by Karen Myers
Penrys surveyed the dusty faces, torn rags, and sagging postures all around her. “Don’t think we look too impressive, do you? Let’s go change that, Gen-chi. How much further?”
“Not far at all,” he said. “The last intersection should be about a hundred yards.”
After they trudged behind him a little while, he was proved correct. The small tunnel continued on its way, but there was a fork to the right that connected to a larger, well-worn ancient tunnel that ran both ways—southeast toward the cliff, and north, deeper into Tegong Him. It sloped down gradually to the southeast, and that’s the direction they took.
Penrys could tell from the minds beyond the cliff within reach of her scan that they were approaching ground level for the lower town. Fifteen minutes later, the tunnel widened into a broad excavated hall, with actual tables and chairs. Several floor-standing candle holders with dead stubs and old dripped piles of wax beneath them attested to the lighting arrangements. She ran a finger across one of the tables and it came back only slightly dusty.
The tunnel exited this hall with a sharp bend to the left and came to an end, at a wide wooden door, hinged on the other side. The door was oddly constructed, to Penrys’s eye—almost as if the wood were woven instead of solid, with gaps nearly the size of her hand wherever the pieces crossed.
“Ventilation?” she asked Gen Jongto.
He shrugged. “Probably. Let’s find out if it’s locked.”
Vylkar held up his hand. “What’s on the other side?”
“A warehouse, lupju, and I hope Char Dazu can come up with the name of a few friends in the Armorers’ Guild, because they’re not going to be happy to see strangers arriving out of this door.”
CHAPTER 26
In the end, Penrys and Char Dazu working together did the equivalent of knocking on the door. Penrys reached out to shield all the wizards in the immediate vicinity, and Char Dazu announced himself under the shield to the nearest ones.
*Char Dazu of the lupjuwen of the Pharmacists’ Guild presents himself and companions at your back door on urgent business and seeks audience of the samkatju of the Armorers’ Guild.*
Penrys chuckled as she felt the wave of astonishment flow through the wizards who were targeted. “Well, that got their attention,” she said. The disturbance reached most of the wizards under the shield that hadn’t been targeted just a few moments later as the word spread, like the ripples from a rock thrown into a pond.
It took a little time for the surprise to be digested. And then a cautious mind-voice replied. *We are honored by your visit, Char-chi. Please allow us a moment to prepare to properly receive you. May we know the identity of those with you? And were you, perhaps, responsible for the strange noise a couple of hours ago?*
Char Dazu looked at Penrys with a question in his eye, and she shrugged. “Might as well tell him.”
*Yes, that was us. I’m traveling with Gen Jongto of Imperial Security and several foreign lupjuwen. It is, I fear, a lengthy tale.*
*So we would imagine. We look forward to hearing it.*
Penrys felt twenty or more people converging on the other side of the door, and a growing illumination became visible through the air gaps of the door. “Here they come. Let’s try for a little diplomatic dignity, now.” She glanced around at the ragged vagabonds and snorted.
With a snap of bolts pulled open, the door creaked back and the light of their device torches merged with that of the sconces along the walls of what seemed to be a warehouse with fully loaded shelves and a wide passageway down the center, aligned with the door.
The sconces were still coming alive as the escapees walked into the building from the tunnel, Penrys noticed. No doubt the wizard powering them was doing it as quickly as he could. She pulled the power back from the power-stones in the device torches and they went dark. *Munraz, please gather them. I’ll need to salvage their power-stones later.*
While that was happening, she joined Gen Jongto and stood behind Char Dazu in support. An older woman and two men in a similar configuration waited partway down the corridor while two impromptu columns of guards lined up on either side.
The reception trio wore ordinary Kigali dress, but the guards seem to have been assembled on the fly from people working in all sorts of capacities within the compounds of the Armorers’ Guild. Some were in uniform clothing, as if they really were guards, but many were in working clothing, some still in stiff leather aprons, the sort used by blacksmiths. A few looked as if their evening convivial activities had been interrupted.
All of them, Penrys was interested to see, were wizards.
Without apparently watching the guards directly, the woman leading them waited until all of her escort had arrived, and Char Dazu and his party waited equally patiently as if nothing were more normal than to emerge from the clandestine tunnels of Tegong Him in rags and dust and demand an audience.
In her own good time, the woman bowed to Char Dazu. “I am Wok Tomai, the sister of our samkatju. With me are Wok Panwit and Wok Sojit.”
Char Dazu bowed in return. “It’s an honor to meet you, Wok-chi. Let me present Gen Jongto of Imperial Security, and some of our visiting foreign lupjuwen—Penrys, her husband Najud, and their apprentice Munraz from sarq-Zannib, Vylkar of Ellech, and Mrigasba of Rasesdad.”
Penrys waited for her cue from Gen Jongto, and then joined all the others in bowing to Wok Tomai.
“The lupju Ijumo is not with you, Char-chi?” The woman knew more than Penrys had expected.
“Ijumo was publicly murdered last night, lupju.” Gen Jongto spoke without softening the news. “By an impostor pretending to be Penrys.”
“I see.” The woman’s carefully neutral response made Penrys’s jaw tighten, but she said nothing.
Wok Tomai looked them over again and came to a decision. “I will convey your wish to speak with my brother to him. Meanwhile, I see that some of you are injured and perhaps you would care to bathe? We’ll do our best to provide you with adequate clothing until yours can be… repaired.”
Burned, more likely. Penrys was all too conscious of the appearance they presented.
Char Dazu bowed to her again and belatedly Penrys joined in when Gen Jongto did. “We are obliged to the hospitality of the Armorers’ Guild,” he said. “It would indeed be very welcome to… wash the dust of our journey away before disturbing the samkatju with our presence. Our urgency can wait that long.”
Penrys felt a flash of humor from Wok Tomai. The woman called over her shoulder, without looking, “Wok Limdo, please fetch the physicians on duty to the night-shift barracks and clear out anyone who might be inside, with my apologies. And send Wok Lorchit to me there.”
A guard in workman’s clothing near the front of the left-hand column bowed silently and trotted off.
Wok Tomai bowed again to her unexpected guests. “Well. Please follow me, binochiwen, and excuse our lack of ceremony. We are a practical guild, as I’m sure you will have heard. Better to make sure our visitors don’t collapse on our doorstep before they can speak.”
Penrys felt almost human again.
Apparently the craft workers of the Armorers’ Guild were provided with a place to sleep and bathe, if they chose not to return to their own dwellings. The requirements of the industrial processes they executed overrode the social schedules of work hours, and it was normal for the barracks, assigned by work-shift, to support several people off-shift. There was even a common eating area for all three shifts together, where simple food was available at any hour.
Men and women bathed separately, and Penrys had been alone but for an uncomfortable-looking male guard at the door and a female servant within to help her. It was an indescribable pleasure to sluice off the remains of the Kigali disguise and all the filth of the journey through the tunnels—a return to civilization.
She’d tried not to think of the rivulet of Ijumo’s blood whenever she looked at the streams of water pouring over her.
The garments that had been hurri
edly provided were ordinary drab working clothing for the female workers. She retained her weaponry and belt with its pouches, and the scarf wrapped around the remaining fragments of wood. “Would it be possible,” she asked the servant, “to get any sort of rough bag? My companion Munraz is carrying around some sticks for me, and I need to keep the ends of them—he can show you. But it’s too much for pockets. My companions had something…”
“I’ll see to that for you, minochi.” The servant bowed before returning Penrys to the care of her guard.
The guard conveyed her to the common eating area where a corner had been cleared off just for their party, to keep their conversation from the ears of anyone else. The room as a whole was well-occupied, not just with the off-shift workers who would naturally be there, but also with the curious, Penrys suspected.
Vylkar and Gen Jongto had arrived before her, each with his own armed escort. She smiled to herself to see that Vylkar lost none of his dignity even with wet hair and clad in impromptu Kigali clothing, rather too short for him. Gen Jongto was at home in the clothes, of course, his damp braid tidy and restored to its natural color.
Pitchers of bunnas and water on the table and small platters of tidbits made her mouth water. “This is just to tide us over,” Gen Jongto warned her. “I expect something more serious is being prepared, and you will want to be properly appreciative, so…”
“I’ll try to not to overdo it,” she reassured him. “Where are the others?”
“Mrigasba and your husband are with the physicians,” Vylkar said, “and Char Dazu is supervising. When I last saw your apprentice, he was watching a man carve off the working ends of those torches— something about carrying them for you.”
He looked at her. “Why not just dig out the power-stones? Less for you to carry.”
“I noticed some of the device torches behaved a little differently from the others. I wanted to inspect my setup in detail and do some comparisons, see if I can figure out why. Maybe it’s something useful to know.”
Vylkar was silent for a moment. “Sometimes I believe your adventures have changed you out of all recognition. And then there are moments like this, where I believe you haven’t altered at all. Give you a place to work and the right books, and who knows what you might come up with. Don’t you miss all that? The advancement of knowledge?”
She half-smiled at him. “I will always feel the curiosity and thrill of discovery—you’re right. But if I’d stayed in the Collegium, I would have missed my husband. I can’t go back to that life, bilappa, and wouldn’t want to.”
“But the nomadic life of the traditional Zannib? I can’t picture it.” Vylkar shook his head.
“I’ll admit, it was an adjustment, life in a kazr. You should come by the Zannib embassy and see the one Talqatin keeps in his garden, as an office. Can’t carry many books that way, but it’s not a bad life, and you don’t travel in the winter. Some Zannib don’t travel at all.”
“Besides,” she said, “did you know that Najud has ambitions to found a school at the base of his new caravan route, in the west of sarq-Zannib? He’s always wanted to see the Collegium. I’ll never lose my desire to tinker with the limits of what wizardry can do, or the design of devices, and if we can build another research institution, in a city that might someday rival Qawrash im-Dhal as a center of trade, I can think of worse legacies.”
She leaned forward. “Vylkar, the most important research I will ever do will be the answer to the question of the chained wizards—where we come from and who made us, and why. When I think of those chains, heaped up on a table in the cells below Imperial Security, and all the dead wizards that wore them… Those people are nothing more now than broken devices, like the torches Munraz is breaking up for my convenience—turned out without regard to the consequence, and discarded without thought, like a burnt-out power-stone.”
Her throat closed up with unexpected emotion. I need sleep. I need to distance myself from the events of the last couple of days. And here’s Gen Jongto, listening to every word.
She slashed her hand through the air at chest level. “Enough. Sennevi. I can’t solve that puzzle today. We have enough problems to deal with for now.”
Turning her shoulder to Vylkar to break off the topic, Penrys caught sight of Munraz coming their way, with his escort. His eyes were wide, taking in every detail, and she was happy to see that he carried a plain canvas bag in his hand. His wet curls looked strange with his Kigali clothing, but he seemed none the worse for wear.
He was followed at no great distance by Char Dazu, accompanying Najud and Mrigasba. All three looked much better. Char Dazu had acquired dignity and stature over the last few days, despite his youth, and the two injured men looked weary, still, but livelier. All the men except the bearded Vylkar were clean-shaven again.
Penrys wouldn’t embarrass Najud in a room full of strangers, but her questions must have been apparent on her face, for the first thing he told her was, “We’re fine, both of us—much improved.”
She glanced down at his hands, freshly wrapped, with salve visible in odd spots.
“I didn’t say I was healed yet, Pen-sha, just much better.”
It was oddly intimate to see him in public without his turban, his shoulder-length curls damp and coiling. She didn’t trust herself to speak, and contented herself with pushing the chair beside her out from the table with her foot and inviting him to join her there.
They refreshed themselves with bits of food for a quarter of an hour while the rest of the people in the room cast surreptitious glances their way. The lines on all their faces told their own tale of lack of sleep and stressful captivity, but the brief interlude revived their spirits, and Penrys thought they were ready when Wok Tomai rejoined them, and everyone rose respectfully.
“Have you received everything you need?” she asked.
Char Dazu said, “We are most grateful for this opportunity to prepare for our audience with your brother.”
“I am to conduct you, when it is time, to the samkatju. We took the liberty, in the interval, to summon a few others to hear your story, under the safety of our roof.”
At Char Dazu’s raised eyebrows, she continued. “Perhaps you have not heard, in your… absence, of the new Guild?”
“Penrys told us,” he said.
“With all respect to the teken, I think she may not know the most recent news… We have settled the initial matters of government for the guild. Your uncle, Char Notju, is advisor—I thing that will not surprise you—and my brother, Wok Tori, is now samkatju of the whole guild, not just of our house.”
Char Dazu inclined his head. “I did not know, Wok-chi. That may simplify matters.”
“Indeed. In that capacity he has summoned both your uncle and Rin Tsugo, the samkatju of the chained ones. The tekenwen have decided to form their own sub-guild within the larger lupjuwen one, counting themselves a specialized group, a gewengep, a brotherhood instead of a family clan.”
She glanced at Mrigasba. “Our messenger encountered Chosmod in Char Notju’s company, and he was insistent upon coming. He has just arrived and is currently making a case for Mpeowake and Tun Jeju to be invited as well.”
Gen Jongto bowed and said, “This is exactly as we would have wished. I hope care is being taken to avoid spies? We have reason to think all of our movements are being watched, including possible spies within the embassies and other lupjuwen.”
Wok Tomai waved a hand in the air. “We weren’t born yesterday, shaibo. The brown-robes didn’t invent security, whatever their pretensions and title.”
Penrys watched Gen Jongto’s face freeze in courteous impenetrability and choked down a laugh. She wondered how Tun Jeju would get along with her.
Char Dazu bowed to her, dignified even in his rough borrowed clothing. “We’re ready, Wok Tomai.”
Penrys plucked the canvas bag out of Munraz’s hand and took charge of it, after adding the poor abused scarf with its scraps of wood. They filed out, and she hear
d the silence of the witnesses in the room break into excited conversation before the door could shut behind them.
CHAPTER 27
Wok Tomai, accompanied by their escort of guards, led her unexpected visitors through more than one linked compound without ever setting foot out of doors.
Penrys formed the impression of buildings dedicated to smelting and refining, full of heat and metallic stinks. There was a clamor of hammers striking in uncoordinated individual rhythms.
While they were in the area of the raw ore working, a constant traffic accompanied them, making room for Wok Tomai’s party to slip through as if they were insulated from all friction. Men, and some women, with smuts on their faces and scars on their protective leather aprons looked up in surprise when they saw them, but hurried along to wherever they were going without stopping.
The further they got from the heat, the more the workshops were dark, their fires not needing to be maintained all day and all night for efficiency. The workers vanished along with the fires, until only a light evening foot traffic crossed their paths. Eventually they crossed over from the working buildings to the offices and reception rooms of the guild.
The sconces on the walls of the corridors here were dimmed to a quiet nighttime glow. Char Dazu looked startled to see them, and then Penrys remembered that in his compound the visible devices like lights were only used in areas that expected no one but wizards. In this compound, such things were common and out in the open, even in a warehouse, like the one they arrived in.
She wondered about the candles in the hall in the tunnel, just the other side of that warehouse door. Perhaps not everyone who used the tunnels, whatever their purpose was, happened to be a wizard, and alternate lighting was needed.
No wonder this place had blazed with wizard activity when she overflew it two night ago. Was it only two nights ago? How is that possible?
Her whole body cried out for sleep, but this meeting couldn’t be delayed. She eyed the doorway up ahead, its two doors spread wide in welcome.