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

by Brian Staveley

  Gwenna took a deep breath, then turned away from the barricades. She was going to die, that much seemed clear, but this kind of mission, at least, she understood.

  “If you don’t see anything by full dark,” she said, “it didn’t work.”

  The sniper nodded again. Then, as Gwenna grabbed her pack of munitions, Annick extended a hand. For just a moment she looked small, girl-like, confused.

  “Good luck, Gwenna,” she said quietly.

  Gwenna wasn’t sure whether to cry or shit herself.

  By the time she got to North Island, the Urghul were already trying to cross back at the logjam. She couldn’t make out much more than the shapes of men, women, and horses in the distance and thickening dark, but it looked as though Annick was holding them, Annick along with the mud flats on either side of the channel and the precarious nature of the dam itself. Still, the Urghul had the numbers. Sooner or later a group would reach the near bank, and then it would be villagers and their wood axes against mounted horsemen with spears. Gwenna tried not to think about that.

  To the north, Bridger and his crews had managed to divert the majority of the logs into the central and western channels, but enough still slipped through the east that simply floating with the current would be treacherous. As Gwenna watched, two huge trunks nudged together almost gently, bumping and rolling with the current. A person trapped between them would be crushed.

  Well, she muttered to herself, best not get trapped.

  It took only a moment to ready her starshatters and drop her boots, then three times as long to get up the courage to actually dive into the swirling, black water. The icy cold knocked the wind from her immediately, and she swirled out into the main channel kicking and gasping, trying to get a full breath as her chest constricted with the cold. She’d known it wouldn’t be like the ocean around the Islands—the Black was fed directly from the glacial runoff from the Romsdals—but this . . . her teeth were already chattering, and her fingers felt fat and foolish. She’d always found water more frightening in the darkness, as though it were a great pool that went all the way down into the earth, a hungry pit with no bottom, and darkness was falling fast.

  There was nothing for it but to stroke hard downstream, to try to conserve the meager heat she’d built running north by swimming south, and so, starshatters tucked into her belt, she kicked hard for the dam. Halfway there, a log almost took her head off. She dove at the last moment, coming up on the far side as it smashed up against a floating raft of trunks. From the water, the mounted Urghul loomed up in silhouette against the gray night sky. She tried to count them, but it was all she could do to stay clear of the shifting logs, to keep her head above water as her limbs turned to lead. Somewhere ahead, a horse screamed, and someone tumbled into the water, clawing for a moment at the dam, then sucked beneath.

  And then, all at once, she was almost on top of it, the jagged logs crushed together, looming like teeth from the swirling surface. She caught a glimpse of bodies pressed up against twisted wreckage, riders pinned by the current, drowned, their faces just inches from the good air. It sounded like there was fighting on the island, but she had no way to see it. There was just time to raise the starshatters above the surface, light them with a flick of a hand, to suck in a huge breath, manage half a prayer to Hull, and then dive, kicking down, down, down into the frigid, perfect blackness of the river bottom.

  43

  The midnight gongs had long since tolled when Kaden, Kiel, and Gabril began the long walk back to the Temple of Pleasure. They walked in silence, partly because they couldn’t speak freely on the streets of Annur, partly because there was nothing to say. Kaden had played his gambit, and it had failed. He could still hear the chaos of the warehouse, the various nobles shouting over each other, accusing, condemning, demanding. . . . Such a scene would have been impossible among the Shin, but then, that was the problem; neither Kiel nor Kaden had anticipated the full extent of the aristocrats’ irrationality, the strength of the clutching grasp in which their emotions held them.

  He kept his hood up and his head down as they moved through the winding streets, eyes fixed on his own feet and those of Gabril and Kiel, who led the way a few paces ahead. For once, he was grateful for the disguise—the hood let him stay silent, let him drift in his own thoughts. Those thoughts—visions of failure and futility—had consumed him so fully that he almost strode directly into Kiel’s back when the man stopped short. Kaden started to speak, but Kiel pushed him back, quietly but firmly, down the street from which they had just emerged.

  When they finally stopped, Kaden raised his head carefully, glancing from Gabril to the Csestriim.

  “What?” he asked quietly.

  “The Ishien,” Kiel replied. “Two of them, waiting in the shadows just outside the cobbler’s shop.”

  Kaden took a long breath, forcing himself to calm. “Did they see us?”

  Kiel shook his head.

  “Who,” Gabril asked, “are the Ishien?”

  Kaden started to explain, then thought better of it. “Enemies,” he said curtly. “Do you know another way into the temple?”

  Gabril frowned. “Several.” He glanced over his shoulder. “These enemies of yours, they can fight?”

  Kaden nodded.

  “How did they follow you?”

  Kaden considered the question. Matol couldn’t have tracked them from the kenta in the catacombs all the way to the temple. The memory of the ak’hanath sprang to mind, of their twisted, unnatural legs, of the red eyes bulging from the joints. But Matol wasn’t Csestriim. He didn’t have ak’hanath. Which meant the beshra’an.

  “They didn’t follow,” Kaden said. “They anticipated. There are only a few places in Annur I could go, only a few places to which I have any connection. They’ve probably got men watching all of them.”

  “You did not tell me this,” Gabril said, jaw tight.

  “I didn’t know they would pursue me so quickly.”

  “We can discuss it further,” Kiel said, “when we’re inside the temple.”

  Getting inside the temple proved easier said than done. Gabril led them to three more entrances before they found one—a low stable outside a modest palace—that was unwatched. By the time they’d murmured Morjeta’s passphrase to the pair of guards, descended through the long tunnel underground, and emerged into one of the small garden pavilions, Kaden wanted nothing more than to sleep. Dawn would be soon enough to fully confront the implications of his failure, both with the council and the Ishien, soon enough to start searching for another path. His mind felt battered by the strange tides of emotion: the hope, fear, anger, and despair. How most people lived with such emotions every day, with feelings a hundred times stronger, he had no idea. Even the residual tug of longing and loss was enough to disorder all hope of rational thought.

  Sleep, he reminded himself. Sleep first, then thought.

  When they stepped through the wooden door into the pavilion, however, the strain on Morjeta’s face said immediately that there would be no sleep. He started to ask what was wrong, but she waved him silent, the motion quick and urgent. Behind Kaden, Kiel and Gabril went still. Over the slow wash of water, through the gentle ringing of the wind chimes, Kaden could make out a voice, a man’s voice, smooth and urbane, but sharp as oiled steel.

  “I have nothing but respect for your temple and for your goddess, but I speak for the Unhewn Throne, and in this matter I will not be denied.”

  Kaden felt the cold claws of fear prick through the skin of his neck. He had heard that voice only briefly. It had been more than a month since he last saw the man walking out of the Bone Mountains, clothing ripped, face bloody, but he knew the accent and idiom as though they were his own. The Shin had taken from him the luxury of forgetting. While the Ishien were hunting him outside, here, within the very walls of the temple, Tarik Adiv had come, searching for someone.

  “It is not a matter of denial, Councillor,” said a woman’s voice, warm as liquid honey. “T
he young man you seek is not within our walls.”

  “How disappointing,” Adiv said, voice slick with disbelief. “You won’t mind if my men just . . . check. There are so many people coming and going, and, in the aftermath of ecstasy, it’s easy to forget certain . . . details. . . .”

  Kaden crossed silently to the wooden screen separating his pavilion from the lush garden beyond. Adiv stood in the soft red light of the hanging paper lanterns. The Mizran Councillor appeared fully recovered from his ordeal in the mountains, his dark robes immaculate, dark hair combed carefully back, held in place with a dark blindfold. He was the image of imperial authority. And a leach. And a murderer. Kaden could feel Gabril tensing at his side, and he turned to fix the First Speaker with his gaze, then shook his head slowly. Adiv was flanked by half a dozen soldiers, and whatever Gabril’s skills with those blades, he wasn’t prepared to face a leach.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Councillor,” the woman said. “As you know, we hold the identities of those inside Ciena’s walls inviolate.”

  Kaden shifted his attention to the leina confronting Adiv, a tall, voluptuous woman with skin dark and lustrous as wet coal, her hair hanging in hundreds of delicate braids. She looked desperately vulnerable, standing before the armored soldiers in nothing more than a dress of diaphanous silk, but her face betrayed no fear.

  She smiled, spreading her hands. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Adiv’s jaw tightened. “I’m sure I do.” He glanced around the garden, seeming to look through that blindfold of his from one pavilion to the next. Kaden kept still as the non-gaze passed over him, wondering for the first time whether Tan had killed all the ak’hanath back in the Bone Mountains. He realized he had no idea where the creatures had originally come from, whether Adiv had more, whether they were stalking him even now, scratching at the high walls of the temple, searching for a way in, a way over.

  Finally Adiv turned back to the leina. “You know, Demivalle, that I have more men than these six.”

  He left the rest of the threat unvoiced, but the leina’s lips tightened a fraction.

  “And you know, Councillor, that the citizens of Annur love my goddess. Many worship inside these walls, and the worshippers would be displeased with any disturbance.”

  “The citizens of Annur love Intarra, as well,” Adiv replied. “And look what happened to Uinian.”

  Demivalle met his smile with one of her own. “Of course, Uinian was a traitor. I am not. I live to serve Annur and all her citizens, after serving my goddess, of course.”

  “You’ve always been clever with that tongue of yours, Valle, but you know as well as any that serving Annur is not the same as serving the Unhewn Throne.”

  “I wish all peace and pleasure upon the lords of our land.” She cocked her head delicately to the side. “This is a . . . precarious time for the Dawn Palace. I would hate to see the current instability extended as a result of . . .” She paused longer this time, as though searching for the words. “. . . rash and unnecessary decisions.”

  Maybe it was her light, apologetic laugh, or the simple fact of seeing his will so clearly thwarted, but Adiv’s face twisted into a snarl beneath his blindfold, and he leaned in close, seizing the leina by the arm, his fingers driving into her flesh.

  “So we understand each other,” he hissed, “I would remind you that what you have here is nothing more than a collection of pretty, perfumed whores. You hide behind the lust of Annur’s powerful and rich as though that lust were loyalty. It is not. I will leave you for the moment, but if I discover you have lied to me, you may find that all this soft, decadent flesh you have so assiduously collected, all your beautiful boys and girls, will burn as briskly as your high walls.”

  If Demivalle was frightened by the threat, she didn’t show it. Instead of drawing back from Adiv’s grip, she pulled him closer in a mockery of true embrace.

  “And in the interest of understanding,” she whispered sweetly in his ear, the words soft, yet intended to carry to anyone else listening, “I would remind you that while you serve a man, I serve a goddess. It is a pity your eyes went bad so early, or you might see more clearly the power you confront.”

  “I could kill him,” Gabril said, frowning at the flame flickering inside the porcelain lamp.

  Morjeta shook her head vigorously. “No. You couldn’t. Tarik Adiv is a cruel, vicious man, but he is not foolish. The six soldiers you saw tonight were the barest fraction of his strength.”

  “And he’s a leach,” Triste spat. “He can . . . do things.”

  Gabril shook his head in disgust. “Filthy scum.”

  Kaden took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. After Adiv’s departure, Morjeta had hurried them up the stairs to her chambers and double-bolted the doors while Triste pulled the curtains and lit more lamps. The temple, which had seemed like such a sanctuary for the past several days, now felt dangerous, sinister, a trap sliding slowly shut. He glanced around Morjeta’s chamber, but there was little to see—delicately scented candles on the mantel; flowering jasmine in dark, elegant pots; a harp hung from a hook on one wall; and a scattering of parchment, quills, and ink jars scattered across a low table, the remnants of their long nights drafting the constitution. Nothing to suggest treachery. Nothing to hint that even here, in the heart of Ciena’s temple, they were being watched.

  “How did Adiv know I was here?” Kaden asked.

  Triste stabbed a finger at the garden beyond the curtains. “There are hundreds of leinas,” she said, shaking her head with disgust. “Someone talked.”

  “What about all that about ‘keeping identities inviolate’?” Kaden asked.

  Morjeta pursed her lips. “Most of us serve the goddess above all.” She spread her hands. “But despite the training and the oaths, leinas are human, with human hopes and flaws. They can be threatened or bribed. They can be manipulated to think they have no choices.” She glanced at Triste, and a shadow of anguish passed across her face. “Demivalle is strict in her adherence to the oaths—this year already she has seen four leinas and a serving girl cut and put outside the walls for violating the trust of the goddess—but this temple houses hundreds, and she cannot be everywhere.”

  “We will move to my estate,” Gabril said. “These Ishien would not follow you there, and this temple is no longer safe. Now that the councillor knows you are here, he will come back.”

  Morjeta hesitated, then shook her head. “He doesn’t know. Not for certain. We’ve been careful to keep Kaden hooded and hidden at all times save inside my own rooms. At the most, Adiv has heard that my daughter has returned. You should be safe here, at least for a few more nights.”

  “He was searching for a man,” Kaden pointed out.

  “He was fishing,” Morjeta said, “hoping Demivalle would let something slip. If he knew for certain that you were here, that I was shielding you, Ciena’s walls would not keep you safe.”

  “There must be some way to stop him,” Triste said, hands balling into fists, “to kill him.”

  “Tarik Adiv is not the problem,” Kaden said quietly, shaking his head. “Not yet, at least.”

  Triste turned to him, aghast. “He tried to murder you once already. He threatened my mother and took me from the temple by force, and now he’s back, hunting us again. How is he not the problem?”

  “He is only an obstacle,” Kaden replied, “if we decide to remain in the city. We could be gone tomorrow morning, by tonight, and he would have no way to follow us.”

  “You would run?” Gabril asked, face hardening. “And what of this empire you pledged to destroy? What of your constitution?”

  Kaden met the First Speaker’s angry glare. “I don’t plan to run, but until we have devised a way to destroy the empire itself, it’s irrelevant whether or not Tarik Adiv watches over the Dawn Palace. Irrelevant whether or not we kill him.”

  “Killing would be a good place to start,” Triste said. “We can figure out the rest as we go along.”

/>   “No,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “Killing Adiv will create an absence in the Dawn Palace, a brief period in which no one rules Annur—but absence is difficult to maintain. If our own council is not there to fill the empty space, then il Tornja, or Adare, or another of his minions will step in almost immediately.”

  “Unfortunately,” Kiel said, “after our meeting tonight, forming a council looks unlikely.”

  “The nobles are fools,” Gabril said, cracking the knuckles of one hand, then the other. “They would poison their own well to prevent others from drinking.”

  “What if you were able to offer them something?” Triste asked. “Promise them more, if they sign the constitution?”

  “I don’t have anything else to offer,” Kaden said, spreading his hands.

  “Future rights and prerogatives,” Triste suggested, “in the new republic.”

  Kaden considered the idea a moment, then shook his head in frustration. “It was greed over the rights I was offering in the first place that choked off the agreement.”

  Morjeta had been staring at him, eyes bright in the lamplight. “It won’t work. . . .” she whispered. “I thought that maybe . . .” She shook her head. “They aren’t going to agree after all. I’m so sorry.”

  They fell silent at that, Gabril glaring moodily into the lamplight, Triste gnawing at her lip. Kaden studied them a moment, the thorn of a horrible new thought pricking at his mind, then looked away, watching the delicate curtains shift in the breeze. From the garden below, he could make out the light sound of music and laughter played over the deeper bass of moaning, the fervent cries of physical rapture. The weariness he’d felt just after returning from the warehouse settled on him once more, a heavy, soporific helplessness. These were his people, the patrons of the temple and the angry nobility alike, and yet sometimes they seemed more alien than the Csestriim.

  He filled his mind with a saama’an of the meeting, studied various faces in the feeble lamplight. He could see the scene in perfect detail, but it meant little. He could stare at the faces for hours, watch the disaster unfold forward or backward, but he had no idea how to change the result. If it were a crumbling wall, or the broken axle of a cart, a wet clay pot on the spinning wheel or a goat’s carcass to be carved, he would be able to discern the shape of the problem beneath the bright skin of the world, but he could find no pattern in the assembled aristocrats, no shape in the madness.