“I was told tonight…” Sparks took a deep breath, holding an empty glass in his hands, m fragile balance. “I was told to give a message to my wife, the Queen, from the Source. To say that… our daughter has been taken to Ondinee. That Reede Kullervo has addicted her to a drug he invented, something called the water of death. I was given a tape of what it does… what it will do to Ariele if my wife and the Chief Justice don’t give him something.…”
“Give him what?” Ananke asked.
“I don’t know!” he said, and the glass fell, clattering on the table. “Don’t you think I’d give it to him myself, if I knew?”
Ananke grimaced; his pet disappeared under his arm. He glanced at Niburu, and Sparks saw something unspoken pass between them. “You think that’s what he’s on?” Ananke asked. Niburu nodded, frowning.
“What is it—the ‘water of death’?” Tor asked. Her own face constricted as she waited for the answer, as if she were waiting for a blow.
“Kirard Set told me it was a bastard form of the water of life,” Sparks said
She shook her head slightly. “What does it do to you?”
He reached out and touched the tape player; the image materialized like a poisonous fog in the space between them. He watched, helplessly, hearing the others around him suck in their breath, hearing their curses of disbelief.
“Shut if off,” Tor said. “Shut it off, damn you!”
He reached out, extinguishing the image as she tried to reach past him and do it herself.
She hit him in the shoulder with her clenched fist; hit him again. “Damn it! Damn it!” He said nothing, did nothing, as she pulled back again, going limp against the dark, mirroring wall of the booth. She struck the tabletop once, with her open hand. Niburu and Ananke sat like stunned bookends, staring at each other.
Tor looked at him, finally, with apology in her eyes.”To Ariele—?” she whispered. “To Ariele?” Suddenly her eyes were empty
Sparks nodded, slumped in the corner. “Yes.”
“And Reede …” Niburu muttered.
“He gave it to her—” Tor said, her eyes coming alive again as she turned back to Niburu. “You bastard! You told me he was safe! You said he wouldn’t hurt her—”
“He wouldn’t—” Niburu began.
“Reede wouldn’t do something like that to her, he’s in love with her,” Ananke protested, running over the words.
Niburu put a hand on his arm. “He wouldn’t, if he was getting his fixes on time But we don’t how long he was missing. What would you do, to stop that—?” He gestured at the empty space between them, the air still haunted by what they had seen moments before.
Ananke looked away, shaking his head.
Niburu turned back to Sparks. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. He rested his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Tor. Gods, I never imagined something like this would happen….” He looked up again. “Shit—I don’t want to leave like this. I don’t want this to be why you remember me. …”
Her faced eased as she let go of her useless anger, “I know,” she said, and sighed. “Sparks, did you say Kirard Set told you about the water of death? What’s he got to do with it?”
“He has … business dealings with the Source.” Sparks shifted glasses into a new pattern. “And so do I.”
Tor stared at him, while her incredulity turned slowly to understanding, and then to resignation. She glanced at Niburu; back at him. “Kind of like a disease, isn’t it? … Gods, what are kind hearts like us doing in a cesspit like this?” She shook her head. “Is there anybody in the Motherloving galaxy who doesn’t work for the Source?”
“Moon,” Sparks said bitterly. “And Gundhalinu.”
“Not yet,” Niburu muttered.
“I know something else about Kirard Set,” Ananke said, leaning forward as his pet wandered across the table, snuffling in glasses. “You remember that night: Ariele, and Elco Teel—?” Niburu and Tor nodded, with sudden frowns. Tor pulled the animal back from the edge of the table, and began to scratch it behind the ears.
“What night?” Sparks said.
“Elco Teel slipped Ariele some kind of sex drug and took her to a—a—” Ananke broke off, looking down.
“A gang bang,” Niburu said bluntly, for him.
“Reede rescued her—” Tor put her hand on Sparks’s arm, holding him back until the words registered. “Reede. He risked getting himself killed to get her out of there in time. She was all right,” Tor insisted gently. “She was orbiting so high up, I don’t think she even remembered what happened. But they’ve been lovers, ever since.”
Sparks shook his head, feeling his images of Reede and his daughter and himself shift and flow like oil in water.
“Reede was like a pashayan—a flaming sword,” Ananke said, his eyes shining suddenly. “There were a dozen men, but he faced them down and they ran like rats. And then he made that little dungeater Elco Teel sweat blood. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when Reede took a knife to him—”
“Yeah, I’ve seen Reede like that,” Kedalion said, nodding. “A pashayan. That night in Ravien’s, when we met him …”
Ananke smiled, weaving a thin braid between his dark fingers. A peculiar expression came over his face, half fond and half chagrined. It faded, as his thoughts slid back into the present.
“What’s this got to do with Kirard Set?” Sparks said impatiently.
They looked back at him, almost resentful, as if he had interrupted a private reminiscence between mourners. But Ananke said, “Kirard Set gave Elco the drug that he gave to Ariele. And the Source gave it to Kirard Set. Reede said …”He pressed his forehead, half frowning as he tried to remember the words. “He said for Elco Teel to tell his father that it was a closed game, between him and the Source. That if they didn’t stay out of it, he’d kill them both.” He looked up again.
“You never told me that part of it,” Niburu said.
“I didn’t?” Ananke shrugged.
“Why in seven hells would Kirard Set want to do a thing like that?” Tor asked. “He was always mouthing it around that Elco Teel was going to marry Ariele someday, and she was going to be the next Summer Queen. I never liked him, the vicious motherfucker, he’s got a smile like a skule. But why—? Was he looking for favors from the Source? Or is he just that much of a human pustule?”
Sparks glanced at the tape player, and away again. “Yes,” he murmured. “All of that… but there’s more. It’s more complicated. The Source isn’t just a narco, he’s involved in dimensions of corruption you or I can’t even imagine….” He broke off, needing to say more; afraid to, for their sakes, for his own.
Something clattered onto the tabletop in front of him. He picked it up—a chain, dangling two ornaments. He held them closer, seeing a ring with two soliis set into a band of white metal. A pendant clinked silverly against the ring; its form caught in his brain like a fishhook. The Brotherhood. He looked up again; met Niburu’s gaze waiting for him. “Is this yours?” he asked.
“It was Reede’s,” Niburu answered. “He always wore it, always. But I found it in his room, after he disappeared. Reede used to call it his good luck charm. …” He glanced away. “He lost it once before, a long time ago. When I went to give it back to him, he was in a meeting with about a dozen people who would’ve gutted each other if they’d met out on the street. They would have gutted me, but Reede stopped them. He said get out, and forget I ever saw them… . It’s some kind of secret society, isn’t it? Something bigger and more powerful than any cartel. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”