Certain Symmetry

CERTAIN SYMMETRY

Adventures in the Liaden
Universe
®

Number Four

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Pinbeam Books

http://www.pinbeambooks.com

This is a work of fiction. All the characters
and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are used
fictitiously.

CERTAIN SYMMETRY

Copyright
©
2000, 2003, 2011
by
Sharon Lee
and
Steve Miller
. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
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First published in 2000 by SRM,
Publisher.

ISBN:

Kindle: 978-1-935224-57-0

Epub: 978-1-935224-58-7

PDF: 978-1-935224-59-4

Published May 2011 by

Pinbeam Books

PO Box 707

Waterville ME 04903

email [email protected]

Cover photograph and design
Copyright
©
2011
Steve Miller

Certain Symmetry

Smashwords
Edition

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of this author

The Wine of
Memory

"WELL, HERE'S AN
improvement," the magician said to his apprentice, watching her
walk the red wooden counter across the backs of her fingers. The
counter reversed itself, returned along the thin, ringless fingers
to the end of the hand,
over
the side, to be deftly caught by that same hand
before it had fallen an inch.

Moonhawk looked up with a grin, as proud of
mastering this minor bit of hand-skill as she had ever been of
learning any of the true-spells taught in Temple. It had taken days
of almost constant practice to teach her muscles the rhythm
required to move the counter smoothly across her own skin. It was
the sort of thing one might do while walking, which was Lute's
stated reason for teaching her this skill first. They had been
walking for two days.

"I do believe you are ready to learn
something a little more difficult," the magician said now, and
looked around him.

The road was empty. The road--the track,
really, Moonhawk thought--had been empty for two days. Of all the
people on Sintia, only Lute and Moonhawk found the village of Karn
a destination of interest.

"The season is early," Lute murmured,
seeming, as he so often did, to be reading her very thoughts. "When
summer is high, this road will be crowded with folk who have
business in Karn."

"It will?" Moonhawk frowned after her Temple
lessons, recalling the long tales of provinces and products she and
the rest of the Maidens had been obliged to memorize. Karn had
certainly not been on any of those lists.

She sighed and looked up. Lute was watching
her with that particular expression that meant he was receiving the
Goddess's own pleasure from her ignorance, which he would not, of
course, enlighten until she asked him.

"Very well," she said crossly. "Whatever
comes out of Karn, Master Lute, that the world should walk for days
to have it?"

"Wine, of course," he answered, setting his
bag down in the road with a flourish. "The best wine in all the
world that is allowed to those not in Temple."

She blinked. "Wine? But wine comes from
Mandiel and Barbary..."

"From Astong and Veyru," Lute finished.
"Fine vineyards, every one. But the Temples are thirsty. Or greedy.
Or both. No drop of wine from those four provinces escapes to a
common glass. That wine comes from Karn."

Almost she frowned again, for it was not his
place to pass judgement on the Temples--and by extension the
Witches who served the Goddess there. But she remembered another
lesson from her days as a Maiden in Temple. The wine cellars at
Dyan Temple were large and an accurate inventory of vintage and
barrel very close to the heart of Merlot, the Temple steward.
Inventory was considered the sort of practical, useful work most
needed by Maidens who were, perhaps, just a bit prideful of their
magics. There had been one season when Moonhawk had spent a good
deal of time in the wine cellars, inventory list to hand.

"Attend me now," Lute said, tossing his
cloak behind his shoulders.

Moonhawk moved a few steps closer, her
irritation forgotten.

"Perhaps you think you have mastered the
counter, but the counter may yet be the wiser, eh?" He smiled, but
Moonhawk didn't see. All her attention--and all her Witch
sense--was focused on his long, clever hands.

"Now we enter the realm of magic, indeed. I
am about to reveal to you the method for making a counter
disappear." He extended his empty right hand, frowned and flexed
the fingers.

"First, naturally enough, one must make a
counter appear." And there, held lightly between his first and
second fingers was a bright green counter. How it had come there,
Lute and his skill knew. Certainly, Moonhawk did not, having seen
neither the movement that would have retrieved a cleverly hidden
counter nor felt the surge of power that would have been necessary
to create a counter. Or the illusion of one.

Lute extended his hand. "Please verify that
this is indeed a common wooden counter, such as might be found in
any gaming house on Sintia."

She took the disk, felt the smoothness of
the paint, the rough edge of wood where the caress of many fingers
had worn the paint away. No illusion, this. She handed it back.

"I find it a common wooden counter," she
said, for she must also practice the eloquence of his speech, which
served, so he said, to divert the attention of an audience and give
a magician valuable seconds in which to work. "Such as might be
found in any gaming house on the planet."

"Excellent," he said, receiving the token on
his callused palm.

"A common counter." He tossed it lightly
into the air, caught it on the back of his hand and walked it
negligently across his fingers.

"Behaving commonly." He flipped his hand,
caught the counter between thumb and forefinger and held it
high.

"Now, behold its uncommon attribute."

Moonhawk stifled a curse: There was nothing
between the magician's thumb and forefinger but sunshine and cool
spring air.

Lute lowered his hand and smiled. "Another
lesson that may be practiced as one walks. Though we haven't far to
walk now. Tonight, we shall eat one of Veverain's splendid dinners,
sample somewhat of last year's vintage and sleep wrapped in soft,
sweet-smelling blankets."

Moonhawk stared from him to the red wooden
counter in her hand.

"I'm to practice? Pray what am I to
practice, Master Lute? I saw neither pass nor Witch power."

Lute smiled. "You saw that it was possible."
He bent and retrieved his bag. "Come. Veverain's hospitality tugs
my heart onward."

* * *

THE TRACK CURVED 'round a grove of
dyantrees, and there was Karn, tidily laid out along two main
streets and a marketplace. To the east of the village lay the
fields; to the west, the winter livestock pens. Behind the village
rose a hill, showing terrace upon terrace of leafless brown
vines.

There were folk about on the streets, and
Lute's stride lengthened. Moonhawk stretched her own long legs to
keep the pace, the red counter forgotten for the moment in the
pocket of her cloak.

"Ho, Master Lute!" A stocky man in a leather
apron raised a hand. "Spring is here at last!"

"And not a moment too soon," Lute agreed
with a smile, crossing the street to where the man stood in the
tavern's doorway, Moonhawk a step behind him. "How came the village
through the winter?"

The man looked sober. "We lost a few to the
cold--oldsters or infants, all. The rest of us came through well
enough. Except for--." The man's face changed, and Moonhawk caught
the edge of his distress against her Witch sense.

"You're bound for Veverain's?" he asked,
distress sharpening.

"Of course I am bound for Veverain's! Am I a
fool, to pass by the best food, the snuggest bed and the most
gracious hostess in the village?"

"Not a fool," the man returned quietly,
"only short of news."

Lute went entirely still. Moonhawk, slanting
a glance at his face, saw his mouth tighten, black eyes abruptly
intense.

"Our Lady of the Snows has taken Veverain?"
he asked, matching the other's quiet tone.

The man moved his hand -- describing
helplessness. "Not--That is to say--Veverain. Ah, Goddess take me
for a muddlemouth!" He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through
his thinning hair.

"It was Rowan went out to feed the stock one
morning in the thick of winter, and when he didn't come back for
the noon meal, Veverain went out to find him." He paused to draw a
deep, noisy breath. "He'd never gotten to the pens. A tree
limb--heavy, you understand, with the ice--had come down and
crushed him dead."

Lute closed his eyes. Moonhawk raised her
hand and traced the sign of Passing in the air.

"May he be warm, in the Garden of the
Goddess."

The tavern-keeper looked at her, startled.
Lute opened his eyes, hands describing one of his elegant gestures,
calling attention to her as if she were a rare gemstone.

"Behold, one's apprentice!" he said, but
Moonhawk thought his voice sounded strained. "Moonhawk, here is the
excellent Oreli, proprietor of the justly renowned tavern, Vain
Disguise."

Oreli straightened from his lean to make a
somewhat inexpert bow. When he straightened, his eyes were rounder
than ever.

"Lady."

Moonhawk inclined her head. "Keeper Oreli.
Blessings upon you."

He swallowed, but before he could make
answer, Lute was speaking again.

"When did this tragedy occur, Friend Oreli?
You give me to believe the house is closed. Is Veverain yet in
mourning?"

"Mourning," the other man repeated and
half-laughed, though the sound was as sad as any Moonhawk had ever
heard. "You might say mourning." He sighed, spreading his hands,
palm up, for them both to see.

"Rowan died just past of
mid-winter. Veverain... Veverain shut the house up, excepting only
the room they had shared. She turned us away, those of us who were
her friends, or Rowan's--turned us away, shunned our company and
our aid. And she just sits in that house by herself, Master Lute.
Sits there alone in the dark. Her sister's man tends the animals;
her niece tilled the kitchen garden and put in the early
vegetables. They say they never see her; that she will not even
open the door to kin--and you know,
you
know, Master Lute!--that Rowan
would never have wanted such a thing!"

"A convivial man, Rowan," Lute murmured. "He
and Veverain were well-matched in that."

"Is she still alive?" Moonhawk asked,
somewhat impatiently. "Her kin say that they never see her, that
she will not open the door. How are they certain that she has not
been Called, or that she has not taken some injury?"

"We see the hearth smoke," Oreli said.
"We--the care basket is left full by the door in the morning. Some
mornings, the basket and the food is still there. Often enough, the
basket is empty. She is alive, that we do know. Alive, but dead to
life."

Moonhawk frowned. "She has been taking care
baskets since Solstice?"

Oreli raised a hand. "A long time, I know.
The baskets usually are not sent so long. Forgive me, Lady, but you
are a stranger here; you do not know how it was ... how Veverain
cared for us all. When our daughter was ill, we had some of
Veverain's baskets--hot soup, fresh bread, tiny wheels of her
special cheese--you remember Veverain's cheeses, eh, Master
Lute?"