Damian Chrestil ignored the irony, said, “Thank you.” He was very aware of Cella’s lifted eyebrow, and went on almost at random, “Make yourself comfortable.”
“Consider myself a guest?” Ransome asked.
“If you must.”
“Chauvelin will be grateful.” Ransome pushed himself up off the arm of the chair, moved slowly across the room to stare at the weather screen. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting back into the city.”
“I wouldn’t send my people out in this,” Damian answered with some asperity. “You’ll have to wait it out with the rest of us.”
Ransome nodded, his attention still on the screen. Cella set her drink aside very precisely, and came to stand between Damian and the other man, so close that Damian could smell the faint sweetness of her perfume.
“May we talk, Damiano?”
The very reasonableness of her tone was a warning of sorts. “Of course,” Damian said, and moved back into the corner of the room, far enough away from the screen that an ordinary speaking voice would not be overheard. He leaned against the side of one of the heavy chairs, still not quite willing to turn his back on Ransome, and Cella leaned close, her hip against his knee, one hand on the chair, just brushing against his thigh. They would look intimate from a distance, Damian knew, and wished for a fleeting instant that that was all she wanted.
“Are you going to go through with this?” Cella asked. She kept her voice down, but the anger was perfectly clear under the conversational surface.
Damian Chrestil eyed her for a moment, biting back his answering anger– all the more unreasonable because I know what you’re really saying, that I backed down, that I let Chauvelin win–and said, “It’s the best bet, Cella. Better odds than anything else.”
“Changing horses is never a good bet,” Cella answered. “The Visiting Speaker’s still got power, why not stick with him? Why the hell go with Chauvelin?” She glanced over her shoulder, a quick, betraying tilt of the head toward Ransome, still staring at the screen. “And him?”
“For God’s sake, Cella,” Damian said. “Because ji‑Imbaoa is unreliable, and because Chauvelin’s winning right now.”
“The je Tsinraan have the power at court,” Cella said. “I know that, I did the research for you. They’re going to win in the long term, not the tzu line. You should stick with them.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“I could persuade him,” Cella said. “I could tell him it was a bluff–”
“ Sha‑mai!” Damian Chrestil pushed her away, pushed himself up off the chair in a single motion, heedless of Ransome’s frankly curious stare. “Look, Cella, I’ve told you what I’m doing, which is more than is really your business. You’re very good at the Game, but this is reality. This is what I am going to do–this is the only thing I can do, the only way I can keep even this much–and I don’t need your baroque variations to complicate it.” He took a deep breath, regained his composure with an effort. “If you want to help out, yes, by all means, keep the Visiting Speaker happy. But stay out of my politics.”
Cella looked at him, her face stiff and hard as a Carnival mask, her careful makeup bright as paint against a sudden angry pallor. “I can–keep him happy–if that’s what you want, yes.”
“I don’t really give a fuck,” Damian Chrestil answered, and turned away.
“Certainly, Na Damian,” Cella said, with the sweet subservience that never failed to infuriate him, and swept away toward the door.
Ransome watched without seeming to do so, all too aware of the tone if not all the words of the conversation. It was the losers who watched and listened like this, prisoners, servants, houta… Well, I’ve been all of those, and born canalli besides. He fixed his attention on the screen as Cella stalked past him and disappeared into the hallway. I can’t say I’m sorry she’s been taken down a peg or two.
In the screen, waves rose and beat against the wet black metal of the storm barriers, the image dimmed and distorted by the blowing rain and the drops that ran down the camera’s hooded lens. It shivered now and then, as the wind shook the shielded emplacement. The first line of barriers was almost engulfed, foam boiling against and over it; the second and third, farther up the channel, were more visible, but a steady swell still pounded against them. Ransome watched impassively, remembering what conditions would be like on the Inland Water. Even with all the barriers up, the water would be rough–the Lockwardens would have to let some of the tides through, or risk damage to the generators that powered the city and, if things got bad enough, to the barriers themselves–and the water level would be rising along the smaller canals. He had grown up on a lowlying edge of the Homestead Island District, could remember struggling with his parents to get the valuables out to higher ground without any of the neighbors finding out that they had anything worth stealing; remembered how they had piled what they couldn’t carry onto the shelves that ran below the ceilings, hoping that the roof would stay intact and the water wouldn’t rise too high. And hoping, too, that the overworked Lockwardens from the local station would remember to keep an eye on the block. He glanced at the controls, touched a key to superimpose the chronometer reading on the screen: still almost an hour to actual sunset, but the image in the screen was already as dark as early evening. The winds were high, but steady for now: all in all, he thought, not a bad time for looting. There would be a few bad boys in the Dry Cut and Homestead who would be risking it.
“Where’s that from, Warden’s East?” Damian Chrestil asked. He had come up so silently that the other hadn’t been aware of his presence until he spoke.
“I think so,” Ransome answered, and found himself glad of the distraction. He glanced sideways, saw the younger man still scowling faintly, not all the marks of ill temper smoothed away. Still pissed at Cella, he thought. And I can’t say I blame him.
Damian Chrestil slipped a hand into his pocket, obviously reaching for a remote, and a moment later the image in the screen vanished, to be replaced by a false‑color overview of the storm itself. Distinct bands of cloud curved across the city, outlined in dotted black lines beneath the flaring reds and yellows of the storm; more bands were visible to the south, but there was still no sign of the eye.
“Heading right for us,” Damian Chrestil said.
“We should be here some hours,” Ransome agreed, and had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the noise of the rain. Something thudded heavily against the shutters, and they both glanced toward the source of the sound, Damian Chrestil vividly alert for a second before he’d identified and dismissed the noise.
“Not too many trees around here, I hope,” Ransome said, with delicate malice, and Damian’s mouth twisted into a wry smile.
“Let’s take a look.” He worked the remote again, and the picture shifted–tapping into the house systems, Ransome realized. At least one camera was useless, its lens completely obscured by the blowing rain, so that it showed only wavering streaks of grey. Damian flicked through three more cameras, so quickly that Ransome barely had time to recognize the images–a rain‑distorted view of the lawn, a camera knocked out of alignment by the wind, so that it showed only the corner of the house and a patch of wind‑blown grass, more rain sweeping in heavy curtains across a stone courtyard–and stopped as abruptly as he’d begun. “Ah.”
The camera was looking away from the wind, Ransome realized, looking inland toward the Barrier Hills and the lowlying trees that grew along their wind‑scoured shoulders. The nearest trees were perhaps thirty meters away, up a gentle slope. They were bent away from the house, into the hillside, their leaves tossing wildly, thick trunks bent into a steady arc. Ransome winced, and even as he watched, one of the trees fell forward, quite slowly, a tangle of roots pulling free of the wet ground. The silent fall was disconcerting, eerie, and he looked away.
“What a lovely place to spend a storm.”
Damian Chrestil shrugged, smiling slightly. “It’s stood worse.�
�
“It wasn’t the house I was worried about.”
Damian shrugged again, and his smile widened. “The odds look good to me.”
And you’re such a judge of that. The comment was too double‑edged, too easily turned against himself, and Ransome kept silent, though he guessed that the other had read the thought in his eyes. He turned away from the screen, went over to the drinks cart, and poured himself another glass of the sweet amber wine. “Do you want anything?”
Damian Chrestil looked momentarily surprised, but then flipped the screen back to one of the city channels, and came to join him. “Yes, thanks, you can pour me a glass of that.”
Ransome filled another of the long‑stemmed glasses, handed it to Damian Chrestil, and they stood for a moment in an almost companionable silence. Something else fell against the shutters, a lighter thump and then a skittering, as though whatever it was had been dragged across the rough surfaces. Damian Chrestil glanced quickly toward the noise, and looked away again. He was a handsome man, Ransome thought, attractive in the same fine‑boned, long‑nosed way that his sister Bettisa had been, with the same quick response to the unexpected. And it was good to see a man who knew better than to follow an unflattering fashion. And sex is the last weapon of the weak. Not that that’s stopped me before. He looked back at Damian Chrestil, allowed himself a quick and calculated smile, and was not surprised when the other’s smile in return held a certain interest. But I’m bored, and he is–less than fastidious, at least by reputation. Not very flattering, I suppose. But it’s better than doing nothing.
Day 2
Storm: Ransome’s Loft, Old Coast Road,
Newfields, Above Junction Pool
Lioe lay on Ransome’s neatly made bed, one arm thrown over her eyes to block the light from the main room. The walls trembled now and then in the gusts of wind; she could feel the vibration through the mattress, through the heavy wood of the bed frame. The shutter that protected the single narrow window had jammed before it quite closed off the view, and she had left it there rather than risk damaging the mechanism. The glass had seemed heavy enough, and on this side of the building, overlooking the cliff edge, there had seemed little chance that anything would blow through it. Now, feeling the building shake, she was not so sure, and looked sideways under the crook of her elbow, at the hand‑span gap between the shutter and the bottom of the frame. She could see only the sky and the rain, the slate‑colored clouds periodically dimmed by sheets of water blown almost horizontally past the window. She had never seen anything like this before, could not believe how tired she felt, tired of the tension, the dull fear at the pit of her stomach. Storms on Callixte were just as dangerous, maybe more so; but they swept in out of the plains with a few minutes’ warning, and were over almost as quickly. There was none of the anticipation–days of anticipation–that preceded Burning Bright’s storms, and certainly nothing she’d ever been through had prepared her for the steady, numbing fear. And the worst of it was that she had nothing to do–there was nothing she could do to face the storm, and nothing in the Game seemed worthwhile compared to its massive force. Once she had pulled the copies of the jeu a clefoff the nets, there was nothing to distract her.
A noise from the street brought her bolt upright, heart pounding, an enormous ripping sound and then a crash. Roscha’s voice came indistinctly from the main room. “What the hell–?”
Lioe went to join her, found the other woman standing by the main door, her head cocked to one side. The working space was opened, and the air around Ransome’s chair was filled with Game images. “What was it, do you know?”
“Outside,” Roscha answered. She worked the locks. “Only one way to find out.”
Lioe nodded. Roscha slid back the last bolt, and eased back the heavy door. The wind caught them both by surprise, a gust of cold, wet air snapping past them into the room.
“I didn’t hear a window,” Lioe began.
“ Sha‑mai,” Roscha said. “The stairway’s gone.”
“The stairway?” Lioe repeated, foolishly, and Roscha edged back into the loft.
“See for yourself.”
Lioe leaned past her, blinking a little as the full force of the wind hit her. The short hall looked different, wrong somehow, and then she realized that the stairs were indeed gone, ripped away from the side of the building, the door hanging crooked by a single hinge. Even as she watched, another gust of wind set the door swinging, and the groan of the hinge pulling still farther out of the wall was loud even over the noise of the storm.
“The wind must’ve caught it just right,” Roscha said.
“Is there anything we should do?” Lioe asked. She looked up and down the hall as she spoke, wondering if any of the other tenants were around, glanced back to see Roscha shrug.
“I don’t know what. I don’t see any sheet‑board, or anything like that, and I can’t see that a little rain’s going to hurt this floor. There’s probably a maintenance staff around somewhere, anyway.”
“Probably,” Lioe agreed. She was certainly right about the damage: the battered tiles had been peeling away from the floor long before the storm started. She stepped back into the loft, and Roscha pushed the door closed again. She had to work against the weight of the wind, and Lioe leaned against it too, to help the bolts go home.
The Game shapes were still dancing in the air around Ransome’s chair. Lioe glanced idly at them, frowned, and looked more closely. Damian Chrestil’s face seemed to leap out at her from among the busy images. “What’s all this?” she asked, and turned to see Roscha looking at her with a mix of defiance and embarrassment. There was a little pause before the other woman spoke.
“I was trying to remake your scenario, the one you threw together. It was too good to waste–too good to waste on blackmail.”
Lioe ignored the deliberately provocative word. “I made a deal,” she said. “You could get all three of us killed, you, me, and Ransome.”
Roscha looked away. “I wasn’t going to run it as it stood, I was going to make a lot of changes. Enough to make a difference, I think–I know.” She faced Lioe again, scowling now. “You can’t stop me.”
Lioe looked at her for a long moment, weighing her options. No, I probably could stop you. I’ve got the influence on the Game nets, and I’m probably better on the nets than you are–and Ransome will help me–but that only works for a while. I’d have to watch you like a hawk, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to do that. “Maybe not,” she said aloud, “but the scenario shouldn’t run, regardless of my deal. It doesn’t belong in this Game.”
Roscha’s frown deepened, her expression faintly interested as well as suspicious. “Why not?”
“Because this Game is over.”
Roscha opened her mouth to protest, and Lioe lifted an eyebrow at her, daring her to continue. The other woman said nothing, and Lioe felt a thrill of excitement at the small victory, a small, sweet pleasure at a good beginning. Was this what Chauvelin felt, this sure power? She swept on, not wanting to lose her moment.
“Yes, this Game is ending. The scenario I’ve been running is the start of it, a bigger scenario that’s going to tie everything together, all the bits and pieces, and bring this Game to a solid conclusion, all the lines resolved in a single grand structure. And no one, ever, is going to be able to play with it again without knowing that it’s ended.” She had not realized, until then, how important that had become to her, to write one thing, create one scenario, that could never be changed–that no one would want to change. She went on more slowly, speaking now as much to herself as to Roscha, and heard both certainty and seduction in her tone. “It’s gotten stale, it’s too predictable right now. We’ve all felt it. So it’s time to start over, begin a new Game. And that’s where this scenario–” she nodded to the dancing images, to the faces of Chauvelin and Damian Chrestil hanging in the air beside the working chair–“it and lots of others like it–that’s where they come in. We can remake the Game so t
hat it’s something real, not just a distant reflection of reality, but something that changes, comments on, reshapes what’s really going on. That’s the Game your scenario belongs in, don’t you see? Someplace where it will matter.”
Roscha looked warily at her, the frown gone, replaced by a look of uncertainty that made her look suddenly years younger, almost a child again. “I don’t play politics–”
“You could. In this Game, you could.” Lioe smiled, suddenly, fiercely happy, the storm forgotten. “We both can. It won’t be jeu a clefany more, that’s too easy. We can set it up so that it’s an integral part of the Game, so that you can’t escape it–so that no one who plays, and no one who sees the Game, hears about it, can avoid what we’re doing. That’s what we need, to keep us honest. To make it real.”
“That’s what you need, maybe.” Roscha shook her head. “I’m not that good.”
“Then you’d better learn.”
There was a little silence between them, the wind a rough counterpoint, and then Roscha threw back her head and laughed. “You’re right, and I’ll do it. Sha‑mai, what a chance!”
I knew you would. Lioe hid that certainty, looked again at the busy workspace. “Let’s get on with it, then.” She reached for the nearest of Ransome’s gloves, started to draw them on.
Roscha nodded, and moved toward the other controls. “One thing, though.”
Lioe stopped, one hand half into the thin mesh. “What?”
“A favor.”
“If I can.”
“I want to play the last scenarios.” Roscha’s face was utterly serious. “The ones that wrap this up, I mean. I want to be a part of that, too. It’s–I think someone in the new Game should have been part of the old one, that’s all.”
I was part of the old Game. Lioe stopped short, the moment of indignation fading. But not like her. I was looking for something else, something better, even when I didn’t know it. I never was wholly part of it, no matter how hard I tried. She said aloud, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Burning Bright Page 34
