Mouse and Dragon (42 page)

"Perhaps," she said, stroking his hair back from his forehead, and sending Er Thom a hard glance, "the Terran Party is not entirely comprised of wingnuts."

"Now, that," Daav murmured, "is a truly terrifying thought."

Something was wrong. She—he—they felt a pain—a contraction of the belly and—

"Aelliana." Daav sat up, his arm around her shoulders.

"No," she gasped, around a second contraction. "Daav, you are making yourself ill."

"Not ill," he said softly. "The child has decided, I think." He took a breath and she felt him focus, his attention like a breath of cool air on her face, which was suddenly much too warm.

"Brother, of your kindness, go ahead of us and summon the Healer."

"Yes," Er Thom agreed, and was gone, running at pilot speed.

"No," Aelliana said. "It's too early,
van'chela
 . . ."

"Not so early as that," he murmured. "Now, I am going to carry you, my lady. I pray you will bear with me."

The contractions were coming closer together now, and she remembered this part, with sudden vividness, with the med tech hovering, concerned for her pain, and she thought—she remembered that she thought,
But every step of the getting here has been pain, what else should there be at the end?

The med tech, that was it, and her husband, sitting where she could see him, whenever she opened her eyes. Just that, the med tech and her husband, and the air stitched with pain. The med tech had called for a Healer, she remembered that, too.

But the Healer never came.

The pain struck again, like a wave—isn't that what they had said it was like? A wave? Arcing high and higher, milky green, with lace frothing at the fore, she remembered that, too, from when they had—and then it vanished, like snow, not like a wave at all, and someone was talking, very softly, so that they wouldn't wake her, but she wasn't asleep, she could hear them perfectly well. They were talking about sending him away, just into the next room, so that she would not be endangered—and he was going—

"Daav!" She tried to sit up, reaching—he caught her hand; she felt the power of their bond, buoying her like a leaf atop the next wave.

"Your lordship, you must leave," the Healer's voice was urgent. "I cannot give her what she requires from behind a shield."

"No." She gripped his fingers. "Daav stays. The Healer may—the Healer may be excused."

"Aelliana," he murmured, taking her other hand.

She opened her eyes, and he was there, kneeling beside the birth-bed. She looked up into his face—he was worried, exalted, wary, adoring—she saw it all; felt it all. "The Healer is here to make the birth easier for you, beloved," he said. "You do not wish to begin your relationship with our child in pain."

"Our child," she panted, meaning to say that they had both made him and ought both to welcome him, but there came the next wave—a towering monstrosity that reared its back halfway to OutEight, and she a leaf, floating atop. "Stay,
van'chela
. You do us well . . ."

"She does seem to take solace from your presence," the Healer murmured. "You do as well as I could." There was a rustle, soft footsteps. "I will be in the antechamber, if the lady calls."

Another wave, another and another, coming hard and close now, a rippling mountain range of waves, over which she glided, exultant, on dragon wings, borne up by starwind. She looked aside, and there he was, flying wingtip to wingtip: her love, her mate, her second self. She laughed, seeing the pattern of the winds across the foaming mountaintops, understanding their meaning and utility.

She tipped a wing and spiraled upward, daring him to follow her, up, and further yet, into the starweb, their wings stretching wide and wider, their bond forging into adamantine, until she was he, and he, her, and the both of them as ineluctable as—

"Aelliana . . ." Her voice. No.
His
voice. The wind fell; she set her wings and glided down the mountainside, feeling him nestled in her soul even as she swept into her body, and knew exhaustion, felt the birthing bed enclosing her, and her hands lying folded together beneath her breast.

"Aelliana," Daav said again.

She smiled to hear his voice, stirred a little, and opened her eyes.

He was kneeling at her side, his face filled with tenderness and amazement, a green blanket cradled in his arms.

"Aelliana," he murmured, "behold our son."

Each person shall provide their clan of origin with a child of their blood, who will be raised by the clan and belong to the clan, despite whatever may later occur to place the parent beyond the clan's authority. And this shall be Law for every person of every clan.
—
From the Charter of the Council of Clans
Made in the Sixth Year After Planetfall,
City of Solcintra, Liad
 

The children were outside on the balcony, where they had gone, so Luken phrased it, in his gentle way, to enjoy the beauties of the day. Aelliana thought that they had rather gone to remove themselves from beneath Kareen's eye, which took a dim view of such things as coloring, reading, and the launching of toy spaceships.

Aelliana had remained in the birthing parlor until
she
felt the need to escape Kareen's eye, and stepped out onto the balcony, with a murmured excuse about wanting some air.

She doubted that Kareen, who was speaking at, rather than to Luken, heard her. Daav, who had stepped over to talk with Mr. pak'Ora, surely did.

The balcony overlooked a formal lawn and a far lacery of lesser trees. A flowering vine grew along the railing, trailing tendrils down onto the stone seat where the children—those being Pat Rin and Shan—were playing with—Aelliana squinted, trying to see—ah. Playing with dice.

Pat Rin shook the dice.

"Three," he said and threw them. They tumbled, stopped—and Shan shrieked with laughter.

"Do it again!" he cried.

Obligingly, the older boy picked up the dice and shook them in his fist.

"What number would you like?" he asked.

"Nine!" Shan said decisively.

Pat Rin bit his lip, and threw.

Aelliana drew close. The dice came to rest, showing seven on one face, and two on the other.

"Nine, it is," she said approvingly. "How clever."

"Aunt Aelli!" Shan crowed, leaping from his seat and throwing himself against her legs.

Pat Rin rose more seemly and made a bow.

"Good afternoon, Aunt Aelliana," he said, his voice and face far too formal for so young a child. "May I fetch you some—some wine, or some juice?"

"Thank you, no; I've only just finished a glass of juice. I came out to take the air." She considered him—grave face and wary brown eyes. "May I see your dice?"

"Of course." He caught them up off the bench and offered them to her.

She weighed them in her palm, but they seemed to be honorable—no clever weights or shaved corners. Bending, she shook them and released with a practiced snap of the wrist. The dice behaved precisely as they ought, revealing no concealed magnets or tiny gyros.

"Roll three, Aunt Aelli!" Shan cried, climbing back on the bench.

"I'll do my best," she said, "but there's no guarantee."

There were, in fact, some tricks one might play with spin and friction. She gave it her best but—

"Five," Shan said, disappointed.

Aelliana picked up the dice and held them out to Pat Rin, standing by so quietly.

"Will you roll three for your cousin?" she asked.

"Yes," he said without hesitation, and took the dice from her hand.

He shook them briefly, and rolled. Shan shouted with laughter.

"Three!"

Aelliana sat down on the bench and picked up the dice again.

"This is my specialty, you know," she said, shaking the dice gently in her palm. "Pseudorandom mathematics, it's called. It means I study things like how cards fall within ordered systems. I've concentrated on card games—my dissertation was about card play—but I've done some study of dice, as well." She looked into Pat Rin's wary brown eyes. He looked—interested.

"My study has led me to understand that—even given the random nature of events—dice do not always display the number that we wish they would. In fact, very seldom. One might be able to predict, if one had very quick eyes and could count the sides as they tumble, but to call the number before the dice hit the cloth, and be correct, every time—that," she said carefully, "is not how dice operate."

Pat Rin said nothing.

Aelliana held the dice out. "I'd like to perform a test, if you will help me?"

"Yes," Pat Rin said. "I'll be pleased to help."

"That's very kind of you. I wonder if you would be so good as to roll for me. I'll call the number, as Shan was doing. I would like to do this—a dozen times."

"All right," Pat Rin said. He took the dice from her hand and looked up at her expectantly.

"Two," Aelliana said, and he released the dice.

They did it a dozen times; two dozen, and only once did the dice fall other than the call—and that was because Shan, overcome by excitement, tried to catch them when they struck the riser of the bench and bounced back.

Aelliana took the dice back.

"Now you call," she said.

The dice behaved normally on her run of twelve, so whatever he was doing depended upon his controlling the dice. She suspected a supple wrist and an unusual but not unheard of run of felicity, but—

"Perhaps Luken will let me come and dice with you again," she said. "That is, if it will not distress you."

"No," Pat Rin said slowly. "I find it interesting. When I think of my number and throw, I feel that the dice have—" He shot her a conscious glance. "I feel that the dice have
listened
. When I think the number and
you
roll, I don't feel that they've heard me at all." He frowned in thought. "I wonder why that is."

"Sparkles," Shan said, who had long since gotten bored with the dice and had retired with his spaceships to the middle of the balcony.

Aelliana looked at him. Was it possible, she thought, that there was a . . . Healer talent that encompasses manipulating chance? She would have to ask Jen.

"Aelliana."

Daav stepped out onto the balcony, his face alight, his eyes fairly glowing.

"We may see Nova now."

He extended a hand to Pat Rin. "That means you, too, Nephew. We must make your new cousin feel welcome."

"Yes," said Pat Rin, taking Daav's hand with a grave smile. "Father read to me out of the Code and we talked about what might be best. Since she's a little baby, and not accustomed to gifts, Father said that I should bring a kiss."

"A most excellent gift," Daav told him.

Aelliana rose, and held her hand down to Shan, still busy at his toys.

"Don't you want to say hello to your new sister, Shannie?"

"Yes!" he announced and sprang to his feet. "Father said I had to be quiet," he confided, as they followed Daav and Pat Rin into the parlor. "But he didn't say for how long."

Anne lay in a chaise, her face sweetly peaceful, her eyes languid. She held a small, blanket-shrouded form against her breast.

"Such a crowd," she murmured. "When Shannie came there was only Jerzy and Marilla."

Er Thom touched her cheek.

"Beloved, here is the delm, come to See our child," he murmured.

"Of course there is," Anne said dreamily.

Aelliana stepped forward at Daav's side, took the small bundle that Er Thom handed her and cradled it, in an accommodation that was already second nature.

She folded the blanket back, turning so that Daav could also see the tiny face and the halo of golden hair. Her eyes were open—violet, like her father's.

"Korval Sees Nova yos'Galan," Daav said in the Delm's Mode.

"The Clan rejoices," Aelliana added, and felt that she had never said anything else so true.

Do not stand between a Dragon and its Tree.
—
From the Liaden Book of Dragons
 

Daav smiled as he knelt beside an overabundant bank of darsibells. The bed should have been thinned some time ago, but he had put the task off, pending the discovery of an appropriate overflow location. Jelaza Kazone's head gardener having only yesterday expressed a need and named an appropriate location in the formal gardens for something very like darsibells, he was now pleased to do the needful.

Aelliana was on an errand at the port, and had taken their child with her. He supposed she would be home soon. They had tickets to the opening of the High Port Pretenders later in the evening.

As always, working in the soil soothed him. The sun warmed his back through his shirt, contributing to a feeling of pleasant dislocation, his thoughts drowsy and slow.

It was a wonder how quickly time fled before joy. The weeks when Mizel had held them apart from each other had each seemed a twelve-year, while the years that had passed since they had at last signed their lines scarcely seemed to encompass days. Indeed, if it were not for the visible evidence of Val Con's growth, he would swear that Kareen's ill-conceived, yet so-useful gather had been but the night before.

He laughed softly. One very long night, in order to properly encompass the courier contracts accepted and fulfilled, Kiladi's seminars taught, Aelliana's papers delivered, and the endless delight of their love for each other.

And then there was their child—another order of joy altogether, mixed liberally with astonishment and dismay. So far, Val Con ruled the nursery in splendid isolation. Not that he was by any means isolated; he spent considerable time with his cousins, and with the nursery crew at Glavda Empri, where one or six of Guayar's next generation was also likely to be found. He was a quiet boy, stubborn, merry, and kind to cats. He was quick with his numbers, as one might expect of Aelliana Caylon's child, and had only to hear a song or a story to be able to repeat it, all but verbatim.

Other things had changed over the long night: The ports had grown chancier; Terran ports, if one were Liaden, chancier still.
Ride the Luck
carried weapons now—weapons, as Aelliana had it, worthy of Korval's pirate founder, gentle Grandmother Cantra. The Low Port pushed at its limits, reaching stealthy fingers out toward Mid Port's plump pockets, to the point that the Portmaster fielded more proctors, and the Pilots Guild offered warnings to those newly arrived, on a street-by-street basis.