“No ale. Just me.”
“Then no kiss.”
“How are you feeling?”
Even in the twilight, he could see that familiar, battered face shape itself into a scowl. “I’m just resting a moment before I get up and start dancing. How the hell
should
I feel, Gyll?” Above Helgin, a diode flashed amber on the medi-doc. Gyll watched the light with seeming fascination: amber, a flicker, then again green. “I’ve got a hole in my side, several smaller companions in the legs,” Helgin continued. “I’m scraped up all over and I feel like a vampire’s leftovers. And my hair’s filthy and my beard itches. I’m feeling like shit, Gyll.” Helgin fixed the older man with a sidewise stare. “So . . . when are we going to drop the inanities and talk about what’s really bothering you?”
Gyll came fully into the room, letting the door close behind him. He walked all the way around the bedfield, touching the medi-doc tentatively; he lifted the shutters of the port and peered out at the folded curtains of stars. “I’m not feeling so well either, Motsognir.”
“I haven’t got a lot of sympathy to spare at the moment for simple mental anguish.”
His back to the Motsognir, Gyll shrugged to the universe. “I can understand that.” He let the shutters fall back with a clatter, turned, and leaned against the wall, hands behind him. “You lied, Helgin. Lied a lot.”
“It’s the way of the worlds, Gyll.”
“It’s not the way of friends.”
“I suppose telling you that it was for your own good won’t appease you either.”
“I don’t need any more lies.”
“That’s an excuse, not a lie. There’s a difference.”
“Who’s Renard, Helgin?”
The Motsognir turned his head away at the question, his hair rustling against the pillow. “It matters that much, Gyll? You just can’t ignore it, look the other way for a few days, and let me play out my own problems? I heard the news that you got a bunch of your precious Hoorka to take back with us—that wins you your bet with FitzEvard. Why can’t you just worry about getting them ready?”
“Who’s Renard?”
Gyll thought that Helgin would not answer. He waited; there was no reply but the Motsognir’s slow, loud breath and a faint humming from the medi-doc. With a growl of disgust, Gyll thrust himself away from the wall. Helgin’s voice halted him.
“He’s a frigging bastard, a low-life whose loyalty is measured by the price he’s paid. A piece of scum, stuff you’d get on your boot walking through Dasta.”
“Who pays him?”
“You already know that answer.”
“Tell me anyway,” Gyll insisted.
“FitzEvard. Renard’s an employee, just like you.”
Gyll muttered a curse. The Motsognir heard; he laughed bitterly. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t known that since last evening, Gyll. It’s no big thing—FitzEvard pays a lot of people. You’re in good company as well as bad.”
“Why’d the two of you fight?—FitzEvard pays
you,
as well.”
Helgin sighed. One hand fluttered above the sheets. “We don’t like each other, first of all. And we have differing priorities. Renard doesn’t care what he does as long as it creates chaos on Neweden. He’d love to kill
you,
Gyll, because of the uproar it would cause if done in the right place, at the right time. I wouldn’t let him. And we also had a power conflict—who was in charge. If he killed me, it’s almost as good as getting rid of you, because of the stink you’d raise.” The long explanation seemed to tax him. The hand fell back to the sheet; the dark eyes closed and his head sank back. Lights shimmered amber above him.
Gyll knew that he should feel guilty, interrogating Helgin when he was in this condition, but he felt little but anger and sadness. “And now?” he asked.
“Now?” Helgin echoed. “Nothing, Gyll. Nothing.”
“We could go to d’Embry or the new Regent.”
“Why? The damage to Neweden’s done. This world’s been pushed over the edge of change, and we can’t stop that now. And—you may have trouble with this, Gyll—I still wouldn’t trade the Oldins for the Alliance. Not at all. I’d gladly kill Renard, but I’d go back to FitzEvard afterward, not d’Embry.”
Gyll shook his head. “You’re right. That’s hard to believe.”
“It’s the truth. You’re the one that desires truth, O Righteous One.” His voice was full of scorn.
“You’re damned right,” Gyll answered heatedly. “I’m frigging tired of this, Helgin. If I’m archaic and stupid, fine, but Neweden shaped me and I still believe in that outmoded concept of honor.”
“Neweden lies worse than anyone, man. Look at the Li-Gallant if you want to see a slimy eel.” Helgin lay back again. His hand lifted, then fell, as if he wanted to reach for Gyll but was afraid that the gesture might be misinterpreted or rejected. “Gyll, you can’t go around bothered because the universe doesn’t conform to your idea of morality. It doesn’t work that way.”
Fury was in Gyll now. A calm, distant part of himself recognized the anger for the catharsis it was; it boiled, driving his open hand against the medi-doc. The device rang with a metallic protest, shivering in its holding field. “Don’t give me this philosophical shit, Helgin!” he roared, feeling the words ravage his throat. “I don’t give a
damn
who’s lying or why, I just need to understand. What are we doing on Neweden, what does FitzEvard want with it?”
Something had changed in Helgin’s eyes. Under the hedge of his eyebrows, they had narrowed, gone hard. He twisted a strand of his beard between thumb and forefinger, lips pursed thoughtfully. “Want to know what else I’ve done, Gyll? It’s more than just consorting with Renard. You remember Gunnar, Vingi’s old rival, killed in a most un-Neweden-like manner by an unknown assassin? That killer was me, Gyll. Me. Acting on FitzEvard’s orders. But then, you Hoorka don’t blame the weapons, do you? You’re just the weapons in someone else’s hands. That was me as well: a weapon in FitzEvard’s hands.”
Gyll could not speak. He’d told himself that he would not be surprised by anything the dwarf could tell him. But this eight-standard-old confession startled him. “Why did you kill Gunnar?” he said at last.
“Me?” Helgin started to sit up on his elbows, but then grimaced in pain and lay back once more—a flurry of varicolored dots flickered with his motion. “I did it because FitzEvard asked me to do it. Not
told
me,
asked
me—we Motsognir have our pride, after all.”
“Then what were FitzEvard’s reasons?”
“I forgot to ask him,” Helgin muttered, then shook his head. “Gyll, FitzEvard and d’Embry have had a running confrontation for decades. I don’t think it insignificant that Oldin would choose to come to Neweden when d’Embry’s Regent. Maybe that was entirely it—he wanted to cause d’Embry problems. Or maybe he really
wants
Neweden, for whatever purposes.”
“It sounds damned petty.”
“To you or me, yah. We ain’t FitzEvard, are we?”
“What about the ippicator?”
“I don’t know anything about it. Honestly.”
Gyll’s fist beat a rhythm on his hip, a steady
slap-slap-slap.
Suddenly he stopped and swiveled on his toes. He began to walk toward the door.
“Where are you going, Gyll? You didn’t tuck me in.”
The door slid open as Gyll touched the contact. The light of the corridor beyond spilled into the room, falling short of the bedfield and leaving Helgin lost in gloom. “Can’t you ever be serious, Helgin?”
“I’m always serious. Where are you going?”
He answered truthfully, “I don’t know.”
“Shut the door. Please.”
Gyll stepped back; the door sighed mechanically and abandoned the room to twilight once more. “Make this quick, Motsognir. I’m suddenly not much in the mood for talking.”
“I just want to know what you’re planning to do, Gyll. I ask as a friend, because I do care about you.”
“I’ve declared bloodfeud against Renard, and any member of the Hag’s Legion. I intend to follow that up.”
Helgin nodded. “You’re not going to quit Family Oldin, not going to try some heroics that’ll just be used by both sides?”
“I don’t know what I intend to do. I’ll think about it, first. What worries me most isn’t you or me or the frigging Oldins. There are ten Hoorka here on the ship, ten of my old guild-kin, who came because they trusted me. I can’t leave them, and Valdisa won’t take them back from me, not if I know her at all. I trapped them here.”
“I wouldn’t phrase it quite so pessimistically.”
“I would.”
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Gyll waited; Helgin lay still. The medi-doc purred to itself, and Gyll went back to the door.
“You gonna tell them?” asked Helgin, behind him.
“Who?” He did not turn.
“Your Hoorka foundlings. You gonna tell them about all this?”
“No. At least not yet.”
“You see, you’re learning it too, Gyll—it’s better sometimes to lie or omit the truth.” There was no triumph in Helgin’s observation.
“You might be right.” Gyll punched at the contact with a forefinger; the door opened. “But I hope you’re not.”
He left.
• • •
Gyll sat at his desk for a long while, turning the thoughts in his mind like spadefuls of earth. He stroked the bumblewort in his lap, his feet on the desk—orangish fur floated through the room.
“Fischer,” he said at last to the empty air.
A click as a speaker activated: “Sula?”
“Get me Thane Valdisa in Underasgard.”
“Yes, Sula.” The speaker snapped off.
Gyll swung his feet from the desk—the bumblewort chirruped in irritation. He tried to dump the creature off his lap, prodding the soft shell of its back. The wort braced its legs, not wanting to leave. Sighing, Gyll let it remain where it was, scratching its earflaps absently.
Click. “I have Thane Valdisa, Sula.”
“Thank you, Fischer.” Gyll activated the camera and flat-screen. Valdisa stared out at him, the broken walls of the caverns behind her. The view gave him only head and shoulders—a dark, wrathful woman. “I assume you’ve called to gloat,” she said before he could speak.
He’d expected the bitterness, but had expected it to be encapsuled in the Neweden circumspection. He hadn’t thought she’d be so blunt. “Not to gloat,” he said. “Just to tell you that they’re here. And to give it one last chance with you.”
“You still have the bumblewort, I see.”
Gyll glanced down—the wort had put its front paws on the desk, peering up at the screen. Gyll rubbed its nose, and the wort ducked away with a shake of its head. “Yah, I still have the wort, and you’re evading the question.”
She nodded. “You’ve told me all I need to know. They came to you. If you’re not gloating, I don’t see where we have anything further to talk about.”
“Will you take them back, if they decide to return?”
Her face changed with that. She became suspicious, puzzled, her lips drawing back slightly, her nose wrinkling. “Don’t you want them now that they’re there? No, I won’t take them back. They’ve made their choice; let them die with it.”
“Let’s at least be reasonable about this, Valdisa.”
“Reasonable?” She laughed, her face twisted. Her eyes seemed large, touched with moisture; the skin under her eyes was dark with a lack of sleep. “You’ve done the cruelest thing you could do to Hoorka, Gyll. You crippled us—who knows, maybe it’s the mortal wound you were after, but it’ll be a while before we die. If you wanted to watch Hoorka suffer, this’ll do it. All I have left are the dregs of the full kin and the apprentices. I haven’t enough people for a viable rotation; that means we might have trouble with some contracts. I may lose kin to thievery or lassari-traits—some of those I have left are damned close to that now. The new Regent won’t even talk with me, much less try to open offworld options.” She seemed to run out of steam, her vehemence collapsing. Her shoulders sagged; the focus of her camera shifted slightly as she leaned away.
“You’re allied with Vingi now. You won’t starve.”
Her eyes widened. She shrugged. “I had to do it.”
“That has destroyed Hoorka more than anything I’ve done.”
“You’re not Hoorka. Don’t let it bother you.”
Gyll snorted derision. “If I were staying longer, I’d dismantle the Hoorka myself—I could do it; go to the Li-Gallant, offer him the services of the Trader-Hoorka at a break-even rate, guarantee the death of a victim. I could even make it a point of our agreement that he outlaw the assassins’ guild called Hoorka. He’d do it, Valdisa.”
“If you’ve become that vicious, you’ve changed a lot in the time you’ve been gone, Gyll.”
“Oh, I’ve changed, Valdisa. Very much.” He looked away and back. “And I hate the Hoorka, Valdisa. The guild has outlived its usefulness. The society changed around it, and it’s no longer viable. Give it up.”
“And come to you?”
“You’ll be nothing but a tool for the Li-Gallant if you stay.”
Neweden is gone,
Helgin had said.
I still wouldn’t trade the Oldins for the Alliance.
The wort mewled at him. He stroked its shell.
“And whose tool would I be there?” Anger colored her cheeks. “The Sula isn’t content with his small victory,” she said, breaking into the impersonal mode. “He wants everything.”
“Valdisa, don’t cut me off like this. Let’s at least talk.”
She had turned away from him. “The Sula is an ass. I don’t hear him anymore.”
“Valdisa . . .”
But her hand had already reached out. The screen went dark.
• • •
“Gods, McClannan, certainly you’re not serious?” D’Embry was startled into a half-shout. She could not believe what he’d said. “You’re talking about a man’s life, not some silly game.”
McClannan shrugged. They were in her office, now rather bare. The d’Vellia soundsculpture was packed and crated, silent. The animo-paintings swirled unseen in boxes. Only the desk remained. The carpet was dying; she’d let her daily maintenance lapse since McClannan had mentioned in passing that he intended to have it removed after she left. He stood in front of her desk now, immaculate, wearing the robes of office that she’d always eschewed as too ostentatious, the sunburst symbol of the Alliance golden at his throat. He looked the proper image of a regal Diplo—the very type she’d always abhorred. He brushed at his lower lip with a thumb.