Witch King, page 24
And they talked. Ziede spoke to Tenes in more depth, to try to help her remember anything she could about her past before Aclines had taken her memories at Scarif. There was depressingly little that Tenes could describe, and while Ziede could tell she came from a witchline that worked with ground spirits, that didn’t narrow it down. Ramad told more stories about his travels, trips to distant allies, the occasional hunts for violent expositors. Kai wouldn’t talk about the war, or Bashasa, but he talked about their travels over the years, or the trips he had made alone.
By the time the canal crossed the old border of the Sana-sarcofa, foraging proved inadequate, and they had to stop under some overhanging willow trees near the docks of another river trading village.
With a pocketful of Ramad’s Rising World coins, they sent Sanja alone down the trail to find the town market. After she left, Ziede sent Tenes to follow her at a distance to make sure of her safety, but not to interfere if Sanja chose not to return.
“You’re giving her a chance to run away,” Ramad said, watching them.
Kai had settled down into the bow again, head propped on the soft wood. The sun didn’t hurt his skin, so up here he had room to lie down and leave the awning and the tent for the others. He said, “Isn’t that what you wanted, to get her away from us?”
Ramad’s shrug was wry. “That was Cohort Leader Ashem. I believe in letting people choose their own path.”
If only I believed you mean that, Kai thought.
Barely half an hour later, Tenes reappeared, smiling, to climb back in the boat. Then Sanja came down the path, a bag stuffed with food over her shoulder and carrying three wide-brimmed straw hats that she had purchased for herself, Ziede, and Tenes.
“Why didn’t you get one for me?” Kai teased her, standing and giving her a hand.
“You wouldn’t wear it,” Sanja retorted, as she stepped carefully over the side. “You don’t like things on your hair. If you need one for a disguise, you can borrow mine.”
“Speaking of that.” Ramad got up to help Kai push the boat away from the shallow water under the trees. They had poles for that now, acquired along the way. “What happens after you retrieve the finding stone and free Tahren Stargard? What is your plan?”
Pushing off the big tree roots and then the little island clumps of mud and weed got them back out toward the center of the river. The current tried to push them downstream, but Ziede woke a wind-devil to get them back on course. Kai let Ramad help him stow the wet poles along the side before he said, “You’ve been with us the whole time. Have you heard us talk about a plan?”
Ramad looked around for something to wipe the mud off his hands, then gave up. “I know you and Ziede Daiyahah have the means to speak without anyone else hearing you.”
Ziede lifted a waterskin to him in a salute. “Very clever.”
Ramad sighed. “I know I’ve said this before, but I can help you, if you let me.”
“Why?” Kai settled into a forward seat so he had the excuse to watch where they were going when he needed to avoid Ramad’s gaze. “Why are you so eager to help us?”
Ramad lifted his hands in exasperation. “I told you. There have to be more traitors at court working with the Nient-arik faction. They have ties to renegade Immortal Blessed, they employ expositors. This was all a deliberate attempt to disrupt the Imperial coalition renewal.”
Kai flicked a look at Ziede, who was helping Tenes adjust the chin strap of her new straw hat. Kai said, “You know the Rising World was never meant to be an empire.”
Ziede said silently, Careful.
“I know it was a temporary alliance that grew into something more.” Ramad watched Kai intently, as if trying to read his thoughts. “You helped it grow into something more.”
Grow like a tumor, Kai thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He knew he wanted to trust Ramad, that a mortal lifetime ago, Ramad would have fit into the cadres and scouts that Kai had fought and schemed with as they pried the known world out of the Hierarchs’ clutches. He reminds you of Bashasa, Ziede had said, but it wasn’t true. “We don’t have a plan right now. We won’t, until we get Tahren back.”
* * *
Kai woke before dawn on the day they would reach the Summer Halls. He was lying in the bow, his favorite spot on the boat, and at first he thought he had woken from nerves, from the thought of facing this place again.
The sky was still mostly dark, the trees along the edge of the canal sparser, tall canopies still in the predawn air. Then he realized something else had woken him.
He sat up. Everyone was asleep except for Tenes, sitting back under the canopy, taking her turn at watch. Kai nodded to her, and then glanced down in the water.
A shape glided under the surface, sinuous, nearly half the length of the boat. It glowed gently in the dark, impossibly brilliant white and purple and blotchy indigo. Frills like gold lace ornamented its fins. Kai rolled up his sleeve and trailed his hand in the water.
A scaly whiskered mouth brushed his palm, and he felt a little warmth. He pulled his hand up and read the message now written there. The characters faded from view and he took a deep breath in relief. He looked up to see Tenes watching him quizzically, and signed to her, Tell you later.
She nodded, and they both watched the messenger whip around through the water and flit away down the canal.
ELEVEN
The dawn had just broken in a cloudy sky when the last of the forest fell away to plain, and they finally came in sight of the Summer Halls. Kai stood on the rail of the boat, holding on to the canopy’s support, to watch it grow more distinct in the gray light.
It wasn’t much like he remembered. The towering earthworks still stood like a small flat-topped mountain, but the low growth of grass and flowers that had kept the dirt in place had grown into a heavy covering of brush and small trees. The broad sweep of canals that ringed it were heavily overgrown with rushes, at least on this side. Even from this distance the small city to the west of the structure looked overgrown, empty, and silent. The dark skeletal shapes strewn along its docks were the hulks of wrecked and abandoned boats and barges.
The others were still asleep, and there was no reason to wake them now. He did nudge Ziede through her heart pearl until she sat up, blinking and frowning at their surroundings. She groaned under her breath and said silently, I hate this place. I forgot how much I hated it.
It’s the same weather as the day we escaped, Kai replied. He was suddenly uncertain. Isn’t it? I’m not imagining that.
“No, it’s the same,” she whispered aloud. She made a complicated gesture and the boat slowed and wandered a little sideways as some of her wind-devils broke away to scout.
They were silent as the sun advanced somewhere above the clouds and the boat drew closer and closer to the man-made mountain of the Summer Halls. The bridge had been destroyed long ago, so there was no way to approach it by land now. Nothing was visible of the top, at least not from this angle. Kai could just barely pick out the fold on the slope where a set of stairs climbed it, now completely shielded by foliage. “Can you see anything of the inside?” he asked Ziede.
“No, not really.” Ziede was distracted, biting her lip as she saw through the senses of her wind-devils. They were searching for human shapes and movement, and what passed for their eyes didn’t always see the mortal world as it was. The image Kai could see in Ziede’s pearl was only the shape of the open top of the earthwork. It was a perfect oval; Kai had never known that, never seen it from this angle. The wind-devils’ perception could make out nothing inside, just a moving void of shadow. Ziede said, “There’s too much … I suppose you could describe it as residue, of the Hierarchs’ Well and the old intentions and designs of all the expositors who built this place.” She shook her head slightly. “The wind-devils aren’t seeing any sign of life on the mound, at least.”
“No Immortal Blessed, no expositors, no Rising World cohort lying in the bushes in wait for us,” Kai said. He meant it to sound like a joke, but it didn’t come out that way.
“Not so far.” Ziede’s voice was dry.
Behind them, Ramad coughed. Kai glanced back at where he lay on a bench, a blanket bunched under his head for a pillow. He was bleary-eyed as he sat up and squinted at the earthwork ahead. “So we’re almost there,” he said in a rasp. He cleared his throat, and started to retie his hair. “I realized last night I’d lost count of the days. Yesterday was the Imperial Rising World renewal.”
Kai locked gazes with Ziede. “Well, good to have it over with,” he said, as if it didn’t matter.
Tenes slipped out of the tent with a supply bag, Sanja behind her. They passed out food: some stale millet bread left over from their stop at the last market, as well as melon, pickled eggplant, and dried waterweed.
The earthwork’s nearest brush-covered slope loomed larger, close enough to clearly see the thorns on the spiky trees and the flowers in the scattered grasses. Alert now, Ramad said, “What are the chances of someone stationed here to guard this place?”
“As a Rising World vanguarder, you don’t know?” Kai was honestly curious.
“I don’t know every move the empire makes, no.” Ramad actually sounded a little testy. This was the first time Kai had seen him betray any nerves. But for a historian, a child of the Arike generation who had fought and died under the Hierarchs, coming here had to feel like a tangible weight. “There must still be things of value, if no one’s been in there since the Hierarchs fell.”
“Others have returned here, or tried to,” Ziede said absently. “I heard they made it up to the top, but realized there was no point in continuing.”
“They did,” Kai admitted. “That was when they destroyed the bridge.”
“So the interior really is flooded, the way the stories say?” Ramad asked. He was looking back the way they came, studying the low trees and brush, as if watching for signs of pursuit.
“Oh, it’s flooded all right,” Ziede assured him. “Kai did it.”
“It was an accident.” Kai looked around to see Tenes was curious and Sanja judgmental. His first time in a new body, terrified and expecting at any moment to find out what dying meant for a demon in the mortal world.
Ramad was staring at him now, he had no idea why.
By the time Ziede guided the boat out of the main canal and into the innermost of the three moats that circled the earthwork, they had finished eating and put away the supply bags.
The rushes along the bank covered the foot of the huge slope. The further they got from the faster current of the canal, the more sluggish and dark the moat water became. The scent rising off it was foul, and the cool breeze had died away, leaving the air clammy and dank. Despite the thick foliage and lush flowers, there was no buzz of insects, no clouds of gnats or skitter of water beetles, no sign of fish, no waterbirds, no lizards basking on the banks. Kai knew why; this close he could practically smell the power well. “Can you feel it?”
Ramad’s brow was creased. “Feel what?”
Tenes signed, Cold death, and took Sanja’s hand. Sanja kept her gaze on the slope, worried and wary.
“It’s become a power well,” Kai said. They should have known this would happen. All that death, the bodies left to rot, the water. “A small one, no range at all. But I wonder if anyone’s ever used it.” He felt prickles of ill ease chase up and down the skin of his back.
Ramad was startled. “Like what Aclines did aboard the Immortal Blessed ship? Or Orintukk?”
“No, this is natural. Like…” Kai couldn’t come up with an example that would make sense to Ramad. “The Well of Thosaren probably started as a natural power well. If someone worked long enough on this one, they could turn it into a well for expositors to draw from.”
“It’s had years to stew in its juices.” Ziede sounded thoughtful. “We’re going to need some protection from that water.”
“The canal water?” Sanja asked uneasily. She drew her hand back from the side of the boat. “It smells bad. That means it’s poison?”
“It’s a good indication that it might be.” Ziede said, “Kai, we’re going into the harbor, correct?”
“Unless you can think of a better idea,” he told her. If there was something or someone here guarding this place, the land harbor was the mostly likely spot for them to camp. Anyone staying in the city would have to put out in a boat to reach the Summer Halls, which would be impractical for trying to confront intruders.
If there was anyone here, they would be in the harbor, and it was better to meet them and get the confrontation and death over with.
It was Sanja who asked, “How did an accident make it flood?” She had been unusually subdued, letting Tenes hold on to her hand.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you after we find what we’re looking for.” That was probably far more optimistic than their situation warranted, but Kai didn’t want to talk about it now, not in the shadow of this place. And they were coming up on a sharp angle of gray stone standing out from the overgrown slope: the edge of the watergate into the harbor. Past it broken stone blocks rose above the surface, making navigation difficult. The blocks were the most visible part of the demolished bridge and there would be a lot more under the water. Technically the barge’s hull was only partly existent in reality and therefore couldn’t be torn open if it hit a rock. But Kai didn’t want to end up arguing with a barge determined that it had been hulled and needed to sink; the canal was too deep for that.
Sanja grumbled something and Tenes poked her in the ribs.
Kai and Ramad used the poles to keep the boat off the stone debris just under the surface. Ziede guided her wind-devils to gently maneuver them past the pillars of the giant watergate. One rusted iron door had fallen off into the water, the other stood partly open.
Tucked into the side of the massive earthwork, the harbor should have been familiar, but Kai had only seen it briefly and never from this direction. The moat flowed into a big semi-circular pool, and at its far end was a tall arch, now closed off by heavy metal-bound doors, that led to a large cavern of docks and barge slips.
The years of abandonment showed in the plaza on the far side of the pool, where clumps of flowers and mosses had sprouted in every crack and gap. Stone stairs curled up the slope from the plaza, heavily overshadowed with brush but still mostly intact, as far as Kai could see. In the retaining wall between the stairs and the harbor pool, there was another archway, also closed off by heavy doors. It was easily tall enough for loaded wallwalkers to pass through, and would open into the cavern that had held the stables and storage for wheeled vehicles. In the high outer wall, the massive gate that led out to the now-demolished bridge was shut, and its locking mechanism of multiple bars and gears and chains looked rusted in place. The barred portcullis just inside it had also been dropped.
Kai thought the harbor doors would be locked; obviously the only reason the watergate was open was that it had fallen apart. But when their boat edged up to it, Ramad leaned forward to give one door an experimental push and almost fell in when it swung open.
With nudges from Ziede’s wind-devils and shoves from the poles, they got the boat through the archway and into the cover of the shadowy cavern. There was no sound or sense of anything alive; Ziede’s wind-devils found no trace of living intruders, not even any nesting birds or river rats. The place was as quiet as a room deep underground, the drip of water from the stone vaults overhead oddly loud in the dark. Kai called a scatter of imps and they flitted around, casting light on empty docks. There were only a few boats left, mostly small, rickety craft rejected by the refugees who had escaped here so many years ago. One large hulking half-sunken ornamental barge had also been left behind, its gilded wood glinting as the imps briefly swarmed it.
After a struggle, they got their barge close enough to a stone slip for Tenes and Sanja to jump off and help guide it in with the ropes. Kai said, “We’d better take our supplies off in case it falls apart.” He wasn’t sure how much longer the intention would last; unmoving, sitting here with the other wrecks, the barge was far more likely to forget its brief new life and sink again.
Tenes signed, I keep forgetting it’s not a real boat, and turned to help Ziede with the supply bags. Kai helped them pull the tent apart, then stepped away to take a closer look at their surroundings. Sanja, with an armload of bags, said, “What is that?”
She was looking at the gilded barge. It was a good forty paces long, with two levels of colonnades draped with rotting silk curtains. The prow was shaped into a giant bearded face, set in a beatific expression. “It’s a Hierarch’s barge. For traveling along the canals,” Kai told her.
“No, I figured that, I mean—” She pointed at the face. “Is that a Hierarch? Is that what they looked like?”
“Sort of,” Kai admitted. He didn’t recognize it as an individual. Maybe it was like a composite mishmash of all the Hierarchs. That was just the baffling sort of thing they might do. “They didn’t all have beards, though.”
“There was a face on the front of the big Immortal Blessed ship, too.” Sanja was still frowning. “Did the Hierarchs copy them?”
“Huh.” It was an interesting question. The Immortal Blessed were unlikely to copy anyone, especially the Hierarchs. “Maybe.”
Then Ramad said, “Kai.”
The tension in his voice made Kai and Sanja turn in unison. Ramad stood a few slips over, beside a low river boat about the same length as their barge. At first glance, Kai had taken it for another wreck.
