The Fire Seer and Her Quradum (24 page)

If nobody forgave him for anything, why should he forgive anybody else? It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t justice.

If the guards expected mercy from him, they could forget it. For now, he’d submit quietly to his arrest, in the hope that Taya might find the killer by morning and put an end to this travesty. But tomorrow, if Bel-Sumai and the others tried to take him to the palace, it would be war. They would make no scapegoat out of him; he’d burn the lot of them before that happened.

Chapter 26

Taya pulled out the timeline she and Mandir had put together and looked it over. She added a few missing items gleaned from her interviews with Nindar and Shardali, placing question marks at the ends of items whose exact positioning in the timeline she was not certain of.

Ilinos lets out the dogs

Setsi tells Runawir

Setsi tells Shala

Shala goes out

Setsi tells us the dogs are out

We go outside with Setsi and Nindar

Runawir stabs Yanzu?

We see Runawir

Setsi and Nindar see Runawir?

Setsi goes to kitchen for meat?

We see Setsi luring a dog

Shala returns to the kitchen?

We see Tufan calling his dogs

For all that she stared at it, the timeline gave her no insights. There was just too much chaos during the time the dogs had been out. She couldn’t pin down who’d had access to Tufan’s wine cup and when. And what if one of the guards had poisoned the cup? They didn’t need those windows of opportunity; they could have done it at any time.

She needed to approach this from a different angle.

Perhaps she should follow Yanzu’s movements the night of the murders. What would he have done after Runawir stabbed him? After the attack, nobody had seen Yanzu outside, which suggested he’d gone back into the house. That made sense. He would want to bandage his arm before it bled too much.

If he’d been inside while everyone else was out, he could have poisoned Tufan’s wine cup. The timing fit. But if Yanzu had been the murderer, how had he ended up dying of
nepenthe
poisoning himself? And what was his motive for killing Tufan, when the person he’d have been angry with in that moment was Runawir?

Could Yanzu’s death have been accidental? If Yanzu had been the one to poison Tufan’s cup, he might have, somehow, accidentally dosed himself.

Or not so accidentally? Mandir had said
nepenthe
was a painkiller. He and his brothers had tried to steal it when they were injured, to dull pain. And Yanzu had been stabbed in the arm that night. It made sense that he might take advantage of the chaos caused by the dogs being out to steal some
nepenthe
for his pain.

Maybe Yanzu’s death had nothing to do with Tufan’s at all. Yanzu had accidentally overdosed himself on the
nepenthe
the same night that somebody else had poisoned Tufan. It was possible the two events were entirely separate—but Taya balked at this. That was too much coincidence. The events could be unrelated, but how likely was that, really?

Still, she’d follow the thread. If Yanzu had decided to steal
nepenthe
for his pain, where had he obtained it? He had two options. He could steal it from Tufan, or he could steal it from Gadatas. Gadatas was the safer option of the two, but the brothers were accustomed to stealing
nepenthe
from Tufan, and the circumstances, with Tufan and his guards out looking for the dogs, would have afforded Yanzu the opportunity to do that in relative safety.

She could find out whether he’d stolen it from Gadatas or Tufan. All she had to do was ask Gadatas and hope she got a straight answer.

For the third time today, she made the trek out to Gadatas’s dusty house. The sun was nearing the horizon, a worrisome reminder that she was running out of time.

She didn’t bother knocking as the door was still lying in the dirt outside. She went in through the open door frame. “Gadatas, I need you to tell me something.”

Gadatas was lying on his bed again; he jumped up at her words and backed away.

“Who were you expecting?” she said. “Bel-Zaidu?”

The tutor gaped at her. “I wasn’t expecting anybody.”

“I know the truth—Mother Isatis showed it to me. It was Bel-Zaidu who came in here this morning, attacked you, and stole your
nepenthe
.”

Gadatas appeared stunned.

“Has he given it back?”

“No,” said Gadatas, apparently giving up on his deception. “And I’m shaking again. See?”

She saw. The shaking was worse than before. Reason enough for her to never take
nepenthe
, no matter its pain-relieving qualities. “Do you want it back?”

“Yes.” His eyes lit, half hopeful, half suspicious.

“I don’t have it,” said Taya. “But I might just come up with it. I’m building a case against the guards for framing Mandir, and if I can find enough evidence, I’ll accuse them. Then I might have the opportunity to return your
nepenthe
to you.”

“You’d be a fool to confront the guards,” said Gadatas. “There are four of them, and one of you. And they have a dog.”

“In a sense, there’s two of me,” said Taya. “One of us is Mother Isatis.”

Gadatas swallowed.

“But before I do you any favors,” continued Taya, “you have to do a favor for me. I need you to tell me whether or not, on the night of the murder, Yanzu came here and stole some of your
nepenthe
.”

Gadatas blinked. “Yanzu?”

“Yes, Yanzu,” said Taya. “I think he may have taken
nepenthe
deliberately that night, to dull the pain from his knife wound, and he overdosed on it. But where did he get it? From you, or from Tufan’s room?”

“Not from me,” said Gadatas.

“Are you
certain
?” Taya didn’t trust him.

“Quite certain,” said Gadatas. “He didn’t know I had
nepenthe
. Nobody did.”

“Nobody?” she asked. “Not even the guards?”

Gadatas shut his mouth.

“Forget the guards,” she said. “Did anybody else know?”

“Nobody,” said Gadatas.

∞

Taya headed back to the main house. Her talk with Gadatas had closed off one line of investigation: Yanzu had not taken the
nepenthe
from Gadatas. That was good; she needed to narrow things down. She was hoping to be able to scry for more answers, but she couldn’t “fish” for answers from a goddess. She would not insult Mother Isatis by scrying for something she wasn’t reasonably certain had actually happened.

Yanzu had not stolen
nepenthe
from Gadatas. That meant that unless there was a third vial kicking around somewhere, he must have stolen it from Tufan. But how? There were two possible doors he could have used to gain access to Tufan’s chambers: the inside door from within the main house and the outside door. Shala had reported that the inside door was barred.

While it was not impossible that Yanzu knew a way to get past the barred inside door, it seemed more likely he’d taken the easier route of going in through the outside door or, if that was barred also, through one of the two windows.

If Yanzu had entered Tufan’s chambers from the outdoors, Taya could scry for that. She felt a little trepidation about doing so—she was not
absolutely certain
that Yanzu had done this—but her gut sense told her he had. It made sense that Yanzu would seek pain relief after being stabbed in the arm. It made sense that he would steal the drug he needed from Tufan while Tufan and his guards were away from the room. And the idea that Yanzu had accidentally overdosed instead of being poisoned would explain why she and Mandir had been unable to fit his death into their theories about Tufan’s murder.

She changed course, heading for the back of the main house, toward Tufan’s outside door. She expected it to be guarded, but that was all right. She didn’t plan to go in. All she wanted to do was scry nearby, outdoors.

Bel-Apsu was on patrol. When he caught her eye, he immediately moved to intercept her. “You can’t be over here.”

Taya looked over the grounds, evaluating scry-sites. She didn’t need to be right next to the main house to scry; she only needed to be close enough that she could see the door and windows and observe anyone coming in or out. “I’m not coming any closer.”

“You can’t visit your partner right now,” said Bel-Apsu. “He’s under arrest.”

“I’m not visiting anybody,” she said. “I’m scrying. Kindly stand aside—you don’t want to get burned.”

Bel-Apsu retreated a step. “Scrying for what?”

“Whatever the Fire Mother chooses to show me.” She held out her arm, horizontal to the ground, and flames blossomed from her fingertips.

Bel-Apsu retreated a few more steps and gave a shout back toward the house.

The last thing Taya saw before the flames closed around her was two more palace guards appearing in the windows and staring at her.

But now she was in the embrace of the Fire Mother.
Come in power, Mother Isatis
, she said.
Come in greatness. You are the ephemeral, the untouchable, the joyful dancer who sustains life and takes it away. You are wily as the onager, hungry as the lioness, keen as the eagle sighting its prey. Grant a vision to your humble daughter, who loves you.

The flames gave her no response, no flash of yellow. Taya swallowed, sweating profusely. She couldn’t survive in the cone of fire for long.

Two nights previously, a man came here on a secret mission while the guards were away. Show me that man
.

No response.

Taya wasn’t sure what to do. She could try more flattery, but that had not worked for her in the past. Either Isatis chose to listen or she didn’t. Taya had already scried once today—perhaps Isatis believed she was asking for too much.

Please, Fire Mother
, she said.
One of your children stands falsely accused of a crime. If he is tried and found guilty, it could spark a war among your people.

Still no response. Perhaps Isatis did not care if her children went to war.

Mother, I love this man,
she said.
Please help me save him.

An image appeared in the fire.

A man approached the house, turning his head this way and that. He held his right arm to his side, immobilizing it. When he turned his head toward her, Taya saw his face and confirmed that he was Yanzu.

He had something in his hand, but she couldn’t see what it was.

First he tried the door, but it didn’t budge. Then he went to the nearest window. It was too high for him to step through, but he vaulted easily up onto the sill. There he set down the item he’d been carrying and disappeared into the house. She peered at the item. It was a cup, either the one she and Mandir had seen in his room or another much like it.

Yanzu reappeared in the window, carrying a vial. It looked bigger than the one she’d seen in Gadatas’s quarters. He lowered the vial over the cup and tipped in some of its contents—more than a single drop. She didn’t get an exact count, but it looked like approximately ten drops. Taya swallowed. No wonder the
nepenthe
had killed him. Yanzu had given himself ten times the normal dose. Why would he do that? Did he not know the proper amount to use, or was he deliberately killing himself?

Yanzu disappeared from the window again, presumably to return the
nepenthe
to where it was stored. Then he reappeared, climbed out the window, took his cup that now had ten drops of
nepenthe
in it, and left her field of vision.

Thank you, Great Mother
, said Taya, and let her scry-fire drop.

While she’d been scrying, Bel-Sumai had joined Bel-Apsu. He stalked up to her. “What are you doing?”

“Scrying.” Taya had no patience for this bulldog of a palace guard; she wanted to get back to her room and think over this new information and its implications. “I’m done now.”

“I didn’t give you permission to scry,” said Bel-Sumai.

“No matter, since I don’t need it.” Taya walked away.

Chapter 27

Back in her guest room, Taya was able to devote her full attention to the problem of Yanzu. He’d given himself too much
nepenthe
, and it appeared he’d done it deliberately. So much for her theory that he’d stolen the
nepenthe
to ease his pain. Now it looked like he’d done it to kill himself. But why? And how did that relate to Tufan’s death?

Or could she be misinterpreting what she’d seen? Perhaps his death had been an accident after all. Yanzu might not have been aware of the danger of taking too much
nepenthe
. If his pain was severe, he might have thought a larger dose would be more effective. But that didn’t explain why Tufan had died in the same way and on the same night.

What she’d seen in the vision wasn’t enough to answer the question of
why
Yanzu had died. To know whether his death had been accidental or a suicide, she needed to know what was in his mind that evening. She could ask his brothers, but she wasn’t sure she could trust anything they said. Might Yanzu have left some writings behind that would give her an indication of his thoughts?

She recalled seeing some tablets in a chest in Yanzu’s room when they’d searched it the first time, but she hadn’t read them. She headed back to Yanzu’s room.

She hadn’t been here since the day his body had been discovered, but the room looked much the same. Yanzu’s body was gone, but his water cup was still on the table. The blankets on the bed were still mussed, as before, and the ewer of water was still in the washroom, though with less water in it.

Taya opened the chest that sat against the wall and saw that someone had been here before her. His clothes were no longer neatly folded but crumpled and strewn all over. Possibly the guards had searched this chest for evidence, or Yanzu’s brothers had gone through his things, seeking valuables.

A thought occurred to her: what if Yanzu had asked one of his brothers what the proper dosage of
nepenthe
was, and that brother had deliberately told him wrong, either maliciously or as a prank, and had thus led him to his death? It was an interesting thought. But Mandir had lived here long enough to know that the
nepenthe
dosage was one drop, and Yanzu had been here longer than he. Surely Yanzu already knew the proper dose.