“I know,” she said. “And I’ve tried hard, with this army, to ensure that the best ideas rise.” Marquand leaned forward as though he wanted to speak, but she cut him short. “I haven’t always been successful. People are people, and for the most part, people are shit.”
He snorted.
“But Marquand, I have to ask: When was the last time you had a drink?”
“Fifty-eight days ago,” he said. “And not a drop since.”
He said it with a glow, beaming as though he’d just led a charge that shattered an enemy line. The quick admission stunned her. She’d been too wrapped up in planning and politics to notice, but now, racking her memory of the past few months, he was right. He hadn’t been drunk in weeks, or at least not where she could see. It was clear from his expression he thought that alone was enough. And perhaps it was.
“Typically rank comes with responsibility,” she said, and saw him shifting in his seat, as though he’d prepared a sermon on the topic. She forestalled him with a glance. Her meeting with Casanne had provided an opening. An opening Marquand could fill, so long as he was sober. “We might one day see what you can do with a brigade, but for now, I think a colonel’s pin will suffice. No attendant unit assignment—a strategic officer, posted here, to high command.”
“So, an aide-colonel?” he asked.
“Call it just a colonel, no appellation for line of duty. Similar to the lords-general under the monarchy, and my field-marshals now. Can you be satisfied there?”
“Thank you,” he mumbled, then again, louder. “Thank you, sir. Yes.”
“It does come with a few added layers of duty,” she said. “First, the higher you are in this army, the more you reflect its character, both outside our ranks and within. You say you haven’t had a drink in two months—good. Make it two years, and we’ll talk about a generalship. I make full allowance for social drinking among my officer corps, for those who can handle it. For you, a glass of wine is like to see you pissing yourself and sleeping in a horse trough, before you’re through. So make it abstinence, or you can resign your commission and find work in a taproom somewhere. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and, by some miracle, looked as though he actually meant it.
She continued. “Next, while I expect and even encourage you to call me a fucking idiot in private—so long as I end up being wrong—I insist you keep a certain decorum in others’ company. This army will be a place where ideas trump their source. I’ll not have anyone holding back truth for fear of a browbeating, nor do I want my officers to be the loudest, most persuasive voices without concern for the underlying strength of their positions. You are a forceful man, Marquand; see to it you invest effort in learning to be humble when you’re wrong, and learning to keep anger from inhibiting your ability to recognize it.”
By now he’d sat up straighter in his seat, almost at attention by the time she finished. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I won’t disappoint you. And I’ll hold you to your word, about that generalship.”
“Good,” she said. “Congratulations, Colonel. Your first order—and your first test of the decorum I just mentioned—will be one I should have seen to weeks ago.”
“The Vulmannes campaign?” he said. “I’ve got a bloody good idea for the fords there, around—”
“No, Colonel. Voren.”
“Voren,” he repeated.
“That’s right,” she said. “He’s been held at the Citadel since the Assembly. I’m ordering him moved here to high command, and placed in your personal custody.”
“What? Are you bloody fucking mad? Why would you …?”
She raised an eyebrow, and he paused, seeming to draw a steadying breath.
“That is,” he said, “if the High Commander would please explain the rationale behind her decision.”
“You know, Marquand, most of the time I expect you to follow orders without needing to hear my reasoning. This time I’ll make an exception. I met with First Prelate Casanne this morning; she made a threat I should have known was coming. Voren has some sort of magic, something we’ve never encountered before. So far the gendarmes haven’t gotten anything out of him, but you saw the truth of it as plain as I did. We need to know how he can do it, whether there are more like him, and we’re not alone in wanting answers as to his nature. So your assignment is twofold. First, learn what you can of his magic and his purpose. And second, protect him from those inclined to do him harm.”
“Yes, sir,” Marquand said. “I won’t let you down.”
She paused, but the glib remark she expected never came. Instead she nodded. “Dismissed, then, Colonel,” she said. Just as well if she could leave that piece to Marquand. The bigger puzzle lay ahead of her: two wars, one she knew how to fight, unfolding in the Thellan foothills, and a second, far more deadly, in back rooms and hidden meetings here at home.
41
SARINE
A War Canoe
On the Edge of the Divide
Salt water sprayed around the bow of their canoe as it cut through the waves. The horizon was gone now. From the shore it had looked as though the shadows of the Divide were close—a quarter league, perhaps. But in the hours since they’d pushed into the water the blackness had grown taller and wider with each stroke of the oars. Courage had flagged beside the need for rote movements to propel them forward. Now the shadows swallowed the sky, and silence prevailed aside from the splash and pull of creaking wood.
“I wonder if it’s cold in there,” Acherre said between strokes. “It looks bloody well like it would be.”
“No one’s lived who’s been fool enough to try it,” Axerian said. “A memoir after we pass through would make you a legend, if the text survives.”
Anati skittered along the edge of the canoe, darting over top of the oars with each pull. Sarine watched her, only half listening to the exchange at the front of the boat. Ka’Inari held the seat behind; the war canoe was wide enough for a person-and-a-half at best, and they sat in a row staggered two to a side to preserve a forward view for all. She’d had to crane her neck almost behind them to see anything but shadows for some time now.
“Is it always here?” she asked. “Has there always been a Divide?”
“It renews itself,” Axerian said. “When the moment of ascension arrives, the Divide vanishes for a time. I know some measure of what we can expect, on the other side.”
“And?” Ka’Inari asked.
Axerian affected a shrug before he made another pull on his oar. “Men. Women. The same as anywhere. Tall, short, brown, black, and pale. Rare for either side to progress much further than the other, but we’ve been surprised before. They’ll have ships, likely gunpowder by now, though we’d best hope they haven’t yet progressed to steam or rail.”
A cold wind rose ahead, lifting the canoe high on the chop before slamming it down. Sarine’s heart spiked, but nothing else had changed; only the wind.
“What of their magic?” Acherre asked after they’d settled. “You’d mentioned before, about their Houses.”
“Yes,” Axerian said. “Always the Houses retain their names. Rather like the Veil, on our side, and none of us can puzzle why. Properly they are the Great and Noble Houses, named for the flora and fauna of the East. Badger, Dragon, Lotus, Crane, Crab, and many more, each with their own gift.”
Another jarring landing scattered his words to the wind. Even Anati paused as the boat righted itself, seawater lapping over the sides and soaking them with wet spray.
“Not too late to turn back,” Axerian said.
“No,” Sarine said. “We can’t—”
Roaring sounded in her ears.
On either side of the canoe, the shadows had gone from an endless stretch of horizon to tangible black strands, as though twisted vines ran from the clouds all the way beneath the waves.
She screamed, and heard the same sound from different mouths.
“We’re in it,” Axerian called out. “Heavens protect us, but we’r
e in it.”
The canoe’s prow slammed down hard, pitching them forward into one another’s backs. Axerian braced the front of the boat, but Sarine could feel the tail end of the canoe listing, and pushed off to resettle her weight.
A rushing sound thundered around them, and more shouting. Too loud to discern any words. Red spiked through her, or if it didn’t then her heart had doubled speed of its own accord. She gripped both sides of the canoe; her oar had gone over the side without her noticing, and the prow bucked again, this time skyward, hurling Axerian and Acherre into her.
“Use Red, and Body if you can find it,” she shouted, but might as well have been screaming into the wind. A shimmering bear-spirit enveloped Ka’Inari, and he seemed to be holding the canoe as though he could will it to stay upright. She blinked to try to find Shelter, and saw nothing, no leylines at all, only coal-black empty space as far as she could see.
“Gods,” Acherre was shouting. She couldn’t make out anything more, though the captain seemed to be pointing straight ahead.
Hm, Anati’s voice sounded in her head. It falls.
She hadn’t had time to process the words when the prow of the canoe plunged forward, and they fell.
Water showered around them, soaking through her clothes as the sea drained itself into nothingness. The peak of the falls vanished above her, leaving them plummeting together amid a spray of salt water as high as a mountain, growing taller with each passing moment. Her stomach lurched and she vomited, gagging as the shadows raced past on their descent.
Minutes passed, or moments. Adrenaline coursed through her. Death was coming. She’d blundered, and any moment they would strike the bottom of wherever they were. Her body shouted it, sent every signal of certain doom.
Axerian was the first to laugh.
She hadn’t realized the roaring had subsided enough to make out any other sound until she heard it, a mad glee over top of the water’s raging hum.
Acherre added her laugh to his, and soon all four were joined in. They were falling—and her stomach had turned in on itself, reminding her of certain death—but they were still together, even still in the boat, somehow, each of the four of them having gripped the sides and kept themselves attached to its frame.
“What now?” Acherre shouted. She had to lean in to make herself heard, but they clustered together, and it seemed the water had cascaded far enough apart to dim its roar.
“You might consider giving in,” Axerian said.
“What do you mean?” Acherre shouted back, but the comment had been directed toward Sarine.
Axerian pointed to her chest. “The Veil,” he said.
“No!” she shouted. She took his meaning, though she wasn’t even sure how to do such a thing, even if she could. The Veil had memories, and power; she could vaguely remember her body being used in ways she hadn’t conceived possible. The terror of falling had masked the torrent of emotions roiling in her belly. No few had to be hers, but she couldn’t account for the cold hate, or the indignant rage. The Veil was there, and she might well know some means of escape.
“It’s that or fall until we go mad,” Axerian said. “Or starve, unless you think there might be fish somewhere in the water. And thirst will claim us, even then.”
Sarine closed her eyes, muting his voice as easily as she’d learned to ignore the Veil’s emotions.
“What can I do?” she whispered. “Anati, help me.”
My father might know. I’ve never fallen through an abyss before.
“Sarine?” Ka’Inari’s voice. “Can we do anything, to help?”
“No,” she said, sharper than she’d intended. “No—I’m not going to surrender to her. Just let me figure this out.”
If they’d been on land she might have gone elsewhere, left the room or walked a few paces away. Instead she stayed within arm’s reach of each of them, tumbling alongside water that had begun to more resemble raindrops frozen in the air than the drained ocean she knew it was.
“Anati, is there a way to reach Zi?” Her memory stirred, recalling that the Veil had done something, before. “He was somewhere surrounded by kaas, but we didn’t travel there. It just … was.”
Of course. Anati materialized standing atop the canoe next to Ka’Inari, then blinked across it, vanishing and reappearing beside Acherre. Like this.
“Is there a way for me to reach him?”
Anati seemed suddenly cold, staring at her with smoldering black in her eyes.
“Can you speak to him, then?” she asked.
Yes, of course, Anati thought, and vanished.
“Trying to reason it out with the kaas?” Axerian said.
“Yes. Wait, Axerian—the Veil, when she had control of me, she took us to a place where I saw Zi, and others. Other kaas. Do you know where it is, or how I can get there? Anati thinks Zi might have answers.”
Axerian gave a grim look. “Bonding a new kaas, you mean. It might work, but Xeraxet would doubtless frown on trying.”
“We have to do something,” Acherre said. “I don’t know if you see the same, Sarine, but I can’t find anything on the leylines here, not even the damned lines themselves.”
She nodded, realizing too late that the gesture was likely to be lost in the state of perpetual falling through the air. “Yes,” she said instead. “It’s the same for me.”
Anati reappeared.
“What did he say?” Sarine asked. “Could you reach him?”
He says you’re not ready to know about it.
A spark of her old anger kindled. Yes, that sounded like Zi.
He also says you’re close enough for the Regnant to hear your thoughts. If you project to him, you’ll draw his attention.
“If I project my thoughts …?” she asked, then bit back the rest of the words. Try as she might, Anati wasn’t like to offer meaningful instruction. But she could figure it out.
“Sarine, be careful,” Axerian said. “The Regnant is our enemy—your enemy.”
“Better than starving, or dying of thirst, or madness,” she said. “And better than giving in to her.”
Axerian shook his head. “You can’t. There has to be another way.”
She braced herself, stilling her mind to calm.
I’m here, she thought, trying to focus the words outside herself. We need help. Can you show us—
Ka’Inari shouted at her, a wordless yelp, grabbing hold of her shoulder and wrenching her around.
“No,” he said. “No, Sarine, whatever you did. It is certain death.”
The shaman’s eyes had glazed over, a look of horror on his face.
“I didn’t …” she began, then said, “I don’t know what to do.” She turned to the others. “Help me think of something.”
Before either could reply, a low rumble sounded in the distance.
In a surge of panic she looked down. It had to be the ground, or some terminal point, where the water was impacting at last. She saw only blackness, but the rumble grew, until she realized the blackness was moving.
YOU COME HERE TOO SOON, IN BREACH OF OUR TRUST.
The voice thundered louder than the ocean when it fell, coming from a place below them.
“It’s him.” Axerian said it, a shouted cry above the roar. “Veil protect us, it’s him.”
A monstrous shape shifted in the darkness, and though her stomach insisted they were falling, they didn’t seem to move relative to the shadowed form. It was spherical, but massive, large enough to lie down next to mountains and dwarf them. Without light she couldn’t see more than a silhouette where the water below them struck against its shape.
No, not a sphere. A head.
The seawater traced a face the size of a city district. The eyes were each the size of the Exarch’s Basilica, the nose a ridge as high as Courtesan’s Hill. Its mouth moved when it spoke, making a gaping pit of shadow the size of the harbor. And below the head, the water began to outline a body: shoulders, arms, torso, all covered in shadow.
H
ELP, the voice said, full of contempt. YOU COME BEFORE ME WITH A WIELDER OF LEYLINE ENERGY, A SPIRIT-BLESSED, AND ONE BONDED TO THE KAAS. THREE CHAMPIONS. AND YOU ASK FOR HELP.
Terror coursed through her. If there was an answer from the kaas, Anati wouldn’t know it, and Zi was beyond her reach. The spirits would talk to Ka’Inari before her, and she didn’t know how to force contact outside one of their sacred rituals or places anyway. The leylines had vanished. All that was left were the blue sparks. The Veil’s power, Axerian had called it. All she knew how to make it do was anchor one of her other gifts, but there had to be more.
IS THIS HOW OUR WAR BEGINS? AS YOU BETRAYED OUR MASTER, SO NOW YOU BETRAY ME?
She reached for the blue sparks, feeling its power envelop her. Blue energy streaked along her fingertips. Axerian shouted something at her; she couldn’t hear it over the roar of the water crashing against the shadowy colossus below.
The sparks could set anchors in the world; perhaps if she set enough, she could pry open the blackness in front of them. She tried it, hooking the energy to four points, applying force to each in a different direction.
I REJECT YOUR CHAMPIONS, the figure was saying. NONE OF THESE THREE HAVE MET THE MASTER’S REQUIREMENTS FOR ASCENSION. NONE OF THESE WILL—
Light flashed.
Her anchors tore a hole, and sunlight spilled into the darkness like rays shone through cut gemstone. Smoke billowed in, too, and water, leaking down into a tiny version of the waterfall that had accompanied their fall.
“Go!” she shouted, but somehow she could move them herself, the blue sparks arresting their fall and propelling them toward the opening. All four of them gripped tight on the sides of their canoe, and in an eyeblink they were through.
The roaring vanished. The monstrous shadow was gone. In place of darkness there was light: sunshine as bright and pure as she’d ever seen.
They were back in their canoe, all four seated upright as it cut through the waves toward the shore. Land was close, and not the cliffside wilderness they’d departed from. The spires of a city stood where the water ended, ringed by a great harbor. Ships unlike any she’d seen filled the bay, great square behemoths with square sails and shouting figures swarming over their decks.
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