Shadow Over Avalon (43 page)

“Lower my guard that far? How do I know this isn’t an elaborate interrogation attempt for the Archive? Suspicion is a two way street.” He faced the screen again, watching her reflection register irritation to be replaced by one of resolve.

“Truth, then. You are the youthful image of your father. It will help you to accept if you see this for yourself. He was taller, but I’m told he came late to full growth, and he had exactly the same hair as you, only longer. His eyes were an unusual blue, sometimes like blocks of ice, and at others, as clear as the sky above the surface, and they crinkled at the corners when he laughed. He had a scar on his jaw, a faint white line.” Shadow unconsciously traced the mark on her own face.

Arthur tried to recall any Submariners with a matching description. From the way she talked, it was someone to whom he had access and was expected to recognize . . . but the tone she used seemed out of place.

“You used past tense, Shadow. Is he dead?”

“In a sense he is, to me. I speak from memory as I haven’t seen him for many years. I believe your nose is straighter now that I think about it,” she mused, looking off into a distance of her own making.

“Would I have met him? I can’t recall it, if so.” Arthur stared at his reflection from several different angles.

“Seen him, from what I’ve heard. Still at a loss, Boy? Try stretching my Terran skin over your Submariner scales.”

Arthur imagined the change. His heart pounded. She meant his father wasn’t Submariner. Brethren visited for specialist healing, but none of them had come to Sanctuary except her at the time of his conception. If it wasn’t in Avalon then . . . shock sent a cold sweat to glisten on his face. A face he now recognized from direct sensory playback. Dragon looked back at him. Very slowly, he swung his chair to face Shadow, his eyes accusing.

Shadow stepped back another pace, “You have my eyes, not his.”

Arthur stared at her, incredulous. His mother.

“Now you know.” She sheathed her knife and clasped her hands together behind her back, looking out into the atrium at a fountain. “Only Copper knew who sired you. Others may guess, but they don’t know for sure, as I never said. Even he . . . I’m sorry, for what it’s worth, on both counts. I wasn’t allowed a choice.”

“You gave me one, and much more. Did you give any thought to the thing you created?” Piece by piece, the puzzle completed itself. All the hints, all the restrictions now had meaning. When he heard she was to bring her son to Avalon on her next visit, he’d thought . . . an image of Copper standing by Ector’s house flashed into his mind. Not a hallucination, not Copper – Copper’s son.

“Would you rather I’d let the seers make you their creature?” Her face paled, and her mouth trembled. She turned her back to him. “I tried to find you. How could I guess you would take Submariner traits from a maternal grandfather?”

She had a point. Arthur had slipped up on the same incorrect assumption himself. Part of him still fought the idea that this slim, young-looking woman was his mother, although he was aware she carried the longevity gene from the trouble it caused with Brethren factions. He needed time to think.

“Why are you risking your life here?” He needed a safer subject. She made him feel uncomfortable after the thoughts she had taken from his mind. “I heard Rowan and Saffron are still both scrambling for leadership Why not take it yourself?”

She shrugged, and then looked out on the fountain again. “I could have done so if Copper had been killed in the first years. Brethren watched us, not trusting me when it was known what I was. When he aged and I didn’t . . . well they didn’t like the idea of having me around for decades in a position of power. Now I can only advise. Kai might pick up the pieces eventually. My son moves with caution as yet.”

“He came here,” Arthur cynically observed, noting his own exclusion, since she spoke of Kai as a singleton. “His choice. Copper’s gift lives on in him, and he knew we needed his talent for any chance of survival.” She glanced back at him, and then away with her mouth in a thin line.

That hit him hard in the chest. He imagined how the shock of seeing his face, Dragon’s face, had affected her. The curses rang in his ears from his last waking moment in front of Ector’s house. Far from being an emotionless mercenary, she possessed feelings running deeper than many others.

Tearing his gaze away from her, Arthur looked at his own image. Truth sat like a rock in his guts. As much as he had wanted to know his origins, he now wished for the return of innocence. Why couldn’t he have taken his looks from the grandfather whose hide he wore? Why hadn’t he seen himself in Dragon? How could he have been so blind? He wore the face of the man who’d sworn to kill her.

Arthur wondered what thoughts raged through Shadow’s mind at this meeting. If only she could have found him as an infant, before his face formed into adult lines. Her pain showed clearly in her eyes after days of knowing he belonged to her. How she must hate him.

“Boy, names don’t register on consciousness in mind link.” Shadow’s voice cut through his misery like a stone dropped into still water. “The others wouldn’t talk of you around me when we brought you inside. Say your name. I never knew it.”

Her reflection grew larger in the console screen as she neared him.

“Arthur. I am called Arthur.” Somehow he managed to speak in a voice resembling his own. He had the small satisfaction of not a single waver in his words.

“I like that. It is a blending of my lost name and your father’s.” Shadow’s hand touched his shoulder. “Arthur, I can see that this is a shock to you. How are you feeling?”

“Sick.” He spat the word out.

“Ector wanted to ship you out because he feared you had come for me. He and Ambrose consider you too dangerous to be amongst us. I don’t agree. When I reversed the damage done to you, I sensed fear and a desperate desire to belong. Will you tell me why you reviewed my life?”

“I had dreams of places I had never seen, and I thought I might learn enough from you to live on the surface. I didn’t intend to become a seer.” Arthur took a deep breath to get control before he continued. “No one else came close to my psi-level but you. I had to know if you shared the dreams, and then I thought you might know of my parents, so they could claim guardianship until I reached adulthood.”

“You almost paid for your quest with your life. Do you still feel a need for sensory playback?”

“No. Not ever.” Shadow’s grip on his shoulder closed to cause pain. He welcomed it. He needed another focus.

“And how do you feel about the Archive?”

Rage began to build. Anger upon anger until his body shook with it. The Archive knew his origins, and it had played him like a fish caught on a hook. He wanted to smash his fist into something, anything.

“Easy, boy.” Shadow’s arms came around him in a quick hug. “It has taken us all for fools. Are you interested in payback?”

Arthur found himself beyond speech. He could only nod.

“Hold onto that thought. Use the anger. You are a fighter, like your father.”

Emotions raged through him, leaving him as limp as seaweed. He swiveled his chair to face her, breaking their contact. She opened her arms to him, and he let her hug him, needing to fill a void in his soul.

“Everything is all right now,” Shadow told him as she held him close. “We can make this work together.”

Arthur heard the comfort in her words as much as her gestures. He found courage to face whatever future she planned. Shamed by his lapse, he released her, not meeting her eyes. He wasn’t sure how to act around a parent he’d just found.

“Do you want to ship out after Morgan, or do you want to join me in the battle zone?”

“Ector shipped Morgan out?” He worried at the scab on his hand where the tube had entered his flesh. “Why? Surely no one threatens the child, irrespective of what Ector does.”

“She is as much at risk as you were, for similar reasons,” Shadow said, turning away from him.

So, he’d hit a sore point had he? She’d dropped her defense. What did she mean by similar reasons? “Morgan is rated head blind.”

“Many exceptionally gifted are, until puberty. If seers get their hands on her, they will find she has unlimited capacity to block intrusion.”

“Assuming they are interested enough to investigate.”

“Arthur, we must accept one of us will succumb if we are captured. They have always speculated, but knowing her parentage will cause them great anxiety.”

“Why? Everyone thinks—”

“She’s my child with Ector.” She sighed and then faced him defiantly. “I would have kept her with me if she didn’t look so much like him. As it was, we agreed Ector should raise her. You didn’t get very far with your retrieval did you?”

“Does the Archive know?” he asked, thinking of Morgan.

“Undoubtedly it does, if you spoke the truth about comm-links.”

“Every word. Our one chance of escape lies in surprise. The Archive will assume I went to Ector for help, even if it didn’t pick Ambrose’s mind clean before you captured him. I guess our prison was shielded from seer mind sweeps?”

“Yes and the house has a security alert system. We’d know if any attempted a probe. You’re taking our exposure very calmly, Boy.”

“My name is Arthur, and I’ll deal with the future when I’m certain I have one.” He thought for a moment. “We will be expected to leave Avalon any time now. Continuing with your quest is unwise in the circumstances, so that is what we will do. When did you plan to start?”

“As soon as Tarvi signals Morgan is safe. We should hear in two days.”

“Then we act now.”

“We?”

“You’re going to need a shield.” He squared his shoulders, comfortable with the thought that he could die fighting. “The Archive searches for me. It will be diverted if it thinks I am within grasp. If it breaks through the images I will create, then I shall be where I can warn you and help block it.”

“Perhaps.” The hardness flitted across Shadow’s face again. “We will see what your brother decides.”

Shadow’s huddled group of dissidents argued in low tones from the other side of the central atrium in Ector’s house. Behind a short screen of potted plants, one or another occasionally glanced over in Arthur’s direction, as if to make a point. He’d expected there to be more of them, although dividing forces into small groups made sense. Copper’s lookalike son and Ector he’d anticipated, but Ambrose – an intentional inclusion or a last minute addition? He guessed the latter, as Brethren group tactics tended to crescent formations as fighting units. Tarvi must have formed a third of another unit, now safe on the surface.

Voices rose for a few moments, and then the auburn-haired lad he’d first taken for Copper detached himself from the rest. He headed over to Arthur looking more amused than angry.

“Verdict reached?” Arthur straightened.

“Stalemate, brother mine.”

A thrill ran through Arthur at those words. This one had the right to claim such kinship, but that he did . . . at this time? Was Kai on his side?

“You’ve decided?”

“That I want you along, whether we go ahead as planned, or make a break for freedom? The odds are increased to a marked degree in our favor with your inclusion.” The young man grinned in a friendly, half tentative fashion. “I’m Kai—did Mother tell you I have the fey gift?”

“She spoke of you. Who’s against?”

“Ector and Ambrose for different reasons. Ector wants you safe on the surface, while Ambrose is afraid, though he’ll not admit it. We are going after an access code for the Archive, one that will open sealed files. Ambrose thinks having you along with us will make the Archive look in our direction.”

“And you?”

“A psi with seer or near-seer standing is a useful, but not essential addition. An Elite cadet of recent enrolment isn’t a warrior, which leaves your claim of an ability to divert the Archive. My fey instinct for our survival odds intensifies near you. I cast my vote for continuing with the quest, if you join us.”

“Shadow?”

“She needs to believe in you, because the alternative is unacceptable.” Kai looked down at his hands. “My father told me about your existence—not my mother. He feared she would lose touch with reality if she ever found you. Ector is also very wary. She’s hurting, has been hurting ever since you reappeared. If you let her down, I’ll personally dismember you, very slowly.”

“Kai, I didn’t know, not about her, when I needed help. The one sense of family I’ve ever felt has come from Ector.”

“You came here for him?”

Arthur nodded. “I got caught in a trap I should have seen. Ector and I were working together on one another’s projects, so I hoped he’d help when I got sick. I was trying to find out if all life died on the surface, and he was looking into why the Archive wouldn’t give Shadow or me access to information about the Terran slaves she found. I guess those codes are the ones you’re after.” He stood up to stretch and regretted his action when three pairs of eyes gazed at him from across the room. Settling down, he tried to ignore them.

Kai frowned, leaning forward. “Someone is leaking information to the Nestines. That or the creatures have found a way to help themselves. We found other systems like the Archive in the ruins of ancient cities on the surface. Those ones weren’t working, but we did find plans for a skyship and a map of a city on the moon. What if they have an Archive system and it links with ours? What if those codes are the key to stopping the raids? What if we can’t trust the Archive?”