Crystal Dragon (10 page)

The portmaster looked up. "Landomist requires that an inhibitor be installed in all mobile constructs."

The scholar raised a slender hand. "Your pardon," she murmured. Turning her face aside, she snapped at the kobold. "Jela! Place the plant gently on the floor and walk forward to the counter."

This the creature did, moving with a slow-witted deliberation that confirmed its "laborer" class, its footsteps sounding loud and slow against the floor.

"Display your inhibitor," the Scholar instructed.

The big clumsy hands came up and parted the leathern collar, revealing the thick throat and an expanse of wide, hairless brown chest. About the throat and across the chest were intricate lines of what at first glance appeared to be tattoo, but which a second, more sanguine, scrutiny found to be ceramic threads woven into the kobold's skin.

The portmaster leaned forward, extended a hand and rubbed his fingertips across the woven strands. The rough surfaces pulled at his skin. "I...see," he said, and leaned back, frowning.

"Is something amiss?" Errant-Scholar tay'Nordif inquired after a moment. "I assure you, sir, that I do not wish in any way to endanger the citizens of Landomist.

That was well-said, the portmaster allowed, yet he felt that she might lose her concern for the public safety were her kobold impounded, or if she should be required to have it refurbished at one of the port shops. Nor would he blame her, either option being more of an expense than it was likely a returning Errant-Scholar could meet. Also, the information provided by her patron made it plain that the kobold and the plant were considered one unit, of which the more valuable portion was the plant. The portmaster looked to the scholar.

"You understand," he said, "that this—" he flicked his fingers at the kobold—"is not the ...usual device that we employ here on Landomist. I fear that the regulations may require you to have it adjusted at your cost, or to see it impounded."

Her face lost color. "Impound my patron's parting gift?" She exclaimed in horror. "Sir, I—is there nothing, no sub-regulation which perhaps accommodates persons who are to be on Landomist for only a short time, yet require the services of a kobold or other construct?"

That was a thought. The portmaster frowned, then moved to his screen. "A moment," he said. "It may be that there is something—"

The regs came up; he quickly found his place, perused the language and leaned back.

"The provision is for short-term visits only," he said. "This office is, in the case of visits of less than two Common Months, required to certify that the inhibitor is the
equivalent
of a standardized device, and may be invoked by the Landomist general disciplinary band."

The scholar raised her arm, displaying a slender wrist enclosed by a wide silver cuff, set with three glittering stones.

"This device is the controller tuned to this particular construct," she said. "Alas, it is also tuned to me; should I remove it for your inspection, it will require retuning by an expert of the form."

"I see. However, it will not be necessary to compromise your device, Scholar. What the law requires is proof positive that the standard device in use upon Landomist will be adequate to subdue this creature, should the need arise." The portmaster reached beneath the counter and produced the standard device in question. "You permit?"

The scholar inclined her head. "I do. Indeed, I insist. The law must be honored, sir."

This was so novel a concept the portmaster actually blinked, then smiled into the scholar's face. A pleasant lady, she was, if naive, and accepting of his authority.

"But a moment," he murmured and touched the sequence for mid-level pacification.

Instantly, the kobold moaned, its eyes rolling up as it dropped to its knees, one quivering hand raised in supplication.

"I would prefer," the scholar said, "that it not be rendered unconscious, unless proof calls for a complete demonstration. It does not recover well, I fear, and there is the specimen to be transported..."

The kobold's brown face was growing darker; low, hideous sounds came from its gaping mouth.

"I believe we have established an equivalency," the portmaster said, triggering the end sequence and turning away from the creature with relief. "It is not my intention to cause you inconvenience, Scholar."

Released, the kobold folded forward until its face was against the floor, its leathered sides heaving. The scholar sighed sharply.

"Stand
up
, Jela!" she snapped impatiently. "Resume your work!"

The kobold shifted like a pile of rocks, lumbered to its feet, and stepped back to its original place. Bending, it wrapped its arms about the pot, hefting it and the tree.

"Should your business at the Tower bear fruit," the portmaster said to the scholar, "you will be required to see the creature modified before the end of two months Common."

"I will see to it as soon as my seat is secure," she promised.

"I will prepare the documentation immediately," the portmaster said. "One moment." He slipped the tile into a frame, located the proper permit in the archive, and transmitted it, with the date and his name. That done, he returned the tile to its setting, resealed the document case and extended it to the waiting scholar.

"Welcome to Landomist," he said, smiling.

Errant-Scholar tay'Nordif received the case with a smile and a polite bow. "Thank you, sir," she said, and snapped over her shoulder at the kobold, "Follow me, Jela! Now!" and left the office.

It was only later, when he was processing a stasis box full of genetically altered carnivorous roses, that the portmaster realized that he had forgotten to assess Scholar tay'Nordif her fee.

THE MERCY BELL HAD rung in the Evening's Peace; truth-blades had been sheathed and proofs lain down until the morrow. In accordance with Tower protocol, the admissions committee had gathered in the public room, ready to entertain the petitions of any and all supplicants. Such was the force of tradition in Osabei Tower that the committee gathered despite a continued and marked lack of supplicants petitioning for admission to the ranks of the Seated. Conditions on the frontier, so they had heard, were unstable, which would doubtless account for the shortage. Indeed, the few Errant-Scholars who had lately arrived at the Tower to sue for a Seat had without exception been those who had chosen to study closer to civilization. No one Wandered the frontier anymore—it was much too unsafe, what with the war which the so-called military did its least to end.

Neither did Osabei Tower, unlike other Towers less devoted to scholarship, conduct outreach in order to draw grudents, Errant-Scholars and light-pupils to them. The Governors held it as an article of faith that the best and brightest would of course come to Osabei, the first, the oldest, and the most prestigious of the Mathematical Towers.

Conditions within the discipline being what they had been over the last few years—quite a number of radical new theories had been proposed and put to proof—a continued lack of eligible Errant-Scholars seeking a seat within the Order would in approximately two-point-three-four-four-eight Common Years become troublesome. But there was as yet no cause for concern.

So unconcerned was the admissions committee—and so certain that this evening would, like a long tale of previous evenings, bring them no supplicants to judge—that Seated Scholar Jenicour tay'Azberg had, as had become her habit, brought along a deck of cards and had enlisted chi'Morin, dea'Bel, and ven'Halsen in a game of Confusion. It was of course, a breach of Tower protocol to engage in any form of the art mathematical—which gambling games most certainly were—after the ringing of the Mercy Bell, but so formidable was Scholar tay'Azberg with a truth-blade that such small liberties were for the most part overlooked.

The fifth member of the committee, Seated Scholar and Committee Head Kel Var tay'Palin, was unabashedly napping, for which the sixth and final member, Seated Scholar Ala Bin tay'Welford, blamed him not at all. tay'Palin had been increasingly called upon of late to provide proofs of his work, and the strain was taking its expectable, regrettable, toll. That the man was tay'Welford's own immediate superior and the head of the Interdimensional Statistics Department only made his decline more poignant. tay'Palin reported to Master Liad dea'Syl himself—a signal honor, though the Master was frail and had not left his rooms to walk even among those of his own discipline for—

The door slid back with a soft sigh, admitting the ostiary, who went down to a knee, head bowed, eyes stringently focused on the ebon floorboards.

"A supplicant comes!" she cried cleverly, thereby granting poor tay'Palin a chance to snort into wakefulness and for cards to vanish discretely into scholarly sleeves. tay'Welford set his logic-rack to one side, smoothed his robe and folded his hands onto his lap.

"Admit the supplicant," tay'Palin said to the ostiary, his voice calm and scholarly.

The guard brought her hand up in the sign of obedience, and leapt to her feet. She straddled the doorway—one foot in the foyer, one foot in the committee room, and called aloud, "The admissions committee will hear the supplicant's prayer!"

There was a moment of ...stillness, as all scholarly eyes turned toward the door. tay'Welford noticed that he was breathing rather quickly, in anticipation, then a shadow moved in the foyer, coalesced into a slender woman in the green tabard and yellow sash of a Errant-Scholar. She walked forward precisely seven paces and dropped to her knees, head bent, arms held away from her body, palms out, fingers wide and pointing toward the floor.

One could feel the air in the room sharpen as the admissions committee took minute stock of the supplicant. She knelt, motionless, pale hair hiding her downturned face. The tabard moved, slight and sweet, over her breast, revealing the unhurried rhythm of her breathing.

Kel Var tay'Palin leaned forward slightly in his chair. "You may show your face," he said, "and give your name into the committee's keeping."

Obediently, neither so quickly that she betrayed eagerness, nor so slowly that she was read as arrogant, the supplicant lifted her head. Her face was an agglomeration of angles, sheathed in supple gold. Her eyes were an indeterminate shade of green, set perhaps a bit too wide beneath the pale wings of her brows. Her mouth in repose was non-committal; the supple skin without wrinkle or flaw. Of Common Years, thought tay'Welford, she might as easily hold as few as twenty or as many as forty.

"Maelyn tay'Nordif," she said, ceding her name to the committee, as she had been instructed. Her voice was high and clear, ringing sharply against the ear, and tay'Welford detected only the very least bit of tremble, which was expectable, and spoke well of her common sense.

"What is your specialty?" ven'Halsen asked, following form.

"Interdimensional mathematics," the supplicant made answer. tay'Welford sighed, and leaned back in his chair.

"Under whom," demanded tay'Azberg, "did you study?"

"Liad dea'Syl."

There was a sharp silence—as well there ought to be, thought tay'Welford. Never, in all his time on the admissions committee had one of the Master's own students come forth to claim a chair and a place at the Tower. They therefore had before them not merely a supplicant, but a marvel.

"Why," asked dea'Bel in her wistful, cloying voice, "have you come?"

"To beg a place," the supplicant answered, word perfect out of the protocol book, "and that an end be made to my wandering."

"What token," tay'Welford asked pleasantly, lightly; as if it were of no moment, "do you bring us?"

"I have given my coin into the keeping of the guardian of the halls of knowledge." Her voice betrayed no trembling now, nor her face anything but an impersonal, unnuanced respect.

tay'Welford did not remove his gaze from the supplicant's smooth, collected face.

"Ostiary," he said, allowing his voice to reflect the faintest hint of doubt, "pray bring me the supplicant's coin."

The guard straddling the door spun smartly on her heel and marched forward. At the corner of his table, she bowed and opened her hand, offering on the flat of her palm a single tile, shaded green to match the supplicant's tabard—or perhaps, tay'Welford thought whimsically, to match her eyes. He took the tile, his gaze resting yet upon the supplicant's face. The ostiary went back a long step, straightened, turned and marched out of the room. The door whispered shut behind her.

The supplicant's face did not change, the calm rhythm of her breathing was preserved.

Slowly, as though it were foregone that the work preserved on the tile would be second-rate, if not actually shabby, tay'Welford pulled the logic-rack to him, deftly re-arranged the tiles and slid the green into its place within the pattern.

The green tile pulsed. Figures and notations floated to the surface of the reader tiles, framing an argument both elegant and facile. tay'Welford smiled in genuine pleasure as the theory routines accessed the supplicant's data.

"Scholar?" tay'Palin's voice carried an edge of irritated dryness. "Perhaps you might share the joke with your colleagues?"

He bowed his head and answered soft, acutely aware of the rebuke.

"Forgive me, Scholar. The theory cross-check is almost—ah." Very nearly, he smiled again. A
most
elegant piece of work.

"The supplicant," he said, "builds a compelling proof
against
Master dea'Syl's decrystallization equation."

tay'Palin met his eyes, grimly; beleaguered as he was, still the Prime Chair was no one's fool. A supplicant who came offering such a coin for her seat could in no case be allowed to depart.

Therefore did Scholar tay'Palin rise to his feet, and the others of the committee with him. Hands outstretched, he approached the supplicant, who bent her head back on her long, slender neck and watched him. The pulse at the base of her throat, tay'Welford saw, was beating a little too rapidly for perfect calm. It might be that the supplicant was not quite entirely a fool, either.