The Flame Iris Temple Read online

  Lord Vaina said this with a mixture of pride and awe. He waited, almost daring Sandun to disagree and to come up with some other explanation for the events of the night.

  Sandun sighed. Ajh had warned him against revealing his power, just as she had warned him against choosing that power in the first place. But, wisely or not, he had made his choice, and she had given it to him. The champion of Ajh always is given a gift. For good or ill, he had asked for Ell’s power, the power to strike down his enemies with lightning, like a god. Just like Ell had blasted the Kitran warriors that came running up against him in Nilin Ulim’s camp, as Sandun stood, waiting to die.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I have that power.”

  “I knew it!” Lord Vaina leapt to his feet and raised his hands in two clenched fists. “There was no lopor, and you struck them dead in an instant! This changes everything. With your power, the treasure of the Last Chancellor will be mine! If the gold and silver is even half what the stories say, my government will be saved. If we can pull this off, I may actually win this. Who will stop me? Who in this world will stop me?”

  “My power is quite limited, my lord.” Sandun said this very softly, requiring Lord Vaina to calm down and pay attention. “I cannot slay armies. I cannot slay from a very great distance. Sir Ako can kill more men in three hours than I can in a day. If no one knows what I can do, then yes, my power can accomplish a great deal. I have seen what a god—an adesari—can do, and I am not such a being, not even close. For one thing: I am quite mortal.” Sandun paused and looked straight into Lord Vaina’s eyes. “You will be the king of all of Serica because you are the right man, the wisest leader, the best man of all. I am merely one of many who will help you attain the throne.”

  Lord Vaina chuckled and smiled. “That still sounds comical, even coming from you.”

  Sandun continued, “As to the Flame Iris Temple, do you have a plan other than having me blast everyone who stands in our way? The 150 sturdy monks that accompanied Abbot Oakheart were likely enough to defeat me. Surely the Flame Iris Temple is home to as many monks or more.”

  Lord Vaina, having returned to his seat, could barely contain his excitement. “Yes, I have a plan. Number Eight has been spinning new alternatives every day since River Reed laid out his story. Oh, and Number Eight believes it—he says it fits all the known facts. What the plans lacked was a means of overawing the monks in the temple long enough to take control. You may not have to kill anyone at all. Just summon lightning in a room, destroy a candelabra or two. They will be amazed and confused for hours, long enough for my men to climb the path and seize power. You and I and Number Eight will meet, tomorrow, to finalize the plan. Ah, money! What I could do with real wealth! Pay the soldiers, build more boats, make more suits of armor, improve the roads…”

  “What about the fox-spirit? One survived.”

  “I don’t know. What do you think? You killed one—will the other try again by itself?” Lord Vaina talked fast, his words spilling out in his excitement. “They tried to kill me twice and failed. They tried to kill you a few hours ago, and one of them died. Are they brave? Determined? Why do they even want to kill me? Perhaps now the one who is left will seek revenge against you, but that seems hopeless. You hardly sleep, you can see through its disguise, and you can kill it as easily as snapping your fingers.”

  Sandun thought about this for a short time. “Even a single shapeshifter might try to poison you or take the form of one of your servants and attack you. I suppose I could move into the palace and stay near you all the time…”

  Lord Vaina shook his head. “I will be fine. I’m feeling more confident by the hour. Two were more dangerous than one. I’m willing to wager ten fish to one that you killed the leader, and what will the other do? Make a new plan? Or find a new master? Sandun, I’ve been frightened of these fox-spirits for days, but now that I’ve seen one dead, I’m not scared any more. From the looks of the creature, I could kill it myself, barehanded.”

  Lord Vaina sat down next to Sandun and put his arm over his shoulder. “As to the gold in the Flame Iris Temple, nothing much can be done until after the New Year celebrations are over, but in a month—watch out, world! I will be on the offensive. First, Flame Iris Temple, then Vasvar. Next year will be exciting!”

  Chapter Seven

  A New Year

  Sir Ako stood before the master smith of the Tokolas armory and picked up Sandun’s Piksie sword, Skathris. With his gauntlets on, he gripped the newly completed hilt in both hands and swung the blade with all his strength into the master’s testing dummy: a solid wooden post wrapped with old silk. A sharp twinge in his right forearm reminded him that his arm, broken in a tournament ten years earlier, was not improving with age. He grunted and ignored the pain. He rarely felt any discomfort in battle—only when he was cold, not ready to fight, did it hurt. Regardless, the new hilt felt solid in his hands; there was no give, no hint that the lengthened tang was not bonded to the blade under the wood, and the steel wire, and the leather of the hilt.

  Ako knew that Skathris’s magic blade remained unchanged; none of the Serice smiths dared to touch the blade for fear of breaking the enchantment that allowed it to cut through metal. However, the master smith had built an armature around the tang and made a very strong extension. In a perfect world, Ako would have wanted a longer blade, the same length as his fine blade that he had used happily for years before it had been broken in the fighting at the heart of the palace of Kemeklos. But extending the hilt was as much of a change as he was going to get.

  “Good,” he said loudly to the smith, over the sound of pounding from other workers in the armory. “This will serve well. Now, about my shoulder armor…”

  Just then, a commotion behind him caught his finely honed sense of trouble, and he whipped around to see Valo Peli rushing past one of the forges, his official robes flapping as he hurried. A black crow, symbol of the highest rank in the government, was emblazoned on his chest. Valo Peli—who rarely let his composure slip—looked panicked.

  “I need to speak with you, Sir Ako,” Valo Peli called over the din of hammers. Sir Ako nodded and followed his friend outside to the yard, which was covered with heaps of charcoal and piles of scrap metal. Valo Peli drew a deep breath and then said without any preliminary words: “My daughter, Alina, has been kidnapped, and I need your assistance in finding her.”

  “Of course,” Sir Ako replied, though inwardly he was greatly surprised. Why did Valo Peli think he could find Alina? Wouldn’t the city guards have a better idea of what to do?

  Valo Peli, as if reading his thoughts, explained: “The kidnapping was expertly carried out, suggesting professionals, not random thugs, and I don’t trust the city watch to handle anything more difficult than drunken louts. Also, I…there is reason to think that Blue Frostel has some special knowledge of the criminals.”

  Seeing Ako’s raised eyebrows, Valo Peli continued, “Not involvement, but insight into who the kidnappers are and where they are hiding. You, Sir Ako, can speak to Blue Frostel without arousing suspicion that this one, the girl’s father, is on their trail.”

  Valo Peli quickly sketched out the circumstances of the crime. His daughter had been out in the south-central market buying paintings for the New Year, accompanied by her maidservant and a guard. As she came out of an artist’s studio with several scrolls, an apparently rabid dog bit at her bodyguard’s leg. Distracted, he lost track of his charge for half a minute. When the dog broke off its attack, the guard found the maidservant slumped in an alley with a bag over her head. She had been blinded by the sack and then struck down, and she knew nothing. Of Alina there was no sign, the only clue being several bystanders saw two men carrying a rolled-up carpet.

  “They said it was a large carpet and thus a small woman could have been concealed inside. Since carpets are usually taken out and beaten five days before the New Year, to have a carpet cleaned today, just t
wo days before the New Year, is a bit unusual. My daughter would not have run away, and the merchants in that district are of good reputation. They sell to all the senior officials. A flower seller provided one more clue: one of the men carrying the carpet had a distinctive green cord belted around his waist.”

  “How is that a clue?” Sir Ako said skeptically.

  “It is a characteristic sign of the devotes of Hesmoro, one of the gods worshiped by Kulkasen and favored by gamblers and the criminal underclass.”

  “I’ve never heard Blue Frostel talk about Hesmoro. He worships Temo Tio,” Ako replied.

  “This one believes—or rather, this one hopes—that Blue Frostel knows how to proceed. If this were just a kidnapping for money, by convention a demand letter would have been thrown over the wall at my residence within the hour. But more than three hours have passed.” Valo Peli took out a black silk cloth and wiped his face. His fear and worry were plain to see. “Please tell Blue Frostel that I will pay a thousand silver cats for my daughter’s safe return. That is all I have, and even so I will have to sell off the furniture we just bought for the estate.”

  “I’ll find your daughter, Valo Peli. I swear it by the Sword of Hurin. With Blue Frostel’s assistance and others as well. Quite a few people owe favors to the Knights of Serica.”

  “The fewer people who know about this kidnapping, the better,” Valo Peli said with a curious twisted expression on his face.

  Sir Ako studied the older man and considered the words and their underlying meaning. “You haven’t sent word to Lord Vaina?” Both Lord Vaina and Sandun were out of Tokolas, visiting Governor Vellen in Sasuvi.

  “No! Heaven forbid that any word reaches Sasuvi! Alina’s wedding would almost certainly never take place if Governor Vellen learned about this terrible event.”

  Ako nodded slowly. He had a good idea what Valo Peli was implying. Such complications occurred in Kelten as well; a noble’s daughter had to have an unblemished reputation or else her prospects for a good marriage could vanish as quickly as beads of dew on a spider’s web.

  “Here is my plan,” Sir Ako said, ticking off the stages on his steel-covered fingers. “First, I will seek Blue Frostel’s aid; next, he and I will question Alina’s bodyguard and the maidservant at the scene of the crime. You will send them there or bring them yourself. There is always the chance they are not innocent in this affair and may seek to disappear. Lastly, I want you to send a message to my wife telling her I’m busy with a task for you and not to wait up.” Sir Ako put his armored hands on Valo Peli’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Fear not, my friend. Tokolas is a huge city, but you have powerful allies.”

  Valo Peli stepped back a pace and then bowed deeply, saying, “May Sho’Ash guide your path. I’ll be waiting for you both at the south-central market in two hours.”

  His mind awhirl, Sir Ako threaded his way past the forges and the blacksmiths pounding blazing sparks on anvils. He thought about sending word to Lathe—Sir Lathe, he corrected himself. Ako knew that Lathe had carried a torch for Alina Boethy, but she had rejected him more than half a year ago and now was going to marry Vellen, the new governor of Zelkat province. A very good match—no one could deny it. Would it be fair to involve Lathe? Would it be fair to not involve him? Ako knew if he were in Lathe’s shoes, he would demand the right to help, engagement or no. After all, the marriage hadn’t yet happened. Things could change.

  Finding the master smith, he asked that an urgent message be sent to Opmi Lathe with orders to meet Sir Ako at the Rowan Horse Temple. The master smith promised that his youngest son would personally deliver the message. Sir Ako strode out of the armory and into the streets of Tokolas, pushing his way through the greater-than-normal evening crowds on the way to the Rowan Horse Temple.

  In Kelten, as the leader of a company of Lord Aris’s light horse, Ako had personally investigated crimes both real and alleged against the soldiers under his command. He could easily recall dealing with two robberies, one rape, one bar fight that turned deadly, and one alleged kidnapping. The kidnapping had proved to be a young couple who had eloped; sadly, this was legally a case of desertion on the part of the young soldier, and the girl was the daughter of a prominent freehold farmer. The couple had been located after but a day’s search. The young cavalryman was quickly convicted and jailed for a year while the girl was hurriedly married off to an older widower. Ako didn’t think anyone was pleased by the final outcome, but the law was clear, and extenuating circumstances were hard to find. Youth and hot passion rarely triumphed over military justice. Ako had gone north to lead the Archives Expedition half a year later and didn’t know how the story ended; he probably never would.

  Had Alina eloped? It was possible but unlikely. Vellen, the man from the Great Sage Temple, had treated Alina with medicinal herbs for several days when she had been poisoned. As a result, Alina knew Vellen and had seemingly raised no objection to the proposed marriage.

  As for solving crimes, Ako knew the Kelten king’s prosecutor in the southern counties from the rare occasions when the presumed culprit was a liege man of the earl of Agnefeld, Ako’s father. The king’s prosecutor was a former dikonos to the archbishop of Seopolis and the most unsmiling man Ako had ever met. The prosecutor obtained convictions by terrorizing the person he suspected into confessing. Ako much preferred a simpler method, one his father often used. Ako would sit down with the accused and drink for hours. When the suspect was thoroughly soused, Ako would guide the conversation toward the crime. Nine times out of ten, the man wanted to explain the reasons for his behavior. All Ako had to do was keep his wits about him and lend a sympathetic ear. In his experience, no man thought he was a true criminal. Instead, they all had an excuse for why they did what they did: some insult that needed redress, an item borrowed and then accidentally lost or broken, and, most dangerous of all, an irresistible desire.

  An irresistible desire to seize Alina off the streets was not unlikely. Ako knew Alina; she had lived in the Kelten embassy throughout the previous summer. She was a delightful girl, in the full flower of youth. Normally Alina never set foot out of her home, and what one cannot see, one cannot desire. But the time leading up to New Year celebration was special. Ako had noticed a sudden influx of young women out on the streets this last week, buying all manner of goods: clothing, shoes, flowers, special foods, and more.

  As Russu kept telling him, there were many things that simply had to be done prior to the New Year. For reasons that made no sense to him, fancy cloves of garlic had to be purchased and placed in special jars of Serica-glass, which were then filled with vinegar. This had to be done exactly twenty-one days before the New Year and since everyone in the city all had the same idea, he’d found that garlic was nearly impossible to buy when he and the princess went out in search of cloves more than two weeks ago.

  Be-that-as-it-may, that the kidnapping had been done for a hefty ransom seemed most likely based on the apparent planning involved: the trained dog, the carpet, the speed of the operation. Sadly, there was another, darker possibility—the kidnappers wanted to hurt Valo Peli and were going to murder Alina and feed the older man false hope for days (or weeks) before leaving the girl’s body in the street. But you truly had to hate someone to carry out such a monstrous crime. The only man who hated Valo Peli that much, Nilin Ulim, was dead, killed by Sandun himself. Who else hated Arno Boethy? In Tokolas, he was known as the victor of the Battle of Devek and the newly appointed minister of war. If he was not loved by the people, Minister Boethy was, at least, respected.

  Whatever the kidnappers’ motivations, speed was of the essence. Ako was a firm believer in the idea that you followed a case while it was fresh in everyone’s minds. There would be little sleep for him this night.

  He arrived at the gate of the Rowan Horse Temple. The large wooden doors were still open, and a steady stream of men and women moved into and out of the grounds. He had visited Rowan
Horse several times, checking up on the progress of Blue Frostel’s recovery. The man had been badly injured in Kemeklos, and the Knights of Serica had carried him out through the burning city, with ash on their lips and their hearts sick with sorrow, their rescue mission an apparent failure because Sandun had been taken away from the palace by Kitran soldiers to his near-certain doom before they even got there.

  Praise Sho’Ash, Blue Frostel had survived under the expert care of Doctor Haz. Frostel’s strong constitution had gradually fought off the infection that spread from his grievous wounds. The priests at the Rowan Horse treated Blue Frostel with a measure of care, and now, he was nearly back to his old self.

  Ako found Frostel in his usual spot: a training yard behind the shrine of Temo Tio. There were at least ten shrines in the Rowan Horse Temple, each dedicated to a different god, most of them far more popular than that of Temo Tio, the god of war. The god of medicine, for example, nearly always had a line of supplicants waiting for a spot in front of the altar to pray, everyone holding thin sticks of tinder, many tipped with daubs of incense. When an opening appeared, they would light their sticks and pray for a short while before making way for the person next in line.

  Another very busy shrine was dedicated to the god of death, though why people prayed before this demonic figure with his bent swords decorated with skulls, Sir Ako didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

  Blue Frostel, a master of the Rulon Mors Temple, wore fame like a brightly colored cloak, even here in Tokolas. Every time Ako visited, men were gathered around Frostel, listening to his words or following him in martial exercises. Today, Ako found twelve strapping young fellows following Frostel as he practiced with his favorite weapon, the long-hafted glaive. Frostel’s disciples swung their own poles vigorously and shouted in unison, responding to Blue Frostel’s exclamations as he struck at his practice target with powerful blows.