The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  She wanted to scream at him. She didn’t—that would give him too much satisfaction. She contented herself with imagining him groveling at her feet, begging for his life with the rest of those she would make pay for their sins against her—those in her Family who had failed to ransom her, those in the Sabirs who had raped her, hurt her, twisted her with their magic, those among the Kargans who had turned their backs on her when she regained most of her human form, and the others since that time who had slighted her and looked sidelong at her as if questioning her right to call herself Ki Ika, the Summer Goddess. And now those soldiers who had poisoned the Kargan children who had cared about her, even when she was no longer Gathalorra, the Master of the Lorrags.

  She would call forth cries for mercy. Begging and pleading. Desperate offers of penitence. And then she would have the blood of those who had hurt her. The promise of vengeance against those who had destroyed her life was all that sustained her, all that kept her moving forward. But it was enough.

  Chapter 43

  The great airible Morning Star limped through the darkness on two engines, almost out of fuel, tugged by winds it grew less and less able to fight.

  “We’re going to have to land,” Aouel said.

  Kait looked down at the rough coastal terrain barely illuminated by moonlight. “Where are we?”

  “Not yet to Costan Selvira. I would have been happier to land us there. We could have gotten fuel from the Galweigh Embassy, perhaps repaired the engines on the landing field, and then we could have gone wherever you wanted. If we land below, we’re going to have to cut the airible free.”

  “Why?” Kait asked.

  “To preserve the secrets of the engines.”

  Kait rested a hand on his shoulder. “The days of the Families are dead. My Family can no longer control the secrets of airible flight. No Family will be able to buy artisans and keep them in seclusion to rebuild from the Ancients’ designs—the people who controlled that power are dead, and the mechanisms that kept the power in their hands are dead, too. If we cut the airible loose and let the sea claim it, we will have consigned the work that went into making it to oblivion—and there will be no more fine engines pouring from Galweigh workshops to replace those that we drown.”

  Aouel frowned at her. “Don’t think that. The Galweighs still hold land in the Territories. They still hold Waypoint and Pappas and Hillreach. And in South Novtierra, Galweigia. You can’t call the Families dead yet.”

  “Yes, I can. Money ran from Calimekka to the Territories, the daughter cities and the new colonies; trade goods came back. If our dependencies don’t keep getting their ships full of gold and supplies, they will slip away from us like water spilling through open fingers. The true Family was in Calimekka. That’s gone now.”

  “Then what shall we do with the airible?”

  “Land it. Anchor it. Leave it. Most likely it will go to ruin before anyone can make use of it, but I’d rather someone figured out a way to fix the engines and perhaps even copy them than think that flight would be lost again—for a hundred years, or a thousand, or maybe forever.”

  Aouel said, “Who will know what to do with it? The fishermen who live along this shore? The farmers who work the ground inland?”

  “If we leave it behind, there’s a chance,” Kait insisted. “Not much of one, I know. But any chance is better than none.” Kait ran her fingers over the controls and sighed. “It took my Family fifty years to decipher the secrets in the Ancients’ diagrams and tables, and to learn to create the machines they could use to build such engines. It took them the gold of a nation to build the airibles, test them, keep their designs secret—and only in the last ten years have we had any sort of reliable service in the air. I don’t want all of that to be lost.”

  “I know.” Aouel looked at the ground, and Kait saw sorrow in his eyes. “When I step out of this airible, I will probably never touch the sky again. But I, too, hope that someone will.”

  The men and women sworn to serve the Galweighs moved out of the cabin and onto the outer gangplank, ready to slide down the ropes and find anchorage for the airible on the rough terrain below. Kait didn’t envy them their task—they would drop, not onto a smooth and grassy field, but onto a rock-strewn stretch of land bordered on one side by cliffs and on the other side by forest, and they would have to make their landing in darkness. Behind the navigator’s station Kait could hear Alcie soothing her children, promising them that everything would be fine, that they would be safe, and that she would protect them.

  Kait wished for just a moment that she had someone who depended on her, someone for whom she had to be brave and calm and reassuring.

  Aouel pulled the chain that blew the steam whistle, and the guards crouched, waiting for their second signal. He fought for response from his two remaining engines and slewed the airible around so that it fought against its own inertia with its engines, and even with the buffeting wind it hung still in the sky for a moment. As he came fully around, he pulled the chain again, and the guards leaped over the rail, sliding down the rope toward the ground. He’d taken them in as close to the trees as he dared, thinking that the trunks would make good anchors, but he couldn’t get them in as close as he would have liked, for fear of dragging some of the guards into the trees and skewering them.

  Kait held her breath, and Aouel said, “They’ll get us down. We’ve done this maneuver more times than I can count in the last few months, practicing with every conceivable obstacle. They haven’t come this far to die here, and neither have we.”

  She rested a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “Forgive me. It’s been a long day following a difficult night.”

  “Things are going to get better now.” Aouel smiled, though he didn’t look away from the instruments and controls on his console. “I promise you that.”

  “I believe you,” Kait said, and wished she weren’t lying when she said it.

  • • •

  Dùghall had not thought an airible could make such a rough landing. The envelope snagged in some trees, the whole damnable contraption screeched like a pig in a slaughterhouse, and then without warning one end shot straight up while the other dropped down until the thing was standing on its nose.

  His feet skidded out from under him and he slid against the first bulkhead behind the pilot’s cabin, which suddenly became a floor. He grabbed Lonar as the boy went skidding past, aimed for the doorway into the front cabin; Ulwe, graceful as a cat, landed on the bulkhead without mishap. Alcie, though, with a tight grip on the suddenly wakened Rethen, found herself suspended in the air on the couch, which, fixed firmly to what had once been the floor, now served as a precarious ledge. She howled louder than the squalling infant, but only once. From below him, Dùghall heard Aouel roaring commands out the open hatch, and Kait swearing steadily.

  The soft light of the glowlamps inside the airible prevented him from seeing anything that happened out in the darkness, but he could hear frantic screams, and thumps along the side of the cabin and passenger area.

  “We’ve lost the aft gas chamber,” Aouel was shouting. “Get out of the way so I can vent the forward hold!”

  That didn’t sound promising.

  “How am I going to get down from here?” Alcie managed to ask Dùghall in an almost conversational tone; years of experience with hardship, a good Family upbringing, and the fact that she’d been terrifying her own children gave her the strength to sound brave even though she was suspended four times higher than his head on a perch that pitched forward crazily with every passing breeze, threatening to throw her and the baby to their deaths.

  “Mama!” Lonar wailed, and clung to Ulwe, who patted his head and pulled him close to her.

  Kait poked her head through the hole in the floor that had been the doorway to the cabin, and saw Alcie and the baby high above her, staring down.

  “Hang on,” she said. “The forward gas chamber tore when we hit the trees, but Aouel will have the ship leveled soon. Don’t try to ge
t down on your own.”

  Alcie clung to Rethen and nodded, and Kait disappeared back into the cabin.

  The next sound they heard was the gush of water. “That will be the ballast,” Dùghall said.

  The back end of the ship started to come down, slowly enough that both Alcie and Dùghall could compensate and keep their positions steady.

  Still the feeling of having nearly died didn’t leave him when at last his feet touched solid ground again. He was grateful for every breath he took and for every bruise he bore. The narrow escape from the House, the rough flight and harrowing landing, all combined to make the fact that he was a long way from anywhere and uncertain about what his next move should be seem trivial—something easily overcome.

  He walked through the darkness toward the beach, and suddenly realized he did not walk alone.

  “I thought when I was hanging by that aft rope and the ship went tail up that I was dead for sure,” a female voice said out of the darkness.

  One of the guards, Dùghall realized, and chuckled. “You weren’t alone. When the room tipped sideways I nearly pissed myself. I could see all of us being sucked out over the ocean and dropped into the water a thousand leagues from land.”

  “You hurt much?”

  “Some bruises. You?”

  “Twisted my right wrist all to hell. That’s why I’m not unloading—can’t carry anything for a bit.”

  They reached the rocky shore and stood watching the moonlight reflecting on the pounding waves.

  “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” the woman asked him.

  “No,” he said, and meant it. “I cannot remember when last life tasted so sweet.”

  A hand slipped into his—calloused but small, warm and strong, vibrantly alive—and he rubbed his thumb along her palm and felt a thrill he hadn’t felt in years. His now-young body suddenly tasted the hungers he had been denying; he turned to her and touched her cheek with his other hand, and felt her lips brush against his fingertips in a soft kiss.

  “We’re alive. Dance with me,” she said with a soft laugh, and he found himself enchanted by the reflection of moonlight in her eyes. The two of them kicked off their boots at the edge of the beach and danced in the coarse, damp sand, arms draped around each other, whirling in circles that grew slower and tighter and closer, until at last they stood, breathing hard, bodies pressed tightly together, and realized the inevitability of that which must come next.

  Not speaking, they sought out a flat rock well out of the reach of the spray. It still held the warmth of the day; when Dùghall touched its water-smoothed surface it almost seemed alive. He caught the woman around the waist and lifted her onto it, then climbed up after her. They knelt on the boulder facing each other and slowly began to touch, and then to kiss.

  Alive! his body sang. Alive! Escaped! Free!

  Her left hand fumbled with the ties of his breeches, and impatient, he undid them himself and pulled them off. How awkward undressing was—something he had forgotten in the last many years when sex, when it came at all, came in the careful confines of a bedroom, with clothes made to be removed.

  With growing urgency, he and the young guard undressed each other, met, coupled, plunged and thrust in rhythm with the steady roar and hiss of the sea. Wild things, they lost themselves in the intensity of pleasure so great it became almost pain, and consumed themselves in their own reckless abandon. Lust, passion, and over all sheer grateful joy at finding themselves miraculously alive fueled their hunger, so that when they sprawled together, spent, they only lay that way for moments before hunger drove them to seek the comfort of each other’s bodies again.

  When at last they tired of their sport, they clung together laughing, and sat on the shore watching the first graying of the sky to the east. The guard pulled a flask from her hip bag and twisted the cap from it. She took a short drink and handed it to him. He followed her example, and felt the delightful fire of good Sonderran liqueur burning its way down the back of his throat and warming him with the friendliest of glows.

  “Watch,” she said. “The sun will come up right there. There’s such magic in watching it rise.”

  They sat on the rock, both partially clothed, arms around each other, and the sky grew purple, then pink, then orange.

  Then he saw it. For just an eyeblink, a ray of purest green shot above the horizon. It vanished before he could even motion toward it, swallowed by the brilliance of the sun that followed in its wake, but she’d seen it, too. He heard her gasp and whisper, “Fair fortune follows an emerald sun.”

  But that flash of green had sent his mind reeling back to the day he’d parted from Ranan—and the words of his eldest son’s benediction. “Love a woman well before you take back your years,” Ranan had said. “Fight once, drink once, dance once . . . and once, watch the waves on the shore with young eyes, and see the flash of green as the sun rises over the water’s edge.”

  In that moment, that loving benediction seemed almost a curse—in a single night he had touched all the points of true living his son had wished for him but one; he could almost think that the only thing which lay between him and imminent doom was the fight he had not yet had.

  Chilled, he shivered and broke the spell that he and the guard had spun between them. She turned to him and smiled, but her smile was sad. “A good night,” she said softly. “But now the day’s work awaits. I should be getting back.”

  He nodded, and impulsively stole another kiss from her lips. “The best night I can remember in more years than I can count,” he whispered. He squeezed her left hand gently and said, “Thank you. Perhaps . . .” And he thought, Perhaps we could do this again, but he stopped himself before he said it. This moment would never come again—bound to the ground, she became a guard again, while he became one of the Family she guarded; no road ran between those two points that could withstand regular travel and not destroy the terrain over which it ran. Within the single span of a night they had been equal—survivors on a rocky shore. But daylight brought the world with it.

  She smiled sadly and kissed him back. “I’ll cherish this night always. Always.”

  And he nodded and fell back on gallantry. “As shall I, beautiful one.”

  He did not ask her name. He would learn it in the coming days, and when he did he would hold it close to his heart, but he told himself he would not speak it aloud. They pulled on the rest of their clothes and walked together up the bank, gathering their boots that still lay above the high water mark. They shook out the little blue crabs that had lodged in them overnight, laughing softly as they did, and then they walked slowly back to the airible.

  • • •

  “I know he isn’t here,” Ian said, “but this won’t wait. Where did he go?”

  Kait knew exactly where Dùghall was, and knew as well how he had occupied himself during the hours of darkness. “He’ll be back soon enough. What’s wrong?”

  “Ulwe asked me to take her to the road. What she’s discovered bodes poorly for all of us. She’s waiting by the road and she’s afraid. She said she’ll go back to what she’s found once, but she doesn’t want to have to do it twice.”

  Kait rose. “I’ll go get him,” she said, but that proved not necessary. Dùghall joined them at the campsite, a small smile still curving at the corners of his mouth. Kait hated to see it go—she saw a wistfulness in his eyes that made her feel sad for him. Still, Ulwe and her news, whatever it might be, should not be kept waiting.

  Ian led the two of them to the road, and to the little girl who stood beside it.

  “We’ve come,” Dùghall said. “What have you found, child?”

  “Trouble comes,” she said, “on too many feet to count. The road screams with the pain of the dying, and with mourning for the dead. It brings me stories of suffering and fear and death, but not from sickness. From war.”

  “From which direction does war approach?” Dùghall asked. Kait saw that his lips had thinned; his face became a mask of calm, but she
smelled his sudden fear.

  “That way,” Ulwe said, and pointed south and west.

  Directly back to the mountains above Brelst, to the place where Dùghall’s sons waited with the army.

  “What else does the road tell you?” Dùghall asked, and his voice shook, though he tried to hide it. “Can you tell me who lives and who has died?”

  Ulwe shook her head. “They are all strangers to me, and too far away. Single voices drown in all the noise.” She paused, then said, “I can tell that many live and flee for their lives, that many others pursue. Nothing more, except that they run toward us.”

  Ian, Dùghall, and Kait exchanged glances. Kait said, “This is the attack you foresaw?”

  “I think so,” Dùghall said. “My heart says it is. And my gut. Let me spend some time with my zanda. When I’ve done that, I’ll know for sure.”

  He left, and Kait crouched and hugged Ulwe tightly. “How are you feeling?”

  “I want my father to have been someone better,” Ulwe said. “I want him to be still alive, and to be someone I can love.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I was looking for some sign of him when I found out about the war that comes to us,” Ulwe said softly. “I wanted to find his ghost, to find that he still looked for me.” Tears were running down her cheeks, and her voice caught when she spoke, but she kept on. “I wanted to know that he loved me. He did come for me.”

  Kait said, “You were the best thing he ever had a part in, Ulwe. And he did love you. I have his voice inside of me still; I can touch his memories. The place he made for you in his heart was truly good. You can hold on to that.”

  Chapter 44

  Dùghall took his zanda back to the rock where he and the guard had spent the night. He spread out the black silk on the weathered surface, then settled himself cross-legged in front of it, silver coins in his left hand.

  Everything we do in life, we do for a first time and a last time. We usually remember the first, but rarely suspect the latter. Vincalis’s introduction to his Book of Agonies. Dùghall couldn’t shake that line from his thoughts. The sun felt warm on his face, the rhythm of the surf and the scent of salt water soothed him, the soft cries of the shore birds that raced to the water’s edge and then away as if terrified of wetting their feet seemed to him a detail of the moment that was both homely and poignant.