The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (24 page)

Gyan took the other chair, letting his breath out. He looked tired and worn, the lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth deeper, his skin tinged with gray under his tan. He had lived in the Andrien village with his foster daughter Dyani before it had been destroyed by the Gardier, and had been sent along on their trip here to be the Andrien family’s diplomat, to counter Pasima’s influence. “I hope so. Using these curse circles to travel… It just seems like no good can come of it.”

At the moment Florian felt inclined to agree. She didn’t see how the plan to get inside the Lodun barrier could go forward without modifying the new circle, and since the new circle wouldn’t work, there seemed little point in that. And the others seemed to think Capidara hadn’t given them enough troops to do much of anything, even with the new spheres. She saw a couple of the polished wood bow cases sitting on the dining table and asked, “Pasima’s not here, is she?” Florian could do without being stared at accusingly.

Gyan made what looked like a warding gesture against the evil eye. “No, no, thank the god for that. She and Sanior and Danias moved down to the other room.” He shook his head, leaning back in the chair. “Sanior isn’t bad, he’s young yet, but Danias has never had a thought in his head Pasima didn’t put there. None of them took well to Cletia and Cimarus going off like they did, but of course it’s their own fault. Sanior did tell me Pasima didn’t like Cletia doing her own thinking where Gil was concerned.”

“I just hope… Oh, I don’t know.” Florian scrubbed her hands through her hair. She supposed she should find somewhere to sleep but she still felt too keyed up. And she knew her belongings had been transferred from the refugee hostel back to the ship, but had no idea where they had ended up. Probably in Niles and Gerard’s workroom, or locked up in the steward’s office. “I don’t mean to keep you up. Do you mind if I just sit here for a while?”

He got to his feet, gesturing around the room with a shrug. “Stay as long as you’d like. I’d prefer it if you’d quarter here with us. It’s a bit quiet with just Kias and me and the boy.”

“I’d like that,” Florian told him in relief.

Gyan smiled, ruffled her hair, and went back through the dining room to the rear of the suite. Florian curled up on the couch and tried to read but it took an act of deliberate concentration to keep her mind focused on the heroine’s adventures amid Vienne’s
beau monde
and
demi monde
. Especially since she knew many of the characters had been based on real people and some of them had been killed in the war. She kept wondering where the others were, what had happened to them. If the theaters and cafés and Great Houses mentioned were still standing or had been bombed or burned out of existence. Shifting restlessly on the couch, she heard nothing, but felt a breath of cooler air from the corridor, as if the door had drifted open.

She looked up to see Ixion standing not two paces away. He smiled down at her. “We meet again, flower.”

Cold shock washed over her, trickling down her spine like ice water. “What are you doing here?”
Arisilde’s sphere,
she thought, frantic. Niles had it, in his cabin.
Telephone
. It was across the room, on the built-in writing desk.
Can I get to it?
The crew was so overworked, it could take time to reach a ship’s operator. And Ixion wouldn’t just stand there and watch while she did it.

Studying her almost clinically, as if watching every thought pass through her head, he said, “I wanted to see you.” He still wore the well-tailored suit, and she could smell the faint scent of an expensive toilet water.

“You’ve seen me. Good-bye.” Florian tried to keep her voice even, cursing the fact that she sounded breathless rather than firm.

He lifted a brow. “You don’t scream for help?”

Her heart pounded, but she said, “I don’t need to scream. If you think Arisilde doesn’t know where you are, you’re mistaken.” Even if the sphere couldn’t communicate directly, it would sense Ixion’s presence. The thought let her set her jaw and regard him steadily. “Go away. Or tell me why you’re here, then go away.”

He strolled toward the open panel doors that led to the dining room, the bedrooms. Where Kias and Gyan and Calit were sleeping. “I can hear breathing. Shame if it were to stop.” He tilted his head, watching carefully for her reaction.

Florian pressed her lips together, making herself stay calm.
Maybe screaming would have been a good idea.

Ixion shook his head, still smiling. “And Giliead and Ilias are trapped in some far place, by your own curse circles. How I laughed to hear that.”

She knew instinctively he wanted her to beg him to leave the others alone, and that begging wouldn’t do any good. Perhaps he wanted her to try to run for the telephone, to give him an excuse to attack. “Did you laugh about it in front of Lord Chandre?” Her voice came out at too high a pitch but the comment stopped him in the doorway.

He looked at her, head tilted slightly, intrigued. She pushed on, “You’ve got him fooled, I suppose. He thinks you’ll help us.”

He lifted a brow. “But I will help you, flower.” He moved back toward the center of the room, standing over her again. “I could help you make the recalcitrant curse circle work.” His smile turned kind. Or she would have thought it was kind, if she didn’t know what he was. “Bring your friends back.”

That startled her. Florian swallowed in a dry throat.
If I thought that was true…
What if it was? “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s simple, really. Something prevents the curse from completing itself.” He gestured with a shrug. “Remove it, and the circle will work.”

“What something?”

He shook his head sadly. “No, that’s not the way of it. We bargain.”

Florian eyed him.
He’s lying. He has to be lying.
Ixion didn’t know— shouldn’t know—anything about the circles. “And what do you want?”

“Nothing of moment. Your assistance.”

“In what?”

“In whatever I ask.” He lifted his brows at her expression. “Only small things, I assure you. You could tell me if they speak of me, in any of your councils.” He knelt suddenly, eye to eye with her. “You have power, but they neglect your teaching. When was the last time they let you perform a spell, or taught you a new one? They waste your talents in tasks any servant could do.”

“There’s no time—” She cut off the involuntary protest, biting her lip.
He was doing something there, something so subtle…
That he had echoed her own thoughts hadn’t helped. She looked away, flustered and guilty. But if she refused, she knew there was no telling what he would do. “I’ll think about it,” she said flatly, feeling like a traitor and a coward. “I’m not promising anything, just that I’ll think about it.”

He pushed to his feet just a shade too gracefully, reminding her again that that body was only a few months old at most. He gave her an ironic nod, as if he knew she was lying and was only playing along with her. “Think hard, flower, and think fast. If I become impatient, someone might die.”

Ixion walked out, as silently as he had arrived.

Florian sat there a moment, taking deep breaths. Her palms had sweated onto the cloth cover of the book and she set it aside, wiping her hands off on her pants, swearing in annoyance as she realized she was trembling. A sudden horrified thought struck. She scrambled to her feet and hurried through the dining room to the back of the suite, ramming her hip into the table as she passed. But even before she reached the main bedroom she heard the reassuring sound of soft snoring, and a glance inside showed her all was well.

Breathing a little easier, she went back to the sitting room and picked up the telephone receiver. After a few moments while she reflected that Ixion would have had leisure to kill her several times over had she tried this while he was here, one of the ship’s operators finally answered. She cleared her throat. “Can you connect me with Nicholas Valiarde, please?”

S
o, you were right,” Florian said, stirring her coffee with frowning concentration as she finished telling Nicholas about Ixion’s visit. It was just before dawn and they were in the First Class dining room, at a table with Gyan, Kias and Calit. The giant room was paneled with goldtoned wood, with bands of silver and bronze along the top and bottom of the walls. There were private dining salons along the sides, separated from the main area by silvered glass panels, and blackout cloth was tightly tacked over the outside windows. Several dozen people were here now, officers and crew about to go on duty, men and women in Rienish navy uniforms, mostly concerned with the coffee and rolls being dispensed from serving trolleys near the baize doors. There were other civilians here too, mostly Viller Institute workers who had volunteered to return. The sea had been rough last night and everyone looked sick, weary or preoccupied, or all three. The ship would also be reaching the Walls of the World at some point late tonight or tomorrow, and they just had to hope the crossing would go smoothly. “I’m lucky I didn’t get us all killed,” Florian added, stabbing her spoon into the small supply of sugar. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid about Ixion.

“It wouldn’t be your fault,” Gyan told her, though he looked troubled. “It’s just what happens around Ixion.”

Kias nodded, resigned. “I’ve been waiting for him to kill us since he showed up on the Isle of Storms with his head back on.”

Their table was near the center of the room, but the acoustics reduced the voices of the other diners to a murmur, and Florian was sure no one could hear them without coming closer and being obvious about it—which was probably the reason Nicholas had chosen this room to meet in. And they were speaking Syrnaic anyway, a fact readily explained by Gyan’s and Kias’s presence. Calit, who didn’t know enough Syrnaic to get one word in three, was occupied with pulling his roll apart and flicking berries across the table. Florian added, “I thought about going to Colonel Averi, but even if he believed me, for Chandre and the Capidarans it would still be my word against Ixion’s.”

Nicholas had absorbed the information with a professional calm Florian found reassuring. “You’re correct. Chandre wants a pet sorcerer too badly to allow anything to get in his way. Especially unpleasant facts about the sorcerer’s behavior.” He nodded to himself and pushed his cup aside, standing. “I’ll take care of this. Just try to act as if nothing has happened. And don’t mention anything to—”

“What, you’re leaving?” Florian almost yelped, then hastily lowered her voice. “No, I want to help!” He looked down at her, lifting a brow. “I know, I know, but I won’t mess it up again, I won’t …waffle.” His expression became even more ironic, and she felt her face reddening. “You’d let Tremaine help,” she added, though she felt like a ten-year-old.

For the first time, Nicholas betrayed some real irritation. He sat back down, steepled his hands and said deliberately, “Tremaine would have kept her mouth shut and let Niles attack so Ixion could retaliate and the sphere could finish the bastard off.”

“That would have been best, Florian,” Kias informed her, though he managed not to sound reproachful.

“I know. That’s a mistake I won’t make again, believe me,” she said firmly. “I know if we fail, we’ll be in trouble—”

Nicholas took a deep breath, shook his head and contemplated the ceiling for a moment in grim silence. “Florian. If you don’t think that’s our predicament now, I’d truly hate to experience your definition of ‘trouble.’ ”

“He’s right, Florian,” Gyan said urgently, leaning forward to lay a hand on her arm. “Killing a wizard, it’s always a dangerous business, but this is Ixion. You can’t risk yourself like that.”

“But I’m already at risk,” Florian protested, frustrated. It frightened her that Ixion had come to her, and she wanted to make that fear go away. She felt that if she was involved in the plot against him, it would give her back some control over the situation. But she couldn’t think of a way to say it that made the least bit of sense. “It’s me he came to.”

“Florian.” Nicholas eyed her. “The more people involved in this, the more difficult it will be. Men like Ixion have to be led to their destruction gently. Tell no one about this, not even Niles.” He pushed to his feet. “And while I appreciate the offer, I don’t need the help.”

Watching him walk away across the big room, Florian said grimly, “I don’t think he appreciated the offer.”

“Don’t take it badly,” Gyan told her. His eyes followed Nicholas thoughtfully. “Some Chosen Vessels work alone.”

“He’s not a Chosen Vessel, he just… thinks he is.” Florian poked at her crusty roll, biting her lip. “I have to help. If— When the others get back, what would Tremaine say if she found out I’d let her father get killed?”

“ ‘Thanks’?” Kias suggested.

Florian and Gyan both glared at him. He winced. “Sorry.”

I
n the dim light of the grotto room, Tremaine woke stiff and sore, her mouth tasting like sandpaper. Her coat had been rolled up as a pillow and she lay on a folded blanket, but her back wasn’t much appeased by that. Her dreams had been vivid images of Arites’s death, the way he had jolted forward, knocking into her as the bullet had ripped into him from behind, the feel of his already lifeless body as she and Cletia had carried him up the airship’s ramp. It took her a moment to remember why.
Right. Meretrisa.
She lifted a hand to shove the hair out of her eyes but stopped, peering closely at it in the dim light.

New skin, pale and tender, stretched across her palm and up her fingers and thumb. The dead burned flesh had all been neatly trimmed away; she supposed Gerard had done it while she was asleep. She flexed it and the skin felt tight and stretchy, like a wet glove that had stiffened when left too near the fire. Gritting her teeth at that image, she pushed herself up with a groan.

They had moved into the small grotto room Ilias and Giliead had found and sometime not long after that Tremaine had abruptly decided to lie down on the floor and sleep. She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, but now their collection of packs and bags was piled against one wall, the other blankets folded and neatly stacked. Balin was in the corner asleep, with Cimarus seated nearby, his sword across his lap. Meretrisa lay against the far wall on a pallet of blankets. Tremaine could only see her face, pale as white paper, against the blues and golds of the weaving. As Tremaine sat up, Cimarus asked politely, “Is your hand better now?”

“Yes, actually it is.” She cleared her throat. The muted daylight falling through the louvers in the roof seemed to be tinted more toward late afternoon, but it was hard to tell. She felt disjointed, out of sorts, disconnected from reality. Sleeping during the day usually had an unsettling effect on her, but not this unsettling. “How long was I asleep?”

Cimarus squinted up at the sunlight, thinking. “The night and half the day.”

Damn. That’s almost as long as Aras, and he was burned practically all over.
She blinked, trying to wake up. “How is Meretrisa?”

Cimarus craned his neck to check on the Capidaran woman. “They say she should stay asleep, and not move. She has a healing curse on her, and isn’t dying.”

Tremaine nodded slowly. She vaguely remembered Gerard saying something about an injured lung. “Where is everybody else?”

“Searching the big room for the god-sphere wizard’s trail signs, and copying things down.” He shrugged one shoulder, his expression philosophical. “The same as we always do.”

In the middle of the room someone had made a rough sort of square fire pit out of loose stone blocks and the smoke drifted up and out through one of the louvers. Vervane came in through the archway to deposit an armload of sticks and tinder next to it. Seeing Tremaine was conscious, she dipped a cup into the pot steaming on the fire and carried it over. Tremaine accepted it with a muttered thanks, startled to realize she actually was grateful. She was beginning to like this herb stuff almost as much as coffee. After a restorative gulp, she asked Vervane, “How’s your hand?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” The older woman wiggled her fingers as she returned to the fire. “Master Gerard made it as good as new. But poor Meretrisa will take much longer to heal.”

Poor Meretrisa the traitor.
Tremaine vaguely remembered telling Gerard about that. “Did Gerard mention about—”

“That she told a spy about your new circle?” Vervane’s expression was pained as she awkwardly took a seat on the floor. “Yes. I’m not sure Aras believes it completely, but…” She gestured helplessly. “The Ministry was warned, over and over again, but it was hard for them to believe it would happen in Capistown.”

Tremaine nodded, feeling bleak. It had been hard for people to believe it in Ile-Rien, too. There wasn’t much else to be said. “Is the fire a good idea? The smoke might tell someone we’re here. Wherever here is.”

Cimarus answered in Syrnaic, “Giliead and Ilias found a way to the outside, and said there’s no one around as far as they could see.”

Of course. That’s where they got the wood,
Tremaine thought, nodding to herself. She finished the drink and clambered to her feet, returning the cup to Vervane. “I’ll go see if they’ve found anything.”

“Tell Cletia it’s her turn to watch the Gardier,” Cimarus told her, then added plaintively, “And can’t this lady learn to speak Syrnaic the way you did? It would be easier if we could talk.”

Tremaine snorted, finding her new rifle leaning against the wall, carefully segregated from the Syprian’s spare bows and arrows so it wouldn’t contaminate them. She answered in the same language, “You could speak Rienish to her, you know. It wouldn’t kill you.” She had thought Cimarus and Cletia might have absorbed more Rienish than they pretended, and Cimarus had obviously understood the gist of her and Vervane’s conversation. The Syprians seemed to all be quick with new languages, but Tremaine was fairly sure Pasima had made it a moral point not to speak Rienish and expected the others to follow her example.

Checking the rifle, she saw someone had unloaded it. She found the ammunition in a Gardier belt, coiled up nearby. It had a shoulder strap made of a mottled olive green leather with a texture like snake or lizard skin. Her pants didn’t have any pockets and it was too warm to wear her coat, so she attached the brown canvas ammunition pouch to her own belt.

With Cimarus’s parting plea “Remember to tell Cletia,” Tremaine headed for the giant circle chamber, making her way through the long gallery with its fallen balconies and collapsed pillars.

She stopped in the archway, marveling again at the sheer size of the place, the cathedral-like shape of the roof.
Buttresses,
she wondered.
Are there buttresses on the outside? How does it stay up?

Gerard and Aras were at the far end of the room, apparently examining and cataloging the many circles carved into the floor. Tremaine hoped Gerard’s notebook had enough paper. Cletia, with a bow slung over her shoulder, was keeping watch near the center of the room.

Tremaine made her way over, the other woman warily watching her approach. “Cimarus says it’s his turn.”

Cletia took that in with a remote nod, still eyeing Tremaine. Then she said, “He didn’t stay with you while you were ill. Did that surprise you?”

Tremaine, still playing mental catch-up, actually thought she meant Cimarus for a moment. Then she realized who Cletia did mean and went blank. The blankness didn’t last long.

It had never occurred to her that Ilias would do anything except his job, which was to scout this new territory and watch Giliead’s back while the Chosen Vessel looked for dangerous spells. The fact that Cletia saw her as the kind of woman who expected a man to stay at her bedside while she was sleeping off a healing spell instead of being out making sure they weren’t about to be attacked was almost amusing. Amusing in an enraging sort of way. Tremaine’s lips curved in a dangerous approximation of a smile. “Your estimation of my character is incorrect.”

Several different emotions seemed to flicker under Cletia’s calm façade, then she inclined her head in a gesture that reminded Tremaine of Pasima at her most annoying. She started back toward the archway and Tremaine watched her go. Then she gazed in irritation at the ceiling and told herself,
Look on it as a challenge
.

Gerard spotted her approach and straightened up from a circle, one hand pressed to his back. It might be the light, but he actually looked a little less exhausted. He must have taken time to actually sleep and eat last night. “How are you feeling?” he asked as she went to meet him.

“I’m fine. Find anything yet?”

“No, there’s no sign of any message left by Arisilde. But I am finding more examples of the location symbols in the circles.” He reached her, tucking his notebook into the bag with the sphere and taking her hand to look at the healing burns. “That’s coming along nicely,” he said with satisfaction.

Tremaine reclaimed her hand, flexing it experimentally again. “It feels better than it did when I first woke up. Less tight.”

He nodded. “Working with it should help that, but be sure not to tear the new skin.”

“Right, I’ll work on that.” Tremaine made a face at that image and changed the subject. “Where’re Ilias and Gil? Vervane said they found a way outside?”

“They should be back soon.” Gerard pulled out his pocket watch and squinted at it. “They’ve been exploring the area of the structure immediately around us and reporting in at fairly regular intervals. I can’t persuade them to actually draw a map, but from what I understand…” He dug out the notebook again, flipping past pages of esoteric symbols to show her a rough diagram. “This part of the building is sort of a large oval, tucked in amid a mountain range. From the symbols and what we saw of the stars last night, we’re at the western end of the Syrnai, in the inland territory occupied by people called the Hisians. Depending on where we are, Giliead estimates it would probably take two to three months to walk to Cineth from here.”