On the Razor’s Edge

XII. Hanging Tough

Méarana remained in good cheer, and this for two reasons. Although Donovan had gone with the kill team and left her here, she had reasoned that this was for her the safest course. Had he told Gidula everything and stayed here with her, the Old One would have had no further need of Donovan, and thus no further need of her. Until Donovan pointed out the secret entrance, Gidula might still need her to hold over him.

That did not mean she was safe. For so long as she was in the Forks, she walked among cobras, and felt small black eyes tracking her every step. They had not forgotten, in the midst of their civil war, that they had another enemy across the Rift. And if she was a lever over her father, she was also a bait for her mother.

Khembold had established Méarana in a small apartment, plainly furnished and of two rooms, just off Jeshire Street in the transient quarter. The sitting room featured a play deck, large stuffed chairs, and a well-supplied cabinet of sensory intoxicants. The back room had a two-fold bed with multiple pillows and a foldaway dresser and wardrobe. To the side were the usual conveniences for those with use for beds.

She had placed her harp atop the pillows and carefully loosened all the strings—metal strings that she played with the nails. Sometimes, when the music carried her, she would find afterward her fingertips red with blood. She bent over the harp and kissed it. Cecilia preserve me, she thought. And she added Jude for good luck.

In the front room, she inventoried the contents of the cabinet. There were several aerosols, but none seemed suitable for her needs. Solids whose smoke might be inhaled. A variety of liquids in bottle or syringe. The bottles were steel, ceramic, plastic—but two were glass, and these she removed from the cabinet. She poured herself a tumbler of each. The green-tinged liquid proved a wine of some sort, quite good. The clear one was a silverplate head-banger. Even a sip set up an ache between her eyes. She made a face and poured the rest of the bottle down the drain, leaving the empty bottle on the sideboard.

Afterward, she turned her attention to the play deck, where she played shaHmat against herself.

Before departure, Donovan had sent a missive by way of Magpie Three Padaborn. It was a list of numbers arranged to resemble an account in Dangchao groats: Gr 844.60 + Gr 288.60 + Gr 311.18 + Gr 109.11 and she immediately recognized it as a Clanthompson code derived from Rosie’s Thesaurus. The numbers represented a taxonomy of concepts. Donovan had seen the code exactly once, years before on Harpaloon, but the Pedant remembered details.

Méarana was not so lucky. She pretended to refer to a list of accounts, muttered something about overcharging for services, and translated the message. Anticipate/expect. Cross-grained/rough/unsmooth. Sporting/hunting-dog. Cheerfulness.

That was clear enough. He knew that one or more Hounds were on their way to her. There would be a rough time between his departure and the Hounds’ arrival, but she should maintain hope.

Any fool can hope, her mother had told Méarana once, when success lies in view. It takes genuine courage to hope when matters seem most hopeless.

Khembold Shadow Darling—no, Confederals placed office-titles last—Khembold Darling Shadow came to fetch her two days after her father had abandoned her among sullen strangers. He came about midmorn on market day, and the Great Square was bustling with activity. Farmers and craftsmen called out greetings from their booths and pavilions and offered wonderful bargains. One man in a brown robe cried out, “Ho, everyone that desires wisdom, let him draw near and take it at our hands, for it is wisdom that we have for sale! Come to the lecture hall tonight!”

On Dangchao such markets were housed under one roof, carefully proctored by the Wardens for cleanliness, and prices were posted, not chaffered over. Buying and selling here seemed more of a sport, much more like the Starport Sarai on Jehovah than the city markets at Port Kitchener. Of course, this was only a citadel, deliberately remote, sutlered by its own outlying villages, and she supposed that what cities the Earth might possess were better furnished than this.

A little ways to the south and east, on the Great Green, an itinerant theatrical troupe had set up in the amphitheater; and as she and Khembold passed by, a Queen (by her masque and tiara) was excoriating a large warrior as “… you great lump, you kraken off the moor…” At which the warrior cringed and tripped over himself, to the delight of the audience.

Inside the Administration center, Khembold led her to the communications directorate, where magpies and clerks sat by. “Gidula left instructions that we are to simulate his continued presence here,” Khembold explained. “By now, the Names may know his standing in the Revolution, and if they know he has departed for Dao Chetty, they may anticipate the play he is unfolding and take measures against him. For that reason, take care in what you say. We don’t know that They listen, but neither do we know otherwise.”

“In what I say?”

“Here is the communicator. Sit here and wear this helmet. Be aware that Messages Sendable will monitor the call for quality purposes.”

“Meaning, I don’t spill the beans.”

“Spill the beans?”

“A Terran expression my father taught me.”

Khembold shook his head in irritation. “Mention no names at all. Not the Old One, not your own, especially not Padaborn.”

When she donned the helmet she found herself in a virtual room with Donovan buigh. His image perched on an ordinary hard chair in a room plain and undecorated. A chronometer floated in midair behind him, set to zero; and a signboard read: INBOUND MESSAGE STREAM.

“Fudir!” she cried, using one of his less-public names.

But of course he did not hear her. He was far upsystem on the crawl, near one of the gas giants—known for some unknown but ancient reason as Wood-star. He had started talking some time ago and his words and image were just now reaching the Forks. The image, which had been frozen until she logged in, began to move and speak.

The first thing, Méarana told herself, is to establish that it is a live image and not a sim. She waited for him to say something no one else could possibly know.

“I am just calling to tell you everything is fine and the trip is so far without incident. Everyone is excited, of course. But I’m curious to learn how much has changed in the twenty-five years since I’ve seen the place. I may not be able to find my way around, and I thought, ‘That can’t be good.’ But I hope I do because so many folks are depending on me. By the way, you can begin answering whenever you like. You can’t interrupt me, and that way I’ll receive your responses that much sooner. So feel free to comment on anything I’ve been saying. If you talk over me, you can always back up and replay.”

That can’t be good had been a tagline used by Teddy Nagarajan, a Wildman who had died defending their escape from Oorah Mesa on Enjrun. No one else who had been there had survived. She nodded. It was Donovan.

Méarana chatted as if they were in fact sitting together in a cheerless room. It was a curiously one-sided discourse. Given the time lag, it seemed as if they were talking past each other. Donovan would speak, she would answer, but Donovan did not respond to her answers. It would be hours before he could.

“By the way,” Donovan said, “give your escort my special thanks for conducting you safely.”

The scarred man was multilayered and few of his sentences had but one nut within its shell. His “special thanks” would be some sort of rebuke to Ravn for dragging his daughter into this peril. The harper had not seen Ravn since she and Gidula had gone to the Nose, but the very fact of the request had to mean that the Shadow was not aboard the slider, either.

And that was Méarana’s second reason for good cheer. She had spent the evening trying to reassemble everything that had happened to her; and as was often the case when you took something apart and put it back together there was a piece left over.

Domino Tight.

Donovan talked for an hour straight while saying little, a skill he had learned in the Bar of Jehovah. In the course of the monologue, he conveyed several warnings and bits of advice, couched in Aesopic allusions to various shared experiences. Neither code nor cipher, it was impossible for outsiders to break. Méarana responded in like manner but was not nearly as optimistic in her glosses as Donovan seemed to be.

Yes, if Ravn was not on the slider, then she was somewhere nearby, her twin goals of rescuing Donovan and assassinating Gidula now thwarted by circumstance. And Khembold Darling had spoken of his admiration for Geshler Padaborn and had shown by various gestures and words that he was watching over her. But if Mother was truly close behind, taking care of Méarana might take second place to capturing Bridget ban. The garrison was expecting her. She would walk into a trap. The harper’s one consolation was that her mother had walked into traps before and knew how to do so with grace and style.

Afterward Khembold escorted Méarana back to her assigned quarters. On the Great Square, the auditorium announced a public lecture for the coming evening: “Implications of Potency and Act for Being as Such.” A small group of villagers were chaffering with the philosopher, who stood in sandals and a long brown robe at the open door. His hood shadowed his features, but he glanced up as the harper walked past.

“Be of good cheer, sister!” he called. “I hope to see you tonight!”

Good cheer, indeed, she thought, and realized a third reason. Krakens did not come off moors!

“Perhaps,” murmured Khembold when they had reached the door, “I might come in with you for a time. There are things you need to know about how matters stand here.”

The sun had gone down and Ravn’s arm had gone numb. Gidula’s shuttles had soared off to rendezvous in orbit at Gidula’s slider. Good-bye, Donovan, she thought as they rose. I suppose we shall not be such good friends now.

No one would be coming up to the Nose to look over the edge in the expectation of a dangling Ravn. Or rather, those who did expect it would not be disposed to come. She amused herself for a moment with the list of those who might be in the Old One’s confidence. The list was a curiously short one, Gidula not being widely known for his trust, and most of those were to have been left behind to staff the Forks.

With her right foot, Ravn felt out another ledge to relieve the strain on her left. But the thin shelf crumbled under her and her arm twisted. The cliff was limestone and sandstone and unaccustomed to such strenuous duty. Rock fragments clattered and bounced on their way to the river, where a narrow shelf marked the track of an ancient road. A road paved of bones now, she supposed, but she did not look down to confirm this deduction.

How many others had Gidula tumbled off this cliff? And what had Magpie One done to earn the Old One’s disfavor? Or had it been the Old One who had earned the magpie’s disfavor? Perhaps there had been some disagreement over loyalties. Judging by how long One had been on “detached duty,” he had been removed about the time Gidula began planning the assault on the Secret City.

Was it true, as she had heard, that Donovan had given Five a name? And did he realize the significance of the act? Likely so. Donovan knew more than he let show and played a deep game, deeper perhaps than even Gidula suspected.

But delivering the harper to the Forks had put Donovan off that game. Dancing nimbly around threats against himself, he had been caught by threats to his daughter. Certainly Donovan had understood Gidula’s tacit warning.

Everyone had been underestimating Gidula. Dawshoo had treated him as a wise counselor, but past his prime; Oschous and Manlius had openly mocked him. But there was play in the old limbs yet. It was clear to Ravn now that he had violated the traditions of kaowèn precisely because he had known it would drive her to attempt his assassination and so provide him with a traditional excuse for her summary execution. And free him of an affection that might bind him in the future. That he had allowed her to dangle here rather than daze her and watch her fall was a mark of his cruelty.

And his confidence that she could not climb up.

How justified was that confidence? She was rock bound at three points. The small ledge that supported her left foot; her right fist jammed into a crack in the rock; and the cable whose pistol-end she clenched in her left fist. She thumbed the reel and the cable taughtened as it tried to haul her up. But the piton slipped and a shower of stones pelted her. The rock in which the spike was embedded was no more secure than any other spot on the rotten cliff face. It would hold, but not hold her entire weight.

If she could not climb up, then might she climb down? But the sun was low, casting the face of the cliff in shadow. It was hard to see where hand or foot might nestle.

There was a way down. It was fast and certain, but it was also final.

A face peered over the lip of the Nose silhouetted against the westering sky.

“That was hardly a textbook assassination,” it said.

“Gwillgi Hound!” said Ravn. “What game are you playing?”

The Hound rubbed his mustache with the side of his finger. “If I lifted you up, it might be only that I was inclined to throw you back down.”

“You once gave succor to Domino Tight.”

“Domino Tight did not place Méarana ban Bridget into the hands of our sworn enemies.”

Domino Tight’s face appeared next to Gwillgi’s. “Pay him no mind. He is only entertaining you while I finish anchoring the rescue line.”

“His wit o’erwhelms me,” said Ravn. “Domino Tight, my sweet … What are you doing here! You were to guard Méarana after I had left with Gidula and the others!”

“You didn’t leave with Gidula and the others,” the other Shadow pointed out. “Gwillgi Hound was right. I have seen better assassinations. Beside, Khembold Darling has charge of your harper; and Gwillgi tells me that Khembold is a devotee of Geshler Padaborn.” A cable with a loop in the end snaked over the cliff and dangled by her free foot. She slid her boot into the stirrup and, pulling her arm from the crack, she wrapped it around the cable with no little relief.

“Who told Gwillgi that?” The two men at the top of the Nose began hauling her up. Ravn started to twist but used her other hand to steady herself against the cliff.

“Donovan himself,” said the Hound, “when he and I met in Prizga.”

“Ooh, Doonoovan was a busy buoy, I see. But he is deceived. Khembold’s father was one of those who betrayed the Rising. And the son has no more scruples. Believe me. When the Old One told him to ‘take care of’ the harper, Khembold knew what was required of him. Once he had secured Donovan’s submission, Gidula had no more use for her. She will live only so long as need be to maintain that submission, which means for so long as Donovan might reasonably expect to contact her from the ship and receive a living answer.”

“Then,” said Domino Tight with a grunt as he pulled Ravn over the top of the Nose, “we have several days while they crawl up to the coopers.”

Ravn staggered to her feet, stumbled a bit from the pain in her left leg. “Maybe. Donovan has too many genuine partisans aboard ship. An open break would mean a large war in a small space. If Donovan suspects the harper harmed, he may sacrifice all for wild vengeance. Oh, Domino, you should have let me dangle—or even fall—and not abandoned the plans we laid.”

“Can I let a gozhiinyaw fall to her death if I can stop it? I thought that—”

“Yes, yes, and if I had thought the same, I would have done the same. Come, we can only play the game from where we stand now—and hope that Khembold toys with her first.”

The three of them set off at a jog, pacing one another. Gwillgi laughed. “He may find the toys a little sharper than he expects.”

But Ravn shook her head. “He knows about the hideout knife she keeps up her sleeve.”

Méarana was her mother’s daughter. There are no dangerous weapons, little one, Bridget ban had once told her. But there are dangerous men. And in the hands of a dangerous man, anything may be a weapon.

Little Méarana had drunk it all in wide-eyed. Perhaps even so long ago, her mother had esteemed a time when enemies might strike at her through the child.

A glass bottle, smashed across the edge of a countertop, could provide knives enough to cut a throat.

She had but stepped within with Khembold close behind when the insectile Number Two rose from the enveloping chair in the sitting room and said with impatience, “Well, has he made his call?”

Khembold did not answer immediately but gave Méarana a shove in the small of the back, sending her fully into the sitting room. He followed, carefully closing the door. “He did, and his get assured him that all was well.”

“That should keep him until Gidula has what he wants. The Old One will find some technical difficulty to prevent a second call, and after that they’ll be in the tubes.”

Number Two stood between her and the glass bottle. She might not have realized Méarana’s intended use of it, but the harper knew she could not go through Two to seize the bottle. Every plan is complicated by the presence of the enemy.

These rooms might be her coffin. She faced Khembold. “You forget that I am in the gift of Ravn Olafsdottr. I do not take orders from you, any more than you take orders from a mere magpie.” This with a jerk of her head toward Number Two.

“Oh,” said that worthy from behind her scrolling goggles. “I think I will enjoy this.”

Khembold took Méarana by the arm and pulled her aside. “Gidula gave me the task,” he told Two. “I need no help.” Then, to Méarana, “Ravn Olafsdottr has played her role, and has exited stage down.” He laughed. “I will be glad when the pretense is over. The harvest promises much bounty.”

Number Two made a gesture of impatience. “Get on with it. We’ve no more use for it.”

“Ah,” said Méarana in a catlike voice she had heard her mother use. “But Khembold might have one more use.” She reached out and touched his arm.

The Shadow grinned and winked at Number Two. “It may be right.”

“It may simply want you close enough to use those toad-stickers it wears up its sleeve.”

Khembold’s smile broadened. “I don’t think it’s foolish enough to try that.”

Méarana did not think herself that foolish, either. She had seen Ravn at exercise catch knives thrown at her and did not suppose Khembold any less talented.

Taking the initiative, she unfastened her blouse and let it slide down, revealing that her bare arms bore no arms. “What need have I for blades when Gidula has given me his word?”

Khembold shrugged. “Gidula is not here to break it.” He studied her. “The blouse was a good start, but you’ve promised more than that.”

Méarana unfastened her pants and kicked them off. She wore ankle boots but left them on. Khembold Darling licked his lips.

“Get on with it,” said Number Two. “And watch out for stupid kicks.”

“You heard her,” Méarana murmured.

“Don’t fret, Six-eyes,” the Shadow snapped. “Gidula said to wait until the call had been finished, but he never put an upper bound on it. Go away. I don’t need you for this.”

“Oh, but I was looking forward to the pain,” the magpie said.

“I promise to hurt it for you.” He took Méarana’s arm and shoved her into the bedroom.

“It’s not the same when someone else does it,” Two complained as she followed.

“Then you can have it when I’m done,” the Shadow told the magpie. “There’s no need to destroy the goods right off, is there? We can maximize utility. See how long it lasts.”

Number Two snorted. “That’s what the little whore is counting on.”

“It thinks it wants to delay things, but soon enough it will wish matters had ended more quickly.” Khembold chuckled and turned to Méarana, who had lain out on the bed. His lip curled as he placed his weapons belt beyond Méarana’s reach. “Do you really think your body will buy me off?”

Méarana smiled sadly. “No, but it might buy me two more minutes.”

Number Two could not contain a burst of laughter. Khembold turned red and climbed atop the harper, and smacked her open palmed across the face. He was not wearing a shenmat, and there were useful flaps in his clothing that he could open. He paused and took himself in hand.

“I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Oh. So am I,” the harper assured him. She stretched her arms above her head and caressed the strings of her harp.

The door to the apartment chimed.

Number Two scowled. “I left orders,” she said.

“Then it may be important,” said Khembold. “Go check. Don’t worry. I’ll leave enough for you to hurt.”

The magpie hissed impatiently and returned to the sitting room. She checked the door’s security scanner. “It’s that wandering philosopher!” she said.

In the bedroom, Khembold frowned and turned his head.

Méarana’s mother had taught her a proverb once: She who would lose her life, the same shall save it. And it meant that when all was at hazard, the timid would die. Only by risking everything with a wild disregard can one save anything.

But while the disregard must be wild, it must never be witless, she had warned. And then she would teach little Méarana some trick of the trade.

And so the signal from the door had left her momentarily alone with the Shadow.

And the Shadow had turned his head.

And the Shadow had exhaled.

All these things she sensed as in retarded motion, as if she floated in the room above herself. It was a configuration that would not last.

Méarana Harper pulled the loosened cord from her harp and with a single, cross-handed motion wrapped it around the neck of Khembold Darling, pulling on both ends with all her strength. Khembold gagged and the metal strings bit into his flesh. She had waited for the exhale before acting, and a man deprived of breath thinks of little else but drawing one.

But Khembold was a Shadow and Shadows do not die easily, whereas harpers might perish as swiftly as butterflies. His arms were free and he punched Méarana in the face, but the harper took the blow and hung on. To lose hold of the garotte would mean her immediate death—though she might count even that a victory and be glad.

Her chances were small, but in a stand-up fight she would have none at all. Her strength might fail. Khembold might batter her unconscious. Number Two might rush back at any moment.

But there was always the door-chime to give her hope.

The philosopher rang several times and shook his begging bowl before the Eye. Two sighed in exasperation. The common folk accounted it bad luck to spurn a chit’hoka’s begging bowl. And while she considered it of no matter whatsoever, she had no desire to attract attention. Not all the magpies on staff were trustworthy.

She opened the door, aiming her money-rod at the receptor in the bowl, and had just opened her mouth to chase him away when the sounds of stuggle erupted from the bedroom. Her first thought was that Khembold Darling was having all the fun. “Go away,” she told the philosopher before the second thought struck her. And that was that the robed man held a very unphilosophical dazer.

“Quiet now, a cushla,” he said in the Gaelactic.

Her paraperception sensed motion in the room behind her, and her third thought was that Khembold was rushing to her assistance. “A Hound,” she cried in warning.

But it was Domino Tight whose hand-spike severed her spine, and she fell to the floor before a fourth thought could even form.

At the same time, Ravn Olafsdottr, in the bedroom, threw off the second cloak and leaped upon Khembold’s back. She pulled his head back and, pressing a gun to his temple, fired a small-caliber pellet into his brain.

The pellet had sufficient force to penetrate the skull but not to exit and so neither endangered anyone else in the room nor created unsightly splatter. Instead, it ricocheted about inside Khembold’s cranium several times. Not that it mattered after the first.

Méarana had acted on the happy intuition that the door signaled Domino Tight, and while her intuition had been wrong, it had been right enough.

At first outraged by Ravn’s betrayal, Méarana had in a cooler moment reasoned that had Olafsdottr meant simply to hand her over to Gidula, she would not have first collected Domino Tight. She chided herself for not realizing that immediately, but Ravn had likely acted deliberately to create the necessary mask of shock and anger in her prisoner.

“Quickly,” the harper warned her. “Number Two—”

“Oh, do not worry. Sweet Doominoo will handle the vixen, thanks to the fortuitous door-chime.” Ravn looked her over. “I might almost envy Khembold Darling his desires, save only to what a poor end he came because of them. Without your distraction, I doubt I could have taken him so by surprise.” She stepped to the doorway, pressed against it, and took a quick blick into the sitting room. “Oho,” she said, pulling back, “you have a gentleman caller. Please make yourself decent—or not, as your spirits move you, lest he regret his celibacy.”

“Celibacy? The philosopher?”

“Yayss. And it pains me to say that he and my sweet Domino are at dazers drawn. How many Hounds did we draw in your wake, my sweet? Too many, I think. Perhaps we should salve things over. For it would be poor form for your rescuers to slay one another in the epilog.”

Little Hugh O Carroll was not so easily salved. He held a hand out to Méarana when she emerged. “To me, a cushla.” He did not shift his aim from the Shadow. But neither did the harper rush to his side.

“Think, man,” Ravn Olafsdottr told him. “Who slew Méarana’s attackers? Whatever enmities run between your fellowship and ours, on this matter we are as congruent as triangles.”

“And we have a truce,” Domino Tight said in a husky voice, “with Gwillgi.”

“I saw him in the brush with you,” said Little Hugh, “up on the ridge. The bristly boar in the bushes. But where is he now?”

“We could not be certain,” Domino Tight explained, “that they would choose Méarana’s apartment for the kill space. So Gwillgi tracked them outside while we lurked here. I had expected him at the door, not you.”

“We really do have a truce, Rinty,” Gwillgi announced from behind Hugh. “So why not be laying your dazer aside.”

When everyone had put weapons away and a degree of calm had been restored, the Hounds sat on one side of the room and the Shadows on the other. Méarana took a third seat between them. She looked first to the one, then to the other. “There’s a moral in this room, I think.” Her voice came out a little shaky, because she had begun to realize how close to death she had danced. But it is better to be close from this side than from the other. She felt almost giddy, all light-headed and her senses heightened. The air seemed fresher and more invigorated; the light and colors, more intense.

The razor’s edge.

“It was closer than you think, sweet,” Ravn whispered to her. “We had no right to come out of it alive, let alone unscathed.”

Gwillgi said to Little Hugh, “Where is Greystroke? And if you tell me he is sitting beside me, I will rip his face off with these very fingernails.”

“Another Hound!” said Domino Tight. “And the two on Tungshen—”

“Hush, my sweet. I snatched a cub from Mother Bear. A moderate response was unlikely.”

Domino pursed his lips. “I am not sure I like this. The Shadow War is one thing; the Long Game, another.”

Méarana said, “And where is Mama Bear? Was this rescue nae important enough for her tae tag along?”

“Of course it was,” Bridget ban said from the doorway, the Queen from the acting troupe. She strode into the room, took in its contents, the body, the amiably gathered Shadows and Hounds, glanced from the hand-spike in the back of Number Two to the weapons belt of Domino Tight, studied the bruises on her daughter’s face. “But there is gae more to a rescue than simply barging in, dazers flashing. We’re deep in the Triangles, girl, and getting out will be as tricky as getting in.” She turned and slapped Ravn Olafsdottr across the face. “I have waited a good long time to do that,” Bridger ban said, bending close to Ravn’s face. Domino Tight stiffened, but Ravn took the blow in silence.

“I did my dooty,” she said a moment later, “though it took some careful choreography to move all the pieces into place.”

“Pieces,” said Little Hugh. “What pieces?”

“Ooh, Donovan, Méarana, Bridget ban, sweet Domino. Gidula.”

Gwillgi snorted. “Seems to me, was Gidula who almost moved you into place.”

A wave of the hand. “Why play game with no hazard?”

“Hazard? Ye could hae lost my daughter!” Bridget ban took Méarana’s hand and turned it over. “Ye’re bleeding.”

“I cut it on a harp string.”

Bridget ban looked about. “There was another. A man.”

The harper flexed her hand, rubbed the back of it across her cheek. “I played a goltraí for him, a lament, and he choked up.”

Ravn tossed her head to indicate the bedroom, and the Red Hound strode into it. She returned a moment later, face as crimson as her hair. “Did he succeed?” she asked her daughter.

“He died unsatisfied.” And then, more slyly than she had intended, Méarana added, “I used one of your auld tricks.”

Bridget ban said nothing for a moment. “We’ll speak of it later. You need to work on your grip so you don’t cut yourself next time.” She turned to the Banty Hound. “Gwillgi! We have been trying to find you.”

The topaz eyes gleamed and the smile showed teeth. “I was not wishful of being found.”

“Oh,” said Méarana. “That’s what Father meant! The cross-grained Hound! He knew Gwillgi was close by.”

“Yes. He and I met in Prizga, during his ‘hajj.’ We—”

Graceful Bintsaif came to the doorway and interrupted. “Cu,” she said. “Greystroke and I have sabotaged the comm. center. No warnings will reach Gidula’s ship before he has departed Terran space. And Grimpen and Obligado have interdicted the port. The remaining vessels now lack a vital part no longer in stores.”

“Very well.”

“Cu—” The junior Hound glanced at Ravn and Domino and lowered her voice. “There are a great many magpies and lesser militia, and I doubt we can keep the lid on this for very long.”

“Tosh. We will be gone before most of them even know we have come. A theatrical troupe, a wandering philosopher … Such folk come and go. And Gwillgi may slip out as silently as he slipped in. My daughter is the problem. She has had too much visibility, and cannot simply leave the stronghold. Who commands here?”

Ravn grinned. “The dead body on the bed.”

“And who is second?”

“The dead body by your foot. And before you ask who is third in line, I could suggest myself. Along with Khembold and Eglay, I was Gidula’s Shadow-associate. As such, I outrank Four, who is the next magpie in line.”

“He took One and Three with him?”

“Well, Three. One is at the bottom of the very cliff over which he threw me. The Old One disposes,” Ravn added, “with that which he needs no more. Our kenning was that he would have Méarana removed once his ship was out of contact and we laid our plans accordingly.”

Bridget ban considered that. “Ye should ne’er hae needed to lay such plans. Ye should nae hae brought her into the Triangles.”

Ravn shrugged. “You would not come to help me rescue Donovan.”

“Donovan!” The Red Hound turned to Méarana. “And where be your father in a’ this?”

The harper turned her chin up. “He went with Gidula to attack the Secret City.”

“And ran out on you again, abandoned you defenseless in the stronghold of our enemy.”

Little Hugh coughed. “Sure, it seems that Méarana has an embarrassment of defenders.”

“Which Donovan could nae hae kenned!”

“Could he not, then?” Little Hugh cocked his head. “He knew Gwillgi was near, and he nodded to me when we passed on the market square.”

“He nodded … Oh, now there’s proof!”

“Mother! An cuid I ken the safest course, so cuid he. He had to take the chance that you were nigh.”

“An cuid he tak a’ the chances he mought—but nae wi’ me bairn’s life!”

“It was my idea,” Méarana said quietly in Standard Gaelactic, “to come here.”

Ravn clapped her hands together and rubbed them. “Excellent. Now family quibbles wrapped away, we discuss your escape. Consider fortress staff. Many loyal to Gidula; many loyal to Padaborn. Many loyal to Gidula because they think him loyal to Padaborn. Everything so crisscross, is hard to plan double cross. Guess which he leaves mostly behind?”

“Padaborn’s partisans,” said Little Hugh.

“Guess wrong.”

Bridget ban’s eyes widened and she stared at Ravn. “It’s an ambush. He took Padaborn’s partisans because he intends that they die in the Secret City.”

“Yayss. He needs rebels to perform triage on the Names; but once he need them no longer, he dispose of them, too. So, attend me. This is our play. Night is fully fallen, no? And your sabotage of the comm. center will not look like sabotage?”

Graceful Bintsaif snorted. “Dead rats lie where they gnawed through the circuits. And no one will know the fliers are inoperable until someone actually tries to start one up.”

“Not for several days, then, for Gidula ordered the stronghold buttoned up. Good. No one saw you enter; let no one see you leave. ‘Philosopher,’ you will present your scheduled lecture. In half a Terran hour, yes? The ‘theatrical troupe’ will retire for the night and leave in the morning as planned.”

“And the two dead bodies?” asked Bridget ban.

“Even those magpies loyal to Gidula do not know the depth of his betrayals. I will call them together and tell them that Khembold Darling, ruled by his lust, had tried to violate Méarana Swiftfingers, despite her status as my vassal and despite Gidula’s assurance of her safety. Magpie Two Gidula, discovering his plans, tried heroically to stop him, but he stabbed her treacherously in the back, and it was only then that I happened on the scene and slew the traitor.” Ravn took in her listeners and smiled. “Those privy to Gidula’s thoughts may think this be Denmark and smell something rotten in it, but all others applaud how clayver I lie.”

Domino Tight nodded slowly. “The best cozening is that which sails close by the truth. They know Khembold’s reputation and Two’s fierce loyalty to her master. And those privy to Gidula’s intentions will take your reappearance to indicate his change of heart.”

Ravn nodded. “Gidula is slave to sentiment.”

Bridget ban folded her arms. “And what would make more sense than that you should then depart with Méarana to catch up with Gidula?”

“Precisely.”

But the Red Hound leaned forward. “Except that will nae happen. Do you think me daft, to entrust my daughter to your care? She will depart with me, and we will heigh directly for the Periphery. One of my costume coffers has been fitted out for just that purpose.” She turned. “Have you heard, Graceful Bintsaif?”

“Aye, Cu.”

“Tell the others, then.”

“Two on Tungshen,” the junior Hound suggested.

“Yes, heard and noted. Go, now.”

When the door had closed once more, Ravn Olafsdottr said quietly, “There was no truce on Tungshen.”

Bridget ban grimaced. “A hazard of the game. Disposition?”

“The one called Matilda of the Night escaped with the body of Cŵn Annwn. No confirmed kill.”

“If Matilda got her into a meshinospidal in time…,” suggested Little Hugh.

“Ah,” said Gwillgi, “but our new friend Domino has access to something even better, do ye not, Domino Tight?” Then, to Bridget ban and Little Hugh, he explained, “I was tagging yon wean as an up-and-comer in the Shadow War. One day I saw him blown to something very much like gelatin. Ah, you never saw a leg bent in more directions than his. And two days later, there he is, hale and feisty enough to turn the tables in a Shadow fight on his very own.” He turned to Domino Tight. “Ever since, I have been bursting to ask you how that was done.”

The Shadow shifted in discomfit. “This was not in our agreement.”

“Sweet Domino!” said Ravn. “Your very appearance so soon after your death spoke more clearly of those Vestiges than any admission you might make.”

“You should not tell them of the Vestiges,” he said, pointing to the Hounds.

“Dominoo! You should noot have toold me!”

“They are secrets guarded by the Technical Name.”

“But we are to overthrow the Names, no?”

“Perhaps … I have begun to wonder…”

“Wonder what, my darling Domino?”

“There is talk of targeting the Committee but not the others. And I began to wonder why.”

“Sure,” said Bridget ban, “and is that not obvious? The whole affair is but a power struggle among the Names.”

Both Shadows looked at her. Ravn ran a hand through her stubbly hair. “To me, that became clear at the Pasdarm on Ashbanal.”

“Yet you continue to fight?”

“It is something to do.”

“What of these Vestiges? There are supposed to be seven,” Bridget ban suggested.

Domino Tight bit his lip, shook his head. “Tina Zhi never said what the others were. Only that her college was tasked with maintaining the secrets. I have to wonder now if she revealed what she did as a calculated act.”

Ravn sucked in her breath. “You spoke her name aloud.”

“Yes,” said Domino Tight. “I did. When Gidula and his allies reach Dao Chetty, they will expect to find me there. If I am missing, they will suspect discovery or treason and fold the play. So I knew when you pulled me from my post I might need to return there quickly, and I made arrangements with Tina Zhi.”

Ravn sprang to her feet. “Quickly, my sweets. We must leave this place.” Méarana had time to say no more than, “Why?” when a pinpoint of light appeared in midair and expanded rapidly into a whole person, dusky complexioned, with a long nose and high cheeks, and garbed in white and silver. Her hair was clipped short and dyed silver to match her jewelry.

She spread her arms and cried, “I have come, my—,” but then she saw others in the room. She glanced at shenmat-clad Ravn Olafsdottr and the body of Number Two. She glanced at Bridget ban, Little Hugh, and Gwillgi and said, “Hounds!” Last, she glanced at Méarana and said, “Ah!”

“Worry not, my beloved,” she said to Domino Tight. “I will rescue you.” And with that she reached out, and with her disappeared Domino Tight.

“Quickly!” cried Ravn. “Out! Out! Out!”

Hounds knew how to retreat as gracefully as attack. Only Bridget ban held back for a moment, scanned the sitting room, and set her mouth in a grim flat line before Ravn Olafsdottr shoved her forcibly from the room. The Shadow slapped the door closed behind them.

A moment later, light streamed from the slit windows and the spaces around the door. The door buckled and the windows bulged and splintered. Then the roof sagged and smoke began to rise.

“A good thing,” said Ravn Olafsdottr from her position prone to the ground, “that these buildings are blast fast. Automatics extinguish fires in short order.” She rose and brushed herself off. “Gayshot Bo thought to protect her reluctant lover from Hounds, but provide now rationale for your daughter’s disappearance. Smuggle-out easy now.”

Others were coming, attracted by the noise of the explosion. Little Hugh had faded into the shadows of the night—to return as if part of the curious crowd. Gwillgi had vanished entirely. Only Bridget ban—the actress, Gloriana—had remained.

Ravn looked about. “Where is Méarana?” And then she saw that Bridget ban stared with murderous intensity at the ruined apartment. “No! Say that we did not leave her behind!”

But the Red Hound shook her head. “If it was the Gayshot Bo’s intention to get rid of the Hounds, she succeeded only in drawing them onward. She took Lucia with her.”

Ravn was not accustomed to the harper’s base name and it took a moment for her to recognize it for what it was. “Did she? Or did Méarana grab hold of her?”

Bridget ban turned on her. “And why would she do that?”

“You forget why she came with me to begin with. Now you must follow her to Dao Chetty, and so rescue Donovan buigh before Gidula disposes of him as well.”

Bridget ban closed her eyes and sighed. “Och, Donovan. What am I to do with that man?”