Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (27 page)

"Having a look at Machander's tunnel." "Good. Tell him that's our way out. But the two of you have got to lead the dig. There's a trap, near the end. There's a door—and it should be open by the time we get there. Help me up." He put a hand out to Drakkar.

Denethan's son looked at him curiously. "What makes you think the door will be open at the other end?'' Blade grinned. "What makes you think it won't be?"

"You had no business dragging Alma into it!" Stefan paced in anger, his voice loud enough to be heard throughout the camp, and he did not care who heard it.

Thomas, bolstered into a comfortable position, took a long sip from his cooling mug. He said, "We needed her on the outside. You boys found and disarmed the last trap. Nothing happened."

"She could have been killed if that bulkhead had blown."

The Protector commented mildly, ' 'You all could have been killed."

Alma looked up as Stefan pointed. Trout had bandaged her hands where the cairn-building had left her blistered and cut. Purple shadows lay under her eyes. "I was there because I was needed."

"We couldn't have gotten out if she hadn't been," said Drakkar. He sat cross-legged atop a flat boulder, the late afternoon sun glinting off him. "That door had been rigged to open from the outside only. We're lucky we only lost the four. You knew the risk going in."

Stefan turned. He glared flatly at Drakkar. "Alma didn't know. She wasn't part of the company."

Drakkar shrugged. "You're like a coyote in the corn," he returned. "You've made it damn clear you don't want her—but you don't want anyone else to have her either."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Alma answered, her voice taking an edge, "that you don't want me to have a life beyond you. And that most of your anger now is guilt. I don't want it!"

Stefan's voice dropped. "It's all I've got left."

"Then keep it." She levered herself to her feet. She stalked away, in the direction of the horse-line.

Thomas watched her go. "She's had a rough time of it," he said to Stefan. She'd told them all how the nester raid had killed Bill and Jenkies who'd held them just long enough to let her escape into the woods. She'd not come back unmarked, her face bruised and hands scarred, but he had confidence she'd be all right.

"And I'm responsible, right?" Stefan clenched his hands. He raised his voice to yell after her. "You've got what you want. Here, in front of these witnesses-—I divorce you. I divorce you!"

Alma stumbled. She caught herself and kept walking, until she was out of their view.

Drakkar said, "I witness."

Stefan spat. Thomas put his hand up. "That's enough, you two. Let's leave her some shreds of dignity. As a Protector and executioner and officer of the courts thereby, I witness your decree, Stefan. The bond of matrimony is now broken. You're both free. I hope that's what you really wanted."

Stefan leaned over, snatching up his hat from its resting place atop his saddle and pack. Without a word, he strode off in the opposite direction. Drakkar watched him go, then opened his mouth.

Thomas pointed at him. "Not another word," he warned. "You're a diplomatic disaster, running through the Seven Counties like a rooster in heat. You quit jousting with Stefan for power. He's got nothing you want or can have.''

The Mojavan snapped his mouth shut, then opened it to mumble, "Not anymore, anyway."

"Leave Alma alone. If she wants you, she'll let you know. But you're Denethan's son and if I were you, I'd consider any plans that might already be made for you."

Drakkar climbed down off his boulder. He smiled ruefully. "For an old man," he said, "you've still got your smarts." He managed to saunter off in a direction the other two had not taken.

Thomas watched him go, wondering if he had his smarts indeed. The deaths of the four young men ground at him. They should not have died. He'd taken too much on himself, spread himself too thin. He had had no right to shoulder onto the youngsters the risk he'd taken for himself, even though they'd asked for it. He was of half a mind to cancel the mapping expedition. They'd planned to split up in the morning after a short memorial service for Bill, Jenkies, Ngo and Bugsy. Fourteen of them would go on.

If they were going to go, now was the time. The nesters had pulled out, vacated the area, leaving clear passage. As soon as Blade and the others were spotted trailing back, that advantage would be lost.

If there was a world waiting out there, it would be cut off from them the more they hesitated. He had no choice, as he saw it, but to let them go. Stefan, for all his hot-headedness, would be a good leader. They had comported themselves well. He sipped at his tea. He could ride in the morning, bruises and all. Those packets of aspirin had worked quite well. Too bad they'd been unable to find more. That was something of the old world he'd like to see restored.

Thomas stretched out his hand and set his empty tea cup aside. He looked at his flesh. The blood on it was invisible to everyone but him. He had some of Charlie's valuable papers in his pack and a chart showing the genetic outcrossing and engineering that was his legacy. And he had tried and been defeated by the ghost road for a last time. It would have killed him if he had traveled it physically instead of astrally. Despite Lady's urgings and those from Gillander, he would not be trapped again. He was not used to failure. It gave him a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. He settled back and closed his eyes, wondering what he was going to say to Lady when he returned.

Alma brushed past Bottom at the edge of the woods. The cook seemed oblivious to her, except to say, "Bring some extra deadwood back with you. Campfire's running low."

She nodded and kept going, afraid he would notice her brimming eyes and tear-roughened face. She looked hideous when she cried. No one called anything more after her as she plunged into the brush, tree limbs snatching at her sleeves.

It was even worse to have no one notice. She stumbled to a knoll which was still covered with a slight thatch of summer grass and sat down, curling around her knees. /
divorce you.
She fisted her small hand and rubbed her forehead. What she needed was for someone to hold her tightly, someone to make her safe. She had her secret and intended to keep it, but there was no comfort to be had for her actions. Nothing. She might as well have died.

Drakkar paused in the woods, watching. The girl was not for him, and he knew it, but he watched nonetheless, sensing her pain and fragility reaching out to him. He would not go to her, not now, knowing that if he did, it would be far worse for her when the Seven Counties and the Mojave tore them apart. She was genetic promise, and he, a plague child, was genetic curse. They could have no future.

Ah, Father,
he thought.
Why did you send me here?

And even though it pained him to keep a silent watch over her, he stayed until long after she departed.

"Thomas, you haven't been listening to a word I've been saying." Lady put her pen down, the ink from its carved tip squibbing a little on the table. She pushed her chair back abruptly and crossed to his side of it.

"I'm sorry," he began, but she folded her arms and perched on the table's edge.

"Don't make excuses to me." She stopped him in mid-sentence. "You've that look on your face. You're a million miles away chasing the dean."

He looked up at her. She wouldn't have been a Protector if she couldn't have sensed his preoccupation. That did not surprise him. What surprised him was the anger she fought to contain.

He stood up, putting their eyes more on a level. "I've got to go back. We've got nester raids on the fringe areas, and the fetishes they're leaving behind tell the story. He's done it—I don't know how, but he's done it. He's got more than half the free clans in the basin under his influence, maybe more."

"You don't know that for sure. You don't even know it's
him.''

He rubbed his rib cage. Small knots of pain soothed away. Four cracked ribs and a permanent partial hearing loss in his left ear had been his legacy from the expedition. He counted himself lucky. "I know," he said slowly, "that if I had done from the beginning what my instincts told me to do, if I had done what I've been trained to do, none of the boys would have died. None of Denethan's men would have died years ago. Only the dean would have died."

Her two-colored gaze narrowed, sharpened. "I was not

aware," Lady bit off, "that you serve as judge and jury as well as executioner."

He turned away. "There's a first time for everything. It should have been done."

"I didn't know that and I don't see how you could have! The Vaults were meant to keep safe the best our world had to offer. Even if we had suspected what we were walking into, we would have done our best to have salvaged as much as we could."

He put the length of the writing table between them. A few stray pieces of paper drifted down as he leaned his hip to the planking. "You and I are different from most people. We should have known."

"And what would you have done then? Killed everyone else you could get your hands on? No. That wasn't the solution."

He looked at her then. "We're facing an all-out war now. The nesters will outflank us once they've joined forces."

"There's always the Mojave," she pointed out.

"Chancy allies at best. Shankar hasn't said much to me since we've returned, but he gets his messages at regular intervals. I gather Denethan is neck-deep in trouble."

"What does Drakkar say?"

"The dragon boy says as little as he can." Thomas tugged at the ever present scarf about his neck. He felt constricted, dry, and brittle. "We shouldn't argue," he finished and bent down to pick up the papers he'd displaced.

She took the papers from his hand. "No," she agreed. "I should just kick some sense into your butt."

Thomas felt himself grin wryly. "You and what army?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into an embrace. She did not yield to him and he let her go carefully. "What is it?"

"Thomas, you're" infamous among the nesters. They know you're quick and strong and respect you. As much as you despise what they've become, you still stand up for their basic human rights. Go if you have to—but go to talk to them. You're probably the only man who can."

The warmth he'd been feeling fled abruptly. He paced a step away. He shook his head. "It's gone beyond that. I can't even talk a treaty with them the Seven Counties would agree to abide by."

"The counties," and Lady's voice was deceptively soft, "would stand behind the treaty of a DWP."

"No! We've been all through that. I'm not fit for the position."

"I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but yes, we've been through all that." Lady reached for a packet of ribboned papers on the writing table. Her short, work-efficient nails plucked at the ribboning without opening it. "Call for a temporary DWP. You can do it. Boyd and the others will bow to you, at least until they can finish jockeying for the election. They all know it will behoove them to be appointed now . . . easier to be elected later. They'll back you for this, even if it's only long enough to entrench themselves."

Thomas felt the idea gnawing at him. Lady knew the inner workings of the counties better than he did. He spent too much time circuit riding and too much time staying neutral. He never knew who he might have to execute next. "Then it doesn't matter who gets appointed, as long as they back me."

"Well, it matters, but it's not crucial at the moment. Not as crucial as keeping a war out of the Seven Counties. Go in under truce, talk a treaty—and do whatever you have to do to obtain it, even if the dean stands between you and peace."

She met his gaze unflinchingly. "Even if I have to eliminate the dean to do it?"

"Whatever it takes. Better one man than legions."

"But you would rather I didn't kill him," he countered.

Lady tilted her head slightly, giving him the full stare of her icy blue eye, the business part of her gaze. "I'm not fool enough," she answered him, "to think the dean can be cured by a hug and a laying on of hands. But if he were whole, he'd be invaluable to this community. His education, his personal history—think of it."

Thomas already had, and had come to the conclusion that anything the dean might have to offer would be as corrupt as he was. But he did not say that to Lady. One of her eyebrows quirked, daring him to respond. He kept his tongue. There was a rap on the door and Quinones entered dartingly quick without waiting for answer.

Even a psychic mute could hear the charges, the tension, in this room. The man came to a quivering halt as his nerves got the better of him. He looked wildly at Lady.

"It's all right," she said soothingly. "What is it?"

"For Sir Thomas," he got out. "Judge Teal is here to convene with the nominating committee."

Blade felt his thoughts stagger a bit. The judge had to have been on the road a good six days. He looked at Lady, who had blushed in a becoming fashion.

"That's wonderful," the healer said, and walked Quinones to the door. "See he's made comfortable at the compound. We'll meet him before dinner."

Thomas barely waited until the door closed. "Nominating committee!"