her instruments 03 - laisrathera (11 page)

Surela sent for Thaniet and a meal and went to sit before the fire and weigh her options. None of them seemed very appealing.

The coat the Tams had supplied Reese with did a good job of insulating her from the chill, but very little to shield her from the strangeness of feeling it outdoors. The
Earthrise’s
dry, recirculated air, vacuumed clean of any smell, had been artificial, something she could control. It was an entirely different experience to stand outside and know that she couldn’t wish away the weather. That it was moving according to some magical collection of variables that planets had and she didn’t understand well enough to predict. That it had a smell—floral and briny and wild—and a texture—moist and clinging—and that it would continue to have, and be those things no matter what one small human woman decreed.

Ordinarily, she would have found the idea appalling. But somehow she still liked the Eldritch world. She liked listening to the surf in the distance. She liked the crazy ramble of unlikely-looking roses. She liked the intransigence that seemed bred into the bones of anything that had to do with the species. Her crew would laugh, but it made her feel a little bit related to them; stubbornness, even in the face of approaching disaster, was something she could appreciate. Reese petted one of the flowers, finding the petals silky until the cold numbed her fingers, and then she hid her hands away in her pockets again.

And then there was the sky.

What had Hirianthial called it? Io… gev… something. The sacred caul. She stared up at it and wondered where he was, and Liolesa, and the rest of her crew.

“My Lady is melancholic.”

“Am I your lady?” she asked, waiting for Val to draw up alongside her.

“Point,” he said. “I have not offered and you have not accepted. But I like you, Lady Eddings. I haven’t met a human before. You have a presence.”

“Oh, do I.” She eyed him.

He laughed. “And you are unconvinced. That’s fine. I don’t expect otherwise.”

“Are you out here alone?” she said. “Did they really let you wander off like this?”

“Oh no. Yon tigress is following at what she believes to be a discreet distance.” He smiled crookedly. “Her thoughts are very busy with a fierceness of devotion.”

Reese smiled at that. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. So why did you follow me out?”

“To ask you to please make the attempt,” he said, surprising her with his sobriety. “I would very much like to help you.”

“You have a debt to repay,” she guessed.

“I do.”

She looked out over her castle—her castle! And said, “How do you say it? The roses. What are they called?”

“
Me’enia
,” he said. “Say each vowel separately, Captain… most of our words are that way. Meh eh nee ah. Roses. But these are special. They are
lioyasea
, white roses, the roses of sacrifice. They bloom only in winter, the cruelest season, and grow only by the coast where there are storms. And it’s said they were born of Elsabet’s blood when she died here.”

Reese looked at him. “Is it true?”

He cocked a brow at her.

“You know. If you’re the reincarnation of Corel. You’d know. Right?”

He smiled a little and leaned toward the nearest vine. With a twist of his hand he broke the branch off and presented her with the flower. She noticed a drop of blood on the side of one finger where a thorn had dragged through the skin. “We have to make our own legends sometimes.”

She took the flower, mindful of the thorns. “It’s dangerous.”

“Picking the roses?” he said—misinterpreting her willfully, she was sure. Wasn’t he? “Of course. But if you don’t try, then you have no rose.”

“You can leave them out here to grow on their own, and enjoy them from the nice, warm keep,” she said dryly.

“Ah, you could. But then you couldn’t smell them, wouldn’t feel the rush of having picked something yourself, and conquered your fears. What’s a scratch, after all, compared to that?”

“On a world with no real medicine?” Reese snorted. “A scratch could be worth your life.”

“Even on a world with medicine, death comes to us, and rarely expectedly.” He smiled. “And sometimes it doesn’t, no matter how intently you wish it.”

She glanced at him sharply, but before she could speak she heard Taylor calling. “Reese! Reese!”

“What is it?”

The foxine joined her, her breath coming in white pants in the deepening gloom. “It was Malia. They’ve gotten a coded burst: the pirate ship’s left!”

“Left!” Reese’s skin went cold. “They went for reinforcements.”

Irine joined them as Taylor said, “They must have. And we’re not sure when they’ll be back but we’ve got our window. If we want to get in there now, while there are fewer of them to fight….”

Reese clenched her free hand, far too aware of the thorns on the rose she held with the other. Crazy world, to have things like this in it. Gardens and renegades and too many challenges and a climate she couldn’t control and a future she couldn’t predict. And yet… hadn’t she already made the commitment?

“Tell Malia to come on through,” Reese said. “We don’t know how long we’ve got, so let’s not waste any time.”

CHAPTER 8

“There are three of us,” Hirianthial said. “I hope that’s not a problem.”

The Seersa woman in the black and dark blue uniform looked up at him, then at Sascha and Bryer. “No,” she said. “That’ll be fine. You’re the national I was told to expect, the Eldritch Lord of War, yes?”

“That’s correct. Hirianthial Sarel Jisiensire, and the first name is sufficient. These are members of the Laisrathera House and go to meet their seal-bearer. Sascha and Bryer.”

“That’s fine,” she said. She smiled, and it lit her eyes; a handsome woman, he thought, short like all Seersa and very fluffy, with white fur and a delicate face. “My name’s Solysyrril Anderby, Commander of Hold 17. If you’ll come with me? We’re departing in half an hour and I’d like to get you battened down before that.”

“Of course.”

As he followed her toward the docking platform, Sascha whispered, “That was painless.”

“Surprisingly so,” he agreed, having expected more of an argument himself.

The Harat-Shar drew abreast of him, glancing over a shoulder to make sure Bryer was still following. “Also… members of Laisrathera?”

“The name of Theresa’s new House.”

“Reese has a real name to go with the castle?”

Hirianthial chuckled. “She cannot have a castle without one.”

That occupied the Harat-Shar for several moments as he paced Hirianthial. Then, “Wait, can I be part of it, if we’re not related?”

“I’ll explain later,” Hirianthial promised.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

The ship awaiting them was a thing of sleek menace that could be read through its bulkheads. Hirianthial did not need to see its exterior to sense the purpose that animated it, that had necessitated all its lines. It was not an uncomfortable vessel, nor as small as he’d been expecting, but there was little wasted in its design. And he was grateful—and surprised—to discover he did not have to dip his head down to fit through the hatches; he had been on vessels that had necessitated doing so and not enjoyed the process.

“This way,” Solysyrril said, pointing them down a corridor. “You’ve got the last two compartments. Split them up however you’re comfortable. Once we’re underway we’d be pleased to share a meal with you, and maybe you can tell us what additional background you have on the target.”

The thought of designating his homeworld a ‘target’ discomfited him, but Hirianthial said only, “That is generous, Commander. Thank you.”

“So, berthing,” Sascha said. He glanced at Bryer. “You care?”

“No.”

He snorted. “Of course not. So you and I will take one and you can have the other, arii.”

Hirianthial glanced in the first compartment, found it larger in size than he’d expected, but not so large that he was glad to be spared the necessity of bumping elbows with someone else. “Very well. And thank you.”

Exactly on schedule, their vessel left the starbase, and this Hirianthial recked only because of a flash of the lights lining the ceilings and a chime that rippled through the ship’s internal speakers. He had become accustomed to the
Earthrise’s
many flinches, shudders, and vibrations, and not being able to sense them left him feeling strangely off-balance. Not long after, they were invited to the mess and introduced there to the remainder of Solysyrril’s team. She was their commander, and a linguist and diplomat, but in addition the hold had two analysts and fieldwork specialists, a human named Tomas and a snow pard Harat-Shar named Narain (whom, he noted, immediately looked at Sascha with interest so poorly concealed it was probably not intended to be concealed at all). A Ciracaana served as healer, and Hirianthial saw the value of the tall hatches, for at nearly nine feet tall the centauroid’s head was easily higher than the Eldritch’s. And their navigator was a creature he’d not yet seen, though he’d had a seminar on them in medical school: one of the allied alien species, the Faulfenza. This one, Lune, was a fog-gray female nearly his height with a gentle demeanor, a muzzled face that swept back into long ears with two orange tips and a heavyworlder’s easy strength and solidity.

“So,” Solysyrril said after introductions had been made and the meal begun. “What can you tell us? Anything would help. Our mission brief was….” She trailed off, looking for a word.

“Brief,” Narain supplied, wry.

“Yes. Brief.” Her smile was lopsided. “We’ve had a crash translation here; we were on duty elsewhere and pulled off it precipitously.”

The Veil, he thought, would be well and truly torn by the end of all this. And his brother would have had a hand in it. Would that count for or against him? Ah, but would it matter, when through all his other acts Baniel had forfeited the stay on his life Hirianthial had awarded him? He steepled his fingers and drew in a breath. “’Anything’ is rather a long telling. I will begin with the situation as it exists, and then you may ask me questions that seem relevant to you.”

“Good plan,” the Seersa said, nodding. “We’re all ears.”

He smiled at that and began, noticed Sascha listening just as attentively as the intelligence operatives. Bryer, of course, remained unreadable, but remembering his admonition on the
Earthrise
about their duty to protect, Hirianthial knew the Phoenix would retain everything that mattered.

“That is how it stands,” he finished after a recitation that had seemed long in the telling for something that felt as if it had happened so swiftly.

“That is stunningly awful,” Narain said, leaning back and sighing.

“Such a professional assessment,” the human replied.

Narain snorted. “That
was
a professional assessment. My non-professional assessment wouldn’t have been fit for Soly’s ears. Or Lune’s.” He shook his head. “So we’ve got a scout incoming in two weeks? How much harm are we talking about to the infrastructure in that time?”

Hirianthial frowned. “The physical infrastructure?”

“Any infrastructure,” Tomas said. “Social, political, geographical. He’s asking what the delay is going to cost us.”

“I don’t know,” Hirianthial admitted. “It would depend on the capabilities and intentions of the pirate vessel.”

“And your usurper’s not going to destroy anything?” Tomas said. “No demonstrations, no battles, none of that?”

“I would be deeply surprised did she do so,” Hirianthial said. “She cannot rule when the world is in disorder. And while she could send forth her guard to enforce her will, she cannot use them in broad conflict while they’re armed with modern weapons. They would destroy everyone who opposed them, and she cannot afford a bloodbath.”

Jasper, the Ciracaana healer spoke for the first time. “Can’t she?” He looked at the others at the table. “Would take care of her opposition handily. No one left to say no to her. So she kills off a chunk of them, unfairly—who’s going to rebel against her, knowing that they’re going to die the same way?”

“I think the ‘no one left’ is the operative phrase there, though,” Sascha said. “There aren’t so many Eldritch that she can go and kill them off in job lots.”

“How many are we talking about here?” Tomas interrupted. At their glances, he clarified, “People fighting. A few hundred thousand? Ten thousand?”

Sascha looked at Hirianthial, who cleared his throat and said, “Between herself and her allies, Surela can put eight hundred men in the field. Perhaps a thousand, if she strips Imthereli bare.”

In the silence that followed, he sampled the auras of the Fleet personnel and found them regrettable—as much for what they implied about the viability of his people as for how clearly they demonstrated the miniscule scale the Eldritch had become accustomed to operating at.

“A thousand soldiers,” Tomas repeated. “That’s it.”

“Each House is permitted to raise a personal guard equivalent to five percent of its population,” Hirianthial replied, quiet. “My cousin’s enemies consist of three Houses—four, perhaps. There are two other neutral parties who may or may not be swayed toward Surela’s cause, but they would add only another five hundred to the total. The Queen’s allies can field seven hundred and fifty men; combined with the Swords, who are her personal protection detail, and the palace’s guards, that would make some nine hundred in total. Those are the numbers we have to work with.”

“Five percent total.” Narain’s ears were sagging. “You’re telling me you have a total population of… what, fifty thousand people? In your entire species?”

Hirianthial inclined his head.

“Like I said.” Sascha was playing with his fork. “She can’t afford to kill them off in job lots.”

“Are you sure?” Jasper said after a heart-beat’s pause. “She might not have all that great a handle on genetics. Maybe as far as she’s concerned, starting fresh from a smaller population base, one that supports her, is a good thing.”

Sascha glanced at Hirianthial, who shook his head. “No. It is not in her temperament, I think. She wants her enemies to agree that her reign is just. Especially her enemies, because she was once Liolesa’s enemy and remembers what it was to be ruled by a Queen she detested. She wants….”