Chapter 27 #2
Eager to rid myself of the steward’s presence, I did so, feeling better as we left Mitanni farther and farther behind.
Even Arno was relieved. “He scares me,” he confessed with a shudder. “I know Mitanni is dear to Her Resplendency, but I wouldn’t want to displease him.”
“Then let us forget him,” I replied. “You did well today.”
“Thank you.” Arno beamed. “I apologize for not coming to see you sooner. I wished to visit, but they said your health was too fragile.” We turned the corner, and he continued, “Were you truly injured by a griffin while walking in the hills?”
Something like that. “Yes,” I said simply.
He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t think anyone realized they were hunting so close. We’ve been warned to stay inside the city boundaries.”
Is that what Lab was telling her people? What a convenient lie, offering a way to shorten her subjects’ leashes even further. “I am much recovered,” I promised.
“Did you get a good look at the beast before it flew off? I’ve heard they’re the size of four sheep put together.”
“Oh, bigger than that. More like four horses put together.”
“I’ve never seen a horse,” Arno said wistfully. “All we have are goats and sheep, and they’re everywhere.”
I very much did not want to discuss goats, sheep, or griffins.
“Tell me how you’ve been, boy,” I asked, changing the subject.
It didn’t take much to launch the chatty youth into a conversation about his life (his parents were pressuring him to marry, but there were few young women in Khatti Ugal in whom he was interested), but then something caught my ear as he was complaining of his mother’s displeasure:
“—she keeps saying that if I want to bless the kingdom with children, it is best not to be picky. One never knows when their rites may arrive and then the opportunity is lost.”
“What do you mean?” I interjected. “Khatti Ugalans cannot marry and have children after they receive rites?”
Arno opened and closed his mouth, like he’d gotten caught saying something he shouldn’t have. “Well . . . I suppose they could marry.” He blushed. “But they wouldn’t be able to have children.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
His blush deepened. “It is—” Confused alarm twisted his expression. “What is the door to the Chamber of Mysteries doing open?”
I followed the direction of his gaze. Arno spoke correctly: the heavy doors to the Chamber of Mysteries, typically barred, had been flung open, not a guard in sight.
Arno looked deeply unnerved. “That shouldn’t be.”
A muffled crash echoed from inside.
“Stay here,” I warned. Drawing my blades, I made my careful way inside.
The grand room was empty, but the archivist had clearly been here; the air smelled of lamp oil and the table she kept so neat was crowded with new objects awaiting my opinion, her scroll and pencil set askew.
“Orinth?” I called, making my way deeper into the room. I gave the puzzling objects a second glance. It certainly didn’t look like Orinth had been told I wasn’t returning to work with her.
I tried again, “Orinth?” Her name was inhaled by the heavy silence.
“Are you here?” I searched the row of shelves without success.
There was another bang—coming from Orinth’s office—as though a heavy object had rolled off a table.
It was followed by odd scrabbling. Deeply worried for my friend, I hastened to her office and threw open the door.
I gasped. Orinth’s office had been ransacked.
Prized scrolls—the effort of generations—were torn and scattered, delicate instruments broken and lying in glittering shards on the floor.
An inkwell had tipped, staining her desk.
But it wasn’t the work of a human thief—it was the work of a goat.
One still there and in clear distress, the animal bleating and squealing as it skittered and slid across the shattered artifacts and ripped parchment.
The goat tried to rear onto its back legs as though to stand, reaching out with its front hooves for balance, and tripped.
The distraught beast was panting, sweat lathing from its sides. Then it turned to face me.
Madness exploded in its green eyes. Familiar green eyes.
The blade fell from my hand, clattering to the stone floor. “No,” I whispered.
The creature lunged forward as though to headbutt me with its horns, to shove me from the room. But I sensed no aggression, just fear—and the final act of someone I’d been beginning to care about. Horrified, I clapped a hand over my mouth, tears welling in my eyes.
“Captain al-Sirafi?” Arno called from the adjoining room. I tried to pull myself together, but the young Khatti Ugalan moved more swiftly. “Captain—Oh!” He entered the office. “Ay, look what this beast has done! Orinth will be most displeased when she returns.”
“Returns?” I asked weakly, not daring to believe.
He nodded. “I was told her mother is sick. She won’t be able to return to the palace for some time.
” Arno grabbed the goat by its small horns.
“Please, you needn’t be so upset. I’ll get the creature out.
There is no Khatti Ugalan not used to wrangling these beasts.
They breed like mad and have no respect for public spaces. ”
Any hope I’d been foolish enough to entertain died a bloody death. Lab’s intentions could not have been clearer if she’d spoken them. I’d gotten one of the Khatti Ugalans who’d warmed to me hurt.
Now the second was in the noose, and he didn’t even realize it.
Arno wrestled the goat out with shouts and smacks.
I reached out, half tempted to stop him, but for what?
So I could get them both in more trouble?
Instead I stared at the pitiful creature as he dragged it away, struck through with horror and guilt.
Was Orinth gone, her mind and soul those of an animal, or was she still in there, driven mad by the unconscionable fate?
And why? Why had Orinth been punished so cruelly, given the ghastly sentence inflicted on ill-favored foreigners? Because Pares had seen us whispering? Because she had befriended me?
Because Lab is a tyrant. The terrified faces of the silent servants played before my eyes, the guards who couldn’t scream; pieces in a puzzle I was still struggling to put together. One I suspected would form a picture far more appalling than anything in Jamal’s and Khayzur’s stories.
I knelt slowly and retrieved my dagger. I wanted to shove it through the queen’s heart. I’d come to this island to steal from her and not until this very moment did I harbor any true desire to hurt her. I wanted to leave, to escape with my people.
Now? Orinth’s fate was an obvious warning, but it was also the last strike upon a cracked beam.
I’d had enough of the queen’s threats, enough of my powerlessness.
I would not wriggle like a worm on a line while she toyed with replacing my crew and enacted gruesome magic upon those who had shown me kindness. She believed me a pirate, a murderer?
Then perhaps that was just what I’d be.