Shadowkill

2

Kikun shifted on the window seat, knocking one of the pillows onto the floor, his eye a brief orange flash. “You trust him?”

Autumn Rose snorted. “About half as far as I could throw him.” She rubbed fingertips along her jaw. Kikun was tired tonight. Withdrawn. She got the feeling he was desperately unhappy, but there was nothing she could do to help; he wasn’t going to talk about it. “I’m all right until the Game,” she said. “He’ll keep things sweet until that’s over. It’s worth the trouble.”

Another flash of orange eye. “And you’re itching for it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s been a long time. I like working for Digby…”

“Hmm.”

She fidgeted as the silence developed. “I don’t know, Kuna. This whole business is weird. I don’t know why Digby got involved in it. He’s been paid, yeh, but I doubt he’s close to breaking even. He never tells us anything except what we need to know to do our part of the job. That’s all right, there’s no confusion that way. When I was working the team, you know, advising the Dyslaerins, when we were tracking down leads to Ginny’s auction, it was business, that’s all. I liked them, but that was beside the point. It was a clear, clean job. Even when it went wrong, it had… um… shape! Do you see what I’m saying? I like to do a quick, neat job. It’s a good feeling, Kuna. You slide in, do the thing, slide out. No fuss. Neat. Surgical almost. Well, doesn’t happen like that all the time, even most of the time… most of the time it gets messy one way or another… when it does, though… AH! when it does… when… things… click, you’re wired, you’re walking the edge… I like that, Kuna… but… I don’t know… this business… it’s like a fog… I can’t get hold of it… makes me crazy when I think about it… mostly I try not to… think about it, I mean. The Game now… that’s clean. Do you blame me for wanting that? Why didn’t Digby call me back? I’m not… I’m a sprinter, Kuna, I run out of go on a long trail. Goerta b’rite, I’ll be glad to get off this world… “ She sat up abruptly. “This is no use. Look. Have you got anything more from Sai?”

“No.” After a minute he amplified this. “He hasn’t been in to the office once. He runs the place through the com. I don’t know how to find him. Likely he’s trying to duck the Squeeze, if we believe your source.” He swung around and sat up, shaking himself as if to throw off the lassitude eating at him. “I can’t get a smell of him, Rose. I’m cut off…” He shivered, his eyes flickered restlessly. “I don’t think we can pin him, not in the time we have… with the Game being the limit. You want what he’s got on Mimishay, you’ll have to ask the kephalos.”

She grimaced. “I hear, Kuna. You don’t mind, I want you in that office in the morning, picking up everything you can get about keying in.”

“When will you go for it?”

“Sometime around the Game. Probably the night before. I don’t know. Depends on how things are, what you can get, how much time I’m going to need, how much noise it’s going to involve.” She sighed. “How desperate we are. Um. Hadluk says someone from Mimishay might be there, a Player. You can pin him as Omphalos?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then we’ll see, won’t we.”

The dance began.

She won.

And won again.

She found a dressmaker and got clothes made, started the woman on a black dress like the one Hadluk remembered after so many years. Long hard years for her, harder for him, he was sculling round bottom. At first she’d been annoyed at him, telling her what to wear when she hadn’t asked, hadn’t intended to ask, then she changed her mind.

That was a good night, she’d been sure of herself. More than sure. It was magical now-from the time she rose in the morning until she went to sleep on the ship out-magical how everything she touched went right. She knew the value of talismans, for herself and for him. They gave that extra THING WITHOUT A NAME to people they touched. That night she’d tapped the flow and ridden it higher than she’d gone before or after. It was good to recapitulate, recapture, revivify that woman who was, that woman who KNEW. The local fibers didn’t have the special sheen of avrishum, but they had their own beauties and when she drew the heavy, rich, black material across her arm, the hairs on her spine stood up. Yes, this was going to be another magical dress, she felt it wake the power in her. She gave the woman the sketch and her measurements and paid the price for the cloth without a murmur of protest.