Point of Hopes (56 page)

“
I’ve found it, Nico. I know what
the children are being used for.”

Rathe took a deep breath, feeling as though he’d
been hit in the gut. “What?” he said, and b’Estorr stepped past
him, reaching into his pocket to produced a small drawstring purse.
He untied the strings, and poured a small triangle out onto the
tabletop, where it lay gleaming in the early sunlight. Rathe stared
at it for a moment. “Istre…”

b’Estorr nodded. “It’s gold, Nico. Actually, it’s
coin aurichalcum. An impure form of true aurichalcum, more pure
than most ordinary coins, but not nearly as pure as the real thing.
Magists use it in their work.”

He picked up the little wedge and handed it across.
Rathe took it gingerly, turning it over in his fingers. The
shortest end was curved, and there were letters running along that
curve, as well as what looked like part of an embossed design in
the center. He looked up sharply. “This looks like part of a coin.”
b’Estorr nodded again. “It is. That’s where most of us get it, from
great crowns.”

“
Gods, I’ve never seen one,” Rathe
said, and looked at the wedge of metal with even more respect. The
great crown was the largest of Chenedolle’s coins, each one worth a
hundred pillars—more than many people saw in their lifetime. “But
what does this have to do with the children?”

b’Estorr dropped into the nearest chair.
“Aurichalcum is gold, common gold, that’s been mined in a
particular process. Everyone knows that much, but not many people
outside the university know how. The process itself is what makes
it magistically active, and that process requires people, special
people. To turn raw gold into aurichalcum, each step of the process
must be performed by pure beings who have the proper zodiacal
relationship to their task—which, in practice, means children or
carefully trained and watched celibates, each of whom is chosen for
the job according to her or his birth signs.”

Rathe sank down on a stool opposite b’Estorr, set
the piece of aurichalcum back on the table. “Children,” he
whispered. “Gods, but why? Who would be doing such a thing?”

b’Estorr shook his head. “That I can’t tell you.
It’s crazy, it makes no sense to me at all, but that’s what
everything points to. It’s the only thing these children could work
together on. Someone has stolen them to process aurichalcum.”

Rathe looked from the wedge of gold, bright in the
rising sun, to b’Estorr. “If magists use it… ”

b’Estorr spread his hands. “I know, Nico, I know,
and I’ve been wracking my brains trying to think why, or who. Gods
know, we’re all limited by the sheer cost of coin aurichalcum, but
that’s nothing compared to the effort to process the stuff. It’s
false economy. And utterly mad.”

“
Stealing children’s pretty mad,
Istre,” Rathe said, and the necromancer made a face. “Whoever’s
doing this is pretty crazy anyway. If the motive is crazy, well, it
kind of fits, doesn’t it?”

“
So all we have to do,” b’Estorr
said dryly, “is find a gold mine. As I recall, there are gold mines
aplenty in the Silklands, and in the Ile’nord, the western hills of
Chenedolle, in southern Chadron, and in the Payshault, all of which
are within reasonable striking distance of Astreiant.”

Rathe shook his head. “No, it has to be someplace
that has good roads—they were buying draft horses, not pack
animals.” If it was them, of course, a little voice added, but he
shoved the thought away. It had to have been the astrologers who
were buying the horses, or their allies; they couldn’t afford for
it not to be.

b’Estorr nodded. “All right, that probably rules out
the Silklands. Anyone sensible would go by water. But the rest—how
can you choose?”

“
I know,” Rathe said. “Does this
connect with the clocks, Istre?”

“
It could,” b’Estorr answered.
“Aurichalcum—especially the purer forms—well, it’s not just
politically potent. I suppose it would be possible to use it to
turn the clocks, but why….”

He let his voice trail off, and Rathe nodded in
morose agreement. There was a little silence, the only sound the
rumble of an early wagon on the street below. The air that came
through the half-open window was damp, and smelled of the distant
river; Rathe cocked his head, and thought he could hear the chime
of the tower clock at the head of the Hopes-point Bridge. “There
haven’t been any new disappearances in days,” he said at last.
“Does this mean they have all the kids they need?”

b’Estorr shrugged, got restlessly to his feet, and
then stopped, the movement suspended, as though he’d simply needed
to move and was now at a loss for something to do. “They could
have. From the nativities I’ve seen, for the children who are
missing, yes, I think most of the process is coveted. But I don’t
know, Nico, I wish before Aidones that I did.” He sighed heavily.
“So what do we do now?”

Rathe threw up his hands. “I don’t know. I’ll go to
Monteia—hells, I’ll go to the surintendant, and I’ll tell them
this, and we’ll all look at each other, and say, wonderful, what
now? Aside from anything else, we don’t have the right to pursue
it, not outside the city, so we’d have to work with the local
nobles, but since we don’t even know where the children are—” He
broke off, shaking his head aware of the futility of his anger.
b’Estorr had given him more information than they had been able to
gather over the past few weeks, but it still wasn’t enough. “I feel
like a bastard asking this, after all you’ve done, but is there
anything more you can do? Anything more you can tell us?”

b’Estorr crossed to the window, pushed the shutter
open, and leaned out into the morning air. “When was the last
disappearance?”

Rathe shook his head. “I’m not sure—five days ago, I
think. I can check with the station. Does that matter?”

b’Estorr turned back to face him. “I don’t know. And
I hate having to keep saying that. But it might help. I can do some
more research, see if anything shows itself—I’ll certainly consult
my colleagues. They’ll need to know about it for the clocks,
anyway.”

Rathe nodded. “I appreciate it. Look, will you come
with me to Monteia? You understand what’s happening here better
than I do.”

“
Of course,” b’Estorr said, and
scooped the wedge of gold back into its bag.

Neither man spoke as they made their way from
Rathe’s lodgings to the station at Point of Hopes. Rathe caught
himself walking faster and faster, as though hurrying might help,
might make up for how long it had taken them to figure out what was
going on. b’Estorr’s discovery was utterly vital, the first piece
of information that made sense of the child-thefts. If only it
hadn’t come too late. Surely not, he told himself, and made himself
slow his pace again. If nothing else, they could protect the
children who hadn’t been taken, first by arresting the
hedge-astrologers and then by concentrating their efforts on the
vulnerable ones. Asheri was one of those, but she had more sense
than many a woman grown, and they would be able to deploy the full
resources of the station to keep her safe. And surely, surely,
knowing why the children had been stolen would help them find the
missing ones.

The station courtyard was empty, none of the runners
in sight there or in the stables. Rathe caught his breath—he had
expected to find Asheri waiting, sitting in the early sun on the
edge of the dry trough where she could get the best of the light
for her sewing—and shoved open the main door. Jiemin, this
morning’s duty point, looked up, startled by the violence of his
entrance.

“
Nico…?”

“
Where’s Asheri?” Rathe demanded,
and Jiemin shook her head.

“
I haven’t seen her yet. It’s
early, Nico, she probably slept in.”

“
But I told her to be here by now,”
Monteia said, from the door of her workroom. She shut it behind
her, shaking her head, and looked from Rathe to the necromancer.
“What’s up, Nico?”

Rathe ignored the question for a moment, crossed to
look out the back door. The garden was empty even of laundry, and
he turned back into the room, barely able to keep the fear at bay.
“Istre thinks he knows why the children are being taken.
Asheri—”

Monteia cut him off. “Why?”

b’Estorr said, “They all have stars that make them
useful—appropriate—for processing aurichalcum.”

Monteia frowned. “Queen’s gold?”

b’Estorr nodded, his blue eyes grave. “And
aurichalcum is dangerously powerful, especially now with the
star-change approaching.”

Monteia swore under her breath. “And Asheri?” she
said, to Rathe.

“
She said she knows her nativity to
the minute,” he answered, voice suddenly ragged, “but I don’t. I
never asked, and she never told me. Her sister might
know.”

“
Go,” Monteia said. “Both of
you—please,” she added tardily, to b’Estorr. “See if she’s at home,
find out what her stars are, and get her here where we can take
care of her.”

Rathe nodded, and was out the door almost before
she’d stopped speaking, b’Estorr on his heels. Asheri lived on the
southern edge of Point of Hopes, in the warrens east of the
junction of the Customs Road and Fairs’ Road. He had been there
before, and led the way through the labyrinth of narrow streets,
barely able to keep from running as he saw the peeling face of the
clock that oversaw this corner of the city. It had been reset,
though, since the clock-night: as they turned down the alley that
led to a cluster of narrow houses, it struck the half hour, and its
tones were echoed from the distant towers of Point of Dreams.

Asheri’s house was no different from any of the half
dozen that circled the well-house at the center of the open space,
a plain building one room and a hallway wide, with a strip of muddy
garden running beside and in front of the stone sill. A tall woman,
unmistakably Asheri’s kin, the sister she had lived with since
their mother’s death, had strung a line between two poles, and was
hanging laundry, temporarily overshadowing a straggling patch of
vegetables, Among the clothes already pinned to the line was the
apron Asheri had worn the day before, and Rathe caught his breath
again.

“
She didn’t burn them,” he said,
and heard b’Estorr swear.

The woman looked up at their approach, her eyes
narrowing, but her hands never stopped moving on the wet cloth.
Somewhere, in one of the other houses, Rathe thought, a child was
wailing; even as he looked he heard a voice exclaiming a rough
endearment, and the crying took on a new, muffled rhythm, as though
someone had picked up the child and was bouncing it.

“
Mijan, where’s Asheri?”

“
Missing her already?” Mijan
answered and smiled. “You knew she was meant for better than
running your errands.

She’s gone.”

“
Gone where?” Rathe demanded and
heard b’Estorr swear again.

Mijan set a much-mended skirt back in her basket,
her expression suddenly wary, folded her arms across her thin
chest. “To the embroiderers. Last evening at seven o’clock. You
know that’s what she wanted more than anything, that’s why she
worked for your lot.”

“
She didn’t have the fee,” Rathe
said bluntly, and Mijan shook her head.

“
No more did she, but she won one
of the lottery-places—you know, they hold four places a year for
those who don’t have the means.”

“
They hold those at the Spring
Balance,” Rathe said through gritted teeth, “and the Fall Balance.
Never at Midsummer, Mijan, you know that. And so did
she.”

Mijan was looking genuinely frightened now. “I know,
I’m not stupid. But the woman—she was respectable, Rathe, a
guildswoman to her fingertips—she said that one of the apprentices
they’d chosen this spring couldn’t continue in the place, was sick
or something, the family was sick, and Asheri was at the top of the
list, the next in line. She passed all the tests, you know, it was
just her number wasn’t quite high enough.”

“
Which house, Mijan, did you think
to ask that? Which master?” Rathe heard his voice rising, didn’t
care. “You let her go, when children are disappearing every
day?”

“
That’s precisely why I let her
go,” Mijan shouted back. “Do you think I haven’t worried enough
about her, running gods alone know where through every quarter of
the city, when children are being stolen in broad daylight? She’s a
thousand times safer with the embroiderers than she ever was with
your lot.”

Rathe flinched recognizing the truth of that, and
b’Estorr put a hand on his shoulder. “If she’s with the
embroiderers, mistress. Asheri knows her nativity, I know that. May
we get a copy?”

“
Why?” Mijan looked from one man to
the other. “Who in Demis’s name are you? Nico I know, but
you….”

Rathe took a breath, controlled the anger bred of
fear and guilt. “His name’s Istre b’Estorr, Mijan, he’s with the
university. A necromancer. And, no, we don’t think any of them are
dead, but he’s been helping us, and we know why the children are
being taken. And I’m very much afraid Asheri’s one of them.”

“
She’s with the embroiderers,”
Mijan whispered.

Rathe shook his head. “I devoutly hope so, but—it’s
a bad time for coincidence. I need her nativity—please, Mijan. You
know I wanted—want—nothing more than for Asheri to find a place in
the guild. Let me make sure she has the chance.”

“
She’s there, I tell you,” Mijan
repeated but her eyes were wet with sudden tears. “I did what you
told us, we washed the clothes, and locked them away, she was
wearing my second-best skirt—and furious she was, too, to think the
masters would see her without her having the chance to take it in.
I should’ve known, we never have luck.” She shook her head, wiped a
hand across her face with angry force. “Her chart’s inside—you’ll
have to copy it, though, I won’t let you take it away.”