A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  He keeps waiting for the punch line, or the executioner’s axe, until we untie his basic raft and push him off from the docks, waving and smiling at him and wishing him a peaceful life.

  “Wait, you’re really doing this?” he says as a few feet of water separate him from us.

  “Bye-bye!” I call.

  “But there are scavengers out there! You haven’t even given me an oar!”

  “You don’t need one! You’ll be fine! Probably. Except for the cabbage.”

  He looks down at the basket of food we gave him, wondering if the head of cabbage in there is going to explode. But that’s not what I mean. Jahi and I hired a bunch of formerly homeless folks to gather on the riverbank with some cabbages that have gone bad, and the viceroy hasn’t seen any of them, since he’s been paying attention to us. That was in keeping with his tenure as viceroy: He never paid attention to the homeless, unless it was to torment them. But they take their cue and chuck all their produce at Bhamet Senesh with a combination of righteous fury and glee, and a few of them hit their target. One even thunks him upside the head and he squeals, and it is the sweetest music. There is general celebration at his dismay and humiliation. I do a little dance right there on the dock, and some of the council joins in.

  I suppose that wasn’t very compassionate of me. But exile and a well-deserved cabbaging are extremely mild punishments for one such as he. I had a difficult time persuading the council that we couldn’t claim to be any different from the monarchists if we executed him on the posts outside the walls, and it hurt me to argue for his life when he so clearly valued no one’s but his own and never did anything to help anyone unless they helped him first. It hurt most that I was giving Sudhi’s murderer a chance to live unbruised. I might have a nightmare or two about that and spend more time than I should worrying about him coming back to finish me off. But I pointed out to the council that we would also be giving him a chance to die. Without the Sixth Kenning, travel in the open in Ghurana Nent is still an extremely chancy business.

  But he probably will be fine. Everything for miles around already has a fallen army to eat. He might look good to a cheek raptor, but as long as he stays on the river he should be safe, and once he gets to Batana Mar Din, someone will haul him ashore.

  Bhamet Senesh doesn’t know that. He spews forth a stream of curses and imprecations and resorts to begging as the river current sweeps him away. We watch and listen until he’s gone.

  “That was really satisfying,” Tamhan says. “He’s gone in a hail of cabbage and I have no guilt. It’s perfect.”

  “That’s right, Minister Khatri. It’s the best.”

  “Cabbage and exile instead of capital punishment. I like it.”

  I don’t know if the rest of Ghurana Nent will follow our lead or if there will be more war, but I do know that I have plenty of work to do now, regardless. A hive to help thrive, a business to grow, a city to develop into its best self. And a date for tea with Lavi the moth man.

  * * *

  —

  “So there you have it, friends,” Fintan said, dispelling his seeming. “Khul Bashab is a free city and remains so, as far as I know. I have heard nothing to the contrary since I learned of these events.”

  The entire city seemed to be in a fantastic mood in the morning. Or it may have been just me. I had some delicious toast and preserves and headed down to the refugee kitchen and said a bubbly hello to Chef du Rödal, who immediately set me the task of chopping onions to see if that might bring me back down to earth. It didn’t, but someone else did.

  The chef brought her to me just as I was grabbing onion number three, saying only, “This woman was asking for you.”

  “Oh, thanks. Hello. I’m Dervan du Alöbar.”

  The chef disappeared after casting a disapproving glance at the pile of unchopped onions, a nonverbal admonition to hurry up. The woman in question, of middle age and carrying some middle-aged weight like me, had large eyes and a beautiful head of curly hair.

  “Master du Alöbar, I’m Dame Nyssa du Valas. I work at the Nentian embassy.”

  I thought about Rölly’s explusion of the ambassador weeks ago. “We still have an embassy?”

  She snorted. “We do, but there isn’t much for me to do until we get a new ambassador. It’s why I was free to seek you out after I heard the pelenaut mention your name yesterday. First of all, whatever you did to help uncover the conspiracy, thank you.”

  “Very welcome,” I said, deciding to keep it at that and hoping she wasn’t going to ask me what I did. She didn’t.

  “Forgive me for asking, but by any chance might you be related to Sarena du Söneld?”

  I put down my knife and brushed off my hands on my apron, giving her my full attention. “Yes. She was my wife.”

  “Oh. I wondered if that might be the case, because I thought I recognized your name. I’m so sorry. It was such a shame how they got to her.”

  “What do you know about that—and who are they?”

  “They are the Nentians. I was a colleague of Sarena’s, you see.”

  “A spy, you mean?”

  “Yes. Counterintelligence against whatever they had running here. A maid who keeps her eyes and ears open. A few weeks ago—and I reported this to the lung—I overheard the former ambassador talking to a guest about how the Red Pheasants in Forn gave them the poison they found so useful here. The guest suggested it must have been extraordinarily fast-acting if the target couldn’t be saved by a hygienist. But the ambassador replied that it was a slow-acting poison that affected the liver and was incurable by hygienists. That’s when I realized that they had poisoned Sarena.”

  I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “So the Nentians killed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She had done something to annoy the king—I don’t know what, unfortunately. That wasn’t discussed.”

  “Wait, which king? The one that got burned to cinders by Winthir Kanek? King Kalaad the Unaware?”

  “No, the new one. King Kalaad the Unwell. Melishev Lohmet.”

  “Melishev?” Something like a cold fist clenched in my belly. “He ordered her death while he was still a viceroy?”

  “Yes.”

  I could hear my voice heating, rising in anger while the cold inside spread. “And you told the lung this and they’ve done nothing?”

  “No, they expelled the ambassador.”

  “That was for something completely unrelated! I was there!”

  “That’s what they had to do, Master Dervan. They couldn’t expel him for murdering a spy or they would know that I was a spy.”

  “So the pelenaut knows as well.”

  “Of course.”

  I shook my head, trying to think of why Rölly and Föstyr would have kept this from me. They’d obviously had plenty of opportunity to tell me the truth. They could have told me while I was in the dungeon, if nothing else. Why keep it a secret? I asked Nyssa another question.

  “Why did you come to tell me this?”

  “Well, partially it was to introduce myself as a colleague. But also I wondered if you might have heard anything about Melishev. Whether he’s still alive or not and whether Sarena has been avenged.”

  “I haven’t.” I remembered that Rölly had decided some while ago to send a hygienist to Brynlön, whose first order of business would no doubt be to return Melishev Lohmet to full health. He’d expelled the ambassador before that. Which meant he’d sent help to Melishev after knowing full well that the shitsnake had ordered my wife’s death.

  My friend the pelenaut had some explaining to do.

  “Okay. Thank you, Nyssa. I appreciate you sharing this with me.”

  She nodded with a tight-lipped smile. “I hope we’ll meet again in happier times.”

  After she had gon
e, I returned to chopping onions and let the fumes assail my eyes. They needed a good cry at that point, and I could weep openly without anyone asking what troubled me. Part of me wanted to run straight to the palace to confront Rölly about it, but I realized that I needed to off-load some emotion first, so wielding a sharp knife against defenseless vegetables was an ideal outlet.

  All this time I had been fighting so hard to keep from swimming with the bladefins without grasping that I had no choice in the matter. Someone—or rather many someones, including Rölly, the Wraith, and even Sarena—had tossed me into the ocean, and now it was either swim or drown. Or, I supposed, it was more like seeking a blessing in Bryn’s Lung: The only way out was through. If I stayed where I was, the crabs and eels would feast on my flesh.

  Making my way through this world of espionage might ultimately be fatal. But staying where I was—remaining passive, trying to be the good guy—had only brought me pain and the overwhelming sense that I was a fool and a plaything. If someone had condemned me to the abyss, I was going to claw my way out or die trying.

  Once I’d resolved to fight, the ice in my guts thawed somewhat but never went away.

  The first thing I asked Fintan when I met him for lunch was if he’d heard whether or not Melishev was still alive.

  “When Numa was last here a few days ago, she had not heard anything different. So as far as I know, he’s still breathing. Why?”

  Shaking my head, I replied, “Just morbid curiosity. Did you sleep well?”

  “Tolerably.” He nodded, then raised a couple of fingers tentatively from the table, eyeing them instead of me. “If you want to talk about anything, Dervan, I’m here for it. Goddess knows you’ve been here for my troubles.”

  “Thank you, Fintan.”

  We got to work after that but spoke no more of other subjects. It was kind of him to be available, but I didn’t feel I could verbalize anything yet. I also did not know if I could trust him. Opening myself up would only make it easier for him to shove in a knife if he couldn’t be, so it was best to keep my doubts and worries close.

  Fintan’s music for the day was an old Brynt Drowning Song, and quite a few of us clapped and sang along.

  When the sails are full of the winds all blowing

  And bladefins are following the chum that you’re throwing

  You need a fine catch to earn the money that you’re owing

  Or you’ll wind up dead in the abyss.

  You gotta do the right thing and do a friend a good turn

  You gotta work and play, love and hate, make mistakes and learn

  You gotta sail close to shore and avoid the kraken’s churn

  Or you’ll wind up dead in the abyss.

  My lifebond says I’m living in my prime

  My body says it’s smelly under all this grime

  And I say I gotta make the most of my time

  Before I wind up dead in the abyss.

  “Today is a day of voyages,” Fintan said after the break. “We’ll begin with our favorite scholar in Kauria.”

  For some days, I got so lost in the joy of learning this fabulous new information about the origins of the Rift that I forgot people were being killed over it. But it gradually became clear in our discussions with Saviič that the Eculans harbored a vast sense of grievance against the west and felt that we deserved any atrocities they committed, somehow, because of what happened long ago. We, the various children of Žalost’s siblings, had deprived them of the kennings for all these centuries. The Eculans saw themselves as the wronged party; an invasion, therefore, would just be taking back what was stolen from them.

  Or, as Elten Maff put it, “They just want our stuff, and this story tells them it’s okay to take it.”

  A summons from the mistral interrupted our work. With apologies to Saviič, we left the dungeon for the rarefied air of the Calm. There I was unexpectedly reunited with Ponder Tann, the tempest who’d traveled with me to Brynlön.

  “Ponder! You look well!”

  He broke into a grin. “And you look disheveled. Which means, in your case, like a happy and healthy and very distinguished scholar. It is good to see you.” He exchanged greetings with Elten Maff once I introduced them, and then the mistral asked Elten to excuse us.

  “My summons was only for Scholar Vedd. I have a matter to discuss with him.”

  “Of course. My apologies. It was a misunderstanding.” He bowed and left the room.

  The mistral waited until he was gone and then she said, “Not a word of this to him.”

  “Understood.”

  “Good. I have two jobs for you, Gondel. First is to find out from Saviič, as best you can, where exactly we can find Ecula and where we can find whoever’s in charge once we get there.”

  “All right.”

  “Second, I need to you write two letters in the Eculan language. One is a letter of introduction for Ponder here, which will identify him and ask that he be taken to their leader as an ambassador of Kauria. The other is a letter to their leader that Ponder will deliver.”

  “I see. And the contents of this letter?”

  She produced a couple of sheets of paper for me written in a neat hand and said, “It’s all here. But basically it informs the Eculans that the Seven-Year Ship they’re looking for is in the Mistmaiden Isles.”

  “Oh. So Ponder…”

  “…is to deliver that to the Eculans. Yes.”

  “And that will…”

  “…ensure the Eculans don’t attack Kauria.”

  “That’s a relief; a great peace to be sure,” I said. “But won’t that bring Eculans to the doorstep of Brynlön once more?”

  “I wouldn’t call the Mistmaiden Isles a doorstep. If you’re looking for some sort of ethical conundrum in pointing a hostile nation in the general direction of an ally, let me assure you I’ve already considered that. I’m informing the pelenaut about this. They will have time to muster a response to any force sent in that direction. In fact, they’ll have an opportunity to ambush any such force well away from their cities. Regardless, we—or, rather, the other nations—can’t hit them back until we know where they live. But Kauria can peacefully open diplomatic channels and then share information with our allies. Do our part for the war effort without actually going to war. Ponder is going to do us—and the world—this service.”

  The enormity of it hit me. An extended journey in the wind would age Ponder tremendously. He might be incredibly old after this single mission. Or lost forever in the wind, like my brother.

  “Hope you can get some good directions out of that guy,” he said to me. “Otherwise I’ll be losing a lot of time out there.”

  “I, uh…yes. How much time do I have to work on this?”

  “We need it done as quickly as possible,” the mistral replied. “For Kauria’s safety.”

  “Of course.” I blinked, too stunned to remember what propriety dictated I should do next.

  “Do you have any other questions?” the mistral asked.

  “Well, for Ponder, perhaps. Might we have a drink, Ponder? I feel like one would suit me right about now, or whenever you might be free.”

  “I’d be delighted,” he said. “Meet you at Mugg’s Chowder House for a pint at six?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  The mistral nodded once. “Excellent. I’ll expect to hear from you soon, Scholar Vedd. All other projects are suspended while you work on this one, and Scholar Maff is not to be included in any of it. If that requires you to send him away while you question Saviič, then do so. He may inquire with me if he wishes.”

  “And Scholar Maff is being excluded because he might still be in the employ of Zephyr Goss?”

  “The zephyr or someone else. He has proven himself susceptible to pressure, so
I cannot trust him.”

  I don’t remember leaving the Calm, but I do know that I didn’t go back to the dungeon to begin work as quickly as possible. Instead, I went straight to Mugg’s Chowder House and ordered their largest beer, getting a good head start on Ponder’s eventual arrival. The bartender recognized my traumatized expression and put out a bowl of squid crackers to take the edge off. Or increase my thirst.

  “Let me know when you want something to eat, love,” she said, because, by long-standing cultural tradition, no one counted squid crackers as food.

  I gave her a nod of thanks and took a long pull on the beer. Then I spread out the papers Mistral Kira had given me and read them.

  The letter of introduction was formal Kaurian language, and I had little hope of translating it well into Eculan. But beyond that, I doubted anyone would read it before taking a hack at Ponder. He’d need to learn how to shout something soothing and then sail the letter to them from a safe distance. Maybe if they took time to read it, they’d take him to their leader. Maybe. And then he’d hand over the second letter, which I read next:

  Dear Leader,

  The armies you sent to the west have all been slain. To avoid further loss of life, do not send any more. We understand that you are looking for the Seven-Year Ship. We have found it and are happy to inform you that it is docked at the largest of the Mistmaiden Isles. Had you asked for our help, we would have given it. You instead sent an invasion.

  The peoples of our continent stand ready to be your trading partners in the future, if you wish peace. If you wish war, we stand ready for that too. We hope you will choose peace. Our messenger can provide charts to the location of the Seven-Year Ship.