Queen demon, p.21
Queen Demon, page 21
Kai was incredulous. So now Dahin suddenly wanted to continue alone, after dragging them all the way here.
The Tescai-lin regarded him skeptically. “And why would Dahin Stargard, the noted scholar of history, not be welcome in the official delegation?”
Dahin sighed. “Bashat wants to be an emperor, still, doesn’t he, even though the coalition has already said no once. Too many people know that, and it’s already stirred up more trouble than the Rising World has faced in years. The Nient-arik faction allying with the Immortal Blessed renegades can’t be the only conspiracy, just the one that got caught. To find the Well and destroy it, it has to be someone trusted. I trust me. And you, obviously. And them.” He jerked his head toward Kai and the others.
“Thank you for including us,” Tahren muttered, and oofed softly as Ziede elbowed her.
The Tescai-lin said, “I thank you for putting me second in that illustrious list. And in the morning—”
Etem, the Doorkeeper who had first greeted them, came into the room at a hurried pace. They sat down on the couch next to the Tescai-lin and leaned in to speak to them in a low whisper.
Kai watched the Tescai-lin’s expression sharpen in worry and had a bad feeling. He finished his last bite of pie and dusted crumbs from his hands.
The Tescai-lin asked a question, nodded at the whispered answer. Then they said, “A messenger has come from Chancellor Domtellan, who oversees the scholars who work on the expedition’s findings. She says a delegation purporting to be from the Rising World has arrived, but their circumstances are suspicious. Two Immortal Blessed accompany them.”
Dahin made a noise like the air had been punched out of him. “It’s them.” He shot to his feet in alarm. “It’s the conspirators!”
Kai wasn’t sure he believed that, but they had to find out. He came to his feet in time with the others. He said, “We can take the raft and be there quickly, if someone can show us the way.”
“Etem can guide you,” the Tescai-lin said. “I’ll follow with the ambassador’s guard.” With grim certainty, they added, “Whoever it is, they will explain themselves.”
The Past: the Prelude
It’s said very little is known about the origins of the Witch King, but I stipulate that it is more true that little is known now. During the war, among the leadership of the coalition and the Enalin-Arike forces, outguarders, and vanguarders, the Witch King’s origins in the west would have been common knowledge to some extent … Many of the Witches who joined the early fighting were said to have fled the Witchlands, and they spoke Saredi … In the east, the Saredi were called the Grass Kings, and no one remembers why. It was certainly not what they called themselves …
—Commentary on the First Histories, from the City Archives at Seidel-arik
With an irony Kai certainly appreciated, it was the mortal vanguarders who figured out where the dustwitches’ camp must be.
Kai met with them later that night on the second floor of the caravanserai, where they had staked out an area for their use. They had scrounged some tables for stretching maps, and the new map they had made of the area was spread out on boards in the center of the room. Manah, a young Arike woman, told Kai, “They have to be near a spring, and there are at least three in the hills, here, here, and here.” She tapped the locations on the map. She had a scar on her face, from the corner of her eye to her chin, and had joined the army after being released from a Hierarch prison in Benais-arik. “Then we narrow it down by possible shelter, and how far away from our encampment each one is.”
The vanguarders had covered the windows so they could light enough lamps to read the maps without turning the caravanserai’s tower into a beacon. They all gathered around the makeshift table, careful not to bump shoulders with Kai, but not showing any excessive fear of him either.
“They weren’t here before us, for the advance vanguard saw no sign of them … what, twenty-seven days ago?” Nadoch asked. He was older, with the darker skin of Enalin and his hair in tight braids around his face. He had been in the farmers’ guild of Seidel-arik, and ended up in a prison camp outside the city because of it. “They made a thorough search of this whole area, to make certain there was no one else already holed up here.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the others about the timing. “They must have moved here after that,” someone in the back said. “If they’d come before us, they would surely have taken over the caravanserai, and we wouldn’t have told the Prince-heirs this was a good spot for the encampment.”
“I think they followed one of our larger parties in, maybe Prince-heir Asara when she took her cadre to pick up those refugees from Old Desrona. That’s close to the north trade routes,” Nadoch said, and Manah nodded grimly. Kai agreed, it fit with what Lahshar’s drovers had witnessed and heard from that area. “Then they would have seen Asara’s party meet up with the rest of the army.”
“Would Witches know other Witches were nearby?” another vanguarder asked. “Would they have known Amabel and all they’s family was with us? There wasn’t any Witches with Asara then.”
“Some can.” Kai had seen some borderlander Witches able to know how close and in what direction their friends were, but it hadn’t seemed to be a universal skill. “But we know the dustwitches can sense Ziede’s wind-devils, so they’d have known at least one powerful Witch was with Bashasa’s force.”
More murmurs of agreement, and someone in the back whispered that anybody who tried to take on the Scourge of the Temple Halls had a death sign in their heart. Kai hid his smile. They weren’t wrong.
Manah traced a route on the map, as if committing it to memory. “Before that, they may have been following Asara hoping to steal supplies.”
“After they spotted the army, most likely they would’ve cut this way when they saw where we were headed, and settled up along in here.” Nadoch sketched the path with a calloused finger. “I would make it this spring here, where there’s shelter, and enough grass for their beasts.”
Manah added grimly, “Biding their time.”
“Well, that was a mistake on their part,” Kai said, mentally sorting out how they could best approach the area. “You agree they’re most active at night?” Their attack pattern, at least what he knew of it, seemed to point to that.
There were general nods from the vanguarders, and Nadoch said, “If their usual prey is caravans, it makes sense.”
“You think they wanted our Witches, like Amabel?” Manah asked, her sharp brows drawing together. “That’s why they came at us?”
“I think so,” Kai told her. “I’ll know when we find the camp.”
“Ser’ our Witches,” another voice commented from the back. “Atta dur hands.”
“She says they’re our Witches, they keep their hands off,” Manah translated.
* * *
Kai and Ziede set out that morning with two vanguarders, with Tahren and Nirana and Telare from Kai’s cadre following in reserve with extra horses. Ziede would be able to conceal herself and the vanguarders with a chimera, an illusion that shifted to make them blend into their surroundings. Kai would wait until they were well away, then follow a little distance behind Ziede’s group, watching to make sure they weren’t detected. He didn’t need a chimera, having been a scout in much worse territory than this. They would have to move slowly on foot, and it would probably take them until noon to reach the part of the hills where the camp might be located. Tahren and the soldiers would be some distance behind Kai, ready to come up if they sighted prisoners.
Bashasa had disliked the idea of sending out a Witch to look for people who appeared to be stealing Witches, but had agreed there didn’t seem to be a choice, and that Ziede was certainly the most formidable Witch to send. He had said, “If the dustwitches are holding anyone against their will, we must free them. Even better if it leads to contacting other Witches who might wish to join us.”
Kai rode for the first part of the trip with Tahren and the soldiers, taking the old trade road for a little distance as a distraction for any dustwitches spying on the camp. Ziede’s group had already slipped into the brush and was well on its way.
The sky was laced with high, light gray clouds and the breeze had a little dampness in it, as if it had rained somewhere to the south. They were all wearing straw sun hats and Kai had left his coat off, draped over his saddlebow. He didn’t know if any spying dustwitches would recognize him at a distance, but for the moment he would be as nondescript as possible.
They rode at a walk, as if they had a long journey ahead and saw no reason to push their horses. The road curved away from the caravanserai’s paddocks and between the scrub-covered hills. “Dahin said he spoke to you,” Tahren said suddenly.
“He did.” Kai hesitated, reluctant to share anything Dahin had said in confidence. “We talked about … families.”
“Families and betrayal, and the destruction of trust,” Tahren added wryly.
Kai snorted. So Tahren was not trying to find out what Dahin had said, she already knew. “He’s very good at pretending not to be upset.”
“He is. It’s a family trait.” She let out her breath. “I think he’s better than he was. In the Hostage Courts, Bashasa’s people were wary of us. Here, he’s just another…” She seemed hesitant to choose a word.
“Grubby kid who talks a lot,” Kai supplied.
Tahren’s lips twitched in a smile. “Yes. He’s been helping in the supply train, fixing things. He’s always been clever with his wits and his hands.” She hesitated. “There are Lesser Blessed who work to make devices, you would call them. Objects or tools that use the power of the Well of Thosaren to perform tasks.”
“Like ascension rafts,” Kai said, not letting his voice sound too dry. The things that came near-silently out of a dark sky to rain death on you from above, for the Hierarchs.
“Like that, yes. Dahin always wanted to tinker with them, to make new things, change their function to be more helpful, useful. He was interested in mortal lands, what was happening there. In writing down stories and histories of the wider world.” Tahren’s lips thinned at some memory. “But our family did not permit that. They thought it beneath us.”
Kai didn’t have any idea what life for the Immortal Blessed was like, and he still wasn’t sure he wanted to. He asked, “Is he the only reason you left the Blessed Lands?” Then he thought it was a stupid question. As if saving your sibling from a terrible enslavement to the Hierarchs’ Well wasn’t a good enough motivation for leaving.
Tahren didn’t seem to mind the crassness of the question. “Yes. If not for him, I might be fighting against you all,” she admitted. “I’m not sure I would have forced myself to confront the hypocrisy of our way of life, otherwise.”
That was a more honest answer than Kai had counted on. “If it hadn’t hurt you personally.”
“Correct. Even if you have always known in your heart, that your way of thought, your … belief in your own superiority, has foundations of straw and not stone, it is still a shock to have it collapse so quickly.” Tahren’s voice was rueful.
Kai felt the soldiers listening, and asked the question he thought they might want to have answered. “You thought the Blessed should have fought the Hierarchs.”
“I know we should have.” Tahren’s resignation seemed old and well-worn, as if it had been her companion for a long time. “But the Patriarchs were convincing in their cowardice.”
They rode for a time, and Kai watched black carrion birds high overhead, lazily wheeling on the wind. “Had you ever lived with mortals before? Did you know what they were like?” Kai had almost said what we’re like. He had lived with mortals since his first breath drawn in this world, since leaving the underearth. He wasn’t sure he could imagine what it would be like not to. He also realized his vision of what the Blessed Lands were like was vague at best.
“No, not at all. Before the Hierarchs only the Lesser Blessed traded with mortals, and not many of them. Our way was always to try to keep them at a distance.” Tahren’s smile was small and not at all ironic. “This has been an interesting learning experience.”
“Uh-huh. Interesting.” Then it occurred to Kai what experience Tahren might be thinking of. “Like meeting Ziede.”
Tahren arched a brow at him, then looked away with a regretful expression. “If only she thought I was interesting.”
Kai had to laugh. “If she didn’t like you, I think you’d know.”
Tahren slid a look at him, alert. “Has she spoken about me?” Kai stared at her, flummoxed. She shook her head self-consciously and said, “That was wrong. I shouldn’t ask.”
“Are you not—?” Kai started, then reconsidered. “Do you really not know—”
Ahead, Telare said suddenly, “Fourth Prince, it’s time.”
Kitar, one of the vanguarders who had gone ahead with Ziede, stepped out of the brush. Kai reined in and slipped off his horse, taking his coat with him. Kitar took the reins and mounted as Kai walked into the scrub trees.
* * *
The sun was high overhead by the time Kai crawled up to where Ziede was braced in the shadow of a rock ledge above the dustwitches’ camp. One of her vanguarders had gone to get Tahren and the soldiers, the other was tucked into the rock just below her. It was Manah, watching to make sure nothing crept up on their position from behind, since Ziede couldn’t use her wind-devils and the chimera cantrip had run its course. She had been so motionless against the dusty stone that Kai almost hadn’t seen her. The other vanguarder Kitar was back in the thickets below the ridge, finding a good place to hide the horses once Tahren and the others arrived.
The direct sunlight was hot but in the shade the stone was cold and dank, even through Kai’s clothing. He handed Ziede a bag with some dried fruit and flatbread and a flask of water, passing another down to Manah. “Thank you,” Ziede whispered. “We ran out a while ago. Having to move so slowly is terribly inconvenient.”
“It is.” Kai squinted down at the camp. It was a scatter of battered tents in a bowl-shaped depression, sheltered by the curving rocky ridge and shaded by a few bushy trees. The riding animals were stabled a little further down the side of the hill, where there was more grass and trees next to the small spring that had given their position away. Some dustwitches sat in front of the shaded tents, but most must be inside. The ones who were moving around, keeping watch, seemed desultory, which fit in with what the vanguarders believed, that the group slept through the day and was most active at night. They probably had excellent night-vision, something Kai had lost with Enna’s body.
The only others who looked awake were a small group of five who sat under the shade of a gnarled tree and an open lean-to. They wore the same dusty Arike-style travel clothing as the dustwitches, but no veils. Two looked small enough to be children. One lay on their side, sleeping or ill, the others huddled together. Kai asked Ziede, “Those are the prisoners?”
She capped the water flask and said, “Yes, I think they’re the mortal hostages. Possibly the Witches they’ve taken prisoner are in that tent.” She pointed to one in a less advantageous position, toward the middle of the camp with no tree to shade it. “The dustwitches keep a watch on it, and the mortals look toward it fairly often. And I saw that Nightjar go in and out once. I think—and this is an even more chancy guess—that the Doyen is in that tent.” She indicated one toward the edge of the camp, under the tree cover. It was larger than the others, and a few dustwitches sat outside it. “Of course, I could be wrong, and it’s the other way around.”
“If it is, at least I’ll know right away.” Kai was ready to get this over with. “You and Tahren and the soldiers get the mortals out, and I’ll get whoever’s in the prison tent.”
Ziede huffed a critical breath. “You’re just going to walk right into the middle of them, aren’t you.”
“It’s too hot to run.” Kai wiggled backward and down to the ledge just below where Tahren and the others now waited.
“You can’t mean to go alone,” Manah said, her frown pulling at her scar.
“He does.” Tahren was matter-of-fact. Telare and Nirana exchanged a wry look.
“We’ll go with you, watch your back,” Leshan, Ziede’s other vanguarder, added. He was a stocky Arike, as compact and strong as a boulder. “You’re Prince-heir’s…” he trailed off.
Kai lifted his brows. “I’m Prince-heir’s what?”
Manah shifted her position so she could kick Leshan lightly in the shoulder, and Leshan declined to answer.
To make it plain, Kai said, “If they kill one of you, I’ll kill all of them, and Bashasa would be disappointed with me.” No one liked to disappoint Bashasa, he was too nice about it.
Ziede slipped out of the rocky cleft and said, “Everyone will do what I say. I need Manah and Leshan to wait so they can help the prisoners once we bring them out. Kai, I’ll signal you when we’re in position.”
The vanguarders didn’t argue again, and Kai picked his way silently down and around the pebble-strewn slope, using the grass clumps and dirt for purchase. Once he was out of sight, he slipped a small knife off his belt. He braced himself against the rock, pulled his shirt up, and stabbed himself. The pain doubled him over. His head swam and chills coursed through his body; he must have hit a particularly bad spot. He leaned against the dusty sun-warmed stone, and let the heat revive him.
Stabbing was still better than rolling in one of the spiky plants that grew among the rocks and grass; he had had to do that once in an emergency while out with his cadre. But it would never be easy. The fact that it wasn’t easy helped fuel the intentions.
