Broken Devices

by Karen Myers

  He tried to finger-comb his curls into a braid and wrap his robe in a more Kigali fashion, but he knew it would only work in dim light, if it worked at all. He spent most of the day in the tunnel where he’d slept, coming up every now and then to watch the activity in the square as the platform was completed.

  There would be some sort of ceremony here tonight, he decided. Good—he could just be part of the crowd as they departed. Better to escape aboveground than try the tunnels, better to go forward than back.

  “You can’t do the upper city the same way,” Chosmod said. “We’ll stand out like raisins in a bun.”

  The two of them had sent Mpeowake on her way, and paused indecisively not far from the Imperial Security building—Penrys was reluctant to enter it.

  “No, we can’t,” she agreed. “I need a Kigalino wizard. A female one.”

  Chosmod raised an eyebrow. “Should I ask?”

  “I think you might be better off not knowing. Perhaps you could distract Tun Jeju instead.”

  “I don’t understand his internal politics,” Chosmod said, “but I recognize the smell well enough. He’s got problems somewhere.”

  “Spies?”

  “Maybe. Almost certainly—it’s an accepted fact in Kigali institutions.” Chosmod shrugged. “I’m more interested in something else.”

  Penrys waited, expectantly.

  “Why haven’t we met his superiors since your arrival?” he said. “All the wizards he sent for had to wait for the Zannib ones, the last to come. We were shown the sights of the city, entertained in various functions by each others’ embassies, the Zannib one included, and welcomed with great ceremony by the head of Imperial Security, Noi Shibu.”

  Penrys was mystified. “So? We haven’t been here long, after all.”

  “My sources tell me that the emperor and Noi Shibu meet frequently. Tun Jeju used to attend these meetings, ever since his work in Neshilik. But not recently.”

  “So you think, what—Tun Jeju is no longer in favor, that there are spies reporting what we’re doing?”

  “The second, certainly. The first, I’m not so sure. The notju is no amateur at professional survival. It’s not an accident that he left us on our own to check your findings this morning.”

  “Which he can’t be seen to endorse.” Penrys nodded slowly. “Don’t know if you’re right, Modo, but it makes sense.” She looked up at him. “All the more reason for me to do this next bit on my own.”

  “You find out what you can about what’s going on from Tun Jeju, if he’ll tell you. I’m going up there, somehow.” She gestured at the cliff face of Tegong Him many blocks to their north. “If I’m not back by tomorrow, well, at least you’ll know where to start looking.”

  “Shouldn’t try this by yourself,” he said.

  “I have a plan, and there’s no way to include you.” Penrys smiled as she thought about what she intended.

  Penrys watched Char Dami’s face and lightly touched her mind to see her reaction.

  “You want what, teken-chi?” Her polite bearing registered surprise.

  They sat together in a small public room in the Char compound. Penrys had counted on Char Dami leaving the more detailed aspects of the continuing guild meetings to the samkatju, her father. The other wizards were all still attending. More stamina than I have. I don’t see how they can stand each other after all that public speaking. Glad it’s not my problem.

  “I need to explore the upper city this evening, Char-chi, and I don’t want to do it as an obvious foreigner. There are wizards there, many of them, and I’m looking for Char Dazu and my husband, and all the other captives, if they’re there.”

  “Does Imperial Security know about this?”

  Penrys laughed. “Well, that’s not entirely clear. If they don’t, they will. Let’s just say that I think I have permission. And if I’m wrong, I don’t much care.”

  At Char Dami’s dubious look, she added, “I saw wizards there last night, and more of them in Chalen Tep, the criminal district. We investigated that group this morning, Chosmod, Mpeowake, and I. Not model citizens, those. Might have been the ones hired to attack us, but the captives aren’t there.”

  Char Dami pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “There’s a festival tonight, did you know? The Lenju ka Yukmat, the Festival of Lights—a celebration of the season. There’ll be fireworks and feasting all over Yenit Ping, but the emperor himself will host the event in Juhim Tep. People will be ascending Tegong Him all evening to join him, and coming back late.”

  “But that’s perfect. Big crowds, what’s another short Kigalino with an odd face?” Penrys looked Char Dami directly in the face. “Can you help me prepare, Char-chi?”

  The older woman rose abruptly and clapped her hands. When a maid servant slid the door of the room open, she told her, “Ask Char Pangfa to meet me in my chambers, right away.”

  After the servant vanished, Char Dami turned to Penrys and smiled. “I’ve invited my young niece to help us. She would never forgive me if she’d been left out of the adventure.”

  She led the way to her room and the next hour passed in a whirlwind of activity.

  It had been quickly decided that Penrys would be more plausible as a servant than as a more notable citizen. “Some come from ancestry that is better unexamined,” Char Dami had commented, tartly.

  The result was a raid on the housekeeper’s clothing, a woman similar in height and general shape to Penrys. The housekeeper was well-compensated for the privilege, and soon Char Pangfa was demonstrating the right way to walk, with the modest demeanor suitable for a respectable servant. “Keep your head down when you approach anyone in colorful silks or any sort of headgear,” the child said. “That’s always safest, my grandfather says.”

  The hair was a different problem. Penrys was forced to demonstrate why her ears needed to stay covered, even with a braid, and the Char Pangfa was fascinated with her furry fox-like ears, the same color as her hair.

  Char Dami asked, “Do all the tekenwen have such ears?”

  “I haven’t asked them all, but every one I’ve looked at does. It seems to be universal, like the chain.”

  “We’ll just have to braid over them, then. It’s odd, but not as strange as the rest of your face. Some of the hair oils are tinted, to conceal gray, you understand—that should help darken your hair.”

  Penrys had the brown hair, round face and pale coloring of her unknown ancestry.

  “Find me your water paints, niece.” The request sent Char Pangfa scurrying off.

  “We have to change the color of your skin,” Char Dami told Penrys. “Too light, and the wrong tone.”

  When Char Pangfa returned, her aunt showed her how to add pigment to a clear cream. After some tests on Penrys’s hands, they coated her hands, face, and neck with the result, and then drew lines to tilt the impression of her eyes and add some shading to hollow her cheeks a bit. The last touch was to darken her eyebrows from brown to Kigali black.

  When they finally let her see a mirror, Penrys blinked in surprise. She didn’t make a very attractive Kigalino, but she no longer looked like a foreigner.

  She raised her hand to her throat with the prominent chain. “What about this? It’s got to be hidden.”

  Char Dami looked at her niece. “What do you think?”

  The child cocked her head on one side. “A woman like that wouldn’t wear silk. A cotton scarf would be best.”

  The older woman nodded. “A colorful one would suit the occasion, too. Go choose one.”

  Char Pangfa rummaged through the indicated chest and returned with something vibrant in reds and yellows, and Char Dami arranged it carefully and securely so that no trace of the chain was visible.

  When Penrys raised an eyebrow at the loud colors, Char Dami cleared her throat apologetically. “They’ll be so busy looking at the scarf in astonishment, they won’t notice your face.”

  “Thank you, minochiwen,” Penrys said. She smiled and bowed to each of t
hem in turn. “I am deeply appreciative of your help.”

  Char Pangfa wrapped Penrys’s old clothing into a tidy packet and presented it to her with a grin. “Will you come back and tell us what happened?”

  “Child!” Char Dami chided. “That is not the teken’s concern.”

  Penrys bowed deeply to Char Pangfa and promised her. “I’ll return when it’s over, and tell you all about it.”

  Outside the Zannib embassy, Penrys contemplated her options.

  There was something important she needed from her packs, but she didn’t want Mir Tojit to know she was there. He certainly reported to Imperial Security, but she had no way to know if he was loyal to Tun Jeju or part of whatever else might be going on there, if Chosmod was right.

  A quick local mind-scan placed Talqatin alone in his kazr, in the little garden alongside the southern wall of the compound, and she turned the corner and walked casually to the other side of that wall.

  No one had given her a second look as she proceeded through the streets from the Char compound, and she didn’t want them to notice her now. She stooped for a few small rocks from the edge of the gutter and waited for the few people in the street to pass, and then she popped one stone blindly over the wall the direction of the kazr.

  She was in luck—she heard the thump as it hit the canvas-covered felts and felt Talqatin’s startlement. Unfortunately he settled back down to his work, and she cursed under her breath.

  Another rock flew over the wall, and missed, and she followed it with a third that was successful. This time he rose and stood in the doorway.

  “Baijukti, is that you? How old are you?” The tone of affectionate rebuke painted a vivid picture for Penrys of a mischievous young girl dropping rocks down on her father’s kazr while he tried to get his work done.

  “Sorry, it’s one of your guests, tawirqaj,” she called softly over the wall. “Can you come and speak to me at the gates, and not let anyone know, especially your majordomo?”

  There was silence for a moment, then he said, “Stand near the gates but out of sight. I’ll find an errand to send him away.”

  She watched from across the street as the main gates were opened. Mir Tojit strode out with a young servant to carry things for him, and the gates were shut behind them. The two of them walked south toward the town, and then one of the gates gaped open and Talqatin appeared there and searched the street, up and down.

  Even as Penrys walked directly toward him, with her head down and her demeanor modest, he ignored her until she was just a few yards away, and then an expression of surprise crossed his face that gratified her immensely. I’ll have to tell Char Dami how well it worked.

  She bowed to him in character and held out her hand as if supplicating him for something.

  “Sorry for the roundabout communication. It’s a long story, and I don’t know enough about whatever factions there are in Imperial Security to trust any of their men assigned to you.”

  His lips quirked. “You do make a somewhat unlikely Kigalino, and yet I didn’t know you for a foreigner. Any news about Najud or Munraz?”

  “You know what Munraz wrote, but I’ve heard since that he slipped away a day ago from his well-meaning rescuers. I would have expected him back already, so it’s puzzling what might have delayed him.” She drew a breath. “About Najud and the others, nothing. You?”

  He shook his head. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m headed up there.” She hooked her thumb toward the distant cages ascending the cliff face of Tegong Him. “I looked at it last night, in the dark, and now I need to see it up close. There’s a nest of shielded wizards up there.”

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t dare go in, don’t know who all you’ve got in there and who they report to. Sorry to ask it of you, but could you take this package of my old clothes and perhaps fetch me something from my packs?”

  He suppressed what Penrys thought might have been an eye-roll in other circumstances. “What do you need?”

  “Thank you, tawirqaj. Trust me, it’s diplomacy by other means.” She quickly sketched out for him which pack she meant in their work room, and where the pouch of power-stones could be found. “It’s too large for me to carry the whole thing around. What I need is a small pouch that would fit in a pocket—just scoop up a handful and pour them in.”

  “Wouldn’t some weapons be more useful?” he said with some exasperation.

  “Oh, I have those, too. These are just a different kind. Mind you bury the big sack carefully in the pack afterward, please. In the wrong hands…” You have no idea what they could do. Or what they’re worth.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  Najud’s complaint was for Vylkar’s ear alone. Most of the day had been consumed in quiet conversations among the prisoners in twos and threes, interspersed with some of the exercises Najud had initiated to polish their group shield work. Considering that they were all senior in their professions, there was little to hold them in that.

  Vylkar glanced over at Najud. “Patience, my young friend. Politicians move slowly.”

  “But not Penrys,” Najud muttered, and Vylkar’s solemn face broke into a smile.

  “Nothing has changed, I see. She was always impatient of restrictions and the slow pace of others.”

  “What was it like when you found her?” Najud asked. “I’ve heard her version of the story.”

  Vylkar shifted his position and the ankle chain chinked. The shackles were no longer latched shut, but they kept up the pretense for now.

  “It was like watching a star blaze up and then be muffled of most of its light. It roused both my mother and me, and I took my men from the country estate to go looking for it. When we found her, she had no expression at all, and wouldn’t talk. She didn’t even shiver in the snow.”

  He pursed his lips. “I’d never heard of anything like it before, nor did I find much later, when I looked. It never occurred to me she would be a wizard until I went to probe her mind, and she snapped her shield in place.”

  He looked around their cell. “An impenetrable shield much like this one.”

  “You remember what I told you about the qahulajti we found, in the west of sarq-Zannib? Did you know that Penrys gave her a name, just before the end? She called her Vylkerri, after you.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Vylkar said, somewhat taken aback.

  Najud glanced at his face. He could understand why Penrys was grateful for his mentorship, but not unduly concerned with his feelings. It was clear she was more a puzzle for him than a member of his family.

  “Why is it she chose the library and research over teaching? Was she not welcome at the Collegium?”

  Vylkar permitted himself a small smile. “There was some debate about it. Her shield was stronger than anyone’s, her reach longer, and so forth. You can imagine this disturbed my colleagues. They were at a loss for how to… place her.

  “There was much she didn’t know of a mundane nature, of course, but that was a need that could be filled by books. There was little they could show her regarding basic wizardry skills—once seen, easily mastered. So, on the one hand she was beyond the students in the classes, and on the other, the least little thing might be a surprise to her.

  “They didn’t dare put students in her charge, for not knowing what she might do. But she didn’t belong in their classes either. The best thing for her seemed to be the library. When they decided to classify her as a hakkengenni, an adept in the old tongue, that satisfied them. Foolishly, I thought—to name something is not necessarily to understand it.”

  Vylkar glanced at Najud to make sure he took his point. Najud nodded, to encourage him to continue.

  “When I heard she was forming professional relationships with the older researchers, I was pleased. They told me she brought new, and sometimes shocking, interpretations to bear on what they were doing from what she was reading, but that’s a common perception of rival scholars.”

&
nbsp; He pursed his lips with a look of discomfort. “I didn’t quite realize just how deeply she was experimenting with devices, nor did I know anything about the wings. I’m afraid I just thought of her as unique, as a…”

  As a specimen, not a person in your care, or a contributor to the Collegium’s knowledge. Najud didn’t want to be rude enough to say it out loud.

  “So it was a surprise when she vanished,” he suggested.

  Vylkar nodded. “The device she was building was undisturbed, but there was a fresh layer of dust, as though a wind had blown through the room, and there were no footprints. One researcher in a nearby rooms had heard a dull sort of pop but couldn’t place it. It was a complete mystery to us until her letter arrived, a few months ago.”

  A cold place, this Ellech, and a cold welcome. But Pen-sha was right—it could have been so much worse. All he had to do was think of the qahulajti, lacking human contact at all until it was too late, to agree with her.

  To his left, Gen Jongto spoke over the napping Char Dazu. “I don’t believe the notju meant for any of you to be put into danger by his invitation. He has the emperor’s mandate, but this is a very large potential change in the political balance in Kigali. There will always be entrenched players who want no change, and hidden players with their own agendas. Our captors could be any of a number of groups I can think of, and there are probably others I don’t know.”

  He leaned forward to speak over the recumbent Char Dazu. “We need to know who’s holding us, and why.”

  “Not just for the politics,” Najud said. He waved a hand at Mrigasba and Ijumo, across from them. “That fever isn’t getting any better, and all the wounds need tending.”

  Mrigasba shrugged. “I’m well enough, if I don’t have to move too much, but I’m worried about Ijumo.” He said it quietly enough that the Ndano didn’t wake from his restless doze.

  Najud tested the cuts on his arm and in his side with the pressure of his hand. Sore, they were, and they might break open still, but other than the stale smell of blood on the unchanged improvised shirt bandage, he thought they were healing, slowly.