The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  They all looked at Valard. “Which leaves me.” He looked at the door of the inn, and Ry saw a dark, dangerous hunger flash across his face. “I want to be away from here,” he said. “This isn’t the city I know anymore—it’s full of secrets and ghosts.” He looked back at Ry and slowly smiled, but the smile couldn’t erase that ominous strangeness from his eyes. “We’re all friends, though,” he said. “So I’ll stay.”

  Ry said, “Thank you. We’ll do what we have to do here, and find your families as soon as we dare.”

  And while he smiled and bought another round of beer and sat talking about the day’s many failures, he watched Valard out of the corner of his eye and wondered when his old friend had become a stranger.

  Chapter 28

  A week to the day from Kait’s meeting with Domagar Addo, the traders met with the would-be investors. Dùghall had chosen the site, and he and Kait went in early by separate routes, carefully shielded.

  The Bradenberry Inn squatted at the base of Palmetto Cliff, nestled into the bones of the Galweighs’ mountain, positioned directly beneath Galweigh House. As she walked up the street toward the inn, Kait looked up at her old home with both longing and regret. Galweigh House, the part built into the face of the cliff, soared toward the clouds, a gleaming white fortress sparkling with semiprecious stones and mosaics of colored glass that blazed like gemstones in the midday sun. It was an Ancients’ artifact made a part of the mountain, haunted by the horrors of its past; it was a treasure house locked away above the rest of the world; it was like a beautiful woman who flaunted her riches but held herself in haughty disdain over the heads of the poor and the powerless. And if the rumors were true, it lay empty, home only to vermin and ghosts. She longed to climb up to it, to walk through its gate and enter its great hall and run through its corridors. She longed to touch its walls and call out the names of her mother and father, her brothers and sisters—and she longed to hear their voices shout her name in greeting.

  But she wouldn’t make that climb—only dust and the ghostly whisper of the wind and the echoes of her voice would greet her if she dared return.

  Ahead of Kait, the translucent half-arch of the Avenue of Triumph rose from the center of Celebration Square to the western end of Palmetto Cliff Road, looking like a thread spun by a spider to connect the mundane world with the magical House above. Behind her, the obsidian Path of Gods switchbacked up the cliff face, ugly and solid and imposing.

  She was as close to home as she dared to get. She might never step inside Galweigh House’s translucent white walls again, might never again sleep in her own bed, might never watch the sun rise through her window or reclaim her belongings. She had to assume that everything she had lost was gone forever. So she indulged herself with only that one wistful look at the white balconies stepped down the cliff face, and then she returned her attention to her task. She reached the inn and pushed through the thick, carved mahogany doors into cool dimness.

  Dùghall, already in place, sat at a table near the interior arches, which framed a lovely garden. He sipped at a tankard of iced papaya beer, and nibbled at a plate of steamed maize, peppers, and Rophetian beans. He was staring out into the garden, and he didn’t look in her direction when she entered. Her shields were as tight as she could hold them, so he couldn’t feel her presence. He gave no sign that he was aware of her arrival.

  She stood along one thick adobe wall, studying him. Eight months before, in the month of Maraxis, the two of them had been in Halles, celebrating Theramisday and preparing for her cousin Tippa’s upcoming wedding. Then, Dùghall had been plump running to fat, to all appearances an amiable jester happily serving his Family by smoothing out little diplomatic difficulties. Now, on the first day of Nasdem . . .

  The angle of the light coming in from the garden only accented how much he’d changed. He’d grown lean and hard. He said it was because of the work he’d done while he was waiting in the Thousand Dancers for the gods to let him know what they wanted of him. But there was more to it than that. The way he held his body made him look dangerous. Predatory. She had seen shrewdness in her uncle all her life, but never anything that made her identify him as a fellow hunter. Until now.

  He’d told her that he was the sword of the gods, tempered over time and only recently unsheathed. Watching him waiting for his prey, she could believe him a good blade.

  She took a seat at one of the common tables, making a space for herself among strangers. They made room for her without a word—all of them were evidently strangers to each other, as well, for everyone sat in silence, each diner carefully not touching any of the others, all eyes intently focused on the food and ale before them.

  With fair promptness, one of the tavern girls came over and asked what Kait wanted to eat. She studied the listings of the day’s food posted on the wall in four languages, and said, “Haunch of monkey, blood-rare, no spices. House beer. Sweet yams.”

  The girl said, “Cook’s got a good parrot broth today.”

  “No.”

  “Got fresh cane-and-nut tarts, hot out of the oven.”

  “Large or small?”

  “About so.” The girl made a smallish circle with both hands.

  “Two, then.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  Kait had positioned herself to face the entryway, far enough behind one of the columns that she would be hard to spot. In preparation for this meeting, she’d bleached her hair to a pale yellow, and traded her gaudy Imumbarran trader garb for the breeches and light shirt appropriate for a woman working in a shop. She had bathed in nabolth and verroot, which would, at least for a while, hide her Karnee scent—Ry had warned her that his Family had a number of Karnee members, and since Dùghall believed that the Families and the parnissery were the two segments of society most likely to have been infiltrated by the Dragons, she had taken the step of disguising her own affliction. Her shield would hide her Karnee magic from any wizards. She had gone to some trouble to make herself look plain and dowdy, so that any men who might notice her in spite of her shield wouldn’t react to her as they otherwise did. By shield, appearance, and movements, she said, I’m no one of importance. Ignore me.

  Two diners at her table rose and left. Another entered the inn, squinted into the darkness, and sauntered over. He settled himself beside her, glanced at her once, dismissed her, and began reading the posted menu.

  Her food came. She ate, taking her time. If necessary, she could nurse the tankard, or even order another, but she didn’t want to be obvious in her loitering.

  Across the room, Dùghall emptied his drink onto the sawdust floor so quickly she almost missed it, and would have if she hadn’t known what he was doing. He then pretended to take a few more long draughts from the tankard. And then he shouted for more. When the tavern girl brought it to him, he tried to pinch her. He was loud and jolly and rude—clearly on his way to a memorable drunk. He resumed his silence when the girl left, and buried his face in his tankard, and again seemed to disappear.

  The doors swung open again, and Hasmal and Ian entered, both wearing Hmoth trade garb. Dùghall had made them the designated head traders because no one in Calimekka would know Hasmal, and those who might recognize Ian were unlikely to be in the heart of the city so far from the docks, and were even more unlikely to acknowledge him if they did see him. Ian said his fellow smugglers were, by necessity, a circumspect lot.

  Hasmal and Ian requested a cleared private table, explaining to the tavern girl that they needed to conduct business while they ate, telling her in loud voices that they had important friends coming. Kait saw money change hands, and the girl went to work creating a private table. Moments later, when Domagar Addo and his two companions arrived, both Ian and Hasmal were seated in isolated glory beneath an arch, their table half in the inn proper and half in the garden. Kait couldn’t have chosen a more perfect spot for spying on them.

  Hasmal rose and waved to Domagar and his friends, and the three i
nvestors strolled through the press of tables to the cleared space. “Greetings, noble Parats, most excellent Parata,” he said. He pressed his hands together, touched fingertips to his chin, and executed the step-and-duck bow of the Hmoth wellborn. “I am Ashtaran, second son of Dashat, of the White Fox Village. This is my chief partner, Ibnak, third son of Muban, of the Storm Bear Village.” Ian bowed in flawless imitation of Hasmal. He had bleached his hair, too, and had had it cut in the same style as Hasmal’s. With both of them decked out in the flowing tunics, baggy pantaloons, and wildly patterned sashes of the Hmoth, the fact that one of them was tall, lean, and dark and the other was short, pale, and powerfully built became almost invisible.

  The man beside Kait watched the five of them, and said, “More money at that table right now than in the rest of this inn put together. Probably more than in the rest of the street. Rich bastards.”

  He was talking more about the investors than about Hasmal and Ian, she decided. The investors wore their wealth as plainly as they could. One of them was a Galweigh by birth—Kait knew her as Cousin Grita, one of the second cousins on her father’s side, and a member of the trade branch of the Family. She and Grita weren’t friends, but Grita would certainly have recognized Kait’s face. However, Grita wasn’t wearing Galweigh red and black. Instead, she wore a fine pale blue skirt of embroidered silk and a blue and white tunic over a blouse woven entirely of the Galweigh Rose-and-Thorn lace . . . but the lace, which should have been black, had instead been bleached, then dyed a deep cobalt blue. She still wore her Galweigh rubies and onyxes, and the Galweigh crest was clearly visible on the pommel of her dagger. Her hair was bound back in a simple twist and held with a heavy gold pin worked in the shape of a tiny jeweled hummingbird. She still smelled like herself, but she moved like a complete stranger.

  Beside her stood a Sabir, a golden-haired man of lovely countenance and dangerous aura, whose elegant silver and green tights showed off the fine lines of his legs. His low boots were heeled in silver, and his casually tied emerald silk shirt was so sheer that Kait could make out every muscle in his overdeveloped torso. He kept a hand at the small of Grita’s back, and occasionally ran a finger down her spine in a gesture that was both sensual and possessive. Kait couldn’t imagine Grita tolerating the touch of a Sabir. Grita had lost a brother and a father to Sabir depredations years earlier, and she had never forgiven or forgotten, and Kait was sure she never would. But when the man touched her, Grita smiled up at him and kissed a fingertip and pressed it to his cheek. That alone would have convinced Kait that she was seeing Dragons.

  Dùghall had suggested the Dragons might be wearing familiar forms. She hadn’t imagined how familiar.

  The Sabir was more than just a Dragon, though. He was Karnee. Kait could smell the scent that marked pending Shift on him, dark and rich and earthy. She tightened her shields and prayed that her perfumed bath would mask her body’s instinctive response. All the other scents in the room grew faint next to that tantalizing musk.

  Breathing hard, she picked up the monkey leg and tore meat off it with her teeth. Focus, she thought. Focus.

  “You all right?” the man next to her asked.

  “Mmmph.” She nodded a quick affirmative and gave the stranger no other response.

  Finding no encouragement for his familiarities, he turned to the man who sat to his other side and said, “You ever go to the games?”

  The stranger regarded the man warily, then broke into a cautious smile. “Oh, sure. Saw the challenge between Hariman’s Long-Legs and Lucky Ober’s Hero-of-Hills just last night.” He had a hint of some outlander accent—surely the only reason he would talk at table with a stranger. Damned barbarians.

  “Make anything?”

  “A bit of copper passed my fingers.” Laughter. “But never in the right direction. You?”

  Kait blocked out the conversation, wishing bolts on the tongues of both the chatterers, and returned her attention to her work.

  The third investor was Domagar Addo, but he no longer looked like a farmer dressed up for worship. His clothes were as rich as those worn by his two associates, and a gold headdress with a tail of hornbird feathers cleverly disguised the last traces of unevenness in the skin color on his forehead and neck. Rings covered his hands, which still bore heavy scars of a life spent working. Before too long, though, Kait thought even those scars would vanish. Then only his name would betray him as someone who had risen from poverty. And new names were easy enough to win. Or buy.

  The blond man nodded at the bows, and said, “I’m Crispin Sabir of the Sabir Family. This is Grita Jeral of . . . House Ballur. Ballur is a new Family in Calimekka, eager to expand its contacts and its wealth. And this is Domagar Addo, with whom your other partner made our appointment. Where is she, by the way?”

  Ian sniffed, his face displaying annoyance. “Chait-eveni is an employee, not a partner. She sometimes reaches above herself, and implies that she is more than she is . . . which is why she is unlikely to ever truly be a partner.” He chuckled. “She has the employee mind, if you know what I mean; she wants what others have but she does not want to earn it herself.”

  Hasmal shrugged and smiled and spread his arms wide. “Enough unhappiness. This is a happy occasion. We meet as potential partners; we should become friends. So, sit and eat at our table, and we will treat you, and you will tell us how we can become your friends, and how we can bring you happiness.”

  “How you can bring us happiness.” Crispin Sabir sat opposite Hasmal, with Grita beside him, and Domagar beside her. Perfect for Kait, because all three of them had their backs to her. Not so good for Dùghall; he sat facing all three of them. And as ambassador to the Imumbarra Isles, and the main negotiator for the wealth that flowed from the Isles to the House, his face would certainly be familiar to Grita. Well, his younger, fatter face. Perhaps—if there were any part of Grita’s mind or memories left in her flesh—she wouldn’t recognize him in this harder, older body. Crispin said, “What we want are Ancients’ artifacts. Any of the books or manuscripts that you might find would be useful, too, of course, but there are technothaumatars . . . er . . .” He flushed and faltered, the alien word hanging in the air like a public fart. A Dragon’s revealing slip—but only revealing to someone who knew that technothaumatars was the word the Ancients had used for their magical artifacts. He covered his slip as quickly as he could. “There are Ancients’ devices we’ve researched that we would love to acquire.”

  “We’re capable of paying,” Grita said. “We have the full support of the most powerful House in Ibera behind us, and the backing of Families both old and new.”

  Both Hasmal and Ian sat like polite idiots, smiling and waiting, oblivious by all appearances to the huge slip they’d just witnessed.

  “Ah, yes. Families. Forgive me, please, but I was noticing your crests,” Hasmal said. He did a neat job of changing the subject. “In my dealings in Ibera, I have always thought that Sabir and Galweigh did not do business together, and I heard in this last visit that Galweigh House was no more. But unless I am mistaken, she is Galweigh. You clearly are Sabir. Aren’t you enemies?”

  “She was Galweigh. She is Ballur. She made an alliance with Sabir House when Galweigh House fell—she and a few others,” Crispin said. “We have discovered common ground, though, and common interests.”

  “Common ground? In broken toys from the Ages of the Damned, eh?” Ian laughed.

  Crispin tipped his head, curious, and said to Ian, “You know, I think that I know you.”

  Kait felt a sudden rush of horror. She’d forgotten that Ry and his lieutenants were not the only ones to grow up in Sabir House. Ian, too, had spent some of his childhood there. Ian, the illegitimate son of Ry’s father, would be as closely related to the Sabir across the table from him as his half-brother was. And Ian certainly knew the man who had introduced himself as Crispin. When she and Dùghall and Hasmal had been figuring out how to meet with the investors, she’d recommended Ian as one of the nego
tiators. But she’d only considered his years of exile and his years on the sea, and had been certain Ian would be safe acting as a trader in the heart of Calimekka. The thought that he might meet up with someone who had known him as a child, or that the person he met might recognize him, had never crossed her mind.

  Evidently it had crossed his, though, for Ian’s reply was casual. “You might have. I am a great traveler, and I seek out such amusements as our ports of call offer. If you also enjoy the offerings of this city . . .” He held his palms up and offered a self-deprecating smile. “My weakness.”

  Crispin shrugged. “Perhaps. In any case, our alliance is about much more than the lost trinkets of a dead age. We intend to create a new Calimekka. A glorious city overflowing with riches, ruled in harmony; a city that can embrace the world and reshape it into a place without wars, without disease, without suffering.”

  Ian’s eyebrows rose. “The three of you? Ambitious.”

  Crispin, Grita, and Domagar looked at each other, and Grita said, “We have others who share our dream. And we’ve had these goals for a long time. But we have only just been able to come together to begin bringing them to life.”

  “And you need our help.”

  “We desire certain works of the Ancients that would make our task easier. If you can supply them, then yes, we need your help.”

  Ian said, “We can add to your happiness greatly, dear new friends. But you must know that the places we have to go to get for you what you ask of us are dangerous places. They lie within the Scarred Lands, where few venture and fewer survive, and where all manner of monsters make their homes, and where even the earth and the air conspire against the human state of true men. We would need much assistance to fuel our courage. . . .”

  “We weren’t looking for charity from you. If your goal is wealth, we’ll see that you achieve it in quantities you cannot imagine. If you want friends in powerful places who can do good things for you, well, help us and you’ll have them.” He looked straight at Ian. “Amusements . . . hmmm. I can assure you that we can share amusements with you grander than any you’ve ever known.”