Rift in the Races (27 page)

The Battle of Ice Sea. Seven dwarven ironclads defeated the king’s armada, two hundred ships strong, and all thirty of the elven skiffs. That was the day that paved the way to the decision by the allied forces of Kurr and String to use demon conjuring. The defeat that set in motion the destruction of the dwarven race. The Queen had it painted and enchanted on the ceiling of her war room as a reminder to everyone what was at stake when the War Council came in here and sat down. It was supposed to be a warning, an inducement to care and competence.

“How ironic,” he said to one particular figure standing at the prow of the foremost elven ship. “And I am too old to go through all of this again.”

Chapter 15

A
ltin sat on a stool, leaning over the edge of the wooden scrying basin, which permanently occupied the battlements atop his tower. He gazed down into the water at the pretty face of Orli who sat before her new mirror in her quarters on Tinpoa Base.

“You can’t defect,” he repeated for the third time. “Your people will not have it. You’d be putting Queen Karroll in a difficult spot. And if you saw what just happened in the War Council, you’d be more convinced of it than I.”

Her head was already shaking before he’d finished speaking. “I don’t care. I don’t have forever to wait. Everything you’ve just told me only proves my point. There’s always going to be some other reason why I can’t go find a place to live. Always some new cause. I don’t want much, Altin. A little house somewhere. A garden. Someplace to run. I want to ride horses and dragons, not some computer console headed into the asshole of the universe. I know it sounds callous, but I can’t do this anymore. We should have gone home when we saw what happened on Andalia. We don’t even know what the Andalians did to piss them off. We don’t even know if they were ever going to come to Earth. Why would they? How could they even
find
Earth?” She paused and took the time to breathe. “Asad can go kill them all, or the Hostiles can wipe all those idiots out. What difference does it make? We should have just gone home.”

“They nearly did wipe them out, Orli. Many ships were destroyed, almost half of them.”

“Of course they were. What did they think was going to happen?”

“The orbs will come here.”

“Good. Your people will handle them easily. Problem solved.”

At least in theory, he felt that was a pretty good possibility, but it didn’t have anything to do with Orli’s defection one way or another. “If you try to hide, your people will come after you. If they find you, they’ll take you away. Maybe forever.”

“You’ll come get me.”

“I cannot come get you if I cannot find you.”

“I have the mirror.”

“They can take that from you.”

“You can do that divining thing. That’s how you found me the first time.”

He could see how this was going to go, and his exasperation blew out in a breath that rippled her face in the water of his scrying basin, which nearly broke the spell. He had to wait for the tiny waves to settle down. “I got shot right after I found you the first time too,” he reminded her. “Next time the captain might have better aim.” He watched her for a moment and could tell by the set of her jaw she remained belligerent. “Orli, you just have to be strong for a little longer, like you said you would.”

“That’s the same thing Roberto said. But you know what? I am being strong. I’m being strong for myself. I’m not going to keep doing this. I’m not going back on that goddamn ship. Or any other goddamn ship. Ever. I swear to you, Altin, I won’t do it.”

“By the gods, Orli …,” he began. But what could he say? She was probably the most stubborn woman he’d ever met, excepting perhaps the Queen. So strong in some ways, so fragile in others.

“By the gods nothing,” she said, watching the way his eyes searched for something in the air beyond the edges of the mirror, as if he might find some new angle, some new way to change her mind. “I’m not going back on board, so you can stop trying to find a way to talk me into it. Not you, not Roberto, not anyone. Not all the gods of Prosperion and Earth combined. I mean it.”

He slumped in his stool, defeated for now. How could he hide her if the Queen felt compelled to divine her location? He could shroud her with magic of his own, but it wouldn’t take them very long to figure out who was behind that. He might as well light her up with a Luminous Aura spell so they could see her glowing in the dark. He wasn’t a counter-mage, and the relationship was obvious anyway.

“Altin, I’m sorry,” she said as she watched his mood sink. He’d been so buoyant. She didn’t want to be the one to ruin that. Not tonight. Not after the day she’d had. “It’s just that I really can’t do it. I don’t have any energy left, not for another five years. There’s no way. I don’t mind helping out here,” she lifted her eyes, glanced around the room to indicate the base, the whole Tinpoan operation around and under her. “I mean, I do mind. I hate it. But I can handle it. I’m working with the land, in a manner of speaking; it’s not pretty or, you know, anything that matters, but, it’s okay, and it helps, I guess. And you can come see me often enough, even sneak me down there sometimes like we have been since they built this place. But I can’t do another five years on a ship. I can’t do another week. I won’t.”

“I know. I don’t know how you got through as long as you did. Any of you. Men go mad spending as little as six months at sea. At least some do.” He winced, realizing what he’d said was exactly what she meant but hadn’t said.

“Well I don’t want to go mad.” She paused, then added, “Again.” She knew what his startled look had meant.

Then he got an idea.

“What if you came with me?”

“Duh! What do you think I’ve been telling you? Just you and me. Screw the rest of this. Let’s find another planet if we have to. We can even just go back to Andalia. I can point you right to the star.”

“No, I mean, what if you came with me on
Citadel.
”

She started to say, “No,” but stopped herself. Altin saw it, the reflex. He saw it nearly eject itself like the poisoned needle of an enchanted lock, but she restrained it at the last. She leaned back and wriggled her pretty mouth around, making faces he found beguiling, as she considered what he’d said. It was still going to amount to more time in space.

He saw her expression change with the arrival of that thought and guessed at it. He advanced his case a little further. “We can be together,” he said, “and yet, you don’t have to abandon your people to the enemy.” He felt bad for that particular choice of words, manipulative by design, but it was the truth. Her reaction showed she wasn’t particularly pleased with it either. He went on anyway. “It’s true. And you know perfectly well you don’t want to stand aside and let them all die. I know you are upset, but I also know you well enough to know you don’t want that at all. Your father is one of them.”

She was still wrinkling up her face, jaw moving side to side, and from the way she shifted in her seat, a considerable debate was taking place in her mind. She’d been down this road with Roberto as well, but he hadn’t offered her the option of
Citadel
. It was something of an unanticipated middle ground.

Altin felt he had the advantage and pressed for more.

“You know there are no long trips the way I travel. At least nothing that can’t be brought right back home. No years. It’s all in an instant. I come home whenever I want, no matter how long I’m out poking around.”

“
You
can,” she said. “I can’t. What if something happens to you?”

“There’s dozens of other teleporters besides me.” He thought for a moment, and his face brightened even more. “In fact, as a member of the crew, you’ll have one of these, like all the rest.” He fished around inside the neckline of his robes and pulled out a fast-cast amulet—this one far better made than the one he’d fashioned for himself as part of his early ventures into outer space—now military issue, required equipment for every Prosperion assigned to
Citadel
or to a ship from Earth. He held it out triumphantly. “You can come back whenever you like.”

She recognized the amulet, and it set her face to contortions again. This time, however, her head was nodding up and down some.

Rather than speak, he dangled the amulet hypnotically over the scrying basin and smiled.

“How will you manage it?” she said, finding ground to further the contest. “Asad isn’t going to let me go. And with the fleet in shambles, they certainly won’t be giving up personnel.”

“Ah, but that’s not quite true,” said Altin, looking more than simply proud of himself. “Your captain said he was going to transfer you to another ship. And what is
Citadel
but another ship?”

“I thought it was a
fortress
.” She put a mocking degree of emphasis on the final word, and they both grinned. Altin saw that as a seeping sign of imminent victory.

“Regardless, I think it qualifies.”

“Not really.”

“But it does. For who will it be that operates the communications array in the anti-magic closet? Surely no magician will be spared for such a task. So it has to be a blank.” He started to smile victoriously and added, “No offense,” with a wink.

She was nodding too. She saw the possibilities in his idea.

“One of your blanks can do it,” she said. “They still won’t let me go.”

“But your people made such a ruckus about those communications machines. The tangle participles being different than radius waves, etc. All that rot. A big secret, no less. Surely it would be better if it were one of you and not one of us primitive Prosperions.” He did his best to sound like Captain Asad as he spoke the last few words.

She laughed at him. “Entangled particles,” she corrected as always. “And radio waves. Radi-
oh
, not radi-
us
.”

“The only
us
I care about is you and I. And I don’t want to spend our years together looking over our shoulders after a vengeful Captain Asad or whatever else might follow an active defection on your part. This is the answer, the perfect compromise. And that machine is the perfect excuse. Think about it. It seems absurd to expect something that complex can be operated as effectively by one of our people as it could be by one of yours. Particularly in a time of urgency and, even more particularly, by someone who is a trained communications officer, which, I seem to recall, you are.” He looked pretty cocky sitting there.

She sat back and seemed on the brink of making her choice. He saw the
harrumph
of resignation that followed. She leaned forward again.

“It’s still a ship,” she said. “You know I hate them.”

“Mine’s got horses,” he said. “Hundreds of them.” He gave her a checkmate look. “I’ll see to it that you get riding lessons every day.”

She laughed. “That’s not fair.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “You know you are not going to get a better offer than that.”

“I know I won’t.”

“Not by the depths of the Great Sandfalls you won’t.”

He relaxed then, the tension leaving his shoulders in a way that she could see. He’d made her feel safe again. She smiled. “I don’t want my people to die,” she said, resigned to it, like one resigns themselves to the discovery that they’ve got an incurable disease. But the sadness was gone from her voice. “I really don’t.”

“I know. And they need you. They are, right now, in serious jeopardy.”

She nodded, her face taking on a distant look as she thought about just how much. “So what should we do?”

“That depends on which
we
you mean.”

“
We
, as in, me and the rest of my crewmates on
Citadel
.”

He beamed contentedly at her. “I love you,” he said.

“I know.” She laughed. Happy again. At least for now.

He watched her in the water. Saw the brief rise of serenity on her face. He let it be there for a while, holding in the last thing he wanted to say.

She saw it, though. Saw the way his expression seemed to droop, collapsing in on itself, slowly like picked fruit that’s been sitting on the table too long. She saw it and immediately didn’t want to ask what it might portend. So she didn’t.

They sat there quietly. It was like the game of
Blink
she and Roberto used to play. Except she knew there was more at stake.

Altin broke first.

“There’s one more thing,” he said.

She nodded. She suddenly had no energy to speak.

“I’m going out to find them. Your fleet. And then the Hostiles. I’m going to scout them out.”

She nodded again. Of course he was.

“I won’t be gone long. I’ll be back before your ships are ready to leave for the rendezvous with the rest of the fleet. They still haven’t decided exactly what they’re going to do from there anyway, and they still have to finish up the most important repairs on the last few ships here. That gives me some time.”