P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

“It means nothing until the crisis ends,” Jame told him. “Let them have it. You can reclaim it later, perhaps.”

Graykin bit his lip, then fumbled with the knot. “All right,” he said, almost in tears. “Take the filthy thing.”

He balled up the sash and threw it. The entire guild swayed forward, but it was Hangnail who snatched it out of the air. The spy held the silk for a moment, clutched tight to his chest, snarling at those who would have taken it from him. Then he slipped it into a pocket. His eyes rose, glittering in the shadow of his hood.

“Do you think we would risk it ever falling into your clutches again, outsider?”

His hand emerged from his cloak holding a knife. More glinted all around him. In this, at least, they were unified. There are too many of them, Graykin had said. He was right.

Footsteps approached and voices sounded, speaking Kens.

The Intelligencers’ Guild melted away.

A ten-command appeared out of the growing gloom. Randir, Jame noted.

“Having trouble?” asked the leader, a third-year randon cadet. What was his name? Ah, Shrike.

“A bit,” Jame admitted as Graykin shrank back out of sight into Gaudaric’s doorway. She recognized the cadet as one bound not to Rawneth but to some other Randir Highborn. Curious, how one never met one bound to Kenan, Lord Randir, himself. “Still no word from your war-leader or Shade?”

“Ran Frost says that Shade must have followed Ran Awl back to the Riverland.”

“Assuming that’s where Ran Awl went.”

“Yes. Assuming. But where else could she have gone?”

That indeed was the question, to which so far Jame had no answer. Would the Randir even say if Awl and Shade arrived at Wilden? That secretive house liked to conceal its comings and goings from outsiders, perhaps even from members of its own community not within the inner circle.

“We’re fresh off duty guarding Krothen’s treasure towers,” said Shrike. “Prince Ton and Master Needham are both advocating that their wealth be distributed throughout the city—this, assuming that either the prince or Master Silk Purse can seize control of said towers. As you can imagine, their claims and promises have attracted a lot of attention.”

“So I’ve heard.”

At the moment, whoever controlled those towers controlled Kothifir. Krothen had gained vast wealth and considerable ill will over the years by claiming the best of the city’s spoils, but out of them came the Host’s pay. Jame could see both why the former god-king wanted his treasures protected and why the Host had a vested interest in their safety. It did seem unfair, though, if the city suffered as a result.

“The word is out to all the guards,” said Shrike. “King Krothen wants to see you.”

That was unexpected.

“Why?” Jame asked, adding, “Oh, never mind,” when the Randir shrugged. “I’d better go. First, a favor: will you escort this man to the Knorth barracks on the way to your own?”

She reached into the shadows and drew out a reluctant Graykin. Shrike regarded him with a curled lip. “Your personal spy? Oh yes, we know who and what this fellow is.”

Not entirely, thought Jame. No one knew or even suspected that Graykin was bound to her. To reveal that would be to expose a major breach of custom, never mind that Rawneth bound Kendar all the time or that Jame herself had just bound Brier Iron-thorn.

It was tempting to touch the thread of their new connection. What was Brier doing now? What was she thinking and feeling? But the Southron’s habitual reticence made Jame hesitate to intrude. She only hoped that she was giving the Kendar the support that she needed, unlike her brother. Tori didn’t seem to realize that some Kencyr required something to lean on. Ancestors knew, Jame herself would sometimes have liked such support. It was hard to stand alone. At least, there had been no repetition of Brier’s excesses on the night that Paper Crown’s tower had burned and Kalan’s baby had fallen to its death.

“And why should we oblige you in this slight matter?” Shrike was saying with a smile.

Oh yes. There was also Graykin, who leaned on her all too heavily.

Behind the Randir, his ten-command stirred and chuckled.

“For the novelty of it, perhaps?” said Jame, stifling a flash of irritation. Why could one never deal freely with the Randir, except for Shade and Randiroc? “How often do you have the chance to grant a Knorth anything?”

“Say ‘please.’”

“I thought that was implied. Please.”

“Very well. Come along, you.”

Graykin shot her a glance, then turned away, straightening. He disappeared with the Randir, a shabby, oddly dignified figure, into the falling night.

And now, thought Jame, for Krothen.

In better days, the Rose Tower was a hive of activity. Now it drowsed, its lower rooms untenanted.

It had also suffered damage without the god-king to maintain it. For one thing, that subtle twist in its construction seemed more pronounced so that Jame, walking up the spiral stair, felt as if she was about to pitch out over the balustrade into space. For another, the stone roses that rambled around the window frames and up the balusters crumbled at her touch. At the level of the absent clouds, they had worn away altogether, leaving pocked stone, and the marble steps were hollowed out with use.

Here was the level at which guards usually stood. Not now. Above, curtains as ragged as cobwebs fumbled at the windowsills of Krothen’s apartment. Inside, chaos.

However, Krothen still had servants, as Jame found when she climbed to the top.

“Welcome,” said a wheezing voice.

Labored breath seemed to fill the circular room, rasping and rattling within its stone shell. It was dim and hot inside, despite a cool evening breeze edging around the marble petals, and it stank.

As her eyes adjusted, Jame made out a great mass of flesh slumped on the dais. The Krothen of old had been obese beyond reason, but he had also seemed oddly buoyant, no doubt thanks to his god-given power. Now, deserted by it, his flesh dragged him down in heavy, sagging folds as if he were a sculpture of butter left out in the sun. Servants had removed a side panel of his white brocade robe. One was struggling to hold up a pallid slab of fat while another sponged the exposed crevasse with lavender water.

“Forgive me for not rising to greet you,” said the former king with a twisted smile that more closely resembled a grimace. “My skin tears if I move. Ah, mortality. It’s killing me, you know.”

What to say to that? Jame kept a respectful silence and waited.

“I miss my acrobats and clowns,” he said peevishly, pausing between sentences to gasp. “What, am I never to have any fun again? I even miss that stodgy prick, my high priest. He’s saying that I’ve lost the favor of the gods, you know. What gods? I was one. I will be again. That’s why these few servants have stayed. They still have faith in me. Do you?”

“I do,” said Jame, surprised to find that this was true. “At least as king.”

He wheezed a laugh. “I forgot. You Kencyr and your one true god, whom you hate. Do the Karnids love their precious prophet or only fear him? What about the Witch King of Nekrien? No matter. Their followers believe in them, and belief is power.”

That certainly was the case in Tai-tastigon, thought Jame, where gods died along with the last of their worshippers. For that matter, she suspected that even in his current state Krothen had more followers than the few in this room. After all, common folk spoke more often of his return to power than of his nephew and possible successor, Prince Ton.

“To make it worse,” he continued, “Gemma is bestirring itself. They’ve always envied our prosperity. Now that they see us weak, how long before they rise up to strike? Ah, their emissary was right: my arrogance may yet come back to haunt my people. Hanging their raiders certainly didn’t help, even if they did indirectly cause a seeker’s death. And I had to endure their bodies dangling in front of my windows.”