The Silver Lake (29 page)

“Abayos?”
he asked, putting deliberate emphasis on the word.

Kemal started. “Yes, Brax?”

“I’m hungry.”

As Yashar sent a junior physician scurrying off to find food, Spar snickered, but Brax lay back with a frown.

He closed his eyes and the images faded away leaving nothing but the faintest memory of a boy lying dead on the cobblestones of Liman-Caddesi and another snatched into the air by a host of lights and spirits. He pushed the thought away.

It’s over,
he told himself firmly.
We’re safe. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or does now. We made it.

At Oristo-Sarayi, Tanay was discussing the boys’ sudden arrival with Chamberlain Rakeed of Usara’s temple as they entered the smallest of the five council rooms. Old friends, the two of them had walked over together, grumbling about the disruption to their schedules and speculating on what the other chamberlains were going to bring to eat. Together, they set down their individual platters of seed cakes beside a huge silver tea service, and Tanay gave a deep, drawn-out sigh as she glanced along the length of the long, linen-draped side table.

“And yet, if I’d decided to make halva, everyone else would have made that, too,” she muttered huffily.

“Hm?” Rakeed glanced over as he lifted two cakes from each platter with an air of greedy anticipation.

“I was just saying that sometimes the Hearth God is a little too close to us all,” she explained. “Next time I’m going to bring a bucket of asure.”

“It won’t help. But look, Farok’s brought lokum and Kadar’s made simit rings. I love simit rings.” He added three to his plate with a flourish.

“Kadar made simit rings because the Senior Abayos-Priest made.... ?” Tanay lifted one, sarcastic hand to her ear. “Seed cakes,” she finished for him. “And Farok probably made lokum because someone at Incasa-Sarayi saw too many seed cakes in a vision this morning.”

“Well, pardon me for seeing the best of the situation,” he said in an injured tone belied by the twinkle in his eye. “We could sample them all and see who made the best. Do we dare?”

Tanay laughed in spite of herself. “No, Rakeedin-Delin, everyone knows your seed cakes are the best.”

“Why, thank you, ravishing one, it’s too true.” He leaned toward her with a conspiratorial air. “Speaking of visions, do you suppose that this all too inconveniently called last minute consultation is due to Bey Freyiz and her cryptic little vision?”

“Likely.” Tanay glanced over as Senior Abayos-Priest Neclan entered the room, Chamberlain Kadar in tow. “I imagine we’ll find out.”

As one, the gathered joined them at the low council table, sinking quickly into its accompanying nest of silken cushions and Neclan glanced about until she was sure she had everyone’s attention.

“Before we get to the meat of today’s discussion, Chamberlain Farok has a piece of very pertinent information to share with us. Farok?”

The chamberlain of Incasa’s temple finished off a piece of lokum before clearing his throat. “First Oracle Freyiz has stepped down, naming Seer-Priest Bessic as her successor. She’s leaving for Adasi-Koy within the week.”

Talk broke out around the table immediately, but eventually Chamberlain Isabet of Ystazia’s temple gave her superior a shrewd glance.

“The timing is suspicious,” she noted loudly enough to silence the rest of the gathered.

“Yes, it is,” Neclan agreed.

“Is there any speculation as to why?”

All eyes turned to Farok again, who gave an elegant shrug. “The official story is simply retirement—after all, she is very old—but word in the halls is that Incasa has sent her a powerful and complex vision which requires the added clarity of her home village to sort out.”

“A vision beyond the one she made public at Assembly?” Tanay asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted with an apologetic smile. “Seed cake?”

“I have one, thank you.”

“So what do you know about the new First Oracle?” Chamberlain Penir of Havo’s temple asked.

Farok gave another elegant shrug. “Nothing unseemly or secret, I’m afraid. He’s is in his late thirties. He comes from a wealthy Anavatanon family who’ve served Incasa’s temple for at least five generations. He’s intelligent, handsome, privileged, and very, very ambitious. He’s well-liked and well-respected within the temple hierarchy; however, he’s neither as powerful nor as beloved by the God as Freyiz and since he served under her as delinkos, he’s naturally a bit intimidated by the position.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Tanay observed dryly.

The gathered snickered, but a swift, disapproving glance from their Senior Abayos-Priest stilled them at once.

“Will this cause disquiet in Incasa’s temple?” she asked bluntly.

“I shouldn’t think so, Sayin, not with Bey-Freyiz leaving so soon.”

Neclan leaned back, turning her teacup peevishly between finger and thumb. “So,” she said after a moment. “Momentous changes at Incasa-Sarayi and disturbance at Oristo-Sarayi. Does anyone else have something to add to this list of woes?”

The gathered glanced about at each other before Rakeed kicked Tanay under the table. With a yelp, she turned and swatted him in the back of the head before acknowledging his point with a glare.

“I don’t know that this adds to any tale of woe,” she said, daring Rakeed to gainsay her. “But there has been an unusual event at Estavia-Sarayi.”

“Kick me again and I’ll see to it that every hospital bed at Usara-Sarayi is short-sheeted,” she threatened as she and Rakeed made their way back along the opulent, tree-lined merchant street that linked the six main temples together.

Pausing before a line of carpets hanging outside a nearby stall, her fellow chamberlain just shrugged. “Are you saying that you weren’t going to tell her?” he asked, studying the elaborate designs with an appreciative air.

Tanay gave no answer for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “But I
do
know that delon have no place in temple politics.”

“And yet the timing is just as suspicious as Bey-Freyiz’s retirement.”

“Possibly, but I won’t have Brax and Spar dragged into any nonsense about visions or prophecies regardless,” she replied. “And I will
not
have them spied upon. Will you be long?”

“Not at all. In all fairness,” he noted, feeling the texture of a small lap rug between finger and thumb, “I don’t think that’s what Neclan had in mind. She asked that you keep an eye on the situation, not spy on the delon. Yes, they are beautiful,” he told the merchant hovering unobtrusively by the door. “I’ll take twelve of the blue ones. You were saying?” he asked as they continued along the street, moving from linen and silk shops to incense and perfume stalls as Oristo’s sphere of influence waned and Incasa’s waxed.

“That I don’t like it.”

“Well, just think how impossible Farok’s job is, then. He has to keep an eye on an entire temple of politically savvy, subtle, and dissembling seer-priests, arse-deep in these latest disturbances.”

“I suppose.
Now
where are you going?” she demanded as he suddenly veered off toward a glass-maker’s shop.

“I need blue bottles.”

“I’m never going to get back in time to receive the day’s supplies,” she sighed. “Ah well, I suppose Monee can handle it.” With a resigned expression, she followed the other chamberlain inside.

“You know the delon might be pertinent,” Rakeed continued a few moments later as they passed a row of incense sellers. “You said they were brought to Estavia-Sarayi by the Battle God Herself. That alone warrants attention. I’m surprised someone from Incasa’s temple hasn’t been over to interview them already.”

“Well, they’d best not make the attempt,” Tanay growled. “They haven’t given us the whole story by any stretch of the imagination; I can feel it. And until they do, the delon are
off limits.
Kemal of Serin-Koy and Yashar of Caliskan-Koy are their abayon now and I want the whole family left in peace.”

She glared at him and he raised both hands in surrender. “You don’t have to convince me,” he protested. “I’m sure they’ll be fine abayon, and if you say Incasa’s people are hiding things, I believe you. You’re the one with a modicum of prophetic sight, after all.”

“Don’t let it get around,” she sniffed in a mollified tone. “Most priests of Oristo think it’s a pile of sheep manure.”

“Don’t you?”

Striding purposely through a mud puddle, Tanay gave a faint snort. “Perhaps,” she replied, glancing darkly at the tall, wrought iron gates of Incasa-Sarayi before them. “But usually it’s the seer that makes it so, not the sight.”

In her bedchamber, Freyiz paused in the supervision of her packing as a thread of sarcastic power trickled through her mind. She chuckled.

“You always were a swift one,” she murmured in the direction of Estavia-Sarayi’s chamberlain. “Too swift to be scooped up by Incasa and confined to the life of a minor seer.” Turning, she stared out the window at the flickering red power signature of the Battle God’s temple to the north. “So, Tanayin-Delin,” she continued. “I leave the delon in your capable hands for now. But only for now, mind you. The time will come when they’ll pull away from your protection as well as from mine.”

With a sigh, she turned back into the room. “But then, delon always do, no matter how vital it might be for them to stay,” she added sadly.