There were so many arguments he wanted to make to this. Most importantly, to argue that with the rise of the Fourth Plenty, everything would change, including the threat posed by the impoverished masses of the lower terraces.
“The only question is how to undo the damage you’ve done,” she continued. “And later, to decide how to stop this from ever happening again.” She pressed her hands to her forehead as if trying to stem a terrific headache. “My God, Carbón, I thought you had better sense than this. If you were anyone else—if the situation weren’t so precarious—I’d have you thrown out of the Quinta and replaced.”
“You’ve known me a long time, and my father before that. You always trusted me before.”
“Which is why I’m so disappointed in you now.”
“I’m asking for the benefit of your doubt,” he said. “Will you let me tell you what we discovered at the bottom of the Rift? At least you will have all of the information before you react.”
Left unsaid was that he had no intention of bowing his head and capitulating should she turn against them, informed or uninformed as her opinions might be. He didn’t think they could stop Naila and bring about cooperation with the Basdeenian engineers without Lady Mercado, but he wouldn’t go down easily whether she was with them or not.
“Fine. Explain. Make it good, Carbón. But nothing will change my mind and make me think that you, of all people, should determine when and how to bring about the Fourth Plenty.”
Mercado listened as he explained what they’d discovered in the Rift, the furnace of the Elders, the highest achievement of the Third Plenty, preserved during the centuries of collapse to help them climb back to the heights and hopefully stop the cycle of rise and fall that had wrecked the previous civilizations. And then, how they’d discovered a way to harness the artifact’s dynamic energy, which led to forming a plan to unite Quintanan knowledge and Basdeenian engineering in order to rebuild and bring prosperity to the whole region.
“The alternative is a war against the Scoti,” Carbón added. “Raiders, pirates, slavers—they’ll bring our civilization to its knees just when we might otherwise begin our climb.”
Mercado stood with her arms folded. Neither she nor Mota had departed from their place by the entrance, and while her servant looked intrigued, and glanced once or twice at his mistress as if to gauge her reaction, the Quinta lord herself seemed unmoved.
“Tell her about Naila,” Iliana said.
“I’m not interested in your complaints about Naila Roja,” Mercado said. “Believe me, I’ve heard plenty.”
“But Your Grace,” Iliana protested. “Lord Carbón, tell her!”
“She’s heard enough from me,” he told her. “Nothing more I say will make a difference. It’s time for the Guardian of Secrets to have his say.”
Mercado stiffened. “What?”
Carbón paid her no attention. “Pedro, will you bring Thiego in from the balcony?”
Chapter Nineteen
A full ten minutes after Iliana and Thiego fled from the temple, Naila’s gun still hadn’t recharged. The bastards—she’d wanted to watch them melt. More worryingly, what was wrong with her weapon? Surely she hadn’t just sent off a small arsenal of single-use weapons to Lord de Armas. He’d be unimpressed.
The ancient device in her hands didn’t have any sort of cartridge or gunpowder like a musket, yet clearly had a power source that needed refilling between shots. When Thiego and Iliana were fighting her, it had recharged relatively quickly, but every time she toggled the switch now, the light blinked from red to yellow, then stopped without going blue.
“This thing is rubbish,” she snapped after trying it for the fifth time.
No, not rubbish. It couldn’t be. Surely the Elders hadn’t cached such worthless weapons deep within the temple walls. Nor would they have carried such devices into battle to be fired three or four times and then tossed aside. Also, it seemed the gun had been ready to fire, even though centuries had passed since its last use. So there had to be a way to reload it other than sit and wait some indeterminate length of time.
Naila didn’t dare wait for it recharge naturally; what if her enemies came back? But there was a whole vault full of weapons below her. Each of them was presumably ready to go. The key was to carry enough weapons to switch between them until she knew what she was doing.
She carried the portal shifter with her, and still had her gold-leaf-wrapped gloves. One of the lead-lined tapestries remained in front of the wall where she’d left it, and she laid it out for another assault on the weapons vault. She was more skilled at shaping the portal shifter by now, and quickly stretched it into a door shape. She was also more confident moving through stone, and within about ten minutes, she’d retrieved two more rifles and a pistol.
By the time she came back to the front of the temple, the initial gun still hadn’t recharged. It was cold to the touch, too, which was strange. Could she have broken the thing somehow? Surely not. So what the hell was the problem?
Another fear intruded as she palmed the illusion egg out of habit. Iliana had punctured that disguise with the ring Thiego gave her, which meant she couldn’t count on hiding in shadows anymore, blast it.
Thiego, you blasphemer. How dare you bring an uninitiated into the temple and let her handle our sacred artifacts?
Naila took off the gold-leaf-lined gloves and put on the glove for crushing. She stepped over the muck that was Kara’s remains and emerged warily from the temple, prepared for an ambush. Two rifles remained stashed inside, but she had a pistol that seemed to work in the same way, probably with a lighter charge, and the initial rifle, which she was still trying to figure out, and hoping to inspect more carefully in the daylight.
The part of the square at the base of the temple steps was nearly empty. It was late afternoon, a warm day in spring, and plenty of the uninitiated moved across the square about their business, but most of the cabalists and acolytes she’d sent outside to wait had vanished.
A single pair remained, tucked close together, speaking intimately in low voices while keeping their eyes fixed on the temple doors. Naila sidled up to them without being detected, even though she moved through direct sunlight. Perhaps the illusion egg wasn’t entirely useless after all.
One of the two was Maralisa, the geometer who’d escaped when Naila destroyed her companion. The other was an older man, perhaps forty or forty-five, by the name of Dorano. She’d personally ordered him out of the temple earlier in the day. Since then, he seemed to have taken up with bad company, a fugitive from Naila’s wrath.
“I have no idea,” Dorano told Maralisa. “Only I hope it’s soon. The longer she’s in there alone, the more trouble she’s bound to cause.”
Maralisa nodded. “We’ll hold until he gets here. Let him deal with it.”
“You’re sure he can?”
“Naila’s one person. She sent off anyone who might have listened to her. Anyway, I think she’s afraid. Otherwise, why would she peek out, but stay inside?”
They must have spotted the temple doors opening, but not seen Naila emerge, then assumed she was only spying on the plaza to see who might be watching.
Dorano chewed on his lower lip. “We don’t know all the cabalists—we don’t know that she sent them all off. You’ve got to think Naila has her spies and assassins. She wouldn’t do this by herself.”
Maralisa looked displeased with this idea. “No, I suppose not.”
Naila dropped the illusion egg into her pocket and pointed the pistol at the pair. “What do I need spies and assassins for when my enemies are idiots?”
They whirled, alarmed. Maralisa reached for a pocket of her robe, but Naila waved the pistol. “Do that, and you’re dead. Both of you stay still.”
Dorano eyed her coldly, but Maralisa looked like she’d tear Naila apart with her bare hands if she could, which raised a smile. What greater joy than witnessing the impotent rage of her enemies? Like Torre, the day she’d choked the life out of h
is worthless old husk. He’d sputtered and fumed, and only died miserably in the end.
“I warned them,” Dorano said defiantly. “I told Carbón, Thiego, Pedro, your former husband. They all know what you’re capable of.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want there to be any doubts.”
“And I told them about the guns you plundered from the temple, and how you gave them to de Armas’s man. They’re going to ride that false watchman down long before he reaches Dalph and take back what you stole.”
“Thank you,” Naila said. “I was worried I’d have to tear that information from you by force. You’ve saved me the time.”
She pointed the pistol at Dorano’s chest and pulled the trigger. There was a buzzing sound, and the man staggered back, gasping and clutching his chest like a man having a heart attack. He tore at his clothing as if it were on fire. When he exposed his breast, the skin was bubbling like meat stew just reaching its boil. His shaking fingers touched at it, even as he looked down with pain and terror on his face. He managed a strangled cry before he collapsed, and continued to thrash on the flagstones as his chest caved in. Finally, he shuddered to a stop. Maralisa cried out in horror.
Well, that was interesting. The pistol wasn’t nearly as powerful as the larger, rifle-sized gun, but plenty lethal. Did that mean the larger gun could mow down a large group of people at once, or was it only useful for longer range?
Naila’s attention was focused on the aftereffects of the weapon, and if Maralisa had moved at once, she might have either surprised her or fled to safety in the crowd and escaped a second time. Instead, by the time the geometer stopped gaping and reached for whatever she held in her pocket, Naila had dropped the pistol and grabbed the woman with her gloved hand. She gave Maralisa a violent shake and hurled her to the ground, where she struck her forehead against the flagstones. The geometer groaned and fumbled about in her pocket.
Naila knelt and grabbed the woman’s hand before she could retrieve whatever she’d stowed inside. She squeezed until the bones cracked, and Maralisa screamed.
“You picked the wrong side, didn’t you?” Naila said.
“You’re one person,” Maralisa said between clenched teeth. “You’ll never win.”
“One ruthless person is worth a thousand mindless cowards.”
Something blinked at Naila’s side, and she glanced at the gunstock to see the light had finally turned blue. She glanced to the pistol she’d dropped, and was surprised to see that it, too, was blue. Already charged.
Naila laughed as her understanding came. “Oh, because of the sun! It only needed a power source. That’s why it charged so quickly before. It was drawing energy back out of the ring my stupid cousin used to absorb it in the first place.”
Maralisa was still writhing in Naila’s grip, trying to free her broken wrist. It was time for Naila to end this farce, to rid herself of one more enemy, the next in a line of dozens who would die before she was done clearing her path to power. Should she melt the woman? Rifle or pistol?
No, the glove would be more satisfying. She released Maralisa’s broken hand, wrapped her fingers around the woman’s throat, and squeezed.
#
The first thing Naila did when Maralisa was dead was search the woman’s pockets. She was disappointed to discover another illusion egg. The woman had nothing with which to fight back, and only meant to hide herself and flee. They were all cowards, weren’t they?
And stupid ones, too. If Maralisa had her own illusion egg, why hadn’t she used it instead of standing out in the open waiting for death to find her? Some sort of reverence for the artifacts, a reluctance to use them, Naila decided.
She took the dead woman’s artifact all the same, picked up the pistol, and took a look at her surroundings. A small crowd of townspeople had gathered at a safe distance and were gawking at the aftermath of her violence. Two bodies lay exposed on the square, one with his chest melted straight through, the other with her neck bent at an angle. One look from Naila and they quickly found other, more urgent things to occupy their attention, none of which seemed to be anywhere near here. Within moments, the center of the plaza had emptied.
Or nearly so. A single, solitary figure stood about fifteen feet away, watching. He was a small man, perhaps two or three inches shorter than Naila, and thin-faced and pale, like someone who had recently recovered from a long illness that had left him unable to eat. He studied her with dark, intense eyes.
“Who are you, and why are you staring at your own death?” she demanded.
“Do you murder all the cabalists of the Luminoso, or only the ones who displease you?”
“What does that matter to you?”
“I have a personal interest, as it turns out. This would be easier if you didn’t kill me. Or attempt to, anyway.”
Naila almost snapped back that if she decided to kill him, there would be no attempt, as he put it. There would be a killing, and she would make it painful. But something about his tone of voice and his lack of fear compared to the others she’d faced made her stop. In fact, he took a few steps toward her, and when she glanced at his hands to see if he held a weapon or device, they seemed blurred somehow. She couldn’t focus on them, and found herself looking away. He held an artifact of protection.
“What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. Making a decision, I suppose. Do I join you, or do I throw in with your enemies? That depends on whether I think you’re strong enough to win. Ruthless enough.”
Naila scoffed at his tone. She gestured at the dead bodies at her feet. “This isn’t evidence enough of my ruthlessness, as you put it?”
“Were they your acolytes? Did you care about them in any way? Did their deaths cause you any personal reflection? Did you murder them in a premeditated fashion, or were you forced to do so in the heat of the moment?”
“If that’s what you mean, I’m more ruthless than you can guess.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.” An oily sort of smile touched the corner of his mouth. “It might take more than murdering your father-in-law, though.”
“Are you implying that I killed the old man?” She shrugged. “Supposing I had, that would be no great sacrifice, either. He was a pathetic old fool. I’m capable of more if pushed.”
“Such as sending your own daughter to discover her dead grandfather? That would be particularly cruel and heartless. Is that what happened? You might be worth following in that case.”
Naila wasn’t alarmed that this man had guessed her secret. Thrilled, instead, to meet someone who appreciated her sacrifices.
“Who are you, and where have you been since last fall?” she asked. “Why haven’t you presented yourself before now?”
“It was up to you to find us—you never did, although you came close a few times.”
“Us?”
“There are several more like me. We form a cabal within the cabal. The secret movers of the Luminoso. Salvatore knew us. We were his information gatherers.”
“And the previous Master of Whispers? Did you know”—she almost blundered and said “him,” which would have given away her ignorance if she’d guessed the gender wrong—“this individual?”
“I’m not sure one existed before Salvatore elevated you. At least I never knew the person. Maybe Salvatore claimed both titles. Or maybe there is yet another cabal within the cabal that I don’t know about. You should know more about that than I do. Listen, are we going to stand here talking while our enemies organize?”
“You haven’t told me your name or what you want.”
“Call me Camastrón.”
“That’s not a name, it’s some word or other in the old tongue.”
“A title, then. None of us use names as you think of them. As for what I want . . . I want to be brought into the light. You’ll shortly need a new Guardian of Secrets . . . if you win. I want the position . . . assuming you can deliver it.”
“I will win, with or without you. An
d I don’t need someone standing behind me at my moment of victory and slipping a knife into my kidney.”
“If that was my plan, I’d have done it already.”
“You’d have tried, you mean.”
“Tried, yes. You’re a tough one—I imagine it would have been a challenge. But you’re not invincible, and you’re not the only one who can hide in the shadows.” Camastrón held her gaze. “And in that way I can be useful. Such as the night Iliana Diamante’s brother died.”
Naila leaned forward eagerly. “You know something of that?”
“Yes, I know something of it. The captain was drinking and playing Pirate’s Aces with friends when I took him. He died without so much as a sigh, and his body left a crowd of thirty men and women without being detected.”
It was quite a boast, and Camastrón might very well be lying. Yet he evidently knew that she hadn’t been involved with Diamante’s murder. That had clearly been Salvatore’s doing, and the old cabalist never would have done such a task on his own. All of that lent credence to Camastrón’s claims.
She studied the man, who met her gaze without looking away. There was something sly and slippery about the man, even after he’d told her his name and his demands in return for his cooperation. She didn’t trust him, but she thought she understood his type. If the artifact hadn’t burned Salvatore to death and she hadn’t decided to make a play for ultimate power, circumstances might have seen the master assigning her to join Camastrón’s secret group of cabalists.
In any event, Naila could destroy her enemies to the last rebellious Torre servant, and she’d still need to find men and women to help her rule the ashes. That meant cabalists, primarily, those who could enforce her rule over Quintana’s markets, mines, bridge, army, and port. It meant assassins and spies she could send to Basdeen, Diana, and the Cheksapa to destroy those who would work against her from abroad.
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