Chapter Seventeen

Arta stepped into the dining hall, dim morning light shining through the windows, to find that her foster-father and sister were both already seated at their customary spots. The Baron merely looked calmly pleased, while Karani was idly toying with a pastry on her plate without eating it. When she looked up and saw Arta, she smiled broadly. "Finally!" she said. "Father's got something he wants to tell us, and he wasn't going to say it until you got here, sleepyhead. I'm dying of anticipation!"

"Well, I'm glad to relieve you," Arta said, smiling, as she seated herself across from her sister while a serving mech glided over with her plate. She didn't mention that she'd barely gotten any sleep last night, her dreams filled with half-remembered snatches of fire, threatening figures in masks, and a black-clad woman who had become a fixture of her nightmares lately, even though she was certain she'd never met anyone like her in the waking world. When she'd finally gotten herself to sleep, she'd been determined to stay that way as long as possible. But while there were things one could share with Karani, admitting to being troubled over nothing worse than bad dreams would be an opening for more teasing than Arta cared to deal with.

"I," the Baron said after a long moment of regarding his foster-daughter carefully, "have just received word from the Duke ast Tantos. It seems that a combined force of Tantos, Sakran, and Orlanes troops under the command of the regent himself tracked the pirate gang who have been giving us all so much grief to their lair and delivered them a devastating defeat. Duke Hiram believes that the pirate threat may be finished for good, or at least weakened so greatly as to not present a serious problem again."

"Yes!" Karani said, pumping her fist in the air; Arta smiled at the sight, as her foster-sister had confessed just yesterday that she was sick of hearing about the pirates and was liable to throw something if she heard one more word about them. Arta herself, however, was less excited; she had a feeling this wasn't the end of Father's news.

"Duke Hiram shares your excitement, Karani," the Baron said, chuckling softly. "Which is why he's invited all of his liege nobles to Tantos to celebrate 'the downfall of the pirate scourge and a return to normalcy.' That, obviously, includes me, and, since I think you're both old enough now, I've decided I'm bringing you along. I didn't think you'd mind."

"Mind?" Karani echoed in disbelief. "Of course, I don't mind!" She turned to her sister. "Did you hear that, Arta? We're going to a party! On Tantos!"

"Sounds like fun," Arta said flatly. In truth, being stuck in a room full of obnoxious people who only cared about impressing each other was about as unpleasant an evening as she could imagine, but seeing the excitement in Karani's eyes, she couldn't bring herself to say that out loud.

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport," Karani said, then turned back to their father. "When are we leaving?"

"It takes some time to get to Tantos from Katanes, so we'll be leaving this afternoon. We'll be gone for several days, so you might want to start packing."

"Packing?" a panicked look crossed Karani's face as she suddenly realized she only had a few hours to get her things together; she bolted up from the table, grabbed Arta's arm, and hurried her off out the dining hall; Arta barely had time to grab one of her pastries from her plate as she was dragged away.

In the corridor outside, Arta managed to get herself free of Karani's grip and eat her pastry as her sister paced back and forth beside her, muttering about her dresses and wondering if she needed to take her practice sword, too. "I don't think anyone's going to be challenging you to any duels," Arta said, laughing, as she finished her breakfast. "Even if you take the sword, I wouldn't recommend wearing it to the party."

"You don't know that," Karani said defensively. "Besides, I saw a holo of Lady Kallistrae on the news a while ago, and she wears a sword with her dresses."

"Lady Kallistrae is a knight," Arta said. "You're a teenager. I don't think 'deadly weapon' and 'formal attire' go together at our point in life."

"Details, details," Karani said airily, waving a hand in the air. "Now, come on. We don't want to be late, do we?"

/

Several hours later, Arta and Karani rode the lift down to the hangar under the palace, followed by the servant mechs who carried their bags. The doors whirred open in front of them and they stepped out into the long, open chamber whose sides were lined mostly with the family's various flitters but also a handful of genuine starships – including, near the far end, the Twilight Dagger, a sleek silver craft beside which their father waited. The Baron didn't notice their approach at first, as he was deep in conversation with another person; when he turned away to greet his daughters, Arta saw that it was Shiran.

"Wait," Karani said, "is he coming too? I'm seventeen, not seven – I don't need a chaperone."

The Baron merely snorted quietly at that – apparently, their father's opinion of the amount of mischief Karani was capable of even with a chaperone was on roughly the same level as Arta's own feelings on the matter – but he shook his head. "The Professor has some business he'd like to take care of on Tantos," he said, "and I offered to give him a ride. He's not here to watch anyone."

Karani looked over at Arta and grinned, then turned to Shiran. "What sort of business do you have, anyway?" she asked.

Arta winced, but Shiran smiled calmly. "Personal," he said, his tone making it clear it was all he intended to say on the subject.

"Well, best get on board, then," the Baron said. "We don't want to keep His Grace Duke Hiram waiting. And I'm sure you're both excited to be off." Noting Karani's enthusiastic nod, and Arta's somewhat less enthusiastic one, he turned and walked up the ramp onto the ship, his daughters and the Professor trailing behind. Inside the craft's main body, Arta seated herself by a window and strapped in, while her serving mech stowed her luggage; Karani took the seat behind her. The Baron conferred with the pilot up front for a few moments, then joined them.

Moments later, the Dagger was in motion; staring out the window, Arta watched as it shot out of the hangar, and then as the familiar landscape of Katanes shrank away beneath them. After a few minutes, they were out of the atmosphere and into orbit – and then, with a shudder that seemed to fill the entire vessel and rattled Arta to her bones, the ship jumped, leaving the planet far behind.

/

Arta snapped awake suddenly, heart racing as she sat up in her seat aboard the Twilight Dagger and gasped for breath. The cabin's interior was dark and still, the windows closed during the jump, and she was the only one who was awake. Karani lay sprawled in her seat nearby, while the Baron was snoring quietly up front. Arta looked around the cabin and sighed, breathing deeply and using some of the techniques Shiran had taught her to calm her nerves; slowly, she felt her composure return.

The dreams again, she was certain, only this time she couldn't remember much at all, save for a feeling of some terrible danger that she was rushing towards with no hope of avoidance or escape. Was she really that nervous about Duke Hiram's stupid party? She didn't think that was it, somehow, but still, she couldn't place her finger on what was troubling her.

In any case, though a quick check of the Dagger's flight path on the screen built into her seat's armrest showed that they were still hours out from Tantos, Arta was certain she wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep any time soon. Sighing, she stood and turned to walk back to the cabin's rear where the lavatory was located, only to run almost directly into someone blocking her way. Arta gave a startled gasp; it seemed she wasn't the only one awake after all.

Shiran looked down at her and smiled. "Trouble sleeping?" he asked.

"Yes," Arta confessed, her heart hammering in shock once again. "Bad dreams," she admitted, expecting that the Professor would think she was childish for letting something that inconsequential get to her. Instead, he merely frowned thoughtfully.

"Walk with me," Shiran said, turning back towards the rear of the cabin and gesturing for Arta to follow. She did so, and they passed the lavatory and entered a second, smaller cabin dominated by a small round table with several chairs around it; Shiran seated himself in one, and Arta took another that was across from him.

"How long has this been bothering you?" he asked simply once they were both situated.

Arta shrugged. "A few days," she said. "I can't remember much; snatches of images, feelings. Anxiety, dread, and… inevitability, I guess. A feeling that something is coming, something bad, and there's nothing I – or you, or Father, or anyone – can do to stop it."

Shiran sighed. "I had a feeling something like this might start happening," he said; when he didn't elaborate further, Arta frowned.

"What do you mean?" she asked, and then, suddenly, she remembered something he'd mentioned once, and the pieces seemed to fall into place. "This is about my being an Adept, isn't it? You said that there were stories of Adepts dreaming the future. You also said that those stories weren't generally considered true," she added, rather accusatorily.

"Most Adepts can't see the future clearly," Shiran said. "There are legends, of course, but generally speaking, Adepts only experience what you described. Brief images, powerful feelings. Any or all of which are as likely to be metaphors as facts, and completely unreliable in any case. The future is shaped by countless interrelated actions, Arta – from human actions to natural forces, and trying to predict where that will lead can be very difficult. More than one Adept has been troubled for years by visions that never end up coming to pass. In short, the ability is unreliable, often unpleasant, and I've never put much stock in it. If you want to predict the future, a keen eye and a clever mind will serve you better than an Adept's gifts."

"Now you tell me," Arta muttered as she digested this information. "So, you don't think that this has anything to do with us going to Tantos? That's what I was worried about, that we were walking into some kind of catastrophe."

Shiran was silent for a long moment before he answered. "It's possible," he said slowly, "but I doubt it. As I said, these dreams and visions are unreliable, and if they do come true, they usually foretell something further in the future than a few days. And it's entirely possible the dreams have nothing to do with your future at all. The cosmos, it so happens, is remarkably unconcerned with the small matters that occupy individual human lives. Just because you've touched some deeper level of awareness doesn't mean that you've found information that's actually relevant to you."

"I'm not sure whether to be relieved or offended by that," Arta said. "But is it at least possible to block these things out so that I can get some sleep? If I meet Duke Hiram with dark circles under my eyes and yawning every few minutes, Karani isn't going to let me hear the end of it. Ever."

Shiran smiled. "There are certain meditative techniques I've found useful. I can teach you some basic exercises, if you like. They should help some."

Arta breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Professor," she said. Then she paused, regarding his face for a long, silent moment before she asked the question that had been hovering in the back of her mind for the entire conversation. "Have you ever dreamed the future? Or have you just read about it?"

Shiran went still, and Arta could almost see the conflict behind his eyes – then, in a flash, it was gone, and he merely sighed deeply. "Once," he said, "when I was, oh, about the age you are now, I had a vision. I saw two great beasts – creatures from my home world, you wouldn't have heard of them – doing battle, and in the end, one devoured the other and reigned supreme over all it saw. The experience was so powerful that when I woke, I couldn't drive it from my thoughts, no matter how hard I tried. I told the dream to my good friend, and he believed it spoke to him of his destiny. From that belief came many terrible things that followed; one of my greatest regrets is that I didn't stay silent. If you want to know why I don't put much stock in dreams and visions, that's why. Knowledge of the future is a poor guide for actions; life and experience are better. Remember that, Arta."

Arta nodded silently and watched Shiran's face, but he didn't say more. Still, she had a feeling that there was more in his words than he'd let and, and wondered what, exactly, had happened because of his dream.

She had a feeling that if she asked, she wouldn't get an answer.

/

The Twilight Dagger dropped out of jump above Tantos III, and Arta pressed her face against the window to get a look at it. She'd been to the planet before, but she'd been a small child then and had few memories of the visit; the Baron rarely left Katanes, and his daughters had been off planet only a handful of times. Arta had to admit, though, that as the capital of their duchy, Tantos left something to be desired, at least seen from orbit. The entire planet seemed to be shrouded in opaque grey clouds, the monotony broken only by clusters of gleaming lights that Arta could only assume were cities.

Beside her, Karani wrinkled her nose. "That's Tantos?" she asked. "Sorry, but I don't remember it being so… foggy."

"The last time I brought you here, we mostly stayed in the Duke's palace; the air inside is adjusted," the Baron said. "But Tantos's atmosphere is thick, and it makes it look like everything is wrapped in fog. I'm not sure what's in it, exactly, but it's breathable by humans – not very pleasant, maybe, but I've never heard of anyone getting sick from it."

"It's still so dreary," Karani protested. "Why would anyone want to live here?"

From his seat, Shiran chuckled. "Don't underestimate what people will do to get rich, Karani. Tantos III has some of the richest deposits of ore and minerals in the Kingdom. And in a feudal system, if you want to control something…"

"You put your fiefdom on it," Arta finished. "You'd know that, Karani, if you paid attention to history and politics."

Karani only shot her sister a withering look, as if to say that her opinion on those topics did not need to be restated.

The Dagger dropped low over the planet, angling for one of the clusters of lights; as it dropped into the atmosphere, Arta saw that the fog wasn't as thick and unreadable up close as it seemed from orbit. She could make out the forms of other ships passing by and even geographical features on the surface, but everything seemed dim and washed out, and fuzzy around the edges. It gave the whole planet an otherworldly feel, and Arta found herself shivering. Karani was right; this place was dreary, and Arta couldn't imagine living here, riches to mine or not.

At last the ship brought them over the spires of a large city, its towers gleaming with countless lights that served to illuminate the constant fog but couldn't truly push it back. One tower in particular grew taller in their vision as they swooped in close to it, and a pair of great doors high on one of its faces slid open. The Dagger flew inside and fount itself in a lavishly appointed hangar, where it set down beside ships of similar design that were most likely the property of the other barons of the Tantos Duchy. As the ship settled into place, Arta saw her father nod once then stand, gesturing for his daughters to do the same.

The Dagger's ramp hissed open and Arta and Karani followed the Baron out into the hangar, only to find a small welcoming committee waiting for them. In the lead was a short, rotund man in flamboyant clothing who Arta knew was the Duke himself, accompanied by several of his knights, including a tall, elegant woman she recognized as Kallistrae, head of Tantos Duchy's military forces.

When the Baron reached the bottom of the ramp, he gestured to his daughters and bowed at the waist; behind him, Arta and Karani curtsied. The Duke, however, simply strode forward and took their father's hand. "Varas, old friend!" he said in a jovial voice. "So glad you could come, so glad. These are your daughters, I take it?"

"Yes, your grace," the Baron said. "The older is Karani; the younger is Arta. I'm very proud of both of them."

"Of course, you are!" Duke Hiram said. "What kind of father would you be if you weren't?" He marched over to stand in front of Karani, looking her up and down. The top of his head barely came to her chin. "Lord! Last time I saw you, you were what, three, four? Now you're taller than I am. What are they feeding you on Katanes, anyway? But I expect you'll be a fine Baroness someday!" Karani beamed as the Duke turned his attention to Arta.

She found herself feeling extremely uncomfortable as Hiram eyed her – there was nothing threatening about the man that she could tell, but still, she didn't meet her father's immediate superior very often, and found herself extremely self-conscious and wishing she was better dressed. The Duke looked her up and down as he'd done to her foster-sister, but when his gaze reached her face, he froze suddenly, regarded her intently for a long moment, then shook his head. "Just my imagination," he muttered. "So, you must be the fosterling, eh? Tell me, if your sister's going to inherit the barony, what do you plan on doing with yourself?"

Arta froze at Hiram addressing her directly, then gulped and said, "I'd like to be a knight, sir. Your grace."

"Knight, eh?" Hiram asked. "Always can use more of those." He gestured at the woman who stood at the head of his guards. "My cousin Kallistrae here is the best in the system; talk to her, if you're serious about it." The Duke winked. "Whatever you hear on the holos, don't believe it. She doesn't bite. Usually." Kallistrae didn't speak but rolled her eyes at the comment.

"I'll, ah, keep that in mind," Arta said. "Sir. Your grace."

Hiram nodded at her, apparently, satisfied, then turned to face the ship with a frown. "Varas, you're holding out on me. You haven't introduced the fourth member of your party yet!"

Arta turned and saw the Professor standing at the base of the ramp, looking around the hangar benignly. "This is Shiran, your grace," the Baron said. "He's my advisor and has some private business to take care of on Tantos III, so I brought him along."

"Hmmm." Hiram regarded Shiran for a long moment, frowning. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

"Apparently I have one of those faces people just see everywhere, your grace," Shiran said. Hiram frowned for a moment longer but seemed satisfied at that. He walked back over to his guards, then turned to look at the Baron's party.

"Well, I'm sure you've all heard why we're here," the short Duke said. "The pirate scourge has been removed from our Kingdom at last, thanks to the heroic efforts of the regent and our own Kallistrae. Most everyone else is here, but I'm still waiting on two more of the barons. Get your things and have the mechs escort you to the guest rooms. We have a victory to celebrate, my friends, and I promise you all a night you'll never forget!"