Red Queen

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 15

  At the Russet Monster's Rest

  Devonshire fell into a chair at her reserved table in the pub and sighed deeply. A tall, lanky elf with long hair and dark clothes slid a tankard over to her. She drank deeply from it.

  The pub was well appointed, and crowded. The patrons were a mixed bunch. Many soldiers in uniforms, students and mages from the academy, wary Underground merchants, and a scattering of the troglodyte locals. The languages that combined to form the buzz in the room were almost as varied as the races filling the seats. Their table was along an elevated platform at the back of the pub, giving a wide view of the patrons, but shadowy enough for privacy.

  “Let me guess”, said her companion, “'He's so big!'” He waved his long, thin hands expressively and his eyes widened in mock surprise.

  “You have no idea Greywind”, she growled, and idly wiped the forth from her mouth. “It's like he's nearly fifty.” She shook her head. “It's like there's no Elfish blood in him at all.” Growing up in the Elfin enclave in Romitu, Devonshire was quite aware of how the different races aged. In the kid gangs that roamed the streets the human children came and went almost like seasons. They were always junior most. The half-elf kids had more staying power, and usually took charge of the humans. To some degree picking ones and mentoring them while they were there. The Elf kids were topmost. They knew all the good hiding places, the best games, and the best places to filch treats. Not uncommonly from shops owned by children they had remembered playing with.

  Greywind shrugged. “Well, they say a god's blood runs true.”

  “That's one thing”, said Devonshire, “I'd expect him to have black hair, or flat ears. But it's like there's none of me in there at all.” He didn't seem to have any of her personal traits, but also none of her racial traits. She was no expert on half-elves. Almost all the half-elves she knew growing up were the children of other half-elves, not of elves and humans. But then it was hard to say how human his father was.

  Old maps had led to what was supposed to be one of the kingdoms of the pre-Cataclysmic empire. But there was nothing but broken islands and windswept ruins. Eventually they found one man, scared, wandering around distractedly. Once a battle god, now he had no worshipers and no memory. He wandered his former lands with his spear and falcon, wondering what had happened.

  But, despite his antiquity, he was robust and virile. Just the sort of man Devonshire liked and she had happily shared the hospitality of his bed for the night. The whole expedition had been shocked when he challenged them the next morning in a fight to the death. Out of respect, Devonshire took up the challenge, and, with effort, gave him the death in battle he deserved. Only later did she find out she was pregnant.

  “You'll be in here”, said Greywind, tapping his head, breaking her reverie. “You get to raise him and place all the idiosyncrasies and neuroses he'll carry with him for the rest of his life.” He drank and smiled.

  “Not even that!” she said sourly, “Mr. Halibut is doing that for me.” She glumly took another long draft.

  “Going a bit 'fishy' has he?” asked Greywind.

  Devonshire blew through her lips. His body language was certainly skewed. Some of that was a conscious effort to put the lessons she had him take into action. Some of it was just lack of exposure to others of his own anatomy. But he wasn't beyond reading. “No. Not really”, she concluded. “Other than thinking in three dimensions, that is.”

  “Sounds useful”, said Greywind.

  Devonshire shrugged. “Could be. Who knows? It's just a vicious life back there.”

  “Ah yes”, sighed Greywind nostalgically. “I remember the vicious life! Growing up in the gutters of Romitu, begging for crusts of bread. Cutting the purses of those who bent to take pity on me. Getting my face kicked in by the guild for not giving them a share. Good times.” He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.

  Devonshire snorted. “I had hoped for better for him.”

  “Every mother does”, said Greywind. “Or, at least I think my mother did. Not that I knew her.” They drank in silence for a while. “Well, this might distract you”, said Greywind taking a deep breath. “At least, give you something gloomier to consider.”

  “What now?” said Devonshire, holding the cold tankard to her head.

  “You might expect some heat on the old reincarnation/eternal life argument”, said Greywind, conspiratorially.

  Devonshire rubbed her head. “On top of everything else. Great. What makes you think that?” Greywind had a knack for information. For someone who gave pretense to not really caring about the larger issues or directions, he certainly seemed to have his finger on the pulse of those who did.

  “Bianca nipped off to see her mother out in the Waste. Since she came back she's been sounding people out about it.”

  “That pasty slug”, swore Devonshire. She had some respect for Goatha, having worked for her and Moss for years before Scioni. But her daughter had all of her bluntness with none of her insight. “Have you put a trace on her? Her defenses are usually good. She's almost as paranoid as her mother.”

  “I just asked Lilly”, said Greywind, smiling. “She told me everything. For all the time Jack spends with her, you think he would at least have taught her to lie. Or at least be evasive.”

  “Don't tell me he's in on this too”, sighed Devonshire. Bianca was just thuggish. Jack was outright dangerous. His incompetence resulted is the biggest leak of the most sensitive information. It may yet bring their whole enterprise down.

  “No, no”, said Greywind. “It isn't that gloomy. As far as I can tell, he's still chasing his tail over that knife.”

  “As long as it keeps him busy and away from anything sensitive. He's responsible for the biggest security breach we've ever had. I don't know why he still has his job.” She finished her tankard, and a server brought another one almost immediately.

  “Bianca can be quite persuasive, when she wants to be”, said Greywind. “In sort of blunt, brutal way.” His eyes had gone misty-eyed in admiration.

  “Don't tell me you're starting to fancy her like you did her mother!” said Devonshire. The only thing more pathetic than Greywind's infatuation with Goatha was his repeated denial of it.

  “What!” sputtered Greywind. “No, never. Not at all! You totally misunderstand. I admire Goatha's... methods. I don't think it would work out personally. She married Moss after all.”

  Devonshire gave him a world weary expression. “Yeah, right. Two confused adolescents I have to look after.” She rubbed her eyes. “I don't know what the problem is. Reincarnation was fine for five thousand years. Layers of history and experience bedding down in each Soul like layers of sedimentary rock. It was just these upstarts rocking the boat three thousand years ago that changed things. We should put it back to rights.”

  “Remember, we're talking with humans here”, said Greywind. “Three thousand years is a long time to them.”

  “Yet Moss is talking about granting 'Eternal Life' to everyone. Don't tell me they don't understand scope”, she glared angrily over the crowd. Everyone who tried to deny her point of view had these convenient arguments. But their logic didn't apply when turned on their own viewpoint. They wanted to do what was easy, never mind what was right.

  “I'm just saying you need to think through your arguments”, said Greywind. “An appeal to nostalgia that no one remembers probably isn't going to cut it.” He gestured out over the crowd. “This isn't the way things always were. Sure, maybe in Romitu, the city. But, thanks to the gates, you are getting more of this cultural hodgepodge all over Romitu, the empire. And that is quickly becoming the known world. You need something that makes sense to these people in this context.”

  “I don't know”, said Devonshire. “I can't think.” Too much to do. No time to plan. No time to honestly discuss things.

  “Clearly we need more to drink”, said Greywind. “That is, if you aren't on duty.”

  Devonshire patted a pocket. �
�I've got my sobriety salve here.” Greywind shuddered.

  When his replacement drink arrived, something dense and dark from the Underground, he blew the foam off the top and continued. “Problem two: we don't really know the meaning or import of all of those 'sedimentary layers', as you put it. Sure, we've worked out how to break through them, and tap into our past lives. We had to do that to interrogate Angelika, after she passed her soul to Lilly. But they normally don't really seem to be aware of each other, so we don't really know the point.”

  “I wish I could get a straight answer out of a Grey Elf. They made us that way. You would think they would have an interest in keeping us that way.” She had no idea what the Grey Elves were really up to. But, the bottom line was they would prefer if the world didn't end in two thousand years. But they didn't think poor humanity could manage not to destroy themselves and had given up. Just one believed in them. But she could count the number of conversations that anyone had ever had with him on one hand, and he never said anything that, on the surface, appeared useful. And when you dived beneath the surface it appeared to say almost whatever you wanted it to.

  Greywind shrugged. “Problem three: even if we could agree on reinstating reincarnation, we don't know how to. At least that's what you've told me. I couldn't tell a lay line from a rune stone personally.”

  “The Hundred and Forty Four did it somehow with the New Magic before they erased it. The answer is there.”

  “But a hundred and forty three of them are now gods, a smattering of which are dead, and all of which suffer from self-inflicted amnesia instituted with the erasure of the New Magic. The hundred and forty forth... you would have to ask Coral about her. But from what I understand she walked out before The Change happened.”

  Devonshire shook her head. “If we can't interrogate the culprits, we can derive it ourselves. They were just men when they worked it out. We have an entire academy of people to do research.”

  “If”, said Greywind pointedly, “if you can get everyone to agree to that line of research. Without using circular logic.”

  They drank in silence for a while. “We need more people who just believe, no argument, that this is the right thing”, said Devonshire.

  “Where are you going to find those?” asked Greywind.

  “I'm not”, said Devonshire. “I've got way too many irons in the fire. You are.”

  “Me?” said Greywind, protesting. “I've got... many irons. Yes, many irons too!”

  “Demara”, said Devonshire. “She would understand the importance of this. Go talk to her. And don't even try to say no. You know I'll shoot down all your excuses in the end.”

  Greywind sputtered, waved his hands in protest, and then sighed, his shoulders sinking. “I don't think she'll be too happy to see me.”