The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (10 page)

“Why did you want me to talk to her?” Tremaine asked, looking distractedly around for a place to sit and seeing there wasn’t one; the straight-backed chairs all seemed to be a vital part of some arcane filing system.

“I wanted to confront Balin with someone who has been to the Gardier world. I know she’s become increasingly uneasy with our new knowledge of the Gardier—the Aelin.” Averi glanced at Tremaine with a thin smile. “I know she wasn’t pleased the first time one of us was able to speak to her in her own language, but you should have seen her face when we asked her about the Liaisons.”

Tremaine nodded. “Liaison” was the closest the Rienish could come to the Gardier word for the men who had had small crystals implanted in their bodies, who passed along orders from the Gardier’s upper echelons. Though Nicholas had lived among them so long, he had never been able to find out just who the Liaisons were liaising with, or why. “And you think she’s some kind of observer, sent to spy on the other Gardier by Command or Science or whichever.”

“Yes. There’s apparently a deep distrust between the Command and Science classes.” Averi picked up a sheaf of papers, frowning absently. “She can write and read, which makes her too well educated for their Service class.”

They had found out so much about the Gardier in such a relatively short time, going from knowing next to nothing, not even what they called themselves, to actually visiting their world and one of their cities, stealing a new prototype airship, and to having all Nicholas’s accumulated knowledge after spending the last few years as one of them. They also had a few old Aelin books, scavenged out of an abandoned library. Nicholas had read them for the Viller Institute researchers, and the books had turned out to be novels, adventure tales of explorers and traders of some earlier age, bearing little resemblance to the Gardier life Tremaine and the others had glimpsed in Maton-devara.
But speaking of Nicholas….
Tremaine asked carefully, “Why did you want me to try, though? Hasn’t Nicholas already spoken to her?”

“Yes, but—” Averi hesitated, his brows drawing together, and Tremaine looked down to hide her sudden realization.
He meant, “I wanted to confront Balin with someone who has been to the Gardier world who I don’t distrust as much.”
It was something of a revelation.

Averi finally finished, “You had quite an effect on her the first time you spoke to her. I think she’s afraid of you.”

Tremaine glanced at Ilias, who lifted an ironic brow, and said in Syrnaic, “He’s talking to you this time.”

T
he room used for questioning was bare, with stained plaster over battered wainscoting, but it had a working radiator and was warmer than the hall outside. The only furniture was a scarred table and two straight chairs. The Gardier woman was already seated in one, and two guards, one Rienish and one Capidaran, stood back against the wall. It wouldn’t matter how large the audience was, as Tremaine would question her in Aelin, the Gardier language, something only a few members of the Rienish command knew.

Balin was a tall woman and lean, dressed in a loose white civilian shirt and pants. Her hair was growing back from the bare fuzz that seemed to be regulation for Gardier Service people, probably because she hadn’t been allowed access to a razor or scissors. The color was a muddy brown and it fluffed out around her ears in a particularly foolish way. She looked up, her plain face changing from a kind of weary defiance to watchfulness. “Oh good, you remember me,” Tremaine said, with a patently false smile. She took the other chair, slouching into it casually.

Ilias went to lean against the wall behind Tremaine, and Balin’s eyes followed him with cold disgust. Her gaze came to Tremaine again, and she said in her husky voice, “You. What do you want of me now?”

“The same as I did before. Nothing,” Tremaine replied in Aelin. The sphere had given the language to her the same way it had given her Syrnaic, so she knew it nearly as well as Nicholas did. She shrugged, idly examining her fingernails, surprised to discover that she still hated this woman. When Balin had been captured on the island, squatting on the ground, bound with the chains the Gardier had used on their slaves, she had demanded that her captors surrender. Tremaine would have shot her if Giliead hadn’t taken the rifle away. She said, “But the others have some idea that you were sent to the island to spy on Command for the Scientists or on the Scientists for Command. That you’re not as stupid and useless as we assume.”

Balin didn’t betray any surprise at Tremaine’s knowledge of her language, but she must be used to it now from Averi and Niles and the others who had questioned her. Gardier considered learning other languages as an activity only pursued by a lower order of beings. Balin’s thin lips twisted in amusement. “I know what you want.”

Tremaine met her gaze, a renewed stirring of rage making her eyes narrow and her jaw tighten. She had the realization that she really, really disliked people telling her they knew what she wanted, knew what she thought, when she didn’t know herself and they couldn’t possibly know. She smiled thinly, recognizing that Balin had an unerring talent for saying the wrong thing to her at just the right time. “I’m all attention.”

“You want to know how we make the avatars. This is obvious. The others think you want to make them for yourself.” Her face hardened with contempt. “I know you want to unmake them, to get those inside— out.” She snorted. “You are pathetic. You could make hundreds of avatars but you will never defeat us because you are afraid to do what must be done.” Her gaze flicked to Ilias again. “You sneer at us for our contempt of the primitives, but you let them serve you—”

Tremaine wasn’t sure what else was said. She was on her feet, standing over Balin, gripping the woman’s chin hard enough to feel the bone under the flesh. Through the roaring in her ears she was conscious of the Capidaran guard caught flat-footed and taken aback, the Rienish guard startled enough to drop one hand to his sidearm. Balin looked up at her, eyes wide, her pose of world-weary contempt forgotten. Her voice coming out in a harsh rasp, Tremaine said, “Do you know how to get them out?”

“No.” It was a pitch above Balin’s usual husky tone.

“Were you an observer?” Tremaine asked, but she knew she had lost the benefit of surprise.

Balin’s eyes flickered. “No.”

Tremaine let her go, making her expression deliberately bored. “Yes, that was very convincing.” She headed for the door, ignoring the guards. Ilias followed her out, shutting it after her.

Tremaine stood in the corridor, running her hands through her hair. She was trembling with rage, ready to hit something. Preferably Balin. Ilias watched her with concern, then said, “So she still thinks she knows everything.”

Tremaine took a deep breath to calm herself, and her mouth quirked wryly. “That came across through the language barrier, did it?”

He shrugged. “She’s awfully arrogant for someone who was just an ordinary warrior. The prisoners from the Wall Port outpost aren’t like that. I think you’re right that she’s a spy on her own people.”

Averi came out of another doorway, from the room where he had been listening in on the questioning. He was frowning, and Tremaine said quickly, “We think she is an observer spy, for what that’s worth. But it doesn’t mean she knows anything about the Gardier that Nicholas didn’t already find out.”

Averi let his breath out, nodding. “I can’t imagine they would send a particularly high-level member of either Command or Science on a mission like that. But all the other prisoners have broken down and talked fairly openly. The fact that she won’t, and that she was part of that original group the Liaison seemed so anxious to dispose of on the
Ravenna,
makes it seem as if she has some important information.”

Tremaine nodded, relieved he wasn’t going to mention her outburst. Maybe it had looked planned rather than spontaneous and heartfelt. “Niles’s confusion charms aren’t helping?”

Averi’s lips twisted ruefully. “They only help when we know the right questions to ask.” He glanced up, his frown clearing, and Tremaine saw Lady Aviler advancing up the corridor toward them.

Lady Aviler had organized the refugees on the
Ravenna
and continued to do so in Capistown, finding them accommodation and using her influence with the wealthier Rienish and the upper-class Capidarans to provide employment for them. The extraction of the Maiutan ex–prisoners of war from the refugee hostel by the Lowlands Missionaries had gone very smoothly; Tremaine had suspected Lady Aviler’s well-manicured hand in it. She was a slender older woman, wearing her graying dark hair in the latest appropriate style for matrons and a well-tailored blue wool suit.

“Colonel, Ilias.” She nodded a cordial greeting to Averi and bestowed that special smile on Ilias that Rienish noblewomen of a certain generation saved for handsome young men whose normal style of dress displayed bare arms and chest. Ilias gave her a brilliant smile back. “Tremaine, I wonder if I could have a word.”

“I’ll be back,” Tremaine said over her shoulder, as Lady Aviler had a firm grip on her elbow and was walking her down the hall.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the offices, Lady Aviler said, “I wanted to ask if you could give your father a message for me.”

“Probably,” Tremaine agreed cautiously, unwilling to commit to anything where Nicholas was concerned.

Lady Aviler didn’t argue about the qualification. “If you can, please let him know Lord Chandre has been to see the Princess Olympe again.”

Tremaine frowned at the unfamiliar name. She hadn’t ever been much interested in the personalities at Court and had no idea now where most of them had ended up after the evacuation. “Lord Chandre? Did he come over on the
Ravenna
?”

“No.” Lady Aviler’s lips pursed, as if she had just tasted something unpleasant. “He’s been here for some time and he’s apparently made himself a power in the Rienish expatriate community here in Capistown.”

Tremaine’s brows lifted. “I see.” She did see. Rienish nobles who had abandoned ancestral estates to flee Ile-Rien early in the war weren’t exactly well regarded. In many ways it was an unfair judgment; many Rienish travelers had been trapped abroad by blockades and the sudden danger of any kind of overseas travel. But she could understand why Lady Aviler, whose husband and son had stayed to the very last to accompany the royal party to Parscia, might not see it that way. Lady Aviler would be there too, if she hadn’t been sent here with the Princess Olympe. “And that’s not a good thing?”

Lady Aviler gave her a sharp sideways glance, then evidently decided to be forthcoming. “I knew his family before the war. He alternated between being an idler and starting a number of failed speculations and businesses. His father had to continually supply capital to buy him out of financial disaster, and he also has some unpleasantly close financial ties to a number of Bisran nobles. Now he has many business interests and a great deal of property here in Capidara, and great… financial influence with the Capidaran Ministry.”

“And he wants to be an advisor to the princess?” Tremaine snorted. Olympe Fontainon was still a schoolgirl, barely out of childhood. She had been sent here as a precautionary measure, in case the Queen and the prince didn’t reach Parscia successfully.
That’s all we need, a worthless royal favorite.

“I’m not sure advice is what he has in mind.” Lady Aviler sounded thoughtful. They had reached the end of the hall, where it opened into a gallery looking down on the drafty foyer. Men and women in business attire still hurried back and forth below. A Capidaran Magistrate, dressed for criminal court in elaborate blue robes and trailing a shoal of black-suited solicitors, passed by below them. Lady Aviler leaned on the polished railing, tapping her fingers on it. “His continued visits to the princess give him an appearance of being involved in the war effort. It could give him even more influence on the Rienish here in Capidara.”

Tremaine didn’t think she had much of a head for politics, but this sounded… distressing. She was aware of an unpleasant sensation in her stomach. She didn’t have any particular trust in Count Delphane, but he had been an advisor to the Queen and involved in the upper levels of the Ministry since she could remember; he was a known quantity. And she didn’t want someone who hadn’t taken the risk on the
Ravenna
making decisions for those who had. “There’s a reason she can’t refuse to see him?”

“She can’t afford to offend him, at this point. She isn’t the Crown Princess. Not as far as we know.” Lady Aviler’s lips grew thin and her expression bleak.

No word from Parscia then,
Tremaine thought, feeling the sinking sensation grow worse. They had an heir safely ensconced here, so it shouldn’t matter whether the Queen and the prince survived or not, but Tremaine found that after considering herself apolitical at best all her life, she now feared change worse than anything. There had been so much of it, and all for the worse. “Do you want me to tell Nicholas to take care of Lord Chandre?”

Lady Aviler lifted a brow, and said wryly, “Good God, child, that wasn’t subtle. No, just tell him Chandre’s been to see her.”

G
iliead heard Gerard outside and opened the door. The wizard was standing on the step while down in the street, several people were climbing out of a pair of dark-colored horseless wagons. “The people we were waiting for?” Giliead asked, eyeing them thoughtfully. The clouds had closed in and a light rain had started, spattering on the dusty pavement.

Gerard glanced back. “Yes, the Capidaran delegation to examine the new circle. Florian will be a little later, she was detained at the ship.”

Nicholas had reached the door by that point, standing next to Giliead to look out. At Gerard’s words he growled something under his breath in Rienish that Giliead didn’t understand but could guess the import of.