The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 56

"Hasn't, has it?"

"No."

Kept his face averted. "A child shouldn't ever see her father like this. Especially not a Khagggun child."

"I think a Khagggun child can handle it better than others."

He closed his eyes then, and began to laugh. He laughed harder and deeper than he could ever remember. It felt good in a way that was foreign to him. "You just-" His laughter continued. "You just can't help being contrary, can you."

"I'm right, though."

"Yes, you are." He looked at her now, a.s.sessing her as he would a potential weapon, a shock-sword to which he could trust his life and the lives under his command. He did not find her wanting. "Get me those guards. I have a mountain of coins to collect from them."

"They're dead," she said.

"And Mennus?"

"Threw my shock-sword at his neck. I didn't miss."

"Well," he said again.

"Your Khagggun are back in charge. Guarding you with their lives."

"Well, well, well." Smoothed the bedcovers over his legs, the better to a.s.suage his nervousness.

"You've got a strong arm, Leyytey, to go with your keen mind. And courage enough for two Khagggun."

At his invitation, she sat on the edge of the bed.

"You have to do something about it." She meant the tumor growing in his brain.

"Am doing something. This spice Sornnn's giving me."

"A temporary measure. I am looking at the downside."

His lips pursed out.

"I don't want to lose you."

He made a little noise in his chest.

"I know a Genomatekk is out of the question.""Glad we don't have to clash over that."

"But there is another option. Sornnn knows this Deirus, Kirlll Qandda."

"You're joking, surely."

"He's as qualified as any Genomatekk, better than most. And he won't say anything. Sornnn trusts him."

Made that sound again in his chest, letting it out slowly. "I will think about it."

"That's all I ask."

Sunlight creeping toward them across the floor, they could feel its warmth, the promise of it. A breeze stepped inside, stirred the room as if it were a goblet of ludd-wine.

"Still miss my sons," Pnin said. "But not nearly as much, it seems, as I used to."

Leyytey, lighter than air, felt her insides melting. Did not know what to say, so she said what was in her hearts. "I'll never get over being frightened of you."

"Is it such a bad thing?" Picking at the covers. "I'm your father, aren't I?"

It was as close as he could come to asking forgiveness. Something unfamiliar welled up in Leyytey's throat.

"Father . . . ?"

"Yes." He did not scold her or contradict.

"There is something I must tell you." She looked down at her hand as he took it in his. He knew this was hard for her. Had he heard something in her voice or did her expression betray her? Either way, the warrnixx die was cast. So she told him about Dacce, how he had been hired by Raan Tallus, how he had murdered Hadinnn SaTrryn, the poison she had kept bottled up inside her.

After she was finished, after the silence was done, he said, "Why have you told me this?"

"I want you-" Looking up into his face. "You can take care of it, see justice is done."

He nodded. "I could, indeed. But I won't."

"Why?"

"Not me you need to tell, and you know it." Squeezing her hand. "It's for the son to see justice done."

A stirring at the doorway made them both look up.

"Sornnn," Pnin said. "A good day, this. A great day."

"Yes, sir, it is."

"What do you think of this daughter of mine?" His face brightening every moment, the creases less deep, less telling, color returning like sunlight out of clouds. "Isn't she something?"

Sornnn smiling. "She is indeed."

"Now we need to turn our attention to the chain of command." He was sitting up straighter. "First thing, I want to find out the fate of the other Admirals-Hiche, Lupaas, and Whon."

Sornnn said, "The Haaar-kyut commandant First-Captain Kwenn, can help us with this."

Pnin nodded. "Second thing-" His eyes were bright, fiery even. "Leyytey, what do you think the second thing should be?"

Leyytey blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm always telling you what I think. Time the tables were turned. I'm asking for your opinion."

She took a breath. Her hearts hammered in her breast. She did not want to let him down. And then she saw the look in his eye and knew that she couldn't. She also knew that she had a very clear idea of it.

"With the Star-Admiral dead that leaves you as senior-and ranking- member of the high council. I think you go in and a.s.sess those whom Mennus promoted. You don't like them, you demote them. I think you form your own high council."

"What about the regent?"

"What about him?" she said. "He is Bashkir, and you are Khagggun. It is high time the Khaggguns' fate was returned to their own hands."

"And the Gyrgon?"

"Rumors persist that since Nith Batox.x.x's death at Za Hara-at the Comrades.h.i.+p is engrossed in internecine fighting. Besides, since we defend them, a strong Khagggun caste is in their best interest."

Pnin, working his way slowly out of bed, strength and renewed life flowing back into him, along-pent-up river. The voices of the dead were silent now. "What did I tell you, Sornnn? She really is something."

A black whirlpool was sucking at Hannn Mennus. By all rights he should be back in Axis Tyr finding out the details of his brother's death. Holding interrogations, exacting a terrible revenge. Finding out why the regent hadn't already ordered it done. He spat into damp, blood-soaked ground. What could you expect from Bashkir?

He looked down at two of his Khagggun. Dead. Like the other outrider guards. No warning, no sound, nothing tripped on the periphery alarms. He bent down, took between two blunt fingers a square of black-dyed cloth out of each of their mouths. Like the others. He had a whole pile of black squares, extracted from the mouths of his good warriors. All dead. Hannn looked around, hands on hips. His Khagggun were staring at him, thinking what? Who was killing them? Who would be next? In this atmosphere, he could not even contemplate leaving for Axis Tyr, no matter the reason. It could be misinterpreted. He felt the black whirlpool sucking away his troops' confidence in themselves, in him.

The sky was grey, neither high nor low, absolutely featureless. He stood in the pouring rain. No wind at all, the silver needles coming straight down, the trees useless. Their stares were darkening, his Khagggun were more hesitant by the hour. When had any of them gotten a decent night's sleep? When had this nightmare started? He could not recall.

At first, he had made the obvious a.s.sumption that they were under attack by some ragtag remnant of Gerwa's Resistance group, out on a recon when he had staged the raid that had obliterated the camp.

Basking in triumph, he had paid scant attention to the black squares of cloth. By the time the second set appeared in his Khaggguns' mouths he'd had to change his thinking. Hadn't changed his tactics, though.

Drove his troops harder than normal, broke them up into hunting packs, dividing the terrain into radiating sectors, keeping strict photon contact between them, standard operating procedure. They had found nothing for their toilsome work. And in the night, three more dead, mouths stuffed, the black cloths stippled with h.o.a.rfrost, fluttering in the wet morning breeze.

The black whirlpool was sucking at him. If he didn't do something soon, he would go under. He moved them to night patrols. What had come of it? Griping, the patrols slowed, another two dead, found at noon. A spike in his troops' anxiety, paced by a drop in morale. He knew they did not trust him, not really. How could they?

They had no idea what had happened on Lethe. Neither did he, only knew he came back without his pack, should have fallen on his shock-sword. He would have, actually, but his brother had stayed his hand. He had always listened to tin Mennus, following in the trajectory of his older brother's career, lifted by the invisible hand of his success. And what now that he was gone? No one to guide him, temper his hand. No one to tell him to stop dreaming about Lethe.

The air steamed with his breath, the rain pelted down. All of them standing, looking at the newly dead.

Awaiting orders. What had gotten to them was the black cloths. Not Hannn, though. His concern was how his Khagggun had died. All ion blasts, very concentrated. Wicked stuff. Very efficient. By which he was forced to conclude that the enemy-whoever they might be-were in possession of ion-based weapons of the latest design. How in the Kraelian h.e.l.lpit could that be?

He could call and ask for reinforcements, of course, but, considering Lethe-always considering Lethe-how could he possibly take that route? He would lose whatever respect his Khagggun still had for him. It would confirm the worst rumors about him: that he was unfit to lead, that he could not get the job done. That he was going to lose his Khagggun all over again.

And yet he stood transfixed, rain drumming against his armor, seeping into the cracks, running down the back of his neck. Black squares in his hand, stiff with blood and mucus. Transfixed by the notion that this was Lethe all over again. A situation out of control. A situation for which he had no solution. They would all die, he knew it, knew this time that he wouldn't survive either. Not that he had any great desire to. When he thought about it-which he did all the time-he had never really survived Lethe. What hadreturned was a sh.e.l.l, an automaton that walked and talked, ate and eliminated. Good for killing, yes, very good, indeed, for the already dead had nothing to lose. But for anything else, useless. Stayed alive for Iin, because of him. But now there was nothing. Standing there in the rain, between two more of his dead Khagggun, he was suddenly sick of life, enraged at seeing it all around him. How dare anyone laugh, or even smile] What was there to cause happiness? Not him, surely. For death was all he knew, all he ever would know.

He shook himself. What had his brother taught him? Introspection led to maudlin thoughts, and maudlin thoughts were the bane of Khagggun, they made you weak in arm, uncertain in mind. When he drew across his shoulders the cured snow-lynx hides the seeping stopped. Rain beaded up on the luxuriant fur; he was warm and dry. He ordered the Wing Deirus to prepare the bodies, ordered the others out on patrols, a new design, crisscross patterns, back one another up; sent pairs of snipers into the high trees in a fan pattern to lie in wait all day, all night, if need be, spelling each other.

"We'll get them," he said. Moving through the troops, lips cracked in a livid grin. "You'll see. We'll get them." Let the black squares flutter to the ground, where they were trampled underfoot.

A shallow grave," Sornnn said. "That's what they call it in the Kor-rush."

He and First-Captain Kwenn were down in the interrogation cells. This section of the caverns beneath the regent's palace was rank with the stench of fear and death. Dried blood and fecal matter. Insects, white in their lightless abode, crawling.

"These cells need a good disinfecting," Kwenn said.

They were looking at what remained of the three Admirals, the Men-nus brothers' hideous work.

"How do we tell him?" Kwenn meant Ardus Pnin.

Sornnn picked up an alloy implement, crusted with blood, bits of bone, grey matter. Indecipherable save to a torturer. "We must simply tell him. He values the truth, always."

"Even when it is so bitter?"

The implement rang dully when Sornnn put it down. "Especially then." Looked at unseeing eyes, chests pried open, bones protruding, viscera laid bare. A textbook of pain and suffering. "I don't know about you, but I need a breath of fresh air."

They mounted the fusty stairs. Outside the main hall, Kwenn gave orders for the remains to be removed, the cells flushed. Avoiding those on line who wished word of the regent, he slipped them out a side entrance into one of the palace's gardens.

The sky was a filthy grey, a solid sheet, dull and heavy. Looking more like winter than spring. They strolled beneath sheared sysal trees, Sornnn snorting to get the reek out of his nostrils. He stopped to inhale the pleasant tang of orangesweet.

Kwenn watching his Haaar-kyut patrols in the performance of their duties. He was a stickler. "What did you mean, a shallow grave?"

"In the Korrush, when the enemy captures and tortures your warriors, he leaves them where they lie.

The pawing of the animals creates a small depression where the bones molder. No spirit can rest easy in such a place."

Kwenn smiled. "I believe I would like the Korrush."

"It is clean, brilliant, vast. Things are what they seem."

"Unlike here." A heavily armed hovercraft pa.s.sed by overhead, dipped in brief acknowledgment as the pilot recognized him. "This regent is as much a puzzle as his father was."

"Both Stogggul," Sornnn pointed out.

"Precisely so. What could the Gyrgon be thinking, backing the Stogggul?'"

"Who can fathom the Gyrgon mind?"

They continued their walk, trying to clear their heads. The sysal, thickening with green, s.h.i.+elded them from the fierce-looking sky. It was very still. Ominous weather.

"For instance, the regent has disappeared." Kwenn continuing his train of thought."Is that unusual?"

"Not for him. He's got a pocketful of secrets. Just one of them would make my career, I warrant."

Sornnn paused to stare into a porphyry fountain. "I would think your career already made."

"You don't know the regent as I do. He can turn on anyone at any time. I mean, look at his sister."

"His sister? Oratttony?"

"No, the other one. Marethyn."

Sornnn froze. "What about Marethyn?"

"The regent lost track of her, so he asked me to find her. I did. But he wouldn't do a thing, wouldn't even believe a word-"

In the midst of his stupefaction came wildly beating hearts. "Wait a minute. Stop." A white-hot flame had ignited inside him, a wild flare of hope. "You found her?"