Vingi watched the smugness evaporate from the Domoraj, saw the beads of nervous sweat pearl on the forehead. “Li-Gallant—” the Domoraj began.
Vingi ignored the burgeoning plea, knowing what the man would say. “It
would
be sufficient for punishment if it didn’t fit well with my own plans. Potok’s guild has been shown, publicly, to be weak, lassari-prey. Your incompetence worked well, unintentionally, for you did manage to quell the attack when you finally moved. What worries me is whether Dame Fate will allow such a coincidence twice. If I need a disciplined force and can’t have one . . .”
“Li-Gallant, I assure you that it can’t happen again. I was just beginning my command then. My methods are just now having effect. In a few months, you’ll have an exceptionally well-trained and eager force.”
Vingi’s lips curled in a half-smile, half-sneer. “Yet I have to have a scapegoat for the Assembly, Domoraj. I can’t entirely let the incident go by. Your people were slow. I want you to choose one of your lieutenants—he will be made responsible for the tardiness, and publicly reprimanded.”
“Li-Gallant . . .”
“You will do it, Domoraj.” Vingi nodded. “And you’ll continue to work on the discipline, won’t you?”
The Domoraj bowed his head in acceptance.
“Good. You see, Domoraj, I might have some small use for your vaunted training. Potok has challenged me to truth-duel. The Magistrate’s Guild has accepted the proposal, and I need to reply by this evening. Potok accuses me of the death of Gunnar.”
“You’ll not accept it?”
“Oh, but I will. Gods, man, all guilded kin think me guilty already. If I decline, it will be certain to them. Dame Fate will guide my hand, and I believe that Potok will find me in better condition than he suspects. You
do
think me innocent, don’t you, Domoraj?” Vingi cocked his head, his several chins jiggling.
“Yes, sirrah. Of course.” The Domoraj did his best to appear shocked by the implication that he would not believe his kin-lord. Vingi was not particularly impressed by the acting.
Look at him—those eyes can hide nothing; all his acting is in the mouth. He knows that I tried to slay Gunnar with the Hoorka, knows that I once had Domoraj Sucai send someone after him, and he knows that the Domoraj was recently plagued by guilt. The whispers have been heard—he thinks that the Domoraj joined the Dead because I forced him to dishonor once too often, that I killed Gunnar through him.
Vingi looked down at immaculately groomed fingernails. “I’m pleased that you’re so sure of my innocence.”
“Sirrah, what penalties have been demanded?”
“For Potok’s guild: loss of five seats in the Assembly; Potok will step down as kin-lord, exiling himself in Irast. Also, we’ll receive a large tithe for reparation of the harm that the false accusation has done us. Should we lose (and I know you’ll not let that occur, Domoraj), the Assembly will be dissolved and a new election held at once. Our guild must pay the election expenses. I will also retire as kin-lord to an exile of my own choosing so long as it is not within fifteen hundred kilometers of Sterka. We’d be ruined, financially and politically.”
“Yet you’ll risk that?” Fear showed in the Domoraj; in his stiffness, in the restlessly clenching hands. If the guild were gone, so was his own stature. Vingi gambled with all of them.
“I prefer a quick death to a slow one, Domoraj. My kin-father would have felt the same. If I were to refuse, within five standards all the penalties set out against us would have occurred anyway. The rumors would have done Potok’s work for him—I know he hopes for refusal. And I don’t intend to lose. Potok isn’t young, and if he’s not as . . . ahh, large as myself, I doubt that he’s any more used to labor. You’ll train me, Domoraj; Potok has no one in his guild as well versed in fighting skills.”
“Li-Gallant, I can only do so much in a short time—when is the duel?”
“In three days.”
“Potok will also be preparing.”
“Then you’d best do the better job, neh?”
To that, the Domoraj had no answer.
• • •
“But what does it do?” the dwarf kept insisting.
“You can see it and hear it as well as anyone,” Oldin replied, sounding exasperated.
“That’s
what it does.”
“Things have to do something. You can’t sell them if they don’t.”
“Now that’s your typical bullshit, Helgin.”
The instrument sat in the middle of Oldin’s rooms, an ovoid a half-meter across impaled on the tip of a four-sided pyramid. The facets of the pyramid gleamed like cut crystal; from the milky depths a light pulsed, always an aching purple-black that seemed to be just on the edge of the visible spectrum. The device emitted discordant squeals and grunts like a mortally sounded trombone. It was not pleasant to see or hear. Helgin was damned if he could find a pattern in the timing or melody in the pitch. He said as much to Oldin.
“So it wasn’t meant for Motsognir sensibilities, Helgin. I won’t try selling them to the dwarves, then. Or maybe you’re just tone-deaf.”
Helgin scowled behind his ruddy beard. He walked up to the object with his rolling gait and reached out to touch. Slick, smooth, cold—far colder than the room. He looked at his fingertip. “Who got you this damned piece of junk?”
“Siljun—he bought three hundred of them on speculation. Said the race that manufactures them puts them around all their buildings. He also said that the noise kept him up all night.”
“I can imagine. By Huard’s cock, I don’t know what you’re going to do with them.”
“I’ve got fifty of them. Siljun kept the rest. I thought I might try selling them as some kind of rejuvenation device. Just make ’em expensive enough, give a little tale about how they’re important in the natives’ ritual orgies . . . They’ll sell. And they’ll work because people want them to work—the placebo effect.”
“Yah.” Helgin stared at the woman. Oldin was swathed in layers of cloth, an iridescent wrap that wandered about her body in complicated windings. It complimented Oldin’s stocky physique—enticing, but promised endless troubles with removal. Helgin decided that it fit her well. “You’re a dishonest bitch, Kaethe.”
“Only when I need to be. At other times I can be quite nice, as you know.” She smiled sweetly down at the Motsognir. “I’m going to try selling a few of these with the next load down to Neweden. And speaking of that world—how is Renard? Have you talked with him since the funeral?”
The alien artifact burbled and wheezed through the last part of her question. Helgin was close enough—he kicked out with a sandalled foot. The device rocked heavily and subsided into penitent hisses. Helgin grinned. “I talked to him. He said things are proceeding fairly well. Said to mention to Grandsire FitzEvard that he was right—all Neweden needed was a few pushes in the right places. If the Li-Gallant can retain his power and his viciousness, you’ll get what you’re after, eventually.” Hands on squat, wide hips, he regarded her from under the shadowed ledge of eyebrows. “You should at least express a modicum of remorse, Kaethe-dear. We’re discussing the sabotage of an entire society for your grandsire’s whims.”
She nodded distractedly. “Remorse isn’t something taught to the Oldins.”
“Too bad. Otherwise, you’re almost human. I could almost come to like you.” He spoke gruffly, but Oldin smiled at him. From the ovoid came a whimpering in melancholy violet.
“I’m just doing what Grandsire’s asked—he doesn’t tell me why. I hope the altered Neweden is what Grandsire wants. I wonder if there’ll be anything left of the caste system?”
“Like the lassari? He might want them—a built-in servile class. Or are you thinking of other things?” He scowled, twisting his beard. “Anytime you induce change, you destroy something good. The Motsognir found that out when we took Naglfar as home—we gave up much of our culture that was sound and viable when we became wanderers. But we’d lose just as much by settling again. Neweden was changing anyway. I think that’s what your grandsire knew. He decided to hasten the change—that’s something more easily done than destroying an ongoing and vital society. But I’ll be damned if I know what he wants from Neweden.”
Helgin shrugged and sat on the grass-carpet, leaning back against the now-quiet artifact. Where his back touched the device, a purplish nimbus welled outward.
“Did Renard say he needed anything?”
“Neh. He’s been here long enough to feel comfortable. He said he’d wait for the next ship before he left. Wants to make sure that everything goes well, that he doesn’t need to make adjustments.”
A nod. “Have you seen Gyll—the Hoorka?”
Helgin—mouth pursed, eyes wincing—pulled a hair from his beard. He regarded the red-flecked, coarse strand. “Why? Is he something your grandsire wants you to save?”
“He said nothing about them.”
“That’s why I wondered at your talk about an ‘offer’ to them. Are you playing at a whim yourself, Kaethe?”
Again, a shrug. Her gilded eyebrows rose, fell. She looked up at the viewport in the ceiling. “Grandsire rewards all those who follow his orders. But he rewards best the ones that show initiative. The Hoorka are . . . interesting. And Gyll’s ideals are close enough to that of the Families to be potentially useful. The Hoorka could conceivably work with us. I wasn’t entirely false about the possibility of transplanting the Hoorka. The Oldins could use Gyll’s skills, his dedication, and I think he’d be more happy with us than the Alliance.” She looked down at him, a speculative gleam in her eyes. “And you seemed to take a liking to him, dwarf.”
“I did.” He stared flatly back. “He resembles the Motsognir in temperament—he could be as stubbornly disagreeable as me. And I don’t like to see people I like get hurt. So if you’re just lying to yourself again, why don’t you forget the Hoorka?”
“He could be useful.” She was looking at the viewport again. Neweden was a bright curve at the lower edge. Sleipnir was a pockmarked face set in black.
For no apparent reason, the ovoid suddenly gurgled and screamed—a high-pitched discord at loud volume. Helgin, leaning back against it, catapulted himself across the room, rolling up against the far wall. Kaethe, hands over ears, laughed at him.
Helgin shot a venomous glance at her amusement, picked himself off the floor, and strode back across the room to the wailing machine. Grunting, he pushed at the ovoid. It moved, then settled heavily back into place. Helgin pushed again, and this time it toppled, striking the floor with a sharp crack. The banshee howl died—leaving only Kaethe’s giggling—and the lights on the base flickered once before fading.
“Damn you, you might have warned me about that.” Helgin spat on the broken machine. “Now you only have to sell forty-nine.”
Chapter 9
D
INNER IN UNDERASGARD. The long cavern (calcite deposits stained a pale tan—though where Felling’s apprentices had been set to scrubbing, they were milky white) was filled with rude tables and the loud talk of kin. The full Hoorka had gathered to one end of the cavern, which was fragrant with Felling’s stew; from the kitchen entrance, the pale faces of the youngest apprentices looked out, sweat-slick, at the doings of their elders.
“The Thane won’t do as Sartas’s honor deserves. She’s just sitting back and letting d’Embry make excuses.” Aldhelm slapped the table in front of him for emphasis. “The Hag gnaws at his soul, and we’ve done nothing to stop Her.”
“If that’s your feeling, why don’t you complain to the Thane when she’s here to defend herself?” retorted d’Mannberg from down the length of the table. A susurration of agreement came from those around him. “She’s doing what she feels is best for Hoorka, and you’ve sworn allegiance to her. Unless your word’s no better than a lassari’s, save your complaints for Council. She’ll listen to you, and answer.”
“Would that do any good, kin-brother?” Aldhelm stood, one foot up on his stool, arms crossed over his knees. The scar on his cheek was glazed with lamplight. Before any of the kin could reply, he continued. “It’s not just Sartas. McWilms is in the Center Hospital. And remember that Eorl was killed by lassari, and we’ve never found his murderer. We’re losing our honor— and we’ll lose more if Sartas and McWilms aren’t avenged. The tale’s already common gossip, and the guilded kin are still muttering about us. Ask Ulthane Gyll—he hasn’t said anything about Thane Valdisa’s decision, and I’d wager that he’s not in agreement with her on this.”
“You didn’t follow the Ulthane’s lead when he was Thane. Why are you suddenly claiming him as an ally?” Serita Iduna, sitting beside Ric, cocked her head at Aldhelm. She leaned forward, her elbows smearing moisture across the wood. “We’ve suffered no worse than the other guilded kin, at least those around Sterka. We’re all involved with the lassari problems—look at Gunnar’s funeral.”
“Sartas and McWilms weren’t attacked by lassari.” Bachier spoke in defense of Aldhelm.
“That’s true, but the guilded kin talk about Hoorka because it’s known that Gunnar escaped us twice. They think a Hoorka might have been involved in his death. I almost don’t blame them.” D’Mannberg had been looking at Serita; now his gaze moved to Aldhelm. The significance of his glance wasn’t lost on the other kin, but Aldhelm did not seem to notice. “If you hadn’t asked for permission to visit Sterka that night, Aldhelm, Hoorka couldn’t be suspect.”
“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware at that time that Gunnar was going to be killed.”
The air between the two of them was charged. Bachier hurried to fill the silence. “We have problems—no one disputes that,” he said, glancing from one to the other. “But internal bickering isn’t going to solve anything. Yah, I don’t like the fact that the Thane is willing to wait for d’Embry to act, but she also said that she wouldn’t wait forever. We followed Ulthane Gyll’s rulings—”
“Thane Valdisa isn’t Ulthane Gyll,” said Aldhelm.
“She
is
Thane,” Bachier insisted. “And she was the Ulthane’s choice.”
“Choices aren’t always good,” Aldhelm retorted. “Mark my words. Valdisa won’t do anything for Sartas because
d’Embry
won’t do anything. I’m sick of the Alliance and their games.”