Endgame

by Kristine Smith

  “I can’t say I’m surprised.” Val sat on the end of the bed, opposite Scriabin. “I wasn’t particularly lucid afterward, and all I did was watch.”

  “Did Council lodge a protest?” Jani looked from one face to the next, sensed the need to speak combined with the reluctance to say what needed saying. “It wasn’t exactly a fair fight, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Everyone turned to the door.

  John filled the entry like a pale guardian, his med-whites rumpled, his face a mask. He glared at Mako and Scriabin, but saved his sharpest look for Val, who started to grumble an explanation before deciding silence the better course.

  Then John looked at Jani, and his expression warmed, a little. “Cèel was the better, more experienced fighter. He did not enter the circle in the spirit of challenge, but with every intention of killing you. Everyone who witnessed that fight knew that.”

  Jani detected the jittery undertone in the so-familiar bass. “How much did you see?”

  “Everything.” John hesitated, then walked to one of the analyzers that ringed her bedside and studied the readout. “Niall contacted us as soon as you offered challenge. We saw…everything.”

  Jani waited as the silence stretched. “Are you going to tell me what else happened, or do I have to bribe an orderly to snag a copy of the image?”

  “I would wait a few years to look at that, if I were you.” John remained fixed on the readout. “Cèel’s physician-priest wasn’t there. We found out later that Rilas had killed her during her escape from the Temple hospital. There were other physician-priests present, but half a minute or more passed while they shook out their hierarchical underwear, and that was a half a minute or more that they didn’t have. Our best trauma people would have had their work cut out for them. You couldn’t have struck a better spot if you’d aimed.” He shot her a look filled with wonder and the barest hint of cold-blooded admiration. “Then they started on the prayers. I think I recall someone cutting away Cèel’s trouser leg to look at the wound, but I confess that my attentions were fixed elsewhere by that point.”

  Jani watched as the physician who had pieced her together from char and ashes, who had brought her back from the brink any number of times, returned to his pondering of readouts. “John, did they…?”

  “Do I think they let him die?” John raised his head, his eyes bright. “Good God, is there any doubt?” He jerked his chin toward Val, who nodded. “They went through a few of the motions, but they didn’t do a damned thing that mattered.”

  Scriabin cleared his throat. “Well, there was the issue of Wholeness of Soul—”

  “As convenient an excuse as any. If pressed, I’m sure Temple can justify every move they made. And every move they didn’t.” John laughed. “He went too far. The other sects wanted him out without matters getting too messy. Saw an opportunity, and made the most of it. Assassination by medical negligence. The history scrolls of the idomeni are no doubt filled.”

  Jani looked from John to Val and back to John. For all their professional disdain and outrage, there was one point they continued to skirt. “Could you have helped?”

  The silence radiated like cracks in old glass. Man and hybrid looked at one another, decades of closeness whittling down hours of discussion to the arch of an eyebrow, the twitch of a lip.

  “You weren’t much better off, you know. We had our hands full.” Val looked at the floor and shrugged. “They wouldn’t have let us near him anyway.”

  “Besides, it’s not as though he’d have thanked us. Saved by a humanish and a hybrid—I’m sure if you’d have set out the choice before him, he’d have chosen death.” John turned back to the analyzers and concentrated on touchpad entries. “But it’s a moot point. As Val said, we had our hands full with you.”

  The room seemed to chill as the truth revealed itself in the humanish manner. In veiled looks and words left un-said. In the arch of an eyebrow and the twitch of a lip. Yes, we could have tried, but we didn’t. Because you came first. Because we saw the look on his face when he drove in the knife. Because he had Tsecha killed. Because the bastard deserved it.

  Mako walked to a side table and poured himself water from a carafe. “Remind me to never get on your bad side, Shroud.” He lifted the glass in Val’s direction. “That goes for you, too, Parini.” He drank, his stricken expression broadcasting that he would have preferred vodka and even that might not have helped.

  Jani waited until the shockwaves settled to the occasional ripple. “So what happened after they carted away the bodies?”

  “A firestorm.” Scriabin stood and paced. “The Pathen strong-armed a Council vote with a speed I didn’t believe possible outside of Chicago. Aden nìRau Wuntoi is the new Oligarch. The Pathen have ascended to rau.”

  “I didn’t think a bornsect could ascend to rau on a vote.” Val moved to the window and perched on the sill. “What happened to the civil war part?”

  “Peaceful transfer of power isn’t the norm, but it has happened.” Jani picked her muzzy brain for appropriate bits of idomeni history. “The sect that ascends needs to have built one hell of a consensus, but we knew the Pathenrau had been working on that for a while.”

  “After Council refused to allow Cèel’s suborn the right to ascend, they kicked all Vynshà out of Council and Temple.” Scriabin stood and paced at the foot of the bed. “Some of the Temple dominants are arguing that Cèel’s planning of Tsecha’s assassination was so profoundly antithetical to all that is idomeni that it taints all Vynshà.” He slowed. Stilled. “And that all Vynshà must pay.”

  “Pay how?” Jani heard the dread in her voice. “How are they supposed to pay?” But she knew the answer. One night twenty years before, she had witnessed the answer. The sin of one is the sin of all—

  Then her gut clenched and she doubled over, slumping to her side as the spasms started and her heart skipped.

  “I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.” John turned her over on her back, fingers flicking over the sensors. “Now.”

  It was a still night, the moon obscured by cloud—

  Jani sat in the hospital’s small garden and watched the fish in the ornamental pool, the melodramatic phrasing of the Colonial Times playing in her mind’s ear like the narration it was. The story had begun with the last days of the War of Vynshàrau Ascension. The reporter had mined every accessible archive and even a couple that technically should have been out of bounds.

  Bornsect tradition held that all members of a sect shared in the decisions of their dominants. Therefore, when it became evident that Laumrau dominants had conspired with members of the Commonwealth government and Service to imprison humanish in the hospital-shrine located at Knevçet Shèràa and to subject them to mind control experimentation, the sin of the few became the shame of the many, and the many accepted that the sin was theirs as well.

  “And since all the Laum sinned, all the Laum paid.” Jani worked to her feet, one eye on the relays that studded her right arm and transmitted her vital signs back to the handhelds that John and Val carried with them at all times. “I think there are a few isolated settlements left. A few Laum left alive to pass along the tale, and the warnings.”

  “Teaching idomeni history to the fish?”

  Jani turned to find Lucien standing in the garden entry.

  “I wanted to visit earlier, but Val warned me off.” He walked in, brimmed lid tucked under his arm. “I figured my best bet would be to sneak in and take my chances.” He stopped just beyond reach. “It’s sheer insanity outside these walls, you realize that? Vynshà are gathering in the streets and Wuntoi is ready to send out the Haárin to bottle them up.”

  Jani lowered back into the chair. “No one tells me anything. Scriabin and Mako were here yesterday, but John ordered them out after—” She patted her chest just over her heart. “They’re going to slaughter the Vynshà. It’ll make the Night of the Blade look like a skirmish.”

  Lucien took a seat on a nearby be
nch. “What did you expect?” He picked up a branch that had fallen from one of the dwarf weeping willows and poked the water, sending the fish scurrying for shelter. “That’s how they’ve operated for thousands of years. It’s insane. A dominant commits a crime, and the entire sect gets thrown over the side. If humans did that, we never would have lasted long enough to make it out of the caves.” He hit the surface hard enough to make a splash, then tossed the branch into the water and watched it bob and float.

  Jani watched him out of the corner of her eye. Duplicitous bastard. Yet here he was, the only one who seemed willing to tell her what went on beyond the hospital gates. “What’s the official Commonwealth position?”

  “That it’s an internal idomeni matter.”

  “Like hell it is.” Jani heard her cardiomonitor emit a warning beep, and breathed slowly until it settled. “What happens to the Vynshà Haárin?”

  “That’s still being discussed.” For the first time, Lucien seemed anxious, clenching his hands and shifting restlessly. “Dathim’s under a sort of house arrest until they decide.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

  “I think they were afraid to come out and tell him.” A quick smile, which soon vanished. “They finally settled on having Meva suggest to him that he should remain within the confines of the enclave. She’s technically under house arrest as well. Feyó is trying to intercede for them, but she isn’t having much luck.” Lucien clapped the tips of his fingers together. “They’d kill Dathim and Meva because they’re Vynshà, even though they’re Haárin?” He made a drifting gesture with one hand. “If you’d kept your mouth shut and let me handle it, none of this would have happened. Rilas just would have disappeared.”

  “You couldn’t have gotten to Cèel.”

  “He rode in a skimmer on occasion, didn’t he? Idomeni tech isn’t all that different.” Lucien sat back, smoothing his hands over his thighs, then dragging his brimmed lid onto his lap and tracing a thumbnail over the gold braid. “That’s what they’re all saying. That you had to get in everyone’s face. Again. You had to broadcast. Again. Everyone knew you were coming. Everyone knew what to expect. You said things that should have been kept quiet. You did things that upset people. And now everyone’s stuck. Because it’s all out in the open, they have to act in certain ways. Instead of an easy transfer of power to a Vynshà who would have been more amenable, millions are going to die. Because you couldn’t keep your damned mouth shut.” His hands stilled. “That’s the difference between you and me. I do the job, and I know how to keep my distance. I don’t get involved. I don’t get emotional.” He paused, eyes fixed on the fish, which had begun to emerge from beneath stones and logs and swim about again. “I just do it.”

  “Does anyone bother to consider that Tsecha wouldn’t want this?” Jani paused to breathe as her heart monitor once more beeped a warning. “He was Vynshà. They’re his people. Do you think if he were alive now he’d let this happen?”

  “He’s dead.” Lucien shrugged. “What he’d think doesn’t matter.”

  “So it’s come to that already?”

  “Ani is saying that history is repeating. You did the same thing at Knevçet Shèràa. Drew down fire. You killed Rikart Neumann, and because you did that, Acton van Reuter had to act, had to order Evan to take care of you. You force people to do things they don’t want to do because you don’t know when to lay low. When to lay off.” Lucien tugged at his lid’s gold braid too hard, ripping it away from the brim. He swore under his breath and massaged the cording with his thumb, trying to work it back into place. “You always have to push.”

  “You’ve made your point.”

  “Have I? Is it really getting through?”

  Jani watched him set his lid back on the bench beside him, then lean forward again, hands flexing. “Lucien?”

  He raised his head and looked at her. His eyes glittered like the stones that lined the bottom of the pond, dark and cold and devoid of life. “What?”

  Jani sighed as she felt the last piece in a long running puzzle slip into place. I always knew it would come to this. Always knew that someday, the man who had spent his life playing all sides of the game would eventually make a choice. “Speaking hypothetically, of course, because it’s all I can do to get up out of this chair. But if I were to attempt to run out of this garden right now, I wouldn’t make it to the entry, would I?”

  “Ani prefers Feyó.” Lucien fixed on the fish again. “Feyó knows something of how humans operate, but she’s not an expert. Ani thinks she’ll have an easier time manipulating her if you’re not around.” He smiled, shook his head. “No, that’s not all of it. Ani hates you and wants you dead.”

  Jani nodded. Odd, that she didn’t feel scared. That she didn’t feel angry or betrayed. That she didn’t feel the least urge to fight for her life. I’ll be able to apologize to Tsecha in person for destroying his people. And to the d’Abos, and the Seligs, and the other passengers of the Capria. As for the pain or the sensations, well, she’d died often enough to have felt them all at least once. The only thing she had yet to experience was that last letting go, and odds were that it would slip right past without her realizing. Paying forward for the millions. Yes, it was right. Yes, it was just. Insufficient repayment, but all she had to offer. All she had to give.

  “I’ve risked everything I ever wanted, everything I ever earned.” Lucien picked up a stone and hurled it into the midst of the fish, sending them darting back to the rocks as water splashed. “And every goddamned time, I’d have to stand there and listen as you told me that whatever I did, it wasn’t enough. Not enough risk. Not enough blood. You’re not running for your life this week, so you can’t be serious. What the hell else do you want from me?”

  “Not a thing.” Jani shook her head. “Not anymore.”

  Lucien bulled on with no indication that he’d heard. “I can’t be what you want me to be—I’m not made that way. I can’t say what you want me to say. I can’t feel what you want me to feel.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t love you.”

  “I should have realized when you told me all about assassins who needed to get close to their victims that you were trying to tell me something. If I made a list of all our encounters since Elyas, I would guess that each one was an opportunity you let slip. The clinch on the catwalk—that was your best shot, I think. Overcome by guilt over the Capria, bit of a push and over the railing she went. Clear case of suicide. No wonder Anais seemed so upset each time she saw me. I wasn’t supposed to survive the journey here, was I?” Jani took as deep a breath as she dared, then slid to the edge of the chair. “Well, you’ll do the job good and proper now, and you’ll be set for life. Ani will never question you again. Hell, she’ll probably write you into her will.” Using the chair arms for support, she worked to her feet. Then she undid the collar of her pajama top and pushed back the collar of her robe, exposing the area around her neck.

  Lucien straightened. “What are you doing?”

  “Would it be easier if I turned my back?” Jani turned to face the garden entry, then reached up and tapped the place where her neck and shoulder met. “I’ve done this before, so watch where I’m pointing. Edge of your hand, right here.” She lowered her hands and clasped them in front of her, then stilled. Strange how she’d never felt so calm. She had no trouble keeping the cardiomonitor silent. “I’ll keep looking straight ahead. The sun’s in just the right position—I won’t even see your shadow. One hard shot, Lucien. All that stands between you and everything you ever wanted.” And between me and everything I deserve.

  Nothing, for long seconds. Then she heard him rise, the crunch of the soles of his polished tie-tops against the stone rim of the pond. Sensed him close in, as she always could, and shut her eyes.

  Felt him grip her shoulders and ease her around to face him. Opened her eyes as first he pulled her pajama top closed, then straightened the collar of her robe. He didn’t look her in the face. He barely looked at her at a
ll.

  Then, his ministrations completed, he rested his hands on her shoulders for a scant moment, before letting them slide away. “Happy now?” He stood before her, head bowed, then circled around her and started toward the other end of the garden.

  “You—” Jani inhaled. This time her heart skipped, stuttered. The edges of her sightline blackened and her knees buckled.

  Lucien caught her before she hit the ground, and lowered with her. Held her, drew her closer, and pressed his lips to the place were her neck and shoulder met.

  “So you’re going to kill me after all.” Jani heard the cardiomonitor start to skitter. “You’ve just settled on your weapon of choice.”

  “I learned from an expert.” Lucien’s arms tightened as he hugged her closer.

  “Damned fool.”

  “No argument there.”

  “Let her go.”

  Jani saw John push through the garden gate, Val at his heels. She sagged against Lucien, felt the hybrid lawn prickle through her pajamas. “He’s not doing anything.”

  “There’s something wrong with her.” Lucien released her and scuttled backward as Val and John linked arms beneath Jani’s legs and behind her back and hoisted her up. “She’s not her usual self.”

  “If you had a twelve centimeter gash in your gut courtesy of a Sìah barbed blade and a hole in your heart that didn’t want to close, you wouldn’t be your usual self either.” John glared at Lucien as he and Val maneuvered Jani back to her chair and lowered her into it. “Perhaps you’d like to experience the sensation firsthand?”

  “John.” Jani laid her head back. “Shut up.”

  “Jani, you can’t afford—”

  “Just shut—” She grabbed the front of his medcoat and shook as hard as she could. “—up.”