Troubled Waters

by C. J. Cherryh

  "It's karma. There are prophecies foretelling such an event, in the old writings. I never thought I'd live to see it. No one expected such a thing. She's a voice from heaven, Vega. Don't underestimate her power. You've a saint in your house—a creature who can see the future."

  "Future, my ass. She's seeing deathangel hallucinations brought on by that trip you took Chamoun on. This is as much your fault, Ito, as—"

  "It is my pleasure to take responsibility for this. We have a mantic seeress in this house, Vega, and the College, as long as she remains so, is virtually ours to command. Don't underestimate the temporal advantage of a spiritual advantage, Vega." Ito's eyes were bright as stars. "Just heed my advice, and this miracle will make yours the foremost house in Merovingen, and, if she's right, the eventual ruling house."

  "Right? What could she be right about? You know there aren't any sharrh. Riots in the streets, memories of dying in flames; prognostications of things to come . . . It's all drug-induced nonsense, and I'm telling you, Ito, I hold you personally responsible for anything that happens to my daughter."

  Vega looked over at Cassie. She was paying no attention, it seemed. She was staring at her own hand as if something very interesting were in it.

  "What has happened to your daughter, I say again," Ito intoned, "is a blessing. And it is karma. It was supposed to happen. Now I understand why Chamoun came into our lives, and everything else. We are firmly on the path to a crisis that cannot be avoided, but may be turned to our advantage."

  "Will she be all right?" Cassie's father wanted to know.

  "She'll be honored, revered, a numinous woman of historical importance, you dimwit." Ito rounded on Boregy. "I want her at the College tomorrow morning, first light. We must begin managing our gift."

  "She'll be normal in the morning, one can only hope. All of this will be past and gone with a good night's sleep ..."

  Ito's scathing look silenced Vega's protestations. He looked again at his daughter and said, "What about her husband? Does the College still want him dead? Because I do."

  "Not now," Ito said softly; "not yet. We don't know what effect that might have on her. As long as she wants Chamoun around, you must protect him like you would your own flesh and blood." Ito smiled bleakly. "The moment she's tired of him, or if he should displease her . . . that, of course, is a different matter. Tomorrow, then, first light?"

  "What if she's back to normal?" said Vega insistently.

  "She won't be," the cardinal replied. "But if she is, this event still has discrete significance."

  "If I find out you're drugging her over there to make it happen again ..."

  "You'll be a part of whatever we do with this kar-mic blessing, Vega. A large and powerful, and eventually grateful, part."

  The two men continued to hammer out their agreement while Cassie watched, uncaring, her mind years away and unconcerned. Her father would never hurt her. In a world where no one could be trusted, Vega was her single ally.

  And since that world was a world whose future and past were as clear to her as its present, she was freed, at last, from fear. What would happen, would happen. Much of it, she would make happen. Karma was putty in her hands. Merovingen was hers to save—or to destroy. What was odd, was that she was the only one who knew it, as of yet.

  When Michael sneaked in the water gate, it was nearly dawn. The last thing he expected was every light in Boregy House to be on, Cardinal Ito closeted with Vega, and Cassie wide awake in her room.

  Her eyes still looked like those of a frightened cat. But those eyes filled with tears when she realized who'd opened the door to their bedroom.

  She flung herself upon him, sobbing.

  "What is it? Damn it, what is it?" He was sure she'd found him out, that she was going to start pummeling him and screaming for her father to throw the adulterer into a Justiciary cell.

  "I missed you so. I need you so," she wept instead. "I have to tell you what happened, quickly. Quickly."

  She led him, her trembling hand clutching his, to the bed. There she sat cross-legged and told him all about her regression, and about her encounter with Ito, and when she finally ran dry of words, she smiled at him beatifically.

  "I don't understand," he said slowly. "You saw the future?"

  "The karma of us all," she said, and tears came again to her eyes.

  He was scared to death, again. Scared she was going to accuse him of trysting with Rita—if she'd seen the future, then she'd seen that, too.

  But she didn't. She said, "Oh, Michael, please hold me. I'm so afraid."

  He did, and she was shaking like a leaf.

  "I'm going to the College tomorrow. The Cardinals want to interview me. And I'm still so sad about my lost baby. Michael, let's have a baby of our own, before everything is too confused. Before the riots. Before the flames—"

  "Look here." He pushed her away, held her by the arms, squeezing hard. "You had a vision—okay. Maybe even a real regression, who knows? Mine was real enough. But, seeing the future? I doubt it. Old Ito just sees something in this for himself. Don't let them use you, Cassie. Whatever you do, don't let them do that."

  "Let's have a baby, Michael," she said, not struggling in his cruel, tight grip.

  And it seemed like a reasonable shot, given all the risks he'd taken tonight. If there was anything that would stabilize her, it would be that, he told himself. And if there was anything that would assure his position if his tryst with Rita ever came out, a Boregy heir was that thing.

  He hoped he had it in him. Sleeping with his wife was one thing. Sleeping with the self-proclaimed prophetess of karmic retribution upon Merovingen was quite another.

  Chance Magruder would get quite a laugh out of this, when Chamoun got around to telling him. Riots among the commonfolk of Merovingen were one of the goals of the Sword of God. But nobody'd thought that Cassie Boregy would help start them.

  Or at least, Michael hadn't thought it. He hadn't understood what Magruder was up to, with the fireworks. Now he thought he did.

  He didn't really understand what his wife was up to, either, as she crawled trembling into his arms, so demanding, so needy. He understood that he loved her, though. A few minutes with Rita had made that clear to him: losing Cassie was a risk Michael Chamoun was no longer willing to take.

  If a baby would bring her to her senses, then he'd do his best. But the woman he was stripping with the utmost care wasn't the woman he'd left here, scant hours ago. As much as he tried to suppress the thought while he put his wife into their bed, Michael Chamoun was absolutely certain that nothing in Merovingen was ever going to be the same—not for him, not for Chance Magruder, not for the Boregys or the College. And not for Rita Nikolaev, whose smell was all over him as he started to make love to his wife.

  CHAPTER XIII

  TROUBLED WATERS

  by C. J. Ckerryh

  "I got to go," Jones said to Mondragon one morning, poking at eggs that lay on her plate. Fine eggs. Fresh eggs. Nothing wrong with the eggs. But her stomach hurt and her nose was still running. "Mondragon, I got to get t' the water again. I can't take any more."

  And he looked at her that way she knew he would. Desperate. And like it was his nightmare too. "It's sleeting, dammit. You've still got the sneezes."

  "Look, I go out by bright noon, I go straight down t' Moghi's, I tie up there an' I ain't never left witnesses. I got my arm back, Mondragon! Anybody goes for me, they got my pole in their teeth, I ain't easy t' mess with!"

  "There's guns, Jones. There's a shot from a bridge, there's—"

  "They c'n get you the same way. . . ."

  "They wouldn't. They won't, because I'm the one they want to lean on, not the one they'd use—"

  "Well, then, they'd be damn fools t' shoot me, wouldn't they? Ain't nothin' they'd get outa you, then, would they? Nothin' cept you could go to anybody and tell ever'thing, 'fore they could stop ye, an' necks would stretch f sure! So don't tell me they'd shoot at me! Ye're scared, Tom Mondragon, ye'
re scared, so ye're puttin' if off on me, and ye hold me here no diff rent than the damn Meg—"

  Oh, damn, no, don't say that.

  His face was white and something went down hard when he swallowed.

  "I'm sorry, Mondragon, I don't think that, I don't, I swear t' ye—"

  "I'm trying to take care of you."

  She put her head in her hands, elbows on the table, sick inside. Because he was so tired, his eyes had shadows that had nothing to do with enough to eat and shelter from the cold. He was thinner than the fever had made him, and more desperate.

  But they had money again. The rent got paid. He came and went at odd hours, sometimes out all night, while she sweated and lost weight too and her food had trouble staying down, she was so scared, but she was canaler and she kept it down, you never lost a meal, never wasted anything, no matter.

  But she couldn't stomach the damned eggs. She shoved the plate away, a quick push of one hand. "I'll eat 'em f lunch," she said.

  "Jones."

  "I'm fine." She felt the water on her eyelashes. She swallowed hard and got her face under control and gave him an iron-jawed smile. "I'm fine, Mondragon. Just—damn fine. Don't worry 'bout me."

  "Jones, ..."

  "Sorry," she said, and wiped her nose and her eyes with three passes of her arm. "Look, I'm still shook, is all. Ye know't. Ye said ye knowed."

  "Knew, dammit."

  "You knew." She watched him lean his head on his hand, rake it back through his hair.

  "I'll go with you," he said hoarsely then. "You're right. I'm wrong. Just—I'll go with you. You wrap up. We'll go out to Moghi's, sit this morning, have lunch. You're not up to much, anyway."

  "Alone," she said between her teeth. "Mondragon, I got business with the Trade, ye hear me. When I go, first time, I got to go alone. I got to talk to people. —Mondragon, I got t' make 'em understand!"

  He looked at her, not understanding, shook his head in puzzlement.

  "I got to talk to people plain, what happened, what didn't happen, I got to say it private, so's they know I ain't lyin'."

  Still no understanding.

  "Because I'd say it was nothin', if I was talkin' in front of you! You understand me?"

  This time he did. He bit his lip. Nodded.

  "But I won't worry ye. I won't go. I'll stay here."

  "No," he said, like it was broken glass in his mouth. "You go, you do what you have to. You're right. I can't hold you. Not—the way you are. I can see that."

  She sat and looked at him a long time.

  "Hear that, mama?" she asked aloud. "Hear my man?"

  The whole room felt warmer. The air felt freer.

  "Now I'm loose," she said. She wiped her eyes, hard, with her sleeve. Not embarrassed. He had seen her cry before. But she bit her lip till it hurt, and stopped it. " 'M all right. I'll be all right. You ain't seen me be careful, yet. You watch me. I'll put the word out on those sherks. 'Body lays hands t' me or the boys or t' you, their guts'll be f fishbait."

  "I've respect for that. I know what you're saying. But you be careful naming names, Jones. Don't mention the Sword. Don't mention Kamats or Boregy or any of them. You could get me hung. Remember that. Be damn careful."

  "Yey." She nodded once, sharply, her eyes still chilled with water. "I ain't that stupid."

  "Jones, I'm telling you—everything I can. Don't do anything without telling me. Please. That's all I'll say."

  It made her gut cramp, lying to him. "Damn sure. Just the simple word—there's somebody after ye. That we dunno. I ain't stupid. But ye got t' tell 'em somethin'."

  "Megarys?"

  Close to the truth. Real close. She felt it like a hook-pass. And smiled, tight-jawed. "Them. Yey. Accidents might happen there."

  "Not you!"

  "Ne, ne, no worry. Didn't I say?" She dragged the plate of eggs back in front of her and took into them, forcing the first cold bite down. But a body needed food, if a body was going on the water, in the winter wind. "But I wouldn't be surprised if they don't get a run o' real bad luck."

  CHAPTER XIV

  BY A WOMAN'S HAND

  by Nancy Asire

  The wind rattled the window of the College office and brought the world into focus again. Alfonso Rhajmurti stirred in his high-backed chair, shoved the book he had been reading to one side on his desk.

  Not more than one hour past, he had sat in the center of a group of priests, their topic of discussion revolving around the ability of some folk to actually remember previous lives. Was this a special grace granted only to those whose karma was less than other people's, or was it something all humans could tap into, if given the proper keys?

  He frowned, remembering. Ito Boregy, cardinal and College mover and shaker, was giving private—private, mind you—conversion lessons to a fellow named Mike Chamoun. Former Adventist down from Nev Hettek, and married to Cassie Boregy, this unlikely fellow (with certain help) had remembered a former life. And him a converted Adventist!

  The resulting implications could prove interesting.

  And so, the entire conversation had revolved around the prickly question of whether non-Revenantists could have lived former lives, and been caught up in the wheel of karma. Or did everyone live over and over again, with only certain people remembering other lifetimes?"

  Rhajmurti, along with the other priests in the College, argued over concepts like this daily, that being their job. Though they taught mundane courses such as accounting, fine arts, management, law, and so forth, their primary vocation was religious. It was not unusual to find a large number of priests sequestered in a drafty meeting room arguing the fine points of karmic law for days on end.

  Unbidden, the face of Justice Lee formed in Rhaj-murti's mind.

  Justice ... or, more properly for the Revenantists, Justus. Former Adventist. Convert to Revenantism in order to gain patronage to the College. Rhajmurti rose from his chair and walked over to the window which still rattled in the cold north wind. What would Justice say if he knew that Rhajmurti would have patroned him even if he had not converted?

  Rhajmurti frowned and ran a long, tapered finger down the window pane. Karmic debt. He had been arguing it earlier in the day with a group of students; now he faced such debt personally, as he had every day for the past nineteen years.

  If only Justice did not look so much like Grandmother Lizbeth, it would be easier to deny there was ever anything more to the relationship than . . .

  That's an unworthy thought. Rhajmurti turned from the window and stared at his unadorned wall, its starkness broken only by a small, tastefully scripted mantra urging patience. He's my son, and I can't deny it. I haven't admitted it, of course, but I can't fool myself into thinking I'm untouched by karma.

  Justice's mother (he considered her his aunt) had been more than willing to go it alone after the boy's birth. She could always find a husband or a companion; children were no detriment, unless one had too many mouths to feed. But Rhajmurti had assured her he would care for Justice as best as he was able. She was Adventist, so his explanation of working off the karmic debt had fallen on deaf ears.

  And Justice? Had he truly converted, or was he merely going through the motions to please his patron and gain acceptance in the highborn circles he aspired to? That remained a mystery Rhajmurti had never solved. He sought consolation by reminding himself that Justice had a genuine talent in rendering that should make him wealthy one day . . . that such a talent should not be squandered, despite being housed in an Adventist body.

  Rhajmurti cleared his throat. Thinking about his never-acknowledged son always made him feel guilty . . . another evidence of the karmic connection. The law of celibacy for priests was adhered to mainly because of such connection: the fewer the souls one was tied to, the lower the sum total of karmic debt. Rhajmurti would neither have been expelled from the College, nor looked down upon by his peers; the only outcome of acknowledging Justice as his son would have been to draw direct scrutiny of those priests who made it
their business to keep track of other people's karmic debt.

  All this thought about Justice, karmic debt, and previous lives had generated an appetite. Rhajmurti took down his saffron cloak and contemplated the poleboat ride to Kass and Hilda's tavern. He would be cold, eat food that was wholesome but not spectacular, but more than likely see his son.

  One of these days, Rhajmurti told himself, turning off the lamp and leaving his small office, I'll tell the boy who his real father is. But not now . . . by the Wheel! Not now.

  Justice settled back in his chair, pushed his plate aside, and reached for his beer. Hilda had outdone herself this evening: the silverbit—cooked to perfection; the greens smothered in some new sauce that beggared description. And, a new keg of beer. If he had a few more coins in his weekly allotment, he would have sent to the kitchen for seconds.

  Sunny stretched catlike, from the very tips of his toes to his ears, to curl up tighter in a ball of gold fur on the chair beside Justice. He smiled at the cat, and reached out for the book he had brought along to study.

  The common room of Hilda's tavern was awash in sound and light, but the noise level seldom bothered Justice when he studied. If things got too noisy, he could always go back to his room. He hoped he would not have to do that, for he could stay warm out here, courtesy of Hilda's oil stove, plus the body heat of the clients around him.

  A few minutes of staring at the same page augured futility in trying to study. Justice laid the book down, took another long swallow of beer, and faced what bothered him square on.

  Denny. Denny and Raj. The whole episode. He liked Raj . . . truly liked him, but now Justice wondered what Raj was into. Advice was advice. You could either take it or leave it. That Raj had intended to hole up somewhere for two weeks and let this storm pass him by seemed the best alternative. But Denny's worried visit had raised serious doubts in Justice's mind.

  Doubts about Denny, the canaler, Jones, and the mysterious fourth of that party—the man no one seemed willing to name.