Trial of Intentions (34 page)

He arrived at the gate, where six heavily armed Bar'dyn stood perfectly still, moving only their eyes. One finally stepped out to block his passage.

“What's your business here, Inveterae?” the Bar'dyn asked, a deep and lilting derision in its voice.

He considered several replies before saying simply, “I am Kett Valan.”

A look of recognition, if not approval, lit the sentry's face. “Basilica's fingers reach the highest.” The Bar'dyn pointed up at the spires that topped every building, and then away into the city. “Keep moving.”

Kett nodded and took maybe three steps past them before the Bar'dyn whipped a heavy pike across the back of his head. He stumbled forward and nearly fell. No laughter came, no further challenge. Kett didn't look back or curse. And he didn't check to see if the blow had drawn blood. He simply walked on.

As with the old roads he'd traveled to get here, Kael Ronoch lay steeped in silence. Quietgiven walked the streets, but rarely spoke. They moved with a sense of dark purpose, but it wasn't exactly malice in their eyes. More that they seemed humorless. The feel of the place hung in the air like a suffocating smoke.

Kett saw many more Bar'dyn as he trod the stony road, which had been laid out not in cobblestone, but great slabs of rock seamlessly fitted together. And just as often he saw Quiet races he knew only from the spoken stories. Laedan moved along, sometimes strolling on four feet, sometimes on two; their brushed shorthair twitched the way an animal's does when bitten by blackflies. Always near the Laedan were Rimaan Brode. Their long necks turned fast at the clop of every heel; skittish things with a long gait that made them appear always to skulk. Kett spied a pair of Kausellots, seams of bone protruding from their skin like stitching. The bone ran up their necks and over their cheeks and around their eyes. It looked extremely uncomfortable.

And more Quiet races yet, a dozen more, maybe two dozen. Some with wings folded against their backs. Others with reticulated tails that seemed more like long additional arms.

But the look and variety of species wasn't what bothered him. Not by half. What left him unsettled was the dark shine, one to the next, of the same burning intensity—intelligence, focus. It reminded him of the way anger settles into calculation for those who won't forgive a wrong.

And even that wasn't all of it. Not until he saw another Gotun Inveterae like himself did the realization come to him.
We look the same. Inveterae and Quiet.

What he felt here—different from Inveterae lands—might be nothing more than another half turn of a stick-and-wetcloth tourniquet. It was the deeper sense of ruin, and demand for vengence. He understood the bitterness of those feelings. It lived inside him, as well. But somewhat paler. Still, he wasn't afraid here, as he'd thought he would be. And that proved to be the most unsettling thing of all.

The buildings had been raised of roughly hewn stone. Great care had been taken to create symmetry. Mortar cemented together dark basalt rock chiseled into precise rectangular shapes. But surfaces remained jagged. Doorways were no less than four strides high, and equally wide. Some led into structures large enough to accommodate Quietgiven much bigger than Bar'dyn. The doorways had no actual doors, giving the street and main level of the city an interconnected feeling.

Up the street, a forge emanated heat into the chill air, lending it an acrid smell that soured in his nose. Inside the forge, several fires burned—eight in all—as muscled Bar'dyn wielded huge hammers and beat rhythmically at orange steel. The shop reminded Kett that Inveterae weren't allowed to carry weapons.

It wasn't until after passing countless barracks that he realized Kael Ronoch was little more than a garrison. It made sense to him now that they'd summon him
here
to be installed among their ranks. But he had to believe the city served other purposes. Though if it did, those purposes escaped him.

What didn't escape him were the random spills of blood on the street. Most had been tracked through by the passage of feet and hooves, and were now dry. A few were more vibrant red—more recent, more wet. One remained in a pool, as though spilled that very hour. It left him with the impression that disputes and punishment were dealt with instantly, severely. He might have expected as much. What he hadn't thought he'd see was a detail of human men dressed in gunny cloth with blood-pink rags strapped to their knees. These men hunched and knelt near buckets of water, scraping up the blood with flat knives. Behind them came a few more men with mops and fresh water buckets. The stone shone and smelled again of wet basalt before they were through.

Then, as soon as they'd sponged away one mess, they went searching for the next spill.

He moved through the city for another hour, cataloging as much as he thought he could remember. Without trying, he found himself at the basilica. As massive as the other buildings were, this structure loomed above the others as though it had sired them all. The dark grandeur of the place came in not just one towering hall, but a collection of six. Kett approached the nearest gate, staring up.

Against a slate-grey sky, the basalt stone rose, ascending as if it might touch the clouds. From the street, several floors rose, more than Kett cared to count, and each larger than the last. Each successive rooftop bore sharp spires that stabbed heavenward like accusing fingers.

He was just noticing the many large glassless windows of the basilica, when a Bar'dyn approached.

“You're Kett Valan?” he asked, hints of both satisfaction and disgust in his voice.

“I am.”

“The assembly waits on you.” The Bar'dyn turned and started to disappear back the way he came.

Kett spared a thought for Saleema—to quicken his own resolve—and followed close behind.

Just inside the main gate, they strode down a wide outer corridor, dimly lit by windows on the outer wall. The carvings in the black stone on each side of the passageway were difficult to make out. And he had little time to discern such things, as the Bar'dyn came soon to an inner door and abruptly turned.

“Down this corridor. You will enter the Assembly Hall. Step onto the stand at the center.” The Bar'dyn promptly turned and left.

Kett had questions, but sensed he shouldn't ask. As he began walking toward a rectangle of light at the hall's end, his gut tightened and his legs grew weak. He knew broadly what he'd come here to do, but an expectant silence spread with every step he took. He had to think now of his children to steel himself against whatever awaited him at the corridor's end.

Without pause, he strode slowly but confidently into a great round arena. From the main floor where he stood, tier after tier rose, each wider than the last, like a great indoor theater. At even intervals around the circumference of the main floor, eight stairways ascended to the very top, some fifty tiers high. And every tier was completely filled with seated Quietgiven, silently staring at him. The aggregate feeling of ill will was crushing. Kett had the sudden impression of a great many deaths witnessed in this place.

Pushed back against the wall of the main floor stood several types of apparatus: basic stocks, a gallows, a pile of chains, racks, tables of edged instruments and pliers for gripping things that wouldn't stay still. None of these things were new, but they were all clean.

He began to feel the flutter of panic, wondering if Balroath had meant all along to lure him here. Here, where he could be dealt a meticulous death in this theater of pain.

He remembered Taolen, slowly crucified to provide a warm, salty drink for Praefect Lliothan. With the memory still fresh, he went directly to the center of the round. He stood, waiting, trying not to look defiant—a hard thing when one's thoughts linger on the crucifixion of a friend. He noticed that the basalt floor around the front of the stand was wet, newly scrubbed. The smell of wet stone and washed blood began playing at his nerves. That and the unnatural hush. If a single Quietgiven shifted in his seat or shuffled a foot, he didn't hear it. The silence was deafening.

Then, like a clarion call, a deep voice shattered the stillness. “Kett Valan, you are here today of your own choice, a member of the Inveterae, to give yourself to Quietus. Is that correct?”

The words struck Kett like a spike maul. The powerfully low pitch. He knew the owner of that voice. Kett turned to see Balroath.

Looking at the Jinaal officer, the reality of what he was about to do descended on him like a rockslide.
Give myself …

But he managed to nod to Balroath, who stood in the first row of the first ring.

“Very well,” Balroath said. “Let us make clear your intentions, and then we'll make clear what it means to be given to Quietus.”

Again, Kett nodded.

Balroath addressed the assembly more than he did Kett. The Jinaal looked over the hundreds of gathered Quietgiven, representing races Kett knew and more that he did not. And again, to his surprise and dismay, he saw some he recognized instinctively as Inveterae but could not name.

“You were tried for your part in a movement to lead Inveterae out of the Bourne. In exchange for your life, and the lives of your children, you agreed to use your knowledge and influence with these separatists to convince them to abandon their plans. Is this your understanding?” Balroath pointed at Kett.

“I will convince them that we all seek the same thing, to live beside those beyond the Pall.” Kett watched to note the Quietgiven response to what he said.

Most of them remained expressionless, but a few turned to look at Balroath with slightly more interest.

Balroath dropped his chin. “There are consequences should you fail or try to deceive us.”

“I understand.” He could feel the assembly's scrutiny, as they sought to discover any falseness in him.

“No, I don't think you do, Kett Valan.” Balroath stood beside one of the stairways, and now stepped down onto the main floor. He raised an arm to point at him. “Which is why you will give yourself to us.” Balroath's deep voice resonated in his chest. It carried an intonation of harm.

So when Kett spoke, he didn't equivocate. They had to believe he wouldn't betray their confidence. He would need that for his ruse to work. “I have given you my word on my family's lives. I have pledged to help put an end to the hope my people have of escaping a captivity unjustly thrust upon them. Have I not already given myself—”

“No, Kett Valan, you have not.” Balroath came halfway between Kett and where he'd been standing, his footfalls loud in the Assembly Hall. “Your oath to join us will mean more than betraying your friends or losing your family. All of us here, including you,” he pointed at Kett, “have been abandoned. But we,” he gestured to the assembly, “are born to this work, given life by Quiet hands. To be given means something more.” Balroath smiled. It was an awful thing to see, as though the Jinaal's face didn't know how to form it.

Kett said nothing, waiting.

The Jinaal squared his shoulders to Kett. “It means consecration. Do you understand? Of your every thought. Of your every action. You have nothing else we can't take from you, or from your Inveterae coconspirators.”

Kett nodded gravely.

Balroath went on. “It is a binding of your soul, Kett Valan. It is a surrender … of Forda.”

He tried to maintain a stoic expression, but
a surrender of Forda
 … dread bloomed afresh in his chest. “How will I do what you ask if I'm dead?”

Balroath smiled his awful smile again. “It is not a separation of body and spirit, Kett Valan. We will bind your heart to ours. If asked, you will gladly allow the Velle to render your spirit. More importantly, when you act contrary to your new heart, we will know, and we will come to redeem our right to the spirit within you. You can now always be found.”

Kett's heart sank. How would he finish what he'd begun if he gave himself to the Quiet this way?

“No barrier or distance nullifies this vow, Kett Valan. So, if you have been playing us false thus far, I will generously grant you death even now.”

Kett held in his mind the image of his children, and did the only thing he could. “I believe in the common bond Inveterae share with you.” He looked up and around at the assembly, then down at Balroath. “I will take this oath.” He hoped it sounded convincing.

He also hoped that once sworn there'd be a way to undo it.

“Very well,” Balroath said, seeming neither pleased nor disappointed.

The Jinaal came forward and put a hand on Kett's chest. In a resonant voice, and in a tongue Kett didn't recognize, Balroath began a low chant. His chest warmed under the other's touch, and he could feel that warmth spread through his entire body. A searing pain grew inside him. He believed a portion of his soul was being rendered, that he was being bonded to the Quiet somehow. To Quietus. Then, something happened inside him. The closest way to describe it was that the feelings he'd had for Saleema … faded some. But that wasn't right, either. In his mind he saw bark peeling from ailanthus trees and falling slowly to the ground. He saw the tough silk of ailanthus moths woven into braided bonds.

He couldn't name it. But in himself he did feel a kind of indifference that he'd not known before. He didn't even care about the pain in his body.

Balroath removed his hand. The warm feeling faded. And Kett was
given
.

Silent stares of approval came from many of those seated in the hall. A few, Kett saw, still wore the intense disdain of Quiet who had only one idea about how to handle Inveterae.

A few of the Inveterae who sat in the assembly … their expressions were unreadable. He suspected they'd stood where he did now, and had felt the warm touch of the Jinaal.

The gallery then began to stand and exit, climbing the stairs to archways at the very top of the great theater. None came onto the floor to either exit or talk to him. As if by tradition, Balroath stood beside him until the theater was empty. It was hardly more silent now than it had been when the many Quiet had sat in their seats.