Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(67)

“What’s the word from outside?” Kaden asked, hoping to change the subject. “Any more dead goats?”

Akiil looked ready to ignore the question and continue the argument. Kaden waited. After a moment he saw his friend take half a breath, hold it, then another half breath. The pupils of his dark eyes dilated, then shrank. A calming exercise. Akiil was as adept at the Shin discipline as any of the other acolytes—more so than most, in fact—provided he chose to exercise it. “Two,” he replied after a long pause. “Two more dead. Neither were the ones we staked out as bait.”

Kaden nodded, disturbed at the news but relieved to have avoided a fight. “So whatever it is, it’s smart.”

“Smart or lucky.”

“How are the rest of the monks dealing with it?”

“About the same way the Shin deal with everything else,” Akiil replied, rolling his eyes. “After Nin’s meeting, aside from the prohibition on acolytes and novices leaving the main buildings, people are still hauling water, still painting, still meditating. Honest to ’Shael, I swear that if a murderous horde of your Csestriim rode in on a cloud and started hacking off heads and mounting them on pikes, half the monks would try to paint them and the other half wouldn’t pay any attention at all.”

“None of the older monks are saying anything else about it? Nin, or Altaf, or Tan?”

Akiil scowled. “You know how it is. They tell us about as much as I’d tell a hog I was planning to slaughter for the pots. If you want to learn anything, you have to go look for yourself.”

“But you, of course, have scrupulously obeyed the abbot’s command to remain at the monastery.…”

Akiil’s eyes sparkled. “Of course. I may have lost my way from time to time—Ashk’lan is such a vast and complicated place—but I would never willingly disobey our revered abbot!”

“And when you lost your way, did you find anything?”

“Nah,” the youth replied, shaking his head in frustration. “If Altaf and Nin can’t track the ’Kent-kissing thing, I don’t have a chance. Still, I thought … sometimes you get lucky.”

“And sometimes you get unlucky,” Kaden said, remembering the savaged carcass, the dripping blood. “We don’t know what it is, Akiil. Be careful.”

*

The following evening Tan returned to the shed. Kaden stopped his work and looked up expectantly, hoping to read some clue about outside events in his umial’s weathered face. Tan knew more than the other monks. Kaden was certain of that. Trying to ferret out what he knew, however, was impossible. The sudden appearance of gruesomely mutilated corpses seemed to affect him no more than the discovery of a new patch of mountain bluebells. He closed the door behind him and looked with a critical eye over the dozen or so pots Kaden had thrown and fired.

“Have you made any progress?” Kaden asked after letting the silence stretch.

“Progress,” Tan said, pronouncing the word as though it were new to him.

“Yes. Have you found whatever killed the goats?”

Tan tapped against the outside of one of the pots with his fingernail, then ran a finger around the inside of the lip. “Would that be progress?” he asked without looking up from his inspection.

Kaden suppressed a sigh and, with an effort, stilled his breathing and lowered his heart rate. If Tan wanted to be cryptic, Kaden wasn’t going to be goaded into pestering him like a wide-eyed novice. His umial progressed to the next pot, rapped the rim with his knuckles, then scrubbed at some imperfection on the surface of the vessel.

“What about you?” Tan asked after he’d looked over half the pots. “Have you made any progress?”

Kaden hesitated, trying to find the hook hidden in the question.

“I’ve made these,” he replied guardedly, gesturing to the silent row of earthenware.

Tan nodded. “So you have.” He hefted one of the vessels and sniffed at the inside of it. “What is this one made out of?”

Kaden held back a smile. If his umial expected to trip him up with questions about clay, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Kaden knew the various river clays better than any other acolyte at the monastery. “That one’s black silt blended with beach red at a ratio of one to three.”

“Anything else?”

“A little resin to give it that hue.”

The monk moved on to the next pot. “What about this one?”