Korval's Game

by Sharon Lee

  His duty plainly lay in the direction of Erob. Some explanations must, in courtesy, be made to the delm of Korval’s oldest ally, and yet . . .

  Music tingled in his fingertips, awakened by his brief playing for the beacon. Surely, he might steal ten minutes to set the rest of the music free?

  Slowly, knowing that duty called him elsewhere, yet unable to resist the lure of a concert-quality instrument perfectly set in a room tuned for its unique voice, he went to the omnichora, sat on the bench and pressed the power plate.

  ***

  The wall he faced over the omnichora was mirrored.

  Val Con sighed, recalling the revulsion on several faces last night, despite the courtesy due a guest; wondering if he should have followed tel’Vosti’s hint and had the scar canceled.

  The scar was there for a reason, after all; he might have had the autodoc erase the wretched thing anytime during their voyage from Vandar. He had chosen to allow it to remain, a constant and sometimes painful reminder of the wages of foolishness.

  “No more than you traded for, young sir.” He heard Uncle Er Thom’s dry reproval in his mind’s ear, and half-smiled in agreement.

  It would be another matter entirely, he told himself, fingers adjusting stops and frequencies, had the cut failed to heal—or if one’s lifemate objected to the mar. But the wound was clean, as he had told tel’Vosti, and Miri made no objection.

  “No call,” Uncle Er Thom’s voice instructed him from memory, “to concern yourself with the comfort of non-kin. Korval acts upon its own necessities. Let others mind their melant’i.”

  “Yes, uncle,” he murmured, and touched the keyboard, softly playing the cool and logical line of his uncle’s musical signature, that the boy Val Con had composed many years ago. His ear caught a possibility in the old theme and he played on half-aware, letting his fingers find what they might.

  Let others mind their own melant’i. An old lesson, that; among the first. One kept one’s own care close, for clan, for servants, for kin . . . Val Con’s fingers faltered on the keys.

  Shan would be here—soon.

  Shan was his cha’leket, the brother of his heart. Shan might well mind the scar. Might well mind other things, truth told; things that would distress one who had helped a green-eyed fosterling grow. That would surely distress one who was a Healer and able to see what was now that fosterling’s soul.

  The Department of Interior . . . the Department of Interior had done much damage, severed memories, stolen home, love, music, mother—“. . . our mother,” Shan’s voice said from years gone. “Your mother’s gone, but you can share mine, all right?”

  Our mother . . . Anne Davis: chestnut hair, merry dark eyes, clever hands, scented with bound books and flowers; wide-hipped and full-breasted, as many Terran women; full with laughter and passion and more than enough love for the children of the house—her own three and the child of her lifemate’s cha’leket. She had taught him to play the ’chora, taught him his letters—Terran and Trade—wiped tears, comforted child-woes and halfling griefs, shared out justice and kisses, rejoiced with him when he was accepted to Scout Academy—

  And the Department of Interior had stolen her.

  “My kinswoman . . .” He recalled his own voice, telling Miri—a Miri nearly lost, gods; wary-faced and distrusting, as she had very good cause to be. “My kinswoman—” without feeling, without even such a memory as flashed now, of big, warm hands holding his, shaping tiny fingers above the keyboard.

  His right hand dandled True Scale as his left rose to adjust stops. Both hands centered above the keyboard, and at once came down, with sure authority, sweeping headlong into the Toccata.

  It allowed much, as great music does, endless opportunity for variation and lessons from one’s own fingers being among the chiefest of its joys. But their mother had loved it for its own sake, as well, and he played it that way now, as he had for Shan, while memories, suppressed and twisted and made strange—repulsive—by intent of his enemies, loosened and flowed and touched him true, until he closed his eyes and gave himself to the music and the remembering and didn’t even know if he wept.

  The music reached a natural end, as music will, and his fingers went still upon the keys. After a moment, it occurred to him that he was no longer alone in Erob’s music room and he opened his eyes.

  “Hi,” she said from her perch on the polished curve of a listening-stool. Her hair was braided today; he saw the copper length of it gleaming down her back in the mirror. She was dressed in a rich yellow shirt and soft trousers the color of Shan’s favorite wine—proper attire for an extended session with the clan historian. She leaned forward, eyes intent. “You OK?”

  “I believe so.” He took a breath and smiled. “Yes.”

  “Good.” She shifted on the stool. “Came to tell you that I got a break from the question-and-answer bit. Historian says he’ll see me for more after lunch. Not bloody likely, ’cause I already got a headache with remembering stuff that happened when I was three years old and would’ve sworn yesterday that I didn’t know anything about.” She stood abruptly.

  “I’m going down to the merc camp and see if I can’t find the ’falks—maybe Jase.” She bit her lip, and he listened to the song of her that played inside his head, hearing the thin notes of exhaustion, and a certain wistful sadness.

  “I know you don’t think much of Jase,” Miri was saying; “and you got no call to love the Gyrfalks. Folks here seem to appreciate them a bit though—” she chewed her lip again, and the chords of her song strengthened and clarified—“But you’re welcome to walk that way with me, if you want to.”

  “I want to,” said Val Con, touching the ‘chora’s power-down and standing. He smiled at her, relieved to see her return smile burn away the wariness in her eyes. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  ***

  “When do you think your brother’ll get here?”

  Val Con laughed softly. “Weary of being clan-bound so soon, Miri?”

  She’d been squinting up into the bright sky, as if she might see the Passage; now she transferred the squint to him.

  “Means you don’t know,” she surmised. “This mind reading stuff don’t seem very efficient.”

  “Alas. I was offered use of the House’s pin-beam so that an answer to when? might be achieved quickly. Unfortunately, one must know the position of the beam’s target, and Shan has all the galaxy at his beck—and hyperspace, as well.”

  “Pin-beams’re expensive,” Miri commented.

  “Erob may not consider it so, weighed in balance.”

  “That eager to get rid of us, huh?” She shook her head at him, mock stern. “You got some reputation among the home-folks, Liaden. And to think I was worried about wrecking your melant’i.”

  He laughed and swept a sudden bow—from lesser to greater, as she read it. “Had I not said that it was your own melant’i would carry us?”

  She grinned and took his hand, and they walked across the fragrant, sun-warmed grass.

  “Talked to tel’Vosti a bit while I was waiting for the historian to show,” she said, slanting an idle glance at his face. “Said he knew your father real well.”

  The pattern of him inside her head flashed and tightened. “So, it seems that all of Erob knew my father,” he snapped.

  “Huh?” She stopped, yanking him to a halt, and frowned up into his face. “There something wrong with that?”

  His pattern snarled and an acid wash of frustrated pain cramped her belly, so that she dropped his hand and half-cried out in astonishment.

  “Miri!” His hands were around her waist, easing her down to sit on the grass. “Cha’trez?”

  Worry was added to the emotional hash, mixing badly with the pain and the anger.

  “You’re hurting me,” she gasped, eyes closed as she groped for him inside her head. “Stop it, boss—the pattern . . .”

  Shock turned her icy, and the next instant she was the eye of a color-storm—redyelloworangegreenblu
eviolet—as the Rainbow whipped ’round her, and some unknown inner sense registered the near sound of a door opening—and closing.

  Stillness, within and without.

  “Gods.” She let out a shuddering breath, tipping forward in controlled collapse until her forehead touched her knee. “Gods, gods, gods.” She sat up and opened her eyes.

  Val Con sat cross-legged before her, hands loosely cupping his knees. “Is the pain gone, Miri?” His voice was as calm as his pattern.

  “Gone,” she agreed and licked her lips. “What was that?”

  Puzzlement shadowed his eyes. “I am without information. If you could describe the phenomenon, we might achieve understanding.”

  “Right.” She frowned. “Told you that tel’Vosti had known your father, and you got pissed—saw your pattern—cramp up, kinda. And when I asked you what was wrong with that I was all of a sudden furious—frustrated—like I’d been banging my head against the same brick wall for years and wasn’t any closer to busting through . . .” She sighed and reached over to take his hand, looking into his eyes worriedly.

  “Seems like I must’ve gotten it straight from you, somehow,” she said slowly. “Wasn’t really that the pattern was hurting me.”

  “Ah.” His fingers tightened around hers. “And you have never experienced this before?”

  “No . . .” She shifted a little, thinking. “But I never did anything like I did last night before, either—just reaching out and touching the pattern. Never occurred to me. Maybe I got—sensitized—or something.”

  There was a small silence before he said, “Or perhaps Priscilla, who is after all dramliza, might have done—something—to me by way of insuring that I might hear Shan.”

  Miri blinked thoughtfully. “Something to that, ain’t there? You can’t tell—naw, I guess not.”

  “I—felt—despair and distress coming from you at the Winterfair,” Val Con said softly. “But it was clearly emanating from you. I did not experience your emotions as my own.” A faint wisp of something like hunger escaped him and Miri chuckled, squeezing his hand.

  “Just as well—but you’re talking emergency situation. Maybe that’s the tip-off. Some kind of emergency hooked up with your father?”

  Val Con sighed and lifted a hand to stroke the hair out of his eyes. “Only that he lost his lifemate—my mother—to assassins and, after taking Delm’s Counsel, left his clan and his heir in the hands of his brother Er Thom, and went off into the wide galaxy, seeking Balance.”

  “And never sent word back,” Miri finished, and shook her head. “Bad business, tel’Vosti said.”

  “tel’Vosti is more correct than he knows,” Val Con murmured. “The options revealed by Delm’s Counsel were a war with the Terran Party, who had employed the assassin . . .”

  “Which would mean a war with Terra.” Miri frowned. “Bad choice.”

  “My father thought so, as well. So he took the second option, which was slower, and less sure, but, if it worked, more fruitful.” He sighed. “Or so it says in Korval’s Diaries. The plan itself is not detailed.” He glanced away; caught her eyes again.

  “Tradition is, should an individual be estranged for twelve years, he is considered dead to the clan and the date of his desertion recorded as a date of death. Traditionally, the head of line announces the death and makes the notation.”

  Miri touched his cheek. “You didn’t do that.”

  “Daav yos’Phelium is eklykt’i,” Val Con said, coming smoothly to his feet and offering her his hand. “Momentarily beyond the clan. Korval’s records show nothing else.”

  Jason Carmody walked down East Axis, an island of blonde quiet among the noisy, purposeful bustle going on all around.

  Every so often, Jase turned aside to talk to this one or that; on two occasions he ducked inside half-dismantled tech-sheds to supervise some particularly tricksy bit of equipment balancing. Merc Center would be stripped down to dirt by this time tomorrow. Dawn the day after would find only torn meadowlands and a network of synthphalt service roads, already crumbling back to sand.

  Jase ducked out into the sunlight and stood, techs and troops flowing around him like a dusty leather river, staring at nothing in particular and gently stroking his beard.

  Eight days to Fendor, if the transport was on time. It had been known to happen. More often it wasn’t, but the Gyrfalks had another contract pending, so they’d paid a premium for a guaranteed pick-up. Sometimes that worked. In the meantime, Suzuki and the spec-team were on their way to negotiations, leaving Jason, the tyros, and the low-ranks to break camp and tidy up.

  Jase sighed and shook his massive frame into motion, going with the flow down East Axis until it intersected with Command Way, where he turned off, heading for his quarters.

  “Jase!” The voice from behind was familiar, but not urgently so. Jason checked his stride unwillingly, half-minded to go on.

  “Jase!” the voice persisted. “Jason Carmody!”

  He sighed and turned, hoping the problem wasn’t going to be too time-consuming and scanning the scurrying crowd, looking for a face to match the voice.

  “Jason.”

  She was a mere four of his paces before him, a red-haired Liaden woman in a yellow shirt and burgundy trousers, comfortable boots, belt, pouch, no apparent gun. Her hair was single-braided and fell below the holsterless belt. A man stood at her right shoulder. Jase flicked him a look, established that he was Liaden, too—scar across the right cheek, dark hair, no gun—before bowing to the woman.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said in respectful Trade, cudgeling his brain to recall which of Clan Erob she precisely was. “What can I do for you?”

  The woman blinked, flashed a quick glance at her companion and drifted a step closer. Something in the way she moved sparked a flicker of deeper recognition, gone even as he fumbled for it.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Jason?” she demanded in Terran. “Tell me I can come back anytime I want, then forget what I look like inside of a year?”

  “Redhead?” Jason very nearly goggled, at last seeing past the disguise of rich clothes to the lithe, familiar body, the sharp face and dark gray eyes. He fell to his knees, which put him only a head or so taller than she, and flung his arms wide.

  “Gods love us all, my darlin’!” he cried. “Come and give Jason a kiss!”

  ***

  “Yes, but darlin’,” Jason was saying, handing kynak all around in the privacy of his quarters, “if you and Tough Guy was comin’ to Lytaxin anyway, why not just come with us in the first case? We’d have saved you a good bit of time.”

  Miri lifted a shoulder and flashed a grin at her partner, who was perched on the arm of her chair. “Had a spot of trouble to clear up first.”

  “Spot o’trouble, indeed!” Jase sprawled on the thick rug, taking up most of the available floor space, and braced his wide shoulders against the side of a wooden chest, the delicate hand carvings just visible through the mars of rough travel. He waved a massive hand in Val Con’s direction. “You didn’t have that facial decoration last time I saw you, did you, my lad?”

  Val Con considered him out of bland green eyes. “No.”

  “Wouldn’t’ve thought there was much out there fast enough to touch you,” Jason persisted. “Polesta still ain’t recovered from that little love tap you gave her. Actually heard her say ‘please’ to the muster-clerk this morning. Enough to give a man religion.”

  Miri laughed. “Make a soldier outta her yet. How’d the campaign go? When you shipping out?”

  “The angels won,” Jase said comfortably; “and the employer was prompt with regard to the fee. Paid in full, yes, indeed, and due to ship out tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Miri’s shoulders sagged; and Val Con shifted slightly to press against her.

  “Now, now, my small, take heart. You know what transport pilots are: why book three runs when six’re offered? They’re bound to make at least two on time.”

  She laughed and sip
ped a little of her drink, laugh turning to a gasp and half-choke.

  “A little out of the way of it, darlin’?”

  She managed a grin and shook her head. “Been drinking wine lately. ‘When on Maris. . .’”

  “‘Drink what they offer’,” Jase finished and knocked back a quarter of his glass. “Only too true. About this other thing, though; you know we’re not throwing you to the beasties. Sign back up where you belong and there’s a place on the transport with your name on it. Suzuki and me’re still wanting to give you that lieutenant’s badge . . .”

  “Yeah, well . . .” She sighed, not daring to look at Val Con. “Thing is, we just got here yesterday and there’s some stuff I still gotta do, being as they’re my clan and all . . .”

  Jason stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. “Who’s your clan, Redhead?”

  “Umm—people up at the house.”

  “What!” Jase sat up straight, hitting his head a solid whack on the overhanging chest-top. “What house—the big house? Erob’s house?”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Yeah.”

  Jase slapped his thigh. “I knew they were right ’uns! The old lady with the ring—damn me if I didn’t think she was familiar the first time I saw her!” He suddenly seemed to do a double take. “That is your clan, Redhead? Eh? Not your partner’s?”

  “My clan,” Val Con told him softly, “has its seat upon Liad.”

  “Mine,” Miri said, half-grinning. “Late-breaking news, appalling everybody from the delm down, except maybe Alys and tel’Vosti.”

  “The General? You could easily do worse by way of relatives. The General’s worth all four of my uncles—with a grand-dame thrown in! And young Alys shoots like a trooper. I wish I had a tyro as sharp with a yessir as she is!” He slid back down against the chest and had another slug of kynak.

  “But you haven’t said what you’ve been about, my small, besides the clearing up of business.”

  “Well, let’s see . . . Got into it a bit with the Juntavas—their mistake, really—but I guess that’s all straightened out by now. Spent some time, ummm,” here she glanced at Val Con for a moment, “out of touch, sort of. Little bit of action there. Worked some odd jobs, did some singing and celebrating . . .”