Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (54 page)

Martel half smiles to himself.

That makes the choice.

He walks into the bedroom and sits on the end of the bed closest to the wardrobe. Off come the sandals and on go the black formboots.

He stands up and checks his tunic and trousers. Clean enough. Four stans before he is scheduled on duty at the CastCenter, certainly enough time to get to where Rathe lives—used to live—and find out what he can.

Is it really?
he asks himself.
If you walk, it will take nearly a stan to get there. More. She lives/lived north of Sybernal.

“So what are you telling yourself? That you don't have time?”

If you walk,
he answers mentally.

“So don't, is that it?”

Instead of leaving through the front portal, he walks out the back way and marches over to the quince.

The resident dorle chirps once and quiets as he approaches.

You're crazy, Martel.

“Absolutely, absolutely. But you knew that before I got here, didn't you? Doesn't everyone?”

He is not certain whether he is answering himself or an intruder, but it does not matter.

Concentrating on the blackness that is somehow related to the field and yet not a part of it, he thinks of flying, of wings, and of ravens, symbols of night, symbols of that darkness.

The darkness enfolds him, washes over him, and where he stood hops a raven.

His takeoff is awkward, but with each wingbeat his flight is steadier, and he remembers to climb into the wind as he circles upward.

The southern rim of Sybernal stretches under his wings. He glides toward it, straight for an imaginary point directly over the CastCenter.

Sybernal, roughly clam-shaped, arcs around the natural harbor, which is used mainly by pleasure craft and the few fishing vessels that challenge the gold-green seas. The ring closest to the sea is the constant-width beach, from which protrude several points, including the North and South Piers. Behind the beach is the Petrified Boardwalk, and then the town houses of the permanent touries, interspersed with a sprinkling of restaurants and shops.

Behind the narrow district of red and gold awnings and roofs that sparkle even without the direct lighting of a sun runs the Greenbelt, and through the middle of the Greenbelt the coastal highway marches.

The trade district and the residences of most natives and norms are inland of the Greenbelt, and the most affluent of those who call Aurore home have their houses on the higher grounds west and north of the town.

The poorest live closest to the trade district, where the light breezes seldom penetrate.

Martel lifts his right wing, turns more toward the west in order to cross the CastCenter directly. From above the CastCenter, the five-unit complex where Rathe lives is northwest. He had located it after she left the last time, although he'd never been invited inside.

How can you be someone's lover and never see where she lives?

The question is just another he cannot answer.

His perceptions fan outward, to sense the thermals, to soak up the feeling of being airborne, and sense a turbulence. Darkness that is not darkness looms before him, building as he flies toward the five-sided communal dwelling.

Martel simultaneously leaves his perceptions extended and builds his shields, walls of darkness, his own darkness, behind them.

While he can sense dorles, sparrows, grimmets, and other birds flying well below him, the air at his altitude is clear.

Reserved for the gods?

Martel starts to shake his head, but stops as he realizes he has lifted his left wing and lost ten meters nearly instantly.

BEAR OFF, SMALL BIRD!

Martel blinks at the power of the command, surveys the sky, and extends his perceptions further.

Directly ahead, and several hundred meters higher, circles an enormous eagle, a golden eagle, whose feathers glitter with the light of a sun.

Martel draws upon his own depths, and the raven he is enlarges, with wingtips that would cover a small flitter. He climbs, wings beating, upon a thermal he has created, until he is level with the golden bird.

So intent is he upon his efforts that he does not see the departure of the golden eagle. But when he reaches the point where the eagle had circled, the heavens are vacant, the skies absent any trace of the giant bird.

Probing the air around him, Martel finds nothing.

He circles, slowly losing altitude, extending his mental search until his probes touch the buildings below.

… such an enormous black bird …

… the black vulture of the gods …

“Did you see that? The big black one drove off the sun eagle.”

… has to be an omen … god of darkness …

Among the jumble of thoughts he can find no trace of the warm and friendly thoughts he seeks, no sign of the woman he has known.

His shape retreats to the classical raven as he drops to the buildings below, where he alights in a fir next to the complex where Rathe lived.

Her rooms are empty. That he can tell from a quick probe.

Martel the raven launches himself from the branch toward the windowsill. He skids on the sill's smooth stone, flaps wildly for a moment to catch himself, and falls against the plastipane.

“You see that clumsy bird, Armal?”

What do you expect?
Martel questions mentally, blocking the thought from any transmission.
Perfection from an instant raven?

He peers through the clear pane. Bare is the main room. Nothing remains, not even the floor covering. The ceramic floor tiles shimmer with the cleanliness of recent scrubbing.

He casts his thoughts into the rooms, but the sterility blocks any attempt at linking anything in the four rooms to Rathe Firien. Martel casts farther. The man called Armal is the landowner and the landlord.

Martel touches his mind, feels the strangeness, and enters his thoughts. Part of Armal's memories are gone. Martel can feel the void. There are no memories of the tenant in number four. None whatsoever.

The raven who is a man withdraws his probe and tries the woman who lives with Armal. A blowsy, wire-haired brunette originally from Tinhorn, she has no memories of Rathe either.

Neither do the tenants in the other units, nor is there even a trace of such a memory in the scattered mental impressions of the guardhound.

Martel turns his bird frame on the narrow ledge, forgetting he now possesses a tail. The long feathers brush the pane, and the thrust overbalances him into the thin air of the courtyard.

“Skwawk!”
Flame!

He instinctively spreads his wings and beats his way out of the confined space.

“Clumsiest bird I ever saw, Armal. Biggest, too. Except for that golden eagle the other day.”

Martel knows the golden eagle, but short of tackling Apollo head on or sifting the minds of all Aurore one by one, what can he do?

You waited too long, Martel … too long if you really cared.

He does not answer himself, but flaps toward the trees in the Greenbelt. From there he can emerge as a man and walk to the CastCenter.

 

xxv

To whom do the beaches belong?

They are the sea's, the sands', and the land's.

They belong to the summer, the spring, and the fall,

To winter, to joy, to heartbreak, and no one at all.

The flitter, golden, with a rainbow sprayed across the lower fuselage, hovers over the beach grass at the edge of the sand, but the air from the ducts still swirls sand around the five who tumble out.

First comes a tall man in khaki shorts and blouse, wearing a leather belt hung with all the implements of the overt and professional bodyguard. Next comes a woman, wrapped in a robe that billows around her, who keeps her balance despite the interference of the robe and the softness of the sand into which she jumps.

An older woman, sharp-featured, with golden hair, and another man, younger, golden-skinned and blond, who also wears a beach robe, follow.

Last is a heavyset man who floats to the sand rather than drops.

Once the last has stepped away from the flitter, the aircraft rises and circles to set down on the plateau above the secluded beach and wait for the return trip to Sybernal.

Secluded the beach may be, but not deserted, not as empty as the golden sands seem.

Near the base of the cliff, south of where the beach party disembarked, crouches a bristlepine. On the clear limb that offers a view of the sands where the five set up their keeper, chairs, and umbrellas waits Martel.

Today he is a raven. Tomorrow, or yesterday, a man. But today, he has decided to watch the private party of Cordin D'Alamay, well-known wealthy businessman from Percoln, and rumored esper. Only rumored, for the gods of Aurore do not permit known espers to visit without preventive quarantine.

Martel is not the only watcher. That he can tell from the number of glittermotes that flicker in and out over the surf and around a certain ledge even closer to the bathers than the bristlepine.

D'Alamay gestures at one of the folded chairs, all of which are golden. The one on which his attention is riveted is the sole chair with the rainbow across the back. The sought-after chair rises from the pile, unfolds, and deposits itself on the sand facing the low surf.

The heavy man wipes his sweating forehead with the back of his black-haired and tanned arm before dropping his bulk into the chair.

“Very impressive.” The older woman, who shares the same eagle nose, narrow face, and approximate age, places her chair next to her brother's. “I didn't know you could handle objects that heavy.”

“It's easier here.” He beckons to the other woman, who has stripped off the concealing beach robe to display a figure, barely covered, that would bring top prices at the Pleasure Mart of Solipsis. Not surprisingly, since that is where Cordin D'Alamay purchased her three-year contract. “Honey! You and Cort set up here.”

Honey nods, and favors D'Alamay with professional smile number two—slight promise.

Cort, the male counterpart of Honey, sets up his beach chair next to the older woman and Honey's next to D'Alamay.

The bodyguard, impassive, surveys the surf, the cliffs, the sands, the skies, one right after the other.

Atop the cliff, the flitter pilot also surveys the flat seas and the line of beach that stretches near level in both directions.

D'Alamay takes another deep breath from deep within his chair. He looks at the sand in front of him. A small hill begins to grow. Soon the rough outlines of a classical-period castle appear, along with the return of perspiration to D'Alamay's forehead.

Cort, sitting on the edge of his beach lounger, feet dug into the sand, purses his lips.

“Whew!” he whistles. “Just like Castle D'Alamay.”

The slumping of the sand into rougher outlines signals D'Alamay's shift of concentration.

The heavy man's eyes settle on Honey, who views the sea from beside her lounger. His appraisal travels the length of her tanned body. Honey wears a minimal two-piece bathing suit, unlike the more conservative suit of Arabel, D'Alamay's sister. While most women of any age would be pleased with Arabel's figure and skin tone, Arabel chooses not to flaunt hers.

Cort finds his job somewhat easier because Arabel is physically attractive. No matter that the figure and the skin tone represent the best from New Augusta's medical profession.

A tenseness drops onto the beach, like an unseen dark cloud.

The raven jerks his head from side to side, but can detect no new physical arrivals.

More glittermotes flicker around the boulder behind the D'Alamay party and above the point where the waves begin to crest before they break.

Honey. Come here!

The mental command from D'Alamay is faint but clear.

Honey's cold gray eyes glaze over momentarily, but she shakes her head, and the compulsion.

Come here!

“Whatever you're doing, Cordin, stop it!” Her cold eyes again glaze over.

“Remember who owns your contract.” D'Alamay smiles, showing too much tooth.

Come here. Take off your suit.

“No,” Honey says to the unspoken command. Her voice shakes. “I won't.”

Perspiration beads on D'Alamay's forehead.

Come here … take off your suit.

Honey turns, takes one step toward D'Alamay, almost within his arm's reach.

“No!”

Yes! Now!

“No…”

Yes. Now, take it off … that's it … like that …

Slowly, slowly, Honey's right hand reaches to the knot at the back of her neck. Jerkily her hand tugs at it. The cords loosen, and she lets the halter fall away into the breeze. Both arms drop to her sides.

Now the bottom …

… no … someone, please help me … please … no …

Her hands go to the tops of her bikini briefs.

CRACK!

A single bolt of golden light strikes at the damp sand between D'Alamay and Honey, throwing D'Alamay out of his chair and tossing the bare-breasted woman several meters down the beach, almost to where the waves lap against the sand.

“My god!” gasps Honey.

“Damn!” That from Cort.

But neither Cordin D'Alamay nor his sister says anything to the figure in the pale golden tunic, dark leather sandals, and sunburst crown. The god-figure stands where the light had struck.

Ten meters away, the bodyguard clutches for his stunner. He is too late.

The golden god points.

Another flash of lightning, and the bodyguard is gone, only a glassy place on the sand and the offending stunner remaining to mark his presence.

“Who are you?” snaps D'Alamay, now on his feet, but taking a step backward.

The golden figure says nothing, just stares at D'Alamay, who pales.