“You will remain here with the prisoners,” the Yahlei man said, his voice rising. “Do you understand?”
The sergeant glared back at him, rather sullenly, Shaa thought. He opened his mouth to speak, bit off a word instead, wheeled, and said, “All right, you men, bring them into the big room.”
A sword jabbed Shaa’s back. The troop turned right and proceeded to the far wall of the former temple. Against the wall were a shiny new line of iron eyebolts driven into the stone at head-top height. “Chain up the prisoners,” the sergeant growled.
From behind them came a sudden collective intake of breath. The double doors at the side of the aisle crashed open, the echoes booming through the large open space in the clear shocked silence. The party turned, all eyes in the room swiveling toward the doors. A new figure stood there, in a cloak so black it seemed to eat the light, dramatically framed by the lines of the doorway, an active fire in an iron grate behind him that etched his shape in a writhing bed of red. The hood of the cloak was thrown back; the left eye was covered by a patch of black leather stark against the paler gray of his face, but his right eye was blue and deep with a hardness like slate.
The figure clasped his hands behind his back as the pretzel man from the waterfront approached him and then whispered in a low deferential murmur. Against the intense hush, the only other sound was the soft crackle of the fire. The pretzel man gestured across the room at the Guard troop, then specifically indicated Shaa. The one-eyed gaze of the dark figure focused on Shaa. Shaa grew cold, and felt like his will was flowing out onto the bare floor and back across the temple. It was not his imagination; the dark figure was projecting some leech-like force. The pretzel man, who was perhaps more of a chamberlain, said something else, the figure nodded, and the two of them approached.
The members of the Guard began to sidle unobtrusively away. The chamberlain, who was lagging discretely behind his boss, snapped out, “Stay where you are! Hold them securely!” Then the dark figure put his arm out, palm down, and the chamberlain shut up with an abrupt rattle in his voice.
The figure spoke. His voice was like the dull clang of a cold gong. “You are the one called Shaa? Could that be Doctor Shaa? The famous Zalzyn Shaa?”
Acting on instinct, his conscious faculties in collapse as the room swam in his eyes, Shaa said, “Indeed, yes. Have we met?”
Another mass inhalation of breath swept around the room.
The chamberlain leapt forward, roughly elbowing a Guard trooper out of the way, and smashed his hand as hard as he could against the side of Shaa’s head. Shaa let his head and body rock to the opposite side and back, absorbing the blow but keeping his feet. The pain was still deep and sharp, but served to partially clear his head. The chamberlain drew his hand around for another swipe.
“Forbear,” said the figure.
“Yes, master.” The chamberlain shrunk back, glaring ominously and somewhat petulantly at Shaa.
“Toadies,” the figure said to Shaa, in a more conversational tone. “I look for responsible assistants, viceroys, aides, and all I find are toadies.”
“Sycophancy is, sadly, a pervasive problem,” Shaa agreed, the pall of stupefaction beginning to lift. “I take it you are Oskin Yahlei?”
“Indeed,” said the voice like doom.
The man who burned down buildings let out a high shrieking wail, dropped to his knees, paused there, and then fell deliberately over on his face. Oskin Yahlei had turned to watch, displaying a look of some bemusement, Shaa thought. Now he turned back. “I also take it,” Shaa said, with more of his usual sardonic drawl, “that you are really the one running things around here, which things naturally include the activities of Kaar, the Less-Than-Totally-Competent.”
“An apt turn of phrase,” said Oskin Yahlei.
“Thank you.”
The chamberlain could no longer contain himself. He flung himself at Shaa, yelling, “Shut up, you, you and your sniveling mouth, no one talks to Oskin Yahlei in that tone of OOUP! -”
“Please excuse me,” Shaa told the suddenly prostrate chamberlain, removing his foot from his midsection. He straightened up and gave a pleasant bow in the direction of Oskin Yahlei, restrained somewhat by the pull of the chains around his arms. “My apologies, Mr. Yahlei. Toadies, as you said.”
Oskin Yahlei clasped his hands again behind his back. His expression remained grave, without a hint of amusement; clearly a tough audience. “I have heard reports of your activities in the past. Perhaps these accounts were in error. Are you, then, merely a jester, sporting with the good will of those more powerful than yourself?”
“I think of it, rather, as a question of attitude,” Shaa said. “Ultimately, if one dies, one dies; if one lives, one lives. As long as one lives, one may adopt a certain attitude toward things. I prefer that which you see.”
Oskin Yahlei eyed Shaa. “I can see that you have the potential of being thoroughly insufferable to have around. Still, if word-of-mouth is accurate, you have your uses, and your capabilities. This unfortunate affair at Kaar’s palace, which I will most likely have to handle myself - is it all your fault?”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Shaa said. “Yet, in all honesty, I must claim some responsibility.” The fact that Oskin Yahlei hadn’t rushed right off to the palace to manage things, though, raised a couple of possibilities in Shaa’s mind. Either things weren’t that serious there, or were indeed already under control, or Oskin Yahlei didn’t really care that much what happened to his puppet, Kaar. If that was the case, he might have decided that Kaar had already served his piece. Perhaps Yahlei felt it was time for him to take charge of Roosing Oolvaya in a more personal and visible form. On the other hand, he might have other, more substantial problems to worry about at the moment. Hmm.
“Hmm,” said Oskin Yahlei musingly. “Then you couldn’t have been the one at Lake’s.” He stared up at the ceiling. Indeed, this is a personage with a lot on his mind, Shaa thought, and one with his own set of complexities. Shaa was willing to bet he wasn’t a simple necromancer, but what else could he be? He radiated like a god, but he certainly didn’t project the personality of one; gods were usually more decisive, more forceful, more impressed with their own attitude of arrogant superiority. And who was Lake? As usual, Shaa thought sardonically, it looks like I’ve wandered into somebody else’s ongoing plot. Oskin Yahlei looked back down. “Why are you here, Shaa? What interested you in Roosing Oolvaya, at this moment, at this particular stage of events?”
“I am here, in Roosing Oolvaya, because I had to leave Drest Klaaver in some haste and decided to head east,” Shaa said. “I am standing here with you largely because of a curse and my own unfortunately theatrical personality.”
“What chance has there been of … manipulation?”
Shaa had been asking himself the same question. There had been no particular reason for a coup in Drest Klaaver at that specific time. Some of his luck, one way or the other, could also have been stage-managed. “I try to resist the concept of predestination,” he said. “Still, like everyone else, I’m always open to the possibility, though I’m sure you know how difficult it is to tell.”
“Quite so. Do you have companions?”
“I do indeed. Which ones are around at the moment is, I regret, something you may have to find out for yourself.”
“Be still,” Oskin Yahlei said to his suddenly restive troops. The members of the Guard escort who were in Shaa’s line of sight had the expressions of those making longer and longer lists of other things they had to do and other places they had to be. “He is mine to deal with as I wish.”