Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“And when they discover you’ve lied to them?”

“I’ll tell them it takes months of training to safely use the gates. If we’re all still alive then, we can worry about what comes next.”

Kiel nodded. “It could work,” he said, then paused, studying Kaden. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

Kaden smoothed away the barbs of fear, forced himself to meet the Csestriim’s gaze.

“There is,” he agreed, then turned to Triste.

“I need you to take a note to the chapterhouse, to a monk named Iaapa.”

“No!” Morjeta exploded, face aghast. “If it’s watched, they’ll take her! Absolutely not!”

“They’ll watch her, but they won’t take her,” Kaden said. “Not until she’s led them to me.”

“They will!” the leina cried, gathering her daughter up in her arms. “You already explained to me what these men are like. They will torture her to find out where you are!”

Kaden shook his head. “They tried that already, at great length and with little success.”

Triste shuddered at the memory, and her mother clutched her tighter.

“Why take the risk?” Kiel asked. “Why not send Gabril? The Ishien don’t know him. They won’t pay any attention to him at all.”

Kaden hesitated, trying to decide how much to reveal. “I want them to notice,” he said finally.

The girl disentangled herself from her mother slowly, then turned toward Kaden. “Why?” she asked, voice trembling with the single syllable.

“They’ll follow you back here,” he said, “but they won’t be able to come inside the walls. At that point, they’ll go back to the chapterhouse. They’ll demand that Iaapa hand over the note that you’d been so conspicuously carrying.”

“Why would a Shin abbot cooperate with these Ishien?” Gabril asked.

“Because Triste’s going to ask him to. She’s going to tell him that I asked it.”

“And what,” Kiel asked slowly, “does this mysterious note say?”

Kaden shrugged. “That I’m giving up. That I tried to take back my throne and failed. That I’m going back to Ashk’lan with another worshipper of the Blank God to restart the monastery there. That if any of his monks would like to join us, we would welcome them.”

For several heartbeats no one spoke. Then Gabril started laughing. It was a warm, rich sound, and when Morjeta and Triste turned to him in confusion, he pointed across the table at Kaden.

“He may know nothing of knives, but his mind is keen as a blade.”

“You think that when they read this note,” Morjeta said finally, “that these Ishien will try to follow you back to your monastery?”

“For the chance to capture both Kiel and me?” Kaden asked. “I think they’d follow me all the way to Li.”

“Only you are not going to Li,” Kiel said. “Or to Ashk’lan.”

Kaden shook his head, then turned to Triste. “There is a risk for you in delivering the message.”

Fear filled her wide eyes, but she didn’t hesitate. “I’ll go.”

“No,” Morjeta protested. “Please.”

Triste peeled away her mother’s arms. “I’m going.”

“What about the nobles?” Gabril asked. “They assembled once out of curiosity. They’ll be reluctant to do so again.”

Kaden nodded. “Explain to them that I plan to make my earlier offer more compelling. Also, make sure they dress discreetly. In fact, tell them to dress as monks.”

“Monks?” Gabril asked. “Trust does not flow readily between them. As at our last meeting, they will not feel safe without steel in their hands.”

Kaden nodded. “You’d be surprised what you can hide beneath a monk’s robe. They can bring whatever weapons they want as long as they keep them hidden.” He paused. “Can you write me a list of all the names?”

Gabril raised his eyebrows. “We’ve been over them already.”

“I know. I want a chance to study them, to learn them by heart,” Kaden replied. “This meeting is going to be difficult enough. I don’t want to offend anyone by botching a name.”

Gabril shrugged, then turned to Morjeta. “You have ink and brushes.”

For a moment the woman seemed not to hear him, staring instead at Kaden as though seeing him for the first time. Then, just as Gabril seemed about to repeat himself, she nodded abruptly and left the room, returning moments later with an elaborate lacquered case, opening it on the table between them.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to the inks and sheets of fine vellum. “Use whatever you need.”

Gabril took one brush while Kaden selected another.

“While you’re writing the names,” he said, “I’ll write a short note to each of our … friends explaining how to get into the chapterhouse unseen. If I seal them up, can you make sure they are delivered?”

Gabril nodded without glancing up from his writing. “It is simple enough.”

“Thank you,” Kaden said.

As he worked, he was careful to make sure no one in the room could see what he wrote. He thought he had finally discovered whom to trust, but he couldn’t be certain, and it would not do for the wrong eyes to see that his notes to the nobility said nothing about meeting in the chapterhouse, that his letter to Iaapa had nothing to do with a return to Ashk’lan.

Valyn felt as though he’d been watching Balendin tear people apart for days, the shock of the violence matched only by the shock of seeing the leach free, striding up and down the far bank of the Black, the Urghul genuflecting before him as though he were a nomadic chieftain in his own right. Were it not for his fingers-still wrapped in bloody bandages-and his dark hair, dark skin, Valyn might have mistaken him for one of the horsemen.

It was impossible to be sure what had happened in the long days since he, Laith, and Talal rode south out of the Urghul camp, but the basic outlines were as clear as they were horrifying. As the flier suspected, Long Fist had double-crossed them. The Urghul chieftain had clearly decided there were better things to do with a Kettral-trained leach than cut him apart one joint at a time. Gwenna and the others, discovering the treachery, had managed to claw their way free, to get clear of the whole camp, to cross the Black, and arrive in Andt-Kyl in time to warn the town.

As for Balendin, the fact that he had turned on il Tornja, on Annur itself, wasn’t so surprising. Given his well, his reliance on awe and terror for any arcane power, it was little surprise that the leach had thrown his lot in with the Urghul. The casual cruelty of the horsemen, the endless sacrifice and brutality, gave him the perfect opportunity to inflict pain and reap his sick reward from the terror of his captives. Back on the Islands he’d been forced to keep his torture and murder circumspect, forced to choose his time and his victims. Here, he had them lined up by the dozen, by the hundred, all those horrified eyes fixed upon him as he flayed the prisoners, and burned them, and tore them apart. For the Urghul, all that pain was a great sacrifice to Kwihna, but Valyn knew better. The sacrifices Balendin made were to himself.

“He’s dangerous like this,” Talal said quietly, after the sixth or seventh broken corpse was tossed aside.

“He’s always been dangerous,” Valyn replied, remembering Amie strung up in the dark garret back on Hook. Remembering Ha Lin. “People have always been wary of him. Even on the Islands: wary, angry, or afraid.”

Talal shook his head. “That was nothing. This…” He sucked air between his teeth. “I have no idea what he can manage with the power. It must be flooding him.”

“He can have the ’Kent-kissing power,” Laith spat, “as long as it doesn’t help him across the river.”