The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [160]
Deirdre traced a finger over one of the maps. “So you think both Beltan and the artifact are in this wing?”
Vani nodded. “And I believe there is something else there as well.”
“Something else?” Farr gave her a dark look. “What do you mean?”
“I do not know,” Vani said. “But whatever it is, it is important to them. As important as the knight Beltan and the artifact.”
Deirdre turned away, fidgeting with a silver ring on her right hand.
“All right,” Grace said, since no one else seemed to be willing to ask the hard question. “So how are we supposed to actually get in there?”
“I have an idea,” Farr said.
As it turned out, Farr’s idea sounded a whole lot less like a plan than it did an intriguing laboratory experiment with a flock of assumptions attached.
Grace gave Farr her best skeptical look. “So, do you have any certainty at all that any of this is going to work?”
“It’s simple enough,” Farr said. “Deirdre and I will lead the police to believe you and Travis are located at an address in north Denver. Of course, Duratek will never trust the police to handle the job alone, so they’ll send a number of agents as well, leaving the complex more or less unguarded.”
“Hopefully less,” Deirdre said. “It’s going to be up to Vani to get Grace and Travis through the perimeter, find Beltan, and retrieve the artifact.”
Grace licked her lips. “You didn’t answer my question, Farr.”
He met her eyes. “Nothing is ever certain, Grace Beckett.”
“What of your Philosophers?” Vani said to Farr. “Is it not part of being a Seeker that you must swear not to directly interfere?”
Travis let out a snort. “If that’s the case, I’d say they’ve broken their promise a time or two.”
Farr bristled visibly, something Grace had never thought was actually possible until that moment.
“We have a dispensation in this case,” he said.
Something about Farr’s words bothered Grace. “So why make you go to all the trouble of swearing you’ll do something only to let you break the oath when it’s convenient?”
Deirdre and Farr traded glances, but whatever the two thought, they did not voice it.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Travis said. “I don’t think I can save anyone smelling like this.”
He disappeared into one room, and Deirdre and Hadrian started for the other—Deirdre to make a telephone call, and Farr to ready some equipment.
Farr paused at the door. “You’ll be all right out here, Grace?”
She glanced at Vani, who stood by the window. “I’ll be fine.”
Farr gave a stiff nod, then followed Deirdre into the other room.
A rustling. Vani sat on the sofa next to Grace. Grace had hardly seen her move across the room.
“How do you do it?” she said. “Move like that, I mean.”
Vani smiled. “I am sorry, Grace Beckett. I did not mean to startle you. I fear I still forget sometimes that I am no longer within the walls of Golgoru. There, everyone is expected to move in this fashion.”
Grace leaned closer to the other woman. Vani was dangerous; of that there could be no doubt. Her arms were lean and muscled, and her deep-set eyes and shaggy black hair imparted a fierceness to her aspect. Yet there was a softness to her lips, her visage, that the other things could not quite conceal.
“Golgoru?” Grace said. “What’s that?”
“A fortress high in the Mountains of the Shroud. It is where I received my training. Along with these.” She gestured to the tattoos on her arms and neck. “And these.”
Now Vani brushed her hair from her left ear; the ear was pierced all around the edge. Grace counted thirteen gold earrings.
“I suppose you would say Golgoru is a school of sorts, although its existence is a secret known to few. It is where the T’gol receive their training in the silent arts. Those who endure, that is. There were twenty who began training at the same time I did. In the end, only three of us became T’gol.”
Grace considered the evidence, then made her conclusion.
“The T’gol are assassins, aren’t they, Vani? Trained to kill people.”
Vani did not even blink. “Some would call us assassins, yes. But in our ancient tongue,