Witch King, page 39
Next to Ziede, Kai leaned over to look at the map. He felt a tickle of unease. The forts had been built generations before the Hierarchs came, back when the Arike city-states had fought and raided each other. During the war, Bashasa had used them mostly as distractions; after the war, they had temporarily housed refugees. Years later they had fallen into disuse. But after their first escape from the Summer Halls, Bashasa had led the rebels to the Kagala, expecting to leave some of the refugees at the town there, and then resupply at the fort for the final journey into the capital of Benais-arik. Kai said, “Does that seem…” He wasn’t sure what it seemed like.
“Like a looming presentiment of some sort of disaster?” Ziede said, her voice dry and tense. “It could be a coincidence. All those forts have been deserted for years, and this one borders Nient-arik territory, but is technically part of Benais-arik, which makes for a level of plausible deniability if Tahren was found there.”
Kai sat back, not reassured. Omens were always tricky and hard to interpret and mostly useless, except to point to in hindsight. There had apparently been omens among the borderlanders before the first Hierarch attack on Erathi, but no one had recognized them at the time. This was more likely a coincidence.
But it still felt strange, to be retracing that journey again, from the Summer Halls to the Kagala.
The rest of the raft’s occupants were quiet. The sun had come out as they flew and their clothes and hair had dried but they were all disheveled and bruised and weary. Tenes had revived enough to fall into a normal sleep, and was in the small cabin with Sanja curled up next to her. Saadrin had apparently seen enough of that cabin and sat near the steering column, watching Dahin with a frown, while Dahin studiously ignored her. Ramad was on the opposite side, leaning on the railing to look down at the ground below. Kai barely remembered the first time he had flown with Ziede, but recalled enough to know how fascinating it was to see the world unroll below you from a height like this.
After they had gotten the raft pointed in the right direction, Ziede had explained that Tenes had called earth spirits to exploit the weakness at the back of the stable cavern, to tunnel through it and cause the flood. “And it gave way quite spectacularly. But we caught the edge when I tried to fly us away.” She had added with a grimace, “It didn’t work quite how I imagined.”
Nothing had worked the way Kai had imagined, but they got here in the end. Ziede had also apologized for losing a drop of her blood on the Immortal Blessed ship. Kai was over the frustration of that lapse by now, and had told her it didn’t matter. At least whatever intention Arnsterath had used to read Ziede’s pearl had seemed to consume the blood, so it couldn’t be used again. “Hopefully she doesn’t have any more,” Dahin had pointed out, not helpfully.
Now Ziede let out her breath in a frustrated huff. “I don’t care where we’re going, if it’s an omen or not, I just want to get there.”
Kai said, “We’ll be there soon. No more waiting.” The raft was making short work of the journey, much faster than canal boats or wallwalkers.
She looked at him. Under all the tension, her face was drawn and weary. But she said, “That must have been a shock, to see another Saredi demon again.”
Kai didn’t want to talk about this, but the roil of conflicting emotions felt like it was boiling his brain. “Demons don’t get shock.”
“I’m absolutely sure they do,” Ziede countered. “Was she in the Temple Halls with us?”
Ramad had turned toward them, listening with his brow furrowed. The bruises along the side of his face had darkened and looked painful. Kai shifted uncomfortably and leaned back on the bench. “Yes. I think you spoke to her, after I killed Talamines and—” He made a vague gesture to his body. “All that. Before Bashasa left to look for the other Hierarch. She was in the body of an older man.”
Ziede’s brow knit in consternation. “The one who tried to attack you later?”
Kai let out his breath. That was the moment he had really understood that even if he survived to leave the Summer Halls, nothing would ever be the same. “I didn’t think anybody saw that.”
“I saw. It seemed … better not to comment on it, at the time.” Ziede touched the finding stone again to check their course, something that had turned into a nervous twitch in the last few hours. “Were you close, before that?”
“She was older, as a demon and as a Saredi. She was always there.” He looked at Ramad, who was carefully keeping his expression neutral, and actually barely breathing, unwilling to disturb this view into the past. It should have been invasive and irritating but it wasn’t. Ramad’s interest in the real history of this time was a true calling, and maybe Kai owed him this.
“She was imprisoned for decades, Ziede. The whole time we’ve been living our lives, she was…” Kai shook his head impatiently. “We weren’t close. I don’t even know why—” He didn’t finish the sentence, even silently.
“Even if you two had never met before, she was a Saredi demon whom you had just saved from the Cageling Court,” Ziede said inexorably. “But she knew you, she was older, she had a responsibility toward you. She should have been the one watching over you instead of a Witch and an Arike Prince-heir you had known for less than a day. You would have watched over her, taken care of her, if she had been the one hurt.” Her gaze flicked past him to Ramad, and she added silently, It was the first time someone betrayed you.
Kai buried his face in his hands. It’s too much right now, he told her. She squeezed his arm, and didn’t press it.
Kai looked up at a rustle from the steering column. Dahin was checking the map he had tucked into his tunic. As if he needed to, as if he hadn’t crossed this territory over and over again in the last sixty years, as if he wasn’t an expert mapmaker. “We’re coming up on a traders’ post at that junction where the two major eastern canals meet the new trade road. You want me to swing wide around it?”
“No.” Kai knew the outpost he meant. “Ziede, we need to stop. Just for a little.”
Sanja poked her head out of the cabin. “Please? I have to pee.”
“I have to pee, too,” Dahin contributed. “Though someone will have to stay with the raft to make sure Aunt Saadrin doesn’t steal it.”
Saadrin was apparently too weary with Dahin at this point to even get angry. With exasperation, she said, “I am under kin-right and Obligation.” She had admitted earlier, not even grudgingly, that Dahin and Kai had saved her life. Dahin was covered by kin-right, but she owed Kai for it, and just saving his life in return wasn’t enough to wipe out the debt. To the Immortal Blessed, her life was worth far more than a demon, two Witches, and a couple of mortals.
Ramad must know the outpost, too, and was probably calculating whether he could send a messenger to the cohort post that was down the canal from it. He asked, “Will there be time to buy food?”
Ziede knew what Kai wanted to do, and he watched her wrestle her impatience. “Everyone has to hurry,” she said finally, and added meaningfully to Kai, “Don’t drag it out.”
They were passing over low hills covered with yellow grasses and tiny bright flowers when Kai spotted the first canal. Water trees dotted the shallows, tall with spreading canopies and cages of roots that stood above the surface. Not long after, they saw the woodsmoke of the outpost rising in the distance, and the second intersecting canal that curved toward it.
As they drew closer, Dahin guided the raft down, avoiding the broad stone-paved road that wound through the fields. Stands of tall flowering trees, vividly pink and white against the faded grass, decorated the hilltops, a sign that they had been cultivated at one time by a vanished town or farm. When they were close enough, Dahin set the raft down on the far side of a low rise, within easy walking distance of the outpost but out of its immediate view. People had probably seen them land, but no one was going to come running to see what an Immortal Blessed ascension raft was doing here.
Tenes, still a little groggy, wanted to stay behind. Ziede took Sanja with her toward the outpost, and Saadrin left the raft to stand dramatically a little distance away, so Dahin would feel comfortable leaving it unattended.
Kai got out, knowing Ramad would follow him. Dry grass crackled underfoot, but the breeze was cool and kept the gnats at bay. They walked up the rise to stand in the trees, surrounded by bright fallen petals, with a view of the canals and the busy market. The wooden structures were built atop old stone pilings in a curve, extending out into the basin where the two canals met. Under the shade of the tall water trees, mortals wandered past shops, traders with wares under brightly colored portable awnings, vendors serving food out of steaming cauldrons and clay ovens. Many boats and barges were docked along the pilings, with wagons and even a few wallwalkers in the stables and corrals just off the road. The scent of the flowering trees mingled with grilled meat and garlic and woodsmoke, and the distant sound of voices traveled on the breeze. Kai spotted Ziede moving with brisk efficiency toward the food sellers, Sanja skipping after her. The place was so well-populated, it might be on its way to becoming a city not so many years from now. It eased a tension in the back of his neck, looking at this sign of vibrant life in the countryside. They might be retracing their steps, but the Summer Halls was in the past; this was the new world.
Ramad folded his arms. “This is going to make an interesting report for Bashat bar Calis and the Imperial council.”
It was an invitation to talk, and Kai took it. He said, “I think I owe you the answer to a question.”
“Do you?” Ramad shook his head, and said wryly, “You’ve told me so much. It’s very generous of you. I know these are often painful subjects and my quest for knowledge has sometimes been … thoughtless at best.”
“Ask while you have the chance,” Kai said.
“Very well.” Ramad hesitated. “What happened to Lesser Blessed Dahin?” From his pained expression, he was clearly reviewing some of the details of their escape. “The way he killed that Immortal Blessed…”
This wasn’t a pleasant memory either, but Kai said, “During the war, he was on a mission for Bashasa and he was caught by the Immortal Marshalls who supported the Hierarchs. His family didn’t help him. He wasn’t expected back soon and it took us too long to realize he was missing, and then too long to find him.” It was why Dahin wouldn’t let Kai give him a pearl. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone with that kind of access to his mind. “He doesn’t blame Tahren, he knows she would never hurt him. But she’s also … one of them.”
Ramad took that in gravely. “Everyone who survived that time bore scars. Bears scars.” He turned to face Kai. “There’s something I should—”
Kai didn’t want to hear it. He had put this off long enough. Ramad thought the warm threads of unspoken connection between them were still there. It was time to cut them. “I know you’re Bashat’s agent.”
Ramad was too experienced to be caught out like that. He smiled a little. “I’m his vanguarder.”
Kai pressed on. “You knew about the conspiracy. You and Bashat.” He couldn’t help adding, “I’d given up on Bashat, but I’d hoped you didn’t know.”
Ramad’s face went still. He obviously had no idea how much Kai knew, and it had caught him utterly by surprise. “Kai … That was the Nient-arik, and some overly ambitious Immortal Blessed. Surely what just happened to us is proof that I am not working for them.”
The lie by omission made this a little easier. “You didn’t have to work for them. All you had to do was not stop them.” Kai let the painful irony show in his smile. “It got Tahren, Ziede, and me out of the way during the Imperial coalition renewal. Bashat knew we thought he and Benais-arik had too much power, that I didn’t support the idea of a Rising World empire. He couldn’t take the chance that Tahren would speak against him when she renewed the Immortal Blessed treaty. So he let the conspirators take us. Then at the Imperial renewal, he exposed the conspiracy. The council agreed to continue the Blessed treaty without Tahren since her nonappearance was involuntary. Bashat was able to get rid of the dissidents and paint Nient-arik as a nest of traitors, so they lost their influence in the Rising World. The Immortal Blessed will come out of this weaker, now that the council knows they have dissension among their Patriarchs.”
Kai saw the moment that Ramad understood it was time to give up the pretense. Some part of him seemed to relax, as if the deception was a weight he had just put down. “Bashat did send me to find Tahren Stargard, and you. He would have ordered your release—”
Kai had to admire the effort. “Don’t make it worse.”
“I’m not—” Ramad pressed his lips together, visibly regaining control, considering his next words. “I apologize for my part in this. When I agreed to it, I didn’t know you.”
That was unexpected, and sharp like a little stab with a very thin knife. Ramad had apparently never fooled himself into thinking this wasn’t a betrayal. Kai said, “Very good. Now tell me if it was Bashat who poisoned me, or if he just let it happen.”
“He poisoned you. He knew what the Nient-arik planned wouldn’t work. He—We let them think you had been betrayed by a traitor inside Benais House.”
Kai had to laugh at that one, though it came out harsher than he intended. “I was betrayed by a traitor inside Benais House.”
Ramad looked away, a hard line to his jaw. “The Rising World needed the Imperial renewal. We couldn’t let you talk the Enalin into refusing their agreement—”
Ramad had been clever, Bashat had been ruthless. It was almost a pity to tell them it had been pointless, because Kai had betrayed them first. “I talked the Enalin into that five years ago.”
Ramad turned to face him, brow furrowed. He didn’t understand. Then abruptly he did. The breath caught in his throat.
Kai shrugged. “It took two years of discussion.” All the Enalin provinces were individually governed and they selected their own leaders by agreement among the populations. It was a complicated system, but at least more organized than how the Witches did it. “I had to talk to all their leaders, then they had to agree among themselves.” It was unexpectedly hard to look at Ramad’s dawning comprehension, so Kai turned toward the outpost again. “Before we reached the Summer Halls, I got a message from the Enalin ambassador to Benais-arik. Enalin withdrew its support of Benais-arik and Bashat as planned, after he exposed the conspirators, and the Imperial renewal failed. The Rising World is no longer an empire, it’s a coalition of free allies again. The council will divide up Benais-arik’s responsibilities, and they even gave Bashat a seat, so he shouldn’t be too disappointed that he won’t rule as Emperor.” Kai wasn’t nearly as calm as he knew he sounded. “Benais-arik could go to war with Enalin about it, but Enalin has too much support. The rest of the coalition would turn on Benais-arik for disrupting the peace.”
“Five years,” Ramad echoed, his voice dry as dust. “So I betrayed you … Bashat betrayed you for nothing.”
Kai was still angry, but it was so wrapped up in hurt, at anger at himself for daring to believe that Ramad didn’t know. “That’s why those two Lesser Blessed were so afraid of losing the finding stone.” Their plan for Nient-arik to be named capital of the Rising World had failed, and the Immortal Blessed would still be held by the coalition treaty. The Immortal Marshalls would be ordered to hunt down any Blessed who had participated in the conspiracy and an old Hierarchs’ finding stone would have made short work of that. “I wasn’t sure that you were part of it, until you tried to get Faharin to let us go, when you told him it was too late.” Ramad had thought the Imperial renewal had succeeded, that there was no reason to keep Kai and Ziede from returning. Kai had to add, “It was always too late.” He could look at Ramad now, and turned to meet his gaze. “You forgot what I am.”
Ramad huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “An immortal demon prince.”
“No,” Kai said pointedly. “Bashasa’s immortal demon prince.” Down below, Ziede and Sanja emerged from the chaos of the market, both carrying bundles, and started up the dirt track that would lead them back to the raft. “I’ll give you one more answer. The words Bashasa spoke to me before he died were ‘Don’t let everything we fought for be for nothing.’” Ramad’s expression was turning stricken. Kai pressed on. “He never wanted an empire to replace the Hierarchs. He wanted everything to go back to the way it was before they came. I can’t give him that, but I can give him this.” Kai stepped back, looking away. “You can tell Bashat, all we want is to be left alone.”
“He’s not mad for power,” Ramad said abruptly. “That’s not what this was about. He knew about the schism in the Immortal Blessed, that there was a Patriarch who wanted to end the treaty. He thought it was only the beginning, that the coalition would fracture under the pressure. He thought it had a better chance of survival if Benais-arik stayed in control.”
Kai started down the hill. He wasn’t going to argue. If the coalition fractured and alliances shifted or re-formed in different ways, that was just the way things were. Kai had learned to live with it; Bashat could too.
Ramad didn’t try to follow, still standing under the flowering trees. Kai waited at the raft as Ziede and Sanja made their way through the field and he followed them back aboard.
Ziede set down a large bamboo container and squeezed Kai’s shoulder. One of Sanja’s burdens was a palm leaf basket filled with stuffed fried pastries. The smell of spices and chickpea and eggplant made Kai’s stomach rumble, despite everything. Tenes emerged from the cabin, wide awake now.
Dahin was ready at the steering column, shoving honey dates into his mouth. Saadrin eyed him from her seat on the bench. “You’re polluting your body,” she told him repressively.
“I’ve been eating Blessed travel rations for months, my body is desperate for pollution,” Dahin told her, his too-sharp gaze on Kai. “Ramad not coming along?”
“He can get a boat to a cohort post from here.” Kai closed the raft’s gate. “Let’s go.”
