City of Bones (6 page)

After a moment Elen shifted impatiently, and said, “Nothing happened.”

“Would you have preferred an explosion? Or the Remnant gradually sinking into the sand, maybe?” Khat tried to wiggle the plaque, but it fit too well into the carved depression. And here he was without even a marked string to measure with. “You know, if you’d let me in on this secret before we left the city, I could’ve brought some measuring tools to see just how closely this matches. As it is, you’ll be telling your friends that yes, we stuck it in there, and yes, it looked about right.”

“But…” Elen came closer, reached up to touch the plaque carefully, investigating the fit with her fingertips. “I thought it would do something.”

The idea that relics had mysterious purposes was a common misconception among those whose entire knowledge of the Ancients and the Survivor Time was acquired at the knee of their superstitious and half-mad old granny. “The highest drama in the relic market is when your competitors get fed up with your success and try to kill you,” Khat told her. The Mages’ arcane engines must have been hideously complex if the leftover bits that Khat had seen were any indication; they might find a crystal-inlaid plaque for each shape in the antechamber wall without having even half the pieces that made up the whole device, and still have no way to wake the thing. Still, it was an invaluable clue to the Remnant’s purpose. Robelin would have danced with delight. Khat might feel like dancing himself, once the enormity of it had a chance to sink in.

After a moment’s thought, he gently pressed the plaque in the center. With a bell-like tone, it obligingly popped out of the shape into his hands. “But there’s no mistaking that it’s meant to go there, and that still makes it a major find. You know the Academia will want to buy it. I can do a valuation for you, but an upper-tier dealer will have to confirm it since my mark on a legal document isn’t worth anything.” He glanced at Elen and saw that she looked more than just disappointed. She looked crushed. “What did you expect?” he asked her. “I can count the number of known arcane relics that actually do something on one set of fingers.”
Painrods, for one
, he thought. She probably believed she had lost hers out in the Waste.

“I know.” She was shaking her head.
She doesn’t really understand
, he thought,
she just thinks she does. They all do
. Immediately proving him right, she added, “It just isn’t what I thought it was.”

If I was holding that much coin, I wouldn’t complain
. But some things were relative to your situation. “We can try it again in the morning before we leave. The sun floods this chamber then, and it may tell us something. Of course, it’s probably just a decoration. From what the Ancients left behind, you’d think they never had anything but trinkets.” A Warder would want to hold on to a piece of an arcane engine; a decorative plaque she might be persuaded to sell to the Academia.

“We’re leaving in the morning?” She looked suspicious. “What about the pirates?”

“I’m leaving in the morning. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” Khat said, not liking to admit that in all the excitement over the relic he had forgotten the pirates.

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I meant that if the pirates are gone, can’t we leave sooner? I know it’s dangerous to travel the Waste at night, but…”

At night the predators and parasites that hunted the bottom level of the Waste would move up to the mid- and top levels. For someone without natural resistance to their poison, it made travel of any distance difficult if not impossible. And there were those pesky pirates to consider. Especially now that Khat knew why they had attacked the wagon. “The pirates may not be gone. They didn’t get what they wanted, did they?” Khat held out the plaque to her, and after a moment, she took it.

Outside, nightfall would be bringing some relief from the stifling heat of the Waste, but within the protective walls of the Remnant the only indication that the sun was setting was the gradual failure of light in the main chamber. Khat collected a bundle of the dried stalks of ithaca that had been left in the central chamber to build a small fire to see by. The air shafts in the ceiling high overhead would draw up the smoke and disperse it to the wind.

From the opposite side of the pit Elen watched him build the fire, frowning slightly. “Are there ghosts here?” she asked finally.

Khat glanced over at her. “Sometimes.” The city dwellers believed the souls of the dead were drawn down through the surface of the Waste to the still-burning fire that lay just beneath. If your life had been just and modest, your soul had more weight, and sank below the seven levels of fire to the cool center of the earth where the night was eternally calm. The worst souls were the lightest of all, and they drifted above ground, still preying on others as they had when they were alive, growing more evil as they absorbed whatever filth their invisible forms passed through. These were the ones that eventually grew so strong they left the ground behind entirely, and rode the wind as air spirits.

Whatever the Ancients’ opinion on the subject had been, it was now lost; the Survivors had believed their gods were dead, killed by the rise of the Waste, like the seas and the Ancients’ cities. Little cults flourished throughout the Fringe Cities, worshiping any number of odd things, but most people believed only in ghosts.

It was difficult to tell what Elen thought; something had taught her to school her expression to impervious stone when she wanted to. If she was worried about ghosts, it might mean that she wasn’t really a Warder, and had got the painrod some other way. Khat said, “They’ll suck your life out of your body like marrow out of a cracked bone.” Doubt crept into the oddly unchangeable blue of those eyes. Straight-faced, he added, “But I’m not worried, because they only like girls. Do you want half of the spidermite?”

Persistence was apparently one of her virtues. Her mouth set in a grim line, she tried again. “What about rock demons?”

“They aren’t so bad, especially if you drain the blood out before you eat…”

“I meant, are there any around here?”

“They never come near Remnants.” Khat cut the poison sacs out of the spidermite, and tossed them down into the fire. The contents turned the flames a brilliant blue for an instant. He added, “They’re too afraid of the ghosts.”

Elen slumped back against the stone bench, unamused. She also refused her share of the spidermite, so Khat cracked the legs open for the pulp inside, and finished it all off himself. A shaman he had known back in the Enclave had vivisected a rock demon once, and shown everyone how the creature had a rudimentary pouch and several other uncomfortable physical similarities to krismen, causing several to speculate that the Mages might have made one or two rather drastic mistakes during their experiments on the Survivors. Imparting this information to Elen could have an interesting effect, but he decided to save it for when she really annoyed him.

After that he stretched out and watched her watching him and pretending not to. He had noticed earlier that she still limped from the paralyzing venom in the spider bite, though she had cleaned away the worst of the blood and dust in the well chamber’s pool. She had also wrapped the despised veil around her head in a tight cap to modestly cover her cropped hair, an odd gesture from someone who obviously didn’t worry much about conventional behavior. It was a point in her favor that she had managed not to look overtly disgusted while he was eating the spidermite. City dwellers considered anything that grew or lived in the Waste to be unclean. Some extended this prohibition to include krismen, and those were the ones who tended to spit on you in the street.

Some found it more to their best interest to exclude the kris from that category. Krismen and the Survivor-descended city dwellers could not breed together. Despite the scarcity of kris in Charisat, most Patricians were aware of this and of the immediate consequence to themselves, that they could take kris lovers without having to worry about any telltale babies appearing. This was especially important to Patrician women, who were expected to keep their class pure. Khat thought that having to worry about involuntarily giving birth was odd anyway. If a kris woman didn’t want a baby, she simply disposed of the fertile egg sac when it came out, instead of implanting it in her own pouch or the father’s or someone else’s. Khat wondered if Elen knew that. Probably, but her face had a calm innocence to it that made you think she didn’t know where babies came from in the first place. Such an appearance could conceivably come in quite handy to a Warder.

Surprising him, Elen said suddenly, “Your eyes really do change color. I thought that was a myth, but it’s happened three times now.”

Khat gave her his best bored-to-stone expression. The comment had the distinctive sound of an attempt at distraction, and reminded him she really hadn’t told him anything yet. “Where did you get the relic, Elen?”

She folded her arms, stubborn. “Why do you ask all the questions?”

“So ask one of your own.”

Elen watched him thoughtfully. “If you thought I was going to kill you, why did you agree to come with me?”

“Because I needed the tokens. Very badly.” Khat had left his knife out after cutting up the spidermite. He angled the bone hilt so the amber bead set there would catch the firelight and turn into a living eye. It was a long, flat Kenniliar steel blade, with a gut hook just below the rounded pommel.

“And why haven’t you killed me yet?” Elen asked, more softly.

“Have you given me a reason to kill you?”

“You said you needed money. The relic must be worth”—she gestured helplessly—“hundreds of…”

“Thousands of,” Khat corrected, using a stick to poke at the fire and not looking up.

“So what stopped you?”

I’m not a murderer, I’m a relic dealer, and I’m trying to stay on the friendly side of the Trade Inspectors
, Khat could’ve answered.
What do you think it would do to my business with the Academia if they found out I took an upper-tier client into the Waste and she was never heard from again
? But he didn’t think Elen would accept that explanation. Instead, moved by curiosity, he asked, “What would you do in my place?”

She looked away. “I don’t know.”

Khat rolled his eyes. “The problem with this conversation is that one of us is still pretending that this isn’t anything but an unusual find that’s going to make someone a small hoard of coin in the relic market, and someone else is pretending that the other one really believes this. Which one are you?”

Instead of answering, Elen leaned forward and turned back the cloth on the relic. The flicker of firelight woke a hundred jewel-like colors out of it.
Beautiful
, Khat thought, then realized he had spoken aloud. She was watching him. Eyes serious, she said, “I didn’t know you would feel that way about it.”

Khat rolled onto his back and stretched to cover his confusion, suddenly feeling vulnerable and not sure why. He said dryly, “What a shock. It has feelings.”

“And it’s far too sarcastic for its own good,” Elen said, with a not-quite-smile. “Why were you certain I’d kill you for knowing about the relic?”

Khat hesitated. So she had a painrod. She obviously had access to an upper-tier collection of relics. That didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Now who’s fooling himself
? He said simply, “You’re a Warder.”

Elen blinked, badly startled. She licked her lips, said, “I…” and stopped, unable to deny it or unwilling to lie again.

Khat sighed, and sat up on one elbow. He had been hoping she would deny it. “Next time you disguise yourself, don’t carry a pain-rod. A professional dealer can smell a valuable relic in a high wind over a charnel heap.” Here he was with a living symbol of Imperial might. All Warders had the status of the highest First Tier Patricians, but they were personally sworn to the Elector, and were supposed to carry out his will as if they had none of their own. As one, Elen might hold any number of high offices. She might be a spy, a diplomat, an assassin. What this would do to their burgeoning relationship he had no idea. He knew the Warders searched for evidence of power or talent or whatever they called it among the young of the Fringe Cities, taking those who qualified up to the First Tier of Charisat to come down robed in white. Some, it was said, never came down at all. They searched everywhere for candidates, even the lower tiers, but it wasn’t any effort to guess that Elen was Patrician by birth.

“That’s why you hid it?” she asked.

“Hid what?”

It was Elen’s turn to study the Remnant’s heavy ceiling in irritation. Finally, she said, “If I’m not mistaken, we have a truce. I would appreciate it if you could manage to remember what it was you hid sometime before we get back to the city. Or I’ll be in worse trouble than I already am.”

Khat stirred the ashes in the fire again, considering. If she could hear what other people were thinking, as Warders were supposed to be able to do, she would know where the painrod was by now. She still seemed awfully young to him; that might be why she hadn’t used her power on the pirates. Or on him, that he knew of, except for that one abortive attempt with the simple. He asked, “What was the knotted cloth for? Was I supposed to fall over dead?”

“Hardly.” She snorted and looked away, perhaps in embarrassment. “It was meant to keep you out of this room. I was sure I had it right.”

“It didn’t work,” he pointed out.

“I’m aware of that.”

Her voice was a little tight, and he decided to stop prodding on that point. He reached over and picked up the plaque again. It was difficult to resist it, the crystals winking there in the firelight. “Is this yours?”

“No. I… took it. I had to bring it here, to see if it really was what my master believed it to be. Someone had to, to stop them from just talking instead of doing, to make some progress.” She rubbed her hands over her face and sighed. “I admit it was, well, precipitate.”

“Precipitate. Impulsive. Stupid.” There was an example of the difference in their station already. When Khat “took” something, everyone agreed it was stealing.

“Not stupid. Seul felt as I did, that we had to bring it out to one of the Remnants, but neither of us knew enough about them, or relics, to do more than stumble around aimlessly once we were here. I’ve never even been this far out into the Waste before.” She stared into the fire. “It was his idea to hire you. And Jaq was my lictor. He discovered what we were doing and insisted on coming with us.” She swallowed, remembering both men were dead now.

That explained Jaq’s Patrician attitude. Vigils were paid guards, usually from the lower tiers, while lictors were personal retainers from the lower-ranking Patrician families. They were given to court officials by the Elector as rewards for service. It also explained Seul.
So he was a Warder too
, Khat thought. He was glad the man was dead, though he didn’t intend to say so. “The pirates knew you had something worth the trouble of taking. Now, it’s death for them to be caught inside Charisat, so someone had to be able to tell them where you were going with it, where to wait in ambush.” Some upper-tier merchants were rumored to have contacts with pirate bands, and occasionally to bargain with them for attacks on the caravans of rivals. The attack on Elen and Seul’s steamwagon could have been similarly arranged.

Elen shook her head, unwilling to concede the point. “Then why haven’t they tried to get in to us? That door block isn’t so thick we wouldn’t hear them pounding on it.”

“Maybe they’ve left. Maybe they’d like us to think they’ve left.” Elen had made a fine attempt to lead the conversation away from the matter at hand. “Who knew you were coming out here with it?”

“I told you, no one.”

“Who did you take it from?”

Her answer was reluctant. “My master. He … studies the Ancients. He wanted to bring this here to test a theory, but I knew it was too dangerous for him. I was right about that, at least. So we took it without his knowledge and came in his place.”

Khat stared at her, amazed at how quickly the disaster had occurred. He knew Warders were organized into households, with the heads of each household having varying degrees of rank in the Elector’s court. It was something like the way the kris Enclave was organized into lineages based on lines of descent, though there was nothing like a formal ruler in the Enclave; everything was decided by council and argument, with the oldest women having the deciding verdicts in most matters. Elen must mean the master of whatever household she came from. If the man came after her, there was a good chance he would need a scapegoat for the trouble she had caused, and she had been thoughtful enough to provide one for him by hiring a kris relic dealer. Perhaps that had been Kythen Seul’s intention all along. Khat shook his head. “Elen, you don’t know what you’ve done to me with all this.”

Elen looked defensive. “With all what?”

Khat hesitated. She was leaning back against the side of the pit and hugging her knees, still flushed from the shame of admitting all the rules she had broken. Well, those rules were probably important to somebody. To Khat they had about as much weight as the rules governing a game of tables or mancala. A young woman raised on the upper tiers as a citizen of wealth and Patrician privilege and now become an apprentice Warder, and in Imperial favor. No, there was no possibility that Elen would understand. “Never mind,” he said. “Never mind.”

Later that night, when the fire had burned low and Elen had dropped off into an uneasy sleep, Khat went up the ramp to the well chamber. He hesitated at the entrance to let his eyes adjust. Moonglow and starlight gleaming off the still pool of the cistern were the only illumination. The chambers of the Remnant looked even more unearthly in the stillness of night; it was not surprising that most people believed them to be teeming with ghosts.

Some clever artisan had attached a metal clip to the end of the painrod, and Khat used it to hang the weapon from his belt. He hadn’t had a chance to examine it closely yet.