“Yes,” Ashe said shortly.
“All right then.” He pulled Grunthor aside to confer with him.
“Back in Ylorc is a woman named Theophila, from a tribe of nomadic artisans known as the Panjeri. She has access to the forge and is to be given anything she needs for her work on the Lightcatcher. She also has a temper. Don’t anger her—I’ve searched for the last year and a half to find her.”
Grunthor eyed him doubtfully. “Yes, sir.”
“Travel well,” Achmed said. “I’ll bring Rockslide back when I return.”
The Bolg Sergeant shook his head. “Bring back the Duchess, sir. Don’t get lost in the blood rage or the fact that it’s Michael, and forget who we’re really missin’ ’ere.”
Achmed and Ashe were already gone.
“If there is nothing else, m’lord, I will be going back to the Chancery now,” Nielash Mousa said to the new regent, bowing slightly with deference.
Talquist looked up from the heavy mahogany table and smiled from among the depths of the sheaves of papers. His swarthy face glowed in the dusky light of afternoon, which was darkening outside the window in the advent of a coming rainstorm.
“No, nothing in the world, Your Grace,” he said warmly. “I think all is well on its way to normalcy again. Thank you for everything you have done to facilitate this transition.”
The exhausted benison smiled as well. “It has been my pleasure. Please send for me if you have any need, m’lord.”
“I shall. Now go home and get some rest. What I need is you hale and healthy, and you won’t be if you don’t look after yourself.”
“Very well. Good evening,” said the Blesser of Sorbold, bowing slightly again. He turned and followed his retinue from the enormous library.
Talquist watched him go, then returned to his papers.
After a few moments, a man slipped in through the open double doors, closing them quietly behind him.
The regent looked up, amusement in his eyes. He reached for the Canderian brandy that was breathing in the open crystal decanter on the table next to his paperwork and pointed to an empty glass. The man shook his head, declining the drink.
“I suppose I should actually have said those words to you,” Talquist said, refilling his own glass. “Thank you for everything you have done to facilitate this transition.”
Lasarys blinked nervously, his eyes unused to the light.
“You are welcome, sire,” he stammered.
“You seem fretful, Lasarys. Why?”
The sexton tried to meet the dark eyes of the regent, but found it too draining. “I—am merely tired, m’lord. It has been a difficult few weeks.”
“Ah. I see.” Talquist sat back and crossed his hands over her stomach. “No doubt you have had to follow the benison about, tending to the guests of state—are they all gone now?”
“Yes, m’lord. The Diviner left this morning.”
Talquist glanced out the window to the courtyard below, where the column of the late empress was running drills.
“Indeed. He and I were up quite late in discussions with Beliac. So you are now relieved of your duties as host, Lasarys. You may return to your dark hole within Night Mountain and tend to your beloved cathedral. The Living Stone you harvested from it for me was invaluable in achieving my ends; thank you.”
The sexton looked ill. Talquist did not look at him.
“What is the matter, Lasarys? Are you having second thoughts? It’s a bit late, wouldn’t you say?”
“N—no, m’lord, no second thoughts,” the sexton said quickly, wringing his hands.
Talquist rose and came to him then, laying his heavy hands on the trembling priest’s shoulders.
“I know you love that dark cathedral as if it were your own mother,” the regent said softly, his voice caressing every syllable. “And that whittling off even the smallest of pieces of animate clay was like cutting off your own mother’s breast. You don’t have to make excuses, Lasarys; I know your heart. I learned much about you when I was your acolyte. And I wish that I could promise you that it was the last time you should ever have to endure such a thing, but there is no need to lie now. I am emperor; or will be in a year’s time.” He patted the priest’s cheek. “Now go back to Terreanfor, and tend to it as lovingly as you always do. While you are skulking about in the dark, begin looking for other places from which to harvest. It’s better to begin secreting it away now, rather than have to kill one of the Living Stone trees, or the elephants! Ah, how I love those elephants, those dark, glowering monsters. Let us spare them until the very end, shall we?”
The sexton nodded, unable to speak coherently.
Talquist smiled. “Good. Summer is high, but it will end in time. The earth will go dormant, life settling underground to hide, hibernate, as we hide and hibernate. But in spring, Lasarys! Ah, spring.”
He strolled onto the balcony, whistling merrily.
38
Omet was up all night, working feverishly. Shadows leapt madly across the rough stone walls of his chamber within the second wing of the guard barracks; Omet had always preferred living among the soldiers to sharing a guest quarter with Shaene, mostly because, in addition to snoring and having a penchant for the petty, Shaene was a hired artisan, temporarily housed in Ylorc for the duration of the stained-glass project. Omet had every intention of staying here.
Somewhere in those mountains greatness is taking hold, Rhapsody had said to him three years ago when they parted at the border of Yarim and Ylorc, following his rescue from the guildmistress’s foundry. You can be apart of it. Go carve your name into the ageless rock for history to see. From that moment he had been inspired to, in fact, do just that, rather remarkable given that a few days before he could not imagine his future past the next turn of the day, the next in an never-ending cycle of watching the ovens and kilns.
And it was coming to pass. The Bolg had made him at home, as much as they were able, had taken him in as one of them, not as a distrusted stranger; he knew the rarity of his good fortune, and understood what made a half-Linn woman like Rhapsody, so utterly out of place in the rough land of cannibalistic demi-humans, love the place and the people as much as she did her own race in Tyrian.
He had the same unquenchable desire to spare the place, and its king, from whatever destruction Esten was planning. That desire fought with another strong urge.
The urge to run as fast and as far as he could away from the Cauldron and never look back.
But even as the rushes of panic swept through his blood, he knew there was no wisdom in flight.
After all, sooner or later, everything made its way to Esten.
He had taken one risk, however. In between stretches of drawing, to rest his hand, he had jotted careful notes, written in a bad combination of phonetically spelled Bolgish and the common tongue when necessary, detailing what he had seen the guildmistress do in the king’s absence, as well as recording his own actions, and the place in which he had hidden the original drawings.
More of Rhapsody’s words came back to him now as he sweated in the light of the lantern, copying and blotting, copying and blotting.
Don’t limit the uses of your skill and imagination. I believe that you could become one of the great artisans of the Rebuilding.
Omet held the parchment he had been working on since leaving Gurgus up to the lanternlight. He chuckled at the irony of what she had said.