Kigh - Fifth Quarter Part 2

She stared, not believing.

"Vree..." Cold fingers clutched at her wrist and pressed out a pattern only her

brother knew.

The world became a dark and unfamiliar place. "Bannon?"

Chapter Two.

"... saw no guard, knew I should've waited, but..." His face twisted and even the shadow resemblance to Bannon disappeared. He was an old man, in agony. And as unbelievable as it seemed, he was her brother. "Hurts, Vree."

"I know." Knew exactly what the poison was doing to the body he now wore. Knew there wasn't anything she could do about it but watch him die.

"Have to tell you..."

His fingers were freezing. She fought a futile urge to try and rub warmth back into them. "I'm here, Bannon."

"He was in the room. Don't know how he saw me. He smiled. Drank. Motioned me forward. Knew you were behind me, so I... went." He'd been sucking in air between each short burst of words but had to stop and breathe a moment just to live.

Vree felt as though iron bands had been wrapped tight around her ribs. Obviously, whatever had happened, she hadn't been close enough behind him. Hadn't been close enough to save him. She wanted to close her eyes but was afraid he'd die while they were closed-half believed that only her attention kept him alive.

A soldier who died off the battlefield became one of Jiir's ravens, doomed to feed off the fallen, off the discarded bodies of those who were granted a place in Her host. But surely a.s.sa.s.sins were allowed a wider battlefield? Vree thought of the great clouds of winged scavengers that settled down to feast on the b.l.o.o.d.y flesh scattered over the ground when the fighting ended and nearly shuddered. G.o.ddess, please... But Jiir listened to pleas only when they were accompanied by a sword thrust.

She remembered Emo grunting into his wineskin, "You live, you die, you rot," and found less comfort in that.

"Something about him..." Bannon had gathered enough strength to continue. "... drew me."

The governor had not been a physically attractive man; not judging from the wreck he'd left behind. "What drew you?"

"Don't know." He frowned, the expression pure Bannon although the features were not. "Calm," he answered at last. "Strength. Don't know."

"Shhh, it's..." She couldn't say that it was all right because it would never be all right again.

"No. Got to... tell you." A purpling tongue sc.r.a.ped against his lips. "Looked at me. I was him... and he was... me and then he jumped."

"Jumped where?"

"To me. Then... pushed me into him." A shudder ran down the length of the old man's body and his teeth clattered together like dice. "Dying."

"He pushed you into his old body and he took yours?" Not all the training in the Empire could have kept the shrill note of disbelief out of her voice. She stiffened, head c.o.c.ked, but no one appeared to have heard. Apparently, the orders the governor had given to keep everyone away still held. With a fingernail grip on her self-control, she turned back to her brother. "That's impossible!"

The expression on the face of the man lying in front of her said everything necessary. She'd seen that expression a hundred, a thousand times. Obviously, it wasn't impossible. "He can't have gone far. I'll go after him. Bring him here. Make him give you your body."

Bannon shook his head. "No time. Be dead... when you got back. Vree..."

He wanted something from her. She recognized a tone she'd heard all her life.

"Oh, come on, Vree, just this once ..."

But he had only one thing left to want; only thing that she could give him.

Nothing should hurt this much and not kill you. Teeth clenched around a howl of pain, she began the movement that would drop a dagger out of a forearm sheath into her hand. When this is over, I'm going to find Aralt and I'm going to make him beg me for death.

"Vree, let me share... your body."

The dagger snapped back into the sheath. "What?"

"I know what... he did. How he did it. Moment we shared... took it. Let me

jump... into your body."

Vree opened her mouth and closed it again. Bannon was all she had, all she'd

ever had besides the army. But to die for him? To allow herself to be pushed into a dying sh.e.l.l?

He read her thoughts off her face and shook his head. "No. Two separate actions.

I jump. I don't push. You stay.""We share?""Yes.""My body?""Yes... Till we get... my body... back."To have Bannon in her body. And isn't that what you've been wanting? she asked herself, desperately clamping her will around a hysterical desire to snicker. To have Bannon be a part of her. Know everything she was. Everything. No. But weighed against the only alternative, against going on alone...

"Vree?"

No time left to decide. Her heart slammed against her ribs and sweat trickled down her spine. She could smell her terror and his death. "Do it."

Invasion! A kaleidoscope of images tried to force an entry into her mind.

Vree fought to pull the barricades down. This is Bannon! Let him in or he dies! A crack appeared and then another and then he was in, and she nearly lost herself in a maelstrom of shared memories subtly skewed and alien emotions; of being just for an instant, someone else and knowing what they knew, feeling what they felt. She struggled to hold on, to accept, to not fight it although every instinct demanded she defend herself.

I trust him with my life. He trusts me with his life. I trust him with ...

"Vree? Vree! Wake up! We haven't got time for this!"

She could feel the dry, dusty fibers of the carpet pressing into her cheek. Smell the poison mixed with wine spilled out onto the floor. Hear...

"Slaughter it, Vree! Wake up!"

"Bannon?" Eyes opened, all she could see was a pale hand curled up like a great, bloated, dead spider. When she tried to lift her head, her body felt as though it no longer quite fit. "Bannon?"

"I'm here."

"It worked?"

"Don't be an idiot, of course it worked. Now get up. Aralt, that carrion eater, is getting away."

The muscles in her thighs began to spasm. Her legs jerked and kicked and her feet scrabbled for purchase against the floor. "Bannon, stop it!"

"Vree, no!" Bannon's voice rose to a near incoherent shriek that slammed against the inside of her skull. "Don't."

Panting, she forced herself to relax, to not expel the invader. Her brother. Gradually, she gathered all the bits of her body back under her control and, slowly, got her hands under her and pushed herself up onto her knees. "Just let me do the moving. Understand?"

"Yeah." He sounded subdued, but she knew it wouldn't last. "I understand."

Ignoring the corpse sprawled beside her, Vree stood. Every movement was surer than the one before as, with every movement, she reclaimed more of her scattered self. Although constantly aware of Bannon's presence, as long as he remained a pa.s.sive pa.s.senger, she felt she could ignore him enough to manage. He had, after all, always been a constant presence in her life. Kind of like ignoring a nagging toothache...

"I heard that."

"Not now, Bannon. We haven't time for..." Which was when she realized that she wasn't speaking aloud. "s.h.i.t on a stick! Do you know everything I think?"

"No. You have to put it into words, then I hear it the way you hear me."

Because the alternative would be unbearable, she believed him. "But you can hear me when I speak?"

"I can hear what you can hear. And I see through your eyes. And I feel what you

touch."

"It's like the opposite of what we always had while we worked-two sets of senses, one directing will."

"I guess."

She felt her shoulders rise and fall in a gesture she had no control over. "Bannon!""Look, I'm sorry, but it's hard.""I know...""No. You don't."Yes, she did, because she felt his bitterness and his pain and his fear of dying.

Like a wave she barely managed to keep her footing under, his emotions rolled over her and retreated. Fists clenched, she ground her teeth in anger. Aralt had a great deal to answer for, and she'd enjoy making him pay. "We'll get your body back," she murmured as though Bannon still stood beside her. "And we'll cut Aralt loose to shriek in the darkness."

Tentatively, for the floor was not always exactly where she thought it should be, she walked to the window, careful to remain out of the line of sight from below. Time had not stopped just because the impossible had occurred and she-they- were still in the heart of an enemy stronghold. Her hand held the heavy swag curtains motionless and she looked out at the sky. The stars had danced most of the night away.

"We've got to get out of here."

"Agreed."

But instead she stood staring at her hand as though she'd never seen it before. It was too slender, a strong hand but a woman's hand. The nails were too even, they should have been ragged, chewed to the quick. The white line of scar from the second knuckle to the base of the thumb-where had it come from?

"Bannon."

The sound of his name barely carried past her lips but he heard it.

"Not mine..."

"No. Mine." And suddenly, it was her familiar hand again. She felt his presence draw in on itself, wrapped around equal parts of torment and terror. She wanted to reach out and touch him...

... with her hand...

... hers...

... but she couldn't, so she settled for getting them safely out of the stronghold instead. By the time they were over the wall and back into the city, her body was responding with the fluid grace and economy of movement they had always shared. If Bannon occasionally added his control to hers, Vree couldn't tell, and she supposed that was all that mattered.

"Head for the South Road."

She paused, one foot half raised. "What?"

"Aralt is going north, toward the Capital." If the city had another name, no one

remembered it. No one had used it in generations.

"And we'll go north right after we tell Commander Neegan what's going on."

"No."

Vree slid into the shadow cast by the damp, above-ground wall of a cistern.

"What do you mean, no?"

"Commander Neegan won't believe you."

Her protest died, unformed. In the commander's place would she believe that an

old man had stolen her brother's body and pushed his life out into a dying sh.e.l.l? Would she believe such an impossible story without the presence of Bannon's thoughts beside her own?