On the Razor’s Edge

XIV. Three, with a New Song’s Measure

They kept the lights low lest attention be drawn to the Official Quarter, and through the windows of the Gayshot Bo watched the Secret City burn. The flames rolled across the skyline like the waves of a molten ocean and provided the only light from the now otherwise darkened Residencies. Suppressor drones hovered in the air, bright yellow, blinkers flashing, drenching the hopeless structures with foam and water. By strange and tacit agreement, no one had targeted the fire wardens, whether from residual respect for civic order or because the wardens’ activities were futile in any case.

“We should be out there fighting with the others,” said Magpie Three Padaborn.

“It’s what we trained for,” Four explained.

Domino Tight had been sitting at table with Eglay Portion pursuing a desultory game of Aches and Pains on a play deck. The room was a sort of conference lounge, with tables, chairs, racks of reference media, a holostage. In the corner, well away from the windows, Méarana sat with curled fingers playing imaginary harp strings, conjuring a grand goltraí from the depths of her being. She had always thought the Confederation irremediably evil; but there was ever a yin within the yang, and the tears on magpie cheeks were genuine.

“We never trained for this,” Domino Tight said, by which he meant that, the chaos outside the window.

Eglay Portion pressed a button on his game console. “Aches!” he declared. Then, to Domino Tight, “Of course we did. Treachery and betrayal were our stock-in-trade.”

“No. I don’t mean … on the job. I mean against one another. Guard your Keep.”

Eglay Portion grunted and bent over the holodisplay. Some pieces were immobile once placed; others moved to various rules. The rules could change. He studied his options.

“There goes another one,” said Three.

A heretofore-darkened portion of the skyline lit up from the flash of a bolt tank. Domino Tight sighed. “That was Tina Zhi’s Residence.”

At that, the Technical Name appeared from a bright spark in the center of the room, her milky skin smoke smudged, her arms bundled with small objects that she tumbled onto an empty table, where they clattered and rolled. Méarana imagined a single sharp pluck on the highest string. The Name took short, gasping breaths. “But Gidula assured me…”

“Gidula assured many people of many things,” Donovan said. “But what he assures and what he can actually deliver are two different things. He bridled the tiger; now he must ride it. What did you learn out there?”

Tina Zhi ran a hand through her hair, leaving a streak of soot in its silver. “This is all I saved.” She spoke as if to the scattered bric-a-brac on the table. “This is all.” Then, to Donovan she said, “The boots are in it now. The district swoswai has overruled the Lord Protector and ordered all Protectors into the military cadre. Obdurate Protectors have been fired upon, and some have joined the Shadows.” She shook her head, her whole body. “Rumor claims that Ekadrina and Oschous have combined against Dawshoo and Gidula.”

“I knew the Fox would catch on sooner or later,” Donovan said.

“The fight proceeds at right angles,” Tina Zhi reported. “Loyalist and rebel fight rebel and loyalist.”

“Apparently, neither side much liked being manipulated,” the harper suggested.

The Name turned on her and for a moment the old terror blazed in her eyes, so that they seemed almost violet. But she could not maintain the fury, and sat heavily in a nearby chair.

Eglay Portion shook his head. “What price rebellion? What worth loyalty? It has reached the point of unreason. They fight because they have been fighting.”

“We really ought to do something,” insisted Three.

“What would you suggest?” asked Donovan, ostentatiously counting the room. Himself, a Name, two Shadows, five magpies, and a harper.

“I might play a suantraí and put them all to sleep,” said Méarana when his finger came to her.

Donovan grunted and turned back to the window, “When morning breaks, the world might be glad that there were those who stayed out of it.”

“I don’t know,” said Three. “My knife longs for a throat. What will I say when my apprentices ask what I did in the Great Rising? ‘I sat in a lounge and played Aches and Pains with Domino Tight.’”

“And lost,” said Domino Tight, placing a new Keep on a key locus. “What makes you think there will be apprentices? The Order is finished. The walls of the Lion’s Mouth are breached.”

The Fudir turned to Three. “Whose throat?”

Three waved his arm across the window view. “Whoever was responsible for this!”

“Why, then, that would be Gidula; and there is this one thing you must know about Gidula. If you don’t go to him, then somehow he will come to you. This night’s battle has not yet begun.”

Pyati looked up in surprise. “You can’t mean that—” And he encompassed all that transpired outside the Official Quarter. “—is no more than a diversion!”

Magpie Two was monitoring the building’s security. “Motion on the roof,” he announced. “Wait one. False positive. No further signal.”

Donovan tossed his head, and Number Four left the room so silently that Méarana had to check to make sure he was gone.

“I don’t understand,” said Domino Tight, “why the Names have not winkled to other worlds.”

“With what guarantee?” asked Méarana. “The Old Home-Stars may be as happy with Dao Chetty’s fall as they once were with Terra’s. Leap for help and this fight may yet spread.”

Domino Tight shook his head. “Too many stayed to be killed. It cannot all be for love of death.”

The Fudir nodded to Tina Zhi. “Tell them.”

“It’s Technical. They would not understand.”

Méarana, listening from the corner, decided that Tina Zhi did not understand, either. She had learned certain things by rote, nothing more. “You only have a few such devices,” the harper guessed, “and you don’t know how to make more.”

Pyati turned from the window. “I’m afraid,” he announced, and clapped his arms around his body. “I cannot explain it. But a deep, unreasoning fear grips me.”

Magpie Five nodded. “I feel it, too.”

None of the others were brave enough to admit this, but Méarana noted how the Shadows stirred and even Donovan buigh appeared uneasy. She felt it herself: a vague disquiet verging on flight. She shivered and crossed her arms over her shoulders. The air held a cold whiff of peppermint.

She smiled. “Company is coming.”

Oh, indeed, it was. Inner Child noticed that some shadows in the darkling steets below were moving. «Deadly Ones,» he told the others.

“Coming here?” said the Technical Name. “To assassinate me? But I supported the Revolution!”

“How would they know you were here,” the Fudir asked, “and not in a greasy pall of smoke in the air above your Residence? No. Yon Shadows are not coming for you, but for the Vestiges.”

“Well,” said the Technical Name in a stern voice, “they cannot have them. The Gayshot Bo regulates their use.”

“I don’t think they intend to ask your consent.”

Three made an exasperated sound. “Four left the hallway door open when he went to check the roof.”

But the Pedant knew that Four had done so such thing. He flashed the headcount … Still nine. But that meant …

The Fudir sighed. “Greystroke, my old friend. How long have you been standing here?”

The ninth man, garbed in a nondescript shenmat, shrugged. “Long enough to know you may be glad to have me. Rinty?”

Little Hugh emerged from a corner of the room. Like Greystroke, he held a teaser, pointing down. Both stood with their backs to solid walls out of respect for Tina Zhi. Even so, every magpie’s hand dropped to his weapons belt. But Donovan held his hand out to his side with fingers splayed and they froze. Domino Tight, who alone had made no overt move, took advantage of the pause to move a piece in his game with Eglay Portion. His eyes shifted to Little Hugh. “Is Gwillgi with you?”

The answer came with the man as more Hounds entered the room, spacing themselves. Four was with them—not a prisoner, but not looking very happy, either. Bridget ban entered last of all. She always knew how to make an entrance.

The Fudir grinned at her. “What kept you?”

The Red Hound glanced past him, found Tina Zhi. “We are not here as your enemy. We have come for two things only. My daughter—and a glance at your Vestiges.”

“The daughter you may have,” said Tina Zhi. “It was not I who needed her. But to look on the Vestiges is not permitted. The sacred is not for the gawping eyes of the profane; and if I will not permit the approaching Shadows to see them, why would I permit the Hounds?”

“Red Hound,” said Greystroke, with a nod toward the widow. “This may not be the proper time to quarrel.”

Ravn Olafsdottr danced into the room. “Doonoovan, my sweet! How perfect to see you once more! How is your heads holding up?” She crossed to the window, peered out from a corner. “Enemy reach Spring Garden Street,” she said in Manjrin. “Best prepare welcome. Helloo, Doominoo! I kiss you later.” She turned to Bridget ban. “And might I suggest,” she added, “we bury hatchets for time being? Time enough afterward, we bury each other.”

“Who is coming?” the Hound asked.

“Gidula,” said the Fudir, earning Bridget ban’s attention at last. “He has been playing factions against one another. Shadow against Shadow, Shadows against Names. He has a mad dream of restoring the ancient aristocracy of the Lion’s Mouth.”

“Is it so mad as all that?” asked Eglay Portion with a gesture toward the flames. “Better dreams past than nightmares present.”

“How many with him?” the Fudir asked Ravn. “Did you get a count?”

“Did I not tale you that we would be great friends soomday? Today is that happy day! We celebrate later. Gidula has three Shadows with him: Big Jacques, who was with the rebels, and Aynia Farer, and Phoythaw Bhatvik, who was Ekadrina’s adviser. A score of magpies escort them: comets, tridents, lions, and crows. Oh, and they have a Name.”

Donovan looked up. “Which?”

“Secret Name. He who give you bad haircut.”

Despite nine resolutions to the contrary, the Fudir’s hand went to his scalp. “You recognized him?”

“I recognize his golden masque: the all-concealing Sun. He alone is never seen, even by other Names, so he is recognized by not being recognized.” She leaned toward Donovan and added in a stage whisper, “Is why they call him ‘Secret’.”

Donovan turned to the Technical Name. “Could he leap directly into the building?”

Tina Zhi vanished, startling some of the Hounds. An unlooked-for answer, but the Sleuth understood immediately her purpose.

Meanwhile, Donovan had been revising their defensive strategy. Certain things problematical with nine became more achievable with eighteen. “Can we count on you?” he asked Bridget ban. “They will think the building abandoned. The staff minions have fled out through the Red Gate into the Lower City, and the building’s Protectors have been drawn into the fighting. We can take them unaware when they enter.”

“Our orders are to avoid involvement.”

“Yes, but involvement has not avoided you. To stay out of it, you must withdraw; and if you withdraw, you get no glimpse of the Vestiges.”

Bridget ban drew a great breath. “Lackaday. I came for my daughter, an’ I’ll nae place her in danger for the sake of a few prehuman geegaws and baubles. Come wi’ me, Méarana. I’ll summon Grimpen down to the rooftop. He is masqued as an Information Ministry skycar. No one has fired upon them yet, but I’ll nae wait until they do so. Tilly, Greystroke, we’re pulling out.”

The other Hounds hesitated. The harper put on her stubborn look. “I came to rescue Father. I’ll not run off and leave him.”

“The way he ran off and left you on Terra? Show some sense, lassie.”

“Listen to your mother,” Donovan told her. “It’s unlikely all of us will emerge from this fight; less so if the Hounds won’t help.”

Méarana stuck her chin out. “I’m not inexperienced in a fight,” she reminded him.

“This is not a mob of ’Loons or tribesmen from the boonies of Enjrun.”

But the harper crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “Then you come with me.”

The silence of the Shadows and magpies filled the room. The Fudir glanced at his followers and shrugged. “I have my own duties.” Behind him, Pyati brushed a tear from his cheek.

“Well,” said Matilda of the Night. “Come to that, I came for the geegaws, which is how Black Shuck secured our Kennel authorization. So I ought to stay and hazard the chance.”

Gwillgi shrugged. “And my posted duty is to observe the Shadow War. This seems as reasonable an observation post as any.”

Little Hugh said, “The Fudir an’ I, we started out together, on the hunt for January’s Dancer. I don’t see why we shouldn’t end it together.”

Greystroke rolled his eyes, said nothing, but did not move toward the door.

“Graceful Bintsaif?” said Bridget ban.

“Aye, Cu?”

“An’ I gave the order, would ye be throwin’ my thickheaded bairn o’er yer shoulder an’ cart her tae the roof?”

“Aye, Cu. If you gave the order.”

Bridget ban turned to the door just as Tina Zhi returned, entering in the normal fashion from the hallway. “I have damped the field,” the Technical Name said. “Even those with tokens can no longer leap.”

“Oh. Well,” said Bridget ban, “that makes all the difference in the world.”

Eglay and Domino had shut down their game and the Fudir used the play deck to project an image of the kill space. “I’ve highlighted the Cache, where the Vestiges are kept,” he said. “We have to assume that Gidula and the Secret Name know the location, and will go straight there. We don’t know which entry they will take—”

“They will take each entry,” said Ravn. “They will come as water comes, through every channel.”

Donovan studied the building plan, though he and the Sleuth and Inner Child had been considering options ever since the Child had spotted the approaching party. He pointed. “Three, Four, and Five, disable the drop-wells, force them onto the stairs. Plant traps to rake the stairwells, but with the triggers near the top so we catch as many as possible. Greystroke, take Little Hugh, and Matilda. You three are the most accomplished at camouflage. Wait near the main entrance, allow the enemy to pass, then follow behind, picking off stragglers. Matilda, salt the lobby and stairwells with fear. Shadows and Names will not run, but they might advance less boldly.”

“What of me?” asked Pyati.

“The enemy will gather at these two points,” the Fudir said, “and converge on the Cache from both ends of the building. Eglay, you take the east wing; Pyati, take the west. Domino, you take this choke point, where the main stairs come up. Take one magpie apiece. Pluck some fruit, then withdraw to this line. Draw them in as far as possible before pruning. Once they trigger the stairwell traps, they will know the building is defended and will act accordingly. Keep them complacent as long as you can. Our advantage is that we know their destination.”

“Little good will it do them,” said the Technical Name. “The Cache is unbreakable.”

The Fudir shook his head. “They will not have come all this way under these circumstances without some plan to effect entrance.”

“Likely, the Secret Name intended to leap into the Cache; but that way is now blocked, thanks to my timely technical action.”

“Gidula leaves no contingency unplanned. Is there a hidden way into the Cache?”

“If there were,” said Tina Zhi, “neither Gidula nor the Secret Name would know of it.”

In other words, said the young man in the chlamys, there is a hidden way. Right, agreed the Sleuth. If the Cache is sealed and she went in to deactivate the leaping tokens, how did she get out? So: If Gidula knows the way, he must have learned of it from one of the College. The Virgins were sworn to secrecy. And two years ago he began to urge the attack on the Secret City and—perhaps, plan the decimation of Names and Shadows alike.

“Gidula kidnapped one of your Virgins about two years ago,” Donovan said, “and tortured her into revealing the hidden entrance.” Once again, Tina Zhi’s body language was louder than her denial.

“We only know that Beata disappeared,” she admitted, “not that Gidula was behind it.”

Together, Donovan and Bridget ban bent over the holomap of the building.

“This room above the Cache…,” the Hound said, pointing.

“A fane,” Donovan told her, “dedicated to the Daemon Muse.”

“Where the College conducts its private rites,” said Tina Zhi. “None else may enter.”

Then that is where the hidden entrance is concealed, said the Sleuth.

“And Gidula kept it in his pocket until he could use it,” said Bridget ban. “Do you mean he instigated this entire battle as a cover?”

The Fudir nodded. “You have tantalized the other Names,” he said to Tina Zhi, “with dribs and drabs: the leaping tokens, the sparkle armor, the accelerated healing. You can understand how a certain cupidity might overcome them. They tire of golden eggs and would have the goose entire.”

“Who!” Tina Zhi demanded. “Who else is in it?”

“Beside Gidula and the Secret Name? No one meant to survive this night. People, when you surrender your positions, fall back to here, covering the fane. Five, to the Security Room on the top floor. Keep us apprised of movements within the building. No argument. Your role is vital, and once Gidula realizes we are are tracking him, he will send magpies to search you out. Ravn—”

“I have my oon target, sweet. There is a man who left me to dangle on a cliff when he could have killed me. Such kindness demands reciprocity.”

“And you,” said Bridget ban to Donovan buigh. “I suppose you will hunt down the Secret Name and take your long revenge.”

But Donovan shook his head. “Revenge is for fools. If the past is to have a hold over me, I would prefer it to be the good times and not the bad. Should he and I meet, only one of us will leave, but I’ll not seek him out. Let Fate decide whether we encounter each other. Defense of the Cache is foremost. Méarana, the point of least immediate danger is with Five and the system monitors. Stay with him. Bridget—”

“Ochone! ’Tis an ill fork ye hoist me on,” the Red Hound said. “I know where my heart tells me to be. I know where my head tells me I must be. Graceful Bintsaif, go with my daughter and Five Padaborn. Her life is your life.”

“Aye, Cu.”

Donovan completed the dispositions. “Remember: active measures, fluid defense. Find long shots and go for the snipe when you can. Booby a few traps. Plant diversions. Hit and run…” He stopped and scanned his small army. “And all the other elementary instructions which none of you need hear.” He held a hand out. “To the blood and to the bone,” he said. The Shadows and the magpies slapped his hand and departed silently to their posts.

Gwillgi allowed his sharpened teeth to show. “We’re your ace, Donovan. They won’t know that Hounds are on the scene.”

“Act insofar as you hold that secret as long as possible,” Donovan told the Hounds. “Just remember: whatever ruthlessness you may think you own, the Shadows own ten times more. Their skills are no greater, but their hesitations are less. And of them all, Gidula is the most treacherous. He smiles.”

Greystroke wore coveralls of anycloth. In the lobby, he altered them to resemble a shenmat. Little Hugh watched in dismay. “Ye cannot be serious.”

But Greystroke showed his teeth. “Easier to blend into a crowd.” He detailed a brassard on his left arm with a symbol hard to discern.

Matilda of the Night joined them. “Stairwells prepared. Put these filters in your noses to block the effects.”

Greystroke complied. “You reveal your secrets.”

“Don’t be a fool. You have no idea what my secrets are. There are four stairwells they can take and only three of us. Let us not all trundle up the same one.”

“East wing,” said Greystroke.

“East main,” said Hugh.

“And I’ll follow whichever west-side team needs pruning most.”

The three of them were silent for a moment. Then Hugh thrust his hand out. “We’ll meet at the fane.” The other two, after a moment’s hesitation, took it. “Or on the farther shore,” said Matilda of the Night before she faded into the darkness.

“She’s good,” said Greystroke. Then, to Hugh, “We’ll make it.”

“As long as she makes it.” He meant Bridget ban.

“It’s an awful box he’s put her in this time.”

“It isn’t the Fudir who put her in it, Grey One. Sure, ’tis bad cases all around, but hush now.” And Little Hugh too faded into the darkness of the deserted building to wait. He knew as well as Greystroke and Matilda the risks of operating in the enemy’s rear.

The power is out, Lord Gidula. No lights. The drop-wells are dead.

The hazards of war, eh, Old One?

It is that, sire. But a darkened building will attract no attention from elsewhere in the city. Stairs and ladders, then. Comets, with me up the left-hand stairs. Tridents, up the right hand. Lions, odd numbers, the stairs at the east end; even numbers up the ladders in the first drop-well. Crows, odd numbers, west end; even numbers, second drop-well. Clear? Go.

Little Hugh emerged from concealment after the intruders had swarmed up. Every plan of battle was complicated by the presence of the other side. He whispered into his throat mike, “Three magpies climbing maintenance ladders in each drop-well.” He hoped that Five Padaborn would relay that to whoever needed to know. Otherwise, assets would be inserted behind Domino Tight and Eglay Portion. Then he set off after the ascending tridents. He felt again as he had felt during the guerilla on New Eireann: terribly alive.

Magpie Seven Bhatvik had thought himself third from the rear, but when he glanced over his shoulder on the stairwell he saw no one behind him. This was not a good thing to see, and he shivered a bit with unreasoning fear. He climbed a few more steps, then quickly looked back. He still saw nothing.

Which was too bad.

“Maintain queue discipline,” murmured Magpie Three Farer to the shenmat-clad figure who had come up beside him on the stairwell. It was the last thing he said.

Four to Double Crow. Gravity grids reactivated in the drop-wells. Featherlight. We can leap the rest of the way up easy.

Negative, my pretty. Power is intermittent. Do not rely. Repeat: do not rely.

Good call. Gravity is cycling. Getting heavier … Lighter now … Heavier … Six, Ten, vacate, now! Oh, by the Fates!

Report, Four. Report.

Double Crow, this is Ten. Gravity peaked at three ji. Four and Six lost hold of the laddering. They’re jam at the bottom. I’m out of the shaft on the third floor. Dislocated shoulder.

Something was wrong. Big Jacques sensed it before he knew it. A quick gesture, propagated down the line of tridents, brought them all to a halt on the stairwell. Malfunctioning gravity grids in a city in chaos he could understand. But the crows and lions were both reporting missing magpies, and he could not imagine that the unoccasioned dread that had gripped them all on entry to this building had impelled them to run. Some of the Names had the means of inducing such trepidation, although the Secret Name had not thought the Technical Name to be one of them.

“Count off,” he said, and listened as the numbers ran down the stairs. He did not need One to tell him that the count came up short. Interesting. Every flock but Gidula’s was coming up short. Was the Old One trimming his allies already? He had needed an escort-in-strength to cross the burning city. Did he suppose he needed them no longer?

A glimmer in Big Jacques’s goggles captured his attention. Something on the wall along the railing. A line of somethings. He recognized pasties—antipersonnel mines—on a wire ignition.

“Down the well!” he ordered his flock. “It’s a trap!”

The trident magpies flew down the stairs, rappeling over banisters, trading grace for speed, and a moment later the pasties ignited, sending a sheet of shrapnel across the stairwell. Big Jacques heard grunts of pain, then, below him, a different sort of cry. Flashes of light and the acrid smell of electrical sparks told of a brief, intense firefight two floors below.

Big Jacques hurried to the scene, found Two down and Five aiming fire systematically into the dark at the bottom of the stairs. “Stalked, Trident,” said Five.

“How many?”

“Saw one, but must have been others. Moved Two, Seven, and Twelve.”

Big Jacques considered that. “Gidula assured us the building would be unguarded. Either Gidula is an optimist or Sèanmazy followed us here after that tussle on Big Fish Street. Could you read the brassard?”

“No shenmat. Coverall. Protector, maybe? Whoever he was I potted him good. Gone doggo, though. Hunt him down?”

“Let him bleed out.” Big Jacques contacted Aynia Farer and Phoythaw Bhatvik and told them the building was being defended, numbers unknown. But he did not contact Gidula, who could figure that out for himself.

The explosions in the east end stairwell took out a goodly number of lions, which evened the odds very nearly to six-to-one. Eglay Portion and Four Padaborn had positioned themselves to cover the exit and waited until three lions were through before opening the dance. The invaders were aware now that they were being opposed and returned fire. Dazers. A bad hit, but short range. A thrown knife was silent and did not betray its origin. Hard to reload, though. One of the three went down; a second reached an office and burst into it. The door had been triggered and the explosion caught her in the doorway. The third magpie ducked back into the stairwell, and a momentary silence ensued. Eglay Portion tried to think what Aynia Farer would do next.

“Maybe the trap on the stairway got everyone,” said Four.

Eglay Portion did not think so, and a moment later a series of explosions suggested that the lions had made their own exit from the stairwell at an unconventional point. They could outflank Eglay’s position now. “Pull back to the second line,” he said.

But Four pointed, “Here comes one!”

A shenmat-clad figure slid from the doorway into the corridor and made a sign with his left hand. Eglay blocked Four’s shot. “That’s the pass-sign. It’s that Greystroke fellow.”

They left cover and retreated up the corridor. Aynia and two magpies came around an unexpected corner. Four stepped between Eglay and the lions and took the brunt of the dazer blast. Return fire drove the lions behind the corner again. Greystroke and Eglay sprinted toward the fane.

Tina Zhi came to the side of Domino Tight as softly as a dream and bearing the same strange weapon that she had brought to the Battle of the Warehouse. “The Secret Name, Big Jacques, five tridents, and a lion who survived Three’s little game with the drop-wells.”

The magpie with them smiled at the compliment, though he was vexed that one had survived.

“Big Jacques,” said Domino Tight. “I always liked the Large One.”

“Like him a little less,” suggested the Technical Name.

Domino Tight sighed. “He could just as easily be fighting on our side, if he had thought it more fun.”

“He was fighting on our side.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Domino Tight.

Tina Zhi turned the curious U-shaped weapon in her hand. “The Secret Name is wearing sparkle armor. This will deactivate it and leave him vulnerable.”

Domino Tight nodded. He remembered that from the Battle of the Warehouse. It also meant that, unlike the jump tokens, the sparkle armor was not controlled by a central field. What other secrets had the Technical Name been withholding from the Confederation, even from most of the other Names? Youth, perhaps.

And why was she now so willing to help ambush one of the leaders of the Old Guard, given that she had been supporting them through the Revolution? Because these intended to violate the sanctity of the Gayshot Bo? He did not believe it was for love of himself. Given how long Tina Zhi must have lived, what novelty could one more mayfly lover provide?

The Shadows believed the war had started because Shadow Prime had dispatched Epri Gunjinshow to rectify matters after Manlius Metataxis had incestuously coupled with his comrade-in-arms, Kelly Stappelaufer, and which task Epri had accomplished by seducing Kelly himself. It was the sort of story Shadows liked to tell themselves. But when they had wiped the tear away, they also knew that they were fighting to overthrow Names grown overbold. So what they believed and what they knew were at odds, and all that was left was laughter.

He focused on the darkness of the stairwell. Most of the tridents had escaped the trap. Big Jacques had been too keenly observant. The main stairwell opened on a function space. There was a reception desk, waiting chairs, and several small tables with inquiry portals. Large pots bore broad leafy plants. There were any number of hiding places, all of them far too obvious. “When they sortie from the stairwell,” he told Three and Tina Zhi, “they will scatter in all directions, accepting casualties. They will almost certainly direct fire on the receptionist’s desk, since that is the obvious place for defenders to cover the stairwell.”

Three had strewn crispies on the steps. He listened now to the sounds from the stairwell. “Time to take our places,” he said. He shot a climbing grapple to the decorative, painted ceiling. Once there, he removed a panel that he had previously prepared, and insinuated himself into the duct space. Shortly, small gunports appeared in the moulding.

Tina Zhi placed a hand on Domino Tight’s wrist. “It’s too dangerous,” she said.

Domino Tight finished snapping the titanium exoskeleton into place. He shook out the gossamer cloak that would make him invisible. “What better place to hide than the one place they will not expect—in plain sight?”

“They are no fools. Someone will realize.”

“If anyone is left. At short range, I can use my dazer. And Rinty will be coming up behind them. We have them trapped! Hurry, cloak yourself.”

The reception area became apparently vacant. This might lull Big Jacques—or raise his suspicions.

The tridents emerged in a fan, shielding both Big Jacques and the Secret Name. Domino counted eight and began to drop magpies with his dazer. Three fired flechettes from above. The Secret Name’s sparkle armor died and he spun about looking for the weapon that had done it. Domino Tight numbed him in the thigh, and he nearly toppled. But Big Jacques maintained his calm.

“Is that you, old friend? What price this treachery?”

Domino Tight did not answer. The best way to locate an invisible man is from the sounds he makes.

“Never did think you jumped in the river. I guess that means Padaborn is here, too.” Big Jacques fired pellets into various quarters of the lobby, on the likely assumption that Domino was in at least one of them. He wasn’t.

“If the Name was your target, too late. He’s crawled off down the hall until his leg heals.”

A shower of flechettes rained on the tridents from the ceiling and Big Jacques and the remaining tridents returned fire, bracketing the likely source. A thud in the ductwork signaled success or a ruse. “Boys,” said Jacques, “let’s shift. Pattern G.”

Only two magpies rose with Big Jacques and they scattered in three directions. One drew a shot from the apparently still-active Three, another, a dazzle from Domino Tight. But Big Jacques learned the power of chance in the affairs of men, for he had taken a serpentine run toward the farther hallway that intersected with Domino Tight.

The two of them toppled to the floor with the bigger man on top. Dazers flew higgledy-piggledy. Hands punched and poked; knees pistoned. The cloak was ripped aside. Domino Tight wrapped arms around his foe as tight as iron bands.

But iron bands were nothing to Big Jacques, and he broke free and rolled to his feet. Padaborn Three abandoned silence as he scrambled along the ductwork and punched a hole in the plaster to fire a wire gun at Big Jacques. In his anxiety not to strike Domino Tight, he shot wide; but Jacques took it as an invitation to leave. He kicked Domino in the head and, as he ran into the main hallway, pulled a throwing knife from a scabbard and in a single fluid pirouette pinned Domino Tight through the chest.

Méarana Harper listened to the dim sounds of battle from the floors below, wondering whether she had lured her mother to her death. But Bridget ban was a fixture of the universe, like the mountains and the rivers, like the Rift of Stars that separated the Perseus Arm from its Orion spur. Her mother was very like that Rift, too; her very absence was a sort of presence. And how could an absence ever be lost?

“This is all my fault,” Méarana said.

Neither Graceful Bintsaif, who watched and listened to the front hallway, nor Padaborn Five, who sat before the console of view screens and detectors that occupied the middle of the Security Center, turned to answer her.

“I would say it is the Ravn’s fault,” said the junior Hound. “It was she who maneuvered you into going with her into the Triangles. Your mother followed, and the rest of us followed her.”

“I could not leave my father without succor.”

Graceful Bintsaif shook her head. “There is a niggling in the back of my mind that our arrival rather upset the plans of Donovan buigh. The scarred man is like Mary’s lambs. Leave him be and he’ll return.”

“Listen to the two of you,” said Five. “None of this involved the Periphery at all. What is happening out there grew in our own gardens, not your fayzukeq personal lives. I see now that Padaborn did his best to delay this day of wrath, and only Gidula’s threat to torture you…” He paused.

“There,” said the harper. “It is my fault, after all.” But she wasted no time wishing it had all never happened. The time for that wish was a long time ago.

“Fates!” said Five, rapping a monitor with his knuckle. “We’ve lost Domino Tight as well as the Hound Rinty.”

Méarana brushed a cheek with her sleeve. As long ago as she could remember, Little Hugh had been a friend of the family. A lover once of her mother, which made him a relative of some sort. And Méarana had lured him here to his wyrd. It was supposed to be simple. She and Ravn and her mother would pluck Donovan as neatly from Gidula’s fortress as a pickpocket removes a purse from an unwary tourista. How they would do this Méarana had had no idea, but she had owned the fantasy so long she had come to believe it.

It is the young who catch the gliding snake. A Terran proverb her father had once told her. The young do dangerous things from innocence. Well, she was young no longer. Although she might never become any older than she was this night.

Gidula’s force would not come through the doorway she guarded: the hallway led deeper into the building. If Gidula did assault the control center his Shadows would come through the junior Hound and the Padaborn magpie and so give her a chance to escape. That was why Graceful Bintsaif had posted her here. She already had the escape route marked out in her mind. Down this hall, down a back stairway, across, and … she’d be at the fane. With her father and mother. All of them together at last, if only at the last.

“Well played!” Five exclaimed, and without turning from her vigilance Graceful Bintsaif said, “How now?”

“Big Jacques is down. Pyati ambushed him. Oh, he was the best they had. He was good. And Aynia Farer is wounded. I wonder that Gidula does not back off. Over half his force is down.”

“He can’t back down,” Méarana said. “This isn’t one of your duels. He has bet everything on this one throw. If he backs down, there is no second chance.”

“Wait one. Padaborn!” Five spoke urgently into the comm. “Gidula has hung back from the fighting and has peeled off with two of his comets. Ravn, Eglay, and, uh, Greystroke, you are facing Aynia, five lions, and one comet. But Pyati is falling back from the west wing, followed by Phoythaw and four double-crows. No, I don’t track Matilda Hound. She doesn’t show anywhere on my screens. But there were five double-crows two minutes ago, so I assume she is…” He paused and listened. “Gidula is going up the three-four corridor toward the rear of the building. Yes, he is knocking out as many eyes as he and his two wingmen identify. So are the others. They know we’re watching now.”

There was only one way into the control center from the front side of the building and it was likely booby-trapped, so Gidula did as he often did and created another way. Explosive packs blew holes in the walls on either side of the entrance Graceful Bintsaif guarded, one on the west wall, one on the south. The eyes had been blinded across that whole row of offices and Five had no indication beforehand.

Both he and Graceful Bintsaif had fine reflexes, and it was just bad luck that they both turned to the same breach. That was bad luck for the comet who leapt through the west wall, as he was thus slain twice; but it gave the comet coming through the south wall a clear shot. She cut down Five where he stood behind the console, and Graceful Bintsaif spun about in time to see Méarana’s thrown dagger embed itself in the comet’s throat. Graceful Bintsaif’s grace shot was superfluous and put her back to the west wall, and it was through this crumpled breach that Gidula stepped to stab her in the back.

Graceful Bintsaif collapsed and Méarana hurled her second knife straight toward Gidula, but the Old One merely grabbed it from the air by the handle and would have flung it back on the instant had he not seen that it was Méarana who had thrown it.

“You!” he cried. “How…?” Then his eyes dropped once more to the body at his feet. In the flick of that eye, the harper fled down the back hallway. Gidula pursed his lips, but before pursuing he leaned over Graceful Bintsaif. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

“No,” said the junior Hound through clenched teeth.

Gidula reached down and adjusted the knife. “How about now?”

Satisfied, Gidula set off in a brisk but unhurried pursuit of the harper.

The fane was a wide oval room encircled by seven statues of women in various poses: one in a grand jeté, another holding a caduceus on high, still others holding a sheaf of wheat, wearing stars over her naked body, and so forth. Green and white drapes dressed the walls, and a red-stained altar squatted in the center. The absence of benches or knee pads meant the initiates stood during their ceremonies. There seemed no separate adytum, though an iconostasis inlaid with emeralds and pearls stood folded against the wall. Below the altar was a drain hole for the blood and offal of the sacrifices. Bridget ban decided it was too narrow and too obvious to be the hidden entrance to the floor below. The walls and doors were not blast proof, and there were no firing ports.

Ravn Olafsdottr laughed. “And why should there be, Red Hound? This is a temple, a place of ritual. Who among the builders expected that one day it must be defended?”

Bridget ban snorted. “Have they even the slightest inkling of what they worship?”

“Of course not, Hound. More inkling, less worship.”

“One set of doors,” Gwillgi said. “They open on the mezzanine. That means we cannot see from inside what the Gidulans are about on the other three sides.”

“Other five sides, Bristly Hound,” Ravn told him.

“Four,” said Donovan. “To attack the fane from below, they must enter the Cache, and if they can do that, they need not capture the fane. We can’t defend from the inside. Limited field of fire through the doors, and a death trap if they lob explosives inside.”

“So we interdict the corridors leading here. Spread mighty thin, Donovan.”

“Defenders have an advantage.”

Gwillgi barked. “Not that much an advantage.”

“The others will converge here; and if they can’t, they’ll be a worry up our attackers’ butts.”

We can do this, said the girl in the chiton.

I was thinking, said the Pedant, raising groans from half of Donovan’s mind. The best defense of a good offense.

“We’ll throw the defense forward. Along the mezzanine there and there. The crows are likely to come from the west side; the lions from the east. But some might come along the hallway behind the fane. And they may as easily travel through the ducts or even straight through the offices. If they have enough poppers they can open doors where there are no doors. Go forward, find likely spots for improvised devices, then plant the devices a little past them. Gwillgi, take the west mezzanine; Ravn, the east. Bridget, the back hallway, east. I’ll prepare the back hall, west.”

Ravn hissed—stealthy footfalls from the east—and the four of them folded to the floor, blending in with the décor, weapons pulled and aimed. A moment of quiet descended during which Donovan could wonder how badly he had miscalculated.

A voice whispered the password: kuwatnim, which meant “liberty” in the old Taņţamiž lingua franca. But passwords could be learned and voices imitated. And so the voice added, “When the banner snaps, the fight begins.”

“It’s Eglay,” Donovan told the others, and he told the Shadow to come forth.

Eglay Portion had brought Greystroke and Three Padaborn. “That Technical Name,” said Three, “she wouldn’t leave Domino Tight.”

Shortly, Pyati came in from the other direction with One and Two. “Where is Matilda?” asked Bridget ban.

“Didn’t see her,” Pyati answered.

“That is what you may expect to see in my case,” said Matilda of the Night. “Your man, Pyati, took out Big Jacques. But the crows were nipping hard at his heels.”

“Rinty should have reached my position, coming up behind Big Jacques,” said Three. “But Jacques twigged to the trap and they reversed direction. I think they caught your Pup coming up behind them.”

Greystroke, if it was possible, became a little grayer. And the Fudir remembered old days in Amir Naith’s Gulli. On to the Hadramoo! Och, Hugh! he thought, and the rest of him left him momentarily in peace. But there was little time for peace in a time of war, and the Silky Voice embraced the sorrow and sequestered it.

The Sleuth calculated from the intelligence the Pedant had tabulated from Five that they faced fourteen magpies, three Shadows—one wounded—and a Name. Seven bogies were approaching along the mezzanine from each direction, but Gidula, the Secret Name, and two of Gidula’s comets were missing. Uncounted casualties?

No, Donovan decided. Gidula would not perish as anonymously as that. A flanking movement was more probable. Around the back of the fane or … above it.

That would bring him too close to the Security Center for the comfort of Donovan’s minds. He redispositioned everyone, placing himself and Bridget ban behind the fane, since that was where he expected the flank attack. Everyone vanished into offices, into ceilings, or—in Matilda’s case—simply vanishing.

I have a theory about Matilda of the Night, said the Sleuth.

You gotta theory about everything. Shaddap an’ get outta my way here.

Inner Child set himself to watch and listen to the approaches. The scarred man’s eyes took on that peculiar wandering characteristic that meant each eye was watching independently. Each ear was listening independently. It was not a state that he had ever tried to describe to others, but it seemed to him that he stood in four different places that were somehow the same place. Donovan and the Fudir peered out through the eyes; Sleuth and the Pedant listened. The Silky Voice fell back to the hypothalamus and began regulating the flow of adrenaline and other enzymes, heightening his senses, broadening his time-sense.

Five burst in on his attention. “Security Center. Attack imminent!” This was followed by two low-intensity thumps and the snap of weapons fired. Then the comm. went silent.

Donovan did not wait but was already on the run. “Gwillgi,” he said over the link. “Take my post!” He heard Bridget ban say, “Ravn, take mine,” then he shot a tzan-wire to the ceiling and climbed up it.

The shortest distance to Méarana was straight up.

Méarana found her carefully laid plan foiled and barely escaped the escape route. While Gidula had come in the front, the Secret Name had been circling around the rear. She saw the man in the golden masque hesitate at a distant intersection, and she sidestepped quickly down another hall. Behind her, she heard Gidula call to the Name in a language her earwig did not recognize.

If you hide, she told herself, they will find you. The problem with hidey-holes was a lack of exits. Safety, should any quality so elusive be had, lay in distance. She reached into her scrip and pressed the detonator, and the corridor she had intended to use blew in from shaped charges. She did not go back to see if her pursuers had been caught in the blast. If they had, she ran for no reason. If they hadn’t …

The hallways formed a rectangular grid with nearly identical office spaces along each; but there were a few diagonal corridors, too—for shortcuts, she supposed—and foyers at the multi-way intersections. Panic fought the calm she needed. Her mother had trained her in a variety of arts, but she was by no means their master.

“There’s no need to run,” she heard Gidula say. How far behind her? Did he see her, or was he talking to the night? “I only want to know how you got off Terra. I have no reason to do you harm.”

Did he take her for a fool? Would she suppose he needed a reason?

They were all sick, the Shadows were, even those like Ravn and Domino. There was something empty deep inside them. Like a shadow cast by the light, they were all form and no substance. Somewhere back along the pathways of their lives they had turned the wrong way and had become irretrievably lost, even to themselves.

“Who are the others with you? Renegade Shadows? You can’t trust them, you know. Remember how my own dear Ravn betrayed you. Some are wearing coveralls instead of shenmats. Are they Protectors? They do not fight like mere boots.”

Méarana saw a partly open door on her right and, without breaking stride, stooped as she passed and leaned her flashlight against it. Then, pirouetting up a side hallway, she threw her ground voice, “Am I a fool?” just as the tilted flashlight pushed the door slightly open. To Gidula, the visual and auditory cues would make it seem as if she had cracked the door to speak.

“I think,” said Gidula, “that the question carries its own answer.” And he shot a gas canister into the barely cracked doorway. “Sleep awhile. Later, we will speak.”

Méarana had not awaited the outcome, but, as the old stories ran, she “plied swift heels” down the side hall, then cut right again.

Straight into the arms of the Secret Name.

The Secret Name had never been too certain of Gidula. The Old One was without doubt a useful tool. But a tool with a mind of its own could turn on its user. That the ancient Shadow and he had different plans once the Committee had been purged was a certainty, but the Secret Name had overseen the Bureau of Shadows for many years since his predecessor’s untimely demise and there was little in their thinking that he did not grasp.

Yet Gidula’s plan to seize the Seven Widows had shocked even the Secret Name. The nature of the objects had never been too clear to him, save that they were sacred and ancient. But new technology was destabilizing. You never knew who might rise and who fall when something new appeared. Carefully controlled, allowed to a few, their secrets guarded by a sworn college, the dangerous servant could be kept in its place. The Gayshot Bo was among the least of the ministries, and the feckless Tina Zhi had been left in place largely because no one else wanted her post.

The leaping tokens had allowed selected Names to oversee Confederal affairs directly. But this had not been an unalloyed gift. Some of the token-holders had aligned with the Committee. Now Gidula had begun to wonder about eternal youth, the one thing that might tempt the Old One off the pure path of tradition. He was so afraid of dying that he had let his fears become the master of his acts, and so a quiet coup had become a blazing city. But every blessing is a curse, and the Secret Name wondered if Tina Zhi had found eternal boredom instead.

While one part of his mind was thus engaged, another part kept watch on the darkened hallways he traveled. That reminded him of another miscalculation. Gidula had not expected the building to be defended and they had walked into a well-laid trap. That seemed appropriate to the Secret Name. No prize so great should be won without a struggle.

Circle around behind her, Gidula had told him. There would be a reckoning for that casual inversion of status. Shadows did not give orders to Names. Why this girl—obviously no magpie—was of such interest the Old One had not bothered to explain. That told the Secret Name everything he wanted to know about Gidula.

The girl had seen him, the Ever-Vigilant part of his mind knew, and so would seek to evade. And so, the Planning part of his mind concluded, he must circle out farther still. His Vigilance heard soft footfalls, distant snaps and explosions, Gidula’s muttered curses.

The Secret Name smiled. Apparently, the girl had managed to fool the Old One in some manner. The Secret Name dipped into the Memory Well and found the floor plan he needed. The Calculator examined all the possible routes the fleeing girl could have taken and computed her likely present positions on each route. He allowed his Body to light-foot to the maximum likelihood spot.

And was gratified when, turning a corner, he found his arms full of a beautiful woman.

Beautiful, but not domesticated.

Méarana found her every mother-taught move blocked with contemptuous ease by the man in the maniacally smiling sun-mask. However she struggled, his grip on her tightened, squeezing her against him. “La, snortcha,” he said, his sweetened breath filling her with unreasoning fear. “Tell me why the Old One is so interested in you.” Sun-rays framed him like a lion’s mane, his lips moved behind the fatuous smile like something wet and slimy lurking in a cave.

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.”

Pyati spared him a glance. “Maybe so, but had you not saved him we might not be fighting here together.”

“Was that supposed to convince me I’d done the right thing? Never mind. I would do it again, for the same reasons I gave Domino.”

A flurry of discharges sounded down the hallway. “Bad aim,” said Pyati. “No hits here.”

“Maybe they shifted their strength to Greystroke or Matilda,” Gwillgi suggested. “Keep us pinned down while they overwhelm those two.”

“This fane had better be worth defending,” said Pyati.

“Donovan has not come back,” Gwillgi pointed out. “Nor Bridget ban. And where’s your Ravn? They could double our strength.”

“Then, bigger massacre,” said Pyati. “Nice. Lord Padaborn did not ‘bug out’ on me, so I stand where he told me to stand.”

One, listening, nodded. “We are not like Hounds. We can defend a hopeless position.”

“Braggart,” grunted Gwillgi. He pulled himself up to the barricade they had made of the office furniture. They had built such barricades in several offices on the approaches to the fane, at points that might interdict an attacking party, forcing Phoythaw and Aynia to pause and check each one, lest ambush lurk behind it. What normally lurked was an explosive device, but they had quickly learned to detonate those remotely.

“Someone’s coming!” said One.

They all heard it. A regular thumping from the west hallway, where Phoythaw’s force lurked. The snap of a teaser interrupted the thumping briefly, then it continued. A darker figure loomed in the dark hallway and struck the floor three times with a tall wooden staff. Taijis swarmed in the background.

“Cease and desist!” the Long Tall One said. “This pasdarm is suspended!”

Pyati groaned. “Is Ekadrina Sèanmazy with reinforcements.”

“More coming from the east,” said Gwillgi.

“Black horses,” said One. “And us caught in between.”

Ekadrina stepped aside and Tina Zhi passed through the ranks of taijis, bearing the body of Domino Tight on a gravity cart. “I would enter the fane as high priestess of the Seven Widows,” she said.

“What she means,” said Oschous Dee Karnatika, “is don’t shoot. The Riff of District Twenty-seven has declared a Peace. The Secret City is under martial law, and all are to lay down their arms. Where is Geshler Padaborn?”

A portion of the ceiling fell onto the mezzanine and two dozen guns—taijis, black horses, and Padaborn’s defenders—were instantly leveled at the spot. Ravn Olafsdottr’s face appeared in the gap.

“Peekaboo!” she said.