Korval's Game (8 page)

“But I was certain you were about to tell me.”

“Unkind, Priscilla. I can’t think why I lifemated you.”

“Because I let you talk as much as you want.”

“Do you? How odd. Especially as I have the distinct impression that I’m talking less than I ever have. But, I perceive you a-quiver with curiosity and hasten to explain.”

He set his glass aside with a flourish and sat up straighter in the chair, humor vanishing from face and emotive grid.

“Tiazan is First Line of Clan Erob,” he said; “which has its seat upon Lytaxin. So to go to ‘Miri’s people’ as directed by my brother and delm-to-be, we need merely go to Lytaxin. Very simple, once one has the proper information. What astonishes me particularly is that for once in his life Val Con seems to have done exactly as he ought.”

Priscilla blinked. “He has?”

“As I said, astonishing. Though, to be just, Val Con
often
does as he ought. Of course, he just as often does precisely as he pleases. I expect there’s a deliberate pattern involved, calculated to a hair’s breadth to appear random. One afternoon when I’m bored I’ll feed the parameters to the tactical computers and see what they make of it. But to continue! Erob is Korval’s most ancient ally. The family diaries speak of Rool Tiazan and his lifemate, leaders of the dramliz, who chose to evacuate the Old World on the ship piloted by Cantra yos’Phelium.”

Priscilla allowed a wisp of inquiry to escape her and Shan nodded.

“Rool Tiazan had read the luck, you see—and the luck sent him to Cantra yos’Phelium.”

“Rool Tiazan was a full wizard, then,” Priscilla murmured. “He had the Sight.”

“Apparently so, since
Quick Passage
and her passengers eventually came safe to Liad.”

“And all that time since the ship came to Liad, Korval and Erob have been allies?”

“Actually a bit longer than that,” Shan said. “Cantra’s log indicates that she and Jela—her partner before she took on the revered yos’Galan ancestor—had known Rool Tiazan and his lady some time prior to the evacuation. If it comes to that—recall that I promised to amaze, Priscilla!—we’re a bit more than allies. More accurate to say cousins—or half-clan, there’s a word! Ever since the ship landed on Liad, Tiazan and Korval have been sticking to an arrangement—actually a protocol, all properly signed and sealed—a schedule of a contract-marriage every three generations, with the child going, in unfailing sequence: Erob, Korval, Erob, Korval . . .”

Priscilla frowned. “You said Tiazan and Korval—”

“So I did, and so it was. Korval seems to have sent equally from yos’Phelium and yos’Galan, but Erob seems only to have sent from Tiazan, never from the subordinate Line. In any wise, the schedule demanded a contract wedding this generation. yos’Galan was sent last time, and the child came to Korval.”

“And Val Con knew all this?” Priscilla demanded.

Shan shrugged and reached for his glass. “Now that’s a different question. Unless he’s knocked his head rather sharply, he certainly recalls our long association with Erob. That a mating was mandated and that yos’Phelium must send—I doubt he did know that. I only know it because when I was First Speaker in Trust, I received a note from Great-great-great Aunt Wayr yos’Phelium, dated one hundred ten Standard years ago.” He sighed. “I sent it forward a little time more, to Val Con’s thirty-fifth Name Day: a puzzle for him to solve on the day he becomes delm.”

“But Miri Robertson is Line Tiazan, and she and Val Con are
lifemates
. . .”

Shan nodded. “The child of a contract-marriage would have gone to Erob. But the children of a lifemating will come to the clan sheltering both partners.”

“And Val Con will not leave Korval for another clan.” She made it a half-question, and Shan answered with unwarranted soberness.

“Val Con is Korval Himself—the one who will be delm. He
can’t
leave. There’s no clan in the Book who would have him.” He sighed. “Korval has this certain—reputation. Even among our allies.” He stared into the dregs of his glass, then all at once seemed to shake himself and looked over to her with a wry smile.

“It’s been a long day, Priscilla. Will you join me for a nap?”

“Certainly.” She came gracefully to her feet, despite the weariness that grated behind her eyes and pulled at her back. “Ken Rik has shift-authority and will call if there’s a problem.”

“Wonderful,” Shan muttered, stepping aside to let her procede him into their private quarters. “I always wanted to be captain of a military vessel, Priscilla. Remind me to give my brother a very sound shaking, when we finally catch up with him.”

“Yes, dear,” she said placidly and turned to give him a hug.

LYTAXIN:
Erob’s Clanhouse

Val Con
struck the last note, held it and looked over to Alys Tiazan, standing alert by the audio unit. He nodded and she pressed a key, ending the recording. Val Con lifted his hands from the keyboard and smiled.

“I thank you, Miss Alys. Your assistance was invaluable.”

“You are kind to say it,” she responded, very properly indeed, for one rising ten Standards, and then dimpled. “But you had much better have had me than Kol Vus, you know. He fidgets awfully!”

“Then I was doubly fortunate to encounter you,” Val Con said gravely, touching the omnichora’s power-plate. “Shall we play the tape back, do you think? It would not do to give Kol Vus a muddy recording, when he has been so gracious in accommodating me.”

“But he must do that, mustn’t he?” Alys said, with the cool matter-of-factness of childhood. “After all, you are Korval.”

“So I am, but I am also a guest in your house. Allow me to possess some address, I beg.”

That bought a bright glissade of laughter, after which she considered him for a moment more soberly, face intent and looking, so he fancied, very much as Miri had, at ten.

“I don’t think you’re the least frightening,” she stated at last and Val Con inclined his head.

“You relieve me.”

“Now you sound like Uncle Win Den,” Alys told him severely, and bent to the audio unit, pressing three keys in sequence.

Music swelled out of the tiny unit, filling the room to the walls.

The name of the piece was
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
and it had been written many years before Terrans achieved the stars by a man named Johann Sebastian Bach. It had been Anne Davis’ favorite piece of music, and for this present purpose Val Con had striven to play it in precisely her style.

The role of Clan Radio Tech Kol Vus Tiazan in the project was to seal the brief recording to Lytaxin’s perimeter beacons. Ninety seconds, Val Con thought, would surely be long enough for Shan to descry their mother’s favorite and read into it verification that Val Con awaited him on world.

The music-fragment ended, snapped off clean at 90 seconds, and Val Con again inclined his head.

“I believe that will serve the purpose quite well. May I discommode you further, Miss Alys?”

“You would like me to take this down to Kol Vus?” she asked, rising and sliding the unit’s carry strap over her shoulder. “That’s no trouble. I need to pass the comm room on the way to my tutor.” She hesitated. “You play very nicely. I would be happy to hear more, if time allows it during your guesting.”

His touch on the omnichora was god-gift, honed by years of study. He could easily have been a master musician—a
maestro
, according to Anne, who had taught him his scales. But he was Korval: Stranger passions claimed precedence.

He smiled at the child before him, her hair a riot of orange curls, her eyes an intelligent, sparkling brown.

“I would be honored to play for you, Miss Alys. Only name a time.”

She tipped her head, apparently consulting some inner schedule. “Tomorrow?” she said eventually. “In the hour before Prime?”

“Done,” he said gravely, and bowed as one accepting a treasure.

She did not, as he expected, erupt into giggles at this, but returned the bow most creditably, murmuring an exquisitely proper “The pleasure is mine.”

She straightened, then adjusted the strap across her shoulder and smiled. “I have to go before my tutor tells Aunt Emrith I’ve been late again.”

“Please do not allow me to be the cause of such distress to the House,” Val Con said, and that
did
draw a giggle, cut off as she slipped out the door and pulled it closed behind her.

He stood alone in the music room, considering his options. Miri was closeted with Erob’s Historian, filling details in the lives of Miri-eklykt’i and Katalina Tayzin—an interview that promised to be both lengthy and productive of an uneasy temper in onelifemate.

His duty plainly lay in the direction of Erob. Some explanations must, in courtesy, be made to the delm of Korval’s oldest ally, and yet . . .

Music tingled in his fingertips, awakened by his brief playing for the beacon. Surely, he might steal ten minutes to set the rest of the music free?

Slowly, knowing that duty called him elsewhere, yet unable to resist the lure of a concert-quality instrument perfectly set in a room tuned for its unique voice, he went to the omnichora, sat on the bench and pressed the power plate.

***

The wall he faced
over the omnichora was mirrored.

Val Con sighed, recalling the revulsion on several faces last night, despite the courtesy due a guest; wondering if he should have followed tel’Vosti’s hint and had the scar canceled.

The scar was there for a reason, after all; he might have had the autodoc erase the wretched thing anytime during their voyage from Vandar. He had chosen to allow it to remain, a constant and sometimes painful reminder of the wages of foolishness.

“No more than you traded for, young sir.” He heard Uncle Er Thom’s dry reproval in his mind’s ear, and half-smiled in agreement.

It would be another matter entirely, he told himself, fingers adjusting stops and frequencies, had the cut failed to heal—or if one’s lifemate objected to the mar. But the wound was clean, as he had told tel’Vosti, and Miri made no objection.

“No call,” Uncle Er Thom’s voice instructed him from memory, “to concern yourself with the comfort of non-kin. Korval acts upon its own necessities. Let others mind their melant’i.”

“Yes, uncle,” he murmured, and touched the keyboard, softly playing the cool and logical line of his uncle’s musical signature, that the boy Val Con had composed many years ago. His ear caught a possibility in the old theme and he played on half-aware, letting his fingers find what they might.

Let others mind their own melant’i.
An old lesson, that; among the first. One kept one’s own care close, for clan, for servants, for kin . . . Val Con’s fingers faltered on the keys.

Shan would be here—soon.

Shan was his cha’leket, the brother of his heart. Shan might well mind the scar. Might well mind other things, truth told; things that would distress one who had helped a green-eyed fosterling grow. That would surely distress one who was a Healer and able to see what was now that fosterling’s soul.

The Department of Interior . . . the Department of Interior had done much damage, severed memories, stolen home, love, music, mother—“. . . our mother,” Shan’s voice said from years gone. “Your mother’s gone, but you can share mine, all right?”

Our mother . . .
Anne Davis: chestnut hair, merry dark eyes, clever hands, scented with bound books and flowers; wide-hipped and full-breasted, as many Terran women; full with laughter and passion and more than enough love for the children of the house—her own three and the child of her lifemate’s cha’leket. She had taught him to play the ’chora, taught him his letters—Terran and Trade—wiped tears, comforted child-woes and halfling griefs, shared out justice and kisses, rejoiced with him when he was accepted to Scout Academy—

And the Department of Interior had stolen her.

“My kinswoman . . .” He recalled his own voice, telling Miri—a Miri nearly lost, gods; wary-faced and distrusting, as she had very good cause to be. “My
kinswoman
—” without feeling, without even such a memory as flashed now, of big, warm hands holding his, shaping tiny fingers above the keyboard.

His right hand dandled True Scale as his left rose to adjust stops. Both hands centered above the keyboard, and at once came down, with sure authority, sweeping headlong into the
Toccata
.

It allowed much, as great music does, endless opportunity for variation and lessons from one’s own fingers being among the chiefest of its joys. But their mother had loved it for its own sake, as well, and he played it that way now, as he had for Shan, while memories, suppressed and twisted and made strange—repulsive—by intent of his enemies, loosened and flowed and touched him true, until he closed his eyes and gave himself to the music and the remembering and didn’t even know if he wept.

The music reached a natural end, as music will, and his fingers went still upon the keys. After a moment, it occurred to him that he was no longer alone in Erob’s music room and he opened his eyes.

“Hi,” she said from her perch on the polished curve of a listening-stool. Her hair was braided today; he saw the copper length of it gleaming down her back in the mirror. She was dressed in a rich yellow shirt and soft trousers the color of Shan’s favorite wine—proper attire for an extended session with the clan historian. She leaned forward, eyes intent. “You OK?”

“I believe so.” He took a breath and smiled. “Yes.”

“Good.” She shifted on the stool. “Came to tell you that I got a break from the question-and-answer bit. Historian says he’ll see me for more after lunch. Not bloody likely, ’cause I already got a headache with remembering stuff that happened when I was three years old and would’ve sworn yesterday that I didn’t know anything about.” She stood abruptly.

“I’m going down to the merc camp and see if I can’t find the ’falks—maybe Jase.” She bit her lip, and he listened to the song of her that played inside his head, hearing the thin notes of exhaustion, and a certain wistful sadness.

“I know you don’t think much of Jase,” Miri was saying; “and you got no call to love the Gyrfalks. Folks here seem to appreciate them a bit though—” she chewed her lip again, and the chords of her song strengthened and clarified—“But you’re welcome to walk that way with me, if you want to.”