Prison of Night

Chapter Three

The talk was a fountain; words kept spinning as the juggler had maintained his gilded orbs in the air without apparent effort. An attribute of those who were accustomed to the long, leisurely discussions of the night, but beneath the talk of weather, or crops and herds, of relationships and recipes, entertainers, exchanges, there was an undertone of something else. Navalok edged toward it.

"This should be a good season for you, Lavinia, I saw your herd in the Iron Mountains a few days ago. They look prime beasts in every way. Good, strong foals which should interest the buyers when they arrive."

"One already has." Suchong leaned forward in his chair to better inhale the plume of scented smoke rising in an amber thread from a container of gemmed silver. "I met him in town. A buyer from beyond the Rift coming early so as to make a good selection. I wonder he hasn't contacted you."

"He will if he's interested in mounts," she said. "From where? Beyond the Rift, I know, but which world?"

"Tyumen, I think. Or was it Tyrahmen?" Suchong lifted his head. His face, wreathed by the smoke, was almost saffron and his eyes held a peculiar glitter. "His name is Mbom Chelhar and he seems to have money. The best chamber at the hotel, the best foods and wines. He wears jewels on each finger and smells of riches. An agent, I think, for some wealthy ruler or a combine. We talked about my freshendi and, if the crop is as good as I think it will be, then I shall be a happy man."

"And if not?" Fhard Erason answered his own question. "We plant again and hope and wait again and, while we wait, try not to envy others. But you, Lavinia, have nothing to worry you. As Navalok mentioned your herd is a certain source of revenue. If my lands grew the herbs they need I too would breed such animals." And then he added, with apparent casualness, "Gydapen was a fool not to have diversified more than he did. The desert could have been put to better use."

Lavinia said, sharply, "Gydapen is dead."

"But his son is not." Alcorus looked from one to the other. "Yes, he had a son, a boy born to a woman he married while traveling off-world. A secret he kept from all but a few. The lad would be grown now and there is talk of his claiming his inheritance."

"What inheritance?" Lavinia looked at Suchong, at Navalok. "The lands were taken and voted to Earl. It was a Council decision."

"And perhaps a wrong one." Navalok was blunt. "We were confused, disturbed, unsure of our facts and you were pressing. The land needed an owner-retainers must be aware of a firm hand, but we could have made a mistake. And, naturally, we knew nothing of Gydapen's son."

"If he is his son."

"The facts are attested."

"But-" She broke off, aware of her position. Gydapen had promised her marriage and, even for reasons of his own, would have fulfilled the pledge had she permitted it. The previous marriage meant nothing-her own would have taken precedence and her children would have been the undoubted heirs. But to mention it. To remind those present that she had believed everything he told her. To admit that she had been little better than a gullible fool!

Dumarest said, "This talk of Gydapen's early marriage. When did it begin?"

"Recently. Why?"

"Who mentioned it? Who spread the rumor?" He looked at the blank faces. "Roland?"

"I don't know, Earl," he confessed. "I heard it from Jmombota. He claimed nothing for it but said that it was common knowledge. I think he wanted me to relay the news. There was no need. Three others asked me about it within two days and then-" He broke off, shoulders lifting in a helpless gesture. "Perhaps we should talk about it."

"About what?" Lavinia blazed her anger. "Gydapen was a dangerous man. If it hadn't been for Earl all of you would now be paying him homage. Is this how you thank the man who saved you?"

"Please, Lavinia." Navalok made a soothing gesture. "Don't upset yourself."

"Are you mad?" She stared at the others. "Are you all mad? Gydapen-"

"Is dead as you mentioned, my dear," said Erason a little impatiently. "We all know that."

"And you know what he intended. He threatened our safety. He would have broken the Pact or-"

Again Erason interrupted.

"We aren't sure of that, Lavinia. In fact we are sure of very little. Gydapen had guns, that is true. He was training his retainers to use them, that also is true. He had hired a mercenary, Gnais, to instill obedience and elementary drill. Gnais is dead and so is Gydapen. These things we know. But other things are less clear. Gydapen wanted to extend his mining operations. He told us that. A danger to the Pact, I admit, and also I admit we were concerned as to what action the Sungari would take once it had been broken. But the Pact wasn't broken and so the problem did not arise. What have we left? An accusation, made by you, that Gydapen intended a war of conquest."

"An accusation made not only by Lavinia," said Roland, quickly. "I made it also."

"And you are a part of her Family." Navalok did not elaborate, it was unnecessary, a man would lie for a relative and more than lie for a woman he loved. "And you could both be speaking the truth as you know it. In fact we all are convinced of that." Pausing he added, softly, "It was a pity Gydapen was killed. Dead he can answer no questions."

"And present no threat." Lavinia drew in her breath, making an obvious effort to master her anger. "What is happening here? If you are not all mad then what rewards have been offered for you to blind yourselves to truth? How high did you set your honor?"

Suchong said, thickly, "Woman, you dare to smear my name and that of my Family? If you were a man-"

"If?" Her contempt was a blow. "Don't let that stop you my Lord of Suchong. At dawn? On the upper promenade?"

"You bitch! You-"

"Are overheated," said Dumarest. "And this has gone far enough."

He dominated them with his presence, his height, the aura which radiated from his somber figure. Despite their talk and wild threats the rulers of Zakym were strangers to violence as he knew it. They adhered to the punctilious code of the duello-he killed in order to survive and to give an opponent a chance was to act the fool. Looking at him Lavinia remembered that, remembered too how close he had come to killing her. A fraction less swift in his recognition and her larynx would have been crushed, the splinters of glass thrust up beneath her lower ribs into heart and lung.

Drugged by his smoke Suchong had found unsuspected courage.

"You," he said, thinly. "Who are you to give us orders? A stranger. A fighter and little more. On Zakym we treasure the old ways and the old blood. We have no time for those who do not belong!"

* * *

He would die, Lavinia was certain of it. Dumarest would stoop and rise and his knife would flash as she had seen it flash before and Suchong would double, the steel buried in his heart and the insult would be avenged.

Instead he laughed.

It was a sound divorced from humor, the snarl of a beast, the bared teeth and exhalation a sound more stinging than the lash of a whip. It held contempt and an acid comment on their concept of honor. It showed the hollowness of gratitude. It made them feel soiled and a little ridiculous and more than a little ashamed.

Then he said, bluntly, "You want to get rid of me, is that it?"

"No, Earl! No!"

He ignored the woman, looking at Roland, seeing the answer in his eyes, at the others, seeing the same thing. Roland, at least, was honest, his desire was born in human, natural jealousy and desire. Once Dumarest had gone Lavinia might remember him. Could even turn to him. If she did he would consider honor spent wisely for the sake of realized ambition.

The others?

Suchong had spoken the truth. He was an outsider. He was a stranger. Zenophobia, incredible in this age, was not dead. And, on small, backward worlds like Zakym, what place had someone who did not belong?

"I own land on this world," said Dumarest, quietly. "Gydapen's estate. I didn't ask for it-you voted that it should be given to me. But I think I earned it. No matter what you say or pretend to believe you know the danger he represented. Well, he is dead now and can do no harm. And you have had time to regret what you did. And you talk of a mysterious son of his who claims to be the "natural heir."

"An attested claim, Earl," said Roland. "The ceremony of marriage was performed by a monk of the Church of Universal Brotherhood. The birth of the child, the acknowledged parents, the witnesses-there can be no argument."

And no real proof if it came down to it. The original child could have died, the present claimant an impostor, but Dumarest didn't mention what should have been obvious to all. It suited them to believe and, should the new owner prove intractable, ways could be devised to eliminate him once the future of the land had been decided.

Roland said, slowly, "I don't like this. Earl. It wasn't my decision. I think you have earned all that has been given you. I know I would be pleased for you to stay among us."

"He will stay," said Lavinia. "Listen to me, all of you! Dumarest will stay!"

He wondered what made her so sure.

What made him so eager to go.

Satiation, perhaps. Life was cloying with its ease and he sensed he was in a trap baited with honey and entrancing perfume. The softness of her body, the warmth of her bed, the future she spoke of so often, the hints, the acceptance that, no matter what he decided, she would get her own way. And the other thing. The pressure at the base of his skull. The odd feeling of detachment. The sudden wakings in the night, the fear, the imagined sound of crying.

Crying.

The ghosts.

The lost and lonely ghosts.

Dumarest blinked and looked sharply around but the figures he had imagined vanished as he concentrated. Tricks of the light and not of delusia. The suns were far on their journey by now, the sky dark aside from the glitter of stars, cold and remote points glittering like gems against the bowl of the heavens. There would be sheets and curtains of luminescence, the fuzz of distant nebulae, the somber blotches of interstellar dust. The Rift would be close, stars set close yet masked by the ocher haze of dust, a pass through a host of suns into the empty spaces beyond.

Did Sungari study the heavens?

Did they check and count and look, perhaps, for their home world? If they had a home world. If they had eyes. If they cared.

"Earl?" Lavinia was looking at him. They were all looking at him and Dumarest realized that he had been standing silent and ominous. The woman had expected an answer. She was still expecting it. But to what? A statement of some kind? A challenge?

She said, "Earl, tell them you will stay."

That wasn't the problem. To the watching faces he said, "You gave me land. I will not allow it to be taken from me. But I am willing to sell it."

"Sell it?" Navalok hadn't considered the possibility. Now he stood, frowning. "For how much?"

"Have it valued. I will take one quarter of the estimate in cash. Each of the Council can contribute to the total. How you determine how much each should give I leave to you."

"Money," said Suchong. Amber smoke wreathed his face, clung in tendrils to his hair. "I was right-how can we trust a stranger who is willing to sell his land."

"It would restore the old blood," said Erason. "And it is a solution."

"Earl is being kind." This from Alcorus. "It can't be easy for him."

"And it won't be easy for us," said Roland. He pulled thoughtfully at his left ear. "How can we put a price on Gydapen's estate? When we trade land we do it by exchange or barter and always in small parcels. When did we ever sell an entire estate? When would anyone ever be permitted to buy? It will take time. And the claimant- will he be willing to wait?"

"He has no choice." Navalok shrugged. "Personally I've finished with the matter. What needed to be said has been spoken. An arrangement has been made and one I think fair to all. It is time now to share wine and end our differences. We are of the Council of Zakym. Let us remember our dignity."

Suchong said, suspiciously, "Are you hinting that I have conducted myself with less than proper standing?"

"No."

"I am old and need more help than most but, if you smear my name, then I must demand satisfaction." The smoke had made him first aggressive then maudlin. Tears shone in his glittering eyes. "Satisfaction," he repeated. "On the upper promenade at dawn. Knives, I think. I used to be good with a knife when I was young."

"I know," said Alcorus. "We were all good when young. It isn't kind of you to remind us." Then, turning toward the woman, his tone became formal. "Lady Lavinia Del Belamosk, for any friction caused while beneath your roof as your guests we apologize. Let all hurtful words be as never uttered. Let all misunderstanding be swept away. Let friendship prevail. This, of your kindness, we beg."

A ritual born of the long nights and incompatible company when hot words, unforgiven, could lead to life-long enmity. One she completed with equal stiffness.

"As my guests you are welcome now and in the future. Friendship prevails. This, of your kindness, I beg."

Then, as they sipped the ceremonial toast she whispered, "Earl! I'm sick of these fools! Take me to bed!"

* * *

It was a wide and ornate couch set in a chamber touched with brightness; inset panes reflecting the light of golden lanterns in shimmers of ruby and yellow, violet and blue, amber, purple, cerise, magenta. Broken rainbows spilled from clusters of glass, the pendants scored with fine, diffracting lines. A doll dressed as a bride sat on a stool and watched with emerald eyes. In vases of striated marble flowers scented the air, thick, fleshy petals bearing swirls of gold on scarlet, their stamens a somber black. A container held glimmering liquid in which bubbles rose in a constant stream to burst in thin, brittle tinklings. A clock, counted the hours.

"Idiots!" Lavinia kicked at a cushion and sent it flying to strike a table and send glasses flying. As they shattered she sent a vase to splinter against a wall. "The fools! Are they mad? Have they no memory? Earl, for my people, I apologize. As for the Council-"

Dumarest caught her arm as she was about to add to the destruction.

"That's enough."

"Release me!"

"Stop acting like a spoiled child!" His eves met hers, held them, watched as the fury died. "That's better. Why destroy things which have done you no harm?"

"Why allow men to live who have insulted you so deeply?"

"Should I have killed them for speaking their minds?"

"You gave in too easily," she snapped. "Any man worthy of the name will fight to hold his own. You should have defied them. What could they do if you had?"

Dryly he said, "Do? They could kill me, Lavinia. From the shadows, from behind, with poison or disease or sabotage. With an assassin or someone eager to earn a reward. No man can withstand a group determined on his death."

The answer of a coward? From another she might have thought so but she knew that Dumarest had no lack of courage. Even while they had talked he must have been assessing the situation, gauging probabilities and deciding on a course of action. But what?

"Defying them would have gained nothing," he said when she asked the question. "But you heard what Roland said-first the estate must be valued and then the money to pay me must be found. All of it will take time."

Time! The answer, of course, one she had been too blind to see. Time in which to prepare, to arrange support, to plan. Time in which he would be safe from the drives of impatient men.

"You tricked them," she said. "You guided them and the fools couldn't see it. Earl, my darling, I didn't understand. Forgive me."

The clock hummed, gave a soft series of chimes, a peal of bells as if wafted from a temple on some distant shore. Colors flowed over the dial in a swathe of kaleidoscopic illumination which revealed bizarre figures moving in silhouette across the surface in a stately saraband.

Another hour gone-how many more until the dawn?

Dumarest crossed to the table disturbed by the flying cushion and, from the wreckage, selected an unbroken glass. His mouth felt dry and his head ached with a dull throbbing which ran from nape to temples. A bathroom opened from the chamber and he filled the glass with water, sipped, swallowed, then thrust his head beneath the faucet.

"Earl?" Lavinia watched him, her eyes anxious as he straightened, water dripping from his hair. He dried it with the towel she handed him and dug his fingers into the bunched muscles at the base of his skull. It didn't help. "That headache again? I've some drugs which could help."

Simple compounds which did nothing but raise the pain-level but they would help. He swallowed a triple dose, took water to wash down the tablets, drank more to ease his thirst.

As he set down the empty glass he said, "You and Roland are close. Has he mentioned anything about Gydapen's heir before?"

"No."

"Would he have done so had he known?"

"Yes-I am certain of it. We are friends, Earl. He has known me all my life and is of the Family. Had anything threatened me he would have spoken."

"This doesn't threaten you."

"It threatens you, Earl, and Roland knows what you mean to me. For him it would be the same." Pausing she added, thoughtfully. "There's something wrong, isn't there? Something which doesn't quite add up. You think there's more to this than just a son eager to regain his father's estate?"

"If he is the son."

"You think he isn't?"

"I'm not sure. Things could be as they seem or a cover for something else. Gydapen had a plan to conquer this world. With armed men at his command he would have had little opposition. Mercenaries could have been hired to back his own retainers and, with the advantage of surprise, he would have won. But did he think of the plan all by himself? Was he working wholly alone. We know that he must have had at least one friend here on Zakym."

"The one who warned him we were coming to attack?"

"He was waiting for you," Dumarest reminded. "How else would he have known."

A warning which had almost cost them their lives and would have done had it not been for Dumarest's quick thinking and fantastic speed. He had said nothing more of it at the time-had he intended to leave? If so then what would be the problems of a backward world to him?

"A member of the Council," she said, bleakly. "Or someone close enough to one to know what was going on. It could have been a friendly warning, Earl. We had time to fully explain. Whoever it was needn't have believed us."

"Perhaps," he admitted. "But there's something else. Gydapen had traveled off-world. Maybe he met someone, arranged something. Those guns we took had to be paid for. Mercenaries, if hired, don't work for nothing. There's little money on this world. Gydapen must have stripped himself to set up the operation and have promised rich rewards. Treasures, perhaps."

"Treasure?" Her laugh was brittle. "On Zakym?"

"The promise would have been enough. A handful of gems shown with the lie they had been won from the Sungari. A hint that there could be a mountain more waiting to be gained. I've known men to fight like demons for less."

And with relatively few estates manned by retainers softened by routine and a protected life, with few weapons and all strangers to violence as practiced by men accustomed to war the end was predictable. Some killings. Some attacks and destruction. A few carefully calculated atrocities and, like an overripe fruit, the planet would have fallen.

"Tremendous returns for a small investment," said Lavinia, bitterly. "A culture developed over centuries destroyed for the sake of money. Gydapen must have been insane. But, Earl, if he did have a partner then-"

"He would still be interested," said Dumarest. "The more so now that he doesn't have to share. But first he must obtain Gydapen's estate in order to have a base. The retainers will form a cadre of reliable men, a bodyguard he can trust. The new owner will provide a source of information and a means to exert pressure on the Council. He can't be the partner-he is too young for that. He must be a willing tool agreeable to being manipulated. But once established-"

"It will be the end of Zakym as we know it. The estates gone. The land ravaged. Slavery, maybe, everything that is vile. No! It mustn't be!"

Dumarest said, "Of course I could be wrong. It is only a guess."

"No," she said flatly. "You aren't wrong. It makes too much sense and it explains too much. But how to get the Council to believe it? They will think you are fighting to retain the estate. Earl-what can we do?"

"Nothing until dawn."

"Of course, but then?" She came toward him, hands lifting toward his shoulders, her eyes misted with appeal. "Do we fight?"

A touch, the pressure of her body, the appeal in her eyes-did she think it enough to make the problem his? Once he had the money all space was waiting and let those fight who had something to fight for. Why should he defend those who had made it plain he was unwanted among their company?

"We will fight," she said, flatly. "And you will help, Earl, you have no choice. Or do you care nothing for the future of our child?"