Sworn in Steel (30 page)

“Bazaar or temple,” I said, “we need to find Raaz.” I looked around, then hopped up onto the plinth for one of the columns and tried to see over the crowd. “You
take that side of the temple,” I said to Fowler, “while I—”

I was interrupted by the sound of a single, clear, deep note ringing out over the space.

The poetry stopped, the girl became solemn, and everyone made their way to a clear patch of ground. Those without rugs or mats chose the grass, while most of the others opted for the clearings
covered with raked sand. A few of the more dedicated knelt on the gravel. I noticed that those within the arcades fell silent as well, although not all of them knelt in prayer.

As before, everyone faced in a different direction, directing their prayers at the image of the god they had come to petition. A few people seemed to pray in no particular direction at all, or
looked to be facing the space between two representations. Indecisive, I wondered, or hedging their bets?

The bell sounded again, and a single priest came out from an archway on the far side of the temple. He was clad in deep red-orange robes, and carried a twisted, gnarled staff in his hands. After
a brief gesture to each of the four cardinal directions, he faced back the way he’d come and began a low, sonorous chant.

The prayers lasted maybe ten minutes, and I used that time to look over the heads and backs of the various supplicants. When the bell sounded for a third time, everyone rose. Those with rugs or
mats rolled them up. The water sellers and the rug menders began calling out again. Some people moved to leave, others stayed, and still others came in. The girl, I noticed, walked out before the
poet could prostrate himself before her again.

The temple had turned back into something like a common green.

“Any luck?” said Fowler.

I pointed. “Over there, under the arcade.”

I led us out into the temple yard and along the gravel paths, angling over toward a small group of men and women who sat in the shade halfway along the wall.

As we approached, I saw a brief shimmer appear and dance along the fingertips of one of the men in the circle. A moment later, a similar shimmer, but longer in duration and with more color,
appeared on another set of fingers. Then a third. When a fourth figure—a handsome, raven-haired woman—raised her hands, only to have the magical luminescence slither up the arm and
along the shoulders of the man next to her, the circle erupted in polite laughter, followed by the gentle tapping of palms on the floor of the arcade.

Raaz smiled along with the rest of them and made a show of brushing off his shoulder.

“Well done, Zural,” he said. “Now, tell me—ah!” He nodded as he saw me and held up one hand. We stopped maybe four paces away.

“I’m afraid the rest will have to wait for another time,” said Raaz to his students. “But remember the purpose behind this exercise: If you can recognize another’s
magic—can understand how he shapes the fragments of power—and form it to your own use, you are one step closer to turning it against him even as he gathers it, yes?”

Murmured agreement from the circle. The students—both young and old—rose and wandered away, leaving Raaz alone, perched on a threadbare cushion on an even more threadbare rug.

“Please,” said Raaz, indicating the floor before him. Fowler and I sat. “My apologies for dragging you here, but my master isn’t well and someone has to carry on the
lessons.”

“You teach your classes here?” said Fowler.

Raaz tilted his head. “Why not?”

“Well, I’d think . . .” She gestured at the milling square of the temple. “Privacy, for one. Secrecy for another. And, well, privacy for a third.”

Raaz steepled his fingers and rested his elbows on the knees. “I can see your point,” he said. “And were I a member of, say, Tal Nareesh, I might agree with you. Were I
Nareesh, I would happily stay back in my hall and conduct lessons in the privacy of a classroom or closed garden. But I’m of Tal al-Faj, and that means our school is no longer our own. It is,
in fact, the property of Tal Nareesh—a gift from the despot for exposing the foul conspiracy of its former owners.”

“Oh,” said Fowler, sounding abashed. “I didn’t—”

“How could you?” cut in Raaz smoothly. “And besides, the despot has been generous. Tal al-Faj still has a school to call its own. It is just smaller. And poorer. And prone to
leaning to one side. So we come here.” He gestured at the temple. “Where better to teach the secrets of power and control than under the eyes of the Family?” He leaned for-ward.
“And how better to avoid suspicion than by sitting out in the open, for all to see? If my master wants privacy, dear Fowler, he will save it for the things that truly matter—not simple
lessons in manipulative magics.”

“Speaking of manipulative magicians,” I said, “What do you want?”

Raaz grudgingly turned his attention to me. “You have to ask?”

I smiled a thin smile and looked over my shoulder, making sure no one was near. Enough of the worshippers and loiterers had cleared out by now that we weren’t in any danger of being
overheard. Still, I gave Fowler a look. She got up and stepped away, placing herself between us and the rest of the arcade.

I turned back, reached into my doublet, and set Jelem’s packet on the polished floor tiles.

Raaz looked from the packet to me and back again. I noted that he still had a wavering gray scar around his neck, still had a glove on his left hand where the
neyajin
had cut his
shadow, and still spoke with a bit of a rasp.

His right hand moved toward the folded sheaf of papers. “I’m glad to see that—”

“Not so fast,” I said, leaning forward and putting my finger on the packet’s nearest corner. “The price has gone up.”

Raaz frowned but didn’t withdraw his hand. “Up? Why?”

“I’m nobody’s mule,” I said. “Especially not Jelem’s.”

“And yet here you are, papers and all.”

“I just wanted to let you know I was serious.”

“If I recall, the arrangement was for us to aid you in exchange for delivering the missives. Now here you sit in the city, and yet my hand remains empty. Not only that, but you ask more to
fill it.” Raaz shook his head. “I was under the impression that Gray Princes honored their word.”

“I keep my word just fine,” I said. “When I’m not being conned or played or used.”

“That’s what this is, then? Your princely pride was wounded, and so you make threats and demands to assuage it? Based on what Jelem wrote, I’d hoped for more from you, but I
see you’re simply another red-knuckled Imperial, just like the rest of your so-called Kin.”

My hand swept down and jerked Arrebah’s smoke-edged dagger from my boot. Raaz’s eyes went wide at the sight, and a faint rattling sound escaped from his throat. I could have almost
sworn that I saw the fingers inside his gloves deflate a bit.

“This ‘red-knuckled Imperial’ fought a fucking assassin in the dark for you people,” I said, holding the blade low while making sure he could see the shadow-stuff
trailing off it. “I saved not only your life, but your master’s as well. Fowler took a click to the head, and I got cut up and poisoned in the process. So, yes, your master may have
spent his money and influence on my behalf, but I spilled my blood on his. If anyone’s owed anything, it’s me.”

Raaz sat, staring at the knife as if it were a serpent ready to strike. “You’re not the only one who suffered in that chamber,” he said slowly. “And we weren’t the
only ones in danger. Your life was under threat from the
neyajin
as well.”

“True,” I said. “But she didn’t leave because of you, now, did she?”

His stared at me a long moment, his gloved hand clenching until the leather glove creaked with the strain. “Have I told you what happened to my master?” he said. “Why he
can’t be here to speak with you? It’s because he’s dying. Whatever that
hesheh
did, it’s eating away at him. There’s a line of darkness . . .” Raaz
traced a mark across his fist, below the knuckles and above the wrist. “A piece of shadow where his fingers used to be. He says he can still feel the digits, that they are there on the other
side of the line, and that something is nibbling at them. Devouring him. Slowly.”

“Devouring him?” Of a sudden, I didn’t feel quite so comfortable holding that knife.

“The original cut was at the base of the fingers. The line is moving up his arm. We don’t know if the pain will drive him mad before whatever it is kills him, or if we will kill him
first out of pity.”

“Can’t you just cut off the hand? I know it’s not the best solution, but given the other options . . .”

Raaz shook his head. “The other magi say the shadow is in his blood, that it’s eating him from the inside, only at a slower rate. They’re trying to exorcise it, but . .
.” He opened his gloved hand so he could see the fingers, rubbed at the line on his neck. “It seems I was fortunate by comparison.”

I swallowed. It didn’t seem wise just now to point out that over half the glimmer in that tunnel had originated with Raaz and his shadow magic, nor that my own wound had been healing well,
rather than growing. Neither would help just now.

“And you think this other
tal
, the Nareesh, are behind the attack in the cellar?” I said.

“It makes the most sense,” he said. “They’ve already benefitted from our fall. Now if they were to dig the grave and fill it with our bones? One less thing to worry
about.”

I grunted. If anyone could find and hire an invisible, shadow-killing assassin, I expect it would be a bunch of Mouths. “You realize someone in your organization is likely talking?”
I said.

He dipped his chin. “That, or the Tal Nareesh have managed to set a spirit to observing us, despite our precautions. Either way, we’re looking into the problem, trust me. Now, if
you’d please, remove that
thing
from my presence.”

I drew the
neyajin
’s blade back. I noticed that as I moved to put it away, Raaz shifted slightly to one side. It took me a moment to realize that he’d done it to make sure
his shadow was nowhere near the blade’s.

I slid the blade home more gingerly than I’d taken it out and resettled myself on the ground.

“So, with all that said, what is it you want?” said Raaz.

“For starters? Some answers.”

“About?”

I tapped my finger on the papers. “Why do you want the package?”

For perhaps the first time since I’d met him, Raaz looked truly puzzled. “Because it’s ours.”

“No. That tells me why you want what Jelem sent; I want to know why you want what’s in here. I want to know why you want Imperial magic.”

Raaz didn’t even bother to deny it. “Is this a jest? You know what your Paragons can do—who wouldn’t want those secrets?”

“Not me, for one. And not a lot of other Mouths I know, either.” I pointed at the papers. “Do you know what this is? It’s death, long and slow—just to have it, just
to know about it. It’s the one secret the empire never gives out, the one thing no one besides the emperor and his magicians have ever been able to do. Imperial Paragons have turned
men’s bones to iron and heated that iron until it burned through their flesh, just for asking questions about it. But to have these? To have notes about how it’s done, how it was
discovered?” I frowned. I had no doubts about what was in that package—not after having had Jelem go through the ancient Paragon’s journal for me four months ago; not after
letting him keep some of the notes in payment for his work. And definitely not after Raaz having had all but confirmed they were smuggling Imperial glimmer just now. “No,” I said.
“I know plenty of people who’d want nothing to do with that package, either to hold it or to study what was inside. Too damn dangerous.”

“Then why didn’t you destroy it when you figured out what it is?” said Raaz.

It was a good question, and one I’d been trying to answer myself. The easiest solution would be the fire . . . and yet I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it.

“Three reasons,” I said. “First, because I gave my word that I’d deliver it. I don’t like breaking promises, not even when I’ve been tricked into them. But I
will if I have to.”

“And what would make you do that?”

“The second reason.” I tapped the paper. “This isn’t Jelem’s first shipment—can’t be. Jelem’s had months to send portions of this down, and I
can’t believe he’d wait until I suddenly had to come down here to start. That means that, even if I destroyed this, I wouldn’t be accomplishing anything. The damage has already
been done—sooner or later, the empire is going to find out that one of their best-kept secrets is making the rounds and they’ll come looking, even if it means coming to Djan. And that
means they’ll trace it back to me.”

“Let them. This is el-Qaddice. Their magi will not be able to enter.”

“Do you really think walls and laws are going to stop them when it comes to this? This is the foundation of the fucking Dorminikan Empire—they’ll tear el-Qaddice apart down to
the bedrock if they get wind of what you’ve been smuggling down here.”

“And your third concern?”

“I’m an Imperial,” I said. “I may not have much use for the emperor, but that doesn’t mean I want the empire falling to Djan. And the idea of giving you the key to
one of the secrets that have been keeping you from our door for centuries?” I shook my head. “Collapsing empires are bad for business.”

Raaz rapped his fingers on the stone tiles. “Good arguments. And I can understand your concern. But what if I was able to reassure you that what you say won’t come to pass? Would
that be enough?”

“It’d be a start.”

“Very well, then.” Raaz sat up straighter and held his left arm above the floor, pulling the sleeve back to reveal his iron magician’s manacle. Its edges were rolled and etched
to suggest billowing clouds—or maybe, more appropriately, shadows. With one deft motion, he reached out with his free hand, twisted a hidden hasp, and spoke a single syllable. The supposedly
permanent and unremovable symbol of a yazani’s duty to the despot opened and fell to the floor with a soft
clink
.