Jo Clayton - Diadem 9 - Quester's Endgame

Quester’s Endgame

Diadem, Book 9

Jo Clayton

1986

“WELL, WELL, IT’S MUD-FACE. SO YOU SQUIRMED YOUR WAY HERE.”

Aleytys turned slowly, trying to control the surge of fear and anger that shook her when she heard that deep fluid

voice, a voice she’d heard only one time waking, a thousand times since in nightmare.

“Mud,” he said. “Look at that, all of you. Look at what you want to call Vryhh. I will not, I will not have that slime

call itself Vryhh. I will NOT.” Silence from all the Vrya in the dome. “To the death, Mud,” Kell said into that silence. “I

declare war between us. I declare that you and any who try to help you, Mud, will die at the hands of me and mine.”

Mastering her own rage, Aleytys sucked in a breath, let it out. “To the death, cousin,” she said at last ....

Jo Clayton has written:

The Diadem Saga

Diadem From The Stars

Lamarchos

Irsud

Maeve

Star Hunters

The Nowhere Hunt

Ghosthunt

The Snares Of Ibex

Quester’s Endgame

The Duel Of Sorcery Series

Moongather

Moonscatter

Changer’s Moon

Others

A Bait Of Dreams

Drinker Of Souls

Who’s Who And What’s What

For old readers of the series who are obviously folk of intelligence and taste but alas not

Mento-the-Marvels capable of memorizing telephone books and regurgitating the contents on cue, for

new readers who are courageously plunging into the ninth (and last) book about Aleytys and the diadem,

here’s a combination orientation and memory jogger.

ALEYTYS: Born in a mountain valley called the vadi Raqsidan on a world called Jaydugar, raised

in an agrarian, preindustrial culture. Psi-empath and translator, healer, flamethrower

and worrier. She’s had one child, a son, had him stolen from her before he was a year

old, gave him up again when he was about four. She acquired the diadem after she ran

from a barbecue where she was going to be the roastee. In her travels from world to

world, while she was searching for her mother, she was (among other things) sold as a

slave to provide meat for a wasp queen’s egg, then she rode a smuggler’s ship as his

bedmate and translator. Finally she got a steady job with Hunters Inc on Wolff. In the

bits of time left over from her struggles to survive and go on with her search for her

mother, she got to know more about the diadem and the entities trapped within it,

acquiring three live-in friends and critics. Sometimes it got very crowded inside her

skull.

DIADEM, the: An artifact from an ancient extinct civilization. Both a trap and an instrument of great

flexibility and power. A focus for psi-forces, a prison for the self-aware part of the

wearer once the wearer’s body is dead. Gold-wire lilies with jewel hearts set on a

chain of flat gold links. Once it’s on someone’s head it can’t be removed until that

person’s dead or until it’s temporarily deactivated. It swims easily from reality to

reality, invisible until its powers are called on. When Aleytys first acquired it, she had

almost no control over it; as she learned to know those within it, her control increased

but was never complete.

HARSKARI: The first to be caught. Jealous of her skills, angry at the breakup of their relationship,

an ex-lover constructed the diadem and gave it to Harskari saying it was a peace

offering. As soon as she put it on, he killed her and threw her body into a volcano,

where it burned to ash. The diadem with her consciousness trapped within was

untouched. Her lover’s revenge. In the course of time, the diadem was ejected from

the volcano during an eruption, and lay sealed inside a clump of lava for eons until the

working of wind and water eroded it loose. All this time Harskari was awake and

aware of the nothing around her, hanging on to her sanity by the fingernails she didn’t

have. Civilizations rose and fell around her. The sun went nova and ashed the life off

the world. And still she was awake, aware. More time passed. A wandering singer

happened by, landed to do some repair work on the rusty cobbled-together wreck

she was flying world to world. She found the diadem, dusted it off, was enchanted by

its loveliness and set it on her head. And Harskari finally had some company.

SHADITH: Singer and poet, the last of her kind. The second trapped and the second freed. In the

early days when Aleytys was still ignorant of any technology more complicated than a

water mill, Shadith provided instruction and information and occasionally took control

of Aleytys’s body and talents to deal with things that were dangerous mysteries to the

mountain girl. Shadith is now installed in the body of a young girl, a hawk rider killed in

a skirmish on Ibex. Shadith prodded Aleytys into repairing the body and sliding her

into it, stabilizing her in the emptied flesh. She looks about fourteen, a slight energetic

girl with cafe-au-lait skin, chocolate eyes, brown-gold hair a riot of tiny curls. In her

original body—different appearance, different species—she crashed on a primitive

world and lay moldering in the ruins of her ship for several millennia until one of the

natives happened on her ship and took the diadem from her crumbling skull.

SWARDHELD: The third of the trapped entities. Raised in his father’s smithy, meant to follow his

father’s trade as swordsmith and armorer. Driven from that by his restless, rebellious

nature (a repellent brat, he told Aleytys), he joined a mercenary band so he could eat,

rose to be companion and war leader to a shrewd and devious man who managed to

put together a small but thriving empire, had to flee when the man was poisoned,

discovered the diadem, came back out of the mountains to avenge his friend and

commander, became an emperor of sorts himself with the help of the diadem, was

poisoned in his turn and joined the other trapped spirits. On a world called Nowhere

he was sucked out of the diadem by a floating ghost (a creature that preyed on life

force), but when the ghost was distracted by an attack from Aleytys, he broke free of

it and slipped into the body of a man just stripped of life. Supported by Aleytys and

the others, he managed to spark new life in the abandoned flesh and found himself

embodied for the first time in millennia. This accident and its outcome showed Aleytys

that it was possible for Harskari and Shadith to acquire bodies of their own if they

wanted them and found suitable ones.

RMOAHL, the: The diadem lay in their treasure vault for generations until it was stolen by Miks

Stavver. They are intelligent, un-aggressive, communal, hierarchical, spiderish beings.

And very very patient. They are fanatical about their treasures; what they have, they

intend to keep. They will go to just about any lengths to regain what is lost, though

they avoid causing pain or injury almost as fanatically; their fearsome appearance is to

some degree deceptive; though they will fight effectively if driven to it.

STAVVER, MIKS: According to him, he’s the best thief in known space. A compulsive gambler.

Challenged by impossibilities. The only way to steal anything from the RMoahl and

make a profit on it was to get rid of it very quickly indeed; the RMoahl hounds would

go after the object and forget the thief. His plans went seriously awry, he crashed on

Jaydugar, lost the diadem to a trio of local witches who passed it to Aleytys, collected

Aleytys and got them both offworld. He was her lover for a while and later, after they

parted, played surrogate father to her son when the boy ran away from home.

Gambling fever eventually did him in when he wagered money he didn’t have with

beings who had no sense of humor.

SHAREEM: A Vryhh. Aleytys’s mother. Caught in the delirium of a swamp fever, she crashed on

Jaydugar; too sick to defend herself, she was enslaved and sold to the Azdar,

Aleytys’s father. She recovered from the fever to find herself pregnant. As soon as

Aleytys was able to manage without her, she left a letter telling her daughter about her

and how to find her, then wangled her way offworld, back to the life she was leading

before the disastrous days on Jaydugar.

KELL: A Vryhh. He loathes the thought of a half-breed Vryhh and has tried before to destroy

Aleytys. He maneuvered reactionary, power-seeking Watukuu into secretly rebelling

and trying to take over a colony world in order to use it as a base to attack the

government of the homeworld; then he maneuvered that homeworld government into

hiring Hunters Inc to deal with the rebellion. He played games with the mind of Canyli

Heldeen, the director of Hunters Inc, so that she assigned Aleytys to the Hunt. He

captured Aleytys and started to torment her, but with the backing of the Three, she

defeated him, then let her need to heal dictate her actions, something she was sorry for

almost as soon as it was done.

LINFYAR: Aleytys went to Ibex to find Kenton Esgard; according to the instructions her mother

left in that letter, he could put the two of them in touch. When Aleytys arrived, she

found his daughter Hana in charge of his house and business while he was roaming

over Ibex, driven by his need to extend his life, hunting a place called Sil Evareen

where men were supposed to live forever. In her search for him, shortly after Shadith

acquired her body, Aleytys came across a small boy running away from home and

castration. He had an extraordinarily beautiful soprano voice and his owner wanted to

keep it unchanged. He is about nine years old, covered head to toe with short, very

soft mottled brown fur. He was born without eyes, only faint furry hollows where they

would have been. His mobile pointed faun’s ears can hear sounds far beyond the

normal range of mammal ears; he has assorted proximity senses that serve him almost

as well as sight, and echo location for more distant objects. He learned very early the

arts of surviving in a place where children born visibly mutant were put outside the

gates once they were weaned and left to the whims of weather and the hunger of

predators. Aleytys means to send him to University where he can get an education and

further training in music. He is not enthusiastic about this idea and keeps poking about

for some ways to postpone (preferably forever) such a dreary outcome to his

adventures.

Wolff

warning bell

distance and direction obscure

Aleytys stepped from the cradle lift and shivered in the raw wind. She’d returned to spring mud and

damp spring bluster, winter having come and gone while she walked across Ibex. Behind her she heard

Linfyar’s complaining chatter as he felt that wind in spite of his fur and the blanket he had wrapped about

him, heard Shadith’s impatient replies. Smiling a little, she started for the terminal building across the

stained and cracking metacrete. Wolff’s starport was kept deliberately crude and unwelcoming, only a

rough field with a few battered cradles for ships and shuttles, a squat mud-colored terminal whose sole

grace was a steep roof where dark red tiles rose to a peak; the Wolfflan wanted no outsiders tempted to

stay and put pressure on scarce resources.

When she rounded the corner of the terminal, Aleytys saw Canyli and Tamris Heldeen standing

beside a flitter, the icy wind blowing their coats and scarves into a shapeless flurry about them. Grey

wasn’t there. Is he still furious with me? She shortened her stride, excitement and anticipation beginning

to drain out of her.

Head’s smile was wide and warm. “There’s a prance in your walk. You found what you wanted.”

She held the back door open, stood watching with quiet interest as Shadith herded Linfyar inside and

settled beside him. Tamris followed them in and sat beside Shadith.

Aleytys slipped into the forward seat, wriggled around and sighed as Head took her place at the

console. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’ve got another Hunt I can’t refuse,” she said, an amiable

weariness in her voice. “I’ve got a visitor coming.”

“No ... um ... not a Hunt ...”

Aleytys turned to stare at Head, surprised by the hesitation and uncertainty in the words.

“You were gone longer than I expected.”

“Ibex was complicated. Where’s Grey?”

“Hunt.”

Aleytys made a soft annoyed sound. “I thought he was done with all that.”

“He was restless, needed a distraction. And Hagan was needling him. He thought he’d better get out

before he lost his temper and made things worse for us.”

“Hardheaded idiot.” Aleytys moved restlessly. “When is he due back?”

“Seven months ago.”

“What?”

“He’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” It came out scratchy. Her throat was suddenly dry.

“Wait till we get to your house. The reports are there.”

“Right.” She looked at her hands, expecting to see them tremble, surprised that they lay still on her

thighs. She pressed down hard on the long muscles. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.”

Aleytys slid down in the seat. She couldn’t comprehend it. Seven months. Grey .... She stirred

restlessly. “What’s doing with my home share?”

“Hanging fire.” Head went silent as she edged the flier between two peaks of the angular and

austerely beautiful mountains ringing the cup that held the port, mocking the mud and ugliness of the field.

“We’ve just finished a fight over Dristig’s seat in the Forsaemal. I wanted Grey on the Hunters board

with me and Hagan knew it. He and his toadies started a nasty campaign against Grey. And you.” Head

chuckled. “Backfired on him. You weren’t here.” Another chuckle. “Maybe the best thing you ever did

for me. Wolfflan don’t like backbiting. He did drive Grey into taking the Hunt, thought he’d won, but we

ran Sybille instead. He could handle Grey, make him explode and say things he wouldn’t otherwise, but

Sybille tied him in knots, made that snerp Lukkit he was pushing look like a halfwit, couldn’t chew and

walk at the same time. She took Dristig’s seat in a sweep.” She was almost cheerful now, talking with an

ease missing at the beginning of the flight. “Hagan’s the next to go to the Wolfflan for confirmation.” Her

nose twitched. “I’d appreciate it if you were on Hunt when that happens. It’s going to be a bastard of a

fight.”

“Grey?”

“If he’s back by then. I know I promised not to push you, Lee ....” She took the flitter up over a

skim of clouds, shot a questioning half-smile at Aleytys, her thick pewter brows raised over rounded

eyes. With a self-mocking shake of her head, she punched in the course for Aleytys’s house. “We’ll have

your home share put through by then. Sybille’s working on it.”

“Thanks.” Aleytys settled her head against the rest and stared up at the flitter’s roof, seeing instead

the leggy black orb of the RMoahl ship waiting out beyond Teegah’s limit with that cursed patience, that

not quite threat. Wanting their diadem. Stavver was luckier than he knew, getting rid of the thing. She

wondered briefly what he and Sharl were doing, expecting to feel the familiar loss and longing as she

thought of her son. Nothing. Still numb. She was as detached as if she were a ghost riding her own

shoulders watching her body perform, pulling its strings.

The snow had melted around her house, though droppings of dirty white remained where shade was

deepest under the trees. The gardens were mud slopping about struggling plants, and in the field by the

stream her horses grazed at withered grass just pushing up new green shoots. Head set the flitter down in

the paved patio on the south side of the house.

A fire crackled briskly, driving the unused chill from the sitting room; a pot of cha waited on a table

beside a comfortable leather chair. Aleytys felt the numbness break inside her, pain at loss and pleasure

at being home mixing uneasily in her. She dropped into the chair and stared into the flames, quivering all

over, fighting to keep control. Tamris poured the tea and passed the cups around. She tapped Aleytys on

the shoulder. “Lee?”

Aleytys sucked in a breath, let it out in a ragged sigh. “Please.” She gulped at the cha, and the

warmth spreading through her eased some of the shaking. Tamris filled the cup for her again, and she

emptied it as quickly as she had the first, then she set the cup aside and turned to face Canyli Heldeen.

“Tell me about it.”

Head touched the fax sheets in her lap, lifted the top sheet, put it back. “He left three weeks after you

did. Told me he’d been a fool, that his head was so scrambled he wasn’t up to dealing with Hagan, so he

was going to clear out awhile. A clutch of Pajunggs was here, looking for you, as usual, but willing to

settle for any Hunter they could get.” She fingered the fax sheets and sighed. “Simple Hunt, a

find-and-snatch. Should have taken Grey a couple of weeks, a month at the outside.” She cleared her

throat, held out her cup for her daughter to fill, using the time to examine Aleytys, her shrewd light eyes

flicking from face to hands and back.

Aleytys said nothing, sat gazing at the fire, waiting for her to go on.

Head cleared her throat again, set the cup down. “I didn’t start worrying about him when he was

gone a month—sometimes the simple ones turn wild on you. After three months, it wasn’t a question of

worrying. The Pajunggs were getting nervous too; they wanted to know what was happening. I sent

Ticutt over to Avosing to find out what Grey was up to. First thing he reported was that Grey had got to

Keama Dusta—that’s the only city; it’s a colony planet, sparsely settled, just a part of one continent.

Anyway, Grey got that far, spent a few days nosing about, then he vanished. Went into the forest and

didn’t come out. You know Ticutt; Methodical’s his middle name. He set up a satellite drop, Grey’s ship,

sent coded reports to it every night, and a squealer pulsed them over to us. Then he went into the forest

as Grey had. And the reports stopped. That was three months ago. Pajunggs been on my back. Very

unhappy. But I waited for you. Hagan’s been exercising his tongue, or was until Sybille asked if he was

volunteering.”

“Ah.” Aleytys sat up. “And you want me to do the volunteering.”

“If you will.”

A strained silence settled over the room. The fire crackled noisily, snapping and hissing; tendrils of

adoradee vine tapped at the tall narrow windows, a jittery slithery noise. The leather creaked under

Aleytys as she shifted position. “He’d really hate it, you know. Me running after him like an

overprotective mother after a half-wit child. Madar, Canyli!” She slapped her hand down on the chair

arm, the sound loud and abrupt. Linfyar spilled cha on his leg, yipped and began rubbing at his fur with a

napkin Shadith pushed into his hand.

Shadith watched Aleytys, worried. She knew too much about the ups and downs of the relationship

between Grey and Aleytys and too much about the bitter strength of the bond between them. She

switched her gaze to Head and thought about what the woman had just said: I waited for you. TRAP.

The word popped to the front of her mind and quivered there in big black letters. She bit her lip,

wondering if she should wait or say something, but kept quiet when Aleytys spoke again.

“What a choice you give me,” she said. “In a few weeks my mother will be here to take me to

Vrithian. You know how long I’ve waited for that.” Absently she brushed at her hair. Her hand shook a

little; she brought it quickly down and clasped it with the other. “But what if I am the only one who can

pull him out of that hole? Him and Ticutt? If they aren’t dead already.” She bent forward, her hair falling

forward to hide her face. Shudders moved in waves through her body. Shadith got up from the floor

where she was sitting beside Linfyar and went to kneel by Aleytys, cradling Lee’s shaking hands in hers.

“I’ve thought of that,” Head said softly. “I’ve also thought about another time when someone came to

us with a Hunt that was something else. Grey sucked in might be an accident; Ticutt makes it a habit. A

habit we have to break, Lee. We’re in the bind we kept putting you in—we can’t afford to fail. Our

reputation is only as good as its last manifestation. We’ll have to send in another Hunter to finish the job,

but we can’t go on dropping drachs down that hole. Two of the top four left, Sybille and Taggert, but I

don’t think the outcome would be different. Eventually we have to come to you. Interesting, isn’t it? We

have to come to you.”

Shadith felt a jolt pass through Aleytys, nodded to herself. “Trap,” she said, “because you’re close to

reaching Vrithian.”

Aleytys freed her hands, pressed the heels of the palms against her eyes, pulled the hands down her

face. “Kell.”

“One of Ticutt’s last reports.” Head ruffled through the fax sheets, pulled one out, put it on the top.

“He said he picked up a smell of an alien mixed up with the Sikin Ajin, a master designer who built some

things for him that impressed the hell out of everyone around him. Just a wisp of a wisp, but after Sybille

he’s the best ferret we’ve got.”

“Lee.” Shadith caught hold of Aleytys’s hand and shook it side to side. “Listen. Go to Vrithian. He’ll

come after you, he can’t help it. Send me to Avosing. You know what I can do. And he won’t be

expecting anything like me, if he’s hanging around there still. Linfy and me working together, we’ll sniff

out that trap and spring Grey loose before anyone knows what’s happening. And Ticutt. You could

probably do it better and faster, but look at it this way—you there on Vrithian, me on Avosing, we’ll be

coming at the same problem from different directions.” She jumped to her feet. “You’ll be facing Kell;

you’ll have the hard part. Linfy and me, well, it’ll be a walk-over.”

“Linfyar? No.”

“Don’t fuss, Lee. He’s tough. Aren’t you, imp?”

“Uh-huh.” Linfyar flicked his pointed ears forward, then back. “I want to go, dama, I do. It’s better

than school.” Vast contempt in the last word.

“No doubt, Linfy, but ...”

“Lee.” Shadith bent down and patted her arm. “Look, I’ll take care of him. This is the best way,

really it is.” She straightened, turned to Head. “Want to bet Kell’s had a long look at all the escrow

flakes? Want to bet he’s even found a way into Hunters records, knows everything about all your

Hunters, down to the way they breathe? Send Aleytys to Avosing and you maybe win, maybe lose. Send

anyone else alone without backing and you lose for sure. Send a Hunter, Taggert maybe, and me, not

together, working on our own, while Aleytys tackles the other end. You’ve got a better chance that way

than any other.” She spread her arms, then sketched a bow. “Aleytys isn’t so good on the

courtesies—she hasn’t introduced me. I’m Shadith. Singer and poet. We’ve met but I was in another

body then. Uh-huh, you got it.”

Head put her hand over her mouth; her eyes danced with the laughter she couldn’t quite suppress.

After a minute she said, “You look about fourteen.”

“So? The body is, I’m not.” Shadith slanted a quick anxious glance at Aleytys, who sat stone-faced

not looking at either of them, then fixed her eyes on Head. “I’m your wild card. Play me.”

“You think a lot of yourself.” Head’s voice was dryly skeptical, the amusement gone from her eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Aleytys?”

“Lee’s going to Vrithian.” Shadith stepped back so she could see both the women. “You have to,

Lee, you know that. He wants to distract you, keep you and Shareem apart. Use that against him. Go

with your mother, distract him with his own distraction, draw him off from Avosing so Taggert and I

won’t have to fight him, just what he’s left behind.” She started pacing back and forth along the hearth.

“Listen to me. He knows you too well. Remember what happened the last time. He almost took you. If

the three of us hadn’t been mere to back you, where’d you be now? He’s had time to plan this. If you do

what he expects, he’s got you. Don’t go after Grey. Shake Kell up, disappoint him, confuse him. Let me

take care of the Avosing end. He’ll come after you—he’s got to. Vrithian is his ground, well, I know that,

but it’s not the ground he’s got ready for you. Are you listening? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Is letting you get yourself killed the biggest favor I can do for you?”

“Hunh, I like your faith in me.” Shadith clicked her tongue with disgust, then looked more closely at

the woman sitting crouched in the big chair. “Stop trying to manipulate me. I know you, remember? I’ve

lived in that head of yours far too long.”

Aleytys sighed, straightened her back. “You don’t have to beat the point to death, Shadow. I agree.”

She stretched her legs out, lay back in the chair, eyes closed, her face looking hollowed out. Her hands

rested limp and motionless on the chair arms. “Give us everything you’ve got on this, will you, Canyli?

Ticutt’s reports, the Pajunggs’ spiel. Anything else you can dig up.” She lay still for several moments, then

tightened her hands on the chair arms and got suddenly to her feet, a quick twisting movement so full of

violence it was as if her body shouted, as if the grief, fear and fury she was holding under taut control

were close to escaping her grip. “I’m going north to make a wild trek. It’s something I have to do.” She

walked swiftly across the room, turned in the doorway. “Shadow, if Shareem comes ... if she comes

asking for me before I get back, you tell her ... ask her ... you know.” She wheeled, knocked her

shoulder against the doorframe, caught herself, then sped off down the hall, the click of her heels fading

into silence.

“Ibex was difficult,” Shadith said when Head turned to her, brows raised. “Painful.”

Head smoothed a square hand over the short thick helmet of pewter-gray hair, the cabochon

sapphire set in a heavy silver band catching light from the fire and gleaming suddenly bluer than the blue

of her pale eyes. Those eyes were troubled. “She has only one of you left now.”

“Yeah.” Shadith rubbed her back against the edge of the fireplace. “But her mother’s going to be

with her. A full Vryhh. What about Taggert and me going to Avosing? Are you going to do it?”

“Have I a choice?”

“Sure. Sit on your hands. It’s me that’s got no choice. To get Grey loose, it looks like I’ll have to

finish your Hunt for you.” She sniffed with delicate disgust, then grinned at Head. “Don’t you think you’d

better tell me what the Hunt is?”

“It’s in the data sheets.” Head spoke absently, looking out one of the long narrow windows, seeing

visions that disturbed her deeply. “No point in making mysteries. Avosing is a Pajungg colony, the Sikin

Ajin is a Pajungg from the homeworld, was high up in the shadow government, what they call the criminal

side, made enemies and skipped out, ended up on Avosing, where he stirred up a rebellion and has been

a thorn in the official side. Grey was supposed to hand him over to the Colonial Authority.” She rose

from her chair, crossed the shadow-filled room and stood beside the window, looking out at the sunset

reddening the glaciers on the mountain peaks. “They never spent much time together, one or the other off

on a Hunt or testifying on Helvetia. And they had some spectacular fights. I never understood why they

stayed together.” She hitched a hip on the sill, leaned against the frame. “This hit her harder than I

expected.”

Shadith looked from Tamris to Linfyar and said nothing.

“The boy speaks interlingue quite well.”

“He’s a quick learner. And he sings like the angel he certainly isn’t, and he has the appetite of a herd

of caterpillars.”

“I hear you. Tamris, take Linfyar into the kitchen and see what you can find to feed him.”

Tamris wrinkled her nose, but left holding Linfyar’s hand. The boy whistled a scornful trill but made

no other protest about being shunted away; he was determined he was going with Shadith and didn’t

want to annoy her.

After the door shut behind them, Shadith said, “Some things I can’t talk about, too private, but ...

The bond between them is, well, it’s complicated, but it’s not going away. She came out of Ibex

determined to make peace with him, maybe start a baby—all that. She was excited and happy when we

landed. It was a long way to fall.” She wound a curl about her finger, frowned at the floor. With a sigh

she raised her head. “You think he’s dead.”

“Why would any sane man keep him alive? Grey dead and Grey alive are equally good as bait. And

Grey dead is easier to control.”

“Kell’s not exactly sane.”

“I wouldn’t count on him being as stupid as he is crazy.”

“Not count on it exactly, but there’s a sliver of possibility he’s keeping Grey alive. Kell likes hurting

things, and he knows what Grey means to Lee. I’m hoping Grey makes an acceptable substitute until he

has Lee to play with.” Shadith shuddered. “Weren’t for Lee, I’d be hoping Grey is dead.”

Head slid off the sill and began walking about the room, a sturdy squarish figure, solid as the

furniture. “It’s all guessing,” she said. “Likely there’s no trap, no devious plan, no mad plotter. Just Grey

tripping over his feet.” She stopped by the cha pot, lifted the lid, let it clink back down, moved on. “Just

the Sikin Ajin being cleverer and more powerful than the reports make him.” She stopped by the window

again. “Clouding over. Be sleeting before morning. The Pajunggs lying their collective heads off, more or

less normal for our clients. They all lie about something. Ticutt, getting past his prime and careless for

once.” She stopped in front of Shadith. “It could be just that, a series of coincidences.”

“Could be.” Shadith traced a fingertip along the brand on her cheek, the acid-etched outline of a

hawk’s head. “Happens all the time. I don’t believe it. Not a word. It’s Kell.”

“Yes.” Head swung around to look at the door. “Vrithian. Will she come back?”

“Depends.”

“On Grey?”

“Some. And Vrithian.” Shadith stepped away from the bricks, stretched and patted a yawn. “Oh-ah,

I’m tired. All this emotion. Look, Canyli, legends have a way of turning sour when you track them down.

And this house, the land, the horses, they mean a lot to Lee. And she likes the work; forget how she

bitches about it. And you’re the best friend she’s had in years. Pulling up is going to be harder than she

thinks. Even if Grey is dead.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’re committed whatever she decides. A matter of survival. You

hungry?”

“I could eat a raving silvercoat.” Shadith started for the door.

“Reminds me, you should talk Lee out of the trek. It’s the worst time of the year.” She opened the

door and waved

Shadith through. “The silvercoats are coming out of their winter holes hungry and mean.’’

“Good.” Shadith chuckled at the expression on Canyli’s face. “She needs the toughening.” They

walked together in a companionable silence down the high-ceilinged hall with carved eiksjo panels and

tapestries from a dozen worlds, boot heels clicking a double rhythm on the intricate parquet, heading for

the stairs that led to the kitchen. “If you’re worried it’s a death wish, forget it. I’ve been with her the

other times. She’ll come out of it with a lot of rubbish cleared out of her system.” A sigh, then a rueful

short laugh. “I rather wish I were going with her.”

“Why don’t you?”

“No. Not this time.”

Head was silent until they started down the stairs. She glanced several times at Shadith, amusement

at her own hesitations and puzzlement on her face. Finally she said, “What does it feel like? Coming out

after so long? I get the weirdest double impression when I look at you, ancient child.” She shook her

head, laughing a little. “I get the feeling I ought to mother you, and at the same time the thought appalls

me.”

“God! so it should.”

“You had a kind of immortality. Now you could be dead and gone tomorrow.”

“A short life, but a merry one.” She sniffed the air. “Haa, that smells good.” A flash of a grin at Head

and Shadith was clattering down the last few stairs and pushing into the kitchen.

The Wildlands.

Mist and cold and fatigue.

Thicker than she remembered, the mist swirled around her, distorted what she could see of the

ground so that footing was never certain, and would have disoriented her if the compass in her head

hadn’t kept her on the line she’d chosen. She ran through mud and slush, over ground still frozen, through

patches of ghostly desiccated weeds, forcing herself on and on until she was stumbling along hardly able

to lift her feet. She ran until the sun set and the darkness magnified the sounds of stealthy movement

thickening around her. She spent the night in the crude shelter the Wolfflan provided for the first night of a

trek taken in this season.

In the morning she had the aches and uncertainties of her body to cope with along with the harshness

of the land and the brutal cold. She began the struggle to relax into these things, to meld them into a

smoothly articulated whole, knowing this would have to be done morning after morning when the night’s

disturbed sleep with its surges of fear and anger and grief would jar her out of that oneness of land and

self. But, little by little, as the days passed and the outer world sloughed away, the days and nights would

merge.

For a while her body and her memories distracted her, kept her from the center she was trying to

find. Grey’s ghost ran beside her in the fog, along with memories of the time she’d come here to set aside

the dream of reclaiming her son. This time she came to Wolff with a dream that meant even more to her,

a dream perhaps as illusory as the other.

By the fourth day she’d collected a following of silvercoats, gaunt shadows in the eternal mist, tagging

her from cold camp to cold camp. There was no fuel left in this stony wilderness; whatever there had

been was stripped out and used up by the first men and women coming to build the cairns and make the

wild trek in pursuit of the oneness with the worldspirit that only exhaustion of mind and body would

produce, that beating. down of barriers between spirit and substance. Some came here driven by pride

and fear and shame; most of those died, the rest of them came back empty, pride satisfied, shame and

fear defeated for the moment. Nothing more. Other Wolfflan came out centered, filled, changed—enough

to keep the Wild Trek from degenerating into a sterile game whose rules were only game rules that could

be broken without recoil if the player chose to win no matter what. After a thousand years the Wild Trek

was hammered into the flesh of the Wolfflan, into the mythology of this narrow hardy people. They

seemed to know by instinct that if they gave up on this, they would start an inward spiral to destruction.

Like the immortals of Ibex, she thought, and wondered if those feeble, trapped creatures had used her

blood and cells to free themselves from their machines. Wondered if Kenton Esgard had begun to regret

what he’d done to himself. Wondered if Hana had worked her way into the Vryhh data and got her

hands on her father’s business.

But those things touched her only fleetingly, phantoms in the mists, distractions from mind sores and

body aches, from an anger so all-encompassing it had no focus, or rather many foci. Kell. Fate. Grey.

Her own stupidities. Head. Hunters Inc. Harskari. Shadith. Shareem. Hagan. In turn and all together, she

raged at them for forgetting what they were, what she was, raged at her powerlessness. No way to

change the past. You could go over and over and over what had happened, what you’d done, what

other people had done, you could see where you’d gone wrong, you could see what you might have

done, by force of will you could make yourself believe for a few seconds that it had not happened, but

you couldn’t change any of it, not really, and if you lied to yourself, willfully blinded yourself, well, that

was madness, a common enough madness and one that had its good points. Some things were too

horrible to live with.

No fuel to fight the cold, no shelters after the first to keep off the silvercoats and that cold. After a

long day’s run she had to spend a racking time gathering stones and building a rough shelter so she could

snatch a few hours of sleep with a degree of safety. Custom demanded that she scatter the stones, but

she had to come back this way and she’d do the scattering then.

The first cairn.

She took a water-worn pebble from the pouch at her bell, stood holding it a moment. She wondered

what she should say, then shrugged and tossed the pebble onto the cairn and went on loping through the

fog.Grey’s ghost ran beside her through the long gray days. Neither spoke, but settled into the

busy silences of snow and mist, hearing and not hearing the rhythmic body sounds, the grunts and

hoarse breathing, the shish-shish of ghostly snow-shoes on snow that wasn’t there.

At least the snow is gone today, she thought. Grey’s baby from his frozen sperm. Something to

keep him alive, a part of him. No. Not now. If he was alive, if he’d be there to share the joys and

irritations of raising a child, yes, oh yes, oh a hundred times yes. Without him—she’d had enough of

fatherless children. No and no and no, the harsh explosive denials came with the thudding of her

bootsoles. If Grey lived, if he lived, if Shadith brought him out of the trap, if he came out of Kell’s

torment not hating her, oh yes. Having Grey’s baby now not knowing if he was alive or dead, that would

be a sickly smarmy necrophilia. As she ran, she wept, slow tears that were as much grief for the child

who might never be as for the man who was most likely dead.

Remembering that other run. The silence was deep between them. A shared silence. In the

night camps that other time, they were sometimes lovers, sometimes just held each other. A good

rich time.

Her mind was too busy. Her body had adjusted easily enough, but she was thinking and suffering,

grieving and filled with anger. The second cairn.

She stood a long time by the pile before she tossed the stone onto the sloping side, remembering all

too vividly the bitter quarrel with Grey before she left for Ibex. She’d come back expecting to retrieve

the relationship, to patch up once again the wounds they tore into each other. But there was no time, no

chance to repair the damage. That sat like fire in her belly. No chance. Or if there was a chance, it

depended on Kell’s madness and his need to torment. She looked at the stone in the hollow of her

gloved palm and wondered. Should she hope he was alive if it meant torment of a kind she couldn’t begin

to imagine? Was any life at all better than being dead? Shadith had deliberately opted for a finite life with

death at the end of it, though she was guaranteed immortality. What did that say? She tossed the stone

and started on.

Remembering the bad time after the second cairn, running with Grey ... they moved in

separate solitudes, turned in on themselves in the grim struggle to maintain sanity as they moved

over endless white snow through endless white fog. An ice storm came suddenly on them and they

were forced into shelter. The days passed dark and dreary. They grated on each other until both

were at the point of screaming. They began treating each other with an exaggerated courtesy that

was bitter as the worst insult. When the storm passed over and they emerged into the eternal mist,

it was with such a feeling of relief that the mere freedom of movement and the explosion of space

sparked a surge of joy in both.

Rain began falling, a steady sluggish rain, not icy but cold enough to soak in to the bone and steady

enough to turn the hard earth to a treacherous slop. Clay soil, fine-grained and a good approximation of a

frictionless material when saturated, slowed her to a lurching walk. Strangely enough, though the world

wept drearily around her, though she was cold and soaked, inhaling air thick with water, though her

Jo Clayton - Diadem 9 - Quester's Endgame

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