Defiance, page 32
Just find their way across the woods, along this spur of Kajiminda’s private market road that led to Separti’s outer wall. It was a fair distance. The plane was not pushing speed. It would intentionally take them the better part of an hour to Separti—and the force from Najida, and the bus, would advance well along their separate courses by then. Their arrival at Separti should give the Township promise of Midagi’s force as allies—and not enough time for the Shadow Guild to fortify the gate or disable the boats.
They leveled out, on course, he was sure, but now they had only a night sky for a view—nearly free of clouds, showing stars, many, many stars, serene and apart from all the chaos of the night. One of the stars—actually the planet Maudit—was a steady, bright beacon in the west.
They had time now to catch their breath. The beat of the engine was a constant, unstressed. Time assumed a heart-pounding tedium. All they had to do was one pass over Separti, one over Jorida. In planning, Reijiri had sworn he would make that second pass a little less rapidly, and, thinking it over, Bren had said—reluctantly—“Maybe speed on that Jorida pass would still be a good idea. Given they will know what we are on this run.”
To which Reijiri had nodded, on further consideration. “One is moved to agree. Fuel should not be a problem. We will be moving fast once we get there, but our path is more direct across—Talidi is on its own, this time.”
Bren did not look forward to that downward run at Jorida, and he distracted himself from that thought instead by recalling what detail he had seen of Separti on their approach from the gate—the paved dockside, the wooden piers, boats, from two-masted motor-sailers to an outrigger trawler, all frozen in one brief view that had not, at the time, been still-frame, but a panicked rush. Astonishing, that clarity he had. Not entirely trustable in planning. He could not rely on it, but precision in releasing the paper rain was not required; and boats might move, but that long street to the waterfront would not. The wind was out of the east and a little south. As Reijiri had laid it out in planning, they would bank left this time, come over the defensive wall, over the roofs, and down that same main street that led to the harbor. He thought he might delay the release just a little, not to have many of the papers blow back over the gate. Save it for the heart of town where authority was and the taverns of the dockside where the owners of the boats might be.
If luck was with them, if Separti had welcomed the first message, they would not be shot at, this time.
Well . . . unless the Shadow Guild already had operations here: a few operatives could have infiltrated the Township, even going back years—one would actually be surprised if not. The question was whether the newly-arrived Shadow Guild, the elite, would spend manpower trying to take firm control over Separti, especially since their last flight, or whether they might have other things on their mind. The Shadow Guild on those ships would make their moves on the fortified height of Jorida to try to link up with or capture the Master, his assets and information—any concentrated move to organize a defense of the lower town might well have come only when the papers started raining onto the streets. It was even possible, if the situation were unfavorable and the Master had managed to stand them off, that they might even decide to bolt and run—but if that were the case, escaping by ship was no help—they were out of ports; and scattering afoot into the wilds of the south offered them little benefit except time. Getting control of Jorida at whatever costs had the largest, longest future in it for them—but even if they had agents prepositioned inside the citadel, and could use its defenses, they were still down to threatening the inhabitants and trying to bargain, a short-term situation, if they were walled in there.
Having the dowager follow their transfer to Jorida and advance against them from two sides within hours of their arrival was surely not their most hoped-for situation. They would have wanted months to work. Years, if possible: theirs had been a long-range pattern of positioning assets. It was possible they knew or at least had heard rumors of problems on the station. Possible they envisioned the aishidi’tat occupied with other matters, other problems, for years to come, not the least of which was Ilisidi’s newest agreements. With Kajiminda’s lord absent for years and the Edi in charge of the middle peninsula, they might have thought they had a grand opportunity in Ashidama . . . much better for their style than holding off the regular Guild in a Marid no longer fearful of them.
But Kajiminda’s lord was not as absent from the equation as they might think, and the folk of Separti were not all that tightly bound to Jorida. Their long persistence on Kajiminda’s shore, through lord after lord of Kajiminda, their trade interspersed with periods of acquiescence to Jorida but never surrender—their persistence in dealing with Lord Geigi, their collusion with his scoundrel nephew, their quiet politicking to maintain trade with the Edi despite Talidi’s state of intermittent warfare and Jorida’s attempted intervention—all of it said Separti’s politics was not Jorida’s or Talidi’s. Separti had the largest population in Ashidama Bay, never mind Jorida’s control of the grainfields, the farmers, and the shipping.
The Shadow Guild at this stage of things was surely not enough to hold all three towns, when the Master of Jorida himself could scarcely do that. And Kajiminda’s Hold on. You are not alone . . . was at least some hope the people of Separti would let the Guild blow right through them and deal with their problem before it blossomed.
Midagi must be past Kajiminda by now. Cenedi’s group on the bus had surely reached the open road on Ashidama. The darkness of trees continued below them, to a glance over the side. The engine continued its steady, comforting sound.
“We are fortunate in the weather tonight,” Reijiri commented. “The wind will continue to blow fairly briskly from the west, which will be fine for a landing at Najida. How are you faring, Bren-ji? It is a little colder tonight—decidedly colder at altitude.”
“One could wish for gloves, but I do have pockets.”
“The engine does not favor cold, or cold does not favor the engine. Still we are running smoothly, but if it does complain, do not take alarm. We have no lack of fuel.”
“I thank you for the warning.”
“We shall be over Separti fairly soon—we shall make a quick transit, trusting the wind to spread the papers, then gain altitude over the bay before we reach Jorida. We shall bank sharply above the citadel height, then descend, and bank to the right. That should give you ample time to loose the notes as we descend at speed, and put us in line with Kajiminda across the bay to the northeast.”
“I promised my staff to be home for breakfast. You will be very welcome to join me.”
“I shall be delighted.—We are coming up on lights. I believe we are in line for the gate.”
There was an obliging roll of the plane to give him a view. Bren strained to make out the gate, to no avail.
“Your eyesight will always be keener than mine. I trust yours.”
“I am fairly certain. I believe I see lights in the distance, too, which would be Jorida at this angle. We are exactly on schedule.”
Bren had his watch. Seeing it in the dark, through the goggles, was fairly hopeless. He did not try. “Good luck to us, then.”
“Good luck to us,” Reijiri echoed him. “I shall line up to follow the same track as before. We know there are no power lines on that route.”
One wished Reijiri had not said power lines. He began to envision them.
“We shall be moving faster over Separti this time, as well, and for the same reason,” Reijiri said. “Be prepared.”
“I shall be.” Bren opened the first bag, testing the strap that should retain it. He gathered as large a quantity of papers as he could hold in one chilled hand, organized everything as best he could, and firmly clamped the second, equally critical bag, with his leg against the seat.
“We are there!” Reijiri exclaimed and the plane banked. The engine sound increased. Bren braced his feet against the pit, maintained a firm grip on the bag with one hand, his fistful of notes in the other.
“Give it a count of seventy, Bren-ji! Then release them!”
He could see the town lights distinctly. He thought he could see the wall. He would have given it half seventy, but Reijiri was undoubtedly reading the wind. He counted. He waited.
The plane banked very steeply. He saw housetops. He released the papers and grabbed new handfuls as fast as he could—he saw people in the lighted streets, people pointing up, reaching up as the papers flew, people waving—some on rooftops, some rising from newly-made little defensive forts of boxes and bags and such in the streets. People had read their message.
Papers flew, a white torrent in the lights from the town, caught by the wind and flying across the roofs and down the street, inhabitants chasing them into nooks and crannies and the edges of the street, paper flying down the side streets. He threw handful after handful and then upended the bag, all in one wild stream, onto the plaza near the docks.
The plane roared up over the masts of fishing-boats and kept rising, rising, as Bren worked to exchange bags, pinning the spent one beneath his knee, pulling the one for Jorida, the smaller one, into his lap. Chilled fingers did not help with the fastenings. He finally resorted to his pocketknife and cut it—dropped the knife, but got the cord undone and the package open while the plane climbed over the darkness of the bay. He gathered a fistful of papers, the same as the other, as many as his hand could possibly hold, sucked in breaths and anticipated that giddy bank and stall at the top of the rise as the climb tugged at the sack and his arms—waiting for the downward pitch.
It came, in darkened heights, and the plane banked extremely, diving toward fire and smoke in the lower town. In the harbor. A ship was burning. Vision blurred. He fought, battered by the wind, to get his papers over the side as fast as he could. There were faint pops, unsure whether it was the engine or gunfire—and fires, at least two, what might be resistance underway in the street. Barricades. Definitely barricades down there.
Fistful after fistful—he bashed his knuckles, releasing papers as he could, getting them back in his face and fearing they might be in Reijiri’s. Pull up, he wished Reijiri, completely blind to where they were on the downward rush. Pull up, pull up.
Then the engine roared and the pressure dragged at him—with a straight-down memory of the ships and fire and dock off the right wing as they righted themselves and began to climb again. Away from the dark water, up into the light-blinded dark of the sky, and climbing. He thought, for a moment, there was a tiny spot of light on the floor between his feet, but he blinked, and it was gone. Illusion. Possibly it had been his eyes. The pressure might have caused it.
Temporary problem, that . . . he hoped.
He still had the sack, not quite empty. That was all right. They had dumped most of it. There was a fluttery sound off the left wing, but they had had that, from the prior damage.
They were still rising, but moderately. Sanely. Flying straight ahead into the dark.
“Well done, Bren-ji.”
“Very well done, Jiri-ji. We did it.”
“It was a good release.”
“I kept the bag, this time.”
“Indeed.”
There was silence for a time. Then they banked right: a fairly lengthy adjustment.
And leveled. Headed for Kajiminda, he thought, and on to Najida, and a safe landing. The sun would be rising soon, with chaos in their wake, chaos to occupy the heights and help Cenedi . . . and Banichi . . .
“We have a problem,” Reijiri said, disturbing the sense of triumph, “and there is water under us.”
“What sort of problem?”
“Fuel,” Reijiri said. “We seem to be losing it fairly rapidly. I believe we have picked up a hole at Jorida—that, rather than a loose line, to judge by the rate it is dropping. Your seat cushion is a life-preserver, Bren-ji, that is usually beneath the seat. We are a coastal clan. I am trying to get us to shore, however.”
“Which shore?”
“Ashidama, unfortunately. At this rate, I fear we cannot make Najida; it is questionable we can even make shore in that direction, and there is only woodland there if we do. The grainfields and the roads on the Jorida side, granted we can get there, are the best choice for a landing.”
Ashidama. That turn. The glow he could just see to the right was not dawn. That was—he stretched to check—Jorida. That was far from good news, but it was better news than the dark, cold water under them. Bren drew one breath considering that possibility.
And all possibilities.
“The bus,” he said, “will be coming up that road.”
“It seems our best option for a landing,” Reijiri said, and banked gently left. “Let us get over land first, shall we, look for the bus, see how far our fuel will hold, and see whether the grainfields look inviting.”
18
“We have no great amount of information,” was the report from Cajeiri’s elder aishid, his grim, grey-haired caretakers, summoned to his little office as they had come in, before breakfast, before the sun was even up—but he had told Eisi he wanted to see them, at whatever hour.
There was discomfort in his dealings with the elder four. There was always reluctance when he tried to get specifics. They had probably come in from no further away than Guild Headquarters, in the heart of the city, but they might as well be on the space station for all the access he had had to them. They were probably tired. They had probably been up all hours of the night, doing things that might be important to the war in the Marid; and they seemed still to be answering to Guild orders, which was not the way he understood things should go—not for anybody in Father’s household—except as Father ordered the Guild.
So he still could not order their comings and goings, though Father could. And maybe Father had sent them back to the Guild, to consult or whatever they did.
Maybe Father had thought he would be so safe inside the apartment he had no need of them, and maybe the Guild needed them. Father had changed his mind on that score, calling them back to watch him. And what this elder aishid thought of him, now, the way they generally looked at him and the youngers, all unreadable and with that shield up—that had never changed.
They likely saw him as a child, a problem that should stay safe in the Bujavid and let adults run the world as they pleased. They probably thought if they just kept him uninformed, that would keep him and his younger aishid safe and harmless. But there was nowhere in the world safe if the worst things happened. And they, more than most, had to know that, too. He had gotten out of bed to deal with them. He had dressed to deal with them, not to be standing there barefoot in his nightshirt and with his hair around his shoulders, trying to get things out of a Guild unit all in uniform. He put on his coat and went to his office, where he had asked Liedi to send them.
There were five chairs there, for exactly such a conference. Rieni, Janachi, Haniri, Onami—all were seated, when he came in, all frowning, anticipating a request for information which they would avow was impossible to share.
And all having the power to report, to places he could not regulate, things that they might suspect . . . or faults they saw whenever they were here.
It had become a standoff. He kept things from them. They kept things from him. At times he wanted things the way they had been, but he could not order them to leave his service. Only Father had that power, even if he were grown. And clearly they saw their assignment as to keep him safe—and to prevent him going on such missions as he had sent Lord Tatiseigi.
He had determined all on his own that he should not go to Dur himself, had he not, much as he would wish to have flown where Liedi had? He had done that.
And that letter of Father’s, that said there would be no regency, while they were talking about possibly losing mani—that had come down while they were gone, had it not? Everything had changed. And they had not been here to know that.
Everything had changed. It meant it was not games he was playing. He began a fight literally for his life, his father’s, his mother’s, and his sister’s lives; and mani’s. If the succession did suddenly grow thin, in losing mani, and therefore the East, and himself with only a paper claim on the aijinate—these four Assassins would turn very, very important.
And they had to be his. Not the other way around. He had to use them. Or they were useless.
“I have talked to my father,” he said, taking his seat, as they all sat down. He picked every word carefully. “I know I am young. But you should know, nadiin, and you may ask him about this: I have not spent the last several years playing with toys. I have not had time. I have only had Boji for games. And he is going away. Now Father says should anything happen, there will be no regency, no matter how old I am, or am not, and that I would take up the aijinate ahead of my great-grandmother. I do not want that day. But it could happen.”
They were, perhaps, surprised by that statement. It was hard to read them. They said nothing. But he thought he read that much.
“So there are no toys, nadiin. I know my great-grandmother. I know Lord Tatiseigi better than my father does. I did all I did to send Lord Tatiseigi to her, and I am not sorry about it, except it was not as well planned as it might have been—even if I had consulted my own aishid. I tried to keep them clean of all of it, because I was worrying about you being upset with them and I cannot defend them from you. That is not how things should be. But it was. I apologize for not trusting you, if it was unjustified. But you were not here. I could not inform you.”
Rieni, Guild senior, started to say something. Cajeiri lifted a hand, a no, and Rieni stayed, to his slight surprise, silent.
“That is one thing,” he continued in that silence. “And when I realized I had not thought about the Guild encampment, I waited a certain time, went to my father, and the Guild at Najida was warned to let them land safely. It seems now that mani is faring better than we thought. But all of that is not the point. The point is that, in my opinion—and I have talked about it with Father—I did the right thing, to send Uncle down there. He is protected by the camp and in reach of the Red Train. As is mani. As is nand’ Bren. So I am not stupid. Stupid would be for people to lie to me or to keep things from me. Because I will do things if I think they need to be done. Father agrees that I am to have the same information he does, as soon as he does. That has changed. His door will always open to me: that has changed. And you may ask him about that. But from now, you have to tell me things you know. And you have to do what I ask you to do. If I cannot depend on that, or if anyone else’s orders can prevent that, I need to know it. If you have orders from any other place, I need to know it. I have to have a way to contact you at all hours, and I need to know that you will deliver my messages only where I send them and go only where I send you. It is the reason of the eight, is it not, that half of an eight always be able to be sent?”
