A/N: Profuse apologies for the long delay between updates – I went sailing for two weeks and nearly didn't come back…

Chapter 10 - Tremors and Traitors

A door in the far wall opened, and out stepped a woman; she had cocoa coloured hair which fell in ringlets around her face and shoulders, and chocolate skin. She was dressed in a gown that would have once been magnificent, but it was torn and darkened with age. Her person was littered with charms and trinkets; rings, pendants, hair ornaments. Her black eyes were lined with kohl. She seemed to glide across the floor towards Lucien; surreal and ghostly.

Following his instincts, Lucien said nothing, thinking – with a nostalgic smile – of his silencer, as the strange woman slowly began to circle him. Curbing his irritation at being treated like an exhibit in a zoo, Lucien waited until Chaiya had finished her thorough examination of him, then locked gazes with her. She did not blink, or break their stare. Her liquid black orbs seemed to give way like water before his blazing brown glare, yielding yet leading him at the same time.

Chaiya spoke first. "What is it you desire of me, traveller from a distant land?"

"Nothing but information," Lucien replied smoothly.

"What could I tell you that Kush herself can not?"

Lucien paused, "I know everything there is to know about the land itself, but little about the society here. Kushiel is not a great conversationalist."

"Perhaps you are simply not listening?" Chaiya spoke in an even voice, betraying no emotion.

Kushiel's not the only one, it seems, thought Lucien. What was one to say to a statement like that? "You seem to know something about my new, ah, associate," he ventured. "Perhaps you can be persuaded to share your knowledge?"

Chaiya looked thoughtful. "Call her."

Lucien bridled at this apparent order. "For what purpose?"

"I wish to confirm with my own eyes that you, a stranger here, have indeed won the loyalty of our land," she replied serenely.

"Kushiel," Lucien called the spirit. Obediently, the shadows of the room lengthened and took shape. The slender figure of Kushiel stepped into the room; skin so dark she seemed to absorb the meagre light in the room. Chaiya circled the spirit as she had circled Lucien, though Kushiel gave no sign that she had noticed the woman's presence in the room.

Bowing low to her master, the shadow looked up at him with those infinite, inquiring eyes, and Chaiya continued to circle, growing closer and closer. At last the woman's face was inches from the spirit's flowing shadow-hair, and she seemed to take a deep sniff, before running her finger up the shadow's spine.

Lucien felt a pang of anger – or was it jealousy? – at her presumption, and instantly Chaiya snapped her hand back as if burned, though looking supremely satisfied.

"I see the rumours are true," she said. "Very well, I shall lend you my assistance, such as it is," she eyed the shadow-spirit.

"What payment do you require?" Years of dealing in information had taught Lucien that nothing of import came cheaply.

"Nothing in particular, merely an… alliance?"

Lucien considered her request. A 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' arrangement seemed a very reasonable price, and with Kushiel's allegiance, Lucien would be the one with the power in such an agreement. "Very well," he held out his hand to shake on it, but Chaiya just looked at it curiously, as if maybe Lucien was offering to give her something she couldn't see.

He withdrew it with a touch of impatience, and said stiffly "we have an agreement. So, first would you kindly explain the recent newspaper headline about me?"

Chaiya smiled that enigmatic smile. "Historically, our monarch has always been selected through mastery of that amulet you are wearing. She was always female, and ruled the united land of Kush. Kushiel was the symbol of rule, and was depicted as the Royal Shadow.

"The last Queen was Nefernis, but when she passed away, Kushiel would not grant her allegiance to any who thought themselves worthy, and so the kingdom was sundered. You stand now in the City of Light. Thirty leagues to the northeast lies the city of Old Kush, previously the seat of power of our monarch, and the crown jewel of our land. But we do not have dealings with them any longer. They have descended into darkness and barbarity."

Chaiya spoke with the carefully measured tones of someone who, through long practice, had affected a distaste for those things abhorred in a society, but which she personally found enticing. Lucien had heard that tone so often during his career with the Dark Brotherhood.

"I need – " Lucien was cut off as the ground beneath his feet was seized with violent tremors. The building shook like a child's rattle, throwing Lucien and Chaiya to the floor; the ear-splitting rumbling was punctuated with the smash of objects, and the distant shouts and screams of the city's inhabitants.

As suddenly as it came, the shaking subsided. Lucien looked around, but Chaiya was gone. Only Kushiel stood there, indifferent. He made his way swiftly from the house, and through the streets, which were showing obvious signs of distress from the tremor, taking care to avoid the oblivious drunks and retards (whose worlds must shake on a daily basis). He pushed his way through a crowd outside the council building, and stopped at the end of a large, deep fissure marring the neat stonework of the street.

Most disturbing was the extent to which the locals seemed panicked by the shaking. Lucien had heard of lands which suffered from violent shaking, tearing up the ground and felling buildings, but these people were acting as though they had never seen or heard of such a thing before. Compulsively pulling down his hood, Lucien fled the scene.

xox

"How do I look?"

"Very good."

"Will the other daedric princes be able to tell it's me?"

"Oh yes," droned Haskill as he observed the platypus.

xox

Arquen tapped her fingers upon her desk impatiently. "Banus is angry."

"Banus is always angry," countered Belisarius. "He was angry as a child; I still have the scars."

"Our listener has disappeared!" Arquen spat, furious with Belisarius' nonchalance.

"Do you suspect foul play?" asked the Imperial.

"Perhaps. The traitor, Lachance, escaped – he alone was a match for Loria."

"So you think she is dead?"

"How should I know?" the High Elf hissed. "She seemed to be settling into her role; she was recruiting heavily for days, then – nothing! Gone!"

"Did you notice that our new recruits all share something in common?"

"How could I not? All carbon copies of that damned Lachance," the Elf's lips curled in a sneer. "And did it occur to you that her infatuation with him would have made it so much easier for him to do away with her?"

"But why would he do that?" countered the Imperial. "He had a willing tool, one that would have followed any order, no matter what. Why should he dispose of such a powerful asset?"

"I don't know!" she yelled. "But something's happened! And the attacks haven't stopped!"

"They haven't? Apart from our dear Listener, who else had disappeared?" asked Belisarius.

"Are you forgetting Mattieu?"

"I hardly think that the horde of angry daedra that carried him off the other night really fits the style of our traitor."

Arquen made an inarticulate snarl and stormed from the room, watched steadily by the placid Imperial.

xox

"Are all the party games ready?" asked the platypus.

"Musical thrones, whack the scamp," Haskill ticked them off on his fingers, "pin the tail on the traitor… Yes, I believe they're ready."

If platypuses could smile, this one would be beaming fondly at the prostrate form of a Breton man in dark robes, immobilised at one end of the hall.