Grief howled through him, acid regret splashed across his own pain and loss in a twisted skein of sorrow so overwhelming he could barely walk. But Maia’s killers were coming for him with bared steel.
He staggered past the body and dodged the dead man’s partner, who charged into the Shadow slashing left and right. The attacker slipped on the dropped sword and sprawled on the cobbles while Kirin ran into the alley. The other eight closed behind him. More men pounded down the open north stairway of the Inn towards him, but before they reached the ground he had already made it to the Serpentine. He cut left away from the Inn and ran. His Shadow filled the Serpentine behind him and blocked the pursuing swordsmen.
He ran through the stinking alleys of the Sump, clutching his infant son and weeping into the uncaring night.
CHAPTER 32: DARNAUD
“You should have let me kill them all,” Darnaud grumbled in his native tongue. He stamped his feet in fury on the night-dewed cobblestones outside the Sulfur Serpent Inn. He dared not defy Boerga, but he wanted to. A few of his men still held the acrobats’ floor while the rest fruitlessly swept the surrounding streets and alleys for the youth, Kirin.
“I gave my word,” she answered fiercely. “Even to darkies, it was my honor pledged! Bad enough that you violated it by killing the woman. Dishonorable and stupid! While she lived we had something to coerce him with, maybe even bargain his life for hers. Now we have nothing, and if you’d killed his whole family we’d have less than nothing, and a mess that the City Watch would have to heed.”
“It wasn’t me who let the bitch slip her baby away and warn him at the same time,” Darnaud sneered, smarting under both the lash of her tongue and the infuriating knowledge that she was right. “Be sure Ap Marn will take note of that! He’ll—”
“This bickering is pointless,” she cut him off. “The night isn’t over yet, we still have a chance to find him. We need to guess where he will run and go there.”
Darnaud scowled, but she had a point. He fought down his temper and thought hard. “The wizard only told me a little about him. Of his friends and allies I know nothing. If he runs toward power, well, he already knows we have the civil rule in our hands, now that the Prince will no longer overrule us. He can’t know how many mages Chisaad has won over, so he’ll probably stay away from the Council. The damn Witch-Queen could be a problem if he runs there.”
“Nay,” Boerga disagreed. “She sent him to the wizard in the first place, he’ll not likely trust her either. There’s only one power in Aretzo he dares trust, one that has shown him favor before, curse their yellow robes. We need to know which Temple he’ll likely seek for sanctuary. If it’s the main one then we are ruined, but a lesser one could still be assailed with the men you have.”
Darnaud snorted; the woman dreamed. “How many men do you want me to lose tonight? Those bitches can kill with a touch!”
“As can I, my lord.” She bared her teeth in not-a-smile. “As can I.”
The reminder chilled his anger. Grudgingly he said, “Give me some time with one of these peasants and—”
“Nay, my lord, your blood is still too hot.” She matched his scowl, then tossed her head. “I will find out where these peasants worship. Meanwhile you gather up your men.”
Darnaud grunted unhappy assent and went to make it so.
CHAPTER 33: KIRIN
Kirin stopped before the bridge to the Temple of Heavenly Peace. He leaned his forehead against a cracked stone wall and retched again.
I’m a murderer, he thought for the twentieth time. He spit, but the taste of the life he had drained still lingered on his tongue. The Gwythlo fighter’s angers and fears, loves and delights, they all flickered across his mind with horrifying intimacy. I killed him like Gerlach. He desperately wanted to vomit, as if that would void his memory too, but his heaving stomach had nothing.
Baby Grigor stirred unhappily against his ribs. Kirin had tucked him inside his shirt for shelter and to have both hands free. Now he cradled his son through the fabric with one arm while he snuck through the night-vacant streets of the Sump. He hesitated at the sight of someone ascending the arch of the Temple’s bridge.
Calm slipped free of the clouds as the robed figure got to the top. Kirin recognized Dona Abbithana. She walked slowly, head down as if grieved or exhausted, and cradled a wrapped bundle in her arms. She passed over the top of the arch and disappeared into the ruined temple’s courtyard.
He looked along the crossing streets and canal; nothing moved save for a few scurrying rats. An owl seized a bat overhead and the tiny flyer died with an agonized squeak. Kirin nerved himself and then darted over the bridge, across the muddy courtyard, and through the string curtain into the sanctuary.
Dona Abbithana uttered her own squeak of surprise and he saw her aura brighten as she called upon the City Node for more power. Then baby Grigor uttered a little cry. The young priestess relaxed at this evidence of innocent intent. “Who goes there?” she demanded, peering at him as she hesitated outside the rooms she shared with Dona Zella.
“Kirin Sule DiUmbra,” he answered quietly, fearful even here of giving himself away. “And my son Grigor. Please, Dona Abbithana, I need to talk to Dona Zella.” Grigor cried louder.
Kirin saw the priestess’ white teeth flash in the dimness. “You are fortunate, since I must wake her anyway. Come.”
Inside the office-kitchen he took Grigor out of his shirt while she woke her superior. Only then did Kirin discover that he had been bleeding on the baby. The assassin’s knife had come closer than he thought. Dona Abbie exclaimed over the mess, took Grigor from him and changed the child into a fresh diaper while cooing to him. Yawning Dona Zella came out during the changing and discovered Kirin’s wound. She immediately sent her aura into him while Dona Abbie sat on a stool and rocked the baby. Kirin endured her questions while she knit his skin closed and swabbed off the blood. Fortunately, nearly all of it had been absorbed by the diaper. She set that to soak in a bucket and then unwrapped the bundle that Dona Abbie had brought.
“What tragedy is this?” she exclaimed, revealing a dead baby.
“Merria’s firstborn,” Dona Abbie reported sadly. “He never breathed, and nothing I could do would call him to life. It was a hard birth. I doubt she will be able to have another child.” She stroked baby Grigor’s back gently.
Zella sighed and rewrapped the tiny corpse, set it reverently aside, and for a moment Kirin saw every one of her fifty-six years graven on her face. “I’ll arrange for a funeral in the morning.” She turned back to Kirin and said, “Right now, you tell me what brought you here, bloody and carrying your infant son.”
Kirin gulped and steadied his nerves. In a voice roughened by tears, he began to speak. Half a candlemark later he had poured out his story with all its pain, grief, and regret, save for one thing; the method by which he had killed the Duke’s soldier. Maia, Maia, I’ve lost you and stained my soul forever. The tears flowed freely by the time he finished.
“Oh, my dear, dear boy,” Zella shook her head sadly. “You placed your life in the hands of a powerful man. Did you not see the implications of any Mage controlling the Prince? Chisaad is leading the Mage Guild in a struggle with the Hierarchy over access to the Aretzo Node. Now they can simply re-apportion the Node as they will. They’ve probably already begun. The Hierarchy will be weakened, and the Guild strengthened. Worse still, the entire succession to the Throne could be thrown into a hideous bloodbath as bad as anything from the Red Years. You said Ap Marn told the Prince that they only needed him alive until the Queen dies?”
“Yes; then they’re going to kill him.” Kirin’s stomach clenched; he remembered Prince Terrell’s fear and bravery from that last brief touch of minds. He’s not a cruel man, I know it now; so why did he condemn Pieter? Chisaad and Darnaud must have persuaded him to do it just so they could convince me to kidnap him. He had only a murky guess at the depth of the plans that had ensnared him, but the sheer cold-hearted abuse of it humiliat
ed him. They used me. They used me and when they were done with me they meant to kill me. And they nearly did. He touched his healed scratch through the hole in his shirt. I went to the wrong powerful person.
“They probably have supporters among the Twenty to dare so greatly.” Dona Zella stared at him thoughtfully. “Were they so careless as to have named any?”
“No.” Kirin shook his head wretchedly. “The Gwythlos must be in it too, but until tonight I had no idea that Chisaad was dealing with anybody.” He almost gagged on the words, “I really thought he meant to help me.” So wrong, so wrong!
“Why were you willing to trust the wizard in this?”
Kirin hesitated, turning the question over in his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to confess his experience with the Duermu fortune teller, so he temporized. “I guess, because I wanted it to be true. Wanted to believe that . . . the prince would free Pieter if only he really knew us.” Why did I believe that? Why do I still believe it?
“Well, kidnapping him might not have been the best way to plead your cause.”
“I see that now, but it sounded so right when he explained it,” he agonized. “Dona Zella, Maia’s dead. What if Duke Darnaud has killed my whole family?” Fear and loss—please God, no!
She didn’t try to hide her own worry at that thought, for which he was oddly grateful, but she did offer him solace. “Consider that possibility in light of their conspiracy. They have committed a monstrous crime, but only you know it and can testify to any details. They dare not attract too much attention before they capture you, or before they achieve whatever goal is served by excluding the prince from the succession. A slaughter of your whole family, or even part of it, would be sure to attract lots of attention. There would be questions among the Hierarchy and recriminations against the Watch, possibly petitions from the people of the Old City to the Governor. I pray that they don’t want that level of unrest and scrutiny. The immediate question is, what are you going to do next?”
“I can tell the Hierarch.” But his mind stumbled over his own part in the crime. Tell her that I kidnapped the Prince by using a living Shadow that I carry under my heart? Tell her that I killed a man with it? That’ll get me burned! He had heard it said that the blood-sorcerers and demon-possessed hoped for suffocation in the smoke before the flames reached their flesh.
He looked at Zella’s face and for the first time in a decade of knowing her, it occurred to him to ask. “Umm, Dona Zella, have you ever told the Hierarch, or any of her people, about me?”
“Not yet.” She didn’t look away, but she didn’t quite meet his eyes either.
Dona Abbithana sucked in a breath and stopped rocking baby Grigor. “Dona Zella! You told me you informed the Hierarch of everything you knew about him!”
Dona Zella shook her head. “No, Abbie, I told you that I’ve written a letter. I didn’t tell you that I’ve sent it, because I haven’t, at least not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“You misled me! Why?”
“Did you ever wonder why I choose to dwell here in the poorest and most degraded part of Aretzo?” Zella raised one eyebrow at her assistant. “My sister is the Autarch of Belluno, a broken, half-abandoned and poverty-stricken city, but a city. I certainly have the seniority and influence to swing a more prestigious seat than this. Why do I stay?”
“I thought you love serving the poorest of the poor,” the idealistic young priestess answered slowly.
“Which is quite true. But I’ve got more than one reason.” She sighed. “I despise the decadence and luxury of the upper Hierarchy. They’ve allowed themselves to become corrupted by worldly temptations. Kirin would represent an even more terrible temptation for them, as much as he does for the Mage Guild. The temptation of using him to take power over others in a way that can’t be fought by any normal means. I wish I had understood how far-reaching his strange talent is.” Aside to him she added, “I confess I never imagined you could walk through the Palace’s spells, my dear boy!”
“I didn’t either,” he mumbled, shamed.
Returning her attention to Dona Abbie, Zella said, “But my limited imaginings were bad enough. I won’t subject him—or the leaders of my faith—to that terrible temptation if I can find any other way.”
Dona Abbie stared at her in consternation. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.” She looked Kirin in the eye. “What do you want to do, Kirin?”
He dropped his gaze to his hands, unable to meet her eyes while his thoughts whirled. I can’t trust any mage. If Dona Zella is right, I can’t really trust any high-ranked priestess either! Who can I go to? Who has enough power to help me, that I can trust? I think the Duermu fortune teller meant me to go to somebody other than Chisaad, but who?
Everybody knew that real power in Aretzo rested on a tripod. The Temple Hierarchy and the Mage Council, who both need the City Node. And the King—right now the Prince—who controls it. While Ymera was certainly strong by herself, she was small next to those three.
He remembered the three times his mind had touched that of Prince Terrell. They had been brief, but the longer he thought about the sensation, uncomfortable as it had been, the more he remembered from the man’s own mind.
I know he’s sad because his brother hates him. I know he loves his mother and father—though how anyone can love the Emperor I don’t understand. He cares about his friends, and cares about the Kingdom too. He wants to do the right things. But he doesn’t always know what those are. I think . . . I think Chisaad, whether he knew it or not, got it right. If Prince Terrell knew my family, if he knew my father, he would never have listened to Duke Darnaud. Maybe God meant me to find a way to beg his help instead of going to Chisaad. He trembled, remembering the Prince’s face as the drug did its work.
But I made a terrible mistake and kidnapped him. Chisaad only has him because of me. Kirin gulped at that thought. Prince Terrell might condemn me to death for that alone. If he did . . . I would deserve it.
His stomach got queasy from even thinking about it. Between being murdered by the Mages, burned by the Temple, or executed by the Prince, what was there to choose?
He can free my father. That’s what matters. It’s not whether I live or die; it’s whether I can save Pieter from the sulfur mines. The Prince can do that with a word. Kirin swallowed a lump in his throat. If he wants me to die as the price of Father’s freedom, then I will pay that price. At least then, I might get to see Maia again.
Then his eye caught an old fresco on the back wall, partly crumbled away. The piece remaining showed a Duermu playing a pipe in the Bazaar.
It’s a sign. Zella has power. The Prince has more.
Aloud he said, “I need the Prince. He’s my only chance to not be a tool in the mages’ hands, or the Hierarch’s. I dreamed of being powerful, but I’m not really. I’m one man, alone. So is he, but he can command other men and they’ll listen to him even though—” He gulped again. “Even though he’s a halfbreed too. He’s still Prince, and Governor. If I get him back in his palace, maybe he’ll put both the mages and the priestesses in their place. Nobody else can.” He added, “Only, how can I get him back?”
Dona Zella smiled at him. “I’m confident that anyone who can kidnap a prince right out of his own palace is surely able to get him out of a half-drowned ruin.”
“But I don’t even know where this Silbariki place is.”
“That’s easy. I do. I’ve even seen it from a distance.”
He couldn’t have been more astonished if she’d grown an extra head. Coarse, humorous Dona Zella who had ministered to the poor of the Sump since before the Conquest? “You? How?”
“My dear boy, I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I wasn’t born in Aretzo, though I’ve spent most of my life here. I just told you I’m from Belluno, where my eldest sister is Autarch of the Temple.” She pointed at the old painting on the wall. “Do you know where Belluno is?”
“Um.” He tried to remember the
DiUmbra Troup’s performance trip across Lower Silbar. “Somewhere north?”
She looked at him reprovingly. “It’s the first city south of the Scarp. From the highest cliffs north of Belluno you can see the ruins of Silbariki in the distance, beyond the lakes.”
She rummaged through a chest while talking. “I suppose I don’t talk about it much; this is home to me now. Let’s see, I know I have that somewhere—aha!” She pulled out a leather tube. “Here, look, my father gave me this many years ago.” She opened the tube and took out a scroll that she spread on the table in front of him. “This is a map of Lower Silbar, from the scarp to the sea.”
Kirin stared at it in fascination. He had seen maps before, but not often. Grandfather had rented one for their exhibition trip. That had been the most detailed map he’d ever seen, and this one rivaled it. The vellum had been seared with a hot needle to make lines and words. He made out Aretzo and the sea on one edge and the River Amm threading up the middle to the Scarp and Purification Lake. Cities and roads decorated it like beads on strings. Dona Zella put her finger on a blot near the upper right corner.
“This is Belluno.” She tapped a dot on the map, then moved her finger several finger widths to the northeast. “Silbariki lies here, partly drowned by this smaller lake in the south end of its valley. We always called that Ibis Lake for the birds that flock there, you can see clouds of them overhead. It is past midsummer, so the waters should be down enough for you to get to the ruins. You’ll have to be careful of wild animals, lions and hyenas on the plains and crocodiles in the reed-marshes, though it’s rare that any of them attack a man. Carry water with you whenever you find some, the lake water is not good to drink.” She rummaged in the chest again, found a leather water-bag and thrust it into his hands.
He gulped. The DiUmbra family’s trip had taught him something about Silbar’s true size. He would have to—”Dona, what’ll I do about Grigor?”
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