Chasers of the Wind (45 page)

“Not at all. You understand…” She lapsed into thought; then she smiled, caught my surprised look, and quickly explained, “I’m sorry. It’s just strange to have to explain common truths to you.”

“Common?” I was indignant. “Go out on the street and ask a hundred people what differentiates one mage from another and why they are called what they are, and you’ll see what they tell you.”

“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” She nodded. “No one gives any thought to why they are named so. It developed over the centuries, became habitual. And because the Walkers were more important and sat at the Council, the Embers were instantly placed on a lower step. In terms of power, of course.”

“And it’s not so?” It was strange to learn something new on a subject I’d thought I’d known since childhood.

“Do you remember what I told you about the Healer? About the fact that he has a different Gift from the inhabitants of the Rainbow Valley? Just so, between the Walkers and the Embers there are a few differences. The first could travel with the help of the Paths of Petals, could force them to submit, could so clearly imagine a place that it became almost real to them. Also, they are more adept at weaving spells. Adept, I said, not more powerful. It’s like knitting. If they are working with complicated patterns, then the Embers can’t create very serious spells, although they may be powerful. But the Embers have a different ability; they can share their spark, their warmth. They can transfer a part of their strength to a Walker, enhancing her Gift for a time. This is very crucial, especially in battle.”

“Like a quiver of arrows held in reserve?” I chuckled.

“Just about. If we take two Walkers of identical strength, who for whatever reason decide to fight each other, the one with the stronger Ember on her side would win. Or the one with a few Embers. They strengthen exponentially when added atop one another.”

“I think I understand,” I said thoughtfully. It’s funny to say! I lived my whole life, and here now such a revelation! “Embers can be stronger than Walkers?”

“In terms of power, yes. But not skills. Also, Walkers are always women, but Embers can be men. Excluding the Healers. Male Healers could command the Petals. The Sculptor was a Walker.”

“I already knew that. But other men couldn’t talk to the stones?”

“It seems they couldn’t.” Layen smiled cheerfully. “But I don’t think this was very frustrating to Plague, Delirium, and Consumption. Especially after Sorita lulled the Petals to sleep.”

I recalled that three of the eight original Damned were men. And two of them were still alive. But one question was still bothering me.

“And how is it, now that the Petals have stopped working, that they determine who is a Walker and who is an Ember?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’ve never seen it happen. But I can assume that all that’s required is to check how complicated the spells are that an applicant can weave and whether she is able to give a bit of her spark to another bearer of the Gift. For myself, I’m curious as to why the Petals are in such an odd place. You have to agree, it’s a strange find. I doubt anyone knows they are here except for their creator. Did the Sculptor have a reason for secreting away one of the Petals in this place? What for?”

“I’m afraid we’ll never learn the truth. Come away from here. We only have a few hours for sleep. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

She nodded reluctantly and was already beginning to climb the stairs, when I saw something curious on one of the walls.

“Layen, that drawing is here, too!”

We walked over to it.

“The arch, the sign of the Sculptor. It seems we haven’t found everything he hid here. The lock is exactly the same as the one by the entrance on the temple roof.”

“Do you want to take a look?”

“No,” she replied resolutely. “Otherwise, we’ll be here too long. Right now I’m not strong enough to squander my spark. Next time.”

“We’ll definitely return here.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Her smile was tired.

“Lights,” my sun whispered softly when we had settled into our travel blankets, and the spheres hanging on the walls plunged the room into darkness.

*   *   *

Ga-Nor awoke because the door creaked. He jumped up, grabbing the dagger lying next to him on his pillow.

“Calm down, buddy. It’s just me,” said Luk quickly, and just in case he held up his hands to show he was unarmed. Who knows what kinds of things the Son of the Snow Leopard imagined in his sleep.

“I can see that it’s you,” grumbled the tracker and, letting go of his weapon, he fell backward onto the bed. “Don’t stand in the doorway, come in. And shut the door behind you. Where have you been for half the night?”

“Bah! What’s this I hear! Were you really worried about me?”

Ga-Nor cast an evil glance at his comrade, but he ignored it.

“Why did Ug send such a punishment to me?” groaned the northerner suddenly. “For what sins?”

“What are you on about?” Seated on the other bed, Luk even stopped tugging off his boots.

“I’m talking about you. You were dumped in my lap and now I have to babysit you.”

“Excuse me!” said the soldier, offended. “I didn’t ask you to make a fuss over me. That was your wish. If you’d passed me by, I wouldn’t have said a word.”

“You act all high and mighty now, but then you were barely holding your own against the dead. If I hadn’t helped you, you’d be with them now.”

“Nothing of the sort. I could have dealt with them myself.”

“I swear by Ug!” Ga-Nor was so indignant he sat up. “You’re the most ungrateful pig on the face of the earth, Luk! It’s not enough that I saved your hide and we tramped through half the south to get to Al’sgara. What am I doing here? The war is going on in the east and in the north, but I’ve been lazing around here, futilely knocking on the doors of the Tower for the past week.”

“Do you know why you are so angry?” Luk collapsed into his bed, which creaked under his weight. “Because you’re used to the northern forests and trekking through the snowy tundra, and the city frightens you.”

“Ass. Where would I be without you?” Ga-Nor sighed.

“The Nabatorians would probably be playing catch with your red-haired noggin. You heard what’s happening, screw a toad! Gash-Shaku is under siege; Okni has been taken and given over to fire and the sword. In less than two weeks, battle will break out at the Steps of the Hangman. From there a straight path will be opened to the center of the Empire and the capital. Don’t think I’m a coward, but it’s better here than in that inferno, with necromancers all around.”

“I’ve never considered you a coward,” said the tracker and then immediately added a spoonful of vinegar to his compliment. “Just a fool, and those are very different things. I’m a warrior. It’s my business to wage war, not to crawl on my knees to the Walkers, waiting for the silly quails to hear us out. How many times must we ask for this, for your audience? Do you really not get that no one wants to see us?”

“If you’re so eager to fight, the war will descend upon us soon enough. Then you can swing your sword around until you burst, friend.”

Or until a Nabatorian more clever than you cuts you down,
Luk concluded to himself.

“Let’s do this,” said Ga-Nor, gazing at the ceiling. “If after five days everything is just the same as it is now, and we are being shown the door every time, I’m leaving.”

“Where, if I may ask?”

“To where our troops are fighting. And if that doesn’t work out, I’ll go home. I swore an oath to my clan; let the elders decide how I should serve.”

“Don’t be dumb, Red. Your north is too far away from here, and the Nabatorians are at the Steps of the Hangman. You won’t break through.”

“There’s always the sea.”

“I don’t think the situation’s much better there. They could have besieged the Cape of Thunder on the western passage from Losk. There are two good routes into the center of the Empire, and both may be closed. You can’t get anywhere from the south. Not right now, at any rate.”

“I’ll try, man. You know I can do it.”

“Maybe,” Luk agreed reluctantly. “The Children of the Snow Leopard are a persistent people. Do what you will. But I’m going to do what I came here for. I must tell the Walkers about Rubeola.”

“Do you really think they don’t know?”

“What does that matter? I must.”

“I swear by Ug. You’re a real soldier,” said Ga-Nor mockingly. “Stupid and stubborn.”

“Not like you, that’s for sure.” Luk didn’t get angry when the northerner taunted him, although he himself didn’t know why. “Okay, I want to sleep.”

“You didn’t tell me where you were.”

“I was playing dice,” the soldier replied unwillingly.

“Of course. With the money Layen left us?”

“Yes.”

“And what will we live on when it’s all drained away?”

“I won, screw a toad!”

“Really?” Ga-Nor was surprised. “I don’t believe you. You usually lose.”

“Not always.”

“I suppose you cheated.”

“A little bit.” Luk couldn’t deny it.

“Tomorrow you will give all the money to me.”

“Why?” The soldier shot up like a scalded cat.

“Because at any moment you might sit down to play with someone who cheats better than you. And I don’t want to be stuck in Al’sgara with empty pockets,” said the northerner adamantly. “Besides, you still owe me.”

The mention of his debt caused Luk to shut up. He huffed aggrievedly, wiggled around on his bed to find a comfortable position, and then settled down for the night. Ga-Nor silently thanked Ug that his talkative companion had finally quieted down. The northerner lay there for some time, thinking that they needed to head out for Hightown earlier tomorrow, and that if the secretary of the Tower once again tried to lead them around by the nose, he’d grab him by his throat and squeeze until Luk was sent to someone in the Council.

But the quiet didn’t last long.

“Ga-Nor, are you asleep?”

“I’m trying,” the northerner hissed without opening his eyes. He was silently calling down all the curses he knew on Luk’s head, up to and including the icy axe of Ug.

“I was thinking about Layen. I regret letting her go. How do you think she’s doing on her own?”

“I think she’s doing just fine. Far better than us. Sleep.”

“I wonder if she met up with Ness? Did they even escape Bald Hollow at all? We really don’t know anything about them. Not about Ness or Gis or Shen. What do you think, were they lucky like us?”

“I don’t think anything, Luk. I want to sleep. Their fate is in Ug’s hands. He usually protects good soldiers.”

“You might laugh, but I got used to their company. I think it would have been easier together—”

“There was never any ‘together.’” Ga-Nor abruptly broke off his friend’s musings. “It’s unlikely the assassins would have stayed with us for long. And from what I understand, they have their own business in the city. And you have yours.”

“Who are you calling assassins?” asked Luk, dumbfounded.

“Ness and Layen.”

“What for?”

“They are Giiyans.”

“What?”

“They are masters. They kill for money.”

“I know what Giiyans are. It just seemed to me that you called—”

“Our acquaintances are Giiyans,” the Son of the Snow Leopard interrupted him.

A brief silence hung over them. Luk was digesting this news.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“I swear by Ug, I’m telling the truth. Can we sleep now?”

“Sure. Listen, is Shen one, too?”

“I don’t know.”

After a minute Ga-Nor was already asleep but Luk kept staring at the ceiling, still unable to believe his companion’s words.

18

Tia got to the Ors when it was getting dark. She stopped in a grove of willows along the bank, a few yards away from the water, and sat down without taking her eyes off the opposite shore. The mighty river was leisurely flowing toward the sea and it gleamed with the nighttime lights of Al’sgara reflected on the water. Right now the southern capital reminded her most of the great city of Sdis, Sakhal-Neful, when it was being approached after sunset from the Great Waste.

Typhoid gazed through Pork’s eyes and could not believe what she saw, even though she should have expected it. The last time she had beheld these walls and towers was five hundred years ago, on the day when one part of the Council rebelled and decided to destroy the other. Twenty of them opposed the Mother and her supporters, and only eight, those who would later be known as the Damned, survived the night to leave the city, fleeing after the failed rebellion. Yes, they killed many, including the Mother herself, but they wasted too much energy fighting those who came from the Rainbow Valley to help Sorita.

Pork gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, remembering that time along with his Mistress. Since then none of the Sextet had seen the great city. The War of the Necromancers devastated the Empire over the course of fifteen years, and then they had to go beyond the Boxwood Mountains and Nabator. To Sdis. To the Great Waste and beyond.

And now, after so many years, here she was on the shore of the river, looking at the city once more, the city in which she had lived a part of her former life. Al’sgara was the same and yet completely different. Foreign. True, even from this shore it was possible to see the walls, towers, and spires of Hightown. The Sculptor’s walls and the temples to Melot were the same as before, but much that was new had appeared. The city had grown. It had expanded along the coast, overgrown its walls, spawned new districts, new buildings, new homes, new people, and had become much more unsightly, dangerous, and frightening. Typhoid felt like this enormous creature was breathing, defecating, and seething with thousands of people, alive with the magic of the Walkers. If Retar were alive, he would have put it differently. But he was long gone, even though she could still recall his face and his smile quite well. She had loved him more than life—she’d followed him into the Abyss and been left alone.

Deep-rooted hatred toward the idiots sitting in the Tower stirred within her, and Pork, twitching with fear, began whimpering. Typhoid suppressed his will. Once again she contemplated the Walkers and stared grimly at the city. She was sure that the archer, who had unfortunately escaped her, was beyond the walls that towered over the other side of the river. And the girl with the spark and the boy Healer would be with him. That meant she needed to get into Al’sgara.