Dying of the Light

Chapter 10

It was full night above the Common. The air was black crystal, clear and cold. The winds were bad. Dirk was grateful for the heavily armored Braith aircar, with its warm cabin, fully enclosed.

He kept them about a hundred meters above the plains and the gentle hills, and pushed the car as fast as he was able. Once, before Challenge had vanished behind them, Dirk looked back to see if there were any signs of pursuit. He saw none, but the Emereli city caught and held his eye. A tall black spear, soon to be lost against the blacker sky, it reminded him somehow of the great tree that had been caught in a forest fire, its branches and its leaves all gone, nothing left but a charred and soot-dark stick to echo its former glory. He remembered Challenge as Gwen had first shown it to him, when he had asked to see a city with life: bright against the evening, impossibly tall and shining silver, crowned by its ascending bursts of light. A dead husk now, and dead too the dreams of its builders. The hunters of Braith killed more than men and animals.

"They will be after us soon enough, t'Larien," Jaan Vikary said. "You need not search for them."

Dirk turned his attention back to his instruments. "Where are we going? We can't just fly blind above the Common all night, heading for nowhere in particular. Larteyn?"

"We dare not go to Larteyn now," Vikary replied. He had holstered his laser, but his face was as grim as it had been in Challenge when he burned down Myrik. "Are you so much the fool that you do not realize what I did? I broke the code, t'Larien. I am an outbonder now, a criminal, a duel-breaker. They will come after me and kill me as easily as they would a mockman." He knotted his hands together thoughtfully beneath his chin. "Our best hope… I do not know. Perhaps we have no hope."

"Speak for yourself. I have quite a bit more hope right now than I did a minute ago, back there!"

Vikary looked at him and smiled despite himself. "In truth. Though that is a most selfish viewpoint. It was not for you that I did what I did."

"For Gwen?"

Vikary nodded. "He– He did not even do her the honor of refusing. As if she were an animal. And yet… yet by the code, he was correct. The code I have lived by. I could have killed him for it. Garse intended to, as you witnessed. He was angry, because Myrik had… had damaged his property, had darkened his honor. He would have avenged the slight, had I let him." He sighed. "Do you understand why I could not, t'Larien? Do you? I have lived on Avalon, and I have loved Gwen Delvano. She lay there, alive only by a quirk of fortune. Myrik Braith would not have cared had she died, nor would the others. Yet Garse would have granted the man who did this thing a clean and decent dying, would have given him the kiss of shared honor before taking his small life. I… I care for Garse. Yet I could not let it be, t'Larien, not when Gwen lay so… so still, and disregarded. I could not let it be."

Vikary fell silent, brooding. Outside, in the moment of quiet, Dirk could hear the high keening of Worlorn's wind.

"Jaan," Dirk said after a while, "we still need to decide where we're going. We've got to get Gwen to shelter. Some place we can make her comfortable, where she won't be bothered. Maybe get a doctor to look at her."

"I know of no doctors on Worlorn," Vikary said. "Still, we must bring Gwen to a city." He considered the question. "Esvoch is closest, but the city is a ruin. Kryne Lamiya is then our best choice, I think, since it lies second nearest to Challenge. Turn south."

Dirk swung the aircar about in a wide arc, sliding upward and heading for the distant line of the mountainwall. He vaguely remembered the course Gwen had flown from the shining tower of ai-Emerel to the Darkdawn wilderness city and its bleak music.

As they flew on toward the mountains, Vikary fell to brooding again, staring out blind into the blackness of Worlorn's night. Dirk, who had more than a hint of what the Kavalar was suffering, did not attempt to break his melancholy but withdrew into his own sphere of thought and silence. He felt very weak; the ache in his head had returned to pound at him, and he was suddenly conscious of a parched rawness in his mouth and throat. He tried to recall when last he had taken food or water, and failed; somehow, he had lost all track of time.

The great coal peaks of Worlorn loomed up near at hand, and Dirk took the Braith aircar higher, to fly over them, and still neither he nor Jaan Vikary said a word. It was not until the mountains were behind them and the wilderness below that the Kavalar spoke again, and then it was only to give Dirk terse directions on the proper course to fly. Afterwards he lapsed back into silence, and it was in silence that they flew the lonely kilometers to their destination.

This time Dirk knew what to expect, and he listened. The music of Lamiya-Bailis came to his ears, a faint wailing on the wind, long before the city itself rose up out of the forests to engulf them. Outside their armored haven was nothing but the void: the tangled forests of the night below them, the thin-starred and empty sky above. Yet the notes of dark despair came talking, tinkling, and they touched him where he sat.

Vikary heard the music too. He glanced at Dirk. "This is a fitting city for us now, t'Larien."

"No," Dirk said, too loudly, not wanting to believe it.

"For me, then. All my effort has gone to ashes. The folk I thought to save are saved no longer. The Braiths can hunt them at will now, korariel of Iron-jade or no. I cannot stop them. Garse may, perhaps, but what can one man do alone? He may not even try. It was my obsession, never his. Garse is lost too. He will go back to High Kavalaan alone, I think, and descend alone to the holdfasts of Ironjade, and the highbond council will take away my names. And he must find a knife and cut the glowstones from their settings, and wear empty iron about his arm. His teyn is dead."

"On High Kavalaan, perhaps," Dirk said. "But you lived on Avalon too, remember?"

"Yes," said Vikary. "Sadly. Sadly."

The music swelled and boomed around them, and the Siren City itself took shape below: the outer ring of towers like fleshless hands in frozen agony, the pale bridges spanning dark canals, the swards of dimly shining moss, the whistling spires stabbing up into the wind. A white city, a dead city, a forest of sharpened bones.

Dirk circled until he found the same building that Gwen had taken them to and came in for a landing. In the airlot the two derelict cars were still resting undisturbed, deep in dust. They seemed to Dirk like fragments of some other long-forgotten dream. Once, for some reason, they had seemed important; but he and Gwen and the world had all been different then, and now it was difficult to recall what possible relevance these metallic ghosts had had.

"You have been here before," Vikary said, and Dirk looked at him and nodded. "Lead, then," the Kavalar ordered.

"I don't…"

But Vikary was already up. He had taken Gwen gently from where she lay and lifted her in his arms, and he stood waiting. "Lead," he said again.

So Dirk led him away from the airlot, into the halls where the gray-white murals danced to the Darkdawn symphony, and they tried door after door until they found one room still furnished. It was a suite, actually, of four connecting rooms, all barren and high-ceilinged and far from clean. The beds-two of the rooms were bedrooms-were circular holes sunk deep into the floor; the mattresses were covered with a seamless oily leather that gave off a faintly unpleasant odor, like sour milk. But they were beds, soft enough and a place to rest, and Vikary arranged Gwen's limp form carefully. When she was resting easily-she looked almost serene-Jaan left Dirk sitting by her side, his legs folded under him on the floor, and went out to search the aircar they had stolen. He returned shortly with a covering for Gwen and a canteen.

"Drink only a swallow," he said, giving the water to Dirk.

Dirk took the cloth-covered metal, twisted off the top, and took a single short pull before handing it back. The liquid was lukewarm and vaguely bitter, but it felt very good trickling down his dry throat.

Vikary wet a strip of gray cloth and began to clean the dry blood from the back of Gwen's head. He dabbed gently at the brownish crust, wetting his rag again and yet again, working until her fine black hair was clean again and lay in a lustrous fan on the mattress, gleaming in the fitful light of the murals. When he was finished, he bandaged her and looked at Dirk. "I will watch," he said. "Go to the other room and sleep."

"We should talk," Dirk said, hesitant.

"Later, then. Not now. Go and sleep."

Dirk could hardly argue; his body was weary, and his own head was still throbbing. He went to the other room and fell gracelessly onto the sour-smelling mattress.

But, despite his pains, sleep did not come easily. Perhaps it was his headache; perhaps it was the uneasy motion of the light that ran within the walls, which haunted him even through closed eyelids. Chiefly, though, it was the music. Which did not leave him, and seemed to echo louder when he closed his eyes, as if that act had trapped it within his skull: thin pipings and wails and whistles, and still-forever-the booming of a solitary drum.

Fever dreams stalked that endless night-visions intense and surreal and hot with anxiety. Three times Dirk was shaken from his uneasy sleep, to sit up– trembling, his flesh clammy-and face the song of Lamiya-Bailis once again, never quite remembering what had stirred him. Once on waking he thought he heard voices in the next room. Another time he was quite certain that he saw Jaan Vikary sitting up against a far wall watching him. Neither of them spoke, and it took Dirk almost an hour to fall back into sleep. Only to waken yet again, to an empty echoing room and moving lights. He wondered briefly if they had left him here alone to live or die; the more he thought on it, the more the fear grew, and the worse his trembling became. But somehow he was unable to rise, to walk to the adjoining bedroom and see for himself. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to force all memory away.

And then it was dawn. Fat Satan was halfway up the sky, and feverish light as red and cold as Dirk's nightmares was flooding through a tall stained-glass window (predominantly clear in its center, but bordered all around with an intricate pattern of somber red-brown and smoky gray) to fall across his face. He rolled away from it and struggled to sit up, and Jaan Vikary appeared, offering the canteen.

Dirk took several long swallows, almost choking on the cold water and letting some of it splash over his dry, chapped lips and trickle down his chin. The canteen had been full when Jaan handed it to him; he gave it back half empty. "You found water," he said.

Vikary sealed up the canteen again and nodded. "The pumping stations have been closed for years, so there is no fresh water in the towers of Kryne Lamiya. Yet the canals still run. I went down last night while you and Gwen were sleeping."

Dirk rose to his feet unsteadily, and Vikary lent a hand to help him out of the sunken bed. "Is Gwen…?"

"She regained consciousness early in the night, t'Larien. We spoke together, and I told her what I had done. I think she will recover soon enough."

"Can I talk to her?"

"She is resting now, sleeping normally. Later I am sure she will want to speak to you, but at the moment I do" not think you should wake her. She tried to sit up last night and grew very unsteady and finally nauseous."

Dirk nodded. "I see. What about you? Get any sleep?" As he spoke, he looked around their quarters. The Darkdawn music had shrunken somehow. It still sounded, still wailed and moaned and permeated the very air of Kryne Lamiya; but to his ears it seemed fainter and more distant, so perhaps he was finally getting used to it, learning to tune it out of his conscious hearing. The light-murals, like the glowstones of Larteyn, had faded and died at the touch of normal sunlight; the walls were gray and empty. What furnishings there were-a few uncomfortable-looking chairs -flowed from the walls and floor: twisting extrusions that matched the color and tone of the chamber so well that they were almost invisible.

"I have slept enough," Vikary was saying. "That is not important. I have been considering our position." He gestured. "Come."

They walked through another chamber, an empty dining room, and out onto one of the many balconies that overlooked the Darkdawn city. By day, Kryne Lamiya was different, less despairing; even Worlorn's wan sunlight was enough to put a sparkle on the swift-flowing waters of the canals, and in the daylong twilight the pale towers were less sepulchral.

Dirk was weak and very hungry, but his headache had gone and the brisk wind felt good against his face. He brushed his hair-knotted and hopelessly filthy– back from his eyes and waited for Jaan to begin.

"I watched from here during the night," Vikary said, with his elbows on the cold railing and his eyes searching the horizon. "They are searching for us, t'Larien. Twice I glimpsed aircars above the city. The first time it was only a light, high in the distance, so perhaps I was wrong. Yet the second could be no mistake. The wolf-head car of Chell's flying near to ground level over the canals, with a searchlight of some sort attached. It passed quite close. There was a hound also. I heard it howling, all wild at the Darkling music."

"They didn't find us," Dirk said.

"In truth," Vikary replied. "I think we are safe enough here, for a while. Unless– I am not sure how they found you in Challenge, and that gives me a fear. If they track us to Kryne Lamiya and comb the city with Braith hounds, our danger will be severe. We have no null-scent now." He looked at Dirk. "How did they know where you had fled? Do you have any ideas?"

"No," said Dirk. "No one knew. Certainly no one followed. Maybe they just guessed. It was the most logical choice, after all. Living was more comfortable in Challenge than in any of the other cities. Easier. You know."

"Yes, I know. I do not accept your theory, however. Remember, t'Larien, Garse and I considered this problem too, when you left us shamed and deserted at the death-square. Challenge was the most obvious choice, and therefore the least logical, we felt. It seemed more likely that you would go to Musquel and live off what fish you could take, or that Gwen would forage for you both in the wilds she knew so well. Garse even suggested that you might simply have hidden the aircar and remained in some other section of Larteyn itself, so you could laugh at us while we searched the planet for you."

Dirk fidgeted. "Yes. Well, I suppose our choice was stupid."

"No, t'Larien, I did not say that. The only stupid choice, I think, would have been to flee to the City in the Starless Pool, where the Braiths were known to be thick. Challenge was a subtle choice, whether you intended it to be that or not. It seemed such a wrong choice that it was actually a right one. Do you understand? I cannot see how the Braiths discovered you by any process of deduction."

"Maybe," Dirk said. He thought a bit. "I remember the first we knew of it was when Bretan spoke to us. He– Well, he wasn't testing a theory, either. He knew we were there, somewhere."

"Yet you have no idea how?"

"No. No idea."

"We shall have to live with the fear that they can find us here, then. Otherwise, unless the Braiths can repeat their miracle, we are secure.

"Understand, though, that our position is not without difficulties. We have shelter and unlimited water, but no food to speak of. Our ultimate exit-we must go to the spaceport and leave Worlorn as soon as possible, I have concluded-our ultimate exit is going to be very difficult. The Braiths will anticipate us. We have my laser pistol, and two hunting lasers that I found in the aircar. Plus the vehicle itself, armed and well armored, probably belonging to Roseph high-Braith Kelcek-"

"One of the derelicts in the airlot is still marginally functional," Dirk interjected.

"Then we have two aircars, should we need them," Vikary said. "Against us, at least eight of the Braith hunters still live, and probably nine. I am not sure how seriously I wounded Lorimaar Arkellor. It is possible that I killed him, though I am inclined to doubt it. The Braiths can probably put eight aircars in the sky at once, if they choose to, although it is more traditional to fly together, teyn-and-teyn. Every car will be armored. They have supplies, power, food. They outnumber us. Possibly, since I am an outbond duel-breaker, they will prevail upon Kirak Redsteel Cavis and the two hunters from the Shanagate Holding to join them in running me down. Finally, there is Garse Janacek."

"Garse?"

"I hope-I pray-that he will cut the glowstones from his arm and return to High Kavalaan. He will be shamed, alone, wearing dead iron. No easy fate, t'Larien. I have disgraced him, and Ironjade. I am sorry for his pain, yet this is how I hope it will be. For there is another possibility, you see."

"Another…?"

"He may hunt for us. He cannot leave Worlorn until a ship comes. That will be some time. I do not know what he will do."

"Surely he won't join the Braiths. They're his enemies, and you are his teyn, and Gwen his cro-betheyn. He might want to kill me, I don't doubt it, but-"

"Garse is more a Kavalar than me, t'Larien. He always has been. And now more than ever, since I am no Kavalar at all after the thing I have done. The old customs require a man's teyn, no less than any other, to bring death to a duel-breaker. It is a custom that only the very strong can follow. The bond of iron-and-fire is too close for most, so they are left alone to mourn. Yet Garse Janacek is a very strong man, stronger than myself in so many ways. I do not know. I do not know."

"And if he does come after us?"

Vikary spoke calmly. "I will not raise a weapon against Garse. He is my teyn, whether I am his or no, and I have hurt him badly enough already, failed him, shamed him. He has worn a painful scar through most of his adult life because of me. Once, when we were both younger, an older man took offense at one of his jokes and issued challenge. The mode was single-shot and we fought teyned, and in my less-than-infinite wisdom I convinced Garse that our honor would be served if we fired into the air. We did, to our regret. The others decided to teach Garse a lesson about humor. To my shame, I was left untouched while he was disfigured for my folly.

"Yet he never reproached me. The first time I was with him after the duel, when he was still recovering from his wounds, he said to me, 'You were right, Jaantony, they did aim for empty air. A pity that they missed.' " Vikary laughed, but Dirk looked at him and saw that his eyes were full of tears, his mouth set grimly. He did not cry, though; as if by some immense effort of will, he kept the tears from falling.

Abruptly Jaan turned and walked back inside, leaving Dirk alone on the balcony with the wind and the white twilight city and the music of Lamiya-Bailis. Off in the far distance the straining white hands rose, holding back the encroaching wilderness. Dirk studied them, thoughtful, reflecting on Vikary's words.

Minutes later the Kavalar returned, dry-eyed and blank-faced. "I am sorry," he began.

"No need to-"

"We must get to the crux, t'Larien. Whether Garse hunts us or not, we face formidable odds. We have weapons, should we have to fight, but no one to use them. Gwen is a good marksman, and fearless enough, but she is injured and unsteady. And you– can I trust you? I put it to you bluntly. I trusted you once, and you betrayed me."

"How can I answer that question?" Dirk said. "You don't have to believe any promise I give you. But the Braiths want to kill me too, remember? And Gwen as well. Or do you think I'd betray her as easily as I…" He stopped in horror of his own words.

"… as easily as you did me," Vikary finished for him with a hard smile. "You are blunt enough. No, t'Larien, I do not think you would betray Gwen. Yet I did not think you would desert us either when we had named you keth and you had taken the name. We would not have dueled except for you."

Dirk nodded. "I know that. Maybe I made a mistake. I don't know. I would have died, though, if I'd kept faith with you."

"Died a keth of Ironjade, with honor."

Dirk smiled. "Gwen appealed to me more than death. That much I expect you to understand."

"I do. She is still between us, ultimately. Face that, and know it for a truth. Sooner or later she will choose."

"She did choose, Jaan, when she left with me. You should face that." Dirk said it quickly, stubbornly; he wondered how much he believed it.

"She did not remove the jade-and-silver," Vikary answered. He gestured impatiently. "This is no matter. I will trust you, for now."

"Good. What do you want me to do?"

"Someone must fly to Larteyn."

Dirk frowned. "Why are you always trying to talk me into suicide, Jaan?"

"I did not say that you must make the flight, t'Larien," Vikary said. "I will do that myself. It will be dangerous, yes, but it must be done."

"Why?"

"The Kimdissi."

"Ruark?" Dirk had almost forgotten about his erstwhile host and co-conspirator.

Vikary nodded. "He has been a friend to Gwen since our days on Avalon. Though he has never liked me, nor I him, I cannot abandon him entirely. The Braiths…"

"I understand. But how will you get to him?"

"Should I reach Larteyn safely, I can summon him by viewscreen. That is my hope, at least." He gave a vaguely fatalistic shrug.

"And me?"

"Remain here with Gwen. Nurse her, guard her. I will leave you one of Roseph's laser rifles. If she recovers sufficiently, let Gwen use it. She is probably more skilful than you. Agreed?"

"Agreed. It doesn't sound very difficult."

"No," said Vikary. "I expect that you will remain safely hidden, that I will return with the Kimdissi and find you as I leave you. Should it become necessary for you to flee, you will have this other aircar close at hand. There is a cave nearby that Gwen knows of. She can show you the way. Go to that cave if you must leave Kryne Lamiya."

"What if you don't come back? That is a possibility, you know."

"In that case you will be on your own again, as you were when you first fled Larteyn. You had plans then. Follow them, if you can." He smiled a humorless smile. "I expect to return, however. Remember that, t'Larien. Remember that."

There was an undertone of edged iron in Vikary's voice, an echo that called back another conversation in the same chill wind. With startling clarity, Jaan's old words came back to Dirk: But I do exist. Remember that… This is not Avalon now, t'Larien, and today is not yesterday. It is a dying Festival world, a world without a code, so each of us must cling tightly to whatever codes we bring with us. But Jaan Vikary, Dirk thought wildly, had brought two codes with him when he came to Worlorn.

While Dirk himself had brought none at all, had brought nothing but his love of Gwen Delvano.

Gwen was still sleeping when the two men went from the balcony. Leaving her undisturbed, they walked together to the airlot. Vikary had unpacked the Braith aircar thoroughly. Roseph and his teyn had obviously been planning for a short hunting sojourn in the wild when everything had broken loose. Dirk thought it unfortunate that they had not intended a longer trip.

As it was, Vikary had found only four hard protein bars in the way of food, plus the two hunting lasers and some clothing that had been slung over the seats. Dirk ate one of the bars immediately-he was famished– and slid the other three into the pocket of the heavy jacket he chose. It hung slightly loose on him, but the fit wasn't too bad; Roseph's teyn had approximated Dirk in size. And it was warm-thick leather, dyed a deep purple, with a collar, cuffs, and lining of soiled white fur. Both sleeves of the jacket were painted in intricate swirling patterns; the right was red and black, the left silver and green. A smaller matching jacket was also found (Roseph's, no doubt), and Dirk appropriated that one for Gwen.

Vikary took out the two laser rifles, long tubes of jet-black plastic with snarling wolves embossed upon the stocks in white. The first he strapped around his own shoulders; the second he gave to Dirk, along with curt instructions on its operation. The weapon was very light and slightly oily to the touch. Dirk held it awkwardly in one hand.

The farewells were brief and overly formal. Then Vikary sealed himself into the big Braith aircar, lifted it from the floor, and shot forward into empty air. Dust rose in great clouds at his departure, and Dirk retreated from the backwash choking, with one hand over his mouth and the other on the rifle.

When he returned to the suite, Gwen was just stirring. "Jaan?" she said, raising her head from the leather mattress to see who had just entered. She groaned and lay back again quickly and began to massage her temples with both hands. "My head," she said in a whimpering whisper.

Dirk stood the laser up against the wall just inside the door and sat by the side of the sunken bed. "Jaan just left," he said. "He's flying back to Larteyn to get Ruark."

Gwen's only reply was another groan.

"Can I get you anything?" Dirk asked. "Water? Food? We've got a couple of these." He took the protein bars out of the pocket of his jacket and handed them down for her inspection.

Gwen gave them a brief glance and grimaced in disgust. "No," she said. "Get them away. I'm not that hungry."

"You should eat something."

"Did," she said. "Last night. Jaan crushed up a couple of those bars in water, made a sort of paste." She lowered her hands from her temples and turned on her side to face him. "I didn't keep it down very well," she said. "I don't feel so good."

"I gathered that," Dirk said. "You can't expect to feel well after what happened. You've probably got a concussion, and you're lucky you're not dead."

"Jaan told me," she said, a little sharply. "About afterwards, too-what he did to Myrik." She frowned. "I thought I hit him pretty good when we fell. You saw, didn't you? It felt like I broke his jaw, either that or my fingers. But he didn't even notice."

"No," said Dirk.

"Tell me about-you know, about afterwards. Jaan just sort of sketched it out. I want to know." Her voice was weary and full of pain, but not to be denied.

So Dirk told her.

"He pointed his gun at Garse?" she said at one point. Dirk nodded, and she subsided again.

When he had finished, Gwen was very silent. Her eyes closed briefly, opened again, then closed and did not reopen. She lay quietly on her side, curled up into a sort of fetal ball, her hands clenched into small fists beneath her chin. Watching her, Dirk felt his eyes drawn to her left forearm, to the cold reminder of the jade-and-silver she still wore.

"Gwen," he said, softly. Her eyes opened again– for a very short time-and she shook her head violently, a silent shouted no! "Hey," he said, but by then her lids were shut tight once more, and she was lost within herself, and Dirk was alone with her jewelry and his fears.

The room was soaked in sunlight, or what passed for sunlight here on Worlorn; the sunset tones of high noon were slanting through the window, and dust motes drifted lazily through the broad beam. The light fell so that only one side of the mattress was illuminated; Gwen lay half in and half out of shadow.

Dirk-he did not speak again to Gwen, or look at her-found himself watching the patterns the light made on the floor.

In the center of the chamber everything was warm and red, and it was here the dust danced, drifting in from the darkness and turning briefly crimson, briefly golden, throwing tiny shadows, until it drifted out of the light again and was gone. He raised his hand, held it out for-minutes? hours?-for a time. It grew warm and warmer; dust swirled around it; shadows fell away like water when he twitched and turned his fingers; the sun was friendly and familiar. But suddenly he became aware that the movements of his hand, like the endless whirling of dust, had no purpose, no pattern, and no meaning. It was the music that told him so; the music of Lamiya-Bailis.

He pulled his hand in and frowned.

Around the great center of light and life was a thin twisting border where the sun shone through the window's rim of black and blood stained glass. Or fought through. It was only a small border, but it sealed the land of the stirring dust on every side.

Beyond it were the black corners, the sections of the room that the Hub and the Trojan Suns never reached, where fat demons and the shapes of Dirk's fears hunched obscurely, forever safe from scrutiny.

Smiling and rubbing his chin-stubble covered his cheeks and jaw, and he was starting to itch-Dirk studied those corners and let the Darkdawn music back into his soul. How he had ever tuned it out he was not sure, but now it was back and all around him.

The tower they were in-their home-sounded its long low note. Years away, or centuries, a chorus answered in ringing widows' wails. He heard shuddering throbs, and the screams of abandoned babies, and the slippery sliding sound of knives slicing warm flesh. And the drum. How could the wind beat a drum? he thought. He didn't know. Perhaps it was something else. But it sounded like a drum. So terribly far off, though, and so alone.

So horribly endlessly alone.

The mists and the shadows gathered in the farthest, dimmest corner of their room, and then began to clear. Dirk saw a table and a low chair, growing from the walls and floor like strange plastic vegetables. He wondered briefly what he was seeing them by; the sun had moved a little, and only a thin beam of light was trickling through the window now, and finally that snapped off too, and the world was gray.

When the world was gray, he noted, the dust did not dance. No. Not at all. He felt the air to be sure; there was no dust, no warmth, no sunlight. He nodded sagely. It seemed that he had discovered some great truth.

Dim lights were stirring in the walls, ghosts waking for another night. Phantoms and husks of old dreams. All of them were gray and white; color was only for the living, and had no place here.

The ghosts began to move. They were locked into the walls, each of them; from time to time, Dirk thought he could see one stop its furious dancing and beat helplessly and hopelessly against the glass walls that kept it from the room. Wraith hands pounding, pounding, yet the room shook not at all. Stillness was a part of these things; the phantoms were just that, all insubstantial, and pound though they might, finally they must return to dancing.

The dance-the dance macabre-shapeless shadows– Oh, but it was beautiful! Moving, dipping, writhing. Walls of gray flame. So much better than the dust motes, these dancers; they had a pattern, and their music was the song of the Siren City.

Desolation. Emptiness. Decay. A single drum, beaten slow. Alone. Alone. Alone. Nothing has meaning.

"Dirk!"

It was Gwen's voice. He shook his head, looked away from the walls, down to where she lay in darkness. It was night. Night. Somehow the day had gone.

Gwen-she had not been sleeping-was looking up at him. "I'm sorry," she said. She was telling him something. But he knew it already, knew it from her silence, knew it from– From the drum perhaps. From Kryne Lamiya.

He smiled. "You never forgot, did you? It wasn't a question of forgetting. There was a reason why you never removed the…" He pointed.

"Yes," she said. She sat up in the bed, the coverlet falling down around her waist. Jaan had unsealed the front of her suit, so it hung on her loosely, and the soft curves of her breasts were visible. In the flickering light the flesh was pale and gray. Dirk felt no stirrings. Her hand went to the jade-and-silver. She touched it, stroked it, sighed. "I never thought– I don't know– I said what I had to say, Dirk. Bretan Braith would have killed you."

"Maybe that would have been better," he answered. Not bitterly, but in a bemused, faintly distracted sort of way. "So you never meant to leave him?"

"I don't know. How do I know what I meant? I was going to try, Dirk, really I was. I never really believed, though. I told you that. I was honest. This isn't Avalon, and we've changed. I'm not your Jenny. I never was, and now less than ever."

"Yes," he said, nodding. "I remember you driving. The way you gripped the stick. Your face. Your eyes. You have jade eyes, Gwen. Jade eyes and a silver smile. You frighten me." He glanced away from her, back to the walls. Light-murals moved in chaotic patterns, along with the thin wild music. Somehow the ghosts had gone away. He had only taken his eyes from them for an instant, yet all of them had melted and left. Like his old dreams, he thought.

"Jade eyes?" Gwen was saying.

"Like Garse."

"Garse has blue eyes," she said.

"Still. Like Garse."

She chuckled, and groaned. "It hurts when I laugh," she said. "But it's funny. Me like Garse. No wonder Jaan-"

"You'll go back to him?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. It would be very hard to leave him now. Do you understand? He's finally chosen. When he pointed his laser at Garse. After that, after he turned against teyn and holdfast and world, I can't just– You know. But I won't go back to being a betheyn to him, not ever. It will have to be more than jade-and-silver."

Dirk felt empty. He shrugged. "And me?"

"You know it wasn't working. Surely. You had to feel it. You never stopped calling me Jenny."

He smiled. "I didn't? Maybe not. Maybe not."

"Never," she said. She rubbed her head. "I'm feeling a little better now," she said. "You still have those protein bars?"

Dirk took one from his pocket and flipped it at her. She snatched it from the air with her left hand, smiled at him, unwrapped it, and began to eat.

He stood up abruptly, jamming his hands deep into his jacket pockets, and walked to the high window. The tops of the bone-white towers still wore a faint, waning reddish tinge-perhaps the Helleye and its attendants were not entirely gone from the western sky. But below, in the streets, the Darkdawn city drank of night. The canals were black ribbons, and the landscape dripped with the dim purple radiance of phosphorescent moss. Through that lambent gloom Dirk glimpsed his solitary bargeman, as he had glimpsed him once before upon those same dark waters. He was leaning on his pole, as ever, letting the current take him, coming on and on, easily, inexorably. Dirk smiled. "Welcome," he muttered, "welcome."

"Dirk?" Gwen had finished eating. She was fastening her jumpsuit tight again, framed in the murky light. Behind her the walls were alive with gray-white dancers. Dirk heard drums, and whispers, and promises. And he knew the last were lies.

"One question, Gwen," he said heavily.

She stared at him.

"Why did you call me back?" he said. "Why? If you thought we were so dead, you and me, why couldn't you leave me alone?"

Her face was pale and blank. "Call you back?"

"You know," he said. "The whisperjewel."

"Yes," she said uncertainly. "It's back in Larteyn."

"Of course it is," he said. "In my luggage. You sent it to me."

"No," she said. "No."

"You met me!"

"You lasered us from your ship. I never– Believe me, that was the first I knew that you were coming. I didn't know what to think of it. I thought you'd get around to telling me, though, so I never pressed."

Dirk said something, but the tower moaned its low note and took his words away from him. He shook his head. "You didn't call me?"

"No."

"But I got the whisperjewel. On Braque. The same one, esper-etched. You can't fake that." He remembered something else. "And Arkin said-"

"Yes," she said. She bit her lip. "I don't understand. He must have sent it. But he was my friend. I had to have someone to talk to. I don't understand." She whimpered.

"Your head?" Dirk asked quickly.

"No," she said. "No."

He watched her face. "Arkin sent it?"

"Yes. He was the only one. It had to be. We met on Avalon, right after you and I… you know. Arkin helped me. It was a bad time. He was there when you sent your jewel to Jenny. I was crying and all. I told him about it, and we talked. Even later, after I met Jaan, Arkin and I stayed close. He was like a brother!"

"A brother," Dirk repeated. "Why would-"

"I don't know!"

Dirk was thoughtful. "When you met me at the spaceport, Arkin was with you. Did you ask him to come along? I was counting on you being alone, I remember."

"It was his idea," she said. "Well, I told him I was nervous. About seeing you again. He… he offered to come along and lend me moral support. And he said he wanted to meet you too. You know. After all I had told him on Avalon."

"And the day you and he took off into the wild– you know, when I got into trouble with Garse and then Bretan-what went on?"

"Arkin said… an armor-bug migration. It wasn't actually, but we had to check. We rushed away."

"Why didn't you tell me where you were going? I thought that Jaan and Garse had beaten you up, that they were keeping you away from me. The night before, you'd said-"

"I know, but Arkin said he'd tell you."

"And he convinced me to run away," Dirk said. "And you, I suppose he told you that to convince me you should…"

She nodded.

He turned toward the window. The last light was gone from the tower tops. Above, a handful of stars sparkled. Dirk counted them. Twelve. An even dozen. He wondered if some of them were really galaxies, away across the Great Black Sea. "Gwen," he said, "Jaan left this morning. From here to Larteyn and back, by aircar-how long should that take?"

When she did not answer, he turned to look at her again.

The walls were full of phantoms, and Gwen trembled in their light.

"He should be back by now, shouldn't he?" She nodded and lay back again on the pale mattress. The Siren City sang its lullaby, its hymn to final sleep.