Shattered Pillars(48)
“Thank you, your serene Excellency.” Samarkar paused. “You said Temur Khan, just now.”
“I did.”
“Does that mean you will support us?”
“It means…” the caliph said. He rose to his feet, leaving his half-drunk wine. “I’ll think about it.”
Think quickly. Samarkar bit her tongue. She dropped to her knees again, her armor rattling around her.
“Stand,” said the caliph, brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek. “We must disarray your armor.”
As she complied, as his hands unknotted and then inexpertly reknotted her bindings, Samarkar stood stolid. But behind her unfocused eyes, their subterfuge was the last thing she considered. Instead, she could not help but wonder: And who knew to send assassins, Uthman Caliph? Who knew I was coming here today?
9
That night, Hong-la slept at last.
But not before the great wings had spanned the marketplace; the bird, enormous beyond imagining, had struck and vanished once again, leaving executioners and observers beating out sparks and chasing embers—and the emperor and empress standing dumbstruck, side by side but not touching one another until Songtsan abruptly, impulsively grabbed his wife’s hand. Hong-la had seen Yangchen-tsa glance down in surprise and then, a long moment later, her fingers tighten over Songtsan’s. She had stepped back then, pulling the emperor within. The guards and Songtsan’s other wife had followed behind them, leaving Hong-la alone on the balcony.
It was a tactical mistake, and Hong-la could have eased it. He was not inexperienced in the arts of governance, and the thing he should have done—if he was of a mind to reinforce the emperor’s political position—was step forward. He should have raised his hands, raised his voice, and found some words to soothe the crowd and cast Tsansong as a boogeyman, a threat now vanished into the night.
If he did not, morning would find Tsansong’s escape well on its way to transmuting him into a folk hero.
Hong-la laid his hands on the balustrade and reached out with otherwise senses until he found the energy of the scattered fire below. Embers and sparks had fallen on stone, against brick—and flesh, in a few cases—and on more fertile soil. A thatched roof curled smoke. A wooden house seemed unharmed now, but Hong-la could feel the ember that glowed hungrily, patiently in a chink beside its door. Fire was a clever monster. It could wait.
But not if a Wizard of Tsarepheth called its strength to him, consumed it, transmuted it. The air around Hong-la grew warm; his tired head spun with new exhaustion. But down in the square the kindling fires died, the scattered pyre itself flickered low. He could see now that one executioner was dead or gravely injured, crushed under the fallen timbers and burned. And now, slowly, every eye below was turning back to the balcony, to Hong-la with his black coat and his height.
He should raise his hands, raise his voice, and find those words. He knew he should.
He let his hands fall from the balustrade. He stepped back from the edge, and with all the folk of Tsarepheth watching, he turned his back, the skirts of his coat swirling about him, and stiffly walked inside.
Within, all was hushed chaos. There was no sign of the royal family, but servants and guards and courtiers rushed from one place to another, their faces exactly as grim as if they were accomplishing something. Hong-la passed among them unremarked, one more striding figure with an intent expression. He straightened his spine, though the world swam with weariness. Whatever followed, besieged Tsarepheth could not afford to see a wizard weak.
Without, work went untended everywhere. Screens were rolled down over the windows of noodle and teahouses. Shops stood with closed doors. Hong-la strode through an unattended flock of the feathered, warm-blooded lizards that provided so much meat to the Rasan diet, scattering the brightly colored, hip-high creatures every which way in the street. Their attendant was nowhere to be seen.
So extreme was Hong-la’s exhaustion that at first he did not understand why it was that the lanterns lining his route began to gutter as if shaken. There should have been more—every street in Tsarepheth should have been ablaze with light—but lamplighters were no more immune to the demon-spawn infestation than any other trade. The world pitched and yawed under his feet. The stones rose up and struck his soles, and he put a hand out to a wall and felt it shiver. Have I been poisoned?
But then he heard the rumble, the crack of thunder, the shuddering depth of sound that made his teeth feel loose in his jaw. The overcast glowed vermillion behind the Citadel, lit from within as if by a rising sun, until the clouds burned back. Like curtains drawn they revealed the tower of smoke behind them, the layered reds and oranges of the earth’s deep fires cracking upward: questing, thrusting, twisting … breaking free.