“The Archer,” he said as he halted before her, his face twisted and distorted by a smirk of triumph. “At last we meet. Where is Gerald Wolff?”
“He is dead,” said Jed vehemently. “I killed him myself. As I once did kill you.”
The smirk fell from Taggart’s face. He bared his teeth and then spat at Jed.
“Search the planet!” he ordered his troops. “There will be not much else on this world that moves and gives off heat. If you lie, I will have him! Now these prisoners get on board the runner, and secure the Archer’s ship!”
Chapter 15
Bellwether
The walls themselves are tortured,
The air we breathe is pain,
All once noble is thwarted,
Immured in the prison of the insane.
Wolff knew what would happen when he heard the search craft pass overhead. Nowhere on this world would shield the signs of his living body from his pursuers, but he ran and hid anyway. He climbed up a small tree and tried to hide himself in its foliage.
Soon he heard footfall below. He looked down to see two identical men looking up.
“I was given instructions to capture the Archer alive,” one of them said. The second man appended smoothly, “I was given no such specification regarding your capture.”
“Get down, or I will shoot you down,” said the first.
Wolff slithered down the tree, and the men took hold of him by the arms. They led him to where they had landed their craft, a small thing made from grey metal, and another two men, different from the first two but identical to each other, searched him and took away Rh’Arrol’s diary. They seemed delighted with it, and Wolff couldn’t fathom why. The four of them manhandled him through the airlock and flung him into the cargo bay. Jed, who sat on a narrow bench beside Samphrey, pulled her feet back as he fell on the floor in front of her.
Wolff landed on his front, and did not raise his head. “Shit,” he said into the floor. “They got you.”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” said Jed’s voice. Wolff knew she must have intended for it to sound emotionless and impassive, a Steel and Flame statement, and it was anything but.
The room lurched as the craft took off, and Wolff rolled into the wall and Jed and Samphrey lost their seats and fell over him.
The ship rattled and shook, and Wolff could only assume it was ascending through the planet’s atmosphere. The only light in the cargo bay came from a stark bulb on the wall toward the cabin, and he could not understand Samphrey’s frightened cries over the noise of the engine behind them. He tried to keep the pair of them down on the floor together, against the starboard wall. It was some time before the motion died down, and the clang and roar of an airlock mechanism became audible from outside the craft.
Wolff rose cautiously to his knees. The engine had fallen silent. “It would seem we’re here,” he said.
“Where’s here?” said Samphrey from the floor.
“It is a warship,” said Jed. “The
Bellwether
.”
As Wolff helped the Archer to her feet, the door to the cargo bay flew open, and five men burst into the room. He recognised Taggart at the front, and pulled Jed closer to him by the elbows. The two identical men flanking Taggart came forward ahead and pulled her from him. Samphrey screamed, and Wolff turned to see the other two men slam her up against the bulwark wall. He tried to go to her, but something hit him hard in the face. As he fell backward and stumbled over something loose on the floor, he realised it had been Taggart’s fist. He fell on his back and tried to sit up, his mouth filling with blood, then Jed started to shriek with the force of total panic. He realised the two men had her, and at first by the urgency of her outcry he thought they were raping her. As he fought to overcome the ringing distortion Taggart’s blow had struck upon his senses, he saw that one of them was restraining her, and the other had hold of the thin strip of metal across her forehead.
“Stop this!
Stop it!
” commanded someone behind them, and it was not unfamiliar. In the light from the door, his silhouette stood out, a tall, gaunt man. “You need that Archer, do you not? Her interface is sessile! If you break it off her, you may as well kill her now, for all the use she will be to you!”
The identical men did not release Jed, but turned their faces toward Taggart.
“Do as he says, Winters!” Taggart ordered them.
The man who had been trying to pull off her interface crown released her. Jed collapsed onto his doppelganger, losing consciousness. The man staggered under her, her head falling backward on his shoulder.
“Viprion,” Wolff slurred, blood spilling from his mouth when he spoke. “You piece of shit.”
“And ye,” Viprion said, and turned to the other men who had Samphrey. “If you will do this thing, to a child and the apprentice of an Archer, then you have broached the last taboo.”
Taggart scowled, making a derisive rasping noise in his throat. “The child is irrelevant. Let them make sport of her!”
Viprion’s eyes burned with the indignation of sacrilege. “Then you are beneath the Bloodless! Beneath
beasts
ye are!”
The sneer on Taggart’s face did not depart, but he regarded the men, then Viprion again, and he held up his hand, and said, “Wait! The Archer is what is important here. Viprion, what is become of her?”
Viprion grimaced. “I have no connection. Ask the halfBlood. He may be able to tell.”
“On your feet, Gerald Wolff!”
Wolff put his hands on the wall to help himself stand. Pain and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, and he felt an awkward space where one of his premolars had been.
“You this Archer seem to know better than anyone. What is the matter with her?”
Wolff took Jed away from the men, drawing her to him and supporting her. Her eyes were closed, so he reached out to her in the only way left to him. He felt her consciousness stir and, looking into her face, saw a flicker beneath her eyelids. He did not want to wake her to this, when he could offer her nothing but hopelessness. Beneath the penumbra of her unconsciousness, she was safe, for now. He had brought her to this. He could have released her, long ago, but as always, he had thought only of himself.
“She lives,” he told Taggart. “You have harmed her, but not enough to kill her.”
“Then bring her.” Taggart made a violent slashing motion with his hand. “And bring the apprentice also. Your sport for later save!”
Wolff picked Jed up, for he did not want that vile pair of men—Winters or whatever they were called—to put their hands on her again. He wished he could have spared Samphrey the mauling she suffered from her attackers, but he could not carry them both. From the ship they were taken across a large cargo relay and into a corridor, and to a suite of rooms that had been converted to cells, their electronically operated doors replaced with metal bars and mechanical locks. One of the men Taggart called Winters locked the door with a key on his belt.
Wolff put Jed down on the bench in the cell, and sat beside her, resting her head against his chest. Taggart glared through the bars at them. “I want my information, Wolff! That Archer had better regain her senses soon!”
“If this information matters to you, Taggart, you will be patient and wait for it!” Viprion told him.
Taggart swore and kicked the bars simultaneously, and walked off.
Viprion gave Wolff a measured sort of look. “I will return,” he said, and followed Taggart.
“Fuck off Viprion!” Wolff shouted after him. At his shout, Samphrey retreated into the farthest corner of the cell, and crouched with her hands over her ears, her eyes flitting between Wolff and the surroundings in horror and distrust.
He lay Jed down carefully before going to her. “Samphrey,” he said, and he held out his hands imploringly.
“Stay back!” Samphrey answered him, her hands still pressed to her ears, her eyes huge and lucid. “You know that man! You have bargained with him, you have betrayed us! You are not of the Blood. You are not of Steel and Flame!”
Wolff grabbed Samphrey by the wrists and pulled her up, dragging her hands away from her ears. “You listen to me, Samphrey. I’ve made no bargain with Viprion and I never will.”
“You say that to me now,” Samphrey gasped, “but only because he reneged on it.”
“He’s a dishonourable cunt. He’s a fucking piece of shit.” Samphrey winced at the violence of his words. “Taggart, the other man, he pursues me. He forced me to do things by making false accusations against me, but I’ve no loyalty to him. I hate him and I’ll kill him if ever I have the chance. My loyalty is to Jed, and to Jed alone, and know you that and you remember it, Samphrey. Samphrey?” He shook the girl. Though she stared straight at Wolff, he could tell she did not see him
A shuddering sigh from Jed interrupted them. Wolff released Samphrey and went to her.
Jed’s eyes were wide open, but her gaze passed through Wolff like light through gauze. A chilling recollection assailed him—of how she had looked just before the other Archer attacked.
“Jed, you are not disconnected, and I am here.” He reached for her with his mind, and she shrank back.
“They are torturing it!”
“What?”
“The computer! It is blind!”
“I don’t understand you!”
“The computer that guides the ship! It is calling out Pilgrennon’s name. It craves mercy in death!”
Behind Wolff, Samphrey stood, not removing her hands from her ears. “I sense it!”
Wolff turned and started speaking to her, but she kept her hands in place, and shouted at him, “I will not hear you! I will be of Steel and Flame!”
“Archer!”
Wolff turned toward the speaker. Viprion stood outside the cell.
Jed had seen him also. “And who might you be?”
“He’s the castellan from Carck-Westmathlon! Satigenaria fell, for his avarice!”
Viprion glared at Wolff through the bars. “Do not interrupt, halfBlood!”
Jed did not look at Wolff. “Is it correct, what he says? Is that who you are?”
“The halfBlood twists the truth for his own purpose. Carck-Westmathlon was under the yoke of an incompetent. To allow it to continue would have been Blood treachery.”
“Answer me!” Jed shouted. “Is what he says correct?”
Viprion ran his tongue nervously between his lips. “It is. Will you hear me?”
Jed hesitated, peering at Viprion as though trying to discern a distant object. “Continue.”
“Then listen because time is short. I am of the Blood, and I am loyal to the Blood. I am a captive here, as you, and what the Geminals plan is heresy. They originate from a world, Reeshevern, where there grows a plant that can be refined to produce a synthetic intermediate of conurin. Our people took from them that world in order to claim its harvest, and they plot what they see as revenge. They seek a device—something the other Taggart was carrying. You must not let them have it. I will help you, if you will agree to this, and if you will grant me sanctuary.”
“You will swear this oath? What?”
Behind Jed, Samphrey took her hands away from her ears.
“That I will protect you, and your apprentice, until such time as my sanctuary with you cease.”
“Then swear it.”
“Let it be my oath. I will swear by the Pagan Atheist and in the name of Pilgrennon, the Blood paragon from whom we all descend!” Viprion’s eyes shone with an unholy zeal. “On mine own Blood, and that of my ancestors!”
“Then I will accept.”
Wolff exhaled and dropped his head.
“I must not tarry here,” said Viprion. “I cannot risk capture.” He turned and left.
“That man’s oath means nothing, for he has no honour!” Wolff shouted.
“How can I know that you have any? You might sacrifice me if the opportunity arose to save yourself.”
Wolff gripped her by the arms, just above above the elbow. “I would not do that.”
“Why would you not? I would.”
“Because it is not my way.” Wolff looked over his shoulder to check Samphrey was still not listening. “Because my life, without you in it, would not be fit to live.”
Jed rose and turned away from him. “You are not of Steel and Flame.”
“I can offer no guarantee of my own trustworthiness, but I tell you, Jed, you cannot trust Viprion!”
“He has sworn.”
“I would swear!”
Jed pivoted on her heel and looked up at him, cocking one eyebrow. “You would swear, on what? What could you possibly use to validate your oath?”
“I would swear on my life, and yours! I would swear on my own integrity!”
“But those things mean nothing.”
“They mean everything I can give you! What would mean nothing would be for me to swear on the Blood, when I am not of it, or to swear on the Teachings of the Pagan Atheist, when I cannot read and know them not, or to make my oath in Pilgrennon’s name, when I know not him, or even if he ever existed. Viprion’s oath is meaningless! It is a pompous travesty, an edifice of hot air! He has sworn on the unpalpable!”