“I’m sure we’ll take it before long,” Geder said, starting down the stairs. His personal guard waited at the foot, not being quite so deeply in the good graces of the goddess as Geder was.
Basrahip shook his massive head. Somewhere far in the distance above them, someone started screaming, but Basrahip took no notice of it. Geder put it down as being part of the ceremony.
“The battle against the lies of the world must be fought. Long or brief, costly or quick, it does not matter. She will prevail, and we with her.”
“It’s just that they won’t come to parley,” Geder said. “Ternigan says he’s tried calling it eight times now, and they won’t come down. And the walls at Kiaria are too high for speaking trumpets to reach the men at the top.”
Basrahip paused, and Geder went down a couple more steps before he realized it and turned back and up at him.
“Is there something you are asking me, Prince Geder?”
“Well,” Geder said. “I don’t want to … I mean. I was only wondering if there were any other gifts that the goddess had that might help with this particular problem?”
“There is one other,” Basrahip said. “Patience.”
Geder nodded. The screaming from the temple was getting louder, and there were more voices now. Basrahip looked back toward them, then turned to Geder and sat on the stair.
“We will be tested many times. The world will resist her truth because the world is a thing of lies. But she cannot be beaten and all who stand against her will be ground down. The world is entering into her, and we are her bearers. You and I.”
A particularly high and sustained shriek caught Geder’s attention. Basrahip chuckled and put a hand on Geder’s shoulder and pointed up the stairway with a gesture of his chin.
“Them as well,” he said. “All of us are her creatures. And those who are not will be, or they will be erased from all places under the sky.”
“But it’s going to take patience.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that after Nus fell and Inentai, I thought …” He waved the thought away. “I’ve kept you long enough, though. Take care of your new initiates, and let me know if there’s anything more I can do to help.”
“I will, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said, then rose and ascended again. At the bottom of the stair, a massive bronze door had been cast in the image of a huge lion. Geder walked through it, and two priests closed it behind him. The thick metal rang with a sense of finality and the sounds of human voices went silent. Geder sighed and began the long descent to his own rooms. He was beginning to regret putting the temple at the top of the spire. It was wonderful for the symbolism and security, but it was such a long walk.
Another decision he was beginning to regret was having the reports from the expeditions brought directly to him. When he’d given the order, he’d thought it would be interesting. Diverting. He’d read book-length essays about adventurers before, and as near as he could recall he’d expected the letters from the field to be similar. And also that this way, he would have the feeling of being part of it. An adventurer himself. In practice, it felt like reading any other report on the small functions of the empire.
But he’d asked to do it, and to turn it away now would make him seem unreliable and petty. So when the aged servant delivered his personal correspondence in a silvered box, it was stuffed with things he didn’t actually want to read.
“Will there be anything more, Lord Regent?” the old man asked, his bow a model of obsequiousness that bent him almost double.
“No,” Geder said. Then, “Yes, bring me some food. And coffee.”
“Yes, my lord,” the man said. With a sigh, Geder pulled out the first letter. Emmun Siu was in the back country of Borja. He had lost one of his men when they came to an obscure village near the foot of a strange mountain and the man had fallen in love with a local girl, married her, and refused to continue with the expedition. He had found three different sites where there had once been buildings, but thus far there had been nothing of interest apart from a particularly well-preserved wall with an image that appeared to be a pod of the Drowned circling a complex device. In Lyoneia, Korl Essian was apparently being very careful in how he went about buying provisions for his two teams, and his descriptions of them filled twenty pages on both sides. Dar Cinlama, who had started this whole mess in the first place, was interviewing Haaverkin along the coast of Hallskar concerning their different social orders, which in this case appeared to be something between extended family and gentleman’s club. Cinlama went into some detail about the different rituals and their significance—one order would set small stones to match the positions of the stars, another enacted a complex play involving eels and a man in a bear’s skin that appeared to be a retelling of an ancient war between Haaverkin and Jasuru and also very possibly the origin of the Penny-Penny stories that had spread through the whole world by now. They were the most interesting reports, and they were from the man Geder liked least of all the explorers. He read the letter through to the end, though, and took what pleasure he could from it.
Then there were the other letters. Most were disposed of by his staff, but invitations from the highest families were still presented to him directly out of courtesy to the nobles. The end of the season was almost upon them, and with it one last paroxysm of fetes and balls, feasts and teas. There were five marriages he’d been asked to speak at. The last wedding he’d been to had been for Jorey Kalliam and Sabiha Skestinin.
Another letter lay at the bottom of the box. It was written on decent paper, but not the thick near-board of the others. It wasn’t a hand he recognized. He tore off the thread it was sewn with, and unfolded it. All the air went out of the room.
Tell Aster I miss him, and you, and that terrible cat-piss stinking hole we lived in. Who would ever have guessed those would be the good old days?
Your friend, Cithrin bel Sarcour
It wasn’t a long letter, and he read it ten times over. All he could think was that she had touched this page. Her hand had been against it. She had made this fold in the paper. He held it to his face and smelled it, looking for some trace of her scent. Cithrin bel Sarcour. Tell Aster I miss him. And you.
The servant came back, a plate of delicately spiced eggs in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
“Get me a courier,” Geder said. “Get me the fastest courier we have.”
“Shall I call for pigeons and a cunning man as well?”
“All of them. Everyone,” Geder shouted. “I need word to reach Fallon Broot tonight.”
He canceled all of his plans, rescheduled the meetings. And the word went out to Suddapal by every means he had. The Medean bank in Suddapal was not to be interfered with in any way. Its agents were to have total freedom of the city to conduct any business they saw fit. They were not to be questioned or detained. If there was any concern regarding the activities of agents of the bank, they were to be referred to Cithrin bel Sarcour at the bank, and her judgment on the matter was to be considered final. This by order of the Lord Regent himself.
When it was done, he took Cithrin’s letter in his pocket, called for his private carriage, and rode for Lord Skestinin’s little manor house as if chaos itself were after him.
Jorey seemed surprised to see him, which was fair. He hadn’t seen anywhere near as much of Jorey as he’d meant to when the court season started. Things had just piled one upon another until all the days were full. Sabiha made her greetings in the drawing room, and then left the two of them alone. Geder gave the letter to Jorey with trembling hands and Jorey read it soberly. When he was done, he read it again, then, frowning, handed it back.