Wheel of the Infinite

by Martha Wells

  Telai was an island port at the mouth of the Great River. Ships from all over the world docked there. She could be from anywhere. Or she could have taken a ferry across from the mainland to buy passage on a river barge, and just claimed to have arrived on a seagoing vessel. Obviously Rian was thinking along the same lines. "Who is Givas?"

  Rian jerked his head toward the temple. "He's the old man who takes care of the lamps in the lower passage on the west side and sweeps the big court in the middle."

  "Oh." Maskelle digested this. "The Garekind Islands isn't the end of the world. They have an embassy at the Celestial Emperor's court, the ambassador must have heard of her."

  "Maybe he would have." Rian regarded her with a brow lifted ironically. "But he died, three days before she got here, and no replacement's come yet. His family and servants have all left to go home, and the few Garekind Islanders who are staying to wait for the new ambassador have been here so long they're almost Kushorit now themselves, and wouldn't know the difference if she said she was their own long-lost daughter."

  "How nice for her." Maskelle shook her head. "I'm no good, I can't think. Let's go home."

  They walked back the long way around, Maskelle oblivious to the light rain. The Marai was at the intersection of several major canals, causeways, and streets; there were still people about, still lamps lit at market stalls or carried in the hands of servants lighting the way for palanquins, some of which were elaborately decorated and had awnings stretched into fantastic shapes, sailing ships or giant garuda birds. When they reached the gate of their house, Maskelle stopped abruptly.

  After their initial reluctance the Ariaden had made themselves comfortable. The place was as bright as a bawd's house, every lamp lit in the house's upper floor and the outdoor kitchen. From the collection of clothes and bedding hanging in the open areas of the lower floor, they had also been catching up on their washing. The scent of roast pork and baked taro still hung over the court, and on the upper level gallery Old Mali was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floorboards—apparently for the sheer pleasure of having a floor again, since it had been as clean as possible that morning.

  In the open area under the tallest trees they had put up a rough scaffold, with hooks and a system of levers and pulleys to lift heavy scenery and puppets. It was knocked together out of cheap materials and in a frighteningly haphazard manner. The ground of the court bore evidence of the presence of a large number of people by churned up mud, scattered flower petals, and torn fragments from straw mats and rugs. Maskelle shook her head wearily. "I seem to remember rashly assuring them they could give performances here. I had no idea they'd put up the whole damn stage and start tonight."

  "Is that what that is?"

  "Yes. You haven't seen Ariaden theater before in all its glory?"

  Rian shook his head. "I've seen kiradi. They used to come on the Trade Road over the Riadur Pass." When he noticed Maskelle staring at him in surprise, he added defensively, "It was something to look at."

  "They had kiradi theater at Markand?" Maskelle asked, bemused. She had pictured the place as something like a wild boar pit, only with people.

  "The Holder Lord liked to pretend to understand foreigners," Rian said, as they started up the stairs into the house. "And they had kiradi theater in the High Lord's Hold at Belladira, so we had to have it too."

  The main room now looked as if the Ariaden had been living in the house for years. Wooden puppet cases were stacked up just inside, and rugs from the wagons had been strewn across the polished floorboards. Their own lamps and battered crockery were piled on the low table and the lacquered chests. Most of the actors were gathered here, discussing the success of their first production in Duvalpore with a lot of gesturing, yelling, and rice and palm wine. Rastim stood up to greet them, his steps wobbling a little.

  "Did it go well?" Maskelle asked him.

  Rastim gestured happily. "It was wonderful. There was a very good crowd. Wealthy people and their servants. There's some important officials from the districts outside the city staying in the houses along this street, and they came with their guests. A man even asked us to perform at the festival that's coming up!"

  Maskelle stopped. "The Equinox?"

  "Yes."

  "What was the man's name?"

  Rastim thought about it, weaving back and forth slightly. "Giaram Kisnel Something..."

  "The G'Ram Kisnil?"

  "Yes, that was it." Rastim beamed. "He's going to send his people to make the arrangements tomorrow. He said we should perform in the Grand Plaza in front of the Outer Court. Is that a theater?"

  "Sort of. You'll like it. Lots of room for the stage," Maskelle assured him.

  Rastim turned to give this intelligence to the others and Maskelle and Rian escaped down the passage to the sleeping rooms. Keeping her voice low, she explained, "The G'Ram Kisnil is the warden of the public festivals. It's a post appointed by the High Minister, to organize entertainments for the crowds to keep them under control while the priests are performing the Rites. The grand square is the plaza in front of the Marai. Rastim has just agreed to make Ariaden theater a principal part of the entertainments for the largest festival of the year."

  "I hope that's a good thing," Rian muttered.

  "It's what they came for," Maskelle said, smiling a little to herself. "It doesn't surprise me. They tell the stories very differently from the traditional plays that the Kushorit are used to. I just hope Rastim and the others don't mind performing in front of several thousand people. I don't think they're used to crowds that size."

  "You mean after the festival we could have half the city lining up to get into our cow yard?"

  "Well, yes." Maskelle found the room where Old Mali had brought her things in. Her faded Tiengan blankets had been laid out on the bed pad. "I hadn't thought of that." She pulled her muddy sandals off and dropped down onto the cushion. "Maybe I should find somewhere else for them to do it. I could get the Celestial One to give them another house."

  Rian sat behind her and started to rub her shoulders. It was even harder to think with his fingers digging into the tense muscles of her shoulders and neck, but she made herself ask, "It would make more sense if we knew why Marada wanted to do this, if she did do this."

  "Why has to be somebody else's job. I just know who. There's too many coincidences. She's the Emperor's concubine but—"

  "She's not a concubine," Maskelle objected. Surely the Emperor’s not old enough for that, she told herself. She hadn't been gone that many years. "She's a Court Lady."

  "Whatever you want to call it. She comes down to the temples to make friends with priests, and out of all of them she picks Veran, and out of all of them Veran's possessed by a demon."

  "Well, when you put it that way," Maskelle said thoughtfully. She remembered she had responsibilities to her little household, whether it chose to listen to her orders or not, and asked, "Did you get anything to eat today?"

  "The Temple Master fed me. He feels sorry for me because you brought me here against my will and everything."

  "Oh, thank you. That's all I needed," she grumbled. She felt warm breath on her cheek, then his teeth in her earlobe. At that less than opportune moment Firac strolled in with a Koshan priestess following him. "Someone wants to see you," Firac said brightly.

  The priestess looked startled. Maskelle sighed and Rian sat back on the cushions, propping himself up on one elbow. Fortunately the priestess was only second level, so it would take at least a day or two for the story to spread all over the city. Firac ducked out of the room and the woman cleared her throat and said, "I was sent from Niare of Gila Stel."

  "Yes?"

  "The young priest Veran is dead."

  Maskelle said sharply, "When?" at the same time Rian sat up and demanded, "How?"

  The woman looked from one to the other and opted to answer both. "He died not an hour ago. Late this afternoon, after the chief healer changed the treatment, he slept quietly and seemed much improved.
The monk who was watching him said he woke and asked for water, and when he gave it to him he lay back down, and the next moment he was dead. The chief healer came from his quarters to examine him but..." She gestured helplessly.

  Rian flung himself to his feet, an abrupt move that made the priestess start and eye him a little nervously. He paced across the room, muttering to himself. Maskelle demanded, "Was anything wrong with the water?"

  The priestess turned back to her. "No, nothing. The chief healer tried it himself."

  "Tried it himself—" Maskelle rubbed her face. Foolish, lucky... There were a great many words to describe the chief healer's action, but there was no point in saying them to this woman. "All right. Is that all?"

  "Yes. Niare says she will come to the Marai tomorrow to speak to you herself."

  "Very well. Thank you."

  Rian managed to contain himself until the woman had left, then he said, "It was Marada. She was there today. Why can't the Celestial One just order his guards to go get her?"

  "Because we don't have any proof," Maskelle said, exasperated. "Just because she's in the right place at the right time, and she can't prove she's who she says she is, and her circumstances at court are suspicious..." She was hardly convincing herself with this, and Rian's expression told her it wasn't working on him, either. She added, "And anyway it's not the Celestial One who has to be convinced, it's the Emperor." If Marada had been a Koshan, the Celestial One could have questioned her himself. If she had been any ordinary Kushorit citizen, the Celestial One could have dragged a Magistrate out of bed for an order to have the Constabulary watch her home. But as a foreigner in the Celestial Court, she was under the Emperor's protection. It was more frustrating for Maskelle than Rian realized. If she had still been able to wield the temporal power of the Voice of the Adversary, she would have been able to go to the Celestial Home and arrest Marada herself. "And if she's as influential as rumor says, he'll be hard to convince."

  Rian flung himself down on the cushions next to her. "Then let's get proof. I know where she lives. Givas told me."

  Maskelle buried her face in her hands. I took an oath not to meddle with the Celestial Court. I should tell my suspicions to the Celestial One and not pursue this myself. But she asked, "What do you expect to find?"

  "I don't know. Something. They always forget something."

  Maskelle considered it. "You don't think she's clever enough to cover her tracks?"

  "I've seen lots of clever people who didn't and ended up stretched on an execution rack with buzzards eating their innards." Rian shook his head and looked toward the doorway. Maskelle could read impatience to be out and away in every line of his body. "She has a private guesthouse like this one, to the west in the Principle City, near the big east-west canal. She doesn't live in the palace and the Emperor's men don't search her rooms. Why shouldn't she keep her poisons or her magics there?"

  "The Emperor wouldn't have men search her rooms even if she did live at the palace, not unless she did something to warrant it," Maskelle corrected, but there was sense in what he said. And another grim little window on life in Markand, she added to herself. Her oath warred with logic and instinct, and logic and instinct won. If we're wrong, then we've caused no trouble and nobody will be hurt. "I can't go tonight, I have to go back to the Marai soon. We'll have to wait until..." She hesitated, frowning. She had no idea when or if the work on the Rite would give her leisure to run about the city sneaking into people's houses.

  "It's better if I go alone," Rian pointed out. "I'm less likely to be recognized. Nobody knows me."

  "Hmm." He was probably right, for more reasons than that. She was not exactly accustomed to acting by stealth. "It'll be better to wait another couple of hours before you go. The homes of courtiers and government officials are down there. They'll entertain until late at night, and it's not far from the pleasure garden district."

  "If she's there I can't search the place. As it is, I may have to try a few times before I can get in."

  "Very well." Maskelle gave in, not too ungracefully. He spoke with the confidence of someone who did this every day. I hope kjardin isn’t also Sitanese for housebreaker. "Just don't get caught."

  Chapter Nine

  This was the first time Rian had been out of the First City. He had familiarized himself with the layout of Duvalpore by talking to the porters and servants at the Marai and the post house they had stayed in the first night. With the canals and the long avenues, and the Kushorit fascination with east-west and north-south axes, it wasn't a difficult plan to commit to memory.

  Kushor-An, the Principle City, had five major entrances, and Rian found the causeway that led to the nearest by going past the Marai and the smaller satellite temples beyond it. At one point he passed through a market where many of the stalls were still open and found himself pausing in front of a cloth vendor. The lengths of silk and cotton and brocade sparkling with gold thread were displayed to advantage in the light from dozens of brass lamps. He found himself wanting to buy something for Maskelle, though for a kjardin to give a gift to his lord was unthinkable. But then, he wasn't kjardin anymore. And Maskelle made the Lady Holders of the Sintane look about as formidable as the frazzled woman at the other stall selling gourds. You don't have the money, anyway, he reminded himself, and kept moving.

  The causeway to Kushor-An turned out to be a sight worth seeing in itself.

  Walking down its broad paved length in the cool damp night air, he passed between stone giants, each more than thirty feet tall. In the light of the torches mounted between them, he could see some were meant to look benevolent while others were grotesque six-headed monsters. In another place he would have thought they were meant to represent gods, but here, there was no telling. In the darkness beyond the barrier of the giants there was sometimes the water of a canal, sometimes marshy ground. It was too dark to see if there were any buildings there.

  Even at this time of night there were still people out: porters with yokes over their shoulders, peddlers with exotic goods or food, idlers, guards, and servants forming processions for the palanquins of the rich. Even in Markand and the High Lord's Belladira, the two largest Holds in the whole Sintane, the streets would have been dark as pitch and empty of everything but demons, thieves and murderers at this time of night. Duvalpore still pulsed with life.

  Rian wasn't the only foreigner out late, either. He saw several Medara Islanders with clan marks painted on their faces and other travellers who could easily be from any of the outer provinces, though there was no one who looked Sitanese. A party of Mahlindi merchants in their brightly patterned robes stood under one of the giants, gesturing up at it and talking excitedly. Rian crossed to the other side of the causeway in case these were the same Mahlindi who had been on the Great Road with them, but they were too occupied to notice him. Then a procession escorting some noble from Kutura-clane came down the causeway guided by a Kushorit official and some men in city guard livery. The Kutura-clane wore bright feathered cloaks and tall headdresses and even the Mahlindi stopped to stare at them as they went past. Rian felt less conspicuous every moment. Maskelle, fortunately, had not thought of the argument that there were not many Sitanese in Duvalpore and that she and Rian had been seen together all over Kushor-At, so he was just as likely to be recognized at this point as she was. And she thinks you’re not going to find anything, he thought. Just because Maskelle wasn't likely to leave damning evidence strewn about didn't mean the Lady Marada was as careful. People who thought they were clever enough to plot secret killings often made the same mistakes as half-witless petty thieves. And, he told himself, it's been a long time since you caught somebody you didn't wish had gotten away. His oaths had forced him to send dozens of men and women to traitors' deaths for trying to kill the Holder Lord, something he had wanted to do himself, probably far more than any of them had.

  At the end of the causeway was a gate guarded by two stone elephants, each large enough to do battle with any of the giants. T
heir tusks looked like real ivory, and on their harnesses gilt and gems glittered in the torchlight. Past the gate a wide avenue led up to another great temple, its lower levels hung with lamps, but most of it lost in darkness. That had to be the Baran Dir. From seeing it at a distance in daylight Rian knew it was a truly massive structure, larger even than the Marai, and that all the towers were topped by benign stone faces. The Palace was somewhere up there too, to the west of the temple. There were dozens of large buildings around the Baran Dir, some wood, some stone, visible only as lighted windows in shapeless masses in the night. The avenue leading toward the temple stretched between two canals where pleasure boats still drifted, the lamps on their bows revealing people in bright silks lounging on cushions and drinking wine.

  He found the street he wanted halfway down the avenue to the Baran Dir and crossed a bridge over the canal to reach it. The street was lined by large palisaded houses, hanging lamps glowing golden on roofs ornamented with heavy carving and widely extended beams, shade trees and palms growing in their courts. Maskelle had been right, several houses were brightly lit and noisy, with richly dressed people and servants going in and out of the gates and small caravans of palanquins crowding the street in front of them. Rian counted down and found the one that should be Marada's. It was dark except for a muted glow of light over the palisade, probably from the outdoor kitchen.

  He went down the street cautiously, staying away from the lighted gates, his boots making little noise on the soft ground. There was another canal at the far end—he could glimpse reflected light on the water between the buildings fronting it. The wideness of the street and the flowering bushes planted along the palisades made stealth easy. The house compounds were set apart from each other, with alleys between them leading over to the next street. He slipped down the alley next to Marada's guest-house and saw that behind it on the other street was what must be the manse of some high official or noble: it was three stories high, with lamps glowing and people moving on all the balconies. He hesitated, but the noisy house's courtyard was large, and a stand of trees blocked the direct view into the alley. If he waited and came back tomorrow there would be every chance the owner would be holding an entertainment then, too.