Fires of Nuala by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Author:Katharine Eliska Kimbriel [Kimbriel, Katharine Eliska]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, future history, series, Book View Cafe, space adventure, con artists, lost colony, genetics, Fires of Nuala, science fiction, radiation, romance, janissaries, SciFi, guaard, new world, ebook, mystery, Atare Clan, political intrigue, cold sleep, scams, Nuala, SF
ISBN: 9780982844076
Publisher: Book View Cafe

Weak Link:

A hole in a line of defense where a

free-trader can exploit a situation.

Chapter Nine

STARRISE MOUNTAINS

NINETYTHREEDAY, LAUDS

Another sleepless night drove Sheel from his bedchamber. Crystle had left him long before, already accustomed to his nocturnal stirrings, so no one except Jude marked his silent padding down to the fire room. His dreams had been uneasy, full of feverish wanderings and disjointed fragments of conversations. The visual images had been vague and shadowed, or complete fabrication. One in particular haunted him: Dirk, tankard in hand, in a jovial mood, uttering words Sheel had never heard him speak: “Our primary loyalty is to the throne line of Atare, you know. A ruler is a passing thing, but Atare is forever.”

Mailan or Crow had said those words, trying to explain guaard loyalty to Darame. She did not understand. How could she? How could anyone not born here understand such a thing? A year on Emerson had shown him numerous governments in action; none of them had anything close to the Atare line and its guaard. Has anyone ever built half their rule on genetic cleanness?

Entering the fire room, Sheel was surprised to find Darame seated by the pit, tossing on a mixture of heat disks and fire crystal sticks. What was the time? Surely still well-centered in lauds. Much too early to start breakfast.

A smile pulled at his lips as he said aloud in Nualan: “Surely breakfast does not require such early rising.” After several pointed comments about the food, Darame had spent her first few days in the cavern delicately weaning old Harald from his cooking pot. The man’s wife had sent ample and varied stores, but her husband’s talents had little to do with meal preparation. Sheel suspected the old trader secretly had been happy to turn things over to the newcomer.

She looked up at the sound of his words, and Sheel stopped a good meter from the pit, startled by her appearance. The hollows under her eyes were black, accented by firelight. Exhaustion had pulled thin lines at her mouth and nose.

“You are sleeping worse than I am,” he said, shocked into bluntness.

Darame smiled wanly. “I seem to have a faulty thermostat. Either I am cold, or I sweat from the mound of blankets Mailan tosses over me.” Her answer was in careful, unaccented Nualan, but the sheer attempt always amazed him. Few people tried to speak Nualan, far fewer succeeded at it; its marked formality was foreign to any language used in the Seven Systems. He had learned that Darame could converse in so many tongues she could not list them all without thought.…

Sitting down on a low stool, Sheel noted she had moved the stove into the fire room and was heating some cherry apple cider in a pan. “Cold sensitivity can be caused by many things. Perhaps I can help.”

Sprinkling some cinnamon into the bubbling liquid, she smiled slowly. “I am not Nualan.” The planet’s name was usually the hardest thing for foreign mouths to form, but she did it handily.

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