A Passage of Stars Page 14

  The doors opened onto the bridge. The four guards hung back to let their three guests move out unescorted. Five plushly carpeted steps led down to a half-circle of silver floor. Chairs, individually crafted, sat before consoles inlaid with the material Heredes called wood. The crew, as brightly dressed as the guards, conversed in low tones to each other. Here, too, Lily saw Ridanis casually intermixed; it was this more than anything that convinced her that this ship, at least, came from outside the Reft.

  Three huge screens filled the forward part of the half-dome above. One chair, on a low dais, sat with its back to them. Like a stilling hand, as the chair began to swivel in its foundation, its smooth, silent turn created a sudden immobility among the watching crew.

  She was revealed as dawn is revealed: the slow, anticipatory unveiling that brings forth the sun. Her high brow was white as alabaster, her face framed by a close-cropped crown of blue-black hair that swept back and down to reappear over her shoulder in a single, sable braid reaching to her waist. She wore simple, black clothes—a shirt belted with gold clasps at the waist, a full skirt; her small white feet showed at the base. The high seat in which she sat seemed at once to dwarf her small stature and yet to be scant enough that it was a wonder it could hold her. Her eyes, even at this distance, pierced with the blue-white intensity of young twin stars. She rose, skirts rustling down as if a living creature clung to her.

  “What have you brought me?” Her voice was as hushed as if cloth muffled it, but it filled, nevertheless, the bridge as air fills any space it enters. “Is this my eagle, is this my prisoner? Is this a ghost, or is it indeed the seventh age?”

  Heredes walked forward, a solitary path across the silvering floor. He knelt at her feet on the dais.

  With two fingers she raised his head until he looked up at her. “Is this truly my Taliesin?”

  He lifted a hand to enfold hers, brought it to his lips, and kissed it with the reverence due a sacred object. “It is truly your Taliesin, Bella,” he said, his voice so soft that the slightest movement in the room would have overwhelmed it. “Dead, mad, and a poet.” He smiled as absently and thoroughly as a dreamer.

  She studied him a time longer, then lifted her head to examine with unnerving steadiness Lily and Kyosti. “The hawk I recollect,” she said in her quiet way. Lily felt Kyosti shift in apparent dis-ease beside her. “But who is this young woman?” Lily, meeting this gaze, felt the passage of respect between differences and familiarities, as judged as judging. This woman she could deal with, in the openhanded sense, although the formidable reserve behind that penetrating gaze might never allow for the intimacy of friendship. Caught up in her perusal, Lily was unaware that Heredes had turned his head to look at her.

  A mere name could not satisfy the question the queen of the highroad had just asked—she dealt in relationships. And Joshua Li Heredes, by whatever name, was rarely at a loss for an answer. But he looked at Lily and could not define her.

  First, she was his pupil: the lean athleticism, the posture of confidence that comes from mastery, the quick beam of her eye. Later, she had become something more than that, because she had excelled in a way no other he had taught had; there she stood with that controlled cast of face she had learned from him, worn away from the inside by the insatiate rabidity that drives an artist to seek further up the hidden path. And behind it all, the quality that had finally linked her to him completely: the core of restlessness that, like him with his master, she had never managed to still, could never still. It came very clearly to him the feeling when he had opened her cell, back at Nevermore, and she had, with rare spontaneity, come to him—and he knew with the swiftness of just-illuminated truth who she was.

  “Bella,” he said, as grave as he was surprised, standing now. “I would like you to meet my daughter, Lily.”

  Kyosti’s astonishment was as much physical as his blurted, “Mother bless us.” Lily felt him start, like a bolting animal glimpsing freedom; his hand touched her elbow, a delicate pressure, but one that seemed to claim something of her.

  Bella looked not in the least disconcerted, merely thoughtful. Lily, once Kyosti’s touch brought her back from her initial shock at Heredes’s statement, realized that from her own conversation with Jenny, this could not be entirely unexpected.

  “Then, my dear,” said La Belle Dame finally, “I must offer you my welcome, and give you the hospitality of the ship while you wait.”

  “Are we waiting?” asked Lily.

  “Of course, my child. Your father and I have some private business to discuss.”

  “But will our ship wait?” Lily asked it more of Heredes than La Belle, but he merely stood as meek as a servant beside her.

  La Belle smiled, so ruthlessly cold a smile that Lily felt pity for those souls who found themselves opposed to her. “With our justly famous Sans Merci guns trained on them, I feel they will find that their patience extends indefinitely. Adam.” She beckoned with a single, imperious hand, and a man rose from one of the consoles and came to stand at the foot of the dais. He had La Belle’s blue-black, straight hair, but also, standing below Heredes, a dusky cast of skin and green eyes that reflected some trace of the older man. “Give your father your good wishes, and then offer your sister and the hawk some refreshment.”

  He bowed, salute enough on this ship, and stepped up to give a stiff shake of the hand and a few inaudible words to Heredes. He retreated as Heredes put his arm out to take La Belle’s and the two of them walked as if on procession into the lift, the door sealing them off from the rest. The bridge crew turned with self-conscious busy-ness back to their tasks, leaving Adam alone to approach Lily and Kyosti. The four guards had vanished.

  “Well, sister.” Adam regarded her with a wary but not unfriendly gaze. “Shall we go?”

  They said nothing more, except Kyosti’s compliments to Adam on the ship’s interior decoration as they walked along the top deck and into the dining hall and lounge. Plush couches, upholstered in patterns of spirals and chevrons, sat in intimate groupings across the carpeted floor. Wall hangings depicted unfamiliar scenes—a woman riding a horse with a swarm of birds surrounding her, a shoreline littered with a shipwreck’s debris and a single body; a woman armed much as Jenny had armed herself, but with primitive weapons. Wooden tables and chairs were supported on legs carved into curving, sensuous shapes that begged one to stroke them. Adam sat Lily and Kyosti at one of the tables and left to fetch refreshments.

  Kyosti, opposite her, leaned across the table and clasped her hands in his. “Lily!” he breathed in an undertone; farther away other people moved or sat in their own conversations within the hall. His blue eyes had a wild look to them, a curious mirror to the unruly mop of his blue hair. “Marry me!”

  Lily blinked. “What?”

  “Marry me,” he repeated, his hands tightening on hers. He pulled her toward him, as if he meant to kiss her.

  Lily drew back. “What does ‘marry’ mean?”

  It was his turn to blink, to have to puzzle this out: seeing him at a loss was so unusual that Lily had to smile. Perhaps he took this for encouragement, because he bent closer to her. “You must have a word for it. Marry, mate, bond—”

  “Bond!” Lily laughed. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” he said, quickly shifting ground.

  “But Kyosti, first of all, we don’t even qualify.”

  “Qualify! Lily, when does love have to qualify?”

  Lily felt that she would be in a better position to conduct this conversation were her hands not caught in his, but she did not attempt to free them. “What does love have to do with bonding?” she retorted. “My father certainly would have no interest in an economic bond with you, since it wouldn’t bring him any trading benefits.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t he,” muttered Kyosti darkly.

  “And since you’re not a citizen, we couldn’t enter into a child-sponsor pair-bond even if I wanted to.”

  “But Lily, surely two peopl
e in love have some bond they can share.”

  Lily regarded him with deep suspicion. “They can share whatever they want. I don’t know what a legal bond has to do with it.”

  Kyosti released her hands abruptly and let his head rest on one hand, murmuring something to himself in a foreign language. His hair curled in blue waves around his bronzed fingers, pink tips revealed at intervals. He had a thin face, almost long-jawed, but too delicate and with too high a sweep of cheekbone to be so. His eyes, deep set, had the faintest trace of green, lending them depth and a certain unspoken mystery. They were currently fixed with apparent anguish on the tabletop. His lips, more apricot than pink, were set as much in petulance as in distress. They looked, Lily thought, touched by a sudden shy amusement, as if they wanted to be kissed, and so she stretched across the table and kissed them. His free hand trapped her there immediately, but whatever this threatened to develop into was cut short by Adam’s return. He set his tray down with obvious intrusiveness and shot Lily a skeptical glance as she sat back and he settled in beside her.

  “I don’t think Father would approve,” he said with a trace of sarcasm as he handed out drinks and pastries.

  “Wouldn’t he?” asked Lily with sincere interest.

  Adam shrugged. “You know what a tyrant he is.”

  Lily laughed, unable to picture Heredes in any guise but that of her calm and intent sensei.

  “You may laugh,” said Kyosti. “I suppose as his daughter you’ve received special treatment.” He and Adam exchanged glances, and some understanding passed between them, so that Lily felt that they were now in league against her.

  “But I’m not—” She stopped. Better, perhaps, on this ship, to keep up the masquerade, to let them continue to think she was Heredes’s physical daughter. And La Belle—La Belle surely would soon know that it was a spiritual designation, not blood, but to La Belle the distinction would probably be meaningless. She took a long, cooling drink from her glass. “I’m not sure—I don’t understand why everyone seems afraid of him.”

  Kyosti simply gazed at her and shook his head. Adam’s eyes, so close in color to his father’s, bore within them seeds of bitterness, so that he looked, at this moment, nothing like Heredes at all.

  “Any sane person is afraid of Taliesin, sister,” he replied, that sardonic tone creeping in again. “He is the master of the art.”

  “Not the art you’re thinking of, Lily,” added Kyosti.

  “Which art, then?”

  “You don’t know?” Adam was openly skeptical now.

  “She doesn’t,” said Kyosti quickly. “I didn’t believe it at first either, but—ah—Taliesin warned me off telling her the truth.”

  “He did what?” Her voice, rising in the air, shattered the quiet leisure of the hall. She rose.

  “Lily.” Adam’s voice was low but insistent as he rose with her. “Let’s go into one of the private rooms. We don’t want to make a scene.”

  “Oh, by no means,” she said scathingly.

  But as she turned she saw faces shifting to regard the trio curiously. Kyosti stood up beside her, and there was a sudden scuff of chair and a man hurried out of the hall. He glanced back once, quickly, from the door. Lily had a brief glimpse of a brilliant red scar disfiguring his forehead, and then he was gone.

  “So much for discretion,” murmured Kyosti, smiling as the other people in the hall pointedly returned to their own business.

  Adam gazed at the door, the skin around his eyes puckering up as he considered some thought that he kept to himself. He glanced at Kyosti, finally, shrugged, and turned to lead Lily and Kyosti into a room off the main hall. After he shut the door behind them, he locked it manually and motioned Lily to the couch. Kyosti sat in the single plush chair. Lily did not sit.

  “Now what is this conspiracy of silence? Whatever the truth is, it can’t be worse than what I can imagine. By the Void, Adam, if you are indeed my brother, I would think you would support me. I certainly can’t expect that much from Kyosti.”

  “Now that isn’t fair,” said Kyosti immediately, as she had hoped he would. “But I do have my life to consider.”

  Lily turned on him. “I was under the impression you didn’t care about your life. Do you really think he would kill you if you told me whatever the truth is?”

  “Lily.” He rose, his languid posture vanished. “What right do I have to tell you about his past if he doesn’t choose to?”

  “Lily has a point,” said Adam. “It isn’t necessarily in her best interest that Father keep her ignorant.”

  “That’s right.” Lily shot Adam a triumphant glance. “When I’m being chased all over the Reft by people I don’t know but who think they know me, then it becomes self-preservation.”

  “After all,” Adam pointed out, “when Deucalion betrayed him, he could have killed him afterward, but he didn’t.”

  “Reassuring thought,” muttered Kyosti.

  “Who is Deucalion?” asked Lily.

  “Your other brother,” said Adam. “My twin. But he is no longer received in polite society, I fear.”

  “Hoy,” said Lily. “What a family. But in any case, I’ll protect you, if it comes to that.”

  “You’ll protect us?” Adam flung himself into the chair Kyosti had vacated. “The family arrogance ain’t a bad thing, sister, but it don’t do to overdo it, if you take my meaning.” His lips, less full than his father’s, curled into a disdainful smile.

  But Kyosti smiled, and he took this opportunity to dispose himself on the couch, elegantly languorous. “You haven’t seen her fight.”

  “That’s right,” said Lily, looking Adam straight in the eye. “You haven’t seen me fight. Do you want to?”

  Adam smiled without humor.

  “Do you know, Adam,” continued Kyosti in his most lethargic voice, “perhaps we’d do best to let Lily question me alone for a bit. Then I’ll take all the risks on myself.”

  Adam’s expression had grown increasingly dubious, but he rose with alacrity. “Oh, I do agree. Especially if you create other reasons for him to protect you. I’ll lock the door again as I go out.” He paused. “You are the one called Hawk, aren’t you.”

  Kyosti raised a torpid hand in acknowledgment.

  “Is it true, or is it just another one of those popular legends, that story that you single-handedly held off an entire battalion of chameleon shock troops, in the retreat at the Betaos engagement?”

  “Oh, dear.” Kyosti sighed. “So tiring to remember. And my attire was quite ruined, you know.” Adam gave a brief laugh, but he sketched Kyosti the trace of a respectful bow and left. The door shut behind him with a tangible click. “Well, Lily,” said Kyosti quietly, still draped becomingly on the couch. “Anything you want.”

  The first thing that came to mind, looking at him, and at him looking at her, filled her with a confusion compounded half of nerves and half of sheer, fluttering—but pleasant—agitation. To contain it, she began to pace, and to consider all the questions she had for him, because asking questions would prove easier than dealing with the sudden feelings he was arousing in her now that they were absolutely alone and unlikely to be disturbed.

  “But I have so many questions,” she began, flustered by the intensity of his stare. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “You could start by sitting down. It’s terribly wearying, watching you expend all that energy.” He moved to leave room on the couch.

  She sat, but she shifted restlessly back and forth in her space. He let one arm settle casually around her. The unfamiliar warmth, his proximity, his almost sweet scent when she turned her head to look at him, stilled her.

  “You really are from back over the way, aren’t you?” she said in a low voice, made the more taut by his closeness. “All of you, and him, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have they known all along we were out here? Did they just abandon us here?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never heard of the Reft. And it was a
long trip out here. We had to calculate as we went.”

  “Just to get Heredes?” she asked, not quite a question. “Kyosti, how do you know him?”

  “We worked together. In the war. I don’t know how to explain it to you, Lily, because there’s so much you don’t know. Mother alone knows how many centuries of history you people out here have missed.”

  “We have our own history,” she replied with a touch of asperity.

  “Of course you do,” he said, his apology made sweeter by the quickness with which he sought to conciliate her. “I’m just surprised that Gwyn let you identify with this place, rather than preparing you for your heritage.”

  “Which is?”

  “The League. The home planets. The glorious revolution, from which he and I and others like us emerged both heroes and hunted.”

  “Like Wingtuck Honor Jones?”

  “Mother help me.” His gaze for an instant lost its focus on Lily and fixed elsewhere. “She’s here, too?”

  “I’ve heard her mentioned,” replied Lily as dispassionately as she could, hiding her perturbation, she thought, at the sudden shift in his attention. “You said you worked together, you and Heredes.”

  “Ah, yes.” He resettled himself on the couch; one side of his body touched hers, the slightest pressure, but it needed no more than that. “We worked as agents, sometimes on both sides to get what we needed, to break down the enemy’s systems from within.”

  “You were saboteurs.”

  “Actually,” he brushed at her cheek, his fingers a caress on her skin, “we were terrorists.”

  It took her a moment to reply because all her breath seemed to have become entangled with the quickened beating of her heart—and not because of what he was saying. She caught half a breath finally, and found words. “Who was this war against?”