Julur was rising to his feet. Joshim spared him only a glance, confident that Vidar and the others had him covered. Web-cramp. Of course, after so long out of the web … How long would Rafe remain unconscious? It depended on how many previous episodes he had suffered, on how long it had been since the first one. If he had not disengaged, if he had another attack while he was unconscious … Joshim made himself remain calm, made himself remember that there were others besides Rafe whose lives depended on his decisions now.
“If he dies, you die,” he said brutally. “Julur we need to get us safely out of here. You we don’t.” It was not an empty promise, he assured the Gods silently.
“Hardly a satisfactory resolution for anybody.” Braniya wound the linkage more tightly around her hand. “You and he both seem remarkably careless with his life.”
Julur was moving to her side. “Remarkable indeed, when he expresses such a deep—if confused—affection for you under Gadrine.” Devoid of recognizable emotion, his voice had none of Ayvar’s redeeming humanity. “I think, however, I must trust his judgement about you, and believe that you would allow him to be killed to save your companions’ lives. For some curious reason, he finds that admirable in you. I find it wholly alarming.” He glanced into the web. “You may wish to know that he is conscious again.”
“And in control of the air.” The voice was thready, but recognizably Rafe’s. “Don’t worry, Braniya. If I shut it off, disconnecting my contacts won’t restore it. You could go down in history as the woman who killed an Emperor.”
“You’re bluffing,” Braniya snapped.
“Call it,” Rafe suggested. “But oughtn’t you ask Julur’s permission first? He’s got more to lose than the rest of us.”
“Release the linkage,” Julur ordered, chopping his hand viciously down onto Braniya’s wrist, pinning it to the edge of the web-casing. “I have decided. There will be no deaths. There is more at issue here than any of you understand.”
“More than your sweating pink skin?” Rafe mocked. “Somebody get me out of here. Before I throw up.”
He allowed Joshim to remove his web-contacts and help him off the couch, but pulled determinedly free of his support when he was standing upright.
“Somebody should shove the point of their beamer in Julur’s ribs,” he said. “To make sure he behaves himself on the way out. And to make sure that nobody tries to stop us.”
“I have sworn there will be no trouble,” Julur objected.
“We know how much that’s worth,” Joshim said grimly, following Rafe’s advice. “Vidar, take care of Braniya. Peri, help Rafe if he needs it.” Even if he did not want Joshim’s help, he would be grateful for another shoulder to lean on. And Julur as hostage was a better guarantee of safety than any number of ready beamers.
* * *
“Message from Bhattya, ma’am.” In his excitement, Fadir forgot to knock. “They’re on their way back. With Rafe and the Old Emperor.”
“I should hope so,” Rallya growled. “Joshim and Vidar learned to look after themselves years ago. Which is probably more than you’ll ever manage.” She looked up at the apprentice, wondering why he had stayed to plague her instead of stowing away for the second time. “Tell me, Fadir, are your pants too tight, or is there some better reason for you to be dancing from one foot to the other?”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Don’t apologize. If you don’t take the Oath, you could almost make a living as a clown.”
“Not take the Oath, ma’am? But…”
“It was a joke, Fadir. Now, get out of here. And tell my fool of a secretary to arrange accommodation for another damned Emperor.”
From Central Station News
…The Emperors Julur and Ayvar are both currently visiting Central to discuss the renegotiation of their Oaths. This historic occasion is the first time the Emperors have met each other since the Empires were divided…
356/5043
CENTRAL ZONE
“You’ve got the gods’ own luck,” Rallya accused Rafe. “Or has Joshim finally learned some prayers that work?”
“I knew you’d be pleased to see me.” Rafe slumped into the nearest seat, wearing a hands-off look that was keeping Joshim at more than arm’s length. “Especially if I brought you an Emperor to argue with.”
“Two,” Rallya said smugly. “The other one is here as well.” And neither of them would be leaving before she had their new Oaths. Oaths so tight it would slit their own throats if they broke them.
“Ayvar’s here?” Rafe’s voice was flat with weariness and something beneath that. “Does he know I’m safe?”
“If Fadir didn’t forget the message I gave him.”
“Then he’ll be here soon.” Rafe glanced at Joshim and away again guiltily.
“You need some sleep,” Joshim said. “Everything else can wait.”
“About a year of sleep,” Rafe conceded. “Is it Guild Commander Rallya now?”
“Gods and Emperors, no,” Rallya said vehemently.
“She’s the only one that doesn’t admit it,” Joshim contradicted her. “There’s still a Council, but she decides everything important.”
“Only until they can be trusted to get it right,” Rallya insisted.
“A few years then.” Rafe closed his eyes, hiding behind grey lashes. “Gods help us all.”
“Huh. Why don’t you stop making my office look untidy and let Joshim take you to bed?”
Rafe shook his head. “Nobody is taking me to bed. I can get there by myself, if I’m pointed in the right direction.”
“It looks like it,” Rallya said scornfully. It looked like Rafe was holding himself together by willpower alone. If he managed to leave that chair, it would only be because somebody picked him up and carried him. A pity Joshim showed no sign of doing it.
“Before things get—more complicated—I need to tell you something Julur said. It’s the F’sair who are trying to steal Guild secrets. I don’t know if he’s paying them but he’s definitely encouraging them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when I’m rewriting the Oaths,” Rallya said grimly. “And discuss it with the F’sair—peaceably, or not.”
“I could almost feel sorry for them,” Rafe muttered.
“You should,” Rallya promised.
“He’ll be in here, sir.” Fadir’s voice, as proud as if he had rescued Rafe personally.
“Thank you.”
Ayvar came straight to Rafe’s side, knelt beside him and kissed him on the mouth, long and lovingly. Rallya looked away, angry—hurt—for Joshim. Joshim did not move.
“Gods, Lin, I’ve missed you,” Ayvar said eventually, gripping both Rafe’s hands. “To think you were dead, and then to know that Julur had you…”
“I … didn’t miss you,” Rafe said shakily. “The identity wipe…”
“I forgive you,” Ayvar said lightly.
“You haven’t much choice.”
“I forgive you most things.”
“Eventually.”
“You should be in bed.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“The only question is whose,” Rallya broke in, unable to bear Joshim’s stillness any longer. Somebody had to make him fight.
“I’ve told you. Nobody’s.” Rafe pulled his hands away from Ayvar, stood up, managing not to take the help Ayvar offered.
“There’s a spare bed in my suite, Lin.”
“Please, ’Var … Rafe is easier…” He stopped by the door with his back to all of them. “I can’t throw ten years away. Not any of it.” Rallya could not see his fists but she could hear that they were clenched.
“I’m not asking you to. I’m not asking you for anything, Lin. Rafe.”
“You are. You will.” Rafe turned round with an effort. “I know what you’ll ask me for. You’ll ask me to stop webbing. You always do. Every time I’m in combat. Every time I get a new assignment to an active zone. And now you’ll use what Julur’s done to try to persuade
me to stay with you. Won’t you?”
“It wouldn’t work. I know that.” Ayvar made a gesture of resignation. “I’ll admit, I don’t want you in a patrolship. I don’t think I could bear to mourn you again.”
“You’ll have to do it eventually,” Rafe said harshly.
“You could stay in the Guild—still web—without being Commander of a patrolship. Commander Rallya doesn’t want to stay on the Council. You could take her place…”
“Stop planning my future for me!” Rafe yelled. “I don’t want to be on the Council any more than Rallya does.”
“And I wouldn’t stand aside for you,” Rallya added drily. “Having seen the havoc you can wreak as a First, I dread to think what you’d achieve as Guild Commander.” She looked across at Joshim, wondering how much longer he could be so blind. “There is another option, Rafe. Since I’m the only person I can trust to run this damned desk properly, Bhattya is short of a Commander. Temporarily. And since she’s been mine since she came out of the construction dock, I’ve the right to choose my replacement.”
Ayvar glared at her. Rafe looked past them both at Joshim. “Would you…”
Say yes, you fool, Rallya urged Joshim.
“Yes,” Joshim said simply.
“You’d have to ask Vidar…”
“I have.” Joshim moved, passing Ayvar to go to Rafe’s side. “Even a Commander has to take Webmaster’s orders,” he said, smiling a little. “Especially a Webmaster who knows what Hafessya saw you doing. Bed. Before you fall over.” He slipped an arm around Rafe to support him; Rafe did not fight it.
“Lin.”
Rafe paused in the doorway, still holding onto Joshim.
“You’ll come to me when you can?” Ayvar asked.
“Yes.” Very quietly.
Thank the gods that was settled, Rallya thought as Joshim closed the door. The outcome had been obvious to anybody with a pair of brain cells, but like most spectator sports, love was chiefly enjoyable for the incompetence of its participants.
“Looks like you and Julur both lost him,” she said to Ayvar with satisfaction.
“Temporarily.” He sat in the seat that Rafe had left.
“He won’t change his mind.”
“I can afford to wait.” Ayvar smiled broadly. “You’re a loser too, in your own terms.”
Rallya scowled around the office. “Tell me that when I’ve written you an Oath so tight even Julur can’t break it.” She lifted her feet onto the desk. There were some compensations—the pain-killers for her hip for one, and the chance to see Rafe make fools of two Emperors. She frowned, thinking just what fools he had made of them. They were both so damned irrational over him, and so determined to keep him alive…
“Oh gods,” she breathed in disbelief. “You can afford to wait, can’t you?”
Ayvar smiled again. “A few tens of years,” he confirmed.
“Does he know?”
“No, and it would be a kindness not to tell him. He’ll have to live with it for long enough when he does realize. I want him to have what mortal life he can.”
“Oh gods,” Rallya repeated. “Two of you are enough trouble. Three of you, including him…” Having seen the havoc he can wreak as a First, I dread to think what he’d achieve … Her own words came back to her with force. Rafe as an immortal, as an Emperor … She shivered, for him and for all the people he would touch. “Over my dead body he gets control of the Guild.”
It was the wrong thing to say about an immortal.
A Note on the Author
www.bloomsbury.com/HelenSWright
Helen S. Wright is a British author, born in Birmingham in 1958. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls and then studied physics at Imperial College, London before going on to work over a thirty-year period in a wide variety of Information Technology roles in the electricity generation and supply industry. Her first novel, A Matter of Oaths, originally published in 1988, has been revived by Bloomsbury Caravel for a whole new generation of readers. She never married, and currently lives on the Gloucester/Wiltshire border.
First published in Great Britain in 1988 by Methuen
This electronic edition published in 2017 by Bloomsbury Caravel
Copyright © 1988 Helen S. Wright
Jacket image Copyright © Getty Images
The moral right of the author is asserted.
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