He and Gidula painted five “kills” between them that day, according to the anatomist and the armorer. Gidula announced the sixth a kill-in-fact and brought down what he called a lazarus elk, bearing an enormous spread of antlers. Apparently, the creature had once been extinct and the science-wallahs of the Old Commonwealth had somehow rebooted it. The beast wanted three high-velocity rounds to topple, and Gidula erected a cairn on the spot and burned thereon the offal as an offering to Jana Wogawi, the Goddess of the Hunt. The remainder of the carcass they field-dressed and sent back to the Forks by airtruck, to be butchered and sold at the twelveday market. The head and rack Gidula kept, as a trophy for the Gun Room.
Betweentimes, Donovan endured multiple interrogations with Gidula. The Old One tried all the same tactics that Oschous had tried, and with all the same results. Yet he must have known those methods had proven futile. So why the Kabuki?
He can’t simply pith us, the Sleuth said. If the memories are truly inaccessible, he will not find them by drilling. And afterward, all hope of obtaining them would be lost.
Beside which, the young man in the chlamys said, you’ve made too many friends. Oschous—and by now Dawshoo—knows Gidula has you, and he’s not ready for an open break with the other two triumvirs. Some of his own people might now turn against him if he pressed kaowèn on “the great Geshler Padaborn.” I could name the magpies that would flock to your side in such a division.
But there were others who hated the Names deeply enough that they would tolerate any means, including kaowèn, to obtain the key to the Secret City. This struck Donovan as odd, even ironic. What was the point of revolution if matters did not revolve and men just as cruel seized the reins?
The question arose obliquely one afternoon when he and Pyati had been sparring in the pleshra. “I don’t mind at the helm a strong arm,” the magpie said while they showered off the grime of combat, “or in the saddle a keen pilot. But when authoritarianism is with decadence tainted, our liberties fade.”
“Can there be liberties under authoritarianism,” said Donovan, “however undecadent they might be?”
Pyati paused while soaping up. “Of course. When the leash is slackly held, and tugged only now and then and for good cause.”
“I’m inclined,” the Fudir replied, “to regard the existence of the leash as sufficient irritant.”
The other nodded, considering the words. “You saw in the League the anarchy that follows when there are no leashes. The Old One names two oppressions of sheep. The first, when power is arbitrary; the second, when there is no power at all. When no man holds the leash, all men hold leashes, and tyranny is petty and irksome and everywhere. Instead of the great laws, we have the niggling nettles of many small laws. The leash is always there, master. What matters is who holds it.”
Donovan rinsed off, ducking his head under the cascade. “Then why,” he said when he emerged, “have you joined the Revolution?”
Pyati seemed surprised by the question. “Why? Because my master has told me. Because wise managers have become petty tyrants. Because they push and prod, but do not lead. Because they have trampled our traditions and have dropped the leash. Revolution is coming, whether we Shadows lead it or not. Better us than chaos.”
Donovan studied his own naked body in the mirror, considered how frail he seemed. He did not attempt to count the scars, for chaos seemed embodied in their very number and placement. One day, he knew, there would be no autoclinic handy to knit them up afterward.
A Shadow was expected to use his mind as well as his hands, feet, and happenstance bric-a-brac. And so the scarred man’s exercises were more than merely physical. There were simulations, puzzles, scenarios, war games—in which the race went not to the fleet, but to deceit.
And so he had learned—or relearned—a number of plays. Some he had never forgotten. He had used The Little Birdie in the Terran Corner on Jehovah, igniting a rumor-storm with a series of well-placed and well-timed whispers that had culminated in the dismissal of the Jehovan Inspector of the Starport market. Other plays had the quality of the newly remembered. When he finally made his move, he chose The Missing Man, which required the cooperation of several collaborators and the subversion of the compound’s information system.
The essence of The Missing Man was to create the illusion of a presence from the fact of an absence. Donovan knew people who could appear to be absent even when present. Greystroke Hound was a past master of that art. But the real trick was to appear to be present even when not. To accomplish that feat, Donovan chose Pyati and Eglay Portion.
As Magpie One Padaborn, Pyati had to be in on it. He controlled Donovan’s calendar, could cancel appointments, tell people that they “just missed” the boss, and give Donovan’s residence the appearance of being lived in. Beds would be mussed. Meals would be cooked (and consumed). Spools and bubbles would be left about. Eglay Portion was seneschal of the Forks and could game the system in ways that Pyati could not. He could set up exercises, bouts, exits from and reentries to the compound, and create evidence that Padaborn had been in this or that building. That would be tricky because Magpie Two Gidula monitored the system and she was remorselessly attentive.
Donovan could not expect to fool Gidula for very long. At some point, Two would compare visual surveillance data to the building entry logs. But the scarred man did not desire a long tomfoolery. It need only be long enough for him to drop out of sight. The Fudir had chummed the understaff and crossed certain palms with silver. This had secured him a great deal of useful information on places to go in Ketchell.
“I need to get away,” Donovan told his coconspirators by the koi pond. “I need to be by myself, relax, see the sights. If I can get my mind off everything that has happened these past few months, maybe I can remember what the Revolution needs me to remember.” He needed, of course, to give them a reason they could agree with.
Pyati nodded. “A fight with Ekadrina would fuddle any man.”
And it had killed Ravn, Donovan recalled. He remembered his quondam kidnapper capering past him through Oschous’s command post, running out through the burning warehouse to her doom at the hands of the loyalist champion. Suddenly weak in his legs, Donovan lowered himself to the bench. Fish, attracted by his shade, clustered for the expected treats.
“What is it?” Eglay asked him.
“I was thinking on poor Ravn,” the scarred man told him.
Eglay nodded. “A bold colleague,” he agreed.
“You miss her,” said Pyati, sitting beside him.
“I never thought I would. My first thought after she snatched me was how I might slay her and escape. But she died for my sake.”
“I’m sure that was not her plan,” said Eglay.
“Is no big deal, dying,” said Pyati. “It’s something we all do, at least once.”
Donovan grimaced. “At least,” he said.
“Well, you did, no? Technically, you were in the tank for one, two days dead. And here are you, good as new. And Ravn, when we dropped her at Delpaff, was hearty as a kitten.”
Donovan grabbed the magpie’s sleeve. “What? She’s alive?”
Pyati disengaged from the clutching hand. “When last I saw her. Why? Did Gidula say otherwise?”
“That son of a…” But the Pedant recalled that Gidula had said only, Alas, the Ravn is no longer with us and when Donovan had mentioned Ravn’s death the Old One had not corrected him. Oh, Gidula was an exquisite liar! He could spin a fantasy by telling the stone-cold truth.