Adrienne Martine-Barnes

by The Dragon Rises (v0. 9) (epub)

  “You are out of condition, Marp,” he commented as they left the floor.

  “Shut your ugly mouth and give me your handkerchief.” Gilhame silently handed her the object and watched her mop her face and chest. Her black hair clung damply at her scalp and around her face. When she returned the cloth to him, he stuffed it into his beltpouch.

  Marpessa looked at him. “What the devil has happened to you? I hardly know you anymore.”

  “Did you ever know me, I wonder?” He felt a stir from the other Gilhame in his mind.

  “Intimately.”

  “But not well. Choon will ruin your figure, you know.” He had caught the distinctive smell on her breath as they

  danced.

  “You, lecturing me, about drugs. That’s a laugh. You have changed. What happened? Did you get religion?” “No. I just grew up.”

  “Then why don’t you run for the Diet?” she snapped and strode away.

  Gilhame danced another couple of dances, then went to get himself some wine. He watched Alvellaina in a vane, a slow walking dance, and spoke to the Havassit ambassador. The being was solemnly thanking him for his treatment of the priest, ben Gessar.

  “I did not like to discommode His Reverence,” Gilhame answered, his attention on the dancers.

  “You did not, Admiral. He said, under the circumstances, that you were very kind. In fact, he was quite startled. Good quarters, attention to his dietary needs, everything. He had all expectations of incarceration.”

  “Why? He’s a noncombatant.”

  “Others in this room would not view his presence on the Coalchee flagship with such charity.”

  “I must admit a certain curiosity as to what a priest of his status was doing on a ship of war, any ship of war. It puts Havassit neutrality in a very odd light, I must say.”

  The Havassit gave ur Fagon a look from his triangular eyes. “Admiral, are you aware of the Tides?”

  Gilhame felt a kind of terrible stillness come over him. “Yes. I am familiar with that part of your faith.”

  “They are turning.” The Havassit spoke with great sincerity.

  “I see. Then, the Antrians will dance Nine soon?” “They will.”

  “I see. I even believe you. How soon?” He meant it. The Dragon had seen the End of All Things before, and he never ignored its portents.

  “In your lifespan, Admiral.”

  Gilhame gave the Havassit a hard stare. These were a people who did not lie, could not lie. They were respected as truth-sayers everywhere, and used as such. Their Tides, like the Antrian Patterns, were predictions of the future. Part religion, part philosophy, very accurate and almost incomprehensible, those Tides and Patterns. Perhaps, this time he would not survive the end. He rather hoped he would not, but thought of all the people who did not dwell on the immortal level.

  “Is there any point at which the Last Tide might be turned again, Ambassador?”

  There had to be a purpose to the Havassit’s conversation, for the Havassit were not in the habit of making small talk about the Tides. Their discretion was almost as famous as their honesty.

  “Certainly,” he answered.

  “Can you tell me?”

  The ambassador smiled, displaying his mouth ridges. “Tradition states that when the Lion and the Dragon join hands to fight the Darkness, the Last Tides will recede, and the Pattern will begin anew.”

  For a moment, the room vanished from Gilhame’s view. He saw a field plowed by a red-bearded man. A horse reared on a hill behind him, trumpeting and kicking. The man looked at the horse and left his plow. He mounted the horse, and the vision vanished.

  Gilhame shook himself and looked at the ambassador. The Havassit was watching him intently. Gilhame cleared his throat. “Good. I have long wished to meet old Red-Beard. We do keep missing one another.”

  “It is very difficult for the Darkness and the Light to abide one another, ur Fagon.”

  “Quite.” He had recovered his composure now. “But I am tired, and it is about time, don’t you think?”

  “What I think has nothing to do with the matter, Admiral. My Tide is almost run away as we speak.”

  “Then I thank you most graciously for the time you have honored me with, sir.”

  “I have discharged my last obligation now, speaking to you.” The Havassit bowed, and Alvellaina came up beside them cautiously.

  “Ambassador, may I present Halba Alvellaina Curly-Krispin, M’alba, Ambassador ben Jurrat.”

  She dropped a deep curtsy, gripping Gilhame’s arm as she sank down. She was very white as she arose.

  Ben Jurrat bowed. “A thousand sons, m’alba,” he said formally.

  “A thousand years,” she offered the ritual reply.

  “Will you excuse me? I must speak to the Rosean envoy,” ben Jurrat said.

  “Certainly, sir.” Gilhame watched him leave, then looked at the woman. “Are you tired, little one?”

  “All that dancing. My feet are like hot knives.”

  “Then, away. Was it as much fun as you hoped?” He offered his arm and began walking her out of the room. “Parts of it were.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Boring.”

  “Boring doesn’t make you white around the mouth.”

  “Some of them were very cruel. That Devero female trapped me in the dressing room and regaled me with . . . explicit incidents. And others as much as said I had sold myself, like Niyarkos’s wife. I didn’t hit them, but I wanted to. I wanted to cut out their ugly tongues and stuff them down their throats.

  “Poor little one. How intolerable that continued association with me has made you quite bloodthirsty. It would have been much kinder if I had let you go with your father.”

  “No! I see now that I would have exchanged one prison for another. I’ll be just fine, once I grow up. Besides, this gown would be quite wasted on the Exile World, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. You were quite the most beautiful woman in the room tonight, m’alba,” he said softly.

  “More than Marpessa?”

  “Much, much more. She uses choon and will soon become fat and sluttish.”

  “You danced with her.”

  “She used to do the milkos with some grace. That is an accomplishment. That reminds me.” He opened his beltpouch and removed the soiled handkerchief. “I am about to defile the Kalurian lake,” he said as they reached the taxi area. He dropped the offending object into the dark waters. “Were you jealous?”

  “No. Not in the least. Remember, I know you.” They got into the taxi, and he smiled into the darkness.

  Chapter XII

  There was a knock on his door. “Admiral?”

  “Yes?”’

  “May I come in?”

  He grinned to himself. “Certainly.”

  Alvellaina opened the door and entered. Gilhame was seated at his dressing table, cleaning his nails. He looked up and smiled at her.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “I am.” He got up slowly, the hem of his gray dressing gown swirling around his ankles as he rose. “That’s very pretty,” he said, looking at the white dress she was wearing.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I really don’t know, m’alba. A faint sense of unease— like a storm coming over the horizon, but not yet arrived. But there is no weather on Attira. Whatever it is, it has not happened—yet.”

  “Yes. I feel that too. Itchy.”

  “Are you prepared for the Antrian Patterns?” He wanted to distract her, flattered that she would brave the intimacy of his chambers because of her unease but annoyed that nothing else would force her to enter them. Their friendship seemed to progress in fitful starts, with as many steps backward as forward. It frustrated him.

  “I think so. I studied the book carefully, and it seems

  straightforward enough. I am still not quite sure why I am going, except it will make a nice change. There doesn’t appear to be much opportunity for . . . unkindness in the Patt
erns.” She sounded a little wistful.

  “True. Has it been very difficult, little one?”

  “Yes and no. Some people have been very nice, and some have been terribly cruel for no reason I can discern. That’s what is hard. Not knowing as you meet each person if they will bite or not. A few times I’ve wanted to cry, and other times I’ve been furious. Will it always be like this?” “Until a new whipping boy appears, yes; and with a few people, always. There are those individuals in the race who feel that children should suffer for their parents’ sins. And there will always be people who hate you because of your presumed relationship with me. That you were not permitted to choose exile is irrelevant. And then there are ... I believe that the Narvan ambassador was trying to extract information from you the other evening.”

  She giggled. “No, he wasn’t. Or, at least he didn’t get that far. He was inquiring if I was available and for how much. He seems to have taken quite a fancy to me, the toad.”

  “I see that it did not offend you the way Gyre’s similar inquiry did.”

  “I have become rather accustomed to it. The Narvan was the eighth.”

  “In three days? What do you tell them?” His amusement hid the knot of rage in his stomach.

  “I told the men I wasn’t interested. The two women . . . I basically acted dumb and changed the subject. If that Calvina Rost pinches my rear one more time, though, I may redesign her face.”

  The thought of Halba Rost, with her sad canine eyds and her drooping chins, pressing her attentions on Alvellaina first infuriated and then amused him. “Poor Calvina. She basks in reflected glory. A very silly, pathetic woman. But no questions about me, my strengths, my weaknesses, where the Fleet is off to next? My vanity is piqued.” Gilhame desired nothing more than to steer the conversation away from his own jealousy without sending her away.

  He wanted their talk to continue until her lingering rose-scent filled the room.

  “I didn’t say that. The Narvan didn’t want to know about you, but a great many others did. The women want to know if you make love well, if you exercise droit du seigneur over my sisters, if you are available, approachable and desirable. The men want to know how you react to var. Well, most of the men did. A few wanted to know about sex, too.”

  “And what did you tell them?” He noticed the time and realized that he should be dressed. He turned his back to her and removed the dressing gown, Alvellaina watched his reflection in the mirror, blushed faintly, then stared at the even crisscross stripes on his back above the line of his shorts.

  “Admiral, what are those marks on your back?”

  “Whip marks. Cadet floggings.”

  “Didn’t you have a Healer?”

  “The sergeant who did all that kept me in detention until I had self-healed and therefore scarred.” He took up the uniform he was going to wear and began to dress. “Now, tell me what you tell people who ask nosy questions about my personal habits.” He didn’t want to talk about flogging either.

  “I say I have never been able to tell when you are using the drug and when you aren’t. This makes them very nervous. I am not sure why.”

  “ Var produces the effect of out-of-body travel and longdistance telepathy. While you are traveling, you are also subject to precognitive experiences. The notion that I might be var-led at an embassy ball would make my enemies uncomfortable, to say the least, particularly if they could not tell what state 1 was in. There is no way to guard yourself against var-made invasions of privacy, but many people like to think there are and that they can . . . but only if they know someone is using the drug.” Gilhame closed the electro-net fastenings on his garment and turned around.

  The jet-black uniform was bare of any piping or decoration save where the dragon was picked out on the chest in golden brilliants. Gilhame wore no belt to bisect his leanness, but had a pouch clipped at the small of his back. He turned back to the mirror, and the two of them stared at his face for a moment. Then he sat down and pulled on his boots.

  His boots on, he walked back to the dressing table and picked up the little sleeve knife and put it into its sheath. He opened a drawer and took out a pair of longer knives and slipped them into his boots.

  “Do you have to carry those?” she asked.

  Gilhame stood up and looked at her reflection in the glass. The golden flecks in his green eyes seemed to coalesce at his pupils. “You are the only person in the cosmos who can disarm me, my heart,” he replied huskily.

  Alvellaina turned a rosy pink and fled. Gilhame looked after her and shrugged his shoulders. Her nearness always made him forget how much she feared and hated him. ‘One step forward, two back,’ he thought. ‘Damn my impatience!’

  Gilhame’s boots rang on the stone walkway leading to the Antrian Pattern Hall. The stone was green, veined with gold, and had been imported from the Antrian home world. It felt very odd, to walk from the bustling, synthetic shore-leave city into what was clearly a park. The distant light of other buildings cast faint shadows on the silvery trees.

  The Hall was a circular building made of dark stone with veins of red or perhaps gold in it. It was very still and appeared to be uninhabited.

  “It’s very dark,” said Alvellaina. She had recovered her countenance, but she had also withdrawn into cautious formality again.

  “It will be even darker inside,” he replied.

  “Are you still feeling . . . spooky?”

  “I am.” They came to the great door, six man-heights tall, and it swung open silently. The blackness of the vestibule yawned at them.

  She shivered. “It feels like a trap.”

  “I don’t think so, m’alba.”

  They crossed the vestibule slowly, accompanied only by the echoes of their footfalls, their eyes adjusting to the darkness. Beyond, they could make out the shape of the central room. It was cool inside. The great domed vault was pierced by tiny pinpricks of colored light.

  There was a rustling, and someone approached. “Welcome,” said a voice.

  “Admiral ur Fagon and Halba Krispin come to join the dance,” Gilhame answered.

  “Level Seven, of course,” the unseen greeter answered.

  “Yes.”

  “This way, please. Try not to disturb the energy of the other dancers, won’t you?”

  They followed the dark shape down nine steps and across the floor. The floor was made of some shiny black stuff which faintly reflected the standing forms of many people. A distant tinkling might have been music.

  “Here is your place, Halba,” the voice murmured. Alvellaina saw a sort of glow on the dark floor and stepped over it.

  The room seemed to vanish around her. She felt frozen and fought down a terrible panic. Why had she ever agreed to come? Now the darkness was total, impenetrable. She battled the claustrophobic terror. She closed her eyes . . .

  . . . And saw the dancers.

  Strange shapes wheeled through the now silver air, calling to her. They were dancers indeed, moving in some complex pattern, their wings folding and unfolding. None were recognizably human, though bilateral symmetry seemed common. Their faces were fair or hideous in turn, the colors of their bodies altering constantly.

  A woman-thing with drooping breasts and claws for arms made lazy circles, moving upward, but always falling back beyond some invisible point. Alvellaina thought she had never seen such a sad face. And there was a black man-horse with leathery wings who seemed always to be falling, but somehow never reached the floor.

  She “heard” the dancers call her to join them, and she wondered what shape she would take. After a time, which was either a moment or an eternity, Alvellaina released her spirit.

  The feline thing which arose from her was startling. It was green, with golden-yellow wings and eyes like drops of molten gold. It hovered at the edge of the pattern, spitting and hissing at the other dancers, dripping tears from the hot eyes, which seemed to burst into flame as they fell.

  And there he was, always the Dragon, quarterin
g across the pattern, his huge golden wings sending off sparks of light. Now he was beautiful, strong and wise and magnificent. How had she never seen it before? He beckoned her to join the Pattern.

  There was some form to it, she knew, as the Cat and the Dragon rose, circled, almost collided and circled again. The two figures seemed to go higher and higher until they were almost lost in the stars.

  She spiraled around his larger form, studying the huge cruel pinions, the great toothy jaw, the cavernous mouth, the wicked spiked tail. But the green eyes seemed always to be before her, smiling.

  Then there was another, a cat-thing almost her twin, but silver and blue. It flew, tiny and fast, between them, and she felt it scream. Something called her down, and she felt herself plummet down past the other dancers. Quite suddenly she was standing to one side of her glowing circle.

  Alvellaina saw the outline of the dragon on Gilhame’s chest moving through the darkness quickly, but carefully avoiding the other participants. He grasped her elbow without comment and led her out into the entrance. She drew back a little from his touch, but then was caught in the intensity of his emotions.

  “Did you hear her?” he snapped as they passed the doors.

  “I heard . . . someone.”

  He broke into a trot, the tattoo of his heels on the stone shattering the silence. She grabbed a handful of skirt, pulled it up and lengthened her stride to keep up with him. In a few minutes they were out of the park and entering the edges of the apartment-building complex. “This way.”

  He led her away from the building they occupied, across a busy street, crowding past revelers and shoppers without courtesy. There was an alley. He paused, and his feet seemed to falter. His face was very white. Then he went into the alley.

  “What is it?” she gasped.

  “Damn it! I don’t have room.” Then he took a deep breath and moved purposefully down the alley.