The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  “—and knowing that we haven’t even prophecy to suggest that we have a hope of winning—”

  “—lest we forget that—”

  “—and you define this as bringing us hope?”

  Kait nodded.

  “New definition of the word,” Yanth said.

  “Not one I would have ever considered.” Hasmal crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Still don’t. Getting killed in Calimekka so that we can say we tried does not even come close to my definition of regaining our hope.” That from one of Dùghall’s soldiers at the back of the meeting tent.

  Kait frowned at Dùghall. He shrugged; he’d said they’d be hard to convince.

  Alarista had been sitting beside Hasmal, her hand in his. Now she pulled away from him and stood. “I’m with you, Kait. Whatever I can do, I’ll do.”

  “What if it’s just the three of you?” Hasmal asked. “You and Kait and Dùghall?”

  “Then it will be the three of us,” Alarista said. “I don’t care.”

  Ry had been watching quietly from the back of the tent. He moved forward. “It won’t be just the three of you. I don’t know that I think you have much of a chance of winning, but if we do nothing, we have no chance. I’ll take something over nothing.”

  One by one, Ry’s men stood, too—Yanth and Jaim and Trev. “I follow Ry,” Yanth said.

  Jaim said, “As do I.”

  Trev said, “I don’t know where my sisters are hiding, but wherever they are, they aren’t safe from these Dragons. I’ll do anything to help them. So I’ll fight.”

  Ry and three standing lieutenants looked at Valard, who still sat. He looked up at them and sighed and slowly shook his head. “I’ll pray to the old god of hopeless causes on your behalf; he’s sure to take an interest in you,” he said. “But I think I’ll stay here and drink to your health and good fortune, and hear about your heroism from the criers.”

  Kait was shocked. She’d thought Ry and his men were inseparable. Valard’s defection made all of them seem suddenly smaller and weaker and more . . . well, more mortal. But Ry only nodded. “Your choice,” he said.

  “My choice,” Valard agreed.

  His cowardice worked in Kait’s favor, though. The leaders of the troops Dùghall had recruited back in the islands conferred with each other. His many sons stood as one, and Ranan, who had led the army in Dùghall’s absence, said, “I do not speak for the troops in general, but only for my brothers. We will fight. Our lives are yours.”

  When he and his brothers sat down, the highest-ranking of the troops rose, glanced with disgust at Valard, and turned to Dùghall. “You’ve paid us on time and we haven’t done anything for the money we’ve already earned. Neither you nor your sons commanded us to follow you into this—you say it isn’t what you hired us for. But we say you hired us to fight for you, and where you lead, we’ll follow. If you needed us before, you need us even more now.”

  He touched his heart with his fingertips in quick salute and sat back down.

  Hasmal sighed and reached a hand up to take Alarista’s again. “You know I won’t leave you to face the Dragons without me. Where you are, there I’ll be, too.”

  She looked down at him and smiled. He pulled her down to his side and wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her neck.

  Most of the Gyru-nalles volunteered their help, too. A few followed Valard’s lead and declined, but when the last of those present declared their intentions, Kait found herself at the head of a small army.

  And with no idea what to do with it.

  She guessed that her volunteers numbered no more than two hundred, and though she might acquire other volunteers as she traveled toward Calimekka, she couldn’t hope to rival the forces the Dragons would be able to command, either in numbers or in training.

  She thought of General Talismartea again, and his assertion that there was always a way to win if one was but willing to redefine victory. Her forces could not hope to attack Calimekka outright and conquer the Dragons by force. So clearly they needed such a redefinition. Or else they needed a miracle.

  * * *

  Kait and Ry sat on the two chairs in Alarista’s wagon; she and Hasmal sat side by side on the wall bench. The corner stove took the chill off the air and the hot, spicy kemish she drank warmed her from the inside. Storm lamps gave off bright, cheerful light, but the mood inside the wagon was as gray as the day.

  Alarista said, “We’re running out of time. With the thaws, the road will clear and we’ll be able to travel again. Dùghall’s troops are training, my people are training with them—but we still don’t know how we’re going to use our people. Once we can move, we don’t dare delay.”

  Kait glanced out the window at the thick blanket of snow that covered the ground, and at the clouds that crawled around the ring of mountains that walled the camp, pregnant with moisture, dark and heavy. The Gyrus said they could smell spring coming; Kait believed them. Everyone said that yet another month would pass before the thaws began in earnest, but once or twice at midday she’d smelled wet earth and the first hints of new life in the air. The new year had come upon the rebels before they were ready for it—she and the others in the camp had hurriedly drawn lots and a young man from Dùghall’s troops had named the year We Hope for Better Days. As carais, he’d led them in a solemn celebration of Theramisday, after which everyone returned to their preparations.

  Kait poured herself another cup of kemish, the Gyru concoction of cocova, hot red pepper, and ground dried fish paste served in boiling water. She was the only one of the harayee—the Gyru word for non-Gyrus—in the camp who liked the drink. She added a pinch of salt and sipped hers, and nodded to Alarista. “You’re right. But we have no plan.”

  Hasmal sighed. “Two hundred people against all the Dragons, the allies they’ve made, and the armies they’ve built?” He had a cup of herb tea, which he sipped. “Well enough. Here’s your plan. We walk up to the city wall, declare that we have come to conquer Calimekka . . . and while the guards are helpless with laughter, we climb the wall, break into the Dragon stronghold without being caught, capture the Mirror of Souls, use it to destroy the Dragons, and win back Calimekka.”

  Ry laughed bitterly. “Good plan.” He warmed his hands around his cup of tea but didn’t drink. He turned to Kait and said, “If we had ten thousand well-trained troops, we might be able to take the city. But even with battle-hardened warriors, I wouldn’t count on it, because we don’t have the right sort of wizards. Your Falcons practice only defensive magic, which is useless in an attack.” He took a tiny sip of the tea and put the cup down. “The Wolves might have done something against the Dragons, if they hadn’t been taken over from inside. But two hundred people aren’t enough to do anything.”

  Kait had been staring at a few fat snowflakes that were spiraling down to the ground. An idea sparked in her mind, found fuel there, and began to blaze. For a moment, she thought that surely her idea had been considered and rejected by others. But no one else, not even Ry, had her perspective.

  She faced the rest of them and put her kemish down. “Have any of you considered,” she said, “that perhaps we cannot come up with a plan, not because we are planning with too few people, but because we are planning with too many?”

  The other three stared at her as if she’d begun to drool and froth at the mouth, and Hasmal laughed. “No.”

  Ry shook his head. “We have uncounted problems, but a surfeit of allies isn’t one of them.”

  Alarista said, “I don’t think you need to drink any more kemish if that’s the effect it’s going to have on you.”

  Kait persisted. “Listen. What are the objectives we must accomplish in order to beat the Dragons and free Calimekka?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One, we must get into the city. Two, we must regain control of the Mirror of Souls. Three, we must remove the Dragons from the bodies they’ve stolen. We’ve only talked about how two hundred people could accomplish those objectives.
But perhaps we need to consider how two might.”

  Ry was no longer smiling. “Two?” He stared into her eyes, suddenly tense, his scent abruptly marked by excitement.

  She nodded, the look just for him. “Two.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “The only way to get to Calimekka from here now, before the roads clear, would be to travel through the air, because the roads out of the mountains are impassable until spring and even if we could get to Brelst the winter seas are deadly; the ships are all in warmer ports now. By air, we could travel above the clouds and literally drop into the city in the darkness, bypassing the gates and the guards and whatever other security measures the Dragons have added to Calimekka since we fled.”

  “We could fly in if we had an airible,” Hasmal agreed. “But the airibles are all in Calimekka, in the hands of our enemies.”

  “Two of us . . . don’t need an airible,” Kait said softly.

  Ry’s eyes grew wary.

  Alarista raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been hiding your uncle’s bird-girl? Someone who can drop a flea on the Dragons’ backs? I would see that miracle myself.”

  Ry shook his head so slightly that Kait wondered if perhaps she’d imagined it. The fear she read in his eyes made her think she hadn’t.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder and under her breath said, “If we do this, the secret will be out. The Falcons will have to provide shields and protective spells.”

  He murmured, “Too many people know now. The more who know, the more who can betray . . . the two.”

  Alarista had better ears than Kait would have given her credit for. She asked, “Know what?”

  Hasmal looked from Kait to Ry and back to Kait, frowning. Kait couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.

  Ry leaned back and said, “I agree that the secret can’t be a secret from everyone if . . . they . . . these two, are to get into the city. But perhaps exposing the secret itself could wait.”

  Kait frowned. “And if we can’t explain to people how . . . these two can get all the way from Norostis to Calimekka in two or three days, or even how they’re going to get out of the mountains at all in the dead of winter, why will they want to help? And there’s something else to consider. Maybe the two who will go need to know from the beginning that the people they need to trust won’t turn on them. Because we can make all the plans in the world, Ry, but if the troops won’t support the assault team, those plans will mean nothing.”

  Ry turned his head away from her. “Do what you want.”

  Alarista said, “I think my question about the bird-girl is somehow closer to the truth than I imagined. Yes?”

  Kait studied her with all her senses and noted nothing dangerous in Alarista’s movements, her scent, the speed of her breathing, or any of a hundred other tiny cues that could alert the wary to their own imminent danger.

  “I’m Scarred,” Kait said.

  Alarista grew still. Head cocked to one side, eyes watchful, she said, “Not visibly.”

  “Visibly sometimes.”

  The silence inside the wagon had its own weight.

  “And sometimes . . . you can . . . fly?”

  Kait nodded.

  “You . . . skinshift?”

  Another nod.

  “How have you—But I won’t ask that. We’ve hidden the Scarred among our people as well. I know some of the ways it can be done. How you survived to adulthood really doesn’t matter. That you can help us now—” She looked down at her hands. “But you said ‘two,’ and he”—with a nod to Ry—“knew what you were talking about. So”—she looked at Ry again, this time searching for something—“you are a skinshifter as well?”

  “We’re Karnee,” he said.

  “Karnee.” Alarista breathed the word. She said nothing for a long time; when she spoke again, it was to say, “Then some still survive.”

  “Some.” Ry’s scent revealed the impatience, the distrust, and the anger that his face and posture hid. Kait watched Alarista, but most of her attention focused on him. He was tensing, preparing to do something rash if Alarista’s responses betrayed any tendency toward treachery.

  She seemed only nervous, though, and curious. She leaned forward, her eyes round and puzzled. “And you would willingly help Iberans? I’d think you’d be dancing with delight now, knowing that they were suffering some of the same horrors they would have inflicted on you.”

  Ry shrugged. “To an extent you’re right. I can’t say that the suffering of everyone in Calimekka wounds me. There are members of my own Family, for example, who deserve to suffer. Members of the parnissery, too. And . . .” His eyes tracked briefly to Kait, then quickly refocused on Alarista when he realized she’d seen his look. “And others, who have made their livelihoods from the suffering of others.”

  Kait suspected that he referred to the other Families, but didn’t want to say anything of the sort in front of her because her own Family was gone. She wouldn’t have been offended. She’d discovered the hard way that not all of the Galweighs had been as idealistic as she’d once believed.

  She said, “But even though both of us have reason to feel that the Dragons are dispensing some justice, the fact that they are is accidental. More innocent suffer than guilty. And the Reborn wanted to bring love to the world. The Dragons . . . they have nothing to do with love.”

  Alarista said, “Not that you know of.”

  “I know what they intended to do to me.”

  Alarista raised an eyebrow. “You were in the Dragons’ hands and lived?”

  Kait said, “Long story. I’ll tell you another time.”

  “Back to the point, then.” Hasmal took a pastry out of the jar Alarista kept beside the table and nibbled on it. “You say the two of you can fly into Calimekka at night and drop into the heart of the Dragons’ territory without being caught.”

  “We would hope to,” Kait said. “I can’t promise that we would succeed.”

  “No. Of course not. But you at least have the potential to make the attempt.”

  “Yes.”

  Hasmal took a big bite of the pastry and chewed thoughtfully. “That’s certainly a benefit for us . . . but what would you do once you got there?”

  Kait smiled. “I’m not sure how well this would work, but here’s my idea. We would have to identify the Dragons, and secretly mark each of them the way Dùghall marked the three that you and Ian met with at the inn.”

  Alarista frowned. “Marked?”

  Hasmal nodded. “Falcon viewing spell. Dùghall taught it to me. He touched each of the three Dragons we met with a linked talisman—the talisman absorbed into the skin instantly, and we could have watched the three subjects in viewing glasses for several days. We . . . well, we ended up not being able to, but that was a problem of situation rather than technique.”

  “So your plan calls for the two of you to get within touching distance of each of the Dragons?” Alarista was shaking her head. “That’s insane.”

  “If it’s our only chance of destroying them, it isn’t insane.” Kait ran her thumb around the top of her cup and stared out at the snow, now falling harder. She wasn’t sure how she and Ry could get close enough to the enemy to plant the talismans, but if they had to do it, they would find a way. “Dùghall made a tiny Mirror of Souls out of a ring and some wire, Ris. He used the viewing glass and the talisman to connect with the soul of one of the Dragons, and he summoned that Dragon’s soul into the ring. It’s still in there. He’ll show you if you want to examine it. I was thinking if we could create enough talismans and Mirrors, you and the other Falcons could sit here in the mountains and pull the Dragons’ souls out one by one.”

  Ry said, “If we can get close enough to the Dragons to touch them, we can get close enough to steal the Mirror of Souls. With that, we could get all of them at once.”

  Kait said, “We can’t guarantee that we could get to the original Mirror of Souls. And if we go to Calimekka with only that plan and w
e fail, we won’t have any alternative but to retreat. If we go prepared to get them one at a time and we get lucky enough to steal the original Mirror, then our job gets easier. But if we can’t get it, we can still win. It will just take longer.”

  Ry leaned back and rested his left ankle on his right knee. His chair teetered on two legs, and Kait expected him to go over backward at any moment. “All right. Considered that way, as a plan and a backup plan, your idea has merits. So how do we get to the Dragons?”

  Kait shrugged. “Why don’t we get the Falcons to work producing the talismans and viewing glasses and miniature Mirrors we’ll need? In the time it takes them to do that, we’ll figure out a way to get to the Dragons.”

  * * *

  Dùghall showed the tiny Mirror to Alarista and demonstrated how he’d created the Mirror spell, and she and Hasmal and Trev and Jaim and Yanth went to work. They gathered every scrap of glass, silver, gold, copper, and bronze in the camp, and all the available wire as well. They enlisted the help of the Gyru smiths and metalworkers, and drew wire and hammered rings and fashioned tiny mirrors by the hundreds, imbuing each with a drop of their own blood and essence, focusing purely on the good they would do by returning evicted souls to their rightful bodies and freeing the enslaved people of Calimekka. They sent children into the town of Norostis to buy up all the stocks of the herbs tertulla and batrail. They cut glass and silvered the backs to create viewing glasses, and formed tiny tablets of herbs compressed around a bit of fingernail, a snip of a single hair, a scrape of skin from the inside of the mouth—talismans linked to their makers that would sink into the skin without trace and link the watched to the watcher until bodies absorbed the foreign elements and reworked them into parts of the self. They worked days and nights, catching sleep only when they had to, while Kait and Ry rested and ate and planned. Obsessively planned.

  Within two weeks, the supplies were ready.

  Neither Kait nor Ry knew how they were going to get to each of the Dragons, but they knew how they were going to begin looking. Now it was time to act.