Schism: Part One of Triad (12 page)

“I had perhaps drunk too much reed juice,” Eldrinson admitted.

Denric was listening with undisguised fascination. “Really? I’ve never seen you drunk.”

Eldrinson scowled at his son. “I wasn’t drunk.”

Jannor burst out laughing. “You were rolling nose to the stone.”

Eldrinson made a rude noise and stared straight ahead. Then his mouth quirked upward. “It was good wine.”

“Aye,” Jannor said. “That it was.”

They rode in silence for a while. Denric gradually pulled ahead, until Eldrinson and Jannor were riding by themselves.

The husky farmer spoke in a more serious voice. “We will find him.”

Eldrinson pushed locks of blowing hair out of his eyes. “Yes. We will.” He prayed it was true.

The Stained Glass Forest rose up out of the rippling plains before them. The tree trunks were columns of hollow glasswood, translucent, glistening in the sunlight. Smaller tubes branched out from them, and filmy, glistening disks hung from the branches, some a handspan in diameter, others smaller. Each tree was one color, but the forest had many hues: a red as vivid as the ruby necklaces that had come down to Eldrinson from his ancestors; blue like the glass bowls and goblets in the castle; an emerald so deep it brought to mind a lake high in the mountains, under the shade of a rock overhang; yellow and gold like the suns; and a violet as pure as Lyshrioli eyes.

They slowed down as they entered the forest, and Denric fell back to ride with Eldrinson again. As Jannor went on to check on the octet, his shoulder brushed a translucent red disk hanging from a branch. It inflated into a sphere and rose into the air, detaching from the tree. When Eldrinson passed it by, he poked at the sphere and it popped, spraying him with ruby gutter.

Denric smiled at his father, then nudged a yellow disk, making it inflate into a sphere that drifted away through the trees. Stained-glass light dappled in ever-changing patterns on his face and the curls that spilled down his neck.

“I’ve been thinking,” Denric said. “About what Vyrl wants to do, attending the university as a virtual student.”

“He seems happy with the idea,” Eldrinson said. Vyrl had avoided his studies whenever possible in his youth, but since his marriage to Lily, he seemed to have buckled down.

“I can do that, too,” Denric said. “I can study literature here in Dalvador just as well as if I went offworld to Parthonia.”

His words made Eldrinson ache with an emotion warm and painful at the same time. He had already alienated three of his children; he didn’t want to make another mistake. “You’ve dreamed about going away for years. I appreciate your offering to stay home, but I would never ask it.” He had tried that with Soz and brought on a disaster. “Go to your university, son. Go see the sights.” At least no one would be trying to kill a boy whose goal in life was to read books.

Denric’s shoulders relaxed from a hunched position Eldrinson hadn’t realized they had taken. They rode on in companionable silence.

After a while, Denric said, “I wish I understood Shannon.”

“I also,” Eldrinson said.

“I thought I did. But I had no idea he would leave like this.” His forehead creased. “I knew he was lonely, that he felt out of place. We used to talk about it, but he’s kept more to himself this past year. I should have said something, drawn him out more.”

“It’s not your fault, Denric.” Eldrinson thought of the boy’s resdess spirit.

“He wants to find his own kind.”

“We’re his kind.” Denric looked up as a blue sphere drifted by them. He tapped it and the sphere deflated, trickling blue glitter. “The Blue Dale Archers don’t exist. He’s chasing a dream.”

“We need to seek our dreams.” With difficulty, Eldrinson added, “Even when tiiey hurt us.” Soz and Althor had gone after theirs knowing they might die.

He couldn’t bear me

thought of his children in pain. Better not to think of it at all than to dwell on what might happen. An image of Kurj came to him, that giant with his implacable face. Yes, Eldrinson knew Kurj showed great honor to Althor and Soz by naming them as his heirs. But he could hate Kurj for that honor.

They came out of the forest into the foothills of the Backbone Mountains.

Here the ground rolled in gentle swells, but ahead it rose more steeply, and beyond that it sheered up in sharp ridges. In the distance, the peaks rose stark against the sky, spindled like the bones of a gigantic skeleton.

They followed well-traveled paths here in the foothills. Except for stops to rest the lyrine, he hoped to ride as long as they had daylight, one octet of hours plus six more. With day and night the same length, they wouldn’t need to sleep the entire night and could set off again before dawn.

It bemused Eldrinson that the length of day and night varied on many worlds.

His children’s tutors claimed night and day lasted the same amount of time here because Lyshriol had no axial tilt Variations in weather came from atmospheric churning or changes in altitude. The scientists who studied Lyshriol seemed to find these qualities odd. They insisted it supported their theory that this planetary system was artificial, that astronomical engineers had moved Lyshriol into this orbit sometime in me past.

Even having visited other worlds, Eldrinson found it hard to imagine living in a place where the lengths of day and night changed or the climate varied greatly. Surely such an environment would be too chaotic for humans to survive! His children’s tutors insisted otherwise, though, and so did Roca and all those scientists.

By the time they reached the mountains proper, the air had cooled. The lyrine picked their way up a well-worn path bordered by blue stones. Swaths of blue snow dusted the outcroppings on either side and crusts of darker blue ice edged the boulders.

Eventually they reached a branch in the path. One fork went north, veering sharply up into the vertebrae of the Backbone. Eldrinson reined in Night Charger and scrutinized the route. He spoke to Denric. “The Mirrored Cliffs are up there.”

Shannon loved the sheer cliffs, named for die reflective sheets of ice that covered them. “He might have gone that way.”

“I can check,” Denric said. “It would only take a few hours.”

Eldrinson knew Roca would want Denric to stay with him if they split up the group. She always drew family around when she was worried, and his seizure last night had been a bad one. She was one of the few people who knew the truth: in his youth, his condition had been so severe, he hadn’t expected to survive. For his first few octets of life, he had lived constrained by his seizures, in partial seclusion, watched over by his cousin Garlin, his only living kin. Each year it had grown worse.

Then the Skolians had come. Their doctors gave him nanomeds that patrolled his body and interacted with his brain to prevent seizures. Even with that, it had taken years before he genuinely believed he could live a normal life. Yet now he took it for granted. So did Denric. His son had no idea about his convulsion last night. Eldrinson didn’t think the boy had ever seen him have one that serious. It wouldn’t occur to Denric to worry.

Well, I feel fine now. He could take care of himself. Besides, he would have four men witii him, and he had packed the air syringe. It had a comm embedded in its stock for emergencies; if necessary he could summon help even while giving himself medicine. Roca had wanted him to wear yet a second comm on his wrist, but Eldrinson had drawn the line there. He agreed to use one in the syringe because it was a reasonable precaution, however much he disliked it, but he wouldn’t wear a bracelet as if he were a helpless child unable to care for himself.

He looked up the western trail he would take. It rose gradually to me Notch of die Backbone, a pass visible in the distance as a groove against the sky.

Beyond that, the trail would descend me mountains until it reached me lush Rillian Vales. By the time Denric’s group reached the Mirrored Cliffs in the north, Eldrinson could be through the Notch.

Denric could take the Mirrored Pass down into the wilds north of Rillia.

Shannon might have gone either way; the Mirror trail would take him closer to the Blue Dale Mountains, but the Notch would get him into Rillia faster, where the riding was easier.

Eldrinson made his decision. “We can regroup tomorrow morning,” he told Denric. “I’ll meet you at the end of the path down from the Mirror.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Denric said. “We’ll cover more area that way.”

They divided up the supplies among their two groups, and Eldrinson sent the ISC equipment with Denric. He pulled up next to his son and indicated the glittering mammoth of a gun Denric had slung over his shoulder. “You take the carbine, too.”

Denric hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with it” Eldrinson waved his hand at the northern trail, remembering how much Denric enjoyed trekking in the Backbone.

“Go on. Get on with you.”

Denric grinned, his face alight. “I will see you then!” He wheeled his lyrine around and headed up the trail with his men. Eldrinson sat astride Night Charger and smiled, watching him, this sunniest of his children.

Then he set off for Rillia.

Shannon rode through the glasswood forest of Ryder’s Lost Memory, ducking his head under dusty clusters of bubbles. He had never ventured this far north.

Ryder’s Lost Memory went on in every direction, forever it seemed. He had ridden for over a day now, higher and higher, until the air turned icy. He wore a heavy shirt and double leggings, also a mech-jacket with climate controls, but even with the hood up, cold air cut past its warmth and tingled his cheeks. He hurt everywhere; his feet ached from his heavy boots, which he rarely wore; his legs ached from riding Moonglaze for so long; and his brain ached from lack of sleep.

Moonglaze had plodded through the night, then finally stopped and slept standing up, with Shannon draped over his

back. Shannon awoke only when he started to fall. Dismayed at such treatment of his mount, he had tended the lyrine with solicitous care, grooming and feeding him, cleaning his hooves, and scraping glitter off his horns. Then they resumed their trudge normward through the forest.

Multicolored sparkles drifted everywhere, making him sneeze. Bubbles constantly rose from the trees and popped, spreading so much glitter that it covered his trail within minutes after he passed. He had lashed his bow and quiver to his travel bags to keep them from stabbing bubbles and showering him with the damnable stuff. He grimaced; enough covered him to make a tree grow on his domes.

Shannon exhaled. Running away had made sense last night, after he took the jammer so no one could find him. Now, sagging with exhaustion and hunger, he no longer felt clear on the matter. He longed for a warm bed and a hot meal.

Tree-bubbles weren’t edible, and he had passed fewer and fewer shrubs with fruit, only the sparse and prickly spine-spheres. It could take days to reach the Blue Dale Mountains. He wasn’t sure he would know when he had arrived.

He doubted anyone put signs up to welcome visitors.

He slouched in his seat, the reins loose in his hands while Moonglaze picked the way. The rocky ground kept die trees from growing tall, but they remained thick on the landscape. Blue patches of old snow were melting on the ground or gathered in crooks of trees, all mixed into slush with the glitter.

Shannon leaned over Moonglaze’s neck. “I’m so hungry.” He tugged the reins, drawing me lyrine to a halt. Aching and stiff, he slid off the great animal, taking care not to jostie the travel packs, one of which held the jammer. He hit me ground in a thump that jarred his legs and torso. With a groan, he crumpled to the ground. Moonglaze whistled and pushed at him with his front horn, the larger of the two on his head.

Shannon sighed. “I’m so tired.” He lay there, no longer able to avoid the effects of two days without any real sleep. He needed to see to Moon …

shouldn’t leave him …

Slumber covered his thoughts like a blanket

It was well into evening before Eldrinson and his men found a place to camp.

They had easily made it through the Notch, but they weren’t far enough down the mountains to reach Rillia before night Instead they holed up in hollows under a series of overhangs that bordered the trail. Eldrinson wrapped himself in a rug from the travel sack he had slung across his war lyrine.

Night Charger crowded into the hollow, blocking the entrance, holding in the heat. With a grace extraordinary for his large size, he folded his legs under his body and settled in for the night, Lyrine often slept standing up, but this wasn’t the first time Eldrinson’s mount had helped keep him warm by resting on the ground. He could just see the sky through the open space above the animal’s back.

The sounds of the others setting up bedrolls drifted to him in the vast silence of the mountains. He was glad they had sent the extra supplies with the other group; he had always enjoyed camping in the open, without all those gadgets and silly amenities Roca’s people insisted they take.

Climate-controlled tents with plumbing, for flaming sakes. Might as well stay home. In his youth, before the doctors had treated his epilepsy, camping had been a risk he almost never dared to take. Now, with his family and political responsibilities, he rarely had the chance to go off on his own. He enjoyed this trip, though he dearly regretted the circumstances that had led to the journey.

A head appeared in the twilit patch of sky visible above Night Charger’s back.

Jannor. He winked at Eldrinson. “What, no music?”

Eldrinson stretched his arms out of the rug into the icy air, then pulled them back. “Even if we had room to build a fire here, it’s too cold to sit around one.”

“Sing anyway,” someone called from nearby.

Eldrinson waved amiably at Jannor. “Go get your tired old self comfortable.”

“Tired! Old!” Jannor snorted. “I could haul your backside off a lyrine ten times straight in a tournament.”

“Better watch out,” Eldrinson said, “I may call your bluff.”