Wolf Captured (81 page)

“Two days ago,” Shivadtmon agreed, “and seasick all the way, or so I heard it from the captain of the vessel that carried her back.”

“Have you also heard where Lady Blysse went earlier this very day?”

“No, Master.”

“She went to the House of Fire where Tiridanti has for several days been acting very strangely.”

Dantarahma knew something of the reasons behind Tiridanti’s strange behavior, but he judged it best that Shivadtmon not know all. Best the aridisdu run swiftly, if in ignorance, to do his master’s bidding.

Fear, quickly concealed, now lit Shivadtmon’s eyes as a banked ember still holds the potential for fire.

“But why would Lady Blysse go there? For what reason?”

Dantarahma decided to blow gently on the coals of Shivadtmon’s fear.

“All I know is that during the afternoon rest time, one of our congregation saw Lady Blysse and the wolf, Blind Seer, moving swiftly down one of the side streets toward the House of Fire. They were not precisely sneaking, but they did not go to the main door. Instead they went to a side door and let themselves in. I have asked some judicious questions. Earlier today Tiridanti left u-Nahal and returned to the House of Fire. Since then, she has been alone in the gardens but for the jaguar, Truth.”

Shivadtmon looked as if he would give anything he owned to have reassurance that Lady Blysse’s business had not been with the ahmyndisdu, but Dantarahma was not going to grant him that. He needed Shivadtmon tense and ready to act.

“Do you know who had been the ahmyndisdu’s previous caller?” Dantarahma asked. He went on without waiting for Shivadtmon to essay a reply: “Rahniseeta, sister of Harjeedian, the same Rahniseeta who has been keeping company of late with the human who is quite probably Lady Blysse’s closest friend. Although most callers have been asked to leave Tiridanti to her prayers, Rahniseeta remained a long while. I do not know for certain if she was admitted to Tiridanti’s presence, but it is a likelihood.”

Shivadtmon looked very nervous now, and for good reason. Although Dantarahma had convinced most of his followers that their private worship was neither immoral or illegal, those like Shivadtmon were well aware that to most of their fellows the return of blood sacrifice was anathema. It was easy to justify oneself in the company of like-minded individuals, much harder when it seemed the secret might get out.

Dantarahma decided that he had wound Shivadtmon about as tightly as was profitable. Any tighter and the string would snap and be useless. When Shivadtmon seemed about to voice a question, Dantarahma interrupted him.

“We have no time for questions, my son, not if you are to sail tonight.”

“Tonight?” Shivadtmon’s voice broke.

“Certainly.” Dantarahma reached out with a fatherly hand and patted the aridisdu’s shoulder. “Haven’t you been complaining that you’ve been having trouble holding the northern sailors back? Go now and be confident that in serving me you serve divine Water and all his family. Go now and the deities go with you.”

Shivadtmon bowed low and left. Dantarahma made a mental note to check with the agent he had watching Waln Endbrook and his comrades as to how long it took the aridisdu to arrive. Although Dantarahma had commanded Shivadtmon to arrange for the Endbrook group to leave tonight, he would settle for any time in the next several days. The important thing was that they leave before the debate could resume in force as to whether to send the northerners back with apologies or to keep them.

Dantarahma had no desire to keep the foreigners overlong in Liglim, but before he was rid of them, he had several uses for them. Shivadtmon was aware of only one of these uses—to discredit Tiridanti by having the northerners who had arrived here under her aegis do something outrageous.

Whimsically, Dantarahma thought of this as committing sacrilege by proxy. In the general air of outrage that would certainly follow the invasion of Misheemnekuru by the northerners, Dantarahma should find it easy to increase desire for isolationism and religious reform among the Liglimom. From there, reintroducing traditional religious practices should be much easier.

However, Dantarahma had other reasons for wanting Misheemnekuru in particular to be the target of this invasion. Some years after he had first felt the caress of divine magic touch his soul during a sacrifice, he had also become aware of entities somehow sensitive to those magical emanations. Their outcry of astonishment had been so loud that he had immediately ceased what he was doing—rather shocking his congregation.

Research into many an old tome, and patient practice of the rites recorded within, had taught Dantarahma two very important techniques. First, he had learned how to conceal those emanations so that he was fairly certain that he had gone undetected for many years now. He rather fancied that whoever the listeners had been—and he was certain there had been more than one—they had by now decided either that they had erred or that the magical surge they had “heard” had been a random event, perhaps connected to some item left by the Liglimom’s former rulers.

The second thing Dantarahma had learned had been a refined form of augury. This enabled him to narrow down the possible location of the listeners, and test after test had pinpointed the central reaches of Misheemnekuru. The procedure had raised him in the estimation of the disdu, who hailed him as one who would reform the church by introducing new ways of divining the will of the deities. As Dantarahma’s greatest desire was to bring the church back to its earliest roots, he found this extremely ironic.

However, whatever the reasons behind his skills, Dantarahma knew himself to be one of the greatest augurers to grace Heeranenahalm since the days of the Old Country rulers. Soon he hoped to also be acknowledged as the first sorcerer to grace these shores since the last vestiges of Old Country magic had vanished from the land.

Yes,
thought Dantarahma after the departing Shivadtmon.
Go with the deities, and, if I am lucky, go to them as well.

AFTER LEAVING TIRIDANTI, Rahniseeta went back to the Hall of Scribes, but she had trouble concentrating on the intricate calligraphy she had been working on. After spoiling a perfectly good page two fingers’ breadth from the bottom she set her work aside.

“Water and Earth clearly do not favor my completing this today,” she said to the disdu in charge. “Best I set aside my quill.”

“Best,” the disdu agreed rather sourly, looking at the spoiled sheet. “The omens are against your success.”

Returning to the Temple of the Cold Bloods, Rahniseeta resolved to take the rest she’d missed by waiting on Tiridanti. She had thought she’d been too anxious to sleep, but almost as soon has she’d stripped off her outwear and given herself over to the coolness of her sheets, she was asleep.

She awoke to find the early edge of dusk visible outside of the window and a delicious coolness in the air that suggested that Water had granted his mother respite from the heat in the form of rain. Rising and dressing in clean blouse and trousers, Rahniseeta felt rejuvenated, and went out into the center room she shared with Harjeedian feeling lighthearted, temporarily relieved of the responsibilities that had weighted her down for so many days.

How the divine elements must laugh at human antics and ambitions,
she thought.
Not long ago I was bemoaning being nothing but Harjeedian’s useful sister. Now that I have been given responsibilities because there were those who saw my worth, I am relieved to have a respite.

Harjeedian had, as was his custom, left her a note indicating that he would be gone through the dinner hour. Rahniseeta decided that she would dine in the public area rather than bring a tray back to her room. It would be nice to see some of the friends she had been forced to neglect of late.

She was just finishing a dish of spiced rice noodles garnished with thin slices of marinated saltwater bass when one of the porter’s messengers came up to her. He waited politely until Rahniseeta’s dinner companion—a kidisdu who specialized in incubation—finished the anecdote she was telling, then said politely:

“Knowing that you were in, the porter thought you would like to be informed that one of the northerners—the clumsy one—has come to visit Barnet Lobster.”

Rahniseeta swallowed a sigh. She’d been enjoying her respite, but all her companions knew the pull of duty.

“And is Barnet in?”

“Yes. He returned at the afternoon break and has not since left his suite.”

Rahniseeta, who knew that the northerners found the damp, sticky summer heat oppressive, was not surprised. She rose and excused herself to her friends.

“Save me one of those fruit crisps,” she said after accepting their sympathy. “That is, if you’re really sorry for me.”

The kidisdu laughed, but Rahniseeta saw her slide a pastry to one side of the serving plate as a reminder.

Still in good spirits, Rahniseeta made her leisurely way down the storm-cooled corridors. A slim green snake glided across her path, then coiled up a pillar, freezing among the vines that grew there like a stem returned to its parent plant.

There was a legend about just that, and she thought Barnet would like it. Elwyn, too, had a childish eagerness for stories. After Derian, these two had become her favorites among the foreigners.

Thinking of Derian made Rahniseeta’s cheeks warm, but it was not at all an unpleasant heat. With a smile on her face and her feet light, she turned down the corridor that led to the suite that Barnet continued to occupy alone, except on those rare nights Derian chose not to ride back to u-Bishinti.

What she heard as she drew closer to the gate made her stop, still as the snake among the vines, and listen.

Elwyn’s voice, unmusical against the accompaniment of Barnet’s fingers playing something idle and intricate on one of his stringed instruments, spoke eagerly.

“ … and so we’re sailing out tonight.”

Barnet replied, laughter underlying his words, “Going to get lost again?”

Rahniseeta remembered the incident to which Barnet referred. The northerners had broken a line or something, and had ended up staying away all night. The event had been something of a sensation, for even those disdum who wanted to be rid of the foreigners wanted to do so on their own terms. The thought that they might have simply left had been unsettling.

The disdum of the Temple of Sea Beasts had been quick to reassure everyone that the boat on which the northerners had been sailing lacked the size and capacity to sail outside of the relatively sheltered bay, so even if the northerners had attempted to leave without permission, they were unlikely to get far. It had been distinctly anticlimactic when the small vessel had limped into the harbor the next morning.

“We didn’t get lost then,” Elwyn said, laughing in return, clearly aware he was being teased. “We won’t tonight either. We know just where we’re going. Want to know?”

Rahniseeta had started to move again, but once again she froze.

“Sure,” Barnet said, “especially since I’m being invited to come along. Where?”

“To Misheemnekuru,” Elwyn said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. “Those islands in the bay. Waln’s been saying there’s treasure there, enough to set us all up as fine gentlemen back in the Isles.”

“Enough to buy Wain Queen Valora’s forgiveness,” Barnet mused. “I wonder.”

His tone changed.

“But, Elwyn, you know we’re not to go to those islands. They’re restricted, even to the Liglimom themselves.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Elwyn said dismissively. “We’ve got permission.”

“Permission? Like Lady Blysse had permission?”

“I think so. Wain has talked about it to an aridisdu who’s really important and knows all this stuff.”

“And the aridisdu gave permission?” Barnet sounded distinctly disbelieving.

“Sort of,” Elwyn admitted. This was clearly getting beyond what his rather simple intellect could handle, but he was obviously eager to convince Barnet. “It’s like this. The islands were animals-only, no people, right up until Lady Blysse went there. No matter how strange she is, there’s no doubting she’s human, so the animals must not mind humans coming there anymore.”

“And this is what the aridisdu told you?” Barnet did not sound convinced.

“Pretty much,” Elwyn said. “Anyhow, he must believe it himself, because he’s coming with us.”

“He is?”

“Yep. And he’s done more than that. I bet you wonder how we’re going to get out of here with our loot.”

“I can’t say I had.”

“Waln has. He’s arranged with this aridisdu to have that ship they’re getting ready in case they’re going to send us home all set. The crew that’s on board is friendly to Waln’s aridisdu and will go with us. So it’s up anchor and to home. That’s why we really want you to come with us. You’ll get treasure and home with honor. That’s why we went out exploring, isn’t it?”

It was a long speech for Elwyn and gave Rahniseeta a good idea just how carefully Wain Endbrook had been preparing for this moment. She also had no doubt who this aridisdu was. It had to be Shivadtmon—and would the crew he had prepared be members of Dantarahma’s cabal? How would the rulers of the northern lands view Liglim if their first encounter with her people was with a group given to blood sacrifice?

Rahniseeta didn’t dare let her mind wander to the possible ramifications of this, but she remembered Derian’s tales of the century of war between his people and Barnet’s—peoples who differed only in who their ruler was. How would they act toward people who looked and thought so differently?

She shivered, longing to run with this information to Harjeedian or Meiyal, to pass on the responsibility to anyone else, but she must risk remaining long enough to hear what Barnet decided.

Barnet had paused, even his fingers on the strings stilling as he thought. Now the music resumed, but the tune was no longer light.

“We did go out for those reasons,” Barnet said slowly, “but I don’t think this is the way to get honor and treasure. It just doesn’t feel right. I’ve been living up here among the disdum, and while lots of them are unhappy with Lady Blysse’s visit to Misheemnekuru, not many talk like this aridisdu.”