The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  She made no answer to this, but simply sat for a time, staring into his face, fingers gripping the arms of the chair.

  "The Terran scholar looked uncommonly fine this evening," she said at last, and in milder tone than he had anticipated. "Eyla dea'Lorn's work, I think?"

  Er Thom said nothing. In spite of the fire he was cold—cold. He felt certain his mother could see him shiver.

  "And the jewels," she pursued, after a moment. "Who but Moonel would think a yellow diamond rope? Allow me to offer my compliments, A'thodelm: You do handsomely by your light-loves." She paused, eyes burning into his.

  "You will now have the goodness to name the day in this relumma on which you shall wed Syntebra el'Kemin."

  Er Thom inclined his head. "I shall not marry Syntebra el'Kemin," he said steadily. "Not in this relumma or in any other."

  "Ah, so?" His mother lifted her eyebrows in polite interest, her voice dangerously mild. "Pray, why not?"

  "For the first part, because the child is frightened of me."

  "A condition," Petrella pointed out, still in that tone of menacing mildness, "you did very little to alleviate this evening. But I interrupt! If there is a first part, then a second must be at hand! Enlighten me, I beg."

  His hands were ice; he felt sweat gathering along his hairline; his stomach was cramped and there was a roaring in his ears that overrode the crackling of the fire. Er Thom grit his teeth and bowed.

  "Scholar Davis and I are agreed to become lifemates," he said, around a strangling tightness in his throat. "We go to seek the delm tomorrow."

  Silence. Petrella was seen to close her eyes—and open them.

  "I forbid it."

  "You cannot," he answered.

  "Ah, can I not?" She leaned forward, fingers clawed into the carven arms of the chair. "I remind you that I am Thodelm yos'Galan. It is I who decides issues of Line and I have decided that it is not necessary to take a Terran into yos'Galan. Why should we do so? We are Liaden!"

  "We are Korval!" Er Thom's shout startled him as much as his mother. "There is strength in diversity, weakness in samehood! You have read Cantra's logs—" He flung his hands out, showing her his empty palms.

  "Mother, you have not even seen the child we made," he said, voice somewhat calmer. "Bright, bold-hearted and quick—as quick as any in the clan at his age—quicker than many! How is this ill-done? Why, the clan can use a dozen such!"

  "And may have them yet, should I decide to breed you thus often!" Petrella pushed to her feet, face nearly white in the fire glow.

  "Mother—"

  "Silence!" The Command Mode: Thodelm-to-Line-Member. She pinned him with glare.

  "You are forbidden," she stated, all in High Command. "You are forbidden from this moment forward to see, touch, speak to or think upon Anne Davis. She is not for you. You are commanded to name a day when you shall wed Syntebra el'Kemin. Now."

  "Never!" he cried. "As for denying Anne, I shall not! We are lifemates, in all but word! Tomorrow morning, we shall be lifemates entirely! You cannot stop us from seeking the delm, you cannot—"

  "I forbid this lifemating!" Petrella snarled. "Pursue it at your peril, A'thodelm, unless you wish to make a way for yourself and your lifemate on the Lower Docks!"

  Er Thom froze, jaw tight. He met his mother's eyes straightly.

  "There is no need for a master trader to seek the Low Port," he said, and the inflection of his voice was nearer Terran than any proper mode. "And if you will have my license called in question, then I remind you there is yet no reason for a master pilot to go further than the Guild House in the Upper Port." He bowed.

  "If you will have it so, ma'am, then you will. I wish—with all my heart—that it were otherwise. As it is not, I shall take myself and mine—"

  "Enough!" The Command Mode: Delm to Clanmember. Er Thom bit off his sentence as Daav came, quick and silent, across the room.

  "You!" He flung a hand out to Petrella, black eyes bright in a face that might have been carved of gold. "We bar none from the clan tonight! You!" The hand flashed to Er Thom, Korval's Ring snagging the firelight. "We drag none unwilling into the clan. Ever!"

  Er Thom started, was stilled by a flare of black eyes. "The lady has told me—tonight!—that she would have none of you. She swore it, and I believe her. The game is done."

  "No!" Er Thom shook off his delm's gaze. "I will see her, speak with her! There is something gone ill and she—"

  "Silence!" Korval commanded and Er Thom gasped, staring into black, black eyes. In the fireplace, a stick broke noisily, releasing a rain of sparkles.

  "You will go to your rooms," Korval commanded then, "and await the Healer. Anne Davis is none of yours. I trust you will not trouble her further."

  She had denied him. His mind logged the thought into a loop, that began at once to repeat, over and over: Anne had denied him. Anne had denied him. Anne . . . Anne.

  His body moved, graceless and wooden—a bow to the delm's honor, followed by another, to the thodelm. His—legs—moved, carrying him past delm and thodelm, out of the room, into the hall, down corridors pitch black and bitter cold, until at last he came to an end of walking.

  He stared around the place where he found himself: Stared at the laden worktable, the mantelpiece cluttered with bric-a-brac from an hundred worlds, the pleasant grouping of chair and doublechair before the laid and unlit hearth.

  He walked toward the hearth, eyes caught by a flutter of red and gold among the mantel's clutter. Reaching, he had it down, and stood gazing at the thing.

  A scrap of red silk no longer than his hand, that was all. That, and a length of tarnished, gold-colored ribbon, elaborately knotted into a fraying flower, through which the red silk had been lovingly threaded.

  "Anne!" Her name was a keen, jagged with agony. He crashed to his knees, clutching the bit of silk as if it were a lifeline, bent his head and wept.

  "WELL." Petrella sank into her chair, quivering in every muscle. She looked up into her nephew's set face. "Better late than never arrive, I suppose. It comforts me that at last you perceive the good of the clan."

  "The good of the clan," Daav repeated tonelessly. He stared down at her, eyes black and remote. "Is Korval so wealthy, aunt, that we might cast aside a master pilot, and shrug away the cost? Or has your intention always been to end yos'Galan with yourself? Speak plainly, I beg you."

  "End yos'Galan—Ah." Petrella closed her eyes and let her head fall against the chair's padding. "You heard me threaten him with the Lower Docks, did you? Then you also heard that he was raving. I spoke to frighten, and to shock him into sanity."

  "And failed in both intents," Daav snapped. "He was on the edge of accepting your terms, ma'am, when the delm ordered him to cease!"

  There was a small silence. Petrella opened her eyes.

  "I believe you had mistaken the matter, nephew."

  "Oh, had I?" Daav returned bitterly. "'I shall take myself and mine—' was what he said! Am I the only one of us who can clearly hear the end of that sentence?" He bowed, deeply and with irony. "My compliments, aunt—In one throw you make your son clanless and a thief."

  In the depths of her chair, Petrella shivered, assailed by a pain far different than that which wracked her body.

  "He—is ill," she achieved after a moment. "To turn his face from the clan and follow a Terran? It is—"

  "Master Healer Kestra will be with him tomorrow. Would that she had been able to come tonight." Daav turned away to stare into the fire. Suddenly, he whirled.

  "Damn you for a meddlesome old woman!" he cried. "Why could you not have let it be? The lady had said she would not have him! She loved him too well, for your interest, aunt—too well to allow him the sacrifice of aligning himself with a Terran. If only his mother loved him half so well! But you—you must needs demand and shame and assert your dominion, sowing pain with every throw!" He came forward, one step, and stopped himself, staring down at her as if she were prey.

  "The lady would have gone!
" he shouted. "Of her own will, she would have left us and sought what healing she might. My brother would have likewise sought the Healers, to ease the grief of her going. There would have been honor for both in this, and a minimum of pain." He paused and Petrella found she could breathe again, though she dared not take her eyes from his.

  "All thanks to your wisdom," he finished with brutal calm, "we have now two bleeding from wounds which may never heal clean, and a child abovestairs, crying aloud for both."

  He swept a low, mocking bow, his lace rustling in the utter silence of the room.

  "Sleep well, Aunt Petrella. I shall return tomorrow."

  She made him no answer; barely knew that he was gone. She watched the fire—and, later, the embers—letting her mind ride the waves of pain, until she was back in a time when her twin was alive and all of life stretched before them.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Er Thom fell from the Tree this morning.

  I hasten to add that all is well, though of course he took damage. A matter of broken ribs and dislocated shoulder—that's the worst of it. Nothing beyond the auto-doc's capabilities.

  I cannot for certain say how far he fell, for all Daav can tell me is that the pair of them had "never been so high." Er Thom was craning for a better sight of the Port when an end-branch broke under his weight.

  He was caught, twig-lashed and unconscious, by the big by-branch about seven meters up—you know the one, sister. The luck is in the business twice: The child doesn't remember falling.

  Daav saw the whole, and kept a cool head—far cooler than I should have kept at eight Standards, and so I swear! 'Twas he climbed down, fetched me out of a meeting with dea'Gauss, and showed me where Er Thom lay.

  Nor would he be parted from his cha'leket, but kept vigil at 'doc-side and bed. I at last persuaded him to lie down whilst I kept watch, and he fell instantly asleep—to wake a quarter-hour later shrieking for Er Thom to come back, "Come back! The branch is breaking!"

  I await the Healer as I write this . . .

  —Excerpted from a private letter to

  Petrella yos'Galan from Chi yos'Phelium

  * * *

  SHAN TOOK HER HAND listlessly and went without any of his usual chatter down the long hallway toward Doctor yo'Kera's office, Mouse clutched tight against his chest.

  Anne eyed him worriedly. According to Mrs. Intassi, he had passed a restless night, his sleep broken by bad dreams and bouts of crying. It sounded remarkably like Anne's own night and she wondered, half-dazedly, if she had caused her son's unrest or he had caused hers.

  She shook her head. Sure and there's plenty of pain for everyone to have their own share. Er Thom's night would have surely been no better; she recalled the look in his eyes, as he begged her to tell him what was wrong.

  Annie Davis, I hope you know what you're doing.

  But after all, she told herself, working the lock on Doctor yo'Kera's door, there was nothing else to do. By now, Daav would have told Er Thom that Anne had lied when she had agreed to be his lifemate. Er Thom could not possibly forgive such a lie, such a strike at his melant'i. Of course, he would come after her—but he would do so in any case, once he found Shan was gone. It was her intention to be firmly within Terran jurisdiction by the time Er Thom finally caught up with her.

  "Ma?" Shan looked up at her from heavy-lidded silver eyes. "Where's Mirada?"

  Oh, gods. She dropped her bulging briefcase and went to her knees, gathering her son's small body close.

  "Mirada can't come, Shannie," she whispered, cheek tight against his hair. "His clan needs him."

  He slipped his arms around her neck, she felt him sigh, then: "We stay here? With Mirada?"

  "No, baby," she whispered and closed her eyes to hold back the tears. "We're going home—to visit Uncle Dickie. A nice, long visit."

  She thought briefly of her post on University: Good-bye tenure track. Well, she could get a job on New Dublin, surely. She could be a translator at the port, or a teacher of Standard Terran in the private school.

  Or she could raise sheep. Her arms tightened around her son.

  "I love you, Shannie."

  "Love you, Ma." He pushed back against her arms and lifted a hand to her face. His fingertips came away wet. "Sad."

  "Sad," she repeated, voice cracking. She tried a smile; it felt wrong on her face. "We'll be happy again. I promise."

  She stood and lifted him onto the table; plucked Mouse from the floor and laid it across Shan's knees.

  "I'm going to call a cab," she told him. "Then we can go to the port."

  It took a few minutes and some ingenuity to thread the university's comm system, but she finally got an outside line and placed her call. The cab was promised in fifteen minutes, at the secondary door, as directed. Anne nodded to herself and cut the connection, glancing around Doctor yo'Kera's cluttered, comfortable office for the last time.

  In an ocean of hurt, the pain of leaving his work undone, of walking away from the mystery of missing corroboration, was imbued with special flavor. Jin Del yo'Kera had been her friend, steadfast down a dozen years. In a way, she had loved him. Gods knew, she owed him more than she could ever repay. To leave him this way, with his research in shambles, his brilliance dimmed in the memories of his colleagues . . .

  She shook her head, denying the tears that made a glittering riot of the book-crammed shelves. Turning from the shelves, she found herself contemplating the flat-pic of three Aus at their sheep station: Mildred Higgins, Sally Brunner, Jackson Roy. Strong, straightforward people they seemed, smiling out of the battered frame. People who would see nothing odd in teaching a Liaden scholar to shear sheep.

  The flat-pic was slightly wrinkled, as if someone had lately had it out of its frame and reseated it imperfectly. Or, Anne thought, perhaps the picture was so old the paper was beginning to dissolve. She had a moment's urge to take the thing off the wall and smooth the pic tidy. Shaking her head at the impulse, she turned back to Shan.

  "Time to go, laddie," she said, swinging him to the floor. "Hold tight to Mouse, now."

  She picked up her briefcase, took her son's hand and stepped out into the hall.

  Shan uttered a sharp squeak and fell silent, his hand gone cold in hers.

  Fil Tor Kinrae finished his bow and smiled, coldly, up into her eyes.

  "Scholar. How fortunate that I meet you. We have much to speak about."

  Anne inclined her head and allowed a note of irritation to be heard. "Alas, sir, I am unable to accommodate you today. I am bound for the port."

  "Then I am twice fortunate," he said in his curiously flat voice. "I go to the port, as well. Allow me to drive you."

  "Thank you, no. I have transport." She made to go past him down the hall, but he was abruptly before her.

  The gun in his hand was quite steady. He was pointing it at Shan.

  "You do not seem to grasp the situation, Scholar," he said, and the mode was Superior to Inferior. "You will allow me to drive you to the Port. You will continue to do precisely as I command. Fail, and I shall certainly harm—that." The gun moved minutely, indicating Shan.

  "He's only a child," Anne said slowly. Fil Tor Kinrae inclined his head.

  "So he is. Walk this way, if you please, and pray do not do anything foolish."

  HE CAME TO HIMSELF in the gray of foredawn, face crushed into the hearth rug, one outflung hand clutching a tattered piece of red silk and a tawdry, fraying love knot.

  His body ached amazingly, but that was no matter. His mind was clear.

  He had dreamed.

  Baffling, grief-laden dreams, they were, that robed the veriest commonplace in twisty, alien menace until his stomach churned with the strangeness of it and his head felt likely to burst asunder.

  There were tolls demanded, now and again—he gave what was asked: His ring, his fortune, his peace. In return he was promised safe passage through the surrounding menace. He was promised love, melant'i and a return of peace.

  The toll-man
demanded his son.

  "He's my son, Er Thom!" he cried out and felt as if his heart were broken anew. "He's a Terran citizen! Your clan doesn't know and your clan doesn't care!" He covered his face and wept aloud.

  "I came home," he whispered distractedly, "and you were gone . . ."

  Full awake, lucid and calm, he rolled to his back, careless alike of complaining muscles and ruined finery. He stared up at the gray-washed ceiling and considered his own folly.

  Of course Anne did not care of Shan's place in Line—that would be to think as a Liaden. To think as a Terran—to think like Anne—one would weigh the answers to such questions and find in them proof that the man she had asked to guard her melant'i—the man she loved too well to allow his sacrifice—had willfully cheated her, stolen her child and placed him beyond her reach—forever.

  Comes the same man pursuing his suit and Anne is flung headlong and frightened into a game so complex it might well give a seasoned player pause.

  The man cries lifemates—does he lie? He had lied once, had he not? Assume he lies—necessity demands it. Lie to him in return, a little; better, allow him to deceive himself. Play for time, play for the single, slender moment of escape.

  She had played well—brilliantly well, for one unused to the game. Yet she had been unable, even for necessity, to lie entirely. Honor would not allow her to wear the ring he had given.

  He wondered, lying there, if she had known her confidence to Daav would end thus, with Er Thom safely out of the way, and her path clear from nursery to space port. It seemed likely.

  He sighed and moved his head from side to side against the floor.

  Anne's window of opportunity was today—this morning. She would take it—she must, or all play was for naught. He rather thought she would try to barter Moonel's jewelry for passage away, an enterprise she might find more difficult than she had supposed.

  His course was clear. He spared a thought for his brother—but it seemed he was beyond feeling any new pain. The Healer would soon arrive; she must find an empty room when she did.