Wheel of the Infinite (4 page)

“Could this be the result of your curse?” the priest asked.

Maskelle lifted a brow, but she found the bluntness rather refreshing. “A dark power, following in my wake, you mean? It’s possible. When did it happen?”

“Six days ago.”

She shook her head, a little surprised. “I wasn’t in this province yet. We’ve been travelling hard.”

He turned away, the shadows falling over the monstrosity in the rock as the lamp was withdrawn.

Maskelle followed him out into the relatively fresh air of the court, where the other priests still waited outside. One of them must have realized she wasn’t just an ordinary, albeit eccentric, Voice travelling the Great Road and told his fellows; the tension emanating from them was palpable now. The lead priest stopped and eyed her narrowly. He said, “When I saw you, I had hoped for an easy answer.”

She resisted the impulse to say something philosophical about easy answers. She didn’t suppose him to have any more patience with such platitudes than she did. Instead, she said, “If it’s an omen, it’s a frightening one. I’ll tell the Celestial One of it when I see him.”

“If it is a dark power . . .”

It would be simpler if it was a byproduct of her curse, a wandering dark power that corrupted whatever it touched, following in her wake. “If it’s a dark power, I’ll deal with it. I haven’t been with the Adversary for seven years, but He does take care of His own.”

There was a stifled noise of shock and fear from one of the other priests. The lead priest glanced back at them, frowning. He turned back to her, and she could see him recalling what she was, despite everything. He hesitated, then said, “I offer you our hospitality . . . The guesthouse . . .”

His companions were badly startled, but evidently their fear of her was still an abstraction, whereas their fear of him was firmly founded, and they made no open protest. She smiled, badly tempted, and she knew she hadn’t quite left the desire to cause chaos behind. She shook her head. “No, we both know how that would end.”

He misunderstood and his grey eyes turned angry. Maskelle sighed. She had forgotten what it was like to deal with the young of the well-born. She said, gently, “You can stand bond for everyone in your temple, but you aren’t their conscience, and I don’t have the time to waste in fighting.”

He still watched her grimly, no sign of any bend in that stiff spine. Then he stepped back and gave her a full sixth-degree bow, only one degree less than the rank actually due her. He turned away and his retinue followed with less grace, one of them sneaking her an abbreviated bow behind the backs of the others.

Maskelle walked slowly through the dark, back to the wagons where Rastim and Old Mali waited for her by the fire. Rastim let out his breath in relief when he saw her and Old Mali grunted in eloquent comment. “Trouble?” Rastim asked her.

She nodded and leaned her cheek against the staff. Trouble. She had known it would happen, but perhaps she hadn’t thought it would be so soon.
Maybe I am too old for this
, she thought.
Too old for war, too mean-tempered for peace
.

“Should we move on tonight?” Rastim sounded worried.

Maskelle looked around. A few other members of the troupe had broken cover. Firac with his two young sons, who worked the apparatus on the largest of the puppets, and Therasa and Doria, who played the speaking women’s parts. The travel had been difficult and their oxen weren’t in the best of shape. She shook her head. “No, we’ll stay the night.”

Despite her assurances to Rastim that all would be well, Maskelle had sat up the rest of the night on watch. The priest of the Sare had kept his word. Nothing had disturbed the peace of the plain, or the serenity of the temple.

From the time Maskelle had been a young initiate she had been used to sleepless nights. The Year Rites could last for days, and once the Wheel of the Infinite was constructed it had to be guarded, until it could be dispersed into wind and water to strengthen the supports of the universe.

Now she sat on the wagon seat next to Old Mali, thinking of the upcoming Hundred Year Rite. The sky was overcast and a slight breeze stirred the thick vegetation on the edge of the jungle to either side of the wide road. The damp air clung to her skin and she felt badly in need of a bath. The universe didn’t seem in any great need of support, but perhaps she wasn’t as attuned to it as she used to be. She couldn’t tell if the uneasiness she felt was inside or outside of herself.
You are getting old. Your soul wasn’t so divided in your youth
, a nagging voice said.
Yes
, she told it ruefully,
much easier to do damage with a whole soul
.

This stretch of the Great Road, leading deeper into the well-occupied outskirts of Duvalpore, was fairly safe from bandits and they weren’t alone on it. A large wagontrain of merchants was only a few hundred yards ahead of them, and single wagons or small groups of travellers had passed them several times throughout the morning. They were moving into the country where what had been brackish swamplands had been drained and brought back to life by freshwater canals to make the rice-growing land that supported the capital. Duvalpore was a city of water: canals, barays, moats, all necessary to support life during the dry season. It still surprised her how much she was looking forward to seeing it again.

Old Mali elbowed her in the side, and Maskelle said, “I know, I know. I saw him an hour ago.” Of course, he was closer this time, standing next to the milestone near a stand of rain trees, looking up the road.

The swordsman had been pacing them all morning, just in the shadow of the jungle. He had stayed near their wagons all night, a silent companion to Maskelle’s lonely vigil. He hadn’t slept either, and he hadn’t tried to approach her, though she felt reasonably certain he had been conscious of her presence. He had kept moving most of the night, perhaps to keep himself awake, making a wide circuit around their camp almost as if he was on watch too. Near dawn she had watched him strip and wash in the temple’s baray, an act of irreverence that would have shocked the priests and that Maskelle regarded with wry amusement. Or maybe her reaction to it was what she found amusing. The Court would consider her past all that, but obviously her body still thought she was twenty.

Old Mali made a lewd noise and Maskelle became aware she was staring. She eyed the old woman sardonically. “Don’t be disgusting. I’m a priestess, remember?” This sent Old Mali into such paroxysms of laughter Maskelle had to pound the old woman on the back before she choked.

The rain didn’t return, except for a misting drizzle in the late morning, making Maskelle wonder how this luck was to be paid for later.

In the late afternoon the Great Road met the Great Canal, which it would parallel for the rest of the way into Duvalpore. The jungle gave way to a plantation of large-leafed breadfruit trees, papaya and banana, and a large outpost with two- and three-storied wooden buildings that went up to the bank of the canal and extended over it to the other side. Maskelle stood up on the wagon seat and shaded her eyes. There was a large passenger barge moored to the pilings and several smaller trading or fishing boats bobbed on the still-swollen waters. It wasn’t as bad as the untamed upper river, but it still didn’t look good, and many of the boats were obviously waiting until the water level dropped.

There were many signs of normal activity: boatmen lounging on the steps to the canal near the crates and barrels of offloaded cargo, boys and girls on the bridges under the outpost checking the fish traps, and a large group of colorfully dressed people sitting down to a meal on one of the balconies overhanging the water. The merchants’ wagons that had been ahead of them all day had drawn up on the trampled ground near the outpost, and there were several light, fast-travelling wagons there also, including one bearing the symbol of the Imperial Mail.

Rastim jumped down from his wagon and came back to consult with her. “This looks all right, hey?” he said hopefully.

She hesitated. She had wanted to press on to the temple of Illsat Keo, which was within the city’s outermost boundary, but it was a few more hours of travel at least. Over the years she had grown used to avoiding people; she had no intention of delivering any innocent bystanders to her curse, and she knew the Illsat Keo was safe from that. But the Ariaden needed to make their living, and to them this post would look far more like the beginning of civilization than the temple on the Sare. People and travellers meant possible audiences, and therefore money. If they pressed on, they might have to camp on the road.

As she was considering this, a wagon pulled by two steaming oxen trundled out of a narrow track between the trees, loaded down with several happily shouting children, an aged farmer, and a large load of taro. She swore under her breath. She had forgotten how populated this area was. There was no avoiding people now; there would be small farms and larger plantations everywhere along the road. She nodded resignedly. “It’ll do.”

They drew the wagons up in a clear spot just far enough away not to encroach on the territory already staked out by the merchants, and Rastim and Firac went in to conduct negotiations. Maskelle tried to help Old Mali unharness the wagon, got cursed at for her pains, and left the old woman to it in disgust. She went to sit on one of the fallen logs above the water steps, not quite sure where this feeling of impatient distraction had come from.

A few of the boatmen came up to get her blessing on their keel-tokens and she gave it, since her blessing was still worth what it was worth, even though it wasn’t currently sanctioned by the temples. The sky had lightened, but the canal water was a dull brown, the current fast-moving, and branches and other debris were catching in the fish traps and around the pilings. Something drew her eyes to an old barge pulled up on the bank of the canal for a repair to its aging hull. There was someone stretched out asleep on the flat roof of the cabin. Not exactly an unusual sight; there were plenty of boatmen doing the same on their beached craft or in the shelter of the pilings. Then she recognized him and she realized what she had been looking for.

He had disappeared earlier that day and she had admitted to none of the initial disappointment, growing irritation, and progressive worry she had felt throughout the afternoon. She shook her head at herself. Obviously he must have taken the direct way through the trees when the road curved, beating them here.

She wasn’t sure where this sudden obsession had come from. He was just following them because they were going the same way and were indisposed to interfere with him; he had already discovered the perils of travelling alone.

Maskelle looked up, frowning, as Rastim and Firac came down the steps from the post and squelched across the muddy ground toward her. Rastim’s face was stony and Firac was muttering angrily under his breath.

“I take it things didn’t go well,” Maskelle said as they approached.

“There’s a problem,” Firac said grimly.

“What?”

“We can’t afford it.” Rastim folded his arms, looking away at the river.

Maskelle gazed up at the Infinite, begging it for patience. None of the Ariaden had ever been this far into the center of the Empire before. The Temple of the Sare had probably charged next to nothing for the food and fodder they had used, and nothing at all to camp in its protection. The outpost must charge city prices. “You didn’t offer them a show?”

“They don’t want one,” Rastim said stiffly. He had obviously been mortally offended.

“Not just that,” Firac clarified, outraged. “They won’t let us perform for the merchants or these others.” He waved an arm around at the boatmen, now watching curiously, and the other travellers and traders in the compound. “The merchants’ head driver already asked if we were performing tonight—”

“Oh, Ancestors above.” Maskelle stood up. That was enough. Rastim looked startled, then aghast. She ignored him, going around to the front of the post and up the steps to the doorway, her irritation boiling over. Inside she found her way through rooms smelling strongly of fish, lit by smoky lamps or propped-open windows. Firac was all but cheering her on, but Rastim was at her elbow, worriedly muttering, “Your temper, your temper.”

She found the factor in a long room that opened onto one of the balconies, sitting at a table, arguing with traders.

A Koshan nun wasn’t an unusual sight, but the room fell silent when Maskelle entered. She went up to the table and slammed her staff down across the scattering of coins and papers. Everyone stared, gap-jawed with shock. Her eyes on the factor, she said, “Stand up.”

He was a large man, his head half-shaved and the rest of his hair braided, his face plump and good-humored, a temperament belied by the steel in his eyes. He smiled placatingly, and said. “Now, Sister—”

“Revered,” she corrected coldly. She had held the title once and was still due it by the rules of temple precedence.

He hesitated, calculating. She held his eyes. The calculation gave way to uneasiness, and he said, “Revered,” and stood up. Several ranks in the temple were addressed that way, and none of them could be offended with impunity.

She said, “These people are players and can’t afford your extortionate prices for shelter unless they can perform.” Her voice sounded soft and very angry. “Is there any real reason they shouldn’t?”

The factor spread his hands. “No, Revered, but if I let every band of beggars who said they were entertainers—”

That stung Rastim to speech before Maskelle could interrupt. “We’re not beggars,” he said heatedly, stepping forward. “We do Ariaden and classical kiradi theater. We’ve come all the way from Ariad and we haven’t had a chance to perform since Sakili.”

“It was a misunderstanding, Revered,” one of the other men suggested worriedly.

“If the Revered wishes it, then they can perform,” the factor said with a stiff smile.

Maskelle looked at all the anxious expressions and wondered what they were seeing. A heavy silence lay over the room, surely too heavy for a dispute like this. But that was her own conscience behind that thought; they couldn’t know what she was.
Had been
, she reminded herself,
had been
. “The Revered wishes it,” she said, and turned away.

Rastim and Firac’s announcement that they had won the battle and would be able to perform was greeted less than enthusiastically by the rest of the troupe. Gardick swore at them and Therasa pretended to collapse in a dead faint.

Even Firac was hesitant when Rastim wanted to break out the scenery and do a full-scale Ariaden production, maybe
Conquest of the Inland Sea
or
Dawncallers
. Since they had no money to hire extra stagehands, this would have left everyone exhausted and in no condition to travel the next day. Maskelle was alarmed; it was more important that they reach the safety of Duvalpore soon than it was to rub their victory in the post factor’s face. She wished she had realized that before starting the whole thing. But Rastim and Firac were voted down by the others and it was decided that they would do a kiradi comedy of manners, which could be read without scenery or costumes. Knowing Rastim, he would still try to work in a few puppets.

Maskelle would have thought a kiradi comedy a bit too sophisticated for this crowd, except that the merchants who were to be the primary audience turned out to be from Mahlindi.

The Mahlindi had nothing like theater in their native country and it had proved wildly popular with them when they encountered it in other lands. Maskelle had once seen a group of them sit for four hours enraptured by a Ventredi morality play performed in a language that none of them could understand. While they might know nothing of the subtle mores of kiradi noble society that the comedy was drawn from, they were certain to give it all their intelligent attention and appreciate most of the jokes.

The Mahlindi were even willing to pay in advance, a copper coin for every member of their party, including the hired wagon drivers and guards, whether they wanted to see the play or not. This enabled the Ariaden to afford fodder for the oxen and overpriced pork buns and rice for themselves. Old Mali saved them money by buying taro cheaply off the back of a farmer’s wagon, and fled cackling from the factor’s assistants when they came to shout at her for private trading in the post compound. But everyone was in a better humor after a hot meal and almost looking forward to the performance.

At twilight they lit torches around a flattened spot of ground between the merchants’ wagons and theirs. The Mahlindi brought woven mats to protect their brightly patterned robes from the grass and proceeded to arrange themselves in orderly rows without having to be asked. There were only three chief merchants, identifiable by the clan markings on their cheeks and foreheads, but they had each brought at least a dozen apprentices and servants. Their guards and drivers arrived in a grumbling, reluctant group behind them.

Maskelle moved back out of the torchlight, back to the open area between the two wagon camps, where she could see the stage, the front of the outpost, the place on the bank where the boats were drawn up, and the road where it curved past the trees. She sat on the wet grass, feeling the damp seep up through her robes. The life and torchlight around the makeshift stage seemed like an isolated pocket in a night of wild darkness. The wind had risen again, tossing the tops of the trees and sending fast-moving clouds across the moon. The lights in the post were dimmed by shutters and the inhabitants had withdrawn from the balconies.

Rastim walked out to the center of the stage, made the odd Ariaden bow that was the same for everyone, whatever their rank, and the play began. Maskelle gave it only part of her attention; she was listening to the night. She had the growing feeling that it was trying to tell her something.