The Fall (27 page)
The smell of dust. An old, old man in a deep purple robe, his face wrapped in papery wrinkles, his rheumy eyes bright with happiness, sitting in a simple wood chair, this very sculpture in his lap.
The Paran’s voice murmured behind her. “
Receive it with both hands
.”
The vision faded, changed. A picture window, with beads of water dripping down the outside. A voice saying, “
He was a master of his craft, and he left a large family, by our standards
.”
She sucked in breath. Who did it belong to? Did the old man in her vision make it? She ran a finger over it again. It was a stunning piece of art, a masterpiece. Had the old man… had he died?
A loud knock came from the doorway—and it occurred to her that the absence of knocking the previous times she’d awakened represented a significant difference from her past. The door opened, and the Paran walked through. He cocked his head, studying her as he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Something troubles you,” he said, covering her hand with his.
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I cannot understand how I could forget John so quickly.”
“You did not forget him, beloved. You continued on your path.”
“I—what?”
“A discussion for another time, perhaps.”
“Why?”
“Would you like me to explain bonding?”
She flushed and looked away. He chuckled and gave her the same look John had given her when… when…
Boston dinner parties. Glittering affairs in floating glass ballrooms, with expensive delicacies and the best entertainment. Virtuoso musicians. World-class entertainers. Interplanetary celebrities. Boston Harbor. Old Ironsides floating in the water beneath them. John, so handsome in his dress uniform, the handsome and eminently capable Captain John Walter Howard.
Then he was older, graying. Still active and trim, and
more
handsome with maturity lining his face. An admiral now, with the crew he’d chosen so carefully, returning to Beta Hydri IV.
Turning to dust.
She gasped and cried out.
“Beloved.”
The Paran had pulled her into his arms again. Syvra stood on the other side of the bed, a hand on her shoulder. The touch soothed.
“You are remembering,” the Paran said. He tilted his head down to peer into her face. “This is good, beloved.”
“It hurts,” she whispered.
“I know.”
She sniffled. “This is improper.”
“Must I tell you again?” He snorted. “We are bonded. Look into my heart. It is joined to yours.”
“Is that why do I do things with you that my mother taught me I should never do?”
“In part,” Syvra replied. “The lines between you are blurred. There is a part of each of you in the other.”
“Neither of us will ever be the same person we were before we bonded,” the Paran said. “You are more daring than you were, and I am—I am more steady.”
“High one, has she eaten?”
There was that title again. It evoked a line of banners in her imagination, from places she had never, ever seen. Her mind reeled, and she sent the strange
senses
she’d awakened with around the room. Syvra was confident and professional. The Paran glowed with affection for her. Neither of them had any nefarious intentions, unless she counted the Paran’s obvious physical interest, which he suppressed. At least for now.
He shifted his arms around her, and hard muscles rippled under his robe in intriguing ways. Maybe that interest wasn’t such a bad thing.
Her eyes fell on her hand, lying against the Paran’s chest. She flexed it, brought it closer to her face to examine. The skin looked youthful. She ran her fingertips over one cheek. Smooth and firm. How? She was… she was… she wasn’t sure how old she was, but she had grandchildren. Her skin shouldn’t feel this way.
She pulled her hand away from her face and stared at the lines on her palm. A man who looked like the Paran but older, his face lined and his hair gray, smiled back from the opposite side of a table. His robe had embroidery at the collar and cuffs, like Marianne’s, rather than over the entire upper half. He shook her hand, and something flashed in his eyes.
She blinked, her hand returning to be just her hand again. She looked up at the Paran. “I remember meeting you,” she murmured. “You looked… older. You shook my hand.”
He nodded. “Yes. I wanted to greet you in the manner to which you were accustomed.”
“It was somewhere else, with walls made of darker stone. Not here.”
“We were in the stronghold in Suralia, at a conference of artists and musicians.”
“Music.” She closed her eyes. It came suddenly, then—a harp, playing a melody that swooped and soared. The Paran, sitting next to her in some kind of hall. The Paran, kissing her. She had longed for him to kiss her like that. Her eyes came open on a gasp. “First kiss,” she whispered.
“In the Sural’s audience room, after the morning concert.” He stroked her face with the back of his fingers and smiled into her eyes. “You have much to remember that is not painful.”
Syvra bowed and left the room.
“Kiss me,” she said. “Before she comes back.”
“I should not,” he said, tracing her jawline with a fingertip.
She pouted. It undid him.
When their lips touched, all awareness fled of anything but the world inside the Paran. The hard strength of him. The soft, almonds-and-spice taste of his lips, almost familiar. Most of all, the love wrapped around her like a cocoon. Her stomach turned to water, and she forgot to breathe.
Someone coughed in the doorway. Laura groaned, and the Paran broke the kiss to look up. Marianne stood with a tray of food in her hands, grinning. She placed the tray beside Laura and took up residence in a chair between the bed and the window. Laura picked up a roll and nibbled at it.
“You look a little stronger today,” Marianne said.
Laura nodded. “Maybe it will not take as long as I thought to recover.”
“Tolari do heal quickly.”
“I am not Tolari.”
“Are you not?”
“Of course not!” She looked up at the Paran. “Tell her.”
He remained silent. Laura squinted at him.
“I was born on Earth!” she exclaimed. “In Boston!”
“Perhaps that also should be a topic for another time, beloved,” he said.
Laura’s patience broke. “Oh, come now,” she snapped. “What else could I be? Either I am human or I am not. It is not such a hard question.”
The Paran heaved a sigh. “At present, you are more human than Tolari, but you will never be fully human again.”
She stared at him. He believed what he said. She closed her eyes. This day had started out
so
well.
“Have you wondered yet why you look so young, but you remember being a grandmother?” Marianne asked. “And how you know what everyone around you feels?”
She opened her eyes to give the other woman a mutinous glare. “None of this is possible. None of it.”
“Tolari have life extension based on rejuvenation, Laura. You
are
young again, and you are becoming Tolari as a consequence. It made you an empath, too, an extraordinarily strong one.”
Truth. She only heard truth. And Marianne continued to gaze at her with those calm, shocking blue eyes.
“I need to rest now,” Laura whispered, and closed her eyes.
* * *
CCS-52-1687
Memorandum
FROM: Adeline Pearson Russell
SUBJECT: Tolar activity
Tolari ambassador departed Capella Free Station 1630 hours via Rembrandt fast courier
Star of Britannia
with his entourage, the ashes of a deceased Tolari physician, and Duke Alistair Rembrandt’s youngest son, Albert. The attempt to freeze Lord Albert’s assets proved unsuccessful. The Den and the V’kri banks refused our request.
A search of the Tolari quarters turned up two destroyed fleas. Will deliver to R&D for study.
(signed) Adeline Russell, Major, Central Security
Head of Field Operations, Inner Sector
Sharana stepped out of the warm pod and into the cold air of the central transit hub in Suralia’s city. Signs pointed the way to various buildings and structures, both for the benefit of visitors and because not everyone could translate their knowledge of the city above to the underground walkways below. According to the signs, the Hall of Scholars lay nearby. She headed for it, shivering in the chill. Her robe, unlike those of the Suralians going about their business around her, did not insulate from the cold, and while the Suralians heated these pedestrian tunnels to provide safe routes through the city during their dangerously cold winters, their idea of warmth did not match her equatorial sensibilities.
She heaved an audible sigh when she emerged from the stairs into the Hall. The scholars heated their meeting place to a much more comfortable temperature. She looked around the entrance room, searching for anyone she could identify as the Hall’s chatelaine.
“May I assist you?” came a woman’s voice from behind her, in melodious Suralian.
Sharana turned. Before her stood a tall woman in scholar’s blue, wearing a chatelaine’s sash of the same color about her waist. “Scholar,” Sharana replied in the same language, bowing. “I need access to communications.”
The woman studied her, as impassive as Suralia’s reputation painted its people. “Can you not use your tablet?”
“I left it behind.”
“A strange action to take.” The Suralian scholar’s eyes glittered.
Sharana beat down the antipathy rising in her and cursed her Monral’s hatred of Suralia. “I would contact the stronghold,” she said, keeping her voice level. “I wish to exercise my right to speak with the Jorann.”
An eyebrow lifted. “I understand.” She swept a hand toward a far wall. “Follow me.”
The woman led her to a sparsely-furnished study and gestured Sharana into a chair. “I am Lyva,” she said, taking a seat behind the desk. “Chatelaine of the Hall of Scholars.”
“I am Sharana.” She licked her lips. “Scholar and daughter of Monralar.”
Lyva’s presence jolted, but her face remained immobile. “I do not have the authority to give the daughter of an enemy province access to our communications plexus.”
“I came to speak with the Jorann.” She lifted her chin. “It is my right.”
“Yes. And it is Suralia’s duty to protect the Jorann from any danger which may follow you.” The Suralian leaned back in her chair.
Sharana’s heart slammed into her ribs. “You cannot mean to block me from her.”
“Your lack of a tablet does not obligate me to forward your request. Perhaps you will choose to bring your tablet on your next visit.”
“You cannot do this! I demand to speak with your caste leader.”
“She is in Vedelar. You may
ask
to speak with her when she returns in five days. Until then, fair journeys, Scholar Sharana. You may go.”
* * *
The information his chief advisor brought shocked the Monral from the mists of deep sleep. He threw off the blankets and shrugged into a robe. Sharana in Suralia? He hurried into his sitting room, trying to encompass the idea. She had requested leave to visit Parania. How had she come to be half a world away?
“Summon her back,” he demanded.
“I cannot,” the man replied. “She left without her tablet.”
The words beat into the Monral, tore through the fog of winter grogginess. She had planned this. Did she intend to betray him?
“We gave Sharana half a day to notify us of her arrival at the Paranian stronghold,” the advisor, who also served as his head guard, continued. “When we received no word, we queried them. They confirmed she never arrived, so we traced the pod. It last transmitted its location from the city transit hub in Suralia.” He paused. “Two of the transit room guards remember a brief sense of conflicted intent from her as she left.”
The Monral growled. “And they did not stop her or bring it to your attention? Dismiss them and engage more astute replacements. Has there been an increase in communications activity at the Suralian stronghold?”
“No, high one. We detect only normal levels at present.”
“Continue to monitor them closely.” He dropped into a chair and rubbed his face. Sharana in Suralia. He had been a fool to use the apothecary’s drug so long. She had conspired against him, in the circle of his own fire, and he had not sensed it through the dulling effect of the drug. “Wake my advisors. I will speak with them. And inform the ruling caste that the beloved of Monralar is missing.”
“But—”
“Yes, it will tell my enemies she is vulnerable.
If
she is not under the Sural’s protection. I misdoubt she is not.”
* * *
Back in the walkways, Sharana shivered and cursed the ruling caste for its rivalries. The chatelaine had oozed the smug certainty that she had defeated Sharana. Perhaps she had. Five days! She would have hiked up the cliff path to the plateau on which Suralia’s stronghold sat, had the weather allowed it, but the killing cold rendered that impossible. She might still try it, if only freezing to death were not such a miserable way to die.
Perhaps she should walk into the dark. Her death could stop her bond-partner—it would incapacitate him for a time, at the very least. His son lacked the required age to rule, but the Monral had surrounded himself with competent advisors who would guide Farric. He would rule well, in time.
The aroma of tea drifted down from above. She found the sign—a teahouse. Suralian tea was a rare treat in Monralar, and the shop might be warm. She climbed the stairs leading up to it, and warmth enveloped her like a blanket as she walked through the door. Keeping her eyes down to—she hoped—avert the ingrained Suralian prejudice against anything Monrali, she asked for tea and a sweetened roll and took a seat as far from other tea drinkers as she could, at a table near a window rendered opaque by snow and ice.
A presence approached. She looked up from her mug as a graying man in apothecary yellow sat in the chair on the other side of the small table she occupied. Tensing herself, she put the mug down and gripped the table’s rounded edge, but he radiated only good will.
