her instruments 03 - laisrathera

by M. C. A. Hogarth

When he arrived on the bridge, all conversation stopped. Six faces turned toward him, their auras flaring: curiosity, pleasure, relief, a strange and powerful possessiveness. He was still sorting the impressions when Sascha hit him with an enthusiastic embrace he should have expected, shattering all those nascent thoughts with the strength of his joy: that he lived, that they all lived and had been reprieved. “Oh, Angels, arii!”

  Hirianthial smiled and bent low enough to rest his nose briefly against disheveled golden hair. “There, now. No harm done, as you can see. For once.”

  “We were going to die. I knew it. I knew it.” Sascha leaned back and stared up at him, earnest. “And then they all just… fell down. What did you do?”

  “We’re curious too,” Soly said from behind the Harat-Shar. She and the others were sitting at a small table near the back wall, by the lift, framed by the read-outs above unmanned stations that whispered and flickered through their automated procedures. The Seersa’s aura revealed a creamy orange curiosity, not quite intense enough to be more vivid, and no disquiet, which he found astonishing. Concern, perhaps, but for him and not because of him. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  To say that he was fairly certain it was the God and Goddess working through him would probably not move the Pelted; the Alliance had its devout, but they were rarer than those who navigated their lives with little interest for the Powers. Lune would understand; Tomas… who knew with humans? The only one he knew well swore by the blood of patriots, by war and revolution. He chose a less fraught explanation, then. “I was not certain it was within my measure, or I would have said something. But I believe the urgency of the situation was… inspiring.”

  “Inspiring.” Soly’s mouth twitched.

  “Almost dying does have a way of inspiring people,” Narain agreed with a look of attempted sagacity.

  “Seriously, though.” Tomas leaned forward, interested. “What did you do? Can you do it again?”

  “Probably,” Hirianthial said. How easy would it be without the ship lending him the knowledge of its bones and marrow? “But it is not something I would do lightly.”

  “Knocking out eighty-seven people at once? I imagine not.” Soly considered him. “How did you figure out how not to hit us, though?”

  He looked down at Sascha, who had not yet let him go, only stepped to one side with a possessive arm still curled around his waist. Then he surveyed them all and felt only confusion. “How could I have? You are allies.”

  Tomas guffawed. “Just like that. Might as well be magic.”

  “A disciplined mind manipulating reality is not magic,” Jasper retorted.

  Bryer huffed. “Is right. No magic.” He cocked his head. “One with the Eye, knows all things.”

  Hirianthial paused, arrested by the words. Then said, quiet, “Not all things. But the things that matter at the time, perhaps.”

  A ripple of pleasure traveled the Phoenix’s close, dense aura. “You understand.”

  “A little more than I did before.” Hirianthial glanced past the others toward the fore of the bridge, past the ramp leading to the overhanging balcony and the spreading stations that oversaw the ship’s many functions. The view was beyond description; it would take the Alliance to substitute a three-dimensional display the height of his townhouse for a mere window looking out on space. The tank held several displays in addition to the swollen curve of his homeworld, its clouds in thick woolen tatters over its surface. “As I am the last awake, perhaps you might tell me how things stand?”

  Soly nodded. “You know the pirates are in the brig.”

  “So Jasper said.”

  She leaned back, threading her fingers on her solar plexus and looking toward the display. “The first thing we did after cleaning that little problem up was see if we could get the computers to cough up a history for how this ship got into criminal hands….”

  “Tomas’s doing,” Narain said. “And mine. A little. Once I woke up.”

  At the sparkle of anxiety in Sascha’s aura, Hirianthial glanced down at him with a lifted brow. The tigraine grimaced and said, “We were in sorry shape coming out of that fight.”

  “It was fine,” Narain said to Sascha—not to Hirianthial, interestingly, “I’ve had worse.”

  Soly cleared her throat, drawing their attention back. “As we suspected, she was taken on the border in a skirmish that led into a very neat trap, and she’s been missing for three months now. The crew was….” She stopped, ears slicking back. “The crew is gone. We might recover them, but the trail we have to follow is probably snowed under by now. It’ll be for someone else to do.” She paused, gathering her thoughts from the distress that had shattered them. “There was a crew of one hundred and fifty pirates on this ship, and only a hundred and fifteen aboard. The remainder are down there, with the Chatcaavan. There’s been no communication in or out of the system that we can tell, but this ship received word of its new assignment from a different vessel. We’re assuming that’s the pirate that made the original trip here. That ship was scheduled to continue on, so we’re guessing reinforcements are on the way.”

  “Guessing,” Tomas added, “Because it wouldn’t be safe to plan otherwise. The probabilities that they’re sending another warship here are low, though. This vessel is big enough to handle a world without any modern defenses, and its holds are large enough to transport some number of captives. If anything, they’ll be sending a cargo ship through, not another fighter like this.”

  “Assuming they have more fighters like this,” Soly said, tail lashing. “Which their communication records suggest they might.”

  “But we’re not taking any chances,” Tomas finished.

  “I appreciate it,” Hirianthial said.

  “We’ve sent news of this upstream using the locked repeaters we dropped on the way in. Fleet needed to know about this three months ago, but better late than never. And there’s a good chance they’ll send a skeleton crew in to help us man this thing against anyone who might be coming on her heels. That sews up the situation in orbit… which leaves things on the ground.” She looked up at him. “There have been fires.”

  Such small words, to rip through him like a blade. Fires in winter—never. “Fires.”

  She nodded. “There are some burned out places, and what looks like a small contingent moving up a road. Maybe about four hundred people. The other big locus of activity is further north, but I use the word ‘big’ with reservations… it’s only about sixty people. Everywhere else is quiet, and there’s no one outside. The palace is still intact, but if you have any allies there, they’re not broadcasting their presence.”

  “I imagine not.” Burnt-out places and an army, for four hundred soldiers together comprised an army among a people as lacking in strength as his. And where was Theresa? Surely in hiding, for if the Tams had seen the arrival of this ship in orbit they would have waited for the contact the Queen had promised, using the secure code she had given Malia to ensure their identity. “But we should have allies on the ground, if you can direct me to a comm station.”

  “Right. This way.”

  The moment of truth, then. He felt Bryer’s shadow at his back, and Sascha was positively hovering. He tapped in the code and waited, and the panel chirped through its seeking protocol and then chimed acquisition.

  Behind him on the tank, Malia said, “Oh, thank Iley, thank Him, you’re here.”

  They turned, all of them, and took in her expression. Sascha said, “Where’s my sister? Where’s Reese? What’s gone wrong?”

  Malia’s ears sagged. “I hope you’re sitting down.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Now what?” Narain asked after the Tam-illee had signed off to minimize the chances of the pirates noticing the communication traffic.

  “More like what first?” Soly turned to him. “Lord Hirianthial? Your guidance would be appreciated on the matter. Apparently your allies in the north are taking shelter somewhere without much by way of resources. Are there soldiers amon
g them we might recruit to deal with the situation in the palace? Or should we investigate the contingent traveling up the road, since Malia wasn’t sure about them?”

  Oh, he knew. Athanesin gone meant Athanesin had taken the majority of Surela’s supporters… and they were returning from Jisiensire.

  They had set fires.

  And Theresa lost… no, worse. Theresa in the hands of his worst enemy!

  He stood, leaving the chair swinging with the force of his departure, and folded his arms, back to the others. The world continued to hang in serene indifference in the corner of the towering display, its clouds thicker than when he’d last looked. He thought of smoke. He thought of prison cells. His blood pounded so hard in his temples he thought he would lose his sight to the headache, and did not mind that he might, if he could only reach out a hand and twist those fires to other ends—

  A hand touched his arm, brought with it a shocking coolth that ran his skin as swift as a sedative through a vein.

  “Control,” Bryer murmured. The Phoenix was standing next to him, and he had not sensed the other come. “The Eye is stillness, not the storm.”

  But what he wanted was to destroy—

  Listen to him, something breathed in his ear.

  “Like a scalpel,” Bryer said. “Not the crushing gale. In this, the healer must meet the warrior.”

  Hirianthial slowly looked at him. The Phoenix’s calm continued to streak through his body, slowing his pulse, draining the headache.

  “Be whole,” Bryer said. “Or fail. Your choice.”

  He closed his eyes and addressed the Seersa. “If you have resources to Pad north from this vessel, alet, those would be appreciated. They have gathered at a ruin, and while there is a town at its foot it is not large enough to have food or board for so many refugees. And it is cold there, and there is no heat. Have you something you might do to ameliorate the situation?”

  “Supplies we can do,” Soly said. She sounded more subdued. “What then?”

  “Then the palace,” Hirianthial replied. “Where the Chatcaavan is, and no doubt the remainder of the ship’s pirates. They will not have gone with the army, and I doubt anyone would have wanted them at large in the countryside. If Malia is correct and Olthemiel and some of his men may be alive, then if we free them we have near even odds. Once we have put paid to that problem, we can attend to the army. It won’t be able to come nigh in time to stop what happens at Ontine, and is too far from any of my cousin’s allies to menace them either. We have some latitude there.”

  “All right. We can do all that. I’ll coordinate with Malia about the supplies, get things moving. When do you want to attend to the palace?”

  “Now,” Hirianthial said.

  Malia did not hug him when he stepped through the Pad tunnel and into the cold, close shadows of the trees over the Swords’ camp, but she did throw her arms around Sascha when the Harat-Shar arrived on Bryer’s heels.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, she didn’t listen to me!”

  “Not your fault,” Sascha said, ears low. “She doesn’t listen to anyone when she’s made up her mind. I should know.”

  “She’s alive,” Hirianthial said, without thinking, and both Pelted lifted their faces to him, frozen in their embrace. The need in Sascha’s eyes made him evaluate the sensation, test it for truth, and everything in him whispered back, soft, Yes. “She is.”

  “Where….”

  Hirianthial looked toward Ontine, skin prickling. Not just Irine, but other things. Grief and blood soaking into soil. The cold of thin wet snow, clinging. A howling abnegation that he could touch only from this distance without flinching. And somewhere, in that mélange, the smallest of embers, dampened. Theresa? Why could he barely feel her when her yell for help had pierced him like a lance the day Baniel had thrown her over the balcony? Even at this distance, he should be able to sense her more clearly, and he couldn’t. Had she given up?

  …or was she trying not to call him?

  He inhaled suddenly.

  “Reese?” Sascha guessed, moving toward him.

  “And afraid of bringing us to her. A trap, naturally.”

  “At least she’s alive.” The tigraine’s ears flipped back. “You could maybe tell her you are too?”

  “No.” He shook his head minutely. “If it is a trap, and it must be, then technological communication won’t be the only thing they’re monitoring. Right now it’s likely Baniel does not know we have arrived. I would prefer to keep it that way if he’s expecting me.”

  “So what do we do?” Malia asked.

  “Whatever it is,” Narain said from behind them, “we’d better do it quickly before they figure out the ship’s not responding.” He dropped the rolled-up Pad he’d been balancing on his shoulder with a grunt. “Damned things are heavier than they look… anyway, Soly sent me. She says the re-supply is going well and they’re keeping an eye on the group coming up the road. At the speed foot-soldiers walk they’re at least two weeks away, though. I’m supposed to give you advice on infiltration of enemy terrain, at speed.”

  “And your recommendation?” Hirianthial asked, curious.

  “Honestly? Can you climb in your enemy’s window and slit his throat while he’s sleeping?”

  “If I knew the room he’d claimed for his own, I would find that a meritorious suggestion.”

  “Why are black ops never as easy as the 3deos make them look.” Narain managed a grin. “In that case, I guess we go over the strength we’ve got—”

  A chime sounded from Malia’s ear, and all of them stared at her. She touched the telegem, startled. “Is that… Iley!” Flicking it on, she hurried, “Who is this? This channel’s supposed to be dead!”

  “And it might have been if the servants hadn’t been double-checking their work and found it in the Queen’s empty suite.”

  “Val!”

  Sascha took a step toward her. “Ask him about Irine!”

  “Val—”

  “I don’t have much time. We’re about to break the Swords out of the audience chamber. If you’re planning any heroics—”

  “We’re on our way,” Malia said. “Give us as much time as you’ve got.”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “We’re moving. Tam out.” To the rest of them, “I’ll muster Beronaeth and the Swords. You—I don’t know you but you’re in uniform. Configure the Pad!” And then she was running for the camouflaged entrance to the tunnels. Narain was already at work unrolling the Pad and waking it.

  “Oh Angels.” Sascha wrapped an arm around his own middle, tail lashing. “I’m nauseated.”

  “You’re worried,” Hirianthial said. “Don’t be.”

  “Just like that!”

  Bryer said, “Will get through this. Or all die. Worry will cloud you to right action.”

  “Well that’s encouraging.”

  “You’ll be united with Irine on the other side of the Pad,” Hirianthial said and made the gift. Had Urise not said? He took too much on himself, and there was no need. The weakness in the self was meant to be compensated by the strength in others. “Breathe, Sascha. I need you steady.”

  Startled, Sascha turned round golden eyes to him, ears sagging.

  “I mean it,” he added, quiet.

  The color seeped back into Sascha’s aura, hardening, and his spine straightened. “Well, then. I’m good.”

  “I knew you would be,” Hirianthial said, and then Malia was there with the Swords, what remained of them, still disciplined despite the holes in their ranks. As they filed past, Beronaeth stopped before him and bowed, hand to chest. “My Lord.”

  “Second,” Hirianthial said, switching to their tongue and burnishing the words gold. “You have served your Queen well in her absence. I have had report of it.”

  “Perhaps, Sire,” Beronaeth replied, though his cheeks flushed. “But we have not done, yet.”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “My Lord… have you a weapon? I may make a loan to you
if not. We have spares.”

  “I have a sword,” Hirianthial said, and was surprised to discover he did not want to part with it in favor of the sort he’d grown up wielding. “It has served me well thus far. But a dagger would be useful.”

  “Then take mine, please.” Beronaeth drew it and offered it on both palms. Like all the blades issued to the Swords, it was simple, its only ornamentation the white leather grip—and that was ornamentation enough. He remembered how quickly it frayed and discolored, and how often he’d had to strip it and replace it with fresh. “I would be honored to aid in your defense.”

  Careful of the other man’s hands, Hirianthial lifted it free and inclined his head. For once he was glad of his language and its nuances and shaded the answer with the white mode: for symbolism, for the purity of the transaction, for the shared understanding. “Thank you.”

  The flush deepened on the man’s cheeks, but he merely bowed again and excused himself to see to the others.

  “Lord Hirianthial?” Narain called. “We’ve got the Pad set for some Angels-forsaken dirt hole under a balcony, if you and yours are ready.”

  Time was wasting. He strode to the Pad, over it, and into the shadow of Ontine.

  “This is crazy,” Irine hissed. “How can no one know we’re here?”

  “Because,” Val said, “We are in the servants’ corridors and no one uses these by choice. Even the servants.”

  Irine would have argued that point when they’d first set out, since the corridors along the exterior wall of the palace seemed no different to her than the ones on the Earthrise; a little narrow and very plain, but otherwise unremarkable. Now that they were in the interior halls, though, she understood; to get through them she had to turn sideways and keep her back flush to the wall, and there was no room for her to stretch her arm all the way in front of herself. She didn’t think of herself as a claustrophobe, but this was taking cozy a little too far. “Still, it seems a dangerous oversight. If your enemies can be sneaking around in the walls without you knowing…”

  “You are thinking like an alien, Lady Tigress,” Val said. “An alien would treat these halls as escape routes. An Eldritch would never think of it. Some things are just not done among us.”