[Mageworlds 5] - The Long Hunt

by Debra Doyle

  Chaka halted briefly at the entrance to the main concourse. If she left the spaceport now, with time so short, her luggage would go on to Eraasi without her. But if Jens and Faral had gotten themselves in trouble, then pulling the two of them out of whatever bramble-pit they'd fallen into would be an adventure in itself.

  Where had they said they were going—the Old Quarter? That would be the first place to look.

  Fortunately, most of the signs in the concourse were in Standard Galcenian as well as two or three of the local languages. Chaka could read Galcenian, though she couldn't get her throat and her vocal cords around the high piping noises that passed for the spoken version.

  She followed the arrows to Ground Transport, and located a short-mover stop with connections to central Sombrelír and the Old Quarter. The mover had not yet arrived,* so Chaka took her place in the queue and waited.

  The late-afternoon sun was hot, and the wind was dry and dusty. The delay didn't help Chaka's nerves. The thin-skins sharing the stop with her took notice of her agitation and either moved away or remembered business elsewhere. After a longer while than she would have wanted, the short-mover arrived. It was a wide platform with grab bars, mounted on low-tech rollers—a much cheaper form of transportation than either the hoverbuses or the wheeled flivvers, but slower and more crowded than either one.

  The short-mover eased away from the stop, and headed off toward the center of town at roughly double a walking pace. Chaka had plenty of time to gaze about and get herself oriented. Most of the public signage in Sombrelír was written in two or more languages—usually Galcenian, either above or below what Chaka assumed were the same words in Ophelan script—but the advertisements and most of the smaller signs used only the local scrawl.

  The Old Quarter, fortunately, seemed to be a popular tourist destination. She took note when the smooth modern pavement changed to brick, and jumped down at the next stop. The short-mover rolled off toward the banking district, and Chaka stood sniffing the air for a hint at where to go next.

  The news stories on the vids had shown something burning. The air here smelled abominably of chemical exhausts and too many thin-skins, but a sharpness in her nostrils told of a wood fire somewhere not too far distant. She headed in that direction. If it wasn't somebody's trash barrel…

  It wasn't. A local security barricade stretched across the road ahead, guarded by a thin-skin in uniform, with a drawn weapon in hand.

  Chaka scowled. *Oh, damn.*

  *What's the problem?* The words were in Trade-talk, not the true Forest Speech, but either one was unexpected enough, here in the heart of the Old Quarter to make Chaka hoot with astonishment and turn toward the bystander who had spoken.

  *Who's asking?*

  "Me." The speaker had switched back to Galcenian now. "When a couple of lads from under the Great Trees run into trouble, and a Forest Lord shows up not long afterward… somebody has a problem whether they know it or not."

  Chaka looked at the speaker curiously. She was a small woman, with the grey hair and lined features that marked the old ones among the thin-skins. She wore a plain shirt and dark trousers, and to Chaka's sensitive nostrils she smelled unmistakably of sewage.

  "My partner's still in there," the woman said, nodding at the barrier. "But your two friends are well away. Now we have to figure out how best to help them—that was what you were thinking, wasn't it?"

  *Something like that.*

  "Then let me buy you a drink," said the woman, "and we'll think about what to do next."

  "The most interesting place in the civilized galaxy," repeated Faral dubiously. He looked at Miza. "You wouldn't happen to want to explain that, would you?"

  Before she could reply, the cardlock buzzed a warning and the door slid open. Jens came in, looking considerably cleaner than he had a few minutes before. He wore the pair of trousers he'd gotten from Huool's, and carried the rest of his garments slung over one arm. He had his boots in his hand, and his feet were bare.

  "I took a shower," he said before Faral could say anything. "It was faster."

  "That's a first," Faral said. Jens liked his hot baths; left alone, he could soak for hours. "Gentlelady Miza and I were just talking about you, by the way."

  Jens dropped his boots and his clothing onto the floor beside the lounge chair and sat down. He leaned back against the upholstery. "Oh. And what conclusions did you come to?"

  "We didn't. But she did say something about how pretty soon Khesat wasn't going to be dull anymore."

  Jens sighed. "She's right."

  "What's going on, then?"

  "Let me see if I can explain… two months back, Standard reckoning, the Highest of Khesat decided that sixty years and two wars were more than enough. At the next Midwinter Festival, if all proceeds according to custom, he will retire to his country estates and take up lacemaking."

  "Good for him," said Faral. "I don't suppose that's the whole story, though."

  "No. After that, things get complicated."

  "What do you mean, complicated?"

  "Complicated as in, nobody knows where his replacement is going to come from."

  "Why don't they just hold an election or put in his firstborn child or something?" Faral wondered. "It works for most places."

  Miza snorted. "Catch the Khesatans doing anything so common as voting… and they don't go by strict succession, either. You'll never guess how they do go about it."

  "They all put on silly hats and play scissors-paper-stone until there's only one of them left."

  "Funny, coz." Jens didn't sound amused. "But no. The process starts with a pool of candidates from all the Worthy lineages. Legally, any one of us would be acceptable."

  Faral looked at his cousin sharply. "You said 'us'—are you actually holding a ticket in this lottery?"

  "I'm afraid so," Jens said. "My father managed to get himself declared ineligible—next time I see him I'll have to ask how—but I'm in the running."

  "You and how many other people?"

  "A few thousand. Now shut up and let me tell the rest of it When the time comes round for the Highest to be replaced, the nobility select one from all the eligible candidates. He or she is taken at dawn to the top of the Golden Tower in Ilsefret. Down below, the plaza and the streets are filled with the populace in general. Two burly fellows present the new ruler and proclaim, 'Behold the Highest!' At which point the populace in general shouts either 'Huzzah!' or 'Bring him low!' If they shout 'Huzzah!' then the Highest is indeed the Highest, and the rest follows. But if they shout 'Bring him low!' then the two burly fellows toss the candidate from the top of the Golden Tower, and he falls down four hundred feet to his death."

  "Didn't I tell you?" said Miza. "Elections would be a whole lot simpler."

  "But not nearly so colorful," Jens said. "The mob is thoroughly bribed. And sometimes the guards are also bribed to be hard of hearing. You name it, and it's probably happened. And even the candidates who descend rapidly are, for those few seconds, Highest of Khesat, and are so inscribed in all the appropriate public places."

  Faral looked up at the ceiling. It was painted blue, with glowdots set into the plaster to form patterns that he supposed were the local constellations. They didn't look anything at all like the stars back home.

  "Gentlelady Miza is an analyst," he said. "She thinks the fact that you're from a crazy place like Khesat is important for some reason. But she hasn't said why."

  "I don't know why," said Miza. "But if your cousin is from one of the Worthy Lineages, then I can hazard a guess."

  "Please. Hazard away."

  "You don't have to bother," Jens said. He sounded resigned. "Now that everything's gone to pieces anyway, I suppose I ought to admit the truth. The real reason I wanted to go shopping this morning was because I was planning to give you the slip on the way back to the port."

  "And head off on your own for Khesat?" Miza asked.

  "That's right."

  Faral sat up, the better to glare at
his cousin. "Did you really think that Chaka and I would take off and leave you behind?"

  "The timing was going to be the crucial part," Jens said. "It had to be exactly right… but that plan's all blown sky-high anyway, so it doesn't matter."

  "I guess not. But why in the name of everything would you want to go to Khesat?"

  "Fame," Jens said promptly. "Khesat doesn't usually offer a lot of fame as the Selvaurs understand it—Khesatans don't really care about that sort of thing—but when the rule is about to change, everything is different."

  Faral shook his head. There was something not quite right about Jens's explanation, and it bothered him. "So you were going to Khesat because you want to take a dive from the Golden Tower?"

  "No. I'm not that crazy. Besides," Jens added, "the real fame goes to the backers of the winning candidate. All the Highest gets out of it is a lot of hard work."

  Faral shook his head. "And here I thought the most exciting thing anybody ever did on Khesat was dress up and go to the opera."

  "That too," said Jens. "But I don't like opera."

  The Ophelan Guildhouse turned out to be as run-down and neglected on the inside as Klea had feared. It was a large building; in its best years, she reckoned that it might have held as many as twoscore Adepts and an equal number of apprentices. Such a figure was no match for the population of the Retreat, or even for a major Guildhouse in the Central Worlds, but it was nonetheless a healthy size for a house established on the fringes of civilized space.

  Peace, and normal relations with the Mage-ruled planets on the other side of the border zone, had not brought good times to the Guild on Ophel. Nothing about the building's interior was any newer than the end of the last war, and everything, from curtains to furniture, spoke of lassitude and loss of purpose.

  The Adepts here made a stand against the Mages, Klea thought, while most of Ophel got rich trading with the enemy. And when the war ended, their reason for being ended right along with it.

  She could sympathize—the Adepts of those long-ago days deserved better of the universe than to have all their faithfulness made obsolete—but her sympathy didn't extend to condoning laxity in their successors. By the time Master Evanh had shown his two unexpected visitors the way to the House's comm room, her unspoken disapproval had the Ophelan sweating and visibly full of intention to reform. Which was, in Klea's opinion, only as it should be. The man himself was hopeless, but his apprentices at the Sombrelír Guildhouse were still in a position to be of some use to the galaxy.

  The communications gear, fortunately, was working. She switched on the hi-comms rig and punched in the codes that would send her text message on its way through Ophel's orbiting links and the deep-space relay stations to the links that circled above far-distant Galcen. Owen wouldn't be happy to get the news of his nephews' unauthorized disappearance, but it was something that he needed to know about as soon as possible.

  Let him figure out whether or not to pass the word on to that sister of his, Klea thought. I've done my part.

  The comm unit beeped, letting her know that the message had reached its destination. Then, to her surprise, it beeped again— a three-tone sequence, mis time, the signal that another message was coming back in reply. A strip of flimsy came curling out of a slot on the unit's main console; she tore it off, glanced at the first couple of lines, and handed it to Mael Taleion.

  "It's for you."

  She couldn't see his expression for the mask he wore, but she thought that Mael looked startled. "How—?"

  "The Master of the Adepts' Guild sends his greetings," she said impatiently, "and passes along some news that came to him from someone on your side of the border. You're supposed to take it to the. First when you go see her."

  He shook his head.. "I already have seen her."

  "Whoever sent Master Rosselin-Metadi the message didn't know that. My guess is that your people sent this news out along as many different routes as they could, hoping that one of the messages would get to the right place. Read it and tell me what you think."

  "A moment." Mael took of his mask and clipped it onto his belt next to the ebony staff. Then he smoothed out the flimsy and looked at it, frowning. His lips moved a little as he read—written Galcenian was not, it seemed, a language in which he was easily literate. His frown deepened, and she thought he grew paler.

  "Well?" she said.

  He folded the slip of flimsy into a square and tucked it into an inner pocket of his robe. Something about the careful deliberation of the gesture convinced her that whatever he had just read had shaken him deeply.

  "There is a plague," he said, "on Cracanth. The First of one of the local circles is appealing to the First of all the Circles for aid."

  "Plague is a medical problem," Klea said. "Not a problem for for whatever it is that Circles do. Your people on Cracanth would do better to talk to Health and Emergency Services on Galcen."

  Mael was shaking his head again. "No. This is not a true plague, whatever they are saying aloud on Cracanth. This is the ekkannikh at work… this is what I feared when I went to speak with the First on Maraghai."

  "Ekkannikh." Klea rolled the unfamiliar word around on her tongue. Its consonants were harsh and rasping against the back of her throat. "You're going to tell me what that means, aren't you? Because I haven't got the slightest idea."

  "A homeless ghost," said Mael. "An unpropitiated spirit. Surely you have them on this side of the Gap Between?"

  "No." She paused a moment, before honesty compelled her to add, "Not under that name, anyhow And I've never seen one at all."

  "Count yourself lucky," he said. "I suspect, from what I learned on Maraghai from my First, and from this communication just now, that a revenant of great power is loose—the one who in life was called by my people the Breaker of Circles."

  She knew the epithet, of course Errec Ransome had gloried in it while he was Master of the Guild.

  "Bastard," she said Mael blinked, and she added, "Not you—him. I have to admit, if there was ever a man likely to keep on making trouble even after he was dead."

  "You begin to understand the problem," Mael said. "The ekkannikh has already taken one body, and may take more. Further, I believe that it is well away from Cracanth, in the shape of a human it controls."

  "Is that possible?"

  "With such a one as Ransome, anything is possible. Even while he lived, he was not a man easily caught and confined. And now…" His voice trailed off. Then he straightened, and his resolve seemed to grow firmer. "I must find out where the ekkannikh is at this moment, and where it is going. I will need to meditate upon the problem."

  He paused then, and looked directly at Klea. His eyes held hers. "It would be helpful," he continued, "if you would work with me."

  Klea took a step backward. "Are you asking me to participate in Magecraft?"

  "Only in the mildest sense of the word," he said, with a faint sigh. "But if I am expected to live and work among Adepts, surely I may expect a bit of assistance in return."

  "I don't…" She let her voice trail away.

  "Suit yourself. In the meantime—I shall carry out my needful meditations in the Guildhouse garden."

  Chapter VII.

  Ophel; Cracanth

  « ^ »

  Chaka let the strange woman guide her away from the Security barrier and down a side street.

  "We're not going that way anyway," the woman explained, with a nod toward the barrier. "Your friends are safe. They'll be heading off-planet before much longer."

  *On the Lav'rok?*

  "No, I don't think so. Besides, they won't be running under their own names." The woman paused at a street vendor's pushcart—a cold-and-hot wagon that could lift on light nullgravs—beneath a flickering holosign of a bottle pouring its liquid into a frosty glass. She pulled a handful of small change out of her belt pouch. "Do you want cha'a, or something different?"

  *Different,* said Chaka. *What's the point in wandering if you don't take a chanc
e?*

  "That's the spirit. Hot uffa, then."

  The woman purchased two steaming cups of bright red liquid and handed one to Chaka. The drink was sharp-flavored and faintly spicy. It didn't have as much kick as cha'a, but it had a pleasant, lingering aftertaste.

  "We saw your names on the passenger list for Bright-Wind-Rising" the woman said to Chaka a few minutes later, as the two of them made their way through the Old Quarter. "Three young travelers from Maraghai… when we saw who the others were, we were a bit surprised that you didn't show up in their company."

  *I don't like shopping,* said Chaka. *Who's 'we'?*

  "My partner and I—we run Bindweed and Blossom's. I'm Blossom, by the way."

  *Chakallakak ngha-Chakallakak. Chaka for short.*

  "Thanks for the short-name," Blossom said. "I'm honored. Ah, here we are."

  They had reached a broad street lined with shade trees and elegant shops. One of the shops had a sign in florid Ophelan script—with HUOOL GALLERIES in small Galcenian letters underneath—on a brass plaque by the front door. The single shopwindow was a velvet-lined oval in which a jade bowl sat beside a mask woven out of feathers and sparkling multicolored grass.

  Chaka stared. *What kind of place is this?*

  "Expensive," said Blossom, as they passed through the winking lights and sonic barriers of the gallery's security system. "But that's all right; we're not buying anything."

  She led the way through the hushed and carpeted front rooms, where precious objects stood on display in pools of carefully directed light. Chaka followed, keeping her distance from anything that looked breakable—which in practice meant almost everything—and felt a surge of relief when they reached the EMPLOYEES ONLY door in the far back. Blossom touched the lockplate and the door slid open.

  *You work here?* Chaka asked.

  Blossom shook her head. "No, no. Bindweed and I are independents. But we have a certain—relationship of courtesy—with Gentlesir Huool."

  *I see.* Chaka wasn't sure if she saw or not. She let Blossom lead the way into the back room, where a feathered biped sat behind an Eraasian-style workdesk. He rotated his head to face them as they came in, a birdlike movement that didn't change the orientation of his shoulders, and looked at them out of staring yellow eyes.