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Come, the demon wheedled.Let us go down to the sea again. See for yourself. Faron is waiting .
The seneschal nodded reluctantly. "Yes," he said aloud. "It's time." He stared ruefully one last moment
into Rhapsody's rocky grave of smoldering water, trying to blot from his mind the way she had met his
eye before she jumped. The message had been unmistakable.
Death, even a violent and painful one, was preferable to being with him.
'Whore," he whispered into the wind coming up from the rocks below.
'Miserable, rutting whore."
THE CAULDRON, YLORC
L,'he long ride home from Sorbold had given Achmed an interesting window into the woman he had
hired.
At first, her somewhat slight stature and angled face had reminded him of strongly of Rhapsody, as
well as her unwillingness to be disturbed in her work or manhandled, even by her own family members.
But the more he observed Theophila, the more intrigued he was by the differences between them.
Rhapsody had always been as transparent to him as clear glass. Her motives and intentions were
obvious, and while she had subtleties and nuances to her character, for the most part she was as easy to
read as the mile-high letters carved by river canyons into the cliff faces of the mountain passes in the High
Reaches back in the old world.
Theophila, on the other hand, was more opaque than the stained glass she and her fellow Panjeri
crafted.
For the vast part of the journey she had said nothing, preferring to ride in silence over the rocky
steppes that edged the Manteid mountains from Sorbold northeast to Ylorc. She was even quieter once
they entered the mountain passes, glancing above her every few minutes like a prey animal nervously
watching for predators above.
 While he found her silence to be preferable on balance to Rhapsody's prattle, there was something
different about the vibration that emanated from her. While the natural music that surrounded Rhapsody
was soothing to the sensitive network of nerves and veins that scored the surface of his skin, the Panjeri
woman had more of a crackle to her, a sort of static that hung in the air that she passed through. It was
fascinating, though it kept his natural defenses on a high state of alert.
On rare occasion he had even tried to engage her in conversation, or what to Achmed passed for
conversation, terse and pointed questions about her training, her experience, her requirements. Theophila
responded in short, clipped answers, preferring to keep her concentration focused on the unfamiliar
terrain through which they were traveling.
When they camped at night, neither of them got much sleep. The level of understandable distrust had
not subsided in the few days since they had met, and so each traveler tended to sleep upright, drawn,
ostensibly to be ready to respond to any threat coming upon them from roving animals or brigands, but
there was little doubt in either of their minds that the other was on the list of things of which to be wary.
On the few occasions that Theophila did speak, she had gone into great length about the type of tools
and supplies she would need, despite not having seen the project site. She had brought a small bag with
her, and in it he presumed there were a few hand tools: a saw, perhaps, tile nippers, and the badly
balanced groziers and files he had seen her using on the glass windows of Sorbold. But the Panjeri
owned the more significant tools and all of the supplies, she had said, and so he would need to be
prepared to outfit her completely.
She's a tool-slut, he thought in amusement, watching as she scrawled the list.Like Rhapsody and her
weakness for clothes . Every woman he had known, no matter how formidable, had a secret obsession
for something.
She also knew how to handle a horse. When she thought he wasn't looking, Achmed had heard her
speaking to the animal he had purchased in Yarim, checking its hooves, gentling it with words in another
tongue. Her hands were small but strong, and she employed them rather than her feet to direct her mount.
It was a soft side that she gave him no view into when she knew he was paying attention.
Six days after they left the Rymshin Pass, the towering peaks of Griwen and Xaith came into view.
Achmed watched Theophila from behind his veils, noting how quickly her dark eyes took in the sight of
the multicolored mountains, rising, fanglike, in a multiplicity of colors and hues, blends of black and
purple, green and blue above rolling mist that made it appear as if they were in the clouds above. Those
two peaks had been hollowed out in the Cymrian era, and now had been restored and expanded into
outposts that never slept, housing thousands of soldiers in watchtowers that could see for fifteen leagues
across the Krevensfield Plain.
'Ylorc," he said simply. Theophila nodded silently.
He brought her in through the main entrance to the Cauldron, giant arched gates hewn from the very
stone fabric of the mountain, past giant ramparts and bulwarks fashioned on a scale as if for holding back
gods. Achmed chuckled to himself at the look of undisguised wonder on her face, remembering how he,
Grunthor, and Rhapsody had first entered Ylorc through a storm sewer drain, itself a massive
architectural marvel, though obviously less grandiose. As ever, he had no need to examine his motives.
He had wanted to impress her, to overwhelm her. Even to frighten her alittle.
Great brass bells rang at their approach, the martial sound echoing off the peaks of the Teeth and
through the earthen walls, rattling the massive tapestries in the inner hallway. Two hundred Bolg soldiers,
glowering in their dark leather armor, their greaves and vambraces forged of blue-black rysin-steel, lined
the colossal corridor that led past gigantic statues left over from the Cymrian era, recently restored to
glory, or at least cleanliness, by the Bolg artisans.
Theophila followed the Bolg king as he turned down the deep tunnel that led to the Great Hall, lined
on both sides with uncounted pedestals, most of them mismatched, on which various items sat, gathering
dust.
'What's all this?" she asked, her voice reverberating in the cavernous hallway.
'Gifts of state," Achmed replied, walking past necklaces and pitchers, seals and other court treasures,
all casually displayed. "Trinkets and frippery that various leaders of other nations sent as gifts when I took
control of the Bolg-lands. Bribes. Appeasement. Dust collectors."
The Panjeri woman's dark eyes glittered in the shadows from the torches that lined the halls.
'Some of them look priceless."
'No doubt they are."
'Well, then why are they so carelessly displayed?"
Achmed snorted. "Because I don't care about them. I would have sold the lot of them in the fish
market, but my minister of protocol insisted that they needed to be kept in case any of the fools came
calling."
Theophila smiled slightly. "Why don't the pedestals match, at least?"
Achmed shrugged. "You find a pedestal in an old closet somewhere, you haul it out, stick a bowl on
it, and put it in the corridor. It becomes a diplomatic statement. They don't have to match."
'Ah. And yet you are willing to spend two hundred thousand gold suns on stained glass. You have an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]