“You were looking for me, my lord?”
Sludig lifted his head. “Ah, yes. Porto of Perdruin, am I right? And don’t call me “my lord.” You’re a knight and I’m not.” He showed his teeth in a hard grin. “Yes, I’ve been looking for you. The duke sent this.” He lifted his broad hand. It held a purse.
When he was sure it was really meant for him, Porto reached out. “What is it?” He loosened the string and looked inside. “Sweet Mother of the Aedon, this is for me? Three gold imperators? And look at all this silver!”
Kolbjorn was smirking. “I already got mine. Counted it, too. Five gold’s worth all together.”
“But why?”
“Because it is traditional when a man has been knighted that he be given land or wealth,” Sludig said, grinning. “Duke Isgrimnur asked me to tell you he is short of land these days until all the new king’s and queen’s business is dealt with, but he can at least give you something to make your homeward trip a little easier. Do you accept it?”
“Accept it? My wife would skin me if I didn’t. Please thank the duke—he is very generous.”
“More than generous,” said Kolbjorn. “Was there one for Aerling as well? The man who led us?”
“He has had it already,” said Sludig. “Barely seemed to notice, I have to say. Busy polishing that giant’s skull.”
Porto shook his head. “He has not been entirely right since . . . the day the mountain fell.”
Sludig nodded. “In truth, none of us have been. Now I must be going. There is much to do before we break camp tomorrow and start back. Before your road parts from ours, Southerner, you and this young Vestiman should come and take a cup with me.”
“Seems a nice enough fellow,” Kolbjorn said when Sludig was gone. “He strangled one of the White Foxes with his bare hands, did you know that?”
Porto shrugged. “We have all done strange things here at the ends of the earth.”
The magister’s chamber on the highest floor of the order-house was chilly, as Yaarike always kept it, with a small oil lamp on his table providing the only light and heat. They had been working together for hours bringing the master lists up to date on the order’s many current tasks, but Viyeki was so full of disquiet he had spoken very little.
“You seem remote, Viyeki-tza,” Yaarike finally said. “You have scarcely attended to a word I’ve said, forcing me to repeat myself many times. That is not like you. You were always my most eager student.”
Viyeki took a breath, then another. “That is because something is troubling me, High Magister.”
Yaarike’s sharp eyes watched him closely. “Speak, then. I hope it is not that thing we spoke of before. You deserve all that has come to you from finding the hidden lake. It does not harm your fitting modesty.”
“That is not what troubles me now. May I share my thoughts, Master?”
“I think you should.”
Now that the time had come he found it hard to speak. The basalt walls of the order-house pressed in on him, their great age a silent reproof. How dare he stand beneath that arched ceiling, which had seen hundreds of foremen like Viyeki come and go, and harbor such thoughts about a high magister, let alone one who had been so generous to him? He felt he stood on sliding ground, being carried toward a precipice.
Better to jump than to fall.
“I have been thinking about how you showed me the Heart of What Was Lost when you thought you might not survive to return to Nakkiga, and wished to make certain it would reach your family. That was a great honor, High Magister.”
“I have trusted few who are not my blood as I trust you, Viyeki-tza.”
“But then you gave your sacred family treasure to be buried with General Suno’ku, to honor her. Putting the happiness of the people above your own desires.”
Yaarike looked at him evenly, but his tone had a question in it. “Yes. That is always a magister’s duty.”
“I do my best to understand all your lessons, Master. Because of that, I have been thinking, and I have decided that I need to show you something of my own family heritage. May I?”
“Of course.”
Viyeki withdrew the bundle of cloth from his robe and placed it on the table in front of his master. Then he carefully unwrapped it until the gray thing lay revealed.
For long moments Yaarike only looked down at the witchwood dagger, at its long, thin blade and its pommel in the shape of a flower, the petals made of milky crystal. “It is a beautiful thing,” the magister said at last. “How old?”
“Nothing like the Heart of What Was Lost,” said Viyeki. “This snow rose dagger did not come from the Lost Garden, but was made here in this land—in our old city of Kementari before it fell. It was given to my foreparent Enduyo in the era of the fifth Celebrant, as a token of gratitude from the queen. In some ways it is the foundation of our clan.”
“Your foreparent was greatly honored indeed, if this gift came from the queen’s own hand. May I hold it?” Now Yaarike glanced up to meet Viyeki’s gaze, his questioning look almost aggressive.
Viyeki spread his hands. “Of course, Master.”
Still cradling it in its wrappings, the magister tilted the slender blade to study it more carefully in the unsteady lamplight. Dark, thought Viyeki. It is always so dark inside the mountain and inside the hearts of the Hikeda’ya. For a moment, with the end of all things familiar pressing on his mind and speeding his heart, he again felt himself to be a creature that lived its life in secret, some sightless, burrowing thing of the dark depths. If the race of Hikeda’ya all died here beneath the mountain, the world outside might never know.
Nor care if they did know, except to breathe a sigh of relief, Viyeki decided, and in that instant nothing seemed to matter at all—not his honor, not his painful, complicated feelings about his master, not his marriage nor his clan nor any of the things that he had thought important.
Suddenly he felt too weak to stand. Without asking permission, he let himself sag into the chair opposite his master’s seat. Yaarike glanced up briefly from the snow rose dagger but said nothing. After a moment’s more inspection, the magister held out the knife. Viyeki took it back.
“I seem to remember some controversy surrounding Enduyo,” said Yaarike, “but I never knew the details.”
“Forgive me, Master, but I do not believe you.” Viyeki found himself growing bolder, as though he had let go of something that had previously kept him tethered to the known, the comfortable. “No, I cannot believe one of your wisdom would have offered someone like me the chance to succeed you unless you knew every detail of my ancestry back to the Eight Ships—if not all the way back to the Garden itself. And the controversy, as you call it, happened during your lifetime, when you were already a young foreman in this order. Surely you remember? After all, it ended my ancestor’s life.”
Yaarike actually smiled, a wintry twitch of his thin lips. “Ah, but I am old and have much to recall. Perhaps you could remind me, Viyeki-tza.”
“My ancestor Enduyo of Kementari was an official of the palace, a master cleric. He was ordered by the queen’s Oathbound to confirm the treachery of two Maze clerics with whom he often worked. He had no personal proof of their guilt, but the palace believed them guilty so he was ordered to testify against them. To refuse would have meant the disgrace and destruction of his entire family. Given no honorable choice, he elected instead to use this dagger and end himself. Like so.” Viyeki pulled his robe aside and let the knife slide forward a little until the tip of the narrow gray blade rested against his chest. “Even the clerics he had been ordered to incriminate attended his funeral, out of respect. Of course, they were still found guilty—still went to the executioner.” He looked up at his master. “So you see, this blade is schooled at solving difficult problems.”