Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [184]
She shook her head. “Not sorry, no.”
I smiled again. “Well, then. Nor am I.”
This time, Amrita smiled back at me, looking tired and worn and beautiful. “You are more than a little bit of a bad girl, Moirin. Go and tend to your bad boy. I think you must deserve one another.”
When she had gone, I turned back to find Bao regarding me with half-lidded eyes, dark crescents glinting in the lamplight. “Ha!” he said. “I knew it.”
I pointed a finger at him. “You do not have leave for blame, my stubborn boy. You let Jagrati make you her toy.”
“You would have, too,” he said. “I saw it. Only—”
“Only my lady Amrita refused to allow it.” I knelt on the bed beside him, tugging at his sweat-sodden tunic. “So. If nothing else, we have established that I have far better taste in royal ladies than you do. Although I must say, your wife Erdene still loves you, and she proved helpful in the end.”
“Did she?” Bao smiled faintly. “I’m glad.”
“Yes.” I tugged harder, to no avail. “Lift your arms, won’t you? Else I’ll have to summon Hasan Dar to aid me.”
Bao shifted obligingly and lifted his arms, and at last I was able to ease his soaked tunic over his head, removing it.
I caught my breath.
There were new markings on his corded forearms—fresh, stark, and unfamiliar. Vivid black tattoos inked onto his skin in a complicated zig-zag pattern that forked like lightning, each turning marked with a symbol in a strange alphabet. Remembering old tales, I wondered if they were part of some charm or spell that further bound him to the Spider Queen.
I traced the pattern. “Bao? What is this?”
“What?” He glanced at his forearms. “Oh, that.” He shrugged. “It is the path through the maze to Kurugiri, Moirin.” He lifted his right arm a fraction. “This way is up.” He let it fall, and lifted the left. “And this is down.” An involuntary shudder racked him. “Do you think it will be helpful?”
I kissed him, reckoning it was best done before the vomiting began. My diadh-anam sang happily within me, reunited with its missing half.
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes!”
SIXTY-FIVE
Bao was miserable for days.
He trembled and shook, racked by bone-deep pains. He tossed and turned and sweated, unable to find ease, unable to sleep. There was vomiting and worse, as though his body sought to expel every foreign substance within it along with the dregs of the opium he had smoked for months.
It was perhaps the most spectacularly unromantic lovers’ reunion in the annals of history.
Still, he had done something no one else had ever done. He had walked away from the Spider Queen and Kamadeva’s diamond of his own will, breaking the spell that bound him to her.
And he had brought the secret of the path to Kurugiri with him.
Hasan Dar was cautiously elated. The entire palace remained on high alert, watching for the Falconer’s elusive poisoner. Guards in civilian clothes were posted over every storeroom, watched over every well, accompanied the Rani’s cooks to the market. Meanwhile, the commander took counsel with the Rani and her clever son, trying to forge a plan that would take advantage of the maze’s key.
Bao’s presence was kept a secret that we might not alert our enemies to his betrayal. Let Tarik Khaga and Jagrati think he had failed, that he had been captured or slain, and the nature of his tattoos remained a mystery.
In between bouts of agony, Bao told Hasan Dar everything he knew about Kurugiri’s vulnerabilities.
Some of the news was good. Due to the stronghold’s apparent unassailability, the Falconer didn’t maintain anything like an army, relying instead on his impenetrable maze and over a dozen skilled assassins.
The bad news was that the path was narrow and twisting, filled with switchbacks and blinds in which assassins could lurk alone or in pairs and defend the path against an oncoming army. Superior numbers would prevail in the end, but gaining the peak would come at a steep cost.
And the Spider Queen and Kamadeva’s diamond awaited at the top, a danger not to be underestimated a second time.
Throughout his ordeal, I tended to Bao