“But especially this person?” He smiled at her expression. “Is that how it is, then?”
“I wouldn’t read anything into it,” Reese muttered, folding her arms tightly. Even on the third floor the rooms were cold. Wasn’t heat supposed to rise? It was very obviously not rising here. The first thing going into her new castle during renovations was definitely central heating. “I’m only human.”
“So were we, once.”
She eyed him past the braids crumpled against her hunched shoulder. “You admit that pretty easily, given how long it took for us to drag it out of Hirianthial.”
Val smiled. “I am a renegade, yes?” He closed his eyes, and Reese could see his eyes flicking beneath the lids. “I think we’d better be going. Are you prepared?”
Her hands were shaking, but blood, she had a gun and these people weren’t expecting them and wouldn’t be able to move. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Come on, then.”
It all went wrong from the moment Val pushed in the door. Reese didn’t even remember ending up on the floor unable to move, but it gave her a horrific and very clear view of Val on one elbow and both knees, curled down beneath the foot Baniel had planted between his shoulder-blades. She could see the fabric of Val’s gray coat creasing around the heel.
“The wanderer returns,” Baniel said. “How predictable. Don’t! Even think of it. You won’t succeed.”
“You were never this strong!” Val gasped.
“Things do change.” Baniel smiled and ground his heel against Val’s spine. “How charming it would be to torture you. My newest ally would approve. But you are a touch too troublesome to leave alive for even the short amount of time it would take for you to die.”
Nothing changed in the tableau; not the figure seated in the chair behind Baniel, not the priest himself, not Val. Even so, Reese could feel a pressure in the room, pushing on her skull until her eyes and cheekbones started throbbing. Val had turned his face away from Baniel and his eyes were shut, not in pain, but as if in puzzlement.
Abruptly his eyes flew open, and there was shock there.
Oh! A voice hissed up through her bones where they met the floor. Lord and Goddess! I give you this, I pray you give it to him if he is what you say he is—
She wanted to say ‘what?’ but there were no words, only the sudden shock of a blow so powerful she half expected to have been thrown on her back. But there was no blow, and when she gathered herself to look at Val and ask what the hell he’d been on about, she met his eyes just in time to watch the spirit in them gutter and die. His body sagged beneath Baniel’s boot and the priest kicked it aside.
“And that is how we deal with our enemies, mm?” He walked to her and crouched, close enough to touch her, his robes puddling near her cheek. “Captain Eddings. You would have been better off staying far, far away.” His hands slid over her back, down her arm, found the palmer and freed it from her hand. He searched her coat pockets until he liberated the telegem; despairing, she watched him turn it in his fingers. “Not alone, then, I am guessing. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of your incursion.”
He had his own telegem, she saw, and a data tablet, and he used them to summon two guards—Eldritch, at least, so maybe the pirates had died? Blood, let something good have come out of this! The guards bound her hands behind her back and paused at her face, looking to the priest for guidance.
“No, leave her mouth free. She can yell all she wants.” Baniel smiled at her. “In fact, I’d like her to howl as hard as she can, at the top of her voice… and her mind.” He lowered his head until he could look directly into her eyes. “Do that for me, Captain Eddings. Dwell on your dear Eldritch healer. Call for him. Beg him to come to your rescue, the way you did so wonderfully before. That would do very, very nicely.”
How fast could she go from dismay to active nausea? She thought her heart had time to beat once.
“Take her to one of the cells. And don’t harm her.” Baniel stepped over Val’s body and settled in his chair. “For now.”
As they dragged her away, Reese thought about screaming and clenched her teeth.
A most satisfactory day, Baniel thought after taking the guard’s report. The “escape” of most of the Eldritch hostages would probably win him a tiresome interview with Surela, but having them out of the palace suited him; trouble that needed management should be less proximate to his own location, lest it become too immediate for his tastes. He preferred to pick his kills and personalize them to the last detail, and sudden outbreaks of violence did not afford him the luxury of indulging himself. No, let Surela work herself into a froth over the abrupt scattering of her rivals. And Athanesin! It was to laugh. Truly they did the work of dividing their own forces admirably with very little help from himself.
Speaking of dividing his forces… he sat across from the Chatcaavan and waited patiently for color to flare back into the aura. When the dragon spoke, he sounded groggy. “What happened?”
“I fear you fainted,” Baniel said.
“Fainted!” The alien pushed himself upright in the chair and froze, eyes closing. “Ughn, my head.”
“I wouldn’t make too many sudden movements. You have been unconscious for nearly an hour.”
“An hour! What did I miss?”
“There was a fight.” Baniel threaded his fingers together. “I fear your five pirates are dead.”
“Ah?” The Chatcaavan slowly rubbed his head. “Doesn’t matter. Ship should be in orbit by now. Have you called?”
“Not yet. I wanted to see to your health.”
“Yes. My health.” The alien frowned.
“Perhaps it is some malady relating to the shapechange?”
“Perhaps.” Uncertainty, though.
“You should retire, maybe. Rest a little. Or would you like us to put you under the medical equipment you brought…?”
“No.” The Chatcaavan bared his teeth in a grimace that looked out of place on his Eldritch face. “That won’t be necessary. But I think I will have that rest.” He stood and eyed Baniel. “You were helpful.”
“We are allies.”
The alien considered him a moment longer, then shrugged. “So we are. Call the new ship. Have them send down reinforcements. Tell the new ones not to be pathetic enough to die to these puling freaks.”
“I’ll be sure to relay the message.”
The alien nodded once, curt, and left the room… without ever suspecting that most of his responses had been scripted for him, if not in words, than in emotions. Allies! Baniel snorted and went to pour himself a cup of warmed wine. Oh yes. The Chatcaavan was quite the ally, supplying Baniel with the power and reach to slap down his enemy. To think that Valthial had survived! And crept all the way back here to make an ending to an old rival? Amazing! But not, perhaps, as amazing as his having died so easily. When Baniel had told the Chatcaavan to imprint the Eldritch shapeshift pattern off his brother, he hadn’t realized just how strong Hirianthial was. It was to feel himself a god! Was this what had given his brother that unassailable self-assurance when they were younger? Surely not, when Hirianthial was a master of taking on unearned guilt.
No, he had to believe that Hirianthial was too timid and had been bred too well on stories of duty and sacrifice to ever fully take up the powers that he now had to hand… and that Baniel now had as well, through the bond he’d created with the Chatcaavan during their sessions.
Yes, that had worked exactly as he’d hoped.
He took a sip of the wine and smiled over the lip, savoring the memory of Valthial’s shock as he’d fallen. So good. Good enough to almost make him want to oversee his brother’s demise personally.
Speaking of which. He had a new crew of pirates to bring to heel. He took up the telegem and called for them. They were indeed in orbit, and very eager to send down replacements for the pirates who’d died, particularly if they might be able to partake of the local… culture.
Really, sapients were all so much
alike. It almost took the pleasure out of manipulating them. Almost.
CHAPTER 12
“I trust you’ve found the journey satisfactory,” Hirianthial said, amused.
Sprawled in one of the mess hall’s chairs, Sascha grinned. “Oh, I think I’ve spent it a little more enjoyably than, say, some people I know who’ve been holed up in the gym.”
Bryer snorted from the corner, where he was tucked into his own wings.
Hirianthial ordered himself a cup of tea from the genie and sat across from the Harat-Shar with the mug it delivered him. Warming his fingers on the ceramic, he said, “Truly, arii. Tell me how you find them.”
“The Fleet people? Like all Fleet people. At least the ones I’ve met. Competent. Professional. A little keep-apartish from the rest of us mere civilians, but not intentionally.” Sascha straightened up, rolled his shoulders. “It’s more of a different-families-brushing-elbows thing. Cultural. Something. But I’d trust them in a fight. That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.”
“I wouldn’t worry on that count, then. They don’t have a stake in this the way we do, but they care about getting the job done right. Speaking of which….” Sascha put his cheek in his palm. “You can tell me more now about how I end up as family in an Eldritch House, or whatever. How’s that work?”
“All Houses are first formed thus. One begins with the named seal-bearer—that being the person charged with making the decisions for all the families who look to her—and then she chooses what satellite families she allows to bear the name. Those who are expected to do the duties of nobles are lifted into the House itself. Everyone else living on her land becomes a tenant who looks to her to fulfill those duties. So if she decides that you are to help her, as no doubt she will, then you will end up a junior member of a noble House, and all your children will be also.”
“Seal-bearer,” Sascha said. “Because, I guess, there’s a seal? Like something you stamp on documents?”
“Exactly,” Hirianthial replied. “The seal-bearer is almost inevitably a woman, because women are the continuity of families: in a society without reproductive technology, the only proof of bloodline comes through the matrilineal line.”
“And men get to be glorified studs?” Sascha grinned. “I might make a good Eldritch after all.”
He chuckled. “Hardly. Men carry the swords.” At the Harat-Shar’s snort, he said, “And yes. They do their part to continue the species. With far less frequency and variety of partner than you would probably enjoy.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I could settle in with a single person, if it was the right person,” Sascha said. And amended, “Well, and Irine. I wouldn’t give up Irine.” He glanced at Hirianthial. “So those swords you had… that was your job for your old family.”
His… old… family. Hirianthial paused in the act of bringing the mug to his lips and tried to decide what he felt about having his life before the Earthrise relegated to a musty past, one he could no longer reclaim. His old family. His former life. He flexed his fingers on the mug’s handle and said, “I performed that service, yes.”
Sascha’s ears flipped back. “I said something wrong, didn’t I.”
“Talk too much,” Bryer said from the corner. “Disturbs the center.”
“No, it’s well.” Hirianthial shook his head, heard the bell tinkle against his back. “I am just concerned about what is to come.”
“Yeah. That makes three of us.”
“Not concerned.”
“If you weren’t concerned, you wouldn’t be lecturing me,” Sascha said to the Phoenix. “You’ve known me long enough to realize that I’ve always talked too much, and chastising me disturbs your peace more than it does mine.”
Bryer huffed, but there was a brief gloss of alien amusement skating over his flat aura, so quick it looked like a sheen on his feathers.
“You have made a Phoenix laugh,” he observed.
“What can I say,” Sascha said. “I am magic.”
A chime sounded, drawing their attention. Then Soly’s voice: “Bridge to mess. Lord Hirianthial, we’ll be dropping out of Well shortly. If you’d join us?”
“On my way.”
“This is it, if we read the directions right—” Soly paused for the Faulfenzair navigator’s dismissive sniff. The Seersa smiled. “And we always read the directions right. Look familiar, alet?”
“You have the right of it,” Hirianthial said, standing at her side. “We’re home.”
“Is home always this quiet?” Tomas said from the comm station.
“We would usually have been hailed by the Farthest Wing, the station on the moon,” Hirianthial said. “Have they?”
“No, but we’re running Dusted,” Soly said. “No one’s going to be able to see us except by very, very rare accident.”
“You’re hiding from the pirates,” Sascha said from behind Hirianthial.
“We figured it would be better if we saw them before they saw us, yes.”
“Only problem with that,” Tomas muttered. “I don’t see them.”
A long pause, during which the ship continued to coast in-system. Finally, Hirianthial said, “You don’t see the ship?”
“No. It could be on the other side of the world—”
But the human sounded skeptical. Hirianthial wondered what sensor technology made him so confident of that evidence so distant from their target.
“Keep an eye on it.” Soly sat in the chair in the center of the small bridge and crossed her legs. “We’re still a few hours out. See if you can find this moon station while we’re going in.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Alet? Would you and your man like to sit?”
There were extra seats at the back of the bridge, two on one side and none on the other where the chairs had been removed; there were restraints, however, and Hirianthial imagined they’d been arranged for Jasper’s use. Hirianthial glanced at Sascha, but the Harat-Shar met his eyes with an aura as obdurate as a stone. “We’ll wait here with you, thank you.”
Wait they did, in a silence that felt tense with the focused attention of the Fleet personnel at the fore of the bridge; their auras melded into a smooth whole, making him wonder at what it meant, that such things happened. He’d noted it in Sascha and Irine, the closeness that became a psychic melding, unnoticed by those without the talent. He had no doubt it had happened between himself and Urise when they’d done the teaching. Could more than memory make the transit between people? He wondered if all camaraderie was actually dimly sensed psychic connection.
Tomas broke the silence to say, voice clipped, “That station’s gone.”
Hirianthial started from his reverie. “Gone?”
“There’s a hole in it. Looks like someone put an entropy packet through the wall.”
“God and Lady,” he whispered. Had the Tams still been in it? He prayed they were all on the planet with Reese.
“So the pirates were here… and left?” Soly glanced at Tomas. “Still no sign of them?”
“Not even any emissions traces. If they left, it was a while ago.”
If they’d left, how long would it be before they told everyone where to find his homeworld? The time between now and the arrival of the Fleet reinforcement suddenly seemed far too long.
“So they’re gone,” Soly murmured. “They have to have left people on the surface to hold it against the natives, and we don’t know what kind of equipment they might have. Stay Dusted and put us in orbit, Lune. Above the capital. Let’s have a look at what’s going on.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hirianthial tried to relax. There was nothing he could do about the vessel that had escaped. And if they were gone, there was some chance that he could help Reese clean up the situation on world with a minimum of fuss. Perhaps even within a day? He could hope. That would give them time to sit with the Fleet personnel and make plans for whatever pirates would be returning. He watched idly as the world grew in the
ship’s forward viewscreen. It would be difficult if they had to hold the world against more than one ship, but—
A siren screeched, startling them all.
“Sir! Collision alert!”
“What? What the hell is out there? An invisible asteroid?”
“It’s right on top of us!”
Abruptly the world vanished from the screen, replaced from edge to edge with the flank of an enormous ship.
“What the hell!” Soly said.
Their ship shuddered, seemed to hold its breath… and then wrenched so hard Hirianthial had no time to see the bulkhead that met his head and drew down the dark.
“I beg your pardon,” Surela said to the guard, astonished. “You will say that again.”
“Your Majesty,” he said, words black with remorse. “Most of the hostages have escaped.”
She wanted to correct him, to tell him to call them guests, or at best, detainees… but guests did not escape their suites. Prisoners escaped their suites. And her prisoners had done this. “Escaped. Escaped how? Escaped where?”
“Into the countryside, Your Majesty. The Swords… the Swords managed to find their way into Ontine and helped them out through the servants’ halls. Or the windows, in one case.” He was staring past her at the wall, his posture so rigid her own back ached, staring at him. “We have caught twelve Swords, Your Majesty, among them their captain. The others escaped with the hostages.”
“How many hostages?” Surela asked sharply.
“Escaped?” He cleared his throat. “Some sixty-seven, Your Majesty.”
“Sixty….” She stopped, appalled. She didn’t know the exact numbers of the Galare and Jisiensire contingents, but there had been less than ninety of them. Gathering herself, she said to him, “I have no words to describe the magnitude of your failure.”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“You will guard the remaining detainees,” she said. “And the Swords. Until they escape you as well, the way apparently the Queen, her mind-mage, and the hostages have managed in the past. Goddess and Lady! Are all of you inept? I should replace you with the aliens! At least they haven’t failed us yet!”
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