Liar's Moon

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  “Hist,” I said. “It’s clear. On this deck, at least.” I reached down into the hold, and my hands met Irin’s; she was balanced awkwardly on Durrel’s linked fingers, and I pulled her out beside me. One by one, all nine were handed up, Durrel waiting until the very last of the refugees was out of that cramped hold before climbing out himself.

  “Now what?” I asked him, once we were all assembled, a little glowing knot of bodies huddled in the shadows. “This is your plan, milord.”

  “All right,” Durrel said. “Let’s get these people to safety. Upstairs, everyone.”

  “We’ll have to cross to the opposite side to get to the gangway,” I said. “Lord Durrel will cover us. Big ones protect the little ones.”

  Durrel nodded, his face solemn, and we got answering nods from the refugees. My heart was banging in my throat, and my hand was so slick with sweat I was afraid I would drop my knife, but their faces were aglow with hope. I prayed to any gods listening we wouldn’t let them down.

  “Ready?” Durrel asked, and launched himself up onto the deck, pistol at the ready.

  I climbed after him as fast as I could, the others behind me. We emerged in a fog of smoke and haze, which even so seemed impossibly bright after the darkness of the ship’s hold. As I stepped onto the open deck, someone rose up out of the smoke ahead of me, but reeled backward, arms raised, at the sight of Durrel’s gun.

  He gave a shout, and with that we lost our stealth. “Get back!” I cried to the refugees, but there was nowhere for them to go. The deck was swarming with men, deckhands, even a couple of Greenmen with their nightsticks drawn, and — sweet Tiboran — Lord Ragn, armed with a short sword and clambering over the side of the ship like he belonged there. He grabbed the nearest deckhand by his clothes and yanked him overboard into the roiling water below.

  “Stop them! They’re getting away!” Karst’s bellow came from the upper deck, and a moment later the man himself appeared, sliding down the steps to the deck and shoving his own men aside to get to us.

  “Quick!” I cried. I could see the gangway, and a twining path that crossed the deck and dodged the masts, but we’d have to skirt the worst of the fighting. I dashed toward the curving deck rail, Irin and her daughter on my heels. Lord Ragn had seen us, and was making his way in our direction, fending off a sailor armed with a rod of iron and waving a pistol wildly.

  I was almost to the gangway when I heard the first shot. “Go, go, go!” I said, shoving my Sarists before me. “Make for that little boat!” Down below the ship, hidden in the shadow of the Belprisa’s curving hull, I’d caught a glimpse of an elegant, painted skiff, moonslight frosting its cushioned seats. The Davinna Koyuz. Koya herself was crouched by the Belprisa’s gangway, her own pistol drawn, looking preternaturally calm. She scarcely nodded as the Sarists scrambled past her down the ramp.

  A green shape suddenly loomed up before me, and I barely had time to register the length of wood crashing toward my head when I heard a shriek of rage. A beam of moonslight shattered the air by my ear, hitting the Greenman squarely in the chest and hurling him backward against the mast. I whirled around and saw Vorges beside me, a look of fury on his face. One arm was raised — and the other clutched Jos hard up against his body. I stared, mouth half open, until the man loosed his hold on Jos and showed me his hand.

  “I have a tattoo,” he said simply. Not much of one, just a circle of faded ink on his palm. I think I nodded, dazed, as he guided Jos more gently down the gangway guarded by Koya. The other Greenman fell to the deck beside his injured partner and flung his nightstick down in surrender.

  Durrel had joined his father on the deck, calmly loading and firing the pistol, as Lord Ragn fended off Ferrymen with his sword. Durrel wounded at least one of them, and Lord Ragn had succeeded in disarming the guy with the pipe — but there was Karst, thundering toward them, a knife the length of my forearm clutched in one meaty hand.

  “Celyn, go!” Durrel shouted. In the moment that Durrel looked away, Karst lurched forward, slipping awkwardly on the wet deck, his great arm reaching to seize Lord Ragn from behind, that huge knife sharp against his lordship’s bearded neck. Ragn’s sword fell, landing with a ring at his feet.

  “Durrel —” Ragn’s voice was calm, assured, but his face had gone a little pale.

  “All right,” Karst said, edging backward with Lord Ragn. “Everyone just be easy. Drop your weapons, and I’ll consider not killing this nob.”

  I heard something clatter to the deck. Durrel had dropped my pistol, and at the anguished look he gave me, I knelt and laid my knife beside it.

  “Good,” Karst said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’ll be taking that boat there.”

  “Karst, it’s too late!” Ragn said. “There’s nowhere to go. Just put the knife down and surrender.”

  Karst gave a coarse laugh. “It’s time you learned you’re not in charge here.” He dragged Lord Ragn toward the gangway, toward the waiting boat full of Sarists. The second Greenman hauled himself to his feet again and retrieved his club. I heard a whimper from the boat below, and saw Koya, hands up in surrender, step aside.

  “We can’t let him take them!” I cried, but I was out of ideas. After all we’d done, we’d only managed to neatly package the hostages into a nice, easily deliverable bundle, with the Greenmen right here to carry them off to the Celystra.

  Koya backed away from the ramp, and Karst moved to disembark. When he reached the gangway, he shoved Lord Ragn away from him, and Durrel’s father stumbled slightly, trying to regain his footing.

  Or did he? In the swirling mist, I caught a flash of silver, and somehow, Lord Ragn had a blade in his hand again. But Karst was turning —

  “Lord Ragn!” I screamed into the night, and Ragn spun just in time to knock Karst’s hand away. He was fast and nimble, but Karst was big and mean, and the deck was wet, and when Lord Ragn advanced with his dagger drawn, all it took was one lunge of Karst’s boots on the slippery boards for Lord Ragn to stagger back into the stacked-up barrels, hand at his side, a look of surprise brightening his whole face.

  “Don’t take another step.” We all turned at the sound of that calm voice. Koya had soundlessly drawn her weapon once more. Karst had the knife in his hand to strike again, and Koya leveled her pistol at him, cool as moonslight. Water splashed the hull as the Belprisa rocked in the current, and Lord Ragn slumped hard against the barrels. Karst turned his coarse face toward us, and the look in his usually bland eyes was fiery and mad. He grabbed clumsily for Lord Ragn a second time — and Koya’s pistol went off.

  I saw the puff of smoke from the muzzle, heard the hiss of the fire in the damp night. Karst’s knife clunked against the deck, followed by the thump of his body, and a fat, bloated splash as he tumbled into the water.

  Koya’s arm did not move, stayed straight and steady before her, the pistol gripped in her smooth, white hand. But her knuckles tightened and her jaw quivered once, before she lowered her arm and slipped the pistol into her belt. And then she broke forward and ran across the ship, dodging masts and rigging, to Lord Ragn.

  Durrel got there first, and he knelt beside his father, one arm propping him up, his face wild with panic. In the shining moonslight it was all too easy to see the spreading stain of blood on Lord Ragn’s doublet, his hand curled to his side. Koya stood frozen, white hands to her mouth, just staring, but I skidded in the wet, dropping beside Durrel, and ripped Ragn’s doublet open.

  Blood pooled everywhere, turning the white linen to red. I fumbled for the nearest blade and sliced away at the sodden cloth, finally, finally revealing the wound, an ugly, gaping mouth deep in the flesh of his taut flank, thick, dark blood pumping out as he breathed.

  “Press here,” I told Durrel, balling up a handful of wet shirt, and my voice sounded shrill and not my own. Durrel’s hand brushed mine, but he didn’t see me. He was watching his father’s face, which had turned pale and ashen.

  “Son —” Lord Ragn gasped as Durrel held the rags to his sid
e.

  “Don’t talk,” Koya said, and her voice sounded like mine. Behind us, the Belprisa’s crew had scattered, and Vorges had climbed back aboard, dragging the second Greenman by the collar. Assisted by a fierce-looking Irin, he rounded up the few remaining crewmen, who looked on, faces unreadable.

  “Celyn, what do we do?” Durrel turned desperate eyes to me.

  “Can you help him?” Koya asked me urgently.

  I didn’t think so. I knew a little medicine — enough to tell me the black blood bubbling up from Lord Ragn’s wound was very bad. I did all I could to stop the bleeding, but the pressure on the wound, the hasty bandages weren’t enough. All around me in the night air were glittering particles left from Vorges’s blast of light, lingering there in the murk and smoke as if waiting for someone to shape them, and I felt furiously impotent, all this magic nearby, and I could do nothing with it. “I’m no healer,” I said helplessly.

  Someone knelt beside me, and I scarcely noticed until he spoke — the short, dark Sarist from the hold. “My name is Lenos. I can heal,” he said in his soft voice, and laid his small, brown hands against Lord Ragn’s wound. The scattered power still hanging in the air gathered around his fingers like cloud floss, and Lenos held it against Ragn’s flesh like bandages and ointment.

  Lord Ragn was breathing shallowly, looking from his son to Koya. “It’s no use,” he said, but his voice was a faint, faint whisper. “I hear the crows.”

  “No, my lord — Father —” Durrel gripped his hand harder. “You’re not going to die.” But the look Lenos gave me then, all crushing shock and sadness and disappointment, agreed with Lord Ragn. He never stopped working, though. As Tiboran turned from half to crescent in the sky, he pushed as much magic as he could into Lord Ragn’s body.

  We can sometimes stay the hand of Marau, for a time. . . . Another magical healer had told me that once, and now I finally understood exactly what she had meant. As long as Lenos worked, until he exhausted himself and his magic, he could hold Lord Ragn’s life in his body, keep soul intact and body breathing, though that body bled itself to nothing. But eventually, eventually he must stop, and when he did — I didn’t need to see what the magic could tell me to know the truth. Even Jos’s power couldn’t help us now.

  “Enough,” I said gently, finally, my hand on Lenos’s arm. He shook his head and bent lower, but Durrel watched me, a question in his eyes. Something in my chest turned to ice and cracked, but I nodded, once, as briefly as I could. Durrel took a shaky breath, looked skyward for a moment, then turned to his father. Lord Ragn’s eyes fluttered faintly, opened, recognized his son.

  “I’m sorry,” Ragn said.

  Durrel bent low, his hair brushing his father’s chest. “No, no . . .”

  But his words were sighs, breaths, crow feathers carried into the night. And for the first time, as Durrel held the body of his dead father, I saw that Koya was still there, as well, silently holding fast to Lord Ragn’s other hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  That long night stretched on forever, in a slow blur of smoke, noise, and confusion. Koya smoothly took control of the scene at the Belprisa. Under her direction, her boatman carried the Sarists to safety at Cartouche. She coaxed Durrel to stand guard over the rounded-up Ferrymen, and I remember the set of his shoulders, the determined look on his face as he turned from her, gun in hand. The fight was over, that look said; the losses were insurmountable, but his steady calm, his nobility never wavered. Lord Ragn had died for the refugees, and Durrel would not waste his father’s sacrifice by letting even one Ferryman escape justice too soon. Sometime during the night, Barris Ceid and the Night Watch arrived. Koya’s word was enough to convince the guard to take her brother and the remaining Ferrymen into custody.

  When Barris protested, the Watch captain turned to him. “Look, I don’t know what all’s been going on here tonight, but a lord’s been murdered, and you’re right in the middle of it. You’re not leaving my sight until this is settled.” He gave a nod to one of his men. “And bring Greenie-boy there along too. He looks like he’s got something to confess.”

  They left Durrel alone, however; perhaps even they were reluctant to seize a man as his father lay dead beside him. Or they lacked the authority to arrest the new Lord of Decath.

  Lenos the healer performed the sacred rites for Lord Ragn, closing his eyes and arranging his hands to call Marau’s crows and let the god of the dead know where to find his soul. As the Sarists filed away, some touched Lord Ragn’s fallen body reverently, giving final thanks to the man who was, at the last, their savior.

  Night turned to morning, and friends appeared out of the fog to help. Cwalo looked characteristically imperturbable as he sifted through the chaos on the docks, and even Raffin made it, clad improbably in his green uniform once more, and bleeding from a new cut on his cheek. He’d gone back to the Celystra, he told us, in hopes of sneaking back inside and learning more of the fate of Karst’s Sarists. But he’d run into the fighting there, and somehow helped save the temple from looters. He looked like he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.

  What I did next, I did for Durrel. And for Lord Ragn, for Koya, for Lenos and Jos and Teina and Meri and Reynart and all the others. I didn’t have to think about it; if Koya and Durrel might have had other ideas, I did not consult them. I searched the Belprisa’s captain’s quarters, where I found enough evidence to damn all those involved in Talth’s smuggling ring — should anyone ever care about the fates of exploited Sarist refugees, that is. It was the work of an afternoon to move a seal, change a date or two on the Belprisa’s manifest, draft an incriminating voucher . . . and by the time the moons rose again, I had all the proof of Karst’s and the Ferrymen’s guilt spelled out in irrefutable detail, or enough to convince the Ceid of Durrel’s innocence in Talth’s murder, at least.

  I turned the new records over to Koya, including a letter in which “Karst” described in brutal if half-literate detail how he’d poisoned Talth Ceid with Tincture of the Moon he’d bought from a potioner in the Temple District, along with signatures attesting that this confession had been extracted by the honorable Lord Raffin Taradyce, Acolyte Guardsman, and witnessed by one Davinna Koyuz. She gripped them tightly, fingers white, but agreed to deliver them to the proper civic and royal authorities. We may have painted Karst in a dimmer light than even he deserved, but I felt no regret. What Karst had done, the things he had unquestionably been guilty of, went beyond anything Gersin or even Llyvrin laws were currently equipped to judge. I thought he was lucky he only had Marau’s justice to contend with.

  Lord Ragn had murdered Talth. There was no doubt of that, not after his admission to me. I had married my son to a monster, he had said, overcome with remorse for that, and he had compounded his guilt by lying and letting his son be framed for murder. That it was done in a good cause, to save innocent lives . . . In the end, Lord Ragn had redeemed himself, and his explanations, his reasons justified everything he’d done.

  Didn’t they?

  But it still troubled me. Lord Ragn never had the chance to explain his actions to Durrel or make up for putting his son’s life in danger in favor of the survival of Sarists he didn’t know. All the lies and the pretense and the good he had done knotted into a tangle I was too weary to undo, and not even sure I wished to. And so I let Lord Ragn’s guilt sink to the bottom of the Big Silver river with Karst’s body, and I did the only thing left I could, for both of them, Durrel and Lord Ragn. I made a lie into the truth, and the truths into secrets no one could ever uncover.

  The city changed that night. Rioting soldiers, mad with hunger and fed on rumors that had spread through their ranks like a plague, marched on Hanivard Palace to demand bread, wine, and payment, and were brutally mown down by the king’s better-fed and better-armed palace guards. Their comrades, upon hearing of their brothers’ fate, stormed Gerse’s sealed gates from the inside, slaughtering the sentries posted there and throwing open the city to the world beyond — an
d Prince Wierolf’s army, camped some twenty miles downriver and slowly but inevitably fighting their way toward the capital.

  The Celystra fared much the same as the palace, though the force that attacked her was smaller and more mercifully set down. Greenmen calmly fended off the handful of royal troops that had broken rank, hoping to sack the temple’s rich stores of grain, wine, and other treasures, and the soldiers’ wrath proved no match for the temple’s wall or her loyal Acolyte Guard.

  I learned all this news in passing, as if watching it unfold behind a scrim of gauze; it happened, but it didn’t touch me, somehow. I went back to the bakery, though the room no longer quite felt like home, and in the days that followed, as the entire city waited in the wake of the massacre at Hanivard, holding its breath to see what would happen next, I kept my distance from Durrel. Knowing everything I did, I wasn’t sure what to say to him, and he was deep in the burdens of planning his father’s funeral while learning how to become Lord Decath. I had done the job I’d been conscripted for — I’d solved his wife’s murder, after all — and I wasn’t sure where I fitted into his life anymore.

  I ought to have realized he’d have thoughts of his own on the matter. Early one evening I dallied outside Grea’s, halfheartedly trying to decide whether or not to go to work. From a long distance away, I watched a shape gradually resolve itself into Lord Durrel, slowly walking down Bargewater Street, glancing into arches and doorways as if I might be lurking in some shadows there, and looking altogether lost, like the world was too big for him. The sky spread out above him, the river curving huge and gray and fathomless beside him, and he looked so . . . inconsequential that my heart squeezed, so sharp and sudden it caught my breath.