His feet slowed as Kihrin climbed the great Stair of Dreams. He’d never passed this way before. There’d never been a need. On those few occasions Surdyeh had taken him to the Ivory District (or later, when Kihrin had come by himself), they’d always used the Praying Gate entrance. By contrast, the switchbacking marble steps of the Stair of Dreams were the only public access to the maze of manicured hedges, estates, villas, and palaces Quur’s elite called home. Halfway up, Kihrin realized the long, steep stairs were purposefully intimidating. Royalty traveled by litter or carriage, and would use private gates. Only commoners ever made this climb. They would arrive at their destination gasping for breath and humbled.
He suspected he might be in trouble when the Watchmen at the top of the stairs recognized and were expecting him—exactly as Captain Jarith had promised. They dispatched an escort to show him the way to the Milligreest estate, eliminating any possibility he might become “lost.” Normally he’d have resented the babysitting, but this once he was grateful. Without it he’d have arrived late or never found the place at all. Unlike the guards he was used to, these were polite, clean, and professional, and Kihrin didn’t quite know how to deal with that.
The Milligreest estate was in the Ruby District, which Kihrin could tell because all the mage-lights on the street (there were mage-lights on the streets!) were red. He knew enough about the Royal Houses to know the Red Men—the Metalsmiths Guild—owed their allegiance here. He didn’t know enough to remember the House’s name.*
He knew the Royal Houses of the Court of Gems were god-touched, knew they alone had been blessed by divinity. While each of the twelve houses was identified by some meaningless bit of heraldry, they could also be recognized by the color of the gems the houses used as tokens.
He knew House D’Jorax’s mark was rainbow-hued, their Royal Family had eyes like opals, and they controlled the Revelers. Surdyeh paid them a yearly guild fee for membership and his license to perform. Kihrin also knew House D’Evelin was amethyst, because D’Evelin owned the Collectors, to whom Butterbelly paid his guild fees. Pretty much everyone assumed the Collectors were the ultimate authority behind the illegal Shadowdancers.
Kihrin knew many, if not most, of the guilds ultimately took their cues from a Royal House, but he’d never learned which ones.
The blue-eyed nobleman Morea had assumed was his relative was almost certainly one such member of royalty. However, Kihrin found himself at a loss to remember the specific house to which the villain owed fealty. Did blue mean he was a physicker? Kihrin had no idea which Royal Family controlled the Blue Houses, where one traded metal for healing.
For the first time in his life he wondered why his father, who made such a show of chiding him to practice and study—if he wanted to play before anyone important—had so thoroughly neglected his education in this regard.
17: WAKING THE OLD MAN
(Kihrin’s story)
We swung round the fang at top speed, the ship tilting at an angle she was never built to endure, racing at a speed she was never meant to sustain. Maybe a sleeker warship could’ve handled the strain, but The Misery was a clunky slaver. She groaned, and I wondered if she would break up before we reached the real hazards, even with Tyentso and Khaemezra’s magic. We spun twice around the whirlpool before it spat us out. The ship’s planking and mast screamed as another fang formed on our port side, spinning us in the opposite direction like a horse’s rider changing leads.
I bumped against Captain Juval’s first mate Delon while crossing the deck. Walking on a boat pitching like a velvet girl in bed was hard work. Hardly my fault if I had an attack of clumsiness right next to him, right?
“Gods be damned, boy!” Delon cursed at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Fool boy. Go hang onto something!” Delon pulled himself up to the wheel deck. I grinned and bounced the keys to the slave hold in my hand as I watched him go.
Maybe we wouldn’t make it, but I’d be damned if I would let all those slaves die trapped in tiny cages like fish in a net.
This fang wasn’t any smoother than the last, but we were traveling faster than before and The Misery wasn’t happy about it. The deck bucked under my feet. The mast began to warp.
“Come on, Taja, keep her together,” I muttered. “And keep Delon from looking this way.”
I knelt on the deck. My hands were cold as I unlocked the massive iron padlock that held shut the grating hold-door.
The rest was easy. The crew of The Misery were focused on impending doom and the spinning vortex. None of them had any concentration to waste on a teenage boy roaming through the hold, unlocking cages. The sound of our crazy, mad spinning muffled the reactions of the slaves inside. Some of them stared at me in disbelief. A depressing majority shied away from the door, as if they thought this must be some kind of trap. I shouted at them to get out, but I doubt any understood me, assuming they heard me over The Misery’s screams.
The real test wasn’t the slave hold, but the rowing galley. Every slave there was shackled to their bench. Every slave there was individually chained. The ship’s crew had taken in the oars, just as they’d taken down the sails—both interfered with the sharp turns The Misery needed to make to stay afloat. They’d left the slaves down there though. In the months I had been a guest of The Misery’s delightful rowing galley, I had only left my bench at the very end, when they had pulled me out to be interrogated, whipped, and gaeshed.
I shivered from the cold in the small passage leading to the rower’s galley. The heavy iron door creaked as I opened it. Inside, slaves clutched at their oars in the dim light. They had no knowledge of what terror faced them—simply the certainty it would be awful.
I was surprised to see Magoq, the galley master who had so freely whipped and abused any rower who dared lag in their pace, curled fetal in a corner. The hulking giant was crying, shaking.
I had told myself I’d kill Magoq. I’d meant to do it, but I couldn’t bring myself to murder the man when he was grabbing his knees, all but soiling himself in terror. I ignored him as I unlocked the people at their benches. The wind outside howled, or we were just moving at terrific speeds, or both, and I found it hard to stand upright against that momentum. The people chained to their benches could barely stand either. Others slipped in the effluvia of months spent shackled in the ship’s bowels. We didn’t say a word to each other. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had: the roar of wind snatched away any conversation before it could be deciphered.
As I finished unlocking the men, I realized the cold was neither fear nor the weather. I reached for the Stone of Shackles with a nervous hand. I might as well have been feeling a block of ice. One of the men gestured, giving me the warning I needed as Delon swung a cutlass through the space where I’d stood a moment before.
Delon shouted at me, but I couldn’t make out the words. He wasn’t happy with me. That was clear enough.
He swung at me again, and as he did, the ship shifted violently. The room darkened as something massive flashed by the portholes. Delon’s cutlass swung far off the mark and embedded itself in one of the wooden benches. There was noise and shuffling and (although I thought it hard to know for sure) the sound of screaming.