“Adara!”
Beneath the chorus of delight, Griffin said to Bruin and Terrell, “Putty!” Then he stepped forward so that his movement would provide distraction.
“Hold it, Griffin!” Siegfried shouted. “Alex!”
Alexander immediately began chanting the control sequence, ending with, “Now, Adara, put that bow down.”
The huntress’s reaction was a lazy, very unkind smile. “Sorry, fellow. I’ve chosen my gods. I have no room for you. Now, if you’re done playing around, drop those weapons. My arm’s getting tired. I just might lose my hold on the string.”
Her arm was perfectly steady, her aim centered on Alexander. She padded into the room. After her, Honeychild and Sand Shadow raced in. The puma crouched over Falkner, one huge paw firmly on his chest, her snarl showing off her fangs, which she held inches above his face. Honeychild sped to Bruin’s side. The bear did not look in the least cuddly now. The way her gaze focused on Siegfried left no doubt that she knew precisely which man had injured her demiurge. Bruin threw a hand over her neck, and muttered, “Not yet, girl.”
“The man I shot is bleeding pretty badly,” Adara commented conversationally. “Can even seegnur survive such?”
Alexander’s hand twitched to raise his nerve burner. He might have managed a shot, but Terrell leapt at him, bringing him to the floor with a hard body slam. They rolled. Griffin knew Alexander was well trained in hand-to-hand combat, but it had been years since he had used his abilities at all seriously. Terrell, by contrast, had his hands on the man who had tortured him—in spirit as much as body—and was showing no mercy.
When Siegfried moved as if to interfere, Honeychild snarled and bellowed. Siegfried, perhaps reminded that weapons calibrated for human opponents did not work as well on non-humans, at last dropped his nerve burner.
Glancing behind him, Griffin saw that Castor had sealed the faceplate on his armor. Seamus—no, this was every bit Pollux—had moved to stand behind Julyan. He had the much larger man’s arm in a lock that would pop shoulder from joint if Julyan struggled.
Julyan didn’t look as if he intended to move an inch, but Pollux had apparently decided to rob Alexander of a possible weapon. Only Ring hadn’t taken any action. His eyes were closed and his hands were pressed tightly to his temples. Clearly, probabilities were changing so rapidly he could hardly keep on his feet.
Adara called. “Kipper. Bandages. You—” This to Siegfried. “You look dangerous. If you don’t want me to put a shaft through your leg, get your hands behind you and let Griffin tie them. Griffin?”
The struggle between Terrell and Alexander had ended. Terrell sat on top of his tormentor. Alexander’s nose was streaming blood and one eye was already swelling closed. Griffin kicked his feet out of his shoes and used one of his socks to bind Siegfried’s hands, the other to bind his ankles.
As he was doing so, he said, “Terrell, Alexander may be faking unconsciousness. I’d tie him, too.”
“With pleasure,” Terrell said.
Bruin meantime had taken the first-aid kit Falkner had given them to treat Bruin’s own wound and was moving to treat Falkner’s arrow-shot shoulder.
“Nice work, ladybug,” he said. “You missed the tendons. Lucky for him he had so much muscle.”
“Thanks, teacher.”
In a short time, they had divided into three groups. Siegfried, Alexander, and Falkner sat under Honeychild’s guard. Sand Shadow guarded Julyan, who had submitted to having his hands tied behind him. The puma clearly remembered what Julyan had done to Adara the last time they had met and was eager for any opportunity to get even. After the puma gave a leisurely lick to the back of Julyan’s neck, the man sat very still.
The second group consisted of Castor and Pollux. Castor remained suited up. Pollux had taken possession of one of the nerve burners. Other than these tacit threats, they remained observers.
The final group consisted of Griffin, Terrell, and Adara. At Bruin’s request, Kipper took Ring outside. The big man didn’t resist when the boy gently tugged his hand.
“Stay near the entrance to the lab, Kipper,” Bruin ordered. “That way Leto will be able to warn you if the Old One tries to sneak back. Right, Leto?”
The complex’s resident intelligence, silent to this point, replied primly, “If Griffin asks. You are not seegnur.”
“I ask,” Griffin said. “And thank you for not taking sides.”
“I didn’t do it for her,” Leto said, “though she asked. I am still not certain which of you is the right sort of seegnur—or if you are seegnur at all. However, you, Griffin have priority over the new arrivals. In this case, I will cooperate with you.”
“Thank you.”
Griffin turned his attention to his brothers. “Now, shall we resolve this?”
“Killing us won’t end anything,” Siegfried replied promptly. “Our deaths might make matters worse. Gaius is in orbit. If I don’t check in with him in a few hours, he’ll begin intervention.”
“Hopefully,” Griffin said, “we can resolve matters before Gaius needs to be brought in. We’d defeat him, then need to start all over again. Adara made allies who would warn us, so there will be no sneaking up on us.”
“What allies?” Alexander asked. Despite thick lips from the beating Terrell had given him, he managed a trace of his usual arrogance. “These ‘gods’ she mentioned? If she’s allied with Maxwell, she’d better be careful.”
“I’m not in a position to say,” Griffin said, “but take it as established fact that we will know when Gaius lands and where. If he sends down automated weaponry, we will know and action will be taken.”
Falkner, the only prisoner without his arms bound behind him, because Bruin would not permit it, reached out a hand toward Griffin. “Griff, I realize our showing up this way looks bad. I’ll admit, we weren’t completely honest with you. We knew when you set out and intended to track you if you didn’t come back in a set time.”
“To rescue me?” Griffin fought not to sneer. “If I ‘crashed’?”
“No. Because if you didn’t come back within a calculated time, it meant you had probably found the biggest prize in the former Imperial sphere. You were good enough at hiding your tracks that we couldn’t push in without making you balk. We had to let you go, innocent of our intent, then follow.”
“So you didn’t know everything I’d found out,” Griffin said.
“No, we didn’t. You kept enough of the information locked in your head that we couldn’t figure out the coordinates. Jada suggested…”
“Jada?”
Griffin felt a chill. Even more than Alexander, Jada was the sibling who made him uneasy. Alexander’s cruelties were understandable. There was something coldly calculating about Jada.
“Jada,” Falkner agreed. “Griffin, come home with us. We’ll have a family conference. All of us—Castor and Pollux, too. We’ll decide what to do with your find.”
“My find,” Griffin said, slowly, savoring the words. “The planet Artemis, my find. All for the greater glory of the family Dane.”
* * *
Adara listened with mounting apprehension as Falkner coaxed Griffin. From the quick briefing Bruin had given her, she gathered that of the three Danes who had come down to the planet, Falkner had been the least arrogant, the most thoughtful. Perhaps recognizing this, Siegfried and Alexander waited to learn if Falkner could persuade, now that they were no longer able to overpower.
Or are they merely waiting for this Gaius? Griffin seems confident that the warning Artemis now knows to give us will be enough, but what if it is not? Those “nerve burners” the Danes were carrying are nasty weapons.
Help came from the most unexpected quarter. Julyan spoke out, his singer’s voice clear and carrying. “Don’t believe him, Griffin. Either Falkner’s lying to you or he’s been fooled. They didn’t just follow you—Alexander meant you dead.”
Alexander’s handsome mouth twisted as if he would speak, but Honeychild laid a black-clawed paw on one side of his neck and he fell silent.
Julyan continued. “Alexander bragged to me about what he’d done. He hates you, Griffin. Didn’t you think it too much of a coincidence that a war machine attacked you so soon after your arrival?”
Eyes turned to Alexander. Honeychild moved her paw from his throat, granting mute permission to speak, but Alexander remained silent. Finally, Siegfried spoke in a voice rough with menace.
“Tell us what you did. Silence will serve you here, but not once we’re home. You know that.”
“If you get home,” Adara added politely. “We rough primitives may not choose to wait upon the leisure of such dubious seegnur. Surely if your clan is as warlike as Griffin has told us, the loss of one member on such a dangerous mission would be acceptable. I’m sure Terrell wouldn’t mind another go at you.”
Terrell spat on the floor, the action all the more eloquent in contrast to his usual studied manners.
Whether Siegfried’s threat or Adara’s convinced him, Alexander broke his silence.
“I mounted a warbot beneath the shuttle’s outer hull. I picked a model that folded flat and was sealed against damage from vacuum.”
“Did you remove the outer plating to do this?” Falkner asked conversationally.
“I did.”
“That may explain why Griffin crashed so quickly,” Falkner continued. “We already know that—despite our conclusions to the contrary—the nanobots released by the attackers remained completely active. It’s likely that when Alexander messed with the hull, he violated the shuttle’s integrity.”
“You’d already messed with the Howard Carter and the shuttle,” Alexander protested. “You set it to send you alerts as to Griffin’s position. You put a tracking device under his skin. The shuttle was gimmicked to release counters to the local nanobots, if they were still active. That’s what gave me my idea. If our tech would work, why shouldn’t I include a bit of my own?”
“He’s insane,” said Castor, the words all the more stinging considering their source. “Let Father and Mother deal with him.”
“Insane! You just don’t like that I was more clever than you. Falkner didn’t find what I’d done. My spider was more than a mere warbot. I also included some nanobots designed to subvert Artemis’s operating systems to our control.”
“It didn’t work, did it?” Adara said coolly but, remembering what Artemis had told her she thought, And I’m not going to tell you how close it came to working—or that fighting against it was what brought Artemis to what she is today.
Griffin had remained silent through this. There was something different about him, but it took Adara a moment to realize what it was. For as long as she had known him, there had been a mildness to Griffin, a calm temper that had made her disregard his claims of belonging to a warrior clan. That was gone. His brown eyes were alive now with fury, the detachment that so often dominated him vanished.
“I don’t think my shuttle was the only thing tinkered with,” Griffin said, and his voice held a new resonance. “I feel as if I’ve been just a little bit asleep all this time. Posthypnotic suggestion?”
Alexander snapped. “Don’t try to blame me for that! Everyone agreed it was a good idea to keep you focused. You’re so easily distracted by some interesting bit of anthropological trivia. We needed you to focus on finding traces of the Old Imperial technology.”
He jerked his head around to look at Falkner and Siegfried. “Even if I did have something to do with the shuttle crashing, you should be grateful. That made Griffin focus down really hard. Who knows how long it might have taken him otherwise to find the landing facility and this place, especially given how well hidden they were?”
“Don’t look for thanks,” Siegfried retorted. “If you had your way, Griffin would be dead. I suppose you thought that we’d need to rely on you, then.”
Alexander’s expression showed that this was exactly what he had expected, but Griffin gave no further time for family bickering.
“Enough! We set out to resolve what to do with you. I never thought I’d be grateful to Julyan for anything, but I am for this.” He turned to face his Artemesian allies and, once again, Adara was taken by the new brilliance in his expression. “As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Siegfried that killing them would make matters worse. It’s as if I had forgotten just how dangerous my family could be … That leaves us with two options: keeping them prisoners and getting them off planet.”
“We need to talk about this privately,” Terrell said firmly. “And we don’t need them talking to each other while we do.” He held up the med kit. “I’m betting there’s something in here that will make them sleep. Griffin?”
“Good idea. If they’re out, we don’t even need to leave the room.” Griffin rummaged through the kit. In a few moments, Falkner, Siegfried, and Alexander were all drowsing. Then he turned to Castor who stood, still fully armored, next to the boy he claimed was his dead twin. “How much did you know—honestly?”
“I knew they intended to use me to test some Old Imperial relics,” Castor said. “I even knew you were involved, but not how. You know how my metabolism cripples me. They kept me in cold sleep for the trip. To be honest, I didn’t mind. I haven’t cared about much since Pollux’s body died.”
“I believe him,” Bruin cut in. “They’ve treated him like a hunter treats a well-trained dog—valuable, certainly worthy of consideration, but not an equal.”
Adara frowned. “Then is he one of them or—like you, Griffin—a tool?”
Castor answered for himself. “Whatever I was, everything is different now. I have found Pollux again. I will not leave him. Nor do I wish to take him ‘home’ with me. Our parents were never satisfied with how Pollux and I turned out. I do not particularly wish to give them a second chance at training us.”
Pollux smiled ruefully. “Unlike you, Griffin, Castor and I long ago stopped wanting to please our parents, to prove ourselves worthy of their regard. We have discussed the matter and we’d rather remain here on Artemis, if Artemis and her guardians will have us.”
Terrell drew in a ragged breath. “And that raises the point none of us have wanted to mention. Where do you stand in this, Griffin? You’ve been striving to get home for as long as we’ve known you. Now you can go. What will you do?”
Griffin ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about little else since I realized what Siegfried and the others being here meant. If they’d treated me like one of the team, you as my associates, I think there would be no question. Instead, they treated me as, at best, a ‘little brother,’ more often like an enemy. I guess they trusted whatever was done to me to make me easy to convince that it was all for the best, but that hold is broken.”
He turned to Adara, kneeling in a curiously old-fashioned manner that she recognized as offering fealty. “My request would be the same as Castor’s. I’d rather remain here on Artemis, if Artemis and her guardians will have me.”
Adara cupped his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I believe we will keep you, Griffin, no longer of Dane. Terrell? Bruin? Honeychild? Sand Shadow? Do you agree?”
The nods were quick. Adara decided to overlook that Terrell’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. She suspected that if Griffin had decided to leave, Terrell would have gone with him—the bond between them was that close.
She turned to Castor. “My heart believes what you say. Can we trust you to work with us?”
“For as long as I live,” Castor said, “which may not be very long. My body needs fuel. When what concentrates we brought with us run out, I will die.”
“I think I may have a solution for that,” Adara said. “Not immediate, but at least by the time your supplies run low. Pollux? You are both of Artemis and of the void. Does your brother speak your wish as well?”
“He does,” came the boy’s voice with the man’s intonation.
Again she asked for the others’ assent. Again it was given. Again an oath was sworn—only words, yes, but she felt these were binding. Adara felt her heart thrill as if she had planned a difficult hunt and now had all the parts to set trap and snare.
“We are sworn together, to preserve Artemis and ourselves. I believe that in having you, we also have a solution to our problem. But first, we have one more problem to resolve. Julyan Hunter.”
* * *
Julyan’s pulse thudded in his ears as Adara turned that fiery amber gaze on him. She’d changed from the adoring girl he remembered, even from the young huntress he’d tracked and imagined subjecting to his lust and his will. He’d always seen the puma’s grace and unusual beauty in her. Now he recognized the passion and danger as well.
“Griffin, you said that what Julyan revealed about Alexander’s plan was a great help to you,” Adara began. “Now I ask—was what he said enough to buy him his life and freedom? I admit I do not want him among us. Sand Shadow reminds me that the last time I took pity on him, Julyan repaid me by trying to drown me. Still, he has given service. I find I cannot fairly judge.”
Although Adara had appealed to Griffin, it was Bruin who spoke. “Julyan worked for our enemies, but he never was unduly cruel. Not kind, no, but he never took advantage of his power.”
“Perhaps,” Terrell said, his tone hard and unforgiving, “because he had learned something about the abuses of power from Alexander.”
“Terrell,” Bruin said, “you are not one of my students, so forgive me for speaking to you this way. Cruelty rarely creates kindness. Indeed, the worst abusers are the abused. The almost littlest pup in the litter is the most likely to beat the littlest, not to show mercy.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that,” Terrell said. “Maybe you’re being soft on Julyan because he was your student. I can’t forget he tried to kill Adara.”
Griffin spoke up. “Adara, you asked if what Julyan said was helpful. It was. I’d entertained some similar speculations, but they alone were not enough. What broke the hold on my mind was hearing from another what Alexander had done. That opened my mind to consider that if Siegfried, Falkner, Gaius, and Jada were all involved, my parents had to at least have offered their tacit consent. Alexander’s own outburst finished the matter.”
Adara turned to Julyan. “If we set you free, what would you do? Will you return to the Old One’s service? Would you like to go wherever Griffin’s brothers go?”
“Not that,” Julyan said, “not ever. Nor would I go after the Old One. He walked out and left me as easily as he left his soiled underclothes. I suppose I would go and seek a place as a hunter. There is value to having been a student of Benjamin Hunter. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I have learned a few things about myself—and I’m not sure I like what I’ve learned. I now realize that the Old One cultivated the worst in me, teaching me to see people as things—me, who had been trained as a hunter, to respect the lives we take. I feel as if I’ve been insane and have a chance to reclaim myself.”
Adara looked at the others. Three human nods. An eloquent shrug from a bear. A snarl from Sand Shadow.
“Go. Don’t make us regret this second chance at mercy. Next time you will die. I ask you to remember that cats toy with their prey.”
Julyan could hardly believe her words. “May I get my gear?”
“Yours,” Adara said. “Not a bit more.”
Pollux spoke. “The Seamus in me knows what was Julyan’s. Shall Castor and I escort him?”
“Do.”
Julyan turned and gave them each a deep reverence. “I sought to serve a power. I see I chose poorly.”
Adara answered. “We were not a power—then.”
* * *
“My brothers will be coming around soon,” Griffin said when Julyan was out of hearing. “Adara, you said you had a plan.”
“I want Ring here,” the huntress replied. “Sand Shadow has gone to see if he will join us or if we must go to him.”
A short time later, Sand Shadow escorted in Ring and Kipper. Ring appeared much more composed. Griffin wondered if this meant that probabilities were stabilizing or simply that Ring had grabbed a nap. He realized that he should be feeling more tired himself, but the thrill of having his mind clear again buoyed him up as if he’d had a large cup of Falkner’s favorite blue drink.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Adara said. “Griffin, your family is large—seven sons and three daughters. However, with Castor and Pollux on our side, three of those sons are now here. Even better, your parents are certain to be curious about what has happened.”
Castor, the visor on his helmet open but otherwise still armored, returned at that moment. “Yes. They’re going to wonder if I really held Pollux in my head or if I’ve finally cracked all the way.”
“They’re also going to need to deal with Alexander,” Griffin said. “I don’t know what made him hate me so much, but I agree with the twins—he’s insane.”
“Griffin told us about the war that followed the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines here on Artemis,” Bruin said. “Do you think that having you three on Artemis will keep your parents from having the planet destroyed?”
Griffin laughed. “I’d like to think so. However, when Falkner gets back and starts babbling about the spaveks and Leto’s complex and all the rest—that will surely stop them. We’re not safe, but they’re not going to want to destroy a treasure trove.”
Terrell said darkly, “At least not unless they can’t lay hands on it or one of their rivals get wind that Artemis really exists. Then…”
“That will take time,” Adara said firmly. “Griffin, we have agreed we should not kill your brothers. Do we keep them as hostages or set them free?”
“I’m not being sentimental,” Griffin said, “but I’d set them free. If we try to keep them as hostages, we also need to deal with the danger they represent. Even if we take every bit of their equipment—which represents a problem in and of itself—they are dangerous. I think we might win Falkner over in time, but the others? I can’t guess…”
“Ring?” Adara looked at him. “You’ve heard what we’ve said. Can you offer guidance?”
“In every direction is storm and danger,” Ring replied. “Nothing is clear or bright. But if we let them go, there is a little bit of light.”
“That’s clear enough,” Terrell said. He frowned. “Ring, you can be pretty hard on your friends when that’s what it takes to reach what you see as the best end. What purpose do you serve?”
“I serve Artemis, for without her there is not even hope.”
* * *
They arranged for Gaius to pick up Siegfried, Alexander, and Falkner from a landing platform atop the mountain that held Leto’s complex. The internal corridors had been filled with rubble but, using the scooters, they were able to get the prisoners to the top. After some consideration, they had decided to keep the scooters and other equipment—including the shuttle in which the Danes had arrived and which now remained beneath Mender’s Isle.
“Their gear may have tracking beacons in it,” Griffin said, “but it’s not as if we’re going to be all that hard to find—even though we’ve taken the tracers out of me and Castor—since we need to stay near Leto’s complex. We’ll disable what tracers we can, but I think having the gear outweighs the inconvenience. We’ll also make sure no one…”
The Old One’s name remained unspoken.
“… can get into or use the shuttle.”
Reluctantly, Griffin had decided to surrender the Howard Carter and all the ship contained. “I couldn’t trust it not to blow on me. In any case, I’m not going anywhere, not for a long while.”
Gaius was told to remain inside the shuttle, so Adara caught only a glimpse of the dark-skinned, white-haired man who sat stiffly behind the controls of a craft not unlike the one Griffin had crashed. The three prisoners climbed aboard, then the door slammed behind them. Nearly soundlessly, the craft rose, became a blackness against the stars, then vanished.
Sand Shadow, who had waited outside of Leto’s zone, sent Artemis’s confirmation that the shuttle had continued rising. Presumably, the brothers Dane had kept their word and departed the planet.
The rendezvous with Gaius had been arranged for the darkest part of the night. Even so, it was likely the residents of Crystalaire would have some new stories to tell about odd happenings near Maiden’s Tear. That didn’t matter. Although the loremasters didn’t know it yet, the rules governing Artemis had changed, changed perhaps more drastically than they had even after the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines.
* * *
After the shuttle departed, their group returned to Leto’s valley. The air smelled of green stuff and vibrated with cricket song.
“I refuse,” Terrell said, staring at Griffin, “to sleep one more night in that windowless hole. I’ll work with you during the day, but I sleep out here.”
Griffin forced a laugh. “I bet you’ll change your mind next time it rains.”
“What are you wagering?”
Bruin cut in before the disagreement could become serious. “Kipper has some suggestions for where we could place a camp closer to our door into Leto’s complex and still be relatively hidden. Let’s choose the best of both worlds.”
Ring grunted, and the wordless sound gave Bruin’s statement a note of prophesy.
Castor, no longer wearing the green spavek, but hovering near his new Pollux, said, “That seems like a good idea. We don’t know if there may be other doors into Leto. Even she may not know. It’s best we keep close enough to respond if she sends an alarm.”
That sobered them. Adara knew they’d all been feeling safer since Sand Shadow had relayed that the Dane brothers were indeed gone.
“Right,” Terrell said. “Still, I’d rather sleep outside tonight. I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s going to lock a door on me as soon as I let down my guard.”
Griffin gave a lopsided grin. “I know how you feel. Fine. Outside it is.”
“The weather will be fair tonight,” Adara said. “Kipper and I will go get the camping gear. Sand Shadow and Honeychild can help us carry it. The rest of you clear a space and start something for dinner.”
Kipper radiated hero worship as he led Adara to where he’d cached their gear. “Do you think we’ll stay here long?”
“Some of us will,” Adara said. “Leto’s complex can’t be left alone. That’s going to mean a bunch of changes. Still, that’s a hunt we can wait to plan for a few days at least.”
“Nothing’s going to be the same, is it?” the boy asked.
“No, it won’t,” Adara agreed, “but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
After helping set up a new camp and joining the rest for a dinner built around colored cubes, tea, and scavenged berries, Adara grabbed a few things and began to move into the night.
“Where are you going, ladybug?” Bruin asked.
“Outside Leto’s zone,” Adara replied. “Sand Shadow and I are going to keep her company. Artemis may be a world, but she does get lonely.”
The night was lovely, dark, and deep … Adara stretched out her claws toward whatever lurked beyond the sky in a mute promise to defend what was hers. Then, pillowing her head against Sand Shadow’s flank, she drifted off to sleep.
Interlude: Spreading Wings
Caterpillar spins a silk cocoon
Dreams of wings to reach the moon
With wings yet damp, splits the thread
Hangs feet up, down at head
Unable to creep or walk or fly
Joy and wonder yet multiply