Chapter Twenty-Four

[cityofthehand]

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Chapter Twenty-Four


In the morning, the four of them - Kei-zi, Yena, Naran and Maira - gathered solemn and silent in the kitchen at the safehouse. While they waited, Yena tied the ribbons around Maira’s upper arm. She completed a knot with a gentle tug that brought a wince to Maira’s face though it didn’t hurt. An uncontrolled, unbidden shock went through her body, stirring up an old memory.

“Too hard?” Yena asked, frowning.

“No,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hand. “It just reminded me of…something.”

“What?”

“When they took us, they tied us up,” she said, unable to explain further without risking losing control. Too many new fears rushed in her mind now to risk dwelling on old ones. Yena patted her shoulder, and she took that to mean that she understood.

“There’s time still,” she whispered, leaning in. “I’d take your place. Please. Think about it. You’ve done more than most people ever would. Don’t you deserve to finally be safe?”

“Are you afraid I won’t be able to go through with it?”

She let out a breath. “No. The opposite.”

She had nothing to say that could comfort Yena and gave her a regretful frown instead. Naran and Kei-zi got to their feet as well. They’d been pretending to talk casually, but she knew that they whispered contigency plans between them, agreements on what to do if everything when to shit.

She had no words for them, nor the Asna’isi agents that waited outside. They had abandoned any pretense of hiding. They stood, obvious as daylight, gathered by the porch. The day was overcast and cold, a good fit for the general mood. Graymere himself stood at the head of contingent of agents. She went to him, stopping to look him over. He alone did not look or seem more dour than usual.

“Well, let’s not be late, then,” she said to him, taking a breath of finality. He inclined his head so deeply it was nearly a bow. She inclined hers in return, sparing him a slight smile and went on her way.

For so many bodies, they kept impressively quiet. Even the flapping of wings above her sounded muted. She lead in front by default, and it made her feel like the bow of a ship leading them all into dangerous, unknown waters. All along the road, people cast glances, staring at the marks and the Asna’isi that followed. Some even whispered, less discreetly than they intended to be, following her with widened eyes. She held her chin up. Let them stare.

After a brisk mile and a half walk, they came to the square, the ruined monument, and the park placed at the top of a low sloping hill in the distance. It stood as a reminder of pre-Domain times so far back that even Lord Shadow, ancient by all standards, would have been hard pressed to remember. Maira did the math in her head as a distraction. He would have still been young when the Domain congealed into being, perhaps even a child, if such a man - such a being - could ever have started life as a child rather tahn springing up fully grown and in the prime of his power.

“This is it,” she said, stopping a few yards from the park’s east gate. “Which gate do you want?”

“Take the north entrance. We’ll take this one. Walk slowly, give us time to find our positions. Stay in sight,” Yena instructed, in a clipped, cool voice. She gave a single glance to Kei-zi and Naran. Both men put hands to their blades. Naran wore a red and gold talisman openly in preparation for trouble. “Good luck.”

They parted ways and she did not look back as she approached the north gate. Asna’isi circled her above and this time they felt like friends, not enemies. She recognized a few by face and wing, especially Icefall.

Graymere, of course, she could never mistake or forget even if she wanted to.

Blue-winged Asna’isi agents trailed her on foot, taking opposite sides of the street and hanging back far enough not to indicate they were with her, but close enough to get aloft and to her side quickly.

She paced herself to give Yena, Kei-zi and Naran time to find good positions. When she reached the gate, she looked to Graymere, who flew high in the sky, small as a mouse as he looked down at her. She offered a smile he probably couldn’t make out and went in.

Despite it being a market day and noon besides, the park remained uncrowded. Most people there made their way to the heated public baths, not southward to the vendors and cars. At least spotting her contact would be easier this way.

With each step she scanned the park for any speck of the color red, but found only browns and grays and greens. Nor could she see where Kei-zi, Yena, and Naran had set up. They’d found a good hiding place, apparently. Pretending to scratch an itch, she felt inside her breast binder and pulled out the slip of paper with the removal spell. She was amazed it had survived intact after everything.

Maira straightened her coat and carried on down the main road bisecting the open square. She suspected the meeting might happen by the deserted penny play stages. The play season had gone out, so there would be plenty of benches and sitting spots. Plus, the ground was open and clear of any trees that would be an obstacle to the Asna’isi. She passed a cluster of food vendors, debating whether to get a cup of something hot to give her mind and hands something to do, and as she turned her head, she glimpsed a splash of red.

She turned further and found what she’d been looking for, in the middle of the empty benches in front of the stage. Three red arm bands. Then she saw the face of the one wearing them and she gaped.

Mame Motswa Bara.

Motswa approached leisurely, as if strolling around for nothing more than recognition, but her grin left her face. Fear clanged like wildly struck bells inside Maira . She thought about throwing up her hands, flashing Lord Shadow’s mark to warn Motswa off venting her anger that she’d lied.
She stood her ground and bowed, speaking loudly. “Honor, Motswa.”

She had a face like stone, and Maira wanted to clutch her chest in fear. “Respect, Maira Aialah.”

“Motswa, I - you -” she stopped stuttering and took a deep breath. “I had to lie. I had no choice.”

Then she chuckled. “You think you fooled me that much? I figured you were telling me tales. You come back covered in blood the day after I got the letter that the device was ready? Don’t believe in coincidence. Just didn’t know if this was your business or not. I figured if it was, no reason to scare you stupid or make you a target.”

“Thank you. I didn’t want to lie to you. Professor Decaran -”

“Peace, little sister. I got no grudge against you. Even if I did, I want no fight with Lord Shadow. Interesting things you’re wearing these days,” she said and put her hand under Maira’s chin, tipping it up to examine the mark on her face better. With a little ‘hmmph’, she left Maira and made for a bench. Maira followed. They sat next to each other facing the stage like a play might start soon.

“What’s the device for?” she asked Motswa, squinting into the distance. Her heart plummeted at the sight of empty gray skies and the sad little silver-white coin of a sun that couldn’t break through. Had they pulled back? “What kind of trouble you planning, Motswa?”

“How much did the professor tell you?”

“Not much. Just to be here, and how to hide it, and that it was important. He said something bad was coming, but not what it was. So what it is?”

“It’s not coming, it’s already here. He didn’t know that, but it is. I’m just trying to send it back before it gets worse.”

“What do you mean?”

Motswa sighed, leaned forward to stretch her arms over the back of the bench in front of them. “You remember last spring, all those houses in the Hills getting burned, people got killed?”

Maira thought back. She’d heard the news like everyone in the Tayeland. A few dozen houses burned in the space of a month, families living there died. The Hills neighborhoods sat at the Tayeland’s far southwest edge, bordering an unfriendly district. After Motswa threw her weight around, it all stopped. After the mourning and the ceremonies, the fear faded, life went on. Maira had mostly forgotten about it. “I thought that was just border trouble.”

“So did we. Thought it was the Five Princes trying to start something. Came at the right time, too. We’d stopped them smuggling on the west edge, confiscated their goods, set their slaves and prostitutes free and gave them refuge in the Tayeland. They were mad, talked the usual shit. So I tore through the Princes, even got hold of some clan heads. But it wasn’t them. Because after the house fires stopped, people still kept dying.”

She gasped and put her hands over her mouth, as she remembered something else she’d forgotten. “Tbale. That’s what he meant, when he was stitching me up. He said he’d been looking at dead patients.”

“Wasn’t wrong about you being smart, was I?” she asked, sparing a moment’s approving chortle.

“But if people were dying, all the Taye would be talking. I go all over. I never saw houses in morning, no white doors, no neighborhood griefs, nothing.”

Motswe shook her head. “Because I told them not to. Burned me to order it, but I got to protect the living before I can honor the dead.”

“Why? What was so bad you couldn’t let them do that?”

“Demons, from the Undominated Lands.”

She turned towards him in shock. “That’s impossible. The wards keep them out.”

Motswa caught her gaze and nodded at her, encouraging the pure and crisp terror that rose in her as the true nature of the situation blossomed in her mind. Maira gasped. “No.”

“Yes,” Motswa confirmed. “Somebody’s making plans. They figured out how to make holes in the wards. At first they could only get two or three in before it snapped back. Now they can get half a dozen through. The demons come in, they kill and raid, and they’re gone by daylight. They even came for my family, in my house. I killed me three strong demons that night. Others didn’t get so lucky.”

“How are the demons doing it? You have to tell the Council!”

“I can’t. Ain’t the demons doing it. At first, I thought it was. So I got my strong people and we watched, waited to see how and where. I saw it with my own eyes. It was someone this side. They went right up to the ward, did some kind of magic, and five demons came through, easy as a smile. They spoke to the demons and ran off one way. Demons went the other. It’s one of us doing it. Somebody with power and authority to know how the wards work. That knowledge is protected.”

“It doesn’t make sense. The only people who could get at it are Tract lords and Counc —” she froze up instantly and remembered the big man and the sign of the Red Hand on his chest. The Red Hand - the shadow agents of the Councilors, answerable only to them. “It’s a Councilor. Gods, it can’t be.”

“Not just one.”

Maira nearly screamed for Motswa to shut up talking, because she wanted to come off the bench and run far away, but looking around, she realized that nowhere was safe. “How do you know?”

“We caught the one we found talking to the demons. He was a bad sorcerer, but finally, we got him to scream just once and when he did, he said ‘all of them’. ‘All of them’ had plans to make a bigger hole and let more demons through. The raids before were just tests.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He didn’t live long enough to. I never want to have to do that to a man again. Didn’t think I could, but I’d see my people suffering too much not to wring it from him any which way I could. Gods of justice forgive me, but they came after my children, my spouses, my home. After other people’s children and spouses. I had to.”

Maira frowned and dared to touch Motswa’s arm to give comfort. “You were saving lives.”

“Doesn’t feel that way. My advice, little sister, never go down that road if you don’t have to. You won’t be the same, it’ll be with you forever. Even down to the grave.”

“But the device will fix it, right?”

“I hope. Only person who knew how it worked is dead now. The letters Sister Matsuda gave me said it wasn’t like anything else he built before. Here,” Motswa said and reached into her coat and pulled out a bundle of letters tied together with simple brown string. “These may help you.”

“Help me?”

She picked the corners of his mouth up in something like a smile but not quite. “No sense in me taking it now. You got better chances than I do with all this interesting company you’ve been keeping. You got his student, the Rumadi one -”

“Naran al-Shahd,” she supplied. Motswa nodded. She clutched the letters close, trying to catch her trembling breath.

“You need to be quick, Aialah. The raids used to happen every three or four days, now it’s been almost two weeks since the last. I think they’re done testing.”

She nodded. “Motswa?”

“Yes, little sister?”

“Do you think Sister Matsuda betrayed the professor?”

“Possible, but I don’t think so. I’ve known her a long while. She got no desire to kill people or help others kill. She doesn’t care for the Council none, and she’s got more money than she even cares about. Besides, it would have been easier to kill me when I first went to her for a name, without getting a powerful sorcerer involved.”

“So if only you and her and the professor knew, how did they find out?”

“I think that when you find those who are responsible, you can have your friends ask them. But it doesn’t matter now. Justice will have to wait.”

“He said that, too. Why didn’t he tell me all this? Why not just tell me the wards were in danger?”

“To save you and the device,” Motswa said and she poked a finger lightly into Maira’s chest. Maira gave her a stunned look. “I know that old sorcerer’s trick. Remember how I got my true body? I know magic. And if he’d told you, little sister, what would you have done?”

She shut her eyes, nodding. Now it all made sense and she wished it didn’t. “I would have told someone already. I wouldn’t have kept it a secret like this. I would have panicked too much. The prefects would’ve broken me easy.”

“He spared you to keep you strong, to keep you secret. You were perfect that way for it. Just a courier woman with bad luck, nobody would think you could do it. Funny how other people’s ignorance can be a gift, isn’t it?”

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

“No. That’s all I know. I pray it serves you well, for all our sakes.” Motswa stood and Maira with her, out of ingrained politeness. Her knees were even more unsteady than she thought. Motswa reached out and grabbed her arm. “Steady. We’re all depending on you now.”

“Why would anyone let demons kill people like that? I don’t understand.”

“Lucky us, you can work on that after you stop it,” she answered. “Respect.”

“Honor,” she replied and watched Motswa walk back the way she’d come, leaving her standing alone with the wind blowing so wildly that it whipped her braids over her shoulder and pushed her forward.

She shook hard enough to collapse if she didn’t keep moving. She battled her queasy feelings and the raw panic down the path back to the gate until it overwhelmed her. She let her self down on the remnant of a stone column, one of the many in Metequ Square. She pulled off the armbands and clutched them in her hands along with the letters, and it looked as if she squeezed blood out of the papers.

No human born had been around when the forest took over the first time, but the graphic, vivid stories had survived, speaking of people who woke up with roots trapping them, branches coiling around their throats, slowly eating them alive for food.

Bile burned Maira’s throat, filled her mouth with bitterness.

A weak shadow passed over the ground beside her. “Maira?”

Naran gazed down her in concern, making her realize she was rocking back and forth slightly, staring into space. She looked up but could form no words.

He got even more worried. “What’s wrong? Who did you meet?”

“You didn’t see?”

“No. You became invisible. What happened?” he asked. She said nothing, staring past him into the bushes and trees, thinking of the murderous forest squeezing them out all of existence. Naran crouched down in front of her so that their eyes met. “Maira, you’re scaring me. Talk to me, please. What’s wrong?”

Blankly, she stared at his foxy face, watching his mouth move though his words became uncomprehensible. All she heard was the wind, the rattling of tamed tree leaves. She wondered if they would become wild again if the forest took over.

Suddenly, she put her hand to the side of Naran’s face and he went silence. It surprised her how dear his face had become in such a short time, how sad she would be if he perished.

Naran called her name when she gathered herself enough to stand and walk to the gate. With each step, the shock melted and the fear came back. She yelled at herself mentally to snap out of it. She had no time for this. She stumbled as she ran, searching the sky for owlish wings. Where were the Asna’isi?

“Maira!” Naran shouted and grabbed her arm.

She yanked it back. “I have to find Graymere.” She raised her face to the sky and screamed, “Graymere!”

Fresh fear like an icy wave burst through her body. If the professor’s killers followed Motswa here, they could have killed the Asna’isi, especially if they used the Red Hand. The agents might not know to be suspicious until too late.

How could she not know? Surely the Prime Agent of Lord Shadow himself wouldn’t die so silently, wouldn’t be struck down without a sound. She swallowed back more bile and raced ahead, praying to find at least some of the Asna’is alive outside the square, even as she braced for the sight of their bloodied bodies and broken wings. Like Fairmorn all over again.

“Graymere, please!”

The swish of wings came like a breath of fresh air after a long time in a closed, cramped room. Graymere landed sharp and fast, between her and the gate. Maira stopped before she ran into him, breathing so fast she couldn’t speak at first.

“What has happened, are you all right?”

She swallowed hard to pull in the air to talk. “I have to go…Lord Shadow…” she panted.
He looked concerned, but she assumed he understood. She turned her back to him and he came to her, harnessing her in the moment their bodies met. Icefall and two other agents landed next to them. Graymere commanded, fast and low-voiced in Asna and Icefall harnessed Naran to eir chest.

“You are trembling. Are you hurt?” Graymere asked, before he pulled his wings back.

“Please, we need to go. As fast as you possibly can.”

Holding tightly to the letters so that they did not get lost in the wind, Maira braced to lift her legs and get into flight position. This time they did not circle to get height. Graymere worked with all his strength. The hard cords of his muscles moved against her back as they ascended straight up. His wings sounded like a pounding drum. Maira shut her eyes again the bitter wind and straightened against him as they leveled high above the ground, propelled by Graymere’s strength alone. His arms encircled her, and she felt that if he were to let go, she might shake into pieces and fall to the ground.