Beyond Mundilfoere, one final ghost in a uniform materialized out of thin air. “That was the wrong question. Drop it—” Jashari said, training his gun on her. Slowly, reluctantly, she let her weapon fall.
“Now,” Aranne said, putting out his hand, “give me the reader.”
Mundilfoere averted her eyes as she held out the headset, as if his smile of triumph was too humiliating to bear. Through a deepening slurry of shock and pain, Tree saw her averted gaze glance off Devony’s motionless form, off Gundhalinu lying helpless beside the shattered gangplank … until finally she was looking straight at him.
She nodded slightly as she saw him respond, and glanced toward his feet.
He followed her gaze, and saw Aranne’s plasma rifle lying almost within reach. A sudden surge of adrenaline cleared out his head; he looked up again, but her gaze was back on Aranne. Setting his jaw, Tree watched her peel the headset from her outstretched fingers and shake it free.
He could never clearly describe, afterward, what happened then—whether the headset actually leaped across the gap into Aranne’s hands, or whether Mundilfoere had thrown it at him. Because what happened then—the burst of dazzling darkness, as the headset and the technojewel made contact at last—defied all description.
Aranne made a strangled noise and stumbled back, dropping them both on the dock.
“What—” Jashari began furiously.
Mundilfoere twisted like a cat, driving her elbow into his jaw. Jashari’s weapon flew up in a reflex motion; the barrel cracked against her skull. He hit her again as she fell, clubbing her to her knees.
Aranne ducked down to pick up his own gun.
Tree pushed away from the railing, jerking his body free as he fell forward to grab the rifle first. He swung it up, praying more than aiming, and fired.
The plasma beam caught Aranne point-blank, and blew him through the rail on the far side of the dock, into the dark, waiting sea.
Tree struggled to his knees, gasping with the effort it cost to keep his eyes and his weapon tracking Jashari. “Drop … the gun.…”
Jashari laid his gun down, kicked it away, raising his hands. “LaisTree,” he murmured, sounding oddly surprised. “You don’t understand—”
Tree made a sound he didn’t recognize as a laugh. “Bullshit,” he whispered.
“Listen to me,” Jashari said, holding his gaze with a fevered intensity. “You must believe that there are some things more important than loyalty, or honor—or even our individual lives.” Slowly he began to move forward, holding out his empty hands. “All our lives are meaningless, compared with what this discovery could mean to the Hegemony.…” He leaned down, reaching for the fallen headset, and the necklace.
“Back off!” Tree said raggedly. “Shut up! Gundhalinu … pick them up.” He jerked his head at the artifacts.
Gundhalinu dragged himself forward and collected the pieces of tech carefully, one at a time. He rolled onto his side to look up at Jashari. “You’re under arrest,” he said, his voice flat.
“No.…” Tree shook his head. The itch of blood crawling down his back made a maddening counterpoint to the brutal agony of every breath he drew. “No—” His hands tightened on the gun.
“LaisTree is right, Sergeant.” Jashari smiled faintly. “No one will believe you if you report what really happened here tonight. I’ll deny everything, and since LaisTree is already under suspicion—” He shrugged, his eyes lingering on Gundhalinu’s face, gauging his reaction. “Aranne had great faith in you, Gundhalinu. Cooperate with me. Back me up in the official report and you can both be heroes, instead of pariahs.… After all, thanks to you, the ones who were really responsible for the warehouse massacre are already dead, or being arrested as we speak—and we’ve kept an invaluable artifact out of the hands of the Hegemony’s enemies.…”
Tree began to cough; blood dripped from his lips onto the planks of the pier.
Jashari looked back, his smile widening fractionally. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, LaisTree? You knew it all along, instinctively. You and your friends became vigilantes when you realized that the law, by its very nature, can never contain Chaos. Humanity has always needed its Sin Eaters: those of us willing to break the rules, to risk condemnation—to sacrifice our souls, if necessary—in order to defeat Chaos on its own terms.” He spread his hands. “Who else is there to protect the truly innocent, or to defend the truly irreplaceable, from the monsters who walk among us, passing for human.…”
Tree swayed, putting a hand down to support himself. He felt the gun shift in his grip; his vision began to blur as Jashari’s words muddied the clarity of his anger.
“LaisTree!” Gundhalinu shouted.
Tree lurched upright as Jashari drove at him and seized the barrel of his gun. He struggled desperately to keep his hands on it, felt the stock slipping—
Mundilfoere picked herself up from the dock, and fell against the back of Jashari’s legs. Jashari pitched forward onto his knees, and Tree wrenched the gun free.
And then somehow he was standing, with his body braced against the rail, gazing down into Jashari’s stunned face. “That’s it, fucker,” he said. “You’re dead.”
“LaisTree, don’t!” Gundhalinu said. “It’s—”
Tree shut his eyes, and fired.
“It’s … it’s.…” Gundhalinu murmured, staring.
“No,” Tree whispered, shaking his head. The gun fell from his nerveless grip. He pressed his hands against his side; blood leaked through his fingers as he looked up into Gundhalinu’s unforgiving eyes. “It was justice.… And you know it.”
He watched, feeling neither surprise nor alarm, as Mundilfoere got painfully to her feet and moved to pick up her own weapon. Blood gleamed on her face and in her hair. She crossed to the spot where Gundhalinu lay and said, “Give me the artifacts.” Gundhalinu glared up at her, making no move to hand them over. She smiled at him as if he were a child, or an idiot.
“Give them to her,” Tree mumbled.
Gundhalinu looked at him, away again, as if the sight of him was as painful as the knowledge of what he had just done.
“Do you honestly believe Jashari would not have killed you both, Sergeant?” Mundilfoere said. She glanced at the smoking hole in the pier. “If not tonight or tomorrow, then in a week, or a month, from now…?”
Gundhalinu looked up at her, his eyes desolate. Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled the headset and the jewel from their hiding places in his clothing and handed them to her. She put them carefully, separately, inside her own clothing.
“What are they for?” Gundhalinu asked, at last. “What do they do?”
She shook her head. “Nothing that will ever affect your life again, Sergeant Gundhalinu.”
Tree pushed away from the rail and staggered to the place where Devony lay. He fell on his knees beside her, cradling her head in his bloodied hands. “Devony … why…?”
She opened her eyes; her lips formed words that he could barely make out: “You made me … fearless.” Her eyes closed.
“Dev?” he cried. “No.… Don’t be dead … not for me, please, no … not for me.…” He touched her face; his own face contorted with pain. “Gods, please—”
“Help is coming, LaisTree,” Mundilfoere murmured. He thought that sorrow, regret, even admiration, showed fleetingly in her gaze as she looked down at Devony lying in his arms, crimsoning with his blood. “The Police will be here soon.”
Tree looked up at her again, his eyes clouded.
“The Police you know … the Police that you can trust,” she said, almost gently.
She turned back to Gundhalinu. She tossed the gun away with a grimace and showed him her empty hands.
“Why…?” Gundhalinu murmured.
“Perhaps because I want you to spend the rest of your life trying to answer that question.” She smiled faintly. “Or perhaps simply because Carbuncle knows how to keep secrets.”
Tree held Devony in his arms as he wa
tched Mundilfoere walk away, leaving them there like storm-wrack on the shore of an alien sea … the living among the dead, strangers far from home and strangers to each other. She walked slowly, as though it hurt, but steadily, until she was no more than a shadow moving in the depths of night, the sound of water lapping, a memory.…
19
Arienrhod stood alone in her private study, in the topmost room of the palace—at the very pinnacle of Carbuncle, the apex of her power. Looking out through the transparent walls, she gazed at the perfectly cloudless night sky. A clear night on Tiamat was like a blazing chandelier of stars, so many of them that they dimmed the face of the full moon. Their light refracted eerily from the distant icebound peaks of the interior, even now, when the approach of High Summer had already freed some of the lower slopes from Winter’s burden of snow.
Closer in, the dome of the offworlders’ starport mocked her, and her people. The port complex glowed independently, with light generated by the same self-contained power source that controlled the landing grids. The starport was designed to be as immune to meaningful interaction with the world it served as the Hegemony itself was; even though the complex lay so close to the city that any native could walk out and challenge its security fields, if they dared.
That forbidden gateway to the stars was the chink through which Mundilfoere had slipped last night, vanishing back into the infinite universe.…
Looking down again, Arienrhod saw Carbuncle spread below her, its gleaming folds like a mountain of glass: ageless, indestructible, and inscrutable.
Beyond that, there was only the sea, as eternal and elemental as a goddess … as the universe. She knew those black depths waited for her—waited for one false step—silently, patiently, beneath the deceptive film of light that mirrored the unattainable stars.
She turned her back on them all, moving across the pale carpet to the jewel-framed mirror that sat on a table at the room’s center. She studied her reflection in its surface, touched it lightly with her fingers. The same ageless girl’s face gazed back at her, just as it had every day, year after year. But still she scrutinized the image, searching for any trace of time’s corruption—as always, finding none. Never seeing how the gaze itself had changed: how the sly accretion of time, the corrupting, self-indulgent manipulation of power, had clouded the depths of her agate-colored eyes.
Impatiently she touched a pearl on the mirror’s base, and her static reflection became a monitor screen. Images of the palace’s interior, of the streets of the city and even certain critical buildings in it, passed before her eyes like the fragments of a dream. Along with her network of informants, she had unsleeping electronic eyes planted throughout the city, enabling her to watch its citizens—and especially its visitors—at any time she chose, undetected, to a degree they would find appalling if they ever suspected.…
The screen abruptly showed her an image of Starbuck—returned at last from his latest Hunt—as he made his way upward through the palace toward her sanctuary. She wet her lips observing him, watching him come to her. When she heard his heavy tread climbing the circular staircase that led to the study, her hand moved to the monitor’s base again. At her touch, it become once more a mirror on a table, containing only her reflection.
Starbuck rapped perfunctorily on the door frame, as if it was his unquestioned right to be here; but he entered the room, and her presence, almost tentatively. She allowed him the privilege of access to her in this private sanctuary only after a successful Hunt.
His bloodstained clothing told her that this Hunt had been very successful, despite the dwindling mer population. She smiled, starting toward him with outstretched hands. The spined helmet dropped from his black-gloved fist as he took her into his arms, hungrily claiming his reward—her lips against his mouth, her body pressing up against his with equal urgency.
She released him from her kiss at last, her smile returning as she watched the effect it had on his dark, handsome face—the way that she alone could bring his expression alive, bring real emotion into his eyes, which usually reflected only death, or nothing.
“Well, Herne.…” She stroked his bloodstained sleeve, calling him by his real name, as she did when there was no one to overhear. “A good Hunt … a fitting end to the day.”
He half frowned. “Mundilfoere’s gone offworld with the artifact—I thought you’d be furious.”
“Why?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Why—? Even the Blues were slaughtering each other over that fucking thing; and now they’re purging their ranks.… The Source must be shitting his pants, if he does shit.” Herne shook his head. “Why all of that, if the artifact was really nothing, a useless piece of crap?”
“The Source lives in darkness,” she said, her voice casual, insouciant. “It tends to limit his perceptions. And the Police are only men, after all.” She shrugged, and smiled, as she saw that Herne didn’t, or didn’t want to, grasp her implications. “Like Mundilfoere, I refuse to let any object, or any individual—or even the Hegemony itself—limit my vision. Yes, Mundilfoere is gone with the artifact … something I had no use for anyway. And that has cost my two worst enemies dearly, while costing me nothing … just as she promised.”
He gave a skeptical grunt, as though he thought she was lying, simply to save face.
Her expression turned brittle and byzantine, like a frost-covered windowpane. “There might have been something more that passed between us, Herne.… But that was not, and is not, your concern—fortunately. So at least I don’t have to wonder if you told everything to that suicidal renegade, LaisTree, and that insufferable, arrogant boy, Gundhalinu.”
“How did—” Herne’s face flushed as the words stung him like sleet.
Glimpsing his barely controlled rage and humiliation, she added, “Just be glad they didn’t ask you who Starbuck was.”
She saw murder come fleetingly into his eyes; but he only looked away, still frowning. “You’d have a hard time finding someone to replace me,” he said bitterly. “Especially now.…” But it was an empty threat, and they both knew it.
His fists tightened at his sides. “Those fucking Blue bastards … they actually survived the warehouse and the docks. I’d like to know what devil in what hell they sold their souls to.”
“Perhaps it was a goddess who answered their prayers.…” Arienrhod looked out at the sea. Her smile mocked them both as she turned back again. “And perhaps she preferred them.”
For a moment something incomprehensible filled Herne’s eyes: something far more terrifying, and more agonizing, than simply death, or even the fear of death.
But then his bitter smile returned. “How does it make you feel, Arienrhod, to know your loyal bitch Devony preferred that Hegemony shevatch over you?”
She looked down at the tabletop beside her, at the various objects lying on its surface. “Devony played her part, and served her purpose,” she said impassively. Her hand drifted across the table, pausing, moving on, as if the ornaments were game pieces on an offworlder’s tan board. “Exactly as I meant her to.”
“You’re telling me this all went exactly like you intended?” He shook his head. “Bullshit.”
She glanced at the mirror—where so much lay hidden, beneath the reflecting surface of her smile. “Of course not. Don’t be a fool. No one controls fate. But I am more than satisfied—for now. As for the future—we’ll see.” She selected something from the table at last: A pendant set with a solii dangled from the chain looped over her finger.
Herne frowned. “A Survey charm? Not much of a trade. Maybe the solii’s worth more to you than that crap you gave Mundilfoere, at least—”
“Did I say this was an article of trade?… Don’t try to outthink me, Herne; no one on this planet has lived long enough to do that.” She shook her head. “A Winter laborer brought this to me, early today. He found it on the docks near the site of last night’s bloodbath. Mundilfoere had one exactly like it, which she always wore, yet kept hidden. Odd, d
on’t you think?… I don’t know what this is, but I intend to find out. I have a feeling that the Source may know. That should be worth something to me, at least.…”
Herne rubbed his eyes, fatigue settling over his sullen features. He grimaced as though he had given up, for tonight, trying to pursue her through the labyrinth of her relentless plotting.
Her face softened with satisfaction, as she realized that she had won. She put down the pendant, and picked up the vial containing the water of life. Wordlessly, she offered him the first dose. He opened his mouth as hungrily as he had for her kiss; received its blessing in a burst of heavy silver spray. He passed the vial back to her, and she took its precious essence into her own body the same way, like a sacrament.
A dazzling sense of well-being swept through her, like a warm wind sweeping away fallen petals, leaving behind a pristine clarity of mind like nothing else; filling her with the endless wanton joy of youth. She reached for him, gazing up into his eyes. “It’s late,” she murmured, “isn’t it…?”
He pulled her roughly against his body, running his hands over her; his fingers tangled in her hair as he crushed her hungry lips in a deep, lustful kiss. “Let’s go to bed…”
* * *
The memorial service for the fallen officers was held in two separate locations, because there were so many dead to be remembered, following the bloody night in the warehouse and the bloody night on the docks below the city. The Kharemoughi dead were honored at the Survey Hall, the Newhavenese in a public hall rented from local Winters.
Tree sat between KerlaTinde and Tierpardée, his head bowed, his eyes too full of unshed tears. He stared fixedly at the reliquary box resting on his knees, while friends and relatives of the deceased officers took the stage one after another, paying tribute, sharing memories.
Commander LiouxSked spoke first, giving a eulogy that actually sounded sincere, before he left the hall discreetly but hurriedly to attend the Kharemoughi service.
The rest of the ceremony ran longer than Tree had expected, but despite his physical discomfort he felt no impatience for it to be over. He needed all this time, and more, simply to comprehend the immensity of the hole that had been torn in his life. Coming to terms with all he had lost was going to take him a lifetime.…