one of them was the blue rope while the other was the black-and-gold, but she had no way of knowing for certain, and the august emerita did not address them by name.
“You will accompany Mahtra to the palace. Show this to the sergeant at the gate, and the instigator, too—but don’t give it to them, and don’t let Mahtra out of your sight until you reach the golden doors. Stay with her. Show my words to anyone who challenges you.”
She folded the parchment, struck a tinder stick with flint and steel, and then lit a shiny black candle. She sealed the parchment with a glistening blob of wax. One of the two slaves took the candle from her hand and extinguished it. The other handed her a stone rod as long as her forearm and topped with the carving of a skull. Black wax and a skull. The symbols and their meanings were inescapable: the august emerita was—or had been—a deadheart, a necromancer at the very least; but considering the way this necromancer plucked the thoughts of the living, more likely, an interrogator, like Lord Escrissar himself, and one of the Lion’s cubs.
Mahtra cried out when the august emerita hammered the rod against the wax. She felt foolish immediately, but these two slaves were not the laughing, teasing sort that Bettin was. Or perhaps they, like her, were overwhelmed by the old woman’s intentions.
“This should be sufficient.” She handed the sealed parchment to the slave who’d held the rod. “It shouldn’t be opened at all until you reach the golden doors. But if it is, remember the face well. Remember all their faces, their masks, their names, if you hear them.”
The young men weren’t overwhelmed by King Hamanu; they were overwhelmed by their master, whose orders they were expected to obey to death’s door and beyond. Their scarred cheeks were their protection, as the marks around her eyes were Mahtra’s. No one would tamper with the slave of an interrogator, not knowing what an interrogator could do, to whom an interrogator could turn.
No one had dared tamper with Kakzim. Not even the august emerita.
* * *
Sobered and chastened, Mahtra accompanied the two slaves from the templar quarter and through the wide-open gates of Hamanu’s palace. The courtyard was as vast as the cavern, but open to the sky and dazzling in the midday sun. Here and there clots of templars, nobles, and wealthy merchants conducted their business. She recognized some of them. They recognized her by pretending not to. And though the air was dead still and the heat oppressive, Mahtra hid herself within her shawl.
They were hailed at the inner gate by a war bureau sergeant and a civil bureau instigator, each in a yellow robe with the distinctive and appropriate sleeve banding. The war bureau sergeant wanted to carry the message himself to the next post. He told the two slaves that they were dismissed, but he withdrew his order when the taller slave said:
“I will remember your face.”
After that they traveled through a smaller courtyard where trees grew and fountains squandered their water. Threads of gold and copper were woven in the sleeves of the templars they encountered next, and more metal still in the sleeves of the third pair who stood at the mighty doors of the palace proper. Mighty doors, but not golden ones—Mahtra and her two companions were passed to a fourth and finally a fifth pair of templars—high templars, with masks and other-colored robes—before they came to a closed but unguarded pair of golden doors.
“You’ve done well,” one of the masked templars said to the slaves. “Remember us to the august emerita. We wish her continued peace.” He took the black-sealed parchment, then opened one of the golden doors. “Wait in here,” he said, and as quickly as that, Mahtra was completely alone.
She found herself in an austere chamber no larger than the august emerita’s atrium, but empty, save for a single black marble bench; and quiet, save for the gentle cascade of water flowing over the great black boulder in front of the bench. There was no source for the water. Its presence, its endless movement, had to be the manifestation of powerful magic.
Mahtra had learned a few useful things in House Escrissar, like where to sit when she didn’t know what to expect next. She headed for that part of the wall that was farthest from the rock and yet afforded a clear view of the now-shut golden doors. It was