Second Imperium. Empty save for dust and the stench of the distilleries, it had become their home- and their hiding place-during the long period of Harsan’s recovery.
Someone stood now by the tom matting that served as their door. Harsan stopped, thrust Tlayesha behind him, and stood poised for flight. Then he recognised the satiny gleam of white chitin: a Pe Choi. Itk t’Sa! After their first six-day in Purdimal she had gone her way with no explanation; now she had returned. Tlayesha gave a glad cry and ran past him to greet her.
Another waited with Itk t’Sa, one of the grey-skinned Heheganu, pockmarked and ugly as the stones' of the crumbling city itself.
“You are well now,” Itk t’Sa said in the Pe Choi tongue. It was not a question. She touched Tlayesha’s hand and then Harsan’s cheek with her stick-dry fingers.
“I am. It was your kindness.-And Tlayesha’s.” He motioned them inside, spread mats, and brought out the cracked pottery flagon that held wine whenever they had the money. It was half full of the cheapest of the vintages of the Kraa Hills. There were no coins to spare even for the poorest Tsuhoridu, not even for a goblet of the dregs. Tlayesha set four of their misshapen clay cups upon the flagstones before them, but Itk t’Sa made a gesture of refusal. The Heheganu accepted a mug in silence.
“You live in ease? You are not nto’oltkT' The Pe Choi term covered all combinations of unhappiness, hunger, pain, illness, and distress.
“It is well with us.” Harsan knew she would sense the lie: He longed for the forest, for the Monastery of the Sapient Eye- even for the bustling, scholarly life of the Temple of Eternal Knowing. Anything but this! a few copper Qirgal for copying petitions and letters for the lowest classes of Purdimal, the hiding, the distrust, the fears that came to wake him in the night.
The worst dreams were those of opening his lips and finding that once again he could not speak.
They had not dared to make friends, human or otherwise. The Heheganu remained courteously aloof, and all others might be spies. Life in the Splendid Paradise was lonely, dark, and hopeless. This Skein led nowhere.
Itk t’Sa gave a whistling sigh. “And she?”
“As I.” Another lie. If anything, Tlayesha’s suffering had been the greater-and yet he had dared tell her only a part of the story. There was always the chance that she would be caught, too, as poor Eyil had been. Tlayesha earned a pittance with her potions and salves. Harsan had not asked whether she had gone to New Town to use those other arts she had learned long ago in Jakalla. She did always seem to have a coin or two when they needed it most.
“I bear news. Harsan, know that Chtik p’Qwe lives-our people in Bey Sii have sent word. He lay wounded and broken under the earth in the Temple of Eternal Knowing. He was pulled free, and now he is healed-partially, at least. He greets you.”
A wash of love, relief, longing, sadness for the world left behind, — emotions too many to name-swept over Harsan. He leaned back against the rough stones of the wall.
The clicking Pe Choi lauguage was lost upon Tlayesha, but she caught the name of Chtik p’Qwe, of whom Harsan had spoken. He smiled at her reassuringly, and she touched his arm in sympathy. The Heheganu waited.
Itk t’Sa nodded to change the subject. “You went to the temple of your God, Lord Thumis?”
“No. The Old Ones-the Heheganu-told me that watchers were posted at all of the entrances of the Splendid Paradise. They said that magic-spells-were being used, and that I would be known. Their skills keep us safe here.”
“The Omnipotent Azure Legion…? Friends could be summoned hither to take you from this place. Or the tunnels beneath the city…?”
Harsan stared moodily into his cup. “Even if I eluded the spies and reached my superiors-even if my people returned me to Bey Sii escorted by an Imperial Legion-did not the Worm Prince once pluck me from the heart of our greatest temple? He could do the same again.”
The matter was more complex by far; Harsan searched for words. “More… more-I sense that the priests of my own temple would use me little better than did Prince Dhich’une. I tire of being a piece in some high, invisible game of Den-den. I may have begun as a pitiful little white pawn; now, for the moment, I am a blue-or even a black. But I am still no more than a counter-a counter who likes the game not at all! I will either become a player or else hop off the board to be lost under the mat!”
“ ‘Better the house of poor friends than alone in the forest.’ ” ‘ ‘I know, I know. My superiors must think I am either dead or a traitor to Lord Thumis-or both.” He put his palms over his eyes and pressed u ntil colours writhed behind the lids. “How long can we go on hiding he re?”
“You know that others seek you besides the Worm Prince? The Yan Koryani-the followers of your war-god, Lord Karakan, the Omnipotent Azure Legion, the-”
A vision of Eyil, smiling, arm in arm with a tall, jowly man whom the Heheganu said was one Jayargo, a priest of the Worm Lord, arose before Harsan’s eyes: how had they got her to do that? Perhaps Vridekka had ensorcelled her with his arts. Harsan and Tlayesha had hidden-remembered guilt arose to accuse him-and Eyil and the priest of Sarku had eventually gone away. She had not returned.
Harsan cried, “Yes, the whole thrice-cuckolded Empire! — As if there was naught more important than this- this one artifact, whose location I know-and then know only vaguely! I cannot believe-”
“You alone can assess its value. But you have asked the one question that must eventually be answered. You cannot go on hiding here forever. What is to be your move now, Oh newest player in the game?”
Harsan could not reply.
“They still search for us above?” Tlayesha spoke in Tsolyani. Itk t’Sa glanced at the silent Heheganu. Then she said, “It is so. More th an ever now. Every path is watched, every exit to New Town is guarded.
You cannot leave without falling into one net or another. ’ ’
“The Heheganu protected us when we came.” Harsan could not keep dejection out of his voice. “It was long before I recovered, thanks to you and to Tlayesha here. When I could speak again, I found things as they are now. I know'of no sure way to reach safety, and even if we did, I am not sure that it would be safety after all… ”
“This situation must change,” Itk t’Sa replied. “Ormudzo, here, met me when I returned to Purdimal. He will speak of it.” She settled back upon her gleaming chitinous haunches and nodded to the Heheganu.
The Heheganu was old, puffed and wrinkled, bald and grey like all of his race, mottled as a serpent of the swamps. He blew out his cheeks. “Man Harsan, you came to us upon the words of the apothecary Gdeshmaru, who deals with us. You aid us and make no trouble, and the woman Tlayesha heals us and gives us consolation-”
The careful, stilted words bore menace. Harsan looked a question at Itk t’Sa, but she only made a gesture of patience.
“-The Gods do not like those who betray a hosting. Not our Gods. We are thus bound to you, as you have bound yourselves to us.”
“What does he mean?” Tlayesha murmured.
The creature would not be hurried. The tiny flame of the rush-candle limned the grey-stippled cheeks with orange shadows, painted fire upon the hairless skull, turned the round eyes to staring rubies. “Many sought you, and you were not found. It is so?”
Harsan nodded. Tlayesha’s fingers closed hard upon his wrist.
“There were others, persons whom we saw and whom you did not see. Men of different professions, soldiers, questioners, even some of my own species. There were a few whom even we did not recognise-creatures better left unnamed.” The Heheganu made a jerky, punctilious little half-bow. “In any case, none came upon you. When we guest someone, we perform all things well. You honour ‘noble action’; to us, this is noble.”
“High One, why-?”
The wide mouth seemed to stretch halfway around the noseless head. Harsan could not tell whether the Heheganu was amused or angry at the interruption.
“Now I obey the mightiest of our commands of hospitality. When the host is required to break the guesting-to cease the protection it gives-it is a duty first to inform the guest. I bring you a warning, and a choice. Know that- one-has come who can compel us to deliver you into his hands. We cannot refuse him. ’ ’
“One of the minions of the Worm Prince-?”
“Not so. Another. We must acquiesce to him-or circumvent his commands.”
It seemed that the most important of all of Harsan’s questions must now be resolved.
