Broken Devices

by Karen Myers

  She followed the others into an elegant room of some size, its walls hung with subdued fabrics with highlights of gold and silver over red. Soft rugs in reds and blues were scattered so thickly that the gleaming hardwood was barely visible. Sconces with power-stones provided an even light, and in the center of the room were groupings of wide, low wooden chairs with small tables, arranged to face each other in informal arrangements.

  Penrys was struck by the similarity of this room to one she’d seen before, in provincial Neshilik. She’d met a Rasesni named Menchos there, some sort of intelligence officer, and she remembered the archers hidden behind the walls who had stayed their hands when she’d provided the right answers to his questions.

  A quick scan showed no such trap here, but the spike of alarm served to concentrate her attention on the rest of the people.

  A man of roughly Wok Tomai’s age must be the samkatju, she thought. He was speaking with his sister. Chosmod grinned at her as he walked by on his way to greet Mrigasba, and then the two of put their heads together to confer.

  She turned her head at a bustle of noise at the doorway, and watched Tun Jeju and Mpeowake as they were escorted in. Mpeowake stopped dead at the sight of her, and Penrys could feel the blood drain from her face. She bowed to the woman, and said, “I was there, hidden, when the impostor killed Ijumo. There was no way to stop it.”

  Tun Jeju broke step while she spoke, as if to prevent any trouble, but Mpeowake froze for a moment, and then nodded coldly and walked stiffly by. Her face was drawn, and Penrys couldn’t tell if it was the pain from her ribs, or the reminder of her colleague’s death, or both.

  Next to her, Penrys could hear Najud exhale. “Well, that was fun,” she muttered for his ear alone.

  Kit Hachi approached Munraz with a smile. “I was responsible for you, young man, and you vanished on me. I’m relieved you seem to have come to no harm, but it was a poor trick you played. We were about to send you to Penrys, until you made that impossible.”

  Munraz blushed. “I’m sorry, Kit-chi, but I didn’t…”

  “Didn’t know if you could trust me, eh?” She laughed. “Well, no damage done, and I hear you’ve had some sort of adventure as a result.”

  One by one, Gen Jongto and the wizards were presented to Wok Tori, and invited to find a seat. They sorted themselves into groups, first Wok Tori and his sister, with Char Notju and Char Dazu to one side, and Rin Tsugo and Kit Hachi on the other.

  All the foreign wizards clustered together after Char Dazu, with Najud and Munraz at the far end, and Penrys. In the gap between Penrys and the other chained wizards, Tun Jeju and Gen Jongto took their chairs, with Chosmod and Mpeowake.

  Once everyone was seated, servants positioned along the walls conveyed dishes of spicy food and both hot bunnas and cool fruit drinks to the individual tables beside or in front of each seat. At the completion of the task, they walked out through service doors at the end of the room, and closed the doors behind them.

  For several minutes the murmur of polite conversation filled the room while everyone did justice to the food. Penrys was grateful she’d been able to sate some of her hunger so that she could match her manners to her surroundings and not be overwhelmed by her appetite.

  Wok Tori raised his head and looked at Rin Tsugo, who said, “Penrys, would you raise a shield over us, in this room? Kit Hachi will keep it up, so that you don’t need to be distracted, but you are better at this than we are—better for you to set it.”

  Somewhat startled, Penrys complied. *Here, like this.* She showed Kit Hachi how to maintain it, and monitored it for a few moments to make sure it would hold.

  Rin Tsugo watched, and reported to Wok Tori, “It’s done.”

  “Doesn’t mean those chained wizards up in Juhim Tep can’t break it,” Penrys said, “but you’ll know if they do it.”

  Wok Tori said, “Now, how shall we hear this tale, hmm?”

  Tun Jeju stood. “I have not yet received my report from Gen Jongto. Perhaps we could begin there?”

  At the samkatju’s nod, he turned to Gen Jongto. “Your full report, please. We have no secrets from anyone here on this matter.” He addressed everyone in the room. “I remind you all of the emperor’s expressed support for all the lupjuwen, as demonstrated by the guild license.”

  He sat down and waited for Gen Jongto to begin.

  With apparent reluctance to leave his dinner, Gen Jongto stood and began the story of how Penrys had convinced everyone to dispatch the foreign witnesses to the gewengep compound of the chained wizards, and how he and the wizards were captured in an attack.

  Penrys listened. She’d already told Vylkar of the eulogy at the Ellech embassy for his companions, but this was the first time Mpeowake had to hear from witnesses about the slaughter of Toawe, her hands raised in surrender as she was cut down. The planes of her face shifted as her teeth clenched, and underneath the general shield, Penrys could sense her raising her personal shield for privacy.

  Their audience listened to the description of the captivity and their jailer in silence, until Gen Jongto told of the chained wizard choosing casually between Ijumo and Mrigasba. Now, of course, they knew what the choice was for, and Mpeowake took it as another private blow.

  I didn’t realize how much she would care about them. I thought she was too… cold for that.

  Penrys castigated herself for her easy dismissal of the woman.

  Gen Jongto took the tale as far as the escape into the tunnels and stopped. “We should hear from Munraz and Penrys, before I continue.”

  Wok Tori waved his hand in assent, and Penrys kicked Munraz’s ankle. He looked to Kit Hachi in mute appeal, and she stood up with him.

  “I’ll start this,” she said, and she told of the escape from the compound, dragging Munraz along for his own safety, and how they had planned to return him to Penrys, before he escaped on his own.

  When she sat down and left Munraz standing alone, he swallowed and in a reserved voice he went quickly through the scrambling climb of the east side of Tegong Him and the tunnel opening that he followed, until he met up with Penrys. When no one asked him any questions, he sat down quickly, in relief.

  Now it was Penrys’s turn, and she talked first about the overflight that identified the three centers of more-than-family wizardly presence. “This was one of them, samkatju,” she said, “but I was assured there was nothing unusual about that, so I began the detailed search in Chalen Tep with Chosmod and Mpeowake, where we suspected the actual attackers came from.”

  After describing that part of the investigation, she half-smiled for a moment, remembering the visit to Char Dami and Char Pangfa. “I reasoned that I couldn’t check the third group of wizards up on Juhim Tep without attracting unwanted attention, so I went looking for a little help to masquerade as a Kigalino.”

  She watched Char Notju’s face as she told of the help she got from his daughter. He’d clearly already heard the story from her side, but no one else had. “So I was able to ride the cages up to the top without exciting any suspicion, and I started toward the place I’d found the night before. But I passed the plaza where the Festival of Lights was to be celebrated, and I was distracted by the show.”

  Trying with only partial success to keep her voice from thickening, she described the stage performance, and then the murder, and her encounter with Munraz.

  After a pause, she continued. “I made some device torches in the tunnel, and then I looked for them directly.” She cocked her head at the foreign wizards. “When I found them, Najud relayed Gen Jongto’s instructions for how to get to them through the tunnels, and Munraz and I did that.”

  She sat down abruptly, worn out from reliving the murder, and waved a hand at Gen Jongto to go on from there.

  He took the rest of the story, up to the explosion that took down the wall. He paused, as if to give Wok Tori an opportunity to explain why there was a wall there, and if the Armorers’ Guild had built it, but the man volunteered nothing on the top
ic. Gen Jongto finished his part of the story and sat down.

  Tun Jeju stood up, then, and looked around the room. “Would you like to know what’s been happening, up on Juhim Tep, since the Festival of Lights?”

  The rhetorical question caught everyone’s attention, and he continued without pause.

  “The emperor was shocked, of course, but as soon as it was seen that he was not the subject of the attack, he turned the investigation over to Noi Shibu, the head of Imperial Security.”

  Suddenly it occurred to Penrys that all the talk from Gen Jongto about the notju’s awkward position relative to Imperial Security’s internal politics had been private. And here Tun Jeju was spilling it out into the open. If he didn’t succeed in this, there was little chance of him surviving, personally.

  “My superior commandeered the emperor’s guards who made the first reports of what they found, and this he delivered to the emperor—that the foreign tekenga lupju, Penrys of Zannib, had somehow infiltrated the performance, aided by accomplices, and killed the foreign lupju Ijumo of Ndant as a clear threat to the safety of the emperor, a warning of what the lupjuwen and tekenwen planned.”

  Gen Jongto said, “But the guards I spoke to didn’t say that. They were much more skeptical of who the killer was—they noticed the mask never came off.”

  Tun Jeju patted the air to silence him, and he subsided.

  “Noi Shibu offered to set up an Imperial Security guard inside the palace, to supplement the emperor’s own guards. And the emperor accepted. Over a hundred of our men are there now, almost as many as the guards who sport the yellow.” He paused. “They do not report to me, but to certain others in our organization.

  “I am also told that Tsek Uchang has prostrated himself before his father and expressed a wish to defend him from a position of legitimacy, where he can be more useful.” Tun Jeju’s voice was colorless.

  “The emperor responded that any who wished to support the throne would be welcome. The gap kwosum, the ceremony for legitimization, is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It will be a small affair, due to the urgency of the moment, at the expressed wish of the honoree.”

  All over the room, people shifted uneasily in their seats.

  “To be followed shortly by the emperor’s death, no doubt. And then, maybe, civil war.” This came from Wok Tori, and there were murmurs of agreement elsewhere.

  “How do you know all this, notju?” Char Nojuk asked.

  Tun Jeju shook his head slightly with a small smile, and sat down.

  “Why does the emperor cooperate in his own death?” Char Dazu asked his uncle, bewilderment in his voice.

  “He has little choice, and some of his allies have clearly betrayed him. He’s looking for support wherever he can get it.” Char Nojuk cocked his head at Tun Jeju.

  Penrys thought about these events, precipitated by the trigger of Ijumo’s murder, and her blood boiled. She stood abruptly.

  “Well, and what do all of us want?” she said. “I’m just a foreigner, but I think I can summarize it well enough. Wok Tori, you want the success of the new guild, yes? And, of course, of the Armorers’ Guild as well. Rin Tsugo hopes for the same thing, for the tekenwen. Our notju here wants to root out corruption, if he can, for his own organization.

  “All of you want stability in the empire, peace under the emperor, and an orderly transition when the time comes.” She waved a hand to include the foreign wizards. “And we want that, too—a peaceful Kigali—and I’m sure we all wish the wizards of Kigali well.”

  She took a deep breath. “These are policy matters we can all agree with. But me, I’m not a diplomat, I don’t have a guild to lead—I’m not even a citizen. It’s not enough for me!”

  She glared at them all. “We’ve been attacked, out of someone else’s policy, and innocents were killed. My family was attacked, and my name was dishonored. A foreign wizard was coldbloodedly murdered, all out of that same policy, to force events that aim at your emperor’s death and the setting up of a new emperor, to allow one family to rise to power over another, regardless of the cost to everyone else.

  “I don’t care about the politics in here.” She thumped her chest. “I want justice! Futile as that is, unlikely as that is—that’s what I want. What is your emperor but the will of heaven? And what does heaven want of mortals? I bet your heaven wants justice more than it wants politics. From the point of view of heaven, politics are simply what it takes to create a world of justice, a place where men live morally and provide, however imperfectly, the sort of justice that would meet the approval of heaven.”

  “Or am I wrong?” She glanced at their faces and nodded at what she saw there. “The people want to see justice done. That’s who the emperor is, at the most basic—the ensurer of justice, under heaven. All the rest is a necessary evil, the means by which it happens. Justice is the goal.”

  She ran out of impetus and sat down. Vylkar stood unexpectedly. “Well-reasoned, and I agree. Ellech and I require a judgment for the deaths of my colleagues.”

  “And Ndant and I for mine.” Mpeowake rose stiffly to make her statement formally, and sat again.

  Chosmod rose with Mrigasba. “Unlawful attack, says Rasesdad.”

  “And imprisonment, says sarq-Zannib.” This from Najud.

  Rin Tsugo took up the call. “Many of my gewengep were slaughtered for no reason other than that baseless attack. I join the cry for justice on behalf of Kigaliwen everywhere, and the tekenwen in particular.”

  Tun Jeju rose slowly, and bowed to Penrys. “Then if Kigali is to reply, let’s discuss the practical methods, the political methods, of bringing these matters to justice, shall we?”

  Once Penrys’s outraged cry had precipitated a unified goal, the discussion returned to ways and means briefly, until Wok Tori put a stop to it. “It’s late, and many of our guests require sleep. I propose we reconvene early tomorrow morning with initial plans. Our time is limited if we hope to do something before Tsek Uchang consolidates his position tomorrow afternoon.”

  Tun Jeju took Gen Jongto away with him, claiming a need for access to the tools and records of his headquarters. Penrys didn’t envy him the job of engineering some sort of takeover of his own superior officers. Could it even be done?

  Rin Tsugo and Kit Hachi approached Penrys. “You should come back with us, to the gewengep, where it will be harder to find you. If tekenwen from Juhim Tep look for you here, you’ll stand out as the only teken among the lupjuwen.”

  Penrys yawned. “I have a better idea. Why don’t the two of you stay here? That way there’ll be three of us to confuse anyone who’s searching.”

  She added, while the two tekenwen looked at each other. “I just got Najud back. I’m not leaving, and I’m not separating him from the men who shared his ordeal, either, in case you were about to suggest it.”

  In the end, they agreed to stay. All the foreign wizards elected to avoid their embassies for fear of spies among the Kigali staff, and guides showed them to a suite of rooms normally reserved for shift managers, as a way of surrounding them most closely with a cloak of Armorer wizards.

  Eventually Penrys found privacy with Najud in their own room. “Off with your robe,” she told him. “Don’t get any ideas, I just want to see those wounds.”

  Silently he removed the Kigali work clothing and she laid her palm flat on his side around the wrappings to feel for heat. There was no trace of fever, and the arm wound seemed to be healing, too. “Truly, you feel well, considering?” she asked.

  “I’ve bathed, the injuries are fading, I’ve had plenty to eat, and…”—he swooped down on her suddenly—“my wife is in my arms. I have nothing to complain of.”

  The warmth of his bare flesh and the clean scent of him loosed so many of the tense constraints that had been holding her up all this time that her knees sagged. To her own surprise, tears of relief started to trickle down her face, and Najud, when he felt the moisture on his chest, murmured reassuring noises in her ear until she had r
ecovered herself.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, as she swiped at her face. “I was worried, and we’ve been so busy since then…”

  “It’s flattered I am that I can reduce my wife to tears by my absence.” He helped her off with her own clothing, and the two of them slipped into the narrow bed nestled together. Najud wrapped his bandaged arm around her, and the unaccustomed tickle of the dressing was unable to keep her from falling instantly asleep in the longed for comfort of his body alongside hers.

  CHAPTER 28

  By early morning, Penrys was feeling considerably livelier. She made her way with Najud to the common meals area that served all the work shifts, and found most of the foreign wizards there ahead of her.

  Kit Hachi was chatting with Munraz, and Chosmod and Mrigasba had Rin Tsugo pinned down in a discussion of the capabilities of the tekenwen. With relief, Rin Tsugo hailed Penrys as she claimed two chairs. “At last—you can settle these issues for them. I don’t know the answers.”

  “Hmm?” Penrys said, absently, her nose already busy with the savory smells of Kigali cooking. “Like what?”

  “Like how to combine the strengths of more than one wizard,” Chosmod said.

  “Oh, for that you want Najud. That’s his specialty. He likes to talk about it.” She gave her husband a poke and abandoned him to the conversation while she walked across the hall to a series of tables with platters and plates.

  Many of the dishes available didn’t suit her notion for eating this early in the day, but selections from one simple fried pork platter and another of egg and grains cooked together took her fancy, and she filled two thin flattened circles of steamed dough with her choices, and rolled them up onto her plate.

  When she turned back, it took her a moment to locate the table of her colleagues, all the way across the hall. The room was perhaps a quarter full, several dozen people, and she sensed their curiosity, mostly hidden under their courteous manners. What do they know about me? Ally of their samkatju, or despicable murderer? Do they know they’re also providing cover for me, for all of us?