Crystal Dragon (13 page)

The ramp turned, folding back up into the high ceiling. They passed one floor, moving so swiftly that all Jela retained was an impression of a long hallway lined with yellow doors. The ramp turned again, its far end, just behind Jela's boot heels, giving off to empty air and a long fall to the dark floor below. The leading edge—ahead of the scholar's position, snapped into a slot in the floor of the walkway.

She moved forward briskly, setting her feet firmly against the floor, her tabard billowing slightly.

The tree offered an image of the slender golden-scaled dragon, wings full of wind, gliding effortlessly down the sheer side of a cliff.

Jela refrained from answering. He followed her off the bridge and to the left, down a hall lined on both sides with identical orange doors, then again to the left—and abruptly halted to avoid walking on her, the tree's branches snapping over his head.

She slid the shadowy tile into a slot in the surface of the door; there was a loud
snick
as it opened, lights coming up in the room beyond as it did.

THE QUARTERS WERE featureless and functional: smooth white walls, smooth white floor; a basic galley and sanitary facilities to the right, work space, screen and a convertible chair to the left. In the absence of orders, and out of respect for the three spy-eyes that were too easy to spot, Jela stood just inside the door, cradling the tree's pot in arms that were beginning to ache. Scholar tay'Nordif strolled into the room, giving it a casual, bored inspection. Whether she saw the spy-eyes—which the woman she had been would never have missed—he couldn't say. She stepped to the chair and tapped the control on the arm; it shifted, stretching out to form a cot. Another tap, and it returned to its chair configuration.

She walked over to the work table, and touched the corner of the dark screen. The darkness swirled into gray, the gray into white. Blue words and images floated upward through the whiteness—a timetable, Jela saw, from his vantage near the door, and a map. The scholar raised her head to consult the time displayed on the smooth wall over the screen, and uttered a sharp curse.

"Jela!" she said sharply. "Put the specimen down
gently
and bring me my pack. Quickly!"

Gently, and with considerable relief, he eased the pot to the floor. That done, he skinned the pack off his back, remembering to work slow and stupid, for the benefit of those spy-eyes, opened it and had the scholar's case out. Moving heavily, he went across the room to where his mistress was bent again over the computer—memorizing the map, he hoped—and stood patiently holding the pack out across his two palms, his eyes aimed at the floor.

She spun away from the screen, grabbed the pack and took it to the table, unsealing it hastily and snatching out a tablet, the squat book with scarred covers that she kept always to hand, her extra tabard, a data-case. Muttering under her breath, she reached back into the bag and brought out a second case, but in her haste, she fumbled, and it slid from her fingers onto the floor, data-tiles skittering noisily across the smooth floor.

Another curse, this one more pungent than the first, and the scholar was on her knees, scrabbling along the floor, sweeping the tiles in toward her. Body bent protectively over the case, she began to slot them quickly—sent a distracted glance over her shoulder at the clock and abruptly rose.

"Clean up that mess!" she snapped at him. "Then you may rest."

He waited 'til the door had closed and locked behind her before allowing himself a single, luxuriously loud, sigh, the whine of the jamming device irritating his super-sharp ears. Well, there was one way to put an end to
that
small discomfort, he thought. Rolling his shoulders, he turned his attention to locating the concealed spy-eyes.

DISTANT YET IN TIME and space, the Iloheen sensed them as they phased. Rool Tiazan plucked the ley lines the way a mortal man might idly pluck at the strings of a lute he was too indolent to truly play. The Iloheen must believe them wary, fearful and furtive, all of their skill bent upon concealment, all of their intelligence focused upon escape. In this they were assisted by the natural order: the Iloheen were fell and awful, fearsome beings from which it were madness to do other than cover oneself and flee.

The Seon Veyestra dominant had known Rool; even as she had dissolved, she had exerted her will to etch his identity into the ether.

It was true that no
dramliza
fell but that the Iloheen saw. Eventually. But that last scream against annihilation, elucidating the tainted genetic code of an escaped slave—that had been heard instantly.

The Iloheen was nearer now to where they huddled, as small and as dim as was prudent, hidden within a dense weaving of ley lines. Did they make themselves as insignificant as they might, the shimmer of energies from the lines would indeed have concealed them. For this game, however—

Static disturbed the placid flowing of the lines, and in that place where there was neither hot nor cold, a chill wind disturbed the soul.

We must not
, the lady's thought whispered behind the shields that protected them.
We must seem neither too easy nor too bold.

If we are then to seem craven
, Rool Tiazan's thought replied.
Our moment approaches.

Have you identified a path?
she asked, as the wind grew stronger and the disruptive energies of the Iloheen drew sparks of probability off the lines.

I have.

Remove us
, she directed.

Rool teased his chosen line from the sparkling tangle all about them, exerted his will, and took them elsewhere.

In the nexus of probability they had hidden within, the ley lines crackled and spat, sparks freezing against the fabric of time. The wind blew—cold... colder—

And died.

THERE HAD BEEN five snoops altogether, which, Jela thought, as he sealed the last hack and activated it, seemed excessive for a newly Seated scholar. On the other hand, maybe they were in the high-rent district.

Hacks online, he hunkered down by the quick-built jammer and began, carefully, to dismantle it, making sure as he slotted the tiles into the case that those from which the little device had been created were well-mixed among the others. It would be bad if a couple started associating without supervision, so to speak, and built up a wild interference field.

His best estimation was that the hacks would hold until sometime after he, Cantra, the tree, and Liad dea'Syl's equations were gone from Osabei Tower. It bothered him that they'd likely have to be left in place until whoever had the snoops under their charge figured the game out and came to collect them; he liked to be tidy in his ops. Well, maybe a chance to remove or destroy them would come along.

In the meantime, he was cautiously proud of his handiwork. Since they couldn't know the details of where they'd settle, he had to build the detail in on-site—and quick, before someone noticed the feeds coming from the new scholar's quarters were off. Fortunately, he'd been able to rough in the basics beforehand; adding the detail level had gone quick. Now, whoever was so interested in the doings of a new-arrived scholar would be fed edited versions of real events. Right now, for instance, they should be receiving a nice picture from five different angles of him slumped on the floor next to the "specimen," napping in the absence of orders.

Data tiles slotted all nice and neat, Jela straightened and carried the case over to the work table. His gear was out and assembled, and he'd be wanting to get to work pretty soon...

He turned his head, considering the convertible chair. It didn't look precisely robust. There'd been a stool shoved under the counter in the galley, he remembered, and he went back across the room to fetch it, moving light and smooth.

As he passed the tree, he was suddenly aware of the minty aroma of a fresh seed pod. He paused, peering into the branches. Sure enough, one of several emerging pods had ripened, the branch on which it grew bending a little under its mature weight. The aroma grew more noticeable. Jela's mouth watered, and the branch bent a little more, inviting him to take the pod.

His fingers twitched, his mouth watered; he hesitated.

"I've been getting a lot of these lately," he said to the tree. "Don't stint yourself for me."

An image formed inside his head: a seed pod sitting on an outcropping of grey rock, its rind broken, black, and useless.

"Better a snack for a soldier than wasted altogether, eh? Well—" He extended a hand and the pod dropped neatly into his broad palm. "Thank you," he whispered. It smelled so good, he ate it right then, before fetching the stool and carrying it over to the worktable.

Comfortably seated, he cracked his knuckles, loudly, squared his screen off, and took a moment to consider, fingers poised over the keys.

He hadn't exactly discussed this phase of the operations with Cantra. He'd intended to, so they could coordinate. That had been before the conversation that set his hair on end, then and now.

You know how the aelantaza operate, Pilot Jela?
Her voice had been light, amused, like she was on the edge of telling some easy joke between comrades.

He'd admitted to ignorance of the topic, which was true enough, conjecture not counting as fact, and she'd smiled a little and settled back in her chair to recount the tale.

What aelantaza do, see, is convince everybody around that the aelantaza is exactly and beyond question who and what they say they are. The way of it's simple to say—they convince other people because they're convinced themselves. The way of doing it—that's not so simple. Drugs're a part of it—drugs the formulae of which the Directors hold more dear than their lives.

The other part of it, that's mind-games—meditation, play acting, symbolism. I'd tell it all out for you, but it'd sound like so much rubbish to the sensible, solid man I know you to be—and besides, we're on a tight schedule. Just let's leave it that those mind-games, they're powerful. Back when I was in school, the teachers were pleased to impress on me that it was the mental preparation, not the drugs, that drew the line between a successful mission and a wipe. That an aelantaza who had prepared mentally, but had the drug withheld—that aelantaza had a better—I'm saying, Pilot, a much better—chance of completing her mission successfully than her brother who'd taken the drug without preparing his mind. So you see the odds're in our favor.

She'd given him a nod, then, and a straight, hard look, the misty green eyes as serious as the business edge of a battle blade.

What they call it, that mental preparation that's so important to preserving our good numbers—they call it the Little Death, and that's as close to truth as anything you'll ever have out of Tanjalyre Institute or any aelantaza you might meet. Because the point and purpose of all those mind-games is to strip out—as near as can be without losing training—one personality and lay in a different. The prelim drug makes the work easier by softening up the barriers between me and not-me. The finishing drug, that sets new-me a little tighter, so there's less likely to be seepage from what's left of old-me—less opportunity for mistakes on-job, or for a bobble that might crack the belief that the aelantaza is and always has been exactly who she is right now.

He'd opened his mouth then, though he couldn't recall what it was he'd intended to say. Cantra'd held up a slender hand.

Hear me out,
she said, and he could've thought that the shine in her eyes was tears.
Just hear me out.

He'd settled back, fingers moving in the sign for
go on...

Right
. She sat, head bent, then her chin came up and she shook her hair back out of her face.

While the odds favor a prepared mind
, she said, her mouth twisting a little in what he thought she might have meant for a smile,
we have to recollect that I'm inexperienced, and plan for to not have any bobbles. So, what I'll ask of you, Pilot Jela, is assistance. You'll know the old-me—what's left—that's beneath the new. Don't, as you wish for us to carry the day and perform the kind lady's bidding—don't for a heartbeat acknowledge that ghost. The one who holds the ghost at her heart—she's the one you'll be dealing with. Call her only by the name she tells you. Don't share out any of your close-held secrets with her. Don't expect her to act or think or feel in any way like the pilot you have here before you would do. Trust—and this is going to be hard, Pilot, I know—trust that, despite all, she'll move you to the goal we've set out and decided between us. Will you give me—will you give me your word on that, Pilot?

Well, he'd given his word, fool that he was. Soldier that he was.

She'd smiled then, and stood, stretched her slender hand out to him, and asked him for comfort and ease.

He'd given that, too, and the memory of their sharing was one of his better ones. So much so that he felt a bit wistful that it hadn't happened earlier in his life, so he could have held the memory longer.

When Scholar tay'Nordif had stalked into his life, high-handed and disdainful, he had throttled his horror and kept his word to his pilot. He had, he prided himself, never faltered, acting the part of the laborer, carrying the tree and the scholar's burdens.

And Cantra—or whatever there was left of Cantra in the woman who believed herself to be Maelyn tay'Nordif—she had done her part as well, or better. He doubted—yes, he'd doubted—that she'd be able to manage the jammer—and found himself squeamish about imagining the mental gymnastics involved in getting it done—but she'd done it, as clean and as fumble-free as any could have wanted.

He waggled his fingers over the keyboard, bringing his attention forcefully back to the present and his plan of attack. First, a gentle feeling-out of the security systems protecting the Tower's various brains, and building a map of hierarchies and interconnections.

Enough to keep you busy for an hour or two while the scholar has herself a nice meal with her troop
, he told himself and grinned.