by Holly Lisle
“Not Calimekkan blood,” Ry said. “Any citizen can be declared never to have been born, and can be put under sentence of eternal banishment and worse. Not a happy fate.” His smile to her as he said that felt strained. He had a hard time making light of the fate he had chosen. Barzanne.
“You have been disowned, then?”
“Disowned is such a simple word. I have been declared barzanne, which is not so simple, and not so kind.”
“Then truly you have need of a patron. Second sons and first sons of lesser branches often do. And you have about you that lean and hungry look that I identify with the hunter, the hungry son, the one who desires more than what he can have. You have, unless I miss my guess, a great ambition for power and a great desire to get back all that you have lost.”
Ry didn’t care to tell her how far she had missed her guess. The only thing he wanted back was Kait. His Family—or what remained of it—could go hang itself. But Rrru-eeth would be much happier thinking that she was prescient, and would be much less difficult to deal with if she thought she understood him. So he said, “That I desire with all my heart.”
“Well, I want things, too. I want more than this ship, more than money. I want my own House in Calimekka—a great House and a great Family that will be acknowledged the equal of any of the Five. I want to be recognized and accepted, I want to be invited to parties, I want to be envied by human women and lusted after by human men.”
“You aren’t human,” Ry said, pointing out the obvious and hoping that he wouldn’t enrage his hostess.
“No. I’m not. And Ibera has no place in it for the nonhuman but the Punishment Square or the gallows. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“And still I want these things. I have accomplished so much in my life. I have risen from slave to freedwoman, and from freedwoman to ship’s captain, and I will rise further yet. I am still young. Before I grow old, I will be a parata in Calimekka, and a paraglesa, and the head of a powerful Family.” She looked past him, and he got the feeling that she was looking far beyond the walls of the room, far beyond Heymar’s harbor. Her voice grew soft, and carried in it an undercurrent of rage. “I will own slaves and land and wealth beyond counting, and men will approach me on their knees.”
She fell silent, and Greten and all three men found other places to look.
Her sharp laugh brought their attention back to her. “Well—I do have my plans.” She touched the other items she had given Ry. “And you have a place in them. A place of honor.” She touched the tree again. “You have the bloodlines to understand honor—and apparently you have some personal integrity, too.”
Next she laid a finger on the tiny coin that she had given him. “This is a coin from my people and my land—I’m from up around the Wizards’ Circle you call Lake Jirin. My own clan is no more, though there are others of my kind who still inhabit the region. This I have kept with me since I was a small child. For years, it was the only thing I owned, and if my master had known of it, he would have taken it, too.” She smiled coldly, and he found himself wondering what had happened to her master. Kait had mentioned Rrru-eeth’s grim past, and had said she’d had to kill the man who owned her to save a number of children—but Ry got the feeling that when she finally did kill him, she had taken her time with it, and had gone not for quickness and mercy, but for slow and exacting revenge. “This coin,” she said in a voice edged with ice, “was the price of my sister’s life. And it will buy a thousand lives like the one of the man who killed her before it is spent up.”
She picked up the blue pearl and studied it. “These are reputed to be magical. They are supposed to symbolize fidelity, but more than that, they are supposed to enforce it. If you swallow one whole, the story goes that you become incapable of betraying the one to whom you swear allegiance.”
She touched the ring. “And this was Ian’s. One of the few things that he held dear that I have in my possession. It is the ring of a Strithian king, and how he acquired it, he never told me. And now I will never know. But it is a symbol to me of many things. Of my eternal love for him. Of the power I desire. Of the transient nature of life, and the way power can pass from hand to hand.” She stood and looked down at him. If Ry stood, her head would come no higher than the center of his breastbone, but he sat and let her maintain that aura of command she seemed to want.
Ry said, “An unusual little collection of objects. Why give them to me?”
“You won’t sell yourself, though you will sell your services. A fine distinction, but one I accept. I want to purchase your knowledge. And your loyalty. And your ambition. I want you to teach me what I must know to deal with Families—teach me everything you know about their structure, how they gather power, how they hold it, how they deal with each other.”
“I would do this, but to what purpose?” Ry asked. “You cannot be accepted into Calimekkan society no matter how flawlessly you learn to act like a Calimekkan parata. You aren’t human.”
“But Greten is. And Greten will be my . . . irrarrix.” The word trilled off her tongue. “I don’t know of such a word in your language, but among my people, the one who holds true power does so from a position of great secrecy. His name is never known. The irrarrix speaks for him, acts for him, stands before the people for him at all times. The arrangement protects both the true master and the servant, for killing the irrarrix when something is done that angers the people accomplishes nothing—the true master will simply replace him with another, and will carry on as before.”
“You could call them puppets, I suppose,” Ry said. “But you’re right. I know of no such word in Iberish.”
“You see how I can make this work, then?”
“If you stay hidden. But if you are hidden, how do you intend to enjoy the fruits of your power? The irrarrix”—he stumbled a bit over the word, for the double set of trilled r’s threw him—“seems to me to be the one who benefits most from the arrangement. Men may come on their knees and bow, but they will bow before Greten.”
“In public,” Rrru-eeth said. “In public. What they will do in private is something else entirely.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Those delicate eyebrows rose and fell, and the little feathery wisps moved in the breeze. She studied him intently, and he could see no emotion on her face. “Perhaps you do,” she said at last. “You have no reason to love those who banished you. Perhaps you can see your way to understand the need for revenge—the justice in having it.”
He smiled slowly. “I understand justice. With all my heart, I understand that.”
“Then you will join me? You will teach me? You will travel with me to Calimekka and help me make Greten a parata there?”
Ry glanced at Jaim and Yanth. “I follow you wherever you lead,” Yanth said.
Jaim nodded. “You have my loyalty if you choose to sail with her.”
“You have good men,” Rrru-eeth said.
“I do.”
“Then wear the ring I gave you,” she said. “Carry the tree and the coin, as reminders of who you once were and who I once was, and as a promise of who we shall become. And . . .”—she held out the blue pearl and dropped it on the table before him—“swallow that and swear you will be loyal to me.”
He picked up the pearl and held it between thumb and forefinger. What a waste of a perfectly good pearl, he thought. But he held it to his mouth, and as he put it on his tongue, he thought, What if the tales have some truth in them? He could not swear loyalty to Rrru-eeth; he intended to give her to Ian and see her hanged for her treachery.
“I cannot swear loyalty to you as a woman,” he said, taking the pearl off of his tongue. “In that capacity, another woman already has my oath. And my love.”
“I don’t want your love, and I don’t require your body. I already have a concubine, and while I might lust for you in my bed, I can satisfy myself in other ways.”
“Then I will swear my loyalty to your office as captain,” Ry said, “becau
se that I can give freely, and honestly, and without reservation.”
“As your captain, I will accept that oath.”
He nodded, and swallowed the pearl. With it still smooth on the back of his throat, he said, “Gods attend me.” He stared into Rrru-eeth’s fathomless eyes. “I swear on my life my undying loyalty to the true and rightful captain of this ship; I am your sword, Captain, to carry out your justice, and I am the hand through which your vengeance will be meted out. I swear myself the protector of your passengers, your crew, your honor, and your name.” He spoke his words to Rrru-eeth, but he held his half-brother’s face in his mind, and demanded that the gods hear that he had spoken only the truth; he owed his honor and his life to the true captain of the Peregrine, and to its rightful passengers whom these mutineers had betrayed—Ian, and Kait, and dead Hasmal, and Ian’s loyal men, now also dead.
Rrru-eeth watched his face, nodded stiffly, and said, “A sincere oath—surely the gods heard you. But you should not swear before the gods more than is asked of you. You owe no loyalty to my crew, nor to my passengers. You owe loyalty only to me, and need work for justice only for me. Greten and any passengers we may take on will just have to take care of themselves.” She smiled, but the smile was strained.
The pearl lay warm in his gut, and he thought he could feel that warmth spreading out and flowing through his blood. It was connection where he would never have thought to seek connection—Ian, who remained with Kait, now owned a part of him as surely as did Kait.
Ian would laugh, he thought, if he could hear what I’ve just done. Sworn my undying loyalty to him and the memory of the men who served him—I, who once swore to see him dead by my own hand.
He turned away from his thoughts and back to the practicalities of the moment. “We need to go back to the inn and gather our things,” Ry said.
Rrru-eeth stood, smoothing the folds of her tunic. The beaded and feathered braids at the outer corners of her eyes swung back and forth, mesmerizing. “You do. And we shall have to arrange places aboard the ship to accommodate the three of you. At the moment, none of the cabins are empty, and I do not wish to have you sleeping in the galley with the common sailors. You must have their respect from the first. So go back to your inn tonight, and you shall take your places among us on the morrow. Join us late in the day. Come the next high tide, we will sail for Calimekka.”
Chapter 38
Crispin was still bound. The metal around his wrists chafed, and the collar around his neck that forced him to keep his hands up against his chest was as tight as ever. But now he lay beneath the arch of trees, in soft grass, and the thing that stank of death and whispered perversities and touched him hungrily in tender places was gone. The wall that surrounded Galweigh House lay before him, but he was no longer within its confines. He lay outside of it. His daughter crouched beside him, worrying at the manacles with small, delicate fingers. His triumph—he had Ulwe, he was free of the House and its inhabitants, he had somehow pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat.
He sat up, thinking that if he Shifted, the collar around his neck would get tighter but the bracelets around his wrists and ankles would grow loose enough that he could shake them free. The question was, would the collar get so tight that it would strangle him before he could complete the Shift and return to human form? He had no wish to die in such an ironic fashion. Neither did he wish for Ulwe to see him as a beast. Someday he knew she would have to, but not yet. Not yet.
“Parat,” a voice nearby whispered, “you’ve escaped as well.”
“So it would seem.” He searched out the source of the voice, and discovered that it belonged to Ilari, one of his personal guards. “How did you get away?”
“I had nothing to do with it. Some horror grabbed me and dragged me out here, telling me all the while what it wished it could do to me, and poking at me in the most disgusting fashion.” She was crawling around the trees toward him, watching the gate for any signs of pursuit. She glanced at Ulwe. “You got her away from them.”
“After a fashion.” He smiled at his daughter.
“Good. I rejoice for you. But . . .” Ilari nodded toward the House. “They’ll be after us before long. I need to get that chain off of you before we have to run.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m good with locks. And I have my hairpins—no one thought to take them from me.”
He saw then that she no longer wore her chains.
“Who else got free?”
“I’m not sure. We seem to be scattered about. Of our number, I saw Guibeall die—he and Hixcelie killed each other. And Theth died, too.”
Crispin and Ilari could take Ulwe and escape together if they had to—if more of his personal guard had gotten free, so much the better. He suspected those nightmares from inside the House had carried the rest of his surviving troops outside and dumped them; he should have other loyal fighters to guard his back. And that gave him a sudden, tremendous advantage. The last thing the Galweighs would expect was another attack immediately. He would have Aouel’s throat in his teeth before the night ended—he had sworn to it. And he would eliminate the Galweighs who still survived—he would make them pay for stealing his child.
Ilari, crouched behind him, neatly sprung the locks on the bracelets and collar, and they fell away. Crispin rubbed his wrists and ankles and throat briefly, then said, “Let’s gather up the others who escaped. We’re going back in. This time, we’ll truly have surprise on our side.”
• • •
Ulwe rested a hand on his forearm and shook her head. “No, Papa. You dare not. Trouble comes, and you must be well away from here before it arrives.”
Crispin looked down into that earnest young face—the face in which he saw both a mirror of himself and of the one woman he had mistakenly loved so long ago—and for a moment he hesitated. He could take Ulwe from this place without exacting revenge; after all, he had the most important part of what he’d come for. But he felt Dùghall’s memories in the back of his mind, and Ry’s as well. He felt their distaste for him, their lack of respect for who he was and what he had accomplished as both a wizard and a man, and he knew that if he crept away without making them pay for what they had done, they would gloat. And they would spread stories of his weakness around the city.
Crispin had too many enemies. Any of them would leap at the first sign that he had lost his edge; he dared not let those who had stolen from him, who had shamed him, live.
He gently lifted Ulwe’s chin with his index finger and said, “We go back in, Ulwe. But you will be safe. I will see to it.” Then he turned to Ilari and said, “Let’s hunt now.”
Ilari grinned, and Crispin liked the way her teeth gleamed in the darkness. “We’ll get them, Parat.”
He flashed his own grin. “We will indeed.”
• • •
They’ll come back,” Dùghall said.
Kait said, “Surely not. They barely escaped—by all rights they should be our captives.”
Dùghall nodded. “But they aren’t. They escaped, and they have Ulwe . . . and now Crispin must think of his pride and his reputation. We stole his daughter. He will have to kill us for the crime, or die trying.”
Kait started to ask him why he thought that, but she already knew. Crispin’s memories twisted inside of her mind, too, and when she allowed herself to touch them, she felt the utter truth in Dùghall’s words. “But we’ll beat them. We can get Ulwe back.”
Dùghall was shaking his head. “She chose. For whatever reason, she decided to be with him. We have to let her go.” He stared out into the darkness and said, “I don’t like the feel of this night. I don’t like the way the air moves, or the way sounds carry. Something is wrong.”
“Something beyond Crispin attacking us again?”
Dùghall turned to Aouel. “How much fuel is in the airible?” “Not much. And the right rear engine was knocking by the time we landed.”
Dùghall said, “You have the men to fix th
ese things?”
“We should find most of what we need—the Sabirs never could clear all the fuel from the wells. The House fought them too hard.”
“Go, then. We probably don’t have much time.”
“Why must we flee? Why can’t we let the House itself fend them off?” Kait asked.
“Because,” Dùghall said, “the voices of uncounted dead Falcons whisper to me that now is the time to make a strategic retreat. If enough enemies come against us, the living will outstrip the capacity of the dead to remove them. The House can hold off small forces nearly indefinitely if it has the corpses to feed the spell. And it can clear large forces eventually—again, if enough die to keep the ghosts fed. But if we are overrun, we could be lost. Flight is always a better option than pointless death.”
Kait stared out the window. “But there are no large forces. There are only those we have already defeated—and they are fewer now than they were the first time.”
“Sometimes, Kait, it pays to listen to instinct.”
She looked over at him thoughtfully. She would have argued . . . but in her gut, too, she felt the sudden urge to be elsewhere. Karnee senses, perhaps, or just the scent of wrongness in the night air. Whatever it was, it decided her. “There are a few things I would take with me.”
“Fetch them then, but be quick.”
• • •
Anwyn, his deformities hidden by mask and cloak and special clothing, had led his half of the mob up the easier incline of the Avenue of Triumph. His cousin Andrew had brought the other half up the Path of Gods. Both mobs kept silent—a surprising feat in itself, for they were not composed of trained soldiers, but primarily of angry survivors seeking revenge for the deaths of loved ones.
From his vantage point at the top of the great road of the Ancients, he could see the flickering of torches moving steadily up the distant Path of Gods. His own line had already come to a halt, deployed more or less in lines around the base of the wall from the west side of Galweigh House to its north. Andrew’s forces would surround the House from the east to the north. The south, being built over the Palmetto Cliff, was inaccessible.
