7.

 

Away from the Spine of Ger, Ayae dug her nails into the palms of her hand and fought for control. Part of her urged returning to the stairs to confront them all, to strike out, scream at the injustice of it just once; while another part urged her to keep walking, ignore the warmth at the tips of her fingers and the heat that soaked into the palm of her hands as her anger threatened to overwhelm her.

As the Spine fell behind her, Ayae found herself walking toward the Keep. Her first glance at the emerging structure saw her step falter, but as she drew closer and the gates that led to the empty gardens appeared, her step strengthened. Fo had not explained the curse enough to her—he had hidden everything behind his fanaticism, behind his dislike for Reila, and she had been in no condition to push him. Orlan was not entirely right that they were the only people to turn to about curses in Mireea, but they would certainly know the most, and she would press them for more information.

She was led from the gate by an elderly guard, his beard slivered with silver and his eyes the color of wet stone. The warm, spice smells filled the Keep as the corridors twisted left and right, leading up flights of turning stairs cut into solid stone. With each step a series of doubts cracked beneath her, each one ending in the desire to turn around, to leave. To pave over what was broken. But the silence that she was treated to from the guard, and the way his back remained straight as if the muscles had frozen in place at her arrival, served to remind her of why she was making the trip. She knew that she could not walk away.

There were four towers in the Spine’s Keep, each designed to mirror the towers that sat along the Spine, though without the practicality that those battlements actually had. The Keep’s towers were named after the directions that they faced and were symbolic before anything else. The West Tower offered no strategic advantage, unless an army managed to climb the sheer drop it faced—and it was to the door of that tower Ayae was led by the guard, who left without a nod.

Alone, she stood before the door, her hands balled tight at her side. What would she say once she entered? Fo was a powerful man. He was a member of the Enclave, a Keeper who was, she had heard, over a thousand years old, and had a worldview unlike her own. Ayae did not hate anyone with a curse—in truth, before today, she had never met anyone cursed—and she would not have raised her voice like Keallis, nor given into fear so easily, or at least she hoped; but she was not someone who enjoyed confrontation, or who saw it as a way to resolve her problems. How long she stood there lost in thought about how best to proceed, Ayae was not sure. It was entirely possible that she would have continued standing if a person had not emerged from the twisting halls of the Keep behind her and stopped at her side, his white robe stained in blood, his hands even more so.

He was a handsome man. When he smiled, faintly and with a hint of mockery, she felt herself respond. “I believe you are the cartographer’s assistant, yes?”

She said her name.

“Ayae,” he repeated. “You are obviously not from Mireea, with that name.”

“Sooia.” She felt awkward. “Some people struggle with pronouncing it. Few get it right the first time, unlike you.”

“But then I am not from here, just like you.” His bloodstained hands spread out before him and he paused. “I’m Bau.”

“The Healer.”

“Most of the time,” he agreed. “Some days, a life is beyond mine to save.”

“Today?”

“No, not today. Despite my distaste for this city, not today. Come, let us find you a chair and me a change of clothes and some water to wash myself.”

Bau pushed the door to the tower open with a touch of weariness, the smell of dried flowers and chemicals washing over them. The first thing that Ayae noticed was that beneath the windows were rows of cages, most no larger than what could be held in two hands—though three, sitting on the ground, would have required two people to lift them. Although the sunlight washed over the old wooden tables placed there, each cage had a cloth draped over it, plunging the inside into darkness and keeping its contents from her sight. Around the cages were glass tubes, burners, pipes and beakers, each connected in an elaborate skeleton that, at the end, in a small pot, was the cause of the chemical smell that was so strong in the room. It was there that the hairless figure of Fo stood with a steel rod in his hand, gently stirring what he had created.

“You’re late,” he said, absently.

“And you have a guest.” Bau turned to Ayae. “A moment, please. I need to clean myself up.”

She nodded and was left alone with Fo, who regarded her intently with his scarred eyes, his right hand absently stirring. Finally, with a faint smile creasing his lips, he said, “It’s good to see you today. I thought that we may have to chase you, come the evening.”

“I came here to talk.”

“Good.” Lifting the metal rod out of the beaker, he tapped it on the side. “The God Ir knew every organ in every living creature. It was said that he had never had an original form, that he had shifted and changed to mirror whatever creature he came upon. He did this, or so his followers said, so that he could learn how better to kill the things he saw. It was this that made him so appealing to those who killed for a living, be they hunters of animals, or of men and women. It was said that they respected his knowledge and paid homage to it in their own work.”

Gently, the Keeper lifted one of the black cloths off the cage next to him. In it, twisted upon itself in a coil of dark, earth brown, was a brown snake. Still—impossibly so, Ayae thought—the thick creature watched the hairless man as he pulled a small mouse out from beneath a table. He dropped it into his beaker, then lifted the soaking, squirming creature out and placed it through the bars of the snake’s cage.

A moment later, it was gone.

“Knowledge,” Fo said, as the snake settled back into stillness. “Awful things are done in its name.”

Unsure what to say, Ayae was saved by the return of Bau who smiled slightly at her. “We might have a problem,” he said, changing the subject.

“Did they find it?” Fo asked.

“In a way.” In a fresh white robe, the handsome man lowered himself into a chair. “He was there.”

Fo turned slowly from his snake, regarding the other man intently. “You didn’t try to fight him, did you?”

“Do I look like a fool?”

“You look like a man who moments ago was covered in blood.”

“I know the laws as well as you do.”

“And you know just as I do that he has no time for the laws.”

Bau’s expression was sour. “A soldier was attacked by the Quor’lo. That was his blood you saw.”

“And the Madman?”

“Last I heard, he was chasing a Quor’lo down a hole.”

Behind Fo, the snake began to move in discomfort. “What do you think he’s doing here, then?”

“He sent him, obviously.”

“What if he came of his own accord? It is difficult to tell with him these days.”

“Aelyn would know,” Bau said, troubled. “She watches him, closely.”

“And if she already knew?”

Ayae—tearing her eyes from the shifting form of the snake, the mouse still visible in it—said, “Who are you talking about?”

“Your savior,” Fo replied.

Bau’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

She should leave. The thought was clear. She was out of her depth. She would gain nothing by being here, would learn nothing that they did not already think she should know. There were other ways, other people. Ayae took a step backward. As she took that first step Fo shook his head, his scarred eyes holding her. “If you have questions, ask, child. You need not fear the asking.”

“You are scaring her, Fo,” the other man said, rising from his seat. Shaking his head, he closed his warm hand around her arm gently. “Ignore his tone. Fo has a history with the man who saved you, though he is probably not even aware of it.”

“Zaifyr,” she whispered.

“Is that the name he’s using?”

“Who is he?”

Bau guided her to a seat that was touched by the last of the morning’s sunlight. She could see the snake’s skin bulging, but worse, could see the outline of the soaked mouse. “A man, like you and me. But a man thousands of years old, older than either myself or Fo. A man who talks to the dead, as if they were his own.”

“Which he once said they were,” Fo added, his tone heavy with dislike.

“How do you know this?”

Behind the hairless man, the sound of scratching began, the mouse’s frantic movements tearing through the snake’s skin. “Because,” he said, “a long time ago, my parents worshipped him as a god.”