“She's a beauty,” the first girl said grudgingly, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth. “From Liad?”
“From Liad,” Bre Din sig'Ranton asserted. Reverently, he reached into the box and had the instrument out, cradling it against his shoulder like an infant. His fingers moved, and the strings whispered, loud in the quiet dimness.
“But—why?” asked the first boy.
“Yes, why?” the second girl repeated. “Who is this—” She glanced aside, at them, Aelliana realized “—this Honorable jo'Bern? Why is she sending you gifts?”
“Not a gift,” Bre Din murmured. “Not a gift, Veen. A promise.” He stroked the strings again, and sighed.
“Dath jo'Bern is my grandmother's cha'leket. When my grandmother died, the dulciharp went to her, as a death-gift. I sent her—gods, relumma ago!—I sent her a recording, and I asked her—I asked her, if she would sponsor me to the Conservatory on Liad, and, if she thought I was worthy, to return me my grandmother's harp.”
“What's this?” Veen plucked a slim folder from inside the case and flipped it open.
“Tickets,” she said blankly, “and a bank draft.”
Cheek against wood, Bre Din sig'Ranton smiled.
“If I'm to study at the Conservatory, I need to travel to Liad, Veen.”
“But—” She stared at him, the folder forgotten in her hand. “What about the band?” She took a hard breath. “What about—”
“If you please,” Daav spoke up, placing his hand on Aelliana's shoulder. “There is a confirmation of satisfactory delivery to be signed.”
Obedient to her prompt, Aelliana reached inside her jacket and withdrew the card.
“Certainly, Pilots.” Bre Din turned, the harp still cradled against him, and pressed his thumb onto the card's surface. “My thanks; you have—you have changed my life.”
Aelliana bowed, and stepped back to Daav's side, slipping the card away into the safety of an inner pocket. As one, they turned toward the door, which opened smoothly under Daav's hand.
“Bre Din!” The second girl's voice was sharp. “Will you turn your back on—”
“Leave it until after the set!” the first girl interrupted. “We're on!”
The door fell shut, Daav turned to the right, opposite the direction they had entered, and Aelliana, wordless, followed.
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Contents
Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Twenty
Norbear—Size: 16–22 cm; Weight: 121–180 g. Furred quadrupedal mammal with a burrowing habit; soft dense coat, ranging in color from grey, brown, black, orange, white and mixed. Herbivore. Fearless and lively disposition, natural empath. Adapts well to domestication. Banned on certain worlds. Check port rules before importing.
—Courier Wildlife Guide, Fourteenth Edition
The back door opened onto a service platform overlooking a thin alley harshly lit by vapor spots. Aelliana stood quietly at Daav's side, doubtless trying to figure out what it was that he saw which eluded her.
In fact, he saw only an empty alleyway, and some bits of trash fluttering in the corner made by the intersection of ramp and foundation.
“It's stopped snowing,” she observed.
“So it has.”
“I wonder, van'chela, why we exited this way, rather than by the main door?”
It was a fair question, and one that a new pilot might with honor ask of a port-wise comrade. The pity being that he had no answer nearly so fair to offer her in return. Scout instincts, pilot instincts—things learned through bone and blood, recalled by the deep mind, acted upon, and never questioned . . . How did one explain, without seeming to be perfectly demented? Worse, how did one teach, except as one had been taught—by trial and error, and the occasional laceration or broken bone?
Still, he told himself, rallyingly, there must have been a reason, mustn't there have, Daav? Only take a moment to reflect, and no doubt it will come to you.
He cast his mind back to the main room: the dance floor, the charmingly attired wait staff, the tables made private by the wafting smoke. Had there been a potential for danger, an . . . oddity, damn Clarence and his ghosts! The tension in a shoulder; the attitude of a head? Some small thing set slightly out of place? An object that ought to have been there, noticed only by its absence?
He sighed.
“I don't know,” he admitted. “Forgive me, Aelliana.”
She looked up into his face, her eyes deeply green in the sulfurous light.
“Forgive you? For heeding your training, which has kept you safe on dozens of ports, and in far stranger places? I can scarcely find that a fault, van'chela, nor any cause for forgiveness. Had your training been less thorough, or yourself less advertent, I might never have met you, nor known what it was I lived in lack of.”
If, indeed, her brother had allowed her to live so long. Horror shivered through him; it had been so near a thing, their meeting so much a matter of chance . . .
“Daav? Is there something amiss?”
“Nothing amiss,” he said, forcibly shaking off the chill, and producing a smile to soothe her. “I was merely thinking that the luck moves along strange pathways.”
“So it does,” she agreed, and glanced about them once again. “If there is nothing here for us, do you think that we might leave?”
“In fact, I do!” He preceded her down the ramp, in case the fluttering litter should suddenly turn feral, and nodded to the left as she joined him on the alley's floor.
“I propose that we find us a convivial place for a glass and a bit of supper, now that we're at leisure.”
Aelliana tipped her head, her stance wistful. “I had hoped to see more of the port.”
Of course she would, he chided himself; this was her first new port—her first world that was not the homeworld! Who would not wish to walk such streets and marvel that she had come so far?
“There's no requirement that we find supper at the first shop displaying a glass,” he pointed out, and was rewarded by her smile.
“There isn't, is there?” she said. “We are free to meet our own fancy. Let us, if you will humor me, walk.” She held out her hand, inviting, and he stepped forward to take it in his own.
“By all means, let us walk and observe the port! It has been an age since I've been at leisure to tour.”
* * *
They bought bowls of stew from a cart outside of a greens market, and fresh-squeezed juice from a stall inside. Leaning on the railing at the observation window, they ate while watching pallets of vegetables being offloaded from rail cars, to ride the conveyors into the vendor area below.
After, they went back out onto the port and walked, taking turns choosing their direction. At some point in their meanderings the snow began again, riding a freshening breeze. Aelliana shivered and turned up the collar of her jacket, curling her hands into warm pockets.
They found a bakery open at the edge of what might have been a day-side business district, ate lemon squares and drank hot tea at a tiny round table while in the back the baker prepared the next day's dough.
Warmed by tea and sugar, they went on the prowl again, pausing by a map board so that she could discover the locations of such landmarks as the Portmaster's Office, the Pilots Guild, Healer Hall, and Port Security. There were pointers to various ferries: the Ocean Line, the Mountain Line, the City Line—and the shuttle to the Pleasure Quarters.
“The Pleasure Quarters?” she murmured. “What do you suppose that is?”
“I am without information. Shall we find if the shuttle is running and explore?”
Her laugh was swallowed by a yawn.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “For tonight, van'chela, I think it might be time to seek our ship, and our bed.”
“Well enough,” Daav answered. “It's always good to have a plan for the morrow.” He considered the map briefly, and raised a hand to trace out a route.
“If we go north, past Avontai Port 'change, we'll cut the corner of the Entertainment District, and so come back to the public yard.” He glanced down at her. “Or shall we find a cab?”