WinterStar

by Blaze Ward

  “That is the Four-Dragon-Question. Erin,” Kathra replied absently.

  The Mbaysey used Free World Guilders, rather than Sept Crowns in trade. The Free Worlds didn’t like the Empire any more than Kathra did, so they had a currency system that used a system based on fours instead of tens, just to make conversions a complete pain in the ass. One Guilder, called a Sloth for the animal engraved on the front, exchanged with one Sept Crown at somewhere between two and a half to four Crowns to the Guilder, depending on the planet.

  Kathra rather enjoyed watching Sept merchants having to count change.

  Sloths, Eagles, Boars, Tigers, Snakes, Unicorns. At the top: Dragons, worth seven hundred and sixty-eight Guilders.

  And I won’t take Crowns from you at anything less than a fifteen percent margin.

  “Four Dragons?” Erin chuckled.

  “Maybe seven, just to watch that one fool on Renneth have to make change while grinding his teeth,” Kathra grinned.

  Erin joined her, a smile a kilometer wide.

  One of these days, that man would learn that his gender-supremist views cost him all the good stuff. That Kathra traded with nicer folks, and only bought from him to burn all the Sept Crowns someone else had been forced to give them when they ran out of Guilders apologetically.

  “Do we want him to stay?” Erin asked.

  That was the question Kathra had no answer for.

  Most males would suddenly suffer an onset of ego about now, given the situation, and how much Kathra and her crew owed him.

  Their very lives.

  She could see Daniel going down that path.

  Kathra wouldn’t kill him for it. She took her debts seriously. But at the same time, she could easily fire the man, pay him off, and dump his sorry ass on the worst TradeStation she could find.

  Mauta, maybe. Or F'Dashua, depending on how deep into Free Worlds space she wanted to go to make her point.

  But she would be willing to bet Erin a Boar—eight guilders—that Daniel Lémieux was made of sterner stuff. Costing himself this job would mean he had to start over again, and he had finally relaxed enough around them to tell really good dirty jokes occasionally.

  “I think it would benefit us all, including him, if he stayed on as my personal chef,” Kathra sniffed, holding it as long as she could before she started snickering. “I don’t see the rest of you demanding Ugonna coming back.”

  “No, you’d absolutely get an uprising on that, if you didn’t promote Ndidi at this point,” Erin pointed out. “Girl has earned her place, I think. At least her chance.”

  “I agree,” Kathra said. “But we need to find out what our chef wants from life, now that he has been forced to step outside his kitchen for a while. He might retreat back to his oven and never emerge again.”

  “And the turtle?” Erin asked.

  “I have several theories I wish to pursue, depending on how crazy and ambitious the man might be,” Kathra said.

  More was cut off by the buzzer on her desk chiming once. Kathra looked at the identifier and smiled to herself. She gestured Erin to remain silent and opened the line.

  “Hello, Daniel,” Kathra said with a smile in her voice. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sufficient unto the day,” he replied, obviously quoting some literary thing Kathra wasn’t familiar with. Sept culture wasn’t that high on her list. “I appear to be locked in my cabin, which was a good idea, but now I would like to entertain the idea of food, and whatever psychological torture you have in mind for me after that.”

  “Torture, Daniel?” she asked in a frosty tone.

  “I remember your face from last night,” he said with a laugh. “Whatever it is, I’m not going to like it, but I probably have no choice at this point, so I might as well eat and then get it over with. Else I might return soon and find that Ndidi has moved in with all her knives and favorite pots and I’ll have to take up brewing instead or something for a living.”

  Erin mouthed the word expectantly as Kathra watched her.

  Brewing?

  What might a Golden Diamond chef know about making hootch? Not today’s question, but certainly one to file.

  “Are you safe to make it to the kitchen to eat?” Kathra asked.

  She did allow more warmth into her tones. They had come to like this chef, even if he had been possessed at some point in the recent past.

  “Twenty paces appears to be within my endurance, Commander,” Daniel chuckled. “At least until I have some coffee in me. Will you join me there, or should I come up to your office when I’m done?”

  “We’ll be down,” Kathra decided. “This entails the entire comitatus, so we might as well gather there, where there is sufficient space.”

  “Yes,” he said glumly. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  She heard the click as the line cut.

  “Four Dragons,” Erin reminded her.

  “At the least,” Kathra said.

  She rose swiftly, checking that her blade and pistol were seated cleanly if she needed to get at either in a hurry.

  “Gather up all the women,” Kathra said. “I will meet you there.”

  “Where are you going?” Erin rose, confusion written on her face so deeply that the tattoo on her cheek almost disappeared into the wrinkles.

  “To completely ruin Daniel’s day,” Kathra smiled grimly.

  23

  Daniel sipped his coffee, afraid that he would have to get up and refill it shortly and that was probably just too much to ask of him right now. Except that Ndidi came by with a carafe and silently topped him off.

  The smile she gave him was so sad that Daniel almost just went back to bed right then. Except she meant well. They all did. And they were all here, carefully not watching him. Mostly.

  Erin was seated across from him, sipping her own coffee more slowly, but she had probably been up for a while and already had some.

  And not been previously possessed by an undead, planetary conqueror with an axe to grind and a need for an entire harem of beautiful, feisty women.

  The rest of the comitatus was here, save only the Commander, so Daniel took his time consuming his porridge and coffee. Today wasn’t likely to be getting any better as it wore on, and he had no enthusiasm to face it. Not that it would ask his opinion or anything.

  The Commander entered and it was like a rock had been dropped into a still pond. Daniel was fascinated by the ripple of silence that the woman created. Noise fell to nothingness as she fixed those cold, hard eyes on him and approached.

  There was space on his right and she took it, sliding onto the bench with him and resting her elbows on the table. She placed a small box on the surface, between her and Erin rather than close to him, so he continued to drink his coffee and reconsider joining a monastery.

  “Do you know what’s in the box, Daniel?” she asked quietly.

  He looked. It was a small thing, perhaps a little thicker than the sort of box his custom dress shirts used to be delivered in, back when he did that sort of thing. Forty-five centimeters by twenty-five by ten, more or less. Plain, white cardboard stock, just like then.

  Finding out would involve looking in. He didn’t want to.

  “No,” Daniel finally said, retreating back into himself.

  “Interesting,” the Commander said.

  Daniel realized how keyed up the woman was when he looked closer.

  Oh lovely. Another day to possibly be beaten up by a beautiful woman. What an interesting lot in life to draw.

  “Do I want to?” Daniel asked.

  He was aware he was now the center of every pair of eyes in the room, including the ones half-hidden behind glasses as Ndidi had retreated to the serving table. That just put her closer to knives and a full carafe of coffee. The rest of the comitatus had blades and pistols.

  “I want to test a theory,” she said plainly. “And ask a favor of you.”

  Merde. They had gotten there in their relationship?

  Daniel scraped
the last of his porridge and set the bowl and spoon down perhaps louder than was technically necessary, but the room was too damned quiet right now.

  “I’m not going to like it, am I?” he turned his head far enough to look directly at her.

  “Probably not,” she agreed. “The risks are great, but the rewards even greater.”

  Fourth sigh. Maybe getting to be a habit after all.

  “It’s the turtle, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “We’d like to board it today, yes,” Omezi said in a quiet voice that somehow still included the other twenty-some women. “I’m not sure how or where, and don’t think it will just let us.”

  Daniel had to agree. Urid-Varg hadn’t been paranoid enough, but he also hadn’t been stupid, from what Daniel knew.

  “And you think it will let me in?” he nodded to himself.

  “I do,” she nodded back.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll be impersonating him,” she said.

  Daniel hadn’t realized how quickly he had stood up until half the women he could see suddenly had weapons in hands. About half of those were pointed at him. Kathra Omezi wasn’t one of them, but she could punch him easy enough from where she sat.

  Daniel mumbled an apology and managed to sit back down without tangling himself in the bench or pitching over backwards. He looked at the box she had brought with her.

  He couldn’t smell what was inside it, but that hardly mattered now. He took a drink and sat his coffee mug down before a very deep breath as he waited for someone to just shoot him this morning.

  But he couldn’t even get that much out of these women.

  Next sigh.

  Merde.

  He reached out a hand and pulled the box in front of him, wanting to just rest his forehead against it for a few moments while he prayed, but he hadn’t actually set foot in a church for anything but weddings or funerals in decades, and today did not feel like the day to make up that deficit.

  God, if she was listening, would probably be too busy laughing at him right now to help, anyway.

  Daniel opened the box by sliding the top from the bottom, just like when his tailor delivered a new shirt. Lime green and white. Worse, the stone was sitting atop the pile of carefully folded cloth.

  It was never dark, but it was as dark as he’d ever seen it, barely glowing.

  His hand didn’t want to move until he yelled at the offending appendage silently for several seconds. Reached out like a hot stovetop and just hovered at the edge of pain.

  He was aware that he wasn’t the only one that had stopped breathing. Deep breath, but not a sigh. Maybe an improvement.

  He picked up the white gem and held it between thumb and two fingers like he could see light through it, instead of the souls of however many thousands of Urid-Varg’s victims.

  Touching it, he could feel something. Perhaps the combined wails of agony, or something equally constructive.

  There were too many guns and fists pointed at him right now for his equilibrium, but he couldn’t argue with the women. Not one damned bit.

  Instead, he set the gem down in his porridge bowl so it wouldn’t be tempted to sneak off when he wasn’t looking.

  Or something.

  It was instructive, watching the room relax as the gem tinkled loudly against the metal.

  The rest of the box held the haberdasheral remains of Urid-Varg’s costume. Gloves on top, those went to his left, in front of Areen. Boots, above the gloves closer to Erin, like the beginning of a moat protecting him from whatever stupidity was brewing next. Belt, dead center above his bowl. Tunic with ragged hole in the chest, where the box had been before. Pants below that where Kathra Omezi’s bowl would have gone.

  Empty box. Empty-headed fool holding a box.

  Daniel looked around for a place to rest it, but Ndidi materialized beside him and it vanished from his hands.

  Whatever count of sigh we were up to now.

  Daniel had dated a true fashionista a few before Angel, so he had managed to pick up some interesting bits of technical knowledge. Those folk were at least as nerdy as cooks, once you got them going on a topic. Maybe worse.

  He grabbed the tunic and turned it inside out to look at the seams. Those were always the marks of a professional, or a bloody amateur, but he doubted the conqueror had qualified that poorly.

  Sure enough. Frenched seams from the feel. Except they weren’t actually stitched. Glued, perhaps, except it felt more like a weld. Close enough to magic as to be indistinguishable right now.

  The white stripes weren’t cloth. At least not as he understood it. A little pixie in his ear suggested living copper as a superconductor, but Daniel R E A L L Y didn’t want to consider how he might even know that.

  The chest should have been frayed where someone took a rotary saw to it, but they might have been using an industrial cutting laser from the smoothness of the cut.

  That same pixie muttered something about organic living copper growing fixed.

  Daniel looked at the ceiling, to see if God Herself was behind these shenanigans, but She didn’t answer. And it would probably be rude to ask if there was any bourbon he could add to his coffee right now.

  Commander Omezi would want him sharp and focused, not passed out drunk in his cabin having even better nightmares than before.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  A hand descended on his arm.

  “Breathe,” the Commander ordered him in a quiet voice.

  He had stopped. Forgotten, perhaps. Maybe unconsciously willing himself to just die, right here on the deck, rather than go back to that place.

  She wasn’t going to allow his cowardice to thwart her. That much was obvious from the look in the woman’s eyes. And the others nearby, if just the slightest bit less brutal about it.

  Deep breath. More sigh.

  Okay, let’s start small.

  Daniel put the tunic back and picked up one of the gloves. Heavier than a woman would wear to the opera, and shorter. Lighter than that one artist had used when she was welding statuary. Entire thing made of the same material as the white stripe. Too flexible to be steel as a fighting gauntlet, but it had that feel.

  Daniel turned to stare briefly at Kathra Omezi. She nodded, as if she could read his interior commentary.

  Hopefully, he wasn’t muttering out loud right now, but he really didn’t care. They wanted something from him. And he was the only one that could do it.

  The grumble might have been audible on purpose.

  Daniel pulled it onto his left hand and waited.

  Somehow, he wasn’t shocked when it turned into a perfect fit, after a moment he could only describe as flowing into shape. Screaming like someone who has just discovered a large spider walking across their chest when they awakened might have adequately described the flash of something in his chest, but he managed to not make a noise. Not twitch any more than necessary.

  Not do something.

  Looking up, he could see almost forever up the barrel of Erin’s pistol. And into the depths of her eyes.

  He nodded. She nodded back.

  Right hand reached slowly, deliberately into the bowl and took hold of the gem. Lifting it into clear sight, it was glowing harder now. As he suspected.

  As he feared.

  Living copper, huh?

  Daniel rested the gem on the back of his left hand, felt the two flow together.

  The glove started glowing about as bright as the gem had earlier. The gem could be used to read by, if he had a Quran handy and wanted to fall back into something more soothing than whatever Kathra Omezi had for him.

  Daniel held his open hand up for everyone to see, turning it both ways.

  Still, he couldn’t entice anyone to just shoot him. Not without doing something stupid and actively suicidal right now.

  He considered it. Withdrew consideration.

  The damned thing had alit on his curiosity now. Merde. He was going to do this, wasn’t he, just to see where it took
him?

  Daniel didn’t have anything like a cookbook for the damnable tool. Commander Omezi had killed it for him. Still, he had seen that violeur using it.

  He reached out with his mind and pushed at the gem, ignoring the voices he could suddenly hear when he did that.

  All those trapped souls. Could he free them, eventually?

  The glove’s light was a torch now, filling the room and causing the women around him to squint and mutter various profanities, mostly at him, he supposed.

  Like frosting, Daniel told the glove to cover his hand with…force? Energy? Whatever?

  He lowered his hand and rested it on the table in front of him, except he wasn’t touching it. There was a soap bubble perhaps a centimeter deep between him and the metal surface. He banged his hand lightly a few times, just to be sure, but he wasn’t imagining things.

  Or he was still trapped in that other dream, waiting for Areen to wake him from a nightmare. There was always that.

  Another sigh.

  He turned to the Commander, feeling so bleak as to be transparent. At least she nodded sympathetically.

  “I’m never going to get to cook again, am I?” he asked her.

  “If this works, you can do whatever you want to afterward, Daniel,” she reassured him.

  If that was any reassurance.

  He didn’t want to be a god. Or whatever the Conqueror had been. He didn’t know a language that could describe the bits of Urid-Varg he had picked up along the way.

  The immense age of the mind that had touched him. Tried to ride him. Wanted to own him.

  The Sept didn’t technically allow anything like slavery anymore, but criminal trafficking still happened. Especially in sex. The Mbaysey had their own stories, passed down from mothers to daughters from before they had had enough. Daniel suddenly had a vision of himself hunting the traffickers down and eliminating them in the most painful way he could imagine.

  He drew a breath in for once. Held it. Let the oxygen purify something inside like a blast furnace hitting hot iron.

  Now the dangerous part.