Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 (20 page)

He rose and squeezed into the fireplace, trying not to step right in the ash. Fortunately, flat stones a double handspan wide ran along the sides and back of the firebox, making a space to set pots or kettles or big feet. Geth had to crouch a bit to avoid the sloping upper surface that fed into the chimney, but by straddling the firebox and twisting his neck, he could peer up into the dark shaft.

The shadows were so thick and blended so closely with the soot-covered walls that even shifter eyes had trouble seeing through them. He waited, letting his vision adjust. After a long moment, he saw a stray wisp of gray, like a cloud scudding across a moonless sky. Smoke from a neighboring fireplace. With that wisp as reference, other vague details made sense—the flat planes of shadow that were the walls of the chimney, the smoky darkness that was the rising central flue. There was something not quite right about the junction of shadow and smoke, though. Geth twisted his head around the other way. There was another plane in the dark.

He grimaced and shifted one foot right into the middle of the ireplace, digging down into the ash until there was solid stone beneath his sole, then stretched an arm up into the chimney.

His questing ingers caught the lip of a ledge. The stone was warm and dry, heated by air rising from unseen ires. Geth moved his hand back and forth. He couldn’t reach far enough too feel how deep the ledge was, but it was wide. Wide enough to accommodate the body of a goblin.

The twist in his belly unraveled. “Wolf and Tiger,” he murmured. A ledge in the chimney, just as Chetiin had said.

Then the twist came back. Chetiin had been telling the truth, but that meant Midian Mit Davandi had brought about Haruuc’s death.

Geth brought his arm down and stepped out of the ireplace. A bit of discarded clothing made a rag to brush the ash from his foot and wipe the soot from his hands. He stirred the remains of the ire again, then stuffed the sooty rag among the remains of the bed. With the door broken in, there was no hiding that someone had been in the room, but he could at least disguise what he had done here. He backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, brushing away splinters of wood and securing the ruined latch as best he could. Gut aching with a mixture of relief and anger, he headed back through the corridors of Khaar Mbar’ost to his chamber.

He was nearly there when he turned a corner and found himself facing Midian.

“Geth!” The gnome’s face curved into a smile. “I was looking for you. When you weren’t in your chamber, I thought I might have to go ind you at the arena.”

Geth forced himself to smile back. Not too much of a smile. Not too little. He couldn’t give away what he knew. “I haven’t been yet today. I was looking in on Dagii. I’m just on my way back to my chamber now.”

“I’ll walk with you.” Midian turned and fell into step at his side. “I spoke to Razu.”

“What about?”

Midian lowered his voice as a hobgoblin came along the corridor toward them. “I told her I’d try to ind a way to get Razu to
delay the coronation of the lhesh so that your artificer would have the time he needs to finish … what’s he working on. Razu wasn’t aware of the importance that the Dhakaani emperors placed in having an auspicious conjunction of moon phases on the day of their ascension to the throne.”

“Did they really care that much about the phases of the moons?”

Midian looked hurt. “I’m not known as a noted researcher of Dhakaani history for nothing, Geth. Fortunately for Razu and the new lhesh there will be just such a conjunction just two days after the end of the games.”

“Really?”

The gnome’s lips twitched. “Let’s just say it’s not a position I’d try to put forward in a research paper for the Library of Korranberg. But there’s only ever been one coronation of a lhesh, and Razu is desperate for ideas to build the ceremony around. You’ve noticed how
dar
love tradition?” His blue eyes twinkled. “You can tell me I’m brilliant again.”

They had almost reached the door of his chamber. Geth knew he should end the conversation and get away from the gnome, but Midian’s smugness was like vinegar in his mouth. “What if Razu asks Senen Dhakaan about this?” he said sharply. “Senen will know you’ve made it up.”

“There’s an odd thing.” Midian’s voice turned serious. “Razu did ask Senen—and Senen said I was right. I may be brilliant, but I’m not that brilliant. Senen hates me. She’d contradict hard evidence just to spite me. I wonder if she knows we’re up to something.”

The answer gave Geth a moment of real surprise, and he glanced down at Midian. “Maybe she does.”

“It would be better if she didn’t. Aren’t we trying to make sure the secret of the rod
stays
a secret?”

Maybe it was his imagination, the shock of having Chetiin’s story confirmed, but Geth thought he heard a chilling ruthlessness in Midian’s words. He tried to hide the shiver that raised the hair in his neck. “You’re being suspicious,” he said.

“That’s what keeps gnomes alive.” Midian stopped beside the guards who stood outside Geth’s door. “Your chamber. I’ll see you at the arena?” His face brightened considerably. “Keraal has developed
a popular following. He defeated three Kech Shaarat bladedancers yesterday. There’s a rumor that he’s ighting four Marguul berserkers today.”

“I’ll be there.” Geth stepped up to his door—the guards put fists to chests in a salute—then glanced back at Midian for a moment as the gnome bounced away down the corridor. Maybe it wasn’t so difficult to see him orchestrating Haruuc’s death. He wondered how long they’d be able to keep Chetiin’s survival a secret.

Geth pushed open his door, stepped into his chamber, and closed the door behind him, then looked around the room. Hang something out of your window if you need to talk to me, Chetiin had said. Geth’s eye landed on a bright green blanket across his bed. Dragging it off, he took it over to the open window and wedged one end firmly around the hinge of a shutter. The other he tossed out of the window. The wind caught it and blew it out like a woolen banner.

It was all he could do for now. Hopefully Chetiin would see the signal and come to him. Geth turned away to prepare for his appearance at the games—and stopped as he caught sight of himself in a mirror that hung on his wall.

One cheek was streaked with black. The whole time he’d been talking to Midian he’d had soot on his face. He cursed and looked more closely. The patch of soot was small and narrow, left behind by the careless touch of a inger maybe. Geth turned his face back and forth, then tilted his head back, trying to guess how much a short person like Midian could really have seen. The soot was close to the thick hair of the sideburns that traced his jaw and easy to mistake for a shadow. Maybe the gnome hadn’t even noticed it. And what if he had? It was only a smear of soot. It could have come from anywhere.

You’re worrying over nothing, Geth told himself. He drew a deep breath, blew it out again, and scrubbed the soot away with the heel of his palm.

T
wilight came, and with it an end to the flow of supplicants to the grove around the ancient well. Pradoor had chosen to remain beneath the twisted branches for the day, letting the faithful come to her rather than wandering the streets to meet them. Normally Makka would have chafed at a day forced to sit and do nothing, but he found the time slipping past like a fast stream. Like the unseen water that rushed in the depths of the well.

The dark presence that lingered in the grove didn’t vanish with daylight, but seemed to grow stronger the longer Makka sat above the rock-rimmed hole.

When the last of the faithful had left the grove and the setting sun outlined the wizened branches with red light, Pradoor let out her breath in a long hiss of triumph. “Rhukaan Draal is the axle and I am the pin. The order of the world will be set right. The old ways will be given their proper place once more.” She turned to face Makka. “You have been silent.”

“I have been thinking,” he said.

“Have you?” Pradoor asked. Her thin lips twitched.

The old goblin’s speech the night before had lit a fire in Makka’s belly. He dropped to his knees in front of her. “The Six call. Show me how I may serve them.”

“You already serve.”

“Show me how to serve them better. Show me how to serve as you serve.”

Pradoor smiled, showing her teeth. “The Six marked you as theirs before they guided me to you, Makka. You cannot serve as I serve—I
am given souls, you are given steel. But I can show you how to serve in your own way.” She pointed. “Turn.”

Makka shifted around and found himself staring into the ancient well among the jumbled rocks. “What do I do?”

“Look,” Pradoor said. She reached up and pushed his head forward. “Look and learn to see. The age turns, and you have your own part to play in the order of the world.”

Makka leaned out over the hole and peered down into the echoing darkness. At first it seemed there was nothing to see, but then shapes moved, and the sound of rushing water became the thunder of blood in his veins. Makka’s eyes widened and he
saw
.

He saw Ashi of Deneith dying on her own sword.

He saw the shifter, Geth, crushed and in agony.

He saw Dagii of Mur Talaan impaled on an elf spear.

He saw Ekhaas of Kech Volaar with her throat torn out.

He saw the White Stone tribe wasting away from a plague that afflicted their camp and no other, but that pursued them no matter where they fled.

He saw every person he had ever sworn vengeance against brought low. He saw every person who had wronged him in even the slightest way met with a swift and terrible justice.

He saw himself, filled with anger and power and strength, mercy wiped away by rage, bringing divine wrath down upon the world.

“Who do you serve?” asked Pradoor’s voice.

“I serve the Six,” Makka said.

“How do you serve?”

“With steel.” More. Understanding rose up inside him. “With steel and faith, and a will to bring the old ways back to the
dar!”

“Who is your patron?”

He knew the answer. It throbbed with the beating of his heart and raced through him with all of life’s ecstasy. He saw it before his eyes. The calm that had guided him through the day vanished in a wave of frenzy. He drew the knife that had been an offering to the Six from his belt and pushed the tip against his chest, carving what he saw into his flesh. “The Fury,” he roared. “I belong to the Fury and her power belongs to me!”

G
eth.”

The call intruded on Geth’s sleeping mind, and it seemed to him that he had been hearing it for quite some time. It came again. “Geth.”

He curled more tightly under his blankets.

“Geth!” The speaker, his voice strained and thick, sounded irritated. Something flicked Geth’s nose.

Awareness, if not alertness, burst over him like a war wizard’s spell over a battlefield. He moved by instinct. A figure stood close to him and he punched at it in the same movement that brought him out of bed. The figure simply tumbled away, landing in a crouch on the sill of the open window. Geth dropped into a defensive stance, hands and arms raised, shocked mind calculating how he could reach Wrath before his attacker came at him again—

Recognition intruded on the rush of battle. The figure on the window sill was Chetiin. The goblin watched him with careful intensity in his black eyes. The sky behind him was gray with dawn. Geth shook his head and lowered his hands. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“That’s why I tried to wake you from a distance first,” said Chetiin. He reached down to the back of a chair below the window and tossed Geth’s pants to him. “Cover yourself.”

Geth struggled into the pants, swaying as the dizziness of sudden waking crashed down on him. “I thought you might have come sooner.”

“Sneaking into Khaar Mbar’ost isn’t easy.” The
shaarat’khesh
elder looked at him. “You summoned me. You need to talk?”

Over the afternoon and evening of the day before, Geth had worked out what he would say to Chetiin. How he would describe the misgivings and shameful suspicions he’d had as smoothly as Ekhaas might have. Sleep, however, had stolen the words from him. “I …” he bumbled, then clenched his teeth and said simply, “I doubted you. I’m sorry. I’ve seen the ledge—”