The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  The hour bell sounded and Vil Tor hurriedly swallowed the last of his tea as he pushed back from the table.

  “Alas, duty,” he murmured. “Gaenor—”

  She waved a hand. “Yes, with delight. But, go now, dear friend. Stint not.”

  He smiled at that, and touched Jethri on the shoulder as he passed. “Until soon, Jethri. Be well.”

  Across the table, Gaenor yawned daintily. “I fear I must desert you, as well, my friend. Have the most enjoyable visit possible, eh? I look forward to hearing every detail, when you are returned to us.”

  She slipped out of her chair and gathered her empties together, and, like Vil Tor, touched him on the shoulder as she left him. “Until soon, Jethri.”

  “Until soon, Gaenor.”

  He sat there a little while longer, alone. His dinner wasn’t quite eaten, but he wasn’t quite hungry. Back at quarters, he had packing to do, and some bit of sleep to catch on his own, his regular shift having been adjusted in order to accommodate a morning arrival, dirt-side. Wouldn’t do to show stupid in front of Master ven’Deelin’s foster mother. Not when he was a son of the house and all.

  Sighing, and not entirely easy in his stomach, he gathered up the considerable remains of his meal, fed the recycler and mooched off toward quarters, the fractin jigging between his fingers.

  DAY 139

  Standard Year 1118

  Irikwae

  IRIKWAE WAS HEAVY, hot and damp. The light it received from its primary was a merciless blare that stabbed straight through the eyes and into the skull, where the brain immediately took delivery of a headache.

  Jethri closed his eyes, teeth clenched, despite being only inches away from a port street full of vehicles, all moving at insane velocity on trajectories that had clearly been plotted with suicide in mind.

  “Tch!” said Master ven’Deelin. “Where have my wits gone? A moment, my child.”

  Through slitted eyes, he watched her bustle back into the office they had just quit. In the street, the traffic roared on. Jethri closed his eyes again, feeling the sun heating his scalp. The damp air carried a multitude of scents, none of them pleasant, and he began to hope they’d find that Master ven’Deelin’s friend wasn’t to home, so they could go back to Elthoria today.

  “Here you are, my son. Place these over your eyes, if you will.”

  Jethri opened his eyes to slits, saw a tiny hand on which a big purple ring glittered holding a pair of black-lensed spectacles under his nose. He took them, hooked the curved earpieces over his ears, settled the nosepiece.

  The street was just like it had been before he put the glasses on, except that the brutal sunlight had been cut by a factor of ten. He sighed and opened his eyes wider.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You are welcome,” she replied, and he saw that she wore a similar pair of glasses. “I only wish I had recalled beforetime. Have you a headache?”

  It had faded considerably; still . . .

  “A bit,” he owned. “The glasses are a help.”

  “Good. Let us then locate our car—aha!—it arrives.”

  And a big green car was pulling up to the curb before them. It stopped, its driver oblivious to the horns of the vehicles in line behind—or maybe, Jethri thought, she was deaf. Whichever, the back door rose and Master ven’Deelin took his arm, urging him forward.

  The inside of the car was cool, and dim enough that he dared to slip his glasses down his nose, then off entirely, smiling at the polarized windows, while keeping his eyes off the machinery hurtling by. Prudently, he slipped the glasses into the pocket of his jacket.

  “Anecha,” Master ven’Deelin called into the empty air, as the car pulled away from the walk and accelerated heedlessly into the rushing traffic, “is it you?”

  “Would I allow anyone else to fetch you?” came the answer, from the grid set into the door. “It has been too many years, Lady. The delm is no younger, you know.”

  “Nor am I. Nor am I. And we must each to our duty, which leaves us too little time to pursue that for which our hearts care.”

  “So we are all fortunate,” commented the voice from the grid, “that your heart cares so well for the trade.”

  Master ven’Deelin laughed.

  “Look now, my son,” she said, turning to him and directing his attention through the friendly windows. “There is the guildhall, and just beyond the Trade Bar. After you are settled at the house, you must tour the bazaar. I think you will find Irikwae to be something unique in the way of ports.”

  Jethri’s stomach was beginning to register complaints about the motion and the speed. He breathed, slow and deep, concentrating on keeping breakfast where it belonged, and let her words flow by him.

  Suddenly, the car braked, swung to the right—and the traffic outside the window was less, and more moderately paced. The view was suddenly something other than port—tile-fronted buildings heavily shaded by the trailing branches of tall, deeply green vegetation.

  “Rubiata City,” Master ven’Deelin murmured. He glanced at her and she smiled. “Soon, we shall be home.”

  “AWAKEN, MY CHILD, we are arrived.” The soft voice was accompanied by a brisk tap on his knee.

  Jethri blinked, straightened, and blinked again. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must’ve, he thought—the view outside the windows was entirely changed.

  There was no city. The land fell away on either side of the car and rose up again in jagged teeth of grayish blue rock; on and on it went, and there, through the right window and far below—a needle glint which must be—could it be?—the port tower.

  Jethri gasped, his hand went out, automatically seeking a grab-bar—and found warm fingers instead.

  “Peace,” Norn ven’Deelin said, in her awful Terran. “No danger is there here, Jethri. We come up into the home of my heart.”

  Her fingers were unexpectedly strong, gripping him tightly.

  “All is well. The mountains are friendly. I promise you will find them so, eh? Eh?”

  He swallowed and forced himself to look away from the wide spaces and dangerous walls—to look at her face.

  The black eyes held his. “Good. No danger. Say to me.”

  “No danger,” he repeated, obedient, if breathless.

  She smiled slightly. “And soon will you believe it. Never have you seen mountains?”

  He shook his head. “I—the port. There’s no use us going out into—” He swallowed again, engaging in a brief battle of wills with his stomach. “I’m ship-born, ma’am. We learn not to look at the open sky. It makes us—some of us—uncomfortable.”

  “Ah.” Her fingers tightened, then she released him, and smiled. “Many wonders await you, my son.”

  THEY HAD PASSED BETWEEN high pillars of what looked to be the local blue rock, smoothed and regularized into rectangles. Afterward, the view out the window was of lawns, interrupted now and then by groups of middle tall plants. Gaenor’s descriptions of the pleasant things she missed from her home led him to figure that the groups scratched an artistic itch. If this lawn had been done the way Gaenor thought was proper, then there’d be some vantage point overlooking the whole, where the pattern could be seen all at once.

  The car took a long curve, more lawn sweeping by the windows, then came to a smooth halt, broadside to a long set of stairs cut from the blue rock.

  The doors came up, admitting a blare of unpolarized sunlight and an unexpectedly cool breeze, bearing scents both mysterious and agreeable.

  Master ven’Deelin patted him on the knee.

  “Come along, young Jethri! We are arrived!”

  She fairly leapt out of the vehicle. Jethri paused long enough to put the black glasses on, then followed rather more slowly.

  Outside, Master ven’Deelin was in animated conversation with a gray-haired woman dressed in what looked to be formal uniform—their driver, maybe . . . Anecha, he reminded himself, mindful of Uncle Paitor’s assertion that a successful trader worked at keep
ing name and face on file in the brainbox—which was, by coincidence, a point Master tel’Ondor also made.

  So—Anecha the driver. He’d do better to find her last name, but for now he could get away with “Master Anecha” if he was called upon to do the polite. Not that that looked likely any time in the near present, the way her and Master ven’Deelin were jawing.

  Deliberately keeping his eyes on objects nearby—no need to embarrass Master ven’Deelin or himself with another widespaces panic—he moved his gaze up the stony steps, one at a time, until all at once, there was house at the tiptop, posed like a fancy on the highest tier of one of Dyk’s sillier cakes.

  Up it went, three levels, four—rough blue rock, inset with jewel-colored windows. There was greenery climbing the rock walls: vines heavy with white, waxy flowers, that swayed in the teasing breeze.

  Nearer at hand, he heard his name and brought his eyes hurriedly down from the heights, to find Master ven’Deelin at his right hand.

  “Anecha will see to our luggage,” she said, with a sweep of her hand that encompassed both stair and house. “Let us ascend.”

  Ascend they did—thirty-six stone steps, one after the other, at a pace somewhat brisker than he would have chosen for himself, Master ven’Deelin bouncing along beside like gravity had nothing to do with her.

  They did pause at the top, Jethri sucking air deep into his lungs and wishing that Liadens didn’t considered it impolite for a spacer to mop his face in public.

  “You must see this,” Master ven’Deelin said, putting her hand on his arm. “Turn about, my child.”

  Panting, Jethri turned about.

  What he didn’t do—he didn’t throw himself face down on the deck and cover his head with his arms, nor even go down on his knees and set up a yell for Seeli.

  He did go back a step, breath throttling in his throat, and had the native sense to bring his eyes down, away from the arcing empty pale sky and the unending march of rock and peak—down to the long stretch of green lawn, which outrageous open space was nothing less than homey by comparison with the horror of the sky.

  So—the lawn, and the clumps of bushes, swimming before his tearing eyes, and suddenly, the random clumps weren’t random, but the necessary parts of a larger picture showing a common cat, folded in and poised on the feet, ready to jump.

  Jethri remembered to breathe. Remembered to look to Master ven’Deelin and incline his head, politely.

  “You approve?” she murmured, her head tipped a little to a side.

  “It is—quite a work,” he managed, shamelessly swiping Master tel’Ondor’s phrase. He cleared his throat. “Is the hunting cat the sign of the house?”

  Her eyebrows lifted.

  “An excellent guess,” she said. “Alas, that I must disappoint you. The sign of the house is a grapevine, heavy with fruit. However, several of the revered Maarilex ancestors bred cats as an avocation. The breed is well-established now, and no more to do with Tarnia, save that there are usually cats in the house. And the sculpture, of course.” She inclined her head, gravely. “Well done, Jethri. Now, let us announce ourselves.”

  She turned back to the door, and Jethri did, keeping his eyes low. He had the understanding that he’d just passed a test—or even two—and wished that he felt less uncertain on his legs. All that openness, and not a wall or a corridor or an avenue to confine it. He shuddered.

  Facing the door was a relief, and it took an active application of will not to lean his head against the vermillion wood. As it happened, that was a smart move, because the door came open all at once, snatched back into the house by a boy no older than ten Standards, Jethri thought—and then revised that estimate down as the kid bowed, very careful, hand over heart, and lisped, “Who requests entry?”

  Master ven’Deelin returned the bow with an equal measure of care. “Norn ven’Deelin Clan Ixin is come to make her bow to her foster mother, who has the honor to be Tarnia. I bring with me my apprentice and foster son.”

  The kid’s eyes got round and he bowed even lower, a trifle ragged, to Jethri’s eye, and stepped back, sweeping one arm wide.

  “Be welcome in our house, Norn ven’Deelin Clan Ixin. Please follow. I will bring you to a parlor and inform the delm of your presence.”

  “We are grateful for the care of the House,” Master ven’Deelin murmured, stepping forward.

  They followed the kid across an entry chamber floored with the blue stone, polished to a high gloss, from which their boot heels woke stony echoes, then quieted, as they crossed into a carpeted hallway. A dozen steps down the carpet, their guide paused before an open door and bowed.

  “The delm comes. Please, be at ease in our house.”

  The parlor was smallish—maybe the size of Master ven’Deelin’s office on Elthoria—its walls covered in what Jethri took to be pale blue silk. The floor was the same vermillion wood as the front door, and an oval rug figured in pale blue and white lay in the center, around which were situated two upholstered chairs—pale blue—a couch—white—and a low table of white wood. Against the far wall stood a wine table of the same white wood, bottles racked in three rows of six. The top was a polished slab of the local stone, on which half-a-dozen glasses stood, ready to be filled.

  “Clan Tarnia makes wine?” he asked Master ven’Deelin, who was standing beside one of the blue chairs, hands tucked into her belt, watching him like he was doing something interesting.

  She tipped her head to one side. “You might say so. Just as you might say that Korval makes pilots or that Aragon makes porcelains.”

  Whoever, Jethri thought, irritable with unexpended adrenaline, they are.

  “Peace,” Master ven’Deelin said. “These things will be made known to you. Indeed, it is one of the reasons we are come here.”

  “Another being that even you would be hard put to explain this start to Ixin!” A sharp voice said from the doorway.

  Jethri spun, his boot heels squeaking against the polished floor. Master ven’Deelin turned easier, and bowed lightly in a mode he didn’t know.

  “Mother, I greet you.”

  The old, old woman leaned on her cane, bright eyes darting to his face. Ears burning, he bowed, junior to senior.

  “Good-day, ma’am.”

  “An optimist, I apprehend.” She looked him up and looked him down, and Jethri wasn’t exactly in receipt of the notion that she liked what she saw.

  “Does no one on Elthoria know how to cut hair?”

  As near as he could track it, the question was asked of the air, and that being so, he should’ve ignored it or let Master ven’Deelin deal. But it was his hair under derision, and the theory that it had to grow out some distance before he was presentable as a civilized being wasn’t original with him.

  “The barber says my hair needs to grow before he can do anything with it,” he told her, a little more sharply than he had intended.

  “And you find that a great impertinence on the side of the barber, do you?”

  He inclined his head, just slightly. “I liked it the way it was.”

  “Hah!” She looked aside, and Jethri fair sagged in relief to be out from under her eye.

  “Norn—I ask as one who stands as your mother: Have you run mad?”

  Master ven’Deelin tipped her head, to Jethri’s eye, amused.

  “Now, how would I know?” she said, lightly, and moved a hand. “Was my message unclear? I had said I was bringing my foster son to you for—”

  “Education and polish,” the old lady interrupted. “Indeed, you did say so. What you did not say, my girl, is that your son is a mess of fashion and awkwardness, barely beyond halfling, and Terran besides!”

  “Ah.” Master ven’Deelin bowed—another mystery mode. “But it is precisely because he is Terran that I took him as apprentice. And precisely because of chel’Gaibin that he is my son.”

  “chel’Gaibin?” There was a small pause, then a wrinkled hand moved, smoothing the air irritably. “Never mind. That tale will
keep, I think. What I would have from you now is what you think we might accomplish here. The boy is Terran, Norn—I say it with nothing but respect. What would you have me teach him?”

  “Nothing above the ordinary: The clans and their occupations; the High modes; color and the proper wearing of jewels; the Code.”

  “In short, you wish me to sculpt this pure specimen of a Terran into a counterfeit Liaden.”

  “Certainly not. I wish you to produce me a gentleman of the galaxy, able to treat with Liaden and Terran equally.”

  There was another short pause, while the old lady gave him second inspection, head-top to boot-bottom.

  “What is your name, boy?” she asked at last.

  He bowed in the mode of introduction. “Jethri Gobelyn.”

  “So.” She raised her left hand, showing him the big enameled ring she wore on the third finger. “I have the honor to be Tarnia. You may address me informally as Lady Maarilex. Is there a form of your personal name that you prefer?”

  “I prefer Jethri, if you please, ma’am.”

  “I will then address you informally as Jethri. Now, I have no doubt that you are fatigued from your journey. Allow me to call one of my house to guide you to your rooms. This evening, prime meal will be served in the small dining room at local hour twenty. There are clocks in your quarters.” She glanced to Master ven’Deelin.

  “We have him in the north wing.”

  “Excellent,” Master ven’Deelin said.

  Jethri wasn’t so sure, himself, but the thought of getting doors and walls between himself and this intense old lady; to have some quiet time to think—that appealed.

  So he bowed his gratitude, and Lady Maarilex thumped the floor with her cane loud enough to scare a spacer out of his suit, and the kid who had let them in to the house was there, bowing low.

  “Thawlana?”

  “Pet Ric, pray conduct Jethri to his rooms in the north wing.”

  Another bow, this to Jethri. “If you please?”