Ann Maxwell - Concord 3-Name of a Shadow

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Name of a Shadow
Concord, Book 3
Ann Maxwell
1980
ISBN: 0-380-75390-1
Spell-checked. Read.
A STRANGE ALLIANCE UNDER DIAMOND SKIES
Kayle—the Concord advisor with the power to link minds, he is torn between his oath of obedience
and a loathing for all things Malian.
Ryth—representative of a legendary and complex race with astounding powers of perception, he falls
hopelessly into a forbidden love.
Faen—a proud and bitter aristocrat known for her beauty and vengeance, she is the reluctant key to
the secrets hidden in the shadows.
IT CAN BE DEADLY TO DISTURB THE SHADOWS
Malia’s prismatic atmosphere transformed sunlight into a vibrant fall of energy; on Malia, everything
was more vivid, more varied, more vital. Even the shadows seemed alive.
Some of them were ...
I
“ARE YOU THE SHARNN?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
Ryth entered the room with the lithe grace of a dancer or a Malian assassin. Kayle watched, orange
eyes hooded; few people had ever seen a Sharnn in the flesh.
“I didn’t know that Sharnn ever left their planet,” said Kayle, gesturing to a sling for Ryth to sit in.
“Not much is known about Sharnn,” said Ryth, his face changing with what could have been a smile.
Kayle’s glance flicked over the tall man whose silver-green eyes compelled attention. Though Ryth
was standing motionless, his floor-length cape seemed to stir subtly, twisting light into new shapes.
“That’s why you interest the Carifil,” said Kayle. “You’re the first person from Sharn who has asked
anything of the Concord.” Kayle’s dark face fell into the many creases of a Nendleti frown. “And what
you’ve asked is—” Kayle’s arm snapped out.”—difficult. Probably impossible.”
“But the Carifil will consider it.”
“Yes. And in return, you will use your pattern skills to help us understand Malia.”
“Before the Concord destroys it.”
“If we destroy it,” corrected Kayle. Then he laughed, a thick and husky sound. “If I didn’t know the
Carifil, I’d not waste another moment with you. Tell me, Sharnn, how a man from one of the Concord’s
most simple cultures can help the Carifil to understand one of the Concord’s most complex and secretive
cultures?”
This time, Ryth’s smile was unmistakable. He flowed into the sling without taking his eyes off Kayle.
“May a simple Sharnn ask why you call the Malians secretive?”
“They’ve been Concord members for nine hundred years, yet we know nothing about them that the
First Contact team didn’t teach us.”
“Perhaps,” said Ryth blandly. “But a secretive culture would never have allowed Maran’s Song to be
heard by any but Malian ears.”
Kayle made a gesture of dismissal. “Maran’s Song is a great work of the mind, perhaps one of the
greatest the Concord knows. It is the summation of crystal music. Any race would be proud to display
such an achievement. And,” added Kayle dryly, “Malians are nothing if not proud. Arrogant beyond
belief.”
“Little is beyond a Sharnn’s belief.”
Kayle stared at the alien who sat so easily in the resilient sling. Ryth’s eyes shone greenly, lit by inner
knowledge or amusement or strength; Kayle did not know which. He did know that Sharn’s culture was
less primitive than it appeared, if Ryth was a product of it. And the Carifil had been so eager to study
Ryth that they had promised him what was denied to every person in the Concord—entry to Malia.
“Do all Sharnn have your ability to find patterns where others find only chaos?” asked Kayle
abruptly.
“Sometimes.”
“When? And how many?” demanded Kayle.
Ryth’s smile would have made anyone but a Nendleti uneasy. “A few,” said Ryth. “When they must.”
“There’s a saying in the Concord,” muttered Kayle. “As stupid as a Sharnn.”
Ryth’s smile increased until Kayle almost heard the Sharnn’s inner laughter.
“But the Carifil have a different saying,” continued Kayle. “As elusive as a Sharnn.”
“Are there similar phrases to describe Malians?” asked Ryth.
“You’re a hard man to insult,” said Kayle softly.
Ryth simply smiled like a Sharnn.
Kayle gestured in amused defeat. “The Carifil told me that you would ask seemingly random
questions, but that I should answer in spite of confusion.” Kayle frowned again, disliking the elliptical
conversation, sensing that the Sharnn was at least three questions—and answers—ahead of him. “The
First Contact team agreed that Malia was beautiful beyond imagining; that Malians as a race and Malian
aristocrats in particular had a primal allure that transcended cultural prejudices; that Malian culture was
obsessed with sensual experience.”
Kayle waited, but Ryth did not comment.
“The First Contact team,” continued Kayle, “also had a saying about Malians.” Kayle stopped,
apparently finished.
“And that was?” said Ryth softly.
“‘Trust a Malian to betray you.’” Kayle’s orange eyes brooded over the Sharnn’s muscular frame.
“Do you still want to go to Malia?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” said Kayle bluntly.
“Many reasons, none of which you would understand.”
Kayle’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose I earned that one, Sharnn. Now tell me why you want to go to
Malia.”
“I want to hear Maran’s Song played on the Sandoliki sarsa.”
“Impossible. That song is never played on Malia.”
Ryth became absolutely still, savagely intent; for an instant nothing existed but the ramifications of that
single fact, as his Sharnn instinct for patterns focused his mind. Then the moment passed and he was once
again just a tall man resting in a sling.
“Are you sure?” asked Ryth mildly.
Kayle’s fingers stroked the multi-textured surface of his robe as he tried to convince himself that no
man could be as dangerous as Ryth had appeared to be for a single instant.
“Yes, Sharnn. It’s one of the few things I am sure of about that accursed planet.”
“Why is the song forbidden?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Kayle. Then, less harshly, “I once asked a Malian.” Kayle flipped back the
sleeve of his robe to reveal a long scar down his forearm. “F’n’een almost killed me. I never mentioned
the song again.”
“But not out of fear,” said Ryth, looking at the Nendleti with an intensity that should have been
frightening. “You respected the Malian F’n’een, in spite of your hatred for Malians as a race. Perhaps
you even loved her.”
“The Carifil told you more than I would have.”
“No one told me anything. Except where to find you.”
“Am I that easy for you to read?” said Kayle, sparks of anger leaping deep within his eyes.
“Easy? Not at all. But she was Malian, and an aristocrat.”
“She was F’n’een,” said Kayle simply, as though no other explanation was required. “But that
doesn’t help you, does it?” Kayle made an abrupt gesture. “Just what is it that you want, pattern-man?”
“Maran’s Song.”
“Why?”
“A Sharnn game. I doubt if you would understand it. I don’t.”
“Teach me.”
Ryth’s green gaze turned inward, and when he spoke, it was in the tones of a man choosing words
from a language that was impossibly limited.
“I might have ... lost ... something. If I did, it probably can be discovered on Malia.” Ryth hesitated,
then shrugged, a muscular movement of his torso that made his cape ripple like water. “Until I know just
what I’ve lost—if I’ve lost anything at all—I can’t explain more clearly.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, pattern-man.”
The edge of Ryth’s cape lifted restlessly, moving over itself with a sound like silk rubbing over amber.
“My pattern instinct works best when I’m not personally involved,” said Ryth. “But I am involved in
this ... game.”
Kayle smiled, showing two rows of small, bright teeth. “You’re human, then. I’m relieved.”
Ryth smiled ironically. “The Carifil said the same thing. Then they told me what they knew about
Malia and Malians. It wasn’t enough.”
“For what?”
“For a Sharnn conception.”
Kayle made a frustrated noise. “The more you talk, the less you say.” He stared narrowly at the
supple man whose cape still moved restlessly, “Can you prove that you’re more than a mouthful of
baffling phrases?”
“Yes—if you let me go to Malia.”
“You know that Malia is under secondary proscription?”
“Yes.”
“You know that primary will begin in no less than seven Centrex days and could begin sooner,
without warning?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll risk your life for a Sharnn game—a concept?”
“What are Carifil and Concord if not aspects of a concept?” countered Ryth.
Kayle looked at Ryth for a long moment. Both men were so still that the sound of Ryth’s restive
Sharnn cape seemed loud in the room.
“You irritate me, Sharnn,” Kayle said finally. “But not enough to let you die. I can’t recommend
opening Malia to you. The Carifil can’t play a game where neither the rules nor the stakes are known to
us.”“If,” said Ryth slowly, “I told you that I could lead you to a finder whose gift was not limited by time
or space, would that be a stake worth Carifil risk?”
“Is this person Sharnn?”
“No.”
Kayle smiled, but his eyes were lit by something close to anger. “Is this another Sharnn game? The
Carifil sift and resift races, looking for mental gifts, and then a Sharnn who has never been off-planet
offers us the rarest gift of all. A finder. But this finder is not Sharnn.” Kayle swore in the hissing phrases
of his native tongue. “My patience is gone, pattern-man,” he said disdainfully, turning away. “When I next
look, you would do well to be gone, too. I speak now as a Nendleti, not a Carifil.”
Ryth did not move. Even his cape was still.
“And I speak as a Sharnn. F’n’een did not die on Skemole.”
Though Kayle’s muscles bunched beneath his orange robe, his voice was calm. “Every member of
the Second Contact team died on Skemole.”
“F’n’een survived.”
“Impossible. The Carifil searched—and mindsearched—for survivors. Only two bodies were found.
We found those who had assassinated the team. All dead. Very dead. Suicides. They knew the Concord
penalty for murdering a Second Contact team.”
“F’n’een survived.”
“No. I knew her mind. I was the union for the Carifil mindsearch. I balanced the minds that searched,
held them together. They did not sense F’n’een, She is dead.”
“F’n’een’s mind rolled back upon itself. Regressive shock. Her mind became unrecognizable and/or
unreachable. The Carifil even have a name for that state. Q-consciousness.”
Kayle, his back still turned, said nothing.
“When she emerged from q,” continued Ryth, “she had changed, a change forced by hatred and the
need to survive.”
“Go on,” said Kayle, his voice husky.
“Was F’n’een capable of killing?”
Kayle laughed shortly. “She was Malian. Raised in the code of darg vire—vendetta to the death.”
“A team member who died was her husband/mate/lover,” said Ryth, his voice as soft as the liquid
movements of his Sharnn cape. “If F’n’een survived, what would she do?”
“Darg vire,” said Kayle, his husky voice clipped again.
“Yes. And twenty-three Skemoleans died. Not suicides. She is on Malia now. She is the Sandoliki
Ti.” Kayle’s body jerked subtly, but he did not turn to face the soft-voiced Sharnn who had become his
tormenter.
“Are you telling me this so that I may die again when my mind-daughter dies again?” asked Kayle
angrily.
“The Sandoliki woman is a finder.”
Kayle’s hand flexed in a gesture of negation. “Then she is not F’n’een. A gift as rare as that would
have been discovered during her Contact training.”
“F’n’een—the Sandoliki woman—had not even entered her first maturity when you knew her. Some
gifts develop only with time. Or severe stress.”
Kayle said nothing, but his bright robe moved in sudden jerks.
“Whoever the Sandoliki woman is or is not,” said Kayle harshly, “she can’t be allowed to die when
Malia dies. Her gift and her genes are too valuable.”
“Yes ...”
Something in the quality of Ryth’s simple agreement brought Kayle slowly around. His orange glance
flicked over to a wall where various times on the planet Vintra were coded in light.
“You interest me, Sharnn,” said Kayle at last. “If I survive tonight, I’ll take you to Malia.”
“If it’s a question of survival,” said Ryth, “perhaps I should come with you.”
Kayle smiled like a predator. “Yes, Sharnn, perhaps you should.”
Kayle stripped off his outer robe, reversed it so that orange was replaced by somber tones of purple,
and pulled the robe back on. Ryth noted the three curved knives strapped to various parts of Kayle’s
heavily muscled body, then the weapons vanished beneath the loose clothes. Out of sight, but not out of
reach; the robe had conveniently placed slits.
With a rolling movement, Kayle settled the robe around his body. He glanced at Ryth’s cape. The
cape seemed dulled, as though light no longer made any impact on the material’s drab surface. Ryth
pulled up a loose hood that concealed everything but his silver-green eyes.
“Can you fight?” asked Kayle matter-of-factly.
“Yes.”
“Just yes? No elaborations, no tales of epic brawls?”
“No.”
Kayle half-smiled. “Good enough, Sharnn. Hand-held or projectile weapons?”
“Whatever is necessary. Though,” Ryth added, “I prefer faal-hnim,”
“Faal-hnim!” Kayle turned to face Ryth so quickly that his robe belled into rolling shades of purple.
“How did a Sharnn learn that lethal discipline?”
“People come to Sharn,” said Ryth. “Some of them talk to the children. I was a child, once.”
Kayle made a sound that was half admiration, half frustration, but did not doubt that Ryth was a
practitioner of faal-hnim’s difficult and deadly dances. It explained the Sharnn’s extraordinary grace.
“I suppose,” said Kayle dryly, “you once talked to a psi master.”
Ryth’s lips moved in silent laughter. “What little I know of the mental arts was taught to me by the
Carifil. Very difficult concepts. And for a Sharnn of the Seventh Dawn, not particularly useful.”
“Oh?”
“The Seventh Dawn is a solitary discipline.”
Kayle’s mind reached out and deftly touched the fringes of Ryth’s awareness. For an instant Kayle
sensed a savage radiance that was stunning, then the incandescence thinned to an apparently
inexperienced mindtouch that concealed immense depths and distances and raw power.
*Is mindspeech uncomfortable for you, Sharnn?*
*Just ... unexpected ... but each time it happens, I learn.*
Kayle sensed their contact strengthening, stabilizing as the Sharnn’s protean mind found patterns in
Kayle’s skill and learned from those patterns. Ryth learned with shattering speed. Between one breath
and the next, his mind-speech clarified.
*You learn very quickly, pattern-man.*
*I am Sharnn.*
Kayle turned abruptly and walked to the door. Ryth followed, wondering if he had insulted the
Nendleti—Nendleti pride was legendary. But as they descended the winding stairs of one of Vintra’s
older kels, Kayle spoke in a husky whisper.
“Don’t you want to know where you might die tonight? And why?”
“I can guess,” said Ryth, unsmiling. “We are in Sima, capital city of the planet Vintra. We are
probably going to Old Sima; it is the center of Vintran discontent. And danger.” While he spoke, Ryth’s
eyes took in the shabby lilac walls and faded rose and cream murals that decorated the Access room
between the street and the kel’s sleeping rooms. “As for why—” Ryth turned suddenly, but saw nothing
more than a shadow slipping down the wall. “Someone must have promised you information about
Malia.”
Kayle stopped. “Keep talking, pattern-man. What information?”
Ryth’s cape flared, then snuggled around his soft leather boots.
“I don’t know,” said Ryth.
Kayle blinked slowly. “You surprise me, pattern-man. I thought you knew everything.”
The Nendleti turned and walked around the Access platform. Blue energy blazed across the Access,
and for an instant, Kayle’s eyes were as purple as Vintra’s smoldering moon. When the energy died, four
people stepped off the platform. Their tight leggings and elaborately jeweled armbands proclaimed them
buyers of the sort who flocked to the scene of the latest human disaster, purchasing the wreckage of
dreams at bargain rates.
*Scavengers.*
Kayle’s scathing thought echoed in Ryth’s mind, along with the implications of such people appearing
on Vintra.
*How do they know?* mused Ryth.
*They have the instincts of carrion eaters.* Kayle twitched the hem of his robe aside as though to
avoid contamination. *They must be going to the kla’rre district. There was an outbreak of pekh there
ten days ago. The survivors will need money to mourn their dead.* Kayle’s lips thinned in a silent snarl.
*Malia has much to answer for.*
Ryth watched the scavengers vanish into Sima’s seething lavender brick streets.
“Why Malia?” asked Ryth.
“Maia is the cause of Vintra’s drastic decline. Vintra never recovered from the Undeclared War.
Worse, Malia is sabotaging Vintra even as we walk these streets.”
“Why?”
“If I knew, my work would be over. The Carifil asked me to study Malia and Malians before they
are destroyed by the Concord. Unfortunately, Malia forbids alien visitors and Malians rarely leave their
planet.”
“Some aliens must be permitted,” said Ryth. “No pattern is perfect.”
Kayle laughed. “Maybe, pattern-man. But the Carifil never found the exception. That’s why I’m here
on Vintra, Malia’s colony, learning by inference and extrapolation about the Malian mind.”
“What have you learned?”
“That Malians have earned their extinction.”
Yet Ryth sensed an echo of anguish that was the name F’n’een.
“If Malia’s pattern is so obvious and so guilty, why do you need my skills?” said Ryth softly.
Kayle looked casually around the street. There were many people out and they walked too close for
privacy.
*The Carifil want to know why Malians could not adapt to the Concord’s Sole Restraint. When we
know that, the First Contact teams can look for the Malian syndrome in newly discovered cultures. Then
we can simply proscribe that type of culture, rather than admitting it to Concord and then eventually being
forced to eradicate an entire genepool.*
Kayle’s mindspeech slipped beyond the conversational level and became information wrapped in a
rich complex of emotions.
*Malians are too beautiful to destroy—yet we must, for they have twice ignored the Sole Restraint.*
Then the emotions vanished, leaving echoes of sadness.
*Yesterday, a Vintran spoke to me from behind a door, whispering about a strong man and a
black-haired woman with eyes like ice. He said they were Malians who came to Vintra often. He said
that when they were here, death followed Like the long shadow of night.
*He said they would be in Old Sima tonight, on the Street of the Purple Blossom, in a cellar called
Regret.*
Kayle glanced sideways, but whatever reaction Ryth might have had was concealed within the folds
of his Sharnn cape.
*If what the Vintran said is true,” continued Kayle, *the Concord will have all the proof it needs to
destroy Malia.* There was weariness rather than triumph in Kayle’s thought, resonances of regret that
tore at Ryth’s mind. *And I pray,* added Kayle, *that the Allgod forgives my part in Malia’s
annihilation.*
Kayle’s mind withdrew. Ryth walked soundlessly, his green eyes noting and naming and correlating a
range of details that would have astonished Kayle if he had known. Finally, Kayle emerged from his dark
thoughts.
*This Vintran,* began Ryth slowly, feeling his way through a maze of pattern possibilities. *Where is
he now?*
Kayle’s ironic laughter was almost painful. *Exactly, pattern-man. He was supposed to come to my
h’kel tonight. But you came instead. I wonder if that is an even trade?*
Ryth had no response for Kayle’s laughter. Restless Sharnn eyes measured the subtle signs of
disrepair in the black stone building facades and despair in the subdued faces lining Sima’s sunbrick
streets.
Vintra was tone on tone of purple, from lavender day to amethyst evening and dense violet-black
night ruled by a huge purple moon. Even Vintra’s sun did not banish the thousand shades of purple, for
Vintra wore a thick atmospheric shell that absorbed almost all but the longer wavelengths of light.
Because Malia, the Vintrans’ first world, turned beneath a sky of incredible clarity, colonists had had
difficulty adjusting to Vintra’s light. Everywhere on Vintra, noon and midnight, artificial illumination
glowed, but not enough, never enough to bleach Vintra’s purple sky.
If the colonists had difficulty enjoying Vintra’s extraordinary light, others did not. Vintra became
famous for her eerie violet skies. People from all over the Concord came to be transformed by lavender
light. They swam in lilac seas, climbed magenta mountains and ate heliotrope fruit whose sweet core was
yet another shade of purple.
In a high window above Ryth and Kayle, a suncaller preened and sang a few notes, as though
preparing its pre-dawn song. Ryth glanced up, but did not really see the bird. His mind had finally put into
words an anomaly that had been nagging at him: colonists invariably brought native flora and fauna to
their new homes, but nowhere in Sima had Ryth seen anything that did not fit seamlessly into Vintra’s
environment.
*Where are the Malian plants, the animals, the living links with Vintrans’ first home?* asked Ryth.
*Dead. The disparity in environments killed most. The few survivors were destroyed after the
Undeclared War, when all things Malian became anathema.*
Kayle sidestepped a group of revelers whose frayed robes displayed fuchsia slogans proclaiming the
joys of chemical psychosis. Though the five people were too uncoordinated to be dangerous, other such
groups had triggered twelve lethal riots and numberless street brawls in the few months Kayle had lived in
Sima. The groups were both symbol and accelerator of Vintra’s decline.
The streets narrowed when Ryth and Kayle approached the boundaries of Old Sima. Tourists rarely
came here, for there was neither entertainment nor beauty nor commerce within the crumbling sunbrick
structures. Most residents had abandoned the huddled kels after the third earthquake in the Year of the
Suncaller. Only the human debris of a failing society remained, as dangerous as venomous fruit.
The Street of the Purple Blossom was little more than an alley twisting between sagging rows of
lifeless kels. Only a few faded, cracked lightstrips alleviated the purple moonglow.
Ryth and Kayle walked carefully, twisting as the alley twisted, turning three-quarters of the way
around old buildings, spilling out onto two brightly lighted streets and then setting off in another direction
entirely, back into darkness. Further ahead, at the end of a long, shadowed tunnel, there was a glowing
sign in the shape of a whirlpool. Though most of the letters were shattered or dimmed by a crust of dirt,
enough remained to make out the word “Regret.”
No one could be seen in the pooling shadows beneath the sign, yet the street suggested hidden life,
breath held in anticipation of a moment that was long past.
*Wait for a twenty-count, then follow,* instructed Kayle. *If my shy Vintran is here, I don’t want
you to frighten him.*
Kayle closed out Ryth’s unspoken objections with a deft mental twist, then moved down the
rubble-strewn path with a speed and silence that belied the apparent clumsiness of his rolling Nendleti
gait. After a rapid count, Ryth moved lightly through the darkness, avoiding clots of debris. Once again
he tried mindspeech with Kayle, but the Nendleti’s mind was as closed as a stone.
The Sharnn’s pattern instinct clamored of danger. He looked at the alley ahead through narrowed
eyes. The incandescent violet moon made everything appear gigantic, menacing, but that was not what
had roused his instinct. There was something about the placement of debris that was no longer random.
Ahead, Kayle was pursuing a zigzag course, seeking clear ground where he could walk without sending
trash clattering.
Ryth tried mindspeech again, but it was as futile as shouting at the moon. Unease gnawed at him as
Kayle slowed, picking his way among piles of trash that nearly overlapped each other. Abruptly, Ryth
decided that silence presented the greater risk.
“Danger,” called Ryth softly.
Kayle flattened into a recessed doorway and effectively vanished. Ryth felt the Nendleti’s mental
query sweep through him.
*Where?*
*Six kels ahead, just by the cellar. See how the trash closes in? There’s only one way to walk.
Cover your ears and eyes—and don’t move.*
Ryth picked up a stone that was bigger than three clenched fists. He weighed the stone in his hand,
learning its balance, then he closed his eyes and brought his arm around in a powerful throw. The stone
shot through the gloom and landed in front of the Regret on the only piece of ground not covered by
trash.
The alley fractured into noise and light and jagged fragments of trash sent flying by the force of the
bomb. With a long rumble, the cellar called Regret collapsed in upon itself.
*Kayle?*
*I owe you a life, Sharnn.*
*If you want to enjoy it,* returned Ryth dryly, *I’d suggest we leave this wretched trap to its
shadows.*
*Agreed,* came Kayle’s thought after a long hesitation. *Nothing waited here for me but death.*
Ryth sensed Kayle’s mind leaping out in search of something, but could not guess what. At Kayle’s
silent command, Ryth turned and ran back up the choked street, his dulled Sharnn cape invisible in the
dense shadows. In the distance, Sima’s inhabited streets glowed with Mac light.
*Ambush ahead!*
Kayle’s thought sent Ryth diving behind the nearest pile of rubbish. He heard a knife hiss past his ear
and clatter against a sunbrick wall. As he rolled to a new position, he pulled a long-bladed hunter’s knife
from beneath his cape. Then he sensed the attackers closing in and rolled again, just avoiding a steel-toed
kick.
With superb timing, the Sharnn brought his knife up in a thrust that met flesh. A man’s pain echoed
through the narrow street. Ryth sprang up, fighting in darkness, blind but for a sure sense of Kayle’s
presence slicing at the attackers.
*Alive, if possible,* requested Kayle.
Ryth’s answer was to drop and roll through the attackers, hamstringing two who did not move
quickly enough. When he rose to his feet, he felt Kayle at his back. Ryth’s foot shot out, connecting with
a man’s chin. The man was unconscious before he fell to the ground. For a few seconds the narrow alley
was silent, then there was a shadowy rush. Kayle and Ryth lashed out, blows meant to stun rather than
kill. One man remained on his feet, circling them, dodging among the bodies of his fallen comrades in an
apparently random dance. His face glowed as he feinted toward Kayle, bent over another man—and
vanished.
*Can you see him?* demanded Kayle.
*No.* Ryth strained into the darkness.
*He must have hidden his face in his robes!* Kayle’s frustration seared across the Sharnn. *I can’t
even sense his mind!*
Simultaneously, they dove and rolled in opposite directions. Ryth felt the edge of a robe on his knife
and slashed upward. His knife slid away, deflected. The man leaped into darkness and was gone.
Ryth held his breath, listening. At first he heard nothing but his own blood pumping, then came the
faintest sounds of a light-footed man running away. Ryth rolled to his feet and sprinted down the street,
leaping over bodies and rubbish. Ahead the street twisted, then branched at right angles as it emptied
onto two larger streets lit by lilac lights. He saw a glimpse of a dark shadow sliding into throngs of
walkers and knew it would be useless to follow.
Ryth ran back to Kayle, and found the Nendleti studying the attackers by the thin beam of a light
pencil.
“Quickly,” said Ryth. “He might be back with better fighters.”
“Questioning won’t take long,” said Kayle dryly.
A narrow beam of light moved over the bodies of eight men. Each man’s throat had been cut. Ryth
swore in the twisting phrases of Sharn, then took out his own light pencil and began searching among the
trash.
“Why?” asked Kayle.
“Flexible plastic. As many pieces as you can find.”
When he had enough plastic, Ryth rolled the attackers’ weapons into clumsy packages. Kayle
watched, then gathered weapons with as much care as Ryth; at no time did either man touch the
weapons. When all the weapons were wrapped, Ryth piled them in the center of a large sheet of plastic
and knotted the sheet into a rude bundle. While Ryth worked, Kayle examined the bodies again.
“Anything?” asked Ryth, picking up the bundle.
“No. They are either Vintrans or Malians.”
“Malians?” said Ryth sharply.
“It’s possible, after what I heard yesterday about the two Malians.” Kayle swept the light over the
corpses one last time. “Vintra was colonized less than ten centuries ago. Neither phenotype nor genotype
has changed from Malia.”
“Do you think Malians would leave Malia to hunt you?”
“Why not? In a way, I’m hunting them. And apparently, I’m getting too close.” Kayle’s light slid from
face to face, illuminating death. Then he switched off the beam. “You fight well, Sharnn, but I must insist
on leading the way or carrying the burden.”
Ryth laughed silently and said in Malian, “I can think of no one I’d rather follow into danger.”
“So you know the Malian language—and Malian codes.”
“A little of both,” Ryth said. “Maran’s Song teaches a thousand patterns.”
“You interest me, Ryth,” said Kayle, his husky voice floating back from the purple darkness. “Just
enough to let you try for Malia. If you find your exception to Malian rules, I’ll give you an exception to
Concord proscription.”
Ryth and Kayle were the only passengers on the shuttle from Malia’s inner moon. Kayle was not
surprised; even before the Concord had proscribed Malia, the planet was classified as xenophobic to a
high degree. Malians had permitted no direct Access route for travelers to Malia’s surface, though almost
all other Concord planets had several major Accesses and hundreds of minor ones on their surfaces.
Malia had one personnel Access located on the inner moon. There were only ten freight Accesses for
each continent on Malia. And that was all.
The scarcity of Accesses was not due to physical law or to recent proscription or to lack of potential
trade and tourists. Rather, Malia simply forbade visitors and ignored the possibilities of commerce. Nor
had proscription bothered Malians. Even when citizens had been permitted to leave Malia whenever they
wished, few did. Except for those destined for Vintra, only three Malians had been recorded off-world in
any century since Malia had joined the Concord.
But the Sharnn had found a crack in Malia’s apparent xenophobia. By Malian rule, people of any
race who wanted to ask help from the Sandoliki Ti were permitted to spend one day on Malia.
Just one. And just once.
But that was a crack large enough for a Sharnn and a Nendleti to slide through.
Ryth sat quietly, listening to Kayle and correlating new information while Malia’s silver and turquoise
sphere grew rapidly on the shuttle’s screen.
“Also,” continued Kayle, “you will receive no exemption from Malian customs. Be prepared for
personal combat at any moment. And be prepared to kill. Although,” added Kayle, rubbing the textures
of his bright blue robe between his palms, “I believe Malians usually ignore off-worlders so long as they
are wholly discreet.”
“Usually,” murmured Ryth, “is hardly comforting, given Malians’ reputation as assassins. Did you
know Carifil Cryl?”
Kayle’s face tightened into bleak lines. “Yes. I warned him. The Carifil still don’t know how he got
on the planet.”
“The same way we did,” said Ryth. “No other possibility fits.”
“He was obsessed by Malia’s crystal music,” said Kayle.
“And Maran’s Song?” asked Ryth softly.
“And Maran’s Song,” agreed Kayle, his voice heavy. “He had a theory about Malian culture that
depended on a certain interpretation of Maran’s Song. Until he heard that song played on the Sandoliki
sarsa, he could not test his idea.”
“Yes,” said Ryth. “Concepts can only be tested at their sources.”
“Cryl died at the hands of k’m’n Sandoliki Lekel.”
“Did he hear Maran’s Song before he died?” asked Ryth, his silver-green eyes suddenly hard with
intensity. But Kayle did not notice, for he was remembering a dead Carifil.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” demanded Ryth.
“Does it matter, pattern-man?” said Kayle irritably.
Ryth waited with the intense patience of a predator.
“Yes,” Kayle said, voice rasping in the empty shuttle. “I’m sure he died without hearing Maran’s
Song. The death-cry of his mind was singularly unfulfilled.”
Ryth sat back and resumed his meticulous visual inspection of each aspect of the shuttle. Kayle
watched, then probed lightly at the edges of Ryth’s mind. A cataract of savage energy nearly stunned the
Nendleti. He withdrew, and only then did he realize that the Sharnn was using the shuttle, and whatever
other facts/theories/ guesses he had garnered, to analyze, correlate and extrapolate patterns of Malian
culture.
For the first time, Kayle began to believe that the Sharnn might have a truly extraordinary gift, worthy
of Carifil interest. Kayle watched covertly, fascinated, all through the long fall to Malia’s surface. When
the shuttle bounced and sideslipped on entering Malia’s atmosphere, Ryth finally became aware of
Kayle’s concentrated interest.
“Nendleti philosophers,” Kayle said quietly, “believe that the past, present, and future of a culture can
be intuited from a single object.” He smiled slightly. “Do you find this shuttle educational, sri Ryth?”
Ryth noted the Nendleti honorific “sri,” but said only, “The shuttle is overwhelming. The lights alone,”
he gestured to an instrument panel whose information was displayed in colors rather than numbers, “tell
me as much as the First Contact tapes.”
Kayle eyed the panel, but saw only a rainbow of colors. To him, the panel was beautiful but
essentially meaningless. To the Sharnn it was a revelation.
“Teach me,” said Kayle.
Ryth’s hands spread in a gesture of helplessness, but after a long silence, he spoke.
“I’ll try.” His words were slow as he picked his way through the limitations and pitfalls of the Galactic
language. “How many colors do you see?”
“Perhaps fifty.”
“How many colors are repeated? A few? Many? All?”
Kayle looked at the panel carefully. “Almost all. Especially the lighter colors.”
“None are repeated,” said Ryth softly.
Kayle started to protest, then decided against it. “Go on, Sharnn. I asked to be taught.”
“I see what might be a few repeats, but the pattern tells me that my eyes are at fault. Otherwise, the
instrument readouts would be repetitious or useless or both. So Malian eyes must see distinct color
separations, receive distinct information. Therefore Malian eyes are capable of exquisite discrimination
among the wavelengths of light.
“Malians don’t care that other races might be confused rather than enlightened by the instruments. In
fact, Malians don’t care about other races at all. Not one aspect of this shuttle was designed for any but
a Malian.
摘要：

NameofaShadowConcord,Book3AnnMaxwell1980 ISBN:0-380-75390-1 Spell-checked.Read.   ASTRANGEALLIANCEUNDERDIAMONDSKIES Kayle—theConcordadvisorwiththepowertolinkminds,heistornbetweenhisoathofobedienceandaloathingforallthingsMalian. Ryth—representativeofalegendaryandcomplexracewithastoundingpowersofperce...

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