The Blackgod

things.”

“Why were you researching the temple?”

“A false trail. I believed that they actually had her captive in their sanctum.”

“They do not.”

“You seem certain of that,” Ghe observed.

Ghan tightened his mouth, realizing that he had said too much.

Ghe leaned over the coffee urn and spoke intently. “The emperor knows, Master Ghan, that you helped his daughter escape the city. He has been watching you, hoping for some sign that you know her whereabouts.”

“And you were the spy?”

“One of them, Master. Please understand, it was from my concern for her.”

Ghan frowned sharply. “What is this all about? If you wish me to confess some crime, I will not. I have no patience for these courtly games.”

“This is no game, Master. In the morning, this barge swims upstream to search for the daughter of our emperor. Unlike the priesthood, we have no idea of where she is, save north and away. You can help us.”

“I do not know where she is.”

“You do. Assuredly, Master Ghan, you do.”

“Torture it from me, then.”

“The emperor won't do that. At least, he said he would not. He wants your cooperation and your loyalty. You are dear to Hezhi, and it is important that she believe in our good intentions when we do find her.”

“You aren't—” Ghan's face registered shock for the first time. His mouth actually dropped open. “You aren't really suggesting that I go with you on this mad search?”

“But that is precisely what I am saying.”

“Out of the question! The library—”

“The emperor has actually been considering sealing the library. It has been the center of much trouble, of late.”

“Sealing the library?”

Ghe sipped his coffee, let the implicit threat sink in. A mask of fury settled on Ghan's face and then quickly vanished.

“I see,” he clipped.

“Perhaps only temporarily, until you return.” He regarded his coffee cup once more. “There has also been talk of restoring certain names in the capital, of ending certain exiles.”

Ghan was nodding his head now. The sweetmeat and the rotten pear were both on the plate before him. Ghan's family was in exile and had been for decades; only his intense love of the library kept him in Nhol. The simultaneous threat to close the library and promise to reinstate his clan had to be a powerful combination.

“No purse is large enough to make me a whore,” the old man declared almost inaudibly, eyes nearly shuttered by his angry lids.

“Those were the emperor's words, his promises and threats,” Ghe whispered. “These are mine. I love Hezhi, Master Ghan, and I know you do, as well. You helped her once, at gravest risk to your own life and everything you hold close and dear. Help me help her. When we find her, I promise you—I swear to you—that whatever pleases her, we shall do. The emperor wants her back here, but I want what is best for her. And she must be warned, at the very least, about the determination of the priesthood. At the least.”

“You are mad. This entire city is mad, the nightmare of a brutish, sleeping god.”

“What does that mean? Do you mean to wish away the world as it is and replace it with one you imagine? If so, you must cease merely reading your books and do something. Come with me, Master Ghan.”

For the first time, Ghan raised his coffee to his lips, and in an instant—like the batting of an eye—Ghe sensed his fear and hesitation vanish. Replaced by … Ghe's new senses were like smell. Fear he had scented often enough to know it. This was something he did not know.

“I must have certain books. I must have maps.”

“You are free to return with the soldiers to the library. They will help you carry anything you need. You accept, then? I can relay that to the emperor?”

“You may tell him I will accompany you.”

“I will tell the captain, when he boards.”

“You are not the commander here?”

“As you say, Lord Ghan, one so lowly as I cannot command a royal expedition. A noble will be placed in command. But you and I will lead them, will we not?”

Ghan did not answer. Instead, he stood shakily. “I wish to gather my things now.”

“Very well. The emperor thanks you.”

“I'm sure.”

“And I thank you.” Ghe was surprised to find that his voice rang sincere, even in his own jaded ears.

SUNLIGHT sheathed the streets in molten copper, beat them bright and hot as Ghan trod across cobbles worn smooth by a hundred generations of feet. Last time he had walked this path, it had also been to board a boat, to arrange passage for Hezhi to his kindred in the Swamp Kingdoms and thence to far-off Lhe.

In hindsight, that had been a poor plan. Not only because it had not succeeded—the boat had been attacked by members of the same royal elite who now escorted him—but because in Lhe the priesthood would have found Hezhi easily, had they cared to look. In the Mang Wastes, finding anyone would be no easy task.

For weeks and then months he had awaited the writ of the executioner, sure that in the chaos of Hezhi's escape he had been found out. If the arrangements at the docks were known to the emperor, then surely the arranger was known, as well. But the writ had never come, and his old head remained where it had been for sixty-three earthly years, bobbing about on a neck that sometimes seemed too thin to support its weight. Now was such a time.

If he weren't in such terrible danger, he might be amused that the emperor and his servants could so deeply underestimate him. They believed that their courtly intrigues were so complex, so deeply cunning, that they could shift Human Beings about like the markers in a game of Na. Perhaps they shifted each other around so, but he was a scholar. He could see through their pitiful, dull machinations as if they were sheerest silk. Not every detail, perhaps, not yet, but he could see the shape of something beneath that thin skirt, and it was not the curved courtesan he was expected to see.

Who was Yen? That he did not know, but he was no merchant's son. His accent, while passable, was all wrong. His manner, his pretense of submissive cooperation was poorly acted indeed; they hoped to disguise a deeper haughtiness. None of this had mattered before now, and thus he had simply not expended the mental energy to make these connections. But since Yen's reappearance, his questions about Hezhi, his research on the Great Water Temple, Ghan was forced to reevaluate everything about the young man. Now that he set his mind to it—a finely tuned instrument, even now—it was clear to him that Yen had pretended from the first moment. His intention had always been to be near Hezhi. That made it likely—almost certain, in fact—that it had been Yen set to watch her, Yen who betrayed her, and who now sought to redress his error in allowing her to escape. And so Hezhi was in danger. Yen's suggestion that her peril came from the priesthood was probably a lie—unless the expedition the man was assembling was created by the priesthood. That was a logical conclusion—after all, those set to watch royal children were usually Jik assassins and therefore of the priestly order. Yet these were unquestionably the emperor's elite escorting him, and it seemed improbable that the emperor and the priesthood would work together on anything.

Anything, that is, save perhaps in the containment of one of the Waterborn. The priesthood and the emperor were of one mind on that, and only that. And perhaps they knew something Ghan did not, something about Hezhi's power or potential that moved both parties to cooperate above and beyond the norm.

So, Ghan thought as he passed the ever-grander house walls lining the street, best assume it is both of them. The emperor and the priesthood, but only I know where Hezhi might