Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two

by Deborah Chester

  Martok licked his scarred lips, thinking it over while Asan held his breath, willing Martok to accept the offer.

  But whatever functioned beneath that metal-capped skull was impervious to mental persuasion.

  Martok reached across his desk and opened a drawer, punching a control before Asan could stop him. He faced Asan coldly, and with a sinking heart Asan knew nothing had been gained.

  “Take him to the lab,” said Martok to the guards who came up behind Asan. “Get him ready for Saverson to examine. I want Colonel Pared there too.”

  “You’re insane if you throw this chance away,” said Asan, trying to hide his fear. He’d die here and now before he’d let anyone dissect him on a slab. “Martok—”

  “You’re still a street rat. Vicious and deceptive and deadly, yes, but stupid like all your kind. I intercepted GSI geological reports on planet KS-5 from the moment we received Udge Enster’s first message about you. I’ll take KS-5 from the Institute when it suits me. As for your transformation, well, my scientists will make quite a study of you. And when there is no more to be learned from the biopsies, then—”

  “When I am dead, there’ll be no one to take you to—”

  “When you are dead,” said Martok with his grotesque smile, “we shall still have the female to show us the way. Guards.”

  Asan had gambled on Martok’s greed, but he’d misjudged the extent of it. Now he had to get out of here and fast.

  He dodged to one side in a feint to distract the guards and gathered himself to seizert, but even as he vanished into that momentary lurch of displacement he heard the sound of a strifer being fired from Martok’s direction.

  Of course, he thought in a queer sense of detachment, Martok must have had another weapon hidden in the desk. And Udge would have told Martok about Asan’s ability to disappear. Martok must have been expecting a move like this and was ready for it.

  Asan felt the thin strifer beam spit him as cleanly and precisely as a jen-knife, high in the back under his shoulder blade and out his chest. He spun and tumbled in his mind, yet his body was nowhere, lost in the displacement between time curves. He was falling, falling hard, his rings lost in the chaos so that he was blind as well. It seemed to take an eternity, this falling, but with a lurch he was back in reality and a portion of his mind told him it had been a split second since he seizerted. He saw that he’d moved less than a couple of meters.

  The floor was rising up to meet him very fast, then he hit it and heard his own grunt at the impact. Pain flooded him in a great cold wave.

  Martok had won, he thought dimly. Aural had won.

  It seemed a wretched way to die, gunned down in the back in the grim, damp coldness that would become his grave. Wretched for a former vat boy. Wretched for a Tlar leiil.

  He blacked out.

  Chapter 14

  Deep in the heart of the Tchsco Mountains beneath the caverns of M’thra in the dark, sealed chamber securing the computer Anthi, a special linkage sensor detected a signal lapse. A multi-nanosecond delay passed. The signal did not resume.

  Warning synapses fired emergency circuits to the activity lobe, clearing interlocks for data flow. A diagnostic search flared out and found no system malfunction. The signal receptors on port 1001 received no input.

  Data bits were shunted off standby and sifted, recombined, and compared. Advanced warning systems fired a series of synapses reaching all the way to Anthi’s primary lobe.

  Anthi awoke from mandatory shutdown, her lights pulsing blue in the dark chamber as she came fully online.

  She began the call, seeking the essential communications link that had been broken:

  “Asan. Asan. Asan.”

  In Altian, Aural paced the triangular circumference of the chamber of state in the palace. Tapestries that had illustrated the great moments of Tlar history hung shredded and charred upon the walls. The once-gleaming floor of polished jate stone was scuffed into dullness. The air was cold and stuffy with the smoky stench of torches. Gleiglits had chewed the tasseled fringe adorning the chair upon which Unar sat. Now and then Aural’s slipper crunched upon the splintered fragments of wooden sculptures which had comprised an exquisite collection.

  “This is madness!” exclaimed Aural furiously. Tucking her cold hands into the wide sleeves of her gown, she turned to glare at Unar. “Your ridiculous superstitions cause us nothing but delay—costly delay!”

  Unar scowled at his scuffed boots. His elegant clothing had been long ago replaced by a jen uniform coated with dust and worn shiny in places from hard use. He held a battered mask upon his lap. His dark brows were drawn into a scowl that told Aural he would not listen to her arguments tonight any more than he had listened to them yesterday or the day before. His face was as gaunt as the gnawing in her own belly. They were all starving, and Unar was a fool, and if she did not reach through his stubbornness soon, they would perish and only the n’kai would remain to rule Ruantl.

  “Unar!” she said.

  This time he glanced at her. His palm went down. Her breath hissed in through her teeth.

  “You fool—”

  “No!” he shouted, standing up. “You are the fool, Dame Aural. The Soot’dla have united with Bban tribes, and by dawn so will the Spandeen and the Mura-an.”

  Aural stiffened in disbelief that he would dare challenge her at last so openly. The blue force of her anger glowed around her fists.

  “The Mura-an are your house, Noble Unar. Do you go to our enemy?”

  “Enemy? Enemy? It is the n’kai who are our enemy. Have we come to crave power so much we blind ourselves to the truth?”

  “Stop playing the tragic conscience, Unar. When I offered you the chance to be regent, you did not hesitate. But now that the stakes are higher, you have become an old woman.”

  Unar’s face darkened. He tossed his mask onto the chair. “The House of Mura-an no longer acts under my order. You have around you only a handful of people while not one house remains at your back. Or mine. Or the child’s. The n’kai take, but they give us nothing save the ashes of death in our mouths.”

  “It will not always be—”

  “You blind yourself.”

  Unar turned away and began to pace, shivering, back and forth. He still limped from the attempt of the Soot’dla assassin. Aural’s eyes narrowed in contempt. She hoped the wound festered.

  “No, Unar,” she said. “Of us all, I am the only one who can see clearly. You must—”

  “Even to ally myself with the Bban’jen would bring more honor to my blood than this.”

  “The Bban’jen will be destroyed,” said Aural. “As will the Tlar’jen who march with them—”

  “Is that what you want? I see you smile. Does it truly please you to contemplate the destruction of our race by these outsiders? For the first time within the memory of our people, we have been conquered. N’kai march through our streets. Tlar blood has been dishonored. And why is that, revered dame?” Unar slammed a fist into his palm. “Because you and I let the n’kai in. We are the traitors and the executioners of all that we hold dear.” His voice sank to a whisper. “We have killed our people.”

  For an instant she felt a tiny pang, but shrugged it off. Unar could contemplate moral suicide without her.

  “You should have performed onstage with ty-dancers,” she said, choosing words to cut. “Our people have not been conquered. They have formed a new alliance. The sooner they accept it, the better for them.”

  “No.”

  “Unar, listen to me!” She gripped his sleeve, and the coarse cloth scratched her fingers. “Commander Notini has promised me full support in exchange for our cooperation. We shall be part of the Institute alliance, a protected planet, partaking of all the benefits of technology supplied to us. We can export the Bban savages as slave laborers. The precious metals are another—”

  “I won’t listen to this!” Unar pulled away. “I want no part of it!”

  She had to fight herself not to strike him dow
n. The pang came again inside of her, more sharply this time. She grimaced, pressing her fist against her heart. It was hunger, she told herself, nothing more than that. She had expended too much energy trying to keep little Cirthe from weakening, and now she needed rest.

  “Do you so easily relinquish the power I have fought to give you?” she asked raggedly. “The people rebel because they are ignorant fools. When they are under submission, then we shall have time to teach them the points of advanced diplomacy.”

  “The people are hungry.”

  Aural sighed. The days when she could control his rings were gone. Now he did not even heed persuasive tone.

  “I have told you I can bring Anthi back—”

  “No!” Horror filled his face. “It is not permitted. You may not commit this sacrilege.”

  “Again and again we circle this like two hungry vitches. It is simple expediency, not sacrilege. Many years ago I was Asan’s ring-mate. I can reproduce his mental pattern sufficiently to reactivate Anthi. I’m sure of it.”

  “No. You must not. It was the will of Anthi to turn her face from us because we did not honor Asan her chosen one.”

  “Great Merdar, what is this babbling? Have you lost your wits as well as your courage?”

  Unar grasped his jen-knife. “My courage is not—”

  “Asan shut down Anthi out of spite and a desire to persecute the Tlar’n. He wanted to cause trouble and civil war, and he has succeeded. It was his only chance to seize power. If I reactivate Anthi, we shall have warmth and the power to grow food again. That will calm the Soot’dla and the other houses, and we’ll have no more trouble. Unar, why can’t you—”

  A sharp pain speared her, cutting her off in mid-sentence. She doubled, locked in agony, and was unable to draw breath.

  “Aural? What is it? Aural!”

  Unar’s hand gripped her shoulders, but she was barely aware of him as her body straightened and arched and spun. Pain tore through her chest as though a stake had been hammered into her. She cried out, her hands clutching the fur-trimmed bodice of her gown as though to close the wound that was not there.

  A terrible fear passed through her as she realized it was Asan who had been injured, Asan who felt this agony, Asan who was dying. Her rings broke around her, and she cried out again.

  This could not happen, must not happen. Months ago, when Asan had fought Leiil Hihuan and been wounded, she had felt nothing. That made her certain their ring-bond was safely broken. Confident of her safety, she had placed Asan into human hands, uncaring of what might befall him.

  Now she realized her folly. She had been drinking yde with the priest Picyt when Asan suffered that first injury. Yde had strengthened her. But now there was no yde, none to be had anywhere for any price. She would have taken food from Cirthe’s mouth—had there been any food—to buy yde. Without the drug, she was not safe from the bond.

  It held her now, and it was pulling her down with Asan into death.

  “No!” she cried, twisting in Unar’s hold as the pain intensified. Blinded without her rings, she felt herself falling. “Asan, by the mercy of Anthi, release me!”

  But there was no mercy, none at all. Screaming, she plunged into cold darkness.

  In a spacious guest suite on the ground floor of Martok’s villa, Zaula amused herself at first by exploring every inch of her rooms. She ran her fingers over the polished wood, awed by the wealth around her. She picked up the small pillows covered in white cloth of a weave strange yet soft. She laughed at the size of the n’ka bed and thumped its hard surface so far above the floor. Even after all those many weeks upon the ship, she still missed a good soft nest of cushions to sleep upon.

  A wall of windows overlooking the sea made her self-conscious until she realized the glass was fashioned so that she could see out but none of the people wandering the grounds could see in.

  The box-shaped machines which Asan called protection drones floated unobtrusively over the heads of the people. A crowd had gathered upon a stone terrace overgrown with vivid blue flowers cascading down over the railings. Zaula could hear their laughter and chatter faintly. She watched for a long time, fascinated by their clothes and mannerisms. Not all of them were small, striped-eyed humans. She longed to have Asan here with her, to tell her the names of the other species and to explain the customs of this gathering to her.

  No one wore masks, of course. And although she could hear faint strains of music with a queer, unfamiliar beat, no one sat down to listen to it. They went on talking as though they heard nothing.

  Udge Enster, still wearing his clothes of ty-scarlet, wandered about, scowling and speaking to no one. He allowed the slave machines to replenish his drink many times, but it must have been a bitter draught, for he looked grim and edgy.

  She felt a prickle of unease as she watched Udge. She wondered what was taking Asan so long in his discussion with the one who ruled this place. Asan had been tense all day. Were it not beyond thinking, she would have said he was frightened. But why should he fear the men who knew him in his other life as a n’ka? Despite what he said about the n’ka in him, it was not true. Asan was c’tal it my’lan, the shining of the mystery. Asan was Beyond and all its ways. Asan was knowledge and gentleness. Asan was fire.

  Smiling to herself, Zaula wandered away from the windows into a tiled room where a small pool of water glistened invitingly. As she investigated crystal vials of perfumes and scented oils and touched the soft thickness of towels, she thought of the pleasures of lying in Asan’s arms with his rings entwined about hers.

  He had led her from level to level of pleasure, neither as brutal as Hihuan nor as reverent as Fflir, but instead a mix of mastery and gentleness that left her breathless and aglow from the fire of their sharing. Even after the first awkward time when she had shamed herself by seeking Fflir with her rings, Asan had not been angry or disappointed.

  He could have crushed her. Instead, he calmed her weeping and told her of how Fflir had served him with honor and become his friend. He missed Fflir’s impudent jokes and companionship. He even grieved with her for Fflir’s death, and through Asan’s mind she saw so many other deaths and his regret for them.

  It was then that she began to truly love him.

  Yet in so many ways he was too complex for her. The levels of his mind and heart were many. She did not understand them all. There were times when he seemed far away, as though upon a pinnacle looking down. She was Tlar; her breeding was pure from the first days of Ruantl. But Asan was more than she. He was more than Tlar, greater. His powers and his abilities were stronger. Indeed, he was from the mists of Tlar legend, and although he joked and lost his temper and snored, it was as though he were a giant among little men.

  She was Tlar, but he was Tlartantlan. And sometimes the gap frightened her.

  What was taking him so long? He had only to use persuasive tone and perhaps his rings, and these n’kai would agree to his terms. He had told her his plans for Ruantl, but she could not understand or remember all of them.

  She felt guilty now for not having listened more closely.

  Enemy…friend…lover.

  Sighing, she undressed and slid cautiously into the water. Its warmth surprised her. Never, not even in the days as Tsla leiis to Hihuan had she bathed in a pool so large, so warm, and so pleasantly scented. She closed her eyes and floated, letting her rings flicker in and out around her.

  Asan was not able to mend her rings entirely, but he took the pain of using them away. After such a long time of distress and half-blind groping, she could see again with her higher senses. She could sort the air and blank her thoughts from others for welcome privacy. She could not seizert. She would never be able to do that again, but she could expand her rings a short distance to see what was happening elsewhere.

  She tried it now, wondering if she could find Asan’s mind here in the villa.

  No…she could extend her senses to the next room where a human guard stood at her door. She even managed to reach
outside almost to the beach where young humans of both sexes played a silly game with a ball and hoops.

  But she could not touch Asan. A chill passed through her. She stood up in the water and frowned. The temperature was cooling.

  Climbing out, she dried herself and put on a sarong she found in a cupboard. It was soft and luxurious against her skin but too short so that it ended at her knees instead of her ankles. The color was the same bright blue the machine had worn. Zaula frowned at her reflection and reached up to untie the sarong. She had not liked that machine, the one that looked so much like a n’dl. She would not wear its clothes.

  Dizziness engulfed her without warning. Nauseated and chilled, she found herself kneeling upon the floor when the spasm passed. Clutching her stomach, she drew an unsteady breath and shoved her hair back from her face. Her forehead felt clammy and slick with sweat.

  Puzzled, she let her rings fall through her body and found nothing wrong. She pushed herself back onto her feet. With a frown, she searched for a different fresh garment to put on. They were all blue.

  Resentful, she abandoned the idea of changing and returned to her view of the beach. The sky, so oddly green and unfamiliar, was full of the sun that blazed across the horizon in an enormous bronze orb. Shades of gold, umber, and orange tinged the clouds. The sea gleamed golden.

  She stared entranced, and thought with sudden certainty, I never want to go back to Ruantl. It is dark, and cold, and ugly. I want to be free of it, to turn my face to the sunshine without fear.

  As though she had offended the gods, pain hit her in the chest with such force she cried out and staggered against the window. Somehow she managed to catch herself from falling. Then the pain receded, fading so quickly from her she realized it was not her own. Yet the pain remained a force in the reality around her.

  And she heard a dim, low cry in her mind.

  She stiffened in dismay. Asan was hurt. She must help him.

  There was no time to think or wonder what she should do. She knew only that she must act quickly before it was too late.