Either way, though, it was obvious that Khtoba personally wasn’t going anywhere. He had a sword at his side, but possessed no illusions about fighting his way out of the tent. And the Hand’s gaggle of bootlickers would be worse than useless. The only course, then, was acquiescence.
The Ghost was still watching him. It was strange, speaking to a mask. The thing was like a blank canvas on which the interlocutor could paint whatever he wanted or feared to see. The prospect of that had reduced Tzikim nearly to tears, but Khtoba fancied himself made of sterner stuff. He put on a level expression.
“Very well,” he said. “It seems the best plan we have, under the circumstances.”
JAFFA
The Justices had come creeping back with the death of Yatchik-dan-Rahksa and the collapse of the Swords of Heaven. For the most part they tried to pretend they’d never left, turning up at the gatehouse in their old uniforms and trying not to meet one another’s eyes. Others, who’d deserted to defend their homes or communities, were slower to trickle in. But the city had taken on a deathly calm since the news had gotten out that the Hand had abandoned the Palace. Even the thieves and muggers were hunkered down, hoping to weather the storm. Among those who’d worn the prince’s colors before his departure, there was a feeling—at least, a hope—that wearing those colors again to greet their restored monarch might encourage him to some feelings of mercy. Those who’d sewn the red flames of the Redemption to their breasts were rapidly ripping off the patches; those who’d painted the symbol on were working frantically with soap and water.
Jaffa-dan-Iln maintained no illusions about his own position. He’d collaborated with the Council and the Auxiliaries; there were any number of witnesses to that. With the Hand and the general fled, he was the only authority figure remaining in a battered, terrified city, and that seemed to mean that for the moment he was in charge. Unfortunately, once the prince reasserted his authority, that was likely to lead to his execution.
He might have fled, he supposed. The thought had honestly not occurred to him until it was far too late. Jaffa was a man who did his duty. Besides, he was confident in his reward. After all, am I not acting directly on instructions from Mother?
Niaph-dan-Yunk, one of the first to march with the Swords and one of the first to return, knocked hesitantly at the open door to Jaffa’s office. Jaffa admitted him with a wave, but the younger man stood uncomfortably in the doorway.
“Sir,” he said, “our messenger has returned.”
“About time,” said Jaffa. “And?”
“The raschem—” Niaph coughed at Jaffa’s look. “The Vordanai colonel has agreed to your request for a meeting. He says he will wait half a mile up the coast road from the gate in one hour.”
“Excellent. Tell them to saddle my horse.”
“Yes, sir.” Niaph hesitated. “Will you be wanting an escort?”
Jaffa could have laughed. The man’s thoughts might as well have been printed on his forehead. He didn’t think whoever went to meet this demon-commander of the raschem had much chance of returning alive. No doubt the feeling was widespread among the Justices.
“No,” Jaffa said. “I will go alone.” He smiled. “I have his word on my safe conduct. Why would I need an escort?”
The fear in Niaph’s eyes instantly turned to pity, with perhaps a hint of admiration. Or maybe Jaffa was deceiving himself.
“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”
• • •
The streets were quieter than Jaffa had ever seen them, especially here, in the direct path of the approaching army. The coast road was lined with tenements, ramshackle multistory buildings assembled from brick, wood, and scraps of stolen stone. For the most part they were empty now, the residents having fled to presumed safety on the other side of the city, but those who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave were watching from behind rag doors and curtains. Jaffa could feel the questioning eyes.
When he caught sight of the line of soldiers, he dismounted and walked the rest of the way. The Vordanai had drawn up a company across the road, muskets shouldered, their deep blue uniforms covered with the dust of hard marching. Ahead of them waited two officers on foot. Jaffa was relieved to see that the prince was not with them, though he hadn’t expected the sovereign to lower himself to this kind of negotiation. His feelings were mixed, though, when he recognized Captain d’Ivoire. He’d known the man slightly before the Redemption. Usually they’d met after the Justices had to pull drunken Colonials out of brawls, and their relationship had been cool at best.
It was the other officer who stepped forward. He wore a colonel’s eagles on the shoulders of his immaculate dress uniform and bore himself with an aristocratic mien. When they locked gazes, Jaffa felt the force of his stare as a physical blow. The rest of his features seemed to recede into insignificance around his wide gray eyes, animated by an inner fire. Jaffa approached the last few steps at something resembling a parade-ground march and bowed stiffly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, keeping to Khandarai. Jaffa understood a few words of the raschem tongue, but not enough for a formal discussion. “I am Grand Justice Jaffa-dan-Iln.”
Jaffa wondered if the captain would translate for his superior, but the colonel either didn’t require a rendering or didn’t care. Captain d’Ivoire stepped forward, offering a slight bow in return, and said, “Welcome, Justice. This is Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran.” After the colonel gave a slight nod of recognition, d’Ivoire asked, “How do things stand in the city?”
“The Redeemers have fled,” Jaffa said. “General Khtoba and the remnants of the Auxiliaries with them. The Desoltai camp to the east is also gone, though to where I cannot say.”
“Then who rules the city?”
Jaffa wondered if he was supposed to say that the prince did, but he decided to stick to practical matters. “At present, no one. I am in charge, to the extent that anyone is. My Justices are trying to keep the peace.”
“Do you intend to oppose our entry?” d’Ivoire said, with just a hint of a smile.
“Of course not,” Jaffa said. “My men are not soldiers. The gates of Ashe-Katarion are open to you.” He hesitated, then added, “I entreat you to be as merciful as you can.”
“Some of that will be up to the prince, of course.” Jaffa thought he caught a disgusted look in d’Ivoire’s eye. “But we will try to keep our men in line. We will camp on the Palace grounds, around the Heavenly Guard barracks. The colonel would like you to prepare a report on conditions in the city, the number of men you have in the Justices, and how many you think you can trust.” The captain paused at Jaffa’s surprised look. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Jaffa managed. Apparently he was not to be clapped in irons after all.
D’Ivoire lowered his voice. “I told the colonel that you were a man to be trusted. That you’d done your duty under the prince, and done the same under the Redeemers. Can we rely on you to continue to perform it?”
“Yes, of course,” Jaffa said. “My loyalty is to the people of Ashe-Katarion.”
“Good.” The captain straightened up, and seemed on the point of dismissing him, but the colonel broke in unexpectedly. His Khandarai was perfect, even down to his accent.
“Grand Justice, I wonder if you might enlighten me as to conditions on the sacred hill?”
Jaffa blinked. “The hill, my lord? What of it?”
“Did the Redeemers do much damage? Are the priestesses still in their temples?”
“I—” For a single horrifying moment, Jaffa thought that this raschem knew about Mother, knew everything. But that was impossible, of course. He mastered himself quickly. “Some remain, my lord. There was some looting and vandalism, but the Redeemers believe—believed—that they were returning to the old ways, not overthrowing them entirely. Some priests fled, and those who refused to adopt the new canon were . . . punished. But there has been no wholesale destruction.”
“Excellent.” The colonel gave a bright smile. “I have read o
f the magnificence of the temples of Ashe-Katarion. It would be a shame if they had been destroyed before I had a chance to examine them myself.”
There was something in Colonel Vhalnich’s eyes that Jaffa did not like, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He bowed his head. “I’m sure the priestesses would be honored by your visit, my lord.”
Chapter Sixteen
MARCUS
As the Colonials settled down in Ashe-Katarion, Janus asked Marcus to come up with a detail of twenty men he thought he could trust to keep a secret.
Marcus was tempted to reply that twenty men could keep a secret only if you sank nineteen of them in the river, and even then you’d have to keep an eye on the last one. He was also strongly tempted to tell Janus to take a flying leap into the Great Desol. Adrecht was still unconscious in the cutter’s tents with a high fever, and the battered Old Colonials had barely finished sorting themselves out and counting the dead. You couldn’t say that sort of thing to a colonel, however, so Marcus rounded up Fitz, Senior Sergeant Argot, and a squad he thought he could rely on not to ask too many questions, and followed Janus to Monument Hill.
That was the Vordanai name for it, of course. The center of Ashe-Katarion was a double-humped hillock, tailing off rapidly into the harbor. One crest bore the Palace itself, while the other, surrounded by a second, lower wall, was the traditional domain of the priesthood. It comprised a square mile or so of ancient, rambling sandstone buildings, courtyards adorned with statues, and occasional gardens and orchards. Towering above all of these, their long black shadows cutting over the wall and into the city, were the huge black obelisks that Marcus tended to think of as the Forest of Divine Cocks.
On arriving at the elaborately carved sacred gates, Marcus was surprised to see that the hill’s buildings seemed more or less intact. He’d pictured a smoking ruin, Divine Cocks pulled down onto the temples they’d decorated and everything that would burn put to the torch. Apparently, the masters of the Redemption hadn’t been certain enough of their support among the populace to make such a visible gesture against tradition. It was midmorning, and the shadows of the obelisks still threw their irregular striped pattern across the streets of the lower city. Past the gate, courtyards that had once bustled stood empty and silent. The massive brazier in front of the Temple of the Eternal Flame was cold and dark, and Marcus could see that the painted sandstone walls of the nearest buildings had been defaced by great cracks and slathered with graffiti, mostly the ubiquitous squat V of the Redeemers.
Janus paused at the gateway. He paced, unable to contain his energy, and his deep gray eyes were never still. After a moment he turned to look at Marcus and his soldiers, and apparently reached some sort of decision.
“You want to know what we’re doing here,” he said, his gaze lingering on Marcus in particular. “I wish I could tell you, but I am enjoined to silence on the matter. I can say that I am following an express royal command, and that I am humbled by the trust placed in me by His Majesty. This morning, I am sharing this trust with all of you. I ask only that you follow me, obey orders, and keep silent as to anything you may see.” The colonel paused. “Anyone who feels himself unworthy of His Majesty’s trust may step away now, and I will forget you were ever here.”
There was a long pause. After a moment, Senior Sergeant Jeffery Argot raised a hand like a boy in class. Marcus cringed, but Janus nodded to him, unperturbed.
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“This trust,” he said. “Is it likely to involve any fighting?”
There were a few mutters from the rest. The men were armed, but they were all Old Colonials, and they knew the inside of the hill was a nightmare of stone buildings and warren-like alleys.
Janus smiled. “No, Sergeant. At this point the opposition consists of a few elderly women. The worst you’ll face today is a bit of manual labor.”
Argot nodded. “Fair enough. I guess I can keep my mouth shut.”
A few of the others nodded agreement. Marcus gave them an appraising look, but said nothing.
“Follow me, then,” Janus said. “Do nothing until I say.”
He strode confidently through the gate, and Marcus and the soldiers followed. It was deathly quiet on the hill. The whole city had seemed unnaturally silent, residents cowering and barring the doors against a relative handful of Vordanai, but walking through the streets Marcus had still been able to feel the eyes on him. Here the silence was the quiet of the grave.
The layout of the hill was a haphazard maze, but Janus led the way without hesitation, cutting through narrow passageways and across flagstone courtyards. They passed the base of one of the ubiquitous obelisks, a four-sided spike reaching a hundred feet into the air. A few of the men stared up at it, and under ordinary circumstances Marcus would have expected a rude comment or two, but there was an air about the hill now that weighed against flippancy. Abandoned, it possessed a quiet aura of sanctity that it had never had in bustling life, as though they had walked into a gigantic sepulcher.
They were nearing the center when Janus found what he was looking for. He quickened his steps in the direction of a small building, barely bigger than a farm shed, with sandstone walls and a slate roof. The doorway was tiny, barely big enough for a grown man to fit through, and it was blocked by a sun-bleached wooden door. On each side of it stood a crude statue, worn away by the years to smooth-faced mannequins only just recognizable as human.
It was not a building Marcus had ever seen before. He glanced questioningly at Fitz, who raised one eyebrow and shook his head. The Khandarai had a great many gods, and Marcus certainly wouldn’t claim to know them all, but he was familiar with the major divinities. This had the look of a shrine to a minor deity, albeit an ancient one. What does he expect to find here?
The colonel went to the door and, to Marcus’ surprise, knocked. There was a long moment of silence.
“What do you want?” The voice from inside was a woman’s, dusty-dry and ancient-sounding. She spoke in Khandarai. Among the soldiers, Marcus guessed, only he and Fitz understood.
“We would like to come in,” Janus said. The colonel used the politest form the language allowed, accent perfect as always. “If you would open the door, I would be grateful.”
Another, longer silence. Then the crone said, “There is nothing inside for you.”
“Nevertheless,” Janus said.
When there was no response, he straightened up.
“If you do not open the door,” he said, still pleasant and polite, “these men will break it down.”
Marcus could hear mutterings from inside, in at least two voices. The door swung inward.
The inside of the little shrine was a single room. At one end was an altar, a long, flat stone resting on two blocks, adorned with a clay statue of a fat-bellied woman. Lamps burned on either side of the idol. Other than that, there was no furniture, just a few ragged rugs spread across the stone floor. The crone, withered and bent-backed, stood protectively in front of the altar, while off to one side a much younger woman in a plain brown robe knelt as though in prayer.
Janus crossed the room, his step still jaunty, but there was a certain amount of muttering from the rankers. Marcus caught a couple of superstitious double-circle gestures, traditional for warding off evil. There were no windows, and the doorway was shadowed by one of the larger buildings, so the inside of the little shrine flickered yellow in the glow of the two lamps.
“Good day,” Janus said to the crone. “I am Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran.”
“There is nothing for you here,” the old woman repeated. “You can see that now. Go away.”
“I would like you to show me the entrance,” the colonel said, still smiling.
The old woman glared at him, but said nothing.
“This does not need to be difficult,” he said. “I know the yod-naath is here. Show me the way in.”
“There is no such thing,” the woman said stoutly.
“As you like.�
� Janus turned back to his men. “Restrain the women and move the altar.”
Marcus snapped a salute and told a pair of soldiers to take hold of the two women, pulling them to the far end of the shrine. Four more men took hold of the altar stone and lifted it with a chorus of grunts. The lamplight flickered as they maneuvered it carefully out of the way and set it down against the wall. At the last moment, one of the men lost his grip, and one corner of the heavy weight crashed against the floor loudly. The fat-woman statue toppled and shattered into ceramic shards, a cloud of fine dust rising from her innards and filling the room with a sweet, pungent smell.
Two more men shifted the blocks that had held the altar up. The young woman had her eyes closed, her mouth moving silently, but the crone watched Janus’ every move like a snake. The colonel smiled at her and walked to where the altar had been. He brought one foot down sharply, and the stone underneath gave a hollow boom. The soldiers grinned.
“As I suspected,” Janus said, stepping aside. “If you would, Sergeant?”
Marcus beckoned Argot forward. The stone was flush with those around it, offering no obvious handholds, so the sergeant shrugged and reversed his musket. Two sharp blows were enough to crack the thin slate, sending fragments of it tumbling into the hollow space underneath.
The young woman let out a long moan, jerking against the guards who held her arms. The old priestess merely redoubled her glare. Janus ignored both, stepping to the edge of the newly revealed hole and peering into the darkness.
“There appears to be only a short drop,” he said. “I will proceed alone for the moment. Wait here.”
“Sir,” Marcus said, “we have no idea what’s down there, or how far it may extend. Please wait until we can be sure it’s safe.”
The Thousand Names Page 36
