The January Dancer (36 page)

Hugh pulled from his jacket the knife he had purchased on Jehovah. The
sica
did not seem much. It was an assassin’s weapon, not very useful for defending a position; but it was all he had. He frisked Todor’s body and found a small caliber handgun. He weighed it in his hand, thought about it, then he pressed it into the dead man’s hand, curling the finger around the trigger. He found a trash bag that had missed the dustbin and propped the arm on it so that the gun could be seen around the corner.

He peered into the darkness, seeking the sniper’s position. Todor had stood
thus,
had lifted the bottle
so,
and the bullet that had killed him had come from…He saw the building across the street, the slight flutter of drapes, the open window on the second floor.
…from there.
But the killer had most likely shifted. An assassin who stays too long in one place is a fool…usually a dead fool.

Hugh put himself in the assassin’s mind. He must make sure of Todor and his companion, but he wouldn’t come out the building’s front entrance. Hugh had no gun, but the assassin wouldn’t know that. So, he’d go out the back to the alley behind. The airyways were blocked, so he’d have to go to one corner or the other. Not to Alkorry Street, which was farther and brightly lit, but to the left. And coming around that corner would give him a clear shot into the space behind the dustbin.

Now the only question was whether the sniper would expect astuteness of his quarry and so outguess the guesser. But one could reason oneself into paralysis in that manner, and paralysis, he knew, was the one fatal strategy.

There is this paradox of those who live on the edge, and that is that one may keep his life only by putting it at hazard. He must, as an ancient maxim had it, “desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” Or, in the words of an older maxim, “He that would lose his life, the same shall save it.”

He was already running on cat feet across the empty street when he heard the shot whine off the paving. It had come from the direction of the main street. Hugh hunched over, dove for a shadowed airyway, and vanished into it.
Stupid!
he told himself. There had been two of them. The first to cover the Mild Beast; the second to block the way to the transit station. But he was sure there was no third man. Anyone positioned at the other end of the block would already have had a shot behind the dustbin. He listened, but heard no footsteps. The second man was either uncommonly silent or he was maintaining discipline.

The airyway was blocked like all the others. Hugh studied shadows, saw a deeper darkness in the ambit of the stairs, and melted from the airyway to crouch in its protection. From there he could slip through the garden-level passage under the stairs and up the other side. That put a stone staircase between him and the second sniper and he could move, with care, to the next building. Then, down again through the passage, and up, and that put him just at the corner.

There, he waited, either for his quarry to come or for the second shooter to move into a better position.

He listened.

The breeze was steady, channeled by the rows of buildings on either side of the street, but not strong enough to lift more than dust. A stone rattled from a careless kick. Hugh smiled grimly. The assassin likely thought he faced only a couple of drunks from the Beast, one of them—if he were in communication with the second man—last seen cowering in a blocked airyway two doors up the block.

He felt a presence approaching: stealthy, but not too much so. He readied himself, exhaled softly, emptied his mind, waited for the moment. A figure stepped around the corner with an air rifle already shouldered, a bead already hunting for the space where Todor lay with gun extended, and Hugh sprouted from the very pavement like a
spartos
from a dragon’s tooth, inhaling broadly as he did. He seized the gunman’s mouth in his left hand and ran the
sica
across his throat with the right, then pushed him forward to stumble and fall onto the street.

Hugh reached for the air rifle, but a bullet sang on the paving and he withdrew once more into the shadows. The second assassin was coming—he could hear the soft, rapid footsteps—and he had no intention of allowing Hugh to get to the fallen weapon. Of little use, now, his
sica.
He would get one throw, but the curved blade was not a good throwing knife and was unlikely to deal a death blow.

Then he heard the distinctive pop-pop-pop of a handgun followed by the clatter of a weapon sliding along the cobblestone paving. He risked a look and saw the other shooter sprawled in the center of the road and, in the stairwell to the Mild Beast, the Alabastrine woman checking the load in her weapon.

“Coom,” she called in a loud whisper, “my goon is noot so soondless as theirs. Roon.”

And so, they did.

Neither of them spoke until they had reached the transit station. The Alkorry Street platform was nearly deserted and here, well above street level, the breeze flowed unimpeded. Three young men dressed with feathers in their hair had congregated at the east end trying alternately to look tough and to keep the feathers from taking flight. Two hired-women stood by a kiosk near the center of the platform discussing in low tones their clients of the night and advertising for additional sales. Both groups eyed the newcomers—possible customers, possible prey—but one look was all they required to keep their distance.

Hugh regarded the ebony woman warily. He distrusted coincidence. What usually popped out of the
machina
was seldom a
deus,
and in his line of work surprises were seldom welcome.

Yet, the woman had saved his life.

“I didn’t have time to thank you, back there,” he said.

“That’s ookay,” she said, smiling like a skull. “I have my dooty, as do you. I have a message that you moost take to the one who calls himself Tool Benlever and to the Foodir. ‘Patience wears theen waiting for your dooty.’”

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It is noot needful that you do. Joost tell them what I have said.”

“Who are you?”

“You may tell the soo-called Tool Benlever that my name is Ravn Olafsdottr, and that name is surety for what I have toold you. Now goo.” She pointed west with a toss of her head. There, a string of lights foretold the arrival of a train of capsules. When Hugh looked back, the Alabastrine was gone. He shivered. The Other Olafsson had appeared at last.

When the train pulled up he entered an empty capsule and keyed in the address of the hotel where “Benlever” and “Melisond” were staying. The system would shunt the capsule to the proper lines and bring it to the nearest station. The doors hissed closed and the train slid forward gathering speed. Through the window he saw the hired women welcoming two men who had stepped off another capsule. Then the train was sliding high over the rooftops with nothing but the night beyond them.

Evening has come to the plaza in the Corner and the stones of the fountain have grown chilled, for the blank-faced buildings have tossed their shadows across the square and pinched the sunlight into streams pouring from the narrow passageways. Down those arcades and alleys, plaster and stucco walls glow a golden red, as if they led to fabulous palaces just out of sight. The scarred man grunts and, leveraging himself on his knees, pushes to his feet and offers his arm. “Come,” he says. “The Corner is not a good place to be at night.” As if to underline his point, the harper hears the sounds of shutters closing, of locks tumbling, of bars sliding into place.

“I will buy you a dinner,” she says. “At the Hostel.”

But the old man shakes his head. “Such fare’s too rich for the likes of me. I’ll dine one day at the frozen center of Hel, and I’m saving up my appetite.”

She slings her harp case over her shoulder and takes his arm. “No,” she insists. “There is a meal I’ve always wanted to buy, and I’ll not be denied.”

The scarred man says nothing and the two walk slowly down Merry Weather Alley, toward Greaseline. After a moment, he pats her hand gently. “Thank you,” he says. “We’ve always wondered what came of it in the end. Whether it was all worth it.”

The harper fears to respond. Matters are too delicate; the most hesitant of touches could shatter them. Instead, she returns to the story. “Your Other Olafsson was too fortuitous. I thought her appearance bad art.”

“Oh, her appearance was bad enough without bringing art into it. There was nothing sudden to her. She’s been there all along, lurking in my prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses. It’s not that you haven’t been warned. She’d been to see the Committee of Seven; she followed Greystroke into and out of the Corner. She directed Micmac Anne to the Fudir’s table. She has loitered now and then in the background of my tale.”

“I don’t understand why she saved Hugh from the ICC assassins.”

The scarred man chuckles. “Oh, listen to the sound of your assumptions rattling! Your head is like a castanet. You’ve forgotten that she and Qing were sent with a mission. She wanted to remind her colleague about that mission, and the sniper threatened to damage the medium she planned to use for the message.”

“She didn’t know Greystroke was Greystroke?”

A slow shake of the head. “We think not. But she is the one player in that dance that we’ve never spoken with, so who knows what she knew?”

“But why so roundabout? Why not approach Greystroke—Qing, as she thought—directly?”

“Because
her
task was to kill Qing if he failed in his duty. That is an intimate relationship, and like the bride and the groom, it isn’t seemly for the one to see the other before the day of consummation.”

“But…Donovan’s task was routine. An investigation of cross-Rift traffic. Next to the Dancer…Ah. Ravn didn’t know about the Dancer.”

“Or she didn’t care. Couriers are remarkably focused. She must have known from her own visit to the Seven that the Fudir was the key, and the Fudir had gone to New Eireann for his own reasons. So she didn’t worry when ‘Qing’ also went to New Eireann. She waited on Jehovah, knowing he’d be coming back with his quarry. But then, instead of forcing the Fudir to take him to Donovan, ‘Qing’ hared off to Peacock Junction with him. That didn’t add up—unless Donovan had also gone to Peacock—so she followed them on what you might call ‘yellow alert.’ Then when he continued on to Die Bold, it began to look like he was shirking his duty. Hence, the reminder. A courier doesn’t jump to conclusions. It might be that the best place to learn about cross-Rift traffic was near the Rift, and Donovan might have gone there ahead of them.”

“Wouldn’t Ravn be suspicious that ‘Qing’ was associating with a Hound?”

“Again, it’s hard to say. She followed ‘Qing’ but may have reached Peacock Junction after the two had conferred. So all she saw was a Hound’s ship
following
Qing onto an uncharted ramp.”

“And so she followed. That must have taken nerve.”

“Nerve has never been short rations among that lot. Here. Let’s go down these steps. There’s a restaurant at the edge of the Corner, on Menstrit. They serve a delicious chicken tikka. If you want to buy us a dinner, it’s cheaper there than at the Hostel.”

“The cost doesn’t matter.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind spending less. Perhaps there we can bring this squalid tale to an end.”

The harper laughs. “In what way?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said there are three ways in which a thing may reach an end, and so far you’ve mentioned termination and perfection. What is the third way? Surely, the story has not perfected itself! Too many pieces are yet missing!”

“Ah. The third kind of end is purpose.”

“You mean the tale must achieve a purpose, a moral.”

“No, that a teller may have a purpose in telling it.”