Now, it seemed small. It had one large gate, and way too few guardsusually onebetween it and the rest of the city. The only people who left the Quarter for much of anything were the Thaalani seconded to the Imperial Serviceand like many, many people in Elantra, they hated their jobs. Of course they did their jobs to prevent the Emperor from turning their race into small piles of ash, but they didnt make this a big public complaint.
And they still liked the Hawks. Kaylin privately thought that was crazyin their situation, she wouldnt have.
Lord Sanabalis had arranged for a carriage, but he had not chosen to accompany them to the Quarter. This was probably for the best, as a Dragon wandering the streets could make anyone who noticed him nervous. On the other hand, people were already nervous, and if they wanted to take it out on something, Kaylin privately had a preference for something that could fight back, although she conceded that this was a fief definition of the word fight.
Rennick was silent for the most part, which came as a bit of a shock. He stuck his head out the window once or twice when something caught his eye, and he frequently stuck his arm out as if writing on air, but Severn said nothing; clearly Rennick was not of a station where babysitting was considered part of their duties.
But he pulled both arm and head into the carriage when they at last began the drive up Poynters road, because even Rennick could tell that the bodies on this particular street were on the wrong side of tense. They were like little murders waiting to happen.
Dont they have anything better to do? she muttered to Severn.
He said nothing.
It was Rennick who said, Probably not. They dont want the Thaalani to leave the Quarter, and theyre making sure that they dont. Hey! That man has a crossbow!
Kaylin had seen it. The fact that it was still in his hands implied that the Swords had far more work than they should have, and it troubled her. But not enough that she wanted to stop the carriage, get down and start a fight.
Because it would be a fight, and it would probably get messy.
Theyre frightened, she said, surprising herself.
Funny how frightened people can be damn scary, Rennick replied. But he looked thoughtful, not worried.
How many? Kaylin asked Severn.
A hundred and fifty, maybe. Some of them are in the upper windows along the street. I imagine that the Thaalani who serve the Emperor are being heavily escorted.
Or given a vacation.
He nodded.
Has there been any official word about the incident? Rennick asked quietly.
Kaylin shrugged.
You dont know?
Right up until one of those idiots fires his crossbow or swings hisis that a pickax? Severn nodded. Swings his ax, she continued, its not Hawk business. Its Sword, and the Swords are here.
And they were. Kaylin had thought theyd send twenty men out; she was wrong by almost an order of magnitude. She thought there were maybe two hundred in totalno wonder the Halls of Law were so damn quiet.
But while they lined the street, they hadnt built an official barricade, they did meet the carriage in the road, well away from the gatehouse, and they did tell the driver to step down. They also opened the doors, and Kaylin made sure she tumbled out first.
Private Neya? said the man who had delivered the curt instructions. He was older than Kaylin by about fifteen years, and the day seemed to have added about a hundred new wrinkles, and a layer of gray to his skin, but she recognized him. MaxUh, Sergeant, she added, as he looked pointedly over her soldier. Sergeant Voone. Youre out here?
Max wasnt retired, exactly, but he spent a lot of his time behind a desk. He appeared to like it a great deal more than Marcusbut a corpse would have given that impression as well. And Max looked tired.
Most of us are, as you put it, out here. I know why were herewhat are you doing in a fancy box?
Oh. Uh, we were sent here.
By?
Lord Sanabalis.
He whistled. To do what?
Not to step all over your toes, relax.
His chuckle was entirely mirthless. Well relax when these people remember they have jobs and family.
Im thinking they remember the family part, Kaylin replied. People go crazy when they think theyre protecting their own.
Tell me about it. No, strike that. Dont.
When did it get this bad?
There was an incident two days ago.
Incident?
It was messy, he replied, his voice entirely neutral. The Swordlord made it clear that there will be no more incidents. The Emperor was not impressed.
She winced. It wasnt often that she felt sympathy for the Swords. But while she resented the easy life the Swords generally called work, she liked them better than the people with the crossbows down the street.
You know theyre armed? she asked casually.
We are well aware that theyre armed. And no, thank you, we dont require help in disarming them. Theyre waiting for an invitation. Let them wait. At that distance.
She looked at Severn as Severn exited the carriage. Rennick tumbled out after him. Sergeant Voone, Severn said, before the sergeant could speak, Richard Rennick. Hes the Imperial Playwright.
This is not a good time for sightseeing, the Sword said to Rennick.
Rennick looked him up and down, and then shrugged. It wasnt my idea. But he was subdued, now. He lifted a hand to his face, rubbing the scruff on his chin.
You can call the Hawks out, Kaylin continued. At least the Aerians
Weve got Aerians here. Theyre not currently in the air, he added. And then he gave her an odd look. The Hawks have their own difficulties to worry about. I was sorry to hear the news.
What news?
His whole expression shuttered, not that it was ever all that open.
Voone, what news? Whats happened?
You came from the Halls?
The Halls dont usually have access to Imperial Carriages. What happened?
No one died, he replied, and his tone of voice added yet. But you might want to check in at the office before you head home.
She wanted to push him for more, but Severn shook his head slightly. Ybelline.
There was no Thaalani guard at the guardhouse. That position was taken up by a dozen Swords. They wore chain, and they carried unsheathed swords. Youd have to be crazy to rush the gatehouse.
Kaylin approached it quietly and answered the questions the Swords asked; they were all perfunctory. Voone escorted them to the squad and left them there, after mentioning her name loudly enough to wake the dead. She noted all of this and tried to squelch her own fear. Severn was right, of course. Theyd come here for Ybelline. But the sympathies of Voone made her nervous.
The Swords hadnt entered the Quarter; they were met by Thaalani guards. Four men in armor. Their stalks swiveled toward her as she entered.
She saw that they, too, bore unsheathed swords, and it made her angry. Those weapons just looked wrong in Thaalani hands; she wondered if they even knew how to use them.
But using them wasnt an issue. They bowed to her, almost as one man. Ybelline is waiting for you, one told her quietly.
At her house?
Not at her domicile. Demett will take you to her. The man so identified stepped away from his companions.
Where is she?
At the longhouse was his replyspoken in the stiff and exact cadence that Thaalani who were unused to speech used. He obviously expected her to know what the longhouse was, and she didnt bother to correct him.
She followed him, and it took her a moment to realize why the streets here felt so wrongthey were empty. Usually walking down a Thaalani street was like walking in the Foundling Hallit was a gauntlet of little attention-seeking children, with their open curiosity and their utter lack of decorum.
She didnt care for the change. Hell, even the plants were drooping. Rennick walked between Severn and her, and made certain that there was always at least one body between him and the nearest Thaalani. He wasnt overly obvious about it, but it rankled. Even when Kaylin had been terrified of the Thaalani, she wouldnt have tried to hide. One, it wouldnt have done much good and twowell, two, she didnt casually throw strangers to fates she herself feared.
It was not going to be easy working with Rennick. She spared him a glance every so often, which was more than any of the Thaalani did. They hadnt even questioned his presence. It would have been convenient if they had. Hed be on the other side of the gates, where hed be marginally less annoying.
The guards walked past the latticework of openand utterly emptyfountains; past the blush of bright pink, deep red and shocking blue flower beds that bordered them; past the neat little circular domes that reminded Kaylin of nothing so much as hills. And if those homes were hills, they were approaching a small fortress that nestled among them. It was two stories tall, and the beams that supported the clay face were almost as wide as she was, and certainly taller. It was larger by far than the building in which Ybelline, the castelorda word that didnt suit her at allchose to live. It was almost imposing.
It was also bloody crowded.
It boasted normal doorsrectangular doors, not the strange ones that adorned most of the Thaalani homes; these doors werent meant to blend with the structure. They stood out. And they were pulled wide and pegged open. Which, given the number of people on the other side of them, made senseclosed doors would have made breathing anything but stale air and sweat almost impossible. As it was, it was dicey.
This is the longhouse, Kaylin said.
Demett nodded.
Demett, she said, as he turned, what is the longhouse used for?
His face went that shade of expressionless that actually meant he was talkingbut only to the Thaalaan: to the minds of his people, and the memories of the dead. She waited for it to pass, as if it were a cloud; it took a while.
Wait for Ybelline, he told her quietly.
Ybelline came through the crowd slowly. You could see where she might be moving because her movement caused the other Thaalani to move, like a human wave composed entirely of bodies. The building was packed. Kaylin thought there might be six or seven hundred people just beyond the open doors, more if the children so absent from the streets were also there.
But Ybelline did not come alone; the movement of the crowd, the slow outward push, wouldnt have been necessary to allow just one person through. The people spilled out into the streets, beyond Kaylin and Severn. Rennicks shoulders curled in, and he brought his hands up once or twice, as if to fend off any contact.
The Thaalani in turn avoided him.
They would. They knew fear when they saw it, especially Rennicks fearand his fear was poison to them. They tried just as hard as he did to avoid any contact, but Kaylin had to admit they were more polite about it.
Ybelline appeared at last, between the shoulders of about sixteen tightly grouped men and women. She wore robes, an earth-brown with green edges; her hair was arranged both artlessly and perfectly above her slender neck. Her eyes were the honey-brown of that hair, but they were ringed with gray circles. She looked exhausted.
Exhaustion did not stop her from opening her arms, stepping forward and hugging Kaylin. And nothing in the world would have stopped Kaylin from returning that hug. Nothing.
Tell me, she whispered, her lips beside Ybellines ear. She knew she should have introduced Rennick, but it had been Severns idea to drag him here, and he was therefore, for the moment, Severns problem.
The slender stalks, which were the most obvious racial trait of all the Thaalani, brushed strands of Kaylins hair from her forehead, and then settled gently against skin.
They were so delicate, the touch so light, they could hardly be felt at all.
But Ybelline could beand more, she could be clearly heard. Could clearly hear. With this much contact, she could, if she wanted to, peruse every memory Kaylin had, including ones she wasnt aware of herself. All the hidden things could be revealed, every bad or stupid or humiliating thing Kaylin had ever done.
And Kaylin, knowing this, didnt care.
But she wasnt prepared for Ybellines voice when it came. It was raw and, at first, there were no wordsjust the sense of things that might have become words with enough distance and effort. With too much distance and effort.
But she saw what Ybelline meant her to see in the brief glimpse of steel and blood and the bodies of the fallen, all interposed, all flashing over and over again in quick succession in front of Kaylins eyes. Except that her eyes were closed.
Help me. Just that, two words.
Kaylin rolled up her sleeves and, without even looking at her wrist, pressed the gems on the bracer in the sequence that would open it: white, blue, white, blue, red, red, red. She dropped it on the ground as if it were garbagebut she could. If shed tossed it on a garbage heap, it would find its way back to her. Shed only tried that once. Maybe twice.
This was magics cage. And without it, she was free to do whatever she could. For this reason it was technically against orders to remove it.
Her hands were tingling. Ybelline, she said, and then, Ybelline.
Ybelline, you have to let go of me.
The Thaalani castelord did as Kaylin bid; she let go, withdrew her arms, her stalks. With them went the wild taste of fearYbellines fear. She kept it from the Thaalaan, and therefore from her people, but she was exhausted. And Kaylin understood the exhaustion; it was hard for any Thaalani to live alone, on the inside of their thoughts, the way humans did.
The way humans needed to.
The Thaalani who had followed Ybelline out of the longhouse had come bearing stretchers. Four stretchers. Four men. They might once have worn armorhad, Kaylin thought, remembering the brief flash of images that had emerged from her contact with Ybelline.
But they werent dead. They werent dead yet.
Put them down, Kaylin said, easing her voice into the command that came naturally when she was on the beat. There were no children here; she had time to notice their absence, to be grateful for it. No more.
The crowd stepped back. The bodies lay on stretchers. Someone had dressed wounds, had cleaned burnsburns!had done what they could to preserve life. Freed of the constraints that the ancient bracer placed on her magic, Kaylin knelt between two of these stretchers and touched two foreheads with her right and left palms. She was gentle, although she didnt have to bethe men here were in no danger of regaining consciousness anytime soon. They had that gray-white pallor that spoke of loss of blood. She was surprised that they hadnt succumbed to the wounds they had taken. Many of those wounds werent clean cuts; they had been caused by people who werent used to handling weapons.