“You know this because?”
“I saw it.”
“I mean, how much metal is known to exist on Athas.”
If a dead man with his head mostly detached could be said to look sheepish, this one did. Kadya noted that Siemhouk was sitting forward in her chair, her eyes narrowed, hands gripping her dimpled kneecaps. Kadya recognized the look—the young princess was the Way to psionically probe the dead man’s mind.
“Speculation, my lord, that’s all.”
“It’s a big city, this Akrankhot?”
“Huge. Not the equal of Nibenay, of course, in beauty. But expansive.”
Siemhouk leaned forward a little more. She was a beautiful girl with bright, alert blue eyes, straight and lush black hair, and a complexion much darker than most Nibenese. Her slim figure was just beginning to blossom with the curves of the woman she would become.
Whatever she was seeing in the mercenary, it fascinated her. Kadya would have to try to find out more, later on.
“The point is, you’re saying, there’s a lot of metal in this city.”
“More than I could have dreamed,” the mercenary said. “This is why I had to come, to tell you of our discovery, no matter the cost.”
“It appears,” Nibenay said with a grim, throaty chuckle, “that the cost was great indeed.”
The dead man took a scroll from his belt. “I brought a map,” he said.
Siemhouk jerked back in her chair as if she’d been slapped. Her eyes were wide, her full lips parted, and she was breathing heavily. “I’ll take it,” she said. She rose from the chair, Kadya believed to disguise her reaction to whatever she had found in the dead man’s mind. Ordinarily Siemhouk would have made a visitor walk to her to place something in her hand, or directed one of her retinue—Kadya, perhaps—to fetch it for her. The fact that she went to the mercenary was almost as curious as her startled reaction had been.
When she had the scroll clutched in her hand, Siemhouk turned away from Shen’ti. He made a rasping noise, took a half step after her, and then collapsed onto the tiles. Siemhouk whirled around, then jumped away from his grasping, clawing hands. The mercenary rattled and kicked and seemed to shrink, and then Kadya realized he was shrinking, literally, his flesh tightening on his bones, drying out, decomposing right there before them. White showed through skin that turned to flakes, then powder, with a crinkling noise. A stink filled the chamber, reminding Kadya of the time she had gone into a small house in the Hill district where seven people had been murdered, their bodies undisturbed for most of a month.
Whatever magic had been keeping the man upright and mobile during the time since he had left Akrankhot on this mission had fled him when he delivered the map to Siemhouk. That time—weeks, perhaps—had caught up to him.
Templars were crying out, one or two weeping openly, and others laughing at the spectacle. Siemhouk turned her back on the dead man, carried the scroll to Nibenay and put it in his pudgy, thick-fingered hand. Then she sat down again, as if waiting for some other supplicant to come before the high consorts, while Shen’ti’s body finished its rapid deterioration not five paces away.
What, Kadya wondered, did she see in his head? And what was it that made her pull out so abruptly?
Trying to pry loose information Siemhouk didn’t want to share could be a difficult and dangerous task. But Kadya was afraid curiosity itself would kill her if she didn’t at least make an attempt.
“If what our friend Shen’ti said is true—” Nibenay began.
Siemhouk cut him off. “It’s true.”
“—then it’s imperative that we launch an expedition to this place, Akrankhot, immediately. We need to find that trove before anyone else does. That much metal could be employed in the construction of weaponry and armor that would make our already formidable army into the strongest our world has ever known. We would be unbeatable.”
“I agree, Father,” Siemhouk said. She rarely called him that—only when she’s after something, Kadya thought. What is it this time?
Nibenay ignored his daughter. “And if he’s right about the city’s size, then whatever he saw might have only been a small part of what is really there.”
“But how do we ascertain that, my liege?” Kahalya asked. “Tear up every building in the ruin? Dig up the very earth beneath them? It could take years to find it all.”
“It could,” Nibenay admitted. He considered the problem for several minutes, during which nobody spoke. “But if we could send someone on this expedition who could dowse the location of the metal, much like a water witch would find a well, then that person might be able to easily locate what it would take an army years to unearth.”
“Do we know someone like that?”
“I know of someone,” the Shadow King said. His yellow eyes had taken on a peculiar orange cast. “I do indeed …”
After the Council session ended, Kadya accompanied Siemhouk and her sister templars back to the Temple of Thought. Crowds parted for them on the street, most looking away from the nude girl and the nearly naked women accompanying her, all of them recognizing the Shadow King’s templar wives.
At the temple, Siemhouk didn’t dismiss them, but instead took them into a private chamber where she performed the business of state. The floor was covered with silken pillows, some piled up in corners. The walls were draped with silks in bright colors, interlaced with golden threads. Candles in hanging, windowed holders were kept lit, imparting the room with soft light and the smell of burning spices.
Siemhouk flopped down on her usual mound of pillows. For just an instant, she looked like the young girl she was rather than the jaded, experienced woman she presented herself as. That impression was fleeting, though, and in a moment her youthful face was overtaken by a bored expression. She appeared older, but less alive.
“We need to take advantage of this,” Siemhouk began.
Kadya had been thinking the same thing. Not for Siemhouk’s sake, though, but for her own.
“Why?” The questioner was the young templar named Saulindas, barely three years older than Siemhouk. Kadya’s responsibilities included overseeing the facilities of the various state schools, making sure the buildings were properly equipped, cleaned, and staffed. Saulindas reported to her, and so far the only thing Kadya had entrusted her with was managing the slaves who swept floors and dusted for cobwebs.
“Because that much metal, as my father said, could make a huge difference in our defenses,” Siemhouk explained. “Such an expedition will be a complex undertaking, requiring careful planning and organization. Whoever is put in charge of this expedition—and brings back the metal—will have a say in how it’s used. The wealth and power that metal represents will play to the advantage of that person.”
“I see,” Saulindas said, in a way that made clear that she didn’t.
“And I intend to be that person,” Siemhouk added.
“As you should be, High Consort,” Kadya said. The Naggaramakam, and the city’s various temples, were a continuous hotbed of intrigue, every seasoned templar vying for advantage over the others. The one Kadya had her eye on was Djena. Siemhouk didn’t have to answer to the High Consort of the King’s Law, but everyone else did. And Siemhouk had almost unlimited power because she had her father’s ear, and his trust. But if Siemhouk and one of her chief allies controlled the Temples of the King’s Law and of Thought, then Siemhouk’s sway over Nibenese events would be almost total.