The Infernal City (28 page)

“I’ve come to expect the very best from you,” he said. “Come around this afternoon so we can discuss your progress here.”

He gave a perfunctory nod to the rest of the staff and then left.

Still embarrassed, Annaïg studied her vapor another moment. When she looked up, the rest of the cooks had returned silently to their jobs. All except Slyr.

“Another evening with Toel,” she said softly. “How he must enjoy your conversation.”

Annaïg felt a bit of sting from that. “I hope you don’t think anything else is going on.”

“What would I know?” she replied. “I’ve never been invited to Lord Toel’s quarters. How can I imagine what might go on there?”

“It sounds like you’ve been imagining it quite a lot,” Annaïg
returned. “But if you’re fantasizing about anything improper, that’s nothing to do with me.”

“Him having you there at all is improper,” Slyr countered. “It’s bad for morale.”

“Well, maybe you ought to tell
him
that.”

Slyr looked back down at the powders she was sifting.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “You know I worry.”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“It’s only been a few days,” she said. “He never even speaks to me.”

Annaïg snorted a little laugh. “Now you’re talking like he’s
your
lover.”

Slyr looked back up. “I just worry, that’s all.”

“Well, worry over this for a bit, then,” she replied, rising to her feet. “I need to go check on the root wine vats.”

Toel’s kitchen was very different from Qijne’s inferno. There was only one pit of hot stone and one oven, and neither was of particular size. In their place were long tables of polished red granite. Some supported brass steaming chambers, centrifuges, a hundred kinds of alchemical apparatuses. Others were entirely for the preparation of raw ingredients. While the production of distillations, infusions, and precipitations of soul-stuff had been a minor part of Qijne’s kitchen, here more than half the cooking space was dedicated to the
coquinaria spiritualia
. The rest of the cavernous kitchen was devoted to one thing—feeding trees.

She remembered the strange collar of the vegetation that depended from the edge and rocky sides of Umbriel. She didn’t know much about trees, so it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder how they survived. As it turned out, plants—like people and animals—needed more than sunlight and water to live. They also needed food of a sort, and Toel’s kitchen made that food. Huge
siphons drew water and detritus from the bottom of the sump and brought it into holding vats, where it was redirected into parsers that separated out the matter most useful to the trees. What wasn’t used was returned to the sump. What remained was fortified by the addition of certain formulae before being pumped to the roots through a vast ring beneath Umbriel’s rim. Toel wanted her to learn all of the processes in his kitchen, so she spent an hour or so each day with the vats, and ostensibly she was experimenting with some of the formulae to try and improve upon them.

In fact, the vats were very far from everything else, and very quiet. And, in a large cabinet in the work area, was the most complete collection of materials she had ever seen.

Dimple, her new hob, was already there when she arrived, and had found four substances for her to examine. None of them smelled right, so she sent him away and went back to her experiment with the tree-wine. She wondered if trees tasted anything, if they knew one “flavor” of tree-wine from another. She stirred a reagent of calprine into her flask wand and watched it turn yellow.

After a moment she saw Dimple return with more containers.

Absorbed in what she was doing, she didn’t actually look at what he’d brought, but when she took a break, she rubbed her eyes and turned her attention there.

One of the jars was half filled with a black liquid. She blinked and hesitated, not wanting to get her hopes up too high, not wanting to be disappointed again.

She knew it by its smell.

“That’s it, then,” she whispered. “Everything I need.”

But she felt oddly empty, because that wasn’t really true.

She didn’t have Mere-Glim and the knowledge she needed to destroy Umbriel. Or her locket, so Attrebus would know where she was.

If Attrebus was still alive. The last time they’d spoken, there was something about him, vulnerability. And the way he talked to her, as if he cared, as if he was risking his life just for her …

She shook that thought off and read the label on the jar.

ICHOR OF WINGED TWILIGHT
.

Well, that made sense. She put it in the little cabinet that was for her private use, along with the other ingredients she needed, and a great many she did not. Then she finished out the hour and went back to help with dinner.

Slyr watched her dress in yet another new outfit that Dulg had appeared with, a simple green gossamer slip of a gown. The other woman was halfway through a bottle of wine already.

“Don’t forget me,” she said as Annaïg left.

As usual, she met him on his balcony. They sipped a red slurry that—despite being cold—burned her throat gently as it went down.

“Lord Irrel sent his compliments,” Toel said.

“He enjoyed your meal, then.”

Toel nodded. “The meal was not uninspired,” he said. “I am an artist. But you have added so much to my palette, and the special touches you invent—Lord Irrel is usually pleased with what I make him, but lately his compliments have come more frequently and sincerely.”

“I’m happy to have helped, then.”

She felt a little giddy, and realized that whatever was in her drink was already having an effect.

“With me you will become great,” he said. “But there is more to being great than being an artist. You must also have vision, and the strength to do the thing that must be done. Do you understand?”

“I think so, Chef.”

“And you must learn to make choices uncolored by any sort of passion.”

Annaïg took another drink, not liking the direction the conversation was going.

“When I took you from Qijne, I spared Slyr as well. But since she has been here, I haven’t felt justified in that decision. I rather think she should go.”

“Without her, I would never have come to your attention,” Annaïg said. “Without her, I would never have learned so much in so little time.”

“And yet how far you have outstripped her, and how slowly she is learning the ways of my kitchen. Do you really believe she has any business being here?”

“She saved my life,” Annaïg said. “Qijne would have killed me.”

“Yes, I know that,” he replied. “In that moment she was very useful to me, and to you. But that moment is gone.”

“I pray you,” she said.

“Don’t pray to me,” he said. “I give this decision to you. You could have Sarha or Loy for assistants—with them you would learn quickly, rise quickly. You could work directly for me, as my understudy. But so long as Slyr is here, she will be your only assistant. But if you ask me to rid you of her, I will do it in an instant.”

“Let her stay, please.”

“As I said,” he went on, disappointment evident in his voice, “it’s your choice, and remains your choice. I hope you will try to consider that decision without passion or sympathy. I hope you will be great.”

“I will try to be great,” Annaïg said. “But I hope to do it without betraying my friends.”

“Does this work, where you are from?”

“I … I don’t know. Sometimes, I hope.”

He nodded and his gaze found hers, and in his eyes she saw
something both frightening and compelling. She felt again the caress on the back of her neck, and her belly tingled.

“There is another decision I give you to make,” he said, very softly. “Like the first, you are free to make it on any evening I have you here.”

She couldn’t find any words, or even think straight. She had flirted with a few boys, kissed a few, but it had always seemed clumsy and ridiculous, and she’d certainly never been swept away by the sort of passion she had read of.

But this wasn’t a boy. This was a man, a man who wanted her, wanted her very badly, who could probably take her if he desired it.

She realized she was breathing hard.

“I—ah …” she started. “I wonder if I can have some water.”

He smiled, and leaned back, and signed for water to be brought, and she sat there the rest of the evening feeling drunk and foolish and very much a little girl. He could see right through it all, through any manner and bearing she tried to fabricate.

But beneath all of that there was this other, little voice, the one that reminded her that it should always be her choice, that it shouldn’t be something someone could condescend to give you. And that voice didn’t go away, and when dinner was over she returned to her room, where Slyr had passed out, alone.

A short morning’s ride brought them to a hill overlooking Water’s Edge, a bustling market town that—like Ione—had done most of its growing in the last few decades. During the years when the old Empire was collapsing, it had served as a free port when Bravil and Leyawiin were independent and often at odds with each other, and Water’s Edge had been protected by both and by what remained of the Imperial navy. Even enemies needed some neutral ground for trade, a place where conflict was set aside.

And now that the Empire was reunited, it was growing still, attracting entrepreneurs and tradesmen from crime-ridden Bravil especially.

“I don’t understand why we didn’t just go to Bravil,” Attrebus complained to Sul. “That’s at least in the right direction.”

“This was closer,” Sul replied. “Distance doesn’t matter so much as time. We’re short of time as it is. If I can get the things I need here, we have a far better chance of succeeding.”

“And if you can’t get what you need?”

“The College of Whispers has a cynosure here,” the Dunmer replied. “The things I’m after aren’t terribly uncommon.”

“I should think opening a portal into oblivion would require something rather extraordinary.”

“It does,” Sul said. “But I already have that.” He tapped his head, then swung himself up on his horse.

Attrebus began saddling his own mount.

“What are you doing?” the Dunmer asked.

“You said you wanted allies. I’m going to see what I can do.”

Sul looked as if he tasted something bad. “Let me check things out first,” he said. He switched his reins and rode off.

Attrebus watched him go, then resumed making his horse ready.

“You’re going into town, too?” Lesspa asked.

Attrebus nodded. “Yes. There’s a garrison there, and I know the commander. I need to send word to my father I’m still alive. I might even be able to recruit a few more men.”

“We aren’t enough for you, Prince?”

“Yes,” Attrebus said. “About that. I appreciate your help up to this point, but you deserve to know what we’re up against. When you’ve heard me out, if you still want to go, that’s great. But if you don’t, I’ll understand.”

“My ears are twitching,” she replied.

And so he told her about Umbriel—or at least everything he knew about it—and about Sul’s plan to reach Morrowind. When he finished, she just regarded him for a moment. Then she made a little bow.