Wheel of the Infinite (14 page)

The waters were moving, waves crawling up the white sand beach . ..

Rian rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was just meaningless shapes now, nothing but complicated patterns in sand.

He swore softly. He didn’t need to be told this was a powerful magic. Frustrated by the elusiveness of the thing, he tried to follow the pattern with his eyes, starting at the incomplete areas and following the spiral of several layers of built-up colored powders, all with intricately sculpted symbols. He resisted the urge to make them into towns and valleys and roads and hills. He made it past several turns, ignoring the branches that led off to more complex arrangements towards the center, but as the spiral neared another incomplete section, it dissolved into dark sand, the designs ceasing to resemble those on the temple walls and becoming something ugly and dark. Rian looked away, a sudden constriction in his chest. When he looked back at it, it was a map again, and the section of dark sand was a living storm, worse than any rainy season monsoon, tearing up the terrain that lay helplessly under it. With a sudden, bone-deep certainty, he knew that whatever this magic was, something was terribly wrong with it.

Maskelle stepped carefully back from the edge of the design, taking Rian’s elbow and drawing him after her. Even a step or two away from the thing, the air was a little easier to breathe. Her voice shaking just a little, Maskelle said, “How did it happen?”

The Celestial One’s voice sounded resigned. “We don’t know.”

Rian started guiltily. He had had no awareness that there was anyone else in the chamber at all. He looked around and saw there were three other priests in the room, all older men, the complexity of their scalp tattoos denoting high rank. They carried carved staffs like Maskelle and they didn’t look pleased to see her. “You don’t know,” Maskelle repeated, sounding as if she was hovering in some state between utter stupefaction and disgust. “Haven’t you tried to remove it?”

The Celestial One sighed and leaned on his staff. One of the other priests said, “We have removed it every time.”

She turned to stare at him.

The man, a grim-faced priest with hard eyes, nodded. “Since the twentieth night of the Rite when it was first placed there. Every day we remove it, every day it forms again. Sometimes in the same area, sometimes elsewhere.”

Maskelle shook her head and turned away, almost fleeing the chamber. Rian gathered his scattered wits and went after her.

The Celestial One’s attendant stared worriedly as Maskelle stormed past and they came out in the inner court between two of the covered passages. The sun had appeared again and the reflection and heat coming off the white stone was temporarily blinding, but at least the air was fresh. “So what happened?” Rian asked impatiently. “What is it?”

“It’s supposed to be the Wheel of the Infinite, the most important part of the Hundred Year Rite.” She ran her hands through her hair, completely undoing her braids, and stopped with double handfuls of hair, as if she was contemplating pulling it out. “What it is now, I don’t know.” She shook her head, biting her lip. “The End of Year Rites— Each year the highest Koshan priests, the Voices, make a ... a model of the world. Through it the world is remade in its own image. The culmination takes place at the rainy season Equinox, and the sand that was used to make the model is collected and dispersed to wind and water, which strengthens the bonds that hold everything together.”

Rian looked at the tower.
Everything
? The utter stillness of the air in that chamber, so different from the wind-cooled passages in the rest of the place, the raised lip of stone around the center portion of the room, made sense now. “That design, that was the model?”

“Was, yes.”

“The black storm-looking . . . thing. It comes back all by itself?”

She nodded grimly. “What I want to know is how it got there in the first place.”

The Celestial One hobbled out of the covered walk and over to them, raising his hand to shade his eyes against the glare. He said, “That was why I wanted your advice.”

“How did this happen?” Maskelle demanded again.

“On the twentieth night of the Rite, Master Igarin fell suddenly ill.” He looked at Rian and added, “The rite must end on a certain day and delay can’t be allowed, so if one of the Voices can’t continue, someone must take his place. A young priest called Veran, who was training to be elevated to Voice, took over the duty while the others present carried the sick man out to the court and summoned healers. Veran was alone in the chamber for perhaps a quarter hour, no more. When the others came back to return to their task, it was as you see it. This was eleven days ago.” He shook his head. “I should have obeyed my first impulse and written to you earlier. If I had, you would have been here in time.”

“Veran, Veran,” Maskelle muttered to herself. “He’s a new one. Where is he now? What explanation does he give?”

“He is in the care of the healers, under watch. He is ill himself now and can tell us nothing of how this happened.”

Maskelle’s expression was dubious, as well it might be. Ignoring the fact that he probably shouldn’t be cross-questioning the Celestial One, Rian asked sharply, “What happened to the other priest, the one he replaced?”

“He is dead.”

“Poison?”

“There was no sign of it.” The old man’s face was wry. “The convenience of his indisposition had occurred to us.”

Maskelle grabbed handfuls of her hair again and paced rapidly up and down the court. The Celestial One watched her hopefully, which worried Rian more than anything. The old man really had no idea what had happened to their Rite, and no idea how to fix it. Maskelle stopped and said finally, “The disruption that forms every day . . . It’s the same size as the first one, that Veran made.”

“Yes.”

“There’s more there than one person could do in a quarter hour.”

The Celestial One winced. “We realized that.”

Rian asked, “How is the Rite made?” Since no one had bitten his head off for asking questions, he didn’t intend to stop.

Preoccupied, Maskelle answered, “You drop the sand from your palm and then guide it into place with your breath, using a small wooden tube to make it more accurate. It’s not as hard as it sounds; anyone who was clever with his hands could learn to do it.” She looked at the Celestial One. “But what are you doing about it?”

“The highest masters remove the offending section of the pattern, while the others continue with the undamaged section. They thought they had established the boundaries of the affected area.” The Celestial One regarded her steadily from under his heavy grey brows. “But they have not been entirely successful. Sometimes the spot changes its position to avoid them.”

Rian looked from one to the other.
I take it they can’t just stop
, he thought.
Or sweep it up and start over
. If it was that simple, then surely they would have done it already. And if it really worked as they thought it did ... If that was really the world in there, spread out on the floor in colored sand with that disruption, that dark design of fire and storm and yawning void in it...

“Taking it apart . . .” Uneasily, Maskelle said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

The Celestial One looked away. “I was afraid you would say that.”

The clouds had returned and a light rain had begun by the time they left the Marai. Crossing back over the causeway, Maskelle still wasn’t quite sure how things stood between her and the Celestial One, if he was really serious about expecting her to stay here and help him. She thought he had hoped, somehow, that she would look at that . . . thing that was forming out of the sand in the Year Rite and tell him how to fix it.
Fond hope
, she thought sourly. But she didn’t suppose he had really believed that she would solve his problem so easily. As she and Rian reached the end of the causeway, she realized she had forgotten to ask the Celestial One for money. Well, he had said he would send someone to the post house with word for her tonight; she would ask then.

She stopped at the end of the causeway and took a deep breath of the warm damp air. Darker clouds now streaked the grey sky, and the foot traffic had increased as people hurried to finish their errands before the rain turned heavy. More awnings and cheap oilpaper water shades had sprouted over the little market while puddles formed in the paving. She looked at Rian, who was standing with hands on his hips, surveying the passers-by at the base of the steps with a disgruntled air that was increased by the rain soaking his hair and sticking the thin fabric of his shirt to his chest. They exchanged a look. He said, “The Rite ... It really remakes the world?”

She nodded, gathering her sodden robes around her. At the edge of the market there was an open-sided wooden building where water steamed in copper pots over braisers and a rough stone oven smelled strongly of sweet bread. Having breakfast with Barime that morning had awakened a craving for real tea, not what passed for it in the provinces or among the Ariaden, and she led the way under its shelter.

Maskelle went to the back, away from the other customers, and sat down on the damp matting that covered the pavement. Rian took a place where he could watch her back and the approach from the market. The Kushorit didn’t believe in eating out in public streets and avoided it whenever possible; except for the woman preparing the food and the boy helping her, the few other customers under the shelter were foreigners. They stared curiously at the old nun and the young Sitanese, until Rian unhooked the siri’s scabbard from his belt and laid it within easy reach, then gazed meaningfully at them. That made them shuffle nervously and go back to their food and conversations.

The boy brought them tea in brown clay cups and a banana leaf full of little buns rolled in palm sugar. Maskelle gave him the last silver bit she had. She watched Rian taste the tea and wince. Kushorit tea was an acquired taste. “I don’t know how to explain the Rite without using ritual language,” she began slowly.

“I could see it was a making a map.” Rian frowned, rolling one of the buns around in the scattered sugar. “But I could also see that’s not all it is.”

“The symbols are the reality. When I was first learning the Koshan way . . .”
An eon or so ago
, she reminded herself. “There was an old story that back when the Kushor-An was still being built, before the Celestial Court moved here from Tel Adra, that word came to the Voices from the outlying islands that the Emissary of Sakkara had sent an invasion fleet.”

Rian’s brows draw together in puzzlement. “Sakkara?”

“I’d never heard the name before either. No one has. When the Voices heard of the invasion, it was near the Equinox when the culmination of the Rite occurs. They were still constructing the Wheel of the Infinite and they hadn’t yet reached the Aspian Straits, where the fleet would have to pass to reach the Rijan Gulf and the delta, to sail up the river to Duvalpore. The armies of the Empire were very small then, barely enough to protect the villages and the roads from bandits. They knew the Sakkarans were sending hundreds of ships. So, when the Voices built the symbols for the Aspian Straits into the Wheel, they changed the symbols, just slightly, so that the Aspian Straits were closed. And that’s what made the Inland Sea.”

“What happened to the Sakkarans?”

“No one knows. One story is that the Voices didn’t build the Wheel fast enough, and they closed the Straits with the fleet inside it. The Sakkarans were so struck by the loss of all the ships and people that they never recovered, and dwindled away to become nomads, or went north to join the Batiran Cities. I’ve heard the Celestial One say that he thought it more likely that in changing the shape of the land, what they actually did was change everything about it, its shape, its history, its reality.”
Its reality
. Could the alterations to the Wheel already be affecting the world, even before the Rite was culminated? It might explain the monstrosity the Priest of the Sare had shown her, and the power of the water spirit. The thought was not comforting. She continued, “They changed the whole region to someplace else, that looked a great deal like the places where the Sakkaran cities used to be, and they sent the Aspian Strait and the cities somewhere else, that looked the same, but with no Celestial Empire to attack. Which is why we don’t try to do that anymore.”

She sipped her tea thoughtfully. “We don’t know what all the symbols in the Wheel mean. The ones that show the bottom half of the world aren’t even visible unless you look at them through the Infinite, and we don’t even know what geography half of them are meant to represent except what we can see in the Wheel itself.”

“There’s a bottom half to the world?” Rian sounded a little skeptical.

She nodded. “The lower ranks of Koshans travel and make maps and bring them back here, so the librarians can record them and the Voices can try to identify what the still unknown symbols might represent. It doesn’t always match exactly. The theory is that the Wheel shows us what the world would look like if we could see it from the Infinite.”

“The Holder Lord thought the Koshan monks were spies, though he was never stupid enough to kill one.”

“That would have been stupid,” Maskelle agreed. “That was the kind of thing I used to be sent to deal with.”

Rian looked out at the dingy market again, the rain splashing on the pavement, the stalls and awnings, and the grey walls and towers of the Marai floating above the rain-mist in the distance. He said, “If that story is true, then the Kushorit rule the world.”

“In a sense. If you can destroy a thing, I suppose you can be said to rule it.” She should have realized he would see it that way. The Sintane might be behind the rest of the civilized lands in many ways, but in understanding the uses and abuses of secular power it might well be ahead. “It’s not called the Celestial Empire for nothing.”

“But no one knows.”

She shook her head. “The Voices know. That’s the last part of the elevation to Voice, the revelation of what the Rite is actually capable of. The entire Koshan priesthood is based on locating the people who can be trained and trusted to be Voices. It’s safer if no one else knows.” She took a deep breath. “Though it’s not as if anyone could build a Wheel of the Infinite, even if they knew how. It takes years of learning, not just to know how to make the symbols, but how to weave them in and out of the Infinite. And you have to learn how to listen to the Ancestors of the Marai, so they can guide you if you go wrong.” She glanced up at him and demanded, “Why are you smiling?”

“I was thinking of how the Holder Lord would have shit himself if he knew.” Rian cocked an eyebrow at her. “You had that power in your hand, but instead you tried to take the throne?”

“I didn’t want the world. I had a reason for trying to take the throne. Besides, one person can’t build the Wheel, or bring the Rite to a culmination at the right time.” She added wryly, “In the Infinite, timing is everything. For a long while now, mine has been terrible.” She set her cup aside reluctantly. “I suppose we’d better get back.”

They went outside and started down the steps to the lower plaza. As Maskelle reached the bottom, her eyes were on one of the stands in the other section of the temporary market. Piles of gourds and melons lay on wicker mats and the market woman was looking around as if gauging the crowd and the possibility of packing up early. Maskelle saw the woman glance her way, saw her eyes widen in shock. Her own self-consciousness almost betrayed her, and it took her an extra heartbeat to realize the woman was staring not at her, but at something just behind her. Maskelle swung around, belatedly bringing up her staff. She was in time to see a raggedly dressed man only two steps above her, raising a short club. Before she could move, Rian melted out of the group of tradesmen hurrying down the steps around them and caught the upraised club. The man managed a strangled yell before he met the steps face-first.

The crowd scattered with startled exclamations. Maskelle stepped up and leaned over the attacker as Rian held him pinned to the wet stone, one of his arms twisted into an easily breakable position. The man glared up at her with nothing but wholly human malice and fear in his eyes. She glanced up at Rian. “He’s not under any influence.” She looked down at the captive speculatively. “Except political. Are you Mirak’s? Or did Disara send you? Or Raith himself?”

The man sneered at her but said nothing. Rian said, “Do you need answers?”

A little more fear crossed their captive’s face. Rian’s matter-of-factness was more threatening than any amount of shouted threats. “No.” Maskelle straightened and leaned on her staff, the wood and silver slick from the rain. “It doesn’t matter. Let him go.”

Rian looked exasperated, but hauled the man up and shoved him away out toward the plaza. The man fell, rolled, and bolted off through the crowd.

“A thief, Sister?” one of the men from the market asked.

A small, somewhat bemused crowd had gathered. Parts of Duvalpore could be rough going after dark, but not here, in the Temple City and at the very base of the Marai. And a Koshan nun should be safe anywhere. These people would find it difficult to believe that a Koshan could be attacked in their own city; even if they had seen the man about to deliver a blow obviously intended to be fatal, they might discount the evidence of their own eyes. Maskelle said, “Yes, a thief.”

With narrowed eyes Rian watched the man run away. “You have a lot of enemies here,” he commented.

“Well, yes,” she admitted.

The crowd, seeing that nothing else seemed likely to occur, began to go back to their business. Rian said, “They were quick to find you, unless somebody at the post house recognized you and warned them.” He looked at her and added thoughtfully, “Or the temple.”

Maskelle started to deny it, then realized she knew nothing of how the currents of power had shifted in the past years. “Maybe. Maybe not. Did you see where he came from?”

“He was clumsy. I saw him as soon as we got to the causeway. He was waiting on the other side of the wall between the grassy court and the moat.”

Maskelle nodded to herself. If the man had been that close to the Marai, then he couldn’t have been under any kind of influence. It was barely possible to work dark magic within the boundaries of Duvalpore, but the power sink in the Infinite that the Marai formed would overwhelm any lesser force. She turned to go through the market, where the people huddled under the awnings and shades watched them and discussed the matter animatedly as they passed by. That should discourage the man’s friends, if he had any. “Didn’t he see you?”

Rian nodded. “I hung back at the top of the stairs so he’d think we were splitting up. He was anxious and went for you right away instead of waiting to be sure.” He rolled his shoulders, shedding tension like water. “That he came for you here means they don’t know where we’re camped. If we’re lucky they won’t have a chance to follow us back, but don’t count on it.”

“Oh.”
Well, you could have told me he was there
. It didn’t appear to have been any of her business. Rian was drawing more attention now; it wasn’t usual to see a nun with a guard attending her, especially one who was obviously from the outer provinces. It occurred to her that she might have stopped and thought a moment about the logistics of having a Sitanese
kjardin
who was also her lover. She hadn’t asked for the guard, but she had wanted the lover. Or maybe she had just wanted a friend.
No, let’s be honest. I definitely wanted him as a lover
. Everything else seemed to have come with the territory.
If I had stopped and thought, I’d still be here in Duvalpore, in the same circumstances, but with a nice lump on my head and lonely into the bargain
.

* * *

They reached the posting house to find that the Ariaden were already giving a performance. Inhabitants of Duvalpore typically went to ground during the hard rains of this season, but the travellers in the post house hadn’t learned that kind of resignation. Walking up on their camp, Maskelle saw the wagons had been arranged in a semicircle and they had taken the giant oilcloth that could be draped on posts to form a mountain backdrop and stretched it from the top of Rastim’s wagon to Firac’s. Under this shelter, a small group of travellers and their children crouched on the muddy ground watching Gardick, Therasa, and Doria doing an abbreviated version of an Ariaden comedy play. Lamps hanging from the wagons made it an almost cheerful scene.

Rastim was sitting on the tail board of his wagon, watching the performance with a self-satisfied expression. As Maskelle made her way over to him, he said, low-voiced, “This is a good place for theater. We only passed the word within the compound, and look how many people came, even with the rain.”

Maskelle sat next to him. It wasn’t dry, but the oilcloth deflected the worst of it. “That’s good, because the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon.”

Rian, leaning against the wagon and surveying the camp, muttered darkly to himself in Sitanese. Rastim gave him an annoyed look. On the makeshift stage Gardick was making an elaborate pantomime of pretending to sneak up on Therasa, who was doing the same to Doria. The audience laughed appreciatively. Rastim asked, “How do we approach the chief priest about—” he lowered his voice cautiously “—the curse?”

Gisar had been quiet since the Illsat Keo and wouldn’t have any opportunity to make trouble within the city boundary. Maskelle had been planning to draft Rastim and maybe Firac to help haul the cursed puppet to the Marai tomorrow to get the Ariaden’s problem taken care of. She started to say this, but caught sight of indigo silk, visible even through the drizzle and mist, coming in through the gate of the post compound. It was a large palanquin. Rian had seen it too, and gave her a worried glance. She said, “No, blue means it’s from the temples.”