The younger magician’s incantation drew to a sibilant close. His raised hands held steady as if to focus his will and powers. Light glowed beyond the brazier that was not cast by fire or coal. It brightened to an icy silver-blue, then spread into a hazy translucence that slowly sharpened in outline to show the form of Jamel seated, his face turned expectantly toward the door flap. Moments later, visitors entered: Mara and her two officers. Conversation began between the parties, eerily soundless. Shimone seemed as attentive to the noises outside, in the poor quarter, as to the unfolding of Tapek’s truth spell.
Lipreading showed the contents of the discussion to be petty: Mara’s concern centered on the estrangement of her husband, which had begun months back at the birth of her daughter. An innocent enough tableau; except that Jamel began, most irritatingly for the magicians assigned to this inquiry, to fuss and toy with a length of silk. Conveniently often, it seemed, the cloth obscured sight of his mouth. By the ripple of the silk caused by his breath, it was evident that he hid speech. But no spell of past recall could recover the sound of his words. The imprint of light striking objects in the room could be summoned back into coherent form, to be read for many days after, but sound was too fragile to endure more than seconds.
Tapek swore. Fixed as a relli, he watched as Jamel arose and conducted Mara toward the wall. There they turned their backs to the room, and to appearances, the lesser-path mage proceeded in all seriousness to instruct the Lady in just the sort of fakery – passes in the air with his hands, motions that meant nothing but were intended to impress the ignorant folk who came calling to buy this or that change in their miserable lives – that demeaned the reputation of magicians as a whole, and that Tapek scorned. His hands shook with anger as he maintained the forces that drove his spell, and he said acidly, ‘The Lady seems remarkably stupid, all of a sudden. Is this the fourth repetition of this rubbish, or the fifth?’
To his fury, Shimone appeared to be laughing – not outright, that was never his way, but his deep eyes seemed dancing with light. ‘I warned you, Tapek. Jamel was not an idiot. And the Lady is certainly not stupid.’
The veiled disapproval in his colleague’s tone renewed Tapek’s frustration. Still, out of determination and pique he endured the specters’ charades, until Jamel finished tracing meaningless symbols and resorted to scribbling on a parchment, hunched over it to conceal the writing. Since the spell only recalled the imprint of past events as if the observer were standing in the room, no matter where Tapek moved, Jamel’s writing could not be read. Tapek glared at the brazier, only to realise that Shimone had spied the ashes of the burned parchment already, probably soon after their entry into Jamel’s abode.
‘Indeed,’ observed the older magician in answer to Tapek’s thought, ‘the words were lost before we ever arrived.’
Tapek released his spell the instant that Mara received the carefully folded parchment and took her leave. Unmindful of blood-wet earth or sodden cushions, Tapek stamped in leashed temper around the brazier, every inch of him tense. ‘Gods, but if only I could stand where that wall is, and recast my truth spell, I’d learn much, for you could see by their stances that the Lady and our dead man spoke openly when facing the shelves!’
Shimone, ever the realist, shrugged. ‘We’re wasting time.’
Tapek rounded on his colleague, who stood now like an elderly Lord impatiently suffering the slowness of an inept servant. ‘Mara!’ Tapek exclaimed. ‘We shall ask her!’
As if released from thought into action, Shimone stalked toward the door. He twitched aside the flap of hide and stepped through into the hardly less cloying stink of the alley, saying, ‘I wondered when you’d finally think of that.’
Leaving the corpse of Jamel where it lay, Tapek barged through on the heels of his companion. His red brows jutted in a thunderous frown. If he had dared to speak freely upon the subject, he would have accused Shimone of obstructing him. The old mage was a companion of Hochopepa, and the two of them often championed strange causes. Together, had they not defended Milamber after that disastrous scene at the Imperial Games? It mattered little to Tapek that Milamber had later proven his worth to the Empire by warning the Emperor and the Assembly of the danger the Enemy presented. His feelings regarding Elgohar, the magician who had imprisoned Hochopepa and tortured Milamber, were mixed; Elgohar had been mad, of course, but he had done as he had thought best for the Empire. But Milamber had destroyed him, and along with his other outrages, had demonstrated the risks brought by radical departures from tradition. Tapek was convinced Mara’s recent actions were, if not proof, then a strong indication she plotted to defy the Assembly. And that was an affront to tradition that made the pale magician tremble with ire.
Deep in outraged speculation, Tapek all but ran into Shimone, who had stopped in the street, and to all appearances was listening to the wind.
‘Which way are you going to look?’ Shimone inquired.
Tapek’s scowl deepened. It demeaned him to act the part of underling, but if he did not summon another spell to recall the past, and left that bit of business to Shimone, plainly the old fellow would meander through the process and contrive to waste half of the night!
There followed several frustrating hours, while Tapek, worn by the effort of sustaining the spell, conjured the phantom image of Mara and her two officers. These, her First Adviser and another wearing the plumes of Acoma Force Commander, escorted their Lady on a meandering ramble through the back streets of the poor quarter. Their path circled, even doubled back! Tapek fumed. Dogged as the possessed, he followed. And was forced to wait, while the Lady paid a business call upon a cloth merchant. Money changed hands. A package, sealed and wrapped, was passed to her adviser. Then the parade began afresh. At last the Lady returned to the square where her attendants and escort awaited. She got in her litter. To his annoyance, Tapek realised that the town watch called out the hour of three o’clock! Even fat old Hochopepa, he decided, would have wasted less time than the confounded Servant of the Empire.
The spectral image of Lujan paused, reached up to adjust his helm. The set of the feathers seemed not to suit him, and he twisted them this way and that, his wrist obscuring his face while he gave elaborate instructions to the Strike Leader in command of his mistress’s honor guard. Then, at long last, the ghostly, ice-pale replica of the litter rose in the grip of its spectral bearers. The cortege floated on across the darkened streets of Sulan-Qu, with Lujan and the First Adviser taking the wrapped package upon an unspecified errand, their lips moving in a crossfire exchange of doggerel whose content was obscene.
Shimone, in his maddening, obtuse way, was chuckling over the humor, which was straight from the gutter. He almost seemed reluctant to pursue Mara’s litter, which, thought Tapek, steaming, was what they had been sent from the City to do in the first place!
Several times Tapek had to refocus his concentration, as he pursued the phantom image. On the wide boulevards, the surrounding buildings and the busy streets gave back muddled images overlaid with hundreds of others. It took great energy of the mind to track the chosen party. Only because the few people still about in the early hours before dawn immediately gave way to the Black Robes, could Tapek keep the illusion of Mara’s litter in sight. And she was taking the most damnable rambling course. Tapek was nearly exhausted when the spell led at last to the steps of the Temple of Turakamu. There, the phantom figures and the litter they carried merged outlines as past converged with present and Mara’s slaves lowered their burden to the ground. Tapek waved his hands and dispersed his spell. The blue glow faded, showing Mara’s litter parked on the pavement, empty. He blinked, to dispel the fatigue that slowed the adjustment of his vision. Mara’s guard and servants were gone, presumably to take their ease in some tavern while their mistress attended business within. The stars overhead had begun to pale with false dawn, and Tapek was in a sore mood from stubbing his toes on the cobbles. He scared the wits out of the slave who was sweeping the Red God’s front stair,
and sent the wretch scurrying for the High Priest. A Great One was free to move as he chose, but even magicians observed tradition. By custom, no one entered a temple without permission.
Shimone was silent throughout.
Thankfully, the wait was brief. The High Priest of the Death God was robed, still, from his visit with Mara. ‘How may I serve you, Great Ones?’ His bow was formal, precise in degree of deference for one of his exalted rank.
Tapek reined back his annoyance. ‘We seek the Lady Mara for questioning.’
The priest straightened up with an expression of consternation. ‘That is regrettable, Great One. The Lady arrived here not long ago, troubled in spirit over personal matters. She took counsel from me, but was not consoled. By her wish, she retired into the inner sanctum of Turakamu’s temple. She has gone into seclusion, Great Ones, for meditation and peace. It is to be hoped that my god will inspire her to overcome her difficulties.’
Tapek felt enraged enough to yank out his hair, but settled for tossing his hood back from his head. ‘How long will she be? We shall wait.’
The priest trembled, perhaps with apprehension, though his eyes seemed supremely untroubled as he replied. ‘I am sorry. I much doubt Lady Mara will be coming out this night, nor any night in the near future. She left instructions with her bearers to remove her litter to her Sulan-Qu estate in the morning, for she would stay in seclusion for some time. Weeks at the least, perhaps months.’
‘Months!’ Tapek shifted from foot to foot, then directed a glare at the priest. ‘Months!’ he exclaimed again, his voice echoing down the empty square. The Black Robe continued his tirade with venom. ‘I hardly believe that so contrary a woman as Lady Mara would be concerned for her spiritual state at this advanced hour!’
The priest tugged his robes around himself as if gathering his divinely bestowed dignity. ‘Great One, a mortal may be concerned for the state of her soul at any time,’ he corrected gently, then folded his hands in a beatific attitude.
Tapek surged forward as though he would storm up the stair and violate the peace of the temple precinct. But Shimone shot out a hand and restrained him.
‘Think,’ said the older magician, his tone snapping. ‘The sanctity of the temples extends back thousands of years. Why break such a time-honored tradition as sanctuary, Tapek? Mara must come out sometime. And if she does not, our ends are met, not so?’
The fire-haired magician looked as if he had bitten into sour fruit. ‘You and Hochopepa and Fumita are fools to seek to protect her!’ he said in a furious whisper that only his colleague might hear. ‘She is dangerous!’
‘As dangerous as a public confrontation between the Assembly and the temples?’ asked Shimone, his voice menacing.
Tapek seemed to cool slightly. ‘You are right. She is not worth making into a public issue.’
Shimone nodded, silent, but satisfied. A faint buzzing had begun upon the air, and by the time the priest realised the confrontation was over, the two Black Robes had vanished in an inrush of breeze and the lingering echo of Tapek’s anger.
The clack of the capstan on the decks of the trader ship Coalteca slowed and stopped with a jar against wood as the heavy, leather-wrapped stone anchor thudded home against the cathead. The captain bellowed orders for the sailors in the rigging to loose the brails. The squeal of halyards followed, as yardarms lifted, and brightly painted canvas bellied to the sea wind. Confined belowdecks, Mara paced across the tiny stern cabin. Against her every wish and instinct, to be in the open as the vessel set sail, her concealment was necessary. Still, after weeks denied fresh air and sunlight, Mara chafed. She flashed a glance at her Force Commander, whose normally weathered face also had grown pale during their journey through the cho-ja tunnels from the city of Sulan-Qu to the remote, peninsular port of Kolth.
Mara had never journeyed through the southernmost reaches of Hokani Province. But she had heard secondhand descriptions from Jican, and balked curiosity left her irritable. How she would have loved to have stolen aboveground, even in the dead of night, to view the City of the Plains! The great rift that led to Midkemia was located there, where Kevin had been sent back to his homeland, as well as the mansion-like stone guild halls that were the hub of southern imperial commerce.
But the Assembly’s anger was not to be risked for frivolous whims. Luck and Lujan’s ingenuity had left a false trail that ended with the Lady of the Acoma in apparent seclusion in Turakamu’s temple in Sulan-Qu. If the Black Robes were even to suspect they had been deceived, if one lowly beggar on the street chanced to recognise her as Servant of the Empire, her life and the lives of her family could immediately become forfeit. And so Mara had done the unthinkable, by the mores of Tsurani aristocracy: she had donned the robes of a slave woman, and left Sulan-Qu in the company of Lujan and Saric, both wearing the unmarked armor of mercenaries. The farmers and merchants who were abroad before dawn had assumed she was a battle prize. They had not thought to question her slave’s grey, but stared openly at her slim figure and lustrous hair. A few had called ribald comments, to which Lujan, with strength of imagination, had responded in kind. His shocking coarseness had hidden that Saric at first had been unable to shed tradition for an act, and had stiffened at the insults to her person.
A message left with an agent of Arakasi’s network had brought quick action. When Mara and her two officers had reached the cho-ja hive on her estates, she was joined by ten hand-picked warriors in armor without house markings, and another, a dock worker she had never seen before, who spoke Thuril as his birth tongue. With them came Kamlio, clad again in the rags in which Arakasi had delivered her, and made sullen by the prospect of traveling underground with the insectoids, who terrified her.
The journey south had been trying. Weary from nerves and confinement, and the alien experience of being stared at as chattel, Mara threw herself down in the cushioned alcove she had once shared with Kevin on a long-past journey to Tsubar. In these familiar quarters, the loss of him stung deep, as if their parting had happened yesterday. Almost she regretted her long ago purchase of the Coalteca; why had she not had the sense to let go of sentiment and buy some other blue-water trader?
Yet the Coalteca had been available; she had acted without consulting Jican. The ship was lucky, she felt; her triumph with Lord Xacatecas in Dustari still held the admiration of the Nations, and now that she had such dire forces as Jiro and the Assembly arrayed against her, she needed every reassurance to bolster her, even those rooted in superstition.
Kevin might have laughed at her irrationality. Impatient with herself for dwelling in the past when all the future lay in jeopardy, Mara turned from memories of her barbarian lover, only to find herself worrying for Hokanu.
Her husband did not know where she was, and must not, for safety’s sake, receive even clandestine word until she was deep into Thuril territory. Sharply Mara regretted that she had had small opportunity to speak with him since their unhappy meeting after Kasuma’s birth. Now, more than anything, she longed to confide in Hokanu, to receive his steady understanding and his apt insights. She worried for him, as he dealt with relations who sought to move up in the family hierarchy. Contentions inevitably arose after the deaths of strong Ruling Lords, when others who saw themselves as rivals to the heir emerged to assuage their ambitions. Mara sighed. She hoped, if Hokanu chose to accept the staff of office offered him by Ichindar, that he would visit their children in the Imperial Court. Kasuma should not grow older without knowing the love of a father, and Justin certainly was more of a handful than any of the imperial servants had backbone enough to handle. Again Mara sighed, wondering if she would return from Thuril with aid against the fearsome might of magic, only to be bested by two little ones who had turned into spoiled brats.
‘You’re thinking that maybe this whole voyage was a mistaken endeavor?’ observed a quiet voice by the companionway.
Mara looked up, surprised to find Saric standing in the doorway to her cabin. The creaking sounds of the working shi
p had masked her adviser’s approach, and the plain robe he wore made him blend into shadow.
Mara smiled wanly. ‘I’m thinking we could have done without Kamlio’s sullenness,’ she said, not wishing to divulge her true thoughts.
Saric returned the mercurial, triangular grin that showed when his mood was mischievous. ‘Certainly, from that one’s complaints over sleeping arrangements, one would have thought she was the great Lady and you the browbeaten servant.’
Mara laughed. ‘Have I been so dour?’
Her adviser folded himself onto a sea chest with neat grace. ‘Have you felt so dour?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Suddenly aware that her heart had lifted with the motion of the ship’s sailing, Mara raked the pins out of her hair and let it unfold down her back. She gestured around the dim cabin, with its brightly woven cushions and its beaded curtains, bought from a desert trader, that clacked and rattled with each heel of the ship. ‘I am tired of close walls and secrecy.’ She did not add that she was nervous. To go into a foreign land, bearing none of the grand trappings of her rank, and with only ten soldiers and a guide who had been born a beast herd! This was not at all the same as her past trip into Dustari, when she had moved in the company of her own loyal army, with her command tent, and all of her accustomed comforts at hand.
Saric gave her a wry look. ‘You are wishing you had given in to risk, and bought another litter in Kolth.’ The sparkle in his eye indicated he had more to say. Mara withheld comment, until her First Adviser raked back his straight-cut bangs and added, ‘Lujan did try the markets, you know. He found a used litter, an immense black lacquered affair all set with river stones and fringes.’
A storyteller’s pause developed.
The Complete Empire Trilogy Page 173