“Yes, yes, Archeth, I’m well aware of your liking for legislation. But as you’ve just seen, the Citadel is not currently breeding men with much respect for the niceties of a civilized society.”
“Nevertheless—”
“God damn it, woman, will you just shut up.” It was impossible to tell if Jhiral was genuinely aggrieved or not. “You know, I expected a little more support out of you, Archeth. It was you he insulted, after all.”
Yes, he insulted me. But only after you gave him cause to believe I was out of favor with that snide little comment about loyal servants. You built Menkarak a gangplank he thought was secure, and then when he set foot on it, you kicked it away from the ship and watched him get wet. You play your little games, Jhiral, you play us all off against one another for your greater security and amusement. But someday, you’re going to kick someone’s gangplank away and they won’t go down alone. They’ll grab your ankles and pull you down with them.
“My apologies, my lord. I am of course deeply grateful for the protection you extend to my honor at court.”
“I should bloody hope so. I don’t go up against the Citadel lightly, you know. There’s a balance to be played out here, and it’s ticklish at the best of times.”
She bowed her head. Anything else would have been risky. “My lord.”
“They don’t like you, Archeth.” Jhiral’s tone had shifted, taken on a pettish, lecturing tone. “You’re a final reminder of the godless Kiriath, and that upsets them. The faithful don’t react well when they run up against infidels they can’t conquer or condescend to—it starts to look like a nasty little flaw in God’s perfect plan.”
Archeth sneaked a look at Rakan, but the Throne Eternal captain was impassive. If he heard his Emperor’s words as the borderline heresy they so patently were, he gave no sign that it bothered him. And the two guardsmen on either side of the throne might have been carved from stone for all the reaction they offered.
Still . . .
“Perhaps we should discuss Khangset, my lord.”
“Indeed.” Jhiral cleared his throat, and she thought that for just a moment he looked almost grateful for the interjection. She wondered how much of his guard he’d let down in that last outburst, how much self-pity there was along with the sympathy in the words they don’t like you, Archeth. Rule from the Burnished Throne was, for all its brutal potential, very much the ticklish business Jhiral described.
“We were discussing, my lord, the—”
“Yes, I remember. The madwoman Elith, and these rites you say she didn’t perform. Let’s have it, then.”
“She did perform the rites, my lord.”
“I rather imagined so. Menkarak, whatever his other deficiencies, doesn’t strike me as a liar. And was this at your instigation?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Jhiral sighed and sank back into the arms of the throne. He leaned an elbow on the arm, put his hand to his brow, and looked at Archeth wearily from under it. “You are going to explain all this in a satisfactory manner at some point, I assume.”
“I hope so, my lord.”
“Then could we perhaps accelerate the process? Because at the moment I appear to be listening to a member of my inner court admitting to sorcery in collaboration with an enemy of the realm.”
“I don’t believe there was any sorcery, my lord.”
“Ah.”
“Khangset was certainly attacked by some force with technology we don’t have access to, and Elith thinks she helped summon them. But her involvement in these matters is coincidental at best. I encouraged her to repeat the rites she thinks communicate with the attackers, and of course nothing happened.”
Nothing, that is, if you don’t count the creep of flesh on the back of your neck as Elith stands erect before the crudely hewn stone figure on the cliff ’s edge in the hour before dawn, arms held out to mimic its patient cruciform beckoning, singing a wild, arrhythmic incantation, fluid northern syllables stretched to shrieking and thrown out into the whoop and roar of the sea wind, until it’s hard to tell anymore who’s making which sounds. You heard a lifetime of suffering and grief poured out in song there, Archidi, and for more than just a moment or two it seemed to you, didn’t it, that something stony and violent must answer from beyond the curtains of gloom and gale.
“Archeth, come on.” Jhiral shook his head. “That doesn’t in itself prove anything. Perhaps these forces she attempted to summon just weren’t interested in an encore. Hmm? Sorcery is an unreliable business, you’ve said so yourself enough times. And Rakan and Shanta here both say the destruction was pretty overwhelming, the worst they’ve seen since the war. Who’d come back after a successful sacking like that? What point would there be?”
“My lord, what point would there be in attacking a garrisoned port in the first place, if nothing of value is taken and there is no onward assault?”
Jhiral frowned. “Is this true, Rakan? Nothing was taken?”
“No, majesty. It appears not. We found the interior possessions of houses untouched where they had not been destroyed by fire. And the port authority strongrooms contained silver bullion, paymaster’s bagged coin, and several crates of confiscated valuables, all of which were still in place.” A hint of emotion crept into the Throne Eternal’s dispassionate voice, the faintest tinge of confusion. “Though each door had been ripped off its hinges as if by a team of horses.”
“And I take it,” said Jhiral drily, “that you could not possibly introduce a team of horses in the lower levels of the port authority.”
“No, majesty.”
“Shanta? Any alternative explanation you can think of?”
The naval engineer shrugged. “Perhaps some system of pulleys. Sufficiently well anchored, they might—”
“Thank you, I think we’ll take that as a no.” Jhiral scowled and looked at Archeth again. “It seems to me we’re back to the sorcery that you’re so firmly of the opinion did not occur.”
“I don’t say that sorcery—or some form of science of which I’m ignorant—did not occur, my lord. I say only that the woman Elith had no hand in it, that I did not see her perform sorcery at any time, nor do I believe that she has ever had the ability to do so. She is merely a spectator to these events, a spectator with just enough specialized cultural knowledge to give the impression of involvement.”
Jhiral made a small, exasperated noise in his throat and threw himself back in the arms of the throne. “You see? I didn’t follow any of that last sentence, Archeth. Can you—please—spell it out for us in terms a pure-blood human would understand.”
She ignored the veiled insult, swallowed it, marshaled the facts at her disposal, and once more built up the façade of professional detachment that kept her sane and out of jail.
“Very well. Elith, in common with a lot of the transplanted peoples from annexed territories in the north, believes in a broad pantheon of different gods and spirits. It’s a tradition that bears some resemblance to the Majak nomads’ framework of faith, but it’s far more ordered. It’s been written down, modified, embellished, and shared among the Naomic tribes for long enough to become codified. Among this pantheon, there is a figure, or more correctly a whole race, called the dwenda.”
“Dwinduh?” Jhiral mangled the unfamiliar word.
“Dwenda. Or the Aldrain, depending on which tribe’s tales you prefer. It comes to the same thing. A race of beings, close to human in form, with supernatural powers, access to realms beyond human reach, and close links to or even shared blood with the gods.”
Jhiral coughed a laugh. “Well. I mean, that could be the Kiriath you’re talking about there. I’ve heard the same things said about them enough times. Human-type races with unexplained powers. Are you saying the Kiriath or some of their cousins are back, that they’ve taken to sacking my cities?”