Skolian Empire - Skyfall Part 21

After a while they stopped, heaving in huge breaths. They picked up their s.h.i.+rts from the floor, talking and laughing as if they had been doing no more than playing sports. It wasn't until Eldri turned toward the door that he saw her.

He hesitated, and she sensed he knew how much she worried about his fighting. "Roca. How long have you been there?"

"About half an hour." She couldn't help but notice his gleaming, muscled chest as he wiped down. "You were impressive."

The other man glanced at Eldri, trying to hide his smile, and inclined his head. He nodded to Roca with the same respect, then went up the steps, leaving her alone with Eldri. Although she appreciated his discretion, it made her uneasy to think that if Eldri had a seizure here, on the hard stone floor, no one would hear her call for help.

Eldri sat next to her. "How goes the babe?"

She took his hand and set it on her belly. "Can you feel it?"

"Feel what-ah!" Eldri jerked back. "He kicked me!"

She laughed. "A fine, strong son."

"Do you feel it, too, that we have a son?"

Roca nodded. "Sometimes, late at night, I lie with my eyes closed and the light of his mind fills mine."

"I feel this also." He put his arm around her waist and drew her against his side, resting his other hand on her abdomen. "I learned a word from Brad once. Angel. That is our son."

Roca chuckled. "Little boys are rarely angels. I'm sure Garlin can testify to that, having brought you up."

"Ah, well." His laugh rumbled, with a vibration on the end. "Is that why you came to see me train, so you could inform me that my son will misbehave as much as me?"

Her smile faded. "Doesn't it worry you that you might have a seizure while you are fighting?"

She expected him to deny it, but instead he said, simply, "Yes."

Roca focused on him, trying to understand his mood, gestures, motivation, everything about this man she was coming to love. "If you stopped, you would feel you were giving up. Giving in, both to Avaril and to the epilepsy."

"I have never made those exact thoughts in my mind." He spoke slowly. "But yes-fighting, whether outer or inner demons, is something I must do. Otherwise, why live?" He pressed his lips against her temple. "And I have so much to live for now."

She turned her head, bringing her lips to his. It was a gentler kiss than they usually shared, the fires of their pa.s.sion banked for this moment. After they separated, Eldri put his arm around her shoulders and they sat looking into the arms-room with its flickering torches.

"I have a question for you," Roca said.

"Hmmm?" He leaned his head against hers, resting after his work-out.

She finally spoke the words she had practiced all morning. "Do you still want to marry me?"

For an instant he seemed to freeze. Then he slowly lifted his head, turning to look at her. "Yes. If you will have me."

Her voice caught. "I will."

Eldri took her hands. "What changed your mind?"

"Life seems so short these days." She curled her fingers around his. "It is too precious to waste on politics and fear."

His face gentled. "I will make you a good husband."

She raised his hands and kissed his knuckles. "And I will be a good wife to you, for however long we have left."

His grin burst out, like the suns above the mountains. "Do not look so gloomy. I will trounce Lord Avaril. You will see." Mischief brimmed in his gaze. "And you know, Roca, only men are supposed to kiss the hand that way." He planted a resounding kiss on her knuckles.

"Hah!" She rained kisses all over his hands. "There. That is what happens when you tell me I cannot do something because I am a woman."

"Ah, well, I must say it more often, then." Laughing, he drew her closer, though they couldn't find an easy way to hug with her belly between them. It didn't matter. These last months, for the first time in years, Roca felt happy.

Garlin performed the ceremony. Normally a Bard would give the vows, but Eldri was the only one available. So Garlin stood in for him. Shaliece, the Memory, donned her red robe to record the marriage, her violet eyes following every move and gesture.

Roca felt as if events were swirling around them, gossamer and indistinct, hard to see clearly because they were in the midst of it all. Her throat tickled with a nervous antic.i.p.ation she had never known in her first wedding. She came into the dining hall with Channil, descending the stairs. Eldri entered across the room, with Garlin at his side. The bone-chilling cold discouraged finery, and everyone dressed in layers of heavy clothes. Eldri and Roca met at the head of the long table and stood facing each other. He didn't smile, but his eyes had a glow she had never seen before. When he took her hands, his own were shaking.

Neither the Blue nor Lavender Moon shone tonight, so no moonlight leaked past the slits in the shuttered windows. With the fuel rationing, they had lit only a few oil lamps, giving the hall a dim golden glow that softened its harsher edges. The people of Windward gathered around, a few holding precious candles that flickered in the drafts.

Garlin stood before them, tall and proud, and spoke, his Trillian words rolling like deep-throated music.

Holding Eldri's hands, Roca gazed into his eyes, feeling as if she floated with the musical words and antiqued candlelight. After Garlin finished, Eldri and Roca knelt before him. He held together his third and fourth fingers and touched each of them on the crown of the head. Then he drew them back to their feet.

Eldri took Roca's hands again, always gazing at her. He took a deep breath- And he sang.

His voice soared, evoking a treasury of images for Roca: the forests of her home on Parthonia, with droop-willows shading mansions of pale blue stone; brick-red deserts on the dying world Raylicon, beside the Vanished Sea, beneath a stone-washed sky; the infinite reaches of interstellar s.p.a.ce, where stars blazed and celestial bodies rotated in an unending dance. His incomparable voice swelled until tears ran down her face.

When Eldri finished, Roca wiped her palm across her cheeks, smearing her tears. The Memory stepped forward, making a special effort to remember every detail of this moment. Then everyone crowded around, congratulating them, the women crying and kissing Roca on the cheek, the men thwacking Eldri on the back. It astounded her that they offered such friends.h.i.+p. Their emotions flowed like a benediction.

So it was done. She and Eldri had just changed interstellar history. If they died in the siege, but Brad lived, he could tell her people. If no one survived, if the news of her marriage went no further than Windward, she and Eldri would still know they had joined their lives, minds, and love on this extraordinary night.

15.

The Long Table.

Useless.

Kurj had been in the web too long; it took a great toll on the body and mind to spend days submerged in that alternate s.p.a.ce. Stalking the mysteries of another universe, searching its endless twists, became his reality, until he forgot he lived as a man of flesh and blood.

Intravenous lines fed him. He blamed his melancholy on having spent so long here, in the web, without rest or solid food. But he continued to search. Today he sifted through inconsequential nodes on fringes of the web so far from the centers of activity that he wondered why he bothered.

Even here, he found reviews of Roca's dancing. People chatted about her performances, giving opinions on her artistry, style, and technique. Most comments were positive, glowing even, but not all. Kurj deleted the disparaging reviews. He knew it was foolish; people had a right to dislike his mother's dancing. They were idiots if they couldn't see her genius, but that wasn't his problem. Even the critical reviews were courteous, without the s.e.xually explicit or violent material he had incinerated in the cyber-slums and slave dungeons. But what the h.e.l.l. He deleted the bad ones anyway.

He was preparing to leave the web when one of his Evolving Intelligence spiders spun up, whirling like heated copper.

Yes?Kurj asked.

I have found another reference for Cya Liessa.

I will look tomorrow.

This one may be important.

Why?

It dates from after her disappearance.

Kurj shrugged.So do all of these.

This person claims to have seen her.

He froze.Show me.

Kurj strode into the office of his security chief and slapped a holosheet on the man's desk. "I found this message in a rickety old network, one so dated, it had only one link to the Kyle webs. It's from someplace called Capsize, wherever the h.e.l.l that is."

His startled chief picked up the sheet. Kurj knew the message on it by memory:You won't believe who I saw last night at the port. Cya Liessa! The dancer. She's even prettier in person.

"Saints almighty." The chief gaped at him. "This is nowhere near where we thought she had gone."

"Follow it up." Kurj planted his huge palms on the desk, his adrenaline surging. "Run down every flaming d.a.m.n link to this message.I want the location of that starport."

"There." Eldri pointed down at Avaril's army, which filled the flat area before the castle.

Roca pulled up her hood against the cold. The rich smell of its fur lining inundated her, so familiar now.

She and Eldri were outside, in the tiny lookout area of the highest tower. The Backbone Mountains sheered up on all sides, a sharp and jagged range, surreal in its spindled peaks. Snow covered the higher summits, but only a dusting remained at Windward. The drifts from so many months ago were long melted and gone. The path to the plains had become a conduit for Avaril's men to bring in supplies. Roca tried not to think about how depleted the castle stores had become.

"There it is again!" Scowling, Eldri pointed at a group of men by a campfire. "Can you make out anything?"

Roca focused, using her enhanced optics. "What did you see?"

"A flash, like metal."

She scanned the camp, resolving details. One man was cooking over the fire and two were sitting, talking. "Someone is rubbing a sword, cleaning it maybe."

"That wasn't it." Eldri s.h.i.+fted restlessly. "It was larger than a sword."

Another man walked into the scene-and Roca gasped.

"What is it?" Eldri asked.

Roca squinted at the man. "You."

A pause. "What did you say?"

She watched the newcomer sit with the warriors at the fire. "A man down there looks like you." She studied the fellow. "Same hair, though with some gray. About your height and build. His face is similar to yours."

"Does he have a scar?" Eldri's voice had become strained. "It stretches from his left eye to his chin?"

Roca studied the man. "Yes, actually." She turned to Eldri, seeing only a blur. "Do you know him?"

"He is my cousin. Avaril Valdoria."

"G.o.ds, Eldri." As her eyes readjusted, her new husband came into focus. "You could be brothers."

"Brothers shouldn't try to kill each other." His face creased in lines of tension. "I gave him that scar not long ago, when his men ambushed mine in the foothills."

Knowing that the man who wanted to kill her husband looked so much like Eldri made it worse, leaving no doubt this was kin against kin. She thought of her own family, so full of love and anger, tenderness and violence. "I wish I could help."

"You can't. But I thank you for the sentiment." He gestured toward the plain. "You saw nothing unusual? No metal?"

"I'll look more. Maybe it moved." Roca peered down at the army again. When she magnified the scene, it decreased her field of view, so she widened her search.

The settlement had become a village. At first only men had lived there; apparently women didn't fight in armies here. It seemed odd to Roca, who descended from the queens of the Ruby Empire, where men had been owned and never went into combat. Modern Skolians considered their culture egalitarian, but remnants of its ancient roots remained even in this modern age.

From what Roca understood, the population here had suffered a high mortality rate among female babies thousands of years ago, creating an imbalance of men and women. Eventually it had evened out, but during the era when men outnumbered women, they had a.s.sumed more authority, giving the culture both matriarchal and patriarchal elements. Inheritance of t.i.tles went through the male line; land went through the female line. Only women were scholars; only men served as judges. Men never danced, but it was a great achievement to sing well. A woman's ability to dance commanded great respect, but she would sing only for fun, never as a vocation. When the women and men combined their talents, they created a remarkable beauty of motion and music.

The protocols of life here seemed less formal, without rigid social distinctions. As the months of the siege had pa.s.sed, women had filtered into the camp below, girlfriends and wives of the warriors perhaps, or camp followers.

"Did you find anything?" Eldri asked.

She scanned the camp. "The women are gone."

"You are sure?"

"I don't see any."

"This is not good."

Roca turned to him. "Why would Avaril send them away?"

"I would if I planned for my army to attack."

She pressed her hand against her abdomen, instinctively seeking to protect her child. "But how? They can't get in here."

Eldri glanced at her swelling abdomen, his face taut. "I cannot say. You saw nothing else unusual?"

When Roca shook her head, he frowned. "I am certain something new was there. Metal."

"I'll try again." Turning back to the camp, she surveyed its layout. "Nothing. Just a lot of-good G.o.ds, what is that?" A large structure stood half-hidden against a cliff. She had missed it the first time because it was set so far back and made from the same stone as the mountain. Solid and round, it stretched as long as three people. Metal bands encircled its girth.