The Great Game
Page 131
He’d brought flowers. Vazaran lilies, he’d seen him drop a lot of credits into the hand of the vendor. More than enough. The old man had looked like all his birthdays had come at once and even some of his Winterheights’. He hadn’t hung around as Wade had scooped everything up and walked away, his arms full of the blooms. The lilies were a mix of pure whites, sand tinted creams and even some dull pinks, none too shabby. They were intended to grow in these conditions, Wade guessed that much. He wasn’t a gardener. Probably wouldn’t ever be. Nor were they the only flowers that would lay across the single grave, the headstone hadn’t even been laid yet.
The dirt was packed solid, a large photo of her stood at the head of it. A few other people stood around, none of them gave either of them much of a second glance. One person had a camera out, was taking a photo. Ruud craned his head around to look at him as they passed, locking a long lingering gaze on him and the Burykian quickly lowered the camera. He almost walked into someone else in his hurry to back up out of there.
“It’s too damn bad,” Ruud eventually said, turning his attention back to what they were meant to be there for. He’d laid out the flowers on the grave amidst the others, careful to make sure he didn’t disturb those left by others. “I wish I could have gotten out here for this.”
“Me too,” Wade said. “She was special, wasn’t she?”
“Just a touch,” Ruud agreed. “Just a touch. Never met anyone like her.” He was shaking, Wade noticed, arms folded about himself and knuckles clenched white. “I felt her die you know. Wasn’t a pleasant thing. She put out a real kick when she went. Wouldn’t have surprised me if everyone sensitive for a hundred miles around felt her go. Either sensitive or close to her. She had a way about her. Can’t teach that. Real warm and receptive. Everyone loved her.”
“Except Maddley Junior,” Wade said, he couldn’t even bring about a grin. It was grim out here, depressing, threatening to wear him down. It’d wear them both down if they stayed here much longer. And yet they both needed to be here. Because of a senseless war invoked by a woman with a god complex who should have known better, she’d died. Sharon Arventino had died senselessly and painfully. “But I think she even won him over in the end.”
“You know who did it yet?” Ruud asked. “Any leads?”
“Roper says it was Wim Carson. You might have seen there’s a big bounty on him… Well a bounty. He’s on the kill list. And there’s strong evidence to suggest that there was a second person involved. They recovered fibres and hair from the room that hinted that Harvey Rocastle was involved in some way. He’d definitely been in that room at some point.”
“Rocastle?”
“Spirit dancer and probable sociopath. He has a history with women, not in a sexual way but in a potentially abusive way. Tried to kidnap the director’s daughter right from this very island, if you can believe it. He was working for Reims while he was here, recruiting several disillusioned callers for what Caldwell called Rocastle’s Angels. They were believed to be forming an elite spirit combat group, sort of like their own version of Unisco.”
Ruud frowned. “Or to counter you, perhaps. Secret warriors to face you on your type of terms.”
“Maybe.”
“He really tried to kidnap the director’s daughter?”
Wade nodded. “I stopped him myself. Fought him, beat him, all but slapped the cuffs on him. He escaped from custody when we were transporting him to the mainland. The convoy was attacked by Vazaran Sun fighters and we never saw them again. At least not until the whole battle when some of our pilots were retrieved. About the only way we found out what happened beyond reasonable suspicion.”
“You’re remarkably in the loop considering your sick leave.”
“Well I like to stay in it,” Wade said. “I’m surprised they haven’t tried calling you back up to active status given how bad it looks like it might get.”
Ruud laughed. “I might do it under the right circumstances. Which there undoubtedly aren’t any of right now.”
“You don’t get the right circumstances during war,” Wade said before sighing heavily. “I think Arnholt wants to see you while you’re here. I believe he’s going to ask you about Wim Carson. He had what Nick claims was Sharon’s weapon.”
“Her kjarnblade?”
“Yeah. That’d hint that he was, if not involved in her death then at least implicit in it somewhere down the line. I don’t think he’s going to be as easy to deal with as people think.”
“He shouldn’t even be a part of this,” Ruud said. “Wim Carson was a Vedo, he swore certain oaths and everything he does now that he’s involved with this woman breaks each one of them. Last I was aware; he didn’t even have his powers…”
“I didn’t know you could lose them,” Wade interrupted. “I mean…”
“Well it’s not impossible but it is rare. If they’re foresworn away and you stop using them, they can atrophy into being completely gone. If they’re never developed in the first place like you seem so intent on doing, then it gets harder and harder. My sister went the same path, rest her soul. Didn’t save her. She and her husband died, her daughter lost, her son oblivious because of my intervention. The events that preceded the Fall did untold damage not just to the Vedo but to the Kjarn itself. It affected people in different ways, some went mad, some lost their power, some died. Some had all the above. And yet if Wim managed to get it back, it’s not impossible that he could have. There’s always a way. The Kjarn will always triumph over any adversary.”
“You talk about it like it’s alive.”
“Well of course it’s alive,” Ruud said softly. “Just because you can’t register a heartbeat on it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. The Kjarn is life, it is the parts that make life, the two are intimately connected beyond rationale.”
“It did her a whole lot of good,” Wade said, looking down at the grave. “I spoke to her a lot, I was going to be best man at her wedding, I never got the impression she was one of you.”
“She wasn’t,” Ruud said. “I trained her, she was my apprentice way back before the Fall. She was never raised, she only got as far as ascendant, she had the potential but her heart was… It was never in the role, she always wanted to be a spirit caller more than anything. She had a gift and she was happy to learn how to use it but at the same time I always got the impression she’d have been happier if her father had never forced her into it. Canderous Arventino… I remember him only too well. He was not a good man, a bully and a bastard.”
His face took on a nostalgic look, tinged with regret and recollection. “I killed him, you know? I never told Sharon that but I always got the feeling that she knew. I didn’t want… Yeah I didn’t want her to be disappointed.”
“If he was that bad…”
“He was still her father and one of the highest of the Vedo, it was perhaps the only reason she wasn’t allowed to leave the order. If her father had been a nobody, a journeyman with no significant skill or status, she might have been able to slip away through the cracks, nothing but a memory. Still Canderous went the way of the rest of them, brain-fried by the Kjarn and…”
“That’s actually a danger? And you’re training people in this?”
Ruud rolled his eyes. “It’s not a danger with the right training. The Fall… It hurt the Kjarn because it made it just so damn addictive. It dulled the senses, made your judgement slacken… Soon you were little more than a puppet after it all. Your brain was gone, mind shattered and your body animated by the Kjarn. It was exceptional circumstances. I hope to all divines above it is never repeated.”
Wade said nothing, it was a lot to take in. He was vaguely aware that more had joined them around the grave, men and women he didn’t recognise beyond a solemn looking Clara. All of them bore the same look, fatigue and regret, heads bowed and arms together.
“Sharon Arventino,” Ruud said. “One of us. In life and in death, a noble heart, a kind spirit and a ferocious combatant. A woman who…” He let
out a long sigh, a choked breath caught in his throat. Just for a moment, Wade thought he saw his friend’s eyes glisten but he clamped down on it just in time. For a moment, the façade had nearly cracked and what Ruud was really feeling had almost shown through. “Excuse me. A woman who we’ll miss. Those of you here may not have known her. But you’ll feel the loss in generations to come. We all will. The stars in the sky have one more in their collective now, she is one with the Kjarn and through the Kjarn, her memory will live on, will join the names of those who have fallen in the past. She lived a Vedo, she died a friend. That is all we can ask for of life. May the Kjarn embrace those who mourn her.”
He didn’t remain after that, turned tail and walked away. Wade found himself turning to follow him, suddenly glad to be away from the permeating aura of sadness that had filled the immediate area around the grave. Ruud was right, he didn’t know any of the people here barring Clara and maybe Sharon had known them, possibly, but the feeling had been there. Unavoidable. There genuinely had been regret there. And he’d felt it from them, a sensation that had simultaneously overawed and unnerved him beyond belief.
“Ruud,” he said. He saw him slow to a stop, crane his head back across to meet his gaze.
“Yeah?”
“You loved her, didn’t you?”
“Like the daughter I never had,” Ruud said. “The bond between teacher and student… She was beautiful, I knew that and she knew that but I never felt the need to violate that bond. I loved her equal parts daughter, equal parts little sister. She’d been trusted into my care. They wanted me to have her, they thought it’d calm me down, stop me wandering off on Unisco business and give me more of a tie to the order. Unlike her, I didn’t have any such high ranked father.”
A bitter grin burst across his face. “They always thought I’d leave, just not come back one day. I think that’s the reason I never did, you know. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d been right about me. Like her, I never really felt comfortable in that order. And look at me now. The Kjarn has its own funny ways.”
He turned away, cleared his throat. “I don’t think Arnholt’s going to wait forever for us now, do you?”
Wade smiled, made to follow him. He was right, of course. Ruud Baxter wouldn’t be here most likely, if he wasn’t required to be by the ICCC. He was surprised even then that he’d shown up. Ruud never gave the impression he’d be overtly bothered if they pursued legal action against him. And yet he’d brought his entourage with him. There was obviously something going on there, something Wade couldn’t quite see just yet. It was an infuriating feeling to be infinitely aware that there was some piece of the puzzle you couldn’t place and if you could just see it, then it would fall into place.
The moment they’d knocked at the hotel room door and waited to be admitted entrance, Ruud’s entire demeanour had changed, the sorrow had gone and been replaced by the same consummate professionalism with which he’d carried himself all through his years as an active Unisco agent.
Arnholt gave them that permission, allowed them to enter and he’d embraced Wade like an old friend. When the two of them had started at Unisco way back in the day, Arnholt had been their immediate superior. Twenty years later, here they all were again. The irony of that wasn’t lost on Wade. Time had a funny way of coming back around on you when you least expected it.
“Ruud,” Arnholt said warmly.
“Director.” Still referring to him by his title, Wade noticed with a grin. “You’re looking well.”
“Not sure if that’ll last,” Arnholt said with a weary grin. “I could say the same to you, retirement suits you. Not sure about the beard though, I think it makes you look like a vagrant.”
“I think it makes me look wise. And knowledgeable.”
Wade smirked at that, bit back a remark. None of his business. “Plus, hard to find razors where I’ve been. Regular or automatic. Wasn’t so bad growing it after the first six months.”
“Fascinating.” Arnholt gestured over to the cool box in the corner, a big corporate logo stamped on the side of the bright blue plastic. “Drink? Water, iced coffee, soda beer? Wade?”
“I’ll take water,” Ruud said softly, the same moment Wade chose to get a soda beer. The stuff wasn’t alcoholic, no danger of it interfering with his meds. It just tasted like it was. Which he liked about it in a way. The cans of iced coffee remained untouched, he noticed. Wade took the offered can, put it on the table but didn’t open it. Ruud unscrewed the lid of his water, took a deep draw.
“It’s a bad time, Ruud,” Arnholt said. “I don’t think anyone realises just how bad it might get right now. The Senate wants it resolved quickly…”
“I imagine they would,” Ruud replied. “But I agree with you. Based on my admittedly limited understanding of the situation… What I see in the media, I don’t think this is going to go away without one hells of a fight. Not just a fight to win, it’s going to be a fight to hold on to everything that is held dear. The future rests on a pivot, what happens over the coming months is that pivot. You will win it or lose it in the next several weeks, the lines will be drawn early.”
“I knew there was a reason I wanted to talk to you,” Arnholt said. “You have an uncanny knack for telling it how it is in as poetic a manner as possible. Unfortunately, that’s not the reason. Wim Carson. Talk to me about him.”
“I already told Wade… Agent Wallerington… everything that I really could. He was a scholar more than anything, a man who sought out knowledge. When the Vedo fell, he lost everything but his life. There were few survivors of that cataclysm, him, me, Sharon Arventino… one or two others who are sadly no longer with us. I would have done more for him after what happened but well, we all had to deal with our own problems. By the time I could help, he’d slipped through the cracks, his mind broken and beyond me. How he’s walking around again, I don’t know. I wish I did. It might explain a lot of things.”
“Caldwell… we had him on the inside, right in Coppinger’s ear, yet he couldn’t get anything on the subject beyond the two of them had some sort of deal,” Arnholt said. “Coppinger and Carson, I don’t know what they’d be able to do for the other. She’s a billionaire industrialist turned international terrorist, he was a mystic with a magic sword…”
“And formerly in charge of the biggest library in the five kingdoms,” Ruud said. “I wouldn’t underestimate anything he could have brought to her table. It must have been something she needed. What’s her endgame? What do we know? As Carson likely proves in this situation, knowledge is the true power in the kingdoms.”
“It’s a we now, is it?” Wade asked. Ruud gave him a sarcastic look in reply.
“The adage that it’s easy to fall back into bad habits is truer than you might believe,” he said thoughtfully. “Well I say we for a reason. The director is going to try and get me back into the mix.”
Arnholt said nothing, kept his face neutral. Wade wouldn’t have liked to have played Ruin with the man. He wasn’t giving anything away to his true intentions.”
“And I’m going to have to decline. I’m afraid the constraints on my time are as such that I wouldn’t be able to function as a field operative.”
“You’re wrong, you know,” Arnholt said. “I wasn’t going to ask you to come back. Not permanently. You got out, I was happy to let you go your own way. You’d done a lot, more than returned our investment in you… No point making you keep on going until you died. And it appears that very little has changed with you in this regard.”
“I have people who depend on me,” Ruud said. “Like you. People I’m responsible for, people who I’ve invested a great deal of time and effort in. I’m not abandoning them right now. I absolutely will not do that.” His hand twitched, like he wanted to smack it against the table to emphasise his point. Wade leaned back, cracked open his can and took a swallow of the amber liquid inside. It fizzed in his throat, he was grateful to feel the bitter taste against his tongue.
Ruud’s laugh was sarcastic. “He lived in a cave up in the Fangs before the Fall. After the Fall, I believed he went from respected scholar to homeless, credit-less vagrant bumming around the five kingdoms. He went from everything to less than nothing. I’m not entirely sure where you think he got the resources from to enable him to get a safe house. You won’t find him like that. I think he’ll be with Claudia Coppinger, personally. It’s about the only place he’ll have to go. Plus, he always did like charismatic women. One of his weaknesses. Should have seen him with the leader of the old order. She couldn’t have had him on a leash any more if she’d tried. Think he’d have eaten out of her hand if she’d let him.”
“Then you’ve got nothing for us?”
Ruud stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll meditate on the matter, see what I can find. Perhaps I can divine some sort of location for him although I doubt it’ll be much use. My particular talents don’t lie in that area; it has been left somewhat neglected over the years.” He straightened up though. “Any useful information I find though, I’ll be sure to pass it on to you.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry that you’re unwilling to come back to us. The agency hasn’t been the same since you left. You were one of our best operatives. A lot of the recruits these days can’t hold a candle to you,” Arnholt said, nodding his head as he said it. “Still, if you’re unwilling to change your mind, no point in regrets. Are you sure I can’t get you a better drink than that water?”
Ruud shook his head. “I’m good, director. And I thank you for your compliments but this is one time that flattery won’t get you everywhere. I’m just passing through. I’ve got places to be back to in a few days’ time.”