by Jill Braden
“Flirt.”
“Unless there’s a secret passage in that dungeon, I swear what you did was impossible. Oh, I know you flitted in and out of that cell at will, but the shackles on your wrists and ankles in the torture chamber were real, as you were careful to point out.”
“They’re always real in the best tricks.”
“I can see how you could have locked yourself in them, except…” He held up his hands as if he were on the torture board and looked from one wrist to the other. “The last one. How did you reach from here” – he nodded to the left – “all the way over there?” He wriggled the fingers on his right hand.
She pretended to be as mystified as he was.
There was no way she could have hidden something in that small room. The answer had to have been right in front of him. Of course! The hooked metal bar that had been at her feet. He’d thought they’d used it on her, but she’d used it to close the last shackle. Sweet Goddess of Mercy, she was brilliant.
As if she knew he’d figured it out, she clapped politely.
He bowed. “For a moment there, I was afraid you’d lose faith in me.”
“Never.”
It was such a simple word. If spoken in jest, it meant nothing, but there was something so honest about the way she said it. Stripped bare of tone and insinuation, it struck him as a promise. They didn’t talk like that to each other.
This was too new and awkward. She turned away.
He couldn’t bear even the briefest silence. “How did you dose the guards with black lotus? I didn’t smell it down there. The air was musty, but not enough to cover the stink of it. Yet they all had dreamer’s eyes.”
She seemed glad to return to the subject. “Blow pipe and darts. Sometimes, the old ways are best.”
“Was it worth it? So much trouble–”
“And expense!” Comfortable with this subject, she leaned forward. “You wouldn’t believe how much black lotus I went through today. Some of those guards must be heavy users, because I had to dose them four and five times to keep them quiet. They kept groaning.”
He didn’t trust this face of hers. She was playing a role, pretending to be carefree, when she had to still feel that moment between them. If only they could loop back a few seconds in time and she’d look at him the way she had when she’d said ‘never.’ He should have made it last somehow.
“And all of it for what? To make Colonel Hurust disappear?” he asked.
“Colonel Hurust was behind the murders of my lieutenants. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”
“Lizzriat danced around it.”
“Why would you – never mind. I won’t question your methods. How is Liz?” she asked.
“Neutral.”
“You mean selectively helpful, I’m sure. He’s a crafty one.”
Kyam sauntered away from her. “High praise coming from you.” He ran his hand along the sliding door behind her throne. “Tell me about Hurust. Why was he targeting your people?”
He tried to see what was behind the door, but the crack was too slim, so he gave up and explored the rest of the room. From the faded wood, it looked as if there had been a lot of furniture in there at one time. It felt deserted, the way empty places did when people visited them, as if the shadows in the corners absorbed light and sound, hoarding it to feed upon when the people left again. No one lived here now, he was sure of it. It was simply another stage on which for her to perform.
“The racial cleansing of the Quarter of Delights was a nasty excuse to hide his targeted murders. His real aim was to take control of the black lotus market. According to my sources, he was a smuggler back in Thampur. He saw a chance to get back in the business when the militia executed the werewolves,” she said. “All of which is irrelevant. He ordered his men to kill my people. For that, he had to die.”
“But, the Devil...”
“During my inquiries, I learned his plan was to approach the Devil. He planned to push me out.” That brought a wry smile to her lips.
“Inquiries?”
“One of Colonel Hurust’s men was at the Dragon Pearl. Upstairs, you understand. He’d gone there to discuss the possibility of supplying Lizzriat, and then decided to take a pipe. Liz has been very careful lately not to anger me, so he sent a messenger offering the soldier for questioning. Ponongese aren’t allowed in the Dragon Pearl, as you know, so in order to interrogate him thoroughly, we had to spirit him out of the place without being seen. Unfortunately, he slipped out of our hold as we carried him to a hidden staircase. He fell face down onto Lizzriat’s desk and broke his nose. Blood went everywhere.”
“The spatter on your jacket.” He didn’t know why he was so relieved that blood had an innocent-enough explanation, when he knew she’d murdered so many other people. Could it be Hurust disappeared because she couldn’t stand for anyone to think she was stupid enough to leave a body behind as evidence? Even now, he and she were the only two people who knew that Hurust was dead. Back in the fortress, they merely thought he was missing, and no one seemed too alarmed about it. Even Nashruu didn’t seem to suspect anything was amiss.
“If you see a soldier with a broken nose and a bruise across his chin, tell him he owes me a new jacket if those stains don’t come out. But don’t bother asking him to confirm our conversation. He won’t remember it.”
She could have been telling him about the weather for all the interest she showed. That meant she was glossing over something she didn’t care to talk about.
“How can you interrogate someone in dream?”
A chill ran down his back. QuiTai was cold and hard again. She might have been a statue except for the growing tension running through her body.
“I’ve always said you’re a dangerous man,” she finally said.
“You’re one to talk. Will we ever find Hurust?”
“He’s in plain sight.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“He will not be seen by Thampurian eyes, even when they look directly at him.”
“Another damn political lecture.”
“Oh no, Governor Zul. A harsh truth.”
~ ~ ~
“Let’s assume I’ll never figure out what you did, much less how you did it. But I have questions.”
“I may have answers.”
“Explain the second sarong. You had on your usual one at the harbor. By the time you were in my office, you had one on under your usual green one, and you wore two blouses. Voorus claims he never left your side, but you weren’t wearing the second one down at the harbor. So when did you add the second layer?”
“I bought them in the marketplace and donned them before we entered the government building. You can ask him.”
“I did. I wanted to hear it from you.”
“You don’t trust me?” She feigned innocence and batted her eyelashes. “I am hurt, Governor Zul. Absolutely crushed.”
“Take me through it. What happened to Colonel Hurust?”
“Did you find PhaSun’s bloody clothes in her room at the Red Happiness?” QuiTai asked.
Kyam gave her a stern look. “Yes. And she confessed when we arrested her. But that’s not what we were talking about. The subject is Colonel Hurust, QuiTai.”
“He must have suspected I was there for him, because he wouldn’t come down to the dungeon despite all the trouble I went to arrange our meeting.”
He shook his head ruefully. “Such poor manners.”
Despite his obvious sarcasm, she said, “That’s what I thought too. Strangely enough, while he knew enough to stay away from me, no one seemed to care that the guards kept disappearing from the dungeon. And to think that was the part of the plan that worried me most, the thought that the watch would bring a bunch of men and jellylanterns down there to search for the men who had gone missing.”
“That’s what worried you? Not the threat of execution, or torture?”
She gave it barely a moment of thought. “Not really.”
He felt a headache coming on.
“Then, finally, Cuulon, of all people, managed to drag Colonel Hurust down into the dungeon. Once I had them where I wanted them, in the torture chamber–”
“Where you wanted them?”
“Kyam, if you insist on interrupting… Yes, where I wanted them.” She was enjoying this too much. It didn’t bother him that she did things no normal person would dream of; it was the cheerful, matter-of-fact way she talked about them.
He definitely had a headache. Any moment now, he was going to lose his temper with her. He ground his teeth. “Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong?” She’d put him through hell when he’d thought she was the prisoner executed before his eyes.
“Don’t take that tone with me. I pleaded with you to investigate. You turned me down. I had no choice.”
“I… You…” He hated it when she was right, which was always.
“You’re sexy when you glower over me. Did you know that? You’re breathing hard. Do you want to grab me? Shake me? Drag me to bed and enjoy violent passion?” she asked.
“You are a very, very bad woman.”
That clearly pleased her. “I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, the rest is simply details. I dosed Cuulon and Hurust as soon as we were in the torture chamber.”
Was Hurust still in the torture chamber? It was a small room, low ceiling, stone walls and floor. There wasn’t even a chest to fold a body into. Kyam shoved that mental image out of his mind, but not quickly enough.
“As soon as they were in dream, I stripped the Colonel and put him into a men’s sarong,” she said.
Kyam sensed where this was going, but his imagination wouldn’t let him finish the tale. “That couldn’t have been enough to fool the militia.” He rubbed his forehead. “RhiHanya. In the marketplace. We were next to a stall that sells festival costumes. You signaled her to bump into me so I wouldn’t see you swipe… what, fake fangs and those lenses that make your eyes look Ponongese?”
“Very good, Governor Zul.”
“I’m amazed that you didn’t already have them with you. You were wearing the second sarong. No doubt you also had a makeup kit and burglar tools on you too.”
“A woman likes to be prepared, but sometimes she has a last-second inspiration. I’m not, despite rumors to the contrary, a perfect machine. Sometimes details do escape me in the rush to put a plan together, especially when I only have an hour. I saw the festival stalls from the stairs of the government building and was inspired.”
“So you gave Hurust Ponongese eyes and fangs and put him in a sarong so the other soldiers would believe he was Ponongese. But what about you? They know who you are. Why would they have trusted anything you said to them?”
“I borrowed a uniform from the smallest guard in my little collection.”
“You passed as a Thampurian soldier?” He wouldn’t believe it if he hadn’t seen her dressed as a Thampurian boy before the rice riot. She had a miraculous ability to transform herself. It wasn’t simply a costume and makeup, it was the way she moved, the gestures and the way she mimicked others.
“I’ve passed as a soldier before. People see what they want to. The other soldiers saw one of theirs struggling with a Ponongese inside the dungeon door. It was dark. I was on the ground as if he’d struck me down, so the height difference wasn’t as noticeable as it might have been.” She winced as she rubbed her biceps. “Hurust made me work for it. I’ll give him that.”
He was sure he knew the rest.
Hurust was in plain sight, where everyone could see him but no Thampurian would notice. Hurust must have been the prisoner he, Voorus, and Nashruu had seen hanged from the ramparts. If there had been any justice in Levapur, the soldiers would have looked beyond the festival costume she’d wrapped around him. The Colonel would have ended up in one of his own cells awaiting trial, woken from dream, and yelled until his men came running to let him out. But there was never justice for a Ponongese, so the soldiers put a rope around his neck and shoved him off the ramparts.
Ruthless. Dangerous. Lethal. He should never forget what she was.
~ ~ ~
QuiTai rose from her throne and slid open the door behind it. He rushed over to help her.
The revealed room was nearly as large as the front room. A darker square in the center showed there had once been a large rug covering the wood. A bed draped in plum silk sat against a wall decorated with the chop in a werewolf’s symbol.
“Is this Petrof’s bed?” he asked.
“I couldn’t get the smell of dog out of the mattress. I gave it away. This bed was delivered only an hour ago from one of my safe houses.”
“Good.”
Petrof had to be long dead. The werewolf wouldn’t have stopped trying to kill her. He wondered if Petrof’s body were nearby or if he’d been dumped unceremoniously into the gorge. He was sure she’d killed him. Maybe one day he could ask her, and many years after that, she might give him an honest answer.
“Good that it isn’t his bed, or good that I planned ahead?” she asked.
“Both.”
“So I’m forgiven for taking matters into my own hands.”
She sauntered across the room to open the typhoon shutters.
“I should care that you murdered Hurust, but you’re right. I forgive you. I guess I’m as morally selective as you are,” Kyam said.
“You’re getting interesting. Don’t ruin it with gloomy musings over a whiskey glass.”
Something caught her attention. His hand moved to his baton. She tilted her head as she listened intently.
“It’s raining,” she said.
He released his baton.
She pushed opened the typhoon shutters and walked out on a veranda. It took a moment to separate the steady rush of the Pha River through the Jupoli Gorge from the quiet drumming on the roof. He felt it in the air too. His spirits soared.
“Monsoon. Finally.” The long hot spell wasn’t over yet, but relief was coming.
He followed her out onto the veranda. It thrust into the middle of the jungle canopy. Across the gorge, an unhappy troop of monkeys huddled in a tree. Ferns covered the stone wall of the gorge’s north rim below them. Mist from the churning river rose to meet the rain, creating a scrim of gray that muted the vibrant flowers.
He leaned on the railing. He could see why she liked it here. It was a private place. If only it had a view of the ocean, it would have been perfect.
“Can you see the future?” he asked.
“I already told you I can’t.”
“You once warned me that I would wish I’d listened to your lectures on politics. It was as if you knew somehow that I’d be Governor.”
She leaned on the rail beside him. Raindrops fine as mist sparkled in her hair. “I used to believe my goddess, The Oracle, revealed things to me. Now I know it’s only me, gathering facts and guessing what will happen next.” Contemplative, she wiped the rain from her arm. “One disillusionment after another.”
He knew she’d been talking to herself.
“You’re a very good guesser, though.”
She seemed to agree.
“So everyone wants to recruit you because they think you can do something you can’t – talk to a goddess – but you can predict the future with some degree of accuracy despite that.”
“That sums it up rather well.”
“Does it matter, if the end result is the same?”
“I honestly don’t have an answer to that.” She patted his hand and then headed back inside. “But don’t tell your former commander I’m a fraud. At least, not until you’ve received your signed articles of transport.”
He leaned against the shutter. “I wouldn’t call you a fraud.”
“What would you call me?”
“Maddening.”
She chuckled.
He wondered if she’d practiced that slow walk toward the bed. When she moved liked that, it had to be an invitation to follow.
&
nbsp; “Fascinating,” he added.
“Oh, ho!” She seemed to think he was teasing.
“And I may never forgive you for scaring me like that. I thought it was you when they hanged Hurust. I thought the sun had been swallowed by the sea.”
Her gasp was too quiet to be heard, but he knew this was the second time today he’d surprised her.
“I thought you knew how I felt about you. You know everything.”
“A long time ago, you were, shall we say, infatuated with me. We’d shared an adventure, survived moments of peril together, and had one memorable romp in a ship’s cabin, so that was to be expected. I assumed you’d moved on since then.”
He couldn’t love her more. Nothing she’d done, no matter how terrible, would change the way he felt. “Never.”
She looked at him like she wanted to believe but couldn’t. He’d give her no reason to.
“I won’t tell my commander you’re a fraud, because I’m not turning you over to them.”
Anger darkened her face. Kyam stopped, baffled. He didn’t understand. She was supposed to be relieved.
“Don’t be an idiot, Kyam. Of course you’re handing me over to them.”
She was infuriating. He glowered down at her. She tried to walk away, but he blocked her way. “Give me the Devil’s name.”
QuiTai rolled her eyes and stepped around him. “One year working for Intelligence isn’t much. It’s not as if you’re selling me into slavery.”
“You said one year. They didn’t. And maybe you keep your word, but they don’t. If they promise you a year, they’ll find a way to keep you longer.”
“I’d like to see them try.”
Her defiance was so typical. She believed she could think her way out of anything. She was lucky, and of course she was brilliant, but this reckless disregard for her life was going to get her killed.
Clearly annoyed, she stalked away from him. “What do you think you’ll learn by chasing the Devil? He doesn’t matter. He’s nothing, a smoke wraith.”
