by Martha Wells
"Well, fine, then," Elen said, sounding tired. "There's something I can do. I can go out the gate alone, and make the vigil think you and Sagai are with me. Then Sagai can shout that there are thieves, distracting the men here and letting you slip in. Then both of you can go out over the wall with the rope."
She didn't sound very confident, or enthusiastic. Khat had seen her use more unnatural magic tonight than ever before, something she had been afraid to do even when they were trapped in the Remnant. He asked, "You can't do that with a simple, can you? You have to use Ancient magic."
"Yes. Are you afraid I'll go mad?" she challenged.
"No, are you?"
"No. At least, not very," she admitted, after a moment. "I don't feel as if I'm close to going mad. I feel tired and frustrated and angry with Ecazar for stopping us when we're so close. But I suppose I wouldn't feel it until it happened."
"You aren't engendering confidence in us, Elen," Sagai pointed out. "What we want to know is, are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Drawing a veil over the sight is the least difficult of all the workings to do. At night, it's almost as easy as a simple." She hesitated, perhaps remembering that sometimes her simples failed too. "There won't be anyone here to see through it, unless Constans turns up again."
Khat had been thinking about Constans. He knew Warders were supposed to be able to read thoughts, or at least the loudest thoughts, on the surface of the soul. But Constans had been standing only a few steps away, taunting Elen about not "soul-reading" well enough to know Shiskan and the others were there, yet he hadn't realized there were two copies of the text, even though that had certainly been the uppermost thought in Khat's mind. And Khat remembered where else he had heard that term today. "Elen, today at Riathen's house they said they couldn't soul-read me, so that proved I didn't have a soul. What did they mean?"
Elen rubbed her eyes. "Soul-reading is like a sense you have of a person's presence, sometimes their intentions, or the thing that's most on their mind at the moment. And it's not always possible for Warders to soul-read at all. For instance, most of the time I can't read Sagai, but at the moment I can sense that he thinks that you shouldn't be bringing this up now." Sagai looked startled. She added, "And we guard against being read by each other. But no Warder can soul-read a kris. I know I certainly can't, though I wouldn't judge it by me, because apparently I'm no good at it." She took a deep breath. "They were just being rude." She turned away, going alone toward the gate, being careful to stay in the shadows.
Sagai asked softly, "You think she's all right?"
Khat shrugged, not wanting to closely consider the possibility that she wasn't. He had never taken Elen's fears too seriously before; she was too careful, and the last person one would expect to misuse her power and fall into madness. Now he hoped these relics were as important as Riathen and Constans thought they were, at least for her sake.
They waited, giving her time to reach the gate and work her trick, and for the Porta's residents to settle down after the earlier alarms. They couldn't afford to wait nearly as long as Khat would have liked; there wasn't that much of the night left, and the vigils who were searching the grounds might come back. He noticed the lamp in Ecazar's window stayed lit.
Sagai meant to start his diversion further back in the courts, to give himself better opportunity for slipping away from the vigils. Before he went to look for a likely place Khat gave him charge of the rope; if he was caught inside the Porta there was no reason to trap them both here.
After giving him enough time to get in place, Khat made his way around the edges of the open square before the Porta. He reached the tower with the ghostlamps set out by its door, and just before their light would reveal him he stepped into the deep shadow at the base of one of the ornamental columns.
There was a hoarse shout somewhere down one of the courts leading into the main way-Sagai, not sounding very much like himself, doing a good imitation of an aging scholar rudely awakened. "Help! Thieves! Thieves in my rooms! Help, vigils!"
Two vigils burst out of the open tower door, catching up a lamp from the stoop and racing to the rescue. An old door servant came out after them to the edge of the lamplight, stumbling as if he had just awakened, and peered shortsightedly into the dark. Khat slipped along the wall and through the door, easily.
This was evidently a guard room for the night vigils. It was bare and swept clean, with empty lamps stored on shelves above heavy water jars, and the scattered counters of an interrupted game of tables in a corner. Two doorways led off to more rooms, and one to a narrow stair, curving up into the floors overhead. Someone called out from the next room, wondering loudly what had happened. Khat was up the steps, past the first turn and out of sight before the door servant stumbled wearily back in to answer.
Pausing on the stair and trying to hear if there was anyone moving above him, Khat swore softly. The Academia obviously didn't see this kind of excitement every night, and there were more people still awake than he had counted on. There was no help for it; he had to get the relic back tonight, before Constans or the Trade Inspectors got their hands on it.
No footsteps or voices sounded from above. He went up to the next landing, which led into the first floor of the section that bridged the two towers. It was lit by hanging oil lamps, and one wall was lined with windows looking down on the great dark space of the garden behind the Porta, the other with curtained doorways. The back of his neck prickled with the thought of someone stepping out suddenly.
Behind him he heard someone coming down the stairs from the upper floors of the tower. He stepped back against the wall and eased the first door curtain aside. A little light from an uncurtained window fell on the doors of a bronze cabinet and a low table with a clerk's pens and ink bottles abandoned on it. He stepped inside and pulled the curtain to just as whoever it was reached the landing and came down the passage.
Footsteps from the other direction, then from the hall a woman's voice asked softly, "What was that shouting about?"
He didn't stay to hear the muttered answer, making his way silently across the room to the window. Obviously the Porta was still too awake to chance making his way up through the inside. He would have to risk climbing up to the floor above from the outside, and simply hope no returning vigils crossing the square looked up.
Outside the window the ledge was broad, its edge an entablature that ran the length of the facade. He climbed out and stood cautiously, leaning back on the wall to get his bearings. The scrollwork around the windows was of fine stone that didn't crumble. He hauled himself slowly up to the next floor and sat on the ledge there to rest.
In the square below, the two vigils Sagai had decoyed were returning, shaking their heads, lifting lamps high to peer into dark cubbies and alleyways, but never looking up at the face of the Porta. Some more vigils appeared out of another alley, and they all consulted, pointing in different directions and arguing, then broke up and disappeared down various courts for more searching. Khat took this as a good sign; if they had caught Sagai, they would have appeared considerably more elated. He began to make his way down the ledge toward Ecazar's window.
He crouched in the shadow just to one side of it, where the gauze curtains didn't do much to impede his view but hid him from anyone casually glancing out. The room was large but not luxurious. The matting was sun-faded, and much of the wall space was taken up by bronze cabinets holding books and the notes and journals of past scholars.
Near the center of the room, Ecazar sat before a low table piled high with bound folios. He held the winged relic in one hand, unfolding the pages of one of the books with the other. Squinting, Khat saw that he looked through pages of scribbled notes, diagrams, drawings.
He's recognized something about it, Khat thought. The scholar was obviously searching for some information about the relic. He wouldn't do that if he thought it was just another decorative plaque. Well, Ecazar wasn't the Master Scholar for nothing. Khat would have gi
ven a great deal to know what he thought of the winged design.
Time passed; Khat was too interested in the outcome of Ecazar's search to be too bored, though he found himself having to suppress yawns from time to time. Finally Ecazar shut the book with an irritated frown, and got to his feet, massaging the back of his neck. He carried the little relic over to one of the cabinets, placed it in a small compartment, and locked it carefully away, pocketing the key. Picking up one of the candle bowls and blowing out the others on his way, he went out through the doorway at the far end of the room.
After his eyes adjusted to the room's darkness Khat eased himself off the ledge and over the sill. He crossed the room to the cabinet and felt for the compartment, examining the lock hole by touch. He took out his knife to break the mechanism, feeling a pang of guilt. He had never stolen from the Academia before. He snapped the lock and took out the relic, scrupulously ignoring the other contents. The mythenin was still warm from Ecazar's hand.
Then, just at the edge of his vision, something moved.
Darkness solidifying, a faint trace of red light. Instinct made him freeze.
Whether by accident or design it had cut him off from the door. This, Khat thought, nerves jumping from the nearness of the thing, is no coincidence. First trapping them when they were escaping from Constans, and now following him here. Khat eyed the nearest window and knew he wouldn't make it. It could move fast when it wanted to, and the ledge wasn't nearly wide enough to run on.
It was fully formed now, drifting in front of the doorway, as if trying to make up its mind. Ecazar had sat here fondling the relic for more than an hour, and it hadn't bothered him. Arad hadn't mentioned being haunted either. But Khat remembered the ghost that had appeared so suddenly in Radu's court. It hadn't seemed odd at the time-a ghost in the ghostcallers' quarter-but now... And the ghostlamps in the court had still been lit, perhaps preventing them from seeing the telltale traces of red light that he could see now just at the corners of his eyes. Comforting to know just how ineffective ghostlamps really were...
It shifted sideways, drifting nearer to him, still not leaving a clear path to the door. Perhaps this was what Radu had seen in the bones when he sent Elen away. Perhaps this was what had killed him. Khat hoped so. Because the other explanation was that it hadn't bothered Ecazar or Arad because it was following him, just as Constans had . . . Whether Khat's presence helped it find the relic or the relic helped it find him, the outcome was depressingly the same. Look at this logically, he told himself. It could see you when you moved; it had tracked Elen and him easily in the court near Arad's house. It couldn't seem to see him now, when he was frozen still. If he moved very slowly, could it follow him?
It was worth a try. Slowly and with utmost care he moved, one foot an inch or so toward the window. It didn't veer toward him, still drifting vaguely toward the cabinet that had held the winged relic. One more deadly slow, careful step, and no reaction. He was about ten paces from the nearest window.
Suddenly the door curtain was flung aside, and lamplight filled the room, the telltale traces of the ghost vanishing in its intensity. Khat nearly jumped out of his skin and swung around.
Red robes, Trade Inspectors. One filling the doorway, others behind him.
Khat dove for the window, tearing through the gauze curtains and scrambling out onto the ledge.
Bullets struck the stone near him, and he didn't bother to look for the marksman in the courtyard, swinging down and dropping to the ledge of the level below. He clawed at the wall to keep his balance, and fell through the nearest window.
The room was dark, but as he jumped to the floor, someone squawked in alarm, obviously startled out of sleep. He darted out the door and into the oil-lamp-lit passage again. Shouting from the stairs. He went to one of the windows overlooking the garden, but ducked back from it immediately. Lamps lit the normally quiet area below. The Trade Inspectors must be surrounding the place. Did Ecazar tell them we were making off with the whole Academia? he wondered desperately. Footsteps pounded from the other end of the passage, and he dived into another room.
It was dark and blessedly, temporarily empty. Khat paused, leaning against the wall near the door, breathing hard with exertion and fear. They had him trapped, and there was no way out. He knew what he had to do: trust Elen, and worse, trust Riathen to buy him out. But if the Trade Inspectors found the stolen relic on him, even the Master Warder might not be able to get him out of their hands. He couldn't hide it here; he knew Trade Inspectors, and knew they would tear the place apart searching for it.
There was one hiding place where they might not find it. If they did ... He would worry about that later. Khat lifted his shirt and felt for the pouch lip on his lower stomach, pressing gently on just the right spot and . . . nothing happened. He swore, and tried to calm himself, to ignore the blood pounding in his ears. He pressed again and felt a brief, unfocused surge of sexual desire that made him catch his breath; then the lip parted, and he slipped the relic inside. The resulting sting of pain, as the metal slid against the delicate tissues, cleared his head nicely. He hastily tucked his shirt in again and pushed away from the wall, making for the window. They might have left the square unguarded, concentrated all their men on the house, and he didn't intend to be caught unless it was unavoidable. He had just clambered up on the sill when the first red-robed Trade Inspector burst in through the door curtain.
* * *
Moving with care, Khat rubbed his face against the inside of his arm, trying to keep the sweat from burning his eyes. His hands were chained over his head to a hook suspended from the rocky ceiling, just high enough that he could barely support his weight.
The Trade Inspectors' prison had been roughly gouged out of the tier's bedrock beneath the High Trade Authority, the dark walls mostly smooth now from the years of sweat on human hands. The place where he was being held was not so much a cell but a landing on a wide stairwell, lit by smoky oil lamps in wall niches, with one set of stone-cut steps going up to the passages above and the other curving away down, leading to someplace where someone had screamed for an hour late last night.
Khat had discovered early on that the chain was set so solidly into the bedrock overhead that even putting all his weight on it and swinging back and forth was insufficient to pull it loose. Now the strain had begun to tell, and he didn't have the strength to try that anymore. His hands and arms were mostly numb; it was his shoulders that hurt the worst. Lately he was so exhausted that he kept losing consciousness, only to be jerked awake when his weight came down on his much-abused muscles. His back ached for other reasons.
Khat had remembered not to fight when they took him prisoner, but in the suffocating confines of the prison that resolution had fled, and he had fought like a madman all the way down to this level. Wondering when he would be taken further down had occupied a good deal of his time, but he was at the point now where he felt fairly sure they meant to let him die right here.
Khat tried to shift his wrists in the manacles, and winced at the result. There was no air moving at all, and the heat was like the inside of a bread oven; sweat that had that special scent of fear was stinging in the cuts and sticking what was left of his shirt to his chest and back. It didn't help that behind the nearest wall he could hear rushing water, which could be from one of the city sewers. This theory was supported by the fact that in the greasy light of the oil lamps he could see moisture of a thick and unhealthy consistency beading on that particular wall. The rest of the place seemed to be bone dry, just like his throat.
Even after all these long hours, panic was still close, so close he could almost smell it over the choking smoke of the lamps. Elen will get you out of here, he kept telling himself, Elen just fucking better get you out of here, or you'll come back as a ghost that will make that thing following you look like a dust devil, and never mind that in the cosmology of the Fringe Cities kris had no souls and couldn't return as ghosts.
These thoughts had been close compa
nions all night. Then he would think that the reason Elen hadn't come yet was that her trick at the gate had failed, and the vigils had shot her. He pushed that specter away again. If Elen wasn't coming then that was it. Even if Sagai had escaped, there was simply no way his partner could come after him in here. And Sonet Riathen would certainly not bother to lift a finger.
He tried to shake the hair out of his eyes, and lines of fire went down his shoulder blades. Gritting his teeth at the pain, he tried to make himself relax. And what if he had badly misjudged Elen? She knew where the ugly block relic was now, with the added bonus of Arad's copy of Riathen's book. The Trade Inspectors would tell her that no relic had been found on him; she might think it still in the Academia somewhere, that she could search for it without him . . . No, not that either, he told himself, again. Think about something else.
If the Trade Inspectors did find out where he had hidden the little relic, their method of removing it would be fatal at best. The flap of skin that formed the outer layer of his pouch was not very thick; if anyone pressed down on his abdomen, the small, hard lump of the relic was there to be felt. The Trade Inspectors had searched him thoroughly, but they had been certain he had hidden it somewhere in the Porta. And the city dwellers mentally associated kris pouches with babies, and therefore with women, and never thought of men having them too. He just hoped no one punched him in the stomach.
The relic was an unspecific ache in his abdomen, like something caught in a tooth that you couldn't quite get out. A minor discomfort compared to all the others, but its presence probably wasn't doing him any good. He remembered one of his maternal-line aunts practically beating him into the ground for doing something like this as a boy, even though it was a common enough trick among kris children. Well, he had never meant to help perpetuate his proud but fatally foolhardy lineage anyway.