A Secret Atlas

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Their journey took them into the very heart of Dolosan, entering the southern edge of a giant basin roughly two hundred miles from southwest to northeast, and a hundred and fifty miles wide east to west. Scrub vegetation provided sparse if colorful cover. Each of the countless gullies etched into the landscape was home to rainbow streaks of plants.

  Rekarafi remained silent for several miles as they descended the gradual slope. “This was Isdazar.”

  Keles spat sour saliva. “Shining waters?”

  The Viruk warrior nodded. “A vast lake. I sailed here with my Ierariach in the times before.”

  Moraven turned in the saddle and looked back at the loping Viruk. “Was there a large Viruk population here?”

  “Once, yes.” He pointed a clawed finger toward the north. “Tavliarch was home to many. When the tavam alfel came, the water boiled. It rose in a scalded cloud that fell in black rain. What it touched died. It melted Tavliarch. The waters flowed back into the basin and boiled again and again. Finally, they drained into the land.”

  Borosan nodded. “The continual process of draining and raining allowed minerals to collect in deposits. Some are simple geodes, while others are full layers. It is here that deposits of thaumston are found in abundance, though the magic in them often is weak.”

  “How can it be weak?” Keles stood in the stirrups and pointed to a plant with a cluster of feathered berries. “We’re on Ixyll’s doorstep. Things should be stronger here.”

  “No, Keles. You see, the water here, perhaps because of trace minerals, was a poor conductor of magic. It collected it, but transferred little of the magic to other things. What we have seen before are signs of the magic itself having touched things. Here it touched the water, which insulated the underlying area. West of here, heading to the uplands, you will see more and stranger things, especially where magic had continued to stream, but here there is only residue.

  “The advantage to this thaumston is that it is concentrated and capable of absorbing a great deal of magical energy. People dig it up and set it in places where it can be charged. Once it is energized, the possibilities are limitless.”

  Keles frowned. “How is it charged?”

  “It’s relatively simple. You put the samples in a metal box and raise a mast above it, or spread leader lines around it; techniques differ. Then you wait.”

  “For?”

  “For a very special storm. You want a moderate chaos-storm. Enough to charge the thaumston, but not much more. Luckily, the basin tends to contain the storms.”

  Moraven raised an eyebrow. “What if the storm is too large?”

  “It would kill us.” Borosan smiled. “But don’t worry. I’m sure it would be a most spectacular way to die.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  3rd day, New Year’s Festival, Year of the Rat

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  737th year since the Cataclysm

  Meleswin (Helosunde)

  Deseirion

  Prince Pyrust smashed the iron edge of his shield into the Helosundian’s face, spinning him away. The man’s weapon went flying, and the Desei Prince advanced, thrusting deep into another man’s vitals. The sword came free with a wet sucking sound. Pyrust kicked the thrashing man away from his feet, then moved on.

  Around him, the Golden Hawks moved through Meleswin’s main street, slashing and stabbing anything that moved. Most of the Helosundians in the city were drunk and exhausted. When they’d taken Meleswin, they had spared none of those left behind. The men died, the women were raped, and the children sent away as chattel. Delasonsa had accurately predicted what would happen, but even Pyrust had not expected to see streets littered with bodies. Rats and dogs fed on them even as raucous laughter came from windows shuttered against the cold.

  The plan to divide and slay the Helosundian leadership had needed little encouragement. The Council of Ministers had been split sharply over who should be chosen prince and settled on Eiran—a minor noble with modest ambition and a comely sister to whom many looked as an avenue to power. Eiran fancied himself a military genius, having waged many wars with toy soldiers. The retreating Desei troops had offered less resistance than his fantasy armies ever did, so he and a horde of undisciplined troops had poured into the city.

  Pyrust had planned to counterattack later in the Festival, but stories of fights between the factions provided the impetus to strike sooner. General Pades, who had been passed over as prince, had laid claim to the warehouse district on the river, locking up the storehouses of goods. Eiran had sent troops to open them back up, drawing them from the garrison at South Gate.

  The half-trained boys and cripples left there had not even been able to raise an alarm. The Shadow Hawks slew them, then moved into the southern quarter. They went from house to house, slitting throats until there was no resistance left. The Golden Hawks, Mountain Hawks, and Silver Hawks then entered the city and spread out. The Golden Hawks, with the Shadow Hawks moving through the city on both flanks, drove straight to the city center and the mayor’s palace, while the other two units swept around east and west to contain Pades and his people in the north.

  Fighters began to appear as the Desei closed with the palace. Most, it seemed, had barely enough time or sense to pull on some clothing and draw their swords. They had no idea who they were fighting or why, and some screamed that they had been betrayed by Pades. Others, limping back from the fighting in the north, laid down their arms expecting mercy.

  They got none.

  Pyrust strode through the streets. His shield had been strapped to his half hand so firmly that he’d lose the limb before it would come off. His black armor had a Golden Hawk emblazoned over the breastplate, and he’d even instructed that it be rendered with the two clipped feathers. His advisors thought that rather unwise, but he knew the Helosundians were unlikely to understand the significance of the ensign. But still, it gratified him to see that a number of the Golden Hawks had defaced their armor to hide those same feathers, providing the enemy with a multitude of targets.

  More warriors appeared in the streets, half-naked and bleary-eyed. The wisest of them took one look at the battalion of armored Desei filling the street and fled. The Shadow Hawks would get them. The rest, with typical Helosundian belief in the virtue of their cause, shrieked out a war cry and charged.

  Their cries became whimpers, then rattles and silence.

  A knot of them stood on the palace steps, brandishing spears and swords. They’d set themselves for battle, but shivered like the curs feeding on corpses. If they’d had tails, they’d have been tucked firmly over their genitals and bellies.

  For a moment or two, Pyrust pitied them. Prince Cyron was responsible for their deaths. And perhaps, as they faced his men, they realized it. The soldiers Cyron brought remained in Nalenyr. The best of them, the Keru, never ventured into combat. Had the Naleni Prince freed them to fight, there would have been a true battle for Meleswin.

  And I might even fear what I face.

  Pyrust clanged his sword off his shield’s rim. “No quarter.” He gave the order in a low voice, and word passed quickly back through the ranks. Another clang set his sword to shivering, then he took off at a sprint.

  As he raced in, Helosundian spears arced out. A few, thrown weakly, landed in front of him. One spitted a warrior running beside him. The rest passed over him harmlessly. Those who had thrown them slowly began to realize, as the Hawks came on undiminished, that their spears would have been more effective had they been used to stab.

  Pyrust raised his shield to intercept an overhand blow. It shivered his arm and splintered part of the shield, but the rim blunted the blow. The warrior wrenched his sword free, but by the time he had, Pyrust’s blade had cloven his left shin in two. The man screamed and fell, knocking another man down. Quick thrusts finished both of them. Their limp bodies slid down the marble steps, painting a red carpet for Pyrust’s advance.

 
; Soldiers who had flanked the knot of Helosundians ripped the palace doors open. Bows twanged from within and men spun away, arrows through throats, arms, and legs. More poured into the building, and by the time Pyrust fought his way to the entrance, the half dozen archers lay dead.

  Pyrust helped a leg-stuck man to his feet. The warrior reached down and snapped the shaft off, casting it contemptuously aside. “It is nothing, my lord.”

  “It is a blazon of honor.” Pyrust mounted the stairs and marched up slowly, matching his pace to that of the wounded man. Other Golden Hawks streamed up the white marble stairs before him and spread out on either side of the brass doors to the main audience chamber. The Prince held a hand up, and the men who were preparing to draw the door open relaxed.

  Pyrust approached and hammered the doors with the hilt of his sword. “Prince Eiran, I am Pyrust, come for my city. Open this door and no harm shall befall you.”

  He heard no response and frowned. He spun, then waved his sword to clear the soldiers from the direct line of the door. “Do nothing for the moment.” Turning back to the door, he got out of the way, sheathed his sword, then nodded to the soldiers waiting there. “Open, now.”

  They tugged on the ropes they’d attached to the handles, and the doors slowly opened like theater curtains drawing back. A rattle of arrows skipped off the doors and floor. Pyrust stooped and picked up one of the arrows, then laughed. Holding it in his right hand, he stepped into the doorway and through.

  The audience chamber was too small to have ever been considered grand, but the marble and granite inlaid in the floors and forming the dais at the far end had been imported. They had been fitted together in the Helosundian dog crest, which Pyrust’s father had left intact, since the artistry did give the room some majesty. The murals on the walls had been repainted to depict glorious scenes from Desei history, and it amused Pyrust to see that the portrait of himself on the east wall had been defiled. His face had been obliterated by repeated pounding with a dented brass urn.

  The sprawl of young and very drunk Helosundian nobles between the crest and the dais echoed the corpse-strewn streets outside. Out there, bodies lay in pools of blood, urine, and excrement; inside, the nobles lay in spilled wine and their own vomit. Their armor—none of it showing battle wear—had been cast aside. Whatever robes they had worn beneath now gave thin shelter to cowering women who looked up at Pyrust with haunted eyes. A half dozen of the nobles, including the new Prince, had managed to stand and shoot, but none of them had nocked a fresh arrow, and only two fingered shafts in their quivers.

  Pyrust lifted the arrow he’d plucked from the ground. “Care to try again?”

  Bows clattered to the ground in reply. Archers soon followed, their ashen pallor deepening. Only Eiran remained on his feet, but he wavered and swallowed. Pyrust stared at him as he advanced, slowly spinning the arrow between his fingers. With each step he took, the Helosundian’s trembling increased.

  Pyrust looked past him to the woman sitting in the mayor’s chair. She could have been a Keru, were she taller and heavier, for she had the blonde hair and the icy eyes and the hardness that came with pure hatred. He quickened his pace, sweeping past the Prince and up the three steps to the throne. He threw the arrow aside and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her roughly, but she did not cry out.

  Blood from his glove streaked her neck. She swallowed, and he felt it. He felt her life in his hands, the thrumming of her heart. Only the shrinking of her pupils and the slight flair of delicate nostrils betrayed her feelings.

  She spat in his face.

  Pyrust released her and wiped the spittle from his cheek, then flicked his hand out in a backhanded slap. It snapped her head around and rocked her back against the throne, but she did not go down. Rising redness marked her right cheek. She straightened and her eyes narrowed.

  Pyrust held his hand before her face. “Don’t spit again. I would be disappointed if you could think of no new outrage.”

  He turned, deliberately presenting his back to her, then stalked down the steps to where her brother still stood. Pyrust let his hand fall heavily on the Prince’s shoulder. With the slightest pressure, he could have driven him to his knees. Instead, he tightened his grip and kept Eiran upright.

  He whispered in the Helosundian’s ear. “Your sister has bought your life. That is who she is, isn’t it? You could never attract someone with that much spirit, no matter the crown you wore.”

  “And you, Jasai.” Pyrust spun and looked back up at the girl. “When they made your brother a prince, did they make you a princess?”

  She glared at him. “No.”

  “Then I shall.”

  Eiran shook off his hand. “No.”

  Pyrust hooked his shield arm out and turned the young Prince around. He kept his voice low and cold. “Understand something, Eiran. You are a fool and a coward. You say no, but you can do nothing to enforce it. In fact, if I chose to take your sister right now, right there, on that throne, you would hold her for me. Look, she knows it.”

  Eiran’s head came up and his sister’s stare impaled him. He sank to his knees and vomited over Pyrust’s boots.

  The Desei Prince nudged him onto his side, less to move him from the puddle than to wipe his boots clean. He again mounted the steps to the throne. “You, Jasai—duchess, countess, whatever they in their foolishness made you—shall now be a Princess of Deseirion. You purchase one thing immediately: your brother’s life. I’ll have his court sobered, saddled, and escorted south to where they can reach Nalenyr without incident. A second thing you purchase when we wed: a truce in this province. No more raiding against your people. No more forced resettlement.”

  Jasai shifted her incendiary gaze to him and he hesitated for a moment. There could be no mistaking the fury on her face, but flickers of ambition also flashed there. Her foolish brother had become drunk with his success and the spoils of battle, but she’d remained sober. She had positioned herself to rise to power.

  “You don’t think you can trust me. You’re wise in that, but you will learn you can.” Pyrust reached up and took her hand in his. “You will buy one more thing. Give me a son, and he shall rule Helosunde as your brother should have. You will be his regent.”

  Her brow furrowed for a moment. “Why would you offer me Helosunde?”

  “If I do not, you will hate me forever.”

  “I assure you, my lord, I will always hate you.”

  “But you will tolerate me to save your people. Life will be better for my people. It is not much of a dowry, but I shall accept it.”

  Jasai raised her chin. “I think, my lord, you leave unnamed the greatest gift I will give you.”

  “Do tell me.”

  “My rule of Helosunde will free you to pursue other ambitions.” She smiled. “You make me a princess, you give me Helosunde, but I will make you an Emperor.”

  Pyrust bit the inside of his cheek to kill his smile. “In a Festival of new beginnings, this may be the best beginning of all. The new year will be full of portent, indeed.”

  Chapter Forty

  3rd day, Month of the Tiger, Year of the Rat

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  737th year since the Cataclysm

  Stormwolf, in the South Seas

  Since finding the Moondragon and the odd creature aboard it, the expedition had known little joy. In part that could be blamed on their traveling further south with the prevailing current. The seas became more hostile and the weather significantly cooler. Shimik began to grow a thick coat in response, and the treachery of ice on the decks added to the dangers of shipboard life.

  Though Captain Gryst was content to leave the sea devil to Jorim for study, he quickly brought the scholars on the Stormwolf in to study the thing. They all dissected it and preserved pieces in various jars. Drawings were rendered of its overall physiology from flesh in. The claws were tested and found to contain a venom thought to be simil
ar to a Viruk warrior’s. It caused paralysis in small animals, and the investigators suggested that many of the crew had been felled by it before they had a chance to fight.

  A study of its stomach contents yielded fishbones and fingers, suggesting strongly that the rest of the Moondragon’s crew would never be found. Bits and pieces of its flesh were fed to cats and a few rats with no ill effect. The fact that cats ate it with relish did nothing to make any of the men want to partake.

  But the effect of all the study proved less than satisfactory. The only thing the scholars could agree on was that they’d never seen anything like it. The reasons for that abounded, as well as stories of how the creature could have come to exist. Some decided the gods were upset with Men in general and created these things to supplant them. Others spoke of more sinister and salacious situations, in which lost sailors had committed unspeakable acts with fishwomen. Jorim still favored the theory he had advanced to Anaeda; that they were just a heretofore undiscovered race of creature. The utter lack of stories about them did worry him, but since the only logical alternative was that they were a spontaneous creation of the gods, he stuck with his theory. Divine intervention just did not sit well with him.

  He did remember his conversation with Keles before they both departed. Keles had suggested Empress Cyrsa still existed in Ixyll and was out there fighting something that still threatened the old Empire. Keles had advanced the theory that perhaps the Cataclysm had opened a rift to another world, letting in forces as yet unseen by man. While Jorim considered that highly unlikely, it did serve to explain why there was no long-standing tradition of these sea devils in folktales.

  In the end, he just accepted that they were what they were. It wasn’t so important to know where they had come from as it was to spot where they were and to determine where they might be going. The fact that they had been able to attack a ship and denude it of crew, leaving only the barest of signs of their passing, frightened him. He wasn’t so much worried for the Stormwolf as he was for a small island, or what would happen if the creatures passed up a river delta and began to devour villages.