17th 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
Dolosan
Keles Anturasi woke slowly, in the vain hope that doing so would make his head feel better. He didn’t want to open his eyes, because even the slightest bit of light would start his head pounding. He knew Rekarafi did not mean to cause him discomfort, and the nausea that he had first experienced around him had long since passed, but the headaches would not abate. They arrived as the sun went down and remained, disturbing his sleep, leaving him achy for the rest of the day.
He hoped the last of the venom would finally work itself out of his system. He had done everything the others could suggest to help him get rid of it, from eating the sort of odd foods they found growing around them to exercise. The feathered berries, once they were plucked, had been the most effective. They had a sharp sour taste which, if it didn’t actually cure the headaches, certainly distracted him from the pain.
Ciras had made it his personal duty to show Keles how to use a sword. The cartographer was fairly certain this was mostly because the Tirati was still embarrassed over his simple solution to the problem of the pool. Moraven had used Keles’ action at the pool as an example of the employment of intelligence over thoughtless action, and Ciras seemed to take it to heart. Sword instruction was a means of paying off a debt, and it did force Keles to focus on something other than how he felt.
Tyressa adopted a different approach, which entailed taking Keles off on little side journeys. These had the advantage of distancing him from Rekarafi as well as removing him from his logbooks and maps. She showed great patience in educating him about animals, the tracks they left behind, plants, their seeds and flowers, and how to determine if they were edible or not. She took great pains to separate fact from speculation, though later observations of creatures often confirmed what she’d assumed based on their tracks and scat.
He’d listened carefully and had begun to understand some more of what his brother found so engaging about his surveys. He could measure the land and draw it, but that didn’t convey a full knowledge of it. It felt good to fill his lungs with fresh air, and to feel delicate flowers, or spot a tuft of fur hanging from a thorn and know what it came from.
“It is odd, Tyressa, but I have always thought of the Keru as creatures of the city. This knowledge you have isn’t something you could learn in Moriande.”
She laughed and crouched beside some uplands heather, brushing a thumb over the purple blossom. “For the Naleni, we are of the city, but you only see us as a uniform company. I’m ten years your senior, but have only been in Moriande for seven years.”
“And before that?”
She frowned. “I was not in Moriande.”
Keles walked over and knelt beside her. “Tyressa, I remember your telling me that first night, on the Catfish, there were things I didn’t need to know. I want to respect that. I will respect that, but I am curious. I assume you learned a lot of what you’re teaching me in Helosunde. I’m not seeking to pry, but simply to find a frame of reference.”
The blonde woman turned her head and regarded him. Her glance cut at him more coldly than the winds, but only for a heartbeat. Then it warmed—fractionally. “Keles, I have come to respect you for your dedication to duty and even your inventiveness. You believe you only want a frame of reference, but past experience tells me that is not entirely so. I know what Naleni men grow up thinking about the Keru. I even recall you and your brother passing into your grandfather’s celebration—yes, I was at the door that night.”
Keles blushed. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry. You didn’t look at us any differently than any man, and your glances were far kinder than those of most women. The rumors you’ve heard shape what you think of us. We hold ourselves apart, you’re told. We take no lovers, bear no children, and have undergone secret rituals that allow us to draw strength from Helosunde. You also hear we only love women, or that the Prince is the only man we will accept in our beds. Some even think we have seduced this Prince and his father before him, and are raising an heir to the Naleni throne that we can use to replace him when we decide he no longer serves the cause of Helosunde.”
“I’ve heard those stories, but I’ve never believed them.”
She stopped, then lowered her eyes and nodded. “You probably haven’t, have you? Once you left behind adolescent fantasies, you didn’t contemplate any of that. Not much of a surprise, in fact; just a pity.”
He stood and brushed red dust off his knees. “A pity? How is it a pity?”
“It shows how insulated you are from life.” She turned and looked up at him. “Did you love the woman you took the scars for?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
Keles folded his arms over his chest. “Well, because she was pretty and she was from a good family and . . .” His voice trailed off. “My father married a woman from a merchant house, his father before him. It was expected.”
“Expected.” Tyressa snapped off a sprig of heather and tucked it behind her left ear. “You loved her because you thought you were supposed to love her. It fit into your conception of the world—just the way the numbers and distances allow you to quantify the world. You seek order, and she was part of that. She was the piece that would fit well into the mosaic you think your life should become.”
“That’s not true.” Yet he found no reason to back up his denial. He’d allowed himself to believe he loved Majiata because he wanted to love her. I needed to, because I needed someone to love me just as my mother loved my father.
She opened her arms and slowly turned a circle. “Look at this place, Keles. It existed before you ever thought of measuring and defining it. It will continue to be what it is long after your map has moldered to nothing.”
He shivered. “Great. Thanks. I get the idea. What I do out here won’t matter.”
She shook her head. “No, you fool, you have it all backward. It’s not what you do out here that matters. It’s what being out here does to you that matters. Right now, you’re nothing but a puppet performing for your grandfather. Worse, he’s trained you so well that even after he dies you will continue to perform the same way. A puppeteer could not wish for more of the dolls he leaves behind.
“You don’t seem to understand that everything you do out here will matter. Your maps will open this land to exploration. People will come—but unless you understand that the land is more than distances and elevations, you won’t be able to guide them where they should go, or show them how they should prepare for things.”
“This place, Tyressa, is a long way from colonization. Yes, there are scroungers and bonediggers who live here, but the land changes them. There is still wild magic.”
“Yes, Keles, but will it change you?”
“I don’t understand.”
Tyressa sighed. “I don’t suppose you do. Look, my world has been very small. Yes, I come from Helosunde; I grew up there. I killed a few Desei, which is why I was chosen to be one of the Keru. From there my world expanded to include Moriande. But now I’m here, seeing things I’ve never seen before, and I realize the whole of the world is not a captive nation. My people keep hungering for a tiny portion of the world that will cost them more than it is worth. Don’t look at me with that sort of shock—you know what I am saying is true. If instead of spending time plotting raids and complaining about how the gods have hidden their faces from us, were we to pick up lock, stock, and barrel to head out to Solaeth or Dolosan, or even up the Gold River, we could build ourselves a new nation. As it is, we let our past and duty to it define us. It limits what we can become.”
Keles slowly nodded. “And you are saying that my slavish adherence to my training and my grandfather’s wishes limits me in the same way?”
“Only in that they stop you from seeing the world as it is.” She s
miled. “How can you think to define the world when you have a haze of numbers and an avalanche of scrolls to separate you from it?”
“I can’t, really.” He frowned for a moment, then looked up into her eyes. “What you’ve just said . . . It isn’t the sole result of your having come on this trip, is it? You were thinking these things before, which is why you were chosen.”
Tyressa turned and began to walk back to where their horses cropped heather. “That might have been a factor.”
“It makes for a lonely life, doesn’t it?”
The glance she gave him was daunting. “You’ll offer to relieve me of that burden?”
“No, that’s not what I was thinking.” He looked down. “You feel lonely because your thoughts are spreading wider than those of your companions. For me, it was the opposite. I kept my world small, and others were content to let me go my way. Even here, you were all ready not to bother me—and bother with me.”
“We might have, but then you dealt with the pool.” She smiled. “You didn’t tell someone else how to do it; you just did it. You did something for our common good. You joined us. You let us know we’re more than just gyanrigot.”
Keles joined her at the horses and hauled himself into the saddle. “If that’s what you thought, I’m sorry. I wasn’t . . . I was not thinking about the world; I was just thinking about what I was supposed to be doing.”
She nodded. “We understand. Most of us, anyway. Borosan is worse than you, and I’ve no idea what the Viruk is thinking.”
“Worse than me? Is that possible?” He smiled. “And, Tyressa, I’m sorry for thinking what everyone does about the Keru. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
The Keru slowly turned to regard him. “You mean you don’t find us alluring in the way no pillow-bred Naleni waif could ever be?”
“Yes. I mean . . . No, I mean . . .” Keles’ shoulders slumped. “Kill me now. It will save trouble later.”
Tyressa laughed. “The sleeping dragon has awakened. Slowly, slowly, but awakened nonetheless.”
She pointed out a multitude of things on their ride back—including the opening to a small cave that appeared to be breathing—and Keles drank in every word. When they reached the campsite Moraven had chosen, they found three scroungers had joined them. One, a wizened old man swathed in animal furs of a color not seen in Moriande, sat off to the side with Moraven and Borosan. The gyanridin often served as something of a translator with the prospectors and bonediggers. The other two, younger and decidedly more hale, tended the fire and were roasting something over it. Keles would have taken it for a rabbit save that it had seven legs.
Ciras sat with them and traded pleasantries, but the conversation remained strained. Rekarafi perched himself on a rock downwind of the campsite. The cool breeze ruffled his hair. He’d closed his eyes and lifted his muzzle. His slit nostrils flared as if he could inhale whatever they were roasting. His hands rested on his knees, and firelight flashed from his claws.
Ciras bowed his head as the two of them reached the fire. “We have visitors. They have seen no signs of bandits, but the winds have blown rumors. They are going to head for Opaslynoti, at the foot of the pass into Ixyll.”
Keles immediately wanted to ask them to describe the pass, but he refrained. “And Opaslynoti is?”
One of the bonediggers smiled, revealing a tangle of yellowed teeth. “A crossroads.”
“Once a Viruk town.” Rekarafi opened his eyes. “The tavam alfel melted it to human proportions.”
“Thank you, Rekarafi.” Keles smiled. “I look forward to seeing it.”
The evening consisted of shared fare, and Borosan entertained the visitors with a duel between his mouser and the small thanaton. Ciras sang a ballad from Tirat, and Tyressa offered a lament for lost Helosunde. Their visitors repaid them with the ribald songs that warmed the nights throughout Dolosan. It concluded with an agreement to travel together to Opaslynoti, and Keles crawled into his tent without a single thought about reporting to his grandfather.
Morning came quickly enough, and when he finally did open his eyes, his head began throbbing. He acknowledged the pain, then smiled. In the past it had been an impediment to his mission, but now it was just pain. It was just a small part of his world, so he set about doing all he could to make it as small a part as he was able.
Chapter Forty-five
18th 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
Moriande, Nalenyr
Nirati woke with a start. There had been no sound or movement, or even stray ray of sunshine to bring her from a dead sleep to consciousness. It was just the instant alert of one who had been long and fitfully asleep somehow realizing that the time for more sleep had ended.
She found herself facedown against her pillow. Dampness on the pillowcase felt cool against her cheek. It wasn’t from tears, though she was certain she had cried during the night. Instead she’d drooled, sleeping gape-mouthed. Her exhaustion had not even allowed her the dignity of composing her features in some semblance of beauty.
She slowly gathered her hands under her shoulders, but this was not as simple as it should have been. She ached all over, but especially in her shoulders and elbows. The dull ache seemed familiar, having the quality of a strain from repetitive motion. When she helped her mother with spring or fall planting in their garden, she similarly felt it in her shoulders and lower back.
Slowly she levered herself over onto her back, then lay there, panting with exertion. She knew that having something so simple exhaust her was ridiculous, but she felt incredibly weak. Her blankets seemed so heavy they might as well have been woven from lead. Her nightclothes had twisted around her legs, and though she plucked at them, she could not free herself. Being trapped sent panic through her for an instant, then she forced herself to remain calm.
The panic revived dreams. She slowly reconstructed the night in hopes of sorting fact from fiction. Somewhere in there she sought what had robbed her of strength—though she doubted she would find it. But there was little else for her to do than think, and she needed that façade of control if she was ever going to rise from her bed.
The evening before had been quite pleasant. Count Aerynnor had conducted her to the theater to watch the production of Jaor Dirxi’s The Feather Sword. It was the best of his satires, featuring a goosegirl who was so good at wielding a feather that she was able to defeat every swordsman she met. That the swordsmen wore costumes denoting their allegiance to Deseirion, or that her feather was gold and she was a fair maid of Nalenyr, added a degree of contemporary commentary that saved what was an otherwise mediocre production.
From there they had walked in public gardens, then returned to the apartments the count had rented once he had formally severed ties with the Phoesel family. There they had drunk wine and made love, then he had conducted her home. At least, she was certain he had, since she had no recollection of the trip, but here she was.
Her mother knew she was sleeping with the Desei noble. But aside from worrying about Nirati’s heart getting broken, she had approached the whole affair with practical good sense. She’d prepared the tincture of clawfoot and administered it before each evening meal. She invited Nirati to confide anything in her, and even suggested they might pay a visit to the Lady of Jet and Jade for advice.
Nirati had resisted that latter suggestion. Her prior sexual encounters had been with lovers as inexperienced as she. She had not taken much pleasure in coupling, save a joy that her partners were pleased and that they clearly desired her. Her own satisfaction she subordinated to theirs, because until Junel she had not known the ecstasy that could come from sex.
Junel had been a kind and gentle lover. He looked to her pleasure first, taking his time to undress her, to study her, to caress and kiss her. The warmth of his breath against her skin, the tingle of his caresses—whether touch
ing her with fingertips, the back of his hand, or even when he wore thin leather gloves—started a fire burning in her. He talked to her, telling her she was beautiful and desirable, then asked what it was she wanted, how she wanted it. Faster, slower, more heavily or gently; whatever she desired he provided, and the times he made suggestions he opened whole new worlds of desire to her.
She would have thought, after making passionate love with him, that her dreams would be languid or peaceful or even torrid, but they had been something else entirely. Her limbs ached as if the dream had been real. She’d felt helpless, with her arms trussed behind her, her legs folded under. Thick bands restrained her. At first she thought they were leather, but as she studied them they became the coils of a furred snake. She could hear its hisses, and the crush of its flesh chilled her. She struggled to get away, but the snake merely laughed, saying there was no escape, would never be an escape. She was trapped forever.
Then her grandfather came and woke her. She was convinced that was a dream as well, but she drew her arms from beneath the blankets and could see red marks on her wrists and other bruises on her arms. She had struggled against him, she knew, for she could still hear his voice commanding her to be still.
She’d stared up at him. “Grandfather?”
“Yes, child. Yes, my little Nirati. I had to come.” He stared down at her, his eyes ablaze, then they softened. He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hands in his. “You had a bad dream.”
“Yes, I did; very bad.” She let him tug her up into a sitting position. “But how can you be here? It’s not possible.”
Qiro Anturasi shook his head. “The Prince thinks he has me locked away, but there are passages and paths of which he knows nothing. I know them all. Coming to you was not difficult. And that you needed me was reason enough to risk it.”
Nirati squeezed his hands. “Is there something wrong, Grandfather?”
The old man raised his head as if, by posture alone, he could deny that possibility. Then he sighed. “Truth be told, Nirati, I, too, have unsettled slumbers. Demons and monsters haunt my sleep the same as yours.”
A Secret Atlas Page 36
