“I’m sure the townies found it hilarious. Is there a point to the story?”
“Only this: Many a heart may yearn for justice, or retribution, or simple relief, but still play the obedient servant because the price of failure is too great. A man might put up with much if the alternative is putting up with worse. That’s the secret of government, my friend: To know how far into the mud you can grind people before they find rebellion worth the play. The over-governor and his cronies misjudged this, and the Names sent their Shadows to discipline them. What fool torments the cow he means to milk? It only sours the cream. Here we are.”
They had arrived at a portal at the end of a long corridor. Oschous spoke some private words to the doorway, and it slid open to admit them to his quarters. This proved to be a set of rooms sparely done and set at three-quarters standard gravity. Objets d’art stood about the main room on pedestals and in niches, lit to best effect by concealed lamps. Most were relics of Confederal worlds, but the Pedant recognized some pieces originating in the Periphery: a steinwurf dating from the Dark Age on Friesing’s World; an ancient circuit board, burnt and smashed, under a glassine bell jar; a transparent hand made of thin cellulose wrappings and raised in a defiant gesture. By the Die Bold sculptress Boosie ban Petra, the Pedant said. Part of her series Manual Labor.
“And worth a decorous ducat, that,” the Fudir added.
Oschous heard and cocked his head at the circuit board. “That, too. It’s Valencian work. Came from the wreck of the Grand Fleet in the Second Valency-Ramage War. It was touched by greatness.”
Donovan said nothing. If greatness had lain anywhere, it had lain with the Ramagers, who had destroyed the fleet. But perhaps that was what Oschous had meant by “touched” by greatness.
Souvenirs, the Sleuth decided. A memento of each world where he has performed feats.
But not mementoes of the feats themselves, the Silky Voice added. Interesting.
The floor was laid of hardwood and tile and dressed in carpets woven into intricate geometric patterns. Reading chairs with screens, game tables with projection stages, workstations with racks of bubbles and sticks. The arrangement seemed at first haphazard, the room somehow both too open and too cluttered. But on closer inspection, the furnishings proved less the obstacle course they seemed. Pathways were always clear and straight; frequently used objects, always within arm’s reach.
Donovan considered what this said about the man whose unwilling guest he was. A man subtle and disciplined. A careful man.
“Very nice,” he murmured, since some comment seemed expected of him.
“It pleases,” the Shadow remarked.
“Whatever happened to him?”
“Hmm?”
“Windhook Keopisenichok. He was out of town when the boots retaliated.”
“Oh. He’d fled into the Fetch-a-bun Hills right after burning the governor’s station. He was a madman, but not so mad as to stick around. The townies would’ve lynched him if nothing else, poor devils. They knew the penalty for illegal rebellion. He’d recruited a few likeminded folk—the desperate and feckless—and remained at large for the next five years, mostly raiding and robbing from the very people he was supposedly bent on liberating.”
“If you are trying to recruit me with inspirational tales,” Donovan said, “I’d suggest you build a better repertoire. ‘Illegal rebellion…’ Is there another sort?”
Oschous nodded. “Surely. Bring your glass with you.” He led him to the rear of the suite. “Windhook’s mistake,” he said as Donovan followed, “was that he struck too low and too openly from too narrow a base. A district governor? A station house? Pfaugh! What did he imagine he would accomplish by smashing a giant’s little toe?”
“And what was Geshler’s mistake?”
Oschous glanced over his shoulder. “Pretty much the same, though he did strike higher. He was too impatient. He should’ve worked sub rosa, built a wider network of supporters; and he should not have struck openly. Seizing the public buildings in the capital made him a sitting duck.”
“Better a duck on the wing? But it might be that like the sacral kings of old, he hoped the gesture would inspire others to action.”
“A foolish hope.”
“Was it? Nearly half the Lion’s Mouth have now risen up. Perhaps Padaborn was more successful than you credit. Not every seed germinates overnight.”
They had stopped before a blank wall and, because Donovan did not suppose this a particularly final destination, he was not surprised when Oschous spoke and a secret door opened on a small chamber paneled in sweetwood.
“By the way, let me congratulate you,” Oschous said before leading the scarred man inside. “Your performance has been excellent so far, but you are not nearly as disintegrated as you pretend.”
Donovan hesitated only fractionally. “No, not really.”
“Why the act, then?”
“If I failed to meet your expectations, you would send me back to the Periphery.”
“You can see how well that worked. A tool ought not pretend to uselessness. If you’d been just another Shadow recruited into the struggle, we’d’ve discarded you that first night, in the alley behind the bar called Apothete. There’s a ravine there … But the name of Geshler Padaborn was worth something, even if the man no longer was.”
Donovan sighed. “And now…”
“And now I have some matters to ponder privately. Who else knows?”
“Ravn, of course.”
“Of course. Based on the reports we had had, I had opposed bringing you back. I expected very little from you.”
“And now?”
“I expect a little more.” With his teeth, he pulled the cork from the bottle and spat it to the side. “Here. This is the fenny.” He filled both glasses, raised his, and waited for Donovan to do the same.
“To the blue skies and the green hills,” he said. “To all that was and all that yet might be.”
A terrible silence formed between them, into which the Fudir finally spoke the countersign:
“To the Taj and the Wall and the Mount of Many Faces,
“That Terra, long a province, be her own world once again.”
Oschous tossed back his fenny and Donovan watched to make sure he swallowed before he did the same. “So,” he said in the Tongue when both glasses had been emptied, “thou art of the Brotherhood?”
“Aye and all. And I swear that what we say will be said only here and only now. May I never see Green Terra if I lie.”
“How, brother, rose a Terran so high in ranks Confederal, being that the Folk suffer much on this hither side of the Rift?”
“By nosuch else means than the lie of silence. I speak Manjrin with no-but accent. I speak nogot-nothing of Herself. The man who joineth the Abattoir loseth his past.”