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

by Wren, M. K.

  He reached a lift, pausing before he entered it. He wasn’t a Reader; he couldn’t be sure the cloying uneasiness he felt now was simply a normal response to anxiety or the warning of Sight.

  Listen. That is the first lesson, the hardest lesson, and the last lesson.

  Listening demanded solitude. He stepped into the lift and floated up four levels to the Security Administration section.

  The sensed equivocation was associated with Enid Gysing, he knew, but he still couldn’t be sure of its real cause. He’d have preferred to send Margreta away alone, but that was impossible. She was only a month out of the hospital, and it had been a difficult surgery. Beyond that, her vision, though improved, was still impaired. She might be willing, but she wasn’t physically capable of making her escape alone.

  But wasn’t that simply another link in the chain? And Enid Gysing seemed so inevitable a choice as her escort, he thought that could only be another link.

  Ferra Gysing, like Jaid Garo, was congenitally incapable of empathy, but she had a strong sense of loyalty. She was trained as an intelligence agent, and Hawkwood had come to depend on her for the most critical assignments. He often trusted her with information he wouldn’t consider trusting even to Helmett Ranes. Master Ranes was his second-in-command and inevitable successor, and Hawkwood trusted him to the degree he trusted anyone in spite of that fact.

  But with Enid Gysing, loyalty was again inspired by gratitude.

  An attractive woman, darkly handsome, she had several years ago caught the eye of Karlis Selasis, who lured her to a room he called the Velvet Pit, where he occasionally indulged himself and some of his Lordly peers in various sensual games.

  Hawkwood never expressed an opinion on his Lords’ choices of entertainment, nor would he have interfered in Karlis’s games if one of his agents hadn’t been made the object of them. He made his point to Selasis finally; the training and talents of someone like Ferra Gysing were not to be wasted on casual entertainment for Karlis and his friends. They must look elsewhere for their playthings. And perhaps it was only pique at his son’s excesses, but Selasis had conceded the point. Enid Gysing declared herself forever in Hawkwood’s debt, and had demonstrated her gratitude in steadfast loyalty since.

  Hawkwood checked his watch before he made a short detour into the comcenter. There was still time enough, and it took only two minutes to determine that his agents in Daro Galinin had reported no change in Galinin’s condition. He was still medically classified critical.

  As Hawkwood was leaving the comcenter, he paused. Helmett Ranes was coming down the corridor from the lift. No wonder the word had already filtered down through the ranks; Ranes walked like a newly dubbed Lord.

  Until he saw Hawkwood.

  Ranes had always had good facial and eye control, but in that moment of surprise, something very much like embarrassment was briefly revealed.

  “Good afternoon, Master Ranes.”

  Ranes smiled pleasantly enough but didn’t stop, only slowing his pace.

  “Afternoon, Master Hawkwood. Afraid I’m running a little late. Had to check something down in the interrogation level.”

  “Ussher, you mean?”

  “Why . . . yes. He hasn’t broken yet.”

  That was a careless lie and indicative of uncertainty. Hawkwood only nodded and waved him on, then set off down the corridor toward his office, wondering why Ranes had lied to him. Where had he actually been?

  12:25. Just time enough to check the sec-systems in his office before Margreta’s call.

  At exactly 13:00, Hawkwood rose from the altar in the corner of the windowless, white-walled room that had for twenty years suited his purposes and sensibilities so well. The altar, like the rest of the office, was cleanly functional, devoid of excess decoration. Seven candles were aligned on it, and in the center, point poised in a sphere of water-clear quartz, stood the Dagger of Will, thrice seven centimeters long, shaped of blue jade, the hilt and guard forming a translucent crucifix with the seven-spoked Wheel of Destiny carved into the intersection.

  He wasn’t a Reader. His new Sight was imperfect. He hadn’t read the signs correctly.

  Margreta hadn’t called.

  Twice he had tried to reach her, but there was no response, not even a call buzz.

  He turned and crossed the winter-white carpet to the comconsole behind his desk. He wouldn’t try to call her again. A question must be answered now.

  Where had Helmett Ranes actually been?

  There was a shielded panel under the console counter; not even X-rays would reveal it. Orin Selasis was jealous of his privacy, particularly in the small chamber he called his private office. Hawkwood had set up the sec-system, but with typical mistrust, his Lord periodically had Ranes check it, with Hawkwood as a countercheck on him. Since Hawkwood had designed the system, Ranes was at a disadvantage. He found the monitors left for him to find, but, predictably, didn’t show them to Selasis, choosing instead to insure his position as second-incommand with blackmail. He didn’t find the monitors operated through this hidden console.

  Now Hawkwood set the tapes on replay, sampled earlier conversations between Selasis and Hamid, then Cameroodo. Helmett Ranes had entered his Lord’s private office at 12:10.

  The preliminaries were short, interesting only in that Selasis’s confidential tone was revealing. Hawkwood wondered what lever he would use to hold Ranes’s loyalty. Ranes had no wife; he loved no one. Master Garo might suffice for him.

  And, finally, the answer beyond the answer.

  “Well, Master Ranes, I understand you have something to show me.”

  And Ranes responding with smug eagerness, “Yes, my lord. It arrived a few minutes ago.”

  “Ah. From Ferra . . . what was her name?”

  “Gysing, my lord. Enid Gysing.”

  “Well, Ferra Gysing deserves a commendation, Helmett. What’s this? ‘Ab initio, ad infinitum.’ ”

  There was the answer.

  Hawkwood closed his eyes, corded hands clenched.

  Ranes voice again. “I checked that. Old Latin. Means something like ‘from the beginning to the end.’ ”

  And Orin Selasis replying, “No, Helmett. To infinity.” Then he laughed.

  That inscription was etched inside the wedding ring Hawkwood had placed on Margreta’a hand ten years ago.

  “MARGRETAAAAA!”

  The cry reverberated in the ordered white silence. His fists crashed down, a double hammer, smashing out the voices from the console.

  Holy Lord, mover of stars, move my hand in thy will.

  Mover of suns, move my arm,

  Mover of worlds, move my body . . .

  He had misread the Signs. Bruno Hawkwood wasn’t a Reader. His new Sight was imperfect.

  Maker of Order, align my thoughts . . .

  Holy Lord, Author of Fate, make my Destiny . . .

  But now he was cleansed in the purifying flame of agony. Now he looked back on the chain of occurrence and read every link with perfect clarity, and looked ahead into the future, and saw every link starkly revealed.

  I am thy body, I am thy arm, I am thy hand . . .

  Hawkwood crossed as silently as a fall of snow to the altar; there he knelt, eyes fixed on the Dagger of Will.

  In the name of Gamaliel, sainted of the All-God.

  Ahm.

  At length, he rose and his right hand went out, closed on the cool blue hilt of the Dagger. It slipped easily out of its crystal mount.

  He put on a cloak; brown; the color of earth. At the console, he pressed certain buttons, and by the time he left the room, the air was acid with the odor of burning circuits. He walked down the corridor to the lift, speaking to no one he met along the way. On the landing roof, he passed the ’car he usually used and went to the one assigned to Master R
anes. He could trust it not to be sabotaged.

  Another ’car lifted off within thirty seconds of his departure. He watched it, but took no evasive action. In ten minutes, he was in the heart of Concordia on the landing roof of the Central Transystem terminal. He set the ’car’s navcomp system on automatic return. It hummed away into the Trafficon grids as he walked into the terminal.

  At that point, as far as Lord Orin Selasis could determine, Bruno Hawkwood vanished into vacuum.

  7.

  Jael stood waiting, hands on his hips, surveying the comcenter, a cramped, low-ceilinged room crowded with only ten techs on duty. But he was used to small, subterranean spaces, and he wondered why he felt so uncomfortable here. This was the Concordia chapter’s main comcenter, and it had been running for fifteen years without ever pulling a look from the Shads.

  But they only looked under rocks they didn’t like.

  This hide was Concord built; the apartments above it housed Concord Fesh. The Concord-approved architech who designed it specified a subbasement for storage, but no one seemed to notice, when the apartment complex was finished, that there weren’t any accesses to the storage area. The Concord forgot it existed.

  So the Phoenix had itself a nice safe hide, and the only way into it was by MT through apartment 373-T.

  Dovey. But something about it still hackled him.

  Then he sighed and checked his watch: 18:02.

  Look it in the eye, brother. What’s hackling you is that Alex Ransom is on an SSB rack right now, and in two hours he has a meet with a laser beam on a black stand in the Plaza of the Concord.

  A public execution. No trial, not even a gimmed play-through. By Directorate decree. Selasis was pushing the buttons now, and he and the other Directors wanted the whole damn Concord to see how quick they were to turn out justice. The vidicom time spent on the impending execution told the story again; Woolf had stepped aside to let Selasis push those buttons, too. The Plaza would be packed.

  Jael felt a chill at the back of his neck. A warning. He was alive today because he’d paid heed time and again to what his body told him.

  Selasis had private plans for the execution. Jael had no idea what they might be, but he was sure snuffing Alex wasn’t enough for old Cyclops. An agent in Badir Selasis had picked up a conversation between Orin and Karlis. The talk hadn’t turned up anything specific; father didn’t confide in son, which showed Orin hadn’t slipped his senses entirely.

  Selasis had said, “This day, Karlis, the day of Alex Ransom’s execution, will be remembered in the history of the Concord as a day of perfidy . . .”

  True enough, but he didn’t mean it straight. There was more.

  “Jael? I have Ben on line.”

  One of the comtechs was rising to give him his place at the SynchCom screen. Jael moved to the chair hurriedly; this was what he’d been waiting for. Ben was only five minutes late, but it read like an hour.

  “Thanks, Gil. Ben?”

  His face had a gray cast, due only in part to a slight peripheral interference.

  “Give me what you have first, Jael, then I’ll give you some good news.”

  Jael sighed, content to wait with that assurance.

  “From Badir Selasis, not much, except I think we can count Ussher dead now. I guess he didn’t talk fast and long enough to suit Orin. He was probably a long time dying, if you can take any comfort from that. Nothing on Hawkwood. Orin and his blade, Ranes, are still in a red panic.”

  “What the hell is Bruno up to? What about his wife?”

  “Margreta’s gone, too, and the way we’ve put it together, she’s not coming back; it’s a one-way trip to the Beyond.”

  Ben hesitated, eyes slitted. “Then that explains why Bruno slipped out on Selasis.” He shrugged irritably. “Any other time, I’d have the whole department zeroed in on this. What else have you got?”

  “Nothing you can lay hands on, but I don’t like the way Orin’s filling up the Plaza for . . .” He paused as another tech signaled for his attention. “Hold on, Ben. You have something, Renna?”

  She nodded. “A report from Seton at Daro Galinin. The High Bishop Simonidis just arrived.”

  Jael felt his throat constricting. “For Last Rites?”

  “I suppose, but Lord Woolf’s still at the Hall with the Directorate.”

  Jael turned to the screen and relayed the information to Ben, whose eyes narrowed even further.

  “Well, Jael, as long as Woolf hasn’t been called in, it probably just means Galinin’s not getting any better.”

  “Probably. Now, give me your good news.”

  “It all gets to be relative, doesn’t it? The good news comes from SSB Central Control. We got the phony orders through, and not an eyebrow raised anywhere along the line. Commander Hensel of the Directorate Guard will be expecting a forty-man Special Riot Control unit from the SSB, and his orders suggest the best deployment of the unit will be on the execution stand.”

  “I hope he takes suggestions well.”

  “He’ll take this one. The name under it is First Commander Aldred, Conpol, and it’s cosigned by DeSen of the SSB. Have you got enough men there? And what about uniforms?”

  “Brother, we could send twice forty in.” Then he added with a shrug, “Well, at least sixty. After that we might have to put them in Ussher’s little blue suits.”

  Ben did a fair imitation of a smile on that. “All right. Any changes in the plans?”

  “None we can see coming. What about the MTs?”

  “Every MT-equipped ship will be in the Solar System, and we’re setting up a comp program to phase with the terminals there in Concordia. We should be able to trans all forty men off that execution stand, once you get Alex clear.”

  If it came to taking Alex out by force, the odds went against all forty men surviving to be transed. Jael regarded half that number as an optimistic estimate. Ben was no more optimistic, he knew; not underneath the big face-show.

  “Ben, I’ll need my ident info from SSB CC soon. I’ve got to put in some mem time if I’m going to pull this captain gim.”

  “You’ll have it in less than half an hour, with copies of all the orders—everything you’ll need. You’re still planning to go for Alex yourself?”

  “That one’s mine by soul-right, brother. Besides, I’m damned fast in a short sprint.”

  “You’ll have to be.” He pulled in a long breath, then nodded. “You will be. Jael, Erica’s here with me. She wants to talk to Lady Adrien.”

  Jael frowned. “Well, she went to one of the sleeping rooms about an hour ago. I doubt she’s managed any sleep; maybe she just wanted to be alone.” And out from under eye, Jael added to himself, where she wouldn’t have to keep her face up all the time. But she’d probably keep it up in the dark.

  Ben turned off-screen for a brief consultation with Erica, then he turned to Jael again. “Ask her to call Erica as soon as possible. Nothing important; Erica just wants to check on her. But don’t tell her that.”

  “She’ll tally it. Anyway, I’ll give her the message. Anything else?”

  “No, not now.”

  “All right, then. Fortune, brother.”

  “You, too. Later, Jael.”

  The agent in SSB Central Control came through with the vital orders and information Ben had promised in less than five minutes. Jael was still immersed in it half an hour later when he was distracted by someone calling his name; one of the techs at the intercom board.

  “Dana Lamodo for you, sir. She says it’s Pri-One.”

  Jael went to the console, frowning. “Who?”

  “Dana Lamodo. In the access apartment.”

  “Oh.” He sat down at the console, where a middle-aged woman looked out from a screen. He remembered her now. “What’s wrong, Ferra?”


  “Sir, it’s Lady Adrien. She’s . . . gone.”

  For a moment, he could only stare at the woman blankly.

  “She’s what? How could—never mind. Just say it out.”

  She did, haltingly. A few minutes ago Adrien had asked to be transed up to the apartment. She wanted to be in a room with windows. Everyone on the staff knew who she was and what Alex was to her; it was no surprise she pulled the gim so easy. Uplevel, in the Lamodo apartment, Ferra Lamodo, in motherly style, made her comfortable by a windowall overlooking a park court, then offered refreshment. No surprise that the Lady smiled gratefully and asked for a cup of tea. And, when Ferra Lamodo went to the kitchen to prepare it, the Lady Adrien walked out the front door.

  “Damn her. Damn her.”

  Dana Lamodo’s mouth sagged open. “I . . . I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Well, don’t worry. We’ll . . .” What? Find her? Before the SSB or Selasis did? “Was she carrying anything?”

  “I’m not really sure. She was wearing a cape, and I suppose she might’ve had something hidden—”

  “A cape?”

  “Yes. An ordinary woman’s style. She said she was . . . cold. Oh, Jael, she looked like a lost child, but with never a tear. It didn’t occur to me . . .”

  “I know, Ferra. You were gimmed by an expert. Don’t let it hackle you.” He signaled to the tech. “Get me Daly. He’s at the Directorate Hall.”

  And that’s where Adrien would be as soon as she could reach it. Perhaps she could. She probably had a cover disguise under the cape; there were no locks on the doors here, and she’d had plenty of time to locate the costume and disguise ident room. She had sense on her side; she’d step light. And she had will, the kind that looked at death as no more than an impediment to her purpose.