House War - The Hidden City Part 61

But as Sigurne approached, she frowned.

"Member Mellifas," he said, bowing gravely.

She might have pretended confusion or surprise, and he thought she would attempt it; her face was momentarily devoid of expression, as if she could not quite decide which one to wear. But in the end, she chose weariness, and turned away.

"You . . . used the daggers again?"

"Ah, forgive me. No, I have had no cause to use them."

He saw her stiffen, and then saw the stiffness leave her in a rush; the loss made her look frail, as if in shedding worry she also shed strength.

The room, narrow as it was, was possessed of a great many window seats; these were not to her liking. It was not possessed of an obvious grate, but it was not chill; it held a long, narrow table, and at even intervals, chairs. They were simple chairs; heavy, but otherwise unadorned. They did, however, have armrests and cus.h.i.+oned seats.

"You will do me the grace," she told Rath, "of allowing me to sit while you explain your presence here."

He nodded, turning toward the windows again. This gla.s.s did not reflect light; he could see out, but any hope of watching the mage's movements without actually looking at her vanished.

"Ararath."

He accepted the inevitable. With some quiet grace, he pulled a chair out for her and held it while she sat. When she was comfortable-or as comfortable as one could be in this oddly spa.r.s.e room-he took a like chair.

"I've come to ask you questions," he told her quietly, meeting her eyes. "I am aware that I have very little to offer in return; I am aware that I may leave these rooms without answers. I am also aware that I may never leave them, for it was clear to me when we met a week past that you have no desire to speak about the subject I have come to ask you about.

"But I have some hope, or I would have spared you the burden of visitors at this late hour."

She nodded, her gaze appraising. Not unfriendly, but not precisely friendly either. She seemed bent, to Rath, but Rath was also adept at disguise, at wearing or discarding as much of the burden of age as he could.

"I have in my keeping a child," he continued, when it became clear that only by continuing would silence be broken. "She was some days in the hands of the men who held her captive."

"Those men?"

"As you suspect, Member Mellifas. They were demons, the two I killed."

"The child is whole?"

"She was not uninjured," he replied with care, "but injury was not, I think, their goal." He had been wrong to sit; he desired the freedom to walk, to turn his back on this woman while he gathered thought. He had rehea.r.s.ed his question with care, rephrasing it a hundred times, a thousand, while he made his way through the maze beneath the holdings. But as always, with such things, rehearsal had little bearing upon reality.

"Ararath."

"I did not come to ask how the demons were summoned; in truth, I would rather not know. But in such writings as are left from the time of the Blood Barons-and I a.s.sure you, I have read much-it is clear that if demons were used, they were used as intelligent weapons; they were given orders, and they were kept on tight leashes."

She nodded slowly.

"If the mage who summoned these creatures was within that building, I think we would have known it. Therefore, I have a.s.sumed he was not."

"It is a safe a.s.sumption," Sigurne said. She lifted a hand to her brow, ma.s.saging her forehead.

"It is not clear to me why a mage-any mage-would require the use of demons in the thirty-second holding as keepers of a brothel, however illegal; a man with money might have had the same service as they were providing from any of a thousand men, and again-from what scant writings remain-there appears to have been a risk to those mages who summoned demons in the past."

She chose silence, and Rath cursed it, although he often chose silence himself.

"Therefore one of two things is true: The mage you are looking for is one with a great deal of power who is not at risk when using demons for so trivial a task; or the demons were sent to pursue some other goal in the holdings, congruent with their running of a brothel." He paused. "I have been some days in my own investigation, and I can say two things with certainty."

"And those?"

"That the brothel offered services that were used by men of wealth and position upon the Isle, and that those services were costly. Had the brothel been left to run, it would have made a great deal of money for those who owned and operated it."

"It would not be the first time such an enterprise has been attempted. The lower holdings are not, perhaps, as tidy and lawful as the upper holdings-but they are not without the force of law; such enterprise would not have survived to make men rich; it might have survived long enough to ensure that some of those men were very dead. Very legally dead."

"Indeed."

She closed her eyes. "There is, of course, the third option."

"And that?"

"That both of the things you speak of are true: we are dealing with a mage-or mages-with exceptional levels of talent, and the demons pursue some purpose within the holdings, as far from the scrutiny of the Isle-and the G.o.d-born-as they can within the City."

Rath was not, by any measure, young, but when he looked at Sigurne's face, he felt the difference in their ages acutely. She spoke slowly, even smoothly, but there was a weariness in her words that went beyond fear. He leaned forward slightly in his chair, changing the line of his shoulder as he drew closer to this woman draped, almost incongruously, in the robes of the Order of Knowledge; in the magelights-recessed into the broad beams above-he could see the gleam of the quartered circle around her throat, but he could not make out the familiar symbols that graced it.

"Member Mellifas," he began, but she lifted a curved hand.

"Call me Sigurne. I appreciate the respect you attempt to show, but in this room it is unnecessary."

He nodded. "Sigurne, then. It was not directly of demons that I wished to speak, and of rogue mages, even less; they are not, in the end, my responsibility-and I am aware of my inability to deal with the danger they pose." He skirted the edge of the forbidden, and knew it. Knew also that in so doing, he was at risk. "I came instead to ask what they might gain from us."

Her eyes narrowed in a thoughtful way, rather than a cold one. "What an odd question," she said. "It is not one that I have often heard asked; the answer, it seems, would be obvious."

"Perhaps to the Magi, it is."

Her smile was slight and bitter. "Whoever summoned those creatures plays a dangerous game; I do not think it has occurred to them to wonder what the demons gain. What they themselves gain by the summoning is more clear and more direct: Power."

Rath shook his head slowly. "Power, Sigurne, I understand. And I understand malice as well." He hesitated. "Perhaps the demons had some task set them by their master that I cannot clearly see. But-the child I spoke of is a girl that we rescued a week past. I would not have considered taking her into my home; she is . . . dangerous. Unpleasant. If she has ever known anything but anger and pain, she hides it well."

"Ararath-"

"I am called Rath, or Old Rath."

"You are hardly old."

He smiled. "To you, no. But if I am to call you Sigurne, call me Rath."

"I am not fond of nicknames or diminutives."

"Nor am I fond of excessive familiarity." He shrugged. "We grow into our names, and perhaps mine is diminished, and I have become less than I was; I would not have said so years ago, and now, it is not of concern to me one way or the other, I have taken so many names."

"Rath," she said slowly. "This girl-"

"She is perhaps eleven or twelve; it is hard to gauge her age, and she has never offered it. If she did, I would revise my estimate either up or down around her claim, depending on the context; she would certainly be looking for some advantage, either way.

"She was taken from the streets-or so I believe-and kept prisoner by the two . . . demons. They sold her services, as they did the services of other children in their keeping. But to this girl, they gave the names of the men who had visited her." He watched the mage's face shade into darkness; beneath the weariness was a flicker of anger. He thought both genuine. It would be easy, with a woman such as this, to be caught unaware by such anger; easy to think her of little consequence, given her obvious frailty.

It would also be a mistake.

"And those names?"

"I will surrender them to you if you feel it will aid in your investigation. Without the cooperation of the children involved, it would be difficult to bring these men to justice by regular channels."

"Their cooperation is in doubt?"

"They are children of the poorer holdings," he replied. "And they do not trust where they are not forced to. For the crimes the men have committed, I feel it likely that the Magisterium would ask for the services of the judgment-born; money and position, as you know, mean little to the G.o.d-born when they are pursuing the duties laid on them by the blood and burden of their parentage. It would be impossible to lie to them."

"Why do you think they gave the girl the names of these men?"

"I don't know. Had I not begun my own investigation into this affair, I would say that the demons couldn't know the real names or ident.i.ties of such men. But the names are real, and I have some cause to believe that the men who were born to the names the child was given were, in fact, her tormentors.

"But I cannot clearly see why. A mage must control the demons, yes? But a mage would gain nothing by this. I have thought long on the matter. I believe it possible that these men have provided, by their crimes, information that would prove fatal should it become public knowledge. Even private knowledge, in the wrong hands, would destroy their lives."

"You think the purpose of the brothel was to ensnare the foolish?"

"If so kind a word as foolish could be used, then yes, I believe it might be one such reason for the brothel's existence. It's the only one that makes sense to me."

Sigurne nodded slowly.

"But even so, providing the child with the names doesn't. The demons certainly killed some of the other children," he added softly. "If their master needed proof of any claims of grave misdemeanor on the part of the people being blackmailed, if he-or she-needed concrete threats in which to couch the terms of such blackmail, they might keep one child alive. But I don't believe that they intended to use this child in that fas.h.i.+on."

"Why?"

"I hoped you would be able to explain that to me." He paused, and then added, "The child herself believes that they intended to use her in a different way."

"She told you this?" Sigurne raised a platinum brow.

"Not precisely."

"Not at all."

He shrugged. "She told someone, and I happened to overhear it."

"You eavesdropped on a child?"

"A child I do not trust."

Sigurne rose. "Rath-"

"She has asked me for one boon, one favor, and I have yet to decide whether or not to grant it. She is driven by rage, but also by fear, and I wish to strengthen neither of these. But, Sigurne, I believe they did indeed have some purpose in mind for her; I believe it because she believes it. And fears it. But she did not fear torment, and I do not believe, in the end, she truly fears death.

"What, then?"

Sigurne, standing, gestured; a bright orange light ran across the room like a translucent curtain, a sudden gust of ethereal wind that had escaped her raised palms. She looked neither old nor frail in that moment. But when the light had pa.s.sed, she looked down on Rath. "Speak the hint of lie to me, and I will know it," she told him softly.

"I did not come to bandy lies," he replied gravely. "Your answer, I think, will decide many fates, many lives, not the least of which are-" He stopped speaking.

"My answer, or what you make of it?"

"Either."

"Why do you a.s.sume that I have answers?"

"You are too wise to be fearful without cause," he replied. "And Member APhaniel clearly felt that yours was the greater knowledge. He is not, to my mind, a man who willingly cedes authority where such concession is not warranted."

At that, her lips twisted in a smile that was both bitter and infused with humor. "You've spent little time in these halls, if you can say that. He is merely less concerned with his precious authority than many a weaker man." She drew her robes tight, but did not resume her seat. "You ask much, Rath, and offer little."

"It is the way of men."

"Yes. But I am not a man. The child you speak of is not the child who truly concerns you," she added. "Do not stiffen into neutrality; it is clear that you do not care for the child you rescued from the demons; it is also clear to me that your preference would be to sever your fates, if you felt that were possible. You do not. And when we last spoke, you would not speak of a different child. It is clear-to an old woman, bereft of the comfort of grandchildren or children-that the child you protected and the child of whom you now so freely speak, are not the same; clear as well that the former has bonds with the latter that she will not break.

"I will answer your question," she told him, her eyes a bright, almost silvered, blue. "For reasons of my own, I will answer it. And then, Rath, you will speak plainly of your purpose here.

"Be aware that you will have what I grant, in the end, very few-including my colleagues. You will have my full attention. If I am unsatisfied with your explanation, it is unlikely that you will ever leave this tower."

Chapter Nineteen.

SO MANY WORDS. And so few.

Sigurne looked at the world-weary man seated before her in his perfect livery, the telltale signs of manners learned in a rich and cozened youth still visible in the tilt of his jaw, the graceful and elegant nod of his head, the way he gave ground-and authority-to her not because she was the ruler of the Order of Knowledge, but rather, because she was the oldest woman present.

She considered the matter of House Handernesse.

Once a proud family, historically even a great one, it had survived the Blood Barons, and entered the reign of the Kings, sacrificing both sons-and daughters-to the Kings' war for the Empire. It had not been significant enough to be one of The Ten, and had it, Handernesse had, as so many Imperial families with them, sat on the balance of knife's edge, watching and evaluating the two untried Kings and their very determined war. When it became clear that some hope existed for their success, Handernesse had moved-as they say-with the times, and had come only in this last generation to a bitter halt.

A cousin, Sigurne thought, would rule Handernesse when Ararath's father finally made his final pa.s.sage to the Halls of Mandaros, there to wait for his famous daughter and his lost son. In those halls, much might be said; she wondered if the words would be bitter. Having not pa.s.sed through the halls-or not in a way she would remember-she wondered frequently what they might be like. There, one could lay the burden of life's responsibilities at last to rest, and know some measure of peace.

It was not peace that she thought of now, although, as always, she greatly desired it. So, too, must Ararath's father. And if he was not a small man in mind, he was not so wise or generous a man that he could ever fully understand the disavowal of family and blood ties that were necessary to join one of The Ten. If you had no family, what did you have? What loyalties bound you, or claimed you?

She could not remember the Handernesse cousin's name, and had certainly never seen his face; Handernesse was not a family who came often to the Order of Knowledge, and if they did, they did not pet.i.tion for any use of magic that might distinguish them in her eyes.