Adventures in the Liaden Universe. Collaterial Adventures (liaden)

by Sharon Lee

  The Right Noble Lady Kareen yos’Phelium approached and bowed to Shan—the bow of Clanmember to First Speaker.

  “Well raced, my Lord,” she said, quite audibly. “You and your brother are a credit to the Clan.”

  Shan blinked, inclined his head, murmuring a civil, “Thank you, Lady Kareen.”

  The old lady was bowing to Val Con now: Clanmember to Delm.

  “You are precipitate, Aunt,” he chided softly.

  “I think not,” she returned. “A ring does not make a Delm. You are Korval, whether you judge yourself ready or no. You will do as you deem wise and necessary. For the Clan. It is as it should be.”

  “Ah.” He smiled. “Let us have peace between us then, Lady.”

  “Of course,” said the Right Noble. “How else?”

  Anthora’s fairlove leaned over, whispering in her ear. She laughed softly and linked her arm in his; waving at her eldest brother as they moved off toward the pleasure-tents.

  Shan raised his glass in salute; lowered it to drink—snapped his eyes to Val Con’s face as he felt the younger man start.

  “if the family will excuse me,” Val Con murmured, sketching a bow toward all. “I am reminded of a previous appointment.” He was gone, slipping through the crowd like an orange wraith.

  Shan, watching from his tall vantage, saw a lady start forward—a blur of dark hair and bright eyes; hand outstretched in welcome. Val Con’s arm slid around her waist and he began to turn her toward the pleasure-tents—then his cloak swirled suddenly wide, hiding both from Shan’s view.

  He glanced down to find Nova’s eyes on him.

  “The reason Lady Kareen heard of Val Con frequenting a tavern in spaceleathers?” she murmured. “Is he courting a barmaid, brother?”

  He sipped. “She seems a very nice barmaid.”

  “Shan—”

  He sighed and tried to break her gaze, without success.

  “All right,” he said grumpily. “I’ll talk to him.” He raised his glass. “Later.”

  Fellow Travelers

  Adventures in the Liaden Universe #2

  Where the Goddess Sends

  TIME AGO ONE went out from Circle, sent by the Mother’s Own Word. The one was called Moonhawk, and she knew neither the face nor the name of what she went seeking.

  The course of Seeking wound through the land and through the seasons and brought Moonhawk to a place that stank of Evil.

  It is told that she hesitated at the edge of this place and thought she would not go in. This is the first of the things told here which must without fail be said: Moonhawk thought she would not go in.

  At the moment of thinking so she heard the voice of the Goddess, and the words were Enter, thou.’

  Obedient, Moonhawk went forward.

  The second thing that must without fail be said is this: Moonhawk was afraid.

  “THAT’S MINE.”

  Lute flashed a grin sideways and upward, chidingly.

  “Apologies, Noble lady. The bag is mine. It contains the necessities of my trade. The repository of magics, you might say. Dangerous in untutored hands.” He gripped the disputed item and straightened, smiling with urbane Idiocy.

  “You will understand my reluctance to place so beauteous a lady as yourself in the slightest peril.”

  The lady took a breath that brought the principals of her beauty into high display, and thrust out her lower lip.

  “It’s mine.”

  “Noble—”

  “She said,” the walking mountain at her side interrupted, “that the bag’s hers, tricksman. Are you calling Lady Drudae a liar?”

  Lute sighed inwardly. The intervention of the mountain was as unwelcome as it was inevitable. He made a mental note to curse himself roundly for visiting this Goddess-blasted place at all, and smiled more widely.

  “It would give me nothing but joy to surrender my bag into the care of the Noble Lady if I did not know that it contains instruments of dread magic. Even now, I might place it in her hands safely, for I should be here to hold her protected. But think, sir, what if I were to leave the bag with the very Noble Lady and withdraw myself and my protection over the boundary of your delightful village, as we all know I must. What then?” He affected a shudder. “I cannot complete the thought.”

  It was doubtful that the mountain had ever completed a thought in his life. The lady was more facile.

  “You say only you can keep me safe from these dangers?"

  “I say it, Noble, and it is veriest truth.”

  She frowned, then smiled with pretty malice. “Why, then, it is simple! Since the bag is mine—and only you may control it—you must be mine, too!”

  She laughed and clapped her hands.

  “Take him to the pit, Arto. And leave the bag here.”

  * * *

  MOONHAWK CAME INTO the place of darkness and she was afraid. Still, she held her head high and made her step firm, as befits a Witch-in-Circle, and gazed upon those that crept out from between the thatch-bald hovels with calm eyes and compassion.

  “Goddess give you good even,” she said softly to the one who ventured nearest, though the taste of its emotions sickened her. Terror lanced the creature and it scuttled back to its fellows. The boldest lifted a hand, showing rock.

  Moonhawk stopped, anger heating fear. “For shame! Is this how you treat a traveler, most blessed of the Mother! I claim travel-right, and mean you no harm.”

  “Travel-right?” That was the boldest, rock yet steady. “You claim travel-right in Relzda?”

  “If this be Relzda, then I do.”

  The rock-bearer laughed like another woman’s weeping. “If you claim travel-right, you must go to Lady Drudae. I can show the way.’

  Moonhawk bowed her head. “It is a kindness, sister. My thanks.”

  “No kindness. Your cloak is fine.” With no further words, she scrabbled between two lean-together huts.

  Listening in vain for the Goddess, Moonhawk followed.

  Lady Drudae sat upon a wooden throne in the center of a drafty hall. The floor was dirt and the wall-rugs threadbare. Smoky oil-lamps gave uncertain light. There was a musk of rotting wood.

  “Come forward.” Petulance rather than command. Moonhawk and her guide obeyed.

  “Well?”

  “This one claims travel-right, Noble Lady,” gabbled the bold one, not so bold now. “I brought her. Her cloak, Noble Lady. My bounty, my—”

  “Shut your horrid mouth!”

  The rock-bearer did so, bending until her unkempt hair brushed the dirt floor. Moonhawk stood forward, sharpening her eyes in the gloom.

  The woman on the throne was beautiful: red-gold hair above a face the uninitiated would claim for the Goddess. The robe of doubtful crimson revealed her breasts, in the manner of Circle robes. But this one was not of Circle.

  At the woman’s side a man—hulking and muscle-gripped—stood stoic. There was a gash below one eye and a purpling bruise along the line of his jaw.

  “Well,” said the woman again. “Travel-right, is it? You are bold.”

  “I am in need,” Moonhawk replied levelly. “Night comes and I ask the boon of a roof.”

  “Do you? But this is a hard land from which to scratch a living,, traveler. We have little to give. Even the favor of a place to sleep must be balanced by a valuable of your own.”

  Moonhawk bowed her head. “I will work for the House with gladness. I sing the Teaching Tales, give news, heal…”

  Lady Drudae was laughing. “Hear her, Arto? She can sing! She does not fear labor!” The laughter stopped. “You misunderstand, traveler. The boon of a roof demands the balance of a—personal—favor.” A snap of shapely fingers. “Arto!”

  The man’s sluggish face lit and his lust was a thrust of jagged ice.

  For a second time Moonhawk feared, and stepped back, gathering her mantle close.

  “I do not choose to give that gift,” she said, flinging the words like stones to stop him.

  He laughed th
en, low and idiot, and she knew he would heed no words of hers. She retreated, thinking of the door and of the way to the boundary lintels; and the voice of the Mother was thunder within her: “Stay, thou! Do not turn away!”

  The man lunged forward, snatching her cloak. Whirling, she left it in his hand and stood ’round to face him, clad in travelers’ breech and shirt.

  He threw the cloak aside and the creature who had guided her here scrambled forward in the dirt, wadding the cloth against her. The man lunged again.

  Moonhawk danced away, but his hand had touched her arm. Thrusting away fear, she stood straight, and, staring into his dull, exultant eyes, reached out, as those in Circle may—

  His cry was hoarse with terror and he bent double, hands gripping his privates. “It burns! Noble Lady—aid me!”

  Moonhawk stepped around him. “Be still and you will have no pain. Seek to harm me and you will burn.” She withdrew her attention from the man and laid it upon Lady Drudae.

  “I am charged by the Mother’s word to come to this place. I require—”

  It was here that the Goddess in Her wisdom withdrew Her hand from about the person of Her daughter and allowed a well-aimed rock to fell her from behind.

  * * *

  THE EYES WERE open and of indeterminate hue; the face was blank, whether by intent or by nature it was not yet possible to know.

  Lute nodded pleasantly and smiled.

  “How lovely to see you wake! Allow me to offer congratulations. The mountain has only recently stopped wailing, from which I surmise that your aim is superior to my own. Well-played! I wish I’d been there to see it. Sound is useful, but I sometimes find it a bit confusing when not aided by sight. Don’t you?”

  The eyes blinked once, slowly.

  “Who are you?”

  “A thousand apologies, Stranger Lady! I am Lute, Master of prestidigitation, illusion, and sleight-of-hand. No doubt you’ve heard of me.”

  The eyes closed. Lute sighed and settled back against the dirt wall.

  “Is it a little incongruous,” the woman wondered eventually, “for a Master of magics to be sitting at the bottom of a hole with his shirt torn and blood on his chin?”

  Lute considered her shuttered face. “A minor reversal of fortunes. Only let me lay my hand upon my bag and neither this nor any other hole may contain me!”

  “Oh.” The eyes were open again. “Where is it? Your bag.”

  He pointed upward with a flourish. “Lady Drudae has it in her tender keeping.”

  “I see.” She twisted her angular self gracelessly and sat up. “You’re an optimist.”

  “A pragmatist,” he corrected gently. “But enough of me! What of yourself? What are you hight? Whither are you bound? How came you here? How will you go away?”

  She raised her hands, feeling in the thick, unraveling knot of her hair. “Moonhawk. Where the Goddess sends me. Upon my two feet. The same.” Her hair became a cascade, obscuring gaunt features.

  “Moonhawk.” He chewed his lip. “This is no good place for a name out of Circle. Call yourself otherwise, if you’ll take my advice—unless you’ve come to convert the heathen?”

  She laughed, a pleasing sound in the dankness of the pit. “Hardly.” She ran pale strands through combing fingers. “You are devout?”

  “I was raised to the Way and have traveled a good deal—Have you been to Huntress City? The lamps—harnessed lightnings, I was told, from the ships that brought our foremothers here.” He waved a hand upward, indicating the greasy shadows of oil light. “Far different, this.”

  “There aren’t many places to compare with the glory of Huntress,” she said softly. “I would like to visit someday—Goddess willing. The last news I had was that Huntress Circle was collecting everything that might be from the Ships and placing all within a warded treasurehouse.”

  “So? All the more reason, then, for one of the Circle to visit Lady Drudae. She possesses a most interesting artifact.”

  He waited, gauging the moment. She was silent, combing her hair.

  “You are incurious.”

  She glanced up. “I am sitting in the mud at the bottom of a hole with a kitchen magician for my companion and a village of depravity above. My head hurts. My cloak is gone. I’m hungry. And cold. I see no way out of the present coil and no reason to be in it at all.”

  “Ask your Goddess, if you lack reasons.” He had not intended his voice to be so sharp. “I’m told She has a plenitude.”

  “She does not Speak.”

  Lute shifted and carefully extended his legs.

  “If my bag were here, we might dine on cheese and bread and fresh milk,” he said musingly. “I would share my cloak and mix you a tincture I learned in the Wilderwood that is efficacious in the soothing of headaches.” He sighed. “Rot those lamps—it’s getting dark. I hate to talk to someone I can’t see.”

  Moonhawk raised her head, tracing the flicker of Power to the man—and out of him; flowing to the sticky floor.

  A small blue flame appeared in the mud between them; faded, flickered, steadied. The man Lute settled back, sighing as one who has expended much effort.

  “Light at least, Lady. I apologize that it does not give heat. If I had my bag…” He let the sentence go, peering upward for a moment before settling harder against the fabric of the pit, hope as thin as the wan blue light.

  “Please, my name is Moonhawk—and I thank you for the gift. You should conserve your strength.”

  “My strength will return soon enough. They won’t come for me tonight, I think. More likely tomorrow mid-morning—after Lady Drudae is angry.”

  * * *

  “OPEN IT! “She augmented the order with a ringing slap across the man’s ear.

  “Lady, I cannot! It does not—there is no—I see nothing—”

  “Open it or fry! “This time she aimed her blow at the bag, knuckles sharp, as if she struck the idiot’s simpering face.

  “Lady, It is not possible! “pled Kat. “Perhaps the trickster told the aye—”

  Clink!

  They froze; turned as one to stare at the bag sitting, inviolate, on the high wooden table.

  Beside it lay a solitary token of the type used to count score In gambling games.

  “Where did it come from?” wondered Kat.

  “The bag…”

  “Lady, the bag is not open!”

  ‘Where else would it come from?” she cried. “Do you have such a thing? Do I? It must come from the bag!” She snatched at the clasp, swore; lifted the whole with fury’s strength and slammed it upon the table. “Open, damn you!”

  The bag sat, shuttered and uncowed.

  Lovely shoulders drooping, Lady Drudae turned away.

  Plingplinkbinkplunk!

  She spun. Rolling unhurriedly down the slope of the table, four bright pottery marbles: red, blue, green, yellow. Lady Drudae stared them to the edge of the table and watched them fall, one by one, to the dirt floor.

  “Fetch the magician.”

  * * *

  MOONHAWK SAT AT the bottom of the pit and listened.

  Lady Drudae’s voice she heard most—strident and scolding, then threatening. Less often came the undistinguished bass rumble of a man’s speaking. Least often, she heard Lute’s clear, trained voice. He spoke very few words for one who seemed to like them so well. Most of the words he spoke meant ‘No’.

  “You will open that bag now,” Lady Drudae stormed. “If you do not, Kat will break your fingers.”

  “If he does so, Lady, heed my warning! Run away from here as fast as you may. For the bag becomes its own master if I have no hands to lay upon it. Listen! And believe.”

  Very nearly did Moonhawk in her pit believe, though straining Witch-sense brought no taste of power, other than the gall of evil.

  “So…” hissed Lady Drudae. “Kat!”

  A moment’ s incredulous silence was followed by a man’s hoarse scream.

  They threw him down from the edge.

&
nbsp; Moonhawk broke his fall with her body and he rolled away, coiled around his ruined hand, sobbing.

  “Lute.” She touched him and he shuddered, sob catching on a gasp.

  Witch-sense questing, she found a mangled chord of clarity within his terror, caught it and wound it round with calm, feeding comfort in a riverflow until he let her touch the pain and share it.

  “Lute. I am Healer.” She did not force trust; did not stint on what she gave.

  Slowly, the coiled body unbound. He flopped to his back, eyes stabbing hers.

  “Good. Now it is my turn to give a gift… I must touch it. Lute, I am Healer. Through me flows the love of our Mother. Through me flows Her strength—to you, Her son…”

  She held the mangled member now; felt and knew utter destruction: the tiny bones ground and shattered and hopeless. Around them, the highly trained muscles mourned.

  Moonhawk took breath, drawing in strength, and crossed over into that gray space from which all Healing takes place.

  The man beneath her hand screamed; she exerted the will necessary to quiet him. The Inner Eyes saw bone shards reform, fit together, settle into the cradle of tissue, seal into wholeness—into health.

  She let breath escape; removed will and hand and sat back, face dripping sweat, body shuddering.

  “In Her Name it is done.”

  Lute caught her with two good hands as she toppled sideways, and laid her gently down, head pillowed on his thigh.

  * * *

  MOONHAWK BLINKED IN the gash of sunlight and tried not to breathe through her nose. The one called Kat held her arms twisted behind her back and he stank like last week’s slaughter.

  Lute’s hands hung free. He faced Lady Drudae over a dull blue tube and smiled as if the terror in him was no more real than dreams.

  “You know what this is?” The Lady asked him, voice unnaturally calm.

  Lute bowed his head. “I do. I beg leave to remind the most gracious and noble Lady that, fried, I am of no use to her.”

  “How is your hand mended? It was broken beyond praying for—Kat?”