Kedalion started after him down the narrow street, not even sure why; telling himself that handling Reede’s lost charm made his own superstitions itch. He reached the corner, ignoring the jewelry seller’s singsong wheedling as he looked past the cart at the open square. After a moment his eyes found Reede in the crowd, as the flash of dangling crystals danced across the stark black of his vest-back.
Reede was not moving fast, which meant there was half a chance his own short legs might catch up with Reede’s long ones. Kedalion pushed on, keeping to the edges of the unusually heavy crowds. The air reeked with incense. It must be some sort of feast day, for so many people to be out in the square, damn the luck. But he was gaining on Reede, slowly, and he called out his name again. Reede glanced back, but Kedalion was hidden by the crowd.
Reede went on again, walking faster. They were nearing the place where Ravien’s club was located. For a brief moment Kedalion wondered if he was headed there—he swore under his breath as he saw Reede turn off suddenly into a passageway between two of the buildings that ringed the square. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot until he reached it, and ducked into the same entrance, below a peeling archway. The shadowy access was so dark after the brightness of the square that he had to stop a moment, blinking until his eyes adjusted. There were ancient flagstones under his feet, featureless walls with no openings on either side of him, so close together that he could almost reach out and touch them. Reede was nowhere in sight.
Kedalion went along the passage, doggedly, unable to stop now until he had found out where Reede had gone. The passageway ended abruptly at a featureless metal door. He pushed on it; to his surprise it let him in.
The corridor beyond it was startlingly clean and modern. Inset glowplates gave him dim but sufficient light as he moved along it, more confidently now, until he reached another set of doors. The doors slid back at his approach, opening on a meeting room. He stopped dead as the people gathered there turned to stare at him. He stared back, taking in the glow of datascreens around a torus-shaped table, the hologramic display at the table’s core, the startling contrast among the faces seated around it or still standing together near the doorway.
Half a dozen of them had ringed him in already, looking down at him with the eyes of Death, before he had time to realize he had made a mistake that was probably fatal.
“Are you a stranger far from home?” an ebony-skinned man wearing the robes of a High Priest asked him.
Kedalion glanced down at himself. “I guess it shows, then,” he said, and smiled feebly. The smile faded as he watched weapons blossom like deadly flowers, and knew that he had not given them the right answer.
“Kill him,” a voice said from somewhere.
“Reede—” he said, “I’m looking for Reede!” raising his voice in desperation.
“Niburu!” Reede’s face appeared suddenly, like a vision, among the faces of offworld drug bosses, local police and church officials, other faces he couldn’t put any occupation to. Reede pushed into the center of the ring and caught him by the shirt front. “What the fuck are you doing here—?” Reede’s fist tightened; the exasperation on his face was as genuine as the anger.
“I thought you’d want this.” Kedalion held out the charm, keeping his voice barely under control.
Reede snatched the charm from his hand, and stared at it. “Gods …” he muttered, like a man who had lost his soul. As he stuffed it into his pocket, Kedalion realized that two men and a woman standing in the circle around him were wearing the same pendant. One of the men was a drug boss named Sarkh; the woman was Reede’s new wife, Humbaba’s ex-wife, Mundilfoere.
“Reede—?” someone demanded from behind him.
“He’s my man. He saw nothing. Right—?” Reede’s hand closed painfully over Kedalion’s shoulder. “You saw nothing.”
Kedalion shook his head, as Reede pushed him roughly backward through the barrier of bodies until they were both out in the hall. The doors sealed shut behind them.
“You saw nothing,” Reede repeated, softly this time, looking down at him with something in his eyes that Kedalion almost imagined was compassion. “Never follow me again.” He released his grip on Kedalion’s shirt, turned his back on him and disappeared through the doors as if his pilot had ceased to exist.
Kedalion stood a moment longer in the hall, before he had the strength to shake off the invisible hands that still seemed to hold him prisoner. He turned finally and went back along the hall, along the passageway, and out to the street.
“What the hell was that all about?” Sarkh snarled, as Reede reentered the meeting room alone.
“This.” Reede pulled the solii pendant out of his pocket and held it up.
The eyes of everyone in the room were on him, now, but he made no further explanation. One by one they began to look away from his gaze, backing down.
Sarkh frowned. “That was a stupid risk. I think we should—”
“Don’t think, Sarkh,” Reede said. “Why spoil your perfect record?”
Sarkh turned back, his face mottling with anger, and took a step toward Reede.
“I speak for Kedalion.” Mundilfoere stepped quickly between them. “Reede— remember where you are!” She held up a dark hand, palm open, in front of each of them; stepped back again, in what seemed to be a single fluid motion. The two men eased off. “Kedalion Niburu has worked for Reede for years,” she said, looking at Sarkh. “He saw nothing that he could have understood. And he is perfectly trustworthy. He will do what he is told; and he was told to forget it.” She twitched a shoulder, half smiling.
Sarkh grunted and shrugged, turning away as Mundilfoere looked back at Reede. She was not wearing bells and veils now; never did, here. She was dressed in the formless gray coveralls of a starport loader, her long, midnight-black hair pulled back in a pragmatic knot. A perfect disguise … or maybe the woman back at Humbaba’s citadel was really the disguise. There was no trace of deference in her manner here, nothing but anger in the glance that flicked over him and found his behavior wanting.
“Mundilfoere—” he said, his hand reaching for her almost unconsciously.
“Sit down,” she said, and turned her back before he could touch her. Her motion sent out ripples through the figures still standing; they followed her like a wake toward the meeting table. A few of them glanced back at him, at his wet clothes and the fresh scratches on his bare arms and throat, as they took their appointed places.
Reede was the last to sit down, hanging back like a sullen child—or at least, made to feel like one, when he sat down at last at Mundilfoere’s right hand.
“Who has called this Brotherhood to meeting, here?” Irduz, the Priest, asked. He always led the Questions, being the sort of pompous bastard who enjoyed repetitious ritual. Reede shut his eyes and leaned back in his seat as the drone of the recitation began. Gods, get it over with.… He fingered the beaten metal of the ear cuff he had bought from the street vendor, shifting impatiently in his seat.
“I have.” Reede recognized the voice of the next person in the circle—Alolered, the Trader, who in the outside world was a dutiful, successful businessman in the interstellar datastorage trade.
“I have.” The voice of Mother Weary, one of the few women who had made it big in the drug trade; she headed a cartel that was still growing. She was nearly eighty, and as vicious as firescrub.
“I have.” The voice of TolBeoit, who appeared to be nothing more than a seller of herbal cures in a Newhavenese botanery.
“And who has called this Brotherhood into being, and given us our duty, and shown us the power of knowledge?” the High Priest intoned.