“That sounds more like—” Lucien fell silent as both John and Val turned on him.
Jani looked past her twin guardians to her singular—what was he? Ally? Lover? Never a friend. Just…Lucien. “Do you have a skimmer?”
Lucien nodded. “I can get one.”
Jani slapped the sides of her chair, then jerked her thumb at the garden gate. “I have to go to the enclave and get Dathim and Meva out.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” John said as he checked the various analyzers on the chair.
“I’m going to the enclave to get Dathim and Meva.” Jani stared at the side of John’s face until he finally looked at her. “Then I want to talk to Wuntoi.”
“He’s been advised not to talk to you.” Lucien stood off to one side, hands behind his back.
“Then we’re going to have to persuade him otherwise.” Jani tugged on John’s sleeve. “John.”
“You’re in no condition.” Val picked up the standard while his colleague fussed with a balky readout.
“Just give me something to get me through.”
John’s head came up, eyes blazing. “That’s not how I work.”
“Just get me through the next twelve hours. If I can’t get something started by then…” Jani took John’s hand and squeezed. Felt the initial resistance, the slow softening.
His eyes brimmed. “You were all I cared about.”
“I know. That was the problem, wasn’t it?” Jani leaned close enough to kiss. “Whatever it takes. Please.”
CHAPTER 33
“The dominant’s name is ná Dena Lau.” Scriabin read the name off his handheld display, and did a decent job of pronunciation. “Ava always found her quite reasonable, but now that she has a possible death sentence in her future, all bets are off. Word is that if she cooperates with Wuntoi, he’ll exile her enclave instead of killing them.”
Jani pondered the view through the skimmer window. City Center appeared much as it always had, the walkways filled with both bornsect and Haárin, all proceeding in an apparently orderly manner.
“Jan?”
Jani touched her ear. “I’m here.”
“I’m with Galas…” Niall paused, said something to the Haárin male. “We’re north of the Temples, near the site of your Sermon on the Park Bench. Lots of Haárin gathered here, and more streaming in from the surrounding streets.”
Jani looked to the north, past the domes and spires of the City Center. Imagined Niall guiding the small two-seater along the river, Galas riding shotgun. “Any Pathenrau security?”
“A few. No warriors, though. Galas said that he heard they were calling up a few brigade equivalents from the southern encampments in preparation for—”
Jani waited. Tapped her ear a few times. “Niall?”
“In preparation for the slaughter.” A shaky sigh. “Jesus Christ, there are kids out here. Youngish. Some of them can’t even walk yet.” Another pause. “We’re going to get started here. Feyó’s crew has shown up. What’s your timing?”
Jani checked the view. “Coming up on the enclave now.” She tapped the bug, shutting it down. She didn’t want a stream of Niall-speak interrupting her, distracting her. She still felt tired, despite the stimulant John had reluctantly given her. As for the wound… She reached beneath her shirt and touched the bandage, a mass of sensor wrap and healing accelerants that sent out signals, she felt sure, to anyone with a handheld who wanted to know the state of her heart.
“You all right?”
Jani looked over at Val, who watched her from the other end of the seat. “I’m fine.”
“Then why do you keep touching it?”
“Just to drive you crazy.”
“Already there.” Val entered a notation in his handheld. “Bobbing along like a ping-pong ball in your wake.”
“I know the feeling, Doc.” Scriabin looked up from his handheld and gazed out the window. “She makes Tyotya Ani seem meek and retiring.”
“You can both shut up any time now.” Jani scooted to the edge of her seat as the embassy double-length floated to the curb. The driver’s side gullwing swung up, releasing a uniformed Lucien, who hurried around to her side of the vehicle and opened the door.
Jani emerged, taking Lucien’s offered hand and holding on tight because she needed the support. Continued to lean on him as she slowly straightened while trying to ignore the pull of bandages and healing tissue. Her propitiator’s overrobe, a clean backup she’d salvaged from the depths of her luggage, unfurled to her knees.
A crowd gathered, Haárin and bornsect both, ripples of hushed speech propagating as she walked to the enclave entry. I don’t look too bad for someone who died three days ago, do I? She squeezed Lucien’s hand, and he released her and stepped to the side, far enough away so that she appeared fully ambulatory, but close enough to catch her in case the unthinkable happened and she collapsed.
She reached the gate just as ná Dena emerged, a middle-aged female wearing the headwrap and rough clothes of a laborer.
“Glories, Kièrshia.” Dena spoke Low Vynshà Haárin, a language stripped of gesture. She looked Jani in the eye as well, her Vynshà gold laced with amber and streaks of brown. “I know why you are here. I can do nothing. NìRau Wuntoi compels. I must obey. Ní Dathim and ná Meva must remain until all is decided.”
Jani started to speak, then stopped as cold sweat broke out and flecks of light shimmered in her sightline. Not now, goddamn it. She bent forward at the waist. Hunched her shoulders. Prayed as she never prayed before that Dena would interpret her posture as growing rage, not an attempt by a weak half-humanish to remain standing by any means possible.
Saw the brown-streaked gold flicker, and knew her prayer had been answered, at least for the moment. “Blood trade, Dena. You hold them for Wuntoi, he lets your enclave leave Shèrá. But if you leave, and Vynshà here die, all will know you betrayed. All will know, because I will tell them.” She heard Lucien shift his feet, and knew he understood enough of what she said to glean the threat. Too harsh? Too bad.
Dena’s shoulders started to curve. “Tell what you will, to who you will. NìRau Wuntoi said that they were of ní Tsecha, and ní Tsecha died.”
“So?” Jani parsed Wuntoi’s words, searching for the slant he’d given them, the meaning that would have convinced Dena to imprison her own.
Then it hit her like a blow. Her heart stuttered. “He told you they helped kill ní Tsecha?” She drew up straight without thinking, looked to the sky, felt the pain across her midriff like the swipe of claws. “They both lived here once.” She rounded her shoulders again, stepping away from Lucien as he edged closer. “You knew them.”
Dena nodded. “I know of Meva.” The harmonics of irritation in her voice indicated that she had known Meva all too well.
“You know she studied ní Tsecha’s writings, that she followed him.”
“Yes, ná Kièrshia, but—”
“You know ní Dathim, the tilemaster?”
“All know ní Dathim.” This time the tone was softer, kinder.
“You say this. Yet you believe that this ní Dathim who you know would participate in secret killing? That ná Meva, who one can hear through walls, would do so as well? Ní Dathim would face you in the circle and strike you down—” Jani poked Dena in the chest hard enough to jostle her. “—and ná Meva would talk you to death, but she would never strike in secret.”
“NìRau Wuntoi will slaughter us as we did the Laum.” Dena’s eyes darkened. Yes, she was of an age. She may have witnessed. She may have even participated.
“Wuntoi will slaughter—no one.” Jani stopped to breathe. “Give them to me now, and I will guard you as I guard them. I will guard all Vynshà as I guard them.”
Dena looked to the street, the idomeni who crowded from three sides. “NìRau Wuntoi will hear you,” she said in halting English. “But will he listen?”
Jani nodded. That was the sticking point, the one thing in all this that she could work for, but not guarantee. “If I
can’t save you, I’ll die with you. This I swear, on Tsecha’s soul.”
Dena stood quiet, her eyes fixed on nothing. Then she gestured to her suborn, a hulking male who gestured affirmation, then reentered the enclave. A few minutes later he emerged, Dathim and Meva in tow.
Meva grabbed Jani’s sleeve and made as if to speak, but Jani shook her off. “Get into the skimmer,” she said in Sìah Haárin. “Before they change their minds.” The two followed Lucien to the vehicle, piling into the rear seat while Jani walked toward the crowd. They pushed forward as she approached, a few raising their arms above their heads in displays of abject respect.
“I have taken ní Dathim Naré and ná Meva Tan.” Jani spoke High Vynshà, every word replete with change in posture and gesture. “They were ní Tsecha’s, as was I. Now they are mine. I care for that which is mine.” She paused, until the tension ramped and it seemed as though the air itself would shatter under the stress. “Line the streets from Council to the river, where I met some of you four days past. Do this in the time after mid-afternoon sacrament. I will await you there.” With that, she turned and swept back to the skimmer. Waved off Lucien’s offered arm, maintaining her show of strength until he closed her gullwing after her. Then she slumped forward, arms crossed over her stomach, while Val knelt on the skimmer floor in front of her, handscanner at the ready.
“John is going to have a fit when he sees these numbers.” He checked her vitals, then dragged a slingbag from beneath the seat. “What was that all about? A meeting by the river? Who are you expecting?” He pulled out an injector already loaded with a cartridge, pushed up Jani’s right sleeve and pressed the device to her skin. “You can’t take much more of this, you know? If John doesn’t come up with the right protein soon, we’re going to have to open you up again.”
Meva and Dathim sat on the opposite bench seat, crowding Scriabin on both sides. Dathim watched the medical ministrations with the skeptical eye of an owner who wondered if his horse would make it through the race. “The Vynshà will not die as did the Laum.” His voice was a rumble. “They will take as many with them as they can.”
“No one will have to die. Not even me.” I hope. Jani sagged against the seat as whatever Val dosed her with took effect. “Now here’s what I need you all to do…”
The skimmer pulled away from the curb, its progress slowed to a walking pace by the idomeni who crowded in from every side, touching the vehicle as it drifted past, like a talisman.
By the time they reached the river, Niall, along with Feyó’s crew, had completed their end of the project. The awning they’d erected on the edge of the river proved a drab thing in dark grey, which Jani suspected had been creatively reappropriated from Rauta Shèràa Base stores by a certain colonel of her acquaintance.
“Afternoon, gel.” Niall strode beneath the awning, clip-wrench still in hand. He tossed the tool aside and helped Val and Scriabin maneuver a skimchair out of the skimmer boot, eyeing Jani all the while. “You’ve looked better, you know.”
“I’ve felt better.” Jani sat in the chair as soon as Val activated it. “Is she here?”
Niall stepped back outside and motioned to someone standing alongside the awning. “Your turn.”
A shadow moved along the fabric wall. Then a small face framed with dark brown curls peeked around edge of the polycloth.
“Come on in, gel. She only bites if you bite first.” Niall gripped the young woman’s sleeve and tugged her inside. “This is Bailey Schiff, an enterprising stringer for Chan-Net, who has already imaged one event of the century and is ready to move on to bigger things.”
“It’s good to—” The young woman held out a hand to Jani, her eyes widening. “—meet. You.”
“Thank you for agreeing to this.” Jani gave Schiff’s hand a squeeze, because the young woman looked like she needed it. “If this goes according to plan, you won’t have to do anything.” We won’t think about what will happen if it doesn’t. “All you’ll have to do is stand near my chair.”
“And an exclusive interview after it’s over,” piped Schiff, her nervousness evaporating like morning dew in the Rauta Shèràa sun.
“And an exclusive interview after it’s over.” Jani turned her chair around and motioned to Lucien. “You should get going.”
“Are you sure he’ll be there?” Lucien’s voice emerged tight, his business-as-usual facade showing its first crack. “You never contacted him. You never asked for a meeting.”
“If he looks out the window, he can see what’s going on.” Jani heard a rise of voices, looked out to the river to see that the crowd had doubled in size in the few minutes since their arrival. “He’ll be there.”
“From your mouth…” Lucien lapsed into French as he returned to the skimmer and got in.
Jani watched him pull away. Saw Meva’s face in the rear window and raised a hand. Felt a flicker of relief when the female bared her teeth and waved back.
“Ava received a communication this morning.” Scriabin grabbed a folding stool from a stack and shook it open. “Li Cao is still insisting that this is an idomeni matter.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons.” Jani edged her chair behind the draped fold of the awning, then rolled up her sleeve so Val could give her another injection.
“If you pull this off…” He shook his head and concentrated on positioning the injector.
Jani winced as the injector pinched, sighed as the drug warmth wandered up her arm. Watched the street that stretched from the enclave to the river, already obscured by the idomeni who gathered there. “Did you bring it?”
Val sighed. “It’s right here.” He reached into his slingbag, pulled out the plastic hospital dispo bag and handed it to her.
“He’s coming.” Niall appeared at the front of the awning. “Pascal picked him up at the front of the Council building. He drove him as far as the enclave, then let him off. Dathim and Meva are leading him here.”
“Through the crowds?” Jani smiled.
Niall touched his ear, listened for a moment, then nodded. “It’s just like it was in the station. They’ve closed in on both sides—there’s barely enough room for him to pass.”
“Well, time to get ready for company.” Jani shifted her weight so the chair tipped forward and stood.
Niall gaped.
It had taken Val the better part of the day to find the clothes Jani had worn the day she killed Rilas and Cèel. They had been bundled into a biohazard bag during her pre-surgical prep and avoided the incinerator through sheer happenstance. Permanent bends and ripples had been created in the shirt and the front of the trousers by Jani’s and Cèel’s dried blood. The overrobe, streaked with Rilas’s blood, had fared a little better, but still looked like something that had been used to wrap a butchered animal.
“Jani?” Scriabin licked his lips. He’d watched her remove the garments from the bag and put them on, and still hadn’t recovered. “Do you think it wise to greet a new Oligarch while wearing clothes soaked in his predecessor’s blood?”
Jani bared her teeth. “Welcome to Shèrá, Your Excellency.”
Jani walked out from under the awning and across the river walkway to the end of the avenue. As she did, idomeni closed in on both sides, both bornsect and Haárin, Vynshà and Sìah and Oà, as well as the odd Pathenrau rebel, gold-bronze faces like shots of night amid their lighter-skinned brethren.
Aden nìRau Wuntoi walked toward her, shoulders curved in anger, Dathim and Meva serving as escort, the crowd closing in behind him and bearing him along. He slowed when he registered Jani standing at the end of the walkway, slowed even more when he saw the clothes she wore.
When they reached the end of the walkway, Dathim and Meva turned as sharply as Spacer recruits, coming to a halt beside Jani. That left Wuntoi standing by himself, an arm’s length distant, idomeni pressing around him from three sides.
“The reason?” His English was unaccented. He had been working toward Pathenrau ascendance for a long time.
<
br /> “One should always look into the faces of those you would kill.” Jani turned and pointed toward the awning-covered enclosure. “Now we shall go, and talk of them.” She waited for Dathim and Meva to walk ahead, then fell in behind them, allowing Wuntoi his place of precedence bringing up the rear. With the Vynshà hard on his tail. She held back her grin without much trouble. She still felt the tightness around her chest, the weakness and cold sweats. Val had rigged a cardiopack over her heart that would inject the appropriate drugs and proteins in case it misbehaved, and had hidden in the backseat of the double-length, a mere twenty-five meter dash away in case of medical crisis.
They entered the enclosure. Everyone rose, Scriabin immediately surrendering the stool, which was of the proper height and style for an Oligarch. Wuntoi smoothed his overrobe around him and sat, a lifetime’s practice with bornsect furniture allowing him the balance to situate himself with nary an unseemly wobble. He looked around the sheltered space, then settled in, gesturing dismissively toward Jani’s skimchair. “You sit in that chair because you are weak.”
“Physically?” Jani shrugged, ignoring the pull of her incision and the heft and drag of the cardiopack. “Mentally is another matter, and unless you wish to challenge me, it is the mental with which you will have to deal.”
“A second knife.” Wuntoi looked toward the crowds, who had encircled the enclosure as closely as Feyó’s security would allow and now sat on the lawns and watched them. “Unseemly.”
“So is attempted murder within the circle. But knives have always been known to slip, and idomeni often die who are not meant to.” Jani replayed scattered moments in her mind. The moment when Cèel knocked away her blade. When he drew her in like a lover and rammed his own knife into her gut up to the hilt.
“I am here at your bidding, because you were favored by ní Tsecha. And because you are weakened, and I pitied you.” Wuntoi fixed his gaze at a point over Jani’s shoulder, on the border between disrespect and regard. “What do you want?”
Endgame Page 36
