Deceiver

Bren straightened up again, caught his balance with the upright rail as the bus resumed its bumpy, headlong speed.

Toward Tanaja. Toward the largest capital of the Marid, a place he had never in his life wanted to see up close.

He sat down, and his bodyguard clustered together over in and around the opposite seats, talking in low voices.

Which left him to consider what he was going to do so as not to die, along with everybody else in his charge.

That meant communicating with Tanaja beforetaking this bright red and black bus full of Tabini’s Guildsmen deep into the Marid.

And that meant having something eloquent to say in the very little time Machigi might listen.

He didn’t have his computer with him on this trip. It, and all the sensitive information it contained, including reference materials that might have been useful at this point, were back in Najida. That was probably a good thing.

He had, however, a small notebook in his personal baggage. He got up, got that out, and settled down, extending the tray table for a work surface.

He wrote. He outlined. He lined things out. He went to a new sheet, and finally, as Banichi and Jago returned to their seats opposite himc

“One is appalled, nadiin-ji,” he said, “one is extremely distressed at the situation. One is willing to go, but the risk to my aishid is entirely upsetting to me.”

Banichi shrugged. Jago said, “The aiji-dowager has not done this lightly, and the support of the aiji’s men lends us a certain moral force, Bren-ji. The sheer number of us and the man’chi involved is considerable. We are gratified by their confidence in us.”

“Survival is a high priority in this undertaking,” Bren said. “Your own as well as mine—and that is not only an emotional assessment. Your knowledge, your understanding of situations in the heavens, among others, ca

“Our immediate priority,” Banichi said, “is your survival, Bren-ji, and please favor us with the assurance you will nottake actions contrary to ours. By no means rush to our rescue.”

He had done that silly thing, among the very first things he had ever done with them. They had never let him forget it.

“One is far wiser now,” he said, “and one offers assurances I shall not.” He moved a hand to his chest, which hurt with every breath. “I am wearing the vest, nadiin-ji, and shall wear it in the bath if you ask it.”

“You will not need to go that far,” Jago said, “if you use your skill to keep us close to you. Do not let them separate us, Bren-ji, or disarm us. If they attempt that, be certain from that point that they mean nothing good, and harm is imminent, to all of us. At that point, if they move on us, we must take action.”

“One understands,” he said. He took comfort in their presence and their calm, utterly outrageous confidence. He didn’t know where they got it, whether out of being what they were, atevi, and Guild, or out of the moral character he knew they had.

Their devotion, their emotionally driven man’chi, was his. He was absolutely sure of that. There was no division between them.

“I am going to get us out of this alive,” he found himself saying. “I need to contact Machigi himself. How can we go about this, nadiin-ji? Should you initiate the contact?”

“That would be advisable under most circumstances,” Banichi said. “We can do that, Bren-ji, Guild to Guild. We can attempt to get information in the process.”

“I need to know,” he said, trying to think through things in order, “if they are aware of the mine on the Kajiminda road and the kidnapping of the child. One assumes they are. I need to know if they are aware that the Guild Council is meeting on a question of outlawry. One assumes they have the means to know it.” The Marid Guild had been outcast, though not in legal outlawry, for months, as far as their being accepted in Guild Councilc those members of the Guild who had been supporters of the Usurper were now, so far as he knew, Machigi’s, since Tabini’s return to power. That was surely partof what was driving Guild deliberations, now. “How close contact can they maintain with the Guild in Shejidan?”

“Likely,” Jago added, “the Kadagidi clan Guild that have fled down here will maintain kinship contacts up in the central districts. And one naturally expects them to know any news that has gotten to Separti, where they have informants.”

“Find out. And advise them that I have a message for Lord Machigi and wish to speak to him personally.”

That should be enough to get the attention of a sane man who had any awareness he was in a trapc except, one could not help but think, Machigi was a very young man—in some ways reminiscent of the young man he had just dropped off the bus.

Young, brilliant, so gifted that he had not tolerated many advisers, so confident that he had offended many of his peers —and perhaps now found himself the target of a move both underhanded and well-pla

It gave a faceless opponent an imaginable face, one whose reactions he could imagine.

Imagine. That was the trap. He could lose this mission by a mental lapse like that, but once he had thought it, he had trouble shaking the image. That was precisely the age.

Arrogance. Inexperience. Brilliance. All in one hormone-driven, unattached package. An aiji had no man’chi. He got it from below. And that made him hard to predict.

Machigi would be irate, granted the dowager was right and some other lord of the Marid clans had not only defied him, but actively moved to plunge him into serious difficulty. He would be irate and he would not necessarily know who his enemy was, nor how many of his association might have turned on him.

He would also be, quite likely, embarrassed to be caught without knowledge. He would be in a personal crisis as to how others thought of him, and he would be touchy as hell about exposing that weakness to his enemies and to his own people. The machimi plays, that guide to the atevi psyche, had had that as a theme more than once. Man’chi had turned, not to be directed to him. He was not as potent a leader as he had thought, and now everyone could see it. Others might be talking about him. The servants might become uncertain in their dedication. His spouse, if any, might be reassessing her marriage contract and talking to her kinfolk. It was a potentially explosive situation—both inside Machigi, and inside Machigi’s house, once it became known he had been this egregiously double-crossed.

Granted, still, that Ilisidi was correct in her assessment of him.

If she was not, and Machigi really had committed that foolish an act as to order Guild to violate Guild rules, then Guild action would have to take him out.

Unfortunately none of them on this bus would live to see it.

It was going to take a while for Banichi to get through to somebody in Tanaja, quite likely.

And then there might be some little time of back and forth communication between the bodyguards before two lords ever got into dialogue.

So he had time to think. He needed desperately to concentrate, and simply stared at the road ahead, past the seats Banichi and Jago had vacated.

The people he loved most in the world—and this time around, he had to defend them. He had to be smart enough first to figure Machigi accurately and then to get a self-interested and arrogant young lord to do a complete turnaround in his objectives, his allegiances, and his—

Well, Machigi’s characterwas probably beyond redemption. He would beno better than he had ever been. The question was, in self-interest, could he actin a way compatible with the interests of the aishidi’tat?