City of Bones (47 page)

“We might,” Sagai agreed. “Except that I’m old and you’re not as healthy as you used to be. You still have that fever? I thought you had gotten over it.”

“You’re not that old,” Khat said, leaving aside the issue of his health. “You weren’t having any trouble with the welcoming party Lushan sent for me.”

“I was having a great deal of trouble, thank you. It’s probably a good thing the lictors came when they did.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” Khat had a vivid recollection of the Heir’s method of disposing of unwanted guests. At least Saret the executioner was dead, and he needn’t worry about running into him again. He turned away from the window and stretched to loosen the tension in his shoulders, wishing they had been taken somewhere with a fountain. His nose wasn’t bleeding anymore, but his head was still pounding, and there was a particularly sore spot on his jaw. He had another loose tooth, too.

It would be nice to know who had had them arrested. Khat wondered where Elen was, if they could get word to her, if she could help them. He noticed Sagai still staring out the window, and asked him, “Are you worried about Miram?”

“Somewhat, but …” Sagai shook his head, coming away from the parapet. “She knows Kenniliar well, we have family there, and she is both older and wiser than when she so foolishly married me.”

Khat winced. It was the worst luck that Sagai had been brought into this at all. “You shouldn’t be here anyway,” he pointed out. “You should never have turned back.”

“Oh, be quiet.” Sagai was looking across the room, at the arch where the lictors stood guard. “That mosaic, out in the hall there … That’s a lovely copy of a Battai mural.”

As Khat craned his neck to look at the Battai copy, four more lictors entered their prison, led by an older officer. Khat recognized his chain of rank first. It was the archcommander who had tried to stop him in the Citadel of the Winds, who had been helping the Patrician try to talk Constans into attacking the palace.

The archcommander came toward them, stopping only a bare pace away from Khat. He said coldly, “Well. One of Aristai Constans’s spies. But Constans isn’t here now.”

Khat didn’t back away, knowing it would be a mistake. He said, “Are you sure about that?” Constans’s ability to appear when least expected must be known in the upper levels of the palace; Khat doubted he was the only one to ever experience it.

The man didn’t hesitate. “Oh, I’m sure. He’s with the Elector now.”

“And will we be told why we have been brought here?” Sagai asked, with polite curiosity.

The archcommander turned his head sharply, startled at hearing someone who looked as Sagai did right now speak with an educated accent. He eyed them both uncertainly and drew back a step, saying, “The Elector ordered it himself.”

The Elector
, Khat thought.
That can’t be right
. Sagai was looking at him for an explanation, and he had none. Before he could suggest that the archcommander was insane, there was a minor commotion in the hall, and the other lictors stepped aside to admit Elen.

She didn’t look much the worse for her experience. There were weary shadows under her eyes, but her white mantle and kaftan were pristine, and she wore a painrod at her waist. She looked from Khat to Sagai as she came toward them, her eyes widening at the obvious damage. “Did they do this?” she demanded.

“No, this is from a different fight entirely,” Sagai explained.

“Oh.” She turned to Khat with an expression of much frustration mixed with concern. “But where were you all this time, and how did you get out of the Doorway? And where is Sevan-denarin?”

The archcommander interrupted before Khat could even begin to answer, demanding, “What are you doing here, Warder?”

Elen faced him as if she was Master Warder. “That’s not your concern, Venge,” she snapped. “Why did you have these men arrested?”

The lictor looked over at Khat, his eyes hard to read. “The Elector wants to see this one.”

Elen said, “That’s impossible.” It was close to calling Venge a liar, but she didn’t appear to care.

“He gave me the orders himself, Warder. The description was exact.” Venge kept his temper, but his words were clipped. “And the description of him,” he nodded at Sagai, “who was to be questioned on the kris’s whereabouts, if we couldn’t find him.”

“What does this mean, Elen?” Sagai asked, worried. “I thought noncitizens were never admitted to the Elector’s presence unless they were with a foreign embassy.”

Elen shook her head. “I thought so too, but I suppose it’s only custom, and he can see whomever he wants.” She turned back to Venge, her eyes narrowed. “What under the great sky does he want to see Khat for?”

With some asperity, Venge said, “I’m not a confidant of his. If I speculated, I would say it had something to do with Aristai Constans.”

“Constans?” Elen glared over at Khat. “You’d know about that, then, since he’s such a friend of yours.”

“He’s not an anything of mine. I don’t know what’s going on,” Khat protested. He couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Some of his sense of distance from events might be the fever, but most of it was pure shock.

Elen turned on Venge again. “If Sagai was only arrested to be questioned on Khat’s whereabouts, and you already have Khat, you can release Sagai now.”

Sagai started to protest, and Khat elbowed him in the ribs. Elen was right; if Khat couldn’t get out of this, at least Sagai might.

The archcommander wasn’t happy, but Sagai’s scholarly demeanor, even when he had just been in a fight, was obvious, and Elen seemed to wield more influence here than Khat would have thought possible. Venge forgot protocol so far as to scratch his chin under his veil, and asked grudgingly, “And if the Elector has questions for him as well?” It was the voice of a man willing to be convinced.

“Then release him to me, on my authority,” Elen said.

“Very well.” Venge motioned the other lictors forward. “But I have to take the kris now.”

“Just try not to say very much,” Sagai advised Khat in an anxious voice.

“Good-bye,” Khat said, getting one look back over his shoulder as the lictors closed in.

Elen followed, somehow managing to edge one of the lictors aside to walk next to Khat. “Don’t worry. He isn’t a monster.”

“You said he was,” Khat muttered.

“I did not.” Elen glanced self-consciously at Venge. “And I hadn’t met him then, had I? I’ll see what I can do.”

Khat didn’t know how she thought she could help. With Sonet Riathen dead, how much influence could a Warder of his household have? The lictors were taking him to yet another set of marble stairs, and Elen stopped, unable to follow further.

Once past the stairs, they led him through a suite of rooms, all high, open, and opulent, and all bare of furniture or anything else practical, as if they existed only for show. There seemed to be no solid walls: stone lattices separated rooms, allowing in daylight and free moving air; mesh screens of copper and bronze served as doors and the pillars were pink marble and porphyry. They passed no other people.

Finally Venge halted in a room that was no more or less beautiful than the others, different in that one wall was only waist-high and looked out over an atrium lush with potted flowers and small trees, with several fountains playing among the greenery. There were a few couches scattered about, draped with silk and gold brocade.

It was also empty except for Aristai Constans, pacing impatiently like a dark specter in the golden room.

Constans came forward, and Khat looked up at him accusingly. “I should have known it was you.”

“So am I the bane of your existence?” Constans asked, stopping within arm’s reach. The lictors, even archcommander Venge, had cautiously drawn away from the confrontation. Constans didn’t look any the worse for his experience either, but then with him it was so difficult to tell anything. “How did you escape from the Doorway?”

“He was a Builder,” Khat said, knowing no other way to describe it.

“I see.” Constans sounded as if he actually did see. “It may interest you to know that the Miracle is miraculous no longer. It hasn’t emitted light since we returned here from the Remnant.”

It was a loss and a relief at the same time. The Miracle had been beautiful, but its task was finished. “So it’s over,” Khat said.

“One would assume.”

The room was warm, despite the atrium and the open walls. “Then why am I here?” Khat demanded.

“It doesn’t occur to you that it might be out of gratitude?”

Disgusted, Khat turned away, and found himself looking straight at an Ancient mural. It was large, covering the opposite wall, and in beautiful condition, though the subject matter was not as rare as that of the mural in Arad-edelk’s care. It was a seascape, showing a rocky promontory that might be the crag where Charisat now rested and a wide sweep of dark foaming water, under a sky of gray churning clouds. A close examination would probably reveal the dynasty. Whoever had had charge of the mounting had resisted the temptation to fill in the missing border pieces with inferior modern work, and the gaps revealed the plain stone of the wall beneath.

Khat didn’t realize how long he had stared at it until a firm hand under his chin turned his head back toward Constans, who was watching him narrowly. “I admit, gratitude didn’t occur to me either,” the Warder said. “You’re ill.”

Khat jerked away and stepped back. “No.” The denial was completely automatic, and Constans did not appear convinced.

The great double doors at the far end of the room began to open, and the Warder turned toward them.

Khat was not entirely sure what happened next. The room, so warmly lit by the sunlight in the adjacent atrium, went strangely dark, and the walls seemed to sway inward. The next thing he knew he was on the floor.

A set of footsteps came near, and someone said, “He looks terrible. What did you do to him?” The voice was an old man’s, querulous and annoyed.

“I did nothing.” Constans sounded faintly exasperated.

Khat lay sprawled on his back, and such close contact with the cool marble floor revived him a little. He opened his eyes a slit, hoping it would go unnoticed.

The man standing over him must be the Elector. He was as short as a lower-tier dweller; Khat could tell that from even this perspective. He was fat and his features were worse than the portrait on the coins implied, with not even a trace of the aquiline beauty associated with the Patrician class. His robes were fine gold silk trimmed with heavy bands of gilt embroidery, but he wore less jewelry than his chief stewards. It was then Khat noticed he wore no veil. Well, this was the man’s own house, technically, and as the one who made the rules, he could do whatever he wanted.

Then Khat realized the Elector was looking down at him, had seen his eyelids flicker. The Elector snorted and turned away.

Khat sat up cautiously. The pounding in his head was worse, making it hard to think. He didn’t have any idea of the correct etiquette, though he had the vague idea that as a noncitizen he was supposed to be on the floor anyway. Several of Venge’s lictors had staves and stood within easy reach; he knew if he did anything wrong he would find out immediately.

There were other people in the room, some Patricians, others who must be servants, despite the richness of their dress. All were veiled, but their eyes studied him with varying degrees of disgust, curiosity, amusement.
Don’t worry about them
, Khat thought grimly.
Worry about yourself
. Constans had settled on the low wall that bordered the atrium, and looked as if he was preparing to watch some entertainment. It didn’t matter what Constans did; Khat knew better than to count on help from that quarter. The Elector had taken a seat on the nearest couch. His sharp old eyes weren’t on Khat, who was glad of the respite, but on one of the Patricians.

As if continuing an interrupted conversation, the Patrician said, “I am much displeased with the account of the Heir’s death.”

Khat recognized the voice. He had last heard it shouting at Constans, in the Citadel. It was the Patrician whom Venge had accompanied. The man spread his hands, as if being eminently reasonable.

“The only word we have for it is that of Aristai Constans, and considering that he was always her enemy…”

“We also have the word of the new Master Warder.” The Elector seemed to be more interested in the set of his rings than the topic of conversation. But now he looked up at the Patrician again, his eyes deceptively sleepy. “She was also present. Surely you do not dispute her account?”

The Patrician hesitated, calculating. “Not if my Honored Lord accepts it.”

They are talking about Elen
, Khat thought, trying to take it in.
No wonder Venge let Sagai go when she asked it
. He supposed he should find this reassuring. He found himself blaming her for not mentioning it downstairs, though that was idiotic; she hadn’t had time.

“Oh, and I do accept it,” the Elector assured the Patrician, with an ingenuousness so lightly tinged with sarcasm it might be only imaginary. “You’ll forgive me if I send you away, won’t you, Adviser? I would so much rather ask my questions in private.”

The Patrician bowed, and the room cleared except for Constans, the Elector, and one or two of the silent servants.

“That man is tiresome,” Constans said, when the doors had closed. “I can’t think why you won’t let me kill him.”

The Elector frowned at him. “He’s obvious. He distracts the others. You know that as well as I do; stop making an exhibit of yourself.” He examined his rings again, though there was nothing sleepy about his eyes now, deceptive or otherwise. “What we really brought you here to ask, of course, is what became of the Ancient Sevan-denarin? Is he here, in the city?”

Khat realized with a start that this last had been addressed to him. Without thinking, he said, “He died.”

“Truly?” The Elector leaned forward. “How?”

Khat tried to answer and found himself coughing helplessly. The Elector lifted a hand, and a servant was suddenly at Khat’s side, offering a cup of water. After that, he managed to go on. “He was only here for a few moments, out on the Waste. He died, and the body turned to dust.”