Mouse and Dragon

by Sharon Lee

  It probably scared the heart out of him, Clarence thought, but Daav yos'Phelium wasn't one to let mortal terror stop him.

  "It suits me," he said in a raw, rasping voice. He shifted on the bed, newly freed hand groping along his belt.

  "What's missing?" Clarence asked, though he thought he knew.

  "Gun."

  "Right." He slid his spare out and put it in the other man's hand. "You're welcome to mine. Have a care; it's loaded."

  Daav nodded, his arm, with the gun in his hand, stretched along the edge of the cot.

  "Thank you, Clarence."

  He stood and motioned to Sara that she should take up her end of the cot.

  "No trouble at all, laddie," he said. "Not a bit o' trouble at all."

  * * *

  She hadn't told Er Thom where she was going or whom she was to meet. It was foolish; she knew it was foolish and yet she did it. Which was, she thought, taking her seat in the private room deep in the heart of Ongit's, precisely what Daav had done and for precisely the same reason.

  Korval was too thin. The former delm had not gone to Low Port herself, she had sent her heir. His loss would have wounded the clan, but it would not have crippled it. There was no heir or maiden uncle for Korval's present delm to send upon difficult missions. Every life was precious, and the combination of duty and necessity put them all at risk. The delm's duty, to preserve the clan, became the duty to preserve the future of the greater number of the clan, thus increasing the delm's personal danger.

  She could see the graph inside her head; she could trace the lines of causation, and—

  There was a tap at the door, and the elder Mr. Ongit stepped in, followed by Clarence, moving slowly, to accommodate the comrade who leaned hard on him, face drawn, and eyes haunted. Weariness flowed out from him, and a toxic wash of horror, pain, shame, and self-loathing.

  She spun to where the elder gentleman waited by the door.

  "Of your goodness summon a Healer immediately. Say that Korval is in need—wait!" She spun back to Clarence. "Yourself?"

  He shook his head, and offered her a smile so weary it barely curved the straight line of his mouth. "I'm good, thanks," he said in Terran.

  She nodded and looked back to Mr. Ongit. "One Healer—as quickly as you can."

  He bowed and was gone. Aelliana turned again, finding that Clarence had gotten Daav seated and dropped into the chair opposite.

  "Well," she said, taking the last chair, "which of you has the strength to tell me what has happened?"

  Clarence laughed tiredly and shook his head.

  "Short form, there's somebody else trying to set themselves up as boss. Whoever that is has a hit list and a nice crew of reapers. Daav's name was on the list and they took him down for the bounty, as Daav says his keeper told him. I'll know more after I've had a couple of good chats with those we brought home with us. When I do, I'll send the report along by courier, if that suits."

  "It does," she said, with a glance at Daav, who was sitting where Clarence had put him, his head against the back of the chair and his eyes closed.

  "He's had a bit of a bad time," Clarence said, following her gaze.

  "It could have been worse," Daav murmured, sounding very nearly like himself.

  "That's right," Clarence allowed, and rose with a wince. "I'll be taking myself off, gentle people." He bowed. "Aelliana, your servant. Daav—"

  He moved a hand without opening his eyes. "Do not, I beg you, say so, or you will be doing nothing else with your time aside fetching me out of dreadful scrapes."

  Clarence grinned. "I could branch out into bodyguard."

  "So you could. Clarence—" He lifted his head with an effort Aelliana felt in her own muscles, and opened his eyes. "Thank you. I am in your debt."

  "No, now that you're not. There are no debts between us. It's forgotten, and of your kindness you'll do the same."

  There was a small silence, then Daav sighed, his mouth curving slightly.

  "You drive a hard bargain, Pilot. Yes, that is the course of wisdom. Let it be so. Good lift."

  "Safe landing."

  He crossed the room, reaching the door just as it opened to admit Mr. Ongit, with the Healer.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A clan's treasure is its children.

  —

  From the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct

  The tree had given several pods, which Daav had eaten without hesitation, and with every evidence of enjoyment. Aelliana was apparently judged well enough, for nothing fell to her hand. That was, as far as she cared, as it should be. Her concern at the moment was all for him.

  Though he had received benefit from both the Healer and the autodoc, he seemed to her . . . tired; his signal, normally so clear, was subdued. The Healer had said that he might find it difficult to concentrate over the next few days, which was an artifact of the drug his captor had used to enthrall him. Aelliana gathered that there were crueler drugs that they might have used, but not very many.

  She sighed, her back against the tree's comforting trunk, and looked down into his face.

  Almost, she thought, almost, I had lost him. Her heart trembled, and she extended a hand to trace the stark line of his cheek.

  "I love you," she murmured. "Van'chela, I love you so much that it frightens me."

  "I know," he whispered. He opened his eyes and gazed up into her face. "You're weeping. It all came out well in the end, Aelliana."

  "This time," she acknowledged unsteadily. "And yet it could have gone wrong in so many ways. They—"

  He raised his hand and pressed his fingers gently against her lips.

  "No. Do not consider what they might have done, nor even what they have done. They failed; we prevailed. That is what we recall."

  She took a breath; nodded.

  "That is well," he murmured. "Now, attend me, for I have been remiss and thus placed the delmae into danger. In the past, when the delms of Korval and the Boss of Liad have found it necessary to share information, a message is dispatched and a mutually acceptable time is found for them to meet at Ongit's. There is no reason for Korval to go to the Boss, or, indeed, for the Boss to come to Korval."

  "Clarence said the same," Aelliana admitted. She laughed slightly. "Truly, Daav, I have seldom beheld someone so honestly horrified to see me."

  "Clarence has a great deal of good sense," Daav murmured, and turned his head away, as if listening.

  "Oh, dear." He sighed. "I believe we are both about to be scolded masterfully."

  Aelliana frowned. She heard the breeze in the leaves, the repetitive call of a to-me, the bright burst of a rindlebird's song—and footsteps, light and quick, growing more distinct.

  Er Thom appeared 'round the bend in the path, and crossed the grass to them.

  With neither ceremony nor greeting, he dropped to his knees and leaned forward to look closely into Daav's eyes.

  "Brother, how do you go on?" he asked.

  "Well enough. The Healer did his work well."

  "Good." Er Thom drew a hard breath, and sat back on his heels, his mouth tightening.

  "I am going to murder you myself and save the toughs of Low Port any more losses," he said, his voice hard and distinct. He looked up, sparing a glare for her.

  "And you! Do you have no better understanding than to place yourself and Korval's heir into the hands of one of the most dangerous people on this planet?"

  "Neither then nor now," Aelliana said, meeting his anger with softness. "Clarence did well by us. It was he who brought Daav out of Low Port, which I don't think anyone else could have done. He was as distressed to see me in his office as you could have wished him to be, Er Thom, and lessoned me well. I honor him."

  Er Thom closed his eyes and took a hard breath.

  "Stipulate," Daav said, before his brother could speak again, "that we are idiots of the first water, polished and ready to be set."

  There was a moment of silence before Er Thom sighed and opened his eyes.

/>   "Stipulated."

  Daav smiled. "Excellent. Now tell me, do, what else I might have done, given the contract and the ever-more-disturbing reports coming from our sources in the Low Port."

  "There is no reason for you to go yourself," Er Thom said. "You might have done as our mother often did, and sent another of the clan as her eyes and her ears."

  "I might have done so," Daav agreed. "Who would you suggest?"

  "Myself."

  Daav laughed. "Oh, yes! Twelves better!"

  Er Thom looked goaded.

  "They had Daav's name," Aelliana said, before he started in to brangle again. "It does speak to your point, that he should not have gone alone. But he could not have known that there was a bounty on his head, and the entire Low Port on the hunt for him."

  Er Thom glanced to Daav. "Your personal name."

  "In fact. Interesting, is it not? Clarence has kindly sent us a transcript of a conversation he had with my jailer, one Kitten Sandith. Kitten would have it that Terran Enterprises, Galactic is setting up headquarters in the Low Port, recruiting pilots and seeking to supplant both the Juntavas and, in her terms, 'the Liaden overlords of trade.' "

  "Replacing both of those groups," Er Thom murmured, "with itself?" He sighed. "How is it that Boss O'Berin—whom I allow to be a canny man with a careful eye to his own best health—how is it that he has failed to notice the incursion of this group into his territory?"

  "Because they're wingnuts," Aelliana explained, proud to have remembered Clarence's precise terminology.

  Er Thom stared at her, before looking again to Daav.

  "A wingnut is a small bit of hardware which is used to cap a screw."

  "Technically correct," Daav admitted. "However, in the vernacular usage, a wingnut is a person of lamentable understanding who is unlikely to be able to find his way, unaided, out of a paper bag."

  "Ah. I am to understand from this that Boss O'Berin knew of the group's presence, but unfortunately underestimated the level of threat they posed to his operations and to the pilots on the port?"

  "That fairly states the case."

  "Now that he is aware, what does he . . ." Er Thom paused. "No. Let us return to a former point. How came these . . . persons . . . to have your personal name?"

  Daav sighed. "You will understand that Kitten is not a philosopher, nor is she disinclined to do a bit of freelancing from time to time. It would appear from the transcript that the Terran Party has taken strong exception to my gift to them of the gene maps from Grandmother Cantra's log book, and has offered a bounty. So far, they are the only organization to have paid the least attention. I suppose I ought to be gratified."

  Er Thom frowned. "We had known it was a risk, which is why the gift was sent anonymously."

  "Yes, and that makes for interesting speculation. Who informs the Terran Party?"

  Daav was becoming agitated; the peace that the Healer had put on him was beginning to fray. Aelliana felt it, and did not approve.

  "Perhaps," she said, stroking his hair back from his forehead, and sending Er Thom a hard glance, "the Terran Party is not entirely comprised of wingnuts."

  "Now, that," Daav murmured, "is a truly terrifying thought."

  Something was wrong. She—he—they felt a pain—a contraction of the belly and—

  "Aelliana." Daav sat up, his arm around her shoulders.

  "No," she gasped, around a second contraction. "Daav, you are making yourself ill."

  "Not ill," he said softly. "The child has decided, I think." He took a breath and she felt him focus, his attention like a breath of cool air on her face, which was suddenly much too warm.

  "Brother, of your kindness, go ahead of us and summon the Healer."

  "Yes," Er Thom agreed, and was gone, running at pilot speed.

  "No," Aelliana said. "It's too early, van'chela . . ."

  "Not so early as that," he murmured. "Now, I am going to carry you, my lady. I pray you will bear with me."

  The contractions were coming closer together now, and she remembered this part, with sudden vividness, with the med tech hovering, concerned for her pain, and she thought—she remembered that she thought, But every step of the getting here has been pain, what else should there be at the end?

  The med tech, that was it, and her husband, sitting where she could see him, whenever she opened her eyes. Just that, the med tech and her husband, and the air stitched with pain. The med tech had called for a Healer, she remembered that, too.

  But the Healer never came.

  The pain struck again, like a wave—isn't that what they had said it was like? A wave? Arcing high and higher, milky green, with lace frothing at the fore, she remembered that, too, from when they had—and then it vanished, like snow, not like a wave at all, and someone was talking, very softly, so that they wouldn't wake her, but she wasn't asleep, she could hear them perfectly well. They were talking about sending him away, just into the next room, so that she would not be endangered—and he was going—

  "Daav!" She tried to sit up, reaching—he caught her hand; she felt the power of their bond, buoying her like a leaf atop the next wave.

  "Your lordship, you must leave," the Healer's voice was urgent. "I cannot give her what she requires from behind a shield."

  "No." She gripped his fingers. "Daav stays. The Healer may—the Healer may be excused."

  "Aelliana," he murmured, taking her other hand.

  She opened her eyes, and he was there, kneeling beside the birth-bed. She looked up into his face—he was worried, exalted, wary, adoring—she saw it all; felt it all. "The Healer is here to make the birth easier for you, beloved," he said. "You do not wish to begin your relationship with our child in pain."

  "Our child," she panted, meaning to say that they had both made him and ought both to welcome him, but there came the next wave—a towering monstrosity that reared its back halfway to OutEight, and she a leaf, floating atop. "Stay, van'chela. You do us well . . ."

  "She does seem to take solace from your presence," the Healer murmured. "You do as well as I could." There was a rustle, soft footsteps. "I will be in the antechamber, if the lady calls."

  Another wave, another and another, coming hard and close now, a rippling mountain range of waves, over which she glided, exultant, on dragon wings, borne up by starwind. She looked aside, and there he was, flying wingtip to wingtip: her love, her mate, her second self. She laughed, seeing the pattern of the winds across the foaming mountaintops, understanding their meaning and utility.

  She tipped a wing and spiraled upward, daring him to follow her, up, and further yet, into the starweb, their wings stretching wide and wider, their bond forging into adamantine, until she was he, and he, her, and the both of them as ineluctable as—

  "Aelliana . . ." Her voice. No. His voice. The wind fell; she set her wings and glided down the mountainside, feeling him nestled in her soul even as she swept into her body, and knew exhaustion, felt the birthing bed enclosing her, and her hands lying folded together beneath her breast.

  "Aelliana," Daav said again.

  She smiled to hear his voice, stirred a little, and opened her eyes.

  He was kneeling at her side, his face filled with tenderness and amazement, a green blanket cradled in his arms.

  "Aelliana," he murmured, "behold our son."

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Each person shall provide their clan of origin with a child of their blood, who will be raised by the clan and belong to the clan, despite whatever may later occur to place the parent beyond the clan's authority. And this shall be Law for every person of every clan.

  —

  From the Charter of the Council of Clans

  Made in the Sixth Year After Planetfall,

  City of Solcintra, Liad

  The children were outside on the balcony, where they had gone, so Luken phrased it, in his gentle way, to enjoy the beauties of the day. Aelliana thought that they had rather gone to remove themselves from beneath Kareen's eye, which
took a dim view of such things as coloring, reading, and the launching of toy spaceships.

  Aelliana had remained in the birthing parlor until she felt the need to escape Kareen's eye, and stepped out onto the balcony, with a murmured excuse about wanting some air.

  She doubted that Kareen, who was speaking at, rather than to Luken, heard her. Daav, who had stepped over to talk with Mr. pak'Ora, surely did.

  The balcony overlooked a formal lawn and a far lacery of lesser trees. A flowering vine grew along the railing, trailing tendrils down onto the stone seat where the children—those being Pat Rin and Shan—were playing with—Aelliana squinted, trying to see—ah. Playing with dice.

  Pat Rin shook the dice.

  "Three," he said and threw them. They tumbled, stopped—and Shan shrieked with laughter.

  "Do it again!" he cried.

  Obligingly, the older boy picked up the dice and shook them in his fist.

  "What number would you like?" he asked.

  "Nine!" Shan said decisively.

  Pat Rin bit his lip, and threw.

  Aelliana drew close. The dice came to rest, showing seven on one face, and two on the other.

  "Nine, it is," she said approvingly. "How clever."

  "Aunt Aelli!" Shan crowed, leaping from his seat and throwing himself against her legs.

  Pat Rin rose more seemly and made a bow.

  "Good afternoon, Aunt Aelliana," he said, his voice and face far too formal for so young a child. "May I fetch you some—some wine, or some juice?"

  "Thank you, no; I've only just finished a glass of juice. I came out to take the air." She considered him—grave face and wary brown eyes. "May I see your dice?"

  "Of course." He caught them up off the bench and offered them to her.

  She weighed them in her palm, but they seemed to be honorable—no clever weights or shaved corners. Bending, she shook them and released with a practiced snap of the wrist. The dice behaved precisely as they ought, revealing no concealed magnets or tiny gyros.