Qahuar Em.
Cithrin forced herself to walk forward. She sat across from him. A loose shutter clapped against its frame twice and went quiet. The man’s expression was mild and rueful. A half-empty tankard of ale rested on the table.
“Good evening.”
She didn’t answer. He clicked his tongue against his teeth.
“I was hoping I might offer you a meal, a bottle of wine. An apology. It was unkind of the governor to bring you in that way.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she said.
“Cithrin—”
“I don’t want sight or sound of you ever again for as long as I live,” she said, each word cool and sharp and deliberate. “And if you come near me, I will ask my captain of guard to kill you. And he’d do it.”
Qahuar’s expression hardened.
“I see. I admit I am disappointed, Magistra. I’d thought better of you.”
“You’d thought better of me?”
“Yes. I hadn’t imagined you the sort of woman to throw tantrums. But clearly I’ve misjudged. I would remind you that you were the one who put yourself in my bed. You are the one who crept through my halls. It’s mean and small of you to blame me for anticipating it.”
You don’t know what this was, Cithrin thought. You don’t know what it meant for me. They’re going to take away my bank.
Qahuar stood and placed three small coins on the table to pay the taproom. The light caught the roughness of his bronze skin, making him look older. This summer was her eighteenth solstice. It was his thirty-fifth.
“We’re traders, Magistra,” he said. “I very much apologize that the delivery of the news was unpleasant, but I cannot be sorry that I can take this agreement to my clan elders. I hope you have a more pleasant evening.”
He pushed back the bench, wood rasping against the stone floor, and stepped around her.
“Qahuar,” she said sharply.
He paused. She gathered herself. The words were cast in lead, almost too heavy to pull up her throat.
“I’m sorry I betrayed you,” she said. “Tried to betray you.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s the game we play.”
Some time later, the taproom’s servant came, took up the coins, and cleared away Qahuar Em’s drink. Cithrin looked up at her.
“Your usual?”
Cithrin shook her head. Everything from her throat down to her belly felt solid as stone. She lifted her hand, surprised to find her soft cap still there. She pulled it off, let down her hair, and held the silver-and-lapis pin up. It seemed almost to glow with its own light in the gloom. The servant girl blinked at it.
“That’s very beautiful,” she said.
“Take it,” Cithrin said. “Bring me what you think it’s worth.”
“Magistra?”
“Fortified wine. Farmer’s beer. I don’t care. Just bring it.”
Geder
The high priest—Basrahip or possibly the Basrahip, it was hard to tell—leaned back on his leather-and-iron stool. His thick, powerful fingers rubbed at his forehead. Around them, the candles flickered and hissed, their smoke filling the room with the smell of burning fat. Geder licked his lips.
“My first tutor was a Tralgu,” he said.
Basrahip pursed his lips, considered Geder, and shook his wide head. No. Geder swallowed his delight and tried again.
“I learned to swim at the seashore.”
The broad head shook slowly. No.
“I had a favorite dog when I was young. A hunting beast named Mo.”
The high priest’s smile was beatific. His teeth seemed almost unnaturally wide. He pointed a thick finger at Geder’s chest.
“Yes,” he said.
Geder clapped his hands and laughed. It wasn’t the first time the high priest had made the demonstration, but it was always a source of amazement. No matter what the lie, no matter what voice Geder told it in, how he held his body or changed the pitch of his voice, the huge man knew which words were false and which true. He never guessed incorrectly.
“And it’s really a goddess that lets you do this?” Geder said. “Because I never came across a reference to that. The Righteous Servant was supposed to have been something Morade created, like the thirteen races and the dragon’s roads.”
“No. We were here before the dragons. When the great web was strung and the stars hung upon it, the goddess was present. The Sinir Kushku is her gift to the faithful. When the great collapse came, the dragons were fearful of her power. They fought against each other, each wishing the friendship and patronage of the Sinir Kushku for himself. The great Morade pretended an alliance, but the goddess knew when treachery came into his heart. She guided us here, where we might be safe, far from the world and its struggles, to wait until the time came for our return.”
“This is totally unlike any account I ever read,” Geder said.
“Do you doubt me?” Basrahip asked, his voice low and gentle and with the strange throbbing that seemed to inflect all his speech.
“Not at all,” Geder said. “I’m amazed! A whole era before the dragons? It’s something no one has written about. Not that I’ve ever seen.”
Outside the small stone room, the stars glittered in the sky and the crescent moon lit the cascade of stones. In the darkness, Geder could almost imagine the great stone dragon above the temple wall moving, turning its head. The odd green crickets that infested the temple sang in shuddering chorus. Geder wrapped his arms around his legs, grinning.
“I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I found this place,” Geder said.
“You are an honored man of a great nation,” the high priest said. “I am pleased that you have come so far to find our humble temple.”
Geder waved the comment away, embarrassed. It had taken the better part of a day to explain that, while he was nobility, prince was a particular title where he came from, and couldn’t be applied so widely. He’d spent most of his life being called lord and my lord, and even though it meant the same thing, honored man of a great nation left him self-conscious.
Basrahip rose and stretched as, in the distance, a harsh voice screeched out the call to night prayer. Gerder expected Basrahip to make his excuses and hurry out to lead the priests in their rituals. Instead, he paused in the doorway, candles casting shadows over his eyes.
“Tell me, Lord Geder. What was it you most hoped to find here?”
“Well, I wanted to see if I could find the Sinir mountains and some source material about the Righteous Servant for a speculative essay I’m drafting up.”
“This is what you most hoped to find?”
“Yes,” Geder said. “It is.”
“And now that you have found it, it will be enough?”
“Of course,” Geder said.
The big man’s gaze locked on him, and Geder felt a blush rising in his neck and cheeks. Basrahip waited for what seemed half a day, then shook his head.
“No,” he said gently. “No, there is something else.”
The days since Geder’s arrival at the temple had been astounding and rich and unnerving as a dream. For two full days from morning until nightfall, he had stood in the great court between the temple itself and the gated wall. A dozen pale-robed priests with long hair and full beards sat around him as he drew maps and tried to summarize centuries of history. Often when they asked questions of him, he had to admit his ignorance. How had the borders of Asterilhold and Northcoast been set? Who claimed the islands south of Birancour and west of Lyoneia? Why were the Firstblood centered in Antea, the Cinnae in Princip C’Annaldé, and the Timzinae in Elassae when Tralgu and Dartinae had no particular homeland? Why were the Timzinae called bugs, the Kurtadam clickers, and the Jasuru pennies? What names were the Firstblood known by, and by whom were they hated?