Diadem from the Stars (2 page)

“Then anything possible.” He stared grimly at the RMoahl ship. “Long as I can breathe the air.”

There was an odd little sound rather like a sigh. He felt a nudge that changed rapidly to a hard continuous twisting shove. In the screen the field of stars turned sluggishly until a double star—blue dwarf, red giant—was centered. Slowly, painfully slowly, the stars grew larger.…

Then the ship gave a little hiccup. The lock bar of the crash-web suddenly flipped loose and the web sprung free. Stavver was thrown forward so that he slammed his head into the hard glass of the screen. The ship hiccuped again, throwing him back into the chair. A harsh brittle sound bored through the haze in his head as the floor drove up and then dropped away. Then the crash-web flipped back and locked again.

He strained through the sloshing in his brain to see what was happening while small crashes mingled with the thrumming of the generators. The air filled with smoke again.

A long, stretched-out minute passed.

The ship wobbled, hesitated a heart-stopping second, then plunged down faster, faster … while the bottom dropped out of the thief's stomach. The ship wobbled again … into a wild tumble down down down until it caromed off some bottom and swooped up up into a steep curve and plastered his body against the pressure couch.

A purple-green glow crawled in a jagged lump over one wall … and opened a long-lashed eye that winked at him. Control pretzeled out, stretching way out, twisting, twisting.… His feet were distant lumps on legs pulled to threads.… The glow shut its single eye and burst into an aching red that assaulted his senses like a hot rice curry … fading, fading, in green … ice cream pulsing cool jazz into mint ice cream darkening into coffee tart with sharp soprano peaks.…

He woke to thick black silence. Groggily he unstrapped himself and groped for the control console. One by one he snapped switches … dead … dead … dead … a faint flicker of light chased across the screen. He turned the gain full and caught the faint image of the lake water with a few startled fish swimming uneasily in the heated water.

“Water,” he muttered. The scanner moved up to the surface. “Not too far down … swim out. First, the diadem.…” Painfully he straightened and slid out of the pressure couch. He stumbled heavily to the keuthos where the jewels lay hidden and stabbed his fingers in the complex pattern of the puzzel lock. As the pouch tumbled out he caught it and looped the strap over his shoulder.

The water was tepid and dark with moonlight a faint silvery glow overhead. As his head broke surface he saw a jagged rise of rock jutting black and formidable against the backdrop of the brilliantly starlit sky. Cautiously, being careful not to splash the water about, he paddled to the bank and slid into the shadow at the base of the tor. Behind him the spearheaded reeds stirred with papery rustles in the strengthening breeze flowing toward him from around the side of the tor, bringing with it a faint odor of burning wood.

Snaking on his stomach up the gentle rise beside the precipitous rock, he peered through the fringe of grass at a ring of camp fires lighting up low rounded tents and busily scurrying figures of short, stocky humanoids.

Part I

THE FIREBALL

1

Red-hot light slashed through the double glass and burned away the comfortable darkness in the narrow bedroom.

“Madar!” Aleytys bobbed upright and shivered in the icy night air. Heart bumping, she rubbed her hands over the gooseflesh on her arms and stared at familiar walls that the glare turned strange, whiting out shadows, bringing cracks and stains into startling prominence.

For an eye-blink she thought she was back in her old nightmare, the one in which she woke in a cell with rose-pink padding on the walls. Then the light began to fade.

Beside her Twanit whimpered and dug herself farther under the quilts. Absently Aleytys reached out and patted the quivering lump. Then she pushed up onto her knees. With the bed quaking and creaking under her, she bounced up to the head and pulled herself to the tall thin window that rose above the headboard.

Set into the house's three-foot-thick outwall, the double window with its inner and outer set of leaded panes was recessed a full foot back from the wall surface, forming a dust-catching ledge where Aleytys kept her clock and a heavy pewter candlestick that right now had a six-inch piece of candle stuck in it.

Impatiently she raked them off the ledge and wormed her body into the opening. Outside, a roundish blaze nearly as large as Hesh curved down the sky, swallowing the starlight and painting the glaciers of Dandan an ominous blood-red.

She pressed her nose against the cold glass and stared curiously at the sky. As the fireball slipped behind the mountains and the afterglow died away, she dropped back to the mattress, shivering from the cold air sliding around her body.

Twanit stirred and thrust her head out from under the quilts, blinking damply. “Leyta?”

“Yeah, hon?” Aleytys shifted around and brushed the wild elf-locks from her cousin's wide-staring eyes, smiling gently down at her. “What is it, Ti?”

With a sputtering gasp Twanit scrambled up and clutched Aleytys around her waist, burying her face in the thick folds of the heavy nightgown. “Oh, Leyta,” she wailed. “Leyta …” Her voice trailed into incoherence while her frail body shook so hard the bones seemed on the verge of coming through the translucent flesh.

Aleytys sighed and patted her shoulder. “Hush, Ti,” she said softly. She stroked one hand lightly over the black curls while she kept up her soothing murmur. “Shh, baby, Mmm, no, I won't let it hurt you … shh it's gone … all gone … all gone … See, it's dark again … nice and dark … mmm … mmm … I'm here, little Ti, aziz-ni … shh.”

She let her voice die away as she felt Twanit's body relax. When she looked down, her cousin's eyes were shut and her breathing was slow and even. She was asleep again, in that facile deep sleep that usually followed her hysterical outbursts.

With a quick grimace of distaste Aleytys slid her over onto her own side of the wide bed. “I wish it was that easy for me,” she muttered. Twanit's soft mouth dropped open and she snored. “Duscht!” Aleytys straightened her out and turned her onto her side. “What a night.” She sat up and rubbed her arms again. “Cold as Aschla's pity.”

She stretched out on the bed and dragged the quilts over the two of them, shuddering at the touch of the cold sheets. Funny, she thought, to get so excited about some stupid light in the sky. She wiggled her shoulders and turned over onto her stomach, nestling her head down into the quilts. Then she closed her eyes, sucked in a lungful of air and let it trickle slowly out, settling down to sleep again.

A minute later her eyes popped open again. “Madar!” she snarled into the pillow. Outside in the hallway, muffled somewhat by the thick walls, she heard loud excited voices, scuffling footsteps, door after door slamming.

“My family! My damn dear family. Sticking their noses out at last.” She heaved herself up and sat cross-legged on her pillow. “No sleep this night for me. Not till they shut their cackling mouths.” Tilting her head back she stared up at the enigmatic black rectangle. “Or maybe …”

She wiggled into the opening again and eagerly scanned the sky. The stars flickered placidly on the dark arch while big Aab's pale sphere shone in the window's upper right pane with tiny Zeb hovering just below. The capricious night breezes of early summer danced the horan leaves around just as they had every Gavran month she could remember.

“By the Madar's purple eyes …!” Aleytys shoved straying wisps of hair back out of her eyes. “I wish I knew.…” She squirmed around and slipped off the side of the bed. Twanit muttered a chewed-up sound that trailed off into a gurgling snore.

Though the bed almost filled the narrow room, there was about a foot of space between its edge and the wall on each side. She slipped past the sliding doors of her closet and snatched down a fringed shawl, which she flipped around her shoulders. Cautiously she shoved the heavy door open.

The hall outside was patterned with shifting shadows cast by night candles stuck in iron frames beside doors marching in a steady line down the long corridor. The hall was empty now, but at the far end a pool of butter-yellow lamplight spilled around the corner. Voices bounced down to her like eerie disembodied spirits, echoes garbling the words into snippets of sound. She hesitated.
If I keep back in the shadows so they don't see me
…

Shivering a little at the current of icy air that flowed along the painted tiles, she pattered swiftly down the hall.

The square outside the Azdar's door was filled with a milling throng hissing at each other in tense excited whispers, spinning a web of sibilance and secrecy that left her on the outside. Qumri's sharp tones sounded suddenly above the rest. “… Has to be.…” Mavas's discontented rumble drowned her out.

Hastily Aleytys backed farther into the shadows. “Has to be what?” she muttered. “Bitch. It would be her who knows something about that fireball. If she had her way I wouldn't know alef from bayt.” She leaned forward, tensely curious.

The purple slab with a fine-line silver dragon incised in its center slammed open and the Azdar himself stood planted solidly in the wide rectangle.

Aleytys raised higher on her toes and peered past him, curiosity flaring hot in her. As she tottered in the shadows steadying herself with a hand planted on the wall, she could just see a dim shape sitting up in bed. She stifled a giggle.
Wonder who he's got in there tonight. Bet Qumri's livid.
She sniffed and ran her eyes over the bulky figure in the door.
Ha! Even stopped to comb his hair and put on a clean nightshirt.
Her eyes flicked over him again.
Look at the old buzzard suck in his gut.

Wide mouth curled in a sneer, shaggy eyebrows drawn together into a hideous scowl, he moved his heavy head slowly around like a tars on the hunt.

A sudden hush. All eyes focused on him.

Azdar stood impressively silent, milking the scene for all the drama he could squeeze out of it.

Aleytys sank back on her heels, rebellion an itch crawling under her skin, wanting to yell at them all, “The old bastard's a fake!” Her shoulders moved restlessly against the wall.

The tense silence was suddenly broken by Qumri. She took two steps forward and planted herself in front of Azdar. Aleytys held her breath as her heart started thudding again. She couldn't see Qumri's face but the set of her head shouted barely suppressed rage.

“Abru sar, the fireball.” Qumri's voice was loud and hoarse. She clipped her words viciously short. “Her. What are you going to do about her?” The last word she spit at him like a pit viper spewing its venom.

“Her?” Aleytys repeated, surprised. She swallowed abruptly, pressing her hand over her mouth, eyes flickering warily over the backs of those closest to her. But no one turned. No one had heard.

Azdar glared at Qumri until she reluctantly dropped her head. Then his hard yellow-brown eyes narrowed and he roared at the rest of them, “Bunch of spineless mikhmikhha!”

Once again Aleytys stifled a giggle as the straggling hairs of his bushy moustache fluttered in the blast.

Slamming his hand against the doorpost, he boomed, “The house stands solid. Ai-Jahann, a lot more solid than the lot of you. Shiver in your skins at ghosts, will you?” He sneered and moved his massive head around again, pinning them with his eyes. “The witch is gone, fools. She won't come back. Well call mulaqat tomorrow about this thing. Till then, act like grown men instead of whimpering brats. Clear out now. Let a man sleep.” He stalked over, grabbed the edge of the door, and shrugged it closed behind him.

For a minute the Azdarha fluttered around like a clutch of jittery chickens, their voices clucking in subaudible spasms, a rising and falling murmur that trailed behind Aleytys as she backed up a few steps, then spun around on her toes and fled down the hall. Panting lightly, shaky giggles simmering along with tears beneath her precarious self-control, she slipped past her door and eased it shut.

The leather lacing creaked loudly as her weight came down on the mattress, startling a shrill titter out of her. She clapped a hand over her mouth and glanced back over her shoulder, but Twanit's breathing flowed smoothly in and out without skipping a beat, so she stretched her hands out behind her and leaned back, her eyes focusing vaguely on the window's moon-cast reflection on the smooth surface of the door, a shifting tracery of shadow playing rhythmically across the pale squares.

A pleasant lassitude spread up through her. With a groaning yawn and a bone-cracking stretch she settled out flat on the bed. “Cackling hens,” she murmured, then closed her eyes, grinning into the darkness.
Wonder who that was in Azdar's bed. Qumri saw, I'm sure she did. Hope I never get that obsessed with any man. Mmm, I better crawl under the quilt before I freeze.

As she lay trying to work up enough energy to get back on her feet she heard the last door slam and a single pair of feet begin pacing down the long hall. Qumri checking up.

Aleytys stiffened. “Bitch,” she whispered. She pushed up, hands squeezing the quilt until her fingers ached.

The footsteps came nearer.

Mouth twisted in an angry self-mocking grimace, she unclenched her fingers and rubbed her hand across her forehead.
I thought she'd have my skin off the last time she beat me
.…

Outside, the footsteps slowed, hesitated.

Aleytys sat very still.

A hand pushed strongly from outside. Aleytys heard the faint, dull thud as the door chucked against the stop. Then the footsteps clicked away down the hall.

“A perfect ending for a perfect day …” With a shaky laugh she twitched the shawl from her shoulders. Sighing, she muttered, “Better try for some sleep. I'll feel like a calf with scours tomorrow.” She stretched and yawned, but there was a pool of restless energy inside her that made the thought of lying down sit sour on her stomach.