Deceiver

  “I have not seen Targai since I was a boy,” Geigi said to Bren. “It has not changed. Not visibly. Except for the antenna. And the power lines.”

  One of Geigi’s bodyguard said: “Best sit down, nandi. For safety.”

  Geigi sat down. The bus kept up its steady pace toward the gate.

  At any moment, literally at any moment, they might come under fire. And as yet nobody had said that the non-Guild among them should get down on the floor.

  “Should one not get down at this point?” Bren asked Jago.

  “We have surveillance on the grounds, Bren-ji. But if you would feel safer, do so.”

  “The aiji’s men are already here?”

  Jago shrugged. It fell under the heading of not discussing Guild operations, but one began to regard those ancient towers in a different light. He had the very uncomfortable vest on—leaving his head vulnerable, but that was, he hoped, a significantly smaller target, and one did not expect the paidhi-aiji to be wearing body armor.

  He sat where he was, behind opaque windows, as the bus pulled into the drive and trundled on around to the great house.

  A pair of Guildsmen in black exited the house—placing themselves in great jeopardy. And if those were not the aiji’s, Bren thought, his pulse racing a bit, they were likely native to the region, and deeply loyal, to be exposing themselves like that—granted they knew about the Filing.

  Their own situation was potentially looking up—or getting far worse . . . because that brave gesture of peace politely required another, reciprocal gesture, which—he felt a rising tide of apprehension—had to come from Guild of similar rank, unless they meant to wade in shooting.

  The bus braked. Banichi and Jago got up, and Bren bit his lip and knew who had to deal with this welcoming committee.

  He leaned forward, himself. “Nadiin-ji,” he said. “Tell Lord Pairuti he has a safe refuge with the paidhi-aiji if he will take it. Tell them so, urgently.”

  Jago listened, then inclined her head once, grimly, before the door opened and she followed Banichi off the bus—Tano and Algini taking up position with leveled rifles behind them in the doorway thus exposed.

  The bus door faced the welcoming committee. There were weapons in evidence on the other side, but not drawn.

  And wherever Tabini’s men were, it was not, at the moment, here, where such a threatening presence would have been very useful.

  One of the pair said—Bren could hear it clearly: “Stand there, nadi.”

  And Banichi answered her: “Advise Lord Pairuti, nadi, that he has an offer of safety and personal intercession from the paidhi-aiji. Your lord, we believe, is aware of the Filing of Intent.”

  “He is aware of it, nadi.”

  There was a moment of silence, then. Bren could not entirely see what was happening because of the doorframe, but he saw Jago standing quite, quite still, with her hand ominously near her sidearm.

  “There is a signal passed, Bren-ji,” Tano said without diverting his eyes from their potential targets. “Banichi has asked whether they are under duress. They have responded they are under internal threat.”

  Handsigns, that silent language of the Guild.

  They had a problem, then. Marid agents—in the house. These two were out here in a desperate bid to negotiate . . .

  Either that, or these two were lying and intended to set them up.

  Tano said, sharply, “Bren-ji, up! Get off the bus. We are taking the house.”

  Damn! Bren thought, and flung himself to his feet and around the rail to reach the steps with Tano and Algini right with him. He thought he was going to run for the doors. But Tano seized him around the ribs in one arm and outright carried him to the front of the house, setting him down to the side of the entry as Banichi and Jago kicked wide the half-open house doors and fired one volley down the hall.

  Then they were not alone. From cover of somewhere—the ornamental bushes down the drive, the ancient, crumbled masonry beyond, God knew—there suddenly appeared other black uniforms, guns lifted, signal of peace.

  Tabini’s men, Bren thought, heart lifting.

  The two local Guild meanwhile turned their backs to the situation, hands held outward, a declaration they were not going to contest the takeover, Bren saw with a sideward glance. He felt sorry for them: they were in a hell of a situation, relying on his word there was a chance to save their lord.

  But if the wrong word came out of the house, those two would fight. And die without a chance.

  Geigi’s guard had reached the door of the house just a little ahead of Geigi himself reaching Bren’s position. The bodyguard had their rifles aimed generally up, but a scant heartbeat from going level and wreaking destruction down the hall.

  Tano and Algini kept themselves in the way, cutting off view of any proceedings inside the building, while Banichi and Jago continued to issue orders from just inside. Nobody had touched the two local Guildsmen, who had not moved in all this, not a muscle.

  “Lord Pairuti is offered the paidhi-aiji’s intercession!” Banichi’s voice rang down the hall. “Let him come out and surrender to the paidhi-aiji!”

  There was silence inside. Bren was not in a position to see what was going on; there was a large bush and Tano’s very tall body between him and the hall. Tano maintained a grip on his arm with his left hand, the rifle in his right, tucked under his arm. On the other was Algini, also armed, and partially blocking his view of Lord Giegi, who was similarly jammed into the bushes, with four or five of the newly arrived Guildsmen between their positions. The two still-armed bodyguards maintained their posture, waiting, arms outstretched, unmoving.

  “Come out!” Banichi shouted down the inner hall, with Jago standing right by him—her rifle aimed right down that hallway.

  Fire came back, a shot so loud Bren jerked; and in the same muscle-twitch their side fired back.

  “Stay here, nandi!” Tano said, half a heartbeat behind Algini moving. They took up position in the doorway: Bren stood pat, heart pounding, wondering what had happened, whether Banichi and Jago were all right. He could just see Banichi down on one knee, with rifle braced to fire. Nobody was shooting now. And in a moment Bren saw Jago shift into view, standing, rifle covering the hall.

  Algini moved, to insinuate himself past the open door and cover both Banichi and Jago, with no fire at all.

  Then Bren became aware that Guild around them had moved—some vanishing from the driveway without a sound, just gone, when Bren looked back in Geigi’s direction: the corner of the house offered a likely destination. Others had dragged the two locals out of the line of fire and applied medical aid to one of them—who must have been felled by that shot.

  For a moment that gesture of mercy was the only movement, one of the two brought down by a shot presumably from their own side, and surgery being performed right on the driveway, in the cover of the bus.

  Not a nice situation, no.

  But it was over, he was thinking, starting to plan how he was going to get into the hall.

  Banichi and Jago opened fire suddenly, a deafening discharge; and simultaneously moved, with Geigi’s bodyguard at their backs. There was nothing Tano and Algini could do about the situation, not with two helpless lords in their care. Bren had the pistol in his pocket, but he left it there: they already had the example of friendly fire on the driveway. And he stayed right where he was, beside the open door, next to a row of bushes; and they daren’t budge from here. Geigi was immediately behind him.

  Get back to the bus? It was a sitting target, even if it hadn’t gotten so much as a ding in its painted panels on this venture.

  Better to be where they were. Unless things went very, very bad in there.

  And God, there were so many ways it—

  Blast from inside. Grenade, or boobytrap. There were wires that could take a head or foot off. There were a hundred ways the Guild could kill intruders in a territory they had prepared for invasion; and Bren stood there against the bushes trying not to think o
f that.

  Then massive fire erupted inside the building.

  Followed by a deafening silence.

  Stinging smoke wafted out of the doorway.

  And out of that smoke, Jago appeared on a leisurely retreat, spoke code into her com, and looked as if she had understood something in the instant before her eyes shifted for one split-second toward Bren and Geigi.

  “The aiji’s men have come into the house from the garden entry,” Jago said, watching down that hall again, “meeting ours.”

  “Are they all right?” Bren asked in a low voice—not wishing to distract Jago from business; and in fact Jago’s look of concentration never broke from the hall.

  “They have asked the same of us,” Jago said under her breath. “There are targets on the grounds. Probably it will be best to move inside the house, Bren-ji. Now.”

  Bren moved, jammed his hand into his pocket to find the butt of the pistol, and, with Jago, Geigi, and Tano and Algini, rounded the corner into the hallway.

  Banichi, two of Geigi’s men, and a handful of other Guild were the only persons standing under a high pall of smoke in that hall. Two people in civilian dress were sitting on the floor, knees tucked up, against the wall—denoting their noncombatant status, and inconveniently far from any side door. Those were servants.

  Two other Guild lay face down in a pool of blood. He and Geigi were still near the door, with their bodyguards; and Tano, stepping to the side, drew Bren against the wall there—a safer place than mid-hall, in case anybody should burst out of one of the side rooms firing, Bren thought belatedly. Geigi was in the same defensive position, their bodyguards arrayed as a living shield between them and anybody appearing from down the hall, and Algini, at their rear, guarding against anybody trying to retreat into the house and coming at them from behind.

  Not an optimum approach, if they wanted to save Pairuti and what he knew. Bren looked at Geigi and saw distress: not an optimum homecoming, either, with dead in the hallway and house servants trying desperately to keep out of the line of hair-triggered Guild. Banichi signaled the two servants they could move to safety, and they quietly did so, getting into a side room, shutting that door.

  So they were the only possessors of the hall, now. And the whole house grew very quiet for a moment.

  Then shooting erupted outside, somewhat to the rear of the house, and again from the roof right over their heads. Footsteps sounded on the ceiling.

  Attics. Attics in this district were a hazard, and this house, like Najida, like Kajiminda, was in the peakroofed, sprawling style that had a full reach up there. Bren cast a worried look up, tracking that sound.

  “They are ours up there, nandi,” Tano said then.

  That was a relief. What was going on out on the grounds was another matter. Fire kept up.

  And their chances of finding Barb alive grew less and less—if she had ever been here in the first place.

  One had, lifelong, become philosophical about Tabini’s little surprises. Bren had told himself repeatedly it was how Tabini stayed in power. It was the way atevi managed things, and it was not the paidhi’s place to critique it. The paidhi, however, had accepted appointments—had risen as high in politics as it was possible to rise, infuriating Tabini’s opposition, astonishing his supporters.

  And here he was, having involved himself in a district where peace had never existed, not since the War of the Landing, when the Ragi atevi agreement to pull two aboriginal peoples off Mospheira and settle them on this coast had thwarted their own major rivals, the Marid, in their grab for the same coast.

  A quiet district, yes, under the threat the central region posed to any breach of order; but not peace, nothing like peace.

  And the paidhi-aiji had been oblivious to the undercurrents sweeping toward an attack on the Marid, despite Tabini’s personally reconnoitering the region, despite Tabini’s curious engagement with his grandmother on the topic of Edi sovereignty. The paidhi-aiji had gone on assuming Tabini was going to stay out of it and just let his grandmother make her peaceful deals.

  And it was Tabini, of course, who had given his resident human an estate in the plain middle of an old, volatile situation.

  Tabini might well have known the district was a tinderbox when he’d cleared Bren to leave the capital and go vacationing on the coast. Tabini claimed not to have known. But that was not guaranteed to be the truth. Tabini was completely capable of sending somebody in to stir the pot.

  God, at the moment he so wished he’d just gotten a hotel in town.

  Another burst of gunfire, right out front. He hoped Tabini’s men were enough. This was not a good position, standing here in the front hall with the doors open.

  Better than standing out there in the bushes, however.

  And Geigi—he threw a look Geigi’s direction and caught a grim expression. Hell of a homecoming, all around, first at Kajiminda and now at Targai. Geigi and Geigi’s bodyguard surely had their own sentiments about Tabini’s actions—a human was not, possibly, wired to understand precisely that mix of emotions, the profound draw of man’chi toward Tabini and those aggressive urges of a born leader—literally, a born leader—and the draw of their own duty to Pairuti, who’d made a hash of his leadership of their clan. Grasp what a clash of emotions was going on in Geigi? Probably. Intellectually, he could.

  Feel it the way Geigi felt it, in his gut? Not likely.

  Have a clearer head than Geigi did at the moment? He might well. He didn’t trust that gentle Geigi wouldn’t order somebody shot.

  It had gotten quieter outside all of a sudden. That was either good or bad. If bad, they were in the next place trouble would arrive.

  “Nadiin-ji,” he said very quietly. Tano and Algini were on high alert, watching any movement down the long hall, where Banichi and Jago, nearly back to back, were directing men probing other hallways. “How are we doing out there?”

  “The aiji’s men have the roof and the tower,” Tano said, “and are reporting no movement on the grounds.”

  That was a relief. “Barb-daja. Any sign?”

  “No, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “Regretfully, not yet.”

  “The resistence is partly local,” Algini said from behind him, without losing his concentration. “Partly outsider. Marid, likeliest, the first shot, that hit the man out front.”

  Thus starting a firefight—since all the local Guild, aware of the Filing, were going to assume they were under active attack. Their incursion had had everything under control, they’d been about to draw Pairuti out under a safe conduct and the local Guild had been taking it slowly, trying to get the best possible situation for their lord.

  And then somebody had fired and hit probably the Guild senior of Pairuti’s bodyguard, maybe not even aiming at Banichi. The Marid would be completely willing to see the place shot up, Pairuti silenced, his honest Guildsmen dead, and things in as big a mess as they could possibly be.

  That added up to Marid infiltration. Pairuti had let these people in, the same way Baiji had done, and they’d taken over, the way they’d taken over Kajiminda.

  After a long period of maneuvering to get himself in the right in public opinion, Tabini now had a provocation that would be evident to the whole world.

  With his own grandmother right in the middle of it.

  Maybe for once Tabini had even surprised Ilisidi. That would be a first in planetary history.

  Deep breath. Tabini also trusted the paidhi-aiji wasn’t going to get himself killed to no particular advantage. Tabini expected his people not just to sit still in whatever situation he’d engineered them into.

  Damn him.

  “Where is Pairuti at the moment, Tano-ji?” he asked.

  “We believe, in the sitting room, nandi. But we have not gone in there yet.”

  “I need to reach him. I want him alive, Tano-ji.”

  Tano threw him a look.

  “Pairuti can stop this,” Bren said. “At least where it regards local Guild. Can he not? And he has th
ings to say, in court. We need him alive.”

  “Yes,” Tano said abruptly, order taken; he relayed that to Algini, whose attention was fixed on the hall, and Algini nodded abruptly in the affirmative. Communication drew a look from Banichi, and then from Jago, who nodded her own agreement. Geigi looked momentarily confused.

  No time to think, then: Tano seized Bren by the arm and jerked him past Banichi, down the hall, with one of Geigi’s men racing to the fore of them. His gun swung down, his burst of fire shredded the woodwork around the door lock—his kick opened it, and that man whipped around the door to the inside.

  Fire erupted from inside—Bren had started to follow, and Tano snatched him back before he had so much as twitched. Then Jago appeared from the hall behind them, her gun spitting a volley of bullets as she went inside.

  There wasn’t time to say help her—Tano shoved him against the wall and dived to a knee, rifle around the edge of the doorframe. Then got up. Geigi’s man came into view, moving sideways, rifle still leveled, and Bren’s heart skipped a beat, seeing Jago standing in the clear.

  “We have him, nandi,” Tano said, urging him forward, into the room; and Bren swore to himself he would never, ever, ever issue another order to his bodyguard.

  The room was a shambles, three bodies on the floor, blood everywhere, openwork screens flattened and shattered by gunfire, and a lone survivor in a brocade coat standing amid the carnage, a white-haired, lanky aristocrat looking not at all related to Lord Geigi.

  “Lord Pairuti,” Bren said, mustering a breath. “Surrender and I can keep you alive. Do not do this to your staff. They rely on you, nandi.”

  The man turned away, looking ceilingward, seeming distracted.

  And spun about with a pistol in hand. It went off.

  The whole room went to ceiling in a burst of thunder. It was that fast, and it hurt, and Bren couldn’t get a breath, lying flat on the floor with the feeling someone had just hit him, and he had hit his head, which hurt nearly as much as the punch in his gut. His whole brain was shaken, and his ears rang, and Tano had him by the hand and the arm and was hauling up on him, so he was supposed to get up—