The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 35

"You want your Gyrgon body back. Gul Aluf told me she could do it."

"Much as I appreciate what you have done for me, my son, you know as well as I that in this form my abilities are severely limited."

"I cannot believe this is happening, not to you."

"It is live or die now for all of us. You must understand this."

Sahor did, better even than Nith Einon. He knew the stakes as well as any of them, but he was aware of perils unknown to them, pitfalls he dared not tell them. And then there was his own research concerning the Centophennni, the indications of which he could surely tell no one.

"All I am saying is there must be an alternative to what Gul Aluf is proposing. These children are innocents. They do not deserve the misery and death to which she has consigned them."

"That is the point," Nith Einon said. "If you take over the program, if you do to them what you have done to yourself, then they will be spared."

"Spared? Listen to yourself, Father. They won't be spared at all. They will become our first line ofdefense against the Centophennni. They will be goron-cannon fodder, the first to fall when the Centophennni find us."

"Or they will perform as we expect them to perform," Nith Einon said. "They will defeat the Centophennni and become heroes."

"Is that what you think?" Sahor snorted. "Since when does the V'ornn Modality treat hybrids with anything other than contempt? Besides, if they do defeat the Centophennni, our own Khagggun will see them as a threat. And if they fear them, they will destroy them." He shook his head. "Either way they will be doomed."

"Is this your last word?" Nith Einon said. "Because if it is, then surely we are all doomed."

"You forget Nith Batox.x.x's experiments with the goron-wave chamber."

Nith Einon ruffled his feathers. "That ended like all other experiments with the goron particle. It never worked."

"Are you certain? Nith Batox.x.x had a great advantage over all of us. He was possessed by the Kundalan archdaemon Pyphoros."

"We are talking gorons, Sahor. Of what possible use is a Kundalan creature?"

"It was the archdaemon that drove Nith Batox.x.x to continue with the goron-wave chamber long after the real Nith Batox.x.x would have given up in disgust. Why? Because the archdaemon knew something about gorons we do not."

Now it was Nith Einon's turn to snort. "This is pure speculation on your part, and wild it is, too."

"Possibly," Sahor said. "I would need to explore the chamber myself in order to find out."

"Nith Batox.x.x's lab-orb had been put under Prime Restriction. Nith Na.s.sam and Nith Immmon have control of it."

"Then let me talk with Nith Immmon."

The Teyj sighed. "I know what he will say. Go with Gul Aluf. Let her give you a tour of her lab-orb.

See her methodology, show some sign of reconsidering your position."

"Father, I will not-"

"If you want him to grant you permission to explore the goron-wave chamber, then you must. There is no other way."

It was difficult to pinpoint the precise moment when Teww Dacce knew something was amiss. It was true that he was born with good instincts, but Iin Mennus, having had the skill to sniff out this a.s.set, had honed the trait to razor-raptor sharpness. Like a razor-raptor, Dacce had a habit of using the tip of his tongue to taste the air, to find hidden within its insubstantiality the warp and weft of intent.

It was not that he found Leyytey's news unbelievable, though typical of him the first thing he had done was research not only the SaTrryn but the winds of incipient war fanning the Five Tribes of the Korrush.

Not that he cared a whit for the tribes or for the great northern steppe. He had the typical V'ornnish disdain for arid bits of land-and all of the sea-that had no intrinsic value. To his way of thinking a war between the tribes would not be a bad thing (the more Kundalan dead the better!), but he could clearly see how it would be a disaster for the SaTrryn, who derived almost all their revenue from trading with the Rasan Sul.

In his meticulous fashion he followed the skein of Leyytey's story backward until he arrived at the inescapable conclusion that it was the absolute truth. And yet, the tip of his tongue, tasting the air when he and Leyytey were together, warned him of a fulminating intent. Possibly it was how easily he could now have what he wanted most. While he was not as paranoid as many of his caste, he was innately suspicious of all things that came too easily. Time and again, battlefield victories turned into clever enemy traps. It was astonishing, really, the rate at which these ruses were perpetrated.

The coins accruing immediately to Leyytey were real enough-he had asked to see the first installment from the SaTrryn that sealed her new fealty, that would make her comfortable, as she told him, with the reality of having for the foreseeable future only one client. This, too, made perfect sense. If he were in herplace, he would have demanded just such a gesture. And now all he had to do was to return to her and her newfound riches would be his. He could become First-Captain Kwenn's partner in his fabled Bashkir deal. Kwenn said they could triple their coinage!

Perhaps it was too small a step to take for such largesse. Or then again perhaps she was just a touch too eager. Eager to trap him into the kind of life that would destroy him. He had no doubt that she loved him. He also could not help feeling that it was toxic. Despite her proficiency at weapons design and manufacture, she was a particularly sensitive Tuskugggun. Not that he pretended to understand Tusku-gggun. Not that he had a desire to. Who would? Still, had he known this about her when they met, he would have made polite talk for an evening and walked away. Possibly, he should have done, but the thought of mating with Fleet-Admiral Pnin's only daughter was simply too alluring. He had had such plans then, his cojoining with Leyytey appearing to be his ticket to higher rank, privileges available only to the elite. Typical of his luck, that, too, had come to nothing. And now here he was stuck on the coattails of an irascible and ungrateful Kha-gggun who had become the new Star-Admiral through nothing more mysterious than the sheer force of his belligerence and vindictive nature.

Lying beside her at night, Dacce was possessed by feverish shivers that caused her to weave her arms around him like a web until he thought he might go mad from lack of breath. His l.u.s.t for her coins, for the entree it would provide him into a world of riches, was like an ague he had contracted hunting claiwen in the Great Phosphorus Marsh. But the more he ached, the more he hated her; the more he hated her, the more suspicious of her he became until he saw in every gesture, heard in every word she uttered, a plot against him. Her love for him gave his suspicions added credence, for without understanding its origin he perceived it as the most profound threat to his well-being. The more he was drawn to what she had, the more time he spent with her, the more real the threat became.

Again without understanding its origin-or caring, for the matter of that-he commenced to abuse her. Her strange acquiescence enraged him further, causing him to abuse her more deeply, possibly only to get her to react, to fight back, to engage him, to join him in the bitter struggle against himself he was waging in lonely and debilitating isolation.

And out of spite or self-abas.e.m.e.nt or whatever complex emotion now drove him, he would not touch a coin of her newfound wealth. Not one.

Kurgan was lifted gently out of sleep, out of dreams, out of despair, and deposited into the flesh and blood of full consciousness. He lay for a moment, staring up at the low, barrel ceiling, seeing nothing but Eleana's face. He had been talking to her and she to him. She had spoken as no other female, V'ornn or Kundalan, had ever spoken to him. It was stirring, it was significant, but he could not remember a single word of what she had said. The dream had brought him so close to understanding himself, and now nothing remained. Even the feeling that had embraced him was fading like the fugitive taste of a delicious fruit.

"Kurgan Stogggul."

The voice was familiar, and he turned his head, his gaze skimming across the collection of miniature oiled sh.e.l.ls, the globule of seawater housing several exotic species of mollusk, the lovingly preserved rip-shark, its sandpaper hide an iridescent orange-red. Kelyx swam into his field of vision.

"You are aboard the Omaline, in our cabin," the ship's surgeon said. "Do you know what happened to you?"

"No," Kurgan lied. Strange to say, the pain in his leg seemed to be clearing his head. "I was bitten."

Kelyx was peering at the bandage with which he had dressed Kurgan's ankle. "Indeed you were."

"By some rabid six-legged mammal."

"A fair-sized one, too, judging by the size of the bite marks." Kelyx had unwound the bandage, and he grunted. "If we didn't know better, we'd say it was a Rappa. But so far as we know Rappa are extinct and have been for nearly a century." He applied a soothing ointment that stank of phosphorus and unprocessed seaweed. "In any event, we have treated you for the toxin we found in your system." Hesmiled. "Even for a V'ornn, you have an extraordinary capacity for somatic regeneration."

Kurgan sat up, but as he swung his legs over the side of the berth he was overcome by a bout of vertigo.

"You heal quickly, but not that quickly."

Kelyx helped him to lie down again, then he sat down by the side of the berth, took out a laaga stick, and lighted it. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, almost indolently, the familiar sweet smell curling upward with the bluish smoke to wreathe the bronze lamp that hung from the barrel ceiling.

There was something odd about that lamp, Kurgan thought.

"How are you feeling?" Kelyx asked.

Kurgan stared at the lamp, a Sarakkon lamp, to be sure, incised with the same curious runes that ran down their cheeks and arms. What was wrong with it? He concentrated.

"Are you thirsty, hungry?"

Kurgan blinked. "I am not on the Omaline," he said thickly. "I am not on any ship."

Kelyx took another deep drag of the laaga stick. "We told you he would work it out sooner rather than later," he said, but not to Kurgan.

A shadow stirred, and another Sarakkon appeared in Kurgan's field of vision. He was tall and very slender. His narrow skull was tattooed with a single circle of runes that began on the prominent points of his cheeks and ended at the nape of his neck. His thick beard was dark and unadorned. His mustache was a knife blade, waxed to fine points.

"This is Lujon." Kelyx rose and without another word left the cabin or whatever it was.

Lujon sat down on the chair and crossed his long legs. He wore a black sharkskin vest and high seaboots of s.h.a.green, dyed crimson. His slender fingers were clad in rings of carved chrysoberyl and coralbright. Hands heavily callused, even for a Sarakkon. Like Kelyx, he produced a laaga stick and lighted it. Instead of putting it between his lips, he handed it to Kurgan.

"You have a taste for it," he said as Kurgan inhaled. "This is high-Arryx-grown, very smooth, very potent."

"Where am I?" Kurgan said. "If you have abducted me-"

"Calmitou, regent. You fell into our lap." He lifted a hand, let it fall slowly to his kneecap. His gestures were as fluid as they were economical. "Rest a.s.sured we have no untoward designs on you." He stood, opened a door that had not previously been in Kurgan's field of vision. "You may leave now if you wish." He watched Kurgan lying on the berth, laaga smoke leaking from between his half-parted lips. In a moment, he closed the door and sat down again, crossing his legs into the precise position they had been in before.

"Are you the new captain of the Omaline?"

The corners of Lujon's lips curled up into his beard. "Courion's ship belongs to his family. The next captain will be of the Oronel line."

"Then who are you?"

Lujon sat somewhat forward, inclining his torso toward the berth in the way a Khagggun aims an ion cannon. "Courion had business with Nith Batox.x.x. You were close with that Gyrgon. These facts are known."

Out of nowhere the scent of bargaining mingled with the smell of laaga, and Kurgan smiled inwardly.

Providentially, he had been returned to familiar ground, one where he reigned supreme.

"Nith Batox.x.x trained me from an early age," he said.

Lujon raised one eyebrow. "Is that so? Toward what end?"

"He told me that he saw something in me. Something extraordinary. He had great plans."

"Then it is a shame that he is dead."

Kurgan, who had been taking the temperature of the conversation, made a decision. "Not really. Nith Batox.x.x murdered Courion. For that, I killed him."

"You killed a Gyrgon? Really?" Lujon sat back. His hands were hanging loosely over the promontory of his knees, very still. "The pupil rose up and destroyed the master, is that how it was?"

Kurgan was about to continue the fabrication, but some inner antenna sounded a warning. ThisSarakkon knew more than he was letting on. If this was a test, if he knew Kurgan was lying, that would be the end. Looking into Lujon's eyes, Kurgan knew it with a certainty that was absolute. There was an inner calm, a stillness Nith Batox.x.x in his guise as the Old V'ornn had trained him to recognize. And all at once, Kurgan was privy to the danger to which he was now exposed.

"No," he said. "Not really."

"How did Nith Batox.x.x die?"

Kurgan knew that the truth and only the truth would keep the interview going. "The Gyrgon was possessed by Pyphoros, the archdae-mon of daemons. He was destroyed in the ruins of Za Hara-at."

"You were there." It was not a question.

"Yes."

Lujon sat very straight; he was still without holding himself in. He simply was. "Tell us why Courion died."

"That I do not know," Kurgan said truthfully. "Nith Batox.x.x lured him to his lab-orb in the Temple of Mnemonics and killed him."

He hated divulging privileged information, especially to a Sarakkon, but he did not see an alternative.

Besides, as Nith Batox.x.x had taught him, sometimes you had to give up something valuable to get something even more valuable in return.

"There is more to Courion's death," Lujon said flatly.

Kurgan thought he smelled the beginning of a conspiracy, a subversion of the status quo, and it interested him, for subversives, by definition, had secrets to hide. That made them both valuable and vulnerable.

"What was the nature of the Gyrgon's experiments?"

"Nith Batox.x.x has a chamber in his lab-orb," he said. "In it, he was attempting to control a goron wave."

Lujon rose and walked about the room. The Sarakkon took up one small sh.e.l.l after another, holding each one at his very fingertips, handling them as if they were as ephemeral as mist.

"You would not believe it to look at them, but some of these come from near the ocean floor," Lujon said. "So deep it is like being on another planet. These creatures do not react to light or oxygen or pressure the way you and we do. It is difficult to know them no matter how long one studies them. Their habitat is too remote, too inhospitable, too alien." He turned, with a striped sh.e.l.l in his hand, looked at Kurgan. "He failed, did he not?"

Kurgan felt strong enough to attempt to sit up again. He hoped it wasn't an illusion created by the laaga. If he was startled that the Sarakkon was aware of the goron particle, he was not about to show it.

"We Sarakkon deal in radioactives. We have great expertise in these substances. This is why your Gyrgon decided to spare us, why you have not occupied the southern continent. Radioactive substances on Kun-dala are different, they are mysterious, they have a sorcerous component that confounds your pure science. And no particle is more powerful, more imbued with magic, than the goron. So much so that it is a mystery even to us."

Kurgan discovered that his leg felt immensely better. The systemic weakness, obviously caused by the toxin, had, thanks to Kelyx's medications, all but completely dissipated. Gingerly, he put his feet on the floor and stood up. A wave of dizziness quickly pa.s.sed, leaving him feeling light and clearheaded. A by-product of the laaga?

Lujon said carefully, "Why did Nith Batox.x.x agree to an alliance with Courion?"

"Oqeyya," Kurgan said. Oqeyya was a fungus that was grown in certain areas of the southern continent. It was dried for three weeks at high alt.i.tude, after which it was cured in a mixture of herbs and carna oil before being dried again, washed in seawater, and burned. The green ash that remained had powerful psychotropic attributes. Because of its highly toxic effects to both V'ornn and Kundalan, it was contraband by Gyrgon decree. "Courion had begun a partnership with Nith Batox.x.x. With the Gyrgon's help, they were going to find a way to eliminate oqeyya's toxic side effects, to make it as desirable as salamuuun, to make the salamuuun trade worthless to the Ashera."

"This we had heard, but we have dismissed it absolutely." Lujon put down the striped sh.e.l.l.Kurgan smiled. He loved having more knowledge than his negotiating adversary. "Courion himself told me that Nith Batox.x.x had a.s.sured him that he had found a way to do away with the toxic side effects."

"Courion lied to you. He knew, as do we all, that oqeyya resists compositional a.n.a.lysis. The Gyrgon have already tried and failed. We know that magic is involved, but of course your Gyrgon would resist such a notion."

"Is this magic you could teach me?"

Lujon smiled. "With the right incentive anything is possible, regent." Kurgan thought of something.

"What if Courion was really interested in Nith Batox.x.x's experiments with the goron wave."

"Yes, what if? And what if Courion came too close? That is why he was killed."

We need to know. The urgency of those words were not lost on Kurgan. "Who are you?" he said for the second time.

"Unlike Courion," Lujon said, "we do not trust Gyrgon." "Does that extend to any V'ornn?"

Lujon showed his teeth, large and white with powerful canines. Rending teeth. Carnivore's teeth. "Tell me why it should not?"

"Like you, I have reason to distrust Gyrgon." Kurgan took a last hit of the laaga stick, which he'd smoked to the tips of his fingers. "I wish their power diminished; I wish to undermine their command and control."

"Nothing would please me more," Lujon said with a small smile that could have meant anything. He opened the door.