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History ignored the matter of what adventures the port district’s young people went in search of that evening, but it paid close attention to the woman in brown. She gestured at the owner of Bedsores, a short, oily man with an unpleasant face, and he nodded and turned away from her. Then, the woman pulled her head covering over her face and headed up the wooden staircase.
It was a long way up. The tavern had four floors of rooms, and each floor was given a symbolic name: earth, water, forest, and sky. Since the residents of the most expensive rooms on the sky level did not wish to walk up four flights of stairs, the names were assigned in reverse order. So, in order to reach the cheapest rooms on the earth level, the woman had to make her way to the very top of the old building.
The landing at the top of the stairs was lit only by a smoking candle. In her haste, the woman bumped shoulders against a young man smoking a pipe filled with stinking herbs. He half-turned and mumbled something that sounded like “boiled slut!” before disappearing down the stairs. Stopping only briefly to comment on the past seventeen generations of his family – pigs, all of them – the woman finally planted her shoulder against the door of one of the rooms. It opened into an even darker room where someone had long been waiting for her.
The room was filthy. Calling it a hole would have been too charitable. It was a pigsty. In one corner was a construction made of creaky, stained boards. On top of that was a straw-filled mattress. Sprawled on the mattress was a heavy-set, gray-haired man of about fifty with light-green, almond-shaped eyes and a thin face that hinted at an aristocratic background. He gazed condescendingly at the woman, for she had interrupted him in the critical business of picking his teeth with a piece of straw that was probably already dried out when the world was created. For her part, the woman ignored his pantomime (although it was worthy of the Imperial Honto Theater) and sat down on the only chair in the room. Finally at rest after pushing her way through the streets, she removed her head covering. Her blue eyes betrayed a mixture of anger, indifference and exhaustion that did not bode well for the man on the bed. He sensed the change in the weather and decided to make the first move.
“Well? What could possibly be so important that you had to see me right away?”
The woman stood up quickly, and for a moment it seemed that she would hit him. She regained control, however, and spoke with composure.
“Oh, it was nothing, really. Nothing at all. Last night they tried to kill the interpreter.”
The man rolled his eyes and snorted. “You say they tried…”
Her composure spent, the woman leaped up and cried out, “They poisoned him! I told you not to get him mixed up in your affairs, and I knew you were lying when you said he would be safe!”
The man sat up and took her face in his hands. His eyes were blank and cold, like the eyes of a snake staring up out of a deep well. “Sit down,” he said. She fell back into her seat. Now, their faces were very close to each other, and her hands rested in his warm, calloused hands.
“Calm down and tell me exactly what’s been done.”
The woman took a moment to collect her thoughts. When she spoke, her voice was distant. “They tried to poison him at the Fish. Cistrusa. We have had someone near him all the time since he was put on the delegation, but our people didn’t see anything. It was a professional. The only mistake they made was not knowing that he seems to be one of the rare people who is immune to cistrusa. Vordius took him to Tokto’s house, and the good physician informed us immediately.
“Old Tokto always has both eyes open. Vordius, too. He made the right decision.”
“Yes, he did,” the woman replied in a monotone. “He’s a smart young man.”
“I was talking about his engagement to Luvia.”
“I see. Well, Tokto told them it was poison, so Vordius had five of his men move Uni to the barracks.”
“And the enemy?”
“Their men watched the house all night, and we watched them. They had men along the route to the barracks, but Vordius took back streets. He did the right thing, but I had to run to keep up. I gave the order to come out of hiding and engage the Yellows to the death, if necessary, but they withdrew.”
“Of course. They don’t want to raise a commotion. You did everything you could, except for one mistake: his friends. Have you uncovered who it was?”
“I have an idea,” the woman said, eyes flashing. “We will find out for sure, in any event. One thing concerns me, though. Vordius appears to want to investigate on his own.”
“Will he get in the way?”
“Doubtless. He’ll poke around until the entire beehive comes after him.”
“Would he be the son of Calbius Onato, the Imperial Guard veteran?” The woman nodded. “Then just keep an eye on him. That won’t be hard for you.”
She took a deep breath. “As long as Uni is still in the capital, the fate of the delegation hangs by a thread. Can you do anything to speed up their departure?”
“Believe me, Velenia, I am doing all I can.” At this, the man’s eyes looked tired.
“Has the Emperor been informed?”
“There’s no reason.”
The man stood and paced the room with his hands behind his back. “We have no proof,” he told her. “And if there is an investigation, the enemy will use it to postpone their departure. I am personally monitoring this whole business, and I’ll make sure their mistake costs them dearly!”
After seeing his visitor off, the man lay down and went back to picking his teeth with a piece of straw. The attack on Uni was an unforgiveable mistake, and all that had saved them was a chain of coincidences. The man hated coincidences because one never knew whose side they would favor. Who would get lucky next time? Uni would travel to Virilan with a person who was known and tested and who would be responsible for his safety. But what if a killer went along, too? The episode at the Fish showed him that even friends could not be trusted when the stakes were high.
* * *
He couldn’t be late. There was plenty of time left before the ceremony, which was scheduled for the third watch, but Unizel Virando had already leaped from his bed twice to look out the window at the sundial that was just visible from his room in the infirmary wing of the Imperial Guard barracks, where he was staying thanks to Vordius’ efforts on his behalf. It was one of the most precise sundials in all of Enteveria, second only to the one at the Great Lord’s palace. The Emperor Nazalio – the same one who rebuilt the capital on a much grander scale – had held a competition for a new sundial to be hung outside his palace. First place was won by the sculptor and scientist Ferintey, and his sundial was a work of art, featuring brightly painted bas reliefs celebrating the exploits of the Herandian emperors during the age of the Great Union. What made the sundial truly amazing, however, was the way it seemed to be suspended in the air above its stone platform. In reality, it was held up by three thin legs that were cleverly hidden by the viewing angle and by the shadow of the platform.
The sundial was a favorite stop for subjects of the Empire visiting Enteveria for the first time, but the palace courtiers who walked under it every day lived in fear that someday it would collapse under its own weight. Someone came up with the idea of having Ferintey build a copy so that the sundial could be replaced quickly if the courtiers’ fears came true. The copy was hung outside the Imperial Guards’ infirmary to keep it out of the way until it was needed, and it had hung there for two hundred years as a perfect timekeeper for the guards’ daily affairs.
“It’s too bad that the sundial doesn’t have a gong, like a water clock does,” Uni reflected sleepily. “It’s hard to sleep when I have to keep checking the dial.” He could have asked Vordius to have one of the servants wake him, but Uni already felt beholden to his friend and hated to ask for yet another favor. And there was something shameful, he thought, about needing to be woken in the morning, as if he were a small boy starting school.
“I’ll wake up when it’s time,” he promised himself as he lay back comfortably on the pillow. “I’ll wake up… Wait! What time is it?” He leaped from his bed, yesterday’s weakness gone. Instead of soft, early-morning rays, he saw blindingly bright light through the wooden shutters. “It’s all over! It’s all over! I’m late!”
Uni leaped to the window again. The sundial showed that it was almost noon. The top of his head felt cold, as if someone were dripping ice water on him from above. His thoughts bumped against each other, and his body felt torn in all directions at once. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity, shaking his fists helplessly and looking around for something that could save him. “Calm down,” he told himself. “Get dressed and go find out what happened.”
Uni looked around and discovered that his robe was gone. Had the nurse taken it? He went out into the hall in his undertunic and found it empty. “Of course, everyone must be at lunch.”
Uni wandered through the unfamiliar building for what seemed like a long time without finding anyone at all. When he finally made his way outside, he ran to the sundial in hopes of finding that it was all a mistake. It really was noon. He felt like a terrible fool. Everything had been going so well, and then he went and overslept and missed the ceremony!
Helplessly, Uni looked around and suddenly felt strange. The courtyard was silent, and frighteningly so. The palace was always a peaceful place, but there were usually noblemen walking through on business or servants calling out to each other. Where were the guards at their posts? Why were the barracks silent, as if the Empire’s best warriors had suddenly disappeared? “I hope they aren’t all at the Emperor’s ceremony,” Uni tried to make himself laugh, but he couldn’t even smile.
After wandering around the empty courtyard a few more minutes, he decided to find the palace square. “They couldn’t have left without me! I’m the interpreter! And why didn’t anyone think to wake me?” Uni had never been in the barracks before, so it took him a while to find his way out of the labyrinth of paths and outbuildings. There was no one to ask directions from, so he ran on, hounded by his horror of what could have caused that heavy silence.
Finally, he found it. Like a pebble from a slingshot, Uni ran out into the palace square, but then something stopped him. He felt like he had run into an invisible wall. He put his hands out to protect himself from what he saw. The palace square was empty – there were no people anywhere and no signs that a ceremony had been held. “How could they…so fast…everyone’s gone…and it’s all been cleaned up!” And there wasn’t a soul around for him to ask. “Great Sun, am I asleep? What a stupid nightmare!” Uni pinched his left shoulder. It hurt. “Is it possible that all of this is really happening?”
If the imperial falcons had swung low in the blue, cloudless sky just then, they would have observed a strange scene: a small, disheveled man wearing nothing but his nightclothes was racing around the palace courtyard, running in and out of buildings like a beetle lost in a child’s maze. Tripping over his own feet in exhaustion, he ran through the palace gates, which stood open and unguarded. What he found outside the gates was even more shocking: the whole enormous city was empty, abandoned by its residents and left in awful, deep silence.
It suddenly dawned on Uni that he would never be able to go down every street looking for someone to explain what had happened. Even if he tried, he would eventually pass out on the hot stones, and no one would come to his aid because there was no one left. He was overcome by a terrible need to break the awful silence, a silence that swallowed up even the rustling of the leaves on the trees, the wind whistling between buildings, the waves on the Fela at high tide, and hundreds of other sounds that make up the background of life in a big city that has suddenly been emptied of its residents.
Uni stopped. He spread his arms and took a deep breath that filled his lungs. “When was the last time I breathed deeply?” he wondered. He wanted to yell as loud as he could, but the cold, dark, alien quiet seeped into his lungs along with the air. It filled him like an empty vessel. It stopped his heart from beating loudly and his lungs from filling and emptying noisily. Uni’s eyes widened in primal fear. He felt he was dissolving in the same sticky, invisible cotton wool that had already drowned out the cries of the palanquin bearers, the animated conversations of the merchants, the ringing laughter of women flirting with guards, and the enchanting sounds of the musical fountains that were a source of such wonder to visitors from the provinces.
Feeling wretched, Uni looked on the city’s empty streets as if he expected to disappear as well at any time. Just then, he caught sight of the dark silhouette of a person wavering in the noonday sun off to his right. “Stop! Stop! I beg you!” he cried, surprised by the sound of his own voice. He shook off whatever had been holding him and raced after the shadow as if the stranger held Uni’s own lifeline in his hand.
He sprinted around the corner of a red-brick shop with a sign featuring a crudely drawn baker with rosy cheeks and came to a screeching halt. Never in his entire life had he seen a woman with such beautiful, expressive eyes.
Imagine a deep, clear lake with crystal blue water, its shores encircled by an untouched forest that hides it from the eyes of the uninvited. You are making your way with difficulty through the thick woods, all hope of finding the right path gone, when suddenly you step through the trees and see the lake. Calm, quiet, and clear. Beautiful as only something that is truly ancient and truly young can be. In one breath, you realize that you don’t have to keep looking for your path, because you’ve come unexpectedly to its end and the thing you were searching for is right there in front of you.
That is an approximation of what Uni felt. The girl’s hair – the color of a wheat field at sunset – fell freely over her shoulders, shining around her with a golden halo. Her whole being seemed to have been formed from a wellspring of warmth and softness, and Uni felt like he had come face to face with a sunny breeze, as if the Heavenly Deity had run a hand over his head, leaving behind a pleasant wave of joy that reverberated throughout his body. In an instant, he forgot all about his troubles and the fact that he had missed an important event. All he wanted was to stand where he was for one more instant and savor the new color and flavor that his life had unexpectedly acquired.
No one knows how long the feeling lasted. It might have been the time that it took his heart to beat once, or it might have been an eternity. Time means nothing where beauty and harmony are at their peak and the order of all things has achieved perfection. The time for Uni to join that new world, unfortunately, had not yet come. The lovely stranger smiled with exquisite gentleness and leaned her head to one side, as if asking him to follow her. Under her spell, Uni obeyed. He forgot all about himself and where he was going, simply following her the way a person tries to follow a dream that he knows will be forgotten as soon as he awakes. The stranger floated in front of him with the posture of a young pine tree and a waist that begged to be encircled by his palms.
It was only now that Uni noticed the girl’s strange garment: halfway between a robe and a dress, it was dark blue, with sleeves that trailed almost to the ground. He wanted to see her face again, but her back was just as interesting. Uni remembered the backs he had seen before – bent and tired, fat and indifferent, or hard and unassailable, like closed doors. The girl’s back was different – kind, familiar and lovely, as if its owner was thinking about Uni all the time and might at any minute turn and bestow a shining smile on him.
He had no idea how long they walked, him following blindly, when suddenly he saw the dock and the ambassador’s ship and the Emperor in his most impressive robe. The wondrous magic did not last long. Suddenly, Uni found himself in a swirling crowd. It shattered the silence that had until this point filled his ears. He was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. What could be more horrible than the fear of losing someone dear, someone he felt was a part of his own soul? Uni helplessly looked for a way out of the crowd. He pushed people away from him, but the mass of bodies swirled tighter and tighter around him, lazily enjoying the defenselessness of his tiny boat in the churning vortex of the human crowd. The girl was gone, as if swallowed up by the crowd, and those precious moments of unforgettable joy dissolved without a trace in the hideous, drab gray of everyday life. Uni was struck by the realization that he no longer wanted any of the things he thought he wanted. The ray of light that had pierced his soul was dearer to him than anything else in the world, and he could not bear the thought of losing it. Like a wounded animal, he leaped over the people’s heads, over the heads of the horrible, stupid crowd. They did not hate or despise him, they simply never noticed him, as if he had no right to exist. But now, thousands of hands reached for him, grabbing his clothes, pulling him back, and a frightening choir of voices rose up from somewhere in this distance: “Uni, Uni!” Cold iron bands wrapped around his body. Uni struggled. He fought for his life, and…
“Uni? Are you still alive? You’ve been asleep for ages!” Vordius smiled down at him.
There was a fatherly note in his voice. Standing next to him, Sevelia Virando seemed to feel a threat to her parental monopoly, or perhaps she was offended by the thought that anyone would laugh at her poor, sick baby. “Vordius, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she spluttered. “He’s still so weak. How many times have I told you that you shouldn’t let him drink with you? And then you tried to keep me away from him. He’s my precious boy.” She looked down at her son and smiled softly. “Uni, my little boy, how do you feel? Did you sleep well? Your stomach doesn’t hurt, does it?” When she asked this, her face took on a look of suffering that was almost comical. “Whoever came up with the idea of holding ceremonies in the early morning. People need their sleep!”
“It’s an eminently reasonable custom, Emel Virando,” came Dag Vandey’s voice, smooth but melancholic. “The Deity sits on his throne at noon, so we conduct our affairs in the morning and rest at midday.”
Sevelia turned on him. “Just look at you, as healthy as a herd of cows while my boy lies here barely alive. Whoever will take care of him in that foreign land?” she began to cry.
Uni glared at his mother, but in his heart he was secretly glad to see her. “Mother, how good it is to see you,” he smiled as he worked himself out of her embrace and reached for his robe. “How did you gain entrance to the palace grounds?”
Vordius grinned. “Close relatives are always allowed in when a delegation is leaving. I’m coming with you, too, but only as far as the square. I’m not important enough to stand next to you once the ceremony starts,” he joked.
“Of course they let your mother in,” Sevelia said proudly. “Now, here is your robe. Get dressed. Don’t worry about your things. I’ve already packed them all, and the servants will put them on the ship. I bought you a new bag with an icon of Erezney, the patron saint of wanderers, and a blue ribbon symbolizing our blue river. I put some food from home in the bag so you can at least eat well the first few days. Don’t go around eating just anything, Uni. And don’t drink. I don’t want you touching wine at all.” She looked up at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do with you?” She had cried all night and, even though she had promised herself she would not cry in front of her son, she couldn’t keep from uttering the thoughts that worried her. “I took your things to the Cathedral of the Sun to have them blessed. May our Lord keep you!” These last words were whispered.
“That’s enough, Mother. I’ll be fine, as long as you don’t worry about me.” Uni felt a strange surge of energy, but at the same time, everything around him seemed unreal: the colors were too bright, and the shapes were exaggerated. He threw on his robe and, avoiding his mother’s loving hands, smoothed out its deep folds that fell almost to his heels. Vordius stuck his chin out and nodded in approval.
“Point me toward the ceremony!” Now that he was ready, Uni wanted to occupy his mind with government affairs.
“Your hair! What about your hair?” Sevelia exclaimed. “We forgot about it!”
“To the demons of darkness with my hair!” Uni replied. “Vordius, let’s go. You, too, Mother. I’m off on a grand adventure today,” and he gestured theatrically toward the door.
Outside, they were met by Sorgius and Luvia.
“I didn’t know I had so many close relatives,” Uni said. Vordius just smiled.
“Aren’t you happy to see me, you old drunk?” winked Sorgius as he threw an arm around Uni’s shoulder.
Luvia was truly glad to see him. “How are you feeling?” she asked shyly.
“I’m fine!” Uni told her happily. “Thanks to you and your father for taking care of me!”
“You can tell him yourself,” Luvia said with a smile as Vordius took her by the hand. “He is allowed to be here because of his rank,” she told Uni.
“I doubt you’ll see him,” Sorgius remarked patronizingly as he tried to remove an eyelash from his eye. “Each person at the palace has, what was it called? ‘An assigned place to be and time to speak.’ And you’ll be standing in different places,” the short Vuravian explained to his friends. “Uni, you go over there,” and he waved up and to the right.
Uni looked and saw two well-dressed men greeting guests as they came up from the Cathedral of Light to the square in front of the Imperial Residence, which was cordoned off by guardsmen shining in gold.
“The rest of us have to go this way,” Sorgius added. “We’ll be waving at you. Don’t miss it.”
Is this it? Uni felt agitated. He couldn’t wait to be there on the square. He turned to his friends with an embarrassed smile. Vordius grinned. There was nothing in his sincerely joyful eyes that could have aroused the least suspicion. Drawing Uni into an embrace, he hugged him until his friend thought his ribs would break.
“Take care of yourself, brother,” he whispered with unexpected warmth. “I’ll find whoever it was that tried to hurt you. They won’t get far, you know me.”
“Please don’t, Vordius!” Uni was truly afraid for his friend, knowing his hot temper and his tendency to decide problems by the most direct means. “You told me that there were important people behind it. I think I may know who they are.”
“What?” Vordius took a step back in surprise. “You know who ordered the assassination and said nothing this whole time?”
“I didn’t exactly say nothing,” Uni kept his voice down so his mother wouldn’t hear too much. Vordius nodded and took him by the elbow. Together, they went away from their group into the crowd, where the noise provided them something like privacy. “And second, the idea literally just came to me.”
“Don’t keep me waiting!”
“Digenius Forsey,” the young diplomat sighed. He was dead-set against the delegation. But that’s just a guess. Anyone with a financial interest against ties with Virilan could be behind it,” he gestured around at the crowd.
“That dried fish? And he calls himself a tutor!”
“Don’t, Vordius. Please. Everything will quiet down once I’m gone. If you stir things up, it will be worse for everyone. You wouldn’t go up against a man like that, would you?”
“We’ll see about that! He’s been a thorn in our side long enough.”
“In whose side?”
“The guards. The army. And some other people.”
“Vordius!”
“I don’t care! Someone tried to kill my best friend. Whoever it was, I’ll drag them out into the open!”
Uni started to feel ill again. “Listen, this is no joke…”
“Vordius!” Sevelia and Uni’s other friends were tired of waiting for the private conversation to end.
“One moment!” Vordius raised a finger and smiled. Then he put his mouth close to Uni’s ear. “Remember one thing, brother. My last piece of advice is this: don’t ever let anyone get away with anything. Ever!”
Their friends surrounded them, and there was no more time to talk.
Feeling weak, Uni clenched his fists and looked around at his friends’ faces. He didn’t even feel Luvia’s kiss, light as a breeze on his right cheek. Dag Vandey finally approached. Doing his best to look happy for his friend, he slapped the new interpreter on the shoulder and told him to make them all proud. Uni recalled Vandey’s talk about reforming society: how pale and unreal it seemed on a day like this one!
Sorgius, smiling like a friendly innkeeper, reached out and gripped Uni’s shoulder with a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a growl. “Find yourself a nice girl,” he said quietly.
At the word “girl,” Uni shuddered. He had forgotten about the dream from that morning, but now it came roaring back in all of its excitement and beauty. That memory made him suddenly reflective, and he did a poor job of saying farewell to his mother as she embraced him and looked for even a small sign that he was sad to part with her.
“Goodbye, Mother. I hope you will be well,” was all he could manage. Sevelia kissed him three times, according to custom, and turned away, hiding the tears in her eyes with her brown head covering.
Uni turned to his friends and put his right hand over his heart. He smiled self-consciously and, shaking slightly with the feeling that something big and important was about to happen, turned and strode toward the palace, where the richest and most powerful men in the empire were waiting impatiently.
“Uni, I mean, Unizel Virando, interpreter,” he stated to the greeter in white. The man glanced up at him, and Uni’s insides quaked. I bet I’m in trouble. I should have been here earlier, he thought in shame. The greeter gestured to another man to show Uni the way and then promptly forgot about both of them. Uni’s guide was short, but he walked quickly, making it hard to follow him through the crowd. Instead of preparing himself mentally for what would come next, Uni was focused on not losing sight of his guide.
When they reached the line of guards, Uni shuddered again: he didn’t have any proof of his role in the delegation, and his stomach started to slide toward his heels. However, the imposing guards parted before him without a word, and Uni and his guide entered the square. The crowd inside the square was just as thick, but the people here stood in two neat rectangles, all facing the palace’s grand staircase. There was a walkway between the rectangles, and here Uni’s guide handed him over to another short man in a white robe.
“How many of these little guides are there?” the young diplomat wondered. His new guide quickly led him down the walkway toward the palace, and all the nobles in their bright robes stared at him as if he were being led down the gauntlet.
This torture ended when the sea of bodies opened and Uni caught sight of the column of Norius the Founder, which portrayed the leaders of the eleven kingdoms raising their hands to hail the first Herandian Emperor, who held his palms up in praise of the Sun. There was a small group of people standing around the base of the column, and Uni suspected they might be the delegation. He was right. His guide led him to yet another greeter, who turned out – to Uni’s horror – to be the ambassador’s personal secretary, Zimius Groki.
That dirty fraud, he exclaimed to himself, keeping his eyes off to one side as if he didn’t see his recent adversary. You’re the tool now, aren’t you?
Meanwhile, his guide opened a scroll and read from it, “Enel Unizel Virando, interpreter,” and waited for the secretary to respond. Groki turned to Uni with a look of skepticism and suspicion, as if he were about to snap at the guide, “Who did you bring up here, fool?”
Uni had steeled himself to be afraid of nothing, but now his heart hung over an abyss and goosebumps broke out on his skin. He knew that it was silly to be scared and that he didn’t need to prove or explain anything, but he couldn’t stop his stomach from quivering. A drop of sweat ran from his neck down his back. Groki leaned forward and gave a slight nod. The guide turned and was gone, leaving Uni alone with a man who was clearly his enemy.
