The Gods of Amyrantha

by Jennifer Fallon

  Chapter 69

  The Dog and Bone was, for an inn that catered almost exclusively to Crasii, quite a salubrious establishment. Like much of Torlenian architecture, the inn was really more a set of separate buildings contained within a high, enclosing wall, than the traditional definition of a house. It offered separate taprooms for canine and feline patrons, and a smaller room with a shallow pool out the back for the many amphibious sailors who frequented this busy seaport. Tiji, with her diplomatic papers and guarantee of Glaeban funds to settle her bill, was able to secure the best room in the house.

  Cayal and Tiji had parted ways on the outskirts of the city. The Tide Lord kept his promise to Arkady to see Tiji safely back to civilisation, but had no interest in prolonging their acquaintanceship. Even so, he’d been in a strangely buoyant mood on the way from the abbey, as if the prospect of Brynden’s assistance had lifted a heavy weight off him. Tiji had been unable to glean any useful details from him—she’d begun to suspect Cayal had no idea how this miraculous cure for immortality was supposed to work—but she was certain of one thing.

  Cayal believed he’d found a way to die.

  And if you could kill one Tide Lord, you could kill all of them.

  All Tiji had to do now was find a way to get a message to someone in the Cabal, and let them know about it.

  This is where her plans fell apart. She had no reliable way of sending a message back to Declan without delivering it herself. That was something she was reluctant to do, until she was sure Arkady was safe. It wasn’t all affection for the duchess that made her worry for Arkady’s fate. Tiji had a suspicion that if Declan had to choose between finding a way to kill a Tide Lord and finding Arkady, the immortals would run a poor second.

  Even if that wasn’t the case, the truth was Arkady’s situation was more immediate, and something Tiji could do something to affect. The Tide Lords had been around for thousands of years, and if Cayal were to be believed, any method for disposing of them was dependent on the Tide peaking.

  That was years away.

  She had time, she figured, to wait here in Elvere for a couple of weeks, meet up with Arkady again, and then find a way to get a message back to the Cabal that didn’t involve either of them being arrested and tried for anything. If she could find somewhere safe for Arkady to hide, then she could head back to Glaeba herself, deliver her news about the Tide Lords, and tell Declan where Arkady was stashed.

  Then it would be up to him to decide which was more important.

  It took her several days to come to this conclusion, by which time she’d also decided something else. Back when she’d first been rescued from the travelling carnival by Declan and Markun Far Jisa—the only Senestran member of the Pentangle—she’d heard another name mentioned in connection with the Cabal of the Tarot.

  Ryda Tarek.

  He was mixed up with the Cabal, somehow, which meant she could probably count on his help. And he lived near Elvere. Markun had told her that much about him the last time she’d visited Senestra on business for the King’s Spymaster. On her way home from Senestra, she’d shipped through Elvere, and stayed at The Dog and Bone before boarding another ship bound for Glaeba.

  If she could find the gem merchant Ryda Tarek, and prevail upon him to hide Arkady, then she’d have nothing more to worry about. Arkady would be safe, Declan would be happy, and Tiji could stop worrying about both of them and get on with the more important job, which was finding out about this potential weapon they could use against the Tide Lords.

  After enquiring of the innkeeper where the gem merchants of Elvere were likely to be found, and getting directions from him, Tiji left the inn, heading in the direction of the merchant quarter, which would take her away from the slave markets and further into the city near the wharves. As was the case in most Torlenian cities, all the women were shrouded unless they were slaves, Crasii or prostitutes. The double standard always intrigued her about Torlenians. They insisted “respectable women” be shrouded, but prostitutes seemed to be unconcerned by the law and many Crasii, from a distance, looked human enough to tempt any man easily led off the path of righteousness. Not being human, Tiji wasn’t required to wear a shroud, but she still had the burnous she’d worn in the desert and chose that to conceal—and protect—her silver-scaled skin. She wouldn’t pass close inspection, but she wouldn’t cause idle comment, either.

  The alternative—to go naked and have the ability to blend in against any wall she stopped against—was only useful if she was playing a watching game. And bordering on dangerous in such a hot place, where the sun was likely to burn her to a crisp if she stayed out in it for too long.

  It was quite a walk to the merchant quarter and by midday, when the heat of the day prompted the shop owners the city over to close for a few hours, Tiji was hungry. She stopped for a drink at the community well in the centre of one of the small markets dotting the city. Spying a cart-owner selling skewers of cooked meat, about to pack up for the midday break, she hurried over to him, offering him five copper fenets for the last two skewers he had on his grill. The man happily sold her the somewhat dry and overcooked meat, grabbing her hand as she proffered the coins.

  He looked at her silver-scaled skin for a moment and then studied her curiously. “Don’t see your type in the city too often.”

  Tiji snatched her hand out of his grasp. “That’s probably because you’re so damned rude here in the city, we’d rather stay at home.”

  The food-seller smiled. “Too afraid of us big, scary, hairy humans, be more like it. Still, I ain’t the sort to pick on a person just because they’re different. Takes all kinds, I say. Where’re you headed?”

  She glared at him. “What’s it to you?”

  He shrugged. “Nothin’, I suppose. You enjoy your meal, now, won’t you?”

  Tiji turned from the cart, frowning, not sure why the cart-owner had taken such an interest in her. She bit into the meat on the skewer, pleased to discover it was quite spicy and much more edible than it looked. She ate as she walked, tossing the skewers aside once she’d finished. Because the city was about to close for the midday break, there was a last-minute frenzy of activity, and for a time the streets seemed to fill to overflowing.

  She rounded the corner of the next street and turned onto the main thoroughfare leading to the city centre and the wharves. It was then she spied the ox-drawn wagon full of slaves, heading toward the docks. At first she paid it little attention, just another wagon in a crowded street, but then she glanced at the wagon again, mostly because of the rare sight of its unshrouded human female passengers.

  Her first thought was the strangeness of the sight, her next an overwhelming feeling of pity for such wretched creatures. It was then that she noticed the woman in the centre, taller than her companions, paler, and definitely not Torlenian.

  Tides, she looks so much like Arkady…

  Only it couldn’t be Arkady, Tiji knew, because Arkady was back at Brynden’s abbey, safe and sound for the time being, until Cayal returned with Lukys.

  Safe in the care of an immortal bent on vengeance against the man who had escorted her to him…

  Oh Tides… Tiji thought, shouldering her way through the crowd to catch up. Would Brynden do something so awful to Arkady? she asked herself, as the wagon plodded forward.

  Of course he would, she replied to herself. There’s no limit to what he’d do to get back at Cayal.

  “Your grace!” she called, wondering if Arkady would even hear her over the noise of the market, the crowd and the unexpectedness of anybody finding her here. “Over here!”

  She watched in despair as Arkady closed her eyes, perhaps thinking she imagined the call, maybe not hearing it at all.

  “Arkady!” she yelled, as loud as she could, drawing curious looks from the people around her.

  This time Arkady heard her. She sat up, looking around, searching the crowded street for a familiar face. Tiji raised her arm to signal her, but before she could do more than wave on
ce, someone grabbed her from behind.

  A gloved hand was clamped over her mouth to prevent her screaming and she was dragged backward through a doorway, into a dark room beyond. Struggling frantically, she sensed another person waiting inside.

  “Help me keep her still,” the man holding her said, as she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Tides, it’s like trying to hold down a swamp eel.”

  Tiji was glad they were having trouble holding on to her, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. A dark bag was forced over her head, shutting out all the light, which made her struggle even harder. She kicked the man who’d grabbed her in the shin as hard as she could, gratified to hear him grunt in pain, and then tried to bite his gloved hand, when she felt the ropes around her ankles. It made little difference in the end. With the speed that comes only with true expertise, she was bound and immobile within seconds, after which, she was laid—with surprising care—onto the floor.

  She felt, rather than saw one of the men come closer. She could tell he’d squatted down beside her, because his voice sounded just near her ear when he spoke.

  “Take it easy, little lizard,” the man advised gently. “Be still and you won’t be hurt.”

  Tiji thought of any number of crude and rebellious responses, but she never got to voice any of them. No sooner had he spoken than a damp cloth was pressed over her mouth and nose through the dark bag covering her head. It smelled faintly sweet and damp and she had no choice but to breathe it in, after which Tiji saw and felt nothing more.

  When Tiji came to, it happened abruptly. One moment she was out cold, the next she realised she was lying on the ground surrounded by a circle of torch-bearing strangers. In a panic, she struggled to sit up, glaring at the circle of faceless bodies surrounding her. In the darkness she could only make out their eyes, which reflected like small, lidless mirrors in the firelight.

  “Don’t be afraid,” a voice whispered gently. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, I got that when you jumped me in broad daylight, knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me.”

  “It was necessary,” another disembodied voice told her. “You might not have come willingly.”

  “You’ve got that much right,” she said, climbing warily to her feet, figuring she had a much better chance of running from that position than sitting on the ground. Nobody tried to stop her from standing. If anything, they moved back a little to give her room. “Who are you people, anyway? Slavers?”

  Someone laughed. “Actually, we’re quite the opposite. We’re…un-slavers…I suppose you could call us.”

  “I don’t think that’s a word.”

  “Probably not. What’s your name?”

  “Tiji,” she told them warily, wishing she could see beyond the circle of torches. “What’s yours?”

  Finally, one of her captors stepped into the light to reveal himself. A little taller than her and completely hairless, he wore not a stitch of clothing. It was immediately apparent why Tiji had such trouble making out her kidnappers. It wasn’t the light.

  They were camouflaged.

  The young male stepped forward—and he was most definitely male—allowing his skin to assume its natural silver sheen. He smiled at her, amused—it seemed—by Tiji’s slack-jawed shock.

  “My name is Azquil and we haven’t come to enslave you, Tiji,” the chameleon Crasii said. “We’ve come to take you home.”

  Chapter 70

  Lukys was not at home. Cayal didn’t even need to reach the villa to realise this, but he stopped there, just the same, hoping the Tide Lord had left some hint about his location with his wife, Oritha. He was greeted by the young woman like an honoured guest. Pathetically grateful for some company, she arranged a lavish feast for her husband’s old friend, and then told Cayal of the message Lukys had left for him.

  “He’s gone to Jelidia, my lord,” Oritha announced later that evening, as she cleared away the supper dishes. She had served him herself, never leaving him alone for more than a moment or two, as if afraid he would vanish if she took her eyes off him for too long.

  “Jelidia?”

  “My Ryda travels a lot,” the young woman explained with a smile. “He’s a very important man.”

  Cayal frowned for a moment at the name, and then remembered that was the identity Lukys was using these days. Ryda Tarek, wealthy gem merchant from Stevania.

  “Why Jelidia?”

  “He said something about checking on something valuable he’d left in storage, down there.” She smiled coyly. “Will you be staying the night, my lord?”

  Cayal nodded, wondering what possible reason Lukys could have for checking on Kentravyon now. Unless he feared the returning Tide was weakening the bonds that held the frozen Tide Lord, there was no reason for him to go there.

  “Has he been gone long?” he asked, thinking if Lukys didn’t have too big a head start on him, it might be worth catching up with his old friend to enquire why he felt the need to head for the southern continent. Kentravyon had been trapped for thousands of years. It seemed an odd time to think about him now.

  “Several months now, my lord,” Oritha said. “Of course, he wasn’t going straight to Jelidia. He had business in Glaeba first, that he had to take care of.”

  “Lu—Ryda had business in Glaeba? What sort of business?”

  The young woman shrugged. “Gem business, I suppose. Lebec is the source of most of the world’s freshwater pearls, isn’t it? I imagine his business in Glaeba had something to do with that. And he’d probably wanted to visit his son.”

  Cayal stared at her. “His son?”

  She nodded. “I’ve never met him, of course, and he’s probably a grown man by now. His mother was Ryda’s first wife.”

  “Ryda Tarek has a son in Glaeba?” Cayal said, very slowly and precisely, just to make certain he was hearing this right. He was afraid to ask too closely about the “first” wife, either, in case he gave the game away by laughing out loud. Whoever he was referring to, it certainly wasn’t Lukys’s first wife. Tides, Lukys’s first wife had probably been dead ten thousand years. Oritha—assuming Lukys even bothered to keep count any longer—might well be his fiftieth bride.

  What lies has that old swindler spun this poor girl to keep her from asking too many awkward questions about his past?

  “It pains him so much, not having been there to watch his son grow up,” Oritha sighed, oblivious to Cayal’s cynicism. “And it’s one of the reasons he’s so reluctant to bring another child into the world, I’m sure. He refuses to admit it, but I can tell how much he fears dying unexpectedly and leaving another child to grow up fatherless, just as his son was forced to grow up without a father after his mother died.”

  “And why, exactly, wasn’t Ryda there to raise his son?”

  “He was away buying gems when the boy’s mother died,” she explained. “By the time Ryda had returned, the boy had been taken back to Glaeba by his mother’s family, and by the time he discovered where they were, the boy was almost grown and it didn’t seem fair to take him away from everything he knew and loved. It pained him greatly, to accept it, but in the end, everyone agreed it was better to let the child stay with his mother’s family in Glaeba.”

  Cayal took a good long swallow of wine to hide his amusement. You sly old bastard, he thought, watching Oritha’s credulous sympathy for her husband’s loss and the plight of his undoubtedly imaginary son. How long did it take you to come up with that pathetic sob story to stop her pressuring you for a child of her own?

  He took a good swallow and put the wine cup down once he was sure he was in no danger of smiling. “So, after buying up his gems in Glaeba and dropping in on his boy, Ryda was heading for Jelidia, you say?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Wasn’t he worried about arriving in Jelidia just as winter will be setting in?”

  “He didn’t seem to be,” Oritha said. “Would you like more wine, my lord?”

  Cayal nodded and
held out his cup for a refill. “Did he leave any other messages for me?”

  She filled his wine, put down the decanter and then turned away, going to the sideboard where she opened a drawer and took out a small roll of parchment, sealed with a dollop of red wax. She walked back to the table and handed it to Cayal.

  “Ryda said you’d probably be back, and that when you arrived, I was to give you this.”

  Cayal took the small scroll, broke the seal and opened it curiously. There was one short paragraph written in ancient Magrethan, a language so old only another immortal was likely to understand it.

  When you’re done fooling around with Brynden, the note said, get your sorry royal arse to Caelum and start wooing Elyssa. Brynden has no interest in aiding you and will screw you any way he can, but I fear he’s going to have to prove that to you in person before you listen to me. We need quite a few of us to do this, Cayal, and we’re going to have to do it when the Tide peaks. I can convince the others, but you are the only one on Amyrantha who can convince Elyssa to join us.

  Underneath was a postscript.

  And while you’re a guest in my house, I would consider it a personal favour if you refrained from sleeping with my wife.

  “The message is good news?” Oritha asked.

  Cayal rolled the letter up, and studied her closely for a moment. Tides, Lukys…“I’d appreciate it if you refrained from sleeping with my wife”? That bordered on a dare.

  And Oritha really was very pretty.

  “It’s…mixed news. Did you say something about staying the night?”

  She nodded, lowering her eyes. “It’s too late for you to head back into the city now, my lord. I’ll make up a pallet for you in the guest room, if you like.”

  “Haven’t you got servants to do that for you?”

  She shook her head. “Ryda doesn’t like servants. They distract him, he says.”

  “That must make it very lonely out here for you, my lady,” he said, wondering what he was doing, even as he said it. He even spared Arkady a momentary thought, which actually hardened his resolve. Cayal was determined not to let that woman get under his skin any more than she already was.