The Hero Strikes Back Read online

  “Leave it,” Karish told me. “They feel better about it this way.”

  Really? I’d be annoyed, having to make way for someone else like that. But they’d already disappeared into the crowd, and no one else seemed to find anything odd about it. I couldn’t see any dark looks or discontented mutters.

  And to be honest, right then, I really didn’t care that much. I was happy enough to have a seat at a table.

  I closed my eyes, letting the notes and the rhythms of the music flow through me. Another gentle piece, a little mournful. Beautiful, but disturbing, about lost hopes and opportunities carelessly tossed aside, and it made me uncomfortable. It made me think. Images and memories I preferred to repress flashed through my mind. I clutched the sides of the table, pulling in a deep breath that had nothing to do with recovering from the dancing. Jumping around in a tavern when everyone else was doing the same was one thing. Disintegrating into tears and being the only one doing it was not acceptable.

  Warm hands peeled my fingers from the table. “Don’t try to control yourself,” Karish chided me. “That’s my job.”

  Well, no, it wasn’t, strictly speaking. His job was to make sure I didn’t hurt anyone, or sleep with anyone, or damage any of the furniture. “Not much fun for you.” And I didn’t like the idea of him doing it.

  “Aye, it is.” His grin was impish.

  Oh, that made me feel so much better.

  The beer, when it came, was ice cold and so, so smooth, spicy flavor bursting over my tongue and flowing down my throat. Very good. I drained it in short order, and a full mug quickly replaced the empty one. I raised it to my lips.

  Karish started laughing at me. “Slow down, girl!” he cried. “You’ll make yourself drunk.”

  And what was so wrong with that? “So?”

  “So, is that your plan?”

  I hadn’t thought about it before, but “Sure!” Everyone else did, and they seemed to enjoy it.

  He was grinning. “Have you ever been drunk before?”

  Of course not. “What kind of question is that? I’m twenty-two years old.”

  A brilliantly evasive answer which, unfortunately, failed to divert him. “Have you?” he persisted.

  “I’ll have you know I get drunk all the time. It’s a regular thing.”

  “You do not.”

  “Are you going to nag at me all night?”

  “Far be it for me to be the voice of reason.”

  He sounded so all-knowing that it aggravated me to no end. I couldn’t help it. I had to stick my tongue out at him again. Because I couldn’t think of anything suitably cutting to say.

  He started laughing. Threw back his head and howled like I was the most hysterical thing he’d ever seen. I thought, for a moment, of asking him just what he thought was so funny, but realized I really didn’t need to know. He was enjoying himself. That was good enough for me, even if it were at my expense. There were worse things.

  I finished my beer with no more comments from the man who thought he was my mother. And then we danced. And drank some more. And danced some more. And drank some more.

  And it all got a little fuzzy after that.

  The next time I could think again, and then not well, it was morning—or some time like it. I opened my eyes, cursed the evil blades of sunlight, and closed them again. I tried to ascertain my situation. I was in bed, my own. Alone, dressed in my nightgown and lacking any recollection of how I’d gotten there. My tongue was coated with thick fur, my throat was sticky, my stomach stretched and gurgled, and I wished my head would just carry on and explode so I wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore.

  Then the bed started swinging and spinning.

  In my mind I could hear Karish laughing, the bastard.

  What a stupid thing to do.

  I was still sitting there, and still miserable, when an aggravating Karish pounded on the door and taunted me, telling me I’d feel better if I ate something. The wicked liar. At the thought of food my stomach tried to curl into an impenetrable fist.

  But when Riley knocked on my door to tell me my mother had arrived, I knew there was nothing for it but to get out of bed. I washed my face. Dressed. Opened the door.

  The aroma of food wafted in.

  Close the door. Swallow. Lean my forehead against the door.

  Could I die now?

  Well, no, not now. After a moment. After I rested for a bit, I’d go back to bed. And die.

  Knowing my mother, she wouldn’t let me die. She’d just come to my room and berate me for still being in bed.

  I opened the door again.

  I never before would have described the smell of frying bacon as a stench. And I had to walk through it all the way to the kitchen.

  My mother was there. She was causing the stench. She was grinning as she watched me. She knew what I was feeling and she thought it was hilarious. “Sit down.”

  I was happy enough to rest my wobbly legs.

  Mother placed in front of me a plate of glaring yellow and rusty red. “It seems you had a very good time with Taro last night.”

  The plate had good timing. It provided an excuse for covering half my face with my hands, ostensibly to ward off the smell. Oh my gods. The whole night was not, unfortunately, lost to me. I could remember drinking. Every moment I was off the dance floor I was drinking. No intelligent conversation of any kind.

  And the dancing. Oh, Zaire, that was the worst. Because—ah, I hated even thinking about it. It hadn’t really been dancing at all. More like writhing. Against Karish. Body pressed to his, arms linked around his neck. No doubt he believed my behavior was the result of repressed yearning and the last thing I needed was for him to know I lusted after him. Damn it. Why couldn’t my memory block have extended over to that?

  Thankfully, it had only been Karish. I hadn’t danced with anyone else. I didn’t think. I couldn’t recall. But even if I didn’t, dancing like that with Karish was more than bad enough.

  Had there been anyone else I knew there? Had they seen us? What were they thinking?

  Not that appearing hung over before one’s mother didn’t have a humiliation all its own.

  “Eat, Lee.”

  “Uh—” I’d really rather not, thanks anyway.

  “It’ll make you feel better. Listen to your mother. The voice of experience.”

  I looked up at her at that. Her face was completely blank. She couldn’t repress the twinkle in her eyes though.

  I stuck a tiny piece of egg on my fork and brought it to my mouth, trying not to smell it. I put the egg on my tongue, prepared for another slosh from my stomach.

  I swallowed. Nothing unpleasant happened. And it tasted really good. My next bite was more substantial.

  My mother snickered and tucked into her own plate.

  I did start to feel better. So my mother was right. Why did I feel irked rather than gratified by that? It made no sense.

  “So,” said my mother. “Taro told me his mother is in town.”

  “So he said.”

  “So I’m going to invite her to the Lion to dinner,” my mother announced gaily. “A dinner for the four of us.”

  There was something perversely amusing about the idea of forcing the superior Dowager Duchess of Westsea to spend an evening in our non-aristocratic company. “What does Taro think of that idea?”

  “Well, he didn’t really like the idea, but he agreed to pass along the invitation. I think it’s only appropriate that we all get to know each other, especially when we’re so fortunate as to be in High Scape at the same time. It’s almost like we’re family, after all.”

  What was she up to? Because she did not think of the Dowager as family, and she’d never before given any hint of interest in meeting her.

  Still, I was glad she was doing it. It was probably the only chance I would have to meet Karish’s mother. He seemed anxious to keep us separated.

  After breakfast I felt well enough to move without wincing, and even to work on some reports
for the council. I wasn’t in any shape to bench dance, though, and I felt strangely toxic. I didn’t think I’d be drinking again for a good long while. If ever.

  The blizzard struck later that afternoon.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d never been so cold. The frigid air tingled and scraped against my skin. I had to keep blinking strangely aching eyes. My breath rasped in my throat. My feet hurt. I’d made the mistake of stomping them once, in an attempt to warm them up, and it had felt like something very fragile within them—bones, maybe?—had sharply shattered.

  Beside me, I heard Karish’s teeth rattling. I could see his breath streaming out like smoke. For once he was keeping his hands strictly to himself. His arms were tightly crossed as he tried to control his shivering. The other Sources in the Stall were in just as bad a state, hunched over and stiff with cold, their Shields quiet and withdrawn as they all struggled with a level of discomfort none of them had ever before experienced.

  The fire blazing in the stove looked real pretty, though.

  “We will tell the regulars we have a plan,” La Monte said through chattering teeth. No attempts at an appropriate introduction this time. Just straight to the point. Bless the man.

  “We’ve had an answer back from the council?” Riley asked.

  “No,” La Monte snapped. “But I’ve had a brick narrowly miss my head and a horde of non-apologetic regulars telling me to get off my ass to do something.” He paused, so we could all be shocked by his news and his manner of relaying it. “So I told them we were working on it. I’m not going to wait until the council puts together a commission that will look into the matter and give us a report in a couple of years. The regulars looked ready to throw ropes over tree branches. I had to say something and telling them I was waiting to hear back from the council wasn’t going to cut it.” He clapped his hands together to warm them. I thought of bones shattering. “They weren’t terribly impressed with my answer but at least they left without stoning me.”

  All right, I supposed there wasn’t much I could say against that. A brick at his head! What was that about? It certainly wasn’t a rational or productive response to circumstances. What was that like, calmly walking down the street, minding your own business, to find your peace broken by a projectile flying at your head? La Monte was obviously rattled to be using something other than the pristine language that was his habit, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “Anything to say, Dunleavy?” he asked me archly, the prat.

  Well then, yes, I did. “What are we going to say when nothing happens?” Because, while I understood La Monte’s use of the lie, the problems with the lie still existed. “When whatever we’re supposed to be doing doesn’t work?”

  “There was alliteration happening all over the place in that sentence,” Karish muttered.

  “This will pass,” La Monte announced in a calm, resonating voice. All he needed was a mountaintop.

  “You keep saying that and it keeps getting worse.” I knew I sounded like a nag, but it was true. We had just descended into all new levels of cold, hadn’t we?

  “It will pass. All things do.”

  Lord. “What if the regulars acquire better aim before that happens?”

  La Monte set his jaw. “They won’t. They wouldn’t dare.”

  I would wager that had someone asked him, a week earlier, if a regular would ever throw a brick in his general direction, he would have said they wouldn’t dare.

  “Now, Dunleavy, I know you’re anxious to contribute and prove your worth,” Wilberforce interjected in a voice I assumed was supposed to sound soothing and patient. “But wisdom as profound as Chris’s can come only with time and experience. Believe me, you will get there, some day.”

  Blank face, blank face, blank face, and above all ignore the giggling—yes, the giggling—coming from Karish’s chest and throat. “One can only hope.”

  La Monte, being more perceptive than Wilberforce, shot me a hard look.

  All right, here goes. “Perhaps we should try actually doing something. Now that we’ve actually told them we are.”

  Karish’s posture shifted beside me. An ice-cold hand wrapped around mine and squeezed. I glanced up at him. I wasn’t going to give away his secret. He would, though, if he didn’t stop being so paranoid.

  Hammad started snickering. “I was never that young.”

  “Haven’t we already been through this?” Garrighan drawled.

  “What’s the harm in trying?”

  “It’s not what we do,” said Hammad.

  “But we’re telling the regulars that it is.” Didn’t they see the long-term repercussions of telling them that? Could they really be that blind? It was so obvious.

  “It’s a necessary fiction.”

  “Also known as a bald-faced lie.”

  “Dunleavy, we are not having this discussion again,” La Monte snapped. “You have made your feelings quite clear. And apparently the injury I’ve suffered hasn’t changed them.”

  Ah, guilt. I recognized the emotion. I knew what it was. I’d even experienced it from time to time. But had La Monte managed to inspire it within me with his heavy-handed attempt at emotional manipulation? Not at all.

  “If you feel compelled to disturb everyone with your speculations about what might be happening,” La Monte continued, “and rile people up with pretensions of an ability to solve every problem, then by all means be my guest. But we,” and he glanced about at all the others, none of whom appeared prepared to contradict him, “know what we’re going to be doing.”

  He did everything but cross his arms and nod and say “So there.” What a bastard. Speculations. Pretensions. Like he knew what the hell he was talking about. Getting a brick thrown at him didn’t make him right.

  But there was no point in saying any of that, because everyone else agreed with him, or at least planned to follow his lead, and the horse was most sincerely dead.

  So I tilted my head in acknowledgement. “So sorry to have bored you all,” I said coolly. I didn’t understand it, though. Why didn’t any of them even want to try?

  “Ya done it now,” Karish said, but I didn’t know to whom, nor in reference to what.

  “I’ve got somewhere to be,” Rayne announced. “I’m not on duty, there’s no reason for me to be out here risking black fingers.”

  “Hear hear,” said Stone, pulling her cloak about her more tightly and shifting her feet, ready to go outside.

  I didn’t sigh. I didn’t clench my teeth. It was to be expected. There was no reason for any of them to listen to me. I was the youngest, the least experienced. And it wasn’t as though I had a real plan or idea.

  Or, apparently, any powers of persuasion.

  Beatrice and Benedict were on duty, and so remained in the Stall. The rest of us trudged back over the snow-covered plain. No one spoke. It was too cold to speak. We just hurried along as quickly as the deep snow allowed us.

  Once we passed the city’s ring road the Pairs split off in different directions. Karish stuck with me. I supposed he thought to walk me home. How entirely unnecessary of him.

  “What could I say to them?” he asked me all out of the blue.

  Caught up in my own thoughts, I let myself frown. I thought about what he had said. I turned the words around, took them apart, examined each one individually, put them back together and studied the whole, then said, “What?”

  “At the Stall, when you were talking about trying to do something about the weather. I couldn’t tell them about what we were trying. There really wasn’t anything to say.”

  “Ah.” I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I mean, there’s nothing to report yet. And I’m sorry, but I don’t want them finding out about . . . things unless we have something real to tell them.”

  “Fine.” It was done. There was no point in hashing it out.

  “Damn it, Lee!” he snapped.

  I looked up at him. What was his problem now?

  He did a weird s
ort of step and slide thing that had him suddenly in front of me, facing me, and I had to stop. “Will you just admit you’re angry?”

  Talking about beating dead animals. “I have nothing to be angry about.” Not with him, anyway. And it was too cold to stay angry with La Monte.

  “You’re telling me you don’t think I failed you or something by not speaking up back there?”

  Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. “I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself.” And perfectly used to being summarily dismissed. Really. That was the lot of the Shield. Sure, it would have been nice if Karish had said something. They would have listened to him, and thought about what he said, at least for a moment. But most likely they would have eventually chosen the same path regardless. So the fact that he decided not to throw in his lot with the losing side, well there was no point in getting upset about it. And, anyway, I would never dream of expecting Karish to speak when he didn’t care to, just to support me.

  “I could have drawn lines by your spine.”

  More mental dissection was required to translate that, but the fact that I could pleased me. Then I rolled my eyes. “You might have noticed it’s a bit chilly today.”

  “You’re angry, Lee.”

  I had to admit I was starting to get there. I hated it when people told me how I felt. I shrugged. “Fine. I’m angry. Can we go somewhere inside now?”

  “Damn it, Lee.” He couldn’t drive his hands into his hair because both his hands and his head were wrapped. He tried, though. It almost made me smile.

  I waited a moment, thinking he planned to continue, but apparently he could think of nothing more to say. “You get irritated when I say I’m not angry and you get irritated when I say I am angry. I can’t win.”

  “Because you’re just saying whatever you think will shut me up,” he accused me.

  “Aye, but it’s not working.”

  “Argh!” was his response, and he charged on down the street.

  And I started laughing at his antics. He was so excitable. Sometimes it was exhausting just listening to him, but there was also something exhilarating about it. Karish seemed so unconcerned with whether people knew what he was feeling. After years of being told how distasteful it was to impose one’s strong emotions on others, it was refreshing to be with someone who wasn’t similarly constrained.