Shadowkill

MEMORY:

Arel the smuggler got to his feet. He was a small dark man with a bony sardonic face, fans of fine wrinkles about the outer corners of his eyes and his mouth. His long dark hair was pulled through a filigreed silver clasp at the nape of his neck and hung halfway down his back.

“What am I doing here?”

“You can bypass Goyo Security, get a lander down and off again unnoticed?”

“Oh, Shadow Shadow, you need to ask that? It’s my business.”

“I need a back door. Just in case.”

“Operating against one of the families, aren’t you?” His brow shot up.

She didn’t answer, figuring it was none of his business.

“You owe me danger money, then; those Goyo are tricky bastards.”

Aghilo came in, two maidservants following her with bedding and rolled up pallets. She waved Tinoopa and Kizra aside to give the girls room to make up the beds. “I’m going back to my room for the night. The door out there, chapa Tinoopa, you lock and bar it when we’re gone.” She twisted a key from the chatelaine on her belt, tossed it to Tinoopa. “I’ll knock and call out my name in the morning when it’s time for you to be up. Be very sure who’s out there, chapa Tinoopa, before you open the door. Use the peep to see if I’m alone. Do you hear me?”

“I hear, Aghilo chal.”

She died again in her dreams. Plunged down and down through fire and pain and crashed.

She woke sweating.

Tinoopa was getting up, smoothing her hair out of her face, shaking out her nightgown.

Someone was pounding on the outer door.

What… Kizra scrubbed at her eyes. There was a terrible urgency in that knocking, though it wasn’t as noisy as she’d first thought when it crashed into her dream. She kicked off the blankets, rolled from the pallet, and got to her feet. Lifting the front of her borrowed nightgown so she wouldn’t step on it and fall on her face, she followed Tinoopa into the anteroom.

The knocking continued; she could feel the desperation, the fear and anger in the woman on the other side of the door. Aghilo. What was happening?

After a quick look through the peep, Tinoopa turned the key, slapped the bar up, and tugged the door open.

Aghilo stumbled inside. Her face was drained of color, her mouth was working. She put out her hand, flattened it against the wall, and stood leaning into her braced arm while she caught her breath and stifled her panic.

After a moment she straightened, looked quickly from Tinoopa to Kizra. “You’d better get dressed,” she said. “There’s trouble.” She started past Tinoopa, but the Shimmarohi caught her arm.

“What happened?”

“Contract woman. She killed Rintirry, hung herself. I have to wake the Arring.”

“Wait, wait, just a minute. It’s barely light now, you’ve got plenty of time before the Artwa goes nova. Sit down.” Using her size and her grip on Aghilo’s arm, she maneuvered the smaller woman to, one of the benches and muscled her down. Then she stood with feet apart, hands on her hips. “How’d you find out?”