by R A Fisher
She fought down the protests of every muscle in her body, and let Papsukkal take her through the Door one last time.
17
Trust
Syrina counted twenty of them, not including the dogs. She still hadn’t eaten anything, and now she regretted it. She was beginning to think Ormo didn’t want to see her, after all.
There’d been no resistance until now unless she counted that of her own broken body. No guards were in the upper chamber of the hole, nor did any come in on her where she’d passed out on the edge of the prison pit. The basement above was likewise guard-free, as was the small courtyard outside. Ormo must have had some warning of her escape though. He wasn’t in his hall, but twenty Seneschal and their hounds were.
Syrina had intended to eat first, but she’d felt a rush of energy as soon as she’d awoken a free woman. It had pushed hunger to the back of her mind. So close to him, she’d thought. Better to just get it over with. The voice had rambled on about listening and being more careful, and Syrina had felt enormous satisfaction when she’d ignored it and went straight across the courtyard to Ormo’s hall.
The voice continued to complain.
The Eye loomed over the black western wall of the palace, full, but its gaze was turned away. Its violet stripes were more red then blue tonight and turned the white flag raised on Ormo’s tower a bloody purple.
The flag. Ormo was in his hall now. That clinched it. If she waited, he might be gone for a fortnight. Would he honor an appointment if she tried to make one? She didn’t know. Anyway, she’d been trained to deal with little inconveniences like crippling hunger.
She settled for a long drink from one of the fountains in the courtyard and headed to the Hall, brimming with confidence. Ormo knew who she was. He knew she’d escape. It was all part of his plan. Now that she was out, she was sure he’d take her back, no questions asked.
Well, the Seneschal didn’t look like they were going to ask any questions either.
Look at these people. They’re afraid of you.
Under faces trained to be hard, were nervous men and women with eyes that darted between each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move. Syrina was the only one who knew she was in no condition for a fight. Seneschal, too, not just hired swords. The ones who wouldn’t need to be killed after dealing with a Kalis. The ones who knew what they were doing.
Syrina didn’t have enough energy for the fine movements that would let her go unnoticed, a fact she didn’t think about until it was too late. Even so, none of them could see her well enough to make out how emaciated she was, and the group shifted as one, nervous. Only the dogs looked ready. They growled and whined and strained against their tethers, baring their fangs as Syrina’s feet sang across the floor. The only thing she had enough energy to do was play the advantage she didn’t have.
“You guys must’ve done something pretty bad to wind up here,” she said.
More glances, but no one said anything.
She began walking toward the mob of guards and the empty dais, keeping one eye on the dogs, hoping none of the humans could hear her growling stomach over the growl of their hounds.
“Ormo,” she said to the room in general, raising her voice.
It was a show for their benefit. She was sure he was listening, and he’d be able to hear her however loud she spoke.
“I’m sure you’ve spent enough tin training these people that you’d rather I not kill them.”
The three men and one woman standing closest to Syrina edged backward. A hound off to her right snarled and lunged against the leather leash.
“I don’t want to kill them, either,” she said. “Or you. I’m here to talk. With you, if you let me. At you, if you keep hiding. If I still wanted to kill you, you think I would’ve just walked in here like this? You taught me better than that.”
She waited. Still no answer. The Seneschal shuffled in place, but they didn’t give any more ground.
“You can always tell when someone is lying, right? Are you getting old, or does it just not work through walls? Send your people away. I never got to tell you about NRI. Do you want them to hear all this?”
No answer, but there was still no doubt he was listening. These Seneschal were here to deal with Syrina, and he’d want to know how it went.
By now, she was at the base of the dais, and she began to edge around it. She had a good guess of where he’d be. She didn’t know how she’d get in, but she’d cross that bridge if she could get that far. The palace guards in front had backed away again as if Syrina had pushed them with an invisible wall twenty hands in front of her, but the others had closed into a ring behind her to block the only exit.
“He doesn’t want us to kill you,” a woman who’d backed away from the dais said.
Syrina was so surprised that anyone said anything she stopped walking. In all the years she’d spent hanging around the Syndicate complex, nobody but Ormo had said anything to her before. In their eyes, the Kalis were mystical beings lavished with privilege, while the Seneschal were mere servants. Funny, since the Kalis were the slaves. At least the Seneschal were getting paid.
Talking hadn’t been a part of their plan, whatever their plan had been. The others eyed the woman who spoke with looks ranging from suspicion to horror, except for a man standing close to her, who eyed her with a mix of respect and lust. They were a thing, these two. Or at least, she wanted them to be.
Syrina took a step toward the speaker. This time, she didn’t back away.
“Who are you?” Syrina asked.
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you who I am.”
That was probably prudent.
“Okay, fair enough. Since you’re the one who spoke up, what are you doing here?”
“We’re bodyguards.”
“Ormo isn’t here. Whose body are you supposed to be guarding?”
The woman shrugged. “He told us to wait in here, see if a Kalis came. See what she’d do if one showed up.”
“You’re bait, then. And fodder, depending.”
“Basically.” The woman shrugged again.
Syrina liked her.
It was coming together now. Ormo knew Syrina wouldn’t hesitate to take out this lot if she was still burning for revenge. He was waiting for her to make a move. Then he could… what? Fill the Hall with fire? Gas? Neither would be hard for him to set up, and either was the sort of thing the Syndicate liked to put together. Perfect defenses against someone like a rogue Kalis, if she proved to be an investment not worth keeping around. Ormo was probably watching with one hand on the lever that would kill them all.
“So why are you telling me this?” Syrina asked the woman.
The woman, who kept her gaze turned away from Syrina to keep track of her in her peripheral vision, shrugged again and ignored the hisses for silence from the other Seneschal.
“No one said we couldn’t talk to you,” she said, more to her companions than to Syrina. “You’re a Kalis. Maybe you find out he’s not here and kill us because we weren’t supposed to see you. But maybe you have a human heart under that mirage you wear, and if you know why we’re here, you’ll let us live. Even if Ma’is Ormo sends you after me in the morning for talking to you tonight, it’s another ten hours I get to be alive. I’ll take that over being dead right now.”
Syrina couldn’t help but be happy her reputation was being so helpful.
It’s not just your reputation. Technically.
“My business is with Ormo,” Syrina said, her own voice louder than it had been so the voice in her head would know she wasn’t talking to it. “Your death would serve no purpose. If Ormo thinks you’re ranked high enough to be here waiting for me, that’s his business. I’d rather not kill you until he tells me to.”
The woman nodded and shot a triumphant look to the others.
“So here I am,” Syrina said. “Your job is done unless you lied about why you’re here.” It was Syrina’s turn to shrug, though she couldn’t be
sure if anyone noticed it under the tattoos. “In which case, we might as well get this over with.”
The Seneschal glanced at one another while Syrina gave them time to think about it. The woman was the first to shrug one last time, turn, and make the long walk toward the heavy doors at the end of the Hall. By the time she reached them, the rest had turned to follow her out, their feet singing on the stone floor like a flock of agitated mockingbirds. In a minute, Syrina was alone.
“Just you and me now, boss,” she said to the empty room.
She went around to the back of the dais and stared at the white marble of Ormo’s throne, the base of which rested on the gleaming block of obsidian that stood a few fingers higher than her head. She’d seen Ormo emerge from this place scores of times, but there was no trace of a door.
I know this place, the voice said. Or a place like it.
“Really?” She wondered what Ormo thought of her talking to herself. “Is that information going to help me, or are you just talking to make sure I don’t forget you’re there?”
The voice refused to give Syrina an answer that would allow her the satisfaction of being able to argue.
Instead, it said, Put your hand here.
She pressed her right hand against the third polished slab from the floor without realizing what she was doing until she’d already done it. Her hand grew hot and tingled like a thousand needles were pressed against the skin of her fingers. There was a brief pressure, and the facade of the marble block to the right dropped open. Within was a teak and brass lever, polished with wear. She pulled it, and the entire low wall of the dais swung inward, revealing a steep, narrow stairway that descended into the bedrock beneath Ormo’s Hall. The smells of oil and wet copper wafted from the opening on stale air.
The stairs jagged down through solid brown rock. She counted two hundred steps before they stopped at a white door with the texture and feel of porcelain, but much harder. A curved brass handle was latched into it as if jammed there long after the original construction. The door swung inward on silent hinges to reveal a low-ceilinged square chamber. Empty iron brackets were fixed to the inside of the door, and a heavy oak crossbar leaned against the wall. Ormo was at the opposite end of the room, standing in front of a plain wooden chair, watching her. On her right, rows of switches made from teak, ceramic, and bronze bristled, and valves marked with obscurely marked meters, all connected to a swarm of tangled bronze and brass piping and leather-wrapped wiring. In the center of the chaotic display, a lone panel rested—white like the walls and featureless except for a triangular-shaped hole in the middle, about twice as big around as a thumb. On her left, square glass portals lined the wall from floor to ceiling. Most were dark, but a few glowed a featureless soft white, and a couple flickered with images of landscapes from far above.
Ormo seemed relaxed, his hands hidden within the folds of his robes. Syrina stayed where she was in front of the door, trying to soak everything in without taking her eyes off her Ma’is. She wondered which of the levers he would’ve pulled to kill her and the Seneschal if she’d misbehaved upstairs, and what it would have done.
“Impasse?” He sounded jovial.
His tone annoyed her, but she raised her hands, making the motion as obvious as she could around the tattoos.
“Is it still called an impasse if I’m not trying to kill you?”
“I’m glad that time has come and gone, then.”
For now.
Syrina didn’t risk an answer to that.
“You were right,” she said. “What you’ve done, what I am, they’re a lot more important than my affection for a bird.”
She didn’t trust her skills enough to lie to him outright, but she thought she could work around the truth. They were more important, after all. To everyone in the world but her.
“Very few people can open that door, you know.” Ormo nodded toward the stairway. “Not even all the High Merchants have the touch. Only a few of us have kept a steady line all the way back to the Ancients. I had every intention of ridding myself of you if you made any attempt to open the dais, right up to the point where you were able to do it.” He raised his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “Curiosity won out, and so you live. Now prove to me I won’t regret it.”
“What is this place?” Syrina ignored the threat.
He was either going to kill her or not, and curiosity was winning out in her, too. She risked taking her eyes off him long enough to look around. The floor and ceiling were made of the same white, hard substance as the door.
“What it once was, who knows? Perhaps even a chamber from one of the great starships the Ancients used to get to Eris eons ago. Now it’s my refuge. Passed down from generation to generation, Ma’is to Ma’is, Ormo to Ormo, since the Age of Ashes, or before. This room and a few others like it hold all we know about our Ancestors and their way of life before it was brought to ruin. Even after all these centuries, there is so much in here we don’t understand.”
“And yet you’d risk letting me down here after I tried to kill you?”
“You’re unique, Kalis Syrina. We’ve tried for more generations than you can count to wake the blood in a Kalis. But you’re the first time it worked. A little brash independence, unfortunate though it may be, must be tolerated.”
“So you made me. What am I, then?”
Ormo laughed. “That’s a question you’d be better off asking yourself. Stories—and that’s all they are after all these thousands of years—say the Ancients carried the spirits of their own ancestors within them. Metaphysical blather with a grain of truth? Perhaps, but who now except you could say? A better question is, are you ready to resume your duties? Do you understand what you have now is far more important than your relationship with a stupid bird could ever be?”
“That’s what I said.” She wished he’d stop referring to Triglav as if he’d been just a bird.
Every time he did, she needed to swallow the urge to rush him, most likely to her own demise. That was probably why he was doing it.
“You have my answer,” she said.
Ormo must’ve noticed how guarded her responses were, but he didn’t let it show. Syrina tried not to worry about it.
“Then what did Cairnsworth Menns learn from NRI during his brief tenure there?” Ormo asked.
NRI. It seemed like an eternity ago, and Syrina realized almost all her activity leading up to her imprisonment was centered around her own personal goals. She tried not to think about how much Ormo might know about what she’d been up to.
“Not much.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask her anything about Witt. Hoped even more that he didn’t already know everything. “The going theory is that the Tidal Works—or whatever the thing is that’s running the Tidal Works—draws its energy from the Eye itself rather than from the ebb and flow of the water through it like everyone thinks. No one seems to know what it’s actually doing.”
“And their backers?”
She shrugged. “Tin is coming and going from a lot of different directions like you’d expect. I didn’t find anything solid.”
“That’s not good enough.” Ormo sighed.
“I’ll go back to NRI, then. That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?”
She could try to learn some details about NRI’s involvement in the Witt breeding programs while she was there.
He held her gaze for a long time. “Kalis Syrina, in the future, contact me in the traditional manner.”
She left the way she came in.
18
Back To Work
Marus Thayn was thinking about going home when he passed Menns slipping down the wide hall of Technical Development with his head down, unnoticed by everyone but himself. Thayn hid his surprise at seeing the other man again. He stepped in front of Menns and cleared his throat. Menns looked up from the patterned floor tiles, nodded an acknowledgment, and moved to step around. Thayn moved to block his path again.
Menns stopped, frowning. “Can I help you? I’m afraid
I’m in a bit of hurry.” He once again tried to get around.
“I was hoping to introduce myself.” Thayn cleared his throat again. “We haven’t officially met, and I try to get to know all the new staff. I won’t keep you long. My name is Marus Thayn. NRI Security Head.”
“Ah, yes. Hello. I’m—”
“Yes, I know. Cairnsworth Menns. I’ve seen you around, looked at your file. Just a cursory glance, mind you when I heard you were coming up here to join us. Mind if I walk with you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Thayn stepped aside and fell into pace alongside Menns, who gave a halfhearted smile and started down the hall, slower than he’d been walking before.
“After all I’d heard about you, I was beginning to think we wouldn’t have a chance to meet. No one had seen you around the past few weeks. I thought maybe you’d already gone back to Fom.”
“No, not yet.”
They turned right and began to mount a smoky, windowless granite stairwell, lit by bright round naphtha lamps set into the ceiling on each landing.
Menns’s voice was flat in the stale air. “Finalizing a few things first. Need to get some stuff out of the archives before I finish packing. The paperwork never ends. You know how it is.”
“Ah, so you’ll still be employed with NRI, then?”
“A subsidiary—Palisade Metals. But yes, I’ll still be with NRI.”
They reached the second floor and stopped in front of the Technical Development security check-in, where they lapsed into an awkward silence.
Thayn cleared his throat a third time. “Well, then, I won’t keep you. I hope if your work brings you back here again, we’ll be able to chat more.”
“Likewise.” Menns sounded like he wanted nothing of the sort, and vanished into the room.