Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  It was something else. Something more difficult for Jon to put his finger on.

  That wasn’t to say Revik wasn’t clearly in charge now; he was. He made no bones about the fact that he had final say in any decisions resulting from their planning meetings, even above Balidor and Vash. He led with a light hand, however––a surprisingly light hand, especially given some of the strong personalities now vying at the table.

  Jon watched him in those silences, maybe trying to convince himself the change he saw in his friend’s eyes was real.

  Dorje assured him it was.

  He could see it in Revik’s light, ever since that day in the tank with Balidor. According to him, Vash, Tarsi and Balidor healed some kind of break in Revik’s light––something that, until now, prevented the different sides of him from integrating normally.

  Following that day, as well as whatever Allie had done to him prior to that, the very expressions on Revik’s face had altered. That odd, disjointed gaze vanished, leaving a more subdued and often shielded stillness. The underlying anger seemed to have faded, along with that flavor of arrogance that always irritated Jon in the Sword.

  He felt like a different person––again.

  What threw Jon more though, was how much he felt like the old Revik again, the one he’d first gotten to know in that prison cell under the Caucasus Mountains.

  He’d mentioned the same to Vash once, in passing.

  Instead of getting a blank look for his troubles, the old seer favored him with a surprisingly warm smile, and nodded emphatically at Jon’s observations.

  “Indeed,” he said. “It seems that without the blocks caused by the trauma, his surface personality is much like it was when we removed the traumatized pieces of his aleimi before.” Vash smiled cheerfully. “This is good for us, yes? He could have been anyone, really, in terms of surface traits. And I quite liked him as Dehgoies Revik.”

  Jon felt his own flare of hope at this, but the old seer gave him a warning look.

  “But he is not really the same man, Jon,” Vash cautioned. “Half of a person can never contain as much as the whole. Those other parts of him are still there, living inside of him. They are simply not broken as they were, nor isolated in his light. As a result, they are no longer covering over the rest of him, or forcing him to hide in the light of the Dreng to escape the feelings associated with them. But he is not the same, Jon. He never will be.”

  Jon only nodded, glancing at Revik, who’d been sitting at a conference table on the other side of the room, listening to Wreg and Balidor argue.

  “So what does that mean?” he asked Vash finally, looking back at the old seer.

  Vash smiled. “I do not know, young cousin. But I imagine we will find out.”

  Jon nodded, swallowing a little as he looked back at Revik.

  The Elaerian’s eyes narrowed faintly as he stared down at something on a portable monitor on the table between Balidor and Wreg. From his expression, Jon could tell he was scanning; a bare frown touched his lips as he clicked out. Still, he did not speak, not even to break up the argument between the two seers in front of him.

  “He’s just so much like he was,” Jon said, speaking almost to himself. “It’s like seeing someone rise from the dead. I can’t help but think––”

  But he’d cut the thought off. He hadn’t been ready to think about Allie yet, or how she might react to any of them, much less Revik, assuming they could get her away from the Lao Hu.

  In the end, Jon only shrugged, looking at Vash.

  “It’s a good thing, what you did,” he’d finished lamely.

  Vash smiled, but there was a sharper look in his eyes.

  “You helped more than you know, cousin,” he said. “Far more than you know.”

  Grunting noncommittally, Jon turned back towards the three seers on the other side of the room. He saw Balidor fold his arms as he rolled his eyes at something the more muscular seer said, right before Wreg pointed emphatically at something on the monitor, clicking loudly as his skin flushed on his high cheekbones. Seconds later, Balidor was clicking in return, gesturing a negative with one hand as he began speaking rapidly in Prexci, aiming his finger at the same screen.

  “The real question is,” Jon muttered. “Are the two of them ever going to stop bickering?”

  Vash chuckled, patting Jon on the back.

  “Only time will tell on that account, too, young cousin,” Vash replied, still cheerful.

  Pulling himself out of the memory, Jon stared around at the walls of the enormous audience chamber. He tried to avoid the Lao Hu infiltrators with his eyes.

  Allie jokingly called her old room in the Forbidden City the “kung fu palace,” but this room fit that description equally well. Glancing around at the antique enameled furniture, the vases, porcelain figurines and silk tapestries, Jon found himself thinking this whole place looked like a set for a movie about ancient China.

  That would have been even more true if not for the liquid wall panels morphing on several walls, and the organics on the assault rifles trained on them.

  He’d thought Revik brought too many infiltrators, coming in here.

  Looking around at the thirty or so Lao Hu in this room alone, remembering the dozens they’d passed on their way through the gates, Jon now thought he’d undershot.

  Revik’s eyes remained still as glass as he held the Lao Hu leader’s gaze.

  “We cannot speak with her directly?” he said again.

  Jon watched him narrow his eyes at the female seer, lifting the tea cup that sat on the lacquered table in front of him. He took a sip of the likely-lukewarm tea, his gaze steady as he sat easily in a wooden chair with embroidered cushions. He gazed up at the elevated seat of Voi Pai, his expression unreadable.

  Jon knew that her being seated above him broke protocol, too, severely enough that it had to be deliberate.

  If it bothered Revik, that did not show on his face, either.

  “She is working, Illustrious Sword,” Voi Pai replied smoothly.

  Jon winced at the dig.

  Not a ripple touched Revik’s face.

  “When will she be finished, sister?” he said. “We are willing to wait.”

  “It will not be anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

  “We are willing to wait,” he repeated. “We will wait here, if necessary. For as long as you require us to.”

  Voi Pai continued to measure his gaze, her expression also difficult to read. Jon found himself wondering if the Lao Hu leader noticed the changes in him from their last encounter, or if she noticed any hint of the differences in his light. As far as Jon knew, she’d only ever encountered him as Syrimne.

  “You are imposing on me for overnight hospitality, Illustrious Brother?” she said, lifting an eyebrow, a smile teasing her lips. “Is that polite, I wonder?”

  “No less polite,” Revik replied, his voice calm as a windless lake. “Than asking an intermediary to wait on an audience with his wife. Or refusing him the basic courtesies of his rank.”

  Voi Pai sighed, as if bored. Clicking softly, she tilted her face towards the ceiling.

  “I was under the impression from her that your marriage to her was terminated,” she said, blowing by his second point without comment. “By you, in fact, Illustrious Sword. Perhaps there is a communication problem in more than one area?”

  “There is a miscommunication,” he conceded. “It is true.”

  “Illuminate me, dear brother.”

  Revik shrugged with one hand. “I have, sister. Repeatedly. I am here declaring myself in need of forgiveness from her. I wish reconciliation, and an opportunity to make amends. Under every recognized seer law, including the initial Codes and the common law of the Lao Hu, I have the right to be heard by her in this.”

  “And if she does not wish to grant that right?”

  “I have the right to hear the refusal from her directly.”

  “And if she refuses to grant that right, as well?”

&nbs
p; Revik gestured again politely, if vaguely, with one hand.

  “I would need to see her in person to know that as well, loyal Voi Pai,” he said, his face unmoving. “I would not be willing to leave here until I had been granted this right.”

  His Prexci sounded different from the common tongue Jon was accustomed to hearing seers use. At times, Jon even had trouble understanding him through the accent, although the style was slow enough, and enunciated enough, that he usually stayed only a beat or two behind.

  Although Jon had never heard Revik use such a formal cadence before, it came out practiced enough to sound almost like Vash’s manner of speaking, or Balidor’s when he was particularly annoyed.

  Revik didn’t sound annoyed. He sounded completely at ease.

  He also sounded absolutely immovable, which Jon supposed was the point.

  Again, the Lao Hu leader’s eyebrows rose, cartoonish under their dark paint over the white powder of her face. Her red-painted lips pursed over a pointed chin.

  At her prolonged silence, Jon felt himself sigh internally.

  This particular ping-pong match had been going on all morning and for most of the afternoon, through tea and a number of odd dances, two epic-long poems and a sword fight that also looked seer in origin––not to mention all the b.s. they’d encountered at the gate and at each subsequent courtyard following their initial entrance through Tian’anmen.

  They’d gotten here not long after dawn a full five days before.

  Jon glanced at Wreg and Balidor, who stood side by side, wearing similar postures despite the different expressions on their faces. Wreg looked coldly angry. Jon knew without being told he was likely furious at Voi Pai’s blatant disrespect to Revik, both overt and implied.

  Balidor wore a similar expression as Revik. He looked like a rock that did not intend to budge, no matter how long it took, or how many distractions were put in front of him.

  The Adhipan seer’s patience surprised Jon less than Revik’s, however.

  Revik leaned back in the wooden chair, even as Jon thought it. He didn’t noticeably shift to adjust his weight, despite his probable discomfort from sitting in the hard-looking chair for so long. Jon himself had struggled with being forced to stand for a similar amount of time, but he didn’t bother trying to hide his body’s lack of ease.

  He nearly jumped when Voi Pai spoke into that silence, even before he heard her words.

  “Very well,” she said, as though it were the first time Revik had made the request. “She will be brought up presently.”

  Revik didn’t flinch. He continued to look up at the Lao Hu leader, a layer of impenetrable silence over the clear irises of his eyes.

  Jon knew his own facial expression was probably a lot more transparent.

  When he glanced at Balidor and Wreg, neither of their expressions had changed, for the better or the worse.

  Only Garensche, on the other side of Balidor, let a flicker of relief reach his broad, scarred face. His hair had grown longer since Jon had last seen him, and he wore it similarly to Wreg’s, making him look even more like a pirate than before, with his thick girth and near-Wvercian height and chest proportions. The scar running along one side of his face to his hazel eyes only added to the image.

  Still, Jon knew him to be one of the softer souls among the Rebel seers, and one who had a particular fondness for Allie.

  Jon found his open emotions a relief.

  He watched Revik lean back in the red-silk lining of the wooden chair, a chair that might be several hundred years old. His eyes never left Voi Pai’s face, even when the configuration of infiltrators shifted slightly around them, presumably to prepare for Allie’s arrival.

  Jon felt his own heart constricting in his chest, and wondered again at Revik’s composure.

  The look went beyond the infiltrator’s mask; his very light seemed to exude a calming glow, as if he were merely there to mediate a discussion between foreign parties, on a topic that interested him only peripherally. Jon watched his face minutely, but he could not penetrate that veneer. Nor could he hide his own increasing anxiousness at the thought of Allie walking in there any minute, in gods only knew what condition.

  It didn’t escape his notice that Voi Pai hadn’t given them any kind of time frame for her arrival.

  Even as Jon thought it, she spoke.

  “And what do you intend,” she said, staring at Revik as if the rest of them didn’t exist. “…In the event your wife is amenable to reconciliation?”

  Revik laid his arm on a wood armrest, his eyes equally focused on Voi Pai’s.

  “I intend to buy her from you,” he said.

  Voi Pai smiled, her thin lips twitching. “She is not for sale, Illustrious Sword.”

  “She is under debt contract,” he said, his cadence unchanging. “Her debt can be bought, even if she cannot.”

  “You are doing well indeed, to afford a debt of this kind,” Voi Pai remarked wryly. “Perhaps you are not aware of the full amount?”

  “I am aware of the twenty-two million agreed upon at the onset of the contract,” Revik said, his tone implying he heard none of her condescending humor. “I assume she would have worked off a portion of that amount in the time since.”

  “That amount is no longer relevant,” Voi Pai broke in coldly.

  “Is it not?” Revik settled more deeply into the chair. “And why is that?”

  “She murdered one of her clients,” Voi Pai replied, smiling.

  For the first time, Jon saw a shadow of reaction flicker across Revik’s face. It was gone almost before he saw it, but he knew Voi Pai would have seen it, too.

  She smiled wider, as if in answer to Jon’s thoughts, waving a manicured hand.

  “Penalties were demanded. The client she saw fit to kill was one who belonged to an important friend of the Lao Hu. There is more than simply the matter of blood money, or of the relative value of the asset she disposed of.”

  “How much?” Revik said, his voice polite.

  Voi Pai tapped a red-lacquered nail against her tea cup. “I was quoted a price for penalty. It was beyond our means, frankly… and the wronged party’s patience, in terms of her ability to work it off within a reasonable timeframe. I was therefore required to offer ownership of your wife’s debt to the wronged party.”

  “How much?” Revik repeated, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “Forty million, Illustrious Sword. In addition to the eighteen million she still owed the Lao Hu.” Smiling at Jon when he choked out a sound at the amount, she let her eyes flicker back to Revik’s. “The money is merely a courtesy. They require service of her, to compensate for their loss. They were unspecific as to the nature of that service.”

  “Was their loss so great?” Wreg said, from the back of the room.

  She didn’t honor him with a glance, but continued to look at Revik.

  “The male seer she murdered was a favored pet of our friends. He also had certain…” She made a tilting gesture with one hand. “…historical knowledge. Knowledge they claim is impossible to duplicate.” She paused, tapping her nail quietly. “Although they tell me your wife will be able to supply some of that history.”

  “What is the name of her alleged victim?” Revik said.

  Voi Pai smiled, quirking a painted brow. “This is important to you? Have you not heard me on the relevant details, Illustrious Sword?”

  “I listen to all words that come from the leader of the Lao Hu,” Revik said calmly. “I merely wish to know the nature of this historical knowledge said to be carried by my wife. After all,” he added, gesturing in polite deference. “At her young age, historical knowledge is not her specialty. Unless you imply it is something from a previous incarnation…?”

  Jon caught some flicker of a taunt in this.

  He knew the politics around reincarnation were complicated in the seer world. He also knew the Lao Hu’s official stance was that such a thing did not exist, since it conflicted directly with the Chinese doctrines
around religion and communism.

  How they reconciled that with Allie being here and wearing her religious title never fully made sense to Jon, but he figured there was some political nuance there he was missing.

  In any event, Revik’s comment seemed to irritate Voi Pai.

  “His name was Hulen, Illustrious Sword. Your wife called him by another name.”

  “She knew him?” Jon spoke aloud before he realized he intended to.

  He saw Balidor give him a faintly warning look. Revik didn’t turn his head. He continued to watch Voi Pai, his clear eyes unmoving.

  “I would repeat my question, most venerable Voi Pai,” he said.

  Voi Pai shrugged elegantly. Her eyes never left Revik’s face.

  “I do not remember the name she called him, Illustrious Sword… but if you are adamant about knowing, we record all sessions with our consorts.” Again, she lingered on the word, watching Revik’s face. “I could have one of my people call up the meeting in question, if such a trivial thing is indeed of such interest to our beloved intermediary?”

  Revik bowed his head, his face polite.

  “I would very much appreciate that, sister…”

  He trailed, for the first time losing his words.

  Jon saw a struggle in his eyes, brief but visible.

  The Elaerian stared at a side entrance to the room, watching silently as a small procession entered through the round opening. For those few seconds, he seemed unable to speak, or tear his eyes off the five seers who’d just joined them.

  Jon hadn’t even noticed the newcomers until that moment. They walked past the raised platform where Voi Pai sat, moving so silently he didn’t hear their footfalls on the wooden floor.

  Now Jon felt other seers stiffening around him.

  His eyes followed Revik’s, even as a sinking feeling in his gut told him he knew exactly who had just entered the room.

  He didn’t recognize her at first.

  The thought terrified him briefly, especially since he could make out only one figure not dressed in the hanfu clothing and black sash of a Lao Hu infiltrator.

  Initially, it was the only clue he had to which of them was her.