City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (12 page)

She felt a blush creeping up into her cheeks, but she refused to allow it. “The fact remains that I am the best individual for this assignment, if you set my rank and responsibilities aside.”

Indirial smiled a little. “I’m not sure I’m willing to do that. But I figured you’d say something like that, so I sent four Travelers through to Enosh last night.”

“You did
what?”

“Two Naraka, two Avernus. They scouted the trail between the closest Naraka waystation and the one in Enosh, removing a couple of the traps that Grandmaster Naraka ‘forgot’ to tell us about. They didn’t notice them all. One of our Travelers will walk with a limp for the rest of her life.”

Leah showed nothing on the outside, but inside, she winced. That could easily have been her.

Indirial had returned to maintaining his weapons, but he kept speaking. “They reached the city and managed to dispatch the
scout
that was waiting for them by the waystation. He almost escaped and raised the alarms.”

That was no surprise—Leah had expected Alin to set guardians on the waystation. It was one of the few permanent, predictable ways in and out of the city.

“One of the Corvinus ravens managed to modify his memory, and they mapped the quarter around the waystation without incident. I have their report here.”

He reached out with a single finger and tapped a pile of papers on the table next to his knives. “I stacked it on top of the other reports I received from the six other teams I sent out at the same time—”

“Indirial!”
Sending out a single team was one thing, but seven? Without telling her? That was too much.

“—to check if there were any other routes through any other viable Territories. There were none. We lost no men, but the guardians in Helgard, Asphodel, and Endross were formidable. It seems that, indeed, Naraka is our best option. Perhaps he has fewer Naraka Travelers to defend it after the Grandmaster’s defection, or maybe he wants us to show up at the predictable waystation. I can’t be sure.”

“Overlord Indirial,” Leah said, letting her anger seep into her voice. “That was
much
too large an action for you to authorize without my approval. You have risked dozens of our finest Travelers on a fact-finding mission that we could have done ourselves! Not to mention that you may have alerted the Incarnation to our intentions.”

Indirial poured some oil onto his rag and kept working, seemingly unfazed. “As opposed to risking one of our last Lirial Travelers, our
last
Ragnarus Traveler, and our
ruler?”

Well, when he put it like that…

“Your father hired me to guard the ruling monarch,” Indirial went on, still talking in his usual calm voice. “The best defense is preemptive action. I have now determined that, in fact, it
is
safe for you to accompany the team to Enosh, as long as you swear not to leave the Naraka Gate. I will make sure to send enough Naraka Travelers that they will be able to hold it open for the duration of your stay, which will be no more than half an hour.”

Leah didn’t enjoy following orders. She never had, even as a child, even from her father. Come to think of it, she had never seen her father fighting with Indirial. Why was that?

After a moment, she realized: she had never seen them disagree because her father hadn’t ever argued with Indirial. He simply accepted the protection. And her father was much more capable of defending himself than she was. It irritated her to admit that, though the feeling wasn’t logical.

“Thank you for your care, Indirial,” she said carefully. “I would be glad to accept your precautions.”

Indirial smiled broadly, as though she had made a joke, but he bowed in her direction without saying a word.

Leah glanced at the sun, wishing for a clock. It was a little before noon, but she would have liked a more accurate estimate. “How long will the trip take?”

“Three hours,” Indirial said. “I can have a team ready to leave in twenty minutes.”

Leah stared at the map, considering. It was the perfect time to leave. The Grandmaster claimed that Alin practically locked down the city at night, and no one without official authorization was allowed out of their home. She had initially believed that those restrictions would make it easier to move around after dark, until Grandmaster Naraka told her exactly what patrolled the streets from sundown to sunup. If they tried to sneak into the city at night, they were far more likely to run into a patrol of gold-armored troops or a floating tentacled creature.

It would be much easier, the Grandmaster believed, to slip in during the middle of the day and blend in with the crowd.

If they left now, they would have plenty of time to arrive, take a look around, and even return before sunset.

But were there any pitfalls? Was there anything she was missing? What could she do now to make the plan more likely to succeed?

As always when she thought like this, she fished around in her pocket until she found a small, square, wooden box with rounded edges. It was the right size to hold a ring or a pendant.

But she could feel the contents of this jewelry box radiating frustration through the thin layer of wood, pressing against her fingers, wanting release.

It hardly felt like an eye at all. Maybe some sort of horrible, still-beating heart.

Indirial didn’t look up from his weapons when he spoke. “You should use it.”

Leah sighed quietly. Did he ever miss anything? She pulled the jewelry box out of her pocket and, with only a moment’s hesitation, opened it.

A smooth, round stone of pure red gleamed on a velvet cushion inside the box. The stone was dark now, and until she turned it to catch the light it looked almost black. “We’ve talked about this, Indirial.”

“You need as much power as you can get,” he said simply, scraping a stone down the edge of one knife. He tested the edge with his thumb. “I risked my life more than once for a power I thought I needed.”

“A moment ago, you were more concerned for my safety than I was.”

He shrugged. “Your father survived. I doubt it’s any more dangerous for you than for him.”

Carefully, Leah placed the box on the table. “I don’t know anything about this, Indirial. There’s no shelf for it in the Vault, so I’m not sure where it came from. I don’t know what its price is, or even what it does.”

The Overlord spoke over the steady
rasp, rasp, rasp
of a whetstone against one of his knives. “Whatever it does, your father thought it was necessary to fight the Valinhall Incarnation. I understand he went through a great deal of trouble to get it. He even lost his eye in the battle.” He made a thoughtful sound in his throat. “Now that I think about it, that worked out pretty well for him.”

Leah thought Indirial had his priorities exactly backwards. Going into Enosh wouldn’t be
nearly
as dangerous to her as using the crimson eye. She had an even chance of winning or escaping any given fight. But placing something
in her body
that had an unknown effect and a mysterious price? She would rather fight an Elysian Incarnation alone.

Then again, her father had used the eye for as long as she’d been alive. It hadn’t hurt him much.

Had it?

Leah rolled the stone in her fingers, ignoring its pulsing warmth. She would have to get used to handling it if she meant to have it surgically inserted into her skull. She couldn’t help but imagining it, then: a long-handled metal spoon descending toward her left eye socket, ready to scoop out her eyeball…

She shuddered. It wasn’t realistic—they would certainly give her something for the pain, and any Asphodel Traveler could hold her unconscious until the operation had ended—but she couldn’t shake her instant revulsion. No matter how it happened, she would still have to give up an eye. And she had to wonder: was that the final price? Only an eye was a small cost, compared to what else Ragnarus might demand of her.

She shivered again, and almost jumped when a raven croaked behind her. She managed to move smoothly, placing the Ragnarus eye back into its case and turning to face Feiora Torannus.

The Overlord wore black trousers and a black shirt again, as usual, with Eugan the raven perched on her left shoulder. She stood with her arms crossed and jaw clenched, as though she anticipated having to physically knock someone down.

“Enosh?” she demanded. “What idiocy is this?”

There were
seven
other Overlords that hardly ever bothered Leah. Where were they?
Seven stones, why is it always Feiora?

Briefly it occurred to Leah that she might pretend to know nothing.
Enosh? What are you talking about?
But that would be a fool’s move; obviously the Overlord knew enough to be certain, or she wouldn’t have barged into the conversation in the first place.

“Who told you?” she asked instead.

Feiora jerked her head at Eugan, who let out a loud caw. “The Overlord of Cana over there had to borrow some of my personnel. A few of them were Avernus Travelers. They didn’t tell me where they were going, but the Corvinus tribe likes to keep tabs on one another.”

The raven croaked again, and somehow managed to radiate self-satisfaction.

Indirial didn’t look up from the weapons on the table. He had put down his whetstone and was now giving each blade a few strokes of an oiled rag. “I apologize for using your Travelers without permission. What else can I do for you?”

Feiora’s jaw tightened so much that Leah imagined she could hear teeth grinding and muscles straining with tension. “When do you leave, Indirial?”

Indirial swept his blade across a stone with a steady
whisk, whisk, whisk.
Maybe he hadn’t finished sharpening after all.

Or maybe he was doing it to be annoying.

Leah spoke into the silence. “I thought you were headed back to Eltarim, Overlord.” There was no need for Indirial to antagonize the woman like that, just because Leah always wanted to.

“I delegated,” Feiora said. “You should try it some time. Your Majesty, I formally request that I be assigned to the Enosh team.”

Leah mulled it over for a second, mostly for show. “Why?”

“It’s a scouting mission, isn’t it? I’m the best Avernus you have. I don’t have any contracts with the Sarin tribe, which would be even better for gathering intelligence.”

Lysander had been the premier Sarin-tribe Avernus Traveler in the nation. Did she have to bring up her little brother every time they spoke? The man was imprisoned for an attempted
coup;
she wasn’t going to release him for nothing more than a few extra eyes. She had frozen or killed most of his sparrows anyway, so he wouldn’t be much good.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Leah said at last. Meanwhile, she tried to figure out exactly what Feiora stood to gain—or thought she might gain—from going on this mission. On the surface, it was a loss for her: she had begged a favor from Leah. If Leah granted it, that would put the Overlord slightly in her debt.

On the other hand, Feiora needed a high card to trump her brother’s treachery. If she wanted to persuade Leah to release him anytime soon, she would have to provide the throne with some great service. Like, perhaps, taking down an Incarnation.

That would work for Leah. It was in Feiora’s best interests to further the Queen’s goals right now, so she could be trusted. Marginally. If they encountered any enemy troops, the plan called for them to retreat in any case.

And she
was
the best Avernus they had.

Leah nodded once and turned back to her map, as though the decision had been an easy one. “You may come with us,” she said. “We leave within the hour, as soon as Indirial gathers the proper personnel.”

Indirial grinned and drew his long, cracked sword off the table. He swept Leah a bow and raised his blade, starting to cut open a Valinhall Gate.

Overlord Feiora’s thick eyebrows raised. “Us? Surely, Your Majesty, you don’t think you’re coming too.”

***

The white marble had grown on its own, in batches next to what had ended up as Enosh’s Green District. It came in perfect, square blocks, stacked one on top of the other, leading Alin to believe that they must have once been crates. Like so much else in the city, the blocks had been transformed by his radiant presence into their new form.

One of the blocks drifted up on a cushion of Orange Light, sliding over to slam on top of its fellows in a neat stack. Dutifully, the workers applauded to show their gratitude. Then they got back to work.

Diligence. He approved of that.

The sight of the wall going up—block after block of pure white marble, cemented together by his human workforce—satisfied something in him. This wall represented order, purity, cleanliness…and, he supposed, self-sacrifice. He wasn’t sure. Why didn’t he know the exact nature of Elysia’s White Light? He was trying to put up a White District, as there was in his Territory, but how could he do that if he couldn’t even call the White?

The thought put a wrinkle in his previously unmarred peace of mind, and he frowned.

“Rhalia, what does the White Light represent?”

The Gate swirled beside him, its edges shining like pure sunlight. Rhalia hung motionless in the air behind the Gate, her white dress and gold sash blowing in the light breeze that ruffled Elysia’s grass. Her golden eyes were sad as they touched on the workers, but he couldn’t figure out why.

She heard him and started to respond, but he held up a hand. “No, that’s not the right question. It doesn’t matter what the White represents.”

“I would say it matters very much,” Rhalia said softly.

Alin rubbed his chin with one gauntleted hand, trying to phrase his thoughts clearly. “I mean, what matters is that I
don’t know
what the White Light means. Why does it elude me, even now?”

Rhalia brushed a strand of blond hair out of her face, still watching the workers. “The White Light is selflessness. It’s pure devotion to the service of another at your own expense—even its power can only be used on behalf of someone else. That part of Elysia is beyond you.” She didn’t meet Alin’s gaze.

Alin stepped fully in front of the Gate, forcing her to look him in the eye. “I am Elysia,” he said. “There is no door in the city barred to me.”