City of Bones (28 page)

“It has been here many years. I discovered it by accident,” the scholar explained.

The hidden relics were neatly stored, glass objects to one side, metal and
mythenin
to the other, with tile and other ceramic fragments in the center. Most were sitting on top of folded squares of paper, which would contain notes on how the individual relic had been found and any interesting features about it that Arad had observed. This was a method Robelin had used as well.

Arad pointed to the dusty area beneath the racks and said, “That is something else you’ve been looking for, isn’t it?”

On the floor was a solid block of some shiny black stone. The book had been wrong about it, too. It was two feet in height but closer to three feet long and three feet wide, not four as the caption had said. It also clearly wasn’t made of
mythenin
.

“I bought it from Radu last year, at the same time I bought the book,” Arad said. “His price was ridiculously low. He seemed anxious to be rid of it.”

Khat sat on his heels to run a hand over the block’s surface. “That’s why no one ever heard of it before. It went from the thieves to Radu and then to you. It was never on the Silent Market.” The feel of the stone was cold, with the silky texture of the inner walls of the Remnant. He couldn’t make sense of the lines etched into it; like the carvings on the Miracle, they seemed to be nothing more than abstract designs, spirals and whirls, mingling, crossing, melting into each other. Trying to follow the pattern with your eyes was oddly hypnotic. Khat shook off the effect and looked up at Arad-edelk. “What is it?”

The scholar shook his head and adjusted his lenses. “I don’t know. That is one of the mysteries I hoped to solve. I wanted to complete a full translation of this text, which I hope will explain the importance of the relics which are so prominently featured in the engravings. I meant to present the whole to the Academia when I was finished … The resemblance this block has to the Miracle can’t be coincidence, but there is no magical effect. That I’ve observed, at least.”

“The Miracle didn’t do anything for years either. They kept it in the Elector’s garden until it started to make light,” Khat said, then wondered if anybody was going to ask him how he knew that. Sagai gave him an odd look as he knelt to examine the strange stone block, but the others seemed to take his knowledge for granted.

Arad was watching them warily. Now he asked, “Will you take it away tonight?”

Elen started to answer and stopped, then made another attempt, and those words didn’t make it out either. She wasn’t high-handed by nature, and taking prized relics away from this little scholar who was standing before her so helplessly wasn’t something she had bargained on.

Getting to his feet, Sagai said, “No one will take anything tonight. Perhaps we should talk this over.”

* * *

While Arad warmed tea over a brazier on the other side of the room, Khat watched Elen, who was biting her lip and turning over the little plaque with the winged figure as if she suspected it of concealing something. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked her. “We found them, just like you said we would.”

“There’s something I don’t like about this. The theft, Radu’s death, Constans’s involvement,” she said. “Did Radu arrange the original theft or was it only a coincidence?”

Sagai had been examining the Survivor text, and now he glanced up and said, “It’s possible. It’s also possible the thieves betrayed the one who ordered the theft, and dispersed the relics for more coin.”

Elen didn’t look up at him, still studying the winged relic intently, and her voice was grave. “But who wanted the relics stolen in the first place? Constans?”

It must be Constans
, Khat thought. Except that Constans had the skills to perform the theft himself, and had no need to trust to lower-tier hirelings. And somehow he had gotten the impression that Constans had become interested in the relics only after Sonet Riathen had started his search.

Arad came back to them and took a seat on one of the low stools. He had closed the secret cubbyhole again, and even now that Khat knew its location it was difficult to trace its outline in the wall. Considering the care Arad took with it, he wondered if the other scholars knew of its existence at all. Arad asked Khat, “Didn’t you work with Scholar Robelin at one time?”

“For a while.”

“I thought your name was familiar. Ecazar still speaks of you.”

Before Khat could ask what that worthy had to say about him after all this time, Elen leaned forward and said, “Scholar Arad, can you tell us what you know of the book and the relics?”

Watching her closely, Arad asked, “Your Master Warder will take them, won’t he?”

She nodded seriously. “Yes, but he will pay you for them.”

Arad gestured toward the mural. “I’ll be paid for my work on that, but I’ll never see it again.”

Elen seemed to debate with herself, then said, “Please, I know you have no reason to want to help us, but can you tell me what you’ve learned from the book so far? I think it’s important.”

“Very well.” Arad took off his lenses and rubbed his eyes wearily. “It talks of magic, of an invasion—”

“Invasion?” Khat interrupted, ignoring Elen’s frustrated glare. “From across the Last Sea?”

Sagai handed Arad back the text, but the scholar held it on his lap without opening it. “No, not from there. It says ‘They came down through the Western Doors of the sky, from the land of the dead.’”

“But the land of the dead is said to be under the earth,” Sagai said, puzzled.

Arad tapped the cover of the folded book. “Not according to this scribe.”

“But who are ‘they’?” Elen asked.

“The people of the West?” Khat said, remembering the fragments he had read of Riathen’s copy.

“The Inhabitants of the West,” Arad corrected. “The distinction is important. It never calls them people.” He unfolded the text, idly running his fingers over the delicate pages. “It speaks of destruction, of men and women seized and taken away through these Western Doors, of fire …”

“The formation of the Waste, perhaps?” Sagai said.

“I believe so.” Arad shrugged. “But it speaks of it in such a cryptic fashion, with so many double meanings and such deliberate obfuscation, that it has taken me a great deal of time to extract even that much sense out of it. That some pages are partly illegible doesn’t help either.”

“Does it speak of arcane engines?” Elen asked urgently. “Of how to build them?”

Sagai looked up and caught Khat’s eye. It was what they had been saying to each other all along. Arad was right; the block’s resemblance to the Miracle was no coincidence.
What exactly does Riathen think this arcane engine will do, once he puts it together
? Khat wondered. The Master Warder had told Elen he meant to unlock the secrets of the Ancients’ magic with these relics, and Khat, though he was all for rediscovering the past, found himself wondering if some of those secrets should be unlocked.

“Something of the sort,” Arad answered. “But I’ve only just scratched the surface of that section. The actual history of the events seems far more important.” He picked up the coin-shaped plaque with the winged figure. “But I learned enough to know that this seems to be a part of some greater—I don’t know if engine would be the proper word…”

Khat stretched out on the floor, propping himself up on one elbow. “That crystal plaque in the engraving fits into one of the shapes on the anteroom wall of the Tersalten Flat Remnant,” he told him. “Does it say that?”

“No.” Arad looked incredulous. “Truly? Robelin’s theory that the Remnants housed arcane engines … This is the first real support.”

Khat nodded, smiling faintly at the scholar’s growing excitement.

“Why, before this is over you could discover more evidence that would conclusively prove it!” Arad finished.

Khat looked away, brought back abruptly to reality again. If he proved Robelin’s theory, there was no chance of his taking the credit for it as far as the Academia was concerned. Any scholarly documentation of the discovery would excise his part in it completely. He saw Elen watching him curiously, and avoided her eyes.

Arad hadn’t noticed. He was saying thoughtfully, “This is fascinating. The text mentions the Remnants a great deal…”

“It does?” Sagai looked even more intrigued, if that was possible. “But in the other existent texts, the Remnants are mentioned only in passing, if at all,” he said.

Arad smiled faintly. “Yes, this is the text scholars have hoped to find for decades, praying that it existed somewhere other than their imaginations. It may provide a clue as to why the Remnants were built.” He looked seriously at Sagai. “Think of it. The Waste rock was rising, the seas had drained, the cities were dying. In the mountains that became the krismen Enclave a group of Mages must have already begun their great experiment, to create a people who could survive what our world was in the process of becoming. Yet other Mages devoted what must have been a great expenditure of their power, and a great toll in human life, to build the Remnants. Why?” He glanced down at the book again. “One fact I have been able to discern is that the presence of these ‘doors of the sky’ was how they chose the locations of the Remnants.” He shook his head. “It’s still a mystery. But when I finish my translation and present it to the other Scholars …”

“Wait,” Khat said, sitting bolt upright. He had heard something, from the passage that led to the outside door. He stood and went to the archway. Behind him he heard Sagai whisper, “Just in case, fold the book back up and put this …”

Khat remembered the louvers. He looked up, taking a step back, just as the first dark form dropped through.

Someone shouted, and Khat fell back against the wall, bracing himself. One man hit the stone floor not two feet from him, taking the twenty-foot drop easily. They were dressed in black and indigo to meld with the shadows, veiled and featureless. The nearest recovered and came at him all in one smooth motion. But Khat had already drawn his knife, and only excellent reflexes saved the intruder from a messy disembowelment. The man flung up an arm to shield his eyes against the return stroke, and Khat stepped in close for a kill. Then something smashed him down from behind.

For an instant he was stunned, pinned to the floor by something heavy. The stone felt gritty against his cheek, and his head hurt. He could see Elen had her painrod out and was backed against the far wall. She had used the Ancient weapon; one of the invaders was huddled on the floor in front of her. Somehow she had ended up with the book, and was hugging the folded text tightly to her chest. Arad had been knocked back against the opposite wall, and Sagai stood in front of him, two of their opponents at bay. Khat wondered why nobody was moving, then thought it was probably because someone was bracing a knee on his back and holding a knife to the big vein in his neck, just below the scar where the bonetaker had almost killed him.

Shiskan son Karadon said, “You know what we want.”

The floor was hard, and she was heavy. It was the first time he had heard her voice. It was soft and husky. She sounded entirely calm.
Probably does this every day
, Khat thought. There was a scraping sound off to his left; then he saw the man he had cut standing, hugging a bloody arm.

Elen looked at Sagai, and he said evenly, “Give it to them, Elen.”

He hadn’t put any undue emphasis on the word “it,” but Khat understood. The winged relic lay in the dust against the wall near Elen, gleaming faintly in the lamplight; the secret cubby was safely shut with the big ugly block inside. It depended on how long Shiskan and the others had been crouched on the roof, listening.

Shiskan said, “Ardan, get the book.”

The veiled man confronting Elen took a step toward her, and suddenly she moved, her painrod missing him by a hairsbreadth as he leapt out of reach.

Elen stepped back. Shiskan cursed under her breath at the near miss. Still shoved back against the wall, Arad-edelk looked up at Sagai worriedly, and Sagai watched Elen, who might have been a statue frozen motionless in marble.

Not loud enough to be heard by the others, Khat said to Shiskan, “Can you move your knee?” It was pressing into his back in a particularly painful place; it was also in the optimum position to keep him from breaking her hold and rolling over, if he didn’t mind the chance of her cutting his throat.

Softly, she answered, “Afraid not.”

Worried, Sagai said, “Elen …”

Khat wondered where in hell the Academia’s vigils were. This commotion should draw them, if anything could. He wondered what Elen would do.

The moment of decision came without warning. Alive again, Elen lifted the book. She said, “Let him go first.”

Khat couldn’t believe that she was going to do it; he would’ve bet anything that she wouldn’t. “Elen, don’t give it to them.”

Shiskan nudged him reprovingly. “Let her alone, and all this can be over in a few moments.”

That’s what I’m afraid of
, he thought.
A distraction, please, Sagai. .
. There were five of them to worry about: one facing Elen, one still incapacitated by her painrod, two watching Sagai and Arad, and the one he had wounded, who was leaning against the wall and panting. And that was without Shiskan son Karadon, which was discounting quite a bit. He could see Sagai’s eyes shift from the two men confronting him to Shiskan and back. To anyone else he might have looked nervous, but Khat knew his partner was thinking. Arad hadn’t moved, except to look up at Sagai once. He was watching everything, not without fear but nowhere close to panic. He could probably be counted on to do something in a moment of crisis, even if it wasn’t something terribly effective.

One of the men watching Sagai shifted, coming dangerously near the edge of the incomplete mural, and Khat said, “Tell your friend to get his big feet away from those tiles.”

Shiskan said, “Lyan, careful.”

The man glanced down and moved a step away.

To Elen, Shiskan said, “Give us the book, and I’ll let him go.”

“Let him go first,” Elen insisted stubbornly.