by Sarah Zettel
Bridget braced herself against the table, gritting her teeth against the sobs that threatened still to spill out of her raw throat. No, he was so many things, but he was not a fool. If he found out about this mistake, he would not make it again.
He’d be back for her, expecting her ready with her love for him, and if he found she was not … he could do anything to her. She did not know how to fight this kind of battle. He could do anything.
Bridget crawled back into the middle of the bed. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, and there she sat, waiting for the morning. Waiting for an answer, and fearing deep inside her that none would come.
• • •
Kalami left Bridget’s room and returned to his own apartments, the taste of her kiss lingering on his lips. It was not the best way to bring her to him, and not the way he had wanted, but it was sweet, he had to admit to himself. Very sweet indeed. It had been a long time since she had kissed him, and that time she had believed he was another man, her would-be lover, for whom she was waiting on the shores of her lake. He had needed her then, to give him a child he could raise to be powerful and purposeful. He needed her again now, but for very different reasons.
Kalami opened his door and his heart lifted momentarily to see Chadek standing before the firepit, with Finon setting out a tankard and a pitcher for him. Could they have caught the Southerner so soon?
“What news, Captain?” he asked, striding up to the fire. Finon caught Kalami’s eye and shook his head as he set another tankard beside the first. Kalami swallowed a curse.
“We are even searching the dungeons,” said Chadek without preamble. “If he is here still, it will take your powers to find him. It is beyond me.”
Anger tightened the muscles in Kalami’s neck, and he spat in the fire. The spittle hissed and steamed, and before it had boiled away, Kalami felt himself smile.
“Keep your men working, Captain. He has not gone.” Sakra would not leave his mistress now that he had reached her side again. He would, surely, try to find a way to stand beside her tonight.
And when he did, Bridget would see him.
“You do not sound concerned, Lord Sorcerer.”
Kalami poured beer into the pair of tankards and held out one to Chadek, who only shook his head. “The hunt will keep Sakra on the move, and make it difficult for him to lay any plans,” he said. “Your men will ensure that he cannot reach his mistress. If we do not catch him before dawn, we will have him before the sun sets again.” He saluted the captain and drank down the bitter beer. “The means have already been secured.”
Chadek said nothing, but his face was uneasy.
“What troubles you, Chadek?” asked Kalami over the rim of his cup.
Chadek drummed his fingers against his belt. “I do not like the feel of these past days, Valin,” he said. “There is too much abroad for such an uneasy time.”
Kalami set the tankard down, and crossed to the captain and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Your instincts are as sound as ever, Chadek, but hear this. It is almost done, I promise you.”
Chadek watched him, and from the back of the room, Finon watched him as well. Kalami had to keep himself from smiling at them both.
“Trust me this once more,” he urged them.
Chadek searched his face for a moment, and if whatever he saw there did not completely satisfy him, it did not raise any more doubts. He stepped backward, placed his hand over his heart and bowed. “All shall be as you say, friend sorcerer.”
Kalami returned the salute. “With my thanks, friend captain.”
Chadek left then. Once the door closed, Finon emerged from the servants’ alcove, shaking his head. “You are taking too great a chance leaving Sakra free.”
“I respect your words, Honored Father,” said Kalami humbly. “But if I can take Sakra in front of the eyes of the whole court and Ananda herself, our accusations upon the death of the emperor will carry that much more weight.”
Finon pursed his lips together, considering this. At last he nodded. “A good thought. It is sound.”
“Thank you, Honored Father.” Kalami considered pouring himself some more beer, but decided against it. It was late, and he was beginning to feel the hour, but he was not done yet. “Are you and the others ready?”
“We are,” said Finon firmly. “We will be gloved, and I will not break the ribbon until we are alone in the emperor’s chamber.” There was pride as well as steel in his voice. He had been promised this for so long. It was his hands that would bring down the Isavaltan throne. His hands that would kill the emperor, and Kalami could hear the warmth of anticipation in each word.
“Very good.” Kalami stretched his shoulders back. “Now, you must give me my privacy, Honored Father. There is one small matter to be taken care of.”
Finon bowed at once, and retired behind the bed screens.
Kalami did not need much. He removed the precious glass mirror from the wall and laid it on the floor. A chest beside the balcony door provided a length of red ribbon, three copper coins and three silver ones.
Kalami knelt beside the firepit facing the mirror. He laid the three silver coins in a triangle on the glass surface. The copper coins he cast, one at a time, into the fire.
“I take up the red thread.” He breathed the words across the length of ribbon. “In it I tie thirteen knots. With each knot I speak a name, and each name shall be a blight upon Richikha.” His fingers worked the ribbon, tying each knot effortlessly as he repeated the words, over and over again until they all but lost their meaning and he seemed to catch the scent of sickness wafting up from the fire along with the smell of hot metal. He held the image of the sleeping woman firmly in his mind.
He tightened the last knot. “This is my word, and my word is firm, and all the winds of the world shall carry my word, and all the stars in the sky shall see that it is done.”
A branch cracked in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. Kalami held the ribbon up, catching the sparks to burn black spots against its length, ignoring the pinpricks of pain they made against his skin.
It was done then, and he stowed the thread safely in his bag around his neck where he kept his most precious talismans.
Now, Bridget, you have none but me, thought Kalami. And I have you all to myself.
• • •
The touch of stone was the touch of age, cold and patience, constant pressure resisted by ancient strength, the strength of earth and the strength of ages. Stone was hard to move through because stone could wait forever.
Wood was death and memory of life. Wood was trapped warmth and potential. Wood reached and braced and framed. Wood knew change and the turn of the seasons and the changes of living things. Wood welcomed his passage, because it was change and wood longed to change again.
Iron was cold and hard beyond imagining. Iron answered only the bidding of fire and skill and would not be moved, could not be entreated. Iron banded, bonded, barred. Iron had to be passed by.
Air. Air was speed, life and freedom. Diffuse, impatient, yielding, air parted willingly for him, ready to feed, to topple, to tease, to do as it pleased. Air gave him room to remember his body. Air gave way before the pressure of that memory, allowing Sakra to become himself again.
Sakra, wholly corporeal again, collapsed into a heap on the floor.
For a long moment, he was aware only of the pain. Blood scraped against vein, heart bruised itself against rib, and bones pressed painfully hard against joints. But with each breath, his body remembered its form and function a little more completely and the pain ebbed until at last he could push himself to his feet and stand without weakness.
When he saw that he faced the door to the emperor’s god house, and that the grey light of a snowy dawn filled the windows, he allowed himself a moment of triumph. Diffuse, it was hard to guide oneself. Dissolved in stone, it was even harder to know time, because stone cared very little for it. That had always been the danger of the spell. He c
ould have become lost in the stones and come to himself only when the centuries had worn the palace of Vyshtavos away to nothing.
The triumph was short-lived, however, as the realization of all that might have happened in those lost hours washed over him.
Bridget, he thought toward the dawn. Mistress Bridget, what have they done to you while I hid in the stones? The fact of the love spell spoke volumes. Kalami meant to bring her under his control. For what purpose Sakra could only guess. There were so many uses for such power. But what was clear was that he meant her to be his creature, not the dowager’s. That meant he wished to use her to bring down the throne of Eternal Isavalta, an end that he could not reach while Ananda and Mikkel were alive.
Sakra pushed open the door a bare crack and slipped inside. He hoped the house guard had already searched for him here. He needed time with the keeper before he began the game of cat and mouse that surely wound through the palace and its grounds, with all the cats in search of a single mouse, that being himself.
The god house was only dimly lit at this time. Sakra backed into the nearest alcove and from its shadows he watched Keeper Bakhar moving about his splendidly painted and gilded domain. In his years in Isavalta, Sakra had met a few who took the humble title of “keeper” so seriously. Bakhar permitted no one else to sweep, dust or decorate this room.
From the center of the house, Vyshko and Vyshemir stood guard over their servant on their pedestal of red and black marble. Sakra thought perhaps the artist who had fashioned them meant them to look benevolent, but as Vyshko lifted a pike triumphantly over his head, and Vyshemir held a cup and a dagger out to greet all who entered, it was difficult to say for certain.
Even for the most holy days of change, Bakhar did the work himself. His hands were the ones that washed and dressed the gods every day. But that task was yet to come today. Right now, he was adorning the hall with fresh holly to ready it for the evening’s ceremonies.
Sakra smiled to himself, and he walked out into the full light of the god house.
Bakhar froze with his hand raised to place another branch of holly, and he turned. When the keeper saw who faced him, he slowly lowered the holly. “Agnidh Sakra dra Dhiren Phanidraela,” he said, using Sakra’s full name as a greeting, as was the courtesy here.
“Good keeper Bakhar Iakshimisyn Rostaviskvin.” Sakra strolled toward the center of the room. Before Bakhar had to remind him where he was, he reverenced to the gods. When he straightened up, Bakhar was giving him a narrow-eyed look that was equal parts wariness, approval and curiosity.
The attention did not last long, however. Bakhar sorted through the remaining holly branches that he carried to find one small enough to lay at the feet of the god Niavatk, the miniature ivory carving of a man sitting cross-legged beside a reindeer. “I would have thought you would break your exile before this.”
“I am a bit surprised it has taken so long myself.” Sakra fell into step beside him as Bakhar moved to the next alcove. This one contained no gods of its own but held a painted mural of Vyshemir’s sacred grove.
“Do you come here to seek the protection of Vyshko and Vyshemir?” Bakhar bent forward until his long nose almost touched the mural and reached out delicately to brush away some flake of grime that only he could see. “I cannot extend you sanctuary in their names as you are no longer a member of the house.”
“I come to seek a favor, good keeper.”
Those words finally gained Bakhar’s full attention. He tilted his head up to see Sakra’s full face and Sakra saw the shrewd light that shone in his eyes. Bakhar was dedicated to his gods and his duties, that was a true thing, but he often donned the persona of a simple priest to hide another truth, that he was a skilled and steep politician. “What favor?”
“My mistress is in danger.”
Bakhar chuffed derisively at him and shooed Sakra away with his last two holly branches. “Your mistress has been in danger since the day she came here.”
“Tonight it reaches its peak. The lord — ”
The keeper held up his hand. “Speak no names to me. I do not want to hear them.”
“You are not naive, Keeper.”
“Nor am I unaware that Lord Peshek was placed under house arrest soon after he arrived here yesterday.”
“I know.” For a few hours, Sakra had cherished the vain hope that Peshek would flee after his words to the dowager failed. He had friends among the house guard. He might have made it. But no. Such a man as Peshek would not desert what he saw as his post.
Bakhar’s face grew grave. “He is accused of conspiracy, with the dowager herself standing witness against him using words given to her by Lord Master Oulo.”
“This I also know.”
“I am not surprised to hear it.” Bakhar walked to the central pedestal and laid his holly branches at the feet of the first gods. He gazed up at them, but Sakra could not tell what he hoped to see. “There will be a public trial after the holy day.”
“So I understand.” Sakra bowed his head. “How does the empress?”
Bakhar regarded him owlishly. “She spent most of yesterday locked up with the dowager and the council lords, as you know, but I believe she has not yet been accused of anything,” he said. “It does, however, seem to me I also heard you were to be placed under arrest.”
“I do not deny it.” Sakra spread his hands. “If you choose to call for the house guard now, I will be at their mercy, and yours.”
“Well then,” Bakhar sighed. “This is perhaps not the best place to be having this discussion.” He gazed around the chamber, empty except for the two of them and all the statues. “Someone may yet today decide to come in to take the counsel of the gods.”
Bakhar kissed the hem of Vyshko’s robe, and then Vyshemir’s, and then beckoned to Sakra. Without looking to see if Sakra obeyed, he went into the vestment room and closed the door. This was not the room where the clothing for the gods was kept. That was locked and under Bakhar’s own control and he would never let such a sacrilegious soul as Sakra inside. This was merely where the intercessors and the acolytes changed clothes for the various ceremonies. The walls were hung with robes of green and white in preparation for tonight’s celebrations.
Bakhar settled himself on a wooden bench with a comfortable sigh. “Now, Lord Sakra, in these appropriately regal surroundings, tell me what you would of me.”
Sakra reverenced. “I need to borrow your appearance and your role tonight that I might remain close to my mistress.”
“No.”
“Good keeper — ”
“No.” The single word was flat and final. “Even if it were not a holy day. Even if what you were suggesting were not an affront to my office, and the high ones I serve, you know that I am forbidden to have anything to do with magic lest I’d be tempted to serve powers other than the gods of this house.”
Sakra found he had no patience for this righteous denial. “Keeper Bakhar, I tell you that tonight may be the end of everything,” he said. “Your lord sorcerer has brought another power to Isavalta. He means to use her to rid themselves of my mistress, and I suspect, your lawful emperor.”
Bakhar’s face went sour. “You’re trying to frighten an old man.”
“Yes,” agreed Sakra. “There is reason to be frightened. Hung-Tse is waiting on your border for the chaos that is too come. Your dowager is being made a pawn in her too-early dotage.”
But Bakhar just combed his fingers down the length of his white beard. “I thought you saw more clearly than that, Sakra.”
Sakra bent close so the keeper could not ignore him. He would have the old man see, he would have him understand. This was not the time of stone, or even of iron. This was the time of air, all change, all motion, nothing stable to lean against. “I see that your home, the home of your gods, is teetering on the brink and will soon fall if its rightful ruler is not soon restored. If Ananda dies tonight, that will never happen.”
“Vyshko and Vyshemir will protect their house,
if it is needed.”
“Would they permit me to speak lies in their house?” Sakra shot back.
Bakhar’s lips curled into a thin smile and he waggled a finger at Sakra. “Your Seven Mothers teach you to be clever with your words.”
“A lifetime in two courts teaches me to be clever with my words.” Sakra sat heavily on the bench beside him. “I cannot reach the Empress Ananda or her ladies. I cannot turn one of the house guard. I cannot free Lord Master Peshek. You are my hope, Keeper Bakhar. Ananda is your anointed empress as well as my mistress.”
“She was so young when it happened,” murmured Bakhar into his beard.
At first, Sakra thought the keeper was talking about Ananda, but when he saw the gentle sadness on the keeper’s face, Sakra realized he spoke of Medeoan.
“After the invasion was repelled and the treaty concluded, she would come in here and kneel before Vyshko and Vyshemir. She would beg them to lift her burden from her, to send another to keep Isavalta safe for she lacked the strength.” Bakhar shook his head and trailed his fingers down the length of one of the nearby robes, watching the path his hand traced against the cloth. “When they did not, she stopped coming here at all.”
“We all serve as we must, and none can save us from that.”
Bakhar shook his head. “No, and I thought she would have learned that after Kacha …” He declined to finish the sentence and simply waved his hand. “But in her heart she still hoped, and I think she hopes still.”
Now came the gamble. Sakra had been saving this move for the end. If this failed, if the keeper denied even this much, it was done. “If she truly wants to lay her burdens down, why does she not free her son?”
Bakhar went very still. “You do not believe …”
Sakra said nothing.
“You speak of the succession of the empire,” said the keeper sternly. “Vyshko and Vyshemir would not permit their daughter to do such thing.”