Shadowkill

MEMORY:

She came painfully awake, looked up into the liquid copper eyes of the sauroid captive. She was lying on a floor somewhere and he was kneeling beside her. She wasn’t tracking too well, whatever Ginny used to put her out seemed to have pushed the slow-button in her head. She rubbed at her eyes, groped around with numb hands.

Kizra followed her out into the kitchen hall. “What…” she whispered.

Ghineeli shook her head, then went scooting along the hall to the swinging doors at the far end. She pushed open the lefthand door, stood holding it until Kizra was through, then she eased the door shut with no more noise than a faint whoosh. She touched Kizra’s arm. “The Matja said go to her rooms. Now. By the serving stairs.”

She took her hand away and left, slipping shadowmouse through the wide service door into the kitchen quarters.

She scowled at the black figures seated by the fire, two of them standing, and shivered involuntarily as she heard the two on their feet arguing on and on…

It was about her and the others, she knew that, it was like an auction in a way, as if they were agents bidding for the contents of the cage…

She thrust two fingers into her boot, smiled as she touched the hideout’s hilt. Braincrystal knife, limber as a Company Exec’s morals. Hold it wrong and it would whip back on you and slice your hand off. Rohant dropped to a squat beside her. His eyes shown red like bits stolen from the fire. “Soon,” he said.

She nodded. “Soon.”

Kizra clicked her tongue. Matja Allina. She wasn’t sure how far she trusted the Matja. The woman would serve her own first and drop overboard anyone or anything that threatened them, promises or no promises, good will or ill. Still, there was no one else right now who even looked like offering protection, so what could she do?

Moving as swiftly and silently as she could manage, cursing under her breath when an awkward turn made her bump the arranga against the white plastered dirt wall, she went up the back stairs. Her nerves were stretched tauter than the arranga’s strings.

Turn and turn, then out on the second floor, scurry along the service corridor, push out into the main hall after listening nervously and hearing only the hiss of candles burning, after peering out and seeing only shadows

Stand before the Matja’s door and wonder: should I knock or not? If I don’t knock, how does anyone know I’m out here?