make sure they were complied with. Madness. We understood the iron law of bureaucracy and kept our institutions small, breaking them up and forming new organizations every half century regardless of how they were functioning. They became moribund and expensive over time, then sleek as greyhounds with no one involved but those who wanted to get the job done. It was cyclic and if a bunch of parasites who thought the bureaucracy was the purpose of the organization had to find a new living when we stripped the institution down and formed a new one, all to the good.
I looked at each aspect of our society in turn and examined it for flaws. Seeing none worth thinking about I moved on. Only one really came to mind, that we had not held the territories taken and spread our system further.
True, there were foxes and wolves amongst the lions of the patrons, some fools who believed that they knew better than anyone else and wanted to tell everyone else what to do and how to live, but there was no way they could get exclusive power over any but their client states. Some ran social experiments with other peoples, usually with dire consequences. Our system was good, with inbuilt mechanisms for the competent to rise but something about the foxes, the patrons themselves bothered me. 'Born to privilege, what do you know of suffering?' Kukran Epthel had asked. I couldn't help thinking he had a point, but exactly what point I wasn't sure, and so, deciding what might be done about it was…
My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. I had heard nothing, not a single footfall. I sat up straighter, looking at the door as it opened. There was nobody there. Goosebumps rose on my arms. “What the…?”
“Be quiet,” Dubaku instructed me shortly, suddenly visible as he stepped into the cell and pulled the door closed behind him.
“What…? How…?” The answers were obvious so I didn't finish the questions. What are you doing here? Rescuing me, obviously. How did you get here? Invisibly protected by his ancestors. I had seen him pull the trick before. It just hadn't occurred to me that he would do it for me or that he might be close enough to try.
He didn't make any answers to my half formed questions, instead stood intent on Sapphire. “Did she come?”
“You sent her?”
He shook his head. “I do not send, Sumto. I ask. When I felt her stirring, uneasy and dissatisfied, I could feel you had asked and so I asked that she answer, imagined you so she knew who I was asking for. She went from my awareness but she might have moved further from the world, not into it.”
I nodded, knowing I didn't really understand even though what he said made sense. It was the best understanding I would achieve. He could feel the spirits that knew him, had a relationship with them that I could not understand. It didn't matter. What mattered was that she had come at my call and healed Sapphire as best she could. That mattered and I was grateful and said so.
He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment of my thanks. “Jocasta asked me to help you. So I have, and am. What do you want to do?”
I stared at him and he returned my gaze with the by now familiar lack of expression. The question was incredible. What did I want to do? Get out of here, that's what I wanted to do! “I don't know,” I said. “Let me think.”
“Think, then.” He said, sinking to a squat, his feet flat on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees. “The attack will begin soon. Maybe there is no need to do anything but wait.”
Maybe. Dubaku could move unseen but we could not. I was in no state to carry Sapphire, weak and shaky with withdrawal symptoms as I was. Tahal had my ten carat stone, leaving me with only the one carat stone embedded in my skull. Granted, a face full of hot oil would put a man out of action but I didn't see that taking down a few individuals would be enough.
“We should move,” I decided. “Right now they know where to come for us if they want us.”
He nodded. “There is a room nearby where they store beer. We can go there without being seen.”
I blushed to realize that part of my motive had been transparent to him.
115
The beer tasted good.
Carrying Sapphire had been difficult but I'd stuck with it as we passed through storerooms and down wide corridors half filled with crates and barrels containing whatever they contained. By the time we holed up in the taproom, filled with barrels of beer of all sizes, I was shattered and hurting. We set Sapphire down, made him as comfortable as we could and I found a container and poured a beer.
As I sat and sipped from the leather jack I had found, the shakes slowly went away, the sweats stopped and the more I came back to myself the more sitting here and doing nothing became unacceptable to me. Dubaku squatted a couple of yards away and watched me drink without expression or comment.
What was Sheo doing? I was sure, on reflection, that he was an ally. Lentro must have told him about the last king's amulet, and when he had put me in prison he must have had a plan. Later, Kerral had come for Tahal, and now Tahal had the ten carat stone that Sheo had deliberately left with me. He had expected me to do something, to play some part in some plan of his. And Kerral also? And what plan? A plan to destroy Kukran Epthel? But Sheo knew me, he knew I didn't have much magic, leaving me the stone made no sense unless he wanted Tahal to have it. I ran through the spells Tahal had told me he had, with which we had planned to make an escape when the opportunity presented itself. When the time had come Tahal had not acted. So he must be an enemy, Turned by Kukran Epthel? Unaware of the last king's amulet? Certainly I had not told him about it. I shook my head, irritated at myself; no, he had not met Kukran, had been confused when I mentioned the lich. Still, he had cooperated for a time with the other Necromancer, and maybe had been placed in the cell to pump me for information. The thought irritated me. I hadn't questioned his legitimacy for a moment. Maybe I had given the ten carat stone to an enemy. That burned and brought me to my feet. Dubaku looked up at me as I paced between barrels of ale that demanded my attention.
“You have a plan?”
It was Kerral that had thrown Sapphire in the cell, not Sheo. Were they allies? Did Kerral leave some tool with Sapphire? Something to aid me, expecting that I would find it? Just knowing that would tell me a lot.
I bent to Sapphire's unconscious form and began searching him swiftly but gently. I found what I was looking for in his boots; lock-picks, a small but wickedly sharp knife, and the ring that gave the wearer the look of a barbarian. I slipped it on and Dubaku blinked, once, like a shout of shocked surprise from any other man. So they were co-conspirators! Sheo and Kerral. They had expected me to find these, to use them. When? Were they waiting for me before they acted? Was I to be a trigger? The details didn't matter. I had to act or their plan could collapse and I had to trust that their plan had a good purpose and reason even though the army was here and the war almost over.
I could stay here, wait it out, do nothing. The thought barely registered. There was no way I could do that. I needed to be doing something, needed to act, to succeed at something, and this is what was in front of me. Find Kukran Epthel. Kill him, or help kill him.
“I'm going,” I said. Out of the vaults. Yes. But then what? What would they expect me to do?
Seek out and destroy Kukran Epthel. That, at least, is what I would do. In the chaos of the attack I would take him down, somehow, and utterly destroy him and the amulet.
116
Dubaku had wanted to accompany me, but I had argued against it. Sapphire was helpless and needed someone to hide him and protect him. Striding boldly through the vault I couldn't help wondering if he were invisible and following.
“Jocasta asked me to help you,” Dubaku had said.
