Korval's Game

by Sharon Lee

  “Weeks, months, years!” Shan intoned, with mock dismay, handing Priscilla her glass.

  “Very likely,” his sister said gravely, though Ren Zel thought he saw the glimmer of her faint smile.

  “Well, in that case, we do what we can to strengthen our spirits. I see a feast has been laid for us, and the only thing that keeps us from enjoying it is Gordy.” Shan raised his glass, silver eyes quizzical over the rim. “Or, shall I say, lack of Gordy?”

  Priscilla smiled. “He’ll be here—soon.”

  The request for entry chime sounded.

  “Or even at once,” Shan said and called, “Come!”

  The door slid away to admit Gordy Arbuthnot, foster-son of Shan and Priscilla, as well as Shan’s true-cousin, on the Terran side.

  “Cousin Nova.” He bowed, correctly, as between kin, and then walked straight up to Ren Zel, face and eyes serious, shoulders, just a little, stiff.

  “Hi, Ren Zel.”

  “Hello, Gordy,” he said, gently, careful of the moods and manners of a halfling. It was not impossible, after all, that Gordy held his cousin Anthora in . . . esteem—and who was Ren Zel dea’Judan to call him a fool?

  “Priscilla says you’re lifemated—truly lifemated—to Anthora. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  The young face relaxed into a smile. “That’s great. I’m really glad.” He bowed, jauntily. “Ge’shada, pilot. I wish you and yours a life of joy.”

  Ren Zel felt tears rise, hid them with his own bow. “My thanks.”

  “And now,” said Shan, “we can eat.”

  ***

  THE MEAL was rather less boisterous than the informal reception, for Nova bore news of yet another kinsman. It seemed that Pat Rin yos’Phelium had not followed protocol in terms of reporting in. Nova was inclined to find this disturbing, and solicited the advice of kin. The conversation turning on where Cousin Pat Rin might most reasonably be supposed to have taken himself, and strategies for finding him, Ren Zel was left to listen, and watch, and grow acquainted with these who were now his family.

  Listening, he reached for his glass—and froze as his ears became filled with a roaring, not unlike wind, and a voice edged with panic rang inside his skull.

  “Ren Zel! I need you!”

  There was a moment of heart-numbing cold, and a sensation not unlike passing through a bank of particularly tenacious fog. Ren Zel shook his head, banishing the mist, and discovered himself kneeling on an icy metal floor. Beside him was Anthora, on hands and knees above a char mark.

  “Ren Zel?” she whispered.

  “Here.” He stood—say, he tried to stand, but the ceiling was too low to allow him to do so in comfort; he must need round his shoulders and duck his head. Uncomfortably bent, he looked around him, taking in the hard silver walls, seeing the bright lines of fire bent and twisted back upon themselves, warped and pale, excepting only the conflagration that streamed from the kneeling woman down into the cold floor, for all the worlds like blood rushing from a wound.

  “Anthora!” He dared to use the mode of Command. “You must stand.”

  “Yes.” Clumsily, she gained her feet, to stand bent as he was, her hair draggled and limp around a face that was shockingly pale.

  “What place is this?” he demanded, moving to her side, crabwise, and slipping an arm around her waist.

  “I don’t know. I—it is drinking me. The walls—they reflect any ripple of power back, at double—quadruple!—strength. I dare not force the door . . .” She made a breathless sound he scarcely recognized as a laugh. “If I could.” She swallowed and pushed her head against his hunched shoulder. She was trembling. He raised a hand and stroked her cold hair.

  “Then we open it another way. There must be a control box . . .” He frowned at the featureless walls, the bitter floor, but all was—

  “There!”

  Anthora stirred, lifted her head a fraction and shook her hair away from her eyes. “Where?”

  “Below the decking, there, do you see?” He released her and hunkered down, studying the various relays and switches in the box below the floor. He felt her hand on his shoulder as she lowered herself beside him, peering.

  “Yes, I see it,” she breathed. “But, beloved, it’s on the other side of the floor.”

  “Hmm,” he said, tracing wires with his eyes. “I believe . . .” He pointed. “Do you see that connection? If that were bent aside, the door would open and we could walk away.”

  “Ren Zel, I cannot reach those elements, and neither can you.” Her voice caught. “We’re going to die.”

  “No.” He spun on a heel, nearly bowling her over. “We are not going to die. Believe it and you do their work for them!”

  For one heartbeat—two—she stared at him, eyes wide. Then, she extended a hand to touch his cheek. “I see. Forgive me, denubia. I’ll not be so fainthearted again.” Her eyes dropped and there was the control box, plainly visible to Ren Zel, and through him, to her. The connection he had pointed out was a fragile thing; why, a cat might bend it aside . . .

  “Yes!” Ren Zel whispered. He bent forward and she lost contact. The floor solidified; her inner vision fogged. She grabbed his shoulder.

  There, beneath the floor plate, the connection. Hooked around the connection were four pearlescent claws adorning a large and rather furry white foot. The foot pulled, down and sideways. The connection bent, twisted—broke.

  Across the tiny silvered room, the door slid open.

  Anthora half-rose, staggered, vision whiting, and felt strong arms around her waist, sweeping her off her feet . . .

  ***

  “RUN!” REN ZEL shouted, his voice already shredded by distance.

  She tucked, and hit the floor of the antechamber rolling. She heard a shout; felt hands on her shoulders and wrenched out of the guard’s grip, slamming into the legs of a chair, the hidden pistol falling into her hand. The guard lunged, trying to grab her; trying to throw her back into the box.

  She fell sideways, and fired point-blank into his face.

  The room was quiet; bird song wafting in the open window. Anthora lay on the floor, her back against the chair legs, retching, unable to escape the sight of the guard’s head exploding, though her eyes were closed.

  Something furry slapped her cheek. She opened her eyes to slits and encountered a familiar furry face very close to her own.

  “Merlin.” Clumsily, she disentangled herself from the chair and clawed her way to her feet. The door leading to the Council Chamber had an ancient mechanical lock on it, which she snapped into place, singing the praises of whichever god or goddess held soundproofing among their honors.

  Door locked, she leaned her back against it, feeling Merlin pressed against her leg. A pleasant breeze informed the room, spiced with the scent of the tripina tree shading the open window. After the draining silver horror of the box, she felt entirely safe and secure here.

  And that, she told herself sternly, is illusion. Look to reality, dramliza!

  Unwillingly she moved from the door; forced herself to approach her former cell, and look within. Empty. That was good. Ren Zel had indeed escaped to safety.

  Which she should do—and that quickly. For surely whoever had set the trap would return to remove it. She attempted a scan; wincing as the din from the Chamber slammed into her abused senses.

  “We must leave,” she whispered. “Merlin . . .”

  But the cat was already moving, purposefully, away from the door to the Council Chambers and the misshapen black box, its door gaping open on horror. Anthora turned her face away and followed, averting her eyes as she edged past the body of the guard.

  Merlin set a brutal pace through the service corridors. She was soaked with sweat and shaking badly by the time they gained the door that opened to the outside. At that, the luck had held; they’d met no one else on their escape route.

  The luck changed when they hit the sidewalk.

  “Wait!” She heard a man’s voice shout, q
uite close at hand. “That’s her!”

  Anthora ran, the sound of pursuit too close behind; caught a glimpse of gray to her right and slightly ahead.

  Dodging respectable pedestrians, she turned a corner, and heard the roar of a familiar motor.

  “Jeeves!”

  The car accelerated, door rising.

  “There she is!” came the shout from behind. Involuntarily, Anthora glanced over her shoulder, saw her two pursuers round the corner, saw the guns in their hands—and the streak of gray, which was Merlin, launching himself, claws extended into the face of the lead gunman.

  Roaring, Jeeves arrived, Anthora threw herself into the open hatchway. “Merlin! Come quickly!”

  The cat leapt—not for the safe haven, but for the second gunman. He hit the man’s shoulder, claws sunk deep.

  “Merlin!” Anthora screamed, acceleration pressing her into the seat. The door began to drop. “No! Jeeves, we cannot leave Merlin!”

  Implacably, the door fell, locked; the car surged forward, braked, back end swinging ’round and they were hurtling forward into the everyday traffic of a Solcintran afternoon, considerably exceeding the public safety speed, leaving her pursuers, and a large gray cat, behind.

  Anthora began to cry.

  ***

  “RUN!” HE SHOUTED. “The door is open!”

  Gasping, he fell, his shoulder slamming against the hard floor, his vision a chaos of images, overlain by fiery threads. He concentrated, saw her hit the floor rolling, as a pilot would, gun in hand as she fired and—and lost that image entirely, replaced by a bright-lit room and the unmistakable taste of ship’s air. An arm came ’round his shoulders, easing him up; a squeeze bottle was forced into his hand.

  “Drink,” said Priscilla Mendoza. “Electrolytes.”

  He managed to get the bottle to his lips, squeezed a healthy mouthful and swallowed with a shudder. He felt the vile stuff hit his stomach, mixing uneasily with dinner and terror.

  “Easy.” Priscilla’s hand was firm and sisterly on his shoulder; squinting through the haze of golden lines, he made out Nova standing above him; purple eyes holding an emotion he identified as astonishment.

  “Drink again,” Priscilla told him. “Then food.”

  “And at some point, when you feel it proper,” said Nova, “you will tell us what just happened to you.”

  “Nova, let be,” Shan said sternly, from beyond Ren Zel’s vision.

  “Let be? Did he or did he not sit there—frozen and scarcely breathing—for the best part of half-an-hour? Does he have these fits often? I wonder what will go forth, should he have one at the board.”

  “Nova . . .” A clear warning note, there.

  Ren Zel finished the stuff in the squeeze bottle, concentrated and set it carefully on the floor. He looked up into Priscilla’s face, squinting a little to bring her into focus among all the pulsating golden threads . . .

  “Better?” she asked.

  “There is a device,” he said, “that eats dramliz.”

  Her face hardened. “There have been several such, throughout history.”

  “This one is new,” he told her. “It—they caught Anthora.”

  “What?” Nova drew nearer. “Anthora is at Jelaza Kazone. Not even she would be so shattered-brained as to—”

  “Wait.” He held up a hand, agitated. “Wait, I . . .” He closed his eyes, and memory flowed.

  “The Council—Korval is called to answer—to answer for kinstealing, for murder—and dea’Gauss—dea’Gauss is missing, and he has hidden the dies. They asked her to wait in a Clerk’s room and the trap—the trap was there.”

  “In a room off the Council Chamber?” That was Shan again, his voice as serious as Ren Zel had ever heard it. “Sister, if the Council itself is hunting us, I doubt the delm’s wisdom in returning to Liad.”

  “We must,” Nova said, but she hardly sounded certain. “At least to orbit—but Anthora is a prisoner!”

  “No, she’s not,” Priscilla said coolly. “The door was open—you heard him say so.”

  “The door opened,” he agreed. “But I could not stay with her. I do not know . . .” It came to him that he might use those glowing lines of power to his own ends. He might, in fact, go back to her, stand at her side and work with her to the destruction of their enemies. He—

  “Gently, friend,” Shan said, dropping into his range of vision in a veritable burst of gold. “You have done much this hour. Eat first.” He held out a sandwich. Ren Zel took it, suddenly ravenous, despite the food he had already eaten, and wolfed it in three bites. A second sandwich appeared and he accorded it the same treatment, then drained the glass of tea that came after.

  He sighed. “I am glad,” he murmured, “to find the gridwork so strong here. Inside the box, one could hardly see the threads, and those that could be seen were pale and fragmented.”

  There was a pause.

  “You of course,” Nova said to Priscilla—or possibly to Shan, “know what he is talking about.”

  “Not . . . entirely.” Priscilla cleared her throat. “Ren Zel, what threads are these?”

  He blinked up at her, seeing the lines so crowded about her that she fairly shone.

  “Why, the lines,” he said, somewhat baffled, for surely she could see them, dramliza that she was? “The lines that tie everything together.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Those lines.” She exchanged a glance with her lifemate.

  “Can you see these . . . lines?” demanded Nova.

  “No,” Priscilla said, still soft. “No, I can’t. But I have it on the authority of those who can that they do indeed exist and perform exactly the function Ren Zel describes.”

  “The only difficulty,” he said, in an effort to be as clear as possible, and not in any way to complain, “is that they are so plentiful and vibrant here that it is difficult to see beyond them to—to everyday things. I fear that I might put my teacup down on a line and have it smash against the floor . . .”

  “Now that,” said Shan, “I can help with.” He leaned forward and held up a broad brown finger. “Focus on my finger, if you please—no, not that way—use your outer eyes! Look as nearly as you like, but only at my finger.”

  After a brief struggle, he was able to manage it—and felt something click, as if a relay had snapped into place. The lines of power vanished from his awareness and the totality of the captain’s office snapped into being.

  He sighed, as did Nova yos’Galan.

  “Dramliza?” she said.

  “There was never any doubt,” Shan said, rising and reaching a hand down to Ren Zel. “Up you go, Pilot.”

  ***

  THE CAR FISHTAILED ’round a corner, and fled down an alleyway at a speed that was far from considerate of human sensibilities—even when the human in question was a pilot.

  Anthora had long since stopped crying, and now sat, tense, her hands fisted on her lap. Four times had Jeeves struck out for Jelaza Kazone. Four times, they had been blocked, and nearly surrounded, hounded back into the city.

  “Go to the port,” she said quietly.

  “Ms. Anthora, you are Korval’s presence on Liad.” The robot’s voice was shockingly calm as the car careered madly down an alleyway, and swung into another, more narrow, speed, if anything, increasing.

  “If you leave Liad, Korval’s claim to its material goods and properties is forfeit.”

  “Go to the port,” she repeated. “I abandon nothing.”

  There was a pause—short for her, long for Jeeves—then a respectful. “Yes, I see. The port.”

  Even traveling at speed and with stealth, they arrived at Binjali’s barely ahead of their pursuers.

  Anthora had dared one call, and Master Trilla was expecting them. The gate began to open as they came into the approach, and closed after them with a clang. Jeeves gunned the motor, fair flying down the yard to the singleship on its hotpad and the woman in working leathers standing by.

  The door rose, and Anthora
leaned forward.

  “Go,” she told the robot. “Leave the car.”

  “Yes,” said Jeeves.

  The control panel went dark as the car rolled to a serene stop. Anthora stepped out onto the tarmac and inclined her head.

  “Master Trilla.”

  “Anthora,” Binjali’s owner said, in her outworld accent. “Ship’s ready when you are.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Be warned. They are directly behind us.”

  Trilla grinned, feral. “We’ve some surprises, never fear it. Go on, now. Good lift.”

  “Safe landing,” Anthora returned properly, and entered the ship.

  The ship rose swiftly, breaking a dozen regs in the first six seconds of flight. Grimly, Anthora flew on, ignoring the outraged demands of the Tower, flying by hand, so there was nothing to spill and be captured by Korval’s enemy.

  Up, up, very nearly straight up, then a sharp roll, and down, as swiftly as she dared, not quite a scout descent, not quite—but swift enough, as the luck willed it.

  In her screens was the Tree, rapidly growing to enormity. The house screens were active, a blue crackle along the edge of her inner vision. She keyed the short sequence in, sent along the pirate band.

  The blue crackle died, the ship fell through and she slammed on the retros, fighting gravity now—and winning, as the singleship touched nicely down in the center Jelaza Kazone’s formal public gardens.

  ***

  IT HAD BEEN a grand and busy several days of transit; so busy that Hazenthull Explorer had been able to immerse herself in the various learnings of language and custom—and forget for long hours together that the senior was dead. And why.

  But it came at last that Commander Angela-call-me-Liz Lizardi, to whom the troop had been detached for this portion of the venture, had ordered them to ready themselves for departure. Reluctantly, Hazenthull folded away her studies, found Diglon Rifle in the rec hall listening, with four tens other of the merc common troop, to the turtle Sheather tell of his campaign against the Juntavas upon the world called Shaltren.

  Returned to the quarters they kept in common, Diglon set about an efficient and orderly weapons check. Hazenthull undertook the same, and likewise made a review of the plan as they had been allowed to know it.