By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  Doctor syn-Tavaite came forward with a robe—one of Jessan’s, from the looks of it. It was deep green with a gold satin lining.

  “Are you feeling well, my lady?” she asked, carefully helping the Domina into the loose garment.

  “I feel weak,” came the reply. Beka recognized her mother’s voice. “This place—”

  “You’re on board Warhammer, Mother,” Ari said. “You’re home.”

  “In the cargo bay?” The Domina was weak, but the note of amusement in her voice sounded real. “Surely not even Jos—”

  “Your husband is not here, my lady.” It was the first time the Grand Admiral had spoken since leaving Beka’s side. “But I also welcome you back to the life of the body. I had not thought to speak with you again.”

  Doctor syn-Tavaite drew a frightened breath. “A Masked One,” she whispered. “My lord, I am acting as honor demands.”

  “So are we all,” sus-Airaalin replied.

  Nyls Jessan reached for his blaster. “And who the hell do you think you are?”

  The Grand Admiral bowed. “I am Lord sus-Airaalin.”

  “Ah,” said Perada. “Now I remember.” She stepped away from Ari’s support and stood facing the Magelord. “You swore to me, sus-Airaalin. ‘Let me be raised up or cast down according to my merit,’ you said. Now you have come with war against my people and my worlds. How are you to escape judgment?”

  To Beka’s unspoken surprise, the Grand Admiral knelt. “My lady,” he said. “I have never broken oath to any, nor do I break it now.”

  “Then call off your fleet and your attack, and return to the worlds you came from.”

  “My lady, I cannot. I am sworn to the lords of the Resurgency by oaths from which I am not free—oaths into which I entered after I was released from yours by your death.”

  Perada looked at him. “Is this true?”

  “My lady, I do not lie.”

  The Domina of Entibor turned away her face. “Then what is there to do? We have tried, and failed.”

  “Damn it all to hell,” said Beka. “I didn’t go through all this just to listen to a room full of people explaining why there isn’t anything that they can do. There must be something—”

  “There is,” said Llannat Hyfid. She looked terrified but resolute as she stepped forward to face sus-Airaalin where he knelt. “I call upon you, my lord, to honor your ancient customs. I challenge you for your Circle.”

  “You have neither the skill nor the standing to challenge me,” the Grand Admiral said.

  “My lord sus-Airaalin,” Perada said, “by your oath of service, I command you to accept.”

  The Grand Admiral rose to his feet. “As you will, Domina. Mistress Hyfid: Will you fight me for the mastery of my Circle and all that I hold?”

  “I will fight you,” Llannat said.

  “To the death,” sus-Airaalin said, and raised his staff.

  Llannat raised hers. “To the death.”

  VI. GYFFERAN SYSTEM SPACE: RSF KARIPAVO; SWORD-OF-THE-DAWN

  WARHAMMER: CAPTURED

  IN KARIPAVO’S main battle tank, the glowing dot that represented the Mage flagship was expanding into an amorphous blob as time passed and the uncertainty of the flagship’s real-time location increased.

  “Turn toward, target marked,” the TAO said.

  “Vector the fighters into position,” Gil said. “Get hard data on location as soon as possible.”

  Light flared on the ’Pavo’s sensor screens as he spoke, and a shudder ran through the deckplates.

  “Hit Alfa, hit Alfa,” came a voice over the intraship comms, sent from Damage Control Central. “Supply from Repair Two.”

  A series of shudders ran through the ship. The messages from Damage Control kept on coming. “Hit Bravo. Hit Charlie. Hit Delta. Hit …”

  The announcement cut off. At the same time lights and gravity went away in the Combat Information Center. A moment later they came back, but with half-values, and the main battle tank was empty. Either its accumulated data had been lost, or there wasn’t enough power to bring up a full display.

  Either way, thought Gil, we’re in trouble. “Damage report?”

  “Serious engineering hit,” said the TAO. “No response via interior communications from Damage Control Central.”

  “Weapons and ship control?”

  “Self-powered missiles only, fire control marginal. Shields low and flickering. Negative ability to accelerate or maneuver.”

  “We took some hits, all right,” Gil said. “Will our current course intercept the last known posit for the Mage commander?”

  “Unknown. We’d begun our turn, but may not have—”

  “I don’t want ‘may.’ Get me an answer.”

  “Working.”

  Gil turned to the fighter-control talker. “Any comms with the fighter det?”

  “Patchy. We’ve been losing units out there.”

  “Runner reports Damage Control Central took a direct hit,” said Lieutenant Jhunnei. “Rerouting IC, secondary control on-line. One more hit like that, sir, and we’re going to be a nice bright cloud of glowing dust.”

  Gil nodded, slowly. “The same thought had crossed my own mind, Lieutenant.”

  The tech at the exterior comms panel leaned back and took off the headset. “That’s it, Commodore. We’re blind and deaf. Progressive damage has reached the comms spaces.”

  At the same moment, ship’s gravity clicked off entirely, then began to cycle from zero to a multiple of standard—Gil guessed that it was about a three. Damned uncomfortable, at any rate. The half-power lights died, to be replaced by the self-powered red battle glows.

  Gil took a deep breath. “Give the order to abandon ship.”

  In Warhammer’s cargo bay, the magnificent lines of By Honor Betray’d were still continuing, in Eraasian, within a hold transformed into a theater by lifelike holoprojection. In among the moving illusions, Llannat Hyfid and sus-Airaalin faced each other, motionless.

  Neither one wants to make the first move, Beka thought. Nobody else had moved either. Everyone in the cargo bay was watching the combat, as if they were in fact one of the Circles for which Llannat and sus-Airaalin contended.

  Llannat held her short staff one-handed, angled out before her. Slowly, a nimbus of green fire appeared near her hand and crept out along its length. sus-Airaalin didn’t wait for her to be ready; he struck out, whipping his staff down toward Llannat in a blaze of crimson light. She raised her staff in time and deflected the force of the blow.

  Beka looked across the bay to where Ari was again cradling the Domina Perada in his arms. He didn’t seem to notice his burden; all his attention was given to watching the fight. His eyes were fixed on sus-Airaalin, and the red of the blazing power on the Magelord’s staff was reflected in his eyes.

  If Llannat buys it, Beka thought, there’s going to be hell to pay.

  All around the duel, the play ran on. The Duke and his friend Lucet were disguised as beggars in the lanes of Mesara. Lucet was speaking, showing the diamond watch that Alona had given him, the one with the miniature of the house in Favinzi on the lid.

  Abruptly, Lucet warped and deformed as someone else entered through him.

  “Master Ransome!” Beka said.

  For all they seemed to notice the newcomer, Llannat and sus-Airaalin might have been sealed away from the rest of the cargo bay by walls of glass. Still caught up in their deadly play, the Adept and the Magelord circled one another, striking and parrying.

  “Come along,” Ransome said to Beka. He continued walking toward the group clustered by the holoprojector. “We have tasks to complete, you and I. The war has reached a critical phase, and we have only one chance to avoid defeat.”

  “I tried taking your advice once already,” Beka said. “I shot the Grand Admiral for you, but it didn’t do us any good.”

  The Domina Perada pulled herself up out of Ari’s supporting arms. “Master Ransome,” she said. “You’re too late. The last chance
is here and now.”

  “What are you talking about?” another voice said. The man who had been with Ransome before came out of the holoprojection as well. “Come on!”

  “No,” Perada said. “Leave us. If you have a ship waiting, go to it now.”

  The man stared at Perada for a second, then turned toward Beka. “Don’t listen to her! She’s a replicant—a Magebuilt construct!”

  “No,”said Owen. He had kept silent all this time, watching the duel with a steady, intent concentration, as if he could lend energy to Mistress Hyfid just by willing it. Now he turned to address Ransome and his companion. “She’s real. I ought to know—I helped bring her back.”

  “Sorcery!” Ransome cried, and swung at Owen with his makeshift staff. “Traitor! You, of all people!”

  To Beka’s surprise, Owen didn’t try to block the blow. He took it full force, staggering back under the impact.

  “I deserved that much, Master,” he said, “but no more. Put up your staff.”

  The ’Pavo’s CIC was all but deserted now, a dark and ghostly place in the light of the red battle-glows. The faint whisper of circulating air had ceased some time ago, when the life-support systems had shut down. Gravity was still cycling erratically.

  “Sir, come on,” Lieutenant Jhunnei said. “You need to get to a lifepod.”

  “I think I’ll stay for a while,” Gil said. He sat back in his chair, gripping the arms to keep in place as gravity dropped to zero, then came back up heavy.

  His aide looked distressed. “Sir, will you at least come down to the docking bay and see if that shuttle from the ’Tina is still operative?”

  Gil shook his head. “You may if you want to. I’m where I want to be right now.”

  “Commodore,” Jhunnei said, “if you’re staying, I request permission to remain with you.”

  “Denied,” Gil said. “No sense both of us getting killed.”

  “Sir.”

  “I mean it. Get to your abandon-ship station.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She turned and left.

  At length the red-lit compartment was silent and still. Gil stood and walked without undue haste to his in-space cabin, located midway between CIC and the bridge. His pressure suit waited in its locker. He put it on, leaving the faceplate open. No sense in using the bottled air until he had to—he’d breathe the ship’s air as long as possible. He clipped a light amplifier to his belt and headed out again, walking carefully as the deck seemed to go from one angle to another under his feet with the cycling gravity. He braced or balanced himself with his hands as he walked aft.

  “Let’s see,” he muttered, as his light picked out the compartment numbers. “Weapons spaces, skin nacelles.”

  One path was blocked by collapsed bulkheads jamming the door—he turned and took another way. There was no ship’s gravity here, which was a good thing. A little farther on, he had to leap across a pit extending downward through at least two decks.

  Half a trooper was wedged into the broken frames near the top of the hole.

  “Poor bastard,” Gil muttered, and went on.

  The ship’s air grew chilly and thin as Gil worked his way outward: time to seal up, switch to the air in his p-suit and clip the light amplifier onto his faceplate. He continued through levels of increasing destruction until he drew close to the skin of the ship. There he entered a self-powered lock, used in better times for maintenance checks and safety inspections, and made his way through onto the ’Pavo’s exterior surface.

  Gil attached his lifeline to a ringbolt beside the hatch, then set out on foot toward the location of the self-powered missiles—the close-in and medium-range stuff. Stars big and bright as glowbulbs swam through space over his head as the ship rotated around its longitudinal axis. The magnifiers and light amplifiers attached to his helmet showed the planets of the Gyfferan system as pale, flattened disks.

  When he reached the missile battery, he pulled open its diagnostic pod and set the checks. Working by hand, he keyed in search parameters: the EM signatures of the Mage flagship, or as many of them as he could recall from watching the readouts over the comptech’s shoulder. He set the unit to alert on a 0.9 match. That done, he allowed himself to relax a little. The missiles were in place and powered up. A good set of weapons.

  Not too far away, energy beams flowed through space. Off in what passed for the middle distance, an explosion blossomed. The missile pod beeped. The target was nearby—a grey disk, at the center of a swarm of fighters.

  That’ll be the Mage flagship.

  Gil opened the viewscreen of the diagnostic and set the warhead on one of the missiles to Seek. The missile recorded its lock-on. He paused, then started the lock and launch sequence from the local control board. He turned the final key to the Fire position and closed the panel’s cover.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said, and leaned back against the diagnostic pod to watch the show. The missiles went in sequence—the testing and maintenance board wasn’t sophisticated enough to handle volley or simultaneous fire—arching out in a trail of flame, then going dark as the first launch phase ended.

  Gil waited a while longer. Nothing remained on visual above him except the stars. His air supply was getting into the critical zone.

  “I wonder if there’s any cha’a left inside?” he said, and headed back toward the lock.

  On Sword-of-the-Dawn’s fighting bridge, a technician looked up from her scope. “Missiles, incoming. Bearing three-four-two close.”

  “Where’d those come from?” wondered Captain syn-Athekh, the Sword’s commander. “Raise shields to take impact.”

  “Shields in threatened quadrant damaged,” the technician called out. “Stand by for impact. Three. Two. One …”

  “Where’s the Grand Admiral?” syn-Athekh demanded. “We need him in here.”

  “I’ll go find him,” Mid-Commander Taleion said. “I believe he wants me to locate him now.”

  The docking bay of the Mage flagship rocked with a missile hit. Warhammer swayed on the blocks holding her in place. In the captive freighter’s number-one cargo hold, a muffled thud vibrated through the silent air. The holoprojector fell on its side and went off.

  Jessan would probably claim there was something symbolic about that, thought Beka. But I don’t want to think about it right now.

  More impacts sounded, growing nearer. Mistress Hyfid and the Grand Admiral never paused in their duel—not for the noise and the vibration of the missile hits, nor for the changes in the appearance of the hold after the holoprojection died—and not for the presence of Master Ransome. Owen was still off-balance from the Adept Master’s blow, a trickle of blood running down his sleeve from the first blow he had taken, when Errec Ransome spun around and lifted his staff to strike again.

  For a moment Beka thought that Ransome meant to aid Mistress Hyfid in her struggle with sus-Airaalin. She drew breath to warn him off—That won’t work; it has to be single combat!—but the words caught in her throat as she realized the Adept Master’s true purpose. Llannat Hyfid was intent on her struggle with the Eraasian Grand Admiral: she would never notice the treacherous attack coming against her from behind.

  Beka didn’t dare cry out a warning; the moment of divided attention might give sus-Airaalin the opening he was looking for. She lifted her blaster—still set on Full—and took aim.

  I’m sorry, Master Ransome. Dadda may never forgive me, but I can’t let you stop us now.

  She never had a chance to fire. A dark-clad figure, moving quickly, stepped between Mistress Hyfid and the threatened blow.

  Goddammit, Ignac’, Beka thought. Her teeth drew back from her lips in a frustrated snarl. This isn’t your fight. Get the hell out of the way before somebody shoots you!

  But Ignaceu LeSoit, blaster drawn, was already blocking Beka’s line of fire. “I tell you, old man, let the matter take its course.”

  LeSoit fired, but Master Ransome never altered expression. Beka saw the bolt connect, but Rans
ome did not fall. LeSoit didn’t seem surprised.

  “You endanger everything,” he said to Ransome, and raised his blaster to fire again.

  Ransome struck out with his staff—LeSoit’s second bolt went wild as Ransome caught him across the throat with a killing blow. Beka watched her shipmate crumple under the impact.

  Dead, she thought, as he fell and her line of fire came clear at last. She shot Errec Ransome twice before LeSoit hit the metal deckplates, but it did no more good than shooting sus-Airaalin had done. LeSoit lay motionless, blood pooling under his face. Dead. Damn you, Ignac’, why couldn’t you stay away from all this?

  She fired again—Damn all these Mages and Adepts, you can’t get a clear shot at any of them!—and heard the buzz of another weapon as somebody else—Jessan, it has to be; what the hell took him so long?—joined in. One, at least, of the bolts connected; Ransome jerked and fell.

  “Errec!”

  It was the Domina Perada who had cried out. Beka turned involuntarily toward the sound of her mother’s voice—only to see, at the boundaries of her vision, that Ransome was not yet dead, but pushing up again onto his feet. Beka pivoted—What does it take to kill one of these sons of bitches, anyway?—but it was too late. The Adept Master had Ignac’ LeSoit’s blaster in one hand, and the other arm wrapped around the neck of the Nammerinish girl, Klea Santreny.

  Why her? Beka wondered. Is it because she was the closest, or because she was the weakest—or is it because she’s Owen’s apprentice, the way Owen was his?

  For a moment, all movement in the cargo bay froze, except for the dark, twinned figures of Llannnat Hyfid and Grand Admiral sus-Airaalin, still striking and turning in their private and deadly dance. Not even the sound of blaster fire had broken into their concentration.

  “This is madness, Errec,” said Perada. “The girl is nothing to you. Let her go.”

  The Adept Master turned his eyes toward her and shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I haven’t finished yet.”