Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 Page 13

  Second nature now to bite back the hot and perilous question, what are you doing here? Instead she took a slow breath and then another, as much time as she needed; when she was ready, in a hissing whisper, she said, 'Esren, I did not summon you.'

  'Indeed not. I came. I was curious.'

  About what, she wondered - the temple, the blessing, something else? No way to guess; if it wanted her to learn, then it would tell her. Obliquely, like as not.

  'I don't suppose the djinn go often into church,' she said, trying to be oblique in her turn.

  'I go where I choose.' Now, unspoken but ever there between them, that deep and ever-resented debt it owed to her, that it repaid with grudging and disputatious service. 'The same is true of all my kind.'

  'But you don't worship this God, or any other; so ...'

  'Neither does this God or any other worship us. So far as we know. It may be a nonsense, a game of men to defeat the dark with lies and promises; but a blessed blade will still strike home, Lisan, as though it had the wrath of God behind it.'

  'Tell me if those blades are truly blessed,' she said. She had visions in her head, knives hurled at iron-black body, hurled and bouncing back.

  'They are. Any hedge-priest can do this work; his touch will be as potent as a saint's,' and the imam was touching the weapons now, she saw, one finger to each still blade. 'Have a care with those knives, Lisan. They may slay more than an 'ifrit.'

  As ever, she looked for deeper meaning beneath its words; as ever, she ended up drowning in uncertainty. Would the knives be potent against other creatures of the spirit world -against the djinn themselves, maybe? Was it nervous for itself, could she cut the thread of its long long life and send it spinning into dissolution? It was not immortal, that she knew; a djinni could be slain. And yet it seemed to have no solid body to attack, being made of wind and whispers. Perhaps a blade charged with power could seek out some inner core, unravel what was wound so tight; perhaps it was afraid of her ...

  More likely of her ignorance, she thought, and set that thought aside. Grimly, for later consideration.

  'I suppose it must be magic, then. Like laying a spell on the metal.' Or on a man's mind, such as she could do herself, laying a Fold in the pathway of his thoughts such that he could look directly at her and see her not at all. She couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. She might not believe in her peoples God or any other, but still she'd always hoped that their earthly manifestations, all the little miracles of churchly life sprang from some source unknown, perhaps unknowable: a fount of mysterious power, to set against the slow-won understanding that defined her own kind of magic She wanted to believe that faith could balance schooling, even where it was faith misplaced ...

  'You use words that have no meaning. That is magic; your hidden home is magic; I am a creature of magic,' said with a rich contempt, as it spun and sparkled in the air. 'It exists, Surayon exists, I exist; in that sense we are all alike, and so, yes, the imam's blessing is a kind of magic. But Lisan, so do you exist, and the mud floor that you stand on, and the flea that bites you.'

  'I don't have — ow!' She slapped at her leg, decided not to lift up the skirt of her robe in pursuit: undignified under a holy roof, too likely to draw attention to her Patric skin -and Patric manners, she thought ruefully — and probably futile in any case. Sand fleas didn't linger. Their eggs did, though; she'd best get Julianne to check her over. Inch by inch, from scalp to toenails. In a day or two, of course, when Julianne was rescued. The eggs were easier to spot in any case, once they'd had a chance to harden and darken under the skin —

  She flinched from the thought, and hissed, 'If that's all the use of your foreknowledge, to tell me I'm going to get bitten an eye-blink before it happens, then you might as well keep it to yourself.'

  'Knowledge is always better than ignorance, Lisan. If you must be bitten, better to be aware and prepared. What I see is a flea-bite, to what I used to see: use it or not, as you choose. But that is the distinction, I think, between your magic and that priests, perhaps all priests'. Yours is founded on knowledge; the people of Surayon understand more than most how the worlds are shaped, and so they can make a little difference to that shaping. The churches work in ignorance, and never try to penetrate the cloak of it. Miracles happen, and they are content with that. If their prayers are spells, such that anyone could use them - well, they preserve them to the priesthood, and condemn a thief for heresy. Mystery and shadow suit them well.'

  Wise and experienced as she was, Elisande found that she could still blush. The shadows of the temple suited her too just then, as the veil did, and the veiling screen, though she was sure the djinni could see through them all as easily as it saw through her. It was right to scorn mystery, of course it was - and yet she still craved a little mystery. There could be too much light in the world, an overweight of knowledge . . .

  She'd never known Esren say so much, so very much to the purpose. Whatever its reasons - and if she treasured life's mysteries, Esren's motivations were surely enough for one girl's puzzled lifetime — it disappeared from her shoulder without warning, without another word. She was becoming used to that, but not used enough; she still wasted a moment in glancing around, to be sure.

  And was still looking, still squinting into shifting shadows when all thoughts of the djinni were driven from her head by a sudden, bewildering noise. A high-pitched squealing, so high that it was almost painful; she couldn't place it except that it came from above, it seemed to come from every upper corner of the roofspace, every angle of beam and wall simultaneously.

  And then it moved, it fell down towards her like a black blanket of unbearable sound. Towards her and towards everyone, all at once; she wrenched her gaze away for a moment and saw how all the men were staring up, transfixed and terrified. Some were crouching under the weight of it, grovelling almost on the floor, setting their voices against the noise in a rising prayer of desperation.

  Her eyes were drawn inexorably back to the swirling darkness overhead. The living darkness - there were voices in that numbing scream, there was a pattern to the movement. She pushed her hood back to see better, then remembered the death-shriek of 'ifrit and abruptly moved herself, out from behind the sheltering screen, towards the poor protection of her knives where they lay before the altar. Jemel was stooping, she saw, to snatch up his own blade; good she thought, but you leave mine for me. . .

  For what little good they would do, against a strike by however many lurking monsters there were, enough to raise such a cry. ..

  She turned her head upward again, looking for 'ifrit. Something hurtled at her, and she ducked instinctively; it skimmed above her hair, leaving a brief impression of gaping jaws, teeth, a red gullet — but small, so small, mouse-sized, no threat at all.

  She gaped in her turn, stared after it, stared up; and turned to scuttle back behind the screen again, choking down a churn of painful laughter in her gut. All of them, she wanted to laugh at them all, herself and those cowering priests with their abandoned self-regard and Jemel who stood so proud and warrior-like among them, gazing about him now in bafflement that was only slowly turning to understanding, to catching up with her.

  They deserved all the laughter that she had, all the mockery she could raise. So many of them and so pleased with themselves they'd been, until a shriek and a shadow had punctured their overweening pomposity.

  Bats whirled and circled among them now in hundreds, thousands maybe, enough to fill the air and block the light as though the mass of their dark bodies cast its own darkness like a net about them.

  Bats, and nothing worse. Bats that must sleep the day out among the beams and rafters overhead, clustering together like kittens for warmth and safety; bats that had been suddenly disturbed and so erupted in alarm, all of them together like a flight of birds, startled and stupid and beating round and round the narrow compass of the temple rather than brave the sun's glare outside ...

  Bats that had been suddenly disturbed—
and here was Esren back as unexpectedly as it had disappeared, silent at her shoulder and somehow smug in its silence, she thought, exactly as a capricious creature might be that had made so much mischief in a moment.

  'That was you,' she said, without a hint of a question in it.

  'I did nothing.' 'Liar.'

  'The djinn do not lie, Elisande.'

  She ducked another flight, a skirmish-party that had found its way behind the screen — to its great regret, judging by the way it screamed and veered wildly as it passed close to the djinni — and sighed extravagantly. 'Tell me whether you went up into the roofspace.' 'I did.'

  'Tell me why' 'I was curious.'

  'You knew that the bats were there.'

  'Yes. I could sense them sleeping.'

  'And you knew that your presence would wake them, and that they would be terrified by your presence as any animal is, and so you went up to see what would happen.'

  'As I said, I was curious.'

  'It is not amusing, Esren,' in her sternest voice, 'to use fear to satisfy curiosity.'

  'It is interesting, though. The bats are frightened by me, which is perhaps appropriate, although I mean them no harm; these men it seems are frightened by the bats, which is absurd.'

  'Not truly frightened,' she said, struggling to defend her kind against the facts, 'only startled and alarmed.'

  'I do not see the difference. They shrieked, they prayed for protection; listen, they are praying yet, against whatever evil spirit they believe has raised the bats.'

  They were; and actually it was amusing, although she refused to say so. They were right, after all, by their own lights — except that no Catari priest would claim that the djinn were evil. She wished briefly that she could take Esren's experiment further, to find what would scare a spirit.

  Instead she stepped out from behind the screen and gestured across the temple floor. Jemel seemed to be looking for that exactly, her appearance, her impatience. He gave her a cautious, distracted wave amid the confusion of men and animals, shrieks and prayers. Even he wasn't immune to the mood, though he had sheathed his scimitar by now. He stooped to scoop up her knives from where they lay, blessed now and she hoped more potent than they had been before — and he stayed stooped, walking all but doubled over as he came towards her. He might want her to think that it was the pain of suppressed laughter that folded him so, but she could see how his eyes were alert, how his head jerked whenever he saw or thought he saw a stray bat or a school of bats coming gape-jawed towards him. Their own swerving always came late, at the last possible moment; so many flying so fast, and yet not one had struck a beam or a man, a hanging lantern-chain or even another bat, so far as she could tell. The dense clouds whirled and circled, split apart and melted together again as seamlessly as their individual voices knitted together to make that one endless, penetrating scream.

  Knowing was no substitute for instinct, though, and never had been. It would take a brave man or a blind one -blind and deaf - to walk through the maelstrom and not to flinch. More than brave, perhaps: Jemel had courage to spare, and was almost crawling under the intangible weight of those packed and circling bodies above.

  And what of a girl, could she be braver? Or more deliberately blind, perhaps? Elisande eyed the way to the door, and thought about walking with her eyes closed. There were too many obstacles, though, too many men scuttling to the sun's shielding glare like crabs to the shelter of a rock. Or like 'ifrit, she thought, remembering the clawed black shapes scurrying up out of the water. Then, inevitably, she remembered Julianne, trapped under an 'ifrit's red gaze; and strode determinedly towards the bright summoning of the doorway, pulling her veil straight as she went and feeling glad almost for the first time in her life that she was so short. She could feel her headdress stirred by the wind from the bats' wings, she knew there was a living ceiling of them barely a hand's span above her; but if she kept her eyes down she couldn't see them, and if she just kept her feet moving she might not need to think how close they were, she didn't at all have to imagine how it would feel to get just one tangled in her clothing ...

  Then a small flight of them came swooping low, heading straight for her. She bit back a shriek, though it felt like swallowing a pebble, hard and painful in her throat; and that took all the will she had, she couldn't keep from ducking and twisting aside. Twisting into their own path, indeed, as they yawed, so that they had to turn swiftly, violently in mid-air to avoid her. The breeze they made in their passing pressed through her veil, bringing with it the rankness of their breath, the musty smell of their fur; one glimpse of yellow incisors and vivid throats and she did close her eyes after all, telling herself how small they were and how harmless to her, chanting it under her breath like a mantra against the way the image filled her mind.

  She was still standing, still bent over like an old woman or an older tree, when she felt a hand grip her arm. Chanced a glance aside, and saw Jemel - of course Jemel, who else would touch her? Here?

  He was standing tall now, despite the blurring darkness all about his head; she could see the effort he made to keep his eyes on her, and not let them go darting after the bats as they flashed in and out of his sight. She gave him a mirthless grin he wouldn't see — be brave then, now, when you know that I'm watching too late, but you needn't know that- and let him urge her back into movement, towards the illusion of safety and away from the illusion of risk.

  Head down and feet hurrying, her free arm coming up despite herself in a useless ward: at last they broke into sunshine and she could straighten up, draw a deep recovering breath — her first for a while, or so it seemed — and look up at the Sharai to see him blushing darkly, with an embarrassed grin.

  Her own face would match his, she knew. The veil might hide that, if it didn't catch fire simply from the glow of her skin, which could outburn the sun; it couldn't hide the tremble in her arm where he was still holding it. She tossed her head defiantly against the world - or against her own malignant djinni, that could so humiliate her with a little casual curiosity — and said, 'Give me my knives, then.'

  'Not here.' His own head moved more purposefully, to indicate the swarm of men who filled the square around them, who couldn't help but see the exchange however much their eyes might still be full of swarming bats. Men didn't yield weapons up to women; these men might not challenge it directly, but they would certainly remember, and likely talk. Elisande wasn't sure that secrecy mattered, but it was a good habit to fall back on.

  So she followed Jemel meekly enough, away from the temple and its open square, into the tight tangle of alleyways that surrounded it. As soon as they were private, in a shadowy angle that was overlooked by no windows, he handed her knives across. She hoped to feel some tingle in the metal to say that they'd been changed, perhaps to see a new shimmer on the edge to show where power ran, and was disappointed; they seemed the same as before, sharp and finely balanced, nothing more. She knew that they were dangerous to mortal flesh, but whether they could hack or skewer the chitin of an 'ifrit - to learn that, she'd have to get closer than she liked, closer than she'd been yet.

  Which must mean doing without Jemel's company or the djinni's, going alone against the world, the way she'd always liked to. She sheathed the knives invisibly within her robe, and gave him a respectful bow that was less mocking than it might have looked, than he might have thought it. 'Thank you, Jemel. Will you go back now, to seek Marron?'

  She was out of practice at asking questions, which was curious in one who had always been more curious than was good for her. Even to her own ears, that sounded more like a command, the rising inflection at the end only a meaningless courtesy.

  He might have been angry, indignant, resentful, and was none of those. He couldn't have failed to recognise the dismissal, but neither did he go. He stood before her, smiling as he said, 'Will you go to seek Coren?'

  'I - no. Not, not yet. I thought I might wander the town a little, learn its ways ...'

  'As you did yest
erday and the day before, as we have all done since we came here? Or did you think that today perhaps you might go a little further, outside the walls - up to the castle, say, a nice distance for a day's exploring .. . ?'

  She was blushing again, and sure that he knew it again. She was becoming distressingly easy to read, or else simply too dangerously close to these few friends, who were stealing all her secrets from her one by one.

  'Well then, yes,' she said. 'Yes, up to the castle, why not? The gate is open, we know that; the 'ifrit watches Julianne, we know that; There's only Morakh left, then, and he can't watch everywhere at once'

  'The gate is open, and the trap is baited; will you walk inside?'

  'The trap is baited for Coren, surely, not for me.'

  'We don't know that, it's a guess. Besides, a rat-trap may catch a mouse as easily. Morakh can't watch everywhere, but he can watch the gate; there's only one.'

  'So I'll climb the wall.'

  'And if you climb the wall and meet another Dancer, what then? Morakh may not be alone in there any longer.'

  'Esren says that he is, and the djinn do not lie.'

  'No, but they can be mistaken. They are dangerous creatures to put your faith in, Elisande.'

  'True; but I am a dangerous creature too. More so, now,' touching the hafts of her daggers. 'I am going, Jemel. Esren will not, nor will Coren, nor Marron; they are all afraid of the 'ifrit. With reason, perhaps, but their reasons don't apply to me. Julianne can't help herself, so one of us must help her.'

  'Two of us,' he said flady. 'If you go, I am coming with you.'

  'Marron will be angry with you.'

  'He would be more angry, if I let you go alone.'

  That might be true. What was certain was that she was afraid, even without her companions' reasons. Her knives might be blessed, but they were still pitifully small weapons to set against a Sand Dancer and a spirit-monster. She hadn't looked for support from Jemel, hadn't dared to hope for it; to have it offered unexpectedly was a gift, a blessing in itself.