Taul was a fool to keep following the rogue. The kithvyrae devices, hot on his skin, urged him on.
Alarms blared in the sanctuary. Guards from all houses in the area ran through the streets, searching for the killer.
Had his rogue killed an acolyte in the sanctuary? It was all too coincidental. The acolyte’s house, Lor’Briznil, competed with two other houses over important contracts. The gossip was that Briznil was preparing a complaint and equipping its knights. The goddess-court continued to be the talk of the crater. The goddess’s consort had exacted justice for a two-cycle old crime. Why shouldn’t they?
But to kill an acolyte so blatantly! And during her priestess trial celebrations. This vile offense would overtake the valley with the same hysteria swelling the south valley.
His stomach soured and he spat. Spurred by anger, heat radiated up the back of his legs to his spine.
Justice! Justice! the devices screamed in his throbbing skull.
All Vaidolin would cry out for justice.
What would his high matron do? How he resented her and her selfish designs! Let the goddess’s wrath consume her! There was a growing rumor of a south valley priestess traveling through the villages inflaming the ire of righteous folk. She was directing these invectives at all crater Mornae. He thought himself apart, a valley Mornae, but now he was part of the problem. They’d burn him, too.
Could he exact justice? He’d become adept at using the devices. Only the elder voice and the priestess spoke to him now. Elation was building in him the more time he spent with the devices. If Taul could see the rogue’s shadow-shell, did that mean he could enter them himself with no devices? He’d never considered it before. Though he didn’t know how to do it, he imagined himself doing it. As boys, he and Balniss had toyed with the Dark—with a child’s understanding of it, anyway. Even though it had been so long ago, it all seemed to come naturally to him now.
The shadowed man’s path had dissipated after the killing, but the devices had burned, nearly singeing Taul’s skin, such was their vehemence to exact justice. After that, the rogue's trail shone like a constellation for him, and he followed its circuitous path around the sanctuary and back down into the Bottoms. He’d grown hard to the suffering he saw there but made a mental note to follow up with his stewards, to ensure his stewards took care of the people working Lor’Toshtolin lands. It may be the way of the crater to trample the less fortunate houses underfoot, but he would not allow it in his.
A dark-eyed woman glared at him, her breasts and flesh on display through a ragged gown; not honorably, or beautifully, but soiled and stained… so unbecoming of a priestess. Should they be allowed to self-destruct? Certainly, if a house could not manage its finances or its people… he ignored the obvious correlation to the state of his own house. He would make sure it didn’t happen.
His rogue changed direction, passing over the east road toward the magistrate district with its tall stone buildings and vaults. These structures jutted out of the crater wall and tunnels linked them to the inside. In this way, the valley turned in its taxes or goods to its high house. He joined a stream of debtors and workers intending to pay their dues.
A house of Lor’Toshtolin’s rank paid the tax in a more graceful manner, without the direct exchange of chits. More like a treaty, an agreement between equals, once a year when houses renewed their oaths. Though now the tax schedule was for more frequent payments. In the past, alliances and deals could offset the obligation, but the high matron imposed more control over it all, cutting through ties between the lower houses and making them compete for favor.
So many houseless Mornae… it had never occurred to him. So many hired on from who knows where. There was the nomad trail along the coast, with what passed for camps, even villages. He recalled what Silla Lor’Vamtrin had told him about the nomads joining houses bordering the Fringe. In their epics, east valley Mornae sang of the ancient inhabitants who’d merged with their Alcar ancestors, making something new. It sounded fine in a song about nomads long ago, but surely not the rabble walking the Fringe today.
He couldn’t make his rank known, so he allowed the stream to carry him through the street of offices where blue-robe diviners recorded the payments. He scanned the crowd but couldn’t find his shadowy man. A man bumped into him but quickly turned away. Taul thought he recognized him. Their eyes had met, and a strange acknowledgement passed between them. He turned away, pushing into the press of the crowd. There was no sign of his quarry.
A sudden nausea overwhelmed him, and the devices burned. He struggled through the crowd, searching for the telltale outline of the man’s magic.
In the distance, under the portico of the door to the magistrate’s office, he saw something. It was the faint outline of a man, a black-light silhouette. The rogue seemed unconcerned, almost cocky in the way he stayed hidden in plain sight. He’d changed his form again, taking on the less threatening appearance of a messenger. Yet the blades were still there, bulging under the Hosmyr tabard. Taul felt like he knew the man now, intimately, every inch of him a sign.
Taul made his way to him carefully, avoiding his line of sight. It wasn’t so hard in this motley crowd. He hunched down as best he could and moved in the slovenly way of the low born.
The door behind the man opened and a train of diviners poured out. The man altered his form, slowly reappearing into the world. The diviners took no notice at all.
But it was what followed that caused Taul to freeze.
Maunyn Ilor’Hosmyr, high consort and master of Isilmyr, stepped out of that vault and handed the rogue a pouch. The man bounced it in his hand. Taul crammed himself against a wall as Maunyn surveyed the crowd, so above them all.
What could this mean?
The two men exchanged words. Maunyn could not be talking to anyone else, though he kept his gaze high, not stooping toward the shifty man beside him. And then the high lord stepped out into the street, the people rippling away from him like a pebble dropped into a lake. The shadowed man offered the prime consort a deep bow to his back, then altered his form again, this time taking on deeper shadows as he darted down an alley.
Maunyn walked toward Taul, as if he saw him. A horde of gruff henchmen formed a wall around Maunyn. Taul suspected that a man like Maunyn had no need of guards. He was truly a god among them. Even Taul, of good lineage, was far and away beneath this man. If anyone was a lord, it was Maunyn.
The truth of this discovery dawned on him then. The high matron did not give out children because she was trading just one or two as favors to ailing houses. There was something bigger at work here. It was a large-scale enterprise, managing the placement of children for another purpose.
It must be. But why slay an acolyte so openly?
He grew faint. What if he’d caused it by following that man?
The devices said nothing, growing cold against his skin.
Goddess above, what had he done?
43
Ren pounced from one shadow to the next, moving along swiftly. He wasn’t sure why he’d entered the crater except to follow the man who’d been following him. He tempted fate by entering. All Hosmyr, its branches and vassals, were looking for the acolyte’s killer of course, but they wouldn’t be looking in the crater, and certainly not in the citadel’s shadow. This sanctuary was mostly empty anyway, its main occupants the fallen blossoms from a hundred puul trees.
The sanctuary’s tower rose high and thin into the air, solitary. Squat buildings, the instruction halls and offices, spiraled out from the tower with gardens between the arms, just like the great temple. Even here, they looked to reproduce what was great rather than attempt something new. Tradition was a crumbling foundation, his teacher had said. The Fall proved it.
A scruffy old diviner guided some youngsters, the well-dressed sons of merchants, across the courtyard to an instruction chamber. How easy it would be to snatch one from this place. Three girls followed a priestess, a woman who had no children of her own, one who had dedicated herself to the care of the sanctuary grounds; dressed—or wrapped, rather—in wide swaths of gray cloth so only her face and hands were visible. It was a recent trend, so different from the way priestesses had dressed in ancient times. Then, they’d displayed as much as possible, their perfection a sign to all. These days, priestesses covered themselves as if in mourning for what had been.
The beautiful acolyte’s face came to mind. He stored her perfection in his mind like a statue of the goddess. Her beautifully full lips opened just so as a ribbon of red spilled out down her throat.
He shook his head. That part wasn’t supposed to have happened.
Even if he had the order to snatch a child here, of this age, most were as tall as he was. And this place... He stepped over a thin line of black steel embedded between the stone pavers. A tingle ran over his skin, and he was sure had he borne a shell, it would have dissipated. The place was ancient, with ancient defenses.
He felt eyes on him, no doubt some busybody priestess or diviner, so he continued on. Indeed, another cocooned priestess stood at the end of the atrium, staring at him. He darted away into another hallway toward the spire.
The instruction chambers, framed by arching columns and pillars, sat empty. It was the end of the season already. This year’s acolytes had made their vigils at the sacred pool, received the goddess-word declaring them priestesses; the young men named squires and returned to their homes. The ones that remained were those pursuing other skills such as accounts or tending or other boring skills.
He toyed with the pommel of his blade. He’d never received such instruction. He was a hired man, a ruffian. Hidden in his shadows, he may as well not even exist. There were so many like him now. Long gone were the days when a house claimed every Mornae. Hosmyr would never claim him, a lowborn no one, only skilled in stealing children.
A sudden regret balled up in his throat.
