In the Lion’s Mouth

Cengjam Gaafe: The Eighth Interrogatory

“So,” says Graceful Bintsaif, “he joined them at the last.”

Méarana explores the battle with dancing fingers. Her harp howls and twangs with sudden-plucked strings; she runs a nail down their lengths to evoke the whine of energy weapons. Domino Tight leaps about in octaves; Names appear in discords. “Or perhaps,” she says over the chaotic jangle of the music, “it was they who finally joined him.”

“Fash! What nonsense,” her mother says. “It was not that he joined, but why he joined.”

Ravn Olafsdottr smiles at her. “You think?”

Bridget ban smiles too, but it is a smile that few have rejoiced to see. “I think you are more clever than you let on.”

“Ne’er mind yer chawin’,” says Méarana, stilling her chords. Then, to Olafsdottr: “How did Fa—How did the Fudir fare against Ekadrina?” She thinks that if she does not call him “father” his loss will not hurt as badly.

The Shadow shrugs. “Understand. I was unconscious, and when I awoke they were gone, all of them, and the wind blew leaves and papers across an empty lot. What I learned, I learned later, from my suit’s recorders after I awoke—and that only what passed before their sensors.”

“I am surprised you awoke at all,” Graceful Bintsaif interjects from her corner behind the Shadow.

The Ravn turns to her and smiles. “Noo lace than I,” she adds. “Boot the surprise is always pleasant.”

Méarana strikes an imperious chord. “But ye can tell us how the struggle ended, however supine ye might hae been during the fighting of it!”

“I think,” the Shadow tells her with a nod to Bridget ban, “that your mother suspects.”

“You’ve come here on a fool’s errand,” the Hound responds cryptically. “Tell me, for I am passing curious, why you donned the garb of Geshler Padaborn and pretended to be himself.”

A shrug. “Someone had to do it.”

But Méarana judges the indifference feigned. “To rally the rebels.”

Ravn leans forward, arms on her knees. “They needed a Padaborn; I gave them one.”

“You gave them a false one.”

The Shadow flashes her teeth, leans back on the sofa, and spreads her arms along the backrest. “Did I?”

“No,” says Bridget ban. “She gave them the true quill. He was impervious to every persuasion but the last. Revenge, glory, or the liberation of Terra—these three things could not sway him. But that you had been felled acting in his place brought him forth at last.”

Ravn dipps her head. “Such was the plan.”

“Your plan!” says Graceful Bintsaif. “You might have been killed. Had Donovan held back, you would have been.”

Teeth flash. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Tell me, Ravn…” Bridget ban straightens, “who gave you the scars? Ekadrina? Did she vanquish the old man as she vanquished you; then hold you afterward for kaowèn? Or did Oschous lash you, for losing him the Padaborn card in his play for power?”

“No one gave me the scars, Red Hound. I earned them. They are most seemly wounds, and well acquired beside; for principle might merit lash, and wear such welts with pride.”