Patternmaster p-1 Read online

  Joachim stared at him incredulously, understanding dawning in his eyes. He rose to his feet. “You lying son of a bitch. You son of a whelping Clayark bit…”

  Coransee went on as though uninterrupted. “Of course, only outsiders can be traded legally. And, Joachim, clearly, you did trade Teray. You accepted payment for him. How could you have done that if you honestly considered Teray an apprentice?”

  Helplessly, almost pitifully, Joachim turned to Michael. “Journeyman, he hides his crime behind technicalities. Read my memories. See what actually happened.”

  Coransee looked at Joachim with something very like amusement. Then he looked at Michael. “Journeyman, what is the penalty for the crime I’m charged with? Trading children, I mean.”

  “The loss of… your House.” Michael glanced at Joachim.

  Coransee nodded. “A Housemaster who trades an apprentice— or accepts one in trade—loses his House. But, of course, a Housemaster can trade as many outsiders as he wants to.” Now he looked at Joachim. “And certainly, any posttransition youngster a Housemaster picks up outside the gates of the school can be classified as an outsider.”

  Joachim leaned back and rested his head against one hand. “God, I don’t believe this.”

  Michael’s mouth was a straight thin line. “Lord Joachim, you made the charge. Is there any part of it that you want now to retract?”

  Joachim gave a wild kind of laugh. “You’re going along with him. You want him to get away with

  this.”

  Michael looked pained. “Lord, did you receive an artist in trade for this boy Teray?”

  “I never would have taken him if… Oh hell. Yes, I took the artist. But look, I’ll give him back if you’ll just…”

  “That’s between you and Coransee if the trade was legal, Lord Joachim. Are you saying now that it was legal, that Coransee did not force you to take the artist?”

  “Shit,” muttered Joachrm. “I withdraw the charge. That part of it anyway.” He glanced covertly at Teray.

  Teray realized at once that now was the time he could have revenge on Joachim if he wanted it. His own memories would prove that Joachim had traded away a man he had acknowledged as an apprentice. Whether Joachim had Coransee opened or not, Teray’s memories would be enough. He could cause Joachim to lose his House. Not only that, but such an act might win Teray’s freedom. Joachim would lose his House, Teray might go free, and Coransee … ? Certainly Coransee deserved far more than Joachim to lose his House. He might actually lose it for the less-than-one-year period that Rayal had left to live. Of course, within that period Teray would have the freedom to learn. He would be able to travel safely to Forsyth and study at Rayal’s House. But for that possible freedom he would have to sacrifice Joachim. There was no way around that.

  And somehow, in spite of his severely lowered opinion of Joachim, he could not quite bring himself to destroy the man.

  He realized that Michael and Coransee as well as Joachim were looking at him as though awaiting his decision. He met their eyes for a moment, then went to a chair at one side of Coransee’s desk and sat down. “What about the other charge?” he said disgustedly.

  Joachim seemed to sag, eyes closed in relief. Michael was impassive, and Coransee seemed almost bored. He toyed listlessly with a smooth cube of stone—probably a blank stone with nothing yet recorded into it. Perhaps he was even recording into it now.

  “The other charge,” said Michael wearily. “Competing for the Pattern before the competition is open.”

  “I deny it,” said Coransee simply.

  Michael frowned. “You deny that you took Teray into your House in order to keep him from competing with you for the Pattern?”

  “Yes.”

  Teray sat up very straight, wanting to dispute, wanting to damn Coransee for the liar he was, but Joachim’s fate had made him cautious. He waited to see how Michael would handle it.

  “Teray,” the journeyman said, “you say Coransee told you he meant to keep you from competing?”

  “Yes, Journeyman.”

  “And how did he plan to stop you?”

  “Either by controlling me as Joachim is controlled, or by killing me—if I refused to be controlled.”

  Michael turned slightly in his chair so that he faced Teray squarely. “Are you controlled, then?”

  “No. I refused control. He’s given me time to change my mind.” Immediately Teray wished he had left off the last sentence.

  “How much time, Teray?” It was Coransee who asked the question.

  Michael looked at him in surprise. “Lord, are you admitting that you used such intimidation?”

  “Yes. Though not for the reason Teray gives. But even if I had threatened Teray as he says … answer my question, Teray. How much time did I give you?”

  There was no point in telling anything but the truth. It was in his memory—and he was not as good at twisting it as Coransee was.

  “Teray?”

  “You gave me as much time as Rayal has left, Lord.”

  “As much time as Rayal has left. And of course when Rayal dies, the competition for the Pattern opens.”

  Teray fumed silently, seeing the look of defeat

  come to Michael’s face. The second charge had died even more quickly than the first. Teray let his mind go back over that morning, that breakfast with Coransee, trying to find some truth he could tell or twist. There was nothing. He himself could think of arguments to kill any arguments he might make.

  Teray glanced at Joachim. “Thanks for trying,” he said quietly.

  “He’s a hell of a talker,” said Joachim. “Among other things.”

  Michael shifted in his chair, and said to Coransee, “Unless anyone has memories to the contrary, Lord, the charge against you is disproved. But there is something I would like to know for myself. Is Teray still under sentence of death?”

  “He is.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason Patternmaster Rayal killed the strongest of his brothers and his sister. Even if I win the Pattern, Teray uncontrolled could become a danger to me. He will submit to my controls, or he will die.”

  “I see.” Michael lowered his head for a moment, then looked at Teray. “You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, Teray, but I’m wondering whether you think you might eventually be able to accept the mind controls.”

  “Not even if he was going to kill me right now,”

  said Teray. “Especially not after this chance to see him in action.” That was reckless. Teray wondered why he was bothering to talk recklessly while he was still in Coransee’s House. Maybe the Housemaster’s lies had angered him more than they should have. After all, lies were what he should have expected from Coransee in such a situation. But Coransee had prepared for his lies long before he had to tell them. Coransee spoke quietly:

  “Journeyman, if you’re finished with my outsider, I’d like to speak with you privately.”

  And that simply, it was over. Teray and Joachim were dismissed so that Michael and Coransee could discuss more important matters.

  In the common room, Joachim said to Teray, “I owe you thanks, too.”

  Teray shrugged.

  “The trouble I went to to get that Michael here!” Joachim continued. “And then all the lot of us did was give Coransee a few moments of amusement.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Joachim looked at him strangely. “I’m more upset about this than you are.”

  Teray said nothing, his face carefully expressionless. He did not want to lie to Joachim but he could not confide in him. Joachim was Coransee’s man, whether he liked it or not.

  Joachim must have understood. He changed

  the subject: “What has Coransee promised you if you submit to his controls?”

  “This House.”

  “This!” Joachim only breathed the word. He looked around the huge room. “He must be certain of winning the Pattern.”

  “I think he is.”
>
  “If you can resist this …”

  “I can. I am.”

  “Teray … most of the time, the controls aren’t that bad. And when he has the entire Pattern to keep him busy, he’ll have even less time to concern himself with you.”

  Teray ignored him, and looked around the room to see whether Amber was still there. She had gone. Good. “Joachim, do you know a woman named Amber?”

  “Teray, listen! You wouldn’t be giving up as much as I did when I submitted. He’s made me a kind of political puppet. But when he’s Patternmaster he won’t have to do such things with you. You’ll be almost independent. And you’ll be alive.”

  Teray shook his head slowly, eyes closed for a moment. “I can’t do it, Joachim. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. A long leash is still a leash. And Coransee will still be at the other end of it, holding on. Now, do you know Amber?”

  “All right, change the subject. Kill yourself. Yes,

  I know Amber. What do you want to know about her?”

  Teray frowned. “Anything you know about her that isn’t personal. She says she’s an independent.”

  “She is. Strange woman. She’s only four or five years out of school, but she managed to kill a man, a Housemaster, before she even made her transition. You ought to ask her about it. Interesting.”

  “No doubt,” muttered Teray. “But look, how likely is she to go running to Coransee with anything unusual she hears?”

  Joachim shook his head slowly. “Not likely at all. She likes Coransee, but she doesn’t make any special effort to impress him. She does her healing and otherwise keeps out of House business.”

  Silently, Teray hoped he was right. It would be too easy for the woman to pick up something. No matter what happened, he was going to have to leave soon.

  He found himself wishing he could speak privately to Michael, but he knew it would do no good. Even if the journeyman sympathized with him, the law really was on Coransee’s side. Michael could not change that.

  ************************************

  Journeyman Michael stayed two days more, then headed farther north on more of Rayal’s

  business. North. Forsyth was 480 kilometers south. Teray could not even hope to catch up with Michael and try to attach himself to the journeyman’s party. That might not have been a good idea anyway, though, since it would have meant asking Michael to risk his own life by defying Coransee. After all, if things went as Coransee expected, Michael would soon be under Coransee’s direct control.

  Teray would have to go alone. He realized that he was putting off leaving for just that reason—because the journey looked more and more like suicide to him. And what should he do about Iray?

  That was something he did not want to think about. He was afraid to talk to Iray—afraid she might not want to leave Coransee, afraid her apparent interest in Coransee might be real. But even if it was not—she had kept her word, after all, she had not changed her name—how could he ask her to risk herself with him again? How could he take her out and perhaps get her killed? Then, strangely, it was Amber who gave him hope.

  She was waiting for him in his room the night after Michael left. He walked in and found her staring out his window.

  “Good,” she said as she turned and saw him. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “You came all the way up here to talk to me?”

  “Necessary. I have a message for you from Michael.” And suddenly he was listening.

  “Why would Michael give you a message for me?”

  “Because I offered to carry it. He and I are old friends, so he trusted me. He couldn’t very well give it to you directly.”

  “Why not?”

  “God, you must really be preoccupied with something. Don’t you have any idea how closely Coransee has watched you and Michael for the past two days?”

  Teray went to his bed, sat down, and took off his shoes. “I didn’t notice. It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t.”

  “Michael didn’t think you would have lived long if he had shown any particular interest in you. There would be some kind of accident. You know.”

  Teray shuddered. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t even thought about such a possibility. It was true enough, though, that personal attention from Michael could lead to personal attention from Rayal. And surely Coransee would not want Rayal to have the chance to pay attention to another potentially powerful son.

  “What’s the message?” he asked Amber.

  “That there’s sanctuary for you at Forsyth if you can get there on your own.”

  In the moment of utter surprise that followed her words, he did the thing he had feared he might do: He betrayed himself to her. His screen slipped—not far, and only for an instant.

  Coransee would have been hard put to read anything in so short a time. But Amber, it seemed, knew how to use her closeness to him. She read everything.

  “Well,” she smiled at him, “it looks like I’ve brought you better news than I thought I had. Just the news you need, in fact.”

  Teray dropped all pretense. Now, either she would report him or she would not. And Michael had seen fit to trust her. “What I really need,” he said, “is a few good fighters to go along with me. I counted twelve women and outsiders traveling with Michael.”

  “Fifteen,” she corrected. “Are you taking Iray?”

  “I don’t know yet. It seems to me—” He broke off and looked at Amber. She was still barely an acquaintance. Someone to sleep with, perhaps, but not someone to talk over his personal problems with. But on the other hand, why not? It was so easy. And who else was there? “It seems to me that I’ve done enough to Iray.”

  “I don’t think you’ve done anything to her. Joachim has, and certainly Coransee has. But you’re only about to.”

  “By leaving her—or by taking her?”

  “By deciding for her.”

  “I don’t want to get her killed.”

  Amber shrugged. “If it were me, I’d want to make up my own mind.”

  “I told her once that I wouldn’t leave her here.”

  “Well, it’s between you and her.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what are you trying to

  build between you and me?”

  She smiled a little. “Something good, I hope.” “What about Coransee?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Point to you,”

  she said.

  “What?”

  “You remember telling me you hoped you’d be

  around the day I tried to leave Coransee?”

  “You tried?”

  “No. But I should have—some time ago. Now I’ve become a kind of challenge to him. Now I’m going to settle here as one of his wives whether I like it or not. He says. Which shows that he hasn’t gotten to know me very well in two years.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The same thing you’re going to do. We’ll live longer if we do it together.”

  He took several seconds to digest this. His main emotion was relief. “Two, or perhaps three, traveling together. That’s better than one—though

  not much better.”

  “You’re going to ask Iray, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ll need her.”

  “ ‘We.’ ” Teray smiled. “I wish you were just a little harder to accept.”

  “I’ll wish that myself when the time comes for me to leave you. But I don’t wish it now.”

  “You’re staying the night.”

  “What about Suliana?”

  “I just reached her. She’s going to sleep in her old room—or wherever else she wants to.”

  “I’m staying, then.”

  She was a lighter golden color beneath her clothing. Honey-colored. The cap of black hair was softer than it looked and the woman was harder than she felt. He would have to keep that last in mind, if he could.

  Chapter 5

  Early the next morning, Teray left Amber asleep in his be
d and went down to the dining room, where he had sensed Iray. He would assume that Iray had not changed. He would know nothing that she did not tell him. He would not prejudge her. She was eating with another woman and a man at the end of one of the long tables in the nearly empty room. Most of the House was not awake yet.

  “I have to talk to you,” he told her.

  She glanced at him hesitantly, almost reluctantly. Then she took a last bite of pancake, swallowed some orange juice, and excused herself

  to her friends. She followed him out to the privacy of the completely empty courtyard where they had last talked. Since then, they had looked at each other, and they had refused to look at each other, but they had hardly spoken at all.

  They sat down on one of the benches and Iray stared at her clenched hands.

  “I’m sorry,” began Teray, “but I have to ask you … .Is there any way … through you, that Coransee will hear what I say?”

  “No,” she said softly. “I’m linked with him, but only so he can be sure that you and I… that we don’t make love.”

  “The link is just an alarm, then?”

  She nodded. “And I won’t tell him anything you don’t want him to know.”

  She was offering him the same loyalty that she had always offered, but somehow, something was wrong. Was it only her link with Coransee that had started her twisting her hands, that made her willing to look at him only in quick glances?

  “Will you open to me?” he asked.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said. There was neither surprise nor anger in her voice.

  “I trust you … trust who you were. I want to trust you now.”