Heart of Gold

by Sharon Shinn

  But he snapped back to dread the instant they were ushered into a wide, formal room, and Chay Zanlan turned to gaze at them. The guldman was just as Nolan remembered him from those brief glimpses from Melina’s window, only up close he was even more intimidating. He was more than six feet tall, broad-chested, stockily built, so leonine and so powerful that he appeared to radiate strength and energy. Even the faint sweep of white in the red hair, even the weathered lines around the intense gray eyes, did nothing to age or diminish him. He appeared to be a man in the prime of life, at the height of his physical and intellectual abilities, and for the first time Nolan wondered if he might be wrong.

  If so, utter disaster. He was a fool beyond calculation. And he would deserve any scorn or punishment that could be meted out to him, either by this race or his own.

  He stood stock-still, waiting. Kitrini had said he should allow Chay to speak first, though she had been uncertain whether the guldman would recognize her or treat her like a woman as invisible as any other. “Which would be a good sign?” he had asked, and she had given a hollow laugh. “I don’t know,” she had replied.

  It seemed like a full minute that Chay Zanlan assessed them, his eyes flicking from one face to the other, but everything else about him immobile. Then he took three majestic steps across the room and enfolded Kitrini in a massive hug.

  “Kit,” the guldman said, and then a spate of other words that Nolan could not recognize. Kit? That was how she was called here? With so many other things to think about, Nolan’s mind fastened on to that fact. Kit. He liked it. It suited her.

  Chay Zanlan released her and addressed another comment to her in goldtongue. She answered in the same language, seeming entirely at ease, though Nolan sensed she was not. He continued to stand very quietly. Patience was the key here. That oblique speech. That indirect approach. He must remember to proceed as Kitrini had told him.

  As Kit had told him.

  Finally, after an interminable conversation in which Nolan had no part, Chay Zanlan gestured at his other guest and switched to bluetongue. He had a perfect command of the language, Nolan noted; someone had taught him well.

  “So, Kit, I see you have traveled here in the company of a blueskin man,” the gulden leader said casually.

  “Yes, he was most interested in making your acquaintance.”

  “I am always curious to meet friends of my friend’s daughter.”

  “I explained to him that you are a very busy man and do not have much time for idle talk.”

  “That is true.”

  “And he assured me he would not waste your time with insignificant matters.”

  “That is good to hear. In your journey here, did he explain to you what weighty topics he wished to discuss with me?”

  “No, he did not,” Kitrini said flatly.

  Chay inclined his head. “That is well. A man should not debate such issues lightly with a woman.”

  Kit was silent. Chay appeared to consider. Nolan thought his tension must send him shrieking across the room. He clenched his hands till the nails scarred the palms. “And yet, some women have valuable insights into the hearts of men. My wife, for instance, can often tell me what it is I am thinking even when I have not resolved my thoughts.”

  Kit smiled faintly. “The lady Rell is wise in many ways.”

  “And you yourself are a woman of uncommon intelligence. Your opinion at times has been most welcome to me.”

  “I thank you for your respect.”

  “Then let me ask you. Do you believe this man, this indigo stranger, has any matters of true import to discuss with me? For I am in fact a busy man, and I will turn him away without a hearing if you advise me to do so.”

  Now Nolan’s body was strung tight with astonishment. Nothing Kitrini had told him, nothing that he knew about the gulden hierarchy, had led him to expect such a turn of events, that his chance to speak to the gulden ruler would rest in the hands of a woman he had coerced into this venture. She had shown him a surprising tolerance, despite her moments of bitter scorn, but he had given her no reason to trust him, no reason to think him anything but a lunatic. A word from her now, and his opportunity would be thrown away; even if Nolan was dragged shouting and struggling from the room, Chay would not listen to him, would not acknowledge a single syllable. And Nolan could not believe her word would be a good one.

  She seemed to hesitate a long time, weighing her response, but Chay showed no impatience. Nolan, on the other hand, felt his veins stretch and coil around his bones; he felt his feet drift dizzily above the floor. He dug his nails more deeply into his skin and said nothing.

  “I believe,” Kitrini said slowly, “that he had a compelling reason to make this journey. It is not a thing lightly undertaken, to leave your familiar home to travel to a place where you have no friends. He is not a man to do such a thing on a whim. Whatever news he brings you must be momentous indeed.”

  “And should I believe him? For blueskins have lied before to guldmen. He may have a great cause, but it may be great only to his nation. Will he speak to me in honest words?”

  Again, she seemed to struggle with her reply, searching her soul before she formed the words. “I will not lie to you,” she said, and Nolan went limp with fear. “I did not come here of my own free will. This man induced me to accompany him through threats and offers of violence. But I would have found a way to divert him, or a way to warn you, if I had not come to believe he had a message that you must hear. I would not put you at risk. I would have led him to the edge of Gold Mountain and pushed him into the sea rather than bring him to your door.”

  “And yet my door is precisely where you have brought him,” Chay said. “So tell me plainly—does this mean that you trust him?”

  “I trust him,” she said in a low voice, and Nolan had to stop breathing to hear her. “I cannot tell you why. I can only judge him by my heart, and my heart has been wrong before. But I believe he is a good man. I believe he has been steeped in kindness. I would be willing to see my life forfeit if he were able to do you harm.”

  Nolan stared at her, everything else washed away by stupefaction. When had she developed this opinion, or could she possibly be lying? She was gazing unwinking at Chay Zanlan, her face set and serious, her expression almost fierce. She looked like a true believer. Chay, who had never once glanced at Nolan since this conversation began, gazed back.

  “As it would be,” Chay said softly. “Which you knew when you walked in here.”

  “As it may yet be,” she whispered. “I know.”

  Chay watched her a moment in silence, and then nodded once, sharply. “So. Tell me his name.”

  Nolan’s limbs had all turned to yarn and rubber. He felt himself bobbing like a puppet as both of them turned to look at him. “Nolan Adelpho,” Kit said. “A respected member of his race’s nobility.”

  Now Nolan looked into those fierce gray eyes, and it was like stepping off a cliff. He felt very much as if Kit had actually shoved him off a precipice on Gold Mountain. “Nolan Adelpho,” Chay repeated. “I understand this is your first visit to Geldricht.”

  Small talk, idle conversation. Even now they must spar and establish rituals. “Yes, Chay Zanlan, it is,” Nolan replied.

  “And what do you think of it?”

  “What I have seen from the train windows is fascinating and complex,” he replied. “I had many questions to ask of Kitrini Candachi. She was an excellent source of information.”

  Chay nodded regally. “It is a good sign when a man is interested in learning,” he said.

  “I think I have a great deal more to learn, even so,” Nolan said. “I found your land rich with color and ritual and beauty, just from my window. I am sure it would be all that and more if I had time to study it.”

  Chay permitted himself a smile. “A gracious comment,” the guldman said. “Your land, I know, has its o
wn riches and beauties.”

  “Yes, and I love it with most of my heart,” Nolan said. “But I see now that a man must reserve a portion of his heart with which to appreciate things outside his immediate experience.”

  “I confess,” Chay said, “my heart was not much won over by your metropolis. Perhaps I did not stay there long enough.”

  “The city is not the true measure of Inrhio’s beauty,” Nolan said, wondering when all this pointless talk would end. “It is the countryside, so unbelievably green and fertile, which holds the affection of most indigo.”

  “Well, then, perhaps one day I will be fortunate enough to travel there. But since I have returned from the city, I have found myself weary and disinclined to travel again anywhere, at least anytime soon.”

  Nolan infused a faint note of concern into his voice. “I hope your health has not been troubling you?”

  “A slight cough merely. I so rarely suffer any illness that even the smallest one takes me completely by surprise.”

  “A cough?” Nolan said casually. “Did you fall ill while you were in the city? A place so crowded with people breeds disease, you know.”

  “Perhaps I contracted something while I was away from home,” Chay conceded. “It is not a matter I am concerned with. What I would rather talk about is your reason for traveling all this distance to see me.”

  “In fact,” Nolan began, but Chay held up one large hand to suspend him.

  “But is this an issue that can be discussed freely before a woman? You are the one who traveled here in secrecy. Do you desire Kitrini to overhear your words?”

  “She may hear them,” Nolan said bleakly. “I did not tell her because I thought this was news you should hear before any other.”

  “Then she may remain,” Chay said. “Speak. Tell me.”

  Nolan took a deep breath. He had rehearsed it a hundred times, a thousand times, and it always sounded horrific. “In fact, my reason for seeking you out directly concerns your health,” he said. “I believe that on your visit to the city you were, at the behest of Ariana Bayless, deliberately exposed to a dangerous virus that is fatal to gulden unless treated. Not only is it fatal, it is highly contagious, and you and everyone who has come in contact with you since you returned from the city could be dead before the year is out.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The silence in the room was complete. Nolan could feel Kit’s eyes on him, marveling, disbelieving, but Chay Zanlan’s serious expression did not change while he considered the pronouncement.

  Finally, the gulden leader said gravely, “Do you have more information? How was the virus administered? For I was very careful about the foods I ate and rarely took anything from the hand of a blueskin.”

  “There was a banquet one night. At a gulden restaurant. A place where you would not be suspicious.”

  “And I was exposed then? In my food?”

  Nolan shook his head. “It wasn’t mixed in your food. You were seated at a table with a number of high-ranking indigo. Including a woman named Cerisa Daylen. You might not remember her. She’s about the same age as Ariana Bayless—”

  “I remember her. She is the head of a scientific laboratory.”

  Nolan nodded. “That’s her. She brought the virus in a vial of some sort—a perfume bottle, perhaps. Something she could open at the table and seem to accidentally spill so it splashed on you. I wasn’t there. I don’t know how she accomplished it.”

  “She said it was medicine,” Chay said. He spoke very calmly, precisely, as if recalling an episode that held no particular significance for him. “She poured it into her dinner drink. But she miscalculated, and some of it dripped on me. She was very embarrassed.”

  “That would be it, then,” Nolan said.

  Chay spread his massive hands. “But I saw her sip from the drink. Surely, even to kill me, she would not be so reckless?”

  “You don’t understand. It’s a selective virus. It strikes only the gulden. The indigo can eat it, drink it, rub it all over their faces, and it will have no effect on them. It was tailored.”

  Chay nodded. “Ah. How did she know that such a brief contact with the virus would infect me? For of course I soaked up the spill immediately.”

  “But I’ll wager your sleeve was wet. Or your trousers.” Chay nodded. Nolan went on, “And this particular germ thrives in a damp, warm place. You were probably at the restaurant another hour or so, while the sample festered against your skin.”

  “Yes, as I recall, you’re correct. But I did not begin feeling ill for another two or three days.”

  “And you probably won’t start feeling really bad for another few days. The virus has a slow gestation period, but it’s replicating and settling in throughout your body. In your lungs. In your liver. In your blood. Once you start to get very sick, you have a very short time to live.”

  “I take it that this disease has been observed in other gulden, then?”

  “Yes. At the prison. There have been several deaths among gulden men, all attributable to this virus. The disease followed a virtually identical course with each man. Between inoculation and demise was a matter of three to four weeks.”

  “And were these men, too, deliberately infected?”

  “From what I’ve been able to determine,” Nolan said, “yes.”

  There was another profound silence in the room. Kit still had not said a word. She might as well have been turned to ice or stone; Nolan could not even feel the weight of her stare upon him anymore. He dared not do more than risk a sideways glance at her, for all his attention was focused on Chay Zanlan.

  Who at last spoke again. “If this is true,” said the gulden leader, “it is a crime so heinous as to be almost incomprehensible.”

  “I know,” Nolan said. “It took me a long time to comprehend it myself.”

  “For what it appears has been attempted—if the disease is as virulent as you say—is nothing less than the complete elimination of the gulden race.”

  “Yes,” Nolan said. “That is how it appears to me as well.”

  “I am interested in learning several more things,” Chay said, still with that preternatural calm. “One is how you discovered this abomination. Or were you part of the team that created the pestilence?”

  “No.” The single word broke from Kit’s mouth as if uncontainable by will or muscle. But she said nothing else, and Chay did not so much as glance her way.

  “No,” Nolan echoed. “My guess is that no one in the world except Ariana Bayless and Cerisa Daylen knew of the scheme.”

  “Then how did you come across it?”

  “By accident and by stealth. Alone in the lab one night, I needed information I could only find in Cerisa’s files. The results of the prison test were there. The basic molecular formula for the disease was there. Your name wasn’t mentioned, but there were detailed notes about introducing the infection to a ‘new subject’ and how that could be accomplished at a venue where Cerisa would also be present. I pieced the rest of it together. I admit I did a lot of guessing.”

  “And is it possible that I have not been infected?”

  “It’s possible. You’d need to be tested. But if you’re rarely sick and you’ve developed a persistent cough—which is the first symptom of the disease—I would say you’ve contracted it.”

  “And everyone who has come in contact with me has also contracted it? Everyone? The list numbers in the thousands.”

  “It’s possible they have not all gotten sick. In some cases, it takes multiple exposures. But many of the people who work with you or live with you will have caught the disease. And many of them will have passed it along to their own family members. There is no telling how many people may now be infected.”

  “You said,” Chay said, “that it was fatal if not treated. Does that mean there is a treatment available?”

 
Nolan swallowed hard. “Again, I am only guessing,” he said. “But I think so.”

  “That requires more explanation.”

  Nolan nodded. “In my work at the Biolab, I have become something of a specialist in diseases that affect the gulden. I have personally formulated two antidotes that reined in epidemics. This virus has much in common with those two diseases, and so I could use parts of my old drugs to create a new one. It has not been tested. I have not used it on any live subjects. Based on scientific theory, it should work. But theory has been ineffective in the past.”

  “And have you brought with you copies of this hypothetical formula?”

  “I have brought actual samples that I had made up at the pharmacy before I left.”

  Chay arched his thick eyebrows. “That was foresighted.”

  “I was thinking overtime. I was trying to account for everything.” Nolan reached into his pocket and pulled out the second bottle of pills, the untouched container, and he laid this and a sheaf of folded papers on Chay’s desk. “There. That’s everything. My notes, my models, my drugs.”

  “So if I take these—samples—of yours, I will be cured? Assuming I do in fact have this dread disease?”

  “I don’t know,” Nolan said, and he heard the strain scraping through his voice. But he could not continue like this, carrying on this dispassionate cool debate. His blood was shrieking in his veins, his body was dancing with adrenaline. “They may have no effect. They may have a miraculous effect. You may not be as sick as I think. Your constitution may be stronger than that of the men in prison. I have given you the information as I know it. I have brought you the only tools I could fashion. It is your choice to believe me or not. I am finished.”

  Again, Chay watched him with that unwavering regard, weighing him, dissecting him. Nolan wondered wildly what this stranger could possibly discover behind his mild eyes and innocuous face that all his friends and family had never been able to discern, for not one of them would have pictured him in this place, on this mission, with these companions.