Time Shall Not Mend

"And what are you proposing to do with that?"

Ivan sounded fascinated. The silvery weathered wood of the dinghy's tiller, polished smooth at the end by the hands of generations of Vorkosigan helms, lay on the rough bench at the back of the darkened boathouse. Draco paused, passed his wand over it, and muttered thoughtfully. Then he looked across at Ivan.

"Portkey."

Ivan was looking baffled. He amplified it.

"Enchanted travel artifact. Once they touch it, it should bring them back to where the object was taken from. Well, in the simpler sorts of Portkey it does. You can do wildly complicated things with them, but, frankly, I don't have time, and without the books I couldn't reckon on getting it right first go anyway. And I take it you'd rather I retrieved your nearest and dearest a short distance safely, rather than spreading them lavishly about the planet's surface?"

Ivan indicated feebly that he thought - on the whole - that would be the way he'd prefer it, yes. Then he grinned.

"Though I daresay next time Miles comes the little Admiral at me I'll regret having passed up the opportunity. But there's another thing. How're you going to stop your weight shifting the balance and tipping the whole lot off the cliff when you arrive in there?"

Draco smiled enigmatically. "Ah. I've been thinking about that one. It might come as a bit of a shock to them, though. I do hope none of them are actually eating or drinking anything when I arrive."

.........................................

"So, what's happening out there?" the Lord Auditor demanded. "Is that the loyalists fighting the rebels? And did you manage to contact the Ariel? And were we right about it's being the Cetagandans - I did have a thought after you'd gone about whether it could be the Nuevo Brazilians instead - you do hear all sorts of stories about their warrior rituals, and I wondered - "

Draco felt rather irritated. Balancing on three feet of thin air was not especially difficult - levitation was, after all, the commonest early manifestation of talent in magical children - but doing it for a prolonged period did require concentration, and having to answer a barrage of questions while doing so was hardly conducive to maintaining that level of concentration. And even a second's lapse - he slid a look at the long and widening crack which ran across the whole of one wall, and shuddered.

Lady Alys gave Miles a Look.

"I'm sure if we've got an escape route out of here we should take it, before the shock from one of those explosions tips us all into the lake. Plenty of time for questions afterwards."

Draco looked gratefully at her.

He laid the dinghy tiller gently on the centre of the table. Their eyes followed it with fascination.

"You all need to touch it simultaneously," he explained. "Just as soon as it's - ah - activated."

He pulled out his wand, paused, and murmured. Pym and Anna, moving with infinite delicacy, joined the party seated around the table. Draco caught the eye of the Emperor, who nodded.

"On the count of three," Gregor said. "One - two - three -"

As the dinner party winked out of sight the largest explosion he had yet heard went off just outside the window. Draco was conscious of a shivering, groaning sound, rising in pitch and intensity. The crack began to widen - the chandelier crashed into the table - the walls began to lean inwards - he Apparated out only just in time.

..........................

The disorienting whirling sensation passed. Ekaterin was acutely aware of the smells of mildew and stale lake water, and of the cold wind cutting through the narrow gap between the big, open double doors that gave onto the dock. Before she could move or speak, however, the floor beneath her suddenly seemed to buck and heave. A huge roar and thunder filled her ears. She grabbed, onto the gunwale of the dinghy in front of her, for steadiness, and held on with all the strength in her fingers. She was dimly aware of the others close by, but only those few bare inches of wood, the varnish peeling with age and weather, on the side of the boat seemed real. She clung to it as if to let go would be to drown in truth.

If the boathouse had been built fifty metres east of its current position it could not have escaped being caught up in the overall ruin. As it was, a few stray rocks bounced off the roof, but the main bulk of the landslip - mercifully - passed them by. The same was not, alas, true of the lighter detritus released by the falling of the rear of the summer residence. That pattered relentlessly down on the boathouse for a very long time. Eventually the sound of falling earth and pebbles slowed to a trickle, and then stopped.

"On second thoughts, Draco, perhaps this wasn't the safest place we could have thought of to bring them back to," a cheerful voice said out of the shadows. There was a sudden babble among the rescued dinner party. Gregor's voice won out.

"Ivan, you idiot. What are you doing here?"

There was a somewhat hurt sniff from the dimness. Then another voice cut in.

"Doing his level best to avoid being promoted to your job, actually. Your Imperial Majesty."

Ekaterin lifted her forehead from where it was resting on the dinghy. She peered into the darkness towards the direction of the voice. "Draco?"

"Yes?"

"You did get to Vorkosigan House? Is - is Nikki all right?"

Her heart almost stopped as she heard a sudden indrawn breath - Ivan? - from the shadows, but the cool, confident tones betrayed no hesitation or uncertainty as Draco answered her.

"Absolutely. The rebels did search your house - but Arthur Pym concealed them both in the attics - real talent for concealment charms there, actually - off-planet training would be a good idea for that one when this lot is over, you know. So, I found them there, and once we'd got on to ImpSec, Duv Galeni arranged to have them driven round to - Ivan, remind me, who is it they're being looked after by now?"

Ivan's voice sounded - odd - as he responded. If the situation had not been so desperate she would almost have suspected him of concealing an urge to giggle.

"They're with the Koudelkas, Ekaterin."

Her sigh of relief was profound. A warm hand caught hers in the darkness and squeezed it.

"I told you there was no need to worry about Nikki," Miles whispered in her ear.

"Anyway," Ivan continued briskly, "We've got to get you back to the capital, Gregor."

There was a slight murmur. Ivan's voice continued, coolly reasonable. "Well, look at it from the bad guys' point of view. From their point of view they've just buried you under a few tonnes of earth and Aunt Cordelia's dining room furniture. Not an entirely satisfactory outcome to a hostage standoff, from their point of view - especially now they've lost their Magus-Emperor themselves and are presumably in the middle of a power struggle to decide who takes over from him, but equally, if I remember anything at all from Tactics classes at the Academy, not the sort of rumour we want to have spreading among the enemy, either. They might actually leave off beating the crap out of each other for long enough to put together some sort of effective response. And it might convince any waverers to throw in their lot with the rebels. The sooner you make contact with ImpSec and tell them you're on your way back to Vorbarra Sultana the better. There's only one problem."

Ivan was suddenly sounding hesitant. ""M'flyer's on the other side of the lake. And I'm not sure the raft is actually up to bringing off the return trip. And it'd be a shame to drown you after everything."

"Indeed." Even in the dark, the Emperor was managing to sound coolly ironic. "Do you have an alternative suggestion?"

"How about this?"

It was Draco who had spoken. He spoke again. "Accio flyer!" Momentarily, his sharp features were illuminated in a blaze of light from the end of his wand. Then, there was a pause, followed by a rush of air, and a soft crunch on the dock outside. Ivan cautiously pushed one of the doors open, and exhaled. The lightflyer was sitting on the dock, rather like an obedient dog which had responded to its master's whistle and now thought itself morally entitled to a biscuit. Ivan's voice was deeply irritated.

"Why didn't you tell me you could do that sort of thing before?"

"You - ah - weren't in the need-to-know loop?"

"Um. You'd better watch that, you know. Any longer here, and you could find yourself going native."

"What, and start going out on dates wearing a uniform? Never in a thousand years."

There was a short cough.

"I think," Simon Illyan said drily, "That this is neither the time nor the place. Ivan, I presume you have a secured voice circuit in that thing?"

"Yes."

"In that case, I suggest you call up whoever you've been speaking to in ImpSec and ask them to scramble an escort and to secure a landing point in the capital. Sire - they're right that you need to leave now. Admiral?"

Elli Quinn moved out of the shadows in the boathouse into the opened doorway. "Yes-?"

"As the senior active-duty officer present, you ought to escort his Imperial Majesty. Also, Miles is right. We do need to know how this got onto the planet, and who's really behind it. I - can't order it, but you might mention to Guy that I commend to his notice the Dendarii intelligence facility for that side of the problem."

She gave him a single chopped nod. "Miles?"

"Simon's right. Unfortunately. Ah - good luck, Elli. Au revoir."

Her voice was flat.

"I'll be preparing the flyer." She went out through the doors onto the dock. Ekaterin could feel no sense of triumph; the self-consciously stiffened lines of the back outlined against the sky were too hopeless.

I'm just going outside to work on the flyer. I may be some time.

Gregor cleared his throat. "I'm afraid, Cordelia, I'm going to have to commandeer Armsman Pym as an escort as well. I'll need his specialized knowledge of the people I'll be dealing with."

Pym stepped forward. "Sire."

"Well, be careful," Draco muttered. "You weren't to know, but that Sergeant Bonn you sent me to was in the plot up to his neck. And his wife was in it up to her eyebrows. And as for her little brother - "

There was a deeply indrawn breath. From the depths of the boathouse there was the swish of stiff skirts, as one of the members of the party who had not yet spoken stepped forwards into the uncertain light from the opened doors.

"Sergei?" Lady Alys' tone was acid enough to etch copper. "My late husband's own cousin is somehow involved in this nonsense?"

"Involved?" Her son looked at her. "Cousin Sergei is in over his head, and has probably just gone under for the third time. He and mad Aunt Genie have been in ImpSec's clutches for the best part of two hours now. You see, mother, Sergei was the Magus-Emperor."

"That settles it." Metaphorically, at least, Lady Alys rolled up her elegant sleeves. "Gregor, I need to go back to the capital at once. If family members are involved, my clear duty is there, so I can demonstrate to anyone who might be inclined to cavil that at least the principal part of the family is loyal."

There was a pause. "I should be most grateful if you would do me the honour of accompanying me," Gregor murmured. Ekaterin felt it was not what he had originally intended to say. Then his voice changed. "Ivan - can you get three in the back of your light-flyer?"

"Ye-es. If they don't mind being a bit cramped."

"Good. Professora Vorthys, may I also ask you to accompany me? I fancy the next few hours may be of the deepest interest - to a historian."

The Professora, helped by her husband, picked her way past Ekaterin towards the door. Ekaterin stretched out a hand and put it on her arm. "Are you going to be all right?"

Her aunt smiled, wearily. "Safest place, I should think. At least, if Ivan's light-flyer doesn't break down. ImpSec aren't going to risk losing the Emperor twice in an evening. Now you - look after yourself, understand? And if you end up being dragged by any of these hot-heads into any battlefields, dear, keep an eye on which direction that good-looking blond friend of yours takes. He seems to have an instinct for self-preservation which, speaking as a historian, I find truly fascinating."

There was an audible snort of laughter from some unseen person in the vicinity. Ekaterin was sure it was Draco. She felt herself blushing, relieved that the darkness was covering her confusion. She gave her aunt a quick peck on the cheek.

"I'll try to remember, Aunt Helen. You look after yourself too. Get going - they must be almost ready."

Indeed, at that moment a curly head was outlined in the doorway. A determinedly self-possessed voice said:

"The flyer's ready to take off. Oh, and Ivan?"

Elli was holding something out towards him.

"Yes?" Ivan's voice sounded definitely panicked.

"I found these. How sweet of you to think of me. And so original. I've never been given a bouquet of flowers already pressed before."

There was a pause.

"You're welcome," Ivan muttered, a semi-hysterical note in his voice. There was time for nothing more. The Imperial party made a rapid departure from the boathouse, and the light-flyer soared into the night.

..........................................

"Now, would anyone mind telling us who is fighting whom up there?" Miles demanded.

Ekaterin's eyes were getting more used to the dimness now. She could see Ivan, stretched comfortably out on the tarpaulin covering the cockpit of one of the power-boats. Draco was perched on the bench towards the back. Draco made a polite after-you gesture with one hand towards Ivan.

"We hope it's the Barrayaran rebels knocking the stuffing out of their Cetagandan special advisors. But it could easily be the other way round. So far as we can tell, there are more of the Barrayarans, but the Cetagandans have got better powers."

"Of course, by now, along with the two fake conspiracies we started they may always have discovered one or two real ones," Draco observed coolly. "There could be about four bitterly opposed groups fighting each other by now."

Ekaterin gritted her teeth.

"Well? Don't you think you ought to get up there and get Alexander out? So far as they're concerned, Miles and Gregor are under that -"

She gestured with a thumb through the boathouse window, at the raw wound of collapsed earth, boulders, masonry and ripped up trees that she suspected would look considerably worse in daylight.

"- And I've vanished into the clutches of a renegade and probably homicidal Cetagandan wizard," Ivan added helpfully. Ekaterin glared in his general direction.

"Exactly. And Count Aral and the Crown Prince are both off planet. Sooner or later, one of those factions is going to work out that my son is in the undamaged part of the house, and is also the closest heir to the Imperium they can get their hands on in a hurry."

Miles looked frantic with worry. He looked at Draco.

"So? Why don't you simply Apparate into the nursery and bring him out with one of those things you used for us?"

"Tell me who's guarding it, and I'll think about it."

It was Anna who answered, very hesitant, it seemed, to raise her voice among all the High Vor present.

"Milady. Our orders were to make sure your grandson had the best protection we could devise. And after that incident at Vorkosigan House a few years ago, that gave us good grounds for - using our influence to make sure both your chil - both the nurses had magical powers. And he's right to worry, of course."

"About what?" Ekaterin held herself rigid, kept talking rather than force action by choking out of someone around her. Draco looked rueful.

"If I Apparate in, any witch guarding the place will take it as proof I'm one of the enemy - as far as they're concerned, that is. No loyal wizard on the planet can Apparate, after all. Most likely, one of them will manage to take me out from cover. If they got me early enough, I expect it'd splinch me. And even if it didn't - I've noticed your guards seem to prefer using lethal force where possible - "

" I see, " Cordelia breathed. "It isn't what you don't know that can be fatal: it's what you do know that isn't so. Right - then there's only one thing that can be done. The panic-shielding on the nursery wing is coded to three sets of palm-prints: mine, Miles' and Ekaterin's. One of us has to get through, so the nurses know it's a real rescue."

Miles' eyes were glittering with concentration, even in the darkness. "That's right. And to maximize our chances of one of us getting through, we need to split up. And someone needs to cause a diversion."

"Oh, god," Ivan moaned. "Bring on the large explosions and the innocent bystanders."

Miles was pacing up and down the floor of the boathouse. He spun at one end and looked straight at Draco. "You - go with Ekaterin and guard her. Anna can guard my mother. Ivan - you're coming with me."

"And what delights have you planned for us?" By's drawl came from a forgotten corner of the boat house. Miles' voice had a genuine warm edge of berserker enthusiasm about it as he responded.

"Well, I presume neither you - nor Professor Vorthys - nor Simon are actually armed."

"You presumed right. Emperor's presence, remember. And I don't, actually, usually. Not being a militaristic type, by training or inclination. Though I might make a note to myself to bring a brace of heavily armed bodyguards next time I get invited to a quiet little soiree chez Vorkosigan."

Draco was heard to mutter something which sounded rather like: "Good thinking, that Muggle."

Miles ignored him, and swept an arm around.

"But in here there are power packs for outboard engines, paint, varnish, inflammables of various sorts, auto-inflate life-jackets with compressed gas canisters, distress flares - oh, endless possibilities. Professor Vorthys is an engineer after all. And Simon - you practically wrote the book on ImpSec covert ops. Or edited it, anyway. And By - you're just naturally a devious bastard. I'm sure the three of you will be able to devise something. The effect I'm aiming for is to attract the attention of the attackers round the house - bring them down here - confuse the hell out of them. Le them think someone did survive that wreck and is escaping up the lake. Give us a window to get in and out. Got that?"

They were, Ekaterin could see, being swept up in his irresistable energy. She gulped, and steeled herself for what was to come.

Forward momentum.

.................................................

"You'll have to let me do something about that dress," Draco muttered as they were heading up the hillside. Ekaterin felt her eyes widen.

"What?"

"Even without the benefit of an Ex Tenebris charm, it's going to pick up every stray beam of light that falls on it. And you must be in agony in those idiotic shoes. Stand still."

He waved his wand, and muttered. The soft fabric of the dress flowed, coalesced, and changed. She could feel close-fitting trousers and sleeves, velvety stuff clinging to the back of her neck. She reached up to her head, which was now hooded. Her feet disappeared now into sensible boots. His voice sounded amused as he surveyed her - she somehow knew, from the dimly glimpsed angle of his head, that he must be able to see her much better than she could see him.

"Golly. I should think that's probably the most respectable garment that charm's produced in living memory."

She made her voice resolutely calm.

"What does it normally get used for?"

"Teenaged witches making their robes sexier than the ones their mothers let them out in, primarily. Or teenage wizards dropping unsubtle hints to their girlfriends. The effect doesn't, actually, last very long. And the clothes look sort of tacky in daylight. But it should help get you up to the house ok."

She was, suddenly, struck with the terror that they might, after all, come too late. It became intensely difficult to keep driving herself forward. Her feet seemed weighted down with the fear about what they might find. She could tell that her companion had noticed the fear on her face.

"There's no reason they should have harmed him," Draco said tentatively. "They shouldn't know yet that we hold the Magus-Emperor. And his last order was that the children should be left alone."

She clung on to that thought. It was almost all she had left to cling to, now. Her breath was tearing at her lungs as they pounded up the hillside.

The undamaged part of the house was oddly dark. They moved silently through the dripping shrubbery towards the far end of the house. Ekaterin paused at an outer door, and put her palm besides it. It swung inwards silently.

She nodded. "That way."

They headed down a narrow passageway.

The next door they came to was flung wide. Her hand went to her lips. "That's one of the two doors into the nursery wing - either one of the others got here first or - "

Draco slid soundlessly over towards it. It occurred to her, for the first time, that he must be doing something to dull the sounds of their footsteps. His face gave no good news.

"Opened violently - and from the outside. Not by someone who knows a lot of magic, either. One of the Barrayarans, at a guess. Let's go in."

Upstairs, there was a scene of wild confusion in the nursery. Draco tripped, and swore as he regained his balance with an effort. The body he had stumbled over was lying across the threshold, eyes open. Ekaterin followed him more cautiously into the room. The other two bodies were flung in a confused heap. One, like that on the threshold, was unmarked: the other-

She turned away and shuddered.

So that's what it must have looked like when Miles -

The needler had blown his chest out. Draco, obviously, was looking equally shocked, but still somehow contriving to examine the bodies.

"Anyone you know?"

She shook her head, face still tightly averted. "No - none of them. I don't understand - "

Draco's face was grim. "I think I do. Two killed by Avada Kedavra - one by a weapon. I reckon the two Barrayarans got here first - forced the door, somehow - but found no-one. Probably the nurses had gone to ground in here. One of these special advisors followed the Barrayarans in. There was a fight - he managed to take both of them, and, then probably one of the nurses got him from cover. Good news, on the whole. One out of six advisors accounted for."

He looked around, and walked over to the cot. He positioned his wand directly over it. "Invenio". He looked up at her.

"We need to get out of here," he said. "They aren't in this wing at all. But they are still in the building."

"Try the old nursery," Ekaterin muttered. "The one that used to be Miles'. In the older part of the house. The security's nearly as tough on that part, and the invaders wouldn't think of it as quickly."

She pointed the way, urgently.

Their booted feet moved soundlessly down the corridors. Just before they reached an elegant flight of stairs Ekaterin suddenly skidded, and fell in a heap. "Ow," she muttered, trying to rise.

As she put her weight on her right foot her scream of agony was barely suppressed.

It was easy to see what had brought her down. There was a thin film of gradually drying - but not yet dry enough - blood over the marble floor of the passage. Its owner was lying in a crumpled heap in the corner. It was obvious he would not be taking any further part in the proceedings.

"Milady?" a voice gasped from the shadows.

A figure dragged itself out from behind a tall closet. "Milady!"

The girl was soaked in blood, trembling and shocky. Ekaterin reached out. "Irina? Where's my son?"

Irina's teeth were chattering. "Not sure. But Tatya still had him - I couldn't keep up, when the Cetagandan tried to take us, he wounded me, before I could - I got his wand, Milady, but he had a knife too, and he - so I said, I'd stay here, cover their backs. Let them get to the old nursery."

She gestured vaguely, with one hand. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then in pain: clearly the gesture had reopened a wound in her back.

Not the only one, it appears.

"Sanguinem supprimeo," Draco muttered. Irina looked at him in terror, her eyes huge, like a wounded animal's in the light.

"You - you're one of us, aren't you? But - not - milady, he's not one of ours -"

"Calm down, Irina," Ekaterin said firmly, reaching for her hand. "He's a friend. From Earth. You've done very well. Now, tell me properly, where was Tatya taking Alexander?"

Irina gestured vaguely up the stairs, and then fainted. Ekaterin tried to rise to her feet and sat hastily back, sweating coldly and gasping. "Can you do anything for my ankle? I seem to have twisted it."

Draco gave it a hasty once over.

"You mean: you've broken it, you idiot. I can do something about the pain, but I'm no medi-wizard. And for anything I can do: well, you wouldn't be able to run on it long if you had to, and you'd risk not being able to walk on it again, after, if you did. Here." He felt for the unconscious girl's weapons belt.

"Get yourself back into those shadows with her. Try to revive her. She's lost a lot of blood, but she's not losing any more, at present. And anything that comes up those stairs, one of you has to stun it before it sees you. And if it has a wand, take it and break it before it wakes up. Understood?"

She nodded.

"Go on. Good luck!"

.....................................................................................

Draco pelted on up the first flight of stairs, and along the landing towards the next.

He was alert, of course, but also in haste. Which is why he was wholly unprepared when a booted foot hooked out at him from a dark corner and sent him sprawling across the floor. He grabbed despairingly for his wand, but it skittered out of his reach across the parquet floor.

"I've taken one Cetagandan scalp tonight, and I'll take yours before I've done, ghem boy. What have you done with my wife?" Sergeant Bonn hissed violently.

"Er - I - what?" Draco spluttered.

"Wrong answer."

Suddenly the long, delicate, fragile fingers of one hand were being brought impossibly back towards his wrists by Sergeant Bonn's thick red hands. Sickeningly, audibly, one by one they reached the point of no return and - snapped.

Draco jerked forwards uncontrollably in Bonn's grip.

He doesn't know Cruciatus.

Thank god.

Pity about the unbearable agony, then, isn't it?

Sergeant Bonn reached his little finger, grinned and bent, adding a corkscrew twist at the last moment.

Draco screamed. Then he gasped.

"She's with ImpSec."

He drew a breath, and added quickly before his tormentor could add anything: "It was Ivan's idea."

The Sergeant looked down at him with a glance which made his insides liquefy.

"You were there."

Draco gave himself up for dead. It was at that moment when a voice with a strange, somehow metallic accent said:

"I think, Sergeant, you need to forgo your pleasures. Help me now with the hostage. We may buy ourselves a ticket out of this bungled mess, even yet."

The - Cetagandan? - was descending from the upper storey with a heavy burden in his arms. The boy had made himself rigid, a dead weight, hard as possible for the aggressor to hold. It was obvious why the Cetagandan had called for backup. His left arm was a blood-stained wreck from the shoulder.

The Cetagandan continued, sotto voce, his voice breathy and resentful, a muttered commentary delivered primarily to himself. "That hell-cat up there killed my brother. Went for him with a knife and teeth, when he took her wand. No proper wizarding pride. If we'd had any idea, we'd never have come anywhere near this bloody planet. I'll never call anything old soldier's tales again, I won't, not if I get out of here - "

That's Ekaterin's child.

To protect you and yours.

Draco whimpered, rolled over, the fingers of the maimed hand grasping vainly out for his lost wand which was an unreachable metre and a half away, lying on the parquet floor.

Sergeant Bonn's boot accurately slammed in, just below the solar plexus.

"You - lie still. Bastard."

Draco rolled, trying not to vomit.

Bonn looked up at the man carrying the child. and suddenly seemed to focus. "But that's-"

At which moment a solid outline moved in the shadows on the bend in the staircase. One black-sleeved middle-aged arm was round the Cetagandan's throat, choking off his breath

"I swore," an infinitely civilized voice observed, in the accents of conversation, "I would protect my grandson, and that no-one should ever call me on that word."

The other arm went up high in the air - something flashed - -

Draco gulped.

There was a warm red rain all around them.

"Thank you, Sergeant Bothari, for your example," the voice continued. "You fight for us yet. In spirit."

Draco and Bonn, in their own ways, were each too overwhelmed to speak. However, the child, it seemed, had heard something infinitely to its mind. "Gramma Cordy," he said, "You here!"

Cordelia, Countess Vorkosigan, Vicereine of Sergyar, her elegant black evening dress barely acknowledging the stains on its dark propriety, came out of the shadows. The child had bounced to the floor as his attacker died. Now he reached up to her.

Cordelia opened her arms to her grandson, sweeping him up in them and snatching at him hungrily.

ImpSec, I presume.

She looked over the child's head. "We came straight here," she said, explanatorily. "I knew the nurses had orders to head for this wing if the new nursery became unsafe. We came up the back staircase."

"Where's Anna?"

Cordelia's face was unreadable. "Guarding my back, down on the floor below. Together with the remains of a Cetagandan who - underestimated her. That's where I acquired the vibra-knife."

She looked closely at him. "And where's Ekaterin?"

Outside the window the hum of aircars was beginning to become oppressive. Both of them half turned, to take it in better.

He shrugged. "Guarding my back. On the other staircase. With - Irina? And another dead Cetagandan. Which makes five out of the original six advisors accounted for. And with any luck at all either the Barrayaran wizards or Miles and Ivan between them will have managed to take out the last one. Which is everyone who knows how to Apparate or to use Avada Kedavra accounted for. Except for me, of course. And if the local loyalists can't handle the rest without help, the planet doesn't deserve saving."

The Countess drew in her breath. She hugged her grandchild more tightly to her.

"Maybe that's true."

"Maybe it would be," a voice said from behind them. "If - you hadn't guessed wrong about how many Cetagandans were left. Bad luck."

They turned. Behind them, a lithe young man was crouched looking at them.

"Oh, and by the way," he said pityingly, " The ghem do know about this - unauthorised excursion."

His hand went up, towards his cheekbone, on which appeared under his touch an infinitely small decal, a brief breath of those bleeding zebra colours which Draco knew were apparent on his own face. If one had a UV beam, that is.

"If not," he added, " For very long. Necessarily."

Er what? Oh. I see. Obliviate. He promises, it seems, to doctor his reports to back home if it's made worth his while. Was that a subtle appeal to Bonn, to allow him to sell himself twice over? And can he really be stupid enough to think any of us would assume he'd stay bought?

"I don't think," the Countess commented coolly, "That is something you are, in fact, able to deliver. And I think your paymasters would feel that your actually making that offer materially diminishes your value to them."

"My paymasters? I don't see anyone here who will be able to tell them what I offered or not. Or even find whom I really serve. Do you really believe you can do me harm?"

His voice sounded as though that were unthinkable. I expect to get my promised reward, come what may. Twice, if I can. Cordelia, on the other hand, looked as though she could contemplate his unfortunate fate all too easily. He continued on, regardless, looking down at Draco who crouched around his injuries protectively.

"But for now - I can take you out - my masters will find out where you're really coming from - once I've killed you I can take a tissue sample they can read like an open book - and as for the Betan whore -"

"How - curiously old-fashioned your standards of insult are," Cordelia said. The young Cetagandan ignored her.

"Unfortunately, however misguided my compatriots may have been, I reckon on behalf of the ghem-comrades I need to finish what was begun here. Give me the child, whore."

"Never."

His hand went to his belt. "Really?" He reached for his wand. "Eat that defiance. Chew on it, bitch. We are stronger than you."

"Cetagandan," he said warningly, "Watch it. You are talking to General Piotr's daughter in law. You are talking to the Conqueror of Komarr's wife. You are talking to the woman who took Count Vordarian's head - "

"- Who I'm sure must grateful for getting a mention in her own right at last after that lot," Draco murmured faintly. The young Cetagandan turned, evidently solely so as to look down his nose at him. Draco managed the ghost of an annoying smirk in his general direction. On the edge of his peripheral vision he could see the Vicereine begin to move, unobtrusively, the moment the enemy took his eyes off her. He could not but notice that she was placing herself so that not only would any blast aimed by the Cetagandan have to go through her, but would also have to pass through him before it touched her grandson.

And also so as to let the full skirts of her elaborate robes drop unobtrusively over his wand, where it lay abandoned on the floor.

The Cetagandan continued unstoppably and unnoticing.

"Anyway, why should I hold out any brief for her? Or the brat. Even though we failed to take Gregor Vorbarra, the news that there will be tonight one less of the Vorkosigan bloodline will make many people happy in the Empire. Av -"

His wand was up. On the sound, Sergeant Bonn threw himself forward, in between Cordelia and the Cetagandan. Green fire flashed around them. In that instant she swirled her skirts, flicking the wand to Draco across the polished floor with her hemline as she did so. Draco grabbed it in his undamaged hand, and yelled: "Expelliarmus!"

The Cetagandan's wand fell from his hand, too late. Draco's precautionary follow-up of a stunning spell laid the Cetagandan beside his last victim, looking all too healthy for the comparison. Sergeant Bonn was lifeless on the floor. Cordelia hugged her grandson, who seemed to be fussing, somewhat, closely to her, and looked towards the body.

"What was that?"

Draco exhaled.

"I think - it might have been the exercise of free will. At last." He looked up. Cordelia's cool grey gaze was upon him. He shrugged. "Poor bugger. He'd have been better to keep on obeying orders. It was what he knew best, after all."

Cordelia looked sardonic. "A nice theological question, that. To which I am afraid I have no answer. Except that - at least, I believe it may help his son to know that his father redeemed his oath, and died true to his name's word's allegiance at the last."

Draco had nothing to say to that. In fact, he was rapidly becoming aware that he had nothing to say to anything. With the ebbing of the adrenaline from his system he was becoming acutely conscious of the waves of pain coursing through him. The Vicereine was looking down at him, he vaguely noticed, with an air of concern.

"Are you all right?" she enquired.

Are you all right? What sort of question is that to address to someone who's just been tortured by having half his hand twisted off, and has god knows what internal injuries? What sort of planet is it where that's even on the range of possible questions in such a situation?

He paused to draw a deep breath. It steadied him, briefly.

Well, perhaps that's a bit of an over-reaction. I'm sure she means well.

Insensitive murderous harpy.

Effective, though. And bright for god's sake.

Really - very like ma all things considered. God, I don't care how fucking uncool this sounds, I just wish ma was here.

I wish ma was here instead of this - scary, homicidal, alien woman. However much she may claim to have my best interests at heart.

I'm sure she means well.

Possibly. Provided you don't pose a threat to her family, her planet or her Emperor I'm sure she's the soul of kindness.

He whimpered, uncontrollably. "I just want to go home," he muttered.

....................................................................................................................

He was aware of the changed feel of the surface underneath him: cool smooth parquet changing abruptly to rough, deep carpet. He opened his eyes. Even so close, the pattern under his head was reassuringly familiar. It was, in fact, the revolting swirling egg-yolk design he had been happy to rechristen the horrors of war when they had been first billeted on this roughly converted, randomly expropriated-and-don't-ask-us-how Muggle hotel.

My own bedroom.

Thank god.

I'll never call this décor hideous again.

He looked at it from a distance of approximately three centimetres for several minutes. Then, he gritted his teeth, and pulled himself to his feet. There was, he knew, a nearly full bottle of Analgesia Potion in the bathroom cabinet.

Provided he could get that far, that was.

It took three goes. The potion, when he finally grasped the bottle in one trembling hand, bore a neat white label, sanctimoniously inscribed in neat black ink:

One teaspoonful every four hours. Do not use for more than three days. If symptoms persist, see a medi-wizard.

He looked resentfully at it.

Sod that for a game of bleeding toy soldiers.

His good hand and his teeth were, together, an alliance that the - insanely, sadistically - complicated cap on the bottle could not, in the last analysis, withstand. Once he had it at his mercy he eyed it, once, and then took a hefty swig. Then another.

Sod it. One more for luck.

Nice temperature, this bathroom. Warm, but not too hot. Welcoming.

It had never occurred to him before just how preternaturally comfortable that precise angle between the bath and the wall must be. Exactly shaped to rest one's weary shoulders against, in fact. Muggle bathroom designers obviously had more about them than he'd ever been taught.

He slumped into it.

"Thank god! You're back! Draco, what the hell has been happening?"

It took some moments for his dulled senses to realize that he was actually being addressed, and that this was not a mere figment of his imagination.

Ah, yes.

Sympathy. Indeed. I always knew what sympathy ought to feel like.

Thank god at least one person agrees with me.

He opened his eyes with considerable caution. Neville was gazing down at him with a deeply comforting mixture of overwhelming relief and shocked concern.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Where do you want me to begin?

"Ack?" he murmured.

"We were just having a conversation and then you - vanished. Mid sentence. Mid word. And then you turn up three hours later -"

"Only three-?"

Some bastard's done me out of at least seven hours peaceful existence I should have had. I'll have him, I will. Bastard.

Um - might I have overdone that potion a bit, do you think?

Neville exhaled.

"Believe you, three's more than enough. Especially as you vanished out of a base with every anti-Apparation charm known to man on it. Anyway, your mother turned up about half an hour later, and did her nut - totally on the warpath and off to find a peasant she could rend tooth and nail, in fact - "

"I can imagine - "

Neville grimaced. "Yes. Well. Unfortunately, I was that peasant. She was in the middle of ordering the command to carry out a full blown hostile interrogation on me - as the last person to see you alive, you understand, and, she assumed, given my family history, I was someone whom might actually want to kill you - and obviously I wasn't actually panting to explain why that assumption wasn't entirely accurate - "

"Oh, god. I'm so sorry - "

An arm reached out to encompass his shoulders and hold him. Tight. Safe.

Oh. That's so nice. So worth waiting a thousand years for.

"Don't be. Not your fault. Anyway, command were doing their hardest to convince her that I couldn't possibly have done it - amazing how a well-earned reputation for magical incompetence established over a number of years comes in handy when you don't expect it - "

He made a small, wordless noise. Apparently it conveyed something, because the arm tightened.

"-At that moment, anyway, the Brazilian Minister arrived with his entourage. God, I can see why your mother was after an escort - if that one doesn't have anaconda in his ancestry I'll be very surprised - he was slithering all over her before he'd got his outer robes off - "

" It usually is something like that, when she asks for help - "

"So she had to go off to that dinner. And if he's still the same species by the time they get as far as the speeches I'll be gob-smacked. And I reckon she must have been sending owls between every course, if not a bit more often, demanding have we found you yet? That's the latest."

Neville nodded towards the window-ledge. Draco dimly noticed that a baleful-looking barn owl was sitting on it.

"Ah," he murmured. "That's Wallenstein. Don't get within range of his beak: he's been in a filthy temper since my father died. Look, can you write something for me?"

"Eh?"

In answer, he raised his hand. His eyes watered at the effort of doing that. "Can't write. And I need to calm her down."

Neville looked at the rapidly blackening, misshapen limb, blinked and nodded. "OK. But hurry up. A medi-witch needs to see that soon, you know."

Not unless they're coming here. I, personally, don't plan to move anywhere.

Neville had retrieved parchment and quill from the bedroom.

"Won't be long. Look, how about this:

"Ma: sorry to miss your dinner. Was kidnapped by space aliens. Apologies for dictating: hand too badly injured to hold a quill."

Neville bit the end of the quill, and looked up

"Ah," he said, " You're pitching this as deeply reassuring, I can tell."

"Shut up. Where was I? But hurry up.

"If in doubt about reality of space aliens, ask Prof. Snape. Tell him: they send love and say restorers have dealt with chair and joins can no longer be seen. Kidnapping no-one's fault. Sorry again about the evening. I had an unavoidable future engagement. Love - D."

Neville looked at him.

"Well, I hope I'm going to get a better explanation than that about it."

Draco sighed. He settled himself back against the bath.

Nice bath. Soothing bath. You and me are best buddies, oh, yes. Never going to be parted, ever.

His voice seemed to be coming from someone else as he began.

"Well, a thousand years from now, and half a million light years away -"

THE END