Dangerous Gifts (40 page)

We saw no one on the road, not a single Ikinchli coming late to the ceremony. Had it already begun?

I had gone over the ceremony with Rikkinnet. The Itnunnacklish and her two husbands were gowned and garlanded. I’d worried about that, before; now, I had the dreadful thought that if someone did assassinate Enthemmerlee, it would probably stop the ceremony and prevent the opening of the
Ipash Dok
.

What was in that small glittering shell?

After the gowning – of course, now, there was only one husband to dress, dammit, even less time – there were words from the priests, an offering of fish to the ancestors, then the laying of the
Ipash Dok
on the altar.

I urged the disti on. It moaned. The stableboy, infected by our mood, had stopped singing as he rode and now crouched anxiously on his beast’s neck, glancing over at us every now and again, but asking no questions.

I felt bad for the boy; but if whatever was in that thing was powerful enough to threaten Scalentine, an ocean away, telling him to ride like hells in the other direction probably wasn’t going to do him much good.

Ahead, a great clump of hills, shaggy and brilliant with growth, and shrouded with mist. The road thinned, and steepened, and finally petered out into a narrow, muddy path, rising between banks lush with growth. The disti slowed, placing their great clawed feet carefully.

A small bird, of an extraordinary, heart-achingly brilliant shade of blue with a bright yellow throat, landed on a branch, scattering drops that fell like burning diamonds through the rays of the setting sun. It tilted its head, watching us with a bright orange eye.

We drove on up the path, while around us the landscape shimmered and hummed.

Suddenly the path flattened off, and there before us was a cliff-face, deep red, hung with vines. A set of steps cut into the rock led to a cave gaping dark among the green. All around us grew tall, flowering plants with trumpet flowers of a blazing, triumphant orange streaked with white, each bloom as long as my forearm. They gave off a richly honeyed scent, which drowned out the smell of decaying eggs.

We leapt down, and ran up the steps; red stone, a smooth shining dent worn in the centre of each by uncounted thousands of feet over who knew how many centuries.

The colour of the stone made the entrance to the cave, high and wide enough for two carriages, look uncomfortably like a mouth. The sun was behind the mountain; I could see glimmers of light in the darkness within. My spine itched, and my hand tightened on my knife. I missed my shield, wondered if Rikkinnet still had it

We stepped forward.

“Who goes there?”

Tantris, and a handful of the guard, flanked by Ikinchli.

“You! What...”

“No time. Let us in.”

“Who are these people?” Two of the Ikinchli, hard-muscled and alert, stepped forward. “What do you want here?”

“Enthemmerlee!” I yelled.

“Babylon. Please.” Fain bowed. “We are here to protect the Itnunnacklish.”

“The captain knows me,” I said. “Please. If you won’t let us in, just tell them, they mustn’t put the
Ipash Dok
on the altar! If it opens...”

They looked at each other, and in that moment I dived past them.

Heat, steamy as a laundry, smelling of eggs and greenness and packed bodies and something rich and sweet. The murmurous sigh of a huge crowd.

Beyond the glow of daylight falling through the cave-mouth, showing a floor of polished red stone, the place was a vast hollow, packed like a jewel-chest with lamps and candles and thousands upon thousands of glowing eyes.

It seemed as though the whole of the inside of the mountain had been carved out. The walls were a deep and bloody red, porphyry polished smooth as glass. Translucent slices and folds of agate hung here and there, like swathes of fantastic fabrics in shades of gold and copper and umber and flesh. Piled in mounds here and there, sometimes spreading up the walls, was what I thought, for one confused moment, was snow; but it was rock, smooth white stuff that glimmered where the light hit it as though a billion tiny stars were caught in its substance.

And crowded into this fantastical natural palace were thousands of Ikinchli. Every age, from tiny squirming infants to rheumy-eyed silvery ancients, sitting on low stools, on cushions, on rocks, on the floor. Perched in niches in the walls.

To the left was a great slab of that glimmering white stone, four feet high, six deep, and ten wide.

The altar. Mounds of incense were piled on its surface, sending sweet blue smoke up into the darkness. In front of it, Enthemmerlee and Malleay, tiny and doll-like in gowns of fantastic splendour; so covered with beads and stones and mirror-fragments as to render the fabric invisible. The gap where Lobik should have been was as shocking as a missing limb. In front of them, several Ikinchli priests, in elaborately embroidered gowns. Enboryay. Next to him a tumble of blonde curls, a shimmering gown:
Laney.

The core of the guard at Enthemmerlee’s back. Stikinisk, the others, couldn’t remember their names, wouldn’t matter in a moment.

“Enthemmerlee!” My voice was sucked away into the huge empty space, the murmuring crowd. I started to run.

Faces turning to look, shocked.

“Enthemmerlee!”

Cave was too damn big, acoustics shitty, she’d never hear me.

The priests could see me now, but they carried on, ignoring the disruption. They’d probably expected something like this.

More of the guard, seeing someone running, raising weapons, realising who it was, confused, uncertain.

Good.
If they’d had proper training I wouldn’t get within feet of her.

I jinked to the side without thinking. Something slapped my cheek, the side of my face went numb, I stumbled, kept running.

Stikinisk saw me, and her mouth opened. Malleay saw me, and suddenly there was a blade in his hand.
What, you think after all the trouble I’ve been to I want to finish her off?

Someone hit me in the back, knocking me off my feet. I heaved them off, got up, kept running. “Enthemmerlee!”

Someone else slammed into me, and as I went over I saw Laney, wide eyed and furious, lifting her hand.

“No, Laney! It’s the
Ipash Dok,
the gift, don’t let it go on the altar!”

Finally, Enthemmerlee turned. I could see an
Ipash Dok
glittering in her hand; another – her own, I hoped – was already on the altar.

She held the thing up, looking at it, puzzled.

Then an awful lot of people landed on me.

“G
ET OFF HER
!” Laney, never one for ceremony, marched through the crowd, throwing off sparks.

You don’t need to have met Fey before to realise that you don’t stand in the way of one when she’s pissed off. The various people holding me down – some guards but mostly Ikinchli – got up, though several of them still held onto me.

“Babylon, you’re bleeding.”

I was also pretty sore, and still trying to get my breath back. Someone had landed on my stomach and knocked the wind out of me. “Laney,” I wheezed. “That thing Enthemmerlee’s holding, there’s something very bad in it. Very...
huuhh
... bad indeed.”

“Oh. Well, I’d better take a look at it then.”

Enthemmerlee still stood by the altar, looking at me, as did Malleay. I hadn’t been stared at by this many people at once since the
last
time I’d been at the centre of a religious ceremony.

Enthemmerlee said, “I hope that you will forgive us for the insult of this disruption, but it seems there may be a problem.”

“Indeed there is,” Fain said. “I apologise profoundly for this, but we had no choice.”

“Please,” I said, “let Laney look.”

Enthemmerlee frowned at me, then looked at the small, glittering oval in her hand. “This.”

“Yes.”

“Surely you don’t think
Lobik...
”

“No. Not Lobik. Please, trust me, it’s dangerous.”

I saw her fingers tighten, and I drew a breath. Her eyebrows went up, and, still slowly, she handed it to Laney.

“Don’t try and open it,” I said.

“Really, Babylon, I’m not an idiot.” Laney frowned, running her fingers over the glitter and fragments. “It’s... Oh.”

“What is it?”

“A
very
clever ward,” Laney said. “A ward made to not look like a ward. If I hadn’t been looking for something, I’d never have found it.”

Everyone was looking at us now. “What is it? How did you know?” Enthemmerlee said.

“Later. Please.” I didn’t think she needed the news of her aunt’s betrayal right now. “It should be safe, for the moment. Laney?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll deal with it.” She looked up at the surrounding faces; the guards, the hundreds of watching Ikinchli, Enthemmerlee, the priests, and waved a hand. “Go on, then, carry on. I thought you had a ceremony to do?”

I
T WAS ALL
very solemn, and involved singing, but fortunately it wasn’t very long.

The Ikinchli seemed pleased, and roared their pleasure when Enthemmerlee was declared the Itnunnacklish; I felt a little ashamed of myself for thinking that a trifle redundant.

A
FTER THE CEREMONY
Laney rushed over to me and enveloped me in a scented hug. “Babylon, darling, I’m so sorry it took me just the
longest
time to get here, honestly, what with one thing and another...” She looked closely at me. “Darling, you look quite dreadful, has it been ghastly? No, I can tell it has. I
knew
I should have come with you.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be silly, love, I told you not to come. Laney, is everyone well? Are things bad, back home?”

“Oh, well, there have been a few silly squabbles, but nothing dreadful. And that nice little herbalist on Freshwater Street got burned down, can you imagine?
So
annoying, now I’ll have to find someone else. Which reminds me, you’re going to bruise, I’ll put something on that when...”

“And Hargur?”

“Last I heard he was fine. It was him you meant, wasn’t it? In your first message? About ‘our dear Millie’?”

In everything that had happened, I’d completely forgotten about the message I’d sent from the docks when we arrived. “You got it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know what it said if I hadn’t, darling, would I? Honestly, Babylon.”

“Sorry. It’s been a long few days.”

“Yes, I can tell. Anyway, I did send a message to Hargur, saying that you thought Fain was watching him.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Oh, you know the Chief, darling. He sent a message saying, ‘I know.’ That was it! And then I got your other one, and I spent
forever
trying to get passage. Two
days
in dockside offices!” Laney rolled her eyes. “I was beginning to think I’d been ill-wished.”

Two days, plus the time it had taken to get here. Anything could have happened. Though even on the docks, surely, she’d have heard...

“Oh, and did you find out anything about the silk?” Laney said.

I groaned. I’d forgotten about the bloody silk. “Well, it was on its way to Scalentine, last I heard. But someone planned to rob the warehouse.”

Her face fell. “Oh, no, that’s awful! We must get home and stop it!”

“It should be all right. I got a message back, to warn the Militia. If they have time to deal with it, that is.”

“Oh, well.” Laney’s face brightened again. “That’s all right, then.”

I hoped she was right. It was so good to see her I couldn’t really stay annoyed with her, anyway; having her there was like a little slice of home.

Still not as good as the real thing, though.

“Have you found out what was in the
Ipash Dok
?”

“So far as I can tell, it’s a disease. A very, very nasty one; some sort of plague. Without taking it to someone who specialises in these things, all I know is it would probably kill most things within a bee’s flight of human. So, certainly Ikinchli
and
Gudain and you, and probably me, too. And very, very infectious. But I daren’t look any closer.”

“It has to have been made outside Scalentine, then.”

“Well, I don’t know, darling,” Laney said.

“What do you mean? I thought the portals stopped diseases getting through.”

“They stop them coming in from the outside, but I don’t know if they stop them getting
out.
People going the other way don’t usually
have
anything infectious.”

Fain would probably know, and in the meantime, it wasn’t my problem. “Can you make it harmless?”

“I already did. Well, I’ve
locked
it. It needs destroying, really, but I don’t think I’m that good. I need Mokraine.”

“What happened to him?”

“Oh, it was terribly shocking, darling; I mean I haven’t seen him for so long, I had no idea he was that ill. And that creature of his was looking even more disgusting than usual. I’ve seen prettier slugs.”

“I’ve seen prettier
turds
than that thing.”

“Darling, ugh. Anyway, I was talking to Mokraine and I heard this scraping noise, and the familiar was lying on the floor, and well, you know it doesn’t
breathe,
but it looked as though if it did, it would be struggling to, and Mokraine got down on his knees, and I asked if it was sick, and he said he thought it was dying.”

“Did he catchsomething from it?”

“I don’t know, he just collapsed. I did what I could, had him put to bed in his room, but I’m not sure what’s wrong. I mean, this is Mokraine. He doesn’t even get
sick
like other people.”

“So who else was left behind?”

“A handful of servants,” Laney said, “some rather horrid little guard with hair like a greased hedgehog…”

“Dentor.”

“Well, anyway, I didn’t like him, a few other guards, and the seneschal, of course. Honestly, I don’t think you could get him out of the place unless you put a fireball up his bottom.”

“I hope you weren’t thinking of trying that.”

“Now you know I wouldn’t. By the way, that Captain Tantris is rather sweet, isn’t he? Is he with anyone who’d
mind?
”