Shadowplay

WATCHER 11

Asteplikota opened and shut his hand, pressing and releasing, pressing and releasing the padded spring his therapist had given him so he could build up muscle to replace that sliced away by the cutter beam. "I don't know," he said and looked curiously at his brother. "I don't fully understand them, I never did. You want a guess, they were trying to get home. Medd. Not selling out to the Nistam."

Kiscomaskin vaulted onto the stone balustrade that went round the terrace at the back of the merchant's house where they were staying for the moment, ignoring the chasm at his right hand as he walked along the lichened stone with careless ease; showing off was one of several childhood habits he'd never shed-especially when he was alone with his elder brother.

He came back, stood with the vanishing sun setting his hair on fire, his hands clasped behind him. "Does it matter? You know Ayawit, he'd find a way to co-opt them, no counting their inclinations and Intentions. He would and he has. You're a reasonable man, Aste my oste, that's your weakness. And you like people too much. That's another."

"And you're not reasonable and you don't like people? If that's true, why are'you doing all this?"

"It's a scam, Aste. Look at the way we're living." He waved his hand at the house and the wild extravagant view. "Were you half this comfortable when you were beating history into stoneheaded Kawas and Kisars?"

Asteplikota shook his head, smiling fondly at his younger brother, not believing a word of what KIscomaskin had said, judging him by himself and by the oldtime wit he remembered when Kisca was a brilliant but erratic scholar, filled with fervor for the righting of ancient wrongs. "You could be sitting at Ayawit's right hand, brother. Have you forgotten his fancy for you?"

"Not half." Kiscomaskin shuddered, swayed, jumped hastily down. "Enough of this silly game. We have to take them out fast, brother. People are getting confused and dispirited, watching Ayawit parade them about. She was on the comcircuit, that girl of yours, singing for them like she sang for us. A week ago. I've been getting shit in the face ever since. The Opla-cursed Judges want to know what's going on. We could lose a big part of our funding. They have to die and we have to find a way to blame the Nistam for it."

"Kisca my oste, get her away from them, she'll be more useful alive. If you can't get them all, at least take her, It'll break the set, that's all you need."

"Can't do that, Aste my oste. Be hard enough to pull off an assassination, kidnapping is out of the question."

"They'd help, if you could get to them. I've seen that girl work. It is amazing what she can do."

"So you say, little brother. I can't take the chance. Besides, it's already started." He looked up, frowned at the clouds gathering overhead. "I'm leaving for the Main less than an hour on. I probably won't be back before the Culmination. You take care, you hear?" He closed his hand tight on Asteplikota's uninjured shoulder. "Don't stay out too long. It's going to rain, I don't want you catching pneumonia."