Watcher's Web

by Patty Jansen

  “I did?” That was news to her.

  “You did. She doesn’t believe a word you said. That’s good.”

  With all the will in the world, Jessica couldn’t see how that was good, but she sat back down, glancing in Daya’s direction, but Iztho leaned forward and she couldn’t see him.

  The councillor argued with the mediator, then someone on the other side of the hall shouted something in keihu that caused a sharp intake of breath of many in the audience.

  Jessica leaned forward. “What? What did he say?”

  Before Iztho could translate, a new voice spoke, in Mirani. “You accuse Miran of what?” A man in Mirani uniform strode onto the floor. Grey hair cropped close to his head, he was thin and fairly short. His uniform glittered with silver dots.

  Jessica whispered to Iztho, “Who is that?”

  But a chill took hold of her. She recognised him from somewhere.

  “Commander Nemedor Satarin, of the Mirani army,” Iztho’s voice rumbled next to her.

  The man walked across the floor in a regal glide. He stopped before the table and inclined his head. “Delegates.”

  The mediator returned his polite gesture and spoke a few words.

  The Commander smiled. “Thank you for the opportunity to conduct this hearing in Coldi. I, however, prefer the local language.”

  The mediator’s hand wave cut off a roar of protest from the floor; Mirani wasn’t the local language. Commander Satarin copied his gesture, but directed it at the applause from the soldiers at the other end of the hall. “Calm down, calm down. Let us remember we are guests in this city, here on the invitation of the Barresh council. An orderly solution to this problem benefits us all. It was my intention to just observe this meeting as a show of solidarity with the city of Barresh. However, I’m surprised by the seriousness of the allegations against our nation of Miran. If such . . . murderers dwell amongst us, they must be punished. Chief Councillor Semisu, could you please bring forward the proof for your allegations.”

  The councillor stood there, mouth open. Whatever solidarity Commander Satarin had hinted at obviously didn’t include informing the Barresh council. And what had he said? That the army was here at the invitation of the council? Why?

  To control the Pengali.

  “What are they talking about?” she asked Iztho.

  “Someone made the suggestion that the murderers were Mirani.”

  “They weren’t!” Jessica half-rose.

  Iztho pulled her back down. “Sit down, Lady, You don’t want any more attention drawn to yourself.”

  “But it’s not true. I saw the murderers. They were Pengali.”

  “I know, Lady. No one is going to believe this allegation anyway.”

  Shouts and whistles died down. The councillor was still standing, fiddling with his robe. “I trust the Barresh council has evidence for this statement?” the commander asked.

  “Witnesses saw Mirani soldiers come out of the forest.” The councillor’s dark eyes glinted defiantly.

  “Can you present these witnesses?”

  “No. They’re Pengali and your soldiers wouldn’t allow them in the building.”

  “If you can’t produce the witnesses, please be seated.”

  A bout of laughter went up almost drowning out the voice of the mediator. “Excuse me, I determine if the witness can be seated.”

  Commander Satarin smiled at her and bowed. “Of course, Lady, my respect. Apologies for my interjection. Before I return the meeting to your capable hands, let me tell you that we must ensure that this situation is resolved and those guilty punished. We must also ensure that this young lady, caught up in this matter, is returned to her place of origin.”

  His eyes met Jessica’s.

  “Meanwhile, my theory is one of incompetence.” He waved at the bench in a rhetorical gesture, ignoring the sharp look from the mediator. “Look at these men here. When you arrived, honoured delegates, you saw the state of this city. Crumbling buildings, naked people performing beastly acts in the streets. You only need look at the state of the Exchange building to know it can’t function properly. The city of Barresh needs an injection of investment. Miran has offered that. Remember that in your judgment.” He turned around in a theatrical gesture and made to go back to his seat. A roar went up from the audience.

  Jessica shivered. There had been at least two groups of people in the forest: the Pengali, who had found them and might have been in the pay of the council, or, more likely, might simply have been tribespeople defending their territory. And there had been the rescue party Iztho had met up with at the top of the escarpment, people she hadn’t seen. Were they Mirani soldiers?

  There was a loud crash and shouts from the back of the hall. A beam of wan daylight pierced the darkness showing a great mass of people flowing in, small people, smelling of mint and fish and the flowered wreaths some wore on their heads. The tide of striped and spotted bodies washed down the stairs, pushing aside the guards who attempted to stop them.

  At that moment, all the lights went out.

  27

  PEOPLE SHOUTED, rose from their seats and scrambled for the door.

  Iztho grabbed Jessica’s hand, his palm moist with sweat. “Come, Lady. Stay close to me. If I’m right, that was the last of the council’s recharged pearls. The council doesn’t even have enough light to keep their meetings going. That’s how well they control their people.”

  Men in white uniforms moved in the grey beam of light that streamed in from the door. Crossbows glittered. Soldiers shouted orders, pushing fleeing members of the audience back into the stands.

  Then, amidst the chaos, a small light flickered on halfway down the stairs. A mind light. Not Daya’s, but Ikay’s. Within a few moments, another light followed.

  People stopped their mad stumble for the doors and stared at the centre of the hall, where the lights converged above the mediator’s table, lighting her face with a ghostly glow. Most of the council members stood next to their seats.

  A gust of warmth flooded Jessica and a pinprick bright as sunlight rose into the air. Daya.

  Come, help us. We need to have this meeting. These people need to hear the truth.

  In the eerie light, the ring of white uniforms surrounding the floor stood out clearly. Jessica eased herself out of Iztho’s grip and pressed her hands together. The flow of energy came easily now. Several people around her gasped with the brightness of her light. She let it float up, hovering over the heads of the audience. The closer it came to Daya’s light, the stronger the radiance of his energy became. Warm, steady. She let the light circle Daya’s, like a pair of courting dancers, twirling and teasing. Jessica thought of soaring through the clouds.

  “Don’t encourage him, my Lady.” Iztho’s face looked wary.

  Jessica bristled. Encourage what? Didn’t he want the hearing to be concluded, so that he was free to take her out of the city?

  At least fifty other lights had floated up, joining those already in the centre of the hall. Most of them were little more than weak glowing spots, but all of them combined cast a steady, even glow over the table. Not a single noise disturbed the silence.

  Her eyes on the conglomerate of lights, the mediator sat back down, her face ghostly pale. “It seems we can continue now that the, um, problem with the lighting has been solved.”

  Thumbs hooked in his belt, Commander Satarin glided across the floor. The heels of his boots clacked on the wood and with each footstep he came closer to Ikay, who stood at the bottom of the stairs. “You know this state of undress is illegal in the city, as are any appendages?”

  Ikay faced him, her expression defiant. She snapped her tail.

  “After the hearing, I will make sure that you and all those who have come in here to disturb a civilised meeting are charged with public nudity and flauting of this city’s laws.”

  His face was a mask of hatred. All of a sudden, Jessica remembered where she had seen him before: in a vision. This man had been in
the lab, ordering Daya to be tortured, collecting the energy from him. And he was the man who supported her being brought to Miran. She heard his reedy voice What if I brought you a girl?

  And the medico said, She could be made to have two, maybe four children a year . . .

  She breathed deeply, trying to dispel the black spots that danced before her eyes. Her light came rushing back to her and jumped into her skin.

  Iztho’s voice rumbled. “My Lady, are you all right?”

  Dark images flashed before her eyes. The snarling face of a Mirani soldier, running footsteps through the snow, the firing of a crossbow, an explosion, the voice of a Mirani soldier He’s still alive.

  Jessica pressed her fingers against her temples. Stop! Stop it!

  A man strapped against a cold metal wall, wearing a thin tunic while the ground was covered in snow, a blast of iced water over his head, pain burning down his back. He struggled, but his hands were tied.

  Stop it. “Stop it!”

  A warm arm passed over her shoulders. “Lady, you’re not well. Let’s go back to the—”

  Jessica pushed his arm aside. “I’m fine.” Although she felt like she would throw up any minute, but to prove her point, she re-formed the light and sent it back up to the others. Daya’s warmth brushed past her. Hang in there.

  Iztho raised his eyebrows. “You don’t look well, Lady.” With his ashen-grey face he didn’t look so well himself.

  “I’m fine.” She wiped sweat off her upper lip. Slowly, she walked onto the floor, into the pool of light. There was utter silence. Every eye in that huge hall was on her.

  At the pentagonal table, the mediator raised her eyebrows.

  Jessica spoke, her voice wobbly at first, but then more certain. “I want to know what is going on here. It is my life we’re talking about, my co-passengers who were killed, my family who are waiting for me. And . . .” She swallowed and glanced at the lights floating above the table. “As you can see, I have an ability that may have mis-fired your Exchange equipment.”

  The audience broke out in shouts. Commander Satarin jumped up from the bench. Pengali whistled, and those who had them snapped their tails.

  The mediator slammed her flat hand onto the table, shouting, “Ashi, ashi.”

  She had done that so often that by now, Jessica thought she knew the Coldi word for quiet.

  When, after at least a minute, silence of some measure had returned to the hall, she turned her eyes to Jessica.

  “So, you do know more than you let on. Interesting. What is your role in this story? Do you still maintain you were on this craft?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “We were flying, there was a flash and we crashed in the forest. None of us knew where we were. At night, three of us were killed. By . . . people . . . Small ones, with dirty hair and rags. They smelled like fish—”

  The rotund man, Chief Councillor Semisu, broke in. “Tribal rogues.”

  The mediator repeated the word stiffly. “Rogues?”

  “Young outcast men who patrol the borders of the tribal lands.”

  Jessica continued, “They came at night and shot at us without question.”

  “But not you.” The mediator’s dark eyes fixed hers.

  “I escaped. I frightened them.” The dark horrors of that night came back to her. The shouts in the forest, the screams of the men, the blue flashes of light.

  Iztho sat there, his light blue gaze on her with deep intensity. He wanted her to come to Miran with him. He had been on the flight with her . . . and he didn’t want that to be widely known.

  The mediator spoke again. “We have a strange situation here. If your version of events is true, you would in effect give yourself up as illegal. Do you have Union citizenship?”

  “No.”

  Iztho jumped up. “I’m sponsoring her for Union citizenship!”

  Daya’s voice cut through her mind, The hell he is. I’m sponsoring you. I’m not letting the Mirani get their hands on you.

  “Lady, tell the delegation you intend to go to Miran with me.” Iztho turned a pleading gaze on her.

  The Mediator cut in, “A moment, Trader Andrahar. You can discuss your plans after we have concluded our investigation and have no more questions for this woman regarding the matter of the Barresh Exchange.”

  Iztho sat back, his nostrils flaring. Across the hall, a tiny smile curled Daya’s lip.

  “What is this ability you’re talking about?” she asked.

  Jessica called her light down and let it float above the palm of her hand. “The Pengali call this avya. It is the same energy that powers the Exchange.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Jessica couldn’t read the expression on her face. Did she believe it?

  “That is . . . interesting. Tell me, where is your family? What is your ancestry?”

  At this question, both Iztho and Daya jumped up. Daya shouted, “Her background has nothing to do—” Before Iztho’s deep voice drowned him out. Then they both fell quiet, glaring at each other.

  The mediator raised her eyebrows, looking from one man to the other.

  Daya spoke first. “Her present-day family is irrelevant.”

  Iztho added, “As much as I disagree with him on other matters, I agree here. We are investigating an illegal transfer by the Barresh Exchange. The Lady is clearly disturbed. She suffers illusions and must be taken to a hospital. I ask for your leniency.”

  Jessica bristled. Disturbed? Illusions?

  “She is not disturbed!” Daya strode onto the floor. Patches of red had risen to his cheeks. “And I have no idea who told her that this pitiful amount of gathered energy . . .” He flung his light at a group of Mirani soldiers across the hall; they scrambled aside. “. . . is anywhere near enough to complete a bilateral translocation of a craft that has no Exchange capability. Anyone with the faintest understanding of Exchange technology knows about the mutuality and reciprocity needed to self-perpetuate the signal. The suggestion that a person could handle the amount of energy needed is ludicrous.”

  The mediator nodded, once.

  Daya whirled around to face the Pengali and other citizenry. “This is what we have to put up with, being called lunatics, being ridiculed. It is time this came to an end. I will shout it at all those who want to hear. We are not aberrations, monsters or freaks, but we are the old Aghyrians, the people who first developed space travel. We developed the Exchange. We are the reason you even exist. And we may not be many, but we will no longer be discriminated against—”

  Iztho’s deep voice drowned him out. “Discriminated? You treat the Lady like dirt and talk about discrimination? Your ridiculous jealousy knows no boundaries. My Lady, do not listen to his ranting lunacy. Miran will solve your situation. I wish to help you more than anything. I am willing to risk my reputation; no, my life for that. Watch this.” He crossed the floor, unfastening the clip to his cloak as he walked, slipped it off his shoulders and in a flourishing swoop, draped it across hers.

  Deep silence.

  Jessica’s breath caught in her throat.

  The weight of the cloak hung on her shoulders like a heavy pack, while Iztho’s familiar smell enveloped her. With the gazes of all those in the hall on her, fear grew inside her. She took Iztho’s outstretched hand and whispered, “What’s all this about?”

  A loving smile crossed his face. “This, Lady, the offering of the cloak, is the traditional way for a Trader to offer himself in marriage. I’m yours, my Lady.”

  Jessica stammered, “Marriage? Me?” She stared at the lips which over the past few days had kissed hers, had caressed her naked skin. “Please don’t do this to me.”

  He bent closer. “Lady, forgive my rashness. It’s the only way you can be free.” His breath tickled in her hair; he kissed her cheek softly, running a hand over the line of her jaw.

  Part of her screamed to embrace him, to give in to her desire, huddle forever in the safety of his arms, but
it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Not at all.

  She met Commander Satarin’s gaze across the hall. Intense, almost as if willing her to agree. On the other side of the hall she met Daya’s eyes, wide and disbelieving, too horrified to even send her a hot jolt of jealousy.

  “Lady, I beg you, please. Take my hands and press them to your forehead.”

  “I take it that is the way to agree with your proposal?” She hadn’t quite intended it to come out so petulant, but damn.

  “Lady, please.”

  “I have to know what you want.”

  “Isn’t that obvious? Ever since I saw you, my heart has burned for you. I tried to be distant, I tried to be proper, but I cannot deny it any longer. Have I not shown you my total commitment, my undivided love? Please, for now just do as I say. We can talk later.”

  Jessica took a step back. “No.”

  “Lady, please, however much I love your independence and the way you think for yourself, this is not the time to be stubborn. Whatever happens, you will be coming to Miran anyway. Commander Satarin has brought undercover soldiers to force you to come with him. His promises of taking you home are untrue. They want you for what you are, for what you can do. Why go with him and live as prisoner, while you can live in luxury with me and still contribute to our great nation?” Light blue eyes met hers out of his sweat-slicked face. Lips parted, his breath came in shallow gasps that made the medallion on his chest glitter.

  Jessica pushed his hand away, remembered how he had spoken of opportunities, of learning, of power and wealth in Miran. She felt sick. “How long have you known all this? Did you know about the Exchange—that it couldn’t be my fault?”

  Silence. His throat moved when he swallowed.

  “Tell me. Were you playing the game?” And she had been so blind to believe him? To believe that she had been the cause of the transfer?

  “Lady, I confess I was playing the game, in the beginning.”

  “You were on the flight so you could kidnap me?”

  He looked down. “Yes, I was, but—”