Liaden Universe 18: Dragon in Exile

by Sharon Lee

  “Yes, Father,” he said. He closed and locked the Sticks drawer and walked past Ran Dom vin’Aqar as if he was not standing there, still shaking in what might be either rage or fear, to take the hand that Natesa held out to him and slip her arm through his.

  The three of them strolled about, to all the major stations, his father repeating his message. He also heard Cheever McFarland’s voice, and those of various of the translators.

  Slowly, at first, and then with more energy, the patrons moved toward the cash-out cages.

  Quin, and Natesa, and Father continued onward through the throng, Father bowing to this one, or that, or pausing now to exchange a pleasantry.

  At last the room was empty, and the doors locked against the approaching night.

  Father left them to stand before the bar, and looked out over the exhausted staff.

  “Go home and rest. The casino opens in eight hours. If you are scheduled for the morning shift, and you have worked less than two full shifts today, you will come in then. There will be extra help on hand at that time, but they will need your patience and your guidance in order to best assist.

  “Please be assured that your work during this unprecedented event will be suitably rewarded. A bonus based on net profits received during the time Lalandia is in port will be paid to each of you. Details will be made available as we gain time to breathe.”

  A laugh, tired but willing, rippled through those gathered.

  “I have held you here long enough. Go—go home. Eat. Rest. And thank you, all of you, for your courage and your fortitude.”

  Somebody in the back of those assembled began to clap. Soon they were all clapping and whistling.

  “Thank you, Boss!” Woody called out. “Everybody say it now, Thank you, Boss!”

  It was loud, but it was obviously heartfelt, and finally they had done, and went away to their various homeplaces, and Father sighed largely, and turned ’round to look at them—Quin, Natesa, and Cheever McFarland.

  “Peace,” he said, “and quiet. Let us, by all means, go home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Jelaza Kazone

  Surebleak

  “Certainly, the relocation has done the lawns no good,” ker’Emit sniffed, as the tour bus lumbered up the long drive toward the house. “You remember how lush the grasses were?”

  “Alas, you have the advantage of me,” said vel’Siger, who was younger than his seatmate. “I have never been to the homeworld.”

  “Well! yos’Galan—Korval-pernard’i, you understand—would never have allowed this piebald arrangement. A high stickler, Er Thom yos’Galan; he would not have been caught opening up a hole in Solcintra!”

  “The young Dragon’s fault lay in getting caught, then?” vel’Siger asked lightly.

  “He could scarcely avoid it, being off-world as he has been,” Cozin said from the seat behind. “No, Er Thom would have arranged for it to seem that someone else had done the damage, while he was present at a gathering in Chonselta, and half the city swearing to his attendance!”

  “My grandmother, the old delm, would have done the same—if she found it necessary, of course!” said ker’Emit. “The older generation—you won’t find their match for wit or guile today.”

  “And certainly not in Val Con yos’Phelium,” kin’Joyt said haughtily. “Upstart puppy. Yes—look at those lawns! He allows his clan to meet the planetary standards. And this business of selling admissions to the house and gardens? Why, when I was a child, my aunt took all of us children to the public days at all of the High Houses. On Jelaza Kazone’s day, Korval’s head gardener took us through the formal gardens and showed us the key to the maze. Inside, we were conducted through the public rooms by the butler, and at the end, we were served tea and cakes on one of the front patios. It was pleasant and completely unexceptionable.

  “That was in Daav’s day, of course.” she sniffed again.

  “Well, that’s the point of the thing, isn’t it?” Cozin said. “Korval is no longer a Liaden clan; the Council saw to that. They might do business as they have been, outworld—Tree-and-Dragon Family, indeed!—but surely, now, they are Surebleakeans. It would scarcely be in keeping with their new melant’i to have the lawns in better case than those around them.”

  “Here,” said ker’Emit, as the bus rounded a long curve. “There is the house. Perhaps there will be tea and cakes on the patio!”

  “Not in this weather, I hope,” kin’Joyt said. “Even Val Con yos’Phelium must offer his guests a parlor, and the comfort of a small fire.”

  “What would Surebleakeans offer?” Cozin asked. “I learn that the natives believe this to be summer—and quite warm, besides!”

  “The gate is closed,” vel’Siger said, suddenly. “Perhaps instead we will take our tea in town.”

  “They must honor the admission ticket!” ker’Emit snapped. “We can’t have come all this way, in this appalling weather, for nothing. The contract—”

  “The contract,” said vel’Siger, “was with the tour company, after all.”

  “Who had made all the arrangements!” kin’Joyt said loftily. “Were we to individually purchase tickets from Korval’s qe’andra?”

  The bus came to a gentle stop. The driver opened the door, and stood.

  “I will inquire if there is a problem,” she said. “Perhaps there was a miscommunication. On such a world, who can tell but that a message has gone astray.”

  She exited the bus.

  Scarcely was she gone than kin’Joyt was on her feet and moving down the aisle, and that, of course was the signal for the rest of them to stand and, jostling somewhat, exit the bus.

  The driver was at the gate, and vel’Siger could see a single person on the far side, strolling down from the house toward them. One of the groundskeepers, perhaps, wearing rough trousers and a black jacket open over a dark sweater. His concession to the weather, which was quite bitter, was that the collar was turned up, and his hands were tucked into the pockets of his jacket.

  “You, fellow!” the bus driver called. “We are the tour from Lalandia. Open for us.”

  The fellow made no answer until he came to the gate, where of necessity he stopped, hands still tucked comfortably into his pockets.

  “I’m afraid that I will not,” he said, his voice soft, but carrying, for all of that, “open the gate. Please turn around—the drive is quite wide enough—and return to the city. You have no business here.”

  “We have admission tickets!” kin’Joyt snapped, pushing forward. “We are entitled to a tour of the house and the inner garden. I am specifically interested in observing the Tree. We were never let into the inner garden during the old public days.”

  “For very good reason,” the young man at the gate said, in his soft voice. “I doubt you would find the Tree to your liking. Nor you to the Tree’s liking, though I suppose that must be thought a separate issue.”

  A faint rumble reached vel’Siger’s ears, as of wheels on gravel. He looked beyond the young man, and spied a red-haired woman approaching, carrying a child on her hip, and escorted by a . . . mechanism, with an orange ball perhaps meant to mimic a head. The woman was dressed like the man, though she had at least taken care to bundle the child properly against the weather.

  “What do these people want?” the woman asked as she reached the young man’s side.

  “They wish to tour the house, cha’trez, and to observe the Tree.”

  Fine brows lifted over grey eyes, and she shifted the child, who laughed and grabbed at her long braid.

  “That would be ill-advised,” she said, and looked directly at kin’Joyt.

  “Go home,” she said, and the mode was captain-to-passenger.

  This was no groundskeeper at all, vel’Siger realized, with a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. This was Korval Themselves, with the heir, and the mechanism could only be yos’Galan’s former butler, about which rumors flew. Its brain had motivated an ancient war machine, that was the most
persistent rumor. It yet carried military grade weapons, that was the other rumor.

  vel’Siger leapt forward and snatched at kin’Joyt’s sleeve.

  “Come away!” he said urgently, and turned to face the other passengers.

  “There has been an error,” he said loudly. “We disturb Delm Korval, and we are invited to withdraw. We should do so. Immediately.”

  “I will not!” snapped kin’Joyt. “I paid an admission and I signed a contract.”

  “That may be so,” Val Con yos’Phelium said. “However, you did not sign a contract with Korval, nor did you pay your admission into our accounts. I suggest that you have been cheated, and that your ire is best directed at the tour company. There are qe’andra a-plenty in the city, and at the port. Your recourse is there, not here.”

  “There is no Korval!” ker’Emit said, unwisely, in vel’Siger’s opinion. He cast a worried glance at the mechanism, but it stood as still as a metal sculpture, the ball surmounting it glowing an inoffensive shade of orange.

  “Did you not study the Code?” demanded the red-haired woman—Miri Robertson Tiazan, vel’Siger recalled her name now, from the announcement in the Gazette. Her mode was now as from instructor-to-student. Which was, he thought, appropriate, as she delivered them a lesson in Code.

  “The clan ceases to exist when the delm so decrees. The delm of Korval has not so decreed. That the Council of Clans struck Korval’s name from its member book speaks to the Council’s necessities, which are not Korval’s necessities.

  “Korval exists. You stand on private property belonging to Clan Korval, which has been duly registered with the Bosses of Surebleak. This is not a botanical garden—or a zoo.

  “Go away.”

  The child in her arms crowed loudly, and shook her small fists above her head.

  “Indeed,” said Val Con yos’Phelium. “The imaging on your transport must tell you that you have in fact arrived at Jelaza Kazone. This is the base of Clan Korval.

  “I add my own suggestion to that of my lifemate: leave now, and take your complaint to the tour company’s representative. The tour administrators have deceived you. They have taken your money in earnest of a promise that they could not fulfill. I repeat, there are many competent, Guild-certified qe’andra in the city and at the port; you do not lack for recourse.

  “I shall not leave until I have placed this hand on the trunk of this Tree of yours,” kin’Joyt cried, striding toward the gate, “and I have paid for the right to do so!”

  No one seemed to have an answer for this, and in the silence that followed, there came a small, creaking noise, as if of a small branch, shifting in the wind.

  Val Con yos’Phelium looked upward.

  The sound came again, slightly louder as the wind—doubtless the natives considered it a balmy summer zephyr!—suddenly increased.

  “Scatter!” Miri Robertson shouted. “Go to ground!”

  vel’Siger needed no second encouragement—he leapt, pushing ker’Emit before him, and taking them both to the ground, hands and faces burned by dead grasses, and behind them, the earth boomed, and they bounced, amid shouts and screams, and a male voice speaking High Liaden in the mode of Authority.

  “Please stand and count off. If you are unable to stand, please remain where you are.”

  There came a voice, trembling, “One . . .” and another, slightly bolder . . . “Two . . .”

  vel’Siger helped ker’Emit to his feet, adding, “Six” and “Seven” to the count. yos’Galan’s robot stood at the gate. Behind the robot, Val Con yos’Phelium, his lifemate and heir could be glimpsed. A heated conversation appeared to be in process.

  vel’Siger turned then, daring to look about him. A . . . tree branch the length of the tour bus lay in an indentation of its own making upon the drying lawns. It seemed to be not-quite-dead wood; there were some very few green shoots along its length.

  Swallowing, vel’Siger forced himself to look closer, but if kin’Joyt’s body lay beneath, it was entirely covered by the branch.

  He drew a breath, and heard in that moment, a breathy and uncertain, “Eighteen.”

  Tears started to his eyes.

  “Anyone who wishes to place their hand against the Tree’s bark may do so now,” Val Con yos’Phelium said inside the gate. “Please make haste, for if your bus has not cleared our drive within the next twelve minutes, the house will call the local law-keepers and have you taken to the Whosegow and charged as vandals.”

  “I call mark,” the device at his shoulder stated. “Eleven minutes forty-eight seconds remain.”

  ker’Emit began to limp toward the bus; vel’Siger followed. Others of their company also were moving in that direction, save one only, her grey hair disordered and mud streaking her coat.

  kin’Joyt’s steps were by no means certain, but she approached the branch. She bent, and she placed her palm against the bark.

  “I hope you die here,” she said, her voice pitched to carry. “Cold and alone.”

  She straightened then, and walked, not hurrying, to the bus, where the driver was waiting to assist her up the ramp.

  The driver then bowed toward the gate—honor to a delm not one’s own—and climbed into the cabin, engaging the engine.

  It was to her credit, vel’Siger thought, shivering in his warm seat, that she kept the bus scrupulously to the surface of the drive, and delivered no further trauma to the lawns.

  “While you were gone, I took the liberty of making an adjustment to your security arrangements, my son. I hope you will not find that I have overreached.”

  They had just enjoyed an excellent dinner, and were tarrying over a second glass of wine in the dining room—Father, Natesa, Quin, and Cheever McFarland. Father was looking less exhausted now, though he would, Quin thought, surely profit from an early night. By contrast, he was feeling quite energetic, and contemplating a walk in the relatively mild evening.

  But, here—an adjustment in his security arrangements?

  “I hope I haven’t lost Skene,” he said, and meant it. Skene’s presence hardly weighed on him at all, and she had a gift for knowing when he wished to talk, and when he did not wish to talk.

  “I would certainly not remove Ms. Liep from your service without an urgent reason,” Father said, smiling slightly. “In this instance, I have added, not subtracted. Ms. Liep does occasionally need time off, and it seemed that you had sent me a fitting solution to the problem of her backup.”

  Quin frowned at him.

  “I, Father?”

  “Boy forgot what he did before he lifted,” Cheever McFarland said, sipping from his glass. Cheever McFarland was drinking beer, as he did not care for wine.

  “Well, I did tell Villy that I would go to him immediately I was home,” Quin said, recalling that clearly. “As he was not at his table when I came to the Emerald, I believe that I will walk down to Ms. Audrey’s when we are done here, and redeem my word.”

  “Very good,” Father said amiably. “You may take your new ’hand with you.”

  “But who—” Quin stopped, and looked from his father to Natesa, who was smiling slightly.

  The memory rose, and with it, a sense of horror.

  “Security Officer pen’Erit?” he cried. “But he doesn’t speak Terran!”

  “He does now,” Cheever McFarland said. “Sorta.”

  Quin eyed him. “Sorta?”

  “He does, of course, need to practice what he has learned,” Natesa said, while Father sipped wine, looking wearily amused. “His days since you lifted have been divided between sleep-learning Terran, and being inducted into the household. Pat Rin did not stint his curriculum. I imagine the poor man would welcome a chance to simply provide security, without a lesson dinning in his ears.”

  Quin looked to his father.

  “I sent him to you because I thought you might find him a place!”

  “And so I have found him a place. His gratitude toward yourself is firm; indeed, he confided to Mr. McFarland th
at he found you a well-mannered and gracious young man, such as anyone would be pleased to serve.”

  Quin felt his ears warm.

  “He will think he is my father.”

  “Do you know? He seemed remarkably clear on the identity of your father. I think there is very little danger of that error being made.”

  “Quin, if you mean to go to Audrey’s house, it really might be best to have pen’Erit by you. Especially this evening.”

  Quin looked to Natesa.

  “Why especially this evening?”

  “Stands to reason,” said Cheever McFarland. “All them excitable Liaden tourists the Boss here just threw outta the Emerald are gonna go lookin’ for fun someplace else.”

  “Skene is very good,” Father added. “Indeed, her skill as a muscle reader might qualify her for Scout training. However, even a very astute and careful woman might find herself confused in such a . . . cosmopolitan arena.”

  “Wait,” said Quin. “Audrey and the hetaerana—they will also be at a loss. Someone might . . . be hurt.”

  Someone might, indeed, he thought, be murdered. While hetaerana were accorded every courtesy—even revered—in Liaden society, such a crowd as he had seen today, at the Emerald . . . Would they even allow that there could be Terran hetaerana? Would they allow an inappropriate touch—and surely there would be inappropriate touches—to be a gift of art, or an insult?

  “I should go now,” Quin said, pushing his chair back.

  Father moved a hand.

  “You have time to do justice to your wine. Your grandfather stands at Audrey’s right hand, and she has accepted the assistance of several Scouts.” He shook his head. “Who could have thought that we would rely so heavily upon the assistance of Scouts, only to get from one day to the next? I hope they do not find themselves ill-used.”

  “As I understand the matter from Captain ves’Daryl,” Natesa said, “the members of the Surebleak Transitional Team have volunteered for the duty. Those are the Scouts we see here. Others pursue their duties and explorations elsewhere.”