Sandstorm (21 page)

Cephas leaned back, expecting the man to take his plate, but instead, the WeavePasha clapped twice. A dizzying array of fruits, meats, and flatbreads flew from every direction, and Cephas ducked, sure he was about to be pelted with the food. Instead, an artfully arranged meal settled down onto his plate.

Before he could give the WeavePasha his thanks, Ariella took a seat beside him. “Good morning, honored WeavePasha,” she said. “I see that Cephas is impressed by your famously generous table. You will forgive your humble guest, I pray. He is new to the ways of the wider world.”

The WeavePasha said, “Yes, I was about to ask him about that, in fact. And good morning to you, Mistress Kulmina. Your countrymen have awaited your return most anxiously.”

An unpleasant look Cephas hadn’t seen before came to the windsouled woman’s face—one that unaccountably troubled him—but she said only, “I am sure.”

“Now, young man,” said the WeavePasha, surprising Cephas by taking his hand, “what am I to call you? Your friends name you Cephas, and I know the spymaster believes you to be connected to the windsouled el Arhapan
pashas of the Calimien. Are you Cephas el Arhapan yi Calimport, then?”

Cephas frowned. “I—I am Cephas, Your Grace. It is the only name I’ve known, though Ariella has called me Cephas Earthsouled. The freedmen I was raised among had other names for me, but I hope you will not ask me to answer to those.”

The WeavePasha’s broad smile faded. “No, of course not. Cephas you have been and Cephas you shall be. At least until you decide to be someone else.”

Cephas selected one of the glistening purple fruits he’d chosen for himself before the WeavePasha filled his plate. “Is that something one can do in Almraiven? Decide to be someone else?”

This time the wizard’s grin was rueful and accompanied by a shrug. “A fair enough question. Though unexpected from one who travels in the company of a kenku who has as many names as he does voices.”

Tobin paused in his chewing. “I have known Corvus for many years,” he said. “His was the first name I learned outside those of my clansmen. I believe it to be his real name.”

The WeavePasha nodded in acknowledgment. “It is the one they gave in the rookeries in his youth, yes.”

Tobin and Cephas were taken aback by the idea of Corvus as a child, and even Ariella gave the WeavePasha a long, considering look. “You knew the ringmaster when he was young?” asked Tobin.

The WeavePasha laughed. “Let us say I knew
of
him, at least. Just as I know of these two extraordinary halflings by their reputations.” Shan and Cynda, in the same fighting leathers they’d passed through the portal wearing, approached the table. The WeavePasha greeted them in a language Cephas did not recognize, full of lilting, songlike sounds and phrases.

The women bowed. Shan tensed at something the WeavePasha said, but sat when her sister did.

“You will forgive me, I trust, for welcoming your friends in their own tongue. I sought to make them comfortable after their restless night checking the boundaries of the garden and seeking a way into the palace. It is my hope that they will both sleep through the night should you grace this house with your company for another day.”

“I’ve never known them to both be asleep at the same time,” said Mattias. Like the sisters, the old ranger had not followed Tobin’s and Cephas’s example in wearing the garments the WeavePasha’s servants left in the tents. The bit of straw stuck in his grizzled beard suggested he had not even made use of the bed, but slept with Trill in the nest prepared for her in a drained fountain.

For the first time, the WeavePasha stood. He met Mattias halfway across the courtyard, and bowed to him, though the ranger did not return the act. “Mattias Farseer,” he said. “Oldest friend of my old friend. You are welcome here, as ever.”

Mattias nodded. “El Jhotos,” he said, and that was apparently all the greeting he planned to make. “Shan tells me Corvus has already disappeared. Will he return today, or will Trill continue to work her way through your kitchener’s goat herd?”

The WeavePasha was unflappable. “I have many goats. Enough even for that one’s hunger. And look here at your friends, so politely seeing to their own appetites.” Cephas noticed the wizard had avoided answering Mattias’s question about Corvus.

He noticed, too, that the ranger walked past the WeavePasha without looking the man in the face. Cephas judged them to be roughly the same age, though the WeavePasha’s back was straight and he was more heavily muscled than
the wiry ranger. Their skin tones differed as well, with the WeavePasha having the same olive skin as the freedmen of the mote and Mattias’s being only a shade or two darker than the white face paint used in the circus.

But for all their differences, there was something they shared, some ineffable quality Cephas could not quite put his finger on. He could not say why, but he felt sure that if he had ever gone onto Azad’s canvas and found one of these men waiting for him, he would have been facing his last opponent.

With a sigh, Mattias settled down next to Tobin and leaned his canes against the table. The goliath made one of his attempts at a whisper.

“Corvus says we’re to call him WeavePasha. And it will make his grandchildren angry if we do not.”

Mattias shot a sour look at Tobin but did not answer. He drew a dagger from his belt, stabbed a thick slice of spiced beef, and sniffed it before depositing it on the empty plate before him.

“Do not fret, son of stone,” the WeavePasha said to Tobin, returning to his place between Cephas and Ariella. “My grandchildren know there are exceptions granted in certain rare cases.”

The WeavePasha indicated Mattias’s canes. “Those still serve you well, I trust? My vizars have written monographs about their making. They say they’re among my finest work.”

Mattias discovered the straw stuck in his hair. He pulled it out and inserted it in a bowl of bright green jelly, where it stood straight up, like a lone tree on a plain of quivering mint. “They were a present from Corvus. It seemed impolite to ask where he got them. Usually, it’s safe to assume any gift he gives is valuable, and that he did not pay the full asking price. If he paid anything at all.”

A robed man, his face hidden deep in a cowl, shuffled up to the WeavePasha and whispered to him. The WeavePasha listened, but his eyes never left Mattias.

When the aide withdrew, the WeavePasha stood. “Alas, I must leave you to your own devices for now,” he said. “The demands of the city’s citizenry must be met, even when there is the pleasant diversion offered by honored guests to consider.”

He bowed to each of them in turn, and took a deep formal step back from the table. Cephas mimicked the nod and folding of hands he saw Ariella make out of the corner of his eye.

The WeavePasha yet had words for the travelers, though, at least for two of them. “Northerner,” he said, addressing Mattias, “the prices I demand for my work are always paid in full, even those not measured in coins, and even when the payment is owed by Corvus Nightfeather.” Then he turned to Shan. “And speaking of that worthy one, you, adept, will no doubt discover his whereabouts long before my guardsmen do. Send him to me at once.”

Mattias threw his hand up in a casual wave as the absolute master of the city departed. He pulled another slice of spiced meat from the tray, and for the first time, Cephas noticed there were flies buzzing around the heaps of food.

“Always good to be back in Almraiven,” said Mattias. “Did he tell you how old this place is?”

Ariella’s fellow Akanûlans came to the garden before Corvus returned. Except for the absent ringmaster, Ariella was the only one of the travelers from Argentor free to leave the WeavePasha’s gardens. But she had chosen to
spend the night in one of the tents and stayed on after the morning meal.

“They’ll come and find me soon enough,” she’d told Cephas and Tobin, after Mattias and the twins withdrew to their tents. “They can only plot against each other for so long before they realize that plotting requires wits. Much easier to chide me for my many lapses.”

Chief among these, apparently, was that Ariella was not firesouled like the two genasi who were soon after escorted into the gardens. One of the men was barely taller than Corvus, and the other was almost the same height as Cephas, but each was enormously fat, and both had flickering flames dancing from the glowing orange
szuldar
lines that webbed their ruddy bronze scalps, the fire mimicking hair. They wore fancifully tailored breeches of a dark orange weave, detailed with red gemstones patterned as flames. These were tucked into high, black leather boots that matched the greatcoats spilling down from their rounded shoulders, boots and coats alike also decorated with fiery patterns.

Tobin eyed the men dubiously as they approached. “What is their act?” he asked.

This delighted Ariella, who clapped. “Oh, let’s allow them to demonstrate for themselves, why don’t we?”

The two men strode toward them in a curious, halting gait. After a moment, Cephas realized that they were attempting to walk in lockstep, but the differences in the length of their strides were so great that this was nearly impossible.

“They must have to practice walking like that,” he murmured to himself, but Ariella heard him.

“You have no idea,” she said.

“Ariella Kulmina,” the tall one said, while Cephas happened to be looking at the shorter one. He was speaking
simultaneously, more or less, with his taller companion. But they were not speaking in chorus. The shorter man was speaking a different language, one Cephas felt he would recognize if the man would speak louder. “You stretch the bonds of propriety,
again.”
The taller one waited for a moment for his fellow to catch up. “You flout the rules of diplomacy,
again
. You abandon your chambers unannounced,
again.”

With the repetitions of “you” and “again” and the curious halt-and-go manner the firesouled had of speaking, Cephas was able to hear the shorter one well enough to recognize individual words.

“He’s speaking Alzhedo,” he said. “Like the freedmen. Or almost.” Cephas frowned. “It is something very like it, anyway.”

Both of the firesouled stopped speaking and stared at him, aghast.

“You … what? How dare you suggest—” The short one snapped his chubby lips together briefly on his companion’s outburst, then dutifully took up his simultaneous translation.

“Save the outrage for your letters to your superiors, Lavacre,” Ariella said. “Cephas is not a citizen of Akanûl—or of anywhere else as far as I’ve been able to determine. He has no reason to know about your sect’s linguistic pretences.”

The taller man’s bright eyes darkened. “Flamburnt speaks the sacred language of Fire, earthsouled. You named a human tongue.”

Cephas shrugged. “You’ll perhaps be interested to know that the sacred language of Fire is very like Alzhedo. They could be related.”

Lavacre sputtered again, and Ariella motioned for peace. “The Firestorm Cabal believes that the various languages of
the djinn, the efreet, the dao, and so on, are holy tongues given to the genasi as tools to help keep the bloodlines apart and incorruptible,” she said, and this calmed the men more than her placating gesture.

Cephas asked, “So, these languages are not related to the one spoken by humans from Calimport?”

“Oh,” said Ariella, “they certainly are. But try convincing one of these fools of that and you’ve set yourself an impossible task.”

The firesouled spit with outrage. Tobin, who had watched the entire exchange silently until then, spoke. “If it is a clowning tradition, I am sorry to say it is one I do not know. I do not think it a very popular one.”

Ariella frowned. “More popular than one would hope, unfortunately.”

When Lavacre responded, he spoke the supposedly holy language. Cephas understood what he said because the shorter firesouled, Flamburnt, began speaking in the Common trade tongue, and finally took care to project. The man’s voice was unexpectedly high.

“The Firestorm Cabal, windsouled, owes its popularity to the justness of our cause.” The short man paused, then spoke on after exchanging a glance with Lavacre. Some shift in their responsibilities had occurred, because now it was the taller man who muttered translations a half syllable behind Flamburnt’s pronouncements.

“The Firestorm Cabal stands the long watches, the Firestorm Cabal keeps the history of the genasi as writ and rule, the Cabal assumes the risks in ensuring our future.”

The last part of the little man’s speech had the sound of a story, and it was clearly something familiar to Lavacre, since the taller man finished his translation before Flamburnt stopped speaking. “We are heroes to the common people, and examples to our youth,” the short man finished.

“By which he means,” said Ariella, “that these two are even worse troublemakers than most Firestormers, and when our government heard they were claiming their exile was instead some sort of diplomatic mission, my guild was charged with sending someone to balance their lies.”

Cephas asked, “So
you
are an ambassador?”