The Last Hawk

by Catherine Asaro

  Soon he would be free.

  In another room, a clock chimed. Sometime later it chimed again.

  Kelric dropped the shard. Then he gathered up the pieces of glass and arranged them on the nightstand, taking care to place each shard in its proper place.

  Finally he lay on the bed.

  "Sevtar?"

  Kelric hid in the gray world between sleep and waking.

  "Sevtar?"

  He doesn't exist, Kelric thought.

  Fingers brushed his cheek. Opening his eyes, he saw Rashiva kneeling on the bed next to him. She was wearing a red lace robe that came to her thighs and she had freed her hair, letting it pour in lustrous waves over her body.

  She watched him with her dark gaze. "The vase—Why?"

  "It fell."

  Her voice caught. "Into Quis patterns of death?"

  Instead of answering, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her down on the bed. When she resisted, he held her down and rolled on top of her. Taking huge handfuls of her hair, he clenched his fists in the hollows where her shoulders met her neck.

  "Sevtar, stop." She pushed against his shoulders. "It hurts."

  He moved one hand to her breast and dug in his fingers. "Isn't this what you came for?"

  "Not like this. Not in anger." Fear made her voice dusky. "This wasn't in your Quis."

  "It was easy to fool you. You play Quis like a child." He watched her face. "You never asked if I wanted a wife. I don't. I already have one."

  As soon as she tensed, he knew something was wrong. "What is it?" he demanded. When she didn't answer, he gripped her shoulders. "Answer me!"

  She stared at him, still silent, but it didn't matter. Her reaction was so strong that even his injured Kyle centers picked it up.

  Dead. Deha was dead.

  He suddenly heard a rushing noise, one in his head rather than his ears. His voice came through the tumult. "How did she die?"

  "Why makes you think—"

  "Don't lie to me."

  Softly she said, "Deha died of the heart sickness. Last season."

  last season? When was she going to tell him? Next year? Next century? A red haze blurred his vision. Had Rashiva gloated over Deha's death? Had she sat smug in her power over him while he rotted in solitude? He wanted to hurt her so much it burned in his mind. Burned.

  He lay poised on the edge of brutality, a heartbeat away from violence. Except he couldn't do it. He couldn't inflict that harm on another person.

  Kelric let out a long breath. Then he rolled off her, onto his back.

  Hearing the covers rustle, he looked to see her kneeling at the edge of the bed, her hand resting on the nightstand's com switch. But she didn't call for help. Instead she spoke quietly. "I'm sorry. I should have told you. I didn't know how."

  "I don't want you," he lied. If he lay with her now, he knew he would hurt her.

  "Then what do you want?"

  What indeed? He rolled onto his side and pushed up on his elbow. "To play Quis. Put me in your Calanya."

  She gave him an incredulous look. "After what happened here tonight?"

  His fist clenched in the velvet covers. "If you expect me to use sexual favors to get what I want, you can wait until the end of time."

  "Why do you say such a thing?"

  "It's what you expect, isn't it?"

  Softly she said, "I would like you to behave more like a Haka man. Is that so outrageous? I am a Haka woman."

  "I'm not a Haka man." He reached out and pulled her sash, loosening it until her robe slid off her shoulders, revealing her body underneath, her skin creamy dark against the rich red silk. "You better leave, Rashiva. If you don't, you'll get what you came for. But you won't like how it comes."

  Watching him, she swallowed. She slid off the bed and put on a long robe she had draped over a chair. Then she left the room, her bare feet padding on the floor.

  17

  Mulitple Builders

  "A child." Rashiva stood in the Hyella Chamber looking out at the desert. "He thinks I play Quis like a child."

  "He only understands Quis solitaire," Saje said. "He is right about the Calanya. He should be in it."

  She turned to face the Third Level, who was standing by the Quis table. "I can't."

  "You keep saying this. I can't. Why not? What has he done to warrant this distrust? Tried to break a window? Is this truly so dire?"

  If only you knew, Rashiva thought. But her night with Sevtar would always remain private. What would she have done if he had raped her? Sent him back to prison, an admission of her weakness? No. Never would she let such humiliation become public. She would find other ways to deal with this. And she would deal with it.

  The intensity of her reaction gave her pause. Despite how he had obviously wanted to hurt her, he had held back. So why did she want to punish him?

  Because he had deceived her with Quis. He rejected her. If she did nothing, it would always be there between them, this imbalance that undermined her authority. It would eat away at her self—confidence, make her less of a woman, less in command at Haka.

  No. Rashiva took a breath. She couldn't let this ruin her confidence. Nor could she let it interfere with her ability to run Haka. She had to make her decisions baSed on what was best for her Estate, not her pride.

  Comfortable on cushions, four men were sitting on the Carpeted floor around a low Quis table, too intent on their game to notice Kelric and Rashiva, who stood watching from across the room. The room was large, octagonal in shape, with walls painted in desert hues.

  Rashiva spoke in a low voice. "This is the main common room." She indicated an arch in another wall. "Smaller common rooms are through there, and an exit to the parks."

  He tried to absorb it. People. "How many Calani live here?"

  "Seventeen." She raised her voice slightly. "Adaar?"

  A Calani lifted his head, blinking like a diver coming to the surface of a lake. As the others looked up, Adaar rose to his feet and walked over to Rashiva.

  She smiled. "Adaar, this is Sevtar."

  Adaar bowed to him. "Welcome to Haka."

  Kelric nodded.

  "Do you know where the others are?" Rashiva asked Adaar.

  "In the gardens, I think. I can get them."

  "Yes. Thank you"

  As Adaar left, Rashiva drew Kelric over to the table, where the other players were getting to their feet. She introduced him to all three, including Raaj, a First Level with the handsome features of a desert prince. His dark stare grazed Kelric like sandpaper.

  A ripple of conversation spilled into the room, followed by more Calani As they gathered around talking at him Kelric felt as if he were suffocating. He had thought he wanted this, but being plunged among humans so suddenly was too much.

  Finally Rashiva said, "You can talk to him more later. I'm going to show him his suite."

  More nods, more words, and then he and Rashiva escaped into a private suite. Except for its entrance into the main common room, it was otherwise much like his spice suite.

  "This is where you will live." Rashiva spoke with awkward formality. "The common rooms are open to all, but no one can come in here unless you invite them."

  "Does that include you?" he asked.

  She stiffened. "No."

  Kelric hadn't meant it to sound so hostile. He felt as if he had been suffering a fever, not in his body but in his mind, one he hadn't realized was burning until it began to ease. Like a distant voice nearly lost in a cave where no light had shone for years, thoughts were stirring, awakening from their slumber, trying to bring him coolness and health.

  Rashiva pushed her fingers through her hair, tousling her normally perfect braid. "I will leave you to rest now." Her brocade trousers rustled as she exited the room.

  He wandered through the suite for a while and eventually stopped in the bedroom. For a long time he stood at a window gazing at the desert. He tried to think about Dahl, but he couldn't imagine it without Deha. Tears ran down his fac
e. He didn't move or make a sound, he just kept watching the desert while he cried. For Deha.

  It wasn't until later that afternoon that he returned to the archway that opened into the common room. When he pushed aside the screen, he saw Saje in a nearby alcove talking to Adaar.

  "Ah. Sevtar." The Third Level nodded to him. "Will you join us at Quis?"

  Kelric returned the nod, trying to relax. Quis he could do.

  With Adaar's assistance, Saje walked stiffly to a table where several Calani had been analyzing a Quis game. The players all rose, standing until Saje had settled into his cushions. After everyone was seated, Saje nodded to Raaj, the Hakaborn prince. "Will you begin? We will work on the Miesa Plateau."

  Kelric rolled out his dice, wondering what a plateau in Miesa had to do with Quis. Raaj set a gold dodecahedron on the table and the session took off. At first Kelric had trouble following a game with so many players, but gradually the patterns became clear. The structures described an Estate. Miesa? Its Manager was young. Gold. Sun. It came up again and again.

  "Savina," Kelric suddenly said. "The sungoddess."

  Heads jerked up. Raaj scowled and Adaar dropped a cone, knocking over a structure.

  "Yes," Saje said. "Savina is the name of the Miesa Manager. Please do not disrupt the session again."

  Kelric winced. But as soon as the game resumed, he became absorbed in the patterns. It was as if he circled over Miesa, dropping nearer. It nestled in a valley where the mountains met a plateau that boasted a wealth of mineral deposits. The Manager who controlled the Miesa Plateau controlled the mineral markets of the Twelve Estates and so wielded great power. But Varz Estate rather than Miesa dominated the patterns. The once-wealthy Miesa had declined; until now it depended heavily on Varz.

  After the picture was complete, the players projected various futures for Miesa into the structures. If a pattern formed with the Karn Ministry dominant, they destroyed it the same way an Outsider playing dice for money sought to destroy an opponent's advantage.

  New patterns developed with Varz ascendent.

  As they played, Kelric finally began to understand what the Calani did cloistered in their Calanya. They were shaping the future of their world.

  * * *

  Saje ushered Kelric into a private alcove in the Third Level's suite. They sat among cushions on a carpet so thick that Kelric's toes sank into the pile.

  "Tomorrow," Saje continued, "I will sit at Quis with Rashiva and build her patterns of the work we did today."

  Kelric was beginning to understand what Ixpar had meant, that Calani advised the Manager. "What happens then?"

  "She plays Quis with selected aides. They play with others. Her input soon creates powerful ripples in the Quis net that spreads across the Twelve Estates." He slid a cushion under his legs. "It works both ways. She interacts with many high-level players, including other Managers, and then inputs her knowledge into our Quis by playing dice with us. We use the information to find advantage for Haka."

  "But everyone plays Quis."

  "Yes Every woman man and child in the Twelve Estates." Saje paused. "It is one game. We have been playing it for a thousand years."

  A new pattern was unveiling itself In Kelric's mind. Quis was the Coban equivalent of the star-spanning computer networks that tied together the Imperialate, the regular electro-optical webs and also the psiberspace webs only Kyle operators could access. Quis was a third type of web, one the Cobans "accessed" every time they played dice. This was a subjective net, depending on fluxes of personality and dice expertise rather than electricity or quantum physics. Its "memory" was the social, cultural, and racial memory of a people.

  "Consider the situation at Miesa," Saje said. "We must help Varz stop the Ministry from taking control of the Plateau."

  "Why?"

  Saje snorted. "I should think this is obvious. If the Ministry controls the Plateau, it will give Jahlt Karn more power. She already has too much."

  "She's the Minister," Kelric said.

  "Varz challenges that claim." Saje settled his legs more comfortably on the pillow. "During the Old Age Varz and Karn often went to war. Now they battle with Quis."

  "I take it Haka is an ally of Varz."

  "Of course." Saje tilted his head toward the common room. "At the center of the ripples are the Calani. The more powerful a Calanya, the stronger its waves. But without a strong Manager, a Calanya is powerless."

  "Why not just send Calani out into the network?"

  Saje gave him a look that Kelric suspected he reserved for the dullest of the dull-witted. "We never speak with, read about. write to, or receive input from Outsiders They are in no way allowed, to contaminate the Calanya. If Outsiders can get to our Quis, they can manipulate it to their advantage. This would weaken Haka at its core."

  The idea of protected nodes in a web intrigued Kelric. "Doesn't Third Level mean you lived on two other Estates before you came here?"

  Saje nodded. "I was hardly more than a boy when I did my First Level at Viasa. I went to Varz soon after and stayed many years. Then I came here."

  "Won't your knowledge of Varz and Viasa affect Haka?"

  "Ah." Saje smiled as if he and Kelric were conspirators. "What better way to learn the inner working of another Estate than to obtain one of its Calani?" Quietly he added, "This is why we swear, on penalty of our lives,- that our loyalty is to the Estate where we are Calani. It is also why the higher Levels are so rare. And so sought after. To bring me here. Rashiva's predecessor put Haka into debt for years."

  "They buy us?"

  Saje shrugged. "It is a matter of negotiation. I wished to come to Haka. Haka wished to have me. So. A trade was arranged." He shifted the pillow under his legs. "The desert climate eases my joints. I doubt I would leave Haka even if I were offered a Fourth Level."

  "I had the impression Fourth Levels were nonexistent."

  "Almost. Only one has existed in the last century." Saje leaned forward. "Mentar. He is at Karn. Akasi to the Minister. Mentar doesn't make ripples with his Quis. He makes tidal waves."

  Kelric's mind created a Quis pattern of waves. "Has there ever been a Fifth Level?"

  Saje thought for a moment. "In this millennium I believe records exist of two. Legends from the Old Age claim another. But the cost of a Fifth Level settlement is prohibitive to the point of impossibility."

  "What about a Sixth?"

  Saje laughed. "A Sixth Level could never exist." His smile faded "It is fortunate The power of his dice would be beyond comprehension."

  18

  Toppled Chute

  "Ixpar." Jahlt Karn, the Minister of Coba, looked up as the young woman strode into her office. "I didn't expect you back from Bahvla Estate until tonight."

  "We left early. The pilot was worried about the weather." Ixpar dropped into an armchair and stretched her legs out to their full length, seeming to cover half the room. Strands of hair had escaped her braid and were curling in fiery tendrils around her face. "Manager Bahvla sends her greetings."

  "And how is Henta?"

  With a grimace, Ixpar said, "Nosier than ever."

  Jahlt smiled. Henta Bahvla's penchant for gossip was well known. "Did your visit go well?"

  Ixpar leaned forward. "Henta supports a Ministry Wardship of the Miesa mines. I didn't even need to ask. She told me herself she thinks Varz holds too much control over the Plateau."

  "Good. I'm also fairly certain of Shazorla Estate."

  Her successor got up and paced to the bookshelf. "Henta has heard rumors that Ahkah will side with Varz."

  "That would be unfortunate."

  Ixpar paced to the window. "There's still Viasa."

  "I wouldn't roll dice on it." The feud between Bahvla and Viasa was so old, Jahlt doubted anyone even knew its cause anymore. "Viasa almost always votes against Bahvla. So if Bahvla goes with us, Viasa will go with Varz."

  "There's the new Manager at Viasa, though." Ixpar sat on the windowsill. "Even Henta doesn't know much about
her." She got up and started pacing again.

  Jahlt watched her successor hiding her smile. Ixpar was as restless as a caged clawcat "Perhaps it's time I sent an ambassador to Viasa. to give my regards to its new Manager."

  Ixpar stopped pacing and squinted at her. "This ambassador wouldn't happen to have red hair, would she?"

  "Manager Viasa is only a few years older than you. The two of you should have a lot In common."

  "What about my visit to Dahl?"

  "Dahl." Jahlt exhaled. "A difficult situation. It is best we postpone your trip there."

  "I thought Chankah's support was solid."

  "It is. This is another matter" Jahlt disliked bringing up the subject It remained Ixpar's one weakness "An offworld matter."

  "Kelric."

  "Chankah wants me to pardon him. It was Deha's dying request. I must tell her no."

  "Why?"

  Jahlt injected a coldness into her voice she rarely used with her successor. "I am surprised you need ask."

  "You know," Ixpar said. "When one spends time with Henta one hears many rumors."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as, Dahl and Haka made an arrangement years ago."

  Jahlt frowned "I was not aware of any agreements between Dahl and Haka."

  Ixpar walked over to her desk. "It was about Kelric. He's a Haka Calani now."

  "Deha would never have consented to such an arrangement."

  "Henta seemed sure of her sources."

  Jahlt didn't like the sound of it. Not at all.

  After the formalities were done, the Estate dinner eaten and the speeches given, Jahlt and Chankah withdrew to Chankah's private study. The new Dahl Manager poured out two glasses of jai rum and gave one to the Minister. "Deha would appreciate your visit."

  "She was a fine friend and ally" Jahlt lifted her rum. "To Deha."

  Chankah raised her glass. "To Deha."

  "Well. Now we must decide what to do with this problem she left us." Jahlt settled back in her armchair. "What exactly is this contract she and Rashiva thought up?"