Children of Chaos

thirty-two

FABIA CELEBRE

soon tired of the fat old women who formed the upper crust of Kosordian society, and they had even less interest in her. She did not know why Ingeld had dumped her on them, although she had her suspicions. When an aggrieved discussion of the outrageous price of slaves sprang up, she quietly spun a veil, as the Old One had taught her. Once she was well obscured, she backed away unseen.

She had an exploration in mind. The place Benard called the Old Ramp had beckoned her. He had implied worse danger than just amorous drunks, but she was confident she could handle those easily enough, and the uncanny held no terrors for her now.

Wheel ruts in the flagstone floor showed that the spooky corridor had once been a chariot road, and grandiose bas-reliefs suggested that it might have been the main entrance to the palace. At the bottom of the long slope she came to an unlit crypt, reeking of damp and decay. Absence of light did not trouble her, although she had brought no lamp. The only sound was a distant drip of water, whose echoes told her that this was a large, high place.

Whatever it had been in the past, now it lay buried under newer construction and was used to stash unwanted junk between its ancient brick pillars. No, more than just that. A familiar tang of mystery and the slow drip brought whispers of welcome. This was the Kosordian equivalent of the secret grotto under Skjar's Pantheon, officially ignored but secretly tolerated for the performance of chthonic rites.

She wondered how safe the roof was, for both wooden rafters and brick pillars must decay in this drippy damp. More urgently, she wondered what she would say to Saltaja if they ran into each other here. Nevertheless, her instincts said that this was Xaran's temple, so she set off to find the altar and offer prayer.

Even a Chosen need step warily through such terrain in the dark. She had not gone far—just past some decaying chariots—when a faint glow began playing around her feet She stepped behind a spiral pillar and strengthened her veiling. Down the ramp came the Florengian hostage-Daughter, Sansya, carrying a small oil lamp in one hand and a bundle under the other arm. She paused when she reached the crypt, peering around and then moving cautiously to one side so she could not be seen from the hall above. There she put her back against the wall, but continued to hold her tiny light high, obviously afraid of the darkness.

Time dragged, but the Chosen had patience.

Eventually another lamp glowed in the passageway. There was no mistaking Lady Ingeld in her spectacular red and gold robes as she swept downward, hastened by the weight of her regalia, arriving almost at a run. No one could serve two gods, so the pyromancers were not here to worship the Dark One. Why were they creeping around in crypts during a religious feast?

"What news?" Ingeld asked urgently.

"He went in and closed the door, my lady. He has been in there long enough to perform a simple act of worship ... possibly even long enough to start considering another, my lady, except he was very drunk."

Ingeld laughed. "Praise to the appropriate god! Now help me, quickly, before... well, frankly, it doesn't matter if he does see me."

Fabia had understood very little of that exchange, and she watched in bewilderment as Sansya helped Ingeld shed her finery. That was not an unreasonable procedure at this time of night, for wearing all that paraphernalia would exhaust anyone, but doing so in this ill-reputed pesthole gave the action a strangely furtive air. Ingeld stripped and donned a garment from Sansya's bundle, a dark robe with a hood.

At that point, as if hearing his cue, a husky young man came running down the ramp, streaming smoke and sparks from a flaming torch. He hurled it to the weepy brick floor so he would have both arms free when Ingeld flowed into his embrace. It was a long embrace.

A very long embrace.

How revealing! Sansya was clearly embarrassed, fidgeting and trying not to stare, but Fabia sent a silent prayer of thanks to her divine mistress for showing her this little scandal. She wondered how long her scatterbrained brother had been cuckolding the satrap. This explained the sudden outburst of temper in Benard's yard this morning; only lovers would dare speak so bitterly. Absurd! Ingeld was old enough to be his mother.

"By your leave, my lady?" Sansya said quickly, when the lovers broke for air.

"Of course!" Ingeld gave her a hug. "Many thanks for your help, my dear. I leave my city in good hands."

Benard, too, gave Sansya a hug, and she went hurrying off up the ramp. The lovers smooched all over again. Even Fabia was starting to squirm. Would she ever sink into idiocy like that over a man?

Ingeld said, "Beloved, we must go. Guthlag has hired a boat. It's waiting at Candlemakers' Steps."

"I heard about the boat—Ucr Blessed." Benard's low growl echoed strangely through the crypt. "A Witness who says her name is Mist is meddling in our affairs, love. She gave me some odd advice. Is 'Mist' a normal Maynist name?"

Or was Mist a committee?

"I don't recall ever hearing any Witness's name ..."

Their voices died away up the ramp. Darkness returned to the shrine of Xaran, and the quiet drip continued to count off the ages.

Was Fabia supposed to do something with this illicit information? She could slip away from the palace and find Candlemakers' Steps easily enough, but her disappearance would betray the conspiracy to Saltaja. And what would happen to Horth? No, she must continue to bide her time. The lovers had not said whether Ucr Blessed would head upstream or downstream.

Fabia wished her brother good luck. She could not pray to Cienu to send it to him, but a word to Xaran would not be out of place—plus another for the mother Fabia had never known outside of dreams, but whose identity had just that day been confirmed for her by Benard's incredible art. Had the doge's wife ever been sent back to her childless home and husband, or had she met with a fatal accident, like her eldest son?

Fabia went in search of the altar that would be hidden somewhere in this holy place.

♦

The sky was blue by the time a sleepy and grumpy Fabia arrived at the riverbank in a palace chariot driven by a saturnine male Nastrarian who, typically, seemed to have forgotten how to speak. He could hardly plead the usual excuse of too much partying in the night, for a Nastrarian 's idea of fun was mucking out a stable. Her jailers, Cnurg and Ern, trotted behind.

Saltaja was waiting, talking with a wolfish Werist. "This is the girl, Huntleader."

"And twelve blessings on you, too, my lady!" Fabia said recklessly.

The Werist was big, surly, and had a badly scarred face. He nodded to her. "Darag Kwirarlson. At your service."

"Really at my service, or just-being-polite at my service?"

"Just-being-polite." He did not bother smiling.

Obviously this one was replacement for the late and un-lamented Perag Hrothgatson. The younger Werists scowling in the background included few familiar faces, and Fabia needed no divine revelation to guess that Saltaja had reshuffled her escort so that any mutinous conspiracy must sprout again from the roots. Down on the water, the riverfolk were making ready. Judging by the squealing and squabbling, many of them had been sampling the Kosordian feast.

"I am disappointed that our host and hostess are not here to see us off," Fabia remarked airily, wondering how far away Ingeld and Benard were already, and which way they had gone.

Saltaja regarded her with a stare that would have made a shark blink, but Fabia knew by now that this was merely low-level intimidation, not necessarily implying knowledge of guilt or even suspicion, except insofar as Saltaja was permanently suspicious of everyone. It could be ignored, that stare.

Then, in one of the great shocks of Fabia's life, Horth Wigson strolled in from the shadows—bowing, smiling, offering greetings. He bussed his foster daughter.

Even the Queen of Shadows was agape. "Where did you go?" she barked.

He peered at her wonderingly. "Nowhere, my lady. I mean, I was just wandering around here in Kosord. I admit that holy Ucr is my patron god, but feasting has little appeal for a man with my fastidious digestion. I met up with various old friends instead." He beamed like some inane middle-aged child.

As his gaze wafted past Fabia, he blinked, but his eyelids were oddly out of step, so that the blink could almost be classed as a pair of winks.

She hugged him. "Wonderful to see you, Father!" He must have returned to the captivity of the river voyage solely for her sake, whatever he was up to. "Oh, Father, I wish you had been there! I met my brother Benard! He is a wonderful sculptor, and such a warm, loving young man! I am surprised that he did not come here to see me off, but I suppose it is festival time... I do wish I could have spent more time with him and the wonderful lady Ingeld, getting to know them..."

She knew quite enough about Benard Celebre already. Even a Chosen could not look after her own when he was as featherbrained as that one. She had another brother waiting at Tryfors. Perhaps he would be better.

"Go and prod those riverfolk, Huntleader," Saltaja growled. "It's time for us to leave."