Part 9 (1/2)

I can't be too late! Not having come so close!

”If they died of plague it was from unclean dishes.” Hiero the cook appeared in the pantry door, tall and slightly stooped, his wise, kindly face luxuriantly bearded and radiating serenity. He looked exactly like every wizard in every story Shaldis had ever heard, far more so than the two rather sleepy old ruffians across the table from her. ”Or from a lethargy caused by laziness.”

Kylin gulped down his tea and got to his feet, darted back into the kitchen.

Yanrid, of whom Shaldis had spent her first eighteen months at the Citadel absolutely terrified, grunted. ”Disaster struck Three Wells the night before last,” he said. ”Had the woman in your dream been there she would not have said Our children die, but We all perish.” He smeared a little goat cheese on his bread, studied the result in a shaft of sunlight that was already growing hot. ”And in any case there is little you can do. And nothing that you could have done.”

Shaldis knew he was right-knew it down to her bones. Why then, she wondered, did bitterness and anger sicken her so? She pushed her own bread away, her hand shaking, and sat for a time gazing into the shafts of sunlight, the shadows beyond. Did I leave the scrying chamber too early? If I hadn't let Jethan talk me into abandoning it then, would I have heard from her?

Did I really destroy our only hope through my weakness, my carelessness?

She looked across at the craggy-faced man opposite her, saw the dark eyes that had always seemed so unfeeling still on her, filled with an understanding concern.

”How did you do it?” she asked softly. ”How can you do it still? Knowing the outlander mages, knowing they have to be going through something just as terrible as we're going through here, if their magic has faded. Friends, people you've known for years. You know what's happening and you can't do anything! She could be dying-she could be dead already.”

”If she is dead, there was nothing you could have done.” Yanrid's voice was like granite, unmoving. But not, she realized, because he didn't feel. ”If she is alive, there is nothing that you can do to keep her from dying tomorrow . . . or not dying. I think no one who has our powers-your powers,” he corrected himself gently, ”ever loses the feeling that we owe it to everyone to help them. And until we find a way to step past that, there is no end to the harm we do ourselves and others. We do what we can. And we come to understand the things that we cannot do. You don't know whether this woman is alive or dead. It isn't necessary to hurt yourself thinking she's dead when, in fact, you simply don't know.”

”It comes with age, child,” sighed Rachnis, giving his white hair a single deft twist onto the back of his head and skewering it into place with a stylus. Then amus.e.m.e.nt glinted in his black eyes and he added, ”Or anyway I hope it will to me,” and they all laughed.

”As for what you can do,” said Yanrid, ”since this woman seems able to communicate through dreams rather than regular scrying-a method which has been written about but for which no spell of control exists-I suggest that each night before you sleep, you meditate on the healing herbs that will bring down fever and the spells to be written over them that add to their strength. With luck these things will enter your own dreams, and she may read them there.”

”But what if she lives in the deep desert?” asked Shaldis. ”Or the mountains-she has to be somewhere far away, not to have heard of healing with herbs to begin with.”

”That only means you must meditate on as many different varieties as you can. I'm sure”-here he glanced beside him at Rachnis-”that we can come up with enough herbals in the library to keep you and your unknown sister busy.”

Shaldis drew a deep breath, as if the old men had lifted some great weight from her shoulders. It hadn't even occurred to her that others had communicated in this fas.h.i.+on before. ”Thank you. I'll do that. And if there's anything else you think of that I can do . . .”

”Yes,” said Yanrid firmly. ”Take care of yourself, so that when you do sleep, your own dreams will be clearer. As I said, no one has ever come up with a method of opening this dream communication at will, but if it happens again, any notes you can take on the subject will-”

Kylin swept back into the refectory, a towel slung over one shoulder and sand all over his ap.r.o.n, with which they scoured the pots. ”This came for you.” He fished in his belt satchel and brought forth a tablet of the sort that merchants' accounts were tallied on. The two wooden leaves were tied together with green string and sealed with the seal of the Clan Shaldeth.

Another attempt last night. Grandfather well, though shaken. A maid killed.

How like Tulik-Shaldis recognized her brother's textbook-neat hand-not to bother to say which of the maids had died.

She closed the diptych, slid it into the purse at her belt, and snagged an orange to eat as she walked. ”I don't know when I'll be back.”

”That can't possibly be Three Wells, can it?” Oryn shaded his eyes with his hand against the horrific glare of the forenoon sun. The morning's warm cerulean had burned out of the sky: the Hero Sun, the mages called this strengthening, nearly vertical heat. The province of Ka-Issiya, the G.o.d of the golden noon.

The rangeland beneath it was a gilded anvil, still as death.

The wheeling vultures were too distant to be more than minute specks swimming in blue emptiness, but Oryn thought there were a lot of them.

”You said the village lay due east and a full day's ride, did you not?” Oryn turned in the saddle as the young salt merchant Poru reined his horse up beside the king's.

”I did, my lord. There are vultures there right enough, or at least there were when I pa.s.sed through it yesterday. But we'd not be seeing them yet.” Like the rest of the cavalcade the young man's face was wrapped in gauze veils against the sun, and the skin around his dark eyes glistened with sweat and ointment.

Numet-captain of the first company of the king's guard-joined the little group at the forefront of the line of guards, remounts, and provision mules, and squinted against the blazing light in the direction of Oryn's worried gaze. ”That'll just be a dead steer, is all, sir.” Since they'd ridden out of the city in the darkness before dawn, they'd seen more than one picked-over skeleton. He urged his horse forward, then turned back when the king made no move to follow.

”That's a lot of vultures for a single steer, isn't it?”

The captain looked again. He was a broad-shouldered young man from one of the cadet branches of the House Jothek, chosen like many officers of the guards for his good looks. ”It could be two or three steers,” he offered. ”Maybe there was a stampede, and several fell down a wadi all together.”

”Hmn.” Oryn untoggled the spygla.s.s from his saddle horn, rose in the stirrups to get a better look. Behind him, Elpiduyek-master of the king's parasol-unfurled the white-and-gold rooflet, and the first company closed ranks around the little knot of captain, merchant, royal mount, royal concubine, and parasol bearers. Geb and Elpiduyek had both pleaded with Oryn to travel by litter as befit the king-and to bring along a second litter for Summerchild rather than have her ride horseback like some trooper's moll-to little avail. Oryn had spent the first dozen years of his reign lolling in a litter on those few occasions when he went out of the Yellow City at all, and he knew exactly how long that sort of elegant transport took to even get out the palace gate.

Much as he loathed jolting over the rangelands on horseback-not to mention the weeks it would take to repair the sun's ravages on his complexion, ointment, veils, and parasol notwithstanding-he understood in the marrow of his aching bones that there was no time to lose.

Maybe no time at all.

In the sharp circle of the spygla.s.s the vultures made a wheeling black column, like a dust devil. He thought, but he wasn't sure, that its base was far too wide for even two or three dead cattle.

He turned in his saddle, scanned the horizon toward the east, though Three Wells would be far too distant yet for any trace even of a vulture column to be seen.

”Poru, my dear boy, is there a wadi there where the vultures are circling? Were they there when you rode past this place yesterday afternoon?” He pa.s.sed his spygla.s.s to the salt merchant.

The young man studied the column for a time, then said, ”That looks about where Black Cow wadi should lie. It's true cattle or goats sometimes fall over the edge and kill themselves, but it's also true that bandits, or rogue nomads, will sometimes ambush caravans there. The edge of the wadi overhangs and makes good cover. Everyone who makes the rounds of the villages knows about it.”

”Do they indeed?” Oryn took the spygla.s.s back and pa.s.sed it to Summerchild. She looked through it for a time, then folded it up, handed it back, and drew from the reticule at her belt a silver hand mirror. This she gazed into for so long that Numet began to fidget and look pointedly at the angle of their shadows and off in the direction of Three Wells village. Oryn paid him no attention-he knew perfectly well that if he said they were going to camp for a week exactly where they were, the captain would be required to acquiesce no matter what his opinion was-but kept a close watch on Summerchild's topaz-blue eyes.

He saw her brows draw together in puzzled distress. ”There's at least a dozen men dead there,” she said at last. ”They look like nomads, the an-Ariban tribe, I think. They're not one of the warlike groups-mostly sheep stealers and tomb robbers.”

”If they met a bad end, serve 'em right.” Numet laughed. ”Thieving beggars. Why we should make ourselves late to the nooning site over it-”

”Heaven forfend that we should,” agreed Oryn affably. ”Still, I am the king. And I'd like to have a look.”

He could feel the glares of his chamberlain and parasol bearer like knives sticking in his back as he reined in the direction of the vultures.

On her way to the Bazaar District along the broad Avenue of Gold-with its handsome houses, beautiful temples, and even-more-beautiful public baths-Shaldis ran through in her mind the women of her grandfather's household. Her father had mentioned the addition of one maid, whose name would inevitably be Eight Flower and who would almost certainly be a child, knowing her grandfather's habits of domestic economy.

But in spite of Pebble's surmise yesterday evening in the baths, Shaldis would have been surprised to have little Eight Flower turn out to be the Crafty behind the murder attempts. A child old enough to do the heavy housework required even of very young maids would have been old enough to recognize the potential of her own power and, depending on her nature, either offer it for sale to the head of the house or use it to flee.

A child young enough to be utterly dependent on adults, her grandfather would not have bought.

Her sisters? Magic had generally appeared in boys at age four or five, then vanished again until p.u.b.erty. Shaldis wasn't sure whether this pattern held true for girls as well. Foxfire, the youngest in the circle of the Raven sisters, had been fourteen when she had consciously begun to use her full powers, but that had been at a time when all over the Yellow City, such powers had begun to stir in the hearts of those who later became crafty.

Foursie was twelve, Twinkle eight.

Shaldis was almost positive that had there been another Raven sister in the household in the months preceding her departure-if her mother (difficult as it was to even think about picturing that!) or Aunt Apricot or old Yellow Hen had begun to develop power-she would have known. She would have felt it in the walls of the house.

And she was almost-though not quite-certain that they would never have left her to suffer and be cast out alone.

If they had developed such power after her departure, they almost certainly would have gotten word to her at the Citadel.

That left the maids.

She considered them, one by one; considered the world in which they lived. The world that, but for her propensity for sneaking over the courtyard wall in Tulik's clothes, would have been the whole of her own world until her marriage to sulky Forpen Gamert.