Traitors Gate

37

'What's wrong?' demanded Keshad, throat tight.

The reeve wiped his brow. 'Mistress Priya suggested you close down the warehouse until you return.'

'Very well,' said O'eki in a tone so flat Kesh was shocked to see how gray he had turned. 'It will take me a short while to lock everything up. Seren, ask a hireling to collect a change of clothes and such necessities as we'll need.'

The Qin soldier nodded and limped out, brows drawn down.

'What's happened, curse you!' demanded Keshad.

'Close up your books quickly, Kesh,' snapped O'eki. 'Grab anything you need. Make it fast.'

The hells!

They launched from Assizes Square. O'eki hooked in with Siras, and Kesh was handed over to Reeve Miyara, who looked as if she hadn't slept in a week.

'What happened?' he asked as she hooked him in.

'Anything the chief wants you to know, he'll tell you.'

The earth lurched; the ground leaped away from under him as wings battered the air. He yelped, squeezing shut his eyes. She offered no word of encouragement, no friendly banter to ease the transition. After a while he cracked an eye only to find the land falling away so rapidly he felt sick to his stomach, so he clamped his eyes shut again.

'How do you get used to this?' he muttered. Her knee jabbed into his back. 'Aui!'

He took the hint. If she didn't want to talk, then he wouldn't talk. But it was cursed hard to keep your eyes shut for so long, and the next time he opened them there was nothing but water beneath, swaying and glittering under a cloudless sky.

Better not to look. He lifted an arm to shield his eyes, but after a while his arm got tired, and then the other arm got tired, and eventually the steady rumble of the wind and the tense silence of his companion numbed him enough that he could regard the sea below with resigned terror. Just let Miravia be alive. As long as he held to that thought, he could endure.

They'd launched before noon and soon he had to piss, even though they'd warned him to relieve himself before flight. But there was nowhere to land except the south shore shining gold off to the left, and he sure as the hells wasn't going to ask her to detour just for him. They rose higher yet until the air stung in his

chest and his eyes watered, and he started to shiver, but she said nothing and the eagle flew on, alternating gliding on strong winds and then beating for stretches. To cross the Olo'o Sea by ship took two days, or a long day and night, yet the waters quickly slid past as the day wore on. Late in the afternoon they passed above the hinterlands of Astafero, the settlement a smear of buildings far below, and sped straight for the magnificent Spires. The winds buffeted them, and he shuddered convulsively in a cold blast that swept off the high, forbidding peaks wjiose crowns glittered a blinding white.

They plummeted and he shrieked as the earth hurtled up. They hit and he fell hard to his knees as she unhooked him without warning. He knelt at a cliff's edge, the spray of a waterfall spanning the gulf of air. He crept away from the chasm, and the first time he tried to stand he could not. The reeve was shucking the harness from her eagle, releasing it, and by the time he got his feet under him she was walking in company with a Qin soldier into the trees. Another sentry waited at the path's edge, so he hurried after.

'Where's O'eki and the other — what was his name?' he called.

'Master O'eki is a heavier burden, and Siras hasn't as much experience to push his raptor so hard.' She tossed the words over her shoulder and kept walking. He struggled past the sentry, who nodded at him but stayed where he was, waiting for the other reeve. Aui! He had to piss so badly that he staggered a few steps off the path, shook himself free of his trousers, and released.

Afterward, legs steadier, he loped through the forest and caught her up as she and her escort emerged into the clearing with its living shelters and storehouses and a herd of goats ransacking their way along the tree line.

Soldiers came running. Priya, sitting on the porch with the baby in her arms, looked up, then stood, her posture inexpressibly weary. She had cut off all her hair, shorn like a sheep every which way, and by the look on her face as she watched him stumble over the uneven ground toward her, he knew what had happened.

He should have understood. He had met the emperor's brother. He knew what manner of people the Sirniakans were. He knew what the captain's mother was. She had warned him.

'It can't be true,' he said, stubbing his toes as he tried to take the steps in a single leap. 'It can't be true. I could have saved her if I'd agreed to marry her. If I'd taken her away-'

Her voice was as colorless as undyed linen. 'Chief Tuvi wishes to speak to you, Master Keshad.'

He balanced on the porch's edge, heels bouncing over air. 'Does he think I had something to do with it?'

Soldiers had fenced him in while he wasn't looking. These men had been sent to Merciful Valley to protect Mai's life, and they had failed.

'I'll go in,' he said. They had all failed.

Priya nodded. The baby was suckling on a bottle sewn from a sheep's udder, content for the moment, eyes shut.

It was easier to shut your eyes, wasn't it? To pretend you didn't have to look at the horrible truth. He shed his sandals and pushed aside the canvas. The outer chamber was empty, two rolled-up pallets stowed out of the way, but a curtain was tied up to reveal the inner chamber. The canvas wall on the far side had also been tied up to allow in light and air. Miravia was sitting on a pillow beside a man reclining on a pallet, his legs covered by a length of silk and his torso belted into a silk jacket. She bent forward, setting a cup to Chief Tuvi's lips as she smiled and began to speak in response to something he had just evidently said.

She smiled at Tuvi!

Kesh's feet scuffing startled her. She spilled the liquid on Tuvi's chin as she jerked upright, head whipping around to stare. Her lips moved, forming his name. She had hacked off her hair, and what was left spiked in ragged clumps likely a badly mown hayfield. She was more beautiful in her grief than he had ever seen her, sorrow honing her spirit so its beauty stabbed like lightning.

The chief raised himself on an elbow, his gaze an arrow pinning Kesh. 'Here you are,' he said, his voice hoarse with pain. 'Sit if you will, Master Keshad.'

'You don't think I had anything to do with it!'

'To do with what?' asked the chief.

Miravia burst into tears and, sobbing, jumped to her feet and ducked out through the back flat onto the wraparound porch. When Kesh moved to go after her, Tuvi stopped him with a word.

'Sit.'

Kesh sat, missing the pillow.

The chief pulled the silk off his legs. He wore a local kilt, and his skin, in the fading light, was revealed as a mass of welts and blisters.

'Bringing you here, did the reeves speak of what I told them to keep secret?' asked the chief as Kesh tried not to stare.

'No.'

'Did the captain's mother ever speak to you of her plans?'

'I told Captain Anji everything! She offered to give me Miravia if I would take Mai as well. It was cursed obvious she wanted to be rid of Mai. What in the hells happened?'

'Sheyshi was her agent all along.'

'Sheyshi? The slave? But she's… stupid. How could she be-?'

If you shut your eyes, you would not see what walked and talked right in front of you. Was anyone ever really as stupid as Sheyshi had constantly been?

'We saw what we expected to see.' Tuvi grunted and lay back on the heap of pillows. 'If you will, a sip of juice.'

Kesh found the cup Miravia had set down before she had run off. How odd to feel compassion for his rival's pain. The man had never done him any harm, as far as he knew. After swallowing the juice, the chief breathed as his eyes watered.

At last, he sighed. 'We were all taken in. She stabbed Mai by the pool. When Mai fell in, I tried to drag her body out but the pool's sorcery burned me. She sank into the depths.'

'Are you saying you've no body?'

'I lost her. The demons — or maybe the gods of this place — took her.' Tuvi raised a hand, welted with fine red scars, and covered his eyes as he wept.

He wept, as hardened a soldier as he was.

'That old bitch-!' cried Kesh.

'Sheh!' The Hundred word cut like an edged blade. Shame! 'No man speaks so of the var's sister, a princess of the blood.'

'She had Mai killed!'

'So it seems. Nevertheless, if you insult her again, I must kill you for the sake of the captain's honor. I admit, it is not the Qin way to make a stab in the dark, but when her brother condemned her to a life in the Sirniakan palace, it must be expected she would learn to live as the locals do in order to survive. So must we all. Mai's power was considerable. A threat to her, coming to this land as a stranger to a son who did not know her well and who never liked his uncle, her brother. The var is a hard man to please. Sheyshi must have been the princess's agent all along. The princess's relationship with Beje and Cherfa was closer than we ever imagined. They must have been in communication all those

years. It was Beje who helped smuggle the young Anjihosh past the empire's border nineteen years ago. I was part of that effort, you know. I did not suspect Commander Beje might have been her agent still. Or perhaps he knew nothing, and she used Cherfa to place an agent into her son's troop. To protect him. It has only ever been her desire to protect her son.'

Kesh had no answer to this. 'What now, then, Tuvi?'

A soldier hung a lamp from a hook before retreating into the dusk.

'Tell me again, every word the emperor's brother said to you, every word the captain's mother spoke in your hearing.'

So Kesh told his tale again, pausing at intervals to help the chief drink. When partway through it came time for the chief to relieve himself, two soldiers helped him beyond the porch to the pits. He could walk, with assistance, although the effort left him exhausted. Yet afterward, returning to the pallet, he indicated that Kesh must go on. After Kesh had related everything he could recall, the chief wiped his eyes.

'We should have suspected the slave,' he said.

O'eki came in, eyes red from weeping. Priya walked beside him, carrying Atani, and Tuvi smiled as she settled the baby in the chief's embrace, the child so handsome and bright a face that a man might weep to think of what he had lost.

'If only I had agreed, I might have saved her,' muttered Kesh.

Tuvi laughed, the sound raw. 'Hu! You are no match for the captain's mother, Master Keshad. Mai was dead the instant Anjihosh said no to his mother.' He handed the baby back to Priya, who took his look as a command and retreated with O'eki.

'One last thing, Master Keshad,' said the chief, 'and then I must sleep. The sooner I can travel, the sooner I can bring this news to the captain. Let me assure you, in case you do not understand me, that the reeves who fly in and out here obey me. I must inform the captain, none but me. None can know outside us until he knows. I'll kill you if there is any question that you might attempt-'

Kesh flung up his hands. T want nothing! I have no plans!'

'You want something.'

Ah.

There it stood, between them.

'Miravia,' said the chief, 'is a fine, well-mannered, and intelligent young woman, if not particularly handsome.'

'Not handsome!' cried Kesh. 'She's the most beautiful woman I have ever seen!'

'Nothing compared to that girl Avisha,' continued the chief.

'Avisha! That spring-blooming flower, pretty for a season and then likely to wither? The hells! Are you blind?'

'The mistress wished me to marry her, because her family cast her out and Mai wanted to be sure that her dearest friend would always have the protection of a clan. It's a hard world for any person thrown without kin into the crueLpattle of life, is it not?'

'As I know! I lived twelve years as a debt slave.'

'And bought yourself free, which means you're an intelligent lad, if a reckless and irritating one. I will marry Miravia, Master Keshad, if that is what Miravia wishes. Because it's what Mai wanted. It would be the wise thing for Miravia to do. She'll never lack, as part of the captain's household.'

'You forget there's a war.'

'I don't forget it. But unlike you, the captain is not a reckless man. He has his plans laid well in place, a substantial army, and an additional five hundred Qin soldiers to back him up.'

'Commander Beje's men!'

'No. These are men who would have been placed under Anjihosh's command had he been allowed to take his army on the eastern frontier of the Qin empire, but either way, it does not matter. We Qin who are soldiers fight for the man who commands us, and when we are sent elsewhere, there we fight. For Anjihosh now. In time, for his son.'

'I thought you fought for the Hundred.'

Tuvi gestured, and Kesh handed him the cup of juice. It was, in fact, difficult for Tuvi to grasp the cup with his burned hands, but the man was determined to recover enough to travel. To serve his captain. To do his duty. To fight.

'I will marry Miravia if that is what she wishes, and I'll treat her well. Although,' he added thoughtfully, 'the visits to that garden will have to stop. What a cursed wrongheaded thing that is! Hu!' He held out the empty cup, and Kesh took it. 'But if she wants a different man, one who assures me she will not lack for any of the comforts and security Mai would have wanted her to have, then I will not raise my sword against that man, nor will I hold a grudge.'

'Do you want more juice?' asked Kesh.

'No. I'll sleep now.'

'Here. Let me help you with the pillows.' Kesh settled the pillows so they braced the chief comfortably. 'Do you want the silk over your legs?'

'No. The air cools the burns. Is that all you have to say?'

Kesh really looked at him, seeing a man of indeterminate years, forty or fifty, hard to say because the Qin hid their age so well with their weathered faces and easy smiles. An honest man, in his way, clear-eyed and clear-spoken. Brutal when he must be, but unexpectedly kind.

'You're a cursed road more generous than I could ever be, Chief Tuvi. She matters more to me than anything.'

'I'm not generous, lad. Don't make the mistake of thinking so. I have a wife back in the grasslands, a good woman I'll never see again. It would be pleasant to have a wife again, if it falls out that way. Nevertheless, I'm a soldier, and my loyalty was given long ago and completely, as it must be. I'm Anjihosh's man. He is my life. Now, go on. I suppose you will find her by the pool. It's where she goes to mourn.'

She had not taken a lamp, but he found her easily enough, kneeling beyond the waterfall and its ruins in the darkness of the cave where, so the tale had it, Atani had been born within a net of firelings. Kesh didn't believe the story, not precisely, because everyone knew firelings lived in storms, not in caves, but people would tell tales to fit what they wanted to believe. It made life easier.

'Miravia,' he said.

She knelt before plaited wreaths heaped upon a stone slab meant to be an altar. There were no flowers; this wasn't a season for flowers. She didn't look up. She must have seen the light. She must have guessed it was him.

'If only I had-' she began through tears.

'Will blaming yourself bring her back?'

She said nothing, lips pressing tight in that stubborn way he was coming to adore. The overhang smelled faintly of wet season storms, a memory of thunder. Water pounded at their backs in a constantly shifting curtain. Where the pool's edge lapped at the rim of stone, right where the water fell and had gouged out the deeper pool, waves stirred and sighed as if trying to speak.

'Mai is gone,' she whispered. 'How can I endure it?'

Each step brought him closer until he knelt beside her, careful

not to touch however desperately he wanted to stroke her arm, embrace her body, gentle the wreck of her hair. He set the lantern on the stone beside the wreaths; its light caught crystal in the ceiling and glimmered there as thoughts catch and brighten where there is love.

'It's too early to speak of such things,' he began, 'but I wanted to say-'

'Mai wants me to marry Chief Tuvi. He's a good man. It would make her happy.'

'Is that what she wanted? I ask an honest question. I didn't know her, not truly. Did she truly want you to marry Tuvi, or is it just that she wanted you to be safe and protected, as she was?'

'She wasn't safe! They killed her!' The storm of weeping broke over her again, and she raged and bawled with a fierce anger that might have given the mountains pause, thinking they could match her in passionate outbursts. How had she lived all those years within such bindings as the Ri Amarah set on their women? Or did he just not understand them? Maybe they bred such women within their walls, and it was only that those outside their clans never saw them.

When the storm quieted, he spoke.

'Where did you lay out the body?'

'There was no body. She sank into the depths. When Chief Tuvi tried to wade in to grab her, he was burned. No one can touch the pool.'

'Water can't burn.'

'Chief Tuvi says demons took her. Priya and the reeves say it was the gods who took her. But Atani was born in the midst of a storm, with firelings aloft in the sky and a net of fiery blue threads a swarm in this cave. Mai thinks — thought — this valley is home to firelings. They must have a home, too, mustn't they? "Delvings in the deep, merlings in the sea, wildings in the wood, lendings in the grass," as it says in the tale. "Humans in their villages, demons hidden among all."'

'" And the firelings live in the storm,"' finished Keshad.

'Threads of blue fire. A pool of water whose touch makes the hair on your neck stand on end, just like the air snaps before lightning storms crash down. The firelings are the ones who took her. Maybe she's still alive-'

'Miravia! Don't cling to hopeless-'

'It's not hopeless! Corpses float, do they not? So where is hers? The water falling down off the mountains is water and yet…'

She strode to the curtain, stuck a hand in. Kesh copied her; bracingly cold water poured over his skin.

'Stick your hand in the pool!' Her stare challenged him.

At the lip worn by an eternity of water pounding away at the stone, he thrust his fingers into the dark pool. Yelped as the liquid crackled and stung. As the hair on the back of his neck prickled, rising. He fell back onto his rump, shaking his hand. 'Eiyi!'

Her gaze devoured him. 'There's sorcery here, Keshad. We can't know what truly happened. We have to be patient.'

A love-struck man, in the tales, is usually portrayed as a figure of fun, bound to make a fool of himself time and again in his efforts to please the beloved one. He swallowed a retort and, without smiling, got to his feet opening and closing his hand although that did not make the stinging go away. She would know at once if he tried to humor her. If he lied.

'It's hard for me to believe,' he said bluntly, 'nor did I know her or love her as you did. I'm sorry for it, and I must admit I'm shocked, but I rode a long way with the captain's mother and honestly I'm not surprised.'

'Captain Anji will repudiate his mother when he finds out!'

'Will he?'

'How could he not!'

Kesh thought about what Tuvi had said. 'I don't presume to know how the captain will react. Meanwhile, I must assume Mai is dead. But if you want me to wait with you, I will.'

Her gaze was fire, but he held against that searing blaze. At last, she reached; she grasped his hand in her warm fingers. The delirious dizzying joy made his heart pound and his eyes water.

'You're the only one who is listening to me,' she breathed.

He thought his heart might actually stop for the brilliance of her eyes and the moist parting of her lips as she bent closer. She swayed, grief weighing her down like exhaustion. He embraced her. Aui! It went to his head like floodwaters, and he was grinning like an idiot even if fortunately she could not see his smile.

'As soon as he's well enough,' she whispered, 'Chief Tuvi means to have a reeve fly him to Captain Anji. He won't let anyone else tell the captain the news. He'll go-'

'And I'll stay.'

She sighed against his shoulder. 'They'll take Atani. Priya will

go. She scarcely allows anyone else to hold him. They don't really need me. Among my people it's traditional to say mourning prayers for a year for a family member. A sister. Because — I don't know — I just think someone should stand guard here, just in case.'

'They'll go, because they must. But if you stay, I'll stay.' The lamp burned. The night slumbered. The waterfall spilled, its voice speaking of high mountain escarpments from which white rain poured from the highest slopes into the lands below. She held him, saying nothing. For the first time in over twelve years, since the day he and Zubaidit had been orphaned and sold away by their disloyal kinfolk into debt slavery, Keshad was content.

Joss reached Law Rock on the wings of dusk. Toughid was drilling the eager young firefighters and reeves on the parade ground, but Joss did not watch; he walked to the promontory, leaned against the fence surrounding the stele, and murmured the well-known words carved on the rock although he couldn't actually read them.

On law shall the land be built.

Peddonon strolled up to lean beside him. A lamp burned at the southwest corner; the other three remained unlit.

After a while, Peddo said, 'You're troubled, Joss. You haven't said a word.'

'Do you trust me? You and Kesta?'

'That's the kind of question a lad comes out with just before he coaxes you into doing something idiotic'

'I've lost control of the halls. In truth, I never had it. Captain Anji and his chief, Sengel, command Copper Hall now. And you see how Chief Toughid has taken over our garrison up here.'

The drilling men and a few women huffed and scrambled, hidden by darkness but easily heard as were Toughid's good-natured but relentless commands: 'Drop! Ten spans left. Forward! Hu! Avoid the other. Feel the heat of their body. The kiss of their breath. Rise. Drop!'

Peddonon nodded. 'I will say these Qin know how to fight wars.'

'Here's my question: Do they know how to stop fighting rhem?'

Peddonon grunted. 'Ask me that question a cursed bit later, will you? When folk aren't starving in Toskala, living in the woods because their farms have been burned, and fighting for

their lives in Nessumara. We're fortunate the Qin are here, and on our side.'

The marks chiseled into Law Rock had an uncanny sheen, as though gilded with a radiance that came not from human labor but from other powers. The faint blue tincture of the rock, touched by lamplight, reminded him of firelings, rarely glimpsed but never forgotten. Especially a cave thick with their presence and a naked woman giving birth within the shelter of rock, fire, water, and life-sustaining air.

'Why do you suppose we never see firelings in the dry season?' Joss asked.

'Eh? You're leaping too fast for me to keep up. Firelings live in storms. Everyone knows that. Merlings in the sea. Delvings in the deep earth. Lendings in the grass. Wildings in the wild wood. Whew! My grandmother drilled the counting songs into me, I'll tell you that.'

'Where do humans live, then?'

'Humans in the villages and towns, and demons within us.'

'Why do we have so little to do with the other children of the Hundred?'

'Don't they want it that way? I don't know. Truth to tell, Joss, I've never seen any, not even delvings. If it weren't for others who have, I'd tell you they're just tales.' He extended a hand toward the stele, with its neat columns.

The law shall be set in stone, as the land rests on stone. Here is the truth: The only companion who follows even after death, is justice.

The Guardians serve justice.

'A year ago,' Peddo went on, 'I would have told you the Guardians were just a tale, a story told at festival time. Maybe they are a grandmother's tale. Because I'm cursed sure that the cloaks who command that army are not truly Guardians. That's not justice. If we don't defeat them — Aui! We have to defeat them.'

'So we do,' murmured Joss.

Peddonon rested an arm companionably over his shoulders. 'You sound tired, my friend.'

'I need a drink and a pallet,' admitted Joss. 'Tomorrow I'll take two of your three flights down to Horn to help lift a strike force up here.'

'We have fresh cordial, brought up from Horn Hall. Not bad, if a little astringent, late in the season berries, you know how they are.'

'Neh. Tea, if there's any left.' The offer reminded him of how Anji had so carelessly offered him cordial or rice wine last night. A more suspicious man might think the captain was attacking Joss where he was weakest — his notorious drinking habit — but surely that was just hurt injured pride. He'd never asked to be anything more in life than a reeve. That he'd been thrown into the marshal's seat had surprised him; his elevation to commander of the halls was not even accepted by the other halls, nor was there any reason it should be without a reeve council to vote. And there was unlikely to be a reeve council again until — unless — they defeated the enemy.

He could not stop thinking of the little jeweler's chest bound with chains.

'Peddo, it's possible to kill the cloaks.'

Looking startled, Peddonon removed his arm. 'You were talking about this before. But Guardians can't be killed.'

'What if I told you otherwise? That there is a way, a dangerous way, to separate a cloak from the person wearing it. Would you be willing to risk your life and your spirit to do it? Even if such an act goes against the gods?'

The night wind breathed over them as Toughid's commands rose: 'Drop! Rise!'

Peddonon listened for a moment before shaking his head. 'Such knowledge would be a heavy burden. You'll have to tell Kesta. Yet if it's true, Joss, then what choice have those cloaks given us but to destroy them in order to save ourselves?'