by Karen Myers
“In this case, I believe you’re safe, lij—we’ve been getting ourselves into and, so far, out of trouble for a while.”
Talqatin raised an eyebrow and looked faintly skeptical. “It’s certainly true that your life appears to be much more complicated than when we last met, just a few years ago. Though it seems to me I remember something about a wager and a broken shop window…
Perhaps Najud could use an interruption. “Please let us thank you for your generous invitation to stay with you for… however long it’s going to be.” Penrys included both Talqatin and his wife. “We’ll try not to disturb you.”
“And how long will it be, bikrajti?”
Penrys wondered how much Tun Jeju had told him. “You know the notju has assembled wizards from Ellech, Ndant, and Rasesdad. And us.”
He nodded.
“Did he explain why?”
When Talqatin shook his head, Najud took over. “Bikrajab. The Kigali have finally discovered they have wizards after all. You’ve heard what we’ve been doing, in the west of sarq-Zannib?”
“Yes, I’ve had a long report. More than one.” He looked at the exposed chain on Penrys’s neck. “There’s been quite a correspondence between Ussha and Yenit Ping on what the two of you have been up to for the last few months. We’ve even heard a bit about Munraz’s family.”
“Not my family any more, lij.” Munraz’s voice was quiet but firm. “My jarghal is my family, now.”
“So I had heard.”
Talqatin stroked his chin. “And then there’s this biziz you think to found in the west. Not busy enough, bikraj, with your other responsibilities?”
Najud grinned engagingly. “We had an opportunity to wheedle concessions out of both Kigali and Rasesdad, and I plan to keep them, if I can. Why not?”
“So why aren’t you there, working on it now?”
“Because those chained wizards you heard about, and me—we’re not the only ones.” Penrys swept one hand through the air at chest height. “The wizards Tun Jeju summoned found several, all dead, and many more have been found in Kigali, some living, and more in hiding. I think the wizards he’s assembled are going to recommend bringing them all out into the open and offering training.”
“Not the Ndanum,” Najud said.
Penrys shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’m the only one they know that they, sort of, trust. He made it a condition of the caravan licenses that we come and help with this. Whatever that’s going to mean, or however long it’ll take.”
Najud added, “I don’t see how it can be very long. What are the chances that the Kigali will want foreigners officially involved in their own institutions, even brand new ones?”
The whole group of them shared a Zannib smile at that.
A servant appeared on the doorway and caught Qulsharma’s eye. “Our dinner’s ready,” she said. “Let’s postpone business and hear about some of the adventures of our guests for a while. I’ve never seen Neshilik and the Gates where the Seguchi passes through into the plains. What’s that like?”
How do they keep a formal conversation going like this?
Munraz politely answered all the questions addressed to him, but couldn’t find the knack of tossing a question back, the way everyone else seemed to. Conversations came to him to die, and it was mortifying.
There were only six of them at the table, a low one suited to the all-Zannib diners who sat crosslegged on the floor. The food presented was as close to Zannib expectations as possible, given the foreign Kigali markets.
The ambassador and his wife sat at each end. To Talqatin’s left were Penrys and Munraz, and to his right Baijukti and Najud.
Talqatin focused on Penrys rather than his daughter, of course, and the two of them went deep into Ellech culture and comparative methods of education. Penrys’s hands flew when she talked unselfconsciously like this, and it didn’t seem to bother her that the ambassador was more restrained in his movements.
When Qulsharma wasn’t being entertained by Najud with tales of his travels, she turned to Munraz and asked him about his first impressions of Yenit Ping.
On the one hand, he was full of things he wanted to talk to a friend about, but on the other he knew she was just making polite conversation in her charming and professional diplomatic way, and he blushed to present himself as an unsophisticated back-country Zan to such a polished woman. And to everyone else who could hear him.
It tied his tongue and he stammered commonplace replies that discouraged further enquiry. When he caught a sympathetic glance from Baijukti, it just embarrassed him more.
As he listened to the others, his thoughts turned to tomorrow’s work. Five chained bikrajab, likely to wake up mad. How could they all talk so normally tonight, as if that didn’t matter?
CHAPTER 9
“You have to admire a woman who will use her own daughter to get a guest talking.”
Penrys was curled up in one of the broad cushioned chairs in their room, not quite ready for sleep, and Najud was slumped in its mate, his legs stretched out at full length.
“He was like a bird hypnotized by a snake,” Najud chuckled. “A very nice, plump, friendly snake. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.”
“Good for him to meet someone his own age, someone polished and experienced, an international traveler. Besides, she’s probably bored for company, too.”
“I imagine she’s met every Zan passing through, but that wouldn’t be very many. And how many of them would be suitable young men, with an air of mystery and reserve? It’s an effective technique—I wonder if he knows that yet?”
Penrys snorted. “Overrated. I prefer a man who can make me laugh.”
“That’s fortunate for me, then. I’m not very mysterious.”
The small square table between them was covered with pages from the untied papyrus packet, the discarded red ribbon caught in a curl on top like a trail of blood.
She waved her hand at the paper. “This makes for sad reading, once you read between the dry numbers. So much waste.”
With a yawn that felt as if it might take her head off, she glanced at Najud to check that he was still awake.
“What are we doing here, Naj-sha? What am I supposed to do with five of them in the imperial… dungeon, not to mention all the rest of them that must be around? All by myself? The job’s much too big for one person.
“I’m not saying that maybe Vylkar and Chosmod and the others can’t work up a system of education and training, and no doubt Tun Jeju can issue all the decrees he wants, in the emperor’s name, but we’re talking years of labor, something you dedicate lives to. We don’t want to spend years here doing this.”
Najud was silent for a moment. “Can you walk away from what you saw today, leave them in ungentle Rasesni hands?”
She shook her head. “That’s the problem. I can’t. But I can’t let myself get sucked down by it, either.”
With a shove, she twisted to face Najud. “I want their maker, our maker—that’s what I want. All the rest—training the chained ones as wizards, answering their questions with what little I know, trying to protect them from Kigali fear—I’ll do what I can, but I’m not some tutelary deity they can shelter behind. I’m just another lost one myself, luckier, but little wiser.”
“It’ll sort itself out,” Najud said. “Just give it a little time. I don’t believe Tun Jeju expects us to stay indefinitely. If he wants to build Kigali institutions for his wizards, he’ll need to make formal arrangements, staff them, and so forth. That might be mostly foreigners, which’ll gall them, but what else can he do? But it won’t be this group doing most of the work in the long run—they won’t want to stay for that without warning any more than we do.”
“The chained wizards are bad enough.” Penrys yawned. “Think how many untrained regular wizards there must be in a nation this size. It’s a wonder they’ve managed to keep hidden, assuming they’re there.”
“These
foreigners could teach us something about shielding,” Char Nojuk commented sourly.
The senior members of the Char family who were gathered in the secured inner sanctum of their compound’s small temple knew better than to comment. When the samkatju was frustrated, anyone who came to his attention could expect to pay part of the price.
Char Nojuk’s gray braid gleamed in the dim light of the lantern. He glanced at his second daughter, the only one of his own offspring to manifest the lupchit, the wizard blood. “What news from Shwa Uchi? Anything out of the Ndant envoys?”
Char Dami shook her head. “All these foreign wizards, and every one of them shielded, night and day. His compound’s well-situated to reach both the Ndant and Rasesni ambassadors, but it’s not doing them any good.”
“We have to know what the shaibowen are planning. Look at the mess they made of the chained ones. Are we going to be next?”
He glowered at his relatives, by blood and by adoption. “I told the council that delaying action for the new chained ones would be a mistake.”
His nephew had the temerity to contradict him. “Samkatju-chi, we could never have adopted the ones that look like foreigners without raising an interest we didn’t want.”
“That doesn’t excuse the delay. Nothing changed in three years. Now look where we are—many of them dead, and the rest scattered all over the place or making their way here, where even the shaibowen, the brown-robes, are sure to stumble over them if we don’t notice them first and steer them. They got the latest from the City Guard, I’m told.”
He wrinkled his nose. “That gewengep in Chankau Tep has the right idea—hide the foreigners away from the public eye.”
Char Dami said, “But they lose the new arrivals, so often.”
“What do you expect from untrained beginners? I’ve told the council we need to suck them into the families so we can disperse and control them, not keep them at arm’s length, but do they listen? No! They’re afraid of the unknown, like a bunch of old women.”
“You’ve heard the stories out of Neshilik, samkatju-chi,” his nephew said. “Strange tales. That’s the same chained woman they pulled in from the Zannib. We don’t know what the chained ones can do once they’re trained. The council’s just being prudent. Can’t un-tell the secret once it’s been revealed. The new ones don’t need to know about us, not yet.”
Char Nojuk just growled. He couldn’t set himself against the council with just his own family—he’d never survive. The council took a dim view of anyone who jeopardized their own secrets and power base.
“Keep an eye on that Zannib trio when they come back in reach of the shop tomorrow,” he told his nephew. “I want to know everything that’s going on with the shaibowen.”
Penrys drowsed in Najud’s arms, grateful for solid walls and lockable doors. Despite the activities of a few minutes ago that had sent Najud into a smiling sleep, she couldn’t turn her mind off.
Would any of the five be sane? Could they make themselves work with their captors or would they be implacable enemies after their harsh treatment? She herself hadn’t forgiven the Rasesni who captured her, and they were dead now. Tomorrow she’d find herself on the other side of the same coin, and she didn’t relish the position.
And what about the rest of them, chained and unchained?
She lay in the dark, and for the first time in Yenit Ping she let herself search the thousands of minds in her near vicinity, looking just for that special spark which said “wizard” to her.
Nothing in the Zannib compound except the sleeping Munraz and Najud. She expanded casually to the next few blocks and bolted upright in her bed while she looked again.
Najud stirred sleepily by her side. “Hmm?”
“Wizards,” she told him.
“Where?”
“Everywhere. In clusters. Like so many mice in their nests. As far as I can reach.”
His eyes popped open. “Really? Can you show me?”
She let him in to watch while she ran through it a third time.
*What’s that one? And this?*
She tasted the flavor. *Chained, I think. One just outside, probably spying on the place.* She remembered the woman she’d seen waiting across the street, and wondered.
“They’re not lost, secret wizards, are they?” Najud said. “They’re organized, or they wouldn’t be in clusters like that.”
She nodded. “But the chained ones are solitary, or in pairs.”
Najud’s voice carried confidence. “And they’re not in the nests with the rest of the mice.”
“Or at least not in this part of town. It’s a very big place, and I can’t scan it all.”
“Maybe you’re going to need to learn how. Meanwhile, you need to get to sleep.”
“But this is…”
“Not as important as getting some sleep for tomorrow. I can see I’ll have to take your mind off your problems. Again.”
“But…” Najud’s busy hands compelled her attention elsewhere.
“Well, if you insist…”
CHAPTER 10
They were both up well before breakfast. Penrys followed Najud down the stairs, and stopped a servant to make sure Munraz was awakened in half an hour.
“Is Talqatin still in the garden?” Najud murmured to Penrys, after he’d waved away another servant, looking to offer them refreshment.
She scanned and nodded. “In the kazr, by himself.”
They’d passed the corridor that led to the garden last night, and when they stood on the outer threshold of the building now, Najud paused. The kazr to their right just fit the space, its six-lattice framework covered with felts and canvas. The stove wasn’t lit—no smoke exited the zamjilah opening at the top. The surrounding compound wall blocked most of the early morning sound in this district of the city, and the breeze off the not too distant river stirred the spring leaves in the tree to their left, covering much of the noise with a natural susurration.
“Tawirqaj.” Najud’s call was soft, so as not to disturb the household. In sarq-Zannib itself, he would have just walked up and knocked on the door frame of the kazr, but here, in a household’s inner garden, he was uncertain of the proper protocol.
The ambassador answered. “Come, lij.”
They walked quietly through the plantings that were beginning to color up, and ducked into the kazr.
Inside, they found Talqatin seated crosslegged in front of a common portable worktable, two piles of parchment sheets on his left, and several wax-filled tablets for taking notes scattered across the rest of the surface. A basket for Kigali yat papyrus rolls sat beside him.
“You’ve caught me,” he said, with a smile. “My servants will cooperate when I ask for a low table for a Zannib supper, but they want to see me at my desk like a true Kigalino. So I come out here to be comfortable and to get through as much of my work as I can, and use my office for official functions.”
“And who can blame you,” Penrys said. “I’ve gotten used to one of these myself, though I still like a desk and chair, in the Ellech style. Can’t carry them on a horse too conveniently, though, I’ll admit.”
“Something I can do for you?” He addressed Najud, who had paused to collect his thoughts.
“Here we are in Yenit Ping,” he said, “the largest city in the world. Very civilized it is, too. So civilized, that I thought for once I’d go prepared into a dangerous venture.”
He eyed Penrys. “I’d like us to make wills, for the ambassador to hold, just in case. Munraz is our responsibility, now, and other things.”
She blinked, and then nodded, and a bit of tension unknotted in his chest. He hadn’t been sure how she’d react.
“Instead of just jumping off a cliff, as usual?” Her voice was teasing, but they’d really done it, in Neshilik. No need to explain to Talqatin, though.
“Just so,” he said, smiling.
The ambassador picked up one of the wax-filled tablets. “I’ll be happy to oblige you, lij, lijti. What did
you have in mind?”
“It’s simple enough. First I’d like Munraz to get back safely. None of this is his business. Getting him to my clan would be enough—he’s a member now. That’s if both of us… you understand.”
Talqatin nodded.
“And in that case, too, I’d leave everything, especially my biziz licenses to my sister Rubti.”
He glanced at Penrys and she shrugged. “I haven’t got anyone,” she said matter-of-factly, and he winced inwardly. “That’ll be fine for me, too. Except for one thing…”
She looked at Najud as she spoke to Talqatin. “In my packs here there’s a sack of small, dull stones. Those should go to… Vylkar, I suppose. In the Ellech delegation.”
I forgot about those. Power-stones shouldn’t be left in Zannib hands, true enough.
“All right,” Najud said. “And if it’s just one of us, everything to the other, of course.” It quenched his appetite, just thinking of it.
“That’s it?” Talqatin asked, his voice business-like.
“That’s all.”
“Easy. I’ll have it for you to look over this afternoon.”
“Um…” Penrys said. “Do you suppose we might sign something this morning, before we leave?”
Talqatin covered it smoothly, but Najud could see his surprise.
“Could be a tough morning,” Najud explained.
“And a lively week,” Penrys added.
Once inside the Imperial Security building, Zep Pangwit escorted them to the entry at the third sublevel.
Penrys wanted to survey the people around her for hidden wizards, chained or otherwise, but had trouble getting her mind off the anticipated problems they would encounter this morning.
By common consent, everyone who planned to participate in this first session congregated together first. Both the Rasesni were there, of course, and Vylkar from the Ellech party. Ijumo, the middle-aged man from the Ndant party, joined them, to Penrys’s surprise. Tun Jeju did not plan to go in himself, but sent Gen Jongto as his representative. The notju held the master keys that would lock them in together, in case complete disaster ensued, and he held those keys in a separate location.
