by Sharon Lee
Montet turned, finding the speaker standing near a niche in the left-most wall.
The lady was tall and on a scale to dwarf the sturdy doorkeeper; a woman of abundance, shoulders proud and face serene. Her robe was divided vertically in half—one side white, one side black—each side as wide as Montet entire. Her hair was black, showing gray like stars in the vasty deepness of space. Her face was like a moon, glowing; her eyes were dark and sightful. She raised a hand and sketched a sign before her, the motion given meaning by the weight of her palm against the air.
"I am the Voice of Naratha. Say your name, Seeker."
Instinctively, Montet bowed. One would bow, to such a lady as this—and one would not dare lie.
"I am Montet sig'Norba," she said, hearing her own voice thin and reedy in comparison with the other's rich tones.
"Come forward, Montet sig'Norba."
Forward she went, until she stood her own short arm's reach from the Voice. She looked up and met the gaze of far-seeing black eyes.
"Yes," the Voice said after a long pause. "You bear the wounds we have been taught to look for."
Montet blinked. "Wounds?"
"Here," said the Voice and lay her massive palm against Montet's forehead, directly on the spot centered just above her eyes, where the pain had lived for six long relumma.
The Voice's palm was warm and soft. Montet closed her eyes as heat spread up and over her scalp, soothing and—she opened her eyes in consternation.
The headache was gone.
The Voice was a Healer, then. Though the Healers on Liad had not been able to ease her pain.
"You have that which belongs to Naratha," the Voice said, removing her hand. "You may take me to it."
Montet bowed once more. "Lady, that which I carry is . . ." she grappled briefly with the idiom of the language she spoke, hoping it approximated the Voice's nearly enough for sense, and not too nearly for insult.
"What I carry is . . .accursed of God. It vibrates evil, and seeks destruction—even unto its own destruction. It is—I brought it before a . . .priestess of my own kind and its vibrations all but overcame her skill."
The Voice snorted. "A minor priestess, I judge. Still, she did well, if you come to me at her word."
"Lady, her word was to make all haste to fling the monster into a sun."
"No!" The single syllable resonated deep in Montet's chest, informing, for a moment, the very rhythm of her heartbeat.
"No," repeated the Voice, quieter. "To follow such a course would be to grant its every desire. To the despair of all things living."
"What is it?" Montet heard herself blurt.
The Voice bowed her head. "It is the Shadow of Naratha. For every great good throws a shadow, which is, in its nature, great evil."
Raising her head, she took a breath and began, softly, to chant. "Of all who fought, it was Naratha who prevailed against the Enemy. Prevailed, and drove the Enemy into the back beyond of space, from whence it has never again ventured. The shadows of Naratha's triumph, as terrible as the Enemy's defeat was glorious, roam the firmament still, destroying, for that is what they do." The Voice paused. The chant vibrated against the pure white walls for a moment, then stopped.
This, Montet thought, was the language of legend—hyperbole. Yet the woman before her did not seem a fanatic, living in a smoky dream of reality. This woman was alive, intelligent—and infinitely sorrowful.
"Voices were trained," the Voice was now calmly factual, "to counteract the vibration of evil. We were chosen to sing, to hold against and—equalize— what slighter folk cannot encompass. We were many, once. Now I am one. Naratha grant that the equation is exact."
Montet stared. She was a Liaden and accustomed to the demands of Balance. But this—
"You will die? But by your own saying it wants just that!"
The Voice smiled. "I will not die, nor will it want destruction when the song is through." She tipped her massive head, hair rippling, black-and-gray, across her proud shoulders.
"Those who travel between the stars see many wonders. I am the last Voice of Naratha. I exact a price, star-stranger."
Balance, clear enough. Montet bowed her head. "Say on."
"You will stand with me while I sing this monster down. You will watch and you will remember. Perhaps you have devices that record sight and sound. If you do, use them. When it is done, bring the news to Lietta, First Novice, she who would have been Voice. Say to her that you are under geas to study in our library. When you have studied, I require you to return to the stars, to discover what has happened—to the rest of us." She paused.
"You will bring what you find to this outpost. You will also initiate your fellow star-travelers into the mysteries of Naratha's Discord." The wonderful voice faltered and Montet bent her head.
"In the event," she said, softly, "that the equation is not—entirely—precise." She straightened. "I accept your Balance."
"So," said the Voice. "Take me now to that which is mine."
* * *
THE VOICE STOOD, humming, while Montet dragged the stasis box out, unsealed it and flipped open the lid. At a sign from the other woman, she tipped the box sideways, and the thing, whatever it was, rolled out onto the grass, buzzing angrily.
"I hear you, Discord," the Voice murmured, and raised her hand to sign.
Montet dropped back, triggering the three recorders with a touch to her utility belt.
The Voice began to sing.
A phrase only, though the beauty of it pierced Montet heart and soul.
The phrase ended and the space where it had hung was filled with the familiar malice of the black thing's song.
Serene, the Voice heard the answer out, then sang again, passion flowing forth like flame.
Again, the thing answered, snarling in the space between Montet's ears. She gasped and looked to the Voice, but her face was as smooth and untroubled as glass.
Once more, the woman raised her voice, and it seemed to Montet that the air was richer, the grassland breeze fresher, than it had been a moment before.
This time, the thing did not allow her to finish, but vibrated in earnest. Montet shrieked at the agony in her joints and fell to knees, staring up at the Voice, who sang on, weaving around and through the malice; stretching, reshaping, reprogramming, Montet thought, just before her vision grayed and she could see no longer.
She could hear, though, even after the pain had flattened her face down in the grass. The song went on, never faltering, never heeding the heat that Montet felt rising from the brittling grass, never straining, despite the taint in the once clean air.
The Voice hit a note, high, true and sweet. Montet's vision cleared. The Voice stood, legs braced, face turned toward the sky, her mighty throat corded with effort. The note continued, impossibly pure, soaring, passionate, irrefutable. There was only that note, that truth—nothing more—in all the galaxy.
Montet took a breath and discovered that her lungs no longer burned. She moved an arm and discovered that she could rise.
The Voice sang on, and the day was brilliant, perfect, beyond perfect, into godlike, and the Voice herself was beauty incarnate, singing, singing, fading, becoming one with the sunlight, the grassland and the breeze.
Abruptly, there was silence, and Montet stood alone in the grass near her ship, hard by an empty stasis box.
Of the Voice of Naratha—of Naratha's Shadow—there was no sign at all.
Heirloom
HE WOKE, PANTING, out of a snare of dreams in which he over and over ran to succor a child, hideously suspended over a precipice, the slender branch clutched in terrified small fingers bending toward break beneath the slight weight—
While he ran—ran at the top of his speed. And arrived, over and over, full seconds after the branch gave way and the tiny body plummeted down . . . .
He opened his eyes—not too far—and swallowed as the dim light assaulted him. Lashes drooping, he took careful stock.
The dream—it ha
d somehow become the dream of late it seemed—was both frequent and bothersome enough that he'd considered once or twice taking it to the Healers.
On other mornings, those not quite so fraught with physical complaints, his considerations had always led him to reject the notion that the dream was prophetic, for hadn't he been tested by the dramliz, several times over, at the order of the Delm-in-Keeping as well as at the order of his mother? And the dream never gave face to child, nor location to tree or cliff . . . .
The dramliz tests were remarkably similar to the piloting tests—somehow he always managed to fail without knowing exactly what it was expected of him. Of course the wizards claimed they weren't expecting anything of him, but neither his mother nor anyone else seemed pleased by the results—not fast enough for pilot, nor possessed of whatever something the dramliz probed for—
Well, and he had long ago understood that neither the Clan's ships nor the Clan's allies among the Healers or the dramliz would provide his sustenance, and he had begun casting about for what he could do to support himself, for he was a young man, holding in full measure all the stubborn pride of his House. He would take not a dex from the Clan that could not use him. His quartershares could accumulate in his account until the cantra overran the bank and flowed down the streets of Solcintra.
So he had cast about. He could shoot, of course, but one could scarcely make a living as a tournament shooter. Uncle Daav's happy experiment of giving him a gun and target practice at Tey Dor's had brought him close to the gaming set, who had no qualms about dealing with someone not a pilot, or not able to tell the future through true prophecy . . .
Early last evening, however, he had a moment of prophecy. It came when he overheard his mother speaking with Guayar Himself. It seemed that Guayar knew a certain house which had need of one well-placed, and well-taught, and well-versed in the Code, and able to travel with a group of children, teaching as well as protecting. She'd suggested that she knew of just such a person.
Travel with children?
He had been on his way out, intending to stop at the parlor only long enough to take graceful leave of his parent and exchange pleasantries with her guest. Rag-mannered though it was, he allowed himself to forgo these duties and instead left immediately by a discreet exit that did not require him to pass the occupied room.
Once outside, he had gone, not to Tey Dor's, which had been his first, and perhaps best, inclination, but to a minor establishment which catered to the aspiring gamester. There he had accepted most of the proffered beverages, which was not his habit.
Now, his head hurt abominably, of course, and his stomach was uneasy, though not quite in revolt. Mixed fortune, there. He supposed he should rise, shower and prepare himself to meet the dubious pleasures of the day. After all, it wasn't as if he had never been drunk before.
In truth, he was rarely drunk, being a young man of fastidious nature. Certainly, he was never drunk while gaming, and last night's losses at the piket table were ample illustration of his reasons, thank you.
Sighing, he raised his hands and scrubbed them, none-too-gently, over his face, relishing the friction.
Gods, what a performance! He was entirely disgusted with himself, and not the most for his losses at cards. At least he had retained sense enough not to enter the shooting contest proposed by pin'Weltir!
At least—he thought he had. His memory of the later evening was, he discovered to his chagrin, rather . . .spotty.
His stomach clenched, and he took a deeper breath than he wanted—and another—forcing himself to lie calmly, to wait for the memories to rise . . . There.
He had turned pin'Weltir down, and when the man insisted, he had refused even more forcefully—by claiming his cloak and calling for a cab. He remembered that, yes. Too, he remembered entering the cab, and the driver asking for his direction. He remembered saying, "Home," an idiotic reply emblematic of his state, and the driver asking again, doggedly patient, as if she dealt with drunken lordlings every night—which, he thought now, in the discomfort of his bed, she might very well.
After that, he remembered nothing, though he supposed he must have managed to give her the direction of his mother's house—and if his mother had been late at her studies and had observed his return—
He wondered if people died of hangovers, and, if so, how he might manage it.
A spike of red pain shot through his head and he twisted in the bed, gagging, eyes snapping open to behold—
Not the formal bedchamber he occupied in his mother's house, but the badly shaped, sloped ceiling chamber where he had spent many peaceful childhood nights.
Despite the headache, Pat Rin smiled. Drunk into idiocy he may have been, but his heart had known the direction of home.
* * *
SOME WHILE LATER, showered and having taken an analgesic against the headache, he glanced at last night's bedraggled finery, flung helter-skelter on the simple, hand-tied rug. He bit his lip, ashamed of this further untidy evidence of his debauch, then gathered it all up and took it into the 'fresher, where he bundled the lot into the valet to be cleaned and pressed.
Returning to his bedroom, he paused at the old wooden wardrobe, coaxed open the sticky door and was very shortly thereafter dressed in a pair of sturdy work pants and a soft, shapeless shirt.
Closing the wardrobe, he considered himself in the thin mirror: A slender young man, dark of hair and eye, cheekbones high, brows straight, chin pointed, mouth stern. In his old clothes, he thought he looked a laborer, or a dock worker, or a pilot at leave—then he glanced down at his long, well-kept hands and sighed.
Looking back to the mirror, he frowned at the mass of wet hair snarled across his shoulders. The torentia was all the kick this season, and Pat Rin yos'Phelium Clan Korval, apprentice at play, naturally wore his hair so, spending as much as an hour a day combing and curling the thick, unruly stuff into the long, artful chaos fashion demanded.
But not today. Today, he turned 'round, snatched a comb up from the low bureau and dragged it ruthlessly through the tangled mass until it hung, sodden and straight. Putting the comb aside, he raised both hands, pulled his hair sharply back, holding the tail in one hand while he rummaged atop the bureau, finally bringing up a simple wooden hair ring, which he snapped into place.
The lad in the mirror presented a more austere face, now, without the fall of hair to soften it. Indeed, he might have been said to be quite fox-faced, were it not the general policy in the circles in which he lately moved that Pat Rin yos'Phelium was comely.
Poppycock, of course, and tiring, too. Almost as tiring as Cousin Er Thom insisting upon endless repetitions of tests taken and proved—
No.
He would not think of Cousin Er Thom—of Korval-pernard'i. And he assuredly would not think of tests. In fact, he would go downstairs to tell Luken that he was to house.
* * *
"Good morning, boy-dear!" Luken said, looking up with a smile. The manifest he had been studying lay on the tabletop amidst the genteel ruins of a frugal breakfast, the tree-and-dragon—Korval's seal—stamped in the top left corner of the page.
Despite everything, Pat Rin smiled, and bowed, gently, hand over his heart.
"Good morning, father," he replied, soft in the mode between kin. "I trust I find you well?"
"Well enough, well enough!" His foster father waved a ringless hand toward the sideboard. "There's tea, child, and the usual. Have what you will and then sit and tell me your news."
His news? Pat Rin thought bitterly. He turned to the sideboard, taking a deep breath. Luken, alone of all his relatives could be trusted to honestly care for Pat Rin's news, and to take no joy in his failures.
He poured himself a glass of tea, that being what he thought he might coax his stomach to accommodate, and returned to the table, taking his usual seat across from Luken, there in the windowed alcove. Outside, the sky shone brilliant, the sun fully risen. Odd to find Luken so late over breakfast, dawn-rising creature that he was.
/>
"Are you quite well?" Pat Rin asked, around a prick of panic. "I had looked to find you in the warehouse . . . ."
Luken chuckled. "Had you arisen an hour earlier, you would have found me precisely in the warehouse," he said. "What you see here is a second cup of tea, to aid me in puzzling out just what it is that Er Thom means me to do with these." He picked up the manifest and rattled it gently before dropping it again to the table.
In addition to his melant'i as Korval-in-trust, Er Thom yos'Galan wore a master trader's ring. Interesting goods, therefore, had a way of coming into his hand, and it had long been his habit to send the more interesting and exotic textiles to Luken's attention.
Pat Rin assayed a tiny sip of tea, eyeing the manifest half-heartedly. "Sell them?" he murmured, that being the most common outcome of rugs sent by Er Thom, though two, to Pat Rin's knowledge, were on display in museums, and one covered the white stone floor of the Temple of Valiatra, at the edge of the Festival grounds.
"Not these, I think," Luken said picking up his tea glass. "It seems that the clan is divesting itself of the Southern House and the place is being emptied—including the back attics, which I daresay is where these were found."
Korval was selling the Southern House? Not a heartbeat too soon, in Pat Rin's opinion. He had been to the place once, and had found it dismal. Nor was he alone in his assessment. While most of Korval's houses enjoyed more-or-less steady tenancy, the Southern House most often sat empty, undisturbed by even the housekeeper, who had his own quarters in another building on the property.
"Perhaps Cousin Er Thom wants a catalog made?" Pat Rin offered, taking another cautious sip of tea. Though rugs Luken dismissed as back attic fare hardly seemed likely candidates for cataloging and preservation.
"He doesn't write. Only that the house is being cleared, and that these might interest me." Luken sipped his tea, and moved a dismissive hand. "But, enough of that. Your news, boy-dear—all of it! I haven't seen you this age. Catch me up, do."
It hadn't quite been an age, the two of them having dined together only a twelveday ago, though there was, after all, the news which was no news at all . . . .
