The Grass King’s Concubine (62 page)

Qiaqia grabbed his arm. He cried out. From where she touched him, a thick harsh tingling spread out, cramping and biting into his flesh even more than the cold that already bound it. She loosened her grip but did not release him, towing him across the yard and into a workshop that bounded one side. She slammed its doors shut behind them with her other hand and let him go. He sank to his knees, gasping, pressing the clamoring arm to his side. The woman thing slid from his shoulder in a slither of blanket and hair. He could feel nothing but the pain of Qiaqia’s touch. Everywhere else, he was numb. When he lifted his other hand to rub at the burning arm, his fingers did not feel as if they belonged to him at all, thick and clumsy and slow to obey.

“I’m sorry,” Qiaqia said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’ll wear off in a while.” Something in her voice had changed. He looked up. She had removed her scarves and outer robe. Now she smiled at him. “We’re safe. Sujien finds it hard to see in here.”

Sujien
. The twins had mentioned that name. Another of the Cadre. Jehan did not have the energy to rise. From where he knelt, then, he asked, “Why are we hiding?”

“He makes things complicated. It isn’t helpful.”

At his side, the woman thing once again lay unmoving. He looked at her, said, “What about…?”

“There will do. Or you could put her on a bench, if you prefer.”

He did not have the energy for that either. He looked around, while Qiaqia went to the back of the room and began to open cupboards. It was a large space, part forge, part workshop, more elaborately and thoroughly equipped than any of its kin in the Brass City. But the forge was cold and the tools dusty; partly finished projects littered the benches. Here as elsewhere, the Rice Palace was deserted. Qiaqia came back, carrying a jug and a platter, which she placed on the table. She said, “There’s bread, and some cheese, and beer. Is that suitable? Liyan doesn’t bother much about food.”

The bite of her touch was beginning to fade, as she had promised, but the numbness remained. The heat from the fragment of the Stone House had died away to a faint trace. He clambered to his feet and made his way to the bench. She had pulled a stool out from under it. He sat. Qiaqia added a couple of cups, a plate and a knife, before sitting down opposite him. She poured beer and pushed one of the cups across to him. It smelled good, rich and sharp. He sipped it slowly and felt some of the tension ease from his neck. He said, “Thank you.”

She had begun to cut the bread. She stacked two slices onto the plate with a hunk of cheese and pushed that over to him also. It would be easy to let her distract him, to eat,
to relax. Instead, he took a final mouthful of beer and sat back. He said, “What do you want?”

She considered him in silence for long moments over the rim of her own cup. Then, setting it down on the bench, she said, “The domain needs healing.”

“I’m not a doctor. Or an architect.” Or whatever else it was that was required to heal a place like this.

“No. But you’re human. You came here. You found that—” and she nodded toward the woman thing “—and brought it here.”

“You took my wife.”

“It was decided to do that.”

Hiding from Sujien.
It was decided
. There were factions, here. Almost, he smiled at that. So few of them, yet they still found causes for rivalry and disagreements. Perhaps this place was less different than it appeared.

It was, after all, a palace, a court, a place inhabited by thinking beings. He had never heard tell of any such, from the great halls of the regent of the two cities to the imperial complex of the emperor of Tarnaroq, from the guild houses of the Brass City to the market hall in his own small home town, that did not have its feuds and fractures.
Not human
. Perhaps not. But some things were the same everywhere.

He said, “What happened?”

“Many things. A stranger came. Things were built. Things changed. Tsai…” Qiaqia broke off and shook her head. “We began to fade. To fail.”

Stone guards…Lumps and shards of crystal in the first courtyard, oddly reminiscent in their shapes of bones. Piles of clothing, lying, it seemed, where they had been shed. He said, “The people here…they…” He hunted for a word. “They turned back? I mean, they became stone?” She nodded. He propped his elbows on the table. Warmth was slowly beginning to work its way back into his upper body. Steepling his fingers, he said, “It’s like the steppe. You lost your water.” Dead leaves. The dried vines in the first courtyard. The empty water channel in this one. Dry fountains,
glimpsed as they hastened through the palace. The river, shrunk to a single braid in its bed.

The woman thing from the forest, with her desperate desire for water. He said, “It’s a mirror. What happens here has happened there as well.” He began to laugh raggedly. He said, “It won’t be that simple.”

“It isn’t,” Qiaqia said. “But your kind interfere.”

Marcellan’s book, with its patterns and descriptions. Its endplates with the escaping birds. He reached for his inner scarf, remembered that he had left it as a token tied to the wreckage of the Woven House. His hand closed instead on the locket. Aude and her scrolls and the fragments of words that had rained down on him from the wreckage of the Woven House.
Bad witch bargain
. Water and wealth: the factory masters of the Brass City who controlled the public wells and cut the rations of their workers and tenants to feed the wheels of their mills. Aude looking about her on the empty plain and saying, “There should be rice.”

He said, “I came for my wife. What must I do to get her back?”

She smiled at him. She said, “You must mend us. Put back what was broken.”

“What sort of thing? I’m not an engineer. Or a smith.”

“No. That’s Liyan’s work. But a human started it. And it seems we don’t know how to solve it. Not quite.”

“And Aude?” This, then, was to be the price. He was to solve their riddle for them in return for her safety. Unless, of course, he could find her and get them both away from here first. “Let me guess: I get to see her when I’ve done what you want.”

“No.” The voice came from the back of the workshop, making him jump. It was male, this voice, and rough. The speaker came forward. Another of the Cadre, this one slight and thin faced, hair drawn back in a queue. His eyes flickered from Jehan to the jug on the bench, to Qiaqia and back again. He halted next to her. “Mo-Qia, you left the palace without telling me.”

“And I returned.”

“I couldn’t find you.” His hand strayed to her shoulder, picking up her braid and winding it about his fingers. “I couldn’t feel you.”

“I’m here now, Liyan-kai.”

Jehan picked up his cup and drank more beer, uncomfortable. More of the chill bled from his flesh as he swallowed. He was tired. He set the cup back down and turned his attention to the bread. It was dry, a little stale, but the cheese was strong and sharp. He had eaten worse on maneuvers. He could use the energy.

Something brushed the back of his neck. He flinched, looked round. A faint low hum, a flash of color…He checked the woman thing, found her lying as she was. The touch came again. He turned. A bee hovered a few inches from his face. He did not realize he had been holding his breath until it released itself in a long rush. Just a bee…

Nothing here but the Cadre and the drying, dying plants. He looked again. A second bee had joined the first. Several more hovered over the bench or flew about Liyan. Jehan set his bread and cheese down. He said, “Where did those come from? Everything’s dead here.”

“Almost.” But Qiaqia leaned forward as she spoke and her eyes were bright.

“They like it here.” Liyan put out a hand, and one of the bees landed on it. “They like the warmth.”

“But what do they live on?” Jehan was hazy on the eating habits of bees, but he had an idea that it involved fresh flowers. All the blooms he had seem here were dry and fading.

“They just are.” Liyan sat on the edge of the table. “Mo-Qia, why did you bring another man here? We don’t need him.”

“He brought himself.” The light was still in Qiaqia’s eyes. “He followed the woman. And he brought something with him.”

“A book?” Liyan leaned toward Jehan. His breath was hot.

“Look.” Qiaqia pointed.

Liyan frowned. “Rags…” But he slid off the bench and
walked around it to look more closely. The bees did not follow him. “Not rags.” He drew a knife from his belt and crouched down beside the woman thing. Jehan’s hand drifted toward his own sword. The woman thing was no responsibility of his. She had followed him, battened on him, sought to harm him and Clairet. And yet…He did not know what she was. But he had, as Qiaqia had said, brought her here.

Liyan flicked a fold of the blanket aside. About the bench, the bees wove loud, darting patterns. Jehan’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. If the creature woke…Liyan said, softly, staring down at the creature’s face, “Not possible…That can’t be possible.” He looked up, and his face was drawn, lost. “Mo-Qia…”

She rose, scattering the cloud of bees. Jehan slipped off his stool, just in case. Bees danced all around him. Qiaqia put her hands on Liyan’s shoulders. She said, “Hush.”

“But…” Liyan said. And then, “Tsai. It looks like Tsai.”

From somewhere deep in the palace, a woman’s voice screamed.

Jehan drew his sword. “That’s Aude.”

“Man Is Ours.”

T
HE WALLS WERE SHAKING. Every fiber in Julana’s being urged flight, escape from the trap that the room could become. She clawed at the door, jumped atop the window ledges to chew the lattices, skittered to and fro as if her worry could somehow open up an exit. Woken by her alarm, Marcellan unwound himself from the divan, stretching and shaking his head. He said, “What is it?” And then, “Where’s Yelena?”

Julana could not believe he could not sense the terror in the building. She rattled again at a window, then turned and leaped from its ledge to his lap. He caressed her gently, and the fur along her spine lifted. He said, “I’m here. I’m sure she’ll come back soon.”

Not that
. Another tremor ran through the walls. She stared up at him and saw on his face nothing more than sleepy concern.

She wanted to bite him. She must not, not again. She set her teeth in his sleeve and tugged. He said, “Hey,” and made to stroke her again. She pulled back, and jumped to the floor. It thrummed beneath her feet, tickling up through her toes to set her heart racing even faster. She shook herself, snapped irritably at nothing, and changed shape. The floor was quieter through her thick, clumsy human feet, the distress in the palace muted. If anything, that made it worse. She glared at Marcellan and said, “You don’t feel it.”

“Should I feel something? I’m sorry.” Marcellan reached for his shirt and passed it to her. She wriggled into it irritably. She could not think how to explain it to him.

She had to make him understand. She said, “Not safe. The palace is shaking. The palace is afraid.” He said nothing, watching her. She tugged at her wiry human hair. This body—these bodies—were so thick, their senses were so dull, wrapped in layers of stupidity. She said again, “It’s not safe.” And then, “We have to be outside. No walls.”

Marcellan looked at her for long moments, his face serious. Then he looked past her, at the loom. His brows drew in. Julana twisted to follow his gaze. The long thread of weft and warp vibrated, light and low. She looked back at Marcellan, and he nodded. “An earth tremor.”

It would be more than that. Could be, if the Grass King’s anger peaked. Julana said, “Guards are gone. No key. We have to leave.”

Marcellan went out into the courtyard and tried the gate. It was as solid as ever.

She said, “No good. Locked. And we can’t break it.”

A key turned in the lock. She jumped, dived for Marcellan’s room, fur already streaking up her spine. She should have known someone was there. This stupid, stupid body had failed her yet again. Marcellan stepped back stood there, arms folded.
Liyan
, Julana prayed.
Let it be Liyan.

It was Sujien.

The corridors were chaos: servants and courtiers flew here and there, half dressed or still clutching the tools of their trade. Yelena abandoned any hope of stealth and scurried through them as fast as she could, nipping at ankles, shooting between legs, snapping and snarling. The panicked inhabitants milled or gave way before her determination. None of them, it seemed, had any idea of what to do save run for the gardens. As she came closer to the core of the palace, fewer and fewer of them were going her way.