She put her arms around him. "I can’t bear to see you hurt yourself."
"I just need a drink. It helps. Not hurts."
"It’s drowning you."
"That’s flaming nonsense, Kamoj. Did Dazza pressure you to do this?"
"No one pressured me. I know what I see."
"Now you’re a medical expert?"
"I don’t need to be."
He brushed her hair back from her face. "If you won’t get it for me, I’ll go myself."
"Vyrl, please. It’s destroying you."
"How the hell would you know?"
"Cursing at me won’t change the truth."
"It’s your truth. Not mine."
"You almost died today. Because of the rum."
It was a moment before he spoke again. When he did, he surprised her. "I never used to drink. I don’t like the taste of it."
"Not even now?"
"Not even now."
"Then don’t drink it."
His anger flared. "I can stop if I want."
"Then why don’t you?"
"I don’t want to."
"So why do you care that you never used to drink?"
"I don’t care."
"Then why bring it up?"
"Damn it, Kamoj, let it go."
Her voice caught. "I wish I could make your night-demons go away. But I can’t. Neither can the rum." A tear ran down her face. "I don’t want you to send me away. But I can’t do what you want."
He watched her, his face unreadable. "Don’t sound like this."
"Like this?"
"Like your heart is breaking."
"Just one night. Stay away from it for one night."
He didn’t answer, just pulled her closer until her head lay against his shoulder. She wasn’t sure if he offered affection or couldn’t bear to look at her. For a long time they held each other, he sitting, she standing. Gradually she began to hope it would happen, that tonight he would turn from his blue bottle.
He drew back to look at her. "Very well."
Her hope surged. "Yes?"
"I’ll send one of my bodyguards for it."
"No."
"If you really wanted to be a good wife, you would help me."
"I won’t help you kill yourself." She squeezed his hands. "You’ve already made it more than halfway through the night. You only have a few more hours."
His face was set. "If you won’t help, I don’t want you here."
She felt as if he had slapped her. But she forced out the words. "All right." She let go of him. "I will have my things sent back to Argali. I can leave in the morning."
A muscle in his cheek twitched. Then he turned and stabbed his finger at a jade leaf on the nightstand. Defeat washed over Kamoj, made all the worse by the way her hope had built.
A voice came into the air. "Doctor Pacal here."
Kamoj froze, watching Vyrl. He had an odd startled look, as if he had surprised himself.
After several moments Dazza said, "Vyrl? Is that you?"
"Yes. Never mind. I’m sorry I bothered you."
"Are you all right? Do you have any pain?"
"No."
"You’re sure?"
"Yes."
"Vyrl–"
"I’m fine."
"I can come up."
"No."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes. Good-night."
"Call me if you need anything."
"I will."
After a while Vyrl said, "Are you still there?"
"Yes," Dazza said.
"I don’t . . . I mean, I’m fine. But I–" He fell silent. Kamoj wondered if Dazza was waiting with the same held breath as she, afraid to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Finally he said, "You can treat withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, can’t you?"
Dazza spoke quietly. "Yes. I can help."
"Can you come up here?"
In an infinitely gentle voice she said, "I’m on my way."
Vyrl touched the leaf again. Then he sat staring at the wall. Finally he turned to Kamoj. "Just for the rest of tonight."
Tears pooled in her eyes. "Yes. Tonight." In the morning they would deal with tomorrow, and when the time came, with the day after that, one day at a time.
VIII
Dragon’s Breath
Rearrangement Collision:
Ionization and Recapture
The buzz of a bottle-beetle blended with forest sounds, quetzals calling and wind blowing. The translucent radiance of dawn filled the room. Kamoj’s mind gradually sorted out what had awoken her. Someone had said her name.
Turning her head, she saw Vyrl sitting on the bed, dressed in a work shirt and old pants, his hair mussed as if he had been out in the wind.
He leaned over and kissed her. "You’re all rumpled and warm under there."
She smiled drowsily. "How long have you been up?"
"A few hours. I had trouble sleeping."
"Did Dazza’s medicine help?"
He nodded, still leaning over her, his hands on either side of her shoulders. "I feel like a stardock crane ran over my head, though."
Kamoj touched his cheek. It was the only way she knew to tell him how much it meant to her to see him sober this morning. She feared if she spoke of it, she would disrupt his precarious equilibrium. So instead she said, "What have you been doing?"
"I was down in the old throne room."
"Throne room?"
"Downstairs," Vyrl said. "The hall on the other end of the palace. We haven’t finished restoring it yet."
It sounded like he meant the Hall of Audiences. "What are you going to do with it?"
He started to answer, then stopped. Sitting up straight, he said, "I’m not sure. I was deciding how to resurface the floor."
"The floor?" Kamoj wondered what he was trying to tell her. She tried to hold back her yawn, but it came anyway. It had taken her hours to doze off again last night, and then her fitful dreams had kept her restless.
"Go on and sleep," Vyrl murmured. "It’s barely sunrise. I have to talk to Drake anyway."
Her eyelids drooped. "Drake?"
"Drake Brockson. He’s the chief anthropologist on the Ascendant. I asked him to put together a summary of his studies on this world."
"What does he say?"
Vyrl hesitated. "He thinks the original population here was breeding stock."
"You mean our animals?" She pulled the covers up around her neck, content in their warmth. "Bi-hawks have two stomachs."
"The animals weren’t the primary subjects."
"What was?"
"People."
"Bi-people," she mumbled. "Some people have double stomachs, you know. They can go longer without eating."
Vyrl didn’t answer right away, and she had just about fallen asleep when he finally spoke. "Yes. That was the intent."
"Intent?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Hmmmm . . ." Just having Vyrl nearby soothed her. Perhaps Dazza was right, that she and Vyrl had some invisible effect on each other. "Yes . . ."
He spoke in an awkward tone. "Drake thinks your ancestors were engineered to be the ideal slaves."
What? She opened her eyes. "How can he say such a thing?"
"Everything points to it."
"Points how?"
He spoke quietly. "Your people’s docility, your drive to please authority, your reluctance to engage in battle or rebellion, your physical beauty and heightened sexual response, your ability to work for long hours in excruciating conditions of climate, atmosphere, poverty, and lack of food–it all fits the models."
She pushed up on her elbow. "It can’t be."
"Even your names support it."
"Our names?"
He nodded. "Each line has its talent. Ironbridge produces electrical wizards, like the Ohmstons. Argali has Sunsmiths. By building your expertise into the brain, your creators avoided having to educate you. In fact, they probably designed you to have trou
ble learning anything else. Smart slaves are dangerous."
It made more sense than Kamoj wanted to admit. Uneasy now, she asked, "And my name? Resonance?" When he hesitated, she said, "I want to know."
Vyrl touched the jeweled chain around her neck. "Human nature prefers freedom. In slaves, that urge must be constrained. Drake believes the Argali line was an experiment designed to create humans less resistant to bondage. The ‘resonance’ is an allegory. Your creators wanted to increase the lifetime of a metastable bound state."
Kamoj frowned. "And Jax?"
"He probably descends from the owners. The free state. It’s unlikely they all managed to leave here when the Ruby Empire collapsed."
Knowing she might have been bred by Jax’s ancestors to work herself to exhaustion was enough to make Kamoj that much more determined to sleep. Then it occurred to her that Vyrl had invoked more of their ownership customs than Jax ever did.
He stiffened. "I don’t own you."
"Our laws say you do." Kamoj hesitated. "If a man’s corporation is larger than the woman can match, she becomes his property. It isn’t only marriages. We couldn’t match your rent, so we had to give you the palace."
"A corporation isn’t a dowry."
"Then what is it?"
"The word derives from classical Iotic." Vyrl paused. "It means a group that, as a body, has the powers, privileges, and liabilities of an individual. Corporations can buy, sell, and inherit property."
"As you bought me."
He flushed. "I would never consider you my property."
She spoke with care. "It is almost unheard of for a man to offer a governor a dowry she can’t match. With such a merger, his authority extends to her entire province. It is the only way, besides inheriting the title, that a person can become governor. That you were already a leader makes it unprecedented as far as I know."
He shook his head. "You’re the leader of Argali. I’ll help if I can, but you’re the one qualified for the job."
Taking a breath, she forged ahead. "Would you sign a contract to verify that arrangement?"
"Of course."
A wave of relief spread over her. She wondered if he had any idea what his answer meant to her. Jax’s refusal to sign such a contract was another reason she had delayed the Argali-Ironbridge merger. "I will have a judge prepare the documents."
"All right." He hesitated. "I’ll be down at the Ridge."
"You mean the palace tri-grain fields?"
"Yes." Shifting his weight, he added, "I told Jak Tager I would talk to him."
Kamoj remembered the name. Dazza had spoken of Tager during their ride in the giant metal bird. "Is he a doctor?"
"Psychiatrist. A healer of emotions." Vyrl’s shoulders tensed under his work shirt. "It can’t hurt just to show him a few crop variations I’m working on. I don’t have to talk to him again if I don’t want to."
"I’m glad, Vyrl." She felt a curious sense of release, as if his words had lifted a weight from her. She let her eyes close.
"Kamoj?"
She opened her eyes half-way. "Yes?"
"This morning I went riding with my bodyguards. We saw some people practicing folk dances in the village."
She yawned. "Probably rehearsing for the harvest festival."
"Some were men."
Her eyes closed again. "Men do the Reel of the Greenglass Stags. They stamp their boots a lot in that one. In the Sun Lizard’s March they spin torches in the air. And they do partner dances with the women . . ."
She was almost asleep when Vyrl said, "Then it is accepted for men to dance here?"
With a sigh, she tried to wake up. "Of course. Why?"
"I just wondered." Leaning over, he kissed her. "Sleep well, water sprite."
As Vyrl’s footsteps receded across the room, she drifted into the downy embrace of sleep.
* * *
A smell of burning scales woke Kamoj. The early morning sunlight had a dirty cast to it. When she widened her nostrils, she almost gagged on the stench of ashes. She slid out of bed and ran to the south-facing window.
To her left, the East Sky Mountains towered in forest-carpeted peaks. Before her, the Lower Sky Mountains spread out in fields and then fell away in wooded hills to the distant flat lands, where villages dotted the aqua-blue plains and rivers criss-crossed the land in silver threads. To the west, the Argali Mountains descended in great wrinkles until, out of sight, they reached the village of Argali.
The mountains roared in flames.
Forest fires blazed in the Argali and Lower Sky Mountains. Billows of smoke rose from peak after rolling peak, and tongues of dragon’s breath threatened the flat lands. If the outlying hamlets of Argali weren’t already burning, they would be soon–and then Argali itself.
The floor under her feet vibrated. A giant bird of gold and black metal roared over the tower, shaking the building with its passage. It arrowed south, where other birds soared over the fires, their metal plumage aglitter in the sunlight. One released a purple cloud that billowed across the flames. The burning orange tongues cowered, beaten back, then flared anew, relentless in their advance.
"Sweet Saints," Kamoj muttered. Why had no one woken her up? She had to get out there to help. She had no doubt Vyrl’s first reaction had also been to join the firelines. Was he out there now, or had the Ascendant ordered his return to its fortress above the sky, forcing him to safety against his will?
Kamoj ran into her chamber, to the rose cabinet where she stored her clothes. As she paused to open it, she saw herself in the mirror, a young woman with a wild mane of black curls that poured down to her hips. She wore only a translucent underdress, her nipples outlined against the pink silk. Rubies and gold glittered at her neck, wrists, and ankles. Collar and cuffs? Was that the origin of these family heirlooms? She gritted her teeth, knowing she would never see her wedding jewels the same way again.
Metal clinked on stone in the master bedroom.
"Vyrl?" Kamoj went back to the bedroom, to see if he had news. The suite, however, was still empty. She checked the landing outside, leaving the foyer doors open, but found no one there
either.
Inside the suite, she heard metal scrape stone again.
Puzzled, Kamoj went back into the bedroom. Still she saw no one. She walked to the window–
And froze.
An iron tri-hook gripped the sill like a huge dragon’s claw, piercing the shimmer curtain. Even as Kamoj watched, a hand came over the sill and slapped onto the wood. Then a woman pulled herself up into view, a husky archer dressed in Ironbridge colors. She hauled herself up onto the sill in one smooth motion.
Kamoj wasted no time on questions: she spun around and ran. As she raced out onto the landing, she heard boots thud on the floor in the suite. She ran down the tower stairs, her bare feet slapping the steps. Why hadn’t Morlin warned her of the intruder? Was he still "down," whatever that meant?
At the bottom of the stairs, the door to the Long Hall was jammed open by the body of an elderly butler who had probably been coming to warn her about the fires. When she saw the gash in his head, she dropped to his side. Mercifully, he still breathed, unconscious but alive.
The sounds of pursuit grew louder above her, boots pounding on stone in the stairwell. Kamoj scrambled over the butler and ran down the Long Hall. She couldn’t outfight or outrun the archer, who had both height and body mass over her, but she knew these mountains far better than Jax’s people. As soon as she made it outside, she would easily lose her pursuer in the forest.
Bodies lay in the hall up ahead, two maize-girls, bound and gagged. For a instant Kamoj feared they were dead. Then she realized no point existed in binding or gagging dead people.
Far up the corridor, near the maize-girls, an Ironbridge stagman stepped out from a doorway.
"Hai!" Kamoj skidded to a stop. Whirling around, she saw the archer striding toward her from the other direction, the woman’s long legs covering ground fast. Kamoj ran straight at her,
trying to reach the nearest doorway before the archer reached her. She made it and ran into a sitting room filled with gold and white furniture. Bronzed sunlight poured through its floor-to-ceiling windows, the promise of escape. She raced toward them–
Someone grabbed her around the waist. As Kamoj yelled, the archer swung her around, lifting her feet off the floor. Half-carrying, half-dragging Kamoj, the woman strode back into the Long Hall, where the stagman met them. When Kamoj tried to shout for help, the stagman shoved a sponge in her mouth and tied a gag around her head, while the archer held her arms pinned. Then her captors each grabbed one of her upper arms and took off, forcing her to run between them or be dragged.
In seconds they were outside, racing across the courtyard. A cart waited for them, hitched to four blueglass bi-hoxen, bulky six-legged mammoths with sparks of sunlight flashing off their scales. The stagman climbed onto the driver’s seat, a plank of wood set across the front of the cart. Kamoj caught only a glimpse of his actions, being otherwise occupied in her struggles with the archer. The woman hefted Kamoj up and threw her into the back of the cart, between two rolls of carpet, by a coil of rope. As she vaulted in after Kamoj, the cart jolted into motion. Kamoj tried to scramble out of it, but the archer shoved her back down on her back.
The stagman looked around, the reins of the bi-hoxen gripped in his hands. "Tera, keep her still."
Tera, apparently the archer, just grunted as she and Kamoj wrestled. Kamoj raked her fingernails across Tera’s arm, drawing blood. Then the archer flipped her onto her stomach and yanked her arms behind her back. Kneeling on Kamoj’s legs, she bound her prisoner’s wrists together with the rope.
The bi-hoxen plodded on, oblivious to the struggle, pulling the cart up into the North Sky Mountains.
* * *
Ancient trees towered over the path, clogged with moss and Argali vines. Black-scaled thornbats hissed among the foliage, searching for puffs to skewer with their needled beaks. Their high-pitched cries echoed in the hoary forest. Except for the rare Argali rose or puff lizard, the trees hunkered in dark hues, their scaled iridescence subdued by the weather. A misty drizzle was falling, mixed with fog that glinted from the scale dust suspended in it.