The Dread Hammer (25 page)

Smoke slipped into the brass soaking tub, sighing as the steaming water enfolded him. Eleanor brought a comb and set to work smoothing the tangles from his long, honey-brown hair, while Ui set about the more mundane task of cleaning the stool and the surrounding floor.

Closing his eyes, Smoke touched the threads within the world-beneath. Ui had wondered why the King didn’t strike him down. Smoke was sure it was because the King couldn’t see him. He kept himself hidden from those who could see within the world-beneath, including his sisters, and the Hauntén demons of the Wild Wood who were also his kin.

But though he was hidden, the people around him were not. The shape and vibration of the threads told him of a manservant walking in the hallway outside, and of two older women at work in the kitchen. More interesting to him were the strong threads knitting Ui and Eleanor together. “Are you sisters?” he asked, without opening his eyes.

Eleanor’s comb moved gently over his scalp. “We have the same father, but different mothers.”

“And different fates,” Ui said, a bit breathless. When he looked, he saw that she was on hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. “My mother is a slave in the household, as I am. Eleanor is the young mistress, who will be sold soon to a husband. I think the master would keep her safely home forever if he could, but she is nineteen now, and she must be married.”

“Will you accept your husband?” Smoke wondered. “Or will you call me?”

“I don’t know,” Eleanor admitted in a quiet voice.

Ui got up, leaving her scrub brush on the floor. “The master—our father—he wanted to marry Eleanor to the son of his friend, a young man he knows well, who would have made her first wife—but everything has changed.”

“My brother died badly,” Eleanor explained.

“Badly?”

“Without honor or consequence. He was an officer in the King’s army, but he made a mistake when he was at war against the Puzzle Lands—I don’t know what—and he died with all the men under his command. The King declared my brother a traitor and my father was required to disavow him along with his wives and children, and to pay recompense to the families of his men. There was money enough for it, of course, but now there is no heir. So my value has gone up. Whatever man gets me will become his son and the next master of Cuhoxa, when God chooses to take my father from the world.”

“We listen at the master’s door,” Ui confessed. “There are powerful men in the army and in the palace who would like to be our father’s heir, and who would be offended if he chose a lesser man.”

Smoke scowled. “That makes no sense at all. You and Ui should be your father’s heirs and you should choose your own husbands. Why do Lutawans make everything so complicated?”

They found this funny. Both women laughed merrily, for no reason that Smoke could see, but at least the gloom that had descended over them was dispelled. Ui bent to pick up her scrub brush. “Young mistress,” she said, looking up with a coy smile. “I’m sure you must have combed every tangle from Dismay’s beautiful hair. It’s time to consider where Dismay should sleep tonight.”

The comb hesitated. “You’re a wicked sister, Ui.”

Ui giggled, her hand over her mouth. “Well, then, if Dismay may not share your bed, and I already share my bed with my mother—”

Eleanor bent close, her breath soft in Smoke’s ear. “You’ll be safe in my brother’s apartment. His wives and children are gone and no one’s allowed to visit there anymore. The door’s locked, and only my father has the key.”

Smoke sighed, basking in her warmth, her nearness. “You should not tease a man.”

“Are you a man?”

Her lips brushed his cheek. He turned his head and her mouth touched his, but she
was
only teasing. She drew back with a sad, regretful look. “If I’m not a virgin when I marry, my father must kill me.”

She was utterly beautiful, but untouchable, and as the wavering candlelight glistened in her eyes he was reminded again of Ketty—and suddenly he was angry. Eleanor saw it. She straightened and stepped back. “Your eyes! They’re glittering with a green light, as dragon eyes are said to do.”

“So? I
am
Dismay.” He held a hand out to her. “Come.” She was reluctant, but she didn’t dare to offend him, so she took it. “Eleanor, will you pray to me, if you don’t like your husband?”

“No. I will pray to you only if my husband is intolerable.”

Smoke cocked his head. “What Lutawan man is tolerable?”

Eleanor cast a nervous glance at Ui, but Ui was unfazed, giggling behind her hand. “None of them are tolerable,” Ui declared. “Even the master, who makes me sleep in the kitchen when he desires to visit my mother.”

Eleanor’s tone was suddenly sharp. “Ui, go fetch food for Dismay.”

Ui’s smile vanished and, chastened, she hurried to the door. Eleanor followed her. She unlocked the door, held it open just wide enough for Ui to slip out, and then locked it again. When she returned to Smoke, he felt her fear in the threads. “Dismay, I don’t want to be sold to any man who lives in the palace. My brother’s mother was born there. She said that all the women there have the three petals of their demon flower cut away—”

“Their demon flower?”

“That place between a woman’s legs where her husband takes his pleasure.”

“Ah, her sacred gate.” Then he realized what she’d just said. “They
cut
it? Why?”

“I don’t know! But she showed me her scars. She said it’s done at the King’s command. It doesn’t matter if the woman is the wife of an official, or if she’s there with her husband only for a season. The King knows if she’s whole. His order comes. It’s done.”

Smoke smiled. Yes, he was sure now the Dread Hammer meant for him to kill the King—and what a pleasure it would be to slit the creature’s throat, whether he turned out to be a god or a man. “Is the King always in the palace?” he wondered.

She nodded, her eyes glistening with tears as she contemplated her likely fate. “It’s said the palace is the only place holy enough to contain His sacred presence.”

“Do you know where it is?”

She shrugged. “Somewhere south, where the nights are warmer.”

“Warmer than here?” Smoke was horrified that any such place could be. Just thinking on it made the bath feel too hot. He stood up, and Eleanor hurried to bring a towel, patting him dry as he stepped from the tub.

“You can’t put on your soiled clothes,” she told him. “Ui has to clean them. But in my brother’s apartment, you’ll find clothes that you can wear.”

Smoke took the towel from her and wrapped it around his waist. “You would dress me as a Lutawan?”

She looked up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. “Forgive me, Dismay. I don’t know how to dress a demon.”

“Would you serve one?”

She caught her breath in fear . . . but then she nodded. “If I can.”

“If you’re sent to the palace before I find my way there, then pray to me. Your prayer will make a thread that I can follow, first to the palace, and then to the King.”

Now it was her turn to look horrified. “But how can I, Dismay? Surely the King will hear such a prayer? Surely he will know.”

“You have talked to me all night, but he has not struck you dead.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know he hears all the words of men . . . but the cook has told me he refuses to listen to the words of women.”

“Then you
can
pray to me. Do so and I’ll come and kill the King.”

Tears started in her eyes. “But by then it’ll be too late for me. Please, Dismay, won’t you help me? Don’t let them send me to the palace.”

He shook his head. “It’s not my gift to make lives sweet. The prayers I grant are prayers of vengeance. Who would you have me kill?”

“I don’t know! No one. Not yet.”

He nodded. “Only the very desperate should ever pray to me. The cost is always high.”

“What do you mean?”

“That a prayer for vengeance won’t save you. I could kill your husband and all the men of his household, but you would still be hunted down.”

She shuddered, turning half away. “I wish I had not been born.”

“Show me the way into the palace. Then there will have been a reason for your life.”

Ui returned with a large basket in her hands. Eleanor took it from her. “Take Dismay’s clothes and clean them. See that they’re ready before dawn.”

Ui looked startled at Eleanor’s sharp tone. Her gaze darted to Smoke, dressed now only in the bath towel.

“
Now
,” Eleanor added.

“Yes, ma’am.” Ui scurried to gather up Smoke’s soiled shirt, his trousers, and his long coat. She slipped out of the room with a backward glance that lingered on Smoke as he bent to gather up his weapons.

Again Eleanor made sure the door was locked. Then she brought the basket to Smoke, who had his sword, his bow and his belt slung over his bare shoulders. “My brother’s apartments are in the north wing of the house, alongside the inner courtyard.”

Smoke studied the threads, nodding as he sensed the place she described.

“I’ll have Ui bring your clothes at dawn. I’ll warn her not to disturb you before then.” Eleanor hesitated. “Unless you want her to . . . ?”

Smoke considered it. Ketty had said she still loved him . . . but that was two moons past, a long time ago. A man couldn’t wait forever—though after a bit of thought Smoke decided he could wait another night. “It’s not her company I want.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened in surprise. Smiling shyly, she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’m so pleased you chose our home and that I’ve been privileged to meet you.” She handed him the basket, her dark gaze riveted on him as he bent to pick up his boots. “I wish I was Ui,” she added in a husky voice.

Smoke’s brows knit in a skeptical look. “You wouldn’t like being a servant.”

Then he reached for the threads, and let his reflection shift so that he appeared to Eleanor as a column of gray smoke that streamed away through the wall.

The Slant of Moonlight

Heavy curtains allowed only a parsimonious measure of moonlight into the apartment, not enough for most men to see by, but Smoke was a demon who could see in the dark. He found himself in a sitting room, with a sofa, a divan, chairs, several small tables, a fireplace, decorative hangings on the walls, and a thick carpet beneath his bare feet. An arched passage led to other rooms. The air tasted dusty and stale.

He put down his boots and the basket, and then he drew his sword from its scabbard and set out to explore.

All doors to the outside were locked, as Eleanor had promised. He found a study, with books still on the shelves, and six bedrooms. The bedrooms were empty of personal items except the largest, which had an alcove filled with such clothing as a Lutawan man of the Inherent class would wear.

Smoke had some fondness for dressing well, so he lit an oil lamp and spent some time in the alcove, looking through the shelves. The shirts and jackets were mostly too broad in the shoulder to suit him, but at the back of a corner shelf he found a green tunic in a smaller size. It had a high collar and panels in the front embroidered with a twining pattern of birds and vines, and it fit him perfectly.

Suitable trousers were easier to find because the Lutawans favored a loose fit anyway, and the extra length was easily overcome by stuffing the hems into his boots. He chose dark brown trousers made of heavy linen. It was so damn hot in Lutawa he didn’t bother trying on a coat. After he was dressed he examined his reflection in a mirror. He had left his hair loose around his shoulders so it could dry, but now he gathered it up and nodded in satisfaction at what he saw. “I make a better looking Lutawan than most Lutawans,” he said aloud. He lifted his chin and added, “Ketty, you are foolish to be angry still.”

He felt hopeful, though, more so than in a long time. Ketty might still be angry with him, but at least now he had a goal, a purpose.

He returned to the basket to see what Ui had packed. There was a bottle of wine, but he left that untouched, because drinking stirred in him an embarrassing inclination toward mercy. He ate all the food though, and then, taking his weapons and his boots with him, he went to lie down on the wide, soft bed in the largest bedroom.

He slept peacefully for a time.

Then he heard Ketty speaking. He startled awake—and her voice vanished. The shadows of the dead man’s bedroom loomed around him, unchanged except for the slant of moonlight. He tried to recall what she had said, but he couldn’t. Was it only a dream?

Closing his eyes again, he listened. Across the threads he heard the murmur of women’s voices, many women, still awake despite the hour. They called to him,
Dismay, Dismay
, whispering their dreadful stories and pleading with him to avenge them. He ignored their bitter prayers and, holding his breath so that he could listen better, he waited for one special prayer to reach him.

But it didn’t come.

Ketty, why?

Why did she offer him nothing but silence? Why could she not forgive him? He had never hurt her. He had never betrayed her. She was the cruelest of wives!

He got up. A green light sparkled across the room, startling him, but it was only the reflection of his eyes in the mirror, the reflection of his anger. He had resolved not to go back to Ketty until she begged him . . . but if he killed the Lutawan king, slit His throat and let His divine blood spill free in a scarlet fountain, then surely that would atone for his own misdeeds and even stubborn Ketty of the Red Moon would have to forgive him.

To kill the King though, he would first have to find the palace. Eleanor thought it was south, but how far south? Lutawa was a vast land. He might have to hunt for many more days before he found it . . . unless he could find a map to tell him the way?

That’s when he remembered the study full of books—and where there were books, there were maps, or so it had been in his father’s library.

He hurried through the hall to the study, and there he searched the drawers and shelves, but he found no map.

He turned next to the books, remembering that maps were sometimes drawn in their pages, and even if there was no map, there might be a story that told the way to the King’s oh-so-holy palace. Taking a book at random, he stepped to a window and pulled the curtain aside. Moonlight poured onto an open page, revealing gibberish: column after column of meaningless scribble.

Smoke flipped through the pages, but it was all the same: every page of the book was filled with unreadable scrawl. What idiot would fill a precious book with useless marks? He dropped the volume on a table, went back to the shelf, and grabbed another. This one too contained the same sort of nonsense, and though there were drawings of military formations among the pages, there was no map.

He picked up another book, and another. When a glance at the pages confirmed each to be as useless as the first, he hurled it onto a growing pile of discarded volumes. Only when the shelf was nearly empty did it occur to him that the scribble must be writing, but of a kind he’d never seen before and that he could not read. This thought infuriated him. It was as if the Lutawans had conspired to keep him ignorant—and in his frustration he was tempted to set the whole pile of books on fire. He resisted only because Ui and Eleanor had been kind to him. It would be poor manners to pay them back by burning their home to the ground. Still, he could bear the oppressive air of the apartment no longer.

He returned to the bedroom for his boots and his weapons, and then he reached for the threads—but as he dissolved into gray mist he remembered the basket, still in the sitting room. He wanted no suspicion to fall on Ui and Eleanor, so he fetched it. Then setting his mind again to the threads, he perceived Eleanor, lying awake and alone in a bedroom not so far away.

He went to her.

The smoky gray mist of his presence seeped through the walls and then he was standing at the foot of her bed.

The curtain was open; the room awash in moonlight. Eleanor lay naked in its glow, profoundly beautiful, her dark eyes fixed on the night sky as if her thoughts were far away. Desire rushed through Smoke, but though he was sure he could have her for the asking, she wasn’t Ketty, and all he really wanted to do was leave.

He set the basket at the foot of her bed and only then did she realize he was there. She gasped and sat up, pulling a thin sheet to her chin to hide her body. “
Dismay!
”

“I am going.”

If she replied, he didn’t stay to hear it.