The sword hanging in Geis’s hand made a humming noise; drizzle spat and hissed when it hit the pink projected edges, producing little wisps of steam. More vapour smoked from the nostrils of the bandamyion as it vented its warmth to the cold air.
“We’re on the brink, Sharrow,” Geis said, raising his voice a little. “Can’t you tell?” He made a show of sniffing the breeze. “Can’t you smell it? We’re right on the cusp of something better, something new and fresh and everything I’ve done has been to prepare for it and make its birth easier. But you’d spoil that too, wouldn’t you, Sharrow? You’d let your vanity, your pride, your own small-minded need for revenge get in the way of a new future for everybody, wouldn’t you?”
Yes, she thought, yes. I’ve been selfish; that’s all I’ve ever been. And what if the fool is right, and there is a new world waiting? Fate knows it’s an old refrain; we always think there’s something better just round the corner and we’re always disappointed, but we have to be right eventually, don’t we?
“That can’t happen,” Geis said quietly, now that he was so close. He nodded slowly. “You’re not armed,” he said. “I suppose I should be thankful. I’m not sure even knowing he was your son and that he’d die with all the rest would stop you, would it?”
She looked from the huge heavy face of the bandamyion up to his eyes. Oh yes, the crystal virus he claimed he’d had implanted in himself for that pre-prepared act of final petulance. She didn’t know if Geis was telling the truth about that or not, but it sounded psychotic enough to be part of his repertoire.
And Girmeyn. Girmeyn now in one of Geis’s space habitats. Even if he wasn’t her son, how could she kill him?
Easily, she thought, standing there with her feet sinking into the watery sand and the stinking breeze blowing about her. All of them, all of it; easily.
How many tyrants had begun by being charming, beguiling, attractive? Still, they all ended up the same.
We are a race prone to monsters, she thought, and when we produce one we worship it. What kind of world, what translation of good could come from all that’s happened here?
She saw them all die again: Miz crumpled in the snow, speared through; Zefla, pale and dying in the pathetic little tent; Dloan falling on the cold hillside; Cenuij tumbling past her into the night (and Feril, hacked, blasted, destroyed, even if a week-younger copy would be revived in the future… and Breyguhn too, sacrificed to Geis’s plans, and all of them; Keteo and Lebmellin, Tard and Roa, Chrolleser and Bencil Dornay, Fate alone knew how many other Solipsists, Huhsz monks and nameless spear carriers; everybody who’d suffered and died since she’d stood on the glass shore of Issier with Geis).
And her mother, she thought, as something within her gave way under the pressure of so much remembered death, and she was five years old again, standing in the wrecked cable car surrounded by smoke and blood and broken glass, crying and screaming, bewildered and terrified while her mother raised herself up, body broken and butchered and put her hand out-to touch, to comfort, to caress, she’d thought, she’d been sure-and pushed her out of the door into that cold gulf of grey.
She remembered the faceless woman in the wheelchair, from her dream, and the little station in the snow and the waiting train that had gone huff, huff, each vertical jettisoning of smoke and steam like breath, like an explosion.
Gunfire. It was the first thing she really remembered; that scarifying, punishing noise as the cable car rocked and blew apart and the bodyguard’s head burst open. It felt like her life began then; it always had. There had been something vague about a mother and warmth and safety from before, but that all happened to somebody else; the person she was had been born watching people die, watching her mother ripped open by a high-velocity bullet and then reach out to push her away and out, a second before the grenade exploded.
All I’ve ever been was made by weaponry and death.
Not armed, she thought. Not armed. I am the Lazy Gun, the last of the eight, and I’m not fucking armed, just got this one stupid, empty gun…
She put her hand in her pocket. Her fingers closed around the HandCannon, feeling the gun’s odd lightness and the wide empty slot in the grip where the magazine should be.
Of course, there might be a round in the breech.
A round in the breech, she thought.
She couldn’t remember if she’d cocked the gun earlier or not. She’d taken the magazine out of the HandCannon when she’d made Molgarin/Chrolleser take the gun, and she’d put it back in when Geis had come along the balcony towards them, but had she cocked the gun then? Had she sent a round into the breech?
She had no idea. Even if she had, she still didn’t know whether whoever had taken the clip back out again had removed a round from the chamber as well.
What if I can kill him? Suppose there is a round in the gun? How many more people die if he’s telling the truth?
“I’m sorry, Sharrow,” Geis said, and shook his head. The spur terminals crackled again; the bandanmyion trotted forward.
Sorry? Of course he was sorry. People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they still did whatever it was. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped. Fate, I’m sick of it all.
Geis kicked once more at the bandamyion’s flanks and the animal cantered towards her. Geis raised the sword, swinging it out and back.
Sorrow be damned, and all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure and certain people prepared to maim and kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder and a child screaming.
She turned and ran.
In her pocket, her hand fitted round the grip of the gun.
The round might be there. How could she not take the chance?
When she heard the bandamyion’s hoofbeats right behind her, she dodged to the side and went down on one knee.
She pulled out the HandCannon, aimed and pulled the trigger.
The bandamyion was turning towards her. In the imperative physicality of that instant she had no idea what she had aimed at, only that she’d knelt and pulled the trigger. The gun fired, spasming once in her hands and then she was diving to the side, throwing the gun away in the same moment, falling and turning, eyes closing as she dropped and curled up.
There was a quick, keen slicing noise.
Something whacked into her side. The pain burst entirely through her body, making her cry out. She splashed into a shallow pool.
The water was cold. One side of her face and body had gone numb. She raised her head and tried to sit up.
The pain flicked on, making her gasp. She crouched, swivelling in the sandy pool so that she was hunched over; the pain faded.
She had at least one broken rib; she recognised the pain from injuries in childhood and adolescence.
She sat up carefully, shivering, and looked towards the Sea House. The bandamyion was hunkered down near the entrance to the underground stables, licking at some blood on one shank. Its saddle hung half-off, askew over its haunches.
She looked around and saw Geis, lying a few metres away in the direction the beast had been charging. She got up, shouting as the pain came back. She held her arm across her chest, waited for her head to clear, then limped towards the man.
The sword lay nearby on the sand. It was dull, the pink fire that had edged its blades extinguished. From the marks on the sand, it looked like the bandamyion had taken a tumble. She inspected her jacket over the place where her side hurt. There was no cut; the sword-stroke must have missed and she’d been hit by a bandamyion hoof. Her side ached; it felt like more than one burst rib. She supposed she had been lucky, even so.