The Lost

Chapter Seventeen: Quicksilver

After five sleeps, Quicksilver went with Dust to the gaming room. He felt stronger, though the sense of unreality continued to plague him, things being difficult that should have been easy.

“Perhaps the company of other men will make you feel more settled,” Dust said, and though he was uncertain, Quicksilver accompanied him. “We need not stay long.”

Thus they sat at one of the tables that dotted the room, a gameboard between them, while Dust explained the rules as though to a child. Looking around the room, at blades and clevermen relaxing over dice or over other games like theirs, the sheen of shiplight on white hair, the soft colors relaxing and pleasant, Quicksilver thought he ought to be at peace. The ship Bright Venture cruised through hyperspace, its passage smooth and effortless. They had taken no damage, and there were no wounded men missing from their number. All should be well.

And yet he bent over the board and could not remember a single move.

It was a simple game, Dust said. It should be simple, a logic puzzle of strategy and counterstrategy, but he could not remember. What moves did the purple pieces make? Was it that they were the ones who only went backwards from their initial placement? He could not remember.

“It will come to you in time,” Dust said soothingly in a low voice. “Just play as best you may. It will strengthen your concentration.”

“Of course.” Quicksilver nodded, bending his head over the board again, caressing the purple piece with his feeding hand. Its edges felt sharp as glass against the sensitive tissue.

Sitting on the floor a few paces away, a group of blades clustered about a low table, a dice game in progress. Their voices were loud, almost loud enough to be impolite in the quiet gaming room.

“He might have been sharp once, but I doubt his blade’s half so sharp anymore!” one of them laughed, a suggestive waggle of the hips leaving little to doubt. “Not for a pretty young queen like that!” He was slight and pale faced, a slight greenish tone to his skin that spoke of the lineage of Night.

One of his companions snorted. “If Queen Steelflower isn’t dead. She probably is, you know, and Guide is just keeping up the pretense. He gave no account of her absence when he was here. Stranger things have happened than a Consort carry on pretending to act in a Queen’s name.”

Quicksilver’s ears pricked, and he looked at Dust across the board. “Isn’t Guide the Consort in Atlantis?”

Dust scanned the board casually, thinking of his next move. “They are speaking of a different Guide. The one they mean is an old blade who is Consort to Queen Steelflower, one of the lesser queens who has only recently joined our alliance. Guide was here not long ago to pledge himself to Queen Death, but his Queen did not come.” Dust shrugged. “Perhaps it is politics, so that if she wishes later she may disavow Guide and the alliance. But she will learn that such a course would be suicide.”

“I’m just saying she could do with a better!” the original wit suggested. “Come, what can that dried up corpse give her?”

“Better service than you,” one of the others said, laughing, his teeth bared. “Let us know when you get your full growth!”

The wit hissed, his fingers flexing, but his companion held his ground.

“Don’t be silly, Ardent. You’re not ready to be Consort yet. Not even to a minor queen such as Steelflower.”

“They said she was beautiful,” the third blade said. “Tiny little feet and a spill of hair like midnight. And she took out one of Locust’s hives without quarter when they trespassed on her feeding grounds.”

“That story’s probably exaggerated,” the one called Ardent said, the slender blade who had spoken first. “Anyhow, it was probably Guide’s battle, not hers.”

“He’s a dried up corpse and he commands his queen at once?” the second blade said, rolling a dice between his long fingers. “Which is it, Ardent?”

“I’m saying that she’d do better with another,” Ardent said smugly, lifting his chin so that his hair fell in soft waves of silver. “And who better to seal a magnificent alliance than myself, our Queen’s own brother?”

“Our queen’s own fruit-fed brother,” the second snorted. “When you are a man you may speak of such things.”

“I am man enough now,” Ardent said, getting to his feet, his long leather coat flicking against the cushions. “As you will see if you try me.”

The second looked him up and down, and then closed his feeding hand deliberately. “I’ll try you now if you like. Just take it like a good boy.”

Ardent sprang, but there were hands to pull them apart, the third blade grabbing Ardent while Dust leaped to his feet.

“The Queen will not like this quarreling,” he said quietly, “Nor knives pulled in the zenana.”

“Be quiet, Cleverman,” Ardent snapped. “You are above yourself.” His eyes flicked over Quicksilver. “And you bring that among us, to sit among men!”

“Watch your tongue,” Dust said, his tone still even. “Quicksilver has the Queen’s favor.”

Ardent twisted about, shaking off the blade’s hands, and his eyes raked Quicksilver from toes to crown. “Queen’s favor!” he spat, his handsome face contorting. “Ha!”

Quicksilver got to his feet, his heart pounding. “I do not know what bad blood there is between us,” he said carefully. “I have been ill and cannot remember. But I do not wish to name myself your enemy.”

Ardent shook his head, his feeding hand contracting. “You do not wish to name yourself my enemy! That is rich! As though you would for a moment be worthy of being the enemy of a blade of the lineage of Night, misbegotten…”

“Ardent.” The third blade put his hand to Ardent’s shoulder. “That is enough. Your sister will not like it.”

“My sister is foolish to listen to such as Dust,” he said, and spun about on his heel. “I will not stay in the gaming room when you bring in such creatures!” He left in a flurry of leather and silk, the heels of his boots hard on the floor.

“Come,” Dust said quietly, and took Quicksilver by the arm.

He did not protest. He felt their eyes on him, their guarded glances.

In the corridor outside their sleeping room he stopped, his hand to Dust’s sleeve. “My brother,” he said softly, “What have I done?”

Dust shook his head. “Quicksilver, it is nothing. Ardent is the younger brother of the Queen, and he is hot blooded. He speaks without thinking and he has little respect for clevermen and the battles that can be won with the mind rather than the knife.”

“Oh,” Quicksilver said. “I have heard of such. But it seemed that rather he held some personal grudge against me.”

“There is nothing,” Dust said, but his eyes did not meet Quicksilver’s. “Put it from your mind.”

And so they spoke of it no more.