Cephas saw that people were moving across the sands now, drawing great rakes behind them. He could not make out whether or not they wore collars from this great height. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Marod.
After a moment, he said, “I don’t know if I will ever touch my flail again. But I think if it were in my hands right now, I might try to kill you.”
The pasha’s only reaction was to sigh. “Yes, Shahrokh’s spy and his stories. I am sure it is too painful right now, but I might like to hear them one day. These people of the shadows we are forced to use for too much of the business of state, they have great talents for taking the truth and shaping it to their own ends. Did he tell you
Cephas did not look at the other silver-skinned man. “Not exactly, no. He did say it was Azad who killed her, but-”
“But it is more complicated than just that. Yes. I am afraid I lack the subtlety to guess how he warped the tale.” The pasha pointed down at the arena. “They’re sifting the sands for bits of armor or dropped weapons. Wouldn’t do for a champion to fall because he stepped on something sharp.”
“Where is … Shahrokh’s spy? And my other friends?”
“Ah, well. I cannot say. The kenku and the mute halfling woman insisted they be allowed to go and join the search for the pair the firesouled sent here in some efreeti gambit. The lovely Ariella, though, will join us for dinner.”
“I am surprised you bothered to learn her name.”
The pasha sighed, then smiled. “I must admit, I know it only because Shahrokh told me. As you will soon learn, there is an enormous amount of work involved in governing a city, much less managing the Games that the people of the lower city love so much. My vizar says that Ariella Kulmina is a member of the Akanulan Airsteppers Guild, and that she’s the first of her nation in anyone’s memory to officially visit Calimport.” He cracked a wry grin. “That we can attest to, of course. In any case, she will be honored and treated as a visiting diplomat. As for these other people you’ve fallen in with, the kenku’s agents …”
“His troupe,” said Cephas. “They are performers in the circus troupe Corvus leads.”
The pasha moved to a gilded wood cabinet and opened its doors. He took a silver pitcher and a pair of simple clay mugs from its interior. “Pomegranate juice,” he said, pouring. “Corvus is the kenku? Of course, he had to have some cover story for moving about the realms unmolested; his sort always does. A circus, eh? That’s … whimsical.”
The pasha eased onto deep cushions held in a framework of glittering black wood. His expression was calculating as he openly studied Cephas. He took a long drink of the juice, then unexpectedly threw the mug over the low wall that marked the edge of the balcony. He leaned forward, gazing back and forth through the invisible floor, and then pointed. “There! See it?”
Cephas looked through the clear floor. Following the line the other man indicated, he saw a hint of motion. The mug, already far below, was soon lost to his view against the sands of the arena floor.
Hands on his knees, his father waited a long moment, watching the groundskeepers move across the sand. “Damn,” he said at last. “None of them even saw it. Oh well, it’s always a long shot. And an expensive diversion if I
Cephas said, “You thought to hit one of them? To drop that stoneware on one of those people down there? What are you trying to demonstrate?”
The pasha sat back in his chair and parted his hands. “Honesty-something I know you have had little experience with. What is the name the slaves called you?”
“You mean Cephas? It is the only name I have known.”
“It is not. You remain Marod yn Marod el Arhapan, as you were when your blessed mother birthed you. ‘Cephas’ is a word in the language Shahrokh and the other djinn use. It means ‘son of stone,’ and it is a terrible insult among their people. Did the kenku tell you that?”
“No,” said Cephas, “but …”
“If you had a sister, which Valandra and I dreamed of, she would have been Khanisa yr Valandra el Shelsper, to honor your mother’s family. They were the first earthsouled elevated to the nobility, and my marriage caused great controversy. We planned to cement their place by using a matrilineal name. They told you this story in that village of escaped slaves in the Spires of Mir? When they explained all the other secrets of your
Cephas looked at his father. “They explained nothing to me there about my ancestry. That came later. From Corvus.”
“You broke fast with Acham el Jhotos in Almraiven. A rare honor, to visit those famous gardens. They are watered with the blood of our people-did you know that? Did he tell you that he ordered my father-your grandfather, Marod-beheaded on the walls of that garden in the Year of the Emerald Sun? Did he point out the spot?”
Cephas did not answer.
“Kin of the WeavePasha have died in this city, make no mistake. I work every day to ensure that more will follow them to the Nine Hells. When your grandfather was sent to his death, his hands were bound behind him. But when the WeavePasha’s grandson died a month later, his hands were free, and he held a sword, and a shield. He even bested a half-dozen gladiators before one of the yikaria took him down. He had a chance.”
Cephas said, “I am no friend of the WeavePasha. We fled his city, pursued by wizards throwing fire.”
“Yes, some of his innumerable descendants, no doubt. Tell me, Son, what did you do to offend him? He is known the world over as one of the most powerful mortals alive, so I hope you did not give him insult. Did you attack him?”
Cephas shook his head. “No, nothing like that. He was kind to me, if you must know. He and Corvus quarreled.”
“He and Corvus quarreled,” his father repeated, as if to himself. “The kenku has many masters. A disagreement over the fee, perhaps.”
“No!” said Cephas, tired of being led about as if he yet wore a collar. “El Jhotos meant to-to do something to me. Some magic that would work me into a weapon to be turned against you.”
The pasha considered this. “So Shahrokh told me. I had hoped it was not true. I suppose I cannot blame you-you have spent your life hearing my name cursed, I am sure-but Marod … I must admit, it still tears my heart. How could you agree to it? How could you agree to kill your own father?”
Cephas felt the tug again but could not pull against it. “You know I didn’t know,” he said.
The pasha stood and approached Cephas. He put his hands on Cephas’s shoulders. Cephas had seen few mirrors but had a general idea of what he looked like, even windsouled. The man before him was a mirror sent back in time from twenty years in his own future.
The pasha nodded. “Yes, Son, I did know. And I am sorry that I played a courtier’s game of rhetoric in drawing out the truth. I will not tell you how to judge the actions of the people you have traveled with. I don’t know the full truth of their actions myself. But I do know some truths, and I tell you these plainly.
“I am Marod el Arhapan, Pasha of Pashas of the Holy City of Calimport, Governor of all Calimshan and Holder of the Keys against the Day of Blessed Calim’s Return. I am the Pasha of Games and of Ships and of Trade, and Ambassador to the Djinn of the Plane Below. And I am your father.
“I am an owner of slaves and a killer of men. My wealth is earned by the work of ten thousand people whom I will never see and rarely spare a thought for. And I am your father.
“And I have never, ever lied to you.”
Corvus expected to be separated from the others. He expected the change in demeanor that came of the djinn who floated beside him, and if he had not expected that the handful of windsouled courtiers would disappear as soon as they left the courtyard, it was only because he hadn’t anticipated they would be along for the brief time they were. It was of little consequence. Their only role was to attach the chains.
The chamber the djinni warriors pushed him into after stripping everything from him had no ceiling, and, for a brief moment of vertigo, he thought it had no floor. But beneath his feet was simply more of the transparent rock so much of this floating palace was built on.
“Just an earthmote in disguise,” he said.
