?” he asked.

  “Dead or taken,” she replied. “We lift now.”

  “Yes, Section Head,” he murmured, sealing the weapon into its holster. “Bound for?”

  “Auxiliary Services.”

  Dizziness assailed her, unexpected and shocking. She put a hand out to brace herself against the wall and drew a steadying breath. It would not do for the pilot to see her weak.

  “I will be in my cabin,” she said. “Disturb me for nothing.”

  “No, Section Head,” he agreed. He bowed and turned toward the piloting chamber.

  She sighed shakily and went down the short corridor to her quarters.

  With the door locked behind her, she allowed herself weakness, crumpling to the bunk and closing her eyes.

  She was, she noted, shivering, faint, low of energy.

  Instinctively, she reached inward, toward the web of lives bound to her—reached, even as she recalled her current estate, and heard Shan yos’Galan’s voice, chiding her gently.

  Do not drain yourself. You have nothing but your own resources to draw upon now.

  She sighed. Habit was a cruel mistress. In fact, she had nothing to sustain her now, save her own energies. Those whose lives had supported her were no longer hers to draw upon.

  She was, as it had been said in the vernacular of her youth . . . on her own.

  Healed.

  Somewhat weakly, she laughed.

  Healed. Behold! She was herself again!

  Her laughter died.

  No. Of all the things her Healing might have brought her, it had not brought her that. She would never again be the proud daughter of a wealthy artisan house, sought after and spoilt. They had been half-clan, of course, but what did that matter on a mostly Terran world?

  Nor would she again be the bitter halfling, pride ground into surliness, having been sent to the Healers of Solcintra to be trained—and discovering what it meant to be half-clan on Liad.

  Oh, she had been ripe for plucking, all thanks to the Healers and the High Houses. And the Department had not been slow to extend its hand in flattery, all admiration of her talents, which were so far superior to those who pretended to be her betters and worthy to teach her. She, said the Department, had been made for great things.

  Which the Department would gladly help her achieve.

  Fool, she thought at her younger self—and laughed again, in contempt.

  Why, indeed, yes—her Healing was true; and she was a fool once more.

  “We lift on three, Section Head,” the pilot said over the all-ship. “One . . . ”

  She stretched, grasped the webbing, and pulled it tight.

  “Two . . . ”

  She closed her eyes, and deliberately relaxed into the bunk.

  “Three.”

  Acceleration. She put it from her mind, and for the first time since her Healing, she opened her Inner Eyes, and looked . . . within.

  For a moment, she forgot to breathe, time and space suspended while she beheld herself, Healed.

  She had become accustomed to the bloated state of her core: overfull with the multitude of links of those who nourished her and maintained her powers. The last time she had regarded herself, those sustaining links, through which she controlled dozens, had been bundled, twisted, and knotted together into a thick cable.

  Stretched now before her eyes was a threadbare and ashy tapestry, loosely woven with a handful of irregular threads. Where the nourishing cable had melded with her very core . . . there was a clean cut, and a few frazzled threads blowing, as if in a breeze.

  She remembered at last to breathe, and forced herself to focus.

  Little Healer, she had called him, in her arrogance. In her pride.

  She sighed, considering again the state of her self. Credit to craft, she thought, was certainly due.

  It could not be denied: The Little Healer had done good work. He had been precise and methodical despite the fact that he had himself been wounded near to death. Focusing, she saw that he had extended himself still further, taking care to cushion the shock of separation for the . . . less robust of her connections. He had been careful, he had been gentle; he had used no more force than what had been required.

  More, he had taken the time to be careful, when time had been desperately short; extended himself to ease the pain of others, when he had been suffering; wielding necessity like a surgeon’s knife, terrifying in his virtue.

  Tarona Rusk sighed.

  Shan yos’Galan was not a monster. In truth, she would rather have faced a monster, being one herself, and more likely would have prevailed in such an encounter of equals. However, that door had closed. The Little Healer had bested her.

  He had Healed her.

  Healed her.

  She focused, brushing away ashy remnants with a careful thought, and searched through the uneven, childlike stitches until she found it: a new thread, pretty and silver-blue, as supple and as strong as spider silk. Unassuming, it wove closely through the pattern of her being, radiating a faint air of good will.

  Tarona Rusk shivered.

  There was nothing more true in the universe than that Healer and Healed were entangled. It was a simple matter of physics. She and Shan yos’Galan were linked, irrevocably—twice, for at the end of it, he would have died—and she, newly Healed and giddy with freedom . . . she had exerted herself to preserve him.

  Her Inner Eyes found the second link, somewhat less substantial than the first. When she placed her regard upon it—it rang, a single pure note that stopped her breath in her throat.

  Carefully, she withdrew her focus, and simply . . . rested in the blighted landscape.

  Those links, she thought. They would require analysis.

  But not . . . quite . . . yet. She had other business before.

  Despite his gentleness and his care, she had taken wounds from her Healing. The most paltry of wounds, in comparison to those she had inflicted on him, and yet, any wound weakened.

  She had plans; she could not afford weakness, and she would not fail.

  Her first concern, therefore, must be to Heal herself. She had suffered multiple amputations—that was not trivial. She must accommodate herself to her new isolation, and ensure that she was stable in her mind.

  After, she would analyze those links which bound them to each other—Healed and Healer.

  And she would make her plans . . .

  . . . for revenge.

  It was not passion which ruled her, but a cold determination to destroy as much of the Department of the Interior as she was able, before she was stopped—for stopped, she would surely be. First, she would find and destroy those who had recruited, shattered, and re-formed her into their own particular monster. Worthy targets all, the loss of which would cause serious damage to the Department and to the Plan.

  As yet, no one within the D
epartment suspected this. She had lost her team—to violence and to Scouts—but to outward observation, she had escaped uncompromised. Thus, she would return to her office, to the section of which she was head, holding her keys, her codes, and her contacts. And the devastation she intended to sow would be . . . everything that was necessary.

  In her, the Little Healer had loosed a potent weapon against the enemy of his clan. She wondered if he had known—and immediately realized that, of course, he had known. Shan yos’Galan was of Clan Korval, an enemy more than worthy of the Department of the Interior. Pity had not motivated his actions, no more than his own survival. He had forged a knife in the fires of their combined energies; and when it was fit for his hand, he had thrown it . . .

  . . . Directly at the Department’s heart.

  Civilization

  * * *

  The first duty of this day, as every day, was to speak with the Oracle. As every morning, Bentamin brought her a cup of tea, carried in his own hand. A courtesy, for there was a fully stocked kitchen in her apartment, and she wanted for no tea, common or exotic.

  In addition to being well-appointed and staffed, the Oracle’s apartment, on the top floor of the Wardian, was the most secure in all of The Redlands. Not that the Oracle was a prisoner—no one would say so. Only, she needed to be watched over; and Civilization needed to be . . . shielded from her gifts.

  Historically, Oracles and Civilization mixed badly. Not for the first time, Bentamin regretted that this particular talent had manifested in their population. It hadn’t been among those cataloged talents that had seen them banished from the homeworld, long years ago.

  But there, many talents that existed now had not been cataloged, or even thought of then. Things, and people, changed, after all.

  This morning, with the tea, he also carried flowers, Jasy having produced something very much out of the common way.

  He thought they might please his Aunt Asta.

  * * *

  The head of housekeeping let him in, with a smile and a bow.

  “She’s in the alcove, sir.”