“Frankly, Li-Gallant, I slept through the beginning of it.”—with a glance at McClannan—“I assume the initial problem was Vasella’s funeral?”
Ponderously Vingi nodded. Behind him, d’Embry could see his office and the shadowy figures of his guild-kin bustling about. “That’s not exactly a difficult supposition to make. Yah, it was Vasella’s funeral. The lassari—unprovoked, I might add—attacked the guards I’d sent there to protect those very same lassari from any harassment. But then, you can’t teach gratitude to the lassari, Regent; they’ll just turn and bite you.”
“How many of them did you have to kill for their ingratitude, Li-Gallant?”
Vingi nearly smiled. “I see that your lack of sleep hasn’t blunted your tongue, Regent. There
has
been some loss of life, I regret to say. Two of them were my kin.” The Li-Gallant, abruptly, looked quickly and impossibly sad. It nearly made d’Embry laugh. For once, she was glad of the numbing effect of the symbiote.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “But I pray that you haven’t let it affect your judgment. You
are
dealing with the problem calmly, I trust.”
“I want the people responsible for this outrage, Regent. The Hag’s Legion, as you must know, are the ones to blame, not me.”
“Still—”
“Your humanitarianism is well-known, Regent, if perhaps a trifle misplaced in this situation.” A hand bright with rings came up to brush the Li-Gallant’s hair back from his forehead. “And, in any case, at this moment my people are doing very little.”
“You can’t just let Dasta burn, Li-Gallant.” Anger and dread rose in d’Embry’s throat. Adrenaline banished fatigue. “I won’t let you do that. We have both the equipment and the people to work it here in the Center. I’ll send them down.”
“That won’t be necessary, Regent.” Again, Vingi smiled. “I’ve already received another offer of assistance, and I’ve accepted it.”
“And whose might that be?”
“Sula Hermond of the Traders, Regent. He and his Trader-Hoorka. They’ve offered to secure the area, snare any of the rioters they find, and be certain that the fires are contained.”
“Traders?
Gods, Li-Gallant, Hermond was
kin.
He’ll kill them . . .”
“Just as I would?” Vingi finished the sentence for her. “You forget, Regent, that I’ve decided that I like the Neweden Hoorka. Maybe Hermond’s people will be just as helpful to me, neh?”
A vague burning knotted d’Embry’s stomach. She clenched her teeth against it. Her breath was shallow and unsatisfying again. “Li-Gallant—”
“M’Dame, why do you persist in trying to do my job as well as your own? I’ve given Sula Hermond the task, not your Diplos; we’ll see how well he does. Without interference.”
“You’re indeed right, Li-Gallant. We
will
see. I hope for his sake that I enjoy the scene. Good morning to you, Li-Gallant.”
With a feeling of childish glee, she slapped the disconnect contact. The Li-Gallant’s startled face faded into darkness. D’Embry rose slowly and walked hesitantly over to the window. She leaned there, hands against the sill. Smoke was light against the backdrop of the night sky. It threw a pall over the city-glow of Sterka. “Santos, get a flitter readied. We’re going to Dasta.”
“Now, Regent?”
“Now.”
“Regent, please, the exertion . . .”
“It won’t kill me, Santos. And if it does, you can bungle the regency to the best of your ability. Get the flitter, Seneschal.”
“I just don’t see—”
“I know you don’t. Get the flitter.”
She remained silent to the rest of his protestations. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he called for the vehicle.
• • •
“Hey, Gyll! Enemy approaching behind us.”
Helgin shouted loudly enough that d’Embry and McClannan heard the bellow. The Motsognir swung off his perch on an overturned flitter and strode toward the bank of screens where Gyll stood. Gyll glanced up, startled, then laughed when he saw the Regent and her Seneschal making their way toward him, flanked by Trader-Hoorka guards. “Damn it, dwarf,” he said. “You had me thinking there was a horde of lassari bearing down on us.”
“Lassari you could handle. The Regent’s more trouble than that.” Then the Motsognir bowed low to the approaching d’Embry. “Good morning, Regent. Out for a stroll? A little too warm for Neweden, don’t you think?”
D’Embry didn’t appear to be amused. Her face was pinched, drawn. She frowned, and her walk was stooped and halting. Gyll stepped forward to greet her, dismissing the escorts with a hand signal. The Hoorka nodded to him and walked away. “Regent, Seneschal,” he said, bowing. “I can only assume that you’ve talked to the Li-Gallant.”
“You’re quite right, Sula.” D’Embry’s voice was husky. Gyll had never heard her sound so weak or tired. “It worried me enough that I felt I had to come here.”
“What would you like to see first?” Helgin had taken a seat on one of the consoles. LEDs flickered angrily under him. “The torturing of the prisoners, the maiming of children, or the despoiling of the dead?” He grinned.
Gyll glared at the Motsognir, who shrugged, then turned back to the Regent. “You’re welcome to look, as long as you stay out of the way of my people.” He gestured widely to indicate the area. They were set up in the middle of Charing Cross, a main intersection just outside Dasta. A bank of five large screens stood in an arc before them, each displaying a different scene. Before the screens was a maze of wiring and the bulwarks of the consoles. Several people in the uniform of the Trader-Hoorka sat before them, intent. Hoverlamps, full open, bathed the area in brilliance, making the darkness around them dense in contrast. Traders moved about, shouting, talking, rushing, but all with a sense of order, of studied calm. The stench of smoke was in the air, heavy and suffocating. Flames flailed at the sky far down the street. Just overhead, a firebus shrilled past; the wind of its passage buffeted them. Gyll did not speak until it had passed.
“What can I show you, Regent?”
“How many lassari have been killed?” If her voice was weak, her eyes were not. At her side, McClannan shifted uneasily. He seemed uncomfortable.
“Forty, possibly more,” Gyll answered. “It’s difficult to keep an accurate count in all this confusion, and there may well be bodies in some of the buildings that have burned and collapsed. We won’t have any kind of accurate count until the fires are out and my people can get in there safely.”
“How many will you kill before then?”
Gyll took a deep, hissing breath. Behind him, he heard the slap of Helgin’s feet on the pavement as the dwarf jumped down from the console. “How many innocents has your Alliance killed, old woman?” the Motsognir thundered. “On Longago, on Heritage . . .” McClannan looked as if he were about to step up between d’Embry and the Traders. “Oh, good,” Helgin said, now standing alongside Gyll. “That’s it, McClannan. I’d love to splatter that noble beak all over your face.”
“Helgin!” Gyll shouted. He placed a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. Helgin glowered, but subsided into low muttering. “Regent, before you start making remarks that make you sound like an idiot, please let me show you what we’re doing. Make your judgments after you’re aware of the facts.”
D’Embry’s face was more sour than before. She coughed suddenly, and Gyll realized that some of her evident irritation stemmed from the environment, that she was uncomfortable. The symbiote shivered under her tunic—the sight made Gyll slightly ill-at-ease himself. He wondered, again, how that would feel, to be linked with the parasite. D’Embry cleared her throat liquidly. “My pardon, Sula. Please conduct your tour—it seems that the Li-Gallant wants you in charge here.”
“With good reason,” Helgin commented.
If d’Embry heard, she made no answer. Gyll led them forward into the glare of the hoverlamps. “The fire’s starting to come under control,” he said, gesturing at one of the screens. A firebus hovered in the midst of flame and smoke, a demon from hell; as they watched, it loosed a cloud of its own that fell into the inferno. The fire gouted, then began to subside. “A flame inhibitor we’ve developed, Regent. We’ve sold it to several of the Alliance governments. We could have stopped a lot of this destruction if the Li-Gallant had called us in earlier. Several blocks of Dasta will be leveled, but it won’t spread further. My Hoorka made a sweep of the critical areas first—we’ve set up aid stations for those burnt out of their homes. We’re not killing
them,
Regent.”
He didn’t give her time to reply. He swiveled, pointed at another of the displays. “There’s still some minor skirmishing going on with lassari rioters, but it’s all disorganized and scattered now.” The screen looked down on a filthy, wreckage-strewn lane. Several men and women, lassari or low kin by their clothing, were running from a phalanx of Trader-Hoorka. The group halted suddenly in mid-flight as another squad of the Hoorka turned a corner before them. Tanglefoot bombs went off; the lassari fell in a writhing, fouled heap. Gyll’s people, using neutralizing sprays carefully, separated them one at a time and led the lassari away. “We’ll be taking them to the building just to your left. Some of the Li-Gallant’s guards are there, and the captives are checked against a master file of known insurgents. If they aren’t matched, and if we’ve no actual evidence of any unlawful acts, they’re taken to one of the aid stations. If they
do
match . . .” Gyll shrugged. “Vingi’s people are in charge past there. They take them, and if you’ve a quarrel with that, talk to the Li-Gallant. Neweden has its own legal codes, after all. But no one’s being killed here, and none of the Trader personnel are doing harm to anyone unless we’re attacked first. I’m not going to lose
any
of my people if it can be avoided, Regent, but I’m also not starting a vendetta against the lassari.”
Gyll turned away from the screens. A woman hurried over to him, said something to Gyll in a low tone. He answered her, slowly, quietly. She left. Gyll stared at d’Embry.
“And unless I’m mistaken, Regent, I’m owed an apology.”
D’Embry gazed at the bank of screens, at the rush of people, at the dwindling shroud of smoke. She seemed to breathe too quickly, but she nodded. “You have it, Sula. I spoke far too hastily. All I can say is that Neweden does that to a person.”
“Oh, hooray,” Helgin said without inflection or excitement. D’Embry’s sharp stare flickered over the dwarf. “That’s a
good
look,” Helgin remarked, hands on hips. “I’d be quaking in my boots if I were wearing them. Keep working on it.” He flexed his toes on the pavement. They cracked.
Unexpectedly, d’Embry smiled, even as McClannan scowled. She laughed. “Sula, Motsognir, you don’t know how
relieved
I am to see this. I expected . . . Well, let it go. You’re going to cause me royal headaches with the Li-Gallant because of your damned efficiency, but at the moment I don’t care.” She laughed again. McClannan stared at her in amazement. “I really don’t care,” she repeated, shaking her head.
“Regent, perhaps we’d better leave. The Sula is busy here, and tomorrow’s schedule’s rather hectic.” McClannan came out of his stunned silence, bending over d’Embry like a solicitous nursemaid. Gyll thought for a moment that she would snarl at him, but she glanced at the man with an odd tolerance.
The symbiote, some sedative it put in her? Everyone knows she can’t stand McClannan. Or is she truly pleased with what she sees here?
“All right, Santos,” she said. “We’ll leave the Sula to his duties. But let me first ask if you, Sula (and Sirrah Motsognir as well), would dine with me. I’ll be having a supper with the Li-Gallant in a few weeks.”
Startled, Gyll still managed to smile and bow. “Certainly, Regent.”
“Well, then, we’ll leave you to your tasks.” She turned to go, always slowly, stooped under the hump of the symbiote. Two Oldin guards materialized to escort them back to their flitter. Gyll watched them disappear in the smoky night.
He turned back to find Helgin grinning up at him. “I’m really a charmer, neh?” the dwarf said. “She didn’t know what hit her.”
• • •
It was nearly dawn before they’d finished. The sunstar’s rising made Gyll feel strange, as he’d not felt since returning to Neweden. False dawn chased the stars, and memories came with the light. They were not all pleasant.
The streets were empty. Most of the onlookers had left far earlier, after the worst of the fires had been dealt with—there is only so much crowd appeal in ash and soot. Only the Trader-Hoorka were left, disassembling the portable screens, coiling wires, packing equipment into padded boxes. Only one screen was left untouched, a small one with a privacy shield set to either side. Gyll stood before it. The view was not of Dasta Burrough, not desolate ruins and scorched rubble, but a green-cloaked peak, the sunstar just now touching the summit. As Gyll watched, a fume of dark smoke came from a hidden vent near the peak’s jagged top. It rose straight in the air, spiraling, puffing; then a breeze snatched it, smearing it eastward. There was nothing else to see: no people, no wildlife, no flame. Just the slow pulsing of the dark cloud from the trees. Gyll sighed.
“That’s near Underasgard.” The voice came from behind him. Helgin.
Gyll turned. The Motsognir stood between the privacy shields. He looked tired; his broad shoulders slumped and he rubbed at one bloodshot eye. “Yah,” Gyll replied. “The peak is Caladriel, above the Chamber of the Dead. There’s a natural chimney leading down into the caverns. That’s where we burned our kin.”
“There’s smoke now.”
“I know.” Gyll shook his head. “I almost feel like I should be there.”
“Why? Because you’re on Neweden again? Come on, Gyll; you’ve missed a lot of funerals since you left.”
A smile touched Gyll’s lips, and left quickly. “I know that, too. Valdisa reminded me of it. Not very gently, either. And you’re right, Helgin. It’s been a long night, neh? Let’s get back to
Goshawk
and get rid of the stench. Fischer can finish up here.”
“Sounds fine. We smell like the guests of honor at a barbecue, and it’s going to take more than one drink to get rid of the smoke in my throat.”