by C. N Lesley
“You started it, and I make that six questions. I completed in three.”
“Valorous men must defend the oppressed.” She looked hard at him.
“Who stands behind valorous men in their quest?” He tried to suppress a grin, while observing: “Question seven.”
“Those who . . . those who give strength,” she managed.
“What strength do men need who face certain death?” Copper now gave her the chance to draw even if she’d take the bait
“Justice . . . justice for the many.”
“Nice try, but men won’t fight to the death for a justice they’ll gain only if they win. Who inspires the spirit of valor in men who may die for a cause? And that’s nine.”
“Those they trust beyond life to deliver the keys of the kingdom to he who must rule.”
“Closer and I win. What trust is greater than life itself?”
“Cheat! The trust of the next generation to continue the work of those fallen.”
“Who supplies the next generation?”
“Those who love the warriors enough to bear children they must raise alone,” she forced the words out.
“Then who holds the keys to the kingdom?”
“All those who can love enough to sacrifice everything they hold most precious.”
“Twelve and I’ll concede your overwhelming defeat, my Queen. No man is strong enough, just or valorous enough, to fight to death for a cause without love to sustain him.”
“And my forfeit?” Her expression was difficult to discern under the skin dye. She raised her head and set her lips in a firm line.
“I’ll decide after we talk.” He reached out to cup her chin, making sure she couldn’t look away. “Our thought sharing wasn’t the real reason for your upset, was it?”
“Seeing him . . .” She shuddered. “He liked Outcasts. I thought . . .”
“You expected him to have feelings for you.”
“He wants to kill me.” She tried to turn away, but he held her fast.
“Do you blame him? His former woman is wandering in and out of his neighbors’ forts as an Outcast. He will be a laughing stock if anyone ever finds out. He can’t risk having you loose.”
“Why was I condemned?” She took his hand in her two. “I know the Harvesters made the event occur, but what was my crime to make Dragon hate me so much?”
He hesitated; aware his memory of the information would surface in her mind eventually. “Adultery.”
She paled, her eyes opening wide. “I didn’t.”
“He would hunt you down if he thought you’d betrayed him. A good enough reason to turn him against you.”
Her face took on an inward look for a few moments and then she let go of his hand. “What forfeit do you demand?”
Damn. She’s hiding from me again. “I’ll tell you when I am not frozen. Come here, woman.” She nestled against him and added to his problems when his now quiet shaft began to swell. Another memory from her ruined his concentration. He experienced her inner battle to push him away after their one night of love, and her reasoning.
Grinning, sure of his victory, he wound her golden hair through his fingers. “I’ve got a wonderful way to get us both warm.”
“Would that be the same wonderful cure for nightmares?” Caught, she remained pressed to him.
He nodded, unrepentant.
“You’re impossible. Do you know that?” She reached up to touch his lips.
“I want my forfeit. I don’t care what you are. I want the woman I love.”
“Since you are now viable, I need to make some internal adjustments first.”
“Don’t.” His heart thudded against his ribs. His erection grew harder. He wanted her on his own terms. He wanted commitment.
“Copper, I can’t give you a human child.” Her eyes grew dark.
“I want our child.” He moved into position. “If I get a choice, I’d prefer a son, since I think a mix of you and me would be more agreeable and less difficult in male form.”
“Why, you . . .” She started to fight, slapping him.
Copper knew this game and captured her hands, kissing each one before he moved on to more interesting areas. She matched his passion in a way he had dreamed about, never thinking she would seek to pleasure him again. Together they found the rhythm of love.
Chapter 29
Earth Date 3893
Arthur swirled in a black void that gradually resolved into the eyes of the cave-sitter. His skin ran with sweat, as if he had just undergone a session in stamina training to earn the right to face this strange being.
“Don’t be alarmed.” Those matte-black eyes failed to reflect firelight. “You are nearly awake. I need this time to warn you against another attempt, Arthur. You are too involved with Shadow to risk further contact.”
“I haven’t finished learning.”
“Then you must cast a net amongst those who know your subject best.” The cave-sitter stirred his fire into a bright blaze. “Think on the reason this one was selected for review. What was your intent?”
“She is the same psi rating as me.” Arthur examined his motives under the steady gaze of those black eyes. He didn’t want to share the whole truth, not if he could get by on a partial answer. “I wanted to learn how she survived as a cyborg with seer-surpassing ability. I also thought she might know of my parents, since I think I was one of the crèche children created to hide her son.”
“Has this happened, Arthur? Are your questions answered?” The cave-sitter’s voice sank to a whisper. Those eyes expanded, engulfing Arthur into swirling depths.
*
A sharp pain behind his ear and right hand seared through Arthur. One part stuck to the other. He jerked his hand away, gasping as he came awake and looked down at the com-link umbilicus glistening in his palm. A stomach pain doubled him over. Dropping the connection, he crawled to his cleansing section to vomit his last meal, and then the one before that.
The cave-sitter had kept his word in a strange fashion to waken Arthur. Did the being know that his interface traveled along hearing nerves to his central cortex? Any sudden interruption must result in uncontrollable nausea because of this pathway. I’ll bet he knew what would happen. Another wave of nausea claimed him.
An hour later, Arthur knew he needed help. Going to a medi-tech meant admitting his crime and taking the consequences. Punishment didn’t scare him as much as the Archive catching him in a weakened state. Those last fragments of memory came from Copper, not Shadow. Copper wouldn’t have linked with the Archive, which left a mind raid as an explanation. The sentient must possess an ability to steal thoughts from anybody with an interface. If the Archive finds I’ve accessed more data, when it already plans no further enablement sessions . . . I’m not strong enough to block it.
Arthur thought of one who might help, and he’d take a well-earned thrashing from Ector, if he could just get there. He walked into the suburbs, not daring a railpod. The sickness didn’t stop. Dry retching tormented him. Cold sweat ran under his clothes and down his face, great beads of it dripped into his eyes and mouth. Blunt, molten hooks raked through his entrails. Every step became a personal hell to be endured. Arthur could handle pain – it encompassed part of seer instruction, but this? Training agony had a finite limit, this didn’t. If Ector had not returned home . . . the sidewalk lurched.
Arthur crashed to his knees. Getting up took all his willpower, and he clung to the walls of buildings for support, one more intersection, one more street, and then a turning to a cul-de-sac. The swirling, floating feeling grew stronger. Arthur shut his eyes, waiting while it passed, praying it would. When he looked up at his final destination, he thought he hallucinated. Copper, dead for the past five years, stood outside Ector’s house, packing baggage into a ground runner.
Another bout of dry retching dropped him to squeeze out the last of his strength. The sound of running feet – a man shouting and voices from a great distance sounding muffled under fathoms of
water.
“Is it some pestilence?” a man asked.
“Avalon is free from transmittable diseases,” a woman’s voice said. “Injury or poisoning could cause this state.”
“This lad is an Elite cadet by his uniform. We should call them.” The man’s voice sounded brisk.
“No . . . oo . . . o,” Arthur croaked, facedown still.
“Turn him, Kai. He’s trying to speak,” the woman said.
Hands urgently hefted him over. Arthur fought against a swirling black vortex. The last words he heard were the woman’s shocked cursing.
*
Wind tore at his clothes, and rain streaked down from a lightning-rent sky. Thunder rolled from cover of darkness thick enough to drown a rat in mud. Violent flashes lighted the man’s steps through a harsh landscape. The cold wings of death brushed at his heels as he staggered forward with his sacred burden. Death stalked him. He fought for time to complete the trust given to him. The kingdom was safe – safety bought at a terrible price. Yet the One promised – swore he would return at the time of greatest need. He swore it on his sword with his dying breath. None other must touch that sword, now shrouded in oilskins, lest the vow be broken.
The man caught a glimpse of his target. A lake so deep, rumor called it bottomless. He increased his pace at the price of his strength. Twice he fell over rubble as he headed for his goal. Bruises didn’t matter now; nothing did, except the end of his quest. He used his last spark of energy to throw the weapon as far as he could into inky blackness. He didn’t see the splash as it hit the surface. Near to the gray veil of beyond, his glazing vision fixed on two glowing figures.
*
An ethereal form watched the cast of the dying man. The shade of he who had wielded the weapon in life, who had sworn on it, skittered over dark waters to seal the exact spot. He heard a horn call of spectral hunters close by, a welcome sound for a homeless spirit. His misty essence drifted to the mournful note, assuming a substance of sorts as it did, turning once to look back.
*
A pair of eyes marked the now-visible passage of the shade with interest. Those matte-black eyes also noted the location of the sword.
*
There was pain . . . soreness in his hand. Arthur wanted to continue his dream, but discomfort kept worrying at him until he tried to move. That brought a sharp pain – he opened his eyes to a slit.
A transparent, flexible tube snaked from a bag suspended on a makeshift tripod a fair distance higher than his arm. Bandages wrapped around his hand and wrist, although he had no memory of injury at the site. Drips of fluid ran down that tube. He’d worry later about why.
Eyes still slitted, he scanned quickly without further movement of any sort. The room looked little more than a cube with no windows or doors. One possible access point seemed to be a square panel in the ceiling, and this explained light sources clamped to the walls. Feigning sleep, he rolled as if dreaming, for a view to the open side of his prison. His bed against a wall mirrored another across from him, which also held an occupant. The man’s stocky back faced him. A shock of close-cropped auburn hair streaked with gray looked familiar. The clothing wasn’t, being a black leather bodysuit and close-fitting Brethren-style boots of the same color. From his posture, the man seemed to hold something close to his face.
Above the other bed, two shelves held an assortment of books. Arthur took a good look, amazed. He recognized them from records as being sources of written learning, or entertainment, now obsolete since console teaching. A fiber-screen pulled back against a far wall showed a personal needs station of the most rudimentary construction.
Arthur didn’t feel sick anymore, nor did he have stomach cramps, but a faint trace of some soporific tasted sweet in his mouth. Without strength, he couldn’t focus will. So . . . they wanted him alive and helpless? Someone had guessed he surpassed his training schedule with the seers, that he could levitate, so they made certain his concentration failed through drugs. He expected his captors to secure him when someone spotted him awake through an inevitable com-eye.
Having prisoners paired up was a favorite seer tactic when interrogating the young. Fellow sufferers tended to share secrets. They hadn’t missed a trick. One option remained open to him: he possessed the ability to shut down life functions. He wasn’t going to end up as a mindless donor for their eugenics program.
Apparently moving in sleep again, he snagged his single covering with his free hand, so it fell over the bandages. Under that screen, he began to pick at the knot. Once his system cleared of drugs . . .
“Arthur, you’ve been awake for a good five minutes. I heard your breathing pattern change twice.” The man on the other bed rolled over to face him, shutting the book he was reading – Ambrose.
Arthur struggled up, looking around for a console. This room hadn’t one. The effort of rising sent his head spinning. He fell back against his pillow, cursing silently at his weakness.
“Easy, lad. This is a Brethren place. You’re safe here.”
Exactly what Ambrose would say to allay his suspicions. Clever, very clever. The covering still concealed his bandaged hand. He continued to worry at the knot.
“Don’t. It’s there to re-hydrate you.” Ambrose started to reach out, but held back when Arthur left off his picking. “The plan is to ship you out to Haven tomorrow, so don’t spoil it by downgrading your strength. There might not be another chance.”
Again it fitted the pattern. Give your victim the illusion of escape to gain his confidence. Arthur ran his eyes over Ambrose for any betrayal of body language.
“By the deeps, I’m not here by choice either,” Ambrose said, his voice low with anger. “Will you stop treating me like an enemy? I had an idea where you might go when you missed your duty roster. When I found the mess you left, I decided to check out my guess. I wasn’t prepared to deal with the snarling up of someone else’s plans you caused when you blundered into the Brethren. I found them helping you and that meant they needed me silenced, too. I don’t appreciate being forcibly restrained, although I’m relieved you will escape. I’m not sure now how much longer I could have protected you.”
“Protect? From what?” Arthur quizzed. He’d play the innocent for all it was worth.
“Don’t trust anybody? That’s good. I owe you an apology, lad. When you came to me, I should have listened to your problems. I should have cut you off from the Archive. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I snuck out of barracks to try some off-station food with my credits. Something didn’t agree with me.” Arthur looked at Ambrose with what he hoped was an innocent expression.
“Don’t play games with me. You nearly died.” Ambrose swung around to face Arthur, his anger apparent in the tension of his shoulders and neck. “As I recall, since I can’t get to a console to check my facts, violent nausea is a side effect of sudden termination from direct sensory playback. There have been similar incidents in the past, all resulting in fatalities. Ector told me you might try something risky. So, it turned sour on you, but at least you had the sense not to get help from medi-techs. You weren’t supposed to survive the experience by the look of things. What did you learn that made your existence a threat?”
“I think I have a problem digesting fungi,” Arthur suggested. He hoped whoever listened bit their nails down to the bone. “What are you reading?”
“You have depths, boy. I shall be sorry to lose you, assuming I survive this experience.” Ambrose passed over the book, opening it to a marked place. “Vaslov, a poem of his dealing with the darker side of human nature. It’s called ‘Shadow Walker’. You might find it contains a certain relevance to yourself. I suggest you read it while we wait for our captors. You may find certain truths to sustain you from the shock you will receive.”
Arthur didn’t rise to the obvious bait. He accepted the book with a smile, pretending to read while Ambrose selected another volume. When the man became engrossed, he turned his attention to the book.
/> Ambrose was right. He didn’t like the work, yet he could identify with it. Did destiny intend him to walk alone? He studied the verses again. Always, one stood apart from the rest in any society. That one might be the strongest, the wisest, or any other criterion relevant; the same theme always motivated the individual, a need to place the wellbeing of others first, accepting the mantle of loneliness as a leader. Shadow walker, a dark traveler . . . yes, Arthur identified with such a one.
Ambrose knew nothing of the cave-sitter. No one did. Arthur reviewed the lessons that strange being had imparted to an already condemned student; pertinent nonetheless. Why did the cave-sitter seek his death, and what did the being gain from Arthur’s nonexistence? In what way did his continued existence pose a threat, unless . . . ? What if two were one? There lay an unpleasant conclusion, fitting together too well – far too well. The dark traveler in Arthur set a new course. He prepared to wait out the final play, sure that his enemy would try again.
Awaking from a doze, disturbed by thoughts of reviewing Shadow, Arthur returned to his problem with the cave-sitter. Why had the being not let him remain in endless playback? The results would have been identical. Neutralized, he would be available to any seer need. Why bring him back in a way designed to cause death? That path made no sense, since it represented no obvious gain to the cave-sitter . . . or did it?
Finally, Arthur gave up trying to sleep. Bored as Ambrose, who paced back and forth, he considered the performance a very good act or . . . or maybe, he had misjudged the man.
Careful now, as any seer scheme always contained wheels within wheels. He could sense genuine regret from Ambrose; perhaps the man had no knowledge of the complete plot. One other factor inclined him to this notion: the effects of the soporifics were wearing off. His throat wasn’t so dry, and he wanted to urinate. Now he had the problems of being wired up to an apparatus. He tried sitting up. Weakness, yes, but no whirling sensations. He swung his legs to the floor with exaggerated caution.
“You’re supposed to be resting.” Ambrose halted his endless pacing.
