Silver Kings: The Splintered Gods Part 20

'Is he here, lady?

'Not now. They were sinking back towards the city. 'There are places in Vespinarr I wish to visit. Tomorrow we leave for the Konsidar. Hes making the arrangements.

'Surely you have a tvarr?

Red Lin Feyn shook her head. 'The Arbiter does not need a tvarr, nor a hsian nor a kwen. The Dralamut has all these things. When the Arbiter ventures elsewhere, its always to the Crown of the Sea Lords to hold her court, and Khalishtor is filled to the brim with more tvarrs that you could count. Should it be that the Arbiter travels elsewhere then she sends a killer to warn of her approach. Wherever she goes, all men lose their masters and become hers. That is the way of things, and the threat of the killers sees to it that the way is obeyed.

'Lady, why did you tell me about Feyn Charin last night?

Lin Feyn drizzled honey over a torn piece of bread. The look she gave Liang was full of sadness. 'To have told someone at all. We all grow up to see him as such a hero, such a great man, the maker of TakeiTarr as we know it. Without him, we couldnt cross the storm-dark. Perhaps the secret would have been found in another realm instead. Perhaps in the Dominion with their priests, or in Aria with their sorcerers. Perhaps their s.h.i.+ps would have come to our sh.o.r.es as we go to theirs, taking what amused them. Perhaps we would be their slaves and not they ours. And all these things are true, and yet among them other truths become lost. He was a sorcerer, apprenticed to the worst of them all when I say worst, perhaps I should say most threatening after all, the Sunburst never did anything particularly wicked. She was no Abraxi. In fact, as a sea lord, she was good to her people. By far her greatest crime was to make the killers afraid of her.

Lin Feyn bit into a ripe dragonfruit with a touch of savagery. Its juices dripped down her chin.

'Our great hero was everything the killers swear they exist to destroy and yet they exalted him. They gave him the Dralamut and made him a teacher. She shrugged. 'Much good came of it: our world is what it is because they made that choice. But why him, when he was against everything they exist to do? Do you see, Liang, why I dont trust them? They are founded on sand. She shook her head. 'And then the great hero of TakeiTarr becomes an old man with a terrible darkness. We dont talk of that. You see him sitting in a room, old and grey, poring over his notes, writing the secrets of the universe, but Ive seen the actual words he wrote with my own eyes and I know better. He was afraid to his very core of what he knew. She wiped her mouth. 'I do not wish to become like that, Chay-Liang. The Sunburst her journals are those of a visionary. How different things might have been had their positions been reversed.

For a few seconds she stared past Liang out into the empty s.p.a.ce beyond the gondola as if trying to see into some other far-off world. Then she wiped her mouth again and rose. 'I should not burden you, enchantress. These things do not matter. I am what I am, and they have no relevance. Leave now, please. I must dress myself. The world will expect the Arbiter of the Dralamut, not a tired old woman.

Liang smiled. 'Old, lady? Youre younger than I am.

Lin Feyn snorted. 'Old enough, Liang. Now go and make the storm-dark in that globe bow to you.

The gla.s.s.h.i.+p drifted over the Vespinarr basin to the flanks of the Silver Mountain and sank lazily to the landing fields of the Visonda once more. Red Lin Feyn had become the Arbiter again, although this time without the headdress. She handed Liang two wands the lightning wand and the black rod she had confiscated back on the eyrie.

'I believe we may still be in danger. Nevertheless, there is something here I wish to see. She opened the ramp, walked out with the Elemental Man at her heels and found the two golems standing exactly where theyd been two days before. People stopped to stare at them, though Lin Feyn seemed not to notice. Perhaps she was used to it. She walked with Liang beside her, her golems behind and the Elemental Man ahead, across the landing field into Visonda Square where the huge walls of the old palace towered over them. Knots of brightly-dressed people stood about in idle conversation and dozens of slaves in their white tunics hurried to and fro on their errands, but the square was so vast that it felt empty. It was a pale stone wilderness, Liang thought, touched with a faint morning mist that dimmed the far-off jubilant chaos of the Harub on the opposite side to a lurking silhouette and leached the many colourful robes to dull dark grey. A s.p.a.ce like this would swallow the eyries dragon yard whole. Even the dragon itself would look small.

The morning mountain air felt cold and damp and unnaturally still.

Red Lin Feyn stopped and pointed at her feet. Patterned lines of a darker polished stone ran from the corners and the sides of the square, converging on the middle where the Azahl Pillar rose, its white stone almost invisible in the haze until they neared it. The pillar had come out of the Konsidar hundreds of years ago. Its exact dimensions had been measured and recorded by the enchanters of Hingwal Taktse, whod meticulously copied and studied the unknown runes that covered its surface, but that was about as much as Liang knew. Now she saw it with her own eyes, one thing struck her above all else. It was the same white stone as the insides of Baros Tsens eyrie. The same white stone as the . . .

'The G.o.dspike! She couldnt help herself. Her hand flew to her mouth. It was exactly like the G.o.dspike except several thousand times smaller and covered in sigils.

'Very good. Liang heard the smile in Lin Feyns voice. The Arbiter walked up to the pillar. 'Touch it, she said.

Liang did. The stone under her fingers was smooth and hard and cold, the edges and corners still sharp, the surface unweathered. It felt fresh from the stone cutter, polished only yesterday, exactly, again, like the white stone of the eyrie. 'How old is this?

'At least a thousand years. Perhaps many more. Vespin brought it out of the Konsidar, but it was made before the cataclysm that sp.a.w.ned the storm-dark. Charin knew it as soon as he saw it. Red Lin Feyn ran her fingers over the carvings and smiled. There was an edge to her now. 'No one can read these words, but I can tell you that they are dedications to a general whose name is lost. They give an account of his services to the long-forgotten king of a realm no one remembers. Or so my ancestor claims in his journals. In the Konsidar you will see many more of these.

'It feels so new. Liang stared at the pillar and an icicle ran up her spine. 'Ive seen words like these before. Tattooed across the skin of the killer who nearly slit my alchemists throat.

'Yes. Lin Feyn was nodding. 'I saw the skin of that man your alchemist kept so carefully preserved. I think they were not as strange to him as they are to you and me. QuaiShus Elemental Man had an interest in them before he died too. Did he speak to you of this?

Liang shook her head.

'Nor to anyone else Ive found. But Im convinced he had, nonetheless. He was pursuing some . . . other purpose. Its a shame we cant speak to him and ask. She turned slightly and fixed Liang with a steely look. 'Enchantress, I know you have your views, but the duty of the Arbiter is to determine where responsibility truly lies. I must consider the possibility that even Shonda of Vespinarr is a paw- A flash of light caught Liangs eye from the narrow busy streets of the Harubs morning gloom. A huge golem hand grabbed her and a ma.s.sive gla.s.s s.h.i.+eld slammed down in front of her as a bright streak hurtled towards them. Another erupted from a doorway and a third from a window. Rockets. The first hit the pillar and exploded into a ball of flame that washed over the gla.s.s in front of her. The second fizzed past and struck the ground behind her. Fire billowed everywhere but the golem had stepped close and placed its s.h.i.+eld around her, caging her in a gold-gla.s.s sh.e.l.l. She heard the third rocket detonate, so loud it must have exploded in front of her face, but by then she was huddled down into a ball. A terrible thunderclap made her ears ring. As she tried to blink away the flashes, a second thunderbolt erupted, this time from the golem wrapped around her. It struck the window in the Harub from where one of the rockets had come and the entire house blew apart.

The Elemental Man had vanished. Behind and beside her the other golem had Red Lin Feyn protected in its embrace. They stood as still as statues by the Azahl Pillar while the square erupted into screams and people ran helter-skelter away.

'For your safety, Chay-Liang of Hingwal Taktse, step into the s.h.i.+eld. The golem sounded so distant over the ringing in her ears. The one wrapped around Red Lin Feyn started moving, fast. Liang fumbled with her feet. Yes, on the inside of the s.h.i.+eld was the step. She climbed onto it and the golem started to run.

Another explosion erupted out of the Harub, this time with a cloud of pale smoke. The shoulder of the golem carrying Red Lin Feyn exploded, spinning it around and almost knocking it down. Gold-gla.s.s shattered and shards of it pinged off the s.h.i.+eld in front of Liangs face. The Arbiters golem had lost both the arms on its right side. It staggered, righted itself and kept running. A rocket streaked past and exploded in the distance against the walls of the Visonda and then another hit the Arbiters golem yet again. For a moment the flash was blinding. The air swirled with smoke and Liang could smell the reek of sulphur, of burned black powder. Her eyes stung. Another thunderclap seared her ears. She hunched forward and cringed inside the golems s.h.i.+eld as it pounded towards the Harub. She didnt understand why they were running towards their attackers instead of away, didnt understand why someone was firing rockets at her. Not lightning or arrows but rockets! Xibaiya!

A cl.u.s.ter of explosions erupted around the golems and the air filled with sulphurous smoke. Her own golem staggered and shuddered as something hit it hard, then spun. It tipped and fell on top of her, slamming her face first into the ground as it rolled inert onto its back. Its arms dropped, limp. Liang was sprawled behind the s.h.i.+eld across the hard smooth flagstones of the square. She started crawling and then stopped. She had no idea which way she was facing. Look for Lin Feyn, that had been her first thought, protect the Arbiter, but the golems had taken them to the edge of the Harub, to the closest shelter but also towards their attackers, and the air was so thick with stinging smoke that she could barely see a thing. Her eyes filled with tears. She coughed and the smoke burned her lungs, hot and acrid. She still had her lightning wand at her waist and three unmoulded gla.s.s spheres in her pockets. She pulled one out now, hastily moulded it into a s.h.i.+eld that wrapped almost all around her, and ran with no idea where she was going. She saw the shapes of men. Soldiers. She turned and ran the other way instead. More thunderclaps and lightning bolts split the air. One of them hit her s.h.i.+eld. Sparks scattered in front of her eyes.

The shape of a narrow street loomed from the smoke, empty except for three bodies and the metal tubes of a rocket launcher. In the distance she heard screams. Her heart was racing. The air here was thick with the same sulphurous smoke again. She darted to the side of the street and looked for a door, any door, kicked it open and ran into a dark little shop filled from floor to ceiling with shelves of pottery jugs. The air was a little better, at least. She ran through, looking for steps to take her up, but only found an alley no wider than she was and too narrow for her s.h.i.+eld. She changed its shape and made it smaller and ran on. The Harub was usually packed with crowds. Find them and shed be safe.

'Arbiter!

The voice came from behind. She froze, but before she could turn, a hammer blow struck her s.h.i.+eld and shattered it and then she felt something sharp and deadly hit her back. Pain shot through to her heart. She turned but all she could see was the shape of a man, a miniature black-powder hand cannon at his feet, his arm raised to throw another knife. She ducked, tripped over her own feet, stumbled to her knees as she whipped the remains of her s.h.i.+eld over her face. The second blade struck the gla.s.s and skittered away, and then the man was gone even as she snapped her wand towards him. The pain in her back was like fire. When she tried to stand, she found she barely could. There was no way to tell how bad the wound was.

The second knife was on the ground in front of her. She bent to pick it up and saw the blade was wet. Poison. She staggered back the way shed come, looking for the man whod killed her, lightning wand ready to kill him in return, but she never saw him. Her legs started to wobble. She stumbled back into the little shop and its shadowy darkness and clutched at the shelves. They crashed in a shower of shattering clay around her. She fell to her hands and knees, coughed and tasted salt and iron in her mouth. Her breathing was too fast. Her eyes were swimming. And now there was the man again, standing over her, and she was too weak to even lift up her head.

37.

The Gates of Xibaiya Berren crept forward in the darkness. He wasnt sure where he was any more. The dragon was a dull memory. It had been out there, picking at him, pulling at the strings of his soul. Digging and digging deep. He remembered a flash of purity as it touched the edge of something that didnt want to be touched, and after that the world became strange. He could remember sending the dragon away without knowing how. Keeping himself safe. He remembered Tuuran, talking to the big man, starting to tell him what the dragon had done. He remembered walking away and leaving the big man behind with no idea why hed done that. He could have let them all go. He could have done anything then. That was the most frightening part of it all. He could have done anything. He could have picked up the world and thrown it into the sun or shattered the moon and made it fall in fragments across the sea for each one to grow into a strange new island of silver stone.

The moon. He kept seeing the moon, the sullen hostile moon.

In the end he hadnt done anything at all.

Afterwards he walked and walked and walked without much idea of where he was going or why but with an absolute certainty of where he needed to be. The sun rose and he went on. He should have burned. He should have been crawling on his hands and knees but he wasnt. He didnt remember being hungry or thirsty though hed had neither food nor water and never stopped to look for either. He didnt remember exactly when hed started down into the crack in the earth. Maybe it had been night again by then and he hadnt noticed. He had a vague idea of a lot of steps and a bridge and a whole lot of tunnels made out of white stone that lit his way with a soft moonlight glow, and great bronze doors held closed by four-armed guardians. He wasnt tired, though he hadnt ever stopped to rest. There had been people too, he thought, up near the top, with white-painted faces, but theyd kept away and left him alone and hed gone on by.

He pa.s.sed gateways, old, old places. He didnt pay them much attention. It was as though hed seen them before and knew what they were and understood that the words written over them were meant for him and him alone in a strange language that he couldnt understand and yet did. They were guiding him.

And now this. The largest cavern hed ever seen. The distant walls were smooth and rounded in all directions. A single span of white stone reached from his feet out into the void, and walking on it was like walking towards the centre of some giant bubble. When he reached that centre, the span splayed out into a circular platform ringed with archways, and the walls were so far away that he couldnt even guess now how big the cavern was. Everywhere was a faraway unchanging pale glow, and within it distance lost its meaning. In the middle of the floor beneath him was a pitch-black hole. He couldnt tell how wide or deep it was, but he knew it wasnt just any hole. This was a hole in the world. Through it lay Xibaiya. The land of the dead.

He paced around the arches. The echo of the Black Moon had brought him here. The man with the ruined face and the one milky eye had put it into the warlock Skyrie. Now it was in him and it was looking for something.

Where are you?

The question came with the sense of a task not finished. The archways were empty, but only until he touched them and the Black Moon reached through his fingers and s.h.i.+vered them into life.

The first s.h.i.+mmered onto a sea of liquid silver. He felt a wistful pang of regret tinged with disappointment and murderous anger. The silver sea called to the Black Moon, begging him home, and for a moment he felt the pulse inside him waver, but then another sense came, a slowly growing awareness of his presence, huge and resentful. He let the arch go and the gateway s.h.i.+mmered and vanished. The regret lasted a little longer. Hed done something once. Something monumentally vast. What was it?

Get out of me. Get out! Berren screamed at the echo inside him with all the potency of an ant screaming at a tree.

The next arch s.h.i.+mmered like the first when he touched it. It opened onto a small round chamber, dark with no exits. There was a mosaic on the floor, almost lost to age. Three skeletons lay over it, long-dead men clad in bronze-mesh armour. There was a book . . . No. There had once been a book but now it was gone.

Where are you?

Get out! Get out, get out! But the Black Moon didnt even know he was there, and Berren understood now how it had been for Skyrie when the two of them fought. Drowning. Powerless. Screaming silently in his own skin.

The next arch was a great throne room, grand beyond imagining. A king in a coat that burned like the sun. Then a room full of more archways exactly like the ones in front of him but at the top of some high tower. Then a gloomy cave at the bottom of a spiralling staircase and a spear, its pointed haft buried six inches into the floor, walls lit by alchemical lamps whose cold white light glittered on the spears silver skin. Then a place of s.h.i.+mmering rainbows and a woman, achingly beautiful, with a golden circlet on her brow. They meant nothing, any of them.

In the next he saw himself. Berren the b.l.o.o.d.y Judge. Berren the Crowntaker. His own face, his real face, the flesh and skin that had once been his, taken from him years ago in Tethis. He saw himself staring at a knife, the other knife with a golden haft carved into a thousand eyes and a pale swirling blade. The b.l.o.o.d.y Judge looked right back at him, and for a moment the Black Moon wavered, its substance turned to smoke. Berren lunged. 'Help me! he shrieked. 'Help me!

The gate snapped closed. The Black Moon inside him s.h.i.+vered and roared, coalesced hard as black iron, too much to bear as it grasped at a memory that should have been within easy reach and yet simply wasnt there. Brilliant silver light flared across the cavern, and all the arches s.h.i.+mmered and flared and opened for a moment and then closed. I built this! I made this! Silver light soared around him. I. Made. This.

The last arch s.h.i.+mmered into the black abyss, into the all-devouring void that was Xibaiya, land of the dead. The Black Moon took his legs and stepped through. Berren screamed and . . .

. . . ceased to be. Souls pa.s.sed him by. Millions upon millions of glittering shards of the sun, flitting through him, dancing briefly on their way home. Now and then the memories of a dragon, lurking, searching to be reborn. Fragments of the earth which fled at his approach, knowing what he was. And he remembered. He was the singer of songs to the earth. Creator and maker of terror and monsters, of Zaklat and the Kraitu and a hundred others, defier and destroyer of G.o.ds, unraveller of terrible secrets. He was the Black Moon, who turned his enemies to dragons and split the earth asunder and rose to wipe out the sun, trapped in useless flesh as futile rage and boundless despair crushed through him like a deep ocean storm and . . .

. . . sat up.

Blinked and took deep gasping breaths, trying to remember who he was.

Berren. Berren the Crowntaker. Berren the b.l.o.o.d.y Judge.

Relief shuddered through him. A dream then.

A dream? But that didnt . . . But best not to think about it. Thats what Tuuran would say. He was who he was.

He got to his feet, unsteady as an old man. He wasnt in the cavern of white stone with archways any more, if he ever had been. He was lying on his back as though hed been asleep, and that on its own made wherever this was a d.a.m.n sight better. He was himself, not driven by some hungry thing he didnt understand that some warlock had stuck inside his head.

Berren. Berren the Crowntaker. Berren the b.l.o.o.d.y Judge.

He lay still, breathing hard until his heart finally slowed. Stupid dream. He sniffed the air. It smelled of Xizic, which made him feel slightly sick, but at least the smell was familiar. Taiytakei, slaves, everyone chewed the stuff here.

The night was black. There were no stars, no slivers of moonlight. He was in some sort of shelter. He could feel that by the stillness of the air. He was tired. Weak. His skin, already dark from years at sea, was sore, burned by the sun and sand and wind.

He sat up and felt around him. He wasnt in a hut or a shelter after all, but some sort of cave. There was a jug of water beside him and a cloth. He drained the water, greedy for it, then got to his feet and felt his way about. When he moved too quickly, his head started to swim. Slow and careful then. A cave and he was at the back of it. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled around until a faint flickering of firelight lit the damp stone wall around a corner. The light led him to where the cave opened onto a dark expanse of black sand beneath inky-dark cliffs. The sky above was every bit as black as the sand. The middle of the night then, with clouds blotting out the stars. Three men sat around the tiny fire whose flames had led him. It lit up their faces. He froze, startled they looked like ghosts and it was a moment before he realised they were simply painted. Three naked men with their skin painted white.

They looked up. Saw him and then glanced at each other and beckoned, and when he joined them, they knelt and pressed their heads against the sand, prostrating themselves before him. Berren frowned.

'Im hungry, he said. 'Got any food?

They backed away and scuttled into the darkness and returned a few moments later with bowls of nuts and dried berries and leaves.

'Meat. Got any meat?

They shook their heads.

Berren looked up. Everything was obsidian-dark and that wasnt right. There werent any stars, not one, and the last thing he knew hed been in a desert and there hadnt been a cloud for a hundred miles. So there should have been stars.

'Where am I?

The white-painted men backed away. They were scared of him. Somehow he wasnt what theyd expected.

'How did I get here?

Two of the men kept shuffling away; the third hesitated, then beckoned Berren to follow and returned to pick a burning brand from the fire. He led the way to the cliffs, into a different cave and through a wide rough tunnel. After a few minutes it opened into a vast s.p.a.ce, bigger even than the white stone cave from his dream. He was at the bottom of a colossal scar in the desert. The Queverra. He remembered now. Right at the bottom of the damp cold depths while five miles above him a long slit of daylight filtered feebly down. Berren closed his eyes. A camp at the edge of the abyss. And he remembered, yes, walking down all those steps, part of what hed thought had been a dream. He pointed to the sky.

'I came from up there? He took a deep breath and squatted on his haunches. The sun must have cooked his head to make him think that coming down here was a good idea. Then again he hadnt been thinking right since that night when hed seen a dragon and something had happened to the slavers pole hed been tied to and hed escaped. It was all a bit hazy. Muddled.

The white-faced man was shaking his head. He pointed to the light too. 'Not from the light. All others come from the light. But not you. He pointed a sure finger a different way, along the canyon bottom to where it narrowed and funnelled into yet another cave mouth, this one guarded by two pale stone sentinels covered in strange runes. 'There. You come from there.

Berren walked to the pillars. He ran his fingers over the stone, which was smooth and perfect, the runes carved crisply, not worn and pitted by wind and water. He moved to go on between them into the cave and then turned and took the brand and poked it ahead of him. The cave devoured the firelight. He couldnt see a thing right in front of him, and yet in the distance he saw a dim light. A tunnel, straight and true, of softly glowing white stone that vanished off into for ever.

Something more than a cave.

'There, said the man. 'You come from Xibaiya. From the dead.

Berren leaned hard on the pillar beside him. His head started to spin. He took a deep breath and looked inside himself.

The Black Moon looked back.

38.

The Konsidar Chay-Liang woke to find she wasnt dead after all but lying in Red Lin Feyns gondola. She recognised the smell. The air carried a tinge of ozone and sulphur from Visonda Square but underneath it lay the soft perfume of the Arbiters silks, of old Xizic and the odd mustiness that came from the half-empty chests under the bed. Liang could feel the vibrations of the gla.s.s.h.i.+p coming down the silver chains into the gondola walls and could hear the wind outside through an open window. They were moving quickly.

She opened her eyes. She was lying on her front with her head almost hanging off the bed. Her clothes were piled in a tidy heap on the floor next to the box Belli had given her. The box was open and one of the vials was missing. She groaned and tried to roll onto her back and a searing pain shot through her shoulders. The knife, shed forgotten the knife. Shed been stabbed and poisoned and yet here she was. The last thing she remembered was the man standing over her. Her head ached and her mind was foggy but her thoughts were clear when she forced them to be.

She was naked underneath the silk sheets apart from a bandage wrapped around her chest and back. It went under her arms and over her shoulders and there was so much of it and it was so tightly wrapped that it felt like a second skin whenever she took a deep breath. She liked that, the sense of it squeezing her chest. She carefully eased herself to sit on the edge of the bed. A dull ache throbbed through her belly, echoes of cramps and retching but nothing worse than shed had every month since she turned twelve. When she wiggled her toes they wiggled just fine. So did her fingers, and everything was in focus. She hurt deep inside, a little bit of everywhere, but it was the hurt of a body put through a trauma that it had fought and survived and now it wanted to let her know about it.

She picked up her clothes and saw the blood. The stains were huge. Dry now, but they ran from between her shoulders down past her waist, and drips and trails ran as far as the hem around her feet. They were ruined, robe and s.h.i.+ft both, but she had others. She tried to stand, but that hurt too much so she shuffled along the edge of the bed to her travel trunk instead. Painstakingly, she dressed herself, then looked at the steps down to the body of the gondola. They were steep and she had no idea how to get down them. Shuffling on her backside maybe but there was a good chance shed fall, which was hardly the sort of thing one did before the Arbiter of the Dralamut.

a.s.suming the Arbiter was there. a.s.suming shed survived.

The air shuddered. An Elemental Man appeared sitting on the bed beside her. The same one whod been with them in the square.

'Your sort just cant use the stairs, can you? She pointed. 'Theyre right there. It was easy to be angry with him because she hurt and because the Elemental Man was meant to protect them and he hadnt, and . . . 'The Arbiter?

The killer smoothed his robes. 'Our lady is shaken and bruised but not physically harmed. Mostly she is angry. As Arbiter, however, she is hurt badly. An attempt on her life. The audacity to strike at her and, by inference, at the very order of things. The killer took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The strain on his face was clear and for once he seemed less like a mystical sorcerous a.s.sa.s.sin and more a common man close to the end of his tether. He nodded to the steps. 'Its laziness, Chay-Liang, thats all. Its easier for us to s.h.i.+ft our substance and fly and s.h.i.+ft back again than it is to climb a few steps. Does that surprise you? I suppose it must but its true. Here and in Aria and the Dominion too. Everywhere except the dragon-realms. Dragons make it hard. I suppose she told you that while you were speaking in secret? When Liang shook her head the Elemental Man rolled his eyes and looked away. 'The Arbiter has chosen you to be her companion, Chay-Liang. She chooses to trust you over the Elemental Men who have served the Dralamut for five hundred years. So be it. Were not your enemy. We serve in good faith. May I ask you to undress? I would inspect your wound. I have no doubt you would do a better job yourself, but its position, I fear, is awkward for you.

Who have served the Dralamut ... Words chosen with thought or carelessly let out? The Elemental Men were supposed to serve the Elemental Masters who existed at the top of Mount Solence and whom no one else had ever seen, like priests who served a G.o.d whose every miracle was in fact the work of men. Liang had always quietly thought of the killers as serving an idea, or perhaps an ideal, and even if she shared it, shed never much liked the notion. It was hard to argue with an idea, and ideals were notoriously intransigent. In a very metaphysical sort of way killing ideals was the purpose of the Elemental Men. It was ironic to imagine that they also served one.

Who have served the Dralamut. Perhaps shed had it all wrong. She moaned softly. It was hard slipping her robe and s.h.i.+ft back up her body. 'Someone has been through the potions my alchemist slave gave me. Was that you?

The killer bowed. 'When it was clear the danger to our lady was past, I found you and brought you here. For the rest I was banished outside. The wound was not fatal but the blade carried a poison, and we do not learn the arts of healing on the peak of Mount Solence. Many other things, but not that. Our lady Arbiter tended you while I hunted those responsible.

'Did you find them? She had the robe and s.h.i.+ft over her head now and felt conscious of her nakedness. The killers were eunuchs, she knew that much, but it had been a very long time since anyone had seen her disrobe. She flinched as his fingers brushed her skin and loosened the bandages. 'It was you I saw at the end. The feet in front of her face. Shed thought they belonged to the man whod stabbed her, come to finish her, but it must have been the Elemental Man instead. 'Did you find him? The one who left his knife in me.

The killer shook his head as he unwound the cloth from her chest. 'My first concern was the safety of the Arbiter. Others will come once news of this reaches them. It cannot be ignored. He poked at the wound in her back. He was gentle but she squealed anyway.