“We’ve sent messengers, yes. Two to each of the Houses, in case something happens to the first.”
“Good thinking. What about the pirates?”
Malia shook her head. “We haven’t seen hide or hair of them yet. They must still be in the palace, or on their ship. Grace and Thad are keeping an eye on it and sending us coded message bursts. According to the last one, it’s still in orbit.”
Taylor roused. “Are they using active sensors? That could lead the pirates straight to them if they’re not careful.”
“They’ve had the computer set up a random schedule,” Malia said. “It only activates briefly, at irregular times, just to double-check that they’re still in position. Then it shuts off. Trust me, they’re laying as low as they can. The last thing they want is to fight off the entire complement of a pirate ship by their lonesome, in a base so small there’s nowhere to hide.” She smiled, tired. “So, Reese… what’s our plan?”
What was her plan? “Blood, I’m not sure. There’s so much to do.”
“How many enemies do you have, Lady?” Val asked, bemused. “If I can ask.”
“Who’s that?” Malia said.
“Another native we picked up,” Reese said. To Val, she said, “We have four separate problems here.” She lifted a finger. “One is the woman who deposed Liolesa, who is apparently her mortal enemy, and is probably going to go out and try to kill—or subdue, I guess—all the pro-Alliance Eldritch on this planet. Number two is the pirates who brought all the weapons here, and who are apparently still here. Number three is your Baniel, who did the betraying—he brought the pirates here, and gave their weapons to Surela so she could do her coup.”
“And number four?” Val asked, sounding fascinated.
“May or may not be on world… but somewhere out there, there’s at least one Chatcaavan involved in this,” Reese said.
“Chatcaava,” Val said. “That is a shapeshifter, yes?”
“You’re remarkably well-informed for an Eldritch,” Irine said.
Val shook his head. “Not all priests held with the isolationism, Lady Tigress. I certainly had no use for it.”
“What about the heir?” Taylor asked. “Isn’t she problem number five?” She glanced at Malia. “If Surela goes for the heir, wouldn’t that cement her rule?”
“Does that matter with Liolesa gone?” Reese said. “She’s at the nearest starbase by now. No one in the Alliance is going to believe Surela’s the new queen when the old one’s organizing an armada to come back and kick her out of the palace.”
“It’s not about convincing the Alliance,” Taylor said. “It’s about what the Eldritch think.”
Reese forgot sometimes that these Tam-illee were as Eldritch as they could be while still being Pelted. These things mattered to them. Maybe it mattered to the Eldritch too. She glanced at Val and Belinor. “What about it?”
Belinor had grown wide-eyed and a little gray, but he said, “I believe the Navigatrix is correct, my Lady. The Queen’s allies are in favor of a deeper connection with the Alliance, and as such they are not likely to accept the Queen’s absence as anything but a temporary issue. She is still the Queen to them, off-world or on. Surela taking the Heir would grieve them, but change nothing legally.”
“But would Surela think so?” Taylor pressed. “Maybe she wants a quicker answer to her problems.”
Malia frowned and shook her head. “That, I don’t know.”
Reese rubbed her face and sighed. “Look, let’s talk about problems we can solve. We have… what, about forty Swords? Is that right, Malia?” At the Tam-illee’s nod, she continued. “All right. Forty soldiers with modern weapons. Do we have a Pad?”
“Two,” Malia said. “The Swords took the one from the palace library after you fled over it, and they have one here. There’s at least one more on-world, but it will be with the pirates. We haven’t seen any shuttle traffic between the ship and the ground, so they must be using one to get back and forth.”
“Two Pads we can use, then,” Reese continued. “And we have us, and three more Tams, two manning the outpost and one there with you, and the communication gear to link them. What can we do with that?”
“Do we have useful sensors? Maybe we can track people’s movements?” Irine said.
“There’s no satellite in orbit anymore,” Malia said. “And no Well repeaters; the Queen destroyed them all on the way out.”
What could they possibly do against so many? “Let’s assume Surela leaves, and takes her minions with her—”
“Minions,” Irine interrupted. “I like that. Sounds properly sinister.”
Reese ignored her. “Can we deal with the pirates? We’re the foreigners. It seems right we should deal with the other foreigners. Do we know how many of them there are?”
“No, but if we could find out, that would be very helpful,” Malia said, pursing her lips. “Only problem is they’re in the palace, and the palace has the priests.”
“I can handle the priests.”
They all looked at Val.
“You,” Reese said, uncertain. “By yourself.”
“Oh, your lad will help me. Ah, Belinor? What say you? Us against the bloodrobes?”
Belinor eyed him, then said with prickly dignity, “Very well.”
Reese was already saying, “So that won’t work—wait, what?” She looked at Belinor. “Are you kidding?”
“He froze us in place, my Lady. All four of us, without harming us. It is easier to kill than it is to hold fast,” Belinor said.
“And you know this because everyone learns about the whole forbidden evil mind talents?” Reese said, brows rising.
“No,” the youth said, patient. “I know this because anything that requires fine control is harder. Tell me, my Lady: is it harder to strike someone with all your might, or is it harder to judge the blow and pull it and then hold it thus?”
“Well, when you say it that way,” Reese said. She considered Val. “You’re serious, then. You’re good enough to take on an entire palace full of priests.”
“Not only am I good enough, you will need me,” Val said. “I can lead you into the palace through the catacombs my order uses for prisoners.”
“Oh!” Belinor exclaimed. “Yes, my Lady! That is a fair notion. There are several secret ways. It gives us a better hope of infiltrating the palace, if we do not come in through the gates. And it avoids involving the servants, which is a perilous cruelty.”
Reese’s heart seized. “Wait, I thought the servants would have… I don’t know. Crept away by now? Are they still there? Liolesa’s servants?”
“Of course,” Belinor said, puzzled. “No one would dare hurt one of them, my Lady. No, nor the commoners either. Nobles do not involve their commonfolk in these fights. To do so would be to invite disaster.”
“There not being so many of us that we can afford to throw every last person at a quarrel over someone’s insulted pride,” Val said.
Reese glanced at Malia, who nodded. “They’re still there.”
“Felith,” Irine said, her ears sagging.
Seeing the look on Reese’s face, Belinor said, “Be at ease, my Lady. Even the usurper queen is not so mad as to involve anyone but the nobles and the guards each House is permitted to levy. There is rebellion, and then there’s anarchy.”
“I don’t know,” Reese muttered. “Surela was stupid enough to go after Liolesa.”
“That’s a fair point, though,” Taylor said, thoughtful. “If we do get into the palace, we’ll have allies. Unless Surela’s killed the families of her enemies, the ones who came for the court, they’re all going to be confined in their suites. And they’re actually nobles of their respective Houses, so they’re free to act on the Queen’s behalf. If we could free and arm them….”
“But it would take us weeks to get there… wouldn’t it?” Reese asked. “I don’t know distances on land—”
“We have two Pads,” Malia said. “If this is the plan we want, the
n we’ll set one up here, cross it with the spare, and set up the spare there. Then you can walk over it to get back here, or we can figure out some coordinates near the palace that suit better. But we’ve got to be sure that’s what we want to do; once we’ve got them placed, that’s where they’re going to stay. We don’t have any other spares to create a new launch point.”
Irine said, “So once we do this, we’re committed.”
“But we don’t know how many pirates there are,” Reese muttered. “If there’s more than ten or eleven of them, we’re done for.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Taylor said. “But what are our other options? We’ve done what we can to warn the Queen’s allies, and we can’t make a big difference in a clash between several hundred people. But if we can roust the pirates from the palace and free the hostages there….”
“And if we set up a Pad tunnel between here and the Swords’ hiding place west of the palace,” Irine said, “We’d have a place to run. You know, if things blow up.”
“I hate to tell you this, Irine,” Reese said, “but if this blows up, I don’t think any of us are getting out. Except possibly as slavebait.”
Irine hunched her shoulders.
“What do you think?” Taylor asked.
“I think… I need a little bit to think,” Reese said. “This is a big gamble.”
“It’s a big gamble, but we promised the Queen we’d do something,” Irine replied.
“’We’ did, did we?” Reese eyed her.
Innocently, Irine said, “Well, we did empower you to make decisions for us. You know. You speak for us and all that.”
Reese started laughing as the Eldritch watched, mystified. To them, Taylor murmured, “It’s not usual for us to accept liegelords.”
“What a bizarre world you must live in, my Lady,” Belinor said.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Reese sighed. “Can I get back to you in half a day, Malia-alet?”
“That’s fine. We’re not going anywhere. But I wouldn’t wait much longer than that, Reese.”
“Fine. Stay safe.”
“Will do. Malia out.”
Silence, filled only by the crackle of the fire. Reese could feel the heat beating at her back, but it only made the front of her body feel colder. Why did it seem more biting with the data tablet quiescent on the stone floor? Was it the sudden deprivation of the reassuring technologies that had surrounded her all her life? As poor as Mars was compared to the average Alliance world, it still existed because of technology far beyond the reach of most Eldritch. She shivered.
“I had not had the experience of Alliance machinery.” Val reached for the data tablet, paused to glance at Taylor, and at her nod picked it up. He examined the slim slate. “Like a page of a book, but a window into worlds. Amazing.”
“You really need to sleep on this, Reese?” Irine asked.
She wanted to say ‘I’m talking about throwing all our lives away on a chance.’ She wanted to say, ‘I’m not trained to be a soldier. You’re not. Taylor’s not. The two Eldritch—who knows? But against modern weapons? What chance do they have? What chance do any of us have?’ But instead she looked up at the distant rafters, at the wan light filtering in through the windows. She inhaled the air, cold and sharp and pungent with the smell of burning wood and the more distant perfume of the salt sea.
“No,” she said. “But I may need to walk on it.” She got up. “I’ll be back.”
“Take someone with you,” Taylor said. “It’s not safe—”
“If it’s not safe here, it’s too late for any of us,” Reese said, shaking her head. She resettled the folds of her long jacket and went for the faraway door into the great hall… heard her boot heels clicking on the stone and echoing. Blood, everything here seemed designed to magnify its own significance, didn’t it?
Didn’t mean it wasn’t significant. She shivered.
“Elder.” Hirianthial went to one knee alongside the priest. “I am gone with the morning. Perhaps you had heard?”
“I had not.” The priest studied him with kind eyes. “You go to do the Queen’s work, yes?”
“I do.”
“Ah.” Urise nodded, softly silvering the words. “That is good. It is not well to leave the sword in the scabbard at times like this.”
Hirianthial managed a wan smile. “You say this knowing how this sword may meet the test?”
“I do!” The priest’s eyes grew merry, and his aura streaked gold with pleasure. “I am sure of you, young lord, even if you are not.”
“I would be surer of myself if I’d had more time for lessons,” Hirianthial said. “As it is, I fear I go half-clouded in my own ignorance. I have not yet unriddled your lack of fatigue, Elder, nor do I know how to resist your pressure successfully.” He managed a whimsical smile. “I don’t suppose there is some way by which I might magically learn all that you might teach me in a moment?”
He’d been expecting another of the priest’s gentle witticisms; to see instead darkness cross the elder’s aura like the shadows of clouds gliding over the back of a field startled him. “Elder? Did I speak poorly?”
Urise held up a hand. “No. No, but what you ask can be done.”
Hirianthial leaned back, the hands he’d folded on his knee tightening despite his best efforts.
“Knowledge can be imparted mind-to-mind, at speed,” Urise said. “But it is knowledge, my son. It is not experience. Do you know the difference? Between the description of a thing and feeling it—seeing it—for yourself?”
“I do,” he said, quiet. “But I would think that knowledge transmitted mind-to-mind would come with the experiences of the teacher entwined.”
“It does. With the teacher’s experiences.” Urise slipped his hand back into his sleeve. “In some ways then, it is harder for the student, for he must draw the teacher’s experience apart from it, the teacher’s emotions, before he can assign his own. And even then it is only knowledge until it is experienced.”
The priest’s aura remained dimmed. Hirianthial considered it, then looked at Urise and said, “There is aught else that bothers you. A risk.”
“A minor one, perhaps, in that I go not with you,” Urise said. “But such a sharing creates a yoke between teacher and student, and some teachers have exploited it to use their apprentices for their own ends. Some have even killed their apprentices, drinking too deeply at the fountain of their energies. That requires proximity, however, and I—” He smiled, and there was the merriment again, so welcome after the shadows. “—I think I shall stay here until the conflict has finished. War is for the young. Besides, I like these animal people. It is diverting, looking at them… so many bright colors.”
“They are beautiful,” Hirianthial said. “Elder—would you consent to this sharing?” In response to the other’s gaze, he continued, “I know not what I go to, but every weapon I can use I must have to hand.”
“You are certain,” Urise said. And sighed. “Yes, of course you are. The young always are. Well, then, now will do as well as any.”
“Now?” Hirianthial asked through his amusement at being called young.
“Just so.” Urise shook his sleeve off his hand and offered it. “We shall have it done now.”
Hirianthial drew in a breath and rested his palm against the priest’s. He felt the knobs of arthritic joints, the dry, lined skin, but no emotional data, and was not surprised; he had no doubt Urise could have withdrawn his presence even from the air around him, if he’d wanted not to be seen. A handy skill, that… perhaps he might absorb it with this last lesson.
“Relax,” Urise murmured, and Hirianthial let his head rest forward. His hair curled close around his chin and he felt the drag of the dangle as it rose up against the back of his tunic. Kis’eh’t’s prayer bell whispered, bringing memories dire and gentle, and he sank into the acceptance of life’s vicissitudes. To love was to be vulnerable to pain. To laugh was to be sensitive enough for tears. To be open to joy was to be despai
r’s fair prey.
/Yes,/ Urise said. /Yes, when you can bow your head to these things, you are on your way, my son./
/But not there,/ he surmised.
/No,/ the priest replied: humor and sorrow both, swirled together in a spiral like the helix of life. /No, for you there is a much more important lesson. But first things first./ And then the knowing spilled into him, water poured not from a pitcher, no… this was knowledge accumulated over a lifetime well over a thousand years long. Knowledge like a great river falling over cliffs to the sea, so much that he felt it sweep him away… and instinct told him not to fight it, not to reach for any one thing. A hundred million droplets, but they could only be grasped the way the sea was: as a great gestalt. It was not his gestalt, but he welcomed it all the same. And if it sat in him uneasily, he accepted that as the condition of the gift. What he could absorb, he would, and he would pray it would be enough.
Slowly he became aware of the priest’s palm against his. It was how he realized he’d lost the world entirely… and that he was sweating.
“So much,” he managed at last, and his voice had gone to rasping.
“Too much?” Urise asked.
“I pray not, no. And the gift is without price,” Hirianthial said. “Whatever I keep of it.”
“And none of it,” Urise said, “None of it will be of any use to you until you learn the final lesson. And I would rather not have imparted it to you this way, but we are short on time and long on need. So hark you, young lord.” He leaned forward. “You cannot wield the power of the world if you accept its weight on your shoulders.”
Hirianthial frowned. “I beg your pardon, Elder. That sounds a great deal as if you counsel me against responsibility, against duty.”
“No.” Urise shook his head. “I do not. And until you understand the difference, not all the learning will help you, because you will hobble yourself. You take too much on your own shoulders, Hirianthial Sarel. It is not humility to assume every responsibility is yours to bear. It is not wise. And it is not just, nor kind. You must let go of your need to feel that everything that befalls you is yours to mend, for at the root of that assumption is a great flaw: the belief that you can control everything. Continue to nourish that flaw and it will grow into the fault that will shatter you as surely as the sword poorly made.”
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