Witch King, page 28
“She can’t be hurt,” Dahin protested.
Dahin had always believed his sister could do anything, even when they quarreled. Especially when they quarreled. “Whoever took us has Immortal Blessed helping them,” Kai said. “The expositor who came after us when we escaped had an Immortal Blessed ship.”
Shadows stirred across the dark space, but Kai sensed Ziede. A moment later she drifted in through an archway in the back wall and stepped down onto the grimy floor. Air rushed past as her wind-devils dispersed, carrying a scent of clean river breeze. Her voice raw, she said, “Dahin, do you know where she is?”
Dahin shook his head, bordering on distraught. “No, no, Ziede, I haven’t seen her since I left Avagantrum. I didn’t know she was looking for me. Honestly, I’ve been avoiding her. I just wanted—” As Ziede approached, Dahin held out a hand to her. Then he caught himself. “Uh, who’s that?”
Ramad followed Ziede, stepping into range of the lamp, a closed expression on his face. Kai said, “That’s Ramad, a Rising World vanguarder. He’s helping us.”
“Dahin, listen to me. We’re not just taking a tour of the places Kai’s destroyed, hoping to find her.” Ziede knelt on the tarp and took Dahin’s hand, and started to tell him what had happened from the beginning. Waking in the tomb when the water receded, Menlas, going to the fire islands to speak to Grandmother, then Aclines and Saadrin. Kai found himself watching Ramad’s face, the frown lines at the corners of his eyes. He was studying Dahin carefully, as if looking for signs of guilt. It made Kai’s hackles rise, even though he still had suspicions of his own that he couldn’t quite banish.
By the time Ziede finished, Dahin was less agitated and more angry, but it was his angry thinking face. “Stios was definitely a trap. Even if Saadrin didn’t set it, by the time you got there, they would have been waiting for you.” He turned to Kai. “You’re here for a finding stone. The one Cantenios had.”
“Yes,” Kai admitted. It was a relief not to have to explain. He had forgotten how quick Dahin was. “No one else knows about that one.”
Dahin nodded. “I’ve been diving. I can help you find it.” He pushed to his feet again and started shoving things into his bag.
* * *
Ziede took Ramad into the air again, and Kai and Dahin used Dahin’s small boat. As Kai rowed across the murky foul water, Dahin spread a map drawn in smudged lead and covered with scribbled notes across his knees. Before they had left his camp, he had packed away all his supplies into a small copper-bound chest, and sealed it with an Immortal Blessed sigil. He had tucked all the papers into a bag with some clanking objects that were probably more Immortal Blessed devices. Ramad and Ziede had already gone outside again, and Kai said, “I’ve never seen you use so many of their tools.”
Dahin had shrugged. “It’s the only option I had.”
Now he instructed Kai, “Bear a little to the left. There’s an Immortal Blessed supplication tower about two courts over. Not that there was much supplicating going on, but the Hierarchs had it so when they used their finding stones to whistle up some Immortal Marshalls, there was somewhere to land the rafts. The top is still above water and I’m afraid that’s the closest spot for diving.” Dahin squinted up at the sky, judging the light. “I haven’t tried to get into any of the Hostage Courts. I’ve mostly been concentrating on the Hierarchs’ quarters.”
Kai dug the oars in, following the directions. “But what are you looking for? Why are you here?”
Dahin frowned down at his map. “You’re suspicious of me.”
Kai could have denied it. He knew enough of Dahin’s weak spots to make him feel like a traitor for even suggesting Kai might not have complete faith in him. But Dahin knew all Kai’s weak spots, too. A war between them would lead to nothing but scorched earth.
Or at least Kai knew the old Dahin’s weak spots, but then the old Dahin would never have come to this haunted place and stayed for so long, alone. Kai gave in and said honestly, “I don’t want to be. But someone drowned me in Benais-arik and buried me and Ziede in an underwater tomb. Bashat had to know about it. A lot of people at court had to know about it.”
Dahin winced. “I almost lost you both and Tahren and had no idea.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should have told you what I was doing, or left word somewhere. But…”
“But you didn’t, because you thought we’d argue with you. Or tell Tahren, who would argue with you,” Kai finished.
“Well, it sounds childish when you put it like that.” Dahin sighed, and shrugged, as if committing himself to a course he wasn’t sure he wanted to traverse. “I don’t know if you remember, but we saw a map engraved on the wall of that court, the one where the Hierarchs lived.”
Kai shook his head, baffled. He had no idea what Dahin was talking about. “What court? When?”
“It was when you killed the expositor and put the Cageling Demon Court intention in the water, and we swam to the wall of the room and were drowning,” Dahin clarified hopefully.
He was talking about a mortal lifetime ago, the day they had all escaped this place. “I remember there were walls,” Kai said. He remembered the sharp fear, the flimsy fabric of the veil that was his only protection against discovery, the desperation.
“Good enough.” Dahin directed Kai to go further left. Kai glanced over his shoulder to orient himself to the supplication tower. There were only three fan-shaped landing balconies for Immortal Blessed ascension rafts, one jutting out from each level still above water. Ziede and Ramad had already flown to the lowest, the only one facing this direction. The rounded edge was a bare pace or so above the surface and Ziede stood there, studying the dark water. Kai was still sharing his vision and hearing with her, and he could feel her nervous energy at the fringe of his thoughts. Ramad watched Kai and Dahin, his gaze worried.
Dahin continued, “The map had beautifully made enamels, the colors were so bright. At first I thought, well, they’re just gloating over all the land they’ve stolen, aren’t they. The cities they destroyed, the people they’ve killed. But the Summer Halls was one of the only permanent places the Hierarchs actually built for themselves, and certainly the largest. The stone and a lot of the material came from the Sendrinnian temple complex that used to stand here. It was huge, and that little section off the main canal where the city is now is the only part that was left of it. The Hierarchs killed all the Sendrinnians and took all the temples down stone by stone, and built the Summer Halls out of it. They dug the moats, and used all the displaced dirt to build the earthworks. This place looked exactly the way the Hierarchs wanted it to.” He rubbed his hands on his cotton skirt. “It took me a long time to find out all that. It’s hard to research the past when almost everyone who saw it happen is dead, and their books left to rot in their empty cities.”
Kai rowed more slowly. He thought that he had known, or assumed, that the Hierarchs had built the earthwork. It was a lot like the temporary earthwork forts they had built in the grassplains, except on a much larger scale. He hadn’t known, or had never thought about, the fact that the Hierarchs had built the Summer Halls. Now that he did, he saw Dahin’s point. “I don’t remember any other enamels on the walls. Or maps, or any other decoration like that.” The Hierarchs had clearly not wasted much time on the Hostage Courts, but in the Temple Halls and the Hierarchs’ court there had been marble and fine materials and fabric hangings, and then the hall of trophies.
The Saredi had carved images in wood and bone and painted the canvas of their great tents; the Arike loved large detailed paintings, especially of groups of people at festivals or battles, scenes that told stories, as big as possible; the Erathi put fish and shells and wind symbols on everything; the Enalin drew natural vistas and trees and the complex characters of their beautiful written language. Even the Immortal Blessed had their favorite art, mostly carvings of their Patriarchs and their sun symbols. But all the Hierarchs’ art seemed to be in their clothes or the arrangements of their stolen goods. “So the map was special to the Hierarchs.”
“Exactly. I know you were chained up in that horrible court so you didn’t see as much of this place. I saw quite a bit before Tahren hid me with Bashasa, and there was nothing like that map anywhere I went. So it was special, and private.” Dahin’s mouth twisted and he looked over the drowned ruin. “I think it was something from their home. A symbol of it. The way back to it.”
Kai still didn’t understand. “We know they came from the Capstone of the World.”
“The Capstone of the World is a pretty big place, Kai.” Dahin snorted. “We think it was somewhere near Sun-Ar, right? Because that’s the language we now call Old Imperial, the language the Hierarchs used. But after the war, Enalin explorers went to Sun-Ar, and found no one, nothing left alive. It’s a place of cold desert plains and rock formations. They grew gardens inside caves, and kept herds of wild sheep. The Sun-Ar used to have moving cities of tent-huts and special palaces for temples and seasonal gatherings carved out of the cliffs and the standing rocks. They’re empty now. The Hierarchs killed them all.”
Kai said, “That’s not unusual, they killed everybody.” It wasn’t quite true, though sometimes it felt like it. “Almost everybody.”
“But I think they killed the Sun-Ar because they had contact with the Hierarchs before they became the Hierarchs,” Dahin said. His voice was intense, his gaze dark and serious. “There were some Sun-Ar in the Hostage Courts. Bashasa tried to get in to see them once, but they were more closely guarded than anyone else, no one was allowed to see or talk to them. I found out the legionaries were ordered to kill them all once the escape started. The Hierarchs didn’t want to risk any of them getting out with us.”
Caught up in the picture Dahin was painting, Kai had stopped rowing, though he wasn’t sure when. Their boat drifted, pushed by the rot-tinged breeze. He said, “I think I saw them. In the furthest court. Small people, light brown, with straight hair?”
Dahin nodded, his mouth set in a thin line. “We don’t know where the Hierarchs came from, Kai. Not even the Immortal Blessed know. They came down from the south, from the top of the world, and destroyed everything in their path. They could still be up there. They could come again.” He frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’m shitting terrified.” Cold prickles ran down Kai’s spine.
“I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon, like tomorrow.” Dahin backtracked, clearly trying to be reassuring. “Or really, I don’t know that it’ll happen at all.” He looked away at the drowned ruin, the water lapping the filth-encrusted stone. “But I just have to know, Kai. I have to be sure.” He added plaintively, “Do you understand?”
Kai understood down to his bones. “Why were you in Nient-arik?”
“When? Oh, before I came here?” Dahin explained readily, “Their archive has copies of Prince-heir Hiranan’s journals and maps, from when she was here. It was quicker than going all the way out to Seidel-arik for them. Why?”
“We were looking for you and someone said you’d been there.” Kai fumbled for the oars and got them moving again. “You could have told us, Dahin.”
Dahin sighed. “I have a lot of unformed thoughts, still. I wanted to wait until I could make a more coherent case.”
That was perfectly coherent and damningly persuasive, Ziede said in Kai’s head. The little idiot wanted to produce his evidence on a copper platter like a gift.
People would panic, if they thought the Hierarchs could come back. Children like Sanja might think they were just old shadow-stories, meant to terrify, but there were so many more mortals and Witches still walking around who knew they had been horribly real, who understood the legacy of devastation in the empty cities and towns. And the Rising World remembered its origins, no matter how far it had drifted from Bashasa’s original vision. Dahin wasn’t afraid of us, he was afraid of everyone else, Kai thought to Ziede.
No one at court now listens to him the way Bashasa did, Ziede added. He didn’t want to be ridiculed.
Dahin was saying, “But you realize now why I need to see what’s on the rest of the map. It’s been going slowly. It’s huge, it covers the whole wall, and it’s been eaten away with this mossy weed growth. I have to clean it off carefully, so I don’t dislodge any of the enamels. And I can only stay underwater so long, even with my tools. But I’m making progress.”
The hull of the boat bumped against the tiles as they reached the landing platform. Ramad caught the rope Dahin tossed him as Kai climbed out. Helping Kai tie the boat off to the fretwork in the low rail, Ramad said quietly, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Kai said, sparing him what was probably an unconvincing smile. As Dahin hauled his bag out, he added, “Just catching up with an old friend.” He didn’t expect Ramad to believe him, and he wasn’t entirely sure why he didn’t just tell him. If Dahin’s theory was right, they would have to tell everyone, and the Rising World would be first, even if Bashat still wanted to kill them. But for now this was between Kai, Ziede, and Dahin.
The balcony on the level above was halfway around the structure, facing away to the west, and the one above it another half turn, facing south. The figured metal door that had closed off the entrance into the tower from this balcony had rusted permanently open. Kai stepped inside, but it was just an empty room with a curved wall shielding a stairwell. The stone steps spiraled up to the two higher levels and down into the dark water that filled the lower part of the tower. Time and weather had eaten away at the stone and crumbled the door sills.
Out on the balcony, Dahin checked his map and surveyed the water with resignation. “Now, that’s what I was afraid of. That’s where Bashasa’s court was, under that weed mat.”
The heavy black mass of what might be plant material was an irregular shape, a thickening in the dark water that blended in so well it was hard to tell how far it stretched under the surface. Dubious, Kai said, “Are you sure it’s just weeds?”
“Well, the bits I’ve seen look like weeds from underneath, but I’m not going to guarantee it,” Dahin admitted.
“We can’t cut through it?” Ramad asked. He seemed to know he wasn’t being told everything but was gamely trying to participate anyway.
“I’m assuming if we tried, we would get trapped in it and drown,” Dahin told him. “I didn’t try, since I was here alone with no one to cut me out if I got stuck. Especially after I saw how far these mats extend down. There’s one in the court outside the room I’m exploring and I’ve just been lucky it doesn’t seem to want to grow inside. It needs light, I suppose.” He nudged Kai with an elbow. “Do you remember the glass roof on the Temple Halls? It’s absolutely choked with it in there.”
Ziede hissed and buried her face in her hands. “You could have died here, Dahin, and we’d never have known. When Tahren finds out, she’s going to murder you. I’m going to help her.”
By murder Ziede meant “stare disapprovingly while lecturing” but Kai knew that wouldn’t do any good. It would just make Dahin more stubborn and convinced that he was right to hide his plans. He pulled Dahin into a quick one-armed hug. “Next time you want to do something like this, come and get me. I won’t ask questions, or if I do, you don’t have to answer me until you’re ready.”
“Well, all right, then,” Dahin mumbled, and Kai knew that was the best they could expect for now. Dahin stepped away, having reached his limit for physical affection. “But I think the best way is to go down here, where it’s clear, and for Kai to make his way through the corridors to the court.”
Kai kept his expression under control, despite the sick tension settling in his chest. He had known he would have to do this, the whole plan depended on it, but now that the moment was here, it was so much harder than he had expected. Every nerve in his body itched at the idea of sinking voluntarily under that dark water. But there was no way Dahin would be able to stay down long enough to reach the court and search for the stone. He busied himself pulling his hair back and tightening the cord that held it.
Ziede frowned dubiously at Kai, then at the mat. “I’ll be going as well.”
“That’s probably for the best, it’ll be safer with two,” Dahin said, brisk and at least pretending to be oblivious. “You’ll be making some kind of air bubble, correct?” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a copper-colored artifact, like a narrow mesh box, with a little living star at its heart. “Kai, you can use this.”
Kai shied away from the Immortal Blessed device. “I can go without breathing a long time—”
“Not long enough,” Dahin corrected. “And if you run out of air you can’t just pop up to the surface once you’re under that weed mat. And Ziede, you’ll need a weight.”
“I can make the air in the bottom heavier.” Ziede tapped her lip thoughtfully, considering the problem. “For a while, anyway.”
Kai started to unlace his skirt. Originally he had assumed he would be able to dive from the surface directly down into the court where he had killed Cantenios. This was so much more complicated than the short trip he had taken with the shell-whale. He told Ziede, “If you float up into the mat, you could die.”
“Well, I know that, Kai.” Ziede tightened the scarf that bound up her hair.
Ramad began, “I should come with—”
“No. We need someone to stay up here with Dahin,” Kai said. He dropped his cotton skirt, leaving him in leggings and the belted wrap tunic. He kept the telescoping rod in the inner pocket, since it could be useful if they had to dislodge any debris. Reluctantly he took the device that Dahin was shoving at him. From the leather strap he guessed it was supposed to go on his chest.
“Because someone might happen by?” Ramad snapped. “I don’t think Lesser Blessed Dahin Stargard needs my protection.”
“No, it’s upside down. Here, let me.” Dahin took the device back and turned it into the right position. As he buckled the strap, his gaze went past Kai to Ramad, dark and deliberate. “And you’re right about that, vanguarder.”
