Double solitaire

TROUBLE!

There was this swell hidden gallery running the entire circumference of the ballroom. The discovery had come quite by accident. Jay had seen clumps of psi lords cruising into this tiny cul de sac carrying candles and emerging minutes later sans candles. They sure as hell weren’t leaving them in the hall, so Jay had snooped, watching as they opened a secret panel in one of the pillars.

When there was a lull in the traffic, Jay tried it, and felt like a turd being flushed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t an elevator – more like one of the old pneumatic tubes that used to grace department stores in the twenties. The dizzying ascent slowed, and he found himself suspended in midair in front of a door.

Stepping out (or did one step off thin air?) seemed the wisest thing to do, so he did, and found himself in the gallery. It was creepy at first. There were hundreds of little candles flickering at the foot of those crystal pillars. Only instead of lights embedded in the crystal, there were people. Jay wondered what you had to do to get buried at the pole? Fuck up big? Or score big?

It made him nervous staring at those serene faces. As if they might wake up and start screaming impostor, burglar, thief, like in Alice in Wonderland. Resolutely Jay turned his back on the corpses and walked to the edge of the gallery. And that’s when he realized it was swell because he had a view of the entire ballroom, and… there was Blaise.

Jay carefully formed the forefinger of his right hand into a gun, and drew a bead on that powerful black-clad man.

– And had his hand twisted to point at the floor by an inexorable grip.

“No!” said Mark Meadows.

Kelly and Tisianne exchanged concerned glances.

“I’ll take you,” Kelly said as he assisted the Takisian from her chair. Keeping a supporting arm lightly about her waist, he escorted her to Zabb.

We’re a behavioral psychologist’s wet dream, Tis mused as she considered the roles they were falling into by virtue of their respective biologies.

They were the center of attention as the crowd swept back to make way for their passage. Waiting in a cleared area in the center of the ballroom were Zabb and Taj. They were ranged on one side with Blaise and Durg on the other. Tis wondered if she and Kelly were supposed to have brought the ball for the tip-off?

“You have disrupted this Crossing Festival on an obscure point of protocol. It had better be worth it,” Taj was growling as they arrived.

Blaise smiled slow and long, giving the impression of a killing beast stretching after a long sleep. “Oh, it will be.” He raised his voice. “But before we address these troublesome matters, I wish to share a bit of joy.” He gestured, and Durg held out a hand. A woman emerged from the crowd.

She was beautiful in that way only creatures bred for beauty can possess. Jewels completely covered the bone beneath her brows and swept up and away toward her hairline like wings. With that weight of ice she was certainly of the highest born. Her hair had been cropped short and was just beginning to grow out, indicating she had recently rotated back from space-platform duty. Where it was red, it was so intensely dark, it would probably appear black in some lights. But it was also stippled with white streaks. The Ss’ang bred for that piebald look, so she was some kind of outcross. She was also one hell of a mentat, for as she passed, Tis read nothing. It was as if there were a blank space, a psychic black hole walking past.

“Prince Tisianne, stop making time with that other woman and come meet your bride,” said Blaise with hearty bonhomie.

For an instant Tis was afraid that Kelly would faint. Tis gripped Kelly so tightly that she felt her nails puncture the fabric of his sleeve and hit flesh. Kelly shook it off, but his eyes were desperate.

Tis forced rubbery legs to move and placed herself inches from Blaise. “Blaise, my child, never ride a scam past its useful life. Fully half the people in this room know my psi signature. They know that’s not me.”

“It’s enough you where it counts. Between the legs.”

“I won’t! It’s gross!” Passion throbbed in the words. Tis winced. The teenage girl’s hysterical reaction delivered in a baritone voice was embarrassing.

Blaise stepped around Tisianne. Squared off with Zabb. “It’s the first step in the amalgamation of House Ilkazam into the new order.”

“The only one,” Zabb said softly.

“Are you fucking crazy!” Jay spluttered. “Look, I’ve got ’em all. Blaise, the body… even Tachy if we want to send her home fast too.”

The detective struggled fitfully, but Meadows had succeeded in locking both his hands behind his back. “You can’t. It’s Festival.”

“What is this crap? When did you become Takisian?”

“Jay, there’s, like, two of us, and probably a hundred thousand psi lords. Do you really want to piss them off by violating their customs and traditions this way?”

Taj was shaking with anger, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. “You mudcrawler, you rotting abortion, this is Crossing. You denigrate our traditions -”

“You want tradition?” Blaise snarled. He grabbed for Tisianne, but Zabb yanked her away so Blaise’s fingertips only grazed the skin of her arm.

Even that brief touch made the edges of the room, the people, vanish into a red haze. Only Blaise’s face remained clear. Leering down at her. Peering up from between her legs. The pounding. The pain deep in her body.

“This woman is carrying my child. That makes her mine. And on that point I believe your customs, traditions, and protocol agree.”

Ruek of Jeban stepped forward. “What custom decrees is that the child should die. It’s an abomination…just like you.”

Blaise’s eyes widened. “You’ll be next,” he promised softly. So great was Blaise’s power and the touch of his madness that Ruck took an involuntary step back. The watching families didn’t miss it.

Raising his voice, Blaise said, “No half-breed dies in my holdings.”

“So you use your new laws when it suits you, and the old when that works best,” Taj said sarcastically.

“Our Raiyis writes new laws and will build a new world,” said Sekal, one of the Vayawand nobles who surrounded Blaise. Pride and adoration filled his words.

“In other words, I use whatever works.” Blaise added and smiled engagingly. It was horrifying.

There are times in life when you know that doom is rolling toward you. Tisianne had felt it when he had waited for the decision of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. She had felt it again as she had stood before the Ajayiz, and Zabb had banished her to Rarrana. She felt it now. Which is why Taj’s passionate advocacy had no power to move her. He was going to fail.

Taj tried. He raised every imaginable objection, and a few that made no sense at all. When he saw he was losing the battle, he switched to delaying tactics – agreeing that Blaise could have her, but only after a genetic match was run to establish paternity. That didn’t work either.

The decision of the Families was clear, and it had nothing to do with custom and protocol, and a hell of a lot to do with the fact that the Vayawand and their young Raiyis were scaring the crap out of everyone.

There never was anything so overt as a vote, but suddenly the crowd was dissipating like wind-torn smoke, and Blaise was walking toward her, his hand outstretched.

“They’re going to give her to him,” Mark choked out, and Jay realized the gangling ace was crying.

“Okay, that’s it, party’s over.” Jay fashioned his gun.

It wasn’t conscious. It wasn’t even a decision. It was instinct and survival. Tisianne snatched a knife from the buffet table and flung herself at Blaise.

There was a whirlwind of motion, and Durg was between them. The knife cut through his finery and bit deep into the chest.

A gasp like a thousand winds in a thousand pines swept the hall, and several nobles from House Vayawand bore their Raiyis to the floor. The music stuttered to a halt. Silence. And tension as everyone waited to see if the violence would escalate.

Jay and Mark hung over the railing. Jay was cursing fluently and monotonously because he’d lost his bead on Blaise. Tisianne began backing slowly away from Durg. Blood was staining the front of the Morakh’s shirt. Tis looked down at the knife in her hand as if surprised to find it there, dropped it. The sound of the blade hitting the floor was deafening in the unnatural silence.

Zabb suddenly strode forward and dealt Tisianne a powerful backhand blow across the face, knocking her to the floor. Then a broad-shouldered Takisian with a chest-brushing beard made an intricate sign with his right hand, spit between his fingers, and deliberately turned his back on the fallen woman. By twos and threes, and then by the hundreds, the assembled lords and ladies did the same.

Zabb walked back to where Taj stood. He had been joined by Tisianne’s six sisters. They weren’t spitting at her yet, but it was clear they were all as shocked as the other families.

Durg moved to Tisianne and swung her up in his arms. Carried her toward the knot of men surrounding Blaise.

“Now, Jay, do it now.”

With a soft pop Tisianne vanished.