by K. C. May
“Don’t start.”
“I did nie seye anything.”
Jora used the Mindstream to Observe Louris the desk clerk.
He stood stiffly, groaning, and shuffled down the corridor, peeking into rooms and putting out lamps. “Anyone still here?” he asked now and then. When he reached the end of the hallway, he came back and checked the rooms on the other side. The hallway darkened with every lamp and candle he extinguished. “Locking up for the night. Anyone here?”
With a heavy sigh, he climbed the stairs. After reaching the top, he paused a minute to catch his breath, then continued checking rooms and blowing out lights. At Captain Kyear’s office, he rapped on the closed door and waited for a reply. Hearing none, he opened the door. “Captain? Huh,” he muttered. He left the office and continued down the hallway.
At last, with the upper floor in darkness, he started down the steps. Only the lamps at his desk and in the lobby still glowed.
“All right,” Jora said. “I think we can go in now. He’s about to leave. I’ll wave you in when it’s clear. Po Teng,” she called. “Get ready to statuize the man in the building when I say.”
The ally faded into view, nodding, as if he’d heard her before he was fully visible.
She stepped into the ’twixt.
Arc reached out and groped back and forth across her face and head as if he didn’t feel her. She didn’t feel his hand on her either, but from the Mindstream, she saw him knock her hat off.
“Oops,” he said, bending to pick it up. “Sorry. I thought thou wert gone.”
She smiled, making a note to explain it to him more thoroughly later. She hurried to the Legion building and waited by the door. Talking while in the ’twixt was just as unnerving as walking was, since she couldn’t feel the words in her mouth. It was like her entire body was numb.
The door opened. She ducked into the now dark lobby, slipping past the desk clerk, and left the ’twixt, and Po Teng came with her. “Now.”
The desk clerk turned at the sound of her voice and froze in place, his hand holding the door open.
Arc strolled toward the door, looking around casually. She waved him in. “Let’s move him.”
With his arms around the statue’s waist, he shuffled the statue another foot or two farther in. He set it down and looked it over. “He looketh alarmed.”
“It’ll be all right,” she said. “He won’t notice anything unusual.” She let the door swing shut, plunging them into darkness. In reflex, she opened the Mindstream to Observe herself.
“Have you any flint?”
“No, but I can lead us in the dark. Take my hand.”
He groped for her hand, found it, and clasped it snugly. “You have the delicate hands of a girl.”
“Did you expect otherwise?”
He chuckled. “Nay, ’tis pleasant for me.”
“This way.” She led him past the front desk to the stairs and stopped. “Stairs here. One more step forward, then up.”
They climbed the steps without incident and started down the hall. Captain Kyear’s office door was still open, as the desk clerk had left it. Inside, the sleeping Kyear statue was exactly where she’d left it. She didn’t know why she feared it would be gone, but she did. “How about if I scout around for a place to hide it so you don’t have to stumble around in the dark?”
“All right.”
She led him to one of the chairs in front of the captain’s desk. “There’s a chair here. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Most of the doors opened to other offices, but two closets at the end of the hall were promising. One was larger than the other–about the size of an office being used for storage–and was filled with furniture and crates stacked to the ceiling. There was a spot in the corner where the Kyear statue could fit if she could push an unused desk out of the way. It was big and heavy and standing on one end. Because the top of the desk had an overhang, it tilted to one side. She set her buttocks against it and pushed, straining against its weight. It shifted an inch or two when she realized she had a large, powerful man not far away who would make short work of this. A candle would be helpful.
She returned to Kyear’s office. “I found a place to hide him, but I need you to move a desk aside first to make room for him. Once he’s in place, we could throw a dust drape over him.”
He reached for her, and she took his hand. “Take me thither.”
“There. Take you there.”
“Take me there.”
She chuckled as she led him down the hall. “I’ll have you speaking like a modern man in no time.”
When they reached the closet, Jora took Arc by the upper arms, then steered him from behind through the room like he was a plow. “Here. Right in front of you is a desk. Could you move it a few inches to the right?”
He explored it with his hands, then tipped it up onto its edge, and walked it to the right a few inches. “Is this enow?”
“I think so. Now let’s bring Kyear.”
They returned to the dark office. Arc wanted to test the statue’s weight against his strength, but in the end, he went along with Jora’s plan of putting him to sleep and carrying him over one shoulder.
She led him by the hand out of the office and down the hallway, then once again guided him in from behind. Arc carefully laid Captain Kyear onto the floor, and Jora stretched his legs out straight. Once Po Teng statuized him, Arc pulled him upright, and then wrestled him into the corner with Jora navigating.
“There,” Jora said. “That wasn’t so hard.” She pulled a dust drape from a shelf and shook it open.
“What is that?” Arc asked.
“It’s a dust cover,” she said. “More to hide him than to keep him from getting–”
“Shhh!”
Jora froze, the drape in her outstretched hands ready to pull over Kyear’s head. Footsteps. The dim glow of candlelight floated toward them in the hallway. Challenger’s bollocks! Someone was coming. “What do we do?”
“Allow me this,” Arc whispered. He slipped to the wall beside the door, ready to attack if the interloper entered.
No, she thought. That would only make it worse. She pulled the drape over her head and whispered to Po Teng, “Stop Arc.” She hunkered down, trying to make herself as small and unworthy of notice as possible.
A woman holding a candle stopped in the doorway. She gasped at the sight of the huge statue, its fist raised as if to pummel her. “Gracious,” she muttered. She raised the candle overhead and slipped past the Arc statue into the store room. Her gaze paused on Po Teng. Jora cursed silently to herself, sure the woman would run screaming from the building. To his credit, Po Teng stood perfectly still, his eyes closed, as if he were a dead tree. The woman continued to look around.
Jora held her breath, hoping the woman wouldn’t be curious enough to lift the drape to see what was hunkering beneath it. She watched through the Mindstream as the woman held the candle up to Kyear’s face.
“What in the world?” she asked aloud. “Isak? No, no, no.”
Jora cursed under her breath. “Po Teng, stop her.”
The room went instantly dark when the woman turned to stone along with the lit candle in her hand.
Jora pulled the drape off her head as she stood. “All right, release Arc. Challenger, what a mess.”
“Fie! Where hath he gone?” Arc whispered.
“It was a woman, and she’s right here. I stopped her.”
“You stop’d me, too?”
“You were going to hit her. We can leave them both here.”
The woman statue was close enough to Kyear that Arc needed only move her a few inches. “Are you acquainted with this female?”
“No, but she called Kyear by his given name. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“’Twas right,” Arc said. He groped in the darkness and found her upper arm, then ran his hand up her shoulder to her neck and face and stroked her cheek with his rough thumb. “You hast done the right thing.”
She smi
led dimly, feeling her cheeks warm. Why his approval meant so much to her, she didn’t know, but it did. “We’d better go before someone else happens in.” She draped the dust cover over both the Kyear statue and the woman. Though it wasn’t long enough to hide the woman’s slippered feet, it would do for the time being.
They made their way downstairs to the door. Jora used the Mindstream to view the street outside the door, waited until it was clear, and then ushered Arc out.
He strode across to the side-street where they’d started and waited for her.
“Po Teng, can you stay here and unstatue him, then dismiss yourself?”
The ally nodded, grinning. He tapped his twig fingers together. “Shay whe-nuh.”
She smiled back at him. He’d always been such a good friend.
When the street was clear, she opened the door and slipped out, then joined Arc across the street.
“He is flesh again?” Arc asked.
“Po Teng, release him,” she said, hoping Po Teng heard the command. “We’ll see.”
A moment later, the door opened, and the desk clerk exited. They watched him lock the door behind him, marvel at the darkened sky, and stalk away.
“Well done, portwatcher,” Arc said.
“And you, sir Colossus. Well done.”
They returned to his shop, where Korlan waited, frozen in stone. The room was noticeably darker than it had been when they left, and so Arc lit a lamp
“I think I was here,” Jora said, taking a position in front of Korlan, “and you were about there.” She pointed to a place near the table.
When she released him from the stone, he flinched and looked around. He shot her an annoyed look. “You did it, didn’t you? Statuized me.”
“I thought you wanted to see what it was like,” Jora said.
“I didn’t. What did you two do while I was standing here?”
Jora and Arc shared a smile. “Nothing much,” she said.
“Never mind,” Korlan said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
Chapter 23
Jora awoke the next morning well before dawn. She paced in her room, anxious about the previous day’s events. Captain Kyear would be missed. There would be a search. Word would reach the king. She would be presumed guilty. Her pardon would be revoked. She would be beheaded. Finn would have no one.
I’ve got to think. What options do I have?
She counted them on her fingers: leave the Kyear statue where it was and hope for the best; move Kyear back to his office and sleep him, put him into his chair, and let everything play out as it would when he awoke; kill him and leave his body in an alley with a few of the coins in his pocket to deflect suspicion away from her.
She chewed the inside of her cheek as she paced. If she was going to sentence one smuggler to death, she’d have to sentence them all, and she didn’t know whether it was a crime deserving of a death penalty. No. Killing the Minister of Finance was not an option, regardless of what sentence the law dictated for smuggling.
What would Elder Devarla say? If Jora asked her, the elder would know she’d been investigating. But if someone else asked her, for instance, the disciple who’d been the Primary Witness at her trial, Jeneve. Jeneve could ask her. Jora would need to be nearby, out of sight but within earshot, giving directions to Sonnis. It was an idea worth further consideration, but if anyone could help her come up with a solution, it was Sundancer.
When the pitcher of hot water was delivered to her door with a light knock, she washed and shaved a few spots on her head she’d missed the night before, then dressed in her street clothes with the purple robe over them. By the time she’d put her boots on, the robe was red once again.
She opened the door to find Korlan standing in the hallway, his fist raised to knock. They both startled and smiled.
“I figured you would want to hear the tones change,” he said, “so I came early.”
“You’re going to watch me hear the tones change?” Jora shut the door behind her and started walking with him downstairs.
“It’s not my choice,” he said. “Milad is riding me, and his crop is stinging my ass.”
She cast a wary glance at him. “Why is he so interested in how I spend my time? It’s none of his business.”
“He thinks you’re investigating the... you-know-what. If you could let me come with you, my wife—I mean my life would be easier.” He opened the door to the covered walkway, and she preceded him out. “You’re my only duty now. Wherever you go, I go. Milad threatened to shackle our wrists together.”
“Challenger, he’s annoying.” She winced up at him.
“It’s because people are starting to notice the missing statue. Captain Kyear from the Legion asked about it yesterday.”
“Kyear talked to Milad?” Jora cursed under her breath. “What does he plan to do about it?”
Korlan averted his gaze as he followed her down the stairs. “He didn’t say.”
Jora scrunched her brow. “He said something. Milad’s not the kind of man to simply let it go.”
“You’re right, but I think he intended to consult with your elder first. Brace yourself, Jora. You’re going to have to answer for why you have a pet Colossus.”
She ignored the barb. It’d been unrealistic to expect the missing Colossus to go unnoticed, even in the rear of the Legion building, and now she would pay the price for having set Arc free.
He waited at the top of the Justice Bureau steps, gazing out at the pink and orange sky, while Jora joined the elders and adepts at the Spirit Stone. They were polite, as always, but there was a wariness in their eyes that hadn’t been there a month earlier. The moment the sun’s first rays peeked over the horizon, the old tone faded and the new sang through her blood and bones. She felt the strength of it as well as the calm patience, and she let it fill her, breathing it in as it lifted her spirit. When she opened her eyes, she saw the elders had begun walking back inside. Why did they not stay long enough to experience the full effect of it?
Perhaps only I have such a profound response.
The idea of it amused her. Why should she have been the one to become the Gatekeeper? There was nothing special about her. The question had weighed on her for the last three weeks, but she was no closer to an answer now than when she’d first wondered.
“You seem to enjoy that more than everyone else does,” Korlan said. “You don’t need a husband when you’ve got the Spirit Stone to pleasure you.”
Jora felt heat flood her face. “It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” He grinned at her as they started down the two dozen steps of the justice building, but his smile seemed forced. “You could’ve fooled me and all those other elders and adepts who blush at the sight of you taking your pleasure with a long, hard–”
“Korlan!”
“–rock.” He chuckled. “All right, maybe it’s not sexual for you, but that’s what it looks like.”
Jora felt her cheeks burn and remembered some of the adepts and elders teasing her about becoming enraptured when she’d first experienced the tones change. “Never mind. Let’s just go.”
They started down the street to the east. People were leaving their homes with a kiss for their families or pats for their dogs, and walking or riding in the opposite direction toward the market. Jora withdrew the flute from its usual hiding place inside her robe, then took the garment off and folded it up as best she could. She tucked it under one arm, where it gradually became purple, and carried her flute in her free hand.
“You’re not going to the docks, are you?” Korlan asked.
“Yes.”
“What’ve you got to talk to Sundancer about today?” He seemed tense now, his earlier humor soured.
“I’ve created a problem for myself and need some advice. You don’t have to come with me if you’re uncomfortable.”
“Is she really the best one to consult? I mean, does she have more insight into human affairs than, say, a friend would?”<
br />
She glanced at him sidelong. Was he a friend? She wasn’t sure anymore. If not for the justice captain insisting he follow her around and Observing him, he could have been, but even if she trusted Korlan himself, he had his instructions, and disobeying could mean a life of hell for him. She understood why, but it was a lonely place for her to be.
“Sometimes,” she replied. “She’s older than I am, and wiser. And she has centuries of knowledge to impart.”
“What do you mean?”
Jora looked at him curiously, unsure why he would ask. Did he not realize where she’d learned the magic? “Dolphins are the stewards of an ancient magic. Didn’t you realize that? She’s the one who taught me how to become the Gatekeeper.”
A stricken look crossed his face. “I thought the Spirit Stone did that. Why else would Elder Kassyl’s book be so important to you and the dominee?”
“The book’s important because the tones are the same language as the one I use to communicate with Sundancer, but I’ve barely begun to translate it. It won’t do the dominee any good at all. Once she comes to realize that, she’ll either keep the book out of spite or return it and try to make nice.”
“I see. So if you didn’t have Sundancer, you’d still be able to learn new magic?”
Jora shrugged. “I suppose so. It depends on what the Spirit Stones have been saying all these years. I can’t ask the books questions like I can Sundancer.” Still, she was confident the book had many more secrets to reveal, among them, she hoped, were the keys to enlivening the Spirit Stones once again.
“You want to set the Spirit Stones free,” he said.
“I do. There’s something mournful about the tones, like the Spirit Stones are looking for someone to listen, someone to reveal their secrets to so they can be freed.”
Korlan nodded. The closer they got to the docks, the quieter and more pensive he grew.
“What’s wrong, Sharkfighter?” Jora asked, bumping his arm playfully.
“Don’t–” He pressed his lips together.
“Why so moody today?”
He shook his head. “I had a rough night, tossing and turning.”