The Quartered Sea (54 page)

Chapter Fifteen

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"YOU'RE certain you can't clear the rockfall?"

"Yes, peerless one. When we moved one rock, another two fell. If we'd kept going, we would have collapsed the tunnels right back into your cellars. Perhaps miners…"

"No." The xaan cut off the nervous flow of words before they provoked her into a more definitive response. Two steps took her from the house Second to the filthy, bleeding guard kneeling beside her. "You had your hands on him when the rocks began to fall?"

"I'm sorry, peerless one." Right hand cradled against his chest, Cazzes held up the sawrap in his left. He'd been clutching it when the rest of his Five had pulled him from the crevice, and he hadn't argued with the Second's assumption. He knew he should have been terrified by how close he'd come to betraying his xaan, but somehow it just didn't matter. The certain death of the karjo, of Benedikt, bothered him more. He didn't know why.

"Yes, peerless one." He was amazed she'd remembered.
Too
much attention from the xaan always ended badly. The terror smashed through whatever had been holding it back and he swayed where he knelt.

The xaan waited until the Second helped Cazzes from the room, then she turned to her First. "I thought the tunnels were closed off."

"The pipe attendants use them, peerless one, to…" He paused and finished a little sheepishly. "… attend to their pipes."

"Then find out which of the pipe attendants has been speaking to Benedikt. He didn't stumble into those tunnels by accident."

"Best case scenario," the xaan agreed, stripping an iridescent green feather to its shaft with tiny vicious movements of her fingers. "If he doesn't, he's going to wish he had."

Benedikt's lamp had gone out just after he left Peta's cavern; the last of the oil burned, the darkness enveloping him like deep water. He should have been terrified, but he wasn't. Whether the ancient goddess continued to aid him or he was just emotionally numb, he neither knew nor cared. He set the useless lamp aside and moved on.

The xaan couldn't find him in the darkness.

Eye closed, humming the Song of Sorquizic softly to himself, he crawled on, one hand in the tiny stream of water that guided him. Water would save him. Water had always saved him. Although he clambered painfully over rockfalls and inched forward flat on his belly through a horizontal crack in the rock, there were never obstacles so great he lost track of the water.

Until it disappeared under the lip of a worn stone.

Kneeling carefully, Benedikt opened his eye.

The darkness no longer pressed so heavily against him. There was distance, depth, shades of darkness where for so long there had been nothing at all. Reaching out, he stroked an opening a little higher than his head, a little narrower than his shoulders. Breathing heavily, he inched forward.

The distance grew a little more distinct.

His shoulder brushed against an object more yielding than stone. Warmer. Rougher. It took him a moment to remember what it was called. Wood. Curved. Fitted. Round. A barrel.

Benedikt wasn't sure he could make it up the final flight of stairs, but he pulled himself up into the light along the smell of roasting pork. Gripping the wall for support, he levered himself up to his knees and stared around. The xaan's kitchen had barely been large enough to contain her staff; with food and equipment added it bulged at the seams. This room was as large but almost empty except for the half-dozen karjen at the far end of the room…

"Assassin!"

… and the one behind him.

He went down without a fight and lay quietly under the weight of his young attacker, too tired to care what was going to happen.
Far
too tired to do anything about it.

Whatever it was, it seemed to involve a lot of shouting.

He kept his eye closed and tried to remember that this was happening to him, but it wasn't easy. His body seemed unattached, not really a part of him, no longer his concern.

The tul? There were eleven tuls. One for each of the great houses and one for each of the lesser houses.
You see, I was paying attention
.

That came from the skinny boy sitting on his chest. Eye open, Benedikt tried to focus on his face, couldn't, and focused instead on the red edges around a brand new tattoo centered on a thin chest. Boy indeed. Had just gotten his house tattoo. That should have meant more, but he couldn't seem to make it.

Xhojee sat back on his heels, staring at the filthy, bleeding body before him. "This isn't an assassin, this is a warrior of Tulpayotee."

"He's not going anywhere." When the two of them were finally alone—although the karjen had only gone to the other end of the kitchen, Xhojee reached out and gently stroked an abraded shoulder. "What happened to you?"

Benedikt dragged his tongue over his lips. Back in the tul's country house, Xhojee had told him a story about how, unwilling to wait for a change, the moon fought to cover the sun until only a circle of light was left. Those who stared at the battle went blind. Somehow, the story seemed apt. "I got eclipsed," he said.

Serasti bowed. "Positive, peerless one. The karjen you placed in your brother's house spoke to her brother this morning at the trash heap. Benedikt staggered into the kitchens last night and was taken away by the physician. The girl said he did not appear to be badly injured."

"No, I don't think so." Carefully keeping her left hand and its wet nails away from her robe, Xaan Mijandra moved to gaze out through the stone latticework that overlooked the Great Square. A party from House Calakroul was heading toward the palace.

Confused, the house master shuffled closer. "The guards seem to think at least one of the tunnels between your house and your brother's could be cleared. A Five could…"

"… find itself picked off one by one as it crawled through the opening. My brother is not always a fool, Serasti. He knows how to defend himself."

"But, peerless one, Benedikt…"

"I don't think I'll bother getting Benedikt back right away." While she'd been busy covertly arranging a fleet and weapons, Omliaz, she who would be the Calakroul-xaan, had become very close to the xaantalax. Sooner or later—probably sooner—the silly chit would mention that the Kohunlich-xaan had an exceptional singer in residence. The xaantalax would want to hear him sing and, if she liked him well enough, would want to add him to her own household.

House Kohunlich was powerful but not powerful enough to refuse a direct request from the xaantalax. Yet.

How much simpler
, Xaan Mijandra mused as she watched the Calakroul banners disappear behind the Great Temple,
to tell the xaantalax that Benedikt has run to my brother. After the change, the xaantalax can order Altun to give him up and thus avoid a lot of potential unpleasantness during these unstable times
.

How unfortunate for the xaantalax that after the change will be too late.

"Peerless one?"

"I know my brother, Serasti. Benedikt has only one thing to offer him now. When he tries to use it, I'll be there to take it away." Smiling serenely, she waved her unpainted nails at the housemaster. "Send my adorner back in, would you. I don't want to be late arriving at the palace."

"You didn't exactly take care of yourself while you were gone, did you?" Imixara held Benedikt's jaw firmly and turned his head from side to side. "It seems Sorquizic was kinder to you."

His reaction pulled his face from her grip. For a moment the Song of Sorquizic drowned out conscious thought. "Why do you say that?" he managed at last.

"I say it because the sea didn't take any body parts." Rising, the physician held out her hand for a scented cloth. "And having saved your sight, I'd have preferred you hadn't lost part of it to the xaan."

Benedikt fought to keep his voice steady. "I tried to get away."

"We know." Xhojee knelt by the other side of the bed. "I was the one in the crowd who yelled that the xaan couldn't punish a priest."

"That was you?" He remembered the voice and the moment of hope it had given him.

"The tul sent us out looking for you when he heard you'd run." A braid tipped with a red-and-black feather fell forward as Xhojee ducked his head. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not finding you before the xaan's guard." He looked up, needing Benedikt to believe that he'd tried. "I wasn't even sure it was you at first, because of the robe, then I covered my tattoo and got as close as I could. Xaan Mijandra was smart using the robe. It covered just enough to hide your strangeness and what it didn't cover, well, no one ever looks too closely at prisoners of the great houses. I stayed until they took you into the warehouse."

Tears filled Benedikt's eye and spilled down behind his ear and onto the bed. Just to know that he hadn't been alone… "Thank you."

Xhojee flushed as Imixara cleared her throat, glad she'd drawn the other man's attention. Everyone in the room but Benedikt knew he'd stayed only because the tul would have wanted him to.

"The eye is healing as it should. Now that you're clean, I see that most of the new damage looked worse than it is." The physician stepped back and motioned Ochoa forward. "A few days of this salve on your knees and across the stitches I put in your hand and there should be no scarring."
Physical scarring
, she added silently, watching the way he reacted to Ochoa's touch.