The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  Har nodded. Ranan slipped a ring from his finger onto the boy’s hand and said, “Give this to him to give to my mother, and tell him we did everything we could. Now run.”

  Har fled down the stairs of the central tower from which Ranan had directed the last frantic stages of the fight, down into the darkness of the long tunnel that lay beneath the tower, silently as he could through the darkness, not even lighting his way with a candle for fear that he might betray his presence. He felt his way along the damp stone walls, wet and slick with moss; he hurried with fingers dragging the wall to keep himself from getting lost. He trotted, but he dared not run. Blind, he heard a thousand sounds that might have been Scarred monsters taking up pursuit; that might have been the breathing of some hideous talon-handed monster poised in the path before him, waiting to snatch his eyes out or bite open his skull; that might have been beasts hanging from the ceiling waiting for him to pass beneath so that they could drop on top of him and suck the life-juices from his flesh.

  He had seen such horrors from his place beside Ranan in the high tower. He had watched the monsters come, and he had watched humans fall to them and die in ways he could not have imagined in his worst nightmares. The monsters knew no mercy; they did not take prisoners, they did not spare any living thing.

  The children who had been sent away from the city were all dead, and with them their mothers and the sick and the elderly—vengeance, he thought, for those moments in the pass. Some of their children. Some of ours. This evil thing we all do to each other.

  His terror nearly paralyzed him—only the thought that the monsters were more likely to appear behind him than in front of him kept him moving at all.

  To Calimekka, he thought. To Calimekka, to Dùghall, with my news.

  To Calimekka. I’ll be safe in Calimekka, if only I can reach it.

  To Calimekka.

  He would never be certain how much time he spent beneath the earth, or how far he ran before the tunnel finally sloped upward and disgorged him into the heart of a jungle. He wept, though, when fresh air brushed his wet cheeks and when he looked up and saw stars overhead, winking at him from breaks in the jungle canopy.

  He would never be able to enter such a closed space again, nor would he ever be able to stomach the slick feel of moss beneath his palm. And ever after, the sound of dripping water and of wind blowing through stone passages would send him racing for lighted places, for the warmth of a hearthfire and the presence of other people.

  He ran through the jungle, heading north, north, north, to the promised safety of Calimekka.

  • • •

  The whole of Costan Selvira belonged to her. Danya rode through the streets atop her lorrag, staring at the human dead who lay in piles, and she waved her Scarred hand at their corpses and laughed. “You would have killed me,” she shouted. “I could never have been one of yours, could I? But I’m alive and you’re dead! Dead!”

  The dead watched her with unblinking eyes, with faces stretched by horror or grief or pain, and she found herself growing less happy the farther she rode into the heart of the city. She came upon a nest of girls—certainly sisters—dressed alike, their hair cut in the same silly fashion, who lay in the street in a neat line. Eight of them, the youngest no more than two or three, the oldest in her late teens. All dead, all on display, wearing their Family colors, their Family lace.

  They could have been Galweighs—they could have been Danya and her three sisters. Dark hair, dark eyes, small stature—she could have seen their likeness in her own mirror. Their young faces accused her silently, and she glared at them. “This is what I came for,” she told herself as she rode forward. “I came to see my enemies brought low. I came to see those who abandoned me spread at my feet, to see them crushed. This is the first taste of my reward. This is my first moment of triumph.”

  The dead cared not about triumph. Their faces accused, and Danya felt the weight of dead stares at her back, and heard in their silence the simple truth: We did nothing to cause you harm, either by action or inaction.

  Slowly her elation died.

  Costan Selvira is not my city, she told herself. So I cannot expect to feel the joy I deserve as I ride through these streets. But neither must I take blame for the dead here, because we must go through here to get to Calimekka, and we cannot leave living enemies at our backs.

  I’ll have my joy in Calimekka, when my Family kneels before me and begs for their lives, and when the Sabirs crawl on their bellies to me, their entrails dragging in the dirt beneath them, and beg me to end their suffering.

  And when I watch Crispin Sabir and Anwyn Sabir and Andrew Sabir die slowly from a thousand tiny cuts—when I hurt them myself and hear their screams and when I take their lives from them as they took my life from me, then I’ll know satisfaction. Then I will be happy.

  She turned her face from the grotesqueries of Costan Selvira’s dead and sought out the living; she wanted to see Luercas. She wanted to picture him on his knees beside Crispin Sabir, the father of his flesh. She wanted to watch him and imagine the two of them begging for their lives together.

  I will see that, she promised herself. Soon now, I will have the satisfaction of fulfilling my own dreams.

  Chapter 50

  Dùghall bent over the table in the little cabin, with the ship rocking steadily beneath him. He fought to keep his pen moving over the parchment, but the form of the spell he had to cast to trap Luercas eluded him. He sought its image in his mind—he had hoped to make it look like something that it was not, something that would seem to offer Luercas shelter or even sustenance as he fought, but what he created was a soul-devouring void, and his mind could not move past that fact to embrace frills and pointless artistry that would not fool Luercas anyway. He was no idiot to be tricked by appearances. He was a master wizard, the greatest wizard of his age, and far more powerful and talented than Dùghall would ever be.

  In the back of his mind, Dùghall felt the movement of the living Falcons. Summoned, those who could were responding to the call for help that he’d sent out, traveling across Ibera to Calimekka and moving through the city and up the Path of Gods to Galweigh House. They would wait in the jungle outside the walls—those who survived the trip, anyway—to serve their part in the final battle between Falcons and Dragon. Some of them, Dùghall thought, might survive to see another day.

  But that didn’t help him in his task. This single most important spell he had ever conceived had to be perfect—cast right the first time, made without weakness or escape. He would only have one chance to create it, and the souls of Matrin would live or die on his success or failure. One chance.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his left temple with fingers stiff from being clenched into a fist.

  He opened his eyes, sanded the ink, put aside that sheet of parchment, and pulled out another. The trap was only the first part of Dùghall’s final spell. The Veil was not void. It had its own inhabitants and its own resources.

  The shape of the battle that was to come formed itself in his mind, and he began to write furiously, laying out the spells he would cast, and as he wrote, he prayed:

  I commend my soul to you, Vodor Imrish,

  That you remember me in my hour of need.

  I commend my soul to you, Vodor Imrish,

  That you use me in your hour of need.

  I commend my soul to you, Vodor Imrish,

  That in my last moments, I will not shame you.

  Make me the instrument of your will.

  Make me the sword in your hand.

  And once before I die, Vodor Imrish,

  Let me understand the love

  For which Solander died twice.

  Only once, please let me feel this gift

  For which I sacrifice myself.

  Chapter 51

  The long bay in Calimekka lay almost deserted. A few abandoned ships rocked at anchor, the skeletons of their crews scattered across the decks and fat gulls picking at the leavings. But the Peregrine
alone sailed into the harbor, and when she dropped anchor near the Galweigh docks, no longboats full of traders greeted her. She lay in silence, with her full crew on deck staring at the deserted wharf.

  “My crew and I will travel with you,” Ian told Kait and Dùghall and Ry. “I’ll make sure that you and Alcie and her children and Ulwe arrive safely in Galweigh House. When the fighting is over, I’ll return to the Peregrine—assuming that I survive, of course—and I’ll resume my trading. If you wish to have me trade on behalf of Galweigh House, I’ll fly your banners.” He shrugged.

  “What of Rrru-eeth?” Kait asked.

  “You must be present for her hanging. In the final sentencing, you must speak against her, since you are one of those she wronged.”

  Kait and Ry glanced at each other, and Kait said, “We have no time for that now.”

  “Then after the battle.”

  “After . . . assumes much.”

  “Perhaps it does.” Ian stared out at the mouth of the long bay and at the curve of the ocean that beckoned beyond it. “You should not have to risk yourselves in the city after this fight you seek with Luercas. Still, Rrru-eeth must be hanged. I find no joy in it—I will never forget that once she was my friend. But mutineers cannot be pardoned, for Captain’s Law becomes a fragile thing if it can even once be broken with impunity.” He sighed. “I’d rather leave her in the brig until her final moments, but I’ll have her shackled and bring her with us. She can be hanged from the walls of Galweigh House as easily as from my mast.”

  “And if I die and cannot speak against her?”

  “Many remain who can and will.”

  Kait felt the faint stirring of intuition, almost of prescience, and she said, “Bring all who can speak against her. Every one.”

  “I can’t. Many of those she wronged are Scarred. Within Calimekka’s walls they will be sentenced to immediate death.”

  “No. The city lies half-empty, with whole streets abandoned, the harbor full of nothing but ghosts. Your Scarred will pass safely to Galweigh House. Bring them—they must have their speech and their justice, too. We will hide them if we can, and let them walk under the Galweigh banner if we must, but I feel that they must be present to state their charges.”

  “Very well,” Ian said. He frowned and rested fingertips on her forearm. “Tell me honestly, Kait, do you think we will survive what comes?”

  “Honestly . . .” She looked down at his hand on her arm and said, “I think you might. Your crew might. Ry and I . . . will not. We know this.”

  “I thought as much. I can take you away. Across the sea in the Novtierras, there are lands so vast and rich that you could wander in them for a lifetime and never tire of the wonders you find. We could go there, all of us. Luercas would never find you.” His fingers tightened in a gentle squeeze, and he said, “It’s not too late. Not for any of you.”

  Kait looked up at him and then over at Ry. “It was too late the moment we were born. We are who we are, Dùghall and Ry and I—we were born for this moment. We could choose not to accept our fate, but we would do so knowing that we condemned uncounted innocents to death and worse. Three lives for a world—that’s not such a bad bargain.”

  “If one of those lives is yours, it is.”

  Kait smiled up at him, and he saw bittersweet acknowledgment of what they had once shared. “Remember me,” she said.

  “I will.”

  Chapter 52

  Carriages had been easy enough to come by; horses harder; drivers who would travel the road to Galweigh House were not to be had at any price. So those among Ian’s crew who had some experience with horses and carriages drove them through the nearly empty streets of the city, past endless rows of houses with their shutters drawn shut, past scattered tribes of gaunt and filthy children who watched them from the shadows, past young men grown old in months, young women bent with loss and pain, past silent watching.

  From the south, the storm of the Scarred approached, and those within the carriages felt its pressure spurring them onward.

  Kait was first out of the carriages when they reached the top of the Path of Gods and came to a halt outside Galweigh House’s gate. She ran to the carriage in which Alcie and her children and Ulwe had ridden together. When Alcie stepped to the ground, Kait hugged her. She hugged her nephew and Ulwe, and kissed the top of her niece’s head.

  “I have to believe you’ll survive this,” Alcie said. “We didn’t find each other just to lose each other now.”

  Kait said, “Don’t waste your time in false hopes. Just promise me that each time you see the sun rise or feel the rain on your face, you’ll think of me.”

  “It isn’t fair,” Alcie said, and Kait raised an eyebrow. Alcie managed a brittle laugh. “I know what the Family said: The search for fairness is nothing but the meddling of men in the affairs of gods. But it still isn’t fair. You’re my sister and my friend. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Alcie. That’s part of why I have to do this.”

  Alcie closed her eyes and knotted the hand that didn’t hold the baby into a small, tight fist. “If I don’t see you again in this world, I’ll see you in the next.”

  “Yes,” Kait said, knowing that she was lying, but knowing, too, that Alcie would refuse to accept the truth. “Until we meet again, be well.”

  Alcie cleared her throat, and Kait waited. “I was wrong about Ry,” she said softly. “Sabir or not, he’s a good man, and the two of you deserve each other, and all the happiness you find in this life or any other. Should you come through this . . .”—she held up a hand to ward off Kait’s remarks—“and I know you don’t think you will, but should you . . . you’ll have my blessing.”

  Kait fought back tears. “Thank you. I’m glad you told me that now.”

  She next dropped to one knee and hugged Ulwe, looking up into that serious young face. “Your path is clouded, Kait,” Ulwe said. “I cannot find the thread of it that leads beyond the House.”

  Kait hugged her tighter. “Look for your own path, Ulwe. The world can be wonderful—find the beauty in it and the joy, and never let them go.”

  Ulwe said, “I have something for you.”

  Kait stroked the child’s cheek with her thumb. “I won’t have much use for gifts where I’m going.”

  “This isn’t a gift. It’s . . . a message. A man came to me in a dream, and said I was to tell you: I wait for you within the Veil, Kait. I never left you.”

  Kait felt a shiver slip down her spine. “Who told you that?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t see a face. I saw only light . . . but I felt . . . love.”

  “Oh.” Kait barely breathed.

  “You know who it was.”

  “I . . . perhaps. I will look. Perhaps I will find . . . him.”

  “He was good,” Ulwe said. “He was very kind.”

  “Yes.” She stood. “I have to go now. But . . . thank you.”

  She turned to face her future—the little of it that remained. The walls of Galweigh House stood before her, and the gate lay open. The House was empty once again.

  Of course, Kait thought. The Galweigh ghosts would have claimed the bodies of the fallen, and once strong again, would have removed the rabble who had come to kill those the House sheltered. Dùghall’s spell still held them. It would hold them a little longer—as long as he lived. Then the ghosts would subside to their graves, or to the Veil beyond, and the House would fall prey to whomever chose to claim it.

  Now, however, for just a while longer, it was hers.

  A stray scent from the edge of the jungle caught her attention. When she lifted her head and sniffed the breeze, she realized the jungle hid many men and women. She began to move toward them, not loosening her sword in its scabbard. Their scents, their movements, and the distantly felt tug of their thoughts named them friend.

  First one stepped forward from the shadows, then a handful, and a dozen, and a dozen more. They were male and female, old and young, ugly and beautiful
; all of them studied her with eyes old from having seen too much of the evil that the tribes of humankind inflicted upon each other. All had come to stand against this last and worst evil, to fight and if necessary to die in the service of life. In their eyes, Kait saw a hundred shades of fear—the same horror she felt, the same dread she would face down and fight through when her time came.

  She knew them, though she had never met any of them before. She found them within the Falcon tide that washed through her—found the shapes of their faces and the shapes of their thoughts, and knew that they were good allies—that though they were afraid, they would not run. And she could see in their eyes that they knew her—knew who she was and what she was. They knew what she went into the House to face. The doom that marked her touched them, and they reached out hands to her as she passed them, and offered wordless thanks for her sacrifice. In that moment she was one of them more truly than she had ever been part of anyone or anything, save only Ry and the Reborn. In that moment, the awful secrets of her birth and life were forgiven and put behind, and she was theirs, wholly and without reservation, as they were hers.

  Then she was beyond them, stepping through the gate into Galweigh House, and her eyes saw everything fresh and new, as if for the moment she had Shifted and become Karnee a final time.

  I will never walk through that gate again, she thought. I will never step on this ground, never smell the sweetness of this air, never hear the wind through these palm leaves. These are my last sights, my last sounds, last touches, last scents, last tastes.

  She drank it all in, and it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough, because it was the last of everything, and she was not ready to say good-bye.