The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 Read online

  * * *

  “We don’t have to go, you know.”

  “I’m not keen on starving to death,” Grond said, adjusting his bandage, which had fresh bloodstains on it. “We broke her fuckin’ rules and now she’s calling us to account. I don’t see any way this plays out other than to let it play out. You think she’s just gonna turn the inertia beam off and let us go? I doubt it.”

  “We could have Rhundi come get us.”

  Grond glared at him. “You know twelve reasons that won’t work and I’m not going to bother explaining them to you. Only decision we actually get to make here is what we’re doing with Ilana.”

  “May as well take her with us,” Brazel said. “She’ll get to tell everybody she met Remember. That’s gotta be worth something.”

  “Assuming he doesn’t take her out too,” Grond said. “Another body on our conscience. All right. Go get her. Meet me outside.”

  Brazel made his way to the cargo hold, collecting Ilana’s confiscated weapons along the way. She was pacing the hold, muttering to herself.

  He tossed her the weapons. “We’re stuck, and the two of us have to take a little trip. You’re not going to be able to go anywhere until we get back, and for all I know we might not be coming back. So you can wait here and take your chances that eventually you’ll be able to take the ship or you can come with us and see what happens. Your call.”

  “What the hell was that?” She had an angry bruise on the side of her face; she had clearly taken a hard hit when the ship was pulled out of tunnelspace.

  “We made somebody mad. She’s requested an interview, and she didn’t do it in the nicest possible way. You ever heard of Lady Remember?”

  A strange look crossed her face.

  “Yeah. You’re … you’re tangled up with Remember? And you’re going to see her now?”

  “Quite possibly for her to kill us, yes.”

  “I’m in,” she said. “Always up to meet a celebrity.”

  “Hopefully that’s not the worst mistake you ever made,” he said. “If it is, it’ll be your last.”

  * * *

  Brazel filled Ilana in on the finer points of instantaneous intergalactic transport— and the distinct possibility that she would wake up naked with two relatively unfamiliar, and also naked, men— on the way into the teleporter room in the center of the sphere. “You’re not going to have your guns, either, so hope that she plans on sending you back,” he added. Neither of them had bothered to bring anything of any importance with them this time, assuming that the teleporter would simply leave it behind again.

  There were three glasses of the odd blue drink sitting on the threshold of the teleporter.

  “Well, okay,” Brazel said, drinking his. “So much for surprising her.”

  A few minutes later, Ilana weaving a bit unsteadily, they were in the lobby. This time, there were two floating ‘bots along with their robes, which were again neatly wrapped in ribboned packages. Both were armed.

  “Please come this way,” one of them said. “Lady Remember will be with you shortly.”

  Brazel glanced over at his partner. The teleporter had even left his bandage behind; Grond’s scar was roughly stitched together. It wasn’t good enough to be medbot work; he’d done it himself. Brazel winced. That must have hurt. He absentmindedly tucked the ribbon from the package into his pocket again.

  “We go nowhere,” Grond said, putting his robe on. “Remember meets with us personally, and she meets with us here. We’re not taking another fucking step.”

  The two ‘bots leveled their guns at Grond.

  “I think Remember knows she’s going to need to send more than two,” Grond said offhandedly. The big halfogre didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated.

  “I’m not with these guys,” Ilana said, casually moving away from Grond and Brazel.

  There was a brief, tense moment of silence.

  The ‘bots folded their guns away.

  “The lady Remember agrees to meet with you in person,” one of them said. “But you will come with us nonetheless.”

  Grond and Brazel exchanged a look.

  “Good enough,” Grond said. “Lead the way.”

  They were taken a different way this time, not to the library but to a simple room, wood-paneled, with a large table with seats for half a dozen and another fireplace. Grond sat in one by the door, putting his feet up on the table. Brazel and Ilana circled around, putting themselves closer to the fire.

  Remember arrived a moment later, the door swinging open without announcement and seemingly on its own. In the flesh she looked much like her flaming avatar had before. Her hair was white, tied in a loose topknot that fell to below her waist. Her clothes were loose, flowing, covering most of her flesh; only her hands and her face showed, and she still had her hands clasped behind her back. Her skin was lined, caramel-colored, papery like an old woman’s, but none of an old woman’s frailty showed in the rest of her. The form underneath the robes looked robust and strong.

  “You did not follow your instructions,” Remember said.

  That was as far as she got. There was a wet, meaty tearing sound from the front of the room and Grond leapt at Remember, his narrow shiv in his hand, his arm freely bleeding again. The halfogre went for Remember’s neck with the blade, and Remember … just suddenly wasn’t there any more. Brazel had never seen a dodge so elegant; she had slid around Grond like she was made of smoke, forcing the halfogre to pivot and try again. Almost faster than Brazel could see, Grond took three, four, five swings with the blade at Remember, all of them narrowly missing their mark. Remember had a broad grin on her face, a weird silvery tint starting to take over in her eyes.

  She never moved her hands from behind her back.

  Brazel felt something cold and hard pressing into the back of his neck. He glanced to his right.

  “Grond.”

  The halfogre ignored him, red-eyed and roaring now, trying his best to lay even a single finger on Remember and failing.

  “Grond.”

  Something in Brazel’s tone got through this time, and the halfogre hesitated, holding the blade in front of him, amazingly out of breath. Brazel had seen the halfogre in battles hours long; seeing him winded was incredibly rare.

  Ilana had a gun to the back of Brazel’s head. A gun that she certainly hadn’t had after the teleporter; there hadn’t really been anywhere for her to hide one. Which meant it was either in the box with her robe or in the room, waiting for her. Which meant she was one of Remember’s people.

  Which meant she was fair game. Brazel had learned many years ago that most humans had no real idea how to hold a gnome at gunpoint; the height difference never worked in their favor. He dropped to the floor in a flash, simultaneously shoving her gun hand high, over his head and toward Remember. He scuttled between her legs and climbed up onto her back, yanking the ribbon from his robe out of his pocket and wrapping it twice around her neck, squeezing tightly. Ilana slumped to the floor, unable to bear his weight on her back, scrabbling at the improvised garrote and dropping her gun.

  “Okay, you’re a badass, and Grond can’t hurt you,” he said. “I can hurt her. Your move.”

  The grin on Remember’s face broadened, if anything. She cast a sidelong glance at Grond, straightened herself up, and bowed to the two of them.

  “I said you had not followed directions. I was given no opportunity to discuss my opinion of your transgressions. You may release my employee; you are in no danger.”

  Brazel grabbed Ilana’s gun from the floor and hit her in the back of the head, knocking her unconscious.

  “Only lady gets to hold me at gunpoint is my wife,” he said. “I tend to take it personally.”

  Remember watched her fall to the floor and shrugged.

  “I would appreciate it if you would put down the knife,” she said.

  Grond slammed the knife into the table, snapping it in half.

  “You’re responsible for eighty thousand dead,” he
growled. “And you brought us into it.”

  “Untrue,” Remember said. “It is not outside the realm of possibility that she,” this with a nod at Ilana, “is partially responsible, but you are not. The disease had begun to spread before you even landed.”

  “So you sent us into a plague zone without any warning? That’s not better,” Brazel retorted. “I went home to my wife and kids after that job.”

  “You had no risk of infection,” Remember said. “The liquid you imbibed prior to the delivery saw to that. A simple nanoinhibitor. One that could be manufactured in high quantities, given the right equipment.”

  “The box,” Brazel said. “Is that what the damn thing was for? You were trying to cure the plague? But the plague took over the planet anyway.”

  “It didn’t work,” Remember said, shrugging. “I had hoped to arrest the plague, or even stop it in its tracks, but I failed. The cure worked on you, however. It is apparently more effective when ingested.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us?” Grond said, his eyes still shining red, although most of the aggression had gone out of his stance. “You knew this was going to happen and you sent us in anyway?”

  “I told you that I would be monitoring you to see how well you followed your instructions,” Remember said calmly. “I said nothing about whether I expected you to follow those instructions. If the cure had worked, the twenty-five day cycle would have been sufficient to clear the nanovirus from the surrounding area. If you had not returned once news of the plague became public, I would know you to be cowards; men of little conviction or moral strength. You returned to save people, against my clear instructions, with no thought to the consequences.”

  “Plenty of thought to the consequences,” Brazel corrected.

  Remember smiled again. “But you did it anyway.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Insurance,” Remember replied. “She was to try to arrest the disease at its source more … directly than you were told to. She failed as well. It seems that some things … cannot be changed, after all.”

  “The medical firm on the top floor,” Grond said. “They set the plague loose?”

  “Unwittingly, I believe,” Remember said. “Intent so rarely matters, unfortunately.”

  “You’re lying,” Grond said. “Or deliberately concealing something. How the hell did you even know about the plague in time to send us there to stop it?”

  “Some things I will not be sharing with you,” Remember said, a hint of ice creeping into her voice. “Learn to live with ambiguity.”

  No one said anything for a moment.

  “You have two choices before you,” Remember said. “The first is to choose to believe me, or not, and accept your payment and the likelihood that I will be using your services in the future. The second is to choose to try to kill me again. You will find that this time I will not restrain myself.” Her hands, Brazel noticed, had still not moved from behind her back.

  Brazel looked at Grond. The halfogre shrugged, clearly still angry but accepting the inevitable.

  “We’ll take that payment now,” he said.

  “A word on that,” Remember said. “I offered you a certain sum for following my instructions. You did not follow those instructions. And there is a small matter of some destroyed property as well,” glancing at Grond.

  “You’re trying to welsh?” Brazel asked.

  “I am not trying anything,” Remember said. “I have altered the deal. You will find, however, that the end result will still be to your liking. Your wife owns a partial stake in a resort on Arradon, yes?”

  Brazel nodded, feeling the blood drain out of his face. This can’t be good.

  “You will find that she now owns the entire resort,” Remember continued. “With my compliments. Her network of informants is … impressive. Even to me.”

  Brazel ran the numbers in his head. Their pay had been cut by about a third, but Rhundi would be able to turn her stake in the resort into much more money in no time, and she’d been trying to buy her partners out for years without success.

  “Grond?”

  The halfogre nodded.

  “Fine,” Brazel said.

  “I will be in touch when I require you again,” Remember said, turning to leave.

  “And what if we want you?” Grond asked.

  Remember paused.

  “You will find,” she said, “that the two events will tend to overlap. Look for the Memento.”

  She left the room, her robe trailing behind her. The door swung open to admit her, then closed.

  “What memento does she want us to look for? Awful cryptic,” Brazel said.

  “It’s a goddamn pun,” Grond said. “It’s the name of the teleporter.”

  Brazel thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure I get it.”

  “A memento is an object,” Grond said. “One that leads you to remember.”

  Brazel snickered.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” he said. “I’ll let you be the one who gets to tell Rhundi about her new resort, what with the old woman beating you in a fight and all.”

  “Bet I can hit you,” Grond responded.

  “Let’s get out of here first,” Brazel said. “You can try and hit me all you want once I’m back in my own ship.”

  Grond gestured at Ilana, still unconscious on the floor. “Think we should just leave her there?”

  “Yeah,” Brazel said. “I didn’t get the feeling Remember was too happy with her. And I think that’s two she owes us, now.”

  “Works for me,” Grond said, following his partner out of the room.

  “The Contract”

  The Benevolence Archives 6

  “Explain to me exactly why this has to be my problem.”

  The goblin wrung her hands, stress evident on her face, her fur and ears held flat. “We can’t make him go away, ma’am. He says he has a contract. He’s not scared of us. Maybe you send Grond?”

  Rhundi raised an eyebrow, letting her own fur raise up a bit in response. Her husband Brazel and his halfogre partner were a couple parsecs away; they were finished with their job, but she’d just told Brazel about a delivery job that had come up. They’d likely be taking care of that before they came home, which meant they were probably not going to be back for a few days at the very earliest.

  Not that anyone else really needed to know that.

  “You’re not suggesting I can’t handle this on my own.”

  The goblin deflated further, staring at the ground and continuing to rub her hands together. “No, ma’am. Of course not. Just that— well, you’re the boss. You shouldn’t have to, ma’am.”

  Rhundi ignored that.

  “Did he show you the contract?”

  “He says the contract says he doesn’t have to, ma’am. He wouldn’t even open the door. He doesn’t anymore, unless we’ve brought meals, and then only after we leave.”

  “I own the place. He doesn’t have a contract that says he doesn’t have to show it to me.”

  The goblin cringed again, saying nothing.

  Rhundi rubbed her forehead. She had only just recently assumed full control of the resort, and it had become abundantly clear to her quickly that previous management had made frequent poor decisions regarding their treatment of the staff. “It’s not your fault… what was your name again?”

  “We are Corvix clan, ma’am. This one is Twelve.” Goblins were strongly group-oriented; personal names were perceived as being for family only. There were thirty-seven goblins working at the resort, none of whom would divulge their personal names. She apparently had at least twelve members of the Corvix clan on staff.

  Rhundi nodded. “Twelfth Corvix, you are not to blame for this. I will deal with him. You may return to work.” The goblin nodded and scurried out of Rhundi’s office.

  She pushed a button on her desk console, opening a comm to her personal secretary.

  “Gorrim.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gorrim had an unusual
ly deep voice for a gnome, and it sounded odd to hear him through the desk comm.

  “Call the troll. Tell him I’m coming to see him in an hour, and tell him if he tries to lock me out this time I’m going to take the door down. If he says a single thing about a contract, tell him I’m bringing Grond with me.”

  “He’s not going to like that, ma’am.”

  “I’m not going to like it either. Do it anyway.”

  She cut the connection.

  * * *

  Rhundi’s resort— she was renaming the place, now that she owned it, but hadn’t come up with a suitably grand name for it yet— was, at the most, a mid-level tourist attraction on the planet of Arradon, a smallish rock in one of the more out-of-the-way tentacles of gnomespace. Owing to some quirks of planetary geography and location, the entire planet was regarded as a tourist destination by most of the galaxy, so she had her work cut out for her if she intended to make a name for herself in legitimate work. She’d started off as a jack-of-all-trades, much like her husband— it sounded nicer than “smuggler” or “fence,” which were a bit more accurate— but she’d been trying to steadily increase the amount of capital their family was able to accumulate from more legitimate work. She’d owned a third of the resort only a few months ago; both of her business partners had abruptly sold their shares to her on very little notice and vacated the planet altogether. She had her suspicions as to their reasons but had been too busy to look into them. There was too much to do.

  The troll on the fifth level was one of the problems she’d managed to inherit. Large portions of the resort were subterranean; she wanted to expand, and she was going to have to demolish the suite of rooms he occupied in order to do it. He had occupied them for nearly fifteen years.

  And he was not terribly interested in moving.

  In general, the resort did not cater to long-term stays; most of their guests were on-planet for no more than a few weeks. The troll’s rent had been changed any number of times without complaint; he appeared to be independently wealthy and, apparently, working from home, as he rarely left his rooms, having his meals— the same meals, every day— brought to him by the staff. He hadn’t been difficult, really; in fact, he had made her an awful lot of money over the years. But he was in the way of her making more money, and that meant he needed to move.