Korval's Game

by Sharon Lee

  He closed his eyes. Gods. What sort of world produced such people? And yet, Al and Audrey, Gwince, Jonni, Ajay, Villy . . .

  “Master?”

  He opened his eyes, seeing what appeared to be honest concern for himself reflected in her face.

  “I wonder,” he said, changing the subject brutally. “What are our options of communication devices? I find no radio, for instance, among Mr. Moran’s former possessions. How do the bosses keep contact among themselves? Worse, I find no local radios, so that we might communicate between ourselves—myself to you from the store, for instance.”

  Cheever grunted. “Been tryin’ to crack that nut,” he said. “Got a couple people on staff who say there’s a native equivalent of a portacomm, but the trade’s controlled by one of the bosses out from here. I’m going down to check on the ship, day after tomorrow. Thinking about making a side trip to check out the portacomm trade while I’m over that way.” He paused. “Speakin’ of which, the emergency talkies off the ship’ll do fine to keep us three in touch. I’ll bring them on back, if you want.”

  “Yes, do that,” Pat Rin murmured. He finished his tea, put the mug down, and looked up to find Natesa’s eyes yet upon him.

  “Do the bosses communicate between themselves?” he asked her.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “My information indicated that the more powerful bosses, who control larger territories—that there had been communication between them, arrangements of trade, alliances. Whether this is still so . . . I doubt. Matters seem to have deteriorated badly since the report was written.” She sighed, sharply, and leaned forward, eyes and face intense.

  “The difficulty with Surebleak is that the boss system is rotting from the core. There is no orderly transfer of authority when bosses are often murdered by a wild gun who aspires only to their power. Such guns rarely have any notion of responsibility, or of administration, never mind compromise and mutual profit. So, the territories are proliferating in number while they dwindle in size, and chaos is become the order of the day.”

  “Chaos is what we wanted,” Cheever pointed out from his end of the table.

  Natesa nodded. “Indeed, chaos serves us very well in what we propose to do. But it hardly serves those who live here, and who cling to survival amidst the slow disintegration of their world. Nor is it good for business.”

  Juntavas business, that would be. Pat Rin considered her.

  “I would think the Juntavas a supporter of chaos.”

  “Not so—not so, Master. The Juntavas is a champion of order. We require certain things so that business may go forth: safe and easy access; safe and easy egress; steady supply; an economy. And a consistent structure of command, with which profitable associations may be forged. Surebleak offers none of these things. It is a bitter waste—and not only for the Juntavas.”

  “But if a boss arose who was able to consolidate and hold the territories—and train a successor to do likewise?” Pat Rin asked.

  “Perhaps the rot might be excised,” she said slowly. “Perhaps. But we must first ask if Surebleak is able to produce such a boss.”

  “Surely, there are honorable people in other territories, as we have found here?” he said.

  “Surely, there are,” she agreed. “But, consider the present system, if we may dignify it so. Did a person of honor and integrity arise, yet she must take the path to power which is open to her—cold murder. To unite all—even most—of the territories, she will need to murder much more than once. And, upon achieving her goal of one cohesive territory, she must transform herself into a statesman, capable of compromise, slow to slay even the most intractable dissident.” She shook her head. “I do not know that one individual could successfully encompass both roles, and yet they are inseparable.”

  “Yet, you are yourself both judge and assassin.”

  She smiled. “I am called Assassin,” she said, amusement rippling her voice. “Would you like to know why?”

  “Yes,” Pat Rin said seriously. “I would.”

  But Natesa merely laughed and came lightly to her feet. “Perhaps I will tell you one day.” She glanced aside. “Mr. McFarland, if I may have a few moments of your time?”

  “Sure thing.” The big man got to his feet, and looked at Pat Rin, who raised a hand.

  “Gwince. I will try not to frighten her. Thank you, Mr. McFarland.”

  “Good-night, Boss.”

  Alone in the dining room, Pat Rin sighed, closed his eyes and simply sat for the space of a dozen heartbeats. He was tired, gods. Already he was tired—and there was so much yet that he must do.

  “The shortest way to finish is through begun,” he murmured, which was what Uncle Daav had used to say. The Liaden words felt odd in his mouth, after even so few days of speaking only Terran. Would he be able to speak Liaden at all, when he at last returned to the homeworld to destroy Korval’s enemy?

  Well. One thing at a time—and that was Anne Davis advising him now. “Er Thom’s Terran,” according to his mother, but never in Uncle Daav or in Cousin Er Thom’s hearing.

  Pat Rin pushed back from the table, gathered Gwince from her post at the door and went down to the kitchen.

  The cook was polishing a soup pot; he set both rag and pot aside when Pat Rin walked in and nodded politely.

  “Evening, Boss. What can I get you?”

  “Nothing just now, I thank you. I merely wished to tell you that I am pleased with the standard of cooking displayed since yesterday’s dinner.”

  The man grinned, and shuffled one foot. “That’s—thank you, Boss. I mean to keep the standards high.”

  “I am delighted to hear you say so,” Pat Rin assured him, and turned to go, his mission accomplished.

  Two steps toward the door, he recalled something else and turned back.

  “The brown and black cat,” he said to the cook’s suddenly anxious face.

  The anxiety deepened. “Yessir. He ain’t bothering you, is he?”

  “Not at all. I merely wished to know his name.”

  “Name?” the cook repeated, hands twisting in his apron.

  “Well . . . Cat, I guess. I mean—who names cats?”

  Pat Rin paused, then inclined his head. “A personal idiosyncrasy. Good evening.”

  “See ya,” said the cook.

  The office was the next order of business. He left Gwince guarding the door and went over to the file cabinet to retrieve his log book.

  He had written perhaps three pages when Gwince put her head in the door.

  “Jonni’s here, Boss.”

  He glanced up. “That is well. Send him in, please.”

  She vanished, and a moment later Jonni stepped tentatively within, his pointed face showing wariness.

  “I’m not going to eat you, you know,” Pat Rin said mildly, and motioned at the yellow plastic chair. “Sit a moment. I have a proposition for you.”

  Still tentative, Jonni sat.

  “Thank you. Ms. Audrey has said that she will teach you to read better, to do sums and to write. I wish that you will undertake these things. Do you understand me?”

  The boy nodded, insufficiently exuberant—his cap remained on his head.

  “That is good. Now. Ms. Audrey tells me that you may not wish to go to her house for lessons. If this is so, then she will send a teacher, and you will have your lessons in this house.” He fixed the child with a stern eye, much as he had done with Quin, by way of enforcing his filial authority. “The lessons are not negotiable, but the location is. Which do you choose?”

  The boy held up a hand, fingers rippling—wait.

  Fair enough; it was bound to be a weighty choice, between honor and horror. Pat Rin leaned cautiously back in his own chair, prepared to wait for some time, if necessary.

  It was unnecessary. Jonni sat for several moments with his head bent, contemplating, perhaps, the hole in the right knee of his trousers, then looked up, eyes bright. He made a sign as appropriate as it was lewd.

  “You will go
to Ms. Audrey?” Pat Rin asked, to be certain.

  Jonni nodded, placing his cap in peril of a tumble.

  Pat Rin smiled. “I am pleased. Be in the front hallway when I leave tomorrow morning, and you may walk with me as far as Ms. Audrey’s house.”

  The boy grinned, and nodded again.

  “Good. Is there anything else?”

  A headshake, grin unabated.

  “Then our business is concluded. Good night.” He made the sign that he knew as “farewell”.

  The boy rose, hesitated and—bowed. It was in no discernible mode, though it was done with grace and good intent—and surprised entirely.

  Before Pat Rin could clear his throat, Jonni was gone, ghosting out the door.

  Another victory upon the day, he thought, picking up his pen and returning his attention to the log book.

  It was well.

  ***

  HE WAS RUNNING down cold and twisting hallways, gun in hand. The ones who pursued him also had guns—as he knew to his dismay—and there were many more of them than his pellets could account for. He could not do this on his own. He needed help. He needed kin.

  The hallway twisted, right, left, right, and spilled him into a dingy gray room, where a lone man sat in a chair, legs thrust out before him, holding a glass of wine. Pat Rin’s heart leaped and he ran forward.

  “Val Con! Cousin, you must help me—” He extended a hand, touched his cousin’s shoulder—and leapt back, an unvoiced scream choking him.

  The man in the chair was a skeleton, grinning death into his eyes.

  Gasping, Pat Rin awoke. Slowly, he oriented himself, and brought his labored breathing down. He turned somewhat in his twisted nest of blankets, and his knee bumped something solid.

  Carefully, he put his hand down—felt warm fur and the beginning vibration of a purr—the nameless brown and black cat.

  Smiling, he put his head back down on the flat pillow, his hand still on the cat.

  The rest of his night passed, dreamless.

  DAY 310

  Standard Year 1392

  Blair Road

  Surebleak

  THE CAT DOGGED his heels from the bedroom to the kitchen, sat by his knee while he broke his fast with bread, cheese, and tea; and trotted, tail high and jaunty, at his side down the hallway to the vestibule.

  It was a strangely crowded vestibule. In addition to Cheever McFarland, who was entirely capable of filling the small space without assistance, there was Jonni, and the slender subtlety that was Natesa.

  “Good morning,” Pat Rin said to his oathsworn, simultaneously offering the same greeting in sign to the child.

  “Mornin’, Boss.”

  “Good-day, Master.”

  The child likewise returned his greeting; paused and signed something else, not, Pat Rin thought, to himself, but to—

  The cat.

  “Good morning, Boss Silk,” he murmured, reading—and captured Jonni’s attention with an interrogative wave.

  “The cat’s name is Silk?” he asked, imitating the soft, smoothly flowing sign.

  The boy nodded, grinning, and tossed a spangle of sign off his fingers.

  “Ah, did he so? I had thought him a cat of discernment.”

  “What does he say?” Natesa wondered softly.

  Pat Rin shook himself. “Why only that this cat—this Silk—had the good sense to scratch the late Boss Moran very thoroughly not too long ago, to the vast amusement of one barbaric and bloodthirsty child.” He tipped his head. “Forgive me if I pry, but am I to understand that you will be accompanying us today?”

  “My business today is on the street, and I thought to walk with you and Mr. McFarland—and one bloodthirsty child—until my way turns from yours.” She bent her head gracefully, suggesting a full bow in her favorite mode of student to master.

  “Perhaps I am inconvenient.”

  “Or perhaps you are not,” he said dryly. “One merely inquired.”

  “Cat comin’, Boss?” Cheever asked lazily from his lean against the door.

  “I believe that his duties keep him at home,” Pat Rin replied, and looked sternly down at his attendant feline. Silk blinked molten gold eyes, then turned and flowed away down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Now is the hour,” Pat Rin said. “Mr. McFarland, the door, of your goodness.” He moved a hand as he spoke, alerting Jonni to the door’s opening, and they exited the house a veritable army: Cheever, then Pat Rin, the boy at his side, and Natesa, silent and graceful, walking slightly to the rear and the right.

  He heard the pellet sing by his ear and Natesa’s shouted “Down” in the same instant, and dropped to the street, gun to hand, a target in his eye.

  It was target practice then—heavy game, and when the targets stopped showing, he blinked, disoriented, and with a high buzzing in his ears.

  “Stay down,” Natesa hissed, from somewhere behind him. “Do not move. We are awaiting Mr. McFarland’s sign.”

  It was the word “sign” that jerked him back to the reality of the street, where he lay in the half-frozen mud, staring at the dead man crumpled at the base of the wall opposite, his blood shockingly bright on the dingy walk.

  “Where . . .” he began, but Natesa’s voice came again, louder this time.

  “We have the sign. I will stand first. Count slowly to twelve. If I have drawn no fire, stand, but hold your weapon ready.”

  He sensed her movement and counted to twelve, slowly. Silence reposed upon the street. Pat Rin rose, gun held ready.

  Across the street, a door somewhat down from the dead man opened, and a woman peered out, then hastily withdrew, the door slamming into place.

  More action across the way. Cheever McFarland slipped out of an alley that should have been too thin for him, and waved.

  “All clear,” he shouted and strode toward their position.

  Released, Pat Rin spun, looking first at the ground near at hand, but there was nothing there, save the mud.

  “Master?”

  “The child,” he said, remembering the pellet whine and Natesa shouting—and of course Jonni could not have heard either. Though, surely, seeing all of his house going to the ground, he would—

  “The child,” he said again, to Natesa’s black, black eyes. “Where is the child?”

  Her gaze shifted over his shoulder. He turned and saw the ragged huddle of cloth, not so very far away, really.

  “Gods.”

  He knelt next to the still, small body; and turned the boy in his arms. No breath, no heartbeat, no wide, glad smile. Gods, gods . . . no.

  “Master?”

  “Who did this?” The High Tongue felt like ice in his mouth.

  “Master, Mr. McFarland has found Jim Snyder among the fallen,” she answered softly. “He believes the others come from Boss Deacon’s turf.”

  Pat Rin knelt, holding the dead child in his arms, and if he wept now before his oathsworn, he was lost to shame; lost to all but a vast and frightening coldness.

  This ends, and ends now. No more of mine will be shot down in the streets.

  He raised his face to Natesa, and saw her eyes widen.

  “Fetch Audrey,” he said. He heard his voice shake—and did not care. “I will know the name of my enemy. They will answer me. Fully.”

  ***

  NATESA HESITATED at the entrance to the garden, an unaccustomed shyness rooting her feet to the top stair. Mid-way across the roof, she saw him, silhouetted against the starry glow of Surebleak’s nighttime sky; seated on the edge of a shrouded garden patch, shoulders bowed, the cat crouched at his side. Neither seemed to note the wind, intermittent from planetary north, which added to the evening’s chill.

  The child’s death—she recalled the face he had shown her then, mud-streaked and slick with tears, icy with a purpose that surpassed mere revenge by an order of magnitude, and shivered with something more than the cold.

  “Inas, why are you come?” His voice was soft and mannerly. He did not turn his hea
d. And who knew what the invocation of her personal name might mean?

  Natesa gathered her courage, lifted her feet and entered the garden.

  “It is cold,” she said, matching his tone. “I have come to bring you a blanket.”

  “Ah.”

  Gently, she moved among the shadows of the dormant beds, and came to stand before him, the blanket draped over one arm.

  He looked up at her, his face a golden mask in the starshine.

  “Thank you,” he said, but made no move to take the blanket from her. Beside him, the cat straightened from its crouch and settled into a sit, fuzzy tail wrapped neatly ’round its toes.

  Natesa sighed lightly. “Ms. Audrey bade me say that her house is open to you.”

  The golden mask displayed no emotion. “I am grateful to Ms. Audrey, but I do not seek distraction.”

  The wind gusted, bitter enough to dismay her, though she had taken care to don a jacket. This close, she could see that he was shivering, though she doubted he knew that himself.

  “Pat Rin.” Surely, she might dare his name, when he had established the mode himself? “Pat Rin, you are cold. The night is not temperate. At least the blanket, if I cannot persuade you to go inside.” She bit her lip. “You serve no one, if you sicken.”

  “Very true,” he said politely, yet still he made no move to take the blanket.

  Wondering at her own temerity, she stepped forward and draped it around his shoulders. The cat Silk, sitting tall at his side, blinked golden eyes in approval.

  Something moved in his face. Indeed, he sighed, and lifted a hand on which Korval’s Ring glittered, to touch the fabric of the blanket and pull it more snugly about him.

  “Thank you,” he said again, and it seemed to her that there was more than mere ritual in the phrase. “I am grateful for your care.”

  “You are welcome.” She hesitated, unsure of what now she should offer, reluctant to leave him here, alone, but for his cat and his dead, inside the freezing night.

  “You will wish to know,” he said surprisingly, “that I have decided to take up the roles you doubt may be acted by a single individual.”