He caught glimpses but needed to see more. Needed to make sure, because if what he thought he'd seen was proven right, then the message he'd sent with Nophel-that risky message, sent with an unstable, perhaps mad man-was already too late.
"Curse you, Nophel, you'd better carry that message tube well!" He picked up his slash pipe and inhaled once more, closing his eyes to weather the rush. His blood was thick with decades of slash use, and the more he took, the more he needed to feel its effect. It was akin to breathing-a necessity, not a pleasure. He tried to present the acceptable face of addiction, and mostly he succeeded. But it was during these private moments that he hankered after the unbridled drug rush he no longer felt. He inhaled again, sucking deeply, and his lungs were like rocks in his chest.
When he opened his eyes, the image had clarified a little. Whatever had upset the Scope seemed to have settled, and Dane sat motionless for a while with his hand on the focus ball, afraid to shift in case the Scope sensed him again.
Dragar's Canton looked silent and still. The Scope was aimed at the shadowy junction between two massive domes, curving up to the left and right with the dark gulf at the screen's center. Dane could not imagine these shells ever breaking open-doors slipping aside, Dragarians streaming out. And there lay their deception, in the stillness they had presented over the centuries and the way they had removed themselves from the currents of Echo City. Dragarians were a thing of the past, beyond the memory of anyone alive today. Forgotten, they had become phantoms.
Dane blinked, breathed in more slash, and then something moved across the screen. He gasped and shifted his hand, edging the Scope to the right. It moved too far and blurred, but he corrected the movement, not thinking too hard about which levers and slides he touched, simply relying on instinct. He'd seen Nophel at work here often enough; all he had to do was…
There. He stroked the focusing ball, the picture cleared, and a doorway was open in the left dome's shadow. Several shapes streaked inside, crawling across the surface of the dome like ghourt lizards on a dawn ceiling, and the doorway closed behind them.
"They're going home," Dane whispered, a haze of slash smoke obscuring his view. He turned away from the mirror and closed his eyes, hand clasping tight around the pipe in his right hand. It had once been the hip bone of a tusked swine, carved and smoothed by one of the most talented bone artists in Marcellan Canton, and it was only the quality of its manufacture that prevented it from crumbling in his hand. His heart thundered, sweat ran across his expansive body, and he tried to rein in his darting thoughts. His mind was rich and strong, but sometimes it went too wild. Sometimes, the slash took it that way.
They're going home, so they must already have what they wanted. That poor, wretched thing my love the Baker made and sent out-he's back, and they have him.
"We're too late," he muttered, and if he'd been able he would have gone to the new Baker then and there and cried at her feet. The Dragarians have found the visitor already, and if he's who I hope-who I fear-they'll remain silent no more. And we have no idea what they've been doing under their domes all this time. The Marcellans had sent spies, of course, hundreds over the centuries. But none of them ever came back.
Dane stood from the chair and staggered a few steps from the viewing mirror and controls. His legs shook. He felt sick. If the Dragarians believed they had their savior, they would do whatever was in their power the bring about the end of Echo City and usher in their prophesies of Honored Darkness. "We have to prepare for war," he said, and that word was beyond belief. "I have to see the Council, persuade those blinkered old bastards to go to war."
"Not all so blinkered, Dane," a voice whispered in the shadows. "Though most are bastards."
Dane caught his breath, looked around, and the darkness resolved into several swishing red cloaks. The Scarlet Blades came forward-two men and two women-and each of them looked terrified. They must have known already that they were here to kill someone they had served all their lives.
It was that more than the voice that convinced Dane he was discovered. Jan Ray Marcellan was there, and that was bad enough. But he had never seen a Blade look so afraid. "Jan Ray," he said, trying to level his voice. I'm not afraid of her. "I never thought to see you in this place."
Jan Ray came forward out of the shadows, tall and old and still as graceful as when she'd been a beautiful young woman. There were those who claimed that the Hanharan priestess was pure and unsullied, maintaining her birth-day innocence in deference to Hanharan and to better aid her total devotion to his cause. And there were also those who would whisper, given assurances of anonymity, that on occasion Jan Ray procured young girls from some of the worst rut-houses in Mino Mont and made them fuck her with chickpig hooves.
"I'm no great advocate of it," she said, looking around with distaste. "Hanharan guides our vision; we have no need of the Baker's… monsters. But it gives comfort to my kin. To see the city, they believe, is to own it."
"Haven't we always owned it?" Dane asked, offering a half smile in the vain, evaporating hope that her visit was innocent.
"We?"
The Scarlet Blades had spread around Dane, boxing him in against the viewing mirror and controls. They were not yet disrespectfully close, but neither were they too far away. Any one of them could be on him in a blink.
"I was just about to leave," he said. "I have grave news for the Council-"
"I can relay that news, Dane," she said. She paused before him, and once again he was amazed at her grace. When she moved she seemed to flow, the loose black clothing of a Hanharan priestess a flock of shadows making her their home. And when motionless, as now, there was a stillness to her that was almost unnatural. Her expression never shifted; her mouth barely moved when she spoke. Such economy of movement was the mark of someone in complete control of herself.
And of the four Blades as well. He should not forget them. Inner Guard, highly trained, unendingly loyal to the Marcellans, these soldiers would nevertheless obey priestesses over politicians at any time of the day or night. That was the fruit of their indoctrination.
"It's news I should take myself," he said.
Jan Ray smiled. He rarely saw that. It was horrible. "Where is your deformed bastard today?"
How dare she? Insolent bitch!
"I'm not certain where Nophel is. I'll be reprimanding him when I find him; he should have been here, especially today, when-"
"I suspect he's been reprimanded already." Another of her habits-interrupting. It gave her control over any conversation.
"The Dragarians have emerged," he said. Truth is best right now, just… be sparing with it. "I'm not sure why, or what they've come for, but we should send-"
"Should we?"
"Send the Scarlet Blades north immediately. To protect us."
"Protect us from those unbelievers? They've hidden themselves away from Hanharan's smile for five hundred years, Dane. What could we possibly have to fear from them?"
Dane glanced at the Blades, each of them with one hand on their sword. Ready to draw; ready to move. He breathed deeply, wondering at his chances. I'm fat and they think I'm slow. They know me as a slash user. That's all I have.
"The ones I saw looked like warriors," he said. "Some flew, others crawled. They've been chopping in there for centuries. They were all heavily armed." One Blade fidgeted slightly, another glanced at her companions. That was exactly what he wanted. To unnerve them. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again he knew that his life was changing, here and now. This was when he paid for his beliefs, his passion, and his shunning of the god that had ruled his family and directed their actions for generations.