Cinnabar Shadows (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 4)

"You will accompany Mahtra to the palace. Show this to the sergeant at the gate, and the instigator, too—but don't give it to them, and don't let Mahtra out of your sight until you reach the golden doors. Stay with her. Show my words to anyone who challenges you."

She folded the parchment, struck a tinder stick with flint and steel, and then lit a shiny black candle. She sealed the parchment with a glistening blob of wax. One of the two slaves took the candle from her hand and extinguished it. The other handed her a stone rod as long as her forearm and topped with the carving of a skull. Black wax and a skull. The symbols and their meanings were inescapable: the august emerita was—or had been—a deadheart, a necromancer at the very least; but considering the way this necromancer plucked the thoughts of the living, more likely, an interrogator, like Lord Escrissar himself, and one of the Lion's cubs.

Mahtra cried out when the august emerita hammered the rod against the wax. She felt foolish immediately, but these two slaves were not the laughing, teasing sort that Bett

in was. Or perhaps they, like her, were overwhelmed by the old woman's intentions.

"This should be sufficient." She handed the sealed parchment to the slave who'd held the rod. "It shouldn't be opened at all until you reach the golden doors. But if it is, remember the face well. Remember all their faces, their masks, their names, if you hear them."

No one had dared tamper with Kakzim. Not even the august emerita.

* * *

Sobered and chastened, Mahtra accompanied the two slaves from the templar quarter and through the wide-open gates of Hamanu's palace. The courtyard was as vast as the cavern, but open to the sky and dazzling in the midday sun. Here and there clots of templars, nobles, and wealthy merchants conducted their business. She recognized some of them. They recognized her by pretending not to. And though the air was dead still and the heat oppressive, Mahtra hid herself within her shawl.

They were hailed at the inner gate by a war bureau sergeant and a civil bureau instigator, each in a yellow robe with the distinctive and appropriate sleeve banding. The war bureau sergeant wanted to carry the message himself to the next post. He told the two slaves that they were dismissed, but he withdrew his order when the taller slave said:

"I will remember your face."

After that they traveled through a smaller courtyard where trees grew and fountains squandered their water. Threads of gold and copper were woven in the sleeves of the templars they encountered next, and more metal still in the sleeves of the third pair who stood at the mighty doors of the palace proper. Mighty doors, but not golden ones— Mahtra and her two companions were passed to a fourth and finally a fifth pair of templars—high templars, with masks and other-colored robes—before they came to a closed but unguarded pair of golden doors.

"You've done well," one of the masked templars said to the slaves. "Remember us to the august emerita. We wish her continued peace." He took the black-sealed parchment, then opened one of the golden doors. "Wait in here," he said, and as quickly as that, Mahtra was completely alone.

She found herself in an austere chamber no larger than the august emerita's atrium, but empty, save for a single black marble bench; and quiet, save for the gentle cascade of water flowing over the great black boulder in front of the bench. There was no source for the water. Its presence, its endless movement, had to be the manifestation of powerful magic.

Mahtra had learned a few useful things in House Escrissar, like where to sit when she didn't know what to expect next. She headed for that part of the wall that was farthest from the rock and yet afforded a clear view of the now-shut golden doors. It was no different than sitting on Lord Escrissar's doorsill, except the door was in front of her, not behind.

"Have you been waiting long?"

The doors hadn't opened, the young man hadn't come through them, and she nearly leapt out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

"Did I frighten you?"

She shook her head. Surprise was one thing, fright another, and she knew the difference well enough. He'd surprised her, but he wasn't frightening. With his lithe limbs and radiant tan, he could have been one of the august emerita's slaves, if his cheeks hadn't been as flawless as the rest of him. As he was, with those unmarked cheeks and wearing little more than his long, dark hair and a length of bleached linen wound around his body, she took him for eleganta, like herself.

"Who are you waiting for?" he asked, standing in front her and offering his hand.

Without answering the question, she accepted help she didn't need. He was stronger than Mahtra expected, leaving her with the sense of being set down on her feet rather than lifted up to them. Indeed, there seemed something subtly amiss in all his aspects, not a disguise, but not quite natural either. He was like no one she'd known, as different as she was, herself.

In the space of a heartbeat, Mahtra decided that the eleganta was made, not born. That he was what the makers meant when they called her a mistake.

"I am waiting for your lord, King Hamanu," she answered slowly and with all her courage.

"Ah, everybody waits for Hamanu. You may wait a long time."

He led her toward the bench where she sat down again, though he did not sit beside her.

"What will you tell him when he gets here? — If he gets here." "If I tell you, will you tell me about the makers?"

"Those makers," he said after a moment, confirming her suspicions and her hopes. "It's been a very long time, but I can tell you a little about them... after you tell me what you're going to tell Hamanu."

What he'd just told her was enough: a very long time. Made folk didn't grow up. She hadn't changed in the seven years she could remember. He hadn't changed in a very long time. They weren't like Father or the august emerita; they didn't grow old.

Mahtra began her story at the august emerita's beginning and this seemed to satisfy her made companion, though he interrupted, not because he hadn't understood, but with questions: How long had Gomer been selling her cinnabar beads? What did Henthoren look like and had she ever met any other elven market enforcers? Did she know the punishment for evading Hamanu's wards was death by evisceration?

She hadn't, and decided not to ask what evisceration was. He didn't tell her, either, and that convinced her that he wasn't skimming words from her mind, but understood her as Mika had.

When she had finished, he told her that the water-filled tavern was Urik's most precious treasure. "All Hamanu's might and power would blow away with the sand if anything fouled that water-hoard. He will reward you well for this warning."