Schism: Part One of Triad (9 page)

A hiss came from the syringe. “Who comes?”

“The demons.”

Roca glanced at him. “There are no demons, Shani. It’s just epilepsy.”

He didn’t believe her. Yes, he knew his father had epilepsy. He had read about it, as they all had, learning what to do if he had an attack. The Skolian program of treatment was supposed to prevent seizures, but they could still happen. This was the first time Shannon had seen a big one. He knew the truth, regardless of what his mother or any doctor claimed. Spirits of malice attacked his father, probably brought here by Shannon’s misdeeds.

Roca set the syringe and holotape on the floor, then eased Eldrinson onto his back and straightened his limbs. With a sigh, he settled back, breathing more naturally now. His eyelashes lifted and he stared blankly at the ceiling.

Comprehension gradually returned to his gaze.

“Eldri?” Roca said.

He looked at her, his face tired. Then his gaze shifted to Shannon. “Sham?

Where—?”

“I was in the alcove,” Shannon said.

“You… heard?”

Shame swept over Shannon. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was already there when you came in. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Ai…” Eldrinson closed his eyes. After several breaths, he tried to sit up. Roca slid her arm around his torso. He got onto his knees, pulled up his booted foot, and tried to stand, but he sagged so much, he almost knocked Roca over.

“Shannon,” she said.

He slid his arm around his father’s waist. With the two of them as support, Eldrinson managed to stand. Then he drew away from them and tried a step on his own. Immediately his legs buckled. He grabbed the table and hung on, his face pale, his jaw clenched so hard Shannon could see the bones against his skin.

Roca reached to help, but he shook his head, sharp and angry. “Leave me.” His usually resonant voice was flat and dull. He stared at her with a suppressed fury that frightened Shannon, not because he believed his father would ever hurt any of them but because he feared it would bring on another attack.’

i Roca stepped back, giving him room. Eldrinson pushed away from the table and walked slowly to the door. Shannon started after him, but his mother caught his arm.

“Not now,” she murmured.

He understood. The Bard needed his pride. Eldrinson opened the door and left the room.

“I’m sorry.” Shannon’s voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” His mother dropped into a chair at the table and bent her head.

“I should go.” Shannon didn’t know where, only that he had to free her from his presence.

“Shani, wait.” His mother motioned to another chair at the table. “I need to talk with you.”

Unease swept over him. He went to the chair and laid his hand on its high back. “Yes?”

“Sit down, honey.”

That didn’t sound ominous. She called him Shannon Eir-lei Valdoria when she was angry with him. He sat slowly, watching her, trying to read her mood. She was tired, very tired, and afraid for his father. Her pain over today went deep; he could skim only its surface.

“This afternoon,” his mother began.

“Does he really mean to banish Soz and Althor?”

“I don’t know what will happen.”

“Tell me the truth,” he said in a low voice.

Shadows darkened her eyes. “Yes. I think he means it.”

A part of Shannon died inside. “Aldior will never come home.”

His mother’s gaze sharpened. “What did your father mean about Althor looking at you?”

Hai! He couldn’t discuss it wim his mother. He didn’t even understand it himself. “Nothing.”

“That ‘notfiing’ contributed to his disowning his son.”

“I don’t know why.” That was the truth.

“What happened between you and Althor?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his mental barriers and let her sense the truth of his answer.

Roca’s shoulders sagged. “We’re frightened, Shani, all of us, your father, me, Kurj, Althor, Soz. War leans on us and I don’t know if we can stand under its weight.”

Her words poured over him and sheeted off like water that couldn’t soak into a dry sponge. “I thought all war had ended.”

She looked at him oddly. “What makes you think that?”

“Althor ended it.” Shannon knew the story well, how Althor had ridden into batde five years ago with meir father, mounted on a great war lyrine, wearing disk mail and leather armor, with his sword at his side, his bow and quiver on his back—and a laser carbine over his shoulder. Two days later Almor had stood on a ridge above me Plains of Tyroll and slaughtered over three hundred of their enemies with one carbine. It had taken only minutes. Men with swords and bows couldn’t combat the technology of an interstellar empire. That day, Althor had ended war on Lyshriol.

His mother spoke tiredly. “I wish we could end the wars among my people. More than anything, though, I would wish for my children a gentler life man one of killing.” Her voice caught. “But it seems they must follow pipers I cannot hear.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Roca squeezed his hand. “I am so very glad some of you stay.”

Shannon stared at her drawn face and he knew without doubt that he had failed her, failed his father, failed Althor. That moment last night when he walked into his brother’s room, he had started a tragedy. He had hoped the person he trusted and loved above all others would help ease his loneliness, but instead he had caused more trouble than he could bear.

He knew what he had to do.

The stable was dark, but Shannon needed no light. He walked straight to Moonglaze’s stall. The lyrine nickered, stepping restlessly behind the green glasswood half door.

“Hai, Moonglaze,” Shannon crooned, giving the lyrine sweet bubbles he had picked from a shrub outside. Moonglaze pushed his nose into Shannon’s hand and crunched on the delicate orbs.

“Come on.” Shannon whispered, though no one was out this late to hear him. He had waited until everyone went to bed. He put a soft pad over Moonglaze’s back and settled his travel sacks across the lyrine’s haunches. Moonglaze whistled a low protest, and Shannon made soothing noises, all the time scratching in the thick purple hair curling at the lyrine’s neck, until Moonglaze quieted.

Shannon strapped his quiver of silver-tipped arrows onto his own back. He was carrying his bow. Then he walked Moonglaze outside and across a courtyard. He didn’t leave by the main gate, which had a watchman. Instead he snuck out a small gate no one used, one overgrown by vines and prickly glasstubes. He pushed through the screen of growth and brought Moonglaze out into tangles of bagger-bubble reeds. Light from the Blue and Lavender Moons filtered through the foliage. Moonglaze lifted his great head and shook it with pleasure.

“Good Moon.” Shannon fastened his bow to his back, then mounted and guided the lyrine along an overgrown path that wound around the house. They were on the edge of Dalvador, and within moments they reached the stubble that marked the onset of the plains. Shannon gave Moonglaze his head and the lyrine took off. He had never understood why his mother thought the name Moonglaze was too poetic for a war mount. This lyrine flew through the night, fluid and silent, no more visible than a glaze on the moon. The stubbly reeds of the plains brushed his hooves, then his legs, then even higher, but it didn’t fetter the lyrine.

These plains were his home, just as they had always been for Shannon.

Until now.

He would probably never find die Blue Dale Archers. But he would search all of their legendary territory in Ryder’s Lost Memory and the Blue Dale Mountains.

For he had nowhere else to call home.

The Empty Stall

oz had always expected it would thrill her the first time she sat in the cockpit of a Jag fighter. Today she felt only subdued. She and Althor were side by side. Althor slouched in the pilot’s seat, dozing, its silver exoskeleton covering him like a second skin. Although she couldn’t see its prongs, she knew they had plugged into sockets in his neck, wrists, and at the base of his spine. He also had sockets in his ankles, but his boots covered them.

Tahota was taking her turn in me auxiliary chair crammed into the Jag’s tiny cabin behind them. Her seat had enough smart-ware to adjust for its passenger’s comfort, and the colonel was sleeping for the first time since they had left Lyshriol, leaving Althor to tend the Jag by himself. He didn’t have much to do; its Evolving Intelligence, or EI, could pilot the ship.

They were superluminal now, traveling in inversion. It was one of Soz’s favorite areas of study. Light-speed was like an infinite tree limiting the speed of die ship. They could never go over the tree; mass and energy became infinite relative to the rest of die universe at die speed of light The solution turned out to be simple, at least in mathematical terms. They needed only add an imaginary component to dieir speed. It let diem “go around” the tree by entering a complex universe where mass, energy, and speed had imaginary components. In mathematical terms, me relativistic equations became functions of a complex variable. It let them circumvent me singularity at light speed. Scientists called it inversion because it inverted constellations relative to tiieir subluminal positions.

Now they raced dirough inversion, headed for Diesha, home world to ISC

headquarters and the Dieshan Military Academy.

The cockpit mesmerized Soz. She knew roughly what she would see, but this Jag had more components than she expected. Its full design was probably kept secret from die public, including eager young applicants to DMA. Transparent panels had folded around her body and come alive wiui holomaps and other displays. She wanted to memorize it all. It kept her occupied; otherwise, she would have nodiing to do but brood over what had happened at home.

Almor stirred and pulled himself upright and stretched his arms. He scanned die panels that had clicked into place around his body, but Soz doubted he needed to look. The Jag’s EI brain fed data straight into his node. He and die EI were getting to know each other, developing me symbiosis they would need to work togemer. This fighter would be his when he graduated from DMA. It would fly for no one but him or a pilot he granted permission.

He glanced at Soz. “Did you sleep?”

“I can’t.” She waved her hand at die controls. “It’s like a great big puzzle.

I have to solve it.”

He smiled. “You probably knew more about Jags man most novice cadets even before this ride. And none of diem are coming to Diesha in one.”

She wanted to be excited, but her enthusiasm felt damped. To succeed in her lifelong dream meant so much less when it came at the price of losing her home.

Althor setded back and studied views of space displayed on the holoscreens over his head. Soz didn’t think he was paying much attention to them. After a moment, he said, “I can’t believe he said that about Shannon. He knows me better than that.”

Soz knew he meant dieir father. “He was angry. At me. At you for taking me. He didn’t mean what he told you about not coming home.”

“Like hell. He meant every word of it.” He spoke under his breath. “Nothing like having your father out you in front of your family.”

Soz wasn’t sure what he meant; she hadn’t been there during his argument with Father. Del had told her about it. She wanted to ask more, but she hesitated. She hadn’t seen Althor for three years and even before that they hadn’t been close enough to talk about such personal matters. Given that they had just been disowned, mough, she wanted to understand why. “When he’s had time to calm down, he’ll realize you would never hurt Shannon.”

Althor spoke awkwardly. “Shannon certainly startled me.”

“What did he do?”

“Asked to stay witii me last night”

Soz gaped at him. “What?”

He squinted at her. “I’m not sure he realized what he was saying.”

“He likes girls, Althor. I’m sure of it.”

“I know. I asked him about it.” He rubbed his eyes. ‘1 don’t think even he knew what he wanted. The way he experiences life and emotion is different from us. He doesn’t separate what he feels into boxes.”

Soz glanced back into die cabin. Tahota was sleeping, her mind quiescent.

Turning back to Althor, she spoke slowly, unsure what to say. “I don’t know him as well as Denric and Aniece do, but I can guess why he came to you. He trusts you. He always has. He loves us all, but he feels closer to you.”

“I’ve always treasured that. Now I feel as if I’ve ruined it.” Althor’s voice quieted. “When he came into my room last night, I thought for one minute that he was a—a friend of mine.” Then he added, “A former friend.”

Soz heard the loss in those words. “Former by your choice?”

He averted his eyes, his lashes glinting. “It’s complicated.”

“Maybe Shannon picked up your reaction. That may be why he thought you would let him stay the night.”

“All I know is that I’ve made a mess of things.”

“It’s not your fault.” Soz wished she could fix it. “I knew Father would be angry, but I thought he and Mother would talk to Colonel Tahota, and that she could ease their fears.”

“How?” Althor met her gaze. “Skolia may go to war. You or I could die or be taken prisoner. Maybe Father is right. Maybe I am insane to take you to Diesha.”

Her anger stirred. “Yet it was all right for you to gallop off to war with Father when you were sixteen?”

“That was something he understood.”

“And if we go to war with the Traders?” Urgency drove Soz, the drive to go to Diesha, to DMA, to combat. To protect her family and her people. “I’ve read the histories, the analyses, even the contraband essays. Some of it is propaganda, but gods, even taking that into consideration, the Trader Aristos are monsters.”

He met her gaze. “They don’t see it that way. To them, we’re the abominations.”

“Like hell.”

“In their view of reality, only they should be free. The rest of us should be slaves. Especially psions.” His voice tightened. “That we, the Ruby Dynasty, a family of psions, once ruled an empire and still have power violates everything they consider moral and right.”