The Drowning City Page 8

  She slipped across the cobbles and into the shadow of the ruined shop. Red ropes were strung across the door and broken wall to keep intruders out. Isyllt paused when she felt the spell woven into the cord. Subtle magic, well-cast, meant to snare or mark an intruder. She knelt and twisted through the ropes, careful not to touch them.

  The air still stank of charred flesh and seared blood; crusted gore marked where the bodies had lain. Isyllt closed her eyes and reached, listening to the stones.

  The explosion had killed most instantly, leaving only shudders of shock and violence. Someone in the far corner had died slower, roasted by the flames. Pain resonated there, raising gooseflesh on Isyllt’s limbs and stinging her fire-tender skin. But it was only the echo of agony blasted into the rock, not a soul left intact.

  Even her mage-trained eyes could barely see in the gloom and she couldn’t risk a light. Inching cautiously, she moved closer to where she’d found the shattered ruby. If the investigators had missed something, any scrap that had belonged to the saboteur—

  A hand closed on her shoulder, another slapping over her mouth before she could gasp. She tasted spice-steeped skin and summer lightning. Isyllt cocked her leg for a backward kick when her assailant spoke.

  “I admit,” Asheris’s low voice whispered in her ear, “you aren’t what I expected to catch here, Lady Iskaldur.” The hand left her mouth and he turned her around. A sliver of moonlight gleamed in amber eyes.

  “What were you expecting?” She licked her lips, tasted the salt of his hand. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she fought to keep from trembling in the after-math of shock. She’d felt nothing, heard nothing.

  Asheris grinned, a pale flash in the darkness. He wore black and the shadows welcomed him. “A criminal foolish enough to return to the scene of the crime, perhaps. I hope that isn’t what I’ve found.”

  His hand was warm on her shoulder, their bodies only inches apart. Nearly a dance step. He was only an inch or two taller. “Not a criminal, my lord, only careless.”

  He took a step back and Isyllt almost matched him. But this was another sort of dance entirely. “When I offered to take you sightseeing, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

  She was glad she had no need to lie. “I was in the market when this happened. I wanted to have a closer look.” She shrugged ruefully. “Habit, I’m afraid. I didn’t mean to interfere in the investigation.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Your investigation?”

  “Yes. Forgive me, I neglected to mention it earlier—I’m the Imperial Inquisitor for the city.” He stepped back to give her a shallow bow.

  “I hope I’m not impeding you.”

  “No, my lady. There’s little here for you to impede. Such attacks are no mystery in Symir. Unless—” Light caressed the curve of his head as he turned. “Are there any ghosts here for us to question?”

  “No. They died suddenly—no time to seal themselves to this place. “

  “Ah, well. Better for them, I suppose, if frustrating for us. We know who’s responsible, of course, but without witnesses it’s difficult to make a proper case.”

  “Have you scried the dead?”

  “We have no necromancers on staff—they make the locals very uncomfortable. I’ve requested one, but the Emperor has none to spare.” His eyes flickered toward her. “Unless I could beg your assistance in the matter.”

  Isyllt smiled. She trusted him no more than he trusted her, but this dance was far too entertaining to stop now. “I’d be delighted.”

  He offered her his arm. “I’m a poor host, to entertain you in a charnel house. Let me take you somewhere more pleasant.” He helped her over a fall of rubble; the moonlight was bright after the shadowed ruin. “And perhaps you should tell your escort in the alley that I have no ill intentions. I suspect he’s rather concerned at the moment.”

  Somewhere more pleasant, it turned out, was the police station in Lioncourt. Despite the late hour, the lobby was crowded, every bench full and more people pacing in the corners. Some wept, some cursed and pleaded with the guards at the desk, some stared at nothing with hollow eyes; the air was thick with the heat of lamps and bodies, and reeked of sweat and dust and old tea. As Asheris led her through the press, Isyllt caught snatches of conversation.

  “Let me see the body, please—”

  “I can’t find my daughter—”

  “My wife was arrested at the docks on Sabeth, and I’ve had no word since. Where is she being held?”

  She glanced up at the last, saw the man’s angry, desperate expression and thought of the disappearances and work-gangs Zhirin had mentioned. Asheris steered her past the cordons, and she didn’t catch the guard’s weary response.

  A haggard-looking sergeant met them near the stairs and saluted Asheris, casting a curious glance at Isyllt. The guards at the desks were local police, but his rumpled sweat-stained uniform was Imperial poppy red.

  “I need the morgue key, please,” Asheris said.

  “Of course, Lord al Seth.” The man turned away to fetch it, just in time to miss the startled blink Isyllt couldn’t control.

  Al Seth—the royal house of Assar. That was a choice bit of information Vasilios had forgotten to share. Much more than a pretty distraction.

  They left the noise and close heat behind as they climbed the stairs. The morgue was a narrow, windowless room, sealed by webs of spells to keep out heat and moisture and insects. Lamplight gleamed on metal and tile, everything polished and scrubbed, but neither the lingering tang of soap nor the sachets of incense could drown the smell of charred meat.

  Isyllt rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the itch of gelling sweat, and eyed the bodies. Six of them, mostly intact. Isyllt recognized the eyeless man she’d nearly tripped over in the shop. Her ring chilled with the presence of death, but not the biting cold that meant a ghost lingered nearby.

  Asheris lounged in the corner, giving her room to work. Still sleek and handsome, but all the lazy grace and charm she’d seen when they met was more purposeful now. More dangerous.

  What was he doing here, she wondered, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as she circled the tables. But she could worry about that later. The bodies in the room were of more immediate interest than the fit of his jacket over broad shoulders.

  She turned her eyes back to the grisly corpses. The smell of roast pork filled her nose, with the sharper reek of burnt hair and clothing beneath it. “Were these the only dead?”

  “Less than half. Some were too mangled to keep and some have already been claimed by their families.”

  “You let them take the bodies so soon?”

  “Wealth has ever sped certain processes along.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Wealth enough to demand retribution?”

  “Oh, yes. There will be arrests.”

  “Appropriate ones?”

  Asheris smiled with the not-quite-cruelty of a cat cornering a bird. “As appropriate as we can make them.”

  “Of course.” Isyllt leaned against a cold metal tabletop, tracing the scratches where gore or rust had been scoured away. The corpse stared up at her, face eerily whole, though his body was a shriveled crisp. She touched his stiffened arm; skin cracked, char-black flesh flaking away to reveal seeping red tissue. But his eyes, milk-clouded and sunken, were still intact, and that was all she needed.

  She leaned over the dead man, laying a careful hand on his face to steady herself. The heat had singed his receding hair.

  “What did you see?” she whispered.

  His dying vision unfolded in his eyes, wrapped around her.

  A crowded shop, polished metal gleaming in the warm afternoon sun. Dust motes spark in front of the windows, swirled by the passage of customers. Outside the market’s din blurs to a noise like squalling birds. She glances down at the lovely enameled lamp in her hands, then toward the counter. A man with long beaded braids brushes her shoulder. Muffled grunt of apology and a crystalline red gleam out of the corner of her eye as she keeps
moving—no, no, turn back, look, but the vision was set, only one way to play out now—toward the front of the shop, where the tired-looking shopkeeper glances up and smiles—

  And Isyllt stumbled, even the memory of the explosion enough to rock her on her feet.

  Asheris caught her elbow. “You saw something?”

  She leaned against him for an instant, trying to decide how much to tell him. But he’d led her this far—perhaps he could take her further still.

  “Yes.” She feigned a catch in her voice, let him steady her more than she needed. His shoulder was a pleasant warmth in the chill room. “I saw the man who did it.”

  “Can you show me?”

  Her hesitation this time was real, but after a heartbeat she nodded. She had been trained by the best, after all.

  Asheris laid a hand on the side of her face. Isyllt closed her eyes and summoned up the image of the shop, locking the rest of herself deep away where he couldn’t reach. She expected him to intrude, to search, but his presence in her mind was controlled, constrained, as if he feared to touch her.

  A brief contact and a deft one, but as he slipped away she caught a flash of something else—sand and fire and wind, the desert’s fury. Her eyes flew open to see him recoil, dark face draining ashen.

  “Forgive me,” he said after a moment, inclining his head. “That was…unexpected.”

  Curiosity defeated tact. “What did you feel?”

  “A great deal of nothing. I don’t envy your magic, my lady.” He straightened his coat, brushing imaginary dust off the embroidered sleeves. “But thank you for your assistance. Even though the man responsible is dead, this helps us track down his accomplices. Perhaps we can find them before anyone else dies.” His tiny shrug spoke eloquent disbelief.

  Every time Zhirin closed her eyes, she saw bodies crumpled on the street, smelled smoke and blood and fear. Before long she gave up and lay staring at the ceiling until night fell and the house grew quiet.

  She should have tried to help Isyllt and her master, but she couldn’t stand to watch them pore over details of the attack. As though it were a mathematical equation or a difficult translation to be solved. As though a dozen or more people weren’t dead, for nothing more than deciding to buy a lamp today.

  As if that was just something that happened.

  Finally she rose and straightened her clothes. For a moment she contemplated counterfeiting a sleeping form with pillows and slipping out the window, like she and her friend Sia had done when they were young. She restrained herself; nineteen was old enough to come and go as she pleased. Better to save the sneaking for when she really needed it.

  But she didn’t find her master or Marat and tell them she was going either, only slipped down the stairs to the dim first floor and let herself out the back. Crickets chirped in the darkness of the garden and hibiscus bushes whispered in the breeze. The house-wards recognized her and stayed quiescent as she left through the garden gate.

  She didn’t know where to go. Not home—her mother would ask too many questions. Would make Zhirin ask herself too many questions. A councillor’s daughter, rich and fattened on Khas money while people died, and what did she think she could accomplish by playing at revolution with the Tigers? Would she even have joined the Tigers a year ago, when Fei Minh was still a member of the Khas?

  Zhirin shook her head, eyes stinging. Jabbor might have reassured her, but he was on the North Bank, and she couldn’t go that far for comfort, even if she had remembered shoes tonight. She had few other friends in the city, and none she could trust with this. Not for the first time, she wished Sia had remained in Symir instead of attending the university in Ta’ashlan. But Sia could no more have stayed than Zhirin could have followed her.

  As Zhirin crossed the soaring Bridge of Sighs, whose lace-carved stone drew voices from the wind, she realized she was going to the temple. It had been too long.

  She walked the edges of the Floating Garden, where moonlight rippled silver over black water and night-blooming lilies glowed milk-blue in the darkness. Trees rustled in the breeze, bobbing in their anchored wooden tubs. Webs of moss embroidered the surface, soon to be washed away when the rains came and the river rose. The night was too quiet; the few people she passed moved quickly, hunched as if expecting a blow.

  The River Mother’s temple was always open, though at this hour it was all but deserted. The candles and lanterns had gone out, but witchlights glowed in the elaborate spiraled channels that covered the center of the floor. The drip and murmur of water echoed in the vaulted chamber.

  A curtain rustled and a veiled priestess emerged from an alcove, lantern in hand. Zhirin curtsied and the woman inclined her head. Eyebrows rose above her veil, a silent question.

  Zhirin had thought perhaps to light a candle and sit in peace for a time, but now she realized she needed more than that.

  “May I use the pool?” she asked softly.

  The priestess hesitated a heartbeat, then nodded, gesturing with her lantern toward the far end of the hall.

  Zhirin still knew the way, though it had been years since she’d used it. She still dreamed of the temple some nights, dreamed of her imaginary life as a priestess. Her mother had been intent on sending her to university with Sia, the first of the Laiis to attend. Apprenticeship at the Kurun Tam had been their compromise.

  At least she had met Jabbor.

  The priestess opened the antechamber door and lamplight rippled across the low domed ceiling. A small room, with benches and racks for clothing and a shower; acolytes scrubbed the pool at least twice daily, but courtesy suggested one track in as little grime as possible. The veiled woman found towels and a robe in a cabinet and set them on a bench, and cocked her head in another question.

  “That’s all I need, thank you.”

  She nodded and closed the door, leaving the lantern behind.

  Zhirin paused as she unbuttoned her shirt—for a moment she feared she’d have to hurry after the priestess to beg a comb, but no, she still had one tucked into her pocket. She set it aside as she stripped and folded her clothes. Her toes curled against the cold marble floor, gooseflesh crawling up her legs.

  The water from the tap was cold too, and she stifled a yelp as it splashed over her shoulders. She worked the braids and knots from her hair, watching long strands slither down the drain. When all of her was cold and wet and clean and her hair clung like lace-moss to her arms and back, she shut off the tap.

  Leaving the lantern in the antechamber, she took her comb and padded dripping to the inner room, footprints shining behind her. As she shut the door she conjured witchlight; the steps were slick already and she had no wish to miss one in the dark. If she listened, she thought she could hear the river’s pulse through the stone.

  The pool filled the center of the room, deeper than a man was tall. Only a foot of water stood in the bottom now. No taps or faucet in this room—either the river came to you here or she didn’t.

  Zhirin descended the shallow steps into the pool, water lapping gently around her ankles as she reached the bottom. The wooden teeth of her comb bit her palm, and her own nerves saddened her. Once she’d never have doubted that she could call the river.

  She raised the comb to her dripping hair and began to hum softly.

  For a moment she feared she’d been gone too long. Then the water began to ripple, welling from tiny holes in the stone. Cool but not biting, it slid up her calves, over her thighs and hips, lapping higher with every stroke of the comb.

  Once, the stories said, before the Assari built their dam, the reed-maidens would sit on the banks combing their long green hair before the floods came. They said the river had been wilder then, more dangerous. The gentle inexorable rush of the bound Mir was all Zhirin had ever known, all she had ever needed.

  When the water reached her shoulders, she left off combing and lay back, floating in the river’s embrace. The Mir’s voice filled her head and she sank, and listened, and let it take her pain.


  Xinai crossed the river after sunset, as shadows chased the last vermilion light into the west. Her heart was a stone in her chest—she was surprised the skiff didn’t sink under its weight.

  The steersmen poled in silence, lanterns doused. Insects droned across the water and frogs and night-herons splashed along the shore; an owl’s deep bu-whooh echoed in the trees. Sounds she’d heard only in dreams for the last twelve years. She’d seen a dozen rivers in the north, but none of them sounded like the Mir.

  She raised a hand to the charm around her neck, the leather pouch that held her great-grandmother’s ashes, and her mother’s before her. The bag thrummed softly against her skin. Tomorrow, she promised them. Tomorrow I’ll take you home. The wall of trees rose above them as they neared the shore, eclipsing more stars.

  She touched another charm, a beaded owl feather, and the darkness fell away. Colors faded to ghostly hints,but the river became a road of moonlight and the stars lined the treetops with gray and pierced the canopy with slivers of light. Her charms could best even Adam’s keen senses, though she had no way of making the effect permanent. As the skiff scraped onto the muddy bank she leapt ashore, avoiding rocks and tangled reeds easily.

  Selei snorted quietly. “Always the show-off, eh, child?” The old woman stepped off more carefully, leaning on a steersman’s arm. The ground squelched beneath their feet.

  “Shall we wait for you, Grandmother?” the man asked.

  “No. We’ll find our own way back.”

  He nodded and bowed, and the boat moved away with a slurp of mud.

  “Where are we going?” Xinai asked softly. Selei had been withdrawn ever since the explosion at the market that afternoon, her good eye distant and unhappy. Xinai had wanted to listen to what the city had to say about it, but the witch had kept her close all day.

  “Cay Xian.” She raised a hand when Xinai would have spoken. “From here we go in silence. The Khas watches these hills, and it will be worse after what happened today. We’ll speak when we reach the village.”