Dying of the Light

the window, and Jaan looked with disinterest. 'Yes, I know that craft,' Jaan said. 'It is no matter to us, t'Larien, only the hunters from the Shanagate Holding. Gwen reported seeing them leave this morning.' The aircar had vanished by then, lost among the buildings of Larteyn, and Vikary went back to his seat, leaving Dirk to reflect.

In the days that followed, he saw the Shanagates several times, and they never ceased to seem unreal to him. How odd it was to think of them coming and going, untouched by all that had happened, living their lives as if Larteyn was still the peaceful dying city it seemed, as if no one had perished. They were so close to it all, and yet so distant and uninvolved; he could imagine them returning to their holdfast on High Kavalaan and reporting on how dull and uneventful life was on Worlorn. For them nothing had changed; Kryne Lamiya still sang its wailing dirge, and Challenge was still fervent with light and life and promise. He envied them.

On the third day Dirk woke from a particularly virulent nightmare in which he was fighting off Bretan alone, and he was unable to get back to sleep afterwards. Gwen, off watch, was pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Dirk poured himself a mug of Vikary's beer and listened to her for a while. 'They should be here,' she kept complaining. 'I can't believe that they're still searching for Jaan. Surely they must realize by now what's happened! Why aren't they here?' Dirk only shrugged at her and expressed hope that no one ever showed up; the Teric neDahlir was due soon. When he said that, she spun on him angrily. 'I don't care!' she snapped; and then, ashamed, she flushed red and came to the table and sat down. Beneath a wide green headband her eyes were haggard. She held his hand and told him haltingly that Vikary had not touched her since Janacek's death. Dirk told her that it would be better for them once the starship came, once they were safely off Worlorn, and Gwen smiled and agreed with him, and after a time she wept. When she finally left him, Dirk went back and found his whisper-jewel and held it in his fist, remembering.

On the fourth day, while Vikary was out on one of his dangerous dawn walks, Gwen and Arkin Ruark quarreled during a watch, and she hit him with the butt of her laser rifle, hard across his bruised face where the swelling had only recently responded to ice packs and ointments. Ruark came down the ladder from the tower muttering that she was mad again, trying to kill him. Dirk, awakened from a sound sleep, was standing in the common room, and the Kimdissi stopped dead when he saw him. Neither of them said anything, but after that Ruark lost weight rapidly, and Dirk was certain that Arkin knew what he had only suspected previously.

On the morning of the sixth day, Ruark and Dirk were sharing a wordless watch when the short man, in a fit of pique, suddenly threw his laser across the room. 'Filthy thing!' he exclaimed. 'Braiths, Ironjades, I don't care, Kavalar animals is what they are, yes. And you, fine man from Avalon, eh? Ha! You are no better, no better at all, look at you. I should have let you duel, kill or be killed, like you wanted. That would have made you happy, yes? No doubt, no doubt. Loved sweet Gwen and made you a friend, and where is my gratitude, where, where?' His fat cheeks were growing hollow and sunken; his pale eyes shifted restlessly.

Dirk ignored him, and Ruark soon fell silent. But later on that same morning, after he had picked up his laser and sat for a few hours staring at the wall, the Kimdissi turned to Dirk once again. 'I was her lover too, you know,' he said. 'She didn't tell you that, I know, I know, but it is the truth, the utter truth. On

Avalon, long before she ever met Jaantony and took her damn jade-and-silver, the night you sent her that whisperjewel. She was so drunk, you know. We talked and we talked, and she drank, and later on she took me to bed, and the next day she didn't even remember, you know that, she didn't even remember. But that doesn't matter, it is the truth, I was her lover too.' He trembled. 'I never told her, t'Larien, or tried to make it come again. I am not such a fool like you are, and I know what I am, and it was only a thing of that moment. Yet it existed, that moment, and I taught her a lot and I was her friend, and I am very good at my work, yes I am.' He stopped and caught his breath and then silently left the tower, although there was still an hour to go before Gwen was scheduled to relieve him.

When she finally came up, the first thing she did was ask Dirk what he had said to Arkin. 'Nothing,' he replied truthfully. Then he asked her why, and she told him that Ruark had wakened her, crying, and telling her over and over that no matter what happened she should make sure their work was published, and that his name belonged on it, no matter what he had done, his name belonged on it too. Dirk nodded and gave up his binoculars and bis post by the window to Gwen, and very soon they were talking of other things.

On the seventh day the late-night watch fell to Dirk and Jaan Vikary. The Kavalar city wore its dull night- time glow, the glowstone boulevards like sheets of black crystal beneath which red fires burned dimly, dimly. Near to midnight a light appeared over the mountains. Dirk studied it as it flew toward the city. 'I don't know,' he said, holding the binoculars. 'It's dark, hard to make out. I think I can see the vague outline of a dome, though.' He lowered his glasses. 'Lorimaar?'

Vikary stood over him. The aircar grew closer. It slid silently above the city, and its silhouette was distinct. 'It is his car,' Jaan said.

They watched it veer out over the Common and circle back, heading for the cliff face and the entrance to the underground airlot. Vikary looked thoughtful. 'I would not have believed it,' he said. They went down to rouse the others.

The man emerged from the darkness of the undertubes to find himself facing two lasers. Gwen had her pistol trained on him, almost casually. Dirk, armed with one of the hunting rifles, had aimed at the tube doors and stood with the sight pressed against his cheek, ready to fire. Only Jaan Vikary did not have a weapon out; he held his rifle loosely in his hands, and his sidearm was holstered.

The tube doors slid shut behind him, and the man stood very still, understandably frightened. It was not Lorimaar. It was not anyone Dirk knew. He lowered his rifle.

The man's eyes touched each of them in turn and finally settled on Vikary. 'High-Ironjade,' he said in a low voice. 'Why do you accost me?' He was a medium-sized man, horse-faced and bearded, with long blond hair and a scrawny build. He was dressed in chameleon cloth that was somber red-gray now, flushed and feverish like the glowstone blocks of the pavement.

Vikary reached over and gently pushed, Gwen's pistol to the side. The act seemed to wake her. She frowned and holstered her weapon. 'We were expecting Lorimaar high-Braith,' she said.

'The truth,' Vikary affirmed. 'No insult was intended, Shanagate. Honor to your holdfast, honor to your teyn.'

The horse-faced man nodded and looked relieved. 'And to yours, high-Ironjade,' he said. 'No insult was taken.' He plucked at his nose nervously.

'You fly Braith property, do you not?'

He nodded. 'In truth, and ours by right of salvage. My teyn and I stumbled on it in the wild while we pursued an ironhorn in flight. The creature stopped to drink, and there the car was, abandoned by a lake.'

'Abandoned? Are you quite certain of that?'

The man laughed. 'I know Lorimaar high-Braith and fat Saanel too well, and take no chance of initiating high grievance with such as they. No, we found their bodies also. Some enemy had been waiting at their camp, inside the aircar we do believe, and when they returned from hunting…' He gestured. 'They will take no more heads, mockman or otherwise.'

'Dead?' Gwen's mouth was tight.

'Entirely dead, each for several days,' the Kavalar replied. 'Scavengers had descended on the corpses, of course, yet there was still enough left to determine who they had been. We found another aircar close at hand, in the lake itself, in truth, wrecked and useless, and also marks in the sand that indicated other cars had come and departed. Lorimaar's vehicle was still functional, though full of dead Braith hounds. We cleaned it out and claimed it. My teyn is following me in our own car.'

Vikary nodded.

'These are very unusual events,' the man was saying. He regarded the three of them shrewdly, with unconcealed interest. His gaze lingered for an uncomfortably long time on Dirk, and then on Gwen's black iron bracelet, but he commented on neither. 'Few Braiths seem to be about of late, fewer than normal, and now we find two of them slain.'

'If you search hard enough you'll find some others,' Gwen said.

'They're starting a new holdfast,' Dirk added, 'in hell.'

When the man had gone on his way they began the slow walk back to the watchtower. No one spoke. Long shadows grew from their feet and followed them down the somber crimson streets. Gwen walked as if she were