Pelyn stood on the roof of the Hausolis Playhouse and could at least see the sense of Katyett’s decision to station herself there. But that was all the sense she could make of this morning. Poor Olmaat was gone from below her, stretchered away in the dead of the night when the rioters had quietened and the streets were the safest they’d been for a day.
Gone to the muster of the warrior elite in the huge bowl of the Ultan, just to the east of the city. Gone to take part in whatever decisions the TaiGethen reached. The Al-Arynaar had helped in the main. Ynissul had been woken from broken sleep, coaxed from hiding places or guarded closely as they strode proudly from their scarred houses to make their way to where their escorts into the rainforest awaited them.
All done swiftly and without error. The TaiGethen way. Pelyn envied them. Not their speed, their strength and their extraordinary skills. But their clarity of vision. The uncluttered nature of their beliefs. You could call it simplistic but there was no confusion for them. No grey in between the black and white.
The growing light, muted beneath lowering clouds, brought with it a feeling of frustrated sadness to the Al-Arynaar clustered on the playhouse roof. Pelyn heard muttering around her. The maps had been wiped of rain so that all the damage could be marked.
Down at the harbour, blackened timbers still bled smoke into the sky and the occasional blaze still burned. The destruction was widespread. Masts jutted from the water. Debris was strewn across the docks. More than half the warehousing was gone and much of the wealth of Ysundeneth with it.
In the wake of the TaiGethen escape from the playhouse last night, the crowd meaning to surround them had returned to the spice market and smashed every frontage. A huge fire had been laid in the centre of the cobbled square and it burned on.
They had reports of three hundred separate houses being attacked and set alight. Timber stores across the city had proved easy targets. Government buildings deemed Ynissul bastions had been assaulted, including the courts and the palace of the priests. This latter was more of a museum now but chambers were maintained for travelling members of the priesthood from any thread. Hazy memory and rumour labelled it a place where pressure was applied to lesser threads and power was brokered beyond the gaze of the public and the Gardaryn.
Pelyn dared not look up towards the temple piazza. Everyone knew what had happened there. Latest word was that some had been to recover bodies, others to just stand and stare. Of the Yniss temple itself and those immolated within, nothing was left but ash, smoulder and a deepening sense of hate and shame.
Since the news of the murders of Jarinn and Lorius had broken, she had seen hide nor hair of any senior member of the government. Helias’s house was empty and none of his staff could offer any hint of his whereabouts. The high priests of the rainforest temples had presumably all rushed back to their sanctuaries, and those whose authority covered Ysundeneth were, like Helias, nowhere to be found.
The Gardaryn was due to meet in session this morning. Clearly that would not happen, but priests, administrators and officials should report for their duties. With a feeling of great discomfort and anxiety, Pelyn realised that if they did not, it left her effectively in charge. But in charge of what?
‘Pelyn?’
She turned, grateful to be dragged from her thoughts for a moment. A clay mug brimming with a warm infusion of guarana and sweet leaf was thrust into her hand. She breathed in the invigorating aroma and took a long sip, feeling the liquid fire down her throat.
‘Bless you, Methian.’
The ageing Gyalan loyalist smiled at her. He’d been her rock for two hundred years. What she’d do without him, she had no idea.
‘You look awful,’ said Methian.
Pelyn felt like bursting into tears. Instead she nodded.
‘Well, it hasn’t been among my better times. Even fighting the Garonin was easier. At least you knew what was coming with them.’
‘Had any sleep recently?’
‘Guess. And you’re not bringing me good news, are you?’
Methian shook his head. ‘People are beginning to gather again. Gardaryn this time. The mood isn’t ugly like yesterday yet, but then these aren’t yesterday’s rioters. These are elves wanting answers from their appointed representatives.’
Pelyn rubbed at her face and took another sip of her drink. ‘I suppose we had to expect that, but I’d be surprised if any administrators even turned up. This is going to get worse, isn’t it?’
Methian raised his eyebrows. ‘If there is no law, people will be quick enough to create their own systems of justice.’
‘But without the Ynissul in the city, surely tempers will cool.’
‘You and I both know that is a vain hope. Lorius may have wanted to maintain the harmony when he denounced Takaar, but he was deceived by those who put him up to it, wasn’t he? This isn’t about all threads against the Ynissul. They were just the first target. This is about a re-establishment of the old system. Not something with which I’m familiar.’ Methian chuckled. ‘Not that long-lived, we Gyalans.’
‘You think Tualis are behind this?’
Methian shrugged. ‘Some, probably. But not all, or you wouldn’t be standing here. But it’s confused, isn’t it? We know an Ynissul murdered your high priest and his. I don’t get what that was supposed to achieve. If there’s one thread that cannot afford conflict, it is the Ynissul. There just aren’t enough of them, not even with the TaiGethen.’
‘And why would he kill Jarinn?’
‘I expect Jarinn would have got in his way…’
‘We should head to the Gardaryn, see what’s going on. Keep the peace if we can,’ said Pelyn.
‘So we should,’ said Methian, then he paused, conflicting emotions on his face. ‘Can I speak honestly?’
‘Only if I’m going to like what I hear.’
‘Then I shall remain silent.’
Pelyn smiled, though it felt a little grim. ‘Go on.’
‘We have something in the region of four hundred Al-Arynaar in Ysundeneth. And the city has a population of, what, sixty-five thousand or thereabouts with the Ynissul survivors gone? You’ve seen it only takes a handful to whip up a mob so it doesn’t matter if ninety-five per cent of the population have no wish for violence. Now the Ynissul are gone, the threads have nothing to focus on as one so they’ll turn on each other.’
‘Why?’
‘There doesn’t have to be a reason unless it is anger without direction.’ Methian shook his head. ‘Just look at what happened in the market yesterday. So much hate, buried for so long. Yet you and I stand together as friends for two hundred years. The point is that we will no longer know who is enemy and who is friend to us. Four hundred Al-Arynaar will be nowhere near enough and…’
Methian trailed off and sighed.
‘You’ve started and so far I’m no more scared than I was before.’
‘They won’t all stand with you, Pelyn,’ he whispered. ‘They won’t all trust you because you are Tuali, and many of them will see the Tuali as the real aggressors despite what Hithuur did.’
Pelyn was stunned. She’d felt it when she told Katyett she didn’t know who to trust but had prayed it wouldn’t spread to her warriors. The truth shattered what remained of her confidence.
‘So how do we stop this getting out of control?’
Methian leant on the wall beside her and gazed out over the city and the ocean. ‘Build a fence round the city and wait in the forest until it’s over.’