The Crystal Variation (76 page)

“That’s right,” Jela said, coming out of the co-pilot’s chair with a sigh. “A likely lad, just needs a little season.”

He did some quick stretches, and a mental exercise to raise his attention. He’d lashed the old man’s carry-chair into the maintenance cubby just inside the lock, where it ought to ride safe enough. Which left the decision he’d been putting off making. He shot a glance at the panel concealing the secret room and the
sheriekas
healing unit. If it was only cuts and bruises, there was no reason to open that door. The problem was the “funny” readings the medic had reported on her scans. If Cantra’d done herself real damage, which a fall from that height with a whack on the head at the end of it might produce—

There was a sound at his back.

RETCHING, SHE CONVULSED
against the webbing. Someone had shattered the light; there were shards and slivers of it everywhere, piercing her eyes, her brain, her nerves. Elsewhere, hidden behind the broken blare of the light, were people; she could hear them talking, talking, talking. She wanted to tell them about the light, warn them that the edges were sharp, but she couldn’t seem to find a language that fit the shape of her mouth. She tried every language she had, but they were all too big or too small or too hard or too soft, and besides the inside of her mouth was bleeding, multiply punctured by tiny daggers of light, and even if she found the right language it would hurt unbearably to speak . . .

Inside the light, sharing the pain, were flashes of image, odor and sound. Her mother, sitting at the ‘counts table, her hood folded back onto her shoulders; a whiff of mint; the glitter of dust against starless Deeps; a scream, cut off short by the sharp snap of breaking bone; the taste of strong, sweet tea; a line of equation; a hand on her hair; hot ‘crete and cold metal—The sharp fragments of light flared and she screamed, or tried to; she twisted against the straps that held her, fingers fumbling the seals, and all at once, she was free, falling face-down onto the deck.

They were doing this to her. She caught the thought and pinned it against the shattered light. They were doing this to her.

Staggering, retching, she pushed herself across the floor until she ran into the wall, then used it to claw herself upright. She could only see bits and flashes of color around all the broken light in her eyes, so she put her shoulder against the wall and followed it.

“Cantra!”
She was upright, just, listing hard against the wall, her breathing ragged. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and whatever she was seeing, Jela hoped it wasn’t him.

“Cantra?” He walked toward her, easy and light, face forcibly pleasant, hands out and showing empty.

From the tree came a sending, laced with urgency: The golden dragon, staggering in flight, landing clumsily in the crown of a monstrous tree. A branch rose, offering a seed-pod, which she greedily consumed. Jela shook the image away. “Not now,” he breathed.

“Cantra!” she shouted suddenly, her body writhing, and it was Maelyn tay’Nordif’s voice, hoarse with horror. “You swore—you swore not to call her!”

“Yes, I did swear,” Jela agreed. He took a deep breath, deliberately calming, and another, knowing that most people would unconsciously mimic what he was doing, and calm themselves.

Not that Cantra yos’Phelium had ever been most people.

“I swore, for the length of the mission,” he said, taking another step, not wanting to crowd her, but needing to be within catching distance when the agitation left her and she buckled. “Mission’s accomplished, Cantra. You can stand down.”

“You will murder me for your own gain!” Maelyn tay’Nordif shouted at him, and threw herself forward.

He caught her, but it was like trying to hold a wind-twist. She kicked, clawed and punched without any regard for defense, leaving herself open a dozen times for the blow he wouldn’t strike.

A knee hit his stomach, hard enough to hurt, and a flying fist got him solid in the eye. He caught her wrist, spun her ‘round, got a leg behind her knee, twisted, and took her with him to the deck. He broke her fall as best as he could, and tucked her tight against his chest, legs pinned between his thighs, one hand holding both wrists, the other cradling her forehead.

She twisted, shouting at him in a cargo-can load of languages, most of them unfamiliar, which, judging from those he did understand, was probably a good thing.

“Cantra, Cantra . . .” he murmured, though it was doubtful she could hear him with all the ruckus she was making. From the tree came the image once more, this time with more than a taste of urgency: The golden dragon, staggering. A safe, but risky landing in the tree. The branch, the pod, the thanks.

“Not
now
,” Jela said again, just as she twisted hard in his arms and got a leg free.

He could have held her, but he would have had to break something to do it. Instead, he rolled, and she got in a couple good kicks before he had her solidly pinned, face against the deck.

Now what
? he asked himself, as she struggled to be free. If she kept up at this rate, he thought worriedly, she’d do herself an injury.

“You cannot kill me,” Cantra ranted. “I refuse to die. My family will intervene. A scholar Seated at Osabei! My mother—”

Something hit Jela’s knee. He looked down and saw a seedpod. As he watched, it split into neat sections. For a third time, the tree sent the saga of the weary golden dragon, this time augmenting the image with blares of lightning and rocks the size of
Dancer
tumbling down the sides of sea cliffs.

Well, it was a better idea than any he’d had so far.

Carefully, he lifted one section and brought it to Cantra’s lips, fully expecting to be bit for his trouble. She stilled, as if the pod’s fragrance had reached her—he expected that the pod was fragrant, though, strangely, he couldn’t smell it—then daintily ate the thing from between his fingers. He offered the rest in quick succession and she ate every one, after which she lay quiet until all at once her muscles released their tension and she slumped bonelessly to the deck.

Heart in his mouth, Jela turned her, found a pulse—strong and sweet—brushed the hair out of her eyes and gently peeled back a lid. From the tree, another sending: The golden dragon drowsing on her branch; her mate the black dragon at her side, rubbing his head against her and singing.

“
What
?” It wasn’t that he didn’t know any songs, but most were bawdy, or camp songs, or bits of soldier lore—and what use or need of them, when she was quiet now and on the mend . . .

Again, and no mistaking the impatience: The black dragon singing and cuddling the golden.

Jela looked down at his pilot, bonelessly asleep on the deck, then across to the tree.

“I don’t understand.”

For a moment nothing came through, and he thought the tree had given up on him. Then, slowly, deliberately, a picture began to form behind his eyes: A tea mug, that was all—perfectly ordinary, plain white, and completely empty. The image solidified until he felt he might reach inside his head and wrap his fingers around the handle.

“All right,” he said, when nothing else manifested. “An empty tea mug.”

A whiff of mint was his reward. Inside his head, icy cold water poured down, filling the mug, which altered, darkening from bright white to cream, to gold, shifting and stretching until it was a tiny, perfect golden dragon.

Jela shivered, heart caught in his throat, and heard her husky voice again, saw her hand outstretched—
Got time for some pleasure, Pilot? I’m thinking it’ll be my last in this lifetime . . .

“I don’t know enough,” he whispered, but all that got him was the black dragon and the gold again, her sheltering beneath the curve of his wings.

The co-pilot’s first care is his pilot . . .
And who else did she have, he thought, except himself?

“Well.” He rose, picked her up in his arms and carried her to the co-pilot’s chair, where he settled in and folded her long self onto his lap, her undamaged cheek against his shoulder. Reclining them slightly, he settled one arm around her waist and rested his chin against her hair.

“Your name,” he said, as easy and calm as he could, refusing to think about what might be riding on his getting the story right . . . “Your name is Cantra yos’Phelium, heir to Garen. You’re owner of the ship
Spiral Dance
, and the best pilot I’ve even seen or heard tell of in all my years of soldiering . . .”

Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

Spiral Dance

CANTRA DRIFTED TOWARD
wakefulness
, the usual and ordinary sounds of her ship a comfort in her ears. Except, she thought, as sleep receded, she shouldn’t be on
Dancer
, should she? Shouldn’t she be on Landomist, getting the last of the documents doctored up and doing the pretty ceramic stitching that would remake Jela into a kobold?

Her throat tightened, and she shifted in her bunk, waking an astonishing chorus of aches and pains.

It went bad
, she thought, which notched the concern into panic, as she scrambled to recall just how bad it had gone, and when, and
what the date was
. If she’d lost Jela . . .

She took a hard breath and forcibly shoved the panic aside, and tried to remember what had happened, to no avail. There was a gaping, tender hole in her memory, like a tooth fresh knocked out, but many times worse. Her throat tightened. Deeps, if she’d drunk herself or doped herself to the point of losing memory, it—it had been bad when Garen’d died. She could suppose it would be worse, when Jela—

She took another breath, and another, imposing calm by nothing more than brute force. Well, she thought; if she couldn’t remember what went wrong, what
could
she remember?

Clear as clear, she remembered setting down at Landomist Yard and filing the proper with the Portmaster’s office.

She remembered engaging the lodgings, paying the landlord a local half-year on account.

She remembered coming back to the ship and coaxing Jela into the space between the floor and the not-floor in the small cargo wagon, and going through the checkpoint. She particularly remembered how the guard had to handle every item, and twice go through the documentation she’d gimmicked to explain away the tree, before calling over somebody higher on the brain chain to go over it a third time and clear her through. And how she’d expected Jela to be some peeved by the time she’d got them all safe-so-to-speak at the lodgings and peeled back the floor to let him out. Which he wasn’t, not that he hadn’t seemed grateful to be able to move about.

What else?

She remembered him trying to snoop Osabei Tower from wayaway and finally allowing as how the thing couldn’t be done.

She remembered building docs and certs out of vapor and stardust.

She remembered sharing considerable pleasure with Jela and rising while he was still asleep.

She remembered trembling like a newbie before what had to be done, taking the tree’s gift, and sinking down into the trance.

She remembered waking up in her cabin on
Dancer
, bruised, contused and about to be scared all over again.

Wait—no. She remembered Veralt, from noplace other than Tanjalyre Institute of fond memory, weaving a knife at the end of her nose and telling her how he’d murdered Garen . . .

Which made so little sense she figured it for a fever dream, and
damn
’ if she was going to stay webbed in her bunk like a kidlet, waiting for somebody to bring her tea and news of the day.

She opened her eyes to the easy familiarity of her cabin, retracted the webbing, pushed back the blanket and got to her feet with due caution. A quick inspection discovered dermal-bond over a number of cuts in silly places.

Fell into a bowl of razors, did you
? she asked herself, as she snatched open the locker door. She sighed at her reflection—another bonded cut on her cheek—and reached for her ship togs.

JELA WAS IN THE co-pilot’s chair,
his big hands calm on the board. He tipped his head slightly as she stepped into the pilots’ room, tracking her reflection in his screen. Cantra blinked, her eyes unaccountably having teared up, and nodded at him.

“Pilot,” he said, nice and respectful, which, knowing Jela, meant nothing but trouble.

She walked to the pilot’s chair, sat, grabbed a look at the screens and the status lights before spinning ‘round to face him.

“You in good repair?” she asked. “Pilot?”

A quick sideways glance out of unreadable black eyes.

“Tolerable repair,” he said, not giving anything away with his voice, either.

“Excepting the odd shiner or two,” she said, tapping the corner of her left eye with a light fingertip. She looked down-board to where the tree sat in its usual place, leaves dancing gently in a breeze that wasn’t there, and back to her uncommunicative co-pilot.

“We’re out of Landomist,” she said, like maybe he hadn’t noticed. “Like to tell me where we’re bound?”

“Vanehald,” Jela said. “If the pilot will indulge me.”

She sighed. “Before I decide whether to indulge you or space you, tell me what befell us on Landomist, why not?” She tipped her head. “Start with who gave you a black eye and what you did with the body.”

Jela sent her another quick, Deeps black look, made a couple of unnecessary adjustments to his board, and spun his chair ‘round to face her.

“You gave me the black eye,” he said softly, and there was something tentative and—who would believe it?—uncertain behind the forcible blandness of his face. He took a visible breath. “Cantra?” he asked, and not at all like he was sure he’d care for the answer.

Well, that was a question, wasn’t it
? she thought, with her mind on the gaping hole in her memory. She looked down at her hands, idly wondering what she’d done to skin them up so thorough. It came to her, like a hard punch to the gut, that Jela considered the Rimmer pilot was a real, true person—like he was, and not some fabrication born of survival and a crazy woman’s need. She sighed, and raised her eyes to his, letting him see her uncertainty.