The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein) (21 page)

The door opened suddenly and they all three flinched back. But it was Gerard, with rumpled hair and in his shirtsleeves, regarding them with a quizzical expression. “Oh, it’s you,” he said in Syrnaic. “Did you find anything?”

“Just you.” Disgruntled, Ilias leaned against the wall and massaged the foot Tremaine had stamped on in hasty retreat from the door.

Giliead managed to look as if he hadn’t reacted at all. Tremaine fanned herself with the map to cool the rush of heat to her cheeks. “Damn, just rush out and yell ‘boo’ next time.”

“What? Oh, sorry.” Gerard disappeared inside the room. “Come in.”

“Were you trying to get some sleep?” Tremaine went in after him, Ilias and Giliead following more cautiously. “I thought you gave that up.”

“It’s not voluntary, I assure you,” Gerard replied ruefully. The cabin lights were on and several books and notebooks lay open on the bed. “Niles and I put an adjuration on each other to stay awake for the next few days.”

Tremaine lifted her brows. That sounded fairly drastic. “Is that a good idea?”

“No, not particularly,” he admitted. “Oh, thank you for packing my things, by the way.” He absently shifted some books aside so he could sit down. “Being able to shave this morning was a great relief.”

Tremaine shrugged it off. “It was an experiment with optimism.” Gerard had an ordinary stateroom, with a built-in desk and dresser, and a couch and chair in the small open area. What wasn’t ordinary was that on every flat surface there were bowls, of crystal, colored glass and china. Tremaine stepped over to look at the three on the little boule table in front of the couch, seeing each was half-full of water and had bits of things floating in it. She recognized carpet or curtain threads, splinters of wood and what might be paint flakes. “Keeping an eye on all of us?” she asked, a brow lifted wryly.

“Those are for different areas of the ship.” Gerard pulled off his spectacles to rub his eyes. “There’s also one for you, one for Niles and one for Florian.”

“I thought there might be one for me this morning.” Tremaine looked around the rest of the cabin. Giliead leaned in the doorway, a closed thoughtful expression on his face. Ilias had taken a step further in but looked as if he was reluctant to touch anything.

Tremaine noted that the mirror above the dresser was tightly covered by a blanket. She knew that scrying spells used mirrors or reflective surfaces to view their targets, knowledge gained because Nicholas had required everyone associated with him to become an expert in how to avoid sorcerous spying. Finding a reflective surface for a sorcerer to use wasn’t a problem on the
Ravenna,
with all her glass balusters and panels. She glanced back at Gerard and saw he was thoughtfully eyeing her and Ilias.
He’s wondering how things are going, marriage-wise
. And maybe trying to think of a polite way to ask. To forestall it, she nodded to the draped mirror. “Is Niles peeping at you again?”

“What?” Gerard stared at her blankly. “Oh, the mirror. With these scrying bowls active, I’d rather not take any chances.” He added with an annoyed shake of his head, “Niles has other methods.”

Intrigued, Giliead asked, “A wizard could spy on you through the mirror?”

“A Rienish sorcerer could,” Gerard admitted. “It’s one of the spells that is useless against the Gardier, as far as we can tell. And we don’t know if they can use it against us.” He frowned at a sudden thought. “Though that was before we knew about the crystals and the…bizarre nature of their sorcery.”

“We did find something,” Tremaine interposed before he could launch into etheric theory. She dropped into the armchair, glad to rest her feet. “Someone’s been hiding up in Third Class.”

As she explained what they had found, Ilias took another cautious step into the room and sat down on the rug.

Gerard’s brow furrowed. “That still doesn’t tell us whether he came aboard at Rel, Chaire or with the freed prisoners from the island. I need to examine that room.”

Ilias shifted uncomfortably.
But he wants to show me he’s not afraid of Gerard’s spells,
Tremaine realized suddenly. It was another gesture meant to show that he would do his best to fit in to her world, somehow even more affecting than when he had demanded to know how to say
Valiarde
. Giliead was standing back and letting him do it, not ruining the gesture by coming further into the room, though he must realize the spells were harmless to them.
Focus, focus,
she reminded herself. “So what does Arisilde make of this?”

Gerard’s frowned deepened. “He…didn’t seem to want to be of use.”

“Oh.” Tremaine took that in, a little nonplussed. “He’s never done that before.” She glanced around the room again. “Where is he now?”

“With Niles in the hospital. I’m about to go down and take over for him. For Niles, that is.”

She nodded. When they had first used the sphere, before realizing Arisilde himself was inside it, it had taken both Tremaine’s and Gerard’s presence to get it to work. Since then it had progressed to operating by itself, or needing only the smallest nudge to initiate a complex spell. “You’re being careful with him, right? I mean, he’s been stolen once—”

Gerard’s mouth twisted wryly. “I think it highly unlikely that he will be stolen again. I hate to think what would happen to anyone who tried.”

Tremaine saw Ilias exchange an enigmatic look with Giliead. She pushed herself to her feet. “We’d better get on with it, then.”

Gerard ran a hand through his hair, nodding absently. “I’ll let Niles and Averi know about the room you found.” He gathered up a couple of the volumes on the bed and one of the notebooks, then followed them out into the hall, locking the door behind him.

By handing Tremaine the books while he pulled his jacket on, he managed to detain her while Ilias and Giliead wandered on up the quiet corridor. It wasn’t until he said, “Well, and how are things going?” in Rienish that she realized she had been adeptly maneuvered into the private conversation she had wanted to avoid.

Deliberately misunderstanding, Tremaine threw him a puzzled look. “What things?”

He gave her a mild glare and made the question a pointed, “Are you two getting along?”

Giving in, she shrugged wearily. “So far. It’s been less than half a day, Gerard, not even I could mess it up in that short amount of time.” She decided not to mention that she almost had.

He sighed, stopping at the narrow passage that connected the two main corridors. “I don’t mean to pry, but—”

“Yes, you do mean to pry,” Tremaine assured him.

“Yes, I do, but—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just worry about you. Needlessly.” He patted her on the arm. “I’ll be down in the hospital with Niles.”

Tremaine watched him go. She hoped he was worrying needlessly.

Lengthening her stride to catch up to Ilias and Giliead, she began, “You know, I think we should—” She stopped as she found them in a vestibule, contemplating three closed doors.

From Giliead’s concentrated expression, they had found something interesting. He said, “There’s been a curse here, not long ago. It’s fresh and strong.”

“Can you tell what it was?”

He shook his head, trailing a hand cautiously around the doorframe. “Your curses are so different.”

“Right.” Tremaine turned, seeing they had an attentive audience. Two young Rienish women in traveling dresses and a young Maiutan woman in oversized canvas pants and a sailor’s uniform shirt were seated on stools in the vestibule across the corridor, with a china coffee service laid out on a footstool. Apparently this was the hour in upper-middle-class society where one had coffee with one’s neighbors, even if one’s neighbors were Maiutan ex–prisoners of war. “Excuse me, but do you know who has these rooms?”

“Bisrans.” The older matron set her cup down on the tray with the air of someone who had just been waiting to be asked that question. She explained, “We were told they escaped from Adera and were being held at Chaire. They don’t speak to anyone, but you know Bisrans.”

“They’re in one of those sects,” the other Rienish woman put in. “The one where they dress so badly.”

Tremaine translated this into Syrnaic, leaving out the sartorial comment. Ilias rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Those men we saw near the healer’s rooms?”

Tremaine nodded. “Exactly. I need to check with someone to make sure, but if one of the Bisrans is a sorcerer, he hasn’t said so.” She eyed the array of closed doors.
Now we’re getting somewhere
.

Giliead took that in, considering it. “Did the women see anything odd, anything that might have been a curse?”

Tremaine passed the question along in Rienish, and the older woman shook her head regretfully. “We saw them all go off that way toward the dining room, while we were having coffee. But we haven’t been out here that long. My sister is getting over a fever, so we had our lunch on a tray in our room, then came out here so she could have some quiet for a nap.”

“What did the Bisran pigs do?” the Maiutan woman asked curiously.

“They’re Bisran pigs, do they need to do anything?” Tremaine told her, distracted. She rubbed her hands together briskly. “Is there a telephone in your room I could use?”

G
lancing around the dining room, Tremaine spotted the Bisrans first. They were seated at two tables near the corner. Their severe dark suits and archaic ruffled neckcloths would have stood out in any Rienish setting, even with the increasing shortages of dyes and materials in the last few years as factories had been destroyed and trade routes shut down. Against the
Ravenna
’s gold-toned wood and silvered glass, they looked almost absurd.

There were five men, two of whom she had seen earlier outside the hospital, three women and four children. The women wore high-necked dark-colored blouses and skirts far too long for fashion. The children were miniature copies of the adults.

The room was about half-full of refugees and off-duty crew. Dishes clattered through the propped-open serving door, and children played around the pillars. Someone had brought in some low upholstered stools and a cocktail table from one of the lounges, fashioning an impromptu Syprian dining set. Gyan, Arites, Kias, and, to Tremaine’s surprise, Cimarus and Danias were seated there. Gyan was watching them with a faint worried frown, as if something in Giliead’s manner broadcast a warning. But Arites got up and came over, saying, “Come and eat. They take stewed fruit and put it inside this crispy bread, and it’s wonderful.”

“Not just now.” Giliead shifted him aside gently. He moved toward the Bisrans, his face holding the same deliberate concentration as when he had trailed Ixion through the ship. One of the Bisran women looked up as they approached, her eyes widening.

“Which one?” Ilias asked, eyeing the group speculatively.

Giliead paused, only a few steps from the table where four of the men and one woman sat. “It’s one of them. I’m not sure which.” His brow creased in annoyance. “They’re too close together.”

Trailing after them and still munching on a bread roll, Arites said, “These people are snobs. They won’t talk to anyone, even the nice people who make the food. Why are they afraid to let their skin show? Is there something wrong with them?”

They had all the Bisrans’ attention now. Their faces were startled, nervous or contemptuous. Tremaine said, “In a word, yes.” The two men she had seen outside the hospital were at this table, watching with cold caution. She checked the page of the hastily typed passenger list. The volunteer in the steward’s office had given it to her once Tremaine had impressed on the woman that the whole ship was liable to instant disaster if she didn’t.
I’m not even sure I was lying about that
.

According to the list, the oldest Bisran man at the table was Justice Riand. Tremaine knew Justice was a title, not a name, and designated a position somewhat analogous to a Rienish High Magistrate. Except as a Bisran the man would be less bound by the conventions of law. The other three men must be his older son Bain, his younger son Damil, and a son-in-law called Carrister. The woman didn’t look old enough to be the wife listed on the manifest, so she must be one of the daughters or daughters-in-law.

Tremaine looked up to see Giliead and Ilias watching the Bisrans with a hawklike intensity that wasn’t lost on the rest of the room; everyone had fallen silent. Careful to use Syrnaic, she asked Giliead, “So we know he did a…curse recently.” She used the generic Syrnaic word for spell, not wanting the Bisrans to have even that much of a clue what this was about. As far as she knew, Giliead’s abilities were known only to the upper level of the Rienish command, and not even to all of them. “Is he doing one now?”

“No.” His eyes flicked to her. “Make them talk.”

“Right.” Tremaine eyed him thoughtfully. Near a real quarry for the first time in too long, he was single-mindedly intent on his goal, and Ilias, pacing around to the far side of the table like a lion in a cage, looked the same. She stepped up, took the one open chair at the table and sat down.

The Bisrans all stared at her in astonished affront. Switching back to Rienish, Tremaine said with blithe confidence, “Hello. How are we all today? And which one of you is a sorcerer?”

Staring at her, his jaw set and his face darkening with rage, Justice Riand demanded, “What right do you have to ask this question?” From the dishes on the table, lunch appeared to be soup, casserole and the apple tart Arites had complimented. She saw that their religious frugality hadn’t prevented the Bisrans from eating it.

Giliead had moved up to stand behind Tremaine’s chair; from across the table she could see Ilias was watching his friend’s face. He caught her eye and shook his head minutely.

Not Justice Riand
. She steepled her fingers and smiled around the table. “What right do you have to be on this boat?”

“Your military kept us in Chaire until we had no choice,” one of the younger men snapped.

The woman was averting her eyes from Ilias and Giliead. She spoke suddenly. “Why are these filthy natives staring at us?”

“They aren’t filthy.” That was literally true. Syprians understood plumbing and knew it wasn’t magic, so didn’t shun it as they did electric switches and other mechanical devices. They also much appreciated the novelty of hot water on tap. “We all share a suite, and I don’t think the bathroom’s been unoccupied since we left port. Also, I happen to have expert knowledge, since I’m married to one of them.”

Even if she hadn’t been trying to provoke a reaction, it would have been worth it to see the offended shock and disbelief on all their faces. The woman actually looked like she was going to be ill. Satisfied with her progress so far, Tremaine rattled the sheet of typescript ostentatiously. “So, you must be Justice Riand.” She smiled engagingly at the older man, who looked as if he was now certain he was dealing with a madwoman. “And we have here Bain, Damil, and Carrister?”

Justice Riand eyed her narrowly. “You have not said what right you have to question us.”

“Now, that would be telling.”

The man sitting next to her spoke suddenly, “I am Bain Riand.” He was dark and handsome in a square-jawed, broody way, if one liked that sort of thing. “What do you want of us?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but Giliead moved suddenly, grabbing Bain’s arm. Giliead said grimly, “It’s this one.”

Bain gasped, from surprise or pain. Then his hand opened and she saw he was holding a small brown stone with some strands of hair bound around it with red string. Alarmed, Tremaine shoved her chair back, stumbling to her feet. She had no idea what it was, but she could recognize a ritual object when she saw one.

Bain snatched up the dinner knife and stabbed at Giliead’s arm. With a growl, Giliead pulled Bain out of the chair, slapping the knife out of his hand. The Bisran men surged to their feet but Ilias shouted, his sword drawn. The sudden appearance of three feet of steel abruptly halted their rush to help.

A flash of light caught Tremaine’s eye. An amorphous green mass formed in the air above the table, resolving into something with razor-sharp claws and several mouthfuls of teeth. People screamed and shouted, coming to their feet. Tremaine backed rapidly away as Ilias grabbed the elder Riand by the collar, yanking him back and setting the sword’s edge to his throat. But his face set, Giliead kept his hold on Bain’s wrist, saying, “It’s not real.”

“It’s an illusion!” Tremaine shouted in Rienish. “Everyone calm down!”

Bain spit words into Giliead’s face and Tremaine saw something darken the air between them. She had seen a great many defensive spells, but this one she didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, it made Giliead’s face suffuse with rage. With one swift shove he pushed the black cloud away as if it was a solid mass, then slammed Bain facedown onto the table. But he didn’t slam him hard enough, for Bain still struggled, trying to speak. Giliead tightened the hold into a strangler’s grip.

“Don’t kill him!” Tremaine yelped, realizing he wasn’t going to stop. They had covered this point, hadn’t they? “We need to talk to him!” She looked at Ilias for help. He caught her eyes, startled, then looked from her to Giliead, desperately conflicted.

She realized she had no idea if the marriage meant Ilias had to obey her.
I can’t ask him to get in the middle of this
. She hastily turned to Giliead. “Please don’t kill him. He can tell us things we need to know. I’d say something manipulative, but I can’t think of anything. I suppose I could throw myself on his body, but there’s no way in hell I’m doing that, so—”

Giliead was looking at her from under lowered brows. Then he released the pressure on Bain’s throat, half-lifting him to slam the sorcerer into the hardwood table again. Stunned this time, Bain went limp and slid to the floor.

C
olonel Averi had Bain Riand taken to the Isolation Ward, to the same treatment room they had used for questioning the Gardier. There were two armed guards by the door, and the place was now warded almost as strongly as Ixion’s cell. In the outer room, Tremaine peered through the grille, impatiently hoping Bain would just give in and talk.

Bain sat in a straight-backed chair in the bare whitewashed room. Niles stood over him, arms folded. He was conducting the interrogation as calmly as if he was interviewing the man for a position on the Institute’s staff. It made Bain’s sullen expression seem childish.

Niles asked thoughtfully, “Why didn’t you admit that you were a sorcerer when you first crossed into Ile-Rien’s territory?”

It was a reasonable question, and Bain looked away, his dark brows now more sulky than brooding. “Talk, you idiot,” Tremaine said under her breath. As a sorcerer himself, Bain would know how to resist the mild truth spells Niles and Gerard had used on the Gardier prisoners; this could take forever.

Finally, Bain said grudgingly, “I’m not a sorcerer. I am a lay priest.”

Niles lifted a skeptical brow. He said mildly, “You didn’t admit to that either.” Bisran priests of most sects were sorcerers; it was the only practice of magic their government sanctioned. If Bain had described himself as a priest the Rienish authorities would have known exactly what that meant. “What were you doing in Room C374?”

A flicker of honest confusion crossed Bain’s face. “I don’t—What room?”

“It’s a Third Class room in the bow.”

Bain shook his head, sullen again. “I was not there. I have been in no one’s quarters except my own.”

Niles considered him a moment. It did look distressingly as though Bain was telling the truth. Either that or he was a better actor than Tremaine had expected. “What was the spell in your quarters for?”

Bain pressed his lips together, still refusing to answer.

Tremaine rolled her eyes.
This is going to take forever.
She turned away, nearly stepping on Ilias, who had been hovering right behind her. He moved back, his expression both guilty and defensive, as if he knew he had been in the wrong but was prepared to argue the point anyway.

Oh, right, that
. Tremaine took his arm, tugging him away from the grille so their voices wouldn’t carry through. “Look, it’s all right,” she said quietly, stopping in the doorway. The outer room was only just around the corner, and she didn’t want to be overheard from there either. “I understand.”

He eyed her, still troubled, obviously wanting to make sure she really meant it. “You do?”

“I think I do, yes.” During the fight in the dining room his loyalty to Giliead had come before his loyalty to her, but she was fairly certain she had already known that. In her experience of the complex web of loyalties and counterloyalties that characterized both Vienne’s underworld and its theatrical community, it wasn’t that much of a shock.

Ilias just nodded, his expression turning warmer. Suddenly uncomfortable, Tremaine towed him on into the office.

There, his suit and neckcloth still in disarray from the fight in the dining room, Justice Riand confronted Colonel Averi. “Your hired savages attacked my family,” he was saying, his face dark with fury.

Giliead leaned back against the desk, arms folded, with Florian perched next to him. He threw a careful look at Tremaine and Ilias as they entered and relaxed slightly at seeing no obvious signs of enmity. Gerard was standing beside the door to the other guardroom, eyeing Riand with dislike. “That one”—Riand pointed at Ilias, his hand trembling with anger—“held a weapon to my throat. I have every right to demand vengeance on my authority as a Bisran Church Warden—”

Tremaine lifted a brow. There was a law in Ile-Rien that a diplomatic representative on Rienish soil could invoke the laws of his own country against anyone who committed a crime against him, as long as the criminal was not a Rienish citizen. It had been meant to deter Aderassi and other foreigners who came to Ile-Rien to attack prominent Bisrans. Dissidents had known they were more likely to get a light sentence from a sympathetic Rienish Magistrate and jury and to get their grievance aired in the press.

“They aren’t hired,” Colonel Averi interrupted the diatribe. “They are temporarily attached to this ship by the authority of an allied nation, and their diplomatic credentials hold more weight than yours. Besides, the one that held a weapon to your son’s throat is a Rienish citizen. That may mean nothing anywhere else in our world or this one at the moment, but I assure you it means a great deal on this ship.” He eyed Riand with cool contempt. “And as to vengeance, frankly, I’d like to see you try.”

Riand stared at him in astonished affront, then set his jaw, obviously swallowing an angry reply.

Tremaine pretended to be more interested in the state of her fingernails, smiling to herself. She had forgotten that marriage to her, if a Rienish court accepted it as legal, gave Ilias Rienish citizenship. Not that that was worth much at the moment, but it was interesting that Averi was willing to use it. “What was that about?” Ilias asked her softly.

“He wanted you both turned over to him so you could finish killing him,” she explained in Syrnaic. “Averi pointed out that it was a stupid idea.”