The Silenced Tale, стр. 101

“Just give her a second to get her—”

“She is not Alis,” Kintyre snaps. “She needs no babying. You are not her mother. Now, girl, his plans!”

“But I didn’t—” Ahbni tries again. She cuts herself off, staring wide-eyed at the shocked crowd around us.

“Back to the ballroom,” Bevel says, and it’s loud enough, has enough command to it, that those few people still lingering around Ichiro’s corpse start and turn away.

I am uncertain what is more respectful. Do we leave his body, and his head, where they lay? Or do we fetch them into the room? Drag them? And who among us would take up these tasks? I cannot leave it to my brother, can I? To ask him to haul away yet another body of yet another short-term companion because that is how our Writer constructs his plots, and I am too squeamish to accomplish the necessary task?

“Tell us what you know,” Pip entreats Ahbni, looking into her eyes, brown to brown.

“But what if I do that, and he—?” Ahbni starts, then cuts her eyes toward the ballroom.

Here, I speak up. “We have to believe they can protect themselves.”

“A bunch of civilians with fancy flashbangs?” Elgar snarls. His anger is unexpected. And Bevel and Kintyre both look moderately shamed. Interesting. “Haven’t we just proven that they can’t?” He points at Ichiro’s remains, and the slowly widening pool of ichor glinting ruby in the emergency lights.

“I don’t like our chances without all of us together,” I explain. “We need brawn, yes, but brain in this instance, as well. And Pip’s access to magic. Back into the ballroom with you,” I hiss over my shoulder to the last lingering fellow in a blue shirt. “Get them all back inside, lock and bar the doors, don’t come out. Keep everyone quiet. Do not attract attention.”

“But—” the volunteer protests.

“Now.” I say it in my Shadow Hand voice, and the blue-shirt obeys swiftly and silently.

The rest of us wait until the con-goers are shut away before exchanging serious looks.

“What we need is some more support,” Bevel says. “No more untrained . . .” His gaze strays to Ichiro. “But they’re all in Hain.”

Elgar’s eyes glint suddenly, a grin pulling at the side of his mouth. “Does anyone have a pen?”

“No,” I say immediately. “There are enough people in danger here—”

“It’s not utterly unreasonable,” Pip says. “It’s practically . . . heh, practically tradition at this point. Post-Station Five, pre-Act Three opener?” She is trying to be light about it, but her posture is weary, her eyes wandering to Ichiro at every spare second. She leans gingerly against a pile of rubble.

“You mean that damned dragon?” Kintyre pouts, and Ahbni’s eyes go large and fearful.

“Dragon,” she chokes.

“Wyndam, too?” Bevel muses.

“I don’t think weakening Pip is wise at this juncture—” I begin.

Elgar steps up into the knot of people looming over Ahbni, elbowing right into her. Ahbni grunts, and drops her eyes. They snag on something behind Elgar, presumably the splatter of Ichiro’s blood that paints his shirt in an arc like a morbid pageant-queen’s sash.

“If we’re not Writing out the next generation of heroes, then we have to do something. This isn’t working. It isn’t going to get him to show his hand.” Elgar sneers down at Ahbni. “Now, come on, sweetheart. Stop stalling and—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Pip interrupts Elgar. “Hey now—”

“Sweetheart!” Ahbni hisses, eyes narrowing and venom in her voice.“You self-important douchewaffle!” She lashes out, trying to strike Elgar, but Kintyre jerks her to a stop before she can reach him.

“Hey now!” Elgar yelps. “You brown girls are violent!”

“No!” Ahbni corrects. “Just sick of your shit!”

“Come on, Elgar,” Pip groans. “Don’t escalate—”

“Chitthu Pooka!”

“Enough!” Kintyre snarls.

Ahbni cringes away from his voluminous anger, half-hiding behind Elgar, as if he will protect her from Kintyre’s ire when he’s so incensed himself. It is an odd choice—I would have assumed Ahbni would choose Pip as her shield.

“Now, Kin, no need to play Lord of the Hall here,” Bevel admonishes, and Elgar protests over him, squawking indignantly over the insult.

“Quiet, everyone!” I shout over the sudden racket of every voice trying to be heard over the others. “Please!”

“Quiet, yourself!” my creator snarls. “I think the time for talk has passed, Forsyth! We need to—”

What we need to do, I do not know, for Elgar chokes off mid-sentence, eyes bulging out and jaw suddenly clenching.

“Elgar?” Pip asks, sheathing her sword and reaching for him as he tips backward on his heels, reeling, eyes rolling up in his head. “Elgar!”

She gets her arms on his wrists and, together with Bevel, lowers him safely to the ground.

“What happ—?” Kintyre starts, but then Ahbni starts laughing. “What have you—?”

She is grinning with manic glee, nostrils flared and arm shaking. And in her hand, Elgar’s dagger—Kintyre’s replica dagger—is soaked with gore.

“I am not your darling, your sweetheart, or your coffee fetcher!” Ahbni screeches. “You will treat me with the respect I deserve!”

“Jesus Christ,” Pip breathes, and scrambles to get Elgar turned onto his stomach.

The stab wound is bright with blood, a red flower blooming at an alarming pace across his shirt and down his back.

Pip presses her fingers to Elgar’s throat. “Still breathing,” she says, “but his pulse is thready. We need to . . . we need to . . . fuck, fuck! We need a first aid kit, we need to . . . pressure on the wound! Bevel!” Bevel obligingly strips off his short-robe, balls it up, and jams it against the wound.

Pip screams for someone to find a paramedic in the crowd, for a doctor, for a paladin or healing mage. But even from here, even with her body between mine and Elgar’s, I know that it is futile.

I know it in my bones. In my skin. In my blood. I feel the truth of it in the air.

It freezes me in place.

“Elgar,” I gasp, my chest heaving, lungs burning. I cannot seem to get enough air. “Pip?”

Pip looks up at me across