Crystal Dragon

by Sharon Lee

  Scholar tay'Palin spun, a trifle ragged, to face his opponent as she came to her feet and danced forward, knife flashing, pressing him fiercely.

  And that tactic, Jela thought, was likely a winner, given that knife fights were never certain. No question tay'Palin was the better fighter, but he was wounded and weary while she was fresh and energized, and that more than balanced her relative lack of skill.

  The blonde woman thrust, tay'Palin twisted—and went down to one knee. She pressed her advantage, going for his eyes now, his throat, his face, working close, giving him no opportunity to gain his feet.

  Still, he fought on, grimly, blood showing now on his sleeve—which was, Jela thought, the old wound, torn open again—and down the front of his robe from his numerous cuts.

  All at once, the woman twisted, feinting; the scholar on his knees realizing the deception too late—and that quickly it was over, the blonde woman's knife was lodged to the hilt in tay'Palin's chest.

  Exuberant, she turned, raising her hands above her head. And as she did, the mortally wounded scholar raised his arm, reversed his blade—and threw.

  The victor staggered, mouth opening in a silent scream—and fell all at once, blood streaming. Scholar tay'Palin lay on his side, eyes open and empty, his blood pooling and mixing with that of his opponent.

  "Scholar tay'Palin," the disembodied voice announced, into the absolute silence of the lobby, "has successfully turned the challenge. Let his grudents amass his work and publish it wherever scholars study. Let his name be recorded on the Scholar's Wall."

  There was a murmur of approval from the assembled scholars.

  "Scholar chi'Farlo," the voice continued, "is found to have wrongly issued challenge. Let her office be purged, her files wiped and her name struck from our rolls."

  "Well deserved," whispered the scholar to the right.

  "We have an administrative announcement." the voice said briskly. "Effective immediately, Scholar Ala Bin tay'Welford, formerly Second Chair, will serve the Department of Interdimensional Statistics as Prime Chair."

  The Mercy Bell rang.

  * * *

  LUTE CAST HIS NET WIDE, watching, as she had asked him to do, while she prepared herself to accept that burden which no dominant had taken up since the first had been born from the need of the Iloheen.

  It was Lute's belief that what she proposed to do would alter the bounds of probability more certainly than any mere manipulation of the lines, no matter how bold or subtle. It would be the sum of small things—a truth not said, a law unobserved, a heart engaged—which would, in the final accounting, weigh against the Iloheen.

  His lady held otherwise, as did Rool Tiazan and his lady, differing merely on the fine points of process. In the end, process mattered to Lute not at all. That the Iloheen were brought down—he barely dared form the word destroyed within the cavern of his secret heart—that had been his only desire, long before his first encounter with Rool Tiazan, long before he listened to what the Iloheen might call treason—and allowed himself to be bound.

  He had been mad, of course. Confined, in thrall, compelled against his will to do ...terrible things. Terrible things. When Rool had proposed a lesser slavery, the acceptance of which might, possibly, with luck, on some day long in the future even as they counted, bring the Iloheen defeat—

  It was an odd thing, this container in which he had allowed himself to be prisoned. The weight of it dulled his senses, limited his reach. And yet even now, after ...so long... Even now, he sometimes woke, the screams of a dying star ringing in ears unfit to hear them; the pure crystalline agony of Iloheen pleasure stretching his soul to the point of annihilation.

  That the new slavery he had agreed to had not been lesser, nor even less horrifying; that the probability of gaining ascendency over the Iloheen was not very much greater than the probability of one of the stars he had destroyed blazing into renewed life—he thought he had suspected as much, even as he agreed to the plan Rool proposed. He thought he might have suspected that Rool, twice a slave and old in treachery, was himself more than a bit mad. And yet, if not they, who in their true forms had held dominion over space, time, and probability—if they could not deny the Iloheen the future, who—

  The ley lines flared. Lute traced the disturbance, saw a small brilliance, of no more consequence against the blare of all possibility than a spark against a bonfire, dancing hectic before a black wind.

  Lute coalesced, wrapped his awareness closely and returned to that place where his lady lay guarded, preparing for her ordeal.

  She noticed him at once, and he bowed under the weight of her regard.

  "It begins," he said.

  * * *

  TOR AN WOKE WITH A cry. Before him, the board glowed green; the screens displayed a starfield, perfectly orderly and ordinary. The coordinates of that starfield were displayed at the bottom of the forward screen, with the legend, "Transition complete."

  Light Wing maintained position, awaiting orders from her pilot, who struggled upright his chair, gasping once against a flare of pain—and again at finding the belts loose and unfastened. What had he been thinking, to go into transition without engaging the safety web?

  He had survived to ask the question, therefore it could be put aside until more immediate concerns were addressed. Such as—what had wakened him?

  It must, he thought, examining the board more closely, have been the chime signaling the end of transition. He frowned at the coordinates, which were unfamiliar, and at the starfield, anonymous and soothing. A glance at the elapsed time caused his frown to deepen. He had been asleep for what would have amounted, on the planet of his birth, to two full days while the ship transitioned from—

  Memory abruptly returned; his hand rose to the burning shoulder; he felt the dressing, recalled the laughter of the soldiers, his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he ran for his life. Shot. Yes. He remembered.

  He swallowed, forcing himself past the memory of terror. He had returned to the ship, dressed his wound as best as he'd been able, sat down in the chair and—

  "Landomist," he murmured, reaching to the board and petitioning the nav-brain for an approach, while he struggled to reproduce the reasoning which had led to feeding those particular coordinates into—

  A set of syllables rose from the mists of memory, and he gave them shape, his voice a cracked whisper: "Kel Var tay'Palin." A name, certainly—though who the gentleman might be, or where Tor An yos'Galan had acquired—no. Now he recalled what his fingers had never forgot. Kel Var tay'Palin had been an ...acquaintance of Aunt Jinsu, traveling with her in pursuit of his studies, back when Aunt Jinsu had been a fiery young pilot and the despair of all her elders. It had pleased her that the young man had journeyed at last to Landomist, and taken his chair in Interdimensional Mathematics. He remembered when the letter came. Aunt, home between staid and stable trade rounds, had read it aloud to the youngers, telling them the story of how the young scholar had ridden with her, and perhaps not ...quite... all the truth of how he had paid his way...

  And how long ago had it been, he wondered, shifting in the chair to ease his wounded arm, since that letter and those stories? Certainly, after he had served his first flight as cabin boy, under Great-grandfather Er Thom, on Baistle's last trip 'round the Short Loop. Had he done his turn as cargo-rat yet, or had he been awaiting the Profitable Passage?

  He sighed sharply, out of patience with himself. What did it matter, after all, the exact year? Stipulate that the letter had arrived long ago, and that the truth upon which Aunt Jinsu had based her tales of the bold-hearted and single-minded young scholar had taken place more years before that. Kel Var tay'Palin, if he sat yet safe in the Tower at Landomist, would be an ancient. He might possibly recall the adventures of his youth with kindness—enough, perhaps, to drink tea with Pilot Jinsu herself. Pilot Jinsu's nephew, however, would have no call upon the man.

  Now I'll tell you a secret, Aunt Jinsu whispered from memory, eyes glinting mischief as s
he lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder to be sure that grandmother wasn't near. The scholars of the mathematics tower, they'll sometimes hire pilots to fly their theories for them, or to travel to a certain someplace and collect readings. Scholar tay'Palin wasn't one to forget a good turn done him, and more than once he's passed a small flight and a respectful purse my way.

  It seemed that his fingers had listened to Aunt Jinsu more closely than his ears, Tor An thought resignedly. And, truly, what other choice had he? Perhaps the old scholar might direct him to someone who would take his readings and make sense of them—some...happier... sense, perhaps, than that which he had formed.

  The Towers of Learning were powerful, so he had heard. Perhaps the mathematical tower might be powerful enough to command the military to examine the Ringstars' fate, to, to—

  To what? he wondered. Unless he truly had gone mad, his readings proved that the Ringstars no longer existed. Did he expect that the learned scholars might force the military to put them back?

  He shifted in the chair again, biting his lip as fire shot his arm. Carefully, he angled the chair so that he could reach the board with his good hand.

  "Never mind," he told himself softly, as his clever fingers chose an approach and gave Light Wing the office. "Do your duty and glory will follow."

  It was a thing that his brother Cor Win had used to say, most usually with a roguish grin and a wag of the head. How he would have laughed, Tor An thought, locking the course and staggering to his feet, to hear it said in deadly earnest.

  * * *

  THE BACK OF JELA'S neck stopped itching as soon as the door to Scholar tay'Nordif's quarters locked shut behind him, which just went to show, he thought sourly, that even an old soldier could be a fool. At the same instant, the cat, which had hung quiescent on his arm the whole long way from the offices, began kicking and squirming, claws scoring leather in earnest, demanding to be released. Which just went to show that even extraordinarily lucky cats weren't necessarily immune to foolishness, either.

  Unless, he thought suddenly, keeping a firm grip on the cat's ruff, the creature wanted to be put down in order that it might field credible attack? He'd read ...somewhere... that a single cat could dispatch a wharf rat twice its mass—

  The cat made a noise like an airlock with a bad gasket, and executed a complex twist, surprisingly strong for so small a creature. Jela subdued it absently, most of his attention elsewhere.

  Super-sharp hearing brought him the uninterrupted humming of the hacks he'd put in place, and a quick visual scan as he crossed to the counter confirmed that everything was as they had left it that morning.

  For whatever that was worth.

  He placed the twisting, hissing cat—gently—on its feet on the counter. The animal turned its head this way and that, giving the territory a visual sweep of its own, then stood at attention, ears swiveling. Jela's heart beat three times. The cat shook itself, gave its shoulder a quick half-dozen licks, yawned, sat down, extended one back leg high and began to lick the inside of its thigh.

  All clear, then, Jela thought. Maybe.

  Assuming that the pass-tile fixed to his collar didn't report his every move tm the Tower's slave-brain. And even if it did, he, legitimate, honest kobold that he was, couldn't just take it off and crush it.

  Scholar tay'Nordif had exchanged the tile pilfered from the office of Scholar tel'Elyd by the enterprising grudent for one of the pair she'd had off the Bursar that morning—and had it been Cantra yos'Phelium who had done the deed, he would have had no doubt but what the tile had been rendered as harmless to the mission as it was possible for her to have done. Scholar tay'Nordif, though—the Deeps alone knew what to expect from such a flutter-headed, vain—

  Trust, Cantra yos'Phelium's husky, serious voice whispered from memory. ...this is going to be hard, Pilot, I know—

  Trust, he repeated to himself now, as he moved into the tiny galley, pulled a bowl from its hook, filled it with water and placed in front of the cat, which didn't bother to raise its head.

  A picture formed at the back of his mind: the now-familiar shadow of an enormous wing, gliding over the crowns of monumental trees. Leaves rustled as the dragon dropped close, and closer still, wingtips brushing tree-tops as it approached one particular tree, one particular branch, upon which hung one particular fruit. With no diminishment of speed, the dragon extended its graceful neck. Its mouth opened, teeth as long as Jela flashed, the shadow passed on. The tree stood, unscarred and undisturbed, its branch intact, the seed-pod it had offered gone.

  Jela took a breath.

  On the counter, the cat paused in its grooming and raised its head, amber eyes meeting his with the look of an equal intelligence which was, at the moment, slightly put out with him.

  Trust, Cantra's voice whispered again.

  The cat blinked, breaking their shared gaze, and returned to its grooming. Jela went to tend the tree.

  A seed pod dropped into his palm. He gave silent thanks, and ate it while mentally reviewing the so-called proving, for the tree's interest. It had been a shocking business, badly done and proving nothing but that the man challenged had been more accomplished with his blade than his challenger. He'd known that the scholars of Osabei Tower rose and fell by such "proofs" of their work; Cantra had insisted that he read the codes and histories of the Towers. But knowing and seeing were two different processes. Which he'd also known.

  Not to mention, he thought, opening the hidden door in the tree's pot, that Prime Chair tay'Palin's death had been of benefit to the mission, for the man had recognized a Series soldier and had been, so Jela thought, on the edge of asking difficult questions when he'd been interrupted.

  The cat came wandering by, snuffling at the grid. Jela pushed it gently away, and it jumped onto the dirt that surrounded and nourished the tree. He gasped, remembering sharp claws and tender bark—and received a clear sending of a dragon curled 'round the base of a sapling, slitted eyes alert.

  For its part, the cat circled the tree, one shoulder companionably rubbing the bark, then jumped down on the opposite side and disappeared into the depth of the quarters.

  Jela sighed, lightly, and finished assembling his equipment.

  * * *

  THE MOOD OF THE common room was frenetic. It was often so, after the passing of a Prime Chair, and all the moreso this evening. tay'Palin had been well-liked, and had held his seat for almost three Common Years. Had his tenure not been cut short, he would have been eligible on his anniversary date to petition the Board of Governors for a place in the Masters' Wing. Whether the Governors would have granted so audacious a request—was, tay'Welford acknowledged as he took a glass of wine from a passing tray, entirely up to the whim of the Governors. And in any case was no longer an issue.

  "Well, there he is!" Regrettably, vel'Anbrek's voice carried easily over the ambient din. It would not do to be seen to snub so venerable a member of the department. No, tay'Welford thought, moving toward the group clustered about the old scholar; there were far more satisfying ways of dealing with vel'Anbrek open to him now.

  "Prime." dea'San, never a fool, inclined her head as he joined them.

  "Colleagues," he replied, smiling 'round at the three of them. Scholar tay'Nordif gave him his due as well, her beige hair shimmering. When she raised her head, he saw that her face was quite pale. She stood preternaturally still, with none of the overt signs of "vigilance" she had displayed yestereen. Perhaps, tay'Welford thought, today's contest of scholarship had proved a tonic for the department's newest member.

  "Today's proving turned out rather well for you, didn't it?" vel'Anbrek said, raising his glass and taking a hearty drink.

  tay'Welford frowned slightly. "I am not entirely certain that I understand you, colleague. Are you hinting that I would have wished for anything like today's outcome?"

  "You're not such a fool as that, I'd think," the old horror replied. "Certainly, anyone here could have predicted tay'Palin stood on the edge of error
. Did so myself, just last night. But who could have imagined he had that last stroke in him—and that he would be moved to save you the trouble of killing chi'Farlo yourself?"

  "Gor Tan!" dea'San cried. "What do you say?"

  "That chi'Farlo was ambitious," the old man retorted. "Had she won her point, she would have risen from Third Chair to Second, while our good friend and colleague tay'Welford ascended to Prime. And how long, I ask, before she marshaled the tactics that had worked so well against tay'Palin and brought them against our beloved new Prime?"

  "Tactics?" Scholar tay'Nordif asked, her voice rather subdued. "What tactics?"

  vel'Anbrek shook a finger at her. "It had long been apparent to those of us on the hall that someone had determined to advance by guile, rather than by scholarship. An increasing number of challenges were issued against the work of Prime tay'Palin, and by some of the hottest heads in our department, as even cautious Scholar dea'San will admit is true. Though you knew him so short a time, Scholar tay'Nordif, I am certain it will not surprise you to learn that tay'Palin was a solid scholar—a very solid scholar. Over and over he proved himself. But even a solid scholar becomes wearied by constant challenge. It is my belief that Scholar chi'Farlo had today determined that he was worn down enough to err, and thus she called that point—which ought, Prime Chair, to have been disallowed! Are we to permit challenges based on Wander-work which is tangential to the token that gained us our chair? What next, I ask you? Challenges on the 'quations we proved at our tutor's knee?"