“While it is forbidden for us to kill you tonight, we’re certainly not required to endure either your company or your conversation.” Zabb turned back to Tisianne. “Cousin, will you walk with me?” He held out a hand and assisted her from the chair.
Blaise smiled, bowed with practiced ease, but his glittering eyes promised payback – real soon. He grabbed Kelly by the elbow and dragged him away.
The trio watched Blaise move away. Tis realized she was shaking. She realized that the warm grip of Zabb’s fingers around hers was comforting. She glanced up at him in confusion. He was frowning after Blaise.
“Some gentlemen and I require your expert advice.” Zabb looked to Mark. “Will you trust her with me for a few minutes?”
“If the Doc says it’s okay.” Mark looked down at her. Tis nodded.
In two hundred and two years of living, how many Crossing Festivals had he attended? Probably one hundred and ninety-seven of them, though his earliest memories didn’t begin until around age four. At that particular festival, he and Nandi had discovered that the punch tasted truly wonderful. They had retreated to a staircase and downed glass after glass of the sweet golden beverage. Later they discovered they couldn’t stand. Giggling, they had clung to one another under the disapproving eye of Nandi’s sister. That was the last Festival they had spent as comrades. By the next year she was old enough to know he was a Morakh, and she had learned to despise him.
Durg moved down the refreshment table like a grazing bull. A tidbit from each tray, not bothering with a plate, to the evident disapproval of the masters manning the buffet. The emotion was a little difficult to classify, but Durg knew that he enjoyed seeing them – the Zal’hma at’ Irg – providing the music, filling the glasses, cooking and serving the food. If they were going to party without their faithful servants, they had to pay the price.
“Why did you do it, man?” The sad tones of Mark Meadows shattered his reverie.
Durg took his time, selected and chewed down another sandwich before he turned to face the tall ace. And his answer when it came wasn’t a direct response. “Do you realize that this room is littered with my former masters?”
“Doesn’t say much for your loyalty.”
“Or theirs. My switch in allegiance always seems to stem from abandonment. The Vayawand left me and a half dozen other children on a roadside when Zabb attacked. I transferred my loyalty to Lord Zabb. My lord deserted me among primitives on an alien world after my defeat by Isis Moonchild. I transferred my loyalty to Lady Moonchild. Then Moonchild abandoned me – once again on a roadside. Synergy having been achieved, perhaps that will be my last abandonment.”
The blue eyes were suspiciously moist behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t realize. I wanted you to have a chance to be free. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
“That’s the difference between them” – a jerk of the head to indicate the celebrating Takisians – “and you. They are never sorry. And their way is better. You expect nothing… you receive nothing… you are never disappointed.”
Jay was not finding this as easy as he’d hoped. He hadn’t fully absorbed just how many people were going to attend, and finding two people out of thousands was a daunting task. Blaise was going to be relatively easy; he’d be taller than all the Takisians present, and if he continued his pattern, he’d be dressed all in black. Jay remembered Hiram telling him how Tachyon would never wear black because that was the color for common laborers. Ergo it was a safe bet no Takisian was going to be wearing black. So now he just had to find the kid. As he surveyed the shifting crowds, Jay reflected that it was going to be like looking for a raisin in a bowl of fruit salad.
“Child, child, we should not be meeting like this.” Bat’tam rolled an eye toward the bed. “It tempts me far too much.”
“I didn’t meet you to fuck, I met you to talk.” Something of Kelly’s urgency must have communicated itself, because Bat’tam lost some of his prissy, precise attitude. A quick touch opaqued the walls with a blinding kaleidoscope of rainbow colors.
“What are you doing here?” Kelly demanded.
“It’s Festival. Everyone attends Festival.”
“When you vanished last week, I thought you’d gotten smart and split…” Bat’tam was frowning in confusion. “You know, run away from Blaise,” Kelly amplified. “He’s gonna kill you.”
The urbane, cynical mask dropped back into place like a presidium curtain falling. “I had rather apprehended that. That’s why I’m making a protracted stay in Vayam.”
“You’ve gotta go a lot farther than Vayam if you’re going to be safe from Blaise!”
“My sweet one, Zal’hma at’ Irg do not transfer alliance from House to House. I am Vayawand.”
“Then you’re dead, and that’s really stupid. Go to Ilkazam. Maybe you can help them. Somebody’s got to stop Blaise.”
He gnawed at his lower lip. “It’s never been done.”
“A lot of shit is happening that’s never happened before,” Kelly countered. “Run goddamn it, run!”
Bat’tam caught Kelly by the shoulders. “If I do, it will leave you without a friend in House Vayawand.”
“That’s okay. I don’t think he’s going to kill me -” Kelly’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “At least not yet. Your suggestion about my precious bodily fluids got him thinking, and he’s got some big something planned.”
“Bravery sits oddly on you. From where did this sudden resolve arise?”
Kelly shrugged. “You can’t be scared all the time. After a while you just stop feeling anything. Besides, you’re the only person who’s ever been nice to me – even if you are doing it for the boy you saw dancing sixty-five years ago, and not really for me. I could at least pretend it was for me. I’m pretty good at pretending… But anyway, I don’t want you dead, so please go.”
Bat’tam’s hand closed on his sharply pointed chin, and Kelly could feel the nobleman rummaging about in his mind. The probe was withdrawn, and the old man ran his palms down the other man’s smooth cheeks.
You know, girl, for the first time I’ve actually seen you.”
There was nothing romantic in the kiss. Lips, a little dry and very wrinkled, pressing hard against his. Tongue forcing its way past the barrier of his teeth.
Would Tachyon have minded? Analyzing that question and trying to unsnarl his tangled emotions kept Kelly motionless.
Bat’tam paused at the door. Glanced back, grinned. “That doesn’t quite make it all worth while… but it helps to ease the pain.”
She checked slightly on the threshold, and Zabb smiled to himself. Had he finally succeeded in impressing her? And it was an impressive display. Oh, not the numbers… a mere five Houses meeting with House Ilkazam… but the power represented by those Houses.
Probably because they have the most to lose, came Tisianne’s thought. Still, it was a diplomatic coup on Zabb’s part. I didn’t think he had it in him.
Zabb leaned in close to her and whispered, “Thank you.” He knew the ease with which he read her mind would rattle her. It did.
Zabb added his telepathy to her feeble power so she could read the surface indigestion bubbling off the minds of the five Raiyises and their military commanders. Old Yimkin’s was the worst, though some of his distress wasn’t just worry over the Abomination. It was grief at seeing Tisianne in her current predicament.
If one could be said to have friends of a rival, Raiyis Yimkin would qualify. The histories of House Ilkazam and House Tandeh were strewn with a series of brief but lucrative treaties. One of Tisianne’s sisters had in fact been married into Tandeh. That the marriage ended tragically was no the fault of Yimkin. At Jadlan’s funeral, the bluff, sunburned seaman had carried a grieving fourteen-year-old Tisianne away and wrapped the weeping boy in a tight embrace.