“I’m sorry, Honored One,” he managed at last. “If I do have some gift, it’s never worked for me.”
“Of course it does, little brother. It is from Illior.”
“Then tell me what it is!”
“So many questions! Soon you must begin to ask the right ones. Smiles conceal knives.”
The right questions? “Who murdered Torsin?”
“You already know.” The old man gestured at the door, no longer smiling. “Go now. You have work to do!”
The dragon spread its wings and bared needle-sharp fangs at him, hissing menacingly. The unsettling sound followed Seregil as he beat a hasty retreat into the corridor. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw with alarm that the creature was in fact chasing him. A peal of laughter rang out behind him from the open doorway.
Getting down three flights of stairs with a dragon, even a small one, slithering after you was not a pleasant experience. On the second landing Seregil turned to shoo it away and the creature flew at him, snapping at his outstretched hand.
Admitting defeat, he fled. More laughter, eerily disembodied now, sounded close to his ear.
His fiesty pursuer gave up somewhere between the last stairway and the meditation chamber. He stole frequent glances over his shoulder all the same until he was outside again. Fingerlings frisked around his feet, chirping and fluttering. Picking his way gingerly past them, he hurried to his horse. It wasn’t until he reached to undo the hobble that he realized he was still clutching the vial of lissik.
Did I really expect the rhui’auros to hand me the murderer’s weapon? he thought derisively, pocketing it.
Cynril’s steady pace calmed him. As his mind cleared, he slowly began combing Elesarit’s ravings for whatever message lay concealed there. In his heart, Seregil knew better than to dismiss the words of any rhui’auros as nonsense; their madness masked the face of Illior.
“Illior!” he murmured aloud, realizing that Elesarit had used the Skalan name for the god rather than Aura. It was like finding the free end in a tangled skein—knots began to unravel as he followed it.
He who has two hearts is twice as strong, ya’shel khi.
Ya’shel khi. Half-breed soul. The words filled him with an odd mix of dread and elation.
He returned to the guest house to find the place in an uproar.
“Klia’s awake!” Sergeant Mercalle told him as he hurried in. “She can’t move or speak, but her eyes are open.”
Seregil didn’t wait to hear more. Bounding upstairs, he found Mydri, Thero, and Nyal bending anxiously over the bed.
“Thank Aura!” he exclaimed softly, taking her hand in his. It was bandaged, he noticed, and smelled of herbs and honey. She looked up at him, her eyes aware and full of pain.
“Can you hear me, Klia? Blink if you understand.” Klia’s discolored eyelids slowly raised and lowered. The left moved more than the right, which sagged alarmingly.
“Does she know all that’s happened, what we’ve learned so far?” he asked Thero. “Can you tell who did this?”
“Her thoughts are still too confused.”
“I’m going to find out,” Seregil promised, stroking her cheek. “I swear I’ll see teth’sag invoked against them in the Iia’sidra.” Klia gave a small, hoarse groan and her eyes closed. He motioned the others into the corridor and closed the door. “Does this mean she’ll live?”
“It’s a hopeful sign,” Nyal replied, clearly still cautious. “It could be days before she can speak.”
“What about her hand?”
“The area around the wound is spreading,” Mydri said. “You think she could lose it?”
“If the flesh rots, as Nyal expects, then yes. But we must give the poultice time to work.”
“Do whatever you have to, short of amputation,” Seregil pleaded. “Thero, I need you. Can you come with me to Ulan’s?”
The wizard looked at Mydri, who nodded. “Yes, Thero, you’ve done all you can for now. Go do what you must.”
Seregil and Thero arrived at the Iia’sidra to find a solemn gathering awaiting them. It was the right of any khirnari not directly involved to witness the questioning of another, and close to a dozen had opted to claim the right, among them Khatme, Akhendi, Lhapnos, Goliníl, and Ra’basi, Bry’kha, and several lesser clans. Escorted by a small honor guard of Silmai, they proceeded on foot to Virésse tupa. From the outset, Seregil was careful to be seen deferring to Thero.
Ulan greeted them with surprising cordiality. “I would offer you a meal, but given the circumstances, the usual gestures seem inappropriate.”
Prepared in advance by Adzriel, Thero bowed slightly and gave the expected response. “Your offer of hospitality is understood, Khirnari. Aura grant that you be proven innocent.”
“My house is a large one, as you know,” Ulan said, leading them to the garden where the banquet had been held. “Do you mean to search the entire place?”
“Seregil will assist me as I scry,” Thero replied.
“Scry?” said Elos. “How do you mean to do that?”
“I shall employ this.” The wizard produced a square of stained linen. “This is blood from the wound on Klia’s hand,” he explained, not adding that some of Torsin’s was there, as well.
“Blood magic? Necromancy!” Lhaär ä Iriel hissed, making a sign in Thero’s direction.
The Khatme was not alone in her disapproval, Seregil noted, watching the others uneasily.
“Brythir í Nien, how can you allow such an abomination?” Moriel ä Moriel exclaimed.
“The use of blood is only incidental. It’s not necromancy of any sort,” Thero assured them. “If Klia was stuck with a sharp object, as we suspect, then some of her blood and the poison remains on it, as it does on this cloth. It’s nothing but a finding spell, like calling to like.”
“The ’faie have similar magicks,” Brythir said, leaning on Adzriel’s arm. “Unless my fellow khirnari intend to demand a vote, I say you may do so, Thero í Procepios.”
“I pray you, grant him leave to proceed,” Ulan added. “I have nothing to hide.”
“Thank you, Khirnari,” said Thero. “First, was an Akhendi charm found anywhere in your tupa after the banquet?”
“No, nothing of that sort.”
“Very well.” Going to a stone bench that stood nearby, Thero spread the stained cloth out and wove a spell over it with his wand. The others watched with growing interest as the colored patterns twisted in and out of existence at his command.
Seregil quietly turned his attention to the immense garden. The trappings of the banquet had been cleared away, of course. Recalling how the various tables had been set up, he began a methodical search of the area, hoping to find the lost charm, if nothing else.
Unfortunately, Ulan’s servants had been thorough in their tidying up. He didn’t find so much as an overlooked mussel shell or lost knife.
“I have the sense of something lying in that direction,” Thero announced at last, motioning vaguely to the wing of the house where the khirnari’s rooms lay.
They moved on, passing along the same corridors Seregil and Alec had walked a few nights earlier. Seregil guided Thero, who walked with eyes half closed, his wand held out before him between his upraised palms.
The wizard’s face registered nothing but detached concentration until they reached the garden court where Ulan’s private chambers lay. Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he looked around, brow furrowed. “Yes, there’s something here, but it’s still very faint.”
Too easy, Seregil thought again, rifling his way once more through the bedchamber and sitting room. It was a bit distracting, doing this in broad daylight with an audience that included the owner of the room. It felt indecent, really, like having someone watch you take a crap. The day had turned warm, and sweat trickled down his back and sides as he worked.
Again, he found nothing. “Are you certain about this?” he muttered, coming back to Thero, who was standing by the fish pool.
Thero nodded. “It’s unclear, I admit, but it’s here.”
Pondering what corners he might have missed, Seregil stared down at the fragrant white water lilies floating on the pool’s dark surface. Fish darted below the round, green leaves like half-glimpsed inspirations. A single dead fish floating in a far corner of the pool was the only jarring element; no doubt the usually fastidious khirnari had more pressing things on his mind since Klia’s collapse than the care of his fish pool.
The others were watching his every move with varying degrees of interest or hostility. Doing his best to ignore them, Seregil looked around the courtyard again. If Thero said there was something here, then something was here. It was just a matter of looking in the right place.
Or asking the right questions.
The masses of white peonies and roses caught his eye; he didn’t much relish the idea of uprooting them without good cause. Red damsel flies darted around the blooms. One strayed to land on the lip of a lily pad. A fish flashed up and swallowed it.
“They are always hungry,” Ulan murmured, lifting the cover from a bowl set into the rim of the pool. He scattered a handful of crumbs, and the calm water churned as more fish rose to snatch up the morsels.
The dead fish reclaimed Seregil’s attention. It was a large one, longer than his hand, and its scales were still bright. That, and the fact that its hungry companions hadn’t begun picking at it yet, suggested that it hadn’t been dead long.
Curious, he walked around to where it floated and scooped it up for closer inspection. Its dark eyes were still clear. Yes, freshly dead.
“May I borrow a knife?” Seregil asked, careful to keep the rising excitement out of his voice.
This violated the terms of his return, but the Silmai elder himself handed Seregil a dagger.
He slit the belly with a single stroke and was rewarded with a glint of steel among the guts. With the tip of the dagger, he extracted a plain ring. Not so plain after all, though, he thought, discovering a tiny barb protruding from its outer rim.
The others crowded around, muttering excitedly. Seregil looked over their heads at Ulan í Sathil, who stood unmoved near the roses. His face betrayed no guilty blanch, no panicked admission.
I wouldn’t like to play cards against you, Seregil thought with a certain grudging respect.
“A clever piece of work, this,” he remarked, showing the others how the barb could be extended and retracted by means of a lever set inside the band. “The Plenimarans rather poetically call this a kar’makti. It means ‘hummingbird’s tongue.’ With some, the barb is dipped in poison. Others have a reservoir inside the ring. We’d better handle it carefully until I figure out which sort it is. It could still be dangerous.”
“But how could such an odd-looking ornament go unnoticed?” asked Adzriel.
“See these?” Seregil showed her several traces of gold on the ring’s edges. “It was fitted inside a larger ring, which would in turn have a hole for the barb to fit out through.”
“Can you produce this other ring?” the old Silmai asked Ulan.
“I cannot, because I own no such ring, nor have I ever,” the Virésse replied. “Anyone could have dropped this thing here.”
“You seem to know quite a lot about such devices, Exile,” the Khatme khirnari observed, turning on Seregil.
“In Skala it was my business to know,” Seregil replied, letting her make of that what she would. “Have you ever seen this object before, Ulan í Sathil?”
“Certainly not!” Ulan said, bridling at last. “I give my oath before Aura and the khi of my father. Violence may well have been done under my roof; I accept the dishonor of that. But it was not done by me.”
Seregil made certain the barb was fully retracted before passing it to Thero. “Can you divine anything from this?”
The wizard pressed the ring between his palms and muttered a quick spell. “It will take a more concentrated effort.”
“May I?” asked Adzriel. After a moment, however, she shook her head as well and gave it back to Thero.
“Either it was too long inside the fish or someone has purposefully masked it,” he said. “Given the difficulty I had finding it in the first place, I’d guess the latter.”
They’d have done better to retract the barb, thought Seregil. “You sense nothing else in the house?”
“No. There’s little more to be learned here.”
“Except that our poisoner was a man,” Seregil said, fitting the ring easily onto his forefinger. “And that he had a knowledge of eastern sea snakes and Plenimaran poisoning tricks.”
“All of which points to a Virésse, I suppose?” said Elos í Orian, standing protectively by Ulan.
“Not conclusively,” Seregil replied. He turned to go, then paused, as if he’d just remembered something. “There was one other thing I meant to ask about, Khirnari.” He took the Virésse tassel from his pouch and held it up for the others to see. “This was found in Lord Torsin’s hand after he died. Was someone of your clan in the habit of sending these to him to signal a secret assignation?”
The khirnari’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Seregil sensed he’d at last managed to take the man by surprise. “I did so,” Ulan admitted. “But not that night. Why would I, when the man was in my own house?”
“Yet who else but a Virésse would have such a token to send?” asked the Silmai. “I fear Virésse must remain under interdiction, Ulan. Until we have cleared this matter up to the satisfaction of the Skalans, you may not vote with the Iia’sidra.”
Ulan í Sathil bowed to the elder khirnari. “So it must be. I will do all in my power to bring justice to the Skalans for the injuries they have suffered beneath my roof.”
“What was the reason for your secret meetings with Torsin?” asked Seregil.
“That has nothing to do with this!” Ulan objected.
That definitely struck a nerve.
Thero stepped in smoothly. “For the time being, Khirnari, I speak for Princess Klia and must know of any dealings between the two of you, no matter what they relate to.”
Ulan looked to the Silmai khirnari, but found no help there. “Very well, but I must insist we speak privately.”
Ulan had clearly intended to exclude Seregil, but Thero motioned for him to follow, as if he could not imagine being denied his adviser.
Smothering a grin of admiration, Seregil squared his shoulders and followed the two men into Ulan í Sathil’s inner chamber. Once alone with the khirnari, however, his amusement quickly died.
“May I see the tassel?” Ulan asked. He maintained the semblance of respect, but his eyes were cold as he examined the hank of silk. “This was certainly cut from a Virésse sen’gai, but not one of mine. As khirnari, mine have a thread of darker red woven in among the others. This one does not.
“As for the death of Torsin í Xandus, it is as great a loss to me as it is to you. He has been a great friend of mine for many years. He understood the workings of the Iia’sidra better than any Tírfaie I have known.”
“And he was sympathetic to the plight of Virésse,” Thero put in.
Seregil watched in amazement. Young as he was, Thero appeared to consider himself a match for this venerable intriguer. There was not the least show of hesitancy as he met the khirnari’s appraising stare.
“What were you discussing with him, those times you met?” the wizard asked. “A separate deal of some sort, one that would protect the interests of your clan?”
Ulan gave a condescending nod. “But of course. We were working toward a compromise, one your Princess Klia was quite aware of: open trade through Gedre for the duration of the Skalan’s war, but with the understanding that when the need was gone, control of shipping would return to Virésse. Many of my fellow khirnari have grave misgivings about Klia’s original proposal, given the character of your new queen.”
“And you made certain they knew of her flaws,” Seregil said quietly.
Ulan inclined his head as if accepting
a compliment. “Gedre is too remote, too unguarded, and too weak a clan to protect itself, should Phoria renege on her agreements. Who is to say that a woman who would betray her own land, her own mother, would not seek to possess the riches Aurënen can offer, once she has seen how to get at them?”
And what was your plan, before Phoria was queen? Seregil wondered with grudging admiration. How many different scenarios had the man prepared for to protect his clan’s interests? He’d held his secrets about Phoria in reserve, to be played like a winning hand of cards. What would he have done with them if Idrilain were still hale and hearty on the throne?
“It’s Plenimar’s capture of the northern trade routes that’s put Skala in need,” Thero was saying.
“I’m aware of that, as it was Skala’s rather possessive control of that same route which cemented the bonds of trade between Plenimar and the eastern clans these past few centuries,” Ulan replied. “Win or lose, Plenimar remains the more attractive suitor for Aurënen’s affections.”
“Despite the fact that they have been courting Zengati support against Aurënen in the event that the Iia’sidra votes in Skala’s favor?” asked Seregil.
Ulan gave him a condescending look. “You haven’t heard? The Zengati have troubles of their own just now. Tribal war has broken out again, as it does periodically among that excitable race.”
“You’re certain of this?” Thero gasped.
“My spies there are most reliable. I cannot give them credit by name, of course, but I suspect Seregil would recognize one or two of them.”
“Ilar?” Seregil rasped as a bolt of sick apprehension tore through him. “He’s alive?”
The khirnari smile was inscrutable. “I have had no communication with that man since his disappearance, but even if it were he, surely you of all people must admit that exiles may have their uses?”
Since his disappearance? Why would the khirnari of Virésse know a young Chyptaulos at all, unless he had good reason to? Meeting Ulan’s cool gaze, Seregil knew in his bones what the answer to that question would be. He knew with equal certainty that Ulan would never reveal that truth unless it were in his own interest to do so.