by Ashley Capes
The captain shrugged. “Not that I’ve heard. There’s six ka-temples – lesser ones – in Najin and one Divine Temple within the mansion grounds, but they’re all the same aside from the grand temple.”
“Because of the Gathering Monk?”
“Him, yes. But I mean, not just anyone can visit it.”
“And no foreigner sets foot within any temple?”
“None. Though I can’t for the life of me think of why you’d want to; it’s full of spies and assassins.”
Deze cleared his throat. “And the treasure.”
“Forget about that,” Milagra said. “It’s a myth.”
“Treasure?” Never asked.
“Supposedly, each temple holds a secret room with a huge opal used to communicate with other temples. They say each one is worth –”
“Deze.” The captain shook his head. “There’s more than enough money for us without worrying about that.”
“I’m looking for someone, not something,” Never said. He raised an eyebrow. “Someone who used to be a prisoner of the temple, an outsider. Maybe they still are, it would have been years ago now. Heard any rumours?”
Milagra gave a low whistle. “In Najin?”
“Anywhere in Kiymako.”
“No, but I can tell you who might, if such a thing had ever happened.”
“Who?”
“Wanatek – he’s something of a rebel.”
“He runs with bandits in the forests,” Deze added. “Isansho has been after him for years according to the head of the harbour here.”
“Rebelling against what?” Never asked.
“I don’t understand it myself,” the captain admitted. “Something about succession? His son? It never made sense to me but if anyone’s willing to spill temple secrets, it’d be him, seeing as he’s an ex-monk and all.”
Never nodded slowly. Not unpromising at all. “So I’m going to have to wander the forests until I stumble across him?”
“Either that or try the Green Leaf Inn – Isansho’s troops have raided it twice since we’ve been trapped here.”
“Many reasons for the lord of a city to do that, Captain. Maybe the inn’s selling watered wine.”
“First steps might be small, but they must be taken,” the man replied with a grin.
“How wonderfully philosophical,” Never said as he stood and lifted his pack. “One more question and I think that’s enough information for now, thank you both.”
“Go ahead.”
“Where can I find such verdant lodgings?”
Deze’s expression was a little puzzled but the captain snickered. “Northern Cut, between a baker and a peddler of cheap jewellery.”
“Northern Cut?”
“Najin’s cut into three parts, you’ll see when you get there.”
“Good, I love a mystery,” Never said.
The captain chuckled. “Well, you’re welcome to sleep on the deck tonight, just make sure you don’t touch anything.”
Never thanked him then let Deze lead him up onto the deck where the stars had gone, muted by a creeping cloudbank. There, Never made some show of preparing a space before a row of water barrels, then once Deze was gone and the light winked out in the passage, Never climbed the rigging and leapt into the sky once more.
Time to drop in on the Green Leaf.
Chapter 9
After a fair amount of impolite knocking, the door to the Green Leaf Inn finally jerked open.
“By the Phoenix’s Beak I’m going to...” An old woman held up a lantern, casting her features in hard shadow, but the shock on her face was clear when she saw him. She wore a long grey skirt with a half-length blade belted over the top.
“Forgive me but I’m weary after a long journey,” Never said, and there wasn’t a shred of untruth to his claim. Not only were his movements seemingly stuck at half speed, but his empty stomach was starting to gnaw itself into a giant hole, and on top of that the hole was eating itself too.
The woman muttered a curse ‒ or so Never assumed, since Hanael hadn’t gotten ’round to all of them ‒ before she waved Never inside. “Hurry, fool. You’ll bring the whole damn street out and then I’ll have to answer to Lei-Dahn tomorrow.”
Lei-Dahn? The Gathering Monk, or someone else? “Forgive me, I don’t want to cause you trouble – at least, no more than I already have.”
“We’ll see.” She appraised him a moment. “I suppose you’ll be wanting a bed, then?”
“And a meal if possible?”
She shook her head. “Cold mutton is all I have.”
“Wonderful.”
“Then let’s see your money, Marlosi-man – and it better not be any of those horse-head coins, either.”
He produced a handful of the crescent pieces. “One night is enough for now.”
She snatched half the coins from his palm, strode to a counter, rummaged around a moment and returned holding a thin steel plate with circular grooves on one side. “Get on upstairs and I’ll bring you something, then.”
He accepted the key and thanked her before she changed her mind, taking the stairs two at a time in the dim light. At the landing, he paused, lifting the steel plate. Was it a key? And just as important, which door? He approached the first, wincing at a creaking floorboard. There was what seemed to be a corresponding plate within the door, but its pattern was one of squares. Never moved on, the next two doors were waving lines, the third diagonal lines... until finally, at the very end of the hall and around a corner, was the final door – the design on its panel a match.
Fitting his ‘key’ against the door, Never slid the grooves into place and pushed, seeing as there was no way to turn it.
A soft click followed.
The key fell free and the door swung inward, revealing darkness. He stepped inside and fumbled his way to a window; pulling the curtains open to let faint starlight within. Yet he’d barely dumped his pack and removed his boots when the innkeeper returned with a light and a plate of cold mutton and water.
“That’s all I could manage on such short notice, so I won’t expect any complaints, will I?”
“A feast,” he said, and started eating.
She clicked her tongue as she lit a flower-shaped lamp set in the wall and then left him to his meal.
Never ate most of the meat, setting it aside and taking a long drink before stretching out on the bed without bothering to remove any more of his clothes. The innkeeper didn’t seem to want any attention from the monks, which made sense if she was involved with the rebels somehow, and which suggested she could be trusted not to turn him in overnight.
Hopefully.
There was no furniture to place before the door, so he had to make do with his pack. Yet a big part of him – too big, perhaps – didn’t care. His weariness was swinging in; it’d knocked him into a welcome heaviness and the sensation of having eaten wasn’t helping his alertness. He needed rest. Even what was left of the night and just half the morning would be enough...
It was noon when he woke, and it hadn’t been enough. The racket from downstairs; the scrape of chairs, chatter, the sound of mugs thumping down onto wood, the music – all of it muted somewhat by the floor, but all of it enough to break his rest.
He rolled over, then jammed the pillow over his head to no avail.
“Fine.”
Never sat up, reaching for his water. He drank, easing the dryness in his mouth and throat, but moving his head drove home his lack of rest. He was still groggy enough to consider lying back down with a silent promise to throttle the drummer below later on.
Instead, he dragged himself to the window. Across the way, almost close enough to reach, was the window of another building, curtains drawn. He looked down to the busy street, half-watching the men and women in their cinched robes. At least he hadn’t been tu
rned over to the monks. More than a few of the people below also wore coloured collars – a little reminiscent of the port dwellers in Hanik, only these were not jaunty scarves. The collars were more drab in colour.
But they were no slaves, not by the way they moved freely or the manner in which others regarded them. Yet even the pair of young men Never saw wearing collars, and who appeared to have some manner of servant following them, made way for a single monk in black robes. He wore a tyrant at his waist and a short bow across his back.
The warrior did not approach the inn and was quickly lost from sight.
Never returned to the bed and pulled on his boots. Time to find the innkeeper and, hopefully, the rebel leader Wanatek.
Downstairs, his entrance elicited an audible reduction in the talk and even the drummer missed a beat. A serving girl gaped at him a moment before offering to take his order, running her words together. By the glares he was getting from some of the patrons, he instead asked for the innkeeper.
“Mrs Ku is in the kitchen,” she said after several attempts. Her raven hair was shaven high on the sides, leaving a generous streak tied back into a tail.
Never offered a smile; he’d obviously rattled the poor girl. “I can wait outside if you like?”
The kitchen door swung open and Mrs Ku fixed him with her stern gaze. “Send him to the stables, Meia.”
“Yes, madam.”
Meia led Never to a narrow corridor beneath the staircase, then gestured to the stables that lay beyond a small yard of packed earth. He strolled across it; each stall had a horse munching on hay and a lad dashed between them.
The boy greeted Never cheerfully, though he did not start a conversation – but Mrs Ku appeared after only moments. “Thank you for last night,” Never said.
“We’ll see if it comes back to bite me, yet,” she said, then raised a grey eyebrow. “Well?”
“I’m hoping you can help me find someone – I believe his name is Wanatek.”
Mrs Ku folded her arms over her apron. “Do you?”
“Yes. If you could save me wandering the forest, I’d be grateful.”
Mrs Ku gestured to the boy, who dropped his pail and ran back toward the main buildings. Never watched him, then looked back to the innkeeper. “Obedient lad you have there.”
“Listen, stranger. You’d better have a good reason for asking after Wanatek; it’d be worth your life and my inn if the wrong ears hear you.”
Good. Captain Milagra had been right. “Well, my reason’s noble enough if that’s what you need – I’m looking for a young woman of Marlosi heritage, she would have been kept in the temples, somewhere in Kiymako. I can’t find anyone to help me and I don’t fancy my chances simply asking at the first temple I find.”
“And you think Wanatek can help you?” She gave no indication as to what she thought of his story.
“I figure if anyone would know of such secrets, or be willing to help me avoid notice from the Isansho and the monks, it’d be a wily rebel.”
She muttered to herself. “Stay here; someone will see you.”
“Someone?”
“Yes.” And then she turned back across the yard.
Never started to pace. Stretching his wings would have been nice too but that might have been a bit much. He ate from his trail rations and drank from a water barrel in the corner of the yard while he waited, eventually sitting against the wall of the inn.
He tapped a foot. He had to be on the right path.
Hope stirred anew and he almost frowned. Too many times before, hope had been an enemy – a bitter spectre, robed in the possibility of success... Old lessons warned him against it but Father hadn’t painted the rune on the temple door for nothing. She had to be here, had to be alive.
“Foreigner.”
The voice came from above.
Never stood, glancing up to the roof tiles. A figure crouched before the edge, a mere shadow as he was positioned in such a way to keep the sun behind him.
“My name is Never. Who are you?”
“Muka. Tell me why you wish to speak to my master.”
“I need his help finding someone that I believe has been imprisoned in the temples. She would have Marlosi heritage. In that, I believe we share a common adversary.”
“Is that so, Never from Marlosi?”
“Will you deliver my request to meet?”
The figure rose, still mostly a silhouette. Was there a hint of a silvery beard as he turned his head, or was it just the light? “I do not believe so, stranger. But I will leave you with a word of advice – leave Kiymako while you still can.”
And then he was gone.
Never swore. He leapt for the water barrel and used it to vault himself up to the edge of the wall which encircled the stable. From there, he climbed onto the inn’s rooftop and shaded his eyes.
The man – and Never’s best lead so far – was already several rooves away. “Damn him.”
Never took a running leap, thudding onto the next building, keeping his footing on the tiles. The rooves weren’t as easy to traverse compared to those of the Imperial City or other towns in Marlosi, but Never was doing well enough.
He threw himself across another gap, but he wasn’t gaining.
Muka was simply too fast.
The rebel had already slipped out of sight, disappearing beyond a large, three storey building.
A hoarse shout echoed.
Men in black robes were circling below, a dozen in all. Most held drawn bows, others stood with hands on the hilts of their sisan. One of the monks appeared to have some sort of seniority judging from the elaborate flame symbol over his chest.
“Halt!” he cried. “Come down peacefully now.”
Never glanced around; the building was well and truly surrounded.
“Listen well, foreigner. If you don’t do as instructed you’re coming down full of arrows. What will it be?” He waved his arms as he spoke, pointing to Never and then the ground.
With a sigh, Never raised his hands.
Chapter 10
Isansho Shika regarded him with some curiosity from where she stood before her easel, paintbrush in hand. She glanced at him often as she worked, her square jaw set in concentration and her dark hair shaved high at the sides, like every other woman Never had seen so far in the city.
However, unlike the other women, the overlord’s hair bore traces of green paint, as did her hands and forearms where they slipped free of her dark robe. She still wore twin blades at her hip, one shorter than the other, but nothing ornamental to suggest she was a ruler of Najin.
Of course, sitting on a stool, hands bound, while someone painted his portrait was unusual enough to suggest that he was currently at the mercy of someone powerful. It was oddly intimate – unnerving even, since no-one had ever had need to paint him before.
“You have an arresting face, Never,” she said.
“Thank you, Isansho.” He glanced to the two bodyguards who stood just beyond the lantern-light. Were they really as fast as Hanael said? One stood near enough to a lacquered table that he could reach for a cup of something every now and then, the other was closer to the open shutters on the window, these too made of treated bamboo.
Escape certainly didn’t seem likely – and maybe it wouldn’t need to be. If he could talk his way into some sort of advantage...
“Lei-Dahn disapproves of my little habit, you see,” Shika continued, frowning at her work. “He would prefer you were interrogated immediately.”
“I imagine you’re learning quite a lot in your own way, My Lady,” he said. “He is the Gathering Monk?”
“He is.” She changed brushes, taking blue paint now. “And I don’t believe I have learnt enough, just yet. You are obviously Marlosi by your accent and colouring of course but there is something else to your features that I cannot
place. And you are searching for someone; you worry. I see that in your eyes.”
Never raised an eyebrow. He was yet to explain his purpose in Kiymako to his captors – yet, when had he grown so easy to read? “That is true, Isansho.”
“And what makes you believe you will find them in Najin?”
“Hope.”
She murmured as she made another few strokes before placing the brush down a moment. She stood back from the work. “Never, it is only a fool who plots a course on hope alone.”
“I’m rather lucky, I have to admit.”
Shika chuckled. “That I can see.”
“I appear luckier when I’m not tied to a chair.”
“Tell me, who were you chasing across the rooftops?”
“Someone who was supposed to help me find a pass,” he said smoothly.
“Oh? You’re heading inland then?”
“Not any more it seems.”
Shika shook her head. “An answer that is not an answer is hardly adequate, Never.”
“Then may I ask you a question instead?”
“Please.” She appeared amused.
“Don’t you think I make a terrible spy? Or assassin, or whatever it is you assume I am?”
“Perhaps, but you’ve got yourself within these walls easily enough.”
Now Never grinned. If only she knew how easy such a feat could have been. “Something that would be more impressive if I hadn’t been given an armed escort.”
She approached him now, but made no threatening move. Up close, he could see she was a little older than he’d first assumed, though not by much. “I must at least credit Wanatek for thinking outside his regular cast for infiltrators. But I do wonder what he offered you, since you have so little with you. Weren’t you smart enough to demand payment up front? Or have you stashed it away somewhere.”
Never hesitated. Was there an opportunity here? Perhaps, if he could play it right... “Are you offering more, Isansho?”
She frowned. “More?”
“Well, I find myself suddenly open to new arrangements – and surely I’m most ideally suited to gathering whatever information about Wanatek it is you’re looking for.”