An Accident of Stars (14 page)

“No more than the rest of us. My apologies.” His gaze flashed up. “At least you can escape her. No wonder the Council spat her out.” This last was muttered, but Gwen still caught it.

“Yasha sat the Council of Queens?”

“You didn't know?” Matu grinned blearily up at her. “Huh. That probably means I shouldn't have told you. I'm not lying,” he added, tipping his head back. “I swear by my braidless head. She's got the scars to prove it.”

Gwen frowned. “Scars?”

“Now I really have said too much. Ashasa will have to forgive me the insolence, assuming that she does forgive men. I've never been clear on that point.” He reached into his tunic and withdrew a small leather wallet. “This, though, does breed clarity. I picked it up on the border.” He opened the wallet, revealing a quantity of dried, blue-green leaf. “It's imported from Kamne, I think, or maybe some Shavaktiin brought it through the worlds – the rumours don't agree. Either way, it's like inhaling the dark edge of a star.” He held up a square of bark paper. “It's called
cahlu
. Care to join me?”

“Give me that!” Gwen sat herself on the bed and took away both wallet and papers. Grinning quietly, Matu acquiesced. “Trying to roll up in your condition. It's a wonder you didn't spill the whole lot – your hands are shaking well enough.” She rolled two cigarettes as she spoke, her fingers deft and assured. “You're a bad influence, you know that?” She proffered the finished tube. Matu leaned forward and took it, waiting. Gwen rolled her eyes, then fished in her own skirt pocket for the lighter she carried everywhere. It was bronze and heavy, made in the shape of a Chinese dragon. The fire came out of its mouth (of course), and with a soft
chnk
, she lit them both up.

The smoke was hot and dark, imbued with a fierce citric bitterness that made it a little like smoking lemon rind mixed with coffee. Gwen savoured the taste, then exhaled. She could feel Matu watching her.

“Well?” he asked.

“It's adequate,” she said, tapping ash onto his foot.

“Adequate? Don't give me adequate. You've just got the palate of a fire-swallower.”“I'll take that as a compliment.”

They both fell silent, filling the room with blue-grey smoke. It wreathed between them like mist. When the cahlu was done, Gwen stubbed it out on the tip of Matu's boot.

“Say the Council of Queens agrees to all this,” she said, “and Veksh sends her soldiers to pull Kadeja home. What makes them stop there? What makes an invading army hallowed by Ashasa and sanctioned by its leaders turn away from the empty throne of a rich and disorganised state? You say the Council threw Yasha out, but even a despised exile could be welcomed home again if they came offering a whole country.”

Matu took a long, last drag, then dropped his cigarette to the floor. “You really think she'd go that far?”

“I think she'd try.”

“She's not that foolish. The Kenans would rise up against it. Their gods are in their name, in their soil. You can't get rid of Ke and Na by claiming they were only and ever false echoes of Ashasa. The Council couldn't dismantle the temples. It wouldn't work. It couldn't.”

“There's more than one way to claim a throne. She has Pix. She has you. If this all works, she'll have Amenet, too – and that's just for starters. Whatever role Yasha plays, if we succeed, it'll be to her advantage. You'll embed her right in the heart of Karavos. Is that really what you want?”

“You make it sound like it's my decision.”

“I only meant–”

“I know exactly what you meant.” He sighed. “I can already feel her eyes on my neck.”

“Better eyes on the neck than knives in the heart,” Gwen murmured. The proverb was too applicable lately for its own damn good, let alone her comfort.

“What do you want me to say? Everything's a risk. Yasha is difficult, but I'd rather have her than Leoden and Kadeja. Will Veksh invade? I doubt it, but you never know. Take the chance, Gwen. You've no more choice than I do, but we might as well go willing to the consequences of our own shortsightedness.”

“Our own?” She raised an eyebrow. “And what have you done lately that's so shortsighted?”

“Stayed single,” said Matu, “in the deluded belief that it would keep me out of politics.”

Gwen chuckled. “Deluded indeed.”

Matu rubbed his head. “And don't I know it?”

All at once, Gwen recalled what Saffron had said about borders on the road to Karavos, and frowned. “Speaking of Veksh,” she said, “I have a puzzle for you.”

“A distracting puzzle?” Matu asked, in hopeful tones.

“Possibly, yes. Why is the Kenan-Vekshi border so barren?”

“Barren?”

“You know what I mean.” She waved a hand. “The land there is flat, no rivers or mountains, but nobody mingles. Shit, nobody even fights, except for the odd skirmish in the Bharajin, and that hardly counts. It's weird.”

“How long has this been bothering you?”

“Since Saffron asked me about it, and I didn't have an answer.” She glanced at him. “Any thoughts?”

Matu mulled the problem. “Huh. I'd always thought it was Vekshi isolationism, but you're right. It's an open border. There should still be more… history there, or something. More exchange.”

“So you don't know?”

“Not offhand, but then a lot of knowledge was lost in the Years of Shadow. Back in my temple days–” by which he meant his magical apprenticeship with Sahu's Kin, “–we used to joke that if an obvious historical question lacked an obvious historical answer, it was probably Vexa Yavin's fault. Four hundred years, and we've barely recovered any of what she destroyed.” He looked thoughtful. “Still, though. The Vekshi must have their own records. Maybe if this alliance goes to plan, we can ask to see them?”

Gwen snorted. “Sure. Good luck with that.”

They grinned at each other.

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. “Yes?” Matu called.

Speak of the devil
, Gwen thought; it was Saffron, a worried look on her face.

“Trishka sent me,” she said – in decently-accented Kenan, Gwen noted with pride. “I'd finished helping her and she said I should look for Zech, but I couldn't find her, so Trishka said she'd use her magic to see, but when she did–”

“Where is she?” Matu asked sharply.

“In the city. With Jeiden.” Saffron inhaled. “They're in the Square of Gods. And something's happening.”

V
iya rode
on down the narrow street, reasoning that it was better to go forwards than back. This instinct was proven sound when the strains of music she'd heard grew louder. The sounds of a crowd were audible too; she was headed for an open space, some market or square or gathering spot, and even with what little she knew about the Warren, such a place would surely help her get her bearings. As a last resort, she could always ask for directions, but that would be a bitter shame to her pride and gender both. Men could get lost with impunity, but women were gifted by Sahu with the knowledge of orientation – admitting failure in that respect would open her up to mockery.

The closer they came to the noise, the more Mara began to fidget against the bridle, tossing his head from side to side and
kree
ing. As much as this irritated her, Viya still couldn't bring herself to castigate the beast, partly through fear that he'd bolt again, but mostly because she, too, felt unsettled. The music was sharp and urgent, the crowd sounds tense rather than jubilant, and when she glimpsed the source of both, she instantly understood why.

Somehow, she'd managed to find her way to the Square of Gods, which was, if not packed, then certainly full of passersby who'd long since paused in passing. There was the fountain where Kadeja had sought her omen last afternoon; only now it was ringed by Shavaktiin players, their face-veils replaced with dramatic masks. Three were robed all in pinkish red, their masks showing weird white faces with twisted red grins. These were the musicians, armed with reed pipes, a zither and metal twindrums. The sound they produced was high and haunting, eerily discordant. It wasn't Kenan music they played, nor of any style that Viya understood, and the strangeness of it set her teeth on edge. Mara didn't like it, either; his ears were laid flat to the sides of his head, and his urgent
kree
s had grown louder.But more disconcerting still were the players – or rather, their play. Viya had seen Shavaktiin performers once or twice as a child and found them amusing, if strange. Nothing in those memories compared with what she was seeing now. The blasphemy of it caused her chest to constrict. There were nine players, each one robed and masked to suggest a different deity of First and Second Tier. There were Ke and Na, unmistakable in white and black, their masks marked with stars and the black lines of heaven. Beside them were Hime and Lomo, Yemaya and Nihun, Sahu and Teket: lilac robe and green, red and blue, yellow and purple, all ringing the fountain like children. And there, worst of all, was Kara, the sexless Heavenly Child in silver robes and a trickster's mask, kneeling in supplication as Ke and Na crowned them with Ashasa's wreath of fire. As Kara-Ashasa rose again, the other gods fell to their knees, crying out in pairs.

“Trickster ascendant!”

“Fire and malice!”

“Sunchild Vexa!”

By this point, the crowd's agitation was evident. Angry murmurs pervaded; the air was thick with fear and confusion, yet no one moved to intervene.
Kadeja did this,
Viya realised.
She tied Ashasa to the true gods, and now no one knows if the Shavaktiin are allowed to do the same.
But either way, the import was clear: the play declared that a female mischief reigned in Ashasa's name, usurping Kara's place in the celestial hierarchy and legitimised as ruler by Ke and Na.

And then, one by one, the other gods began to strip away their masks, behind which – the crowd roared in outrage – their faces were painted with the orange-gold-red of Ashasa's flames. The whole pantheon writhed, devoured from within by the Vekshi goddess's fire while Kara-Ashasa looked on and laughed. Laughing chaos claimed them all; the Square of Gods became a churning mob as people surged forwards, shouting and throwing things at the players. The music faltered and ceased altogether, replaced by yelps as the Shavaktiin belatedly tried to flee. But the mob was everywhere, pinning them against the fountain. A stone hit Hime in the temple; she staggered, blood dripping down her painted face, and had to be caught by Na.

Fear went through Viya like lightning. She had to get out, get away – she was meant to be leaving Karavos! But the play had transfixed her, leaving her blind to the danger. Somehow she and Mara had managed to get boxed into a corner of the square, and her skittish beast was refusing to approach the mob. Fists clenched in frustration, Viya kicked hard at the roa's ribs, shouting for him to
move, move on!
but to no avail. The Square of Gods was the Trickster's domain – a woman started screaming ahead, and then another; she could hear a child crying, young men shouting and old men roaring, and from her vantage point on Mara's back, she saw a squadron of honoured swords enter the fray alongside the Shavaktiin.

Had Kadeja ordered this, after all? Viya didn't know. Maybe the guards really had come to help the players; or maybe they'd simply arrived through the entrance closest to the fountain, forcing them into confrontation with the crowd. Either way, the mob drew the same conclusion she first had: that the soldiers were there to protect the blaspheming Shavaktiin, and that all sense of rightness and piety was therefore lost. The crowd surged anew – Mara tossed his head back, snorting with fear – and the outraged guards drew their weapons.

Again, Viya cursed Luy's refusal to let her take a horse. Horses were bulky; they had square, solid chests and hard, sharp hooves that could plough through a crowd with ease. But roas were lighter, their balance less ideally suited to the task. Unlike their equine cousins, they lacked the sheer muscle and propulsion to shoulder their way through a mob, and their two legs were much more vulnerable to being knocked from beneath them than a horse's four. Ordinarily, their nimbleness was an asset within the cramped space of a city, but against a mob, they were worse than useless. Viya glanced desperately around the square, throat clenching at her predicament. She needed the crowd to let her through–

Her gaze lit on a pair of children. They stood on a barrel against the opposite wall of the square, and so, like Viya, were lifted above the crowd. One of them, an absurdly beautiful boy, noticed Viya's scrutiny and elbowed his companion, a skinny girl dressed in Vekshi clothes whose skin was a patchwork of calico shades. Her pale eyes narrowed as she sized Viya up, then widened as though in realisation. Urgently, she turned and began whispering to the boy, though of course the distance between them was such that Viya had no idea what was being said. Beneath her, Mara fidgeted in earnest, crow-hopping from one foot to the other like an anxious bird. More screams cut the crowd, whose members were moving now in a whirlpool motion; those at the back were struggling to get forwards, while all of a sudden, those at the front were desperate to get back.

Only Viya and the children, with their superior vantages, could see why: the honoured swords had started attacking the crowd, and alongside them now were a furious trio of arakoi. At least one of these latter possessed the
kashakumet
and was using it like a whip. As Viya watched, terrified, the arakoi's magic lifted a man and sent him flying. He crashed into a stall front, his limbs contorted brokenly, and lay still. A moment of stunned silence followed, and then the screaming began in earnest. The churning bodies pressed back into Mara, elbows and arms digging into the roa's sides and bruising Viya's legs. A hoarse cry of outrage slipped from her throat, but there was nowhere left to go – and then, as though the gods had winked at her, a gap opened up before them.