The Gathering Flame

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  She looked out the passenger-seat window at the grassy field on which they’d landed. “Is this it?”

  “For now, yes. Come.”

  The morning air outside was crisper than it had been in An-Jemayne, and smelled cleaner. Tillijen sniffed appreciatively. “Nice,” she said—truly fresh air was an impossibility on shipboard, and most spaceports didn’t have anything better. If Meinuxet was planning to stash her out here in the countryside for safekeeping, things could be worse.

  “Her Dignity will be glad to know you approve,” the man said—the first nonessential remark he’d made all morning, and something about the tone of his voice made Tillijen pull herself together and look around.

  Then she saw it, a long, pale structure that seemed to float against the hillside above the landing field like a low-lying cloud: the Summer Palace of House Rosselin.

  “What’s up?” she asked. “Why are we here?”

  “I’m putting you in a hiding place where no one can drag you out: under the Domina’s personal protection.”

  Jos didn’t like having Warhammer full of strangers in uniform, even if they did all salute him and call him “sir,” but he didn’t think he had much choice. Without the Fleet personnel, he’d be too shorthanded to lift. Of the ‘Hammer’s regular crew, only Nannla had been aboard when he arrived at the military landing field, and the number-one gunner was near-frantic with worry over Tilly, who seemed to have vanished during the night. Jos considered giving Nannla leave to stay behind and look for her partner, then thought better of it. If he had to shoot his way—and Ari’s—out of the system, he wanted at least one of Warhammer’s own gunners on the job.

  He turned to the young Fleet officer in the copilot’s seat. “You know what orders you’re working under, or at least I hope you do. So tell me—if we leave here without requesting permission, are people going to shoot at us?”

  “Yes.” After a few seconds, the officer added, “But they’re supposed to miss.”

  “Supposed,” said Jos. He regarded his temporary copilot with a thoughtful expression. “Do you trust your friends?”

  “Enough.”

  “I suppose that’ll have to do.” Jos keyed on the ship’s internal comms. “Engineering, report.”

  A stranger’s voice came on over the cockpit audio. “I can’t make any sense of this blasted power plant. Sir.”

  “Not surprising. Don’t worry about it—just watch for redlines, and treat ‘em as they happen. Our plan is a straight run-to-jump, with minimum time maneuvering. Got ’em heated?”

  “Heating now.”

  “Good. Seal and strap, everyone. We’re leaving.”

  “Ready,” came the ragged chorus of unfamiliar voices.

  Jos reached out for the controls, then hesitated a moment. “How’s the kid?”

  He’d strapped Ari into the bunk in number-two crew berthing, with the young pilot from the Fleet suborbital courier to keep him company. Now the courier pilot replied over the link from the cabin, “The kid’s okay, but I don’t think he’s real happy about all this.”

  “Tell him that makes two of us. But he’ll like it on Maraghai … . How are the engines doing?”

  “Engines ready,” said the stranger in engineering.

  “Ready to launch,” said Jos. “Go.”

  The nullgravs tilted them back and they were off. They hadn’t yet escaped the pull of Entibor’s gravity when Jos spotted the first flicker on the sensor readouts.

  “Somebody’s locked on and tracking,” he said, as the ’Hammer bounced and shook in the stress of launch. “You’re sure they’re going to miss?”

  “Yes.”

  A flare of purple light washed over the armor-glass of the viewscreens. Jos glanced over at the copilot. “By how much?”

  “Enough.”

  Then the acceleration eased, and a few seconds later they were free of the atmosphere, out in the clean black of space. The copilot leaned forward for a closer look at the sensor readouts.

  “What’s that up ahead?”

  “Looks like trouble,” said Jos. He glanced over the readouts with an experienced eye. “Entiboran Fleet destroyer, closing fast.”

  “We have a signal coming in from the Entiboran ship,” said the copilot. “Voice comms.”

  “Put it on audio,” Jos said. “But don’t answer.”

  The link crackled briefly, and a tinny voice came over the cockpit audio: “General Metadi, I have received orders from Central HQ to prevent you from leaving the system.”

  Jos let the external comm link go untouched, and tapped the screen of the ’Hammer’s navicomp with one fingernail. “Numbers, baby,” he muttered. “Give me numbers.”

  “General,” came the audio from the destroyer, “you are ordered not to take a course of five-seven-two from your current location, as that would put you on the arc to Maraghai.”

  Jos frowned at the navicomp. The red Working light was still flashing—no numbers yet. But five-seven-two wasn’t impossible. Metadi tweaked the ’Hammer over toward that direction. The destroyer turned with him, running parallel to the new course.

  The link crackled again. “General—I am ordered to take you alongside with tractors and transfer your crew to this ship. If you begin accelerating to jump speed now, I will be unable to lock on. Therefore, you are ordered not to accelerate.”

  Jos keyed on the internal comms. “Engineering, watch the redlines. I’m going to feed her power.”

  The ’Hammer accelerated in response to his touch on the controls. A few seconds later, the armor-glass viewscreens lit up with the faint aurora of distant energy fire, and the sensor readouts began to dance wildly.

  “What the hell was that?” Jos demanded.

  “It looks like another Entiboran vessel has taken the destroyer under fire with guns,” the copilot said.

  Jos remembered the Fleet briefing he’d attended not quite a day ago—the one he’d been in such a hurry to get away from, to get back to the Summer Palace. “That’s not an Entiboran vessel,” he said. “Not anymore. It’s one of those ships the Mages captured at Tanpaleyn. They’ve refitted it as one of theirs, to run under a false signature.”

  Once again the external link came on. “Warhammer, I am unable to supply escort,” said the talker for the Entiboran destroyer. The warship peeled away, abandoning its parallel. course and bringing its energy guns to bear on the Mage attacker. “Good luck, General.”

  “And good luck to you, too,” Jos said, after the link had clicked off. He checked the position plotting indicator. “More trouble. Someone’s on our jump point.”

  “That won’t be any of ours,” said the copilot.

  “Good.” Jos clicked on the internal comm link again. “In the gun bubbles. Clear the way with fire.”

  “My pleasure, Captain,” Nannla said from number-one gun. “Nothing beats a little death and destruction if you want to start the day off right.”

  The guns in the dorsal and ventral bubbles began to spit out jets of slow light, silent in the vacuum of space. The Mage ship on their jump point was out of range, but that wouldn’t last forever.

  “Someone coming in from up top, boss,” said Nannla, over the link. “Switching aim.”

  “Negat,” Jos said. “Take forward. The sensor readings look Galcenian, and those guys are supposed to be on our side, more or less.”

  “The Mage ship is moving,” the copilot said. “Abandoning position on our jump point. The Galcenian is engaging her.”

  “Good,” said Jos. “Let’s all think nice thoughts about Galcen for a little while. Jump point locked in. Jump speed. Stand by. Now.”

  “This proves my point, you know,” Vasari said.

  She and Errec Ransome were going down the stairway toward the street. It was morning now; the air was chilly in the unheated building, and she could see a patch of yellow sunlight coming in through the broken door at the bottom of the stairs. She was tired; sifting the minds of the Circle-Mages had taken all night, though
she hadn’t fully realized how much time had elapsed until the end.

  Errec looked even more exhausted than Vasari felt. She had done the interrogation, but Errec had held the Mages for her the whole time. They’d died, of course, when he released them; all the Power he’d been balancing flowed out and into them at once, and burned them from within. Vasari felt no particular remorse—she had touched their minds, and knew them.

  She did, however, feel some concern for Errec. He was looking shadowed around the eyes and white around the mouth. Exhaustion, maybe; she wasn’t sure. His voice, when he spoke, sounded distant and weary.

  “Proves which point?”

  “That you need to come back to Galcen and teach the Guild how you do this stuff. Holding an entire Circle that way—”

  “No,” he said. “This is nothing an apprentice should be asked to learn. I wouldn’t teach it to a Master.”

  “But—”

  “No!” He came to a stop, a few steps above the bottom, and turned to face her. In a calmer voice, he said, “I’ll help you hunt for Mages on Entibor all you like. But nothing else.”

  Vasari shrugged. She was a pragmatist; she took what she could get, and wasn’t such a fool as to think she could best Errec in a contest of wills. She was also patient, and willing to try more than one approach. The Guild would have Errec Ransome in the long run, if not the short.

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “I can’t make you.”

  They went on out into the dazzle of morning sunlight reflected off the windows of tall buildings all around. A minute or two later she said, “Considering what I picked up from this crowd, we’ve got our work cut out for us, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Circle here wasn’t an important one. The members weren’t Mageworlders at all; they were mostly native-born Entiborans. One or two of them might have had enough talent to make it in the local Guild. The rest …” She shrugged. “Weak. But they were only one Circle out of I don’t know how many, all working toward the same goal.”

  “Did you find out what it was?” he asked.

  “They weren’t sure themselves. They were only supposed to call up their energies and pass them on—but they’d been assured that the working was important. And urgent; this was something new and unexpected, not part of their support for the ongoing effort.”

  “That’s not much to go on.”

  “Not when you consider how much it could be. There’s the attack on the Palace Major. A Mage warfleet in-system, and Galcenians in-system too. They could be working on one of those things, on all of them, or on something else entirely.”

  “Maraghai,” said Errec.

  The alteration in his voice made Vasari glance over at him again. Whatever the name of the Selvauran homeworld meant to him, it wasn’t good.

  “You sound like you know what they were up to,” she said.

  He nodded. “Jos—the Consort—just came back from Maraghai. He’s made a treaty with the Selvaurs for ships and mutual defense. But the Domina has to confirm it first.”

  “You think they were working to stop that?”

  “I think they could have been. But I don’t know of any way to counter such a massive working, short of killing every Mage in every Circle on Entibor.”

  “By the time we got to all of them, the treaty would have failed anyway.” Vasari looked thoughtful. “But there is at least one person who can keep them from achieving success. Can you pilot an aircar?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “A pod-rail or a commercial hop would be too slow. You’re going to fly to the Summer Palace and have a friendly talk with the Domina.”

  The late-morning sun, bright and harsh, came through the diamond-shaped windowpanes of the hall of light with a glitter like the edges of knives. Tillijen stood to one side of the long room, next to Meinuxet. She felt awkward and out of place. She wasn’t dressed for a visit to the private residence of the Ruling House—and the clothes she was wearing, she’d slept in. But Meinuxet had insisted.

  Perada Rosselin sat alone at the head of the table, and Nivome do’Evaan of Rolny stood beside her. Tillijen needed only one look to know that the Domina was cold-to-the-bone furious, and that the target of her anger was the slight, grey-haired man who stood at the foot of the table.

  The armsmaster, Tillijen thought. She understood now what Meinuxet had meant about serving one of the Domina’s servants.

  “Ser Hafrey,” Perada said, “you have overreached yourself.”

  The armsmaster’s calm demeanor did not alter. “In what way, my lady?”

  “Do you deny that you assisted Jos—assisted the Consort in taking away my son, House Rosselin’s placeholder?”

  Tillijen closed her eyes. “Assisted in taking away” … they must already be gone. I should have stayed with the ship. Poor Jos. Poor ’Rada.

  “I gave advice when it was asked,” the armsmaster said. “So may anyone, with no blame attached to it.”

  “You did more than give advice, old man.”

  Nivome’s voice held as much satisfaction as it did anger—perhaps more. The Minister of Internal Security turned to Perada and continued, “We’ve already heard the nursery staff tell us how they were hoodwinked. And that’s not all—Your Dignity, look at these.”

  He brought out a handful of printout flimsies. “Messages arranging fast transportation and safe escort for Metadi on his way out of the system, all of them bearing the armsmaster’s personal verification.”

  The Domina took the flimsies and looked through them one by one. Her face, already pale and cold, seemed to grow even colder. She looked at the armsmaster, and her eyes were like frost over blue steel.

  “Ser Hafrey. Do you admit to sending these messages?”

  “Denial would be pointless, my lady,” said the armsmaster. “I acted, as ever, for the good of Entibor and of your House.”

  Perada’s mouth tightened. “You forgot one thing. It is not for you to set your judgment above mine.”

  “He has done so before, Your Dignity.”

  This time, the light in Nivome’s eyes was unmistakably triumphant. Perada raised her eyebrows in an expression that was almost a mockery of curiosity.

  “How so, Gentlesir Nivome?”

  “Do you recall the circumstances under which you left Innish-Kyl—a door that should not have been locked, a pursuit that failed? Who do you think made those arrangements, if it wasn’t your own armsmaster?”

  From the look on the Domina’s face, Tillijen thought, Perada remembered the circumstances very well indeed. She wasn’t going to admit it, though—her voice was as cool as ever when she asked, “For what reason do you contend that he did this thing?”

  “To persuade Your Dignity into an unwise alliance,” said Nivome. “One which you might otherwise have thought better of.”

  Perada nodded. “I see. Is that so, Ser Hafrey?”

  The expression that passed over the armsmaster’s face might have been the faintest and briefest of smiles. “Only in part, my lady. It was not your reluctance that I sought to counter.”

  Nivome’s face darkened with anger. “Your Dignity, this servant of yours has endangered your person and betrayed your trust. He no longer deserves a place in your household.”

  “Is that your final opinion on the matter, Gentlesir Nivome?”

  “Your Dignity, it is.”

  The Domina turned to Ser Hafrey. “And you, Armsmaster. Do you have anything further to say for yourself?”

  The armsmaster said nothing—He’s too damned proud, Tillijen thought. But Meinuxet took her by the arm and stepped forward to stand at the table beside Ser Hafrey, so that she had no choice but to come with him willingly or be dragged along.

  “Your Dignity,” the armsmaster’s agent said, “the Minister of Internal Security is not one who should accuse others of a betrayal of trust.”

  He nodded to Nivome. “You might inquire as to when exactly the minister learned of the agreement betwee
n the Consort and the Selvaurs. I think you will find that he had placed a snoop on your own person, and, while you and the General were talking, he was listening. See …”

  Meinuxet reached forward and plucked a speck from the edge of Perada’s cuff, and continued speaking.

  “ … even now he records your words, and the words of those who speak with you, for purposes of his own.”

  The redheaded man ground the speck under his fingernail; it sparked, and a tiny puff of smoke, visible only as it passed through a ray of sunlight, rose from it.

  Perada turned to Nivome. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “It’s the business of my office, Your Dignity.” Nivome was unapologetic. “Where there are secrets that can harm your person and your House, I and those who work for me must find them out however we can.”

  “Maybe so,” the Domina said. “But do riot expect it to endear your person to me when you have finished.”

  The Minister of Internal Security bowed, undaunted. “I only ask to serve.”

  “So I am told by all my servants,” said Perada. “Ser Hafrey!”

  “My lady.”

  “I have heard the accusations and your defense. This is my word on the matter: You are no longer armsmaster to my House, you are no longer living to Entibor. You are dead. Go where you please and trouble me no longer.”

  The Domina paused. “However. I would not leave the House without an armsmaster; it would run against all custom. Tillijen—are you willing to enter my service?”

  Even through her own shock, Tillijen heard Nivome’s furious intake of breath. “Your Dignity, this person is—”

  “—is my choice for armsmaster, and it’s not your place to speak against her. I’ve dismissed one servant today for placing his judgment above mine; be careful that I don’t dismiss a second!” The Domina’s voice had risen slightly. She paused, then repeated, in a calmer tone, “Tillijen—what do you say?”