Allie's War Season Two

by JC Andrijeski

  “This way, Esteemed Bridge,” Ulai said, again indicating the direction I should walk, which was out of the candlelit entrance and towards the more brightly lit chambers beyond.

  We walked through a circular opening cut into dark wood, the outer edges carved in great detail to appear like two trees grown together at their roots and highest branches. I blinked into the light as we entered the high-ceilinged room beyond, then scanned it in reflex. When my light told me little, other than to show me more holes and crevices in the construct itself, I used my physical eyes. At the first face my eyes focused on directly, I startled. I nearly jumped back in fact, bumping Ulai behind me.

  The face was Wreg's.

  He stared at me with equal surprise.

  Then his expression hardened into a mask. That mask projected so much hatred I looked away before I’d fully taken it in. Even so, seeing him was a shock, and not only because of how I’d left him on the plane. After all that time in the Barrier with Revik, I felt like I knew him in a way I never had before. Some of that knowing made me like him more, some less, but the level of intimacy in my own light was disconcerting.

  My eyes found Voi Pai a second later. She sat on a chair that also resembled a throne, but a significantly less ornate one than the remnants of the old human audience chambers of the outer hall. Voi Pai’s seat stood at least five feet above the lower segments of the room. Made of padded silk cushions and hand sewn round pillows, it stretched out almost to the length of a couch and looked like a Chinese version of a love seat.

  I studied her face long enough to remember its details. Her porcelain skin looked the same, her high cheekbones. Those strange, yellow eyes with the vertical, cat-like pupils focused on my face as well, as if she were doing a similar inventory. Her sleek, black hair stood in a traditional, high bun, adorned with jeweled combs. Two long, curved pieces of hair like bangs framed her oval face, accenting her cheekbones while seeming to point to her blood-red mouth.

  I glanced around the rest of the room, and realized it was almost full.

  I flinched again when I saw Garensche and Holo, standing not far from me, wearing the servant caste clothing of the City. Frowning when I saw the two of them standing in a slight alcove, Garensche nearly crouched due to his enormous height next to what looked like a small cooking area, I glanced away, taking in the rest of the room if only to keep the reaction off my face. Most of the seers lining the walls were Lao Hu...infiltrators, from the black sashes they wore. I also saw Cass and Baguen sitting at a bench to the left of Voi Pai’s elevated chair. Next to them stood Jax and Mila, two more infiltrators who had worked for Revik.

  Along with Wreg, five other seers knelt at the edge of the inner floor. I noticed only then that they were bound, and collared. Garensche, Holo, Jax and Mila wore collars as well.

  Feeling my jaw harden, I looked back at Voi Pai.

  “I am here,” I said, throwing out every word of my carefully-rehearsed formal greeting. “You wished to speak to me in person?”

  She smiled faintly, raising one penciled eyebrow. Even so, I heard the chiding in her softly clicking tongue.

  “Is that how we shall greet one another, Esteemed Bridge?” she said softly. “I admit, sister, your words wound me...”

  “As clearly this display is meant to do for me,” I said.

  Fighting back my anger, I gestured around at the seers on the floor, not looking at Wreg as I let my hand shift from his team to Garensche and Holo in the back room, finishing on Jax and Mila where they stood next to Cass and Baguen.

  “What is the point of this, otherwise? Treating our brothers and sisters in this manner?”

  “I treat then as what they are.”

  “Slaves to the Lao Hu?”

  “Those whose lives belong to our people...yes.”

  I folded my arms, forcing my light to retract, to calm down. She’d done this on purpose, to rattle me, and it had worked. I was too exhausted to play it cool, and I’d just spent three hours getting the runaround besides.

  Even so, I could see that my reaction pleased her...hell, I could almost feel it, despite the stranglehold of the construct. Somehow, I couldn’t quite stop myself from reacting anyway. Finally, I glanced at Ulai, who remained standing beside me. I could see from his face that the tone of our exchange distressed him. I also realized for the first time how tall he was. He had maybe an inch on Revik even.

  Sighing in a clicking kind of purr, I looked back at Voi Pai, bowing as graciously as I could.

  “I apologize, most respected Voi Pai, leader of the Lao Hu,” I said, holding my hand up in the polite manner. “Perhaps we could start again. I was told you wished to speak to me?”

  The female seer smiled, but it did not reach her eyes.

  “Yes, Esteemed Bridge.”

  “Would it be possible for us to continue this conversation in private?” I said, once more aware of Wreg’s eyes on me. I gestured around vaguely. “This hardly seems a conducive environment for a civil negotiation.”

  “I disagree, Esteemed Bridge,” Voi Pai returned smoothly. She smiled at me when I gave her a hard look. “I prefer to negotiate openly...where the parties retaining an interest are able to hear the discussion of their own worth...”

  “Is this what you wished to say to me?” I said, biting my lip once more.

  “No, Esteemed Bridge...of course not.”

  “Then perhaps,” I said evenly. “We could begin there. Since you wish this to be publicly aired, please do share with me whatever words could not be communicated through my emissaries. Then, I also,” I added. “...Would like to speak to you. About the request I sent, for which I have still heard no reply, as to terms you would find acceptable...despite the long stay of my two friends.”

  Briefly, I considered raising the issue of the human-killing disease, as well...which obviously bothered her enough that I'd read a real reaction in the words of that one message we received.

  But I dismissed it from my mind a second later.

  I'd let her bring that up, since it was clearly some kind of sticking point with her. And anyway, it wasn’t why I was there.

  Still watching me narrowly, Voi Pai leaned back in her chair, bowing her head politely, as if my request had been spoken with no anger at all. I felt my patience ebbing as she leaned over a small table, pouring herself a cup of tea from a dark clay tea pot etched with some kind of subtle design and fitted with a bamboo handle. Setting the pot down on the same brightly lacquered tray where she’d found it, she leaned back on her couch, pausing to sniff her cup before taking a gentle series of sips. I bit my lip, but didn't move.

  “I wished only to apologize, first,” the Lao Hu leader said. Smiling at me, she made her voice cajoling. “I wished things to be cordial between the two of us once more, Esteemed Intermediary...so much so that I risked your displeasure at my lack of reply.”

  “A rather flawed approach,” I said sourly.

  “Perhaps. And yet, my regrets are very real.”

  “Of that I have little doubt. Are you ready to talk business, respected Voi Pai?”

  “I have not yet apologized, beloved intermediary.”

  I waved away her words, using every effort to keep the gesture polite, even as I bit my lip to keep the irritation off my face.

  “No apologies are necessary, I assure you,” I said. “An answer to my request, however, is, if you would like things to remain friendly between us.”

  She leaned back once more on her long chair and lit a hiri as I watched, one of the black-skinned, expensive ones I remembered her smoking when I stayed here before. I didn’t take my eyes off her as she fitted the hiri’s end into a filter made of what looked like real ivory.

  “Perhaps you could remind me of the exact nature of your request?” she said, exhaling a plume of dark smoke. “...The details of this note have escaped me, I admit,” she added, smiling. “...And my attention on this day has been taken up almost entirely by the difficulties we experienced, warding off yet anot
her attack by these rebels with whom you are suddenly so enamored...whom you continually assure me are not a threat to the Lao Hu...”

  Hesitating at this, I glanced at Wreg, almost before I could stop myself.

  Letting my gaze trail down his body, I realized only then that he was wearing body armor, and that two holsters around his person were empty. His long hair was tied back, and he wore boots on his feet with spikes at the edges for climbing. The seers with him were all dressed similarly, all without the external armor coats I remembered, but clearly disarmed recently and dressed for a military operation. I wondered if they had actually tried to climb one of the newer walls...the higher ones erected sometime after World War II.

  Still avoiding Wreg’s eyes, I looked back at Voi Pai.

  “You would call them dangerous,” I said, letting a faint derision touch my voice. “...For doing what any of us would do in their position? Trying to free their brothers and sisters from this illegal ‘ownership’ you claim?”

  I glanced at Cass, who smiled at me faintly. She looked angry too, however. So did Baguen, which made me like him a lot more for some reason.

  Voi Pai’s voice pulled my eyes off the two of them as well.

  “There is nothing illegal about it,” she said smoothly. Her voice had changed however, I heard an open warning in it that time, what sounded like real anger. “I would bid you caution, Esteemed Bridge...we honor you, but you are still a guest in my home...”

  “A guest who has been repeatedly insulted, lied to and dishonored, well before I arrived in your home,” I said shortly. I gestured towards Cass and Baguen, my face hard. “...What crime have I committed, that you see fit to imprison my friends? Very dear friends of mine, in fact, who came here only at my request, for honest parlay...?”

  “I told you, Esteemed Bridge,” Voi Pai warned. “I wished only to speak to you in person – ”

  “So you say,” I cut in. “But I would have responded much more favorably to this request had it come without the illegal detention of my people. You could have requested the same, and returned my friends to me...along with an answer to my request that you name whatever price the respected Voi Pai would like for the purchase of her ‘legitimately owned’ seers...”

  I felt Wreg turn, staring at me. I did my best to ignore it.

  Voi Pai only smiled at my words, exhaling a perfect ring of smoke.

  “I have heard no price quoted,” she said, draping an arm over the back of the couch.

  “I quoted one before,” I returned, a little more sharply than I intended. “Instead of refusing this price, and bargaining one that was acceptable to us both...you simply pretended to agree and then extracted your own price, one that is clearly not acceptable to me...” I felt my jaw harden slightly. “How is that friendly, Voi Pai?”

  She shrugged, gesturing vaguely with the hand that held the hiri.

  “I was not aware the rebels were so precious to you. You seemed less interested in their welfare before...”

  “Bullshit,” I said, before I could stop myself. “I was crystal clear about the stipulations of this little ‘partnership.’ I said no fucking hostages, Voi Pai...apart from Salinse...”

  “I could not find Salinse.”

  “So you take every other goddamned seer in the compound?”

  As I bit back my fury, I heard the silence in the room.

  I felt Wreg’s eyes on me once more, along with Garensche’s and Jax’s. Really, every seer there was looking at me, but those were the ones whose eyes seemed to bore into me hardest. I avoided Cass’ face as well, not sure if I was ready to know what she thought about all of this. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to know if they’d been mistreating her here, either. I felt Baguen hovering over her protectively, enough that I knew they’d likely been separated before this.

  Right then, that was more than enough to anger me.

  Voi Pai smiled again, letting her eyes drift over the length of my body. Realizing she was enjoying my anger, that she was enjoying the conversation in general, I looked away, clicking sharply under my breath. Once more, I spoke before I had my anger under control.

  “I would have thought the respected Voi Pai would have more interesting amusements,” I said, folding my arms tighter. “...Than inviting guests for the sole purpose of insulting them. I would have hoped you would not be so bored as to risk a war with me, simply for the purpose of entertaining yourself on my displeasure...”

  Voi Pai smiled wider, inclining her head.

  “I still have not heard an offer as to price...” she purred softly.

  “I have put that ball in your court, respected Voi Pai,” I replied, my voice equally level. “As you surely must know by now. Since you have a tendency to say ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no,’ I thought it more likely I’d get a real quote if you named it yourself.” Biting my lip again, I gestured towards her a bit sharply.

  “...Clearly you have something in mind. Name it.”

  Voi Pai’s smile turned predatory.

  “I would like the Sword,” she said.

  “Fucking bitch,” Wreg snarled.

  Before I could turn my head, he got cuffed across the head, hard, by the guard standing behind him. I glanced at him just long enough to see him recover, kneeling once more at the edge of the square carpet. Seeing the mark forming on his face, I bit my tongue. I returned my eyes to Voi Pai, my voice cold.

  “He’s not for sale,” I said. “That is non-negotiable.”

  “Then we have no deal, Esteemed Bridge.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” I said. “That you would ask for what is so clearly unreasonable, expecting anything but a ‘no’ in response. Clearly, you want war with me.”

  “But you are wrong, Esteemed Bridge,” she said, her eyes serious. “I do not wish war. I wish a fair price, in exchange for what I would be giving up.”

  “Why do you want him?” I said, blunt.

  For a moment she only looked at me, her yellow eyes unmoving. Then she smiled, taking another drag of the hiri before exhaling another perfect ring.

  “Why do you think?” she said, smiling wider at whatever look must have come to my face. “...He is valuable to me. He can work off the debt of these other seers you wish to rid me of. Far faster than anything you can offer. And I do not like trading in gold.”

  “So you would not take market price for these seers?”

  “I would not. And you could not afford it...Esteemed Bridge.”

  I felt my jaw harden again, as I tried to think through this. There was something she wasn’t saying. I could feel it, but I couldn’t quite grasp what it meant. She knew I wouldn’t give her Revik. She hadn’t shown a flicker of surprise when I said no...and yet, I could tell the door wasn’t closed on our negotiation, either. Her price of Revik wasn’t as firm as she pretended, but if she wouldn’t take money, I didn’t know what she was angling for...other than to know without a doubt that she was angling for something.

  “Why him, though?” I said again.

  “He is an intermediary,” she said, gesturing as if this were obvious.

  I felt my jaw harden more. Suddenly, I knew exactly what she wanted...and why she’d insisted that I come here in person. Shaking my head, I gave a low laugh. Then I looked at her, meeting her gaze directly.

  “I, too, am an intermediary,” I said. “...most venerable Voi Pai.”

  She froze, her hand poised with the hiri not far from her mouth. I didn’t know how much of it was pure bullshit theatrics, but the effect worked well enough. It also left time for every seer and human in the room to swallow what I’d said.

  After that pause, a smile slid carefully over Voi Pai’s red mouth. I knew I’d been right when I saw that covetousness I’d seen in her before, what seemed like a million years ago in that square in the spring sun. She stared at me like she wanted to pin me to the wall with her eyes, like some kind of exotic bug for her collection.

  “He is not for sale,” she purred softly. “...But you are,
Esteemed Bridge?”

  I felt my jaw harden, even as every eye in the room seemed to turn and bore into me once more. I avoided all of them, focusing only on the seer on the silk-cushioned love seat.

  “Can we finish this discussion alone, Voi Pai?”

  “No,” she said, her eyes still on mine. “I wish an answer to my question, Esteemed Bridge.”

  I glanced at Cass, almost without my willing it. Seeing her staring at me, shaking her head vehemently, I looked away again. Feeling a kind of tiredness come over me, I remembered again what I’d said to Balidor, and to Vash...and what I’d written to Revik. Did it really matter what I did for the next however-many months? I had nowhere to go. Chances were, I’d stay alive with the Lao Hu. At least until Revik resurfaced and everyone stopped assuming I’d murdered him.

  Looking back at the Lao Hu leader, I gestured in a conciliatory way.

  “I am willing to discuss a term of...repayment,” I said, deliberately avoiding Cass’ eyes, as well as those of the other seers. “If that is agreeable to you. You must know that security is a concern for me of late...and that my effectiveness as a leader is hampered as a result. Your timing appears well calculated in that regard, at least...”

  I saw that look of near greed rise more prominently to her eyes.

  “As you say,” she said softly. “I am open to negotiation on that point.”

  “Then tell me what terms you would be willing to accept,” I said.

  She paused for a moment, looking up at the ceiling, as though thinking. I felt every seer in the room hold their breath, watching her. I felt Cass looking at her, too. Voi Pai’s eyes narrowed slightly as she stared upwards, just before she glanced at an older seer to her right, one who appeared to be an advisor of some kind based on his age and the different cut of his robe.