But he could not regret that loss. He could not do anything more as the White Gull drifted with the tide until it struck the docks of Khambawe.
“And now I am home,” Kyroun said, ending his story.
He then released the hands of Gebrem and Tiyana, and the In-Seeing came to an end.
CHAPTER NINE
Contemplations
1
The original surfaces of the rooms, halls and chambers of the Gebbi Senafa had not been visible for centuries. Layer upon layer of paint, gilding, sculptures, tapestries and furnishings had provided a thick patina of opulence to the interior of the palace. And this was only the latest of the royal dwellings, an earlier one having been abandoned long ago.
In only one small room of the Gebbi Senafa did the walls remain bare of ornamentation. Unlike the other rooms of the palace, this one had no formal designation. Its sole function was to serve as a sanctum for Matile monarchs at times when they needed solitude.
Dardar Agaw, the Emperor who had salvaged the remnants of the Matile Mala at the end of the Storm Wars, had been the one who set aside this austere chamber. According to his writings, which his successors had studied with varying degrees of diligence, Agaw had needed a place in which he could be free, even for a short time, from the entreaties and machinations of his courtiers and advisers. The tactic had proven successful for Agaw, at least in terms of his reign as Emperor. History credited him with preventing a complete collapse of the Matile people in the wake of the disaster that had befallen them.
Now, Dardar Alemeyu was the one who sat on Agaw’s plain, granite bench – the only furnishing his predecessor had permitted in the chamber. The decision Alemeyu pondered was not nearly as momentous as the ones with which his distant ancestor had been burdened. Agaw’s meditations had shaped the future of the Matile. Alemeyu’s task was only to consider the fate of the Fidi.
The room in which he sat was small, little more than a cubicle. Its walls were made of granite slabs, featureless save for scratch marks that were all that remained of the decorations Dardar Agaw had ordered to be removed. The overall effect of the chamber was more reminiscent of a prison cell than an Emperor’s refuge. But sometimes, Agaw had written, the entire palace was a prison for the one who sat on the Lion Throne. There were times when Alemeyu agreed wholeheartedly with his predecessor’s view.
A single candle provided the only illumination in the windowless room. It cast a weak, wavering light on the Emperor’s face as he sat on the hard, stone surface of Agaw’s bench. The bench was much less comfortable than the Lion Throne. But comfort was the last consideration on Dardar Alemeyu’s mind.
The Emperor was not wearing his crown. Still, the black-and-gold chamma that swathed his body symbolized his rank, and his inescapable responsibility.
He had come to Agaw’s sanctum soon after a meeting with the Leba and his daughter in the Chamber of Audiences, with only his palace guards in attendance. As he sat with his hands clasped beneath his white beard, Alemeyu remembered what had been said after Gebrem and Tiyana had told him what had happened during their latest encounter with the Fidi sorcerer.
For a long time after the two had finished their tale, Alemeyu had looked at them without speaking. Then he asked a single question.
“Do you believe what this man has told you?”
“Yes,” Gebrem answered without hesitation.
Alemeyu turned his gaze to Tiyana.
“So do I,” she said.
“Why?” Alemeyu asked them both.
An uncomfortable span of silence followed the Emperor’s question, as though the Leba and his daughter were struggling with knowledge that was easier to understand than to articulate. Amply aware of the limited patience reflected in the Emperor’s hard-eyed gaze, Gebrem tried to formulate an answer that would enlighten, not irritate, the irascible monarch.
“We touched the Fidi at a level beneath what the eyes can see,” the Leba said. “And when mind touches mind, Emperor, there can be no deception.”
Tiyana nodded agreement.
“The Fidis’ ship nearly killed me, Mesfin,” she said. “That gives me more reason as anyone to be suspicious of them. But I saw the same honesty inside the sorcerer that my father did.”
“So you trust him, then?” the Emperor asked.
“I ... distrust him less.”
Alemeyu willed a smile from reaching from his lips. Despite the long-standing tension between him and Gebrem, he sometimes wished Tiyana were his daughter, not his cousin’s. This girl had the makings of an Empress ...
He pushed that thought aside and hardened his voice. But his thrust was directed more at Gebrem than Tiyana.
“But you have said this man has great ashuma power. How do you know he is not using that power to deceive you into accepting his tale?”
Gebrem and Tiyana looked at each other. There was only one honest answer they could provide, and Gebrem gave it.
“We do not know, Mesfin,” he said through tightly compressed lips.
“Just so,” Alemeyu said.
He waited a moment before continuing. It was a moment similar to many in the two men’s lives: yet another opportunity for Alemeyu to reassert his superiority over his younger cousin, the son of his father’s brother. He remembered that the relationship between his father and his uncle was not dissimilar to the one he now endured with Gebrem.
Perhaps it will always be so, between an Emperor and a Leba, he mused.
“I must think on this matter in solitude,” Alemeyu said. “Wait here.”
And with that, he left Tiyana and Gebrem in the Audience Chamber.
Before he had departed from the chamber, Alemeyu already knew what his decision would be. However, Gebrem needed to be reminded – yet again – that he was not the Emperor. The Leba’s leading role in the interlude with the Fidi might well have inflated his perception of his status. A long wait in the Audience Chamber would remind Gebrem of his true place, which was several levels below that of the occupant of the Lion Throne.
Now, Dardar Alemeyu looked at the candle burning in Agaw’s sanctum. The Emperor had used the time to think about many other matters, including whether or not it was time to put Issa aside and find another woman to give birth to the next Emperor or Empress. When the candle was finished, he would tell Gebrem and Tiyana what he had in mind for the Fidi.
2
In Kyroun’s cabin on the White Gull, a gathering of another kind was taking place. With the Seer was a group of other blue-clad Almovaads – Acolytes and Adepts. These were the Believers who had demonstrated an aptitude for sorcery. The others remained outside the cabin.
More than two dozen Almovaads were crowded into a space that could comfortably accommodate less than half that number. However, any discomfort they might have experienced meant nothing, because they were in Oneness, a mystic communion that encompassed much more than the In-Seeing Kyroun had shared with Gebrem and Tiyana.
There was no need for a contact of hands in Oneness. The Almovaads in the cabin had progressed far enough to work their sorcery independently. Yet they were not independent now. They were One with their Seer ... and One with Almovaar. Although their bodies were crammed together in a small space, Oneness set their minds free in a space that seemed limitless; an expanse of pale, blue light like an early-morning sky reflected in clear water. The Almovaads’ thoughts rippled across the surface of that space.
The Matile are determining our fate now, Kyroun told them. His thoughts, though voiceless, were as clear as the ice in the Northlands of Cym Dinath.
Their Emperor will make the decision.
Can you not look into the Emperor’s mind and be aware of what he will decide?
That thought came from Eimos, a young Acolyte who harbored ambitions of becoming an Adept. But he was impatient – too much so for Kyroun to allow him to advance to the practice of a higher level of sorcery before gaining sufficient control over his impulses.
I can, the Seer said. But I choose not to.<
br />
Why not? the Acolyte asked.
Kyroun did not reply. His silence was a test, an opportunity for Eimos and the others to learn a lesson.
But Eimos was not the one who broke the silence. It was Byallis, a young woman whose raw talent did not match that of Eimos. She was, however, his superior in discipline, which was why she had ascended to Adept status and he had not.
If you entered his mind, you would be tempted to influence his thoughts, Byallis said. And for reasons of your own, you do not wish to do that.
Precisely, Kyroun said. His approval of Byallis’s insight purled across the Oneness like a wave caressing a shoreline.
The Emperor and his people must welcome us of their own free will, the Seer explained in response to the unspoken question that stirred the Oneness. And they must come to Almovaar the same way all of you did.
What if they do not accept us? Eimos asked.
Again, Kyroun did not answer directly. Instead, he lifted a tiny portion of the veil that divided the Oneness from the pure presence of Almovaar. The glimpse of that presence shot through the Oneness like the first ray of sunlight after the passing of a storm. The essence of their god touched them all, and once again, the Acolytes and Adepts were grateful that they had been granted even a minuscule fragment of Almovaar’s potency.
Hopefully, it will not come to that, Kyroun said. For now, though, we must await the Emperor’s decision.
So. We nearly die in the water, only to leave our fate in the hands of a stranger instead of our Seer. Almovaar gives us power. Why do we hesitate to use it?
The new speaker was Ruk, a stolid Acolyte from the Northlands. Ruk seldom said much, either in or outside the Oneness. When he did, his words tended to be as subtle as a blow from a quarterstaff.
What we do is Almovaar’s will, Ruk, Kyroun said firmly. The Northerner was a good man, especially in a fight. But, as with Eimos, Kyroun did not feel he could trust Ruk with the amount of sorcerous power an Adept could wield. Control of impulses was not Ruk’s strong point.
There was no need for further discussion after that. The Oneness ended, and after they had taken the time they needed to return to the world outside their communion, the Almovaads began to file out of Kyroun’s cabin.
Eimos, a slender, rakish-looking , black-haired man, stepped aside to allow Byallis to precede him through the door. Byallis cast him a sidelong glance as she passed him. The smile on Eimos’s face was innocent enough. But it didn’t reach as far as his eyes, which were a shade of blue that was startling in his swarthy-skinned face. And as soon as she was gone, his smile disappeared.
Byallis was a plump woman with curly brown hair that cascaded below her shoulders. Kyroun’s hopes for her were high. But even in the Oneness, he was careful to conceal his approval. It was best not to encourage rivalries by directly acknowledging favorites. The Seer could never have shielded his ships from the storm if internecine struggles among the Adepts and Acolytes had distracted his concentration during the dangerous voyage.
Ruk was one of the last to leave. A huge, hard-looking man whose head was topped with a shock of straw-colored hair, the Northlander cast a questioning glance in Kyroun’s direction. He looked as though he belonged on a battlefield rather than in a religious order.
The Seer spoke to him with his mouth rather than his mind.
“Keep watch, my friend,” he said. “Keep very vigilant watch.”
Ruk responded with a short nod. Then he left the cabin, and the Seer was alone, except for Ulrithana, a Shadimish Adept who was his closest confidant save for his second-in command, a man named Ferroun ni Tamiz. He wished Ferroun were with him now. Although he had no sorcerous ability, Ferroun was the perfect administrator, and he would have been able to defuse the tension that was now building among some of the Adepts. And that would have freed Kyroun to concentrate on rebuilding his strength, which he felt certain he would need no matter what the Emperor decided concerning the fate of the newcomers.
But he had assigned Ferroun to the second ship, the Swordfish. And the Swordfish was now at the bottom of the sea.
Kyroun closed his eyes and let out a long, slow sigh – the only outward sign he would allow himself to express of the weariness that assailed him. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ulrithana looking at him calmly, with the far-seeing gaze of her people. The Shadimish woman was not much taller than the Dwarven. Her body seemed lost in the expanse of her voluminous blue robe. Her features were finely drawn, and her eyes had the characteristic Eastern fold that caused them to appear to be slanted at an oblique angle.
“You miss Ferroun,” Ulrithana said.
“Yes,” Kyroun acknowledged. “And I miss everyone else on the Swordfish. We need them here. But I could not save them.”
“You did what you could,” Ulrithana said. “Almovaar could ask no more.”
Kyroun nodded. He knew Ulrithana held little love for Ferroun; she considered him a rival, even though he could never become an Adept.
“I must rest now,” he said.
Ulrithana nodded in turn, and left the cabin. Her stiff-backed posture was the only indication that she was less than pleased to be departing.
Kyroun sighed again. He knew Ulrithana wanted to remain with him, to lie with him on his narrow bed. But he was far too distracted to enjoy her company. He closed his eyes and lay down on the bed. Using the Ishimbi statue as his focal point, he willed the weariness from his muscles and bones, emptying himself of human frailty so that the strength of Almovaar could flow into him like water into a cup. For, like the Amiyas, he, too, was a Vessel.
3
No one saw the furtive figure that slipped quietly over the side of the White Gull and scurried into the shelter of the shadows on the dock. Not the ship’s crew who, had they noticed his departure, would have merely looked the other way and let him be gone. Not the Matile guards, who were not expecting any of the newcomers to attempt to leave the ship. Not the self-righteous Almovaad Acolytes and Adepts, who were absorbed in their Oneness with Kyroun and their god to notice whether or not the miserable ship was still afloat.
Indeed, if anyone on the White Gull had reason to miss the presence of Athir Rin, they would never admit it.
Catching his breath, Athir leaned against the wall of a dockside building. He allowed the smells, the sounds, the feel of this new city to seep into his skin.
Athir was a small, wiry man with pinched features, close-cropped, sandy hair with a small tail trailing past the nape of his neck, and a stubbly beard. His pale eyes shifted constantly, as though they were searching for the nearest escape route.
Like a persistent bit of flotsam, Athir Rin had washed up in nearly every seaport in Cym Dinath. He was a bandit and bilker by trade, and a sailor by necessity. A ship sailing away from a dock was the best way he knew to escape death or dismemberment at the hands of those whose laws he flouted and pockets he lightened.
That was how he had become a member of the White Gull’s crew. He had stolen jewels from a merchant in Fiadol, but had not been able to fence them quickly enough in the city’s underground market. Cutting his losses, Athir had lost himself in Fiadol’s teeming wharf district before the merchant’s private men-at-arms could catch up with him, never mind the city guard.
Eventually, he had heard about the Almovaads and their Voyage of the Doomed. And he knew he stood a better chance for survival on their mad venture into the Sea of Storms than he would if he remained much longer in Fiadol.
Desperate to fill out his crew, Pel Muldure had agreed to take Athir on board despite his notoriety in sailors’ circles. In docks throughout Cym Dinath, Athir Rin was known as the “Ship’s Rat.” Despite that cognomen, however, Athir was a good seaman. He had to be; otherwise he would have been thrown overboard from most of the ships on which he had sailed.
When the Seer’s protection finally failed and the storms struck, Athir had barely managed to live through the ferocious battering of wind and wave. Now, he had made landfall and he was alive.
By Athir’s lights, that meant he owed nothing more to Muldure, or to the Seer, whom he had initially considered a madman, but now grudgingly respected. Even so, Athir could never become a Believer. The only deity he acknowledged was the god of chance.
He gazed out at the dark streets of Khambawe. He looked nothing like a Matile, but he knew he could find ways to blend in with the seamier elements of the populace. Athir had done so many times before, in places where he would have seemed as out-of-place as a hawk in a henhouse.
The Ship’s Rat cast a final glance at the broken hulk of the White Gull and the people on board who were oblivious of his departure.
“So long, suckers,” he muttered before disappearing into the darkness of his newest rat-hole.
4
Gebrem and Tiyana sat alone in the Chamber of Audiences, save for the ornately armored Emperor’s Guards. The presence of the guardsmen was only a formality; many generations had passed since the last time blood had been spilled in the Palace. As the Empire waned, its people clung ever-closer to the symbols of their previous glories, and of all those symbols, none stood higher than the Emperor.
Palace shamashas had placed cups of kef on the low table at which the Leba and his daughter were seated. Gebrem raised his cup to his lips, sipped slowly, and gazed at Tiyana through the faint wisps that rose from the hot liquid.
Tiyana noticed the concern showing in his eyes.
“What troubles you, Father?” she asked.
Gebrem smiled fleetingly as he placed his cup back on the table.
“I was remembering when the Fidi’s ship crashed into the dock after you fell into the water,” he said. “I thought I had lost you.”
Tiyana gave his hand a quick squeeze. She had been a small child when her mother, Membiri, died from a disease neither healers nor ashuma could cure. Gebrem and Membiri had no other children, and the Leba had never married again after his wife’s death. Being Leba was Gebrem’s duty; being father to Tiyana was his life.
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