Cinnabar Shadows (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 4)

Hope was all Mahtra had as one day became the next and another without anyone coming to the door. She was hungry, but after so much waiting, she was afraid to leave the alley, for surely Lord Escrissar would return the moment she turned her back in the next intersection. The night-watch, which had a post on the rooftop at the back of the alley, tossed her their bread crusts when they went off duty. Between those mouthfuls of dry bread and water in the residence cistern, which had not been tapped since the last Tyr storm, Mahtra survived and waited.

And Mahtra didn't do things not of her own will. Kakzim and the enforcers of the elven market had learned that lesson. She could not have been forced here. She must have entered willingly, and removed her mask the same way. But she remembered nothing between the alley and the bedchamber except her nightmare.

The cold, hard presence of fear, which had become Mahtra's most constant companion since the cavern, reasserted itself around her. She curled inward until her forehead touched her toes and her face was completely hidden. The coverlet couldn't warm her, nor could her own hands chafing her skin. Her body shivered from an inner chill and tears her eyes couldn't shed.

"Ah—you are awake, child. There is water here for washing, then you must dress yourself, yes? The august emerita waits for you in the atrium."

Mahtra raised her head cautiously, with her fingers splayed over her malformed face, leaving gaps for her eyes. A human youth stood in the doorway with a bundle of linen in his arm. He was well fed and well groomed, with only a few faint lines on his tanned cheeks to proclaim his status in this place. She knew in an instant she'd never seen him before. Except for Kakzim, she'd encountered no slaves who'd stare so boldly at a freewoman.

She wanted to tell him to go away, or to ask where she was and who the august emerita might be, since she knew no one by that name or title. But, that was talking and, especially without her mask, she didn't talk to strangers. So, she glowered at him instead, and without thinking stuck her tongue at him, as Mika had done whenever she told him to do something he didn't want to do. The slave yelped and jumped backward, nearly dropping his bundle of cloth. He turned and fled the room without another glance at her. For several heartbeats, Mahtra listened to his sandals slapping; the august emerita lived in a very large residence.

Her mask could be anywhere. It could be in the next room, but more likely it was in the atrium, with the august emerita. If she could face Death every night in her dreams, she could face the august emerita. The sooner she did, the sooner she could get out of here and back to her vigil outside House Escrissar. Mahtra made good use of the wash-stand first. Life by the underground water had spoiled her for the city's scarcity. Even here, in what was plainly an important place, the basin was barely large enough for her hands and the water was used up before she felt completely clean.

It was better than nothing, much better than the grit and grime she'd accumulated sitting in the alleyway. Her skin was white again, a stark contrast with her midnight gown, which had been brushed and shaken with sweet leaves before it was folded. She found her shawl beneath her gown. It, too, had been handled carefully by the august emerita— or her slaves. In lieu of her mask, Mahtra wrapped the shawl over her head, the way the wild elves did when they visited Henthoren in the elven market.

The youthful slave had not returned; Mahtra set out alone to find the august emerita in her atrium. It wasn't difficult. An examination of the roofs and walls revealed by the bedchamber window had convinced her that she was, indeed, still in the high, templar quarter where all the residences were laid out in squares and the atrium was the square at the center of everything else. She made mistakes—the residences weren't identical, except on the outside—but she saw no one and no one saw her. Aside from the vanished slave and the august emerita for whom she was searching, Mahtra seemed to be the only person wherever she went.

She thought she was still alone when she reached the atrium. At the heart of the august emerita's residence was a wonder of trees and vines, leaves and flowers in such profusion that, suddenly, Mahtra understood growing as she hadn't understood it before. The atrium was filled with sounds as well, sounds she had never heard before. Most of the sounds came from birds and insects in brightly colored wicker cages, but the most fascinating sound came from the atrium fountain.

Lord Escrissar's residence had an atrium and a fountain, of course, but his fountain was nothing like the august emerita's fountain where water sprayed and spilled from one shallow, pebble-filled bowl to another, dulling the background noise of Urik so much that it could scarcely be heard. And the pebbles themselves sparkled in many colors —and some of them were the rusty-red of cinnabar! One cinnabar pebble from the fountain's largest bottom bowl surely wouldn't be missed.

She heard laughter then, from two places: to her right, where the slave held his sides as he giggled, and behind, where a human woman—the august emerita—sat behind a wicker table and laughed without moving her lips.

"Ver guards his treasure well, child," the emerita said. "Take your cinnabar pebble from another bowl."

Mahtra was wary—how could the woman have known she wanted a cinnabar pebble?—but she was clever enough about the ways of high templars to know she should take what had been granted without delay. And the august emerita was a high templar. Though she wrapped her ancient body in layers of sheer silk just like a courtesan, there was a heavy gold medallion hanging around her withered neck. Mahtra snatched the biggest red pebble she could see, then, while it was still dripping, stuffed it in her mouth.

"Good. Now, come, sit down and have something more nourishing to eat."

There was a plate of things on the wicker table... pinkish-orange things with too many legs and wispy eyestalks that were still moving and were nothing that Mahtra wanted to eat.

"Benin, go to the pantry and fetch up a plate of fruit and dainties. Our guest has a delicate palate."

She didn't want fruit, Mahtra thought as the slave departed. She wanted her mask; she wanted to leave, she wanted to return to her vigil outside House Escrissar.

"Sit down, child," the woman said with a sigh.

Despite the sigh—or possibly because of it—Mahtra hied herself to a chair and sat.

"How many days and nights have you been waiting, child?"

Mahtra considered the layers in her memory: More than two, she was sure of that. Three or four?

"Three or four, child—try ten. You'd been sitting there for ten days and nights!"

Ten—that was more than she'd imagined, but what truly jolted Mahtra was the realization that, like Father, the august emerita could skim the words of her thoughts from her mind's surface. So she thought about her mask, and how badly she wanted it.

The woman smiled a high templar's knowing smile. She looked a little like Father, with creases across her face and streaks in her hair that were as white as Mahtra's own skin. Her eyes, though, were nothing like Father's. They were dark and hard, like Lord Escrissar's eyes, which she'd seen through the holes of his mask. All the high templars had eyes like that.

"All of us have been tempered like the finest steel, child. Tell me your name—ah, it's Mahtra. I thought so. Now, Mahtra—"

But she hadn't thought the word of her name. The august emerita had plunged deep into her mind to pluck out her name. That roused fear and, more than fear, a sense that she was unprotected, and that made the marks on her shoulders tingle.

I mean you no harm, Mahtra. I'm no threat to you.

Mahtra felt the makers' protection subside as it had never done before, except in her nightmares when Death ignored her. This was no dream. The woman had done something to her, Mahtra was sure of that. She couldn't protect herself, and learned yet another expression for fear.

"No harm, Mahtra. Your powers will return, but were I you, child, I'd learn more about them. I'm long past the days when helplessness excited me, but—as you've noticed—I'm an old woman, and you won't find many like me. I want only to know why you've sat on the doorsill of House Escrissar these last ten days. Don't you know Elabon's dead?"