Read The Gathering Flame Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
The Gathering Flame (14 page)
“They were here,” he said. “Not more than five minutes before the raid began. They were here.”
“All the exits were watched, and the street has been cordoned off,” Meinuxet said. “They won’t get far.”
“You can believe so, if you will,” Hafrey said. “But I suspect that the truth will be far otherwise.”
He turned to go. As he stepped out through the shattered wall and into the street, a hovercar pulled up in a hiss of nullgravs. The door of the vehicle bore the crest of the Minister of Internal Security. Hafrey watched, unsurprised, as a familiar heavyset figure unfolded from the hovercar’s passenger compartment and strode forward to meet him.
“Nivome,” he said, and made a half-bow.
The younger man didn’t bother to return the armsmaster’s greeting. “What is the meaning of conducting violent operations in my area of control?”
“You were informed prior to the raid.”
Nivome glowered, unmollified. “You made sure that the message reached my desk so late that I couldn’t countermand it.”
Hafrey shrugged. “I did all that I was required to do.”
“Your damned high-handedness is going to get you in trouble someday, old man.” Nivome’s glance slid sideways toward the rubble. “What did you find?”
“What I expected. That there are Mages conducting their rituals on our planet.”
“You arrested them?”
“No. They escaped.”
The Rolnian’s lip curled. “Did they get away by accident,” he wondered aloud, “or was it another one of your everlasting plans? If state security wasn’t at issue, I’d have you put on public trial.”
“As you will,” Hafrey said. “When the Domina arrives, you are invited to lay all of your grievances before her.”
Nivome gave the armsmaster a look of disgust. “And while she’s missing—thanks to you!—you seek to wear the tyrant’s robes in An-Jemayne, is that it?”
“It is whatever you wish it to be. Good day, sir.”
Ser Hafrey bowed again and walked off, pulling the hood of his cloak up and over his head to guard against the chill of dawn. Behind him, pale smoke drifted away in curls from the empty building.
“I’ve already located and disabled Central’s snoop in this compartment,” Captain-of-Corvettes Trestig Brehant said, as soon as he and Gala were together in his private cabin. “I have a feeling that you’re about to suggest something dangerous.”
“I am,” Gala said. She’d perched herself on the edge of Brehant’s bunk. The cabin only had room for one chair, and Tres was sitting in it. She was aware in the back of her mind that most of the ship’s crew were going to suspect that she and the squadron commander were lovers—
Better that,
she thought,
than the truth.
Better that,
she thought,
than the truth.
She pushed the thought away and grinned at Brehant. “Tell me, Tres—how do you feel about rank insubordination?”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Depends on who’s being rank about it.”
“Me, probably.”
Brehant laughed aloud. “You’d have to go pretty far—you’ve got a fair amount of credit to drew on around here. With me, anyhow.”
“I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“Oh, damn. And here I thought something interesting might come out of this mess after all.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Tres, you’re incorrigible. If things weren’t so serious, I might even take you up on that offer … but right now the raiders are bleeding us like sucker-flies, one bite at a time.”
“No argument there from me.” His mobile features changed, becoming sober again. “What’s the odds they’re planning to drain us dry and knock down the empty shell?”
“I don’t take bets like that,” Gala said. “I’ll tell you something else, though: if we don’t take out their staging bases, there’s no way that we can stop them. And nobody has the foggiest idea where the raiders are coming from, unless you count from the Magewords’ as a workable set of navigation coordinates, which I don’t.”
Brehant’s dark brows drew together in thought. “You say we don’t know where the Mageworlds are—but I’ll bet my paycheck against yours that the privateers have a pretty good idea. Maybe we should go find ourselves some privateers and ask.”
“I have a better idea,” said Gala. “It’s what I came here to talk with you about, in fact—”
“Took you long enough to get around to it.”
“I had to work up my nerve first.”
He made a face of astonishment. “Nerve? You?”
“Wait until I’m finished, Tres.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m thinking that I ought to go to Central and ask
them
where the Mageworlds are. And ask them a few more things while we’re at it—like why they haven’t sent us the reinforcements we’ve asked for, or the intelligence we’ve asked for, or anything else we’ve asked for, ever since the raids began.”
them
where the Mageworlds are. And ask them a few more things while we’re at it—like why they haven’t sent us the reinforcements we’ve asked for, or the intelligence we’ve asked for, or anything else we’ve asked for, ever since the raids began.”
Brehant gave a long, admiring whistle. “That’s nervy, all right. It won’t work, though. Central doesn’t listen to lowly line captains from the outplanets.”
“Maybe not. But somebody has to make the attempt.”
“Two somebodies,” he said. “If you’re hell-bent on throwing your career down the waste chute, then I might as well throw mine in after it.”
On the seventeenth floor of the Markey’s Prime Hotel, not far from the Art Institute of Flatlands, morning sunlight slid in through the drawn curtains and touched the pillows of the large double bed. Tillijen sat up and stretched.
Warhammer’s
number-two gunner felt well rested and satisfied with herself and the universe. She had spent a marvelous first night of liberty, not at all unhappy with her impulsive decision to send the captain a change of clothes. Errec had helped a lot there—the
’Hammer’s
copilot was good at locating people, an odd gift to encounter in such a reserved and solitary man.
number-two gunner felt well rested and satisfied with herself and the universe. She had spent a marvelous first night of liberty, not at all unhappy with her impulsive decision to send the captain a change of clothes. Errec had helped a lot there—the
’Hammer’s
copilot was good at locating people, an odd gift to encounter in such a reserved and solitary man.
Ransome was like that, though, she reflected; quiet, and talented in strange ways. Even the thick bulkheads in
Warhammer‘
s berthing spaces couldn’t hide the fact that sometimes he screamed in his sleep. Tillijen had never asked him why. The spacelanes had their own etiquette, as rigid as any court’s—and as Nannla had said, such things weren’t done.
Warhammer‘
s berthing spaces couldn’t hide the fact that sometimes he screamed in his sleep. Tillijen had never asked him why. The spacelanes had their own etiquette, as rigid as any court’s—and as Nannla had said, such things weren’t done.
At least he was unbending a bit as time went on. He was a lot more relaxed now than he had been when Jos first brought him aboard. And he’d proved his worth. He found Mages.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Pulling on a light robe, she went over to the window and drew the curtain a little aside. Flatlands Portcity spread out beyond the glass. The metropolis lived up to its name, being flat and uninteresting with an uninspired style of local architecture. She let the curtain fall back into place. Time to get dressed for the day.
This morning, she and Nannla planned to go to the Art Institute. Pleyverans didn’t have much of a name for producing great art, but they did have a considerable name for making money, and the collection of off-world objects at the Flatlands Institute was well spoken of in the better guidebooks. After that, well … other things of interest would surely present themselves. A restaurant, perhaps. Tillijen had never been to Artha and had never found an Arthan restaurant on any of the worlds she’d visited. The Flatlands Directory in the hotel room listed no fewer than three.
An evening began to take form in her mind as she headed over to the closet where she’d stowed her portside clothing. A call to the ship after breakfast, to let Ferrda know where they’d be, then off into Flatlands … there was something lying on the carpet inside the door.
Tillijen changed her path from a direct course toward the closet to approach the vestibule. The object on the carpet was an oblong of cream-colored paper—an envelope. Tillijen frowned. She didn’t recall an envelope being there the night before.
She reached out one toe and pushed the corner of the envelope. It slid a bit. She pushed again, this time getting her toe under one corner, and flipped the envelope over. The other side had lettering on it—
Warhammer,
in square Galcenian capitals.
Warhammer,
in square Galcenian capitals.
Tillijen left the envelope lying on the carpet. Instead of going to the closet, she made her way back to the bed, where Nannla lay with a pillow pulled across her face. Tillijen pushed her friend on the shoulder.
“Time to wake up, Nannla,” she said, in the Ophelan patois they spoke when they were alone. “I believe that the morning has become interesting.”
The bedclothes twitched, and Nannla’s voice came muzzily from underneath the pillow. “What could possibly be interesting about mornings?”
“I have a mystery for you. Someone’s sending us letters.”
“What’s so mysterious about that?”
“Get up and find out.”
Nannla pulled the pillow aside. “All right. Half a moment while I put some clothes on.”
A few minutes later, both women were dressed and standing together in the vestibule. The envelope lay where it had landed when Tillijen flipped it over. Nannla regarded it with a speculative expression.
“Sure isn’t from anyone
I
know,” she said after a while. “How about one of your friends?”
I
know,” she said after a while. “How about one of your friends?”
“Both of them know how to find me if they want to. They don’t need to sneak around Flatlands being mysterious.”
“You’ve got a point.” Nannla looked at the envelope a while longer. “Maybe we should leave it right there and go on about our business.”
Tillijen raised an eyebrow. “And let the hotel servants pick it up instead?”
“I suppose not,” said Nannla, with a regretful sigh. “You will be careful opening it, won’t you?”
“Of course. You know me.”
Tillijen pulled a pair of thin leather gloves out of her jacket pocket and slipped them on. Then she drew a small knife from her boot top and, stooping further, picked up the envelope by one corner. She slit the envelope and shook out the card it contained, a sheet of stiff paper covered with flowing script.
“Well, what is it?” Nannla demanded. “A ransom demand, a death threat, or an invitation to the ball?”
“None of those,” Tillijen said. She put the card back into the envelope and crumpled both together. “It’s a—” she dropped out of Ophelan for a few syllables, then stopped and started over again, stumbling a little as she translated the awkward bits. “It’s a—you might call it an Announcement of Expectancy—in the name of the Domina of Entibor.”
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Nannla looked shocked. “Our little Perada?”
“‘Our little Perada,’ indeed,” Tillijen said. “Her family are cousins to mine—and she’s not that little, either. Do you know who these things usually go to?”
Nannla shook her head. “Enlighten me.”
“The Announcement of Expectancy,” said Tillijen grimly, “goes to the closest female relative—or, absent a relative, the closest female associate—of the lady’s consort.”
“Oh, my,” said Nannla. “Jos.”
Tillijen nodded. “Jos.”
By the time morning came to the Strip in Flatlands Portcity, most of the bars and lounges had closed until the next night. Those places that remained open, like the Meridian Grill, tended to do as much trade in cha’a and breakfast as they did in stronger stuff. Breakfast, however, wasn’t what Errec Ransome had come for.
Left on
Warhammer
with only Ferrda for company, he’d awakened early and found himself unable to get back to sleep. Fearing to sleep, if truth be told; the nightmare had been a bad one this time, and he could feel it waiting to snatch at him again if he gave it the chance. Something about the Web passage had triggered a memory, and Errec didn’t want to go looking for what the memory might have been. He’d made that mistake before, and he hadn’t liked the places the search had taken him.
Warhammer
with only Ferrda for company, he’d awakened early and found himself unable to get back to sleep. Fearing to sleep, if truth be told; the nightmare had been a bad one this time, and he could feel it waiting to snatch at him again if he gave it the chance. Something about the Web passage had triggered a memory, and Errec didn’t want to go looking for what the memory might have been. He’d made that mistake before, and he hadn’t liked the places the search had taken him.
But now the memories were coming back unasked, peeking and grinning at him from the shadows like gargoyles. A shift of light as he crossed the threshold of the Meridian Grill made the pushball cube in one corner transmute for an instant into a monstrous, looming threat before resuming its proper shape. He shuddered reflexively, then made his way to the counter and put down a five-tile note.
Errec took the glass of blue sparkly stuff he got in return—overpriced, he was certain, but after
Warhammer’
s last run he didn’t lack the money—carried it to the end of the bar, and began to sip.
Warhammer’
s last run he didn’t lack the money—carried it to the end of the bar, and began to sip.
The drink was powerful and the taste was smooth. He sat back, trying to relax. This early in the day the Grill wasn’t crowded, but enough people came and went that he didn’t need to fear being alone. He sipped his drink and let the potent liquid push his memories down to where they wouldn’t bubble up to disturb his waking thoughts.
A while later—how much later he couldn’t be sure, but he had a vague recollection of a second drink, and perhaps a third, being placed before him—two men walked into the bar and took seats at the other end. They called for hot food, eggs and fried bread and thin slices of cured meat, and for mugs of stimulants. These two weren’t here to forget, but to stay close and stay sharp.
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