Kurt backed away uneasily, darted a nervous glance further left, right again toward the fire.
“Kurt,” said Djan’s voice from the shadows at his far right.
He turned slowly, knowing she would be armed.
She waited, her coppery hair bright in the shadows, bright as the bronze of the helmeted men who waited behind her. The weapon he had expected was in her hand. She wore her own uniform now-he had never seen her wear it before-green that shimmered with synthetic unreality in this time and place.
“I knew,” she said, “when you ran, that you would be back.”
He cast the gun to the ground, demonstrating both hands empty. “I’ll get you out. It’s too late to save anything. Djan. Give up. Come with me.”
“What, have you forgiven, and has Elas? They sent you here because they won’t come here. They fear this place. And Pai, for shame, Pai.”
“Methi,” wailed Pai, who had fallen on her face in misery, “Methi, I am sorry.”
“I do not blame you. I have expected him for days.” She spoke now in Nechai. “And Shan t’Tefur?”
“He is dead,” said Kurt.
There was no grief, only a slight flicker of the eyes. “I could no longer reason with him. He saw things that could not exist, that never had existed. So others found their own solutions, they tell me. They say the Families have gone over to Ylith of Indresul.”
“To save their city.”
“And will it?”
“I think it has a chance at least.”
“I thought,” she said, “of making them listen. I had the firepower to do it, to show them where we came from.”
“I am thankful,” he said, “that you didn’t.”
“You made this attack calculating that I -wouldn’t.”
“You know the object lesson would be pointless. And you have too keen a sense of responsibility to get these men killed defending you. I’ll help you get out, into the hills. There are people in the villages who would help you. You can make your peace with Ylith-methi later.”
She smiled sadly. “With a world between us, how did we manage to do it? Ylith will not let it rest. And neither will Kta t’Elas.”
“Let me help you.”
Djan moved the gun she had held steadily on him, killed the power with a pressure of her thumb. “Go,” she told her two companions. “Take Pai to safety.”
“Methi,” one protested. It was t’Senife. “We will not leave you with him.”
“Go,” she said, but when they would not, she simply held out her hand to Kurt and started with him to the door, the white-robed priests melting back before them to clear the way.
Then a shadow rose up before them.
TNethim. –
A blade flashed. Kurt froze, foreseeing the move of Djan’s hand, whipping up the pistol. “Don’t!” he cried out to them both.
The ypan arced down.
A cry of outrage roared in his ears. He seized t’Nethim’s arm, thrown sprawling as the Sufaki guards went for the man. Blades lifted, fell almost simultaneously. T’Nethim sprawled down the steps, over the edge, leaving a dark trail behind him.
Kurt struggled to his knees, saw the awful ruin of Djan’s shoulder and knew, though she still breathed, that she was finished. His stomach knotted in panic. He thought that her eyes pitied him.
Then they lost the look of life, the firelight from the doorway flickering across their surface. When he gathered her up against him she was loose, lifeless.
“Let her go,” someone ordered.
He ignored the command, though it was in his mind that in the next moment a Sufak dagger could be through his back. He cradled Djan against him, aware of Pai sobbing nearby. He did not shed tears. They were stopped up in him, one with the terror that rested in his belly. He wished they would end it.
A deafening vibration filled the air, moaning deeply with a sighing voice of bronze, the striking of the Inta, the notes shaking and chilling the night. It went on and on, time brought to a halt, and Kurt knelt and held her dead weight against his shoulder until at last one of the younger priests came and knelt, holding out his hands in entreaty.