Cinnabar Shadows (21 page)

Pavek wasn't tempted. "I'm not wise enough to wish, O Mighty King."

"You're wise enough. I would have lived a life much like yours, if I'd been as wise as you. But if you
do not wish now, your wishes will never be heard."

He thought of Quraite and his wish that it be kept safe and secret, but he wouldn't take the gold
medallion, not even for Quraite.

Hamanu smiled. "As you wish, Lord Pavek. As you wish." As he turned to Mahtra his aspect changed
yet again, becoming that of a beautiful youth with one graceful arm extended toward her. She took it and
they left the audience hall together.

For one night Pavek and his companions lived as if they were each the king of Urik. A score of slaves
escorted them to a sumptuous room with a broad balcony that overlooked a garden as lush as any druid's
grove. The walls were decorated with gold-leaf lattice. Music, played by musicians in galleries concealed
by those lattices, floated on the breezes made by silk-fringed fans. The floors were cool marble polished
until it shone like glass. Between the room and the balcony, there was a bathing pool, half in shadow, half in
light. More slaves stood beside it. Armed with vials of amber oil, they promised to knead the aches out of
the weariest man. Silk bedding in rainbow colors was piled in one of the corners while in the center of the
room the slaves laid out a feast truly fit for a king.

Common foods had been prepared as no ordinary man had seen them before. The bread had been
baked in fluted shapes then arranged on a platter so they resembled a bouquet of flowers. Cold sausage had
been twisted and tied into a menagerie of parading wild animals. The uncommon foods had been prepared
less fancifully. There was a bowl of fruit in varieties that Pavek had never seen before and Ruari, even
with his greater druidic training, could not name. There were heaping plates of juicy meats, sliced thin and
garnished with rare spices. But the feast's centerpiece was a silvered bowl filled with a fragrant beverage
and with colorless stones that were cold to the touch.

"Ice," a slave explained when the stone Pavek had been examining slipped through his numbed fingers.
"Solid water."

Pavek picked the stone up and gingerly applied his tongue to the surface. He tasted water, wet and
cold. There could be only one explanation for a stone that sweated water:

"Magic," he concluded, and returned the unnatural lump to the bowl.

The bowl's liquid contents, a blend of fruity flavors that were both tart and sweet, were more to
Pavek's liking, but no amount of wonder or luxury could erase from his memory the images of Lord
Hamanu's transformations. Ruari and Zvain were similarly affected. They ate, as boys and young men
would always eat when their throats weren't cut, but without the energy they would have brought to such a
meal had it been served in any other place, at any other time.

Orphanage templars learned what was important early in their lives. Pavek could sleep in just about
any bed, or without one, and he could eat whatever was available, be it mealy bread, maggoty meat, or Lord
Hamanu's rarest delicacies. He filled a platter with foods he recognized, then wandered out to the porch
where the setting sun had turned the sky bloody red.

Zvain followed Pavek like a shadow. Since they'd left the audience chamber, Zvain had rubbed his
cheek raw, doing far more damage than the Lion-King had done, at least on the surface. The boy's eyes
were haunted, and he was clearly afraid to wander more than a few steps from Pavek's side. When Pavek
sat on a bench to eat his meal, Zvain sat on the floor next to him. He leaned back, not against the bench, but
against Pavek's leg and heaved a sigh that ended with a shudder.

Feeling more obligated than sympathetic, Pavek asked, "Do you want to talk?" and was relieved when
the boy's reply was a sulky, sullen shrug.

Predictably, Ruari's misery took a noisier form. The half-elf joined them on the balcony, set his plate
down, and paced an oval around Pavek's bench. Muttering curses under his breath, he seemed to want the
attention Zvain didn't.

And when Pavek's neck began to ache from tracking Ruari's movements at his back, he relented and
asked the necessary question:

"What's wrong?"

"I was scared," Ruari sputtered, as if he had betrayed himself earlier in the Lion-King's audience
chamber. "I was so scared I couldn't move, I couldn't think."

Pavek set his plate beside Ruari's. "You were face-to-face with the Lion of Urik. Of course you were
scared. He could kill you ten different ways—all ten different ways."

That was not the reassurance Ruari needed.

"I stood there. I just stood there and watched his hand-that horrible hand with those claws—as it
swiped my staff. And then I fell down. I fell down, and I stayed down while you argued with him!"

"Be grateful you were on the floor. Fear makes me stupid enough to argue with a god."

Ruari's laughter rang false. "I'd rather be your kind of stupid than on my hands and knees like a crass
animal, too scared to stand up. Wind and fire! She was laughing at me."
She. The only person to whom Ruari could be referring was Mahtra. But Mahtra hadn't laughed. She
might have smiled; with that mask they didn't know what her face actually looked like, much less her
expression. But she hadn't laughed aloud. Pavek was confused, wondering why, or how, the half-elf thought
Mahtra had laughed at him; wondering why or how it mattered; confused until Zvain explained it all in a
single, disgusted statement:

"Am not!" Ruari retorted with a vigor that convinced Pavek that Zvain knew exactly what he was
talking about. "Wind and fire—she walked out of there with him." The long coppery hair whipped around to
hide Ruari's face as he turned away from them. "How could she? Didn't she see anything?"

"Who knows what Mahtra sees, Ru?" Pavek said gently. "Except it's different. She's new and she's
eleganta—"

"She walked off, arm-in-arm, with a monster—Hamanu's worse than Elabon Escrissar!"

"She walked off with him, too." Zvain pointed out, effectively pouring oil on Ruari's inflamed passions.

Ruari responded immediately by taking a swing at Zvain; Pavek caught the fist before it landed. If he'd
had any doubts about what was eating at Ruari, they vanished the moment their eyes met. Pavek didn't
want to argue, not over this. He certainly didn't want to defend the actions of either Mahtra or the
Lion-King. What he wanted was to finish his meal, half-drown himself in the bathing pool, and then fall into
a dreamless sleep.

But when Ruari roared a slur at him without hesitation, he roared right back, also without hesitation.
Nothing they said made sense. It was tension and fear and exhaustion that neither of them could contain for
another heartbeat. He couldn't stop it; didn't want to stop it because, like a two-day drunk, it felt good at the
start.

They traded accusations and insults, backing each other across the balcony and to the brink of
bloodshed. In any physical fight, Pavek would always have the advantage over a half-elf. Even if the
half-elf struck first and struck low, Pavek's big fists and brawn could do more damage and do it quickly.
Ruari tried to land a dirty punch, which Pavek expected. He seized the half-elf by the shirt, pinned him
against the palace wall with one hand and took aim at a copper-skinned chin. But before he landed the
punch, a shrieking annoyance leaped on his back.

"Stop it!" Zvain yelled, as frightened as he was angry. "Don't fight! Don't hurt each other."

Pavek caught his rage before it exploded at both youths. He looked from Ruari to his fist and willed his
fingers straight. He could hurt Ruari—that's what he intended to do—but he'd kill a boy Zvain's size with
one unlucky punch. Ruari's shirt came free and, wisely, Ruari retreated while Zvain slid slowly down
Pavek's back until his feet touched the floor, his arms were around Pavek's ribs, and his face was pressed
against Pavek's back.

"Don't fight," Zvain repeated. "Don't fight with each other. Please, don't make me take sides. Don't
make me choose. I can't choose. Not between you."

Without a word, Pavek looped his arm back and urged the boy around. Ruari edged closer, keeping a
wary eye on Pavek while he nudged Zvain above the elbow.

Still breathing heavily, Ruari said, "Nobody's asking you to choose," to the top of Zvain's head, but his
eyes, when they met Pavek's, made the statement into a question.

It was one thing for Pavek to comfort a boy whose head didn't reach his armpit. It was another with
Ruari who stood a head taller than him. Maybe that was the root of the problem between them, and the
source of Ruari's unexpected attraction to Mahtra. The New Race woman was, perhaps, the only woman
Ruari'd ever met who was tall enough to look him in the eye, and being neither elf nor half-elf, she touched
none of Ruari's painful doubts about his heritage.

"Have you... talked to her?" Pavek asked, feeling awkward as Ruari's shrugged reply appeared. "She
might—In the cavern, she felt something that made her control that power of hers. Hamanu's infinitesimal
mercy, Ru, if she doesn't know how you feel..." He shrugged and stared into early twilight, unable to find
the right words. This was more difficult than talking about Akashia.

"If she doesn't know," Zvain advised, fully recovered now and putting a manly distance between
himself and Pavek again. "Then, don't tell her. Forget about it. Women are nothing but trouble, anyway."

He sounded so wise, so certain, so very young that Pavek had to struggle to keep from laughing.

Ruari lost the battle early, sputtering through lips that loosened into a grin. "Just wait a few years. Your
time'll come."

"Never. No women for me. Too messy."

By then Pavek was also laughing, and the day's tension was finally broken. The feast looked more
appetizing and the bathing pool became irresistible—once Pavek persuaded the slaves to share both the
food and the water. Even the musicians emerged from hiding and, whatever Lord Hamanu had intended,
for one evening honest people enjoyed innocent pleasures in his palace.

With his pulse pounding, Pavek waited for the next sound, acutely conscious that he was half-naked
and completely without a weapon. Last night he'd slipped so far into complacency that, although he could
remember removing the sheath that held his prized metal knife along with his belt before he stepped into the
bathing pool, he couldn't remember where he'd put it.

"Lord High Templar! Your presence is requested in the lower court."

Requested or required, Pavek didn't dawdle. He called the messenger into the room and ordered him to
light all the lamps with the glowing taper he carried for that purpose. Slaves had cleared the remnants of the
feast while he slept. Clean clothes in three sizes were piled on the table in place of food. A new staff,
carved from Nibenese agafari wood and topped with a bronze lion-head, leaned against garments meant for
a half-elf's slender frame. The gold medallion lay atop the pile intended for Pavek. Ruari pronounced
himself satisfied with his gift, but once again Pavek left the medallion behind.

It was still pitch-dark when the messenger led them to the lower court, a cobblestone enclosure on the
palace's perimeter. A maniple of twenty templars from the war bureau and their sergeant, a wiry red-haired
human, were waiting. All twenty-one appeared to be veterans. Each wore piecemeal armor made from
studded inix-leather. Vambraces covered their forearms and sturdy buskins, also studded, protected their
feet, ankles, and calves. For weapons, they had obsidian-tipped spears and short composite swords that
were edged with thin metal strips or knapped stone. Composite swords were common issue in the war
bureau; like the templars who wielded them, they were tough and lethal.

Despite the metal sword hanging from his belt—an adjutant's weapon at the very least, if not a
militant's—Pavek was in no way qualified to lead these men anywhere. He knew it, and they knew it. But
orders were orders, and the sealed parchment orders the sergeant handed to Pavek said, after they were
opened, that he was in charge.

"What have you been told?" he asked the sergeant, a grim-faced woman his equal in height.

"Great Lord, we've been told that you'll lead us underground and then to Codesh, where there's to be
another maniple meeting us at midday. We're to follow your orders till sundown, then return to our
barracks—if we're still alive."

The words on the parchment were different and included a warning from Hamanu to expect trouble in
the cavern because he, the Lion of Urik, had decided not to send templars to claim the bowls. He
preferred—in his words—to let Kakzim safeguard the simmering contagion until Pavek could destroy it
completely. Hamanu's confidence that Pavek would succeed was less than reassuring to a man who'd
watched Elabon Escrissar die. Pavek crumpled the parchment in his fist and faced the sergeant again. "I
can lead you to the cavern, but if there's fighting—and I expect there will be—I won't tell you how to do it."

"Great Lord, you might be a smart man," the sergeant said, giving Pavek a first, faint glimmer of
approval.

"I've lived this long; I'd like to live longer. Were you told anything else? Anything about the bowls?"

"Bowls? What bowls?" the sergeant shot a look over her shoulder. Pavek didn't see which templar's
eye she was trying to catch or the results of their silent conversation, but when she faced him again, the
faint approval was gone. "Great Lord, we're waiting for one more, aren't we? Maybe she's got your
answer."

Mahtra. In his mind's eye, Pavek could see Hamanu telling Mahtra how they were supposed to dispose
of Kakzim's sludge. It was amusement again: Hamanu could resolve everything himself, but he was amused
by the efforts of lesser mortals.

They didn't have long to wait. Mahtra entered the lower court from another doorway. As always, she
wore the fringed, slashed garments typical of nightfolk. The sergeant sighed, and Pavek shrugged, then
Mahtra handed Pavek another sealed scroll.