Lies of Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked at her again, but for a longer time, and she finally met his gaze.
    “If it is the ransar’s gold and the ransar’s men,” she said, “then you work for him, whether either of you admit it or not. If… pardon me, when there is a new ransar, will that ransar be as generous? Will he be as taken with this canal as is Osorkon?”
    Devorast replied, “Perhaps, but perhaps not. Of course, I’ve considered that.”
    “And you have a plan?”
    Devorast was silent.
    “Meykhati,” she said. “You’ve heard this name? You know this man?”
    “I’ve heard the name.”
    “There is a reception at his home in six days’ time,” Ran Ai Yu said. “I have been invited, and you should come with me there.”
    “I have no time for social—”
    “Do you have time to bury your garbage to keep the seagulls away?” she asked, glancing up at the sky but gesturing with one open hand at a refuse pit.
    He didn’t follow her gaze. He knew there were no gulls.
    “Of course you do,” she said. “You make time for what is important for the completion of your canal, even if it is not pleasant to consider or to do.”
    Again, silence.
    “Meykhati will likely be the next ransar,” she said. “How do you know that?”
    “I do not know that,” Ran Ai Yu replied. “I have heard it said by people who I have reason to believe have reason to believe it. That is enough, for me, to begin to acquaint myself with this man so that he knows my name and my face, knows my trade, in the event that these people are correct.”
    “And I should do the same,” he said. “I should ingratiate myself to this pointless, mumbling busybody so that on the off chance that he succeeds Osorkon he will continue to support the canal?”
    “Master Lau Cheung Fen will be there,” she added, “at this gathering of Meykhati’s friends and associates.”
    “And sycophants.”
    “And those who think ahead.”
    He shook his head.
    “Perhaps,” she said, “if Meykhati feels well toward you and your efforts here, with Meykhati as ransar, you will be his master builder, even if you are not Osorkon’s.”
    “I have no interest in titles and offices,” Devorast told her. “I build to build, not to advance myself in the Second Quarter.”
    “I understand that the master builder of the moment
    may have decided to keep hold of that title and office anyway, should Meykhati advance. He will be there with his daughter.”
    Devorast stiffened—not much, barely enough for Ran Ai Yu to notice. Could it be that Devorast sought the post of master builder after all? Or was it something else she’d said?
    “Perhaps,” he said. “Yes. Fine.”
    8_
    26Alturiak, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
    ]Marek watched the dancers for a few heartbeats, then watched one of the partygoers watching the dancers, then the dancers again, then another guest, on and on. He hadn’t come to Meykhati’s ridiculous affair for the pleasure of it, after all, but to do what he always did.
    The dancers had been brought by the exotic merchant Lau Cheung Fen, and the guests were dazzled by their otherworldly beauty and alien gestures. Seven women dressed in silk gowns eovered in tiny brass bells and what appeared to be miniature cymbals, twitched and jerked to the strains of a Shou “musician” who made the most horrendous, atonal bleats on some kind of unwieldy string instrument. Marek’s head began to pound, and he found he had to use a spell to make the “music” fade from his hearing, to be replaced by the private, often whispered conversations of Meykhati’s other guests.
    “Miss Phyrea,” the Shou woman Ran Ai Yu, who Marek found almost as fascinating as he did frustrating said with a shallow bow. “I have not had the pleasure to see your father this evening.”
    “He’s not here,” Phyrea choked out.
    The beautiful, haunted daughter of the inept master builder couldn’t even look at the Shou woman. Her eyes
    had fastened themselves to the