Ice and Shadow (37 page)

Which left only one choice and he had already been denied that. However, under the circumstances this time she would have to agree. Her oath could be dissolved with the permission of the Sister of the Inner Silences. Such action had been taken several times in the past—need must overreach custom when there was demand.

But how then was he to reach her—off-world? There would be only one organization—outside of, of course, the ever-present Patrol—which could bear such a command along the star lanes after having first located her to whom it was to be given. The Guild again—

Zarn sighed. He poked at a roll of leather. Wealth beyond the raising of any one Lair—at least four of the richest had been stripped to gather that. And the Guild were no unpaid benefactors—they would demand more for such a task. Still—deep in him he was certain of only one thing: he could not trust the Guild to the point of blood oath—the Sister who had already gone starward would carry out any true order to the death.

Get her free from her present bond—and he had only until the Guild Veep returned to do so. He swept the sticks together and rolled them into a bag he thrust into a concealed holder under the low table. This he must do himself.

The roll containing the jewels he took to the wall behind the seat mats and touched several places there to open a small cavity. But before he stowed his packet inside he surveyed the present contents of that hiding place. With a sigh he flicked another box into place beside the packet, and then closed the cavity.

For him to approach the House of Jewels openly in daylight and be sighted, would cause talk—and not the kind of talk his position in the old city welcomed. But there was no help for it. He could only depend on a hooded cloak, such as one of the mountain priests wore, or a disguise—a very flimsy one.

The Mistress of Jewels received him in her own chamber and listened to his terse outline of what had to be done and why. She frowned.

“This you ask casts a stain on honor. We are also issha, and we live by the Five Oaths! Once a mission has been honorably taken and the Shadow oathed, only a successful completion—or death—releases the Sister. You ask much—too much!”

“This is a threat to us all.” Zarn dared not tell her the truth; only a handful knew it and if he spoke without permission he would be word-broke—disgraced until he could not even redeem himself with his own life taking.

“In what way, Shagga?” She was not going to give in easily. He could feel the sweat beads gather at his hairline in spite of all his inner effort to appear above emotion.

“I cannot be word-broke,” he decided that he could be this frank with her, “but it is such a danger that we have not known since the Refusal of Gortor.” The mention of that portentous action which had nearly wiped out all the Shadow breed was never uttered idly. Surely that would impress her!

Her eyes had widened slightly and now her fingers sketched Ward-off-Perils-of-the-Far-Night.

“You swear this?” she asked.

Zarn’s knife was in plain sight. Deliberately he extended his heart-finger and pressed the tip of that sharp narrow blade into the flesh, until a bead of red showed. Withdrawing the knife he held out his hand where the drop of blood welled larger. The woman looked straight into his eyes and then down at that finger. With her own heart-finger she touched his and Zarn knew inwardly a great relief. She had accepted, she would do it!

“The oathed one has gone off-world, there is no way a Shadow message can reach her—” the woman continued.

Zarn shook his head. “There is a way, that I also oath swear.”

For a moment she looked dubious. But the promise he had just given her was so binding she had to accept that he believed he could carry it out.

“Very well. The word is Flow Cloud.”

The word which would trigger oath release—Zarn almost shivered. That was something sacred, by custom used only by a Lair Master to release one from a mission accomplished. To pass such to another was a perilous thing, but in this he had no choice.

Once again in his own chamber, the packet and box from the cavity prominently ranged before him on the table, he busied himself with another small twiglet of stick, this of a dull black in color and no longer than his heart-finger. With a very small tool, such as one who set gems would use, he made his scratches on the stick. First the release word and then the second oathing—one which would bind the Sister to her second and most important mission. He was barely finished in time, for one of his household came to announce the return of the Veep. If she agreed—but she must! He called on that inner way which, it was said, one truly in difficulty could use as an inducement—holding to it like body armor as the off-world woman came in.

CHAPTER 19

“YOU UNDERSTAND
that under the 1732X you must be held.” Patrol Captain Ilan Sandor eyed his listeners coldly. “If the Tssekian government demands that you be turned over to answer charges of fomenting riot, of plotting, you cannot claim sanctuary here.”

“We are escaped prisoners.” Zurzal’s return was as evenly voiced. “We were brought to Tssek against our will and in defiance of interstellar law. I have not yet heard that kidnapping is a legal form of obtaining immigrants.”

“You have one story—”

“Backed by a truth reader,” Zurzal interrupted. His neck frill was stirring. “We had no voice in our coming here; we were kept prisoner by the then recognized government—forced to accede to certain demands made upon us.”

“And you precipitated a revolution!” the captain snapped.

For the first time the port officer spoke. “As you have seen, Captain”—he motioned to a number of reader discs lying on the desk between the two parties—“there was preparation for such a rising long in the making before the arrival of this Learned One.”

“With”—the captain showed no softening—“this infernal machine of his! That at least we can take care of—”

Zurzal’s frill flamed a violent yellow-red. “It is under the seal of the Zacathan explorative service, Captain. I do not think that even your all-powerful organization is going to dispute ownership.”

“You, Learned One,” retorted the captain, “are no longer a member in good standing of your service—and because you meddled with this very scanner of yours! Any protest will have to be entered through your Clan Elder and, since we are half the galaxy away from your home, that will take quite a time to resolve.”

“I am on detached service, Captain. Consult the authorities if you wish. You will discover my credentials in order. My search. Before my journey was so brazenly interrupted, I was on my way to Lochan. I have already shown my authorization for such a study. That this has occurred on Tssek, is, I assert, no fault of mine.”

“It remains that there is a civil war in progress on the other side of that fence,” the captain waved at the nearest window opening onto the port, “and that you have had a hand in stirring it up, willing or not willing. You have transgressed against the creed of your own people as well as the central law of noninterference.”

“Captain,” again the port commander spoke, “is it not better to wait and see? There is abundant proof which you yourself have viewed,” again he waved toward the discs, “that a strong underground movement was underway even before this Learned One and his bodyguard were brought here. That the attack came at the time it did was also certain. They had knowledge—my listening service is not a questionable one—that the Holder planned to broadcast his carefully edited version of the Great Ingathering. The overturn of his plan was caused because two of the technicians selected to set up the already prepared broadcast of his own editing were members of the underground party. They were prepared to sabotage his efforts. When the Zacathan was brought in it added a new factor they had not planned on. But in fact, Learned One,” now he addressed Zurzal, “you did show what might have been the truth fifty years in the past. This was a support they had not counted on, but one they speedily turned to their advantage. For what your scanner showed was broadcast over more than half of the machines, picked up by underground installations and passed on. The broadcast had already been arranged as the signal for the uprising, and they moved in.”

“Their control is not yet complete,” the captain stated. “It is difficult to believe that they will prevail over such fortresses as Smagan or Wer.”

“Thanks to our friends here,” the port officer nodded to the three on the other side of the table, “they have the Holder. As do all who rise to power he has for years systematically weeded out all below him who could question his authority, depending on those linked to him so tightly that his fall would mean theirs also. They may hold out in pockets because it means their lives, and even ras-rats will turn and fight if they are cornered, but there is no longer any leader to rally them and there has long been jealousy and infighting among them.”

“You have been watching the building of this situation for long, Commander?” Zurzal’s frill was lightening in shade.

“As the one responsible for this port I have had to make observations,” the other agreed. “Every form of government sooner or later reaches a plateau from which there is no longer an upward advance. Since the lives of sentient beings do not remain static, there follow changes. As your people know so well, Learned One. So it happened here. But when the rebels win they will have something to thank your guard for—that they have the Holder.”

“As I have said!” the captain scowled, “interference with the native government—”

“You would rather, Captain, that we be dead?”

Startled, it was not only the Patrol officer but all the rest of them who turned now to look at the fifth member of the party. Gone were the floating, seductive garments of the assured Jewelbright. Taynad had asked for and changed speedily into a spacer’s drab garb. The long waves of her hair had been tightly braided, and were now bound around her head, though the wealth of that hair made it seem she must be wearing a turban.

“Yes,” the captain had almost instantly adjusted to her entrance into this meeting, to the implied criticism of her question. “There also remains you, Gentlefem. I believe that you arrived here by the invitation of the Holder, is that not so?”

“Having done so,” Taynad returned calmly, “there is no reason for my remaining once he is no longer my host. My very presence in his company would probably have damned me with these rebels. I owe my continued existence to the Learned One and his guard. And I am duly grateful. I hardly think, Captain, that you are going to hand me over to Tssekians—”

Jofre was sensitive to what she was doing, using trained will-power. Even though she had not turned it on him, he could feel the gathering force of it. And he did not believe that this Patrol officer, disciplined as he might be, could stand against the issha assurance of the Jewelbright.

“Why did you come?” It was not the officer but the port commander who asked that bluntly, and she answered as fully:

“The Holder had (I saw
him
cut down in the hall and so he is no longer my employer) a Horde Commander who was ambitious. He had gone off-world hunting the Learned One here as an offering to his master, and on Asborgan he chanced to learn of the Jewels. As was custom he bargained for my services. I was to be another gift. He had plans—” She shrugged. “I was a weapon; he did not have time to use me.”

“Now that we have discussed a number of explanations and scraps of news,” Zurzal cut in, “may we return to the main point of this meeting? I have suffered a crude and unnecessary interruption to plans I have been making for years. It is my intention that I carry those out and I do not think that anyone, Captain, is going to produce a good reason why I cannot.”

“You will wait until there is a settlement here!” returned the Patrol officer flatly.

Zurzal spoke then, not to him, but to the port commander. “Commander, you have shown that you have ample reason to believe that my coming here had in reality nothing to do with the present embroilment. You also know that my appearance on Tssek was entirely against my will. By Stellar Law can we be held in this fashion?”

The commander looked neither to the Patrol captain nor to the Zacathan, instead he was studying with great interest the nails on his right hand.

“He’s right, you know,” he observed. “We have proof of the kidnapping, of the fact that he was being used against his will. He has claimed refuge under the Code of Harktapha—that has held since the first spacers met with his kind. We have no quarrel with Zacathans—their knowledge is ever at our service—their persons are diplomatically sacred—”

“This one presumes too much!” the Patrol officer interrupted.

“In your opinion—” The three words brought a sour silence from the captain. His hands clenched on the edge of the desk as if he would upend that innocent piece of furniture and send it in the general direction of those three across from him.

“So, Learned One,” as if he need expect no more interruption the commander turned again to Zurzal, “what is your will?”

“I would return to Wayright and carry out those plans of mine,” returned the Zacathan. “My guard goes with me and this gentlefem also, if it is her will.”

“It is,” Taynad agreed. She added nothing to that and Jofre wondered what thoughts clustered now in her head. Since he who had oathed her was dead by what the issha-sworn would consider chance, she was free from employment. Would she, once more on Wayright, seek to return to Asborgan?

“Also,” she was speaking again, “there is the matter of the Jat.”

“That can be easily attended to.” The Patrol officer must have been glad he had a clear and definite answer to that. “It will be returned to its home planet.”

“In the condition in which it now exists?” she queried.

The officer looked to the port commander for an answer.

“Unfortunately, the creature has gone catatonic and cannot be roused,” he reported. “The bond between it and the Holder was so harshly broken as to send it into a coma. The medic reports that nothing he has been able to do will restore it.”

“It might be well to let me try.” To Jofre’s surprise the Jewelbright spoke. “A broken bond might indeed break a mind, but a transferred bond—”

“Can this be done?” the commander questioned.

She hesitated for only a second. “My kind have certain powers, Gentlehomos. I have developed a liking for the creature and I saw more of it when it was with its bond master than any of you. Let me try to transfer the bond.”

“But it still must be returned—”

“Let that be decided after we see how this will work,” said the commander. “Yes, Gentlefem, I shall give orders that you are to try this—and may you be successful.”

To Jofre’s complete astonishment she turned her head and surveyed him. “This is one of my world,” she indicated him. “The training he has been given grants him a certain rapport with other species. I will need him to give me aid.”

Jofre had no chance to talk to her alone. She had admitted obliquely that she knew him for what he was. But that that would constitute any tie between them was chancy. The commander escorted them over to the medic quarters and there they looked down upon the small body which had balled itself almost into a knot on one of the bunks.

“It still lives,” the medic reported, “but it has had no food nor drink, and the heartbeat is very slow. It is close to death.”

“Yan searches for he who is gone, that one who became his other half.” Taynad seated herself on the edge of the bunk and leaned over, to gather the Jat into her arms as if it were a hurt child.

“Medic, on our world we have certain training which can unite us with other living creatures beside those of our own species. It may be that we can reach Yan and bring him back. We can only try.”

The medic shook his head. “Gentlefem, I fear it is hopeless. But if there is anything you can do—”

He went to seat himself on a stool at the other side of the room, watching them intently.

Taynad, the Jat still held against her, moved carefully around on the bunk, so that as much of her back was now presented to Jofre as possible. He could guess the next step. Though he had never been a part of such linkage, yet he was well aware there were cases in which it would and had worked.

Now he seated himself behind Taynad’s back and dropped his hands on her shoulders. The inner commands he knew and gave one by one, each taking him further to the Center. As yet he was aware of nothing but his own search for full control.

With one hand Taynad stroked the small body which she cradled so close to her. She began a soft crooning in which there were no words to be distinguished, only soothing sounds.

Jofre within himself found and fastened upon that strength he sought. Now he drew—launched—as he might a dart—what he shaped. He could feel the feed of it from his center, along his arms, into her body—Then—!

Touch, immediate linkage, being borne along by another’s demanding will. A wall against which that will struck, and then began to beat in a heavy pattern, seeking a weakness, a way of entrance—

Swifter grew those blows, steady and unrelenting the draw upon Jofre. He summoned up more and more to feed, to strengthen—

The resistance lessened reluctantly, as if a bit crumbled, and then another. Before him now was a whirling chaos of terror, alien and therefore threatening. Jofre braced himself and held. What they shaped together now was not the battering ram which had found them a way into this place of rolling terror and loss, but rather a thread to be caught up by the churning of what abode there, twisted, tangled. And they were content to have it so for now—though the payment was heavy as there was feedback of that terror, those waves of negative force. They must not only hold their small contact, but protect themselves into the bargain.

Now! She had not spoken, but the order reached Jofre as if it had been shouted like a battle cry. He sent forth a surge of power, the thread tightened as she spun. It was well enmeshed now in the chaos, it held. Yet it formed a path for them. Dark, cold, nothingness slipped along towards those two who dared to touch.

The room was gone, Jofre was aware only of a battle which he could not see, only sense. This—this—Frantically he hunted a shield, a weapon, something to stop that dark counterflow.

As if it lay heavy in his hand he knew now what he must have. The stone out of Qaw-en-itter. Asshi—if it were assha—force—if it could bring him that force. Though he continued to hold to the thread the Jewelbright had spun, yet he groped within him until he in turn touched! Yet this was no chaos—rather ordered energy. His inner self buckled as he strove to harness it. Too much—he was like one filled with fire which ate outward until all which he was might be consumed.

Ruthlessly Jofre fought to turn that wave, that fire, to harness it to the thread. And so it did—whether by his efforts, or perhaps because it was attracted in turn to what they were spinning out from issha strength.