“Something has happened.” Feyó looked toward the Council entrance, where a greater than normal number of brown-garbed security guards had arrayed themselves. “But no one will tell us. Security dominants only stare when we speak to them. It is most unseemly.”
Meva turned and started toward the Council entry’s triple-wide doorway, beckoning for Jani walk with her. “Feyó told me that she again saw ní Tsecha during sleep. He bared his teeth. I wish I could have such dreams. Such a sight I used to see each day and did not think of it. Now I think of it constantly, and wish I could see it again.” She quickened her step so she could walk next to Jani, a blip in the steady state of idomeni hierarchical protocols. “I viewed images of you speaking of him to the Haárin. Such was a good thing, and truly.” She touched the sleeve of Jani’s overrobe. “Do you know that which you will say?”
Jani shook her head. “No idea.”
Meva bared her teeth. “Good. If you do not know, then Cèel cannot possibly guess, which means he cannot prepare.”
They continued along the walkway, up the steps and through the entry, side by side.
Rilas awoke. Removed Ansu’s clothing and donned the rough garb of a building worker, wrapping the braids of her breeder’s fringe in a length of cloth and binding them to her head so she would look as a shorn-headed Haárin. Packed the ammunition and the secondary in a worker’s slingbag, then broke down the rifle and packed that as well. Opened the workroom door and looked both ways. She heard nothing, saw no one. The workrooms at the base of the dome were not of the best, and not many used them. She was alone, of that she felt most sure.
She walked down the corridor to the stairway and down, down and down to the street. Busy as always in the morning, both bornsect and Haárin, workers and brokers and merchants, entering and leaving. She blended with them, as she had been taught.
A pair of brown-garbed security suborns walked past her. She thought nothing of such—Council and Temple lay near and many security labored there.
Then she saw another pair, and another, and knew. That Ansu’s body had been found and Cèel now searched for her. She bared her teeth at the thought. You did not wish to see me, nìRau, but now you wish to see me a great deal.
She walked as a tired worker, her gait plodding, and headed north toward the Haárin enclave. She saw fewer security suborns as she neared the place, which she expected. Haárin took charge of their own. They also did not work well with Cèel’s security, who demanded much and provided little. She doubted, and truly, that they knew anything of the search for her.
She approached the enclave entry. Walked past the gate sentry, who did not look up as she passed. Down the first lane of houses, in search of one that was empty.
A small house, with a window that faced the bay.
All she needed was a window. The secondary would do the rest.
She set the bag upon the floor. Assembled the rifle and inserted the ammunition cartridge. Activated the secondary and loosed it, watched it flit upward until it vanished. Activated the sight mech and waited for the blinking green indicating that the two had interfaced.
Rested the rifle barrel within the window corner. Looked through the sight mech and saw the Council grounds.
Click
The line of windows that faced the gardens.
Click
Through the windows, into the Council chamber beyond.
Rilas curled around the rifle. Held it close.
Waited.
Jani entered the Council chamber. It was a multistoried space, the masonry cut by windows on the side facing the bay, tiered seating lining the other three walls.
Tsecha brought me here once. He had still been bornsect in that time before the war, had still used his born name of Nema. How that name had sounded along the corridors when the other Council members realized that the propitiator of the Vynshà had brought one of his humanish inside the blessed space.
At least it was not Temple, one of the councilors had said. That fact hadn’t helped.
Jani matched the room she remembered with the room she stood in now. The same pale sand walls and tiled floors, the Sìah chandeliers and artwork of all the major bornsects. The bombs had missed it, a miracle, given the battering the Vynshà inflicted on the city before they entered it on that last night. The night the Laum lost the right to call themselves “rau.” The night eighty-five percent of their bornsect population died. The Night of the Blade.
“It is most as it was,” Meva said as she paused next to her. “Most as I recall.” She stared out the window at the bay, then followed Feyó to the seating.
Jani looked to the entry on the other side of the chamber. First would come the line of suborns, lowliest first. Then the dominant aides, followed by the Sub-Oligarch and the Speaker to Colonies. Then would come Cèel.
Jani’s heart tripped and slowed as the first of the suborns filed through the entry and the councilors walked to their seats and the humanish groups broke up and scattered to their preassigned positions. She walked toward the tiered seats where the propitiators gathered. I accused his killers. I walked behind his reliquary. Wore his rings, and his robe. Held his soul. I have the right.
Jani felt the stares, heard the questioning mutters, as she stepped over the lowest, highest rated, tier and on to the second. She triangulated according to her relationship with Tsecha, the size of Thalassa, and the status due to her Vynshàrau blood. The number of times she had fought in the circle. Given all that, the fourth row seemed fair. Three rows lower than Meva, who watched her silently. Not presuming much, but not giving anything away, either. Pushing just enough, as was her way.
“Kilian?”
Jani sat, then looked down toward the floor to find a flustered-looking Scriabin trying to lean over the seats to talk to her without falling over any agitated priests.
“What the…?” He almost placed his hand over his mouth, but stopped in time and put it behind his back instead. “What are you doing?”
“This is my place, Your Excellency.” Jani spread out her overrobe as she saw a few other propitiators had done, expanding her personal space a little more. “Given all I’ve done and what I am, it is an appropriate place, and truly.” She bared her teeth. “Go sit down.” She flicked a finger in the direction of Ulanova and the others, who stood in the middle of the floor and looked on in alarm.
“Do you know what the hell you’re doing?” Scriabin’s face reddened. “Do you?”
“I do that which I do, Your Excellency. I am that which I am.” Jani folded her hands in her lap and turned her attention to the entry in time to see the Speaker to Colonies enter. “Go sit down.”
“What the hell are you doing, gel?” Niall’s voice in her ear.
Jani didn’t reply, didn’t hunt for Niall’s face among the many. She ignored his intrusion as she ignored Scriabin’s continued bids to get her attention, and waited.
Morden nìRau Cèel had always cut an imposing figure. A dour warrior who stood over two meters tall, dark as Vynshàrau but with the green eyes of Sìah. He had led the Vynshà armies and their Haárin cohorts during the final stages of the War of Vynshàrau Ascension, had spent the last weeks of that war in the hills that ringed Rauta Shèràa. First he’d directed the bombings that shattered half the city. Then, on that last night, he had ordered the Haárin to swarm over what remained, blades in hand, and slaughter the Laum who remained.
Such is what they do, what they had done for thousands of years. Such is how idomeni wage war. And the humanish side of Jani still reeled from the memory. Of the lines of Laum, standing in line as for bread or billets, their shirts open, waiting for the sword.
Cèel walked directly to his low seat in the front row of the Vynshàrau section, crossed his ankles and lowered to the floor. His status thus announced, he finally looked around the chamber. His gaze settled first on Feyó, who had taken a seat in another tier with other Sìah Haárin, then on Meva. He gestured to her, baring his teeth when she curved her shoulders
in reply.
Then he looked toward the humanish seats, which had been scattered throughout the chamber with no rhyme or reason that Jani could discern.
Two reasons I can think of for that. She fussed with an overrobe cuff. One is symbolic—dilute the hated humanish. The other made tactical sense—split the enemy. Prevent them from conferring, comparing notes. Offering one another moral support. She watched Cèel as he continued to scan the seats, once, then again, then again. As though he searched for someone. His gaze moved over the propitiators’ tiers and he stilled. Cocked his head.
Then his shoulders curved as though they cramped, and the voice that made John’s sound like air through a tin whistle boomed.
“You dare! Anathema! Half-humanish thing!” High Vynshàrau, replete with gesture, curve of hand and twist of arm and neck, the click and clatter of translator headsets being jammed into place serving as background music.
Jani glanced at the headset that hung from a hook on the seat in front of her. Realized she didn’t need it. The Vynshàrau sounded as Acadian French to her ears, a language of dreams, basic as breathing. “I am that which I am and I sit where I will.” She pitched her voice low as a show of aggravation and lack of respect, but didn’t curve her shoulders just yet. “I killed Laumrau as they took sacrament, contaminated godly ceremony with humanish action. Humanish filth.” Her heart beat strong and her limbs felt as the air as rage that had built since Tsecha’s death took hold. “But I was humanish then. Such was my excuse.” She bared her teeth. “What was yours, Morden nìRau Cèel? For killing ní Tsecha Egri as he stood upon a road, forsaking godly challenge and the cleansing act of war? What excuse had you to kill him secretly, in such a way that sickens even humanish?” Finally, she let her shoulders curve, until her back twisted so she could barely see over the priest who sat in front of her. “If I am anathema, what are you?”
The inside of the Council chamber played across the sight mech. Rilas fixed on the edge of the dark head, the curve of neck that she knew as well as her own. Then Cèel moved back, beyond the scope of the secondary, the view blocked by a section of brick.
Rilas twitched the settings on the sight mech, forcing the secondary higher until it cleared the section of wall. If she had planned better, she would have stolen a hair from Cèel’s head, a drop of his blood, and typed the secondary to him so it would sense him as the one made for Tsecha had sensed its target. If I had planned…if I had known. But she could not have known. Betrayal was, Cèel had taught her, a humanish failing.
She twitched the setting again. Again.
Cèel rose, his back a crippling curve, and started across the floor toward Jani.
“You think if you rise, you lose standing?” Jani stood, straightening her spine as much as she could. “I can stand before you and still call you what you are.” She stepped over the bench, then down to the next, then down to the floor as Cèel scrabbled toward her.
Rilas fixed on the dark head. Held her breath.
Pressed the charge-through.
Jani heard. A muffled bang, as though a bird struck a window.
Glass, clattering to the floor. A splash of blood.
A beat of silence. Then the humanish screams, the idomeni cries.
Security dominants surrounded Cèel, who pressed a hand to his face, blood seeping between his fingers. Humanish security herded their charges away from windows and idomeni leapt down from the tiered seats.
“Jan!” Niall ran to her. “Get over—” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the side near the main entry, where Scriabin and the others stood clustered.
“Who do you think fired that shot?” Jani tried to pull out of his grip, but he had her like a manacle and all she could do was follow.
Galas stood talking with Burkett, his hand locked around Feyó’s wrist just as Niall’s was around Jani’s.
“Galas said that there was an unusual amount of activity on the Council security frequencies earlier this morning.” Niall continued to herd Jani toward the wall. “He tried to eavesdrop, but he was blocked. Tried to tap an old source, but all he could get was that there was an accident at the Temple hospital. A physician-priest died in an accident.”
“Who sends out hot and cold running security guards because of accidents? They were stacked two deep in front of the entry when we arrived.” Jani gripped Niall’s fingers with her free hand and tried to pry them open. “Look at Cèel.”
Niall turned just as the male pulled a security dominant to one side, started talking in a manner stripped of gesture. “Jan, he’s just been through an assassination attempt—”
“Those aren’t the moves of an Oligarch who’s just been shot at and is taking instruction from his security team. Those are the moves of a ringleader directing the show.”
“He’s a warrior, for chrissake.”
“He knows who shot at him, and he’s pretty sure where she is, and he’s telling his security dominants where to find her.” Jani tried to bend her arm to break Niall’s hold, but he countered that move as well. “They kept Rilas at the Temple hospital. She escaped. She killed a physician-priest in the process.” She sensed others move close to her. Only Ulanova hung back, her bitterness like armor. “They know where she is and they’re going to track her down and lock her up or kill her. We need to get to her first.”
“Well where the hell is she?” Niall looked to the heavens. “In this whole damned city, where in hell?”
“She feels a closeness to Caith,” said Galas, who now grappled with a squirming Meva. “Such was what the others on the ship stated when they were questioned at Guernsey.”
“Caith’s temple is north of here, the same direction as the shot came from.” Jani smiled. “I know where it is.”
“I’ll take you.” Lucien turned away from a grasping Ulanova and maneuvered next to Jani.
“We’ll take her.” Niall looked toward the main entry. “If they’ll fuckin’ let us out of here.”
They moved toward the main entry, found it blocked by Haárin and humanish and the guards who’d herded them there.
“There’s a side door.” Jani reversed and hurried up a narrow corridor that ran alongside the chamber. “Tsecha and I once escaped through it when some councilors took exception to my presence.”
“Can’t imagine why that would have happened.” Niall stepped in front of her. “I’m going first, just in case.”
Jani fell in behind him. On the way, they passed a wall decorated, as most were in the place, with sets of blades, foursomes and pairs, arranged in squares or crossed like X’s.
Jani took one of the shorter blades from its hook and slipped it into her belt, then followed Niall out the door.
CHAPTER 31
Rilas dropped the rifle, left it where it fell. Grabbed her bag. Ran. Out of the house, into the street. She had never missed a target. Never.
The blessed sun—she felt its heat, even as it failed to warm. Her heart pounded and her hands felt as though she had washed them in snow. He will kill me now. Cèel knew she had killed Ansu, knew she sought to kill him.
She slowed as she came upon Haárin. Rough clothes, as bright in color as birds and insects. Ungodly. They watched her pass, eyes on her face. She turned away.
But not in time.
“You!” An elder male strode after her. “Tileworker!” He waved for her to approach, a humanish gesture that made no sense, relayed no mood or status of request. He could ask her anything. She would not know what to expect until he did so.
“My friend and I—” He waved toward another male, who sat on a chair on front of a house, and bared his teeth when she looked toward him. “—we have a wager. I say that all tileworkers use hand-axes instead of short picks. He says otherwise. We are stopping every tileworker we see to ask them, axe or pick.”
Rilas forced a humanish shrug. “Hand-axe,” she said, and turned to go.
“No.” The elder male stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “You must show us.”
&n
bsp; They claimed a compact two-door from one of the embassy drivers. Stopped by Roshi’s skimmer so Niall and Lucien could recover their weapons, and sped through the Council gate just as it closed. Jani drove because she knew the city best.
“Where are you going?” Niall flinched as they coursed down an alley that allowed only a hand span’s clearance on either side.
“Caith’s temple.” She zipped along a tight roundabout, causing the skimmer to tip up on its side and drawing mutters from the rear of the vehicle.
“You’ll lose contact with the skimtrack.” Lucien braced his hands on the cabin wall and his seat. “This isn’t a damned sports skimmer.”
“I spotted at least twenty-five security folk headed into the Trade Board as we passed.” Niall ignited a ’stick. “Do they think she shot at Cèel from there?”
“I doubt it.” Jani slowed as the alleys grew even narrower, the buildings closer together, blocking the sun and making it seem at times as through she drove through a tunnel. “Her Nahin Sela identity was based there. I’m guessing that others were, too. Cèel is going to bottle up anyone who can identify her and shake loose as many records and other physical evidence as he can.”
“So where does that leave us?” Niall sat forward, checking each alley and dead end. “If he destroys all evidence and captures the killer, what have we got?” He turned to her. “What are you going to do?”
Jani saw the tarnished silver dome in the distance, the temple of Caith. Kept driving, and said nothing. Touched her right ear, activated the ear bug, and heard the Vynshàrau spill into her head. “Cèel’s security is using one of your streams.”
Niall touched his ear. His brow arched. “They must think Rilas has the ability to eavesdrop on all of theirs, so they hijacked one of ours.” He frowned. “You understand what they’re saying?”
Jani nodded. “They think the shot came from the Haárin enclave.” She paused, smiled. “They’re headed toward Caith’s temple. They’re going to capture her there.”
Endgame Page 33