The Providence of Fire

43

The midnight gongs had long since tolled when Kaden, Kiel, and Gabril began the long walk back to the Temple of Pleasure. They walked in silence, partly because they couldn’t speak freely on the streets of Annur, partly because there was nothing to say. Kaden had played his gambit, and it had failed. He could still hear the chaos of the warehouse, the various nobles shouting over each other, accusing, condemning, demanding.… Such a scene would have been impossible among the Shin, but then, that was the problem; neither Kiel nor Kaden had anticipated the full extent of the aristocrats’ irrationality, the strength of the clutching grasp in which their emotions held them.

He kept his hood up and his head down as they moved through the winding streets, eyes fixed on his own feet and those of Gabril and Kiel, who led the way a few paces ahead. For once, he was grateful for the disguise-the hood let him stay silent, let him drift in his own thoughts. Those thoughts-visions of failure and futility-had consumed him so fully that he almost strode directly into Kiel’s back when the man stopped short. Kaden started to speak, but Kiel pushed him back, quietly but firmly, down the street from which they had just emerged.

When they finally stopped, Kaden raised his head carefully, glancing from Gabril to the Csestriim.

“What?” he asked quietly.

“The Ishien,” Kiel replied. “Two of them, waiting in the shadows just outside the cobbler’s shop.”

Kaden took a long breath, forcing himself to calm. “Did they see us?”

Kiel shook his head.

“Who,” Gabril asked, “are the Ishien?”

Kaden started to explain, then thought better of it. “Enemies,” he said curtly. “Do you know another way into the temple?”

Gabril frowned. “Several.” He glanced over his shoulder. “These enemies of yours, they can fight?”

Kaden nodded.

“How did they follow you?”

Kaden considered the question. Matol couldn’t have tracked them from the kenta in the catacombs all the way to the temple. The memory of the ak’hanath sprang to mind, of their twisted, unnatural legs, of the red eyes bulging from the joints. But Matol wasn’t Csestriim. He didn’t have ak’hanath. Which meant the beshra’an.

“They didn’t follow,” Kaden said. “They anticipated. There are only a few places in Annur I could go, only a few places to which I have any connection. They’ve probably got men watching all of them.”

“You did not tell me this,” Gabril said, jaw tight.

“I didn’t know they would pursue me so quickly.”

“We can discuss it further,” Kiel said, “when we’re inside the temple.”

Getting inside the temple proved easier said than done. Gabril led them to three more entrances before they found one-a low stable outside a modest palace-that was unwatched. By the time they’d murmured Morjeta’s passphrase to the pair of guards, descended through the long tunnel underground, and emerged into one of the small garden pavilions, Kaden wanted nothing more than to sleep. Dawn would be soon enough to fully confront the implications of his failure, both with the council and the Ishien, soon enough to start searching for another path. His mind felt battered by the strange tides of emotion: the hope, fear, anger, and despair. How most people lived with such emotions every day, with feelings a hundred times stronger, he had no idea. Even the residual tug of longing and loss was enough to disorder all hope of rational thought.

Sleep, he reminded himself. Sleep first, then thought.

When they stepped through the wooden door into the pavilion, however, the strain on Morjeta’s face said immediately that there would be no sleep. He started to ask what was wrong, but she waved him silent, the motion quick and urgent. Behind Kaden, Kiel and Gabril went still. Over the slow wash of water, through the gentle ringing of the wind chimes, Kaden could make out a voice, a man’s voice, smooth and urbane, but sharp as oiled steel.

“I have nothing but respect for your temple and for your goddess, but I speak for the Unhewn Throne, and in this matter I will not be denied.”

Kaden felt the cold claws of fear prick through the skin of his neck. He had heard that voice only briefly. It had been more than a month since he last saw the man walking out of the Bone Mountains, clothing ripped, face bloody, but he knew the accent and idiom as though they were his own. The Shin had taken from him the luxury of forgetting. While the Ishien were hunting him outside, here, within the very walls of the temple, Tarik Adiv had come, searching for someone.

“It is not a matter of denial, Councillor,” said a woman’s voice, warm as liquid honey. “The young man you seek is not within our walls.”

“How disappointing,” Adiv said, voice slick with disbelief. “You won’t mind if my men just … check. There are so many people coming and going, and, in the aftermath of ecstasy, it’s easy to forget certain … details.…”

Kaden crossed silently to the wooden screen separating his pavilion from the lush garden beyond. Adiv stood in the soft red light of the hanging paper lanterns. The Mizran Councillor appeared fully recovered from his ordeal in the mountains, his dark robes immaculate, dark hair combed carefully back, held in place with a dark blindfold. He was the image of imperial authority. And a leach. And a murderer. Kaden could feel Gabril tensing at his side, and he turned to fix the First Speaker with his gaze, then shook his head slowly. Adiv was flanked by half a dozen soldiers, and whatever Gabril’s skills with those blades, he wasn’t prepared to face a leach.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Councillor,” the woman said. “As you know, we hold the identities of those inside Ciena’s walls inviolate.”

Kaden shifted his attention to the leina confronting Adiv, a tall, voluptuous woman with skin dark and lustrous as wet coal, her hair hanging in hundreds of delicate braids. She looked desperately vulnerable, standing before the armored soldiers in nothing more than a dress of diaphanous silk, but her face betrayed no fear.

She smiled, spreading her hands. “I’m sure you understand.”

Adiv’s jaw tightened. “I’m sure I do.” He glanced around the garden, seeming to look through that blindfold of his from one pavilion to the next. Kaden kept still as the non-gaze passed over him, wondering for the first time whether Tan had killed all the ak’hanath back in the Bone Mountains. He realized he had no idea where the creatures had originally come from, whether Adiv had more, whether they were stalking him even now, scratching at the high walls of the temple, searching for a way in, a way over.

Finally Adiv turned back to the leina. “You know, Demivalle, that I have more men than these six.”

He left the rest of the threat unvoiced, but the leina’s lips tightened a fraction.

“And you know, Councillor, that the citizens of Annur love my goddess. Many worship inside these walls, and the worshippers would be displeased with any disturbance.”

“The citizens of Annur love Intarra, as well,” Adiv replied. “And look what happened to Uinian.”

Demivalle met his smile with one of her own. “Of course, Uinian was a traitor. I am not. I live to serve Annur and all her citizens, after serving my goddess, of course.”

“You’ve always been clever with that tongue of yours, Valle, but you know as well as any that serving Annur is not the same as serving the Unhewn Throne.”

“I wish all peace and pleasure upon the lords of our land.” She cocked her head delicately to the side. “This is a … precarious time for the Dawn Palace. I would hate to see the current instability extended as a result of…” She paused longer this time, as though searching for the words. “… rash and unnecessary decisions.”

Maybe it was her light, apologetic laugh, or the simple fact of seeing his will so clearly thwarted, but Adiv’s face twisted into a snarl beneath his blindfold, and he leaned in close, seizing the leina by the arm, his fingers driving into her flesh.

“So we understand each other,” he hissed, “I would remind you that what you have here is nothing more than a collection of pretty, perfumed whores. You hide behind the lust of Annur’s powerful and rich as though that lust were loyalty. It is not. I will leave you for the moment, but if I discover you have lied to me, you may find that all this soft, decadent flesh you have so assiduously collected, all your beautiful boys and girls, will burn as briskly as your high walls.”

If Demivalle was frightened by the threat, she didn’t show it. Instead of drawing back from Adiv’s grip, she pulled him closer in a mockery of true embrace.

“And in the interest of understanding,” she whispered sweetly in his ear, the words soft, yet intended to carry to anyone else listening, “I would remind you that while you serve a man, I serve a goddess. It is a pity your eyes went bad so early, or you might see more clearly the power you confront.”

* * *

“I could kill him,” Gabril said, frowning at the flame flickering inside the porcelain lamp.

Morjeta shook her head vigorously. “No. You couldn’t. Tarik Adiv is a cruel, vicious man, but he is not foolish. The six soldiers you saw tonight were the barest fraction of his strength.”

“And he’s a leach,” Triste spat. “He can … do things.”

Gabril shook his head in disgust. “Filthy scum.”

Kaden took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. After Adiv’s departure, Morjeta had hurried them up the stairs to her chambers and double-bolted the doors while Triste pulled the curtains and lit more lamps. The temple, which had seemed like such a sanctuary for the past several days, now felt dangerous, sinister, a trap sliding slowly shut. He glanced around Morjeta’s chamber, but there was little to see-delicately scented candles on the mantel; flowering jasmine in dark, elegant pots; a harp hung from a hook on one wall; and a scattering of parchment, quills, and ink jars scattered across a low table, the remnants of their long nights drafting the constitution. Nothing to suggest treachery. Nothing to hint that even here, in the heart of Ciena’s temple, they were being watched.

“How did Adiv know I was here?” Kaden asked.

Triste stabbed a finger at the garden beyond the curtains. “There are hundreds of leinas,” she said, shaking her head with disgust. “Someone talked.”

“What about all that about ‘keeping identities inviolate’?” Kaden asked.

Morjeta pursed her lips. “Most of us serve the goddess above all.” She spread her hands. “But despite the training and the oaths, leinas are human, with human hopes and flaws. They can be threatened or bribed. They can be manipulated to think they have no choices.” She glanced at Triste, and a shadow of anguish passed across her face. “Demivalle is strict in her adherence to the oaths-this year already she has seen four leinas and a serving girl cut and put outside the walls for violating the trust of the goddess-but this temple houses hundreds, and she cannot be everywhere.”

“We will move to my estate,” Gabril said. “These Ishien would not follow you there, and this temple is no longer safe. Now that the councillor knows you are here, he will come back.”

Morjeta hesitated, then shook her head. “He doesn’t know. Not for certain. We’ve been careful to keep Kaden hooded and hidden at all times save inside my own rooms. At the most, Adiv has heard that my daughter has returned. You should be safe here, at least for a few more nights.”

“He was searching for a man,” Kaden pointed out.

“He was fishing,” Morjeta said, “hoping Demivalle would let something slip. If he knew for certain that you were here, that I was shielding you, Ciena’s walls would not keep you safe.”

“There must be some way to stop him,” Triste said, hands balling into fists, “to kill him.”

“Tarik Adiv is not the problem,” Kaden said quietly, shaking his head. “Not yet, at least.”

Triste turned to him, aghast. “He tried to murder you once already. He threatened my mother and took me from the temple by force, and now he’s back, hunting us again. How is he not the problem?”

“He is only an obstacle,” Kaden replied, “if we decide to remain in the city. We could be gone tomorrow morning, by tonight, and he would have no way to follow us.”

“You would run?” Gabril asked, face hardening. “And what of this empire you pledged to destroy? What of your constitution?”

Kaden met the First Speaker’s angry glare. “I don’t plan to run, but until we have devised a way to destroy the empire itself, it’s irrelevant whether or not Tarik Adiv watches over the Dawn Palace. Irrelevant whether or not we kill him.”

“Killing would be a good place to start,” Triste said. “We can figure out the rest as we go along.”

“No,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “Killing Adiv will create an absence in the Dawn Palace, a brief period in which no one rules Annur-but absence is difficult to maintain. If our own council is not there to fill the empty space, then il Tornja, or Adare, or another of his minions will step in almost immediately.”

“Unfortunately,” Kiel said, “after our meeting tonight, forming a council looks unlikely.”

“The nobles are fools,” Gabril said, cracking the knuckles of one hand, then the other. “They would poison their own well to prevent others from drinking.”

“What if you were able to offer them something?” Triste asked. “Promise them more, if they sign the constitution?”

“I don’t have anything else to offer,” Kaden said, spreading his hands.

“Future rights and prerogatives,” Triste suggested, “in the new republic.”

Kaden considered the idea a moment, then shook his head in frustration. “It was greed over the rights I was offering in the first place that choked off the agreement.”

Morjeta had been staring at him, eyes bright in the lamplight. “It won’t work.…” she whispered. “I thought that maybe…” She shook her head. “They aren’t going to agree after all. I’m so sorry.”

They fell silent at that, Gabril glaring moodily into the lamplight, Triste gnawing at her lip. Kaden studied them a moment, the thorn of a horrible new thought pricking at his mind, then looked away, watching the delicate curtains shift in the breeze. From the garden below, he could make out the light sound of music and laughter played over the deeper bass of moaning, the fervent cries of physical rapture. The weariness he’d felt just after returning from the warehouse settled on him once more, a heavy, soporific helplessness. These were his people, the patrons of the temple and the angry nobility alike, and yet sometimes they seemed more alien than the Csestriim.

He filled his mind with a saama’an of the meeting, studied various faces in the feeble lamplight. He could see the scene in perfect detail, but it meant little. He could stare at the faces for hours, watch the disaster unfold forward or backward, but he had no idea how to change the result. If it were a crumbling wall, or the broken axle of a cart, a wet clay pot on the spinning wheel or a goat’s carcass to be carved, he would be able to discern the shape of the problem beneath the bright skin of the world, but he could find no pattern in the assembled aristocrats, no shape in the madness.

Exhaling slowly, he let the image go, watching instead as the oil lamp sputtered for a moment, the flame waving wildly before steadying itself. He understood how the lamp worked: oil and air, fuel and space, something and nothing. Starve it of oil-the flame died. Crowd it-the flame died. Kaden reached out, tested the heat, then settled his hand over the top of the lamp. The fire didn’t quite reach his skin, but it hurt, hurt worse, then began to burn. The quick, desperate animal part of his brain screamed at him to pull back, to cradle it to his chest, but he silenced the beast and kept his hand in place, watching the pain but discarding the fear of pain.

It felt as though he’d been fighting and running forever, struggling against his foes when he had the strength, fleeing more often. And where had it landed him? Trapped inside a temple, his secrecy fraying, his plans thwarted, enemies circling. He stared at his hand. The skin beneath was seared, blistered, but the fire in the lamp had gone out. He lifted his palm slowly, watching the smoke break apart on the light breeze. The others were exclaiming, but he set the sound aside, following the track of his thought. All this time, he’d been trying to guard himself, his few friends, his family.… He turned his hand over, stared at the livid red flesh across the palm. The truth was, he couldn’t protect anyone, not even himself. He’d failed at fighting. Failed at keeping his secrets. Failed at eluding Adiv and the Ishien both.

“Maybe it’s time to stop fighting,” he murmured, testing the idea aloud.

“What?” Triste asked.

He didn’t look up, staring instead at the lines in his scorched flesh, studying them as he considered the various pieces of a new plan, rotating them like stones in his mind until they fit, locking into place.

He turned to Gabril. “I need to meet the council again.”

The First Speaker frowned. “So soon? They will still be furious from tonight’s fiasco.”

“Not right away,” Kaden replied. “Three days. On my ground this time.”

Kiel raised his eyebrows. “Your ground?”

“The Shin chapterhouse,” Kaden said. “It’s neutral and discreet.”

“The Shin chapterhouse,” Kiel observed, “like this temple, will be watched by the Ishien.”

Kaden paused at that, forced himself to hesitate, to smile. “I know. But there are other ways in. The abbot explained them to me when I spoke with him. Passages underground.”

“Why risk these passages?” Gabril asked, shaking his head. “Why risk the place at all? I can secure another location easily, also neutral, one not watched by these foes of yours.”

“The meeting has to take place at the chapterhouse. I have to show the nobles something.”

Kiel studied him a moment. “The kenta.”

Kaden nodded.

“Why?” the Csestriim asked. “The gates have been your family’s secret since the founding of the empire.”

“It’s the empire we’re trying to replace,” Kaden observed, carried along by the momentum of his own lie. “Triste suggested offering the nobility something they can’t refuse, something in return for their participation in the republic. I intend to offer them the use of the kenta.”

“The gates would destroy them,” Kiel said, narrowing his eyes.

“They don’t know that. When they see me disappear, then return the same afternoon carrying fresh fruit from the markets of Olon, they’ll understand the power. They’ll sign whatever we put in front of them for a piece of it.”

“And when they discover you’ve lied to them?”

“I’ll tell them it takes months of training to safely use the gates. If we’re all still alive then, we can worry about what comes next.”

Kiel nodded. “It could work,” he said, then paused, studying Kaden. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

Kaden smoothed away the barbs of fear, forced himself to meet the Csestriim’s gaze.

“There is,” he agreed, then turned to Triste.

“I need you to take a note to the chapterhouse, to a monk named Iaapa.”

“No!” Morjeta exploded, face aghast. “If it’s watched, they’ll take her! Absolutely not!”

“They’ll watch her, but they won’t take her,” Kaden said. “Not until she’s led them to me.”

“They will!” the leina cried, gathering her daughter up in her arms. “You already explained to me what these men are like. They will torture her to find out where you are!”

Kaden shook his head. “They tried that already, at great length and with little success.”

Triste shuddered at the memory, and her mother clutched her tighter.

“Why take the risk?” Kiel asked. “Why not send Gabril? The Ishien don’t know him. They won’t pay any attention to him at all.”

Kaden hesitated, trying to decide how much to reveal. “I want them to notice,” he said finally.

The girl disentangled herself from her mother slowly, then turned toward Kaden. “Why?” she asked, voice trembling with the single syllable.

“They’ll follow you back here,” he said, “but they won’t be able to come inside the walls. At that point, they’ll go back to the chapterhouse. They’ll demand that Iaapa hand over the note that you’d been so conspicuously carrying.”

“Why would a Shin abbot cooperate with these Ishien?” Gabril asked.

“Because Triste’s going to ask him to. She’s going to tell him that I asked it.”

“And what,” Kiel asked slowly, “does this mysterious note say?”

Kaden shrugged. “That I’m giving up. That I tried to take back my throne and failed. That I’m going back to Ashk’lan with another worshipper of the Blank God to restart the monastery there. That if any of his monks would like to join us, we would welcome them.”

For several heartbeats no one spoke. Then Gabril started laughing. It was a warm, rich sound, and when Morjeta and Triste turned to him in confusion, he pointed across the table at Kaden.

“He may know nothing of knives, but his mind is keen as a blade.”

“You think that when they read this note,” Morjeta said finally, “that these Ishien will try to follow you back to your monastery?”

“For the chance to capture both Kiel and me?” Kaden asked. “I think they’d follow me all the way to Li.”

“Only you are not going to Li,” Kiel said. “Or to Ashk’lan.”

Kaden shook his head, then turned to Triste. “There is a risk for you in delivering the message.”

Fear filled her wide eyes, but she didn’t hesitate. “I’ll go.”

“No,” Morjeta protested. “Please.”

Triste peeled away her mother’s arms. “I’m going.”

“What about the nobles?” Gabril asked. “They assembled once out of curiosity. They’ll be reluctant to do so again.”

Kaden nodded. “Explain to them that I plan to make my earlier offer more compelling. Also, make sure they dress discreetly. In fact, tell them to dress as monks.”

“Monks?” Gabril asked. “Trust does not flow readily between them. As at our last meeting, they will not feel safe without steel in their hands.”

Kaden nodded. “You’d be surprised what you can hide beneath a monk’s robe. They can bring whatever weapons they want as long as they keep them hidden.” He paused. “Can you write me a list of all the names?”

Gabril raised his eyebrows. “We’ve been over them already.”

“I know. I want a chance to study them, to learn them by heart,” Kaden replied. “This meeting is going to be difficult enough. I don’t want to offend anyone by botching a name.”

Gabril shrugged, then turned to Morjeta. “You have ink and brushes.”

For a moment the woman seemed not to hear him, staring instead at Kaden as though seeing him for the first time. Then, just as Gabril seemed about to repeat himself, she nodded abruptly and left the room, returning moments later with an elaborate lacquered case, opening it on the table between them.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to the inks and sheets of fine vellum. “Use whatever you need.”

Gabril took one brush while Kaden selected another.

“While you’re writing the names,” he said, “I’ll write a short note to each of our … friends explaining how to get into the chapterhouse unseen. If I seal them up, can you make sure they are delivered?”

Gabril nodded without glancing up from his writing. “It is simple enough.”

“Thank you,” Kaden said.

As he worked, he was careful to make sure no one in the room could see what he wrote. He thought he had finally discovered whom to trust, but he couldn’t be certain, and it would not do for the wrong eyes to see that his notes to the nobility said nothing about meeting in the chapterhouse, that his letter to Iaapa had nothing to do with a return to Ashk’lan.