Almost immediately, he leapt up again and secured it while Lee slid the bed sideways to reveal an opening that led down into the basement of the establishment. Hurriedly, they made their way down the narrow steps and secured the sliding platform with the bed on it above them. “Don’t for a minute think that I meant any of that,” Sawyer said, wiping his mouth.
Only the dimmest of lights allowed them to see the scattering of boxes, chests, and discarded furniture. Lee began making his way toward the back of the cellar. “Trust me,” he replied. “I did not enjoy that, I will never do that again, and the next time you suggest a disguise for me, I would rather portray a corpse than your lover.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. Then how come you kept asking me to dance with you at the last three bars we stepped into?”
“How come you said yes?”
“Politeness!” snapped Sawyer.
“Politeness?” replied Lee, with incredulity. “I only did it out of consideration for you! I didn’t enjoy it either. I just thought that you—never mind! Help me with this.”
“Yeah, yeah—uh-huh. I invented the perfect disguise for you, and now you claim you didn’t have a good time.”
“Yeah, you invented it for yourself—” Sawyer put his shoulder to a seemingly immobile crate, while Lee counted bricks. He found the one he sought, pressed it, then pressed another one, two up, and three over. The crate slid sideways revealing another downward tunnel. Quickly, they dropped down into it, then pressed the panel that slid the heavy-looking crate back.
“Have you got the light?”
“Yeah, wait a minute. There—”
Vision returned with illumination, but they could still see very little. Narrow and cramped, this tunnel cut sharply downward. Lee led the way. They had to proceed slowly, walking stooped over and single-file. The steep slope made it difficult for both of them to keep their footing. Worse, the passage stank of mold and other less appealing animal odors.
“Do you suffer from claustrophobia?”
“Claustrophobia?”
“A fear of small dark tight places.”
“Not yet. But give me another five minutes of this . . .”
They proceeded downward, mostly in silence, occasionally grunting or cursing when one or the other would slip. When Lee fell, Sawyer would trip or stumble over him. When Sawyer fell, he sometimes toppled forward, gabbing Lee and pulling him down too. As a result, both of their vocabularies began to enlarge. Sawyer taught Lee a few choice phrases in the Phaestoric conversation of manners, in exchange for several equally profound sentiments in the prediaspora old tongue.
After a while, the tunnel leveled off and turned sharply to the right. They followed it around through a series of uneven zigs and zags.
“Have you lost your bearings yet?”
“A long time ago,” Sawyer replied. “I have no idea how far we’ve come or in which direction.”
“Wait a minute—” said Lee. And then he fell silent.
Sawyer realized that Lee had stepped into a new kind of space. He approached cautiously. “Stay there!” said Lee, holding up a cautionary hand. “I don’t want to lose the tunnel we came out of.”
Sawyer peeked forward. He found himself looking into a six-sided room. A new tunnel opened up in each wall.
“They might get past the bed,” said Lee. “They might get past the basement. They won’t get past this. But neither will we if I don’t remember correctly.” He began reciting a childish counting rhyme as he turned round and round the room. With each beat, he pointed at a different tunnel. With each rhyme, he reversed direction. Sawyer watched patiently, keeping absolutely still so as not to distract the clone.
The first time he finished, Lee ended up with his hand pointing directly at Sawyer.
“Wanna try that again?” Sawyer grinned.
Lee nodded. “I plan on doing this until I get the same tunnel three times in a row. We can’t afford to get this one wrong.”
Four recitals later, Sawyer suggested, “You know, a thought has occurred to me—”
“All right,” said Lee, exhaustedly. “Tell me your thought.”
“I’ve watched you. All five times. You didn’t make any mistakes. Maybe . . . we should turn around and go right back up the same tunnel. Maybe when we go up the tunnel, we come out in a different place.”
Lee considered the idea. After a bit he announced, “You’ve exhausted either your wit or your intelligence. I haven’t decided which.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“I hate it when you say that.”
“Do you want to try a different rhyme?”
“Never mind,” said Lee. “Let’s try it your way. Maybe we’ll meet a Dragon on the way down and I can stop worrying when I’ll die.”
“You can die any time you want to,” Sawyer said. “I won’t miss you. Give me the light, I’ll lead.” He stepped out of the tunnel to turn around and immediately headed back into it.
Lee followed him into the tunnel. “Yeah, I guess I can say now that I’ve had just about every experience necessary to a complete life. Including getting kissed by a drunken tracker.”
“Congratulations. I’ve never had that experience. Many will envy you.”
“Not bloody likely.”
“You keep complaining, and you won’t have to wait for a Dragon. I’ll kill you myself.”
They followed the tunnel upward to where it leveled off again and into the same bizarre series of uneven zigs and zags that had confused them so badly before.
Suddenly Sawyer stumbled up against a dead end. He bumped his head against the hard rock and cursed in annoyance. Lee bumped into him from behind and he banged into the rock a second time. “Watch it, dammit!”
“Why did you stop?”
“We’ve come to a dead end.”
“Oh.” Lee said, “Look up.”
Sawyer angled the light to illuminate the roof of the tunnel. He saw two bare-metal handles. He started to reach for one of them—
“Don’t touch them!” shouted Lee.
—Sawyer drew his hand back as if stung.
“Give me the light. Grab one handle in each hand, turn them both 90 degrees; clockwise or counterclockwise, it doesn’t matter. Then pull down.”
“What happens if I pull them down without turning?”
“According to what M’bele told me, you’ll detonate the explosive charges under your feet.”
“Right,” agreed Sawyer. “Turn the handles first—” He did so carefully. “—then pull down.” The handles, and a surrounding slab of rock, came sliding down from the ceiling. The whole became the footing of a thin metal ladder. Sawyer pulled it all the way down until it locked into place. “Got it,” he said. “Do we climb it now, or do we have to do something else?”
“Climb it,” said Lee. “Let’s get out of here.”
Safe House
At the top of the ladder, they came to a light metal lid. Sawyer pushed on it without luck. Then he banged on it in anger, and someone lifted it away. Bright yellow light blinded him immediately, but strong hands came reaching down to pull him out of the hole in the floor, and a moment later, Lee came climbing up after him.
“What took you so long?” asked M’bele.
“Lee wanted a third dance,” muttered Sawyer, brushing the dirt off his cloak. “Did she get here all right?”
“Hours ago.”
“Good.” Sawyer looked around the chamber. He saw a more comfortable room than he expected. “What kind of a hideout have you got here?” He reached up and touched the rock-hewn ceiling with wonder.
M’bele led them into a larger room. Here, they found more comfortable furnishings and plates of waiting refreshments. This room also lacked windows; apparently, they still remained far underground. “You and your brother never knew me as well as you thought you did,” the dark man said. “In my business, a wise man always keeps at least three safe houses to escape to. Call me foolish, but the habit remains ingrained from my days as
a rejuvenation spice smuggler.”
“Nice place,” Sawyer nodded.
“I never thought I’d need to use it again,” M’bele admitted. “But then, when I considered the quality of my business associates, keeping it ready seemed like a necessary act of foresight.”
“I love you too.” Sawyer shrugged out of his travel-cloak and looked to M’bele. “Did you talk to her? Did she say anything?”
“She almost didn’t make it. She gave the Burihatin TimeBand to Three-Dollar and collapsed. We put her to bed. We’ll talk to her when she awakens. Physically, she’ll recover. Emotionally, I don’t know. Something happened to her out during her journey. I think someone or something attacked her. I find it hard to believe she made it here at all.”
Sawyer sank down onto a bench, wiping his forehead, allowing the relief to flood over him. “All day long, all night long, we kept staggering around the goddamn city, not knowing if anyone followed us, not knowing if our performance had an audience—all the while, wondering if she’d understood my words, fearing that the Dragons might still find her, terrified that she’d hide from us and we’d never find her again. I think I need an easier line of work, one that doesn’t put so much strain on my emotions.”
M’bele glanced past Sawyer’s shoulder, to someone standing in the door behind him. Sawyer didn’t see the look. Then another voice spoke, “Hmp. I guess I’ll have to choose for my next partner someone with more endurance.”
For a moment, the voice didn’t register on Sawyer—and then he leapt around to his feet and stared in astonishment. He grabbed his brother with an overjoyed look on his face; Finn Markham grinned right back at him—still weak, still pale, but standing and conscious! Sawyer couldn’t speak; the emotions rushing up through him nearly toppled him with their power. Tears of joy came pouring freely down his cheeks. He grabbed his brother hard, holding him in his arms as tightly as he could—
“Easy there, little bro’. Don’t break me—”
“I couldn’t break you if I tried. I think we’ll have to rename you ‘Finn the Unkillable.’” He held his brother at arm’s length to look at him, studying his eyes, his face, his smile. “You still look like hell, you big piece of leather.”
Finn held onto Sawyer too, as much for support as affection. “You don’t look that all that great yourself—dancing and drinking all night without me. Didn’t I teach you better than that?”
“I had a duty to perform—” Sawyer started to reply, then gave up. “Oh, the hell with it. You look so good to me.”
“I still have a long way to go, kiddo. M’bele says it’ll take multiple treatments. Fortunately, we have Zillabar. I’ll drink her blood for a change.”
“That sounds fair to me.” They both laughed gently.
“You did good today.” Finn remained holding onto his brother. “You did good in getting me to M’bele. Three-Dollar told me what you did. You make me proud.”
Sawyer couldn’t respond to that easily. The words wouldn’t come. So he just smiled and kept on smiling. “I—I—can’t lose you. Not yet.”
“Let me sit down now,” Finn said. “You’ve just used up my entire reserve of energy.” Sawyer helped his brother to the bench, and the two of them sat side-by-side, holding each other up for a while.
“I just have one question for you, Sawyer,” Finn said. “I told you to give me a suicide pill. You promised me. But here I sit. I still live, I still breathe. What happened, you stupid git? Can’t you do anything right?”
The New TimeBinder
Sawyer looked around the room. Three-Dollar, Lee, and M’bele stood grinning at the two trackers, sharing the emotions of their reunion.
“All right,” he said. “What happens now?”
Three-Dollar sat down opposite them. He looked exhausted. “We’ve had a long talk about that. The TimeBinder of Burihatin has freed the TimeBand. She did this without choosing her successor—”
“She?”
Three-Dollar nodded. “By tradition, a woman always wears this TimeBand.”
“Did the Vampires get her? Did they kill her?”
Three-Dollar looked momentarily unhappy. He really didn’t want to address Sawyer’s question, but he answered it anyway. “She committed suicide, rather than risk capture.”
“Oh,” said Sawyer. For some reason, the news filled him with a terrible sadness. He’d never met the woman, he didn’t even know her name, but he did know the kind of loyalty she had inspired in the people around her. He felt as if he shared some of their loss. He looked at Three-Dollar. “You must feel particularly sad.”
“Yes. And no,” replied the TimeBinder of Thoska-Roole. “I have memories of a thousand losses. More. Another death does not add significantly to my burden of woe. But, yes, I do feel a great despair at the news of a TimeBinder willingly relinquishing her crown and dying. But even as I grieve, I also feel a shared sense of pride that she could honor her commitment so profoundly.”
“Well . . . if it helps any,” said Sawyer, “you have my sympathies and my assistance.”
“Thank you,” said Three-Dollar. “And later, perhaps, when I have time to grieve in fullness, I will appreciate your condolences more than I can express right now. At the moment, we have other concerns which demand our attention. The Gathering, for instance. We have to have a TimeBinder from Burihatin. We can’t conduct our business with an incomplete number.”
“Can’t you just choose one?” Finn asked. “You have the authority to do so, don’t you?”
“I do and I don’t. By that I mean, I have the moral obligation to further the continuity of the TimeBand. And the thought has already occurred to me that the woman Azra has earned the right to wear the ‘Band. She has served it all of her life. But the ‘Band carries with it an emotional burden that can crush the unwary soul. And with each life that gets added to it, the burden becomes greater.” Three-Dollar rubbed his eyes wearily. “A TimeBinder has to choose as his successor someone who has the personal strength to deal with the weight. I don’t know anyone here that I can trust.”
Now M’bele spoke up. “And we don’t have a lot of time left. We have to ship out tonight. I’ve booked a charter. Don’t worry—I’ll add it to your bill.”
“I thought the Dragon Lord sealed the StarPort.”
“He did. But I found a freebooter with a reputation for breaking blockades. Additionally, the Dragon Lord went up last night, and without him here, the security net has begun to unravel. The Dragons have spent the day gorging themselves on anything that moves. By morning, most of them will have gone torpid. We may never have a better opportunity.”
“We can’t go—” said Three Dollar. “Not yet. We need a new TimeBinder—”
“We can’t wait—” replied M’bele, his anger rising.
“Daddy?” a childish voice interrupted the discussion. “I can’t get it off.”
All eyes in the room went to the door—to M’bele’s nine year old daughter, Nyota. And to the shining band she wore around her forehead.
“Daddy?” she said, her expression crumpling into tears. “I can’t get it off! And it hurts!”
M’bele reached her just as she collapsed into his arms.
“Oh, shit,” said Lee.
M’bele reached for the TimeBand. Three-Dollar stopped him—the two men glared at each other across the whimpering girl. “If you try to remove it,” Three-Dollar said, “ you’ll kill her!”
“I can’t leave her in pain!”
“It won’t last. In a moment, she’ll stop crying. Just hold her. Wait.” The two men stayed like that while Nyota wept between them. Three-Dollar looked stricken. “She always wanted to touch my ‘Band. She kept asking if she could wear it. I didn’t realize how attractive she found it. I didn’t think. Oh, God. What have I done? How can I beg your forgiveness?”
“What the hell do mean?” M’bele said. “Explain yourself. As soon as she stops crying, you’ll tell me how to take the band off. No harm done—”
�
��You don’t understand, do you? She can’t take the TimeBand off. Ever. If she does, she dies. I thought I made that clear when I told you what happened to the TimeBinder of Burihatin. Your daughter has taken her place.” Three-Dollar stroked her head compassionately. The girl’s crying had begun to ease. His eyes met M’bele’s again. “At least, she’s solved part of our problem. Your world has a new TimeBinder. We can go to the Gathering now.”
The Transformation
Rage came to M’bele first.
But before he could speak, before he could express it, Nyota opened her eyes and looked up at her father with a new understanding. “Father,” she said, putting her hand on his cheek. Her voice had suddenly taken on an ageless quality. Whoever lay there in his arms, she no longer existed as the Nyota he had tended so carefully for nine precious years. Now she spoke as if from a mountain six thousand years high.
“Father, please don’t fill yourself with anger. My pain has ended. I have gained the . . . wisdom to appreciate the love that you’ve given me all your life. This TimeBand has given me a greater gift than I ever dreamed possible. Please share my joy at this moment?”
M’bele’s eyes filled with tears. He did not know what to say. He let go of his daughter as if she had suddenly turned into a monstrous thing. The child remained in Three-Dollar’s arms as her father cast about the room, looking for something, anything, on which to focus his anguish.
Awakened by the noise, Azra came into the room, looking first dazed, then surprised, and finally joyous. She dropped to her knees before the child. “I prayed for this,” she said. She looked around to the others. “Not this,” she explained, pointing to Nyota, “—but this.” She pointed to the TimeBand. “I serve the TimeBand. Without a wearer, I have no life. I prayed that the TimeBand would find a new wearer, one who would need me as much as I need her.” To M’bele, she said, “Your child speaks the truth, doctor. Destiny has blessed both of your lives.”
A Covenant of Justice Page 21
