A Gathering Of Stones

3

Mid-afternoon. Veiled in opaque black, swathed in black robes, Brann trudged up the long ramp to the top of the Rock. Beside her Jaril was stretched out on a litter carried by two adult marshmen; wrapped in blankets, pale and beautiful with little flesh on elegant bones (a carefully crafted image since he had nothing remotely resembling bones), he lay like a fallen angel, crystal eyes closed to hide their strangeness, controlling his impatience with some difficulty. Brann felt the strain in him, took his hand. He relaxed a little, gave her a slight smile. And held her hand so tightly she knew she’d have bruises on her fingers. The link between them was tightening more and more as the days passed since Yaril was taken; it was as if he were trying to make her take Yaril’s place. She refused to think about that or what would happen to Jay and her if they failed here; it was too troubling, she couldn’t afford the distraction.

The ramp they were moving up was a broad roadway paved with the same warm yellow-ocher brick that the Sihbaraburj was made of; it was cut into the Rock, slanting up the entire length of its northern face, a slope of one in seven, steep enough to make the pilgrims sweat but not enough to exhaust them. No doubt it was an impressive sight at the height of the season when a hoard of incense waving, torch-bearing worshipers climbed that long slant with Mutri-mabs weaving through them, capering and singing, playing flutes and whirling round and round, round and round in a complex spiral dance up that holy road. In this late autumn afternoon, she was alone on the roadway with the litter bearers; she didn’t like the exposure, she’d planned to wait for morning and the rest of the pilgrims, but Jaril was drawn too taut. He said nothing, but she knew he’d go without her if she forced him to a longer idleness. He’d go in a wild, reckless mood, risking everything on a chance of finding and taking the talisman. It was better to take the lesser risk of Amortis noticing them.

They reached the top after half an hour’s climb and turned in through a towering stone gate carved to resemble the reed arches of the longhouses. They passed into a green and lovely garden with fountains playing everywhere, palms casting pointed shadows over lawns like priceless carpets and flowering plants in low broad jars glazed red and yellow and blue. The walkway curved between two wrought iron fences with razor-edged spearpoints set at close intervals along the top rail: Look and enjoy but don’t touch.

The bearers stopped just outside the Grand Entrance to the Sihbaraburj. They set the litter down and squatted beside it to wait until it was time to go back down. The widow helped her ailing son onto his feet and stripped away the blankets wrapped around him. He wore fine silks and jewels and arrogance, an exquisite, emaciated mama’s darling.

With Jaril leaning on Brann’s arm, they went inside.

Light streamed in through weep-holes, was caught and magnified in hundreds of mirrors. There were mirrors everywhere inside that brick mountain, light danced like water from surface to surface, images were caught and repeated, tossed like the light from mirror to mirror until what was real and what was not-real acquired an equal validity. Brann wandered bemused in that warren of corridors and small plazas, walked through shimmering light and cool drifts of incense-laden air and marveled that she had no sense of being enclosed in tons of earth and brick; like image and reality there was a confusion between inside and out, a sense she was in a place not quite either. They moved past shops and forges, small chapels and waiting rooms; they were stopped when they poked into the living sections, escorted back to the shops when they claimed they were lost. The place was so big that in the three hours they spent probing the interior they saw only a minute fraction of it. As the day latened, the light inside the Sihbaraburj dimmed and filled with shadow, the shopkeepers worked more frantically to woo coin from the straggling pilgrims, the Servants in the Grand Chambers were bringing their ceremonies to a close.

Brann and Jaril stopped in front of a room filled with shadow; fugitive gleams of gold, silver and gemstones come from the glass shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling.

A Servant was sitting at a table just inside the open archway, a scroll, several pens and an inkpot at his elbow. He lifted kohl-lined dark eyes and smiled just enough to tilt the ends of his narrow mustache as she stepped in. “Yes, khatra?”

“May I ask, Holy One, what is this?” She moved her hand in a small arc, indicating the objects on the shelves.

“They are gifts, khatra. Beauty to honor her who is beauty’s self.”

“Is it permitted to see them closer?”

“Certainly, khatra. However, it is so near to Evendown, it would be better to return on the morrow.”

As soon as he said the last word, a gong sounded, a deep booming note that shuddered in the bone. He stood. “That is Evendown, khatra, you must leave.”

She bowed her head, turned, and left.