Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps

"Valerena tried Lupo Provik before she left."

"Again? The woman shows no imagination."

"I'm not sure she's witless. And the boy is no moron. He knew the effort was pointless and understood why."

"Where have you been?"

"Tregesser Prime. There were implications to Valerena's behavior that intrigued me. She deserved a closer inspection."

Tregesser Prime. In the Canon catalog it was designated P. Benetonica 3. The Tregessers rejected that name, and as much else of Canon as they could.

"And?"

"As I said, this Valerena may be dangerous."

"Get to it, Noah."

"She has several Others in development. She has a Banat-Marath team installed in her castle. Her security is tighter than usual."

"Interesting. Why a crew of Others? Why not have Lupo produce them?"

"I also caught a hint that she may have obtained the control cues for the Simon Tregesser Other."

Tregesser might have been drilled by one of his own lightning bolts. His speaker crackled for half a minute before he managed, "Indeed?"

"How she could have managed that escapes me, Lord. It seems unlikely. Yet my snooping—nobody pays attention to an artifact—convinced me something is going on. I've put together a scenario. It contradicts none of the known facts and ties the behavior of several individuals into a unified field."

Simon growled. Noah's manner could be frustrating. But neither threats nor rewards could change him. "Lay on, Noah. I don't think you can shock me more than you already have."

"Assume one of the earlier Valerenas enlisted one of the Directors. Plausible?"

"Probable. They're all vampires. They'd go for my throat in a second."

"Assume that Valerena made a mistake and you directed a changeover. Our hypothetical Director would not have to know about Provik's lab to realize he was dealing with a different Valerena. She wouldn't know things she should."

"Still plausible. This Director might tell her she was a replacement. That she was an Other. Hell. She must be terrified that we have a hold on her. We don't, do we?"

"No. You decided that was the lesser evil in the long run, where the welfare of the House was concerned. You directed Provik to produce replacements without controls. If he put them in, someone might learn about them."

"So there's a chance we've been dealing with the same Valerena through what we thought were several changeovers while she's been having Banat-Marath make Others she can sacrifice."

"Exactly, Lord."

"It hangs together, Noah. But what has she been doing with the replacements?"

"I wouldn't care to speculate."

"You wouldn't? Maybe I shouldn't, either. I might not want to know." Tregesser pondered a moment. "This doesn't upset me as much as you might think, Noah. It tells me my offspring isn't as stupid as I'd feared. But it's still a step from explaining the central mystery."

"Mystery, Lord? What mystery?"

"The sense of what she's doing. Her motivation. What is it? I'm clinging to life with broken fingernails."

"If you'd send to House Troqwai..."

"I won't have it. They're jackals." Not true. He did not want to die. He would have been happy with a platoon of Troqwai's phantoms hovering. But not here. "A little patience and the whole thing will drop into her lap. So why risk everything, repeatedly, trying to rush it? That isn't rational."

"That's easy." From where Noah stood it was easy to see. "She hates you. She has only one way of expressing that hatred. Take everything you have: life, property, and power."

Again Tregesser might have been struck by his own lightning. "But she's my daughter!"

"Emotion played no part when you removed your father? That was unadulterated concern for the House?"

Tregesser snapped the lie. "Of course! I know what it is. She wants to steal my victory. She wants to be remembered for breaking the Guardships."

"You really think so, Lord?"

"I know so, Noah. Get out of here!"

"As you will. But why would she want to take that, too?"

Lightnings crisped the air around Noah. He banked, sideslipped, even looped. Those lightnings were thrown in earnest.

— 19 —

Valerena lay on a couch in an open-air pavilion atop a small mountain on the Isle of Ise in Tregesser Prime's tropics. The structure was a replica of another of pre-Canon times, according to a memorial plaque. She did not care. For her history began with the conception of Valerena Tregesser.

Nobody cared about the Go Wars anymore, anyway. They would be forgotten if the Guardships were not still around.

Blessed settled into a canvas chair. "The artifact should have reached your father by now." He raised a tube to his eyes, turned a portion of the barrel.

"Must you play with that thing all the time?"

He pointed the tube at her, ran the tip of a finger across a heat sensitive surface. A symbol appeared inside. This one was Valerena Prime. "They say the pattern is never the same twice. I'm checking."

"Have you found a duplication?"

"Not yet. Mathematically, I have to."

He had begun the project a year ago and had identified nine Valerena Tregessers so far.

"Put it away. You do it just to irritate me."

"Will your father do what you want?"

"Of course. He'll rage for a while. Then he'll brood. Then he'll rage again. Then he'll call Lupo Provik."

"You surprised me, Mother. Not in a thousand years would I have believed there was a way to reach him without going through Lupo. How did you find out?"

Valerena concealed a smirk behind a hand. "Each time he summons me he demands a woman. Always younger and more vulnerable. Just to show me how disgusting he can get. One of those women got through alive. She told me all he did was give her to the artifact. And the artifact, unlike Lupo, has wants and needs that Father doesn't fulfill. He had a pleasant stay on Tregesser Prime. All the women he could handle."

Blessed spied a speck moving swiftly above the burgundy sea. He fiddled with his kaleidoscope till his mother scolded him, put it down. "And you're sure Lupo will do what you want?"

"He'll try to steal a march. Set a trap. That's Lupo." A jewel on Valerena's bracelet flashed. "Who is that?" she demanded.

Blessed did not hear the reply. But he knew the meaning of the flash.

"You'll have to play on the beach, beloved son. I have company."

"Your friends from the Directorate?"

Valerena did not respond except to point.

Blessed held his breath till he was out of sight.

The screen was small and the image flat, but Blessed and his friends Cable, Nyo, and Tina had a good view of the visitors. One was no surprise. Myth Worgemuth was an old schemer who dated back to the days of Simon Tregesser's grandfather. But Linas Maserang had prospered during Simon's reign. What did he stand to gain?

Valerena, presumably. The fool.

His mother shed the slutty role she played for him. "Sit. Get comfortable," she said.

"Your message sounded portentous," Worgemuth replied.

"I've found a way to lure Simon out of his fortress, away from Provik." She gave the men an edited story, maybe eighty percent truth.

"Good," Blessed whispered, and slapped hands with his companions.

"Blessed!" Cable Shike hissed.

Worgemuth had noticed the kaleidoscope. "What's this?" The view wheeled.

"A kaleidoscope. My son's. He must have forgotten it when I chased him out."

Tina snickered.

A huge eye squinted at Blessed. "Haven't seen one of these since I was a kid."

Sound transmission ceased. When Worgemuth put the toy down it sent a picture of the frescoes on the pavilion's ceiling.

Blessed was satisfied. He knew the identities of his mother's Directorate allies.

"I wonder what Lupo will really do?" he mused.