The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) (29 page)

“I don’t know,” Geder said, and the words were like a confession. “I don’t know. I’m not… sure.”

“Is there some question that’s bothered you, my lord?” Kit asked.

“The fire years,” Geder said, then stopped. His jaw felt almost stiff with the effort of saying it. He paused, tried to catch his breath. The words hurt in a way he couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t physical, but if it had been, it would have been the bright, itching pain of tearing off a scab. “Basrahip said there were years after the dragons fell when the whole world was burned, but there’s nothing about that in any of the histories.”

“I see,” Kit said, but Geder couldn’t stop now. The words had begun and they wouldn’t stop until he’d finished.

“And there are buildings in Hallskar with wooden perches. Either the perches would have to be a wood that doesn’t burn or someone would have had to make them after there weren’t any dragons left to use them. And there’s not a layer of ashes under any of the ruins in the Division, and it just doesn’t make
sense
!”

“Then perhaps there were no fire years,” Kit said.

Geder’s blood felt bright in his veins. Somewhere in his gesturing, he’d spilled a bit of the water from his cup. It dripped down his knuckles. Clara Kalliam put a hand on his shoulder and smiled down at him. His father nodded. His breath felt clean and clear for the first time he could remember. Across the room, Cithrin stood like a statue of some ancient hero, her chin high but her eyes kind.

What if it wasn’t the death throes of the enemy, but just losing a war? What if killing the apostate in Asterilhold wasn’t the final victory of the goddess? What if having a temple in a city didn’t mean it would never fall?

Wouldn’t it all make more sense?

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you know. And I’ll say what I think of it.”

“Yes,” Cithrin said, as Kit cleared his throat.

“I think I might not be best suited to that,” he said. “Do you think we should invite in Captain Wester?”

It took hours. The story of Master Kit’s apostasy, the power he’d found in the word
probably
, and the price he’d paid for it was all told by Marcus Wester and a Tralgu called Yardem, presumably so that Geder wouldn’t feel he was being influenced by the spiders in the apostate’s blood. The trek through the wilds of Lyoneia and the ancient ruins guarded by the Southling tribes there. The sword and the temple, the attempt on the life of the goddess, and the discovery that she was no more than a statue and a story. And
then the search that Geder himself had begun with Dar Cinlama, and the discovery of the last dragon.

Then Cithrin came and sat by him, her voice low and serious, her pale eyes on his in a way he’d thought would never happen again. She didn’t take his hand, and he didn’t reach for hers. She told what she’d learned from Inys. The prank against Morade that had begun the last war between the dragons, the invention of the tool that would strip the dragons of their slaves, the release of the spiders, and the fall of the ancient world. Geder listened, enraptured. It was like all the best histories and poems and speculative essays he’d ever read, wrapped together with confirmation by sources who’d been there.

All my time in power,
he thought
, I could have been doing this. I could have been having conversations like this one and hearing stories and putting them together.
It made something familiar and terrible shift in his gut that he didn’t think about. Not yet.

They came to the creation of the Timzinae—a race made for fighting the dragon Morade—and he stopped them.

“But why did the Timzinae want to kill Aster?” Geder said. “Why did they suborn Lord Kalliam?”

“They didn’t,” Clara Kalliam said. “Dawson would never have taken direction from a foreign power or another race. My husband did what he did because he felt the throne had been usurped by a cult of foreign priests who were using you and Prince Aster as puppets.”

And
, she didn’t need to say,
he was right
.

For the first time, the implications of it all struck him and left a vast and oceanic hollowness behind his breastbone. If this was all true, if Basrahip’s goddess was an artifact of the dragons, if the Timzinae were only another race of humans fashioned from the Firstbood as they’d all been, if the war
was not about bringing the light of truth to the world, then Jorey’s father had been right.

The cities they’d taken in the war were no more or less likely to fall than any other captured land in any other of a thousand wars. Geder had been tricked into throwing those children into the Division. Like a hand puppet stuck on the big priest’s fist, he’d been telling Aster all the things Basrahip had poured into his own ear and none of it true.

He’d been played for the greatest idiot in history, and he’d brought Antea to the edge of collapse by it. The thing that had been moving in his belly came to life, lifting up into his heart, his throat, his brain.

It was relief.

I
t was working. The change showed in the way he held himself and the timbre of his voice. Geder Palliako sat on his divan like it was made from nails and he was determined to endure it. All around, the others sat and stood, spoke and were silent. Played their parts. Cithrin cared about Geder.

He looked… bad. His skin had taken on a strange sheen, like dust and oil. His eyes seemed smaller than she remembered them, and darker. When he first came in, his father had led him to Clara to create a setting of the familiar. The known. Geder’s voice then had been tight and tense, his body braced as if against a coming blow. She’d feared what would happen when she spoke, and it made her speak sooner than she’d intended.

His dark eyes had widened when he saw her, but he hadn’t called for his guards. When Cary embraced him, and then the other actors, each greeting him as an old friend, as if none of the atrocities that had come between the day he’d come out of hiding and now had ever been, he’d seemed dazed. The deeper change came with Kit, sitting at his side, opening the doors of Geder’s mind the way she’d hoped he would. When the history of the spiders came clear to him, it was like watching a child see his first rainbow. The joy and wonder in it would have been beautiful if they’d been in some other setting. As it was, they were more unsettling.
What she had hoped for, what she’d come here to achieve—but unsettling.

Marcus spoke to him in professional tones, like a soldier giving a report of a battle, as he explained all that had come before. Disapproval showed in the corner of his mouth, but Geder didn’t see it. He only listened. As Marcus tore away every story that Geder had lived by, every poisoned dream, Geder’s breath deepened. The tightness in his voice smoothed gently away. As he grew calmer, she did as well. When her turn came, and she sat beside him, he seemed almost the man she’d known in the darkness, and she could at least remember the girl she had been.

They brought tea and coffee which Geder drank without seeming to notice he was doing so. She unfolded the story of Inys and Morade with all the skill and grace Cary and the players had been able to teach her, and Geder listened to it all. His eyes were on her, but seeing the deep past and the grand sweep of history.
He could kill me
, she thought,
but he isn’t going to
.

The idea felt like victory.

“But why did the Timzinae want to kill Aster?” Geder said. “Why did they suborn Lord Kalliam?”

Cithrin looked for the words, for the gentle way to say it. Clara Kalliam answered before she could, and her voice was hard as stone.

“They didn’t. Dawson would never have taken direction from a foreign power or another race. My husband did what he did because he felt the throne had been usurped by a cult of foreign priests who were using you and Prince Aster as puppets.”

Geder’s eyes went flat, his expression terribly still. His eyes flickered from side to side as though he were reading some invisible text written on the air. Cithrin felt her belly tighten with excitement and fear. It had all gone so well,
and now they were at the crisis point. Everything depended on the next few seconds. If he heard the woman’s words as an insult, they would all be dead by morning. Cithrin felt a deep calm come over her. She didn’t think he would.

At the edge of the room, Yardem started and blinked, his ears flat against his head.

“I see,” Geder said, the syllables gentle as a fawn. His eyes filled with tears that he wiped away with the back of one hand. And then, a moment later, “I understand. Thank you.”

He rose to his feet, and his father came forward. The elder Palliako’s face drew a picture of regret and resolve. “Are you well?”

“I think,” Geder said, his voice artificially calm, “it might be better if I could stay here tonight? I don’t think I want to go back to the Kingspire right now. And if it’s not too much, will you stay? Will you all stay too?”

“Of course,” Lehrer said. “You never have to ask.”

“Thank you, Da.”

They embraced. A tear tracked down Lehrer’s cheek. For a moment, Cithrin wondered what it was like to have a mother or a father who would take you in no matter what you had done. It was here before her, and she still couldn’t imagine it. When they parted, Geder could not look in his father’s eyes. His hands were at his sides in fists, his face dark. His lips moved as he talked to himself, too quietly for her or any of them to hear, and he shook his head.

“You are the only one who can stop them.”

His eyes found her like he was peering through a fog. “What?”

“You can stop them. You’re the only one who can put an end to this. Call them together, all of them. A conclave like the Council of Eventide, only for the priests. You can tell
them it’s because of the rise of the apostates. It won’t be telling them the whole truth, but it won’t be lying.”

“And then what?” Geder said.

Kit cleared his throat. “There is a play called
The Archer King
. The king, betrayed by his ministers and lords, calls them all together for a triumph, then locks the doors of the common house and floods it.” The actor shook his head. “The nearest convenient river would be in the depths of the Division, of course. So I can’t recommend that.”

Geder didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his words were cool. “We’ll find something.”

C
lara Kalliam left shortly after Geder and Lehrer Palliako retired. Staying away until daybreak would, she said, excite comment, and she’d already done more than enough of that for the time being. The players and Master Kit went to the servants’ quarters where there were cots enough for them all. Lehrer Palliako’s hospitality meant that Cithrin had her own bed in a small chamber of its own that opened into a narrow courtyard of ivy and lilac, an honored guest in the house of her enemy. A thin mesh over her window let in a breeze thick with the scent of the flowers and, beneath that, of the city. Perfume and shit. She didn’t take off her dress, only lay on the mattress and pretended that sleep would come.

Her gut was a single knot, hard as stone. Her body was wretchedly tired. She trembled with it. But each time she closed her eyes, her mind sped away from her—where was Geder now, what was he thinking, would destruction of the priests mean her own transgression against his pride would be forgotten, what would she do if he came to her chamber now in the night—and without noticing when it had happened, she realized her eyes were open again.

Outside, birds that had been silent began their raucous choir. She saw no sign of the coming dawn, but they did. She forced her eyes closed again, again found them open, and surrendered to the inevitable. Even if she’d had enough wine to bring her down to sleep, it was too late to begin it now. And in her present situation, she wouldn’t have. Miserable or not, she needed her wits. She rose, washed her face in the basin, combed out her hair, and prepared herself as best she could to face the new day and the dangers she’d created for it. When she opened the door to the hall, ready to call for a servant to bring her food or else lead her to it, Marcus Wester was waiting. He sat with his back against the wall opposite her door, the poisoned blade on the floor beside him. His hand rested on its hilt.

“Captain?”

“Magistra,” he said, and the tone of his voice made it half a joke.

“Are you… all right? What are you doing?”

“The job, as I understand it,” he said, levering himself up with a grunt. As he rose, she caught a glimpse of his shoulder where the sword usually rested. The skin there was red and peeling as from a sunburn. “With the present factors at play, I thought having one of our guard outside your room was literally the least we should do. I also considered killing our hosts and slipping out the back, but it seemed rude.”

“Have you been here all night?”

“No,” he said, brushing his sleeves with open palms. “Yardem took first watch. I caught a little sleep.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“We’re good.”

Outside, the birds all went silent at once, then burst forth again even louder. Marcus glanced down the hall, one way and then the other. When he spoke, his voice was low and disapproving. “I saw what you did back there.”

“Back where?”

“With the Lord Regent.”

Cithrin’s mouth pressed thin and she nodded back toward her room. Marcus followed her through it and out to the little courtyard. The sky had gone from black to charcoal. A single high cloud held a delicate pink color. The lilacs nodded in the little breeze like holy men sprinkling blessings out over a crowd, filling the air with a sweetness that was almost cloying. Marcus found a low stone bench and sat. Cithrin crossed her arms.

“How does this go?” Marcus said. “In your head, how does it play out? Everyone comes and gives Palliako a hug and rubs his little belly and suddenly he’s our dog? Is he going to come running when we whistle now?”

“I’ve given him the chance to look at his world from a different perspective,” Cithrin said. “What happens next depends on what he sees.” Weariness sharpened the words more than she’d intended. It felt as though she’d spent her life with all her decisions being questioned by Marcus Wester. He could afford to have a little more faith in her. More than that, she wished she’d rested as well in her bed as he had in her hallway.

“You played him as much the fool as the spiders have. Damned near drowned him with how much everybody liked him,” Marcus said. “Everyone there touching his shoulder and taking him in their arms and smiling at him like he’s always been their favorite.”

“Love is what he wanted. What he still wants. I only pointed out that we are a way it could be supplied.”

“But we aren’t. The truth is everyone in that room hates that man. We’d each of us have thrown him off a bridge if there was a way to.”

“Not everyone,” Cithrin said. “His father was sincere.”

“And what happens when someone lets slip? Geder
Palliako’s head is a bag of snakes. If he decides we’re the one plucking his strings—”

“Then we’re very nearly no worse off than we were before we came,” Cithrin said. “We’ll die a bit sooner, and the world we leave behind won’t be worth living in anyway.”

His half-coughed laughter surprised her. “Well, that’s true enough, I suppose.”

“Here’s how it plays out. Geder does as he has always done. He sees that he’s been made a fool of by the priests. He gets angry about it, has them all brought together, and we kill them.” She spread her hands.

“It won’t work.”

“It will,” she said. “Geder’s
predictable
. Yes, we’ll need to be careful with him, but we have the thing he needs, and he will trade it for it. Love for dead priests. This will—”

“That’s not the hole in it.” The little rosy cloud had faded to white. The grey sky had brightened into blue. She could see Marcus’s face better now, the lines and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. The yellowed ivory of his eyes. “You say you can have him call the dinner bell and have the priests come running, and so I believe you can. Makes me nervous as hell, but anyone else’s battle plan besides my own has that effect. The problem’s the trap.”

She wanted to yell at him, to tell him that he was trying to find ways that she’d failed. That he didn’t want anyone to win if it wasn’t through him. It was the voice of her fatigue. “Go on,” she said.

“We have to build the thing. There have to be people at the palace ready to throw boards over some banquet hall’s windows or rain burning oil through a false roof or… something. And this while as near as we can manage it all the lie-sniffing priests there are swarm around the court like flies on a shit heap. This conspiracy of yours is too big already.
Throw in builders and servants? The people who supply the oil and the boards? Even if it were Geder’s own guard, it’s too many people to keep the secret.”

“So we find a better way to build the trap. Simpler.”

Marcus made a thin grunt and scratched his head. “All right.”

“You have an idea?”

“No, I don’t,” he said. “But if you need one, I’ll find one. Someplace. Yardem, maybe. He’s always impressed by his own wisdom and clarity. But we will have to be clever about it. And there’s the problem of getting all the priests here when we’ve got two armies making their way toward us. If we wait too long, Camnipol will have already fallen when the bastards get here.”

“Can it be saved?”

“The city? No. If Camnipol’s not a ruin by winter, it’ll be because Karol Dannien decided to let it live. We can postpone the thing, but we can’t stop it.” He coughed out something like a laugh, and looked out to the east. The tower of the Kingspire was barely visible above the courtyard wall. “That temple of theirs. That’s a long way up, isn’t it? Well… ha. All right, I may have a way.”

But Cithrin barely heard him. The exhaustion in her body, already crippling, doubled. The army of Elassae was coming, and she should have been delighted. Not so long ago, she would have been. They were the wronged, the people crying out for justice that they deserved. That she and Magistra Isadau and Marcus—and Clara Kalliam in her way—had all risked their lives to achieve. She had seen the body of the Timzinae priest hung from his own church. She had seen the children ripped from their families, their parents shipped away as slaves. Many of those children were dead now. How could she want those to go unavenged? And yet
what would killing the bakers and groomsmen, street cleaners and taproom servers of Camnipol achieve? No depth of violence ever retrieved a single person from the death they’d already suffered. More dead were only more dead.

“I don’t know what justice is,” she said.

“That’s because it isn’t the sort of thing you discover. It’s a thing you make.” She looked at him, and he shrugged. “There are things you find out in the world. Rocks and streams and trees. And there are things you make. Like a house, or a song. It’s not that houses and songs aren’t real, but you don’t just find them in a field someplace and haul them back home with you. They have to be worked at. Made.”

“Like war gold,” she said.