Endurance (40 page)

I looked again at the pall of smoke from the general area of Lyme Street. This was not yet the time for regrets, not with so much to be done. “Where are the rest of the embassy? I saw half a dozen guards and two clerks.”

“Most of them marched out under Surali's orders to deliver a demand to your Interim Council.”

“It's not
my
Interim Council,” I said reflexively. “Did Surali march with them?”

“She seems to be having some difficulty with her hands.”

I glanced over at Mother Argai, suspecting her of humor. Her expression was bland. “Well, there is at least one glimmer of hope here.”

“Her troubles have not improved her disposition.”

“I should think not.” I looked back out over the city. “We need to move on. I want to find out what is happening on Lyme Street, and I have business with the Interim Council in any case. Are you prepared to go Below and work our way through that particular maze?”

“You always did have a fondness for tunnels.”

That was all the answer I was likely to receive. I took that for a yes, and led her back down to the street. We dodged through the alleys until we found a hatch that would carry us both into the stygian depths of this city's permanent, stone-walled night.

*   *   *

Mother Argai had never been a tunnel runner back in Kalimpura, and certainly not here in Copper Downs. I was not even sure she'd been off the grounds of the embassy's rented mansion since first arriving. Nonetheless, she climbed down a beslimed wooden ladder without hesitation or question. This entrance was over a running sewer line, but as I'd hoped, the rungs led to a board that stretched across the tunnel.

“Mind your feet,” I whispered up to her. “Dead dark, you're landing on an uncertain plank. Step toward my voice when you reach it. I am standing upon a narrow ledge. Sewage flows beneath everything just here.”

“Many thanks,” she muttered.

I scooped the small trace of available coldfire off the wall as Mother Argai landed on the board. It creaked under her weight—perhaps forty pounds more than my own, allowing for her squat, muscular build. Her hand reached out in the shadows as she took a step toward me, when the board gave way. She dropped another four feet into the stinking stream.

Leaning down, I held my glowing hand over Mother Argai to check that her face was above water. Well, above liquid.

“Cold,” she gasped.

“Snowmelt,” I said. “Makes even shit frigid.
Don't
grab the glowing hand.” The slime would keep her from getting a decent grip, and she'd wipe it off in the process. We'd lose our light. “I'm reaching down with my off hand.”

“Understood.” She caught my grip.

“Side walls will be slimed but rough underneath,” I warned. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Trying to keep as much of my weight as possible back on the ledge, I grasped her wrist as she grasped mine. She kicked while I pulled, and scrambled up the edge of the channel. I felt myself leaning into her. To counter that I flattened back as best I could. “Have care,” I hissed, then pulled her up with me.

Mother Argai wound up lying on her side, stretched away from me along the ledge.

“It's dangerous down here,” I said.

Given only the dimmest light of the coldfire, I could still read her reaction to that comment.

I got her up and moving as soon as possible. Below was not so cold as above, even in winter's harshest grip, but it was still far too chilly and damp for anyone to lie about quietly in stinking, wet leathers. “Fifteen minutes to where we're heading, and I can probably find us a warm spot to clean up in.” I was thinking of the bakery-kitchen behind my little teahouse.

Mother Argai followed me along the ledge until we came to a side tunnel that branched away in the general direction of Lyme Street. I knew this one. It was part of a series of cutoffs laid into Below by some builders with a fondness for arched brick vaulting. Also, and more to the point, the water flow in these tunnels was largely incidental.

Getting her away from the wet, chilly tunnel was sensible.

“I reek,” Mother Argai said quietly. Not quite complaining—Blades did not complain—but definitely unhappy.

“It's a good masking odor,” I offered. “And besides, that was at least half snow.” Maybe. “You didn't fall into the slaughterhouse runoff, for example.”

“One is always grateful for small blessings.”

That brought a backward glance from me. This time I
definitely
suspected Mother Argai of humor. Once again, nothing in her voice or in the ghostly-lit hint of her face cracked the least bit of a smile.

“Really, we should have run Below more in Kalimpura,” I told her.

“Our tunnels are not so extensive.”

“Even so, you learn much down here.” I held up a hand; we were coming to a larger junction that the Dancing Mistress used to call the Station. “Quiet,” I hissed.

We stopped so I could listen. No one was moving or breathing audibly up ahead, but some of the most frightening people and things down here didn't make noise.

She needed to be warm, but I had to understand what I'd seen back at the Selistani embassy. I'd been mulling all that over as I walked. Such knowledge might be critical to our own next moves. We were as safe as we might be Below, right here. And Mother Argai seemed to be in a talking mood. Turning back to her, I asked, “What was Surali thinking, to hurt Mother Vajpai so?”

“I do not know,” Mother Argai said, her voice very serious. “I cannot imagine what she believes will happen back in Kalimpura over this. But Mother Vajpai forbade me to interfere.”

What would happen back in Kalimpura was clear enough to me. If the Bittern Court planned to bring down the Temple of the Silver Lily and slay the Lily Goddess in the process, then there would be no consequence to injuring Mother Vajpai here and now. The point would be moot. “I don't understand why Surali didn't just kill her. Mother Vajpai wounded and angry is far more dangerous than Mother Vajpai dead.”

“She would have been forced to kill all three of us,” said Mother Argai flatly. “Even Samma.”

“A foolish girl,” I grumbled.

Something in the tone of her next words warned me. “Samma may be a foolish girl to your eye, and even to mine, but she is still a Lily Blade. As such, she is deadly in her own right to the rest of the world.”

I picked at the problem, still disbelieving. “And you stood by while she, what…? Snipped off Mother Vajpai's toes with a hedge clipper?”

“As Mother Vajpai ordered.” Mother Argai's tone was wooden now.

“Why?”

The words poured from her in a rush: “Because we have to live to return home and carry word of all this. If none of us Blades return, the tale will entirely be Surali's in the telling. We who serve the Lily Goddess will be painted traitors and apostates and worse by the time that woman is done with us.”

I could have shaken Mother Argai silly for her political obtuseness. “
What
makes you think you will live to see home? Surali has already waged war upon the temple with her suborning of Mother Vajpai into the embassy. She has enough Street Guild thugs with her to slit your throat a dozen times over before breakfast. There is no Death Right here. You would die unavenged.”

“We were waiting for
you
, Green. That's why Mother Vajpai permitted me to leave with you.”

Her words made me want to scream. I caught my breath, almost shuddering. “You're Lily
Blades
. You don't need
me
. You could have walked away at any time and taken ship home on your own. I did it as a girl of eleven.”

“I know more now than I would have had we fled a week ago.” Mother Argai's voice was a growl. “That was part of what Mother Vajpai made as an excuse; that we learn what we could of Surali's plots, and her affairs here. For my own part, I agree with you.” She spat into the darkness. “We have given up too much to gain too little. Including, likely, the lives of Mother Vajpai and Samma. Thanks to your raid just now.”

The words
But I saved you, at least
died on my lips. I could imagine the political pressures back in Kalimpura that had driven Mother Vajpai to join this expedition. And I could just as easily imagine the woman's political thinking that forced her to stay in the face of her own further torture and probable death. All for the sake of what she saw as the best chance to transmit the information about Surali's true intentions back to Kalimpura.

“You are all fools.” I was caught up in the harsh judgment of youth. “This could have been handled better.” Later in life, I would have been more kindly, and more wise, about such a thing. At the time, I should simply have been grateful for Mother Argai's regard.

“Samma was supposed to…” Mother Argai's voice trailed off.

Supposed to what? Does it matter?
“Never mind.” Trying to keep from snapping, I continued, “What if we find Surali here at Lyme Street? I presume we are both likely to be snatched or murdered.”

“After what you and your pet savage did to her hands, I would recommend avoiding Surali.” Again, that not-quite flicker of humor.

“I'll do that and more if I catch her again,” I promised. “For now, we keep moving.”

With a wave of my fingers, I summoned her onward. I wasn't sure what I expected we might find up there—Skinless, the Factor's ghost, Mother Iron. There were more possibilities than I wanted to consider. Mother Argai had just given me several additional scenarios, some nightmarish.

My life would be so much simpler if my enemies would just wait their turns.

In the event, we encountered nothing. Soon enough I brought her up in an alley near Lyme Street, not far from my teahouse.

Despite the sleet that was falling, the air was thick with smoke. Sparks popped nearby like small explosions, and I heard voices shouting. The odor tugged at my gut in a most unpleasing way. “No more rooftops,” I whispered to the baby. “But I have to do this thing.”

My gut flopped, but settled again. I took a long look at Mother Argai in the dim overcast of the day. She'd been telling a terrible tale down in the dark. Her eyes seemed haunted.

“Were you and Samma lovers of late?” My voice was soft, easy as the hissing of snow on quiet cobbles.

She looked away, which was all the answer I needed.

“Listen,” I said. “As I told you, there is no Death Right in this city. You cannot buy a murder openly. But there is not so much law in this city, either. They have no Courts as we do in Kalimpura, only judges with little power. The guilds here are merely trading houses that train up boys. If we can punish Surali, or strike her down, there will be little consequence to fear. Just foreigners killing foreigners, in the local mind. No one will call for vengeance or justice.”

“I follow you,” said Mother Argai, her voice wooden.

“One more thing. I must rescue that northern girl from Surali. We will take Samma and Mother Vajpai when we leave the house next time.” I had no idea how I meant to keep that promise, but I could not leave it unsaid.

We loped around the corner to see that the fire was not down at the Textile Bourse as I might have thought, but closer to hand. With a gasp, I realized that my teahouse had burned. It was still smoldering in the snowfall. A small crowd milled and gawped out front.

My blood ran cold. I pushed through the gathered people and looked. The cinnamon-skinned woman was laid out on the pavers, one of her brothers with her. Their faces were already crusted with icy drops, as if bejeweled for some exotic feast. I saw blood, not just burns. The other brother sat weeping beside them with his hands around his knees. A dirty rag bound his head, soaked almost purple with more blood.

I bent close and touched his shoulder. “Who did this?” I asked in Petraean.

He looked up at me, eyes unfocused, then at Mother Argai. A trembling hand rose to point at the two of us, then sweep down the street toward the Textile Bourse, where another crowd was gathered.

I ignored a flare of rage. First Corinthia Anastasia, now this. The reason was not so hard to guess, given the nature of my enemies. “Not us, but people who resembled us?”

A nod, then he went back to staring at the pavement.

Mother Argai touched my shoulder. We stood and looked toward the Textile Bourse. I had wanted to speak to the Interim Council, but apparently Surali wanted them even more. What I had taken for another group of onlookers was in fact an organized group of Kalimpuri Street Guild. The two huge Conciliar Guards normally at the door were nowhere to be seen. The interior would be defended only by clerks.

Not after today.

“Can the two of us drive off a dozen of our countrymen?” I asked Mother Argai in Seliu.

“These people have no guards of their own?” She sounded incredulous.

“Not as such. There is a Conciliar Guard, but I would not look to it for any service or protection. Politics are involved. The Interim Council also commands the city guard. They are just old men without a captain or a barracks, who roust street drunks. We stand together far better than they.”

“Who keeps the streets safe?”

I shrugged. “No one, really. Not since the collapse of the old Ducal Guard. There is less fighting here than you might think.”

She drew a long knife that was in truth more of a short sword. The little crowd that had been watching us with interest, as the latest entrants into the day's violent street theater, suddenly found business elsewhere. “Let us change that. We cannot defeat a dozen men, but we may well drive them off.”

I pulled out my long knife and palmed one of my short knives. Blades of the Lily might mean nothing in Copper Downs, but seeing Mother Argai in her leathers, these Kalimpuri Street Guildsmen would know perfectly well who she was. Thugs they were, and mortal enemies of the Blades besides. But we controlled the Death Right at home, not they. So the Street Guild feared us for both our training and our relationship with the law. Whatever their purposes here, they were habitually reluctant to fight Lily Blades to the death.