Irsud (16 page)

The kipu snapped her fingers. One of the retinue hastened forward to kneel in front of Aleytys. She selected an orante medal and held it out to the kipu. “For careful husbanding of the mahazh stores and general competence,” she murmured.

Exuding acid humor and cynical self-satisfaction, pleased with her cunning and comtemptuous of the flushing blunt-faced cook-master's absurd delight in the meaningless bauble, her rich sonorous voice resounding with calculated effect in the squalid room, the kipu intoned, “I kipumahazh of the aasabu-alu name you one honored among the servants of the queen.” She pointed at the floor. “Kneel.”

The cook-master dropped to her knees and the kipu dropped the metal disc on its ochre ribbon over the stiffly erect head. “Stand,” she said brusquely.

The disc hung in the center of the cook-master's flat thorax, like a chunk of pastry dough set with raisins, the raised characters of the nayid tongue circling the apian form decorating all the queen's possessions. The honor guard stood stiffly erect, then in unison touched hands to forehead and lips. The cook-master strode out of the room trailing reeking clouds of pride, the guard click-clacking after her. Aleytys swayed gracefully behind, followed by the kipu.

Eyes. Nayid eyes, glittering with hidden fear. Hiiri eyes, alive with curiosity and a growing anticipation, counter-pointed by a fear of their own. They followed her to the stairs, a dank miasma of speculation, fear, lust, pride, arrogance, instinctive hate … ah, the hate of one species for another, reaching far below … low … low … into the ancient animal instincts, unthinking reactions by intellect grown sensitive enough to touch life in another form and say I and thou share this life that throbs in our veins and I and thou are a community of life and sharing respect and love, that which we have we have we will not relinquish, we will not rob from another we will … waves of hate rolled at her, instinctive and deliberate, not racial, not abstract, not personal hate that wanted to rend and destroy, that pictured bloody gobbets of quivering flesh torn from the living frame by hating fingers, a clawing slow tearing death intimately shared by death-bringer and victim, corrosive emotion reaching to the core of the soul involving all other emotions including the sexual. She melted before it, wax in front of a fire, melted bones changing to viscous liquid.…

Swardheld charged into her body, stiffened it, held it upright, held the mask, roared at her, “Det svayra! Freyka. Get moving. Get starch in your legs. If you blow this now.…” Like an icy wind off the mountains his vigorous personality cleared her mind and combined with the heat of her own anger at her weakness. The kipu's callous lack of consideration in sending her unprepared into the room where Asshrud waited with her hoard of sycophantic courtiers drove the last shreds of confusion from her brain. She glared blue-green ice at the kipu, met the enigmatic insectoid gaze, then brushed past her into the large room.

Eyes. Black glittering insectoid eyes. Curiosity, cold rejection, fear, greed, lust for power, ambition, driving ambition; cold, hot monomaniac ambition overlaid by acid hatred pouring out of the mountain of flesh sitting puffily in a throne chair at the far end of the room. Reluctantly, eyes fixed with malignant intensity on Aleytys, Asshrud nodded at the kipu, then touched her fingers briefly to her forehead.

Head high, her own eyes glittering like the blue-green heart of winter ice, Aleytys waited.

The silence in the room grew uncomfortable. Angrily Aleytys fumed at the kipu's cold usage of her, survive or be destroyed, it mattered little to the kipu except that marginally she desired the scheme to succeed since she'd get considerable benefit from it, but she wouldn't waste a milligram of her breath, an erg of energy to support it.

Cool and apparently at ease, that small curved smile on her empty face, Aleytys reached into her own depths to the places that made her sick to contemplate within herself and dredged up a handful of muck. With a sickly mixture of exultation and self-contempt she flung the metaphorical muck at Asshrud then watched it stain and mute her outpouring of hatred and stubborn rebellion, melting and corroding her resistance until her fat jowls trembled with the desperate anxiety breeding inside her.

Hands tucked into the wide sleeves of her robe, Aleytys walked daintily through the crowd of courtiers, driving an opening ahead of herself with radiations of subtly discomforting emotion, reaching the throne chair as Asshrud waddled clumsily out of it. She climbed the steps and settled herself, pulling the robe tight against her body, deliberately emphasizing the difference between her and the bulky Asshrud, a cruelty that sickened her but suited the role she was playing, answering the expectations of the kipu and Asshrud and all the other nameless nayids clustering in the room. But strange feelings were stirring in her … stirring … I'm not like this, she thought, god, I'm not.…

Ignoring Asshrud, she spoke to the kipu, her light lisping voice slicing through the emotion-saturated air. “Introduce me.”

Eyes. Uneasy glittering eyes, insectoid eyes floating in a dream … a nightmare of soupy air-gumbo thick with psychic exudation, the kipu's voice blurred and faded the names she spoke, flowed over Aleytys' mind trailing slime like diseased snails crawling across her skin, petty petty emanations not worth noticing, sycophantic nonentities capable of small cruelties but too self-involved to risk their precious selves in major violence. The parade passed and was finished. Aleytys stood.

She turned her head and swept them with arrogant blue-green gaze, radiating cool contempt ego-shattering contempt, goading, cowing them into abject and steaming silence. Without a word she swept down the stairs and out of the room, followed closely by an increasingly impressed guard and the complacent kipu.

Blue tiles, blue tunics, staring eyes, antennas switching faster, faster Gapp sullen hostile cold-eyed lovers jealous and covetous, coldly lizard reptilian cruel, capable of infinite variations in cruelty but petty … petty imaginations and spirit limited by a limitless stupidity.…

Red tiles. Flitting red tunics, busy dedicated nayids doing work that convinced them of their own worth. Machines flickering a thousand enigmatic results. Data. Reporting. Acting. A headache lanced through her head looking at them, pretending to comprehend, dealing with the kipu's growing amusement and subtle put-downs, a puppet on strings jerked about by the kipu's arbitrary decisions, acting, saying, doing without recourse to her own will not knowing the reason or outcome of her actions her words.…

Aleytys was exhausted and relieved when she climbed the stairs up from the red level.

Black tiles … black tunics … tough stringy fighting females. Barracks. Austere but comfortable. Beds bunked against the walls. Neatly tucked blankets. Polished shining lockers. Immaculate floor. Light airy rooms. And in the gymnasium.…

Aleytys sat in one of the ubiquitous throne chairs and watched the warriors perform, the kipu stiff and secretly amused, still amused, sitting beside her.

Two black nayids circled in tiger alertness in front of her intent on each other, feinting and thrusting, leaping and recoiling in a fantastic ballet of violence, reactions frighteningly swift, so fast they had her dizzy, her body aching in sympathetic reaction to blows given and taken, remembering Burash taking her hand and caressing it with his fingertips. “One of the sabutim could tear you in rags.” She saw the truth of that now and knew the kipu had staged this match with that precise effect in mind. She glanced sideways and felt herself grow tight with anger.

“Aleytys.” Surrounded by Harskari's amber aura, the word flashed warning lights throughout her mind. “Freyka.” Black eyes frowned impatience.

Swallowing her anger Aleytys focused her eyes on the match and whispered inwardly, “Swardheld, how good are they? Could you take them?”

The black eyes blinked and seemed to squint shrewdly. “Ah. In my own body, freyka, there'd be no question.”

“In mine?”

“A matter of speed, strength, wind. You're a dainty little bit. Nice for gracing a man's bed. But a fighter. I laugh. A little training, though … I admit you surprise me at times. A little training.…”

“Training?”

“Speed. Strength. Wind. And skill. You've got the potential. Good bone, healthy muscle. Just needs a little refining.” A rumbling chuckle shook her skull. “Never done a pushup in your life. You've got an unpleasant surprise awaiting you, freyka.”

“Huh.” She watched as with a sudden flurry of blows one combatant drove the other out of the circle into defeat. Standing, she took the medal handed her by the kipu and languidly extended it to the victor. “Well fought, sabut,” she murmured. “Most entertaining.”

Green tiles. Heavy door with massive intricate lock. Swinging open silent and ponderous. Weapons piled neatly on racks, room after room, air-tight cartons pile on pile power cells, projectiles, bombs, acid gas … man's ingenuity employed to destroy man. Aleytys looked at the piles, the racks, with Swardheld whispering in her ears naming and explaining as the kipu named, the double effect draining her spirit into a black morass of despair until her arms and legs weighed heavy as lead. She walked with effort like wading through gelatin … the place stunk of death.

Green tiles. The color of life. Green flower vines inlaid around machines of death. And in defended embrasures phallic cannon thrust potent noses out over the city. The air in the rooms felt dead. As if the heavy doors were tomb doors shutting in the dead bones of men.

Silent, oppressed, Aleytys climbed the last round of stairs. At the top, the walls felt weighty and metallic as the passage ended in a bronze door. After saluting the kipu, Sukall knelt and pressed an electronic key against one sensor while the kipu simultaneously pressed a second near the top of the massive slab.

With a soft reluctant sigh the door slid open. Aleytys felt the weight of it but even then was surprised at the actual thickness, a full meter of solid metal. The cool soft air of the afternoon slid through the gaping hole with sweet seductive beckoning. Masking her relief as she had masked her fatigue, Aleytys climbed sedately onto the roof behind her guard with the kipu in close attendance beside her.

Like lice on a hog's back the round black discs sat on spidery legs in thick clusters of gleaming machines redolent of power. Aleytys counted them. Fifty. Fifty obstacles to a clear break from this stifling hulking prison. Or perhaps an easy escape.…

“Shadith,” she whispered. “Look at them. Could you fly one?”

“If I could see the controls.” The violet eyes blinked thoughtfully.

Aleytys thrust her hands into her sleeves and ambled with careful grace about the rooftop then stepped nimbly up the ramp and into the pit of a skimmer.

The kipu watched with a frisson of nervous excitement that rapidly turned to amusement as Aleytys sat calmly in pilot's seat running her eyes over the complex instruments.

“Shadith?”

The purple eyes narrowed into an intensely concentrated frown. After a minute the silver voice rippled into laughter. “A piece of cake. Maybe a little rough at first till I get the feel, but no problem.”

Aleytys pottered around the skimmer another moment then stepped calmly down and with guard in close pursuit moved to the roof edge and leaned over the parapet looking down into her garden then out over the city, the wind blowing her hair about and tugging at the heavy silken material of her robe.

“The streets are empty.” She looked over her shoulder at the kipu.

A tight mirthless smile on her hatchet face, the kipu murmured, “Have you forgotten, Damiktana? Strange. Umusiriu. The day of the serpent. The shops are closed and the people are in the temple burning incense to the spirit of.…” She chuckled, a dry rusty sound. “But you know that.”

“Ah. With one thing and another I've lost track of dates.” She straightened and sighed. “I fear I'm tired, rab' kipu. Is there a lift down?”

“Not from the roof.” Again amusement rippled through the deep voice. “A matter of security.” She moved away from the parapet. “However there is a lift from the barracks level.”

CHAPTER XV

“Leyta!”

“Aleytys!”

“Freyka!”

The three voices roared inside her head jerking her out of a heavy Unnatural sleep. Mouth opening and closing idiotically she stumbled to her feet, swaying dizzily. She caught hold of the curtain to steady herself, rubbing her free hand across sleep-shut eyes. “Wha …” she muttered.

“Get the fog out, freyka.” Swardheld's bass roar rattled the cobwebs loose. “Company coming.”

Dazedly Aleytys shook her head. “Company?”

“Raiders.” She could feel his impatience and struggled to collect herself.

“What should I do?” The words came out blurred.

“What do you think?” His black eyes sparked irritation. “Get help. Wake Burash. Get out of here. Shift your feet, freyka.”

The clear glass door suddenly darkened. Aleytys froze. She heard the faint sibilance as the door slid upward then saw dim black blurs flicker past the opening, oddly hard to see, outlines indistinct.

“Freyka!” Swardheld prodded at her again. “Get him out!”

Aleytys felt a shock drive through her body. “Burash! Run!” She repeated the words over and over as she shook him. His sleep felt unnaturally heavy to her then she finally grasped a sickness, a slowness in her own reactions. “Drugged … the food … Burash!” She threw herself across the bed and shook him, forgetting her own danger in her urgency. “Burash!” She shook him hard. “Wake up. Wake up. Try to wake up.”

Hands closed around her ankles, strong fine fingers like wire ropes, pulling her away from him. She cried out, kicked futilely, but slid like greased meat across the bed, hands closing over her mouth before she could make another sound.

Hands. Around face and arms, shoulders pulling against them, futile struggles, strength making a mockery of her efforts. Hands. One flipped out imperiously and like an extension of it a dark blurred form flitted silently around the end of the bed radiating death, cold, freezing cold, burning cold, hand closed around a black fang that shed the light and turned the eyes away.