Chapter Fifteen
Harsan squirmed about to make himself more comfortable. He found that he lay upon an ancient, rutted table or bed-frame of wooden beams. One torch guttered high up in a bracket on the wall to his left, and he made out the dim outline of a tunnel-like doorway there. The walls were of well-mortared masonry, the stones cut precisely and small in the style of the Emperors of a millennium ago. Above him the ceiling rose in a series of vaults and groinings into the smoky darkness. He caught the glint of metal up there, some sort of hoist, pulleys, chains…
A shiver went up his spine as he began to realise what sort of place this was.
He rolled over and saw another door to his right, studded with bronze bolt-heads, and closed now. By lifting his head and straining his arms, which were beginning to ache, he could see a third wall some three or four man- heights beyond his feet. An arched alcove had been let into the wall there, raised about two paces above the level of the chamber, and reached by a little stair. The alcove was perhaps a man-height tall and four or five paces in width. He craned his head around for a look at the wall behind him and succeeded in glimpsing something that almost turned his bowels to water: great beams, the glitter of metal, sharp implements ranged upon a shelf.
He thought furiously. On the eastern bank of the Missuma river there were few buildings: the vast complex of the Temple of Avanthe, that of Ketengku, a famous and ancient shrine to Sarku, Lord of Worms, and a few other, minor temples. There were no suburbs or palaces on that side of the River, for most of the area was reserved for the City of the Dead, where the Emperors of the past slept beneath their squat pyramids or the rounded, crumbling domes of the Bednalljan Dynasty. All around these crowded the myriad little mausoleums of the nobility and the shapeless mounds that hid the naked corpses of the poor. The only dwellings were the tenements of the embalmers, professional mourners, ferrymen, amulet-carvers, wreath-makers, prayer- writers, and the other clans connected with the necropolis and the world of the dead.
There were also the Tolek Kana Pits.
He had seen their blind, cold, fortress walls from a parapet of the Temple of Eternal Knowing: the dreaded Imperial prison, founded before the Empire had been united by the first Seal Emperor. These dungeons were built upon the site of ancient, swampy pits into which the criminals of old had been thrown to suffer the bites of noxious insects and vermin. In their fastnesses were housed those whom the Imperium decreed should be removed from society, but who were condemned to live-after a fashion-rather than to die upon the impaler’s stake. There were filthy halls in which debtors prayed for some clan-relative to rescue them from the squalor and the disgrace; there were the barracks of the Legion of Ketl, those men in brown armour whose task it was to see that the will of the Imperium was done according to the laws of Tsolyanu; there, too, were pleasant apartments in which noble prisoners and political rivals dwelt until they were needed-or executed. There were also chambers such as that in which Harsan now found himself, buried beneath the earth where none might see, forever secret and silent concerning the fates of those whose Skeins of Destiny had been so tragically woven.
But why?
Why?
Whom did Hele’a serve? In this lay the answer.
Many knew of the accursed Llyani relics: the Imperium, the temples, some of the clans, possibly certain foreign lands… Not only were there spies upon spies and factions within factions, he supposed, but every temple had its library and its archives, and these likely contained more knowledge about these matters than Harsan had himself. Hele’a’s master could be no mere high priest or aristocratic intriguer, however, to be able to violate temples and command the use of one of the Empire’s most dreaded prisons! All he coujd say with certainty was that his present captors were allied with the Lords of Change and that they made use of the half-legendary creatures of the underworld below Bey Sii as easily as a peasant drives his Chlen- beast.
He forced himself to lay this unanswerable riddle aside and turn his thoughts to Eyil. It was now plain what she was about. It was possible for a good clan-girl to fall in love with a clanless priest of no rank or status, of course, but anything more than a brief dalliance was as unlikely as three moons in the sky! Oh, the interlude on the Sakbe road was natural enough: the proper mixture of youth, naivete, proximity, and physical pleasure. But for Eyil to have sought him out later-when Bey Sii was full to overflowing with handsome, wealthy, sophisticated young men of her own class…?
No, she was almost certainly an agent of somebody or other. There had been hints aplenty, but his subconscious mind had done its best to hide them from him. Now he was sure. Her plea to give the relics to “them” was more than sufficient. He cursed himself for a fool.
But did she then serve Hele’a or his unknown master? Did she stand now outside this room and laugh with the Ghatoni about poor Harsan, the dupe? This picture brought the bitterness of masculine pride up into his throat.
No. The more he considered it, the more he believed her visible fear and horror to be real. He decided that Eyil was no friend of Hele’a’s.
Then was she an ally of Kurrune the Messenger?
Possibly. But then why did the man couch his warnings in such veiled and literary terms? Had he worked in collusion with Eyil, he could have employed her to take his warnings directly to Harsan.
Who was Kurrune? An agent for the Temple of Thumis, for Prior Haringgashte personally, for some other faction-even for the Imperium? A servant of two-or more-masters might well wish to conceal his identity with ciphers and quotations from the epics that could be understood only by the person concerned…
There were no clear answers. Whatever the truth, it was still possible that the Messenger and Eyil had been allies. After all, it might be useful to maintain a double watch: Kurrune to serve as an outside source of information, Eyil to hold Harsan with the age-old lure of her body? He would thus be unguarded with her, easy to control.
Somehow this rang false, as a copper coin in a handful of silver Hlash. He could not think why.
Had Eyil been set over him by his own temple to see that he did not fall prey to the blandishments of such as Kerektu hiKhanmu?
This, too, was possible, but a little far-fetched. Had a maiden been wanted to ensnare him, his superiors could have assigned any pretty acolyte from the Monastery of the Sapient Eye-or from the Temple of Eternal Knowing once he had reached Bey Sii. No, such surveillance was probably the duty of the Pe Choi-Harsan was struck with a sudden stab of remorse; he had not taken even a moment to grieve for his poor friend! — It was likely that Chtik p’Qwe had been commanded to watch over him, while he, in turn, could be counted upon to report any untoward actions of the Pe Choi to his superiors. Why else bring in someone who knew not only Llyani but also the language and customs of the Pe Choi?
The problem went round and round in his head, like a Chlen upon the threshing floor. Eyil was almost certainly an agent. But not for either Hele’a nor for the Temple of Thumis. Kerektu hiKhanmu? He could see no connection at present between the glib priest of Ksarul and Eyil…
He tried to think impersonally of Eyil, as he had been taught in the logic classes of the monastery. He had a hard time blotting out memories of her, nude and lithe in the lamplight, her long, dark eyes looking up into his in the litter, the shadowy curve of her hip as she lay beside him… Cha!
He tried again. Look at her actions, he ordered himself: her ignorance of some of the basic doctrines of Lady Avanthe, her arguments which seemed ever so slightly contemptuous of Stability. Then there was her mention of Shu’ure and the supposed Aridani woman who worshipped Dlamelish. Clues came clicking together like Den-den counters into their box!
Eyil must serve either Dlamelish or Hrihayal!
But if this theory were true, then it meant that the temples of Change were split over the matter of the relics-or that there were factions within them, at least, which seesawed this way and that against one another.
What of the girl in the governor’s garden-Sriya? She had been a devotee of Hrihayal, had she not? Eyil had certainly not sent her to poison him with Zu’ur, she could have done that herself at any time. Did this imply that Eyil was not on Hrihayal’s side? Or did it indicate dissension between the Temple of Hrihayal and some other faction, possibly the Temple of Dlamelish? — Or was that incident no more than a coincidence?
He sighed. Wheels within wheels, tunnels within tunnels, as the old proverb about the Shqa-hcetle. said…
