Heroes Adrift (2 page)

There were art galleries I wanted to take a look at. And maybe I'd learn to paint. That seemed like an activity with a lot of potential rewards.

After the water and the wine had both gone tepid, I stepped out of the tub and dried off with the warm towels. I brushed out my hair and put on one of my favorite dresses, old and shapeless from frequent washing, soft against my skin and so loose it left my limbs completely unrestrained. I curled up on my settee and immersed myself in the new history text one of my favorite professors at the Shield Academy had given me, sipping at my wine when I turned a page.

I had lit two candles to combat the thickening darkness and had sunk back into the text when a light knock broke into my comfortable little world. “Come in,” I called, closing the book over my finger.

Source Shintaro Karish opened the door and stepped into the room, looking uncharacteristically grim and…guilty? He was, as usual, beautifully dressed, solid colors and simple lines showing off his slim form. An emerald stud in one ear was hidden by the black hair he'd left untied, which meant he'd been running his hands through it.

Karish was too good-looking. Perfect for a character in a play, simply ridiculous in real life. The slanted black eyes, the slightly curling black hair, the perfect cheekbones and jaw. His skin was slightly golden, his teeth straight and white. He was slim with slender hands and beautifully held shoulders. When he smiled, the unfortunate recipient lost all ability for independent thought. It was just too stupid.

He didn't kiss my cheek in greeting as he usually did. He wouldn't even look at me, and he was rubbing his hands together in an annoyingly fidgety manner. “I have some bad news,” he announced.

“How bad?” I asked. He didn't answer me immediately. I slipped my finger out of my book and set it aside. “Have a seat.”

He didn't sit. A chill tapped across the back of my shoulders. “I'm really sorry, Lee,” he said.

Just making me feel worse, here. “Don't try to soften the blow, Taro.”

He chose to take me at my word. “We have to go back to Erstwhile. The Empress is summoning us back.”

“Summoning
us
?”

Karish pulled a piece of paper from beneath his belt and held it out to me. After I took it from him he started pacing.

I unfolded the letter with reluctance.

It was addressed to Taro and was filled with warm greetings and enthusiastic declarations of missing him. He really had made a favorable impression on the Empress.

It was a sizable letter. The relevant paragraph at the end was this:

There were those who dreamed of travel. I wasn't one of them. Weeks of riding and saddle sores and bad food. Making do with rinsing the face and hands instead of bathing. No roof, no floor, no bed. Not comfortable at all. “Why does she want me there? And why did she put it like that? So that you might be made more comfortable.”

He grabbed my glass of wine and finished it, wincing at the taste. “This is why I'm saying sorry.”

I waited.

“Back when I was visiting with the Empress, she didn't want me to leave.”

“That's hardly surprising.”

He shot me a look of impatience. All right, no humor allowed.

“Whatever you might believe, I didn't want to be there. Court life is boring. All the stupid politics and the back-stabbing and the games. There was nothing for me to do there. I didn't know anything about law or politics or social policy. I didn't care who was sleeping with who and what the implications of that would be for the building of the Stanwick drains or the passing of the paper coin bill. It was all just—” He threw up his hands as though finding words to describe it all simply wasn't worth the effort. “And I couldn't go anywhere alone. No matter where I went, there was some court dweller tagging along behind me. And if I so much as hinted that their company wasn't welcome, all of a sudden I was some arrogant parasitic cicisbeo who needed to be sliced down a peg. It was
not
a good time. So after a while, when it looked like the Empress wasn't going to dismiss me any time soon, I asked Her Majesty if I could go home. She was”—he hesitated briefly—“displeased.”

So was I. Why wouldn't he want to go home? Had she planned on keeping him there forever?

“She wanted to know why I wanted to leave. I told her I had a duty to perform. She told me no duty could be higher than one's duty to the Empress.”

Selfish wench. Duty to do what? Provide decoration? She was really willing to take a badly needed Source out of service so she could have something pretty to look at? Why didn't she just have a portrait done of him and hang it in her bedroom?

“I told her I missed my home. She told me a mere few months spent in a city couldn't make it one's home.”

I had to agree with her there.

“I told her I was missing my friends and my life. She said that was impossible, that Erstwhile was filled with cultural resources and entertainments and the most fascinating people. There was nothing to miss.” He started swearing then. “I hate talking to royalty. You have to choose your words so carefully. They are never wrong and they are ridiculously easy to offend. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.”

I could sympathize with that. I hated dealing with them, too. It was like they thought they weren't just people like the rest of us, and that they could bend reality into whatever shape they liked. Of course, royalty weren't the only ones guilty of that little delusion.

“I didn't know what to do. I couldn't think of what to say. And I was afraid to ask anyone else for advice, in case it got back to the Empress. So eventually I came up with an idea that was, well, pretty stupid.” And he looked at me almost fearfully.

I felt my eyes narrow. “What did you say to her, Karish?”

“Well, I didn't say this at first,” he told me quickly. “It was only after weeks of trying to hint about being dismissed, and making all those excuses, that I decided to bend the truth a little.”

“Bend which truth how?”

“Well, you know that there are those rumors about Sources and Shields and Pairs.”

“Yes-s-s-s-s.” All sorts of rumors. Regulars seemed to find the very notion of Sources and Shields and bonding exotic and romantic, and believed all sorts of bizarre things about us. So he needed to narrow it down a little.

“Well, someone asked me a question that I thought might be useful.”

“Stop saying well, Karish.”

“Stop calling me Karish, Lee,” he snapped back. Then he pulled in a deep breath. “I was asked if, once bonded, I experienced any difficulty being separated from my Shield for any length of time.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I hadn't heard that one before.

“I, being an honest lad, was about to tell him the truth, when an evil impulse, no doubt acquired from you, overtook me.”

A horrible thought came to me. “Please tell me you didn't.”

“I confided to him with great trepidation that yes, for certain Pairs it was very difficult to be separated once bonded, and you and I just happened to be one such Pair.”

“All those misconceptions about Pairs out there, and you decided you had to add one more?”

“What would you have done to get away?” he challenged me.

I had no idea. Such a thing would never happen to me. I wasn't Shintaro Karish, ex-lord and the Stallion of the Triple S.

“And of course, the secret I had divulged in confidence was spread throughout the entire court in about two days. Many of them found it quite romantic.”

“Romantic?” I echoed weakly.

“Romantic,” he confirmed. He was no longer apologetic. Rather accusatory, actually. “How could it be anything else? The dashing Shintaro Karish, surrounded by some of the most powerful and beautiful members of society, pining for his Shield back in High Scape. One clever fellow even composed a ballad about it.”

I poured another glass of wine and took a large swallow, hoping it would stop the sinking sensation in my stomach. I wanted to curl up in a hole somewhere. Everyone in Erstwhile thought I was in love with Karish. It was so humiliating.

“The Empress heard of it, of course. And thought it was most amusing. This brightly colored peacock in love with a—” He cut himself off, his lips pinched with disapproval. I knew what the Empress had said, or I had a general idea. A wren maybe. Or a crow. “She said I appeared to be bearing up well, and there was much in the city to mend a young man's heart, and I realized I had to use more drastic measures.”

More drastic than telling the whole city he was in love with me? What was more drastic than that?

“So I stopped eating,” he said. “Some greens to make sure I didn't keel over, but that was it. And I slept as little as possible. Drank a lot of coffee.” He grimaced with disgust. He didn't like coffee. “I went to every party I was invited to, went on every outing I could think of, to make sure I didn't get much sleep. I looked a wreck in about two weeks.”

“Good lord, Taro.” He starved himself? What was the matter with him? There had to have been a better option. “You can't do things the easy way, can you?”

“I didn't know what else to do, Lee. Tell me what I should have done.”

I didn't know. Karish really couldn't afford to displease the Empress. She also knew something strange had gone on in Middle Reach. And wasn't she a mean-spirited bitch, to hold it over him like that? But to abuse himself in that way…“That's why you looked so terrible when you came back.”

He smiled bitterly. “You accused me of going to too many parties,” he reminded me. “You were right, of course.”

Thank you, Karish. Make me feel like a worm. I really needed that.

“Eventually, the Empress believed that I was in some amount of danger and she dismissed me. But she's firmly convinced that we have some deep, mystical love and we can't bear to be separated. So this time she wants you to come with me.”

I sighed and rubbed my face and tried to think. “Damn it, Taro,” I said with not much vigor. I suddenly felt weary.

“I'm sorry, Lee,” he snapped. He wasn't sorry. Not anymore. And why should he apologize, really? He hadn't planned any of it. It was the Empress's fault.

How could she do that? Just snap her fingers and rearrange our lives? We had jobs to do, damn it. “So we're going to Erstwhile.”

“I'm sorry,” Karish said, and this time he seemed to mean it. “I know you were really enjoying things being calm.”

Yes, I was. I should have known better than to think it would last. I'd obviously jinxed it.

But hey, at least I had an excellent reason not to go to Doran's mother's dinner party. Always a silver lining.

Risa Demaris was a regular and a Runner, a professional thief catcher, who had looked for Karish when he'd been abducted by Creol. I liked Risa. Like Karish, she wore her emotions on her skin, and while that could be wearing, I couldn't help but feel a certain admiration for people who could do that. And she was a rough and ready look into the world outside the Triple S, a harsh jolt of reality when I forgot, as I frequently did, that the life I had was quite different from that which most others experienced.

And she was fun.

I went to her flat first because she would be the easiest to say good-bye to. She lived in one of the rougher quads of town, where the streets were narrow and lacking in cobbles, as Runners didn't make a lot of money. There were times when I felt that if Risa would stop spending money on high-priced liquor and other unnecessary things she couldn't afford, she could live in a nicer area. On the other hand, Risa was a good Runner, and as able to take care of herself as anyone I knew. Maybe where she lived didn't matter much to her. And it wasn't any of my business.

It was the evening before Karish and I were leaving, and I hadn't been invited to go tavern crawling, so that meant Risa was probably home. If not, I would have to track her down. Not only would it be plain mean-spirited to leave High Scape without saying farewell, after all Risa had done for me, but she would likely roast me over a spit when we saw each other again.

If we ever saw each other again. I had no idea where this thing with the Empress would take me.

I knocked on Risa's door. I heard no answer. I knocked again, imitating the heavy and distinctive rap I'd heard Runners using, hoping Risa, if she were there, would be less inclined to ignore it. One more knock, and I would leave.

Instead, I heard, “Keep your britches on!” from deep inside the flat, and something rattled. The door was yanked open, and Risa stood there, tying on her black Runner's cloak. In the solid black of the Runner's uniform, Risa was an imposing figure. She stood taller than Karish, with long lean muscles and beautiful brown skin. Her hair was red, brighter than mine and shocking against the darkness of the rest of her person.

At the sight of me, Risa let her hands and her cloak fall. “What are you doing, knocking like that?” she demanded. “I thought you were from Headquarters.”

“I apologize for alarming you, but I need to speak with you.”

“It'll have to wait until tomorrow, Dunleavy,” she said impatiently. “I've got company.”

“Karish and I are leaving early tomorrow,” I said quickly, before she could shut the door. “I don't know when we'll be back.”

“What do you mean, you're leaving?” Risa scowled. “You've only been here, what, two years? Posts last longer than that.”

“We've been taken off the roster.”

Risa stood aside, inviting me in with a gesture of her head.

She did have company, a man lolling in her bedroom. She had been prepared to let him lie there when she thought she was going to answer a call of duty, but she was now insisting that he leave. Over my protests, though I thought I was more embarrassed than the irritated man hopping along as he yanked on his boots on the way to the door.

“I really wish you hadn't done that,” I muttered once the door had closed behind him.

“Sit,” Risa ordered.

“Yes, ma'am.” I sat on the settee.

Risa, having returned to her bedroom for a few moments, came back out without her black boots and tool belt and with a wine bottle. She fetched two mugs from the kitchen and sat in a chair opposite from me, filling the mugs with a golden fluid. She clinked her mug against mine. “Hardy health,” she said.

I tasted the liquid. Not quite wine, it was a little heavier and sweeter than wine. It went down very nicely. “I like this.”

“You should. It cost a press.”

I refrained from commenting on price.

“So, out with it.”

I sighed, hating to be reminded. “There's really not much I can say.” Although we had received no orders on the subject, Karish and I had decided not to tell anyone where we were going, or why. We didn't know what the Empress wanted us to do yet. “We've been taken off the roster and called from High Scape.”

“Reassigned?”

“Possibly. I'm not sure.”

“Can they do that to you people? Just ship you around and not tell you what's going on?”

She was assuming the Triple S was behind the move. I wasn't going to correct her. “Aye.”

“Doesn't seem right to me,” she muttered. “That they can control you like that.”

I was surprised. Risa was a wonderful, generous person, but sometimes, I thought, a little resentful of me, and other members of the Triple S. She worked hard, and from what I could determine, gained little from her labor. She thought Shields and Sources were given too much and did too little for it. I didn't think she blamed us as individuals. It was more like she held it against all of society, that we lived lives she thought so easy.

Now, she was seeing a negative aspect to our lives. Perhaps for the first time. And I couldn't correct her. “It's one of our responsibilities, to go where we're sent. Our lives can't be made only of benefits. It wouldn't be fair.”

Risa snorted. “Life's not fair.”

Feeling depressed, I took another sip of the golden fluid.

“Going to miss you, girl,” Risa said.

I couldn't help feeling pleased. “Really?”

Risa laughed. “Why are you so surprised?”

I shrugged. I'd found it hard to make friends since leaving the Academy. Regulars had strange expectations that I didn't know how to meet. “I'll miss you, too.”

After I'd finished the mug of liquor, Risa offered me another, and despite the temptation, I had to turn her down. There was someone else I had to visit.

I had never been to Doran's rooms before. He believed it was inappropriate, as a lady, for me to visit him. Asking around, I learned that such was a rule followed by many aristocrats, though not by the classes that had any real sense. I was a Shield, so I didn't belong to any class, but I couldn't make Doran believe that. One of his annoying quirks.

Doran, like Risa, had company. In the room he used as a sitting room, four men sat around a small, round table, playing cards. Two of them I had seen before, though I had never met them. They were brothers, I knew, dark haired and dark eyed, stocky and stolid looking, and I had seen them in the street with Doran, at times when I noticed him, but he didn't notice me. A third man was significantly older than the others, his hair silver and thinning, his softer frame ruining the close lines of his vest. The final man, a lanky blond, had managed to sprawl in a stiff, upright chair, and he was smirking at me.

Doran didn't look pleased to see me there, which irked me. He dropped in at the Triple S house often enough. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I apologize for disturbing you at home,” I said formally. “Karish and I have been ordered away from High Scape. We leave tomorrow morning.” Maybe I should have just sent a note.

My announcement knocked the irritation out of him. “For how long?”

“I don't know.”

“Right, you lot,” Doran said to his friends. “Out.”

“Don't make them leave.” I really didn't want privacy. Saying farewell would be easier with an audience.

“Never mind, love,” the older player drawled, picking coins out of the pot in the middle of the table. “I had a lousy hand, anyway.” The others picked out their wagers as well, and all of them squeezed past us to the door. The blond smirker was very tall, and he winked at me as he passed.

“Please be seated,” Doran said, swiping the cards off the table with one hand while moving the table into a corner with the other. “Would you like some wine?”

“No, thank you. I can't stay long. We just got the orders today, and there's still a lot I have to do.”

Doran poured himself a glass from a decanter and sat in the chair across from mine. “What's going on?”

“I can't tell you any more than I already have.”

“Well, where are you going?”

“I can't tell you that, either.”

“I could go with you.”

I tried not to stare at him. “You don't know where we're going.”

“That doesn't matter.”

Gods. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Why would he offer something like that? “I can't tell you what hearing you say that means to me.” Shock, and a bit of panic. Did he even understand what he was suggesting? “But we aren't permitted to have regulars traveling with us. Not in these circumstances.”

“Triple S business,” he said grimly.

No, but it was an excuse I'd used often enough that I felt safe using it then. Doran was one of those people who felt they had no real right to understand how the Triple S worked. It was an attitude I'd never hold, if I were in his place, but it was convenient. “Aye.”

Then we had one of those oh-so-awkward silences, where neither of us knew what to say. I, for some reason, wanted to apologize. Which was stupid. It wasn't my fault we were being called from High Scape.

“So,” I said finally, rising to my feet. “I just wanted to thank you, for all your kindness.” I wanted to wince at that, how stiff and clumsy I sounded. A Shield was supposed to be diplomatic. Hell, we'd gotten classes on how to be diplomatic. But those classes, their purpose had been to enable me to placate regulars who might be offended by the weird uncomprehensible stuff my future Source would say. Which was a joke. Because while Karish had the Source trait of phrasing his thoughts in bizarre ways, and he often baffled people, he never caused offense.

I did that.

And while my manners were all right, Karish had charm. Real charm, not the smarmy, greasy kind. If he were bidding Doran farewell, it would end with Doran feeling disappointed but valued and cherished.

I reached toward the door. Doran moved quicker, standing against it. “So that's it?” he asked.

“I'm sorry.” I couldn't prevent that from slipping out. I was fouling up this conversation beautifully. “It has to be. I have to go.” I reached for the latch again, but his hand was already there. I shot him a look, and he quickly opened the door. “Farewell.”

I did wince as I left, as no one could see me. That had been so spectacularly bad, clumsy, ham-handed, just stupid stupid stupid. Much as I would miss Doran, I was almost glad that I was leaving the next day so I wouldn't have to face him again after making such an idiot of myself.

When I got back to the Triple S house, I helped Karish write notes to all the people he had to inform that he was leaving. He simply didn't have the time to meet all of them personally. He didn't like letting me help; he thought it was arrogant. But it was that or have him up all night writing. And if the Sources and Shields of the six other Pairs found the sight of the two of us writing dozens of letters to all of Karish's followers ridiculous and worthy of laughter, well, at least they had a pleasant last memory of us.