Chapter 1 #3
Setar-en met Kai’s gaze, startled, then recovered their poise quickly. “Of course. And this House is always open to Kaiisteron, in whatever form he takes.”
Kai hadn’t expected to be turned away, and if he had been it certainly wouldn’t have kept him from sending his own message to the Light of a Hundred Coronels. But he still felt the tension in his shoulders ease.
Setar-en invited them to wait in the shade of the House’s garden while an escort was summoned, and then strode back inside, sending the young pages scattering on various errands.
Kai and the others were led through the gateway to a set of stone benches and chairs under the shade of a large neem tree.
Sanja was the only one who plopped down into a seat.
Saadrin stopped just inside the gate with her prisoner.
Either she disliked the idea of hospitality predicated on being one of Tahren’s companions, or was too polite to sully Nibet House’s grounds with Vrenren.
Ziede told Tahren, “I’m going with you.” Her expression was conflicted; she obviously didn’t want to let Tahren out of her sight, but the ongoing political storm wouldn’t be improved by either her or Kai’s presence.
“I don’t want to be seen in the assembly, I’ll wait outside for you. Just don’t get kidnapped again.”
Tahren took Ziede’s hand and squeezed it. “Take your own advice.”
Tenes watched them with a worried frown. She signed, I’ll wait with Sister Ziede. It’s always safer with two. She turned to Kai. Will you be here?
Kai said, “I’ll go on to the Cloisters.” Flying so long in the raft with the wind whistling in his ears made his head feel like there was a vise tightening around it.
He wanted to get away somewhere he could make plans and not worry about being seen.
At least he didn’t have to decide what to do with the ascension raft.
Dahin hadn’t followed them into the garden and Kai expected that he and the raft would be gone by the time Setar-en reappeared with Tahren’s escort.
He kept his sigh internal; either Dahin would turn up later or he wouldn’t, there was no telling. “I’ll walk from here.”
Sanja jumped up and grabbed Kai’s hand. “I’m going with you.”
Kai looked down at her, lifting his brows pointedly. He had meant to send her with Tenes and Ziede. Sanja was not intimidated and her face set in a stubborn glower. She added mulishly, “I don’t want to stay here.”
Kai realized the conversation with Setar-en had taken place in formal Nibetian, and that Sanja hadn’t understood it. She hadn’t seemed worried about being abandoned anywhere else, but maybe being back in a city again had woken suppressed fears. He said, “You’re not staying here.”
The tense set of Sanja’s shoulders eased minutely but she didn’t let go of Kai’s hand. Take her with you, Ziede said silently. Perhaps she’ll keep you out of trouble.
Hah, Kai replied. He had carted Ziede’s daughter Tanis around for a year when she was younger than Sanja, when the Immortal Blessed were still trying to kill Tahren, and it hadn’t kept either one of them out of trouble.
But there was a first time for everything.
He told Sanja, “You’ll come with me to the Cloisters. ”
Sanja’s frown smoothed but she was apparently too tired and cranky to let the impulse to argue go entirely. She demanded, “What’s that?”
“You’ll find out when we get there,” Kai told her.
Ziede said, “We’ll go ahead, then. Meet us in the plaza outside the hall.
” She kissed Tahren and walked out the gate.
Tenes signed a quick farewell-for-now and followed.
Saadrin busied herself dragging Vrenren out of their way, probably so she could use it as an excuse not to make any formal farewell to Ziede that might indicate that their temporary allyship was in any way permanent.
Using her pearl, Ziede told Kai silently, Dahin’s left with the raft. Are we surprised?
No, Kai told her. He knew she had also told Tahren, when Tahren let out her breath in the nearly inaudible sigh, the one most associated with whatever Dahin had done now. Kai said aloud, “He’ll be back.”
Tahren said, “You’ve known him better than I have, over the years.”
If she was anyone but Tahren, Kai would have said her expression was bleak. He said, “Are you all right?”
She glanced down at him and admitted, “I am torn between the overwhelming desire for a hot bath and an anger so intense I could bite through my sword blade.”
That was better. “If you bite any councilors, be sure to make it count.”
Setar-en’s promised escort of four Enalin warriors hurried out of the wide doorway.
They wore the knee-length version of Enalin formal caftans over wide pants and tough boots.
They didn’t carry weapons, since that wasn’t encouraged within Arike city borders, and in the diplomatic center of the Rising World not even the Prince-heirs’ cadres were allowed to go armed in public.
Setar-en strode out after them in a formal robe hastily thrown on over their caftan.
Tahren nodded to Kai and said, “I’ll see you later. ”
Adjusting the fold of their collar, Setar-en said, “You will not accompany us, Kaiisteron?”
“Not at the moment.” As entertaining as appearing suddenly before the council and creating a sensation similar to a firepowder-filled gourd tossed into a legionary’s campfire might be, Kai wasn’t tempted.
It was much better to let Tahren handle this.
He added, to stop any possible argument, “I’m going to the Cloisters. ”
Setar-en glanced down at Sanja, who was drooping a little now that the excitement was over. Then they kindly offered the use of one of the House’s hired canal boats. Kai decided not to be an idiot and accepted it. There would be far less chance of anyone intercepting them along the way.
Setar-en sent another page to arrange the boat, then gestured for Tahren to take the lead. Kai found himself a little uneasy to see Tahren walk away and said, “Careful.”
She lifted a hand in acknowledgment and fell into step with Setar-en and their escort as they walked out the gate. Saadrin followed her, dragging Vrenren in her wake.
A page brought another Enalin official, a tall person who by their wrinkled caftan had probably been taking their afternoon rest. They introduced themself as Second Warden Amren-nar, and they led Kai and Sanja through the garden and around the side of the House, through a gate to the private canal dock.
The stone dock was shaded by water trees, and the boat waiting there was a light pole skiff used for quick journeys.
It was piloted by two women who had the light olive-tinged skin of Palm but the dark curly hair and dress and accents of the Arik.
They were clearly used to doing Nibet House’s formal commissions; they didn’t try to speak to Kai, and they didn’t react to him at all except for the polite interactions necessary to board and get settled under the boat’s little awning.
They might have no idea that he wasn’t a mortal; Amren-nar solved the problem of Kai being spotted as a demon by handing him their own sun hat, made from coiled braids of scrap grass silk.
It shaded Kai’s eyes enough to make recognition difficult, especially from a moving boat.
With the cool breeze and the warmth of the afternoon sun, Sanja fell asleep almost immediately, slumped against Kai’s side. The pilots poled the boat swiftly along out of the city center.
They took a branch of the canal that angled away through the tree-shaded parkland, passed a cluster of docks for the market, then under a bridge arched high enough that the pilots didn’t have to duck.
Then an area of streets lined with tall trees and old stone structures that had once been cargo storage and merchant centers before being turned into post-war housing.
From the many small boats tied up along the canal’s walkway, the awnings for temporary outdoor workshops, root gardens planted on the balconies and rooftops, and the number of goats wandering around, these areas were well occupied and usually busy, but they were quiet and drowsy in the afternoon.
They left the life of the neighborhoods behind for more docks packed with canal boats, equally sleepy during this lull in the day, in-use cargo houses, and grain silos.
Then vine-wrapped trees closed in on the banks and three tall arches loomed up.
They were the crumbling remains of an old bridge, its reddish stone pitted and broken.
Water still fell from the third broken arch, the end of the aqueduct it had once carried.
The bridge led to a high wall along the bank, battered and cracked, with a collapsed earthwork below it, flowering plants and thorn brush growing amid the tumbled blocks at its feet.
The wide stone landing platform for barges was strewn with rubble and overgrown with water weeds.
Near it, a jagged opening had been knocked through the fortification to form a makeshift gate.
To one side of it stood a stone bench shaded by a scrub tree, where offerings had been left—beads, braided grass bracelets, lizard skulls, tiny cloth dolls, figures made of clay or carved wood, wilting flowers, small bowls of grain, and a lot of fruit, most of it relatively fresh.
Kai gently nudged Sanja awake and said, “Here is fine.”
The pilot in front glanced back, brows lifted, but didn’t comment. They poled the boat over toward the bank. The silence was broken only by the rising hum of the cicadas in the trees.
The current wasn’t strong, and the two pilots held the boat steady as Kai swung Sanja over to the platform and then stepped up after her.
Sanja looked around, already alert. A life on the streets had given her the ability to wake immediately. “This is where we’re going to stay? What is it?”
“The Hierarchs had it made as a place to worship them when their usurper took over the city,” Kai explained.