He shoved the door open and went inside. There was a narrow space between the guardwall and the godon itself, space filled with clutter slowly rotting back into the earth, bits of bone, boxes, rope, paper, silk scraps, fish bones, scraps of canvas, old leaves. The godon itself was a hollow square with red brick walls and a roof of glazed black tiles shiny with wet. Drops of condensation dripped from fungus-blackened endhorns, plopped desultorily into the decay below. Aituatea dealt with the puzzle lock on a small side door, held it open for Brann and the mastiffs, followed them inside.
At the end of a cold musty passage, moonlight was a pearly flood lighting the open court beyond, playing on mist that had crept inside or been sucked in by the breathing of the old godon. Brann stood silhouetted against it a moment as Aituatea pulled the door shut and barred it, but was gone by the time he turned around. When he reached the end of the passage, he saw her standing in the center of the court looking up, the moonlight dropping like watered milk on her pale porcelain face. The ghosts were diving down at her, bits and fragments of mist themselves, flicking through her and dashing away. She stood quite still, letting this happen as if it were a ritual that bored her but one she was willing to endure for the calm she expected afterward. The mastiffs were chasing each other and any rats they could scare up in and out of the swirls of fog, in and out of the dank caverns of the ground floor bins. They came and sniffed at his knees, then flipped around and went to circle Brann.
“Second floor to your left,” Aituatea said and started for the stairs. The mastiffs trotted past him and went thumping up the stairs, dog mastiff, bitch mastiff paw matching paw on the soggy slippery wood.
Aituatea went a short way along the second floor gallery, unbarred a door and swung it open. The room inside was dark, warm, odorous-cedar and sandalwood, lacquer and spices, smoldering peat and hot metal from the covered brazier. He bowed, spread his arms. “Enter my miserable rooms, saхri Brann.” He swung around and went into the dark, turning back the shutters on the window opening on the court, lighting the lamps scattered about on wall and table. He dipped water from the covered crock, set the kettle on the coals, blew them alive, came back to his guest.
Brann was settled in a low armchair, one leg tucked up under her, the other stretched out before her, her hands resting on her thighs. Her hair was darker in the rosy lamplight, more gray than silver, her eyes were a clear light green like willow leaves in early spring. The mastiffs were children again, sitting crosslegged at her feet, staring with the owl-eyed directness of real children. They had ash-blond hair, one a shade darker than the other, bowl-bobbed, fine, very straight. As he’d thought before, they looked like twins, so asexual in these forms that it disturbed him to remember one of the mastiffs had definitely been a bitch.
“My companions,” she said. “Jaril.” She leaned forward and touched the head on her right. “Yaril.” She stroked her hand lightly over the paler head on her left. “This is a nice little nest. T’kk, friend Hina, it’s more than enough to hang you.” Her eyes moved over the scrolls on the walls, the jewel rugs on the floor, the other fine things visible in the lampglow.
“I’ll be dead anyway if the Temuengs get this far.”
She tapped fingers on her thigh. “It’s rather crowded in here.” He dropped into the chair by the brazier and sat watching her. She saw them all, that was obvious. Moonfisher drifting in rags near the ceiling, used to be a powerful fishcaller, brought in heavy boatloads until a storm caught him and drowned him in sight of land. Eldest Grandmother crouching by the door, a tattered patchy ghost, she’d fade out soon, poisoned by a daughter-in-law who was tired of being run off her feet. Elder brother sitting in front of the window, strangled by a Sister of the Cord when he blundered into a forbidden ritual. Little brother, drowned, hovering behind the chair, peeking out at the shape-changers. The headless woman no one knew about, the gambler, the dancers, the several whores, the little sister, even the crabby old Temueng who sat in gloomy silence in the corner. Though Eldest Grandmother started muttering angrily beside the door, glaring at Brann, who ignored her after a flicker of, a smile in her direction, the others came drifting around her, circling gradually nearer. One by one they darted to her, stroked her, tasting her through their fingers. As if the taste pleased them, they quieted, grew content, the frazzled edges smoothed away.
Aituatea checked the pot but the water wasn’t close to boiling, then he sat staring down at his hands, reluctant, now the time was on him, to speak the words that would commit him to the attack on the Kadda witch. The ghosts gathered around him, his family, patting him, murmuring to him, giving what strength and support they could. Why not get it over with. “I don’t know why you came to Sill.”
“No.” She smiled, drew her thumb along her lower lip. “You don’t.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. There’s a Kadda witch in the Tekora’s Palace. His wife.”
“Then the man’s a fool.”
“I won’t argue with that. Anyway, she’s the one responsible for Hotea’s drowning. We want you to help us get rid of her.
“The Tekora’s Palace.” She laughed, a warm savoring sound. And he remembered the way she looked at the gate torches. He got to his feet and crossed to the back of the long room, going behind the screen that shut off the corner where his bed was. The dark red lacquer box sat where he’d left it among the hills and hollows of the crumpled quilts. He looked at the unmade bed and wondered if he’d ever get back, bit his lip, lifted the box and carried it to Brann. He set it on the low table by the arm of her chair, then backed away. He glanced at the brazier but saw no steam and resettled himself in his chair. “The old man said that would buy you.”
She lifted the box, set it on her legs. After eyeing it warily a moment, she lifted the lid. Her indrawn breath was a small whispery sound. “Das’n vuor.” She lifted the black pot from its nest of fine white silk and ran her fingers over it. A strange tense look on her face, she turned it over and passed her fingers across the bottom. “His mark,” she whispered. “The last firing.” She, set the pot back and lifted one of the cups, sat cradling it in both hands. “That you found this one… this one! I remember… Slya bless, oh I remember… I held this cup in my hand after my father took it from the kiln. I went up Tincreal with my father, we carried the last cups to their firing; we stayed there all day and all night and the next day till just after noonsong. The first three he took from the kiln he broke, they weren’t good enough, this was the fourth, he set it in my hand and I knew what perfection was, for the first time I knew what perfection was…” She shook her head as if to clear away fumes of memory.