Endgame (21 page)

Rilas walked through the rooms, one by one. Took note of objects and their locations and positions.
Twenty ship-cycles until Guernsey.
She prayed to Caith for the time to pass quickly, even as she knew what awaited her there, and realized that she might be praying for the lesser choice.

Rilas read the title of the Guernsey newssheet once, then again. Then she studied the image of Kilian that had been placed next to the text, looking her in the eye as she would never have done if they stood together in the flesh.

Godless eyes. Anathema.
The sickly green, pale as Oà, too light against Kilian's dark skin.

Rilas crouched before the image display, one hand fixed on the controls. She had obtained a copy of the newssheet as soon as it had been received by the ship relay, replayed it constantly, as every idomeni had done since it had first been released. Argued over it on the ship's veranda, in the games room, the movement room, as they had argued over the news of ní Tsecha's assassination, released only a short time before.

Morden nìRau Cèel's response had been swift, his godly aspect broadcast throughout the worldskein to the Commonwealth beyond.
The Kièrshia is anathema
, he had entoned, shoulders rounded and voice deepened.
Idomeni do not kill in such a secret way.

But then the stories emerged of deaths that occurred within the circle as the result of godly challenge, of knives that had slipped and blood that had flowed too well.

Such is different, and truly.
Rilas deactivated the display, watched Kilian's eyes darken to blackness.
Each slip of the blade is the will of the gods.
If a soul heard the call of the gods, its duty was to answer. Any action that assisted it upon its way served as part of that reply.

“All is anathema.” Rilas paced. They would dock at Guernsey within half a ship-cycle, and still she had heard nothing from ní Kolesh, not even an acknowledgment of her message.
They have notified ná Calas, and I will not be questioned.
But if this was the case, why had not the nameless ship security dominant informed her? Why allow her to wait, and wonder?

She sensed the tension grow in her limbs and knot the core of her soul. Now was not the time for the games room, even though she had arranged to meet with ná Bolan. Now was not a time for the stones.

She removed her overrobe, trousers, shirt. Greyed blue and sand they were, colors of the gaming room and veranda, made of cloth which possessed a delicate sheen and a light hand. Walked to her storage chest and removed sand-shaded trousers and sleeveless shirt and put them on. Bound the fasteners. Knotted the ties. Heavier cloth, this, dull to the eye and mended many times.

Rilas looked down at her bare arms, gold-brown skin darkened by Shèráin sun and crosshatched by the pale ridges of old scars. Flexed her hands, watched the muscles work.

“Time for the blades.” Wooden ones, most unfortunately. But such would have to suffice.

 

“She proclaimed such at the meeting house on Elyas.” The male, a young Dahoumn, pale and blocky, executed a complex turn of wrist that caused his blade to spin as a fan. “She stood atop a stage, as humanish do, and proclaimed while all about her shouted and clapped their hands.”

Rilas worked her blade in a solitary exercise, close enough to the Dahoumn to hear him, but far enough away to seem separate from his group. All were younger, pale, shorter Dahoumn and darker, taller Sìah, and most disordered. They did not work their blades in unison, and bumped and banged into one another repeatedly.

“After she proclaimed, humanish challenged Haárin, and forced them to lave the circle afterward, to clean away their blood,” said another of the group, a Sìah female. “The walls as well…or walls and floor…or just the walls?”

“It's all the same,”
sounded a female voice. A humanish voice.

Kilian's voice.

Rilas flinched. Her hands dropped. The end of her blade caught on the edge of the floor pad, stopping her motion in mid-twist. Pain radiated up her right wrist and along her arm, a thin line of flame. Her hand spasmed and the wooden blade spun out of her grasp, through the air and into the midst of another group, striking an elder male in the face before clattering to the bare floor.

The male covered his nose with both hands even as the blood flowed through his fingers and down the front of his tunic. A few Haárin shouted, while one ran to the communication array and pressed the switch that summoned the ship's physician-priest.

Rilas turned to the group of youngish, who stared at the blooded elder, their blades at all angles. One began to laugh, until his neighbor elbowed him in the pit of his soul. Another, one of the females, had positioned herself behind the others, ducking so she could not be seen.

“What has happened?” Another of the elder male's group stepped between Rilas and the youngish. A male of middle
years, Sìah or light-skinned Vynshàrau, breeder's fringe gathered in a knot and tied with a cord, arms so hacked with scarring there seemed no clear skin left. “Answer.”

“She lost control of her blade.” The young Dahoumn male pointed to Rilas. “Demand answers from her.”

The male turned. “So?”

Rilas gripped her injured wrist and stared past the male to the Dahoumn. “One of them spoke in the Kièrshia's voice, and another laughed.”

The male stepped around to the rear of the youngish gaggle, where the guilty female all but crouched as an animal to hide herself. “Do you find the Kièrshia's voice an amusement?” He gripped her by the wrist and pulled her upright. “She who accuses all idomeni of anathema? You imitate her?”

“I did not—” The female looked toward Rilas. “We did not mean—”

“Stop cowering!” The young Dahoumn faced the scarred male. “Ná Lia did nothing wrong. She—” He pointed at Rilas. “—she listened to private talk. The blood is her fault.”

The doors opened and the physician-priest entered together with a suborn. They hurried to the elder male, who had been led off to the side of the room by others in his group and now sat on the floor, head tipped back to squelch the bleeding from his nose.

“You distracted her.” The scarred male released ná Lia, then pushed her toward the rest of her group. “If you speak loudly enough to be heard, you will be heard, and others will act as they will when they hear you.”

“That is for them. We shall still say that which we will, and laugh at that which we will.” The young Dahoumn broke away from the rest and faced the scarred male, moving around him as though they stood within the circle. “We did not laugh at ná Kièrshia's voice. We laughed at the expression on her face when she heard it.” He pointed again to Rilas, looking her in the eye as he did. “As though she had seen a demon. Such was how she appeared, and truly.”

The scarred male looked toward Rilas.

Warrior skein.
Rilas began to straighten, and forced herself still. Whatever the male may once have been, whatever honor he may have earned, he was now Haárin, and she would show submission to no Haárin.

“Ná Kièrshia is the cause of fear in some.” The scarred male turned back to the Dahoumn. “She is anathema.”

“All is anathema.” The Dahoumn laughed. “Ní Tsecha is dead. What difference? He was anathema. Such was all we heard, that he was a shame on all idomeni. Now he is dead, and such is anathema as well, and all cry out at the sadness of it, the sadness of the death of one we called anathema.” He picked up a discarded wooden blade and inscribed a circle in the air. “A humanish would tell you to make up your minds. He is Tsecha, or he is not. He is great, or he is not. We mourn and honor him, or revile and forget him. We hate him and all for which he stood, or we do not.”

The scarred male kept the Dahoumn in his sights, turning with him. “NìRau Cèel has said—”

“Cèel is a hypocrite!” Ná Lia found her voice once more. “He exiled ní Tsecha, and made him Haárin. But now ní Tsecha is dead, and he calls him great.”

“Great now that he is dead,” the Dahoumn said. “Great now that he cannot write, or speak.” He stopped his turning of his blade and stilled. “Great now that Cèel does not have to listen to him any longer.”

All had gone quiet in the room. Even the physician-priest and her suborn had stilled to watch the two males circle one another. Meanwhile, the Dahoumn's friends had moved to one side of the room, the scarred male's to the other.

Rilas backed toward the far wall, away from both groups. The Dahoumn's arms showed pale and lightly scarred, as nothing compared to those of the other male. Such would prove an unseemly challenge, unbalanced and graceless.

The scarred male's shoulder rounded. “Why do you speak against nìRau Cèel? Humanish killed ní Tsecha. He did not.”

“He wished to. He would have executed ní Tsecha if he ever returned to Shèrá. Some say—” The young Dahoumn began to circle again. “Some say that Cèel paid humanish to kill ní Tsecha. Thus could he condemn the killers even as he rejoiced that the killing had been done.”

None moved. Even the elder male who bled over his shirt listened.

“Who are these ‘some' who say this?” The scarred male's voice deepened in anger. “Who?”

“Many.” The Dahoumn stilled once more. “Many say this.”

“Such is—”

“Anathema?” The Dahoumn bared his teeth. “A humanish would say that if all is anathema, then nothing is.”

The silence that followed was disturbed by the physician-priest, who aided the elder male to his feet and guided him to the door.

Rilas followed them, straightening and lifting her chin as though requesting the injured male's pardon. But as soon as she stepped into the corridor, she left them behind. Rounded the corner and—

—collided with ná Bolan, who stifled a cry of surprise.

“Ná Nahin?” The female curved her right arm in profound question. “What is this?”

“We must leave.” Rilas continued down the corridor. Prayed the physician-priest would not come after her, or the scarred male, or any of the Dahoumn's idiot companions. “There will be a challenge fought, and it will be a mess. I do not wish to witness such.”

“Shall we play the stones, then?”

“Yes.” Rilas massaged her wrist. The joint felt hot to her touch. Tender. Not a break, but a sprain, or a tear of a tendon. She could provide an ice wrap herself, pray over it herself. She did not need to see the ship's physician-priest, who would ask her why she lowered her hands, why she let the blade drop.
Because I heard the Kièrshia's voice.

And first the priest would laugh. Then she would ask,
Why do you fear ná Kièrshia?

Because she knows.

But what does she know?

“Ná Nahin?”

Rilas felt the hand on her arm. “Ná Bolan.”

“You are not well.”

“I am most well, and truly.”

Bolan removed her hand and gestured reluctant agreement, a tilt of head and sweep of arm. “We dock at Guernsey in a short time. Will you disembark?”

“Yes.” Rilas closed her eyes, heard Caith's laugh.
I shall allow myself one round of the stones.
Then she would present herself to the security dominant, the male whose name she did not know, even after twenty ship-cycles and numerous encounters in corridors and in the games room. The male who had searched her rooms and found nothing.
He will give me good news.
He would tell her that she would not be questioned on Guernsey, that she did not even need to leave the ship. That she was free to travel on her way.

She paused as Bolan coded open the door to the games room. Followed her inside, and found the security dominant seated alone at a table, casting stones.

“Ná Nahin. Ná Bolan.” He gestured to the empty chairs next to his own. “Join me in a game before we prepare to dock.”

Rilas walked past the chair he pointed out and sat across from him. “You have received a message for me?”

“Yes, ná Nahin.” The male bared his teeth, then handed her the cup of stones. “Your play.”

 

The Haárin concourse of Guernsey Station had no gargoyles, no stained glass or transepts. Instead, there were white and grey walls and battered grey flooring, kiosks and shops and hallways as bright and crooked as the snow-coated branches of winter trees.

Rilas walked beside the security dominant. He had not allowed her to leave his presence since their meeting in the games room, arranging for one of the ship suborns to collect
her possessions, and remaining with her throughout the approach and docking sequences.

“This way.” He pointed down yet another corridor, this one marked with plaques covered in Sìah script. “The office of ná Calas is here—” He stopped as a rumble like thunder sounded, shuddering through walls and floor.

Then came the sirens, like the screeches for beasts.

“There has been an explosion.” The dominant grabbed Rilas by the arm. “We must find a shelter and—”

The door of ná Calas's office opened and a female emerged. A most familiar female.

Rilas slowed, hands clenching even as her wrist ached.

“Ná Bolan Thea?” The security dominant gestured toward Bolan, a vague wave of the hand that meant nothing. “You have knowledge of ná Calas—” He stopped, then looked at Rilas, his lips moving, saying something…

A shadow moved in from the side. A male, dark-clad, his arm raised. The security dominant turned toward him, but too late. Brought up his arm, but not high enough to counter the blow. Fell where he stood, groaned and shuddered and stilled as the blood seeped from his battered skull and puddled around him.

Rilas watched his soul leave him. Then, slowly, she raised her eyes.

“NìaRauta Rilas.” Ná Bolan spoke with a voice not hers. Gone was the querulous tone, the high pitch of the suborn, replaced by depth and strength and the chill of snow.