Dying of the Light

EPILOGUE

It was a flat grassy place in the center of the Common, not very far from the spacefield. Once, in the days of the Festival, games had been held there, and athletes from eleven of the fourteen outworlds had competed for crowns of crystalline iron.

Dirk and Kirak Redsteel were there long before the appointed time, waiting.

When the hour drew near, Dirk began to worry. He needn't have. The aircar with the snarling wolf's-head canopy appeared in the sky just as predicted. It swept by once with its pulse tubes shrieking, a low pass to make sure that they were really there, and then came down for a landing.

Bretan Braith walked toward them over the dead brown grass, his black boots trampling a host of faded flowers. It was nearly dusk. His eye was beginning to glow.

"I was told the truth, then," Bretan said to Dirk, with a touch of wonder in his rasping voice, the same voice that Dirk had heard so often in his nightmares, a voice several octaves too low and far too twisted for one as slim and straight as Bretan. "You are really here." The Braith stood several meters away, looking at them, infinitely pure, dressed in white dueling finery with a purple wolf-mask embroidered above his heart. His black belt carried two sidearms: a laser on his left side and a massive machine-pistol of blue-gray metal heavy on his right. His iron armlet was empty of glow-stones. "I did not believe the ancient Redsteel, if truth be known," he was saying. "Yet I thought, This place is so close, a check will do no harm. I can return to the port quickly enough should it prove a lie."

Kirak Redsteel got down on his knees and began to chalk a square out in the grass.

"You presume that I will honor you in duel," Bretan said. "I have no cause to do so." He moved his right hand and suddenly Dirk was facing the barrel of his machine-pistol. "Why should I not kill you? Here and now?"

Dirk shrugged. "Kill me if you like," he said, "but answer some questions first."

Bretan stared and said nothing.

"If I had come to you in Challenge," Dirk said, "if I had come down into the basement, as you wanted, would you have dueled me then? Or killed me for a mockman?"

Bretan slid his weapon back into its holster. "I would have dueled you. In Larteyn, in Challenge, here-it makes no difference. I would have dueled you. I do not believe in mockmen, t'Larien. I have never believed in mockmen. Only in Chell, who wore my bond and somehow did not care about my face."

"Yes," Dirk said. Kirak Redsteel had the death-square half complete. Dirk glanced up at the sky and wondered how much time was left. "And one other thing, Bretan Braith. How did you know to look for us in Challenge, in that one city out of all the others?"

Bretan shrugged his awkward shrug. "The Kimdissi told me, for a price. All Kimdissi can be bought. He had planted a tracer in a coat he gave you. I believe he used such tracers in his work."

"What was the price?" Dirk asked. Three sides of the square were drawn, white lines on the grass.

"I gave my honor-bond that I would do no harm to Gwen Delvano, and would protect her against all the others." The last rays of sunlight were fading; the trailing yellow sun had joined the others below the mountains. "Now," Bretan continued, "I have a question for you, t'Larien. Why have you come to me?"

Dirk smiled. "Because I like you, Bretan Braith. You burned down Kryne Lamiya, didn't you?"

"In truth," Bretan said. "I hoped to burn you as well, and Jaantony high-Ironjade, the outbonder. Does he still live?"

Dirk did not answer that question.

Kirak Redsteel rose and brushed the chalk from his hands, the square complete. He brought out the matched blades; straight sabers of Kavalar steel, with glowstones and jade set in the ornate pommels. Bretan chose one and tested it-it moved through the air with a song and a shriek-then stepped back, satisfied, to one corner of the square. He was very still as he waited; for an instant he appeared almost serene, a slim black figure leaning ever so slightly on his sword. Like the bargeman, Dirk thought, and despite himself he glanced wildly at the wolf-car to make certain it had not been transformed into a low barge. His heart was beating hard.

He pushed the thought aside, took the other blade, and retreated in turn. Kirak Redsteel smiled at him. It will be easy, Dirk told himself. He tried to remember the advice that Garse Ironjade had given him so long ago. Take one blow and give one, that's all, he said to himself. He was very frightened.

Bretan tossed his sidearms on the ground outside the death-square and moved the saber back and forth again, unlimbering his arm. Even across the seven meters that separated them, Dirk could see the twitch of his face.

Above Bretan's right shoulder a star was rising. Blue-white and large and very close, creeping up the black velvet sky toward zenith. And beyond the zenith, Dirk thought, to Eshellin and ai-Emerel and the World of the Blackwine Ocean. He wished them luck.

Kirak Cavis stepped outside the death-square and said a word in Old Kavalar. Bretan started forward, moving gracefully, light on his feet, very white, his eye glowing.

Dirk grinned the way Garse would have grinned, tossed the hair back out of his eyes, and went to him. No starlight ran down his blade as he lifted it and reached out to touch Bretan's. The wind was blowing. It was very cold.