Her breath was foul, and the dead devotion in her tiny eyes was unnerving. Ruiz pointed with his free arm. “There,” he said. “Ayam has its own little room. Isn’t that nice?”
She gave him a casual shake, rattling his teeth, and released him. He caught up a sheet and wound it around himself. The giantess went to the alcove and unlocked it.
The herman fell into the room, floundering. Ayam had apparently been listening at the door seals. But it recovered its balance and dignity almost immediately. “At last,” Ayam gushed. “Mighty Banessa, you come to the rescue of this poor oppressed servant. One casts oneself at your awesome feet in abject gratitude.”
“Shut up,” the giantess said impassively.
She turned to Flomel. “Proceed,” she ordered.
Flomel drew a deep breath. He seemed to have regained his self-control, though a glitter of strong emotion still showed in his eyes. “Nisa,” he said. “How is it you cheapen yourself by dallying with this casteless one? Please, remember who you are. I appeal to your sense of propriety.”
Nisa was still flushed with anger. She sat up in the bed, pulling the coverlet around her. “You, Master Flomel, should remember who I am! And your own caste. I’m no longer an Expiant, subject to your whim.”
Flomel seemed surprised. “No longer an Expiant? How is this?”
Nisa smiled. “My Expiation is finished. And here I am, resurrected.”
Flomel considered this, long fingers stroking his chin. He studied Nisa with hooded eyes. “Perhaps,” he said, “you’re storing up new sins. Your misadventures with the casteless one are, if I remember correctly, somewhat akin to the sins that gave you into Expiation in the first place.”
“We’re no longer in the lands of my father, Magician. Different rules here, as any fool would know. And you’re wrong to call Ruiz casteless. I don’t know his lineage, but it’s higher than your own. Of that I’m sure.”
Flomel looked as if he might take his wand to Nisa, and Ruiz stepped around the corner of the bed, close enough to the magician to stop him if necessary.
“Enough,” the giantess said. “No more squabbling. Explain what is required. The Lady Corean expects punctuality. We depart for the pen shortly.”
Flomel drew a deep breath. “As you say,” he said. “Nisa, my apologies. I cannot help looking on you as a child of my own flesh, and I sorrow over your mistakes, as your real father would, were he here. But now to business. We begin rehearsals for the new play, today.”
Nisa recoiled, shocked. “The new play?”
“Yes, yes. The new play. The performance that will assure us an influential patron in this new world. Have you not been told?”
“No.”
“Well, as before, you’ll be the central character. A great honor, no?”
Nisa sat back suddenly, her face crumpled. “As before…. No, the Lady Corean would never permit such a thing.”
Flomel smiled. “It’s the Lady Corean who sends me here.”
“No, I can’t.” Nisa looked at Ruiz, appealing to him for help, but he could think of nothing to do or say. Her eyes dulled and she looked away. He felt a terrible sadness, and an anger so intense that he trembled with it. The images of her first death rose in his mind, unbidden. He had to make a violent effort to keep his face impassive.
He was still searching for some word of comfort for Nisa, when the giantess spoke again. “The woman must dress now, unless she wants to go naked to the pens.” She turned to Ruiz. “You also.”
Nisa rose from the bed, and went slowly into the wardrobe.
Ruiz walked beside Nisa. Her face was like stone, and she moved as if already drugged for the performance. Behind them, Flomel marched, swinging his wand and puffing a little with the exertion. The giantess trudged in the lead, and a sour unpleasant odor followed her. Ayam the herman brought up the rear, exclaiming at each new sight, discussing at length its boredom in Nisa’s rooms. The herman’s relentless voice was like needles in Ruiz’s ears, but he suffered in silence.
They reached the Pharaohan pen. Through the observation port, he could see that the stage was already set up, and the guildsmen swarmed over it like maggots over a gaudy corpse. Nisa drew a sharp breath, and then looked into Ruiz’s eyes. “I won’t, not again,” she whispered.
Ruiz was speechless. He gripped her shoulder, squeezed. She put her hand over his for a moment, then turned to Flomel.
“You,” she said bitterly, and drew a gem-encrusted set of sewing scissors from her sleeve. She sank it into Flomel’s belly and ripped up, opening him like a fish for cleaning. He stumbled back, collapsing into Ayam, who fell. Nisa darted away down the passage.
Banessa swung her giant frame around just as Nisa disappeared around the bend of the corridor. A flicker of irritation crossed her immense face, the first expression that Ruiz had seen in that large face. Ayam was hooting, hysterical, trying to push Flomel off its chest. Flomel was busy dying, a glazed look of amazement in his eyes.
The giantess detached a seeker from her harness, and Ruiz’s heart sank. The seeker was a cruel device, capable of following a scent trail for miles, programmed to herd the quarry back to its owner with small doses of an insupportably painful venom.
“Wait,” Ruiz said. “I’ll fetch her back.”
The giantess looked at him with the merest trace of amusement. “Yes,” she said. “You understand the seeker? Yes. This one I tune to you.” Banessa chuckled. “Best hurry.” She unhooked another seeker. “And this one for her, should you lose her.”
The seekers buzzed in her hands, eager to be off. A drop of venom trembled at the end of a stinger.
Ruiz ran.
Nisa’s long legs had carried her a considerable distance before Ruiz saw her, dodging into a side passage. He blessed the luck that had brought him within sight of her before she’d gotten lost in the maze. He increased his pace and turned the corner, to find her waiting for him.
“I thought you’d get away, too,” she said, smiling and holding out her arms.
But when he reached her, she must have seen something in his face, for she paled and jabbed at him with her scissors. He disarmed her easily. “Why?” she said in a broken voice.
“It wouldn’t have worked, Noble Person.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, and struggled to break away from him.
Ruiz was forced to take her wrist in a gentle come-along grip, before he could turn her back the way she had run. She said nothing more, but her eyes were opaque with hatred. Moments later the seekers arrived, snarling, to convoy them back to the paddock.
Chapter 24
At the portal Corean waited, her perfect face incandescent with rage. Behind her Marmo monitored the limpet that held Flomel’s guts together. Flomel lay on a floater, breathing with effort. Flomel’s eyes were open; they rolled toward Ruiz and Nisa, and then away. A pair of Pung guards waited silently by the portal.
Ruiz released Nisa, and she stumbled away from him, her eyes large with betrayal and shock. Ruiz could only stare impassively at her, though he wanted to explain, to say something to soften the accusation in her face. One of the Pung took her by the arm and snapped a monomol leash around her neck.
Banessa stood by, massive arms folded. Ruiz went to her, and proffered the bloody pair of scissors. The giantess took them, showed them to Corean, then folded them between her huge fingers into a harmless lump of metal. She toggled a switch on her harness, and the seekers slapped back into their holsters.
Corean stepped close to Ruiz, nostrils flaring, white showing all around the irises of her eyes. “You,” she said. “Somehow this is your fault, isn’t it? I should kill you now and be done with it. Marmo was right!”