The tone of her voice was melodic and clear, her face set in a straight, emotionless expression. Ashe smiled. She was using her Namer’s ability of True-Speaking to address the boisterous rabble, and it was working well; the crowd appeared bespelled, settling down into tranquillity, lulled by the music and the innate beauty of the fire that burned within her.
The musicality of Rhapsody’s voice changed; she was weaving a suggestion into her True-Speech.
“Return to your homes, or your labors. If the Fountain Rock awakens, you will not miss it. But your carts stand empty, your ovens cold, your houses unattended, while you wait here for something that may be a long time in coming.”
The crowd stood for another moment, absorbing the magic in her words, then quietly began to disperse.
Rhapsody climbed down from the tiny stone wall and took Grunthor’s arm.
“Return with us to the Judiciary,” she said fondly, smiling up at her friend. “The duke will make certain that the very best his kitchen has to offer will be prepared for your supper—and I do not mean any of the scullery workers.”
“Awwww.” The giant caught sight of the duke’s face out of the corner of his eye, and broke into a wide grin. “Why, that’d be lovely, Duchess. Maybe ’e’ll even give me a lit’le tour o’ the place.”
In the front of the crowd, standing close to the rope corridor, a woman in the flowing, pale blue robes of a Shanouin priestess had been standing, watching every movement of the Bolg as they packed up their gear and made ready the wagons for leaving. While others around her had peeled off and joined in good-natured merrymaking, she had remained at the front of the line, struggling to see owing to her slight stature.
When the rysin-steel bit was brought forth and wrapped for its journey, she moved closer, forcing her way between two of the Yarimese guards for a better look. The guards, ordered by law to protect the Shanouin, glared at her but did not sweep her back into the crowd as they might have someone who was not a water priestess.
When the Bolg finally departed, she, along with most of the onlookers, followed them to the outskirts of the town, watching until they were out of sight. But when the other townspeople returned to the square to be addressed by the duke, she had continued on, to the rocky outer reaches of Yarim Paar, staring after the wagons and horses until they were swallowed by the distant horizon.
She reached into the folds of her robe, and pulled forth the cwellan disk; it caught the light of the sun overhead and flashed like a beacon.
She held it up to her bright, black eyes for a moment longer, then slipped it back into her slightly long robes.
Then she herself slipped back into the pleasant mayhem that was erupting as the town let go of its breath with the exit of the Bolg in the red streets of Yarim.
16
The evening lamps had been doused; the nightly cones of pungent incense and balms of sweet sandalwood were burning down to ash in their golden receptacles lining the hallways outside the cavernous bedchamber of the Dowager Empress as night crept in, silent, on a warm, moist breeze. The heavy silk damask curtains at the open window crackled slightly with its passing.
Within the opulent chamber Her Serenity, Leitha, Dowager Empress, daughter of Verlitz, the Fourth Emperor of the Dark Earth, was watching the night sky from the silken pillows of her mammoth bed as she was accustomed to do each evening. The full moon cast an illumination as bright as midday against a gray sky filled with visible clouds and scattered stars beyond the burning moonlight; it was a strange sight, magnificent in its clarity.
Outside the bedchamber, the palace servants moved quietly in the completion of their daily tasks: spiriting away the empress’s gowns for cleansing and pressing; discarding the still-fresh flowers in dozens of porcelain vases which would, in the morning, be graced with another crop of blooms; removing the trays containing the remains of the empress’s nightly bedtime repast—for a tiny, shrunken woman who weighed no more than a feather, the empress had an appetite that would shame a sailor or a gladiator—and sweeping the desert sand from the thick, densely woven carpets and tapestries that lined the high corridor walls. Several halls away, a string quartet played a sweet concerto, muted enough to spare the empress any disturbance while lulling her to sleep.
Despite the care the servants took in moving quietly, the empress could hear them. It was the curse of her dominion; the palace of Jierna Tal, with its high towers and thick ramparts, bulwarks and fortifications, had been so long under her rule, and the rule of generations of ancestors who handed the crown down to her, that it was part of her consciousness, just as everything that took place in the realm of Sorbold was. Indeed, she was even distantly aware of the changing of the watch, the entire column of soldiers whose sole duty was to guard her stronghold from the slightest disturbance. She sighed in annoyance and pulled the gleaming coverlet up around her wrinkled neck.
“Good evening, Your Serenity. I trust you are resting well.”
The voice, crisp and distinct, came from the darkness itself.
The empress sat up starkly, or tried to. Instead of her normal ease of movement, she found herself unable to do anything but straighten her back. Her arms lay, useless, at her sides, her hands, spotted and gnarled with age, motionless on the smooth edge of the thick coverlet. She opened her mouth to speak, but her jaw was clenched, rigid, unable to open.
At tiny glimmer of violet radiance caught her eye near the window, swallowed a moment later by the darkness.
In the shadows a figure of a man appeared, silhouetted against the bright light of the full moon. The empress could not distinguish his face at first; it was the same heavy-featured, bearded, swarthy face that most of her subjects possessed, but the eyes within it shone with an incandescence she had never seen before. Internally, she felt a tumbling rush of cold, though her body did not tremble or quake, but merely lay as still as death.
The figure approached her bedstead, pausing for a moment to examine the heavily carved mahogany bedposts, then came forward and sat down on the feather mattress beside her. His body made no impression in the plumped coverlet; it was as if he had no mass, no weight, at all.
The man leaned forward and gently tucked the coverlet around the empress, taking great care in folding the silken sheets under her motionless arms. Then he sat back and cocked his head to one side, observing her with interest, as though she were an objet d’art or an interesting exhibit in a menagerie. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, and warm as the desert wind.
“In case you are interested, the bells you will hear shortly will be summoning the royal healers to the bedside of your useless son, the late Crown Prince.”
The eyes of the empress snapped open wide, the only movement still under her control.
The shadow man chuckled quietly.
“Yes, it’s true, your fair-haired, pasty-skinned boy is gone. But do not despair; you will be following him imminently into the Vault of the Underworld, so there will be no need to pretend to mourn him. I know you despise him every bit as much as the rest of the population of Sorbold does.” The empress blinked rapidly, her breath shallow and rasping. The figure moved, slightly, catching a ray of moonlight from the balcony window; backlit thus, the empress saw that he was filmy, the colors of his robe gleaming as the moonlight passed through them, through his skin, his hair, his face.
Now she recognized him.
Her heart pounded painfully, thudding loud in her chest and ears. The filmy man noted her panic and genially patted her rigid hand. “Calm yourself, Empress. This is to be a momentous experience for both of us. Your son—now, that was truly regrettable and unimpressive; I took his birthright from him, his scanty authority and lore, without a whisper of struggle; he was as disappointing in death as he was in life. But you, Leitha—if I may address you thus—you are a lioness, aren’t you? Your squamous claw here has held back Time itself, when death should have come for your decades ago. By sheer will you have clung to the throne of Sorbold, and life, in a magnificent show of spirit. I look forward to its testing!”