After hours of seemingly endless processions of bowing and poem-reciting and pointless gift-giving, Cass found she was losing her cool. A part of her wondered if she should just take the letter from Allie and shove it into one of the guard’s hands before flipping them off collectively and making her own way back out to Tian’ammen Square.
Instead she sat in the cold, looking at Baguen, the Bridge’s letter to the leader of the Lao Hu rolled up inside her brocaded jacket.
Why Allie sent her, of all people, on this little job, was beyond her.
She might not be seer, or Chinese, but she knew full well when she was getting the raspberry.
Baguen seemed to agree. He looked at her with his dark eyes, shrugging with one hand. It was almost a human shrug, and she couldn’t help smiling a little when he did it, tugging on his sleeve.
“This sucks,” she said, clutching his hand.
“Not going to see us,” he said in his accented Prexci.
“You think she’ll blow us off altogether?” Cass said, frowning. She gestured at him, using seer sign language. I thought she would see us because of Balidor, at least.
He shrugged a little at that, but she saw the eye roll, knew it wasn’t aimed at her.
He didn’t like Voi Pai. In addition to the historical stuff between the Lao Hu and the Wvercians, he thought her actions repeatedly disrespectful to the intermediaries...Revik and Allie both. He felt the same way about Balidor, more or less.
Cass didn’t exactly disagree.
What should we do? she signed at him.
Send her a warning, he signed back.
She smiled, laughing a little. With what to back it up?
He gave her a puzzled frown, even as he signed a response. With the Bridge to back it up. With the Sword...Syrimne d’Gaos.
Thinking about this, Cass nodded.
Caressing his broad cheek with a hand, she kissed his mouth when his eyes closed in response. When they parted, she motioned towards the guard standing at the bottom of the steps below the raised platform of the pagoda.
“Can you talk to him?” she said in English, knowing it was less likely to be overheard. “...Just to start out, I mean. Get him to come over here. You’re a bit more...impressive than me, Bags. I’ll do the actual threatening.”
Nodding once, seer-fashion, he straightened to his full height, pulling the long, Chinese-style shirt back on his shoulders a little so that it lined up with his broad frame and cracking the knuckles in his massive hands. Winking at her, he glided easily over to the edge of the pagoda.
Cass watched, shaking her head with a grin.
She watched Baguen take the stairs with a grace that always surprised her a little. He landed with a crunch in the cut, frozen grass. Walking closer to the seer standing there in ceremonial garb, Baguen fixed the smaller male with a hard stare, moving so that he stood right up in his face. Glaring down at him with his black eyes, he slid a few inches closer, emphasizing the gap in height between the two of them, which was maybe as much as two feet.
Cass grinned a little wider when the sentry paled.
She kind of had to love Baguen’s sense of humor.
Staring up at the shocking white face, the yellowish braids that cascaded down the Wvercian’s back, woven through with leather thongs and even some feathers, the Lao Hu sentry bowed, using the sign of the Bridge to indicate respect.
Cass laughed a little again. She teased Baguen that he was her Viking, but she was never sure if he got the reference, and anyway, he looked too Chinese in his features for the comparison to be wholly accurate.
In any case, she couldn’t suppress a rush of feeling for the big lug.
She knew Allie thought it was weird, the thing with her and Baguen. Jon didn’t say much, but she got the impression he thought it was mostly about sex. And maybe that had been a lot of it at first. Remembering what Chan said about the whole thing when they last spoke, Cass frowned. Then again, Chan wasn’t exactly coming from an objective place.
Anyway, Chandre was just so...well, intense about everything. Truthfully, it had started to make Cass nervous. Balidor even warned her, in an offhand way. He’d told her that Chandre didn’t get involved very often, especially for a seer of her age. Cass heard the underlying message there, too, that she should be careful not to assume that just because she was seer, Chan would be okay with keeping things casual. In fact, Balidor said at a later point, she should assume that unless it was explicitly stated that the arrangement was sexual only, she should assume any seer was potentially interested in her for more than that. He said that with the light component in sex for seers, they could get very attached, even when no bond or other formal tie was involved. They could also get possessive.
She should have listened to him.
Sooner, that is.
As it was, Baguen and her had been a bit of an accident. Cass hadn’t really intended to get involved with someone else, but he’d been unflaggingly persistent...and he’d saved her life in those woods behind Seertown.
Truthfully, she liked the simplicity of being with him, after the complicated headache that had been her and Chan. Chan wanted more from her. Chan wanted to know things...about Terian and whatever else that Cass didn’t really want to share. And when she got paranoid about Cass’ unwillingness to talk or open up in some other way, she got way too invasive with her light.
Baguen didn’t do any of that.
Maybe it was something to do with him being a Wvercian. Or maybe seer males weren’t as different from human males as Allie kept telling her.
But it could be the Wvercian thing.
Wvercians, unlike the Lao Hu, actually originated from China. And, unlike any other type of Sarhacienne, or Sark, the vast majority of Wvercians couldn’t pass for human at all. Generally, they stood at least a foot above other seers and weighed about three times as much. Since seers on average stood taller than most humans already, this made Wvercians positively frightening to the vast majority of their human cousins.
To add to the oddity of their size, Wvercians’ hair and skin usually displayed as nearly albino in coloring, contrasting with their broad Asian features and thick noses.
Only their eyes didn’t fit. Coal black in color, so dark that they appeared to be without irises, their almond-shaped eyes stood wide in high-cheekboned faces, slanted at the edges so that they looked somewhere between Mongolian and Southern Chinese.
Baguen had been the first Wvercian Cass had ever met.
She suspected he was one of the first...if not the first...who had ever tagged along with an entourage that included the Adhipan.
He’d also told her she was his first human girlfriend.
From what the other seers told her, Wvercians were viewed a bit like pirates. They often lived outside of Code. They didn’t take much interest in the factional struggles among the other Sarks. They flat-out refused to join the Lao Hu, and killed humans whenever they ventured too close to one of their enclaves.
They also refused to join the Rooks, at least in any significant number.
The combination of lawlessness and flagrant dislike of rules or constrictions of any kind made some of them revolutionaries and rebels, but the vast majority of them thieves and smugglers. The lack of Code also meant they were often associated with a number of other shady practices, including selling or trading children and females, both human and seer, and providing seer slaves for the work camps and organic tech.
It didn’t necessarily mean they did these things, though.
According to Baguen’s own take on it, Wvercians followed whatever or whomever suited them in the moment, and didn’t let any one person or system make the rules. From what Cass could tell, most of them believed in the Myth, however, and deferred to the Sword and the Bridge. She couldn’t really make sense of the whole mishmash, frankly.
According to Dorje, no one had actually ever been able to document the make up or location of an honest-to-gods Wvercian settlement. If one stumbled upon a large
group of Wvercians, one was usually lucky to get out alive. Even if one did get out alive, Wvercian practice was to abandon any living space penetrated by outsiders. As a result, no one knew exactly where any one Wvercian stronghold might be based, or even if there was a single Wvercian township anywhere on the map big enough and permanent enough to be noteworthy.
Dorje figured the vast majority were nomads, like some of the earlier seer tribes. They lived off the grid, trading with one another and banding together when it made sense, but for the most part living and working in small or large family units.
Even bonded mating seemed rare among the Wvercians. Dorje claimed to have only ever seen one such pair himself; he told Cass they were so psychotically possessive that he’d been warned not to speak to either of them, for any reason.
In any case, no one wanted to mess with a Wvercian.
Not even a member of the Royal Guard of the Lao Hu.
Cass inched a little closer, trying to listen to their conversation. Baguen spoke so low and deep, she couldn’t make out his words, but she caught a few from the sentry.
“...most honorable...” (she missed some of what came after this) “...of course, she will. I will of course relay the message that...” (again, she lost some of it) “...will be most dismayed that the reception was not to your...”
Cass folded her arms tighter, smiling involuntarily.
“...right away...yes...”
Cass watched the sentry bow, right before he motioned to another of the Royal Guard. After a short exchange in sign language, which Cass noted was a bit different from what she’d learned from Baguen and Chandre, the second guard ran off, aiming for the Meridian Gate.
Cass wondered again why they bothered doing everything by foot, when they could just use the construct to talk to one another.
“For show,” Baguen said, walking back to her after vaulting up the stairs. “More time.”
Cass nodded, shivering against the cold. “Are they going to let us in?”
“This time, I think...yes,” he said. “I tell them we leave otherwise. Come back with the Bridge. And with the Sword. Come back with more of us.”
She smiled, clutching his fingers briefly. “Thanks, Bags.”
“You talk to Lao Hu...the female...?”
“Yeah,” Cass sighed, clicking a little to herself.
Refolding her arms in an effort to keep warm, she gritted her teeth against another gust of freezing wind. It was definitely getting dark out now.
“Yeah,” she said. “Don’t worry, Bags. I’ll talk to the scary old bitch.”
Smiling, he coiled his arms around her, pulling her up against his warm bulk. As she snuggled up against him, her eyes never left the trail of footprints in the half-frozen ground left by the runner who’d disappeared through the Meridian Gate.
Still, she’d nearly dozed off by the time another form came crunching back over the lawn.
He yelled out something in Mandarin to the other sentry, who immediately motioned politely for Cass and Baguen.
“Come,” he said. “You will come now.”
He smiled, showing all of his teeth, but Cass didn’t smile back.
Giving Baguen a look and an exaggerated eye roll, she climbed out from between his arms and made her way to the wooden steps.
Baguen followed behind. A low grunt left his lips as he did, letting her know in the simplest way imaginable that he felt exactly the same way.
“I APOLOGIZE IF you felt your greeting was overly...traditional...” the seer purred, laying sideways on a low couch embroidered with red and gold silk. Her mouth was a perfect red, the color of blood; Cass couldn't see a single flaw in the Lao Hu leader's seamless make up.
“...I am not accustomed to unannounced visitors,” she added, ashing a hiri from a long, ivory holder. “...Even those as auspicious as the emissaries of our Esteemed Bridge...”
Cass forced herself to smile back, but had a feeling she looked more like she was baring her teeth.
Voi Pai, the leader of the Lao Hu, looked pretty much exactly the same as Cass remembered her from however-many months before. She still wore her raven black hair in a high bun with hand-painted wooden clips. Her traditional hanfu dress appeared deceptively simple under its elegant lines, dyed a bright yellow to match her eyes and with the black sash of the Lao Hu knotted expertly around her waist.
It was her eyes, however, that always forced Cass to stare. Those same eyes sometimes made it difficult for Cass to view Voi Pai as quite as much of a person as she did the other seers. Their vertical, cat-like pupils held a distinctly predatory glint, narrowing and widening seemingly at the will of their owner, not due to any changes in the lighting of the room.
She looked like an animal with those eyes. Like some kind of freaky genetic hybrid.
Further, those eyes didn't seem to hold emotion the way most human and seer eyes did. They had a flatness that went beyond the normally inscrutable infiltrator's expression...venturing into pure alienness, a reminder that she truly was a different species.
“Yeah,” Cass said after a pause. “I’m sure that’s true. Except that we weren’t unannounced. Allie told you we were coming...days ago. So did Balidor.”
“I received no message...?” the seer said innocently, raising an eyebrow and looking to her left, where a male and a female seer stood by the sliding door to the outside gardens.
“Yunes? Maiwan? Did you see any such message?”
“No, Lady.”
“You are quite sure?”
“Quite sure, Lady.”
The two seers standing there also wore the badge of the Lao Hu, but Cass couldn’t help but roll her eyes at their response.
“You see,” Voi Pai said, smiling sweetly at Cass. “I am so sorry, but it seems to have been missed. Can I please offer you some more tea?”
Cass glanced at Baguen, who clasped his hands at his sides. She could tell from his posture that he wanted to fight. She wasn’t sure which one of them he wanted to fight, but she had a feeling it was Voi Pai herself. She still wondered that he’d let them take his sword at the gate.
“Tea,” Cass muttered. “Sure. Can’t have too much of that...”
She shifted her butt uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair.
Baguen had refused to sit. He stood behind her, his dark eyes fixed on Voi Pai.
“Look,” Cass said, barely giving the servant a glance as her tea cup was refilled. “You know I’m here as a spokesperson for Allie, right?”
“Of course,” the woman smiled, gesturing in the respectful sign of the Bridge.
“Then you know what I want?”
The seer sighed, once more throwing up her hands in a kind of confused dismay. “I am afraid I have no idea what the Esteemed Bridge would want from me, dear cousin.”
“Okay...fine.”
Distracted, Cass glanced up suddenly, meeting the gaze of the seer who had just served her tea. When she did, she started violently, realizing she knew him.
The seer was just as large as she remembered, but next to Baguen, he seemed almost normal-sized. His dark brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, like that of all of the servants she’d seen, and he wore the same dark-blue hanfu clothing.
“Garensche,” she whispered.
He winked at her, but she saw a taut look on his face.
Gritting her teeth, Cass turned to face Voi Pai.
“Since you got no message,” she said angrily, yanking the scroll out of her jacket and cracking the seal with her fingers. “...And since you clearly didn’t bother to read the request sent to you by the Bridge, then I’ll just read it for you...”
“No, no,” Voi Pai waved, clicking her fingers to the two Lao Hu standing behind her. “That is not necessary, cousin. Please. Just hand it to my brother, Maiwan...”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Cass said, biting back her anger. “I’m happy to do it, most venerable Voi Pai. And I would hate so much for another of the Esteemed Bridge’s messages to get
lost in what must be an impressively large stack of mail...”
Behind her, she heard Garensche snort just a little.
Baguen was staring at him now, too, frowning below his hard, black eyes.
Before Maiwan could move towards her from the wall, or Voi Pai could argue with her again, Cass unrolled the scroll that Allie had spent a full day transcribing so that it would be in the ceremonial format.
“...With Respect to You, Voi Pai, Leader of the Lao Hu...” she began reading shortly.
She gave Voi Pai a hard look, silently promising herself Allie didn’t need to know all of her hard work with the ceremonial stuff might have gone to waste.
“Respect this...respect that...” she said, skipping over the second paragraph, her voice bored. “...Title, title, ceremonial crap...I think you can fill in the blanks on all of the formalities, right, cousin Voi? I mean, we don’t want to waste your time now, do we?”
The Lao Hu leader’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Without waiting for her response, Cass picked up reading again a few paragraphs down.
“...I know that this message will receive a fair hearing from you,” Cass continued, reading Allie’s actual words again. “...for I know from the hospitality of my short stay in your City that you are a seer who honors the old forms, and whose manners are exceeded only by the generosity of sharing your beautiful home with a stranger in need of her assistance...”
Hearing Voi Pai sniff a little at this, Cass raised her voice.
“...That being said, I must tell you that I am very displeased with you, sister, and with the actions you have taken against our brothers and sisters who are loyal to my husband, Syrimne d’Gaos. Although I am sure you are treating them with the same hospitality afforded me during my stay, it is my strong opinion, based on intelligence that I have received, that you are holding them against their will. Further, I have had numerous reports that the way in which you compelled them to return with you to Beijing did not accord with treatment befitting our free peoples, no matter what your intention. I have since heard that you even placed some in other facilities outside Beijing...
Allie's War Season Two Page 78