Part 18 (1/2)
”Tristen Conn,” she said. ”Come forth.”
Tristen stepped forward, away from the others, but not too close to Dorcas-or her serpents. His armor might be a match for the Enemy's chill, but he was not sure he cared to test it against engineered cobra fangs. He paused some meters short of the dais.
On his shoulder, he felt Gavin spread white wings for balance, the brush of pinions across Tristen's scalp as they bowered him. He rested his hand on Mirth's hilt. The sword's longing to go to Dorcas could almost have pulled him forward. He tightened his gauntlet over the pommel, wondering if, in some atavistic part of her brain, Dorcas remembered it as the one that she had carried once when she had been Sparrow.
Neural pathways became worn in with use. If she folded her hand around it, would the part of her that had been his daughter-the physical part, the part where the unconscious lived and struggled-remember the feel of the blade? Would her body recollect its use, she who had been a swordswoman without equal, trained by her mother's hand until she had exceeded even her mother?
He wondered if he wished more that the answer was yes, or no. He wondered also if Dorcas expected him to speak. But if she did, he had no idea what he should say.
Scales sc.r.a.ped across carpet behind him. The armor told him what he already knew: the cobras were cutting him off from the others. They could not harm Samael, and Mallory was not without defenses, but that was carrion comfort.
Dorcas still regarded him, letting the silence stretch, her face a mask as serene as a priestess's. Tristen tilted his face up to her as if to the light of the s.h.i.+pwreck stars.
She wore only a loose smock and mud-daubed work pants, the cuffs rolled up to show her bare, bony ankles.
The sight of her pained him as deeply as if he looked upon the Queen of Heaven. Still he waited, holding to a taken breath and the soothing mental construct of a pale green light as if they could defend him. But nothing could make this right.
The breath Dorcas drew seemed to enlarge her. Silence spread from her like a ripple across a pool, even the serpents seeming to rustle more quietly. Just when that quiet had reached oppressive proportions, when everyone else was holding their breaths with her, her voice rolled forth in a preacher's or stateswoman's ringing tones.
”Tristen Conn,” she repeated. ”How do you plead?”
It was no other than he had expected, but he could play out the game. ”What is the charge?”
”Treachery,” she said. ”Collusion. And blackest kinslaughter.”
He would not grant her the victory of a nod or wince. This is not Sparrow. Easy enough to change that perception, to edit his symbiont so he saw her-really saw her-as someone new and foreign. But to do so would mean giving up on ever seeing Sparrow again.
Mallory started forward; Tristen would have known even if his armor had not told him, because he heard the answering choir of hisses. Tristen extended his left hand, leaving the right on Mirth's hilt, and gestured the necromancer back.
”Tristen,” Mallory said.
He shot a quelling glance over his shoulder. ”Not guilty. By what right do you level charges?”
”By right of survivors.h.i.+p,” she said. ”Lay down your weapon, Sir Tristen, and leave behind your familiar beast. If he acts on your behalf, know we will destroy him and your traveling companions, too.”
”This was your mother's blade,” Tristen said. ”And yours, when you were who you were before. a.s.suming I recognized your right to bring me to judgment, would you have me cast it down like trash?”
”Give it to your leman, then.” An imperious jerk of her head indicated Mallory. Tristen wasn't sure if Mallory's snort of amus.e.m.e.nt or Samael's was more dramatic. Merely by virtue of proximity, Gavin's was loudest.
Tristen did not remove his hand from the blade, nor did he nudge the basilisk from his shoulder. They could fight, if they had to, but he would prefer to talk his way out. The risk of fighting was the risk of losing, and the whole world rode on the success of his mission. And if he read Dorcas's body language correctly, she was quite confident in her threats.
Tristen said, ”We are on Errantry, and the Captain's business. You will let us pa.s.s.”
”What care we for Captains?” Her smile was bitter. ”Less even, I trust you understand, than we do for Commodores. We follow the divine will.”
Given his experience of Commodores, Tristen didn't fancy the morality of his position. And yet it was the one he had. He said, ”But for those of us who do care for Captains-or for Commodores, if you prefer-the treason would lie in disobeying their legal orders.” His teeth began to grind. He made a point of slackening his jaw. ”No matter how little to our taste those orders were.”
”So a good soldier follows bad orders? Every criminal prefers to go free.”
”It is unwise to hold me. The fate of the very world itself rests on our pa.s.sage, Lady of the Edenites.”
She tilted her head and shrugged. ”I care very little for the fate of this s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p,” she said. ”It is not a world, and to call it a world offends the spirit of real worlds-living worlds-everywhere. Would you call a tin box your mother?”
Tristen suspected that the only reason he didn't catch himself rubbing his temples in frustration was because the gauntlets would have gotten in the way. ”I insist you release my companions.”
”Are there no higher powers than rulers?” she asked. ”Are there no moral authorities greater than a bad king?”
Mallory s.h.i.+fted among the serpents, provoking another susurrus of warnings. Samael brushed halfmaterial hair behind his shoulders, shreds of dry gra.s.s making a whisking sound.
Tristen said, ”If there are higher moral powers, My Lady, you will forgive me if I admit that I do not know you as such. A man must keep his conscience.”
She flinched, so that he wondered what he had said to wound her so sharply. But she extended a hand before her, a gesture that brought the snakes rising between them. Her voice was level when she said, ”And have you kept your conscience, Sir Tristen?”
Tristen looked into his daughter's dead, alien, animated face, and shook his head. ”The state of my conscience is my own concern. I do not accept your authority. I will not stand your trial.”
She pursed her lips. Her face, he thought, was sadder than not. She said, ”Would that you had a choice, good sir knight. Fear not. Your companions will not be harmed.”
He touched the hilt of Mirth, where it still swung at his hip. The serpents swayed forward, but he did not withdraw his hand. It wasn't a threat; it was an offering. Whoever lived in her now, he knew the face, the steady gaze. He did not think he could fight her. ”You heard me say this blade was yours.”
”Not mine.” Was there a little sorrow behind the dismissal in her headshake? Hard to tell, when you had so much invested in believing there was.
”A bargain,” Tristen said. ”I will submit to your trial if you will accept this object from my hand.”
”Tristen!” interjected Mallory. Tristen let the protest roll down his armor and away, holding Dorcas's gaze the whole while.
”We could fight,” Tristen said. ”Whatever your resources, Lady of the Edenites, it would not go easy for you.”
Of course it was a trap, and she knew it. Her eyebrows lifted, her pupils contracted. But it was a trap for him as well.
Slowly, she nodded.
Tristen turned his head, to where Mallory and Samael stood side by side. Gavin rocked on his shoulder, a big bird hunching itself and shuffling from foot to foot.
”Don't fight them,” Tristen said, holding Mallory's gaze. He suspected Gavin was his real worry, so he raised one gauntlet and touched the basilisk's wing. ”Do not fight them. Do not kill her. I will handle this myself.”
Mallory, grim-jawed, nodded.
Tristen turned back to the woman who wore his daughter's skin. ”Do your worst.” When her hand fell, the snakes struck.
Perceval buried her feet in violets, leaning back in her Captain's chair, and stared up at the sky as if she could see through it to the night beyond.
Not as if. She could see through it to the night beyond if she chose.
She needed merely to extend her sight beyond the range of her physical eyes, into the web of the angel's awareness. The angel's slowly receding awareness, which Perceval knew was being worn back by the tide of the expanding nullities.