Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne 02 - The Providence of Fire:

by Brian Staveley

  “Stay here,” Kaden said. “I’ll be fast.”

  “What should we do if the Ishien come?” Triste asked. She looked as though she were trying to watch every direction at once, trying to study every stranger.

  Kaden shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “There is a way out,” Kiel said, “from inside.”

  “A back door?”

  “A kenta,” the Csestriim replied.

  Triste blanched. “Matol and Tan could be in there already! They could be waiting for him!”

  “No,” Kiel said. “It’s a different network. My people built more than one, in case the first were destroyed or compromised.”

  “And the island we just came from . . .” Kaden asked, absorbing the new information, trying to work through the implications.

  “That is one hub, a hub controlled by the Ishien. The gates lead various places—Assare, the Dead Heart, the catacombs from which we just emerged. . . .”

  “And what about this?” Kaden asked, nodding toward the chapterhouse.

  “This is your network,” Kiel replied. “The imperial network. The one entrusted to your family. The Ishien know of it, but they do not patrol it. It does not connect directly to the Dead Heart. If you hear any struggle or violence, you can escape through the kenta. It’s in the deepest basement.”

  Kaden frowned. “Where does it lead?”

  “To another hub, an island much like the one we just left.”

  “And once I’m on the island?”

  “Take the second gate to your right. It will bring you to a flooded area beneath the docks of Olon. Once in the city, you should be able to lose yourself in the crowd.”

  Kaden stared, trying to imagine the escape. He could point to Olon on a map, but that was about it. He had no sense of the climate or culture, the manners of the local people.

  “If I flee to Olon,” he said, “I’ll be hundreds of miles from Annur, with no way to get back.”

  “Which, I assume, is preferable to the Dead Heart,” Kiel said. “It is only a precaution.”

  Kaden took a deep breath, then nodded.

  “Remember, the second gate to your right. Not the first one.”

  “Where does that lead?”

  “The Dawn Palace,” Kiel replied. “If you burst through there, you’ll be filled with arrows before you hit the ground.”

  The monk who greeted Kaden at the door, a dark-skinned man with dark eyes, graying hair, and a slight limp, glanced once at his eyes, once at his clothes, then nodded as though in response to some interior question, gesturing him inside with a slight motion of his hand. Kaden was ready with a bushel of explanations—who he was, where he had come from, what he wanted—but the monk said nothing, escorting him to a small chamber with a wooden stool, an earthenware ewer, and a single cup on a low table. He filled the cup with clear water, passed it to Kaden, then straightened.

  “Wait here, brother, while I bring Iaapa.”

  Without another word, the monk slipped out the door on bare, silent feet, leaving Kaden alone holding the rough cup. Urgency pressed down on him like the air before a storm, heavy and pregnant. It was possible Matol and his men were outside even as he waited, watching the chapterhouse, preparing to enter, possible they had already captured Kiel and Triste. . . .

  Calm, Kaden told himself, lifting the cup to his lips, taking a small sip, holding the water on his tongue, moving it around the inside of the mouth, then feeling it snake down his throat, cool against the heat that burned inside him. He waited three heartbeats, took another sip, and the anxiety retreated. A moment later Iaapa stepped into the room.

  “A visitor from Ashk’lan,” he said, round face creasing into a smile. “It is more than a year since we have welcomed a brother from the Bone Mountains.”

  Aside from Phirum Prumm, Iaapa was the only fat monk Kaden had ever seen, a short man with skin pale as milk and ears that stuck out as though tacked to the sides of his spherical head. He shared no physical resemblance with Scial Nin, the abbot of Ashk’lan, but there was a similar distance in the gaze, a stillness of the body, that suggested many years spent in the discipline of the Blank God.

  “What is the word from the other end of the world?”

  Kaden hesitated, the pushed ahead. “The word is bleak. Ashk’lan is destroyed and the monks are dead.”

  Another man might have reeled at the account, raged against it, demanded evidence or explanation. Iaapa simply pursed his lips, waiting silently for Kaden to continue.

  “I can’t tell you the whole thing,” Kaden said. “There’s no time. Soldiers came for me, Aedolian guardsmen commanded by Tarik Adiv, my father’s Mizran Councillor. It seems to have been part of a plot to destroy my entire family.”

  “And the monks?” Iaapa asked finally. “We take no part in the politics of the empire.”

  “Adiv was thorough,” Kaden replied bleakly.

  “Then we will need to send others to Ashk’lan to rebuild.”

  There was no mention of mourning, but then, the Shin did not mourn. A part of Kaden felt as though he had abandoned the bodies of the monks at Ashk’lan, but the monks themselves did little more for their dead, carrying them up the trail to the high places where the wind, weather, and ravens could break apart the final illusion of the self. After just a few weeks with people who held their selves and their survival sacrosanct, Kaden had forgotten how lightly the monks who raised him regarded the powers of Ananshael.

  “How have you returned here?” Iaapa asked.

  “I don’t have time to explain. Men may be coming for me even now.” Kaden glanced around the small room. “My brother, Valyn. Has he come here? It would have been weeks ago, most likely.”

  Iaapa shook his head slowly. “We have had no visitors for months.”

  Kaden’s stomach dropped. It was the news he had feared. There were a few possible ways to read Valyn’s failure to return, but by far the most plausible was the bleakest: the Flea had killed him. Killed him or taken him prisoner. Kaden thought back to the madness inside the ancient orphanage of Assare, to the smoke and the screaming, the confusion and desperation. Kaden himself had barely escaped, and he’d had the kenta. . . .

  Grief welled within him, but he quelled it, let it drain away with his breath. Whether Valyn was alive or dead, grief would not help him, and there was no time for it.

  “What do you know of the Ishien?” Kaden asked.

  Iaapa raised his brows. “A little.”

  “They will come here,” Kaden said. Even if Tan had told them nothing, they would look for Kaden among the monks that had raised him. “You can’t tell them I’m in the city.”

  The fat monk raised two hands, as though to hold the treachery and scheming at bay.

  “As you know, brother, the Shin do not deal in politics or secrets.”

  “But we deal in silences,” Kaden replied, “and I am begging for your silence. They are not like us, not really, and they are dangerous.”

  Iaapa frowned. “I have heard . . . stories.”

  “They’re probably true,” Kaden said, glancing over his shoulder toward the door. “In fact, it might be best for you, for all of you, to leave here for a month, several months. To go somewhere more remote. Somewhere safe.”

  “Safety,” Iaapa replied quietly, poking at his head with a wide finger, “is here.”

  Kaden sucked an irritated breath between his teeth. He didn’t have time to argue with the man, to explain just how thoroughy the Aedolians had gutted Ashk’lan, how the Shin had burned just like other men when their buildings blazed around them. Even if he had the time, there was no reason to believe his argument would sway the monk. Fleeing harm, for the Shin, was as foolish as hoarding pleasure; both were paths leading only to disappointment.

  He hesitated, then rose to his feet, bowing his head in respect.

  “I thank you for your time,” he said quietly.

  Iaapa remained seated, but he nodded in return.

  That seemed to
conclude the audience, but just as Kaden reached the door, the monk spoke once again.

  “Your father came here often,” Iaapa said, “through the gate. Sometimes for just an hour, sometimes for a night, when he wanted rest from the weight of his other duties.”

  Kaden stared as the monk smiled. “You are welcome, too, whenever you have need of rest.”

  Despite Iaapa’s offer, there was no possibility of remaining at the chapterhouse. The whole meeting had taken less time than the boiling of a pot of water, and even that felt like a risk. Matol would come looking, most likely sooner than later, and it would be safer for everyone if Kaden was nowhere near the monks when he did.

  “Valyn hasn’t been here,” he said, looking from Kiel to Triste, careful to keep his voice down and his hood pulled forward. “And they haven’t seen Valyn.”

  “They killed him,” Triste said quietly, staring at him. “The other Kettral killed him.”

  “It’s just speculation,” Kaden said, then bowed his head. “But it’s likely. In either case, we’re on our own. We have no idea what’s going on in the city, no sense of who’s in charge, who killed my father, who sent Ut and Adiv after me. We need a place to stay while we ask the questions.”

  Triste frowned. “A hostel,” she suggested finally. “Or an inn.”

  “Better than sleeping in the streets,” Kiel agreed.

  “But we don’t have any money,” Triste said.

  The Csestriim shook his head. “Actually, I have a great deal of money.”

  Kaden stared.

  “Compounded interest is a powerful force for someone with my longevity.”

  Kaden shook his head. “Compounded interest?”

  “A bank,” Kiel explained. “They pay you for the use of your money. The longer they use it, the more they pay.”

  Kaden glanced over at Triste, but her face was as blank as his own. Again he felt the jarring shock of his return, the futility of the task before him. He’d heard of banks as a child, of course. He’d imagined them to be great stone palaces piled with bricks of silver and gold. The Shin had taught him nothing of compounded interest.

  “Which bank?” Triste asked. “The sooner we have the coin, the sooner we can get off the street.” She hadn’t stopped looking furtively toward the entrance to the alleyway, as though expecting Matol to step out of the sunlight any moment.

  “No,” Kaden said, shaking his head slowly. “It’s too risky.”

  Triste turned on him. “What’s the risk?”

  “The Ishien. They captured Kiel fifteen years ago. They might know about the bank. Might look there.”

  “It’s unlikely,” the Csestriim replied. “They don’t know the name I used.”

  “Unlikely is not impossible. The Shin had an exercise, a technique, the beshra’an. . . .”

  “The Thrown Mind,” Kiel said. “It was our skill before it became yours.”

  “Then you know that Matol can use it. It’s possible they have used it. They may have found your bank. For all we know, the people in those rooms of yours are Ishien, living there, waiting, just on the off chance that another Csestriim shows up looking for you.”

  Kiel looked out at the street a moment, face blank as a page, unreadable. Finally he nodded. “All right. We’ll avoid the rooms and the bank. But that leaves us with no coin and no safe place to lodge.”

  “Do you know anyone in the city?” Kaden asked.

  Kiel started to respond, but Triste spoke first. “I do.”

  Her eyes were wide with something that might have been fear or hope or both, and she had clutched her hands together so tightly the knuckles had gone white.

  “Your mother,” Kaden said, the realization settling into place like the last stone in a carefully built wall.

  She nodded.

  “Did you tell Matol who she was?”

  She hesitated, then nodded once more.

  “Then they’ll know to look there.”

  “He won’t be able to,” Triste replied, seized with a sudden vehemence. “The temple is enormous, and it’s built for discretion. There are dozens of entrances, most of them hidden, so that the patrons can come and go without attracting notice. If we can get inside, my mother will hide us. I know she will.”

  Kiel held his hands up, trying to slow the conversation. “What temple? Who is your mother?”

  “She is a leina,” Triste replied, her voice hard and defiant, inviting him to mock her.

  He just raised his eyebrows. “A priestess of Ciena.”

  She nodded. “It’s perfect: Annur’s richest, most powerful men and women patronize the leinas, and my mother used to tell me ‘Lust loosens the tongue.’ If there’s something worth knowing in Annur, we can learn it there.”

  For a sacred structure dedicated to all the pleasures of mankind, Ciena’s temple didn’t look like much from the outside. It was huge, no doubt, sprawling over more than a city block, but all Kaden could see from the street was a blank stone wall six or seven times his height, the whole thing crawling with flowering vines but otherwise unadorned. Aside from the size, it wouldn’t have been so out of place in Ashk’lan.

  “I expected more . . .” He searched for the right word. “. . . extravagance.”

  “It’s all on the inside,” Triste replied. “Like true pleasure.”

  Kaden stared at the nondescript stone. “All right. How do we get inside?”

  The cobbler’s shop was small, but the shoes perched behind the glass windows—shoes in every color and shape, from delicate sandals to boots that would stretch halfway up the thigh, shoes made of soft leather and snakeskin and dark exotic wood—looked as though each pair cost at least a golden sun. Reinforcing the impression, two men stood flanking the door, hands on the pommels of their swords. Both were immaculately groomed and armored, but they had the hard eyes and scarred faces of seasoned fighters.

  The closest one ran his gaze skeptically over Kaden and Kiel, then raised a palm.

  “Nothing your size here, I’m afraid.”

  Triste pressed forward, and the guard hesitated, looking her up and down. She murmured something Kaden couldn’t make out, and the man glanced at his companion.

  “You know her?”

  The other frowned, shook his head.

  Triste glanced up and down the crowded street, then tugged down the collar of her shirt to reveal the delicate necklace inked around her neck. The guard’s eyes rose. She hissed something else, and, to Kaden’s relief, he nodded, stepped back, then gestured to the interior of the shop.

  “Now that I think of it, I believe there may be something that fits you after all.”

  The inside of the shop smelled of cedar and fine leather. Mirrors worth more than Ashk’lan’s entire flock stood against the wall, angled to provide the best possible view of the feet and ankles. Kaden found himself staring at his rough boots, but before he could think to scrape away some of the grime, the shopkeeper, a wide woman in a dress of very fine silk, bustled into the room. She took one look at Triste’s tattoo, then waved them back through a curtain blocking off the end of the shop. She studiously avoided looking at either Kaden or Kiel as she led them down a long hallway to a heavy wooden door, then slipped a key on a chain from between her breasts. The lock opened with a heavy click. She lifted a lantern from a hook inside the door, lit it, then handed it to Triste. Eyes still downcast, she gestured them down a flight of stairs.

  “Be welcome to the home of the goddess,” she murmured as they passed. “May you find inside the pleasure you seek.”

  Only after they’d descended the stairs and walked fifty paces through a tunnel floored with burnished black stone and paneled with shining maple did Kaden venture to speak.

  “What did you tell them back there?”

  “I told them my mother’s name, that the two of you were her patrons. That you were wearing a hood because you didn’t want to be recognized and that if they left us standing in the street for another moment, I would see that they were flogged
and their employment terminated.”

  Kiel frowned. “You bullied your way past the guards? That would seem to be weak security.”

  “Not really,” she replied. “It was the tattoo that got me through. That and the fact that I . . .” She hesitated, coloring. “I look the part.”

  “Really?” Kaden asked, raising his brows. He gestured to her burns, to the lacerations cut into her skin. Even without the obvious wounds, Triste was filthy, hardly the image of a pampered priestess.

  She bit her lip. “Not all of Ciena’s gifts are made of silk and fine wine. There are . . . rougher pleasures. This will not be the first time the guards have seen a priest or priestess return to the temple looking . . . less than pure.”

  Kaden grappled with the notion for a moment, then shook his head. “Now what?” he asked. “What happens when we get inside?”

  “Now what?” Kaden asked. “What happens when we get inside?”

  “We find my mother.”

  After walking another hundred paces and climbing a spiral staircase, Kaden followed Triste through a second wooden door, this one unlocked, into a small pavilion of cedar and sandalwood. Instead of walls, intricately carved screens shielded them from sight while allowing glimpses of leaves and tree trunks beyond. The noise and chaos of Annur’s streets was gone, replaced by the music of birdsong, the soft gurgling of running water, and from somewhere in the distance, two overlapping melodies picked out on great harps. Green vines spilling over with tiny red flowers twisted through the woodwork, their soft scent twining with that of the cedar and sandalwood. Twin divans upholstered with dark silk and piled with artfully arranged pillows flanked the walls of the pavilion, while between them a small stone fountain trickled water into a clear pool.

  A quiet chime sounded as soon as Triste shut the door behind her, and moments later a young man in a simple white robe stepped into the space. Like the shopkeeper, he kept his eyes downcast, a humble posture that did nothing to obscure the perfection of his features. He gestured to the divan.