Mazes of Power

by Juliette Wade

  Right past them. Tagaret whirled around. A man was charging at them, swinging a brass chair. Tagaret scrambled back but met a wall of people. The bodyguard got one hand to the chair, which swung aside and struck Reyn in the head. Reyn’s knees buckled.

  “Reyn!” Tagaret shouted. He grasped for him, got a coat sleeve and hauled upward, got one hand under his arm. Reyn’s head lolled sideways, and he almost lost his grip. He grabbed again, stumbled—

  A crash of glass.

  Tagaret looked up. Their attacker was gone, and the bodyguard had just thrust the brass chair through one of the ballroom windows. Before Tagaret’s eyes, he pulled it back again—glass rained and shattered on stone—then hurled the whole thing through. He walked over to them, took Reyn’s unconscious body easily over one black-silk shoulder, curved his other arm around the girl, and headed out, kicking out broken glass. Reyn’s blond head was the last thing to disappear.

  He mustn’t lose them—

  Tagaret ran through the bottleneck crush and popped out into the still air of the night gardens. The panicked crowd dissipated fast: a rush of feet moving outward toward the west wing of the Eminence’s Residence, the grounds, and the noble districts beyond. Strong shouts came from farther away in the darkness, and here and there, guards of the Eminence’s Cohort appeared, cutting against the flow of fleeing nobles and servants.

  “Reyn!” Tagaret shouted, searching the deep shadows. “Can you hear me? Where are you? Gowan! Fernar!” What would he give for daylights right now—for someone to turn on the atmospheric lamps on the cavern roof, just for a minute when they were so sorely needed?

  “Young sir,” called a voice.

  There—shapes in the dim garden, huddled by a bank of flowering shrubs—the Imbati and the girl standing, Reyn slumped on the ground.

  “Reyn!”

  He fell to his knees at his friend’s side. He’d failed them; if he’d just kept them together, this wouldn’t have happened . . . “Reyn, speak to me. Are you all right?”

  Reyn curled forward, head in his hands.

  “That Imbati saved your life. Oh, Imbati, you—” He looked up, but the girl and her bodyguard had vanished into the dark. He couldn’t even thank him. “Reyn, I’m so sorry. How bad is it?”

  “Owwww.”

  “Gods, your head, let me see it.” Tagaret pressed his fingers through Reyn’s hair, searching for lumps, for blood. What if he had to get him to the medical center? He was no bodyguard—how could he lift him? And even if he managed to haul him across the gardens, how many people would already be clamoring for treatment?

  “Tagaret, I’m all right,” Reyn said. “Aah—”

  “No, you’re hurt—”

  “Sure I’m hurt, but I’ll be all right.” Reyn’s hands grabbed tightly to his wrists. “I’ll be fine, Tagaret, I promise.”

  “May Heile grant you her healing mercies.”

  The hum of a guard’s weapon, and a crash of glass echoed off the cavern roof. More panicked people ran past, killing his momentary relief. So many people still caught in there . . .

  “Did you see Fernar or Gowan?” he asked. “Reyn, tell me they’re not still in there. Did you see them?”

  Reyn’s voice was small, cold. “No . . .”

  “I have to help them.” Tagaret waved down a guard as she ran toward the ballroom windows.

  The guard hesitated. “Sir?”

  “I need you to find Gowan of the Ninth Family, and Fernar of the Eleventh. Their safety is important to me.”

  “Yes, sir. If you will describe them, sir.”

  “Sixteen years old. Gowan has long sandy hair, a round face, and a red jacket; Fernar has short black hair, broad shoulders, and an amber suit with a lace collar. Promise me you’ll find them.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “And get them home safely.”

  “Yes, sir.” She saluted with a chop of her right hand to her left shoulder, and ran on.

  Now, he should get Reyn home. If he could get him on his feet.

  “Reyn, can you get up?”

  Reyn didn’t answer. Tagaret knelt beside him, felt for his head, and lifted it. The light from the ballroom was at the wrong angle, but a faint light from the opposite direction moved over Reyn’s features. A tiny floating spark—one of the wysps that drifted here and there throughout the city-caverns—had come near. Good luck at last. Reyn gazed up at him, looking quite bewildered; the chair must have hit him hard.

  “Can you get up? Reyn, please.” His voice broke. What if Reyn’s injury was more serious than he thought?

  Reyn blinked. “I’ll try.”

  Reyn’s legs were so unsteady, Tagaret half-carried him through the gardens into the west wing of the Residence. In the spiral stairway, he stabilized them with his shoulder against the curving stone, struggling step after step until he got Reyn all the way up to the third-floor hall. When Reyn’s Imbati caretaker opened the door of their suite, she immediately took charge.

  “Grobal Tagaret, sir,” she said, taking Reyn from him, “thank you for your help. I’m aware of the Kinders scare and will be taking preventative measures. If you will, please go straight home and bathe.”

  Instantly, every particle of dust on his skin felt infectious. Tagaret sprinted downstairs to his suite, slapped his palm against the lock-pad and rushed in.

  “Young Master Tagaret, thank heavens you’ve come home.”

  That wasn’t their irritable caretaker, Das—it was the First Houseman, Imbati Serjer. Tagaret had never been so relieved to see him. Serjer was the most constant of their Imbati, distant yet fond, almost like a much older brother. Anxiety made wrinkles in his crescent-cross Household tattoo.

  “What’s wrong, Serjer?” Tagaret asked. “Is it the fever?”

  Serjer leaned his head to one side, an understated but chilling Imbati gesture of discomfort. “Sir, Gowan of the Ninth Family has sent word that he and Fernar of the Eleventh Family are safe. Unfortunately, I must inform you—Imbati Das just resigned from the Household. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Varin’s teeth.

  His brother had done it again.

  None of the caretakers ever stayed. Nekantor drove them away, one after another, with his particular habits, his constant insults, and his flagrant disrespect for the Imbati customs of personal space. And if he ever got to Serjer—not Serjer . . . Tagaret took a deep breath. “Serjer, I apologize for any offense my brother may have given to your person this evening.”

  “Not to worry for me, young Master, I am unscathed.”

  “Oh, thank heavens. Please, consider yourself off-duty unless there’s some emergency.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Tagaret strode across the sitting room but checked cautiously through the double doors before entering the private drawing room. His brother was nowhere to be seen. When he reached the door to his rooms, he found the lock broken—Nekantor again, gnash him! But there was still the lock on the door of his private bathroom. Tagaret shut himself in, filled the marble tub, and scrubbed his body with a vengeance.

  What if Kinders fever really had been in the air? They said the first symptom was fatigue, then dizziness, then the fever that could blind and deafen even when it didn’t kill, and the hives that could stop you breathing, drop you dead on a stage in front of hundreds of people—mercy, how long would it take to know you had it? Everyone said people with stronger blood could recover, but how strong was his blood? How strong could it be, when all twelve Great Families numbered how directly they were descended from the Great Grobal Fyn? Should he trespass into Father’s office for the genealogy records, to see how many cousins he really had in the Pelismara Society? Would it make any difference?

  There had to be something he could do—

  There was a scraping sound. Tagaret dropped his hands into the water, fury rising as the
handle of the locked door began to turn.

  “Nekantor!” he bellowed. “Don’t come in here!”

  Nek came in anyway. “Or what? You’ll call the trashers up the chute to kidnap and incinerate me?” He was dressed to perfection in a pale brown day suit and had a horrible eager light in his eyes. “Have you heard the good news? The Speaker of the Cabinet just died of Kinders fever. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Panic in the ballroom, a girl in a green dress, an Imbati bodyguard, a crazed man with a chair, Reyn injured, death stalking him in the bathtub—! Tagaret clenched his teeth. “I already know what it means.” Nek might be two years younger, but he schemed like a forty-year-old politician.

  “It means everything will change.” Nekantor began pacing a tight pattern on the bathroom floor, every second black tile from the tub to the door and back. “I’ve worked it all out. By tomorrow the Heir will have appointed Father to the Speakership; by tomorrow evening he’ll receive the radiogram; he’ll be back here in Pelismara within the week. We won’t need Imbati Das anymore, so I fired him.”

  An indignant protest died in Tagaret’s throat. Nek didn’t have that kind of authority—but he’d driven Das to resign, so the result was the same. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Father coming home? Father, with his cruelty and his devastating surprises . . . the thought chilled him despite the hot water.

  “You’re insane,” he snapped. “Get out of here.”

  “We won’t be the sons of the Alixi of Selimna anymore, we’ll be the sons of the Speaker of the Cabinet. The First Family will advance to an unrivaled position. And then the Eminence will take fever and die, and there will be an Heir Selection, and you know what that means . . .”

  Only Nek could sound so delighted when predicting death. Maybe this would shut him up; he grabbed a towel from the rack and tossed it to the floor, hiding the next black tile.

  Nekantor jerked to a stop, staring at the spot. “Take it off.”

  “Get out of my rooms, Nekantor.”

  Nek’s jaw tightened, and he clenched his fists. “Take—it—off.”

  Tagaret swallowed, but he couldn’t afford to back down, not here on his own territory. “Get out.”

  Nekantor gave a feral snarl, snatched up the towel, and threw it in his face. Didn’t run out, though—first he stepped on the black tile, then wheeled and stormed out yelling, “Serjer! Serjer! Idiot Imbati, where are you?”

  Gods, not Serjer . . . Tagaret held his breath, but let it out again when the First Houseman gave no answer. Who knew how Serjer had stayed faithful all this time? His steadfastness was more precious than ever. Thank all mercies he’d excused him for the night.

  Tagaret climbed out of the bath, wrapped himself in a towel, and dragged his desk chair over to blockade the bedroom door. That felt like action. It was something, anyway—a start. Tomorrow he could ask Serjer for a better lock. And figure out another way to hear The Catacomb.

  It wasn’t enough, though, when everything was wrong. The only people with the power to effect change were politicians, but wading into politics would mean having to use distasteful skills that Father had drilled into both of them since birth. The ones Nekantor loved, and had clung to after Father left. Tagaret’s mind shied from the idea.

  On the other hand, if Nek was right, something important really had changed. Tagaret slid open the drawer at the bottom of his wardrobe, full to rustling with handwritten letters. There was a photograph here somewhere—there. Mother wearing her sad smile, sitting straight as a queen with her hair flowing down like a red-gold river, and white-haired Imbati Eyli standing guard behind her shoulder.

  After five years away in Selimna, Mother would finally be coming home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tested

  The Speaker’s death last night, like the tumble of a stone from the roof of some forsaken cavern, had the entire Imbati Service Academy holding its breath, listening for worse.

  Not the best conditions for an employment interview.

  Imbati Aloran sat in his dormitory bunk and tried to focus on the papers he’d prepared, but intermittent whispering in the main aisle wrecked his concentration. Clumps of students had gathered, murmuring about Kinders fever. Some were fully dressed in maroon Academy uniforms; others wore nightgowns; a few, diverted from the showers, were wrapped only in bath towels. Most of the talk centered on how lucky they were to have been born outside the inbred confines of the nobility.

  This was a disaster indeed, if it could make self-respecting servants gossip like nobles.

  Aloran pushed his hair behind his ears and tried again to focus, but a voice spoke, tuned to private pitch.

  “Aloran, may I join you?”

  Kiit, he would happily admit. He nodded.

  She ducked gracefully under the top bunk beside him. Ready for class, with her long braids still damp. “Forgive me if I’m interrupting,” she said. “I thought perhaps you looked—nervous.”

  Aloran shrugged. “I have my first interview today.”

  Kiit smiled. “I knew one of them would ask you in! You’ll do wonderfully.” Her eyes grew cautious. “Were you aware that you’re still face-naked?”

  Aloran hissed in a breath. Now he remembered his interrupted routine. To appear at an interview unmarked would be to fail before he began. He went to the mirror he shared with his bunkmate and painted the small black circle between his eyebrows. Then he combed his dark hair into its ponytail which, thanks to Kiit’s precise trimming, fell just outside his collar. He shut both makeup brush and comb back into his box of implements.

  “Much better,” Kiit said, when he turned around. Her eyes moved over him enticingly. “You sure look different in black.”

  Aloran flushed. The black silk suit was new, and it felt different. Freer, smoother, more professional. Older, too, as though he deserved a real manservant’s lily crest Mark, not just a circle of paint. Scary how much he liked it.

  “May I ask you a question?” Kiit said.

  “Not now, please. I should study.”

  Kiit’s brown eyes lit, and her mouth curved—that look of mischievous intimacy that meant she’d ask him even without permission. “Have you had any new employment inquiries? Which one is this?”

  “That was two questions, sweet.”

  “I love you.”

  He could only smile when she said that. “I love you, too. Lady Tamelera of the First Family; and no.”

  “First Family?” Kiit exclaimed. “What an opportunity! You’d have your entire Academy debt paid off in less than a year. You’d—” She frowned. “Lady Tamelera. She’s the Lady Alixi. You’d have to move to Selimna?” Abruptly, she appeared to realize she’d asked another question, blushed, and said, “I hear it’s beautiful there. The daylights are gold. Though the city-caverns are colder.”

  Aloran looked down and left: the gaze-gesture code for apology. “I probably won’t get the position,” he said. But it would be amazing if he did. Four current family members; three castemates in the Selimnar Household, and four here in Pelismara. A very generous salary offer and incredible prestige. . . Unfortunately, the First Family had included no portrait of Lady Tamelera, which made it difficult to imagine himself in her service. “More important than the money,” he said, “I want to find the right person.”

  “Imbati, love where you serve,” Kiit quoted. “You’re such an idealist—if a nervous one.”

  “I’d be less nervous if everybody weren’t chatting.”

  He wasn’t the only one to object. A lilting provincial accent had risen above the general murmurs—the voice of Min, a younger student who’d traveled from the Safe Harbor sand caverns to enter the Gentleman’s training at the Academy.

  “Come, fellows, talk won’t tame the waves,” Min said. “It’s consequences we must think of. Political alliances’ll shift now. And, should the fever spread, t
here may be fewer service positions.”

  Aloran frowned. Min had always seemed earnest and rather affectionate. Coldness wasn’t like him.

  “Gentleman’s servant,” Kiit remarked.

  He nodded. That was certainly the Gentleman’s training talking. Gentlemen’s servants were experts in politics but knew far less about health—a serious problem in the current situation. He glanced at Kiit, set his papers aside, and went over to the group.

  “Allow me to explain something,” he said.

  Maybe it was the black suit, but all eyes turned to him. Best would be to teach them the lesson of ten, required memorization for members of the Lady’s training like him and Kiit.

  “Say this year brings a new variant of Kinders, inoculants fail to anticipate it, and ten Imbati contract the fever,” he said. “Of those, only one will face the most severe symptoms—anaphylaxis, sensory loss, or death. Two will miss one week of work or instruction and require a doctor’s care for complications. Six will not need a doctor, and one will be entirely asymptomatic.”

  “You’re generous with information,” said one of the twelve-year-olds.

  “That’s not all of it.” The second half always chilled him to the core. He took a deep breath. “If the one Imbati with no symptoms comes into physical contact with any Grobal, and ten of them subsequently contract the fever, all will die without a doctor’s care. Seven will experience rapid-onset anaphylaxis and require immediate intervention to prevent death. Even if these survive, four will die of fever, and one will survive with sensory loss.” He looked at each member of the chastened group. “You might be the one to unleash death on those whom we are sworn to protect. That shame would be on the Academy forever.”

  Min gaze-gestured gratitude. “May I ask you a question, Aloran?”

  “Yes.”