The dry wind tore at Rian’s hair as he stood outside the Marai’s low wall. In the distance he could see the unfamiliar shape of the mountain range. Low dark clouds brushed the cone-shaped peaks. The nearest building was only a few hundred yards away. It was shaped like two giant stone balls standing next to each other, connected by three open bridges, the whole about as tall as the Marai’s central tower. From here he could see an opening in the base of the nearer ball, large enough to drive four wagons through side by side.
Rian glanced at Lord Karuda. All the Kushorit were afraid to approach the strange city. Rian couldn’t blame them for it; he was terrified of the thought himself. Standing here, outside the low wall of the Marai, he could feel his heart pounding like one of the Temple Dancers’ drums. Karuda’s face was as immobile as a statue’s, but Rian had the feeling the noble wasn’t any happier about this than he was.
Karuda caught Rian’s eye and made an “after you” gesture. Rian lifted a brow in appreciation, then started to walk.
After only a moment, Karuda followed, and after a much longer moment, the six Palace Guards who had been chosen to accompany them followed him. Only three had bows, the most useful weapon if anything came at them across the open ground. Most of the guards who had accompanied the Celestial Throne had only been armed with short swords. The temple guards had been outside the wall, helping keep the festival crowds in order, and there had been no need to have more than a ceremonial detachment of the Palace Guard inside the temple with the Throne.
As they walked, Rian squinted, trying to see inside the dark opening in the rounded wall. He wished that someone in the temple had had a distance glass; it would have come in very handy. More detail of the building’s decoration was visible now. He could make out the angular designs on the bands of roundels carved on the wide part of the ball sections. There was no sign of life, no tracks in the dusty ground. No hint of Marada’s people, if it had been her work that had done this. No birds, no insects even. The city was utterly quiet except for the wind and the noise they themselves made.
If anything did come at them, their only advantage was that they would see it across this open expanse. And that’s only while the light holds, Rian thought. The sky, purple-gray with angry clouds, had been getting gradually darker for the past hour at least.
“We’ll be perfect targets,” Karuda said grimly, obviously thinking along the same lines.
“We’re perfect targets anywhere in the Marai,” Rian pointed out.
Karuda drew a sharp breath, then shook his head. “I know.” They walked in silence for a time, then Karuda said, “So. Are we enemies?”
Rian didn’t answer immediately, trying to gauge the man’s intent. The dusty wind pulled at their clothes and hair and someone walking behind sneezed. Karuda was looking ahead toward the building and Rian couldn’t read his expression. Finally Rian said, “That depends on you, doesn’t it? And Mirak.”
With a hint of reproof, Karuda said, “Mirak is acting for the Celestial Throne.”
“The Celestial Throne can’t help us now.” Rian jerked his head back toward the Marai, where Maskelle was. “She can.”
Karuda didn’t have to ask who he meant. “The chief religious of the Empire serves the Throne. Does she?”
Rian shrugged. “If she didn’t, I think you’d know by now.”
Karuda lifted an ironic brow. “That is probably true. Unfortunately.”
Rian thought Karuda realized as well as he did that this was no time for Court machinations, when the Court no longer existed and they might all be dead within the day or the hour, but he couldn’t give over all suspicion yet. Probably because Mirak had made his own feelings clear. The problem is, some people are just that stupid, and Mirak may be one of them. “What exactly does Mirak think she’s going to do?”
Karuda looked into the distance and finally shook his head once, as if in dismissal. “Make an agreement with our enemy.”
Karuda didn’t sound certain at all, as if he wasn’t any more attuned to the Chancellor’s thinking processes than Rian was. Rian didn’t find that terribly comforting. “We don’t know who our enemy is.”
Karuda grimaced. “I know that.”
Rian gave up. There was no point in arguing with Karuda about points they both agreed with. “Well, maybe we’ll know soon.”
“Or we’ll be dead.” Karuda’s voice was low and grim.
“Then it won’t be our problem.”
Karuda’s short bark of laughter held no mirth.
Even if they were never attacked, Rian knew they had only a limited time here. Unless the storm overhead broke, the only water was in the double reflecting pools on either side of the causeway and the other small basins in the temple courts. The first solar tower contained a storeroom with bags of rice and taro root and some bundles of sugar cane, which were used to pay the temple servants, and at the moment this was their only source of food. The Temple Master was sorting it out and tallying the amounts now, and soon they would know just how many days’ supply they had. If this place even had days.
There was no way to approach the building subtly, no possible cover to take, so they simply walked toward the doorway. As they drew closer, Rian was relieved to see that appearances hadn’t lied; the place did seem deserted. Gray dust had gathered in drifts along the base of the walls, and this close he could see there were cracks in the carved roundels and some of the windows above them had pieces broken from the sides. Whatever lay beyond the wide doorway was still lost in shadow.
Rian reached it first and stopped just inside the archway, letting his eyes adjust. This was the most dangerous moment, when something could come at him out of that darkness. But nothing moved except the dust and the wind.
The shadows lightened to reveal an open, empty chamber. Well, it’s not going to take as long to look through it as I thought, he realized, not sure whether he was disappointed or relieved.
It was a vast space, taking up the whole of the building, the walls curving to the dome high overhead. Wan light came through the small windows, throwing odd speckled patterns on the gray mottled stone. The place smelled thickly of dust, age, and dead stale air. Rian stepped inside tentatively, then moved to the side, following the curve of the wall. High in the far side, he could see the round openings for the bridges that connected it with the second part of the structure.
Karuda and the others fanned out, looking around, equally mystified.
Rian touched the stone of the wall. It was cool and the surface was rough, lightly pitted. He dug at the dust with his boot, exposing the place where the wall joined the pavement. The seam was as close as that between the paving blocks outside. He had thought the Kushorit were masters of stonework, but whoever had built this city had obviously been even more skilled.
“Nothing,” one of the men whispered, looking up at the height above.
“No bats, no birds, no spiders,” Karuda said, glancing around at the dust-strewn pavement.
Rian knew that wasn’t what the man meant. “No,” he told Karuda. “No stairs, no ladders.” And no sign that any had ever been attached to the wall.
As if whoever had built this place hadn’t needed them.
They returned to the temple, entering through what had been the north side water gate in the outer wall. Leaving the smooth paving blocks for the more familiar pitted stone of the steps was a relief. Rian rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the feeling of having a target painted on his back. Karuda paused to speak to the sentries posted at the gate and Rastim, who had been hovering nearby, hurried to Rian’s side. The Ariaden had been brave enough to come out a short distance onto the pavement, which was more than most of the Kushorit were willing to do, but he hadn’t quite dared to follow Rian and the others all the way to the first building. Rastim asked worriedly, “Did you see anything?”
Rian swallowed a sarcastic answer and said, “No, it was empty. Completely empty.” Rastim was, in his way, trying hard to be helpful, though about the only thing he had been good for so far was keeping Rian company while he walked around and saw just exactly how terrible the situation was.
Rian described briefly what they had seen in the first building. The other half of it, the second ball that was connected to the first by the bridges, had not had an outside door.
Rastim rubbed his chin, puzzled. “Wood,” he said finally. “The inner floors were all of wood, and it’s been so long it’s turned to dust.”
“It’s possible,” Rian conceded. “Funny the trees haven’t grown back after all this time.”
“It won’t help,” Karuda said as Rian and Rastim reached the terrace that bordered the wall. The noble watched the last group of sentries take their position in the low tower in the corner. “Anything could come over this wall.”
To say the Marai hadn’t been designed for defense was a laughable understatement. It had been built in the center of a city that had been at peace for hundreds of years, designed to allow worshippers and gawkers to wander in and out at will. The outer wall that was meant to border the moat was low and broken by four gates barred by nothing but broad flights of water steps that now invited entry from the open ground surrounding them. Rian didn’t think much of their chances either, even with Karuda’s men at each entrance and temple servants and monks posted as sentries in all the vantage points.
“Then what will help?” Rian asked seriously. “I’d really love to know.” Rastim shifted, but managed to keep his mouth shut.
Karuda said nothing. No one had seen any movement or sign of life out in the city so far, but someone had built it, just like someone had brought them here. Or brought here there, Rian thought. No one was discussing it, but Maskelle and the other priests knew that the Marai had not been somehow snatched from its foundations and dropped in this strange barren world; the cloud that Rian had seen cover the city had brought this world within it, had laid it over the surrounding country like a carpet over floorboards. What they didn’t know was why the Marai was still here at all, if it had been left intentionally or had somehow saved itself and anyone within its boundaries at the last instant. Though that might prove to be more a curse than a mercy, depending on what else lived in this place.
Karuda’s gaze had shifted to the sky. Ignoring Rian’s question, he said, “It’s getting darker.”
“At least that means there’s a night,” Rastim put in suddenly. “This place may not be as strange as it looks. If there’s a night, there has to be a sun past those clouds somewhere.”
Karuda just stared at him.
“If there’s anything here,” Rian explained reluctantly, “it may be more likely to attack at night. And we won’t see it coming.”
Rastim drew a sharp breath. “Oh.”
Karuda said, “I’ll be in the inner court,” and walked away toward the front of the temple.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Rastim said, “That one could make trouble.”
“Thank you, Master of the Obvious.” Shaking his head, Rian started across the court toward the steps up to the gallery.
“Don’t get snappy with me, Sintane, I’m on your side,” Rastim said, right on his heels.
“Oh, good.”
Reaching the gallery, Rian heard a regular tapping echo down the pillared hall. He stopped at the top of the steps, frowning. “What’s that?”
Rastim looked around, baffled. “Someone hammering on the stone?”
“No, that’s wood.” The walls threw back echoes, making it difficult to tell where the tapping came from. Rian drew his siri and slowly paced down the gallery.
The outside wall had openings between the pillars that gave a view onto the terrace and the grass court; the inside wall was solid except for the doorways into the second inner court. Anything could have entered the Marai during the confusion after the change. The tapping seemed a little louder and Rian knew he had chosen the right direction.
In the shadows at the base of a column he saw a long dark shape, but a cautious step closer revealed that it was only a wooden box. A familiar wooden box. Rian let out his breath. This damn thing.
“Gisar. I forgot all about it.” Rastim blanched. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Rian moved closer and circled the box, though he was careful not to touch it. At least the lock still looked secure. He supposed if it could do more than tap, the thing would have burst out and gone on a rampage by now.
“What are we going to do?” Rastim muttered in dismay, wringing his hands. “It could make someone let it out again. It could—”
Rian slid the siri back into the scabbard. “Rastim, if you’re going to panic, pick something else to panic about. There’s plenty to choose from. This is the least of our problems.”
Rastim pulled himself together with a little shake and took a deep breath. “I suppose you’re right.” His brow furrowed with worry, he added, “But what about the noise? It might lure someone out here and trick them into releasing it. Will we have to put a guard on it?”
Rian had to admit he had a point. Thinking it was worth a try, he kicked the box. “Hey, demon puppet. Be quiet or we’ll use you for firewood.” The tapping ceased. Rastim looked hopeful. Then a low, gravelly voice said, “Let me out.”
“Yah!” Rastim leapt back a step.
Rian felt the hackles on the back of his neck itch and a slow chill crept up his spine. “Did it ever do that before?”
“No.” Rastim shook his head, his eyes wide.
It said again, “Let me out.”
A strange grinding note lay under the words, like wood grating painfully. The other Ariaden puppets had hinged jaws, so the operator could make them appear to speak. The image of the thing lying packed in its box, that fake jaw working, made Rian deeply uneasy. To the puppet he said, “I don’t think so.”
It said, “I can help you.”
Rastim’s expression went from horrified to incredulous. Rian snorted and said, “And we should believe you because you’ve been so much help in the past?”
“I’m not cursed anymore. The spirits of the temple came into me and frightened the curse away.”
Oh, I’ll bet, Rian thought. It might have sounded almost convincing had the thing’s eerie voice not had quite such a coy note to it. Something had gotten into it true enough, but it wasn’t any spirit that came from the Marai. It said again, “Let me out. I’ll help you.”
“Of course, we’ll let you out.” Rian backed away, motioning for Rastim to follow him. The actor circled wide around the box, watching it as if Gisar might suddenly leap out at him. Rian added, “Just give me some time to find the key.”
He led Rastim to the nearest door into the second inner court and said, “Wait here while I find out what Maskelle wants to do about this.” Personally he was hoping for a bonfire. “Don’t let anybody go near that thing.”
“All right.” Rastim nodded, his round face worried. He wiped his palms off on his shirt, glancing back at the box warily. “We can’t really break it up or burn it, you know, unless this thing that’s in it now is different from the original curse. Maskelle said destroying it would just release the curse and make it more powerful.”
“That’s good to know.” Rian swore under his breath as he started away. Of course they couldn’t destroy it, nothing about this situation was going to be that easy. Behind him, he heard Gisar begin to laugh, a painful wrenching sound that conveyed a fiendish amusement.
Rian found Maskelle in the central court. The place had begun to divide up into separate camps, which wasn’t an encouraging development. The royal party was in the east side of the gallery, behind the central tower. The priests, assorted monks, nuns, temple servants, and the Ariaden were in the south side of the gallery and the court around the tower itself. The Voices were in the chamber of the Rite, repairing the portion that had been disturbed during the change, but so far they seemed to be able to cross back and forth between the two camps with impunity. Rian hoped it stayed that way, since it was Vigar who was the key to Maskelle’s authority here.
The rest of the great temple was empty, except for the sentries posted in the towers and along the outer wall; everyone’s instinct seemed to be to stay as close to the central tower and the heart of the temple as possible. It was probably for the best.
As Rian came through the passage into the court, he saw most of the priests were up on the second level of the gallery, heads bowed in a meditation position, chanting in that low, rhythmic way he had heard the night before. He couldn’t understand the words; they must be from that special Koshan variant of Kushorit, but he still thought it sounded different from the chants last night. Last night, before the world ended, he thought. He shook his head and started down the steps. Last night seemed like years in the past.
Firac and Gardick caught him halfway across the court. Gardick had his customary suspicious scowl, but Firac just looked worried. “Any news?” he asked anxiously.
“Well, yes,” Rian admitted reluctantly. He didn’t want the word about Gisar to spread, but these two already knew most of it and he couldn’t risk leaving Rastim alone with the thing for long. “Not good. Rastim’s keeping an eye on something in the north side of the third gallery. Can you go and help him?”
Firac looked puzzled. “On the north side of the…” He had helped deliver Gisar to the temple and recognition lit his face. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.”
“What?” Gardick demanded. Firac caught his friend’s arm and hauled him toward the passage, saying grimly, “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Rian crossed the court and stepped up into the south gallery. They had closed off one of the side passages by draping some of the white festival banners over the openings and they had made a bed there for the Celestial One. He picked his way past the little circle of nuns who were gathered around the entrance, murmuring to themselves in meditation, and lifted the drape to step inside.
The makeshift room was kept warm with a couple of braziers, though their supply of wood was limited. Rian had enjoyed ordering the temple servants to break up one of the royal litters for its wooden poles and supports, but he knew just how hollow a victory it was. There were two libraries in the second court and two in the third court, if they got desperate for something to burn, but no one wanted to talk about that. It would mean admitting there was no way back. And Rian knew anyway there was no point to it; the supply of food would run out long before the supply of fuel.
The Celestial One lay on a pallet, his attendant priest and Old Mali sitting on the ground next to him. The old man was utterly still and looked as dead as the Voice Igarin had when Rian had persuaded the Temple Master to let him examine him. The young priest was deep in prayer or meditation, but Old Mali glanced up as Rian stepped in. She grimaced at him, an expression that might be either a welcome or a warning to keep his voice low, then wrung out a cloth over a bowl of water and placed it on the old man’s forehead.
Maskelle sat nearby in the meditation position he had seen her use before, her eyes closed. Her face looked hard in the muted light and Rian knew the Celestial One’s condition frightened her, though he was probably one of the few who could tell. And if he knew Court factions and intrigue, then on the other side of the gallery it was already being said that she wanted the Celestial One to stay dead. In the next few days, if things continued to go badly, the story would change to suggest that she had killed the old man herself.
Back against the wall, wrapped up in a piece of sacking, was Marada’s white stone ball. Maskelle had retrieved it from the Temple Master’s keeping to examine it again, hoping that in this strange place it would provide some clue to their enemy’s identity or location, but as far as he knew it had told her nothing.
The air was heavy with incense and Rian sneezed. Old Mali glared at him. Without opening her eyes, Maskelle said, “Come here.”
He stepped across to sit on his heels in front of her. She was doing that spirit-walking thing again, the way she had last night, when the bird-demon had killed Marada. When she held out her hand, he took it.
As soon as Rian closed his eyes he was outside the Marai, in the alien city, feeling that unbelievably strange sensation of the wind tearing through his insubstantial body. He had expected to be high up in the air, but they were only a few feet off the ground.
Taking up his entire field of vision was a dark gray stone wall. After a moment he got the trick of moving and rolled backward to get a better view. The wall arched up and away and he realized it was the side of a dome. About midway up was a carved roundel, like the bands of decoration he had seen on the building to the north. The design was of concentric rounds of raised or sunken squares, with other geometric figures woven between them. In the ears of his real body, Maskelle’s voice said, “It doesn’t look like writing. It’s not complicated enough. Unless it’s one or two symbols repeated over and over again.”
Rian tried swinging around, noting that he couldn’t see Maskelle’s spirit body. After a couple of tries he managed to face the right direction to get a view of the Marai from a distance. It looked odd, framed against the nightmare storm sky and the strange city, ripped away from the other temples that should surround it. The wind carried a curtain of sandy dust across the stone between their position and the temple, but nothing else moved. He swung around to eye the strange building again, trying to estimate scale. If he was judging it aright, this was the squat, bowl-shaped one to the east. “What about the inside?”
“This is as close as I can get, and it was hard going to make it this far,” Maskelle said. “The power pathways are all gone—no canals, no rivers, no roads, no croplines, no footpaths, no game trails, nothing. Not even any residue of where they were.”
Rian felt a sick feeling settle in his stomach at more confirmation that this was not their world. He couldn’t afford to think about it now. He said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
She dropped his hand and abruptly he was back in the incense-heavy air of the Celestial One’s sickroom. He sat back with a thump, startled at the sudden change, and Maskelle smiled apologetically at him. “Sorry.” She stretched and shook out her hair. “Let me guess. Trouble with Karuda?”
Rian leaned back on his hands, waiting for the room to stop spinning. “No, trouble with somebody else. Gisar.”
“Gisar?” Maskelle frowned. “Who the—Oh, him.” She was puzzled. “What can he do? The curse should be much weaker now.”
“It might not be the curse. It could be something else … or at least,” he added ruefully, “that’s what it said.”
Old Mali shook her head and muttered under her breath. Maskelle’s brows rose. “It said?” At his confirming nod, she gazed up at the ceiling the way she did when she was cursing the Ancestors. She told Old Mali, “I’ll be back soon.”
Out in the open gallery, Rian thought the scent of impending storm in the air was stronger. Maybe it would rain. He stopped in the gallery to tell one of the temple servants to make sure that anything that could possibly catch and hold water was set out in the open. As the woman hurried off to organize help, Rian caught up with Maskelle, who stood out in the court, squinting up at the sky.
She said, “So it is getting darker. I thought my eyes were going.”
Rian nodded. “It’ll be … interesting to see what happens then.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Is the Celestial One any better?” Rian asked her as they went up the steps to the passage. The man looked dead to him, but all the Koshans were so determined that he wasn’t, or that at least it wasn’t a permanent condition, it seemed easier to fall in with their belief. And he really didn’t want the old man to be dead. Rian wasn’t sure what it would signify if the old man did come back, but the Celestial One was like the Marai itself, and his continued existence would somehow mean that not everything was as bad as it seemed.
“The same.” Maskelle shook her head, preoccupied. “There’s really nothing we can do except wait and watch. When he comes back, it will be sudden.”
They passed under the second gallery and out into the second court. The chanting of the priests sounded louder and was beginning to take on that low reverberation that had echoed all the way to the Palace last night. “What are they chanting for? The Rite?” Rian asked her.
“No, it’s something different. They’re trying to make the Marai a little less vulnerable. It’s a very ancient ritual the Temple Master knew of.” Maskelle pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “We won’t know if it works until … well, it works.”
That was encouraging. “What will it do?”
“It will make a wall around the temple. A wall we can’t see, but that we can feel.”
Rian supposed he had seen stranger things, especially recently, and he tried not to sound doubtful. “All right.”
She grinned unexpectedly. “Wait and see.”
Rastim, Firac, and Gardick were gathered in a tight little knot in the doorway, nervously watching the box where it sat in the shadow of the pillars. Rastim glanced toward them as they crossed the court and the relief was evident on his face. He hurried to them and reported in a low tone, “It keeps asking to be let out.”
“Of course it wants out,” Maskelle said. She shook out her tangled braids and sighed. “It can’t kill anyone while it’s inside that box.”
“I hope not,” Rastim muttered. Rian followed Maskelle past Firac and Gardick. He could hear Gisar making little wooden chuckling noises to itself.
Maskelle paced cautiously toward the box, stopping a short distance away and sitting on her heels to eye it thoughtfully. Rian circled around the box to stand opposite her.
Before Maskelle could speak, Gisar said, “Did you come to let me out?”
Maskelle lifted a brow, exchanging an ironic look with Rian. She said, “And why should I do that?”
“My curse is gone,” it said, and the coy note was back. “I can help you.”
“I don’t think your curse is gone. But I think your curse may be finding it a little crowded in that wooden body right now.” She added, “Help us how?”
“Help you destroy your enemies.”
“I don’t think so.” Maskelle stood, starting to turn away. She added to the others, “These demons have no imagination.”
“You don’t even know who your enemies are.”
Its voice was subtly different. Deeper, less coy, more sure. Maskelle paused, watching it carefully. Skepticism evident in her tone, she said, “And you can tell us?”
“They journeyed here from a dying place, to take this place for their own.”
Maskelle’s face went still. “This place … The Celestial Empire?”
“The Celestial Empire, the Sintane, the Ariad, and beyond.”
Rian heard Rastim draw a sharp breath. He thought, It knows who it’s talking to. He wasn’t sure why the thought should give him such a sting of foreboding. Maybe because the demon had seemed more like something that was just reacting to them, randomly and maliciously. A knowledge of who they were and where they came from seemed to imply a more thoughtful intelligence. Maskelle was right, it’s not the same demon anymore.
“They did this? They constructed a Wheel of the Infinite to transform our world into theirs? Their dying world?” Maskelle said slowly.
“What’s the sense of it?” Rastim burst out. Maskelle squeezed his shoulder, signaling him to be silent. Rastim jumped as if he had forgotten anyone else was there and muttered, “Sorry.”
Ignoring the interruption, it said, “They miscalculated.” It sounded balefully pleased, as if it delighted in the mistake. “They meant to bring their city here, to take the place of Kushor-At and Kushor-An, and from there to take the rest. Instead they brought all their dead world.”
“But what can be done can be undone.” Maskelle eyed the box, her expression a little predatory.
“And done again, while they have the second Wheel.”
“We had thought of that,” she said dryly.
“Well for you.”
“Tell us where the Wheel is.”
It didn’t answer. They waited, and Maskelle asked more questions, but that was all it would say.
Gisar with a new demon, Maskelle thought wearily. And a demon that seemed to know far more about their enemies than they did. “I’m afraid Gisar may be a lost cause,” she said to Rastim as they walked back through the gallery.
They had left Gardick to watch the thing, and Rian, not wanting to take any chances, had called in a couple of Karuda’s men from the outer court to help him.
“That’s all right,” Rastim answered with a little shudder. “I really don’t think we’d want him in the company anymore.” He gestured helplessly. “But what are we going to do with it?”
“I’ll talk to the priests. We’ll put a guard on it at all times. And one of you”—Maskelle nodded to Rastim—“and a Koshan, to make sure it doesn’t play any tricks.”
Rian folded his arms. “What do you think it is? Something like Marada?”
“Possibly.” She frowned. This was a puzzle, and the answer might help them get out of this tangle. “But why did it tell us about them?”
“To frighten us?” Rastim said with a grimace. “I think the less I know of what’s going on, the better.”
Maskelle smiled, shaking her head as she stepped back out into the court. “Maybe you can hide under a blanket and I’ll wake you when it’s over?”
Before Rastim could reply, Firac spoke, his voice rough, “So you think it will be over, then? Sometime?”
It was the question no one else had quite dared to ask. Rastim watched Maskelle nervously, waiting for the answer. She paused, looking ahead toward the central tower where it rose over the galleries. She was debating how much to say, whether they wanted truth or reassurance. Finally she settled on a combination of both and said, “Oh, I think it’ll be over. Whether we’ll still be here when it is, I can’t say.” She glanced back up at them all. “I’ll tell you when I know.”
Firac nodded. “Well enough.”
The Temple Master met them as soon as they came through the gallery into the inner court. His face was drawn and worried, and he said, “The Throne wants to speak to you.”
They gathered in the court outside the portico of the central tower. The Emperor had sent all his guards to help watch the gates and the outer wall. The courtiers who had accompanied him stood between the pillars or sat on the balustrades of the gallery, grim faces hiding confusion and fear. Raith himself sat under the portico on one of the padded seats taken from the royal litters. Maskelle was startled at how old he looked. His office had already etched fine lines of care around his mouth and his eyes were deeply shadowed.
Vigar paced impatiently near the portico, obviously anxious to return to the Wheel, where the other Voices still worked. Chancellor Mirak stood with Karuda on the gallery steps. The other Koshans, the temple servants, and the Ariaden were an anxious audience in the opposite gallery. The chanting of the priests in the upper levels rose and fell like the howl of the wind.
Maskelle moved to a position directly opposite the Throne’s, with Rian and the Temple Master following her. Rastim and Firac moved to join the other Ariaden. A few people were talking, but all the voices fell away as Maskelle took her place.
Mirak started to speak, but Raith held up his hand for silence. The Emperor met Maskelle’s eyes, and said only, “Well?”
Maskelle smiled tightly, admiring his calm and the way he had shifted the burden onto her. It was a gesture that said, If you are the chief religious of what’s left of this Empire, then act like it. She folded her arms and said, “We’ve discovered something new, but the source is, at best, dubious.”
A faint stirring of curiosity and unease shifted through the crowd, as she repeated the gist of what the demon had said. Even Vigar stopped pacing. When she had finished, Raith shook his head a little, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Why would this creature betray its own people, if it is one of them?”
“That’s the question,” Vigar said.
Raith glanced over at him. “Do the libraries tell of anything like this happening before?”
A very Koshan question, Maskelle thought. Echoing her own words to Rian last night, Vigar said, “There are many places that touch the Infinite.” He waved a hand, gesturing at the strange city beyond the walls and galleries. “We have the evidence of our own eyes that it’s possible. If these people the demon speaks of learned the power to travel from place to place, in search of a new home to replace this one…”
Maskelle took a deep breath. “Believe it or not, the situation is the same as it was before this happened,” she said. “We need to search for the second Wheel.”
“Why? Why not simply begin the Rite, if you believe it will restore things to what they were?” Mirak protested.
Maskelle saw the flicker of annoyance on Raith’s face and surprised herself with a small surge of pride. He realizes it, too. As Vigar drew breath to answer, the Throne said, “Our enemies have proved that they can create a Wheel of the Infinite similar to our own. If the demon didn’t lie, they made a mistake in using it. Presumably they won’t make that same mistake again. All they have to do is rebuild their Wheel and we will have no second chance.” He leaned forward and added forcefully, “We must destroy their ability to use the Rite against us.”
“Exactly,” Vigar said, getting the word in before Mirak could speak. “It takes the combined power of Kushor-At and Kushor-An, and every other temple center in the Empire, to initiate our Rite. That power is stored now, in the Wheel and in the Infinite, ready to be expended. If we waste it, it will take another year for us to rebuild our Wheel, and then it won’t have the force of a Hundred Year Rite. We have no second chance.”
“Which begs the question…” Maskelle began carefully. She had one eye on Mirak, who had temporarily given up trying to take over the conversation, knowing he couldn’t sustain a debate with Vigar. “Where is their power coming from? Not our cities or temples. And there isn’t anything similar here, unless we simply can’t feel it.”
Vigar shook his head, unwilling to speculate with no information. Karuda stepped forward and said, “Will they know our Wheel is intact? If they do, they’ll come after it.”
Maskelle felt Rian shift beside her and knew he had drawn the same conclusion.
In his mild voice, the Temple Master said, “The Marai is no longer undefended.” His arms folded into the sleeves of his robe, he nodded up at the priests in the upper levels. “The barrier is complete. What they do now is only to keep it in place.”
“We’ll send out search parties for the second Wheel,” Raith said, standing. “Leave enough men behind to watch the boundary, but finding that Wheel must be our first task.” He looked around at all of them. “Small groups, with a few trained warriors, and a priest or monk who knows what to look for. When they find it, they will send a message back for the others to make a plan of attack.”
There was a murmur of agreement and relief through the crowd. Maskelle felt the tension in the air ease; their leaders weren’t fighting, someone in authority had stated a clear and reasonable goal. Mirak was too clever to show his feelings, but Maskelle wondered if he would make another attempt to sway Raith’s opinion, or if he would wait to see what the searchers found.
The Emperor glanced up at the darkening purple-gray clouds. “It seems night is coming. The groups should be ready to leave at first light.”
Maskelle exchanged a look with Rian. The Emperor was right. No matter the urgency, they couldn’t send anyone out to stumble around in the dark. The Temple Master added, “It will take time to teach everyone how to move through the barrier around the temple. That can be done during the night.”
And we’ll just have to hope that we’re here to see the next day, Maskelle thought, taking a deep breath. If there is a next day.
The sky was rapidly growing dark.