Witch king, p.23
Witch King, page 23
And Kai would rather not waste time on this when they should be going to find Bashasa. He didn’t even know yet if Dahin and the rest of Bashasa’s household had managed to leave. They might be able to buy time for more hostages and prisoners to flee.
Kai sat back and looked up at Ziede. In Saredi, he said, “I’m just going to kill him, unless you have any ideas.” At least there would be one less Hierarch’s Right Hand in the next battle against whoever survived to resist.
“Wait,” Ziede said in the same language. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I think we’re going about this the wrong way. Have you ever seen an expositor do a hunt-follow intention?”
“I’ve never seen it, but we were warned about it.” Expositors could trace scouts back to their camps if they were spotted while too close. Kai had always found that if scouts were spotted while too close then they were going to be too dead to worry about it.
“We could use it,” Ziede said. Not understanding their speech, the Right Hand pretended not to watch them. “That alabaster emblem he’s wearing on his belt, with the gold embossed cup. That shows he’s in direct contact with a Hierarch, one of their guard-servants. If he’s been to the place the Hierarch is hiding within the past few hours—or it may be since dawn, we were never quite sure how the intention worked—tracing his movements would tell us how to start.”
“Do you know how to make it work?” Kai asked.
“No, Kai, but you should,” she said, not patiently.
“You’re an optimist, Ziede.” There was no certainty in Talamines’ jumbled brain. Kai sat back on his heels and concentrated, but there was nothing he could remember about the hunt-follow intention. Something told him Talamines had not known many designs and intentions, he hadn’t been that kind of expositor. He helped the Hierarch focus power through the Well, he thought, and wondered what that meant.
Did the Hierarchs need an expositor like Talamines to use the power of the Well on a large number of mortals? If they did, it would explain why the other Hierarch hadn’t acted yet. But that was speculation so pure it might as well have been one of the Saredi fire-stories about people who lived in the sky.
But Talamines had ways of finding hidden information. Kai was pretty certain he wasn’t imagining that. But it wasn’t by reading minds. It was by reading … objects. “Does stone and wood and metal have a memory?” he asked Ziede.
“What?” Ziede was thrown for a moment, then apparently decided he was serious and said, “In a way, but those memories are hard to tap. Usually only”—she used a word in a language Kai didn’t know—“can stay still and silent long enough to see them.” She hesitated, biting her lip in thought. “But you aren’t talking about a boulder in a field, you mean made things. Those can borrow memory through close contact with a person. But it has to be close, intimate contact. Like a piece of jewelry worn all the time.”
Kai reached and pulled Vilgies’ alabaster emblem off his belt. “Like this.” Like the emblem that gave a Right Hand of Wrath leave to serve a Hierarch.
Vilgies snarled profanity and struggled until Kai shut him up by grabbing his jaw and draining enough of his life so he slumped over on the floor. Kai needed to concentrate.
Just holding the emblem and trying to think of where the Hierarch might be did nothing. But Talamines would have focused the power of the Well on it. Kai tried using a little of the life just taken from Vilgies, and suddenly saw a string of images. Most were a confusing mess, like a fading dream, but one was clearer than the rest. Figures in a large room, voices, water, lots of glass looking down onto a court. “The walls are gold, with an ivory and enamel design. It’s two levels above the floor of a court. There are fountains and pools.”
“Salatel, the map, please,” Ziede said in Imperial as Kai squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the image, holding it in his mind. “Have you seen a room with gold walls and ivory and enamel decoration? No? Ask the others.”
Shouts echoed through the court, soldiers spreading the question around the hall in Imperial and Arike. Then Ziede said, “Kai, describe it again, anything you can.”
“The pools are long and shallow. One is big, curved and deeper, like you could swim in it.” There was something off in the way the shadows fell, the way the sun came through the windows into the gold-walled room. “Oh, the court outside isn’t open to the air. There’s glass in the roof, but not all of it, like this one.”
“I think we’ve got it,” Ziede said, her voice taut.
Kai opened his eyes to see more mortals had joined the Arike soldiers. Most were in fine brocades and silks, bloody and disheveled from the battle. A person in a voluminous coat and a headwrap sat on the floor with Salatel’s map as Ziede crouched beside them. The person was filling in detail on the map with a lead stylus.
Kai pushed to his feet and went to look. People stepped away to give him room but no one actually fled. Salatel reported, “This is an attendant of the middle servant-nobles, who saw a court like this once.”
The person sketched in a section of the Halls that was not on Salatel’s original map, though it wasn’t far from the spot where Bashasa had gone to try to hold back the legionaries. “Bashasa never saw this area?”
“No, Fourth Prince.” Salatel made an open-handed motion. “They pretend hostages are part of their court, but they don’t allow us to see much of the Halls, just the most public areas.”
The attendant finished and sat back. “If it’s not right,” they asked, in Imperial, “will you come back and kill me?” They didn’t sound that upset about the prospect.
“No.” Kai leaned over to commit the new section to memory. “Because if it’s not right, I’ll be too dead to think about you.”
“We’ll be too dead,” Ziede said. Kai looked up and met her gaze. She didn’t look like someone who expected to be dead. She looked like someone who had a plan. She added, “Let’s go kill another Hierarch.”
TEN
Ziede drew from a small host of wind-devils to keep them moving at speed upriver without exhausting any one of the wild spirits. The bulk of Orintukk was left behind for lush green country where gardens and crops and orchards had once grown, interspersed with thick forests and the occasional rotting docks or stone pilings for long-vanished towns.
When they were still in Orintukk, Ramad, calmly enough, had asked, “Why are we going to the Summer Halls, the most reviled and forbidden place in all the Rising World?”
“We need a finding stone to locate Tahren,” Kai had explained. “There’s one in the Summer Halls.”
Ramad’s grim expression had turned startled and thoughtful, as if that was a far more rational explanation than he could possibly have expected. “I see. In a location that isn’t a trap, that no one will know we’re going to. And a finding stone no one else knows about?”
“The Immortal Blessed know there were finding stones in the Summer Halls.” Ziede studied Ramad critically. She had taken a seat up toward the bow near Kai. Tenes and Sanja were still in the stern, excitedly watching the city flow past. “But it’s certainly not going to be the first spot that leaps to mind.”
“And I know exactly where this one is,” Kai said, and thought, as long as it didn’t float away.
Ramad had nodded slowly. “So it’s worth the risk.”
They hadn’t spoken of it since then. Kai thought Ramad was holding back his questions, trying not to push, trying to appear trustworthy. Or possibly actually being trustworthy. Kai still didn’t know, and the whole thing made him want to groan.
The only way to know was to trust Ramad and then wait for the knife in the back.
Tenes had brought some of the Immortal Blessed ship’s silk blankets, and they used them to fashion a tent in the stern under the awning. The weather was hot now during the day so it was worth it for the extra shade and the occasional need for privacy. Everyone had taken off their coats, and Kai and Ramad had tied their skirts up to keep them out of the water.
The country turned hilly, with the sharp walls of low bluffs on either side of the river. After they had taken their first turn into a canal, they passed a place where a cliff loomed above a pool so round it clearly wasn’t natural, even with the trees and brush that grew all around its banks. The skeleton of a building stood against the striated rock, taller than the cliff itself, with stone pillars still supporting heavy wooden beams. It was overgrown with vines, but it formed an odd shape, like a giant wagon wheel.
Leaning out of the boat, Sanja asked, “What is that big round house?”
Kai was about to say it was probably an old fort, but Ramad pointed to the top of the cliff and said, “This is Lu-draya. There used to be a waterway that led from a lake somewhere across the plateau to a stone basin on this cliff. The structure was like a waterwheel for barges, lowering them down so they could reach this canal.”
Of all the things Ramad might be lying about, being a historian was not one of them.
Not long after, Tenes spotted a few plumes of woodsmoke rising over the trees in the distance. As they drew closer, they found a small harbor had been dug into the canal bank and a set of well-kept docks held a scatter of sailboats, canoes, and an aging river barge. Trees had been cleared back from the bank to make room for a couple of blocky cargo storage houses. A wide path led through the forest toward the distant sound of voices, someone chopping wood, and a thread of music. Ziede scanned the sky for any signs of pursuit, then said, “We can stop here for supplies.”
The chimera only worked from above, so they docked against the other river barge. It had taller sides and a small cabin, so their barge would be mostly concealed from the bank. That way if anyone came down the path from town they wouldn’t immediately see something that shouldn’t be floating, much less existing, and feel compelled to ask questions. When Sanja’s back was turned, Kai tilted his head toward her and asked Ziede silently, Send her alone, give her a chance to leave?
Ziede hesitated, then shook her head. Too close, I think, she replied through her pearl. If they search for us, they might find her.
She was right, so Kai waited in the boat with Ramad as Ziede, Tenes, and Sanja climbed across the other docked barge and went down the path to the town.
Kai settled into the bow so he could keep watch up and down the canal. Ramad had stood to help boost Sanja up to the taller barge’s deck, and Kai felt his attention as he took a seat again on the midship bench. Ramad said, “Something you said earlier … Why don’t Witches have renegades? Because none want to rebel?”
“Because there’s nothing to rebel against.” Kai watched long-legged birds stride along under the trees of the opposite bank. It was clouding over, there might be rain later and they would have to figure out what that might do to the chimera.
“Witches have no hierarchy?” Ramad asked, frowning. “No organization? But they act in concert. Or they did during the war.”
Kai shrugged. He wasn’t the only one with these answers. “You want to use up all your questions on this?”
Ramad lifted a brow, and Kai watched him shift from something more genuine back into a professional mask. “How many questions do I have?”
Kai kept his expression completely serious. “That’s one.”
Ramad let out a breath, and a genuine smile flickered. He had been around Kai long enough to know that was a joke, and that was … somehow disturbing and warming at the same time.
Ziede was right, Kai needed to be careful.
Ramad reconsidered his question, his expression turning appropriately serious again. “The Great Bashasa spoke his last words to you.”
That was disappointing. “Oh, not that.” Kai pretended mild annoyance, rather than revealing his depth of exhaustion with people who wanted to know things they had never been entitled to. “Everyone asks that.”
Ramad acknowledged this with a tilt of his head. “Then I won’t ask what they were. I’ll ask … why did he speak them to you?”
The approach was different enough to be intriguing. “Why do you think?”
Ramad shifted forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He was clearly debating what to say, and there was something reluctant in it. “The rumor is that you were his lover. That you seduced him for power in the new Rising World.”
Yes, they did say that. Kai just flicked his fingers in the water, like brushing away an annoying insect.
Without letting his gaze sharpen, Ramad added, “Others say the Great Bashasa would never have debased himself like that.”
Yes, they said that, too. “Very provocative, Ramad. It’s not exactly a new tactic.” And he thought, It’ll be the next question, the one he really wants the answer to. Ramad might be intrigued with Kai for more than one reason, but he couldn’t help being a vanguarder any more than he could help being a historian.
Ramad lifted one shoulder in a deprecating half shrug, but Kai had the impression he wasn’t enjoying this. “I’ve always wondered if it was the other way around. How he might have seduced—or persuaded—you to his service.”
The answer was Yes, but not like you think. Not that anyone would believe that. Kai wasn’t certain if he was falling for an obvious trick, or if it was something else that made him want to answer truthfully. He said, “What if I told you it wasn’t like that at all? Would you believe me? Would you even listen?”
Ramad’s eyes widened in unfeigned surprise. “Yes. I mean, I would certainly listen. And believe.”
Kai was certain that Ramad had had absolutely no confidence that his tactic would work. Now he had the look of a hunter who had just realized they were tackling bigger prey than they could handle. “Have you ever heard of the Saredi? The people the Arike and Enalin called the Grass Kings?”
Ramad’s brow furrowed as he obviously racked his memory. “Weren’t they nomad herders, somewhere in the Witchlands? I remember a story about rather dark religious practices.”
Yes, I was one of those practices, Kai could have said. “Dark compared to killing off entire cities because they’re in your way?”
Ramad conceded that with a wry nod. “Not that dark, no. But I thought they were almost entirely destroyed by the Hierarchs. Did they lend support to Bashasa’s alliance?”
“They formed their own alliance to fight the Hierarchs’ advance, with the sea people and traders of Erathi, and the borderlanders, from the places the Arike called the Witchlands. But they didn’t know how much of the world the Hierarchs had already conquered. They didn’t know about the power of the Well.”
Ramad frowned in concentration, taking this in as if he was memorizing every word. “Were you with them, before Bashasa?”
“I was with them.” Kai abruptly felt he had said too much and not enough. Time to move on. “Now tell me how learning any of this will benefit the Rising World?”
Ramad sat back, shaking his head a little. “I’m not asking for the Rising World. I’m asking for myself. I’m still a historian by inclination. I’ve always been curious, since I first saw you in the court of Benais-arik.”
Kai agreed, “I’ve always been a curiosity.”
Ramad winced, and that looked unfeigned, too. “That’s not … That’s not why I wanted—You were there, when it all happened—”
Footsteps sounded on the dock and they both flinched.
Ziede and the others were back with bags full of supplies. Ramad seemed torn between reluctance to drop the subject and relief.
Ziede had traded some of the rich fabrics from the Immortal Blessed ship for lighter cotton clothing in sun-faded blues, yellows, and grays. Aclines’ finery was already stained and torn from the mud and wrangling the ghost boat, and Kai found it a relief to get out of it and into a wrap tunic and a split skirt that was easier to tie up around his knees. Ramad kept his practical traveling clothes but Ziede opted for a short Enalin caftan belted over pants. Sanja imitated Ziede, though on her the same size caftan reached her ankles. Both wrapped their hair up in scarves to protect it from the dust in the wind off the hills and fields. Tenes wore a light patterned Arike long tunic over leggings. If they had to abandon the boat and walk or enter another town, at least they would look like ordinary wanderers. Kai used the pocket sewn under the tunic’s lapel for the telescoping rod, their best weapon unless Ramad had something hidden on him, which he probably did.
They got underway again, and Sanja said suddenly, “Vanguarder, can you tell the story about the people who thought you were stupid?”
Kai, caught drinking from a bamboo water flask, almost choked. By the time Tenes leaned over to slap him on the back, he realized Sanja was being deliberately provocative, testing Ramad to see if he was going to lose his temper, if he was safe to travel with in this confined space. Probably testing all of them. He wiped his mouth and looked at Ziede, who sat there with her brows lifted quizzically.
Ramad turned to eye Sanja, but it was with the good humor of someone being hazed as the newest member of a group. He said, “Sanja, I’m afraid you’re going to have to narrow that down.”
Now Kai snorted, but discreetly, looking away at the huge cypress lining the far bank.
Sanja clarified, “The people on the island, the Tala-something.”
“Oh, the Talai-alaou.” Ramad sat back on the bench and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “They’re interesting people but they have a whole code of strict rules of behavior. A little like the Grale, but without the courtesy and hospitality.”
Ziede commented, “The Grale are the most reasonable people on the eastern continent, but also the most tiresome.”
“They are as nothing compared to the tiresomeness of the Talai-alaou,” Ramad assured her.
Tenes crossed the boat to settle next to Sanja to listen. Ramad was a good storyteller, self-deprecating about his effort to make friends on the Rising World’s behalf with the stuffiest inhabitants of the whole western archipelago. Kai felt the muscles in the back of his neck unclenching and realized he needed the laughter. He was more tense about their destination than he had thought he would be.
As they traveled, the hills gradually fell away, leaving open fields and scattered copses of trees. The days were long and hot but the nights were cool, with sweet breezes and flickers of light in the brush from glowing insects or stray ghosts. They stopped only briefly, to clean the latrine bucket, or to scrounge supplies from the overgrown fields of long-abandoned farms. Sometimes they had to struggle to keep the boat from hulling itself on long-vanished sandbars. The barge’s state made it hard to keep any clothing clean, and Ramad’s erratic shaving and his beard stubble made him look even more like an itinerant river trader.
