My shirt was pulled up to my ears to prevent the cold dribble that was pouring through our twiggy shelter from running down my neck. Fiona was roasting some kind of thick white root on a stick. It smelled like burning flesh. As I stared at the fire, trying to stay awake and trying to ignore the hopeless growling of my empty stomach, the smoke shaped itself into spires and bridges, and in the flicker of blue and white flames, I saw the wraiths passing over the bridge. One of the wraiths turned to look at me just as the darkness swept over . . .
“What’s wrong?” Fiona cut the charred root in half and offered me a portion. “You’ve been twitching like a nervous cat all day. You’re not getting a fever again, are you?”
“No.” Gingerly I slipped the soft, sagging mess from the stick, shifting it from one hand to the other until it cooled enough to hold. By that time it looked so unappetizing, I could not think what to do with it. I glanced again at the fire, and the wraith still shimmered in the flames. “Tell me why you came after me,” I said, closing my eyes, which did me no good at all. The castle was waiting for me in the darkness behind my eyelids. “You’re weeks away from home, in danger every minute. I don’t understand it.”
“It’s duty you don’t understand.” She knew it was a feeble attempt, her voice thrusting out the words like a sword made of feathers.
“Your duty was done with long ago, and your mistress should be well satisfied, since I’m nowhere near Ezzaria. Are you truly trying to get me murdered? What have I done to you that you bear me such hatred?”
Fiona stared at the white pulp in her hand, then threw it into the fire in disgust. “I don’t hate you. I hate what you do. How you make a mockery of the law. How you came back and lived as if you were uncorrupted, pretending that you cared about truth. I could see it so clearly. You had violated everything, yet people honored you . . . forgave you . . . as if corruption could be dismissed like a slip of the tongue. It was . . . is . . . my duty to prove them wrong.”
For that moment she pushed my visions aside. I didn’t think she was talking about me at all. This was something deeper and more painful, something eating at her, like a splinter in the heart. But I had no skill to get it out of her. “And what have you proven?” I asked.
“Only that I am a more stubborn fool than you.”
For the first time since I had known her, her perfect honesty abused herself. I started to laugh at her. Yet her face showed such wounding, as if she had pricked herself with a needle only to find her entire hand lost from it, that I softened my retort. “Well, on that we are agreed,” I said, raising the pottery cup of rainwater in mock salute. “At last some common ground. I think we shall have an entirely different relationship from now on.”
Though she scowled at me furiously, my gibe seemed to draw her out of whatever morass she had sunk into. She reached for another wad of her white roots and stabbed her stick through it. I had the uncomfortable feeling that the roots wore my face.
“Since you’ve heeded my lessons in stubborn foolishness, perhaps I should mentor you next in madness,” I said, leaning back against the cold, wet rock. “But I need to decide where the next lesson should be taught.” I told her of my conviction that I needed to study demon lore and my hesitation at returning to Ezzaria. Just as in the root cellar, it suddenly seemed easier to talk than to be silent. Better to drown out the nagging terror than to retreat into maddening solitude. I did not mention my dreams.
To my surprise, she entered into the discussion quite seriously. “There is one source of demon lore outside of Ezzaria,” she said. “Mistress Catrin told you of it.”
“Catrin?” It took me a moment to recall the conversation at Col’Dyath and to remember that Fiona had been there when Catrin told me of Pendyrral and his strange demon encounter. “That was Balthar the Devil, she spoke of. I cannot, will not—”
“Then, you are a coward and a liar who has no intention of discovering the truth.”
There are some fires that cold rain and long traveling cannot quench, and Fiona had found a way to light one. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped.
“This is the same Balthar who discovered that burying a sorcerer alive and sending him visions that your worst nightmares cannot match will cause the wretch to expend every shred of his power. Leave the poor devil long enough, just to the edge of raving, and he’ll believe his melydda is destroyed. Sometimes, of course, if you leave one buried too long, or if the Rites were not properly recorded and you put a person through a second time, or if the person happens to be one of our race who has no melydda . . . too bad, they suffocate or go mad, one or the other. And, oh, yes, tell the Derzhi Magicians Guild—a league of petty charlatans fearful of losing their stipends from the noble houses—so that they will be sure to use your enchantments on every Ezzarian man, woman, and child taken captive. What could such a man have to say that could convince me to exist in the same room with him? And don’t bother to answer until you’ve lived what he has wrought.”
Fiona’s cheeks glowed with more than the heat of the fire, but her resolve did not falter. “Did you know that Balthar had two children born demon-possessed?”
I stared at the woman. Though my skin still throbbed with disgust and fury, she had silenced my tongue quite effectively.
Pursuing her advantage, she continued. “The first was a daughter, laid out to die one hour after her birth. Balthar immersed himself in demon lore, even took himself outside of Ezzaria to learn more. He told his friends that he had learned things that would surprise them, things that explained some of our mysteries. But before he explained anything, his son was born. Another demon child. He barricaded himself in his house, refusing to allow the child to be taken, but eventually Queen Tarya sent in temple guards to remove the boy. Balthar swore he would take vengeance on all Ezzarians if the boy was harmed, and the Queen forbade him to leave his house until he could answer charges of corruption. But after that night he was never seen again in Ezzaria.”
“And the child?”
“The gods destroyed him.”
“How did you learn all this?”
“You asked me to find out.”
“I?”
“You told me to think about what I had seen and heard in our last battle. To ask some questions. To investigate. So I did.”
Clearly, there was to be no end to the amazements of life. I began to think I was either unendingly dull, everlastingly ignorant, or absolutely blind. Perhaps all of them. “It was you who discovered Pendyrral’s story, not Catrin at all.”
“It doesn’t matter who discovered it. If you’re going to learn anything, you’re going to have to find Balthar. And no one in Ezzaria has any idea where he is.”
I leaned my head on the heel of my hand, trying to press the visions from my eyes. “Oh, I know where to find out. It’s the asking will be tricky business.”
“How difficult can it be to ask?”
“I would recommend you stay well away.” Only a very few people knew Balthar’s whereabouts, and they were all housed in the Imperial Palace in Zhagad. I would have to be very careful. I didn’t think Aleksander would be at all happy to see me.
It took us four weeks to make our way to Zhagad, the Pearl of Azhakstan, the desert city that was the heart of the Derzhi Empire. We were fortunate to take up with the caravan of a Suzaini wine merchant. I showed him my paper and told him that I had been freed for saving the life of a royal favorite—exactly true. Wine caravans were rich prey for bandits, so the merchant was delighted to take on another fighting arm—and one in royal favor—in exchange for food and company on the long route across Manganar and into the Azhaki desert.
Being a traditional Suzaini, he required that Fiona wear robes to cover herself completely and travel with the other women, which annoyed Fiona, but suited me very well. I was free of her scrutiny and of guilt about her danger. No one could see that she, too, was Ezzarian. She had no paper to ensure her freedom. I reminded her of that every time I had an opportunity to speak with her, offering explicit details of the fate that awaited her if she were taken captive, but I could not make her see sense and go home. She fumed and fretted and spoke hardly at all, but she wore the long white robes, traveled in the women’s cart, and was not noticed.
My dreams continued, but got no worse. In the society of other people, it was easier to keep them at bay. I earned our passage fairly, helping the merchant fend off two raiding parties. Happily, neither party wore black clothing or had painted white daggers on their faces.
We entered Zhagad in late morning. The autumn cooling meant that it was possible to travel all but a few hours at midday in the desert, so we had made good time. I bid Dabarak, the wine merchant, a polite farewell and asked if Fiona could keep the robes, as I wished her to remain modest in such a wicked city as Zhagad. His eyes glinted green in the sunlight of the outer marketplace, a teeming center of commerce that had its only quiet hour at high noon. “Your woman walks proudly like a Suzaini woman, and reins her tongue as she should, but you should teach her to control her eyes. She does not drop them when you speak to her. I would chastise any of my women for such boldness.”
“I’ve considered chastising her,” I said. “But I’ve decided that it would be more trouble than it’s worth. She doesn’t take it well.”
The man nodded sympathetically. Fiona’s bold eyes stung my back so wickedly, I thought they might draw blood. We had scarcely spoken for four weeks, and I hoped such a public mocking might make her leave at last. I should have known better.
We took a room in a small inn tucked away in the merchant district, paying for it with coins taken from the defeated bandit party and shared out among the caravan guards. I had bought paper, pen, and ink in the marketplace, and after we argued over whether to share the one bed or waste money on two (Fiona prevailed—one bed; we would take turns sleeping), I laid my purchases out on the little table in our room. I sharpened the pen with Fiona’s knife, then wrote a message.
My lady,
I hope beyond measure that this missive finds you prospering in health and fortune. At our last meeting, you offered to do anything within your power to aid me in time of need. I had hoped never to find occasion to redeem that pledge so graciously given in perilous times, but I find myself in grave circumstance too complicated to explain in a brief message. In short, I need a bit of information, and I have no way to obtain it, save through the influence of someone at the Derzhi court.
It is possible that you have heard ill tidings of me in these past weeks. I beg you withhold judgment until I am able to recount the full story behind these reports. I swear to you upon the work we did together two years ago that my faith, my honor, and my aims have not changed. My request bears not the slightest risk to the safety or honor of the one who brought us together, and, in fact, could be of benefit to the stability of his own work.
If you feel that giving me private hearing in any way compromises your own position, I do most gladly release you from your pledge. Short of that, however, I ask your indulgence and discretion.
With highest regards,
The lady’s foreign friend
“Who is she?” said Fiona, reading over my shoulder. “Someone’s mistress? Yours? With such a title . . . ‘the lady’s foreign friend’ . . .”
“Not exactly,” I said. “If the gods are wise, she will one day be the Empress of Azhakstan.” It was always a pleasure to shock Fiona.
CHAPTER 17
The problem was that I knew none of the courtiers or administrators in the imperial palace in Zhagad, certainly no one likely to know Balthar the Devil’s whereabouts. I had never served in Zhagad, only in the Emperor’s summer palace in Capharna, so I was acquainted with only three people who could find out what I wanted in any reasonable length of time—Aleksander, his cousin Kiril, and his wife, the Princess Lydia. Aleksander was out of the question, and Kiril, whose warriors had died at my hand, would reflect his anger. The Princess was my only choice. Lydia was not what one would call serene, but she listened far better than her prince.
I returned alone to the marketplace and hired a public messenger to deliver my letter to Hazzire, Lydia’s trusted intermediary in discreet matters. I hoped the man had moved to Zhagad with the lady upon her marriage to Aleksander. He would recognize the signature and know to pass the note quietly to his mistress.
For the rest of the day, I paced and fidgeted in the vicinity of the messenger’s table in the outer market. I dared not stay still, lest I be noticed; yet I dared not miss the messenger, lest he take another commission and disappear before I received my answer. The withering heat of midday drove most people indoors or into the cool shadows of lattice-roofed gardens and walled courtyards. Only the most privileged residents had fountains that drew water from springs in the porous rocks under the city. But as the blue shadows of afternoon grew long, and the breeze blew in from the cooling dunes, everyone came out again. Men greeted friends and sat together at stone tables in the market squares playing ulyat or sharing cups of nazrheel—the hot, stinking tea the Derzhi loved. Women in floating, transparent veils came out to buy fruits and meat for dinner, and stopped to gossip with friends or relatives by the public wells. Merchants and vendors put out their best wares in the evening—jewelry, wines, exotic spices, and perfumes—for the wealthy residents of the city came out to buy in the pleasant evening. Only servants and slaves were out of bed early enough to shop in the cool of the morning.
I was just considering buying a wooden skewer of grilled sausage to take back to Fiona, when the blue-clad messenger came trotting down the dusty street from the inner ring of the city, where the golden domes of the Imperial Palace glinted in the sunset. “Do you have an answer?” I said, pouncing on the man before he could catch his breath.