House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy)

by Wren, M. K.

  “All of this . . . Predis—what’s happened in Fina . . . I can’t deal with it. It just doesn’t make sense.” An introspective frown, then he shook his head. “No, it makes sense; I can understand it objectively. But I can’t deal with it. Alex said I must be the . . . spiritual leader of the Phoenix. That’s burden enough. I leave it to you, Jael, to assume the burden of secular leadership.” He put his hands on the table and leaned forward as if to rise, but for a moment hesitated, his eyes fixed on the speaker. Then, seeming to remember his purpose, he pushed back his chair and came to his feet.

  “Excuse me, I have to get to . . . the lab . . . .”

  None of them questioned that or tried to stop him. Jael said to Erica, “This meet’s over. Maybe you should go with him. If he needs words, they’ll have to come from you.”

  She nodded and went to the door, resting a hand on Jael’s shoulder in passing. She didn’t say anything, and a silence that seemed to emanate from the rocks themselves filled the vacuum of her departure.

  Finally, Ben asked, “Have you heard from Val since yesterday?”

  “She called an hour ago; that’s after the cloister curfew. She didn’t have much, Ben. She’s only been inside for two weeks and she hasn’t hooked into any of the in-lines. I guess novices are supposed to stay shut unless they’re asked, and except for prayers and penances, they don’t often get asked. She’s planting microceivers to pick up conversations she can’t sit in on. One of them cost her fifty prayer penances; she got caught out of proper place. Anyway, she has a name for the novice who got pinned. Sister Betha.”

  “Which doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “No, but Betha was new to Saint Petra’s. Val doesn’t know how new. She says time is relative there. They talk about something that happened twenty years when as ‘lately.’ But she’s inside, Ben. Just hold on to that.”

  “Yes, I guess we have to keep reminding ourselves of the things we should be grateful for.” Then he looked at his watch. “Jael, I’d better get back to Fina. Anything else you want to line out now?”

  “No. It’s all been drawn, brother.”

  3.

  Mathis Galinin rose and looked around the circle of Directors. Preoccupied faces, he was thinking, as his no doubt was. The wintery afternoon sunlight heightened the colors in the tapestries on the Chamber wall, but even that warm light couldn’t make those heroic scenes seem anything but faded ironies. Nothing is so stale as the glory of vanished empires.

  “My lady and my lords . . .” He glanced at Honoria Ivanoi, wondering why he’d never noticed that she still wore black after all these years, and wondering why he should notice it now. “We’ll adjourn for today and resume tomorrow morning at 10:00. Thank you.”

  A burgeoning of muted dialogues accompanied the exodus. Galinin turned to Phillip Woolf.

  “Phillip, meet me in my office, if you will. I have something to discuss with you.”

  Woolf paused. “Nothing . . . serious, I hope.”

  “Nothing disastrous, at least. Excuse me—Lord Cameroodo, a word with you, please.”

  The tall, dark-visaged Lord of Mars stopped at the Chamber doors.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  Woolf didn’t stay to hear the conversation; he knew what was on Galinin’s mind. The same thing that made James Neeth Cameroodo even more intently sober than usual, and had occupied this august body for the better part of a day. Toramil had been rocked by a major Bond uprising only three days ago, and from all reports the compounds, and the city itself, weren’t entirely quiescent yet. Cameroodo was in Concordia to ask—rather, to demand—Confleet intervention on a large scale. He called it, with no apparent self-consciousness, a “punitive force.”

  In the columned entry hall, Woolf’s brows came down in an impatient frown when he saw the milling crowds of reporters. They wore DeKoven Woolf badges, but generally he allowed them the freedom they claimed as Independent Fesh.

  Still, at moments like this it would be a pleasure to order them all out of the Hall.

  But a show of temper of that sort would only give Selasis and his cronies satisfaction. And, he thought, as he caught a glimpse of Selasis barging through a cluster of mike- and vidicam-armed reporters, rob him of the satisfaction of seeing Selasis suffering their insistent attentions.

  Woolf’s jaw tensed at the shouted questions. They had nothing to do with the Directorate meeting; they were concerned with the rumors surrounding the Lady Adrien’s death.

  “My lord . . .”

  He turned to see Captain Martin Sier of his House guard standing at attention, backed by two more Woolf guards. A sign of the times. Conpol had advised the Directors to maintain personal guards even within the Hall.

  “Captain Sier.” He said nothing beyond that recognition of his presence. The reporters were surging toward him, and he set off down the side corridor, striding past the waving mikes and ogling lenses. Sier and his men were hard put to keep up with him or to fend off the jostling reporters.

  “No, I have nothing to say,’’ Woolf insisted, never breaking pace. “When the Directorate has made concrete decisions concerning the situation on Mars, I’ll have a statement, and not before.”

  That brought on a new verbal bombardment, but he looked neither right nor left, the firm set of his mouth eloquent of determination. The babble of questions seemed endless. Would they never recognize his silence as unyielding and turn on someone else? Didn’t they—

  “My lord!”

  The shriek of alarm gave him warning. He never knew its source; perhaps one of the reporters.

  He spun around, catching a flash of light reflected in the downward thrust of a blade as a man launched himself out of the crowd. The sharp pain across his left forearm triggered an explosion of anger—not alarm or fear—and his responses were instinctive, automatic, and savage. His hand locked on one flailing arm, his knee came up, smashing into flesh, eliciting a wail of agony; a jerking twist on the arm pulled the man around, then a kick to the back of the knee, a heaving turn, and the man was briefly airborne, spinning to a shuddering impact with the floor.

  Pandemonium was loosed. The reporters were half panicked, half delirious with joy at this supremely newsworthy event, vidicams and mikes taking in every detail. Within seconds, ten Directorate Guards plunged into the tumult to aid the House guards. Woolf’s features were taut with cold fury; his burning gaze sought the ranking Directorate guard.

  “Leftant! Clear the corridor!”

  “Yes, my lord!”

  “My lord, your arm—”

  Woolf spared Captain Sier one scathing glance, and the captain’s face went red, reminded that his Lord had dealt with the attack with efficiency and dispatch, and with no help from his guardsmen. Woolf glanced down at his arm. It was a shallow cut, streaking across his left forearm, sending red threads down the back of his hand. He wasn’t cognizant of any pain yet; the anger was too consuming.

  “Who is he?”

  The hapless assassin lay in a foetal position, moaning in pain. The two House guards pulled him to his feet and held him, while Sier searched him.

  “There’s no ident, my lord.”

  Woolf’s mouth tightened in annoyance. The clamor was fading as the Directorate guardsmen unceremoniously pushed the reporters back with volleys of shouted orders.

  “Let me see that.” He held out his hand as one of his guards leaned down to pick up the knife. It had a silicon blade to slip past the metal detectors at the Hall entrances. He tossed it back to the guard and turned his attention to the man who had wielded the knife.

  And he felt the anger draining from him, leaving only a desolate weariness.

  Man? He was little more than a boy. This would-be killer of Lords wasn’t more than eighteen.

  “What’s your name?”

  The youth swallowed, finally finding his voice. “I . . . I won’t tell you my name.”

  “Not that it matters; the SSB will answer that eas
ily enough. But for the God’s sake, will you tell me why you came bumbling in here trying to jab that knife into me? If you wished to see me dead, surely you could’ve been more imaginative and more intelligent about it.”

  The youth lifted his chin defiantly.

  “None of you fat, soft-bellied, money-hungry Lords will listen to reason! You live off the fruits of slavery, bloating yourselves on riches bought with the blood of the enchained masses! The only language you know is violence and brutality. I’ve come to speak to you in your own tongue—with blood and death!”

  The guards reacted with shocked dismay, and Sier’s arm came up to silence him with the flat of his hand, but Woolf stopped him.

  “Sier! That’s exactly what he wants.” He was beginning to feel the pain. “You mindless young fool! Tell me if you found me fat and soft-bellied while you lay wailing on the floor after attacking an unarmed man. And what ‘enchained masses’ do you speak for? The Bonds? Is that it?”

  The boy was only capable of a quick nod.

  “I suppose you belong to the ROM.” Again, a silent nod. Woolf took a step closer. “Let me try to make something clear to you, although, considering your behavior, I doubt you’re intelligent enough to grasp it. Your inept attempt to kill me doesn’t disturb me nearly so much as your ignorance. I suggest you study a little history, beginning with Lionar Mankeen, and I suggest you inform yourself on the Galinin-Woolf-Robek resolution.”

  He blinked in confusion. “The . . . what?”

  Woolf coldly repeated himself, adding, “A code of standards for humane treatment of Bonds, my youthful illiterate. I helped draft that resolution, and I can’t be held responsible for its failure. If you want to strike a blow for the Bonds, it would be better aimed elsewhere, and by the God, learn to speak for yourself! Don’t spout nonsense parroted from someone else. If I must have my life jeopardized, damn it, I won’t have it done in the name of ignorance and inanity!”

  He stopped, realizing he was losing control, and his disgust was as much for that as for the erstwhile assassin. Finally, he waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

  “Let him go, Captain.”

  Sier’s jaw dropped. “What, my lord?”

  “Let him go.” He turned on the Directorate guard leftant. “That’s an order. Holy God, he’s only a boy, and a fool at that. He isn’t worth the effort and expense of taking to trial.”

  The youth nearly collapsed when the guards released him. He stared at Woolf in stunned disbelief.

  “I—I don’t . . . understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. Now get out of my sight and out of this Hall. Leftant, let him pass.”

  “But—but, my lord—”

  “Leftant, I have serious problems to deal with; I haven’t time for trivia. Sier—come along. Lord Galinin is expecting me.”

  “Thank you for calling, Phillip.” Olivet smiled out from the screen, her concern reflected only in the deepening of the lavender cast in her eyes. She was in the nursery; Woolf could see Alexandra and Justin behind her building castles of glowing blocks. Olivet wouldn’t let them hear or see her anxiety.

  “I just didn’t want you to find out about it on the vidicom ’casts, Olivet; the reporters enjoy sensation too much.”

  “Well, I’m sure it must have seemed rather sensational.” Then her smile almost faded. “You’re sure your arm isn’t—”

  “It’s only a cut. I’ll have Dr. Stel take care of it as soon as I get home, and that should be within an hour.”

  “All right, Phillip. Now, you mustn’t keep Lord Mathis waiting. Give him my regards.”

  “I will. Goodbye.”

  The image faded from the screen as he rose and left the desk to join Mathis Galinin in the chairs at the windowall. He had wrapped a handkerchief around his arm, but it kept slipping; he frowned as he tightened it.

  Galinin smiled wryly. “The young man should have chosen one of the truly soft-bellied Lords for a target.”

  “The young man hadn’t the sense he was born with.”

  “Apparently not. Why did you release him?”

  Woolf let his head fall back against the cushions of the chair. Why, indeed?

  “I don’t know. He simply didn’t seem worth the bother.”

  “A man who tried to assassinate a Directorate Lord?”

  “Perhaps it was unwise, but he was only a boy spouting nonsense.”

  Galinin’s rumbling laugh surprised him.

  “In fact, it was an eminently wise decision, Phillip. It will serve to make the ROM an object of mild contempt or even humor. You’re quite right; he wasn’t worth the bother. However, I’m sorry about the cut.”

  Woolf laughed. “At any rate, you’ll understand the slight delay in my arrival. What was it you wanted to talk to me about? Toramil?”

  “No. I hope the unrest settles, but I’m afraid this week’s disturbances are only a prelude. I don’t like Cameroodo’s attitude; he’s being particularly hardheaded. I’m going to talk to him privately this evening, but I doubt I’ll change his thinking. That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I finally got the truth from Commander Cory about Andreas Riis’s escape.”

  Woolf leaned forward intently. “Then he did escape.”

  “Yes. Five days ago. That fool Cory didn’t want to admit he let Riis slip through his fingers; he tried to make it seem he’d died. That might be acceptable for public consumption, but I won’t tolerate having the truth withheld when I ask for it. Cory has learned that lesson the hard way. He’s no longer Commander of the SSB. He’s been exiled to a minor post on Perseus.”

  “So we’ve lost Riis.”

  “Yes, and never succeeded in breaking his conditioning. However, I’m told the SSB psychocontrollers found the experience educational.”

  “I’m sure. Has anyone any idea how he escaped?”

  “Oh, yes. There was no dearth of information on that once I got past Cory. Of course, no one knows how the Phoenix found out he was in Pendino, but there were plenty of witnesses to the actual escape. They all agree that Riis and his two rescuers disappeared into vacuum.”

  Woolf’s eyebrows came up. “Oh?”

  “No doubt it’s true, and I’m afraid we must assume the matter transmitter exists as something more than a mathematical theory.”

  “Two rescuers? Why was it necessary to send rescuers? Why didn’t Riis just disappear long ago?”

  “Well, for one thing, I assume they didn’t know where he was, and apparently this device isn’t the quasi-magical thing it might seem. The two men had to gain access to the Pendino DC from outside. It was only then that the vanishing act occurred.”

  Woolf rose and went to the windowall to scowl out at the Plaza, barred with long afternoon shadows, the Fountain of Victory a frosty froth of white.

  “Damn Cory! To have Riis and then lose him—it’s intolerable!”

  “I’m surprised we kept him so long. There’s one aspect of this I find particularly interesting—the names given by the so-called inspectors, or, rather, one of those names. The ranking member of this duo called himself ‘Major Ransom.’ Perhaps you’ll remember that a man named Alex Ransom was with Riis when he was arrested.”

  Woolf nodded. “He escaped soon after their arrest, didn’t he?”

  “It was nearly a month later. Yes, he escaped.”

  “Wasn’t he betrayed again?”

  “Twice more, in fact, but the SSB didn’t manage to recapture him.”

  “There’s efficiency for you.”

  Galinin laughed. “Don’t be too hard on them. They’re up against an extraordinary adversary in the Phoenix, and perhaps in Alex Ransom.”

  Woolf regarded him curiously. “Have they any further identification of him?”

  “No, and all the SSB files on Ransom have disappeared. At first, they considered him simply a menial, since he was flying Riis’s ’car when they were arrested, but they began to wonder when he was betrayed
to them twice more.”

  “Time enough for them to wonder. Apparently someone in the Phoenix thought him at least as important—or undesirable—as Dr. Riis. You think the ‘Major Ransom’ who rescued him is the same man?”

  At that, Galinin shrugged. “I can’t believe the name was chosen at random, but if this is the mysterious Alex Ransom surfacing again, I’m wondering why he used his real name—or real pseudonym, probably—for this mission.”

  Woolf considered that a moment, eyes narrowed. “It does open some interesting areas of speculation. The name means nothing to the Concord. If it carries a message, it would seem to be intended for the Phoenix.”

  “Yes, and it may be another indication of schism within the Society. Someone tried to put Ransom out of the way. Perhaps he’s trying to establish the fact that they didn’t succeed. But whoever he is, he may not surface again. One of the DC guards hit him with a laser beam, but he vanished before the extent of his injuries could be determined.”

  Woolf frowned in annoyance. “Who is he?”

  “He’s piqued my curiosity, too. I find myself hoping he did survive so I might eventually have an answer to that. All we can be sure of now is that he’s a friend of Andreas Riis’s. A good friend. He risked, and may have lost, his life for him.”

  “We’ll have to be careful or we’ll have a popular hero on our hands. How much of this will you make public?”

  “The fact of the escape, but not the means. We’ll simply say that two armed men, disguised as SSB officers, took Riis out at gunpoint, but I want nothing said about the probable use of a matter transmitter. The Fesh are close enough to panic as it is.”

  “Will you mention the name used by one of the rescuers?”

  Woolf was half joking with that question, but Galinin considered his answer quite seriously.

  “Perhaps I will, Phillip. Something’s happened in the Phoenix; a power struggle. We can assume that on the basis of these betrayals, and since Riis’s arrest, their military program has expanded at an alarming rate. I can’t believe that name was used gratuitously, and if Ransom is with Riis, I think we’d do well to help him get his message through, if that’s his purpose. I’d rather deal with the Phoenix under Riis’s leadership. At least he’s not an entirely unknown quantity.”