Demon Cycle 04 - The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  “Jona,” Leesha said, as the man looked up from his books. The Tenders had him copying Canons as penance while they debated his fate.

  “Leesha!” Jona said, rising quickly and going to her side. “Creator shine on you. Are you well? You look tired.” He went to the chamber’s single chair, removing some books and holding it for her to sit. “Can I get you some water?”

  Leesha shook her head, smiling. “One would almost forget you’re the prisoner here.”

  Jona gave a dismissive wave. “My acolyte cell in Cutter’s Hollow was smaller. I have books, and the Canon. I have visits from Vika, and you. What more could I ask for?”

  “Freedom,” Leesha said.

  Jona shrugged. “When the Creator wills it, I will be.”

  “It’s not the Creator’s will you need to worry about,” Leesha said. “It’s Rhinebeck’s.”

  Again the Tender shrugged. “I was worried at first. They spent weeks interrogating me, and I wasn’t allowed proper sleep or books or anything to while away the hours between.

  “But now,” he stroked the leather-bound cover of one of his books lovingly, “I am at peace. The Tenders are convinced I don’t know any secrets to give them advantage over the Deliverer, and my heresy is on the lips of half the duchy. Sooner or later, they’ll tire of holding me.”

  “Especially with Arlen gone,” Leesha said.

  “He isn’t gone,” Jona said.

  “You can’t know that,” Leesha said. “You weren’t there.”

  “I have faith,” Jona said. “What surprises me is that after all you’ve been through, you do not.”

  “If the Creator has a plan, it hasn’t been kind to me,” Leesha noted.

  “We all have our trials,” Jona said. “But looking back, what would you change? Would you have married Gared and lived a normal life? Stayed in Angiers while flux took the Hollow? Spat in the face of the demon of the desert when he greeted you with friendship?”

  Leesha shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “Would you undo the life within you?”

  Leesha put a hand to her belly, meeting his eyes with a hard glare. “Never.”

  “That.” Jona pointed. “That is faith. You cannot measure it with weights and doses like your herbs. You cannot classify it in your books, or test it with chemics. But it is there, more powerful than any bit of old world science. Only the Creator can see the path ahead. He makes of us what he wants—what the world needs—us to be. But we can have a glimpse, looking back.”

  “Thamos has been sent to Lakton,” Leesha said, her voice shaking.

  “Why?” Jona asked.

  “To avoid a war,” Leesha sniffed, “or perhaps to start one. Creator only knows.”

  Jona laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I only met him for a moment, when he and the Inquisitor sent me here. But I know you, Leesh. You don’t give your heart easily. He must be a good man.”

  Leesha wanted to vomit. Jona was perhaps her oldest and closest friend, but she had kept secrets from him.

  “I’ve given my heart a bit freely, of late,” she said. “Arlen spun me around and Ahmann swept me away, but Thamos …” She hugged herself. “Thamos is the only man I’ve ever loved. And I betrayed him. He’s gone off, perhaps to his death, with my scalpel in his heart. How can that too be the Creator’s plan?”

  Jona folded his arms around her and she leaned in to him, weeping.

  “I don’t know,” he said, stroking her hair. “But when this is all behind, you’ll see it. Sure as the sun rises.”

  The carriage path and great steps of the palace were crowded at the height of the day, abuzz with conversation and business. But as Leesha stepped down from the carriage, courtier and servant alike fell silent, turning their eyes her way.

  “Tell me I’m imagining this,” Leesha said.

  “Ent,” Wonda said, her eyes roving the crowd for signs of a threat. “Spent time asking questions in the yard while you were touring Tender’s towers. Gossip spread like fire last night. Didn’t help that half the ripping city was in the palace.”

  Wonda whisked her hand, and four Cutter women moved to flank them, eyes all around. They climbed the steps unmolested, passing through the doors and into the great hall.

  It was little better. The palace servants were more professional, but even they watched Leesha and her entourage out of the corner of their eyes.

  “What are people saying?” Leesha asked.

  Wonda shrugged. “Tampweed tales, mostly, but they all got the important part right—fiddle wizard from the Hollow killed the duke’s herald. Difference is mostly in the spin.”

  “Spin?” Leesha asked.

  “City’s split, just like the Hollow and everywhere else,” Wonda said. “Common folk think Mr. Bales is the Deliverer, powerful ones think he’s trouble.”

  “What’s that have to do with Rojer?” Leesha asked, though she could easily guess. They passed into the residence wing, leaving many of the prying eyes behind, but Wonda did not dismiss the guards. Leesha did not think she would ever be alone again, if her young bodyguard had anything to say about it.

  “You and Rojer helped him save the Hollow,” Wonda said. “The ward witch and the fiddle wizard. Folk think you speak for the Deliverer when he’s not around. Even in the cathedral, some are sayin’ that if Rojer killed Jasin, Creator decided Jasin needed killin’.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Leesha said.

  “Ay, maybe,” Wonda said, though she sounded less sure. “But true or not, anythin’ happens to Rojer, folk ent gonna take it well. Liable to get some bodies hurt.”

  “If something happens to Rojer,” Leesha said, “I’m apt to be in a bit of a temper myself.”

  “Honest word,” Wonda agreed as they turned a corner, seeing the knot of men in front of the door to the chambers Rojer and his women had shared. Four palace guards craned their necks up, trying to stare down the four giant Cutters Gared had stationed on the opposite wall.

  The crowd parted at Leesha’s approach, and Wonda stepped forward to knock.

  A moment later, Kendall answered the door. “Thank the Creator!” She stepped aside to let Wonda and Leesha in, their guards joining the throng in the hall.

  Kendall was quick to shut the door and drop the bar. “Did you see Rojer?”

  “I did,” Leesha said.

  “And is our husband well?” Amanvah asked, appearing at the doorway to her private chamber. The young dama’ting seemed relaxed and serene as ever, though Leesha thought she must be anything but.

  Leesha nodded. “No doubt he has already told you so himself.”

  “Of course,” Amanvah agreed, “though men often omit their pain, when they do not wish their wives to worry.”

  Leesha smiled. “I’ve never known Rojer to be that type.”

  Amanvah didn’t blink.

  “He had been badly beaten,” Leesha said, “but your hora saw to that. He’s as strong as ever now, minus a pair of teeth.”

  Amanvah gave a fraction of a nod. “And Sikvah?”

  Leesha sighed. “There’s been no word. If someone means to ransom her, they’re making sure she’s well hidden first.”

  “This is intolerable,” Amanvah said. “They will not even let us leave the chambers to look for her.”

  “You’re witnesses to murder in the duke’s palace,” Leesha said. “You can’t expect them to let you just walk away. There’s nowhere you can look that Araine’s spies cannot.”

  “I do not trust her chin spies,” Amanvah said. “Likely they had a hand in her taking.”

  Leesha’s eyes flicked to the hora pouch at Amanvah’s waist. “May we speak in private?”

  “Ay … !” Kendall started to protest, but Amanvah silenced her with a hiss, gesturing to her chamber.

  Leesha followed, seeing all the windows covered. Even the door was draped with heavy cloth, and when Amanvah closed the door, they were enveloped in darkness. Reflexively she dropped a hand to her own hora pouch as she took
out her spectacles with the other.

  But Amanvah offered no threat. The warded coins on her headdress glowed in wardsight, blending with her aura. Neither of them could read with the facility that Arlen did, but it would be difficult to lie to each other with their auras bare.

  “Would you like some tea?” Amanvah asked.

  Leesha realized she was holding her breath. She blew it out with a nod. “Creator, yes.”

  There was a slight glow to the teapot, warded to keep the inside hot and the outside cool. The use of powerful magics for something so frivolous said a great deal about the dama’ting, who had been using hora magic for centuries. Leesha, for all the power she had at her fingertips, understood little of the subtleties of their warding.

  “What have your dice told you?” Leesha sipped her tea, and felt her whole body relax. Perhaps it was not so frivolous, after all.

  “The alagai hora do not lie, mistress,” Amanvah said, sipping her own tea, “but neither do they tell us all we would wish. I cast three times today. They have told me nothing of Sikvah’s fate, and my husband’s future remains … clouded.” There was no lie in her aura.

  “Clouded?” Leesha asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means too many divergences for the future to be assured,” Amanvah said. “Too many plots and wills with an interest in the outcome. He is not safe. This much I can see.”

  “He’s locked in a tower three hundred feet off the ground, in one of the most well guarded and warded places in the world,” Leesha said.

  “Pfagh!” Amanvah said. “Your greenland defenses are pathetic. Any Watcher in Krasia could get to him. Surely his enemies here can manage.”

  She shook her head. “I should have had Coliv kill this Goldentone weeks ago, whatever my husband’s wishes.”

  “Don’t second-guess yourself,” Leesha said. “Likely it would have been no better. You’re playing at politics you don’t understand.”

  Amanvah shrugged. “Blood politics never change, mistress. When someone tries to kill you and fails, you see they never have another chance.”

  “It will be the courts that kill Rojer, now,” Leesha said.

  Amanvah nodded. “And I expect they would have been more likely to rule in our favor if we were back amongst your tribe.”

  Leesha couldn’t argue that, but there was something else in Amanvah’s aura. Not deception, but … “There’s more you’re not telling me.”

  Amanvah laughed. “Of course! Why should I trust you any more than these other greenlanders?”

  Ungrateful witch. “What have I ever done to earn your mistrust, Amanvah vah Ahmann?” Leesha asked in Krasian. “What makes you continue to dishonor me, when I have been nothing but honest?”

  “Have you?” Amanvah asked. “Whom do you carry in your womb, mistress? My sibling, or the next Duke of Angiers?”

  Leesha looked at her curiously. “Your dice told you Rhinebeck cannot be cured,” she guessed.

  “You would know for yourself, if you had examined his seed,” Amanvah said.

  “I did,” Leesha said.

  Amanvah’s veil hid her smile, but it was clear upon her aura. “Did you watch the heasah take the sample, or did you trust in her word?”

  Leesha started, nearly spilling her tea. She quickly set it down, getting to her feet. “Please excuse me.”

  Amanvah nodded her dismissal. “Of course.”

  Wonda and the guardswomen nearly had to trot to keep up with Leesha as she strode through the halls of the palace, first to her own rooms for a proper vial, and then on to the duchess’ chambers.

  One of Melny’s handmaidens answered the door, ushering Leesha in to the duchess’ private chambers.

  “Is there something I can do for you, mistress?” Melny asked when they were alone. Ostensibly, she was the most powerful woman in Angiers, but in practice she was nearly as submissive to Leesha as she was to Araine.

  Leesha produced the warded glass vial. “I may be on to a cure, but I need you to procure something for me, quietly.”

  Rojer sat atop the desk in his cell, which he had dragged to the window so he could look out over the city as he played a mournful tune on his fiddle.

  He wondered if folk below could hear him. He hoped so, for what was a jongleur without an audience? Even if he could not see them, let them hear his pain.

  It wasn’t as if there was much else to do by moonlight. The Tenders had given him no lamps, and the warded mask that let him see in darkness was back in his chambers where Amanvah no doubt paced.

  It wasn’t as if he could demand so much as a candle. Who would he ask? He’d had no more visitors, save whatever nameless acolyte shoved the trays under his door, or took away the empty ones he shoved back. The food was simple fare, but it was nourishing enough.

  The window was small—enough for him to put his head out, but not so much as a shoulder in addition. Not that it mattered. Even if he could fit through the tiny aperture, there was nothing below but air. The four towers looked down a sheer three hundred feet.

  But anything was better than staring at the walls of his cell, and the view really was spectacular, all Angiers spreading out below him. He watched the flashes of energy light the town as wind demons skittered off the wardnet, and played for Amanvah.

  Perhaps the Angierians could hear him and perhaps not, but he knew Amanvah was listening. He played his longing for her, his sorrow, and his fears for Sikvah. His pride and his love. His hope and passion. All the things he had tried to whisper into the hora, but words had failed him.

  Music never did.

  “Husband.”

  The bow skittered off the fiddle strings. Rojer was silent, looking around, wondering if he had imagined it. Had Amanvah found a way to speak through the chinrest as well as hear?

  “H-hello?” he whispered to it tentatively.

  But then a hand appeared, gripping the windowsill, and Rojer fell back with a shriek, tumbling right off the table. The breath was knocked from him as he hit the floor, but years of training took over, and he was rolling the moment he hit, coming into a crouch several feet from the window.

  Sikvah peered at him through the tiny aperture. She wore her black headwrap and white veil, but her eyes were unmistakable. “Do not be alarmed, husband. It is only me.”

  Memories flashed before Rojer’s eyes. Sikvah crushing Sali’s throat. Sikvah shattering the guard’s spine. Sikvah breaking Abrum’s neck.

  “You have never been ‘only’ anything, wife,” Rojer said. “Though it seems I didn’t know it by half.”

  “You are right to be upset, husband,” Sikvah said. “I have kept secrets from you, though not of my own volition. The Damajah herself commanded that I and my spear sisters keep secret our nature.”

  “Amanvah knew,” Rojer said.

  “She and no other in the North,” Sikvah said. “We are blood of the Deliverer. She is dama blood. I am Sharum.”

  “What are you?” Rojer asked.

  “I am your jiwah,” she said. “I beg of you, husband, if you believe nothing else I say, believe that. You are my light and my love, and if the Evejah did not forbid it, I would kill myself for how I have shamed you.”

  “That isn’t enough,” Rojer said, crossing his arms. “If you want me to trust you again, I need to know everything.”

  “Of course, husband,” Sikvah said. She sounded relieved, as if he were letting her off easy. And perhaps he was. Her entire meek persona had been an act. Who was to say her relief wasn’t as well?

  Part of him didn’t care. Sikvah had shown him nothing but devotion since they took their vows. Even her killing was for him, and for all that had happened, Rojer could not bring himself to take it back. Somewhere, Jaycob’s spirit was resting, his killers given justice at last.

  “May I enter?” Sikvah asked. “I promise to answer your every question in honesty and in sincerity.”

  In sincerity? Rojer wondered. Or insincerity? It could have been either.

  He looke
d at the tiny window doubtfully. “How are you planning to do that?”

  The corners of Sikvah’s eyes crinkled in a smile as she stuck her head through. She twisted and her hand appeared, snaking into the room to push against the wall.

  There was a pop that made Rojer flinch, and her shoulder was through. Rojer had seen a great many contortionist acts in the Jongleurs’ Guild, but never anything like this. She was like a mouse squeezing through a one-inch crack under the door.

  In seconds she was through, dropping into a tumble on the floor and flowing smoothly into a prostrate pose. Kneeling, she spread her hands on the floor, pressing her head to the worn carpet. She wore a silken Sharum garb—pantaloons, cinched robe, and headwrap of the deepest black, contrasted by the stark white of her wedding veil. Her hands and feet were bare.

  “Stop that,” Rojer said. The Krasians might have enjoyed such shows of submission, but they made him deeply uncomfortable, especially from someone who could kill him with her littlest finger.

  Sikvah rolled back to sit on her heels, facing him. She undid her veil, pulling the wrap back to show her hair.

  Rojer went to the window, sticking his head out and looking down the sheer wall of the tower. There were no ropes, no climbing tools. Had she scaled it with hands and feet alone? “Did Amanvah send you to free me?”

  Sikvah shook her head. “I can, if you command it, but the Jiwah Ka does not believe that is your wish. I am here to watch over you and keep you from harm.”

  Rojer looked around the tiny room with its few furnishings. “Not a lot of places to hide, if someone comes to check on me.”

  Sikvah smiled. “Close your eyes for two breaths.”

  Rojer did, and when he opened them, Sikvah was gone. He searched the room, even looking under the low bed, but there was no sign of her. “Where are you?”

  “Here.” Her voice came from above, but even looking up at the sound, Rojer could not see her among the rafters. But then, as he looked on, one of the shadows unfurled and he caught a flash from her white veil.

  Sikvah dropped silently to the floor, seeming to bounce as she struck. Even watching closely, he lost sight of her, wandering the room until her hand snaked out from under the bed to grasp his ankle. He jumped and let out a yelp.