Allie's War Season Three (33 page)

Resting her arms on the oak table, she stared into the fire, careful to keep her thoughts to herself. She had felt the construct's edges as they entered the door to the hacienda. Further, she suspected they now resided within a secondary construct...if not a tertiary or greater. The OBE likely disguised another level of that shield, and the house clearly contained several more. Chandre had no illusions that her thoughts would be private in such a place. Her only real defense was that of a human...to be careful not to think unwise thoughts at all, and try not to be provoked into letting her mind wander.

As a defense, it was a poor comfort, at best.

She still sat there, wondering idly how long this piece of the charade would be drawn out, when the door opened just past the smaller of the two fireplaces. Human waiters who looked local, who wore white coats and polished black shoes below clean-shaven faces and spotless white gloves, carried silver trays covered in what looked like boar's meat and stewed tomatoes and vegetables braised with butter and fresh herbs.

Chandre's stomach growled as they set trays down in front of her and the other three seers, who had clustered in a disjointed ring by occupying the chairs across from and beside hers.

Stanley, as usual, occupied the seat directly to her right.

"Do you think it is safe?" she said with a wry humor, raising an eyebrow at him.

Stanley's expression didn't change.

"I think they know we will eat it, despite our misgivings," he said after a pause. Giving her a returning smile, he added, "If they wanted us dead, I also think they would not need to be careful about it, given where we are."

Grunting in a flat kind of humor, Chandre gestured a yes in return. In the same motion, she leaned forward, reaching for the serving fork of the plate in front of her...but a servant who'd come up from behind without her noticing took the utensil neatly from her fingers.

"Allow me, please," he said, in accented English.

Chandre sat back in her chair, now feeling dirty and distinctly underdressed as the human began loading bread and meat and cheese and olives and mushrooms onto her plate, pouring her olive oil and sprinkling herbs into a shallow bowl beside her utensils, filling her wine and water glasses and adding a plate of salad to the table near her left elbow. Within a few blinks, Chandre saw a feast laid out before her...in human food, it was true, but unlike many seers, she had a good appetite for what the humans ate, as long as the quality remained high.

None of the other seers waited to be invited, either. As soon as their plates had all been filled, they began to eat.

Chandre was chewing on a piece of the homemade bread after dipping it in the oil, when the doors opening behind her caused them all to look up a second time, pausing in their various poses of eating. Recognizing who stood in the opening between the double doors, Chandre felt her eyes widen abruptly. She rose to her feet without thinking, but the other man standing there raised a warning hand.

"Remain seated, sister," he said, his voice stern.

Following the motion of his other hand, Chandre saw the gun he tapped with one finger. Chandre sank back to the seat of the wooden chair, swallowing the bite of bread still sitting in her mouth. Her eyes never left the armed man's companion however.

It was Maygar.

He looked like he'd lost weight...and frankly, as if he'd survived more than one beating at the hands of someone in this place. Bruises continued to heal on one side of his long jaw, as well as on the visible portions of his arms and hands. In addition to the handcuffs locking his wrists and elbows behind his back, he wore a collar around his thinner-than-usual neck.

Chandre saw his eyes on hers, as well, and couldn't help reacting to the hope she saw in his expression. He didn't try to speak to her, which was unusual in and of itself.

It also likely meant they'd schooled him in their particular brand of manners, as well.

As much as Maygar infuriated her at times, Chandre felt a swell of anger mixed with compassion at the tired set of his face. It seemed to her that Brother Maygar had not been having a good couple of years, all in all.

But what could these people possibly want with him? He'd been kicked out of the Seven...or at least removed from duty as a member of the active guard. Balidor never approached him to work for the Adhipan, even though he had invited most of the Seven's previous guard. Could his captivity here have something to do with his Rook mother, Elan Raven? Or was this again about that disease that Maygar had helped her track down the year before?

If so, she was still puzzled; Maygar had not known significantly more about the origins of that weapon than the rest of them. His main contribution had been involving Chandre herself...and through her, the Bridge and the Sword. Less directly, she supposed he brought her together with Varlan and Eddard, but that felt staged as well, and not by Maygar himself. He helped with the assault on the compound, but more in the way Chandre herself had...as an infiltrator and essentially another body carrying a gun.

Maygar owned no special skills, no special knowledge or even connections, apart from the indirect one they shared with Allie and Dehgoies. He could not be ranked above a six, in terms of actual. She doubted his potential was statistically higher than most.

Why would they bother to beat him? Did they expect the Seven and Dehgoies to rescue him? If so, perhaps they were not as well informed as they appeared. If all they'd wanted from him was the disease, why not kill him once Eddard used him to get out of the substation? Why keep him here all this time as a prisoner?

"All good questions, Sister Chandre," the man holding Maygar's leash smiled.

He motioned for Maygar to sit at a wooden chair by the door, which Maygar did...without complaint, Chandre noticed, and without meeting her gaze.

"They are also questions we will be happy to answer, now that you are here," the man added, clearly enjoying her anger at Maygar's condition. "All in good time..."

Chandre glanced to Varlan, then to Stanley, and finally Rex. They looked as perplexed as she felt that she was being singled out.

"I am here only as a guest, brother," Chandre said. "You should probably be addressing your remarks to brother Varlan, do you not think? I am temporarily in his employ. Therefore, you are only adding layers to your messages..."

"You are the one who will report what we show back to the
Bridge,"
the man said, a thinly veiled contempt audible in his words. "...You are also the one who spoke to the Sword personally, did you not...just eight days prior to this one?"

Chandre didn't let her expression move. Still, the man's accuracy was unnerving...as it was no doubt intended to be.

"What do you want, brother?" she said finally. "If you know me so well, you must know how little patience I have for games of this kind..."

Her voice trailed as another set of guards appeared at the door, holding a person much smaller in stature than Maygar. Chandre stood up so quickly that time, she had her hand on the place where her sidearm used to be before she knew herself what she intended. But they had disarmed her at the door, of course.

Even so, she was not able to remain silent.

"Cass," she said, her own voice lost-sounding, holding a near-grief. "Cassandra...gods. What are you doing here, cousin?"

Cass bit her lip, looking angrily at the two men holding her. She, too, was bound at the wrists, although she looked significantly less beat down than Maygar. In fact, the fire in her eyes only seemed to grow as she fixed her stare on Chandre.

"Chan," she snapped. "What the
fuck
is going on? Who are these people?"

Chandre could only stare back at her, still at a loss.

"They killed Baguen!" Cass snarled, even as tears rose to her eyes. "Did you have something to do with that? Are you
working
for these fuckers now?"

Chandre fought for words.

It took her a few seconds to remember that Cass couldn't possibly know who she worked for now...or that she had come here for Balidor, and for Dehgoies and Allie, not for Salinse or the rebels. Before she could think of how to answer, the first seer who had spoken, the one who brought Maygar into the room, drew her gaze when he raised his voice.

"Sit down, sister Chandre," he commanded coldly. He turned on Cass without waiting for her to comply. "...And you. Be silent, or I'm afraid you'll miss this little reunion altogether..."

Cass glared up at him, her eyes holding an undisguised hatred.

She didn't exactly fight the two men holding her, but the tension in her arms and shoulders didn't abate when they pushed her deeper into the room. Between that and the stiff-legged way she walked behind their prodding, it was clear she wasn't cooperating with them. They brought her over to one of the high-backed wooden chairs rimming the table, a guard holding each of her cuffed arms. Pulling the chair out, the shorter of the two guards positioned her roughly over it, then sank her down by laying a heavy hand on her shoulder.

Cass sat, still glaring at Chandre.

Chandre returned her stare, even as she regained her own seat.

She still couldn't decide if she should speak.

When she finally did, she aimed it at their leader, not at Cass herself.

"What do you want with them?" she said, bewilderment in her voice. "Why have you taken these two? For what possible purpose?"

"That will be clear soon enough, sister. In the meantime, your job is simply to behave as is appropriate for any guest in the home of a great master...which includes all requisite privileges and responsibilities." His eyes grew harder. "In fact, I'm going to have to insist on that point...for you, sister, and for all of your party."

"What?" Chandre's fingers clenched into fists on the oak tabletop. Even so, she heard the confusion in her own voice. She couldn't seem to pull the infiltrator's mask back over her expression. Cass was here. They had
Cass
...and they'd killed that throwback she'd been sharing a bed with for the last however-many months. Chandre had hated him, sure, but the tears in her ex-girlfriend's eyes hadn't exactly brought joy to Chandre's heart. She may have wished death on the Wvercian in her own mind, but that didn't mean she welcomed it now.

She met Cass's gaze across the long table, and saw tears running down her cheeks again, coupled with a rage that seemed barely contained within her expression.

Cass looked different. Chandre didn't know if it was the death of her lover, or something else, but something had changed in her since Chan had last seen her.

"I will do whatever you want," she heard herself say, still looking at Cass. "What are your conditions? What are your intentions for the two of them?"

When she looked up at the first seer who had walked into the room, he had a near smirk on his face. Only then did she realize Eddard had joined them again too, standing in the shadow by the double doors like the vermin that he was.

"No need for worry, sister," the taller man in the white suit said, smiling. "All of you will be perfectly unharmed, as long as you do exactly as we say..."

Looking at him, seeing the glint in his white-blue eyes, Chandre felt a kind of resignation grinding down in her light as she gestured her understanding in seer.

She'd been wrong, of course. She hadn't been brought here as a guest of Varlan, to meet this mysterious Shadow for whom he worked. In fact, the opposite had been true...Varlan had only been allowed inside because Chandre was with him.

The real audience for whatever they intended would be Allie and Dehgoies.

9

WAKING