Boots shook her head at his stubbornness, but said nothing further on the matter and they walked the rest of the way up to the hut in silence, squinting into the rising sun. Warlock wished he knew how to explain what he felt; how much a part of his identity his pedigree was. He wanted Boots to understand.
Tides, he wanted Phydeau and every Scard in Hidden Valley to understand.
I am Warlock. It’s who I am.
“Cecil! Cecil!”
Boots turned before Warlock at the cry. When it did register that he was the one being hailed, he looked over his shoulder to find a young feline named Marianne running up the path behind them.
It was rare to see a feline on this side of the valley, so Marianne’s visit could only mean something out of the ordinary. Phydeau preferred the two most populous subspecies to stay apart. Although they shared a common purpose, and trained together during the day, it was hard to overcome their natural instincts regarding the other Crasii species, and their commander preferred to avoid incidents rather than deal with them after the fact. Life was peaceful, here in Hidden Valley, but it was an enforced peace and one endangered it at their peril.
Marianne was a kitten bred here in the valley, the offspring of two known Scards and therefore guaranteed a Scard herself. She had an older sister, she’d told Boots, who was already off working for the Cabal and she couldn’t wait to be old enough to do the same. Warlock was fairly certain her enthusiasm was only because she had never known slavery or even human company that wasn’t friendly to her kind. He wondered how she would fare in the world outside Hidden Valley when it came time for her to leave.
“What’s wrong?”
“Captain Phydeau wants you.”
“Did he say why?”
The young feline nodded. “Tiji’s back.”
“Who’s Tiji?” Boots asked.
“She’s one of us,” Marianne explained unhelpfully. “You’d best hurry. The captain wasn’t actually asking, you know.”
Boots took the water bucket from Warlock before he could respond. “You’d better get down there. I’ll finish off your chores.”
“Are you sure you should be carrying anything heavy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied. “Anyway, I’d rather do your chores than have Phydeau growling at me.”
Warlock nodded, and turned to the feline. “Take me to him.”
Warlock had never seen a chameleon Crasii before. Apparently they were common once, bred by the immortals primarily to spy on each other. But they were difficult to breed and because of their ability to blend with their surroundings, they became as much a nuisance to their creators as an asset. The Tide Lords had obliterated most of them before the last Cataclysm. The few who’d escaped the purge were the descendants of the Scards who’d run away in the years before the immortals had determined to be rid of their reptilian creations. As a consequence, there were few chameleons who weren’t genuine Scards, although that was something not generally known among humans, or even most ordinary Crasii.
The silver-skinned female was sitting cross-legged on the end of the long wooden table in the room they used as a communal meeting hall on the few occasions all the residents of Hidden Valley were required to gather en masse. The chameleon was dressed in a plain linen shift, speaking in a low voice to Phydeau and Aleki Ponting. Warlock was surprised to see the Lord of Summerton here. In the month he’d been in Hidden Valley, this was the first time he’d laid eyes on their human benefactor.
Lord Ponting looked up when he heard the door of the hall closing, beckoning Warlock forward.
The big canine bowed politely to the nobleman. “My lord.”
“Phydeau tells me your new name is Cecil.”
“I prefer to keep the name Warlock, my lord.”
Aleki smiled humourlessly. “You may yet have your wish granted, my friend. You’ve not met Tiji before, I take it?”
Warlock turned his attention to the Crasii who was watching him with large, dark, unblinking eyes. She sat unnaturally still; at rest, but somehow poised for flight at the same time. It was unnerving.
“No, my lord.”
“Then allow me to introduce you,” Phydeau said. “Tiji, this is Cecil Segura.”
“Hello,” she said, staring at him warily.
“Hello,” he replied, trying to imagine what circumstance involving this Crasii might also involve him.
Before he had a chance to ask, however, Phydeau offered an explanation. “Tiji’s just got back from Caelum.”
“I see.”
The big, shaggy Crasii smiled. “I doubt that, old son. Tell Cecil what you saw, Tiji.”
“Syrolee, Tryan and Elyssa,” the chameleon replied without emotion.
“You saw the Empress of the Five Realms?” Warlock gasped, staring at her in open disbelief.
“Yes, I did.”
“Are you certain?”
“No,” the chameleon replied. “I mistake ordinary humans for the suzerain all the time.”
“Settle down, Tiji,” Phydeau advised. “He doesn’t mean to question your ability.”
Actually, that’s exactly what Warlock was doing, but he chose not to argue the point. “What is the Empress of the Five Realms doing in Caelum?”
“Positioning herself to take control of the country when her son marries Princess Nyah,” Aleki explained.
“But…they must be stopped!” he declared, looking at the three of them standing around so calmly, realising, even as he uttered the words, how futile they were.
Stopping the Tide Lords was no more possible than stopping the Tide.
Somewhat to his surprise, however, nobody laughed at his hopeless show of bravado.
“I’m not sure if that’s possible,” Aleki said. “But it is vital that Declan Hawkes knows of this. He’ll be able to advise the rest of the Pentangle and they can decide how to deal with the news.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Tiji is exhausted,” Phydeau explained. “She’s just crossed over from Caelum through the mountains and she still needs to get to Herino. If this wasn’t so critical, she could get there on her own and nobody would even know she’d passed by, but this is too important to leave her unescorted and dependent on her own devices, and a lone female of any species is in danger on the Herino road.”
“You want me to take her to the capital?” He stared at them in surprise. “Why?”
“Firstly, because you’re big and scary enough to protect her,” Aleki told him with an encouraging smile. “Secondly, because Declan needs you. He’s looking for Scards he can place in the palace to keep an eye on Jaxyn and the other immortal.”
“There is another immortal in Glaeba?”
“We think so,” Aleki confirmed. “Which is why we need you in Herino. You’re trained as an estate steward. In fact you’re probably better trained than half the staff in the Herino Palace.”
“Can Boots come with me?” he asked.
Aleki shook his head. “Jaxyn knows her. Worse, he knows she’s a Scard. Your mate will have to stay here, I’m afraid.”
This was happening far too quickly for Warlock. “But Boots is with pup. I’d rather stay here.”
“Then you’ll be killed,” Tiji announced, before either of the others could reply. She was looking at Warlock with that disconcerting, unblinking stare. “You are either with us, or against us, dog-boy. And the Cabal has only one way of dealing with Scards who are against us.”
He glared at the reptilian Crasii, but before he could retort, Phydeau intervened with a conciliatory smile. “Tiji’s tired, Cecil. She’s not thinking about what she’s saying.”
“But I’m right,” the chameleon insisted.
Oddly, Tiji’s frankness was comforting. Warlock had no time for subterfuge. He wanted to know exactly where he stood.
“Is she speaking the truth?” he asked, his gaze swinging between the canine and human. “If I choose to stay here with my mate, you’ll have me killed?”
&nbs
p; After an awkward few moments of silence, it was Aleki Ponting who answered him. “If you refuse, I admit, we will be forced to examine your commitment to our cause.”
“Do you think me disloyal?”
“I think you sat opposite the Immortal Prince in a Lebec gaol cell for several months,” Phydeau reminded him. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Tide Lord has sent a loyal Crasii among us, posing as a Scard.”
Warlock was shocked at what they were suggesting. “You mean, this is some kind of test?”
“If that’s how you want to view it.” Aleki shrugged.
“And suppose I am a spy; a Tide Lord plant, sent among you by the Immortal Prince? What happens to me when I get to Herino?”
“If you turn out to be a Tide Lord spy,” Tiji replied in a tone that matched her flat, unblinking stare, “you won’t make it to Herino, dog-boy.”
“Stop calling me that!!”
“He’s right, Tiji,” Phydeau scolded. “You’re not helping.”
“Hey, you’re giving me over to the care of a canine who’s spent the last few months keeping an immortal entertained,” she pointed out. “I’ll be as unhelpful as I want, Phydeau.”
“I am not a Tide Lord spy. I want to be free of them as much as any other Scard in Hidden Valley,” Warlock announced tightly. “I just want to stay with my mate and be here when my pups are born. And the Tide take you all if my word on that isn’t good enough for you.”
In the nervous silence that followed, Warlock could feel them weighing up the risk he might pose to the Cabal against the value of his word.
The tension was so thick he could almost touch it.
“What if we try to arrange it so you’re back in time for the birth?” Phydeau asked.
“Can you do that?”
He glanced at Aleki and then shrugged. “We can try.”
“Will that prove my loyalty? Will you be satisfied then? Will my pups be permitted to be born here in Hidden Valley, safe and free?”
It was Aleki—the only human present—who stepped forward, in the end, offering Warlock his hand. “Whatever you think of the suzerain, Warlock, I don’t doubt your intentions as a father. Do this for us, and I’ll ask Declan to arrange to have you home before Tabitha whelps.”
“Thank you, my lord,” he said, not convinced agreeing to this was a good idea, but certain refusing was a bad one.
The human glanced at the other two and then smiled at the big canine. “Just don’t make me regret it, eh?”
“He’ll be fine,” Tiji shocked Warlock by announcing. “If he was spying for the Tide Lords, he’d be tripping over himself to be of assistance, not complaining about us doubting his honour or begging to stay here so he can be with his mate.”
“But you just said…”
She shrugged. “I was just wondering what you’d do.” The chameleon eyed him up and down. “Are you really as tough as you look?”
More than a little disoriented by Tiji’s complete turnabout, he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, hurry up and make up your mind, Cesspool,” she said, gracefully unwrapping her long, silver-scaled legs. She jumped to the floor without a sound. “We’re on the road first thing in the morning. It’ll be better if you’ve got it figured out before then.”
Chapter 11
Dawn was a stark, brutal affair in Torlenia. The sun didn’t tenderly warm the land as it spread gentle fingers across the sky. It strode over the horizon, searing the landscape as it went. The chill of the desert nights buckled under the relentless onslaught of the rising heat, wilting all but the sturdiest of creatures.
The immortals, being the sturdiest of all creatures, still felt the heat, but other than vague discomfort, it had little effect on them. Immortal skin didn’t burn, their bodies refused to dehydrate. It irritated rather than debilitated them, and—as it turned out—tested their ingenuity. Cayal was admiring one such example of Tide Lord ingenuity as dawn burned away the night, revealing the desert in all its stark and barren splendour.
To Cayal’s surprise, Lukys lived permanently in Torlenia, these days. They’d travelled here in leisurely style, a journey that had taken almost a month. When he got here, he discovered the Tide Lord had built himself a villa carved out of the sandstone in the low hills on the very edge of the Great Inland Desert near the city of Elvere. Even more impressive, he’d designed a way to cool his palatial home by forcing what little breeze there was out here in the desert through narrow vents tunnelled through the walls of the house that were hung with gauze soaked in water from the natural spring underneath the house, which he also channelled through the same vents. With the Tide on the way back, there was no need to rely on the vagaries of the wind any longer. A steady breeze blew through the vents, cooling the house as the sun clawed its way across the sky, immolating any promise of relief.
Cayal studied the vent high on the wall of the atrium, appreciating the cool air tumbling from it, wondering when Lukys had mastered the finer points of architecture and engineering. The house was large and well furnished, showing signs of long habitation. It seemed odd to find Lukys so domesticated, particularly as he’d apparently acquired—along with all these other worldly possessions—a rather attractive young wife.
“I’m rather proud of my cooling system. It’s ingenious, don’t you think?”
Cayal turned to find Lukys walking into the atrium, dressed in a loose wrap, similar to those the natives wore in Magreth before it was destroyed. His feet were bare on the cool, blue tiles, and he was carrying two glasses full of juice, beaded with condensation.
“I’m surprised by it, actually,” Cayal replied, accepting the juice. It was thick and pulpy, pale green and delicious. Cayal wasn’t sure what fruits it was made from, but apparently Lukys had chosen his wife for more than her spectacular body. He’d also dispensed with the rule about women wearing a shroud in the presence of any man not a member of their family, which Cayal was grateful for. He found speaking to any woman concealed from head to toe by those wretched shrouds a disturbing proposition.
“Why are you surprised, Cayal?”
“You never struck me as the sort to put down roots, Lukys,” Cayal said. “And yet here you are, as settled as any mortal. A house, a wife…Tides, you haven’t got a couple brats hiding out the back, have you?”
Lukys smiled. “I’m not all that fond of children. But don’t tell Oritha that. She thinks I can’t wait to start a family. She believes I just have…emotional issues to deal with first.”
“Does she know you’re immortal?” he asked as he followed Lukys to the terrace, wondering how the young woman might have reacted to the news.
“Of course not. She thinks I’m a gem merchant from Stevania.”
He sat down next to his old companion on the elegantly wrought marble bench, already warmed by the rising sun. “You haven’t been married that long, I take it?”
“A couple of years. I found her in Ramahn. She’s the youngest of five daughters. Her father couldn’t wait to be rid of her.”
“You don’t love her?”
Lukys laughed at the very idea. “Tides, Cayal! Surely you’ve learnt better than that by now? When was the last time you were stupid enough to fall in love? She loves me, that’s what’s important.”
Cayal took a long drink from his glass to avoid answering the question, certain any discussion about his love life would attract nothing but the older man’s derision. “What made you decide to take a wife again after all this time?”
“I’m studying something important.”
“What are you studying that requires a wife? Marital bliss?”
The older man seemed amused. “I just decided if I was going to take time to work on this thing, I might as well be comfortable. Oritha is very pleasant to look at, runs my household efficiently and keeps me company when I’m in the mood.”
“You could get all that from a Crasii.”
“Only if bestiality was my particular hobby, which it’s not.
Besides, with a Crasii I could never be sure I haven’t got a Scard lurking around, waiting to slit my throat while I’m asleep one night in a futile attempt to rid the world of an evil Tide Lord.” He leaned back and took a sip of his juice. “No thanks, Oritha is everything I need in the way of companionship at the moment.”
“So she’s really a replacement for your pet rat,” Cayal concluded.
Lukys smiled. “Do me a favour, would you, and don’t repeat that in front of my wife. She was actually quite glad to see the end of Coron and it was hard to explain to her how long we’d been together.”
“What happened to Coron, anyway?”
“I told you,” Lukys reminded him. “He died.”
Cayal leaned forward and placed his glass on the low railing on the edge of the terrace. “You haven’t told me how.”
Ignoring his guest’s impatience, Lukys finished off his drink before answering. “Has it never occurred to you, Sparky, in the depths of your relentless, self-obsessed depression, that your futile quest for a way to end your own life is a dire threat to the rest of us?”
“It’s my existence I want to end,” he said. “It’s not a threat to anyone else.”
“But if you succeed in dying, then the rest of the immortals can be killed, too. Effectively, we’ll cease to be immortal.”
Cayal remained unmoved. “I really don’t care, Lukys.”
“You might not care, Sunshine, but you need to be aware that others do. Hard as I know you find this to grasp, some of us don’t mind the idea of living forever. If our immortal brethren thought you might actually succeed in your insane desire to commit suicide, they’d go to a great deal of trouble to stop you.”
“But if what you’re telling me about Coron is right, you have succeeded, Lukys. Why aren’t you battening down the hatches and preparing for the siege?”
He shrugged. “Because nobody knows about it, yet. And I’m counting on the fact that you don’t plan to spread the news.” Lukys rose to his feet, looked out over the desert for a time and then turned to look at Cayal. “In fact, I’m willing to wager anything you name that you’ll keep it quiet.”
The Gods of Amyrantha Page 9
