Endgame (26 page)

Jani mined another peppercorn from the depths. “A little.”

“You know the drill. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.”

Jani nodded.
First, there comes simple. Then there comes hard. And then there comes this.
“It's been the same one the past few nights. I walk into the Laumrau camp, pull back the flap of the first tent, and no one's inside.” Sweat trickled down her back, and she blamed the pepper. “Then I turn around, and there they are. All twenty-six of them, shooters drawn.” She laughed, a dead bark of a sound. “It's a short dream.”

Niall set his plate aside. “Mine's old. It's the one where I'm just about ready to take out Ebben.” His voice softened. “And she stops running, and turns, and points at me. ‘Sergeant Pierce,' she says, ‘a good Spacer only shoots the guilty.' So—” He exhaled with a shudder. “—I set aside the long-range I'm holding, and take out my sidearm, and acti
vate it, and—” He held his hand to the side of his head, index finger extended. “—I—” His finger twitched.

Jani waited until Niall lowered his hand. “You haven't had that one for a while.” Another peppercorn, because the burning made her feel alive. “Three more weeks of this crap.”

Silence settled until the warning klaxon sounded, announcing thirty minutes until breakaway.

Stillness. Stillness and warmth and the sound of running water.

The security dominant, whose name she still did not know, yelling at her, his words as shatterboxes in her head.

Quiet, and the sense that one would never move, ever again.

 

“She wakes, nìRau.”

Rilas opened her eyes, then closed them against the glare of white that struck as the light of a sun.
Ceiling.
She clenched her hands, felt the rumple of cloth.
Bed.
Pushed up with her elbows. Tried to sit up—

The bed seemed to shudder, as a shuttle upon reentry.

Her soul screamed. She twisted to one side as the acid heat rose in her throat and freed itself, as she convulsed again and again.

“All will be well, nìaRauta.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder, supporting her as she leaned over the purge receptacle. After she finished, she fell back onto the bed, felt a cool cloth move across her forehead, over her mouth. Heard prayers, the wishes of a physician-priest that her patient remain in the esteem of the gods.

She is not my priest.
She did not recognize this female's voice, this touch. Even so, she thanked her. Drank from the cup she held to her lips, laid back as she bade. Accepted the frozen cylinder placed beneath her neck as the greatest of gifts.

“The sedative affects some idomeni in this way. Even treatment does not counter it. The gods forgive your unseemliness, Rilas.”

Rilas raised her head. Blinked away the tears that had filled her eyes, and looked toward the figure at the far end of the room.

“Imea nìaRauta Rilas, survivor of Samvasta GateWay. The gods are with you, and truly, and would forsake me if I did not honor such courage. Thus have I come in person to welcome you home.” Morden nìRau Cèel sat near the entry, in a chair so low he seemed to rest directly upon the floor. “In between meetings. So many meetings. And the arrival of the humanish. So many arrivals.”

Rilas pushed so that she sat upright, even as the physician-priest struggled to push her back. “I was coming to you freely.”

Cèel gestured apology. “Unfortunately, nìaRauta, others sought to interrupt your coming. Thus were we compelled to ensure that your journey home was not impeded.”

“An escort, nìRau.” Rilas shifted to and fro, struggling to see around the physician-priest, who stood at the foot of the bed and operated the levels and adjustments. “Such would have proved adequate.” The edges of her vision blackened and she sagged back.

“You cannot sit up too far, or you will sicken again.” The priest returned to her side and held her down, then rearranged cushions under her head. “I have raised the front of the bed as far as I will.”

“Raise it higher.”

“You are too ill, nìaRauta. Your reaction to the soma is too profound—”

“Raise it higher.”

“Do as she bids, nìaRauta Ansu.” Cèel stood, then arranged the sleeves of his overrobe. “She will not rest as you wish until I have told her that which she believes she needs to know. Such is as she is. This I know, and truly.”

The physician-priest straightened, but whether she did so in supplication to Cèel or the gods, Rilas could not surmise. After a few moments she walked around to the foot of the bed and pressed the adjustments. The front of the bed rose, and Rilas motioned with her hand for it to continue.

“Enough.”
Ansu stopped the elevation at the quarter point. “Any higher and you will faint.” She glanced back at Cèel, then gestured her leave-taking and departed.

Cèel walked across the room to the single narrow window, which had been barred on the outside. “Ansu is my own physician-priest. She believes and truly that she is bound to care for all Vynshàrau as she cares for me.” He bared his teeth, then turned to observe the view. “The Haárin ship bearing Tsecha's reliquary arrives within the next two sun cycles. The Cabinet ship on which Kièrshia travels arrives soon after. I would prefer to blast it out of space rather than allow it to dock, but such would constitute an incident, and our hands must appear as clean.” His voice emerged guttural, deepened by anger and the demand for obedience. “They will search for you, and they must not find you. You must remain here in this hospital until they depart.”

Rilas raised a hand to her ear, then felt along her temple to her eye.

“I have your book, nìa. NìaRauta Ansu removed it as you slept.” Cèel offered a posture of regard, tilting his head to the right, raising and curving his right hand against his chest. “I viewed Tsecha's collapse. I regret that I could not also view his death, but such is as it is.” He turned to her. “You have earned the greatest esteem of all Vynshàrau. Of all idomeni.” He once more gestured gratitude, then left the window and walked to the entry. “Now I must take leave of you. You will be cared for here until the ungodly depart.” He paused and
bared his teeth. “Or are expelled, when we convince them that the words of the Kièrshia are as nothing and that only humanish assassinate.” He walked to the door and placed his hand upon the pad.

Rilas struggled to boost herself up on her elbows, stopping to swallow each time her soul rebelled. “NìRau?”

The door had already swept aside—Cèel put out a hand to stop the panel from closing. “Nìa?” His voice once more emerged deep, a sign of his impatience.

“I was returning to you.” Rilas eased back against her cushions. “There was no need for this. No need to humiliate yourself by witnessing my illness. No need to—” She did not say it aloud. Such was ungodly, and as suborn, it was not her place to say it.
No need to humiliate me.
An Haárin thought. Such was her dismay that the memory of living as one corrupted her mind.

Cèel stood silent. Then he stepped through the entry. “They would have captured you, nìa. Such could not be allowed.” He let go of the panel and it swept closed.

 

Ansu visited Rilas several times over the course of the next cycle. She oversaw the preparation of her sacraments, escorted her to and from the altar room. When she arrived after mid-afternoon sacrament and asked if Rilas wished a walk in the hospital gardens, she met no argument, for Rilas did not believe herself able to refuse.

They walked in silence for a time. Despite her unease, Rilas allowed herself to enjoy the heat of the Shèráin sun, lost to her for so long. She strained for any noise in an effort to determine her location. Voices and traffic meant the City Center. The rhythmic echoes of mallets against anvils meant Temple, where metallurgist-priests forged the ceremonial blades.

She sniffed the air. Salt tang meant they were near the bay, while faint sulfur and ammonia marked the blessed greenhouses—

“You are so quiet, nìaRauta Rilas.” Ansu looked her very
nearly in the eye, as though she conversed with an esteemed friend.

“I am relishing the sun, nìaRauta Ansu.” Rilas bared her teeth, then turned her head so Ansu could not see her face.
She studies me.
She felt a quickening in her soul.
She reports to nìRau Cèel of me.

“I met ní Tsecha Egri only a single time, many seasons ago.” Ansu folded her arms and tucked them inside her overrobe sleeves. “NìRau Cèel had appointed him ambassador to the Commonwealth, and I was to offer instruction to his physician-priest prior to their departure for Earth. He insisted upon attending our discussions, which was most unseemly.” The priest's shoulders rounded in memory. “He corrected me, several times. I suspect he partook of humanish foods, so much did he know of their effect on idomeni.”

“He was anathema.” Rilas stopped before a
chala
shrub and bent low to one of the fragrant white blooms. “He lived with humanish, and died on one of their worlds, bereft of the esteem of the gods or of any godly idomeni. His fate was most deserved, and truly.”

“There is talk that the half-humanish will release his soul here. Such is not a thing I care to witness.” Ansu lowered to a bench and smoothed her hands over her sand-hued overrobe. “NìaRauta Sànalàn should officiate at such a ceremony. As Chief Propitiator, she intercedes for all Haárin. Even the godless ones.” She fell into silence, and continued to pass her hand over her overrobe even as the cloth lay smooth as parchment.

Rilas straightened and walked to a flowering tree. Blessed
vrel
, its flowers as brilliant red as fresh blood.
NìaRauta Ansu, you who considers all Vynshàrau yours to care for, why do you spend so much time caring for me? Why do you stay with me, sit with me, talk to me of Tsecha?
She bent close to the bloom, taking what pleasure she could in its beauty.
Am I your only patient but for nìRau Cèel? Have you no other duties to see to?

“Tell me of your journeys, nìaRauta.” Ansu raised her
hands and heightened the pitch of her voice in wonder. “NìRau Cèel has told me that you have traveled to many worlds for him.”

Rilas stepped back from the tree and turned to the female, who sat with her back to her, hands in her lap, her neck fully exposed. Clenched her hand, then let it relax. “Indeed, nìaRauta Ansu, I have traveled.” And she described some of her journeys to the priest, because she had nothing better to do. And because she believed, and truly, that she had no choice.

 

Alone in her room at night, Rilas thought too much of the Haárin security dominant whose name she did not know.

She had watched death before, both that which she brought on and that brought on by others. Killed before with her hands, many others besides the idiot humanish, felt bodies shudder and go limp as they released their hold on their souls and became waste to burn or bury. But she never thought of those others. Never saw their faces in dreams. Never heard their voices in her head when all about had gone quiet.

Yet now she continued to think too much of the Haárin security dominant whose name she did not know. Recalled that last godless look of his, directly in her eyes. Saw his lips move, and pondered the words he had spoken. English. Of all languages, why an ungodly humanish one?

It had taken her some time to work out that which he had said. She had resorted to writing out the sounds phonetically, matching them with the few humanish words she knew until she identified the language.

Realized that he had spoken English to her because he did not want ná Bolan and her suborn to understand.

She looked down at the paper she held, scrap parchment recovered from a trash pile and now covered with her script.

Hee. Whel. Keel. U.

Hewel keelu.

He well kill—

And then, as though an illumin had activated, she understood, and wrote those final words.

He. Will. Kill. You.

Even now Rilas wondered if she had misheard him, if he had said something else. If he had even spoken at all, and the soma had addled her memories.

But at night, in the silence, she heard him, his words as clear as if he spoke to her in the hospital garden.

He will kill you.

She had not thought of those words until her second night in the hospital. The library contained nothing of interest, no newssheets or transmissions. The Haárin ship bearing Tsecha's reliquary would arrive the next day, but at the hospital no one knew of anything. Rilas's questions to suborns met with disclaimers and denials, and Ansu claimed no interest. Thus was she left to imagine the carved wooden box, the bound scroll it contained, the godless spirit that called it as home.

Then, later, as she lay in her strange bed and pondered the darkness, she imagined other things. Tugged at the edges of her bed cover, suddenly chill despite the blessed warmth.

He will kill you.

“The Kièrshia had asked for the Guernsey Station Haárin to stop me.” Thus had she begged for help from her dominant, who in turn had gone for aid to his dominant. To Cèel.

But ná Bolan Thea joined me soon after departure from Elyas Station.
Which meant that the female had been sent by nìRau Cèel to follow her to Elyas, that she had watched for her return to the station, and bought billet on the appropriate ship.

Rilas lay still. “NìRau Cèel had placed spies, as he always has.” Her dominant, who had taught her to question as no suborn ever had. Who had taught her the worth of untruths, of speaking one thing and planning another. Who had taught her the value of suspicion.

He did not ask what happened at Guernsey. He did ask of the humanish death. He did not ask what I had done to draw the interest of the Elyan Haárin.
He had not asked her to explain anything.

Words of his returned to her. Words he had spoken long ago, when she asked him of another of his suborns who had not returned home after completing a task.
Do I ask this blade why it cuts? No. I use it, and I set it aside when I no longer need it.

And Rilas lay in the quiet dark and pondered her suspicions and knew. That the Haárin whose name she did not know had known who she was and who had sent her. That he had known that which she had done. And that he had known also what awaited the blade after it had performed its owner's bidding, a knowledge that had come to the blade much too late.

He will kill you.

She lay in the darkness, and imagined.