by Marc Turner
“Not yet, but soon. Parolla and her friends are about to discover they were fools to trust the White Lady over the details of the child’s birth. The goddess is not as purrre as her name would suggest.” Another flutter of the Spider’s fingers—at the feathermoth this time, now flapping between her and Romany. “But enough of that. You are anxious, I’m sure, to learn what I have planned for you in Olaire.”
Anxious was the word. Romany gave a reluctant nod.
“How much have you been able to piece together of the events in the Founder’s Citadel on Dragon Day?”
“I’m aware of what happened. I’m less clear on why.”
“Why I helped Mazana Creed kill Fume, you mean?” The goddess leaned back in her chair. “From your history, you will know that Fume was taken prisoner by the titans toward the end of the Eternal War. But what you might not know is that I was the one who betrayed him. Once his high priestess and her followers located him, it was just a matter of time before they freed him. Imagine how cross he would have been with me after a few millennia of captivity.”
“But he was mad, wasn’t he? How do you know he would even have remembered your name?”
“You think I should have taken the risk? And even if he had lost his memory, you think it would have been a good thing to have a mad god obsessed with blood sacrifice on the loose? I couldn’t let that happen, of course.”
Romany sniffed. “How very public-spirited of you.”
The Spider accepted the praise graciously. “When I learned of Mazana Creed’s plans to overthrow Imerle, I saw a chance to dispose of Fume and gain a little something extra in the barrrgain.”
“Mazana’s debt to you.”
“Precisely.”
“And what precisely do you intend to ask from her in settlement of that debt?”
The Spider gave a secret smile.
The feathermoth had alighted on the table between the goddess and Romany—or rather on the blade of a throwing knife left by the room’s former owner. Instinctively Romany reached out and picked up the weapon. The feathermoth took flight. Romany hefted the dagger, judging its weight. Nice balance.
She froze. Nice balance? Where had that thought come from? She’d never so much as held a throwing knife before, let alone used one.
That smile of the goddess’s was making Romany’s skin prickle.
“You never told me,” the priestess said, “what you wanted my help for.”
“I’m getting there. As you’ll appreciate, when Mazana took some of Fume’s power, she also took in part of his spirit. Which part exactly, and how much, remains to be seen.”
Which part? Did Fume have a good side, then? Some inner child hiding behind the tyranny and blood sacrifice? “You’re worried another of your creations might slip its leash?”
“If by ‘another’ you are referring to Mayot Mencada, I think you’ll find he never escaped my control. Yourrrs maybe, but not mine. As the events after your death showed.”
“Yet you think Mazana might be different?”
“I think I need to be alive to the possibility,” the Spider said. “Oh, it’s not like she’s going to start hearing Fume’s voice in her head. But she may begin to display an irrational dislike of both me and my followers.” As opposed to a very rational dislike. “Whether it gets that far will depend on how well she is able to withstand the force of the god’s persona.”
“I’ve seen nothing yet to suggest she is under his thrall.”
“Nor I.” The Spider paused. “But the events of the next few days are likely to test her character to the full.”
That prickle was back, as if every hair on Romany’s body was standing on end. “You are referring to her plan to retaliate against the stone-skins?”
“In part.”
The feathermoth flew past Romany’s face, but she paid it no mind. “So you’re sending me to keep an eye on Mazana.”
The goddess nodded.
“And if she should fail your … test?”
“That would be inadvisable.”
“You want her disposed of?”
“I thought I just said that.”
Romany frowned. There was a note to the goddess’s voice she could not place, a certain sharpness to her look that suggested there was a hidden message beneath her words. In some indeterminable way, it felt like Romany herself was being tested as much as Mazana. With no hint as to the reason or the stakes, naturally. “Is there no other way to rid the emira of Fume’s presence?”
The Spider shook her head.
Behind the goddess, the feathermoth had alighted on the door frame.
Without thinking, Romany pulled back her right arm and sent the throwing knife spinning through the air. It flew true to its target and thudded into the wood, impaling the moth.
The Spider raised an eyebrow.
Horrified, Romany stared at her hand. Except it wasn’t her hand, was it? Her skin had never been that tanned, and she couldn’t remember picking up that crescent-shaped scar where her thumb met her palm. She experienced a sensation as if she were looking out through the eye slits of a mask again, only this one was made of flesh instead of wood.
“One other thing I should mention,” the Spider said. “When you meet Mazana Creed, you might want to keep your mask on. And when you’re around Senar Sol too.” She considered. “Actually, it’s probably best if you wear it at all times.”
Romany’s voice was a whisper. “What was … I … before?”
“An assassin, of course. Rrrather apt, in view of the task at hand.”
An assassin. A part of Romany had suspected as much, but to hear it confirmed … Oh, the indignity!
The Spider said, “There are things about your body that will take more time than others to get used to. The spirit of your predecessor may have flown, but certain memories of the flesh will remain. Or at least I hope they will, since your predecessor had a most intriguing ability that I have come across only a handful of times in all my years. Tell me, High Priestess, have you sensed anything different about the street in front of the temple?”
Romany’s mind was only just starting to function again. “Different?”
“You know, as in ‘not the same,’ ‘unusual,’ ‘out of the ordinary.’”
Now the priestess thought about it, she had encountered something odd. Yesterday she’d left the temple to search for a bathhouse in the Jewelry Quarter. A stone’s throw to the east, she’d encountered a spot that left her feeling nauseated when she passed through it, like when the Spider had transported her to Estapharriol along the strands of her web.
“What you’re sensing,” the goddess said, “is a point where the veil between two worlds has been eroded. Your predecessor was able to travel between those worlds, even when the connection between them was not strong enough to create a portal. With luck, you will have that ability too. Though I wouldn’t recommend using it in this particular place.”
Romany regarded her blankly.
“It leads to the Kerralai world,” the Spider explained. “As your predecessor discovered to her cost.”
“A demon followed her back to Olaire and killed her?”
“Not quite. It drove her to this temple, where the woman decided, with a little persuasion, to take shelter. Even from here she could sense the portal, and a nudge from me was enough to convince her she could make the jump to the world beyond, when in rrreality the distance was too great.”
That explained how the assassin’s body had become available for Romany to use. But it didn’t explain why she needed to wear a mask in Mazana Creed’s presence.
The Spider was only too happy to enlighten her. “You tried to kill her,” she said. “Outside this very temple, in fact. You would have succeeded too, were it not for Senar Sol. And while I’ve taken the liberty of toning down the color of your eyes—they were a most conspicuous blue—I suspect both Mazana and Senar would recognize you if they saw your face again.”
Romany could only nod in response. If
someone tried to assassinate you, it wasn’t the sort of thing you forgot. Yet now she was supposed to introduce herself to the emira? Spend enough time in her company to assess the extent of Fume’s influence?
She sighed.
It seemed the Spider had brought her back from the dead just for the pleasure of watching her die again.
* * *
From the shade of a ketar tree, Karmel studied the town house across the street. Like the buildings to either side, its roof was missing as many tiles as remained in place, and its ground-floor windows had been boarded up. Unlike those neighboring buildings, though, the house—that of Veran’s widow, Zalli—showed scars of the fighting that had raged through the city since Dragon Day. The planks over the windows were fire-blackened, and the front door was marked as if someone had taken an ax to it.
In the front yard was a white-robed figure attached to a cross. Not a person, Karmel realized, because it had straw protruding from the ends of its sleeves. But why was there blood round its neck and down its chest? She edged forward for a closer look. Then stopped. Lord’s mercy. For while the body was made of straw, the skin of the face was all too real. Some woman’s scalp and face had been peeled from her skull and pulled down over the head of the figure. Zalli’s? No, the features looked too old. Blood-soaked straw bulged from her gaping eyeholes and from between her broken lips. Her skin at the forehead and cheeks had blackened in the sun.
“What is that thing?” Karmel said to Caval at her shoulder.
“My guess? A flesh-and-blood effigy of the White Lady.”
“Meant as a warning?”
“Maybe. You said Zalli had the gray fever. Reason enough to stay away from this place, some would say.”
Caval among them, judging by his tone. He’d been against coming here from the start, though. Not that he had argued with her, of course. He never did these days, even when she was wrong, and maybe she had been wrong to come. Veran’s words on the journey to Dian returned to her. Ain’t no one ever caught the gray fever that’s recovered from it. Ain’t no one taken less than a year to die from it either. Evidently Zalli’s neighbors had feared the spread of the infection, and so put up the effigy to invoke the White Lady’s blessing.
Because a tribute like this was sure to win the goddess’s favor.
“Will the Chameleon heal Zalli?” Karmel asked Caval. “If we took her to the temple—”
“No.”
“Why? Because Veran failed to kill me?” She couldn’t keep the sting from her voice.
“Ah, even if he’d succeeded, the Chameleon wouldn’t have lifted a finger.”
“But he promised—”
“Veran walked out on the priesthood. Or had you forgotten? The Chameleon is not a forgiving god.”
“Nor an honorable one, it seems.”
Caval shrugged. “We are his servants, not he ours.”
That last was something their father might have said, but Karmel did not voice the thought. Most of her thoughts these days were better left unsaid. She studied her brother. Caval looked more drawn than usual today, his cloak pulled close about him in spite of the heat, his right arm—the arm stabbed by Mili on Dragon Day—cradled in his left.
If Caval was aware of her scrutiny, he gave no indication. “Are we going in?” he said. “Or shall we wait until someone out here recognizes us?”
He had a point. Eleven days it had been since the Chameleons’ failed coup. Eleven days hiding in rat-infested warehouses, or houses abandoned after the fires on Dragon Day. On the few occasions Karmel had ventured outside, it had always been at night for fear of encountering a familiar face. Yet now she stood in plain sight—
Caval put his hand on her arm. She looked left to see a squad of Storm Guards approaching along Peer Street. One of the men sported a black eye, while a second had a fresh cut across his cheek. Karmel had heard rumors of tensions between the Storm Guards and Mazana’s mercenaries—tensions that had boiled over into outright conflict after Dutia Elemy Meddes vanished six days ago. But it didn’t have to be the Revenants these soldiers had fought. Looters, the remnants of Imerle’s personal guard, another faction within the Storm Guards: there was no shortage of trouble abroad in Olaire. It might even have been Chameleons they’d clashed with, for the priesthood’s play for power on Dragon Day had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. On Karmel’s travels, she had seen several old friends swinging from makeshift gallows, including both Imrie and Colley. She had cried when she found them hanging together, knowing she was as much to blame for their deaths as anyone.
A murmur of conversation from the Storm Guards reached her. She was tempted to engage her power, but if the soldiers had already spotted her, they would know she was a Chameleon when she disappeared. If, on the other hand, she remained in sight, there was little chance of them recognizing her.
What about Caval, though?
“Let’s go,” she said to her brother, gesturing to Zalli’s door.
Caval strode toward the house. “Best if I go first,” he said. “I’m not the sort of man you want at your back.”
For a heartbeat Karmel could only stare after him. Then she set off in pursuit.
She caught up to him at Zalli’s door. Closer now, she saw someone had carved “bitch” in the wood. Zalli’s only crime had been to be struck down by illness, but then blame was always attached to the victims. It made Karmel wonder whether the damage to Zalli’s house had indeed been caused by the fighting on Dragon Day, or whether the woman’s neighbors had tried to drive her out.
Caval pounded his fist against the door.
No answer.
Behind, Karmel heard the Storm Guards coming near. The tread of their feet was audible over the lapping of waves from the Shallows two streets away. She felt their gazes on her, but she did not look across. Nothing suspicious here, just two hooded strangers calling on a woman with a deadly and possibly contagious disease.
Caval knocked again.
Karmel clasped Veran’s ring in her left fist. What in the Nine Hells was she doing here? With his final breath, Veran had requested that Karmel be with his wife at the end, but he’d had no right to ask that of her. She owed him nothing, and Zalli even less. What was she supposed to say when the woman opened the door? “Hi, I’m the person who killed your husband. I’m the one who left his body for the fish in a cave below Dian.”
Or perhaps simply that Veran had died trying to save Zalli. That he’d been thinking of her at the last. Would that come as any comfort to the dying woman, though? Would that make her final days easier?
A part of Karmel wanted to push the ring under the door and walk away. But she knew she would not. What had happened in Dian hadn’t been Veran’s fault. He’d done it all for the sake of his family. Karmel might have done the same thing herself two weeks ago. Forgive me, girl, he’d said. Just following orders. Caval’s orders, to be precise. The recollection made Karmel uncomfortably aware of her brother at her shoulder, and she struggled against an urge to edge away from him.
And yet were Caval’s reasons for betraying her any less compelling than Veran’s? If she could find it in herself to forgive Veran, could she not do the same for her brother?
Still Caval’s knocking had drawn no response. He reached for the handle instead. Karmel shook her head. If Zalli had been forced to bar the door against an ax-wielding neighbor, she wouldn’t have left it unlocked—
The handle turned, and the door opened.
Caval stepped inside. Karmel hesitated. She couldn’t turn back now, though. The jingle of the Storm Guards’ armor was just behind, and how would it look to them if she retreated having come this far?
The door opened directly onto Zalli’s front room. The scent of dewflowers was so strong Karmel half expected to see the floor scattered with petals. Yet it could not mask the stink of sweat and smoke and corruption. The light streaming through the doorway cut a bright fissure through the darkness. Karmel saw the shadowy outline of bookcases against the walls, a chair pul
led up to a fireplace. The windows to her left were boarded. Dotted about the room were vases filled with wilting flowers.
Karmel took a step inside, then stopped. She didn’t want to go any farther. Veran’s wife was nowhere to be seen. There was no point in calling out to her either, since she was obviously dead. Death left in its wake a silence like no other.
Then a shadow detached itself from the wall to her right and moved into the light.
Karmel felt the blood drain from her face. She turned for the open door.
At a gesture from the stranger it slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness.
* * *
Senar Sol blinked sweat from his eyes. The opening of the door had let in a welcome breath of air, but now that it was closed again he felt the heavy heat settle on him once more. His gaze lingered on Karmel. Their confrontation on Dragon Day had lasted for barely a handful of heartbeats, yet he’d clearly left his usual warm impression on her, for there was fear in her eyes along with something altogether darker. Caval put his hand on his sword hilt, his half smile suggesting he relished the prospect of a confrontation. When he stepped forward to shield Karmel, the priestess shuffled to her left as if spurning his protection.
Senar remained still, wary of doing anything that the Chameleons might misinterpret as a precursor to an attack. Earlier, the Remnerol shaman, Jambar, had assured him this meeting would not end in bloodshed, but the old man wouldn’t have warned Senar if he was sending him to his death. True, the Chameleons didn’t look like they’d put up much of a fight. Both were so haggard they might not have slept since Dragon Day, and Senar hadn’t forgotten the wound Mili had inflicted on Caval’s sword arm. He couldn’t afford to take them lightly, though—especially here in the darkness, where he’d find it harder to follow their movements if they engaged their powers.
“Mazana Creed sends her regards,” he said.
Caval showed his teeth. “Mazana Creed, is it? And here I was thinking you were Imerle’s man.”
“I am no one’s man,” Senar said, more sharply than he intended. Not even his own, he sometimes thought.