'And what cures do you have, my lady, for trembling hands?' he asked her.
She laughed and slid her hand over his belly and down. 'I have big cure,' she said. Curling her left arm around his neck, she drew down his head and kissed him. He felt the warmth and sweetness of her tongue upon his. Arousal swept through him.
She pulled away. 'Now look at your hands,' she said. They were no longer trembling. 'Big cure, yes?'
'I can offer no argument there,' he said. 'Where can we go?'
'Nowhere. I have much to do. Shi-sai will be in labour soon, and I have promised to help when the waters break. But if you have trembling hands in the night, you may come to me by the north wall.'
Kissing him once more, she spun away from his embrace and walked from the room. Sieben took a last look at the hospital, then blew out the lantern and made his way to the compound. Some work was still being done in the moonlight, repairing the ramparts beside the crack in the west-facing wall. Elsewhere Nadir warriors were sitting around camp-fires. Druss was talking to Talisman and Bartsai on the ramparts above the gates.
Sieben thought of joining them, but realized he did not want to listen to more talk of battles and death. His mind flickered to Niobe. She was unlike any woman he had ever known. When first he had seen her he had thought her to be mildly attractive — certainly no more than that. Up close, her laughing eyes had made him re-appraise her. Even so she would pale against the beauties who had shared his bed. Yet each time he made love to her it seemed her beauty grew. It was uncanny. All his previous lovers were drab by comparison. As he was thinking, two Nadir warriors approached him. One of them spoke to him in Nadir.
'Sorry, lads,' he said, with a nervous smile. 'I don't understand the language.' The taller of the two, a ferocious-looking man with narrow, malevolent eyes, pointed to his companion and said, 'This one have big pain.'
'Big pain,' echoed Sieben.
'You doctor. Fix it.' Sieben glanced down at the second warrior. The man's face was grey, his eyes sunken and his jaws clenched. 'We go in,' muttered the first man, leading his friend into the new hospital. With a sinking heart Sieben followed them and, re-lighting the lantern, he led them to the table. The small warrior tried to tug off his faded crimson shirt, but groaned as he did so. The taller man dragged the garment clear, and in the flickering light Sieben saw a growth on the man's spine the size of a small apple. The area all around it was red, swollen and angry. 'You cut,' said the taller man.
Sieben indicated that the warrior should lie down on the table; then he reached out and, with great care, touched the swelling. The man stiffened, but made no sound. The lump was rock-hard. 'Fetch the lantern,' Sieben ordered the taller man. The warrior did so, and Sieben peered more closely at the growth. Then taking the sharpest of the knives, he drew in a deep breath. He had no idea what the growth was — it looked like a giant boil, but for all he knew it might be a cancer. What was certain was that he had no choice of action, burdened as he was by the expectations of both men. Touching the point of the knife to the lump, he pressed down hard. Thick yellow pus exploded from the cut, and the skin peeled away as if from a section of rotten fruit. The warrior cried out, the sound strangled and inhuman. Laying aside the knife, Sieben gripped the lump and squeezed it. More pus — this time mixed with blood — oozed from the cut, covering his fingers. The wounded man sighed and relaxed on the table. Sieben moved to a water barrel and filled a wooden bowl, cleaning his hands and wrists. Then he returned to the warrior. Fresh blood was oozing from the three-inch cut and flowing down to the wood of the table. With a wet cloth Sieben cleaned the wound, then ordered the man to sit up while he applied a wedge of cloth to it, strapping it in place with a bandage around the man's waist. The patient spoke in Nadir to his companion; then without another word both men walked from the building.
Sieben sat down. 'Not at all, it was my pleasure,' he said, not loud enough to be heard by the departing warriors.
Once more extinguishing the lantern, he left the building by a side door and found himself standing close to the main entrance to the Shrine. With Niobe otherwise occupied, and with nothing else to do, Sieben pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Something about the place had been nagging at him from the subconscious, but he could not bring it to the surface. His eyes were drawn to the blackened iron plate on the stone coffin. The symbols upon it were Chiatze, part alphabet, part hieroglyph, and Talisman had told him what they said:
Oshikai Demon-bane — Lord of War
Kneeling before it, Sieben scanned the symbols. They were deeply engraved into the iron, and they told him nothing. Irritated that he could not solve the problem, he left the Shrine and climbed to the ramparts of the north wall, where he sat on the parapet in the moonlight gazing out over the distant mountains. His thoughts turned once more to Niobe and her beauty, and he listened a while in vain for the birth sounds of the newborn. Be patient, he told himself. Fishing the lon-tsia from his pocket, he looked at the profile of the woman embossed there. She too was beautiful. Turning the coin over, he looked down at the image of Oshikai. 'You're causing a lot of trouble for someone who's been dead for ten centuries,' he said.
Then it hit him. .
Rising, he climbed down the steps and returned to the Shrine, squatting down before the iron plate. Checking Oshikai's name against the embossing of the lon-tsia, he saw that the name on the plate boasted two extra and identical symbols. Peering more closely, he saw that the engraving of each was deeper than that of the other symbols.
'What have you found?' asked Talisman, from the doorway. The slender Nadir leader moved forward and knelt beside the poet.
'Is this the original plate?' Sieben asked. 'Was it made by Oshikai's followers?'
'I would imagine so,' said Talisman. 'Why?'
'What are these symbols?'
'The Nadir letter i.'
'But the Chiatze had no such letter,' said Sieben. 'Therefore the name-plate is either not original, or it has been altered.'
'I don't understand your point,' said Talisman.
Sieben sat back. 'I don't like mysteries,' he said. 'If this is original there would be no i's. If it is not, why is it in the Chiatze tongue? Why not fully Nadir?'
Moving forward on his knees, Sieben laid his hands on the plate, pressing a finger into each of the engraved symbols. Something gave way under his pressure, there was a dull clunk from within and the name-plate fell clear. Behind it was a shallow niche cut into the coffin, and within this lay a small pouch of hide. Talisman pushed Sieben aside and grabbed the pouch. As he pulled it open the hide split and the contents fell to the dusty floor. There were two knuckle-bones stained with black symbols, a small coil of braided hair and a piece of folded parchment. Talisman looked disappointed. 'I thought you had found the Eyes of Alchazzar,' he said.
Sieben lifted the parchment and tried to open it, but it broke into pieces under his fingers. 'What are these objects?' he asked.
'A shaman's medicine bag. The knuckle-bones are used in spells of prophecy, the hair is that of the shaman's greatest enemy. The parchment? I do not know.'
'Why would it be placed here?'
'I don't know,' snapped Talisman. Reaching down, Sieben picked up the knuckle-bones.
The world spun. He cried out, but was dragged down into the dark. .
Shocked by his sudden collapse, Talisman knelt over the still figure of the blond Drenai and placed his index finger on the pulse point of the neck. The heart was beating, but incredibly slowly. Roughly he shook Sieben's shoulders, but there was no response. Rising, he ran from the Shrine. Gorkai was sitting on the ground, sharpening his sword with a whetstone. 'Fetch Nosta Khan and the Drenai axeman,' commanded Talisman, then returned to where Sieben lay.