The Silences of Home (22 page)

“The palace is shaped like a flower. Imagine rings of towers instead of petals, each ring, each tower, guarded. The centre is the Queenstower. We will have to work our way from the outer layer in. Years ago there were wells within the palace as well as outside it, but this Queen’s mother constructed a different system of pipes that would bring water to the fountains and kitchens of the palace. These pipes are too narrow for us to use. So we will send men here, to the western wall where the Queensfolk houses are, and here, to the back entrance by the palace crypts. Mallesh and I will lead a larger contingent through the marketplace to the main doors. There are always people about in the marketplace, even at night—we will have to be quiet and careful. While we do this, other groups will surface in the wells nearest the city wall, which has two gates. The guards here always face the desert. Our men will remain at the gates while the rest of us do our work inside the palace. Be silent and swift, wherever you are. Use the moon’s light, but be wary of it. Distract and ambush if you come upon a large group of guards or some that appear very alert. Surprise and shock will carry us into the palace, ring by ring, until we reach the Queen. By the time we do this, there will be no one left within to come to her aid.

“You know your groups. Make ready now. We move together, two hours after midnight.”

Baldhron had said more, Mallesh was sure of this, but he could not remember. He was amazed, in fact, that he had remembered as much as he had. The singing of the city’s stone and sand and water was so loud that he felt feverish.
It will pass
. The thought took shape slowly. He gripped it and clung, and the singing seemed to ebb.
It is so powerful because I am finally above. Soon I will be accustomed to this new place, and my strength will return
.

He dug his bare toes against the packed sand of the marketplace and lifted his face to the sky, carefully, so that the nausea he had felt when he first did this would not strike him again. He was still a bit dizzy: the stars spun as they flickered, and the darkness among them spiralled like an ocean waterspout. And there were the towers as well, which seemed to curve in toward each other as if the wind that high was so fierce that it bent the stone. Mallesh raised his arms up, spread his fingers apart, blinked at them and at the sky and palace behind them. He was heavy with desire.

“Mallesh,” Baldhron said, “come—it is time.”

Mallesh and Baldhron led their forty scribes and selkesh among the odd structures of the marketplace. These forty would hang back, at the main doors; only the leaders would step up to the guards there, who might be perplexed or curious or even suspicious, immediately before they died. Mallesh fingered his spear, concealed beneath a cloak given him by Baldhron when they reached the outside. No metal clanked or gleamed as they moved, and the few folk who were awake at this hour simply nodded at them. “A large group of friends,” Baldhron had said, “walking without haste or apparent direction, disturbing no one. This is how we will appear to anyone who sees us.”

“The doors are just around this turn,” Baldhron murmured now. Mallesh swallowed. His throat was already dry, though the cloth beneath his cloak was still damp from his swim to the well shaft. As if he sensed Mallesh’s thirst, Baldhron said, “Would you like to drink one more time before we proceed? There is a fountain just here. . . .”

Mallesh drank deeply, head down, eyes closed. When he straightened to allow his men to drink as well, there was a yllosh-woman standing with Baldhron.

“Wait,” Baldhron said, raising his hand to silence the noise that was rising in Mallesh’s throat. “Do not act in haste—remember my counsel.”

Despite the sound in his own head like a whirring of starmoth wings, Mallesh heard a low growl from his men. “We have no time to waste on yllosh scum,” he hissed. “We go now, before I do this one harm.”

Baldhron took a step toward him. “Listen to me. This is Wollshenyllosh, the fish . . . yllosh-person who witnessed your brother’s capture and Dashran’s murder. The same one who has acted as translator for Leish and the Queen these past few months.”

Mallesh glanced at Wollshenyllosh. She was looking at him steadily. He could find no mockery or malice in her eyes, though he wanted to. The noise of his hatred receded a bit, making room for thought.
Baldhron is not surprised to see her. Why do we linger here, when he was so eager to begin?
“And what,” Mallesh said, “does she herself say of these things she has seen and done?”

Wollshenyllosh was silent for a moment. Mallesh heard the song of the city again, and closer sounds, like windbells and creaking wood and distant voices laughing.

“It is true,” she said at last, “that the quarrels of our people are ancient and strong—but they are between us. When drylanders intervene in our affairs, we are not happy. For although we are not friends, we are kin.”

Mallesh felt splinters beneath his nails and loosened his hold on his spear.

“So when this Queen killed your man—even though he had tried to attack one of ours—we were displeased. And your brother Leish, I have discovered, is brave. And,” she added after a short pause, “we know where you and your people have been this past while. We have known almost since your arrival—but we have not informed anyone. Though we could have, perhaps for great reward. This is what I say to you.”

Mallesh closed his eyes as a surge of dizziness rocked him. When it had mostly subsided, he cleared his throat, tried to think as Leish would. “I see,” Mallesh said in the most confident tone he could muster at such low volume and with such sickness in his gut. “And I thank you for your discretion.” His tongue felt heavy against his teeth. He had been prepared to scream and draw blood with spear and knife, not to attempt diplomacy with a yllosh-woman who
knew
, who had known all along. . . . “If, then, you are so impressed by my brother’s character and so annoyed at this Queen, why not aid us in what we are about to do? There might be reward in this as well.” He thrust the words from his mouth as if he were trying not to taste them.

Wollshenyllosh’s smile was kind, perhaps regretful, and he stiffened. “We will not intervene—not for the Queen and not for you. We leave our lakes and oceans only to come here, for our people are fascinated by the dryland goods we trade for, but we do not involve ourselves in the lives and disputes of others. No reward is worth the risk of never again breathing our home waters.”

Mallesh felt the towers above him, and the sky whose stars were arrayed differently from the ones he knew. He trembled for a moment, and sensed the selkesh behind him trembling, and he forced anger from his confusion. “Why are you here, then?” he demanded, ignoring Baldhron’s swift, “Quietly, Mallesh!” Mallesh shook Baldhron’s hand away from his arm. “To awe us with the wisdom and morals of your people—to belittle and shame us yet again?”

Wollshenyllosh gazed at him so evenly and for such a long, silent time that she did not need to speak her “No” aloud. “We will not fight with or for you,” she finally said, unclasping a bag attached to her seavine belt. The scales on her hand and forearm glittered as she moved. “But, as Baldhron requested, we will aid you in another way.”

The key she drew from the bag was long and slender. She held it up by its notched end. Mallesh frowned at it, then at Baldhron, who was smiling and holding out his own hand.

“Thank you,” Baldhron said after he had plucked it from her fingers. “You have done well. When next we meet I will make sure that you receive some form of compensation, even if you continue to insist that you do not desire it.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “we will not meet again. I will soon return to my home waters—after my people and I see where your strokes lead you tonight.”

She slipped away from them, and there was no flash of moonlight on scales to show where she had gone.

Mallesh turned to Baldhron and spoke so that he would not begin to tremble again. “Give me the key. And show me the way to Leish, once we are inside.”

Baldhron opened his mouth to reply, then closed it as an old woman shuffled by, peering, pursing her cracked lips. When she had passed, with several backward glances, Mallesh looked again at Baldhron. He was no longer holding the key.

“Of course you wish to free your brother immediately,” he said. “It would be my first desire, if I were in your place. But think, Mallesh: he will be weak and sick. He would be a hindrance to us in the first lightning strike of battle. Safer to leave him where he is. We must continue with our plan: you take your men to the eastern towers, I take mine west, and we meet in the northern corridor to begin our assault on the next layer of towers. When we have successfully taken the palace, we will free Leish together.”

Mallesh knew his men would expect him to protest. He
should
protest—he, the compassionate brother and leader. But he bowed his head as if resignation, and said, “You are right. He will be safer where he is, for now.” When his men began to whisper, he rounded on them and snapped, “Think of him—think only of his well-being,” and glared at them until they too bowed their heads.

“Excellent,” Baldhron said. “Now—shall we go inside?”

All the wells of the Queenscity swarmed with shadows. Scribes and selkesh climbed out into sandy squares, broad lanes, the fragrant, rustling spaces of enclosed courtyards. Some of the selkesh faltered when they stood in the open air again after so long, but the scribes urged them firmly on. In one courtyard a dog barked—but the garden was empty when its sleepy owner looked out upon it.

Luhr slumbered as the shadows filled its streets. They flowed like countless river branchings, down to the southern wall with its great gate, across to the eastern wall, with its smaller one. They were swift and silent, seen by no one except some speechless drunkards, a madwoman who clapped at their passing, lovers half blind with need.

The two Queensguards at the eastern gate were sitting with their backs against the wall. One was sleeping; the other was eating an end of bread, lifting it up to examine it after every bite. The bread made a small, muffled sound when it fell from his fingers. He made no sound, though his eyes widened above the dagger lodged in his throat, and he looked as though he would speak a question, or a curse. When a second dagger—held, not thrown—sank into the other guard’s chest, his eyes opened, blinked, fixed, and he breathed a whistling sigh.

Four guards manned the main gates: one at the top of each watchtower and one in each of the tiny rooms below. The tower doors were unlocked and well oiled. The guards within were sitting on stools, looking out barred windows at the moonlit sand. One of them did not turn; the other did, and nearly had time to cry out. The guards above were leaning out over their sections of wall, talking about the dangers of the sandstorm season. They talked for two minutes, five; then they turned away from each other to pace along the walls, stretching and rubbing at their eyes, looking at nothing. Two daggers and two short arrows flew; one guard grunted and the other screamed, but no one in the sleeping city heard them.

The Queensfolk homes at the palace’s western wall were quiet. Pentaran motioned some of his companions up the twisting staircases that led to the highest houses. When they had disappeared, he led the rest of his men to the houses midway up the cluster. He heard their breathing—the selkesh were especially loud, whistling and gurgling—and the patter of their bare feet on the clay, and his own heartbeat pounding above these other noises. He was certain that people would hear this and stream from their houses, but all was dark and motionless, sunk in the deep sleep that comes in the hours after midnight.

He halted at a door and put his hand to its wood. He tasted bile in his throat and in his mouth and swallowed desperately until it dissolved.
Now, before you vomit on the stairs
—and he nodded once at his men and pushed the door open.

“I know these two,” Baldhron whispered to Mallesh. They were standing behind a wooden stage draped in canvas and dyed linen. Mallesh glanced around the post nearest him at the two Queensguards who stood straight and silent on either side of the palace doors. “They were lovers,” Baldhron went on. Mallesh heard a smile in his voice. “She has recently cast him off for another. We’ll take her first. I’ll walk up to them, leaving space for a clear shot. One of my men will use a bow and arrow on her. I’ll order another to shoot him as he’s turning to her.”

He knows them
, Mallesh thought as Baldhron murmured to the scribes.
These are his own people.
He sheathed the sword Baldhron had commanded him to use once they were inside the palace. He shrugged the cloak off his shoulder so that his spearhead caught the light. As if this had been a pre-arranged signal, the selkesh approached. Baldhron conferred with his men, and Mallesh spoke to his quickly, tersely. He saw that Baldhron had not noticed this, and made sure that he still did not notice when Mallesh and another selkesh stepped out past the stage. They stood close together and drew back their arms. Their spears had already found their marks by the time Baldhron lunged out of the darkness.

“You fool!” he hissed. Mallesh felt spittle on his face but could not wipe at it; his shoulders were pinned by Baldhron’s knees. The ground was hard and cool beneath his head, and Mallesh nearly smiled with the joy of feeling it there. “I told you what we would do—”

“What
you
would do,” Mallesh said, and felt all the months of his confinement sloughing away like an ocean eel’s skin, leaving everything, from eyeballs to toenails, translucent with newness and strength. “It was an overly complicated plan. Two of them, and us with our spears—this was the better way.”

Baldhron pushed himself up, so roughly that Mallesh knew there would be bruises on his chest and shoulders. “They could have seen you,” Baldhron said. “They could have dodged your throwing sticks and screamed for help.”

“They did not,” Mallesh said, easing himself away from the ground without wincing. “They did not expect to see us—so they did not see us until our spears were in them. We selkesh have hunted creatures in water, huge, limber creatures that plunge and twist, yet we hunt them with our spears and haul their bodies onto our shore. This was not such a hunt.”