Wheel of the Infinite

by Martha Wells

  Vigar smiled sourly. "I take it you concur with our deductions."

  She sighed. "I agree it's not just a random disruption with dark-colored sand. It's woven in the Infinite, just like the rest of the Rite." The new part was still forming symbols, as if continuing to delineate the landscape as the rest of the Rite was. But without knowing what the symbols meant, there was no way they could tell what landscape it was. It might be another way of representing the section of the basin below the First Mountain and the edge of the Western Sea, which was what should be occupying that area, or it could be something totally unknown. "I don't see anything you haven't already seen." She gestured helplessly. "Whatever it is that makes it rebuild itself after you remove it..." She had thought about this all night, and the only reasonable possibility that occurred to her wasn't all that reasonable. Still, it was better than no theory at all. "There could be a second Wheel of the Infinite." Because of what the Wheel was, in this world and in the Infinite, the two Wheels would in effect be the same one. Changes made to one would affect the other. "When whoever built it makes their adjustments to the design, we see them reflected here. When you restore the original symbols, their Wheel changes to match."

  They all stared at her. She could sense the disbelief settling over the room like a chill fog. Arela, the only other female Voice who was present, said carefully, "Who could do such a thing?"

  "Don't ask 'who,'" Maskelle said, meeting her eyes deliberately. "Ask 'how.' Once we know that, then we'll know who."

  Arela's eyes went hooded as she turned over that thought. She and the other Voices were considering the idea, that Maskelle could tell, but Vigar was the only one who was staring at the Wheel instead of at Maskelle. She waited, saying nothing, seeing the calculation in his eyes. After a time he said slowly, "It would have to be situated on a power center, somewhere in Kushor-At." He lifted an ironic brow. "Perhaps the Baran Dir?"

  She smiled back. She had to admit, it didn't seem likely. The power centers were all carefully mapped, all supporting temples or other places of importance in the Infinite. All it would take was an unoccupied room of good size, protected from stray breezes, but there would be too many opportunities for discovery in the temples. "Perhaps not. But this entire situation is unlikely." Vigar's brows drew together as he considered. He shook his head slightly. "It seems difficult to believe, but..." He turned to the other Voices. "We will order a search of the major temples."

  There were no sighs or mutterings of disagreement, but Maskelle could tell the others were not convinced. Vigar ignored the potential conflict and looked to Maskelle again. "Now that we've addressed the question of 'how,' perhaps we could examine 'why.' What is our opponent attempting to do with his Wheel? What is the purpose of these disruptions?"

  For the first time, he had admitted the existence of an opponent and was not trying to pretend that this was some sort of natural occurrence. Maskelle met Vigar's eyes, willing him to understand. "You may have to let one of them grow a little, so that we can see what it's trying to make."

  Vigar didn't reply, but his mouth twisted ruefully as he looked at the Rite. Arela said, "We had thought perhaps you would recognize the symbols, if this was the creation of a dark power."

  So that was it. "One of my dark powers, you mean?" Maskelle said, lifting a brow. Now we get to the heart of the matter. This was undoubtedly why the other Voices had agreed to her presence here. "Unfortunately not." The strange symbols had been laboriously extracted from the Rite over the past three days. According to Vigar, there was a group of monks and nuns set to making copies of them onto wooden tablets, which were then taken to the various temple libraries, where other groups searched for clues among the accumulated wisdom of the Koshans and the Celestial Empire.

  Vigar looked even more depressed. "Then we will trace it again, from the Angle of Ascension of the Southern Range, and see if that illuminates the situation any."

  Well, that's something anyway, Maskelle thought. Vigar agreed with her and was now willing to admit it, if not in so many words. The others didn't sigh or groan, but from the general air that hung over the chamber, they might as well have.

  Chapter Eight

  By afternoon, Rian had gleaned a good deal of information about temple life from talking to the nun Tiar, the servants who came and went in the court, and a group of young priests who had come out to discuss some obscure point of Koshan philosophy and instead had taken the opportunity to find out if Rian knew anything about the progress of the Rite. From them Rian had also found out a great deal about Veran and his relations with the Lady Marada, and it all made him that much more impatient to discover how the Voice Igarin had been killed.

  One of his new acquaintances, a non-Koshan who was paid to manage the Marai's stores of food and lamp oil, had told him that the seventh-level priest who acted as Temple Master and supervised its day-to-day running would have had charge of Igarin's body.

  By wandering around the lower levels and asking people, Rian tracked the Temple Master to a room in the outer libraries that faced away from the causeway. He was not a young man, but he wasn't old either, and had a bullnecked build more like a laborer or a wrestler than a scholar priest. His face was round and bland, his expression deceptively mild. He was seated on a mat near a window, with several lacquer tablets around him and his fingers stained from charcoal writing sticks. He looked up inquiringly when Rian stopped in the doorway and said, "Yes?"

  Rian realized he still didn't know the complex system of bows for the different ranks, or even what respect was accorded a man who was a seventh-level priest and also had charge of the whole Marai, so he just launched into what he had come for. "I wanted to ask about the Voice who died. They said he hasn't been buried?" He suppressed a wince at the baldness of the question. At least if I offend him too much I can always play dumb foreigner.

  Being a Koshan, the priest didn't react to this admittedly bizarre query other than to say, "It's our custom to sit vigil for seven days when Koshans of an advanced level die. This is to make sure they haven't joined the Infinite temporarily and mean to return." He looked regretful. "The body has begun to decay, so it doesn't appear Igarin will be coming back to us."

  "Oh," Rian said, somewhat caught off guard. And I thought she was making that up. So maybe the Celestial One really had died and come back to life. But the Temple Master hadn't called for guards or thrown him out yet, so he forged on. "Could I see the body?"

  The Temple Master eyed him thoughtfully. "Why?"

  Good question, Rian thought. "Maskelle told me to," he said, thinking it was worth a try.

  The man's expression immediately changed. Rian realized he might just be able to get further with the implication that if he failed to follow Maskelle's orders something terrible would happen to him than anything else. The Master set the tablets aside and gathered his robe to stand. "Very well."

  It turned out that the dead man was kept not in the Marai itself but in the living quarters attached to it, which were in the second gallery on the west side. The rain had started again, harder this time, but the quarters could be reached by walking through the outer galleries that formed the great outside square around the main temple and separated the outer court from the inner.

  The living quarters were two levels of stone cells opening onto the long porticos facing the temple. The Master led Rian to a room on the lower floor where several young monks sat just outside. They stood up to make bows as the Master approached. He motioned them to sit again and stepped past them into the room.

  Rian glanced around, trying to keep his expression blank. If this was the room Igarin had lived in, then Voices didn't get much for their service. Surely the man had had a house somewhere, and this was only the room he used while he was at the Marai. The walls were carved with forest scenes and spirit dancers, but otherwise it was bare except for a brass incense burner and a few bowls filled with flower petals. The dead man lay on a dark blue silk mat on the floor of the chamber, wrapped in formal Kosh
an robes. The candles were lit in all the niches and the bronze holders, casting a soft glow on the corpse. There was hardly any smell of decay and the man didn't look as if he had been dead more than a day. Rian looked at the Master, suspicious. "This is Igarin?"

  "Yes."

  "This man's been dead four days?"

  "Yes." The Master explained gently, "The Voices have strong ties with the Infinite. Their souls are woven within it, and when they die, it takes some time for those ties to unwind. Their bodies decay very slowly."

  Rian circled the corpse, playing for time and wondering how he could manage to get a closer look. It was hard to tell what Igarin's age had been. His features had already taken on the sameness of death and he was wrapped up to his chin in the robes. The Master was watching him closely. Rian asked, "How exactly did he die?"

  The Master's round face was grim as he remembered. "He had difficulty breathing. It came on suddenly. One moment he was working as usual, the next he was gasping for breath. They carried him out of the Rite chamber, thinking it was the heat. While they were trying to revive him, he died out in the court." He gestured, trying to convey the hopelessness of those final moments. "It happened very quickly."

  "Were you there?"

  "Not when it first struck him." The man shook his head. "I was working in the Solar Library. The shouts for help summoned me to the court, but I only reached it in time to see him die."

  If that was all true, then it had to be something quick, something given to the old man not long before he died. "He wasn't ill beforehand?"

  "No." The Master eyed him thoughtfully. "He had had nothing to eat or drink since the evening before, almost an entire day. The Voices fast while they perform their parts of the Rite." He added, "We thought of poison, too."

  Rian scratched his head, studying the corpse. "In the Sintane there's a poison called thisock, that can be given through the skin. Assassins treat the outside of a cup with it, and if the victim picks it up before it dries, he's dead." This was all true, though irrelevant, since thisock took forever to work and didn't cause the difficulty in breathing Igarin had experienced.

  The man's brows drew together. "I hadn't heard of that. Is it a plant that grows in the lowlands?"

  Rian shrugged. "No. But it has to be dried and ground to powder before you can make the poison from it." He added carefully, "It leaves discolorations on the skin."

  Frowning, the Master stepped forward and stooped to inspect the corpse's hands. Rian knelt next to him, trying not to show undue haste, and said, "Better check everywhere."

  The Master unwrapped the corpse's robe and began to examine the cold waxy skin. Rian watched carefully. He wasn't sure what he was looking for; something that made as little sense as all the rest of it, something strange. Despite the slowness of the decay, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. Then the Master turned the corpse's head and Rian said, "Wait."

  "What?"

  "There, is that a bruise?" Rian pointed to the back of the corpse's neck.

  "I can't tell." The Master stood and took down one of the candles. As he held it carefully over the body, the light fell on the neck and head.

  Rian turned the head a little more. That’s it. There was a distinctive round bruise at the back of the neck. He lifted the chin and there it was, though it shouldn't be there. A thin line of bruising across Igarin's throat. He sat back, thinking it over, distractedly rubbing his hand off on his breeches.

  "What does that mean?" the Master demanded, frowning.

  "Strangling marks." Rian pointed to the long bruise across the throat. "That's where the cord caught his neck. A thick, soft cord, by the look of it." On most of the strangled corpses Rian had seen it had been done with wire, which cut the skin and left a far more visible mark. "The bruise on the back of the neck is from the killer's hand."

  The Master squinted, moved the candle around to throw the light from different angles, trying to deny the evidence of his own eyes. Finally he shook his head, baffled. "It's there, but it can't be there. He was struck ill in front of fourteen Voices of the Ancestors and the Celestial One. He died in the court of the Marai, in front of a dozen Koshans and servants and guards. There was no one near him except those who were trying to save him."

  "I know," Rian said, not helpfully. He sympathized, but it was only one of the impossible things he had encountered in the past few days. "I just find them, I don't explain them."

  ***

  The Temple Master sent the monks outside the chamber running to bring various seventh-level priests to consult, then stood outside the door to Igarin's room, staring thoughtfully into the distance.

  "What will you do?" Rian asked him, curious.

  He shook his head slightly. "Consult the temple libraries to see if this or anything like it has ever happened before."

  "It'll be in there?" Rian rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to reveal how unlikely he found the idea.

  "If a Koshan was present when it happened, or heard of it, it will be in the libraries." The Temple Master smiled briefly, as if he wasn't the least bit fooled by Rian's tone. His expression sobering, he added, "I hope they find something. Otherwise, it's a foreign magic."

  Rian looked away across the grassy court. It was a green so deep, even under the grey sky and the misty drizzle, that it almost didn't look real. He knew he should get back to the court outside the central tower. The Temple Master had this in hand and there was nothing else he could do here, but he hesitated. Finally he said, "I have a question about Koshan philosophy."

  The Temple Master gestured. "Ask it."

  "What is the Adversary?"

  The Temple Master flicked a glance at him, but didn't seem to feel the need to inquire about the reason for the question. "It's almost easier to tell you what the Adversary is not," he said slowly. "The Adversary is the only Ancestral spirit that was never a living being. It was created by the other spirits to destroy evil. The other Ancestors speak to the Voices, giving advice and council, and they are also tied to specific places. Many of them are tied to the place where they lived, when they existed among us as people. There is no absolute proof of this, since they lived so long ago there are no written records, only stories and myths. But the Baran Dir was built on the place where the Ancestors that are associated with healing were said to have made their home, and it is a fact that their Voices are always the strongest there. Since the Adversary was never a living being, it is personified only in its Voice. So the Voice of the Adversary is not just the Adversary's voice, but the Adversary itself. Or herself."

  Rian found himself staring at the carving on the nearest pillar, a scene of some human-shaped spirit giving audience to a host of warriors. He was beginning to recognize the subtle differences in the face and the relative size of the figure that marked the way the Kushorit portrayed the Ancestors as different from ordinary humans. He said, "So they hear spirit voices in their heads." He glanced at the priest and saw the man was watching him alertly. "And what the spirits say is always true?"

  "Always. But it can be misunderstood. Learning how to understand the meaning of the Ancestors' messages is one of the primary reasons for the years of instruction in Koshan philosophy. It is the reason there are Koshans at all."

  Two blue-robed priests were crossing the court at a hurried pace, probably the first of those summoned by the monks. Rian nodded to the Temple Master and vaulted the balustrade, landing on the ground below and starting back toward the main temple.

  ***

  Maskelle didn't emerge from the tower until very late in the evening. Somewhere behind the clouds the waning moon would be rising and the stars coming out. The rain had stopped and the air was heavy and warm and still. The lamps set in niches and hung from the galleries and windows on the upper levels of the court threw stripes of gold on the slick pavement.

  She stretched, feeling the ache in her shoulders and lower back. This was only a temporary respite. She was going to have to go back in a few hours, when Vigar wou
ld make his final decision whether to remove the damage to the Rite or not. She wasn't looking forward to that. She looked up and saw Rian sitting on the wide balustrade of the side gallery's portico, under the carving of entwined spirit dancers, and started toward him. "Were you here all day?" she demanded.

  He countered. "I found out some things."

  "What?"

  He hopped down from the balustrade and as they left the central court through the west wind passage, he told her about Marada's visits to Veran and the marks on Igarin's body. "The Temple Master said he was going to try to find out if anything like this has ever happened before. He thinks it'll be in the libraries somewhere if it has."

  They were in the outer gallery by the time he reached the end of the story and Maskelle stopped to look back at the Marai. Lamps lit in the windows and between the pillars outlined the stepped domes and the upper galleries. Her thinking was still fuzzy, half her mind still in the Rite and the Infinite. If Igarin's death had been caused by a spell, and it had to be a spell, then it was of a kind she hadn't encountered before. "So it acts like poison but kills like a garroter. And why would Marada, if it is her, want to do this?" She used both hands to scratch her head vigorously, feeling two or three braids come loose, trying to get her wits to work again. "Is she a sorceress sent from the Garekind Islands looking for a war?"

  "There's nothing that says she came from the Garekind Islands," Rian pointed out. "Nothing except her word."

  Maskelle stopped, her hands in her hair, frowning at the temple. The Ancestors were talking a lot tonight and she couldn't understand one word. "What makes you say that?"

  "Givas said the story he heard from the Quay Arbiter's servants is that she came off a boat from Telai, with a retinue of unfriendly maids and guards who supposedly can't speak Kushorit, with nothing to prove she was from Garekind except a letter with the seal of some High Sea Lord."