Accepting the Lance, page 38
part #22 of Liaden Universe Series
“That is well. We wish no gadje in this business of the kompani. We are Bedel, and in this we will remain Bedel.”
“And yet you and I have discussed that we will change, Sister.”
Droi sighed.
“We will change, yes. Three of us have Seen it, so it will be so. How we will change, and how quickly—these things are for the headman to say. For now, for this, we will keep to the Old Ways.”
Udari bowed his head again.
“Yes, luthia,” he murmured.
Basalial
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
“We are to land in the meadow, as near to the Tree as we might,” Daav said, glancing up from his board. “This has been cleared with the portmaster, as we have a medical emergency. We are further told that there will be appropriate people on hand to transport our passenger.”
“Well enough,” said the pilot calmly. “One hopes we were quick enough, Daav.”
“The autodoc claims life for him, though I own the stats concern me.”
“Yes.”
They plied their boards in silence for a time.
“Are we given a comm code for those who will transport him?”
“We are told that they will arrive when the hull is cool.”
“Ah,” said Aelliana.
Jelaza Kazone
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
They had the loan of one of Yulie Shaper’s sleds for this, with the admonition to “…bring that boy back safe. Din’t go to all the trouble o’ice wine just to have him never taste it.”
Yulie had counseled against the pull-behind cart, however.
“Be a rough kinda ride, and him hurt so bad as you’re sayin’. Best if somebody sits pillion, an’ holds ’im close. Whoever’s driving just needs to go careful and not run into any trees.”
They had also the loan of a portable comm from Rys’s brother undertree so that the one called Jeeves could guide them along the quickest routes to the meadow, to take Rys up, and from the meadow to the Tree Court, where all had been made ready to receive him.
“Stop now,” Jeeves spoke from the comm. “The ship’s hull is too warm for you to approach more nearly. I will tell the pilots you have arrived.”
Udari slowed the sled and stopped it, so that they were exposed in the treeless, snow-filled meadow, under the bright sky.
The ship sat closed and silent before them. Having Dreamed such things only recently, he knew that it was not so large a ship, though it held the attention, sitting closed and silent upon the brilliant land. The snow had melted away from the hot hull, exposing brown grasses pressed flat by the weight of winter upon them.
There were lights, bright enough to be seen even in the light of day. There was a name—Basalial—and a port—Waymart. There was also affixed to the hull the seal of Tree-and-Dragon, sign of the House Undertree, of which Rys’s brother Val Con was headman.
They waited: ship and Bedel and sled.
The breeze freshened. Clouds moved across the face of the day star.
Behind him, Rafin stirred.
“The hull may be hot, but I am cold, Brother.”
As if his words were the key, Jeeves’s voice emerged from the comm.
“The hull is cool. Wait until the ramp is extended, then take the sled to the bottom. The runners will take no damage from the grass.”
Udari touched the switch key, bringing the sled to life. The ship also stirred, the hatch sliding up and away into the hull, and a ramp running down to the sere land.
A figure stood in the open hatch, slim and small, watching as they approached, Udari guiding the sled with care over the brittle grasses.
When they came to the ramp’s end, he brought the sled half around, so they faced the way they had come. He turned off the switch and came out of the saddle, Rafin already waiting for him on the ramp.
“Brother,” he said, with a smile, and started toward the open hatch and the figure waiting there.
* * *
Udari went up the ramp first, Rafin following, as they had agreed.
He blinked when they reached the hatch, surprised to see it held by the veriest girl, her pale hair short, her eyes green and bright as glass.
“I am Udari,” said Udari, “brother to Val Con yos’Phelium, and brother to the one you bring home to us. This is Rafin, my brother, and also brother to that one who has come home.”
The girl inclined her head and stepped aside to let them pass her.
“Follow this hallway. My partner is waiting and will guide you to him. I will guard the door, rather than seal, so that you may be quickly on your way.”
Down the hallway they went, wasting no time, and at the end of it a boy, seeming no older at first than the girl on the hatch. Then Rafin saw his eyes and bowed his head in respect.
“Your brother was placed in the autodoc to keep him stable,” the man said in a deep, careful voice. “We have emergency blankets put out, if you care to wrap him against the cold.”
“We thank you,” Udari said, which words Rafin heard with nothing of the outrage he might once have felt, to hear one of the Bedel express gratitude to a gadje.
“I ask,” Udari murmured. “What befell him?”
“An energy strike, as we were told it. The jacket was burned, and his flesh, too. It ought to have killed him outright, given what I know of such weapons.” The firm mouth twisted slightly. “Some might say that he was lucky.
“Here—”
He turned lightly on a heel, guiding them to the shallow alcove, and stood back to let them pass.
There, in the small space, the autodoc, hood raised, the promised blankets draped over the foot.
In the autodoc, pale to the lips, skin drawn tight to his bones, eyes sunken, scarcely seeming to breathe—there lay Rys.
The sight of him stopped Rafin’s heart.
“He has gone before us,” he said, low, for Udari’s ears alone.
“Yes, but he is paused upon the path. It is our part to bring him back to us. Help me with the blankets. Once we have him well wrapped, we will trigger the heating units. Then, just as we agreed—you will carry him, Brother, and hold him safe from further harm, until we are arrived, and healing may begin. We do not set our opinion over the luthia’s word.”
“That we do not,” Rafin said devoutly, and reached for the blankets.
• • • ✴ • • •
It was warm undertree, what breezes there were gentle, even caressing. There was, also, a general feeling of wellness and calm. Peace, as Droi understood it, which lent a clarity to head as well as to heart, and partook nothing of edges and endings. She considered this as she prepared the hearth and the cot, opened her case, and made certain all was in good order to receive one who was ill unto death.
To do so, she was required to move a cat—black and white—who wished to assure herself of the fitness of the instruments.
Once those things were done, Droi sat down with her back against the warm trunk of the Tree, the cat curled next to her knee, and tended to Maysl, who was greedy for the breast.
There were a number of cats here, Droi saw now. It was not to be wondered at, given the warmth and the general easiness of the space. Far better to nap under a green bush on soft grass than try to find warmth in a snowbank.
Leaves murmured over her head, and she looked up as Memit came to sit with her, across the width of a surface root. Memit, whose face was worn and whose eyes were bright.
“They come,” she said.
“Yes,” Droi agreed. “They come, but they are taking care, as brothers ought. He will not leave us before they arrive.”
Memit sighed.
“As the luthia says.”
Droi sighed silently. Of course, a luthia received respect from her children, but this meekness—it was too much. Silain had been esteemed, and loved. No one had been cowed by Silain…
…unless she had specifically wished them to be cowed.
Black Droi, a voice whispered in her head, and she held her thoughts still, listening.
When there came no other sign, she considered the one she had been given.
Black Droi: luthia-trained, but set aside, her vision dark, her heart shuttered. Her brothers and sisters knew her, had seen what her darkness would willingly encompass.
They were, in fact, afraid of her.
And that was not the due of a luthia, that her brothers and sisters feared her—once, she had been proud—bitterly proud—of the fact. Now…now, she must solve this; her brothers and sisters were her children, her grandchildren—and while she could not command their love, she must soothe their fear. They must know, first, in their hearts, that their luthia cared for them and would work, always, in their best interests.
Rys, she thought then, as Maysl suckled her breast. Rys will know what to do.
Yet one more reason that Rys must come back to them, fully himself, calm and strong in all the ways she was not.
“How goes the courting?” she asked Memit, and was pleased to see her sister smile.
“Slowly. I do not wish to frighten the rabbit. But the question before me is—do I stalk a rabbit or a lion?”
“If the rabbit does not come to the lettuce, perhaps a challenge will wake the lion?”
“So I reason as well, but—”
Pulka came forward, his stance soft, which was Pulka’s way with Black Droi, but had no place in this.
“The apparatus is ready, luthia.”
“Good,” she said, even as a high whine came riding the warm air.
“They come,” she said, and looked down at Maysl, who had fallen asleep at the breast. Droi paused, suspecting the peaceful breezes, but there was no harm, after all, in a babe falling asleep once she had had enough.
“Help me,” she said to Memit, who stepped across the root and took the child in hand.
* * *
They sat in a circle around the cot: Droi, Memit, Rafin, Udari, Pulka—also five cats of various color—and they gazed upon the man resting there, and upon the ties that bound them all.
There was a decision to be made, as Droi knew. The ties that bound Rys were strong, but the ties with which Rys bound them…if they were thin, or burned, or frayed, then…then must Rys’s brothers and sisters use their heads and their hearts for him, and for them, to answer the question…
Was it better to let him go, or to accept the pain of bringing him back?
Droi had feared—deeply feared—what she might find when she opened her eyes to Rys in this way, and from the sighs that ran the circle, she knew that she was not alone in seeing that he was not beyond them, though he was sorely struck.
“Hist!” she heard Rafin mutter, and she turned toward him in circle.
“What pains you, my child?” she asked him, then saw that there were…cats pressing against him, and more cats settling themselves on the cot around Rys, being certain to touch him. She saw, too, one bold orange creature comfortably stretched out across his chest.
“There are too many cats!” Rafin told her, and she shook her head, tasting the energy in the warm air, hearing the beginning of purrs.
“No,” she said. “There are not too many cats. Allow them to assist.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Unless you think these cats are gadje?”
All cats were Bedel, so said the Bedel. Rafin knew this as well as she.
He bowed his head, and reached to skritch the torn ear of the striped cat standing on his knee.
“So,” he said, “they stay.”
He sighed and pulled the cat’s other ear.
“Your pardon, Brother; I was a fool.”
Droi brought her attention once more to Rys, tracing the line of damage along nerves and flesh until—it simply stopped. That, she thought, that was the hand of a luthia—the unknown sister who had, if not given Rys his life, at least forestalled his death, and caused him to be sent back to those to whom he was bound.
There was also the mark of the machine upon him—Udari said they had taken him from an autodoc. The pilot told them that it had been used to stabilize Rys’s condition, but machines are not always wise. It had healed those injuries most amenable to its abilities, and that was also good.
It meant she could concentrate on those injuries that no autodoc could mend, but which were well within the reach of a luthia of the Bedel.
“What say you, brothers and sister of Rys Dragonwing? Do we attempt this healing, or do we cut the cords?”
It was a ritual question; she knew the answer before they spoke.
“Hold him, then,” she said gently, reaching for her case. “Hold him close, hold him tight, for this will be no gentle healing.”
The Bedel
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
They were done with weeping, every embrace had been given, and every promise of a meeting in the World Beyond. They walked together quietly, quickly, through the blocks of abandoned warehouses until they came at last to the parting of the ways.
There, one group—the larger—turned downhill into the nighttime city, under street lamps that illuminated the falling snow. Some of that group laughed to see it; others tried to catch the flakes on tongue, or nose, or mittens.
The second group was considerably smaller, each one pulled behind them a small cart. They went uphill to the place where the first ship had landed many, many years ago. It had been scrub and rock then; it was scrub and rock and snow now. There were no lights here, only the few stars above, and one star, descending, growing brighter as it came.
It might have been a concern, that the port would see it. When last it had come this way, the port had been sickly and cared nothing for odd lights in the sky.
Now, the port was awake, alive, alert. The portmasters were jealous of their skies and claimed all rights to order traffic there.
Well, but the port would not see this light; the watchful machines would register no offense against the skies. The Bedel came and the Bedel went, said the Bedel, when it suited themselves and no others.
Luthia and headman stood ahead of the rest, leaving their carts in the care of others. It was proper ship form, so they had Dreamed, for the light from the hatch, when it was finally lifted, to find them first. They would present themselves, and those who waited with them, to the captain, headman of the ship.
The star settled gently, the snow melting away from it in a warm fog.
The star went out.
The Bedel waited, calm in the darkness.
There came a hiss, and steam running toward them, leading a long, lighted ramp, an empty doorway at the far end.
The Bedel waited.
A figure, no more than a black shadow, appeared in the door and strode halfway down the ramp.
The luthia and the headman stepped forward to meet him.
He was not a young man, the captain of the ship, nor yet was he old. His face bore the stamp of years and authority, and there was a glint of silver in the close-cropped hair.
“Jaren,” he said, when the luthia and the headman had reached the end of the ramp. “Captain of the ship.”
His voice was mellow, but the dialect of the kompani came slowly to his lips, as if he had only newly Dreamed it.
“Alosha, headman of the kompani,” said Alosha, speaking less quickly than usual.
“Silain, luthia for the kompani.”
Jaren, captain of the ship, jerked his chin down, his bright, knowing eyes looking out over the hillside.
“Where are the rest?” he asked.
“Brother,” said Alosha, “we are here in all of our numbers.”
Jaren, captain of the ship, frowned.
“Ten?” he asked. “What befell you? Was there illness? Was there want? Do you tell me that the Bedel failed to survive?”
“We tell you no such thing, captain of the ship,” said the luthia, standing forward to the very edge of the ramp, so he could see her white hair, and her shawls, and the lines upon her face.
“We tell you,” she continued, even as he drew breath to speak, “that ten is the number who choose to return to the ship.”
“There are others who did not choose?”
Jaren, captain of the ship, was quick to hear that, and Silain the luthia was not comforted by the avarice in his voice.
“There were, and they have gone the way they have chosen,” she said calmly. “It is not the first time for this, captain of the ship. We have Dreamed it.”
“They owe the ship their knowledge,” said the captain, frowning down at her.
Silain frowned back up at him, and vowed to find her sisters on this ship to learn why they had allowed this captain to become so greedy.
“Ah, Brother, I might have known! Only see here!”
And there was Alosha, the headman, walking up the ramp toward the stern-faced captain, holding a sack out before him.
“The ship loses nothing; we bring treasure untold. Each and every one of us Dreamed ourselves for you, and here I hold all in my care. The kompani is complete, never fear it.”
Jaren, captain of the ship, frowned even more.
“Ten,” he said again. “It is not a large number.”
“It is the number that is,” the luthia said, allowing the fullness of her power to be heard. “Be content, captain of the ship.”
“There it is, Brother; the luthia has spoken,” Alosha said, lowering his arm and tucking the sack close beside him. “The simple facts are that you are late and we are few. If we are too few for the ship’s care, only say it. The Bedel thrive where rocks fear to grow, eh?”
There was a flicker in the light along the ramp. Silain looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway. Young, she was, and stooped in stance, yet she wore the layered shawls of a luthia.
“Jaren,” she said, and there was power in her voice, “what delay is this? Our kin must be brought aboard and welcomed.”
“There are ten,” he said.
“Surely, then, they will not overfill us?”
The girl moved down the ramp, and for a moment, Silain thought that the captain would not yield. At the final moment, he did so, surly. Alosha moved aside with a bow.
