He also knew that Laister wanted that information himself.
The catch when dealing with powerful people is that they must never be allowed to see you grow nervous. That was one of the many things that was driven into the Inquisitors. Like patience, it was a very significant part of the examination process.
He smiled softly and looked at the remaining people. “I will leave you now. I will return soon. In the meantime, food and wine will be provided for you.”
It was Laister who stood and shook his head. “This is unacceptable! What if I need to relieve myself?”
Bluff and bluster. The man needed to show Darsken who was in charge. Unfortunately for him, the Inquisitor already knew the answer to that question.
“There is a chamber pot in the corner. I made that arrangement earlier.”
Laister Krous puffed out his chest and fairly swelled with righteous indignation.
Darsken smiled calmly in the face of the man’s outrage. He locked eyes with the man he knew had ambitions for the throne. Eventually Laister looked away, uncertain how to react to a man who stood up to him without even breaking a sweat.
Empathy, Observation and Patience. It would not take much longer.
The weather in Louron remained unchanged by the volcanic eruptions. The swampy region was hot, humid and still.
To hear the Roathians speak of Louron was to hear of a green hell. The land was half submerged; the waters stank; the people were savages, cowards and very likely guilty of sorcery. What land there was teemed with massive trees that dripped a heavy moss, and the insects in the area seemed to have a special love of human blood.
Whatever the people of Louron might think of the Roathians remained a mystery. Very few of the locals willingly left the area for long, and those that did tended to be the sort that wiser people actively avoided.
The stories of the sort of sorcery that the Louron performed were dredged up from the worst kind of nightmares. To hear a good number of the religious leaders speak, Louron dealt with demons (no one could say exactly what a demon was, but they all agreed the things had to be bad), raised the dead with great regularity, and could tear the soul out of a person with a single word and a drop of blood.
Desh Krohan would have been the first to admit that at least two of the rumors had a foundation in truth. As he had never in his long life encountered a demon he was willing to concede that there might be some exaggeration in that category.
The great black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor were allegedly peopled by demons. Grayskinned monstrosities with ferocious bloodlust and a penchant for death. Desh Krohan might have allowed a certain truth to that, too, but would have pointed out that “demon” was excessive.
When the three ships came for Louron they floundered in the shallow waters. The vast structures could move through rivers if the waters were deep enough, a fact that Fellein had recently learned, but the shallow depths of the coastal flats surrounding Louron were too much. After several aborted attempts, the Sa’ba Taalor were obligated to lower smaller boats to work their way toward the shore.
There was little consideration about whether or not leaving their ships abandoned was a wise thing to do. They were at war and the Sa’ba Taalor were warriors.
Fully three days later, when no communication had come from the followers of Wheklam that had made their way to the shore, five more ships were sent.
Understandably, they proceeded with much more caution.
After first examining the three abandoned ships, the captains consulted and decided to proceed together under the leadership of the most seasoned of their group.
The head of the second invading party was a woman named Truatha. She was an excellent tracker – having hunted a great deal of prey through the Blasted Lands over the span of her life, a task that few would willingly undertake – and noticed the signs long before she would have moved forward.
Truatha called a halt and those behind her obeyed. She summoned the other captains to her and they consulted together about what she saw.
“Look there.” She pointed to an area where the footsteps of the previous Sa’ba Taalor could clearly be seen. So, too, the tracks of their mounts. The area was a broad, sandy expanse and, after consideration, two of the Sa’ba Taalor walked slowly and carefully across that area, looking for any signs of struggle or traps. There was nothing. The land was solid under their feet and the tracks of their predecessors moved across the terrain in an orderly fashion before disappearing. There were no dropped weapons. There were no telltale signs of bloodshed or even attacks from the closest copse of trees.
The tracks of over a hundred Sa’ba Taalor and a dozen or more mounts simply vanished.
“How is this possible?” The speaker was Lor, who was sometimes Truatha’s lover and always a trusted ally. She crouched low to the ground and examined the tracks carefully. “The weather has been good. No rain. The wind has blown some of the sand but not much. They have either vanished from the world or someone has brushed the sand so perfectly that I cannot see a single trace.”
Truatha looked at her friend and walked closer, moving with the same caution. Curiosity was an excellent way to get killed if one did not apply the necessary observational skills.
They took their time and studied the area. There was no indication of what had happened to their predecessors.
Truatha asked for ten volunteers. She then picked from the hundred and seventy-three that offered themselves.
Ten hard, skilled warriors walked across that sandy plain and continued on unchallenged. They struck the ground with spears, they fired arrows into the closest copse of trees, but nothing happened beyond what one would expect in those situations.
The ten continued on until they reached the other side of the sandbar and the waters began to fill in the low areas again, all of them puzzled and ready for combat.
“What is this then? Where is the enemy we would fight?”
The only answer came in the form of one old man, stoop shouldered and carrying a small net filled with fish in one hand and a short staff in the other.
None of the Sa’ba Taalor with them spoke the language of the Fellein. They had not expected to encounter anyone. They had been waiting for a battle on the seas, not for an expedition across salt flats and marshlands. They would adapt, of course, but communication would be a challenge.
Still, one had to try.
“Old man!” Truatha called out to him and pointed to him, lest he be confused about the matter.
He looked her way with a puzzled expression and after a moment shrugged his shoulders and moved toward her.
Despite the heat and humidity he was dressed in a cloak over his baggy pants and open-toed shoes.
As he approached he tapped his stick against the sands occasionally. Finally he made his way past the ten, who watched him without acting, and stopped in front of Truatha. He was a short man, as seemed the case with many of the Fellein. He was also thin and older than any man she had ever met in her life. The Sa’ba Taalor who could no longer fight did not live for long.
When he smiled he bared a total of four teeth. His facial hair and the hair on the top of his head was a light gray with occasional darker hairs to remind anyone seeing him that the lighter colors were signs of age.
When he spoke it was in her tongue, though with an accent. “How may I help you this day?”
Truatha managed to hide her surprise. Several others did not.
“We seek some of our people who came here a few days ago. They have disappeared.”
“Oh, yes. They were here.” He nodded and continued to smile.
“Where are they now?”
The old man looked around and scratched at the scruff of beard on his chin. “They are not here any longer.”
“Yes, I see that. Where did they go? Do you know?”
“Ah. I believe they tried to attack some of the people here. That is forbidden.” He nodded his head, his smile continuing. Truatha wondered if she had come across
a simpleton. There were a few among her people who were not very bright but could fight well enough to live through that flaw.
“What do you mean? Why is it forbidden?”
“The rulers here. The Council of the Wise, they do not permit invasion by force.”
“How do they stop it?”
“I am not a member of the council. I could not say.” He shook his head. “I must be on my way. My dinner will spoil if I don’t cook it soon.” He waved the fish to make his point.
He waved one hand and started on his way and Lor came closer, looking on as he resumed his trek.
“He is so old…”
“Yes.”
“Do you intend to let him go?”
“Yes.”
“What are we to do now, Truatha?”
“He says that fighting is forbidden.”
She gestured to one of the ten, a young boy she had never met before. He was eager to show his worth.
With a simple hand signal she sent him to kill the old man.
Either he would succeed, or she would know why.
As is often the case with the young the boy tried to prove his worth with as much flair as he could manage. The knife he threw cut the air flawlessly and passed through the old man as if he were made of shadows.
The old man turned back to look at his would-be attacker and smiled. “You see? Forbidden.”
Truatha had followed the blade’s progression. When she looked back to the young attacker he was gone.
“Where did he go?” She couldn’t have told you exactly who that question was directed at, but it was Lor who answered.
“He faded away.” Her voice was strained.
“What do you mean?”
“He was there. I saw him throw the knife and as it left his hand, he faded. Like mist.”
Truatha gestured to another of the ten. This one was older and possibly more cautious. She moved toward the old man and drew her sword, a long, sharp affair with a curved blade.
The old man looked at her as she came closer and shook his head. “I would not.”
The girl’s name was Hrua. She was a skilled fighter and moved in quickly, aiming a blow that should have severed the old man’s head. The blow never reached him. Truatha saw it this time: as Hrua attacked, her body blurred out of focus and then vanished completely.
“What did you do?” The words were roared at the old man, who continued on his way, a soft and sad smile on his wrinkled features.
“You cannot attack us. The Council of the Wise does not permit it.” He tapped his stick in the sand and water of a low spot. “There is no way around this law. If any of you attack, you will fade away.”
“Where have they gone?”
“There is a place.” His smiled slowly changed into a frown. “It is not a place you want to go. There is no way back from it.”
After only a few moments’ consideration, Truatha called back her forces and headed for the ships.
“Where are we going?” asked Lor.
“We cannot fight this.”
“We are surrendering?”
“No.” Truatha shook her head. “There is no one here to surrender to. We are simply not going to fight this.”
“I don’t understand.” Sometimes she wondered about how smart Lor was. She often overlooked the times when the woman had trouble with thinking things through because she was a brilliant fighter and fun in bed, but now and then it hurt her to admit her friend was not stubborn, merely stupid.
“There is no point in fighting someone we cannot hurt or attack without hurting ourselves. I will fight a warrior. I will not fight a rock. I will fight an army, but I cannot fight the winds of the Blasted Lands. I will fight a ship of enemies, but I will not fight a wave that will crush my crew.”
She paused a moment. “Should we attack these people, we become as smoke in a hard breeze. I saw this with my eyes and you did, too. And so we will no longer fight them.”
Lor nodded her head. There were plenty of sailors and warriors among the Sa’ba Taalor. Though the crews would be working longer hours they divided their forces and regained control of the other three ships.
Truatha was wise enough to know that she was not the king. Donaie Swarl would decide what happened next. Had Wheklam spoken to her at that moment she would have obeyed her god, of course, but barring that, she deferred to her king.
There are many reasons that people are afraid of the Louron. The Sa’ba Taalor learned one of them that day.
“We haven’t spoken much of late.” Nachia’s voice was soft and bordered on cautious. That meant she was worried about him, so Desh put on his brightest voice and smiled reassuringly.
“No, we haven’t. That pesky business with the Sa’ba Taalor keeps getting in the way.”
She smiled obligingly. The problem with people who are close to you is that they can often tell when you’re lying, whether or not that lie is made with words. She could tell. There was nothing he could do about that.
Rather than dwell on the obvious, Desh deflected the worry with a question. “Has your Inquisitor discovered the guilty party yet?”
“Oh, he knows. He’s known for quite some time. He just wants to give my dear cousin every chance to confess before turning him over to me.”
“And what do you intend to do about the situation?”
“Laister was planning to have me assassinated. I know that’s a traditional manner of handling the internal problems in my family, but I don’t particularly appreciate it in this case.” She walked around Desh’s private chambers as if she owned the place, which to be fair, was technically true.
Nachia plucked an apple from a bowl of fruit and commenced eating it. “I believe I’ll have him executed properly.”
“Really? What a novel idea.”
“Do you disagree?”
Desh smiled. It was the sort of smile that had made more than one person pale when dealing with him.
“You have an interesting quandary. On the one hand, you have every reason to have Laister executed. Doing so could, depending on who you talk to, even cement your position as a ruler who will tolerate no nonsense. On the other side of this debate, many would argue that solidarity within the Imperial Family is a must in times of war.”
The expression she fired his way was pure venom. “And what would you have me do, old man? Should I promote him to First Advisor?”
“Look carefully at my contract. You don’t have the right.” He smiled.
“I can’t very well let him go free.”
“Of course you can. He is guilty and you know it and I know it and he knows it – and more importantly he knows that we are very well aware of his actions. The likelihood is that he’ll be worrying over every little sound he hears for the next year. You already have his man in custody and can certainly make an example of him if you feel the need.”
“I don’t like it and I don’t trust Laister. He’ll try again.”
“Strip him of all that he owns and he’ll never do anything of the sort again. Remove him from the family by Imperial Decree. No name. No title. No property.”
Nachia chewed at the apple for a moment, obviously intrigued. She was not known for her kindness. She could be kind, she was ruling as well as he’d hoped she would, but she was not always the kindest of souls.
She shook her head. “He still has information and influence. Too much of both. Even if he is stripped of everything, he has enough knowledge to cripple half the family. Not me, of course. I never quite got the nerve to dabble the way that he did.”
Desh shook his head and grinned. She said that last as if it were a thing to regret.
“If you take everything from him he has nothing. More importantly he also has no name and no protection.”
“Who would he need protection from?”
“Without giving the matter much consideration there’s Brolley, Towdra, Endon and, of course, Danieca.”
“Danieca?”
“Windhar was her grandson,
after all.”
Nachia looked at him for a moment, the juice from the apple glistening on her lips, the latest bite half-ruminated in her mouth. After a moment she spoke around the morsel, something she would have never considered in public. “Strip him of all he has and his name, you say?”
“I think that’s the best way to honor the wishes of all involved, really, and you also take back the holdings that he has owned and misused over the years.”
“How much of the Krous fortune rests in Laister’s hands?”
“Enough that he can afford to hire twenty cutthroats and attempt to assassinate the Empress without fearing the consequences.”
“And are there papers that have to be signed on this sort of situation? I have never actually written out an Imperial Decree before.”
Desh walked over to his desk and plucked a freshly written document making the appropriate proclamation from a small stack of papers he had been working on. Nachia read it carefully and nodded.
A moment later she had signed the copy and marked it with her seal.
“You know I used to mock Pathra for listening to your advice constantly.”
“You also used to mock me for offering my advice constantly.”
“You are an amazing man, Desh.”
“I’m an advisor. It’s what I’m supposed to do. I advise, nothing more.”
“You are a liar, sir.”
Desh moved across the room and poured a small glass of sweet wine for each of them.
“I am a liar in that I have not consulted the Sooth. Instead I have one of my associates handling that for me. The last time was... draining.”
Nachia suppressed a shudder at the way she’d seen him the last time, drenched in what seemed to be blood and exhausted.
“On matters sorcerous I leave the where and why to you, Desh.”
He nodded his head. “I have Jeron working on finding all that we need. He searches now for information regarding what is north of the Seven Forges, on the location of Tega and her escort, on where the different armies of the Sa’ba Taalor are gathering. The news is not all grim, but most of it leans in that direction.”
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