Chapter 3
Three
After the revelation of Dahin’s theory, Ziede had declared that she was going to sleep.
She steered a half-conscious, grumpy Sanja to one of the beds in the back of the suite, then she and Tahren retired.
Kai had moved again to the cushions on the stone chair and was close to finishing Dahin’s book.
He wanted to get to the end before he left on his errand, just to make certain he hadn’t missed anything.
Some Cloister Witches had returned, an older group than the ones who had occupied Sanja this afternoon.
They sat on the mats on the other side of the room in a cluster mostly centered on Tenes.
They were talking rapidly and silently in Witchspeak.
Kai had paid enough attention to know the conversation had started with Tenes’ possible origin, and ways to track down anyone who might know who her family was. Then Tenes abruptly stood up.
Kai paused on the book’s last page and gave the group his whole attention. Tenes had come to her feet like she was lifted by Ziede’s wind-devils. Her expression as she glared down at one Witch was all cold fury. The others went still.
Tenes signed, Take back your words before I take them from your mouth.
The other Witch rose to her feet slowly, deliberately. Kai said, “Tenes?”
Tenes signed rapidly, She said you were lying to me, that you had used your power to trap me and cloud my mind.
That was predictable. Kai said, “That’s because she’s a dustwitch who calls herself Albre, pretending to be a Cloister Witch. She thinks I don’t recognize her.”
The other Witches stood in a whisper of movement, the faint sound of fabric brushing tile. As one, they stepped back from the confrontation. Albre dragged her veil off. Her attention on Tenes, she said to Kai, “I thought you knew, clever snake.”
Albre had enough demon blood in her line that she hadn’t aged much. Her dark hair was cropped to a tight cap, streaked with gray, and there were only a few lines around her eyes. Her contemptuous expression was the same.
Her gaze still locked on Albre, Tenes signed, What is a dustwitch?
Kai set Dahin’s book aside on the chair’s stone arm and sat forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “They come from the dry plains of the east. They’re not like borderlander or Cloister Witches. Because all they can do is kill.” That was unfair, but Kai had no desire to save Albre’s feelings.
“I’m not here to threaten you or your new pet,” Albre said, a challenge aimed at Tenes.
That is good. For you. Tenes closed her fist on the last word and the stone tile under Albre’s left foot cracked.
To her credit, Albre didn’t flinch. She tilted her head in an acknowledgment of Tenes and stepped back, her motions slow and measured. She half turned to Kai and said, “I only came to see what plans our master has for us.”
“Witches don’t have masters.” Kai leaned back in the stone chair, lounging in the place where Hierarchs had rested after dispensing death and reward when they had owned this city and everyone in it. “Do you really want to fight that battle again? I changed my body, not my mind.”
Albre swayed toward Kai, started to speak. Tenes took a step toward her. She had been challenged, and she wasn’t willing to let it go. After what Aclines had done to her, it wasn’t unexpected. She was just as wary and damaged as Sanja, though better at hiding it. Tenes signed, Leave.
Albre glanced at Kai to see if he would countermand the order; he didn’t. She tilted her head again and went toward the door. She didn’t give Tenes a wide berth, but she didn’t make any effort to encroach on her space, either.
Tenes followed at a distance, out through the anterooms. When she returned, Kai said, “She won’t come back, the others know who she is now.
She just wanted to poke at us and see if we’d tell her anything.
” Tenes still looked worried and he added, “The eastern Witches were important to the war, but they were never liked in this region. Not like in the borderlands.” The Cloister Witches had settled back on the floor.
Even veiled, he could tell they were watching all this with interest. The Cloisters probably hadn’t had this much excitement in a long time.
“The dustwitches keep their eyes on the Rising World, because it protects them.” He pushed to his feet.
“I have to get something before we leave the city. I’ll be back before morning. ”
Tenes accepted that with a nod. Should I keep watch?
He remembered that she had slept most of the day away in the raft. “Only if you want.” He nodded to the other Witches. “You can trust them.”
One signed to Tenes, Sister, you are still among friends. Tenes didn’t look so sure, but that was something they would have to work out among them.
Kai went to the nearest window, picking up the grass silk hat on the way.
He had fixed a dark gauze veil to it earlier, when he had changed out of his battered traveler’s clothes.
Most of the clothing in the chests was meant for Rising World assemblies or events, with finer, heavier silk and embroidery, which was why it had been left behind here.
But he had found a blue cotton shift and an overcoat with spilt skirts in front and back, with only a little floral decoration along the hems. He wore it with his somewhat water-stained belt and sash.
The veil would draw some attention, but that was unavoidable.
They weren’t as common in Benais-arik as they had been in the past, but people would assume he was either a Witch or a traveler from the west.
He stepped to the stone sill of the window and dropped down to the grass at the base of the foundation, and walked toward the dim shape of the earthwork wall.
Kai had wandered Benais-arik in the dark too often to get lost, even if things had changed.
He didn’t want to make it obvious he was coming from the Cloisters so he went out the other side of the broken earthwork and wove his way through a clump of large squat grain silos until he came to a westward canal dock.
A long canopied market boat was taking on passengers and he tossed a small coin in the pot to ride on the stern.
The boat shoved off and cut across the city, passing dark streets and then lamplit ones, neighborhoods noisy and awake now that the day’s heat had broken.
People clustered around open air communal kitchens and laundries, loud talk and music carried on the breeze.
Kai leapt off the boat when it bumped up against a lamplit dock for a cluster of workshops.
All had shut for the evening and it was too dark to see any guild affiliation marks painted on the walls, but they were probably for pottery and weaving, judging from the smell of dye vats and the shards swept up into piles on the edge of the footpath.
Kai found his way through the little maze of alleys and courtyards, then out into the street that circled the wide terrace around the City Archive.
The building had closed at sunset and was quiet now, all the scholars and librarians and students headed for home or the markets.
Kai passed the low wall around Gral House, then hit the edge of the market where the next two streets crossed.
The crowd was as eclectic as Benais-arik itself now, in looks, dress, speech.
Between the fire-catcher performing in the center of a scatter of stalls and all the people buying evening meals or treats from food venders cooking on smoky charcoal braziers, Kai didn’t get much attention, even with the veil.
Two city ministrants in the all-white clothing of their calling stood on the edge of the crowd around the fire-catcher, waiting to provide medicine and aid if there was an accident.
The air smelled of burnt sugar and a heady mix of spices; Kai wasn’t hungry but it was still a mouth-watering scent.
He turned at the corner of Bardes House, and avoided the more brightly lit street of permanent stalls that sold paper and ink and books.
He cut past the little pavilion in the center of the forum with its bored honor guards; it was where the Hierarchs’ preserved heads were kept for public view.
The guards faced the pavilion, their backs to the plaza, symbolically alert for the Hierarchs’ return.
Once Kai was past them, he entered the Old Palace grounds.
It served as another public park now, the tall trees with spreading canopies making it a good spot for passersby or frustrated city officials and Rising World Assembly speakers to cool off during the heat of the day.
There were stone benches and a fountain with basins at waist-height for drinking and set into the ground for foot-washing or watering animals.
During the afternoon, there were sellers of salted or sugared nuts and fried cakes.
At night it was quiet and as dark as a cave.
On the far side, the Old Palace wall was visible, the gray stone furred with crawling vines.
About fifty paces down, the little plaza in front of its open gateway was bright with lamplight, and a scattered crowd of people were chatting, clearly having just left some dinner or other gathering.
There would be a lot of events like that, with the Rising World council in session.
There was nothing stopping Kai from walking in the front gate during the day, when the palace archives were open.
Except that after seeing Tahren and Saadrin today, Bashat would know Kai and Ziede were here somewhere.
He would have people watching for anyone concealing their face, and be braced for some sort of confrontation.
That was one of the reasons why Kai didn’t want that confrontation; like Tahren had said, he wanted Bashat to stew in uncertainty for the rest of his life, if possible.
And he preferred to keep what he had to say behind his teeth.