Cordimancy (39 page)

She kept ears pricked to gossip as she walked, hoping to glean information—but heard nothing useful. Nobody was talking about mysterious children, or osipi prisoners, or Gorumim.

She spoke with a harmless-looking face in the crowd, and got directions to the local jailhouse. She went there and chatted up the toothless old man who sat scratching his knees across the street. Yes, he camped in this doorway; he had no other place to go. Yes, several men had been dragged in to the jail last night, drunk and disorderly. No old women, though. Yes, he was sure. No, a large group of prisoners couldn’t fit here; they’d have to go somewhere else. Where? How should he know?

Malena slipped him a copper and wandered off.

Attempting to approach the raja directly was hopeless, according to Toril. Even so, she found her way to the complex of buildings where the royal family lived. The gates were shut, and eight armed guards stood shoulder to shoulder, warding off rabble. They admitted no one, and she saw no way to get a private conversation with just one of them. She studied the walls; they had been built with protection in mind, and looked unscalable. She even circuited as far as the fenced private gardens at the uphill side in back, thinking that if she could gain access there, she might approach the compound from a less protected angle. But the barrier was sturdy and high, with sharpened stakes atop the iron; inside, men rode back and forth, patrolling.

She’d followed her heart all this way, trusting in a strong sense that her sister was among those needing rescue. She still felt that, deep inside. Why could her feelings not give her a helpful idea what to do now?

She considered more desperate measures.

Could she hire a thief to get her into the royal compound? How would she even find the sort of person she needed? With a day or two to make careful inquiries, she might have attempted it—but on short notice, she thought that would just leave her robbed and dead in a back alley, or imprisoned with no ready appeal.

Hire a Voice, maybe—and send a message to the raja? Such a message might reach someone useful, but it was just as likely to be ignored. Even if it did attract attention, when might that happen? Plus, the Voice in Two Forks had been in Gorumim’s employ; did his reach include the Sisterhood here, too?

What about starting a fire somewhere in the city, derailing plans for the evening’s festivities? It might buy her time. But it was crazy; besides the risk of being caught, and the destruction and danger it would cause for other innocent people, what if Gorumim seized on the fire as serendipity, and completed his plans faster and easier in the chaos?

As shadows grew long, Malena rounded a corner of the street, biting her lip and almost groaning with worry. The distant glint of sun on lake made her blink. She lifted a hand to pull at the brim of her hat, then froze.

The lake!

Someone down at the lake would have seen the general arrive on his barge, might remember how he disembarked and with whom. Maybe the children were still below decks. If not, at least it would be a place to ask useful questions.

She dropped her candles, threw off her hat, and ran. No amount of sneaking would help her if she didn’t find the right people to talk to before night celebrations began.

A third of an hour later, she had pumped a man mending nets, two laborers toting kegs of ghee, and a band of urchins skipping rocks in the shallows—and she felt a spark of possibility.

Gorumim had an estate on the waterfront, in the strip of groomed properties between the lake and the royal grounds where evening winds kept the midges at bay. They pointed it out to her, half a league distant by foot, but just a few bowshots across the dimming water. And yes, the old fisherman she accosted would sell her that little boat.

54

more secrets ~ Malena

She
found the barge moored along a stone pier that jutted into the lake from Gorumim’s property. Malena paddled her coracle with care, heart pounding, but soon after creeping aboard, she grew confident that it was deserted. No children. No osipi.

She did find half a handprint in dust on one wall of the low cabin; the children had been here. Was Tupa among them?

The boathouse held a sleek, brightly painted
shikara
—but it just rocked in its moorings, unattended.

She slipped up the pier in the gathering dusk. A couple hundred paces from the lakefront sat the main house—a stone structure with textured shadows that suggested bas relief around each entryway. A verandah girdled the building, with a small cupola-crowned tower in one corner. Lanterns had been lit in several places, inside and out, and she could see silhouettes moving behind the loosely woven mats hanging in arched windows.

Too public, she thought. Gorumim was a well known political figure; the shadows she saw would be household staff who lived there permanently, helping him to entertain and receive visitors. He wouldn’t keep prisoners—especially children that he couldn’t explain—in his personal residence.

Farther up the property, she saw a faint border of rock. That would be a wall of some sort, running parallel to the street. She might have walked along the other side of that wall earlier in the day, as she looked for a back entrance to the royal grounds. To be so close, with time to spare, and not to know!

Mast and nim trees and a fountain dotted the manicured lawns, but the only other building was a long, low affair far above and behind the main house, close to the wall. Perhaps a place to keep a
tanga
, and the horses that pulled it? It was big enough—and isolated… It looked dark—but squinting, Malena thought she detected a faint glow where a door or window might be.

She worked her way toward the distant building, giving the house a wide berth, slipping from tree to tree to use the darkest shadows. Her breath grew short as legs fought the slope. Sometime during the day, the pain from her fall had faded; she realized she had run to the docks without a limp, knelt in a boat with no twinges of hip or ankle or knee. Was her husband dead, now? What had he done to her, with that blue fire he’d conjured in his last act of magic? She had given him resentment rather than thanks.

Where was Shivi?

She shook her head. There would be time to wrestle worries and inner demons later; right now, the children were all that mattered.

What if the osipi were guarding this building, and had seen her coming?

What if she discovered nothing, up ahead?

She shook her head again. She had no plan, just a feeling and a need to act upon it. Time was nearly gone. She would fight the ahu with her bare hands if she had to, fight Gorumim himself. Either she would fail, or she would not. But she would not cower behind sacks of barley this time.

Toril’s
voice transfixed her.

She stopped, hand half-raised to the door, and listened intently. What emotion had she heard in that raw cry—defiance? Pain?

“You have a whole other hand full of fingers,” said a low baritone. This person sounded calm, almost flat, and Malena’s neck prickled. She had never heard Gorumim speak, but a powerful sense of deja vu possessed her; she was a child again, watching the man parade, and feeling her insides crawl with terror.

Young as she had been, she had known this man’s heart. She had seen inside it, and she had not been wrong.

Carefully, Malena lay prone and fitted her eye to the chink of light spilling from the jamb. She saw a fire lit in the corner, and booted feet standing before a low table of some sort. She couldn’t see much above the surface, but a hand and thigh suggested someone bound or strapped there.

Her husband.

He coughed weakly.

“The woman,” Gorumim said. “Again, where is the woman?”

Malena inhaled.

She caught a flash of brass and a straight line of staff swinging up past the boots, heard a thud.

Toril coughed again, trailing off into a high-pitched whine.

Gorumim gave a low snicker. “You banged this staff at our council of war to get our attention. Remember how everybody jumped,
boy
?”

The boots moved, looked like they were leaning.

“She’s the flaw in my symbol, you see,” Gorumim went on. “And we magic wielders have to have our symbols, don’t we? How would it be if I destroy the village at the heart of The Crown, but someone survives? I don’t want that, if I mean business with the real crown here, tonight.”

Malena heard the sound of spitting.

Gorumim snorted. “That the best you’ve got? Let’s try this brass on your other thumb to teach you some manners.”

The end of Kelun’s staff curved into view, then swung out of sight again. After a moment, a sickening crunch sounded, and Toril screamed. It seemed to go on and on, and Malena had to bite her lip and close her eyes to fight the bile rising in her throat.

“Don’t get your hopes up, though. You’re not accomplishing much with your silence,” Gorumim continued after a time. His voice was still conversational. “Ten days back, not having the woman worried me. Since then I’ve pondered, and realized that I don’t strictly need her after all. My attack
did
leave The Crown in ruins, and I’ve got enough children’s blood to make that mean something when I march out of here and fetch them and their little golden guards. So when you don’t answer, all you really do is keep me amused.”

“Where are they?” Toril croaked, his voice weak and hoarse.

Malena held her breath.

“The children? Oh, close… quite close…” The boots whirled around and Malena started as she saw them step toward the door—but by the time she could react, they were turning again. The general was pacing. “You see, I bent the first four enchantments the other night. That got me past the border, and the lake, and the city walls, and even into the outer courtyard of the royal compound without the raja sensing a problem. But from here on in, it’s harder, and the time for subterfuge is past.”

“Jus… attack… self… let kids go,” Toril gasped.

The boots turned to face the table again and became motionless. “Oh no. No, that wouldn’t do at all. I do need them—and they’ll provide some nice drama, as well. Don’t begrudge me my drama; I’ve waited several lifetimes for it.”

“…Beg you …use me… Five my witness!” Toril rasped. His timbre was high, pleading.

Gorumim tapped his toe. “The raja won’t be closeted in his chambers or his throne room tonight—he’ll be out mingling with guests on the balcony overlooking his gardens, dressed in gold and trying to debauch any woman that catches his eye. I’m supposed to parade my prisoners up in chains as a grand gesture, at exactly fifteenth hour—proof that the border conflict shouldn’t worry any of his favorites here in the capital. Convenient for me; I’ll be close, with only a few guards and the protective shells around his person between us. The ahu will take out the guards easily, but those shields are strong; I’m budgeting a pair of children for each, and three for the final layer. That gives me five spares, just in case.”

The boots moved out of Malena’s sight, as if Gorumim were fetching something. In a moment they returned.

“Back to the woman,” his cold voice continued, as if managing a chat between friends. “I want her for the symmetry, and for my vanity, I suppose. But there’s something else, ur Hasha… Now I want her because I’m curious.”

A rhythmic rasping began. It sounded like a knife on a whetstone.

She shivered. Her hands were trembling, her mouth dry with fear. The nausea that had plagued her for days was back, stronger than ever.

Was he about to kill Toril?

What should she do? Open the door and rush at Gorumim? The man was a consummate soldier, veteran of two centuries of war, with sata strength and endurance. He had the staff, and maybe a blade. She had nothing but fingernails.

It wasn’t hopeless odds that held her back, though; she was still emboldened by desperation.

No.

What gave her pause was that she’d checked out the far end of the building before approaching this door, and aside from some tack and a few horses, it was empty. No children. That meant they were with ahu somewhere else; if she attacked Gorumim now to save her husband, and by some miracle succeeded, she might not find them. Or they might be executed by the ahu in retaliation.

Toril would want me to save the children, not him
, she thought—and as she did so, her heart flooded with warmth. Her poor, naive husband had ignored her advice, kept secrets that he had no right to hide, presumed much about her feelings. But he had also brought her here. He had loved the same children that she was fighting for. And he wouldn’t begrudge her decision to hide if it gave her a chance to help little ones.

“They say you’re a labimancer,” Gorumim said. “The most powerful lip from the south since Tamu, before even I was born. I half expected you to use that power in some way, and I took precautions. But perhaps your reputation is undeserved… No comment? Hmm… You may not know this—in fact, I’ve killed a lot of people to make sure this knowledge doesn’t leak—but I’m quite a lip myself. I got this white hair from sata throats, not my own vows. Most of the benefits, few of the drawbacks.”

More steel on a whetstone.

“That’s given me a long, long time to study magic. And I
have
studied. I take careful notes; you know what they say about sata and their histories.”

Malena saw half of a gesture toward a wall, and realized that the dim lines she’d detected were the edges of books. Legs walked toward them; she heard a scraping, and the thump of a tome sliding onto a desk and falling open.

“My talents were prodigious to begin with. So perhaps you can understand why this woman has piqued my curiosity. You see, nobody survives the sort of reaper curse I sent to take her.
Nobody
. You may be quite a kindler, but law is law. You can’t be powerful enough to protect her from
that
. So… while I wait for the raja’s appointed hour, I thought I’d learn your trick, using all my powers of persuasion. If you won’t tell me where she is, so I can ask her, then tell me how you did it. I’ve got my quill ready.”

Toril sounded like he was inhaling with effort.

Gorumim’s toe tapped again.

“Will I find any clues in this pouch of yours?” he demanded. There was a rustling sound. “You didn’t work any magic with this sling or tinderbox, I think.” Malena heard the zip of cord jerking through leather. “What are these pieces of pottery?”

Toril kept wheezing.

“Tell me!” For the first time, an edge crept into the general’s voice. Something tinkled on stone near Malena’s door as he threw the pouch in his anger. “I’ll even let her go. How can Hasha’s son be such a fool? Didn’t he teach you not to make enemies?”

The book slammed shut. Boots walked, whirled, backed up and knelt. Malena saw an arm draw back. She could make out enough posture to imagine the knife tip at her husband’s throat. She forgot to breathe.

After a few heartbeats, the arm relaxed.

“Or not. Killing you in private is a waste; a clan chief is important enough that I could execute you in public, and people would learn a lesson. ‘This is what happens when you cross that white-haired fox of a general’…” He paused, mulling over the idea.

Malena inhaled softly. Tears had sprung to her eyes, and were now pooling on the cold stone beneath her cheek. She felt like her heart would burst.

She had noticed shards of ceramic peeking out of the pouch, within reach of the crack where she was spying—and had recognized them.

They were fragments of her daisy, and the ocarina that went with it—the antechild she’d planned to give her new husband when she was an innocent and happy bride, a lifetime ago. He must have found it among the destruction of her trunks, back in Noemi.

He couldn’t have known what it meant to her. But apparently it had value to him, nonetheless. He’d carried it all this way.

She thought of Toril, the skinny child she had first met. He hadn’t been much older than the children she was chasing now… Even then, he was fixing things. For her. Because he cared. It had been in his heart, and she had seen it and loved it. She had not been wrong about that heart, any more than she had been about the evil one.

What she
had
been wrong about was her name. As a shivering twelve-year-old, she’d searched the rocks until she found “beauty” and “scholar”, and thought she was clever. Was it too late to accept “labor” and “heart” instead?

She remembered Shivi’s description of mothers in labor.

She remembered Shivi’s lecture about forgiveness, and the feel of thin arms around her waist.

Her tears intensified. Why was she understanding tenderness only when it no longer mattered? Why was she desperate, now, so achingly desperate—flooded with a universe of urgency—to rescue this man who shouldered such sorrow, such pain for her, and for children who were not his own?