by Giles Carwyn
“What is your bargain?” Lawdon asked.
“I get you out of the city, and you find Shara. Help her.”
“Why not send another of your Zelani to bring her back?” Lawdon asked.
“Shara does not wish to come back. She made that very clear last night. I just want to make sure she is not alone, wherever she is going next. You are one of her oldest friends. She desperately needs someone like that right now.”
“Where is she?”
“The Petal Islands. There is one particular island close to the city with a large grove of cypress on the southern shore. It is very important to her.”
Lawdon shot Mikal a quick look, then peered back at Caleb. “So you’re just going to let us go? Just like that?”
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Caleb said in his soft voice.
“You’ll give us back our ship?” Mikal asked. Lawdon flicked him an annoyed glance. Our ship?
“That is beyond my power, I’m afraid. The council would insist you face a full trial. That could take months, with everything else that is happening. But I can get you out of the city.”
Lawdon was silent for a long moment. She had to report to Reignholtz. She wanted to help Shara, and she needed the Zelani’s advice about Vinghelt. If the man was truly a mage, they had to find a way to match him.
“What about my crew?”
“They will be treated as honored guests until they are released. They can come south to find you afterward.”
“I came north to warn the council. I must—”
“Yes. I saw your memories. I will bring your message about Lord Vinghelt and his plans to the council’s attention. They have many weighty matters to consider right now, but I will do everything I can for you in that regard.”
There were only hard decisions, no matter which way she turned. Slowly, she nodded.
“I will go after Shara. How do we help her?” she asked.
“Just be there for her. Don’t let her grieve alone. Send her back to us when she is ready. Ohndarien needs her now more than ever.” Caleb smiled. “Simply use the tenacity you have shown so far.”
Lawdon couldn’t help but return a small smile of her own.
“How do we get out of the city?” Mikal asked.
“I have a friend manning the Sunrise Gate. Don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t hail the guards, just sail straight for the center of the gate, and the doors will open for you.”
“What exactly are we supposed to sail?” Mikal demanded.
Caleb shrugged lightly. “I am sure you’ll find something.” He touched Lawdon’s cheek again. This time she did not flinch. The fear in her heart had eased. Was this what a real Zelani was meant to do?
“I could ease your pain,” he said softly. “I could erase the fingerprints Suvian left behind. You should never have had to bear that burden.”
She swallowed. “Thank you, but I think I’ll keep my past right where it is.”
His eyes held hers for another moment, as though silently offering her a chance to change her mind. “A wise choice,” he finally said, removing his fingers.
She felt the loss immediately, like a smooth, warm rock taken from cold hands. She noticed for the first time how incredibly attractive Caleb was. He had a boyish face, which wasn’t usually what she liked, but the warmth of his eyes made him feel genuine and reassuring. He was a good man, with all the power Suvian possessed but none of the desire to abuse it. What would it be like to have such a man touch her, to welcome him into her arms?
Caleb smiled at her, gave Mikal a brief nod, then jumped off the roof.
Mikal rushed to the edge and looked down. After a moment, he let out a small huff.
“Nice trick, for a dusteater,” he mumbled, turning to look at Lawdon.
Still feeling the kind touch of Caleb’s hand on her cheek, Lawdon snorted at Mikal. “I wish we could stay here another month and let that man teach you something about women.”
Mikal bowed with a flourish. “And destroy the single perfect mystery in this world? Never.”
“Enough,” she said, moving to the edge of the roof. A thick growth of vines clung to the wall. She swung her legs over and started down.
Mikal followed her. When they stood on the street in the deep shadows between the two buildings, Mikal brushed his hands on his breeches, looked ruefully at her ship, half-visible down the alley.
“How, exactly, shall we be going?” he asked.
“Well.” Lawdon chewed her lip. “We can walk or sail.”
Mikal give her a scornful look.
She chuckled. “I thought as much. Then we sail.”
“Splendid. You plan to take your ship back in a rush? We could overwhelm them with our army of two.”
“No.”
“Then what shall we be taking?”
“Ever sailed an Ohndarien waterbug?”
CHAPTER 2
Phanqui struggled to keep the hatred off his face as Lord Vinghelt’s men rowed them across the harbor. Little waterfalls still poured from the cliffs on either side of them. Last night had brought the largest storm he had seen in years. The life-giving deluge seemed like an omen, a promise from the Nine that they would wash the foreigners from the face of the earth.
Vinghelt laughed with his men as he spun a silver chain around his finger. He was never without the chain holding the jade pendant of his beloved fish goddess. He wore it everywhere, along with the jeweled broach and one of a hundred silk cloaks embroidered with the image of the bare-breasted mermaid. Her likeness was carved into the prow of this runabout, from her flowing tresses to her long, scaly tail.
Your goddess won’t save you here, Phanqui thought. This land still belongs to the Nine.
Death waited for the Summer Prince inside old wine barrels on the Kherish albino’s ship just a few hundred yards away. Nearly twenty years of struggle came down to this single moment. His daughter’s future came down to this single moment. Phanqui could not let victory slip though his fingers.
He turned his face into the sea breeze as the dustborn swordsmen rowed the sleek runabout toward the Kherish merchant’s ship.
Vinghelt continued lazily spinning his chain like a man who thought himself invincible. The dark-haired man oiled his graying beard to a point below his chin. He would have been handsome if his smile didn’t make your skin crawl. He claimed to have magical powers, but Phanqui doubted his mystical arts were anything more than a steady supply of gold to traitors and informants.
“Three more days, lads,” he said to his men. “Three more days of kicking the desert rats back into their holes, and we’ll be on our way back to the Eternal Summer.”
His men pounded their feet on the hull in approval.
“You’ve done right by your families, by your lords, and by the goddess herself. Each one of you will be drinking from the sweet breast of Fessa before the moon turns. I’ll see to that myself.”
His men burst into grins and rowed even harder.
Phanqui’s stomach turned. Vinghelt’s men were like dogs pissing themselves over a scrap of their master’s food. He’d once heard two of them bragging about a Physendrian girl they’d kept tied to a bed for a whole week. And now they expected a goddess to thank them for their work?
It was ironic, the hold Lord Vinghelt had over his men. Stories about the summer prince said that five years ago the man had practically drowned himself in the bottom of a wine barrel. They said he still bore the scars from an angry creditor’s knife. But Fessa of the Deep saved him from himself, and he had been reborn. He stopped spilling wine and started spilling blood, bragging the entire time about being drunk on Fessa’s love, the sweetest vintage in the world.
Surely the Nine could not allow such a man to live. The Physendrian gods did not miraculously forgive the weak and the wicked. They punished you until you changed your ways.
In a very short while, that punishment would finally reach the Summer Prince. When Phanqui spoke the words, “Kherish blades are th
e strongest in the world,” seven loyal Physendrians would leap from their wine barrels with blades in hand and send the tyrant back to his beloved waves. He could pray to Fessa all he wanted as he sank to the bottom of the sea, bleeding from a dozen holes.
They approached the Kherish trading ship painted in gaudy reds and blues and bearing a dog-headed maiden on her prow. Phanqui searched the deck for a sign of the pink-eyed merchant. It was the fat man’s lure of high-quality, inexpensive weapons that had drawn Vinghelt here. Greed had brought him high, and greed would bring him low.
“Look sharp, lads,” Vinghelt said, as they pulled up alongside the ladder dangling from the Kherish ship. “These Khers would sell you a night with their mother for a whiff of gold.”
Phanqui looked up to see if the albino or his men were within earshot, but no one came to the rail to greet them.
Two of Vinghelt’s guards climbed up first and made the runabout fast. Two more followed, with Phanqui trailing. Vinghelt was the last one out of the boat.
“Where is this Kherish weapons merchant?” Vinghelt asked mildly as he climbed up next to Phanqui.
“I’m not sure,” Phanqui said, looking around. The man swore he would be here. “I’m sure he will be along shortly.”
“Will he?”
The tone of Vinghelt’s voice prickled the hairs on the back of Phanqui’s neck, and he felt a sinking feeling that the albino was not coming.
“He has a hold full of weapons to sell,” Phanqui said casually. “He didn’t come all this way just to sail back with them. Perhaps he did not hear us arrive.”
“Or perhaps Kherish blades are not the strongest in the world,” Vinghelt said, looking over at Phanqui. A thin smile spread across his lips.
Phanqui’s blood froze. The code phrase.
“Kherish blades are the strongest in the world!” he shouted, and launched himself at Vinghelt. He had no weapon, but he was still strong enough to snap the man’s neck if he could just—
Two guards tackled him before he took the first step. The three of them tumbled across the deck. Phanqui elbowed one in the face and put the other in a chokehold. He struggled to grab the man’s chin and snap his neck.
Solid steel cracked into the back of his head. He grunted and tried to roll away with his hostage, but another dagger pommel slammed into his head, and another.
Phanqui screamed as they pried his arm away from the man’s throat. Someone hit him in the face. His nose crunched, and he sprawled onto the deck.
They hauled him upright in front of Vinghelt. His heart raced, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Who had betrayed them?
“You treacherous little rat,” the governor said. “You have eaten from my table since the day I arrived, and this is the thanks I get in return?”
“You are the ones eating from our table,” Phanqui spat, spewing flecks of blood on the governor’s tunic.
One of the dustborn slammed a fist into Phanqui’s stomach, and he doubled over. A grunt of pure rage escaped from his paralyzed lungs.
Vinghelt shook his head in disappointment. “It has been a full generation since we liberated your country,” he explained as if to a child. “And still you resist. One begins to think there is something fundamentally wrong with you people.”
“The gods will punish you for this,” Phanqui wheezed.
“No, they will stand up and cheer me for this. They hate you as much we do.”
Phanqui choked on his own blood. He was on the verge of vomiting. How had they known? Had they killed the albino? Had the Kher betrayed them? And what about his wife? His daughter? They had left the city last night, but if Vinghelt had known ahead of time…What if the man was truly a mage?
Breathing hard, he looked up at Vinghelt. At that moment he would have ripped out one of his own ribs if he could have stabbed the man with it.
Vinghelt smiled at him. “Come, see what’s become of your petty little assassins.”
Three dustborn dragged Phanqui across the deck to one of the barrels. The lid had been nailed shut, and the wooden stopper removed. The barrel was filled with water, and he heard a man moving inside, struggling to breathe.
“Looks like the little jumping rats are trapped in their holes,” the Waveborn governor said with an indulgent smile. “Isn’t that the lowliest of your false gods? The jumping rat? You see? I’ve done them a favor.” He chuckled. “I’ve turned them into crocodiles. Maybe one day, I’ll light them on fire and turn them into phoenixes.”
Phanqui struggled in vain against the men who held him. “Careful whom you burn, fishlicker. The Phoenix rises again to take her revenge.”
Vinghelt shook his head with a grimace, then turned to his men. “Do it,” he ordered.
Phanqui screamed like the desert wind as they hefted him off the ground. He yanked his arm free and struck one of them in the jaw, elbowed another, but they overwhelmed him, wrenching his arms behind his back. They stuffed him into another barrel and quickly hammered shut the top.
The cork plug squeaked as it was removed. Through the tiny hole of light, Phanqui saw Vinghelt’s perfectly oiled goatee.
“Fessa has claimed these lands,” he said. “You are but a rat dumped into the Summer Seas. You can try and try, but you can never best the waves. The goddess is too strong.”
“There are thousand of us rats,” Phanqui shouted. “Millions! One of us will find his way to your throat in the middle of the night.”
Vinghelt’s chuckle echoed in the barrel.
“You should be careful what you say to a student of the lost arts. The goddess has taught me the magic of Efften. I knew about this little conspiracy before you ever joined it. I’ve known about them all. Remember, little rat, the goddess whispers in my ear. You don’t want to end up like your pasty fat friend.”
“My children will dance on your grave!”
Through the tiny hole of light, Phanqui saw Vinghelt’s nose, mouth. “Children?” he whispered. “But you only have one child. A dear, sweet little girl. At least for a few more hours, anyway.”
Phanqui slammed his shoulder against the lid of his tiny prison. He kicked fiercely, rocking the barrel, but the guards held it still.
Vinghelt walked away, and his men began pouring seawater into the hole. One bucket at a time.
“This should make you feel right at home, maggot,” one guard whispered, as the others laughed. “Just imagine this is your own private Wet Cell.” Phanqui threw curses at his captors, struggling in vain as the water rose higher and higher.
CHAPTER 3
Shara stood naked on a hilly slope, her back to the cypress trees that blocked Ohndarien from view. Last night’s fierce storm had blown itself out, leaving fluffy patches of white stretched across the sky. Her mind was clear and focused, her heart felt swept clean, unburdened and empty.
A herd of goats milled about. It had been a while since Shara had visited the island, but the animals still flocked around her. One of them nuzzled her hand, and she petted it absently.
It had been more than a decade since she’d first started building the cottage. The goats had been her only neighbors, and she brought them chunks of apple whenever she could. They soon became fast friends.
Then one day she’d arrived to find all the goats sheared and half of them slaughtered by shepherds from Faradan.
She squinted at the sun, framed by last night’s scattered storm clouds. That was life for you. A few sunny days rolling in the grass, a few bites of apple, and then a knife across your throat. She stared at the light until her eyes watered with the pain.
“I will not wait for the knife,” she said aloud, looking away. A couple of the nearest goats glanced up, chewing grass. She reveled in speaking aloud, not concealing her thoughts for propriety or diplomacy. For so long she had watched over Brophy, protected Ohndarien with her magic, watched over the Zelani, advised the Ohndarien Council and assuaged their fears. For too long. Any debt she owed to him or that city had been paid a hundred times over.
&n
bsp; “I am finished there,” she announced to the goats. “Brophy has chosen his life. It is high time I did the same.”
She looked down at her body. Frowning, she slid her hands across her naked belly. Thin hands. Her breasts were slightly smaller, a bit lower. Her hips were wider, her belly no longer perfectly flat.
With her constant Floani training, she looked much younger than her years, but she was hardly the nineteen-year-old girl she had been, bursting with vitality, at the peak of her flowering.
How did I let it get this far?
“You do not care how I look, do you?” she said, glancing down at the goat as it nuzzled her leg. She scratched its head.
Again, she looked to the sunrise. Gold and orange light reached across the Summer Seas, warming the islands and blending with the ripples of the water.
“But I do,” she murmured.
She thought about who she had wanted to be before she passed the Fifth Gate of the Zelani, before Victeris got his hooks into her. Oh, the dreams she’d had about her life, what she would do as a Zelani.
But it had turned out so differently. First, the twisted battle to free herself from her master. Then the insanity of breaking into the Wet Cells. The impossibility of breaking out. The Cinder. The Child. Brophy’s sacrifice. And all the life-risking spells in between. What of that had been part of her original dream?
She was supposed to have walked with kings, whispered in their ears, and changed the course of nations. She had planned to travel to every known land, dine on exotic foods, wear the finest clothes, converse with the keenest minds, take the most powerful men to her bed and make them her own.
And what had she done? Played nursemaid to fledgling magicians, a bickering council, and a boy who couldn’t stand the sight of her?
“Enough,” she said softly. The goats did not even look up this time.
What had happened to that girl? How many years had she lost waiting for the return of a man who had been her lover for barely a month?
