The Khai Nlachi left the dais first, attended by servants who lifted him
into his litter and others who bore him away. "I 'hen Idaan herself
retreated. The others would escape according to the status of their
families and their standing within them. It would be a hand and a half
before the chamber was completely empty. Idaan strode along white marble
corridors to a retiring room, sent away her servants, locked the door
and sobbed until her heart was empty again. Then she washed her face in
cool water from her basin, arrayed her kohl and blush, whitener and lip
rouge before a mirror and carefully made a mask of her skin.
There would be talk, of course. Even without her father's unseemly
display of humanity-and she hated them all for the laughter and
amusement that would occasion-there would be enough to pick apart. The
strength of Adrah's voice would be commented on. The way in which he
carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form
might speak well of him in people's memory. It was a small thing, of
course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would
be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the
Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value
would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to
be touched. She wondered if it wouldn't be bettercleaner-to simply burn
the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and
seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her
comfort.
A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door.
Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of
his ritual robes.
"Idaan-kya," he said, "I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea
with my father."
"I have gifts to present to your honored father," Idaan said, gesturing
to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already
lashed to a carrying pole. "It is too much for me. Might I have the aid
of your servants?"
Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.
Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence,
following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through
the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they
passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the
palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah
walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and
mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat
beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face
was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping
into a woodcut from the Old Empire-the honored sage in contemplation.
The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.
Adrah's father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the
servants.
"The garden is closed," he said. "We have much to discuss, my children
and I."
As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell.
He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to
pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed
and bitter.
"You haven't heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?"
"The Galts?" the man said. "The messengers I send come back empty
handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away.
Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won't hack us now."
"Did they say that?" Idaan asked.
Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward,
holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.
"Did they say they wouldn't back us, or is it only that you fear they
won't?"
"Oshai," Daaya said. "He knows everything. He's been my intermediary
from the beginning. If he tells what he knows-"
"If he does, he'll be killed," Idaan said. "That he injured a poet is
bad enough, but he murdered a son of the Khaiem without being a brother
to him. He knows what would happen. His best hope is that someone
intercedes for him. If he speaks what he knows, he dies badly."
"We have to free him," Adrah said. "We ha-(- to get him out. We have to
show the Galts that we can protect them."
"We will," Idaan said. She drank down her tea. "The three of us. And I
know how we'll do it."
Adrah and his father looked at her as if she'd just spat out a serpent.
She took a pose of query.
"Shall we wait for the Galts to take action instead? They've already
begun to distance themselves. Shall we take some members of your house
into our confidence? Hire some armsmen to do it for us? Assume that our
secrets will be safer the more people know?"
"But ...... Adrah said.
"If we falter, we fail," Idaan said. "I know the way to the cages. He's
kept underground now; if they move him to the towers, it gets harder. I
asked that we meet in a place with a private exit. This garden. There is
a way out of it?"
Daaya took an acknowledging pose, but his face was pale as bread dough.
"I thought there would be others you wished to consult," he said.
"There's nothing to consult over," Idaan said and pulled open the gifts
she had brought to her new marriage. Three dark cloaks with deep hoods,
three blades in dark leather sheaths, two unstrung hunter's bows with
dark-shafted arrows, two torches, a pot of smoke pitch and a bag to
carry it. And beneath it, a wall stand of silver with the sigils of
order and chaos worked in marble and bloodstone. Idaan passed the blades
and cloaks to the men.
"The servants will only know of the wall stand. "These others we can
give to Oshai to dispose of once we have him," Idaan said. "The smoke
pitch we can use to frighten the armsmen at the cages. The bows and
blades are for those that don't flee."
"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "this is madness, we can't. .
She slapped him before she knew she meant to. He pressed a palm to his
cheek, and his eyes glistened. But there was anger in him too. That was
good.
"We do the thing now, while there are servants to swear it was not us.
We do it quickly, and we live. We falter and wail like old women, and we
die. Pick one."
Daaya Vaunyogi broke the silence by taking a cloak and pulling it on.
His son looked to him, then to her, then, trembling began to do the same.
"You should have been born a man," her soon-to-be father said. There was
disgust in his voice.
The tunnels beneath the palaces were little traveled in spring. The long
winter months trapped in the warrens that laced the earth below Machi
made even the slaves yearn for daylight. Idaan knew them all. Long
winter months stealing unchaperoned up these corridors to play on the
river ice and snow-shrouded city streets had taught her how to move
through them unseen. They passed the alcove where she and Janat Saya had
kissed once, when they were both too young to think it more t
han
something that they should wish to do. She led them through the thin
servant's passage she'd learned of when she was stealing fresh
applecakes from the kitchens. Memories made the shadows seem like old
friends from better times, when her mischief had been innocent.
They made their way from tunnel to tunnel, passing through wide chambers
unnoticed and passages so narrow they had to stoop and go singly. The
weight of stone above them made the journey seem like traveling through
a mine.
They knew they were nearing the occupied parts of the tunnels as much by
the smell of shit from the cages and acrid smoke as by the torchlight
that danced at the corridor's mouth. Thick timber beams framed the hall.
Idaan paused. This was only a side gallery-little used, rarely
trafficked. But it would do, she thought.
"What now?" Adrah asked. "We light the pitch? Simulate a fire?"
Idaan took the pot from its hag and weighed it in her hands.
"We simulate nothing, Adrah-kya," she said. She tossed the pot at the
base of a thick timber support and tossed her lit torch onto the
blackness. It sputtered for a moment, then caught. Idaan unslung the bow
from her shoulder and draped a fold of the cloak over it. "Be ready."
She waited as the flames caught. If she waited too long, they might not
be able to pass the fire. If she was too quick, the armsmen might be
able to put out the blaze. A deep calm seemed to descend upon her, and
she felt herself smile. Now would be a fine moment, she thought, and
screamed, raising the alarm. Adrah and Daaya followed her as she
stumbled through the darkness and into the cages. In the time it took
for her to take two breaths of the thickening air, they found themselves
in the place she'd hoped: a wide gallery in torchlight, the air already
becoming dense with smoke, and iron cages set into the stone where
prisoners waited on the justice of the Khai. Two armsmen in leather and
bronze armor scuttled to the three of them, their eyes round with fear.
"There's a fire in the gallery!" Daaya shrilled. "Get water! Get the watch!"
The prisoners were coming to the front of the cages now. Their cries of
fear added to the confusion. Idaan pretended to cough as she considered
the problem. There were two more armsmen at the far end of the cages,
but they were coming closer. Of the first two who had approached, one
had raced off toward the fire, the other down a well-lit tunnel, she
presumed towards aid. And then midway down the row of cages on the left,
she caught a glimpse of the Galts' creature. There was real fear in his
eyes.
Adrah panicked as the second pair came close. With a shriek, he drew his
blade, hewing at the armsmen like a child playing at war. Idaan cursed,
but Daaya was moving faster, drawing his bow and sinking a dark shaft
into the man's belly as Idaan shot at his chest and missed. But Adrah
was lucky-a wild stroke caught the armsman's chin and seemed to cleave
his jaw apart. Idaan raced to the cages, to Oshai. The moon-faced
assassin registered a moment's surprise when he saw her face within the
hood, and then Oshai closed his eyes and spat.
Adrah and Daaya rushed to her side.
"Do not speak," Oshai said. "Nothing. Every man here would sell you for
his freedom, and there are people who would buy. Do you understand?"
Idaan nodded and pointed toward the thick lock that barred the door.
Oshai shook his head.
"The Khai's Master of Blades keeps the keys," Oshai said. "The cages
can't be opened without him. If you meant me to leave with you, you
didn't think this through very well."
Adrah whispered a curse, but Oshai's eyes were on Idaan. He smiled
thinly, his eyes dead as a fish's. He saw it when she understood, and he
nodded, stepped back from the bars, and opened his arms like a man
overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunrise. Idaan's first arrow took him in
the throat. There were two others after that, but she thought they
likely didn't matter. The first shouts of the watch echoed. The smoke
was thickening. Idaan walked away, down the route she had meant to take
when the prisoners were free. She'd meant to free them all, adding to
the chaos. She'd been a fool.
"What have you done?" Daaya Vaunyogi demanded once they were safely away
in the labyrinth. "What have you done?"
Idaan didn't bother answering.
Back in the garden, they sank the blades and the cloaks in a fountain to
lie submerged until Adrah could sneak back in under cover of night and
get rid of them. Even with the dark hoods gone, they all reeked of
smoke. She hadn't foreseen that either. Neither of the men met her eyes.
And yet, Oshai was beyond telling stories to the utkhaiem. So perhaps
things hadn't ended so badly.
She gave her farewells to Daaya Vaunyogi. Adrah walked with her hack
through the evening-dimmed streets to her rooms. That the city seemed
unchanged struck her as odd. She couldn't say what she had expected-what
the day's events should have done to the stones, the air-but that it
should all be the same seemed wrong. She paused by a beggar, listening
to his song, and dropped a length of silver into the lacquered box at
his feet.
At the entrance to her rooms, she sent her servants away. She did not
wish to be attended. They would assume she smelled of sex, and best that
she let them. Adrah peered at her, earnest as a puppy, she thought. She
could see the distress in his eyes.
"You had to," he said, and she wondered if he meant to comfort her or
convince himself. She took a pose of agreement. He stepped forward, his
arms curving to embrace her.
"Don't touch me," she said, and he stepped hack, paused, lowered his
arms. Idaan saw something die behind his eyes, and felt something wither
in her own breast. So this is what we are, she thought.
"Things were good once," he said, as if willing her to say and they will
be again. The most she could give him was a nod. They had been good
once. She had wanted and admired and loved him once. And even now, a
part of her might love him. She wasn't sure.
The pain in his expression was unbearable. Idaan leaned forward, kissed
him briefly on the lips, and went inside to wash the day off her skin.
She heard his footsteps as he walked away.
Her body felt wrung out and empty. There were dried apples and sugared
almonds waiting for her, but the thought of food was foreign. Gifts had
arrived throughout the day-celebrations of her being sold off. She
ignored them. It was only after she had bathed, washing her hair three
times before it smelled more of flowers than smoke, that she found the note.
It rested on her bed, a square of paper folded in quarters. She sat
naked beside it, reached out a hand, hesitated, and then plucked it
open. It was brief, written in an unsteady hand.
Daughter, it said. I had hoped that you might be able to spend some part
of this happy day with me. Instead, I will leave this. Know that you
have my blessings and such love as a weary old man can give. You have
always deli
ghted me, and I hope for your happiness in this match.
When her tears and sobbing had exhausted her, Idaan carefully gathered
the scraps of the note together and placed them together under her
pillow. Then she bowed and prayed to all the gods and with all her heart
that her father should die, and die quickly. That he should die without
discovering what she was.
MAATI WAS LOST FOR A TIME IN PAIN, THEN DISCOMFORT, AND THEN PAIN again.
He didn't suffer dreams so much as a pressing sense of urgency without
goal or form, though for a time he had the powerful impression that he
was on a boat, rocked by waves. His mind fell apart and reformed itself
at the will of his body.
He came to himself in the night, aware that he had been half awake for
some time; that there had been conversations in which he had
participated, though he couldn't say with whom or on what matters. The
room was not his own, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the
Khai's palace. No fire burned in the grate, but the stone walls were
warm with stored sunlight. The windows were shuttered with shaped stone,
the only light coming from the night candle that had burned almost to
its quarter mark. Maati pulled back the thin blankets and considered the
puckered gray flesh of his wound and the dark silk that laced it closed.
He pressed his belly gently with his fingertips until he thought he knew
how delicate he had become. When he stood, tottering to the night pot,
he found he had underestimated, but that the pain was not so
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