Last First Snow (19 page)

“Is that it?” he said when he saw her, and pointed to the briefcase.

She lifted the case slowly and with effort.

“Looks heavy.”

“It is. Only a few slips of paper, but enough Craft's woven through to make them ten times heavier than lead.”

“I started insurance negotiations after we left yesterday. Hope I can lock in a good price before this drives us all out of business.”

“The deal will bring you more business than it drives out.”

“Of course.” He nodded, licked his lips, nodded again.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“Your sacrifice. If you had not compromised yesterday, I doubt we would have reached an agreement so soon, if ever.”

“Sacrifice,” he said, and “yes,” and: “You're welcome. And thank you, too. Without you. Well. None of this might have happened.”

He extended his hand, and she shook it. His grip was strong and soft, his palm cold. His eyes remained unsure.

The King in Red emerged from the command tent, robed in crimson and clinging shadows. “Good morning,” he said. “Let's get this done.”

Batac hid his fragile edges when Kopil appeared. “Let's.”

Zoh led the Wardens, with Chihuac by his side, all clad in dress blacks: high-collared jackets and creased trousers and patent leather shoes. The King in Red cackled when Elayne noted the uniforms. “This is an affair of state,” he said. “After a fashion. We must show respect. Besides, a little awe never hurt.”

“No,” Elayne agreed. “But.” Quietly, as they approached the barricade. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“No more sky speeches. And if I ask you to stop doing anything while we're in the square, especially anything Craft-related, listen.”

“Elayne. I know how to control my own people.”

“These aren't your people at the moment, and this is a dangerous time.”

“Whatever happened,” he said, “to the woman who razed the Askoshan Necropolis? I miss her.”

Elayne let one corner of her mouth creep upward. “She wouldn't have survived as long as I have. She didn't, in fact.”

Kopil raised his hand. A length of barricade erupted, sandbags reshaping themselves into an arch. Zoh led the way through, and Elayne, Tan Batac, the King in Red, and their escort entered Chakal Square for the last time. The barricade closed behind them.

Elayne expected the crowd, the red-arms' array. She wasn't ready for the suppressed anger of Chakal Square, for the tension like a long-held breath. She hoped Temoc had stopped the broadsheets. So large a mob, confused and mad, was a solution awaiting a seed to crystallize it into action.

A misplaced word would be enough. A shove, a laugh. A shift in the hot dead wind. Sand blown in the wrong woman's eye. The path they walked to the tent where Temoc waited might seem wide, but was in fact narrow as a blade.

Temoc, she saw as they drew near, had brought his family.

She almost wrecked it all in that moment: almost grew a hundred feet tall and threw him across the square and shouted, What were you thinking?

But she controlled herself. Caleb and Mina seemed like messengers from a cleaner, more composed world, somewhere beyond the stars. Elayne met Mina's gaze, offering as much reassurance as she could without breaking character. For the boy, Caleb, she risked more: she smiled at him, and he smiled back.

The King in Red stepped forth, and Temoc advanced to meet him. “We have drawn up the deal,” Kopil said, with the barest touch of Craft woven through his voice so the words would carry. “Are your people ready?”

He offered the amplification Craft to Temoc: a nice gesture, to make his first act surrender. “We are,” Temoc said.

Elayne's cue. “This briefcase contains our deal.” Likewise amplified. Blood and hells, but she was ready to stop playing for the cheap seats. If she wanted to act out before judge and jury, she'd have gone into another branch of Craft.

Nothing for it. Sometimes even a necromancer had to appear in public. At least there were fewer torches and pitchforks than usual, so far.

“Thank you,” Temoc said.

Before Elayne entered the tent for what she hoped would be the last time, she glanced back to Mina—but she did not meet the other woman's eyes again before she passed into shadow.

*   *   *

Entering the meeting tent felt like slipping into a limpid pool after a long hike. They all felt it: even the Major relaxed, free of the Square's anxiety. Bel laughed at something Kapania said, and Hal poured them all water. The King in Red sagged, and for a moment he resembled a kindly, ancient uncle who just happened to be a skeleton crowned with red gold. Tan Batac was the only one who looked nervous, and one for ten wasn't a bad ratio.

Temoc entered the tent last. Elayne caught him before he could take his seat. “What do you think you're doing, bringing them here?”

“This is a historic moment.”

“Historic and dangerous.”

“I did not expect the crowd to be so tense. We are on the verge of victory.”

“To them, victory and defeat look a lot alike.”

“Then let us show them the difference,” he said.

She released him, and they sat. Silence fell. With her thumb Elayne rolled the briefcase tumblers to her combination, opened the latches, rolled the tumblers random again, and lifted the lid. Bill Kemal tensed as if he expected something to explode, but the case was empty save for a manila folder, a dip pen, and a shallow silver bowl. She removed folder, bowl, and pen, set them on the table, and closed the case. “Here we are.”

She opened the folder and slid the document into the center of the table. Five pages, with a signature on the fifth.

“So small,” Kapania said. “I thought contracts like this ran for hundreds of pages.”

“Hundreds,” Elayne confirmed, “or thousands. This is a special case. We've done most of the work. These papers alter the original pursuant to your requirements, most substantially the preconditions of fee simple sale and the insurance and protection mandate. I'd like to walk through the terms of the agreement one by one. Please pay attention. I'll pause for questions after every subsection. I appreciate your holding questions for a pause, since there's a good chance your issues may be addressed in the text.” Nods around the table. “Section one.”

Fewer questions than she expected, and no outbursts. No major changes—a few words here or there, easy emendations Tan Batac and the King in Red let slide. Before her watch ticked quarter past ten, she turned the final page and said, “Are we agreed?”

The King in Red nodded.

Tan Batac said, “Yes.”

“We are,” said Temoc.

“Sounds good,” said Bill Kemal, and Kapania, “Sure.”

“Yes,” said Bel after a long, slow nod.

“Acceptable,” said the Major in a steel-string twang.

Xatoc said, “Yeah.”

And Hal Techita said, “Sounds good.”

And that was that.

Almost.

She drew her knife from the glyph above her heart, savored that old shiver of corruption and universal wrong. They'd been through a lot together, this blade and her. She kept it subtle; only gathered a little light into the edge. The oculus dimmed to pale gold. “Some of you,” she said, “may find this next part unpleasant, but it's necessary. You may use your own blade, but unless you do this sort of thing often best let me do the honors.” With a stroke of her finger, she honed the moonlight curve.

They all let her make the cuts, even Temoc. She needed only a drop, in most cases so fine a cut the victim felt no pain until Elayne was done. Temoc did not flinch. Tan Batac bit his lip as the blade descended; she did not warn him this was a bad idea if one expected jaw-clenching pain. She added her own blood, to lend the firm's seal to the contract. When the bowl reached the King in Red, the others caught their breath. Kopil held out one hand, palm raised. The sparks of his eyes blazed, and wind howled from a distant, blasted plane. The universe blinked, and when light returned a tiny sphere of ruby liquid hovered over his outstretched hand. He turned his hand sideways, and the blood fell into the silver bowl with a plop. No one asked him for an explanation, and he offered none—only leaned back and sipped coffee.

With water added, and fixative, the blood became tolerable ink. Each party signed in turn. A wheel turned beneath the onionskin surface of reality, giant weights fell into place, and, as Tan Batac signed, the work was done. A long-drawn note on the deepest edge of Elayne's hearing shifted pitch.

This was the part of the job she loved: the world changed, and she changed it. They changed it, together—these people she dragged to the table and guided through darkness.

She clapped. Even Tan Batac joined in her applause.

“Good work, everyone,” she said, and returned the contract to her briefcase. They looked around, stunned by victory achieved in spite of themselves.

Then they rose, and as one left the tent.

 

30

Elayne emerged into the silence of the crowd. The contract pulsed in her briefcase, drawing power from the gathered masses, settling into shape. The sun hovered above the RKC building to the east, a bright orange fire in a bright orange sky whipped by demon wind. People called questions, jawed and joked. Someone even sang. But the voices masked emptiness. Eyes turned toward her, and she read a question in them.

What now?

By the tent flap, clutching Caleb, Mina faked academic detachment, but her concern showed through. Elayne wished she hadn't noticed. She felt as if by noticing she betrayed the other woman.

Temoc's scars blazed, and he climbed into empty air as if ascending an invisible staircase: taller now than the King in Red, his boots above the rolling crowd. Sparrows settled onto the RKC building's rooftop. Wardens marched behind their barricade. Temoc cleared his throat.

“It is done.” At first Elayne feared he might stop after those three words. But Temoc knew how to milk a pause. “The deal is signed. People of the Skittersill. My people. We have won.”

A dam broke and noise burst forth. Women shouted, men yelled, children screamed. All through Chakal Square the Skittersill's people cheered. Protest signs twirled in whirlpools of dance. The King in Red did not seem to mind the noise. Neither did Tan Batac: he waved into the crowd, his eyes squinted as if searching for something.

Elayne heard joy in the sound, no doubt, but more energy than joy, a month of harbored rage and fear allowed its first release.

Temoc let the cheer build, but long before it might have reached crescendo he held out his hands, palms down. The noise receded. He lowered his hands further, and the silence returned, deeper even than before. Pressure built.

Tan Batac did not seem to notice the change; he kept smiling and waving, even as the applause died.

Temoc opened his mouth.

Chakal Square was so quiet Elayne could hear her own heartbeat.

Chakal Square was so quiet everyone heard the shot.

A high, sharp crack—Elayne leapt at Temoc, grabbed him by one ankle and pulled, wrapping them both in a diamond-hard shield. Temoc fell to one knee on his platform of air, fought to stand. No bullet struck Elayne's shield, no arrow or Craftwork missile or fl
é
chette. She glanced around, confused: the space swarmed with Wardens, black and silver blurs flocking to the King in Red. Futile. Any weapon meant for him would not be stopped by killing a few Wardens first. They should be guarding—

Oh, gods.

She would remember, later, that when the shot came she'd seen Tan Batac wheel around, hand still raised. Signs she should have noticed: body stiff, face glazed with adrenaline and shock. But she'd dived for Temoc instead.

Tan Batac fell. A red stain spread across his white shirt between his thin suspenders. He flapped at the stain as if to daub the wetness up. His lips framed words she could not hear. Blood gushed from his wound in rhythm, and his hands left red prints on his jacket.

His eyes focused on her.

Noise, everywhere. Rush of her own heartbeat, her own breath. Wardens shouted spells she remembered from decades past, handed down to them by veterans of her Wars, Wars which had never ended and, never ending, never changed.

“Have visual.”

“Man down.”

“Single shot.”

“—Perimeter—”

“—Need cover—”

“Get down get down get down.”

“Medic.”

“I see him I know I see him.”

“Medic!”

“Engaging.”

And beneath those spells she heard other cries, the crowd understanding—or not—

“—Who—”

“They can't—”

“Temoc's down!”

Another shot. She raised a second shield.

This time no one fell.

Temoc landed beside her; shadow and green flame swallowed his skin, the gods' aspect summoned to protect him. He glanced from Tan Batac to his family, to Mina covering Caleb with her body, to Chel covering Mina, to the Wardens. Elayne knelt by Batac, pulled a handkerchief from her jacket and wadded it against the wound. The yellow sky reflected in his eyes. She woke glyphs on her hands, wrists, temples—different glyphs than those she used for work, older, cruder, made with makeshift tools in time of war. Darkness swallowed her, an instant's utter vacancy as if some high all-sustaining God had blinked (as, if such a Being existed, she must have done mere seconds before). Elayne pulled poison sunlight down—enough, she hoped, and closed her eyes: Tan Batac's soul was a torn sheet whipped by hurricane winds, but he could bear, for a while, the touch of her Craft. Longer than he'd last without. The cost of magic was ever the calculus of healing.

Tan Batac was an engineering project broken.

Subconscious systems tracked unfolding chaos. Situational awareness: once drilled in you never forgot, time and therapy be damned. The King in Red drew power to him. “Find the assassin. Bring him to me.” Assumptions, always. Might be a her. Might be many enemies. The Wardens aren't police here, now—they're a force in hostile territory. Don't send them in without a clear mission.