Heart Choice (6 page)

“Are there any breakfast meals in the no-time?”

“No.”

Straif frowned. He'd need a cook, but how could he ask anyone else to live and work in such a shambles? He stood, picked up his traveling blanket and snapped the dust from it, folded it, and pulled on his trous.

Drina sat regally, lifted her little pink nose, and mewed.

“How about minced clucker, do we have any of that?”

“Indeed,” said the Residence.

Pulling on his shirt, Straif crossed to the door, opened it, and entered the wide corridor, which was much lighter than the room. He glanced over his shoulder. The dark purple room might have been beautiful at one time, but he didn't want to keep the color. He'd change the entire room. Meanwhile, since it resonated with no memories, it would be a good office.

He set his shoulders. The kitchen was to the left. He recollected that there were rooms for the cook off the chamber. That might be a good place to stay. Rubbing his jaw and feeling the prickle of rough beard, he cheered at the thought of a bathroom. He lengthened his stride until Drina mewed a protest.

“Huh,” he said, looking down at her. “Keep up.”

She sniffed.

He'd been around enough cats to know that it was an exclamation of disdain.

They reached the door at the end of the hallway that led to the kitchen. It swung easily on the hinges, squeaking a little.

He entered the kitchen and eyed it, scowling. He wasn't sure what a prime kitchen should look like, what tools it should have, but the appliances seemed big and clunky. Just as with everything else, time had passed in the kitchen with no modernization. Flair technology continued to be refined, so less and less psi power was needed to work common spells. Flair itself was growing stronger and more common in the populace. Straif had experienced that in his travels.

One wall showed doors to the no-time compartments—storage areas for uncooked foods and full meals. He stared at them, hands on hips. “Residence, which one holds the minced clucker?”

An indicator lit up on a small cabinet. “The Fam meals,” the Residence said.

“I thought we didn't have Fams for a long time?” Straif opened the storage area to see a lustrous purple pottery bowl filled with steaming clucker. He sniffed. It smelled good. Too bad he was set on eggs.

He took out the bowl, warm from the meat inside, and placed the meal on the floor. Drina glided up, sniffed, made a sound of approval, and started to demolish the meal in quick, dainty bites.

Straif looked around. There was no place for an open fire—the only way he knew how to cook. He frowned, searching his memory. “Don't we have a fire pit, somewhere?” He could cook over a campfire.

“There was a fire pit at the west end of the wall below the terrace. It was destroyed in one of the gang fights,” the Residence said.

Anger surged through Straif that his estate had been so abused. His own fault, but another task—to shieldspell the grounds. That would take a lot of Flair, and it was something that he wouldn't want anyone else to initiate.

“Ahem,” the Residence said.

“Yes?”

“T'Ash furnished a GardenShed. It might have breakfast meals in a small no-time.”

Straif blinked. “Really?” The morning was looking up.

Drina burped.

Straif picked up her empty bowl and put it in the wash cabinet.

“Right, we'll go out to the GardenShed.”

“There is much we must discuss, GrandLord Straif T'Blackthorn,” the Residence rumbled. Straif figured it used his name to emphasize the point.

“And we will discuss that as soon as I return. In the meantime, please divert some housekeeping energy to clean the kitchen apartment. My Fam and I will live there for a time.”

“You are the GrandLord. You should occupy the MasterSuite.”

His gut tensed. “Not yet.” His stomach rumbled. “Breakfast, first. You are still draining much of my energy, and to keep up my strength I will need to eat.”

The atmosphere of the Residence shivered as if with thunder. All of the fine hair on his body rose.

“I insist that you—” The Residence's voice thickened.

“Later!” Straif strode down the short hallway from the kitchen to the outside door of the west wing, ignoring the cook's apartments. He wouldn't let the Residence make him feel more guilty than he already did. He'd been on his own a long time now, had responded to and fulfilled his Uncle T'Holly's requests, had exchanged favor for favor to other Ladies and Lords of the FirstFamilies as necessary. He was a man now, not a scared and grieving seventeen-year-old boy.

He circled back to descend the steps from the terrace to the grounds in the rear of the house.

Drina joined him, nearly running. He was learning to read her already. The stiffness in her tail indicated she wasn't too pleased with him.

Four

The terrace steps weren't in too bad a shape; a simple fix
-it spell should take care of them.

At the bottom of the staircase, a huge lawn stretched to the edge of the hillside the Residence was built on, and another set of steps went down to the Pendef River and his personal dock. He didn't look at the grounds, but followed Drina as she put on a spurt of speed and angled to a GardenShed. Even from this distance it looked in good shape, solid, sturdy, cared-for. Frowning, he vaguely remembered snatches of conversation from his childhood, his father giving orders that the GardenShed be provisioned with a no-time, a bedsponge. Unusual now that he thought of it, but something that had just drifted past him at the time. And did he, himself, dimly remember the dark form of a large, rough boy lurking in the grounds? Once watching a ball? That would have been the orphaned T'Ash.

Drina yowled, attracting his attention. She held her nose in the air.
The Fountain of the Dark Goddess doesn't work.

Straif grunted. Nothing was in acceptable shape.

That stopped Straif in his tracks. “Say again.” He tried to keep his tone even, but anger churned in his gut, ready to flash into rage.

Smiling as she snitched on her sire, Drina said,
Zanth took the lambenthyst stones from the fountain and gave them to T'Ash. T'Ash took them somewhere.

An incoherent sound of fury spewed from Straif, and he turned back to shoot across the width of the grounds and into the T'Blackthorn sacred grove to the Fountain of the Dark Goddess. Sure enough, two of the tiers showed gaping holes where once shining purple stones glowed. His fingers curled into tight fists. “I'll fight T'Ash for this.”

Drina joined him, panting.
You go too fast. Run, run, run. All we've done today. It will demand much nap time later.

He sent her an angry look. She ignored him and sat, raising a delicate paw to remove specks of dirt.
You sound like a Holly.

“My mother was a Holly.”

Everything stilled in Straif, even his sweat. The curse of the Blackthorns was their flawed gene that made them fatally susceptible to a common Celtan disease. T'Ash had taken the stones because of the curse? Could it be that T'Ash had found a cure for T'Blackthorn's ailment while Straif was searching Celta? Why wouldn't the man have told him? Straif found himself gritting his teeth and loosened his jaw. “You can be sure I'll discuss this with T'Ash.” He whirled and started back to the GardenShed.

Straif flinched. Reining in his impatience, he scooped up the small cat, lifted her and set her on his shoulder, and took off at a rapid pace. She dug her claws into his shoulder, and he hissed at the pain. He'd have to make sure the medical cabinets were stocked. If this continued to be her favorite perch, he'd ensure his shirts were augmented with shoulder pads. He scowled. Now that he was back in Druida, he'd need more clothing, better clothing, tailored clothing, which meant he'd have to visit GrandLady Pyra and have her take his measurements.

When they reached the GardenShed, Straif walked around it. It was the best-kept structure on the estate, better than the walls and the greeniron gates. He squinted and saw the aura of strong shieldspells. He opened the door and found a large, comfortable room with bedsponge, medical cabinet, no-time, and sink. A sheet of papyrus lay on a table. He picked it up and writing appeared.

 
Straif scanned the rest of the sheet, tucked it in his pocket. Crossing to the no-time, he touched it and said, “Breakfast.”

A list of ten hearty meals was recited in T'Ash's rumbling voice.

“The three eggs and crispy porcine strips,” he said.

I would like a crème brûlée for dessert,
Drina said.

Straif snorted but got the food for both of them and they ate.

Belly full of food, he decided he wouldn't skewer T'Ash after all. Maybe he'd only beat him up a little. A smile hovered on Straif's lips. They were evenly matched. T'Ash was larger and had the muscles of a blacksmith, but Straif was tough from wandering Celta—and sometimes hiring out as a guard for merchant journeys.

Drina's small, pink tongue swept her muzzle and whiskers.
You must find someone who cooks well for us.

Straif's face froze. Not one of the Family, for there was no Family. This was hard. He should have cared for the estate all along, visited it, watched over it, then it wouldn't have been this hard to face it and restore it. He swallowed.

Tapping the scrystone set in the wall, he said, “T'Ash.”

Drina jumped up on his shoulder.

The facets in the crystal sharpened, coalesced into a man's face. “T'Ash here,” the GreatLord said.

Something in the man's narrowed eyes made Straif approach the topic of the missing stones obliquely. He'd state a need first, as if showing a vulnerability. “I would like to hold a RitualCircle of several FirstFamily Heads of Household here on full twinmoons, to power up T'Blackthorn Residence.”

T'Ash's black brows arched over his skycrystal blue eyes. “Agreed.” He hesitated a moment. “A good idea.” A fleeting smile crossed his olive-toned visage. “I had not thought to do such a thing when I rebuilt my own Residence. T'Ash Residence, too, could use a celebration, and T'Ash Family. My wife is with child, our first.”

“Congratulations.” Straif felt a warmth as well as envy at T'Ash's news.

“The T'Ash Family line continues.” T'Ash closed his eyes a moment. “I had thought, for a while, that I would be the last.”

Those words were enough for Straif to understand T'Ash's sympathy for the sole member of the Blackthorn line—Straif himself. T'Ash knew, none better, that Straif must ensure the Blackthorn line continued.

Like all FirstFamilies, the survival of the Family was Straif's primary goal. That was why he had to find the cure for his vulnerability to the Angh virus. Simply so flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood would descend in an unbroken lineage from the past and the visionaries who had funded the Colonization and made the long journey to Celta, to the future where Straif's descendants would finally tame and claim Celta for their own.

Celtans still struggled to populate their planet. Though their life spans were far longer than those of the people of old Earth, a twisted genetic code such as his, sterility, and low birthrate made the Colonization slow. Even now, after four centuries, humans only had a toehold on Celta and could very well die out.

Straif had to find a remedy to correct the faulty gene.

He also had to find a wife.

T'Ash's voice pulled Straif from his thoughts. “Spring equinox is an eightday after the full twinmoons. Will you participate in a small RitualCircle to dedicate T'Ash Residence the eve of the equinox?”

“A fair trade,” Straif said.

“Done.”

Straif said, “There seems to be an outstanding matter of some stones . . .”

T'Ash grimaced. He looked to his left. “I told you one day T'Blackthorn would want those stones,” he muttered to someone outside the viz image.