Allie's War Season Three (31 page)

Both Stanley and Chandre turned as Varlan moved into the empty space between where they stood by the gates. He walked close to silently, joining them from the general direction of the dirt patch where the jeeps sat parked. Giving Varlan an amused look, Chandre gave the area of the jeeps a second glance when she saw Rex talking to one of the human villagers.

She hadn't heard anyone approach, so she had to assume he'd used his light to 'convince' one of the nearer humans to join them.

"What's he doing?" she asked Varlan.

Varlan glanced back at the tall seer. "He appears to be interrogating one of the locals." He cocked an eyebrow humorously at Chandre's frown.

"Is that friendly?" she said.

"You do not approve, sister?"

Chandre shrugged, letting her gaze return to the house past the gate.

"Just seems pointless," she said. "These people don't seem the type to share their plans with worms...since they clearly aren't sharing much of anything else with them." She glanced up the hill with another shrug. "On the other hand, they
do
seem the type to take offense if we start screwing around with 'their' humans..."

When Stanley smiled, Varlan looked between them, then conceded the point with an eloquent gesture of one hand.

"Noted," he said. Glancing at Rex a second time, Varlan raised his voice to address the tow-headed seer.

"Ask him if he can call up to the house," he said.

"He can," Rex confirmed.

"Have him do it, then," Varlan said. "Tell him to request information as to whether we should wait here or obtain lodgings in the town. Tell him to apologize to our hosts for the presumption in our asking, and for using the only means at our disposal to do so...especially if our timing is in any way inconvenient..."

"Especially since they set the time," Chandre couldn't help muttering. "...And invited us here, only to lock us out...again."

Rex nodded to Varlan's words, his brown eyes shifting back to the human.

It seemed like another interminable amount of time while the villager wandered off, returning to one of the nearby stone buildings to use whatever communication method they had in town for delivering messages to their masters on the hill. Again, Chandre took in the quaint, aged quality to the white-washed walls and tile roofs, noting that wind and salt-seasoned air had taken their toll, pitting the walls and wooden beams and even the curved tiles of the roofs.

Push or no, Chandre couldn't help thinking the villager was taking his sweet, damned time.

She was about to make a comment to that effect to Stanley and Varlan, when a creaking sound emitted from the gates, near enough that she jumped about a foot. Staring as the spike-topped organic poles began to open inward, she glanced at Stanley only to see a similar look of surprise on his normally smooth face. Without thinking, Chandre began to walk forward, towards the opening.

Varlan grabbed hold of her bicep, halting her.

"Caution, sister Chandre," he murmured, nodding towards the opening. "Let's see if our hosts can't make the invitation a little more friendly, first..."

Puzzled, Chandre scanned the space in front of her more carefully. Once she had, she paled, feeling the coiling, snaking sparks of a live OBE field directly in front of where she'd been about to pass. Letting out a held breath, she sent a pulse of gratitude towards the older seer's light.

OBEs, or organic binary electrical fields, were something she seemed to be running into a little too often of late. The last one had been at that secret lab in Hayward, and she'd almost walked into a fully charged field then, too, thinking it was down after they'd detonated the explosive charges they left in the lab. That time, it had been Stanley who pulled her back, within a foot of her touching the edges of the field's range. Considering that a fully-charged OBE could pretty much kill on contact, her gratitude towards Varlan hadn't been mere politeness.

A few more seconds passed before she felt the shift in the Barrier.

"You need to learn to identify those more efficiently, sister," Varlan observed, his expression unmoving. "If we are going to be working together, perhaps you could ask one of my seers to give you a crash course...?"

Chandre nodded, feeling her jaw tighten in embarrassment.

Still, the seer was right. Twice was inexcusable. When she glanced at Stanley, he nodded his reply to her unspoken question. Seeing the faint worry creasing his forehead, she was surprised to note that her near-miss had alarmed him, as well.

Feeling a ping from Varlan's light, she focused her gaze back up the hill.

Someone was approaching.

The figure made its way down a path inside one of the gardens lining either side of the cobblestone driveway. It picked its way among the hardy plants and shrubs that dotted the edges of the stone tiles, as well as artistically-placed boulders that reminded Chandre of more elaborate Chinese gardens she'd seen in different parts of the world. She watched the man's progress in disbelief, sure at first her eyes were deceiving her.

But the image didn't change. He continued making his way towards them in jerking, nervous strides, oblivious to the impact his presence had on them. Chandre stared, unable to do anything but take in the face of the man squinting at them as he approached, his thinning hair blowing in the cold wind like wisps of dried grass.

It was Eddard.

Before she could emit the angry cry that started in her throat, the human raised a hand, smiling at them...as if they hadn't just spent the last few months scouring the Earth for him. As if he hadn't left them at that lab, after stealing the only samples of the deadly disease known to exist and possibly killing Maygar in the process.

Chandre saw his small hand wave in a friendly way, even as he stumbled somewhat on a large stone in the path. She noticed he was wearing what looked like an expensive, tailored suit, covered over in a wool coat. The coat alone looked to cost more than most seers made in several months' time, even those freelancing in Europe.

"Hello!" he called down. "They've asked me to greet you...and to express their apologies. You can come on through now...the protection field is disengaged..."

Chandre continued to stare, unable to keep the incredulousness out of her voice.

"We should shoot you," she said, when he'd come a dozen feet closer. "We should shoot you in the head right now...you traitorous piece of camel shit..."

Varlan held up a calming hand, stepping in front of her, but Chandre only angled her head sideways past his shoulder, so she could glare at the human again.

"Where is Maygar, human?" The last word came out sounding like a curse. "What have you done with our brother, you lying, unctuous little worm...?"

Her own anger surprised her, especially when she realized its source. But the human's pained look only worsened the flare of heat in her light, especially when he blinked as if she'd said something to wound him. When the slight-framed man reached the end of the steepest part of the slope, so that he was only a dozen yards from the opening in the organic fence, she found herself lashing at him again.

"You worked for them all along," she accused, once again ignoring Varlan's quieting hand. "You set up us, you..." She fumbled for an adequate insult. "You...
race traitor!"

The human came to a stop, staring at Chandre like she'd hit him.

"Race traitor?" he said.

She emitted a low hiss. "You're going to tell me you aren't behind what is happening in San Francisco, cousin? That you haven't killed tens of thousands of your own people...what, so you can line your own coffin with money?"

The friendly sheen of Eddard's eyes wavered, replaced by something sharper, something that brought Chandre up short, stopping the words that had trembled, half-formed at her lips. Before she could fully recover from whatever she'd seen in that watery blue gaze, his expression smoothed, leaving only that same, gratingly appeasing smile above a weak chin. He glanced around at all four of them. His thin hair moved under the cold breeze, but without damaging the neat part on one side of his head.

"Why don't you come inside?" he said then.

Smiling politely at Varlan, he paused to include Stanley in his glance, then Rex as the more mountainous seer approached from behind.

"...You all look tired," he added. "And I'm certain that you're famished, after that long drive..." Giving Chandre a last glance, he let his eyes go nearly blank, inscrutable above that smile. "...I assure you, cousin Chandre...all will be explained. Perhaps even to your satisfaction..."

Feeling her mouth harden into a line, Chandre glanced at Varlan, who gave her another warning look. She saw some empathy in that stare, but zero compromise.

Again, Chandre grew aware that she might be on her own.

"Fine," she said, her voice cold. "I will follow you, worm. And perhaps you can use that forked tongue of yours to tell us another long tale..."

Pushing past where he stood, she began hiking up the steep, polished stone driveway, not giving him another glance as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. It wasn't until she'd been walking for a half-dozen yards that she realized Stanley had caught up to her, and paced her steps to the right of where she walked.

"I don't need a lecture, brother," she said.

"No lecture," Stanley assured her, his voice a murmur. "Just a caution...he may be less of a cousin than we previously thought..."

Chandre gave the African-looking seer a look, then glanced back at where Eddard walked alongside Varlan. The two adopted a more leisurely pace, and from the look of things, with Eddard's expansive gestures and moving lips, he appeared to be giving the aged seer the beginnings of a tour.

"Meaning what?" she said coldly.

"Meaning, when you called him a race traitor," Stanley said, softer still. "...He scanned you, sister. It was a light touch, but I felt it..."

Chandre didn't answer, feeling her mind turn over his words. Finally, she gave a low snort, aimed in Stanley's directly.

"You
felt it?" She gave him a hard look. "How, brother? How is it that you felt it and I did not?"

Stanley's eyes shifted away, gazing up at the hacienda on the cliff. After a few more steps, he clicked softly. "Varlan has me monitoring your light..." A touch of apology reached his words. "He was concerned that Balidor might be running his own game...or perhaps the Sword."

"And what if they were?" Chandre said, biting back her irritation that Varlan assumed a male would be behind any devious or infiltration-style planning. Clearly they didn't know Allie very well. "...Could you do anything about it?" she retorted. "Or did you just plan to kill me, once I'm no longer an asset to Varlan's own ends?"

Still, it was difficult to be surprised...or even truly offended. Of course they would view her as a possible threat, just as she did them. In some ways, it made her trust them more.

"In the strictest sense, no," Stanley said, smiling a little. "We could not do anything about it, sister Chandre...and we certainly don't desire displeasing your masters by killing one of their trusted friends. But it never hurts to be prepared."

Chandre conceded his words with a tilt of her palm.

"So he is a seer then, this Eddard?" She didn't look back that time, and kept her voice low, despite the skepticism she let leak into her words. "How do you know it was not channeled through him...by one of his masters?"

"It was him. Clearly, he no longer cares if we know."

Chandre made another short clicking sound, shaking her long braids. "What you are suggesting is not possible," she said, her voice lower still. "He worked for the Sword...for years. They lived in the same home. Dehgoies may not have been active then, but he was no fool. He knew this human worked for the British. He would have noticed, if he had even a
sliver
of structure in his light..."

Stanley's expression remained unperturbed.

"I do not know how, sister," he said. "But I know what I felt. He has the sight. I would swear to it...on my own blood. You can see my memory of it, if you like..."

Chandre felt her jaw harden a little more.

But she found she didn't doubt his words. Despite the African-looking seer's confession of monitoring her light...or perhaps because of it, in part...Stanley's words rang true. She believed him, although she couldn't have said why.