Witch king, p.13
Witch King, page 13
Ziede tensed, and Kai’s heart leapt. He said, “Saw him do what?”
Kinlat choked out, “He was going to meet with someone in Bashat’s circle.”
Ziede flashed a startled look at Kai. He had no idea what this meant. But Dahin was pursuing his own work, and it might be related to that. “Who did he meet with?”
That answer came easier. “I don’t know!” Kinlat snapped. “You can’t make me say what I don’t—”
“Did you see him leave?”
Kinlat gasped and said, “Yes! I saw him board a canal barge.”
Perhaps he was never a target, Ziede said through her pearl, or he was never caught. He might be looking for Tahren. Or us.
He might have no idea any of us are missing. You know he hardly ever sends letters, Kai pointed out. Dahin liked to go his own way. This whole conspiracy might have missed him because he was off reading in some forgotten archive, and no one thought he was important enough to track down.
Ziede frowned in acknowledgment and said aloud, “Why were you watching Dahin?”
“Because he is Fallen like his sister and all the Fallen should die,” Kinlat said with great satisfaction.
Even Ashem let out an exasperated breath.
Kai knew he could only keep this up so long. He needed to move on to other questions. “Where are the Witch cells that the Hierarchs took from the borderlands?”
Safreses stayed silent though his face was so red he might have a stroke at any moment. Honest confusion flicked over Kinlat’s features. He said again, “I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.”
Ramad had been following the conversation with almost as much concentration as Kai. “If they were Hierarchs’ loot, they might be at one of the old storehouses in Benais-arik.”
Ashem threw a glare at Ramad. She said, “Are you giving away a state secret?”
It was Ramad’s turn to look exasperated. “Cohort Leader, please remember, they were there when the Hierarchs fell.” He gestured to Kai and Ziede. Before Kai could press the question, Ramad added, “And it’s no secret. My maternal great-aunt was one of Prince-heir Bashasa’s wardens. She told us about removing the Hierarchs’ relics from what was left of their strongholds. She never mentioned Witch cells, but if they were powerful artifacts, they would have been taken to Benais-arik with everything else.”
“I don’t remember that.” Kai wasn’t sure he believed Ramad or not. Whether he wanted to believe that Ramad was so willing to help them.
“It’s not well known, outside the Benais-arik bureaucracy.” Ramad made a helpless gesture. “It was a confusing time, and you must have been occupied with other matters. The location of the Hierarchs’ treasures probably was concealed at first. Years later, it just became something else for the Rising World’s accountants to keep track of.”
Ziede was still skeptical. “And you know this because as a young boy, you hung on your aging aunt’s every word?”
“As a young man, I did,” Ramad told her with some asperity. “I was a court historian before I became a vanguarder.”
Kai had been in no condition to pay attention to what was happening at the end of the war. He knew the Rising World had made efforts to return looted treasures to their original owners, if any of them still lived; he had seen the things that had been sent back to the Erathi and the sea people’s ships, and the few Saredi who had taken refuge there.
Safreses trembled with exhaustion from resisting and Kinlat’s shoulders sagged; they had both relaxed, thinking the interrogation was over. Kai tilted his head at Safreses, focused his will again, and asked, “Where did Aclines get this ship?”
“I don’t know,” Safreses said, then looked appalled at his lapse.
Kai pressed, “Where did you first see it?”
“When we met him in Scarif.” Safreses ground the words out through gritted teeth, just as Kinlat said, “He was given it, for the holy purpose.”
Kai kept his gaze on Safreses. “Why did you go to Scarif?”
“We were ordered—” Safreses’ mouth worked, his jaw tightened, horror dawned in his eyes, but the words forced themselves out. “To meet him.”
Kai pushed harder. “Ordered by who?”
Safreses gasped, “Brehama, the … the Prince-Speaker. It was—He—” Blood sprayed from his lips as he bit his tongue.
Ashem was frankly startled, as if until now she had still suspected all this was some kind of trick on Kai and Ziede’s part. Ramad’s expression was intent, intrigued but not surprised. “Brehama is the Prince-Speaker of Nient-arik.” He nodded to Kai. “You just made my job much easier.”
Kai’s heart pounded with the effort and a spike of pain lanced through his temple, there and gone like the stab of a long needle. Ziede said, “That’s enough.” Through her pearl, she added, You’re pushing yourself too hard.
Blood on his lips and chin, Safreses’ face flushed dark and his gaze burned with hate. Kinlat’s eyes had gone vague, a sign that Kai’s will was starting to turn his brain. And Kai had a weird floating sensation that had nothing to do with the motion of the ship. He released his will.
A tightness in his chest gave way and he took a full breath, startled. He hadn’t been aware of the slow-building pressure until now. He let himself fall back against the throne.
Ziede lifted her hand and picked up the reins of the cantrips. She tightened her grip until both men choked, stumbled, and then collapsed to the floor. With both unconscious, she opened her hand and let them breathe again. She said, “I was tired of listening to them anyway.”
Ramad watched Kai with sharp attention. “Now the question is, is Brehama the only one involved, which I doubt. Nient-arik has long wanted to take Benais-arik’s place as the ruling capital of the Rising World. They claim their Prince-heirs have bloodline ties to one of the Great Bashasa’s cousins, which is true, but irrelevant to the Rising World’s charter. But the Imperial renewal is their best chance to sway the coalition and supplant Bashat bar Calis.”
Ashem’s frown turned confused. “Didn’t the Imperial renewal already happen?”
“No, but soon, it’s the last day of this quarter-month.” Ramad added, “With Kaiisteron Witch King and Ziede Daiyahah missing from Bashat’s court during the time of the renewal, it makes it look like Benais-arik has lost your support, and the support of the Witchlands. With Tahren Stargard missing, it’s worse. It puts the treaties with the Immortal Blessed at risk. It could disrupt the whole empire.”
“It’s a coalition, not an empire,” Kai said, pressing his hands to his temples. The spikes of pain faded but his head still felt like one of the Gad-dazara volcanoes, all pressure and heat.
With deliberate emphasis, Ashem said, “Kinlat’s holy purpose is killing you, if you didn’t get that.”
“Yes, Cohort Leader, we know that.” Ziede’s voice was dry. “The only reason we’re not still locked in coffins is that another expositor opened the tomb. He meant to make Kai his familiar.”
Ashem’s brow furrowed in apparent surprise. Ramad’s quick startled glance seemed genuine. He said, “A tomb?”
Ziede tilted her head, examining him. “At the bottom of the sea. Just deep enough to hold Kai forever.”
Ashem glanced narrowly at Ramad, whose frown deepened. Kai wasn’t in the mood to parse whether Ramad’s disconcerted expression was real or an act. “What?” Kai asked. “Did you think we disappeared because we were off somewhere having a good time?”
Ramad shook his head slightly. “The expositor that found you … That was the Menlas you asked about?”
There was something in his tone that was genuine, concern or consternation or just surprise, it was hard to tell. “You’ve heard of him,” Kai said, not making it a question.
“I’d tell you if I had.” Ramad was preoccupied. “Expositors steal each other’s secrets, especially ambitious apprentices. He might have thought to gain so much power through you that he wouldn’t need to fear retribution.”
“I am tired of being told things I already know,” Ziede said contemplatively, apparently to the air. Sanja had gotten up and circled around the two unconscious men. She nudged one with a foot. Ziede added, “Sanja, get away from that.”
“What will you do with them?” Ramad asked, his expression opaque again, whatever had disturbed him carefully tucked away.
Ashem eyed both men with disgust. “I would like them alive. They committed crimes against the Rising World by attacking and taking prisoner the cohort and my cadre. I assure you, they won’t go unpunished.” She glanced at Ramad. “And if they’re part of a Nient-arik dissident faction, trying to undermine Benais-arik or the renewal, then they must be questioned by the Rising World council.”
Ziede glanced at Kai and said silently, She’s right. They’re valuable as witnesses, if nothing else.
Much as I’d like to drop them over the side, Kai replied. Whoever had given Aclines the ship would probably prefer them dead and not speaking to Ashem’s Rising World superiors.
Ziede said aloud, “Put them down in the hold with the cohort. They’ll be drawn into the well and sleep.” She made an elegant gesture. “Cohort Leader Ashem, if your cadre could make themselves useful…”
Kai watched from the throne while Ashem called a couple of her people in from the lower deck. Ziede gestured for them to follow her, and Ashem and the two soldiers hauled the unconscious Safreses and Kinlat down the narrow stairs to the rowing deck.
Sanja padded over to Kai and sat down on the dais. Frowning, she asked, “Why didn’t you kill them?”
“Someone in the Rising World might know better questions to ask them.” Wearily, Kai propped his head on his hand. This throne was uncomfortable but he needed to wait until his head stopped swimming so he didn’t stagger across the deck like a drunken mortal. “They’re not expositors. They’re just tools.”
“Are you going to eat them?” Sanja asked.
Kai lifted his brows at her. She shrugged. “I’m just trying to learn how everything works.”
Ramad took a step toward them and without looking up, Kai said, “Careful, you wouldn’t want to startle me.”
Ramad glanced at Sanja. “A word in private.”
That was interesting. Kai told her, “See if Tenes is all right.”
Eyeing Ramad with suspicion, Sanja pushed off the dais and went outside. Ramad lowered his voice and said, “I can confirm one thing, Kinlat was speaking the truth about Dahin Stargard. He was at Nient-arik and he did meet with a Benais-arik official before he left, but I don’t know who it was.”
Kai leaned back in the throne, wary of betraying too much of his reaction to Ramad. It was odd, since Dahin had long ago made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the Rising World politics. “How do you know this?”
Ramad made an open-handed gesture, as if the answer was obvious. “Immortals visiting such courts as Nient-arik are always interesting to the Rising World.” Because Nient-arik had surrendered to the Hierarchs, making possible the fall of the city-states around it, and none of the Arike had ever gotten over it, even all these years later.
Ramad continued, “If the Nient-arik meant to disrupt the coalition renewal, perhaps they should have recruited you. I’ve read accounts that say you thought the Rising World should have released the coalition members from their agreements after the last Hierarch was killed.”
“So did a lot of others, at the time.” Kai couldn’t tell if Ramad was setting conversational traps for information or thinking aloud. Better to shift the subject, and there was one thing he was genuinely curious about. “Why are you so helpful to us?”
“I’m just as interested in discovering who is behind all this as you are. And finding Tahren Stargard is my mission.” Ramad hesitated, as if contemplating his own shift in subject. “And I think our arrangement was a question in exchange for an answer.”
“Maybe not just as interested.” Kai eyed him narrowly. “Ask, then.”
There was a trace of the banked fire of scholarly interest in Ramad’s gaze, so familiar from Dahin, from Ziede, from the sisters who studied at Avagantrum. “The other rumor I’d like to dispel is that you were a Witch, a renegade of their kind, who met Bashasa after the escape from the Summer Halls. And that you traded a Hierarch’s life for your demonic power from the underearth.”
“I was born a demon.” Kai snorted derisively. “And Witches don’t have renegades.”
Ramad took that in. “I admit, I’m partial to the history that says you and Bashasa were always allies. That you fought your way out of the Summer Halls together, that you were there when he killed the first Hierarchs.”
Kai regarded him and said nothing. There were parts of the story he had no intention of sharing with anyone.
Footsteps on the stairs signaled the return of the others. Ashem looked grave and the two cadre members seemed stricken. This must have been the first time they had seen with their own eyes what Aclines had done to the cohort. Ziede followed a moment later and said, “I think that’s all the excitement for tonight.” She pointed toward the hatch.
Still subdued, Ashem gestured for her cadre members to go and followed them out. Ramad hesitated, but went when Ziede’s expression made it clear she meant him, too.
Kai heaved himself out of the throne and crossed the cabin to lean in the hatchway. Out in the cool night wind, Tenes perched on the railing, Sanja sitting on the bench at her feet. Clouds framed the moon, and the wind had that aftermath-of-a-lightning-strike quality that meant there was a storm somewhere behind them. That, or it was a lingering trace of the charged air of Gad-dazara.
Ashem sent her people down the stairs to the lower deck, but paused and said, “What are you going to do?”
Ramad paused, too, standing at the top of the stairs. Ashem was looking at Kai, so he answered, “Get revenge.” That was what they were for, after all.
Ashem jerked her chin toward Sanja. “And this child? You’ll take her with you on your quest for revenge?”
Sanja glared at her in outrage. Kai suppressed a surge of irritation. Ashem was too young to remember the Arike under Bashasa, where the cohorts had scooped up survivors and fled in front of the oncoming legions, leaving them in the first place of safety and going back for more. That wasn’t what Ashem was objecting to, anyway. She thought their influence would corrupt an innocent girl.
In the Mouth of Flowers, Sanja had no one to protect her and nothing to believe in. If anyone, even a greedy shit like Menlas, had shown her the slightest bit of attention and offered even a sliver of safety, she would have attached herself and fought to the death for them. It was far better for Sanja and her murderous potential to be under Ziede’s care. Kai just said, “What do you want us to do, abandon her alone in an unallied port city like the one she came from? Why so cruel, when we could have left her on an active volcano?”
Ashem wasn’t deterred. “Where did she come from?”
Sanja stood, her jaw set. “The Mouth of Flowers. Menlas bought me from the child-catcher as a sacrifice to bring them back, so Kaiisteron could be in my body and Menlas could make him a slave.” She added decisively, “So fuck you.”
Ziede said, “Sanja, if you’re going to swear, don’t do it in Old Imperial. If you use their curses, you’ll take on their beliefs.”
Sanja blinked, distracted by that thought. “That’s the only language I know,” she pointed out.
Kai told her the Saredi word that meant “go into the wetland and eat shit-mud.”
Sanja repeated it twice, trying to get the vowels right. Ziede said, “Go back in the cabin and sleep, Sanja. Cohort Leader Ashem, why don’t you go belowdecks and lecture your loyal cadre on morality. You can chide us from your pedestal of Rising World superiority later. Ramad, go with her, or leap off the boat, whichever you prefer.”
Ashem pressed her lips together and stomped down the stairs to the lower deck. Ramad, with an ironic twist to his expression, gave them a court salute, touching his hands to his forehead and bowing, then followed. Sanja obediently wandered back into the stern cabin.
Kai watched Ramad cross the lower deck, saw Ashem pause to speak to the cadre members on watch. Then they both disappeared down the forward stairs.
Shaking his head, Kai went to sit on the cushioned bench. Ziede sat beside him, and through her heart pearl, he silently told her what Ramad had said about Dahin.
Ziede let her breath out in a long, aggrieved sigh. “He might be lying.”
Kai leaned against her shoulder, warm under her silk sleeve. The moon threw a broad reflection on the water, like it was pacing the boat, flying along beside them. “I don’t think he’s lying. Not about that.”
Ziede snorted under her breath. “Be careful, Kai.”
“Of what?” There was so much to choose from right now.
“You know what I mean.”
He sat back and stared at her. “I don’t.”
Silently, she said, Ramad reminds you of Bashasa.
“He does not,” Kai said aloud, offended. “Ziede!”
Ignoring him, she continued, He’s kind, in his way. Or pretending to be. And he has the same nose. He’s probably distantly related, you know how many relatives that family had, despite all the ones who were murdered.
Kai didn’t know whether to go with anger or try to laugh it away. Since it was Ziede, he tried the truth, and said, Don’t poke me in places that hurt.
She sighed and leaned against him again. “Sorry. I just … sorry.”
They watched the moon in silence together, while Kai struggled to find his composure. As if it was a lost object he had left somewhere. Probably back in Benais-arik, sixty years ago. Finally he said, “You should get some rest while you can. Tenes, you too. I can wake you if the wind changes.”
Across the deck, Tenes looked up at her name and hopped off the rail. She signed, Call if you need me, and went inside.
“I don’t need rest, I’m fueled by spite.” But there was a thoughtful frown in Ziede’s voice. “So do we believe this whole plot was the doing of Aclines and the Prince-Speaker of Nient-arik?”
“Nient-arik has a motive, to make themselves the capital of the Rising World.” If they had some support among the other coalition members, and managed to join with the dissident Immortal Blessed who wanted to end their Patriarchs’ treaty with the Rising World, they might have a good chance to pull it off.
