Inheritor

It was a lot of input.

But it was fractal, soothing input if Jase’s brain could just figure out it did repeat, and loop, and that it didn’t threaten.

Ilisidi, however, didn’tgive you an inch.

And you had to go farther into atevi territory to meet Ilisidi than she was going to come onto human ground to meet you: that was a given.

“Pretty view,” he said desperately as they rounded a turn, and it was, a glorious view into the distance of the plain. “Taiben is that way—a fair distance, though.”

Jase faced that direction. He gave no indication his eyes even knew where to focus two seconds ru

Bren thought of asking the driver to stop and let Jase get out and have a steady, stable look and catch his breath; but he thought then that they weren’t within a security perimeter, and that they were going to such a perimeter, within which they could stand and have such a view, presumably. And Jase could calm down.

It was a risk. Their whole lives were a risk. But you limited them where you could. It was different from the catwalk at Dalaigi.

There was no crowd watching them.

The trip went a good distance up and up, among rolling hills of greening grass spangled with wild-flowers in yellow and purple and white, with no structures, no building in sight until, just around a steep turn in the rolling hills, they passed through a gate in a low stone wall and then, in the next turn, caught a brief view of a stone building.

That view steadied in the forward windows after the second turn, a pile of the local rocks with a number of high, solid walls, one slightly tumbled one, and a staff posed crazily on the battlement of a two, in places three and four floored fortification with a bright ba

Red and black, the aiji’s colors.

The van pulled up to the door, under a sweep-edged roof, as the door opened and poured out the aiji-dowager’s men, who opened the door of the van.

Jago was first out. Bren climbed down.

Jase stayed seated. Blocking Banichi’s path to the door was never a good idea. Jase, however, was not doing so in panic. Jase was frowning darkly.

“Where’s the beach?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s here,” Bren said. “Come on, Jase.”

Jase stayed put. And belted in. His arms were folded. From that position, he spared a fast, angry gesture around him. “Grass. Rock. High rock. You promised me the beach, nadi.”

Not trusting this, Bren thought. From overload to a final realization they were on a mountain. “Jasi-ji,” he said reasonably, “you’re preventing Banichi getting up.” Not true, if Banichi weren’t being polite. “There is a beach down the hill, where water tends to be and remain, as physics may tell you, and I promise you ample chance to see the ocean. One just doesn’t build these kind of big houses down there. Too many people. And it’s old. And it’s the aiji’s property. It’s all right, Jasi-ji. Get down, if you please, before Banichi moves you.”

Jase moved then, carefully, ducking his head, and stepped down into the shadow of a building, clinging to the van and evading the offered help of the servants. He stood there a moment, then sighted on the door and started walking.

Bren walked with him, looking at the open, iron-bound doors; at the dim interior ahead of them and around them as they walked in.

Malguri was the oldest fortress still functioning, he knew that. This place had a dusty, deserted look as if it hadn’t quite been maintained on the same level as Malguri. Like Mogari-nai, it was supposedly from the Age of Exploration, younger than Malguri: it had supported the fort at Mogari-nai, when atevi had started trading around the Southern Rim, when East and West had made contact, when they’d gotten out on the seas in wooden ships and rival associations had shot at each other with ca

But by what he was seeing he understood in a new light what Ilisidi had said to him when she proposed it, that Saduri wasn’t on the regular tour circuit, and was not legally permitted to hikers—a security advantage, she said, which Malguri hadn’t had.

This fortress might not be as old as Malguri, but he wouldn’t lay odds on the plumbing. That ba

And for the sheer hell of it.

Malguri’s hall had been lively and full of interesting ba

—had one of the ceiling beams lying crashed onto the floor at the rear of the hall. Workmen’s scaffolding occupied that end, which, with no interior lighting and with only the light from the door, was brown with dust.

Even Banichi and Jago stopped in some dismay.

Where is the beach, indeed? Bren asked himself.

What have I let us in for?

“Nadi Bren.” One of the dowager’s servants came from a side hall, and said, with the usual calm of the dowager’s servants, “Nadiin. One will guide you to your rooms.”

16

Down a long hall to the side, dust everywhere—but the dust on the stone floor showed a clear track of feet having passed this way recently. Like bread crumbs in the wilderness, Bren thought to himself as he and Jase, behind Ilisidi’s man, climbed a short flight of stairs where Banichi, following them, surely had to duck his head.

Jago had stayed behind in the downstairs, having something to do with Tano and Algini and the baggage in the second van, Bren thought.

The stone of the stair treads was bowed, worn by the use of atevi feet—old. Older than the use of ca

The hall above had no windows, no light but what came from a lamp at the side of the stairs and what filtered up from the open door below. It was increasingly shadowy at the top of the stairs, pitch black down the hall, and the servant—if such he was: he looked very fit—opened the second door of a small row of doors, and showed them into a hole of a room, into which the thin stream of white daylight from a glassless window-slit showed the outlines of a bed and a table. The draft from that window was cool spring air. It moved languidly past them, doubtless to find the door downstairs.

The servant struck a match and light flared in a golden glow on an atevi face, atevi hands, a candle on a rough (but recently dusted) table. A small vase stood next the candle with three prickly-looking flowers that looked to be from the hillside. The wick took fire, and illumined a rubble stone wall, a deeply shadowed but smallish room, bare timbers helping the masonry hold up a doubtless weary roof.

“There are more candles,” the servant said, and indicated a small wicker basket at the end of the same table. “And matches, nandiin. The dowager requests one have a caution of fire.” The man presented him a small bundle of matches, neatly tied with ribbon. “One regrets that the i

The paidhi sensed intense unhappiness in Jase’s silence and chose not to touch it off with a question. “Down the hall, then,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. Banichi was waiting in the doorway, and one wondered whether hehad had any warning.

Possibly Banichi was thinking, You fool, Bren-ji. But Banichi gave no hint at all in his mildly pleasant expression. It might be more comfortable than a rooftop in the much warmer peninsula. Might be. Marginally.