gate and climbed a ramp of stone now buckling and mostly covered by earth. Who had built all this?
A bewildering maze of ruins greeted him at the crown, whether residences, temples, storehouses, or courts of justice he could not tell. He heard snatches of a gulping sound, like a man's exaggerated swallows. The hiss had returned, and the sulfurous smell grew stronger as he pressed toward a craggy bluff. He kicked through heaps of shattered pottery and broken figurines, fragments of stone carved with staring eyes that had no face, mouth with no eyes, a long-fingered hand, a bare foot — a woman's foot, surely, for its delicacy. The remains of an octagonal building and its pillared courtyard lay before him.
As he came to the crag's edge, the rising sun spread a glow across the waters, several mey away but nevertheless striking as they shone with coppery-pink light. She had crouched beneath an intact archway cut low to the ground. She watched a pair of Qin soldiers who were riding toward the ruins.
Cursing, he ducked through another opening, crawling over rubble to get inside. He saw her form limned by the light. She did
not acknowledge him. Within, steps carved out of the stone led down into the rock. A stink, rising from the depths, was strong. Cautiously, he edged down, stepping over fallen bricks, until he came into a wide underground chamber lit by shafts. He sneezed at the dust raised by his feet. In the center of the chamber rose a round platform with a cleft struck through its center, and in this cleft a disembodied flame burned. Its hiss echoed like a thousand whispers, a story told in a language he did not know.
For all the years he had walked on earth, he had never known of this place nor heard tale of it. With a shudder, he retreated back up the steps.
With her back to him, she said, 'If you go back outside, they may see you and come up here to investigate.'
'Think you so?' he said, pleased by her words.
'Just to the west lie bitter springs. Mostly the Qin ride there to collect pitch. I hear them talk. They will bring a company of slaves to harvest the pitch and store it. The pit frightens them because the flame burns without fuel.'
'How long have you been hiding here?'
'Three days.'
'Why are you here?'
'I am waiting.'
It was like teasing splinters out of skin! 'What are you waiting for?'
'What is a Guardian?'
With a sigh, he sank down a few steps from her and leaned against the wall. The smell made his eyes water, but he didn't notice it as much. He brushed dust off his palms.
'I don't know,' he admitted, 'what the Guardians truly are, or what they were meant to be. The gods awakened the first Guardians during a time of war, when every clan fought for itself and every clan did as it pleased. Without law, there is no order. The Guardians serve the law.'
'They are slaves, then. If they must serve.'
'If you serve only yourself, lass, then to whom are you really a slave? Even in the place you come from, you serve the customs of your tribe and do your work and marry and bear children and die in your time, all without considering yourself a slave.'
She was silent, her back a wall.
'The Guardians serve the law, and by serving the law they serve the land and the gods. Whereas in the days of chaos any person with power might dispense justice according to her whim, now the assizes courts were established in every city and town and the chief villages. The Guardians journeyed from one assizes to the next to the next. They stood over the court and heard witnesses and made judgments. They hold in their hearts Ushara's gift: the second heart and the third eye, with which to see into the hearts of all. It is not so easy as you might think to seek truth within the hearts of women and men. At first, I thought I knew everything, but then I discovered that my own nature caused me to make assumptions and misread what I learned. I have become more cautious in passing judgment.'
'Who was the woman whose body I found on the grass?'
He nodded, although she did not turn to see him do so. There was so much to tell her. It was like running, and tripping over your own feet. 'Yes, yes. You see, it is this way. Naturally, there is a risk. The powers the Guardians hold are also a temptation. Within the council of the Guardians, five — a majority — may judge one of their own who they feel has passed under the gate of shadow into corruption. They can strip the cloak from that Guardian and allow it to pass to another person, as it — the cloak — chooses. So you may possibly see the problem that confronts us. What if a Guardian succumbs to the shadows, and yet has the outward countenance of light? What if such a Guardian bides her time, out of fear, out of greed, out of anger, and in her turn corrupts one by one her fellow Guardians until four others walk at her behest? Five in all. Five, who can control the council and rid themselves of those Guardians who will not do as they demand. What is the handful who remain loyal to the gods meant to do?'
The tale came hard to his lips. He had not rehearsed it. To think of the long years in which, slowly and in secret, the corruption had eaten away at the council was too bitter to endure. It was 'a knife in the heart', as the tale said, a well-worn phrase but true enough when you felt the stab of pain. How blind might a trusting soul be! How foolish and naive!
' Ashnya was corrupted by promises and sweet words and reasonable explanations. She was corrupted by fear, since fear, beyond all
things, brings with it the shadow. But in the end, she fled corruption. She knew if she passed on the burden of her cloak while still in the Hundred, that the others would find and control the newly awakened one. Instead, she walked out of the Hundred. And I waited for you — obviously, I did not know it would be you, Kirit — to return.'
'Because the cloak would bring me back.'
'By one means or another.'
'A cruel master,' she observed.
'Neh, neh. Not a master. It is our charge. Our responsibility. Our obligation.'
It was hard to meet those pale eyes because they did not look human, but her face was so young and vulnerable that he recognized the humanity in her, that which is capable of both compassion and malevolence.
'Where are the assizes courts?' She stumbled over the unfamiliar words.
'Typically you find them in the cities, towns, and chief villages. But an assizes can be held wherever a Guardian chooses to stand.'
She rose. 'Then it is time to make a judgment.'
The Qin soldiers were using fronds to scoop scum from one of a series of bubbling pools sited just beyond the tracery of the outer wall. Their horses took no notice of Kirit as she walked toward the two men, holding her strung bow and an arrow in her right hand but her mirror in her left. As he feared.
The soldiers leaped up and, in turning, brought their bows to the ready with arrows already nocked.
'Demon!' spat one man.
The other's face was a mask of fear. His arrow slipped out of his hand to the dust.
The envoy sensed their fear and consternation as much from their posture and expressions as from his second heart and third eye. And since neither looked at him, only at her, he could not see into their hearts.
'I remember your names. Eitai. Sayan.' She gestured to the man who had spat. 'You did not harm me, Sayan. Go, if you wish. Or if you want to be judged for any other crimes you may have committed, I will hold up the mirror, for the mirror reveals the heart.'
'We are Qin,' said the first soldier scornfully. He marked her companion and dismissed the envoy, unarmed as he seemed to be, as no threat. 'We do not dishonor ourselves by abandoning our comrades. How has Eitai harmed you?'
'He raped me.'
Eitai lunged for the fallen arrow and, rising, nocked it. 'I paid! It was perfectly legal! Your master made the offer, and I accepted in good faith. How was I to know your demon's ghost would return to haunt me!' He loosed. The arrow shot true, punching her so hard in the left shoulder she staggered back two steps. But she did not fall.
