her instruments 03 - laisrathera (8 page)

Hirianthial could feel the flare of Liolesa’s aura as she reacted, though no sign of her tumult reached her face.

“I have spoken at length with Ambassador Fetchpoint,” Ogaban continued, “about our need to honor the treaty we’ve signed with you, and what that entails, and how what we’re currently offering is not sufficient to the promises we’ve made you. That we made those promises before we became embroiled in a war on our coreward border shouldn’t put constraints on our delivery, even if realistically it does. This is particularly odious because I strongly suspect that what’s happening on your world, Your Majesty, is only another arm of the same war. Given that, then, I have a ship en route that should arrive here tomorrow.

“This is one of Fleet Intelligence’s quick-insert vessels. It’s manned by a single FIA hold, a group of operatives who’ve trained together and remained together since. I want them to go in and get the intelligence we need so the scout can come in swinging.”

“And they could not handle the pirate vessel themselves?” Liolesa asked.

“Not unless it’s a lot smaller than we’re guessing from your description,” Ogaban said. “I won’t rule it out, but I won’t raise your hopes either. If there’s opportunity, they’ll take it, but their primary goal will be to prepare the ground for the heavier vessel coming after them.”

“And if they find something that requires more than a scout’s weaponry?”

“Let’s pray they don’t, Your Majesty,” Ogaban said with a crooked smile. “But if they do, then there really is more going on in your sector than we thought, and we’ll deal with it accordingly.”

“This vessel,” Hirianthial said. “Can it carry passengers?”

The human looked up at him, aura swirled with a sudden queasy yellow consternation. “It’s a military vessel, my Lord. It’s not equipped for guests.”

“It would not be carrying a guest,” Hirianthial said.

Ogaban paused. “You mean to assign someone to accompany them?”

“It would be meet,” Liolesa said. “To have an observer with you. And wise as well; someone who knows the land, the language, the political situation intimately.”

“Ah… yes, yes it would,” the Admiral said. “And of course, your observer is welcome.”

“Two,” Liolesa said. “Two observers.”

“Two. But I can’t in good conscience allow more. It’s not a large ship and passengers are an intrusion.”

“Two will suffice,” Liolesa said. “Thank you.”

At the conclusion of the conference, Hirianthial and Liolesa walked together to their suite. He was intimately aware of the strength and solidity of her aura… that at some point, her anger had become the impetus for forward motion, now that there was some action she could undertake. So it was, with his cousin: Plan early. Execute presently. Emotion later.

Once they reached the sitting room, he said, “What will you do?”

“Wait for this scout,” Liolesa said. “And then go home with her. So I will be two weeks behind you, and I expect you to have prepared the ground, cousin.”

“A fine title you granted me, all unknowing.”

“You think it so?” She smiled, just a faint curve at the edge of her mouth. “It has not been used since Jerisa’s reign, and the last man to answer to it died carrying the war to Corel.”

He suppressed the urge to sigh, and his words came out drenched in shadows. “We put too much weight on things that have passed. It is little wonder we are strangling to death in our own history.”

“No. But Goddess and Lord willing, we shall be done with that soon.” She looked up at him. “You will prepare now?”

“If the vessel is arriving tomorrow? Absolutely.” He folded his arms, regarding her. “And now I wait.”

She turned one of the coffee cups on the service. Not innocence, he thought—she was feeling it, feeling the reality of where they were, and the entity they would be courting a closer relation with once this was over, did they live through it. “Mmm?”

“For you to explain.”

“Explain…?” She looked up, cup in hand, then laughed, a low sound. “Ah. Which part?”

“Two?” he prompted.

“You and your equerry, of course.” At his blank expression, she said, “The Harat-Shar, yes?”

“My equerry!” The notion struck him as ludicrous, and yet there was a tender humor in it: Sascha, who would not mount a horse for fear of it biting him, as an equerry! Him even needing an equerry, when their world did everything possible to minimize wars. His carrying a title as old as Settlement, and dusty from disuse. “Sascha?”

She smiled, all silvered words. “Try you to leave without him, see what happens.”

“Someone must carekeep the
Earthrise
.”

“Fleet can carekeep the
Earthrise
,” Liolesa replied. “And Fleet is a safer place for Theresa’s investment than a system threatened by an unknown number of pirates. There is not a weapon on that vessel, is there?”

He thought of the single laser designed to deal with debris and said, “No… no, that there is not.”

“There you are, then.” She studied him, then nodded. “Go you with your man, and see to our world. I will come with the cavalry, and we will put paid to this nonsense and see to the real work.”

“You sound so certain of success,” he said.

“And so I must be. What choice do we have?” She set the cup down. “It is this or oblivion. Worse than death: slavery and dispersion until we die out. No, Hiran. We must succeed. There is no other option.”

“Then I shall do my best to abet you. Only, I pray you, cousin… have some useful notion of where we are to go after this to prevent a similar happenstance.”

She laughed then, full and rich. “Oh, never fear that. I have a plenitude of plans and always have, and if this is not quite the way I’d envisioned launching them, well… I was never so arrogant to think that war might not have been the ultimate catalyst in the end.” She offered him her bare hands and he took them, resting his thumbs on her palm. Her fingers were warmer than his; she’d always been thus, like a fire strove at her edges. Liolesa, the woman who was not content to be solely a seal-bearer for a world and its people, but who insisted on being her own sword as well… to the point of taking it for a personal emblem. He smiled, fond of her and exasperated both, and turned her hands so he could kiss their backs.

“I am your faithful liegeman.”

“And much beloved, at that. Pack, Hiran. At last we are in motion again.”

“Yes,” he said, vehement. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 6

“I am not convinced of the wisdom of allowing this stranger access to our counsel,” Belinor said once they’d all been seated around Taylor’s data tablet. He glanced at Val. “Even if he has offered us no further harm, he is an unknown. We hardly know his motivations.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Val said, “I could step outside. Except that I could still learn everything you’re saying if I wanted to listen. I could even use your ears and you’d never know.”

“You’re not helping,” Reese told him dryly.

“I thought being honest about my capabilities would make it clear that I am being forthcoming.”

Irine coughed into a fist as Belinor turned a scathing look on the other Eldritch.

Val grinned and inclined his head, pressing his hand to his heart. “I apologize, Acolyte—”

“That’s better than ‘boy,’ at least,” Taylor muttered as she flicked through the tablet’s comm channels.

“—and if there is some way I might convince you I am here in good faith, only tell me.”

“Fine,” Belinor said, eyeing him. “Will you swear to it?”

“On anything you like,” Val answered magnanimously.

“On Elsabet’s sacrifice,” Belinor said with zeal, leaning forward. “Swear it.”

Val froze in place. Seeing it made Reese realize that he tended to move more than the Eldritch she knew; she’d seen Hirianthial do this stillness, but it was less marked. Was that one of the reasons she trusted the former priest so easily? Because his body language read like Pelted body language… or human? Because it made him seem more open?

This stillness, though—the request had meant something. Meant a lot.

Folding his arms, Belinor finished, “You say you are his incarnation. Then swear on her sacrifice, that you will not betray us to our enemies, whosoever they may be.”

“Ah,” Val said, and sighed. He ran a hand over the back of his neck and said ruefully, “Perhaps it won’t be years before he’s useful after all, Lady Eddings.” Lifting his head, he met the other Eldritch’s eyes and answered in their own tongue, a stream of vowels with consonants that only seemed to give them ground to soar from.  In Universal, “Repeating for the benefit of our companions: I do so swear, on the Lady Elsabet’s sacrifice, that I will not betray any of you to your enemies, whosoever they may be.”

Satisfied, Belinor said, “My Lady. It is well with me, then.”

“Just like that?” Irine asked, mystified. “You think he’s a renegade and a horrible witch and you trust him to keep his word?”

“He claims to be the reincarnation of Corel,” Belinor said. “If he can hold such a belief in his heart, then he would never go against the word he swore in the name of the woman who loved Corel, and died for him.”

“What if he was joking?” Reese asked, uneasy. “You know. About the reincarnation bit.”

Belinor said, simply, “He wasn’t.”

Reese let that go because dealing with it… well, how could she? A woman could only handle so much metaphysical gibberish at a time. “Taylor, you ready?”

“Ready.” The Tam-illee tapped the data tablet and it chirped. “Malia.”

A few moments later, the other Tam-illee’s face formed above the data tablet, shimmering until it solidified. “Taylor? Can you see me? I’ve got the solidigraph feed off on my side, we’re keeping it quiet here.”

“We’ve got you,” Taylor said. “Where are you?”

“Out in the woods, west of Ontine. There are some caches out here that the Swords have been maintaining: weapons, another Pad, food and communication gear. We’re hiding out while they do some scouting. So far no one’s left the palace, but they’re sure that Surela won’t stay long; they’re of the opinion she’s going to have to ride out soon to demand the surrender of the Queen’s enemies.”

“Armed with Alliance weapons,” Reese said heavily. She tried not to imagine what palmers would do to people armed with swords and succeeded only because she’d never seen the battlefields of the dead her romances had described when they’d wandered into epic fantasy storylines. What would that look like? The books always said things about the sky darkening with the wings of carrion birds. She rubbed her arm against the gooseflesh. “Have you gotten off any people to warn them?”

“We’ve sent messengers, yes. Two to each of the Houses, in case something happens to the first.”

“Good thinking. What about the pirates?”

Malia shook her head. “We haven’t seen hide or hair of them yet. They must still be in the palace, or on their ship. Grace and Thad are keeping an eye on it and sending us coded message bursts. According to the last one, it’s still in orbit.”

Taylor roused. “Are they using active sensors? That could lead the pirates straight to them if they’re not careful.”

“They’ve had the computer set up a random schedule,” Malia said. “It only activates briefly, at irregular times, just to double-check that they’re still in position. Then it shuts off. Trust me, they’re laying as low as they can. The last thing they want is to fight off the entire complement of a pirate ship by their lonesome, in a base so small there’s nowhere to hide.” She smiled, tired. “So, Reese… what’s our plan?”

What was her plan? “Blood, I’m not sure. There’s so much to do.”

“How many enemies do you have, Lady?” Val asked, bemused. “If I can ask.”

“Who’s that?” Malia said.

“Another native we picked up,” Reese said. To Val, she said, “We have four separate problems here.” She lifted a finger. “One is the woman who deposed Liolesa, who is apparently her mortal enemy, and is probably going to go out and try to kill—or subdue, I guess—all the pro-Alliance Eldritch on this planet. Number two is the pirates who brought all the weapons here, and who are apparently still here. Number three is your Baniel, who did the betraying—he brought the pirates here, and gave their weapons to Surela so she could do her coup.”

“And number four?” Val asked, sounding fascinated.

“May or may not be on world… but somewhere out there, there’s at least one Chatcaavan involved in this,” Reese said.

“Chatcaava,” Val said. “That is a shapeshifter, yes?”

“You’re remarkably well-informed for an Eldritch,” Irine said.

Val shook his head. “Not all priests held with the isolationism, Lady Tigress. I certainly had no use for it.”

“What about the heir?” Taylor asked. “Isn’t she problem number five?” She glanced at Malia. “If Surela goes for the heir, wouldn’t that cement her rule?”

“Does that matter with Liolesa gone?” Reese said. “She’s at the nearest starbase by now. No one in the Alliance is going to believe Surela’s the new queen when the old one’s organizing an armada to come back and kick her out of the palace.”

“It’s not about convincing the Alliance,” Taylor said. “It’s about what the Eldritch think.”

Reese forgot sometimes that these Tam-illee were as Eldritch as they could be while still being Pelted. These things mattered to them. Maybe it mattered to the Eldritch too. She glanced at Val and Belinor. “What about it?”

Belinor had grown wide-eyed and a little gray, but he said, “I believe the Navigatrix is correct, my Lady. The Queen’s allies are in favor of a deeper connection with the Alliance, and as such they are not likely to accept the Queen’s absence as anything but a temporary issue. She is still the Queen to them, off-world or on. Surela taking the Heir would grieve them, but change nothing legally.”

“But would Surela think so?” Taylor pressed. “Maybe she wants a quicker answer to her problems.”

Malia frowned and shook her head. “That, I don’t know.”

Reese rubbed her face and sighed. “Look, let’s talk about problems we can solve.  We have… what, about forty Swords? Is that right, Malia?” At the Tam-illee’s nod, she continued. “All right. Forty soldiers with modern weapons. Do we have a Pad?”