Cinnabar Shadows (19 page)

Giola scratched her shaggy blond hair. "Aye," she said slowly. "A little building, smack in the middle of
the abattoir. A building inside a building. No use I could ever guess. I never noticed a door, but I never
looked."

"The abattoir," Pavek mused aloud. The abattoir, where Nunk said the halfling lune lived. He flashed
Mahtra a grin and took her by the arm. "That's it! That's the place."

Mahtra shied away from his grip, her eyes so wide-open they seemed likely to fall to the ground.
"What's an abattoir? I do not know this word."

He relaxed his hold on Mahtra's arm. Like eleganta, abattoir was a word that concealed more than it
revealed. And, knowing she was still a child in many ways, Pavek was instinctively reluctant to destroy its
mystery with a precise definition. "It is—it is—" he groped for a phrase that would be the truth, but not too
much of it. "It is the place where the animals die," then added quickly, "the place where we'll find the man
we're looking for."

The abattoir was the heart of Codesh. It was an old building, similar in style to the little building they
hoped to find inside it, and etched with the same angular, indecipherable script Pavek had noticed at the
elven market. Shadowed patches on its time and grime-darkened walls led the eye to believe that there had
once been murals, but whatever grandeur the abattoir might have possessed in the past, it was a dismal
place now.

Another templar watchtower rose beside a gaping archway carved through thick limestone walls.
There were as many yellow-robed men and women watching over the abattoir as Nunk kept with him at
the outer gate. A rack of hook-bill spears stood on one side of the watchroom door while a stack of shields
made from erdlu scales lashed to flexible rattan sat on the other. Inside the watchroom, each templar wore
a sword and boiled leather armor; that was very unusual for civil bureau templars and a measure of
Codesh's reputation as a thorn in Urik's foot. They greeted Giola as if hers were the first friendly—as in not
belonging to the enemy—face they'd seen in a stormy quinth.

"Instigator Nunk says I'm to take these rubes onto the floor," Giola informed Nunk's counterpart, a
dwarf with a bit less decoration woven through his sleeve.

The dwarf swiped the oily sweat from his bald scalp before sauntering over to greet Pavek and his
companions.

"Who in blazes are you that I should let you and yours stir up trouble I don't need?"

He grabbed the front of Pavek's shirt, a gesture well within his templar's right to harass any ordinary
citizen, but he caught Pavek's medallion as well, and the shock knocked him back a step or two.

"Be damned," he swore, partly fear and partly curse.

Pavek could watch the thoughts—questions, doubts and possibilities—march between the dwarf's
narrowed eyes. He judged the moment had come for revelation and pulled his medallion into view, gouge
and all.

"Be damned," the dwarf repeated.

This time the oath was definitely a curse and definitely directed on himself. Pavek felt a measure of
sympathy; he had the same sort of rotten luck.

"Who I am is Pavek, Lord Pavek, and what I want on the killing ground is no concern of yours."

Standing behind the dwarf, and half again as tall, elven Giola had a good view of the ceramic lump
Pavek held in his hand. She turned pale enough to be Mahtra's sister.

"A thousand pardons, Great One. Forgive my insolence, Great One," she humbled herself, dropping to
one knee and striking her breast with her fist. But for all Giola's humility, there was one flash of fire when
her eyes skewed in the direction of the outer gate watchtower where Nunk, who'd gotten her into this, was
waiting.

"Forgive me, also, Great One," the dwarf said quickly. "May I ask if you're Pavek... Lord Pavek who
was once exiled from Urik?"

Pavek truly got no exhilaration from the embarrassment of others. "I'm the Pavek who lit out of Urik
with a forty-gold piece bounty riding on my head," he said, trying to break the grim mood.

Giola stood erect. She straightened her robe and said, "Great One, it is good to see you are alive,"
which surprised Pavek as much as the sight of his medallion had surprised her. "There's never been a
regulator dead or alive who was worth forty pieces of gold. I don't know what you did, but your name was
whispered in all the shadows. You were not without friends. Luck sat on your shoulder."

She took a long-limbed stride around the dwarf and extended her open hand, which held the four
ceramic bits Pavek had given her earlier. Everyone said Athas had changed in the few years since the
Tynans slew the Dragon. Nunk said the bureaus had changed since Pavek left, and partly because of him.
There could be no greater symbol of those changes than a regulator offering to return money. Or telling
him, in the plain presence of other templars, that she'd gone to a fortune-seller and bought him a bit of luck.

A human could study the elves of Athas all his life without truly learning what an elf meant when
he—or she-called someone a friend. Now two elves had called Pavek friend in as many days—if he
considered Ruari an elf. There was always a gesture involved, be it a bright-colored lizard or four broken
bits. Last night Pavek had known to take the lizard. Today he knew he'd spoil everything if he touched
those rough-edged bits.

Giola cocked her head, pondering a moment before she decided the sentiment was acceptable. Then
she touched her right-hand's index finger first to her own breast then to his. Judging by Ruari's slack-jawed
astonishment, he could rely on his assumption: he'd been accorded a rare honor. The dwarf, the highest
rank templar in the watchtower, save for Pavek himself, must have sensed the same thing.

He got in front of Giola. "Great One, it would be an honor to help you. Let me escort you personally."

There were some traditions that were more resistant to change than others. Giola retreated, and the
dwarf led them downstairs.

The abattoir wasn't so much a building as an open space surrounded by walls and a two-tier gallery,
open to the brutal sun, and filled from back to front, side to side, with the trades of death. Pavek judged the
killing floor to be as large as any Urik market plaza, at least sixty parade paces square. Carcasses
outnumbered people many times over. Finding Kakzim would be a challenge, but finding the twin of the
building Mahtra had used to come and go from the reservoir cavern was as simple as looking at the middle
of the killing floor.

Getting there was another matter. The abattoir didn't fall silent the moment one yellow-robed templar
and four strangers appeared on the watchtower balcony, but their presence was noted everywhere, and not
welcomed. Pavek's quick scan of the killing floor didn't reveal any scarred halflings among the faces
pointed their way. And although Mahtra wore her long, black shawl and a borrowed cloak, her white-white
face divided by its mask was a distinct as the silvery moon, Ral, on a clear night.

"Stay close together," Pavek whispered to his companions as they started across the floor. "Keep an
eye out for Kakzim—you two especially." He indicated Mahtra and Zvain. "You know what to look for.
But he's not what we're here for, not today. We'll go inside that little building, go down to the reservoir and
come back up in Urik." The last was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Pavek liked the mood on the killing
floor less with every step he took across it.

Mahtra reached down and took Zvain's hand in her own.

Whether that was to reassure him or her, Pavek couldn't guess; he let the gesture pass without
comment. The dwarf hadn't drawn his sword, but he kept his hand on the hilt as he stomped forward with
that head-down, single-minded determination that got dwarves in a world of trouble when things didn't go
according to their plan.

Giola hadn't noticed a door in the little building because at first glance there wasn't one, just four plain
stone walls. Then Pavek noticed the weathered remains of the indecipherable script carved into one of the
walls. He thumped the seemingly solid stone below the inscription with his fist and felt it give.

The dwarf said, "False front, Great One," and added an oath. It didn't really matter what lay behind the
door or who'd hung the false front. The discovery had been made on his watch, and he was the one who'd
answer for it. That was another Urik tradition that wasn't likely to change. "Is it trapped, Great One?"

Pavek caught himself before he said something foolish. He was the high templar; he was supposed to
have open call on the Lion-King's power. A little borrowed spellcraft and any magical devices associated
with the door would be sprung and any warding behind it would be dissolved. The problem was, Pavek
didn't want to use his high templar's privilege. Like as not, he'd forfeit his hard-earned druidry if he went
back to templar ways. He'd have to make the choice eventually, but eventually wasn't now.

Their halfling enemy was an alchemist who, as far as any of them knew, had no use for magic. He
could have bought a scroll or hired someone to cast a spell—Codesh looked like the sort of place where
illicit magic was available for the right price. But halflings, as a rule, had no use for money and didn't buy
things, either. Probably they were dealing with nothing more dangerous than a hidden latch.

Probably.

He hammered the door several times, getting a feel for its movement and the likely position of its latch
and hinges.

He'd decided that it swung from the top and was tackling the latch problem when he felt the mood
change behind him.

"There he is!" Mahtra shouted, pointing over everyone's head and toward a section of the two-story
high wall.

The distance was too great and the shadows on the second-story balcony were too deep for Pavek to
recognize a halfling's face, but the silhouette was right for one of the diminutive forest people. He had the
sense that the halfling was looking at them, a sense that was confirmed when a slender arm was extended
in their direction. One instant Pavek wondered what the movement meant; the next instant he knew.
Kakzim had given a signal to his partisans on the killing floor. Well-fed and well-armed butchers were
coming for them.

"Magic!" the dwarf cried. "Magic, Great One. The Lion-King!"

"No time!" Pavek shouted back, which was the truth and not an excuse.

He needed both hands on his sword hilt and all his concentration to parry the deadly axes massed
against them. Their backs were to the false-front door; that would be an advantage for a moment, then it
would become disaster as Kakzim's partisans gained the roof. They'd be under attack from all directions,
including above. The slaughter would be over in a matter of heartbeats, and they'd be gone without a trace
or memory left behind.

While the Lion-King could raise the dead and make them talk, not even he could interrogate sausage.

Civil bureau templars received the same five-weapons instruction that war bureau templars did. The
dwarf drilled three-times a week. Pavek had kept himself in shape and in practice while he was in Quraite.
If the brawl were fought one-against-one, or even two-against-one, he and the dwarf could have cleared a
path to the gate where—one hoped, one prayed—they'd be met by yellow-robed reinforcements from the
watchtower.

If they could have picked a single target and attacked rather than being confined to a desperate, futile
defense. They had no time for tactics, no time for thought, just parry high, parry low, parry, parry, parry.

And a flicker of consciousness at the very end telling Pavek that the final blow had come from behind.

Mahtra felt the makers' protection radiate from her body: a hollow sphere of sound and light that felled
everyone around her. She saw them fall—Pavek, Ruari, and the dwarf among them. Her vision hadn't
blurred, her limbs were heavy, but not paralyzed. Maybe that was because, even though the danger was
real enough, she'd made the decision to protect herself. Or, maybe her tight grip on Zvain's trembling hand
had made the difference. Either way, she and Zvain were the only folk standing in a good sized circle that
centered itself around them.

She and Zvain weren't the only folk standing on the killing ground. The makers' protection—her
protection— didn't extend to the walls. Men and women cursed her from beyond the circle. Those who'd
fallen near the circle's edge were beginning to rise unsteadily to their feet. The balcony where she'd seen
Kakzim was empty. Mahtra wanted to believe the halfling had fallen, but she knew he'd simply escaped.

"You better be able to do that again," Zvain whispered, squeezing her hand as tightly as he could, but
not tight enough to hurt.

She'd never protected herself twice in quick succession, but as Mahtra's mind formed the question, her
body gave the answer. "I can," she assured Zvain. "When they come closer."

"We can't wait that long. We got to start moving toward the door. We got to get out of here." Zvain
pulled toward the door.

She pulled him back. "We can't leave our friends behind,"

The young human didn't say anything, but there was a change in the way he held her hand. A change
Mahtra didn't like.

"What?" she demanded, trying to look at him and keep an eye on the simmering crowd also.

"There's no use worrying about them. They're dead, Mahtra. You killed them."

"No." Her whole body swayed side to side, denying what Zvain said had happened. Yet the folk
nearest to them, friend and enemy alike, lay as they'd fallen, their arms and legs tangled in uncomfortable
positions that they made no effort to change. "No," she repeated softly. "No."

Kakzim hadn't died in House Escrissar all that time ago, and he'd held a knife against her skin. Ruari
had been an arm's length away when she loosed her protection's power. He couldn't have died.

Couldn't have.

Yet he didn't move.