The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  Jaim snorted. “I can just see you in front of your mirror, trying to decide which shirt would best complement the color of Donnauk’s blood, and striking poses with your blade. ‘Ah, Donnauk . . . a bit of poetry before I skewer you.’” He struck a foppish pose, then laughed.

  “And if you weren’t my friend, I’d skewer you for that,” Yanth said, face flushed.

  “Then thank the gods my luck still holds and I remain unskewered.” Jaim sighed. “I don’t hunger for blood. But I would love to have a plan.”

  Ry laughed. “Here’s your plan. We’ll find an inn for the night, and food for our bellies, and on the morrow we’ll walk back to the harbor—”

  “Swim, on these roads,” Yanth muttered.

  “—and take passage elsewhere on the first ship that will accept us.” So he told them, but his true plan was different. He was too far from Kait—across a sea, with his feet on the wrong continent. The pull between them wore at him like an unreachable itch, disturbing his sleep, invading his waking hours. For a terrible few moments they had pulled her from his grasp and he had known that he lost her—he’d fought back to her, but only through great pain and nightmarish fear.

  He’d nearly lost her. No more. If being together those last weeks had been painful, being apart was agony. He intended to be sure that the first ship that would take them would be a ship heading back to Ibera, if not directly to Calimekka.

  They trudged up the street under gray skies and a miserable cold drizzle that made the station of the day unguessable, keeping to the center of the street to avoid the rain of anything more noxious than water from the balconies and casement windows overhead. They did not speak, and were not spoken to, but they could feel people watching them, sizing them up, weighing the wealth they might offer against the length of their swords and the breadth of their shoulders. Heymar would have been a bad place to be a stranger alone.

  Horses, goats, cattle, and other beasts had preceded them down that central path in the muddy road, leaving it fragrant with their droppings. Wagon wheels had churned it to tenacious soup. By the time they reached the first clearly marked inn, they were gray to midthigh and stank like a barnyard.

  A cowbell rattled against the heavy door as they entered the room. The interior of the Long Comfort was bright enough, if smoky. A cheerful fire burned in the hearth and fine brass lamps with glass chimneys made up for the lack of windows. Deep sawdust covered the floor, fragrant of cedar and pine, and the red-painted tables and booths gleamed from recent polishing.

  “Take a seat and state your preference,” someone called from out of sight. “I’ll be with you in a breath.”

  “Food first, then?” Yanth asked.

  Ry noted the many empty booths. “Suits me. And then a place to wash off the dirt.”

  They took the booth farthest from the door, arranging themselves in it so that they could watch both the entrance and the stairway that led up to the next floor. They kept their swords loose in their scabbards and avoided looking directly at any of the other customers—a sure way to provoke fights among those already in their cups—but some of the customers were exotic enough that it was hard not to stare. The Long Comfort apparently had no qualms about serving the Scarred, for one trestle table nearest the hearth held three of them, along with three humans.

  Two of the three Scarred had heavy overlapping scales like those of rattlesnakes, and thick squat bodies; they moved not at all, then so suddenly and quickly that the eye blurred their motions. Ry recognized them by name and reputation—they were called Keshi Scarred, and were said to be brilliant sailors and formidable adversaries, as hard to kill as any snake. The third Scarred he could not place at all.

  She—at least he guessed by the delicacy of its features that the creature was female—had skin dark as a starless night, but iridescent as mother-of-pearl. He caught gemstone flashes of amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and ruby every time she turned her face. Her hair was white, almost feathery—stray hairs floated around her head in a nimbus turned golden by the reflected light of the fire—and was incredibly long. She wore a single braid that she looped through her belt like a length of rope; her hair unbound would without question reach the floor and probably could double back again to touch her head, but Ry wondered if, loose, gravity would actually pull it to the floor, or if it would float around her like a cloud. Her eyes were huge, bottomless wells of purest black, and over them arched two snowy eyebrows of the same feathery floating stuff. The eyebrows grew long at the outer corners, and she had braided them, too, and decorated the braids with beads and bits of shell and feathers that hung to the sharp angle of her jaw. Her ears, huge and doelike, swiveled independently. One stayed focused on the people with whom she talked, the other was in constant motion. When she laughed, he caught a glimpse of pointed white teeth. For all the whiteness of her hair, she looked quite young. He’d never seen anyone even remotely like her, yet something in the back of his mind insisted there was something about her that was familiar.

  Her eyes flicked over him and away, instant assessment and dismissal. He turned his attention to Yanth and Jaim before staring got him into trouble.

  The hostler came out of his back rooms then, arms laden with trays of food. He caught sight of the three of them and said, “With you in a moment.” He set the food down in front of the six at the trestle table, and Ry glanced over to see how it looked—it smelled good enough, and he was pleased to see that the servings were large and were presented with a bit of care. He was not pleased to discover that the Scarred woman was staring at him, her expression unreadable but unnerving.

  “Now, then,” the hostler said, wiping his hands on his white apron as he hurried to their table, “I’m Boscott Shrubber, the owner of this place. My wife Kelje cooks. You’d like a meal? Rooms?”

  Ry gave his voice the flat inflection of the Wilhene commoner and said, “Both, I think. The meal first. Then a single room with several cots—we haven’t much money; we’ll have to save what we have. Perhaps a bath if the cost is not too high.” He studied Shrubber while he spoke. The man was of average height, but, for all the corded muscles in his hands and forearms, bore a slightness of bone and frame that spoke of years of hard times and missed meals. He wore a beard and bright tattoos on both cheeks, and within the right tattoo, Ry noticed the scars of an old brand. Though much of the brand had been removed and the rest had been tattooed over, he recognized what remained. The brand would have once been two stylized trees—and Boscott Shrubber would have once been a Sabir slave. Ry made a note of the mark but was careful not to stare—time and circumstances changed for many men. If Shrubber had once been property, he was no longer. And if Ry had once owned property, he did no longer.

  Shrubber nodded. “We have a good room in the attic—two beds and a sturdy door with a solid lock—I can put a third cot in there if you don’t object to being cramped. I give better rates by the week than by the day, and better rates by the month than by the week, and if you help out with the heavy work around the place, I’ll make your price even better.” He sighed. “If you’re looking for short work, the Galweighs are hiring up at the big house right now—tree-felling in the forests, and some packing of cargo to go south. Runners just came in to say the next traders’ caravan will arrive in two days—we’ll have work and plenty then for a week or so.”

  “We’re sailors,” Ry said. “We’re looking for places aboard a good ship.”

  Shrubber sighed and turned away. “They always are. The ones with good backs move on, and the ones too broken down to be of worth stay.” He glanced back at them. “Sailors. Listen, you—I’ll have no whoring in my house, and no gambling, and no loud noises or late nights. If you’ve come ashore for that, there are places nearer the water’s edge that will give you satisfaction.”

  When he’d vanished back into the kitchen, Jaim laughed. “You disappointed him,” he said. “I believe he fancied us as permanent boarders.”

  “Didn’t fancy us so much when you told him
we were sailors,” Yanth said. “And why did you—”

  Ry tapped him on the wrist and shook his head in warning not to continue. He had been about to ask why Ry had called them sailors when they were nothing of the kind. The Scarred woman had her ears cocked in their direction, though, and Ry could feel her interest in them.

  Yanth, quick to pick up the signals, changed the direction of his question. “—not get us separate rooms? Surely we could have afforded them for a single night.”

  “We don’t know if we’ll only be here a night. We might not find a ship that will hire us on for a week, or maybe a month. I thought it best that we not spend what we have too quickly.” He inclined his head slightly toward the table where the woman sat, and saw first Yanth, then Jaim, find excuses to look in that direction.

  When Shrubber brought the beer, Jaim spilled a bit of his on the table, and with his finger wrote, “They’re all watching us now. Why?”

  Ry shrugged. He listened to them talk, his Karnee hearing picking up much more than they could suspect, but they were discussing matters aboard their ship, and had said nothing that might explain their interest in Ry or Yanth or Jaim. Finally, though, while they waited for the sack-puddings they’d ordered, the woman said, “He looks familiar.”

  “He has Ian’s look about him. The same bones, the same height.”

  The Scarred woman said, “I believe you’re right. That is who he reminds me of.”

  “But he isn’t Draclas. He’s nothing but a ruffian.”

  A knot twisted in Ry’s stomach, and suddenly his appetite was gone.

  “Of course not.” The woman was picking at a flake of red paint on the table with the point of her dagger. “He has the look of my Ian, but not his bearing.”

  “Your Ian? If it hadn’t been for—”

  The conversation ended abruptly with the sound of a boot kicking hard into a shin and the Scarred woman giving a long, thoughtful look at the man who’d almost dared to question her; the next instant, the six at the trestle table rose as one and called out the hostler. They settled their account quickly, refusing their puddings, claiming they had forgotten they were due back at their ship, and raced out the door at a pace that tried to look like a walk, but gave the impression of being a run.

  When they were gone, Ry asked Jaim and Yanth, “Did you catch any of that?”

  “Those six hurrying off? I thought it looked odd, but I have no idea what sent them out the door in such a hurry.”

  “I did,” Ry said. He pursed his lips. They might not be who he thought they were, but Kait had described the cabin girl on the Peregrine to him more than once, in bitter tones. The woman fit that description. The Scarred woman in turn had spoken of an Ian Draclas, and in the past tense, and had remarked on his resemblance to that captain. Ry was willing to consider the possibility of coincidence, but if she was the bitch responsible for abandoning Kait in Novtierra, he’d kill her. “I think they were part of the crew that mutinied against Ian and marooned him and Kait in Novtierra.”

  “You jest,” Jaim said.

  “It should be easy enough to find out. If the Peregrine is docked here, I’m betting they’ll be on it.”

  Yanth sat still as a stone for one long moment. Then his eyes met Ry’s and he smiled. “I’m thinking my blade will have the meal it hungers for after all.”

  “I’m thinking if those are the bastards who left Kait to die, your blade may have more of a meal than it can finish. If that is her, she’s mine. I’ll rip her throat out with my teeth.”

  “Considering we are only three, and may stand against a whole shipload of them, I’m thinking we’re likely to die before your teeth get anywhere near her throat,” Jaim said. “I mention this not because I think you’ll listen, but because I’d like to think the gods heard me pointing out a sensible course of action to you when I have to explain to them how I came to die in such a fool’s mission.”

  Ry laughed softly. “I’m sure the gods are shaking their heads in agreement.”

  Chapter 30

  Kait went into Alarista’s room; she’d been in her chair, where she sat almost all the time, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her head tipped back in sleep. Her skin was so thin it was almost transparent, her white hair wispy and thin—a far cry from the thick red mane she’d had before she gave her youth to Dùghall.

  Kait rested her hand on the old woman’s shoulder and felt the fragile bones so clearly she almost pulled her hand back. “Alarista? Alarista? Wake up. It’s time.”

  The eyes opened—cloudy eyes now, no longer clear and alert—and Alarista coughed and wheezed and sat up.

  “Time?”

  Kait nodded. “I am Falcon now.”

  The old woman managed a smile that, for a moment, erased the years from her face. “Katarre kaithe gombrey; hai allu neesh?” It was the Falcon greeting, part of a ritual and a language that had survived in secret for a thousand years. It meant, The Falcon offers its wings; will you fly?

  “Alla menches, na gombrey ambi kaitha chamm,” Kait said, struggling a bit to remember the response. I accept, and for the falcon’s wings I offer my heart.

  “Those were almost the first words Hasmal and I said to each other,” Alarista said. “They marked us. They changed us. The Falcon offers its wings, but there is a price to be paid for flight.” She coughed again, leaning forward as she did—her lips turned blue and her face turned a dusky tinge that frightened Kait. When she finally straightened herself in her chair, she said, “I hate being old. It’s hell. Nothing works, my body won’t listen to me anymore, I have to think even to breathe.”

  Kait wished she could let Alarista go back to sleep. But she couldn’t. Dùghall had pushed her to get Alarista right then, certain that they were almost out of time, that the Mirror of Souls tired of its captive state and grew restless and hungry for change, that he could feel it beginning to stir in the locked room deep in the heart of Galweigh House.

  So Kait offered her arm, and Alarista, after only an instant’s hesitation, took it. They moved slowly through the House, Alarista having to stop often to catch her breath, Kait waiting with well-concealed impatience and a growing sense of dread. The old woman was too frail to serve as third for their thathbund. Dùghall had been working hard—he had the spell prepared that he thought would restore Alarista’s youth to her and return him to his old self, but he dared not try it until after the Mirror of Souls was safely destroyed. Alarista’s magical skills were different from his—if a soul of some sort remained in the Mirror that had to be channeled through a living body and out into the Veil, which Dùghall and Kait had come to believe was the case, he could do what needed to be done. Alarista could not.

  “After we’ve . . . finished,” Kait said, dreading even then to mention the Mirror out loud, “Dùghall is going to try to give you back your youth.”

  Alarista, stooped and stiff, looked up at Kait slowly. “I gave freely. He doesn’t have to give it back.”

  “He knows. But I don’t think he’s comfortable being young anymore. He says the guilt is a heavier burden than the years.”

  Alarista chuckled. “He’s an idiot—or he’s already forgotten what this feels like. I’d keep the youth and take the guilt—but if he feels differently, I won’t complain.” She wheezed, caught her breath, and added, “Maybe youth will clear my memory—I know I have tasks yet to accomplish, but on my life I swear I cannot recall what they are.”

  They went down and yet farther down, deep into the House’s secret recesses, to find Dùghall waiting before the locked door. “Hurry,” he said. “It’s waiting in there for us. It’s awake.”

  He slid his fingers into the fingerlocks warily; one mistake in placement and the door mechanism would cut all of them off. He made no error, though, and the heavy lock clicked, and the door slid open.

  Hellish red light illuminated the treasure room; it poured up through the central soulwell of the Mirror of Souls in a tight, blindingly bright beam that seemed to cut into the cei
ling.

  “Oh, gods,” Kait whispered.

  Dùghall said, “This is the light you saw before?”

  “Yes. When it summoned the Sabirs who hunted us, when we were escaping through the Thousand Dancers. It shattered the shield I’d cast around us and it.”

  “I would guess the structure of the House is of little consequence to it,” Dùghall said. “No doubt a beacon burns from the top of the mountain now, letting all of Calimekka know someone is here.”

  “It isn’t calling everyone,” Kait said. She felt certain of this—dark memories that had never belonged to her still lurked in the quiet corners of her mind. “It’s calling Crispin Sabir. He has enough of the Dragon Dafril still inside of him to know how to use it—and he is enough like Dafril to want what it has to offer.”

  “It’s found us out,” Alarista agreed.

  Dùghall stood with his head bowed, adding to the shield he’d created around himself. “I’d hoped to take it by surprise.”

  “Well, we didn’t. So now we fight it strength to strength,” Alarista said. Kait looked at her, surprised. Suddenly she didn’t look so old, or so weak. Her eyes burned with determination, her spine straightened, and in the garish red light, her color looked almost healthy.

  Dùghall said, “The thathbund, then.”

  The three of them moved close together, and Dùghall extended his shield to embrace both Alarista and Kait. The shield would come down when they finished the binding spell that would call the power of all willing Falcons to them, and they would be vulnerable then to whatever evils the Mirror could throw at them, but while they cast the spell, they had some protection.

  Dùghall, Kait, and Alarista, holding hands to form a ring, closed their eyes and sought to connect their souls within the space of the Veil. Bound by touch of flesh and soul, they then cried out the words of the spell enjoining thathbund—words both ancient and fraught with need, testament to the great terrors and dangers that Falcons had faced from the first.