Maralah hurried toward the central keep and into the broad courtyard, still heaped with dirty snow. The sun was out, and she could hear dripping water. The kennel masters were exercising the animals, but there were no sanisi training in the yard. She thought that odd, but suspected many were already on the walls.
She scanned the top of the twisted ramparts. They pulsed with green and blue defenses – a misty, static barrier that could repel a fist or a blade equally. She saw two sanisi there, and counted six regular infantry. That was a few more infantry than usual, but if there was an army out there, it should have drawn gawkers. She drew the short blade at her hip, just in case.
Maralah gripped the puff-cheeked slaves’ head of the doorknob leading up into the western tower, and stepped inside.
The interior was dark. She squinted, momentarily blinded by the abrupt change from the sunny, snow-white courtyard to dim tower. The air felt heavy. She swore.
A great weight thumped into her chest.
Maralah reeled, knocking back into something solid. Her ears popped. A great force squeezed her body rigid, capturing her arms against her sides. It yanked her into the room. The door slammed behind her.
She hung suspended several feet above the floor in the tower foyer, strung so tight it hurt to breathe. She tried to focus on the shadowy figures around her.
“Kill her?”
“Wait for Morsaar.”
Bloody fuck, Maralah thought. He had moved faster than she anticipated. Army at the gates, indeed. She felt like a child.
She sucked in a shallow breath. “Patron,” she wheezed. “My brother?”
She didn’t know why she asked. She knew this song. She had sung it herself.
“Morsaar is Patron.”
Maralah squinted again, and saw the speaker was an infantry man. But the sanisi? Who was the parajista who held her? What traitorous coward had turned?
“No one is Patron until I say so,” Maralah growled.
The air around her contracted. She wheezed.
Her vision finally adjusted. She saw Driaa standing to the left of the infantryman, a neutral expression on hir face.
Maralah said, “This close to the end, you side with him?”
“I told you to take it while you could,” Driaa said. “I did come to you first.”
Maralah heard footsteps. She raised her head, straining to see if Morsaar would dare face her. But no, it was just more infantry, and two sanisi. All of them were covered in blood. Killing themselves. At least the Dhai had killed and eaten each other, and made some use of all that death. She would just be burned.
“The Patron wants her locked up,” one of the men said.
Maralah felt a shiver of relief. Morsaar still wanted something from her.
“The Tai Mora,” Maralah said. “Are they here?”
“Not yet,” the man said, and she recognized him as a confidant of Morsaar’s, “but soon enough. You think we didn’t know how to get you to come running?”
“None of this matters,” Maralah said.
“Shut her up,” the man said.
The air constricting Maralah’s chest grew heavier, tightening like a noose. She gasped. Her mouth filled with heavy air, thick as soup.
Black spots juddered across her vision.
Sina, she called. Sina, my star, my breath, where are you?
She felt a tremulous snarl of power in answer, and saw a little puff of violet mist.
Then blackness.
26
Saradyn stood inside the shadowy square as morning burned away the last of the frost, a week after returning from his sweep of the rebellious village, Mordid. He watched Rosh and her ghosts die at the noose. He waited only until her ghosts faded, and her feet had ceased to jerk. Then he turned away, pulled his hood up over his shaggy hair, and went back to the hold to inspect Natanial’s hostage.
“He’s been quiet,” Itague said as he led Saradyn down the narrow stair into the tight corridors of the gaol. “The bitch-boy whined for water and a pot, but once he had it, got real still. Might be sick. He’s skinny as a virgin.”
Itague opened a broad door at the end of the corridor. Cold air and light seeped from a high barred window at the far end of the room. The cell was meant for the more important sorts of prisoners, nobility and high-ranking officers. The bed was big, set on plain wooden planking. The sheets were stained. There was a table, a chair, a handful of candles, and a low, bookless shelf. A boy lay curled on the bed, dressed all in Dorinah fashion. There were other figures in the room – a misty stir above the boy; a quivering old woman in one corner; an emaciated man hanging from a noose tied to the bars of the window.
Saradyn moved toward the figure on the bed. The ghosts turned to watch him.
The boy looked up. He was filthy, unshaven. He had knotted the matted length of his hair back from his face. He had big brown eyes, sharp cheekbones, a strong chin, but his form was that of a child. He was thinnest in the hips, broader at the shoulders, a Dorinah deformity encouraged in men through the wearing of bindings that emphasized the inverted triangle of a man’s form.
Behind the boy were female ghosts, a roiling stir of them – a freckled woman with a face like a dog, a woman’s dark torso, the eyes of a bitter old woman with rotten teeth, and more, mostly disjointed, merging, bickering, a gaggle of oppressive faces.
Saradyn grimaced. He would not spend long in this boy’s company. His brood of ghosts was maddening. Saradyn had no idea how the boy could live with them.
The boy pushed himself back against the wall. He still wore his binding, though it was as dirty and tattered as the rest of him.
“Does he speak Tordinian?” Saradyn asked Itague.
Itague juggled the keys. He was looking at the desk. “No, just Dorinah.”
Saradyn went over his limited vocabulary of Dorinah. He could speak it, after a fashion. The words tasted bad on his tongue. “Husband, Hasaria?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “She’s my wife, she–” He broke into a long tirade, too fast for Saradyn to catch.
Saradyn held up a hand. “Slow,” he said. “Explain.”
“I don’t know anything! She doesn’t tell me anything. You’re Saradyn, aren’t you? I know you, I heard you were–”
He flitted off again into nattering.
Saradyn swore, turned to Itague. “Do they teach them to talk like women, too?”
Itague shrugged his big shoulders. “Never met no Dorinah man before. This what they make of us there, I’ll burn every witch from here to the sea.”
“Clean him up. Get him some proper clothes. Find me the historian. I want to have him ready some news for press.”
“Think he’ll be useful?”
“He’s worth a fortune,” Saradyn said. “Dorinah women take great pride in their men. They’re given as prizes. To lose him is a great disgrace. She’ll pay. It will fund our efforts to unite Tordin.”
“Yes sir,” Itague said.
Saradyn pushed back into the foyer, and whistled for Dayns and Sloe.
The dogs followed Saradyn to the library just off the reception hall. He found a servant and asked for ale.
The historian arrived some time later, eyes downcast, nodding his too-big head and stirring his hand in the air, asking for tolerance for his truancy.
“May I sit, lord?” the historian asked.
“No, this will be short,” Saradyn said. “I want you to rewrite the history of Galind.”
The man’s throat bobbed. “How would you like it changed, lord?”
“Bring me what’s written. I’ll decide from there.”
“Lord, they are all rather short, written by Faytin Villiam during the time of the Thief Queen. I don’t–”
“Then bring them to me. Don’t presume to know my interests.”
“Yes, lord.”
“That is all.”
“Yes, lord. Thank you, lord.”
The historian crept from the room.
Saradyn had picked the man
up outside a puppet show in Caratyd, where he sat with slate and chalk, writing blessings for children. He could recite a lot of epics, but Saradyn found himself increasingly dissatisfied with his ability to pen them. The histories of Saradyn’s reign thus far were still the old ones written during the Thief Queen’s time, which – when they spoke of him at all – ridiculed him as one of Penelodyn’s lackeys, a poor guardian to the Thief Queen, and a disgrace to his home nation. They may not sing them aloud in his presence anymore, but he heard them outside every public house in the moments before he crossed their thresh holds. He understood the importance of stories. He needed to be a heroic figure.
His best astronomers told him war was coming – the harbinger of Laine’s wrath, Oma, was rising. It could destroy everything he had built, or usher in a new era of ascendance, where he was lord not only of Tordin, but all of Grania. Times of great change had to be seized, not squandered. And he needed someone to shape what he had done – an epic to be sung alongside Laine’s praises.
Saradyn stepped to the heavy lectern that supported his massive copy of The Book of Laine, and frowned over the tattered pages. He would need to set a scribe to recopying it.
A knock at the door startled him. “Yes,” he said.
Itague entered, carrying a letter with a broken seal. “Pardon, lord–”
“Why’ve you broken my letter?” Saradyn said.
“It was addressed to Tanays,” Itague said. “It’s a… report from the north.”
“Why’ve you brought it to me?” Saradyn said, taking the paper.
“Tanays went cold as death when he read it. Told me to give it to you.”
Saradyn peeled open the letter. It was from the temporary governor he’d put in charge of Mordid. Saradyn skimmed the text, and grunted. Reading was not his strongest suit, which frustrated him. He suspected he’d read something wrong. He shoved it back at Itague.
“What’s this nonsense?”
“The governor says that girl ran away, back to Mordid. The dissident girl. Rosh.”
“That’s impossible,” Saradyn said.
Itague shrugged. “Then that governor is mad, or someone is impersonating her. Rosh is alive, he says, back to leading those rogues against us.”
Saradyn felt a cold chill creep up his spine. “I watched her die.”
“Then she must be a ghost,” Itague said, and laughed.
Saradyn did not.
Saradyn pushed out of the main hold and across the courtyard. The night was deep. He needed to leave for that little no-nothing settlement in the morning to search for Rosh – he didn’t trust anyone else, as they didn’t have his talents – but not before securing a bit of help. He stepped up into the apartments above the kennels. Saw light under the door at the end of the hall. He pushed the door open.
Natanial stood naked at the center of the room, illuminated by the crackling fire. He was still tossing away his tunic. He turned to Saradyn, his handsome face licked in shadows. Saradyn had seen Natanial naked on any number of occasions, but his body was still sometimes unsettling. He had the slender, wiry torso of some young, virile man – he could have been one of Laine’s blessed sons. But nestled in the dark, wiry hair between his legs was not anything Saradyn would associate with a man. Saradyn assumed Natanial had been castrated, or suffered some injury that left him without balls or most of a cock, but never asked. There were some things, among men, one did not ask.
“What can I do for you?” Natanial said. He made no effort to cover himself, but sat down in a broad chair. He hooked one leg over the edge, baring his genitals. It was the confidence Saradyn appreciated most about him – the absolute fearlessness.
“I need you to come with me and kill a girl.”
“Easy enough.”
“I’ve already killed her once.”
“Well, that is something.”
“If people I kill start coming back to life, I don’t need that getting out.” He didn’t believe resurrection was the miracle at work here, but he needed to be sure. With Laine’s harbinger coming back to the world, any number of strange things could happen.
Natanial guffawed, but cut it short when Saradyn did not share his mirth.
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“I’ll take care of it, then. Anything else?”
“Put some clothes on,” Saradyn said.
“Whatever my glorious liege wishes,” Natanial said, but he did not move from the chair. “I have a boon to request, though.”
“Why should I grant it?”
“You’ll turn the Dorinah man over to your wind witches,” Natanial said. Not a question. It’s what Saradyn did with all of the new jistas they uncovered. Still, it surprised him that Natanial knew Saradyn had no intention of ransoming the boy. Oh, he would collect a ransom, but he would not return him.
“You know the answer. He’s raw, untrained. A danger to himself and others. You could have ended up in that dying world. You got lucky.”
“And he will be a great asset,” Natanial said. “A man who can so naturally open doors not across worlds, but across countries.”
Saradyn said nothing. He suffered many fools under his command, but Natanial was not one of them.
“No one has been able to unite Tordin because of the geography,” Natanial said. “The distances are not great, but moving armies through woods that spring up again half a season after you cut them, trundling over great hill monsters and through clusters of–”
“I’m aware of the issues around Tordin’s lack of cohesive governance.”
“I see how they train the jistas,” Natanial said. “The boy is used to pain. He’s learned to enjoy it. Those methods won’t help him.”
“You think you can turn him?”
“I think putting him into the hands of a woman is the last thing you should do right now.”
“You think a Dorinah will be more loyal to his teacher than to me?”
“I can train him,” Natanial said. “I know better teachers, with better methods.”
“You question my methods?”
“Only for this boy.”
“So he is a boy now?”
“I spent much time in his company,” Natanial said. “It was often like speaking to a child. Grant me this and my next assignment for you is free.”
“Any assignment?”
“Any save a monarch, yes. He’ll still be yours, Saradyn. All I ask is that I help shape him. He still thinks you plan to ransom him to Zezili Hasaria.”
A disturbing request from any man, a plea for one of his weapons. Saradyn understood treachery. He had been treacherous himself.
“Is this some lecherous thing?” Saradyn said.
Natanial laughed. “Would that it were,” he said. “He’s Dorinah.”
As if that explained everything. But Saradyn had to take that into account. Dorinah men were a different breed, twisted and hobbled like chattel. To twist them further…
“How long?” Saradyn asked.
“Until the autumn.”
“But you have my Aaldia assignment.”
“I do. He’ll come with me. What better test than seeing if he can open a door again for your most prized assassin?”
“You overly flatter yourself. I have less brazen assassins.”
“But none so handsome,” Natanial said.
“None so arrogant,” Saradyn said.
“I can use him to open doors between here and Aaldia, here and Dorinah, here and into the bedroom of whatever petty lord in Tordin you want to die. When he’s learned that, we can teach him to transport whole armies across this world, and it will be yours for the taking.”
“You think my witches can’t do this same thing?”
“To this boy? No. I do not.”
Saradyn perceived no ill intention. If Natanial wanted him dead, he would have killed him long ago. If he worked for some other lord, Saradyn could have sniffed that out easily. But Natanial was no one, nothing – a man with a bru
tal past from some backwater village. No family, no lovers, no ties. If he cared for this boy – in whatever way he cared for him – that gave Saradyn leverage over him in a way that he had never had before. And to have an advantage over his assassin…
“Then take him,” Saradyn said. “But I expect results. I want him to move an army by the end of summer, and the season is moving swiftly.”
“Done,” Natanial said.
Saradyn left him. In the hall, he whistled to Dayns and Sloe. They padded after him. Something about Natanial always unsettled and enraged him, but he found the idea of beating fear into him distasteful. Fear would see him lose that arrogant swagger, that perfect confidence. And fear, Saradyn knew, would make Natanial run. He was not a man to be bought or controlled on fear. Saradyn had not gotten as far as he had by misreading men.
Or whatever it was Natanial pretended to be.
27
Kirana’s army swept through Dorinah like a plague. She likened it to a campaign she ran very early in the Great War, just before the toxic star entered the sky and everything went to Sina’s maw. She needed blood, badly, to fuel the gates and find the missing omajistas the resistance was secreting away across a dozen worlds between hers and this one. She needed death in numbers she did not yet have an army large enough to mete out, so she relied on plague. Yisaoh worked at a field hospital in those days, and Kirana had her fold up the sheets and clothes and comforters of the dead, then donated them to the trading ships heading south to the newly discovered northern continents.
Her army came in two weeks behind the plague, and bottled up blood to ship back to her omajistas. They took an entire northern continent like that. Later, she kept portions of every nation intact to swell the ranks of her army. Plague only worked on isolated populations.
Still, the memory of the villages of corpses in the north was strong as she walked the empty Dorinah towns. She had come upon them so unexpectedly the Empress hadn’t had time to mobilize her legions.
She marched straight to Daorian, knowing that once the Empress’s seat fell, there would be very little resistance. The upside to the Empress’s absolute, unchanging dynasty was that it left very few powerful families in the field to take her place.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 77
