Chapter 13
EMERE
Septima led Emere through a series of narrow alleys, connected at all sorts of unexpected angles, not a single one of them wholly straight.
There were no signs for road names, or even on half of the shop fronts they passed.
Children in varying states of filth from all parts of the Empire ran through the alleys in packs.
It was a slum labyrinth, one of many in the Capital, made of wooden buildings with plaster carelessly slathered on the walls forming narrow, winding alleyways.
If one went deep enough into the twisting paths, one’s shouting would not reach the main streets.
It reminded Emere of the Dehan Forest with its trees crammed together; but instead of living trees, there were only buildings with the stench of piss and spoiling vegetables.
Emere mused that the inhabitants who closed their windows and doors upon seeing unfamiliar faces were like the cautious animals of the woods.
It had been half a year since Emere had come to the Capital, but he had never come here before.
Septima led the way at a swift pace, with Emere following closely. At every split she unhesitatingly chose the next turn, never mentioning where it was they were going. He wouldn’t have known if they had lost their way; he would’ve simply assumed the destination was difficult to find.
But Septima’s movements were familiar. The one-horned deer of Dehan Forest, coming upon a hunter, would not immediately run away.
It would use the densely growing trees as cover to leap this way and that.
The hapless hunter would be led to a place where they could not shoot or follow, only to watch their prey disappear in plain sight.
If Septima was the one-horned deer here, he wondered who the hunter was.
“Are we trying to avoid someone?” Emere asked.
Septima half turned her head and glanced at him, looking briefly impressed that he had understood what she was doing. “Someone has been following us. Don’t look back, Councillor. Just walk.”
The alley was quiet. The windows were all closed, and all of the nearby shops seemed to be the kind that opened at night and thus were shuttered now. Not even playing children lingered this deep in the maze. There was only their footsteps.
If someone was following them, it was probably someone who was used to tracking down prey. Emere could think of a likely candidate. His heart beat faster. It wasn’t with fear but with a little excitement.
“Does this someone have long hair and wear a leather coat?” Emere asked, thinking of the woman he had seen on the rooftop after the assassination attempt.
“She was a fast one, so I didn’t get a good look, but … I think so.”
Septima, as if keeping time with Emere’s heartbeat, quickened her pace. She seemed to have realized who it was that Emere was guessing.
“If this is your old friend,” she started, “we have a real problem. We won’t be able to lose her like this.”
“How do you know that?”
No answer. Emere closed the gap between them and hissed, “She killed my aide. I almost died myself. If you know who she is, you must tell me.”
Septima, not stopping, turned her head and said, “Councillor, you are asking me to tell you a very long story. For now—”
A whizzing sound. A thin red line appeared on Septima’s cheek, followed by tiny beads of blood. Septima swiped her cheek, saw the blood on her fingertips, and shouted, “Run!”
She darted away, with Emere running after her. As they turned a corner, a bolt struck the dirty white wall with a dull crack.
They ran through the alleys, left, right, left again. Emere was losing his breath and could no longer recall the way they had come. Perhaps tired herself, Septima slowed to a rapid walk. Emere caught up to her.
“Are we going toward the main streets?”
“There are two of us, so I doubt she came alone. And there are only two paths to the main street, so there will be others there, waiting for us.”
“We’re rats trapped in a barrel, then.” How many accomplices would she have? The tangled alleyways seemed narrower to him all of a sudden.
“Rats we may be, but lucky for us, we’re headed for a rathole.”
They turned another corner and Septima stopped in front of a tavern door.
She took a moment to catch her breath, then knocked.
It was a complicated pattern that she repeated twice.
There was a sound of bars sliding, and then the door opened.
Emere looked back down the alley, hesitating, but Septima grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into the unlit indoors after her.
As soon as he was inside, Septima closed the door and slid the bar back across it.
The windows were too dusty to allow light from the alley to enter.
He smelled spilled wine and something earthy.
It was the familiar smell of the Arlander spirit, from his time when he had joined Loran after she captured the Imperial fortress.
Loran could down several cups of it in one sitting, but Emere couldn’t get a taste for it.
When Loran and the Arlanders gathered every night to drink the strong drink in small cups, Emere had preferred to partake of the Imperial wine in his large glass.
He had tried to join in on their conversation, but whenever Emere spoke in his broken Arlandais, the others stopped talking and listened courteously.
This sudden focus of attention and his self-consciousness about his language skills made him cut short whatever he was about to say.
The others would politely laugh to break up the awkwardness, then raise a glass and continue with what they were saying.
They had been his comrades in arms. They would have risked their lives for him, as he would have for them.
But there always had been a wall. When Loran disappeared and the rebellion ended in Arland’s victory, Emere saw no reason not to go back to Kamori, to his family home in the orchard.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, Emere could make out that there were two other people in the tavern aside from himself and Septima. The man who had opened the door for them was looking for something in a cupboard. The other one was sitting at a table, eerily still. Perhaps he was sleeping.
The man looking through the cupboard said, “You’re here early, Subdirector. Did you see him already?”
“No. Someone was following us, so I had to lose her first. I’ll go out to meet him.” Septima went to the bar and sat down. “We’ll wait here until the evening.”
Emere sat at a nearby table, bumping into two chairs on the way there, and asked the question he had wanted to ask ever since they entered the labyrinth of alleyways.
“What are we waiting for?”
“For now, Devadas. My associate.” Septima clucked her tongue. “It’s complicated. You’ll see soon.”
What could be so complicated that she couldn’t explain while they were holed up in the dark doing nothing?
Emere briefly thought of demanding a further explanation, but he was still busy trying to figure out what was going on himself.
He was almost assassinated, again, while being technically kidnapped by a group of Intelligence agents.
The most puzzling thing about all this, to him, was the question of his own worth. He knew he wasn’t important enough to be a target of political intrigue.
The man took a lantern down from the cupboard and lit it.
The tavern appeared around them, cramped and shabby.
Septima sat as comfortably as if she had been sitting there for an hour, and a glass of wine had materialized before her.
The man who had lit the lantern was of a stout build, wide and short.
The other man sitting at the table was not sleeping but staring into the space before him. His braided hair and beard were fastened with blue ribbons. An Arlander custom. His neck had an Arlander clan mark tattooed on it too.
Noticing that Emere was looking at him, the stout man said, “That’s Lukan, he owns this place.
Had a brief visit with the interrogators at the Office of Truth and that’s how he’s been ever since.
” He then went over to the Arlander and waved his hand in front of his face, but the man had no reaction.
“Why was he interrogated?”
“His niece is a runaway sorcerer. The poor bastard’s fine once every two days or so, but I suppose today isn’t one of those days.”
From the bar, Septima said, “This man is a member of the Commons Council. Be respectful.”
“Oh my, a councillor, are you? Should I call you Your Excellency? Or maybe I should prostrate myself right here on the floor.” The stout man dragged the chair out across from Emere and set his cup down with a bang.
Some of it splashed out. He smelled of earth and hard alcohol.
“And you’re an accomplice to the Great Fire too.
Do you know what the Power generator you stole was used for? ”
Septima furiously slammed down her glass. “Are you drunk? Why are you telling him that now?”
Taken aback, Emere turned to the stout man, who shrugged and finished his wine.
Septima looked at Emere and said, “Councillor, do forget what he just told you.”
Despite Septima’s suggestion, what the stout man had just said to him unnerved him.
Two years ago, he had been asked by a merchant who was providing funds to his brother to steal a Power generator while the Imperial occupation was undergoing a transfer of command between legions.
It was one of the Kamori Liberators’ few victories, and it had also been the first time he had met Loran.
Thanks to her, everything went better than could ever be expected.
But where that Power generator had ended up and how it was used, he never knew.
A pang of shame hit him, as he realized that it had never even occurred to him to find out.
Emere recalled Ludvik’s visit. Power generators were under the jurisdiction of the Office of Truth, and Ludvik was one of its overseers.
What if he had known what these three knew?
The thought that Ludvik’s visit might not have been a simple social call put Emere’s whole body on edge. How much did he know?
Unsettled by this, Emere did not say more. The stout man sat across from him, drinking from his cup. Septima fiddled with her own wineglass in front of her. The man devastated by his interrogation in the Office of Truth continued to stare into space. Emere sat in silence as well.
He didn’t know what was waiting for him.
He feared his past coming back to haunt him.
But he also knew that everything had changed the day he was shot.
Before, he was a hostage and a figurehead.
Now, he was closer to something that mattered.
Something that wanted him for some reason.
Whatever it might be, it felt better to be wanted than not.