The Gathering Flame

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 3 PERADA

  HAVE YOU found what you’re looking for?”

  Mistress Vasari couldn’t keep the relief out of her voice. She and Errec Ransome had been walking in the rain and mist for some hours, ever since leaving the gate at the landing field. She wasn’t lost, in the general sense—she’d lived in the capital long enough by now to have some feel for the local geography—but she had no idea where they were going. Errec had chosen the route, without bothering to explain how or why, and she had gone with him.

  They’d come at last to a grubby business and light-manufacturing district, somewhere in the outskirts of greater An-Jemayne. Business hours had ended, but full dark was still almost an hour away. Already, though, everything looked drab and greyed out. The streetlamps hadn’t yet flicked on, and buildings on all sides blocked most of the light. And here Errec Ransome had, finally, stopped.

  “There are Mages here,” he said.

  “There are Mages all over An-Jemayne, Errec. That’s the problem. As far as I can tell, they’ve got all the local talent either totally hoodwinked or completely subverted—the Guild hasn’t gotten anything useful out of Entibor in decades—and not even the Ministry of Internal Security has managed to catch them at work. I was hoping you could help with that.”

  “I’ve found them for you,” he said. “You’ll have to ask your own questions.”

  “I’d rather you did the interrogation, to be honest. You’re better at it than I am—the only Mage I ever got close enough to, destroyed himself while I was working on him.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t do that sort of thing anymore.” She waited for an explanation, but he didn’t give her one. Instead, he pointed to a doorway in the brick wall of the nearest office building. “Behind there. Up a flight of stairs. If you want them, come on.”

  He walked over the twisted the mechanical fastener on the door. The metal broke. He applied his shoulder. The door squealed open on rusty hinges.

  “Remember,” she said, “these people also carry blasters.”

  Errec glanced back at her. “I know.”

  She followed him up a narrow staircase to the second floor, and down an unlit corridor to a closed door. This one opened quietly. Inside, a circle of black-robed figures knelt facing inward, heads bowed. Vasari felt a thrill of recognition: for the first time, she was actually watching the enemy at work.

  The privateers were right. Errec’s turned into one hell of a Mage-finder. These guys were so warded and guarded that I couldn’t spot them at all.

  Errec stepped over the threshold of the room and into the center of the kneeling Circle. For several seconds, nothing happened at all. Then the air in the darkened room began to glow with a greenish light—faint and sourceless at first, then concentrating on Errec. The members of the Circle had not moved, but Vasari could feel a struggle going on nevertheless.

  The green light grew brighter. Errec closed his eyes and brought his hands up, empty, as if they held a staff. The light collected in his hands—Power, thought Vasari, he’s calling in more Power than he can hold—and increased in intensity until she had to shield her face. The silence in the room grew louder and louder, until the absence of sound reached a point where her ears hurt from it.

  “Ask them your questions,” Errec said. His voice was oddly normal and conversational, as if he were not keeping in balance more of the substance of reality than any one person ought to hold. “They won’t break away.”

  Vasari hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and laid her hand on the shoulder of the nearest Mage. As Errec had promised, the mind within lay open and unresisting.

  “Interesting,” she said. “A minor Circle, but part of a larger work. Hold them as long as you can, Errec—this is going to take quite a while.”

  The private rooms of House Rosselin’s Summer Palace had the same high-ceilinged, many-windowed architecture as the public chambers. The design factors that made for coolness and light during the long summer days of these higher latitudes had a less fortunate effect during the autumn evenings. All along the dim unheated corridors, the night outside made the windowpanes into black and chilly squares.

  Jos Metadi had been prowling restlessly through the palace ever since leaving Perada in the hall of light. The dinner hour had passed long ago, and he had ignored it; he didn’t have an appetite. Nor did he have the faintest idea what he was going to do next.

  He didn’t even know if the deal with Ferrda was still good. Mine by law and custom—I don’t know if that’s enough or not. I don’t know if Perada … He stopped the thought before it could finish. He didn’t want to think at all about Perada right now if he could help it. Later, maybe. After he’d figured out what he was supposed to do.

  He wished he were out in space somewhere. Fighting Mages was easy, and he suspected that at the moment he would enjoy hunting down something dangerous and blowing it to pieces.

  The servants were nowhere in sight; he hadn’t encountered a warm body in palace livery since the nursemaid took Ari upstairs. They’re probably all lying low, he thought. They can tell There’s bad stuff happening, and they want to stay out of it. Smart people. He decided that he envied them.

  Jos halted. His wanderings, prompted by who-knew-what unconscious impulses, had brought him to the doors of the nursery wing. On an impulse—Ari’s a good kid; he doesn’t need to get jerked around by all of this—he put his hand on the lockplate.

  The door didn’t open.

  For a while he stood there, not thinking, only looking at the door. After a few seconds, a single realization struggled into the foreground of his mind: they had changed the ID codes for the nursery locks.

  Changed them to keep him away from Ari.

  He drew in a sharp breath and turned away. This time his strides were fast and purposeful, taking him from the nursery wing to the Domina’s private apartments. Those lockplates had always answered to his ID as well.

  They still did. The door slid open at his touch, and he stepped into the bedchamber of the Domina of Entibor: a big, airy room, with casement windows stretching from floor to ceiling all along one wall. Curtains—thin, summery things—framed a vista long since taken over and obliterated by the night. The panes gave back nothing but reflections, and beyond the reflections, darkness.

  The floor of polished parquetry was meant to be cool and slick against bare feet on high-summer nights and mornings. Jos remembered the feel of it, as he remembered not caring whether the flimsy curtains were drawn or not, and forced himself to push the memories away. He couldn’t afford to think about those things right now.

  Perada sat in one of the cushioned bentwood chairs on the opposite side of the room from the bed. The back of the chair was taller than she was—she wasn’t a big woman; Ari was going to dwarf her before he was half-grown—and she had her feet on a cushioned footstool. She wore a quilted night-robe, and her hair hung down in two long, shimmering braids.

  Jos couldn’t think of what to say. She could have made it easier by speaking first, but she just looked at him, her eyes bright and blue, like the heart of a flame. Finally he mastered himself enough to speak.

  “Why have the lockplates been changed in the nursery wing?” He knew as soon as he’d spoken that it was a disastrously wrong thing to say. But words couldn’t be called back any more than could a blaster bolt, and he couldn’t do anything but stand there waiting.

  Perada’s eyes went cold, and her voice had nothing behind it that wasn’t iron. “I suppose that the locks were changed at the order of the Minister of Internal Security.”

  “Nivome do’Evaan.” He pronounced the Minister’s name with distaste. There was a clammy suspicion in the back of his head, and he wasn’t going to think about it, especially not now. Later, after all this was straightened out … later there would be time to speculate about Ari Rosselin’s gene-sire.

  “Yes,” Perada said. “Nivome.”

  “Did you tell him to do it?”

  He
r lips thinned briefly. “The Minister of Internal Security is responsible for the protection of House Rosselin. And my lord Nivome takes his duties seriously.”

  “I’ll bet he does.”

  “He would be no use to me or to Entibor, otherwise.”

  Jos drew a deep breath. “Then I wish you joy of him.” It was all painful now, whatever he might decide to do or say; better to deal the worst hurt himself than to wait for the blade to strike home. “Maybe you ought to take him for Consort, if he’s so damned devoted.”

  Perada went stiff and pale. Red patches burned on her cheekbones like rouge or fever. “It wouldn’t do at all, I’m afraid. Nivome has his undoubted talents, but commanding a warfleet isn’t among them.”

  “So you’re keeping me around for the military stuff, is that it?”

  “Well … fleet command is one of your undoubted talents.”

  “Fine.” Jos’s head was pounding and his shoulders hurt. “I’ll run your warfleet for you as long as you need one. You want anything else, get someone else to do it. I’m done.”

  The Silver Slipper was a fairly decent place. Not quite on-base, it stood near Central HQ in that area which formed An-Jemayne’s version of a portside strip. After too long on ship’s rations and Selvauran cookery, Tillijen and Nannla had chosen to dine there for their first night in port.

  Tillijen went back up to the buffet; leaving Nannla behind to sip warm mezcla from a silver-fitted thimble-cup. Tilly wanted to refill her own plate with another assortment of Entiboran dainties—things that bore no resemblance to whatever they had once been while running the woods, swimming the seas, or growing in the fields. Only now that she was tasting the flavors of home again, after so many years away, did she realize how much she had missed them.

  “My lady Chereeve?”

  She started, and turned—half-expecting to see Nivome do’Evaan, the only man on Entibor to address her by that name. But the speaker was a smallish, muscular man with thick red hair, dressed in plain dirtsider clothes, and his accent was respectable middle-class Entiboran. Tillijen shook her head. “Never heard of her.”

  “Tillijen Chereeve,” he said. “Oldest daughter in your generation to the head of House Chereeve.”

  “I told you, there’s nobody by that name left alive. I signed the papers and declared myself dead, the way they wanted me to, and that was it.” Her voice was low.

  “For someone who’s dead to House and homeworld,” the man said, “the Minister of Internal Security is certainly spending a great deal of trouble to find you.”

  “Ooh, that was nasty,” Tillijen said, with genuine admiration. “I suppose he’s hoping to find out what happened on Maraghai—if you’re one of Gentlesir Nivome’s enemies, I’m almost tempted to give it to you for free, just to disoblige him.”

  The man looked as if he might have been amused, if he hadn’t been too well-mannered to indulge himself at her expense. “We would appreciate knowing it, that’s true—”

  “We?”

  “—but that isn’t why I’m here. My lady—”

  “Tillijen.”

  “My lady, you are alone, and Internal Security has agents everywhere. Please come with me. You do not dare fall into the minister’s hands.”

  “Why?”

  “In brief—one Tillijen Chereeve, were she alive, would be a female of childbearing years, and closely enough related to House Rosselin that a child of her body would be difficult to disprove as one of the Domina’s by genetic means—should both the Domina and the lady Chereeve be dead. Especially if half the genetic material for the child was provided by my lord Nivome, and he swears that the Domina selected him for her honor.”

  Tillijen kept her face calm and her voice equally low. “No one can possibly think of getting away with that.”

  “An officer of the Interior Ministry is in this building right now, looking for you. At this very moment he’s talking with your companion. She may or may not direct him this way. You must go at once, and not return to any of your usual haunts.”

  Out of here, to the port, and see if someone can fetch me out of a sealed gun bubble, Tilly thought. Then, No. All they’d have to do, if they knew where I was, would be to put Nannla in danger, and offer to trade my life for hers. Damn them all. Just when you think you can’t make things any worse …

  “I can give you escort to a place of safety,” the man said, “until such time as the danger is past. Should the Domina again become gravid, you will be safe. Until then … the ministry’s agents are charged with the task of finding you and ensuring your cooperation. You cannot return to your ship without hazarding your life—and the lives of your shipmates.”

  “How do I know you aren’t one of those agents yourself?”

  The man looked apologetic. “Some things you have to take on faith, I’m afraid, at least for now.” He made a formal bow and extended his hand. “My lady, will you come?”

  If he isn’t Nivome’s man, she thought, he’s probably a friend, at least for the moment, and I can trust him. And if he’s lying, and he is Nivome’s man … I still have my blaster.

  “What the hell,” she said. “Lead the way.”

  Jos couldn’t sleep. Instead, he paced the corridors of the Summer Palace all through the rest of the night. The anger that had caused him to turn his back on Perada and leave her apartments faded soon enough, leaving behind only a flat weariness. He might have gone back—he didn’t think that he was so stupid-proud he couldn’t admit to saying everything wrong that could possibly be said—but going back wouldn’t help get Ari to Maraghai, not when the boy’s mother was dead set against the idea.

  It had to be done, though. Jos had given his hand on it. Besides, he’d seen the reports at Central—the withered crops after the Mage raiding ships had passed—and he knew what they meant. The Magelords had decided to treat Entibor as they had treated Sapne, and nobody on-planet would be safe.

  Ferrda will take the kid; Ari’s mine by law, anyhow, and if that’s good enough for me it’ll have to be good enough for the Selvaurs. Then Perada will have her alliance, and Ari will be as safe as anyone’s going to get … and I can go fight Mages, since that’s all that anyone seems to think I’m good for.

  The decision didn’t make him any happier, but at least it gave a direction and a sense of purpose to his thoughts. The main problem was the lockplate, and beyond the lockplate the phalanx of nursemaid-bodyguards. Shooting the lock open would take care of the first step, and he supposed he could always stun any member of the nursery staff who chose to interfere—but anything violent was likely to draw instant attention, and it was a long way from the nursery wing to the landing field.

  What I need, he thought, relieved to confront a practical problem for a change, is an ally. Somebody who’s willing to act in the Domina’s best interest whether she knows what her best interest is or not—and someone who’s willing to take on Gentlesir Nivome do’Evaan.

  Put that way, the choice was obvious.

  Jos found Ser Hafrey sitting in the morning room, a graceful chamber overlooking a vista of gentle, forested hills. The rising sun filled the room with warm golden light.

  “Good morning, General.” The armsmaster came to his feet as Jos entered—he might almost, Jos thought, have been waiting for him to arrive.

  “I suppose so,” Jos said. “Ser Hafrey, I need your help.”

  The armsmaster didn’t look surprised. “In what fashion?”

  “The child, Ari …”

  “Her Dignity’s placeholder. A fine boy.”

  “I want to get him off-planet.”

  “To seal your agreement with the Selvaurs. Yes.”

  “Dammit,” said Jos. “Does the whole Summer Palace know about that treaty by now?”

  “There are no secrets, I’m afraid. One picks things up, here and there.”

  “I suppose so. But it’s not just the treaty I’m worried about. The war is going to heat up real soon now, and no one on Entibor is going to be safe.”


  Hafrey looked faintly amused. “I thought making it safe was your responsibility, General.”

  “Yeah—but things are going to get a lot worse before I can make them any better. I’ve seen what happens when the Mages decide to get mad at a place, and believe me, getting away from it is the only thing to do.”

  “You think Maraghai will be immune to such tactics?”

  “No. But when the plagues come, they’ll be set up for Selvauran biochemistry, not human.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘if the plagues come’?”

  “I prefer not to bet on that sort of thing,” Jos said. He paused and looked out the window. A red bird was darting from branch to branch in the trees nearby, making a crimson flash of movement like a blaster bolt in a dark alley. After a while he said, “I thought for a while yesterday that I might be able to take ’Rada into space with me … .”

  “It wouldn’t have worked,” Hafrey said. The note of sympathy in his voice was, as far as Jos could tell, perfectly genuine. “No reigning Domina has ever left the planet, and—because this is Entibor—habit has become custom, and custom has taken on the force of law. To leave the homeworld would be to abdicate all power. And she will not do that.”

  “I guess not. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  The armsmaster looked thoughtful. “You’re not a man with a strong attachment to any one world, General—no free-spacer can afford to be—so perhaps you don’t understand how deeply such things are felt on Entibor. Did you know, for instance, that in certain stock phrases and legal documents, the words for ‘death’ and ‘exile’ are considered as equivalent? A Domina is bound by that tradition, no matter what her own desires may be.”

  “Well, that explains why ’Rada decided to fly all over half of space before she came here.” Jos was silent for a moment. “Will you help me, then?”

  “Her Dignity will not be pleased.”

  Jos let out his breath in a long sigh. “Thanks anyway. I’ll do the best I can on my own.”

  He turned to go.