The spying had started as a game—a mischievous trifle. Mother’s guilt and preoccupation assured that Kelmomas had his run of the palace. The vagrant suspicions that darkened her look from time to time meant he could no longer risk tormenting any of the slaves or menials. So what else was he supposed to do? Play with dirt and dolls in the Sacral Enclosure? Spying on the Narindar would be his hobby, the boy had decided, a diverting way to squander watches while plotting the murder of his older sister.
The first afternoon had alone convinced him something was amiss with the man—something more than the fact of his red-stained earlobes, trim beard, or short-cropped hair. By the second day it had become a game within a game, proving he could match the man’s preternatural feats of immobility.
After the third day there was no question of not spying.
The matter of his sister had become an open sore by this time. If Theliopa told Mother then …
Neither of them could bear think what might happen!
Anas?rimbor Theliopa was the threat he simply could not ignore. The Narindar, on the other hand, was nothing less than his saviour, the man who had rescued him from his uncle. And yet, day after day, every time opportunity afforded, he found himself prowling the hollow bones of the Andiamine Heights searching for the man, spinning rationale after rationale.
She had not fully fathomed the extent of his intellect, Thelli. She had been witless of her peril, yes. And so long as that remained the case, she had no cause to carry through on her evil threat. Like all idiots, she preferred her cobble deeply grooved. Momemn needed a strong Empress, especially now that the Exalt-Cow, Anthirul, was dead. So long as the siege continued, he and his brother should be secure enough …
Besides, saviour or not, something was wrong about this man.
His reasons marshalled, bright before his soul’s eye, his hackles would settle, and he would hang as a hidden moon about the planet of this impossible man.
Time would pass, perhaps a watch or so, then some itinerant terror would shout, Thelli knows!
He would blink away images of those he had eaten.
Crazed cunt!
He had initially approached the challenge she represented with calm, even elation, like a boy set to climb a dangerous yet well-known and beloved tree. He certainly knew the bough and branch of Imperial intrigue well enough. Two of his brothers and his uncle lay dead by his hand—two Princes-Imperial and the Holy Shriah of the Thousand Temples! How much difficulty could a stuttering skinny like Anas?rimbor Theliopa pose?
Sranky, Inrilatas used to call her. Inri was the only one who had ever made her cry.
But that elation soon faded into frustration, for Thelli proved no normal tree. She never left Mother’s side during daylight—never!—which meant the Inchaustic cloud protecting the Empress protected her as well. And she spent every night without exception barricaded in her apartment … Awake as far he could tell.
But before anything, he had begun to worry about his Strength. The more Kelmomas mulled the events of the previous months, the less he seemed to own them, the more glaring his impotence became. He cringed at the lazy way Inrilatas had toyed with him, humoured him for boredom’s sake, or how Uncle Holy had plumbed him to the pith once alerted. The fact was it had been his uncle who had killed Inrilatas, not Kelmomas. And how could he claim credit for his uncle’s assassination when the actual assassin hung stationary upon the shadows just below?
For all his gifts, the young Prince-Imperial had yet to learn the disease that was contemplation, how more often than not it was ignorance of alternatives that made bold action bold. He spied upon the Narindar, matching him immobility for immobility, pulling every corner of his being into the straight line that was the assassin’s soul—every corner, that is, save his intellect, which asked again and again, How can I end her? with the relentlessness of an insect. He lay unblinking, the taste of dust upon his tongue, scarcely breathing, peering between interleaved fronds of iron, raging at his twin, ranting, and even, on occasion, weeping for the unbearable injustice. And so he spun within a motionless frame, pondering, until pondering so polluted his pondering he could bear ponder no more!
He would marvel at it afterward, how the mere act of plotting Thelli’s murder had all but assured her survival. How all the scenarios, all the spitting disputes and aggrandizing declamations, had been a mere pretext for this eerie war of immobility he had undertaken against the Narindar … Issiral.
He was all that mattered here, Fanim siege or no Fanim siege. The boy just knew this somehow.
After endless watches of blank reverie, utter inactivity, the man would simply … do something. Piss. Eat. Take ablution, or on occasion, his leave. Kelmomas would lay watching, his body senseless for being so long inert, suddenly the man would … move. It was as shocking as stone leaping to life, for nothing betrayed any prior will or resolution to move, no restlessness, no impatience borne of anticipation … nothing. The Narindar would just be moving, exiting the door, stalking the frescoed corridors, and Kelmomas would scramble, cursing his prickling limbs. He would fly after him through the very walls …