Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (22 page)

“She must have been quite a lady,” he observed gently.

“She was very good to me.”

“Is she the one who taught you to fight?”

“Other than the government, you mean? Yes. To fight and to seek Truth.” She smiled pleasantly, but beneath the veneer, an idea occurred to her. “Grandmama used to say, ‘There are a thousand paths that lead to the orchard of Truth, Amirah. Find yours.’“

A startled frown lined Tahn’s forehead. “Do you know that that’s—”

“Gamant theology? Oh, yes. She was a Gamant.”

He lounged back against the wall indolently. His face was expressionless, but he peered at her as though a hazy blanket had fallen between them and he couldn’t quite make out her features anymore.

Her Gamant ancestry was her own secret hell, but telling Tahn about it might confuse him and make him tend to trust her more. Some of her earliest memories were of her mother screaming and shaking her for repeating Grandmama Sefer’s stories in public. She’d adored those wild colorful tales. But Lucan Jossel, her mother, had fully converted to the atheism of the Magistrates—and of her husband, Johan. Lucan feared that if his high-level government friends knew of her Gamant blood, they’d ostracize her. As a result, she punished Amirah severely whenever she caught her whispering such things to her childhood friends.

Tahn blinked curiously. “Why did you tell me that? That information certainly isn’t in your personnel file.”

“No. My father worked in the government records office. Whenever anything came in which hinted at my mother’s ancestry, he simply purged it. That left a clean slate for me.”

“Convenient.” From this angle, his straight nose and the firm line of his bearded jaw seemed chiseled from stone. A steely glimmer lit his eyes. “Why would your mother forsake her Gamant heritage to marry a—”

“Because during the last Gamant Revolt, my grandmother left for several years—I don’t know where she went—and my mother was sent to a Magisterial Right School. They corrected her thoughts.”

“ ‘Corrected,’“ Tahn scoffed. “I’ve always thought that was an interesting way of putting it. So they erased every shred of Gamant culture and history from her brain, huh? And your father found that attractive?”

“I guess. My mother was very beautiful and intelligent. Papa had good reasons for loving her.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“I doubt it, but you can try.”

“How can you …” He stopped, as though trying to find a better way of putting it. “Doesn’t it hurt you every time you’re ordered to attack Gamant civilians?”

She fumbled with her soap. It did. But she’d suppressed the emotion for so long she’d almost conquered it. In the early days, she’d often thought about what Sefer Raziel would do if she could see her granddaughter now. Grief taunted just below Amirah’s control. She splashed anxiously at the water. “Do you practice picking at people’s wounds, Tahn, or does the talent come naturally?”

“If my question wounded you, then you’ve answered it.”

“I don’t like attacking any civilian populace. But orders—”

“—Are orders. Yes, I used to think the same thing. Fortunately, I grew up.”

She shoved suddenly to her feet. Water cascaded in silver streams from her body. “It’s what you grew up into that’s disturbing: a traitor and a criminal.”

He kept his gaze riveted on her as he stood and slowly walked down the length of the bench to retrieve a towel. He brought it back and warily extended it. She gauged his positioning and the aim of his pistol, wishing to hell he’d drop his guard for just a goddamned moment. She jerked the towel from his hand.

Tahn backed away, going to lean against the wall again. Amirah got out of the tub and dried off, then slipped her pale gold robe over her head and smoothed it down over her hips. The blasted garment clung to every curve like the thinnest of glimmering spiderwebs.

Tahn vented an admiring sigh. “That’s almost worse than seeing you unclothed. You look like a goddess straight off Mount Olympus.”

“Mount what?”

“Never mind. I’m obviously the historian here. Why don’t you come over here and sit down where I can keep an eye on you.” He indicated the place on the bench with his gun.

Amirah seethed at the “historian” comment, but she walked forward and slumped down on the indicated spot. Tahn carefully bound her hands first, then her ankles, in EM restraints.

He backed away cautiously. Unclipping his belt, he dropped it on the edge of the tub. The gray gun in the holster glowed dully against the jade tiles. He relinquished the pistol in his hand, too, placing it on top of his belt, then he undid the fasteners on the front of his black jumpsuit and peeled out of the sleeves.

Amirah drew her feet up onto the bench and propped her bound hands on them. She watched Tahn intently, waiting for him to get more than three feet away from his weapons. Even bound, at close range, she might have a chance. His broad muscular chest with the thick mat of dark hair stirred sensations she loathed, but she continued to watch his every move. After a few moments her mind began to wander and then run headlong down the road that led away from all the “Thou Shalt Nots …” her grandmother had ever drummed into her brain. Not to mention the Magistrates; they frowned on officers fraternizing with the enemy.

He kicked off his boots and Amirah watched him step out of his suit completely. Her eyes focused on the wound in his thigh. The shot had taken him just below his pelvis, ripping a gash through the muscle. A broad redness of infection encircled the wound. It must have hurt like hell. He gingerly stepped into the water and winced when the hot liquid spread over his injury. Steam spun a silken veil around him.

“So,” she demanded, “tell me about yourself.”

Tahn had one eye squeezed closed, no doubt fending off pain. The other eye focused on her. “Why?” he gasped. “You know me better than I know myself.”

“I doubt it. I know nothing about the past twelve years of your life. What happened after you joined the Gamant Underground? How did it
feel
to commit treason?”

He reclined in the tub and very slowly extended his legs. After several seconds of adapting to the heat of the water, he breathed out a sigh of relief. “Bad at first. For years I’d marked the boundaries of my identity by the reflection of myself I saw in my crew’s eyes. It was a good life, by and large. Every time I felt lost or lonely, I had simply to look at my officers to know again who and what I was. Do you do that?”

She snugged her shoulders more solidly against the wall. Her gold robe whispered against the stone. “I’m not on the stand anymore. You are. So treason is lonely, huh?”

He lathered his wound and smiled—but it was the sort of expression that made Amirah curl her toes over the edge of the bench. He continued, “Magisterial life had left me unprepared for a fiercely independent people like the Gamants. Maybe you’ll understand this better than I did. Gamants don’t care in the slightest what status you’ve attained in the past. They judge you based upon the positive qualities they see in your soul. Either you measure up as worthy of their respect or you don’t.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Not at first. Most of them hated me. My crew and I had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their people, you see. Excuse me,
your
people.” He briefly ducked his hair. “How many of your people have you killed, Amirah?”

The sweet scent of jasmine wafted on the mist. Her hair had begun to dry and fall about her shoulders in long ringlets. “So how did you survive the Underground’s hostility?”

“You don’t like it when I call Gamants your people? You must have had difficulties growing up. Did you spend all your time running away from yourself? Or is this a recent survival strategy?” She glowered hotly, but he met it with equanimity. “To answer your question about how I survived the Underground—I had a friend to help me.”

She pulled back at the caressing tone in his voice. “Oh, a woman.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Why would it?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that you sounded jealous and it made my heart go pitter-patter.”

She massaged the muscles at the back of her neck. “Good God, you don’t even have to work to turn somebody’s stomach. I think it’s your grin mostly. Do you practice that in the mirror?”

He couldn’t help smiling at that, even as he began to lather his chest. Blue-tinged fog swirled near the ceiling, diving down toward the tub like thin transparent fingers. “Not very often anymore. The Underground keeps me too busy.”

“Baruch’s a slave driver, huh? Tell me about him? Do you know him well?”

He turned toward her and the shadows mottled his wet face, highlighting his cheekbones. He laid a hand on the jade tiles near his pistols and lifted his chin inquiringly. “Why do you want to know?”

“Is he as brilliant as they say?”

“Jeremiel is not a topic for discussion, Amirah.”

“Why not?”

“Because I plan on letting you go when you’ve served your purpose. I may openly banter about my past and yours, but I won’t endanger him.”

He stood up and she got to her feet, too. Tahn’s shoulder muscles tensed. “Do sit back down, Amirah.” He pointed to his pistols. “You wouldn’t want to get me nervous.”

She made an awkward gesture with her hand, then angrily slumped back to the stone bench. “I’m hardly a threat! I was going to grab the towel off the bench and hand it to you.”

“Thanks just the same.”

He reached over and picked up one of his pistols just for good measure. With his free hand, he gripped his injured leg and gently levered it over the edge of the tub. His foot hit the wet tiles awkwardly. Off-balance for a second, he grabbed for the edge of the tub and dropped his aim. Amirah leapt in a lightning fast move.

Her balled fists caught him in the chest. The force slammed him back against the wall. She dove forward, hands raised for the killing punch to his throat … but he spun out of her way and landed a brutal kick to her shoulder. It knocked her backward and she tumbled into the pool.

She tried to swim away, but her bound feet and hands made it almost impossible to move at all. He dove after her. In a swift violent move, he grasped for her throat. She slammed both knees into his wounded thigh. He cried out, but his fingers kept groping for her face. Amirah spun under the water and knocked his feet out from under him. He tumbled sideways, sending a silver crested wave over her face—then he lunged. He jammed a knee in her chest and forced her beneath the water. She held her breath as she struggled in his iron hands, vaguely surprised by his overpowering strength. She’d fought hundreds of men in training classes and hand-to-hand competitions—but she’d never had her limbs straitjacketed. She’d never felt so helpless.

“Captain!” she heard him shout. His angry voice wavered through the layers of water. “Stop it! Don’t make me hurt you! Amirah, for God’s sake! Stop this!”

She writhed like a fish out of water, flopping, kicking, trying to break his hold, but he held her fast. The certainty of defeat sapped her strength. She’d gambled and lost. God Almighty, she was going to get Jason and her crew killed if she didn’t escape! Her ship … her ship.
Goddamn you! Fight!
She kicked Tahn weakly, but the wall of water felt as thick and impenetrable as lead. Her legs moved so slowly she thought they’d never reach his side. Her air ran out in the midst of the battle and she gulped water into her lungs. The sensation terrified her. She coughed and inhaled more water. Her chest burned as though afire. She struggled to get to the surface, but obviously he didn’t recognize the difference in her tactics. He fought her, keeping her face pressed resolutely beneath the shimmering blanket of death. Just before she lost consciousness, she glimpsed his panicked face through the rippling water….

An indeterminable amount of time later, she came to and found him giving her old-fashioned artificial respiration. His lips felt hot against hers. She groaned weakly and he brusquely rolled her to her side. He’d unbound her hands, but they flopped uselessly against the cool floor. The gush of water that drained from her mouth seemed massive. She had trouble catching her breath. Her lungs didn’t want to inflate.

“Lie still,” he ordered.

He rolled her onto her back again and slipped a hand beneath her head, then covered her mouth with his own and breathed life into her. Her eyes fluttered, taking in his nakedness, tracing the lines of his shoulder muscles. So handsome…. Mist floated like a glittering halo around his head. Her chest expanded a few times and she feebly turned away.

“Enough,” she whispered hoarsely. He gazed at her hard, as though judging the truth of that assertion by the strength he saw in her eyes. Some of his dread left him. He let out a long exhalation and ran a hand through his drenched brown hair.

“You had me scared. You didn’t come out of that nearly as fast as you should have.”

“Weak … weak lungs. Smoke damage.”

It had happened the day her parents died. She’d run screaming through their flaming house, listening to the raid sirens wail through the streets outside. Somehow, she’d gotten lost in her own home. The wall of smoke and fire had been so thick, she couldn’t see.

Vainly, Amirah tired to raise herself on her elbows, but her strength failed. She fell back to the hard stone floor. A swimming vision of jade tiles and stone walls wove a queasy pattern. She fought the nausea. A moment later, powerful arms slid beneath her shoulders and knees and she felt herself being carried down the hall.