The Gate that Locks the Tree Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Gate that Locks the Tree (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #30)

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  THANK YOU

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ACT ONE

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  ACT TWO

  ACT THREE

  ACT FOUR

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  ACT FIVE

  ACT SIX

  Scene Two

  ACT SEVEN

  ACT EIGHT

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  ACT NINE

  AUTHORS' COMMENTARY

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  NOVELS BY SHARON LEE | AND STEVE MILLER

  THANK YOU

  Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 30

  The Gate the Locks the Tree

  A Minor Melant’i Play for Snow Season

  Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  The Gate that Locks the Tree: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 30

  Pinbeam Books: www.pinbeambooks.com

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are used fictitiously.

  COPYRIGHT FEBRUARY 2020 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  THE GATE THAT LOCKS THE TREE is original to this chapbook.

  COVER DESIGN BY RL Slather

  ISBN: 978-1-948465-07-6 ebook

  ISBN: 978-1-948465-08-3 paper

  THANK YOU

  . . .to Fearless Tyop Hunters and Proofreaders

  Kaelin Cordis

  Michele Ray

  Kate Reynolds

  Gala Wind

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  BEING THE LIST OF PLAYERS

  Vertu Dysan, a taxi driver

  Cheever McFarland, Boss Conrad's right hand man

  The Tree, a multiple exile

  Tommy, a taxi driver

  Jemmie, a co-owner

  Vertu dea'San, former Delm of Wylan

  Yulie Shaper, a farmer

  Mary, his spouse

  Anna, a kid

  Rascal, her dog

  Toragin del'Pemridj, a woman who believes in promises

  blue-and-red driver, a cabbie who has run through his luck

  Chelada, a mother

  Talizea, a friend of cats

  Miri, her mother

  Val Con, her father

  Jeeves, a butler

  Boss Gotta, a metaphor

  Nelirikk, a soldier

  Jarome, a cabbie revealed

  THE GATE THAT LOCKS THE TREE

  A Minor Melant’i Play for Snow Season

  ACT ONE

  Scene One

  In the house of the taxi driver

  Enter Vertu and Cheever

  VERTU DYSAN ROSE WITH her lover, both too aware of the coming day’s necessities.

  Schedules for the week upcoming did not favor long morning comfort, and the wan blueish light of the port was still brighter than the meek dawning of the day-star. An extra hug at the door then, through his bulky coat.

  "I'll bring dinner," Cheever said. "No sense going out in the snow."

  "More snow?" Vertu said, stepping back and looking up at him.

  He grinned.

  "Weatherman says there's a squall-line moving in." He shrugged his big shoulders. "Hey, it's Surebleak and it's winter. Snow's on the menu."

  "I will have something warmer than snow for my late meal, please."

  "I'll see what I can do. You drive careful, 'k?"

  It was what he said at every parting – drive careful – as if she, the taxi driver, was the one who walked in peril.

  Still, it warmed her, her Terran lover's tenderness for her, and she smiled, reaching high on her toes to touch his cheek.

  "I will be careful. You be careful, also."

  "Where's the fun in that?" – again, the usual answer, the half-grin, the serious eyes.

  And then he was gone, the door opening and closing so quickly barely a wisp of cold air snuck into the little hallway.

  Vertu glanced out the side window, to see him, striding away toward the port. Cheever McFarland, Boss Conrad’s Right Hand, had a breakfast meeting waiting on him at the Emerald Casino.

  She turned away from the window. Her ride was due in half-an-hour. Time enough to drink her coffee – a taste acquired from Cheever, like she had acquired Surebleak's particular vernacular from Jemmie, and the daily round of her fares.

  Cup in hand, she crossed the planned front room library, a challenge still unfilled. The house would grow in time, that she knew, and soon she would unshutter the windows, let light in, and add bookcases and storage – if this was to be her home, she would make it so.

  Up the stairs she went, to the bedroom, and pulled on her warmest sweater, with its snow-shedding properties, and walked to the window, sipping from her cup.

  She would eat breakfast at Flourpower slightly later, and as the day brightened she saw that Korval’s Tree stood a little short against the still perceptible stars ... perhaps they would catch that predicted-but-not-yet-arrived squall line, after all.

  The bedroom was on the third level of a skinny building in the Hearstrings turf – her house, where she had rented a room during her first days of exile, and which she had only recently purchased. The window gave a clear view of the Port Road, and the hill it climbed out of the city. Vertu sipped her coffee and wondered if she was the only one in the city who told the mood of the world by the color the giant at the crest of that long hill showed to first light, and the height. It was more than just height, though – some days the Tree looked fuller, bushier, more open.

  Maybe bad weather weighed on the branches. Maybe the Tree purposefully shielded those under it, showing more leaf or less, leaf-top or leaf-bottom as required. Perhaps she should ask Cheever some mythical morning when neither of them was pressed for time.

  The upstairs echoed a little now as she hurried toward and down the stairs, for the view of the Tree had nearly hypnotized her, as it sometimes did, as if the Tree felt her gaze and returned it. And why should the Tree not recognize her, as she it? In her fancy, it did, two exiles, making their ways on a strange new world. Why should they not acknowledge each other? For her side, she’d known it the whole of her life, first on Liad where she’d grown up and become Vertu dea'San, Delm of Clan Wylan, or Wylan Herself.

  The name on the contract for the purchase of the house, that was Vertu Dysan.

  She did not bow to Liad anymore; the Tree and its people were here, and she had long since decided that if any one of Clan Wylan wished to speak to her, they could come here, to Surebleak, and meet with Surebleak Port’s new Business of the Year co-owner.

  It was a quiet house she had, certainly not a rival to Clan Wylan – she’d considered and rejected the local advertise for a roommate habit as not being her choice. The house could use more company at times – again, there was an echo when she hit the bottom of the stairs in her traction boots – but even with Cheever’s potential agreement she doubted she was ready yet to add a child to this place, hollow as it could sometimes be.

  Sealing the coat as she hit the entry hall, she glanced to the vidscreen, unsurprised to find the local walks devoid of pedestrians; only a glimmer of vehicle lights, and a blue glow coming down a side street.

  Vertu paused, checking her coat seals, glaring into the sky, and its promise of messy driving. There was noise behind the clouds – a rumble she thought wasn’t thunder but
the latest passenger arrival that meant her afternoon was likely to be busy, snow or rain.

  She closed the door behind her as Tommy turned the corner, prompt as always on the one wake-the-day shift he covered every ten days. It was good to have commonplace comforts, and she smiled as he vacated the driver’s seat, bowing her in.

  Scene Two

  In Vertu's taxicab

  Enter Yulie, Mary, Anna, Rascal

  VERTU’S MORNING SHIFT had been busy, what with the increased mercenary traffic onworld, and much of it carried about town in their cabs – Jemmie's having Tommy Lee as just one of their merc connections, and Vertu herself another – they would need more cars and drivers soon if the merc presence was going to continue increasing. Jemmie had taken to leasing such spare local vehicles as there were, at day-rate, but it hadn’t taken long for a half-dozen more cab services to start up, most of them not much more than a car that sort of moved and an idea that there was money to be made.

  Twice before lunch, Vertu had seen fare jumpers at work; that, with the weather, infusing the day with more tension than necessary. At times like these, it was good to see the Tree waving in a breeze, but not much chance of that today. She reported the fare jumps to Jemmie’s office via com-link when it worked, but the low-power system the Scouts had introduced them to was still highly variable – possibly because it was built with "borrowed" end-of-life equipment, possibly because of Surebleak’s own odd planetary make-up.

  The problem with Surebleak, she thought, was that it lacked taxi guilds, and even traffic laws. The result was unsafe cars, and incompetent drivers, with no sense of ... Balance. Denying so Liaden a concept still left the problem of drivers like the ones who drove the garishly red and blue striped cars – she thought there were two of them, both usually hatless, a stupidity in a Surebleak winter. One of them had several times in the last few days followed her, and tried to arrive before she did at groups standing near the road. A guild, an association, a club – something would need to be done. She shook her head, Terran-style then – perhaps she should bring it to one of the Road Bosses. Well ... maybe she should talk to Jemmie first.

  Vertu’s breakfast at Flourpower was a distant memory and the carry-away grab-lunch was hours gone by the time she stopped at Reski’s to drop off a pair of fares and take on more coffee. The house specialty was a decent bean-based scrapple handwich if she had time to order one! – and not being waved down immediately for another ride, she took an actual break, calling in as off-duty despite the com unit’s buzz, side-parking the cab a half-block away, and stretching her legs while she leaned into the sudden fine snowmizzle that seemed incongruous coming from clouds that dark.

  Well, they promised something, those clouds, and, as warm as it was at the moment, the mizzle might actually turn to rain. Her fares had all been concerned about the weather, since it had been cold enough lately that rain might slick into ice on the slightest excuse. On Liad, of course, rain had always meant an uptick in her business, but here? Here she was too straight out to have rain be anything more than a bother. Ice would be another matter entire.

  The precipitation hid the Tree on the hill from sight; even so, she felt its location, just like she had when she'd been driving her taxi in Solcintra, port and city. The Tree was a magnet; part of her landscape, visible or hidden.

  Reski’s was packed with hungry people, but she got noticed quick and probably ahead of others – with a Jemmie’s Taxi hat on her head she was recognized as much as a public service as a business – and she was glad not to be trying to pack herself into the grid of crowded tables. The cab had more room than one of Reski's tables, so long as she didn’t fill it with passengers.

  She was back to the taxi in less than a half hour, carrying two full coffee cups and a triple handwich pack. There were two people waiting near the cab, tucked into the slight protection of a leather shop's overhanging sill, a number of bags at their feet. There was a dog nearby, too, and a youth. Vertu sighed. This was one of the more difficult parts of her job, sorting out who got to go first and who had to be left behind.

  She hurried past, opened the cab, and showed the On Break card. One of those in the doorway – wearing an orange cap – nodded, and leaned in closer under the overhang.

  Vertu sealed the door, and grabbed half a handwich. She played music over the speaker while she ate, and drank some coffee.

  She closed her eyes, and counted to twelve twelve times. Opening her eyes, she turned the On Break card face down on the dashboard, brushing crumbs to the road as she opened.

  The kid and the dog circled in from their explorations down the walk while the two in the doorway stepped out, each grabbing a couple of bags. The one in the orange hat, Vertu saw, was Yulie Shaper, and his coat looked like it might be new. She’d seen him not long ago, having gone as Cheever's guest to Lady yo'Lanna's arrival reception, and he'd been wearing what looked like new there, too. Good on him, as they said here, things must be picking up!

  "Where do we go?" Vertu asked. "Who arrived first?"

  Yulie laughed, and it was a good laugh for someone with a reputation of being distant if not entirely elsewhere most of the time.

  "All got here at once, that’s how it is, since we come down together we're all going to the same place."

  Now Vertu recognized the dog and the kid – Anna, that was the kid, connected to Boss Nova’s place – she didn’t remember the dog’s name but the kid was hardly around without it, and the woman with them someone else she’d seen around, always walking at her own pace and not usually a cab user that Vertu knew of. Yes. She had been at the reception, too; and the source of some merriment, too. Her name, Vertu thought, was Mary – another one of the folks who had been living quietly come suddenly to light. Odd that it took an influx of strangers from outworld to make the locals stand forward.

  "All together, then," she said with what she hoped was an encompassing nod.

  "Load up."

  This they did with swift efficiency. Vertu, seeing all in hand, slid into her seat, and keyed the heater for more warm air.

  "Where do we go?" she asked again, unlocking the doors all around.

  The girl jumped into the front seat, calling out.

  "Rascal, here!"

  But the dog had run ahead of the cab, ears perked, sniffing, looking – up.

  "Haysum!"

  That was Yulie, looking in the same direction as Rascal, where barely a block away the world looked like it was being closed behind a sudden curtain of heavy snow. The snow engulfed them with an audible susurration, the flakes as big as tea saucers.

  The adults got into the back seat, tucking themselves around the bags, wiping snow from faces and gloves.

  "Rascal!"

  The dog turned and jumped through the door into the girl's lap. The door sealed, and the girl cuddled the dog – whether for the dog or herself was difficult to tell, Vertu thought, upping the heat again.

  "We're going to my place – our place," said Yulie Shaper. "All the way up Undertree Hill – Port Road's your best route, in this. Just go left right before you get to the gate that locks the Tree in...."

  Vertu tapped on the steering wheel for several moments, considering the route, and reflecting on the phrase, "the gate that locks the Tree..." before she put the cab into driving mode.

  "Do you think," she said, as she waited for a truck to pass them slowly before she pulled out into traffic, "that the Tree minds being locked in? What of the Road Bosses? I never thought about it like that before."

  Beside her Anna pursed her lips in consideration, and from the back a couple of noncommittal hems and haws happened.

  Yulie finally ventured a word....

  "It was me said it, and I never really thought about it that way, either, truthtelled. It’s not like the Bosses or the Tree is really locked in, at least not for long; I figure they’re all where they wanna be, don’t you? I mean, I like where I growed up and I’m still there, and that’s kind of what they have, isn’t it, giv
e or take a thousand light years or so. But the Bosses and the Tree, they got things they hafta do to keep the world right ...."

  Yulie let his pensive consideration stall while Vertu avoided one of the striped taxis that was barely making headway in the opposite direction. The windscreen on that one was showing an ice build-up already, making Vertu pleased that she and Jemmie agreed on maintenance rules and schedules. Difficult to drive when the windscreen was full of snow.

  They drove in silence, Rascal’s tail ticking a happy rhythm on Anna’s coat sleeve, accepting the belly scritches the girl lavished while peering through their own spotless windscreen, the cones of on-coming lights and the sudden looming of passing cars bringing ears to alert.

  "A traveler, your dog," Vertu offered, "likes to be on point!"

  Anna nodded, scritched the top of the dog’s muzzle teasingly.

  "Also, lazy a little, maybe. Rascal does not often get to travel this way, and being in front is a treat for both of us – right, Rascal?"

  For her trouble Anna got her chin licked and some dog-breathy ear sniffs as Vertu slowed the vehicle to a walking pace behind several wind-whipped pedestrians leaning into the snow as they crossed the street at an oblique angle.

  Snow muffled the wind just as it muffled the road noise, a gritty squealing vibration permeating the car as Vertu ducked their path close to the sidewalk and behind the walkers. The windshield’s airjets weren’t sufficient to the task now so she activated the wipers in the gloom. Dusk was still over an hour away but this – this would take concentration.

  "Hush, Rascal," Anna said then, low and serious. "We all need to listen and watch in case there’s a problem going up the hill. Watch hard. Might be a problem on the hill. You too, Mary, watch hard!"

  A flutter of concern tightened Vertu's gut now, an edge of nerves down the back of her neck, a touch of extra speed to her eye motions. She didn’t often feel these things, but she had learned to pay attention to them, despite that her delm had put her youthful mention of such tensions aside with a terse, you're no Healer, girl.