Brin, David - Glory Season

by Glory Season (mobi)

  The patterns were lovely. Another geometry trance beckoned, ready to draw her in. Tempted, this time she refused. Her attention was needed elsewhere.

  Quietly, without making sudden moves, Maia took a stick and rolled one of the stronger embers into her dinner cup. She covered it with a small, chipped plate from the supplies left by the reavers, and waited. An hour passed, during which she thought about Leie, and Renna, and the ballad of the Kings . . . and most of all, about whether she was being stupid, getting all worked up over a suspicion based on nothing but pure logic, bereft of any supporting evidence at all.

  Eventually, someone came to sit by her.

  "Well, tomorrow's the big day."

  It was a low voice, almost a whisper, to avoid waking the others. But Maia recognized it without looking up. Thought so, she told herself as Inanna squatted to her left.

  "Wouldn't of expected you being too excited to sleep, seeing as how you're staying behind," the big sailor said in casual, friendly tones. "Will you miss the rest of us so much?"

  Maia glanced at the woman, who seemed overly relaxed. "I always miss friends."

  Inanna nodded vigorously. "Yah, we got to choose a mail drop, maybe in some coast city. One time or another, we'll all get together again, hoist brews, amaze the locals with our tale." She leaned toward Maia, conspiratorially. "Speaking of which, I got a little something, if you want a nip." She pulled out a slim flask that swished and gurgled. "The Lysodamn reavers missed this, bless 'em. Care to lift a couple? For no hard feelings?"

  Maia shook her head. "I shouldn't. Alky goes to my head: I'd be no good when you need help launching."

  "You'll be no good if you're up restless all night, neither." Inanna removed the cap and Maia watched her take a long pull, swallowing. The sailor wiped her mouth and held out the flask. "Ah! Good stuff, believe it. Puts hair where it belongs, an' takes it off where it don't."

  With a show of reluctance, Maia reached for the flask, sniffing an aroma of strong mash. "Well . . . just one." She tipped the pewter bottle, letting a bare trickle of liquor down her throat. The ensuing fit of coughs was not faked.

  "There now, don't that warm yer innards? Frost for the nose and flamejuice for the gut. No matching the combination, I always say."

  Indeed, Maia felt a spreading heat from even that small amount. When Inanna insisted she have another, it was easy to show ambivalence, both attraction and reluctance at the same time. Despite her best efforts, some more got by her tongue. It felt fiery. The third time the bottle went back and forth, she did a better job blocking the liquor, but heady fumes Went up her nose, making her feel dizzy.

  "Thanks. It seems to ... work," Maia' said slowly, not trying to fake a slur. Rather, she spoke primly, as a tipsy woman does, who wants not to show it. "Right now, how-ever, I ... think I had better go and lie down." With deliberate care, she picked up her plate and cup and shuffled toward her bedroll, at the campsite's periphery. Behind her, the woman said, "Sleep well and soundly, virgie." There was no mistaking a note of satisfaction in her voice.

  Maia kept the appearance of a tired fiver, gladly collapsing for the night. But within, she growled, now almost certain her suspicions were true. Surreptitiously, while climbing under the blanket, she watched Inanna move from the fire ring toward her own bedroll at the far quadrant of the camp. A dimly perceived shadow, the woman did not lie down, but squatted or sat, waiting.

  I never would have figured all this out before, Maia thought. Not until Tizbe and Kiele and Baltha—and Leie—taught me how sneaky people can be. Now it's like I knew it all along, a pattern I can see unfolding.

  It had started with the debate, soon after their internment, over whether to build one big raft or a couple of small boats. Naroin had been right. In this archipelago, a dinghy with a sail and centerboard might weave in and out past shoals and islets with a good chance of getting away, even if spotted. A raft, if seen, would be easy prey.

  But that assumed reaver ships were just hanging around, patrolling frequently. In fact, lookouts had seen only two distant sails in all the days since their maroonment. It would take a major coincidence for pirates to show just when the raft set forth.

  Unless they were warned, somehow.

  Maia found the whole situation ridiculous on the face of it.

  Why would they intern a bunch of experienced sailors on an island without supervision? They'd have to know we'd try escaping. Try to get help. Alert the police.

  Naroin's sullen mutterings after the crucial vote had set Maia on the path. There had to be a spy among them! Someone who would guide the inevitable escape attempt in ways that made it more vulnerable, easier to thwart. And, especially, someone well positioned to warn the pirates in time to prepare an ambush.

  What's their plan? I wonder. To capture those on the raft and bring them back? The failure would surely cause morale to plummet, and hamper subsequent attempts.

  But that won't guarantee against other tries. They must mean to transfer any escapees to a more secure prison, like where they took Renna and the rads.

  But no. If that were the case, why not put the sailors there in the first place?

  Coldly, Maia knew but one logical answer. As ruthless as they seemed after the fight, breaking the Code of Combat and all, they couldn't go so far as deliberately killing captives. Not with so many witnesses. The men of the Reckless. Renna. Not even all of the reavers' own crew could be trusted with a secret like that.

  But to take care of things later on? Use a small ship, manned by only the most trusted. Come upon a raft, wallowing and helpless. No need even to fight. Just fling some rocks. Gone without a trace. Too bad ...

  Maia's anger seethed, evaporating all lingering traces of alky high. Lying as if asleep, she watched through slitted eyes the dark lump that was Inanna, waiting for the lump to move.

  It might have been better, safer, to check out her suspicions in a subtler way, by going to bed when everyone else did, and then crawling off behind a tree to keep watch. But that could have taken half the night. Maia had no great faith in her attention span, or ability to be certain of not drifting off. What if it was hours and hours? What if she was wrong?

  Better to flush the spy out early. Maia had decided to make it seem as if she intended to stay up all night long. An irksome inconvenience, perhaps causing the reaver agent to feel panicky. Speed up the spy's subjective clock. Make her act before she might have otherwise.

  And it worked. Now Maia had a target to watch. Her concentration was helped no end by knowing she was right.

  The dark blur didn't move, though. Time seemed to pass with geologic slowness. More seconds, minutes, crawled by. Her eyes grew scratchy from staring at barely perceivable contrasts in blackness. She took to closing them one at a time. The patch of shadow remained rock-still.

  Smoke from the smoldering coals drifted toward her. Maia was forced to shut her eyelids longer, to keep them from drying out.

  Panic touched her when they reopened. Sometime in the last . . . who knew how long . . . she might have strayed—even dozed! She stared, trying to detect any change on the far side of the camp, and felt a growing uncertainty. Perhaps it wasn't that faint blob she was supposed to be watching, after all. Maybe it was another one. She had drifted and now her target was gone. Oh, if only there were a moon, tonight!

  If only I'd found whatever she plans to signal with. That had been Maia's ulterior reason for performing circuit after circuit of the island, ostensibly studying the hourly tides. She had poked her head under logs and into rocky crannies all over the perimeter. Unfortunately, whatever lay hidden had stayed that way, and now she must decide. To wait a little longer? Or try moving into the woods and begin searching for someone who might already have a growing head start?

  Damn. No one could be this patient. She has to be gone by now.

  Well, here goes ...

  Maia was about to push aside the blanket, but then abruptly stopped when the shadow moved! There was a faint sound, much softer t
han young Brod's stentorian snoring. Maia stared raptly as a blurred form unfolded vertically, then slowly began moving off. At one point, a patch of stars were occulted by something with the general outline of a stocky woman.

  Now. As silently as possible, Maia threw off the blanket and rolled over. She took from beneath her bedroll the things she had prepared earlier. A stave thickly wrapped at one end with bone-dry vines. A stone knife. The cup containing a warm, barely glowing ember. Following a carefully memorized path, she hurried quietly into the forest, to a chosen station, where she stopped and listened.

  Over there, to the east! Pebbles crunched and twigs broke, faintly at first, but with growing carelessness as distance fell between the spy and the campsite. Maia forced herself to pause a little longer, verifying that the woman didn't stop at intervals, listening for pursuit.

  There were no lapses. Excellent. Cautious to make as little noise as possible, with eyes peeled for dry sticks on the forest floor, Maia started to follow. The trail led deeper into the woods, explaining why her surveys on the bluffs had found nothing. It had been reasonable to hope the signaling device was kept where a flasher or lantern might be seen from another island. But Inanna was clearly too cagey to leave things where they might be discovered by chance.

  Maia's foot came down on something parched and crackly, whose plaint at being crushed seemed loud enough to wake Persephone, in Hades. She stopped dead still, trying to listen, but was hampered by the adrenaline pounding of her heart. After a long pause, at last Maia heard the soft sound of footsteps resume, moving off ahead of her. Something lit only by starlight briefly cut across a lattice of trees, disturbing their symmetry. She resumed the pursuit, wariness redoubled.

  That was fortunate. As clouds thickened and darkness fell even deeper, it was a faint odor that stopped her short again. A change in the flow of air, of wind. Her quarry's footsteps took a sudden veer leftward, and Maia abruptly realized why.

  Straight ahead, in the direction she had just been moving, a thick cluster of stars briefly emerged, casting a thousand gleaming reflections from a face of sheer concavity. The crater—far more intimidating than it had seemed by day. The glass-lined precipice yawned not meters away, like the jaws of some mighty, ancient thing, hungry for a midnight snack. Maia swallowed hard. She turned to the left and continued, watching the ground more closely than ever. Fortunately, the trail soon receded from the terrible pit. Some distance onward, there came a faint sound, like a scraping of stone against stone. Maia paused, heard it repeat. Then she waited some more.

  Nothing. Silence. Just the wind and forest. Grimly, in case it was a trap, Maia extended her frozen stillness for another count of sixty. At last, she resumed her forward stalk, concentrating to keep a bearing toward that final, grating sound. A break in the cloud cover, near the horizon, showed a corner of the constellation Cyclist. She used it for reference while skirting trees and other obstacles, until finally concluding that something had to be wrong.

  I must've gone too far. Or have I?

  She could not see or hear anyone. The idea of an ambush was not to be dismissed.

  Two more steps forward and her feet left loam. They seemed to scuff a flat, sandy surface, scored at regular intervals by fine grooves. Peering about, Maia realized she stood amid massive, blocky forms, in a clearing where not even saplings grew. She reached out to the nearest pile of weathered stone. Worked stone with eroded, right angles. It was one of many ruins peppering the island plateau. Few places were better suited for springing a trap.

  Quietly, she felt her way along the wall till it ended. Passing to the other side, she verified that no one waited behind. Not there, at least. Maia knelt and laid her burdens on the ground. She closed one eye, to protect its dark-adaptation—a habit taught her long ago, during astronomy nights, by Old Coot Bennett—and raised the cup holding the ember. Shielding it with one hand, she blew until it glimmered in spots, then laid it down with the tinder-wrapped end of her stave on top. Maia took the chert knife in her left hand, and grabbed the stave's haft in her right. A smoldering rose.

  Abruptly, the torch flared with an audible whoosh. Maia quickly stood, holding it above and behind her head to shine everywhere but in her eyes. Stark shadows fled the garish-bright stone walls and tree trunks. Hurrying to exploit surprise, she rushed to circumnavigate the ruins, peering in all corners while Inanna would be blinking away spots.

  Nothing. Maia hurried through another circuit, this time checking places where someone might have hidden, even the lower branches. At any moment, if necessary, she was ready to use the flaming brand as a weapon.

  Damn. Inanna must've been just far enough to duck out when I lit the torch. Too bad. Thought I'd finally figured out how to do something right. I guess people don't change.

  Feeling deflated, disappointed, Maia sought the nearest flat area amid the rains and sat down.

  The stone jiggled beneath her.

  She stood up and turned around, holding the torch toward the slab. It looked like just another chiseled chunk of wall, atop a pile of others. Come on. You're jumping to conclusions.

  A breeze caused the flames to flicker upward.

  Upward? Maia held out her hand, and felt a thin stream of air. With her foot she gave the slab a tentative shove. Stone grated stone, a familiar sound. The slab moved much too easily.

  "Well I'm an atyp bleeder." Maia blinked at a sudden mental vision of the glass-rimmed crater, as it had looked by daylight. She had briefly pictured a network of regular shapes behind the slag coating, then dismissed it as an artifact of her overactive pattern-recognition system. Now though, the mental conception loomed ... of layers that she had rationalized as sedimentary, but which imagination shaped into rooms, corridors.

  "Of course."

  Someone had dug some sort of mine or tunnel system here. Perhaps they had delved for safety, to no avail against whatever had melted that awful hole.

  Bending to examine the stone, Maia sought its secret. Tip it back? No, I see. Push to the left . . . then up!

  The slab rotated, revealing a stout makeshift hinge arrangement of slots and pins. A set of rubble stairs, quite rough in the upper portion, dropped into darkness. Carefully, Maia lifted one leg and stepped over the sill, lowering herself gingerly below the forest roots.

  My torch is already half used up. Better make this quick, girl.

  The steps ended about five meters down, followed by a low tunnel under primitive archworks. Maia had to duck as flames licked the ceiling, igniting cobwebs in fleeting, sparkling pyres. Finally, the coarse passage spilled into an underground room.

  Dust and stone chips covered every surface, save a wooden table and chair, surrounded by scrape marks and foot tracks. In one corner lay a trash midden, the freshest layer consisting of still aromatic orange peels and chicfruit rinds. Someone's been eating better than the rest of us, she thought, wryly. A wooden box revealed a bag of stale sesame crackers and one orange, on its last legs. No wonder it's so urgent to launch the raft soon. You were running out of goodies, Inanna.

  A blanket hung tacked over the sole exit. Maia tore it down. A few meters beyond, fresh stairs plunged anew. She proceeded to rip the blanket into strips, wrapping half of them around the torch, just below the burning part. One strip lit early and she dropped it, dancing away and cursing in whispers. Maia jammed the remainder under her belt, along with the knife, and set forth.

  The dusty sense of age only increased as she descended, spiraling down the cylindrical shaft. These stairs were original equipment, finely carved and worn down several centimeters in the middle, by countless footsteps. Each one was shaped as the sector of a circle, resting one radial edge atop the one below it. In the middle, disklike projections from each wedge lay stacked, one above the next, all the way down, forming a round, vertical banister that she used to steady herself while dropping lower and lower, round and around.

  After perhaps ten meters, Maia paused where a door and landing gave into dark rooms. Torchlight rev
ealed arched ceilings, some collapsed, trailing off toward utter blackness. There were no sounds. Undisturbed dust showed that no one had walked these quarters in years. Feeling eerily chilled, she continued downward, passing a second landing . . . and a third . . . and yet another, until at last she sensed distinct sound rising up the shaft. Faint, as yet indistinct, its source lay below.

  Oh, for a dumbwaiter, Maia recalled sardonically, contemplating climbing all this on the way back. Even the Lysodamned Lamai wine cellar wasn't like this. Hateful place, but at least they had a winch-lift. And a string of two-watt bulbs. It wasn't clear what she'd do if she was caught down here with the torch gone out. It should be simple, in theory, to get back. Just follow the stairs upward, then grope her way toward fresh air. In practice, it would probably be scary as hell. I wonder what kind of lamp Inanna's got.