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And Davage understood.

"So, are you saying that, because you are prevented from creating Shadow tech, that it is adversely affecting you?"

"Going to die," she wept into his chest.

"And the only way to better yourself is to get rid of it, to cast it?"

She looked up at him. Her eyes, wet, puffy, pleading. "I don't want to die."

"Lady Sygillis …"

"I don't want to die."

"Listen to me."

"
I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

Davage pulled her naked body off the floor and placed her back on the ruined bed.

She continued to moan.

Davage took her gently by the face. "Lady Sygillis …"

Her eyes were darting, glassy. Wherever she was, it was far away.

"Do you trust me?"

She didn't respond.

"Lady Sygillis, do you trust me?"

She hesitated a moment and then looked up at him and nodded. "Yes."

"Then trust me now. I understand your situation; you need to expel your Shadow tech, yes?"

Her eyes pleaded with him.

"We will take care of this problem. We will fix this."

"We will fix this," she repeated. She seemed to calm down a bit.

"Can you endure for a few hours more?"

She nodded and wiped tears from her eyes.

"Be strong. I will arrange for you to be able to cast your excess energy today."

Davage went to the door and opened it. Kilos was outside.

"What's going on, Dav?"

"It's all right, Ki. What's our current position?"

"We are mark seven of five AM past Mallets."

Davage thought a moment. "Mallets, Mallets …"

He had a thought.

"Seetac. Seetac is mark three of five AM from Mallets. It's perfect. Kilos, send to Navigation, plot solution for Seetac 2 and wind for fastest possible speed short of going to Stellar Mach. Understand?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Go now."

Kilos ran down the hall. Davage looked back into the dark, destroyed room.

"Have courage, two, maybe three hours maximum, and you will be able to rid yourself of the Shadow tech."

"Captain?"

"Yes?"

He could see her forlorn naked body sitting on the bed looking at him in the dark. "Could you please stay here with me … for a bit?"

Davage closed the door and walked back toward her. Using his Sight, he found a fresh pair of pajamas in a drawer and slowly, tenderly, dressed her. He cleaned her scratches and checked her feet. All of Ennez's good work had somehow held.

He fetched a comb and picked up her bow. He then began carefully combing her hair, working out all of the tangles her hysteria had wrought into it.

She looked at him with wonder. "Your eyes … they glow."

"I'm just using a bit of Sight, so that I may work in the dark. Now do you believe in it?"

She didn't answer, just stared at him as he worked.

"Why are you doing this?" she finally asked, still staring at his eyes. Davage had the distinct impression that, for the first time, she was actually listening to him, actually awaiting his answer.

"Because, as I have said, I am looking for good in you."

She put her hand on his arm as he combed. "And if I may ask as a matter of interest, what are your findings up to this point?"

Davage put the bow back into her hair and knelt down. He was eye to eye with her. "I believe that, under all of the robes and the Shadow tech and the threats and the clouds of myth and fear, there is a person … a person who is crying out to be heard."

He moved a bit closer to her. "And I assure you, Lady Sygillis, I hear you."

Her eyes watered and her mouth pulled back as if she were about to cry but was stopping herself.

"Now I must attend to your arrangements."

Davage headed to the door and it opened. Light from the corridor pooled in.

"Davage, Lord of Blanchefort," she said.

"Yes?"

She looked at him for a moment. "Thank you."

Davage doffed his hat and bowed. "You are most welcome."

Another first.

* * * * *

"Captain Davage, now you have gone too far."

Davage stood in the meeting room. Seven Sisters sat at the table, each flanked by a Marine. The Sister who'd kissed him earlier sat near the back, dressed in her usual robes and headdress.

She smiled at him and offered a knowing look. She was clearly relieved he was alive.

The other Sisters weren't so charitable. They were angry. It was the Marines who were speaking, but it was the Sisters who were doing the talking. To top things off, the Grand Abbess of Pithnar, one of the twenty-five Grand Abbesses of the Sisterhood, sat at the end of the table. She did not have a Marine. Her exalted presence made Davage a bit nervous.

The Sisters were not happy.

"We have gone along with you to this point, listened to your ravings, allowed this monster to live, but now … now you want us to allow her to actively create a Shadow tech manifestation? Illegal! Unheard of!"

"Yes, Sister, calm yourself please. She says the Shadow tech is growing within her, that, by not casting it over the last several days, it has grown to dangerous levels—like milk in a cow's udders, I suppose. If she is allowed to release it, then she will be all right."

"And you propose—you propose to set her to shore on some distant planet and allow her to create Shadow tech for as long as she deems fit?"

"Exactly. We are on course for Seetac 2. It is perfect. It's a remote, arid and uninhabited world."

"Captain, the casting of Shadow tech is illegal."

"Sister, she is already a prisoner of this ship … add it to her list of charges if you must. If we do not allow this, she will die."

"Then justice shall be done upon this Black Hat Hammer. I say let her die in agony."

"Right, Sister, and if she should lose control and her excess Shadow tech blast a hole in this ship and sink it straightway?"

"Then perhaps we should simply execute her now and end her suffering."

"And again, Sister, should she, whilst in the throes of her execution, lose control and blast a hole in this ship, we shall sink just the same. No, we must put to shore on Seetac 2 and allow her to be rid of this menace. She has sought our help in this matter and we, as League good and true, must assist her."

"Captain, allowing the Black Hat to set foot on a planet is the heights of lunacy," a Marine said for a Sister. "She will Waft away the first moment available to her."

"Yes, but this is Seetac 2, Sister; where is she going to Waft herself to? She will be marooning herself in any case."

"Thus freed, she could conjure up an army of Shadow tech followers, horrid and winged, and will set herself up as a queen on a black throne amongst black legions. An unholy, dammed planet she shall create."

Davage shook his head. "Sister, where do you come up with these machinations? Scheme after scheme, each more grandiose and cartoonish than the last. Sister, whilst she is being worshipped by her capering Shadow tech army, will any of these fiends be cultivating her a crop? Otherwise the Queen will be dining on bark off the tree and leaf off the plant, supplemented by the occasional reptile and muddy, stagnant water."

The Sisters looked at one another. A few smiled and laughed. The Sister toward the back gazed at him in an approving manner.

"Sisters, I believe she has made significant progress. I believe I am close to proving that she is not beyond redemption. I believe that the shell of evil around her has been broken."

"Impossible."

"Is it? She is no longer full of anger and hate. I've taught her to like coffee. I've taught her to laugh."

"Captain, you are aware that she is plotting to kill you, correct?"

"Is she?"

"Yes indeed, Captain. She has thought of little else. Her thoughts are riveted on it. Your death is all she wants left of this world. The first two times you encountered her …"

"The first two times?"

"Yes, she was obsessed with your murder."

"How about lately? Is my killing still at the forefront of her thoughts?"

"Not quite so much, it is to be admitted."

"Ahhh, so there it is. My killing is no longer an obsession for her … merely a passing fancy. Now, I call that progress. I am certain if you scanned the thoughts of my first officer here, you will find much the same."

A few more laughs. Kilos shot him a look.

"Perhaps she's infatuated with you. Perhaps she fancies a handsome face."

Davage slammed his hand down on the table. "Yes, Sister—now I have you! Is infatuation not, oftentimes, the basis of love? And if she can love, then there is good to be had within her. Redemption is possible. The shell is broken, I am telling you!"

Davage turned from the table. "Sisters, my friends, we will be entering standard orbit around Seetac 2 within the hour, and I will be taking her to the surface where she may, under full chaperoning, discharge her Shadow tech, I suggest you ready your Sisterhood to precede us and prepare the venue to your liking. The only other thing to do is abandon the ship and let her explode."

The matter was settled. Davage had nothing more to say. He stood, still facing away from the table. After several minutes he heard the shuffling of chairs and feet. The room cleared.

"You have missed your calling, Captain. You should have been a diplomat," came a lilting, musical voice."

Davage turned. The Grand Abbess had remained. Apparently she didn't need a Marine to speak verbally. She sat at the table, beautiful, smiling.

"No, Great Abbess, I have found my calling. I am a Fleet captain. I have little skill in matters such as these."

"I disagree, Captain. You have done remarkably well. And please, do not be put off by the unpleasant tone of the Sisters—they are tired, astonished by this situation, and they are concerned for you. No one wishes to see you come to harm. You are our Captain too, and we cherish you."

The Grand Abbess smiled. "Captain, please come to me, I wish to look at you."

Davage walked toward her. Smiling, she stood and put her hands on his face.

"My," she said, "you are the image of your father. I can say you are more handsome. Lord Sadric was a … good friend …"

"And what do you think, Abbess? Am I in mortal peril by this course of action?"

"The Sisters' assessment of the Black Hat's thoughts is correct, Captain. She has been planning to kill you—has thought of little else. However, as you pointed out, she has not been thinking of it so much as of late. She seems to be genuinely fascinated with you, Captain, and why not? You are, most probably, the only person who has ever willingly approached her, the only person who has ever looked her square in the eye, and the only person who has ever faced her and not been afraid. It must be bewildering for her, you can imagine. And perhaps the only thing she knows how to do at present is plot murder. But she saw your eyes today, glowing with that wonderful Sight you inherited from your father, and I think she thought they were beautiful—the most beautiful things she has ever seen, and she has not thought of killing you since. And that is cause for rejoicing—a Xaphan Black Hat who is reconsidering killing a prime target like a Fleet captain."

"I was looking for a second thought."

"I cannot go that far in assessing her thoughts as of yet. However, look what you have achieved to date: you have survived several encounters with a Black Hat, you have challenged her, engaged her in debate, provoked her thoughts—you've even brought a smile to her face, and a laugh too. You were kind at the right times, and you were stern at the right times as well. And when lost in the depths of her anguish and despair, look what she did. She cried out for you, and you did not fail her—you saved her life in a number of ways today. I allowed her that little bit of telepathy. A cry for help should not be punished with death."

The Grand Abbess began walking toward the door.

"We of the Sisterhood are powerful, wise … yet we could not have done what you have accomplished here. If our war with the Xaphans is ever to end, it is for someone else, someone like you, to pave the way for it. We are too close to the matter. It is in your power, Captain, to save her, though, as you already know, the process will be dangerous. Be assured that we will do all we can to protect you, and I will pray for you—and I will pray for her as well. I will pray that she remembers your light even when the darkness around her seems to have no end, and I will pray that you find what you are looking for."

The Abbess turned and walked away.

Davage called to her, pleading. "What am I looking for, Abbess? Tell me, please."

Before she got to the door, she turned one more time. "Your father would be most proud of you. I believe in you, Captain. You will know."

12

"Now, let's go over this one more time, please."

Davage stood in Sygillis's quarters. He was thunderstruck. The change that had come over her since her fit of hysteria was remarkable to say the least.

Sygillis stood in front of a mirror. It was broken; she had broken it hours earlier.

She was dressed in a black Hospitaler Chancellor's bodysuit with a blue traveling shawl over the top of it. Davage had borrowed the outfit from Ennez—he didn't ask why he had such a thing, a lady's outfit, in his wardrobe. He didn't think it prudent.

Davage noted, with some irritation, that she was fixing her hair in the mirror.

"Lady Sygillis, I need you to focus. Please let us go over the procedures for this shore mission one more time."

Sygillis turned to him and smiled. Not the ugly, malicious smile as before, but a bright, happy smile.

"You needn't preface my name with a title, Captain. I am not royalty, and we don't bother with such silly things. You may call me Sygillis, simply Sygillis. I believe I enjoy hearing you say my name."

How can this be
? Davage thought.
Ladies have titles—how could they not?
Kilos had no title other than her rank, but she was a Brown and therefore without title and was thankful for it. Marilith was a Xaphan and had a title, though she was of a royal House. But since Sygillis was a Black Hat, he thought it best to comply, however reluctantly, with her wishes.