The Mirror Empire (45 page)

“If Rohinmey hadn’t seen those men–” Nioni said.

“If he had not, we would be dead,” Dasai said, “along with the Patron. Or we’d be sold off among his possessions to his successor. The terror and madness that sweeps across Saiduan when a Patron is killed would have ended our task before it began. Now we can get to Caisau and wake the creature there. We must merely endure more intense scrutiny.”

“Are we going to tell the boys who the invaders really are?” Nioni asked.

“We continue to do what the Kai sent us to do,” Dasai said. “Until it is time to do as Ora Nasaka and I planned. I made inquiries about the books mentioned in that text from the Dhai scholar. I have an old colleague who may have found one of them for us. Let’s wait to tell the boys about the invaders. It’s too much.”

Aramey folded his arms. “We are putting a lot of faith in old books.”

“All of my faith is in a book,” Dasai said. “
The Book of Oma
. Books have great power, Aramey.”

“Only as much as we give them,” Nioni said. “The Saiduan are hoping for a book of miracles.”

“We may have one,” Dasai said, “but I prefer to keep a number of switches in my basket.”

“I hope it’s worth sending the boys out for it,” Nioni said. “If they’re caught–”

“They won’t be caught,” Dasai said. “It’s still festival season. The Saiduan have a festival every week during the winter, even now. Especially now. They have very little to hope for. Sending the boys out to enjoy themselves won’t seem amiss.”

“I’m just very uncomfortable with this,” Nioni said. “These are Saiduan we’re betraying.”

“I know that better than anyone,” Dasai said, “but now is a time for calm.” For the second time in as many weeks, he questioned his decision to bring Nioni here. He needed men he could trust who could speak Saiduan, and whose families were large enough that they could afford to lose them. And Nioni was dying of stomach cancer. He would not survive the year. Aramey, his large-hearted husband, had wanted to die with him. Their situation was ideal for his purpose. But he worried they did not have the strength for what needed to be done.

“We’ll wait,” Aramey said. He pointed to the sky. “I just worry they won’t.”

 

Dasai found Kihin and Chali working in the sitting area outside their shared quarters. The group had turned it into a library and study space. Dasai saw stacks of books from the archives on Saiduan culture and ethics, all books the Saiduan librarians only agreed to part with because they had copies.

“Where’s Rohinmey?” he asked. The slaughter in the banquet hall had occurred the day before, and Roh had been sick most of the night. The endless vomiting told Dasai that the boy’s queasy stomach likely had to do with food poisoning or some stomach ailment instead of fear or visceral terror. He had almost hoped the killing had sobered the boy instead of invigorating him. But Dasai understood the sort of boy Roh was early on. The Kai had not.

“Still in bed,” Kihin said.

Dasai walked to Roh’s room and opened the door, announced himself.

“I’m awake,” Roh said. He sat on the bottom bunk, huddled close to the fire. Two candles burned brightly in iron lanterns.

“What are you reading?”

“Saiduan stories about the Dhai,” Roh said. “Did you know Grania was once part of the larger land mass of Saiduan? The whole continent stretched unbroken from here down to Hrollief.”

“I did,” Dasai said.

“When the breaking came – they called Oma’s rise last time the breaking – it unleashed huge forces across the world. It broke up the whole continent. Imagine how that must have been. It was so powerful, it broke
continents
. There were earthquakes and terrible storms.”

“Yes,” Dasai said, “and very powerful omajistas who knew that breaking up the continent would break up the Dhai’s line of supply. Not all of these phenomena associated with Oma’s rise are caused by Oma. The gods grant us many gifts, and they guide us on how to use them, but they make no moral judgments on the use of those powers. What one woman believes is evil, another thinks is for the greater good of her country.”

“I just didn’t realize how big Dhai was,” Roh said. “We learn a lot, but not… not all the things they have here.”

“There is fear we may become as we once were,” Dasai said. “No one wants us to be those people again.”

“We would be so powerful–”

“We would be murderers and dealers in flesh,” Dasai said. He feared this boy sometimes, feared what someone so passionate, with so much gifted potential, would become. “We have chosen another path.”

“Sorry,” Roh said.

“Let me tell you a story about a slave,” Dasai said.

“Ora Dasai, I’m sorry–”

“Quiet, now. Be respectful for a moment of your exhausting life, please.”

“Sorry.”

“There was once a Dhai slave owned by the Patron of Saiduan. Not this Patron, but the one four Patrons before this one. He was captured very young, when the fishing boat his mothers took him out on was overtaken. This slave was a dancer like you, and a powerful sinajista. He was so powerful that for much of his life, he was paired with a flat-headed slave with greater talent who prevented him from tapping into his full abilities.”

“They just stayed together day and night?”

“Yes,” Dasai said. “He became very close to the Patron, and the flat-headed slave did, too. One day, the Dhai slave seduced the flat-headed slave and drugged him. Then he crept to the Patron’s rooms and tried to burn him in his bed. But the Patron was protected by powerful wards. He woke unscathed and had the Dhai slave’s legs broken.”

“Did the Dhai live?”

“He did,” Dasai said, “but he never danced again. And he could no longer fight. If he was going to improve his circumstances, he needed something other than brute force.” Dasai pointed to Roh’s head. “He needed to use his wits.”

“Did he escape?”

“He did,” Dasai said, “many years later, when the Patron’s family was killed by usurpers. He convinced the new Patron that he was a free Dhai. And, having no use for him, the new Patron released him. He walked one thousand miles to the harbor in Alorjan and rejoined his family in Dhai.”

“That’s a sad story,” Roh said. “But why tell me?”

“Because you may find yourself in a very bad position, Rohinmey,” Dasai said. “If things go wrong, I do not want you to fight. I want you to live.”

“He lost years of his life, Ora Dasai,” Roh said. “I couldn’t live like that.”

“You’d be surprised what one can endure,” Dasai said. He watched the boy’s face. He looked young and fragile. Dasai imagined listening to some old man tell him not to fight. To just endure. To have his legs and will broken time and again. Foolish old man, Dasai would have thought then.

“Ora Dasai, did you know I can see through wards? That’s what the sanisi said I did.”

“It was known to me, yes.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“You’re a young novice. We preferred to wait until you had more… discipline.”

“What does it mean? I don’t actually see any breath around them. I just… see them.”

“Some parajistas can see through wards. It means you can see things that others wish to keep hidden.”

“I thought I was just smart.”

“Being smart takes effort,” Dasai said. “I suspect that seeing the things you do requires little effort.”

“Can I get better at it?”

“Perhaps. But not here. I have other tasks for you.”

“Like what?”

“You’re to stay away from the dancers,” Dasai said, “and the Patron, and the sanisi, during our final days here. I want you working only for the archive project now. We have much yet to accomplish.”

“Ora Dasai, I still–”

“This is not a negotiation, let alone an argument,” Dasai said. “Tomorrow, you and Kihin and Luna will travel a few hours south with a text we’ve uncovered. You’ll meet a man named Shodav, an old colleague of mine. You will give him a book to translate. In return, he’ll turn over a book to you to bring back in its place. I want you to deliver it to me. Discreetly. If anyone asks, you’re simply going there for the Bone Festival, to see the wolf dancing and meet with a friend of mine to discuss Saiduan grammar. Understood?”

Roh grinned. “Yes, Ora Dasai.” Dasai found it wearying that the boy was so excited at the prospect of deception. I was young once, he reminded himself, but that did not make him feel better. He should have left the boy in Dhai, Sina take the Kai.

Dasai eased to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. It was like the world itself wanted to suck him back into it, yanking painfully at his bones. “Good night, Rohinmey.”

He shuffled to the door.

“Ora Dasai?”

“Hm?”

“Were you a very good dancer?”

“The very best,” he said.

37

Ghrasia Madah preferred fighting blinding-trees to questioning skittish Raonas. But she had three dead sparrows in her pocket and a description of the man who’d returned them to the clan’s primary dealer three days before. It was the best lead on the men who might be assassinating people in Dhai that she had had in days, and with a lead that fresh, she knew she had to work quickly, even if it meant spreading her people beyond the clan fence to suss out the stranger.

She walked with a young parajista named Halimey, a big-eyed, plump-cheeked young man who put her in mind of her own daughter. The militia was stretched thin, and the Oras she brought with her were even thinner. She had started out breaking them into teams of four – two militia, a parajista, and another Ora whose star was descendent. But the ground they had to cover around Clan Raona was substantial, and time was short. With no other leads beyond the vague description of the stranger, there was nothing to report to the Kai. The Kai, not Ahkio, she had to keep reminding herself. Because when she thought of him as Ahkio, it stirred up her memory of him at the fountain, and that stirred up a good many more feelings best left shuttered up. She’d gotten word of his marriage a few days before. A fine political match. She wished them much success. But she had far larger concerns.

“So, you haven’t seen anyone with that description?” Ghrasia asked the matronly woman on the steps of her gill-topped home. Best Ghrasia could figure, the house was actually a tirajista-trained mushroom, very old.

“I’d remember a stranger like that with yellow eyes, missing three teeth,” the woman said. “I’ll remember your faces a good long time, too, and they aren’t half so colorful.”

“I’m sure,” Ghrasia said.

“You don’t look the way I imagined,” the woman said, and Ghrasia regretted introducing herself with her full name. Sometimes, it opened more doors. But on occasion, it did get her into trouble. “Thought you’d be taller. And have larger arms.”

“I hear that a lot,” Ghrasia said.

“I expect so.”

“Thank you for your time,” Ghrasia said.

“Feed this boy something,” the matron said. “He looks too thin.”

“I’ll do that,” Ghrasia said.

Once they were clear of the house, Halimey snickered. “Feed me, Mother!”

“Call me that again and I’ll fix you up a proper mud pie,” she said. He could have been hers, though. He wasn’t more than eighteen or nineteen.

“Delicious!”

“Next one’s two miles farther on,” Ghrasia said. “You want a rest?”

Halimey glanced up at the sky. The suns were winding down toward the horizon. “If we’re going to finish one more before dark, we better press on.”

“Then hurry on, now.”

Halimey hopped after her. Ghrasia was tired, but knowing they only had one more house for the day gave her the extra bit of energy she needed to push forward.

“Why is it you don’t dance?” Halimey said. He fished around in his pocket for one of his scorch pods and threw it off into the brush. It made a loud popping sound.

“What?”

“They have dancing at the council house every night,” Halimey said. “Everyone goes. Clan Raona is happy to host us.”

Ghrasia had her own impression of just how happy Clan Raona was to have them. The local militia had spent much of its time since their arrival running around, curbing spurious storefronts, like the ones selling tax-free liquor and at least one illegal butcher shop, whose existence alone made Ghrasia’s stomach lurch. It took four days to assure them she was more interested in the sparrow buyers than in collecting taxes. Tax collection was not the business of the Liona militia.

“You can dance for both of us,” Ghrasia said.

“Was it some terrible accident?” Halimey said. He tossed another pod. Another pop.

“What?”

“Was it because you were dancing and some bear attacked you? Or did you fall into a wine barrel while doing a Garika jig? My sister once–”

Ghrasia laughed.

“Ah,” Halimey said. “You see? You do laugh.”

“I laugh a lot when I’m not tracking assassins, Halimey. I’ll leave the talking to you, then.”

Halimey chattered on for the rest of the long walk while Ghrasia kept watch for creeping vines and floxflass. The temperatures were cool but still mild. It didn’t snow much in Dhai, which contributed to the problem with the plants. They never experienced a hard freeze.

As they neared the end of the road, the low whine of the mock cicadas went suddenly quiet. Ghrasia came up short, but Halimey walked on. She heard something crashing far off – the sound of a small herd of walking trees. She listened for a while, but they seemed to have stopped.

Halimey paused ahead of her, looked back. “What is it?”

“Just worried we’d run into some walking trees. They’ve stopped now, probably to bed down for the night. The suns are setting. Hurry, now.” She was jumpy, she knew. It had been a long, boring day knocking on doors.

The last homestead of the day lay at the end of a winding path overhung in mossy bonsa trees and weeping green bamboo. The house was thirty feet up the side of a bonsa tree, built on the ledge of a massive calcified fungus. It looked like a fairly large working homestead. Broad, tirajista-trained vines snaked up the surrounding trees. They supported open-mouthed grub boxes that collected the fat parasites that fed on the trees. Dorinahs considered them a delicacy, and they were among Dhai’s chief exports. Walking trees liked them, too. No wonder there was a herd of them so close. They likely sensed the wriggling worms in the cages.