Page 7 of Queen Demon
“You are lucky I’ve spared you justice. If I gave you what you were owed—”
Ziede, Scourge of the Temple Halls, said aloud, “I’m unsuited for the role of peacemaker and if I’m forced into it, you will all regret it.” She added through her heart pearl,Kai, and you know how much it pains me to say this, Saadrin is right about going to Benais-arik. The Rising World council should see Tahren.
Kai grimaced. Tahren was a lynchpin of the relationship between the rest of the Rising World and the Immortal Blessed. The Arike, the Enalin, the Grale, the Ilveri, and all the other members would be much reassured to see her, and to hear her speak about the end of the conspiracy. Saadrin’s involvement in Tahren’s rescue would show that there were still Immortal Blessed who kept their word and upheld the treaty. The Immortal Marshalls who represented the Blessed Lands to the council would be indebted to Tahren and furious about it. Kai had to admit all that was true. He didn’t have to like it, but he had to admit it.
Saadrin twitched toward Ziede and started to speak, then tookin the change of expression on Tahren’s face. The change of expression that said, be rude to my wife and I will end you. Saadrin clearly wasn’t afraid of Tahren but she must be all too aware what fighting her would be like. She changed whatever she had been about to say to, “You may all be more than ready to turn your backs on the Rising World, but the Blessed and the mortal lands—” She waved a hand toward Sanja and Tenes, sitting just inside the doorway of the little domed shelter behind Kai. Sanja watched avidly. Tenes frowned in concern. “—bear the consequences.”
Tahren’s gaze narrowed. She turned her head slightly. “Sister Tenes, young Sanja, what do you say, as representatives of the rest of the known world?”
Sanja’s expression was a mix of confusion and suspicion. She was small, barely old enough to be called an adolescent, with the brown skin and tightly curled dark hair common to most of the east. She didn’t know Tahren at all yet and nothing in her former life as a street child in the free city at the Mouth of the Sea of Flowers had inclined her to trust. She looked at Tenes for help.
Tenes was a Witch. She looked young, with light silky hair and lighter skin, and she might have been from anywhere to the south or west or north of the whole world. An expositor had taken her as a familiar and she had lost her memory and her voice to him. All Kai could tell of her past life was that she was probably from a borderlander witchline. She looked from Tahren to Saadrin and signed,I follow Kaiisteron.
“Me too,” Sanja added belligerently.
Tahren faced Saadrin again. “And me.”
Dahin waved a hand without turning around, currently guiding the raft through a particularly tricky vagary of the wind. “And me. You know, mostly. As much as I ever do anything.”
That was that. Kai uncoiled from the bench and stood. The wind pulled at his hair and his dusty tunic and skirt. He said, “Tahren, would you speak to the Rising World council if I ask it?”
“If you ask it, yes,” Tahren said without hesitation.
“I ask it. We’ll go to Benais-arik.”
“So we shall.” Tahren turned from Saadrin as if she had suddenly ceased to exist.
Saadrin folded her arms and looked away, and managed to keep the sour cast to her expression to the minimum. She was getting what she wanted and she obviously hated the fact that she owed it to Kai.
Ziede stepped to Kai’s side. He could feel her relief and gratitude through her heart pearl, though she didn’t let it show in her expression. She had just gotten Tahren back, she didn’t want to see her have to fight her Blessed relatives, even Saadrin. Kai told her silently,We need to handle this very carefully.
Ziede’s brow furrowed as she considered potential strategies.We can slip into the city and go straight to Nibet House.That was the residence that the Enalin delegation used in Benais-arik.They’ll offer us hospitality without question and Tahren can ask for an escort to the council.
Kai let out a long breath. They needed to send a message to Avagantrum. They needed clothes and supplies, having lost everything useful they had collected during their canal journey in the flood at the Summer Halls. It would be a longer trip home from Benais-arik, especially if Saadrin wanted to keep the ascension raft. Tahren still needed time to recover, whatever she said. There was one place where all this could be done conveniently and safely.We can stay at the Cloisters until Tahren’s finished with the council.
Ziede said,that will work,then ruined it by adding,Ramad will know better than to look for you there.
Kai glared at her.I’m not worried about seeing Ramad.
Ziede squeezed his shoulder and didn’t comment.
If Kai was traveling here for the first time and had no idea they were about to reach the outskirts of a city, Benais-arik would still announce its presence well in advance.
First the converging of small canals into a big one lined with rushes and scrub trees but with the water free of any overgrowth that might obstruct boats. Then the roads curving in across the grassy plain, some well-traveled and dotted with occasional resting places, usually a copse of trees shading a few wooden shelters or a stone dome protecting a well. From above, the old roads were still etched on the landscape. These had been the main routes before the Hierarchs, but they led to places that didn’t exist anymore. From the surface they were mostly buried under grass and dirt, only the occasional boundary stone visible.
The raft passed over a few tumbled ruins that had once been villages or large farmsteads, but the signs of life—long canal boats or flitting skiffs, ox-drawn wagons and striding wallwalkers—was a reminder of survival that Kai would never grow tired of watching.
Then farmlands overtook empty fields, with scattered trees pruned into cone-shapes to shade the delicate greens and other plantings, with the hardy crops stretched out around them in concentric circles. Dry stone walls enclosed clumps of houses. Little cookshops and tiny temporary markets sprung up along the widening road.
Then finally bustling caravanserais with gardens and stables as in the distance the domes and towers of the city rose up, golden in the glow of late afternoon. Sentry posts had marked their approach already; Kai caught flashes of light reflected off mirrors that meant messages were passing below. It wasn’t uncommon for ascension rafts to come and go, especially during the coalition renewal. But the news about the conspiracy must have spread through the Rising World cohorts by now, and the presence of a raft and where it would land would be reported to the city garrison.
Dahin dropped the raft a little lower and slowed to follow the main eastward canal in over the city’s outskirts. It was mostly houses below now, older extended family compounds with their own gardens, interspersed with clusters of two- and three-story dwellings of sun-dried brick, constructed for refugees and ex-soldiers. The streets were shaded by acacia and eucalyptus trees, interspersed with the basins of the canal docks and the water markets where boats drew up to sell their goods.
Closer to the city’s center, the streets were wider and lined by larger stone buildings. Domes were carved and painted in traditional designs, scenes, and figures from Arike legends and history, though with everyone’s clothes and hair and armor and weapons far more elaborate and unwieldy than anything anyone would ever have had in reality. The curved walls were dotted with latticed windows and balconies to allow the wind to weave through the rooms and corridors. Benais House was in the central cluster, along with the older city assembly and law courts. The envoy houses were all in the same area, interwoven with the grand market and public gardens and clumps of private houses that had survived both the Hierarchs and the post-war rebuilding. The Rising World’s Assembly didn’t stand out next to the far more elaborate Arike buildings, but that didn’t disguise its importance. Other coalition cities had Rising World Assembly buildings, but Benais-arik’s was the oldest and largest.
As Dahin brought the raft around, Kai caught a glimpse of the old palace on the far side of the city center. It was enclosed in walls that had been outmoded even in Bashasa’s time, a relic of the Arik’s martial past. That had been over long before the Hierarchs arrived, and the palace had been partly a home for the current ruling Prince-heir’s family and partly a place for housing and entertaining important guests. It was still that now; Bashat lived there.
Their destination, Nibet House, was on the outer edge of the circle of envoy houses. It was only two stories tall, built of localsandy gray stone and heavy wooden beams brought down from the forests of Enalin. The low stone wall around the entrance garden and a scatter of olive trees hid the view of the first level but the big windows on the second floor were all open to catch the breeze off the canal, their carved wooden screens and storm shutters propped open. From the House’s undisturbed calm, and the general air of business as usual from the streets around it, Kai thought Bashat must not have given in to any impulses to challenge Enalin over its failure to support the Imperial renewal.
