He adjusted his position, his nervousness freakish in so large and stolid a man. Distrustful of her graceful chairs, he was sitting on the floor. “I am not afraid you will be angry, O Queen. I am afraid you will be afraid.”
“But you think I ought to be told.”
Hiapo nodded solemnly.
“My guess is that you’re right there, but wrong about me being afraid. What is it?”
“The woman die.”
“The woman I was talking to in the infirmary?”
“Even so, O Queen. This woman who die. They bury her. Over her is sand and dirt, made smooth like beach.”
Cassie nodded. “I’ve got it.”
“This morning, no longer smooth. I say we must look. They do not like, but I dig.”
Cassie took a deep breath. “She’s gone, right?”
“You say true, O Queen. They wrap her in — ” Hiapo hesitated. “Sarong of dead.”
“A plastic sheet.”
Hiapo nodded. “I find it in grave at bottom, but no woman there is, O Queen.”
TWO days later, when they were inspecting possible sites in Kololahi, Reis said, “I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is very good. Or at least I think so. The bad news is only a little bit bad, but I admit I’m disappointed. Which would you like to hear first?”
“The good news, naturally. I’m a good-news girl.”
“Rian’s coming. That’s my son. Rian Reis.” Reis cleared his throat. “His mother named him.”
Cassie nodded. “I’d say she did a pretty good job of it.”
“Thank you. She raised him, and I’ve got to say she did well with that, too. He was very ill as a child. A defective heart valve was what they said, although I think it was really something else. His mother got your friend Dr. Chase. Chase fixed it, whatever it really was. I’d never heard of him until then.”
“He’s well now?”
Reis nodded, smiling. “This is his final year at prep school, and he’s their starting quarterback. Now you’ll ask if I’ve ever seen him play. I have. I’ve seen every game.”
“My gosh, Bill! Isn’t that dangerous?”
Reis’s smile became a grin. “I said I’d seen them, which I have. I didn’t say I was seen at them.”
She kissed him, a fleeting kiss like the touch of a finch’s wing. “Now the bad news. Should I sit down?”
“That shouldn’t be necessary. I doubt that you’ve ever heard of Harold Klauser.”
Cassie shook her head.
“He was my predecessor as American ambassador to Woldercan, and he stayed on for a month after I got there to show me the ropes. I don’t have many friends, Cassie. Wealthy men rarely do. Harold Klauser’s my closest friend, though, and very close indeed. He wanted to come, but his doctors say he shouldn’t risk the trip.”
“We could vid it, and send him the card.”
“You’re right. I should have thought of that myself, and I’m surprised you did.”
Cassie grinned. “Showbiz. Remember?”
Later that day, they were shown the broad lawn of the New Zealand consulate, a close-cut carpet of green running down to a rock-strewn beach and the clean, blue Pacific.
THE STORM — AND THE CALM
Hearing stealthy noises as she composed herself for sleep, Cassie opened her eyes, sat up, and found a woman on either side of her bed. To her right, the assassin’s large, pale eyes seemed luminous in the dim light; a faint smile played around her mouth.
On the other side, the dead woman stood erect and motionless, her face a mask, her eyes two darker stains upon that mask.
“Mate in three moves.” The assassin tittered. “I’ve come to tell you the game’s as good as over. That it is over in the intellectual sense. It’s over, dear, darling, sweet, plump Queen Cassie, and you’ll be a widow before you’re ever a bride.”
Cassie stared. “How did you get in here?”
“How could you keep me out?”
From the other side of the big bed, the dead woman whispered, “I unlocked her chain.”
Cassie turned to look at her. “Why?”
“A witness. I must write my report.”
The assassin tittered.
“I don’t understand.”
“When I’ve written it, I will have peace.”
The assassin said, “We are the halves, Cassie dearest. Together we make a whole. I’m the hunted, she’s the hunter. I’m the vixen, she’s the bitch baying on my trail. Without a fox she’s just a pet, one who’d soon be replaced by a poodle like you. Without a hound, what glory would I have in the court of the Storm King?”
The dead woman said, “We’re going to steal Reis’s hopper. We’ll return to the Bay Area.”
The assassin tittered again. “I to San Francisco, she to Oakland. But first, we visited you. You don’t have to offer refreshments.”
“Really? I’m sure you’d like a nice glass of blood.”
The dead woman said, “You’re my sister. You’ve seen what I saw. You felt what I felt. Please find my grave, in Oakland or Orinda. I may not be in it, but I’d like you to lay flowers there.”
“She’ll die, too!” The assassin snarled.
“You will live. Lay the flowers.”
“I will,” Cassie whispered. “I promise.”
“We’ve won!” The assassin’s hand, small and thin, grasped Cassie’s shoulder. “Listen! What do you hear?”
Cassie did. “The wind. Only the wind.” Although her windows were closed, it seemed to her that her drapes were stirring.
“Yes, the wind!” There was no giggle or titter now, but the wild, unnatural laughter of a thoroughly bad child. “Come out on the terrace. Tell us what you see.”
The dead woman was already pulling down the sheet. Cassie rose and found her slippers. The dead woman and the assassin held her robe. She recalled it long afterward, and nothing in all their strange interview seemed stranger than that.
When the terrace door opened, the song of the wind filled her bedroom; the wind itself ballooned her robe and knocked over something in another room.
Outside, she felt she had gone blind. She struggled to keep her feet, while her robe snapped behind her like a banner. The assassin and the dead woman who had been Pat Gomez had vanished into the howling night.
She was putting on her shoes when the lights went out. Her watch swore that it was day; no daylight came, only the crashing of waves not far enough below.
A window blew in, showering the room with broken glass.
She fled into the hall and ran toward the only light she saw. Hiapo held it, a clumsy lantern in which the flame of a fat candle flickered and smoked. He said, “You are dressed, O Queen. That is well.”
“Why should I be dressed?”
“We would dress you.” He whistled, abrupt and shrill. Two women came and took her arms. When she protested, he said, “These are needful, O Queen. These are needful. You must go with us.”
She had recognized one of the women and whispered, “What is this, Iulani?”
“Justice, O Queen. You bring the judgment of the Sky Gods.”
Only that, of all her questions, evoked an answer.
They left the palace for a rough tunnel cut into the living rock of the mountain, and left that for a long, worn stair that mounted up and up, turning and sometime coiling upon itself like a snake — or so it seemed to Cassie. Her little Italian automatic was strapped to her right thigh; had it been back in Kingsport, it could not have been less accessible.
The wind screamed. She heard it faintly at first, but nearer and louder with each step they mounted, a wind that shrieked in agony like a witch in labor. The devil’s son, she thought, will be born tonight.