by Rachel Aaron
“Gone!” the river screamed again as it pounded against the building. “Gone! Gone!”
Outside, the river barges were now level with the windows and the water was full of debris, some of it moving. People, Miranda realized with an icy shock. Men and women, little children caught up in the river’s sweep before they were sucked down beneath the swirling brown water.
“Gone!” Rellenor’s scream crashed against her. “Lost! We are all—”
“Be still!”
The command rang like a bell through the whole of Miranda’s spirit. It was not an Enslavement. She did not grab the river or force it down, but she leaned on it as hard as she could, using the whole of her will as a weight to press on the water until, at last, the terrible wail sputtered to a stop.
“Who are you?” the water said bitterly. “Who are you to stop our grief?”
“You know me, Rellenor,” Miranda said slowly, never letting up on her pressure. “I’m Miranda the Spiritualist, Mellinor’s shore. I can help you, but I need you to let go of some of your water before you destroy the docks.”
Laughter filled her mind, cold and bitter and stinking of mold. “What do I care?” the river cried. “My star is gone! All water flows through Ell. We rivers are only tributaries of the greatest water. The Mother River has been with us since before the beginning of this world, but now her voice is silent and her banks are dry. Without the connection of her water, I can no longer feel the other rivers, no matter far I reach. I am alone, human. What can I do but flood?”
The river’s voice rose as it spoke, building again into the heart-wrenching wail, and the water rose with it. Miranda ignored the icy swirls beating against her knees and slammed her will down harder.
“Stop!” she commanded, and then eased her voice into a plea. “Please, Rellenor, stop. It is your right to flood, but do the spirits around you deserve to be washed away? Lower your waters. The Spirit Court knows stars are vanishing, and we are doing everything in our power to bring them back.”
“Bring Ell back?” Scorn flooded the river’s voice. “Are all you wizards so arrogant? What can you hope to do? Ell is a star.”
Miranda pulled herself ramrod straight. “I am the Rector Spiritualis!” she shouted. “There is no spirit I will not serve, and no crime against them I will not seek to undo! So I have sworn, and so I will do until I die. Even if the Shepherdess herself stands in my way, I will do everything I can to bring your star and the others back to their places.”
The River seemed momentarily stunned by this outburst, and Miranda went on, softer now. “You flow through the city of wizards, Rellenor. You should know better than any spirit the tenacity of the Spirit Court. We will serve you well, I swear it, but please, please do not destroy the innocent in your grief. The loss of Ell is loss enough. Do not add these poor spirits as well.”
For a long moment the water hung, and then a watery sigh went through her, as cool and soft as evening rain.
“You humans are as stubborn as you are blind,” the river muttered as the brown water began to sink back through the floorboards. “But I have long flowed through the white city of the Tower, and those years have taught me better than to go against the Tower’s master. Still, you can do nothing, human. Ell is gone.”
Miranda reached down to plunge her hand into the retreating water. “I can’t speak for my race,” she whispered. “But I will not desert you, nor will any other Spiritualist. All you have to do is flow as you have always done and we will do the rest.”
“I don’t see much point.” The water’s voice was deep and bitter. “What good is flowing if you flow alone?”
“Just keep flowing,” Miranda said, gently lifting the weight of her spirit. “We will make things right. I swear it.”
The river didn’t answer; it just cried, folding itself back into its banks with soft sobbing sound. Miranda caressed it one more time before closing her spirit and shooting to her feet. She rushed past the brokers and out of the building, shoving the list of stars into her pocket as she went. Lelbon followed hot on her heels, his voice low and buzzing like a wasp in her ear.
“Spiritualist!” he hissed. “I realize you’re upset right now, but think about what you’re saying! The Lady’s own hand is in this! You can’t fight the Shepherdess’s will. If you charge ahead, she will cut you down. She cares nothing for humans save those she favors. You can’t just make promises—”
“What else was I supposed to do?” Miranda shouted, bursting into the street. “Look around!”
She flung out her arms, forcing Lelbon to stop and look. He did, his face paling.
The river district was a scene of chaos. A layer of slimy mud lay everywhere the river had flooded. Barges had been washed up into the street. Many had crashed through houses, dropped there by the racing water. People lay scattered as well. Some were lucky. They sat on muddy doorsteps, filthy and half drowned but alive. The still shapes washed into the gutters showed that others weren’t so fortunate.
“And Zarin was lucky,” Miranda said, taking quick, shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid the smell of the river bottom as it mixed with the growing smell of death. “How many rivers are there, Lelbon? How many of those places didn’t have Spiritualists standing by to calm the water? How many people will die today? How many spirits broken and drowned? And you still say I shouldn’t try?”
“I’m saying you shouldn’t go blithely to your death!” Lelbon cried, his wrinkled face drawing into a terrible scowl. “This is larger than you. Larger than the Court. There’s a line between honoring your oaths and throwing your life away. Even if you did somehow find a way to undo this, we’re not talking about some rogue Enslaver, Miranda. This is the Shepherdess, the Power whose will rules the world. Even the favorite couldn’t defy the Lady. What hope do you have?”
“I don’t intend to defy the Lady,” Miranda said. “In fact, in a roundabout way, I mean to ask for her help.”
Lelbon’s scowl fell into a look of utter bewilderment. Miranda didn’t blame him. The insane thought had struck her dumb as well. It had come just a second ago while she was running out of the building, but the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that this was the best chance they had. She might not be able to make everything right as she’d promised the river just now, but if this worked, she could make things better, and any improvement was worth taking a chance for at this point.
Miranda put her fingers to her lips. Grimacing at the stench, she took a deep breath and blew an ear-splitting whistle. It rang in the air, echoing off the low buildings. Across the city, another call rose in answer, a long, ghostly howl. Miranda grinned at the sound and turned back to Lelbon.
“I’m not the only one who cares for the preservation of this world,” she said. “But to get my help, I’m going to need to call in my favor from your lord.”
Lelbon sighed. “I thought I made it quite clear that Lord Illir could not—”
“He can do this much,” Miranda said. “All I need is transportation. The wind doesn’t even have to stay.”
Lelbon scowled. “And where would you be going?”
Miranda told him, and Lelbon’s eyes went wide as eggs. She set her jaw, ready to argue, but he just turned and raised his arm. A wind rushed down in answer, making his white robe flap like a flag. He whispered something to it, and the wind spun back into the sky. By the time Gin arrived, panting from the dash but looking rested and much improved, an enormous wind had come to Zarin, a great howling gale that nearly knocked Miranda off her feet.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Lelbon shouted over the wind’s roar.
“Not at all,” Miranda shouted back, climbing onto Gin’s back and clutching her legs around the ghosthound’s barrel chest. “But if I stay here I’ll fail for certain. What have I got to lose?”
Lelbon’s eyes narrowed, but he waved his hand. The second it moved, the great wind swept down, lifting Miranda and her ghosthound into the air. She dug her fingers into
Gin’s fur, pulling herself down to his back as the ground sank away below their feet.
“This is going to be a long trip, isn’t it?” Gin growled, kicking his legs in the air. “Wish you’d told me about this before I ate.”
“If your belly wasn’t full of pig, you’d never have let me do this,” Miranda said. The wind bucked around them, and she pulled herself tighter to his back. “Hold on.”
“To what?” Gin cried, his orange eyes going wide.
All around them, the wind began to laugh, an enormous sound that made Miranda’s teeth rattle. And then, with a stomach-churning lurch, they were off, spinning through the sky north and west toward a distant, stormy shore and the lonely citadel where Miranda had pinned her last, desperate hope.
The Oseran royal carriage creaked to a halt a half mile outside Zarin’s towering south gate. The driver cursed and arched his neck, looking with dismay at the enormous clog of traffic running back from the gatehouse. Cursing again, he glanced down at the ring of king’s guards riding close escort. “Mind going to see what we’re in for?”
The guards exchanged a look, and then the youngest of the group turned his horse out into the fields beside the road, riding around the clot of carts, carriages, and angry farmers to see what the problem was.
“Why did we stop?”
The driver rolled his eyes and looked down to see the Royal Treasurer climbing out of the coach. The old man looked terrible, but then anyone would look like death warmed over after being locked in a small carriage for a day and a night with the king.
“Seems there’s trouble in the city, my lord,” the driver said. “Just sent a rider up, so we should know in a moment.”
He heard hoofbeats as he finished and turned to see that the boy was already riding back.
“It’s a flood,” the young guard called as soon as he was in earshot. “River just wiped out the center of Zarin.”
“A flood?” the Treasurer cried. “The ground’s bone dry! How do you have a flood with no rain?”
“Could have been rain upriver,” the driver said, and then snapped his mouth closed at the Treasurer’s poisonous look. “Yes, my lord. If we’re fast, we can cut west along the ring road and beat the crowd to the north gate. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“Just get us there,” the Treasurer snapped, stepping back inside. “The king’s impatient to get this over with.”
The king was impatient about everything, the driver thought with a scowl. Not that he was going to complain, of course. He’d been at the storm wall; he’d seen what the king could do with that hunk of metal on his back.
The driver whistled to the riders to fall back in. He was about to turn the horses off onto the grass when he felt the carriage shift. The driver cursed and reined his team back in just before the carriage door burst open and the king himself climbed out.
All the guards froze in place, saluting as King Josef hopped down onto the grass. For his part, the driver was doing his best to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.
Powers, the king was large. Large and deadly and dangerous; the kind of man you’d cross the street to avoid day or night. The girl he kept with him was no better. She jumped down after him, a leather sack swinging from her hands, her pale face hidden by the creepy coat she wore. He swore he’d seen it moving on its own sometimes, twitching like a sleeping animal even when she sat perfectly still, the cloth black as a nightmare no matter how bright the light.
“Your majesty!” The Treasurer scrambled out of the carriage, chasing the king like a mother after her toddler. It was a pathetic sight for a minister of Osera, and overbearing as the old bastard had been during the trip, the driver almost felt sorry for him.
“Please get back in the carriage,” the Treasurer pleaded. “It will be only another hour.”
“A minute in that coffin on wheels is like an hour anywhere else,” the king growled. “Forget it. We walk.”
The Treasurer went so pale the driver worried he would faint. “Walk? You are a sovereign monarch on an official visit to the Council of Thrones! You can’t just walk in!”
But the king was already striding down the line of traffic, his long legs quickly taking him out of sight behind the other wagons. As always, the girl stuck to him like a shadow, jogging to keep up.
The Treasurer cursed loudly and turned to the riders. “Follow the king! Make sure he comes to no harm.”
As the six horsemen took off, the driver was tempted to point out that, seeing how the king had killed half the Empress’s army with his own hands, the riders’ presence would likely be more of a hobble than a help if an actual threat did emerge, but the Treasurer was already climbing back into the carriage.
“Drive on!” he shouted through the little curtained window. “We’ll meet his majesty at the Council Citadel.”
“Yes, my lord,” the driver said, snapping the reins.
The carriage creaked forward, bouncing over the grass as they turned off the road and cut west through the open field. As he eased the horses into the grass, the driver leaned back, enjoying the sunlight that suddenly seemed far warmer and cheerier now that the monster king and his monster girl were out of his coach. Laughing at the thought, he urged the horses faster, whistling an Osera fishing song as they bounced onto the narrow, rutted cart track that circled Zarin and turned north toward the hopefully unflooded, uphill side of town.
CHAPTER
9
Eliton?”
Banage’s voice broke on the last syllable. Eli rolled his eyes. “Who else?”
The candle flame flickered as Banage stood, his eyes wide and bright in the shaking light. “It is really you?” he whispered.
Eli started to say something snarky, but the words vanished as Banage did something completely unexpected, something he’d never done before in Eli’s memory. The Rector Spiritualis reached out, grabbed his son, and clamped him to his chest. The fire hovering on Banage’s hand danced wildly as it skittered to avoid catching Eli’s clothes, but the Rector didn’t seem to notice. He hugged Eli with a bone-crushing fury, and Eli, feeling decidedly off balance, stood and took it, his hands resting awkwardly on his father’s shoulders.
Several long seconds later, Banage finally drew back. “Forgive me,” he said, surreptitiously wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “It’s just—” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “It’s not many fathers who get to see their sons come back from the dead twice.”
“Well, no one’s happier I’m not dead than me,” Eli said, wincing at how awkward his voice sounded. “What are you doing here?” He glanced at Banage’s empty fingers. “Where are your rings?”
“Later,” Banage said. “How are you alive, Eliton? What happened? We all saw you vanish, but afterward nothing would talk about it. What was that light? Where did you go, and how did you return?”
Eli scrambled to think of a good lie, something plausible enough for his father to believe without giving too much away. But just as he started picking through his options, he stopped. What was he doing? The whole reason he was here right now was because he’d decided he was done being the Shepherdess’s dog. If that was true, then why should he continue lying for her? Why should he bother hiding her secrets?
The realization broke over him like a bucket of cold water, and Eli’s lips peeled away into a wide smile. He’d been so busy with his capture, he’d forgotten for a moment that he was free. Eli almost laughed out loud at the idea. Free. He lifted his head to look Banage in the eye, and then, with a delicious breath, he told the truth.
“I went to the Shepherdess,” he said. “That was the deal. I used her power to make sure the Empress’s fleet wouldn’t bother us anymore, and she got to take me back. But when she realized I’m not as easy to live with as I used to be, she kicked me out on the Council’s doorstep. She thinks it will bring me around to her way of thinking, but she doesn’t understand that I’d rather rot in the worst prison the Council can devise than spend another m
inute in her company. At least here I can escape.” He reached out to knock on the prison wall with a cheery smile. “Big improvement.”
He stopped there, waiting for Banage to comment, but his father just stared at him, utterly bewildered. Eli sighed deeply and tried again. “You remember when you asked me why I didn’t come home that night?”
Banage nodded.
“It’s because that was the night the Shepherdess found me,” Eli said. “I was just a kid, and I was so mad at you.” He shook his head at the memory. “She was kind to me, treating me like I was some kind of treasure. I thought she was my savior. We lived together happily for a few years, but then I grew up. Or, rather, I woke up to what she really was. After that, I decided it was time to get away, and I convinced her to let me go. It was also around that time I decided I wanted to be a thief, so the second I was out of her care I apprenticed myself to a master and started learning my trade. The rest is public record.”
“Hold a moment,” Banage said, his voice quivering with disbelief. “You mean to tell me that you lived with the Shepherdess? You’re saying that the greatest of all Great Spirits, the force that controls this world, isn’t some giant, sleeping mother spirit but a real woman who took care of a little boy?”
“I don’t know about the real woman part,” Eli said. “She’s not human. She’s not a spirit either. She’s something else altogether, a Power of Creation.”
He stopped a moment to enjoy the sight of his father gaping in amazement, but to his surprise and disappointment, Banage only nodded, his eyes dropping to his empty fingers where the small fire still burned. “Miranda told me something very similar.”
“Miranda?” Eli couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. “What does Miranda know of the Shepherdess?” Unbidden, a memory of his childhood welled up inside him: the Shepherdess standing cold and terrible before the Spiritualist whose name he’d never learned. Miranda would ask the same questions, he was certain, and for a moment he saw her hanging on the Lady’s hand, staring down in disbelief at her own death. Eli shook his head and forced the thought away.
