by K. C. Julius
The broken-toothed man was dragged to a fencepost and bound, his arms tight at his sides beneath the ropes. The observers backed away, leaving Whit, Barav, and Master Morgan alone with the captive.
“We shall proceed.” The old wizard’s voice was solemn. “First, Whit, you must empty your mind, as you do in preparation for scrying, and hold your question in your thoughts while laying your hands on his skull.” He gave the prisoner a dark look. “It will go easier on you if you stay still. If you fight this magic, it can go… awry.”
Gingerly, Whit laid his hands on the man’s salt-crusted hair.
The old wizard nodded his approval. “Now, Barav, place your hands on top of Whit’s.”
Barav’s fingers were light and cool, and through them, Whit sensed at once the dream power within the young å Livåri.
“Now. You must both hold exactly the same question in your thoughts,” Master Morgan said. “Where have the disappeared å Livåri been taken?”
Whit met Barav’s dark gaze as they repeated the words, then Whit’s heart gave a jolt as Barav’s eyes rolled back into his head and he entered a trance.
Whit closed his own eyes to center himself. The moans of the suffering rushers, the crackling of the fire, the wind caressing the leaves, the distant whisper of the sea all fell away until only the question in his thoughts occupied the stillness.
Whit called on his magic, and it flooded through him. This time, however, in addition to his usual elation, he felt a tingling in his palms that intensified into a pulsing heat, then a tugging sensation on the backs of his hands. The dream reader was offering himself up as a conduit for whatever Whit might draw from the å Livåri’s mind. Whit knew he had to clear his own mind first, so he released a long, slow breath as he opened himself to receive whatever was to come. Then he brought the question regarding the disappeared to his thoughts.
At first, he only sensed a flickering light, but then glimpses of grisly, disjointed images, as fleeting as lightning strikes, began to flash through his mind, accompanied by snippets of sound—the crack of metal on bone, the frantic pleas of terrified women, the snapping of sails, the surge of a ship plowing through heavy seas. His heartbeat quickened as dark towers rose across hazy water, the cries of seabirds piercing the air, and then he saw a fleet of tall-masted, heavily armed carracks anchored in a wide harbor, beyond which an ugly, fortified city crouched upon an otherwise barren coast. Long piers ran into the sea, and men scrambled to either side of them as unearthly roars erupted—
A stabbing, burning pain shot up through his hands into his head, and a sudden darkness slammed down on his mind like a fist. With a cry, he wrenched his seared palms away from the captain’s head and staggered to the ground. His mind had emptied—had been emptied—and he’d been cast into a void of barren nothingness. He struggled furiously to form a thought, any thought, to free him from the pure, primal terror of this nameless, vacant abyss.
For an eternity, there was nothing.
And then, something fragrant. It nudged forward a memory to which he could put a name.
Blueberry.
He felt the flask nudge his lips and opened his mouth to swallow the sweet liquid it held. The dark, blank terror faded, replaced by a well of gratitude that sprang up in him as his senses became his once more to command.
As his vision cleared, the shadows hovering over him sharpened into the anxious faces of Fynn and Master Morgan.
“Do not try to speak until you are ready,” the wizard cautioned, “but do your best to remember all that you saw.”
“Something… something broke my connection.”
Master Morgan shifted his gaze to Barav, who huddled trembling on the ground, harsh sobs escaping through the hands burying his face. Gilreana was crouched beside the dream reader, trying to comfort him. Beside him, the man whose mind they had delved now slumped against the post, staring out with sightless eyes. His hairless skull was blackened and smoking.
Whit’s gut clenched. Another death for which I am responsible.
As if reading his thoughts, Master Morgan gently lifted one of Whit’s hands, then turned it to examine his palm. “You didn’t kill him, Whit, nor did Barav. What happened just now is not the result of meddwlmenns. Someone else broke into the dream—likely from the place this man’s mind revealed to you—and that someone has left his mark.”
Whit felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as he saw the tiny blisters that were already rising on his palms, forming bisecting lines.
“By all rights, you should be dead too,” the wizard said, his voice oddly flat. “I’m sure you recognize the symbol.”
The smaller line seared into Whit’s flesh stemmed like one prong of an arrowhead from the top of the other.
Fynn peered down at Whit’s hand, then rocked back on his heels. “That’s the rune for chaos.”
Master Morgan didn’t take his gaze from Whit. “Can you tell me exactly what you saw?”
“Just bits of things—sounds, images, all jumbled up. One of them was an attack on an å Livåri camp. I saw people being put in boats… there was screaming… then the sea, then more ships, hundreds of them, all fitted out for war, rocking in a harbor before a dark city in a strange, bleak land. That’s all I can remember.”
Barav gave a strangled gasp and lowered his hands. His face was ravaged with pain. “You… you didn’t see her?”
Master Morgan turned abruptly to the å Livåri. “See who?”
Barav drew his knees up and hugged them against his chest. He was shivering. “The Cailleach,” he whispered.
As he uttered the witch’s name, Gilreana jerked away from him with a hiss and forked her fingers to ward off evil. But it didn’t stop Barav from continuing.
“She was robed as before, in eleven crows, until they burst into flames before my eyes. Their charred feathers swirled into ash as a rising wind howled around her—howled so loudly I thought I would go mad, and the Cailleach circled me, her naked, wrinkled flesh as bloodless and pale as marble.”
Barav groaned, his face contorting with terrible sorrow. “Then she… changed, before my eyes, into a young woman, heavy with child. Her smile, at first as familiar to me as my own, grew cunning and twisted as the same terrible howling wind burst from her lungs.” He covered his ears and shouted as if over a wind’s wail. “The shrieking went on and on, then the skin on her belly, it burst—just split apart like a ripe gourd!”
He shook his head from side to side as if to drive the image from his tortured mind. When at last he grew still, he released a shuddering sob, then lifted his welling eyes to Whit.
“It was Kava, my twin sister. I think I just witnessed her death.”
Chapter 15
Borne
Upon Borne’s return from Nalè, he went directly to the Imperial Palace to request an audience with the emperor. It was granted, but the meeting didn’t go as Borne had hoped it would. The intelligence he bore from the west—that the Jagar lived in deathly fear of their vaar and his creatures, whom they called drakdaemons—was met with cool disregard by both the emperor and his hazar, who was also inconveniently present.
“You admit that you yourself haven’t seen these so-called monsters,” Zlatan observed drily, “nor did any who made this foray with you set eyes upon the vast fleet of ships the Jagar you captured claim are moored in the harbor of this Drak Icar—a city I’ve never even heard of until now. A Jagar will lie through his teeth to anyone outside his tribe.”
Borne drew a steadying breath. “It’s true I didn’t see either of these, Basileus, for I felt it was too great a risk to sail there with only one carrack. But I questioned a number of Jagar from different clans, and each of them confirmed that they fight for the vaar under duress. Any who resist his will are taken away to Drak Icar, along with their families, and none return. They all claim Olquaria is to be the drakdaemons’ proving groun
d, which could mean another attack upon Nalè is imminent.”
The emperor waved a dismissive hand. “Olquaria has nothing to fear from these barbarians. In fact, we have our Albrenian cousins’ assurances that the vaar will not trouble us.” Zlatan lightly tapped his fingers on the arm of his throne, a not-so-subtle sign that he was tiring of the topic.
The term of kinship the Basileus used for Gral’s aggressive southern neighbor sounded alarm bells for Borne. “What connection do the Albrenians share with the vaar of the Lost Lands, Your Majesty? And may I ask, when did you receive these assurances—before or after we engaged with the Jagar at Nalè?”
Kurash took a menacing step toward Borne.
“You’ll curb your tongue, you—”
“Silence!” The Basileus waved Kurash back to his place, then looked down his patrician nose at Borne. “As one of my commanders, I suppose it is your right to pose such a question. I received a missive from the Albrenian king’s high commander just this morning, assuring me this latest incursion over our western borders will be the last. King Jorgev and the vaar only recently concluded a treaty of alliance, a copy of which he has graciously sent on to me.”
“Did the vaar happen to mention to King Jorgev why he’s invested in so many warships?”
The Basileus frowned. “Now you are being impudent.”
Borne made a low bow. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. It was not my intention. But there’s every indication this vaar has conquest, not conciliation, on his mind. It’s my duty as a commander in your service to consider the attack on Nalè as a clear sign he’s cast his acquisitive gaze in Olquaria’s direction.”
“I disagree. And what the vaar of the Lost Lands does with any ships he might possess, the existence of which we have no real proof of, is no concern of ours. Olquaria is a neutral state. We have not involved ourselves in external conflicts in the past, and we do not plan to do so in the future.”
Yet you’ve just confessed to a cozy, ongoing correspondence with Albrenia, who is no friend of Gral’s, Borne thought. Balfou would be furious to learn of this budding relationship between Zlatan and Jorgev, which the comte would rightly perceive as a slap in Gral’s face.
“Hazar Kurash recommends we call back the Companions you left in Nalè,” Zlatan said. “I have granted him leave to send a rider west with the order tomorrow.”
Borne bit back his protest; it would only make matters worse. He stood at stiff attention as the Basileus got to his feet, signaling the matter closed. But instead of dismissing Borne, Zlatan descended the dais and came toward him. His frown had been replaced by a benevolent smile.
“Now, Ser Borne. By all accounts, you served me well in Nalè. For this, I wish to bestow upon you a mark of distinction. I’ve consulted with Balfou in this matter, and he assures me there’s no conflict of interest in your acceptance of it.”
Zlatan raised his hand, and a slave glided forward with a white sash, tasseled with red bells, draped over his hands. The Basileus lifted the satin band and placed it over Borne’s shoulders, then set a jewel-encrusted book in his hands.
“In recognition of your bravery on the field of battle,” His Imperial Majesty intoned, “and of the good service you have done Olquaria, I confer upon you the Order of the Bells. You hold in your hand the statutes of the order.”
Borne, shocked into silence, stared down at the book blankly before he remembered to drop to one knee. “Your Majesty,” he replied, his head bowed low. “You do me great honor.” By making him a member of this order, the emperor had raised him to an equal status with the hazar. Borne could almost feel the daggers Kurash was shooting at him.
Zlatan himself raised Borne to his feet. “You will need to invest more time in learning Olquarish, Ser Borne, if you are to read and understand the statutes of your new order.”
“I shall persevere, sire.”
The Basileus clapped his hands together. “Excellent! Now—with the lunar celebration of saminu fast approaching, I will be leaving the city tomorrow, and will be gone some six weeks’ time. I will travel to the southern mountains, from which my forebears came, to pay tribute to my ancestors and ask their blessings for the coming year.” He turned to include the hazar. “But upon my return, I shall hold a banquet in honor of your triumph in Nalè.”
Both Borne and Kurash made the requisite bows.
“Go now,” said Zlatan, “and take your well-deserved rest.”
Thus dismissed, the two men backed from the room. And as soon as they were through the doors, the hazar turned on his heel and stormed away.
* * *
Borne was in somewhat of a daze as he returned to the barracks, where he met his aide-de-camp on the training grounds. D’Avencote’s eyes widened at the sight of his superior’s new sash.
“Don’t worry,” Borne assured him lightheartedly. “I didn’t have to exchange my herald blue for it.” In truth, he wasn’t sure how he felt about this latest claim on him, but his hands itched to peruse the priceless book that had come with the honor. It was a beautifully preserved antiquity, its cover alone worth a fortune.
After receiving D’Avencote’s latest report on the correspondence that had come in earlier that day, Borne managed a few hours’ sleep, a bath, and a first leaf-through of the statutes before preparing for the evening meal, which he took at the palace along with Balfou. When he entered the Great Hall, the atmosphere was already lively, as the Basileus’s closest friends among his nobles would accompany the emperor on his journey south, and after this night, they would abstain from all strong drink until they returned to the capital.
The hazar scowled over at Borne from his usual place of prominence at the emperor’s right hand. Borne ignored him and headed toward his customary seat, only to be forestalled by a slave.
“You’ve been assigned a new dining place, ser,” said the young man, keeping his eyes discreetly lowered. “If you would be so good as to come this way.”
To Borne’s surprise, they approached the dais of Their Imperial Majesties, where Borne was directed to a place one removed to the left of the Basilea. Zlatan was deep in conversation with his hazar, but the empress graced Borne with a dazzling smile before returning her attention to her husband.
When the first course was served, the places directly to either side of Borne were still unoccupied. He wondered if he was meant to read something into the fact that he’d been assigned no dinner partners. But just as he was spooning down the last of his pomegranates stewed in hyppocras, a woman slipped into one of the empty chairs beside him. She wore a tantalizing fragrance, but Borne kept his eyes on the pomegranates, for Olquarian etiquette dictated that a female might strike up a conversation with a strange man, but not vice versa.
“If this is your first banquet prior to the Basileus’s yearly pilgrimage,” his newly arrived dinner partner murmured in charmingly accented Gralian, “I suggest taking only a taste from each dish. Otherwise you’ll never get through them all.”
Borne turned toward her with a gracious smile—and caught his breath. To say the lady was beautiful wouldn’t do her justice. Her eyes were deep, dark pools in which a man could drown, and her lustrous black hair was elegantly piled high on her head, although a few delicate tendrils had been left to frame her heart-shaped face. A golden glow suffused her flawless skin, which was much on display, for she was wearing a lurus, exposing one perfect, high breast. Her figure was slender yet womanly, and Borne guessed she was close to his own age.
The lady leaned slightly toward him, lowering her gaze to her plate. “My aunt is looking our way, ser. It would be a kindness if you would feign delight in my company. She will already be most displeased that I have arrived late to this banquet.”
Borne laughed. “It won’t be necessary for me to feign anything, my lady.”
The beauty placed her hand on her heart. “My name is Yasiha. I’m the niece of the Basilea, ser.”<
br />
He returned the greeting gesture. “Your Highness.” He bowed his head. “Borne Braxton, at your service.”
Yasiha’s full lips parted in a smile. “All of Olquaria knows of the magnificent young commander who’s training our Seven Thousand! Tell me, ser, is it true you keep a great lion and ride him into battle?”
Borne chuckled. “Is that what they’re calling him? Magnus is a large tawny dog, and he’d most certainly object if I ever tried to climb on his back.”
A slave appeared to sweep the pomegranates away, replacing them with a dark, fragrant stew.
Yasiha dipped her jeweled spoon into her bowl. “It seems my uncle is impatient for the entertainment to begin tonight. If you like our local spices, this yahni is a favorite of mine. But you’ll have to eat fast.”
The stew was delicious—silky chunks of goat’s meat with onions and apricots, infused with cardamom, caraway, and golpar. It was followed by platters of grilled eels, shellfish simmered with garlic and lemons, a crusty pastry stuffed with gingered pigeon and dates, a salt-encrusted leg of lamb, fish in tamarind-fenugreek sauce, stuffed dolmas, lentils tossed with barley and barberries, and herbed white cheese with radishes.
Throughout each course, Yasiha offered amusing and often slightly scandalous tidbits of gossip regarding their fellow guests. About herself, the princess said very little, other than that the empress and her mother shared a common father. She politely pressed Borne to tell her about life and customs in Drinnglennin and Gral. By the time the berries in fermented cream, the icy concoctions of droma milk and honey, and the platters of sweetmeats had been cleared, Borne found himself thoroughly enchanted by the lady’s company.
The boards were removed to make way for the dancers, and the gentle strum of harps gave way to festive drumming and clashing cymbals. A line of women, clad in strings of beads and short, diaphanous skirts belted with strands of tiny bells, swirled to the fast-paced music, swinging their long dark hair in fanned circles around their heads.
