He didn't make any response. He was standing with his arms folded, but she had seen how fast he could move. Annoyed, she said, "If you don't believe me, you can ask the priests at the temple."
He jerked his head toward the camp. "Those priests?"
"What?" She sat up, startled, and the staff thumped loudly on the wagonbed.
He stepped back as Maskelle grabbed her staff and stood up. She could already hear the bells on the priests' sistrum. Another moment, then he turned and walked—strolled, Maskelle thought, a brow lifted ironically—into the dark. She could hear his steps on the wet grass. Not magic then, and no power about it. Just skill at moving quietly.
Voices from behind the wagon recalled her to the current problem. Swearing under her breath, she dragged her wet robes off the bench and clambered down to the ground.
There were three Koshan priests standing near the fire, their cobalt blue robes caught up to keep them out of the mud, and a young acolyte with a sistrum behind them. Beyond the priests, half-surrounding the wagons, was a group of temple guards mounted on the small, sturdy horses of the lower plains. The guards wore dark silk overrobes sewn with chain and breastplates of tightly braided plates of lacquered iron, their crested helmets fitted with masks to make them faceless and terrifying.
Old Mali was still crouching stubbornly by the cooking pot, but the others were hiding in the wagons, peering anxiously out. Their eyes followed Maskelle as she crossed the campsite. Rastim was standing before the lead priest in an attitude of abject fear. Damn overdramatic Ariaden, Maskelle thought. Shaking her head in resignation, she approached the tableau.
The priest's eyes flicked over her dismissively as she moved around the fire, then came back to her in growing astonishment as he saw her staff. The light was catching the old traces of silver left in the carved letters of the sacred text. The sparks jumped from word to word as the text wound up the length of the fine smooth wood like a snake around a pappas tree. The letters were worn down from years of handling, but they could still be read. Until they faded from sight, the staff would still have power. Not unlike me, Maskelle thought ruefully.
The priest was young and fine-featured, but the shaven scalp under the hood of his robe was marked with colored designs of the first rank. The men with him were older but not so high in honor. He stared hard at her, looking for what was left of her tattoo, but her hair had grown over it, obscuring all but the border of the design at her hairline. The staff told him that her rank was Voice, but not which Voice. He wet his lips, and said, "You shame us, lady. You should shelter in the temple."
She leaned on the staff, mud and all. She hadn't ever really expected to arrive in secret. "Thank you for the offer, my son, but I can't."
His eyes narrowed, alert for insult. He said, "You have a reason for refusing our shelter?"
"I'm forbidden the temples," Maskelle said, watching his eyes.
He stared at her, frowning, and his gaze swept over her, seeing for the first time past the worn robes. He would have trouble estimating her age, she knew. Country people always thought her younger, city people used to courtiers who spent all their time lying in the shade and rubbing oils and creams into their skin always thought her older. His eyes went to the staff again. But there are only so many Voices, she thought. And the chance was he would know where all the others were.
She watched with interest as the blood drained from his face. "You..." He did not step back from her, though the tension in his body told her he wanted to. He drew in a breath and said coldly, "So the rumors were true. You've been summoned by the Celestial One."
"Rumors fly fast." She smiled.
A muscle jumped in his cheek. "I have something to show you."
Maskelle lifted her brows. She hadn't expected that response. "You know there are very few rituals I'm allowed to perform."
He turned away without answering, his attendants hastily parting for him. Maskelle followed, baffled and trying—successfully, she hoped—not to show it. What does he want? If this is a trap... If this is a trap, he's mad.
The priest led her through the dark, crossing through the muddy flats with no concern for his robes, one of the guards hurrying forward with a lamp to light the way. After a moment she realized he was leading her toward the temple's outbuildings, the stables, storehouses, and the quarters for the monks and servants that stood near the end of the causeway that crossed the baray to the temple. He turned through a narrow gate in a stone wall, pausing to disperse the guards with a wave. Only his priest attendants followed Maskelle through the gate.
Inside was a courtyard, the few lamps hanging from hooks along the walls illuminating muddy ground and more gates leading off into the rambling structure that loomed over them in the dark. Two guards stood outside one of the gates, and one quickly reached to pull it open as the priest strode toward it.
Inside was a warm close room, the damp air smelling strongly of goat and the ground littered with straw. The other priests had remained outside, but the one guard with the lamp had followed them in. The head priest took it away from him and held it high over the occupant of the wooden pen.
Maskelle took a deep breath, despite the smell. "It's a goat." The man is mad.
It was an ordinary brown goat, staring up at them with opaque brown eyes. The goat turned its head and bleated, and Maskelle saw what was hanging out of its side. It was the rear half of a moray lizard. She stepped closer and leaned down, swallowing a curse. The moray were about a foot long, with tough gray green hides and a ridge of distinctive spines along their backs to complement their sharp teeth and clawed feet. This was distinctively a moray, or at least the back six inches of one. It was stuck against the goat's side as if it had grown there, the two back legs dangling, the spiny tail hanging limply. Baffled, she looked up at the priest, who was watching her with a grim lack of expression that was impossible to read. She said, "It's strange, but such things happen. Animals born with extra limbs or..." Other, completely different animals hanging out of their bodies. No, she didn't think she had heard of that before. She forged on anyway, "They aren't always omens, though people think..."
He was shaking his head. He pointed toward a stone block set back against the wall of the stall, and angled the lamp so the light fell more fully on it. Hanging out of the stone was the front half of the lizard.
Maskelle wet her lips, feeling a coldness in the pit of her stomach. She said, "All right, that one is, uh...odd." The front half of the moray hung limply out of the stone, its front legs and the wicked oblong head like some bizarre decoration. The stone itself was a square block with cracked mortar on the sides, as if it had been broken out of a wall.
"Could this be the result of your curse?" the priest asked.
Maskelle lifted a brow, but she found the bluntness rather refreshing. "A dark power, following in my wake, you mean? It's possible. When did it happen?"
"Six days ago."
She shook her head, a little surprised. "I wasn't in this province yet. We've been travelling hard."
He turned away, the shadows falling over the monstrosity in the rock as the lamp was withdrawn.
Maskelle followed him out into the relatively fresh air of the court, where the other priests still waited outside. One of them must have realized she wasn't just an ordinary, albeit eccentric, Voice travelling the Great Road and told his fellows; the tension emanating from them was palpable now. The lead priest stopped and eyed her narrowly. He said, "When I saw you, I had hoped for an easy answer."
She resisted the impulse to say something philosophical about easy answers. She didn't suppose him to have any more patience with such platitudes than she did. Instead, she said, "If it's an omen, it's a frightening one. I'll tell the Celestial One of it when I see him."
"If it is a dark power..." It would be simpler if it was a byproduct of her curse, a wandering dark power that corrupted whatever it touched, following in her wake. "If it's a dark power, I'll deal with it. I haven't been with the Adversary fo
r seven years, but He does take care of His own."
There was a stifled noise of shock and fear from one of the other priests. The lead priest glanced back at them, frowning. He turned back to her, and she could see him recalling what she was, despite everything. He hesitated, then said, "I offer you our hospitality... The guesthouse..."
His companions were badly startled, but evidently their fear of her was still an abstraction, whereas their fear of him was firmly founded, and they made no open protest. She smiled, badly tempted, and she knew she hadn't quite left the desire to cause chaos behind. She shook her head. "No, we both know how that would end."
He misunderstood and his grey eyes turned angry. Maskelle sighed. She had forgotten what it was like to deal with the young of the well-born. She said, gently, "You can stand bond for everyone in your temple, but you aren't their conscience, and I don't have the time to waste in fighting."
He still watched her grimly, no sign of any bend in that stiff spine. Then he stepped back and gave her a full sixth-degree bow, only one degree less than the rank actually due her. He turned away and his retinue followed with less grace, one of them sneaking her an abbreviated bow behind the backs of the others.
Maskelle walked slowly through the dark, back to the wagons where Rastim and Old Mali waited for her by the fire. Rastim let out his breath in relief when he saw her and Old Mali grunted in eloquent comment. "Trouble?" Rastim asked her.
She nodded and leaned her cheek against the staff. Trouble. She had known it would happen, but perhaps she hadn't thought it would be so soon. Maybe I am too old for this, she thought. Too old for war, too mean-tempered for peace.
"Should we move on tonight?" Rastim sounded worried.
Maskelle looked around. A few other members of the troupe had broken cover. Firac with his two young sons, who worked the apparatus on the largest of the puppets, and Therassa and Doria, who played the speaking women's parts. The travel had been difficult and their oxen weren't in the best of shape. She shook her head. "No, we'll stay the night."
Chapter Two
Despite her assurances to Rastim that all would be well, Maskelle had sat up the rest of the night on watch. The priest of the Sare had kept his word. Nothing had disturbed the peace of the plain, or the serenity of the temple.
From the time Maskelle had been a young initiate she had been used to sleepless nights. The Year Rites could last for days, and once the Wheel of the Infinite was constructed it had to be guarded, until it could be dispersed into wind and water to strengthen the supports of the universe.
Now she sat on the wagon seat next to Old Mali, thinking of the upcoming Hundred Year Rite. The sky was overcast and a slight breeze stirred the thick vegetation on the edge of the jungle to either side of the wide road. The damp air clung to her skin and she felt badly in need of a bath. The universe didn't seem in any great need of support, but perhaps she wasn't as attuned to it as she used to be. She couldn't tell if the uneasiness she felt was inside or outside of herself. You are getting old. Your soul wasn’t so divided in your youth, a nagging voice said. Yes, she told it ruefully, much easier to do damage with a whole soul.
This stretch of the Great Road, leading deeper into the well-occupied outskirts of Duvalpore, was fairly safe from bandits and they weren't alone on it. A large wagontrain of merchants was only a few hundred yards ahead of them, and single wagons or small groups of travellers had passed them several times throughout the morning. They were moving into the country where what had been brackish swamplands had been drained and brought back to life by freshwater canals to make the rice-growing land that supported the capital. Duvalpore was a city of water: canals, barays, moats, all necessary to support life during the dry season. It still surprised her how much she was looking forward to seeing it again.
Old Mali elbowed her in the side, and Maskelle said, "I know, I know. I saw him an hour ago." Of course, he was closer this time, standing next to the milestone near a stand of rain trees, looking up the road.
The swordsman had been pacing them all morning, just in the shadow of the jungle. He had stayed near their wagons all night, a silent companion to Maskelle's lonely vigil. He hadn't slept either, and he hadn't tried to approach her, though she felt reasonably certain he had been conscious of her presence. He had kept moving most of the night, perhaps to keep himself awake, making a wide circuit around their camp almost as if he was on watch too. Near dawn she had watched him strip and wash in the temple's baray, an act of irreverence that would have shocked the priests and which Maskelle regarded with wry amusement. Or maybe her reaction to it was what she found amusing. The Court would consider her past all that, but obviously her body still thought she was twenty.
Old Mali made a lewd noise and Maskelle became aware she was staring. She eyed the old woman sardonically. “Don’t be disgusting. I’m a priestess, remember?” This sent Old Mali into such paroxysms of laughter Maskelle had to pound the old woman on the back before she choked.
***
The rain didn’t return, except for a misting drizzle in the late morning, making Maskelle wonder how this luck was to be paid for later.
In the late afternoon the Great Road met the Great Canal, which it would parallel for the rest of the way into Duvalpore. The jungle gave way to a plantation of large-leafed breadfruit trees, papaya and banana, and a large outpost with two- and three- storied wooden buildings that went up to the bank of the canal and extended over it to the other side. Maskelle stood up on the wagon seat and shaded her eyes. There was a large passenger barge moored to the pilings and several smaller trading or fishing boats bobbed on the still-swollen waters. It wasn't as bad as the untamed upper river, but it still didn't look good, and many of the boats were obviously waiting until the water level dropped.
There were many signs of normal activity: boatmen lounging on the steps to the canal near the crates and barrels of offloaded cargo, boys and girls on the bridges under the outpost checking the fish traps, and a large group of colorfully dressed people sitting down to a meal on one of the balconies overhanging the water. The merchants' wagons that had been ahead of them all day had drawn up on the trampled ground near the outpost, and there were several light, fast-travelling wagons there also, including one bearing the symbol of the Imperial Mail.
Rastim jumped down from his wagon and came back to consult with her. "This looks all right, hey?" he said hopefully.
She hesitated. She had wanted to press on to the temple of Illsat Keo, which was within the city's outermost boundary, but it was a few more hours of travel at least. Over the years she had grown used to avoiding people; she had no intention of delivering any innocent bystanders to her curse, and she knew the Illsat Keo was safe from that. But the Ariaden needed to make their living, and to them this post would look far more like the beginning of civilization than the temple on the Sare. People and travellers meant possible audiences, and therefore money. If they pressed on, they might have to camp on the road.
As she was considering this, a wagon pulled by two steaming oxen trundled out of a narrow track between the trees, loaded down with several happily shouting children, an aged farmer, and a large load of taro. She swore under her breath. She had forgotten how populated this area was. There was no avoiding people now; there would be small farms and larger plantations everywhere along the road. She nodded resignedly. "It'll do."
They drew the wagons up in a clear spot just far enough away not to encroach on the territory already staked out by the merchants, and Rastim and Firac went in to conduct negotiations. Maskelle tried to help Old Mali unharness the wagon, got cursed at for her pains, and left the old woman to it in disgust. She went to sit on one of the fallen logs above the water steps, not quite sure where this feeling of impatient distraction had come from.
A few of the boatmen came up to get her blessing on their keel-tokens and she gave it, since her blessing was still worth what it was worth, even though it wasn't currently sanctioned by the temples. The sky had lightened,
but the canal water was a dull brown, the current fast-moving, and branches and other debris were catching in the fish traps and around the pilings. Something drew her eyes to an old barge pulled up on the bank of the canal for a repair to its aging hull. There was someone stretched out asleep on the flat roof of the cabin. Not exactly an unusual sight; there were plenty of boatmen doing the same on their beached craft or in the shelter of the pilings. Then she recognized him and she realized what she had been looking for.
He had disappeared earlier that day and she had admitted to none of the initial disappointment, growing irritation, and progressive worry she had felt throughout the afternoon. She shook her head at herself. Obviously he must have taken the direct way through the trees when the road curved, beating them here.
She wasn't sure where this sudden obsession had come from. He was just following them because they were going the same way and were indisposed to interfere with him; he had already discovered the perils of travelling alone. Maskelle looked up, frowning, as Rastim and Firac came down the steps from the post and squelched across the muddy ground toward her. Rastim's face was stony and Firac was muttering angrily under his breath.
"I take it things didn't go well," Maskelle said as they approached.
"There's a problem," Firac said grimly.
"What?"
"We can't afford it." Rastim folded his arms, looking away at the river.
Maskelle gazed up at the Infinite, begging it for patience. None of the Ariaden had ever been this far into the center of the Empire before. The Temple of the Sare had probably charged next to nothing for the food and fodder they had used, and nothing at all to camp in its protection. The outpost must charge city prices. "You didn't offer them a show?"
"They don't want one," Rastim said stiffly. He had obviously been mortally offended.
"Not just that," Firac clarified, outraged. "They won't let us perform for the merchants or these others." He waved an arm around at the boatmen, now watching curiously, and the other travellers and traders in the compound. "The merchants' head driver already asked if we were performing tonight—"