Vari's Choices

by Laura Jo Phillips

  “You are more than capable of defending yourself, as we’ve seen,” Declan said. “But as good as you are with dairi, those little strips of fabric aren’t going to fare well in a true battle situation, and neither will you.”

  Vari had known that was coming and had her answer ready. “A fully activated dairi in the hands of a proficient is ranked among the top ten most dangerous weapons in the Thousand Worlds.” They stared at her in surprise. “The demonstration you witnessed was intended to pique the interest of beginners without inciting a desire to rush toward a goal it will take them years to obtain. After we finish this discussion, I ask that you join me on the rec deck so that I may show you what a dairi is capable of.”

  Declan nodded slowly. “I’m beginning to think we’d find that very interesting.”

  “Me too,” Jay said. “But I’d still like to know why Doftles can’t be transported. I don’t remember reading anything about that.”

  “It’s fairly new information,” Vari said. “Several attempts were made during the third storage planet raid when one of our ships was able to catch sight of three Doftles, but they failed. They do transport themselves and others, of that much we’re certain. We just don’t know why our transporters don’t work on them. It could be the density of their flesh and bones, or it could be they have their own disrupters, like we do.”

  “We’re clearly lacking a great deal of information, which is not a circumstance we’re used to,” Declan said. “Since you’re the only one on this ship who can provide us with that information, I hope you’ll agree to do so.”

  “Of course,” she agreed at once. “Does this mean you’re going to transport me to the Leaper?”

  “I said that we would,” he said stiffly.

  “Yes, and then the three of you attempted to find a way to get around it while taking half of what I said as personal insults, and disregarding the rest.”

  “Yes, we did that,” Declan admitted with a sigh. “Again, I apologize.”

  Vari leaned forward and put her arms on the table in front of her, then met the eyes of each man for a long moment before speaking. “I realize now that you have no real knowledge of Doftles or the events that have taken place over the past six months. And I understand that sending a woman into a dangerous situation goes against the grain for you, as it would any male Klanaren. I ask that you suspend your judgement until you have a better understanding of Doftles, of the danger they pose not just to Jasan, but to all of the Thousand Worlds, and of me and what I’m capable of.”

  “You’re right Vari,” Declan said. “It does go against the grain for us. But we will do as you ask. You have my word.”

  Vari decided a change in subject was needed. “How much time do we have before we reach the Leaper’s last location?”

  “About ten hours,” Jay replied after checking his hand terminal.

  Vari looked at him in surprise. “That’s awfully fast. Didn’t my father say the Leaper went missing twenty hours ago?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Declan said. “The Bihotza is capable of moving at a very high rate of speed when absolutely necessary. Once we begin tracing their particulate trail we’ll have to go much more slowly, but we’ll still be able to double or triple the Leaper’s speed.”

  “That’s good to know. Do you have more questions?”

  “Yes,” Declan said. “What was that about gifts?”

  Vari hesitated. They didn’t think much of En Dairii as it was and she wasn’t sure she had enough patience left to go through another round of disbelief and disdain.

  “Prince Garen specifically said you could tell us what you will,” Jay reminded her.

  “Yes, he did, but this is a personal matter which isn’t under his jurisdiction.”

  “I hope you know you can trust us, Vari,” Declan said.

  Vari sighed inwardly. Now she had to tell them or they’d think she didn’t trust them. She’d never realized how complicated men were. Or how exhausting they could be. She took a breath and plunged in. “Remember when Lanok called me Izerain?” They nodded. “It’s a title bestowed on one who has completed the final testing in En Dairii and zentsu without error, thereby attaining the Silver. It means Grand Master.”

  “Why would you wish to hide such an accomplishment?” Kai asked.

  “I’m not overly fond of attention.”

  “Now that we’re beginning to know you, we understand that,” Declan said. “But why would a high rank in your discipline garner attention?”

  “Because no one has worn Izerain Silver in more than three centuries.”

  “We already knew you were talented in your discipline,” Jay said. “Clearly you are more talented than we imagined. But you do not wear silver. You wear blue.” He frowned. “That reminds me of a question I meant to ask. Is your blue a higher or lower rank than Lanok’s red?”

  “Neither,” Vari said, glad for the momentary reprieve. “En Dairii recognizes that some people are faster than they are strong, and others are stronger than they are fast. Therefore, it has two sets of groups, one for each technique, with six levels in each group. Set means six, which is the highest level of each group.”

  “That must mean that blue is in the speed category, and red in the one for strength,” Jay guessed. Before Vari could respond, Kai snorted.

  “Didn’t you hear what Lanok said today? Vari has a natural talent for speed, so she chose to focus on strength.”

  Jay looked at her and she nodded. “Blue Set and Red Set are equal,” she clarified. “Both are the highest ranking that can be achieved except for Silver, which has no levels.”

  “Amazing,” he said, then shook his head. “Back to my first question, why do you not wear silver?”

  “I have not yet acknowledged the rank.”

  “Why would you take the test for a rank you don’t want?” Kai asked.

  “The test marks the end of every student’s formal training. It’s required. My skill in En Dairii, particularly in zentsu, is one of the gifts Prince Garen said it was time to accept, the one from the Creators.”

  “What do you have to do to accept it?”

  “Nothing dramatic. My bio chip has already been upgraded. I simply have to change my dairi to silver to claim it. After I do that once, they will display my true rank when I’m not actively using them unless I need to change the color for a particular reason.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jay said. “What difference does it make what color your dairi are?”

  “Each group in En Dairii has its own color.”

  “Why does Garen think this is so important?” Declan asked. “You have the skills, so what difference does it make what color your dairi are?”

  “Because the color also indicates the functionality of the dairi.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  “Vari,” Pandora said suddenly, surprising everyone. “I understand your reticence in sharing personal information, especially given how dismissive and disdainful they’ve been of everything you’ve tried to tell them so far.” Kai, Jay, and Declan winced, and Vari glared, all of which Pandora ignored. “However, if you do intend to tell them, please get on with it. Making them drag it out of you is becoming quite annoying.”

  “All right, Pandora, you’ve made your points,” Vari said, then sat forward and placed her hands flat on the table.” “Do you have any Kunian steel weapons in your armory?”

  “We do not,” Kai replied.

  Vari nodded, unsurprised. “The second gift Prince Garen spoke of is a dairi that Princess Lariah had made for me. It’s a unique dairi in many ways but the two things that matter most at the moment are that it contains Kunian steel blades, and that it recognizes no rank other than Silver.

  “What that means is that I can’t use it without claiming my true rank. And when I say I can’t use it, I mean that literally. It will not function for me until I acknowledge my right to wield the Silver. If I don’t do that, if I don’t accept both gifts, we’ll be going
to the Leaper without a single weapon capable of killing a Doftle.”

  “That’s an interesting gift,” Declan said.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Vari said wryly.

  “You can’t think she intended to force you to accept your rank.”

  Vari grinned. “You obviously don’t know Princess Lariah.”

  “We don’t know her well, that’s true,” Declan admitted. “But she seems a kind, caring woman.”

  “Oh, she is, very much so,” Vari agreed. “I love every single thing about her. But I’m not blind.”

  “Meaning?” Kai asked.

  “Meaning Aunt Lari doesn’t do anything without a reason. One bit of advice we keep getting about Doftles is that it’s very dangerous to underestimate them. Few people seem to realize that the same can be said for Princess Lariah Dracon.”

  ***

  After demonstrating the full capabilities of her dairi with Lanok’s enthusiastic assistance, the Dracon-Bats solemnly swore to never refer to them as little strips of fabric again. Lanok had gotten a little carried away, she thought, though it made her smile to think about how much fun he’d had.

  When he’d begun throwing practice knives at her as fast as he could, she thought Declan was going to go into a blood rage. Until she’d used two of her dairi to deflect the knives, guiding them both with quick movements of one hand, while using the other two dairi to bind Lanok’s arms and ankles. After that Declan, Jay, and Kai had joined Lanok in coming up with more and more outrageous things to test her skills on.

  After an hour she claimed she was about to pass out from hunger, which wasn’t far from the truth. She thanked Lanok effusively for his help, and Declan invited him to join them for dinner. Lanok declined, having already eaten, so the four of them went to the cafeteria where they all did more eating than talking for a change.

  When they were finished, they told her they had duties to attend to, and apologized for cutting the evening short. Vari was a little relieved, though she didn’t say so. The knowledge of the task before her had been pushing itself against her mind all evening, and she knew it wouldn’t go away until she gave in to it.

  She closed the door to her room and locked it, then crossed to the closet, barely noticing when Pandora left her shoulder. She reached up for her duffle, carried it to the table, then reached into a secret compartment in the bottom of the bag. She withdrew what appeared to be a long, narrow envelope covered in black silk and ran her fingers over it. She thought back to when Aunt Lari had given it to her several weeks earlier, just before she left Jasan.

  “I almost forgot,” Lariah said, tugging her out of the line of people waiting to board.

  “Almost forgot what?” she asked, watching as Lariah reached into her bag and removed what appeared to be a long, flat envelope covered in black silk.

  “I almost forgot to give you this,” she said, handing it to Vari.

  “What is it?” Vari asked in surprise.

  “Open it and find out.” Lariah said with a teasing smile. Vari pressed a finger against the small catch on the front of the envelope and it popped open. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a silver chain belt no more than half an inch wide, made up of quarter moons, planets, and suns, all held together with small silver links.

  “This is beautiful, Aunt Lari,” she said, running her fingers over the smooth, cool metal of the belt.

  “I’m glad you like it, Vari, but it’s more than a belt,” Lariah said. “Inside each of those moon, sun, and planet shapes lie thin, razor sharp blades of Kunian steel. I am assured that this dairi is calibrated to your body chemistry and cannot be used as a weapon by anyone else. The artisan insisted on adding a safety because of how dangerous Kunian steel can be.”

  Vari stared at Lariah for a long moment, then examined the belt more closely. It didn’t look like any dairi she’d ever seen or heard of, but now that she knew what to look for, she spotted the tiny sensors that would pick up her signals before and after she released it.

  “It’s silver,” she said as that fact finally sank in.

  “Of course it is,” Lariah said. “Well, in actual fact its titanium since the artist said silver was too soft. But it’s still silver in color which is all that’s required. I had it made specifically for the day you claim what is rightfully yours.”

  Vari swallowed hard. “What if I never claim the Silver?”

  “Then you can use it as a belt,” Lariah said. “However, in the event that you do claim the Silver, Salene asked me to give you a warning regarding the Kunian steel.”

  “What warning?”

  “She was practicing with Kunian steel sai while onboard the Ember and dropped one. It went straight through the floor plating, stopping only because the hilt was too wide to fit through the hole the blade had made.”

  Vari shuddered. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You best get going or you’ll miss your ship,” Lariah said. She tilted her head slightly. “Don’t worry so much, Vari.”

  “What if it’s just not meant to be, Aunt Lari?”

  “What if it is?” Lariah asked, then smiled. “Just relax, Vari. All things happen in their own time. Or not.”

  Vari shook her head a little as she pressed the catch and the envelope popped open. For the first time since Lariah had given it to her, she ran her fingers along the cool silver of the belt that was not a belt. She was going to have to think of something extra special to do for Lariah, she decided.

  She breathed in, then flexed her wrists at a precise angle. Looking down at her arms she felt a flip of excitement to see that her dairi were now silver. Then she reached for the belt and lifted it from the box. After running its length through her fingers and inspecting every inch of it closely, she reached for the flat disk at one end of the belt and flattened her thumb against one side of the disk, then tapped firmly, releasing the safety Aunt Lari had told her about. The tiny sensors instantly processed her DNA, and the bio-chip beneath the skin of her hand. The links of the belt instantly shifted and stiffened so that she held a solid but flexible length of metal. With a tiny movement of one finger, two dozen Kunian steel razors silently peeked out from their hiding places along the top edge of the belt except for a section in the center and at either end so she had a place to hold it. Another movement and the bottom edge became equally deadly.

  Vari smiled.

  Chapter 7

  After a restless night of dreams featuring the Dracon-Bats, Vari woke up feeling more tired than when she went to bed. She felt strangely tense and uncomfortable, as though she wanted to scream one moment, and curl up into a ball the next.

  She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Declan, Jay, and Kai, either. It was as though she had a compilation vid of them stuck on a loop in her head that she couldn’t seem to turn off, and that kept her in a constant state of arousal. Impatiently tossing the covers aside she got up, threw on some workout clothes and left the room without waking Pandora.

  A couple of minutes later she walked up the wide corridor of the rec deck, glancing into the various training and exercise rooms on either side as she passed. Even though she’d already used the extensive facilities, and even gotten a brief tour, she hadn’t taken the time to get a good look at everything.

  One room held a variety of stationary exercise machines, another held weight machines. Two rooms had thick mats on the floors and mirrors on the walls for martial arts training. A couple of rooms had wood floors that had just enough give to them for sparring with and without weapons. One enormous room held an obstacle course with a faux rock wall for climbing, lower walls for scaling, ropes for climbing, and narrow balance beams high above the floor. There were several pieces of equipment that she didn’t even recognize. If she was still on the Bihotza after they liberated the Leaper, she’d come back here and ask Lanok to show her how those things were used.

  Vari wasn’t at all surprised to find several dozen men and women making use of the rec deck despite the early hour. For just a
moment she worried that the one room she wanted might be occupied, but it wasn’t, of course. After all, spar bots were for people who had no one to spar with, a problem she had more often than not. She blew out an irritated breath. It was far too early in the morning to be throwing herself a damn pity party.

  “Vari,” Lanok called from behind her.

  She turned in surprise. “Good morning, Lanok.”

  “Good morning,” he replied, then his eyes widened. “You wear the Silver.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it’s become necessary,” she said. “I intended to track you down later and ask for some help.”

  “Any aid or counsel I can give is yours for the asking,” he said. “My curiosity demands that I ask what sort of help?”

  “I’ve been gifted with a very unique dairi. Its weight and balance are different than I’m used to, and it’s extremely important that I familiarize myself with it as quickly as possible.”

  Lanok’s smile faded. “I noticed we changed course last evening.”

  Vari glanced around at the people coming and going, then back to Lanok, who nodded his understanding. “This afternoon?”

  “That’s perfect, Lanok. I’ll tell you everything then, all right?”

  “Of course. One more question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is the Silver to remain private?”

  “No, Lanok,” she said, smiling, “and yes, you may share the news.”

  “Thank you, Izerain Vari,” he said with an excited grin. She rolled her eyes at him but he only laughed as he continued on his way. She watched him walk up the corridor and turn into one of the studios before she opened the door to the one she’d chosen.

  After turning on the lights she checked the spar bot to be sure it was operational and had a full charge. She needed a long, hard work out this morning. Something that would stretch her strength and endurance to the limit and, hopefully, extinguish the constant arousal that was threatening her peace of mind, if not her sanity.

  Satisfied the bot could take what she was about to dish out, she booted it up, then crossed to the side of the room where the weapons were stored and chose a staff-length flexible wooden pole called a bo. She checked the sensors that wrapped around the bo from one end to the other, allowing it to interact with the bot’s simulated weapon as though it were real. Seeing that they all seemed to be in place and active, she returned to where the bot waited in the center of the room. She selected the appropriate program and skill level, and began.