Kethlun had stripped off his shirt, donned a leather apron, and begun to make something. Carefully he worked a lump of liquid glass at the end of his blowpipe. He wasn’t blowing this piece. He used the pipe to hold the glass as he manipulated it with tongs, pulling out long tendrils and flipping them inward at the end. Tris could see that he breathed in the slow, steady count of meditation. In her magical vision his skin flickered with lightning, but it was gentle, a shimmer rather than a blaze. Working glass calmed him. Perhaps she could use that in her teaching.
If he had seen her, he didn’t show it. His big hands and blue eyes were steady as he pulled the glass, thrust the piece back into the furnace to heat, then worked it again. Tris and Chime stayed by the door to watch, silent. Little Bear retreated in boredom to the courtyard.
At last Keth finished. He’d made a pale green octopus, its tentacles neatly arranged to touch its head, as if it had thrown up its arms in shock. He gave it a final examination, his eyes sharp as he inspected the piece, then set it in an annealing oven on the far side of the furnace. Tris knew about this step from her earlier questions to glassmakers. Without a final tempering in the oven, glass would be even more fragile than it already was.
Keth scowled at Tris. “It took you for ever to get here. Why didn’t you interrupt me?”
Now that she wouldn’t distract him, Tris came in and took the sling off her back, then set Chime’s food and water dishes in an out-of-the-way corner. The dragon began to feed. Only after Chime was seen to did Tris look at Keth.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she replied with a shrug. “I love to watch people work with glass. And you were using the meditation pattern to breathe. Did you feel anything different?”
Keth busied himself cleaning the tools he had used. He was pouring sweat from the heat of furnace and oven, while Tris remained cool inside her cocoon of breezes. With a couple of flicks of her hands she expanded her breezes until they wound through the shop, freshening the air.
“It, the breathing, it made me feel calmer,” Keth admitted in his slow, careful speech. “I just did it for practice. I’m all right with pulling and moulding glass. It’s the blown stuff that gets away from me. Are we going to start? The lessons, for the magic? I want to try to blow a globe before the end of the day.”
Tris bit her lip and counted to one hundred by fives to keep from snapping at him. He needs to learn to listen to me, she thought. When she was calm again, she told him, “Find a comfortable way to sit. I’m going to draw the circle for our meditation.”
“But you only do a circle when there’s a danger of magic getting away,” argued Kethlun. “I was meditating while I worked — I didn’t need any circle. We aren’t doing magic.”
“I am,” retorted Tris, “just by drawing the circle. And if you’re to grip your magic, you’ll have to let it out to work it. You’ll do that inside a circle until I’m convinced you know what you’re doing.”
“Has anybody told you you’re bossy?” demanded Keth.
“All the time,” Tris replied.
“You’ll never catch a husband that way, you know,” he pointed out. “A little sweetening would go a long way.”
She had heard this before. She didn’t like to hear it from him, but she would tell him so later. There was magic to be done now. “If I have to ‘catch’ a man to get a husband, I don’t want one,” she retorted. “Now, sit.” She pointed to a clear space at the centre of the floor. To Chime she said, “Stay put.”
First she set her breezes free to roam the city, though not without regret. It would be stifling inside without them, but at best they might distract Keth. At worst, they might carry some of his uncontrolled power into the world to wreak a patch of havoc. It was better to sweat.
Outside Tris walked around the shop to make sure that she could enclose the whole thing in a circle. Once she had, she walked the circle again, laying a stripe of pure magic as she passed. When she reached the place where she had begun, she stepped inside the circle, then closed it. Her eyes shut, Tris summoned her barriers to meet above and below the workshop, enclosing it in a perfect bubble.
Inside, Kethlun sat cross-legged on the floor. “Close your eyes and start to meditate,” she ordered. “Clear your mind of all thought. Ignore me, just meditate.”
“I wish I could ignore you,” grumbled Keth, but he obeyed. Whoever had taught him to meditate had trained him well, Tris observed. His eyelids did not even flutter. His magic cast an uneven, shimmering glow in her sight, flaring and retreating, more active now than it had been while he had focused on making his octopus.
Quietly she assembled several articles. When she had lined them up behind Keth, she set Chime next to them, motioning for the dragon to stay where she was. She had learned this approach from Daja, who had described her teacher’s way to show her how to get her power to tell her about metals she couldn’t see.
Finished, Tris knelt behind the row of things she had set up at Kethlun’s back. If she remembered her own lessons properly, the idea was to keep her voice soft and her movements quiet, until the teacher’s voice seemed almost like part of the students thoughts. As he inhaled she whispered, “Keth, feel for the power that moves in you. Find it in you, find where it runs. Gather it strand by strand to you. Slowly, slowly.”
She repeated it over and over, watching as the silver tracework of magic in his body drew in. Multitudes of glittering pale threads that ran through his muscles came together, their tracks thickening as they merged. Once she judged that he had gripped as much as he could manage, she said, “Let that power flow out behind you. Let it spread there. Let it cover everything behind you. Let it run towards me, let it flow…”
His breath hitched in his throat as his mind fumbled with this new trick. The heavier strands of magic began to pull apart. Tris went silent, waiting. At last Keth found his breathing rhythm and tried again.
Three tries later, the power he’d gathered flowed out to cover Tris and the things that she had set there. It was cool on her skin, as if she were coated in fluid, cold glass. Tris savoured the relief from the heat, then drew her thumb and forefinger down a thin braid to coax a grain of lightning from her hair. The spark glimmered on her fingertip as Tris touched it to the first thing she had set at Keth’s back.
“Stay as you are,” she began softly. “Tell me what I’m touching back here.” She had meant to say that she used lightning to point, then changed her mind. His magic would know the difference between lightning and glass. “Find me with your power and tell me what I’m touching.” That should be easy. They had lightning and fire in common, if precious little else.
“Bowl.” Kethlun’s lips barely moved, he was so deep within himself. “Blown glass, green, stylized birds impressed around the sides by tongs.”
“Do you know this because you recognize the piece, or because you feel it with your power?” Tris wanted to know.
“It — it’s there,” he said, his voice agonizingly slow. “In the glass. In its shape. It knows — it knows what it is.”
Tris raised her eyebrows, impressed. Perhaps his glassmaker’s training made it easier for him to know so much about the bowl. She lifted her finger away, still with the spark of lightning on it, and touched the next piece. He identified an undecorated blue glass bottle, a clear vase blown on to a mould of a many-petalled rose, and an over-heated piece of cloudy glass that Tris had taken from the cullet, or junk glass, barrel.
The last item at Keth’s back was Chime. She had curled into a cat-style ball to nap.
Tris restored her spark to its braid. “What do I touch now?” she asked. Keth shouldn’t need her to lead him to Chime, not when the dragon was infused with lightning. “There’s one more item behind you.”
Keth fidgeted. He twitched his shoulders, then yelped and tried to scramble away, not remembering that his legs were crossed and that he’d been sitting in that position for quite a while. He pitched forward on to his face, his ankles tangled behind him. After a moment he said grumpily, his nose mashed flat on the beaten earth of the floor, “Chime. That stings!”
“There’s quite a bit of lightning in her, even though she’s so small,” admitted Tris, speaking in her normal volume. “You did really well. I hope you know that.”
“Good. Are we done?”
Tris scowled. She had done the right thing, praising him. He should appreciate it; she didn’t give compliments easily. A more patient part of her whispered that he didn’t know that. She took her own deep breath, counting until her temper settled. Only then did she say, “No. Now you’ll try blowing glass.”
Chime squeaked and scrambled under a bench. Keth rolled over to untangle himself. “About time. He could be killing a yaskedasu right now.”
“Start the meditation breathing as you start your gather,” Tris instructed as he prepared to work.
“You know what a gather is?” he asked, shaking out his shoulders.
“I like to watch glassblowers, and often they let me ask questions,” replied Tris.
“Why?” he asked, checking the crucible to make sure the glass in it was still fit to be worked. “It doesn’t have anything to do with your magic.”
Tris sighed. “Most things don’t have anything to do with my magic,” she said, trying to be patient. “I just like to know about them. I almost never have anything to show for what I do. To me glassmaking, weaving, medicines, metal-smithing, now that’s magical. You make something and it lasts. It isn’t gone in the blink of an eye. And you’ll be able to earn a good living with it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You won’t?”
“Not like a craft mage can. Not if you don’t want to kill people with lightning. Not if you can only bring rain or winds when you’re sure you’re not stealing them from others who need them. If you don’t want to work that way, it’s hard to make a living as a weather mage,” she explained. She could see he didn’t believe her. Time to get to work, she told herself, and said aloud, “Now, Keth — don’t try to blow a globe this time. Let’s just see what happens.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed, a combination that always made her want to box the ears of the person who did it. “I’ve blown globes since I was an apprentice, Tris,” he told her. “The fishermen of the Syth always need them as floats for their nets. It’s child’s play. Now that I know what the problem is, it’ll be easy.”
Tris nibbled on her lip. He could be right, though she doubted it. “Do as you like, then.”
He stood for a moment, blowpipe in hand, the light from the furnace casting his face into high relief. Tris settled on a bench to watch. She could feel the forces in the shop come together. Lightning flared from his skin more powerfully than it had before. Quickly Tris sent extra power into the protections that enclosed the shop. She did not want any stray magics to come in now, as they had two days ago. His next accident might not be as wonderful as Chime.
Tris breathed with him and waited as he returned to meditation. At last Keth slid his blowpipe into the furnace. The heat didn’t seem to bother him, though Tris had seen journeymen and even guild masters flinch from it. She removed her spectacles and closed her eyes, sketching the sign for fire on them with a finger. When she opened them, Keth and his surroundings were a blur, but the quivering heat of the furnace was as clear as his magic. The heat twined around Keth like an affectionate cat, sinking into his skin and bones.
Tris wiped a thumb over her eyelids and restored her spectacles to their proper resting-place. Whether it was due to lightning or his own expanded seed of glass magic, Keth could bear higher temperatures than most people. He might even be able to hold fire in his bare hands, Tris thought. She would ask Daja, the smith mage, when she got — “Home” was the next word of her thought. Tris’s eyes burned with sudden tears. After all this time, she still tricked herself, thinking Discipline cottage was nearby and that Daja, Sandry and Briar would be there when she returned for the night. But they weren’t. Discipline and Sandry were in Emelan, months of travel to the north. Daja was in Kethlun’s home country of Namorn, even further north; Briar was on the road to Yanjing in the distant northeast. They were truly scattered and Daja wasn’t here to judge Keth’s magic.
Tris sniffed and locked her attention on her student. Keth brought his gather of molten glass out of the furnace, twirling his blowpipe as he did. His grip on his breathing was shaky.
“Gently,” she murmured, watching the reddish-orange glass change colour as it began to cool. “Remember the feel of your magic.”
He kept the pipe spinning and carefully blew down its length. Tris saw the lightning blaze of his power show through the pipe. He blew steadily, far longer than she could have managed. When his lungs were empty, Keth reheated the glass as he took in fresh air. The power in his breath was brighter still in the pipe this time. Tris, about to say something, held her tongue. He reheated again, but she knew he’d lost the count of his meditation. This time, when he blew into the pipe, glass-coated lightning darted from the end and dropped to the earth without shattering. Chime dashed under a corner worktable and stayed there.
“Relax,” Tris said as Keth turned beet red with frustration. “Calm down, drink some water, try again.”
“Y-you —!” he began to yell, turning on her. Tris met his eyes with her own, wanting him to see that this was normal, it was to be expected. She knew it was maddening to think a thing through perfectly, only to have it go awry the minute she actually tried to do it.
Whatever he’d meant to say, Keth chose not to say it. Instead he walked around the shop, touching vases, bowls, jars and suncatchers until he was calm. After that he set another crucible to heat and drank some water.
They were so caught up in their work they didn’t even notice Antonou’s wife had come with Keth’s midday. She couldn’t pass through the magical barrier or catch their attention. At last she fed some chunks of grilled lamb to Little Bear, then went back to her own work.
By late afternoon both student and teacher were sweat-soaked and exhausted. In addition to the glass lightning, Keth had produced a few other mistakes. When the breath caught in his throat on his second try, droplets of molten glass exploded over the workshop. They glinted in the light of the furnace like dark gems. Next came an egg-shaped blob of black glass, then a lump that sparkled with tiny lightnings. The last failure was a glass coil that burned the toe off one of Keth’s boots. Chime had yet to leave her hiding place.
Tris looked at the glass coil, then at Keth. Knowing she was about to trigger an explosion, she said as gently as she knew how, “This isn’t working. You’re exhausted and probably starving. It’s time to stop for the day.”
“No,” he told her stubbornly. “You don’t know the yaskedasi. I do. I’ve been living with them for eight months. The Ghost is killing their sense of, of excitement. Of fun, joy…” He fumbled to express his thought. “Khapik was the first place I’ve been where I c-could forget what h-happened to me. The, the Ghost is killing Khapik.” He collected a fresh gather at the end of the blowpipe.
Tris wanted to scream. She was hungry, she was soaked in sweat, she wanted to be out and about. She was pouring magic into the barrier to keep the wild bursts of Keth’s power inside. What was so wonderful about Khapik? she wanted to yell. There were theatres, inns, musical performances, women and men who flaunted themselves in form-fitting clothes, gambling dens and wine shops. Every city had such places.
She said none of these things as Keth drew a shuddering breath and started to blow into the pipe. As a teacher her duty was to encourage Keth, not discourage him. From her own experience, Tris knew he would give himself enough discouragement without help from her.
“Nothing yet, then?” someone asked from outside the barrier. It was Dhaskoi Nomasdina, crisply dressed in a clean red tunic and blue stole, his short black hair still wet from the bath.
Keth, startled, made an apprentice’s mistake and puffed hard into the blowpipe. The molten glass at the end bulged, coated in tiny lightnings, and grew to the size of his hand. Tris and Nomasdina froze, watching. Tris could see that Keth’s hands trembled, but he continued to work, carefully twirling the pipe to see what shape his most recent accident would take. The bulb expanded to a perfect globe, then broke away. Keth reached out and caught it in one hand before it could fall.
That answers that question, thought Tris. He can hold hot glass.
The globe was a twin to the one he’d made at Heskalifos. Miniature lightnings played inside and outside of the glass, growing thicker and longer until they coated it entirely.
“You did it!” cried Nomasdina. “What do you see?”
“Lightning,” Keth said gloomily and sat on a bench with a thump. Tris gently took the blowpipe from him and set it aside.
“May I look?” Nomasdina asked. “Maybe I can spot something. Dhasku Chandler — ”
“Tris,” the girl interrupted. “Just Tris. Don’t touch it unless you’ve got some kind of fire magic, Dhaskoi Nomasdina. It’s hot, still.” She held out her hands. Glumly Keth handed the globe to her. It was warm to her touch, but only warm. She could handle molten rock for brief periods.
“But I could look at it,” argued the arurim dhaskoi, “maybe see between the lightnings.”
Tris turned the globe over in her hands. The lightnings were still excited. They whipped around the globe so fast that she saw no gaps between them. Reaching for them with her own power, thinking to draw them off, she failed. To her magical senses it felt as if the bolts were locked inside sheaths of glass that turned her power away.
Well! she thought, amused by the lightning’s defiance, I’m not to tinker with you, is that it? “I doubt you could see through them, Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” Tris replied. “But you’re welcome to look.”
“Dhasku Chandler,” the man said.
“Why is ‘Tris’ so hard to say?” she demanded, still looking at the ball in her hands, running her own power around it, trying to find a path inside the glass. She could no more do that than she could shift the lightnings outside it.
“But it’s the dhasku I need,” Nomasdina explained. “The dhasku who’s so strong that all the charms I know to break a circle of protection aren’t working. And the ones taught to the arurim dhaski are usually effective.”
That made Tris look up. Nomasdina stood outside the barrier she had raised, his hands against it. Starbursts of silver light spread around them as he tried to push through her protections. “I’m sorry, Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” she said, contrite. “You must be pretty good if you can stand to touch it, though.” She went to the door and erased part of her circle with her foot, gathering her power back into herself as the barrier gave way. Little Bear came bouncing in to see if anyone was interested in petting him.
“Please — under the circumstances, you should call me Dema,” the Tharian told her. As he walked past her, he lifted the ball from her hand. “Ow” he cried, juggling the ball from one hand to the other. “It stings.”
Tris took the globe back from him. “Lightning has that effect. Among others,” she added, looking at Kethlun. “Do you remember how this happened?” she asked her student.
“No,” he said with a sigh. He idly scratched the dog’s ears. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Dema remarked as he sat on a bench. Chime trotted out of her hiding-place and began to sniff his hands. “Not thinking.”
“It’s harder than I thought,” Keth admitted. “What brings you here, anyway?”
“The honest answer? Hope. I’m on my way to Elya Street for the start of my watch,” replied Dema, wriggling his fingers for Chime. “I thought I’d stop by, on the chance you were here. And I was right. Now we have something to work with.”
“If it clears in time,” Tris reminded him. Eyeing her student, she added, “Keth, you’re in no shape to try and draw out your lightning.” She passed the globe to him as he slumped on a bench. He’d drained off all of his power for the time being; she saw not a flicker of it inside his skin. At least the lightning on the globe bothered him no more than it did her.
“No,” Keth replied, stubborn. “I’ll clear it and I’ll see what the Ghost looks like. I have to. He’ll kill someone else.” He began to breathe for meditation, staring at the flashing globe in his hands. Tris and Dema waited patiently.
Finally Keth glared at Tris. “Where is it?” he demanded accusingly. “This magic of mine? I don’t feel it. It’s a crackly buzz in my head, but I don’t hear it. You took it, didn’t you?”
Tris folded her hands in front of her, stifling her irritation at the question. She knew all too well how it felt to be as exhausted as he was. “I can’t take magic from people,” she replied in even tones. “Even if I could, you have none to take. Keth, look, it’s the study and the work of magic that builds up your reserves. You just started to learn today. You don’t have reserves. The only thing that will bring your power back is food and rest. You’ll have power to use tomorrow.”
“Someone will die,” whispered Keth.
“Maybe not,” Dema said briskly. “I’ll take the globe to the arurimat. If it clears before the murder, we’ll go where it leads us. And if we don’t, well, you’ll have other chances to make this work.”
Keth slumped forward, resting his forehead on his globe.
Tris felt sorry for him, but knew he wouldn’t thank her for showing pity. “On your feet, Keth,” she said briskly. “Is your octopus done?”
As Keth checked the annealing oven and began to clean up, Tris looked at Dema. “He’s been at it since this morning, trying as hard as he could,” she said.
“I know,” Dema said with understanding. “When you’ve drained yourself, that’s it. You have to eat and rest until your strength comes back.”
“It’s not just her coddling me?” Keth asked, his voice sluggish. His back was to them.
“I don’t coddle,” Tris said sharply.
“No, she isn’t,” Dema added. “Every mage learns, when you’re finished for the day, you’re finished. You’ll only make yourself ill if you try to do more magic. Look here, I know a good eating-house near the arurimat. I’ll pay — it’s the least I can do in trade for this.” He pointed to the globe Tris still held. She put it in the basket she’d used to carry Chime’s food and dishes, and handed it to him:
Dema accepted the basket with a bow of thanks. “I hope you’ll come, too, Tris.”
She smiled. “Thank you, but I’m tired. I think I’ll go back to Heskalifos. Keth, you are taking Dema up on his offer, yes?”
Dema grinned at her, then looked at Keth. A trace of concern crossed his sharp brown features. “Come on, old man,” he urged Kethlun. “They’ve got a sauce for lamb cooked on skewers that will make you think you dine with the emperor of Aliput.”
“Then he goes home to sleep,” Tris added. She sighed. “And we wait for the globe to clear.”
Dema made the circle of the All-Seeing on his forehead. “Maybe it will clear before time,” he said.
Keth looked at him and smiled crookedly. “An optimistic lawkeeper. Now there is something unusual.”
“Have a proper meal and you’ll be an optimist, too,” Dema said, ushering Keth out of the workshop.
Tris watched the two men walk away, smiling when Dema draped an arm over Keth’s shoulder. She’d got a very favourable impression of the arurim dhaskoi the previous night, once they’d got over their original misunderstanding about the use of torture. As he’d questioned Keth, she’d watched his face and listened to his voice. He wanted to catch the Ghost, and she didn’t think it was all about glory for Dema. It didn’t seem to be much about the yaskedasi, either, but Tris would settle for what she thought he did want, the end of the killer’s lawlessness.
Once the men were gone, she went into the glass shop to ask Keth’s cousin Antonou a favour. Would he mind if she left Little Bear and Chime in the courtyard for a few hours? She would get them later, without disturbing the family. Not only did Antonou agree, but his quiet, shy wife found a meal of table scraps for Little Bear. Tris thanked them, and ordered the dog and dragon to wait for her return. She brushed the soot and dirt from her pale green dress — woven and sewn by Sandry, it refused all stains and hardly wrinkled — and headed down the street.
This Ghost mess revolved around Khapik, and Tris had yet to see the place. She had heard of it, long before they had reached Tharios. Other travellers, learning where they were bound, sang the praises of Khapik: its gardens, its entertainers, its food, its wine. The best performers worked there at some point in their careers; the guests who saw them spread their names from the Cape of Grief in the south to Blaze-Ice Bay in the north. Some men had spoken more fondly of Khapik than they did of their families. To Tris it seemed that many of the young people they’d met were saving their money for one holiday only, at Khapik.
She’d seen Khapik when they rode into Tharios, of course, or at least, its brightly painted walls. Normally she might not have gone there. While she loved music, acting, tumbling and food, she thought it folly to pay for such things when she had to watch every copper. Now, though, Keth’s globes had given her an excuse at least to look around.
She joined a river of visitors all headed in the same direction, on foot, in sedan chairs, on horse, camel, or donkey-back. The caravan master who’d brought her and Niko to Tharios had mentioned that no wagons were permitted inside Khapik. She wondered if the prathmun had to carry the garbage, night soil and dead bodies out of Khapik by hand, without using their carts. She wanted to ask a prathmun who drove his cart across the Street of Glass if that was the case, but there were too many Tharians around, all retreating from cart and driver, most drawing the circle of the All-Seeing God on their foreheads.
Some blocks past Touchstone Glass, above the shabby stores that sold overpriced items to newly arrived tourists, Tris saw the bright yellow pillars that marked Khapik’s entrance. They towered over the district’s walls, which were painted with dancers, musicians, bunches of grapes, illusionists, wine jugs, plates of steaming food, tumblers and all the other delights which lay inside. The guards at the gate watched the flood of tourists go by them with blank faces, unimpressed by the number and variety of the visitors.
The moment she passed inside the wall, Tris felt cool moisture in the air. Ahead of her lay a shaded expanse of ground divided into small islands by streams and riverlets, some broad enough to allow boats to pass along their length. Inside the boats people lazed, nibbled on fruit, talked, or trailed their fingers in the water. Squat candles burned inside flower-shaped cups that floated in the water, like fireflies that skimmed its surface: those who poled the boats avoided the candles with the ease of long practice. Trees grew here and there along the banks, cooling the streets under them. On the islands she saw delicate pavilions lit by lanterns and torches where musicians, singers and dancers performed for small groups.
Scents drifted on the air: roses, jasmine, patchouli, sandalwood, cinnamon. She heard bits of music and the splash of fountains. Her breezes, which had come back when she lowered her protections on the glassmaker’s workshop, whirled around her like small children, eager to run away and explore the maze of streets and streams. She let them go, reminding them to come back to her. As she looked around, watching the guests break up into small groups and disappear down the streets, something tightly knotted inside her loosened a bit.
She had to walk a distance to leave the area where the streams flowed. Beyond them she found the streets where businesses thrived: eating houses, wineshops, theatres, tea houses, gambling dens and shops that sold trinkets, perfumes, scarves, even toys. Here too were houses where entertainers performed for smaller audiences than those found in the theatres, in courtyards and in brightly lit rooms with gauze curtains.
Tris saw yaskedasi at street corners, beside the many fountains, on the stream banks, in courtyards, on the islands, on balconies and porches. Six tumblers stood on one another’s shoulders to shape themselves into a human pyramid, then to leap free, tucking, rolling and landing on their feet. Next to a many-tiered fountain Tris listened to a handsome boy play a melancholy song on a harp. On the far side of the fountain an older woman juggled burning torches. An illusionist produced flowers and birds from his sleeves under a willow tree while dogs danced together under a trainer’s eye. A woman draped in an immense snake and a handful of veils perched in a low window, stroking her pet. When she saw Tris watching, she beckoned, but Tris shook her head and walked on.
In low houses circled by colonnades, women and men lounged on couches, talked, ate, drank and gambled. When Tris glanced down the inner passages of such houses into the courtyards, she saw scantily clad dancers, female and male, performing to harp, flute, or sometimes only drum music. She heard lone singers and groups of singers, their melodies twining among the songs played on instruments. In one courtyard a poet declaimed verses on the art of love. In another, a group of people played Blind Man’s Buff.
When her belly reminded her that it was nearly dark and she had not eaten for some time, she found an eating-house whose bill of fare promised a decent meal. The prices would have made her gasp if she had not seen those posted beside houses whose charges were even higher. She chose a table outside, on the street, so she could better watch the crowds. She ignored the stares, thinking it was her pale complexion and red hair that drew attention, rather than her youth and the fact that she looked like no pleasure-seeker.
The serving maid brought her a supper of lamb grilled on skewers, lentils cooked with onions and bay leaves, plum juice, flatbread and cheese. Tris thanked her politely, then turned all of her attention on the street as she ate.
Why the yaskedasi? she wondered. Six dead women, all of them yaskedasi — why did he choose them? It wasn’t for their money, not from what she’d heard. And why only women?
Did he choose them because he knew that the arurim wouldn’t care about the murder of entertainers whom respectable folk viewed as disreputable, if not out-and-out dishonest? But if that were so, why had he placed the last two so visibly, outside Khapik, where respectable folk would raise a fuss? If he’d wanted to be entirely a Ghost, he should have stayed inside Khapik, or even turned to the slums of Hodenekes, where no one would care about another dead body.
He was clever, to make use of the Tharian beliefs about death. Tris had helped Niko often in the past, when Niko had raised a vision from the site of an event that had taken place there recently. That would be impossible in Tharios. The priests always showed up on the heels of the discovery of a body, and erased all magical influences to rid the area of death’s pollution. They made it easier for the killer to get away with his murders.
Staring into the cup that held her plum juice, Tris idly wondered if she could scry for the killer. It was just an idle fancy. Niko had tried to teach all four of them how to scry in water, oil, mirrors and crystals. Daja had succeeded once, but Tris had been the only one to find an image each time. It was frustrating. She only saw scraps of things, many of which made no sense, and there was no way to control what she saw. Following her progress, Niko said her images seemed to come entirely from the present; she could not see anything in the past or future. Now she let her mind drift, her eyes fixed vaguely on the dark liquid in her cup, its surface glinting in the torchlight. Scraps of things began to rise to the surface: Niko talking animatedly to a dark brown man in a pure white turban, Assembly Square, a wooden building ablaze as people scurried around it like lines of ants, a small mountain village where a shaggy-haired blacksmith laboured at his forge.
Tris growled and drank her juice, ignoring the beginnings of a headache. She was no better at this now than she had been at Winding Circle. No wonder so many seers had a reputation for being odd, if all they saw was a flood of meaningless pictures. Feeling useless, she returned to her meal.
As she finished, a procession came down the street, led by tumblers and musicians, surrounded by a cloud of orange blossom scent. At its centre, four muscular men carried a woman in a sedan chair. Its curtains were open, framing her like a picture as she reclined on satin pillows. Her black hair was dressed in glossy, ornate loops, not the curls of Tharian fashion, twisted through with the yellow veil of the yaskedasi. Her kyten was pure white with golden embroideries, her jewellery gold encrusted with pearls.
“That’s Baoya the Golden,” a female voice remarked near Tris’s shoulder. A breeze carried a drift of lavender scent to the girl’s sensitive nose. Tris turned. Keth’s friend, the yaskedasu Yali, lounged against the low fence around the eating-house as she watched the procession. She was dressed much as she had been that morning, though her make-up and kyten were fresh, and she looked the better for some sleep. With her was another yaskedasu, a blonde, dressed northern style with a tumbler’s shorter skirts and leggings.
“Who’s Baoya the Golden?” asked Tris.
“The Queen of Khapik, the most legendary of all the female yaskedasi,” the blonde said, looking down a short nose at Tris. “Everyone knows Baoya. She’s a dancer. She’s performed for most of the Assembly and all of the Keepers of the Public Good for the last fifteen years.”
Yali regarded Tris. “What are you doing here unescorted, Koria Trisana?”
“It’s just Tris. I wanted to see what the talk was about,” Tris replied. “What is it that you do, anyway? You never said.”
Yali sighed. “I sing. Xantha, here, is a tumbler — she stays at Ferouze’s, too. Look, we’re due at the Butterfly Court right now. Why don’t you go home? Come back with someone who can look after you, like Keth. You’re fine here on the main streets, but in the back ways… Not everyone in Khapik is as nice as they’re paid to be.”
“You mean like the Ghost?” enquired Tris.
Yali and Xantha both made the sign of the Living Circle on their chests. “He’s one,” Yali replied. “Go home, Tris. Give that glass dragon of yours a polish for me.” The two women disappeared into the crowds, dodging people with the skill of long practice.
Curious, Tris sent a ribbon of breeze after them and called it back. It returned with their conversation.
“Keth’s teacher!” That was the voice of the blonde Xantha. “Of course! Why didn’t I realize that? Come on, Yali, if you keep pulling my nose like that, it’ll be as long as hers!”
“I’m not joking, Xantha,” was Yali’s reply. “She’s a dhasku — ”
“And I’m Baoya,” interrupted Xantha. “Let’s take the short cut. We’re going to be late.”
Tris smiled at the remark about her nose. She was above all a realist, and her nose was long. She also had no intention of going home, but it was sweet of Yali to worry.
What if she listened to her breezes for the Ghost? He took his victims from Khapik — she might hear something. Eagerly, Tris summoned them all to her, adding a double handful from the streets of Khapik, then sent them out to listen. She couldn’t see things on them, but she might hear something worthwhile.
Her meal over, she set off once again, looking at the sights as she listened to dollops of conversation that came to her on currents of air. With the ease of practice she listened only for something unusual in the bath of chatter about money, music, politics, affection, excitement and boredom. She also considered the situation she and Keth had been plunged into.
If the Ghost was grabbing yaskedasi, he did not do it among the processions, clusters of performers, idlers by the streams, or gate traffic. Someone would have seen him. He took his choices in deserted places. Accordingly Tris followed the maze of streets, looking for Khapik’s hazards. They were endless. There were too many shadowy nooks, unlit passages, alleys and blind curves for the arurim to patrol. The courtyards shrank; the houses rose to three and four storeys. Many outdoor stairways led to flat rooftops. A fugitive could go up there and run the length of the district to escape pursuit, if he knew his way.
Tris wandered down an alley, eyeing the houses on either side. Business was done back here. Her breezes told her what sort of business it was. Intent on her surroundings, toying with the end of one thin braid, Tris walked on, ignoring those who offered to sell her various items.
A hand darted from the shadows to grip her wrist; a man pulled her close. “Here’s a nice little armful. What is it, wench? What’s your price?” The man was big, his tunic rumpled and stained with wine. “If you’re sweet to me, I’ll be sweet to you.”
Tris looked up until she met his eyes. Rage fizzed under her skin, but she gripped it tight. “Let me go,” she told the man, her grey eyes glittering as they locked on his. Her free hand itched to undo a spark-braid. “I’m not what you think I am.”
The man laughed. “Then what are you doing here by your lonesome?” he wanted to know. “I know what you’re looking for. Give me a kiss to seal the bargain.”
Tris slammed her hard-heeled northern shoe straight down on to his sandalled foot. The drunk yelled and let her go, then reached for her again. “You little mirizask,” he said, his voice a growl. “You’ll learn respect for me!”
Tris grabbed the little finger of his hand and pulled it back in its socket until he howled with pain. She had learned the stomp from Briar and the finger-hold from Daja, both of whom had given her long instruction in all the ways they knew to end an unpleasant conversation. “It’s a dreadful thing,” she said grimly as he tried to free himself without breaking the finger, “when a respectable tourist can’t enjoy the sights without some idiot getting in her way. And I do so hate stupid people.”
She stepped back as she released his hand, yanking the tie off a spark-braid. Then she waited, holding it as she watched the man. It would be shameful to turn lightning on someone who was clearly drunk, but she didn’t want any more nonsense, either.
The man cradled his aching hand as he glared at Tris. Something in her gaze made him think at last. “Stick to the main streets, then, shenos,” he snapped. “And bring a guard, next time you feel like a stroll.”
“Oh, I don’t think I need a guard,” Tris replied. “Do you?” She walked off, sending two breezes in her wake to warn her if he attacked. It seemed he’d had enough. He stumbled off in the opposite direction.
It was just after midnight when Tris decided she would not be lucky enough to hear the Ghost snarl “I’m going to kill you!” then have him wait for her to trace that particular bit of wind back to the killer. Instead she spread her awareness through the ground until she found the web of streams, and followed her sense of them back to the islands, the boats and the main gate.
Ghost or no, she thought that she had not wasted her time. This walk had been instructive. While she’d dealt with the drunkard, not a single nearby window or door had opened; no one had peered over the edges of the roofs. No wonder there were no witnesses when the Ghost seized his victims. There were too many hidden places, and too few people who cared enough to stop a disturbance.
All that Tharian love of order applies only outside the Khapik fence, she thought grimly as she left the district. All that white marble, good manners and agreement of equals is only meant for the higher classes, not anyone else. They ought to be ashamed.
The most maddening aspect of her walk, of course, was her failure with her breezes. She’d hoped for something, though she knew how unlikely it was that she might hear the Ghost at work. What he did was no doubt accomplished in silence. She needed to see what the winds saw, not just hear it. Surely if anyone could do it, it would be her. She could scry the present, though she couldn’t control what she saw. And she worked in winds and puffs of air all the time, using them to eavesdrop.
Tris hated to feel useless. Keth had the lightning globes as a goal, though she still believed it would take much more work before he could get anything useful from them. Quite possibly the Ghost would be caught by other means before Keth mastered his globes. She wondered if there might be something about Keth that made him attuned to crimes in general, not just crimes against people he knew. Once the Ghost was accounted for, would Keth make other such globes? She probably ought to suggest it to him, so he could prepare himself. He’d made it clear he wanted to make beautiful glass, not deal in ugly crime.
Her mind busy, Tris strode up the Street of Glass. She stopped to quietly gather Little Bear and Chime from the Touchstone Glass courtyard, then resumed her walk up the long hill back to Heskalifos.
Tris was reading in the workroom when Niko found her. He and Jumshida had been out late, attending yet another party for the conference. On his way to bed, he’d seen the light under the workroom door and looked in.
The moment he saw her, his black brows snapped together. “You’ve been using your braids again,” he remarked sourly.
Tris looked up from her book. “And with very good reason. I need to help Keth with his fear of lightning, and the closest storm on the path to Tharios was stuck in Aliput.”
Niko crossed his arms. “Trisana…”
“It’s true!” she protested. “Some mage over there had things locked down, and I had to pry them loose.” As he remained silent, she made a face. “All right, I used winds to lift myself to the top of Phakomathen first. But I’m not joking about the storms, Niko, and I am careful, using the stronger powers I store.”
Niko sighed. “No, it’s true, you are. And I suppose we’re beyond the point where I can lecture you about such things. I do like to think you’re too sensible to use them so often that they become a drug for you.”
“As sick as I’ll be once I can stop to rest? That’s not at all addictive. You don’t have to worry,” she replied. She inspected his face. “What’s the matter? You look cross.”
“Did you know they magically cleanse the site where a dead person is found?” Niko demanded. “Scour it of all traces of the events there?” Tris nodded. “It’s obscene!” cried Niko. “I talked to the arurim officials in a position to allow me to raise a vision of the past, to help catch this beast, but they tell me the cleansing isn’t just religious, it’s magical as well. How do they ever catch criminals here?”
Tris shrugged. “Dema — Demakos Nomasdina, the arurim dhaskoi you met — and Keth think Keth’s globes will do it.”
“And you don’t.” The way Niko said it, it was not a question.
“It’ll be a while before Keth can do magic to order instead of by accident,” Tris said frankly. “He seems to think that now he knows the problem, he can just get to work. And maybe he’s too involved. He knew one of the women; he watched another of them perform. He wants it to work too badly. It’s getting in his way.”
“You’ll have to find a way to calm him down,” Niko said, yawning. Suddenly he smiled. “Something I would give a great deal to see, actually.”
He’d lost Tris in his thinking. “What?” she asked. “What do you want to see?”
Now he grinned outright. “You, trying to calm someone down.”
Tris smiled, but wryly. “So funny I forgot to laugh,” she retorted.
Niko stretched. “I will laugh for us both, then.”
Tris ran her fingers over her book. “Niko?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever been to Khapik?” she asked.
“Many times. Not since we came, but in my youth,” he admitted. “It had the unfortunate effect of sucking all the coins from my purse, so I stopped going.” His eyes were distant as he thought. “I remember it was very beautiful, particularly the area of streams and islands around the main gate.”
“It’s still there, and it’s still lovely,” Tris informed him. “Why would anyone want to ruin it? Maybe the yaskedasi aren’t as respectable as they could be, but they do such amazing things, and this Ghost is killing them.”
Niko sighed, his dark eyes gentle as he looked at her. “I’ve never known why anyone would destroy something beautiful, but such people exist.” For a long moment there was silence between them. Tris regarded the book in her lap while Niko watched her. At last he said, “Did you know that Lark used to work in Khapik?”
Tris’s head jerked up at the sound of her foster-mother’s name. “No!” she exclaimed. “She did?”
Her teacher nodded. “There was a year when the performing troupe she was with decided to rest for a few seasons and create new material. They stayed and performed in Khapik.”
“She wore that dreadful yellow veil?” Tris asked, the hair on her arms prickling. She loved Lark. The thought that a killer like the Ghost might have gone anywhere near her was chilling.
“Actually, I believe she wore it as a neck scarf,” Niko replied, his eyes sombre. “There’s a frightening thought.”
Tris made the sign of the Living Circle on her chest.
Niko sighed. “It’s late. I’m off to bed, unless there’s something else you need?”
“Someone to teach me to scry the wind,” she said wryly. “I could send my breezes searching for the killer in Khapik, if I could see things in them.”
Niko rubbed his temples. “Tris, in some ways it’s very like seeing the future, you know,” he pointed out. “You’re showered with different images and events — how do you sort one from another? That’s why future seers are as rare as lightning mages. Most go mad from sheer confusion. Does it really mean so much to you?”
“I feel useless,” Tris admitted. “Like a bride’s attendant to Keth — I get to hold the basket of herbs, but he’s the one who says the vows.”
“Do you think I’m useless?” asked Niko. “Or Lark, or Frostpine, or Rosethorn, or Crane?” He’d named the main people who had taught her and her friends at Winding Circle.
“No!” cried Tris, startled. “You’re wonderful, all of you!”
“You will produce wonders in Keth, I’m sure of it,” Niko said. “Think again about scrying for something that will drown you in visions. The price you pay is every bit as high as what you’ll pay when the strength of lightning and tides runs out of you.” With a tired wave, he went off to bed.
Tris thought about what he’d said for a long time.