Shadow Dance Page 11

  "You're here," NaVarre whispered.

  For some reason that struck me as funny. There were about a million other places I could be – dead, for one – but I was sitting cross-legged on Bloody NaVarre's soundproofed office floor, stabbing pins into a beautifully illustrated decorative map because I had proof my father hadn't been crazy after all, and I was alive while the man who had offered his life for mine was teetering on death's doorstep upstairs.

  I tilted my head back and gave NaVarre a broad, colorless smile. "Your astuteness astounds, sir."

  His face was haggard, his chin dark with stubble, his left eye the size and color of a ripe plum. More bruises marked his jaw. Wherever he had been, it hadn't been all pleasantness.

  He lifted an eyebrow at the mess I was making of his study. "You've been busy."

  I shrugged a little. "I don't have anything else to do," I muttered, voice dull. Then I looked up at him again. "Where is the binder my father gave you?"

  NaVarre's shook his head, as if he found something about me mystifying, but he didn't tell me to stop what I was doing or go 'rest.' He simply picked his way out of the circle of documents and walked over to the bookcase directly behind his desk. He pressed a piece of the molding on the fourth shelf up, and the whole thing slid out of the bookcase, swiveling on a hinge at one end. Then he opened a small safe set in the wall behind the bookshelf, and took out a very familiar drab green binder, this one tied with string.

  He locked the safe and closed the hideaway, then he came back and cleared a space for himself across from me. "Alright. What's the procedure?"

  For the next two hours, NaVarre helped me sort his share of the documents into the rest of it, and then we started connecting the dots.

  A definite pattern began emerging. Cargo manifests from Warring Oceanic matched up with docking receipts in Nimkoruguithu. Tariff payment stubs provided by several of Warring Oceanic's contracted clients meshed with departing dates and times for Obyrron's freighter, the Merrienne, which in turn corresponded to shipments that were all received by the same three businesses in Nim K. A whole slew of safety slips showed cargo weights that didn't match the total on the manifests, but that were signed by the Port Authority inspectors.

  NaVarre finally sat back, taking in the spider web of tatting string now crisscrossing his wall hanging, joining origination points with destinations. His attention kept returning to the cluster of pins off the Northern Point, where the coastline above the settlements began its broad sweep into the Gulf of Ix Peridas. "What is that?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

  I picked up the journal, opened it to that last, damning entry, and handed it to him. I didn't watch as he read it, already knowing what, exactly, he would discover when he did.

  He swallowed, then turned the page back to read that bit about Razzar again. He put the journal down. "This changes everything."

  I stared around at the evidence so many had died for. It radiated out from me in a circle, like the petals of a deadly flower. Or the rings of a target. I shivered, my imagination helpfully providing a bird's-eye view of me sitting smack in the center. With a sigh, I got up and stepped out of the mess. Then I rubbed my forehead for a moment and steepled my hands in front of my mouth, chasing a thought til it formed a question. "What are they doing with human cargo, and weapons, and bluesilver, and boxes that kill people?"

  NaVarre considered the map, his gaze on that knot of pins above Nim K. "And where is it all going?"

  18. Betrayal

  31st of Nima

  Bright afternoon sunlight poured across the polished miner's cherry floor, casting a warm glow over the panels of silver-leaf on the walls.

  A songbird warbled away outside the window at my back, the pure, rippling notes a welcome counterpoint to the near total quiet of the room. After a moment the bird took flight on a swift hum of wings, leaving only the clicking of the antique timekeep on the wall, and the faint whisper of Arramy's breathing.

  The captain lay propped up on a mountain of pillows, bandages crisscrossing his bare torso above the sheets, his head tilted back and slightly toward me. He hadn't shown any signs of waking yet, but he had survived the night, his chest rose and fell evenly, and his heart was beating strong and steady. The rest would take time, Mrs. Burre had said. She had come to the study to ask if there was someone the captain knew who could spend some time talking and reading to him. She thought the sound of a familiar voice might help him find his way back to reality.

  I didn't hesitate. After finding him under that log, believing he was already dead, then waiting so long to find out if he would live at all, propriety could hang.

  Twenty minutes later, the quarterly I had borrowed from NaVarre's study was open in front of me, but my eyes wouldn't stay on the page. I hadn't even read more than the first line of the article I had turned to. My attention kept straying beyond the top of the quarterly to the bed. For a second time – and without my permission – my gaze wandered to the long, tan fingers of Arramy's left hand, then followed the muscles of his arm to his shoulder; from there to the sculpted hollow of his throat, then up to the firm line of his jaw and the angles of his cheekbones, and finally to the sandy-brown crescents of his eyelashes.

  I hadn't noticed before because the tips were brightened by the sun, but his lashes were surprisingly long and thick.

  I caught myself imagining what he might have looked like as a boy and yanked my errant thoughts back to the quarterly, then cleared my throat, the sound overloud in the stillness. "For your listening pleasure this afternoon, we will be learning about the discovery of ductal formations in the Galbrunne Tree fossils... Yes. That's right, we have run out of other options and are now trying to bore you awake. It's your own fault. Feel free to stop me at any time." I paused and glanced at Arramy.

  There was no change. Not even a flicker of movement behind those well-defined Northlander eyelids.

  "Nothing?" My voice was thick, and I cleared my throat again. "Fine. Have it your way." I shook the quarterly, deliberately making a great rustling of paper. "Ductal Formations in the Interior Rings of the Galbrunne Trees. An essay by Dr. G. R. Owo'fayadh, Professor of Historical Field Studies, Arrensbrooke University."

  Ten minutes later: "... Needless to say this exciting discovery, while exhilarating in its own right, has paved the way for a much better understanding of the physical structure of prehistoric veridimorphological vegetation, and their dependence on mineral salts in the groundwater in the Qa'arian time period... The end."

  I lowered the quarterly and gave Arramy a squinty-eyed glare. "Really? I read all of that and you're not even going to wake up to scowl at me?"

  "His color is a little better today."

  I glanced around.

  NaVarre was standing in the open doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He offered an oddly tight grin but didn't enter. "We need to talk."

  Strange. Even though Arramy was sleeping, for those few moments I had been sitting with him I had been able to breathe. "Is it important?"

  "Yes," NaVarre said quietly. "I've brought Miss Ina to relieve you."

  Light footsteps approached, and Ina's young voice said, kindly, "I'll send word if he wakes, Miss."

  I closed my eyes, sighed, nodded, and got reluctantly to my feet, then set the quarterly on the nightstand and walked to the door, every step heavy with the feeling that I was leaving part of me behind. It took an awful amount of willpower to keep going through the doorway and down the hall, trailing after NaVarre as he headed for the stairs.

  ~~~

  I flinched as the bolts thunked into their slots in the study door, effectively cutting NaVarre and I off from the outside world. I came to a halt in the middle of the room and clasped my hands in front of me to keep them from shaking. NaVarre was nothing like the Coventry thug outside the Starflower, but I still turned to face him, obeying an unconscious need to keep him where I could see him.

  NaVarre closed the interior control panel. He didn't look at me, though. He looked at the
floor, his brows drawn together. He didn't move, either, he just stood there with his head down.

  That didn't bode well. "What's wrong?" I asked, my concern growing.

  NaVarre wouldn't quite meet my eyes. "They knew."

  The hair at the back of my neck prickled a warning even before NaVarre continued, his voice hoarse. "The Coventry knew we were going to be at the vault. That's why they got there that fast. That's why there were so many of them."

  "You're sure?"

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a curl of messenger's tape. "It pays to keep a Magi or two in my pocket." He crossed the floor to me and held out the tape. "They found this in the Chief Magistrate's office."

  I took the message and pulled it straight between my fingers, tilting it to the light from his desk lamp so I could make out the letters embossed in the cotton-paper.

  Pirate. Missing daughter. Stalwart Vault. Noon. 20 men.

  "Look at the timestamp," NaVarre rasped.

  My chest hollowed. The message was received a full half-hour before we walked into the Stalwart. "So... who..."

  "It wasn't one of mine," NaVarre said dully. "They were all with me till just before the fighting. It gets worse. I found the boy who brought the message to the Magistrate's Bureau. He described a tall man with a limp and a big, silver coin." He took a few steps back and sat down in the closest armchair, slouching forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "The kid didn't see much after the coin, so he couldn't give more of a description. But... Arramy left early for the Vault." He lowered his head and gripped his temples. "How could I have been so stupid? I thought... Arramy has lost men, he's just as angry as I am... I should have known better. He's the Coventry's favorite blunt instrument, and I just opened the door and let him walk right in, believing in all my unmitigated hubris that I would be able to turn him, somehow."

  I blinked. "I can't believe Arramy would do that," I whispered, trying to push away what NaVarre was saying. "It doesn't make any sense. You didn't see what we had to go through – what he had to go through – to get me back here. Why would he..." My voice broke, and I had to swallow before I could go on. "Why would he do that? Why wouldn't he have just taken everything and left me out there? Why even get me out of Nim K?"

  NaVarre looked ill. "I don't know! I don't know. What I do know is that we were the only three who knew the Vault was the target. You and I arrived at the same time with my men. So it had to be him, or one of his crew. Either way, he was involved." He paused to let out a harsh chuckle. "Arramy is, by far, the most brilliant tactician I have ever met. He would be the first to say we don't have the luxury of blind trust."

  It was unreal. I had started the day simply glad that Arramy was alive, and now the doubts swarming through my head had me reeling. There was no even footing anymore, no solid ground to stand on. If he had betrayed us here, what else had he done? I didn't want to believe it, not after all the fighting, all the pain, all the sacrifices, but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. There could be a much longer game on the board. Char's story came to mind, with its grizzly picture of what the Coventry could make people do. Feeling suddenly empty and cold, I looked at NaVarre. As much as it hurt to admit it, he was right. Trust was a luxury.

  Numb, I moved to sit in the armchair across from him and put the messenger's tape on the rakai table between us. "I think the bigger question is, what do we do now?"

  NaVarre stared at me. Then his gaze drifted into an absent middle distance. His voice was husky when he finally grated out, "We use it."

  19. New Developments

  33rd of Nima

  After debating and discussing all of our options, NaVarre and I came to an uneasy agreement. The best tactic would be to make sure that none of Arramy's men knew what we knew. Which meant we had to treat them exactly the same as we had before. Arramy would be staying with us, where NaVarre could keep an eye on him, while also keeping him in the dark. If he was the traitor, that connection was a valuable way to feed misinformation to the enemy. If he wasn't, he was in contact with whoever was, which still meant we could use him.

  Meanwhile, on the 32nd, NaVarre went back to Nim K to find out more about Arramy's crew from his sources in the Enlistment Bureau, and to discover what had happened to the twenty men that had gone with us to the Vault.

  While he was gone, a few of those twenty men managed to make it back to the plantation. Penweather, one of the marines, and a handful of pirates came straggling in on the night of the 32nd, alive, dirty, and disguised as day laborers. That brought the number of Arramy's men up to four, Arramy included. With NaVarre's pirates, that meant nine of the twenty who had gone in had gotten out.

  Late that night, NaVarre returned from Nim K late on the 32nd with the news that Raggan wasn't going to be one of those men. His body had been found in that alley, and his corpse had been loaded onto the poverstricke wagon. Since no one had claimed him by the end of that first day, he was thrown in the poor pit at the edge of town right along with the rest of the victims of the manhunt.

  I couldn't make myself feel it. Raggan was gone. Father was gone. Aunt Sapphine was gone. My friends, my life, the people on the Island, there were too many gone, too large a number. I couldn't make it real in my head. It was just the way things were, now.

  I couldn't bear to sit still. Sleep was fleeting, ragged, and ultimately pointless, so when the sun rose this morning, I marched into NaVarre's study for the third day in a row, intent on combing the early entries in Obyrron's journal again for any spare tidbits I might have missed the day before.

  When I came in, NaVarre was already sitting at his desk, a pile of papers in front of him. He looked like he had been in that chair all night. His hair showed signs of finger-raking, his eyes were dark-ringed from lack of sleep, and his shirt was rumpled. Someone had brought him a breakfast tray, but he hadn't touched anything other than the urn of hot Praidani.

  Moving quietly, I found Obyrron's journal, got myself a cup of tea, and claimed one of the armchairs.

  NaVarre gave me a small nod and went right back to what he had been doing. Every once in a while he would refer to a small black ledger, jot some notes, then return to the documents. Occasionally I turned a page or sipped some tea. We had been working in silence for quite a while when suddenly NaVarre let out a low whistle.

  I glanced up.

  He was eyeing the groups of papers strewn across his desk. Then he bent forward, quickly rifling through a stack of manifests to find a specific record. He compared that with the business listings from Nimkoruguithu. After a moment he sat back, eyebrows raised, and ran his hand through his already-mussed hair.

  "What is it?"

  He pursed his lips, his brows still high. "I... may have just found something."

  I got up and came around the rakai table to stand on the other side of his desk.

  "This Fairgiver Provisions and Mercantile..." He pointed at one of the manifests from the third binder. "It's listed as the sender of two of the bins in this last group Obyrron mentioned, the ones they threw overboard after Razzar died." He pointed at the business listings quarterly. "Fairgiver P&M is the transport arm for a group of international enterprises called Casserides Incorporated. One of those enterprises is Aaridan Warehousing, which is owned by Lord Reixham. That's important later."

  NaVarre stood and pulled a sheet of clean paper from his stationary tray, scribbling the name Reixham at the top. "Now, this is where it starts getting interesting. Fairgiver is owned by Lord Delmyrre. Ten years ago, Delmyrre bought a seat on the Arritagne Grand Magistrates Bureau for Councilor Kerriwidge." Another line to the side. "Councilor Kerriwidge employs a thug named Tal Soult to run his tea plantation in South Altyr — the same tea plantation half a dozen of the girls on Aethscaul came from."

  He wrote down Tal Soult, then added two more lines, and two more names. "Now, I cannot prove any of this, but rumor has it that a man named Sartero Pha Mun-Ghour is in debt up to his eyeballs to Tal Soult. I found that out when Sar
tero popped up as the owner of a property in Tetton known for Shadow Road activity. Sartero's brother, Desmodian, just so happens to own a small-time overland freight line... and according to his signature as the delivering agent on several of your father's documents, his freight line does regular contract work for..." he drew a line back toward Delmyrre. "Fairgiver P&M."

  NaVarre paused, surveying his little circle of connections. "So. Tal Soult is Livestock Procurement. Sartero and his farm would be the first stop on the Shadow Road. Desmodian is the Shipping Master." He sat back and pursed his lips. "Fairgiver gives us Lord Delmyrre, and that connection gives us Arridan Warehousing. Arridan Warehousing gives us Reixham. Delmyrre is rich, but not upper echelon of the Circle of Lords rich. Reixham is squarely upper echelon and would never mix socially with Delmyrre, but he does fit right into the Coventry." NaVarre tilted his head, then slowly drew a line from Reixham to the blank area at the top of the page. "I never could prove it before, but now, thanks to your father, I've got an arrow pointing straight at him... and... for the first time... I might have a way to get close."

  He stopped talking abruptly and looked up at me with that calculating glint that I had come to recognize all too well.

  I gave him a suspicious squint. "What?"

  "Reixham always throws an end-of-season party for members of the Circle. Very hush-hush, private invitation only, extremely high security, everyone wants to go. My father being who he is, my family is always invited." His eyes narrowed in speculation. "I've gone once before, but I went alone and spent the entire evening fending off romantic advances. I couldn't even make it past the circularri." He tilted his head, his gaze moving down my person, then back up to my face. "I needed a woman on my arm, someone who could discourage such... interest. But I didn't have a woman I could trust to pull it off. Until now."