Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  What plans? Duon wanted to ask. And how do you know them? But he said nothing. The mercenary had the Omeran in thrall. How could he oppose both of them?

  You’ll have to win the girl’s loyalty first, said the cynical voice. Once you have her, the slave will follow. You saw them rutting.

  Pure anger rose to the forefront of Duon’s mind at this advice given in such a cavalier fashion. How many people thought they could give him instructions?

  I will hold no further speech with you until you reveal who you are and how you are able to speak into my mind, he projected.

  Not much of a diplomat, are you, said the voice. In fact, disappointingly unintelligent. The sort who always pays full price at the market. Your appearance no doubt sets the stallholders rubbing their hands in anticipation. What sort of bargaining position is that?

  Duon was about to reply when he remembered the vow he’d just made. And his traitorous mind recalled his infrequent forays into the Talamaq markets. The voice was right: he always paid what the stallholders asked.

  Of course I’m right. You have no idea how much of your mind is open to me. If you would stop dissembling and listen to my advice, we could put an end to this Dryman. I can see that you want to.

  Fruitless to deny it.

  Dryman chose that moment to order their departure. Duon slung a makeshift rucksack over his shoulder; it would no doubt become extremely uncomfortable for a few days. He was more worried by the journey itself, as the day they had spent outside Raceme’s walls had not been as long a rest as he needed. After their ordeals in Nomansland and the Had Hill country, they needed time to recover, and they would not get it with Dryman in charge.

  Plan, he had to plan. But essential to planning was knowledge, and he had very little. Dryman kept much from him, he knew, and the cynical voice said nothing about its origins or purpose. Of most importance, however, was working out some way of thinking without the voice in his head picking the thoughts out of his mind.

  He would ask the dumpy woman. She could speak directly into his mind, just like the cynical voice, but she seemed much friendlier and more likely to tell him what he needed to know.

  ‘Vuh wuhnn wihh vuh wahy sssouw ihs,’ said the mushy, inarticulate voice. A startled Duon realised he could hear her even when she was nowhere to be seen. Simultaneously the same voice—or, more accurately, a crystal-clear version of it—spoke directly into his brain.

  The one with the wide shoulders.

  A pause; presumably while someone spoke to the girl.

  ‘Ahhss hihh venn.’

  Ask him then.

  Duon pounded the heel of his hand against his temple in frustration. She had been talking for half an hour now, her two voices entwining themselves in his head. As far as he could make out, the girl was arguing with her father and brother as to how soon they should encourage Duon to explain why he could hear her thoughts. Her father was angry that a stranger should know how special his children were. If he was a danger he ought to be eliminated, Duon understood the man to be saying; though because he had to piece the argument together from the girl’s responses, it was difficult to tell. The father’s anger was a semipermanent state, according to his daughter, who didn’t seem to take the implied threat to Duon that seriously. Her brother counselled caution with regard to the southern stranger, seemingly concerned that continued mind contact would attract attention from someone or something—it wasn’t clear what.

  The cynical voice, he thought. It could not be anything else. This voice might well be responsible for the events in Nomansland that had led them here. For the hundredth time that day Duon wondered who—what—the voice was, and what its interest was in him.

  Even though he could not hear their responses to the girl’s words, Duon was convinced she wasn’t telling her father and brother the whole truth. It seemed to Duon that she actively transmitted her thoughts to him; it certainly wasn’t him seeking her out, as her father thought. How else could he explain the fact that her thoughts were much stronger this afternoon than they had been this morning?

  I must find this woman.

  The resolution was easy to make but much harder to enact. Dryman did not insist that Duon remain beside him, but he knew he’d have to give a good reason if he was to leave the soldier’s side. So, over the course of the late afternoon, Duon increased his pace by small fractions, drawing Dryman and the two other southerners forward through the knots of marching Racemen refugees.

  ‘Why are we hurrying?’ Dryman asked. Somewhere ahead a child wailed.

  ‘Hurrying? Just keeping the leaders in sight,’ Duon replied, licking his lips.

  The man’s voice frightened him. To lie to Dryman dried out his mouth. Not really a lie, just a small deception, but his mouth prickled all the same.

  ‘So you’ve decided to be a little less stubborn?’ Dryman said. ‘Good. The Emperor may yet be pleased with you, Captain Duon.’

  And the man gave him a smile that frightened Duon more than any expression he’d yet seen.

  The red-haired man’s daughter shone. Every time Lenares looked at her she was almost blinded. Her brother shone almost as strongly. Even the red-haired man glowed a little, or at least something about him did. It was not what others would call a ‘real’ shining, as she did not see it with her eyes; the effect came from the way their numbers related to each other. As usual, Lenares did not have words to explain it, but as she kept her insight to herself it did not matter. She could not tell what made this family shine, but from their numbers she knew it was good, or mostly good. She wanted to speak to the woman, but did not know their language well enough yet.

  Well then, you will have to learn, she told herself. You still have time.

  She hugged herself with delight. And I will have time to learn all Torve can teach me. She had overheard talk amongst the trainee cosmographers: giggling in the night, whispered secrets and the occasional unverifiable claim. It had all sounded silly to Lenares. But now she knew the secret of the warm pink feeling. Or, at least, that there was a secret.

  Captain Duon hurried her, Torve and Dryman through the four thousand, seven hundred and sixteen other people walking Fatherward, away from the ruined town. He slowed down only when the family of the red-haired man came into view. It appeared that she was not the only one fascinated by this family: the captain kept casting secret glances towards them, though Lenares could see that Dryman had also noticed this attention. Could the captain see the family shining? Did he have some of the specialness Lenares had? She did not think so. He had shown no sign of it before. He had not sensed the attack in the Valley of the Damned. If he had a real cosmographer’s skills, if he was gifted with numbers, he would not have allowed the expedition to be destroyed in the ambush. So what was he so interested in?

  Just ahead of them, the red-haired man called a halt. The clear sky had begun to purple towards night, and the refugees needed time to gather wood for their fires and raise whatever shelter they could.

  A woman nearby claimed that the next village, called Buntha, was one more day’s walk away. Lenares wondered how large it was, and whether the villagers could help four thousand, seven hundred and twenty people.

  And here came the red-haired man’s daughter now, along with her brother, walking up boldly as though they had nothing to fear.

  ‘My sister wants to talk to you,’ said the boy, pointing at Captain Duon.

  ‘You seem to have made a friend,’ said Dryman, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. His smile hurt Lenares’ head; there was something wrong with it. It was not just that he smiled even though he was definitely not happy. Lots of people did that. It was as if he used his smile to scare people.

  ‘I will share with you anything of interest I learn,’ said Captain Duon to Dryman in a whisper.

  Lenares looked closely at the girl’s face. It was obvious that she heard the captain’s whisper, even though she was at least ten paces away. Lenares had barely heard it herself. How had the girl done th
at?

  ‘Very well then,’ Dryman said. ‘Take the cosmographer with you. She is your charge now, if you recall, and may see much that you miss. I will have a full report tomorrow morning.’ He smiled again. ‘Torve and I have an errand or two of our own to perform. We may not be back when you return.’

  Lenares saw the stricken look pass across her beloved’s face, but could not read its meaning. She would ask him tomorrow.

  The two southerners were led to a small fire, where they sat and shared small portions of stream water, bread and meat from some undersized animal. There were twenty-three tiny bones in the portion Lenares was given, and she crunched on one of them before realising it, but at least the meat was hot and seasoned with a pleasant spice. She wondered if the rest of the refugees ate as well as this.

  Six people sat around the fire. Along with herself and Captain Duon, there was the shining family (Noetos, Arathé and Anomer) and one other man, dark-haired, slightly portly and somewhat older than Noetos, the man with red hair. He said only two things during the entire evening. Another four men came and went; servants perhaps, though at one point they were referred to as ‘Noetos’s army’. A fifth man called Seren spent six minutes with Noetos discussing supplies for the refugees, then left.

  Lenares remembered the girl had no tongue, so was unsurprised when she spoke so badly. It made her words hard to understand, but her numbers helped Lenares make sense of most of what she said.

  ‘You hear my words in your head’ was what she said to Captain Duon in her squishy voice. Her brother interpreted for her.

  ‘Yes,’ Captain Duon replied. ‘I suspect I hear more than you realise. When you are close by I seem to hear your words as you say them to others, even those you are not saying to me. And I hear your voice clearly in my mind translating the words, or perhaps I’m hearing your thoughts as you put them together to speak them. I don’t know whether you are deliberately sending me your thoughts.’

  ‘Sometimes I do, sometimes not,’ she said via her brother. ‘So do you hear anything when I don’t deliberately put the words in your mind?’

  ‘If I understand correctly, I hear your true voice, without translation.’ Then Duon held up his hand. ‘Enough: I do not have much time. My master could recall me at any moment. We can find out the mechanics of all this with experimentation. I am much more interested in what is happening to us, and why.’

  ‘And you don’t want your master hearing this discussion,’ the girl’s brother said. His expression made it clear this was not a question.

  ‘No,’ Duon replied.

  Then there was an unheard exchange. Lenares focused every mote of her concentration, but could hear nothing but a faint buzzing—perhaps the sound of her own brain. The girl and her brother participated, as did Captain Duon. This, more than anything, convinced her they were telling the truth.

  Powers! New powers! Her first thought was to get them for herself.

  ‘I visited the place called Andratan two years ago,’ Captain Duon said aloud; and the red-haired man leaned forward, a frown on his broad, weather-scarred face. ‘I was sent Fatherward—northward—by the great Emperor of Elamaq to take the measure of the barbarians who live there. Please, I offer no offence. I am sure you share similar thoughts about those who live to your Daughterward—I mean south—if you have even heard of us. I discovered much of interest, and made my way north to the town of Malayu.’

  ‘Town? Malayu is a great city, the largest in the world,’ the red-haired man said. ‘Are you sure you were in the right place?’

  ‘Malayu is indeed a great place, as great as the Third of Brick, which is one of the parts of Talamaq, the city at the heart of our empire,’ Captain Duon said, sweeping his hand to include Lenares. ‘But it had no tri-spired Palace of Gold, no broad avenues, no great industries of brick and glass. I saw little there but squalor and oppression.’ He smiled. ‘Again, forgive me. Your eyes would perhaps see similar things in Talamaq where I would not. And, to balance this, it is true that Bhrudwo has natural resources far greater than that of the Elamaq Empire.’

  ‘So you went north, hoping to engage the Undying Man’s interest in some sort of trade treaty proposal?’ the red-haired man asked, the frown still fixed on his face.

  ‘Of course.’ Captain Duon smiled, and then passed one of those moments that had always confused Lenares. He was lying; the Emperor had always planned to invade the rich Fatherward lands. The captain knew that. His listeners knew he was lying, and the captain knew they knew. He had just told them he was spying out the land to prepare for an invasion, and everyone was happy in a way they would not have been had he come straight out and said it.

  Such moments caused Lenares trouble, but today she could see what they were doing. Captain Duon had built a wall of politeness with his words; a wall he could hide behind, and one that could not be knocked down by anyone else without them being impolite in turn.

  While she considered this, the conversation had moved on. Captain Duon had resumed his telling.

  ‘I spent a month in Andratan, waiting for an audience with the Undying Man. Many people there confirmed the widespread belief that he was ancient, preserved by magic, but when I finally met him he seemed perfectly ordinary. I explained who I was and whom I represented. The Undying Man seemed interested, and invited me to return in due course with a retinue of unspecified size. He issued an invitation to the Emperor to journey to Andratan and share wine with him. I thanked him and left.’

  Another moment of shared silence. This time the buzzing was a little louder.

  ‘Sorry, er…sorry,’ the girl’s brother said to Lenares. ‘We haven’t been introduced. My sister Arathé just asked your…ah, master? Brother?’

  ‘Captain Duon,’ Lenares said impatiently. ‘I am Cosmographer Lenares.’

  The captain translated this for her.

  ‘Ah. I am Anomer, and this man is my father, Noetos the Fisher. Beside him sits Bregor, the Hegeoman of Fossa village. Using mind-speech, Arathé asked your Captain Duon how long he spent in the dungeons of Andratan, and he replied that he hadn’t known the fortress had any dungeons. My sister told him that he must live in a benign country if fortresses there do not have dungeons below them.’

  Captain Duon smiled weakly.

  ‘I met the Emperor in the dungeons under the Talamaq Palace,’ Lenares said, her voice loud in the sudden silence. She realised a moment too late that this would make Captain Duon look foolish. ‘He let me go, though, when I told him about the hole in the world.’

  The captain did not translate her words, and the four strangers looked at her blankly.

  Of course; they know nothing of our language and they do not have numbers to help them understand. She laughed self-consciously, wishing she could deflect their stares.

  ‘What did she say?’ the red-haired man, Noetos, asked Captain Duon.

  ‘Oh, nothing of importance,’ he replied. His reply angered Lenares. What made him think she was of no importance?

  Arathé told them she had been a prisoner in the dungeons of Andratan two years ago. ‘The same time as Captain Duon awaited his audience, most likely,’ her brother said. ‘That cannot be a coincidence,’ he added unnecessarily.

  ‘So, is this something all the gifted share?’ Noetos said. ‘Or was it implanted during your visit to Andratan?’

  ‘I am gifted,’ Lenares said before she could help herself, but again the strangers did not understand her.

  ‘I don’t share it,’ Anomer said.

  ‘Yet I’ve heard your voice in my mind,’ said his father.

  Anomer frowned. ‘As far as we can tell, that is through Arathé’s gift. My thoughts travel through her to you. Perhaps it depends to an extent on my own magical ability, but without Arathé I cannot go beyond the confines of my own head.’

  ‘You hear voices also?’ Captain Duon asked Noetos.

  ‘Only my son and daughter, and only when they choose to include me,’ he said, the merest trace of asperity in his voi
ce.

  ‘Voices?’ Anomer said to the captain. ‘You hear voices other than my sister?’

  As fascinated as Lenares was by the idea of hearing voices in one’s head, she had questions of her own that could wait no longer.

  ‘Ask her why her family shines so brightly,’ she said to Captain Duon. She recalled one of Mahudia’s many sayings. ‘Don’t ignore me like I am a bedpost. Ask them my question.’

  ‘But, Lenares…very well.’

  He turned to their bemused hosts and asked her question. Their attention shifted to her.

  ‘Shines? What do you mean?’

  She saw the look on the father’s face; the same look so many others had given her in the past. Halfwit, his face said to her, much more loudly than his audible words. So she wasted no time, and laid out what the numbers had told her.

  ‘You hold back a great secret,’ she said, pointing at Noetos. ‘But it is not a secret any more. Your son knows it, though your daughter does not. Others know it too. You want to tell them, even though you think they will hate you forever because of it.’

  The family stared at her, then at Captain Duon, waiting for the translation. The captain seemed uncomfortable.

  ‘Translate for me, Captain,’ Lenares demanded. ‘I will know if you change my words.’

  Duon scowled at her, but did as she bade him.

  ‘What is this?’ Noetos growled. He turned to Anomer. ‘What have you been telling these people?’

  The boy looked upset. ‘Father, nothing would make me reveal your secrets. They are not mine to tell. I haven’t even spoken of them to Arathé yet.’

  His sister grabbed him by the arm. ‘Wahh seeyits?’ She glanced from her brother to her father and back again, then focused on Lenares.

  Lenares smiled. I am special too.

  Captain Duon sighed. ‘Lenares is a cosmographer. Her mentor said she is the best we’ve had in a thousand years. She can read the patterns all around us; converts them into numbers, or some such thing. That she sees something special about you and your family is clear. Would you be able to guess at what she means by a “shining”? Then we can return to the important questions.’