“No armor. It would make noise. —Yes, wear your sword-belts. Hurry!”
He led them out of the rotunda and into the shadowy corridor, looked left and right, then touched a boss amid the welter of carvings upon the wall. A black rectangle yawned before him.
“The Ochuna,” he intoned. “ ‘The Serpent That Winds Within.’ ”
He would have slipped into the dark aperture, but Trinesh seized his stiff collar and snarled, “The rest of my people come too! We will not be separated!”
“Impossible. They stay here. The Ochuna is not for a rabble of blundering foreigners! Bring only the woman who speaks Yan Koryani. The others will be safe. 1 swear it by the Goddess Shiringgayi’s thirty-six motherly teats!”
Trinesh considered. The Lady Deq Dimani’s doings interested him as much as they did Lord Tekkuren. No, more! Promotion, reward, even a “Gold of Glory” from the Petal Throne, all depended upon his returning to General Kutume with the Lady Deq Dimani meekly in tow. If she eluded him now, all those hopes would vanish.
“Very well. But your life is surety for my people—and we take both Saina and Chosun here. Arjasu and Mejjai—my two crossbowmen—will guard the Nininyal; I doubt whether the Yan Koryani would depart without him.”
Trinesh awakened the others and gave orders. Then he, Saina, and Chosun stepped over the high sill into the black opening. The panel grated shut behind them. The darkness inside was a palpable weight upon his eyes, and the place had a fusty, bittersweet smell, like a root-cellar in which dried Dlel-fruit are stored.
Trinesh felt the Salarvyani’s sweat-damp fingers on his wrist, and Saina’s small, callused hand upon his other arm. lie wondered momentarily if Chosun had enjoyed her company as much as he had. More, he wondered which of them she preferred. (“Ignoble!” his little inner voice carped at him. “Great matters are afoot, and all you think of is your groin? Fa!”)
Chunatl Dikkuna lit no lamp but followed tiny discs of phosphorescent stone set into the walls at intervals along the way. The reason became clear when Trinesh’s outstretched fingers scraped against some crackling, brittle substance covering the wall beside him. It felt like a carpet of dried grass. He jerked back with a muffled curse.
"Short Tinur” Chunatl whispered. “A black fungus that grows upon every wall and surface in the Ochuna. Even if we had a lantern we would see only blackness—no comers, no stones—just black upon black, like a sepulchre draped in velvet.” Chosun grunted, and the priest added cheerily, “It’s harmless—no fear—though it is full of little beetles that bite. ...”
The Salarvyani seemed to know the way: like a blind beggar who returns to the same comer each day, Trinesh thought. The dots of pale green radiance led them onward, down a narrow stair with risers so high that Chosun almost fell, through corridors where their shoulders brushed against the fungus on both sides, and into chambers in which only the trail of glowing discs kept them from tumbling into unseen pits and pools.
“Five hundred and forty-five, forty-six,” Chunatl counted. “Ohe, up this little stair, and we are there.”
Up and up, around and around. They came to a peephole, as bright as a beacon after the suffocating, ebon depths. Someone waited there, a figure muffled in a cloak, proof against both the chill and the biting beetles. Trinesh realized that he was cold: they had come a long way underground. He pressed against Saina for warmth and found her pressing back, too eagerly perhaps to attribute entirely to their surroundings.
The man was one of Lord Tekkuren’s watchers. Chunatl spoke to him in Tka Mihalli, and he made room at the peephole.
At first Trinesh could make out nothing. It was like looking through a hollow reed at an artist’s palette or into a woman’s jewel-casket. Colors swirled below there, gay-hued fabrics, the glitter of silver and gold, eye-wrenching patterns of parquet, mosaic, and glazed tile.
He stood back to let his eyes adjust.
“You see her? The Lady. Over there, on the yellow Klai Ga.” The Salarvyani’s breath upon his cheek smelled like perfume sprinkled over spoiled meat.
They gazed down into a broad hall from a vantage point perhaps three man-heights up in one of the side walls. To the right were columns in the upside-down-step style; beyond these was the night sky. The left-hand wall writhed with the ubiquitous geometric patterns, and along its base were the highest platforms and walkways of the Klai Ga. Directly across from them three tall, trapezoidal doors were flanked by soldiers in the white, blue, and gold of the Priestkings’ livery. The room was three-sided, then, with the fourth open for air and light: the sort of rooftop portico the Engsvanyali architects had favored as audience chambers long ago.
The blue dais against the rear wall was occupied by a man who must be the Gaichun himself. A beehive helmet and upcurving shoulder-pieces of filigreed gold hid the Governor’s face, but his hands and his posture told Trinesh that he was very old. Two elderly women in gowns of gauzy, silvery puffs and flounces reclined on couches directly below him upon the white Klai Ga. The lower daises and walkways swirled with soldiers, courtiers, functionaries—a hodge-podge of colors and archaic costumes. There must be a good two hundred of Mihallu’s noble-folk down there.
Trinesh, however, had eyes only for the Lady Deq Dimani. She stood at the very edge of the yellow walkway, and she embraced a short, slender youth in iridescent green upon the white. The newcomer’s shoulders shook as though he wept. He was so small: at this distance he looked to be no more than a child!
“You see?” Chunatl scolded. “You see?”
“Who is he?”
“You don’t know?”
Trinesh was piqued. “How should I? For all 1 can tell he might be a god—or mighty Hmgga himself disguised as a dwarf! Or the Gaichun's son!”
“Cha! ‘Sarcasm ill becomes a noble soul,’ as the proverb has it. There is the Governor’s heir over yonder—by his mother, the taller of the old women on the white. No, it is not Prince Tenggutla Dayyar. Few would willingly embrace him.” The Prince at whom this remark was aimed glanced to his right, toward them. Trinesh saw a face of pale ivory, black half-moon brows, a receding, dimpled chin as blue with close-shaven stubble as Chunatl’s, and long, delicate fingers that twined restlessly upon his lap. He wore a tight-fitting tunic of yellow brocade, an ankle-length skirt-like robe of many little panels, and a collar of glinting green beryls. Unlike most of the others, his head was bare, his oiled, ebon curls held in place with huge golden pins sculpted in fantastic shapes: More jewels winked in his earlobes, at his throat, and in the septum of his short, hooked nose. Even the space between his lower lip and his chin had been pierced for a labret of blue sapphire. The Prince’s costume dated a good two thousand years later than those of his mother and the other woman beside her. These present-day Mihalli seemed to care nothing for historical accuracy; as long as something was demonstrably Engsvanyali, they copied it indiscriminately. Prince Tenggutla Dayyar smiled toward someone directly below Trinesh’s vantage point. He peered but could see only the top of a woman’s head, a lady upon the green Klai Ga.
It was enough; he would know the Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan anywhere.
Chunatl jostled Trinesh aside to make way for Saina. “Listen, woman,” he said, “and tell me what they say. Find out who the boy is.”
She squinted, put first her left ear and then her right into the little aperture, and strained to hear.
She shook her head. “It’s Yan Koryani. But it’s too low, too far, too much noise.”
Trinesh thought the Salarvyani would shake her, a dangerous thing to do to Saina. “Who, by Shiringgayi’s glorious loins? Who?”
“How do I know?” she flared back. “Wait.” She listened again. “No—yes—a name? ‘Aluja?’ Who is Aluja? The boy? It’s not a Yan Koryani name. Somebody—Aluja? —is in a prison.”
The Gaichun chose that moment to sign to those upon the black Klai Ga. Horns blared and gongs sounded. An orchestra of flutes, drums, and bells struck up a clashing, barbaric melody that was anything but Eng
svanyali. The Priestkings would have thrust their divine fingers into their godlike ears!
Chunatl groaned. “Now they will go to the feasting chamber. Afterwards they will return to enjoy dancers, jugglers, and recitations of the epics—performances as bad as any you will find on Tekumel. We shall not have another opportunity. Oh, may Shiringgayi’s black hole swallow them all!” He turned to the High General’s watcher, but the man only shrugged. “There is nothing to do but go back. You will have to question her and ferret out the identity of this princeling yourself. Lord Tekkuren will be magnanimous. If you fail, he will be otnerwise.”
Trinesh watched the Lady Jai cross the long hall, gracefully avoiding the throngs of chattering courtiers in her path. She stopped before the white Klai Ga and made obeisance to the young man in green. Whoever he was, his importance to the Yan Koryani was apparent. The two women stood to speak with him as though they were alone in the hall.
A flash of glitter caught his eye. Prince Tenggutla Dayyar had risen also. He murmured to someone near him, a hulking man who wore an eyeless mask and a costume of swinging chains: another translator. The two of them approached the Yan Koryani. The Prince said something, the interpreter spoke, and the Lady Deq Dimani smiled. Then a black-kilted major-domo bustled up to lead them off through the central door in the far wall where they were lost to view.
Only Trinesh noted the long, thoughtful look the Prince cast after the Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan.
15
The others were waiting in the rotunda. A conference was in order. Trinesh drew everybody together and indicated the listening posts up under the ceiling. In a whisper he and Saina related what they had seen.
Their comrades listened, argued, and conjectured, but no one could suggest an identity for the Yan Koryani boy. He seemed too young to be a soldier, an emissary, or a merchant* traveler. He was certainly of high clan; his status upon the white Klai Ga was proof of that. The Lady Deq Dimani appeared to know him, which was another point in favor of his importance. Anything further was guesswork.
The name “Aluja” was equally enigmatic. Saina swore that it was not of northern origin, but Chekkuru surmised that it might be from Jannu or one of the other little states roundabout. Could this Aluja be an ambassador and the boy his son? Perhaps someone—the Gaichun, the priesthoods, or some third faction—had popped Aluja into prison but left the boy free?
“Likely he stepped on the wrong color,” Horusel threw in sourly. “Yet what’s the purpose of a mission to this Flame-scorched hole anyway? The Baron Aid will get no troops from Mihallu. Ahoggya mercenaries might be possible, now. When we were in camp at the Pass of Skulls we heard the Salarvyani were sending some of those dirty beasts up through Kilalammu and Jannu to join the Yan Koryani. ...”
“Unlikely,” Chunatl retorted. “No Ahoggya has ever set foot in Ninue. It is much too far to the east.”
“The Ahoggya fight for pay,” Tse’e said. “If these people are mad enough to send taxes and tribute to Ganga ten thousand years after its demise, perhaps the Baron has found a way to wangle a tithe for himself as well?”
“Gold. That’s likely it, Hereksa." Horusel’s armor creaked in time with his pacing.
“Gold?” Chunatl pursed his lips. “Perhaps. But not to pay Ahoggya. I myself am a Salarvyani. A Yan Koryani mission that involves Salarvya would be known to me, and then I would not need you to identify the princeling. Others of my people here would have informed me.”
Horusel grimaced. “Mayhap they trust you as much as I do.”
The priest bridled and would have answered hotly, but Trinesh intervened. “Leave be. Ahoggya mercenaries are only one idea. Without facts we are no more than philosophers gnawing at paradoxes.”
Chunatl made a clicking sound with his tongue. There was riothing more to be done. If the High General was displeased, so be it. Surely Lord Tekkuren had better-placed agents within the Gaichun's household itself?
The Lady Deq Dimani reappeared about noon, dark smudges of fatigue beneath her heavy-lashed eyes. She went straight into her sleeping apartment followed by the Lady Jai, who bore a cloth-wrapped bundle that clanked when she set it down. Gifts, probably, Saina muttered to Trinesh: jewelry and baubles from the Gaichun or from the unknown Yan
Koryani prince. The girl shut the door, leaving them staring after her.
The morning passed. Trinesh gave orders, and Horusel and Arjasu padded off to reconnoitre the palace. They returned within a Kiren to sketch a plan in a puddle of wine upon the marble floor. The red Klai Ga rambled through halls and corridors, they said, up a grand staircase to a flat roof covered with trellised vines and potted plants, and into rooms crammed with ornate furniture and oddments: walls of statuary, shelves of colored glass vases and decanters that shone like jewels in the sunlight, and a whole chamber filled from ceiling to floor with scrolls and books. A few of the black-kilted slaves hovered about, but no one had hindered them.
Thu’n emerged for the afternoon meal. Tse’e, who had taken a liking to the creature, would have begun a conversation, but the Nininyal was not disposed to talk. The others bathed, ate, rested, and dawdled the afternoon away beneath the awnings of the roof garden.
Boredom, Trinesh thought, would become a problem. They were well fed and comfortable, but otherwise things were much the same as they had been in the Many-Chambered Sanctuary. Already Chosun paid court to one of the serving wenches; Arjasu stroked his crossbow and sharpened the heads of his quarrels; and Chekkuru, Dineva, and Horusel mumbled and plotted together. Saina said nothing, but Trinesh felt her eyes ever upon his back. Tse’e obtained a scroll from the library-room and sat crosslegged to read it. The old man had changed back into his Milumanayani desert-cloak; it was more comfortable than the stiff and complicated costume the High General had provided. Mejjai, who rarely spoke, drank everything the slaves offered, methodically and earnestly, as though he planned to stay drunk for the rest of his life.
How many days until this Captain Harchar arrived to seize the Gaichun's throne?
Trinesh wondered if they could survive until then.
At sunset two officers in resplendent blue, white, and gold livery appeared to summon the Lady Deq Dintani to the Governor’s palace once more.
Trinesh found her buckling on the gold-inlaid dress armor the High General had bestowed upon her; she preferred this to the uncomfortable Engsvanyali frills and veils and starched collars now—or rather, still—in fashion among the womenfolk of the Gaichun's court.
He confronted her. “You are still my prisoners. Captives of war. Whatever these locals say.”
“Would you use that little sword, Tsolyani?” She flicked a contemptuous finger not at Tse’e’s blade hanging from his belt but at his lower abdomen. She seemed almost happy, more amused than annoyed. “Will you bind us with bedclothes? Gag us with napkins? These messengers bring a writ commanding our attendance at a fete of essences tonight. Their authority supersedes yours, I think.”
“Tell them that you cannot come.” Trinesh was adamant. “You are indisposed.”
“Nonsense.” She made as though to pass him by, and he seized her shoulder. A single rippling motion and she was free, off behind the two astounded functionaries. “Hands that touch me belong to dead men, Hereksa. Would you fight me? My sword skills are likely better than yours—-or do you prefer to wake with one of these copper hairpins driven through your eye and into your brain?”
“You are still our captives, Lady. We outnumber you, and we are the better armed.”
She made a face. “Your pompous little High General may not permit fighting between his guests. And the Gaichun would be wroth indeed.”
“Wroth? Who? Why?” It was Chunatl Dikkuna, silent upon slippered feet behind her. The two messengers turned, bowed, and held out a document inscribed upon sapphire-dyed parchment. They gabbled in Tka Mihalli.
The Salarvyani fingered the plaques of his pectoral and dithered. Then he brightened. “It says here, Madam, that you, the Lady Deq Dimani, Matr
iarch of Vridu, are commanded to the Gaichurt's feast. I see no invitation for your maid, nor for this—this being here.” He wrinkled his nose at Thu’n. The Salarvyani pointed with their noses.
“They are included, of course. My entourage.”
“Not so. That is not the way of it.”
Trinesh suspected otherwise, but the stratagem might serve. Let her go by herself. Intuitively he sensed that she would abandon Thu’n but not the Lady Jai.
For the first time the Lady Deq Dimani displayed anger. Her nostrils flared, and spotsjof color appeared on her cheeks. “Ask these gentlemen,” she said evenly, “who is invited— and who stays.”
Chunatl beamed. He knew the language; she did not. A few chirruping words, a query or two, and the Gaichun's escort snatched back the document to peruse it for themselves. Chunatl twittered at them. The senior of the two men scowled and gestured to the Lady Deq Dimani.
“He says that you are named here. No others. You may depart, but the girl and the nonhuman stay.”
“Only until 1 reach the Gaichun and obtain writs to summon my comrades.” She gave Chunatl a furious look. “And, Salarvyani, I can match whatever these Tsolyani carrion have offered you. More. If you fear that the High General will be displeased—that I plot with the Gaichun against him and this rogue. Captain Harchar—disabuse him. 1 care nothing for your plots and politics.”
Trinesh opened his mouth to ask her who the boy in the Gaichun's palace was. He thought better of it. Chunatl Dikkuna was already wavering; sweat trickled from under his turbanlike headdress to stain his scarlet collar. More discussion, and he might surrender. The Lady Deq Dimani could be very forceful.
“Agreed,” Trinesh made a show of reluctance. “But she goes alone.”
The Lady Deq Dimani said something guttural in Yan
Koryani, and Jai Chasa Vedlan retreated into their sleeping chamber. Could she lock herself in? Trinesh had noted no bar or chain upon his own door. He nodded to Mejjai, who went to stand guard. Arjasu and Dineva advanced upon Thu’n, but the Nininyal only raised his furry paws in exasperation and marched back into his room. The next move belonged to the Yan Koryani woman.
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