with anyone who can kill an Elite. Not if I don’t have to. You’re still talking to me instead of running for the hills. That suggests that it was skill rather than luck that did in the Elite. Also, that you’re interested in some sort of alliance. What’s your proposal?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” I only wished I knew what the answer was—this was Triss’s gambit, not mine, and he wasn’t talking. “But it’s one I think would better be discussed somewhere else, don’t you? Somewhere safer.”
It was mainly a play for time, but that didn’t make it any less true. The Crown Guards had very sensibly scattered when their Elite officers fell, but they were good soldiers and would be back with reinforcements as soon as possible. I made a quick mental calculation of the round trip time from the Stumbles to the customs house at the docks, the nearest place likely to have an Elite or two on hand—over half an hour but not by much. If they wanted to come in force, we might get an hour and a half—the time it’d takethose Elite to send a message to the palace and summon more troops—but no more than that.
“Did you have a place in mind?” asked Vala. “Is it close? I don’t think Stel’s up to a long trip.” There was something different about the tone of the second question and its follow-up, something more normally human, and I suspected it came from Vala rather than her Meld.
“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Stel spoke firmly, but I could tell she was having trouble breathing.
“I’ve a fallback not far from here,” I said. Several actually, which made the thought of exposing any one of them less worrisome. After the events of the previous spring had reignited my interest in life, I’d started to rebuild old habits of caution and contingency planning. “We should be safe there, for a while at least.”
“Take me there,” said Vala, speaking in the clipped tones of the Meld.
Before I could move to offer Stel a hand, the Dyad flowed to its feet. Using the two bodies in perfect cooperation, it made the difficult task of getting the injured woman upright look like a carefully choreographed bit of dance. I realized then what it was about the women’s behavior earlier in the evening that had made it so hard to ignore them: the inhuman coordination.
Any time the two had interacted directly, handing a wine glass across the table say, they’d done so with none of the wasted movements or minor corrections that normal people made under similar circumstances. That told me that they’d never learned to pass for standard-issue human. And, that in turn, meant this pair was almost certainly operating beyond the range of their normal duties and training.
I hadn’t had much direct interaction with the Dyads; none of the Blades had within my memory. Kodamia was a much better and more humanely run enterprise than any of the surrounding countries, which meant it mostly avoided the attention of my goddess. I
had
encountered a few of them over the years, mostly while working undercover in various of the courts of the east; Kadesh, the Kvanas, Zhan.…
The Dyads I’d seen under those circumstances—mostly spies, eavesmen in diplomatic drag—had appeared perfectly normal except when they deliberately chose to emphasize their alien nature. Vala and Stel had pretty clearly not gone to whatever spy school those others had. An interesting detail that. So was their comparative youth—not much more than twenty-five, either of them—which was a good decade younger than the other Dyads I’d met. I wondered what it meant, finding them so far from home.
“Come on,” I said, nodding toward the back door. “We’re less likely to be seen going out this way and I’ve a brief stop I need to make on the way.”
“For what?” Vala asked suspiciously.
“My gear. I rent a room over the stable …or I did up till today.” I started walking. Either they would trust me and follow along or not.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” I only wished I knew what the answer was—this was Triss’s gambit, not mine, and he wasn’t talking. “But it’s one I think would better be discussed somewhere else, don’t you? Somewhere safer.”
It was mainly a play for time, but that didn’t make it any less true. The Crown Guards had very sensibly scattered when their Elite officers fell, but they were good soldiers and would be back with reinforcements as soon as possible. I made a quick mental calculation of the round trip time from the Stumbles to the customs house at the docks, the nearest place likely to have an Elite or two on hand—over half an hour but not by much. If they wanted to come in force, we might get an hour and a half—the time it’d takethose Elite to send a message to the palace and summon more troops—but no more than that.
“Did you have a place in mind?” asked Vala. “Is it close? I don’t think Stel’s up to a long trip.” There was something different about the tone of the second question and its follow-up, something more normally human, and I suspected it came from Vala rather than her Meld.
“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Stel spoke firmly, but I could tell she was having trouble breathing.
“I’ve a fallback not far from here,” I said. Several actually, which made the thought of exposing any one of them less worrisome. After the events of the previous spring had reignited my interest in life, I’d started to rebuild old habits of caution and contingency planning. “We should be safe there, for a while at least.”
“Take me there,” said Vala, speaking in the clipped tones of the Meld.
Before I could move to offer Stel a hand, the Dyad flowed to its feet. Using the two bodies in perfect cooperation, it made the difficult task of getting the injured woman upright look like a carefully choreographed bit of dance. I realized then what it was about the women’s behavior earlier in the evening that had made it so hard to ignore them: the inhuman coordination.
Any time the two had interacted directly, handing a wine glass across the table say, they’d done so with none of the wasted movements or minor corrections that normal people made under similar circumstances. That told me that they’d never learned to pass for standard-issue human. And, that in turn, meant this pair was almost certainly operating beyond the range of their normal duties and training.
I hadn’t had much direct interaction with the Dyads; none of the Blades had within my memory. Kodamia was a much better and more humanely run enterprise than any of the surrounding countries, which meant it mostly avoided the attention of my goddess. I
had
encountered a few of them over the years, mostly while working undercover in various of the courts of the east; Kadesh, the Kvanas, Zhan.…
The Dyads I’d seen under those circumstances—mostly spies, eavesmen in diplomatic drag—had appeared perfectly normal except when they deliberately chose to emphasize their alien nature. Vala and Stel had pretty clearly not gone to whatever spy school those others had. An interesting detail that. So was their comparative youth—not much more than twenty-five, either of them—which was a good decade younger than the other Dyads I’d met. I wondered what it meant, finding them so far from home.
“Come on,” I said, nodding toward the back door. “We’re less likely to be seen going out this way and I’ve a brief stop I need to make on the way.”
“For what?” Vala asked suspiciously.
“My gear. I rent a room over the stable …or I did up till today.” I started walking. Either they would trust me and follow along or not.
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