Endgame

by C. J. Cherryh

  "An honest rogue, how refreshing! Then I suppose you'd best walk me home this evening, just in case young m'ser Greely decides to follow me."

  "I'd be honored."

  Six months later—the explosion of that boiler on her family's boat . . . the night Kayleigh had gone home to them because she and Ethan had had an argument.

  "You're looking glum enough," said a voice from his left.

  The last thing he wanted was company. "I really . . ."

  He stopped right there. Standing near the table was the last person he would have expected that night, or, for that matter, any night in the last couple of months.

  Nadra Ratliff.

  Her short raven hair and enigmatic smile hadn't changed since the two of them were youngsters playing in the back of her father's print shop.

  "Nadra?"

  "Just make it Rat."

  "Oh, yeah," he said. "So where's the other half of that act?"

  For just a moment a shadow passed across Rat's face. "You were saving that chair for Governor Kalugin, no doubt? I'm afraid he's not going to make it. Tied up taste-testing a new shipment of wine, I suspect. So I'll take it. After all, we wouldn't want it to get about that you were a solitary drunk, now would we?"

  Before he could answer, Rat had unslung the heavy bag she wore across her back. From the size and shape, Ethan was fairly certain it held her gitar. She carefully set the bag on the floor, resting it against the wall, before sitting down.

  "I'm surprised the blacklegs haven't had you to the justiciar, considering the lyrics of a few of those songs that have gotten credited to you."

  "It's nice to see you again, too, Ethan," laughed Rat. "As for the justiciar, he hasn't caught me yet." Waving to the waitress, Rat ordered beer for the two of them.

  "A lot better for you than that watered-down canal juice Moghi tries to pass off as wine these days," she said.

  Ethan sighed, shaking his head.

  He could remember a very different Rat, one he'd shamed into taking her first drink of beer when they had both been nine years old. Hell, it'd been his first as well, but at the time he would sooner have died than admit it.

  Had their parents had their way, Rat and he would have long ago been contract-married. The only problem with that plan was that neither Rat nor he had been consulted, and neither wanted anything to do with it.

  For a long time neither one spoke. Rat finished one beer and ordered another. "So what's the matter?" she finally asked. "As if I couldn't guess."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Simple, the only times in the last couple of years I've seen you looking this down is when you start brooding about Kayleigh." "Mind your business."

  "Ethan, it's been three years since that boat blew. She's gone, dead. You got to accept that and get on with the rest of your life."

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Look, I know you loved her. I loved her, too. Besides Rif and you, she was probably one of the best friends I ever had. So don't think you got a monopoly on sorry. If she walked in that door right now and saw you like this, she'd probably be undecided whether to kiss you or kick your butt for acting like an idiot."

  "More than like, both," he said.

  "If it were at least the anniversary of the thing, that I might be able to understand. But that's another four months."

  "Five and a half, but then you always were terrible with dates."

  "Only when it was ones my folks arranged." Ethan began to whistle. It was the same song Kayleigh had played for him that last night, before they'd quarreled.

  "That's beautiful," said Rat. "What's the point?" "It was Kayleigh's." Rat arched an eyebrow.

  Ethan shrugged and took a long swallow, draining his mug. "She said she'd only just finished it. Two hours later she was dead, all because of a stupid argument I can't remember the reasons of now."

  Rat traced a design with the edge of her fingernail in the surface of the table. "You had no way of knowing about the boiler. Her father had been keeping the thing running with prayers and wire for years. That piece of iron was just too tired to keep on going."

  "Maybe," he admitted. "But the trouble is, that song, the one Kayleigh wrote for me—"

  "So?"

  "Until a couple of nights ago, I thought no one but me knew that piece of music. Then I heard a canaler whistling it."

  Rat sat there for a long time, not really looking at anything. "I suppose it's too much to hope for we both had a few too many tonight."

  "I doubt even Moghi has enough to get me that drunk."

  "All right, let's say for a minute that is Kayleigh's song and not just one that sounded like it. You believe in ghosts?"

  For that moment every other sound in Moghi's faded away to the barest whisperings.

  "Maybe," said Ethan. "Nadra, I'm scared . . . like I've never been before. Scared of what I'm going to find, or maybe what I'm not going to find. I told you we had a fight that night."

  "And you think maybe if you two hadn't fought she might be alive."

  "Yeah."

  "Look, you'll never know about what might have happened if you hadn't fought that night. Forget that bilge. As for being scared, that's fine. Scared might keep us two alive tonight."

  "Us?" he said, eyeing her.

  "I heard that piece myself this week. Down har-borside. Pretty piece. So was the guy singing it."

  * * *

  Set something up, Rat had said, and something else about needing to stash her gitar somewhere. Join you, she said, in an hour, near Rohan warehouse. Then she vanished into the dark of Ventani walkway.

  "You're very good at that," he said to the place where she had been standing.

  He took the long walk down to harborside, slowly. He lingered in a shadowed nook and waited. At this time of night, most of the honest life of Merovingen had moved far away from the warehouse district to the towers of hightown and the canal taverns. What few people were still about were lone walkers hurrying on their silent way, or couples so lost in each other they wouldn't have noticed the Nev Hettek army.

  It began to drizzle slightly, bringing a feverish chill to the air. Ethan drew a breath and let it out in a long sigh.

  A tall, lanky figure, wrapped in a hooded cape, moved harborward along the walkway, stopping only a dozen steps away from Ethan's hiding place. Whoever the stranger was, he moved with swaggering bravado that defied the elements to do their worst. Either very confident in this neighborhood, Ethan thought, or very stupid—or maybe a bit of both.

  The mist turned suddenly to a pelting rain, drowning the few lanterns hung along the walkway. In the east, rolls of thunder echoed among churning gray clouds. Reflexively, Ethan pulled his hood up.

  A second figure stepped from the shadows, just behind the first. Two quick blows and it was over, the cloaked man sent sprawling onto his knees. Before Ethan could say or do anything, the whole of the walk was illuminated for a heartbeat by a lightning bolt.

  That was long enough to reveal the face of the second figure. "Rat!"

  "Don't just stand there, help me get him into the shadow."

  Ethan grabbed the unconscious figure's legs, pulling him back into the nook by the warehouse door.

  "What the hell is going on?" Ethan asked. "I thought you had a bit more in mind than trying to pick up spare change."

  "Yey," she said. "Besides, this young fellow and most of his cousins were broke by sundown the first day they hit port." Rat pulled the stranger's hood back. Lightning flashed. He couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. The blond hair, along with the height, were a dead giveaway. A Falkenaer seaman.

  "It's a damn kid!"

  "Pretty kid. Nice voice. Let's find out what other tunes he knows." She slapped the young man's face twice in quick succession. That was enough to stir a moan and set his eyes to blink.

  "What th'. . . ? Gawd, what th' hell happen't t' me?"

  "You got careless," said Rat. "That's the sort of thing can end you up with a knife between you
r ribs." One flashed in Rat's hand. The kid looked at it wide-eyed.

  " 'T weren't fair, ain't fair a't all, comin' at me fra behind like that."

  "You come halfway around this world," said Rat, "and you still think life is fair? Kid, this has got to be your first voyage."

  Ethan asked, "So what's your name, boy?"

  The young Falkenaer looked at Rat and then at Ethan. "Mathias. 'Ey calls me Matt."

  "A'right, Matt," Rat said, "that's a good start. Now let's talk music."

  "Music?" The kid's face was white in the lightning flashes.

  "Oh, don't start with that kind of crap," snarled Rat. "The two of us are cold, wet, and tired. Ethan, give me five minutes with the likes of him and I'll have all the answers we want. The rain'll wash away the blood."

  "Lad, I'd think seriously about answering the questions if I were you. Believe me, this lady can be very, very nasty."

  Definite anxiousness to cooperate: "What d'ye want?"

  "You sang a song yesterday," Rat said. "Want you to tell me the tunemaker." "Yeah?"

  Rat hummed a half dozen bars of Kayleigh's song. "That 'un. Who?"

  To have referred to Sulaco's Tavern as a dive would have been a radical rise in status for the place.

  Nobody knew exactly who Sulaco had been, or if there really was such a person. For as long as anyone could remember, a small surly man known as Morse had run the place.

  Most of the tavern's trade came from sailors, and workers who frequented the docks. This included the sailors from the ships under the banner of the Falken Islands. There wasn't another tavern in all of Merovingen that'd let more than two of them in at a time.

  Morse didn't care, he was just interested in their money.

  "Ethan," said Rat, "I'm not at all certain you coming along was a particularly good idea."

  "You may be right," Ethan allowed.

  It was like walking into a steam bath. The main room was crowded, but Rat found them a table near the door.

  The confusion of sounds rumbled in Ethan's ears as he studied the crowd. Here and there the shorter, darker locals stuck out like sore thumbs.

  "So much for the element of surprise," he said.

  Across the room, a woman with curly brown hair and a somewhat younger blond woman stepped up on a makeshift stage. They each carried gitars and struck up a slightly out of key tune. Behind them a thin, bearded man began to back their music on a small drum he held strapped around his chest.

  "Looks like you and Rif have some competition."

  "Not bloody likely. One of 'em's a docker, the others is a pair of bridge-way artists," snored Rat. "This place is the best booking they're likely to get."

  From all around the room came various suggestions for tunes. The two women conferred for several beats before striking up a sea jig.

  "Say, how's about giving us a dance, Ciara!" someone called out from near the stage.

  "That's better than you deserve, you old goat," a woman shouted back from another stage.

  "Oh, go on." Others added their voices. Even the musicians joined in.

  "All right."

  She was tall, this girl called Ciara. Men helped her up onto the stage where she stood with her back to the audience for several moments, whispering with the three performers.

  The music changed, a livelier, more complicated tune this time, a ballad called "Moonfinder." After a moment's hesitation the girl started to move in sync with the music, ignoring the catcalls and yells.

  Then she began to sing, a rich soprano voice that cut across the throbbing din of the crowd. Ethan's head jerked up with a start: he looked at the stage. He was listening not to the song but to the singer's voice. She turned toward his table and pulled her cap off; long red hair came tumbling out.

  "Kayleigh!" His voice was a rusty whisper.

  From Rat: "God, it really is her."

  Ethan was out of his chair almost before Rat realized it. She was barely able to grab him and pull him back toward their table.

  "Look, you love-sick fool, d'you want to get us killed? Not to mention maybe her as well!" Rat's voice had gone hard and cutting. "They obviously think of her as one of their own now. I know the Falkenaers, man, and if they even think you're threat-enin' one of them, they'll all be on ye. Ye'll get a knife in your gut if you go runnin' up there!"

  "So what am I supposed to do? Don't ask me to walk away and leave her, I won't!"

  "Of course not! All I'm asking is you use your head for once. Ye'll find it a refreshing experience."

  The rain had slacked off to a light mist, though gray clouds still churned and bubbled across the sky. Following Kayleigh had been Rat's idea. Talk to her somewhere away from the Falkenaers, that's the smart thing to do. Ethan had to admit Rat had been right.

  Still, the sight of Kayleigh (what had they called her? Ciara?) up on that stage had made him forget anything but her.

  "Karma, god, she's going to end up paying for all this a dozen lifetimes to come," Ethan said.

  "Let's not start with any of your Revenantist crap," Rat muttered. "You'd look like hell in orange robes."

  A couple of coins had bought them the location of Kayleigh's room, the far back of the hall on the canalside floor.

  "I presume you've considered the possibility she might not want to see either one of us?" said Rat.

  That had occurred to Ethan, more times than he wanted to admit, in the hour since they had left Sulaco's. He had pushed it into the back of his mind, something to be dealt with one if it happened.

  As they walked back into the dimly lit hall, Ethan heard a scream, then a woman's voice and a string of epithets that stung even Ethan's ears. He ran down the corridor and yanked open the door of Kayleigh's room.

  A large man, dressed in oilcloth breeches and a vest, held Kayleigh's arms pinned against the wall. Blood streamed from scratches across his face. "Get outta here," he growled at Ethan, "or I'll gut ye like a fish!"

  Ethan landed his boot in the man's side. The impact was enough to make him let go of Kayleigh, and send him falling over a chair just behind him. Before the man could get back on his feet Ethan picked up the chair and slammed it down over his head.

  "Didn't I do this once before?" said Ethan, turning to Kayleigh.

  Kayleigh stared. Kayleigh screeched, "Who the hell do you think you are, th' Angel come to save helpless little me? I'm not one of your pampered Merovingen pets! I could have handled this idiot, with one hand tied behind me—and would've if you hadn't stuck your nose in where it doesn't belong!"

  Ethan started to laugh. Word for word they'd had this same conversation three and a half years before, the night of Greely's party. It seemed somehow appropriate to a reunion.

  "Would some'un mind t' tell me what's goin' on?" A big man, greasy blond hair streaked with gray, filled the doorframe.

  Behind him, a crowd of others, including Rat, was straining to get a look in the room. The man looked then at the guy on the floor, and shook his head. "Worden, I might a' knowt! Are ye a'right, Ciara?"

  "Aye, sir, just got the wind knocked out of me. Worden was waiting here for me; took me by surprise. Nothing I couldn't have handled, but hero over here burst in and lent a hand."

  "Yer name, lad," said the big man, turning toward Ethan.

  "Yeager. Ethan Yeager."

  "Well, Ethan Yeager, I'm Ian Margroff, first mate on th' Goldsmith out a' Hyei'a in the Isles. Ciara, 'ere, beside bein' one o' me best 'ands, is me adoptet daughter. Ye fought for 'er, some'at not too many people in this stinkin' city would a' done."

  "You're welcome," Ethan said, shaking his hand. Then he turned to Kayleigh. "Only her name isn't Ciara."

  There wasn't a sound in the entire room or the hallway outside. "You know her?" asked the Falkenaer, slowly.

  "Yes."

  Margroff looked at Kayleigh, running his fingers across his cheek. "Well, ye al'ays said ye wanted answers we couldn' gie ye. Looks as if ye found 'un."

  "I know—and it scares me."
r />   "Do I scare you?" asked Ethan.

  "No."

  That was enough for him. "Your name is Kayleigh Gallion. I thought you were dead. Then I heard someone whistling that song you wrote me—three years ago."

  Margroff said, 'it were three year' since th' Goldsmith made port in these waters. We been keepin' down among the Chat an' back."

  "Where did you find her?"

  "Even tide, just afore we was about t' weigh anchor, some'un said they spotted a body i' th' water. One of our'n went down t' see and found 'er, more dead'n alive. We could na'means wait the tide, sa we took 'er wi' us." He put his arm around Kayleigh, ruffled her hair. "When she come 'round she had no memory 'oo she was 'er how she fell i' th' water. Me own daughter'd died, sa I adoptet 'er."

  "And that song?" asked Ethan.

  "I dreamed it," she said. "Ever'body liked it and it just sort of spread around the ship. I dream it now and then."

  "Then you do remember me."

  She shook her head and stared down at the bed. I don't. But it feels right," she said, seeming to search for the words. "You feel right being here. I'm afraid that's all I know right now."

  "Kayleigh, it's enough—if you want me to stay."

  "I want you to stay—but my name's Ciara. Let's start from there." "All right, —Ciara."

  Ethan turned toward Rat, about to call her over, only to discover his old friend in conversation with one of the young Falkenaer sailors outside the door.

  "So you all just docked last night," she was saying. "I don't suppose you got any plans how you're going to spend your shore leave."

  "Not really," he said.

  Ethan smiled as he watched Rat slide her arm around the sailor's waist.

  Thinking, Kid, this is one shore leave you won't soon forget.

  ENDGAME (REPRISED)

  by C. J. Cherryh

  Night on the Grand and Merovingen took on a glum and smoky air in this rainy, muggy night in which Moghi's Tavern was a hazed glow of light and life, poleboats and skips in plenty tied up at Moghi's porch. Inside, bare-footed skip-freighters and slippered pole-boatmen consorted with canalsiders in wooden clogs, drank, had the stew Jep served up and muttered in corners. It was a comfort, of evenings, to gather where the Trade gathered, where there were no strange faces and, on a body's life and hope of his throat remaining uncut, no spies to report chance remarks and unchance ones to the Bloody Cardinal. Willa Exeter's spies might have cowed hightown and gulled the midtown merchants with her hunt after heretics and sharrh-wor-shippers, but here in Merovingen Below, in the web of waterways and the nethermost of Merovingen's thousand bridges, canalers still spoke their minds to those they trusted.