Dying of the Light

Chapter 6

At first, the waiting was sheer hell.

They took him to the airlot on top of the empty tower after they discovered that the Ironjades were not to be found, and they forced him to sit in a corner of the windswept roof. The panic was rising in him by then, and his stomach was a painful knot. "Bretan," he began, in a voice laced by hysteria, but the Kavalar only turned on him and delivered a stinging open-handed blow across the mouth.

"I am not 'Bretan' to you," he said. "Call me Bretan Braith if you must address me, mockman."

After that, Dirk was silent. The broken Wheel of Fire limped oh-so-slowly across the sky of Worlorn, and as he watched it crawl, it seemed to Dirk that he was very close to a breaking point. Everything that had happened to him seemed unreal, and the Braiths and the events of the afternoon were the least real of all, and he wondered what would happen if he were to suddenly leap to his feet and vault over the edge of the roof into the street. He would fall and fall, he thought, as one does in a dream, but when he smashed on the dark glowstone blocks below there would be no pain, only the shock of a sudden awakening. And he would find himself in his bed on Braque, drenched with sweat and laughing at the absurdities of his nightmare.

He played with that thought and others like it for a time that seemed like hours, but when he looked up at last, Fat Satan had hardly sunk at all. He began to tremble then; the cold, he told himself, the cold Worlorn wind, but he knew that it was not the cold, and the more he fought to control it the more he shook, until the Kavalars looked at him strangely. And still the waiting went on.

And finally the shakes ran their course, as had the thoughts of suicide and the panic before them, and an odd sort of calm swept over him. He found himself thinking again, but thinking of nonsensical things: speculating idly-as if he were soon going to place a wager-on whether the gray manta or the military flyer would return first, on how Jaan or Garse would fare in a duel with one-eyed Bretan, on what had happened to the jelly children in the distant Blackwiner city. Such matters seemed terribly important, though Dirk didn't know why.

Then he began to watch his captors. That was the most interesting game of all, and it served to pass the time as well as any other. As he watched, he noticed things.

The two Kavalars had hardly spoken since they escorted him up to the rooftop. Chell, the tall one, sat on the low wall that surrounded the airlot only a meter away from Dirk, and when Dirk began to study him, he saw that he was quite an old man indeed. The resemblance to Lorimaar high-Braith was very deceptive. Although Chell walked and dressed like a younger man, he was at least twenty years senior to Lorimaar, Dirk guessed. Seated, his years weighed on

him heavily. A distinct paunch bulged over the soft-shining metal of his mesh-steel belt, and his wrinkles were carved very deep into his worn brown face, and Dirk saw blue veins and splotches of grayish-pink skin on the back of Chell's hands as they rested on his knees. The long useless wait for the Ironjades' return had touched him too, and it was more than boredom. His cheeks seemed to sag, and his wide shoulders had unconsciously fallen into a tired slouch.

He moved once, sighing, and his hands came off his knees and twined together, and he stretched. That was when Dirk saw his armlets. The right arm was iron-and-glowstone, twin to the one displayed so proudly by one-eyed Bretan, and the left was silver. But the jade was missing. It had been there once, but the stones had been torn from their settings, and now the silver bracelet was riddled by holes.

While weary old Chell-it seemed suddenly hard for Dirk to see him as the menacing martial figure he had been just a short time ago-sat and waited for something to happen, Bretan (or Bretan Braith, as he demanded he be called) paced the hours away. He was all restless energy, worse than anyone that Dirk had ever known, even Jenny, who had been quite a pacer in her time. He kept his hands deep in the slit pockets of his short white jacket and walked back and forth across the rooftop, back and forth, back and forth. Every third trip or so he would glance up impatiently, as if he were reproaching the twilight sky because it had not yet yielded up Jaan Vikary to him.

They were a strange pair, Dirk decided as he watched them. Bretan Braith was as young as Chell was old-surely no older than Garse Janacek and probably younger than Gwen and Jaan or himself. How had he come to be teyn to a Kavalar so many years his senior? He was no high, either, he had given no betheyn to Braith; his left arm, covered by fine reddish hairs that glinted now and then when he walked very close and let them catch the sunlight, had no bracelet of jade-and-silver.

His face, his strange half-face, was ugly beyond anything that Dirk had ever seen, but as the day waned and false dusk became real, he found himself getting used to it. When Bretan Braith paced in one direction, he looked utterly normal: a whip-lean youth, full of nervous energy held tightly in check, so tightly that Bretan almost seemed to crackle. His face on that side was unlined and serene; short black curls pressed tightly around his ear and a few ringlets dropped to his shoulder, but he had no hint of a beard. Even his eyebrow was only a faint line above a wide green eye. He appeared almost innocent.

Then, pacing, he would reach the edge of the roof and turn back the way he had come, and everything would be changed. The left side of his face was inhuman, a landscape of twisted plains and angles that no face ought to have. The flesh was seamed in a half-dozen places, and elsewhere it was shiny-slick as enamel. On this side, Bretan had no hair whatsoever, and no ear-only a hole-and the left half of his nose was a small piece of flesh-colored plastic. His mouth was a lipless slash, and worst of all, it moved. He had a twitch, a grotesque tic, and it touched the left corner of his mouth at intervals and rippled up his bare scalp over the hills of scar tissue.

In the daylight the Braith's glowstone eye was as dark as a piece of obsidian. But slowly night was coming, the Helleye sank, and the fires were stirring in his socket. At full darkness, Bretan would be the Helleye, not Worlorn's tired supergiant of a sun; the glowstone would burn a steady, unwinking red, and the half-face around it would become a black travesty of a skull, a fit home for an eye such as that.

It all seemed very terrifying until you remembered -as Dirk remembered-that it was all quite deliberate. Bretan Braith had not been forced to have a glowstone for an eye; he had chosen it, for his own reasons, and those reasons were not hard to comprehend.

Dirk's mind raced back to the earlier part of the afternoon and the conversation by the wolf's-head air-car. Bretan was quick and shrewd, no doubt about that, but Chell might easily be in the early years of senility. He had been painfully slow to grasp anything, and his young teyn had led him by the hand at every point, Dirk recalled. Suddenly the two Braiths seemed much less fearful, and Dirk could only wonder why he had ever been so terrified of them. They were almost amusing. Whatever Jaan Vikary might say when he returned from the City in the Starless Pool, surely nothing could happen; there was no real danger from such as these.

As if to underline the point, Chell began to mumble, talking to himself without realizing it, and Dirk glanced over and tried to hear. The old man jiggled a little as he spoke, his eyes vacantly staring. His words made no sense at all. It took Dirk several minutes to think things through, but he did, and it finally dawned on him that Chell was speaking in Old Kavalar. A tongue that evolved on High Kavalaan during the long centuries of interregnum, when the surviving Kavalars had no contact with other human worlds, it was a language that was quickly melting back into standard Terran, though enriching the mother language with words that had no equivalents. Hardly anyone spoke Old Kavalar anymore, Garse Janacek had told him, and yet here was Chell, an elderly man from the most traditional of the holdfast-coalitions, mumbling things he had no doubt heard in his youth.

And so too Bretan, who slapped Dirk soundly because he used the wrong form of address, a form permitted only to kethi. Another dying custom, Garse had said; even the highbonds were growing lax. But not Bretan Braith, young and not high at all, who clung to traditions that men generations older than himself had already discarded as dysfunctional.

Dirk almost felt sorry for them. They were misfits, he decided, more outcast and more alone than Dirk himself, worldless in a sense, because High Kavalaan had moved beyond them and could be their world no longer. No wonder they came to Worlorn; they belonged here. They and all their ways were dying.

Bretan in particular was a figure of pity, Bretan who tried so hard to be a figure of fear. He was young, perhaps the last true believer, and he might live to see a time when no one felt as he did. Was that why he was teyn to Chell? Because his peers rejected him and his old man's values? Probably, Dirk decided, and that was grim and sad.

One yellow sun still glinted in the west. The Hub was a vague red memory on the horizon, and Dirk was thoughtful and in control, beyond all fear, when they heard the aircars approach.

Bretan Braith froze and looked up, and his hands came out of his pockets. One of them came to rest, almost automatically, on the holster of his laser pistol. Chell, blinking, got slowly to his feet and suddenly seemed to shed a decade. Dirk rose as well.

The cars came in. Two of them together, the gray car and the olive-green one, flying with an almost military precision side by side.

"Come here," Bretan rasped, and Dirk walked over to him, and Chell joined them so that the three were standing together, with Dirk in the center like a prisoner. The wind bit at him. All around, the glowstones of the city Larteyn were radiant and bloody, and Bretan's eye-so close-shone savagely in its scarred nesting place. The twitching had stopped, for some reason; his face was very still.

Jaan Vikary hovered the gray manta and let it float gently down, then vaulted over the side and came to them with quick strides. The square and ugly military machine, roofed over and armored so the pilot was not visible, landed almost simultaneously. A thick metal door swung open in its side, and Garse Janacek emerged, ducking his head a trifle and looking around to see what was the problem. He saw, straightened, and slammed the door with a resounding clang, then came over to stand at Vikary's right arm.

Vikary greeted Dirk first, with a curt nod and a vague smile. Then he looked at Chell. "Chell Nim Coldwind fre-Braith Daveson," he said formally. "Honor to your holdfast, honor to your teyn."

"And to yours," the old Braith said. "My new teyn guards my side, and you know him not." He indicated Bretan.

Jaan turned, weighed the scarred youth quickly with his eyes. "I am Jaan Vikary," he said, "of the Ironjade Gathering."

Bretan made his noise, his peculiar noise. There was an awkward silence.

"More properly," Janacek said, "my teyn is Jaantony Riv Wolf high-Ironjade Vikary. And I am Garse Ironjade Janacek."

Now Bretan responded. "Honor to your holdfast, honor to your teyn. I am Bretan Braith Lantry."

"I would never have known," Janacek said with the barest trace of a smile. "We have heard of you."

Jaan Vikary threw him a warning glance. There seemed to be something wrong with Jaan's face. At first Dirk thought it was a trick of the light-darkness was coming fast now-but then he saw that Vikary's jaw was slightly swollen on one side, giving his profile a puffed look.

"We come to you in high grievance," said Bretan Braith Lantry.

Vikary looked at Chell. "This is so?"

"It is so, Jaantony high-Ironjade."

"I am sorry we must quarrel," Vikary replied. "What is the problem?"

"We must question you," Bretan said. He put his hand on Dirk's shoulder. "This one, Jaantony high-Ironjade. Tell us, is he korariel of Ironjade, or no?"

Now Garse Janacek grinned openly and his hard blue eyes met Dirk's, laughing just a little in their icy depths, as if to say, Well, well, what have you done now?

Jaan Vikary only frowned. "Why?"

"Does your truth depend on our reasons, high-bond?" Bretan asked harshly. His scarred cheek twitched violently.

Vikary looked at Dirk. Clearly he was not pleased.

"You have no cause to delay or deny us your answer, Jaantony high-Ironjade," Chell Daveson said. "The truth is yes or the truth is no; there cannot be more to it than that." The old man's voice was quite even; he at least had no nervousness to conceal, and his code dictated each word that he would say.

"Once you were correct, Chell fre-Braith," Vikary began. "In the old days of the holdfasts, truth was a simple matter, but these are new times and full of new things. We are a people of many worlds now, not simply of one, and so our truths are more complex."

"No," said Chell. "This mockman is korariel or this mockman is not korariel. That is not complex."

"My teyn Chell speaks the truth," Bretan added. "The question I have put to you is quite simple, high-bond. I demand your answer."

Vikary would not be pushed. "Dirk t'Larien is a man from the distant world of Avalon, far within the Tempter's Veil, a human world where I once studied. I did name him korariel, to give him my protection and the protection of Ironjade against those who would do him harm. But I protect him as a friend, as I would protect a brother in Ironjade, as a teyn protects a teyn. He is not my property. I make no claim to own him. Do you understand?"

Chell did not. The old man pressed his lips together beneath his little stiff mustache and mumbled something in Old Kavalar. Then he spoke aloud. Too loud, in fact, almost shouting. "What is this nonsense? Your teyn is Garse Ironjade, not this strange one. How can you shield him as a teyn? Is he of Ironjade? He is not even armed! Is he a man at all? Why, if he is, he cannot be korariel; and if he is not and he is korariel, then you must own him. I do not hear any sense in your mockman words."

"I am sorry of that, Chell fre-Braith," Vikary said, "but it is your ears that fail, and not my words. I try to do you honor, but you do not make it easy."

"You jape me!" Chell said, accusingly.

"No."

"You do!"

Bretan Braith spoke then, and his voice had none of Chell's anger, but it was very hard. "Dirk t'Larien, as he calls himself and you call him, has done us wrong. This is the heart of the matter, Jaantony high-Ironjade. He has laid hands upon the property of Braith without any word of Braith permission. Now, who pays for this? If he is a mockman and korariel to you, then here and now I issue challenge. Ironjade has done wrong to Braith. If he is not korariel, then, well…" He stopped.

"I see," Jaan Vikary said. "Dirk?"

"For one thing, all I did was sit in the damned aircar for a second," Dirk said uneasily. "I was looking for a derelict, an abandoned car still in working order. Gwen and I found one like that in Kryne Lamiya, and I thought maybe I could find another."

Vikary shrugged and looked at the two Braiths. "It seems that small wrong has been done, if any. Nothing was taken."

"Our car was touched!" old Chell bellowed. "By him, by a mockman; he had no right! Small wrong, you call this? He might have flown it off. Would you have me close my eyes like a mockman and be thankful he did so little?" He turned to Bretan, his teyn. "The Ironjades jape us, insult us," he said. "Perhaps they are not true men, but mockmen themselves. They are full of mockman words."

Garse Janacek responded immediately. "I am teyn to Jaantony Riv Wolf high-Ironjade, and I vouch for him. He is no mockman." The words came quickly, a rote formula.

From the way that Janacek then looked toward Vikary, it seemed clear to Dirk that he expected his teyn to repeat the same words. Instead Jaan shook his head and said, "Ah, Chell. There are no mockmen."

He sounded immensely tired, and there was a slump to his broad shoulders.

The tall, elderly Braith looked as though Jaan had struck him. Again he muttered low hoarse words in Old Kavalar.

"This cannot go on," Bretan Braith said. "We get nowhere. Did you name this man korariel, Jaantony high-Ironjade?"

"I did."

"I rejected the name," Dirk said quietly. He felt compelled to, and the time seemed right. Bretan half turned and glared at him, and the Braith's green eye seemed to have as much fire in it as its glowstone counterpart.

"He rejected only the suggestion of property," Vikary said very quickly. "My friend asserted his humanity, but he still wears the shield of my protection."

Garse Janacek grinned and shook his head. "No, Jaan. You were not home this morning. T'Larien wants none of our protection, either. He said so."

Vikary looked at him, furious. "Garse! This is no time for jokes."

"I do not joke," said Janacek.

"It's true," Dirk admitted. "I said I could take care of myself."

"Dirk, you do not know what you are saying!" Vikary said.

"For a change, I think I do."

Bretan Braith Lantry made his noise, quite loudly and suddenly, while Dirk and the two Ironjades argued and his teyn Chell stood stiff with fury. "Silence," the sandpaper voice demanded, and it got it. "This is of no consequence. Things are the same. You say he is human, Ironjade. If so, he cannot be korariel and you cannot protect him. If he wants it or no, you cannot protect him. My kethi will see that you do not." He spun on his heel to face Dirk full front. "I challenge you, Dirk t'Larien." Everyone was quiet. Larteyn smoldered all around, and the wind was very cold. "I meant no insult," Dirk said, remembering words that the Ironjades had used at other times. "Am I allowed to apologize, or what?" He offered his palms to Bretan Braith, up and open and empty.

The scarred face twitched. "Insult was taken."

"You must duel him," Janacek said.

Dirk's palms sank slowly. At his side they became fists. He said nothing.

Jaan Vikary was staring at the ground mournfully, but Janacek was still animated. "Dirk t'Larien knows nothing of the dueling customs," he told the two Braiths. "Such customs do not prevail on Avalon. Will you allow me to instruct him?"

Bretan Braith nodded, the same curiously awkward motion of head and shoulders that Dirk had noticed that afternoon in the garage. Chell did not even seem to hear; the old Braith was still facing Vikary, mumbling and glaring.

"There are four choices to make, t'Larien," Janacek said to Dirk. "As challenged, you make the first. I urge you to make the choice of weapons, and to choose blades.". "Blades," Dirk said softly.

"I make the choice of mode," Bretan rasped, "and I choose the death-square."

Janacek nodded. "You have the third choice also, t'Larien. Since you have no teyn, the choice of numbers is dictated. It must be singles. You may say that, or you may choose the place."

"Old Earth?" Dirk said hopefully.

Janacek grinned. "No. This world only, I fear. Other choices are not legal." Dirk shrugged. "Here, then."

"I make the choice of numbers," Bretan said. It was fully dark now, with only the thin scattering of outworld stars to light the black sky above. The Braith's eye flamed, and strange reflected light glistened wetly on his scars. "I choose singles, as it must be."

"It is set then," Janacek said. "You two must agree on an arbiter, and then…"

Jaan Vikary looked up. His features were dim and shadowy, with only the pale light of the glowstones to shine on them, but his swollen jaw cast an odd silhouette. "Chell," he said very quietly, in a deliberate and even tone.

"Yes," the old Braith replied.

"You are a fool to believe in mockmen," Vikary told him. "All of you who believe such are fools."

Dirk was still facing Bretan Braith when Vikary spoke. The scarred face twitched once, twice, a third time.

Chell sounded as if he were in a trance. "Insult is taken, Jaantony high-Ironjade, false Kavalar, mock-man. I issue challenge."

Bretan whirled and tried to shout. His voice was not capable of it, and he sputtered and choked instead. "You… duel breaker! Ironjade… I…"

"It is within the code," Vikary replied halfheartedly. "Though perhaps, if Bretan Braith could overlook the small trespass of an ignorant offworlder, then I might find it in myself to beg forgiveness from Chell fre-Braith."

"No," Janacek said darkly. "Begging has no honor."

"No," Bretan echoed. His face was a skull now. His jewel-eye gleamed and his cheek was twisted in fury. "I have bent as far as I may bend for you, false Kavalar. I will not make jape of all the wisdom of my holdfast. My teyn was more right than I. In truth, I was bitter wrong to even try to avoid duel with you, liar. Mockman. There was great shame in it. But now I will be clean. We will kill you, Chell and I. We will kill all three of you."

"Perhaps that is truth," Vikary said. "It will soon be done, and then we will see.'

"And your betheyn-bitch too," Bretan said. He could not shout; his voice broke when he tried. So he spoke as low as ever, and the rawness caught in his throat, and he could not be held. "When we have done with you, we will wake our hounds and hunt her and her fat Kimdissi through the forests they know so well."

Jaan Vikary ignored him. "I am challenged," he said to Chell fre-Braith. "The first of the four choices is mine. I make the choice of numbers. We will fight teyned."

"I make the choice of weapons," Chell replied. "I choose sidearms."

"I make the choice of mode," said Vikary. "I choose the death-square."

"Last the choice of place," Chell said. "Here, then."

"The arbiter will chalk only one square," Janacek said. Of the five men on the roof, only he was still smiling. "We need an arbiter still. The same for both duels?"

"One man will do," Chell said. "I suggest Lorimaar high-Braith."

"No," said Janacek. "He came to us in high grievance only yesterday. Kirak Redsteel Cavis."

"No," Bretan said. "He writes fair poetry, but I have no other use for Kirak Redsteel."

"There are two of the Shanagate Holding," Janacek said. "I am not certain of their names."

"We would prefer a Braith," Bretan said, twitching. "A Braith will rule well, uphold all the honor of the code."

Janacek glanced at Vikary; Vikary shrugged. "Agreed," Janacek said, facing Bretan once more. "A Braith, then. Pyr Braith Oryan."

"Not Pyr Braith," Bretan said.

"You are not easy to please," Janacek said dryly. "He is one of your kethi."

"I have had frictions with Pyr Braith," Bretan said.

"A highbond would make a better choice," old Chell said. "A man of stature and wisdom. Roseph Lant Banshee high-Braith Kelcek."

Janacek shrugged. "Agreed."

"I will ask him," said Chell. The others nodded.

"Tomorrow, then," said Janacek.

"All is done," Chell said.

And while Dirk stood and watched, feeling lost and out of place, the four Kavalars took their farewell. And strangely, before parting, each of them kissed his two enemies lightly on the lips.

And Bretan Braith Lantry, scarred and one-eyed, his lip half gone-Bretan Braith Lantry kissed Dirk.

When the Braiths had gone, the others went downstairs. Vikary opened the door to his apartment and turned on the lights. Then, in methodical silence, he began to build a fire in the great hearth beneath the mantel, taking logs of twisted black wood from a concealed storage cabinet in a nearby wall. Dirk sat on one end of the couch frowning. Garse Janacek sat on the other end with a vague smile on his face, his fingers tugging absently at the orange-red hairs of his beard. No one spoke.

The fire woke to blazing life, orange and blue-tipped tongues of flame licking around the logs, and Dirk felt the sudden heat on his face and hands. A scent like cinnamon filled the room. Vikary stood up and left.

He came back with three glasses, brandy snifters as black as obsidian. A bottle was under his arm. He handed one glass to Dirk and one to Garse, put the third down on a nearby table, and yanked the cork with his teeth. The wine within was a deep red in color, very pungent. Vikary poured all three glasses very full, and Dirk passed his under his nose. The vapors burned, but he found them oddly pleasant.

"Now," Vikary said, before any of them had tasted the wine. He had set down the bottle and lifted his own glass. "Now I am going to ask something very difficult of both of you. I am going to ask each of you to go beyond his own little culture for a time, and be something he has not been before, something strange to him. Garse, I ask you-for the good of each of us– to be friend to Dirk t'Larien. There is no word for it in Old Kavalar, I know. There is no need of such on High Kavalaan, where a man has his holdfast and his kethi and most of all his teyn. But we are all on Worlorn, and tomorrow we duel. Perhaps we do not duel all together, yet we have common enemies. So I ask you, as my teyn, to take the name and namebonds of friend with t'Larien."

"You ask a good deal of me," Janacek replied, holding his wine in front of his face and watching the flames dance in the black glass. "T'Larien has spied upon us, has attempted to steal my cro-betheyn and your name, and now has involved us in his quarrel with Bretan Braith. I am tempted to issue challenge against him myself for all he has done. And you, my teyn, you ask me to take the bond of friend instead."

"I do," Vikary said.

Janacek looked at Dirk, then tasted his wine. "You are my teyn," he said. "I yield to your wishes. What obligations must I fulfill in the namebond of friend?"

"Treat a friend as you would a keth" Vikary said. He turned slightly to face Dirk. "And you, t'Larien, you have been the cause of very great trouble, but I am not sure how much of it, if any, you must truly bear the weight for. I ask something of you also. To be holdfast-brother, for a time, to Garse Ironjade Janacek."

Dirk never got the chance to respond; Janacek beat him to it. "You cannot do that. Who is he, this t'Larien? How can you think him worthy, bring him into Ironjade? He will be false, Jaan. He will not keep the bonds, will not defend the holdfast, will not return with us to the Gathering. I protest this."

"If he accepts, I think he will keep the bonds for a time," Vikary said.

"For a time? Kethi are linked forever!"

"Then this will be a new thing, a new sort of keth, a friend for a time."

"It is more than new," said Janacek. "I will not allow it."

"Garse," said Jaan Vikary, "Dirk t'Larien is now your friend. Or have you forgotten so soon? You do wrong to try to block my offer. You break the bonds that you have just taken. You would not act such to a keth."

"You would not be inviting a keth to be a keth," Janacek grumbled. "He would be already, so the whole thing has no sense to it. He is an outbonder. The high-bond council would rebuke you, Jaan. This is wrong, clearly."

"The highbond council is seated on High Kavalaan, and this is Worlorn," Vikary said. "Only you are here to speak for Ironjade. Will you hurt your friend?"

Janacek did not reply.

Vikary turned again to Dirk. "Well, t'Larien?"

"I don't know," Dirk said. "I think I know what it would mean, to be a holdfast-brother, and I suppose that I appreciate the honor, or whatever. But we have a lot of things between us, Jaan."

"You are speaking of Gwen," Vikary said. "She is indeed between us. But Dirk, I am asking you to be a new and special sort of holdfast-brother. Only for so long as you are on Worlorn, and only to Garse, not to myself or any other Ironjade. Do you understand?"

"Yes. That makes it easier." He glanced at Janacek. "Even with Garse, though, I've got problems. He was the one who tried to make property of me, and just now he wasn't exactly trying to get me out of that duel."

"I spoke only truth," Janacek said, but Vikary waved him quiet.

"Those things I could forgive, I guess," Dirk said. "But not the business with Gwen."

"That matter will be resolved by myself and you and Gwen Delvano," Vikary said calmly. "Garse has no voice in it, though he may tell you that he has."

"She is my cro-betheyn," Garse complained. "I have a right to speak and act. I have an obligation."

"I'm talking about last night," Dirk said. "I was at the door. I heard. Janacek hit her, and since then the two of you have had her locked up away from me."

Vikary smiled. "He hit her?"

Dirk nodded. "I heard it."

"You heard an argument and a blow, of that I have no doubt," Vikary said. He touched his swollen jaw. "How do you think this transpired?"

Dirk stared, and suddenly felt incredibly dense. "I… I thought… I don't know. The jelly children…"

"Garse hit me, not Gwen," Vikary said.

"I would do it again," Janacek added in a surly voice.

"But," said Dirk, "but then, what was going on? Last night? This morning?"

Janacek rose and walked to Dirk's end of the couch to loom over him. "Friend Dirk," he said in slightly venomous tones, "this morning I told you the truth. Gwen went out with Arkin Ruark, to work. The Kimdissi had been calling for her all throughout yesterday. He was most frantic. The tale he told to me was that a column of armor-bugs had begun to migrate, undoubtedly in response to the growing cold. This is said to be very rare even on Eshellin. On Worlorn, of course, such an event is unique and cannot be recreated, and Ruark felt that it had to be studied at once. Now do you comprehend, my friend Dirk t'Larien, now?"

"Uh," said Dirk. "She would have said something."

Janacek returned to his seat with his gaunt hatchet face screwed up in a scowl. "My friend calls me a liar," he said.

"Garse speaks the truth," Vikary said. "Gwen said she would leave word for you, a note or a tape. Perhaps in the excitement of her preparation she forgot. Such things happen. She is very involved in her work, Dirk. She is a good ecologist."

Dirk looked at Garse Janacek. "Hold on," he said. "This morning you said you were keeping her from me. You admitted it."

Vikary looked puzzled also. "Garse?"

"Truth," Janacek said grudgingly. "He came up and pressed and pressed, forced his way inside with a transparent lie. More, he clearly wanted to believe that Gwen was being held captive by the foul Ironjades. I doubt that he would have believed anything else." He sipped carefully at his wine.

"That," Jaan Vikary said, "was not wise, Garse."

"Untruth given, untruth returned," Janacek said, looking smug.

"You are not being a good friend."

"I will henceforth be better," said Janacek.

"That pleases me," Vikary said. "Now, t'Larien, will you be keth to Garse?"

Dirk considered it for a long moment. "I guess," he finally said.

"Drink then," Vikary said. The three men raised their glasses simultaneously-Janacek's was already half drained-and the wine flowed hot and a little bitter over Dirk's tongue. It was not the best wine he had ever tasted. But it was good enough.

Janacek finished his glass and stood. "We must talk of the duels."

"Yes," Vikary said. "This has been a bitter day. Neither of you has been wise."

Janacek leaned up against the mantel below one of the leering gargoyles. "The greatest lack of wisdom was yours, Jaan. Understand me, I have no fear of duel with Bretan Braith and Chell Empty-Arms, but it was not needed. You deliberately provoked it. The Braith had to issue challenge after your words, lest even his own teyn spit upon him."

"It did not go as I had hoped," Vikary said. "I thought perhaps Bretan feared us, that he might let pass his duel with t'Larien in order to avoid us. He did not."

"No," said Janacek, "he did not. I could have told you, had you asked. You pushed him too far and came perilously close to duel-breaking."

"It is within the code."

"Perhaps. Yet Bretan was correct; there would have been great shame for him if he had ignored t'Larien's trespass in fear of you."

"No," said Vikary. "That is where you and all our people are wrong. There should be no shame in avoiding a duel. If we are ever to achieve our destiny, we must learn that. Yet, in a sense, you are right-in consideration of who and what he was, he could give no other answer. I misjudged him."

"A serious misjudgement," Janacek said. A grin split his red beard. "It would have been better to let t'Larien duel. I saw to it that they will fight with blades, did I not? The Braith would not have slain him for such a trifling offense. A man like Dirk, ah, there would have been no honor in it. One blow only, I would have said. A cut would do t'Larien good. A lesson for him, a lesson about mistakes. It would add character to his face, a small cut." He looked at Dirk. "Now, of course, Bretan Braith will kill you."

He was still grinning and he made his final comment with casual elan. Dirk tried not to choke on his wine. "What?"

Janacek shrugged. "As first-challenged, you must duel first, so you cannot hope that Jaan and I will slay them before they get to you. Bretan Braith Lantry is as widely known for his skill in duel as he is for his striking good looks. In truth, he is notorious. I suppose he is here hunting mockmen with Chell, but he is not really much a hunter. He is more comfortable in the death-square than in the wild, from all that I have heard of him. Even his own kethi find him difficult. In addition to being ugly, he took Chell fre-Braith to teyn. Chell was once a highbond of great power and honor. He outlived his betheyn and his original teyn. Today he is a superstitious dodderer with a small mind and great wealth. The holdfast rumors say the wealth is the reason Bretan Braith wears Chell's iron-and-fire. No one tells this to Bretan openly, of course. He is said to be quite touchy. And now Jaan has made him angry as well, and perhaps he is a bit frightened. He will have no mercy for you. I hope that you can manage to cut him a bit before you die. That would make it easier for us in the duel to follow."

Dirk was remembering the confidence that had filled him up on the roof; he had been quite certain that neither of the Braiths was a real danger. He understood them; he felt sorry for them. Now he began to feel sorry for himself. "Is he right?" he asked Vikary.

"Garse jokes and exaggerates," Vikary said, "yet you are in danger. No doubt Bretan will try to kill you, if you let him. This need not happen. The rules of your mode and weaponry are quite simple. The arbiter will chalk a square upon the street, five meters by five, and you and your enemy will start from opposite corners. At a word from the arbiter, each of you will advance with your sword toward the. center. When you meet, you fight. To satisfy the requirements of honor, you must take one blow and deal one. I would advise you to cut at his foot or at his leg, since this will indicate that you have no wish for a true death-duel. Then, after you have taken his first blow-try to deflect it with your sword, if you can-you can walk to the perimeter of the square. Do not run. There is no honor in running, and the arbiter will rule the duel a death-victory for Bretan, and then the Braiths will kill you. You must walk, calmly. At the perimeter line, once beyond it, you are safe."

"To achieve this safety you must reach the perimeter line," Janacek said. "Bretan will kill you first."

"If I deal my one blow, and take one, then can I drop my sword and walk away?" Dirk asked.

"In such a case Bretan will kill you with a puzzled look on his face, or what remains of it," said Janacek.

"I would not do that," Vikary cautioned.

"Jaan's suggestions are folly," Janacek said. He walked slowly back to the couch, retrieved his glass, and poured himself more wine. "You should keep your sword and fight him. Consider, the man is blind on one side. Surely he is vulnerable there! And see how awkwardly he nods or turns his head."

Dirk's glass was empty. He held it out and Janacek filled it with wine. "How will you duel them?" Dirk asked.

"The rules for our mode and weaponry differ from yours," Vikary said. "The four of us must stand at the four corners of the death-square with dueling lasers or other sidearms. We may not move except to step backwards, outside the square, to safety. And that we may not do until each man within the square had taken one shot. That done, the choice is ours. Those who remain within, if they still stand, may continue to fire. It can be a harmless mode, or a very deadly one, depending on the will of those participating."

"Tomorrow," Janacek promised, "it must be deadly." He drank again.

"I would wish otherwise," Vikary said with a rueful shake of his head, "but I fear you speak the truth. The Braiths are too full of anger for us to fire into the air."

"Indeed," Janacek said with a small smile. "They took the insult too deeply. Chell Empty-Arms, at least, will not forgive."

"Can't you shoot to wound?" Dirk suggested. "Disarm them?" The words came easily, but it was odd to hear himself say it. The situation was so totally outside his experience, and yet he found himself accepting it, becoming strangely comfortable with the two Kavalars and their wine and their quiet talk of death and maiming. Perhaps it meant something, to be one of the kethi; perhaps that was why his unease was fading. All Dirk knew was that he felt peaceful, and at home.

Vikary looked troubled. "Wound them? I might wish that too, but it cannot be. The hunters fear us now. They spare korariel of Ironjade because of that fear. We save lives. That will not be possible if we are too easy on the Braiths tomorrow. The others might not hold back their hunting if they thought that all they risked was a small wound. No, sadly, I think we must kill Chell and Bretan if we can."

"We can," Janacek said confidently. "And, friend t'Larien, it is not so easy or so wise to wound an enemy in duel as you might think it is. Disarming them, well, you jape us. That is virtually impossible. We fight with dueling lasers, friend, not with war weapons. Such side-arms fire in half-second pulses and require a full fifteen seconds to recycle between firings. You understand? A man who hurries his shot, or makes it needlessly difficult, a man who shoots to disarm-he is soon dead. Even at five meters you can still miss, and your enemy will kill you clean before your laser is ready for a second shot."

"It can't be done?" Dirk said.

"Many people are only wounded in duel," Vikary told him. "Far more than are killed, in truth. Yet in most cases this is not the intended result. Sometimes yes. When a man fires into the air, and his enemy decides to punish him, then horrible scars can be inflicted. But this does not happen often."

"We might wound Chell," Janacek said. "He is old and slow, his sidearm will not rise quickly to his hand. But Bretan Braith is another matter. He is said to have a half-dozen kills already."

"He will be my concern," said Vikary. "See that Chell's laser stays dark, Garse, and that will be enough."

"Perhaps." Janacek looked toward Dirk. "If you could cut Bretan only a little, t'Larien, in the arm or hand or shoulder-give him a single painful gash, slow him a bit. That would make a difference." He grinned.

Despite himself, Dirk found that he was returning the smile. "I can try," he said, "but remember, I know damn little about dueling and less about swords, and my first concern is going to be staying alive."

"Don't fret over the impossible," Janacek said, still grinning. "Just do as great a damage as you can."

The door opened. Dirk turned and looked up, and Janacek fell silent. Gwen Delvano stood framed in the doorway, her face and clothing streaked with dust. She looked uncertainly from one face to the next, then came slowly into the room. A sensor pack was slung over one shoulder. Arkin Ruark followed her in, carrying two heavy cases of instruments under his arms. He was sweaty and panting, dressed in heavy green pants and jacket and hood, and he looked much less foppish than usual.

Gwen lowered the sensor pack to the ground gently, but her hand kept its hold on the strap. "Damage?" she said. "What was this? Who is going to do damage to who?"

"Gwen," Dirk began.

"No," Janacek interrupted. He stood very stiffly. "The Kimdissi must leave."

Ruark looked around, white-faced and puzzled. He threw back his hood and began to mop his forehead beneath his white-blond hair. "Utter trash, Garsey," he said. "What is this, big Kavalar secret, eh? A war, a hunt, a duel, some violence, yes? I would not pry such things, no, not me. I give you privacy then, yes, yours to keep." He started back toward the door.

"Ruark," Jaan Vikary said. "Wait."

The Kimdissi paused.

Vikary faced his teyn. "He must be told. If we fail-"

"We will not fail!"

"If we fail, they have promised to hunt them. Garse, the Kimdissi is too involved. He must be told."

"You know what will happen. On Tober, on Wolfheim, on Eshellin, all throughout the Fringe. He and his kind will spread lies, and all Kavalars will be Braiths. It is the way of the manipulators, the mock-men." Janacek's voice had none of the savage humor with which he had jabbed Dirk; he was cold serious now.

"His life is at stake in this, and Gwen's," Vikary said. "They must be told."

"Everything?"

"The charade is over," Vikary said.

Ruark and Gwen spoke simultaneously.

"Jaan, what-" she started.

"Charade, life, hunting, what is all this? Tell!"

Jaan Vikary turned and told him.