Empire of Shadows

by Miriam Forster

  “Yes,” Emil said, exchanging a glance with Esmer. “But . . . I’m afraid I don’t know why.”

  He held out the piece of paper, and Heema took it.

  “That is his writing,” she said. “Avahaa, go next door and join the other children. I’ll call you when the food is ready.”

  The little girl nodded. Then, with another anxious glance at Emil and Esmer, she moved toward the door. The man with the cudgel put a hand on her head as she went by.

  “It’s all right, little bird,” he said. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  The girl smiled up at him and then darted out of the room.

  Heema rose in a fluid movement, placed the knife in a small utensil pot, and bowed. “Welcome. May the road be easy on your feet, and may you find a place to call home.”

  Emil smiled at the traditional Wind caste blessing. “Same to you, lady,” he said, bowing in return. “Forgive us for intruding.”

  “Welcome guests are never an intrusion,” the woman said. She gathered up the slices of onions and eggplant from the woven mat and sprinkled them into a large iron pan that was suspended over the fire. The food sizzled as it hit the hot surface. “And if my brother sent you here, he had a reason.”

  “Your brother?” Emil couldn’t stop his surprised reaction. “Lel is your brother?”

  Heema laughed, and her laugh was as glorious as her voice. “He is indeed. And protective as only an older brother can be. I am not a secret he shares lightly, and I’m curious as to why he told you to find me.” Her voice was still pleasant, but her shoulders were tense. Emil knew he was being tested.

  “We’re looking for my brother,” Emil said. In a few brief sentences, he sketched out the situation: the riot, his and Stefan’s fight, and Stefan running away. He included the confrontation with his father but didn’t mention the mercenaries. Whatever Rajo and his men were up to, there was a good chance it wasn’t legal. Stefan could be arrested, or worse.

  “I have reason to believe he’s somewhere in the city,” he said instead. “And the people he’s with . . . they’re trouble.”

  “People often are,” Heema commented. “So Lelkhan saw you headed into the city alone and gave you my name. He must like you a great deal.”

  “He’s family,” Emil said. It must have been the right thing to say, because a bit of the stiffness left Heema’s shoulders.

  “How did you find us?”

  Emil hesitated, and it was Esmer who answered. “We asked someone in the Wind Market,” she said. “They were not . . . eager to help.”

  “If you asked one of the Bamboo merchants, I imagine not,” Heema said, sounding both amused and sad. “The next time you’re looking for something in the city, try and find a tea seller. They know everything.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, indicating the tiny room. “We don’t have much to offer, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

  The man in the doorway made a protesting noise. “Heema, we don’t know who these people are!”

  “They are Lelkhan’s family, Giri,” the woman said. “He sent them here, and we must help them. We can put them in the far room; there’s no one there right now.”

  Giri blew out a breath. “Woman, your kind heart will be the death of me.” He set down his club and crossed to Heema’s side of the fire. Gently he kissed her forehead through the veil. “Why don’t I take them outside so you can finish cooking? I promise not to rough them up.”

  Heema leaned into his touch. “There’s clean water in the jar,” she said. “I ran it through a cloth and boiled it this morning. They’re probably thirsty after their trip.”

  “You’re a jewel,” Giri said. He grabbed three thick clay mugs from a stack of dishes and tossed one to Emil and Esmer each. “Water jug’s the big one by the door,” he said, gesturing. “You’ll live longer in the Wind Circle if you don’t drink the canal water.”

  Emil caught the cup with relief. In the Arvi camp, waste was done outside and discreetly covered up. But here the people used chamber pots, emptying them every night into the canal, where the steady flow of water would sweep it away by morning. But the river still smelled, of people, of waste, of muddy water. The idea of drinking from that foul-smelling water made his stomach turn.

  The three dipped lukewarm water from the jar. Giri slid the lid back on and led them out of the warm room and across the beaten dirt path to the edge of the canal. Here the steady stream of people was more of a trickle, and the noise was less.

  “Smells like an old stable, but at least there’s a breeze,” Giri said, as he sat down. He sipped his water. “Heema’s decided to trust you, and I trust her. But if you bring any danger down on us . . .”

  “Believe me,” Emil said. “That’s the last thing I want. I just want to find my brother.”

  “Kamal’s a big place,” Giri said, gesturing with his mug for emphasis. “It’s going to be hard to find him if he doesn’t want to be found. And you have to find a job, too. I won’t hide you if you don’t. Not even for Heema. She and those kids are the only family I have, and I won’t risk them.”

  “I understand,” Emil said. He ran a finger around the rough edge of the clay mug. “Any ideas for how I can get a work permit?”

  “Got any special skills?” Giri asked. “Sewing or cooking or a decent fighting style?”

  “I can break down a tent,” Emil said, a little bitterly. “I can clip a goat and shovel dung and I’m a fair hand at bargaining.”

  “What about your girl there?” Giri said, nodding at Esmer.

  “I’m not his girl,” Esmer snapped. “And I don’t need a work permit to stay in Kamal.”

  Giri held his hand out in a gesture of peace. “No offense. I was just thinking the two of you might be able to hire out together. You move like people who trust each other, and that’s a rare thing.”

  Esmer’s face relaxed, and she gave the man a smile. “Sorry. It’s been a difficult day.”

  Giri’s one good eye rested on her face, then on the black X on her hand. “I can imagine,” he said, reaching up to rub his shoulder. Emil saw the dark shadow of Giri’s Wind caste scars under the thin shirt. “Sometimes it feels like the mark goes clear through to your soul, doesn’t it?”

  Esmer stared down into her mug. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Sometimes.” Emil put a hand on her arm, and she leaned against his shoulder for a brief moment.

  Giri raised a mug. “To the outcasts. The tossed-aside, unwanted, and ignored. Long may we survive.”

  “To the outcasts,” the other two echoed.

  As Emil sipped his water, his thoughts drifted back to Mara. He found himself scanning the people passing in the street, looking for someone with messy cropped hair, someone who slipped through crowds like a shadow.

  It was all nonsense, of course. Mara was gone. She’d moved on after the riot, on her way to find whatever it was that she was looking for. But Emil couldn’t shake the feeling that she was close by. It was a ridiculous thought, but it made him feel a little better.

  HEEMA CAME OUT of the ramshackle house, a bowl of eggplant rice in each hand. She handed them to Emil and Esmer.

  “Better get your food now,” she said. “Before the horde descends.”

  “Horde?” Emil asked, taking the bowl.

  Giri grinned. “Watch.”

  Heema put her hand under her veil and whistled, a sharp, carrying sound. A small wave of children boiled out of the house next door. They were every age and size, all of them painfully thin. One of the children was still holding a wet cloth and rubbing his face with it.

  “Everyone wipe their hands?” Heema asked. The children nodded. Heema gestured to the interior of the house. “Rice is in the big pot, vegetables on the fire. Watch the little ones and make sure they don’t touch the hot metal.”

  “Yes, Heema,” the kids chorused. Then they started to file inside.

  Esmer made a questioning noise. “They’re not all hers, are they?”

  “If you ask her
, they are,” Giri said. “But no, not hers by blood. Life in the Wind Circle isn’t easy. Sometimes parents vanish. They get thrown out of the city and can’t get back in, or they simply don’t come home one day and no one knows why. Sometimes the kids run away. Heema started taking them in. One became two became five and six, and so on. She found a patron to help her feed them. It’s not much, but it’s better than what they had.”

  There was a crash from the house, and Heema ran inside. Emil could hear her scolding the children in her melodic voice.

  Giri chuckled and drained his water. “Ancestors, I love that woman,” he said. “One of the kindest and smartest people I’ve ever met.”

  “Does her patron provide her with a work permit, too?” Emil asked. Giri shook his head.

  “Heema doesn’t need one,” he said. “She’s Bamboo caste.”

  Emil almost dropped his rice. “She’s what?”

  Giri gave a grim smile. “She’s Bamboo caste. They don’t acknowledge her anymore, but she’s still one of them. So she doesn’t need a work permit to live in the city.”

  “But—but—” Emil’s mind was churning. “But she said Lel was her brother, and I know he’s Wind caste. I’ve seen his mark.”

  “It’s a long story.” Giri’s bearded face darkened with anger. “Heema and Lelkhan grew up in a family of famous singers, rumored to be descended from the great Elina herself. Unfortunately, Lel didn’t inherit the talent.”

  Emil tried to remember if he’d ever seen the marks of earrings on Lel’s ears. If he was Bamboo caste, from a performing family, he would have had several. But Lel always wore his hair a little long, and Emil had never really looked. . . .

  He wondered if his uncle Pali knew.

  “Anyway,” Giri said. “Lel was sent off to apprentice to some accountant in Deshe, and Heema stayed here. One day she was performing at a wealthy merchant’s house, and the son of the house fell in love with her. Nothing would do but that they be married at once.”

  “Sounds like a story-song,” Esmer said.

  “You’d think so.” Giri looked down at the gray water of the canal. “After a year, when her dowry was spent and there were still no children, he changed his mind. Threw a pot of boiling water on her during a fight. A neighboring glassworker family heard her scream and rescued her. But her husband no longer wanted her, and her family was embarrassed by her. They shut her away from everyone.”

  “That’s horrible!” Emil said. Beside him Esmer growled.

  “What happened to her husband?” she asked. “Something awful, I hope.”

  Giri’s face tightened. “Nothing happened to him. He was given a reprimand and a fine to pay to Heema’s parents. His family shipped him down to Deshe to wait out the scandal. But he’s dead now.”

  He took another sip of his water. “Lel was tried for his murder.”

  Emil’s mouth fell open.

  “I don’t know what really happened,” Giri said. “And Heema won’t say. But they didn’t have enough proof to execute him, so he was exiled to Wind caste instead. Heema was furious. She ran away from home and ended up here.”

  Emil swallowed, still speechless. He couldn’t imagine calm, soft-spoken Lel killing anyone. But if someone had hurt Rona or another of Emil’s family like that . . . well, you never knew what someone could do if they were pushed.

  Giri stood. “I wouldn’t ask her about it if I were you. She’s incredibly protective of her brother and won’t hesitate to kick you out if she thinks you’re being nosy. But I thought you should know, Lel being family and all.”

  “I appreciate that,” Emil said.

  Giri smiled sadly. “Let me show you where you’ll sleep tonight, and then I have to go to work. And you’d better start looking too. You don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

  Emil stood and extended a hand to Esmer. Giri led them to the third red-curtained door. “Heema and I have the first house, and the kids sleep in the second one, and sometimes in this one. But right now it’ll be just you and Esmer.”

  Emil poked his head through the curtain. It was a bare room with a few thin sleeping mats and a pile of ragged blankets. He pulled his head out.

  “Should we just take a mat?” he asked. Giri nodded.

  “We can’t provide you with much food,” he said. “Because of the children. But you can have one rice bowl a day and a place to bed down at night where you won’t get knifed for your shirt. It’s better than a lot of people around here have.”

  “Thank you,” Emil said, meaning it. “Do you think . . .”

  What he was about to say next was interrupted by a rattling clatter. He looked up to see another tea seller coming down the street. This man wore a thin cotton tunic and a blue head wrap. A collar of dark blue and bronze beads encircled his neck.

  The man stopped in front of Heema’s doors. “New tenants, Giri?” he said.

  “Afternoon, Abhra,” Giri said casually. But Emil noticed he put his hands together and bowed. “Yes, some relatives of Heema’s come to look for work. This is Emil and this is Esmer.”

  They bowed.

  “Respectful,” the man said. “I like that.” His smile gleamed against his oak-dark skin as he poured two cups of spiced tea. He handed one to Emil and one to Esmer.

  “Welcome to the Outer City, youngsters. May the land be kind to you.”

  Emil sipped the tea. It was hot, just on the edge of burning, and made his mouth tingle pleasantly. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and repeated the Hearth caste greeting, “May the land be kind to you as well.”

  “I’m alive and my tea is well brewed,” the man said. He had a lined, well-used face and very deep-set eyes, and he leaned against the cart as he poured his own tea. “What more could I want?” He gave them a considering look.

  “You’re Sune, I see,” he said to Esmer. “What Tribe?”

  “Spotted cat,” Esmer said cautiously. But the man’s expression was bland and friendly as he drank his tea.

  “I haven’t seen a spotted cat in the capital since I was smaller than this cart,” he said. “Some advice, young woman? If I were you, I’d stick close to Heema’s home, or try to stay in animal form. Enough stray beasts around here that no one should notice you, and that mark on your hand might as well be a target, as far as a lot of these Wind caste folks are concerned.”

  Esmer looked down at her cup and didn’t answer.

  “Why?” Emil asked after a moment.

  “Jobs,” the tea seller said. “Some people around here don’t like competing with Sune for employment. Makes them resentful.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” Esmer said. She lifted her head and gave the man a brief smile. “And the tea.”

  The man smiled back at her. “Good luck to you both,” he said, as they returned the cups to the cart. “Giri, I would speak to you a moment.”

  “Of course, Abhra,” Giri said. “I’ll walk with you.” He nodded to Emil. “You’d better get started on finding some work.”

  “Right,” Emil said. “Work.”

  They said good-bye to Giri and Abhra, and he and Esmer plunged into the stream of people.

  “Where to first?” Esmer asked.

  “Well,” Emil said. “Might as well start with what I know. Let’s see if any of those Bamboo merchants are hiring.”

  MARA DUCKED AS Revathi swung at her with her practice knife. Avoiding the blow easily, she stuck out her foot as Revathi’s momentum carried her past. Revathi tripped, hitting the soft carpet with a thud. Mara grinned down at her, twirling her dagger in its protective padding.

  “You’re still telegraphing too much,” she said. “A blind man would know you’re coming.”

  Revathi shook her head. “I really thought I had you that time,” she said, jumping to her feet. This morning she was barefoot, dressed in a knee-length tunic and loose trousers, eyes sparkling with exercise and laughter. She pushed her sleeves up over her elbows and waved her knife at Mara.

  “Again,” she said. “I’m
going to take you down at least once if it kills me.”

  “Slow down, it’s only the second lesson,” Mara protested.

  Revathi swung her loose braid back over her shoulder. “Don’t care,” she said, holding the knife close to her body the way Mara had shown her. “I want to learn as much as I can before you leave.”

  The words seemed to echo in the sunlit room. Revathi’s face was bright and a little desperate, and Mara suddenly felt the odd urge to apologize, for what she didn’t know.

  “Revathi . . . ,” she started, then stopped as something caught her eye. There was a dark, ugly bruise on the underside of Revathi’s wrist, just underneath the golden flower of her noble’s tattoo.

  “What’s that?” Mara asked. She reached for Revathi’s arm, but the girl snatched it back.

  “Nothing,” Revathi said. “I hit it on something in the dark.”

  “Do you need to see a healer?” Mara asked. “It’s a nasty bruise.”

  “No.” Revathi said. She pulled her sleeves down, covering the mark. “It’s fine. I’m sure I’ll get worse doing this.” She held up the blade in her hand for emphasis.

  “Possibly,” Mara admitted. She readied her dagger. “All right, so this time we’re going to work on—”

  Someone knocked on the door frame.

  “Revathi!” Tamas called. “Revathi, are you awake?”

  Mara sheathed her dagger and Revathi dropped the knife, kicking it under one of the floor cushions. Then she moved with quick strides to the curtained doorway.

  Tamas had his mouth open to shout again, when Revathi pulled him inside. “Tamas, what are you doing here?” she hissed. “It’s not appropriate for you to visit me in my quarters. People will talk.”

  “People always talk,” Tamas said. He was wearing the dark-blue padded silk of the Imperial Guard, and his sword was strapped to his side. He slid a hand up Revathi’s arm. “It’s only for a few minutes. And I didn’t see you at all yesterday. Where were you?”

  “Tamas.” Revathi stepped to one side, gracefully avoiding both the touch and the question. “Not in front of my bodyguard.”