City of Bones

by Martha Wells

  "Finally, yes. It took her a little while to get used to the idea, but some of that crying was for joy." She sighed. "We're giving the house to Ris's family. They can cut holes in the wall and combine it with theirs. Libra and Senace are going to stay and live with them."

  "You didn't tell them where we're going, did you?"

  "Sagai told them we were going to Denatra, towards the coast. So if anyone asks they have an answer to give." She frowned. "You are coming with us, aren't you?"

  "I told you I was."

  "Kenniliar really is a better city than this. We would never have left except that it takes so much money to live there, and to buy places in the guilds, and Sagai didn't want to be a burden on his uncle."

  He looked away, consciously avoiding her eyes. "I've been there. It was all right." Kenniliar didn't have the high foreign population of Charisat, or the larger city's limited experience with kris. He had drawn far too much attention there simply walking down the street.

  "It will be better, having people there, and a home. A real house, I mean, with its own fountain." Miram looked around at the familiar room, visible in the wan light from a single candle bowl. The wicker chests that were normally pushed back into a corner had been pulled out for packing, the piles of matting shoved aside, the children's battered rag-and-bead dolls collected in a heap. "Sagai went down to the docks before dark and bought our passage on a caravan leaving in the morning."

  "He didn't use his own name ..."

  "No, he is Athram-selwa, a trader in beads and dyestuffs, moving his wife and sister and children to Kenniliar." Her eyes came back from faraway as she stopped thinking about the journey and concentrated on him. "Are you worried about Elen?"

  Khat lifted one shoulder in a careful shrug. "A little. There's some things I should have told her at the Academia, before she left."

  "She is a Warder," Miram said, considering it carefully. "Even though she looks so young. She should be able to take care of herself."

  "I should be able to take care of myself, and you're treating me like one of your babies."

  Miram smiled, getting to her feet, and slapped him lightly on the cheek. "Now I know you're feeling better."

  ***

  Once they reached the First Tier, Riathen had the relics carried up to his chamber, then locked himself away without a word to anyone. At the moment, this suited Elen perfectly. She avoided Gandin's questions by avoiding him, and slipped down to her rooms to change her dusty and sweat-soaked kaftan for a fresh one and to put on her white Warder's mantle. Then she escaped the house.

  On the way back she had asked Riathen about the High Justice from whom he had taken the crystal plaque, and, too preoccupied with his success to wonder at the question, he had told her the man's name was Vien'ten Rasan.

  Custom allowed High Justices of the Trade Inspectors to conceal their names as well as their faces when doing their duties on the lower tiers, but Elen was sure she would recognize the man she had encountered in the prison. And if it is him, well then, she thought. There were only twelve High Justices in Charisat, and she supposed coincidence was possible. But she was simply in no mood to believe in coincidence.

  She knew this would be her last part in this. If their suspicions were correct and Riathen did want the relics to use as pieces of some arcane engine he was constructing, the rest would be a matter for Warders of power. And perhaps that's for the best, Elen thought. She had stretched her power as she never had before in the past few days; she knew she couldn't take much more.

  Justice Rasan's house was across the tier from Riathen's and a long walk in the afternoon heat. Approaching it, she thought it quite in character for a Trade Inspector: the place was blocky and designed as if for defense, with thick limestone-faced walls concealing everything but the very top of a central dome, and narrow gates guarded by wary private vigils.

  The door servant unlocked the gate for her without argument, and she walked in through a low arch. There was a long court to one side, with a square fountain and two ranks of potted fig trees, and a trellised veranda with tiled benches to the other. A second gate and another pair of vigils barred entry into the rest of the house, which towered over the entrance courts, heavy and graceless.

  Elen raised an eyebrow at this evidence of overcaution. She supposed High Justices made enemies, even ones that could come after them on the First Tier; Rasan evidently thought so.

  The servant tried to bow her into the trellised waiting area, but she held her ground. "I won't wait. I will see the High Justice immediately."

  The servant hesitated, wetting his lips nervously. "I will try, Honored."

  It wasn't her he was afraid of, Elen knew. She nodded, and he unlocked the inner gate and disappeared into the cool depths of the house.

  Elen waited, standing stubbornly in the sunlit corridor between the court and the veranda until it became apparent that she was meant to wait a long time. She approached the gate and grabbed one of the bars. The vigil on the other side shifted uncertainly, avoiding her eyes. She said, "Open this in the name of the Master Warder." It had worked at the prison, and if everything she suspected was true, this Justice would not dare complain about her high-handedness to Riathen.

  The vigil hesitated, looking at the others for help. Elen knew of Warders who could open locks with their power; Seul claimed to be able to though she had never actually witnessed it. Elen turned her inner eye on the lock, tentatively, and almost started back in surprise. For an instant she had been able to "feel" the inside of the lock, sense the position of the tumblers, the oil and dust where they touched. This had never happened to her before. She was lucky to be able to sense the presence of breathing, thinking people, let alone inanimate objects.

  Something in her expression must have convinced the vigil, because he was hastily fumbling for a key. Somewhat dazed, she stepped back to let him open the gate, then brushed past him into the house.

  The long arched corridor was blessedly cool, with reception rooms on either side. A low voice droning in the distance led her to the back of the house.

  It was a large chamber just off the main corridor, with fans moving jerkily in the vaults of the high ceiling and the back wall opening into another inner court, this one far more lush than the one meant for visitors' eyes. The voice she had heard was the High Justice himself, pacing as he dictated to an aged archivist, who was scribbling frantically to keep up. The servant who had let her in was huddled on the floor in a position of abject obeisance that had been outmoded for several generations. Even the Elector's servants weren't expected to abase themselves that way. Elen rather thought some enlightened Elector of the past had issued a decree against it, in fact. She cleared her throat.

  Justice Rasan turned with a startled oath. He wore a brief indoor veil, without his bronze mask, but Elen recognized him immediately. His height and build, the way he moved, the rather disquieting sense she had of his soul, all were the same as the man she had confronted in the Trade Inspectors' prison. She smiled and inclined her head politely.

  The only sound was the whir of the fans' clockwork and the scratch of pen on paper as the archivist used the pause to catch up. Then Rasan said, "Warder, I don't recall inviting you into my home." His voice was as she remembered it, cold, mocking, and abrasive to the nerves.

  "I considered my business too urgent to wait." Elen came further into the room. Perhaps it was euphoria over her success with the lock, but she suddenly found herself enjoying this confrontation. The servant hadn't moved, and she decided she would have a formal denouncement of Rasan written up over the incident. He should appreciate the gesture, since Trade Inspectors were sticklers for every rule of law.

  Justice Rasan growled a dismissal, and the servant bolted for the door, the archivist quickly gathering up his pens and inkpots and following. "The Master Warder has sent you here, I suppose?" he said.

  Elen decided not to answer that one. She said, "Some time ago the Master Warder came to see you on another matter, an
d found in your possession a relic of rare beauty, a mythenin plaque inlaid with crystal pieces that turned color in the light. You gave it to him. My question is, who gave it to you?"

  "Is it the Master Warder who is so interested in this, or is it you?" Rasan went to the stone wine cabinet standing against the wall and drew a cup from the clay jar cooling inside it. "I allowed you to get your creature out of prison-something I would have done for any Patrician lady, no matter what my feelings on her . . . habits-but using the Master Warder's name to satisfy idle curiosity is another matter." He eyed her coldly, obviously expecting some sort of outburst.

  Wine, at this time of day, Elen thought. She hoped it made him ill. Really, in the stinking depths of the prison she had thought him menacing. Now she was finding him merely coarse. She sighed a little, as if the only feeling he roused in her was fatigue, and said, "That hardly answers my question. I know that if you aren't a thief yourself, you certainly benefit from their crimes. Your possession of a stolen relic proves that."

  He slammed the wine cup down on the cabinet, snarling at her, "I don't believe the Master Warder sent you, child."

  "Then let's go and ask him, shall we?" Elen sharpened her voice. Insults hadn't worked, so now he tried anger. He was desperate to be rid of her, perhaps even afraid, and she could have danced for joy. She must be on the right trail. "I already know it was a bribe from relic thieves, but I'm not really interested in your petty greeds and crimes. I want to know who sent you to the Academia last night, I want to know who told you to find another relic, this one a tiny mythenin plaque with a winged figure on it, and most of all I want to know who snaps his fingers and makes a High Justice of the Trade Inspectors jump to his bidding!"

  Rasan turned away from her, one hand clutching the carved top of the wine cabinet as if to support himself. His other hand was trembling. He said, "You don't know it was a bribe."

  He is afraid, Elen thought. There was some satisfaction in hearing that rusty voice convey uncertainty instead of threat or mockery, but there was no time to gloat now. She moved closer, to the low table where the archivist had been working, and glanced down at the scattered papers. Travel orders. Rasan had been making arrangements to leave the city. She smiled tightly to herself. "If you tell us the truth, we can protect you."

  "Protect me?" The sneer was back, though she knew it masked fear now. "From your own kind?"

  Elen frowned, surprised. "What do you mean?"

  "The one she sends with her orders." He turned to face her. "Don't think I don't know who he is, though it's his conceit not to give me his name. I know he's a Warder, I know who his Master is, or one of his masters." His laugh was without a vestige of humor. "She hired the thieves to steal a relic collection from some fool of a court flunky on the Second Tier, and they betrayed her. The idiots didn't realize who she was." He pounded his fist on the cabinet again. "I should have known, I should have known when the fools gave me the plaque and bragged of the Patrician woman they had cheated . . . Then your Master Warder found the plaque, and she learned of my involvement. I had to do as she asked. I found the thieves, but it was too late, the collection had been dispersed. I had to search for the other relics for her. And now . . ." He stared at nothing, his eyes hunted. "Now the relics are found, and my assistance is unnecessary.

  Elen thought he was drunker than she had supposed, that he was babbling or having heat visions. The "he" who refused to use his name must be Aristai Constans, but . . . She muttered, "She? Who is-" She caught the image from the surface of Rasan's thoughts. "Oh, no," she said aloud.

  "Oh, yes." The Justice nodded.

  "We can protect you, I swear it. We'll take you out of the city, tonight, now. Come with me and tell-" A cool breeze scattered the papers on the little table, interrupting her. She glanced at the wall opening into the garden court, then looked again. The flowers and plants were motionless in the hot heavy air. The breeze was inside the room.

  Justice Rasan was staring around, fear in his bloodshot eyes. Distracted, Elen hadn't tasted the growing power in the air, but now she realized what was happening. The air spirit that had stalked them at the Academia was here. In the afternoon light it was invisible, but it must have moved just in front of her to stir the papers.

  Elen shook back her sleeves and held her hands out, clearing her mind to construct the guard that she had tried to use that night at the Academia. It hadn't held Constans off that well, but there had been no chance to try it on the air spirit. She told Rasan, "Get behind me. I'll try to-"

  The Justice cried out suddenly, staggering backward. He must have felt the cold edge of the creature's presence. Elen shouted, "No!" and started toward him, stopping as the deathly cold of the thing enveloped her.

  She stumbled back, trying to get her breath, her throat aching with the freezing air she had inhaled. This had happened to her at the fortune-teller's house, when she had unknowingly walked into the ghost. And Radu, who must have had some presentiment of death when he burned bones for her, who had looked as if he had died of fear ... Rasan was struggling, caught in the thing's invisible grip. He choked, gasping for air, and she watched in shock as his skin turned gray.

  Elen backed away. It was happening so quickly. Rasan's terrified eyes were turning dull, his skin chalky. He collapsed, and Elen held up her hands to weave the guard again, fear and desperation giving her faulty power a strength she ordinarily couldn't tap.

  The guard formed in front of the doorway to the corridor, a solidification of the air barely visible in the daylight. She felt the air spirit turn toward her; she bit her lip and held her ground as it came closer. Then lines of red light flared briefly as it encountered the guard and retreated.

  Elen stumbled back through the door, knowing it was the best she could do. She was trembling with exhaustion, and the edges of her vision were darkening alarmingly, the penalty for having constructed so powerful a working. There was simply no way she could form a guard around the entire room and trap the thing. But this would give her the time to warn the house's other occupants and flee the doomed place herself. She had to tell Riathen what she had learned. She had to warn him.

  She darted blindly down the corridor, not seeing the veiled Patrician man waiting for her until she ran right into him. Then it was too late.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They left the house for the last time an hour or so before dawn, packing the children and the few wicker chests that held all their belongings into a handcart full of bronze pots that its owner was taking down to the docks. The street the carters used was well patrolled, but the man said he would be glad for the company on the long early-morning trip down through the Eighth Tier, and only asked them to pay a few copper bits for the privilege. In the confusion of making arrangements, packing, and herding children, Khat thought to avoid Sagai, but wasn't quite so lucky.

  His partner caught him out in the court, when the others were inside and the water keeper was still asleep in his wall cubby. "You do intend to meet us either on the trade road or in Kenniliar, don't you?" Sagai asked without preamble.

  "Of course I do." Caught unprepared, Khat couldn't put the casual innocence into that statement that it needed.

  "Then why do I have such difficulty believing it?"

  Khat shook his head, apparently amazed at this obtuse persistence. His eyes were still dark from the fever yesterday and would not be easily read, even by Sagai. "Are you calling me a liar?"

  "The thought crossed my mind," Sagai said mildly. The mildness meant that he wouldn't be drawn into a fight, but he wouldn't back down, either. "What is it you have to do that keeps you from fleeing for your life with the rest of us?"

  With real frustration, Khat demanded, "Do you have to know everything I do? What am I, your pet?"

  This also failed to distract Sagai. He said, "No, I don't have to know everything you do. But I mean to know if you intend to meet us in Kenniliar, and remember, I can keep this up as long as you can."

  Khat looked away, disgu
sted with himself. And Sagai could keep this up, too. That was how they trained scholars in Kenniliar, standing in the sun arguing a point until someone fainted. It was similar to the debates that went on in the krismen Enclave councils, except they did it in the shade, so the arguing could go on longer. Khat didn't have the strength for it now. He let his breath out, and said, "If there's any way I can, I will."

  Sagai studied him for a time, then turned away. "I suppose that will have to be good enough."

  They said good-bye only to Ris, who was recognizable now that the swelling and bruises on his face had diminished, and his father and aunt, who were volubly grateful for the gift of the house and sad to see their best neighbors leave. Khat was surprised to feel the parting himself. He hadn't realized how firmly entrenched he had been here, how many ties of friendship had been woven in with the mutually defensive alliances he had formed with the people in this court.

  They hadn't gone a few steps down the street when the old water keeper caught up with them. He had been wakened by the commotion and had come to give Khat the tokens he had held for him, water payments that wouldn't be needed now. After a moment's thought, Khat told him to give them to the old woman who lived in the bottom corner of the end house, who wove braid for a living and was always late with her water money.

  Khat waited until they were at the docks and Sagai was making the last arrangements with the caravan driver before he faded into the growing crowd. He made his way up to the best vantage point at the top of the docks, where he could sit on the marble base of the First Elector's colossus. He pulled his hood up to make it more difficult to recognize him from below, and watched for over an hour.