Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (48 page)

"Ballad told me once that you shared a teacher," Anthem said from behind him.

Logan turned to look at the fairy knight. "After a fashion. Jocasta – Ballad's teacher – and I both went to Vorus' palaestrum. We all learned lowland boxing. Other styles, too, but lowland is Vorus' specialty."

"Ballad has spoken well of Arctan Vorus."

Anthem stepped around a pile of crates. He was not wearing his armor. In fact, he barely wore anything at all; just a nearly sheer sarong tied around his narrow hips. Logan wiped the back of his bloody hand on his pants. It was impossible not to feel like a dirty peasant in the prince consort's graceful presence. Logan was painfully aware of how much better a match Anthem was for Maeve.

"Really?" the Prian said. "I was under the impression that Arcadians didn't think much of boxers."

"We are not well built for it," Anthem said. He flexed his long white wings. "We lack the physical power of the coreworld species. Ballad, however, seems to make it work."

"It's not all about strength."

Anthem nodded. "It is not," he agreed. "At least, not strength of arms. There is a resilience of spirit and passion that makes Vael Ballad an excellent knight."

"He's a good hawk. What do you want, Anthem?" Logan asked flatly.

Anthem blinked his deep, dark blue eyes slowly and waited a long moment before answering. He held out his hands. They were large and long-fingered for an Arcadian, but much smaller than Logan's mismatched ones.

"I have enemies enough in Kaellisem and in the woman I once loved more than life," Anthem said. "I do not wish you as another. You are a good man. I know what Duke Ferris thinks of you and it is not kind, but I do not share his opinion. You have conducted yourself with honor and a… sort of grace. I would like to be friends–"

Logan's jaw clenched.

"–but if we cannot, then we should at least not be enemies."

"What do you want from me?" Logan asked. "I haven't gotten in your way, Anthem. Not with your knights, not with Maeve. I've kept my distance. Out of respect for her, not you. There's no hawk to hood here. There's nothing that needs to change."

The handsome fairy's brow furrowed. Not deeply. He did not look upset at Logan's words, just… confused. "Things will change," Anthem said. "And when they do, know that my hands are extended in friendship."

Logan looked again at Anthem's outstretched hands. He had made something of a study of Arcadian traditions and this was not one of them. Logan raised an eyebrow at the smaller man. "Just one hand," he said after a moment. "You only shake with one. Two hands looks like you're begging."

Anthem nodded and pulled back his left hand, leaving the right out to Logan. The Prian hunter turned back to the rolls of mats. "Unless you want to try a match against me," he said, not looking at Anthem, "go away. Go take care of Maeve. She's been having a hard time."

"You noticed." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I noticed," Logan said. He punched the makeshift bag. "There are no knights on the Blue Phoenix for you to order around, Anthem. You only have one other job. The queen is hurting. Go to her."

Anthem's shadow did not move for several minutes. Logan kept his back resolutely turned and worked the mat until blood ran down his right arm. Finally, the slender winged shadow retreated and left Logan alone.

"Better dead than grounded."

– Tiberius Myles (232 PA)

Duaal Sinnay stepped up onto the yellow-white sand. Salty seawater streamed from his braids and down his muscular bronze back. He tucked the board up under one arm and jogged up the beach to where his friends waited. They applauded and cheered. When he reached the shade of the collapsible filter, Duaal bowed.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, grinning. Perfect white teeth flashed in his dark face. "Well, don't stop clapping."

"Great curl," Haan congratulated. "It's choppy as hells out there, Du. I can't believe you pulled that off."

Haan gestured out to the aquamarine ocean. Hyzaar's largest moon, Beven, hung low and pale in the sky, outshining even the suns. In just three more days, Beven's orbit would bring it closer than any moon in the Alliance. The seas would become a tidal riot, churned by Beven's gravity into an impassable twist of foaming waves. And then it would be time for the Beven Races, the most dangerous aquatic competition in the galaxy. There would be swimming, boat and board races of all kinds across Hyzaar. The winners would not have to buy their own drinks for the rest of the year and never go to bed alone, except maybe out of sheer exhaustion. But then, Beven winners didn't get tired.

Haan draped a bronzed arm around Duaal's neck. Shaala was on Duaal's other side, fingers already hooked into the waist of his trunks. She kissed his ear, pausing to nibble a little.

"So are you signed up yet?" Haan asked, trailing his finger up Duaal's spine.

"Signed up? For what?" Duaal asked, feigning innocence.

Haan laughed. So did everyone else. "For the races! When are you finally going to enter?"

"Oh," said Duaal dismissively. "Those. You know, I'd forgotten all about them."

He had not, of course. His friends – hells, his parents, too, and all their friends – told Duaal every year that he should enter. He grinned at Haan and Shaala.

"Tell you what," he told them. "Why don't you two show me what victory is going to taste like tonight and I'll sign up in the morning."

Shaala giggled and Haan nodded gravely. "Let's get you back to my place," he said.

He took Duaal's hand and winked. Shaala held Duaal's other hand and waved to their friends as they swiftly retreated up the beach, followed by whistles and 'phin-calls.

Duaal whispered some suggestions to Haan on where they might start and it began before they made it to his apartment. Duaal enjoyed an audience. Haan flushed, sending Shaala off into more gales of laughter. But Haan did exactly as Duaal suggested. They always did. Duaal didn't need to win a single Beven race. Why risk losing when he already had exactly what he wanted?

________

The days passed in tense, worried bursts on the Blue Phoenix. The whole ship was as taut as a guitar string. There were several minor injuries as people moved too fast, incautious and distracted. Xia tended each one with a silver scowl and terse advice. The ship did not escape unscathed, either. Few starships were made for the long flight out to the galaxy's edge and the Phoenix was not one of them. By the end of the second week, Gripper had already run through most of his replacement parts and complained loudly about it at dinner.

Meals were a problem, too. Xia promised that she had properly calculated their daily caloric needs, even factoring in the addition of Anthem. But they were going through their food faster than expected. If they were going to make it back from the Tower, Xia argued, then everyone on the Blue Phoenix needed to cut their daily intake by fifteen percent. No one bothered to point out to her that a return journey might never happen.

Duaal found Maeve pacing in the hold again. As supplies dwindled, there was more and more room in the belly of the Blue Phoenix. At least they had one increasing resource, Duaal reflected sourly. As usual, Anthem Calloren stood nearby, watching the little black-haired queen. She looked a little strange without her crown, Duaal realized. He had gotten rather used to seeing her in it.

Logan and Gripper were in the hold, too, working in the hanging garden planters. The dangling crates of dirt were the Blue Phoenix's only source of fresh produce. Xia must have been lonely, too; she had one of the medical supply boxes open and was counting emergency oxygen canisters and plastic bags of reline inside. The computer inventory was probably up to date, but she dutifully marked everything down on a datadex anyway.

Duaal leaned against the stairs. The old fibersteel creaked. "Have you got a minute?" he asked Maeve.

She paused in her pacing. "What is it?"

"Are you all right? No, never mind. Of course you're not. Nothing's gone at all according to plan. That's sort of what I wanted to come and tell you."

Maeve had started moving again, but now she stopped. Duaal sat down on one of the steps and laced his fingers under his chin. "Something's weighing on me," he admitted. "And I want to apologize. To you, Maeve."

"For how you have treated me since you were a child?" she asked, hands on her hips. She brushed a hand across her eyes. They were red and bloodshot. She glanced at Anthem and sighed. "Forgive me, please. I am tired. You and I have not always had an easy relationship, Duaal, but that was more my fault than yours. I was bitter and broken. That is no fault of yours."

"Not really, no. But I still did my part being a little bitch," Duaal agreed with a smirk. "Sorry. Still, that's not what I wanted to say. This is… a lot more serious."

"What?"

"It's about Prianus," Duaal began. He had been thinking about it for weeks, long before Panna's news, before Maeve's decision to leave Kaellisem. Everyone else in the hold had stopped what they were doing to watch Duaal. He rolled his eyes and raised his voice. "All right, since you're all going to listen anyway, go ahead. I guess everyone deserves to hear it," he announced, then looked at Anthem. "Except maybe you. But you're not leaving Maeve alone, are you?"

"Not now, no."

"I really could have left you on Stray. You have Maeve to thank for this chance to die on the edge of nowhere," he told the knight, who nodded gravely.

Duaal returned his attention to Maeve. "All right. It's about Prianus and what I did there, banishing Xartasia and the Devourers. Hells, I shouldn't even use the word 'banished' at all!" He ran fingers through his hair and then stared down at his hands. They were shaking. "I… I'm saying that it's my fault that Xartasia's still around. If I had just done my job better, this could have been over months ago. I'm sorry, Maeve. I'm so sorry for all of this."

He heard light footsteps and looked up to find Maeve standing in front of him with a strange smile on her face. "This is not your fault, Duaal. You bought us valuable time on Prianus. We would not have survived much longer against the Devourers. They would have swarmed across Prianus. Billions would have died. You did what none of us could."

There were slow nods all around the cargo bay. Duaal frowned at Maeve. "But you've talked about Tamlin. When you closed the Waygate there, all the Devourers vanished from Arcadia, right?"

"Yes," said Maeve. "That is true. Though I still do not know where they went or by what mechanism they were recalled. My only thought then was to stop the flow of monsters into the White Kingdom."

Gripper hung from a support and scratched his chin. "Remember what the Pylos Waygate said? It called for technicians because something had gone wrong."

"The opening spell had been interrupted," Maeve agreed. "It was the same in Tamlin. I did not know the spell as well as I thought and I faltered."

"When you closed it, you probably fixed the problem, as far as the Waygate was concerned. No need for technicians," said Gripper. "So it sent them back."

"But I didn't
close
the Waygate." Duaal laced his fingers together in his lap and sighed. "I used it. Maeve and Xartasia were wrestling for control. I just seized some of the Waygate's power to move them, to send them away. It wasn't the same thing, I guess."

Anthem stared at Duaal. "You seized some of the Waygate's power?" he repeated, clearly stunned. "While another sang the spells? How?"

"Duaal has a more intuitive grasp of magic than we do," Maeve told her consort. She made a looping gesture with her hands. "He knows some of our battlefield charms, but he does not need the songs. He understands the underlying mechanics well enough to use them in ways we cannot. Panna could better explain why. She has an impressive theory about how and why spellsongs work."

"It seems to be correct," Duaal said. "What she taught us makes it possible for me to do the magic I do. But it wasn't enough to truly get rid of Xartasia. Look, I don't apologize much, Maeve. Don't lose sight of this rare chance."

"You saved us all," the Arcadian queen said stubbornly. "What is happening now is Xartasia's fault, not yours."

"How can
you
say that?" Duaal asked. Something inside him ached. "You spent a century blaming yourself for the fall of Arcadia and finding weird ways to kill yourself to make up for it."

"And Titania forgave me for what I had done. As you ask me to do now. But her forgiveness meant nothing, in the end. Not because she is herself a monster, but because the fault was never mine. Some of the responsibility, yes… Most of it, in truth. But not the
fault
. That belongs to the Devourers. They killed my people and destroyed my world."

Duaal considered that. Could Maeve be right? All this wasn't his fault? The idea was appealing, of course, and Duaal's admittedly inflated but often fragile ego seized on the chance to escape blame. But was it true? Maeve had no reason to lie to him. She was right. Duaal and Maeve never had what anyone could call a close relationship. She wasn't looking to do him any favors. So why did Duaal still doubt her?