by Karen Myers
She shook her head. “Najud is a captive, and injured. Munraz… I just don’t know. Not dead, but missing. I haven’t found them, yet.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder, and the simple human contact almost broke her control.
“Let me make myself presentable,” she said, hoarsely, “and then I’ll tell you what happened. Then I have to leave.”
His head pulled back. “You belong here.”
“Not possible. Bad enemies you can’t defend against, and I have other options. Ask Mir Tojit—he knows. But… thank you for the offer, lij.”
He stopped in the entry hall and let her mount the stairs alone to the room she shared with Najud.
She walked in and sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for the throbbing in her head from the exertion of the climb to beat itself into something less intrusive. Just taking the weight off her feet gave her a light-headed feel.
Once again she did a multi-block scan, and found nothing but the few clusters of wizards she’d seen in the neighborhood before. She pushed it further, seeking Najud or Munraz, but turned up nothing. Where are you, Naj-sha?
She snatched up his pillow and clutched it to her chest, inhaling deeply. It smelled of him, and a shudder ran through her body. She rocked with it for a minute or two.
At a polite knock on the open doorframe, she wiped her face and turned away to restore the pillow to its proper place.
One of the maidservants stood there, staring wide-eyed at her ruined clothing and battered face. “I’ve run a hot bath for you, minochi—you’ll feel better for it. Come with me.”
The guards who escorted Penrys back to the Imperial Security building carried in the few items she’d chosen, and left her with the sixteen members of the honor guard that had been waiting for her. This fancier version of the brown robes uniform was new to her, silken and gleaming.
They left her standing on the steps with four of their number, and the other twelve ducked inside. They returned a few minutes later around the outside of the building carrying two long palanquins, and Penrys caught a glimpse of coffins, before the curtains were drawn to block the sight.
She was tired, but cleaning up had revived her enough to finish this job tonight, at least she hoped so. She was heartsick inside—these men from Ellech had traveled all this long way, partly on her account, and two of them were dead. It was a good death, as the Ellech reckoned such things—they’d died fighting with weapons, back to back—but still, they died and left families behind.
And where was Vylkar, the man who’d searched for her on the mountain and found her, naked in the snow, and then gave her the countenance of his home and served as her bilappa at the Collegium? She owed him a great deal and, in his cool way, she knew he was fond of her.
What a wretched reward to be bringing to his country’s embassy.
She didn’t know the route and let the four who weren’t burdened by the palanquins lead the way. The pace was slow and deliberate, and the civilians on the street made generous room for them, though heads turned curiously to watch after they’d passed.
The district was similar to the one where the Zannib embassy stood, and not far distant from it. When they approached the compound’s gates, she saw the Kigali sign for a ship etched and colored in the outer wall, and alongside it a snowy mountain peak, an ancient symbol for Ellech and the highest mountains in the world that marked its northern border.
In the central courtyard, all of the embassy staff, both those from Ellech and their local servants, were lined up in two columns, and biers waited side-by-side between them to hold the coffins. Beyond the biers a low fire burned in a pit. While the honor guard transferred the bodies, the ambassador made himself known to Penrys. His hair and tidy beard were completely gray, but still he held himself tall and upright.
“I am Preinnur. Thank you for seeing Bildaer and Innurrys home to us. There is no news of Vylkar yet?”
She swallowed. “No, not yet. He was taken with others, including my husband, and we have only just started to search.”
“Can you stay and tell us the story of their deaths, Penrys?”
She steeled herself and nodded—she’d expected this. “I can’t stay for the wake itself, ambassador. We have more work to do tonight. I hope you understand.”
He spread his hands sympathetically and led her to a platform behind the fire, where everyone could see her, and the light shone on her face as she spoke, to witness the truth of her words.
The quiet conversations ceased, and all that could be heard inside the compound was the crackling of the fire. The Kigali honor guard lined the walls by the gates and all heads turned to her.
“This morning,” she said, “Imperial Security sent an embassy to the compound that housed many of the chained wizards of Yenit Ping. All of the foreign wizards invited by Tun Jeju chose to attend under the truce sign of the leipum in order to bear witness to this meeting…”
CHAPTER 16
“I need a building,” Penrys said. “Maybe two.”
She was exhausted but she couldn’t go to bed until she’d had this discussion with Tun Jeju. The Imperial Security building itself was almost as alive with activity as in the middle of the day, but the familiar meeting room they shared was empty of all but the two of them.
Tun Jeju looked as if the day’s events hadn’t touched him, but Penrys knew her own face and posture belied her clean clothing.
Only the notju’s raised eyebrows betrayed his surprise at her request.
“You see, the wizards like Char Nojuk… they need a base. They can’t fight from their compounds—too scattered, they have families with them that aren’t wizards, and so forth. You don’t expect an army to fight out of its homes, after all.
“In Rasesdad, they have the temples. Temples have leaders, priests, mages, and guards, so the mages are protected, and they also do some of the protecting. The temple schools that are for everyone let mages from different temples mingle, and that provides some stability and cross-fertilization, too.”
Tun Jeju’s silence unnerved her.
“Temples and temple schools—those are official buildings. Most of the mages are members of temples, and many are priests. Most of them earn a living at least partly from their wizard skills.”
She waved her hands in the air.
“Now, what we have here are wizards in families. They earn their living mostly from the family businesses, which they learn at home. What if they had a guild building, just for wizardry? Maybe under the auspices of one of the gods. Then those who want to advance in wizardry can be taught and certified, and those that just want to get on with the family business can go do so.”
She cleared her throat. She was on firmer ground here. “In Ellech, they qualify their committed wizards through a series of schools, and then release them to work in the craft or as technologists with some of the commercial ventures. The schools don’t have guards, as such, but in a crisis that could change—all the rest of the structure is in place.”
“What about Zannib and Ndant?” Tun Jeju said.
“Zannib does schooling one-on-one, through an apprentice system. They’ve never had a reason to think in terms of mass defense, but there’s a functioning tradition of creating ad hoc groups of wizards to contain and eliminate any so-called wizard-tyrants, what they term a qahulaj. That seems to work well enough for them, though I don’t know if it could grow to accommodate more than one at a time.”
Penrys frowned. “I’m not so sure about Ndant, but I think it’s not too different from Rasesdad—temple-based qualifications, but maybe no general school.”
She yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. “So, what do all of these systems have in common that might work for Kigali?”
Holding out her hand, she began to tick off fingers. “They have public buildings, except for Zannib which doesn’t have many permanent buildings like that of any kind. In all of them, wizards are identified and educated, though not all of them choose to live as wizards. They have ways of wor
king together that are compatible with self-defense and separated from their households and families. Again, the Zannib are an exception, being lightly populated and dispersed. And when they work together, they recognize a leadership structure. Even the Zannib.”
Tun Jeju finally volunteered a comment. “You’re proposing that a single temple take ownership of the wizard… class. Some place that is defensible, that could hold a leadership out in the open, that could identify and qualify the wizards of Kigali.”
“And the chained ones, too. Don’t forget them,” Penrys said. “Don’t the main temples of Yenit Ping have branches in the other cities and towns?”
“They do,” he said.
“And you could either do education in the same place, or the temple could support a separate building, whichever is more compatible with how guilds are organized outside of the families that work in them.”
Tun Jeju mused on the concept for a moment. “The temples are already part of the governing body of the empire. They hold power that is more nominal than real, and this might shift that balance, but there’s already a structure in place that could be built upon.”
“If you could do this in Kigali,” Penrys said, “and if the hidden wizards liked the idea, then there would be a way to actually build a stable addition to your society, out in the open. I haven’t proposed anything like this to Char Nojuk, but you could start there and find out.”
“This proposal has merit,” Tun Jeju said. “We’ll speak more about it tomorrow.”
He stood, and Penrys followed suit and yawned again.
“Enough for tonight. The guard outside the door will take you to the other two.”
He paused for a moment to respond to her unasked question. “And, no, we didn’t put them back in the cells.
Her lips twitched. “Just one question—what’s happened to Zep Pangwit?”
Tun Jeju spared a brief smile. “Apparently he decided he’d had enough of the excitement in Yenit Ping after he heard about this morning. He requested to be released back to Tengwa Tep.”
“Isn’t that a shame,” Penrys said, with a tired grin.
Munraz stood in the dripping passageway underground and chewed his fingernail in the dark shadows. Kit Hachi beside him carried a torch, and raised it as high as the ceiling would permit while she counted out loud. The man at the end of the line lifted his, too, to help her.
“That’s fifteen of us, still,” she told Rin Tsugo, quietly.
He swore under his breath. “If I’d made them run the drill more often…”
Munraz watched the shadow of Kit Hachi’s head as it shook in disagreement. “We have two more exits at that end of the compound—others will have made it. No one was trying to stop us.”
“Too busy making hash out of our visitors,” Rin Tsugo said sourly.
Munraz’s last glimpse of the hall before Kit Hachi hauled him out the door had been of Najud’s turban, visible over the knot of attackers, and Penrys circling at the other end of the room with a look of concentration he remembered and feared.
Did either of them survive?
The trip through the sewers in the raised embankment underneath the buildings of Yenit Ping was neither sweet-smelling nor dry as they passed along the ancient stonework. He was the only one there with no chain, though not the only Zan—one grown woman with her hair in a long braid that could not fully control its curls had curled her lip at the sight of him and ignored him ever since.
He held his mouth shut and hoped they would overlook him. He’d wanted to stay and help his jarghal. That guide had no business pulling him away. And now, what would they do with him? Am I a hostage, myself, to get their own people back?
Unfortunately Kit Hachi kept a frequent hold on him by his robe, and his attempts to drift backward and let them go on without him didn’t work. The last time she’d done it, he lost his self-control and glared at her, but her only response was a no-nonsense lecture. “If you fall behind, youngster, you could wander around down here forever in the cold dark. You stick with us, and we’ll sort it out later. Trust me.”
He tried to keep his feet and splashed through liquid where he must, trying not to think about it.
Finally, when it seemed as if they’d been walking down there for hours and Munraz’s stomach was becoming insistent despite the smell, Rin Tsugo called a halt. He borrowed Kit Hachi’s torch and looked at the characters drawn next to a vertical shaft. “This is it,” he told her.
“Quiet, everyone,” he called back down the line. “I’m going to take a look around.”
He climbed carefully, testing each embedded rung, until he reached the platform on top. The doorknob turned in his hand, and he beckoned Kit Hachi up to take the torch away from him, back down into the passage.
When she had retreated far enough to give him darkness, he pushed the door open, and Munraz heard a squeal of hinges that set his pulse racing, followed by soft footsteps that faded away above him. A dim light fell down through the opening. He crept forward to the base of the ladder, and Kit Hachi was powerless to stop him without finding someone else to hold the torch.
“Come back!” she whispered after him.
“I won’t go far,” he called back softly.
He hauled himself up and waited on the platform, peering through the door. It opened inside a building, but the place must be a ruin, for he could see daylight penetrating from above, through breaks in the roof.
Careful to keep his own shield up, he did a quick mind-scan. He couldn’t reach very far—Najud had told him that would improve with practice and age—but he could see all the escapees below, and no one else nearby on his level besides Rin Tsugo.
Munraz tiptoed through the doorway and the movement startled Rin Tsugo who had just turned away from a glassless window.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“Just wanted to help.”
“Get back down there. I’m making sure no one else is around.”
“They’re not. I already checked,” Munraz said.
“And do you know how to look for power-stones, for devices that could betray our presence?”
Abashed, Munraz said, “I… I don’t know what those are.”
“And the Zannib don’t do devices, I know.” Rin Tsugo sighed. “Go back to the door and wait, youngster. Please.”
When Munraz hesitated, Rin Tsugo gave him a good look. “You’re not in any danger from us, boy. But you can’t go wandering alone on the streets, a Zan in torn clothing, ripe pickings for whoever’s after us. We’ll get you home, soon as we can. Soon as we meet up with the others.”
“Now go,” he said, and Munraz obeyed. Home. Where’s that? Still, the Zannib embassy would be a good choice. The ambassador will know what to do, if… No! They’re not dead! They’re not! I don’t believe it.
But he couldn’t shake that vision of dozens of people pouring into the hall, and Penrys and Najud fighting, separately and outnumbered.
Eventually Rin Tsugo returned and called quietly down to Kit Hachi, “Bring them up, and leave the torches below, in case we need to duck in again.”
Munraz moved out of their way into the derelict building and walked over to the windows, following them around on three sides. The afternoon was unexpectedly deep in shadows but what light remained showed two other buildings, abandoned and partially collapsed, standing in an overgrown field huddled up against the steep eastern slope of Tegong Him. We’re in the mountain shadow cast by the afternoon sun. No wonder I thought it was almost evening.
The creak of the noisy hinges drew his attention again, and he saw that the last one up had closed the door again.
Kit Hachi beckoned him over. “Are we staying here?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Our rendezvous is the building closest to the ridge. Gives us the most varied ways of escaping.”
“Rendezvous?”
“Everyone who escaped will find a way to meet us there.”
“And then what?” he said.
>
She looked at him, their eyes on a level, since he wasn’t done growing. He had a few more inches to add before he stood as tall as his father and uncle, family to him no longer but part of his blood. The only other chained wizard he’d been this close to, besides Penrys, had been the qahulajti. Just before he spared her the fate his uncle had planned, by slitting her throat. In mercy. It was in mercy!
The muscles of his arms and hands remembered how it felt, holding her chin from behind and slicing the soft skin, how it bled, spurting over his hands, and his eyes dropped involuntarily to Kit Hachi’s neck with its gold-colored chain.
“What’s wrong, youngster?” she asked, concern in her eyes.
He backpedaled out of reach and turned away. Always a woman with a chain, one after another. What would she think, any of them think, if they knew?
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Sorry.”
“Well, don’t worry. You’re safe with us, as safe as any of us are. We’ll figure it out and get you home.”
The floor was hard, and everything hurt. And it smelled bad. The persistent clinking of metal was an irritant, and the side of his head was sore, where the turban hadn’t protected it.
Najud finally opened his eyes to figure out what was making the noise. There were other shapes shifting restlessly in the dim space of the stone-walled room. When he moved his leg to shake off a weight, it jingled at him, and he realized he was chained by the ankle to a wall.
The last thing he remembered was the desperate fight. The vivid image of the young Ndanwe Toawe holding her hands out in surrender and being casually slaughtered made him suck in his breath. Penrys? Some of the attackers had converged on her and he wasn’t sure if there’d been anyone with her.
“Pen-sha?” he called softly.
“Ah, our young Zannib friend awakes.”
The quiet voice to his right was Vylkar’s, and Najud started to push himself up into a sitting position, then hissed at the unexpected pain that stopped him.
“Careful,” Vylkar said. “We had to patch you up as best we could, but some of those cuts were deep.”