The Seascape Tattoo (38 page)
Read The Seascape Tattoo Online
Authors: Larry Niven
Yes, I love.
Then do you not wish to live?
I cannot live. I can feel that something is dissolved within me.
Yes. You can no longer use those spells. You have gone too far.
Then let me go.
But there is one last gift we can give you. But it is a final gift, and you would have to accept a normal life and age as other men do.
To cry underwater would seem impossible, but he knew it was happening. Was there even a chance for a life with Tahlia? To even have a chance?
They were giving him that opportunity, in a moment when he feared he had nothing at all. “Yes,” he said. And he felt as if his skin was peeling away, as if he was a pearl, revealing layers. All of the men he had been, all of the lands he had traveled. So many memories dissolving, until some essential grain of sand, some irritation in the core of the pearl, was revealed.
What was it? What had begun his path toward damnation, that path that had been disrupted in the oddest way. By love. The Red Nun had begun her path to vengeance after a disaster â¦
Just as Neoloth had been cast from his home by violence â¦
Neoloth, in a land far away, had had a mother and a father in a life so distant that he had not remembered their names and faces for years. Common folk they had been, living common lives. He recalled that childhood, lived simply and warmly. No disasters. No catastrophes.
Just normal enough for him to feel â¦
I want more.
That was how he had begun. That was all it had taken.
I want more.
And if he had more, then what? He'd had treasure enough for three kingdoms, adventures enough for a dozen men, knowledge to surpass a university of scholars.
How much is enough? Had he ever had more than what he'd felt just kissing Tahlia's hand? Had he ever had as much as his parents, in their common lives, with their simple love for each other and their children?
How much is enough?
And something called out from him.
One life, one love is enough. And a thousand lives without something meaningful is not.
He made his choice.
And, really, it was no choice at all.
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When Neoloth woke, he was being hauled up from the waves in a bosun's chair. He looked back down into the water and saw glowing eyes and faint figures of magical creatures as they sank back into the deep, sadness and profound thanks mingling as he realized that he would never see them again.
By the time he stepped up onto the
Pelican
's deck, he knew that something was different within him. He felt stronger, more solid than he had in decades.
Friends and comrades were waiting.
“Your face,” Aros said.
Neoloth felt his cheeks and nose, exploring a foreign territory. It was strange to him. A younger man's face. What�
He stumbled to the captain's cabin, still redolent of her scent, the bed still rumpled from when she had last slept there. And above a chest of trinkets, something used to adorn Captain Gold's daily costumes. A mirror. And in it Neoloth saw something he had not seen in a lifetime.
The younger man, but a different man, as if he had forgotten the toll his life had taken from him, the weight on his soul.
He laughed and laughed, as if it was the first time in a long, excellent life. And perhaps it was.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Three days later, they touched port. Aros had waited on the deck from before dawn, thinking about the man Neoloth seemed to have become so swiftly and completely, and he knew what was about to happen, even if he didn't know why.
Neoloth started down the gangplank, then paused and turned. “We're here,” he said. “You're free. More than free. I believe that there are certain honors and riches that are yours now. What was your previous occupation other than thief and rogue?”
“Taxman,” Aros said. “Does that meet the standard?”
“We can do better.”
Aros smiled. “Well, I think I'll keep those honors on account,” he said. “I know that you're about to make a play for a princess. That's not something I want to watch.”
“What? Is that such an unlikely thing?”
The Aztec chuckled in reply. “No more likely than a barbarian who has half the royal households in Shrike indebted, invested, or in bed. You ⦠keep the reward money for me.”
“I can do that.”
“Oh, I think there will be many ⦠interesting conversations between Shrike and Quillia. And a lot of ways for a person willing to position himself properly.”
“A man who sees an opportunity.”
“Well ⦠I haven't been in love in a while.”
“Better late than never.”
There was something uncomfortable in that silence, something that neither of them wanted to discuss. Neoloth spoke first.
“In another life,” he said. “I think⦔
“Yes,” Aros said. “But let's keep this between ourselves. We have reputations to uphold.”
The two men extended and shook hands. “I have enough friends,” Aros said. “What a great man needs is an enemy of quality.”
“Do you aspire to greatness?”
“Who better?”
Neoloth left the ship, walking down the gangplank with the stride of a man in his thirties, something different than he had ever been. A mortal man, just a man of wisdom and knowledge, who loved a princess.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Shyena the Red Nun leaned against the rail beside Aros wearing a crimson sheath dress she had constructed in their days at sea. It clung to her curves. “You don't hate him, do you?”
“No,” Aros said, eyes gliding over her body. “Not anymore.”
“He framed you, you know.”
“Of course he did. But he also trusted me.”
“Yes. And once warned you and saved your life.”
“That ⦠was strange,” Aros said. “He sent me a dream that saved my life. He has powers.”
“That one he needed a little help with.” Her smile was mischievous. Seductive. “I'm not completely without my own resource.”
“How exactly did you help him?” Aros asked, beginning to wonder.
“It's a long trip back to Shrike,” she said. “I could tell you ⦠or I could show you.”
Aros felt his smile grow wide, and warm. “It
is
a long trip.”
She had contrived to angle her hip against his, a warm, heavy, luscious weight. “And this noble who waits for you in Shrike. I have heard she is a good woman.”
“She is,” Aros said. “Very. But, as you said, Mijista is in Shrike.”
Aros did not know what was ahead for him. What was behind was strange enough. Today was where he had to live.
The Red Nun looked back at him over her shoulder as she reached the cabin door.
He was just a simple fighting man. Why would he care about magic?
“Well,” Captain Gold asked, chuckling. His friend had appeared behind him without a sound. Their recent success in battle had put a twinkle in his eye, like the old days. The whole world seemed new. “What are you waiting for, laddie?”
“Nothing,” he said, and slapped Gold's shoulder. “Absolutely nothing at all. How many days back to Shrike?”
“Six, maybe seven.”
Aros nodded and stepped to the cabin's threshold. He turned and grinned like a shark.
“Make it eight,” Aros said, and closed the door behind him.
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TOR BOOKS BY
LARRY NIVEN
AND
STEVEN BARNES
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Larry Niven
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces, and fantasy, including the Magic Goes Away series. He has received the Science Fiction Grand Master Award, the Nebula Award, five Hugos, four Locus Awards, two Ditmars, the Prometheus, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award, among other honors. You can sign up for email updates
here
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Steven Barnes
is the author of more than thirty novels, several of them science fiction classics. His first collaboration with Larry Niven, “The Locusts,” was nominated for the 1980 Hugo Award. Since then he has won the Endeavor and the NAACP Image Award. In television, he wrote the Emmy-winning
Outer Limits
episode “A Stitch in Time.” You can sign up for email updates
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Tor Books by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously.
THE SEASCAPE TATTOO
Copyright © 2016 by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
All rights reserved.
