“He will not retreat,” Bren said. “Nor will this!” He held the ring in view.
“The aiji’s orders,” Banichi said quietly. “If your man’chi is not to the Shadow Guild, separate yourself from the Guildmaster, or stand in opposition. The Council leadership has committed treason.”
A bell began to ring. Hall overhead lights began to flash. The offices, Bren was thinking. If those offices back there were occupied . . . but the back accesses down that hall were in Cenedi’s territory.
“Shut down your equipment,” Banichi said to the units confronting them. “All of you. Now. Take the aiji’s orders, Daimano’s, Cenedi’s . . . and mine.” It wasn’t working. Not in the four in the background. “Paidhi!” Banichi said.
His job. He was ready for it, on Banichi’s wounded side—he spun around Banichi as Jago did the same with Algini. A flashbang sailed past him into the inner hall and blew as Tano hurled the massive door shut. It rebounded under rifle fire from the Council door guards—and opened again, splinters flying, everything in terrible slow motion.
Turn and duck when I call you, Banichi had told him, forewarning him about splinters, and something still caught him in the back of the head, so brain-jarring he was unaware of completing his turn to the door: he went down beside Banichi, leaning on him for an instant. Tano bumped into him and Banichi, getting into cover, as the door edge passed them on its next rebound—Tano had drawn his sidearm, covering the left-hand hall. The outer four door guards were down—lying over against the wall beside Jago and Algini as automatic fire over their heads continued to hammer the splintering door. The outbound volley and Jago and Algini’s move had likely thrown the outside guards to their present position a little down the corridor wall, pressed tight to avoid the fire that had the door swinging insanely open and shut under the shots and the rebound. Fire inside lagged—and Jago flung another flashbang skittering in on the polished floor. God, Bren thought—hope the guards inside weren’t equipped with worse to throw back.
The guards down by the front door were Banichi’s to watch, those two men, and all those office doors. But those guards were gone, vanished, likely into the offices. Bren moved over against the wall in the side hall and stayed quiet—while from the Council hallway bursts of automatic fire shredded the door and made retreat back down the outside hall impossible. One of the door guards had been hit. His comrades worked to stop the blood and treat the wound, under Jago’s implacable aim.
They were in possession of the doorway and the outer halls—and trapped there, with Tano aiming a pistol down the length of the short hall, Banichi watching the long hall, Jago with three problems and a wounded man at extremely close range, and Algini covering the door from an angle, to be sure nobody came at them from inside. The guards inside the Council hallway weren’t coming out—the four they had talked to close at hand had disappeared, somewhere out of the line of fire—and the four Council Chamber guards had progressively shredded the door, which, thanks to Banichi’s small plastic plug, hadn’t closed or locked, and made it a very bad idea for anybody to exit into the hallway. Right now there was a lull in fire. There was just the bell making an insane racket, and glass from ricochets into office doors and overhead lights lying all down the hall.
“Young fools,” Banichi remarked in a low voice. “They have finally come to their senses, waiting for orders, waiting for us to move. They are over-excited. Seniors will use gas, if they can reach the stores. That will be a problem.”
The service corridor communicating with all those offices was the weakness in their position. Defenders were bound to come at them via the offices, and when that happened, they were in trouble, be it gas or grenades. It was a cold stone floor, a cold wait—good company, Bren said to himself. He just had to do what his aishid needed him to do, keep quiet, keep out of the way, and not distract them.
Suddenly the wall at Bren’s back thumped, strongly—it made his heart jump; made his ears react. But then he thought: Cenedi. That intersecting administrative hallway, the other side of the wall. Something had just blown up. Cenedi might be giving the opposition worries from the other direction.
He snatched a glance at Banichi’s locator bracelet. Dead black. No signals at the moment. And nobody had moved, only shifted position a little, tense, waiting. The alarm bell kept up its deafening monotone ringing and the lights kept flashing.
Then the floor thumped under them, and a shock rolled in from the doors down the hall. The massive outside doors flew back, counter to their mountings, one upright, one of them askew and hanging, then falling in an echoing crash.
That wasn’t defense. It was inbound. Bren flattened himself to the wall with Banichi and Tano, as far from the inner door frame as they could get. Smoke obscured the street end of the hall, smoke and sunset-colored daylight, and two, three, five moving shadows in that smoky light. Three solid figures appeared out of it, flinging open office doors, and more shadows arrived up those three steps from the foyer, pouring into the hall from outside, opening office doors one after another, treading broken glass underfoot.
Secondary passages, secondary passages all over the place, in every office, in the Council chamber. It was the Assassins’ Guild. Of course there were secondary passages. Every building in the aishidi’tat had back passages. . . .
A burst of fire came out the ruined Council-area door, and a concentrated volley came back, right past the door frame. No more fire came out.
A flood of bodies occupied the hall, shadows moving fast in the smoke. Bren put his hand down on the stone floor, thinking if that was their side inbound, it might be time to get up and have it clear who they were—and his hand slipped.
He wrenched halfway about to get a look at Banichi, saw his face in the flashing lights of the alarm system. Banichi was sitting upright, but not doing so well, and it was blood slicking the floor. A lot of it.
“Damn it.” Bren got to his knees, ignoring the rush of bodies past them as he tried to get Banichi’s coat open. “Tano-ji! He’s bleeding!”
“Likely a broken stitch,” Banichi said faintly, above the continuing din of the bell. “One is just a little light-headed. Stay down, Bren-ji. Tano, turn on the bracelet.”
Tano did that. Banichi’s locator started flashing, communicating who they were, where they were.
Bren had a handkerchief—a gentleman carried such things. He put it, still folded, inside Banichi’s jacket, under Banichi’s arm, and felt heat and soaked cloth. “Press on that, Nichi-ji. Do not move the arm. Just keep pressure on it.”
“One hesitates to remark,” Banichi said, as another flashbang went off somewhere behind the wall and gunfire broke out, “one hesitates to remark that you are contributing no little blood, Bren-ji.”
His scalp stung when he thought about it. Adrenaline had been holding off an ill-timed headache, and he felt dizzy when he shifted about, which seemed likely from too much desk-sitting.
“That arm must not move,” Tano said to Banichi. “Must not, Nichi-ji, do you hear? Do not try to get up yet.” Tano was securing his own communications earpiece, which had fallen out, and voices were coming through it, fainter than the bell and the firing and shouting going on in the adjacent hall. There was more than the smell of gunpowder. There was smoke in the air—smoke the source of which they couldn’t see, as yet, but this had the smell of woodsmoke. Something was afire.
Tano didn’t move from where he was. Algini and Jago were on their feet, but not crossing that open doorway, just watching, with guns in hand, Jago still keeping the guard unit with the wounded partner quiet and out of the way. Bren knelt there with his body-armor between Banichi and whatever traffic passed them . . . not of much use, but at least he could keep an eye on Banichi, be sure he was conscious, and be ready to get up and invoke Tabini’s name if any problems rebounded in their direction.
Gunfire, acute for a moment, had tapered off. And the bell stopped ringing a
nd the lights that had survived the barrage stopped flashing. In that sudden, absolute silence, Bren felt the world quite distant and himself gone shaky, whether from contributing to the bloody puddle on the floor or from a sustained expectation of dying—he was not sure.
Tano got to his feet and spoke to someone on com. Bren stayed tucked low, one knee under him, the briefcase right by him, one hand on Banichi’s arm. He wished he had a medical kit with him . . . but that briefcase could have no illicit weapons, offer no signs to anyone who would examine it that it was anything other than a paidhi’s proper business. That briefcase was their justification and their protection—that briefcase, and himself, bearing the aiji’s ring, the legal equivalent of Tabini’s presence.
For some few minutes that eerie semi-silence in the halls went on. Across the perilous gap of the shattered doorway, Jago and Algini maintained their watch in two directions. Tano remained standing, watching that side hall, but things were much quieter. The trapped guard unit had stayed very still, concentrating on their own wounded, and now and again exchanging quiet words with Jago. Then quietly she got up, and under her armed watch, that unit laid their weapons on the floor, got up, lifted their wounded partner to his feet, and went on through that shattered doorway, apparently to seek medical help inside.
Dare we move? Bren wondered. But he noted flashes from Jago’s bracelet, across the hall; and from Tano’s and Banichi’s, near at hand, and Algini and Tano were listening to something.
“We have secured the Council chamber,” Tano said.
“Up,” Banichi murmured then. “We are not done here. Bren-ji. The papers. The Council.”
That was the plan. The papers—ultimately—had to be proven for what they were. The justification for their action had to be laid down in official record.
“Can you?” he asked. “Banichi? You could stay here with Tano and Jago. Algini and I can go.”
“Half this blood is yours,” Banichi said, and drew a knee up and put his other hand down. “I can walk.”
“Stubborn,” Jago said. “Stubborn, unit-senior.”
“Let us have this done,” Banichi said. “Let us see this happen. Up, Bren-ji. Tano. Lend a hand.”
Bren stood up, watched uneasily as Tano gently assisted Banichi to his feet, providing most of the effort. For a moment Bren thought, He can’t do it, and Banichi leaned against the wall, light-headed. But Banichi shook them off then, obstinate and setting his own two feet. Algini joined them. Lights sparked on bracelets.
“Briefcase, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, leaning against the wall, and Bren bent quickly and picked it up—feeling a little dizziness in that move; and the knee and shin of his trousers were dark and soaked. Banichi was right. Between himself and Banichi, they were a bloody mess.
They were in sole possession of the outer hall, except a guard the incoming forces had set at the ruined front door. Shouted orders reverberated from inner halls.
The splintered door beside them had long since stopped swinging, jammed in a way that had provided protection for Jago and Algini. Jago stood in that doorway now, pistol in both hands, got a look in one direction, nodded to somebody unseen, and a man walked into their hallway: Nawari, who frowned in concern at the sight of them.
“Nand’ paidhi,” Nawari said with a little nod.
“The office,” Banichi asked immediately. “The problem.”
“Settled,” Nawari said. “There was some burning. An incendiary. He is dead, apparently a suicide, considerably burned, but recognizable. The records—suffered, but were not destroyed. And we intercepted one man with several notebooks from that office.”
So Shishogi was dead, unable to be questioned. But notebooks, removed under such circumstances . . . that might be a very fortunate find.
“One expected such a device,” Banichi said. “The bill?”
“Two of ours out of action,” Nawari said, “counting yourself. Two of the resistance dead, three, counting the target. Fourteen in the building wounded, one hundred forty-seven voluntarily standing down pending a resolution. Sixteen under arrest, undergoing sorting now, testimony to be taken: they are suspect. A new Council is about to meet to declare a quorum, record the change, and close the meeting. Yourself, nadi-ji, and especially the paidhi-aiji . . . are needed there as soon as possible.”
Banichi said, “Bren-ji.”
The aiji’s documents. The justification. The legalities. “One is ready,” Bren said. “Banichi, if you can do this—then you are to have that seen to. Immediately.”
“Agreed,” Banichi said. Bren found his aishid around him—his head was beginning to throb with his heartbeat now, the buzz in his ears seeming louder than some voices, and he was beginning to feel a little sick at his stomach—the stress of the moment, he said to himself. He had to get through this, just a few more minutes, to get Banichi the help he needed, to get the whole business settled.
They walked with Nawari into the foyer on the other side of that splintered door, an area overhung with gray smoke, splinters from the door, dust-filmed puddles of water, and an amazing number of brass casings lying about—not to mention the leaking skein of gray fire hoses deployed through the open door of the left-hand hall. That one door, amid all the chaos, was relatively untouched.
The Office of Assignments—Cenedi’s target—lay in that direction. But their own business was straight ahead, down the blood-spattered stub of a corridor to the open Council chamber. They just had to get to the heart of that chamber, just had to stand up that long.
Bar the paidhi-aiji, carrying no weapon but the aiji’s ring and bringing a briefcase with nothing but the aiji’s and the aiji-dowager’s legitimate demands for an investigation? That was actionable.
Shoot at him? Wound his aishid? That was a shot fired at Tabini-aiji.
They had the bastards. They had them, legally. He just had to drive the last nail in. Had to stay on his feet. They all five had to hope there wasn’t some holdout, somewhere—but self-protection wasn’t their business any longer. Nawari opened the doors, gave orders to those guarding them. They entered the chamber, walked down the descending aisle, past tiers of desks, where a gathering of Guild, some with wounds, all heavily armed, filled the space around the long desk that dominated the speaker’s well.
Their entry held universal attention from below—eyes tracking him and his aishid, and their progress down the steps and levels that split the chamber’s seating.
The long desk at the bottom belonged, one understood, to the Guildmaster and his two aides. The less conspicuous desk to the side, obscured by the crowd, belonged to the recording secretary.
Thirty-three seats in the chamber, all counted—twenty-nine councillors if all the seats were filled. Three at the long desk. And the recorder.
He and his aishid reached the bottom of the aisle, and as they did, the armed gathering at the bottom of the well began to flow upward into the tiers of desks, spreading out to fill those places. A senior woman slipped her rifle from her shoulder and laid it on the long desk, at the right-hand seat of the three. A man, completely gray-haired, sat down in the central seat, and laid a pistol in front of him, and leaned another, a rifle, against the desk, sat in the leftmost seat, at which point the woman—likely Daimano—sat down.
Which of these was taking the office of Guildmaster was uncertain. The leadership changed seating at whim, Jago had forewarned him, when outsiders were present; and under the circumstances, one was not sure that even all the Guildsmen taking the Council seats were themselves sure who was setting himself in charge.
But the retired and the Missing and the Dead, as Jago called them, were claiming their places in the chamber, some resuming old seats—more of them taking seats to which they had elected themselves, a complete change of the Council as it had been constituted this last year. The recorder’s seat was still vacant as the man at center declared for silence in the room, and a
last few took their places.
An old man, completely gray-haired, took the seat of the recording secretary, a last scrape of wood on stone as that chair moved into place, a thump and a riffle of pages as he opened the massive book that had apparently rested there safely shut during the tumult outside.
There was a distinct smell of smoke in the air here, too. There was still shouting back and forth outside the chamber, until the outer door definitively shut and muffled what was going on up on the main floor.
“Nand’ paidhi,” the man centermost said.
“Nadi.” Bren bowed deeply to him, and to the two flanking him, no formality omitted. He shifted the briefcase to the other hand. “I speak as paidhi-aiji, for Tabini-aiji, with his ring.” His voice was undependable, hoarse from the smoke and the dryness. He held out the bloodied ring as steadily as he could, tried quietly to clear his throat, resisting the impulse to wipe the gold clean. Dignity, he said to himself. Calm. As if he did rule the aishidi’tat.
Happy with humans? They were not. His aishid had warned him they were bringing back a cadre of old leadership that opposed humans and all they brought with them—a leadership that might wish that he had been a casualty, leaving them to settle things without him.
“In the aiji’s name, bearing his orders, with his seal—his request for an investigation of orders given in the Dojisigin Marid; bearing also, in the aiji’s name, corroborating documents from the aiji-dowager.”
“Enter the documents, paidhi-aiji!”
“Nadi!” he said, the proper response, and with another bow, and leaving his aishid standing, he went aside to the recorder’s table, set his briefcase on that desk—and found his fingers stuck together about the bloody handle, his cuff-lace on that wrist absolutely matted, both his hands too filthy to do more than open the two latches to show the ornately ribboned and sealed documents inside. “Recorder,” he said, “if you will kindly assist me.”
The recorder rose, carefully took the documents in clean hands, entirely emptying the case, and set them, unstained, on the desk. Using an old-fashioned glass pen and inkwell from a recess within the desk, the recorder wrote in his book, and carefully printed a number on the first corner of each document and signed beneath each.
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