The Last Hawk

by Catherine Asaro

  "Cuaz above," Chal said "They're shelling it."

  "Why is the sun coming up over there?" Rohka asked. "That's the wrong place"

  "It isn't the sun, honey," Jasina said. "The airfield is on fire."

  "Why?"

  Jasina drew them under a shop awning. "Not now Rohka."

  "Are we hiding?" Rohka asked.

  "Just until they go away," Jasina said.

  "Look." Rohka pointed up at the mountains and wiggled in Chal's arms, trying to get down. "There's more."

  The new riders sped over the city, following the ones that had made so much noise and light. Jasina waited until long after they had vanished before she stepped into the street again.

  For the rest of the trip back to the Cooperative no one spoke. Rohka caught a wisp of thought from someone about the riders being Karn. It confused her. Adults said Karn people were , bad and Varz people were good, but that wasn't always what they thought. They were afraid of someone named Avtac and Avtac was at Varz.

  Rohka knew Karn was important. Her father lived there. She wished he was at Miesa. She didn't understand why the evil people at Karn took him away, or why everyone said her mother had left on a long trip, when what they thought was that Savina Miesa had died.

  Sometimes Rohka made pictures in her mind of the sungoddess Savina carrying her away to a magical cloud where the Akasi Sevtar lived. Suns grew on the trees and jugglers ran laughing down the cloud streets. It was a place where food never made you sick and gold eyes were normal and no one told you hearing thoughts was wrong.

  In predawn dimness, Captain Borj walked with Ixpar across the Karn airfield. She pulled off her helmet, a bronze headgear shaped like the head of a clawcat. "The Varz defenses were too strong. We only managed one run over the airfield before they ran us off."

  "Any casualties?" Ixpar asked.

  "None." Borj paused. "We didn't lose any riders at Miesa either."

  "Miesa? What were you doing there?"

  "When we hit Varz, they brought in reinforcements from the Plateau. So we snuck out over Miesa while her defenders were at Varz." Borj tugged off her gloves. "We put out their airfield. Miesa won't be sending support to Varz for a while."

  Although Ixpar knew the move made tactical sense, it disturbed her. Miesa barely claimed enough riders to support itself, let alone anyone else.

  For the rest of the morning, Ixpar sat in her office reading reports from her commanders. At Midday she climbed up to her suite for a Quis session with Kelric. She found him asleep in the bedroom, and an uneasy feeling came over her as she watched the rise and fall of his chest.

  She went back to the entrance and spoke to Eb, the captain of his Calanya escort. "Does Sevtar always sleep this much?"

  "Usually," Eb said.

  "Why? What does he do that makes him so tired?"

  "Can't rightly say I know, ma'am. He spends most of his time playing Quis."

  Ixpar frowned, then left the suite and went down to Med. She found her Senior Physician reading in the medical library.

  "So," Shallina said. "Have you finally come for the physical I ordered?"

  "This is about Sevtar," Ixpar said. "He sleeps too much."

  Shallina spoke dryly. "There is no harm in sleep. You should try it sometime."

  "Not this much. It's not normal."

  The doctor closed her book. "I will look at him."

  It was evening when Shallina came to Ixpar's office. "He's exhausted," the doctor said. "I don't know why. I found nothing wrong." She paused. "To be honest, I don't know what is wrong or right for a Skolian."

  Ixpar put down her quill. "What do you suggest?"

  Shallina cleared her throat. "I think you should, ah—ask Dabbiv Dahl to come here."

  That threw Ixpar like a Quis die. Shallina's conservative approach to medicine usually had her denouncing Dabbiv's work. "Why?"

  "Don't mistake my meaning," Shallina said. "I don't subscribe to these off-pattern ideas of his. But he is the only doctor on Coba who has had experience with offworlders."

  Ixpar sent an octet of riders to Dahl that night.

  Three days later, while Ixpar sat listening to her advisers argue in the Hall of Teotec, Anthoni brought her a message. She slipped out of the meeting and hurried with him to the airfield, reaching it in time to see her Karn riders landing, accompanied by a Dahl craft.

  The heavyset man with gray-streaked hair who jumped down from the Dahl rider looked like a stranger. But the moment he smiled, Ixpar recognized him.

  "Dabbiv." She returned the smile. "Welcome to my Estate."

  The doctor bowed. "You look well, Manager Karn."

  "Did you have a good flight?"

  "For the most part There: was a bit of trouble near the end." Dabbiv adjusted his glasses. "For some reason an Ahkah patrol decided we were in their way."

  "What happened?"

  "Not much. They shook us around some, your Captain Borj shook them around some, and that was the end of it."

  She laid her hand on his arm. "I know the risks you took coming here. You have my deepest thanks."

  "I'm honored you think I can help."

  They walked to the Estate with Anthoni and a retinue of guards. While Anthoni showed Dabbiv to his suite, Ixpar returned to the Hall of Teotec. Her commanders were still arguing, but they had migrated from the Opal Table to the wall map. Colored pins covered the map: red for enemy, blue for ally, gray for neutral. Red dominated: in the east it showed on Ahkah and Lasa, in the northeast on Varz and Miesa, in the west on Shazorla and Eviza. Karn made a splash of blue in the center, as did Bahvla to the north and Dahl to. the south. Gray showed on Haka in the southwest and on Viasa and Tehnsa in the northwest. Air lanes networked the chart in blue, gray, and red.

  Ixpar went to the map and pushed in a pin to mark the skirmish between Dabbiv's escort and the Ahkah patrol. The red marker encroached on the blue of the Karn/Dahl air lanes.

  Elder Solan frowned. "At this rate, red will soon surround Karn."

  Ixpar pulled out the red pin at Shazorla and replaced it with a blue one.

  "Wishful hopes," Solan said.

  "Soon to be fact." Ixpar regarded the Elder. "Whether Shazorla likes it or not."

  Kelric sat in the Blue Alcove thinking Quis thoughts. In another part of the suite a door opened. He looked up, expecting Ixpar, but instead he saw the Calanya Speaker and an unknown man. After introducing the man as Dabbiv Dahl, the Speaker withdrew.

  Dabbiv bowed. "My greetings."

  Kelric wondered why Ixpar allowed a stranger to intrude on his privacy.

  "Don't you recognize me?" the man asked. "Dabbiv. Your doctor at Dahl."

  Kelric did recall an intense young doctor there. This man looked too old to be the same person.

  After a moment Dabbiv said, "Would you prefer I came back later?"

  Kelric had no desire to be poked at by-more doctors. But Ixpar must have gone to a lot of trouble to bring Dabbiv here. For her sake he would consent to one more exam.

  Ixpar found the person she sought in the office she had provided him, bent over the microscope he had invented. "Dabbiv?" she asked. He jumped to his feet, then grabbed some folders and slapped them down on the desk. "Manager Karn."

  "Captain Eb told me you finished examining Kelric." Ixpar went over and pushed aside the folders, uncovering several texts, all with titles in Skolian. She picked one up. "Cardiopulmonary Anomalies in Gamma Physiology."

  "Ah—" His face paled. "Yes."

  "What does it mean?"

  "Gamma refers to the breed of humans Kelric belongs to. Cardiopulmonary means heart and lungs."

  "lmperialate hearts and lungs."

  "Yes."

  Ixpar set down the text and covered it with folders. "You should keep a neater office. You never know who might walk in." .

  The color eased back into Dabbiv's face. "I'll do that."

  "How is Kelric?"

  "I need more tests," he said. "It will take a few days. I've never done these
procedures before, so I have to make sure I get them right."

  Ixpar tensed. "You want to experiment on my Akasi?"

  "The tests aren't experimental. Skolians use them all the time."

  "You aren't Skolian."

  He regarded her steadily "If I don't determine what's wrong with Kelric—and believe me, something is wrong—it will do him fat more harm than my tests ever could."

  His words quashed Ixpar's last hopes that her worries were unfounded. "All right. But be careful."

  Four days passed while Dabbiv ran his tests. On the fifth evening Ixpar found him waiting in her office, sitting at a table with his fingers steepled together.

  She sat across from him. "What did you find?"

  "Kelric differs from us far more than is obvious from his physical appearance."

  "We take every precaution for him. Special diet, purified water—you've seen what we do."

  "You can't change the ecosystems of an entire world." He lowered his hands. "Coba has poisoned him day by day, year by year, weakened his heart, digestive system, lungs, liver—everything. This world is far more hostile to him than we realized. But he has miniature biochemistry labs in his body, nanomeds. Coupled with something—a thing called biomech—they've kept him alive. Except they haven't been working right, not for years. Maybe not since he crashed here. It's gotten worse, until the meds themselves are poisoning him."

  Ixpar watched his face. "And to heal him?"

  For a long moment he looked at her. Finally he said, "If we had access to the resources of a full ISC medical facility, I think most of the damage could be repaired."

  The room suddenly seemed too quiet. "There is nothing remotely resembling a full ISC medical facility on Coba."

  "I know. I—Ixpar—I'm sorry."

  "No." Her mind refused to understand. "No."

  "I'll do all I can." Softly he added, "But it's like trying to stop a flood with a cup."

  No. It couldn't be true. Couldn't.

  "I haven't told him," Dabbiv said. "I thought it might be better if it came from you."

  "How long?"

  "It's hard to know exactly, with—"

  "How long?"

  He spoke quietly. "I doubt he'll live past this winter."

  And though he continued to speak, Ixpar heard nothing else.

  Two seasons.

  Two seasons remained for the legend that had changed her world.

  That night, while the rest of Karn slept, she walked through the city, neither seeing nor caring where she went. It was deep in the silent hours before dawn when she returned to the Estate.

  In the living room of her suite, she found an eerie Quis structure spread across a table. The longer she stared at it, the more patterns became visible, multiple threads woven together with an intricacy almost impossible to follow, the designs curled in haunting symmetries that whispered of precognition. She traced a thread in black, the pattern of a long, slow dying, and a chill breathed on her neck.

  "You look tired," Kelric said.

  Ixpar looked up to see him standing in the bedroom archway, dressed in a robe. "Did I wake you?"

  "I'm glad you did." He came over to her. "Sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, I feel—strange."

  Her eyes felt hot with unshed tears. "Strange how?"

  He stroked her hair, looking at it as if it were a treasure he valued. "I wonder if I'll wake up again."

  Ixpar's voice caught. "If you could have any wish, anything at all, what would you ask for?"

  "Anything?"

  "Yes Anything" She waited for him to ask for the one thing she couldn't give. his freedom.

  "To see my children," he said.

  Later, while Kelric slept, Ixpar slipped out of his arms and went to the com in the Blue Alcove. She roused Captain Borj from her sleep and told her what needed to be done.

  Then Ixpar descended into the Memory. As she walked through it, her tears fell like sand, leaving behind truths she had too long denied. She could give up the rule of a world for Kelric, wage for him the first war Coba had seen in a millennium, but she could no more make him love her, truly love her, than she could contain the spirit of a wild hawk.

  43

  Double Nested Tower

  Rashiva walked with her retinue through Haka. A letter lay crisp in her pocket and crisp in her mind New Ministers Sixth Levels war between the Estates, and in the midst of it all Ixpar Karn bid for the Calanya contract of a boy—a Haka boy—far too young to leave the Preparatory House.

  Sevtar wanted to see his son, Rashiva was certain. From Ixpar's viewpoint, it would have been far easier to ask that Jimorla visit his father. Although the Preparatory House barred Outsiders from contact with its students, who could refuse such a request from a Sixth Level? Or Ixpar could have sent warriors to kidnap Jimorla. Considering everything else that had happened, it wouldn't have surprised Rashiva. Instead the Karn queen chose the way of honor, making an offer for Jimorla's Calanya contract.

  Rashiva's Senior Aide was walking at her side. She touched Rashiva's arm as they passed a street leading to the airfield. In the distance, a battered rider rested in a repair bay.

  "It comes from Shazorla," the Senior said.

  Rashiva nodded. "Several limped in yesterday also."

  "Crippling Miesa wasn't enough for Ixpar Karn, was it?" The Senior's voice hardened. "Now she adds Shazorla to the list."

  Although Rashiva would never admit it aloud, she considered Ixpar's tactics inspired. Shazorla was a traditional Karn ally, a city and people Ixpar knew well. She had worked beautifully subtle patterns into the Quis, swaying Shazorla's already wavering citizenry to favor Karn rather than their uncomfortable new Varz allies. So at crucial times, crucial people in Shazorla looked the other way. By the time Rashiva had figured out what was going on, it was too late; Karn agents had sabotaged every maintenance bay, fuel tank, oil refinery, and rider-related factory in Shazorla. Its air force had been nullified without the loss of a single life.

  "Karn grows more audacious each day," her Senior Aide said. "How much longer will you wait before you send support to Varz?"

  "Until Varz needs it," Rashiva said. "Right now Avtac is doing fine without my help."

  "She lost Shazorla."

  "And Karn lost Bahvla."

  "No one attacked Bahvla."

  Rashiva scowled. "What do you call a blockade that cuts off an Estate from its food supply for over a year? Starvation, of an entire city. It appalls me."

  "Miesa and Shazorla—"

  "Lost their airfields. Shazorla has farms. Miesa has Varz. Bahvla has lumber. You can't feed people with wood."

  The Senior fell silent as they approached the Preparatory House. The Elder Mentor was waiting at the arched entrance, cowled and cloaked, his face hidden behind a tasseled scarf. He bowed to Rashiva and preceded her into the House while her retinue waited Outside. They walked through ancient halls, the Mentor's robe whispering on the cold stone floors.

  At the Visitation Room the Mentor halted, leaving her to enter alone. Inside, a thirteen-year-old boy stood poking at a mobile of metal spheres that bobbed on the mantel. He was unusually tall for his age, with the athletic poise of an acrobat. Black curls spilled into his violet eyes.

  Rashiva closed the door behind her. "Jimorla."

  Her son looked up, his face lighting in welcome. When he came over and hugged her, Rashiva smiled. "You grow so fast. Soon you will go through the ceiling."

  Obviously pleased, he pulled himself to his full height and looked down on her. "Do you want tea? I'm an Initiate, so I can have a Novice bring it."

  "Tanghi would be nice."

  Jimorla opened a side door and spoke to a younger boy outside. While the Novice went for tea, Rashiva sat with her son on the sofa, and they talked about his life in the Preparatory House.

  "My Mentor thinks I'll be ready to apply to the Calanya in six or seven years," Jimorla said as the Novice returned.

  Rashiva waited until the boy poured them each a
mug of tea and left. Then she said, "Suppose someone made an offer for your contract now?"

  "Mother," Jimorla said.

  "I'm serious."

  "Why in a year of windless wogs would anyone do that?"

  Rashiva tried not to smile at the idiom. "It happens." She took a swallow of tea. "Say Karn made an offer."

  He laughed. "I'd take a sword and go fight them."

  "Jimi, I mean it. What would you do?"

  "I would never go to Karn."

  "Why not?" .

  "Because. It's Karn. Besides, Manager Karn cheated Varz. She used tricks to control the Quis."

  Rashiva snorted. "I doubt Sevtar's contract forbids Ixpar Karn from playing dice better than Varz."

  Jimorla considered her. "Sometimes I think you don't much like Minister Varz."

  "Estate politics are complicated interdependencies. A Manager must retain objectivity."

  "You always do that."

  "Do what?"

  "Talk like a law scroll when I say something you don't want said. And you know Manager Karn is worse than a dice cheater. She stole Hayl Varz. Twice."

  "She did?"

  "Well, he isn't at Varz."

  "You have been there to check?"

  "It's in the Quis," Jimorla said. "Someone stole him."

  "That's right. Me."

  He gaped at her. "You?"

  "Hayl ran away from Varz. He asked me for asylum and I gave it to him."

  "He's at Haka?"

  Rashiva nodded.

  "Then why does Minister Varz blame Karn?"

  How did she explain Avtac to a child? "It's complicated."

  "Are you going to talk like a scroll again?"

  "Jimi Manager Karn may not be our ally but she is an honorable woman."

  "Why do you keep trying to make me like her?"

  "Because she bid for your Calanya contract."

  He gave an uneasy laugh. "This is a joke, yes?"

  "No. She offers you a position coveted by Calani with many times your age and experience."