Before they reached the thin pools of light escaping the high, arched windows of the palace, Adham said quietly, “Watch your step and your back. This city is cursed, every bit as much as Fortress El’hadar. We are not guests here, but prisoners.”
Chapter 15
We are not guests here, but prisoners….
Days had passed since Adham spoke those words, and each new dawn stole away a little more of their grim portent. Armala was indeed a city built of black stone, but during the day, when sweltering under the hot sun, or dripping after one of the rain showers that soaked all with fleeting ferocity, those stones were, in the end, simply dark by the nature of their creation. And though many of the city’s monuments and fountains were terrible to look upon, they were only small blights.
While Adham stayed on edge, always casting about with a mistrustful glare, Leitos and the others settled in. Sumahn and Ulmek seemed to forgive Ba’Sel’s order to surrender their weapons, and so did the rest of the Brothers. Those were not the only changes.
While hesitant at first, everyone soon accepted Adu’lin’s offers of Fauthian delicacies. Of the copious amounts Fauthian fruit wine, only Leitos and Adham abstained. For Leitos, the sickly-sweet drink curdled in his gut, where Adham refused to imbibe any spirits other than jagdah-the only liquor, he insisted, potent enough for those of Izutarian blood.
When not feasting, all the Brothers save Ulmek and Ba’Sel luxuriated in the palace’s large, colonnaded bathhouse, fed by hot springs that bubbled up from deep under the city. After much cajoling, Adham and Leitos joined them, learning why the Brothers had taken to bathing three and four times in a single day.
“It is not cleanliness these fools seek,” Adham growled, hastily toweling himself off.
Leitos followed his father’s gaze, and nearly swallowed his tongue.
At one end of the bathhouse, a train of Fauthian women, clad in diaphanous silks of every bright hue, swept through an archway. When all had gathered round the edge of the bath, some of them pressed wooden flutes to their lips and struck up a trilling melody. The bathing Brothers began clapping a slow beat, to which the rest of the women danced. It was a dance, Leitos noted with shock, that involved shedding a strip of silk every few twirling steps.
Like Fauthian men, the women were tall. Where the men were given to gangly builds, Fauthian women were sleek of limb, and generously rounded at hip and breast. And to the last, each was breathtakingly beautiful, with cascading waves of red-gold hair falling to their waists. Seeing them that way, naked and smiling playfully, brought a pang to Leitos’s heart.
When he had been on the run from the changelings Sandros and Pathil, Zera had taken him to a secret cavern in the desert. There had been a pool there, as well, but cold and deep. She had worn the same kind of mischievous look as the Fauthian women did now, putting him terribly out of sorts. Though nothing had happened between them, afterward she had promised never to try and seduce him again. She had named them friends, but he had loved her as much then as he did now.
“Time to go,” Adham ordered, snatching Leitos out of the steaming pool, and then heaping his clothing into his arms.
“Where are you off to, little brother?” Daris hooted.
Juggling his boots and robes, Leitos waved awkwardly. The Brothers looked his way just long enough to shout a few good-natured taunts, then returned their attention to the giggling women, who by now had doffed all their silks in favor of throwing themselves into the bath and the eager arms of the Brothers.
In a chamber beyond the muggy confines, Adham paused long enough for Leitos to get dressed-a tricky affair, since he was still wet. After that, they strolled outside into the heat of the day. Only when Leitos noticed that they were heading toward the main gate in the palace wall, did he speak.
“We should turn around, go back to our quarters. I’m sure Ulmek and Ba’Sel are in the gathering hall. Maybe we could get something to eat-”
“I’m finished with gathering halls and rich food, and all this accursed Fauthian friendliness,” Adham snarled. When he caught Leitos eyeing him uncertainly, he halted and shook his head. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. But there is something wrong here. I have felt it in my bones since the night we arrived. Gods good and wise, I felt it the moment those snaky yellow bastards crept from the forest, and all but begged to lay hands on Ke’uld.”
Leitos did not know what to say to that. He did not overly trust the Fauthians, but other than Adu’lin’s occasional lingering looks and sly smiles, none of them had done anything to make him as uneasy as his father was.
Two guards came together on the wall walk arching over the open gate. When the pair glanced down, Adham spun Leitos in the other direction. Once they were well out of earshot, he said, “The time has come to search this city.”
“Are you sure that is a good idea?”
“Has Adu’lin denied us the chance?”
Leitos thought about it. “No, not exactly. But more than once I have gotten the impression that we ought to keep to the palace grounds … for our safety from the Yatoans. Besides, how would we get past the guards?”
“If these guards are any indication, the Yatoans are not the frightful warriors Adu’lin claims.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you feared an attack at any moment, would you spend so much time watching the palace grounds, or would you look to the streets beyond, in the direction that the enemy would come?”
Instead of answering, Leitos cast an eye over the grounds. Wherever a guard walked, he looked inward, not out. They did not behave like men in fear of anything. Truth told, they seemed bored to the point of collapse. Here and there, he actually saw a guard slouched against his grounded spear or halberd, apparently napping.
“And if we get past the guards,” Leitos said cautiously, not wanting to encourage his father into doing something rash, “what do you expect us to find?”
Adham peered under his brows, his eyes hard and gray as old ice. “Not us-you. I do not have your skills. If I leave, it will be behind my sword. So far, things have not yet gotten so bad as that. At least, I hope not.”
Leitos did not like where this was going, but at the same time, the idea of sneaking through the city, hunting for answers to unknown questions, filled him with a sense of purpose he had not known he missed. “I’ll do it. But again, what am I searching for?”
Adham sighed. “That, my boy, I do not know. Something, anything, that tells us who these Fauthians really are.”
“You mean, other than who they say they are?”
“Exactly. Adu’lin is hiding something, and I want to know what. We need something to give to Ba’Sel and Ulmek … something that will pull their heads out of that disgusting fruit wine long enough to see reason.”
And if I find nothing? Leitos resisted speaking that question aloud. A part of him truly did not want to find anything against the Fauthians. It would be a pleasant change if a stranger did not prove to be an enemy in league with the Faceless One.
“Here,” Adham said gruffly, pressing a sheathed dagger into his son’s hand. It was a Kelren blade, but a weapon just the same.
“Why do you still have-” Leitos began, but Adham cut him off.
“We Izutarians learned, long before the Faceless One rose to power, that giving over your sword to a ruler hastens a man’s journey to the grave.”
Leitos tucked it into his belt. “But now you are unarmed.”
“Never, my son.” Adham drew back the edge of his robe to show the hilt of another Kelren blade. With a last word of caution, Adham stalked away.
Getting free of the palace grounds proved as easy as Adham had suggested, a simple matter of waiting for the footfalls of a guard to fade in the distance, and then slipping through the open gate and making for the nearest crop of shadows.