He left, and Malal signaled for the remaining guards to leave as well. They did, their body language both hesitant and relieved.
Malal turned to his friends. He looked like he was going to speak, but Arrow broke in. "We should interview the scribes. They were there at the last moment. Maybe they have a clue about what happened."
Wind Signed something. He nodded as she Signed translations for her brother. "I agree, love," he said. Then, to Arrow, he continued, "The scribes know nothing but what is on their papers."
Arrow frowned. "Surely they will have seen –"
"Nothing. They will have seen nothing. They write as fast as they can to keep up with the constant stream of information that comes through the Ears." Malal shook his head. "No, if there's anything, it's in the pages that came through directly before… whatever it was that happened."
Arrow crossed his arms. He had been born a noble, and was still accustomed to being the one giving the orders, not taking them. But he saw the wisdom of what Malal said, and nodded.
Brother Scieran was looking at Malal with surprise. "How do you know this?"
Malal grinned, and as he did Sword saw a touch of the old Smoke coming through. "Because in between thinking of ways to torture you, old friend, I actually was learning to run an empire."
Malal led the group out of the room. He whispered to one of the guards who waited outside, then led them into a nearby chamber. It was a bedroom, but another few whispers to the guards who followed them and the bed was moved to the side and several tables and chairs were brought in just in time to bear the hundreds of sheets of handwritten papers – the scribes' transcriptions of the Ears' reports.
Malal nodded, and the guards once again left. Sword appreciated what he was doing: whatever was happening was something dire, and the group would have to speak frankly. This was no time to worry about what a guard would or would not hear.
At the same time, the sight of all the pages made her spirits sink. She shook her head. "How are we going to get through a whole day of these reports?"
Malal guffawed. "A whole day? This is just the last twenty minutes." He eyed Arrow. "Told you the scribes would be too busy to notice anything."
Arrow grumbled something under his breath. Sword couldn't resist. "Careful. Say something too awful and the Emperor might put you in stocks."
"I could do it, too," chuckled Malal.
In answer, Arrow simply lay a hand on one of his pistols. And in answer to that, Wind and Cloud made small motions with their hands and the air pressure dropped even as static built and all Arrow's hair suddenly stood on end.
Arrow took his hand away from his gun. But he was grinning, as were the other two, as was the Emperor. Old friends baiting one another, old friends making fun in a bad situation. This was what families did in times of stress: they fought until they argued, they argued until they joked, they joked until the laughed, then they laughed until they argued again – and the whole bound in a circle of love.
They sat, and began looking.
"This will mostly be reports about exchange rates and prices of various goods," said Malal. "The rest will be troop movements, requests for transfers, a few high-level orders marked 'Imperial.' Those will have come only to a few Ears who have special permissions to Hear such things, along with their designated scribes. Set aside any of those for comparison, along with anything that doesn't fit in the categories I just stated. And anything that just hits you wrong."
"One thing," said Sword. Everyone looked at her. "Whatever happened here happened elsewhere. The first two places Janos checked, in fact. So we can assume it's an attack." They looked at her somberly. Wind nodded. "That means we can expect the next move to come soon. We don't have a lot of time. But we should bolster the palace defenses until then."
Malal was silent a moment. Then he looked at Wind. He moved his lips without sound – he didn't need to speak aloud, since she could read lips. After a moment, she Signed to Cloud and they both stood and left, moving with purpose.
"She'll make sure we're safe here," said Malal.
Father Akiro said something, very quietly. But Sword heard it. And though it chilled her, she agreed.
"I very much doubt that."
7
"I must say, I'm a bit disappointed in you."
For a moment, Sword thought she was still in the room. The room. As long as she had been in the kennels, as long as every fight seemed to be, as long as life could be, the room – the room – had seemed that long, with a long infinity tacked on to boot.
The scribe sheets were all the same size, all the same shade of yellow. Every scribe had the same, perfectly looping cursive. Every sheet seemed to have the same, banal information. Wheat at one silver a bushel. Water trading down in the north. More Pushes and Threads needed at the air-car factories in Knowledge. Troop movements static in Fear after minor reshifting following reshifting necessary after reshifting following preceding reshifting necessitated and on and on and oh Gods she was going mad in increments that could be measured by yellow sheets.
She looked around the table, far after night had fallen, and saw looks on the others' faces that mirrored her own: exhaustion, not just from the day's events but from the sheer strength of will required to read thousands of pages that all added up to The Empire proceeds apace, please continue forward.
Father Akiro surprised her by being the first to call it quits. He stood, taking almost a full minute to go from chair to upright, groaning several times in the process. He unhooked his canes from where they hung on the back of the chair, then said simply, "This old man must rest," and left the room.
Not five minutes later, Brother Scieran muttered, "I thought he'd never give up," and he left as well, his wobbly stride nearly the mirror of his old teacher's.
Arrow, Sword, and Malal were all that remained. They looked at one another. "Anything?" Sword finally said.
Malal shook his head. "Not a thing that I can find that has anything to do with what happened. Though I feel sure I can bore the Ministers to death at the next Ministry meeting." He sighed, then pushed away from the table, though he didn't stand. He eyed the bed that still rested in the corner. "I think I might just sleep here tonight."
"No, you won't," said Arrow.
Malal sighed again. "No, I won't. It wouldn't do for the blasted Emperor." He eyed the door. The guards had been sent out of the room some time ago, but it was second nature to check to see if they were alone – though usually before he said something like that. He blushed, clearly embarrassed at the mistake.
"You're tired," said Sword, hoping he would grant himself some measure of forgiveness in the fact.
"Yes. And so it is off to bed." He stood, and straightened his back, forcing the exhaustion from his frame.
Of us all, he alone can never appear tired.
For an uncounted and uncountable time, she marveled at the sacrifice Smoke had made in becoming the Emperor – in becoming Malal.
Malal moved to the door. Turned at the last moment to them both. "Go to sleep, both of you." He smiled wanly. "That's an order." Then he left, accompanied by the Imperial Guard.
Sword moved her chair closer to Arrow's. She leaned against him for a moment, and he leaned against her. They bore one another's weight. Foolish, because in leaning on one another it wasn't as though the weight disappeared – it just shifted a bit. Still, in sharing the burden it felt lessened somehow.
After a time, he kissed her, then stood. "We should sleep."
She nodded. Kissed him again, wishing she had enough energy for a bit more passion, but she was so bone-weary that a mere brush of the lips was all she could manage – and it was all he managed to return.
She didn't even take off her clothes when she got to her bed. Just fell fully-clothed atop the covers. And then… the words.
"I must say, I'm a bit disappointed in you."
She swam through memory, through blurry moments reading yellow pages, into a dark room atop silken sheets, finally si
tting up when she realized where she was, that the voice was real, that someone was here.
And whose voice it was.
The voice of a dead man.
The man who had found her in the kennels, who had taken her away and changed her from a Dog into one of the most dangerous people in the Empire was perched atop a chest of drawers that sat against a nearby wall. His legs dangled casually, and he picked at his nails with a short knife, as though he had a right to be here. As though he belonged.
As though she had not already killed him.
"Devar?"
8
Bright light flared. A whip appeared in Sword's hand, a braided length of orange flame that ended in a blue flail that was nearly too bright to see. It snapped forward, moving so fast that it was nearly too fast to see, that it was too fast to dodge.
Devar didn't dodge.
He just wasn't.
One moment he was sitting on the chest, that devilish grin on his face that she had once found beguiling, the next he was on the other end of the room even as the whip seared through empty air and cracked into nothing.
She reversed the attack, slashing the whip back toward him. Again he disappeared, and reappeared once more on the chest.
This was his Greater Gift. He could transport himself and other things from one place to another – though she didn't know what his range was. She had seen him move through battles with ease, appearing with blades already buried in people's bodies. Though she knew he wasn't going to try that with her. Touching her with a weapon would grant her the power to wield it to deadly effect – even if it was being used to wound her. He had found that out the hard way.
Devar disappeared for a moment. Completely gone from the room this time, and Sword spun in a quick circle before he reappeared, this time with a bunch of grapes in his hand. He popped one in his mouth as he settled back onto the chest.
"I could have killed you in your sleep, you know," he said. Then he shimmered, and in his place was the Chancellor.
Not the Chancellor. They're all the same man. All the Phoenix.
"Or I could have dropped the ceiling on you," said the big man. Then he was gone, and in his place a small boy, an old crone, a muscular woman, a dark old man, then back to the form of Devar. He smiled. "I have lots of ways to kill you." He ate another grape. "But that's not why I'm here."
The whip disappeared from Sword's grip, snaking back toward her hand, shortening and hardening into a long dagger. It spat embers into the air around her hand like a flame made of green wood.
"I killed you," she said, and tried to make the words sound angry instead of amazed. But she was amazed, and knew he would see that. And more, knew that he would see her fear.
"Yes, I suppose you did." Another grape went in. Some juice spurted down his chin. He didn't wipe it away. For some reason that, more than anything else, drove home the reality of the moment. This was real. It was happening.
Devar – Phoenix – was alive.
"But you fell. You fell below the clouds. You were run through on the spikes outside the palace."
"Yes," he said, nodding. "Just as is everyone who tries to descend below those cursed mists." He spread his arms wide. "Just as are all who attempt to depart our blessed, beloved Empire of Ansborn." He disappeared, then reappeared without the grapes. He finally wiped the juice off his chin as well, a gesture both genteel and strange. "Do you never wonder at these things, Sword? At who does this? Who murders us? Who kills the brave among us, the ones who try to leave?"
He leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. "Do you never wonder if perhaps I am not your enemy?"
She lunged at him, her knife slashing at his neck.
But he was gone again.
She waited. This time he did not return. Not in the minutes that followed, not when the sun finally broke past the line of the horizon and spilled itself across the palace grounds.
She had paced the length and breadth of the room all night, sure Phoenix would return. Now she finally let herself sink to the bed. She lay on her pillow, exhausted from the events of the night, the horrors of the day before.
But the pillow was hard. Not the feathery softness she had grown used to in the past months. It was a blocky, angular thing. She pulled the case open, and instead of the pillow, inside was a book. On the cover: a weathered, faded outline of a tree.
She opened the book, and inside the cover was a note, in neat, scrolling letters.
I really do think you should spend more time on this. And ask yourself why it, among so many books in the Imperial Library, was hidden.
- P
She held the paper a long time.
Then opened the book to the first page.
And knew that, tired as she was, sleep would come no more.
9
Moa hadn't asked for guard duty on the wall.
Moa also hadn't asked to be the best fighter at the Strongholds. With a temper that occasionally forgot the difference between low rank and high.
Nor had she asked to be a girl.
Usually that last didn't bother her. But occasionally it did get her into trouble – mostly on days when a certain captain mouthed off at her and she was inclined to bump into him when he stood conveniently near a puddle of mud. She only did it when he was alone, and he would stand up and sputter and there would be that look in his eyes – him deciding whether it was worth it to make her life miserable right there on the spot… and then seeing the murderous look on her face, and how she fingered the knife on her belt.
He always decided against immediate action.
Sure, he always made life worse for her eventually, and she supposed that was her own fault in a way. But she just couldn't stop. The look on his face when he came up all muddy, his always-perfect uniform spattered and in some cases nearly wrecked.
Perfect.
This last time, though. Even she had to admit she might have gone too far.
His own fault. He shouldn't have made fun of my size.
Moa was not a petite girl, in much the same way the Imperial Palace was not a shack. She loomed over most of the men at the Strongholds – which was saying something, considering this was where the Imperial Army trained, where the men and women tasked with keeping peace in the Empire came to learn the tools and skills of killing.
Moa looked down on almost all of them. Literally and figuratively. She had little use for men, and less use for the kind who seemed to be attracted to military life: men bloated with their own egos, their own sense of invulnerability. And yet most of them had never known true danger. Had never known death. Had never known Fear.
Moa had grown up in that place. A small town that roved as the magma flowed. That died when they were not vigilant – either killed by the roving bands who stole and killed to live themselves, or by the mountain itself. Eventually Moa was the only one left. She saw her brothers murdered, saw worse happen to her mother before she, too, died.
She was able to steal away on an air-cair leaving Fear. Discovered almost instantly, of course – there weren't many places to hide on those things. But to her surprise the woman in charge didn't turn her in. Instead, she took one look at Moa's physique – huge, but muscular instead of fat; moving like a creature built to prey on the weak – and offered her a choice: enter the Emperor's service, or be thrown into the clouds between the mountains.
Not a hard choice.
Though at times like this, Moa wondered if she should have taken her chances in the clouds. She knew the stories, of course: that whatever went below the clouds, living or dead, appeared the next day, pinned to one of the spikes around the palace.
But that meant someone had to do the pinning. And Moa had yet to meet someone capable of doing such a thing to her.
She flexed her big arms, and grinned. Decided in that moment she had been right, after all. She hadn't meant for the Captain to actually fall into the latrine ditch, only scare him a bit. But the sight of him, his arms spinning in great circles, that last terribl
e moment as he realized he was going in no matter what he did, and then the long fall into the collected offal of the Stronghold.
Beautiful.
Worth it. Worth a thousand nights on the wall.
"Having a good night, Moa?"
"Always, Jon."
The other guard snorted. He was smaller than Moa, but not by much. Like her, he was dressed in thick furs to ward off the cold. It didn't seem to be helping much. He shivered constantly.
The cold never bothered Moa much. Surprising, considering where she came from. Perhaps it was because of where she came from. If she never saw a place that hot again, it would be fine.
"You shouldn't have pushed him in the dumper," said Jon. But he grinned through his tremors.
She smiled back. Jon was a man, but he was an all right type in spite of that. He'd never hit on her or implied he was better than her, which put him in the very small minority.
"Hey! Shut up!"
The guard to her right was not in the minority. Agu was from Center, the son of a minor noble – a fact he never let anyone forget – and someone who believed his soils didn't stink.
Or maybe he doesn't even make soils. Maybe he's completely without the necessary exits.
The idea made her giggle.
Agu frowned. "I said, shut up," he hissed. He was stationed next to the gate – the break in the low wall that ringed the Strongholds, so for this night he had seniority. Another fact he was determined not to let anyone forget.
Moa frowned right back at him. "Or what?" she asked. She dropped her hand to her knife. Most people were smart enough to back down at that point.
Not Agu. He took a step toward her. "Or I'll report you."
That was enough to make her laugh again. "To who? You think the Captain could hate me any more than he already does right now?"
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