The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  The bark beneath his hands warmed. "Yes, very good!" he snarled, snatching his hands away. "Approve me, do! What shall it mean to you, that a fine pilot was all but destroyed for your whim? What shall any of us mean to you, who has seen us all die—from Jela to Chi! Breed-stock, are we? Then hear me well!"

  He was in the center of the glade now, with no clear notion of how he had gotten there, hands fisted at his sides, shouting up into the branches as if the ancient, alien sentience cared—had ever cared—for his puny, human anguish.

  "I shall lifemate Aelliana Caylon, if she will have me, and if you dare—dare!—frighten or in any way discontent her, I will chop you down with my own hands!"

  His words hung for a moment, and were gone, swallowed by the still, warm air. Daav took a breath—another—deliberately relaxed his fists . . .

  In the height of the branches, something moved.

  He tensed, recalling the torrent of trash that had greeted Samiv tel'Izak, thinking that the Tree could easily and with no harm to itself loose a branch onto his unprotected head, thus disposing of a breed-line that had failed of its promise.

  The noise grew louder. Daav crouched, ready to leap in any direction.

  And fell to his knees as dozens of seed-pods cascaded around him.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The heart keeps its own Code.

  —Anonymous

  THE DOORKEEPER showed him to a private parlor, served him wine and left him alone, murmuring that the Master would be with him soon.

  The wine was sweet and sat ill on a stomach roiled with fear. He set it aside after a single sip and paced the length of the room, unable to sit decently and await his host.

  Behind him, the door opened, and he spun, too quickly. Master Healer Kestra paused on the threshold and showed her hands, palms up and empty, eyebrows lifted ironically.

  Ignoring irony, Daav bowed greeting, counting time as he had not done since he was a halfling, throttling pilot speed down to normality, though his nerves screamed for speed.

  The Healer returned his bow with an inclination of her head and walked over to the clustered chairs. She arranged herself comfortably in one and looked up at him, face neutral.

  "Well, Korval."

  He drifted a few paces forward. "Truly, Master Kestra?"

  She waved impatiently at the chair opposite her. "I will not be stalked, sir! Sit, sit! And be still, for love of the gods! You're loud enough to give an old woman a headache—and to no purpose. She's fine."

  His knees gave way and, perforce, he sat. "Fine."

  "Oh, a little burn—nothing worrisome, I assure you! For the most part, the Learner never touched her. She knew her danger quickly and crafted her protection well. She created herself an obsession: an entire star system, which required her constant and total concentration—I should say, calculation!—to remain viable." She smiled, fondly, so it seemed to Daav. "Brilliant! The Learning Module will not disturb rational cognition." She moved her shoulders.

  "Tom Sen and I removed the obsession, and placed the sleep upon her. We did not consider, under the circumstances, that it was wise to erase painful memory, though we did put—say, we caused those memories to feel distant to her. Thus she remains wary, yet unimpeded by immediate fear." Another ripple of her shoulders.

  "For the rest, she passed a few hours in the 'doc for the cuts and bruises. I spoke with her not an hour ago and I am well-satisfied with our work."

  Daav closed his eyes. She was well. He was trembling, he noted distantly, and his chest burned.

  "Korval?"

  He cleared his throat, opened his eyes and inclined his head. "Accept my thanks," he said, voice steady in the formal phrasing.

  "Certainly," Kestra murmured, and paused, the line of a frown between her brows.

  "You should be informed," she said, abruptly, and Daav felt a chill run his spine.

  "Informed?" he repeated, when several seconds had passed and the Healer had said no more. "Is she then not—entirely—well, Master Kestra?"

  She moved a hand—half-negation. "Of this most recent injury, you need have no further concern. However, there was another matter—a trauma left untended. Scar tissue, you would say."

  "Yes," he murmured, recalling. "She had said she thought it—too late—to seek a Healer."

  "In some ways, she was correct," Kestra admitted. "Much of the damage has been integrated into the personality grid. On the whole, good use has been made of a bad start—she's strong, never doubt it. I did what I could, where the scars hindered growth." She sighed lightly and sat back in her chair.

  "The reason I mention the matter to you is that I find—an anomaly—within Scholar Caylon's pattern."

  Daav frowned. "Anomaly?"

  The Healer sighed. "Call it a—seed pattern. It's set off in a—oh, a cul-de-sac!—by itself and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the remainder of her pattern. Although I have seen a pattern remarkably like it, elsewhere."

  "Have you?" Daav looked at her. "Where?"

  Master Healer Kestra smiled wearily, raised a finger and pointed at the vacant air just above his head.

  "There."

  It took a moment to assimilate, wracked as he was. "You say," he said slowly, "that Aelliana and I are—true lifemates."

  Kestra sighed. "Now, of that, there is some doubt. The seed-pattern was found in the area of densest scarring." She looked at him closely, her eyes grave.

  "You understand, the damage in that area of her pattern was—enormous. Had a Healer been summoned at the time of trauma—however, we shall not weep over spilt wine! I have—pruned away what I could of the scar tissue. At the least, she will be easier for it—more open to joy. That the seed will grow now, after these years without nurture—I cannot say that it will happen."

  He stared at her, seeing pity in her eyes. His mind would not quite hold the information—Aelliana. She was his destined lifemate—the other half of a wizard's match. He was to have shared with Aelliana what Er Thom shared with his Anne . . . She had been hurt—several times hurt—grievously hurt and no one called to tend her, may Clan Mizel dwindle to dust in his lifetime!

  He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, reached through the anger and the anguish, found the method he required and spun it into place.

  He was standing in a circle of pure and utter peace, safe within that secret soul-place where anger never came, and sorrow shifted away like sand.

  "And who," Kestra demanded, "taught you that?"

  He opened his eyes, hand rising to touch his earring. "The grandmother of a tribe of hunter-gatherers, on a world whose name I may not give you." He peered through the bright still peace; located another scrap of information: "She said that I was always—busy—and so she taught me to—be still."

  "All honor to her," Kestra murmured.

  "All honor to her," Daav agreed and rose on legs that trembled very little, really. "May I see Aelliana now?"

  THE ROOM WAS SUN-FILLED and fragrant, with wide windows giving onto the Healers' extensive gardens. She stood in the open window, looking out on the rows of flowers—a slender woman in a long green robe, her tawny hair caught back with a plain silver hair-ring.

  He made no noise when he entered, but she turned as if she had heard him, a smile on her face and her eyes gloriously green.

  "Daav," she said, and walked into his arms.

  CONFLICT OF HONORS

  Maidenstairs Plaza

  Local Year 1002

  Standard 1375

  Eight chants past Midsong: twilight.

  In the plaza around Maidenstairs a crowd began to gather: men and women in brightly colored work clothes; here and there the sapphire or silver flutter of Circle robes.

  The last echo of Eighthchant faded from the blank walls of Circle House, and the crowd quieted expectantly.

  In a thin pass-street halfway down the plaza, a slim figure stirred. She adjusted the cord of the bag over her shoulder, but her eyes were fixed on Maidenstairs, where two of the Inmo
st Circle stood.

  The shorter of the two raised her arms, calling for silence. The crowd held its breath, while across the plaza a dust devil swirled to life. The watcher in the by-street shivered, hunching closer to the wall.

  "We are gathered," cried the larger of the two upon the stairs, "to commend to the Mother the spirit of our sister, our daughter, our friend. For there is gone from us this day the one called Moonhawk." He raised his arms as the other lowered hers to intone the second part of the ritual.

  "Do not grieve, for Moonhawk is gathered into the care of She who is Mother of us all, who will instruct and make her ready for her next stay among us. Rejoice, indeed, and be made glad by the fortune of our sister Moonhawk, called so soon to the Mother's side."

  The crowd spoke a faint "Ollee," and the shorter Witch continued, her voice taking on the mesmerizing quality appropriate to the speaking of strong magic.

  "Gone to the Mother, to learn and to grow, Moonhawk walks among us no more. For the span of a full lifetime shall she sit at the feet of the Mother, absorbing the glory, seen by us no more. In this Wheel-turn none shall see Moonhawk again. She is gone. So mote it be."

  "So mote it be," echoed the larger speaker.

  "So mote it be," the crowd cried, full-voiced and on familiar ground.

  The slim watcher said nothing at all, though she ducked a little farther back into the byway. The dust devil found her there and made momentary sport of her newly shorn hair before going in search of other amusements.

  A tall woman at the edge of the crowd made a sharp movement, quickly arrested. The watcher leaned forward, lips shaping a word: Mother. She dropped back, the word unspoken.

  It was useless. Moonhawk was dead, by order of she who was Moonhawk's mother during this turn of the Wheel. The funeral pyre of her possessions had been ignited at Midsong while the mother looked on with icy face and sand-dry eyes. The watcher had been there, too. She had cried—perhaps enough for the mother, as well. But there were no tears now.

  In the bag over her shoulder were such belongings as she had been able to bring away from her cell in the Maidens' wing of Circle House. The clothes she wore were bought in a secondhand store near the river: a dark, soft shirt with too-long sleeves that chafed nipples unused to confinement; skintight leggings, also dark, except for the light patch at the right knee; and outworlder boots with worn heels. The earrings were her own, set in place years ago by old hands trembling with pride of her. The seven silver bracelets in the pack were not hers. In the shirt's sleeve pocket was a single coin: a Terran tenbit.

  The two of the Inmost Circle left the stairs; the crowd fragmented and grew louder. The watcher quietly faded down the skinny by-street, trying to form some less desperate plan for the future.

  Moonhawk is dead. So mote it be.

  At the end of the by-street the watcher turned left, toward a distant reddish glow.

  You might, she thought to herself diffidently, go to the Silent Sisters at Caleitha. They won't ask your name, or where you're from, or why you've come. You can stay with them, never speaking, never leaving the Sisterhouse, never touching another human being . . . .

  "I'd rather be dead!" she snapped at the night, at herself—and began to laugh.

  The sound was horrible in her ears: jagged, unnatural. She knotted her fingers in the ridiculous mop of curls, yanking until tears came to replace the awful laughter. Then she continued on her way, the rosy glow ever brighter before her.

  Shipyear 32

  Tripday 148

  Second Shift

  10.30 Hours

  "Liadens! Gods-benighted, smooth-faced lying sons and daughters of curs!"

  A crumpled wad of clothing was thrown toward the gapemouthed duffel with more passion than accuracy. From her station by the cot, Priscilla fielded it and gently dropped it in the bag. This act failed to draw Shelly's usual comments about Priscilla's wasted speed and talent.

  "Miserable, stinking half bit of a ship!" Shelly continued at the top of her range, which was considerable. "One shift on, one shift off; Terrans to the back, please, and mind your words when you're speaking to a Liaden! Fines for this, fines for that . . . no damn shore leave, no damn privacy, nothing to do but work your shift, sleep your shift, work your shift . . . hell!"

  She shoved the last of her clothing ruthlessly into the duffel, slammed a box of booktapes on top, and sealed the carryall with a violence that made Priscilla wince.

  "First mate's a crook; second mate's a rounder . . . here!" She slapped a thick buff envelope into Priscilla's hand.

  The younger woman blinked. "What's this?"

  "Copy of my contract and the buy-out fee—in cantra, as specified. Think I'm gonna let either the first or the second get their paws on it? Cleaned me out good and proper, it has. But no savings and no job is better than one more port o' call on this tub, and that I'll swear to!" She paused and leaned toward the other woman, punctuating her points with stabs of a long forefinger. "You give that envelope to the Trader, girl-o, and let 'im know I'm gone. You got the sense I think you got, you'll hand in your own with it."

  Priscilla shook her head. "I don't have the buy-out, Shelly."

  "But you'd go if you did, eh?" The big woman sighed. "Well, you're forewarned, at least. Can you last 'til the run's over, girl?"

  "It's only another six months, Standard." She touched the other woman's arm. "I'll be fine."

  "Hmmph." Shelly shouldered her bag and took the two strides necessary to get her from cot to door. In the hall, she turned again. "Take care of yourself, then, girl-o. Sorry we didn't meet in better times."

  "Take care, Shelly," Priscilla responded. It seemed that she was hovering on the edge of something else, but the other woman had turned and was stomping off, shoulders rounded and head bent in mute protest of the short ceiling.

  Priscilla turned in the opposite direction—toward the Trader's room—her own head slightly bent. She was not tall as Terrans went, and the ceiling was a good three inches above her curls; there just seemed something about Daxflan that demanded bowed heads.

  Nonsense, she told herself firmly, rounding the corner by the shuttlebay.

  But it wasn't nonsense. All that Shelly had said was true—and more. To be Terran was to be a second-class citizen on Daxflan, with quarters beyond the cargo holds and meals served half-cold in a cafeteria rigged out of what had once been a storage pod. The Trader didn't speak Terran at all, though the captain had a few words, and issued his orders in abrupt Trade unburdened with such niceties as "please" and "thank you."

  Priscilla sighed. She had served with Liadens on other trade ships, though never on a Liaden ship. She wondered if conditions were the same on all of them. Her thoughts went back to Shelly, who had sworn she would never serve on another Liaden ship; though Shelly had done okay until the Healer had left two ports ago, to be replaced by a simple robotic medkit. That move had been called temporary. "More Liaden lies!" she had said. "They're liars. All liars!"

  The first mate was a crook and the second a rounder—whatever, Priscilla amended, a rounder was. Liaden and Terran, respectively, and as alike as if the same mother had borne them.

  Perhaps, Priscilla thought, the Trader only hired a certain type of person to serve him. She wondered what that said about Priscilla Mendoza, so eager for a berth as cargo master that she had not stopped first to look about her. Yet she had been eager. In a mere ten years she had gone from Food Service Technician—which meant little more than scullery maid—to General Crew, and then into cargo handling. Among her goals was a pilot's certificate, though certainly there was no hope for furthering that aim while on Daxflan.

  The Trader's room was locked; no voice bade her enter when she laid her hand against the plate. So, then. She shook her head as the 1100 bell rang. She would be short of sleep this shift.

  The captain, she decided, would do as well. She continued down the hall toward the bridge, then paused, hearing voices to her right—a man's, raised in outrage; a woman's, soothin
g.

  Priscilla turned her steps in that direction, Shelly's envelope heavy in her hand.

  The door to the Liaden lounge was open. Heedless, Sav Rid Olanek flung the paper at his cousin, Captain Chelsa yo'Vaade.

  "Denied!" he cried, the High Tongue crackling with rage. "They dare! When all my life I have left this finger free to bear only the ring of a Master of Trade!" He waved gem-laden fingers also at Chelsa, who blinked, automatically cataloging Line-gem, school-gems, Clan-gem among the glittering array of others less important to Sav Rid's melant'i.

  "They say you might reapply, cousin," she offered hesitantly. "You need only wait a Standard."

  "Bah!" Sav Rid cried, as she might have known he would. "Reapply? That for their reapplication!" He snatched the letter back and rent it twice before flinging the pieces away. "They think me unworthy? They shall be schooled. We shall show them, Daxflan and I, how it is a true master of the craft goes about his business!" He turned then, eyes catching on the shadow at the door.

  "You, there!" he snapped in Trade, crossing the room in four of his short strides. "What is it, Mendoza?"

  Priscilla bowed, offering the envelope. "I did not wish to disturb you, sir," she replied in Trade, "but Shelly van Whitkin bade me give you this."

  "So." He tore the envelope open, glanced at the paper with no great interest, and fingered the coin idly before slipping it into his belt.

  One cantra, Priscilla saw, her stomach sinking. A sum so far beyond her resources that it was absurd to consider following Shelly's example. She might, she supposed, jump ship, but the thought of the dishonor attached to such an action cramped her stomach further.

  "You may go, Mendoza," the Trader told her, and she bowed again before turning away. As she stepped into the hallway, she heard him address another comment in High Liaden to Captain yo'Vaade, something about having made a cantra and lost a big mouth to feed.

  Shipyear 32