Méarana remembered her father’s advice. Never tell them what they want to know, in case, learning all they wish, they might then dispose of you.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was just working in my office and all these people came rushing in and they started fighting.”
Her captor studied her for a moment, and Méarana saw with horror the way his eyes wandered, and that under his graying hair a myriad of scars ran every which way.
“No,” he said. “You struggled too long for a sheep. You are golden skinned. But not from Miniforster. You did not recognize my rank. You are Peripheral. A Hound? No, insufficiently skilled. Just what has old Gidula been up to?”
“Are you the Sleuth?” the harper asked.
The Secret Name cocked his head in puzzlement. “I ask the questions. You supply the answers. That is the order of nature.”
Méarana threw her sky-voice—“I’m coming!”—but she was too close and the old man was not fooled. And so, arms pinned, legs pinned, hugged close to her captor, she employed her only remaining weapon.
She kissed him, thrusting her tongue through the mouth-opening and between his lips.
The golden man had not been kissed in a great many years, and possibly never at all. He did not transform into a Prince, but he did recoil in sheer surprise.
And the floor gave way beneath him.
He fell to waist-height among the piping and ducts that underlay the floor, and like truth rising from hell, Donovan buigh emerged from below. The Secret Name struggled against the imprisoning hardware, but one of his eyes looked on Donovan.
“La, Tom,” he said.
The scarred man pried the mask from the face, tossed it aside. “La, Gesh,” he replied. “Hold still, please.” He pointed a dazer at the man’s head. “I like you better pinned than loose.”
“He didn’t hurt me, Father.”
Donovan did not turn. “That would have come later.”
“So, you’ve remembered,” said the Secret Name.
“Some. Enough. I guess if you can’t beat them, join them.”
“It was actually the Lord Protector’s idea. He wanted a spy among the Shadows. Tom, you don’t know what they would have done to me otherwise.”
“Given you a worse haircut?”
“But the operation worked! I’m completely integrated. I can perfect you, teach you to become fully yourself. You cannot imagine what it is like!”
“Who else?”
“Does it matter?”
“Who else!”
“Lai Showan. She was the first. But … She couldn’t integrate, she … flew apart. We had to put her to sleep. Can I move my arms now? This pose grows discomforting. And I fear my ankle is twisted in these pipes.”
Donovan did not answer such a transparent ruse. He remembered that he had been already tenfold in the Rising. Had all the chiefs been? Rajasekaran and O’Farrell, too? The Sleuth leapt from the ruse to the half-truth that underlay it. The Lion’s Mouth had created five of us … Five who might not be missed. And we rose up. Not for liberty, but for Geshler Padaborn’s ambitions. And afterward, he would not tolerate any other like himself.
He could have killed us outright, the Silky Voice pointed out. He must have retained some feeling for our brotherhood.
Yes, said the young man in the chlamys. He thought he could still use us, if only we were a little less than himself. But only two of us survived the Rising, and the operation failed. And Lai Showan went mad and we …
“Spent a time on the edge of madness.” The scarred man’s finger nearly depressed the button on the dazer.
The Secret Name started at the apparently random utterance and a moment later nodded, as if he had followed Donovan’s chain of reasoning. “And now, there are only the two of us. Imagine what we could achieve together! We have pulled down the Nomenklatura at last! We have wrecked the Lion’s Mouth! What we could not accomplish by direct assault we have accomplished by burrowing within. Now, we have the opportunity to build something new, something better, something worthy of our goals. Do you understand? We are the new men. We are something beyond the merely human.”
Bridget ban skidded to a halt behind Geshler Padaborn. Her eyes danced one to the other, took in the scene, understood it. She held her teaser on the Secret Name. A teaser, thought Donovan, with a tinge of the contempt that Shadows felt. The Hounds would always be one notch less deadly.
“To me, Méarana,” said Bridget ban.
“Father rescued me…”
“That was nice, considering he was the whole reason you needed rescuing.”
Geshler Padaborn cocked an eyebrow. He hadn’t known that part, Donovan saw. He was thinking now how he might use this new fact.
Padaborn smiled. Inner Child started. «Behind us!»
Padaborn spasmed and collapsed where he stood. Donovan swung to the new target.
And saw Gidula with dazer in hand.
“Oh!” said Gidula with sentimental affect. “The whole loving family.” He twisted the aperture to wide sweep, fatal range. The recharger hummed.
Donovan stepped in front of Méarana Harper, but Gidula’s aim was spoiled and the beam went wide.
What spoiled Gidula’s aim was the abrupt drop of Ravn Olafsdottr through the ceiling and onto his back. She rode him for a moment as a man might ride an unbroken horse. But she pulled on the reins and his head reared back and he choked. The Old One threw himself back against the wall to crush Ravn, but she maintained a hard grip.
Gidula began to bleed from the neck and the garotte bit into his flesh. He fell backward to the floor, pinning Ravn beneath him, and still her choke hold did not slacken. His legs began to kick spasmodically, increasing in tempo. Then they were still.
The corridor remained prone for a time; the acrid odors of electrical discharge, hanging in a thin, smoky fume, tinctured the air. The silence grew loud.
Gidula was the first to move.
His chest heaved with the sound of a pellet-gun discharge, and something emerged from the rib cage to embed itself in the corridor wall. He rolled aside.
“Ooh,” said Ravn Olafsdottr. “That was joost to make sure.” Then the perpetual smile faded and she struggled to her knees beside the corpse of the Old One, and she wept uncontrollably into her hands.
The fighting around the fane had started well enough, with death flitting through corridors on the run, emerging from unexpected corners, exploding where least expected; but the attackers had rallied and had driven the defenders back on the fane itself and matters had devolved into a gunfight.
Gwillgi, Eglay, and Three were wounded. Two Padaborn was dead. But the attackers had been pruned very nicely. The last two trident magpies were dead, and Phoythaw had only two crows and one comet remaining in his force. Aynia, wounded to begin with, had withdrawn from the fight, though three of his four magpies continued to fire on the defenders. Pyati and One defended the door of the fane and Matilda and Greystroke were in isolated siege at their two corners unable to reach them.
“Low on pellets,” One reported, “and my recharger is almost dead.”
“Knife never runs dry,” Pyati told him.
“Yes,” the magpie responded, “but it lacks something in range.”
“Here.” Gwillgi tossed his own gun to One Padaborn. “You point the barrel at what you want to hit, and press that button twice in quick succession.”
The magpie’s lips quirked, and Gwillgi said to Pyati, “Ay! I wish I hadn’t used my medipack on Domino Tight that time in Cambertown, because I certainly could use it now.”