Ruler of Naught (16 page)

Osri turned the worn, uneven coin over on his palm. On the
one side was a bird. On the verso, the figure resembled a woman in archaic
dress. A trace of some kind of script, completely unintelligible, remained here
and there. Rubbing his fingers over the warm metal of the coin, he thought about
the unknown hands who had made and possessed it unimaginable millennia before,
under the light of Sol.

Handling the Tetradrachm gave Osri a sense of peace, a sense
of order. And Telos knew there was little enough order in the rest of his life.

A sound outside the cabin made him close his fingers protectively
over it. Someone tried to open the hatch.

Osri jammed both objects into place and slapped the light
cover back on. Then he hit the lock and retreated to his bunk, scowling.

“I was preparing to sleep,” he began as the hatch opened.

Lounging in the hatch was the rakish, gray-eyed comtech. “On
your feet, nick,” Lokri drawled. “Let’s see what you can do with a jac in your
hands.”

“I don’t...”

“Now.” Lokri stepped toward Osri, his smile tight with challenge.
Osri’s heart hammered.
These people are Rifters, and they follow no law but
their own whim.

He followed Lokri out of the cabin, tension easing somewhat
when he saw Brandon approaching the rec room from the other direction, led by
the somber-faced Serapisti Jaim. Though he was still angry enough with the
Aerenarch to avoid him whenever possible, he felt a measure of safety in his
presence. If they were going to kill
him
, they’d make a show of it.

The rec room was utterly bare, featureless. Marim, who was
waiting, punched the console. The four walls vanished, replaced by an excellent
simulacrum of a narrow, grimy street flanked by colonnades dim with shadow.

“Factor’s Way, Port Kedorsay,” she announced.

Did they want Osri to practice backing these scum? From over
the buildings on one side the blue-white glare of a booster lift-off briefly
illuminated the street. Osri could feel the crackling roar through his feet.
The simulation was good but not perfect—Osri’s ears still reported that he was
in a small room.

Marim thrust a sim-jac into Osri’s hand. “We’re about to be
attacked. Live or die.”

A figure in a garish uniform strolled out from a darkened
doorway in the sim and squinted at them. It was a tall man, perhaps forty
years old, with a sallow olive complexion and dark hair and brows. His bones
were wide and strong under their layer of extra flesh, his expression ugly.

Osri recognized him as the man Tanri had shown them on the
main screen of the defense room in Merryn—
Hreem the Faithless
.

“Markham’s killer.” Did he hear the whisper? In the
reflected light of the simulation Brandon’s face betrayed grief, then the
Aerenarch turned away, fingering the jac in his hand.

Osri remembered the quotation Brandon had made, that day in
Merryn:
“—and a pyre will I make of my enemy’s works.”
The Sanctus
Gabriel had acted at a nexus in history where justice and vengeance came
together. For the first time doubt assailed Osri. Could he lay claim to the
same justification?

“Handsome little chatzer, ain’t he?” Lokri laughed.

“What’s that on his boots?” Osri asked. “The metal things.”

“Heel-claws,” replied Lokri.

“Looks like they’re only useful if your opponent is lying
down,” Brandon commented.

“That’s Hreem’s character in a quantum.”

“Hreem
chatch n’far
,” Marim cursed, making an obscene
gesture at Hreem’s face before she snapped her fingers and triggered the
action. “Go, Lokri!”

Hreem whipped out his weapon and fired as Lokri crouched and
shot.

Evil-faced assassins appeared on rooftops, beside the
decrepit buildings, or ran from doorway to doorway, firing frequently. Lokri
ducked and whirled, trying to zap the phantoms before they fired on him. This
went on for several minutes, then the figures disappeared and Marim hit the
console.

“Not bad!” She peered at the readout. “Burned twice, three
wounds, zapped seventy-three percent of ‘em.”

Lokri made a noise of disgust as he and Marim switched
places. The little Rifter was fast on her feet, but reckless: she ran out of
charge in the middle of a firefight. From the chaffing she took, this was not
unexpected.

Jaim was next. As one would expect from a master of the
Ulanshu Path, he was very fast and very accurate. Marim clapped, and Lokri
watched with that speculative air. Then, with a self-deprecating gesture, Jaim
gave way for Brandon to take his place.

Brandon ranked about the same as Lokri. His aim was better
but he made the same sort of tactical errors that Osri then made in his
turn—errors which, Osri reflected bitterly as Marim crowed about their poor
scores, were to be expected from people who did not make violence their way of
life.

Brandon sat on the edge of a console, smiling across the
room at Marim. “You have to remember,” he said, “we’re trained to try
everything short of jacs to resolve differences.”

“You’ve noticed,” Lokri retorted in exactly the same tone,
“that the Dol’jharians do not make the ballroom floor their battleground.”

Jaim was studying his hands, his long dark braids swinging close
to his face.

Marim said, “We all need to be better when we face Hreem
next.”

Osri said, “I take it you expect us to be a part of this
quarrel?” As all faces, Rifter and Aerenarch, swung his way, he hated how
tight and angry his own voice sounded.

“Might not be a choice.” Lokri’s voice was mild but his
narrowed eyes reflected some of Osri’s own anger.

“Does your captain practice with you?” Brandon asked.

“Group actions, she does,” Marim said with a grin. “On Dis.
We sometimes play for days. On
Telvarna
she runs alone.”

“She was a dead shot long before she joined up with us,”
Jaim put in, looking up at them. “Had to be.”

“Come on, let’s try the group run,” Marim suggested, and
punched the console.

Brandon stepped obediently to the middle of the room, so
Osri did as well. The three Rifters moved apart in a well-trained unit as a
score of villains appeared. Osri saw Brandon fall behind, and he took up a
position to his left, recalling a lesson from his Academy days.
When we were
trained, there was little expectation we would ever use such knowledge
, he
thought, and then there was no time for thought.

Osri fell into the remembered patterns of defense classes,
keeping focused and alert. When the program ended and the space shifted back
to normal, he was surprised by a mild sense of regret.

Lokri punched up drinks. Marim put a hand on Osri’s and
Brandon’s shoulders and shoved them toward seats. Brandon complied without
comment, so Osri sat where indicated.
Perhaps he expects to hear something
of import.

Lokri handed out the drinks. Brandon wiped damp hair off his
brow and raised his glass. “The dead salute you.”

Lokri grinned. “We’ll do another tomorrow. If ya want to
stay alive, you’re going to need some work.”

“How do you keep track of Hreem?” the Aerenarch asked.

“Sodality maintains a pipeline on the DataNet, like any
other organization—the Infonetics blits don’t care,” replied Lokri, “so long as
the fees get paid.”

“Lot of merchants and even Service types subscribe to the
RiftNet, ‘cause the info’s so good,” added Marim.

Osri leaned back in his seat, considering yet another dissonance
between his assumptions and reality. This was what his father had been talking
about once: that no one on Arthelion seemed to realize just how much a part of
the Thousand Suns the Rifter overculture was, despite its lack of any official
recognition.
They’re all over the Thousand Suns and beyond
, he’d said,
and
not being planet-centered like Downsiders and even Highdwellers, they’ve got a
different perspective on things.
Osri remembered having ended the
discussion by referring to lawlessness.

“So that means Hreem can use the same sources to gather information
on his enemies? Like you, for example?” Brandon went on.

“Yep.” Marim wiped her sleeve across her mouth. “But Hreem’s
made a lot of enemies, and some of those sources don’t work so well for him.”

“He can’t even get near Rifthaven anymore,” said Lokri,
“since some of his gang shot up Varli’s Refit Emporium a couple of years back.
Only the fact he wasn’t there himself—and paid the wergild with the heads of
the ones who did it—saved him from all the Syndicates going after him.”

“And anyway, we have Vi’ya.” Jaim waved a long hand in the
direction of the bridge.

Osri saw a brief exchange of glances between the Serapisti
and Lokri. Brief, and completely uninterpretable.

“You mean her tempathic abilities?” Brandon asked.

“Nah.” Marim’s nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t do her much good
out here—strictly up-close stuff. She says she merely uses the info to project
patterns, and makes plans from there, but she’s a hot one at strategy and
tactics.”

Lokri finished off his drink and lounged to the hatch. “My
watch now.” And he strolled out.

Brandon said, “Did Vi’ya ask you to run us?”

Jaim shook his head, his braid-chimes tinkling.

Marim said, “Was our idea. You, Arkad, are pretty quick on
the fly—we saw that back on the Mandala. But Schoolboy...” She shrugged.

Brandon was watching Jaim, who studied his hands.
What
was going on?

Brandon said, “I know Hreem killed Markham, but Vi’ya said
he was betrayed. By whom?”

Jaim looked up quickly.

“Chatzing triple cross,” Marim said. “I still don’t know the
whole story—I was on the other base when it happened—but you can ask Vi’ya. If
she’ll talk, which isn’t often. Or you could ask Lokri. He knows all about it.”

Brandon’s gaze remained on Jaim. “Maybe I should cultivate
your captain. I notice she’s not unfamiliar with the Ulanshu kinesics. When
does she practice?”

“Only with me,” Jaim said. “She masses a lot—their bones are
thicker than ours, and she’s strong.”

Marim shivered theatrically. “Don’t spar with her—she’ll
break your arm without even trying. Jaim’s the only one can manage with her.”

“Their?” Osri asked.

No one answered him. Marim stretched, then wandered over to
dial something more to drink. Jaim got to his feet and walked out.

Brandon also rose. Osri followed him out, and then said
again, “Their?”

Brandon looked back, his gaze absent. “Dol’jharians.”

Night had fallen, and Eloatri was lost. The realization
brought her to a halt in the middle of the trail, just short of a clearing
illuminated by the magenta glimmer of the rising moon. She stood among the
shadows of the trees, their white trunks ghostly in the half-light. Around her
the forest was silent, save for the whisper of a mild breeze and the occasional
call of a night-bird. As she inhaled, the cloying sweetness of nerisa wafted to
her from the clearing.

All day a certain weight had been descending on her, a
formless dread with no object. She had let the feeling have its way, knowing
that grasping at it would only perpetuate it. But now her back crawled with the
diffuse fear of the dark that she had not experienced since childhood.

“The goal of a hejir is to go where the Hand of Telos
guides one.” True, but I thought that...

Her mind stopped. Shock flooded her as she heard the
chattering inner voice that discipline and meditation had stilled threescore
years before. What was happening to her?

Eloatri felt adrift, as if she had stepped off the Eightfold
Path into spiritual chaos. She grasped vainly at the centering mandala she
learned from her master so long ago, but her mind chattered on.

In the seeing there should be just the seeing, in the
hearing just the hearing, in the thinking just the thought...

Then the weight descended on her in its fullness, the Hand
of Telos sundering her from the moment. Eloatri groaned wordlessly and crumpled
into the lotus position, a measureless sense of loss welling up in her.

“I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Law, I
take refuge in the Community,” she said aloud, but the crowded trunks of the
trees around her returned her words in mocking echoes, fragments of the life
being stripped from her: refuge, Law, Community, take, take, take.

She scrambled to her feet and hurried down the trail, and
her third step took her out of the world into the Dreamtime.

“Here,” said Tomiko, touching her elbow and indicating a
table next to the street. The High Phanist smiled as they sat down and motioned
to a waiter. The young man hurried over, and Eloatri tried not to stare at his
atavistically pale skin and blazing red hair. On his hand she noted a large
emerald ring.

Eloatri leaned her staff against a vine-entwined roof support
next to them and placed her begging bowl on the table. Its battered brass
clanked against the glass surface. At a nearby table a strong-shouldered,
dark-visaged man stared at her for a moment before turning back to the woman
with him, whose physiognomy echoed his. With them were two white-haired
children.

Eloatri didn’t hear what Tomiko ordered for them, but the
waiter returned only moments later with two goblets and placed them carefully
before them. Eloatri felt vaguely disappointed. Would they not eat?

Tomiko picked his goblet up and rotated it meditatively in
one hand. Its metallic surface gleamed with condensation, the tiny droplets
scattering rainbow flickers of light across his broad face and high cheekbones.

He raised the goblet to her and drank. She picked hers up
and drank also, suddenly conscious of a tremendous thirst. A moment later she
choked, slamming the goblet back on the table with a discordant crash: the
taste was appalling, a compound of thick metallic heat and something so bitter
that for a moment she couldn’t speak. From the goblet now came the odor of
blood.