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The wide street was freezing mud, rutted by the wheels of carts and wagons, and almost empty. Snowflakes whirled before his eyes, a few sticking to their lashes.
“You two!” a woman’s voice bawled. “Halt!”
So fast that it seemed sure to strike them, a black vehicle swooped toward them, roaring like a storm. He was airborne once more, out of control and without wings. For an instant he saw the startled face of a man in black with whom he collided full tilt, after which something huge and heavy struck his back.
A bang — like a slamming door — and the roar mounted to a deafening crescendo. Acceleration pushed him backward into two obstacles he did not at first realize were the shins of the man in black. As though by some mysterious device of Mainframe’s, the roar was muffled; above and behind him the newcomer growled, “Just the one shot. Pretty good.”
A new voice, that of the man in black, said, “Even one is too many.”
And then, as the pale hands of the man in black and the muscular hands of the newcomer lifted him onto a padded seat, “Welcome to Our Holy City of Viron, in the names of its people, its patroness, the Outsider, and all the other gods. I’m sorry we couldn’t do this with less violence and more ceremony. Are you hurt? I’m Calde Silk.”
Sciathan wiped his month with his fingers, finding to his surprise that it was not bleeding. “I am somewhat bruised, but from blows and not from this escaping. I am Sciathan.” Beyond their enchanted tranquility, snow swirled and homely blank-faced buildings raced like camels. He blinked, looking from this pale Cargo to the newcomer and back. “Are we safe?”
“For the time being at least,” the pale Cargo called Calde Silk assured him.
“I am your prisoner, instead of that of the tall women?”
Calde Silk shook his head. “Of course not. You may come and go as you wish.”
The newcomer added, “Anyhow, we like you.”
Sciathan smiled; it was very good now to smile, he found. “Then I am free to search again?”
“Yeah,” the newcomer told him, “only it ain’t going to take you long. I’m Auk.”
Chapter 13 — Making Peace
“Good man!” Oreb assured everyone at the table.
“This is Sciathan.” Silk indicated the tiny man on his left. “Sciathan landed near the Trivigaunti camp on Thelxday, with four of his fellow Fliers — I believe while the parade was still in progress. The Trivigauntis shot three of them and captured him. One escaped.”
Potto nodded, his round, cheerful face minored in the waxed and polished wood. “And he escaped yesterday with your help. I won’t congratulate you on that operation, just on its success. We could have managed it much better.”
Halfway down the table, Spider concurred. “Shag, yes!”
“It was hastily improvised,” Silk admitted. “We knew only that Sciathan had come to find Auk; we couldn’t even guess why he wanted him. Fortunately Generalissimo Oosik was able to get through to the Guardsmen on duty in the Juzgado—”
Loris interrupted. “They’ve been replaced.”
“That’s good. I’m glad nothing worse was done to them. On Generalissimo Oosik’s instructions, they pretended that they had arrested Auk, and he was able to bribe a turnkey to put him in Sciathan’s cell. Quite frankly, we thought it likely that Auk would leave him there after he had talked to him, at least for the time being. We were extremely reluctant to worsen our relations with the Trivigauntis.”
Silk sca
“If things had gone as we expected,” Silk continued, “the rest would have been easy. Auk would have been escorted out by Guardsmen, and Siyuf’s sentries would have assumed that he had been questioned and was being released.
Auk himself said, “Only I couldn’t. We got to get to Mainframe. That’s him and me and everybody that’s going with me.” He glanced at Quetzal and Remora, seeking support.
Potto smiled more broadly than ever. “I congratulate you again on the outcome. It was all we could wish for and more. Just the same, our enemies retain four propulsion modules, and three undamaged pairs of wings.”
Hyacinth said loudly, “You’re the enemy!”
Maytera Mint shook her head. “They were the enemy, up to Thelxday night. Now we’ve been betrayed, and we’re no longer sure. I doubt that the Trivigauntis are either. We’re all Vironese here, everybody except the Flier. If Councillor Loris is really here to make peace, we ought to welcome it.”
She closed her eyes. “I do. Echidna, forgive me!” On the other side of the table, Remora nodded emphatically.
Silk asked, “Have you come to make peace, Councillor Loris? Councillor Potto?”
“Our azoths have been confiscated.” Potto giggled. “I was searched! Me! It was absolutely hilarious, but calling this a peace conference is fu
“I didn’t say it was a peace conference,” Maytera Mint snapped, “I implied it could become one. It should, if there’s any chance for peace. As for taking your weapons, His Eminence and I went to parlay without any, and you know what you did to us. Because of that, this parley is being held on our ground with us armed and you disarmed. I will insist upon the same arrangements for any future parleys as well.”
Loris snarled, “Your troops are melting away as we speak!” to which Potto added, “It was worth it to see your face, my dear young General, when I threatened you with the teapot. I’d do it again, just for that. But you have no right—”
Oosik interrupted him, drawing his needler and holding it up. “Here is one of my weapons. It will kill me, or General Mint, or even Calde Silk. Do you want it?” He laid it on the polished tabletop between them, and gave it a push that sent it past the middle of the table.
While Silk counted three beatings of his heart, no one spoke. Potto stared at the needler before him, and at last shook his head.
“Then do not complain to us about your weapons,” Oosik told him.
Silk rapped for order. “Like you, Generalissimo, I do not believe that Councillor Potto is entitled to complain about the loss of his weapons. We are entitled to complain about the projected loss of ours, however, and I’m not at all sure that Councillor Potto — although he is inclined to be proud of his information — knows about that. Councillor Loris seems to be less than current with regard to General Mint’s volunteers.”
He addressed Potto directly. “Councillor Loris said they were melting away. Colonel Bison reports that they’ve melted altogether. We had to hurry it, and hurry it we did. Do you know why?”
Loris said, “He doesn’t, but he’ll never admit it. I’m not so pigheaded. Why, Calde?”
Silk nodded to Bison, who said, “Generalissimo Siyuf has ordered the Guard to collect our peoples’ slug guns and store them in the Juzgado.” Bison leaned forward, his eyes on Loris and his face tense. “It was exactly — exactly! — the right order to split the Guard and our people, and she didn’t even try to route it through Generalissimo Oosik. She sent it to the individual officers in command of the brigades.”
Potto put in, “Except Brigadier Erne.”
“Except for Erne. That’s right. We were lucky, in that the brigadiers wanted to clear those orders with Generalissimo Oosik. He countermanded them, naturally. Now we’ve dispersed our people so that it will be impossible for the Trivigauntis to disarm them themselves.”
Potto’s giggle mounted to a shrill laugh. He slapped his thigh. “You can’t use them against us unless you call them up again. And you won’t dare call them up because your friends from Trivigaunte will disarm them. You’re in a pickle!”