by Sharon Lee
"No, ma'am." He cleared his throat. "That is, not exactly."
"I would be delighted," she said dangerously, "to learn what it is I am to understand."
"Certainly." More throat clearing. "Ms. Faztherot is an astonishing young woman. She—not only is she several days ahead of the average progress expected of a newly-translated person, but she appears to be making significant progress in areas we have no expertise to measure."
"Indeed." She sighed, fingers tapping on the highly unsatisfactory profit report she had been reviewing. "Could you be more specific?"
"Yes, yes, certainly. I—she . . ." A sigh and another chair-creak. "Normally, a new-translation would drink a little water on the third day; work on eye-hand coordination, sitting up in bed—perhaps even sitting with the legs dangling—between the third and fifth days. Somewhere during those few days, the client will complain of hunger and be given small amounts of gelatin and soup, working toward solid foods. A few cases have been reported where, on the fifth day, the client was able to walk across the room and into the antechamber, sit in the chair and then walk back to bed. That is, I submit, remarkably quick progress and very, very rare."
"And I am to understand that Ms. Faztherot is progressing more rapidly than this?"
"She is eating cheese, bread and also vegetables." Dr. Walney's voice suddenly did not sound nervous at all. "She not only walks, but she exercises. We had thought at first that she was doing dance exercises, and there was some speculation among the staff. The body's previous resident had been something of an artist of the dance. . .. At any rate, Dr. Mowker tells me that these exercises are not dance moves at all, but something he recognizes from his service in the Marines." He faltered and Saxony Belaconto found she was sitting very still, staring at the intercom.
"Well?" she snapped.
"Dr. Mowker," the man said diffidently, "seems to feel that Ms. Faztherot is practicing—well, assassin's moves. She seems—quite dedicated, and there is a clear progress being made. She pursues shifts of two hours—exercise and rest. During her rest periods, she works on eye-hand coordination and fine precision." He cleared his throat yet again.
"She's threatened several of my staff members, Ms. Belaconto, and refuses both drugs and the assistance of the physical therapists. The Resurrection Therapist won't go near her at all."
"I will come and speak with her," she heard her own voice say.
"Ma'am?"
"I said," she snapped, "that I will come and give Ms. Faztherot a lesson in manners, since she seems to require one. In the meantime, you and your center will fulfill your contract with me, Dr. Walney. Do I make myself clear?"
There was clear reluctance in his voice. "Yes, Ms. Belaconto. I—thank you. When can we expect to see you?"
She tapped her fingers once upon the report, recalled the shine of murder in Gem ser Edreth's eyes, and pushed her chair away from the desk.
"I'll come at once," she said, and cut the connection.
* * *
The antechamber was lit with the light of many lamps, set all around the wall, so there were no shadows anywhere. Strewn about were pieces of clothing, some buttoned and zipped and sealed, others gaping open, as well as bits of knotted and braided string, twists of wire, and several different keyboards.
In the midst of all the clutter and glare, sitting facing the vanity's large oval mirror, was a girl of exquisite loveliness, dressed in loose tunic and pants, bare feet crossed neatly under the upholstered bench. As Saxony stepped into the room, the girl's ebony eyes found and tracked her in the mirror.
Three days translated, by the gods! Saxony stared at her, unwillingly recalling the painfully slow relearning that had characterized her own translation, eight years ago.
"I am Saxony Belaconto," she said, all the hauteur and assurance of a Vornet leader ringing in her voice.
The delicate brows rose as a slim hand fumbled for a moment among the oddments atop the vanity and closed upon a comb. She raised the comb and brought it deliberately down the length of hair shimmering over her shoulder.
"Are you," she said, and used the comb again.
"I am." Saxony moved forward a bit, just to the edge of the mirror's range. "Has your cousin told you about me?"
Corbinye carefully divided her hair into three portions, laid the comb down and began to weave a braid.
"You are a Grounder captain," she said, off-handedly. "You deal destruction and demand service of freemen." She raised her eyes to the mirror and Saxony found her gaze caught and held. "They say that you are my patron here."
"They say correctly," she said, breaking that oddly compelling gaze and moving out of the mirror's influence.
"Then," said Corbinye, minding her braid, "it is you I must thank for this body I find myself within, for it was your henchmen beat my own so badly it could not be healed."
"You are," Saxony suggested, "grateful."
Corbinye turned her head; stared at her out of depthless black eyes for the space of three heartbeats.
"Beatings inspire no gratitude, Saxony Belaconto."
"And yet you should be grateful," Saxony persisted. "For life is sweet, and the body you seem to scorn is seemly."
Corbinye snorted. "Am I a courtesan? And while life may be sweet, you hold mine hostage, which I find bitter indeed." She finished the braid and found a bit of ribbon on the vanity top. It took her two tries to pick it up. "You use me to compel Anjemalti to do what you wish. Better I had died than I ever shame Ship and Crew by placing the Captain in danger."
"Touching," Saxony said, coming forward; "and enlightening, as well. Who would have thought a barbarian had such a high notion of honor?"
Corbinye tied the ribbon around the braid-tail and looked up, black eyes fearless, no expression at all on the smooth, lovely face.
"Listen to me, barbarian," Saxony said, low and vicious. "You will stop threatening the staff of this place. You will do as you are told. When the time has come, you will be brought to my house, where you will continue to do precisely what you are told. If you do not do these things," she finished, "I will kill your cousin."
The big eyes widened. "Has he already done what you demanded of him?"
Saxony straightened. "Did I say when I would kill him?"
"I see," said Corbinye, and tossed her braid behind her back. "Enlightening. Who would have thought that even a Grounder captain would hold no notion of honor at all?"
Saxony's hand rose even as Corbinye turned her face away and began to tidy the objects on the vanity. Saxony clenched her hand and put it into her pocket.
"I will cease to terrify the Grounders charged with my care," Corbinye said softly. "And when I come to you I shall behave as befits a guest." She raised her head. "I will continue to exercise and work and refine this body. It is I who must live here, and I have certain requirements. Also, it is necessary that I have the proper measure of my limitations and strengths."
"Very well." Saxony stepped back; turned to go.
"Saxony Belaconto!"
She turned back. "What is it?"
"The man you call Gem ser Edreth is not without resources, Saxony Belaconto—do not think that you feud with some crewless rogue captain." She stood, easily, gracefully. "A word in your ear." She smiled. "From gratitude."
"See that you mind your manners," Saxony snapped, and Corbinye inclined her head.
"You have my word."
"Keep it." She whirled on her heel, went out the door and with a snarl collected the bodyguard she had left just outside. Three days translated—and gods knew how dangerous! And it was imperative she be kept alive, or Gem ser Edreth would have no leash at all.
It was becoming increasingly more important that Gem ser Edreth be tightly leashed, indeed.
Chapter Twenty
He woke with sun glaring in his face; cheek resting on a mildewed page, arms flung haphazardly across a vast drift of books. He inhaled sharply—choked and began to sneeze on the ambient dust—and jerked upright, wincing at h
is back's protest.
The sneezing abated and he rubbed at his streaming eyes with grimy fingers, blinking at the glowing desk lamp and the row of respectful spiders sitting along its rim.
Slowly, careful of cramped legs and spine, he eased out of the rickety chair and stretched; checked his wrist and bit off a curse.
Nearly six hours wasted in sleep while he was no wiser regarding the Trident than he had been when he had slipped into the Library twelve hours ago and had been relieved both to find the place standing unmolested and that someone had disposed of Shilban's body.
"No Blue House for you, lucky old man," Gem whispered, and shook himself sharply, lest he indulge in another bout of swearing directed at Saxony Belaconto and her tribe of murderers.
No Blue House for the scholar—and no help for Gem, who had some skill as a researcher, but none to match Shilban's genius, and who was armed with a puzzle that was like to be his downfall. And Corbinye's, as well.
Wearily, he sat back in the chair, ignoring his stomach's growling, and pulled the crumbling volume he'd fallen asleep over into the pool of light beneath the patient spiders.
"And in the beginning was the Father and the Sister and the Brother and each held a mighty instrument of power." The passage was faded, cracking, splotched with mildew. Gem squinted and reached up to adjust the lamp.
"Time wore wearily on. The Brother and the Sister copulated and their union produced children, who became the Five Telios of the Bindalche.
"More time passed, and the Father and the Brother and the Sister decided to test the might of their weapons, each against the other, to see who was the greatest of the three. The contest raged for years, as the Telios measure time, and laced the sky with lightnings, broke mountains, sundered valleys, boiled and loosed the seas.
"The Brother fell first, his Spear of Light shattered by the Father's Sword, and in giving up its magic, destroyed the Brother, though he was a god.
"Then the Father joined battle with the Sister—Sword against Trident—and the skies opened and rained rock down upon the wondering Telios, while strange winds blew from all directions at once, and snow fell, blinding, while the sun burned the land to dust."
Gem frowned, rubbed at his forehead and carefully lifted the fraying page to turn it.
"After season upon season of striving against each other, the Father at last cornered the Sister in a cul-de-sac of heaven and raised his sword to sever the Trident and prove himself most powerful.
"But the Sister brought the Trident up and stared at the Father, remembering that the Father had slain her Brother and her Lover and, in an anger so great the seas roared and the ground buckled, she thrust hard and true and impaled the Father upon the Trident's prongs.
"The Father screamed and flamed and died, Sword rupturing as he went. Likewise, the Sister screamed, and threw the Trident from her in loathing before she turned her thought upon herself and followed Brother and Father into unlife."
"Nice family," Gem mumbled and knuckled his eyes before turning the page again.
"The Trident fell among the Telios, who gathered 'round, but did not dare lay hands upon it. The great chiefs of the Bindalche came and fasted and dreamed beside it and in their dreams it was told that the Trident was the guardian and the master of the Bindalche, children of the Brother and the Sister, grandchildren of the Father; and that the deeds of the Trident are inextricably bound up in the deeds of the Bindalche and in the deeds of those the Trident chooses.
"For, lo, the Trident does chose its own pathway, for the glory of its Children, and one shall be appointed by the Telios to walk three steps behind and mark well the Trident's choices."
What? Gem read that bit again, trying to ignore the cramping of his belly—in fear? in hunger?
"And the Trident shall go where the Trident shall go, according to its own need and desire and the duty of he who walks behind shall be to watch and remember rightly until such time as his memory becomes the memory of the Telios and another is called to follow the Trident's choice."
"Bodyguard," Gem whispered, leaning back in the chair and staring, unseeing at the motionless row of spiders. "Jarge Menlin comes home with the Trident and a bodyguard—who is no bodyguard at all, but the Trident's memory." He snorted. "The Trident's operator, more likely!" He recalled the bits of technology fused to the Trident's skin—and the ugly little myth hinted that the Trident was technology of some alien sort. . ..
"Gods of fools and children." He closed his eyes.
After a time, he opened them again, gathered his spiders up, straightened the desk and turned out the light. On his way down the stairs, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored ceiling—rumpled, grimy, hair dusty and straggling out of the ribbon, a smear of gray book dust on his cheek, another across his forehead.
On the verandah, he paused to order his thoughts. First, a shower, clean clothes. Breakfast. Then, a stop at the Blue House, to check on Corbinye's progress before he spoke with Saxony Belaconto.
Chapter Twenty-One
She sat behind the desk and stared at him as he came down the room; a tallish and slender young man dressed in quiet elegance, from the glittering hand-rings to the cunning, spider-shaped brooch pinned over his heart, the very picture of civilized sophistication. Which appearance, she had learned from his cousin just recently, could be very misleading.
"Well, Master ser Edreth."
"No," he said coldly, stopping and fixing her in those large and remarkable eyes; "not well, lady."
"I'm distressed to hear you say it," she drawled. "In what humble way may the Vornet assist you?"
He glanced at his wrist, then back up to her face. "By allowing me to visit my cousin." He waited, and when she did nothing more than lift her eyebrows, added: "The Blue House turned me away, saying that my name had been struck from the Visitor's Roster—and that it was at your instruction."
"Surely, Master ser Edreth, I am not such a fool as to grant you unlimited time to visit your so-lovely cousin while you have a job to do for me." She paused. "Quite a challenging job, I do believe, and one that should, in all fairness, command your entire attention. Time enough for lust and familial remembrances when the job is through."
Impossibly, the large eyes widened; he glanced at his wrist again and bowed, slightly and ironically. "Indeed, as you point out, a very challenging job. And one that grows more challenging by the hour. I had originally thought to come here, not on behalf of my cousin, but to discover whether there was anything else that the Vornet was hiding from me?"
She stiffened. "And what does that mean?"
"Why, only that the Vornet left it to me to discover that the artifact it desires in fact is contained in two packages, rather than one." Another quick glance at his wrist.
"A minor problem," she drawled, relaxing slightly, "for an artist such as yourself, sir."
"Hardly." The eyes were sapphire cold. "I am not a kidnapper, lady."
Deliberately, she pushed the chair back and stood, making no effort to mask her displeasure.
"You will explain yourself and then you will be gone about your business, Master ser Edreth. I do not exist for your amusement or your convenience. I remind you a second time that you have a commission to fulfill and that time is a precious commodity."
He shrugged, markedly uncowed by her display. "It is merely that it astounds me," he said, and the irony in his voice crackled along her nerves, so that she longed to slap his face, or to call in a bullteam and have him hurt more fully, "that the researchers of the Vornet, who must be among the best in the business of garnering information, should have missed the fact of the Trident's operator."
"Operator." She blinked at him. "Jarge Menlin controls the Trident."
"Not so," he corrected sharply. "The Trident currently resides with Jarge Menlin and the Bindalche tithe him because of it. But the important person—the Trident's operator—is the one your report dismisses as a mere bodyguard. Without this man, the Trident is merely an interesting pre-t
ech art object." He glanced at his wrist; back to her face. "I repeat: I am not a kidnapper."
She thought, and he glanced at his wrist yet again, so that she snapped at him to have done. "You were the one who forced this interview, Master ser Edreth! Leave over looking at your watch!"
He started; bowed. "Certainly, lady."
She frowned. "Shall I detach one of my own to go with you and deal with the operator's persuasion?"
He laughed, and the spider on his tunic seemed to blink its purple eyes.
"Those you employ seem clumsy in the extreme, lady. If an equal may say it to you. I merely wish you to be apprised of the case; to inquire whether there is anything else the Vornet knows that it has not told me; and to inform you that the deadline runs a fair possibility of not being met, in light of this complication."
She went cold; drew herself stiffly up. "The deadline is not negotiable, Master ser Edreth. Do not speak to me of complications. You refuse the Vornet's assistance. The Trident and whatever must attend it to make it whole will be here in this room no later than First Dawn, Obret eighteenth." She stared at him intently. "Understand me: If these things are not in this room by one minute after Dawn's chime, your cousin is forfeit."
"I understand you, lady." He bowed, with a show at least of respect. "I leave you now, with permission."
"Go," she said curtly, and watched him walk, all graceful, across the room and out the door. When the door closed, she sat down, hard; and covered her face with her hands.
* * *
Gem went down the hall and was let out into the dimming Second Noon by an armed guard. He went down the steps into the street, well pleased with himself and with Number Eleven, riding so bravely on his tunic.
Mapped, analyzed and recorded by spider senses were each bug, telltale and alarm node in Saxony Belaconto's private office. Gem grinned as he turned his steps toward MidTown.
Such information was very, very valuable.