The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro
For some reason Eb urged him over to an archway, where she tapped at the screen. A moment later a man drew aside the screen—and Hayl's mouth fell open.
The man smiled, holding up his hand to invite Hayl into his suite. As soon as they were alone, Hayl said, "Sevtar! What are you doing here? Winds, you've got six bands. Six." He closed his mouth as the import of it hit him.
Six Levels.
"So it's true." Sevtar watched him with a gentle gaze. "You're alive."
"A tree caught me."
"Gods, Hayl." Sevtar's voice caught as they embraced. "It's good to see you." He set Hayl back from him and smiled, a drop of water glistening in the corner of his eye. Then he motioned at his Quis table. "Will you play dice with me?"
Almost giddy with seeing Sevtar again, Hayl pulled off his pouch.
It wasn't until long afterward that he realized just how thoroughly he had broken his Oath.
37
The Bridge of Oloton
Summer in Karn lasted longer than in the upper ranges. Autumn gusted with chill winds but the winter snows came gently, wafting from the sky. Spring unfurled in a multitude of lavender, pink, and blue blossoms on the plumberry vines. Kelric watched the seasons from his suite, where the interplay of sunshine and shadow in the rooms shifted with a grace that spoke eloquently of the architects who had built this, the first Estate.
On a morning in early spring, he walked across the parks to a secluded lake far from the Calanya. Sitting on a knoll that overlooked the water, he bowed his head. The tears came softly, running down his cheeks, silent in their release from the prison he had built around his heart in Varz and then slowly dismantled as the seasons in Karn passed. He made no sound, just sat by the lake and cried until his grief spent itself in the gilded afternoon.
Ixpar sat by a window in her study, warmed in a pool of sunlight. While she ate her Midday meal she went through the last of the Ministry documents still at Karn, filing them to send to Varz. It had taken well over a year to shift the Ministry, but soon the transition would be complete.
She lifted a page off the pile. This was the conclusion, the final document she had signed as Minister. It wasn't world-shaking, simply a pardon for a young man in the Haka prison, a bookkeeper in Compound Two. Ched Viasa. She wondered, how he would feel if he knew he was the last person touched by the reign of Karn.
An aide tapped at the door arch. "Ma'am? Captain Eb would like to see you."
"Send her in." Ixpar blinked at the interruption. She had scheduled no Quis sessions today, feeling a need to be alone while she concluded her final acts as Minister.
Eb entered and bowed. "Sevtar wishes to see you, ma'am."
A ticklefly fluttered in Ixpar's stomach. "Very well."
While Eb went for him, Ixpar paced a bit, then stopped by a window and watched children playing in a courtyard below her suite. Why today? Kelric had never before sought her companionship. He sat at dice with her and played a miraculous Quis like none she had ever known, but that was their only contact She felt no closer to him now than the day he had taken his Karn Oath.
"Ixpar?"
She turned with a start. He stood by the archway, glimmering in the sunlight like his Coban namesake, god of the dawn. Her voice tied itself into knots and left her mute. Watching him, she again felt the guilt that came every time she remembered how little success she had so far in gaining custody of his daughter for him from Varz.
Kelric came over to her. "I wanted to tell you."
"Tell me?"
He hesitated. "About that night—"
"Night?" So close to him now, she found herself incapable of coming up with intelligent responses.
"In the Akasi suite."
"The Akasi suite."
"About the—you see, what—ai, Ixpar, I don't know how to do this. I am no good with words."
She thought of her sparkling responses in the past minute. "Right now, neither am I."
He grinned. "The infamous Orator of Karn is tongue-tied?"
His expression caught her utterly off guard. It was a full smile, not his usual slight curve of the lips. His teeth flashed white, lighting his entire face. It made it even harder for her to say what had to be said. "It was wrong for me to push the Akasi bands on you. If you wish to be only Calani, I will release you from your Akasi vow."
"Ixpar, no. That wasn't what I meant." He took her hands. "You were so beautiful that night, a warrior goddess in velvet and lace."
A curious sense came over her then, as if she floated above their bodies looking down in the slanting rays of the sun at a private moment captured in amber. She stepped forward and Kelric came into her arms.
That afternoon, they joined together in the simplicity of her own rooms rather than the opulence of an Akasi suite. Afterward they lay in the rays of a setting sun that left a faint glow in the room. A hint of fiery light touched Ixpar's face as she drifted to sleep.
38
Multiple Phalanxes
"Karn cheated Varz." Avtac walked through the Estate gardens with her successor. "Ixpar lied."
"She signed the papers," Stahna said. "You are Minister."
Avtac opened her fist, revealing her Karn octahedron, a diamond that threw splinters of sunlight into her hand. "No one can touch her Quis. No one even comes close." She dropped the die and it thudded onto the dirt path. "With her Sixth Level she holds Coba in a stronger grip than when she was Minister."
"Does it matter?" Stahna retrieved the diamond for her. "Ixpar and Sevtar won't live forever. Varz will. And the Ministry with it."
Sevtar. During the tenday before he left for Karn, Avtac had wanted him constantly, knowing he would soon be gone. She could still see his golden body stretched across her bed, driving a hunger she never satisfied. She had thought sending him away would quench her desire, give her back control, but instead her craving grew worse. She hated herself for that weakness, tried to bury it with her work, with Quis, Garith, a new youth in the city. Nothing worked.
Sevtar was hers. He belonged to Varz.
Henta Bahvla sat glowering at her desk. Any aides who ventured into her office received a cold stare until they retreated.
"Why doesn't she just send copies?" Henta said to the empty room. "Why bother with a new letter every time?" Beneath the formal jargon, every one of Avtac's messages said the same thing: Miesa was now Varz and that included the Miesa Plateau.
Only in a dice cheater's hell, Henta thought. None of this rolled well with her. Ixpar had been a good Minister. More than good. Brilliant. Avtac was iron. The unrelenting power of Varz boded nothing but trouble.
"She'll not get the Plateau," Henta said. "Not if I can help it."
Rashiva always enjoyed her dinners with Jimorla. Tonight they celebrated. News had come this morning; ten-year-old Jimorla ranked well in his exams and was accepted to the Preparatory House.
He grew so fast, this son of hers, like a steeplestalk, with the creamy dark skin of the Hakaborn. Like Raaj. Only when the sun hit his skin just right did it reveal that telling gold shimmer.
Jimorla watched her from across the table. "Why are you so quiet?"
"l was thinking about Raaj. He's very proud of you."
His face brightened. "Father wants to come to the ceremony at the Preparatory House. Do you think he can?"
"Of course."
It pleased Rashiva that the bond between Raaj and Jimorla was so strong. Afraid to break that tie with the weight of a legend, she had never told her son that his father was the Karn Sixth Level.
Yezi Lasa, freight hauler extraordinary, or so she styled herself, jumped from her rider onto the Karn airfield and eyed the young man with the inventory sheets. Strange world it was nowadays, when they had boys out greeting the pilots.
"Well, looky you," Yezi said. "Manager Karn send you to make us pilots happy?"
He handed her the clipboard. "You can sign for your cargo here. A freight crew will load it."
Yezi peered at the board, looking for his nam
"I'm an Estate aide," he said.
"My winds." Yezi signed the clipboard and handed it back to him. "An Estate aide."
"Your crew is on dock six," Anthoni said.
"Righto." Yezi wondered if the fellow was always so sullen. Least he could do was turn out a smile to please a tired pilot.
As Anthoni went to the next rider, a voice behind Yezi said, "You there."
Yezi turned to see a burly pilot who also flew the Varz/Karn route. "Heh, Ada."
Ada tilted her head at Anthoni. "Nice."
Yezi grimaced. "I think he's a Modernist."
Ada took out a tin of tas and rolled the leaves in a paper. "Modernists on the docks is nothing compared to what I've heard lately." She lit her tas stick. "Seems there's a rumor about a dead Calani that isn't dead."
"Sure, Ada."
"It's true." Ada blew out a stream of smoke. "Varz Calani. Boy fell over a cliff right into Ixpar Karn's lap."
"How would you know what goes on with high-level folk?"
"You want to check it, roll the dice." Ada puffed her tas. "It's in the Quis if you know how to read it."
Yezi snorted. But in truth the tale intrigued her. A right good story it was, like in the Old Age. Now those were days to be alive. No modern men back then. She smiled, imagining her circle of listeners. She had one gutsy tale to take to Varz.
Chankah Dahl stood in Dabbiv's lab, surrounded by his gadgets and scrolls. "You went to the starport? And no one stopped you?"
"There's no one there," Dabbiv said. "A robot told me to leave but it didn't do anything to me." He shrugged. "It's probably because the buildings all have locks. All I could do was walk around the streets." He gave her a guilty look. "I did find a few broken locks, though. So I went in and, uh—"
Chankah recognized that look. "Yes?"
"I filched some books." His face changed again, lighting up as fast as wind. "They're amazing! You can change the glyphs into any style you want and the books make three-dimensional pictures. They even talk."
She stared at him. "Are you mad? If you get caught, ISC will haul you off to prison."
"Am I supposed to pretend it isn't there? Think what we could learn."
Chankah could imagine how frustrating it was for a scientist with his vision to know such great knowledge lay so close, yet just beyond his grasp. "Were the books interesting?"
He grinned. "I can't tell you. It's Restricted." When she glowered at him, he laughed, then unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out a text with a metallic cover.
She peered at the title. "You can read that?"
"I taught myself Skolian."
"What does it say?"
" 'Proceedings of the Eighty-sixth Conference on Circulatory Pathology.' It's a collection of papers given at a meeting of Imperialate doctors."
"Do you understand it?"
"Not yet," he said. "But I'm learning."
Hayl strolled to the entrance of his suite, trying to look nonchalant as he watched his escort gambling Outside. Nesina, the youngest guard, looked up at him and smiled. She was twenty-three, eight years older than him, with dark eyes and hair.
Somewhere within the suite, a pot banged on glass. Hayl followed the noise to his sunroom, where a breeze gusted through an open window, ruffling his hair and jostling a hanging plant by the curtains.
How was the window open?
It wasn't until the wall blocked his view that he realized he was backing out of the room. He made himself stop, reminded himself he could step out the window and reach the ground with his feet while he straddled the sill.
It had been worse when Ixpar first brought him to Karn. She imprisoned him in the logical place to hold a captive: the top of a tower. He hid his fear, never speaking of the nightmares that splintered his sleep, but somehow Ixpar guessed. Soon she moved him to this suite on the ground level, where he could fall no more than the length of his own body.
Bracing himself, Hayl walked to the window and reached out to close it.
Hands grabbed him so fast he barely realized it had happened before he was thrown into the wall. Spinning around, he saw a bulky figure vault over the sill. He lunged back to the window, but by the time he looked out, the courtyard Outside was empty.
Hayl scowled. Then he returned to the entrance of his suite. When the captain of his escort looked up, he pointed toward the sunroom and mimed a person climbing in the window. As the other guards went to investigate, Nesina came over to him.
"You look upset," she said.
He shrugged. Compared to his fall over the cliff, a peeper in his suite wasn't much to get excited about.
She took his arm. "You should lie down."
He didn't feel like lying down. But she was pulling him toward the bedroom, so he went with her. Inside, she paused in front of the mirror over his bureau. Standing behind him, taller than him, she looked over his shoulder at their reflection. Then she slid her hand through his hair. "You've beautiful curls,"
Hayl reddened. No woman had ever touched him in such a familiar manner.
Nesina pushed him over to the bed. "You lie down. I'll get something to calm your nerves."
His nerves were fine. But he lay down anyway, too intrigued to object. Nesina disappeared and returned with a decanter of wine.
By the time they had finished the wine, he felt remarkably calm. So calm, in fact, that he had a hard time remembering why he was lying on his bed in a locked room with a guard sitting next to him. And Nesina had locked the door. Even from across the room he could see the bolt pushed in place.
"You look pale," Nesina said, her voice a little slurred. "We should make you more comfortable." She unlaced his shirt and pulled it off his shoulders.
Hayl tried to sit up and she pushed him back down. "Relax," she said "Try to forget what happened."
Nothing had happened. In fact the only "happening" was here, as Nesina slid her hand along his leg. He tried to roll away, afraid she would see his erection but She held him in place.
"I won't tell, Hayl," she coaxed. "You're ready, a man now. I won't feel any differently about you tomorrow."
While he fumbled with his thoughts, Nesina fumbled with the flaps on his pants. He tried to marshal arguments about why she should stop, but it was more interesting to feel her take off his clothes. She undressed herself next, giving the word "interesting" whole new shades of meaning. When she stretched out on top of him, he slid his arms around her waist, unsure how to proceed.
Nesina kissed him first gently and then with more passion. She guided him with her hand, her touch so arousing that almost as soon as he was inside her, he reached his peak. As his breathing calmed, he realized she had just started and he had already finished.
Hayl flushed. "I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't be." Nesina lifted her head. "Your voice is beautiful."
Winds above. What was wrong with him, getting drunk, making love to his guard, and breaking his Oath? He ought to be appalled with himself. Actually, though, he was rather pleased.
Nesina slid off and stretched out against his side. After they had dozed in each other's arms for a while, he started to explore her body. As she opened her eyes, he said, "This time I'll hold on longer"
She smiled, then nudged him onto his back, rolling with him. Pushing up on her elbows, she looked down at him. "It was your first time, yes?"
He nodded.
"I'm glad you let it be with me, Hayl."
He pulled her down on top of him. "Me too."
Seven women and one dark—haired man made up the Varz octet. They stood side by side, each with a rifle over her shoulder. As Avtac walked along the line, Zecha called out orders and the guards obeyed in unison: right, left, poise, aim, relax.
Avtac stopped in front of the man. "What's your name?"
"Jevrin Miesa Varz, ma'am."
"Think you could shoot a clawcat, Jevrin
"I have, during city patrol last winter."
Avtac glanced at Zecha and the captain nodded.
After Zecha dismissed the guards, Avtac frowned at her. "A unit of elite hunters is no place for a man."
"He's a good marksman." Zecha said.
"I do recall a boy in the Miesa Cooperative named Jevrin. He would be about this man's age now." Avtac paused. "He had yellow hair."
"I can run another check," Zecha said.
"Do it." The Minister walked to a rack on the wall and lifted out a rifle. "I want no leaks. If any have opened, plug them." She sighted along the gun barrel. "Permanently."
"We searched the entire Estate." Senior Aide Kastora walked with Ixpar along a cobbled street that crooked between two buildings. "Whoever broke into Hayl's suite got away."
"Was anything stolen?" Ixpar asked.
Kastora shook her head. "His guards think it was a peeper trying to see a Calani."
"I hope that's all." Ixpar grimaced. "If she came from Varz, we're in trouble."
They turned into a lane that ended at a building dating from the Old Age, its turrets and spires silhouetted against a blue sky puffed with clouds. The sign read THE KARN INSTITUTE.
They found Ekina bent over a clutter of equipment in her lab. The physicist straightened up, smoothing out her smock. "Minister Karn. I wasn't expecting you."
"Manager Karn," Ixpar said.
Ekina reddened. "My apologies, ma'am."
Ixpar nodded, wondering if the title "Manager" would ever feel right. "Bahr is curious to know how your work on her light-sailor is going."
"Not so well." Ekina,nodded at an apparatus on the table, a helical tube wrapped around a red. stone. "I'm using a ruby crystal. I managed to get a light pulse, but when I try to pump out a steady beam of light I overheat the ruby." She shook her head. "Every time I solve one glitch, I run into another."
"Suppose I put my Calanya on it?" Ixpar asked. "They're amazing with these pattern games of Bahr's. Maybe they can help figure out what you need here."