The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (6 page)

"But instead we've been ordered to fetch your worthless hide, willing or no. So you're coming with us."

"I beg to differ," shouted Battlemaster Guren, hopping a wall and stepping out of the center ring.

"This is First Fist business, Guren, do not interfere," shouted one of the soldiers. His gaze, still fixed on Urus, held nothing but contempt and disgust.

"I don't care if it's your business or the goddess Ishimani's business, this boy has yet to be culled and you'll not take him," ordered Guren, towering over the two smaller soldiers in his polished armor, brandishing one of the most jewel-encrusted swords in the arena. Battlemaster Guren was outranked only by Uncle Aegaz, Kebetir, and the emperor himself.

"Then cull him so we can get this over with and back to the celebration," snorted the leader of the group.

Guren nodded, strode over to one of the many ceremonial pyres burning throughout the arena, and pulled a metal rod from the fire.

Urus blanched.

It was a branding iron.

"Off with your shirt, crowfeed," snarled Guren.

Unsure of what to do next, Urus held up his hands, jiggling the chains.
 

"Funny boy, eh?" Guren snapped. "Take his damn shirt off."

The First Fist soldiers ripped off Urus's shirt, re-opening his stinging gauntlet wounds as it tore.

"That's better," Guren said, standing in front of Urus. "On his knees."

The soldiers kicked the back of Urus's knees, and he dropped like a stone, a cloud of dust billowing up around him as he landed. The vibrations from the crowd had stopped. Goodwyn had finished his performance and all eyes in the stadium were fixed upon Urus.

Guren held up the branding iron, a circular symbol that contained four inward-pointed triangles and another circle within it: the symbol of the culled.
 

"Urus Noellor, I pronounce you culled. Hereafter you are not a man, you are not a boy, not a soldier, not a citizen. You do not exist and have no rights or privileges in this city. Like the captured war prisoner you portray, you will be fed and clothed and sheltered and nothing more, hereafter a burden on those in this city who perform their proper Kestian duties."

Urus closed his eyes, clenching his teeth and fists. He knew what was coming next and imagined it might be more painful than surviving a fall from a rooftop.

Guren pressed the red-hot branding iron into Urus's chest. For an instant he felt just pressure, then a searing sting, then unbearable scorching heat. He smelled the skin rupture and burn, saw the hair on his chest catch fire, smolder, and give off a noxious smoke. He was glad that he couldn't hear the sound of his own scream.

"Now you can take him," Guren said, tossing the iron aside and walking away.

Urus's eyes rolled up into his skull, his mouth sagged open, and the world faded into darkness.

5

Urus awoke to a myriad bright, multicolored lights and fuzzy shapes, his eyes unable to focus. His knees hurt and dried blood clung to them, but his chest hurt more.

The memory of the First Fist coming for him flooded his mind, shocking his blurred vision into crystal clarity. He remembered Guren searing his chest with the branding iron, remembered the pain right up until he passed out, unable to bear it.

Gingerly touching his chest, he found that it had been smeared with a foul-smelling mud, probably made by the shamans—they were always trying out new muds and pastes that they claimed could cure everything from headaches to broken limbs. But there was nothing this mud could do to change his situation or dull the pain, no matter how pungent the odor.

All eyes in the room were upon him. He stood and lifted his head. He was in a room crowded with people, all staring at the spectacle of his burnt, bare chest and wrinkling their noses at the stench. Urus couldn't blame them. He didn't know which smelled worse—the burn or the mud. At least most of the dung had been removed when the First Fist tore his shirt.

This was no ordinary collection of random gawkers, however. Ogling Urus were the most powerful men and women in the city. They filled a large square chamber, most wearing their full combat gear. Even the shamans wore their decorative feathers and bone necklaces.

To his left stood his uncle and to his right a collection of members of the First Fist and equally high-ranking members of the shaman caste.
 

In the center of the room knelt a man who was as tall on his knees as many of those standing upright, his strange gray skin highlighted by his bald head and a thin shock of white hair springing from his chin like the last remnant of a once-proud beard. He wore a peculiar blue woolen shirt that rippled in waves like the slopes of sand dunes, the shirt covered by a long, simple woolen cloak. His hands were bound behind his back and to his ankles with thick rope.

Aegaz signed, "Are you all right?"

Urus nodded tentatively. There was nothing all right about him or his situation, but he put on a brave front for the sake of those watching. He might not be a warrior, but he could still pretend to be as brave as one.

Fear and panic hit him in waves, his heart pounding. Instinctively he searched for the nearest exit, the panic doubling when he could find no obvious doors or windows, just solid sunstone not yet glowing from the sun's descent into night.

The focus in the room shifted to the back as a piece of the wall detached itself and receded, allowing a tall man with shoulder-length gray hair to step through, his body covered in bright red plate-mail armor, a thin cape hanging to the floor behind him. The gathered crowd dropped to one knee and bowed their heads, their gaze fixed on the floor in front of them, an elbow resting on the other knee. Urus painfully followed suit.

Emperor Kaled had arrived. As close as his uncle was to the man, Urus had only seen him a few times in his life.
 

"Your Imperial Majesty," Aegaz began, still kneeling and making sure Urus could see his lips move, "this is hardly a matter that requires your attendance. We can interrogate the prisoner without posing any risk to you."

Kaled eyed Aegaz, his face wrinkled with age and scarred with the marks of countless battles. Even at his age, the man had never lost a duel, not even to Aegaz.

"I will decide what is and is not of import to me, Commander."

Aegaz bowed. "As you wish, Majesty."

Kaled waved his hand. "Proceed."

The assembled company stood. Relief washed over Urus as everyone looked away from him and to the prisoner. High Shaman Kebetir stepped out of a rift in the throng of important-looking people and stepped toward Urus, brilliant feathers hanging from the hair in his topknot.
 

As Urus and Kebetir locked gazes, he wondered if he had been caught, if the shaman knew it was he who had been eavesdropping in that hallway the night before.

"What's happening?" Urus signed to his uncle, focusing on him and trying to ignore everything else in the room.
 

"This is madness. This
culled
creature has no business here," Kebetir protested, his decorative feathers flapping as he waved his arms.

"You know we need him here, Kebetir," Aegaz said.

"Urus," he signed, "we found this man in the dungeons. The guards tried to subdue him, and the shamans shot enough darts in him to put an elephant to sleep. That just slowed him down enough so we could capture him."

"If the First Fist hadn't gotten in our way, we would have taken him ourselves," Kebetir protested.

The emperor watched the exchange with a distant look, seemingly unaffected by the tension between the warrior and the shaman castes.

"This is why you had to leave last night, and why you weren't at the culling?" Urus signed.
 

Aegaz nodded. But Urus didn't care about prisoners or anything else to do with his uncle's job. His uncle had promised to be there and he broke that promise.
 

"Stop coddling the brat and put him to work; important matters await," Kebetir said, eyes darting tentatively between Aegaz and the emperor.
 

Uncle Aegaz had always said that what he and the others did in the emperor's court every day was like a game, a game with very high stakes. Urus didn't understand this game. He just wanted to get out, to get out of Kest and away from the shame.

"The point is that he doesn't seem to speak any languages we know," Aegaz signed. "I showed him some tradesign, and he replied in an old dialect from Orda. All I could manage to understand was when he spelled his name, Murin."

"Orda? We haven't seen a trader from that far south in years," Urus signed, the conversation starting to take his mind off the officers in the room and the throbbing pain from the burn on his chest.

"We need you to translate for us," Aegaz signed with a sad, apologetic look. His eyes never dropped to Urus's chest.

"Why can't you get Master Villus to translate?" asked Urus.

"Master Villus has fallen ill," Aegaz replied. "The poor man can't even get out of bed, and we're changing his sheets twice an hour from the sweats."

Aegaz finally looked down at Urus's festering brand, barely concealed by the mud poultice. He spun around and spoke to one of his men. Urus couldn't make out any of the conversation, but the soldier glanced back at Urus over his uncle's shoulder and nodded once.

A moment later one of the emperor's attendants arrived with a clean white linen shirt, the scent of fresh flowers and soap wafting from it. The attendant handed the shirt to Urus, who quickly put it on, glad to have the culled brand hidden. He didn't know whether they wanted the symbol hidden for their sake or for his.

"Your boy has the chest of an ox to fit so snugly into one of my shirts," Kaled said. "It is a shame one so strong lacks the skill to become a warrior."

Aegaz swallowed and clenched his fists but said nothing.

No one ever doubted Urus's strength, only his ability to use it to be anything other than a strong, clumsy failure.

"On with it then," Kaled said, breaking the awkward silence. "Ask this Murin what he was doing in our dungeons."

Urus faced the prisoner. The old man hadn't moved from the spot the entire time, his dark green eyes focused on the emperor.

Urus made the sign for
prison
, as Orda's tradesign dialect had no sign for dungeon, then the signs for
within
and
why
. Urus always thought it crazy that a language created for trade had so many local dialects, practically defeating the purpose.

"I was looking for something," replied Murin. His hands moved slowly, the huge dose of shaman sedative in his system preventing him from making fine gestures.
 

Urus turned to the emperor and signed the prisoner's reply in standard tradesign.

"No, boy, say it out loud. I don't know the tradesign."

"He says he was looking for something," Urus said aloud. Then he winced, waiting for the inevitable comments about his awkward speech, or that he'd been too loud or too quiet. Everyone except Goodwyn and his uncle made fun of it. It was the reason he only spoke aloud as a last resort.

"Looking for what?" asked Kaled, paying no heed to Urus's speech problem.

Urus relayed the question and awaited the answer. It was a long time in coming.

"I must have the recipe for whatever was in those darts. The effect is…" The prisoner studied Urus, his brow furrowed, his green eyes moist. "A blessing."

"Blessing? He should be dead by now. No one should be able to survive that much of the extract," Kebetir said.

"Silence, shaman, I am handling this interrogation," Kaled snapped. "Ask him what he was looking for again. We don't have time for swapping recipes like handmaidens at the market."

Urus asked again.

"I seek a door," replied Murin, Urus barely able to keep up with the man's use of old and outdated signs. He wasn't sure if he had meant
door
or
opening
.

Those in the room exchanged curious and confused looks. Some bent to whisper in others' ears, but Urus couldn't make out what they were saying.
 

Kaled raised a hand again, silencing the whispers in the room. His face turned cold and serious. "Surely you could have found a door closer to your own home, somewhere near the top of the world from the look of your skin. Why seek a door in Kest?"

"This is ridiculous. Obviously he has no intention of talking under normal circumstances," Kebetir said, seeming as agitated as the emperor was calm. "My men can interrogate him privately using our own methods. We will have answers before nightfall."

"You doubt my ability to interrogate a prisoner, High Shaman?" Kaled asked, his face still a mask of calm.

Kebetir blanched as Kaled turned again to the prisoner. "Explain this nonsense about a door or I may actually let the High Shaman have his way with you."

"This is no nonsense. For me, this search has consumed the last—" the old man paused, as if reconsidering his words. "—many, many years of my life. Somewhere beneath Kest lies what you might call a door but it has many other names. A more accurate name would be to call it a
vertex
. It was put there two millennia before the first brick of Kest's foundation was set."