The Mirror Empire (61 page)

Zezili squared her shoulders. She concentrated on the length of purple carpet, but as she walked, her gaze was drawn to the Empress’s cats. They sat quietly watching her, their faces as inscrutable as the Empress’s.

Zezili walked to within a yard of the cusp of the Empress’s belled white gown, stared at the hem, and got down on both knees before her. She took off her helm, set it beside her.

The cats wound closer. A dozen, more? She imagined them chewing on her body, saw claws rend flesh.

She bowed her head and moved the tangled mass of her hair, baring her neck. One of the big cats lay down beside her. Its tail caressed her legs.

A delicate hand alighted on the base of Zezili’s neck. The fingers were cold.

“I charged you,” the Empress said, her voice like a sigh.

“I did as you bid,” Zezili said. “All but one of the camps is cleansed, and I’m sure Monshara can take care of the last. I obeyed you in all things.”

“You darkened their way. You interfered,” the Empress said. Her fingers dug into Zezili’s hair. “Worse, you may have hurt my other plans.” She took her hand away and beckoned to the cat lolling beside Zezili.

Another of the cats hissed.

“I find myself uncertain what to make of you or do with you.” The Empress sat in her silver throne, the fantastic menagerie of beaten silver rods and spires twisted into grotesque faces.

“Perhaps this was my fault,” she said. “I expected pure obedience. Look at me.”

Zezili raised her gaze from the carpet. She did not know what she expected to see in the Empress’s face, but looking up, she saw an unchanged visage, unmarked by feeling, grief or fear or anger. The Empress was, as ever, a blank bronze canvas, with the long, regal neck and supple form of her kind, the startling eyes.

“I do have a platter for your head here.” She patted the silver throne. “But my cats are not hungry, they say.”

Zezili looked at the cats. They stared back at her.

“There is another use for you,” the Empress said. “One for my sisters patiently waiting for Oma’s rise. You see, the Tai Mora are not the only world brought closer now. Our alliance with the Tai Mora was for convenience only, until the world of my sisters was close enough to wake those of us left behind. I will charge you with the sacred task of preparing for their awakening. You will prepare your legion in the spring and travel to Tordin.”

“But… Empress… I thought I’d be feeding bugs in the dirt. I know what I did.” She wanted to say more; it bubbled up inside her, a mad anger she’d held back these months. “I can’t follow you any more. I’m not your slave.”

But the Empress continued as if Zezili had not spoken. “I will send mercenaries with you from the outer islands. Three thousand Sebastyn pike men, five hundred Jorian archers. You understand?”

Zezili stood. Her knees ached. Cold sweat had gathered along her spine. She had not expected she would be allowed to rise. She had not thought past kneeling upon the carpet.

“You know I can’t obey you any longer,” Zezili said.

“I know you think that,” the Empress said. Her tone was light.

The cats were uncurling from the floor. Zezili had never known such fear. But the fear of going back to her servitude was far worse.

“I cannot serve,” Zezili said. “Me, the dajians, the other Dorinahs. We’re all the same to you. I know that now.”

“I know you think you’ve turned your face from me,” the Empress said. “You think you’ve found some other path. But we’ll change your mind. You’ll know, when we are done, who it is you belong to.”

Her cats crept up alongside Zezili and blocked her from the door. They circled her.

“My cats can be very persuasive,” the Empress said. “You understand?”

“Yes,” Zezili said. And she did.

The cats pounced.

Zezili did not have time to bring up her hands.

 

 

52

Ahkio welcomed Nasaka to Clan Raona three days after the massacre. What remained of Ahkio’s caravan was nearly packed up and ready for the journey back to the Temple of Oma. The air was cool and wet; the suns had beaten back the high winter frost so fiercely, Ahkio worried low spring would come early this year. Far too early.

Nasaka wound her way past the snuffling bears and carts and somber militia. Ahkio met her in front of the charred ruin of the council house, near the fountain, where Caisa was filling water bladders for their trip.

Ahkio had a ledger full of Kirana’s temple maps under his arm, and a letter from Mohrai’s family at the harbor. Spring had not yet broken in Saiduan, she said. But the watch houses were staffed double. His concern now was encouraging clans to begin rationing early without inciting panic.

“So, you’ve slaughtered some people,” Nasaka said, “and lost us sixty-five good citizens.”

Ahkio wondered at that greeting. Some people, he decided, would never change. “I sent you a message over a week ago,” Ahkio said. “You took your time.”

“There are a great many tasks that need management and minding in order to run a country,” Nasaka said. “It’s not all blind, heroic bloodbaths.”

“We’ll need to speak about Ora Dasai’s mission,” Ahkio said. “I’ve had some news I wanted to speak to you about. In person.”

“Indeed. It may be time to for us to speak of that in full.”

“You heard, then?” Ahkio needed people closer to Nasaka, someone who could intercept correspondence. He had begun to think like Kirana, he realized. Like a Kai.

“I summoned you here because I need to tie some things up at the temple,” Ahkio said. “I’ll be taking the Line back, but I need you to accompany my caravan. On foot.”

Nasaka narrowed her eyes. “What’s this?”

“You’re my political and religious advisor. Aren’t you? I’d like you to travel overland and report back. I need to assess our readiness for war. I can rely on your discretion?”

“Ahkio–”

“Good. Ghrasia’s been summoned to the Liona Stronghold on an urgent matter, so I can’t have her do it. I’m sure you understand how important this is, without her to help.”

“If you want a few days to yourself at the temple, you could have asked.”

“I need a woman on the ground here who can assess this threat.”

“I could give you Elaiko and–”

“That will be all,” Ahkio said. He gestured to Caisa, who’d finished filling the bladders. “Let’s call Liaro and go.”

She slipped on her pack and leapt forward.

 

Ahkio left Nasaka with grim company in Raona. Caisa and Liaro accompanied Ahkio on foot to Kuallina, though Liaro’s pace was slow, to account for his fresh but healing injuries. Kuallina was a hulking fortress at the center of Dhai, a tirajista-trained construction built for defense. From what, Ahkio wasn’t certain, as it was many days’ walk from both the harbor and the mountain pass that Liona guarded. It was a massive relic from another time, just like Liona, and the temples, and the twisted Line that carried people between them.

They stepped into the shimmering organic chrysalis that rode the corded Line, and the attendant parajista wished them luck at Oma’s temple.

“I wonder if she knows how much we’ll need it,” Ahkio said.

“I’m still worried this is a dead end,” Caisa said.

“Kirana didn’t think so.”

Liaro said, “I’m already feeling a bit like some secret explorer. Think we’ll fall off the map of the temple basements all together? Uncover old artifacts? I’m hoping to find a cure for hangovers, myself.”

Ahkio’s arrival at Oma’s Temple incited a flurry of activity. With Elder Ora Gaiso dead in the attempted coup and Ora Almeysia banished, he found new faces occupying their places. Younger, less predictable Oras with unknown family connections. He had Caisa note their names. They would need to study them, find their weaknesses, and exploit family ties.

Late that night, he woke Liaro, Caisa, and Una, the gatekeeper, and gained access to the temple basements. The first floor below the temple were the baths, great stone basins of fresh water heated by the beating heart of the temple; low ceilings, steam, and luscious night-creeping plants ran all along the warm walls. Many of their flowers were in bloom, great white-and-violet fingers that filled the air with the smell of honey and roses.

The four of them carried flame fly lanterns through the cloying heat. When they dropped to the second level, the warmth was gone, replaced by a dry chill that reminded Ahkio that spring threatened to warm the world.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like people going down past the third basement level,” Una said as she cleared the bracken trap from the door leading to the third subfloor.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like loud voices,” Liaro said, “or butterflies. I expect she strangles kittens in her spare time.”

“You’re a rude boy,” Una said. She patted her nest of hair and huffed down the long corridor of storage rooms. The doors here were marked in old Dhai characters, labeling rooms for rice and rye storage, dried hasaen tubers and fiddleheads, honey and salted greens. When they reached the fourth level, Una refused to go any further.

“Did you ever go down here with Kirana?” Ahkio asked her.

“Kai Kirana only came down here by herself,” Una said. “You’ll pardon, but the former Kai was a strange bird.”

Liaro rolled his eyes. “Pots and kettles.”

Ahkio raised his lantern so he could see the look on her face. He saw fear more than cunning. “Wait here for us, Ora Una.”

Her chin trembled. “An hour, Kai. Then I call down the militia.”

Ahkio plunged ahead, Caisa at his heels, Liaro grumbling behind. The store rooms went on forever. When they reached the sixth floor beneath the massive temple, Ahkio told Caisa to wait in the stairwell.

“But Kai–”

“If we’re not back by the time your flame flies settle, have Ora Una call for Nasaka.”

Once he and Liaro were out of Caisa’s sight, Ahkio pulled out Kirana’s map of the lowest basement. There were no proper rooms here, just massive, tangled vines made out of the same stuff as the temple’s skin; they reminded him of tree roots. He had to squeeze among them. Soon, his hands were covered in grit and mucus. He sneezed often.

“I hope this isn’t a fool’s run,” Liaro said.

“You have something better to do?”

“Caisa and I can fill time.”

“You’ll break your stitches.”

“It’d be worth it.”

Much to Ahkio’s relief, the final mapped level of the temple was a finite space. He circled around the outer edges of it twice and had to double back and follow the map again. He knew he was closer the third time, because the fleshy roots grew warmer; the air felt less congested.

He peered through a viny tangle marked on the map, and saw, on the other side, a small clearing and a massive stone slab.

“Well,” Liaro said, “not a snake chase after all.”

“Stay here. I’m going to go through.”

Ahkio reached through the tangle and set the lantern down on the other side. Then he squeezed into the narrow space between two roots. Halfway through, he got stuck. His ribs caught.

Liaro grabbed his legs and pushed from the other side. “Let your breath out,” he said.

Ahkio let out his breath. He pulled while Liaro pushed.

He slid onto the other side of the tangle, falling inelegantly onto the gritty floor. Scrambled up. Grabbed the lantern. The towering circular slab wasn’t quite stone. He pressed his fingers to it, and it felt slick and chalky. The face of it was inlaid in blue and red stones. Above, twisted vegetation and the temple’s thrumming roots held it upright. He tried to walk around it, but the mass of living plant flesh was too tight there for him to pass.

There were no Dhai characters on it, no writing at all. It was not until he stepped all the way back and raised the lantern higher that he saw the stones were arranged in a familiar shape – a double blue circle inside a red square.

“Is it some infused thing?” Liaro called.

Ahkio tried pressing the stones. He kicked gently at its base. Nothing happened.

Kirana had been gifted, and it wouldn’t surprise him if whatever he needed to do to this slab to get a reaction involved having a gift. It was the one thing he lacked. He wished that he’d brought Caisa all the way down. He would need to go back for her.

Ahkio set down his lantern and turned the map around a couple of times. There must be something he wasn’t seeing. Kirana spent time down here with these maps. It wasn’t as if this object was wholly inconspicuous. So, what was it supposed to do?

He pulled the Dorinah book from his pocket, the one with the ciphered phrases. He had tucked a sheet with the translations inside. Mostly, Etena and Kirana had debated philosophy and Garika politics. They talked about lovers and old Dhai battles. But there was that exchange:

 

And Etena’s reply:

 

Ahkio faced the slab again and gazed up the face of it into the darkness, where it seemed to merge with the roots of the temple. His mother had said the temples were living things. Living things had hearts.

It felt foolish to yell in the darkness, but he was out of ideas. “I’m Ahkio Javia Garika,” he said, “brother to Kirana Javia Garika, and I am Kai of the Dhai.”

His voice echoed.

Kai. Yes. He was Kai, and Kirana had believed he would get this far, for good or ill.

But nothing happened. The slab remained unchanged.

“Any other ideas?” Liaro asked.

Dead ends. Ghost trails. Kirana was killed by the invaders, the assassins he murdered in the square, just like the others. Trying to make it more than that would lead him down a path to madness, the way they all said Kirana had gone. He was trying to unpack riddles on top of riddles, and he had a country to secure.