Cinnabar Shadows (14 page)

"We'd like water to drink and to wash off the dust, and a hand-cart for our baggage. Then we'll be on
our way. We have business in Urik."

More heads had come up, more folk questioning fortune. The burly registrator got to her feet, still
cradling her hand against her breast. She looked at the medallion, then at Pavek's face.

"Whatever you wish, Great One, Lord. Whatever your dreams desire. Please, Great One, Lord, tell us
who are you or—?"

"Pavek," he replied, almost as uncomfortable as she was.

Judging by the lack of reaction, his name, which had been associated with a forty-gold-piece reward
less than a year ago, had been forgotten. The registrator's lips worked, summoning up the fortitude for
another question:

Of course. Like the nobility living on their estates, high templars had a second name engraved on their
medallions. Pavek could have made one up out of whole cloth to satisfy these nervous registrators, and he
would have, for their sakes and his, but his mind had gone completely blank.

"By decree of Hamanu, Lord of the Mountains and the Plains, King of the World—"

They'd all forgotten Mahtra, still sitting cross-legged atop her kank. Lord Hamanu must have prepared
her for this moment, at least Pavek hoped the sorcerer-king had taught her the words when he gave her the
message she brought to Quraite. The alternative was that Lord Hamanu was bending Mahtra's thoughts at
this very moment. Pavek noticed he wasn't the only one looking for sulphur eyes in the skies over her head.
He didn't find any.

"—Lord Pavek is sole inheritor of House Escrissar. You may call him Lord Escrissar."

There was a name everyone recognized, feared and rightly despised, Pavek included. The Modekaners
looked at him, more uncertain than before, and even Ruari and Zvain seemed taken aback. It shouldn't have
been such a gut-numbing surprise—the Lion-King had all but told him he was replacing the half-elf—but it
was. Pavek felt as if he'd been stained with a foul dye that would never wash off.

The woman registrator retreated a full stride. "We will send to Khelo for sedan chairs, Lord Escrissar."
She flashed a hand-sign and two elven templars took off running. "There are none here."

Another reason they should have gone to Khelo. Draft and riding animals were outlawed in Urik and in
the belt of land between the city and its market villages. High templars and nobles got around that law with
slave-labor sedan chairs, which could be hired at Khelo.

"There's no time for that," Pavek protested, finding his voice too late to recall the elves. "Water and a
hand-cart, that's all we want; then we'll be on our way."

They got their water, and all the succulent fruit they could eat, but not the hand-cart. There was no
way Modekan's chief registrator was going to let a high templar, especially a high templar calling himself
Lord Escrissar, leave her village pulling his own baggage in a rickety two-wheeled bone-and-leather cart.
The village had twenty hale men who'd be honored to pull their cart. Her very own son would be especially
honored to pull a second cart for the eleganta, whose rank they'd mistaken earlier.

"Surely, Lord Escrissar, you can't expect her to walk?"

Pavek knew Mahtra wasn't nearly as frail as she appeared to be, but her sandals weren't suited for the
long walk to the city. After a futile grumble, he bowed his head, accepting the registrator's advice. The
bloody sun hadn't moved twice its breadth across the cloudless sky, and already he was being told what to
do again, respectfully and correctly, but told, nonetheless.

By the time the Modekaners had piled what appeared to be every pillow in the village into Mahtra's
cart, there wasn't a yellow-robed elf to be seen. The templars at the city gate weren't going to be surprised
by an unexpected high templar and his entourage. And Pavek wasn't going to get an opportunity to talk
tactics with his companions on the final leg of their journey, as—fool that he was—he'd intended.

Pavek didn't get a chance to talk with them at all. In addition to the two men pulling the carts, half the
able-bodied folk of Modekan marched along with them, each of them taking advantage of the opportunity to
ply a cause or air their favorite grievance with, wonder-of-wonders, an approachable high templar. They
made varied promises and offered their service for quinths, phases, or all the years of their lives, if only he
would take them into his presumably vast patronage. One nubile young woman offered to become his wife,
guaranteeing him strong, healthy sons to carry on his lineage; she already had three by the man she was
leaving, the man who, moments earlier, had offered to become his water-servant for ten years and a day.

He said he'd think about it and tucked the little seal-stone with her name on it into his bulging
belt-pouch. An older fellow, a dwarf with a mangled ear and a gimpy leg, took aim at him next, but not
before Pavek got a glimpse of Mahtra, Ruari, and even Zvain under similar assault, the three of them
looking similarly overwhelmed. He cursed himself for a fool and was glad Telhami wasn't around to see
what a mess he'd made of things, then the dwarf caught up with him.

The dwarf knew of a place, deep in the barrens, where a sandstorm had overtaken a rich caravan,
leaving everyone dead but him. For twenty years, he'd kept the caravan's lost treasure a secret, but now, if
Lord Escrissar would put up twenty gold pieces—for men, supplies, and inixes to haul the treasure back to
Urik—the dwarf would split the treasure evenly with him.

Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy! Did they all take him for that great a fool?
Pavek grew more irritated with himself and the smarmy dwarf until the walls and roofs of the city hove
into view. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed Urik—he hadn't thought he'd missed it at all, but the
sunlight flash of the Lion-King's yellow-glass eyes embedded in the majestic walls sent a chill down his
spine. His body tightened. He walked lighter, feeling Urik's vitality through the balls of his feet, the chaotic
rhythms of sentient life different from the slow regularity of Quraite's groves. The dwarf fell behind as
Pavek picked up the pace. Cruel, perhaps, to take advantage of a dwarf's shorter stride, but not unjust, not
unlike the Lion-King whose wall-bound portraits beckoned him home.

"The Mighty Lord expects you, Great One," the instigator in charge of the southern gatehouse informed
Pavek. "We sent word to the palace after the Modekan messengers arrived. Manip"—the instigator
indicated a tow-headed youth wearing the regulator's bands that Pavek knew best— "lingered in the
corridor. He saw messengers dispatched to the quarter with the keys to your house."

The instigator paused, as if he had more to say, as if it were pure happenstance that his hand was
palm-up between them. Gatekeeping templars couldn't demand anything from a high templar, but Manip
had taken no small risk eavesdropping in the palace. Pavek fished carefully through his cluttered belt-pouch;
it was useful to know that they had a place to sleep, albeit an ill-omened one. He put an uncut ceramic coin
in the instigator's hand. It disappeared immediately into the instigator's sleeve, but no more information was
forthcoming, and Pavek had no assurance that Manip would receive a fair share of the reward.

"Shall I escort you to the palace, Great One?" the instigator asked.

Pavek understood that the man would expect another gratuity when they reached the palace gate. He
needed another moment to remember that he was a high templar now and that there was no need for him
to reward this man, or anyone. Nor was he compelled to accept services he didn't want.

"I know the way, Instigator," he said firmly, liking the sound. "Your place is here. I would not take you
from it. Let Manip, there, haul our cart to my house." That was a way to reward the templar who'd actually
taken the eavesdropping risk, and rid themselves of a bulky pile in the bargain. The other cart, Mahtra's cart
with the abundance of pillows, was already on its way back to Modekan.

"Great One, the palace?" The instigator's tone was less bold. "The Mighty Lord was informed of your
imminent arrival, Great One. He expects you and your companions."

"That is not your concern, Instigator." Pavek made his voice cold. He smiled his practiced templar
smile and felt his scar twitch.

The tricks of a high templar's trade came easily. He could grow accustomed to the power, if he
weren't careful. Corruption grew out of the bribes he was offered, the bribes he accepted, which was no
surprise, but also out of those he refused, and that was a surprise.

He set Manip, the cart, and three ceramic bits on their way toward the templar quarter, then herded his
companions deeper into the city, where they could almost disappear into the afternoon crowds.

"Didn't you hear what he said?" Zvain demanded when they were sheltered in the courtyard of an
empty shop. "Wheels of fate, Pavek—King Hamanu's got his eye out for us. We're goners if we don't hie
ourselves to the palace!"

"And do what when we get there?" Pavek countered. "Slide across the floor on our bellies until he tells
us what to do next?"

Zvain said nothing, but his expression hinted that he had expected to slither.

"Mahtra, can you take us to the reservoir now?" Pavek turned to her. "I want to see it with my own
eyes before we go to the palace."

She pulled back, shaking her head like a startled animal.

"If we're going to hunt for Kakzim, we have to start where he was last seen."

"My Lord Hamanu—" Mahtra began to protest.

But Pavek cut her off. "Doesn't know everything there is to know in Urik." The words were heresy,
but also the truth, or Laq would never have gotten loose in the city. "Can you lead us there? I don't want to
go to the palace with an empty head."

"There was death everywhere. Blood and bodies. I didn't want to go back. I didn't go back. Father,
Mika, they're still there."

A child, Pavek reminded himself. A seven-year-old who'd come home one morning and found her
family slaughtered. "You don't have to go all the way, Mahtra. Just far enough so we know where we're
going. Zvain will stay with you—"
"No way!" the boy protested. "I'm going with you. I'm not afraid of a few corpses."

"You'll stay with her, won't you, Ru?"

"Aye," Ruari replied, but he was staring at the roofs across the street where something had just gone
thump.

"There—you lead us as far as you can, and Ruari will stay with you until Zvain and I get back." Never
mind that he'd trust Mahtra's street-sense before he'd trust Ruari's; Mahtra was reassured.

"We have to get to the elven market. There'll be enforcers to pay, and runners. I haven't paid them
since—" Mahtra's voice faltered. Pavek began to worry that the return to Urik had overwhelmed her, but
she cleared her throat and continued. "There's Henthoren. I don't know if he'll let me bring someone new
across his plaza..."

"We'll worry about that when we get there," Pavek said with a shrug.

He might have known the passage would be in the elven market—the one place in Urik where a high
templar's medallion wouldn't cut air. They'd be better off if no market enforcer or runner suspected who he
was, what he was. Tucking the medallion inside his shirt, he started walking toward the market. He had
three companions, each of whom wanted to walk beside him, but only two sides, Ruari staked a claim to
Pavek's right side. He held it with dire glowers and few expert prods from his staff, which Pavek decided
diplomatically to ignore.

"What do I do with these?" the half-elf asked plaintively.

Pavek looked down on a handful of colorful seal-stones sitting in Ruari's outstretched hand. "Did
anyone tell you a story that you believed?"

"No. They all wanted something from me."

"Throw them away."

"But—?"

The stones went tumbling when Pavek jostled the half-elf's arm.

"But—?" he repeated. "The stones themselves—shouldn't I try to return them, if I don't want them?"

"Forget the stones. Potters sell them at twenty for a ceramic bit, forty after a rain. Forget the
Modekaners. If you'd believed them, it might be different—might be. But you didn't believe them. Trust
yourself, Ru. You for damn sure can't trust anyone else."

Ruari wiped the lingering dust onto his breeches. The great adventure had lost its glow for him and was
further dimmed when they passed through the gates into the elven market. Ruari had been conceived
somewhere in the dense maze of tents, shanties, and stalls. His Moonracer mother had fallen afoul of a
human templar. The templar was long dead, but Ruari still held a grudge.

The market was quiet, at least as far as enforcers and runners were concerned. Mahtra led them
confidently from one shamble-way to the next. Keeping an eye out for authority, Pavek spotted several
vendors who seemed to recognize her—hardly surprising given her memorably exotic features—but no one
called to her. And that wasn't surprising either. Folk in the market minded their own business, but they had
a good memory for strangers, an excellent memory for the three strangers traveling in Mahtra's wake.

They stopped short on the verge of a plaza not greatly different from a handful of others they'd crossed
without hesitation.

"He's not here. Henthoren's not here," Mahtra mumbled through her mask. She pointed at an odd but
empty construction, an awning-chair atop a man-high tower and the tower mounted on wheels.
Henthoren—a tribal elf by the sound of his name—presumably sat in the chair, but there were no elves to
be seen today, not even among the women pounding laundry in the fountain. "He's gone."

"He can't stop you from leading us across then, can he?" Pavek chided gently. "Let's go."

She led them to a squat stone building northwest of the fountain. The stone was gray, contrasting with
the ubiquitous yellow of Urik's streets and walls. There were rows of angular marks above a leather-hinged
grating. Writing, Pavek guessed, but none that he was familiar with. After spending all his free time
breathing dust and copying scrolls in the city archive, he thought he'd deciphered every variant script in the
Tablelands cities. He'd have liked a few moments to study the marks, but Mahtra had opened a grate.