Kate Elliott - Shadow Gate

From deeper within the tent a calm voice spoke. 'Death is come, as expected. Mist returned, a puzzle to tease us.'

The brawny soldier dropped to both knees, cowering.

There is a kind of fear that begins formless, deep in the pit of the belly, and wells up with such speed that it catches you and blinds you before you know you've been taken. Marit pushed to her feet, not even sure what monster clawed at her heart, only that she was ready to run.

She had heard that voice before.

A woman pushed aside cloth to enter. She had a round, dark face, ordinary in its lineaments, no one who would stand out in a crowd. She wore a cloak, black as night. Under that she wore humble laborer's clothing, a linen tunic and wide trousers. Lord Radas and Yordenas wore best-quality silk tabards, embroidered with goldthread trim, under-tunics dyed in subtle colors rarely seen outside wealthy homes and temple precincts. They looked like peacocks, like the scions of Nessumara's richest houses who strutted about the streets and canals in their finest to make sure folk did know they had the coin to be extravagant. Even their cloaks dazzled, while hers had no color at all.

'Radas,' she said in a pleasant, ordinary voice, 'go forth. Ask the young woman to enter. Treat her gently. Smile.'

She looked Mark up and down, while Mark reined in her breath and her composure. This was the woman who had murdered two reeves in the forest beside West Spur without touching them.

'Death ever challenges, but in the end even death can be defeated. You are not so different than the one who came before you, although he was grandson to an outlander.'

'Who is the one who came before me?' Images spun in Mark's memory of a handsome man with long black hair, a brown face, and demon-blue eyes.

The woman turned to Radas. 'Yet a warning, Radas, before you go out to greet the new one. She is small and young, and quite ugly, as pale as a worm. Easy to discount. But she carries her staff.'

He lifted his chin, as a man might who has just been slapped. 'She carries her staff? Aui!'

'It is leashed to her belt.' She did not bother to glance at Yordenas, who had not, evidently, noticed this crucial item. Nor for that matter had Hari mentioned it to Marit.

'An annoying development,' murmured Lord Radas.

Marit thought of the envoy of Ilu, the one Kirit had left, the one who had refused Marit shelter and friendship. He had asked Marit if she carried her staff, but she had not known what he meant.

'Not at all,' said the woman. 'We must welcome her all the more kindly, and teach her to be wise.'

He frowned. 'If you say so.' He went outside.

'Yordenas, move Hari. Drag out the entire carpet.' She clucked at the mess, then beckoned. 'If you will, Ramit, retire with me.'

Marit followed cautiously past the inner wall and into another chamber, this one with dirt for floor except for a single humble carpet spread in the middle of the dim chamber. A low writing desk and a traveling chest sat on the carpet, squared off to match the corners. Pillows rested on the other end, one in each corner.

'Sit.' She stepped over a spear lying behind the desk and sat. She touched the objects lying on the desk, shifting those that had moved out of line with the table's edge. 'Come closer, Ramit. You are disturbed by what you have seen.'

Marit pulled a pillow closer, settled down cross-legged with her short sword laid across her thighs, and said nothing.

'Radas has a cruel streak. Hari is reckless and does not understand the responsibilities that have fallen to him. I remain surprised that the cloak fell to an outlander, but the gods make these decisions, not us.'

Her indignation got the better of her. 'Surely Lord Radas could be commanded not to punish a man by torturing him.'

'Yes, I came too late to stop that piece of petty brutality, for which I am sorry. Matters have long since gotten out of hand. The criminals should have been culled from our ranks, not formed into their own army and sent to Olossi. So be it. I had other things on my mind and let it pass. Now I do what I can to mitigate the worst.'

'What do you mean?'

She raised a hand, palm up, in the gesture of receiving and questioning. 'What respect do we owe the gods? When respect is no longer shown, is it not true that people wander into the shadows? That they ignore those laws which displease them personally? That they scorn the helpless and needy? That offerings are scanted, and tithes not properly paid? That a few who believe they know what is right for others begin to call for change? Yet change is all too often only a word to signify chaos.'

The words seemed reasonable enough. 'Yes.'

'The weak should not suffer injustice simply because they are weak.'

'No.'

'Nor should the powerful twist justice to serve their own ends.'

'Of course not.'

'If those in power will not shift, what then is to be done? Have you a question, Ramit?'

Marit rubbed her jaw with the back of a hand. This unstable ground might collapse beneath her feet. Best to change the subject entirely. 'What am I?'

'Ah.' A keen look took her in from top to toe, with her thread-worn, mismatched clothing, and her short sword, which naturally the woman could not know Marit had stolen from a sergeant in High Haldia. 'You hold your sword close.'

'I trust it, that's true.'

'You are a soldier? One of the Thunderer's ordinands?'

'That's right,' Marit lied. 'I've had training. But I meant, what am I now?'

'You are a Guardian.' She touched, again, the odd assemblage of objects on the desk: a serviceable dagger; a sharpened green stick cut from hollow pipe brush; a narrow wooden box that likely contained writing brushes.

Remembering how this woman had written on paper, and two reeves had fallen dead, Marit found her resolve strengthened. 'Then why am I not presiding over assizes? Why are Guardians traveling with an army that invaded Haldia and now means to attack Toskala?'

'Have you asked yourself, when and why did the assizes fall into disuse? Indeed, the abandonment of the assizes by the Guardians is a sad tale, one not recorded in the annals of the Lantern. The hiero-phants of Sapanasu and the reeves certainly deserve an equal share of blame.'

'The reeves have always served justice! I mean, so I always heard.'

'Even the halls can become corrupted when those in power come to love power more than justice.'

'Maybe. But it seems to me that first the Guardians vanished, and after that the assizes fell into disorder. What am I to think now, when I find you and the others — if you count me, seven all told.' Too late she caught herself, having slipped in her accounting. She had meant to name six, rather than betray the envoy.

The woman nodded. 'Seven, now that you and the outlander girl have come to us.'

'I never saw so many,' said Mark cautiously. 'Where is the seventh?'

'On patrol.'

Perhaps not the envoy, then. Perhaps she meant the one Kirit had mentioned, 'twisted like Uncle Girish', whatever that meant. And if so, that meant eight Guardians were accounted for.

The woman went on. 'All could be restored to what the gods intended, if only we discover where the last two are. What a blessing that would be for the Hundred, neh?'

If Marit had not seen this woman kill two apparently innocent reeves, she might have found the argument more convincing. As it was, she smiled, not needing to fake her uncertainty. 'What happened to the council of Guardians?'

'Who among us has not succumbed to small greeds and unintended mistakes? Yet when those who clutch power turn all decisions to their own benefit, choosing to be ruled by selfishness, striking down those who have done nothing more than what they have done themselves, then the shadows have triumphed. Is it not so?'