A Matter of Oaths (23 page)

Bright blue sun, too bright to go out in full daylight. Dark
underground warrens and shadowy Hurthfolk. Watching her being led away and
waiting until she never came back. Spending a lifetime learning from the
priests who guarded him how to play
anash
and
kerisduan
, all the games of
waiting. The floor of the room was an
anash
grid scattered with bright grey game-pieces that moved of their own volition,
breaking the rules as if there were none.

“What happened then?”

The voice cut across the babble of the dancing game-pieces.
They quivered and grew faces, all the same face, all Joshim’s face, wheeling
silently around the grid like coins. Rafe reached out for one and it burst like
a bubble, spattering acid across his icy hand.

“Tell me what happened next. After Hurth.”

“After Hurth? When I wasn’t dead? Embarrassing as hell for
my uncle. He’d had me declared dead, my cousin named heir. Had to get it all
annulled. Never forgave me for not being dead.” Rafe reached tentatively for
the enormous face hanging over him, flinched as he touched it, relaxed as it
did not shatter. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?” he asked plaintively.

“You’re doing fine. What was your cousin called?”

Rafe tried to form the name and was empty. “Can’t!” he said
in sudden panic.

“Don’t worry. Tell me your uncle’s name instead.”

“Madranis Lord Buhklir.” His panic subsided when he found
that there were still memories open to him. “Scheming Lord Buhklir. Wanted me
dead, but I did what he never expected. Didn’t dare have me assassinated then.
Couldn’t even withhold permission for me to join the Guild. Had to smile and
say yes. Thought he’d choke on it.” Rafe laughed gleefully, tasting the sweet
notes on his tongue.

“What did you do?”

Rafe groped for the answer and found outrageous darkness
where it ought to be. Angry, he pushed at the wall, struggling to find a crack,
a chink that he could slip through. After remembering so much, this failure was
unfair, unbearable, unacceptable. He would remember. He would. He tore at the
wall with his hands. If there was no chink, he would make one. He refused to
accept that there was no way through.

“Don’t force it. There’s plenty of time. If you can’t put it
in words, can you make yourself a picture?” His hands were being held in a vice
from which he could not break free. “A place, or a face?”

A picture, yes. If the words were all locked away from him,
the visions were not, and a single face held the answer, all of the answers. He
called light to his hands, wove it, stubbornly fought its tendency to unravel
and fly out of his grasp, slowly built the face that was the key. There, he
challenged the darkness triumphantly. You can steal the words but not the
pictures. And I will have the name. All of the names.

As he stared at it, the face blurred, divided into two, into
four, mirrored in every surface. It was a crowd: watching him, smiling at him,
speaking to him, shouting at him, reaching for him, laughing with him, saying
hello, saying goodbye, loving with him, crying with him, coming towards him,
going away, giving to him, taking from him… And all cruelly nameless, mocking
him.

He shouted in fury and the sound shattered the mirrors,
dispersed the crowd, left only the single, known, unchanging face. Joshim. In
bitter frustration, he recognized that the face he had so laboriously built had
been Joshim; it had not come from behind the dark wall. He cursed vehemently,
taking no pleasure in the complex of sounds but repeating it aimlessly to fill
the uninvited silence in his head.

“That’s enough for today.”

Joshim drifted in and out of reach; Rafe made no effort to
fight the motion.

“I’m cold,” he announced. Joshim’s motion was tuned to his
shivering.

“Breathe in deeply. And out. And in…”

Rafe obeyed, wanting to be free of his helplessness, to be
back in control, back in a reality where everyone had names.

“I really am cold,” he complained, as the light in the room
sharpened and the harmonics in Joshim’s voice died away.

“That’s normal.” Joshim pulled the comforter over him. “What
else do you feel?”

“Flat. All the edges have gone.”

“That’s normal too.” Joshim smiled briefly. “How many
fingers?”

“Three. Two. Four,” Rafe answered dutifully. “And a thumb.”

“Good enough.” Joshim adjusted the valve on the canister
attached to the drug-mask. Rafe watched him work, then closed his heavy eyelids
for a second, just to rest them. “What is that stuff?” he asked suspiciously.

“The antidote.”

“I didn’t ask…”

“You weren’t in any fit state to ask. Go to sleep. That’s
what you need most.”

“What if I forget…”

“You won’t.” Joshim removed the drug mask, dropped a soft
kiss on Rafe’s lips. “You did better than I expected.”

“The faces were all yours,” Rafe confessed.

“It happens like that, sometimes, the first time. It won’t
last.”

…It is permitted to move your game-pieces when your opponent
is not watching. But if your opponent correctly challenges such a move, the
pieces moved are forfeit…

“So, Commander Yuellin. The only halfway helpful thing we’ve
learned from your excursions into Aruranism is that you were stun-gassed during
a dirtside liberty on Gharan, and woke up on a F’sair warship, going you can’t
remember where,” Rallya summarized. “Joshim, what are the chances that he’s
going to remember anything useful in the near future?”

“Not good,” Joshim answered. “Somebody went to a lot of
trouble to erase one group of memories more thoroughly than the rest. Now that
the arthane has provided a context, they’ll come back gradually but…”

“Not quickly enough that we can afford to wait for them,”
Rallya growled. At least the arthane trances had not been a complete failure. It
would have been astonishing if the key memories had not received the most
attention from the psych-surgeons, but the relationship between the gaps in
Yuellin’s memory and their context might still be enough to reveal the truth to
anybody with the brains to look for it.

“Who was your heir?” she asked Rafe. “This cousin that you
can’t remember?”

Sprawled comfortably across a seat in the corner of the
rest-room — as if he owned it, Rallya thought irritably — Rafe shook his head. “Buhklir
goes down through the oldest child of each generation. I inherited from my
uncle, and my niece — Madranya — will inherit from me. She’s probably inherited
already, if I’ve been declared dead,” he added. “She would have come of age
four years ago.”

Rallya frowned. “And before she came of age?”

Rafe shook his head again. “No motive there. True, my cousin
would have been Madranya’s regent, but she was already regent for me. She’d
nothing to gain by my disappearance, and a lot to lose. She’d have been my
regent until I retired, not just until Madranya reached twenty.”

“She?” Joshim queried.

“She?” Rafe echoed, puzzled, then nodded. “A female cousin,”
he agreed, smiling.

“The marvels of Aruranism,” Rallya muttered.

Even if the damned cousin was not responsible — and she had
to accept Rafe’s assessment of that situation since, thankfully, she had no
experience of aristo in-fighting — Rafe’s abduction had to be linked with the
tangle of his Buhklir heritage; that was the only thing that marked Yuellin
apart from any other Commander. He had had no immediate ambitions beyond the
hull of his ship — or none that he could remember — and no known enemies in the
Guild. The answer had to be New Empire politics or aristo bloodlines.

“How old were you when you inherited?” she asked. “And since
when did aristos let the family heir join the Guild?”

“My uncle died when I was seventeen. A year into my
apprenticeship. My regent was…” Rafe stopped abruptly.

“The same gap or a new one?” Joshim asked sympathetically.

“The same.” Rafe shrugged. “Also responsible for allowing me
to join the Guild, ma’am.”

“So now we know that the anonymous person who’s wandered
through your life at irregular intervals since you were fifteen is a benevolent
relative,” Rallya said tartly. “Another aristo, of course. Or wouldn’t that
have been a necessary qualification to be your regent?”

Rafe frowned. “Normally, yes. But not a relative…”

“A lover?” Joshim suggested.

Rafe nodded decisively. “Yes. And that might explain the
faces…”

“Probably,” Joshim agreed infuriatingly. “It’s a common
effect. I should have realized earlier.”

Rallya ground her teeth silently. If she had been present
during the arthane trances, or if Joshim had agreed to tape them, she would not
have to contend with this conspiracy of censorship. Yes, Rafe was entitled to
his privacy, but who knew what details he and Joshim had missed, and what vital
directions Joshim had failed to explore?

“A male lover?” she inquired. “From Sajan’s comments, and
your current preferences…”

“
You
’ve never
asked me my preferences,” Rafe said casually. “But male, yes.”

Vidar chuckled. “Any connection between this lover and your
cousin?”

“Apart from their common anonymity?” Rafe asked. “There must
be, but I don’t know what.”

“Who was Madranya’s father?” Fire enough questions and
something might escape from his subconscious, Rallya thought.

“Jalmair Lord Rarthen. Sorry.”

Rallya had the distinct sense that she was following a line
of questioning that Rafe had already exhausted privately, or with Joshim.

“It was only a thought,” she said drily. “Based on the
baroque intricacies of most aristo relationships. Tell me, have you deduced
anything
about this mystery lover of
yours that I ought to know about?”

“Nothing worthwhile,” Rafe said unrepentantly. “I’ll let you
know if I have a flash of inspiration.”

“Is this getting us anywhere?” Vidar asked. “If Rafe doesn’t
have all the answers…”

‘…and the ones he does have aren’t admissible as evidence in
any legal court…” Rallya interrupted sourly.

‘…we’ll have to collect some admissible evidence,” Rafe
finished. “Central, Commander?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

“Central,” she confirmed, glaring back at him. “And the
records of Yuellin Lord Buhklir.”

She was not yet sure that she liked having somebody only
half a step — if that — behind her thinking. And two Commanders was one too
many on any ship; once this was all over, Rafe would have to find his own. If
they came out on top of the situation, that should not be too difficult, she
thought wryly. And if they did not come out on top, a ship to command would be
the least of his worries.

“The medical data in those records will put Rafe’s identity
beyond any legal doubt,” Joshim was telling Vidar.

“And since being kidnapped on Gharan is not a legitimate precursor
to identity-wipe, we’ll have enough evidence to set an official investigation
in motion,” Rafe added.

“By the time Central Support set up that investigation —
always assuming
they
’re not in this
muck up to their armpits — the scum that we’re looking for will have covered
their tracks beyond finding. Or made a run for it,” Rallya said testily.

“What do you want to do?” Rafe challenged. “Hunt each one
down personally?”

“You’re willing to settle for a lot less than I am,” Rallya
said angrily.

“I’ll settle for the very most I can get, ma’am,” Rafe said
coldly. “But I won’t gamble everything on an impossible drive for revenge. Or
delude myself that we don’t need help. I’ll admit that Central Support is
probably rotten at the core; I couldn’t have been framed as an Oath-breaker
without their help. But there are a lot of honest webbers who’ll give us a
hearing, and back us if we give them enough proof.”

“Why do I have this insane urge to duck whenever I’m in the
same room as these two?” Vidar asked Joshim in a loud whisper.

“That’s not insanity. That’s self-preservation,” Joshim
answered.

“You could always turn the fire-jets on us,” Rafe suggested
wickedly.

Rallya snorted. “Try it,” she threatened. “You’ll need to do
more than duck.” She swivelled her seat around and keyed a command into the
rest-room console. Rafe was right, but she was not going to thank him for
pointing out what she already knew. And she was not going to like it. “Here. I’ve
done the calculations for a jump to Central…”

“Directly there?” Vidar queried.

“You and Jualla claim this ship can punch a jump through
anywhere,” Rallya reminded him. “This is your chance to prove it. Rafe, with
ten years in survey behind you, you’re better qualified than anybody else to
check these results.” A jump from the Zfheer border to Central was at the
limits of
Bhattya
’s performance, even
with all the unofficial modifications she had undergone at the hands of Vidar
and his predecessors.

“Arrival point in the Disputed Zone?” Rafe asked, crossing
the room to look over her shoulder.

“I wasn’t planning to dock at Central uninvited and set off
every alarm on the station,” Rallya said tartly. “But nobody’s going to pay
much attention to another shuttle sneaking in from the Disputed Zone for some
unofficial liberty.”

Rafe grunted agreement. “I’ll be in the web for the jump…”

“No, you won’t,” Joshim interrupted. “You
may
have put in some web-time before
then, but you won’t be fit to work a full shift. And certainly not to work
during a jump that critical. And don’t look at me like that, or I’ll tell
Rallya what Hafessya saw.”

“You ought to play
anash
,”
Rafe said sourly. “The most important rule is only to cheat when you can get
away with it.”