Ahead of them the Krysarch slowed abruptly.
“Spooks!” he said. “Ivard, you’re a genius.” He studied the ceiling as he walked. Then he stopped and slid a painting aside, revealing a console.
Montrose put out a hand to stay Vi’ya. She avoided his touch, but stopped. The others bunched up near Brandon as he began tapping at the console. Greywing drew her brother down the hall as they whispered to each other. She touched his face, as if checking for fever, and he shrugged her off in the manner of the young for whom tenderness is a given.
There was a brief flicker of red light as the console identified the Krysarch.
Montrose said quietly, “You think his family is dead, then?”
“If it is Eusabian of Dol’jhar in possession here, it is the only possible outcome.”
“Then this one.” Montrose pointed at Brandon, who was still busy at the console.“Is the titular head of their government. What would that be worth in ransom—to either side?”
Vi’ya’s lips curved at the corners, then she said something under her breath. Montrose’s neck prickled when he recognized the harsh consonants of Dol’jharian, a language he’d heard her speak just once before.
She said, “First we must get off this planet. Then we will plan.”
o0o
Laughing inwardly at his own fears, Lokri stepped back when he saw the telltale flicker of a retinal scan on the Krysarch’s face. Brandon began to work at the console, his profile intent.
Without turning his head, Lokri observed Montrose and Vi’ya talking. He risked a glance, to find himself gazing straight into Vi’ya’s dark eyes: neutral speculation. Whatever they were talking about, then, was not him. He was conscious of disappointment, which amused him.
Brandon stabbed at the console, then grunted softly. “I’ve, ah, resurrected a little something to keep our Dol’jharian friends off balance.” He flashed a grin, genuine—and disarming. “We had one as a guest here once.”
The hostage?
Brandon motioned to Vi’ya and Montrose, and everyone gathered around.
“I reactivated a worm I built many years ago,” said Brandon. He smiled ruefully. “The house system seems to have kept a lot of my childhood toys waiting for me, but this is the only one that seems useful.” He shook his head, the rueful expression intensifying briefly. “Anyway, from now on you may see shadows on the walls or vague, quick movements from the corner of your vision. Don’t let it spook you. It’s designed to keep the Dol’jharians on edge and distracted.”
He turned to Vi’ya, and hesitated, but then his Douloi blandness smoothed his countenance. “We still have a ways to go before the old detention cells,” he said, and started down the hall at a swift pace.
The passageway came to an end at cross-corridor. Brandon paused, studying the Eya’a. Vi’ya leaned against a wall, her head cocked as if listening, as Montrose took up guard position.
Something scuttled across the floor at Lokri’s feet, then melted into the wall. He jumped, then snorted a laugh. A computer haunting. He couldn’t see any trace of the holojac he knew had to be there. Lokri glanced speculatively at the Krysarch’s back. A worm he’d managed to write into the Palace system—as a boy?
Vi’ya began moving, slowly at first, then with more assurance. They passed numerous doors. The faces of long-dead and forgotten men and women stared at them from faded paintings and holograms on the paneled walls.
At another junction Vi’ya paused. At first Lokri thought it was because of the cable running across the floor, threaded through a beveled cableway, something they’d not seen before. Her brow contracted with what in anyone else he’d call pain. She bowed her head as the Eya’a pressed close to her. Then she turned to the crew.
“They are sensing someone radiating very strongly nearby. Even I can feel it now.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Someone is in great pain. Resisting something, or withholding.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and finger, as if to relieve aching sinuses.
Then her eyes widened as the Eya’a emitted a faint chirp in unison. “A silver sphere. The mind in torment holds an image of the Heart of Kronos.”
“Who here would know about the Heart of Kronos?” the Krysarch murmured.
“The what?” Lokri asked, lounging against the wall.
Vi’ya ignored him, and Brandon gave him a distracted look. Had the Arkad been bringing some kind of arcane weapon to Markham? Lokri wished he’d tried a little harder to witness Vi’ya’s interview with the two Panarchists, back on Dis.
Vi’ya began jogging. “This way.”
When they reached another junction, which also had a cable running across it, Vi’ya waved them to a stop well short of it. She eased up to the edge of the cross-corridor, knelt down, and peered around the corner, her head close to the floor. Then she rejoined them.
She tapped her boswell. (There’s a Tarkan in front of a door about thirty meters down the hall.)
(Tarkan?) asked Ivard.
(Elite guards. Very dangerous.)
She stopped, wincing. They all heard the bubbling shriek. Lokri’s stomach clenched, Ivard and Greywing both looked sick. Montrose frowned deeply.
(We’ve got to stop that, no matter who it is,) said Brandon. Another scream echoed down the corridor, coming from a ventilation grille near the ceiling about four meters back down the passageway. Vi’ya tapped her own boswell and shook her head, frowning, then she motioned Greywing and Ivard toward the corner. They pulled their weapons and took up station as guards.
Vi’ya led the way back to the grille, gathering Lokri and Montrose with a glance. She jerked her chin up at the grille. (Open the grille.)
Another howl of agony echoed through the opening as Montrose swiveled his two-hand firejac around behind his back on its harness and Lokri put his hands against the wall, bracing himself.
Lokri felt the big physician’s hands on his waist, and with a soft grunt Montrose lifted him into the air. Lokri walked his hands up the wall, then pulled at the grille. It came away with a faint clatter that sounded loud to his ears. Montrose lowered him, and he dropped soundlessly to the floor. At the junction Ivard clutched his weapon in white fingers, his sister still and grim.
Vi’ya stepped away for a momentary, silent conference with the Eya’a. They drifted over to stand below the opening, which was all of three meters above the floor.
The Krysarch sucked in his breath in apparent surprise as the Eya’a leapt and vanished into the ventilation duct in two smooth motions, so fast they were almost a blur. They hadn’t seemed to crouch or otherwise prepare themselves, as a human gymnast might have—one moment they were in the corridor, the next they were gone. Lokri shuddered. He still couldn’t get used to them—they would be easier to take if they were totally alien, like the Kelly.
Vi’ya motioned the rest of them to join Ivard. (Get ready.)
o0o
Guardsman Remmet had passed from horror to a numb indifference as he counted inwardly when the shrieks stopped. He willed himself to relax and enjoy the respite. His gaze stayed fixed on the wall before him until a flicker high on his right caused him to swerve, fingers tight on the trigger of his jac: nothing there. He knew he’d seen something, though.
Ghosts, he thought. Had the Panarchist finally died? His shade, thirsting for vengeance, walking the halls—
Then he started as a new, louder scream ripped through the door, followed by the crash of equipment falling to the floor.
“Guard!” he heard Evodh call, the cry changing immediately to a despairing shriek of horror and rage fully as terrible as anything he’d heard from the pesz mas’hadni’s victim. Followed by another metallic smash.
Remmet slapped the summoner on his belt, spun about, and crashed through the door, his weapon ready, then stopped, a shiver of uncanny fear burning his nerves. Evodh lay on his back on the floor, his hands clenched into claws drawn up near his cheeks, which were furrowed with bloody stripes from his fingernails. The gua
rdsman fought with nausea as he saw that the man’s eyes had exploded. A hideous gray-crimson pudding was seeping from the empty sockets and his ears and nose. Behind the gurney, where the Panarchist lay still, his chest barely moving, the assistant lay in similar ruin.
Remmet looked wildly around the room, his skin prickling as the superstitions of his race welled up from memory: tales of the karra, the demons who’d destroyed the original paradise of the Pure Blood, and who still lurked in the shadows, eternally hungry.
Movement near the ceiling. He spun toward the ventilation grille, raising his firejac toward two pairs of gleaming faceted eyes. He had just enough time to realize that there were worse things on this world than any karra before a sun kindled in his brain and a scream ripped his throat open and carried his life away with it.
o0o
The instant the last scream died away Vi’ya motioned them around the corner. They raced to the door of a room that stank of blood and excrement. Brandon fought a tide of nausea when he took in what the Eya’a had done to the Dol’jharians, then forgot it as he recognized the man strapped to the gurney.
“Sebastian!” He leapt over the robed body on the floor, then stopped, unsure what to do next. Omilov’s chest was barely moving. Blood trickled out of his mouth and from small wounds here and there on his body. A thin whine emanated from some sort of machine attached to a mesh cap on the gnostor’s head.
Montrose pushed past him and cast a practiced eye over Omilov’s body, then at the banks of instruments beyond. “You know this man?” he rumbled as he placed his ear on Omilov’s chest.
“My oldest friend,” Brandon said as Vi’ya stepped over the guard’s body.
The Eya’a pushed out the grille and jumped down from the ventilator duct. The captain joined them, head bent.
Brandon forced his gaze back to Montrose. He couldn’t bear to look at Omilov. “He’s Osri’s father.”
“This is the man who gave the Heart of Kronos to you?” asked Vi’ya.
“Yes.”
Montrose picked up a spray-jector off the floor from among a welter of ugly, glittering instruments and sniffed it.
“He’s had a cardiac stimulant, which should keep him going for a while yet, but he needs attention as soon as possible.” The physician motioned to the instruments against the wall, several of which displayed wavering electronic traces. “There’s something wrong with his heart—was before this happened.”
“But what’s that thing on his head?” asked Ivard from the doorway, his thin, blotchy face greenish with nausea.
“I don’t know,” said Montrose, restraining Brandon’s hand as he reached to take it off.
“This is a pesz mas’hadni.” Vi’ya nudged the robed man with the toe of her boot. “Trained in the arts of pain. Only Dol’jharian lords have such.” She looked up at Montrose. “Free him.”
“It’s some kind of torture machine,” Ivard whispered in horror.
Montrose glowered at the machine, gaze running along the connections from machine to the cap on Omilov’s head. “I can’t figure it out.” He shook his head. “We’ll just have to take a chance.” He gently removed the cap, then threw his huge body across Omilov as the gnostor heaved upward in a massive convulsion. The spasm passed as suddenly as it had come. Omilov’s breathing was louder now, a harsh, quivering sound resonant with pain.
Montrose levered himself up off Omilov and turned to Vi’ya. “If he’s to survive to talk, we’ve got to get him to the ship as soon as possible.”
Brandon stared at the floor, forcing his heart rate to slow with Ulanshu breathing. The sense of unreality that had possessed him since they first saw the Fist of Dol’jhar over the Mandala had sharpened into something akin to shock. The rational part of his mind knew he did not have the luxury of surrendering to shock.
The Eya’a chattered, and Vi’ya stilled. “Patrol’s coming. Can’t tell how many, but they’re coming fast.” She turned to Brandon. “How do we get back to the ship from here?”
Brandon looked about sightlessly. The two directions impelling him had nothing to do with location, but with need. Purpose. He had to save Sebastian... but to do so would destroy his chance of searching for his family.
He passed his hand over his face. If you removed hope, you were left with facts. He had Omilov. He had no idea if any of his family lived, and if so, where they were.
He looked up. “If we continue along this corridor the direction we were going and head down two levels—”
“All right, let’s get going. You can tell us the rest on the way.” She turned to Montrose. “You may bring the old man if you wish to take responsibility for him.”
Montrose unstrapped his firejac. Brandon sheathed his own and took the larger weapon. The big Rifter bent down and ripped the robe off of the dead Dol’jharian with the lacquered skull, then gently wrapped Omilov in it. The Dol’jharian’s body was covered with scars and cicatrices. Brandon looked away.
Montrose carefully picked the gnostor up and slung him over his shoulder.
Brandon motioned him out, then paused in the doorway. So the Dol’jharian rulers kept personal torturers? For the second time in an hour he thought of Anaris and his threats. Not that we ever believed the hulking blunge-sucker, Brandon thought, lifting the heavy two-hand firejac and thumbing it to wide aperture. It was enough to stay out of reach of that damned knife of his...
Later. He held down the trigger, hosing the room with a thick stream of sun-hot plasma. The machinery exploded into flames and gobbets of white-hot metal. Brandon let go of the trigger and stumbled backward, half-blinded, as the ceiling released a shower of foam that hissed violently and emitted a sharp chemical stench. Then he backed out of the door, and as it hissed shut behind him, he ran after the others.
o0o
Barrodagh broke his reverie and recovered the present to find Anderic waiting patiently, gaze averted out of deference.
This Rifter is a quick study. It has taken him very little time to pick up the appropriate behavior. In the past half-hour Barrodagh had learned much about Rifter customs and behavior. In some ways it was a very familiar world.
One thing is certain: Tallis is not enough of a counterbalance to Hreem. I will have to maneuver Anderic into his position somehow.
“Your information is very interesting, Anderic. I will have to think about what you’ve told me.” He smiled conspiratorially. “For the moment I’ll have you escorted to Tallis’s room. You may tell him that your intervention was instrumental in winning his release.”
Anderic grinned back at him. “Yeah, that’ll be a good start.” He stood up, stretched luxuriously, then started, his eyes flickering to the wall behind the Bori.
Barrodagh swiveled around. Nothing was there. He turned back, puzzled, then shoved his chair back in alarm as a vaguely perceived shadow scuttled out from under his desk and melted into the opposite wall. A brief shiver of fear ran through him, and he pushed it out of his mind. Too many years on Dol’jhar, with all their demons and spirits. But as he met Anderic’s wide-eyed stare, he knew the Rifter had also seen whatever it was.
His compad chimed.
“What?”
“Kyltasz Jesserian here. A conscript was found dead a short time ago in the Ivory antechamber, and a number of artifacts are missing. I’ve elevated the alert level for all detachments and began a systematic search for the intruders, as well as their ship, which must have come down much closer to the Palace than we assumed. “
Barrodagh dismissed the weird shadow. Looting. So that’s what they were after. Eusabian would be furious at this violation of his new demesne, but if Jesserian could capture the looters—Rifters, no doubt—and put things right before Barrodagh had to report it, the consequences would be minimal, for both him and Jesserian. The Dol’jharian noble’s careful omission of the usual semi-insulting presumed-equal mode of address indicated that he was fully aware of their shared exposure here.
Before he could reply, the kyltasz continued.
“While I was dealing with that situation, we received an alarm from the guardsman assigned to senz-lo Evodh. He is not responding to our queries, nor can we reach the senx-lo or his assistant. I have dispatched a squad. Based on the estimated time of death for the conscript, it is possible that the same intruders are responsible.”
For a moment, Barrodagh could not make sense of his words. His spies had confirmed the impact of the vid of Jomsinn’s dissection. What Rifter in his right mind would go anywhere near Evodh?
In an instant of horror, the situation clarified into obviousness. This incursion was aimed squarely at him! The looting would make him look powerless, as well as being immensely profitable, and the killing of Evodh—no matter that he would be replaced—would be a devastating symbolic blow that would seriously undermine his control of the Avatar’s Rifter forces.
None of that, however, would matter to Jesserian. Barrodagh marshaled his thoughts. The kyltasz would have to be managed carefully.
“I have no doubt of your ability to track down the intruders. I ask only that you keep me closely apprised of any developments. But the theft of the artifacts touches the Avatar’s Will. That ship must not be allowed to escape, and the Lord of Vengeance will require an extended expiation of the offense, so you should make every effort to capture the intruders alive.”
“Given that none of the transport tunnel alarms were triggered, the ship must be much closer to the Palace than we assumed,” replied Jesserian, his face thawing somewhat. “I have concentrated the exterior search accordingly. Inside the Palace, I am using all available conscript forces to search, with Tarkan squads held in readiness to respond when the intruders are located and pinned down.”
The kyltasz’s unusual willingness to explain his methods eased Barrodagh’s mind.
“Have you any further orders touching the Avatar’s Will?” Jesserian asked.
“Yes. Be careful not to damage any of the artifacts. They must be returned to the antechamber unharmed.”
The commander acknowledged and cut the connection. Barrodagh looked up at Anderic.
“How much of that did you understand?”
The Phoenix in Flight Page 46
