City of Bones

by Martha Wells

  "And everybody would be happy," Khat said, in an attitude of mild skepticism. His thoughts were more serious. For a group that was supposed to do the Elector's will without question, the Warders' relationship with him seemed downright adversarial. He wondered if it was that way in all the Warder households on the First Tier, or just the Master Warder's.

  "You don't believe it, of course," Elen said, irritated at his tone.

  Khat's head still hurt, and he was weary from tension. "Elen, I've heard this story a hundred times. Maybe not this variation with Warders, but it was this story just the same. The only arcane engines ever found that still work and aren't in a hundred-hundred pieces are the painrods, and the only magical relic is the Miracle, but you'd know more about it than me, because it's kept up on the First Tier where nobody can see it."

  "That's not my fault."

  "Did I say it was?" He noticed Gandin was moving closer to them along the railing, perhaps to make sure Khat didn't savage Elen in the course of the argument. Khat said, "The point is, if you're waiting for somebody to dig up an arcane engine to solve your problems, you have a few dozen long decades ahead of you."

  Elen glared at him. "I am not waiting for any arcane engine to solve my problems for me. I am perfectly capable . . ." she began, then ran out of steam.

  "Of..." Khat prompted, tired enough to be more malicious than usual.

  At that point, Gandin chuckled.

  Elen leaned around Khat to stare coldly at her fellow Warder, until he wisely retreated back to the corner of the platform. She returned to her position at the railing and glared out at the steadily fading glow on the rock. Finally she said, "You certainly aren't being much of a help."

  "No, I'm not. So let me go."

  Elen's sigh had an air of long suffering to it. "You are not a prisoner."

  He looked at her. "Really?"

  "Really."

  In an instant he was perched up on the railing, ready to go over, off the back of the wagon and into the endless maze of the Waste.

  A startled Gandin took a step forward, and there was a rattle as the nearest lictor swung his rifle up to aim, but Elen held up her hand. Unlike Riathen's confrontation with Constans, there was more irritation at the unwarranted interference than theatricality in the gesture. The lictors hovered uncertainly, and Gandin stared at her as if she had gone mad, but she didn't take her eyes off Khat.

  He looked down at her. Her face was calm. The hot evening wind ruffled his hair, and tore at her ridiculously frayed cap, but she didn't move. Then Khat slipped off the railing to casually lean on it again. The lictors gradually relaxed, and even Gandin backed away.

  This time Elen's sigh was from relief. She said, "I had to trust you. Can't you at least try to trust me?"

  Khat looked away, not answering her. His ribs were aching from the too-quick movement, and she didn't know what she was asking.

  It was full dark by the time the wagon rolled into the docks at the base of Charisat.

  Made strange by lamplight, the wagon docks were labyrinthine, crowded, and extensive, as befit their status as trade gateway to all the cities stubborn enough to exist on the Fringe of the Waste. Piled stone piers extended out into the sand for the loading of the tall steamwagons. Metal scaffolds stretched overhead so the handcarts that were used to transport goods could pass over the confusion below to the multistoried warehouses that clung precariously to the rocky faces of the crags. The piers were crowded with workers, crew, and beggars, even at this time of night, and the whole was watched over by the towering colossus of the First Elector, its upper half lost in shadow as it loomed over a hundred feet above the docks. During the day it would be visible as a masked figure carrying a torch, cast entirely of black iron. It had been painted and gilded once, but wind-borne sand had scoured the colors away.

  From here you could also see the high-walled corridor that started from the top level of the wagon docks and went winding up around the tiers until it reached all the way to the First. The corridor had once been used only by handcarts and human labor; recently a new type of steamwagon that ran on two metal rails had been installed. It hauled more weight, moved faster, and rumor said that almost a hundred hand-carters had been driven to beggary because of it. It also carried Patrician passengers who needed to go to the wagon docks but wanted to avoid traipsing through the lower tiers with everybody else. All Khat knew about it was that it made a lot of noise, and if the vigils caught you jumping from the wall down to its top deck, they shot at you.

  Their wagon chugged toward one of the middle piers, releasing a long blast of steam as it slowed, and the others automatically moved up to the front. As Elen turned to follow, Khat went over the railing and landed lightly on the packed dirt below.

  He circled behind the wagon, out of the reach of the lamps. Tying the skirts of his robe around his waist, he went past the hard-packed wagon tracks down to the lesser-used piers near the end of the docks. The day's heat was starting to break, and this section of the docks was cooler, having been under the shadow of the crags above for much of the day.

  There was a group of beggars perched on the pilings of the last pier. The docks were usually the last refuge of those so poor they could no longer afford even the Eighth Tier slums and were about to be forced out of the city altogether, where they would either join a pirate band or feed one. Most of this lot were already showing signs of heat sickness and sun poisoning, and would probably suffer the latter fate.

  The Fringe Cities forced their poor out into the Waste, to become pirates; the kris killed the pirates to keep them from raiding the Enclave and the trade roads. The Elector should take care of his own dirty work, Khat thought. As he came within range of the torches and lamps, the sight of a man slogging through the deep sand drew curious stares from the beggars. Most city dwellers were wary of walking on loose sand, even though Waste predators never ventured this close to the city.

  Khat climbed the pilings and stood on the pier, looking down to where the Master Warder's steamwagon was coming in to dock. Recognizing he was kris, the beggars drew away a little, making superstitious signs against ghosts and the evil eye. There had been other kris in Charisat when Khat had first come here; all had been loners or exiles, and most had moved on or died since then. He might be the only one left in the city now.

  The Warders didn't seem to be raising an alarm, and Khat hadn't thought they would. They hadn't seemed anxious to let anyone know their business, and wouldn't want to draw that kind of attention. And if he was really going to work for Sonet Riathen, a show of independence at this juncture couldn't hurt. If he was really going to work for Riathen. As if I had a choice. Disgusted with himself, Khat shook his head and started down the pier.

  ***

  Khat dropped down onto the cracked sandy brick of his home roof from a projecting ledge on the next house. He had hoped to make an inconspicuous return, but Ris was climbing up the ladder through the roof trap and immediately called down one of the vents, "It's Khat, and he's been beaten up again."

  Ignoring him, the krismen found a pile of old matting and flopped down onto it. He didn't want to go down into the house until exposure to the city deadened his sense of smell again. His own odor was bad enough, but the nearest bathhouse was several courts away, and he didn't feel like walking that far, even to get rid of the dried blood.

  Ris came over and peered curiously down at him, taking care not to come too close. "What happened?"

  An arm flung over his eyes, Khat said, "Go away," in a tone that didn't invite argument.

  The ladder rattled, and Sagai's voice seconded him. "Go home, Ris."

  Khat lowered his arm to look up at his partner, who winced at the damage. He was lucky Sagai was not the kind of person who said "I told you so."

  Disregarding Khat's protests and threats, Sagai examined the knot on the back of his head. "Not so bad," he pronounced finally. "Better than usual, I think."

  "What's wrong down there?" an irritated neighbor asked s
uddenly from the overhanging window of the next house.

  "Nothing," Sagai called back, a growl in his voice. "The day's excitement is over. Go to bed."

  The neighbor withdrew, grumbling.

  "Now," Sagai said in a softer tone. "What happened?"

  Khat sat up on one elbow and told him all of it, leaving out nothing except his first encounter with Constans. He wanted to think about that a bit more before he talked about it, and told himself he would mention it to Sagai later.

  Sagai was far more interested in relics than in Warders, anyway. "A new Survivor text in Ancient Script? Intact?" he asked, his eyes gleaming with the light of discovery. Finally someone was giving the find the attention it deserved. Relics weren't a trade, they were a passion. It makes us unique, Khat thought. Did peddlers get passionate over pots? Sagai said, "What I would give to see it, to handle it ... You read much of it? What was it called?"

  " On the Motion of Thestinti. I read bits and pieces. It was confusing; I couldn't follow what it was trying to say. And I didn't want Riathen to realize I could read it." He wished his partner had been with him, for that at least. Sagai, who had studied Ancient Script in the Scholars' Guild in Kenniliar, was better at deciphering the intricacies of it than Khat. "What does thestinti mean?"

  "That's a difficult one. I don't suppose you remember the intonation markers?"

  "No, I was a little distracted at the time."

  "Hmm. It could mean walls, barriers ..."

  "I don't think it was about architecture," Khat said. "I could read the words, but they didn't make sense to me. Something about 'to enter and leave by the western doors of the sky' and 'to know the souls of the Inhabitants of the West.' "

  "And there was no dynastical seal, I assume?"

  "No, not one of the Recognizable Seven, anyway. I wasn't looking for one of the Hundred Hypothetical." Amateurs were always claiming to find new dynastical seals; the Academia kept a register of them, and some scholars worked their whole lives to verify them, though none had been added to the Recognizable list in decades.

  "Perhaps it's a philosophical work. You said the Warders believed it related to their power. The Walls of the Mind, maybe. The Academia would be interested. Thousands of coins' worth interested. An intact text of Ancient Script and a piece of an arcane engine that can actually be associated with a Remnant. Why, it might lead to a proof of Robelin's theory about the Remnants' housing arcane engines. Treasures beyond price! I can hardly believe it."

  Khat didn't want to dampen his partner's excitement by pointing out how unlikely it was that either of them would ever have another chance to closely examine the text or the engine relic again. "I doubt Riathen wants to sell them."

  "No." Sagai sighed, and looked away over the dirty rooftops to the east, past the low clusters of mud-brick houses to where the tier's rim dropped away and the Fringe desert and the Waste stretched out forever, the black rock featureless in the distance. The breeze was up, and the night that was never quiet inside Charisat was at least calm, with the rumble of handcarts from the streets and the shouting and scuffling from the more combative denizens of the nearby courts seeming far away. "He will hide them, and fight for them, and worship them, perhaps. And never think to sell them to the Academia, where the scholars could glean far more knowledge from them than he ever could."

  Khat yawned, and discovered one of his back teeth was loose. Another souvenir from the Warders. He would have to pull it out later, so the new one would grow in straight. "You think there's anything to that story about the relics helping them find an arcane engine that's going to unlock all the secrets of the Ancients?"

  Sagai smiled down at him. "Unlocking all the secrets of the Ancients" was a stock phrase, something used to overwhelm inexperienced buyers. "I don't know everything. But what I do know tells me to doubt it."

  Khat nodded, hearing his own belief confirmed.

  After a moment, Sagai asked, "But will you help them?"

  "I have to, don't I? That or leave the city."

  Chapter Six

  Elen knelt on the floor of her room, facing the doorway into the small fountain court. The sun hadn't risen high enough to top the bulk of the house, so the muted predawn light turned the bright colors of the tile to gray and dulled the sparkle of the water. The early morning heat sent sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts, and the tickle of it was enough to disrupt her meditation. She gave up, wearily rubbing the back of her neck. The Discipline of Calm and Silence had always helped her make up for lost sleep before, but now it refused to have any effect on her. The fault was doubtless with her and not the exercise.

  A soft step in the doorway behind her, and Lithe, the servant woman who took care of her rooms, said, "Elen, the Master Warder wants to see you now."

  "All right." Elen stood and stretched. Riathen never slept. He and the older Warders had learned to use the Disciplines to entirely take the place of physical sleep. Maybe that's why we go mad, Elen thought, then winced at her own sour mood.

  She pulled a mantle on over her kaftan and padded barefoot down the corridor to the wide sweep of the central stairs. The episode with the spider bite had left a mark on her leg that looked much worse than it felt now. She was hardly limping at all. Of course, explaining to the household physician what had been used to puncture the wound so the poison could drain away had been an exercise in bland-faced innocence she would not like to repeat.

  Last night Ellen had also convinced Riathen that she would be the best one to go down to the lower-tier maze today and make sure Khat meant to fulfill his part of their bargain. The krismen's disappearance last night had badly worried him. Elen had been a bit worried, but hardly surprised.

  None of the other Warders in the household possessed more than common knowledge about the kris, which made Elen the current authority on the subject. She wished she had time to locate a book with a history of the Enclave's contact with the cities, or at least a monograph that would tell her how to interpret the changes in eye color. She knew that a lightening to gray was for anger, darkening was for pain or distress, and rapid shifts between green, blue, and brown seemed the rule otherwise-if that was the rule, and not a sign of instability in this particular individual.

  Riathen's rooms were on the top floor, at the head of the stairs. At the landing she paused, looking at the door that led into the Master Warder's chambers. If anyone had asked her a year ago if she had Riathen's trust, Elen would have firmly said yes. Now he still hadn't told her why he was so certain the relics were part of an arcane engine, or what sort of engine it could be that would help them discover the lost secrets of their power. She touched the new painrod at her waist, a little uncomfortably. It was proof that some of the Ancients' arcane engines could be dangerous indeed.

  She shook her head, telling herself not to follow where those thoughts led. She had pushed Riathen far enough by taking the plaque out to the Remnant without his permission. And can I blame him? Jaq's death, and to some extent Esar's, were on her head. She didn't deserve trust.

  Elen went on into the main chamber, which ran the whole length of this quarter of the house. The large windows in the inward wall looked down into the central court four stories below, where guests were often sent to wait under the shade of the stone gallery for an audience with the Master Warder.

  Lamps were still lit in wall niches, casting warm light on the shelves packed with Riathen's books and his astronomical instruments. The Master Warder was sitting on one of the cushioned stools at a low stone table inlaid with jet and turquoise, serving tea to Kythen Seul, who looked as fresh and rested as if he hadn't been nearly killed by pirates or walked for miles along the trade road in the past two days. In the privacy of the house, neither man was veiled.

  Riathen looked up at Elen's entrance and smiled a welcome. Elen smiled back, and nodded to Seul, though she wasn't terribly happy with him. Last night he had lectured her all the long way up from the docks to the First Tier about Khat. Seul seemed to thi
nk she was a trusting fool. She hadn't told him that she had tried to use her power to protect herself and that the working had failed.

  "I've spoken to Kythen," Riathen said, setting aside the silver-veined quartz tea decanter and spooning a few mint leaves into his cup. "And he assures me the blame for your 'excursion' to the Remnant was all his, and that he was the one who persuaded you to 'borrow' the plaque and tear off into the Waste like a pair of mad children."

  Seul frowned. Elen correctly guessed that the wording of the charge was all Riathen's and not the younger Warder's. It was hard to tell what either one of them was feeling. The air in the room didn't seem tense, but ever since Constans had gone mad all Warders habitually protected themselves against soul reading, and both Riathen and Seul were particularly good at it. She said calmly, "But all the blame isn't his. I agreed with him completely. If I hadn't, I would have told you what he meant to do."

  Seul sighed, as if she had spoken foolishly, and made an "I tried" gesture to her. To Riathen he said, "If the pirates hadn't attacked the wagon, everything would have gone well, and you wouldn't have had to make the journey yourself."

  Elen managed to keep silent. She supposed Seul meant well, but Riathen had been her guardian since she was a child, since she had first shown Warder talent. He had rebuked her before, and she supposed he would again; she didn't need anyone's protection from him.

  The Master Warder raised an eyebrow at Seul, and added, "And Constans would not have discovered you, and nearly taken the text, and two of our lictors would not be dead?"

  Seul said quietly, "I apologize, Master."

  "You will accompany me when I go to inform their families today, and repeat your apology to them." He looked at Elen. "You're ready to go down to the Sixth Tier today?"

  "Yes. I was waiting for sunrise before I left." She had wanted to speak to Jaq's family herself, and was startled Riathen hadn't required it of her. Perhaps he considered her mission too important. Well, she would go anyway, as soon as she could.