The Dragon Variation (6 page)

The fear in her eyes grew, he saw her arms tighten about Shan, who put out renewed cries.

Whirling, Anne carried him into the bedroom.

SHE STAYED IN the bedroom
a long time, soothing Shan and convincing him to lie down in his little pull-out bed. She sat by him until he fell asleep, the tears dried to sticky tracks on his cheeks.

When she knew he was sleeping deeply, she rose and pulled the tangled blankets straight on her own bed. She strained her ears for a sound—any sound—from the next room. The apartment was filled with silence.

Go away!
she thought fiercely and almost at once:
Don't go!
She shook her head. He would go, of course; it was the nature of things. They would resolve this misunderstanding; she would change her son's surname and he would be easy again. They would be friends. But sooner or later Er Thom would go, back to his round of worlds and trade-routes. She would take up again the rhythm of her hectic life . . .

There was no sound from the living room. Had he gone already? If he was still here, why hadn't he come to find her?

She glanced at the pull-out, stepped over to make sure the bed-bars were secure, then she took a deep breath and went into the living room.

He was sitting on the edge of the sofa, hands folded on his lap, bright head bent. At her approach he stood and came forward, eyes on her face.

"Anne? I ask pardon. It was not my intent to—to cause you pain. My temper is—not good. And it was a shock, I did not see . . . Of course you would not know that there are not so many yos'Galans; that a message sent to me by name, to Liad or to
Dutiful Passage,
would reach me. I am at fault. It had not occurred to me to leave you my beamcode . . ."
And who leaves such
, he asked himself,
for one who has taken
nubiath'a
?

She tried a small smile; it felt odd on her face. "Maybe this time you can leave me the code, then. I'll contact you, if something—important—happens. All right?"

"No." He took her lifeless fingers in his, tried to massage warmth into them. "Anne, it cannot continue so—"

She snatched her hand away. "Because he's named yos'Galan? I'll change that—I've said I would! You have no right—Er Thom—" She raised her hand to her throat, fingers seeking the comfort that no longer hung there; she felt tears rising.

"Er Thom, don't you have somewhere else you need to be? You came here for a purpose, didn't you? Business?" Her voice was sharp and he nearly flinched. Instead, he reached up and took her face between his hands.

"I came to see you," he said, speaking very slowly, as clearly and as plainly as he knew how, so there could be no possible misunderstanding. "I came with no other purpose than to speak with you." Tears spilled over, soaking his fingertips, startling them both.

"Anne? Anne, no, only listen—"

She pulled away, dashing at her eyes.

"Er Thom, please go away."

He froze, staring at her. Would she send him away with all that lay, unresolved, between them? It was her right, certainly. He was none of her kin, to demand she open her door to him. But the child was named yos'Galan.

Anne wiped at her face, shook her head, mouth wobbling.

"Please, Er Thom. You're—my dear, we're still friends. But I don't think I
can
listen now. I'm—I need to be by myself for a little while . . ."

Reprieve. He licked his lips.

"I may come again? When?"

The tears wouldn't stop. They seemed to come from a hole in her chest that went on and on, forever. "When? I don't—this evening. After dinner."
What was she saying?
"Er Thom . . ."

"Yes." He moved, spinning away from her, plucking his jacket from the back of the easy chair and letting himself out the door.

For perhaps an entire minute, Anne stared at the place where he had been. Then the full force of her grief caught her and she bent double, sobbing.

Any slight—no matter how small—requires balancing, lest the value of one's
melant'i
be lessened
Balance is an important, and intricate, part of Liaden culture, with the severity of rebuttal figured individually by each debt-partner, in accordance with his or her own melant'i. For instance, one Liaden might balance an insult by demanding you surrender your dessert to him at a society dinner, whereas another individual might calculate balance of that same insult to require a death.
Balance-death is, admittedly, rare. But it is best always to speak softly, bow low and never give a Liaden cause to think he has been slighted.

—From
A Terran's Guide to Liad
 

IT WAS A CRISP
, bright day of the kind that doubtless delighted the resident population. Er Thom shivered violently as he hit Quad S and belatedly dragged on his jacket, sealing the front and jerking the collar up.

Jamming his hands into the fur-lined pockets, he strode off, heedless both of his direction and the stares of those he passed, and only paused in his headlong flight when he found water barring his path.

He stopped and blinked over the glittering expanse before him, trying to steady his disordered thoughts.

The child's name was yos'Galan.

He shivered again, though he had walked far enough and hard enough for the exercise to warm him.

His
melant'i
was imperiled—though that hardly concerned him, so much had he already worked toward its ruination—and the
melant'i
of Clan Korval, as well. A yos'Galan born and the clan unaware? Korval was High House and known to be eccentric—society wags spoke of 'the Dragon's directive' and 'Korval madness'—but even so strong and varied a
melant'i
could scarcely hope to come away from such a debacle untainted.

Er Thom closed his eyes against the lake's liquid luster. Why? Why had she done this thing? What had he done that demanded such an answer from her? So stringent a Balancing argued an insult of such magnitude he
must
have been aware of his transgression—and he recalled nothing.

Abruptly he laughed. Whatever the cause, only see the beauty of the Balance! A yos'Galan, born and raised as Terran, growing to adulthood, building what
melant'i
he might, clan and line alike all in ignorance . . . If Er Thom yos'Galan had been a stronger man, one who knew enough of duty to embrace forgetfulness without once more seeking out the cause of his heart-illness . . . It was, in truth, an artwork of Balance.

But what coin of his had purchased it? If Anne had felt herself slighted, if he had belittled her or failed someway of giving her full honor—

"Hold." He opened his eyes, staring sightlessly across the lake.

"Anne is
Terran
," he told himself, as revelation began to dawn.

There were some who argued that Terrans possessed neither
melant'i
nor honor. It was a view largely popular with those who had never been beyond Liad or Liad's Outworlds. Traders and Scouts tended to espouse a less popular philosophy, based on actual observation.

He himself had traded with persons unLiaden. As with Liadens, there were those who were honorable and those who were, regrettably, otherwise. Local custom often dictated a system strange to Liaden thought, though, once grasped, it was seen to be honor, and consistent with what one knew to be right conduct.

Daav went further, arguing that
melant'i
existed independent of a person's consciousness, and might be deduced from careful observation. It was then the burden of a person of conscious
melant'i
to give all proper respect to the unawakened consciousness and guard its sleeping potential.

Er Thom had thought his brother's view extreme. Until he had met Anne Davis.

He knew Anne to be a person of honor. He had observed her
melant'i
first-hand and at length and he would place it, in its very different strengths, equal to his own. She was not one to start a debt-war from spite, nor to take extreme Balance as bolster for an unsteady sense of self.

Is it possible,
he asked himself, slowly,
that Anne named the boy so to honor me?

The lake dazzled his eyes as the paving stones seemed to move under his feet. He grappled with the notion, trying to accommodate the alien shape, and he grit his teeth against a desire to cry out that
no one
might reasonably think such a thing.

Facts: Anne was an honorable person. There had been nothing requiring Balance between them. The child's name was yos'Galan. Therefore, Anne had meant honor—or at the least no harm—to him by her actions.

He drew a deep breath of chill air, almost giddy with relief, that there was no balancing here that he must answer; that he need not bring harm to her whom he wished only to cherish and protect.

There remained only to decide what must properly be done about the child.

IT WAS MID AFTERNOON
. Shan had eaten a hearty dinner, resisted any suggestion of sleep and fell easy prey to
Mix-n-Match
.

Anne shook her head. She'd had to upgrade the set three times already; Shan learned the simple patterns effortlessly, it seemed. He needed a tutor—more time than she could give him, to help him learn at his own rate, to be sure that he received balanced instruction, that he didn't grow bored . . .

"A tutor," she jeered to herself, not for the first time. "Sure, Annie Davis, an' where will ye be getting the means for that madness?"

It was a measure of her uneasiness that she sought comfort in the dialect of her childhood. She shook her head again and went over to the desk, resolutely switching on the terminal. "Get some work done," she told herself firmly.

But her mind would not stay on her work and after half-an-hour's fruitless searching through tangential lines, she canceled the rest of her time and went over to the omnichora.

She pulled the dust cover off and folded it carefully onto the easy chair, sat on the bench, flipped stops, set timings, tone, balance, and began, very softly, to play.

Er Thom was not coming back. Intellectually, she knew that this was so: The abruptness of his departure this morning told its own tale. It was no use trying to decide if this were a good thing or a bad one. She had been trying to resolve that precise point all morning and had failed utterly.

Her hands skittered on the keys, sowing discord. Irritably, Anne raised her hand and re-adjusted the timing, but she did not take up her playing. Instead, she sat and stared down at the worn plastic keys, fighting the terror that threatened to overwhelm her.

It cannot continue so
, he insisted in memory and Anne bit her lip in the present. Er Thom was an honorable man. He had his
melant'i
—his status—to consider. Anne had, all unwitting, threatened that
melant'i
—and Er Thom did not think a mere change of Shan's surname would retire the threat.

Liaden literature was her passion. She had read the stories of Shan el'Thrasin compulsively, addictively, searching back along esoteric research lines for the oldest versions, sending for recordings of the famous Liaden
prena'ma
—the tellers of tales. She knew what happened to those foolish enough to threaten a Liaden's
melant'i
.

They were plunged into honor-feud, to their impoverishment, often enough. Sometimes, to their death.

It didn't matter that she loved Er Thom yos'Galan, or what his feelings might otherwise be for her. She had put his status at risk. The threat she posed must be nullified, her audacity answered, and his
melant'i
absolutely reestablished, no matter what hurt he must give her in the process.

He might even be sorry to hurt her, and grieve truly for her misfortune, as Shan el'Thrasin had grieved truly for his beloved Lyada ro'Menlin, who had killed his partner. She had paid fully and Shan had extracted the price, as honor demanded, and then mourned her the rest of his life . . .

She gasped and came off the bench in a rush to go across the room and sweep her son up in a hug.

"Ma no!" yelled that young gentleman, twisting in her embrace.

"Ma, yes!" she insisted and kissed him and rumbled his hair and cuddled him close, feeling his warmth and hearing the beat of his heart. "Ma loves you," she said, fiercely, for all that she whispered. Shan grabbed her hair.

"Ma?"

"Yes," she said and walked with him to the kitchen, back through the living room to the bedroom. "We'll go—someplace. To Richard." She stopped in the middle of the living room and took a deep breath, feeling beautifully, miraculously reprieved. She kissed Shan again and bent down to let him go.

"We'll go to Richard—home to New Dublin. We'll leave tonight . . ." Tonight? What about her classes, her contract? It would be academic suicide—and Er Thom would find her at her brother's house on New Dublin, she thought dejectedly. He would have to find her. Honor required it. Her shoulders sank and she felt the tears rise again.

"Oh, gods . . ."

The door chime sounded.

She spun, some primal instinct urging her to snatch up her son and run.

Shan was sitting on the floor amidst his rubber blocks, patiently trying to balance a rectangle atop a cube. And there was no place, really, to run.

The chime sounded again.

Slowly, she walked across the room and opened the door.

He bowed in spite of the parcels he held, and smiled when he looked up at her.

"Good evening," he said softly, as if this morning had never happened and he had never looked at her with fury in his eyes. "It is after dinner?"

Speechless, she looked down at him, torn between shutting the door in his face and hugging him as fiercely as she had hugged Shan.

"Anne?"

She started, and managed a wooden smile. "It's after Shan's dinner, anyway," she said, stepping back to let him in. "But he's being stubborn about going to bed."

Er Thom glanced over to the boy, absorbed in his blocks. "I see." He looked up at her. "I have brought a gift for our son. May I give it?"

She looked at him doubtfully. Surely he wouldn't harm a child. No matter what he might feel he owed her, surely his own son was safe? She swallowed. "All right . . ."