City of Bones

by Martha Wells

  "Up there," Khat told Elen, pointing her toward the narrow steps that led up to the top level and the roof ladder. "Don't step on Libra and Senace." The two street entertainers were sleeping next to the wall, curled up together like children.

  Elen stepped over the pair carefully and went up the steps, one hand on the clay-patched wall to steady herself.

  Before Khat could follow her, Miram caught his robe and yanked on it, nearly strangling him. He grabbed the wall to keep from being pulled off-balance and almost stepped on Senace himself. "Hey!"

  "That's not a Warder," Miram hissed at him. "That's somebody's daughter!"

  "So?"

  "So be careful with her." She punctuated this with another yank, then let him go.

  When he climbed up through the vent Elen was already telling Sagai about Radu's house and what they had found there. Khat took a seat near the edge of the roof that looked down into the court. The encounter with Shiskan son Karadon had made him restless in the worst way, and he considered going out to look for company. There were two sisters he knew who kept a street food stall a couple of courts over, who would just be closing up about now... No, best to stay here. If he left he would only worry that someone or something had followed them from the Fourth Tier. He slumped down against the crumbling pediment, unaccountably depressed.

  Sagai sat tailor-fashion, listening to Elen's account thoughtfully, his clay pipe slowly going out. When Elen had finished he said, "This Shiskan and her companions could have easily killed you both, if they had the same unnatural powers that Constans demonstrated for you at the Remnant."

  "Why should they bother?" Khat shrugged one shoulder and looked out toward the edge of the tier, not bothering to conceal the bitterness in his voice. "We led them to Radu, right where they needed to go. And now they're ahead of us."

  "That was no one's fault," Elen said quietly.

  Sagai smiled at her, but said, "Yes, we must find the scholar Radu dealt with as quickly as possible. And once we find him we must take the winged relic to Riathen as fast as we value our lives, because if we are caught by these people with it there is no doubt what will happen." He looked to Khat again, and asked, "What of our big ugly block? You said you had thought of something concerning it?"

  Khat had wanted to consider his idea more carefully, but the day and a half since he had seen the thing hadn't changed his mind. "Have you seen the Miracle?" he asked Elen.

  "In the palace? Well, yes, I've stepped in to look at it once or twice, out of curiosity .. ." She looked from Khat to Sagai and back again. "What?"

  Sagai sighed. "She has one of the few truly arcane relics ever found intact at her fingertips, and steps in to glance at it once or twice, out of curiosity."

  "Yes, well..."

  Khat shook his head over Elen's single-mindedness, then said, "I think it's part of an arcane engine."

  Sagai's eyebrows lifted in surprise and speculation.

  "But it can't be," Elen protested. "The arcane engines were made of metal with glass balls and crystals and pipes carrying quicksilver. They looked like giant orreries."

  "And that's why they're found only in painrods, or in pieces," Khat told her, exasperated. Leave it to a Warder to think she knew what every arcane engine ever made looked like. "But the Miracle is part of an arcane engine, just like the crystal plaque."

  "You said you thought it was probably just decorative," Elen accused.

  "That was when I still thought I could talk you into selling it to the Academia, before I knew what fanatics you people are."

  "I am not a-"

  Sagai leaned forward, cutting her off. "Explain this theory of yours. Why do you think the Miracle is part of an arcane engine?"

  "Riathen's Survivor text. The engraving of the three relics. It says they're pieces of arcane engines, doesn't it?" Khat looked at Elen. "That's why he's so sure finding them will make the Warders more powerful."

  "I don't know. I can't read Ancient script. And Riathen never discussed the particulars with me. He just told me his hopes of what it will lead to."

  Khat turned back to Sagai. "The Miracle is bigger than our big ugly block, and shaped differently, but there is definitely a family resemblance."

  Under Sagai's questions he described both pieces carefully, and finally his partner nodded agreement. "I'd like to see for myself, of course," Sagai said. "But it is certainly a valid point to work from."

  Elen frowned. "You only saw the picture in the book once. Are you sure you're remembering it accurately?"

  Before Khat could answer, a preoccupied Sagai said, "His memory is very good. Too good for his own good, in fact. If you think the plaque and the block are both bits of an arcane engine, where does the small inlaid piece fit in? It is no different from the decorative relics, except for the rareness of the winged figure."

  "I don't know." Khat shrugged, looking away toward the Waste. His memory was too good for his own good, but somehow Sagai saying it was a little like a quick stab in the heart, and he wasn't sure why.

  They sat quietly. In the distance Khat could hear the steamwagon that ran on rails, its engine panting as it painfully negotiated the steep incline from the Sixth Tier to the Fifth. Then a mournful voice from the overhanging window of the next house said, "I couldn't live next to a couple of peddlers who'd sit up on their roof all night under my window and talk about women. No, I have to live next to a couple of whatever-you-people-are who sit up on your roof all night and talk about history."

  Elen gaped, shocked that they had been overhead. Sagai told their neighbor, "Then go and live somewhere else."

  The ladder rattled as Miram climbed up through the vent. Taking a seat next to Sagai, she handed Khat a hunk of bread and asked, "Did the search go well today?"

  Elen looked shocked again. She's going to have to get over that, Khat thought. Whom did she think Miram was going to tell, the Elector, maybe? Khat was the only one who was on speaking terms with their enemies.

  Sagai said, "It becomes clearer, but I don't entirely like some of the things we are discovering."

  Khat expected Miram to ask more questions, but she seemed preoccupied. The first time Khat had met her had been on the caravan to Charisat, where Sagai had taken him after Khat had been shot by the pirates. He had woken up with Miram leaning over him, trying to tend his wound. He had shown his teeth at her, and she had delivered an open-handed blow to the side of his head that had almost knocked him unconscious. After that they had had no trouble getting along. Miram was small and a city woman but fierce and not to be trifled with. She turned to Khat and said suddenly, "Someone came here looking for you today. It was Akai, one of the men who beat Ris."

  Khat almost choked on a mouthful of bread, swallowed with difficulty, and said, "He came here?"

  "Yes. He said he had seen the message you left with Harim, and wished to discuss it with you personally." Miram demanded, "Did you kill this Harim?"

  "No!" Khat's wounded outrage was tempered by the thought that Harim might very well have died of blood poisoning in the meantime. At least, he would have if Khat's luck held. He certainly meant to kill Akai now for daring to come to the house. But it seemed his message had been received; now Lushan's men would concentrate on avenging themselves on him and no one else.

  "Did you hurt him?" she persisted. It was a lucky thing for lower-tier malefactors that as a foreigner Miram could never become a questioner for the Vigils' Undercourt.

  "Well, yes."

  She turned on Sagai, who had been conspicuously silent. "You knew about this."

  "I did not," he said with dignity. "I suspected that Harim and Akai might suffer accidents in the near future, but I didn't know exactly when it would happen or what form it would take."

  Miram threw up her hands. "Men and children, they're all the same. The two of you together have no sense of... no sense of..." She searched for the right word in vain, and finally finished, "No sense at all." She turned to Elen in appeal. "Don't you think so?"

&
nbsp; "Well, Sagai isn't as bad as Khat," Elen said, giving the question serious consideration. "But that's not saying much."

  "Sagai is a scholar who sees a relic and goes mad," Miram corrected. "I'm not complaining. We live better than anyone in our court, and my husband does not come home half dead from hard labor." She looked at Khat, her eyes fierce. "And before you came here, Netta was afraid to send her daughter to the market alone because all the idlers there knew she had no father to defend her. Now she can send her daughter anywhere in the quarter, and no one dares look twice at her. And I don't worry so much now that Sagai has someone to watch his back when he goes among those relic thieves in the Silent Market." She stopped to take a deep breath. Instinctive self-preservation kept Sagai and Khat silent, and Elen was too fascinated to speak. Miram continued, "All I am saying is that I want you to be careful." She glared at Khat. "Both of you." She stood abruptly and went to the ladder to climb back down into the house.

  They sat in silence until finally Khat asked, "Was she angry or not?"

  "My wife is a very passionate woman," Sagai explained. "But she doesn't often tell people what she thinks of them, even people she cares for. It made courting her a great trial."

  Chapter Ten

  In the hour before dawn Khat walked Elen back up the tiers to Riathen's house.

  He had meant to leave her at the Third Tier, but after they had passed the bored gate vigils, he saw how dark and quiet the streets up there were, and thought of Constans, and decided it couldn't hurt to stay with her.

  On the Second Tier they were stopped three times by patrolling vigils, who were much inclined to throw Khat off the tier wall, but finally passed them both on after examining Elen's token. Finally they reached the small garden, which was strange with shadow shapes under the darkened sky, lit only by the lamps hanging on the walls of the nearby houses. Khat stopped at the gate, and Elen asked, "Aren't you coming up with me? Riathen could have questions for you. What if there's a delay, because you're not there?"

  Khat leaned against the garden wall. "Elen, no offense, but I don't like it up there."

  "It's early, and there won't be anyone about but Warders," she pointed out. He was sure it sounded reasonable to her. She gestured down the street, where the swing of a ghostlamp marked another patrolling vigil. "The lictor is posted at the top of the wall during the night, and you can't stay down here alone. They could take you into custody."

  He felt trapped, and he didn't like that, and she was right, and he didn't like that either.

  They went up the alcove's rock-cut steps; past the lictor at the top, who recognized Elen and let them by without comment; through the empty court and up the wide stair, which was lit by wax candles and lamps burning lightly scented oil. There were few people about, though Khat heard voices off the first landing. Then on the second landing they met a brown-robed servant woman, who got a good look at Elen's companion and almost dropped a tray of dirty crockery.

  After she beat a hasty retreat, Khat said, "That's it, Elen. I'm not going any further."

  "All right. Hmm. This way." She led him through an archway and a little maze of connecting courts, each with a bubbling fountain and plants stirred by the warm night breeze, and out onto a broad open terrace. Beyond it was a great empty space, and past that an occasional lighted window showed that it was surrounded by other expansive houses. The top few levels of the Elector's palace were visible above the dark shapes of the surrounding buildings, and they were lit like the Odeon on a festival night, with flaring torches and mirror-backed lamps on open balconies reflecting off the limestone walls.

  Elen said, "You can't see it now, but there's a garden out there, and the homes of some of the high officials in the court have their back terraces giving on to it." She hesitated, then added, "There's a little pavilion out there too, where the embassies from the other Fringe Cities are quartered sometimes. The embassy from the kris-men Enclave is there now. They're here for another day at least."

  Khat looked down at her sharply, but her expression was bland. Still he dropped down onto the nearest stone bench and looked up at her expectantly, not betraying any interest in what the view would be in daylight.

  Elen, who didn't betray any interest in his lack of reaction, said, "I'll be back as soon as I can," and went away.

  Khat settled in to wait, not happily.

  ***

  Elen went up the main stair toward Riathen's rooms. After the lower tiers in general and the ghostcallers' quarter in particular, the slow waking quiet of the Master Warder's house was like another world. Polished stone under her battered sandals instead of crumbling mud brick, the scent of sandalwood and cool water instead of sweat and sewer stink. She supposed that you became accustomed to such things, after a time. She supposed that Khat and Sagai and the others had become accustomed to it. She couldn't imagine how. But she remembered the first time she had brought Khat up here and the way he had completely ignored the passersby who were all but spitting on the dirt at his feet. And at her, because she was with him. She supposed it was possible to become accustomed to anything.

  When Elen was a child she had thought the lower tiers were all filth and degradation; living on the First Tier had given her no experience with hardworking poverty, and no idea that there were non-citizens and outsiders who were not criminals. Without the benefit of a Warder's experience and senses, most Patricians undoubtedly still thought that.

  On the third landing Seul stepped in front of her suddenly, almost startling her off the top step. His voice low, he said, "You didn't come back last night."

  Elen blinked up at him, astonished. "I know." She was still not really fully awake, though sleeping on the roof of Netta's house on scraps of matting judged too old and ragged for the rooms below had not been as uncomfortable as she would have thought. She had been bone-weary, and perhaps the encounter with the ghost had taken more out of her than she knew. Both her power and her ability to Look Within were weak, but even she had felt the pull the thing had exerted on her soul. It was something Warders should know of. Maybe, when this was over, she would give a lesson for the apprentices about her experience.

  None of this was an answer for Seul, who was still staring down at her, his expression growing even more stony. "Where were you?" he demanded.

  This time she understood him, and felt her face go hot.

  In growing anger, she considered the indignity of explaining to Seul, who was glaring at her with a wrath more suitable for a father or a betrayed husband, that while she had spent the night in Khat's company, they had been more than adequately chaperoned, that Sagai was a fatherly sort of person, that Miram and Netta were perfectly respectable women, that their children had been everywhere, that she didn't see how intimacy was possible at all in the crowded warren of their court. That in the predawn stillness she had woken with someone's small child sleeping under her arm. That the thought of any impropriety had never occurred to her. Until now, and that impropriety concerned telling Seul to perform an unnatural act on himself.

  Her voice shaking, she began, "You have no right-"

  He wasn't even attempting to soul-read her, and mistook the quiver in her voice for embarrassment. "I know you went back to the lower tiers last night. Gandin told me. You don't know what you're getting yourself into with this krismen. If you've already gone that far . . ." He shook his head regretfully. "I know you're young, and you must be curious. But you can't trust him, and it's dangerous to associate yourself too closely with-"

  Elen was too angry to think. "We've almost found one of the relics!" she shouted, not caring if she brought everyone in the house running. "Everyone said it was impossible, and now we've almost found one! Doesn't that count for anything?"

  Evidently it did not, but at least this time he heard the rage in her voice. "Elen, you have to put your feelings aside and listen to me..." he began.

  She was in no mood to hear out any speech that didn't start with "I apologize." She stepped around him. He grabbed her
arm, and she shook him off with such violence that he drew back and let her pass.

  Elen went up the stairs in a blind fury. When she reached the top floor, one of the apprentices told her Riathen had only just returned from the palace, and she had to cool her heels in his anteroom, muttering angrily to herself while the shadows gave way to pearly dawn light. Finally the door servant held the curtain aside for her, and Elen entered the quiet room and saw with relief that Riathen was alone, seated at the low table, the Ancient Survivor book unfolded before him. He looked up and smiled at her approach. "You have news."

  "Yes, there's been progress." Firmly putting Seul out of her mind, she took a seat on a stool and began to tell him what they had discovered. She reached the part about Radu's death, and Khat's conclusion about the Academia, and Riathen stopped her and called for one of his archivists.

  When the man had taken down his instructions on a wax tablet and hurried away, the Master Warder said, "It will take them a short time to persuade the record keepers at the Academia to open their books so early, and some time for them to go through the lists, but he should have news for you this morning."

  "Good."

  Riathen's eyes lifted to meet hers then, opaque and difficult to read. "And did you discover anything about our mysterious relic dealer?"

  This wasn't a question Elen was quite prepared for. She thought of what Sagai had told her, but that seemed more his story than it was Khat's, and she couldn't see how Riathen would be interested in the fact that Khat was single-mindedly bent on killing pirates. The other things that she had learned about him seemed too commonplace for the Master Warder's interest. She said, "Nothing, really. He's been in the city for some time." She gestured helplessly. "He's exactly what he appears to be."

  "I don't doubt that," Riathen began to fold up the book, using exquisite care with its fragile creases. "The krismen embassy has made inquiries about the possibility of any of their kind living in Charisat. It is thought by some in the court they are searching for one person in particular. And I have yet to hear of any other krismen in Charisat at this time except Khat." His eyes rested on her thoughtfully. "Bear this in mind."