“The Water-Rat maintains his stranglehold then?” Pistorio smiled.

  “He does indeed,” Seto said. “Among their possessions was a map that took my fancy. I pursued it through the library.”

  At the mention of Tulio, Notch’s stomach flipped. Seto had no idea. He exchanged glances with the others.

  “What’s wrong?” Seto examined each face. Notch hesitated and the old man continued. “Come now. If you feel I ought to have been helping you, you shouldn’t need reminding. I have many concerns to tend to, and many require my personal attention. Besides, you are each capable.”

  “No, Seto. There’s bad news,” Notch said. No use drawing it out. He steadied his voice. “We were attacked and Tulio was hurt. He didn’t survive.”

  Seto’s face paled. A piece of paper fell from his hand.

  “Seto?”

  He said nothing until a croak escaped. “How?”

  Notch opened his mouth but what could he say? Seto was always in control, never without a quip. A man who only lost his temper when it suited him. He had an answer for every question. He’d seen everything. He’d survived a shipwreck, survived the abandonment of his family. Rebuilt himself from absolute despair. He should have been King and instead he was the demigod of the Second Tier.

  And now he was holding himself very still, jaw working beneath the stubble.

  “Seto, he didn’t suffer,” Flir said.

  “Just tell me,” he snarled. Flir fell back. Notch glanced at Luik, who was coiling rope around his own wrists, hands moving on their own. Flir was Seto’s favourite. He’d never shouted at her. Not once. Even after she lost an entire wagon load of silk in a single hand of cards.

  “I’ll let Notch tell it then,” she said.

  “Well?”

  “We captured two of the Renovar. They confirmed that Sofia was in their quarters.” He hesitated. His words weren’t helping. Get on with it, Notch. “It was a trap. We’d been set up.”

  “Yes.”

  He took a breath. Seto’s expression had not changed. “Tulio was trying to pick a lock but there was a creature. A chilava, a beast from –”

  “I know of them,” Seto interrupted.

  “Well it knocked Tulio into a staircase and he didn’t get up. Flir killed the beast and we took Tulio back to the Harper.”

  “When?”

  “Earlier tonight. He’s in his rooms.”

  “And you simply left him there for the Mascare to find? Did any of you even think?”

  Silence.

  Seto glared a moment longer, then turned away, head lowered. After a time he looked up but did not turn. “I’m sorry. Thank you each, for taking him home. And forgive me, Flir.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  The old man crossed the room. He stopped at a long blade hanging from the wall and pulled it down. His expression was dark. “When I return from my inn, I will come with you to the palace. We will rescue Sofia together and I will hunt down Vinezi and this Lupo, and I will help you kill them. And their pitiful minions. All of them.”

  Chapter 38

  The white gate at the bottom of the slope was locked. Ain sighed, he’d been a fool to expect otherwise. After all, everything else in the devil’s Anaskar had locks, why not this gate to a disused hideaway?

  Schan snapped the lock with the steel bar, as easily as the one beneath the earth, then jammed the shaft through the gap to break the outside lock. Clearly no-one was supposed to enter the place. Schan handed the bar over then drew his blade. Ain crept after him into the palace grounds. The passage of feet pulsed, gentle. He’d actually lost track of the paths in the moments exiting the buried house.

  It was not yet full light but they were still exposed. Terrain between the white wall and the palace was open, broken only by small gardens and what looked to be a rock pool closest to the hideaway. Anyone could have been looking out from the windows, even now organising a force of olive-skinned killers to come and take them. A worse fate than to die at any other stage of the Search. To be so close and fail. Even as a part of the new sands, he would not forgive himself. Nor would Silaj if he failed to return.

  “Is there a path?” Schan asked.

  Beneath his feet were old paths. They more or less followed the trail leading up to the hideaway and its long escape route, coming from the palace. But crossing that path, further down the slope, in plain view of the palace, was an intersecting path. It wasn’t a branch, but one older and stronger.

  Ibranu’s writings claimed the Shrine would not be difficult to find once inside Sekkati. The path leading to it was a beacon. As a central place of worship, the Shrine had been visited hundreds of times a week. Maybe even a day. For many, many years. That sort of traffic left its mark, an invisible one, but one that thundered, even from a distance.

  Perhaps that was the true sound he’d heard before, when he fancied he could hear the sea.

  “Thank the Sands, Ibranu was right. There’s a path strong enough to be what we’re looking for. Below.”

  “Good thing we didn’t have to enter the city.”

  “We still might. Who knows what lies within the Shrine?”

  “And there’s all those windows too.”

  They would be visible, the closer they came to the path. In the Engineer’s writings there had also been plans to purchase materials to counterfeit ‘mask-dress’ for disguises, but that was impossible now. “I know. And we cannot be caught now, so near to the Shrine.” There was the egg too. The Anaskari weren’t getting their filthy hands on it. He trailed a hand across its surface. So smooth, yet the grooves were deep enough to grip.

  “Which way does the path run?”

  He looked up from the egg, blinking. “Back and forth between palace and the mountain there.” He pointed to a spot opposite their position. “Even if we use the cover, we will be exposed most of the way.”

  “Then let’s go. Before they all wake.”

  Schan set off down the slope and Ain rushed after him, checking that the egg was secure and his steel bar tight in his fist. It would not be much against swords, but it was heavy and it was steel, which was more than he could say for his arms.

  The lawns were well-maintained and they reached the first garden quickly, slipping through its hedges and flower beds and across the next patch of open ground without raising alarm. Ain cast frequent glances at the windows but no figure appeared on the balcony, calling for guards. No sentries walked the parapets either. Hopefully they were changing watch. He pulled his leaden legs across the grass, pausing for breath in another garden. This one had taller trees that oozed an amber liquid, which stuck to his fingers when he rested against one.

  Bending to wipe his hands on the grass, he stopped when a nearby patch of ground darkened. Just like the stove. He froze, but the grass continued to darken and he looked up. Clouds passing the rising sun, nothing more.

  “So far we’re unnoticed,” he said when he reached his feet.

  Schan nodded, his own chest heaving. “Not far now.”

  The last stretch of ground was open. The path roared on beneath him, its thud like rocks crashing down in rhythm, but led only toward a featureless wall. The paths never lied. A Pathfinder’s eye might fail him, but never the echo of where people had walked.

  “Ready?” Schan was off again, racing for the mountain wall. The ground grew rocky and Ain stumbled. He caught his balance and crossed the last few paces to slap against the rock face. Still cool.

  “What now, Pathfinder?”

  Ain ran his hands over the stone. “There must be a door or passage.” He bent by the grass and stone, pushing and prodding for a sign of an opening. Nothing. He ran several steps along the wall.

  “Ain, come.”

  Schan knelt by a rock pile smoother than others. Barely a foot from the mountainside rested a tumble of smooth pieces with jagged cracks. Several appeared to have once been circular. As if a pillar had stood there?

  “Look at this.” He handed over a smooth shard that had once been half-buried. In its corner were familiar runes.

  “Old Medah.” The same as those on the rib cages in the desert.

  “We’re close.” Ain examined the wall, pausing when his fingers slipped into time-worn holes. Too regular to be accidental, they numbered four and were set in a top-heavy star. “Here, Schan. I’ve seen that pattern before.”

  He rummaged through Ibranu’s possessions and withdrew a stone key, its teeth set in a similar pattern. It clicked into the wall. His pulse quickened.

  “They’ve seen us,” Schan said.

  Shapes leant and pointed from a balcony. Their voices were distant but the urgency was clear.

  Ain turned the key. A deeper click now. Stone ground across stone and a fissure appeared in the wall, its edges smooth. Ain touched one even as the stone panel continued to slide. Wider than he was tall, whatever moved such a heavy door had to be magic of some manner.

  Beyond, morning light fell upon stairs leading upward, their edges worn in the centre.

  “Inside then,” Schan said. He added the last of the oil to the lamp before slipping into the dark. Ain turned the key again, collected the egg and followed. The door was already closing again, his last glimpse of the outside being green grass stretching before the white palace.

  “Think they’ll be able to open it?” he asked the waiting Schan.

  “No. Without the key, nothing could move that door.”

  “Hope you’re right.”

  Raising the lamp, Schan started up and Ain followed. The ceiling was lost beyond the glow but the walls were smooth beneath his hand, with small altars set in regular recesses. Each altar held a single round stone, rough hewn but streaked with a pink and blue quartz. Or it may have been a jewel; he wasn’t going to touch them to find out. It might be disrespectful.

  The stairs continued up, the path still like a sand storm vying for his attention. When he reached a landing he stopped. “Can you believe we are here?”

  “No.” Schan’s usually closed face was alight. “No. But in a good way.”

  Ain resumed the climb with a laugh. The Search turned out triumphant. Luck had surely guided them. Finding Wilatt and the bolt hole, which led directly to the palace grounds, they were signs from the Sands. Destined for success. Nothing had been truly easy, his bones ached with each step, and yet – he was here. Alive. In the very heart of Sekkati – surely mere steps away from the Sea Shrine.

  Though not everyone had been lucky. For Ibranu there would be no moment of triumph. But he’d played a part. That would have pleased the old man, surely.

  And a heavy part of his role dragged on Ain’s shoulders still. The tools, keys and maps, charts and diagrams rolled into thin canisters, all of which he hoped would give him some clue of what he had to do once inside the Shrine, of what Majid meant by Calling the Ocean. Squinting at the scrolls by firelight after a long day’s travel had yielded poor results. How exactly would the Sea Shrine banish the Anaskari devils from the City of Secrets?

  But he would not fail. The Sands brought him here for a reason.

  Light appeared ahead and Ain leapt up the last few steps, bursting into a giant chamber. Fractured light shone from high windows spaced along the ceiling. The room had been hollowed out inside the mountain, the work of years, the work of many hands. The chamber was dominated by a raised shrine that covered an entire wall. A pair of silent fountains flanked steps leading to a long altar.

  The Sea Shrine.

  Carved from the same blue and pink quartz from the stairway below, its luminescence bright enough to obscure parts of the room. He shuffled forward, Schan trailing in the quiet until Ain tripped. Flipping onto his back as he fell, he dropped the lamp to cradle the egg.

  The lamp died, but he had enough light to see what had tripped him. A set of bones. Schan pulled him to his feet. “Look.”

  Turning from the brightness of the Shrine, Ain gaped. Scattered across the floor and lining walls were dozens of skeletons. Many lay flat on the stone floor, others were slumped against the wall. Some rested against one another, as if whoever had died chose to be near the remains of another person. A lonesome end.

  “Who are they?” Ain crept closer. Sands, what now?

  He crossed the floor, accidently kicking through an arm joint that caught on his foot. “Forgive me.” He knelt by a pair of skeletons, one whose skull rested in the empty lap of the other.

  The frayed remains of a blue cloak lay beneath the bones.

  Chapter 39

  Sofia recognised them all.

  The Wolf had set her chair in the audience chamber of the old King. A healthy blaze filled the hearth, contributing to the sweat pouring from her body, and the large windows showed a gradually lightening sky over the sea. Her leg did not pain her, nor her arm or any of the other scrapes and cuts or bruises, but her pulse still roiled beneath her skin. The drug had healed her, but she was becoming its prisoner. She needed more. Soon.

  Vinezi and his men lined the room, though the Wolf held the floor. A row of chairs faced the window, each containing a member of the ruling class of Anaskari. Oson sat between Solicci and Rittor of Tartaruga House. A girl with dark curls, Rittor’s daughter, clung to her father’s arm. Both men had schooled their features, in the Mascare way, though they wore no masks. Their robes were disarranged, as if they’d dressed in haste.

  Other advisors were present, spindly men left over from Otonos’ reign and who sat with wide eyes. If this had been council chambers, the place for the Seneschal would have been empty, as would be several other ‘chairs.’ Lastly was Lavinia the Storm Singer. Her jaw was clenched and her face white, hands gripping her knees. She was yet to make a sound. Lavinia’s brother and children were no-where to be seen.

  “What is this then, Lupo, or Wolf, if that’s what you wish to be called?” Oson said. He had glared at Sofia during the assembly of his council but she had refused to acknowledge him. Whatever happened, she hoped Oson and Solicci would feel great pain.

  Lupo sketched a bow. “Assembled dignitaries. You have been brought here to bear witness to change such as Anaskari has never seen.”

  Solicci stood. “I thought you and your fellow imposters brought us here to bargain for Sofia Falco? Something to the effect of not being executed for impersonating Mascare.”

  “Oh?”

  “What else could you possibly expect?”

  “Since you ask, everything, Sol. Everything.”

  His brow creased. “What did you call me?”

  Lupo stepped aside, so he was no longer standing before the windows. “Aren’t you curious as to why you’ve been given this view?”

  “No, we aren’t. Now hand over the girl,” Oson said. “I can have the Shield and Mascare here in moments.”

  “No, you cannot. I have sealed this room,” Lupo said. “However, I may hand over the girl, on the condition that you hand over the throne, dear boy.”

  Sofia studied his posture. It gave nothing away, nor did his voice. He claimed no intention of giving her up to Oson, and yet... he could easily have said as much to placate her.

  “What?” The King exploded from his chair. “You’re an imbecile, surely? I’ll never do that.”

  “Truly?”

  Vinezi stepped forward, removing his mask and tossing it at Solicci, who snatched it from the air. A smile covered his face, cheeks flushed with excitement. “Are you perhaps familiar with the recent explosions in the city, your majesty?”

  “What of them?”

  “You should know we are the cause.” He continued over gasps. “And there are dozens more locations set to explode, including one here in the palace. If you fail to agree, you’ll bear the blackened fruits of your stubbornness.”

  Solicci waved the mask. “You have done this? By the Gods, you have killed hundreds. Have you no honour?”

  Lupo clapped his hands together. “Oh my, you do make me want to laugh.”

  The head of Cavallo House glared. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that I find it amusing that you would lecture on honour, in light of your transgressions in regards to Casa Falco.”

  One of the advisors, a man with a barrel chest, leant forward. “What is he talking about, Solicci?”

  “Nothing, Brunetti.” He kept his eyes on Vinezi.

  Vinezi pointed outside. “Save it, gentlemen. Now, while you consider our generous offer, I would like you to watch the show. I hope at least some of you are familiar with the bathhouses west of the Second Tier gate?”

  “No,” Sofia shouted. Lupo pointed at her, then raised a single finger to the mouth of the mask, before tapping one of his men on the shoulder. She shuddered. The gesture was somehow inhuman. The imposter slipped from the room. Glass shattered and after a moment, while Oson and Solicci hissed to each other, a small light appeared outside. It was followed by another on the palace wall, then another deeper into the city.

  “Not long now,” Vinezi purred.

  Oson stood again. “What is this theatrical heap of –”

  Fire exploded into the sky, a deep rumble to go with it. A great column of flame and black smoke rose in the Second Tier and Sofia looked away as the room burst into shouting. Lupo flicked a finger at his men, who moved in to subdue the ‘guests,’ none of whom were armed.

  Some of the advisors had tears in their eyes and even Oson looked shaken.

  Lupo resumed the lead. “Further to your acceptance of our offer we will allow some of you to retain two things. Your positions and your heads. Be wise now.”

  Oson’s face was red and his teeth clenched, but Solicci held up his hands. “The people won’t support you as leader. You’re not of the Houses.”

  “I highly doubt the people will care.”

  “And neither Mascare nor the nobility will accept an imposter.”

  Lupo raised his hands to his face, in an almost girlish gesture. “Then let’s give them someone more authentic, shall we?”

 

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