The wind howled, sending the attacking birds whirling and tumbling away as if they had no more will or volition than a handful of black confetti. Around Mrithuri, the others ducked behind the battlements for cover, cowering against suddenly puddled stone to keep from being swept down the length of the wall. They were all as instantly and thoroughly wet as if they had been plunged into the river entire.
Except Nizhvashiti. Well, the Godmade was wet—rainwater streamed from sodden, flapping clothes and ran down the blank, bony face. But it was also immovable as a thing carved itself from stone.
Mrithuri shook the blood of carrion crows from her face. Wiping at it did nothing; her hands were covered, too. It mixed with the rain and ran slick and terrible down under her armor, into her eyes and nose. She snorted to clear her nostrils. “Tsering-la, what did you do?”
“Woke the gates up,” Tsering-la gasped between wheezes. He draped a hand across his mouth and nose so he did not drown in the rain. “Convinced them to grow roots, heal themselves. Grow together. I wish I were not such a weak Wizard.”
One more thud resounded, even more attenuated than the last. The wall barely trembled. Perhaps the Wyrm was tiring. Perhaps the gate-trees were too strong for it.
“I thought Rasan Wizards gave up their ability to create life,” Ata Akhimah said, from where she sprawled on her back on the stone. She raised a scratched, battered arm and inspected the beads of bloodstained water that dripped from it.
They were surrounded by a rustling that they could hear even over the wind. Green branches rose around them, unfurling papery gold new leaves that shredded and blew away. The limbs bowered the battlement, making it like a road through a wood for this little way.
“Oh,” Tsering-la said. “The wood was already alive. The Alchemical Emperor must have put it into stasis before it had a chance to die. It was still green and full of sap. That’s why it held on so long against the Wyrm.” He groaned. “I don’t think you’ll be able to use this river gate again, however. And we still need to get off this wall.”
Hunched, the Dead Man moved toward Nizhvashiti. He shouted something into the teeth of the wind. It might have been “Godmade!” but Mrithuri could not be sure. The Godmade, however, did seem to hear him, and the howl of the wind lessened a little. Or perhaps that was the wavering, watery bubble of amber light that Tsering wove around them with hands that shook in exhaustion.
Mrithuri managed to stand up, feeling every scrape and ache in her body. Her side stabbed her each time she took a breath. She guessed her rib was cracked from the fall. Syama came to stand beside her, and Mrithuri leaned on the bear-dog’s broad shoulder. “Can you end the storm?”
Nizhvashiti shook its head. “It is the Mother’s storm. But look, the boats are foundering.”
The Dead Man looked over the edge. “And the Wyrm has withdrawn. I expect it’s still under the water, however. Nizhvashiti, I thought you said you didn’t do weather control.”
“I control nothing. I did find a way to break … Well, I suppose it was the sorcerer’s … anathema. But removing a defilement is not the same as working your own.”
“Come on,” Ata Akhimah said, helping Tsering-la to his feet. The Dead Man offered Mrithuri his hand, then went to assist Lady Golbahar. Yavashuri and Hnarisha were somehow already standing. The trees—still growing—shielded them somewhat from the wind. Tsering-la’s tattered spell also helped, but he was sagging against her.
“Right,” Mrithuri said. She gave her husband’s hand a small squeeze before releasing it again. Rain fell from her fingertips. She placed them on the battlement. It would guide her even if the falling water blinded her. She would feel her way with her toes. “Nizhvashiti, are you coming?”
“I will watch the rain,” said the Godmade. “I’ll be in in time.”
Meticulously, Mrithuri led her people over the buckled stone. The Mother Wyrm’s attack had cracked the seamless rock of the wall and walkway, but had not brought it down, though stairs and such constructed against the inside of the wall had fallen away. There was an internal stair farther along, that seemed intact. Mrithuri gropingly led her people toward it.
Going down into the hole of the well gave her the shudders. What if it collapsed while they were in there? Water was running down the steps like a brook tumbling down a waterfall. It went, she knew, into the cisterns; all part of the Alchemical Emperor’s grand design. Arcane filters and purification rituals would remove any taint. One of the duties of the nuns in their cloisters was renewing the prayers and enchantments and maintaining the engineering that kept Sarathai-tia’s water supply pure.
As her feet splashed through swirling black feathers and unsavory fluids, she was grateful indeed.
Hathi and guardsmen awaited them at the bottom, where the stairs debouched onto a grating that let the water fall through. Mrithuri strode up to the elephant, the skirts of her armor coat swinging, forgetting any pretense of walking with the grace and control befitting a rajni. Hathi’s attendants had already removed the armor from her great face, and were trying to smear salve on her abrasions while the elephant joyously danced and splashed and jangled her bells in the rain.
She quieted as Mrithuri approached her, and lowered her trunk to inspect the rajni’s bloody hair.
Mrithuri stepped into the curve of the trunk, which curled companionably around her waist. Reaching high, she touched the bruise on Hathi’s forehead. “Thank you, Sister.”
She would have said more, but a familiar and despised voice interrupted her. “My rajni?”
It was Mi Ren, of course, with a servant beside him holding a large umbrella over his head. Mi Ren was wearing wooden pattens over his embroidered silk slippers. Mi Ren wore a smug expression.
Despite the protection of a broad conical hat, the servant was getting drenched.
The only surprise was that Mi Ren had come out into the rain and the danger at all. He must have something even more than usually self-serving to say.
She heard the rustles and splashes of her people drawing up behind her. She stroked Hathi once again and stepped away from the elephant’s embrace. Reluctantly, Hathi let her go.
Mi Ren gestured beyond the wall and said, “Holy shit, what was that thing?”
“Mother Wyrm,” Mrithuri said tiredly. “Was that what you came out in the rain to ask me?”
His self-absorption was so profound that even the prospect of a river serpent that could probably have swallowed Hathi in two bites didn’t cause him undue concern. “I can’t show you here,” he said. “The rain. Come inside, my rajni?”
She looked around. The dome of protective light failed just then, and Tsering slumped into the arms of those nearest him. The rain, falling on her unprotected head, had grown very cold. “Inside,” she agreed. “By a fire. And someone summon Chaeri.”
Mi Ren, falling into step beside her, was significantly taller on his pattens. They limited the length of his stride so he had to take small quick steps to keep up with her. It gave her a little petty joy that she knew she should not revel in, lest it affect her character.
The servant managed to angle the umbrella so that she was mostly shielded from the rain as well.
“That last might not be wise, my rajni.”
Mrithuri turned on him. “More allegations?” Her voice was as cold as the rain. Very satisfyingly, lightning cracked overhead, the stroke so close that the thunder struck the soles of her feet and half-deafened her.
“Proof,” he said.
She waved him silent and resumed walking. The puddles really did splash satisfyingly. It was also satisfying that Mi Ren panted and wobbled a little as they mounted the long, tree-lined stair. Behind them, Mrithuri’s people climbed in silence. Syama walked alongside. The rain, in matting her fur to her body, revealed several long scratches from the talons or beaks of the carrion birds.
Servants met them with dry robes and hot tea in the atrium. Mrithuri shed her armor where she stood, stripping with the calculated appearance of unsel
fconsciousness. It rang where she dropped it on the tiles, and the padding followed. The robe, thank the Mother, was warm. Her people were cared for, too, and someone kindly led Tsering-la away.
“Come,” she said, when her hair had been wrapped in a towel. Mi Ren stepped out of his pattens and started to follow. The drenched and miserable servant stepped forward. Mrithuri stopped him with a palm. “Go get dried off,” she said. “I’m not having you dripping all over my drawing room.”
Mrithuri settled into a chair and snuggled her robe around her. She was so cold her teeth chattered against the lip of her teacup. Her thoughts were fuzzing with exhaustion. Where was Chaeri? Where were her serpents?
Syama, her brindled fur spiky from being toweled dry, lay across Mrithuri’s feet. Mrithuri gestured her followers into chairs, and drank more tea. The sugar and heat helped a little. Someone refilled her cup. She looked at Mi Ren.
“You were eager to show me something.”
“I found these in your lady Chaeri’s possessions.” He extended a cloth roll, such as might hold a woman’s earrings, or the tools for letter writing.
“Her possessions?”
“Her trunk,” he admitted.
“You went into my apartments?”
“I had to!” he protested. “For your sake, my rajni! And technically speaking, I sent one of my servants. So if there is some ritual price to be paid, he must pay it, not I.”
But the hand that still held the small bright soft cylinder trembled as if what was within was very heavy.
Mrithuri put her hand out. The Dead Man stepped between her and Mi Ren. He had not changed his clothing, merely shed his sodden coat and belted his weapons into place over his shirt and trousers. The muslin shirt was mostly transparent with rain. The trousers and veil were just as wet but had fared a little better.
He took the cloth roll from Mi Ren’s hand, inspected it carefully, and only when satisfied of its safety did he pass it to Mrithuri.
She accepted the thing and weighed it across her palm.
“You could have planted this there,” she said.
Mi Ren laughed in exasperation. “Ask your nuns if I planted it. They spy on everyone.”
“My rajni,” said Lady Golbahar softly, “would you care for me to open it?”
“No,” Mrithuri said. “I can face anything.”
She unrolled it, feeling small objects—jewels?—within clicking on one another. There was a rustle, like paper. And a lot of something … round and hard and tiny, like pearls of barley.
It was pearls of barley, in a little sack. “Akhimah,” she said. “If this is magic—”
Her Wizard squinted at the thing in her hand. “I would say most definitely. What else is in there?”
“A key.” Mrithuri placed it on the table beside her tea. It clicked. It was bronze and elaborate, and looked like any of the palace keys. “Do you know what it opens?”
“The dead ambassador’s chamber,” Mi Ren said. “I had my servant try it in the door.”
“Your servants are very capable,” Mrithuri drawled. She reached into the packet again. Slips of paper, this time. Very small, tightly rolled. Such as you might slip into a capsule and place on the leg of a carrier bird. Such as a homing dove. Or a bearded vulture, if you were Mrithuri.
Such as the capsules of carved coral-colored sapphire Mrithuri also shook from the recesses of the roll.
She stared at them on her palm. They were beautiful. They caught the light in their depths and turned it into flamelike shimmers. She could see the tiny seam, the cunning join. The cavity at their center. They rattled softly against one another in the hollow of her hand.
“Fuck me sideways with Her pen,” the Dead Man groaned. “She’s been feeding the songbirds in the garden.”
“And passing messages to Anuraja’s sorcerer,” Lady Golbahar said, pressing a palm against her cheek through her damp veil as if to contain the heat of a blush. She stood and turned toward the door. “Where is she now?”
“I sent for her,” Mrithuri said. “Some time ago.”
She put a hand on her own face. The heat of her skin was almost painful. Was she fevered? Wouldn’t that be a nice twist, if she caught her death in the rain?
Anuraja would be so disappointed. She choked on a giggle, swallowing it when everyone in the room turned to gaze at her in worried curiosity.
“Damn it,” she said, breathing shallowly because of the pain in her side. “Fine, Dead Man. Summon the guard out. Ata Akhimah, go with him, in case there is more sorcery afoot. Arrest Chaeri. And secure the Eremite serpents. She is not to have access to any of my familiars again. The rest of you—” She waved weakly. “You stay, Golbahar. Hnarisha, you too. Yavashuri, get that knee looked at. It’s getting bigger than the rest of you.”
They stared at her a moment longer. She sighed. “Will you make me raise my voice?”
They scattered, leaving her alone with Hnarisha and Golbahar and that one self-effacing footman who kept pouring tea. And Syama, of course. Always loyal Syama, stretched across her feet and warming her.
“Hnarisha.” She set the evidence on the table too, and levered herself to her feet like an old woman, using the arms of the chair. She stripped her robe open. “Help me.”
He slopped tea over his hand, and she didn’t think it was from the sight of her breasts, which were bare swellings over the corrugated architecture of her rib cage. There was a larger swelling below them, on her left side, already blossoming into virulent purple and black.
“Rajni,” he sighed, and placed his hand upon her skin.
The touch, so gentle, hurt. But not as much as breathing, and a coolness seemed to radiate from his fingertips, permeating her flesh, calming the bruised ache and the stabbing pain beneath it. It seemed also to ease her craving for the snakebite, allowing her to remind herself that that, at least, she would have soon. To distract herself, Mrithuri turned to Golbahar and said, “She seems to think that everyone else vanishes the instant we are not in the room with her. As if she were the director, and we were actors—no, not even actors. Characters in a play. And when we walk off stage, we cease to exist.”
Golbahar sighed. “There is an epidemic of such people in the world, my rajni. Those who act as if only they are real and have sensibilities, and no one else can think, or compare experiences. They do not even bother to lie well. What is more surprising is how many of them seem to get away with it, and for how long.”
Mrithuri sucked her lower lip. “I am justly rebuked.”
Golbahar turned it aside with her hand.
“I trusted her,” said Mrithuri.
Hnarisha pressed deeper, ducked his head, did not speak. She drew a breath at the pain.
“You needed her,” Golbahar replied. “For who else around you seemed cracked enough themselves for you to be fragile with? You are fortunate not to have encountered many such people.”
“Well, we have enough of them now.” Mrithuri drew a patterned cashmere shawl off the back of the chair and tossed it around her shoulders, shivering despite the unrelieved heat. The motion made her wince, and Hnarisha grumbled. “Once we have her in custody, maybe we should encourage her and Mi Ren to get to know each other, thereby making two people unhappy in the place of four.”
There was a silence. Hnarisha stepped back. “That is what I can do,” he said, flexing his fingers as if a chill had gotten into them. “I do not think the rib is more than cracked. But mending even a cracked bone is beyond my poor skills.”
Mrithuri stretched. The bruising was better. Not healed entirely, but better. The rib still stabbed.
Golbahar, undiverted, said, “You will not execute her, then?”
Mrithuri sighed. “I must, mustn’t I? Never mind, Golbahar. Don’t speak. I don’t want to be angry with you for saying what we both know is true.”
20
Sayeh and her ladies sat in their pavilion in the morning. The sides had been raised to let the breeze blow through—what there was of it. Sa
yeh drowsed in the heat, watching the daily activity of the camp wind down.
Ümmühan had gotten a little stool somewhere, and she dragged it now under the tent edge raised as an awning and strummed and sang. When she crouched with her zither upon it, wrapped in her swirls of caramel- and citrus-colored fabric, she resembled a little nougat confection more than a woman.
The songs she sang were as sweet, as honeyed. But a thread of sharpness ran through them—longing, loss. A deep grief that rang at some times, and whispered at others.
She drew an audience, a little crowd. Some of them were camp followers: women who plied a trade among the soldiers, those who cooked and sold their food from little carts near the periphery of the camp. Some were the teamsters and quartermasters and runners and scouts who came and went at all hours. Some were the men who were recovering from injuries, or whose duties were currently here, behind the lines.
This happened more mornings than not, now, and Sayeh thought it was taking on the trappings of a small community ritual. As most nights wore out and people began to seek their ease before resting, she would see men and women passing, loitering. Strolling by with elaborate casualness. Not staring into Sayeh’s pavilion, and not approaching or putting pressure on her or on Ümmühan. But just waiting to see if there would be music, or waiting for the music to begin.
Which was excellent, and suited her intent to forge a small community of her own within the larger community of Anuraja’s army. In addition, Sayeh still had her salons, and she had the men who looked to her as an intermediary. As somebody who could get clean water, or bandages, or decent food.
You made a pet of a man the same way you made a pet of any animal: by teaching them to trust you, to rely on you, and to see you as a source of comfort, affection, and ease.
If there was one thing the Alchemical Emperor’s granddaughters and great-granddaughters and great-great granddaughters excelled at, it was making pets of animals.
The Red-Stained Wings--The Lotus Kingdoms, Book Two Page 33