“Where?” Maya said.
“I’ll have to show you the entrance. It’s in the caves under the skyfortress.” She hesitated. “That’s dangerous territory.”
“Just show us the way, and we’ll handle it from there,” Maya said. “I know you have other responsibilities.”
The scout nodded, relieved. “All right. Meet me at the old Chosen temple, just after dark. Any bearer will know how to get there.”
More palanquins. Maya suppressed a shudder. “We will. Thank you, Faressa.”
“Yeah. I just hope I’m not making a big mistake.” She shook her head. “I’d better go let the others know where I’m going.”
“One more thing,” Maya said, conscience prickling. “Did Jaedia ever have anyone with her? A boy a little bit younger than me?”
“Not that I saw,” Faressa said. “But we only met here at the safe house. She had a room somewhere else, as far as I know.”
Faressa gave another salute, a little more seriously this time, and slipped out through the broken doorway. Maya heaved a sigh, then turned to Beq.
“That was great,” she said, grabbing the arcanist’s hands. Beq colored slightly, glancing at Tanax. “I didn’t think she was going to help us without a note from the Council. Thank you, Beq.”
“It’s. Um. Just the sort of thing they teach us?” Beq grinned back cautiously. “I’m glad it wasn’t Jaedia.”
“We don’t know if it was Jaedia,” Tanax said, looking down at the spot of plaguespawn blood. “Faressa still saw her.”
“I told you, Jaedia would never—”
“I know,” Tanax said. “But if we’re dealing with an actual dhakim here, we have to consider all sorts of ugly possibilities. They say that dhaka can alter someone’s mind.”
For a moment, Maya was back in a basement under Bastion, facing Hollis Plaguetouch. “Fortunately, your cooperation is not necessary. I can change-change you until you want to tell me. Memory and desire are only matters of the flesh-flesh, after all.” She put her hand on the Thing and took a deep breath, searching for calm.
“The ghouls are supposed to be able to alter minds with dhaka,” Maya said. “I’ve never heard of a human dhakim doing it.”
“There’s a great deal we don’t know about dhaka,” Tanax said. “We still have to face the possibility that Jaedia is working with the enemies of the Order. Willingly or not.”
“If she is, then we’ll take this dhakim alive,” Maya said. “And then whatever he did, he’ll undo.”
“And if he refuses?”
Maya’s fists tightened. “Then I’ll convince him.”
*
Even after dark, the heat lingered, radiating from red bricks that had spent all day baking in the sun. Another palanquin took Maya, Beq, and Tanax to the old Chosen temple, after some discussion with the driver and a few extra thalers. As they moved north and west through the narrow, twisting streets, away from the gate and the markets and toward the looming bulk of the crashed skyfortress, it became clear why the extra payment had been required—this was the poor part of town, condemned to permanent darkness much of the year by Grace in Execution’s shadow, and there was no chance of a fare on the way back. Ramshackle dwellings lined both sides of every alley, pressed three or four stories high with no planning or organization. One building had partially collapsed, stabilized only by the hurried addition of several long beams braced against a neighbor, and someone was building a fresh shack on top of it.
“I don’t understand these Splinter Kingdom people,” Tanax muttered, holding back the curtain to peer out the window.
“They’re poor.” Maya watched the thin, hard-faced people on the side of the road. “What else is there to understand?”
“But why live here?” Tanax said. “I’m not going to pretend Skyreach doesn’t have its bad neighborhoods, but even the lowest laborers live better than this. If this is what their vaunted freedom looks like, why not come back to the Republic?”
“You think they get a choice?” Maya said. “It was the nobles and merchants who broke away, not servants and beggars.” She thought of the tunnelborn, back in Deepfire. “And now the Republic isn’t eager to let their children become citizens.”
“It was the mill workers who started the Khirkhaz Commune,” Beq volunteered.
“And see what that’s gotten them,” Tanax said.
The palanquin shifted, coming to a halt, and Maya pulled the curtain to look out her window. “I think we’re here.”
“Thank the Chosen,” Beq muttered.
The palanquin and its bearers trooped away, leaving the three of them in a large open area. In the middle of the roughly circular space were the remains of a rectangular building. It was stone, crude and unmortared, with gaps where neighbors had helped themselves to free building materials. Somehow, the walls were still standing, enclosing a couple of rooms. There was no roof—they were so close to the skyfortress that its sloping unmetal skin was barely twenty meters overhead, and Maya imagined the ground here never saw rain. A single arched doorway stood open, and the space inside was dark.
“This is old,” Beq said, lenses flipping and whirring. “See the inscription over the arch? ‘May Their power shelter us until Their return.’”
“Not many still praying for that,” Tanax said.
Maya thought of Prodominus and his handful of Revivalists back at the Forge, keeping the dream of the Chosen’s return alive. Cults worshipping the Chosen and praying that they come back and rescue humanity from the new world had been common in the first century after the Plague, but they’d waned since. After four hundred years, the old temples were almost all abandoned, though the fact that this one hadn’t been torn down attested to the superstitious awe that still clung to them.
A shadow moved inside the archway, and Faressa appeared from the darkness. She beckoned them forward.
“Best get under cover,” the scout said. “There are eyes all through these slums.”
“Whose eyes?” Tanax said as they passed into the shadowy quiet of the old temple.
“Smugglers, mostly,” Faressa said. “The gangs are always fighting each other for routes and suppliers. The queen turns a blind eye as long as she gets her cut, so it can become a free-for-all.”
She shook a glowstone and by its blue light led them into the back room. The temple was empty except for bits of shattered glass and clay, any furnishings long gone. Faressa walked around, occasionally stamping down hard, until she found a spot where her boot made a hollow wooden sound. A few moments’ work uncovered a trapdoor, concealed under ragged cloth and rocks. It swung up on well-oiled hinges, revealing a ladder into a dark tunnel.
“Here,” the scout said, handing Maya a scrap of paper. It was a crude map, with tunnels and chambers sketched in pencil. “That’s the best information I have, and the same directions I gave Jaedia. It’s a maze down there, so be careful.”
“Thank you,” Maya said. She handed the map to Beq, who examined it under her lenses. “When we get back, how can we find you?”