Greg Keyes - Lord of Souls

“This is it,” she said. “The scent of my kitchen is on her dress, the ninth savor in her pocket. Do you need more?”

“I do not,” Toel said. “The evidence is clear enough.”

“How did you do it?” Phmer asked Slyr. “There was sign that you had been in the kitchen, but my best safeguards are those around the taste itself, and you left no trace there. I must know how you did this.”

“I didn’t!” Slyr exploded. “It was Annaig! Somehow she made it look as if-why would I warn you she was going to steal from you if it was really me coming? Why would I-This is her doing!” She plucked wildly at her clothing, as if discovering it was made of fire. “This is her dress! She’s tricked us all somehow.”

“Let me understand this,” Toel said softly. “You warned Phmer against someone on my staff? Behind my back?”

Slyr shrank back, like a cornered animal, a little whimper escaping her.

“She remains mine,” Phmer said.

“Oh, you may have her,” Toel replied. “I have no doubt you will extract revenge enough for both of us.”

“First there will be questions,” she said. “Many, many questions.” She nodded at Annaig. “I would question her as well.”

“There is no evidence against her other than the testimony of a thief,” Toel replied. “You may not have her.”

Phmer lifted her chin haughtily, but she didn’t argue. Instead she signed for her creature to take Slyr.

“Annaig, please,” Slyr whimpered.

She felt her heart soften, remembering her first few weeks in the bowels of Umbriel, nights with Slyr, gazing at the stars.

“It’s not in my hands, Slyr,” she said quietly. “Your own actions brought you to this.”

And so they dragged Slyr off. She didn’t beg or plead again, at least not in Annaig’s earshot.

When they were gone, Toel indicated one of the chairs.

“Sit,” he said.

She did as he commanded.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

“Chef-” she began.

“You are safe,” he replied. “Unless you left some sort of evidence that might turn up later, you are safe. I can easily see how you manipulated Slyr into going to Phmer, and how you used the chemical stains of that kitchen to implicate her, how you might scrub them from your own person. But I ask you again, how did you do it-how did you pass the inner safeguards and steal the savor itself?”

Annaig felt her fear melting, then transforming, igniting into triumph.

“I didn’t, Chef,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I only entered the outer corridors of her kitchen, to taint the dress. The ninth taste I invented-or reinvented, I suppose-on my own.”

For perhaps the first time since she had met him, Toel’s mouth moved as if in speech but without producing any sound.

“How?” he asked.

“All I had to do was think about it a bit. Once I understood the principle, making the taste was simple enough. And just now, Phmer confirmed that I was right. Until then I couldn’t be sure.”

“What is it, then? Do you have more?”

“I can make more,” she assured him. “For obvious reasons, I don’t have any with me.”

“But what is it?”

“The ninth savor is the opposite of all other tastes. It is the utter absence of flavor.”

Toel’s pupils constricted, then widened again, reminding her of Glim.

“Like the space between words,” he murmured.

“I thought of music,” she said. “There are many pitches, chords, harmonies, and dissonances-but silence-that, too, is a part of music.”

His smiled broadened a little and he tapped the table with his forefinger.

“I had given up on you, you know,” he said. “I thought all of that talk about showing me what I didn’t know I wanted to see was desperate nonsense, and yet you’ve done it. And Slyr-she never saw it coming. But why did it take you so long?”

“I do things in my own time, for my own reasons,” she said.

His gaze intensified and he placed his hand on hers.

“You’ve pleased me more than you can imagine,” he said. “Come with me now, and let me please you.”

She squeezed his hand, leaned forward-and with a slight hesitation, brought her lips to his. They were amazingly smooth, like slippery glass, and an unexpected tingle fizzed down to her belly, leaving her feeling both excited and somewhat sick. He responded, lightly at first, but as he grew hungrier she pulled away.

“In my own time,” she said softly. “For my own reasons.”

For a breath or two she didn’t think he would relent, but then he laughed. “I will have to kill you one day,” he said. “But for now, I love you. Go now; invent delightful things for Lord Rhel. I will see you tomorrow.”

In the corridor, her knees wobbled.

“Xhuth!” she swore.

She hated Toel, hated him, now more than ever. And yet her body didn’t care about that at all. It was disgusting.

Later, in her rooms, she drew out her locket. Maybe tonight Attrebus would answer, finally.

But did she want him to? What would she tell him? How could she explain what she had done to Slyr? Or talk about what had happened with Toel?

She couldn’t. And so she closed the locket and sought sleep, turning so she could not see Slyr’s empty bed.

Colin woke sometime after midnight. At first he thought he was alone, but then he noticed Arese standing at the window. She reminded him of one of the white poplars that grew along streams in the hills outside of Anvil.

She heard him approaching and glanced over her shoulder, but her features were shadowed by the moonlight behind her.

“I shouldn’t still be here,” she said.

“Right,” he replied. “Why are you?”

She shrugged. “I guess I thought we weren’t through.”

She must have seen the expression on his face, because she laughed. “No, I think we’re done with that for the night,” she said. “I mean-you came here for something, right? To tell me something?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised at how unimportant it seemed at the moment. But he explained it anyway-about what Hierem did in Black Marsh.

“That only seems to confirm what we already thought,” she said.

“It’s something,” Colin replied. “The journal is proof, isn’t it?”

“It is proof,” she said. “Just not very good proof.”

“How good does it have to be? The Emperor was suspicious enough to plant you in Hierem’s ministry. Shouldn’t this be enough to convince him?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you know about Hierem?”

“Not much,” Colin admitted.

“He’s been around forever. He had a position in the old Empire-he was an ambassador to Morrowind. He was a minister to Thules the Gibbering, the witch-warrior who ruled what little remained of the Empire before Titus Mede took it from him.”

“I remember. Not a well-liked ruler.”

“Maybe not beloved, but he was Nibenese, and despite his various perversions, many on the council favored him over a Colovian usurper. Hierem is from an old Nibenese family, with a lot of connections. He smoothed over the conquest, helped convince the council to accept Mede as a liberator rather than a conqueror. He’s also extremely influential with the Synod. He’s the second most powerful man in the Empire, despite his servile public appearance, and if Mede were to move against him without an unimpeachable reason, it could lead to civil war.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Only because you don’t know Hierem. I feel certain that Mede would win any such conflict, but it would be costly.”

“What then?”

She turned back to the window. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll work something out.”