Promise first. She was adamant. Cold as a dead star. She knew what he intended. Weakness had everything to do with it, but it was nothing personal. It wasn’t that kind of pride that made him decide to kill her companion. Telepath or not, she read him wrong in this. It was simple policy that decided the boy’s fate. No witnesses. He could afford to take no chance of letting any word get out that he owned a koltiri. The boy posed only a small security risk—his ability to escape was slim—but Pyr never left anything to chance. I’ll let you die, she warned. Do anything to Martin, now or later, and I’ll let you die.
She was a healer, sworn to save lives. She had to be bluffing. He had no time to find out. No one dictated to Pyr Kaddani without paying a very high price for it. He and the koltiri would discuss her presumption later. In this instant, he conceded to her demand. He lives. Now. Later.
Thank you.
Roxy had barely formed the thought when the big man in black leather dropped to his knees in front of her. His hands reached out, huge grasping claws seeking to trap her in her promise. There was such a predatory, forever quality to the trap that Roxy’s initial reaction was to bat them away, but she stayed put, closed her eyes, and let him touch her once more. There was one way out for her. She was koltiri, and had said she would help. Martin’s life depended on keeping her end of the deal.
“I’m an idiot,” she muttered. Then all the air went out of her lungs at the shock of contact. It was worse than she’d thought it would be, worse than anything she’d ever felt.
“Jesus, Roxy! Don’t!”
Martin’s voice was miles and miles away. The stranger’s pain was vivid against her skin, along her nerves, and in her mind. She was used to pain, but not like this. Pain wasn’t supposed to be complicated. Pain wasn’t supposed to be so strong that it communicated with a touch, but this was. That the man could move and speak and think impressed her, briefly. Then her gaze met his and the small space their bodies occupied went away.
The fight began.
She stood naked with a stone knife in her hand as lava rained all around. A river of fire was eating the ground from under her bare feet. The knife was a long tooth of shining black glass. Lightning ripped across a bruised purple sky over her head.
“This,” she said, turning around slowly, “is decidedly weird.” ,
Oh, and there was the pain. Everything was made of pain. There was nothing that was not pain. The air, the sky, the burning landscape, her.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she muttered—and her a good Jewish girl from Koltir. She looked at the long black knife. He was going to make a game out of it, wasn’t he? “Idiot.” There was nothing worse than healing a telepath. Nothing. Worse than trying to treat a sick doctor. Telepaths and doctors all made terrible patients. She knew, being both. Well, she was used to fighting at this point, even if her adversary was usually the mindless hunger of disease. She tossed hair away from her face—it wasn’t hair, but long trails and streamers of orange and gold flame, searing her fingers at the touch. “Just what I always wanted,” she muttered. “A bonfire for a hat.” She squinted through the heat haze that roiled up off the lava. There. A large, dark shape. Movement? Yes, definitely. Hiding from her? Stalking her, more likely. He was a hunter, a warrior. Of that much about him she was certain. “An idiot. Here, kitty kitty.” More of a wolf, or some great, arrogant bird of prey, she decided, as she stepped into the bright, sluggish flow of lava. Because everything was pain, she accepted and ignored the burning hair, and the fact that she was wading through a stream of molten rock. She allowed that she was real, that the weapon in her hand was real, that the man was real, and most of all, that the illness killing him was real. To get through the man’s defenses to get to the disease was her true objective. This was all just symbolic imagery—that hurt like hell. Never mind that her impulse was to plunge the stone knife into the naked, red-haired warrior who loomed suddenly up before her rather than get past him and on with her job.
Beyond him was the mouth of a cave, but there was no darkness beyond the opening. A blinding, white-hot glow pulsed within. It was a heartbeat throb, slowing, fading.
“Reality is subjective,” she reminded the naked warrior as he raised a blade identical to her own. His teeth drew back in a vicious snarl as he threatened her with the long shard of flaked obsidian. She ignored the knife, but her gaze was drawn elsewhere for a moment. “Is that subjective reality in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
The question didn’t distract him, but his snarl did turn into a deep, dirty laugh. Then he sobered, and went into a crouch before the cave mouth, blocking it. “Get back.”
Roxy stayed very still, her own knife lowered to her side. The pulsing white light outlining the crouching man’s large form was growing dimmer. “You invited me here.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
He didn’t move. “I know.”
“You’re a stubborn moron, aren’t you?”
He cocked a sharply arched eyebrow at her. “Stubborn. Yes.”
All right, not a moron, but the strongest, most elaborately shielded telepath she’d ever encountered. Defenses so strong he couldn’t even unconsciously lower them. This was going to be a very big problem. “I’m not interested in your secrets,” she told him.
“I know.”
She’d had way too much frustration lately to deal well with this. His shields were amazing, frighteningly good, and very alien. She’d never encountered a talent like his before, nor had any other koltiri, or the knowledge of how to settle into the healing would be a part of her. Besides, she wasn’t used to meeting resistance on her way to treating a patient, even in a new and talented mind. The man wanted to live, she knew it. More than anything in the universe, this man wanted his life, but he didn’t know how to give up the control that kept her from saving him. His eyes pleaded with her, but his hand still tightly gripped the knife, and his muscles were tensed to pounce if she moved. Meanwhile, the world burned around them and the light faded. Ashes rained down around them.
This was so fucking unfair!
Roxy stamped her foot. It was her subjective reality and she could be petulant if she wanted to be. She moved forward and he shot to his feet. “Get out of my way you…” She tried running through him, and was stabbed in the gut for her trouble. He caught and held her as she fell to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He was crying.
Thanks a lot.
His tears touched her skin, branded it, and burned on into her soul. His grief flowed through her, not at his own death, but hers and at the death of…
Wait a minute. She looked around the burning countryside. This was most definitely not her subjective reality. “Damn. You’re good.”
“I know.”
“Shut up.”
She thought about it and the world moved.
“Much better,” she said, and looked around.
It was cool here, familiar, though she’d only been to this place once, many years ago. A clear dome arched high overhead, letting in night sprinkled with only a few stars. She was dressed now, in elegant draping white, slit up to there and cut down to there. He was there with her. Opposite to her white, he was dressed all in black. The alien was just as big, smart, and dangerous clothed in the garments of her imagination as he had been buck naked and carrying a primitive weapon. The gaze he turned on her was a dark, intense blue. She noticed an elaborate jeweled brooch on his collar, and knew it was nothing of her imagining. The man’s control was impressive, even when she drew him into her mind. Impressive, and fatal for both of them, if she couldn’t get past his defenses quickly.
A cool breeze stirred their hair and the supple silk of their clothing. They stood before a stretch of white wall and an elaborate gate, its twisting design carved of ivory inlaid with ebony. The light was hidden beyond the gate, deep in the core of the Maze.
“What is this place?” He p
ointed toward the gate.
She ducked beneath his arm and sprinted toward the gate, the entrance to the Maze. She’d run it only once, but had memorized the path to its heart. She knew the dangers, and they held no terror for her. She heard him pelting up behind her. She held her breath when she hit the first firewall, but kept right on going through the thin blue energy barrier. You lost points for hesitating. She heard his gasp when he hit the barrier half a second behind her, but didn’t glance over her shoulder to see if he’d made it through. She turned right at the first cross corridor, left at the second, went through another barrier. The barriers and the twisted, confusing paths were his own mental barriers, really, but she made herself believe they were something else, and as long as he believed it as well, they’d be fine. He’d be distracted by playing inside her imagination and she’d save his life.
She didn’t hear him behind her now. She’d be at the center of the Maze soon. At the Heart. Him. All she had to do was—
He was waiting for her around the next corner. She ran straight into him and went down hard, flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her. He stood over her with his hands on his hips. “I know this game. Maze. From the underground culture of the Terran asteroid Belt. It’s one they let the children play.”
She glared up at him from where she lay on the ground. She’d made some progress, but he was still able to block her out. “Fine. Go ahead. Die. I’m trying to help.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.” She was on her feet now, and furious. “What do you mean children’s game? You want a game, big boy?” She backed away from him, beckoning angrily.
“I’ll give you a game, little girl,” he snarled, and followed.
And they were in the paint. The hoop loomed above them, and Roxy had the orange sphere in her hands. It was very nearly dark on the court, but she didn’t need a glaring spotlight to find her way in here. This was her place. Her heart. She dribbled the ball, slowly, as slow as the dying heartbeat of the man glaring at her a few feet away. They were wearing shorts and jerseys, gray and colorless, with the number 23 on hers. Saints Michael’s and Chamique’s number. Out in reality she would never dare such blasphemy, but they were at the center of her now.
“What? Where?” His voice was gruff and furious, and weak.
She ignored all her inbred and highly trained compassion in favor of staying sharp and angry. And bounced the ball from hand to hand, half-crouched, making sure she stayed just out of his reach. “This is called one on one. All you have to do,” she told him with a smile like a shark’s as he looked around the dim basketball court in confusion, “is stop me from putting the rock in the hole.”
As she spoke, she drove forward, and he moved instinctively to block her way. She swerved and slithered past, keeping the ball bouncing, down low. Another swerve, a shoulder bump. He was obviously not a post-up player and they were down under the hoop. Of course, he wasn’t a player at all, that was the bloody point! She’d told him all he needed to know. He didn’t like to lose. He gave her all the attention he had left, and played.
She faded back. He had enough smarts to wave his hands in the air, but not enough to watch how she set up. Not enough to block her shot. The ball sailed up, over his head in a beautiful, perfect arc. He turned to watch it. It didn’t even touch the rim. The swoosh as the basketball dropped through the hoop was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.
He turned back to her, eyes full of momentary confusion. Vulnerable. Open.
“Nothing but net,” she murmured, and slid down deep inside his mind, blood, bones, chromosomes, and being, where they both wanted her to be.
Chapter Fifteen
“What is your name?”
Though the woman he’d spoken to was beyond hearing, Pyr heard his own voice, deep, strong, the strain of controlled pain washed out of it. He opened his eyes and saw the blue wall first, then he felt the weight in his arms. Then he looked at the cold, limp woman he was holding. The boy was called Martin; Pyr remembered that much about his argument with the koltiri. That, and his promise. He remembered a great deal, and very little. He had learned much, but very little of it made sense. It had all been so—subjective.
Martin stood nearby, and that was not very far at all inside this small cell. Pyr had just come back from a vast and glorious place to the claustrophobic confines of the outside world. He remembered being on his knees, but now he stood, with the koltiri a dead weight clasped to his chest. He took in a deep breath of recycled air and felt no triumph or joy as it filled pain-free lungs. The absence of pain was a disturbing sensation, like being naked. He felt good, alive, healthy, but mostly he felt sad. Almost annoyed.
“Captain?”
Pilsane stood in the corridor outside the cell’s open door. Pyr ignored his anxious navigator for the moment. Death no longer hovered, but the boy did, trying to get at the woman Pyr held so close. He did not know if she lived, but he would not let her go. Martin’s eyes were large and dark when Pyr glanced his way, full of desperate worry. “Her name?”
Martin said, “Put her down. Let me look at her. I can help her.”
Pyr was aware of the young man straining to stay calm, reasonable, non-threatening. His concern for the woman was genuine, if complex, and of no interest to Pyr. “I will know her name.”
“Captain!”
Pilsane’s shock, however, was amusing. He savored the momentary pleasure at Pilsane’s reaction as a man of The People. Pyr had not been amused for a—Is that subjective reality in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?—while. Her thought flitted across his mind, and the memory of having found the words amusing, but he couldn’t recall now why the words had been funny. He only knew that the thought was the koltiri’s. While they had been together they had understood each other. Now they were strangers.
“Her name!” he snapped at Martin.
“Roxanne,” the boy gave up her identity at last.
It sang inside him. “I recognize the truth of it. Her father spoke it at her birth. I acknowledge Roxanne.” The words were ritual, spoken before two witnesses, though a court of the clans would not have agreed. Martin did not understand their significance. Pilsane let out a long, low whistle. And, because he had made a promise to the koltiri Roxanne, he looked at Pilsane and said, “The boy is called Martin. He belongs to the Raptor.”
Pilsane stared at him, looked him over minutely, and finally nodded. “As you say, Captain. You’re looking—How are you feeling?”
Pyr hefted the unconscious woman in his arms, and said casually, “I’ll live.” He stepped forward and Pilsane hurriedly backed away from the door and out of his way. Pyr snapped out orders. “I’m going back to the Raptor. Finish stripping the ships as quickly as possible and divide the booty. Make sure all caches of Rust are turned over to you. Space the slaver scum. Let Kith send the ships to the League. It’s up to him to pick any crew he thinks he can trust to do the job. Once you’re finished with all that, lay in a course for Robe Halfor’s base. Linch has command. “
“Yes, sir. Where will you be?”
“Taking a nap.” Almost as an afterthought as he walked away from the cell and the protests of Roxanne’s companion, he added, “Put Martin in one of the empty crew quarters. He’s our guest.”
———
Pyr didn’t want to sleep; he didn’t need to sleep. He put the woman down on his bed and then very nearly danced around the cluttered cabin in joy and triumph. He did shed the heavy leather coat and tossed his hat away while he spun around gleefully a few times. He had all the energy in the world; it belonged to her. He knew that she had given herself freely, that even the small price of her companion’s life did not begin to repay her for the gift of his life. It was just that, wasn’t it? A gift. A bounty handed down from her superior place on the tree of life. That chaffed him, more than being under obligation to this strange creature.
Who are you calling strange?
There were places he needed to be,
much to do, worlds to conquer, enemies to kill.
A son to rescue.
The Raptor had to reach Halfor’s base before he could do that. Healthy once more, he had the will and control to put his worry for Axylel into a compartment where it could not interfere with his taking necessary action. Axylel would be found, his captors dealt with. In the meantime, Pyr needed to call a staff meeting, plan strategy, call in reports from his own network and every spy on Tinna’s deep-cover string.
The first thing he did was extract the needier from the pocket of the coat that was now draped across the end of the bed and return the foolish, forbidden weapon to its hiding place. He looked at it a moment before he put it away, almost embarrassed at why he’d carried the thing onboard another ship with him. He’d had some fever-driven notion of getting Kith alone somewhere near the slaver ship’s outer bulkhead, breaching the wall with the needier, and blowing the Leaguer and himself out into space. He’d have died swiftly. Kith, with shield intact, might have drifted in space for a few hours before he succumbed.
“Maybe days,” Pyr murmured with a feral smile. Ah, well, the League representative’s death would still be convenient, but was no longer such a high priority. He still couldn’t trust the crew not to balk at invading Halfor’s stronghold, but they were less likely to mutiny with Pyr firmly in command once more. He supposed that it was a good thing he’d survived, as he’d never gotten around to making those notes for Linch.
He came to stand over the sleeping woman. She was sleeping, wasn’t she? He was reluctant to touch her, even to check for a pulse. The deepness of the mindtouch they had shared disturbed him. He did not want to initiate any further contact.
It’s a little late for that, now isn’t it?
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. She rolled over and opened her eyes as he took an automatic step back. Her glare caught him like a stunner bolt. “You almost got me killed, you know that, don’t you?”
“You almost got us both killed.” She sat up and pointed at her head. “Get out of here. Right now.”
Gates of Hell Page 17
