Baniel spared the crumpled body in the corner of the room no mind, though his nostrils did flare at the smell of blood. The evidence of violence was pleasurable, at least; the more of his kind who died due to the incompetence of his brother and cousin’s protections, the more clear the demonstration of their failure. And if those ends were sordid, so much the better. He did not plan to be here when Hirianthial arrived to vent his fury on him, so he would have to make do with imagining his brother’s horror when he discovered what the Chatcaavan had made of the women Baniel had been sending him. Hirianthial had always been good for taking on unnecessary guilt. Perhaps this time it would drive him to suicide? That would neatly solve a great many problems.
Folding his hands behind his back, he said to the Chatcaavan, “You have news?”
“I do,” the alien said. He was still in his borrowed shape, but he was licking his bloody fingers with a tongue Baniel found an appallingly bright color, and somewhat too long for good taste. “Relief should be here shortly.”
“Relief?” Baniel said with interest.
The alien nodded. “I have had a message tube.”
Interesting that he hadn’t noticed it coming… but then he was unfamiliar with the method. All the communication he’d undertaken had been via Well repeater; the less common practice of sending the remotes physically was not something he would have chanced, given the likelihood of Liolesa’s foxes noticing it. Which prompted the thought: “Did the foxes notice?”
The Chatcaavan snorted. “If they’re still in-system, you mean? I doubt it. A tube is a small thing, and painted for stealth. They would have had extraordinary luck.”
“Luck does happen.”
“Then let them see that we received a tube,” the alien said with a fluid shrug. “They can’t decrypt it. Unless they somehow know pirate codes.” He grinned. “Do they? That might make the game more interesting.”
“I doubt it,” Baniel said. “So… the relief comes?”
“It does. And I doubt your petty Pelted will be ready for it.” Another grin, this one with teeth. “We have had good luck in the unclaimed zones, laying our traps for the freaks’ Fleet. Good prizes, yes. And one is coming here.”
Baniel’s brows lifted. “That sounds promising.”
“It will be glorious,” the alien said. “And deeply amusing. There will be bloodshed.” He licked another finger, thoughtful. “The other vessel will not return.”
“Ah? So they go to carry the news of the location out.”
“Yes. But to those in our organization.” Another of those shark-like grins. “This is a secret I intend to keep for myself, until I can properly fortify my new demesne.”
How deeply gratifying to know that the ruin of Liolesa’s dream, and Maraesa’s and Jerisa’s before her, was now irrevocable. No more convenient secrets: now all the villains and thieves and ruffians and slavers of the universe would converge here in search of prey. Baniel appreciated the Chatcaavan’s desire to keep the world a secret… but all it would take was a single one of those pirates whispering the knowledge in someone’s ear for a little extra money, and not even the dragon could keep it from exploding across the universe. In that, the Eldritch would have accelerated their own demise, for centuries of prim refusal to divulge the location of their homeworld would have incited in almost everyone a raging curiosity to finally learn its whereabouts.
“I noticed our pets have been shifting position,” the Chatcaavan continued. “Have you set in motion your plan to destroy your enemies?”
“Let us say I whispered a few interesting notions into Lord Athanesin’s ear,” Baniel said with a casual flick of his hand. “He hardly needed it, though. Do you know it was his idea to send the entire army partway down the continent via Pad?”
The Chatcaavan arched his eyebrows. “An army. Via our single-person Pad.”
“Even filing through one by one, it was faster than riding there,” Baniel said. “I was impressed by his grasp of the technology. I hardly imagine the Queen knows what he’s done; she thinks he’ll be gone for weeks. In reality he’s already there, and probably destroying his enemies with commendable zeal.”
“And will return triumphant, having won a victory she does not want?”
“Just so,” Baniel said, amused by the idea. “And hot to marry her, if you will believe. She will deny him, of course, and then we will be rid of Surela.”
“And in her stead we will have a far less controllable king.”
Baniel laughed at the Chatcaavan’s scowl. “Athanesin? Oh, please. He’s violent and cunning, yes. But he’s not smart. You perceive the difference?”
“I have some notion of it, yes.” The alien considered him. “You are certain you can leash him?”
“I don’t need to,” Baniel said. “But if he ever proves troublesome, I will invite him to a conference about the state of the priesthood, and he will emerge from that meeting with a mind firmly devoted to my purposes.” He smiled. “You should know by now how useful our powers can be.”
“I prefer their more obvious applications.” The Chatcaavan considered the wreck in the corner. “All this subtlety… I have been warned about you Eldritch and subtlety. You all think too much.”
“Mm. Thinking has its rewards, as I have been teaching you.”
“Yes, speaking of this teaching….”
“You are done with your entertainments?” Baniel glanced at the woman. “I may have that sent away, then?”
The Chatcaavan dismissed her with another of those liquescent shrugs. “I am done with it, yes.”
Baniel called for a guard—one of the five pirates that had remained on-world—and had the woman taken away. “Yours,” he said. “If you like such things.” Then he turned back to the alien and cupped his face with long hands. “Now. Fall into me, and I will show you more.” He smiled thinly. “You will see why we have such subtle minds.”
“Go on, then,” the Chatcaavan said with a hiss. “Turn me into an Eldritch. If you can. It would be safer for you.”
“Nothing about this is safe,” Baniel promised. Especially for his ‘student.’ But then, what did aliens know of the bonds between teachers and their pupils? All that mattered was that, did he need it, he would have a weapon against his alien. His pet alien. The notion was almost as pleasing as knowing what Hirianthial would suffer on his return. “But that’s well, eh? We are not safe people.”
“No,” the alien agreed, baring his teeth. “We are not.”
CHAPTER 10
Hirianthial arrived to the room set aside for practice and found it already in use, knew it initially by the searing streams of the combatants’ auras, so bright they left afterimages. It took him a moment to discern the bodies through those banners: Narain and Tomas, sparring at a speed he found breathtaking. Narain landed on the floor on his back, was already reaching for the human when Tomas went for him, sent the human sailing over him with a foot to the solar plexus. Tomas landed and laughed through his panting. “Dammit, arii. No one else in the universe is going to try distracting me by tickling my groin with his tail.”
“You never know,” Narain said from the ground, his voice a purr. “Lot of us Harat-Shar out there.”
From a corner, Sascha snickered; he was sitting alongside Jasper, the Ciracaana, observing.
“Stop letting it distract you and I’ll stop doing it.” Narain rolled to his feet with a bonelessness that recalled his feline antecedents. “Another round?”
“Nah.” Tomas handed him a towel. “I’m done for now.” He looked up and added, “Ah, Lord Hirianthial. You need the gym?”
“Salle,” Narain muttered.
“Gym,” Tomas said firmly, ignoring his fellow analyst.
“I came to practice,” he replied. “With this sword your commander was kind enough to lend me.”
“Ah, holoblades. Can’t help you there, never got the hang of them,” Tomas said.
“We don’t have a specialist in them, do we?” Narain frowned, thinkin
g.
“No,” Jasper offered from the sidelines. He flexed a forepaw, claws inching from their beds, and then folded it again. “So Elements forbid any of us get into a situation where a duel has to save the day.”
Tomas snorted. “If we did, we’d just set the thing to bludgeon and win the hard way, that’s all.”
“Or sic you on them, Jasper,” Narain added. “Let ‘em try to chop through nine feet of Ciracaana. You’d kill them while they were still working on it.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “Your command of biology is underwhelming.”
“I know. You suffer so much.” Narain grinned and bowed to Hirianthial. “The floor’s yours. Should we clear out?”
Given how much of his training had involved either a tutor or group sessions, it was hard to imagine finding their presence as distracting as, apparently, Narain’s tail was to Tomas. “It may not be very interesting to watch, I fear. I am out of practice, and not long off a biobed.”
Jasper’s ears pricked. “Oh? I didn’t know this.”
“The Fleet base hospital had to sew all his internal organs back together,” Sascha said. “He won’t admit to it, but he probably should be resting, not jumping around.”
Hirianthial cleared his throat… and surprised himself by finding his mouth twitching.
Sascha added, “And he’s a surgeon himself, so he should know better.”
“That so?” Jasper said, glancing at Hirianthial. “You didn’t mention being a doctor to Soly.”
He hadn’t, had he? Had he renounced his vows so easily then?
No, that was too easy. All that he had learned at the Alliance’s knee, about medicine, about life, about the ethics that defined the existence of a healer, remained, saturated through him like water in soil. But there was a time for everything, and he had accepted that for now he needed to set the healer aside in favor of the fighter. Once he and Liolesa had swept their world clean of their enemies and Lesandurel arrived with his army of relatives to set up the fixed defenses, then he could turn his hand to kinder endeavors. He looked forward to helping Araelis with her child—all the Eldritch with the children they’d found so hard to conceive and carry to term. He could be happy with that life… once he’d earned it.
“I fear I will have little call for those skills for the nonce,” Hirianthial said. “Sascha is correct, though. I should know better.”
“But he’ll still do what he wants anyway. He’s like Reese that way.” Sascha eyed him. “They make a good pair, what with all the stubbornness.”
Hirianthial didn’t suppress his sigh then.
“You see?” Narain told Tomas. “Everyone needs a Harat-Shar. Who else is going to tell them what they need to hear?”
Sascha offered, “They’re so stubborn we needed two, even. My twin would tell you so.”
To Sascha, Hirianthial said, “And if I promise to stop when I am winded?”
“Then I’d say, ‘sure, as long as you let the doctor stay and make sure you’re honest about when you need to stop.’”
Hirianthial pressed a palm to his heart and dipped his head to Jasper. “If the healer will oblige.”
“Sure,” Jasper said. “I’ve never seen an Eldritch fight.”
“You’ve never seen an Eldritch at all until this one walked in the airlock,” Tomas observed.
“Like I said. I’ve never seen an Eldritch fight.”
Guffaws then. The camaraderie in the room had a warmth, like the residual radiated from a hearth still nursing its embers. It reminded him of the Swords, when he was one of them. He smiled to himself, then considered the sword and its settings. He chose as close an approximation to the length and breadth of the Jisiensire sword as possible and set himself to the exercises. They were… very different, when the sword had no weight. Partway through them, Tomas interrupted with a question, which he answered absently. And not long after, Narain had a different comment. Soon they were interrupting him at intervals which, he noted with resigned amusement, always seemed to coincide with when he was breathing too hard.
He stopped finally and eyed them. Their auras were blemished with secrets, and even Sascha’s had the taint. “Tell me how you are doing this.”
“Doing what?” Narain swished his tail, assuming an expression of innocence.
“Deciding when to throttle my exertions.”
Both of the analysts glanced at Jasper. Jasper lifted a hand, exposing a small medical monitor. “Heart-rate, metabolic rate, oxygenation.”
“From a distance?” Hirianthial said, startled. “We had no such equipment where I trained.”
“Fleet hath its privileges,” the Ciracaana said, unperturbed.
“Then how do you know?” he asked the analysts.
“He extends a finger against his foreleg,” Tomas said. He grinned. “We have our ways. Actually, we’ve had our ways for so long most of the time we don’t have to talk them out beforehand.”
“It’s a little like telepathy that way,” Narain agreed. “No offense to you, if that seems presumptuous.”
“A Harat-Shar apologizing for presumption,” Tomas muttered. He folded his arms and said to Jasper, “Maybe the Eldritch broke him.”
“If he’s broken, I can fix him,” Sascha said with a grin.
“Is that a promise?” Narain eyed him hopefully.
“It can be? Right now maybe?”
“Deal,” Narain said. “Bunk’s this way.”
Sascha waved to Hirianthial. “See you, arii. I’ve got an appointment with an Eldritch-broken Harat-Shar and I’m the only one with the expertise. You know how it is.”
Hirianthial laughed. “I have some notion, yes.”
“Well, unlike some fuzzies I’m on duty in ten.” Tomas nodded to Hirianthial. “Thanks for the demonstration.”
“Of course.”
Which left him alone with the Ciracaana, who studied him so pensively Hirianthial finally said, “There is something on your mind.”
“And you divined that entirely without reading it?” Jasper smiled, resettled his bulk. The long catlike tail stretched out along the wall, mottled like his namesake, twitched once at the tip. “The monitor says you’re too soon from a sickbed to be using a sword on someone anytime soon. You know that, I imagine.”
And was tired of people reiterating it, but he was too polite to say so. “I had the notion, yes.”
“So you know if you overexert yourself, you’re going to collapse.” The Ciracaana met his eyes, and Hirianthial recognized the look for the one healers all over the Alliance had cultivated: that combination of professionalism and obstinacy that brooked no patient protest.
“That may be overstating the matter.”
“But not by much,” Jasper replied. He pushed himself to all four feet, stretching, and that was a sight to see: the only other centauroids in the Alliance, the Glaseah, were compact, stocky creatures that barely came up to Hirianthial’s ribs. Jasper’s legs were longer than Hirianthial’s arms, and his entire body seemed poured, like something liquid. If someone had elongated a great cat and then given it a fox’s face, it may have approached the unlikeliness of Jasper’s appearance, but it would somehow have failed to capture that surreal grace. “You know why I push the matter, alet.”
“I have some idea, yes.”
“Because we’re going into dangerous waters, and you’re the only local we have to guide us,” Jasper continued. “If you aren’t honest with yourself about your limitations, you can’t be honest about them with us, and that might land us in a situation where your weaknesses betray us all.”
It was not an accusation, and yet he struggled not to take it as such. He had already failed too many people in his weaknesses; the intimation that he was repeating his mistakes was too keen a barb. He forced himself to breathe through his reaction and replied, at last, “It is my world, alet. To fail at its defense is unthinkable.”
Jasper considered him for several more moments, then sighed. “I can’t tell if that’s a ‘yes’ or
a ‘no,’ and that’s how you people are advertised, isn’t it. Very well, Healer. I will take you at your word and hope I don’t regret it.”
“As do I.”
Surela wasn’t sure whether to be stunned at the invitation awaiting her in her office or infuriated at the presumption: Fassiana, head of the Delen Galares, had asked her to take tea in the rooms where Surela had ordered the Galare entourage detained. She sat abruptly on a chair, the invitation clutched in one hand. The nerve of the woman! To offer with such nonchalance, as if she still had the right to entertain! And yet, Surela had always admired that about Fassiana, her absolute self-assurance. In fact, Surela found her frankly intimidating in a way Araelis could never manage. Fassiana was beautiful, with a demeanor that would not have been out of place in a princess… graceful, self-disciplined, tranquil. Surela had heard she’d not always been so, but for as long as she’d known Fassiana, the other woman had been a model of regal behavior.
She looked at the invitation. She had not found Thaniet yet, a situation that was beginning to distress her. Athanesin was gone, for which she was grateful—she had some peace now—but Araelis remained obdurate. She knew she’d been putting off the confrontation with the northern Galares, and apparently Fassiana had decided to take that matter into her own hands.
The invitation was perfectly correct. Had she been Liolesa, one of Fassiana’s allies and relatives, it would have been unremarkable. But Surela was neither, and Fassiana had no reason to speak with her, much less pretend to civility. Tea! Really!
And yet… this was the first time one of her enemies had reached out to her. If Fassiana was willing to make the effort, maybe she should as well.
Accordingly, two hours later, Surela visited the suite devoted to the northern Galares’ entourage and was graciously received by its servants and shown to a fine table, glittering with cut crystal and polished silverware. Fassiana was standing alongside her chair—calculation, that, for it neatly sidestepped the question of whether the other woman would have stood for her as she should have when visited by her Queen. It was too much to hope that this might represent a true effort toward amicability, and Surela found she did not want to be disappointed… so she spoke first, before Fassiana had the chance to do so and reveal that she thought herself Surela’s equal.
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