Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

Venera looked back at him. 'You say 'they.' This is not your new home, then?'

'I suppose you'd call it my current place of employ.'

She was silent for a while; then suddenly she pulled her hand out of his. 'I suppose you were working for Inshiri all along.'

'Actually, no.' He frowned pensively into the night. 'I said you'd call this my current place of employ. I don't consider myself to be working for Inshiri at all. Any more than I ever said I was working with you and Chaison.'

'But what about loyalty? How do you suppose Antaea Argyre felt when you attacked Serenity? We all knew it was you.'

It hurt just thinking about how that debacle had gone; but Venera didn't need to know that. 'What do you know about loyalty?' he retorted.

'Maybe more than either you or I suspected,' she said quietly; and despite his deeply ingrained cynicism, Jacoby found that the words stung him.

They were approaching a quickly spinning town wheel. The thing was little, not more than a hundred feet across, and consisted of just a few streamlined wooden buildings joined together by swaying catwalks. It was really just a swinging bridge rolled into a circle and set rolling through the skies.

Jacoby nodded at it. 'Home, for now. I have to warn you, it's a sixer.' He was referring to the rate per minute of the wheel's rotation. 'If you have any inner-ear problems, we can set you up somewhere else.'

'Oh, please. I once bedded a pirate in a twelver.' She grabbed his elbow and let him lead her through the air to the landing pad at the wheel's axle. 'Anyway, what about it? Are you going to stand by and let Inshiri torture me into compliance? Or death?'

Their feet found the inner surface of the barrel-shaped landing pad. Lanterns glowed here, showing the way to four long ladders that led in four directions to the circle's rim. Jacoby gestured for her to go first. As they climbed down he said, 'If you hadn't been suicidally brave at Fracas, you wouldn't be in this situation. I can protect you for now, but you have to at least pretend to cooperate with Inshiri.'

They'd been gaining weight as they climbed down, and now entered the top floor of a house. It was ordinary enough, with carpets, wood-paneled walls, and lamps in sconces. The floor curved up rather quickly to each side, but that was to be expected in a sixer. Jacoby's own stomach was turning over with the wheel's spin, but he refused to let Venera see that. In the sudden quiet of the house, he pitched his voice lower and said, 'I was after three things: control of the door to Brink, which would have made me the gatekeeper for your little alliance; you, to control your husband; and the key to Candesce, to bring Inshiri and the outsiders in line. With them I could have headed off this fiasco and steered us to a diplomatic solution.'

Venera planted her hands on her hips and glowered. 'Your solution.'

'It would have been better than what's coming.'

'But Inshiri--'

'My plans for her are another story, but as I said, the key is still in play. --Anyway, from the way you're shifting from foot to foot, I'd say you don't have the time for that particular tale.'

'Urm, yes, the water closet--'

'Is that way.'

* * *

NICOLAS REMORAN, GENERAL Secretary of the Virgan Home Guard, braced himself in the hatch of the battleship, watching its mighty engines settle it close to one of Kaleidogig's spidery docking arms. When he spotted the distant shapes of Inshiri Ferance and Jacoby Sarto waiting there, he turned and said, 'Remember your orders. Observe only.'

Antaea nodded, and unconsciously smoothed the black material of her new uniform. She knew she only wore it because Remoran wanted to keep her close and in line; still, every morning when she awoke, the first thing she did was go to the closet to check that it was really there.

'General Secretary, how good to see you,' Inshiri called. As the ship inched closer to the dock she turned her head to take in its immensity, and said, 'I'm somehow glad I never knew that the Guard had forces like these. It would have given me nightmares.' Then she noticed Antaea.

'Argyre! I see you've regained your rank,' she said as she reached out to take Antaea's hand. 'Or,' she squinted at Remoran, 'was she yours all along?'

'She's been demoted, actually,' said Remoran. 'We could hardly justify her expulsion after we admitted that Gonlin's plan had been the right one. But her blind acceptance of his orders was a problem.'

'Ah.' Ferance looked down at her toes, which were together and pointing into the black abyss that lay beyond Kaleidogig's red light.

'I'm placing Argyre with you as an advisor,' continued Remoran. 'She's spent time in the enemy camp, after all.'

Inshiri arched an eyebrow, but didn't complain. 'Jacoby?'

'You can trust her judgment,' he said, which nearly made Antaea guffaw out loud. Who're you to talk about trust! she wanted to say; but she kept her expression neutral.

They boarded the battleship and Antaea found herself in an echoing, warehouse-sized hangar lit with unwavering electric light. Dozens of missile-festooned attack ships hung from cranes here, and airmen swarmed around them, working, cursing, and throwing tools back and forth.

Inshiri pinwheeled slowly, taking it all in. 'Wondrous,' she said. 'You could kill so many people with this thing.'

'Hopefully we won't have to,' said Remoran. 'I'm still expecting the Last Line to come to their senses. No segment of the Home Guard has ever revolted--at least, never on this scale.' He shot Antaea an ironic look. 'They've swallowed the propaganda that Lacerta brought back from Aethyr, but the internal contradictions will bring