Wheel of the Infinite (23 page)

He watched her worriedly. “That isn’t possible.”

“Just because something’s never happened before doesn’t mean it’s not possible. It could be happening right now and we wouldn’t know—” She stopped in confusion. She had heard a whisper just then, not the chiding voices of the Ancestors, but the strong tone of the Adversary. It lingered, like the taste of copper in her mouth.
A warning. Something is happening now, but we don’t know what or where
. She swore under her breath. These warnings that made no sense were going to drive her mad.

The Celestial One was shaking his head. “Calm yourself. Meditation—”

“I’ll try it,” she said, standing up suddenly. She wanted to leave, now. Whatever the answer was, she was more likely to find it in the Illsat Sidar or the Marai than here. “Tell me where Rian is and we’ll go.”

The Celestial One’s mouth twisted. “There is something more. Raith wants you to spend the night here. As a gesture of fealty.”

“What? He must be mad!” She realized she had shouted the words. Anticipating that must have been another reason the Celestial One had cleared the place. “I should be with the Rite tonight, with Vigar and the others.”

The Celestial One snapped, “I am as aware of that as you, I assure you.”

“Then what’s the point of this?”

“He believes this will demonstrate your reformed character.” The Celestial One’s expression as he said the words suggested that there was an extremely foul odor associated with them. “If the boy were a fool, this would be easier to stomach.”

“He gives me an opportunity to start trouble and heartily wishes that I’ll take it.”

“That too.”

“Doesn’t he understand we don’t have time for all this posing? I should at least be there when the Voices complete the Rite, just in case. . . . You did tell him about the Rite, didn’t you?” she demanded.

“Yes. But he doesn’t understand. None of them do. They have little awareness of the Rite. It has been with them their whole lives, their parents’ lives, back to the time of the Ancestors, as constant as the sun or the air, and they think it will continue as always, with or without our interference.”

Maskelle turned away, rubbing her aching temples. “I hope they’re right.”

As soon as Rian judged it had been long enough for the guards to relax their initial vigilance, he tested his theory about the roof.

It was relatively easy to reach the very edge from the balcony by standing on the balustrade and leaning out from the supporting post. Fortunately, the guards in the garden below did not look up, and the view of the others was blocked by a large palm. The tiles were slick enough to make it chancy as it was; if the rain started they would be as slippery as looking-glass. He managed to drag himself up onto the roof after a few breathless moments, then saw that this part of the building was overlooked by an adjoining structure, with jutting cupolas and a long gallery just under the eave of its peaked roof. Before he could move more than a few yards toward it, someone saw him and the alarm was raised.

Cursing, Rian retreated, dropping back down to the balcony. The guards at the outer door hadn’t noted his absence, but the thump when he landed caught their attention. They rushed into the room, drawing bori clubs, only to stop when they saw him standing on the balcony, arms folded, glaring at them. After staring suspiciously at him, they finally went back to their post.

Rian paced impatiently, kicking one of the brocaded cushions. The effort of the climb had accomplished nothing except to open the scabbed-over cut on his forearm which itched and bled sluggishly. He knew it must already be too late to stop Maskelle from coming to the Palace, even if he managed to escape right now.

Suddenly a crack of lightning, close enough to make Rian flinch, reverberated through the room. He stepped to the balcony again while the echoes of thunder died, squinting up at the sky. It looked no darker than it usually did.
That was strange
. While it rained with dreary regularity in the lowlands, it didn’t often storm except at the beginning of the rainy season. The two guards at the door were commenting on it in soft voices, as surprised as Rian was.

Wait
, he thought.
That couldn’t be . .
. Well, it could. He had warned Karuda himself.

There was no more lightning and Rian went back to pacing, telling himself she could take care of herself and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t get out to help her. Still, he had come up with several increasingly unlikely escape plans when he heard her voice outside in the stairwell.

He was at the door in a heartbeat, though the two guards hurriedly moved to bar his way. He started to shove past them, bori clubs or not, then saw Maskelle coming up the steps, with a stone-faced Lord Karuda trailing her. A moment later a young priest appeared carrying the Celestial One up the steps after them.

Karuda was trying to say something to Maskelle. She ignored him, using distracted pokes from her staff to nudge the startled guards out of the way as if they were sheep that had strayed into the road. She shoved her way into the room and said, “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Rian reminded himself he couldn’t grab her and shake her and demand to know what in hell she thought she was doing here.

“What did they do, throw you into the canal?” she persisted, looking him over worriedly.

Rian had almost forgotten about the expedition to Marada’s house. It seemed an age ago. With Karuda standing there watching both of them, he said tightly, “Can we discuss that later?”

Maskelle turned to Karuda, who had followed her into the room. “Go away. Take the guards with you. Now.”

Rian had time to notice that Karuda looked the worse for wear himself, that he had removed his archer’s wristbrace and had a new red burn on his hand in roughly the same shape. Stubbornly, Karuda said, “I have been ordered—”

He was interrupted by the entrance of the Celestial One, who had been set down on the landing by his attendant priest. The old man hobbled into the room, shaking his head. He was followed closely by Hirane, the priestess who had been with the Emperor in the garden, and two more priest-attendants. The Celestial One looked at Karuda sourly. “I know your orders, young one. Go to Mirak and tell him his plot is successful if he intended it to greatly inconvenience the Voices of the Ancestors and all the upper ranks of the Marai, and indeed, their servants and the lower ranks as well.”

Karuda looked at the Celestial One as if he wanted to argue, then his lips set in a grim line and he turned to leave. Rian said, “My sword.”

Karuda didn’t stop, but a moment later one of the guards came back from the landing with Rian’s siri and all three of his knives. He handed them over quickly and withdrew.

Rian buckled the sheathed siri to his belt again and hastily put his knives away. “Is this over now?”

Maskelle shook her head, her face drawn and exhausted. “No, not yet.”

Rian froze in the act of tucking the last knife into his boot, looking up at her. “What?”

“I have to stay here the night, apparently as some halfwitted show of faith.”

Half-witted is right
, Rian thought. “What about the Rite?”

The Celestial One muttered, “That is what I would like to know.”

“I did my best,” the priestess Hirane snapped. “I only caught word of this because one of my sixth-level priests had a dawn meditation with the Chancellor this morning.”

“This didn’t go through the Imperial Secretaries?” Maskelle asked, frowning.

“It appears to have been a private act on the part of the Throne,” Hirane replied, her pinched expression betraying what she thought of that. “I couldn’t discover who was behind it. Mirak was in favor of it, certainly, but I couldn’t tell if he instigated it or not.” She looked at Maskelle, and for the first time her face softened a little. “It may be that the Throne thought of this for himself.”

Maskelle muttered something under her breath and turned away, going out to the balcony.

The Celestial One looked after her for a moment, then shook his head. “We must get back to the Marai. Today will be critical.” He gestured to his attendants and Hirane to follow him.

Rian was thinking hard. Whether this plot was Mirak’s or Marada’s doing was irrelevant at the moment; whoever it was was sure to try again.
And nobody’s using me as bait again, either
.

Rian checked the landing and saw that the guards were gone. He slipped out onto the stairs and, moving quietly, went down to the floor below. The room there was empty as well, but he heard voices from the door that led out into the garden and stepped softly across to it.

Karuda was informing the guards in the garden of current developments. Rian heard the noble’s footsteps crunch away on the gravel path, then one of the remaining guards muttered, “You should have seen it. She called lightning out of the sky.”

Rian listened to a biased account of Maskelle’s arrival at the Celestial Home, wondering how much of it was true.
It explains the lightning, at least
, he thought. When it seemed there would be nothing else worth hearing, Rian went quietly back up the steps and into the main room. Maskelle was still standing out on the balcony, leaning on the balustrade. There was much he needed to tell her, but he couldn’t think where to start.

When she heard him behind her, she stirred restlessly, and without looking back at him, said, “Now you’ve seen for yourself.”

He didn’t have time to figure that one out. “They think the High Lord sent me to you, that you’re in some kind of plot with him. One of them does, anyway,” he added, remembering the young Emperor’s reluctance to accept the suggestion.

This at least made Maskelle glance back at him, baffled. “I’m in some kind of plot with who?”

“The High Lord of the Sintane.”

She snorted and turned back to the view. “Oh, as if that’s likely.”

Rian made himself take a deep breath. She was safe, for the moment, anyway; there was no point in letting their enemies’ tactics get to him. He thought he knew what was bothering her and decided they might as well get it out in the open. He said, “The Emperor is your son, isn’t he?”

She didn’t turn around. “Yes. Not by law. I gave him up to his father’s family. He had a better chance at the succession that way. And I didn’t really want a child.” She gestured around at the suite, at her temporary captivity. “So this is what I get for it.”

Rian said, “I’ve got three.”

“Three what?”

“Three children. In Riverwait.”

Slowly she turned around, leaned back against the balustrade, and folded her arms. Frowning thoughtfully, she asked, “How many wives?”

“None.
Kjardin
aren’t allowed to make bonding contracts. But we’re popular with women who want children. And then I was the Lady Holder’s favorite, so she—”

Maskelle held up a hand. “I think I have the idea.” Her tone was somewhat cool, but at least she had lost that air of deadly introspection.

“There’s something else—”

“I don’t know if I can take anything else just now.”

“I found something at Marada’s house. A box with something like an ivory ball in it that glowed when I touched it. I took it so you could look at it. There were other things too, subtle things. The house didn’t look ... right. If you want to search it again, we don’t have much time. They know somebody was there, but they don’t know who.” He added ruefully, “Or at least I thought they didn’t, until this happened.”

“An ivory ball that glowed? That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard of before.” She shook her head, troubled. “She’s brought foreign magic into the city and it will be interesting, to say the least, to hear how she’ll justify it. Where is the box now?”

He told her where he had hidden it, and finished, “I wanted you to see it before anybody else, especially the other priests.”

“Yes, if it’s priests she’s after . . .” Maskelle said slowly. Then she grimaced. “Why do I have the feeling she already has what she’s after?”

He leaned on the balustrade next to her. If there were guards left down in the garden, they weren’t visible. “The Rite?”

“Yes.” She massaged her temples. “I’m beginning to wonder if the second Wheel has to be on a power center after all. The Infinite is very close to our world right now. Maybe it’s enough that a Wheel be on a line between two power centers. Or very close to one.”

He nodded. “The canal between the Baran Dir and the Marai. We should find out who gave her that house.”

“It was the Throne,” Maskelle said, with a trace of bitterness. She shook her head with a grimace. “We need to pay Marada another visit.”

Rian watched her worriedly. “But you think it’s already too late.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “First let’s get that box.”

But when they went to the spirit shrine near their guesthouse where Rian had hidden the box, they found nothing but a ruined scrap of mud-stained silk—the scarf he had used to carry it.

Maskelle examined the silk, feeling a leftover residue of some magic clinging to it. It had a foul taste, sour and strange, and she couldn’t quite remember encountering anything like it before. And with the number of dark powers she had encountered in the past few years, that was hard to believe. “You’re sure they couldn’t have followed you?” she asked Rian, who was searching for tracks along the mud and grass at the edge of the canal. Not that she thought it was much of a possibility.

He gestured in exasperation, sitting on his heels to examine a disturbed clump of grass more carefully. “They turned out half the neighborhood to catch me. Why let me get all the way across the city with it if they knew where I was? And they couldn’t know I’d be stopped before I got it to you.” He shook his head.

“Yes. She used magic to find it.” Maskelle let out her breath. “Foreign magic.”
In my city
. She remembered poor Veran and anger stirred, hot and welcome.

“She’s a sorceress, this woman?” Rastim asked, looking from Maskelle to Rian. He was poking a stick into the mud and searching around the base of the statue, as if hoping the missing object had merely been misplaced. He had seen Maskelle and Rian come down the street with the Celestial One’s entourage and come out to see what they were doing.