The Dragon Variation (37 page)

"I shall be using the back room and I expect I shall not be disturbed." The gun was on Anne, who was holding Shan against her and stroking his hair.

"Touching. This way, Scholar." He reached out and pulled Shan away, fingers twisted in the back of the child's collar. "Bring the case."

SHE HAD NOT ATTEMPTED
to sell the jewels back to Moonel, nor had she been seen in the Gem Exchange. He considered it unlikely that she knew of the less-savory establishments on the border of Mid Port. Besides, they would not give her near the sum she must have.

It could perhaps be judged an error of play, that she had not asked him for money. How simple a matter, after all, to point out that her purse was slimmer than she liked. He would have emptied his pockets at her word. It was thus, between lifemates.

But Anne, Er Thom thought, standing at the curb on Exchange Street—Anne would see such asking to be dishonorable, the coins themselves tainted, devalued by deceit.

Wondering where next to seek her, he stuck his hands into his pockets, shuddering when his fingers touched the gun.

Ah, gods, beloved, must it be this path?

But there: Anne had chosen their course; to unchoose it was not possible. Bound to her as he was, with spider-silk lines of love and lies, it was his part, now, to follow.

He stepped off the curb and crossed the busy street, walking back to his car, puzzling over where she might have gone. Frowning and abstracted, he lay his hand against the door, and spun around, certain he had heard someone call his name.

The street behind him was very nearly empty. No one stood near, hand raised in greeting.

He heard the call again—slightly louder. His name, certainly, the voice seeming to come from—the east. Toward Mid Port.

Holding his breath, he slipped into the car, started the engine—and sat waiting, stretching his ears, though of course that was foolish. When the call came again, he put the car into gear and followed the fading echoes through the noisy chatter of the outside world.

"YOU WILL HAVE THE GOODNESS
to produce the piece of bogus evidence linking Liaden language to Terran."

Anne eyed Fil Tor Kinrae carefully. The gun was steady, but at least he had let Shan sit next to her on the hard wooden bench. The crying in the back of her mind had stopped, replaced by a kind of exhausted half-trance.

"If the evidence is bogus, why bother with it?" she asked the gunman.

He returned her scrutiny blandly. "I collect lies, Scholar; it is an avocation. Produce the material or pay the price. Please understand that I am able to extract whatever payment I will. Behold the destruction of the Languages Department on University and believe me." He moved the gun. "The proof, Scholar. Now."

"I don't have it," she said, meeting his disturbingly expressionless eyes and willing him to believe the truth.

"Jin Del yo'Kera had it," he returned.

"So I believe. However, the central argument is missing from his notes. I thought it might be in his research computer, but I was not able to find it." She nodded toward the briefcase leaning against the wall. "I copied the core. The disk is in my case. You're welcomed to take it."

"Am I? But how kind. However, I am not interested in negative results, Scholar. I give you one more opportunity to cooperate: Produce this central argument of Jin Del's, this masterpiece of error that attempts to link Liad and Terra to a common mother tongue."

Her son's body was a torch, scorching her side, his presence in her mind an alert somnolence. She met the gunman's eyes fully, and saw Jin Del yo'Kera's death in their depths.

"I have no such information."

"I see. It is my belief, Scholar, that you are not fully awake to the vulnerability of your position. Perhaps a demonstration is in order."

THE VOICE NO LONGER
called his name.

Indeed, Er Thom thought, threading the narrowing streets toward Mid Port with rapid skill, that which guided him was no longer voice, but—compulsion. He followed it and in good time pulled over to the side of an alley, just behind another, nondescript and slightly battered, landcar.

He got out of the car and walked a short distance. It took less than a minute to persuade the street door to admit him, after which he lost no time in going up the rag-tag stairway.

Jyl ven'Apon spun round as he burst through the door, her hand flashing toward the weapon set ready on the desk—too late.

Er Thom's gun was already out and aimed, with regrettable accuracy, at a point in the precise center of her forehead.

ANNE TRIED TO BLOCK the man
with her body and earned a fist against her shoulder for her efforts. He grabbed for Shan.

The child flung himself back against the wall, soft-booted feet flailing at the man's face.

"
Mirada
!" he screamed in piercing hysteria. "
Mirada! Mirada!
"

Fil Tor Kinrae swore and snatched again, clawed hand grabbing for fragile throat. Anne twisted, flung the man half backward and used her elbow in the way she had been taught.

One blow to crush a man's windpipe. Kinrae dropped like a stone. Before he hit the floor, Anne had the gun out of his hand and caught Shan to her.

"Hush, baby. Hush, Okay?"

Face against the side of her neck, he nodded. Anne held him, mind working feverishly. The woman in the other room: She would have to be prepared to kill her, as well. Anne swallowed, feeling the gun in her hand, the plastic still warm from Kinrae's grip.

"Shannie, listen to me. You listening?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'm going out for a minute. You need to stay here (
with a dead man on the floor, Annie Davis?
). I'll be back in a minute and then we'll leave. (
Gods willing.
) Promise me you'll stay here until I come for you."

"Promise, Ma."

"Good." She hugged him tight. "I love you, Shannie."

The warning was little enough—a light step in the hall beyond. Anne came to her feet, thrusting her son behind her, gun held ready.

The door burst open.

"
Mirada!
"

Er Thom's eyes flashed over her face, took in Shan and what was left of Fil Tor Kinrae on the floor. He slipped his gun away and held out a hand.

"Come away now. Quickly."

ER THOM HAD THE briefcase
, Anne was carrying Shan, uncertain if the shaking she felt was his or her own.

They went through the console-room. A glance revealed no body bleeding its life out on floor or desk. Anne swallowed around a mingled sense of nausea and relief, recalling what was left behind on the back room floor.

"How did you get here?" she asked Er Thom, voice sounding thin in her own ears.

He spared her a quick violet glance. "I heard you calling."

"Oh." She gulped, hugging Shan tight. "We're leaving Liad, Er Thom."

"Yes," he said, leading the way down the tricky stairs. "I know." At the bottom of the flight he turned to her.

"You and our child must be attended by a Healer as soon as possible. We should thus book passage on
Chelda
, which leaves this afternoon and has a Healer on-staff. After we are safe away, we may modify direction."

She stopped, blinking into his beautiful, beloved face. "We?"

He met her eyes, his own unguarded, his face fully open to her.

"If you will have me."

Have
him? Anne drew a careful breath, aware of Shan, trembling in her arms. "We have to talk," she said.

Er Thom bowed slightly. "We do, indeed. Let us board
Chelda
. The Healers shall tend to you and to our son. We shall talk. Fully, I swear it. If you choose then that we must go separate paths, I shall trouble you no further." He held out a tentative hand.

"Can you trust me in these things, Anne?"

She touched his fingertips lightly with her own. "Yes."

"Good," he said gravely. "Let us go away from here."

In the case of a clan's loss of an individual member through the actions of a person unrelated to the clan, Balance-payment is hereby set forth. Such payment weighs equally the occupation, age, and clan-standing of the individual who has been lost. The attached chart shall henceforth be the standard by which all clans shall compute such Balance-payment.

—From the Charter of the Council of Clans,
Fifth Amended Edition
 

"YES, I SEE."
The Healer folded neat hands into his lap. "For the child, forgetfulness. And for yourself as well, if you wish it, Lady."

Anne found herself looking into a pair of bright brown eyes.

She frowned, fighting to think with a mind that seemed frozen and unwieldy. Er Thom had handled the arrangements at the reservation office, slicing through what Anne dimly perceived as a daunting mountain of red tape. He had bespoken them a suite aboard
Chelda
, she remembered that he had said so. But what else he might have told her, she could not presently call to mind.

On consideration, they might very well be on
Chelda
now, in the very suite Er Thom had rented, though the shuttle trip seemed likewise lost to recollection. The only thing she clearly remembered was the scene in the Mid Port back room, where she had killed a man and left him lying on the floor . . .

The Healer was looking at her, head tipped to one side, face alert and friendly.

"Forgetfulness," she managed. Her voice was shaking badly, she noted with detachment. "You can make Shan forget what happened?"

The Healer inclined his head. "Very easily, Lady. Shall I?"

"It would be best," she heard Er Thom murmur beside her.

She hugged Shan tight against her chest. "Yes," she said awkwardly, the dead man looming before her mind's eye. "If you please."

"Very well." He stood, a diminutive man with a quantity of curly gray-shot hair, and held out a hand. "We shall have to be alone, Shan and I. It will not take long."

On her lap, Shan stirred, looking up at the tiny man out of dull silver eyes. Abruptly, he wriggled upright and leaned forward in Anne's hold.

"Beautiful sparkles," he announced, and raised a hand toward the Healer. "Show me."

The Healer smiled. "Certainly."

Shan wriggled again, and Anne took her arms away. Her son slid from her lap and clasped the Healer's hand. Together they disappeared into an anteroom.

"Anne?" Er Thom's voice was worried. She turned to look at him. "Shall you take forgetfulness, as well?"

Forget . . . She wanted, desperately, to forget. Especially, she wanted to forget that last moment, when her body had taken over from her mind and—She had killed a man. She had
intended
to kill him. He had threatened her child, herself. He had murdered Jin Del yo'Kera, by his own word, he had destroyed the Language Arts building and only pure luck that no one had died of it—

"Anne!" Er Thom's hands were on her shoulders.

She realized she was trembling, looked wildly into his face.

"What happened—happened to the—master trader?"

His fingers were kneading her shoulders, setting up a rhythm in counter to her trembling. "She need not concern you."

"You killed her."

"No." He lifted a hand and tenderly cupped her cheek. "There was no need. She ran away." Gently, he bent and lay his lips against hers, whisper-light and warm.

Tears spilled over. She lurched forward, face buried in his shoulder, arms tight around his waist. The trembling turned to violent shaking, the tears to half-cries, gritted out past locked teeth.

Er Thom held her, one hand stroking her hair, the vulnerable back of her neck. He spoke in the Low Tongue, honoring her, loving her. Indeed, he barely knew what he said, except it came full from the heart. It seemed the sound of his voice soothed her.

The storm passed, quickly for all its passion. She lay shivering in his arms, her cheek pillowed against his shoulder.

"Remember something for me," she said huskily, her breath warm against the side of his neck.

He stroked her hair. "What shall I recall?"

"That—Fil Tor Kinrae. He wanted the central argument—the material that was missing from Doctor yo'Kera's proof. I know—I think I know where it is." She drew a shuddering breath. "It's behind the flat pic of—of the Aus sheep farmers. In his office. Remember that, Er Thom." Her arms tightened around him. "It's important."

"I will remember," he promised.

"Thank you." She sighed and nestled her cheek against him, seeming more peaceful, though she trembled still.

The door to the anteroom opened and the Healer spoke with the ease of one for whom there are few surprises in life.

"The child is asleep. If the lady will come with me, I shall see what might be wrought."

She stirred and moved her arms from his waist. Er Thom stepped back, took her hand and helped her to rise. Slipping her arm through his, he guided her to the doorway and gave her over to the Healer.

"I will be with you," he said, smiling up into her beloved and careworn face, "when you wake."

She gave him an uncertain smile in return. "All right," she mumbled, and allowed the Healer to lead her away.

* * *

THE HEALER'S EXHAUSTION
showed clearly in his face. He accepted a glass of wine with unfeigned gratitude and slumped into the offered chair with a sigh.

Er Thom sat in the chair opposite, sipped his wine and put it aside.

"It is fortunate," the Healer said after a sip or two of his own, "that they were able to be seen so quickly after the event. I anticipate no complications for the child: The dream will be hazy when he wakes from trance and will continue to fade over the next two or three days.

"The lady I believe capable of recapturing the entire experience, did necessity exist. She has a disciplined mind and a very strong will. If she should find it difficult to concentrate, if her sleep is disturbed, if she is troubled in any way—only call. I shall be honored to assist her."

Er Thom inclined his head. "I thank you."