Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

Donovan considered what this said about the man whose unwilling guest he was. A man subtle and disciplined. A careful man.

“Very nice,” he murmured, since some comment seemed expected of him.

“It pleases,” the Shadow remarked.

“Whatever happened to him?”

“Hmm?”

“Windhook Keopisenichok. He was out of town when the boots retaliated.”

“Oh. He’d fled into the Fetch-a-bun Hills right after burning the governor’s station. He was a madman, but not so mad as to stick around. The townies would’ve lynched him if nothing else, poor devils. They knew the penalty for illegal rebellion. He’d recruited a few likeminded folk—the desperate and feckless—and remained at large for the next five years, mostly raiding and robbing from the very people he was supposedly bent on liberating.”

“If you are trying to recruit me with inspirational tales,” Donovan said, “I’d suggest you build a better repertoire. ‘Illegal rebellion…’ Is there another sort?”

Oschous nodded. “Surely. Bring your glass with you.” He led him to the rear of the suite. “Windhook’s mistake,” he said as Donovan followed, “was that he struck too low and too openly from too narrow a base. A district governor? A station house? Pfaugh! What did he imagine he would accomplish by smashing a giant’s little toe?”

“And what was Geshler’s mistake?”

Oschous glanced over his shoulder. “Pretty much the same, though he did strike higher. He was too impatient. He should’ve worked sub rosa , built a wider network of supporters; and he should not have struck openly. Seizing the public buildings in the capital made him a sitting duck.”

“Better a duck on the wing? But it might be that like the sacral kings of old, he hoped the gesture would inspire others to action.”

“A foolish hope.”

“Was it? Nearly half the Lion’s Mouth have now risen up. Perhaps Padaborn was more successful than you credit. Not every seed germinates overnight.”

They had stopped before a blank wall and, because Donovan did not suppose this a particularly final destination, he was not surprised when Oschous spoke and a secret door opened on a small chamber paneled in sweetwood.

“By the way, let me congratulate you,” Oschous said before leading the scarred man inside. “Your performance has been excellent so far, but you are not nearly as disintegrated as you pretend.”

Donovan hesitated only fractionally. “No, not really.”

“Why the act, then?”

“If I failed to meet your expectations, you would send me back to the Periphery.”

“You can see how well that worked. A tool ought not pretend to uselessness. If you’d been just another Shadow recruited into the struggle, we’d’ve discarded you that first night, in the alley behind the bar called Apothete. There’s a ravine there … But the name of Geshler Padaborn was worth something, even if the man no longer was.”

Donovan sighed. “And now…”

“And now I have some matters to ponder privately. Who else knows?”

“Ravn, of course.”

“Of course. Based on the reports we had had, I had opposed bringing you back. I expected very little from you.”

“And now?”

“I expect a little more.” With his teeth, he pulled the cork from the bottle and spat it to the side. “Here. This is the fenny.” He filled both glasses, raised his, and waited for Donovan to do the same.

“To the blue skies and the green hills,” he said. “To all that was and all that yet might be.”

A terrible silence formed between them, into which the Fudir finally spoke the countersign:

“To the Taj and the Wall and the Mount of Many Faces,

“That Terra, long a province, be her own world once again.”

Oschous tossed back his fenny and Donovan watched to make sure he swallowed before he did the same. “So,” he said in the Tongue when both glasses had been emptied, “thou art of the Brotherhood?”

“Aye and all. And I swear that what we say will be said only here and only now. May I never see Green Terra if I lie.”

“How, brother, rose a Terran so high in ranks Confederal, being that the Folk suffer much on this hither side of the Rift?”

“By nosuch else means than the lie of silence. I speak Manjrin with no-but accent. I speak nogot-nothing of Herself. The man who joineth the Abattoir loseth his past.”

“A thing convenient in this wise.”

Oschous nodded. “Even so. I will now tell thee a thing so that thou mayest join with us at last. This is the thing. The Brotherhood will in this rebellion support us, and the payment be much of a such, no-but less than Terra free, and autonomous in Her own affairs. And with the right of all Terrans to return there to live their lives.”

Donovan swallowed and, within the confines of his heart, the Fudir wept. The young girl in the chiton sang. But Inner Child came alert, and the young man in the chlamys remained silent.

Oschous inserted a rod key into the wall. A tabernacle swung open and from it he removed a casket. This he placed on a small sweetwood table in the center of the little room. The opened lid revealed a few scoopfuls of dirt.

Donovan stared at the dirt in silence; then he lifted his gaze to his host and the question in his eyes never reached his lips.

“Aye,” said Oschous. “The soil of Terra Herself.”

The Fudir extended a hand, hesitated; but Oschous nodded, and he touched the dirt.

Perhaps it is true that the accidents of dirt are the same everywhere, that a scoopful of Dao Chetty or of High Tara would own similar moisture, similar texture, similar chemicals. But the substance was surely different. This dirt was earth in a way that no other dirt could be.

The scarred man had few sentiments. Behind the cynical exterior with which he faced the world was a cynical interior. His tears and smiles and anger were mostly constructed for effect. But the tightness in his throat was genuine. It came from none of his nine personalities, but from his body, directly from the soil into his blood.

“The Brotherhood will join the rebellion?” he said when he could trust his voice again.

“Not openly. Many who travel with us would part company if they thought this matter Terran. The negotiations are delicate and private. Neither Dawshoo nor Gidula know of them, and thou willt not tell them so. But, ‘aye and all.’ They will be in it.” He let that sink in before adding, “And you, Donovan buigh, Geshler Padaborn … If not for vengeance and not for pride, perhaps for the liberation of the Mother World.”

The Fudir nodded dumbly. “Aye,” he heard himself say. “Aye and all.”

“Ah, well said, Gesh!” Oschous exchanged arm-grips with him. “Well said.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Donovan broke contact with the dirt in the casket, and Oschous closed the lid and restored it to the hidden tabernacle in the hidden room. Donovan said nothing while he did. That Oschous Dee Karnatika had lied to him he was certain. But the nature of the lie so far eluded him.

“So,” says Bridget ban, leaning not toward the now-silent Shadow but toward her daughter, “he threw in with them after all.” There is a mix of triumph and satisfaction in her voice that Méarana does not care for. Her mother had the finest intuition in the Periphery, but sometimes she leapt to conclusions. That was well enough when the conclusion was on the other side of a chasm—who can cross a chasm in small, careful steps?—but sometimes it was simply irritating.