The Dragon's Path Read online

  She walked carefully from the room, down the stairs, and out through the entrance hall to the square beyond. The sky was an opalescent white, the breeze hot as breath against her cheek. The sweat dampened her armpits, her back, her legs. She stood for a few minutes, confused and stunned. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She needed to get back inside. There were details she needed to work out, contracts to be signed and witnessed. There was the great project to be done. She wasn’t supposed to be out here. She should be inside.

  The first sob was like retching: sudden, reflexive, and violent. Not here, she thought. Oh, God, if it’s going to happen, don’t let it happen here where the whole damned city can watch. Long, fast strides, her thighs pulling against the fabric of her dress to gain every inch. She reached the mazework streets. She found an alleyway, followed its turns and windings to a shadowed corner, and squatted there on the filthy paving stones. She couldn’t stop the sobs now, so she pressed her arm against her mouth to keep them quiet.

  She’d lost. All of her expectations, all of her plans, and she’d lost. They’d given her contract to someone else, and left her a stupid, ugly half-breed slut crying herself dry in an alley. How had she thought she could win? How could she ever have believed?

  When the worst had passed, she stood again. She wiped the tears and snot on her sleeve, wiped the grime off her dress, and began the walk to her rooms. Humiliation rose on her shoulders and whispered in her ear. How much did Qahuar tell his partners? Did he brag about getting her legs apart? That old Cinnae mercenary had likely had every part of her flesh described to him before she’d walked into the room. Qahuar had known everything she’d done before she did it, planned it. Had his servants been warned not to interfere with her late-night invasion of his office? Had they been watching from the shadows, laughing at the idiot girl who thought herself clever?

  At the bank, she heard the voices of the guards—Marcus and Yardem and the new Kurtadam woman—through the door, neither angry nor laughing. The tulips bobbed in the breeze, their petals broken and splayed, the red turning black at the base. She wanted to go in, but her hand would not reach for the latch. She stood for what seemed like hours, willing herself to go in to the nearest thing she had to friends or family or love. Her employees. She wanted Yardem Hane to come out and find her. For Cary to come walking down the street. For Opal to rise from her ocean grave and choke her to death where she stood.

  Cithrin went upstairs. She stripped off her dress and sat on the bed in her shift. Her sweat wouldn’t dry, wouldn’t cool her.

  She’d lost. Even now, it didn’t make sense. She couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. She’d lost. The weeping was gone now. The pain was gone, though she had the sense that it was only resting, sleeping like a hunting cat after a kill. It would be back. For the moment, she felt nothing. She felt dead.

  She’d lost. And the auditor was coming.

  The sun traced its arc through the high air. Cithrin sat. The sounds of the street changed, the heat-dazed traffic of the day slowly giving way to the brighter, more energetic voices of evening. She needed to piss, but she put it off. Impossible to think there was any moisture left in her after soaking in sweat and tears. And still, her body performed its functions whether she approved or not. When the urging became too much to ignore, she found her night pot and used it. Once she was in motion, it was easier to move. She pulled off her shift, leaving it puddled on the floor, and found a light, embroidered dress, more attractive because it was already in her hands. She pulled it on, walked down the stairs and out into the street without bothering to lock the door behind her.

  The taproom had all the shutters open, the sea breeze passing through it. No candles or lanterns were lit to keep even that slight additional heat away, so the rooms were dim despite the sunlight. The servant girl was one she recognized, thick-faced with night-black hair down to her shoulder blades. A tiny dog pranced nervously around the girl’s ankles. Cithrin walked toward the back table, her table. Someone was there, half hidden by the rough cloth.

  Qahuar Em.

  Cithrin forced herself to walk forward. She sat across from him. A loose shutter clapped against its frame twice and went quiet. The man’s expression was mild and rueful. A half-empty tankard of ale rested on the table.

  “Good evening.”

  She didn’t answer. He clicked his tongue against his teeth.

  “I was hoping I might offer you a meal, a bottle of wine. An apology. It was unkind of the governor to bring you in that way.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” she said.

  “Cithrin—”

  “I don’t want sight or sound of you ever again for as long as I live,” she said, each word cool and sharp and deliberate. “And if you come near me, I will ask my captain of guard to kill you. And he’d do it.”

  Qahuar’s expression hardened.

  “I see. I admit I am disappointed, Magistra. I’d thought better of you.”

  “You’d thought better of me?”

  “Yes. I hadn’t imagined you the sort of woman to throw tantrums. But clearly I’ve misjudged. I would remind you that you were the one who put yourself in my bed. You are the one who crept through my halls. It’s mean and small of you to blame me for anticipating it.”

  You don’t know what this was, Cithrin thought. You don’t know what it meant for me. They’re going to take away my bank.

  Qahuar stood and placed three small coins on the table to pay the taproom. The light caught the roughness of his bronze skin, making him look older. This summer was her eighteenth solstice. It was his thirty-fifth.

  “We’re traders, Magistra,” he said. “I very much apologize that the delivery of the news was unpleasant, but I cannot be sorry that I can take this agreement to my clan elders. I hope you have a more pleasant evening.”

  He pushed back the bench, wood rasping against the stone floor, and stepped around her.

  “Qahuar,” she said sharply.

  He paused. She gathered herself. The words were cast in lead, almost too heavy to pull up her throat.

  “I’m sorry I betrayed you,” she said. “Tried to betray you.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s the game we play.”

  Some time later, the taproom’s servant came, took up the coins, and cleared away Qahuar Em’s drink. Cithrin looked up at her.

  “Your usual?”

  Cithrin shook her head. Everything from her throat down to her belly felt solid as stone. She lifted her hand, surprised to find her soft cap still there. She pulled it off, let down her hair, and held the silver-and-lapis pin up. It seemed almost to glow with its own light in the gloom. The servant girl blinked at it.

  “That’s very beautiful,” she said.

  “Take it,” Cithrin said. “Bring me what you think it’s worth.”

  “Magistra?”

  “Fortified wine. Farmer’s beer. I don’t care. Just bring it.”

  Geder

  The high priest—Basrahip or possibly the Basrahip, it was hard to tell—leaned back on his leather-and-iron stool. His thick, powerful fingers rubbed at his forehead. Around them, the candles flickered and hissed, their smoke filling the room with the smell of burning fat. Geder licked his lips.

  “My first tutor was a Tralgu,” he said.

  Basrahip pursed his lips, considered Geder, and shook his wide head. No. Geder swallowed his delight and tried again.

  “I learned to swim at the seashore.”

  The broad head shook slowly. No.

  “I had a favorite dog when I was young. A hunting beast named Mo.”

  The high priest’s smile was beatific. His teeth seemed almost unnaturally wide. He pointed a thick finger at Geder’s chest.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Geder clapped his hands and laughed. It wasn’t the first time the high priest had made the demonstration, but it was always a source of amazement. No matter what the lie, no matter what voice Geder told it in, how he held his body or changed
the pitch of his voice, the huge man knew which words were false and which true. He never guessed incorrectly.

  “And it’s really a goddess that lets you do this?” Geder said. “Because I never came across a reference to that. The Righteous Servant was supposed to have been something Morade created, like the thirteen races and the dragon’s roads.”

  “No. We were here before the dragons. When the great web was strung and the stars hung upon it, the goddess was present. The Sinir Kushku is her gift to the faithful. When the great collapse came, the dragons were fearful of her power. They fought against each other, each wishing the friendship and patronage of the Sinir Kushku for himself. The great Morade pretended an alliance, but the goddess knew when treachery came into his heart. She guided us here, where we might be safe, far from the world and its struggles, to wait until the time came for our return.”

  “This is totally unlike any account I ever read,” Geder said.

  “Do you doubt me?” Basrahip asked, his voice low and gentle and with the strange throbbing that seemed to inflect all his speech.

  “Not at all,” Geder said. “I’m amazed! A whole era before the dragons? It’s something no one has written about. Not that I’ve ever seen.”

  Outside the small stone room, the stars glittered in the sky and the crescent moon lit the cascade of stones. In the darkness, Geder could almost imagine the great stone dragon above the temple wall moving, turning its head. The odd green crickets that infested the temple sang in shuddering chorus. Geder wrapped his arms around his legs, grinning.

  “I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I found this place,” Geder said.

  “You are an honored man of a great nation,” the high priest said. “I am pleased that you have come so far to find our humble temple.”

  Geder waved the comment away, embarrassed. It had taken the better part of a day to explain that, while he was nobility, prince was a particular title where he came from, and couldn’t be applied so widely. He’d spent most of his life being called lord and my lord, and even though it meant the same thing, honored man of a great nation left him self-conscious.

  Basrahip rose and stretched as, in the distance, a harsh voice screeched out the call to night prayer. Gerder expected Basrahip to make his excuses and hurry out to lead the priests in their rituals. Instead, he paused in the doorway, candles casting shadows over his eyes.

  “Tell me, Lord Geder. What was it you most hoped to find here?”

  “Well, I wanted to see if I could find the Sinir mountains and some source material about the Righteous Servant for a speculative essay I’m drafting up.”

  “This is what you most hoped to find?”

  “Yes,” Geder said. “It is.”

  “And now that you have found it, it will be enough?”

  “Of course,” Geder said.

  The big man’s gaze locked on him, and Geder felt a blush rising in his neck and cheeks. Basrahip waited for what seemed half a day, then shook his head.

  “No,” he said gently. “No, there is something else.”

  The days since Geder’s arrival at the temple had been astounding and rich and unnerving as a dream. For two full days from morning until nightfall, he had stood in the great court between the temple itself and the gated wall. A dozen pale-robed priests with long hair and full beards sat around him as he drew maps and tried to summarize centuries of history. Often when they asked questions of him, he had to admit his ignorance. How had the borders of Asterilhold and Northcoast been set? Who claimed the islands south of Birancour and west of Lyoneia? Why were the Firstblood centered in Antea, the Cinnae in Princip C’Annaldé, and the Timzinae in Elassae when Tralgu and Dartinae had no particular homeland? Why were the Timzinae called bugs, the Kurtadam clickers, and the Jasuru pennies? What names were the Firstblood known by, and by whom were they hated?

  They seemed particularly intrigued by the Timzinae. Geder prided himself on knowing a great deal. Having his limits exposed was humbling, but the thirst the olive-skinned men had for every scrap of information made it bearable. Every story and anecdote he gave them, they were fascinated by.

  He found himself telling them his own past. His life as a boy in Rivenhalm. His father and the court in Camnipol. The Vanai campaign and how it ended and the mercenary attack on Camnipol, traveling the Keshet.

  When the sun grew too hot to bear, the priests brought out a huge half-tent of stretched leather and wide wooden beams that shaded Geder and rose behind him like a gigantic hand. They hauled out wide-mouthed ceramic pots of damp sand that kept the buried gourds of water cool. Geder chewed lengths of dried goat meat spiced with salt and cinnamon, talking until his throat was hoarse. They stopped as the sun slid behind the peaks, answering the harsh, barking call. Geder’s servants made camp for him there and slept on the ground beside him. And then, on the third day when he was certain his voice would fail him, Basrahip—the Basrahip—came to him and motioned that he should follow. The huge man led him up stone stairways worked smooth as glass by generations of leather-shod feet, through the wide passage as much cave mouth as corridor.

  He had expected carved stone, but Geder didn’t see any sign that the halls had been touched by hammer and chisel. They might have grown this way, as if the mountains had known they would be home to these men. Lanterns of paper and parchment sat in alcoves and spilled their light over the floors and across the curved ceilings. The air smelled rich with something Geder couldn’t quite identify, part manure and part spice. The air was so hot it stifled. He trotted through the twists and turns until the passage widened and the high priest stepped aside.

  The great chamber was taller than twenty men standing one atop the other. The ceiling was lost in darkness more profound than night. And towering above them, the carved statue of a huge spider covered in beaten gold and lit by a hundred torches. Fifty men at least knelt at its base, all of them turned toward Geder, their hands folded on their shoulders. Geder stood, his mouth slack. No king in the world could boast a grander spectacle.

  “The goddess,” Basrahip had said, and his voice had echoed through the space, filling it. “Mistress of truth and unbroken ruler of the world. We are blessed by her presence.”

  Geder barely noticed when the huge man’s hand touched his shoulder and began to press him gently but implacably down. When he knelt, it seemed like the obvious thing to do.

  After that, he was taken to new quarters within the temple walls. Many of the doors and windows he’d seen when he first came went no deeper than a single room, or at most two, the priests’ cells clinging to the side of the mountain. Geder’s squire brought him a basin to bathe in, his books, and the small traveling desk, and lit his lantern. He lay in the darkness that night, a thin wool blanket around him, and sleep a day’s ride away. He was too excited to sleep. His only disappointment was that the temple had no library.

  On the fourth morning, Basrahip came again, and their conversation began, and it had continued every day since.

  I don’t understand why you stay hidden.”

  “Don’t you?” Basrahip said.

  They were walking down the thin brick-paved path that led to the temple’s well.

  “The Righteous Servant,” Geder said. “It’s something that you all have. If you were in the world, you could tell whenever a merchant was lying about his costs. Or when your men were unfaithful. And life in court. God, what you could do there.”

  “And that is why we stay hidden,” Basrahip said. “When we have involved ourselves in the affairs of the world, we have seen the rewards of it. Blades and fire. Those who have not been touched by the goddess live lives of deceit. For them, to hear our voices is to die as the people they were. Her enemies are many, and ruthless.”

  Geder kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering down ahead of them. The sunlight pressed down on his face and shoulders.

  “But you are going to go back out,” Geder said. “You said that you were waiting for the time to go back out.”

 
; “We will,” the high priest said. They reached the edge of the well, a stone-lined hole in the earth with a rope tied to the stake sunk deep beside it. “When we are forgotten.”

  “That could be any time in the last century,” Geder said, but the high priest went on as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “When the wounds of the old war are healed and we can walk the world without fear, She will send us a sign. She will sort clean from unclean, and end the age of lies.”

  Basrahip squatted, taking the rope in his hands and hauling, hand over hand, until it came up wet. The bucket had been copper once, given over now to verdigris. Basrahip tipped it up to his lips and drank, rivulets falling from the corner of his mouth. Geder shifted uncomfortably beside him. The high priest put the bucket down and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

  “Are you troubled, Lord?”

  “I’m… It’s nothing.”

  The wide smile was cool. The dark eyes considered him.

  “Listen to me, Lord Palliako. Listen to my voice. You can trust me.”

  “I’m only… Could I have a drink of that water too?”

  Basrahip lifted the bucket up to him. Geder took it in both hands, drinking slowly. The water was cool and tasted of stone and metal. He handed it back, and Basrahip held it out over the blackness for a moment before he let it drop. The rope slithered as it sped back down. The splash was louder than Geder had expected.

  “You can trust me,” the high priest said again.

  “I know,” Geder said.

  “You can tell me. Nothing bad will come of it.”

  “Tell you what? I mean, I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  “Yes you are,” the man said, and started back toward the temple. Geder trotted to keep up. “Why did you come looking for the Sinir Kushku? What was it that drew you here?”