by Karen Myers
A hand grabbed her ankle. “Get in here, jarghalti.”
When she didn’t react, Munraz said, “That was supposed to be you!”
She should pursue the woman who had impersonated her. She should track her. Was she really a chained wizard, or was that part of a costume? She must know where the captives are. If any are still alive.
Her skin was cold and she couldn’t make herself take a step. How much time has passed?
The square was half-empty now, and some of the imperial guards were beginning to turn from their duties as protectors to come and see exactly what had happened. All this while, the cheerful fireworks behind her banged and exploded, and their reflected colors decorated the stonework of the buildings around the square.
A pinch on her calf made her look down into Munraz’s scared face, peering up from the storm drain. “Jarghalti… Penrys, get in here. Hurry!”
I’ve just become the most hunted woman in Kigali. It seemed as if she had all the time in the world to make up her mind, and she shook her head to clear it. The approaching guards would have a view of this spot in just a few moments.
She swerved a couple of steps to an abandoned vendor’s booth and tore off a piece of its flimsy wooden canopy support before returning and lifting the grate far enough to slip inside.
“Out of the way,” she spat, and set her foot on the first rung without checking to see if he’d complied.
CHAPTER 23
Everything was ready. They’d finalized all the plans and settled or shelved all objections, and all Najud was waiting for was the entrance of their jailer with the evening meal.
They still didn’t know where they were, but Gen Jongto was firm in his assertion that he could find shelter anywhere in Yenit Ping, and they had little choice but to trust him, and hope that they hadn’t been carried somewhere else. The fact that three of them were obvious foreigners was a problem, but one they could do nothing about.
Najud had his own difficulties. He believed that the shield around them was tied to the place rather than to them as individuals, and if they just moved beyond its range they would have a lead before the captors could react. But he couldn’t prove his assumption right, not even to himself, and it was not the sort of weakness a leader could admit to.
They’re careless. They’ve got at least one chained wizard with them, and they’ve gotten used to relying on that strength. He recognized the temptation from working with Penrys.
Mrigasba had shut down all speculation about what might be happening to Ijumo. “Put it out of your minds,” he’d said. “It can only weaken you.”
He’d caught Najud’s eye when he said it, and Najud had returned a tiny nod. Char Dazu to his left was inexperienced and young, but willing to try. They didn’t want to unnerve him with dire thoughts. Vylkar and Gen Jongto were as calm as ever. The ankle shackles had been removed but left in place by the legs they were supposed to restrain to keep the illusion as long as possible.
Najud held one of the small knives from his turban—he’d given the other blade to Gen Jongto.
What’s keeping our jailer?
The sound of footsteps coming toward the door raised all their heads, and Najud had to hiss and gesture to make Char Dazu lie back and feign sleep, stretched out with his feet toward the wall. Two men entered, their usual keeper and an armed guard.
Gen Jongto moved aside slowly, as if weary and beaten down, and the wizard stepped toward him to hasten the process. The guard followed him in past the doorway, and Gen Jongto watched for the signal from Najud that there was no one else lingering outside.
At his nod, Char Dazu reached out along the floor and tripped the jailer, and Gen Jongto pounced upon the guard, with Mrigasba to back him up. Najud, Vylkar, and Char Dazu flung themselves on the wizard and imposed a shield around him so he couldn’t summon help. He fought and squirmed, trying to raise a cry if not a mind-shout, and Najud worried he might shake them off yet, if he could reach a knife, so he picked his moment and stabbed his short blade through the man’s eye and tried not to think about it.
As soon as the blow was struck, Vylkar and Char Dazu abandoned the dying man to help the others, and Najud smothered the man with his body until the throes were over and pulled the knife from the socket.
When he finally stood up to look, he found Gen Jongto casually going through the guard’s equipment and distributing everything useful. He eyed Char Dazu, and told him, “You’ll fit these clothes—I won’t.”
The young man swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”
Gen Jongto told him, “You’ll be the guard leading the prisoners somewhere, if anyone sees us. It’s not much by way of misdirection, but it’ll buy us a few seconds, maybe, if we need them.”
Char Dazu nodded unsteadily, and began stripping the body of its outer clothing. He used his own discarded clothes to wipe the blood off, and Najud recognized the effort he was making to maintain his calm in the violent circumstances. He gripped his shoulder as he walked past him, in silent approval.
“Ready to travel?” he asked Mrigasba.
“As well as you are,” the Rasesni shrugged.
A noise penetrated the building that held them, muffled by the stone walls—bangs and whistles, firm, then fading away, and repeated.
Gen Jongto lifted his head and grinned broadly at them all, a shock after his usual sober demeanor. “I know where we are—this is Juhim Tep, and the Lenju ka Yukmat, the Festival of Lights. Get me out to the streets and I can hide you.”
Vylkar looked surprisingly natural, despite his gray hair, with the guard’s longsword on its belt wrapped around his waist. He turned to Najud. “Shields up. You hold them, and we’ll do the fighting.”
As a group, under their shield, they stepped out of the cell into the corridor. Char Dazu was in the lead in his persona as guard, but Gen Jongto had a hand under his elbow, guiding him without words. No one was out there, and they turned left, the way the jailer had come, until they reached an outer door.
Gen Jongto tried the handle—it was unlatched, and Najud could tell his opinion of that level of security by his expressively raised eyebrow. He couldn’t spare too much attention to the details, since the surrounding shield that had silenced them for two days was starting to attenuate. If they came to the notice of the chained wizard who had taken Ijumo away, it would all be for naught.
They pushed through the doorway and into the back of a compound that seemed largely deserted. Gen Jongto held his hand up to stop them, and then peered cautiously around the corner of the building before returning.
“There’s an outer door. We were in some kind of storehouse. The door may be guarded…”
Najud muttered, “Please look, Char-chi.” He didn’t dare take his attention from their group shield. The noise of the fireworks was louder outside, and distracting. It almost seemed as if he heard shouting some distance away.
Char Dazu’s presence pulled away and then rejoined him. “One man nearby,” he announced.
“Then you will walk up to it in your official capacity and summon him out.” Gen Jongto’s voice left no room for disagreement. “I’ll be behind you, humble and beaten, with my hands crossed behind me as if bound.”
He left Char Dazu no time to reconsider, almost pushing him forward, until they reached the smallest booth of a guard post inside this back gate.
“Yeah? What do you want?” The belligerent guard was still chewing a mouthful of his dinner as he walked outside.
“Will you make me yell at you across the yard?” Char Dazu did his best impression of an arrogant superior, and the gatekeeper straightened up and approached. Gen Jongto waited until he came within unsuspecting reach and made short work of him with the knife in his unbound hands. The two Kigaliwen carried the body back inside to evade detection, and then joined the other three at the gate.
Gen Jongto looked at them and smiled wolfishly. “Shall we leave, binochiwen?” He unbolted the gate and opened it, and they all slipped out into the da
rk streets, and pushed the gate shut behind them.
Char Dazu dropped back to Najud while Gen Jongto led them through the back streets, searching for some landmark he knew. “Do we still need the shield?” he asked Najud.
“If I drop it in order to look around, and attract the wrong notice, well… Better to keep it up and look around later.” Najud glanced back at Mrigasba who was moving a bit unsteadily. Vylkar had an arm around his waist, and when he looked at Najud, he cocked his head forward, as if to say, “keep going.” Najud nodded back and did his best to keep up with Gen Jongto, casting about up ahead like a questing wolf.
The fireworks were winding down, but he still thought he heard the sound of an angry crowd. Gen Jongto had come to a halt up ahead, just short of a larger road, and when he caught up, he asked him, “Do you hear that, too?”
“Yes, and I overheard people talking in the street. Something happened at the festival, something serious. I should find out what.”
Najud reared his head back. “And leave us all dangling out here?”
Gen Jongto kicked the storm drain at his feet. “Still have your little pick, in that treasure house you call a turban? They took my key.”
Najud, slow to follow, looked down into the column of blackness. “The tunnels are real?”
“That’s where we’re going. You lupjuwen will go down and wait for me—don’t leave the bottom of the ladder and watch your footing! I’ll come back as quickly as I can.”
He pointed out the lock, and Najud bent down and got to work with his clumsy bandaged hands while Gen Jongto walked briskly back toward the disturbance. Vylkar and Mrigasba joined them, and Najud continued to work on the recalcitrant lock while Char Dazu relayed the conversation.
With a muffled click, the lock yielded, and Najud let Char Dazu lift the grate despite the resistance of its rusty hinge. His arm and side were feeling the work he’d put them through since the killing of their keeper, and he thought the wounds might both be bleeding again. “You first, Vylkar. Stop when you reach the bottom. Mrigasba will follow you.”
Vylkar made no objection and backed down the shaft he found, feeling carefully for each rung. At a depth of perhaps three stories, he called up softly, “Send him down.”
Najud braced Mrigasba’s shoulders. “Not much further.”
The Rasesni gritted his teeth. “And I was always so fond of heights.”
“Good thing these are depths instead, then.” Najud grinned at him and sent him on his way, listening for any sounds of pursuit. He could still hear the noise of a disturbance at a distance, and the occasional loud conversation of people passing on the cross street.
Eventually Vylkar called up again. “Follow me down,” Najud told Char Dazu, “and as soon as I get a few steps below you, lower the grate as you come. Gen Jongto can lift it for himself when he returns.” If he returns. If not, then what? Wander through the dark tunnels till our beards grow white? Pop up in daylight into the arms of our captors again?
Some version of this litany occupied him all the way down, until he set his foot on the solid tunnel floor, only to trip over Mrigasba seated there. “Sorry,” the man muttered, and Najud helped him clear a space for Char Dazu. They all collapsed in a heap and set themselves to wait.
A good hour passed, just long enough to stiffen up nicely, before a voice called softly down. “Still there?”
“We’re here,” Najud called back, just as quietly.
The grate above opened to let in one person, and then closed again. In a few moments, Gen Jongto was with them. Najud was still concentrating on holding the shield, and it was too dark to see Gen’s face, but he could feel the strain in the air.
“What did you find out?” he asked.
Gen Jongto paused before speaking. “Ijumo is dead. I’m sorry, Najud, but the witnesses think Penrys killed him.”
Najud’s muscles clenched in rage at such an accusation, but before he could act, Vylkar laid a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. Can’t you hear in his voice that he doesn’t believe it himself?”
It was true, and Najud subsided again, still twitching. He clung tiredly to the shield he was maintaining with the other wizards and tried to regain some equilibrium.
“Tell us the full story,” he said hoarsely.
“I spoke to two of the imperial guards. The performance before the emperor was the usual broad rural presentation, with the masked masters of light and darkness. In this case, it was a mistress of darkness, but that’s not completely unheard of.
“At the end, when the dark is supposed to attack the light and then suffer defeat, the woman used a real sword to cut the throat of the man in the mask of the light, tied with real ropes to a stage tree. Under the mask, it was Ijumo, and the woman wore a chain like your wife. The body was still there—I saw it.”
“And the woman was Penrys?” Najud was finding it difficult to speak.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Gen Jongto said, and there were intakes of breath all around. “The witnesses say she never took her mask off, and the chain could be a fake. Everyone was too shocked to look behind the stage in time to catch the actors. The musicians played from the rear and couldn’t see what was happening, and everyone else fled—the announcer, the woman, the man who played the master of light until the end, and whoever helped them prepare.”
He shrugged. “The guards said they expect to find a troupe of dead players around somewhere. But meanwhile there are rumors flying around and no one knows what the truth is.”
“If they see her on the street…” Najud couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yes, that would be a problem. But the news will travel fast and she’ll probably hear it.” Gen Jongto seemed to be treating this all rather casually, Najud thought.
“Meanwhile, we have to give some thought to next steps. I know these tunnels, but we need light to navigate them.”
“Which we haven’t got,” Vylkar said, wearily. “We may have to break up our group shield soon—it takes a great deal of effort—and revert to individual ones. We’re too close to the compound where we were held, for my taste, but at least we’re hidden in an unlikely location. It’s always been my experience that people forget to look up or down when seeking someone, and we’re well ‘down’ now.
Mrigasba chose that moment to close his eyes and pull out of the group shield. Najud monitored him to make sure he raised one for himself before he sank into sleep. “Can you keep watch for a while, Char-chi?” he asked. “You’re the most wide-awake of the four of us.”
He could feel himself fading, so he dropped the group shield altogether and curled up on the hard stone floor.
“I could’ve done it tonight. I was right there!”
Tsek Uchang in his amber robes thankfully no longer paced the floor when he was agitated, but he hadn’t grown out of his impatience in any other way Tsek Anbu could detect.
The atmosphere in his reception room was tense, reflecting the mixed results of the evening’s events. How can I get him to focus on the small steps that will take him where we want to go? Shortcuts lead to disaster—he should know that by now. What has my cousin been teaching him?
“The two guards which are mine were there. We could have removed the emperor while everyone was distracted.”
“Yes, and then what?” Tsek Anbu replied, goaded into a testy reply. “Did you plan to go through all the heirs up on the platform? Who would finish the young ones still at home? You haven’t even been legitimized yet—until you take the yellow, no one will take you seriously as the successor.”
He took a breath and added soothing tones to his voice. “We can get all of this done, but not if you try to shorten the process. Look what we’ve accomplished tonight—another foreign wizard ripped from the shelter of the emperor and killed, and their biggest weapon, that teken, neutralized. No one will trust her now.”
“But you’ve lost the rest of the foreign lupjuwen.” Tsek Uchang sneered and it was all Tsek Anbu could do to hold his temper. That news had st
ung, but he concealed the smart.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve proven we can seize the emperor’s guests and abuse them, and no one can prevent us. We’ve seized them once, and we can do it again. They don’t know who we are, but we can find them whenever we want to.”
He was waiting for his tekenwen to report the overflight of that Penrys tonight, and her capture or death. That’s why his coverage of the captives had weakened—one teken for the mistress of the dark, and two to search for the foreigner. Even if she escaped, her influence was gone. He smiled at the thought. Should he add his third teken to the other two, or send her to search for the escapees? No, better to strengthen his guard tonight—he meant what he’d said, that he could capture the foreign lupjuwen again later. Where could they go, after all?
“I don’t understand why you care so much about one Zannib woman,” Tsek Uchang complained.
“Indeed you don’t understand. I’ll be sure to demonstrate for you, as soon as we get her.”
Tsek Uchang on the throne, and a separate lupju guild in the upper city, and his family in charge of both. Those were the stakes he was playing for.
He sighed and turned himself to applying some unctuous flattery to his imperial fool. Can’t afford to lose any prestige with him now. I’m going to need him firmly in hand to make this happen.
Penrys went to work just around a tunnel bend from the the intersection with the grate, feeling her way carefully behind Munraz. “I’m going to be making light,” she’d told him, and I don’t want it to leak upward.”
She thought about next steps—she was going to need light to make a bendu, a device that would shed light. How to start the process?