The Abulon Dance (23 page)

At this a cheer went up.

Luan looked down at the sweaty cheering faces and felt a power surge through him that he had never felt before. Perhaps Quetzelan was right. He looked around, and for a moment, he thought he saw the Dream Weaver standing far back in the crowd, leaning on his staff. As he looked closer, several people jostled in front of the figure, and he lost him. Luan shook his head and jumped down from the rock.

Marselind was beaming, but all he said was, “Time to go.”

TWENTY-ONE

“What? What?” Triani blinked up at Marselind sleepily. It seemed only seconds since he had drifted off, though it was closer to an hour.

“The boat is ready,” Marselind said.

“Boat?” Eulio sat up and felt around for his pouch. “If I’m expected to get into a boat, I’m not doing it without help.” He held out the pouch to Triani. “The pink capsules,” he said. “Pass them around. Two each, considering the circumstances.”

Triani did so, and without further comment, they all climbed into the waiting boat. Luan lashed them to the side and covered them with a waterproof blanket. In spite of this precaution, they were soon soaked to the skin.

Ever afterwards, the wild ride down the raging alien river was nothing but a nightmare of fear to Triani, interspersed with disjointed glimpses of lavender sky and frothing water; the sickening sensation of plunging into nothingness followed by the jarring splinter of wood against the rocks. The ramshackle air car had been bad but this was far worse. It was so immediate! Triani was more aware of the treacherous water than the other two, who were semiconscious from the pills. Triani didn’t want that, so he had taken only one. He wanted to know. Even if he was going to die, he wanted to know. Rigid with strain, he clung to the side of the boat and watched unblinking as the alien countryside swept by in a kaleidoscope of swirling shapes and colors. The deep-voiced shouts of the Kolari oarsmen beat an uneven rhythm in his head.

Luan’s long, black hair was plastered to his skull as a wall of water broke over them. He was laughing. At the camp, something seemed to have happened to the boy. Triani dimly remembered some speech, but he had dozed off without taking in anything else. Now he realized that while he had slept, Luan had become a leader.

Triani couldn’t hold out against the synthetic languor of the single pill he had swallowed, in spite of his firm intentions, and at last he slipped sideways against Eulio, one arm flung out protectively across Cham’s limp body.

When he came to, the stillness beat against his ears. After the maelstrom of the river, the quiet of the sluggish backwater was unnerving. The light was fading, casting green shadows on the water and the high walls on either side. As he sat up, Luan put a finger to his lips. “They are taking us to a safe house,” Luan whispered, as the boat bumped softly against the wall of a stone building, covered with moss. A door opened in the wall and strong arms lifted the groggy Merculians inside.

“Not more dark passageways,” moaned Triani.

“The last one,” said Xenobar. “Let one of the men carry the little one.” A soldier reached down to lift Cham in his arms, but the young Merculian pounded him with his fists and fastened his teeth into one hand. Hastily the man set him down again.

Cham backed up against the wall. “Don’t touch me!” he cried hoarsely.

“It’s okay, lover,” Triani soothed. “You can walk if you want to.”

They went up a dim flight of stairs and along a narrow hall. Then Xenobar, who seemed completely at home here, opened a door into light. Thankfully they stumbled through.

“Xunanda,” said Xenobar in greeting. “I bring strange news from the mountains.”

“All is not well?” she asked.

“Yonan, our leader, is dead. Norh has taken command. Those of us who do not trust him are camped by the river, ready to follow myself and Marselind.”

“Eulio!” Beny flew across the room and flung his arms around the exhausted Eulio. Numbly, Eulio returned the embrace. After a moment, Beny drew away and looked at him closely. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

“I can’t see.”

“I’ll fill you in later,” said Triani.

“I can fill him in myself,” snapped Eulio irritably. “But not now. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“We mustn’t stay here too long.” Beny looked up at Xunanda inquiringly.

“A few hours should be all right.” She nodded to a Kolari girl who was in the room, and she led the two away. “No doubt you, too, are tired,” Xunanda said to Triani. “We are pushed for space here but if you don’t mind sharing a room with some others….”

“Any old corner will do. Just lead the way.”

But Cham was not so amenable. “No,” he said. His arms were around himself as if he was trying to keep warm. “I’d rather not be with anyone else, please.” His eyes moved about the room so crowded with the tall, broad-shouldered men who seemed to fill him with dread.

“Take my room,” she said at once. “It is the least I can do.” As she turned to lead the way, Triani expected Cham to object, but he said nothing. When Xunanda returned, she sat down at the table with the others and told them what had happened during the Festival of Dreams.

“Who is responsible for this outrage?” demanded Luan at once, springing to his feet. “Who killed my father?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said. “Obviously it couldn’t have been Yonan. And surely Norh couldn’t have had time to set it up.”

“Norh blew up the reservoir, though,” announced a Kolari woman who was making some sort of a list. “We just found that out yesterday.”

“I must go to the palace,” said Luan. “I must leave my token with my father’s body!”

“Listen,” Xunanda said earnestly. “The First Minister has been broadcasting messages all afternoon announcing that you are a traitor, that you left the city with your rebel lover to join Yonan’s camp.”

“Tquan can’t be saying this! Someone who is against me is doing this and using his name!”

“No. It is Tquan. His voice, his image.”

“But that is only a half-truth!” exclaimed the boy.

“Welcome to the world of politics.”

“But that’s nonsense! I must talk to the man. I have to explain how it really was. Then he’ll understand.”

“Luan, it isn’t safe,” objected Marselind. “You are a threat to him now, don’t you see? He has everything to gain by your disappearance.”

“How dare you! If it wasn’t for you, I would have been here for the Festival, beside my father! Did you engineer things somehow to get me out of the way?”

Thar-von smoothed back his silver hair and looked around the table. “It seems to me that the First Minister has a lot to gain by the death of your father, Luan.”

“What you’re saying is impossible!” exclaimed the boy hotly. “He was my father’s trusted friend.”

“Really? Then why was the Dream Weaver appointed as regent in case you came to office while you were still under age?”

“How do you know this?”

“He told the Ambassador.”

“Where is Quetzelan?” asked Marselind.

“We don’t know,” answered Xunanda. “He disappeared right after it happened and hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Your father was an astute man,” Thar-von said to Luan. “Perhaps he didn’t trust the First Minister as much as you think he did.” Luan didn’t answer. The conversation was absurd. He couldn’t believe that his father was dead. The words held no reality. He looked at Marselind, and felt the anger churn again in his stomach. Why had this man taken him outside the city and kept him from being with his father at the Festival of Dreams?

Luan got up and walked out onto the terrace. Down in the street there were few people for this time of day. Otherwise, everything looked very normal. There were no signs of the desolation he was feeling. He kept saying over and over to himself; I’ll never see my father again. I’ll never be able to tell him that I love him. Just a few short hours ago he had felt sure and proud of his own power. Now he felt like a child. His grand gesture was looking more and more like betrayal.

“Luan.” Marselind’s soft, intimate voice broke in on his thoughts. “I am very sorry.”

“You hated my father.”

“I hated what he stood for, not the man.”

Luan swallowed hard. “I did not betray him,” he said, his voice breaking.

“I know that.”

“Everyone must know!”

“Tell them. Use the equipment from the Merculian office. It can be adapted quite easily for long range broadcasting. The Kolaris can guide you there through the tunnels under the city.”

“What tunnels? They’re only stories told to frighten children.”

“No. There are miles of tunnels down there. They’re used to get to the secret workshops where hundreds of Kolari slaves repair the machinery that runs practically everything in the city that still works. There are people down there who have never seen the sun.”

“My father knew about this?”

“He would have told you on your Coming of Age day.”

Luan shook his head, overwhelmed.

“Talk to the people,” Marselind said. “Let them hear your dream.”

“Why would they believe me?” Luan asked. “Why would they pay any attention to someone who is not a Hunter?”

“You won over the people at the River Camp.”

“That was different!”

“You are your father’s son, the rightful heir. Tell them plainly why you went to the mountains. You saved the young Merculian dancer’s life. Tell them about it.” He paused. “If you feel my role in this might compromise you in any way, I will withdraw.”

Luan turned on him angrily. “You have already compromised me! This is all part of some plot, isn’t it? Someone sent you to seduce me, to get me out of the city? To discredit me!”

“What are you saying?”

“You used me! I am nothing to you but a pawn in a game of sexual politics! And I thought you were different.”

“If you truly feel that way, I will get out of your life, give you a chance to think things over.”

Luan didn’t answer. He stared ahead of him, unseeing, and wondered if he would ever feel anything again.

Marselind turned away and walked back into the house.

For a few moments, Luan stood alone, gazing over the city. It seemed to be washed of color, sepia tinted in the fast-gathering dusk. As he thought of his father’s face, he saw the First Minister, always at his side, that streak of white hair gleaming against the black. It had been that way as long as he could remember, his father and Tquan. Marselind, this rebel soldier, had used him, was trying still to use him. Marselind did not know the inner circle of the Great Chief. The First Minister was trying to hold the country together during this time of upheaval. That was his job. All that Luan needed to do was explain the situation.

Inside, the others were now gathered around, studying some plans spread out on the table. Luan walked past them and through the door in the wall. Nobody noticed. He followed the narrow corridor to a small door leading to the river. He opened it, waded through the shallow water to dry land, climbed out and stamped his boots on the wooden walk way. He stood for a few moments in the dimness, getting his bearings, then started off in the general direction of the palace. He would talk to the First Minister, and then he would stand the midnight watch with his father’s body, as he should. That duty done, he would find Quetzelan.

He turned a corner and stopped. Someone was right behind him. Quickly he flattened himself into a doorway. Holding his breath, he waited. Nothing happened. “Who’s there?” he called, his hand on the knife he had never used.

“Someone has to look after you,” said a voice. It was Xenobar. The Kolari leaned nonchalantly against the corner of the building, a faint smile on his lips.

Anger and relief flooded though Luan, fighting for control. “I didn’t ask for your protection.” he said.

“You didn’t have the sense. Where are you going and why?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“If you really are the ‘leader of the future’, as you told us back at the camp, then it is my business. If, on the other hand, that was mere rhetoric….”

“I meant it. That’s one reason I’m going to talk to the First Minister now.”

“Just like that.”

“Why not?” Luan started off briskly down the narrow street. As he rounded the next corner, his head exploded in stars and a searing pain sliced through his side. The breath was knocked out of him. His knees buckled. Eyes stretched wide in astonishment, he clutched at his stomach. Blackness caught him.

TWENTY-TWO

Beny gazed at the sleeping face of his jewelled love. Silent tears slid down his cheeks. After a rambling explanation of what had happened, Eulio had tumbled into bed, too exhausted to think of getting out of his ragged dirty clothes. He was asleep almost instantly. Hours passed, and still Beny knelt beside him, holding his hand, almost as if doing penance for what had happened.

“I shouldn’t have sent you,” Beny murmured, his voice hoarse from the litany. “I should have gone myself. I’ve already made so many diplomatic mistakes, what difference would one more make? I’m a musician! I should have stayed home with my music. Then you would still have your sight!”

Eulio moaned softly in his sleep and pulled his hand away from Beny’s touch. “I don’t blame you.” Beny got to his feet and paced around the small room, not even seeing the carvings that hung on the walls, or the feathery flowers nodding at the window in the gathering dusk. This mission had been a disaster almost from the start. Even though he realized that much of what had happened was the fault of the original contact team, he still felt the crushing weight of his responsibility in the matter. A man whom he disliked had given up his life so that he might live. The Merculian whom he adored had been blinded trying to do what he should have done himself. Anyone else would have made the right decisions! It was too late to bring back Zox, but it was not too late to try to do something that would help right at least one of the wrongs.

With a last look at Eulio’s pale face, he opened the door and slipped down the corridor. Back in the main room, voices were raised in argument. Thar-von came over to him at once.

“More bad news?” asked Beny, watching his face.