The door that had swallowed Reede dematerialized again, abruptly, and someone came through it. The guards turned alert; Kedalion straightened, stanng.
At first his eyes refused to believe that it was actually Reede Kullervo they saw. The man who came back through that door wore Reede’s face; but the face was ashen-gray, with red-rimmed eyes that registered nothing at all. He moved like a stranger, crippled, broken.
“Reede—?” Kedalion said, keeping his eyes on Kullervo as he reached out to shake Ananke awake. Ananke jerked upright, startled, as Reede stopped moving and turned to look at them. Nothing showed in his eyes except a kind of vacant disbelief. Kedalion was not entirely sure he even recognized them. One fist was clenched tight, as if he held something in it; Kedalion couldn’t see what. He had never believed before this moment how young Reede actually was; stripped of his manic arrogance Reede looked like a boy, temfied, terrifying in his vulnerability. Kedalion felt sick to his stomach, wondering who or what had reduced a man like Reede to that, in so little time.
The Newhavener who had brought them all here crossed the room to Reede’s side, showing his teeth in a grin as he assessed the obvious damage. “Give me your hand,” he said. An order, not a request. Reede obeyed it. The Newhavener’s hand closed around Reede’s wrist, spread his palm open like a flower. His other hand pressed something down on it, and Kedalion saw a sudden flash of light. A tremor ran through Reede’s body, but he made no other response. “Welcome aboard, Kullervo,” the Newhavener said, still grinning in cold satisfaction. He turned away from Reede, heading toward the place where Kedalion and Ananke sat waiting. He reached them at the same moment as the smell of burned flesh did. He put out his hand.
Kedalion held up his own hand silently, his jaw clenched; knowing what came next. Most of Humbaba’s vassals had worn a brand—although Reede had not, and he had never marked either of his crew as property. Kedalion kept his eyes fixed on Reede, who stood staring at his own branded palm. He told himself fiercely that adoption by the enemy was the best thing that could have happened to them, when he considered the alternatives; kept telling himself that until the iron came down on his own exposed flesh. White-hot pain seared through his hand, went screaming up the nerves of his arm. He cried out, although he had sworn he would not; tried to jerk his hand free, but the Newhavener held it in a grip as inescapable as a vise until he was finished.
He released it, and Kedalion pulled it back, cursing under his breath, dizzy with pain. He forced himself to look at the brand. There was an eye burned into his flesh, staring back at him. He swore again as he recognized the mark. He knew at last whose prisoners they were; and he knew the Source’s reputation. He looked away from the livid burn, at Reede again. He looked back as the Newhavener reached Ananke.
Ananke held up his hand, held it steady in the air. His free hand knotted into a fist as the Newhavener spread his palm. He shut his eyes, and bit his lip. The brander came down on him; Kedalion grimaced as he saw the flash of light, saw Ananke shudder and the trickle of bright red that leaked down his lip and chin as the Newhavener let him go again. With his good hand, Kedalion fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, and passed it silently to Ananke. Ananke pressed it to his mouth, covering a crooked grin of desperate pride.
The Newhavener watched them noncommittally, then stepped back, and jerked his head toward the lift. “Come on. I’ll show you your quarters.” Kedalion hesitated, looked toward Reede; suddenly more afraid for Reede than for himself or Ananke, if they were separated. But the Newhavener moved back to Reede, tried to take him by the arm as if he thought Kullervo was incapable of obeying on his own. “Come on, Reede.”
Reede came alive as the Newhavener put a hand on him; caught the man’s wrist with his branded hand and pulled it free. The Newhavener stiffened; the anger drained out of his face as he looked into Reede’s stare and found no pain registering there.
“Stay away from me,” Reede whispered, and for a moment Kedalion saw something he recognized in Reede’s expression; something deadly.
The Newhavener backed off with a shrug. “No problem,” he muttered, and started toward the lift.
They took another labyrinthine journey through the hive of the citadel. This time the Newhavener took some pains to point out what they were seeing. Kedalion tried to ignore his throbbing hand and concentrate on the view, to get a feel for what he was going to be calling home from now on, whether he liked it or not. But his attention kept flickering back to Reede’s vacant face, and every time it did he got queasy again.
At last they reached their destination, deep in the heart of the laboratory complex. The complex covered fifteen stories, the entire south quadrant of the fortress, according to the Newhavener—who had finally told them his name, TerFauw—and it employed close to a thousand workers. By Kedalion’s estimate, that made it ten times the size of Humbaba’s labs. TerFauw took them up through the general living quarters, pointing out shops and eateries, but they didn’t stop until they got to an apartment which seemed to occupy an entire separate level of the complex.
He took them through its rooms, pointing out things with a disinterest Kedalion round remarkable, considering the luxurious elegance of the surroundings. He supposed, a little enviously, that these were Reede’s new personal quarters. He tried again to make the relative gentleness of their treatment jibe with whatever had been done to Reede in the three hours that he had been missing. Reede regarded his surroundings with bleak indifference.
“You’ve got access to your personal laboratories through that door, Kullervo—” TerFauw pointed. “Somebody‘11 take you the rounds of the whole complex tomorrow. Master’s real eager for you to get to work.”
Reede turned to look, showing real interest in something for the first time. The door was secured; Kedalion saw the familiar red outline glow of a Kharemoughi stasis lock. “Open it,” Reede said.
TerFauw shook his head. “Can’t.”
Reede turned back to him. “Cancel the fucking lock—”
“Only the Master can do that,” TerFauw said. “I can’t. You can’t. He’ll open it when he decides he wants you to have what’s in there… . It’s not up to you, anymore, Kullervo, you understand me?”
Reede glared at him; and then the sudden fury in his eyes turned to ashes, as if TerFauw had said something more than Kedalion had actually heard him say. TerFauw smiled; his twisted lip made a sneer of it. Reede turned his back on them, and went into the next room.
TerFauw turned back to Kedalion and Ananke. Kedalion held his breath, wondering what kind of hellhole TerFauw had in mind to drop them down; sure that they were not going to rate the kind of consideration someone like Reede did. “You two are staying here with him, until we figure out what to do with you.”
Kedalion nodded wordlessly, surprised and relieved.
“I’m putting it on you both to watch him till he settles in. He’s still a little out of phase right now.” The sneer pulled TerFauw’s lips up again.
Kedalion glanced at the doorway to the next room, thinking the man had a gift for understatement.
“See that he doesn’t do anything to himself.” TerFauw met Kedalion’s questioning stare. “Anything that happens to him, happens to you. Both of you.” He bent his head at Ananke. “I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” Kedalion muttered. He was suddenly, painfully aware of the throbbing burn on his palm.
TerFauw went out, leaving them alone. Ananke put the quoll on the floor, one-handed, and headed for the bathroom. The quoll snuffled the deep green carpet, decided that it wasn’t edible, and began to wander across the floor. It scuttled under a table as Reede came silently back into the room.