only travel about in the company of friends. It’s far more comfortable, entertaining, and civilized. And I do abhor a dull silence.” He shifted his rapier toward the old man across the room. “If you would do me the honor of your company.”
“You’re not taking him,” Shifrah said. A pair of stilettos slid down into her hands, their blades glinting gold and crimson in the light of the forge. “I’ve come a very long way to find him.”
“Oh? Is this your mysterious broker?” Salvator asked.
“No. He’s a friend. And I need to speak to him.” She raised her knives. “Leave now.”
Salvator pointed his sword at her. “And if I refuse?”
She threw both her knives at him.
Chapter 20. Qhora
The journey across the city from The Cat’s Eye was a blur of shadows, the rumble of iron wheels, and a drone of muffled voices. Qhora sat very still on the hard wooden seat of the carriage with a large armed man beside her and another across from her. The small windows were curtained, leaving the interior of the carriage almost pitch black, but whenever a flicker of light from outside pierced some gap around the edge of the curtains she saw the unblinking eyes of her captors staring back at her and their hands on their pistols.
When the carriage stopped, she was led out into a dimly lit carriage house, through a door and down a narrow corridor, and then up a short stair, around a corner, and a hall and a door and on and on. It became an exhausting parade of old stone walls, chipped stone steps, scuffed wooden steps and creaking iron stairs, stone archways obscured by curtains, and stone doorways sealed with dark wooden doors with crude iron handles. Candle light played on the walls ahead and behind them, and sometimes she caught a glimpse of the young lady from the restaurant leading the way.
I’m here. I’m inside their fortress or temple or whatever it is. Aker El Deeb might be here, somewhere. If I could only get away, if I only knew where to look. I could find someone and force them to tell me, to lead me to him. I could find him. I could find the sword. I could hold Enzo’s soul in my arms. Tonight.
They walked on. Finally they arrived at the end of a hall several floors higher than where they entered. The lady knocked at the door and was admitted alone. A moment later the door opened again and the lady beckoned Qhora to follow.
It was an office or a study. It reminded her of Enzo’s little library at home, a small room dominated by a large wooden desk that belonged in a larger room, and a few shelves of books, and a few papers scattered about the desk and floor. A warm breeze was blowing through the small window, which revealed a small square patch of the night sky. The loose papers shuddered in the wind. She sat in the chair in the center of the room and the lady left, closing the door behind her.
The man behind the desk sighed. He appeared to be in his fifties, his wiry black beard lined with a few bright white heralds of age. Deep crow’s feet drew his eyes and mouth down in a look of perpetual disappointment and fatigue. He sighed again and sat up. “Zahra thinks you know something that I might find valuable. Maybe many things.”
Qhora glanced back at the door. “Miss Zahra said you would torture me and eventually kill me to learn about my homeland.”
The man shrugged. “We could. I can order my people to do so, if you wish. I may order them to do so, if I think it would be worthwhile. Would it be worthwhile, miss…?”
“Dona Qhora Yupanqui Quesada,” she said. “And you are?”
“Khai. Just Khai.” He didn’t smile or glare. He looked to be on the verge of falling asleep. “So tell me, Dona Qhora, should my associates and I take an interest in the New World? We haven’t in the past. After all, it’s very far away. And the moment we arrive, most of us will fall dead to the ground with plague, and those few who survive will be devoured by enormous flesh-eating birds and cats. Have you come to offer me a cure for this plague? Or some way to avoid the roving flocks of hatun-ankas and prides of kirumichis?”
She smiled a little. Just looking into his drooping eyes and listening to his weary, rasping voices made her feel tired. “No, sir. There is no secret to surviving these things. My people are the descendants of the few men and women who survived the plague long, long ago. We have no secret cure. And the great eagles and cats can only be tamed from birth. The wild ones are as deadly to us as to you.”
“Ah.” Khai nodded. “Then it hardly matters how fabulously wealthy your distant empire is, does it? Nature herself stands in our way. And who are we to defy Nature?”
Qhora shook her head. “I wouldn’t dream of it myself.”
Khai sniffed. “Zahra means well. She wants to prove herself. She wants to prove to us that she deserves her position. Oh, to be young again.” He sighed, drumming his fingers on the desk, revealing a bandaged hand with a bloody stain where his small finger should have been. Then he stood up and she saw the short sword on his belt. “Let’s take a little walk, you and I.”
She stood up and stepped back toward the door.
If I had a knife, just one knife, I could have that sword off him and force him to take me to Aker. He’s old. He’s tired. Maybe…maybe I can do it without a knife.
As the old man shuffled around the desk toward the door, she started forward to catch him as he was trapped in the narrow gap beside the desk. Instantly an iron hand wrapped around her wrist and she gasped as she felt her tiny bones grinding together in his grip. She looked up and saw there was no change in his face. Still haggard, still tired, still disappointed.
There is something horribly empty and hollow about his gaze. No anger, no fear, no passion. Nothing at all. He feels nothing at all.
She dropped her gaze, hoping he might simply release her if she didn’t seem too dangerous. Instead he kept her held tightly with his right hand as his left hand drew out his seireiken. He only exposed a few inches of the blade and instantly the entire room was ablaze with pure white light that blasted all color from the walls and books and clothing, reducing everything to pale silvery grays. Qhora shielded her eyes with her free hand, and through her squinting lashes she saw tiny electric arcs snapping and sizzling on the brilliant steel. The air hissed and she smelled a faint char on the warm breeze.
The air. The air is burning. The blade is so hot that it can scald the empty air into ash.
Indeed, a faint scattering of pale gray motes was falling steadily on the floor under the sword like snow on a quiet winter’s evening.
Then he slid the sword back into its clay-lined scabbard. “You understand our swords?”
She nodded. “They burn with the souls of all the people that they’ve killed.”
“This is a very old sword. It has claimed many lives, and many of those were at my hand. The blade would only have to touch you for a moment to burn away your flesh and draw the aether from your blood and swallow your soul for all time.”
“I understand.”
He nodded and released her wrist. Qhora stepped back and let him open the door and lead her out into the hall. Zahra and her guards had left and Qhora followed the old man down many long and deserted corridors with only the echoes of their footsteps for company.
“I lost my husband to one of your swords,” she said. Her words echoed alone down the hall.
After a moment, Khai said, “Is that why you’ve come? Revenge?”
“Yes.” She whispered the word. And then louder, “No. Not now. I don’t care about the person who killed my Enzo. I just want the sword that has his soul. I just want to take him home to our son.”
The older man grunted. “I see that life among the Espani had softened your sensibilities. From proud barbarian princess to sentimental housewife. Not that it matters. You’ll never take a seireiken from us, with or without killing its owner. You may never even leave this building, young miss.”
Qhora curled her fingers into a small bony fist. “I thought you’d already decided there was no reason to keep me here. You don’t care about the New World.”
“No, we don’t care about the New World. But we do care about outsiders infiltrating our ranks, stealing our secrets, and exposing our operations to the scrutiny of foreign governments.” Khai coughed. “I’m taking you to a
