When I finally reached the Davniadses’ lawn, it was a sea of white, churned by the wind. Only a few lights were on, probably etheline lamps or candles. Although the wind might have covered my tracks, I circled the lawn and edged up partly from the side, staying far enough from the veranda wall so that the drifting snow would cover my steps, concealing any sign that would show I knew in advance where I was going.
Probably a vain precaution, one way or another, but that was what I did.
The key was where Allyson had said it would be, although it took me some time to find it in the dark, and even more time to brush snow back in place. Neither the door nor the lock creaked, for which I was thankful.
Closing the door and latching it was more difficult because it was hard to see in the near-total darkness, and I had neither flash nor glow rod. Then, because I wanted to make no noise at all, my progress to the servant’s room was even slower. As I opened that door, I discovered I could see, barely. A dim glow rod lay on the single small waist-high wardrobe, next to a small package.
First, I shook out my cloak in the corner away from the door and wardrobe, and brushed the loose snow off my Academy uniform. Then I unlaced my boots and took them off. My toes began to sting as feeling returned. I spread out the cloak, hoping it would dry somewhat, and put the boots next to them.
There was no note by the rod or the package, which contained some dried meat and fruit, several slices of bread, and other wrapped items I could not determine, as well as a small tool kit.
My uniform was damp and clammy. Off it came, and I draped it over the wardrobe and began to shiver even more violently. The two quilts helped, and I curled into a ball on the old bed, trying to sort things out.
Nothing was very clear, nothing at all. The marines had orders to burn the house, and that was a punishment only sanctioned by the
emperor for traitors and their families. I knew we weren’t traitors.
How long I lay there, I don’t know, but finally the shivers stopped and my eyes closed, and I could appreciate not being caught in the fire or the cold of the storm. I think I slept.
THE BLOND WOMAN appeared in a recess off the Fountain Court, shadowed in darkness. Her hair was bound tightly, and she wore a dark single-piece military coverall and formfitting dull black boots. Around her waist was a military-style equipment belt bearing a number of items, including a projectile pistol.
The Fountain Court was deserted, except for a single Imperial guard who stood at the closed bronze doors to the Inner Palace.
The woman slipped an insignia onto each collar and a glistening badge into the holder on her chest as she walked toward the guard. Her breathing was deep, but even, as if she were recovering from heavy exertion.
Making no attempt to conceal her steps, she marched toward the guard.
“Halt. Who goes there?”
“Major Erlynn.”
“Advance and be recognized.” The guard raised the wide-angle shredder and turned it toward the major.
The woman vanished. The guard squinted, leaning forward …
Crack!
He slumped to the floor with a broken neck from the single blow delivered by the major who had appeared next to him.
The major surveyed the ConFed Marine uniform, and shook her head slowly.
Even through the heavy and ancient walls, she could hear the crowd noise rising as the mobs roared in their surge toward the palace. She had checked the main gate, but those guards had either left or been removed. The gate mechanism had been disabled as well. The broadsides scattered throughout Inequital were slickly printed, far too slickly for revolutionaries in a world that had neither seen nor tolerated revolt for decades.
Another military coup attempt, using the unrest created by the aliens on Mithrada?
A single guard. That was almost planned treason, and now nothing she could do would stop the fall of the emperor. All she could do to
complete her duty was to ensure the usurpers would not profit either. She turned and vanished.
A flash of light blistered from down the court, momentarily illuminating the fallen figure.
“Damned witch.”
“She won’t save him this time.”
Within moments, the mob had begun to pour through the Fountain Court toward the Imperial apartments.
A quarter of a continent away, a woman still wearing the insignia of a major appeared behind the operator of a lighted full-wall console.
Crack!
The operator slumped dead in the seat.
Without moving the body, the major leaned over and touched the control room locks before she began entering a new set of coordinates.
Brinnnggg!
Ignoring the alarm that she had known her actions would trigger, she entered the override codes she was not supposed to have. She touched the launch controls, one after the other, until the signals had been sent to the remaining orbital satellite, the one without personnel, the one untouched by the Enemy. As she waited for the return signal, the one which she must answer with a second confirmation, she could hear the cutting lasers being wheeled to the heavy doors.
Hssssstttttt
…
The sound and smell of molten metal began to permeate the small room.
A single amber light flashed, then another, until five lights were lit. She entered a second set of codes, and triggered them.
Ssssssssttttt!
A narrow beam lanced through the hole in the doors, needling through the woman’s body.
“Pray I did right …” She muttered the words, staggered, then vanished, leaving only several drops of a sticky black substance on the tiles.
Outside the doors, the lasers hissed a moment longer.
Across the solar system, five satellite launch doors opened, waiting for the return signal that would unleash sunfire on the Enemy.
AGAIN, THERE WAS the dream of the crossroads, the red and the blue, the black and the gold, and they were even more real, as if I only had to wish to step through the black curtain and stand upon that uncertain intersection.
I held back, almost as if there were something to wait for.
Then—perhaps it was a door opening, a footstep on the staircase, but the faintest of sounds—and I was awake, heart beating quickly and staring at the closed door.
Although the room was dark, except for the dimness of the glow rod, it could have been morning for all I knew. I did not think so, not with the tiredness and the soreness I still felt. Finally warm, I was wrapped in the two old quilts that Allyson had laid out for me.
Another faint step, and I relaxed slightly. The tread was too light for Jerz Davniads—he shook the floors when he moved. Even the stone of the cellar hallway would have resounded. That meant either Allyson, her much older sister Isolde, or their mother.
Whssssppp
…
A robed figure slipped inside the doorway, carrying a second glow rod.
“Sammis?”
I nodded, relieved that it was Allyson, then whispered as I realized she couldn’t see me. “Here. On the bed.”
By now I could see a rueful grin. “Where else would you be?”
“What time is it?”
We were still whispering.
“Close to midnight.” She sat down on the very edge of the bed, her high-necked robe wrapped tightly around her. “Father stopped by your drive, not long after you left … Sammis, those were ConFed Marines, and they wouldn’t talk to him. They wouldn’t even let him go until they had checked his name and position and searched the runabout.”
“I know. I know. They burned the house …” My voice caught. Despite myself, I had trouble talking. “ … kept watching the house, with weapons, ready to shoot anyone who tried to get out …”
“Sammis … why? What were you doing?”
“Nothing … you know Dad … all the trouble he took for the court … all the years … and his father …” I shook my head. In the darkness
it seemed only half real, yet I was hiding in the Davniadses’ servant’s quarters.
“Your mother?” She extended a hand, and I took it.
“I just don’t know … never … never would have believed it …”
“We’re leaving in the morning, Father says. That means midday.”
“Leaving … ?”
“Sammis, things are much worse than we thought. Father says that the whole Mithradan expedition was wiped out, including the space stations there. The power link was destroyed. There were riots in Inequital, and the broadcast video channels are off the air. There are some audio channels broadcasting, but from the east. Nothing from the capital.”
I was tired, and sore, and my back was still bruised from the dream fall I had taken—had it only been a day earlier? None of it made sense.
All I could do was shake my head. I couldn’t even say anything. I think my cheeks were wet, because even with the glow rods I had trouble focusing.
“Are you all right? No, that’s a stupid question …” Allyson put an arm around my shoulders, and until she steadied me, I hadn’t realized that I was shaking all over. “You can hold on to me. Just hold on to me.”
I did. As if she were the only thing solid in a dissolving world, as if she were the only warmth in winter.
One of her hands, cool and warm at the same time, brushed my hair out of my face, kneaded the back of my neck to ease some of the hurt, some of the stiffness.
“Move over a little,” she suggested. “My feet are cold.”
And I did that too, as she lay down next to me, holding me almost as tightly as I held her.
When I could see again, clearly, Allyson was staring at the ceiling, even though she still had one arm around me, and I had both of mine around her.
“Worried?” My voice was unsteady.
“Me?” She kept looking at the ceiling.
“You.”
For a while, neither one of us said anything. I thought I could hear the whistle of the wind outside. Otherwise, the house was silent.
“Yes. Father says that we’ll be safer at the summer place in Olviad. It was originally a family refuge from the Ronwic times. The gray steamer … is special … too. Father used to race, you know.”
“Your father wants to wait out the storm?”
Allyson nodded. “He wasn’t happy about that, but he said there wasn’t any choice. The marines upset him. He didn’t say much, but I could tell he was worried. Mother doesn’t understand anything. And Isolde—she was in Inequital, but father says there’s nothing to be done … nothing to be done …”
By then, Allyson was shaking. So I told her, “Hold me. Just hold me. I’m right here.”
And she did, and I think we both shook, hanging on to each other, knowing that a familiar world was coming apart, and not knowing why.
Outside, the wind whistled softly, on and off, as if the storm might be dying down.
Inside, behind the timber and stone and plaster, Allyson and I held each other, trying to hold off the storm, or what it had so suddenly come to represent, our feelings jumbled together between us and the quilts.
“I need to get back upstairs …”
“I know …”
“Father will be checking here in the morning, and …”
“I know that, too.” Jerz Davniads was a friendly man, but he would certainly not hesitate to turn me in to the marines if he thought it would improve the chances of his family’s survival. He might not think so, and wouldn’t turn me over unless it would help. But there was no sense in risking it.
“Sammis … ?” Allyson turned her face toward me, her long hair brushing my cheek.
“Ummm.”
“I wish it had turned out differently.”
“So do I.”
She leaned toward me, letting her lips touch, then warm, mine.
I held Allyson more tightly, feeling for the first time, really, how soft she felt against me, and how sweet she smelled.
“I have to go …”
“I know …” I knew, but I didn’t have to like it. If her father woke up and went searching for his daughter, or couldn’t sleep and wanted to prepare for the trip, I didn’t want him making his way to the cellar. Neither did I want to let go of Allyson.
“I don’t want to go, Sammis.”
“I know.”
“But I have to.” She kissed me again, and then pushed away from me and swung her feet to the floor, reclaiming her slippers. “I have to …”
“I know.” I felt stupid and helpless repeating the same words time after time, and all I wanted then was to keep holding on to Allyson.
She took her glow rod and slipped to the door. “I’ve left everything I could get for you …” Her voice was a whisper.
“If you hadn’t … I don’t know what …”
Her shoulders trembled as she took the three or four steps from the sagging old bed to the door. She was gone before I could even finish my sentence, and I was staring at a softly closed door. A closed door on what might have been. A door closed on … but there was no point in dwelling on that.
Queryan memories are long, and the round-ups and the burnings of the Eastron sympathizers, and of the witch-wraiths before that, had been pounded into my head by my own father.
For a long time, I lay in the jumbled quilts as the room cooled, thinking about nothing, then trying to decide what I could do, or where I could go. For everyone in Bremarlyn would know me, and in this time of chaos, no one would stand up for me—no one but Allyson, and she had done what she could. That was more than enough to get her burned should anyone discover it.
I got up and smoothed out the bed, folding the quilts as I recalled they had been folded. I checked my own uniform, which remained slightly damp, and put it on. Strangely, my cloak was dry, and my boots had never been damp inside.
After dressing as quietly as possible, I looked through what Allyson had brought—and thanked her mentally again. Not only was there the food and the tool kit, but also a small hatchet and a folding knife with several blades, and a folded square of waterproof ground cloth. All the non-food items were dusty, which probably meant that they wouldn’t be missed, but all looked serviceable.
I took my nearly empty pack and placed everything in it, except for the knife, which went into my pocket, and the gloves Allyson had given me earlier. Then I pulled on the cloak and the gloves and swung the pack into place.
The door from the room opened easily. I stopped to listen. Not a sound from upstairs—although I had not expected any, since it had to be well before dawn. Still, my steps were light, if not noiseless, as I slipped to the big latched door.
Hsssst
…
click.
Despite my best efforts, the latch rasped.
I held my breath and listened. No sounds, except for the moaning of the wind outside.
Holding the door against the wind so it would not swing inside and hit the wall, I stepped into the night—or the predawn darkness.
Overhead, I could see some stars between the swirls of fast-moving clouds. The wind was light and skitterish, with gusts of warm air, then
cooler air. From what I could see in the dim light, most of my tracks had been covered by snow and wind.
Since there wasn’t much I could do about hiding my tracks, I walked to the far end of the wall, where the double stone steps came down to the lawn. The higher ones were clear of snow. Glancing up at the windows and seeing no light, I walked up two steps in the snow, and then turned and retraced my path to the lower door. From there I walked backwards along the wall until I neared the point where the other set of steps went up toward the courtyard and the kitchen. They were clear in the center, and my prints did not show.
The courtyard was dusted with snow, but only in the west corner had it drifted more than a finger deep. By scuffing my boots side to side, I obscured my prints enough that they did not look recent, and with the hint of warmth in the wind, after sunrise they might not be visible at all.
Like our drive, the Davniadses’ was raised a handspan or so above the lawn, and the center part had been windswept. I checked the house, but there were no lights. Going down the drive was a risk, but Jerz Davniads wasn’t the sort to chase me without considering the consequences—assuming he saw me at all. And taking the drive left fewer tracks.
It might be days before snow left parts of the woods path. Besides, anyone could be coming or going down the drive. Only Sammis Olon would be using the woodlands path.
At the curve in the drive, just before it entered the woods on its slope down to the road, I looked back at the house. In a way, I had hoped to see a single candle, or something. But the windowpanes were dark, and the hot-cold wind whistled across my cloak. I watched for another moment, then waved to Allyson, or no one, and began the hike downhill.