Dragon in Exile - eARC (15 page)

Interlude Three

Vivulonj Prosperu

In Transit

Rebirth is a brief, chancy geography, a tenuous bridge between two absolutes.

The Uncle had attended many rebirths, most of them simple crossings from material that was aged and outworn to a fresh, new environment. He had assisted in extractions from material so badly mangled it must have been thought that all hope was lost. He had guided captured intelligences, long accustomed to the bodiless state, into warm and waiting flesh. He had himself died and been reborn, countless times.

But never before had he attempted to extract two intelligences, two personalities—two
souls
—who had for many years cohabited a single body, each into its own vessel.

The shared body had taken terrible wounds; wounds from which it had not, and despite the best efforts of others of the Uncle’s devices, could not, fully recover. He had considered simply allowing the body, and its occupants, to die the real death. But that death—
those deaths
—would have created…difficulties with Clan Korval, for the treasured elders of the clan had taken their wounds while they had been…he rejected, as he suspected the primary of the wounded pair would also reject, the phrase
in his care.
Certainly, however, they had been partners in the same task, and it would not escape Korval’s notice that the Uncle reposed in the rosiest of good health while their elders were far otherwise.

He expected that the decision he had taken, to oversee these chancy rebirths, would find only slightly more favor with the Dragon—and that only if he returned to them both elders, intact.

His hope lay in the fact that he had not made this decision by himself. He had received input and, he dared hoped, support from a source that Korval would consider unimpeachable.

The Tree—Korval’s Tree; Korval’s damned,
meddling
Tree, as some would have it…

The Tree had given into the care of the primary, Daav yos’Phelium, former delm of Korval and father of the present delm—two seed-pods. The Tree, as the Uncle understood the matter, often bestowed such treats upon the members of Korval, who individually and together stood as its protecting dragons. It would have been second nature, for Daav to have eaten the pods when he received them.

However, in this instance, and according to the man himself, one of those two pods had been intended for Aelliana Caylon, Daav’s lifemate, assassinated more than twenty Standard Years ago, who had been existing since in the pathways of his brain, or in the cloud of his mind, or in a hidden palace in his heart.

So, one pod for Aelliana…and the second pod, offered to Daav in the hope that the Tree’s largesse could heal what the Uncle’s devices could not?

“Not ripe,” the man had said. It had amused him; it was Korval’s humor to savor such ironies, the moreso if one’s life was the stake.

But—
not ripe
? Did the Tree gamble in futures?

Could the Uncle, who had seen very many strange things down the course of a long and oft-times perilous life, afford to suppose that it did not?

The subjects were entangled, to what degree he could only guess, lacking any instrument that might measure such a thing. He had only the Tree’s…assurance? that they would be able to separate themselves. Blanks were expensive. Yet, he was in unknown space. He could not know if a single blank could accept or, ultimately, nurture two intelligences; that ability might well be unique to Daav yos’Phelium’s brain chemistry, which the Tree had without a doubt…adjusted.

And how, indeed, if the Tree were correct: that Korval’s elders had both the ability and the desire to separate—and found only one likely receptacle waiting? He might destroy both in such a wise, or force the unthinkable upon them.

Better—much better—to be generous, and hope that the Tree knew what it was doing.

So, the Uncle made his decision as much from courtesy as certainty; two birthing units were prepared with fresh medium—blanks; undifferentiated bipedal shapes; hairless, sexless, dermis the color of unbaked dough.

There had been, in the case of the primary subject, genetic material a-plenty with which to seed the blank. When he emerged from the birthing unit, to ingest what the Uncle very much hoped would be his ripe seed-pod, Daav yos’Phelium would look—
would be
, according to any test that might be administered—precisely himself, though rather younger in appearance.

Aelliana Caylon, however…

There had been no genetic material for Aelliana Caylon available within the Uncle’s considerable reach; therefore, he improvised. Research had garnered the trivialities of eye color, hair color, height, weight. Her body-memory, if she still retained it after so long a time as a ghost, would impose something like her former face upon the bland and agreeable features of the blank. She would, in time,
look like
the Aelliana Caylon who had been, but, genetically, she would be a patchwork thing; a monster, to lineage-obsessed Liadens.

He hoped that Aelliana Caylon could be brought to see the advantages of her situation, though he expected it would be a shock to her.

And he very much hoped that Korval could find its way to be…practical in the instance.

Or, the Uncle thought, as he considered the transfer status board, Korval might need do nothing more than accept its deaths and mourn them.

For it appeared, given the lack of activity among the various dials and gauges, that Daav yos’Phelium had turned his face away from rebirth.

The Uncle sighed, and bowed his head.

It was, after all, for each to decide the question for themselves: Would they live or would they die? Both choices were valid.

And, indeed, the Uncle admitted to himself in the silence of the rebirthing chamber, he had overstepped. He had taken the decision to offer life in service of his own convenience, rather than at the subjects’ explicit direction.

In those rare cases when rebirth was refused, the…soul…naturally remained with the original material. Presumably, in this case, both souls would remain entangled, and die, lost to oblivion.

What was the phrase, so apt in this instance, that acknowledged both the right to choose, and the probable consequence of, desperate action? He thought for a moment, then nodded to himself.

Pilot’s choice
.

So be it.

The life signs monitor had darkened from orange to red, indicating a subject in desperate circumstances. There was no need to prolong this; no reason to be cruel. The decision had been made.

The Uncle reached to the console. His fingers touched the termination switch…

A bell rang, bright and joyous.

The Uncle snatched his hand back, eyes on the console, where the instruments were now glowing a brilliant green, dials dancing, denoting a transfer that was fully underway.

A chime sounded, muted. The indicators on the birthing drawers were green also, the gauge that measured brain function pegged to the top—of each.

The Uncle smiled.

It seemed that Daav yos’Phelium did not wish to die, after all.

Interlude Four

Fretted with golden fire

A star went out in the firmament.

The few thin lines of gold that had bound it to the universe drifted, broken ends fluttering.

Ren Zel dea’Judan remained, witnessing; until the last thread vanished on the darkling breeze.

Anguish informed other stars, nearby, and known to him. That was fitting; a death ought not to go unmourned. One might even mourn the death of one who had been their enemy, until the last.

At the last, he had been grateful; his love for them, his captors—his would-be liberators—had given his star fresh radiance; his ties to the universe—to life—had flared with power…

…and gone out.

So, a death.

As such things went, Ren Zel thought, it had been a good death. Certainly, it had been desired. Chosen. It was the choice—the return of the ability to
make
a choice—that had gained them their enemy’s love, even as he chose annihilation over life.

The other death that he had witnessed in this space of gold and blackness—that had been a bad death. Their enemy had scarcely wakened to the whisper of choice when the enemy within
him
had acted to deny him both choice and life. He died, knowing that life had been rent from him. Died, knowing that he had failed.

Kar Min pel’Mather had chosen. His choice had given him wings.

May the gods, if any, receive him
, Ren Zel sent the benediction out into the shining glory.
He was a brave man, and honorable
.

Another moment, he remained in that place, watching, listening; but if the gods had heard, or cared, they made no sign.

Ren Zel closed his eyes that saw the shining firmament…

…and opened his eyes that saw the mundane life about him.

His lifemate sat on the edge of the cot, Kar Min’s head yet resting on her knee. Master Healer Mithin occupied the chair at the foot, her head bent, and her hands folded on her lap. Pastel waves rippled about her, by which he knew her to be meditating.

“He thanked us,” Anthora said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. She raised her head, showing him a face damp with tears.

“He loved us.”

“Indeed, he did.”

Ren Zel rose, stiffly, as if he had been in his chair long days, when—a glance at the timepiece hanging from his belt—it had been scarcely an hour since Master Mithin had placed Kar Min into trance, and Anthora had slipped her thought into his dreaming mind.

He limped to the cot, and bent to place his hand softly against Kar Min’s cooling cheek, as one might do with a sleeping child.

“We have done well, here, I think,” he said, straightening.

Anthora’s lips wavered into a wan smile.

“Saving only that we have not given the delm their secret desire.”

“We have not yet given the delm their wish,” he said, holding his hand down to her.

“Do you think that we may?” she asked, moving Kar Min’s head from her knee to his pillow as gently as if he slept, indeed.

Ren Zel thought back to the gold-laced blackness, and to those things his strange sight had shown him.

Anthora took his hand; he smiled and helped her to her feet.

“I think that—yes; we may.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jelaza Kazone

Surebleak

One thing you hadda give the Road Boss, Lionel Smealy thought as he guided the hoopie through the gate and down the smaller road that led only to the big house with the big tree growing outta the center of it, like the house was nothing but a plant-box…

…one thing you hadda give the man, like he’d been sayin’—he knew how to live. None o’this taking a coupla houses in the row, knocking the walls out and calling it home, like Boss Conrad’d done. The Road Boss, he had style; he wasn’t from Surebleak, he wasn’t of Surebleak, and he made sure everybody who had a pair o’eyes in his head knew it straight off. Was that house he was headin’ for made on, for, or by Surebleak?

It was not.

Right off another planet, that house,
and
the tree,
and
the grass, and, sleet, the little road he was drivin’ on. Moved to Surebleak with everything he had, the Road Boss.

That was style. A man like Lionel Smealy could appreciate that kinda style. Sure, sure, the big brother tells you to move your ass to Surebleak, and you gotta do what Big Brother says, right? But you ain’t gotta do it like he would do it—like he
did
do it, just movin’ onto the streets with only his ’hands and a buncha fancy rugs to throw out as bait. Give it cash down, that kinda thing makes a statement, ’specially after you go on to make yourself into the Big Boss over all the other Bosses, open up the Port Road from start to finish, blow up Deacon and Iverness, too…

Following the drive around a curve, Smealy nodded.

That kind of thing
did
make a statement, yessir. Got people’s attention and held it.

But this movin’ of everything and plopping it down at the far end of the road, just a little inch outside Melina Sherton’s turf, using the old quarry that didn’t belong to nobody and wasn’t no good for nothin’, for their settlin’ place—that was a whole ’nother kinda statement.

Oh, yeah.
That
said, “I’m keepin’ myself as far away as I can from the city and everything goin’ on there. Includin’ Big Brother’s laws and regulations.”

Smealy could work with that kinda attitude. Hadn’t he been Little Brother hisself, ’way back before Big Brother decided on retirin’ Kalhoon and left Lionel the only brother? He’d had plenty of practice before then, bein’ second-in-line; he knew how it chafed an’ ate at you; he remembered how it was to burn with wantin’ to get out from under Big Brother’s finger.

That’s why he’d come on out here, to the house itself, ’stead of going to Little Brother’s office in the city. Offices weren’t no places to talk over the private things only little brothers know.

Here, now, he’d come to the house, and the little road widened some right there in front of the door. He pulled the hoopie over into the wide spot, shut it down, popped the hatch and got out.

He paused for a second, still in the shadow of the hoopie, and looked around him. There wasn’t no obvious security, but, then, he hadn’t really expected any. The logical places for security was on the gate, which’d been wide open, an’ inside the house. That didn’t mean nobody wasn’t watchin’ the dooryard—in fact, he expected that they were.

Still, he took his time looking the place over, keeping his hands in sight. He hadn’t been out before to the little brother’s house, though he’d seen the pictures.

Come down to it, the pictures didn’t do the place justice. The house was like nothing he’d ever seen before—not even the old buildings that’d housed the Gilmour Agency fatcats. It was two stories high, with a barricaded walkway around the top story, and a long roof providing protection from the snow.

Beyond the sloping roof was…well, he knew it was the trunk of a tree. And the tree wasn’t like nothing else on Surebleak, neither. Sleet, you could see that tree from inside the port itself, stretching so high and wide that it looked to be holding up the sky.

Standing here, as near to the roots of the thing as made no nevermind, he couldn’t crane back far enough to see the tree’s top. Might be he’d sight it if he went flat on his back on the drive, which he wouldn’t do, not with him wearing a new yellow sweater and good khakis. That tree’d do just fine without his testimony—and he’d best get about bidness, before whoever was watchin’ the dooryard decided he was more threat than nuisance.

He crossed to the door—real wood, looked like to him, carved with that tree-and-dragon you saw all over the port. Well, that was the mark for Little Brother’s offworld bidness. The family bidness which shoulda, Smealy figured, been Big Brother Conrad’s concern, ’fore he took it in mind to stick his nose into Surebleak’s affairs.

There was a rope hanging down from a big old brassy bell over his head, and a plate set into the dark wood frame ’round the door.

Down the city, he’d’ve knocked, most likely, ’less there was a plate, like there was here. The bell—a couple old places downtown had bells hanging outside the door, still, too high or too well-connected to’ve been scavenged. Old Fire-and-Doom bells, they were, from back before the Agency left, when there’d been a fire department and city-wide security.

Smealy put his palm against the plate, and snatched it away again as energy rippled across his flesh. Soon’s he done it, he was sheepful; the buzz hadn’t hurt, it had just been…a surprise.

He hadn’t heard a bell ring inside. Might be it was broke, or might be he hadn’t pressed long enough. He was just thinking he might put his hand against the plate again, and not let the buzz pitch him off his game this time, when he
did
hear something from behind the door. Didn’t sound like a bell, though; sounded like…wheels. Wheels on wood.

And they was getting closer.

Before he could decide how he felt about that, the door opened, and he was staring at a…man-high metal cylinder, topped with an orange globe. It held the door open with one metal hand at the end of a long metal arm.

“Yes?” said a man’s voice.

Smealy almost made the mistake of looking around, but it came to him just in time that this must be a remote, like they used down the scrap yard, to go places too dangerous for a man to venture—and that the Road Boss’ ’hand or another one of the house’s security folks was looking at him through that flickering orange globe, and deciding if he was welcome or dead.

“Yeah,” he said, drawing himself up tall and looking straight into the globe. “I’m Smealy—Lionel Smealy—from down the city. I got bidness with the Road Boss.”

“Have you an appointment?” That wasn’t no ’bleaker talkin’ to him through the remote, not with that accent. Road Boss’d brought his own security with him, too.

“No ’pointment. Don’t mind waitin’ if he’s too busy to see me right away.”

“I see. May I know the nature of your business?”

“Road bidness,” Smealy said. “I got a deal to offer the Boss.”

“Thank you.”

The remote went quiet, then, and Smealy braced himself for the door bein’ shut, which—snow and sleet!—would mean the power cell in Kreller’s hoopie’d been run down for no good reason, and him still on the hook to top it up, and he’d have to find the Road Boss in his port office, which meant people’d see him go in, or somebody’d recognize him in the waitin’ room, and this wasn’t the kind of deal that was best made under that kind of watchful—

“Boss yos’Phelium will see you,” the remote stated, and pivoted slightly, wheels rumbling on—Smealy looked down—wooden floorboards, clearing a space big enough for him to squeeze through.

The remote closed the door, spun and rolled away down the hall.

“Please follow me, Mr. Smealy.”

* * * * *

He followed for about twelve of his strides—almost as long as a reg’lar house—to another wooden door, not carved, and the hall goin’ on beyond it. The remote used its metal hand to twist the painted knob, and the door swung open into the room.

“Please wait here,” the driver of the remote told him. “Boss yos’Phelium will be with you shortly.”

Smealy entered, the door shut behind him, and he spun slowly around on a heel, giving the place the once-over.

Beige rug on the floor, no windows, a couple chairs with thin, curving wooden legs, seats covered in cloth, beige to match the rug, and figured with red and blue flowers. There was a little wooden table between them chairs, with the same spindly legs, and a couple little things on it—a wooden box with the damn’ tree and dragon carved into the top, and a round piece of glass bound by metal and tied into a black-wrapped handle. ’round the other side of the room was another table, taller, longer, with a sturdy straight leg on each corner. There were a couple paper books on top of that, and a beige vase with red and blue flowers in it, to match the fabric on the chairs.

At the back of the room was another table; in-between him and it set another couple beige-red-and-blue chairs with their own little table. There were pictures on the wall—flowers, again—boxed in thin wooden frames.

It was, Smealy thought, a rich room. A Boss’ room; and just about what you’d expect for a house so out of common. No plastic in
this
house, that had come down onto Surebleak from another world entirely. The pictures weren’t just pinned to the wall, neither, they were boxed and held flat. Looked…he groped for the word his ma’d used, when she’d be particularly pleased with a meal, or a piece o’dressmakin’, or, rarely, how her son was turned out…
elegant
, that was it.

Place looked
elegant
.

Smealy felt his hopes rise.

If this was the style of thing Little Brother was used to from the old world he’d had to leave, he was ripe for the deal Smealy had to offer him. An’ once he took it, they’d have a way in to Conrad, which was needful, and getting moreso, Conrad being not what you’d call easy to figure.

It’d been Smealy’s idea to go after Little Brother, to play on nerves specific to little brothers, and tie him up tight into the Syndicate’s bidness. It’d been Smealy’s idea and that was why he was here to pitch it, nobody else being quite so keen on trying.

It’d be why he’d get the top share, too, when everything came together.

There was a sharp sound behind him. He spun as the door swung open and a man entered the room.

Smealy kept his face easy and smooth. He’d seen Conrad, after all, up close and personal, and wind knew he’d seen plenty other Liadens; lately a man couldn’t move without tripping over six or eight of ’em. Short folks, they were; thin and fragile, which you’d think’d mean they’d be a little careful ’bout throwin’ their weight around.

You’d think wrong, though.

Miz and Mister Better’n You, every damn’ one of ’em. Didn’t help that they all come onto Surebleak with their pockets fulla money. Wasn’t nobody nor nothin’ they couldn’t buy, while native ’bleakers went wantin’.

The boy, now; he was younger’n Smealy’d expected, somehow, even knowing he was Conrad’s little brother. Couldn’t really mistake him for anything
but
Conrad’s brother, both of ’em wearing serious, pointy faces.

“Mr. Smealy?” the kid asked in a voice as soft as one a Jolie’s joy-girls. “I am Val Con yos’Phelium, the Road Boss.”

Smealy got his feet under him, mentally, slapped a smile on his face like the kid was his own missing brother, and went briskly forward, hand out for a shake.

The boy turned back from shutting the door, eyebrows going up over eyes as green as the baize on a snooker table. He took a step forward, and extended his hand, his palm chilly against Smealy’s.

Yeah, that was another thing; warm as it was in this private little room, and him wearin’ a high-neck sweater, an’ a heavy pair o’dungarees, the boy’s hand was cold. All them folks come in from Liad, they were cold alla time, and wrapped up snug, actin’ like it were high winter ’steada mid-summer.

“Lionel Smealy,” he said, shaking the cold hand enthusiastically. “I’m real glad you could see me, Boss.”

“Yes, but I cannot see you for long,” the Road Boss told him, withdrawing his hand. “Other business awaits my attention, and had you arrived five minutes later, you would have been obliged to wait for an hour.”

“Timing’s everything, they say!”

“Indeed. May I suggest that, if you wish to speak with the Road Boss in future, you go to the office on the Port? I am there on alternate days, and Road Boss Robertson is there on the days I am not. Either one of us will be able to assist you in any matter regarding the Road. There is no need for you to travel so far.”

“Right, right!” Smealy said, remembering that the Road Boss shared his title with his wife. Local girl, the wife, come up on Kalhoon’s turf, before Kalhoon retired Ostay. Word on the street was they’d been kids together, the wife and Kalhoon. That’d been an interesting rumor; made a man wonder just where Conrad’s notion of conquerin’ Surebleak had its roots.

“See, though,” he said to the boy with the smooth, pretty face; “the deal I want to offer you, it ain’t the kinda thing you talk about where just anybody can overhear.”

“Ah,” said the kid, and moved a hand, apparently pointing at the two shaky lookin’ chairs and matchin’ table. “In that case, please, sit down. Will you have a glass of wine to refresh you from your journey?”

“That’d be great,” Smealy said. Truth was, he could use a drink. The drive all the way out here to the end of the road in Kreller’s hoopie’d been nerve-wracking. Smealy knew how far the Road Boss’ house was from Hamilton Street; known it in his head, that was. Driving it was a different thing altogether.

“Taste o’wine’d be real welcome,” he said, and added, remembering Anj tellin’ ’em how it had been to call on Conrad like they’d done:
who knew wine came in colors
?—“Red, if you got a bottle open.”

“I think I might have. Please do sit down while I pour.”

Smealy approached the chairs with caution, picked the one that looked less shaky and eased down into it. For a wonder, the thing held him up, and he was able to watch the Road Boss at the back table pouring two little glasses half-full of a liquid the color of new blood. He stoppered the bottle he’d poured from, picked up the two glasses and brought ’em ahead, without even putting any ice in.

Well, Smealy reminded himself, the kid was cold; him and his didn’t know it was summer.