As Rylin took the switchback toward the cemetery, he deliberately kept his eyes forward. If he were to look left he’d see where the statue of Darassa should have risen above the city domes, at least two of which had gaping holes. He might have glimpsed the Naor camp, or the ruins of the stadium. So that evening, as the shadows grew long, he gazed only upon the city of the dead, for the present and future were far more painful to contemplate than the past.
He rode along the lane beside the cemetery ridge, stopping at last beside a little grassy square where two mounts grazed. Both horses, a brown and a light gray with a black mane and tail, looked at him curiously before returning to their own business.
Rylin left his horse with these and strode forward on weary legs. As he continued on, it occurred to him that this is where he’d had the first intimation that something strange was afoot. He hadn’t really been paying close enough attention, of course, but he’d been sitting his lost horse Rurudan right over there, next to a now equally lost Lasren. And then, in the midst of a dull speech, Kyrkenall had galloped off with Elenai in tow, riding as though someone’s life depended on it. Curious, he had thought then, and wondered what mad impulse had taken the archer from an important ritual he’d never before seen fit to attend. Rylin recalled losing track of the droning oratory to imagine a confrontation with the famed Alten if whatever he was dragging Elenai into went badly for her.
He trudged the final yards up to N’lahr’s tomb and found the door standing open.
The last time he’d been here, Varama had opened the door and even smashed the corner of N’lahr’s beautifully rendered sarcophagus lid to minutely examine his lifeless remains. This time the real N’lahr was there, but he was living and breathing and sitting on the bench, far less pristine than the perfect false corpse Varama had discovered within. Kyrkenall sat beside him, one leg up, his booted foot pressed against the stone coffer.
“Hail, Alten,” Kyrkenall said, and lifted his bottle in salute.
“Hail, Altenerai,” Rylin replied as he lingered under the lintel. He glanced to the right of Kyrkenall’s dusty boot, where part of the relief of N’lahr’s sleeping, carved face had been shattered by Varama.
“Come inside,” N’lahr said.
“You’re blocking the light,” Kyrkenall added.
Rylin came through, glancing around the dim interior, and his eyes dropped to the sarcophagus. Even though he couldn’t see the fake cadaver inside and he knew it wasn’t real, the thought of it still disturbed him. He wondered if N’lahr had looked over the eerie duplicate of himself housed within.
He stepped around the stone coffin and its broken image of N’lahr reposed, and sat down on the other side of the living man.
“How did you find us?” Kyrkenall asked.
“Elenai thought you might be here.”
N’lahr noticed the direction of Rylin’s gaze. “I looked inside,” he said.
“It’s bad enough for me to look at it,” Rylin told him.
“I think we should drag the thing out,” Kyrkenall said. “We can pull some pretty great jokes with it, don’t you think? Especially with the chunk missing on the face.”
N’lahr silenced him with a look.
The archer leaned past N’lahr to better see Rylin. “Here to tell us to come back?”
“Mostly. But I wanted to hear more details about Alantris.”
N’lahr sighed with regret. “It was bad. Two-thirds of the city is in ruins. Some are saying it should be abandoned. Others want to rebuild. But the Naor are finished there.”
“And what about the squires?”
“They were a credit to the corps,” N’lahr answered. “They steadily weakened and demoralized the enemy before we arrived, and opened the gates for us.” He fell silent for a moment, then looked over to him. His voice grew somber and slow. “But they suffered terrible casualties. All of Varama’s lead squires perished.”
“All of them?” Rylin felt a sharp pang. “What about Sansyra?” Odd, that he should care suddenly for the fate of someone who had never liked him. At least, not until the end.
N’lahr looked as though that death had struck particularly hard. “She died after fighting a mage on a dragon. She killed the mage. Varama told me she planned to nominate her for the ring,” he finished slowly. “I asked her if she wanted to award her a posthumous elevation.”
A handful of those had occurred, over the course of the years, when a squire had perished heroicly in the line of duty. They were thereafter credited in the rolls as having reached the seventh rank despite never donning the ring.
N’lahr finished his thought. “But Varama wasn’t sure Sansyra still wanted to be an alten, so she’s finding a different way to honor her.”
Rylin nodded, wondering that he should be so affected that he had no appropriate words. And then another thought came to him. “Aradel had a niece. Denalia. Did she…”
At N’lahr’s slow head shake in the negative, Rylin swore. The only words that would come.
Kyrkenall handed him the wine. “I’m sorry about your friends,” the archer said gently.
“It’s the damnedest thing,” he said after a long pull. It was overly sweet. He passed it back without comment, and wiped a tear from his cheek. “I barely knew Denalia. And Sansyra wasn’t really my friend … Thelar and I hated each other. And yet … we had each other’s back today. It’s all different now.”
“On the line you find out who your real friends are,” Kyrkenall said.
Rylin’s hand stretched up to his chin, clear of beard hair for the first time in days. Apart from a cursory wash, the shave was the only grooming he’d managed since the battle this afternoon, unless he counted the change of his undergarments. He hadn’t yet had time for a bath, or a haircut, or a deep cleaning of his khalat. All of those would be nice, though what he really wished was to sleep for about a week.
He didn’t want to sound as though he was challenging either man, who were not only senior officers but living legends, so he still hesitated a moment before finally asking the question he’d been wondering all the way out to the ridge. “What are you two doing out here, anyway?”
“You mean instead of rushing around the capital with a push broom?” Kyrkenall asked.
“No,” he said, although there was a small element of truth to that line of inquiry.
“Me, I had to get away from all those people and all those questions before I killed someone.” Kyrkenall thumbed at N’lahr. “And my friend here needed to rest after winning Alantris then racing overnight to get here.”
“I didn’t win Alantris,” N’lahr said fiercely. Even Kyrkenall looked startled and N’lahr’s tone quickly cooled. “You give me too much credit. Varama’s the one who weakened the Naor. She set everything in place, through careful planning, and great risk. All she needed were the numbers I escorted. Nearly everything else was already laid out.”
“Here’s to Varama, then,” Kyrkenall said, and drank.
Rylin suddenly missed her, terribly.
“As for why I’m here,” N’lahr said, “I wanted to see my tomb.”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Kyrkenall asked. “I thought Asrahn’s husband did a great job with your image on the door.”
N’lahr agreed lightly. “The view is extraordinary. The bench is uncomfortable.”
Kyrkenall snorted. “I bet it’s worse inside the box.”
“If I was in the box, I wouldn’t notice the view or the discomfort.”
“Fair point. If you like,” Kyrkenall said, “we can drag out some cushions next time.”
“I don’t intend to spend my free time here,” N’lahr said dryly. “We probably ought to be going.”
Kyrkenall’s mouth twisted in annoyance and he took a pull from the bottle. “I know there’s an awful lot to do, but is there any particular crisis we’re needed for, just this minute?”
“Apart from the fact we may only have days before the queen summons a mysterious, long-vanished goddess, and we don’t know what will happen if she does? And that no one knows exactly where the queen has gone?” Rylin was surprised by his own sarcasm.
So, apparently, was Kyrkenall, who stared at him, then laughed. “You’re all right, Rylin. Did you have any luck getting the queen’s location out of the exalts?”
Rylin shook his head. “They don’t know. I’ve been searching the queen’s office for clues. Thelar’s looking into some stones on a shelf there. He said he thought they might be important.”
“Stones on a shelf?” Kyrkenall repeated, instantly alert. “Gem stones?”
“Yes,” Rylin said, and at the bowman’s look of intense interest, added, “I found an Altenerai ring next to one of them, and I think it might be Kalandra’s.”
Kyrkenall swore and sprang from the bench, then sprinted out the door.
Rylin looked to the commander, who had climbed to his feet. In moments they heard hoofbeats receding.
“What has him in such a hurry?”
“He’s been looking for Kalandra, and was told she might be in a gem, on a shelf.”
Rylin wondered how that could be possible, then shook his head. After all that he’d seen in the last few days, very little defied belief now. “Here’s hoping, then.”
“Yes. I’ve stayed up here too long.” N’lahr started for the door. “I imagine the councilors have their hands full trying to sort everything out.”
“They’re still trying to decide who’s really in charge,” he said as he followed the commander into the sunlight. “And the city sectors are picking councilors to replace the ones the queen killed.” He fell quiet briefly at the thought of what he’d see in those council halls if he walked into that side of the building. “There’s already talk of choosing a new queen.”
“Have they nominated one of the councilors or governors?” N’lahr asked.
“No. But a big crowd of people was gathering outside the Hall of Ancestors when I left, shouting their choice.”
“Who?” N’lahr asked.
“Elenai.”