The effects of the Whisperer’s Lily had also begun to wear off. Aisha could feel Thimara’s spark within her, a glowing ember burning in the core of her being. Yet the voices of the dead floating along the Artificer’s Courseway had faded to a dull buzzing in the back of her mind. She still dreaded the moment when she’d pass the Sanctuary, where the voices of the spirits had nearly broken her, but she forced herself to keep marching along beside Briana and Hykos. She had embraced her gift and would bear the burden it placed upon her.
“Does the name Thimara mean anything to you?” she asked Briana as they drew closer to the Temple District.
“No,” Briana replied. “Why? Should it?”
Aisha shook her head. “Probably not.” Too many ghosts lived in the City of the Dead, forgotten and alone. Thimara could be just one more.
“Just so you know, I haven’t forgotten what I promised you in the garden.” Briana turned toward her, eyes piercing. “I will try to find a way to mitigate the effects of the Whispering Lily. Alas, without access to my father’s garden, I will need to find another source of plants. But I haven’t forgotten what I said. We will find a solution, I promise.”
“Thank you,” Aisha said with a smile, but tight knots formed in her stomach. She’d accepted the effects of the Whispering Lily knowing that it was the price she paid for the power of the Kish’aa—power that had saved her and Briana’s life. Yet, in the back of her mind, she’d clung to the hope that Briana could figure out a solution to negate the deterioration of mind and body that accompanied the plant’s use.
Now, that hope felt distant, so faint as to be almost nonexistent. The Whispering Lily grew in Arch-Guardian Suroth’s private rooftop garden, in the mansion that now belonged to Councilor Angrak. Where else in Shalandra could Briana get her hands on such rare and exotic blossoms? And, with the threat of the Gatherers and war with the Necroseti looming over them, it felt selfish to ask Briana to devote time to her problem when the Shalandran girl already had enough to worry about. The most important thing would be deciphering Suroth’s journals in time for Kodyn and Evren to get into the Vault of Ancients. The matter of the Whispering Lily could wait.
But for how long? The question echoed in Aisha’s mind like the tolling of a midnight bell.
Her father’s mind had fully deteriorated within the space of a year, but he’d begun showing signs of the plant’s effects far sooner. And she’d never seen him wield the power of the Kish’aa as she had. Would that slow the degeneration or speed it up? Or, would it do nothing at all? Aisha had no one to ask, no one to turn to for help. She would tell Kodyn in time—the others, too—but he knew less about it than she did. He’d want to help but what could he do?
The sight of the stone pillars and marble-tiled stairs of the Sanctuary drove the dagger of dread home in Aisha’s gut. Thousands of Kish’aa hovered around the building, a solid wall of blue-white that swirled like a hurricane. Empty eyes locked onto her and silent mouths opened in pleas that set her head buzzing. The diminishing effects of the Whispering Lily amplified the cries to a painful throbbing—like the effects of a terrible hangover, leaving her head filled with mud and chaos.
She gritted her teeth in an effort not to cry out, but the pounding nearly sent her to her knees. It took all her self-control not to empty her stomach onto the stones for the whirling, seething confusion gripping her mind.
“Aisha, are you hurt?” Briana’s words came to her from afar, as if she spoke from across a vast gulf. Blood pounded in Aisha’s ears and her head ached from the mounting pressure.
“I’m fine,” she said through clenched teeth and straightened. “Might just be something I ate.” A lie, but now wasn’t the time to give in to the voices of the dead. They had more important things to focus on.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief as they left the Sanctuary behind and the tumult in her mind diminished. The nausea in her stomach retreated, her heart slowed its frantic beat, and she could breathe easy again.
Their destination, the Temple of Whispers, stood just west of the Sanctuary. It was far shorter than the towering white marble obelisk to the Swordsman beside it, and the golden sandstone once again bore the dull, muted color she’d noticed last time. The temple was a single squat, rectangular structure that looked as impenetrable as the huge concave steel door out front.
Aisha found the same two Secret Keepers standing guard at the entrance. One, the priest she’d spoken with on her last visit, nodded at their approach.
“And here I’d thought we’d seen the last of you, Ghandian,” his fingers said in hand language.
“You won’t be rid of me that easily.” Aisha grinned. “Not after you hear what Lady Briana has to say.”
“Lady?” The brown-robed priest pursed his lips. “From what I heard—”
“What you have heard matters not.” Briana’s fingers moved in short, sharp movements as they always did when she was angry. “All that matters is who my father was.”
“Adoptive father,” retorted the Secret Keeper, his expression just short of taunting.
“You know the truth as well as everyone else in the Temple of Whispers.” Briana stood tall, head held high. “Unless they took your eyes and brain along with your tongue all those years ago.”
For a moment, Aisha feared the Secret Keeper would respond with violence. Kodyn had told her the story of Ilanna’s visit to the Temple of Whispers in Voramis, and of the priests’ skill at their strangely fluid, lethal bare-handed combat. And, despite Suroth’s age and position as Arch-Guardian, highest-ranking priest of the Secret Keeper, he had slain nine Gatherer assassins empty-handed. She’d avoid this particular fight if at all possible.
Yet instead of anger, a smile broadened the Secret Keeper’s face. “Temper like that, there’s no doubt about it. You’re the Arch-Guardian’s daughter, no doubt about it.” His expression saddened and he gave Briana a little bow. “My condolences on your father’s passing. All of us in the Temple of Whispers feel his loss keenly.”
“Good.” Briana’s face hardened. “Then I believe the Guardians will want to hear what I have to say.”
Again, the man bowed. “I will inform them that you have come.” He turned and, with visible effort, hauled the huge vault-like door open—again unaided by his fellow Secret Keeper—and disappeared inside.
Briana turned to the Keeper’s Blade. “Archateros Hykos, I must ask you to remain out here while I enter the Temple of Whispers. The Secret Keepers will not permit any outsiders to gaze upon the mysteries of the Mistress.”
Hykos’ expression grew stubborn. “My lady, I have my orders from the Pharus himself. I must remain by your side at all—”
“Do you truly believe I will be in any danger among the priests that served my father?” Briana shook her head. “I will be safer in the Temple of Whispers than anywhere else in Shalandra.”
Hykos looked ready to argue but, when his eyes roamed over the squat, solid stone building and enormous steel door, he seemed to reconsider. “So be it.” He nodded. “This ground is sacred to the Mistress’ priests, and I will respect their wishes.”
“Thank you.” Briana gave him a smile—the same polite mask she’d worn when flitting among the Dhukari at her party in the Palace of Golden Eternity. “Aisha and I will return shortly.”
“As you say.” The Keeper’s Blade drew his huge sword and settled into a guard stance before the steel door.
Again, Aisha was struck by the absence of spirits clinging to the young man’s sword. According to Briana, his rank of Archateros meant he’d served in the Keeper’s Blades for more than four years. In all that time, has he never killed anyone? One look at his unlined face and bright, if wary eyes made that clear. He is more fortunate than most warriors.
In Ghandia, Aisha’s mother had been a fierce warrior. She had slain many enemies on her road to becoming nassor, warrior chieftainess of the Ukuza tribe. Yet she had always maintained that the best solution was to avoid violence whenever possible. M
any of the tales of her mother’s victories spoke of battles won without a single drop of blood shed—her reputation alone had often sufficed to dissuade enemies from taking up weapons against her.
Aisha hadn’t been so fortunate. In her service to the Night Guild, she’d had no choice but to take up arms—both in her own defense and the defense of those under the protection of House Phoenix. She had made her first kill at the age of fifteen; a drunken patron had pulled a dagger on one of the fancy-ticklers that had spurned his unwanted advances. Aisha had been forced to put an end to the man to prevent him from stabbing her or anyone else in the pleasure house. The training Master Serpent and her own Master of House Phoenix diametrically opposed her mother’s worldview.
Though Aisha had never shied from violence, she’d tried her best to live up to her mother’s words. She never sought out a fight, yet never hesitated when someone was in danger. She’d killed the Gatherers to keep Briana safe. She wouldn’t lose sleep over their deaths.
Yet, sometimes she found herself wishing she could go back to the innocent, carefree girl she’d been on the plains of Ghandia. Laughing, racing with her younger sister among the herds of gazelles, running through the tall grasses, hunting with her mother and listening to her father speak of the Kish’aa.
A lifetime ago. A girl that had died the day the Bloody Hand captured her and dragged her away in chains.
She could never go back. All she could do was keep moving forward. Forward to her destiny as a Spirit Whisperer, come what may.
The huge steel door swung open and the Secret Keeper stepped out. “Be welcome to the Mistress’ house,” his fingers said.
Aisha followed Briana through the opening and stepped into the room. Once again, that oval-shaped alchemical glass globe in the ceiling filled the chamber with a soft illumination. To her surprise, what had been an empty, featureless room on her last visit was now filled with people: five women and three men—including the short, bald Ennolar—clad in the dull-brown robes of Secret Keepers. The eight priests sat on throne-like chairs made of the same dark grey stone as the blank walls, floor, and ceiling. Chairs that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been here, yet appeared far too heavy and ponderous for even a team of oxen to move.
So where the hell did they come from? One more secret among the myriad guarded by the clerics of the Mistress.
Briana bowed to the eight figures, and her fingers moved in the silent hand language. “Honored Guardians.”
“The Mistress’ grace be with you in this trying time, young Briana, daughter of our beloved Arch-Guardian,” Ennolar replied. “Though it may be poor consolation, know that your father’s death will not go unpunished. The foul Gatherers that perpetrated this villainy will face justice.”
“It is for that precise reason that I have come.” Briana lifted her head. “I would see the bodies of the assassins slain in the Palace of Golden Eternity.”
One of the women spoke next. “Why do you come to us for that?” Her stern face grew more suspicious, her close-set eyes narrowing to tight slits.
“My father always spoke of the Secret Keepers’ knowledge of the human anatomy,” Briana responded without hesitation. “Both in life and in death. He also spoke of his agreement with the Pharus, that should the need arise, the Secret Keepers would put that knowledge to use divining any secrets that could be uncovered.”
A little smile played on Ennolar’s lips. “Indeed.” It was neither acknowledgement nor dismissal, simply a bland response to Briana’s statement.
Aisha’s grasp of the hand language had progressed quickly enough that she could understand most of the silent conversation, though she had to guess to fill in a few gaps.
“The Pharus is questioning the Gatherers that survived the attack,” Briana continued. “But I suspect that he has sent the bodies of the slain here to be examined with the precision and capability only possessed by the Secret Keepers.”
“And if we are in possession of these bodies?” asked another Secret Keeper, a man with a full head of tightly-curled hair and a bushy beard to match. “You may be the Arch-Guardian’s daughter, but you are still an outsider. The Mistress’ secrets are not yours to know.”
“I do not expect you to accept me into the order of the Secret Keepers.” Briana’s expression turned resolute. “But I do expect you to aid me in pursuit of vengeance for my father’s death. The Gatherers may have wielded the blade, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Necroseti bear an equal measure of blame.”
“You intend to take on the Keeper’s Priests?” Ennolar’s expression grew skeptical. “Perhaps we ought to conscript you into our order, if only to keep you from throwing your life away!”
“That would be a mistake,” Briana retorted. “With my father gone, the Necroseti do not fear me, a simple Zadii. The Gatherers have no use for me anymore. To my enemies, I am nothing more than a piece on a Nizaa board that can be ignored and abandoned.” She raised a clenched fist. “But they underestimate me and my friends. We have sworn to take them down, by any means.”
“A noble vow, but empty without the actions to back them up,” said another, a woman with hair dyed a deep purple and thick lines of matching purple paint on her eyelids.
“So help me back them up.” Briana turned an angry glare on each of them in turn. “You were my father’s allies, the people he trusted more than anyone in the world. You shared secrets and truths that I will never know. You were his friends, his family. If you turn me away, you dishonor his memory.”
The eight faces grew hard. “You come to us first with pleas, then with insults?” one Secret Keeper’s florid, rotund face reddened with anger. “We respected your father, but our duty is to the Mistress above all others.”
“Then offer me what help you can!” Briana’s eyes blazed as her fingers flashed at a speed almost too fast for Aisha to follow. In that moment, she seemed to grow taller, stronger, her face hardening with conviction and determination. “I do not ask you to break your vows to the Mistress or your oaths of service to the Temple of Whispers. But do not turn me away empty-handed. Ask yourselves this: what would my father do in your position?”
The eight exchanged glances and though their fingers never moved, Aisha saw a silent debate raging in their eyes.
Finally, Ennolar nodded. “So be it.” He leaned forward, eyes fixed on Briana. “For your father’s sake, we will share with you the secrets of the dead, few as they may be.”
Briana let out a breath and seemed to deflate. “Thank you!” The tone of command had gone, replaced by relief. Once again, she was transformed into the petite, unassuming young woman Aisha had known in Praamis.
“Do not thank us yet, daughter of secrets.” The stern-faced woman shook her head, her thin lips pressing into a tight line. “Our examination of the Gatherers’ bodies yielded little. A few hints and clues as to who they are, but nothing to indicate where they can be found. Or, at least not on the two bodies the Pharus sent us.”
“Two?” Briana’s eyebrows shot up. “I heard there were dozens of Gatherers slain!”
“Perhaps.” Ennolar’s lips twisted into a frown. “And we intend to request that they are all sent to us for further examination. Some of our findings may prove useful if they can be corroborated.”
“Then tell me what you did find,” Briana said. “What can you tell me about who they are?”
“Earaqi, both of them, judging by the contents of their stomachs,” the stern-faced woman replied.
“Too well fed to be Kabili or Mahjuri,” put in the curly-headed Secret Keeper, “but too wasted to be Zadii or Intaji.”
“Their clothes bore stains of hard labor, as common among the Earaqi,” Ennolar continued. “As well as dust that could only have come from the Keeper’s Crypts.”
“Or the Serenii tunnels beneath the city,” put in the purple-haired woman.
Ennolar frowned but inclined his head. “Which lends credence to our theory that a high-ranked Necroseti is leading the Gath
erers. There are few in Shalandra that know the secrets of the Serenii tunnels outside of the Temple of Whispers. Not even the Pharus or the Lady of Blades know the full extent of the passages.”
Aisha digested the information. The fact that the Gatherers were Earaqi meant little to her, though the revelation that the cultists might be using the Serenii tunnels explained what made them so difficult to find.
“We have set people to combing the Serenii tunnels,” Ennolar’s fingers said, “but the network is so vast that it would take us a lifetime to examine thoroughly. I fear that, too, will prove a dead end. Without Thimara to work her art on the bodies—”
“What?” The word burst from Aisha’s mouth with a force beyond her control. The sound echoed eerily loud in the chamber, which had remained silent save for the rustling of robes.
She swallowed. “Who was Thimara?” At the name, the spirit within her had flared bright and hot, like an ember fanned to a glowing coal by the breath of life. The sparks of Thimara’s life danced between her fingers and set her nerves crackling with raw energy.
Eight pairs of eyes narrowed at her, eight faces creasing in frowns of disapproval at her outburst.
“What is she to you?” demanded Ennolar. “You could not have met her during your short time in Shalandra.”
Aisha hesitated. She didn’t dare speak of the woman’s spirit; they would think her mad. Her mind flashed onto the names carved into the windowsill.
“I found it written in the stone of the house where we are now staying,” Aisha signed quickly. “It seemed such a strange coincidence to hear her name.”
Ennolar’s frown didn’t soften, yet the suspicion left his eyes. “She was one of us. A Guardian of the Secret Keepers, the ninth.” His gaze darted toward the stern-faced woman. “She succumbed to the Azure Rot despite our best efforts to treat her.”
Aisha’s gaze was drawn to the middle-aged, thin-lipped woman with the perpetual frown. Sorrow suddenly filled the priest’s eyes, far more than had been present as they spoke of Suroth’s death. “Another of our brethren fallen,” she signed with sadness
Crucible of Fortune: An Epic Fantasy Young Adult Adventure (Heirs of Destiny Book 2) Page 17