Pyrebound - 8.5

Chapter 8.5 – Pyrebound
It was nearly noon when he woke up, feeling perfectly refreshed and mildly disappointed that Darun wasn’t in the bed anymore. He got dressed and headed out to the common room with a spring in his step. Piridur was already there, with the remains of a predictably lavish breakfast: freshly baked bread and at least a dozen different dips or spreads, plus several plates of pastries and a carafe full of something hot and spicy-smelling.

“You look like you’re doing better,” Piridur said. “The bread isn’t quite as good after it’s been sitting, but lunch isn’t far away now.”

“That’s fine,” Ram said, pouring himself a cup of the spicy stuff. It wasn’t bad. “Has everyone else left?”

Imbri’s voice came from the right-hand room by the exit, whose door was cracked open: “Darun’s hitting up the markets on Piridur’s tab; she took Bal with her. Shazru’s off at some tinap place or other.”

“And you?” he called back. “What are you up to?”

Fair enough. He got to work on the bread, making a point of trying every spread. The apricot jelly was fine, especially with butter, but he liked the yogurt-and-cheese better. The fermented stuff was a bit much for the morning. Piridur waited patiently until Ram was finished, then said, “There’s a lot to see in Pilupura, Ram, even with six days to see it. Is there anything you’ve heard of here, that you’d especially like to visit?”

“Not really, no. This seems like a great place, but I hardly know a thing about it. And I appreciate that you’re trying to take it easy on me so I can adjust to all this, but you don’t need to. I’m fine.”

Piridur’s smile had more than a tinge of skepticism. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I know you said that we’re in no hurry, but I think maybe we want to start moving more quickly, now that the Ensi’s left Dul Karagi.”

This had exactly the effect he desired: every trace of a smile, skeptical or otherwise, fled from the flamekeeper’s face. “Pardon?”

“The Ensi’s left Dul Karagi,” Ram repeated, trying not to sound too smug. “Last night. He feels like a little version of his pyre; I just never noticed before now because they’ve always been in the same place. It’s really weird, and I don’t think my haranu likes it. Anyway, it’s hard to gauge distances from this far away, but I think he’s about fifty miles from the Temple now, and still on the move.”

“And why would he leave?” Piridur asked, with admirable calm. Only the whites of his knuckles on the table’s edge gave him away.

“Yesterday, just after we met, I told him I was caught and he was screwed. Not to warn him,” he hastened to add, “I was just pissed off and wanted to scare him. I didn’t think he even heard me, at the time, but I guess he did. Anyway, he’s gone now.” Which means the ‘extortion scheme’ is up and running again, just in reverse. Assuming he didn’t blast the Palace to bits as he left.

It looked like Piridur was thinking much the same thing. He took a deep breath, and poured his own cup of the spice-brew. “You know I can’t just take your word on this, don’t you?”

“I hadn’t expected you to. Send a message, if you want, and ask them if the Ensi’s still in his cage. But I’d send a skybarque; I don’t think he’s going to stop moving anytime soon.”

“Yes, I know how to do my job, thank you.” He took a hefty gulp from his mug, looking as though he could have used something stronger. When he’d downed it, he sat in silence for some time, staring at Ram. At last he said, slowly and deliberately: “I’m going to leave now. You’ll be confined to this suite until I come back, with guards posted at the door. If you attempt to escape, my men will have orders to kill.”

“Okay.” He’d had more of a chance to think it all through than Piridur, and less reason to worry. He’d never dream of running now. Piridur frowned at him, but only shook his head before striding out of the room.

A few minutes later, Imbri’s door opened, and she came tap-tapping her way out in a dark green nightie. It was the first time he’d seen her face by daylight, or any of the rest of her when it wasn’t wrapped up like a durdi roll. It was startling to discover that she was solidly built; he’d expected an emaciated, cronelike form. Her pale yellow hair had grown out some, but was just as messy as before. She had faint freckles across her nose and cheeks, and when she sat down at the table across from him, he saw a flicker of icy blue under her eyelids—the blue of a shab’s locus.

“What are you planning?” she asked him, as she laid her cane across the table in front of her.

He considered being coy about it, but he didn’t want to pick up Darun’s bad habits. Imbri’d played it straight enough with him. “He needs me now. I’m going to take advantage of that. You want to help?”

“What’s he need you for? I thought the Ensi was the important one.”

“Yes, but I’m the only person he has who can find the Ensi.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “You sure about that?”

“About as sure as I am of anything right now. I can see Karagene haranuu, and other pyres’ too. It doesn’t seem like handmaidens can spot me, and if they could track my haranu they wouldn’t have needed to wait around with you all that time, would they?”

“Probably not. I’m glad you’re finally thinking things through.”

“Thanks, I guess.” He glanced down at her milk-white arms lying on the table. “Did you know you’re right under a dulsphere? Is that going to hurt your skin?”

“No. Pyre-light is the projected ideal of the sun, not the sun itself. It doesn’t bother me.”

“’The projected ideal’? I thought you said you didn’t know anything about magic.”

“Try to focus here, Ram. You’re going to try and find the Ensi for him. Then what?”

“First off, I’m going to see if my spirit will let me punch him in the face. We’ll try to be a little more constructive after that.”

“You mean you’re not thinking ahead.”

“Yes, I am,” he said, trying to keep his patience. “But like you told me yesterday, I’ve only got so much to work with, here. I don’t know if Piridur’s telling the truth, or even part of the truth. Do you?”

“I’m pretty sure he believes most of what he’s told you, just based on knowing him for about a month. He obviously wants you alive and cooperating.”

“Yeah. But he’ll need you too. Or we will.”

She smiled, faintly. “How do you figure? You need help from bazuu to find this guy?”

“Probably not.” He thought it over, wondering how far he could trust Imbri. He’d have to, sooner or later, and nothing he told her could substitute for having him along. “The Ensi’s moving out into open desert right now. Nowhere near any pyres, and I don’t think he’s going to change course. The White Sun won’t bother him, so he can stay out for as long as he can find food and water.”

“I don’t know a lot about the different blackband groups. How many others sell bazu stuff?”

“Not that many, and they have a bad selection. Where are you going with this?”

“You already know,” he told her. “Look at that smirk, you’re just testing me. Fine. You bought from bazuu. That means you went to rookeries. Ushna said he did business at beacons sometimes, but the rookeries within three days of the beacons get destroyed every bloom. Right?”

“With you so far.” She reached out, found the pot of spice drink with her hand, and poured herself a cup. “So what?”

“You talked about your ‘usual suppliers.’ That sounds like an established rookery in the mountains, not some desert outpost that gets burned down all the time. If Piridur wants to go chasing after the Ensi, he’s going to need somebody who knows how to survive away from pyrelight on white day too. Someone like you.”

“How do you know it’s me? Maybe somebody else in the group knows the trick.”

“Get serious. You’re the one who’s half-moonchild, you’re the most obvious candidate. And you said Ushna thought you were valuable.”

“How long are you going to play dumb like this? The bazuu aren’t supposed to be morons. If they wanted to sell to humans, they could work out a way of doing it with signs or something. You just told me there are other outfits in the business.”

“They mostly loot rookeries,” she said. “The doomed outposts. Just like you did with Dad and Bal. That’s why they get the bad selection; they have to take what they can get. Some of them trade with moonchildren instead.”

“And they have to do all that because?” Ram prompted.

“Because they don’t have me to take them to the source,” she cheerfully admitted. Her smile was warm now, and her voice with it. “Okay, I think we can do business. But I don’t come cheap.”

“What do I care? Piridur’s going to be the one paying.” Before he could say anything else, the door banged open, and Darun came in, followed by a frowning Shazru, Bal carrying an enormous bag, and several of Piridur’s dour henchmen—Ram hadn’t bothered to learn their names.

“What did you do to piss these guys off, Ram?” Darun demanded. “I wasn’t half-finished!”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s the Ensi. He’s left Dul Karagi.”

Shazru startled; Darun only pouted. “And that has what to do with us?” She snatched the bag from Bal, and all but dragged him from the table with her other hand. “Oh, well. Come on, let me show you what I got. I’m sorry you got stuck with the brat,” she added under her breath as she steered him into their room, “I just figured you’d want to sleep in a little, you know?”

“Sure,” he said. If she wanted to be snotty about Imbri, he wouldn’t waste breath trying to stop her. “So, what did you buy?”

“Oh, a bunch of stuff,” she said, shutting the door behind them. “Check this out!” She rummaged in the bag, and pulled out a low-cut, red-and-blue striped gown with a cream-colored shift to go under. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“You needed another dress?” She’d always had the largest of their three packs in spite of being the smallest of them, with at least five different complete outfits stuffed in it.

“Need or want, what’s the difference? I didn’t pay. Look at it. That’s real silk!”

“Doesn’t silk wrinkle easily?” He thought he’d heard Mother complain about something like that once. “And we’ll be traveling again.”

“Oh, Ram,” she said with a sigh, and favored him with her most condescending smile. “That’s not the point. See how it sets off my skin?”

The next three quarters of an hour were a strange and bewildering experience for Ram, as Darun pulled out a seemingly endless succession of coats, skirts, shirts, scarves, stockings, shoes, hats, and various articles of clothing he hadn’t even known existed. She held them up against herself, put them on and turned around for his benefit. The process involved a fair amount of undressing, but was somehow more dispiriting than arousing.

Ram suspected she was laughing at him; there was no way she thought he was enjoying all this, and Mother’s darkest stories had never implied that dissolute living entailed anything half so tedious and infuriating. Could he end it by going in for a kiss? He wasn’t sure if he dared to go that far; it put him in mind of a half-crazed prisoner charging his jailer. But it might end this. He wouldn’t be the first prisoner to choose death over torture.

He was working up the nerve to go for it when he was finally rescued by a loud knock from Piridur. “I’m back, Ram. I’d like to borrow you for just a moment, if I could.”

It sounded like he’d settled down a little bit. “I’ll be right out,” he promised, with an insincerely apologetic smile for Darun. She didn’t look convinced.

The others were already seated around the table when he got out, pecking at a lunch just as extravagant as the last two meals. Maybe Piridur was fattening them up to make them sluggish and docile? The man himself wasn’t eating, but stood at the head of the table, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. “I’d already ordered and paid for this meal when you told me. Eat it quickly,” he said, waving his hand. “We’ll be leaving for Dul Karagi in two hours, to assess the situation. Unless you have anything else to tell me?”

“No,” Ram said, as he slid into the indicated chair. “I wasn’t lying. As far as I can tell, the Ensi’s left Dul Karagi.”

“I wasn’t accusing you of lying,” Piridur said. “The situation might have changed again.”

“It hasn’t. He’s still moving away from the pyre. I can’t tell anything else from this distance.”

“You’re taking a skybarque, I assume?” Imbri asked.

“Yes. This is urgent, after all, if Ram’s assessment of the situation is accurate.”

“Got room for a couple more? Or does the barque charge per passenger?”

“I could take you, yes. And I will, if you give me a good reason. We’re in a hurry, and I don’t have time to settle the issue of your countenance just yet.”

“They have a lot of practice traveling the desert,” Ram pointed out. “More than you do. And they’re already available and up to speed.”

“They were also, until very recently, helping you evade capture. I’m not sold on the idea.”

“Why would I want to run away? You’ve just told me I’ll die if he doesn’t rekindle the pyre, and nobody else can help you find him. Can they?”

“No, but—ngh.” He shut his eyes, and started rubbing at his temples. “I don’t have time to argue this out with you. Ram, you’re coming with me, one way or another. I’ll take any of the rest of you who care to join, but you’d better be there on time or I’ll leave you behind. Roof of the Turlalru—that’s the building you arrived at, with the map. Two hours.” He was already on his way out the door as he said the last words; it slammed shut behind him.

“That man desperately needs to get laid,” Darun declared. “But I can put up with it, for the kind of money we’re looking at here. What do you bet we can’t get a hundred gold, before this is done?”

“What would you even do with a hundred gold?” Imbri said. “I’d settle for twenty, if it gets us out with our throats intact. Either way, I’m in. Shazru?”

Shazru looked prim. “I can’t say I’m happy with how this has gone so far, but I have been physician to the Damadzus for three kindlings. I will go where I am needed.”

“I’d say we’re settled, then,” Darun said, and pushed her chair back from the table. “Come on, Ram. I’ve got a whole lot of clothes to pack, and I can’t do it all alone.”