Ice and Shadow Read online

  “None we have picked up and Everad has scanned for them. But—”

  “But what?” Tetempra demanded when the other continued to hesitate.

  “I think that they—at least the guard—the woman—guess that they are under observation. We have been using the utmost care and they have done nothing to throw us off—”

  “Still you sense it yourself, Ho-Sing?” the Veep concluded for her. “Very well, have one of your force make some error which will suggest he is Patrol or planet force inspired. They may well be expecting that and will go about their business freely. I can leave that well to you.”

  “Why does that priesthood on Asborgan want the guard so much they offered us such a price ?” Again it was Salanten pushing himself forward.

  “He has been outlawed by them. All these priesthoods and religious overlords turn vicious if any of their followers begin to think for themselves. I gather they wish to make an example of him. He seems to be on passable terms with the woman at present but once we pass on Zarn’s message we may cause complications for them all.”

  “It is a thing that travelers indulge themselves in,” Taynad said as they shared their meal on the terrace. “I think,” she continued, “that the maid is probably paid a small fee for suggesting that one goes—if one DOES go thereafter.”

  “We are not just travelers,” Jofre said sharply. Their few excursions into the whirl of the city round them had been all for very practical reasons, the obtaining of weapons, clothing, finding out from information sources what they could about possible transportation and the planet Zurzal wanted to explore.

  “This might be a chance,” the Zacathan said slowly, “to discover more about those shadows you believe are hovering around your trail. Yes, I know it would mean that Taynad would take off on her own, but I believe that there is that in issha training which favors the individual over even a duo. By all means, Jewelbright, try this new sensation, you may have something to import to Asborgan on your return.”

  He did not like it. Jofre was opposed to her going out alone even at midday and in a city so well policed that no casual crime had existed for years. Nothing must disturb the well-being and peace of the travelers on whom all Wayright’s industry was centered. Why did he have this inner warning? Did he fear some improbable attack on Taynad? Certainly all his training would turn him against such a thought—issha did not doubt the skill and ability of issha—she was very well able to take care of herself.

  Then—what was it? The fact which had been nibbling at him now for days, that she seemed to accept the Zacathan’s offer of employment with no thought that her home Lair might see matters very differently? She had not been oathed to this as was he, and without the oath—Then there was a freedom which could turn to enmity on the demand of a Lair Master. That she could not return to Asborgan without assistance was true. But it would take time for the happenings on Tssek to filter back to that world and meanwhile she had to live. There was the Jat and the linkage; Jofre kept coming back to that for assurance. Surely the creature linked so to them both would display uneasiness, perhaps even more, if Taynad did not mean exactly what she had said to Zurzal. Still—

  There was no use in following her to this Tri-lily for it was a luxury establishment for females only. He was also somehow sure that she would know what he was doing if he tried to follow her, at least to the door. For the moment there was nothing Jofre could do and he resented it.

  To escape his own thoughts he started a practice session, concentrating on learning just what could be done with his new weapons, the Jat squatting on a cushion to watch him with very round eyes.

  The establishment of the Tri-lily was imposing but in an oddly discreet way, as might a Jewelbright slide into a mixed company and subtly let her presence there dawn slowly on those about her. There was a living doorguard, not a robot voice box, to bow Taynad into a room which somehow wrapped one around with a feeling of relaxation and peace. How this effect was accomplished she had no idea, and indeed her issha suspicion tightened. There would be no wearing away of her own core of control, no matter what outward signs of enjoyment she might need to summon.

  “Gracious and Illustrious One—” A slender female shape moved from between two misty blue-green wall hangings.

  They were prepared to pile it on; Taynad’s professional interest sifted it all. Greeting suitable to some highborn, but delivered with apparently complete sincerity. She gave several points to the manager here—perhaps even a Jewel House Mistress might be impressed.

  “Bright day,” she responded pleasantly, but allowed to creep into her voice a faint tone of uneasiness as if indeed she were a little daunted by such ceremony. “I have heard—there is a maid at the Auroa who spoke highly of the restful value of your services. Such are new to me—but—”

  “You were interested enough, Illustrious, to come and see what there is to be offered? We have many services—but since you have not visited us before, perhaps it is well that you begin by making your season choice—”

  “Season choice?”

  “Yes, it is known that beings differ greatly in their reaction to environmental changes. Perhaps on your world spring is the season which holds the strongest meaning for you—during which you feel at the best. Or you may look forward to the ripeness of summer—the soothing warmth—the cloudless skies under which living things rise to their fruitfulness. There are those also who find autumn stimulating—the first crispness of freshening winds, the savor of the land which has been touched faintly by frost. And there are those, though they are fewer in number, who like the bracing of storms, the clear cold of mornings when ice begems twigs and branches. We have these, Illustrious, ready for your service.”

  Taynad was intrigued. For a moment she held a flash of memory—of being young—running barefooted across a dew-wet strip of tiny mountain meadow to sniff the first star flowerets of the year.

  “I think I choose spring,” she found herself saying.

  “If you will come this way, Illustrious, you shall meet spring—”

  One of the curtain panels on the wall was looped aside and she stepped ahead of the attendant into a narrow corridor not more than three strides long, and so came into a second room. Or was it a room? She could not actually see any walls except a fraction of the one embracing the door behind her. There was a mass of greenery to the sides, and, centering, a pool into which flowed liquid. She might have come out into the open of one of those mountain valleys she knew so well, except this had no skin roughening winds tunneling down it, and the softness of the air was a caress on her flesh. There were fragrances carried by those lightest of breezes, clean, fresh scents of newly awakened growth reaching for new life and renewal.

  The attendant beckoned her on to the side of the pool. There were places there for sitting, cleverly hollowed into the seeming stone. Some were so placed they would allow entrance into the pool. The attendant indicated one larger rock.

  “You place the fingers so, Illustrious. Within is the spring robe for your use, also there are certain balms and essences. The spring maid will be with you when you are ready—only touch this,” she touched another spot on the rock chest, “and she will come at once. What is your pleasure, Illustrious, as to other refreshment? We can offer the spring drinks of near a hundred worlds—”

  Certainly not the one of the Lairs, Taynad thought, at least not that which was left in the spring—the sour dregs which survived a winter’s supply.

  “Something light—kind to the inner parts—” Taynad was sure she could detect any danger from a drink meant for some other species.

  “Lily dew, then. This is collected from flower petals at dawn, Illustrious. It lightens the spirit, calms and soothes—” She produced a flask carved from green stone and poured a portion into a crystal flower shaped glass which she half-filled before passing it to Taynad, who cradled the fanciful container between her hands and took a deep sniff of its contents. She could detect nothing save a faint sweetness akin to t
he perfume of a slowly opening flower.

  “Your thanks.” Taynad raised the cup toward the attendant in a small salute and sipped. It was good—holding the chill of a mountain stream, with a faintest shadowing of flower honey.

  “May you enjoy your spring, Illustrious. The maid will come at your call.” The other bowed her head and then disappeared behind those curiously veiling bushes.

  Taynad, glass in hand, went to survey the contents of the coffer in the rock. There was a shelf set in its raised lid which supported a number of locked-in bottles and boxes. And in the coffer itself were the folds of a green robe. She must follow the custom, she supposed, though she shed her clothing a little reluctantly. The robe was as fragile as one of her Jewelbright gowns and as transparent. She made no effort to unbraid her hair. What she carried within that concealment she intended to keep with her.

  Having folded her clothing into the coffer, she hesitated about pressing the summons for the promised maid. Instead she sipped slowly at the drink which had been poured for her and took two steps down to one of the curved seats where she could slip her feet into the pool. The water was flesh warm.

  Jewelbrights were accustomed to the highest forms of luxury Asborgan knew—many of the noted ones could command more service and pampering than lords’ ladies. Yet this place somehow offered too much—it was a Jewel House carried to the highest degree but she had no duty to hold her here.

  She still had not summoned the promised maid, wanting to settle herself into the sensations this place summoned, but there was movement behind her and she looked around swiftly.

  From here, the rise of greenery hid even the door through which she had come. Now out of the hiding of that stepped a tall, nearly bone-thin figure, certainly by her strange clothing no employee of the Tri-lily, or at least Taynad did not believe so. That clothing appeared to consist only of long strips of thick furry material of a brilliant scarlet, which stood out in eye-aching intensity against the smooth green, wound about her, to Taynad’s reckoning, abnormally thin frame. Her long neck seemed too fragile to keep aloft the huge mass of her head where a large turban covered three-quarters of any skull she might have, its folds hung with a dripping of dazzling gems. Two of which, Taynad noted quickly, were ayzem stones—from Asborgan—and of the first water—the kind which the Shagga kept jealously in their hidden treasure places.

  This newcomer moved stiffly, as if her knobby joints did not have the easy play known to most humanoids, and she came directly to stand before Taynad who had risen to meet her.

  The long fingers of the one hand lifted lazily from the other’s side to sketch a sign. So—Taynad waited, calling on all her training to show no sign of surprise. That signal she had never expected to see off her own world. It was an identification she could not deny.

  CHAPTER 23

  THOSE STRANGE EYES with their double eyelids made her secretly uncomfortable. It was as if this alien stranger possessed some unnamed sense which could sift into her mind. Yet Taynad was not otherwise aware of any such invasion. She had never met any save the Jat and a very few of the highest trained Asshi Masters who could do more than pick up emotions their owners wanted hidden. Thought reading might be common somewhere along the star ways, but she had never heard of any who had encountered it. Which did not mean that it could not exist. Taynad suppressed thought quickly, closing off the way to the Inner Center.

  “Gentlefem”—though it might give the other the advantage at their meeting, Taynad chose to break the silence first—“you have come to me. What is your wish?”

  “You are direct—that is an attitude I like,” the other returned. “What I come for is a matter of business—your business, Jewelbright. I gather that your work on Tssek came to an unfortunately abrupt end—though, of course, through no fault of yours. Sopt s’Qu was not noted for complex mental labor at any time, and he reached well above his abilities in that matter. Since you are now free, I bring you a message.” One of those long hands burrowed beneath a looping of the body scarves to seek a hidden pocket and produce two small sticks, shorter than the fingers that offered them.

  Taynad accepted them with a reluctance she would not allow to be seen. She slipped first one and then the other between the balls of her thumb and forefinger, the small markings making an impression on her flesh that she could read.

  Zarn again! But this time he had called in formidable backing. She was quick to read the mark of the First Sister of her own Lair. This was official, then. They had selected her for a new mission.

  “You are to inform me—” she said slowly.

  “By Zarn’s word you already know what is wished for. This guard who has attached himself to the Zacathan—it seems he has proven traitor to your people, or so Zarn puts it. They wish him returned.”

  Taynad twiddled the twigs between her fingers.

  “And to return him from off-world?”

  The alien slitted her inner eyes. “That will be arranged for. However, not at present. Zarn will have his wishes fulfilled but at OUR timing. And that is not yet. I have heard of this oathing of your people, that you cannot break such a bond once it is taken. Have you oathed with the Zacathan as this renegade has done?”

  “No, I have merely pledged my help in another matter—”

  “Which is suitable. Render him that best of services; he must be made grateful to you. Perhaps then the loss of his guard shall not be too regretted. But you know best your own business, Sister to Shadows.”

  “And your part in this?” Taynad refused to be cowed by the other’s air of complete control of the situation.

  “Nothing to interfere with yours, Shadow. We have in part a common goal and your people have seen fit to recognize that. Good hunting—when the time comes.”

  The stranger turned and vanished behind one of the bush curtains. Taynad was left with the feeling that she had just met a wielder of power—akin to a Lair Master. And who would have such power and yet be interested in them? There was only one answer she could assume—the Guild. So they were taking a hand in some game still not plain to the players?

  However, did that one who had just gone have the right to pass along a Shadow order? There were these message sticks she herself held now—Zarn and those behind him would never have entrusted such to this alien unless they considered there had been an oathing—though not directly between Taynad and any employer. And such a situation she found doubtful.

  She had to think this out, and carefully. Tucking the two small rune sticks carefully into the hiding places her braid offered, Taynad sat for a very long moment staring into the pool before her. Then she turned and pressed the button for the attendant she had been assured was waiting. As long as she was here she might well make use of the amenities spring had to offer before she went back into the world where decisions waited.

  Jofre sat at the small walk side table. The Jat perched on the second chair beside him. Those passing back and forth on errands of their own were an ever-changing show of strangers, enough to hold the interest of any idle spectator. But he was wondering where, in that shifting series of strollers and tourists, lurked the stalker he was very sure was interested only in HIM.

  “Watch—”

  A thread of thought—but Jofre had carefully schooled himself during the past few days to receive such without showing that he knew. Taynad was better at communication with the Jat than he, but the creature could reach him at times. He fished into the depths of the glass before him, speared one of the tart-sweet wedges of fruit which had been floating on the liquid and brought it out, holding the tidbit to the Jat, whose paw flashed forth to seize it.

  “Where?” Jofre tightened and strengthened his thought question to his best ability.

  “Red—” It was almost no use. The Jat was obviously communicating more, but all Jofre could pick up was that one exasperating word.

  Red—what was red—so much so that the Jat could use mention of the color as a guide—around them?

  Red—it was a c
ommon enough color—he had caught sight of at least two feminine robes, a short jacket—even a head covering of that shade during the past few minutes. But those had been passing. Since he had settled here, surely his tracker would be more or less anchored nearby.

  Red—and he could not look for it obviously. The Jat pawed at his arm—wanting another fruit? Perhaps, but Jofre’s senses were alert, perhaps something more. He turned his head a fraction that he might look more closely at his small companion and saw one of those ears twitch as if an insect had dared to alight there. Red—

  At that far table. And it was a red, unusual enough to rivet the attention all right, yet he dared not risk a direct glance.

  Instead he turned the glass which held the dregs of the drink and went to fishing for another fruit bit. The shiny material of that container was opaque—reflective—he had a smeary sort of mirror which he could watch with impunity.

  The man at the other table was humanoid in proportions and stance as far as Jofre could judge. But the general whole of his appearance was alien indeed. Instead of the usual clothing, which here planetside followed a pattern mostly akin to travel suits, this diner (for the stranger was consuming with very apparent gusto small, frantically wriggling creatures it plucked up from a platter before it) had limited wearing apparel to a kiltlike garment reaching to the knee and below that boots which were so tightly modeled to the legs and feet one could see the play of muscles through the substance of their making. The area of displayed skin was a dull black but the head, shoulders and a wedge descending the back in the form of a manelike growth were covered by long thickish bristles of a deep crimson.

  That such an easily noted being could have been selected as a “shadow” amazed Jofre now that his attention had been directed to him. The features were decidedly human in character and there were ruffles of the bristle growth over each eye. As far as Jofre could judge the other was paying no attention to either him or the Jat. Yet Jofre trusted Yan that this was someone to be watched.