Part 22 (1/2)
She realized then what gripped underneath her arms. Coleopt claws. Hamish. Hamish, holding onto her, flying, wings thrumming.
”Hamish.” She felt as if she could cry, but she laughed, despite the pain. She spit blood. ”Hamish, it's you.”
”It is me. I had no one to ask approval of, do you see? No one to ask if your situation was both dire and urgent. So I thought of the answer myself. And I myself approved the action of coming to see if you required a.s.sistance. As I flew upward, you were all at once coming downward. I flew in such a way that I encountered you falling. I was accurate. And here we are, safe and s.h.i.+p-shape.”
”Yes, Hamish,” Zenn said, crying and laughing and tasting her own blood at the same time. ”Safe. Safe and s.h.i.+p-shape.”
By the time Hamish circled around to carry her over the cloister's south wall, the sunkiller was already inside the compound. The immense wings arched over the chapel ruins, where the animal had anch.o.r.ed itself to a fragment of stone arch with its long tail hook.
As Hamish slowed down to land, Zenn could see Liam was helping the council members clamber out of the gondola and onto the ground, where Otha and Hild waited. Fane and the Kiran emissary were securing the gondola with heavy lines attached to large pieces of rubble. The sunkiller had brought its two heads down low to watch the activity. But when its four sharp eyes caught sight of Hamish descending, both heads raised up and cried out a double honking alert.
She saw Liam raise his arm to point at them.
Hamish touched down lightly and released Zenn from his grip. The next thing she knew, Otha was there, gathering her up in his arms.
”Zenn, we thought you'da we thoughta” he didn't finish, but held her away from him, up in the air, seemingly unable to speak at all. That was a first.
”Otha. Could you pleasea?” Still aloft in his grip, Zenn nodded her head at the ground.
He set her down.
”s.e.xton Hamish.” Otha clapped both his hands onto the coleopt's upper carapace. ”Well done. Well done, s.e.xton.” Hamish seemed unsure of how to respond to this unusual outburst from his director-abbot.
”Child!” Hild rushed up and began to fuss over Zenn, smoothing her hair, pulling out a handkerchief to daub at her b.l.o.o.d.y face. ”Are you alright? Look at you. Ren says you got up on that animal's back. You didn't. Tell me you didn't.”
”She did, though,” Hamish said. ”And then she fell off into the air.”
”Oh!” Hild's hands flew to her mouth.
”And I thought for myself!” Hamish exclaimed.
”Scarlett!” Liam called as he ran to where she sat. ”You're alive a” how in Nine h.e.l.lsa?”
”I flew without any approval other than my own,” Hamish went on proudly. ”And I encountered novice Zenn at an alt.i.tude well above ground-level anda”
”You? Caught her? In midair?” Fane said, coming to stand behind the others, shaking his head in wonder. ”By the Shepherds!”
But Zenn could no longer hear any of them, because Hild had wrapped her in her thin, strong arms, pulling her in close, rocking and crying and tsking and scolding. Which, for once, Zenn didn't mind at all.
After an overwhelming amount of confusion and far too many people speaking at once, Zenn found herself sitting, dazed, on a chair-sized sandstone block that had once been part of the chapel's foundation. Hild made her promise to stay put, then hurried off to fetch the first aid kit. Zenn was happy to just sit, to do nothing, say nothing. Her body ached, her sc.r.a.ped face hurt, her thoughts skittered and slid this way and that.
Close by, the councilors stood in a milling group, their voices a din of excited babble, some of them gesturing toward the sunkiller floating serenely above them.
”Otha Scarlett,” Vic's voice cut through the general murmuring. The woman was shouting as she picked her way toward them through the rubble field of the chapel ruins. ”What did I tell you?” She whipped her cowboy hat off, flailed it in the air at the sunkiller. ”I said this thing was dangerous. And what did you say? You a.s.sured me, a.s.sured us all it was safe. Is this your idea of safe? Nearly killing these good people?”
”Vic,” Otha raised one hand as if to ward off her anger, ”This kind of thing, equipment failure like this, no one could have foreseen that ita”
”No. You never should have allowed these people to put themselves at risk to begin with.” She turned her flushed face to the group of councilors, her anger now coming under control, turning to a calm, controlled fury. ”Well, your little demonstration today has been very educational. Very educational, indeed. And I think I can speak for everyone on the council when I tell you that it would be irresponsible, yes, it would be a dereliction of our duty if we allowed the cloister's lease to be renewed. I'm sorry to say it. I've known you a long time, Otha. But after all the other accidents with your creatures, all the other misjudgments on your behalf, and now this a” well, it simply leaves us no choice but to terminate your tenure on this property.” She caught sight of Zenn then, and pointed at her. ”Your own niece, Otha. Look at her. Think about what might have happened.”
”She's lying!” Zenn yelled, jumping to her feet as if waking from a dream. ”Graad Dokes cut the cables. To make us look bad. To scare the council and make them vote against us.”
”Zenn,” Otha turned to her, scowling, eyes flas.h.i.+ng. ”Don't.”
”Otha, my heavens,” Vic gave Zenn a pitying look. ”Zenn, you've had a frightening experience, a terrible ordeal. You're confused.” She turned to the crowd. ”But we mustn't blame her. It's not hera”
”It's true. Graad Dokes did it,” Liam yelled, his voice brittle with emotion. He'd climbed up on a mound of rubble behind the crowd, and they all turned as one to stare. ”He made me do the other things, the whalehound, the sloo.”
”Hea he doesn't know what he's saying,” Vic said, half-laughing, walking toward him.
Liam pointed down at Vic, who shook her head, to show how sad he was making her.
”We did all those things. Me and Dokes. And it was all her idea.”
”Me? Liam, that'sa how ridiculous.” She laughed again, to show them all this was simply too outrageous to believe. ”How could I ever make you do such things?”
”You told Dokes. And Dokes told me. Told me if I didn't do it, he'd make me sorry. That he'd hurt me. That he'da hurt Zenn.”
”Graad Dokes said that?” Otha took a step toward Liam. ”You heard Graad threaten Zenn?”
”Vic.” It was Ren. The constable had been listening from behind the group. Now, he came forward. ”You know what in the Nine h.e.l.ls any of this is about?”
”I a.s.sure you I have no idea. It'sa I have no idea.”
”Uh huha” Ren looked from Vic to Liam.
”Why would I be involved with anything like this? This boya Liam here has no proof. Not a whit. It's all in his mind. What with his mother taking off, being left on his own. You all know what a hard time he's had, the trouble he's gotten himself into. It's no wonder he's got things all mixed up in his head. And really, now, what reason could I possibly have toa”
”This kind of reason,” Liam said. He pulled an old file folder filled with yellowing paper out of his s.h.i.+rt. He brandished it in the air.
”What is that, boy?” Ren said, going to him.
”It's proof. The original cloister lease,” Liam shouted out so everyone could hear.
”Where'd you get that?” Ren asked.
”From Vic's file cabinet, at the ranch.”
”Liam Tucker,” Vic said, going toward him. ”You had no right to go pawing through mya Ren, these are private doc.u.ments. He has no right.”
”Give those to me, boy.” Ren walked over and took the folder from Liam.
”Those are private, Ren.” Vic came at Ren and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h the papers out of his hand. He pulled away from her. ”Ren Jakstra, give me those.”
”Vic, I asked you about the lease doc.u.ments two months ago, when this whole thing about the vote came up. You said you didn't have the papers, had no idea where they could be.”
Vic said nothing to this, but just reached again for the file. Ren held her off with the cast on his arm.