Страница 29 из 104
“I understand. I won’t ask you to betray your friends.”
“All right, here’s what I want. If your side wins and you get loose, you don’t nab me and my knot for spyin’ on you, or for holdin’ you like we’re doin’.”
Maytera Mint started to speak, but Spider raised his hand. “That’s not all. You let us keep doin’ what we been doin’ for Viron. You’re goin’ to need us worse than you think. If you do that, I’ll tell what’s gone on before, and give you the files.”
“I can’t. I would accept that bet if I could, cheerfully and without hesitation. But those are matters for the calde and the new Ayuntamiento, not for me.”
“The, um, terms. He, er, designated? Specified yourself General. Not the — ah — reconstituted Ayuntarniento or the calde, hey?”
“But he means our side. The calde, Generalissimo Oosik, and even the Trivigauntis. Don’t you, Spider? For myself, I would give you my word, as I said. In fact, I do, whether I win or lose. But I ca
“But you’ll promise, General? Personally?”
“Absolutely. I have and I do.”
Spider indicated Remora with a jerk of his thumb. “Have him flash that gaud. Pas’s cross. You can swear on that.”
“If you wish. Will you allow me my three questions, when I win? Full, honest answers?”
“Sure thing. I’ll swear too, if you want.”
“Then it won’t be necessary.”
Remora had produced his gammadion; Maytera Mint laid her hand upon it. “I, General Mint of the Horde of Viron, called by some the rebel or insurgent forces, I who am also Maytera Mint of the Sun Street mantelon, do hereby swear that should we prevail I will not punish nor attempt to punish this man Spider and his subordinates for their activities in collecting intelligence for the Ayuntamiento as presently constituted. I further swear that I will do everything I can to prevent others from so punishing them, short of force. In addition, I will actively support their being retained in their function, that is to say the counterintelligence function, in which they have served our city faithfully. I will do these things whether I win my wager with Spider or lose it.”
She drew breath. “Is that satisfactory?”
“Ought to cover it.”
“Great Pas, bear witness! Ophidian Echidna, whose sword I am, bear witness! Scintillating Scylla, Patroness of Our Holy City of Viron, bear witness!”
“Good enough.” Spider held out his hand. “Have we got a bet? Shake on it.” Solemnly they shook hands, her own small hand enveloped in a thickly muscled one twice its size.
“All right, I’ll tell you right now I got a lock. We’re almost there.” He gestured. “See that side tu
She shook her head. “To the contrary, though I wish you were correct. They would have heard our voices and called out.”
A hundred steps brought them to the side tu
Spider stopped her, spreading his arms to hold Remora back as well. “That’s Hyrax. I always twig a cully’s shoes, or a mort’s either. Shoes tell more than any kind of kick. A lot know it, but that don’t stop it from bein’ true.”
“Wasn’t the other man with Hyrax, Spider? Where is he?”
“In there.” Spider’s breath rasped in his throat. “Just out of sight, most likely. You don’t shoot a cull soon as you see him through the door, not if he’s comin’ in. You let him get inside. That way you got two tries if he beats hoof.”
He turned to Remora. “You first, Patera. Pull out Pas’s cross and have it where they can see, and hold your hands up. You’re a augur in a robe, not holdin’ a slug gun or anything. They won’t shoot you, or I don’t think they will. Tell them I got the general. Leave us be, or she’s cold.”
Remora looked stricken.
“You wanted to die down here, didn’t you? This’s your chance. Go on before I shoot you myself. They won’t.”
“They must know we’re out here,” Maytera Mint said. “They will have heard us. If not before, they will certainly have heard that.” Spider did not reply; his eyes were on Remora.
“I, er, shall.” Remora backed away, raised his hands, and turned toward the doorway.
“Pas’s gammadion,” Maytera Mint prompted him. “Take it out so they can see it.”
If Remora heard her advice, he ignored it. She watched him pause at the threshold, then step through. There was no shot.
“They used to have soldiers down here awake and ready to go if there was trouble,” Spider told her. His hoarse voice was close to a whisper. “That was before the Guard. That’s what Councillor Potto told me one time, and he ought to know.”
They stood side-by-side in silence after that. There was no sound from the guardroom, no sound from any source save the almost inaudible sigh of the cool wind that filled the tu
At length Spider said, “I should of told him to take a look around in there. I guess he’s doin’ it anyhow.”
“I’m going too.” Maytera Mint started toward the doorway.
“Hornbuss!” Spider caught her arm. “You’re goin’ to do what I say, and I say you can’t.”
“Your Eminence!” she called. “Are you all right?”
For a few seconds her words echoed hollowly from the gray walls, and she felt certain that she and Spider were the only living people within earshot. Then Remora stepped out of the doorway, avoiding the dead man. He held out a bottle of thick, mottled glass. “Water, Maytera! General. Ah — potable. Um, pure, in so far as I can, um, gauge its qualities.”
Spider snapped, “Nobody in there?”
“Not — ah — dead men. Two, in addition to the one you, um, observe in the entrance. Shot with slug guns, I — ah — or, um, both with a single such gun. Quite possibly. Our, ah, companions, oh? Yesterday, likewise earlier. One the, um—”
“Guan.”
“Er, yes. Ah — the name you gave. Furnished? Supplied.” Having come near enough, Remora handed the bottle to Maytera Mint. “He dropped this, I fancy, General. So it appeared, oh? When he — um — attained life’s culmination. Some spilt, eh?”
She was drinking and did not trouble to reply. The water was cool and clean and tasted fresh and unspeakably delicious. All her life she had been taught that Surging Scylla, the water goddess, was first among the Seven; she had not realized either how true or how important that insight was until this moment.
Chapter 7 — The Brown Mechanics
Silk looked around curiously, finding it hard to believe that this enclosure, this collection of sheds surrounded by a fence, produced taluses. On his shoulder, Oreb croaked in dismay.
“It’s starting to rain,” Chenille a
“I’ve been trying to remember where I came from,” Maytera Marble ventured. “I don’t think it was like this at all.” She edged Mucor toward the shelter of the sentry box as she spoke.
If Fliers were a rain sign, what might Fliers who landed presage? The final days of the whorl? Silk decided to keep the speculation to himself. “I should have asked you about that long ago, Maytera. Tell me about it.”
“I couldn’t remember a thing then, I’m sure. Not till poor Maytera Rose bequeathed me my new parts. I’m sure I must have told you about them.”
Silk nodded.
“A week last Tarsday, that was. They’re much better than my old ones, but after I’d put them in, it was hard for me to keep straight which memories were Marble’s and which were mine.”
Chenille corrected her. “The other way, Maytera.”
“You’re quite right, dear. Anyway, I recollect a big room with green walls. There were pallets, or perhaps metal tables, little ones about as high as a bed.”