So she did what she rarely did, and went to Tal’s room. It was neat to the point of sterility: he had a display of knives hanging on one wall, and a full-length mirror on another. A bottle of scent stood on the washstand next to his shaving gear. Beyond that there was no sign that this was anything more than a guest bedroom, except for Tal himself, who was doing exercises in front of the mirror with a practice blade.
“Your form is terrible,” said Csorwe. She sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Piss off,” said Tal, pleasantly enough. “What do you want?”
“Qanwa’s leaving, I think,” she said. It was too painful to start with any of the things that were actually bothering her.
“Thank fuck,” said Tal. “Count yourself lucky you didn’t have to sit through any more of her. The way she stares. And Sethennai’s spent the whole time buttering her up. Oh, tell me about your vineyards, tell me about your summerhouse. Makes me sick.”
Csorwe could see how it was unfair. Sethennai had no patience for chatter. Tal had spent five years getting more clipped and pertinent, concentrating more acid into fewer words.
“You ever wonder what he’d have to do before you’d say something?” she said.
“Sethennai, you mean? What would I say?” he said.
“I don’t know,” she said. Even talking to Tal, who knew what it was like as well as anybody ever could, it was hard to put into words. “That you’ve had enough. That you know he’s never going to believe you’re—you know—”
“A real person?” said Tal, examining his face in the mirror.
“No, I—” said Csorwe. The words were like three shards of ice—difficult to hold, painful if you touched them for too long.
“Are you just realising this now?” said Tal.
“Do you really think he’s like that?” she said. “But you’re—”
“Still fucking him?” he said. “Well, yeah. I live in hope. Also, have you seen him?”
“Ugh,” said Csorwe.
“Do I ever think about walking out and finding another job?” said Tal. “I used to think I should. But then again … I disappointed my family. I didn’t do anything with my education. I helped Sethennai murder my uncle … you’ve got to stick somewhere or you just keep slipping. I’m reconciled. And he’s like that with everyone, so you know it’s nothing personal. Nobody’s a real friend to him.”
Csorwe sighed and flopped back on the bed. She had left the House of Silence, left Grey Hook, left Shuthmili. She couldn’t think of a single person who’d treated her nicely whom she hadn’t left behind or abandoned or betrayed.
Maybe Tal sprayed his possessions with some kind of essence of self-pity.
“When you were on the Qarsazhi ship, did they ever talk about where exactly they were taking Shuthmili?” she said.
“Not really,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Csorwe rolled her eyes. “I should’ve known. You didn’t get anything at all?”
“No. I didn’t care once they said they were going to bring me home.”
Csorwe couldn’t blame him. A month ago she would have felt exactly the same way. It had been worth trying. But soon Inquisitor Qanwa would be on her way back to Shuthmili, knowing whatever it was that she knew.
She strode back toward her room, her thoughts swirling, anger and grief and a strange elation mixed as one. Eventually, a single idea crystallised out of the mess. Shuthmili was alive, and Csorwe knew where she was—the Traitor’s Grave, whatever that was—and that meant Csorwe could find her and get her back. After all, she’d been expensively trained for many years. She had a refined expertise in getting things back. Shuthmili might hate her forever—it was possible that she had screwed that one up comprehensively—but she had to try.
She rifled through her room, sweeping everything back into her travelling bag. Clothes, knives, charts, money, papers. She’d bribe a Qarsazhi guard, or hide on board their ship, or dangle Qanwa over the balcony until she admitted exactly where they’d put Shuthmili.
This happy thought lasted until she emerged from her room to the news that the Inquisitors had already left Tlaanthothe. They must have packed up and gone immediately after Csorwe’s meeting with Qanwa. Csorwe cursed herself for hastiness. She should have stayed civil and tried to squeeze more information out of Qanwa at their interview. Instead, Qanwa had slipped away, taking the strongest lead on Shuthmili’s whereabouts with her.
Csorwe silenced the little voice that said, It’s no use, you’re too late, just give up. She had spent days and fucking days feeling sorry for herself at the hunting lodge, when she could have done something. She should never have left it so long, but she had no excuse for leaving it any longer.
But what should she do now? Where was the Traitor’s Grave? She didn’t know Qarsazh well enough even to make an educated guess.
You had better ask one who knows, she thought, and for a moment couldn’t remember where the phrase had originated.
Then the dream came back to her, as vivid and unsettling as if she was living through it all over again. The waiting oracle, the path of blood … She had learned about such dreams in the House of Silence, and she knew they were an old and unreliable magic. Ask one who knows …
She couldn’t remember the face of the librarian from her dream, but she had no doubt where the vision had originated. She didn’t enjoy the idea of Oranna wriggling into her sleeping mind, but it was an offer of help. She was certain of that, and equally certain that Oranna would expect something substantial in return.
She would have tried any other possibility before facing Oranna again. It wasn’t just that she personally disliked her. It would be a betrayal of Sethennai to ask his enemy for help, and she knew Oranna would ask for more than she wanted to give.
And yet … she had imagined Shuthmili locked up in a dungeon alone. She knew Inquisitor Qanwa better than that, now. Qanwa would keep Shuthmili somewhere nice, and treat her well, and surround her with people who’d all tell her what a good thing it would be to accept the tether. They would tell her what an honour and a duty it was to be eaten up by the Quincuriate, and how lucky she was to have been chosen. Csorwe knew all about that. Nobody’s resolve could last forever under those circumstances.
If there had been infinite time she might have had another choice, but there never was. Time narrowed to a point, and she was entirely out of other ideas.
* * *
The guards outside the deep cell all knew who Csorwe was. They didn’t even ask her what she was doing there. It was embarrassing. Sethennai was careless. Csorwe had always worried about his carelessness.
The deep cell was shaped roughly like a peach pit, built from the same timbers as the hull of a mazeship and reinforced with silver and iron. It was suspended on chains from the roof of a natural cave, dangling like a locket above a black chasm. The guards were stationed on a walkway that ringed the cave above the crown of the cell, watching the chains. Each link was the size of a man’s chest, and covered with a verdigris of wards and seals.
A narrow staircase, without handrails, wound down from the walkway like a screw thread. Water boomed in the chasm below. None of the guards seemed keen to accompany Csorwe down to the bottom of the staircase, where a rope bridge extended across the void to the door of the deep cell.
The door was locked, but then, Csorwe had access to the palace strong room. She had the run of the whole place. She had Sethennai’s complete trust. An enormous, encompassing thing. Csorwe had never thought before about how breakable it was. When she first started practising with a real sword, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how easy it would be to cut flesh and skin. She was about to do something appalling. In her pocket, her fist was clenched around the key to the deep cell. The metal was warm.
The guards had gone back to their own conversation, now that Csorwe was out of sight. She almost wished one of them would say something. If they did, she’d have to account for herself, instead of turning the key in the l
ock and opening the door.
Inside, the deep cell was warm and humid, like a greenhouse. Oranna was sitting in an armchair. The pink-and-gold light made her look like a strange flower, a huge orchid from some unknown world. Then she looked up at the door, at Csorwe, and the strangeness fell away. She was a deeply tired woman, too close to the end of her resources to look relieved.
She was still wearing the bloody dressing gown, and Csorwe knew she had been right about the dream.
“You called for me,” said Csorwe.
“I had to call for someone,” said Oranna. Her hand was bandaged up in a torn pillowcase, rather than bleeding freely on the tiles. “You are an easy connection. You were Chosen as I was. And you broke my nose, not so long ago.”
“I’ll break it again if you start up on all the Chosen Bride stuff.”
Oranna laughed. “I am not wrong. And you will get nowhere by pretending I am. But I can put it aside for now. Since you have answered me, you think I have something of value to tell you.”
“Yes?”
Oranna held up her bloody hand to her face and passed it across her left eye, leaving a smear like black ash on her cheek. “I have watched you since you came back to Tlaanthothe. If Sethennai paid you a moment’s attention he would see what he does not. That he is losing your fealty. With every drop of blood I shed, you forget him.”
“No,” said Csorwe. “It’s not like that—”
“He has been lying to you. He is not what he says he is. You owe him nothing.”
“I owe him everything,” said Csorwe.
Oranna laughed again. “But to owe is not enough. You wish to reach out and take something for yourself. For the first time, your desires outstrip his intentions. And he will not be pleased to learn it. Trust me, I know how it works.”
“It’s not like that. It’s not the same as whatever weird grudge you have against him. It’s not about him. It’s not about me.”
“No,” said Oranna. “It’s about Qanwa Shuthmili. Isn’t that right? You want to trade in your loyalty for something that cannot last. I am thirty-six years old and just about beating the odds. Qarsazh trains its Adepts to burn like oil lanterns, a little at a time, eking out a limited supply for a few brief lights. But Shuthmili burns like a forest fire. I only had to see her workings once to recognise it. She is magnificent, and she will be dead within a decade.”
“I don’t care,” said Csorwe, which wasn’t true, but she didn’t have time to think about it now. Any of them might be dead within a decade. “You wouldn’t go to the Quincuriate, would you, if they tried to make you?”
“I did not die to serve my own divinity,” said Oranna. “It goes without saying that I would not give up my mind to make a vessel for the Dragon of Qarsazh.”
“You know where they’re keeping Shuthmili,” said Csorwe. “You do, or you wouldn’t have called for me.”
“Perhaps.”
“The Traitor’s Grave.”
“Look long enough and you will certainly find such a place,” said Oranna, “but it is also the name of a Qarsazhi prison-fortress.”
“Do you know how to find it? How to get in?”
“No,” said Oranna. “At least, not exactly. I know very little for certain. But I know where we can obtain certainty.”
A little certainty was better than none. “Swear you’ll help me rescue her. Promise me that and I’ll get you out of here.”
“Mm. You don’t want to betray Belthandros?”
“No.”
“But you’d better face up to the fact that you’re doing it anyway. He will have no difficulty recognising it. Don’t flinch. You have run from one who loved you before. You will find a cold, hard centre to yourself. You must let it be your compass.”
She remembered falling in the market at Grey Hook, Sethennai picking her up and putting her back on her feet. There must be something very cold and hard in her if she was truly thinking about doing this.
“I won’t flinch,” she said, dully.
“Then we can work together,” said Oranna.
Csorwe rubbed a hand over her face, squashing her cheek against her nose, as if she could recognise herself again by feeling the bones of her skull, the familiar smooth numbness of the gold tusk that Sethennai had given her.
Oranna went over to the great stone bath, which was covered by an embroidered cloth, like a sarcophagus. She drew back the cloth, releasing a rising cloud of steam. There was a smell of flowers and dilute blood. From out of the water she picked up the rock crystal Csorwe had seen in her dream, wet and shining.
“Take it,” she said. As soon as Csorwe’s bare skin touched the stone, she felt a familiar lurch, the old rushing darkness, and for a moment she felt as though she sat on her throne in the House of Silence again, awaiting prophecy.
At that moment she knew exactly where Oranna intended to go to obtain certainty. The Unspoken One would give them the truth. The Shrine called her back again. Every time she thought she was free of it for good, it demanded her return.
“You want us to go back to the House of Silence,” said Csorwe.
“Of course not,” said Oranna. “If I go back, there will be a great irrelevant fuss and I will have to duel Cweren to the death, which I truly cannot be bothered to do. The House of Silence is dying, and the old cult of the Unspoken is dying with it. I am the first of the new blood.”
Csorwe’s face must have changed, because Oranna smiled. It was such an unpleasant smile. Csorwe had no idea how she had ever managed to convince the acolytes to follow her.
“You killed all the others,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“Is it such a bad thing, to die for what you believe?” said Oranna.
“They believed in you, then. Ushmai and everyone.”
“Yes,” said Oranna. “They believed in my cause. They believed in … eternity.”
“Uh-huh,” said Csorwe. She remembered Ushmai lying slumped at the table within the Lignite Spire. No eternity for her, at any rate.
“The true power of the Unspoken One abides forever, and in time it will have its incarnation,” said Oranna. “You and I will go directly to the heart of that power. To the throne and earthly mansion. To the Shrine.”
It took a moment for Csorwe to realise exactly what Oranna was proposing. A cold horror latched on to her, like a leech.
“No,” said Csorwe. Her voice shook slightly. Even after all these years. “Never.”
“You are afraid,” said Oranna. “Afraid, perhaps, that you will find what you have always denied. That you belong still to the service of the Unspoken One. That—”
“Do you want to escape from here?” said Csorwe, taking a step toward her. “I wasn’t joking. Keep this up and I’ll break your fucking nose.”
Oranna grinned. “Point taken. But you know there is no other way. The Qarsazhi do not publish the location of their secret prison.”
Shuthmili was alive, and suffering, because of Csorwe’s own failure. This was no time to be afraid.
She gave the shard of Shrine-stone back to Oranna, who bound it into her robe.
“All right,” said Csorwe. “If there’s no other way.”
“There is none,” said Oranna. “Won’t you ask how you can trust me? How you can be certain I won’t double-cross you?”
“May the abyss consume the breaker of promises,” said Csorwe. “May the maggots eat the flesh of her vessel.”
“May her name be forgotten utterly,” said Oranna, with satisfaction. “Quite right. I may have forsaken the temple but I have never forgotten the law.” She went to the wardrobe, which was full of flimsy robes and gowns, and scowled. “You must lend me a coat,” she said. “I have had enough cold for a lifetime.”
“Yes, fine,” said Csorwe. Despite the close walls and the muffled quietness of the deep cell, her skin began to prickle, alert to any sign that they were being watched or overheard.
Once they left the cell they would only have so much time. She would tell the
guards that Sethennai had summoned the prisoner. They couldn’t rely on having time to get to the docks, so she would need to requisition one of Sethennai’s own cutters, moored in the palace hangar. Just as if it was all on his business.
She already had her bag, packed with provisions. She had visited the Bank of Tlaanthothe and withdrawn all her savings. If the bank officials or the quartermistress had any suspicion, it might already be over, but she didn’t think that was likely. She walked, spoke, and acted with the shadow of Sethennai’s authority. One more day in that shadow. That was all she needed, and then the betrayal would be complete.
* * *
The cutters floated at their moorings like a row of swans, cool and pale above the bright heat haze of the city. As Csorwe had predicted, nobody had challenged her. They had scarcely looked at Oranna. The young guardsman at the hangar had wished her a good morning, then looked as if he regretted it, and left.
Csorwe had never quite recovered from the humidity of the deep cell. Her hands were clammy. She wished she had brought her Torosadni sword, but it remained on her bed in her empty room, along with the other gifts Sethennai had given her. Adding theft to betrayal was, somehow, too much.
“Get in,” she said to Oranna, swinging their bags hastily into the cutter.
“It is a good feeling, to lose extraneous things, however much you thought you valued them,” said Oranna, stepping down into the cutter. She was still wearing the exquisite dressing gown, with Csorwe’s winter coat draped incongruously over her shoulders. “That I can assure you.”
“All right, whatever,” said Csorwe. There was nobody else in the hangar. She dropped the final bag into the cutter, which bumped against its nearest neighbour with a hollow sound. She winced, but there was nobody to hear.
It couldn’t really be so easy to do this. If it had been, she could have left any time. There must be something she had forgotten, some unscalable invisible wall. She couldn’t believe the whole natural world was going to let this happen.
The Unspoken Name Page 39