By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (40 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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Owen had been right as usual, Klea reflected. When the Mage battleship dropped out of hyperspace, a squadron of fighters issued from the docking bay like mud-hornets from the bank of an irrigation ditch. In all the haste and activity, nobody seemed to notice a pair of Adepts in pressure-suits entering through the open doors.
The Adepts in the holovids used to turn themselves invisible all the time
, she thought.
Maybe if I’d believed in it then I wouldn’t be scared now.
The bay was huge, divided with force fields into pressurized sections. It still contained a squadron or more of empty fighter craft awaiting refueling or repair. In the shadow of one such, Owen and Klea shed their p-suits and retrieved their staves from the carrying clips.
“Somebody is going to find the suits,” Klea said. “And when they do, they’ll know they’ve got intruders on board.”
“Someone will find the suits,” agreed Owen. “A pilot who’s too busy planning her next sortie, or a maintenance tech with his hands full of gear, or a trooper who’s more worried about the sergeant than about the enemy. Maybe they’ll report it, or maybe not. If they do report it, it’ll still take a while to go up the chain of command to someone who not only knows enough to look for Adepts, but knows how to find the Adepts he’s looking for. By then we’ll be gone.”
He took his staff in hand and began strolling toward the entrance of the bay. Klea glanced about nervously and followed.
“I still don’t like it,” she said. “Why isn’t anybody pointing their fingers at us and yelling?”
“Because they aren’t looking where we happen to be walking,” Owen said. “Self-effacement is a useful talent; most Adepts come by it naturally. I’m sure you’ve met people yourself from time to time whose gaze you wished to avoid, and who somehow didn’t happen to see you.”
Klea thought back to some of the customers at Freling’s Bar. “Yes,” she said. “Thanks for reminding me. Whatever happens, this is better.”
“I’m glad you still think so. In the meantime, just work on making yourself not-noticed—tell yourself nobody’s going to pick you out when they can have somebody else. It’ll work.”
“But these are Mages—”
“Not exactly. Mageworlders. The first real Mage we run into is going back with us to
Warhammer
.”
“If we can find it,” said Klea.
“Don’t be a pessimist. Finding the ’
Hammer
isn’t going to be a problem. We never got more than one bay over while we were crawling around outside on the hull.”
“What makes you so certain we can find a Mage without getting lost ourselves?”
“A feeling,” said Owen. “A familiar pattern in the currents of the universe. One of the Mages on this ship is someone I have dealt with before.”
They had reached the door of the bay by now, and passed through it into a narrow, white-painted passageway. Not far beyond, the passage came to a four-way branch. Ladders ran up and down from the intersection, leading to what Klea supposed were other decks in the huge battleship. A black-clad figure stepped out from around the left-hand turning: a small, dark-skinned woman who carried a mask in one hand and wore a black-and-silver staff at her belt.
“Hello, Owen,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Llannat Hyfid,” Owen said. “I’ve been hunting for you—though I didn’t know it. I thought I was on the track of a Mage. And it looks like I was right.”
Klea stared at both of them. “You
know
each other?”
“Oh, yes,” Owen said. “This is a woman I’ve met. I even helped to train her.”
“You trained Mages?”
“Apparently so,” Owen replied. Then, without taking his eyes off Llannat, he said, “Look behind you, Klea.”
She turned, and bit back an outcry that would surely have betrayed them. A giant of a man had come up behind her—big as one of the Selvaurs that she’d sometimes met back on Nammerin, with a blaster at the ready in one massive hand.
I’ve had it
, she thought as she brought her staff up into the guard position.
Even if he doesn’t shoot me, he’s big enough to take away my staff and use it for a toothpick if he wants to.
But the big man was putting up the blaster and bowing, as smoothly as a holovid hero. “My apologies, gentlelady. Owen, if I were you I’d speak politely to Mistress Hyfid.”
“Ari,” Owen said. He looked impatient. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’d be well advised to stay away from her. She’s a Magelord now,. or the next thing to it.”
The big man didn’t back down. “She’s also my wife, baby brother, so treat her with respect.”
Klea stared at Owen. “
This
is the brother you talked about back on Nammerin? How many other siblings do you have?”
“Beka and Ari are the only two I’m aware of,” Owen said. “I think you’ll agree they’re more than enough.” He turned back to the dark woman. “Now—sister-in-law—it’s time you told me what you’re doing here.”
The woman shrugged. “We were captured. The Eraasians don’t know what I am, exactly, so they’ve apparently decided to treat me as a Mage until further notice. I’ve got the freedom of the ship, at least until somebody decides to take it away from me, and when I insisted on Ari as part of the deal, nobody squawked.”
“That’s all very well,” said Owen. “The question is, which side are you on these days?”
“I haven’t broken my oath,” she said. “‘ … To seek always the greater good,’ remember? I’m still looking for it. I had a feeling I might find a piece of it down here by the docking bays, and I found you instead. What are
you
doing here?”
Owen laughed quietly, without much humor. “Looking for a Mage, as it happens. Beka’s here, and she needs one.”
“You mean the everlasting apprentice has found a task that he can’t perform?” said Ari. “I won’t allow you to use my wife as your tool, Owen.”
“Why don’t you let your wife tell me what she’ll do or not do?” Owen demanded. “I don’t see a sign that says ‘Keeper’ tacked to your forehead. Llannat—come with us back to
Warhammer
and I’ll tell you what this is all about.”
“Bee brought the ’
Hammer
aboard a Mage warship?” Ari asked. “I knew she was crazy, but I never thought she was that crazy—and I sure didn’t think that the Mages were crazy.”
“We got captured, same as you,” Owen said. “And I don’t think anybody’s going to give me the freedom of the ship if they happen to catch me. Let’s get moving.”
“All right,” said Llannat. She nodded toward one of the passages. “The main bay entrance is back this way. Come on.”
They started off, four together, in the direction she’d indicated. Owen spoke quietly as they walked.
“The first thing you should know is that there’s a replicant aboard
Warhammer
that needs wakening—‘filling,’ the technician says. The technician also says that it takes a Magelord to do that part of the work. So I told her I’d find one.”
The dark woman looked at him doubtfully. “I don’t know how to do anything like that.”
“You have a teacher,” Owen said. “Ask him.”
“Had. My teacher is dead.”
“Dead is such a relative word,” Owen replied. “We know where he is. Klea’s seen him, waiting in the Void. And our mother with him.”
“Don’t say things like that, Owen.” The big man’s voice was gentle, but the warning note in it was unmistakable. “The joke isn’t funny.”
“If there’s a joke here,” said Owen, “it’s on all of us, for thinking her truly gone and despairing accordingly. The man we called the Professor was your teacher, wasn’t he, Llannat? Before he died, he prepared a replicant body for his liege lady Perada. He’s with her now, waiting for a Mage to come and put her life into the empty body.”
Llannat Hyfid made a choking noise that might have been either laughter or disgust. “And you’re calling
me
a Mage! This is—is—what will Master Ransome say when he finds out what you’re planning to do?”
“He has nothing to say,” Owen said. “I am the Master of the Guild now, and my word is final.”
“Fortune save the galaxy,” muttered Ari.
“There is no fortune,” said Owen. “Only what we do for ourselves. And that’s the true cream of the joke—I don’t just need a Mage for the final stage of the replication process, I need a Mage if I’m going to find Mother at all. Because if I’m going to find her, I have to go walking in the Void.”
“I’ve been to the Void,” Llannat said. “I didn’t like it.”
“Neither did I, the little I saw of it,” Owen said. “I’ve only been brought there, never gone there on my own. But the Mages—I’ve seen them go in and out of the Void like starships dropping in and out of hyper, so I know that it can be done.”
“You want me to go back there?”
“Yes. And take me with you.”
Llannat nodded. Her eyes were dark with some emotion that Klea couldn’t identify. “I saw you in the Void once, when I was cast into it by the Mage I fought on Darvell. I saw myself, too, and a stranger with us.” She paused. “I don’t think I have any choice except to help you. If I can.”
The woman put the mask over her face. The black plastic hid any fear or uncertainty she might have been feeling. All Klea could see was the featureless, unmoving surface.
“Yes,” Llannat said. Coming from behind the mask, her voice had all its warm overtones suppressed and distorted, making Klea think suddenly of the Mages she had fought on Nammerin. “Yes. I
can
help you. If I look between the patterns, I can see the way clearly. We go … here.”
On the last word, both she and Owen vanished, leaving Ari and Klea alone in the passageway.
 
GYFFERAN SPACE: RSF
VERATINA
THE VOID
 
A
BOARD THE ’
Hammer
, Nyls Jessan was rummaging in the toys and entertainment drawer in the captain’s cabin. He found what he was seeking—the miniature holoprojector he’d picked up on his first visit to the asteroid base. He dug up the recording of one of his favorite plays and walked out again.
All the fighting and scheming to save the civilized galaxy had come down to looking for a way to pass the time. Somehow, though, playing cards with Ignaceu LeSoit had lost its savor when he’d learned that the former gunfighter was in fact a Mageworlds agent.
“If you’re inviting Mages to our councils we have no hope of success at all.
” Owen Rosselin-Metadi had said that at the conference on Innish-Kyl—but the Adept had been looking the wrong way.
So that’s why LeSoit was so nervous. Afraid someone would find him out.
Jessan walked back through the common room, pointedly ignoring the man who sat at the table shuffling and dealing himself random hands of cards. Instead the Khesatan walked over to the starboard passageway and the hatch leading to number-one cargo bay.
He climbed down the ladder into the echoing hold. The light there was harsh white, casting black shadows as featureless as space itself. The stasis box containing the replicant of Perada Rosselin was griped down against the far bulkhead—the same kind of traveling stasis box that Beka had lain in as the seemingly dead Tarnekep Portree, back on Eraasi in the last moments before the war began.
Doctor syn-Tavaite was there too, sitting on the deck beside the box, her eyes closed. She looked up when Jessan’s feet hit the deckplates.
“What’s going on up above?” she asked.
“Nothing of any importance,” Jessan said. “I grew tired of the card game and decided to watch a play instead. Would you like to join me?”
“If you wish,” syn-Tavaite said.
She didn’t sound too enthusiastic, but neither did she object. Jessan set the holoprojector beside the stasis box, aimed its projection surface into the bay, and flipped it on. He sat down beside syn-Tavaite, leaning back against the side of the box, and watched the other end of the bay vanish, replaced by a brightly lit stage. An actor in an elaborate costume of rich brocade entered from one side and began to speak.
“Please, what is this?” syn-Tavaite asked.
“One of my favorite dramas,” Jessan said. “A classic among my people. I was delighted to find that the Professor—your Masked One, that is—had this recording among his effects.”
“My Galcenian isn’t that good; I don’t understand what they’re saying.”
“They aren’t speaking Galcenian,” Jessan said. “That’s Khesatan. Here …”
He stood and checked the settings on the top of the projector. He found the options key to select language—as he’d suspected, the Professor had been as thorough with that as with everything else. Eraasian was on the list.
Who knows
, Jessan thought.
Maybe the Prof wanted to hear voices speaking in his own tongue once in a while.
He changed the setting and sat back down.
“I know the words by heart,” he said. “You can follow the story now.”
They watched the players come and go for some time. “What is this play called?” syn-Tavaite asked.
“It’s called
By Honor Betray’d,”
Jessan replied. “It’s one of what are called on Khesat the revenge dramas. That man there”—he pointed at an actor in a cloth-of-gold doublet and a waxed and gilded beard—“is the Duke. He doesn’t know that his three sons are planning to kill him and divide his lands among them. Now listen … I don’t know how good the translation is, but in the original the language is magnificent.”
The actors moved about the stage in their finery among the clearly artificial scenes. The director of this production had been a purist, and had chosen to abandon holographic naturalism in favor of historical authenticity of presentation. Then someone walked through one of the painted flats as if it wasn’t there—someone in modern dress.
“Gentlesir LeSoit,” Jessan said. “Was it truly necessary for you to ruin this, too?”
“Save your disapproval for later,” LeSoit said. “We have visitors.”
“Your friends, I suppose.”
“No,” said LeSoit. “Yours.”
The Mage agent gestured at the scenery behind him as two more people walked through the illusory stage play: the apprentice Adept Klea Santreny; and, following close after and looming above the frail-seeming young woman, Ari Rosselin-Metadi.
 
“Nothing in range that looks or acts like a Mage flagship,” reported the comptech at RSF
Veratina
’s main battle tank.
“Plague take it,” said General Metadi. “He has to be out here somewhere. Message traffic analysis?”
“Negative correlation, sir,” the comms tech on the intercept board said. “Random patterns in Mage comms.”
“Probe data coming in,” said the sensor tech. “Energy releases in Gyfferan system space. Signatures consistent with Gyfferan units and Space Force units. Negative Mage correlation.”
“Send to all units,” Metadi said to the TAO. “Break contact. Regroup at point Tango Five One.”
The crew in CIC felt the acceleration of a run-to-jump, then the momentary sense of dislocation as the cruiser underwent hyperspace translation.
“All right,” General Metadi said. “Relax, everyone. Let’s see if we can get some sandwiches passed around. I have to do some thinking.”
Commander Quetaya approached, looking worried. “More trouble, General?”
“I have a sinking feeling,” Metadi said, “that I know what’s going on at Gyffer.” He nodded toward her clipboard. “Bring up the plans which have Admiral Vallant allied with the Mages, acting under their direction, and hitting Gyffer first.”
“You sure expect a lot of me, General.”
“I know you’ll deliver. Now, where are the summaries?”
Another brief wave of dislocation passed through the compartment as the ’
Tina
dropped out of hyper.
“Clean in this area,” the TAO said. A moment later, he added, “Task force is present. Lost two units—
Grenfyl
and
Tarpifex.”
“Lost two aye,” Metadi said. “Log their last known position. We’ll look for survivors later.”
“New data from Gyfferan system,” said a sensor tech. “Signature match on EM pulses. Space Force units currently operating in Gyfferan space belong to Infabede sector.”
“You were right, General,” Rosel said.
“I usually am—except when I’m wrong,” Metadi said. “Now, if Vallant is at Gyffer, where is the Mage commander going to linger?”
Quetaya proffered her clipboard. “Three areas of highest probability are marked, sir.”
Metadi studied the diagrams on her clipboard. “I don’t like any of these. Get me some better ones.”
“Sir?”
“Whoever’s running the Mages is a clever bastard. He knows we’ll be running probability checks. So I want you to find the inverse of the most likely places. I want to look there.”
“Message coming from Gyffer,” said a comms tech. “Citizen-Assembly is requesting aid from anyone capable of rendering it.”
“I’m way ahead of them,” Metadi said. “No one shoots up my home planet without ticking me off a bit.”
“I never thought the LDF would fold this easily,” the TAO said.
“They haven’t folded,” Metadi said sharply. “Remember, they’ve already spent the last two weeks holding off the same fleet that took Galcen and the Net without even breathing hard.”
“Sir,” said the comms tech. “Same frequency as the Gyfferan request for aid: reply from Net Patrol Fleet. Net Patrol is standing by to render assistance.”
“Who’s in command of that fleet?” Quetaya asked, checking ship’s memory as she spoke.
“Depends on what losses they took in the Mage breakthrough,” Metadi said. “Could be anyone by now.”
“Says here the boss used to be a Captain Gil.”
“That’s him. Good man. Bit of a romantic, but he hides it well—and he knows how to keep a cool head in a crisis. I hope whoever’s running the show now is as smart as he was.”
Metadi reached over for a stylus and drew a circle on one of Rosel’s charts. “Given the changing situation, I think we should look for our Mage right about there. TAO, make the signal.”
“Signal to the task force—make course for new coordinates, one-five-three-three-one-niner,” said the TAO.
“Stand by, jump.”
Again the ship entered hyper. The trip wasn’t very long this time. As soon as they dropped out the comptechs began to put up red Mage-ID’ed contacts in the main tank.
“Looks like you were right about people being here,” Quetaya said, “but I don’t see anything that looks like a flagship.”
“Message coming in, Infabede crypto,” the hyperspace comms tech said. “Personal for Captain Faramon.”
“Very well,” Metadi replied. He called the message to the screen by his control seat. “Let’s see …” He inserted Faramon’s personal cipher key. “ … and there it is. ‘From UDC
Fezrisond
To UDC
Veratina
, Personal For Captain Faramon. Make hyper transit of Gyffer, rendezvous with this unit. I intend to transfer my flag to you. Admiral Vallant sends.’”
General Metadi sat back and thought for a moment. “A thing like this requires some kind of response. Let’s see … Faramon’s personal cipher; message follows: ‘From RSF
Veratina
to UDC
Fezrisond
, Personal for Mutineer Vallant. I intend to capture or kill you, whichever is easier. General Metadi sends.’”
“Message sent,” said the hyperspace communications tech.
“Any response?”
“Just a minute,” said the tech, “Hi-comms losing integrity.” She pulled off her headset. “No good, General Metadi, sir. Hi-comms are down hard.”
“Switch to lightspeed comms,” Metadi ordered. “And work off of probabilities. The Mages are about to strike. If they get us with the same trick twice in a row, we deserve to lose.”
The main tank display was showing probability bubbles again, hollow spheres that changed volume and position as the possible location of each contact changed with time.
“Hang on,” said the main tank comptech. “Here’s something. Vessel dropping out of hyper. You were right, sir—it looks like a Mage.”
“Big one, too,” said another comptech. “Check out the emissions on that son of a bitch!”
“He’s in location for the center of a screen,” said the TAO. “Appears to be dropping off fighters. You were hunting for a large, well-protected unit, General? That one fits the bill.”
“Assume that vessel to be the Mage flagship,” Metadi said. “Keep a close watch on it. Constant track, with extrapolation.”
“Messenger arriving, docking bay two. Courier from Colonel Tyche’s recon group.”
“Send him up.”
Shortly afterward, a young infantry trooper came into the CIC. “Message from Colonel Tyche,” he said. “He requests permission to board and capture the large Mage target.”
“Wait,” Metadi said. “I’ll send him a reply shortly.”
“Sir,” Commander Quetaya said. “Since hi-comms are down, I’d like permission to take a shuttle and make contact with the CO of the Net Patrol forces. Inform him of our presence. Point out the Mage flagship and try to coordinate an attack.”
“I need you here,” Metadi said. “You’re the only one of my officers completely familiar with all our plans.”
“That’s why I have to go, sir,” she replied. “Without hi-comms, how else can we coordinate with Net Patrol?”
Metadi sighed. “You have a point, unfortunately. Permission granted to make contact with Net Patrol Fleet in Gyfferan space.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” He turned to the PI trooper. “Message to the colonel: ‘Permission granted to board Mage flagship. Do not, I say again do not, commence operations without positive signal from me to begin.’”
“Yes, sir, understood.”
“Trouble,” said the TAO suddenly. He pointed toward the large Mage unit. The sphere of probability was stretching into an oval spheroid. The bubbles of the screening vessels around the Mage flagship were also elongating and distorting. “Looks like he’s putting on speed. Possible run-to-jump.”

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