Modesitt, L.E. - Timegods 02 - Timediver's Daw

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A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK
For Wendy, Margot, and Mimi:
Just because, although each of you knows why.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Cover art by Nick Jainschigg
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, N. Y. 10010
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 0-812-51447-5
First edition: July 1992
Printed in the United States of America
0987654321
I.
Think of a world of witches, of high technology and space travel, of science and superstition. A world on the verge of
changing inhabitable planets into green pastures and endless forests, a world so short of energy resources that all fuels
are grown or captured from the sun.
You say there is no such world? Or that it is only our world, dressed up for a storyteller's pleasure?
Set aside your doubts . . . this world was as real as any you will know . . . and learn about the timedivers' dawn.
Perhaps it began here:
"Meryn." The slight, sandy-haired woman looked as though she carried perhaps a score of years, until she gazed
upon one, and the darkness behind her eyes delivered the weight of centuries.
"Yes, Mother." The second woman, also slender and sandy-haired, could have been a twin to the first, except for the
lesser depth of her eyes.
"It's time."
"I know."
"There can be no more witches in Eastron. Not now. Not with the Empress of Westron's demands, and the
weaknesses in the Duchy."
"But the Bardwalls still stand. ..."
"And they will, and you may always return to look upon them. You must make a place among the people of Westron
and learn their technologies. Our time has gone and will not come again for centuries. Not until they have stripped the
last metals from the ground. Not until they have been hurled from the skies."
"Mother?"
"Yes."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Daughter, I know that Eastron is dying, and all the villagers and all the gentry will blame it on the witches. Because
of the Duke our faces are too well known. So I will face the Empress with him, come what may, and you will survive."
"Mother!"
There is no answer, for the older witch has vanished.
The younger woman looked around the retreat, then continued placing her few things in the pack, which will be all
that she can carry on her instant yet long journey.
It seems so simple. It is not. It could have begun here as well:
"Witch! Witch!"
Thud! Crack!
One rock, then another, struck the whitewashed wall.
Their target, a stocky boy-child with strawberry blond hair, a dazed expression, and shoulders already overbroad,
looked down from the low wall where he balanced. Looked down at the whitewashed surface where the rocks had
struck near his feet, then back at the gathered handful of women, crippled veterans, and the priest.
". . . like his mother ..."
". . . dead . . . thank Veriyt . . . !"
Crack! Whmmmpt!
"Suffer not a witch, nor a witch's child ..."
The boy looked from one face to another, back and forth, as if seeking reassurance.
Crack!
One of the rocks struck his shoulder, hard enough to stagger him.
"Witch! Witch! Witch!" The chant began in earnest, echoing between the walls, drowning out the occasional low
rumble of dry cloud thunder. Thunder that promised nothing but clouds that delivered no rain, no respite.
"Witch! Witch! Witch . . . !"
Crack!
Suddenly, the boy's dazed expression vanished as his face screwed up, as if he were about to cry. In a single motion,
he tightened his lips and jumped down on the far side of the wall, away from the crowd, and began to run.
Pad, pad, pad, pad. . . ! The alleyway remained silent for an instant, the villagers momentarily silenced.
"Witch! Witch! Witch . . . !" The chant took on an even more frantic note.
Some of the veterans dragged themselves over the wall and hobbled or ran, knives in the hands of those who still had
hands, after the fleeing child. Others turned back into the main street and dashed around toward the other end of the
alley into which the child had fled.
"Witch! Witch! Witch . . . !"
Thud! Thud, thuuddd, thhuuuddd ...
The heavy roll of the priests' drums supplemented the chant.
From huts and houses, from the vintners and the villas, the pursuers gathered, pounding down street and alley, tearing
through house and hovel.
"There he is!"
". . . witch-child . . . !"
"SUFFER NOT A WITCH TO LIVE, NOR A WITCH'S CHILD!" boomed the amplified voice of the priest.
The boy, backed into a narrow niche between two walls behind the produce market, held a rock in each hand,
waiting.
Crack! The first rock from a villager slapped against the wall.
Crack! Thud! Crack! Thud!
The past experience of the rock throwers showed as stone after stone bounced against and around the boy.
He threw one stone back. It missed. He threw the other.
"Devil! Witch-child!"
Overhead, the dry thunder rumbled, and the dry clouds churned.
A rivulet of blood dribbled down the boy's face, no longer expressionless, but filled with rage, even as the tears
diluted his blood into pinkish streaks.
Crack! Thud! Thud!
"Gone!"
"... damned witches . . . ! reclaimed their own ..."
The small niche in the walls was empty, vacant but for rocks and streaks of blood upon the walls.
"...YOU HAVE RECLAIMED YOUR BIRTHRIGHT FROM THE WITCHES THIS DAY..." bellowed the
amplifier.
A third of a world away, two soldiers paused by the roadside to investigate a heap of clothing.
"Kid... been beaten..."
"Forcer!"
"Frillen, now what? Another discarded sack that has to be an aggrebel?" The heavy-set and silver-haired forcer glared
at the two as he spoke.
The trooper points. "Kid. Beaten. He's still breathing."
"He'll live. Put him in the rear freighter with Garchuk. He looks strong. The ConFed home will take him. Now, let's
get moving."
The two troopers shrugged. One lifted the boy and marched toward the military freight steamer. The other followed
the ConFed forcer.
II.
"... And now, in the presence of the unknowable and the almighty, we wish you the greatest success in your striving
to bring us all another world for all people, in peace, for our successors and their successors ..."
The face of the gray-haired and young-faced Emperor of Westron faded from the solideo link, to be replaced by the
coat of arms of the Hrtallen.
"Rather impressive," observed the stocky man, his red hair somehow bushy in spite of its close-cropped nature.
"Isn't that the nature of royalty? To be impressive, I mean?" Her voice held an edge.
"That doesn't make young Hrtallen any less impressive. Besides, getting his formal support for the Mithrada planet-
forming can't hurt once the initial enthusiasm dies down."
"Assuming he isn't the politician his mother was."
"Lorinda."
"I know. It had to be done. The Eastron anarchy was a danger to everyone, but did they have to be so damned
thorough? All the time that white-haired and sweet-faced old harpy was displaying motherly concern, her peacemakers
were rooting out anyone who could pronounce the word anarchy.''
The Imperial coat of arms faded from the screen, to be replaced in turn by an official Imperial newscaster in the
traditional blue and gold. "That was the sendoff speech of the Emperor, dedicating the unified Queryan mission
designed to turn Mithrada into the second habitable planet within our solar system."
The view switched to an ancient circular brownstone tower, flying two banners, one the Westron flag, and the second
bearing a sheaf of grain crossed with a single red flower—a ryall.
"But there are those who doubt the practicality and wisdom of tampering with the Mithradan ecosphere, such as it is.
One of the doubters, here at the University of Vre-caltt, is Academician Terril Josset..."
"Turn it off, Harlon," snapped Lorinda. "One thing worse than a sincere Emperor is an insincere and misguided
academic.''
The screen returned to a view of the stars before the Hope, as it edged inward toward the orbit of the sun's second
planet, toward its mission to reform and cool the blistering wastes of Mithrada. To strip the heavy atmosphere and
rebuild the planet in the image desired by men and women. To mine the only concentrations of metals within even
impractical possibility, now that the thin outer asteroid belts had been stripped of what could be found.
III.
I was born in Bremarlyn, which no longer exists, like most of the cities and towns of Westron, the great western
continent. Then it stood about one hundred kays east of Inequital.
Bremarlyn had little to distinguish it except that it contained the regional revenue office of the Imperial Government.
My father was a solicitor in the service of the crown, and he served as the local tax prosecutor of a government and a
world that has passed into history.
My thoughts, scattered as they are, will be included in the sealed section of the Archives, while I still retain the power
to ensure both their inclusion and the sealing of the records. Some things are best lost, but vanity being what it is, I have
settled for censorship over oblivion. Anyone who does unlock the seals will, I trust, also read the factual supplements
and data before coming to a final judgment on my follies.
Consecrated to the Temple as Sammis Arloff Olon, I still go by Sammis, although some persist in trying to
distinguish me by using my original surname. That too shall pass, at least in another dozen millennia. Time flows more
slowly these days, now that Query has left the seasons of the single-night moth and entered the long afternoon of the
Immortals.
Why did it happen? How?
No one can answer the first question. As for the second, for me, it began with a dream.
In the dream I stood above four roads. There were no vehicles, no power wagons, no silent steamers, no gliding
electrovans, just four roads.
One was gold, cold as the dark between stars.
One was black, and the heat rose from it as from the Grand Highway in summer.
One was red and smelled like memories.
And the last was blue, bright blue like tomorrow's dawn.
Despite the dream of these roads, then I had no special love of travel, nor do I yet. Everything I needed was in
Bremarlyn—from the creek where I built dams to see how high I could raise the water behind my assembly of stones
and sand to the fields where we played centreslot. No, I cannot say I had close friends, but we all played together most
of the time, and, when we did not play, we fought.
In my first dream of the crossroads, I merely stood there paralyzed and unable to set foot on any road. Fear did not
prevent me from taking that step. I could not move. Nor could I speak nor sigh. So I watched the four roads, somehow
suspended above them, as each disappeared into its colored distance.
The four were not a crossroads exactly, and in the distance that was not distance, each split and splintered into
hundreds of different directions, until each created its own horizon—blue, red, black, and gold. Yet all directions were
the same, and every road went in all directions.
Wherever I was, watching the roads, it was cold, bone-chilling cold.
Then, abruptly, as I wished to return to my bed and its comfort, I was there, sprawled on cold quilts. Cold quilts, as if
I had not been sleeping there during my dream.
Feeling exhausted, though I had done nothing in my dream but watch, I slept... deeply. And I did not dream. Not
then.
While I seldom remembered most of my dreams, the four roads remained with me, with their promise of anticipation
and memory, heat and chill, long after I had roused myself from my quilts, long after I pulled on my Academy uniform
and trudged off to classes.
IV.
"Malfunction on sensor, alpha three, quad four, red." The metallic tone of the speaker reverberated through the
module.
The monitoring officer's fingers seemed to meld with the keyboard while she accessed the network controlling the
defective sensor. Her eyes widened as the data scripted out on the bluish screen before her. The sensor showed a
temperature of 3° absolute positive, barely above absolute zero. On Mithrada, less than 120 million kays from the
sun, that was patently impossible, not on a planetary surface so hot that water had never occurred in liquid form.
Shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts, she keyed the reset function.
Bleep.
The remote readings from the sensor on the planet below remained the same, long after the fractional units it took for
the reset command to travel to the remote command network on the high plateau of Mithrada's northern hemisphere.
She took one deep breath, then another, before glancing at the sealed portal that separated the monitoring module
from the rest of the planetary reformation station.
"Malfunction on sensor, beta six, quad three, orange..."
"Malfunction on sensor, gamma three..."
"Malfunction on sensor, omicron eight..."
The console before her blazed with maroon malfunction lights, bright points of brilliance that seared at her senses.
"Malfunction on sensor, delta four..."
With a sigh, she returned her attention to the original malfunctioning sensor and keyed the reset function again. And
waited, ignoring the rising maroon tide that turned the module twilight-colored. And waited.
Bleep.
The sensor now registered a reading of 60° AP with a trend rate indicating a return to normal, for Mithrada, of close
to 800° AP within one standard unit.
"Malfunction on sensor..."
The number of maroon lights continued to increase, even as the temperature on the first sensor continued to rise.
The monitoring officer ignored the more recent failures, finally blanking the row of screens above her on which die
lights had flared. Then she returned her attention to the first failure, shaking her head slowly.
"Lorinda? What in Hell is going on planetside?" The intercom speaker carried a male voice.
"Tell you in a demistan. It looks like an impossible planetary cold wave." Her voice was hard, clipped, her eyes still
on the sensor data.
"A cold wave? Are you all right?"
"Stop patronizing me, Harion. This many data points don't lie. We've lost all temperature-sensitive remotes in four
dozen subsectors. They all showed near-instantaneous temperature drops of 800 degrees."
"That's impossible."
"Malfunction in sensor, epsilon five..."
"Malfunction in sensor..."
Lorinda cut off the audio warning system.
"Did you hear those, Harion? Tell me which is less impossible—identical malfunctions of nearly a hundred randomly
located sensors on eight different remote nets... simultaneously? Or one hundred severe temperature anomalies?"
"The whole system must be shot to hell..." came his reply.
"That could be, but there's an easy enough way to check. Have meteorology check the changes in surface winds. If
it's not the sensors, there will be severe local changes."
"You think so?"
"I know so ... if it's climate-caused. Check it out."
She shifted her monitoring to another early malfunction, which showed the same pattern of abrupt heat loss, followed
by a gradual return toward normal Mithradan levels.
Her fingers began a series of calculations, based on the proximity of the apparent temperature drops to each other.
With each input, and the resultant analysis, the frown on her face became more severe.
She removed the damper from the bank of display screens, and the module turned twilight-purple again. The light
was so depressing that she immediately reblanked the screens. Lorinda hesitated a moment when the last screen analysis
scripted out in front of her. Then she touched the intercom.
"Control central, this is monitoring. Analysis of sensor malfunction patterns indicates event is planet-based and not
created from system failure."
"How do you know, monitoring?"
"Analysis of temperature gradients between malfunctions. Something... Somethings... are acting like an absolute
heat sink."
"Infraheat scan supports that, control central. So does preliminary met data..."
"Great ... so rather than an understandable catastrophic equipment malfunction, we now have an impossible natural
occurrence."
Lorinda shook her head in the privacy of the monitoring module. Not impossible—it had happened. And certainly
not natural. Of that, she was all too sure.
V.
The scientist in the pale blue tunic ran her left hand through her short-cut sandy hair, then tapped the light stylus on
the console.
Looking up for a moment around the small windowless room, she pursed her lips. The gesture gave her face an f'^n
cast, which vanished as she concentrated and touched the keyboard.
On the screen before her, a title appeared in the formal Script of Westra: "Project Vanish—Case III."
Her fingers played the keyboard again, and the angled script disappeared, replaced by a full-length view of a tall nan
standing on a raised platform, surrounded by moning equipment. The subject wore a wide belt clustered with sensors
over a plain singlesuit.
Abruptly, the woman on the screen vanished, leaving the platform empty.
The sandy-haired woman viewing the screen froze the image and studied it. Then she backtracked the visual, instant
by instant. In one scan, the subject was present. In the next she was not.
Finally, the scientist touched the keyboard to remove the visual and replace it with the data from the monitoring
equipment. The data readouts showed the same pattern. The subject's disappearance was instantaneous. No faded
signals, no attenuation, only an absolute cut-off simultaneous on all equipment through the entire monitoring range.
The woman in blue pursed her lips again, ignoring the notation at the bottom of the arrayed data.
"Subject A-102-Green failed to return. No body found. No explosions noted simultaneously with disappearance. No
other coordinated energy phenomena. Chronological analysis inconclusive."
Her fingers touched the console, almost as if independently of her thoughts, and the index returned to the screen. For
a time, she regarded the first page of the lengthy index.
Evidence—that there was plenty of—but verifiable, measurable results indicating success? None to date— except her
own personal observations, and they would not be considered objective, not to mention the questions they would raise.
At last, she blanked the index and stood, a woman with an almost elfin face, wearing the pale blue of a scientist. The
severity of her hair and clothing hinted at the age she might have been. The smoothness of her complexion and the pale
fairness of her skin indicated an age far younger than the expression in her eyes or the position which she held in the
scientific hierarchy.
She sighed so softly that the expression was nearly soundless as she pressed the stud which put the computer system
on standby. Just as soundlessly, she rose and stood before the darkened console, her eyes sweeping over the equipment
for a last time, as if such a search could uncover the key she continued to seek.
Her steps were light, but slow, as they whispered her departure from the small modest office on an afternoon when
most others had celebrated the holiday proclaimed by the Emperor.
VI.
"All the anomalies center enter here." The technician pointed to a circled area on the screen. "The general direction of
movement is toward the planetary southwest-right along that line."
The officer frowned and gestured toward a series of triangles farther along in the direction outlined by the technician.
"I assume those represent our planetary stocks." "Just what we have there, sir." "How much metal and support gear
there?" "About six months' worth. That's an estimate." "And if whatever these things are freeze that, we lose six months
of production equipment?"
"More than that. Don't forget we had to soft-land all of that, and we lost two of the landers doing it."
"Veriyt!" For a time, the slender man studied the screen and the gradual motions, and the abrupt temperature drops.
Then he pointed again. "What's here, if anything?" "That's the break between the two networks." "Could we direct the
equatorial laser and the microwave collector to focus on that point when the sensors indicate that's where these...
these..." "Frost Giants is what the recon types call them." "...things... these things are centered?" "You want to fry them
when they hit that point?"
"That's the idea. We can get plenty of energy from the orbital stations. What we don't have is more equipment, and
for some reason that's exactly what your Frost Giants are interested in freezing."
"Do we know what will happen, sir?"
"No. But it can't be much worse than losing the entire planet-forming project, can it?"
The technician frowned. "I guess not, sir. I guess not. But what if the Frost Giants object?"
"It's their planet. If they kick us off, they kick us off, but there can't be more than a few. We may have to rethink, and
maybe we can't complete the project, but we need to keep them away from the soft-landed equipment.
"That's my first objective. Then we'll see what happens."
VII.
First there were the rumors. The Academy was always a place for rumors.
"Sammis, did you hear about the problems on Mithrada? Parts of the planet are freezing..."
I didn't even bother to answer. Astronomy had taught me enough about Mithrada to show how ridiculous that was.
Hot enough to boil water, not to mention the higher atmospheric pressure there.
"...serious... they called my brother off leave ..."
"...they're lifting the banned weapons, the big nuclear ones..."
At that point. Old Windlass walked in. We didn't have to stand, but were supposed to become silent, immediately. .
"...rebels from Eastron ... do you think?"
"...none of them left..."
"Master Olon, our lesson is Camelia. I would appreciate it if you would turn your attention to whether Camelia is a
tragedy in the true sense of the word. You, too, Master Kryrel." Old Windlass—that was what we all called him,
although his real name was Dr. Wenden-gless—would have discussed literature if the world had been crumbling and
the schedule said it was time for literature.
"uhhh . . ."
"Come now. Is Cornelia a tragedy? Yes or no? Surely, you must have some opinion."
"No, sir. Camelia is a comedy disguised as a tragedy." My idea was not setting well, and all my plans for stringing
along with Windlass's fondness for classifying everything as a tragedy had vanished because I had been listening to
Jeen Kryrel and thinking why the rumors about Mithrada couldn't be correct.
"A comedy? Pardon the pun, gentlemen, but surely you jest? A comedy?"
"Yes, sir. I mean no, sir. If you take away the trappings of a court, and all the formalities, the situation is really a
farce. Just because she had a single romp with the wrong nobleman, she's threatening to commit suicide? By throwing
herself into a lily pond? And she drowns in waist-deep water? How can you take that seriously?"
"Master Sammis!" There was a pause. "How do you know the water is waist-deep in the Major Royal?"
"I checked in the Archives when I was in Inequital last week with my mother. The original plans say the pond was
built to a quarter rod depth. It was later bricked up to a handspan, but at the time of Camelia, I assume that it was the
deeper level." Actually, I really hadn't done all that much research. I'd been discussing it with my mother, and she had
mentioned the depths. But she was always right, and Old Windlass wouldn't know the difference.
"And where in the Archives did you find this wonderful information?"
"In the background information on the history of the Palace Major."
Windlass really looked confused, then. Started mumbling to himself, something about the material not being in the
public domain. Finally, he looked up. "All right, Master Sammis... even if the Major Royal were only a quarter rod
deep, you are missing the point through a technicality—"
Jeen was trying to keep from laughing, and Trien was grinning, and if Windlass saw them I was going to be in big
trouble.
"—that Camelia, indeed all the early Western royalty, placed an inordinate emphasis on sexual purity, perhaps
because of the lower-class stigma attached to sexually transmitted diseases before the availability of modem medical
techniques, and partly because of the need to ensure a clear line of royal descent in order to avoid a repetition of the
chaos created by the Fylarian Fragmentation..."
I had to hand it to Windlass. He could talk his way out of anything.
"... so you are correct in saying that in the modem context Camelia's actions seem farcical. But that is not the
question, Master Sammis. Are her actions farcical for the time and the society in which she existed? Are they? Come
now?"
"It still seems like she overreacted, but it's hard to say, sir." I could have argued it either way.
"Master Sammis, last week you were disciplined for your reaction to criticism by a comrade of your performance
during the centreslot title game. In fact, upon one occasion you failed to place an inflated rubber bladder inside a loose
section of netting in the middle of a grassy field. This failure did not affect your survival, your future, or your status. It
should not have affected your self-esteem, given your overall athletic reputation, despite your size.Yet you were so
threatened by a mere verbal criticism that you employed bodily violence. Camelia's whole value system and life may be
threatened by her thoughtless action. Yet you, who react violently to a meaningless criticism of a generally meaningless
game, are going to tell me that context is not important?"
Jeen was still grinning, but now he was laughing at me.
"No, sir."
"So you might consider accepting that context is vital in evaluating value systems?"
"Yes, sir."
"Master Kryrel..."
For some reason, freezing on Mithrada didn't seem quite so impossible after Old Windlass finished with me.
VIII.
Some dreams never quite go away. So it was with my dream of the crossroads with its blue and red and gold and
black directions that were all the same and all different.
Some nights that dream would flash before me, and then I would dream no more. Other nights, I would find myself
moved from the crossroads in one direction or another, buffeted on invisible currents that were no less strong for not
being felt or seen, until I was carried almost through a black chill wall into some place or time. Almost, but not quite,
carried through that barrier, as though I stood behind a curtain where I could see most of what went on.
One dream was especially vivid. Or perhaps I recalled it because it so closely paralleled what actually occurred.
I had been carried into those black chill curtains that looked into another world, or so it seemed, and stood within a
tower that glittered, inside and out. The tower was suffused with an energy that made it a beacon of sorts on both sides
of the black curtain. No matter how I tried to look at the walls, they refused to stay in focus, even less than the other
objects and people I could see from my obscured perspective.
Yet one thing was clear. The tower did not exist. Yet it was concretely there in my night/dream vision. I could see
people walking through that tower. Some few looked ordinary. Ordinary as they looked, they were suffused with the
same sort of energy as the tower itself, on a lesser scale.
Far less frequently, I could see others, dressed in tight black uniforms, who radiated a far greater sense of energy. In
the most vivid of these dreams, the one that stuck with me, I could see one of the men in black more clearly than the
others. He was below average in height, and far smaller than the colorful and uniformed giant who stood beside him.
Yet the power which suffused him left the taller figure a mere shadow beside him.
The smaller man seemed graceful, with a narrow face and sandy hair. The strange part was that he stopped talking to
the giant and looked straight at me, though I was certain no one could see me, ghost shadow that I was behind the black
curtains of time or space or whatever.
I could feel his green eyes burning as he fixed them on me. And then he nodded and made a sign in the air that
seemed like a benediction. The giant swung his head toward the smaller man, who answered before turning away from
me and leaving me in that no-time place where reality and dreams seemed to almost meet.
The man seemed familiar, too familiar. Why had I seen him? What did the energy levels mean?
Before I could ponder the question, I stumbled from the blackness.
And was in trouble—serious trouble.
I did not wake in merely cold covers, or standing by my bed, as had happened once or twice when I had dreamed
about the crossroads. I found myself standing in a winter rain, still wearing but a long nightshirt, and barefoot, at the
foot of the stone walkway leading to the front door.
Whhhssssstttt. . . click, click, click, . . .
The half-frozen rain pelted down in sheets, as it always did in the Ninis storms, each sheet sweeping across the road
and down the valley, followed by a break in the wind, cold ice drizzle, and then another pounding sheet of ice droplets
striking hard enough to raise tiny welts on unprotected skin.
Most of my skin was either barely protected or totally uncovered.
Part of my mind was protesting. It was too early in the year for such a violent and chill storm. The afternoon before I
had been picking chysts from the trees along the stone fence that separated our grounds from the Davniads, and I had
taken my tunic off. That's how warm it had been.
The changed weather wasn't paying any attention to my mental protests, but continued to raise welts on my skin and
drench my nightshirt.
So I hurried gingerly toward the overhang of the front doorway, each bare foot planted as carefully as possible on the
slick stones.
Not carefully enough, I discovered, as my bare feet slipped from beneath me and my posterior and flailing hands
slapped down on the cold stones.
Scrabbling and edging along across stones that were slick as glass and cold as deep winter, I finally managed to reach
the overhang and dry stones underfoot. From there getting inside was easy. I opened the heavy door and took three steps
until I stood on the polished slate of the entry hall in an instant pool of water, with a few icicles hanging from the edge
of my nightshirt.
Only after I was inside the house did I begin to shiver, either from relief or the accumulated impact of cold.
In those days no one in Bremariyn locked or bolted doors. Why would we? Westron was prosperous; what little
crime there might be was punished severely; and few of the lower classes traveled.
The hall was chill, chill enough that normally I would have worn a robe, but that cold was like a warm hearth
compared to what I had left outside. What chilled me most was my soaking nightshirt. I wasted little time in stripping it
off and carrying it to the kitchen where I wrung it out. Still naked, I took some rags and went back into the entry hall
and wiped up the puddle I had left.
According to the big clock at the foot of the formal stairs, dawn was still some time away.
During the whole episode, I heard nothing from the maid down below, or from my parents above, but that may have
been because any slight noise I made had been drowned out by the wind and the sound of the ice rain on windows and
walls.
Then I put the rags in the empty wash bucket, hoping that Shaera would either think she had overlooked them or not
want to mention the problem when she discovered them on the morrow.
Taking my damp nightshirt with me, I tiptoed up the back stairs to my room. I opened the window briefly, got pelted
by the rain again, and closed it. After laying the wet nightshirt on the stone sill, I rummaged through my closet and
found my other nightshirt, which, as a proper scholar in training, I was not to wear for another day. I yanked it on and
climbed under the cold quilts, and began to shiver in earnest.
How had I gotten outside? Had I been sleepwalking? Did the dream have anything to do with it? What?
Surely I would have fallen on the ice going down the walk, and I swore that the chill of the ice underfoot and the rain
had been too sudden for an awakening from a nightmare. Had I been sleepwalking, wouldn't I have wakened as soon as
the cold and rain struck me, not all the way down the walk?
The questions seemed endless, but, surprisingly, shivers or not, I fell asleep before I could figure out answers that
made sense.
When I woke the next morning, it was to a blaze of light. My first thought was that I had been transported to the
tower of my night dream vision.
I heard nothing for a moment, but I could smell the odor of burnt sausage, which meant that Shaera was attempting
breakfast. While she kept the large house spotless, she attacked cooking as if, like cleaning, it were to receive the full
force of her ability and vigor. Full vigor meant high heat and overcooked meats and scorched breads.
The blaze of light came not from some dream tower, but from the sun flaring through and reflecting off the ice that
coated the trees, the ground, and even the stones of the roadway.
I struggled from under my quilts, seeing that my breath did not quite turn to steam in the air of my bedroom, and
went to the window. The nightshirt was semi-frozen, and I lifted my hands.
The hall light was on, and that told me that the solar power units on the roof had begun to operate. They had been
expensive, my father said, but he had always worried about relying totally on the electric current delivered through the
semi-ceramic cables from the Imperial power authority. The power authority, of course, received its electricity from the
satellite links, which had been the primary reason for the Westron space effort.
By pressing my nose close against the glass, I could see most of the front walk from the window. I pressed and
looked. The walk was coated in ice, although it was beginning to steam as the solar cells warmed the coils beneath.
There were darker patches where the ice was thinner that could have been footprints. But there was really no way to
tell.
I turned and leaned against the wall, wondering which uniform I should wear to school, and realized my posterior
was sore, very sore. From what I could see, lifting the nightshirt and craning over my own shoulder at the reflection of
my backside, I had the beginning of a nasty bruise.
So I had not been dreaming. Now I was going crazy. First, out-of-season freezing rain, and now dreams about
strange towers that left me rods from where I went to sleep.
"Sammis!"
My father's call halted any further speculation, since I had only a few minutes before I would be expected at the
table, and fewer minutes after that if I wanted a ride in the steamer that would halve the walk to the Academy. My
father did not believe in making things easier, nor did he believe in making things artificially harder. If he were going
my way on part of his drive to work at the Imperial offices in Bremarlyn, I could ride as far as our paths converged... if
I were ready, and if he had no other plans.
I raced for the washroom, mine alone, and certainly one of the few advantages of being an only child.
As I completed washing my face, I looked into the mirror. The face of my dream, the face of the man who had
looked at me through the curtains of blackness, had been my face—older, more experienced, and unlined, but my face.
That made the whole mystery less real. How could I ever see myself anywhere? It had to have been a dream.
Since the sun promised to warm the ice, I chose a mid-weight uniform, the same blue and silver tunic over dark blue
trousers, with the black boots we all had to wear.
"Sammis!"
"Coming!" I grabbed my pack and cloak and tumbled down the front stairs, taking a quick look at the spot on the
floor behind the front door. No sign of water or water damage.
Both of them were at the table. Mother was dressed to go to the city—Inequital, not Bremarlyn—with leather dress
boots, wide trousers and matching jacket. Of course, she would be wearing the flynyx coat father had given her for
their anniversary and driving the gold steamer. An independent woman, my mother, despite my father's importance as
the preeminent regional solicitor of taxes and commerce. That he could also claim to be a descendent of the old Dukes
of Ronwic did not disturb her either. Nor did it seem to impress her. Little of pomp seemed to faze her.
I could tell she had been up early and had completed her morning workout, although she had probably not taken a
run, as she usually did. Once or twice I had tried to follow her regimen and decided against it. She was only a shade
taller than I was; but underneath her careful tailoring were muscles it would take years before I could match. Yet she
never made an issue about it. She just got up and did it, without fail, every morning.
She had taken a degree herself, in economic theory and practice, and had published one or two monographs,
claiming that it had been "just to keep her hand in," whatever that meant. She also was far more physical than my
father, both with her own exercise room in the cellars and her ongoing classes in Delkaiba—that was the old Westron
martial art. All the same, I was never quite sure what she did while I was in school or on her infrequent but long and
solitary "vacations." Neither she nor my father ever mentioned it. And, somehow, my innumerable questions never
quite got answered.
"Have some sausage, Sammis. Need some protein, not just starch."
I reached for the least burned sausage on the platter. "What do you think about this business on Mithrada?"
"What business?" I was looking for an unburned roll, preferably to avoid having to take another sausage. "The strange
reports about the project problems. You don't discuss it in school?"
My mouth was full. So I nodded. I hadn't paid that much attention. So the Emperor wanted another planet. There was
still plenty of room in Westron, and more than that in Eastron.
"Waste of money. Terrible waste of tax revenues..." mumbled my father.
My mother frowned, which was also strange. Usually she wore an exercise singlesuit to breakfast and never showed
other than a pleasant disposition. Again, she changed the subject quickly. "Are you sure that uniform is warm enough?"
"Ice storm was a freak," I mouthed. "Melting off already."
"Don't talk with your mouth full." That was father.
"All too many freak occurrences," murmured mother, so softly that father, with his bad ear that he refused to have
examined, heard nothing.
I looked at her, and she shook her head minutely, as if to tell me not to ask. I didn't. Instead, I grabbed the last roll,
taking bites first from an almost ripe chyst and then from the roll. Father pursed his lips and took a last sip from his
cup.
"Coming?"
I swallowed the last mouthful, wiped my face, and nodded.
"Meet you at the steamer."
IX.
"What happened... ?"
"Get the lights!" That was Jeen Kryrel. He'd been trapped in his uncle's silo as a youngster, still didn't like darkness,
even dim corners.
The buzz of the overhead lamps had disappeared with the lights themselves.
"Silence!" Dr. Yellertond's voice cut right through the gloom of the laboratory.
Since I hadn't been looking forward to the lab anyway, the power loss was almost welcome. The heavy slate-topped
tables and the aged wood cabinets reeked of sulfur and flame... and of age. My father had gone to the Academy, and his
father.
"You may remain at your stations while I check with the magister. You may talk quietly. Anyone whose voice I can
hear will draw holiday duties."
The groan at that was clear. Dr. Yellertond loved to assign holiday duties.
"First power failure I've been in..." "Do you suppose it was the satellite relay?" "Probably just an interrupter here." I
didn't say anything. There had already been too many coincidences, and the power loss had something to do with the
Mithrada situation. For some reason, I thought about my mother. She had not been planning to go to Inequital the night
before. Yet she had been up and dressed, and very preoccupied.
She had friends in the capital—that was why she spent so much time there, she said, but that would not have
explained her worried expression. She never looked worried. And the ice storm—that was unusual.
"What do you think, Sammis?"
摘要：

ATOMDOHERTYASSOCIATESBOOKNEWYORKForWendy,Margot,andMimi:Justbecause,althougheachofyouknowswhy.Allrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbook,orportionsthereof,inanyform.CoverartbyNickJainschiggATorBookPublishedbyTomDohertyAssociates,Inc.175FifthAvenueNewYork,N.Y.10010Tor®isaregisteredtradema...

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