Local Custom (38 page)

Er Thom drew a careful breath. "The schedule—"

"I see I have failed of making myself plain." He swirled what was left of his wine and glanced up, black eyes glinting.

"This ship goes nowhere until I leave it. And I shall not leave it without yourself and your son in my company." He raised his glass and finished the last of the wine.

"There is an important package due from Korval," he said, somewhat more gently. "The ship is being held for its arrival. It will make rather a hash out of traffic, of course, but that's the port master's problem, not mine." He put the glass aside.

"When I leave the ship, the package will be delivered and
Chelda
may be on its way." He moved his hand as if he cast dice. "It is now your throw, brother. How long shall we hang in orbit?"

There was a long silence.

"Anne and I are—tied together," Er Thom said eventually, and in, his brother heard with relief, the Low Tongue. "Understand me. I heard her call—from across the Port. I followed her thought to a place—" He moved his shoulders. "There is a dead man named Fil Tor Kinrae in the back room of a warehouse in Mid-Port."

"How delightful. Your work?"

"Anne's. In rescue of our son." He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair. "The Healer has been to both."

"Very good. I hesitate to mention that Master Healer Kestra awaits you at Trealla Fantrol."

Er Thom stiffened. "Anne and I are tied. I had just told you."

"My dreadful memory," Daav murmured. "I do however seem to recall that the lady swore she would have none of you. This leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that any—bonding—that exists is on your side alone."

Er Thom bowed with exquisite irony. "As you will. One-sided or not, it exists. I go with Anne, since choice is necessary. I cannot do otherwise."

"Ah, can you not?" Daav frowned; turned his head.

The door to the bedroom slid open and Anne came into the room. She advanced to Er Thom's side and looked down, her face tranquil, as the faces of those newly Healed tended to be. Daav inclined his head.

"Good-day, Anne."

"Daav," she returned gravely. "Have you come to take Shan away?"

"Worse than that," he said, watching her face with all a Scout's care. "I've come to take your son and your lover away."

Something moved in her eyes; he read it as anger.

"Er Thom makes his own choices," she said flatly. "My son comes with me."

"To New Dublin?" Daav asked, keeping his voice gentle, his posture unthreatening. "Anne, your child bodes to be a Healer of some note, if he does not come to halfling as one of dramliz. How shall New Dublin train him to use these abilities? Will you wait until he harms someone through ignorance—or until he begins to go mad—before you send him back to Liad to be taught?" He showed her his empty palms.

"How do I serve my cha'leket by denying his son the training he must have to survive? How does flinging talent into exile serve Korval?" He lowered his hands and gave her a rueful smile.

"For good or ill, Shan is of Korval. We are in Liaden space, subject to the law and customs of Liad. Shan's delm commands him to bide at home. The law will find no different."

She licked her lips. "Terran law—"

Daav inclined his head. "You are free to chart that course. However, for the years such litigation will doubtless encompass, the child bides with Clan Korval, his family of record." He shifted; came to his feet in one fluid move, hand out in a gesture of supplication.

"Anne, hear me. The luck was in it, that you brought your child to Liad. There is nowhere else in the galaxy where his talents are understood so well. I am not your enemy in this, but your friend. Only think and you will see that it is so!"

Her mouth was tight, fine eyes flashing. "You seem to have me over a barrel," she commented. "What do you propose I do, hang on as Clan Korval's guest until my son is come of age?"

Daav tipped his head, watching Er Thom's face out of the side of an eye.

"Why, as to that," he said calmly, "here is my brother says he can do nothing other than stand at your side, whatever ground you choose. He makes a rather compelling case for himself, casting aside his delm's word and escaping from his rooms down a vine. If things were otherwise, I might well give such devotion its just reward. But the devil's in it, you see—I need him. Korval needs him. He comes with me, if I must have him off this ship in chains."

"So the great House of Korval holds hostages, does it?" Anne flashed. "Is this honor?"

"We had been—wishing—to talk," Er Thom said, very softly, from her side. "Perhaps—we might find the proper compromise—on Liad."

Anne spun to look at him, eyes wide.

Er Thom met her gaze. "Is the intent of the trade to keep we three together?" he asked. "Or is it to keep us forever at—at—"

"Loggerheads," she supplied, almost absently. "You would burden yourself with a Terran on Liad?" There was a note of wistfulness beneath the disbelief. Daav relaxed, carefully. Er Thom took her hand and smiled up into her eyes.

"You would have burdened yourself with a Liaden," he murmured, "on New Dublin."

Daav felt a small hand slip into his and looked down into Shan's bright silver eyes.

"Hi, Daav," that young gentleman said comfortably. He smiled impartially at all three adults. "We go home now?"

"MAY I OFFER YOU more fruit, Master Healer?" Petrella yos'Galan asked from the head of the table, "Cheese?"

"Thank you, my needs have been well provided for." Master Healer Kestra inclined her head.

Thodelm yos'Galan's displeasure with her son was entirely audible to the Healer's inner ears. It was, of course, bad form to broach the subject of emotional turmoil with one who had not specifically requested aid, and Kestra had scrupulously kept to good form. Thus far. She could not help but admit, however, that her sympathies lay on the side of the abruptly absent a'thodelm and the lady his heart would not relinquish.

The shabby little love-knot had been compelling, as had the struggle she had perceived in the room's echoes. Two people who loved each other, each striving for right conduct. More the pity that the two were persons of melant'i and that right conduct shifted like moon shadow, world to world.

"I must offer apology," Petrella yos'Galan said ill-temperedly, "for my son's lack of manner. Of late he has come unruly, to the clan's distress."

"No need of apology," Kestra returned mildly. "Those of Korval are understood to be unruly." She smiled.

"I recall when the delm—Scout Cadet yos'Phelium he was at the time—applied for Healing, after his ship was disabled. Four Healers were required for the task of smoothing the memory—myself and another of Master rank, with two high adepts—and he wished to forget!" She sipped tepid tea and set the cup down with a tiny click.

"For all of that, we did not entirely accomplish our goal. We succeeded in blurring the experience, but he recalls it. I am certain that he does. I believe it to be a distant recollection, devoid of emotion, as if he had read of the incident in a book. But I am entirely certain he could tap the memory in all its horror, did he become convinced of necessity."

Her host said nothing to this and after a moment the Healer continued, in not so
very
good form:

"It has perhaps—forgive me!—escaped notice that your son's love for this lady and their child goes very deep."

"So?" Petrella said harshly. "We have all lost that which we loved, Healer. It is the nature of the game."

"True," Kestra allowed. "But it is not the purpose of the game."

"Enlighten me," the thodelm requested, with acid courtesy, "is it myself you have been requested to Heal?"

Kestra inclined her head. "Ma'am, it is not. You must forgive me and lay fault with my years. I find that old women are often impertinent."

"Not to say incorrigible," Petrella remarked, and Kestra smiled, feeling the tingle of the other's amusement.

"I had told Korval I should await his return," Kestra said. "If it does not inconvenience the House—"

But she got no further. There was a subdued clatter in the hallway, the door to the dining room swung open and Delm Korval entered with his long, silent stride, accompanied by a very tall lady and a fair-haired man carrying a child. The Healer came to her feet, inner eyes a-dazzle.

Fumbling like a novice, she Sorted the images. Thodelm yos'Galan she could now ignore; likewise Korval's vivid emotive pattern. The others . . . 

The strongest was a dazzle of tumbling color and untamed light—rather as if one had fallen head-first into a kaleidoscope. With difficulty, the Healer traced the tumbling images to their source, bringing the pattern to overlay what was perceived by the outer eyes—gasped and automatically damped her own output.

"I am—honored—to meet Shan yos'Galan," she said, perhaps to the room at large. "I would welcome—indeed, require!—opportunity to spend more time with him. But if my primary concern is to be A'thodelm yos'Galan, I must ask that the child be removed. He is—enormously bright."

Korval was already at the wall-mounted intercom. A'thodelm yos'Galan also moved, leaving the tall lady standing alone near the door.

"Mother," he said, going gracefully to one knee by Petrella yos'Galan's chair. "I bring your grandson, Shan, to meet you."

The old lady's pattern, seen dimly through the rioting light show that was the child, registered yearning, even affection. However, the face she showed the one who knelt before her was bitterly hard. She did not so much as lift her eyes to the child.

"Sad sparkles," the child said suddenly and wriggled in the a'thodelm's grasp. Set upon his feet, he reached out and took one of Petrella's withered hands in his.

"Hi," he said in Terran, and then, in Low Liaden, "Tra'sia volecta, thawlana."

"Grandmother, is it?" Petrella glared into the small face, then sighed, suddenly and sharply. "Good-day to you as well, child. Go with your nurse now, before you blind the Healer."

"Come along, Shan-son," the a'thodelm said softly. He took the child's hand and led him to the nurse hovering at the door.

"Mrs. Intassi," Shan cried, flinging himself against her, "we went to the Port!"

"Well, what an adventure, to be sure!" Mrs. Intassi returned and led him out, carefully closing the door behind her.

Master Healer Kestra let out a sigh of heartfelt relief, ran an exercise to calm her jangled nerves, and trained her inner sight on the a'thodelm.

It was a pleasing pattern: Sharp-edged and cunning; subtly humorous, with a deep, well-guarded core of passion. The Master Healer nearly sighed again: Here was one who loved deeply—or not at all. There were signs of stress on the overlay, which was expectable, and a tenuous, almost airy construct that—

The Healer frowned, focusing on that anomaly. There, yes, feeding straight to that core place where he kept himself so aloof. And it fed from—where?

Laboriously, she traced the airy little bridge—and encountered another pattern entirely.

This one was also orderly, well-shaped and passionate, overlain with the fragile skin of a recent Healing. The humor was broader, the heart-web less guarded, more expansive. The Healer lost the bridge in a twisting interjoin of passion and affection.

"Oh." Master Healer Kestra opened her outer eyes, seeking Korval's sparkling black gaze. "They're lifemates."

 
There are those Scouts—and other misinformed persons—who urge that the Book of Clans be expanded to include certain non-Liaden persons.

I say to the Council now, the day the Book of Clans includes a Terran among its pages is the day Liad begins to fall!

—Excerpted from remarks made before the
Council of Clans by the chairperson of the
Coalition to Abolish the Liaden Scouts

"I BEG YOUR PARDON," Petrella said acidly, "they are certainly not lifemates."

The Master Healer turned to her. "Indeed they are," she said, striving for gentleness. "It is very nearly a textbook case—a shade tenuous, perhaps, but beyond mistake."

Petrella turned her head and glared at the tall a'thodelm and his taller lady, standing side-by-side at the door.

"I forbid it," she said, the Command mode crackling minor lightnings.

Kestra saw the flicker in the a'thodelm's pattern and acted to prevent a response which could only pain all.

"Forgive me," she said firmly to Petrella. "It is plain you have failed of grasping the fullness of the situation. I am not speaking of pleasant signatures on a contract and a formal announcement in
The Gazette
. I speak of a verifiable, physical
fact
which is not in any way subject to your commands."

"Lifemates?" Petrella flung back with pain-wracked scorn. "Which of them is a wizard, pray?"

"Well, now, the gaffer, he was a water-witch," the tall lady said in a peculiar, lilting voice, a glimmer of half-wild humor lighting her pattern.

The Healer frowned after the sense of the words, feeling a similarity to Terran, but unable to quite—

"A water-witch," Korval murmured in Adult-to-Adult, "is one who has the ability to locate water below ground without use of instrumentation." He flicked a glance at the Terran lady. "Correct?"

She moved her head up and down—Terran affirmative. "He found other things, too," she said in accented, though clear, Liaden. "Lost sheep. Jewelry, once or twice. A missing child. But mostly he stuck to water." She shrugged. "If you listen to the talk on New Dublin, all the ancestors were—
fey
, we say. It adds color to the family tree."

"You are yourself a wizard, then?" Petrella's voice was sharp.

The Terran lady shook her head. "No, a language professor."

"You know when the child wakes," the a'thodelm murmured from her side. "You know when I am troubled. I heard you calling me, from many miles away, and followed your voice."

"And yet neither are of the dramliz," the Master Healer said, firmly. "I recall when the a'thodelm was tested at Healer Hall as a child. We tested twice, for, after all, he
is
of Korval." She moved her shoulders and caught Korval's attentive eye.