BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8) Read online

  Oryon was regarding her speculatively. “Maybe we’ll do that,” he said. “Or maybe we’ll just keep you awhile. And now, guide, start guiding.”

  “My name is Bryte,” she said with all the pride she could muster.

  “Bryte, eh? Well, you’d better be that,” Oryon said. “It’s getting dark, and we need some brightness. Or at least I do. Lina can see in the dark.”

  That information dashed Bryte’s hopes of slipping away into the shadows. They continued walking to and up the ramp to the first tier. Bryte pronounced their chances of finding a carriage better here, nor was she wrong. They had gone only a short distance into the first tier when a carriage passed and stopped at Oryon’s hail. As Lina and Oryon climbed in, Bryte explained to the driver their requirements for a hotel and suggested possibilities on the second tier. He knew of others, better ones. After a short discussion they came to a decision, and Bryte expected to be dismissed as no longer needed. Instead, her clients motioned for her to join them in the carriage. Feeling that she was at last embarking on a real adventure, she climbed in after them.

  Lina gazed out the window as they traveled, but to Bryte’s discomfort Oryon kept his attention fixed on her. “Have you always lived here in Tirbat?” he asked.

  She did not care to tell him her history, so she answered, “Yes,” and imitated Lina in looking out the window, despite the fact that she could see little. The first tier was only slightly better lighted than the flats.

  “And do you really know the city well enough to guide people through all of it—all the tiers?”

  “I’ve been on all the tiers but the seventh. You need a special pass to go there.”

  “Having been on the other six tiers isn’t the same as knowing them well, which is what I asked you,” he said, refusing to let her get away with the evasion.

  “Well, I know the lower tiers best, but I know where the major parks and monuments and most of the important buildings are.” She was angry with herself for sounding defensive. Visitors usually required only that she take them to the first tier’s bazaars and to the second tier’s shops and that she point out on the higher tiers the statues of past members of the Triumvirate and the temples to the major gods.

  “So you don’t really know the upper tiers all that well, do you?” he persisted.

  She almost told him that her father worked on the sixth tier and lived on the fifth, but that would invite embarrassing questions. “I know them well enough for most people,” she insisted.

  “We aren’t ‘most people’,” Lina said without turning away from the window.

  Bryte had already reached that conclusion.

  “I want to learn all I can about the governing agencies,” Oryon said. “I’d like to find work here.”

  “And you expect to start in one of the highest tiers?” Bryte blurted, incredulous.

  “I certainly don’t expect to start at the bottom.”

  Bryte was ready to declare that generally people had to start there, when Lina said, “It’s interesting that the city has seven tiers. Oryon, you think there’s a connection with the seven levels?”

  “Seven levels of what?” Bryte asked.

  Ignoring her, Oryon said, “Maybe somewhere back in history. Tirbat’s been here quite a long time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bryte asked again.

  “Second tier,” their driver called out from his perch in the front, causing Oryon to peer out the window.

  The second tier had better lighting, many shops were still open, and more people thronged the streets. With so much to divert their attention, it was clear that Bryte was going to get no answer from her new employers.

  Only a short while later, the driver pulled up before the canopy of a large, brightly lighted hotel whose marquee proclaimed grandly the shining star of the delta. Tirbat was in the northern part of Delta Province, far from the actual delta that gave the province its name, but many hotels bore pretentious names that belied their actual station and location.

  Oryon handed Lina the small leather case he carried and took out his wallet to pay the driver. “We’ll need you to take this young lady back home,” he told the driver. “I’ll pay you.”

  The driver frowned. “Where’s she going?”

  “The flats,” Bryte said. “The Sarun Bridge.”

  The driver shook his head. “Won’t go to the flats at night, no sir, no matter how much you mean to pay. You just give me what I’m owed for this here trip.”

  “But I can’t walk all the way back,” Bryte objected in near panic.

  “Sorry, little miss. Not my problem. I’ll go up tiers at night but not down.”

  He refused to be swayed. Oryon ended up paying him for the trip to the hotel and letting him go. “Looks like you’ll be staying here with us,” he told Bryte.

  Staying! She’d often guided visitors to hotels but had never stayed in one. Her fears fell away. This was meant to be, why she’d been pushed toward the bus station and guided to these people. Her daily visits to the haunted mound had led Someone or Something to take an interest in her life.

  She followed Oryon into the hotel and stared at what seemed to her a very grand lobby. Lina had let them go on ahead, but joined them as they reached the desk. Bryte dropped behind them when they asked to register, a mysterious procedure to her. The desk clerk wrinkled his nose as though they were giving off a bad odor and peered across the counter. “I see no luggage,” he said. “We do not accept guests who come without luggage.”

  Bryte’s excitement ebbed. They’d have to tramp all over the tier to find lodging in some third-rate rooming house that didn’t care whether the guests brought luggage so long as they could pay. And that kind of establishment most certainly would not have a restaurant. The savory aroma of roasting meat wafted in from somewhere nearby, and she suddenly felt weak. She hadn’t eaten since early morning, and after all her earlier walking she was starving.

  As if in response to her thought her belly rumbled loudly. Oryon grinned.

  Lina fixed the clerk with a haughty stare. “We have luggage,” she said. “Our carriage driver deposited it outside under your canopy. It’s heavy, and I had assumed that this hotel would have porters to carry it to our rooms. I hope I was not mistaken. We’ll need two rooms, one for the gentleman and one for me and my young, ah, cousin.”

  They’d brought no luggage. Surely Lina couldn’t think the desk clerk would be so easily taken in.

  But the clerk, flustered, beckoned to a uniformed man standing near what looked to Bryte like a large open cage. The man came to the desk, and the clerk instructed him to fetch the guests’ belongings.

  “There’s a large trunk and a good-sized suitcase of brown leather,” Lina said.

  Bryte watched as the man went outside, waited for his report that there was nothing there. Lina and Oryon would probably claim that the things had been stolen while they were inside. A clever scam, and it might work. They seemed bold enough to pull it off.

  The porter dragged in a steamer trunk, called for another uniformed man to help him with it, and after carrying it to a metal cage, went back to the door and brought in the suitcase Lina had described. Bryte gaped, astonished, but neither Oryon nor Lina looked at all surprised.

  The clerk produced two room keys. “Numbers 305 and 307,” he said. “Adjoining rooms with a bath between.”

  The metal cage proved to be an elevator that rattled and shook alarmingly as it ascended to the third floor bearing them and the mysterious baggage.

  Only after the porter had deposited the cases in the rooms, received a generous tip, and departed, did Bryte dare ask, “Where did the trunk and suitcase come from? They can’t be yours. You didn’t have anything with you.”

  “Oh, yes, we did,” Lina said with a smug smile. “We were carrying them the whole time. In here.” She held out the leather case Oryon had handed her before paying the carriage driver. It was open and empty.

  Bryte didn’t understand and said so,
but Lina laughed and said, “You will. Maybe. Right now we need to go eat. I need meat, and I’m hungry enough to eat it raw.”

  A look of alarm flickered across Oryon’s face, but then he laughed. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he said. “Come on, Bryte. You wouldn’t want to see Lina when she’s really hungry.”

  Bryte didn’t understand any of this except the fact that they did mean to feed her. In a restaurant. In a fancy hotel. On the second tier.

  Her ascent had begun.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THIRD TIER

  Lina claimed the whole wide bed for herself and ordered a cot sent in for Bryte. Bryte didn’t mind; she found the cot more comfortable than the bed of branches and blankets she usually slept on.

  In the morning, Lina opened her trunk and selected a lovely green dress. While Bryte obeyed Lina’s order to shower and wash her hair, Lina altered the dress to fit Bryte. Finer by far than anything Bryte had ever owned, it made her feel every bit as grand as her privileged sister.

  “Sit down,” Lina ordered after helping Bryte dress. “Let me fix your hair.”

  Bryte sat on the edge of the bed, and Lina grabbed her head and turned it this way and that, examining her critically. “However did your hair get into such a mess?” she asked. “You cut it yourself?”

  “Yes,” Bryte admitted, thinking guiltily of how she’d chopped it off with a knife and without benefit of a mirror. “It’s too hot to let it grow long.”

  “So you butchered it.” Lina sighed. “Well, I’ll do what I can.” She worked over it for some time, brushing, cutting, and shaping, before she let Bryte stand and go to the dresser to see the results in the mirror.

  Bryte might have been gazing at a stranger. Her brown hair, neatly combed and parted in the middle, fell into soft waves around her face. Lina had cut it to just above her shoulders, and curled its ends upward. Bryte laughed and her mirror image’s brown eyes sparkled.

  Until Lina stepped up beside her. Lina’s short black hair gleamed and was perfectly shaped to frame her oval face. Bryte was deeply tanned from days spent out in the hot sun, while Lina, with her emerald eyes and soft, fair skin, reminded Bryte of the delicate porcelain figurines sold in the bazaar for outrageous sums. Bryte had once slipped one into her pocket, only to have it fall from the makeshift stand she’d placed it on and shatter into pieces too small to glue together. However delicate Lina might look, Bryte felt certain she would not easily shatter.

  Lina called Oryon into the room. He still wore only black, but Lina had dressed in a dark green pleated skirt and white silk middy blouse. Bryte still puzzled over the mysteriously appearing trunk, but the clothes it held were clearly Lina’s, so it hadn’t been stolen from another guest as Bryte had first theorized.

  After a short discussion, they decided to order breakfast sent to their room so that they could plan the day’s activities while they ate. Oryon went out to use the phone in the hall by the elevator to place the order. While Lina primped before the mirror, Bryte listened to Oryon’s footsteps down the long hall, his low-voiced conversation, and his returning steps.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” he announced on reentering the room. “I put in a big order.”

  After the late feast of the previous night Bryte was not terribly hungry, but if these two chose to feed her she would not refuse.

  Hearing the distant clang of the elevator door followed by the squeak of the wheels as a cart was pushed down the hall to their room, Bryte ran to open the door. The uniformed attendant wheeled in the cart, received his payment and tip, and was gone.

  Eager to see what filled the plates, Bryte removed the metal lids that covered the dishes, setting free the marvelous aroma of spiced buns, fresh fruit, and slices of ham.

  “That’s not all for you, you know,” Oryon said, but laughter hid behind the stern tone he affected.

  “‘Course I know that,” Bryte said. “There’s enough here for me and ten friends.”

  “Then it’s good your friends aren’t here with you,” Lina said. “Sit down now, and mind your manners.”

  Bryte had never seen the need to be greatly concerned with manners. But she sat as ordered and waited until her benefactors were seated before spearing a slice of ham and several pieces of fruit.

  Lina frowned and said, “You should not serve yourself before your elders have been served.”

  “Elders!” Bryte snorted. “You aren’t so old. I’ll bet you aren’t more than nineteen or twenty.”

  “Nineteen,” Lina admitted. “So we’re still six years older than you, and furthermore, we’re your employers.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Bryte passed Lina the platter of meat and sat back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. As Lina concentrated on stabbing slices of ham, Oryon winked. He likes it when I stand up to her, Bryte thought.

  Lina took more than her share of the ham, leaving only a single slice for Oryon, but he didn’t complain, and she made up for it by eating only one of the spiced rolls and almost none of the fruit.

  “So, our little bright one,” he said, “what sights do you have in mind to show us today?”

  Bryte scowled at the nickname but decided not to challenge him. “Tourists usually want to visit the bazaars on the first tier. We could do that this morning. Then we could go to the third tier and visit some of the shrines.”

  “The bazaars don’t sound like a bad idea,” Lina said thoughtfully. “We might get some information there, and I could find some decent clothes for Bryte.”

  “Clothes for Bryte!” Oryon’s brows shot up. “We’re hiring her, not adopting her.”

  “If this child is to be passed off as my cousin, I won’t have her looking like she pulls her clothes out of rag bins. I’ve given her one dress, but she’ll need more. And she can’t wear those straw sandals.”

  “Hey!” Bryte shouted. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. Send me back home if you don’t like the way I look.”

  “You’re probably right about getting information in the bazaars,” Oryon said to Lina as though Bryte had not spoken. “And it’s your money, so if you want to spend it on our guide, I can’t object. But I don’t want to waste a lot of time on the lower tiers.”

  Bryte decided they were going to continue to ignore her presence, but Oryon turned to her and said, “As for the shrines, they wouldn’t interest us unless there’s one to the Power-Giver, or maybe to Lady Kyla.”

  Bryte wondered whether Oryon was teasing her. She still couldn’t figure him out. “I’ve never heard of them,” she said with a sniff. “The shrines are to the patron gods of the provinces. And everybody wants to see the shrine to the great gods, Dor and Dora. It’s the only one in the whole country, and it’s spectacular.”

  “We aren’t here as tourists,” Oryon said. “We’ll go to the bazaar, but then I want to see the government buildings. Is there a Ministry of Magic, do you know?”

  “Ministry of Magic!” Now she was certain he was teasing her. “Sure, and there’s a Ministry of Music, and a Ministry of Mountains, and a Ministry of Mice, and—”

  “Enough!” Oryon thundered. “When I ask a serious question, I expect a serious answer. If there’s no Ministry of Magic, is there another ministry or government department that oversees the use of special powers?”

  “Oryon, how do you expect this child to know such a thing?” Lina asked.

  “It’s something a guide should know.”

  “I know all the places visitors like to go,” Bryte insisted. “I never got asked questions like yours.”

  “All right,” Oryon said, “tell us about the government buildings you do know. What and where are they?”

  “Well, the Palace of the Triumvirate is on the seventh tier. On the sixth tier are the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Provincial Oversight, the Guardians of the Peace …” She ticked them off on her fingers, trying to remember. “The Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and �
� and I can’t think of any more.”

  “But you can take us to all those?” Oryon asked.

  “Well, I don’t go up to the sixth tier much,” she said, trying to evade the question.

  “But you know where all the various ministries are?”

  “Not all, no. I said I don’t go up there much.”

  “Have you ever been up there?” Lina probed.

  “Well …” She paused, decided against lying. “I went up there once or twice, but you can’t just wander around like you can on the lower tiers.”

  “So you really don’t know where anything is on that tier,” Oryon accused.

  They’ll send me home now, for sure, Bryte thought miserably, but she said, “I know where the Ministry of Justice is, and the headquarters of the Guardians of the Peace. They’re right by the main entrance to the tier. But I guess that’s all I know about the sixth tier.”

  “Well, so much for that, then,” Lina said. “We’ll find our way on our own. Now let’s go visit the bazaar.”

  Oryon and Lina seemed content to poke around the bazaar, examining all sorts of goods, and to Bryte’s relief they said no more about the sixth tier.

  The two of them wandered off in different directions, Lina drawn to displays of jewelry and Oryon to a table of old books. It would be easy to slip away. After all, Oryon and Lina were not paying her; the third tier hotel room and the bountiful meals added nothing to her savings in Master Onigon’s shop.

  The fact of being on the third tier, though, three tiers nearer her goal, kept her from leaving—that and her curiosity about her clients. She didn’t need pay from them; she had other ways of earning coins. She eased up to a booth selling cheap necklaces, waited until the vendor was busy with another customer, and was ready to slide two of the neck chains into her pocket when she remembered that the dress Lina had altered for her had no pockets.