The Hero Strikes Back (36 page)

Oh, good Zaire. Could they be any more ludicrous? But good for us. It kept them preoccupied. Maybe we should start charging them. Who was still standing?

The wind grew stronger and higher.

A plate shattered against the wall. Those nearest ducked away, one not fast enough. He shouted out in pain, clutching a hand to his eyes. This was going to get messy. Messier.

And the wind got stronger.

Tables scraped over the floor, were picked up by the wind, were set rolling. Smashing crockery. Candles blown over and blown out. Sparks flew out of the fireplace and landed on a tapestry. The wind blew out any fire that might have started.

I didn't know if whatever was happening was a cyclone, but it was certainly destructive. My hair was whipping about my eyes, obscuring my vision. I tried to hold it back from face, but it took both hands and tendrils kept fluttering loose.

The guards and servants were still standing around with hands and faces uplifted, like a goggle of proper gits. Lord Yellows was standing in a similar posture, only his eyes were closed and he appeared to be muttering something. Praying? From the expression on his face he was pretty happy about the way things were turning out. The guests were huddling on the floor, arms curled over their heads. Maybe I should try that.

The Reanists were vulnerable, distracted as they were. It was the perfect opportunity to overpower them. I couldn't. I was shielding. No one else seemed to think of it. This was killing me.

A flying chair took out one of the guards. Neat.

A gust of wind whipped my feet out from under me. Not so neat. Once again my head met the floor.

Don't drop the shields!

Fortunately, I had some experience with holding on to my shields while the world was going insane. Zaire, my life.

And then the wind was pushing me across the floor. I scrambled against the stones, tried to catch a corner with my fingers, but they were too smooth. I couldn't stop myself. And all the while I had to hold onto the shields. I had to keep my shields up. If I didn't Karish would be crushed by the forces he wasn't manipulating and that would be the bad ending of a lovely evening.

I wondered if I was getting at all hysterical.

I rolled into someone's legs and felt them fall. I kept going until I hit a wall. That hurt.

But I didn't drop my shields.

I couldn't see Karish. A table was blocking my view of him and I was glad enough to have it there. Crockery, cutlery, candlesticks were flying about. So were tables and chairs. No one was on their feet anymore, not even the Reanists.

Would
they stop screaming?

The roof could go any time. Please. Now would be good. Or the cure would kill us all.

Instead, the windows shattered, glass flying out into the night with sharp loud cracks. At least they went out. My mind flashed me an image of huge shards of glass showering down on us and impaling us, blood spurting everywhere.

Stop that.

And then the wind stopped. Karish's shields fell back into place. I withdrew mine. I raised my head.

The roof was still firmly in place. Had he given up? Was it too hard?

We'd failed. Damn. What were we going to do now?

People were crying. Like that would accomplish anything. But it seemed that no one had resumed killing yet. That was a plus. But it was so dark in the room, only the moonlight offering any illumination.

I climbed to my feet, wincing at the sharp pain jolting through my left knee. It had been the first part of my body to make contact with the wall. “Taro?” I looked over the room. What a mess.

I heard whistling. The high unnatural piercing whistling used by the Runners to call all the members to the site of a crime. Oh, thank Zaire, the Runners were coming. The windows must have done it. We weren't going to die. Who could I hug?

Someone was laughing. It was a chilling sound, under the circumstances. And familiar. I followed the laughter to its source.

“Blow off the roof,” Karish chuckled from where he lay prone on the floor. He had a cut on his forehead. It was bleeding, adding to the blood from the guard that had dried on his face. “Like the kind of force that would require wouldn't kill everyone in the room first. It's made of stone!”

I knelt beside him, looking for other injuries. “Oh, shut up!” It wasn't as though he'd thought of it at the time, either. And the effort had accomplished something, hadn't it? That was all that mattered.

But perhaps I was congratulating myself too soon. “Keep going!” Lord Yellows shouted, having found his feet. “It wasn't the gods! It was just—” He cut himself off, because he didn't know what it had been. “Continue the ritual! We have to finish what we've started or they'll be even angrier!”

Temperamental creatures, these gods of his. I stood again, so I could run, if I had to.

“Yellows, have you gone mad?” Prince Gifford demanded. He was back on his feet, too, crouched in a fighting stance, his knife still in his hand. His fine clothes torn, blood trickling from his lip, something having sliced open his left cheek, he was alive and furious. “This is treason!”

“It is our duty!” Lord Yellows kicked away some debris cluttering up his feet. “We are the rulers of this world, we are the vanguard,” he announced, the power of the rhetoric diluted by the fact that he appeared to be looking for something on the floor. “It is our duty to pacify the gods for the safety of our people. Where's that damn stake?”

Very noble and all, but I didn't remember seeing anyone trying to stake him.

Prince Gifford was staring at him, stunned. “You are mad,” he breathed, the words echoing through the stone room.

“No!” Lord Yellows exclaimed, giving up on his quest for the stake. “No! I have seen the truth. And it is a hard truth. I didn't want to believe it, either. I don't deny that. But the gods resent our being on this world. They resent the damage we have done to it.”

Damage? What damage?

“That's why they punish us by destroying our cities, our homes. They are angry with us. We have abused their gifts.”

“Forgive us, Pillars of Might!” one Reanist cried. Her words were echoed by several of the others.

“But we can appease them,” Yellows ranted on. “We can purchase their favor. With the blood of the High Landed. That's all they ask. Please, sire.” Lord Yellows implored the Prince, hands outstretched, as though he actually believed he could convince his prince to agree to die. “There are so few of you, and with your lives we can purchase peace and prosperity for all people in this world.” Ugh, alliteration. Someone kill him. “Isn't your life worth that?”

I heard shouting from outside. The Runners were dividing up the entrances. Hurry people.

Lord Yellows heard them too. He started speaking faster. “I know what you believe,” he said to the prince. “You believe it is merely the way the world is, all this chaos and destruction, and that all you need are the Sources to keep it quiet. But the Sources are an abomination.”

“Hey!” Karish protested, but weakly. He was still sitting on the floor. I looked down at him with concern.

“They interfere with the work of the gods. They only make the gods more angry. And their effects are only temporary. There will be no lasting tranquility until the High Landed do our duty and give ourselves to the gods.”

Oh. So Lord Yellows was planning to sacrifice himself, too. For some reason that made it all the more disturbing. Offering to throw away your life for something so vague and improbable, something so fantastic with no proof of its actual reality. How could one put so little value on one's own life?

Prince Gifford appeared disgusted. Imagine that. No matter what else anyone had to say about him, there was no denying that the man was sane. “Superstitious nonsense,” he spat.

Doors were slamming open somewhere in the building. Hurry hurry hurry. Or were they indulging in a summer stroll?

Lord Yellows looked right at Karish. “You know it is truth,” he said to my Source. “Since we started giving High Landed blood to the gods, the world has been at peace. Hasn't it?”

Karish didn't respond. I don't think he quite got the significance of the question. I did, though, and I felt my own eyes widening in shock.

Pairs that were doing their jobs properly dealt with disasters long before regulars could perceive the threat of a disturbance. We should be able to be threatened daily, hourly, without the regulars of High Scape having a clue anything was going on. And none of us had the habit of telling regulars whether there had been any events that day, or none. The regulars were not supposed to know what was going on.

So how come Lord Yellows did? How did he know, why did he feel certain, that there had been no events in months? How could he know that?

“Continue the ritual!” the lord ordered.

And he actually stamped his foot, like a child.

My attention was caught by something behind him. It made me grin. Hah! Sucker! “The fire's out!” I shouted loudly, both to point out that the wind had indeed put out the fire, and to attract the attention of any nearby Runners.

Lord Yellows spun towards the empty fireplace. “Light the fire!” He looked for something with which to start the fire again, but all the candles in the room had been blown out. Some of the Reanists, perhaps believing a completed ritual space was not so essential, raised their stakes again. Others appeared to be losing heart altogether.

The doors to the dining room swung open, hitting the walls with a bang. The first group of Runners ran in, lead by Captain Wong. The captain mother had found so charming at Risa's party. I wondered if it would be terribly inappropriate to run up and hug him.

“Arrest them!” the Prince shouted.

“Who, Your Highness?” a Runner shouted back.

“All of them!”

Well, I hadn't been expecting that.

Chapter Twenty-two

Our arrest was only temporary, just long enough to sort out who were the raving Reanists and who were the victims.

Doran came out of the experience with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. Lydia, we were told, was badly injured but would probably survive. Her Grace walked out under her own power. Mother and son made no attempt to speak to each other.

And the Prince, before sweeping out of the ballroom, informed my Source that the both of us were expected to attend upon him the next morning.

So that's where we were. Sitting in the front room of the suite in the Imperial, to which the Prince had moved from Lord Yellows' manor. I was dressed in my morning best. Karish was sitting beside me. He had flattened my hand on his leg, laid his own over the top of it. He was soberly dressed in black, every lace tied. He sat so correctly on his chair, spine straight with a good handspan of air between it and the chair. Expressionless mask firmly in place, but his eyes were blank, as though his mind were a million miles away.

Under my hand, his thigh was hard with tension.

“You are not going to be Doran's assistant,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Lydia is unlikely to be in form to play Doran's assistant for the Hallin Festival. You will not take her place. You are mine.”

Well, yes sir. Talk about a million miles away. “Taro, you have a thousand different people you can ask to perform with you.” And it wasn't healthy, all this togetherness. We'd start hating each other. Or worse.

“Yes, but I like them too much to humiliate them with my incompetence.” And he threw a tense smile at me in case I thought he was serious.

Still, I said, “Thanks a lot.”

“You've already seen me at my worst. I see no reason to spread that kind of knowledge around.”

“At least, not until you're on stage.” With me, perhaps, to attract most of the crowd's derision.

“Precisely.”

“I love logic in a man.”

He squeezed my hand.

A staid elderly lady entered the room, her face blank enough to do a Shield proud. “His Highness will see you now.”

About bloody time.

We followed the woman from the foyer through a sitting room and into, to my surprise, the bedchamber. His Highness was still in bed. In a dressing gown, his hair brushed and oiled, some cosmetics and cologne applied, but in bed. And eating from a breakfast—or lunch—tray.

I did understand that it was considered acceptable for royalty to receive guests while still in bed. Some people even considered it an honor. I didn't. It was rude. How much effort did it take to climb out of bed and pull on a pair of trousers, for Zaire's sake? Where was the man's pride?

There were eight servants in the room. They stood by the walls, posture stiff, waiting to be told what to do. I would find that sort of thing—people just hanging around watching me—irritating, but I guessed the Prince liked it.

Karish bowed, I curtsied. We waited as the Prince spread cheese on a slice of hardbread. “Lord Yellows is going to be executed for treason,” he told us, sounding almost bored about the whole thing, “among other charges. He'll have a trial, of course, but there is no doubt how things will turn out. Many of the guests at last night's . . .” here he paused, looking for an appropriate word, “event have indicated a willingness to testify. It is unlikely you will need to come to Erstwhile to participate.”

I hadn't even considered the possibility of that, but thank Zaire. That would have been a nightmare, participating as a witness in a trial. I'd heard about that sort of thing, that barristers took pride in making the witnesses cry through the sheer act of brutal questioning.

“It is unfortunate and disheartening to see one of our most powerful Landed fall under the influence of madness,” the Prince spoke through his mouthful of bread and cheese. “We can't understand how the Reanists acquired such a firm hold over him. Can you imagine? He was to be sacrificed along with the rest of us. And he knew it.” The Prince shook his head. “We have been informed, Source Karish, that you inspired him.” The Prince dunked his cheese-covered hardbread in his coffee. Ugh. “When you disappeared last year, and no one had the slightest idea where you'd gone. And you'd just left of your own free will. You didn't mean to disappear. Or so,” tap tap tap of the bread against the rim of the coffee cup, “Yellows believed.”