Niall unfastened the top of his shooter holster. “Let’s go.”
Rilas stood with her hand on the opening of her slingbag.
“You must show us—axe or pick.” The elder male edged to one side or the other each time Rilas tried to walk around him. “You could say anything.”
“Why would I do such? It is not godly.”
“Hah. She speaks as a bornsect.” The other male bared his teeth again. “The bornsect tilemasters use picks.”
“Are you a bornsect?” The elder male tugged on Rilas’s sleeve. “In clothes such as this? In an Haárin enclave?” He laughed, a guttural hacking sound.
“I do not have to show you what I use.” Rilas pulled away as the elder male sought to grab her sleeve again. Broke into a run when he sought to chase her, and heard their jeering as she turned off that street and onto another.
Cèel knows where I run to. Rilas knew that bornsect security waited outside the Haárin enclave, that they patrolled the streets around the temples. She reached into the bag, gripped a shooter, held it fast.
Past the meeting house, the workrooms, the schools for the youngish. She drew near the enclave gate and quickened her pace.
“It’s so goddamned dark here.” Niall looked out at the claustrophobic press, the tarnished metalwork and dark woods and streets with barely enough room for one being to pass another. “Who lives here?”
“Those who serve Caith. Propitiators. Trainees. Temple maintenance.” Jani eased the skimmer into an alley.
“This is not a search.” Lucien watched the scene outside his skimmer window and shook his head. “They aren’t cordoning off the streets. They aren’t going house to house.”
“I see bodies scurrying across rooftops.” Jani pointed to a figure that vanished in the shadow of an overhang. “They’re herding her as unobtrusively as they can. They know where she’s going. We just need to get there first.” She powered down the vehicle and opened her door.
“What are you doing?” Niall looked around. “This isn’t Caith’s temple.”
“I need to slip through the net.” Jani lifted the overrobe’s draped shawl collar over her head like a hood, hiding her short hair and obscuring her face.
“Dammit, Jan.” Niall pushed open his door and struggled out. “You can’t meet her like this. She’s desperate and she’s armed.” He circled around the front of the vehicle. “Jan?” He stopped, turned in one direction, then the other. “What the fuck—”
Jani backpedaled down an alley narrow as a knife slice, listened to the garbled mix of Vynshàrau and Niall’s voice through the ear bug. Heard Lucien, and realized he wore a bug as well. And he understands Vynshàrau. But not as well as she did.
“She ducked down that alley.” Lucien’s voice held resignation, anger. “We’ll never find her now.”
“We should’ve stopped her.” Niall’s voice now. “Dammit.” Sounds of him getting into the skimmer, slamming down the gullwing so hard that the sound echoed.
Jani crept down the alley. Found another. Another. Candle-wax and wood oils. The damp that found a home in the dark and the shadow. She smelled them all, remembered them all. From a quarter century before, when Tsecha had brought them here, the six humanish he had chosen above all.
Caith is a damned thing, but she serves some purpose, for you cannot have order without its opposite. But for Caith, blessed Shiou would have no reason to be. They had all called him inshah then, and hung on his every word.
She stopped at the end of an alley that opened onto a wider road. Across the road, a blackened building with a double door entry, topped by a tarnished silver dome.
In the distance, faint sounds. The hum and whine of skimmers. The never-ending Vynshàrau pouring into her head.
Running feet. Growing nearer.
Jani reached into her pocket, closed her hand around the hilt of the blade, and waited.
Caith called to her. Rilas heard her voice in the pound of blood in her ears, the pain in her knees, her weakness. She ran through alleys, walkways, avoiding the larger streets down which the security skimmers coursed.
She could see the blackened temple dome, the most blessed of sights. Quickened her pace even as she knew her heart would burst. They would keep her here, protect her here.
Then from the corner of her eye, she saw. A propitiator, head covered, emerge from an alley and walk across the narrow street toward the entry.
“Inshah!” Rilas forced the cry even as the strain tore her lungs. “Inshah—ha’alan elas!” Teacher—wait for me.
The priest slowed but did not stop. Rilas ran to her. Reached out to grab her overrobe, to bid her to stop, to raise her arms before her and beg for protection.
“Inshah! Ha’alan elas! Inshah!”
The propitiator turned, too quickly. Rilas caught sight of the pale eye. In the way of the fighter, she looked down at the propitiator’s hand, and saw the darkness where none should have been.
Tried to stop. But could not.
Felt the blade—and saw—the face—
Jani braced and staggered back as Rilas barreled into her. Felt the blade go in, and jammed it deeper. In and up, toward the heart. The female’s eyes widened even as they clouded. Her lips moved even as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
“On your Way, you will pass a shade that awaits the soul of the greatest idomeni.” Jani felt wet warmth down the front of her overrobe as Rilas slumped forward and her blood flowed. “And when you pass it you will say, ní Tsecha Egri, I am Imea nìaRauta Rilas, who killed you.” She gripped the back of Rilas’s head cloth and yanked her head up, stared into the snake-boned face, the dulling eyes. “Because every murdered being deserves to see the face of the one who killed them. Such is orderly.” Her eyes burned and her voice keened through a tightening throat. “So says the priest.” The female’s body slumped again, and Jani felt her last breath leave.
“Let her fall.”
Jani looked up to find Lucien standing a few strides away. Behind him, Niall, still running.
“Let her fall.” Lucien took a step forward, then pointed to the ground. “She’s dead. Let her drop.”
Jani pushed Rilas off her shoulder. The female fell back, her weight and the angle of her collapse yanking the blade from Jani’s hand.
She felt their eyes on her. Niall, sad, resigned. Lucien—
I know what you want. You want to watch them die.
—the professional—
You want to look into their eyes and watch the light go out.
—shaking his head in disgust, then walking to the body and commencing an odd search, feeling her hair, her ears, down the back of her neck. “There’s nothing here. Her book is gone. They must have removed it after they captured her.”
While Lucien searched the body, Niall picked through the slingbag. “There’s enough firepower in here to blow out a wall—why the hell didn’t she use it?”
“She thought she’d entered refuge.” Lucien stood, then pulled a dispo cloth from his trouser pocket and wiped his hands. “Perhaps she didn’t think she needed it.”
“More fool her.” Niall continued his search. “What do they look like?”
Lucien held up his hand, thumb and forefinger five or so centimeters apart. “Like an imager, but a little larger. It’s more sensitive, more complex. Adjustable.”
“Anything like this?” Jani pulled the bug from her ear. It splayed across her hand, soft and cool and clear, like something from the sea.
Lucien shook his head. “Not really.”
“Will it do in a pinch?” Jani closed her hand to keep the bug from drying out. “From a distance, will he be able to tell?”
Before Lucien could answer, Niall pointed toward the far end of the street, now blocked by a cluster of skimmers. Security guards emerged and walked toward them, shooters raised. “Cavalry finally arrived.”
Jani ignored them, bending to Rilas’s body and pulling at the blade. It didn’t budge at first—she grasped the hi
lt harder, almost lost her hold because of the blood, pulled again. A muffled click sounded as the blade came free, broken, a third of its length left behind.
“What has hap—” The security dominant stopped when he saw the knife, the blood, the overrobe.
“You will take me back.” Jani wiped the blade upon the sleeve of her overrobe, then returned it to her pocket. Stepped around the body, past Niall and Lucien, to the end of the alley and the waiting skimmers.
The Council guards opened the gate to them, the entry, then flowed in after them and closed and barred the doors.
Jani entered the chamber. Saw that they all watched her. Scriabin, so pale. Ulanova, uncertain. Burkett. Frances. They stood against one wall with the other humanish, spectators at another civilization’s turn of fate.
The crowd parted until no one stood between Jani and Cèel. He stood at the far end of the room with the other Vynshàrau, had fallen silent upon Jani’s arrival. Between them, worked into the floor with squares of faded red stone and tile, a circle about five meters in diameter. A circle in which an idomeni fought both as Nema and as Tsecha. A circle that had once been stained by his blood.
Jani pulled her ear bug from her pocket and raised it above her head, shifting her hand so the light struck it, so Cèel could see it.
Cèel stood rigid, eyes fixed on some spot at her feet. Then, slow as a rising sun, he raised his head and fixed on the bug.
“In the name of my teacher, whom you killed, I challenge you.” Jani could barely hear her own words for the roaring in her head, wondered if Cèel heard them at all.
Then she saw him nod once.
The sense of the idomeni changed then, from on edge and uncertain to sure and precise, as actors in a familiar play. Bornsect and Haárin fanned out and moved to seats assigned based on skein and standing, leaving humanish to mill about like sheep in a pen until Feyó and Galas took them in hand and led them to appropriate places.
“Jan.” Niall moved in beside her. “I keep you in the circle and I declare the fight ended if you can’t go on.” He wiped a hand over a face gone grey. “Dammit, is this—”
“Kièrshia?”
Jani turned to find Dathim standing behind her, Meva at his side.
“He will kill you.” Dathim spoke as softly as ever he had. “He is of the warrior skein. He is larger, stronger, faster, and more skilled. He had fought in the circle many times.” He stepped forward. “I will fight him. I will—”
“It’s not your fight, Dathim.”
“I was his suborn as well as you!”
“I was his student. He was my teacher.” Jani slipped off her bloody overrobe, handed it to Niall. “If he kills me, use it. Break him with it.” She turned toward the circle. Blood sang in her ears. Sweat tingled her scalp. She sensed the room as brighter, thought for a moment that the illumination had intensified. No—this is how it feels to fight as Haárin. An augielike focus. A sharpening of the senses.
He will kill you.
“Then I will see his face.” She started to walk toward the circle, found her way blocked by a male bornsect. Taller than Cèel, and even more scarred. She stared him in the face, and he looked to the side, revealing a gnarl of an ear, half of it sliced away. He pushed a tray of blades at her and pointed to the one she should take, the one that Cèel as the challenged had chosen. A curved Sìah, a sleek crescent with a barbed tip. She picked it up, then walked past him and stepped inside the circle.
Cèel waited on the other side. The scarred male took his place behind him, whispered in his ear.
Jani saw a propitiator out of the corner of her eye, gesturing prayers and invocations against demons. Sànalàn, Tsecha’s suborn, who betrayed him.
Keep your prayers. She said her own. To Ganesh. Remover of obstacles. Guide my hand, Lord.
She crouched as Dathim had taught her, bent forward at the waist, one leg ahead of the other, arms outstretched to take the hacks of her opponent’s blade. Then she tucked her arms in a little to protect her sides, her ribs, and stood on the balls of her feet so she could move more quickly. As if it would help.
He will kill you.
Knife fights never lasted long, especially mismatches.
Cèel moved in first. A short stab that nicked Jani’s left wrist, sent rose-pink carrier dripping to the floor. She stepped in it as she tried to parry, felt her boots slide.
Another quick move by Cèel. Another hack, to her right arm this time.
Jani brought up her blade as Cèel backed off, caught his right wrist, sent the blood spraying to the tile. Heard no cries from the assembled. No cheers. Because this was not that sort challenge. Because sometimes knives slipped, and all knew that this would be one of those times.
Another circling. Another thrust parried. Another. Another.
Then Cèel stepped in. Brought his blade arm around just as Jani brought her knife up. Struck her wrist hard, metal on skin and nerve and bone.
Jani’s hand flew open as pain sang up her arm. The blade flashed flame as it tumbled through the air.
Cèel closed in. Gripped her around the waist with his free hand as though they danced. Jani brought up her knee to strike him in the groin, but he lifted her like a doll, shifted her so she struck his thigh instead. She looked him in the face to find he looked in hers as well, eyes like new grass frozen in ice. Then he bared his teeth—
—and sound receded—time—each heartbeat a year—
—and drove in the blade—
—warmth flowing through her skin—spreading—pressure—no pain—her heart—heart—
“Nìa!”
—looked past Cèel—outside the circle—saw a figure—shorn head—bared teeth—
“Nìa, you must—”
I must.
Her hand brushed her pocket—she felt the hardness of the broken blade—drew it out just as Cèel released her and stepped back and—
—she stepped forward—brought up the knife—sliced down—sliced back—
Heard Cèel howl. Felt his blood splash over her. Watched him fall back, hand clutching his thigh, blood flowing like a river, spreading across the circle.
Looked down. Saw one knife in her hand. Saw the other, in her gut.
“Nìa!”
Yes, inshah?
Stepped forward into the tunneling black—
That is most stupid, nìa, and I want to hear no more.
Inshah?
Yes, nìa?
Someday you’ll be the death of me.
CHAPTER 32
Breathing…breathing…
Pain.
Jani opened one eye, then closed it as the room light battered her. Heard movement off to the side. “Hmm…”
“Jani.” A deep voice. A voice of bedsides and cloudy nights. “Don’t try to move.”
“No—” She paused to summon saliva and lick her lips. “—prollem.” She raised a hand that weighed at least a hundred kilos and rested it atop her chest. “…Heavy.”
“Yes.” John lifted her hand and placed it back atop the bed, squeezing it before releasing it. “Cèel stabbed you in the abdomen. The blade curved up—he nicked your left lung, and your heart.” A pause. Sounds of shaky breathing. “You’re healing now.”
“I got him…too…” Jani nodded. Tried to nod. “What…happen…?”
“Not now. Get some sleep.”
Sounds of a chair being dragged across the floor. The creak of old ergoworks.
Jani pried one eye open, then the other, saw a shape backlit by the glare of a bedside lamp.
“Let me adjust this—” Niall ramped down the brightness, then leaned close. “Shroud doesn’t know I’m here, so I need to make it fast.” He looked at her stomach, the padding of sensors and bandages, and winced. “He said that you’re far from a hundred percent, so you weaken fast and can’t catch your breath and feel like an elephant’s sitting on your chest.”
Jani held up two fingers.
“Two elephants.” Niall grinned. “Has anyone talked
to you? About the fight?”
Jani tried to shake her head, stopping when the room spun. “Cèel—stabbed me. I stabbed—him. It was—a tie.”
Niall’s breath caught. “One of the news services got it all. Don’t know how they snuck a relay past bornsect security, but they did. The gel who imaged it spent the next hour in the can throwing up everything down to her shoes, but—she did good. It’s a bloody damned thing to watch—the son of a bitch grinned like a skull right before he—” He pressed a hand to his mouth, then slowly lowered it.
Jani reached out, touched Niall’s arm with the tip of her finger. “I hit him—” She paused to breathe. “—too.”
“Yes, yes.” Niall glanced back toward the door as he took her hand and patted it to try to settle her down. “The thing is, Jan, you…hit him in the groin, his femoral artery and—” He squeezed her hand. “—he bled out in the circle. In a minute, he bled, and it was—” Another shaky breath. “He’s dead, Jan. Cèel’s dead.”
“I would just like to state for the record that this is bullshit.” Val held Jani around the shoulders, propping her upright until the bed headrest rose up to meet her. “It’s only been two days. We told you that she needed at least a week.”
“Doctor, if this wasn’t so important, we wouldn’t intrude.” Scriabin sat at the foot of the bed. He wore full diplomatic rig, Commerce green tunic bearing every medal and award he’d ever received. “Hurt much?”
“Only when I laugh.” Jani tried to sit up higher, and stopped when the elephants began to tap dance across her rib cage. “Judging from the expressions on your faces, I doubt we’ll be doing much of that, so I’m—probably safe.”
“Niall admitted that he told you.” Mako shook his head. “He thought someone should have told you in the operating room. He thought you’d be able to hear, and it would cheer you up.” He clucked his tongue. “My Niall…can be the bloodiest of bastards.”
“Which is why he’ll be your Niall until the stars go out.” Jani brushed off Mako’s glower. “So I went into the circle with a second knife.” She touched her thigh where her trouser pocket would have been, where the blade would have rested. “I remember pulling out a knife. I remember stabbing him. Nothing particularly lucid.”
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