by Doris Egan
"I'm sorry about all the money."
"That's all right. I can take it out of your salary." He said it quite seriously.
We stayed that night in a branch house of the Cormal-lons in the town of Braece, the only town on an island about two hundred kilometers off the coast, and a good five hours' travel from the capital in a direction just opposite Cormallon itself. The family here lived in a tall gray tower near the ocean, with dull reddish-brown waves breaking on dull brown rocks at the cliff beneath the tower's base. Mournful birds, as seem to fly over every ocean on every world, soared past the windows. The family was a small one, father and mother and aunt, little boy and girl. They were far removed here from the intrigues of the capital, seemingly quite content to be so. They also seemed the slightest bit in awe of Ran, but not in any uncomfortable way. They took us to a suite at the top of the tower, gave us clothes and towels, and left us alone.
Ran went to the Net as soon as they had left. I ran water for a bath and laid out my clothes from what they had given us. The water was too loud for me to hear Ran as he spoke to whomever was at the other end. I knew what he was doing anyway. He was arranging the police chief's demise. The details were just business; I had no interest in them. "All done," he said, when he came over to the tub. I sat on the edge, my legs dangling in the water, half in and half out of my robes. It was a family-size bath, deep enough to stand in, with enough room for six or seven people. A waste of resource in this case. "I'll turn off the water," I said. "Unless you want it deeper." I got up to do so, dropped back down into a cushion and took a deep breath, hearing my heart beat like the tide outside the windows. I felt hot and weak, as though I hadn't eaten in days.
Ran swung down beside me. "You look awful," he said. He put his hand on my forehead. "Shall I get you water? Should I have our hosts bring you some food? When did you last eat?" He sounded genuinely concerned, and it was more than I could bear.
"I'm not hungry. I'm all right." To my embarrassment I heard my voice shake. Theodora of Pyrene, jailbreak-artist, ruthless criminal mastermind. And my hand still hurt. I turned my face away and got up, a little unsteadily, to go to the taps.
"Wait a minute," he said, taking hold of the sleeve of my robe.
"I'm sorry. I guess I've been more worried than I thought—"
He unhooked the top of my robe and started to kiss me. It was so startling I forgot I was upset.
I had thought about this happening since the first day I read the cards and long ago decided that I could not afford to get any more entangled in Ran's life. I was still going to leave as soon as I could, save myself and ruin his career. This sort of thing was what we referred to on Athena as a conflict of interest. Not to mention it was a violation of the employer/employee relationship…
Luckily Ran continued to take the initiative, because it might have taken me years to work out the ethics of the situation. He pulled me back down on the cushion and I slipped off what remained of my clothes, holding onto him as though I were drowning.
"What's digging into my back?" asked Ran some time later.
I investigated and found that I still had Grandmother's onyx cat lost at the bottom of my pile of robes; I was glad no one had taken it from me. "It's a present from your grandmother," I said sleepily.
"Present? Show me."
I pulled aside the robes and held it out.
I heard his breath draw in. "Where did you get this?" He took it gently from my hands.
"I told you, it's a present from Grandmother."
He was looking at me strangely, and I suddenly realized what I had done. I tried to take it back, but he held it out of my reach and, wrapping it carefully in his cloak, said, "I think I'd better give it some time to wear off first." It was late, and I decided I was too tired to try to understand.
A shrieking bird outside the window awakened me. Ran's cloak was tangled around my legs, and I had a panicked moment when I couldn't find my card pouch. Then I saw it on the floor across the room. I must have been in a confused state of mind, I thought. I heard Ran's voice from the other room; he was on the Net again. I dressed and went out just as he was logging off. "It's been taken care of," he said, "we can go home." As easy as that.
Well, it wasn't that easy for me. He made no move to touch me, or kiss me, or wish me good morning, as my Athenan lovers (none of whom had meant over-much to me, or vice versa) had been polite enough to do. Last night had clearly been erased. Granted, we had both been running on adrenaline since leaving police headquarters; there had been more of physical reflex than anything else in the timing of what happened; but there had been something else, too. I wanted it acknowledged.
I walked over to him. "Good morning," I said, more like a challenge than anything else, and I kissed him. He returned it, impersonally. Then he picked up my onyx cat from the Net counter, grasping it in a towel, and held it out to me.
"Better hold onto this," he said. "Grandmother doesn't give out gifts casually."
I took it from him and jammed it into my pouch, beside the cards. I went into the other room, found my outer robe and belt and made sure there was nothing I'd forgotten.
He was closing up the Net when I came back in. "Shouldn't we be running along?" I asked.
"Give me a hand with the cover? It's a guestroom Net; it will only get dusty if we leave it out."
So we closed it up, like courteous guests. He led the way down the circular staircase and I followed, with savage politeness.
We said good-bye to the family group downstairs. The aircar was perched on the hill above the rocks and the winds blew up around us. The little family was lined up outside the tower, red-faced in the wind. The father bowed nervously and the others followed suit. When we reached the car, there was a flash of blue smoke. Ran pulled me by the arm and we both fell onto the hard-packed dirt, rolling out of the way.
Nothing happened. I'd landed on my bad hand and sat up, blinking with pain. Ran jumped to his feet. "Just who is responsible for this?" he said angrily.
They looked at one another. The little girl's face puffed up a dark reddish tan, and she began to bawl.
Ran stopped glaring immediately and went over to her. "Here, here, darling, it's all right. I'm sorry. I was just surprised, that's all." He knelt down and hugged her. "You wanted to show us what you could do, didn't you? You wanted to make an illusion?" She nodded, her face buried in his shoulder. Clearly words were still beyond her. "Well, and it was certainly a good show you put on, wasn't it? It took our attention."
She heaved, between sobs, "There—were—supposed to be—d-d-doves."
"Oh, darling." He kissed her. "There'll be doves one day, I promise." He reached to his shoulder and ripped off the silver clasp on his cloak. "Here, look." He showed, her. the. diamond-sharped clasrj with its lon^rjin. She sniffled. He put it into her hand. ' 'Keep it, now, be very careful with it; it's a magic talisman. You keep it with you when you work your spells. And if you study hard and practice long enough, I swear to you, one day you'll make beautiful doves." Magic talisman, indeed!
The clasp and the cloak both had been supplied to Ran by her own parents to replace his jail uniform. She stared at the clasp. "But don't you need it?"
"Not any more, honey. It's a gift, from one sorcerer to another.'' A smile broke out on her face. She threw her arms around him and clung to him. I turned away and looked out to the ocean.
The sun was high over the water as we flew west. We ate as we flew, a boxed meal the Braece family had put up for us. A sea blossom wrapped in a piece of red-striped silk was in the box beside the food. I opened the card case from time to time and flicked through the deck.
"You're pretty quiet," he said.
I shrugged. "Sorry."
It took us several hours to near Cormallon territory. Ran bypassed the capital and took a straight line for home.
We had often been silent with one another, but where before it had been companionable, now it grated. He shifted in his seat and would tap the controls, mak
e an effort to stop, and then tap again. The green and brown hills, the vineyards, passed away beneath us.
"Look," he said, and stopped. When he spoke it was to state the obvious, and I felt that it was not what he had meant to say. "Look, at least we won't have to worry about any more attempts on your life. The police chief seems to have been the active figure, and he's out of our way."
We reached the Cormallon barrier. The air shimmered obediently around us, and the car caught fire.
Chapter Seven
Time passed. It was dark and I was asleep. One dream kept recurring, the time when I was three years old in the creche kitchen on Pyrene, and I spilled boiling water on my hands. I yelled and screamed and dropped the container I was holding, and the kitchen worker went to get my creche-guardian, who sat and held me until they came with salve and painkillers, and took me to the infirmary.
I hadn't thought of her in years. The dream-memory of her face was sharp and clear, and didn't go with the voices I heard, familiar voices, but somehow removed from the place where I was dreaming.
Kylla's voice. I tried to open my eyes and couldn't. "Kylla!" It came out a croak.
"Theo, sweetheart, don't move. We've got you all strapped in."
"I can't open my eyes."
"You're wearing a bandage. Don't worry about it, it doesn't mean you're blind, we just can't take it off yet."
"Ran-"
"Ran's fine. He generated a personal shield right away. He extended it to you as soon as he could, but it was a few seconds too late. He's just downstairs, wait a minute." Her footsteps went away and I heard her talking outside the door. She returned to my bed. "He'll be right up. How do you feel? Any pain?"
"No." There was a delayed surprise to that realization; shouldn't I be, in fact, in a great deal of pain? Or how long had I lain here? Long enough for burns to heal? "Ky, how long—"
"Not too long. Don't worry about—"
Running footsteps. "Ky, is she awake? Theodora?"
"Hello, Ran."
I heard a released breath. "Theodora. How do you feel?"
"All right. I guess. I wish I could see you."
He sat down on the bed. "Tilt your head forward."
Kylla's voice was sharp. "Brother, what do you think you're doing?"
His fingers were loosening the bandage around my eyes. "Come on, Ky, it's almost time for it to come off anyway. Another day or two won't make any difference."
"Theo, if the light hurts your eyes, you speak up right away. Understand?"
The bandage came off, all of a piece, and I blinked. Ran sat blurrily before me, looking anxious. Kylla came over next to him and swung back the bar that held in my legs. She said, "Can you see me?"
"Yeah. Your hair looks nice up."
She smiled. "So much for Tellys medical advice," she said airily to Ran, and went over to the little table by the door. The top was covered with jars and white cloths.
Ran kept looking at me.
"Is there something wrong with me?" I felt my face; it seemed all right.
"What? No. You look fine. How do you feel? Can you sit up?"
I tried it. "It seems I can."
"Good. You don't know how worried I've been." He reached into the pocket of his robe. "Do you feel well enough to run the cards?"
"Damn you, Ran!" Kylla looked as though she were very close to hitting him.
He looked faintly surprised. "I'm sorry," he said to me, and inclined a head to Kylla. "Of course we're glad to see you recovered, and of course I hope I convey our relief and happiness. But there's no need to be impractical. In fact, Kylla, if we want to avoid such incidents as these in the future, we'd better get to work on them now." He fiddled with the pocket of his robe and brought out the familiar deck.
Ran and his priorities, some things never change. Suddenly it struck me as funny, and I began to chuckle.
He was taken aback. "Have you been tranking her up?" he asked his sister.
"No, no," I said. "Sorry. The cards, by all means." Lay 'em down, read 'em out, I almost added, but then I would have lost all credibility as a rational human being.
I ran the cards. It was odd; it was as if they were any pack of cards. No visions, no intuitions… at any rate, no intuitions that felt as though they carried any weight of truth. I didn't panic over it; already the power seemed so natural to me that I assumed it was bound to come back. I missed it, though. "I'm sorry," I said. "Maybe I'm not well enough yet."
"Don't worry about it," he said, as he gathered them up. He laid the pack on a tray beside my bed. "We'll try again later."
"Do you feel like eating?" asked Kylla. "The healer said you could have soup. Nothing stronger, for a few days."
"Yes, thanks."
She went away. Ran looked at me speculatively. "Kylla had a hill-healer in, as well as a doctor trained on Tellys. She sent to Perbry Monastery for the healer. One of the ishin na' telleth monks."
"Oh?" I bent an arm experimentally. Whatever they'd done, I seemed to have survived it. "What did he say about my injuries?"
"He didn't say anything about them. He said you don't get enough exercise. He also said you don't live in your body enough."
"What's that supposed to mean? Where the hell do I live, if I don't live in my body?"
"I wouldn't know. Anyway, one shouldn't take these ishin na' telleth people seriously. They don't even take themselves seriously."
"What did the doctor say?"
"He said you had a concussion and second-degree burns."
"Good for him."
"Yes. But when he left, you still had second-degree burns, and when the healer left, you were all right."
I thought about it. "He must have been some kind of sorcerer, then."
"Apparently. I thought I knew what could be done with sorcery and what couldn't. I always assumed these hill-healers lived on superstition… I don't like feeling like a novice."
He got up and walked around the bedroom. "There are too many mysteries in my life right now. I'm tired of this siege business, I don't want to lock us both in again and wait for something else to happen.
"So."
"So I'm leaving you here at Cormallon for a while. If you're safe anywhere, it's here. I have research to do."
"I just woke up, so I'm sorry if I'm slow… research?"
He smiled. "Know Thy Enemy."
That wasn't the way they taught us Socrates on Athena. But I guess each society finds the path that suits it.
I was in and out of consciousness several times after that, but the basic thing was, I felt fine and healthy for someone who by rights ought to be dead. It was a pretty shaky thought. I hadn't done anything to save myself (nothing I could have done), and the idea that I'd been plucked out of harm's way and nursed back to strength by people and forces outside of me was not really a pleasant one. Suppose I hadn't been saved? It took your innocent notions about having some control over your own life and trashed them rather ruthlessly.
Kylla said later that in a way my rescue was my own doing; in that, if I weren't a good enough person no one would have gone to the trouble of helping me. She meant that as reassurance. However, it struck me more as black humor, since it suddenly brought back a childish illusion of mine from about the age of six or seven: that if I was nice enough, I would never have to die. Teams of doctors would work round the clock to save me, donations would pour in from around the planet… What a charming thought—had I really ever believed that? Obviously my world-view had undergone a material change since then. I was much closer to the Ivoran ideal of keeping myself to myself, and assuming that any time you let other people "help" you it was more likely to damage you than anything else. I wasn't going to try to explain all this to an Ivoran, though, and let Kylla think that my muffled laughter was some kind of physical reaction. She brought me more soup.
I spent a week in bed. Eln played chess with me, at least for two games, until we saw I was so bad in comparison with him that there was no point. We talked about a lot
of things, things I had no chance to go over with Ran or anybody else—most Ivorans having no inclination for scientific or philosophical speculation. They are too intensely concerned with daily profit and loss, or in the case of the ishin na' telleths, too intensely unconcerned. (Well, they would always make time for songs and plays, they liked the dramatic arts. But why make time for what won't bring you any juice personally?) So these hours were a vacation, a return to late-night sessions with Ath-enan friends, a chance to play with concepts which would never affect my life directly.
I said, "Magic bothers me."
Eln sat on the edge of my bed that afternoon, his floater hovering beside him, laying cards on the blanket. Not my cards, regular playing cards; it was some form of solitaire. Like an old Earth painting: the heavy sunlight through the window, the slender, tanned fingers tapping the ace of spades, dark eyes following the deal-out, and on his face the look of mild interest which was the closest he came to revealing full concentration. I wondered how I ever could have thought he and Ran looked alike.
He finally acknowledged my remark with a grunt.
I said, "Yes, Ran gives me these helpful explanations also."
He smiled. "Magic bothers you. Does this mean you're under a spell? Or does the concept itself bother you? Or are you implying your sorcerous education leaves something to be desired? Specific questions, Theo, are what lead to specific answers."
"You do this to annoy me, don't you."
"Yes. All right, you were trying to open a conversation. 'Tell me, Theo, what bothers you about it?' "
"Take me seriously, Eln. I can't talk to you when you're this na' telleth."
He said, not entirely happily, "This is as serious as I ever am. If you can manage to separate the content from the style, I don't think you'll have any complaints."
