Part 26 (2/2)

”Have you eaten her?” Carefully, neutrally, Tristen began disengaging his boots from the surface of Leviathan. Before him, the hole he and Gavin had gnawed in its side was sealing, seething at the bottom with the blue ropes of colonies.

”No,” she said. ”She's alive. I'm just borrowing her for now, because she's here and Leviathan remade her for me. And if she weren't, would you kill your granddaughter's body to be sure?”

”I'd kill her for her crimes,” he said, and winced at Cynric's frown.

”Oh, yes,” his sister said. ”Her crimes. So much worse than yours or mine. Look at the thing you're standing on, My Brother, and tell me any Conn has the right to live.”

”Touche,” Tristen said, and shook Mirth free of blue blood before he put it away. ”So a.s.suming for the moment that you are my sister-and this would be very like her-what was the purpose of this charade?”

She smiled. She held out her fist, turned it over, and opened her hand. ”Leviathan knows the universe,” she said, as he watched a glittering star map of impossible brilliance unfurl above her palm. ”I have built us an astrogator, Brother Mine. I have made us a way home. Now draw out your blade again.”

”You told me to put it up,” Tristen said. ”What would you have me butcher now?”

”Butcher nothing, but part a chain. Cut loose Leviathan. Let him return to his people, for we have abused him sore.”

”He wants to destroy us,” Tristen said. ”And I cannot say I blame him.”

Cynric shook her narrow head. ”He cannot have his vengeance, though I am without doubt the one most deserving of it. He will have to live with only freedom.”

And all around them, the lights of combat were dying away.

Later, when Cynric had led them back inside, Tristen came up beside Bened.i.c.k and rested one hand lightly on his shoulder. ”I knew you were standing behind me.”

Bened.i.c.k glanced sidelong at him and nodded. ”I thought you might not want to handle it. But then it turned out it didn't need to be handled. Not that way.”

”Not yet,” Tristen said, watching Cynric's slender, white-garbed spine retreat down the corridor before them. She moved fast. He stepped up his pace, aware of Bened.i.c.k doing the same, of Chelsea and Mallory following. Aware of the way Mallory's hand came up to one shoulder, as if to steady a pa.s.senger who was not there. ”What about when she gives Arianrhod back?”

Bened.i.c.k shook his head. ”Cynric's right. What has she done that's worse than you or me?”

”It's not about worse,” Tristen answered. ”It's about staying alive, not about what's right or wrong.”

”Maybe it should be,” Bened.i.c.k said, and to that Tristen had no response except a short nod, curt and painful.

”Come on,” he said. ”It's a f.u.c.king long walk home.”

In the warmth of the bridge, Cynric Conn walked forward across violets to meet the Captain. The Captain stood and watched her. In her borrowed flesh, with her borrowed spirit, Cynric knelt, and Perceval felt a s.h.i.+ver of recognition, a cold wash of sweat as the hair parted over her nape and fell in brown streamers to either side. Perceval's uncle, Tristen, stood behind her on the left side. Her father, Bened.i.c.k, stood behind her on the right. Caitlin Conn, her mother, was in Engineering where she belonged, overseeing the removal of the last collars and clamps from the hide of Leviathan.

The Sorceress extended something in her two hands. A scabbarded sword with a rough, improvised hilt affixed.

Perceval did not reach out her hand. ”I do not want that.”

”It is Charity,” Cynric said, raising her eyes in surprise. ”The last of its kind.”

What, did she not foresee this also? Perceval waved it away in irritation. She did not want a sword, and she did not want Cynric. What she wanted was Gavin back, but she would not say as much, for Captains did not weep. And if she said the basilisk's name, there would be no end to her tears. So instead she said, ”It was Tristen's; give it to him.”

But Tristen demurred. ”I prefer Mirth, as it happens.” He patted the hilt of the blade. ”Give it to Bened.i.c.k.”

Bened.i.c.k shook his head. ”Give it to Caitlin,” he said. ”She probably actually misses hers.”

When Bened.i.c.k went to Caitlin, he knew she had been waiting for him because she was at such great pains to seem that she had not. She was alone in a booth at the center of a half-repaired Central Engineering, feet up on a console, studying schematics and frowning.

”Better?” he asked, having entered without knocking.

”Fair,” she said. ”Now that nothing's chewing the world apart from the edges, we're getting some actual repairs done. Have you talked to Perceval?”

He nodded, tightly. In the long run, he thought the new, fey Perceval with so many ancient souls behind her eyes might even be a match for Cynric the Sorceress, in wisdom if not in craft. ”Perceval sent you something,” he said, and held out the long nano-swagged parcel.

Caitlin looked from it to him, and did not reach out for it. ”Tristen didn't claim it?”

Bened.i.c.k laid the unblade down across her console. She could unwrap it later. ”You should go and talk to our daughter in person.”

Caitlin nodded, eyes bright. ”I will.”

”I'm not sure how she'll be,” he said honestly, stepping forward to stand beside her chair. ”I don't know where we go from here.”

He touched her naked hand with his own so his colony could give her the map, the one he'd been saving to deliver personally since Cynric had imparted it to him.

”It's okay,” Caitlin said. She tipped her head over her shoulder at Jsutien, who was visible through the gla.s.s. ”Wherever the h.e.l.l it is, we know how to get there, now.”

acknowledgments.

Thanks very much to all the people who helped get this writ: Sarah Monette, Cindy and Robert Wood, Amanda Downum, Jodi Meadows, Jaime Lee Moyer, Emma Bull, Delia Sherman, Anne Groell Keck, Jennifer Jackson, Michael Curry, Leah Bobet, and more.

Also by Elizabeth Bear.

UNDERTOW.

HAMMERED.

SCARDOWN.

WORLDWIRED.

CARNIVAL.

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