stoke the furnace and run the pumps. Mahtra said she’d take care of herself. Pavek and Ruari sluiced themselves as best they could at the kitchen cistern. They cornered Zvain and subjected him to the same treatment. Fresh clothing came out of the packs they’d brought from Quraite: homespun shirts and breeches, not really suitable for a high templar, but what remained of Elabon Escrissar’s clothes wouldn’t go around Pavek’s brawny, human shoulders and Ruari would have nothing to do with them.
Ruari refused to sleep in a bed where Elabon Escrissar might have slept. Late evening found the half-elf spreading his blankets in the garden under the watchful, independent eyes of their new house lizard. Pavek considered telling the youth that he was a fool, that Urik was noisier than Quraite and the sounds would keep him awake, but those were the precise sounds Pavek was spreading his own blankets to hear throughout the night.
Midnight brought an echoing chorus of gongs and bells as watchtowers throughout the city signalled to one another: all’s well, all’s quiet. Pavek listened to every note, and all the other sounds Urik made while it slept—even Ruari’s soft, regular breathing an arm’s length away on the other side of the fountain. As the stars spun slowly through the roof-edged sky, Pavek tried to appreciate the irony: much as he enjoyed the cacophony of city life, he was the one who couldn’t sleep.
Pavek’s thoughts drifted, as a man’s thoughts tended to do when he was alone in the dark. They took a sudden jog back to the cavern with its glamourous bowls and deceptive scaffolds, the noxious sludge clinging to Ruari’s staff; oozing down his own leg. He imagined he could feel the slime again, and without thinking further, swiped his thigh beneath the blankets. His fingers brushed the soft, clean cloth of his breeches. For a heartbeat, Pavek was reassured, then panic struck.
Wide-awake and chilled from the marrow out to his skin, Pavek threw his blankets aside. Stumbling and cursing in unfamiliar surroundings he made his way from the garden and through the residence. He found his filthy clothes where he’d left them: in a heap beside the cistern. Viewed by starlight, one stain looked like another and there was no safe guessing which, if any, came from the cavern sludge.
There were bright embers in the hearth and an oil lamp on the masonry above it. Pavek lit the lamp and went searching for Ruari’s staff, which he found against a wall, just inside the main door. Stains mottled the wooden tip. Lamp in hand, Pavek got down on his knees to examine its stains more closely.
“What are you doing?”
Ruari’s unexpected question scared a year from Pavek’s natural life—assuming he’d be lucky enough to have one.
“Looking for proof that we saw what we saw in the cavern.”
Pavek probed the largest of the stains with a jagged thumbnail. The wood crumbled as if it were rotten. Ruari swore and yanked his most prized possession out of Pavek’s hands. He probed the stain and another bit of soggy, ruined wood came away on his fingertip.
“Careful!” Pavek chided. “That’s all we’ve got between us and Hamanu tomorrow!”
The half-elf was sulky, stubborn, and quick to anger, but he wasn’t stupid. He glowered a moment, thinking things through, then handed the staff back to Pavek.
“The Lion—he’d believe us, wouldn’t he? I mean, you’re the one he sent for, why wouldn’t he believe you? He wouldn’t have to ravel your memories. He wouldn’t leave you an empty-headed idiot. That’s just talk, isn’t it?”
Pavek shook his head. “I’ve seen it done.”
“Telhami could get the truth out of anyone, too, but she’d just look at you, she didn’t do anything. No one ever lied to her; she knew the truth when she heard it.”
“Aye,” Pavek agreed, tearing off the hem of his dirty shirt and beginning to wind it around the stained part of the staff like a bandage. “Heard or saw or tasted. Hamanu can do that, too, or he can spin your memories out, floss into thread, and leave you as empty as the day you were born. That’s what I’ve seen. Should’ve let you collect a great dollop of that swill.”
“I was glad I hadn’t—until now. Will this be enough?” Ruari asked, taking his staff and checking the knot Pavek had made for fastness.
“Slaves would tell you to pray to Great Hamanu; they think he’s a god.”