By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 Read online

  “Don’t worry about it right now,” said Metadi. “Concentrate on taking that first ship. After the smoke clears, we can think about sorting out the survivors.”

  “I’d sure like to have an Adept on hand for that part,” Quetaya said. “For the sorting, I mean.”

  “No you don’t,” Metadi told her. “Every time I’ve had to work with Adepts, it’s complicated things beyond belief.”

  Quetaya looked curious. “I thought your copilot on the old Warhammer was an Adept.”

  “He was,” said Metadi. “Trust me, Commander. I’m speaking from experience.”

  The Selsyn’s intraship comm system clicked on. “Dropout from hyperspace in ten minutes,” a voice blared. “I say again, dropout from hyperspace in ten minutes. All hands take your assigned positions.”

  “That’s me, sir,” Tyche said. “I have to get down to the docking bay and join my troopers.”

  The infantry captain saluted, turned, and headed off at something close to a run. Metadi and Quetaya watched him leave.

  “There goes a good man,” the General said after a moment. “I hope we see him again.”

  Llannat Hyfid knelt within the white circle in the black room. All around her the air system hummed, and the thousand tiny sounds of a living ship filled the darkened chamber.

  At length she sighed and rose to her feet. Meditating had eased her tension, but the question she had brought with her into the black-walled chamber remained unanswered. Perhaps something waiting for her on the Daughter’s bridge would have meaning, if there was, indeed, any meaning to be found at all.

  The door to the corridor opened as she approached. Llannat stepped through it, and into a room that she had never seen before.

  She was standing in a Space Force office; she’d been in enough of those to recognize the layout and the furnishings. The battered metal desk: stock issue. The integrated wall calendar, with planetary days in black and Galcenian days superimposed in red: stock issue. The clock on the wall, also a Standard-and-Local: yet more stock issue. Even the floor wax smelled like the kind used in every Space Force installation from Galcen to Spiral’s End.

  But the office wasn’t any one of the dozens that she’d used or visited in the course of her career in the Med Service. The window behind the desk opened on an unfamiliar vista—a landing field where the late-afternoon sun glanced off the tall spires of grounded ships—and the man behind the desk wasn’t a Space Force officer. He was a lean, tawny-haired young man in a dockworker’s shapeless coverall, sitting back with his feet up on the careful stacks of Space Force standard-issue forms and documents.

  She knew him. Beka Rosselin-Metadi’s brother had been a senior apprentice and a teacher at the Retreat during her time there, though he’d never claimed Mastery or taken Adept’s vows.

  “Owen!” she said.

  He didn’t seem surprised by her arrival. He nodded toward a door in the far wall—an old-style wooden door with a latch and hinges, out of place in the familiar office setting. “What you’re after is in through there.”

  Llannat hesitated for a moment. Then she walked across the room and put her hand on the latch.

  “We’ll meet again,” Owen’s voice came from behind her. “And then—who can say?”

  She turned the latch and pushed the door open. This time, no standard Space Force room awaited her, nor the deckplates and bulkheads of Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter. Instead, a narrow hallway stretched out ahead of her into the dark.

  And behind her, as well. The office room was gone now, leaving her alone in the impenetrable blackness.

  Light, she thought. I need light.

  She unclipped the staff from her belt and let the power of the universe flow and focus through its ebony length. There was a moment of warmth, and then she stood in the center of a nimbus of emerald light. She looked about her, and saw that she stood on a rough pavement of dry-laid flagstone, with walls of cut and fitted stone to either side.

  Llannat walked on. The narrow passage began to turn through a series of corners and bends, until at last she stood before another door, this one even older than the first, of rough wood with hinges of wrought metal. No latch or doorknob, either; nothing but a heavy ring of twisted iron. She lifted the ring and pulled.

  The door opened, and she was in another room—one that had a floor of blond wood in elaborate parquetry, and for its far wall a row of windows, tall and casemented, like a curtain of glass. Beyond the windowpanes the sun was rising over distant hills, filling the whole space with a ruddy light. From the forest outside the chamber came a clamor of birds.

  A long table of carved openwork in the center of the room held a tray of bright fruit in colors that echoed the flowers on the trees outside. A man sat on one of the delicately made chairs at the table, a decanter and a single goblet of amber fluid standing before him on a silver tray.

  He rose, and turned. It was the Professor, dressed in severe black, holding in his hand a silver-bound ebony staff—the same one that Llannat carried now. She saw his gaze move from her hand up to her face.

  “Greetings,” he said. “So you were the one, after all.”

  “But you’re dead!” Llannat exclaimed before she could help herself, and felt her skin grow warm with embarrassment.

  “A fate we all share, one day or another,” the Professor replied with his gentle smile. Llannat realized, belatedly, that they were both speaking Court Entiboran—a language she had never taken the trouble to learn.

  Somewhere in the near distance an alarm began to shrill, breaking up the golden morning with its high, incessant clamor. The Professor looked over his shoulder toward the perfect blue of the sky beyond the window.

  “For some,” he said, “the day will arrive sooner than they expected. It has begun. Come with me.”

  He walked past her, through the door by which she had entered. This time, when she followed him, the door led to yet a third room, as rich and sumptuous as the one before. This one had a dark wood floor, and paneled walls hung with heavy tapestries. A massive stone fireplace filled most of the far end of the room, but the hearth was clean-swept and empty.

  The Professor went to the fireplace and pointed with his staff at one of the stones of the hearth. It was not rough-finished like the others, but polished, and carved with the arms of House Rosselin and of Entibor.

  “Look and remember,” he said. “All times and places meet where the power of the universe does not extend. Some have called me a traitor. Others may call you the same. But you and I, we will know the truth.”

  All through his speech, the distant alarm bell continued to ring. Llannat opened her mouth to ask what it meant—

  —and found herself once more in the black room of Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter, kneeling in the center of the white circle, with the Professor’s last words finding somber echoes within her own mind, and the warning bell for final approach into Gyffer sounding in the corridor outside.

  The answer she had been seeking came to her, late and—now that she’d found it—unwelcome.

  Sorcery, she thought. That’s what I did when I gave the order to jump for Gyfferan space: I reached out like a Magelord and changed a part of the universe, because there’s something waiting for me on Gyffer that I need to find, if I’m going to make the future turn out like it ought to … .

  Her breath caught.

  Or maybe like the Professor thought that it ought to, five hundred years ago.

  Captain Amyas Faramon—until recently of the Space Force, now of the Infabede Unified Defense Command under Admiral Vallant—was inspecting one of the starboard gun nacelles on the Veratina when his recognition signal sounded.

  He left the gunnery officer and the junior supply officer in whose company he had been making the inspection and keyed on the bulkhead-mounted comm link. “Captain.”

  “Pickets report contact exiting hyper,” the voice at the other end said. “TAO requests your presence.”

  Faramon clicked the key twice by
’way of acknowledgment and turned to his inspecting party. “Carry on without me, gentles. I expect your report at midday.”

  The gunnery officer gave a quick nod. “Sir.”

  By the time the captain had reached Veratina’s Combat Information Center, the track of the unknown had already been laid in and plotted. Faramon joined the tactical action officer at the main battle tank.

  “What do you have?” he asked.

  The big holovid display in the middle of CIC would normally be showing a three-dimensional representation of whatever action was going on. At the moment, though, hi-comms remained erratic all over the Infabede sector, limiting real-time updates to what the ’Tina’s own sensors could pick up. Lightspeed communications from the picket ships provided the rest of the necessary data—all of it, however, subject to time lag.

  The TAO pointed at a blue dot in the tank, one of several representing small UDC vessels doing picket duty in the area. “Fleyde, here, reported the dropout, and got us the initial track via lightspeed comms. Current position of the unknown extrapolated to here.”

  The red dot that marked an Unknown/Hostile vessel was flashing on and off to indicate a projection not yet confirmed in real time. Faramon studied the display for a few seconds.

  “Very well,” he said. “Take your position to intercept and inform me of your progress.”

  As he spoke, one of the enlisted crew members looked up from a monitor screen. “Uneven trace on active sensors.”

  “Very well,” the TAO said. “Continue tracking.”

  Faramon took his seat in the command chair and began to scan the clipboard full of printout flimsies already waiting for him. Perhaps he’d become a desperate space mutineer, he mused, but the paperwork never stopped. The details of running a ship remained the same, whether he took his orders from Admiral Vallant in Infabede or from General Metadi on Galcen.

  Though perhaps advancement in rank would move a little faster—somebody, after all, would have to take over the Defense Command once Admiral Vallant reentered civilian life as Coordinating Director of the Infabede sector. Vallant had all but promised …

  “It won’t be just the overdue promotions, Faramon. Mark my words, any number of things are going to start moving again once the Infabede worlds aren’t being held back by the dead weight of the rest of the Republic.”

  The voice of another crew member broke in on the captain’s pleasant speculations. “ID on unknown—RSF Selsyn-bilai. Negative on special recognition signal.”

  “Understand Selsyn-bilai,” the TAO replied. “Reserve retrofit stores ship.” He turned to Faramon. “Damn. Here I was hoping for a warship.”

  “Cheer up—maybe you’ll get one next time,” Faramon told him. “And remember, right now supplies are equally important.”

  Colonel DeMayt, the commander of the Veratina’s Planetary Infantry detachment, left her position near the main battle tank and spoke to the crew member in charge of passing orders to the detachment’s ready room. “Prepare the boarding party. Vessel has not been secured.”

  “Lightspeed transmission from Selsyn-bilai,” called a crew member from the comms panel. “Reports mechanical breakdown, requests assistance.”

  The TAO shook his head. “This isn’t even going to be a challenge,” he said to Faramon. “Request permission to let the junior officer of the watch take this one for training.”

  “Permission granted,” Faramon said without looking up from his paperwork.

  “Active sensors report target tumbling,” the crew member at the monitor called out.

  The junior officer of the watch turned to the lightspeed comms tech. “Transmit to Selsyn-bilai, ‘Interrogative: are you able to maneuver?’”

  There was the usual delay as the lightspeed message went out and the reply came back. Then the comms tech said, “Selsyn reports horizontal stabilization system malfunction. Negative on able to maneuver.”

  “Time of closest point of approach five minutes,” said the comptech at the main battle tank. Now that Veratina had the unknown on active sensors, the red dot no longer blinked, but glowed steadily, and the small blue dots of the picket craft had been joined by a bright blue triangle representing the ’Tina herself.

  “Selsyn on visual,” called out the sensor tech.

  “Put him on screen,” the JOOW said. “Stand by rescue and assistance detail.”

  Over on the sensor panel, an external visual screen lit up. The long, cylindrical shape of a deep-space stores ship appeared on the screen in enhanced-lowlight. The ship was revolving around its horizontal axis, nose and tail tumbling end over end.

  “That’s one sick bird,” the TAO muttered, and Faramon had to agree. The Selsyn must have run into the Mage warfleet on her way to the rendezvous point, to get shot up that badly.

  “Transmission from Selsyn,” said the comms tech. “Request permission to transfer all personnel except skeleton engineering crew.”

  The junior officer of the watch looked over at the TAO, who nodded. “Permission granted,” said the JOOW.

  “Boarding party muster in the docking bay,” Faramon said to Colonel DeMayt. “Process them through as they arrive.”

  “Closest point of approach in one minute,” reported the comptech at the main tank.

  “Two contacts inbound,” called out the sensor tech. “Both squawking lifeboat identifiers.”

  “Very well,” said the JOOW.

  -“Wait a minute,” the TAO said suddenly. The change in his voice made Faramon look up from his paperwork and lean forward in the command seat. “Those aren’t lifeboats. Those are—”

  The low-light screen washed out into a dazzle and went dark.

  “—recons.”

  Jessan lay curled and immobile on the glidewalk margin, watching Beka recede into the distance through a pain-filled haze. She wasn’t resisting—not typical of her, but a good thing under the circumstances. Suivan Contract Security wasn’t being any gentler than it had to.

  I don’t know where that guy learned his stuff, but he knows his pressure points like an expert.

  The Khesatan groaned, tried to stand up, and failed. He’s also got a fist like a rock.

  A second attempt brought Jessan upright, leaning his back against the wall. Glidewalk traffic began to resume its normal flow. Nobody looked at him, and he wondered how long ago the Suivans had burned out on watching incidents like the last one.

  The ConSecs hadn’t taken his comm link; he took it out of his pocket and tried Warhammer’s code.

  No response.

  He transmitted the code again. Still no answer.

  Jessan switched to LeSoit’s private code, the one guaranteed to bring the ‘Hammer’s number-two gunner out of a dead sleep and straight up to attention in a single move. No response again.

  All right. He drew a long, careful breath. Looks like Gentlesir LeSoit picked up the signal and lifted. So Warhammer’s probably safe.

  That just leaves the captain.

  Jessan pushed himself away from the wall. Moving slowly and cautiously, he made his way through the glidewalk system to the storefront headquarters of the Entiboran Resistance. He’d been half-afraid of finding more ConSecs guarding the door when he arrived, but everything looked normal—no uniforms in sight, and the door opened to his ID-scan.

  He stepped over the threshold. Inside, the rooms were empty and undisturbed. Even the rumpled bedsheets and the covered warming-trays from the food shop around the corner remained as he and Beka had left them earlier. It looked very much as if whoever was behind the arrest didn’t want to break up the Resistance.

  For the moment, it seemed, they didn’t want Nyls Jessan either. He wondered if his diligently cultivated air of ineffectuality had done the trick—so many people in the outplanets thought that all Central Worlders were effete and foolish that it didn’t take much work to convey the impression.

  Or maybe we’ve got somebody here who’s focused on Beka and no one else. Which could be very, very bad.


  Time to put myself back in order and pay a visit to the local lockup.

  Jessan spent the next half-hour in the refresher cubicle, patching up his injuries as best he could. Given an extensive medical kit and his own first-class training, the results were more than adequate. By the time he was done, all the visible marks of ill-use had vanished. The associated aches and pains—which hadn’t—were throbbing discreetly out of public view.

  He selected a long-sleeved Khesatan shirt of white spidersilk shot through with fine gold thread, added a loose velvet day coat of subdued russet, and transferred most of the contents of the front-office cashbox into an inside pocket. When a last call to Warhammer went without an answer, Jessan was ready to make his way back out into the domes of Suivi Main.

  “You’re going to save the universe and I’m going to help you,” said Klea. Behind her words, the room’s climate-control system wheezed and rattled. “I don’t believe it.”

  Owen shook his head. “The universe exists whether we help it or not. But the Guild and the Republic need all the help they can get.”

  “But why us?”

  He looked at her. “Why did you pick me up and drag me home, that time when the local Mage-Circle caught me snooping and left me for dead?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She remembered the back alley where she’d found him lying unconscious. There’d been blood on his face that day, and thick Namport mud in his tawny hair, and she’d been half-drunk from the aqua vitae she’d poured into herself to blot out the sound of other people’s thoughts. “I was there, is all. Somebody had to be.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Somebody has to be.”

  Klea grimaced. “And guess who it is this time.” With a sigh, she picked up her day pack and shrugged it onto her shoulders. “How do we start?”

  “By walking out of here. After that, it depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On what happens outside,” he said. “When we see which way the currents of the universe are flowing, then we’ll know.”

  “You’ll know, maybe. I’m not that good.”