The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  “You’re not bloody wrong there,” Theo growled.

  “I can’t change that now,” Cyris said, almost apologetically. He shook his head sadly. “If I could, I would. But it’s beyond any of us. The past is the past. I’ve done what I’ve done and…”

  “Is this your way of apologising?” Theo asked, not quite sarcastically but still with an effort of disbelief in his voice. “Because I think it needs work.”

  “And what, pray, am I apologising for?” Cyris demanded suddenly. “Because of the way I brought you up, you’re in the final of this bloody tournament?! Whatever my failings might have been, they can’t have been that bad!”

  “You think this justifies it?” Theo said harshly. “Fifteen years of horrible fucking abuse and now ‘oh yeah, look at you now.’ You know who didn’t have that? The other finalist. The other semi-finalist. There’s more than one way to skin a pepper-pear.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We’ll revisit that theory whether you triumph or not,” Cyris said, folding his arms loftily.

  “You shouldn’t,” Anne said suddenly. She could sense Theo getting angrier by the minute, wasn’t a pleasant sensation having him stood next to her. Like resting next to a kettle threatening to explode at any given second. She locked her eyes on Cyris, never wanting more than to be able to read someone than right now. If he was being sincere, then she’d feel bad. If he wasn’t then it’d be Theo who’d suffer in the long term. But better Cyris than his son be hurt by what came next.

  “I shouldn’t, what?” Cyris said, condescension in his voice, silky like a luxurious scarf made into a noose. “Do tell, my dear.”

  “You shouldn’t revisit that theory,” she said, not quite sure what she was doing. This was out of character for her. “I don’t know the story between the two of you, but your son hates you and really I don’t blame him!”

  Cyris’ face curved into a smirk at her words. “Oh, I wouldn’t…”

  “NOT FINISHED!” Her shriek cut through the air, surprising even herself. She calmed for her next words. That smirk had pissed her off though. “He doesn’t want anything to do with you. You’ve broken him inside, cut up any chance of him ever being normal and I don’t bloody blame him from wanting to be as far away from you as possible! Funny how you show up just as he’s on the verge of making history.”

  “I’ve wanted to find you for a while,” Cyris said quickly, looking at his son with a beseeching look. “But…” He sighed. “I didn’t know where to look.” Those last few words sounded a little too pathetic for Anne’s liking. And she didn’t believe them either. There was always a way to find someone.

  “You know what I don’t quite understand,” Anne said, glancing sideways at him. They’d found a secluded bit of the island, looking over the ocean in the shade of a couple of great boabke trees and they’d sat down. She’d gotten the impression he wanted to talk but he in his own time without being rushed. He looked like there was nothing more he wanted to do than forget the whole thing but still he cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. The smell of salt in the warm air left her feeling relaxed. More so than Theo anyway. She rested a hand on his shoulder, could feel how tense he was, saw he’d been chewing his lower lip for the last moments, his hands balling in front of him as he finally spoke.

  “Go on?”

  “Okay I get why you changed your name. I mean I would as well. Everyone’s heard of your dad…” She saw the flinch at that word and made a resolution not to mention it again. “And I wouldn’t want that hanging over my head either. But where did Jameson come from?”

  He visibly softened and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. She sensed the hostility leaking from him rapidly and that was a relief. He’d been nothing but a big ball of angst since the encounter and it worried her. “Jameson was my… Ah, it was my mother’s name.”

  “Bit of a masculine name for a woman.” She grinned as she said it. He looked at her like she’d spat in his food. His mouth twitched as if he was trying to fight the expression. Then he smiled.

  “Funny,” he said. “Hand me some emergency skin because I’m about to break out laughing.” The sarcasm in his voice was just so strong she couldn’t help but laugh. And then despite everything he was laughing with her. “That was pretty cool the way you chewed him out.”

  “Well I couldn’t let him get away with that, could I?” she asked. “I mean, what did he honestly expect was the best thing to come out of this for him?”

  “He’s a snake,” Theo said simply. “He’ll appear when you least expect him, he’ll strike for the heart and him showing up usually doesn’t mean anything good. If you come out unscathed, it’s usually a good day.” He paused for a moment, looking out at the ocean in silence. “There were more bad days than good growing up, I know that much.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. “It’s over now though, right? He’s not coming back?”

  “Shouldn’t do. He doesn’t like failure. He’ll give it a few months skulking on his own, bitching about how the world is against him or the Senate are trying to frame him or how Unisco are trying to slip tracking devices into his coffee. Then he’ll try something stupid. And because he’ll do it badly, he’ll get fail and get caught. I know how he works and it’s usually routine.” Theo went silent, just craned his head back to stare at the sky. “And I suppose you could say I’m his biggest failure of the lot. Whether he sees it that way I don’t know. He wants to be a lot of things, but he’s never quite worked out why it never happens.”

  “When you say failure…”

  “I never wanted to be his son. Changed my name and everything as soon as I could. Got out of there. Didn’t want him to be a part of my life. His ego couldn’t take that.”

  Anne said nothing. It wasn’t uncommon for names to be changed these days. In fact, it felt like it was becoming a more and more common practice. But for that reason, she’d never heard of it before. Hatred of a parent.

  “He was a bastard growing up. Unreasonable. Cold. Emotionally shut off.”

  Who does that sound like? She almost asked it, held her tongue. It probably wouldn’t go down well. Theo scuffed the toe of his shoe against the grass absentmindedly. She caught a flush of frustration rippling from him, curiously strong in the evening light. “He’s right though, you know,” she said. “You can’t change the past. You can’t. He can’t. What’s done is done.”

  “And I’m supposed to forgive him for it?!” That tiny seedling of frustration started to swell in him, not yet anger but it felt capable of developing into that tree.

  “Well maybe not right now,” Anne said placidly. “I’m all about forgiveness. You should know by now that people aren’t perfect. They tend to be bastards. But maybe, you ever think there’s a chance he might be genuine?”

  Theo shook his head without hesitating. “No. Absolutely not! He’s not genuine. Don’t trust him. Absolute bastard.”

  “But at least you’re willing to give him a chance,” she said dryly. “He’s your father…”

  “And is that supposed to mean something to me? Because it sure as hells doesn’t to him.” She could hear the conviction in his voice, the belief he was right and everyone else wrong on this subject. In a way, she admired that. In a lot of others, she wanted to slap him for his pig-headedness.

  “I’m not saying believe him,” she said. “Just… I don’t know. Listen to him. Give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being. If he lets you down…”

  “And he will!”

  “Then he lets you down, you were right, and I was wrong,” she said. “And I’ll apologise for that, but you only get one family.”

  “No, you don’t,” Theo said. “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. The people who you desire to spend time with rather than being forced to. And eventually they become your new family.”

  “I’m not quite sure it works like that but go on. I mean, you already lost your mother…”

  She saw the flash of ang
er in his eyes. “Yes. I did. And look what’s happened since. She was… She didn’t deserve it. And bloody Cyris carried on living. Where’s the justice in that?”

  “Hate to disappoint you but justice doesn’t exist the way you’re thinking,” she said. “You want those who are good to live and those who are bad to die horrible deaths. It’s not going to happen. You know what they say about the good dying young.”

  He looked at her with a rueful look. “That’s probably you going to die before your time then.”

  She felt her cheeks burn at his words. “That’s either really morbid or really nice. Can’t decide which.” Still she felt a warmth in the pit of her stomach, acknowledgement of a nice thing to say. Today more than ever she felt on the path to understanding this strange anti-social man slowly becoming a part of her life.

  “Meant to be nice,” he mumbled. “Sorry. Not got a lot of… Compliments don’t come easy to me. I…”

  She patted him on the shoulder, an almost reflex gesture he didn’t flinch from to her relief. “It was nice. Sort of. I appreciate what you were trying to say.”

  He stayed silent for several long moments, she let him keep his tongue to himself. If he didn’t want to say anything, she wasn’t going to force him. Silence could be nice.

  “You know, this is not how I pictured my day ending,” he eventually said with a sigh.

  The third day of Summerfall.

  They were here.

  Cyris knew the moment he strolled into the hangar, one hand in his pocket, one on his cane. He didn’t need the cane, but it had become a public affectation he’d employed. People saw him with the cane and underestimated him. They thought him lame, a cripple and felt pity. He wanted to laugh at that notion. Plus, it was lined with cadameenium, a metal so densely strong they lined aerofighters with it. It made one hells of a weapon, you got hit with it, you stayed hit.

  He limped towards the aeroship in the middle of the hangar, aware of the eyes in the dark but kept his eyes straight ahead. Don’t show any sign of weakness or they’ll be on you. He didn’t think they’d turn violent, but you never knew. Already he was forming a plan in his head. The way to use this situation to his advantage. He didn’t want to be arrested on some trumped-up charge and never seen again. There had to be some way to do it.

  And then it hit him. Something so simple anyone could have thought of it. And it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch until it came to the simple act of telling the truth. John Cyris knew he had told so many lies over the years it would be hard for the truth to be believed. But regardless, he needed to make them see. He stopped, cleared his throat. The little signs were there that someone was here. The lack of people about, just in case it turned violent. No mechanics or maintenance staff, no pilots milling about or even security. The aeroport on Carcaradis Island was not the busiest, but still he’d seen all of this before. Barring his cane and his summoner, Cyris had no weapon. Nothing illegal. The way parts of the hangar fell unilluminated didn’t bode well. Darkness was something to hide in, at least in a physical sense. On a philosophical level, getting in was sometimes easier than getting out.

  “You know, if you wish to ask me something,” he said, pleasantly loud. “Then please do. Let us not skulk around with each. It’s unbecoming for one thing. Rude is another. I know you’re there. I know how you work.”

  They came down out of his aeroship… Madam Coppinger’s aeroship… weapons out if not pointed at him. Three of them, faces blanked out with those damn mufflers they wore. He’d been trying to score up schematic plans for those things for years but no dice.

  “There we are,” he said, resting his weight on the cane. “So much more civilised than you grab me and force my head into a bucket of water, wouldn’t you say?”

  “John Cyris,” the figure in the lead said, voice suitably distorted. He got the hint it might have been male but very little beyond it. Certainly nothing to identify who was beyond the mask. “Former leader of the Cyria criminal organisation.”

  “Cyria never dies,” Cyris said, the pleasantries still in his voice. “It’s just dormant. But I’ve done my time. Society has judged me reformed. You can’t arrest me for dormancies, thankfully. Someone else will pick the idea up sooner or later.”

  “We don’t care about Cyria. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” This second voice was more than likely female, the speaker’s body also added that impression. Something familiar about her, Cyris couldn’t quite place it on the moment. An unusual sensation but not one he cared about implicitly. It was designed to hurt and although it might have been a stab in the ribs, it missed his heart.

  “That’s my benefit then,” he said loftily. “Sorry boys and girls got nothing to say on Cyria. If you’re harassing me, then you’ve got nothing.”

  “Good thing we don’t want to talk about that then,” a third voice said, suitably different to the other two, Cyris guessed at it being male. All of this was starting to both unsettle and annoy him. It made him want to look over his shoulder to check nobody was behind him. This was how it started. First there was idle chatter, then a bag over your head and knockout drugs in your system with them determined to make you talk no matter what. It was an experience he very much wouldn’t like to repeat. Of course, nobody admitted they did it, but everyone knew. Everyone was complicit. And when you’d done some of the things John Cyris had in his life, it was a bit much to ask for the public to cry out on your behalf.

  “Well Cyria is about all I know, if you want anything else…”

  “Want to tell us about any association you might have with Claudia Coppinger?”

  Okay, that threw him, he had to admit he hadn’t been expecting that to be the next thing he heard, he laughed out loud, unable to suppress the grin. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Who?”

  “You think this is a joke?”

  “I’m just wondering if you do,” he said innocently. “Never heard of her. Should I have?”

  “You came in on a Reims-registered aeroship,” voice number one said scornfully. “She’s the top dog at that company. She’s someone we’d very much like to talk to.”

  “Wow, the inner workings of the most secret bunch of bastards across the five kingdoms. Is there anyone you won’t go after?”

  “So, you don’t know her then?” voice number two, the probable woman asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah, you just did. You said you’d never heard of her.”

  “Oh yeah…” Cyris said. Inside he was smirking. On the outside, he gripped his cane a little harder. It wouldn’t do much good if they opened fire, but it’d put one of them down if they came closer. Broken bones minimum. A touch of defiance would do wonders for his story. He also knew if he came out with it all straightaway, they wouldn’t believe him on principle. They were expecting him to lie and be as evasive as the hells. In that regard, he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint them. People overall were an easy to manipulate when you knew how. “Did I say that?”

  “Yeah. You did.”

  “Right well, yeah maybe I know who she is. Pretty woman. Nuttier than nutkin shit, I think is the term. But she’s definitely got something going for her.” He smiled at them. “Kind heart to let me come here. Shame she didn’t know how quick Unisco were off the bat.”

  “Where can we find her?” voice number one asked.

  “Well it’s not that easy, is it?” Cyris replied, stretching his arms out lazily. “If it were, you’d have done it already. Take it you tried her homes and her offices?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Don’t give me that, boy! I asked you a question!” His hackles were up suddenly, and he fixed a glare on the three of them. In his peripheral vision, he could see two more doing their best to look dangerous.

  “She’s not there.”

  “I know she isn’t,” Cyris said, taking a perverse delight in the way voice number one came out with that crestfallen revelation. “You won’t find her. You can’t. Not w
ithout my help.”

  Here it was. His gambit. His moment of truth.

  “You’re going to help?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said, clasping both hands on the top of the cane. “I really didn’t. See she’s got a grand vision for the future and I think she’s determined to follow it through to the end.”

  “So are we!” voice number three said. “Her end, preferably. We don’t know what she’s doing but it’s probably not good. There’s a trail of events on this island leading back to her and it needs to stop now before it gets worse.”

  Cyris knew all about it. Of course, he wasn’t about to reveal that information. It probably would have helped them, but on the other hand he was asking them to believe a lot already. The entire truth would shatter his credibility. Better they found out on their own. He nodded in agreement. “She wanted my help. She wanted everyone’s help. The big guns. The Montella family, the Fratelli’s, me, Mazoud, Kenzo Fojila, the Regan’s, a whole bunch of enterprising bigwigs in the underworld. She wanted an army and she had plenty to offer in exchange. As I said, she has a vision. A good one.”

  “What is it?”

  They had to ask. He’d have been shocked if they hadn’t. He gave them a sweet smile. “Nothing less than total domination and subjugation, of course. Already got the first piece of the puzzle. She’s on a ship.”

  “That narrows it down then,” voice number two said. “Must be thousands of ships in the five kingdoms.”

  “But,” Cyris said, wagging a finger at her. “Not ones outfitted with Divine-class cloaking devices. She won’t show up on radar with it. Any radar. So good luck finding her without my help. She could be sat a few hundred miles above us right now and you’d never know.”