by Martha Wells
The old wooden door, propelled by the shade’s anger, shoved against Ilias’s shoulder with renewed vigor; he leaned into it more firmly, bracing his feet in the doorjamb. The shade’s turbulent presence made the room deadly cold; their breath misted in the air and his fingers were going numb. “Why do you think she wants to gain something?”
“Why else would she care?” Giliead demanded. “It doesn’t do her any good if I die. Whoever the god picks will be a child; does she want Cineth to have to rely on other cities’ Vessels for the next score of years?”
“No. I think she was being sincere. For her, anyway.” It was what worried Ilias the most. The door whacked him in the back again and he grimaced, saying impatiently, “Look, just calm down. Forget Pasima. You’re not going to be able to convince this motherless shade to rest if you’re angry.”
Giliead snarled, “I know that.” Then he pressed his hands over his eyes, taking a deep breath.
Dust stirred across the room, lifting in a curtain, then gently dispersing. Ilias found himself holding his breath, and not just to keep from sneezing. It doesn’t mean anything if he can’t do it. Some shades never rest and this one is a real bastard. But he still held his breath.
The room was calm, silent. Ilias felt the pressure of the door against his back ease, then it squeaked as it swung gently back. He straightened up slowly, relieved.
Further down the corridor, another door banged. Then again. And again. Giliead opened his eyes, swearing. “Well, at least it’s not haunting this room anymore,” Ilias said wearily, standing back to let him stomp out. It was going to be a long evening.
Dusk was gathering and a light rain had started when the taxicab deposited Tremaine and Ander in a broad residential street. It was lined with three-story brown brick town houses. Unlike such houses in Vienne, most had steps leading down to basement entrances for servants under the front doors, and there were no ornamental ironwork fences, window boxes or potted trees. Despite that, the street seemed clean and open. Tremaine could see warm yellow light behind drawn curtains, and men in overcoats or women carrying market baskets hurried up to welcoming doorways. There was something odd about observing such ordinary activities, as if seeing people who weren’t enslaved, weren’t fleeing death or warily waiting for the next bombing was unusual. Well, for me it is, she thought tiredly.
Tremaine looked down to consult the address again and decided it should be in the middle of the block. “This doesn’t look so bad,” she said cautiously as they walked along the damp pavement.
“What were you expecting?” Ander asked, sounding amused.
Tremaine thought of trying to explain Nicholas’s taste in houses, or Nicholas’s taste in general, and decided against it. She also thought of saying I shot a man in cold blood to get a truck, Ander, so please get that tone that says “you silly little girl” out of your voice when you speak to me. “Nothing,” she muttered. Nothing changes. You shouldn’t have let him come.
These houses looked about the size for families of professional men with room for children and a cook and housemaid; some even seemed to be broken up into flats. She had thought Gerard wanted something with a room large enough to draw a spell circle in. Though maybe— She stopped suddenly, as the house occupying the middle portion of the block came into view. “Oh, God.”
It was a huge hulking structure, its brick leprous with mold, with no ground-floor windows and a pair of badly proportioned pillars flanking its entrance. There was no carving on the eaves and the proportions were subtly off; it looked like a small and incompetent copy of a badly neglected Vienne Greathouse. The neat town houses to either side of it seemed to stand in silent reproach. Ander took the address away from her, saying, “That can’t be it.”
“Of course that’s it,” she snapped. “The place has ‘Valiarde’ written all over it.” It had probably been built years ago as part of an estate by some Capistown land baron and the city had gradually encroached on its grounds until only the house was left.
She stamped up the steps, reflecting that at least it looked big enough to have a ballroom, and tugged at the bellpull.
Nicholas, who must have noted their approach, opened the door almost immediately. He eyed Ander with enigmatic disfavor, greeting them with, “Why did you bring him?”
Tremaine regretted it now herself but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Because he asked,” she said flatly, stepping in past Nicholas to look around. The entrance hall was high-ceilinged and dingy, the wood floor showing evidence of past water leaks. Four sets of double doors opened off it, and there was a staircase at the end, but it was all a little too small and badly balanced for a true grand entrance. Whoever had built the place had been struggling between elegance and parsimony.
“Evening, Valiarde,” Ander said with cautious reserve, stepping inside.
Shutting the door, Nicholas answered with a noncommittal grunt. Years ago when Tremaine and Ander had first met, she had been immersed in Vienne’s artistic community and Ander had been a feckless young noble who liked slumming. Nicholas had met him twice, managed not to speak directly to him on either occasion, and now appeared to be trying to stay consistent.
For his part, Ander seemed to be fooled by Nicholas’s portrayal of an eccentric gentleman-adventurer, though with Ander it was always hard to tell. In contrast, Ilias and Giliead weren’t familiar enough with Rienish society to be taken in by the façade. They treated Nicholas with wary respect, and when they were in the same room, they always seemed to reserve a part of their attention for him, alert for any sign of aggression. It was a wariness they didn’t show with anyone else in their group, an almost instinctive understanding that Nicholas was dangerous; they weren’t willing to trust their safety to his goodwill.
Kias seemed to sense it as well; he avoided the whole issue by trying to never be in the same room with Nicholas.
And Nicholas… Appreciates the honesty. Well, she had thought he might be tired of hiding what he was.
Tremaine went toward the only set of doors that stood open, stopping in the archway. There was a fire in a large and ugly brick hearth and the electric sconces were lit, chasing shadows back into the dark wainscoted corners. Calit was on the floor by the fire, dressed in dungarees and a bulky blue pullover sweater that was too big for him. Spread out on the floor around the boy were an array of toys, all of the kind that could usually be bought from street peddlers in Ile-Rien and presumably here as well: a few crudely carved wooden animals, picture cards with famous sights in the city, some polished stones and three brightly colored tops. Calit was arranging the collection with the concentration of an explorer surveying artifacts of a foreign land; which, in a way, he was. He was an Aelin, one of the people who the Rienish called Gardier, and had come back with them from their brief involuntary visit to the Gardier’s world. He glanced up, nodded a solemn greeting to Tremaine, and regarded Ander with suspicion.
Tremaine advanced cautiously into the room. “Where is everyone?”
“The attic appears to be haunted,” Nicholas said, following her in, Ander trailing behind. “Ilias is with Giliead, dealing with it. I think Kias is shifting some empty barrels out of the pantry.”
Tremaine nodded slowly. “So we’re living here, then?”
Nicholas gave her a raised eyebrow. “Temporarily.”
“Right. Did anyone tell Gerard and Florian?”
“They’ll be along later tonight, once they finish at the Port Authority.”
“I can go pick them up, if you like,” Ander offered blandly.
Nicholas regarded him with equal blandness and apparently decided to take his relationship with Ander to a new level by actually speaking to him. “I suspect Gerard is capable of making his way here unescorted.”
Considering that Gerard was capable of world-gating an eighty-eight-thousand-ton passenger liner, he was probably right. Leaving them to it, Tremaine went down the hall and started up the stairs. The second-floor landing gave on to another hallway with a s
itting area at the far end beneath a curtained bay window. There were four doors off the hall, all open, and all the lights were on. She looked into rooms until she spotted her carpetbag, a couple of Syprian leather packs, Ilias’s sword in its scabbard and one of the wooden carved cases that held arrows and a goathorn bow, all piled on a dark bureau.
She wandered inside. The carpets and upholstery were all dark, the furniture of a heavy wood in a bulky style out of fashion even for Capidara, and there was a fire in the hearth. There was also a radiator in the corner, but it was cold. She supposed she should feel lucky for the electricity, such as it was. God, I wonder what the plumbing is like. She buried her face in her hands. Best not to find out just at the moment. But it was better than being one of the poor bastards at the refugee hostel, with nowhere to go.
Needing to distract herself, she checked the carpetbag to make sure her journal and the folder with Arites’s papers were all there, but someone, probably Ilias, had packed it carefully. She had left most of Arites’s writing stored on the Ravenna, since it would need to return to Cineth, but she was using his partially complete dictionary to teach herself to read Syrnaic. She shut the door and quickly changed out of the new but uncomfortable dress suit and into Syprian clothing. The shirt she pulled out of her bag was a faded gold and the pants a soft dark blue, each with block-printed designs along the hem and with seams reinforced by braided leather. It was the first time she had worn this shirt and she discovered it had ties to allow the sleeves to be looped up and secured at the shoulder, leaving the arms bare. A sensible arrangement for a garment that might be worn on a fishing boat, but it was too cool to wear like that now. She pulled a Rienish wool sweater on over it, put on her comfortable old boots and sighed with relief.
She took the back stairs down to the kitchen to discover actual food being delivered through the service door under Kias’s supervision. The kitchen walls were dingy brick, the room furnished with a long plank table and a few chairs. A couple of old wooden dressers held a random assortment of cracked china plates and stained copper pots, all probably judged too worn for the former owners to haul away. Distracted by the sight of a bag of coffee beans and two bottles of wine on the sideboard, Tremaine almost didn’t recognize the white-jacketed man placing warming pans on the old-fashioned monster of a range. He nodded to her affably and she squinted at him, racking her memory. “Were you on the Ravenna?”
“Yes, I volunteered in the kitchens,” he answered with a smile and an Aderassi accent. “I am Derathi, late of the Hotel Silve. I have been hired as chef in a restaurant a few streets over, and your father has made arrangements with us to feed you.”
Tremaine lifted the lid of the warming pan, her stomach contracting at the appetizing scents. “This looks wonderful,” she murmured.
“If you need anything, please send to us, at any time.” Derathi paused at the kitchen doorway. “This is a good city, but …I would like to return to Ile-Rien, and then Adera again someday.”
Tremaine looked up, meeting his solemn gaze. We both know, but let’s not say it. “Someday.”
Derathi took his leave and Kias stepped out of the pantry, asking without much hope, “Any news?” Kias was Giliead’s father Ranior’s sister’s son. He was big like Giliead, olive-skinned, with frizzy dark hair falling past his shoulders.
“Nothing good,” Tremaine told him. She supposed he already knew the news about Ixion from Ilias.
With a resigned shake of his head, he filled a couple of plates and carried them out of the kitchen, calling for Calit. Not feeling sociable, Tremaine sat down to eat at the battered kitchen table; the old range still radiated heat, making this the most comfortable room in the house. Ilias wandered in when she was nearly finished, standing in front of the still-warm range, with his arms tightly folded across his chest. He looked worn down and tired, more so than he had this morning. She knew that dealing with Giliead, who had been shuttling between rage and despair over what he saw as Ixion’s release, wasn’t easy. Tremaine had been on the verge of asking about it several times, but she was reluctant to broach the topic. She asked instead, “House still haunted?”
He shook his head, casting an annoyed glance up at the ceiling. “I think Gil scared it away.”
Tremaine hesitated. “Because he’s a Chosen Vessel or because he was really angry?”
He snorted wryly. “Guess.”
Tremaine winced. She thought for a moment he would go back to rapt contemplation of the rusting iron range but he turned to the table, hooked a chair out and sat down. He pulled her plate over, investigating it for scraps.
Tremaine rescued the last hunk of bread. She eyed Ilias for a long moment. “Homesick?” she asked him finally.
He glanced at her with a lifted brow, not understanding.
She was surprised Syrnaic didn’t have a word for it. She gestured with the bread, clarifying, “You miss being home.”
He shrugged, but looked away. “It’s summer there. We’d sleep outside in the atrium at night, or out in the fields.”
As opposed to being stuck in this moldy cold house, or the crowded cold refugee hostel. Watching him crack the leftover bone and render it free of any shred of edible material as methodically as a wolf, she said, “We’re not going to be here that long.”
He frowned down at the plate and started to speak. Then Ander walked in. Searching for an uncracked cup on the sideboard, he nodded politely. “Ilias.”
Ilias looked up sideways, regarding Ander for a moment in silence, then looked at Tremaine. She could tell from his expression that this was about the cap to his day. She said brightly, “Ander’s here.”
Ander poured coffee from the enamelware pot resting on the stove, giving Ilias a thoughtful look. “I hope you and Giliead don’t still blame me for Ixion.”
Ilias let out his breath. “We don’t blame you.” He glanced up at Ander again, his expression just this side of irony. “All you did was let him out.”
Ander’s mouth twisted in annoyance. Tremaine took a sip of coffee and pointed out mildly, “If you didn’t know, Ixion has managed to convince the Capidarans that he can help them against the Gardier.”
Ander stared at her, his brows drawing together. “You’re joking…. You’re not joking. What do they think they’re doing?”
She watched him over the rim of her cup, trying to decide if she thought he was telling the truth. It had suddenly and belatedly occurred to her that that might have been why Ander had sought her out, that Gerard’s open hostility during the meeting had worried the Rienish command enough to send someone to keep an eye on him.
Ander was shaking his head. “I wonder what they think Ixion can do for them? He doesn’t have a sphere. They’ll have to…” He hesitated.
“Get Niles or one of the others to make one for him, unless they’re stupid enough to let him learn how to do it himself,” Tremaine finished his thought impatiently. The new spheres weren’t as powerful as Arisilde’s, not being inhabited by the living soul of a sorcerer, but they did allow Niles and the other Rienish and Capidaran sorcerers here to use the gate spell, fight the Gardier crystals and cast far more elaborate spells of their own. If Ixion got a sphere, he would probably kill all of them. “The new spheres actually work, unlike—” She stopped, blinking. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
“What?” Ilias demanded, sitting up, suddenly alert. “You’ve got that look.”
Ander regarded her suspiciously. Maybe he recognized the look too. “You can’t mean—”
“Before they found out how the world-gate spell worked,” she explained to Ilias, “several sorcerers tried to build spheres to use it. The spheres couldn’t take it and destroyed themselves—and the sorcerers using them.”
“So Niles could build him a trap god-sphere?” Ilias asked, rubbing his chin speculatively. “Would Niles do that?”
“Mm. Good point.” Tremaine tapped her fingers on the table, thinking it over. “To save our lives, yes.” She shook her head, disappointed. “B
ut when Ixion hasn’t done anything yet …I don’t think so. We could broach the idea, but if we got caught by the Capidarans…” She looked thoughtfully at Ander, who had his arms folded.
Ilias jerked his head toward the other man, his expression sour. “He’d tell everyone it was our idea—”
Ander frowned at him, “Hey, I know as well as anyone that—”
“And if Ixion gets a god-sphere and dies of it, everyone will think it was our doing even if it wasn’t,” Ilias finished.
Tremaine stared at him. She could recognize that brand of logic anywhere. “You’ve been talking to Nicholas.”
“Yes,” Ilias answered warily. “How did you know?”
“It was a lucky guess.” She rolled her eyes in irritation, whether at herself, Ilias or Nicholas she wasn’t sure, pushed her chair back and left the kitchen.
The service corridor was dark and Tremaine blundered through a couple of traditional baize servants’ doors and ended up in the salon. Nicholas was sitting in one of the armchairs, reading the Capistown newspaper, and Calit was still playing with the wooden animals on the hearth rug. Before she could form an ironic observation on the domesticity of this scene, Nicholas said dryly, “You should be more careful.”
“What?” Tremaine said, startled. She realized a moment too late she should have said “Undoubtedly” and walked out of the room. Whatever he had to say, it wasn’t going to do her any good.
“As civilized as the Syprians’ behavior is, you have to remember that their society is run on different principles than ours.” Nicholas turned a page of the paper, rustling it into a better position. “If Ilias continues to see Ander as a threat to his relationship with you, he may act to remove the threat. And he may not feel the need to announce his intention first.”