Blood of the Gods

by David Mealing

  The village had been built in two turnings of the seasons, but already was suited to sheltering the Alliance through the cold months. Hides and tent poles had been harvested and moved from the Sinari, Olessi, and Vhurasi villages, while the Ganherat had built three longhouses where they could eat and cook indoors. The rest of the Alliance made to deliver an impromptu feast for his and Corenna’s return, the men and women both gathering stores to put over the fires, regaling him with all that had transpired in the days since he’d been gone.

  “Four foreigners came to the village,” Valak’Ser said, the old Sinari hunter having taken a place beside him, Corenna, and Ka’Inari when the food was served. “With too-narrow eyes, a tongue that sounded as though they had mouths full of food, and skin too pale for tribesfolk and too dark for them to be fair-skins. I’d never have believed the shaman’s story, had I not seen them myself.”

  “There was a fair-skin, too,” Ka’Inari said, smiling.

  Valak’Ser waved a pruned hand dismissively. “Too many of those lately.”

  Arak’Jur set down his food—a haunch of turkey with baked cornmeal, squash, and beans. “You traveled to the west, and found what? Another people?”

  “Another world,” Ka’Inari said. “Or, at least, peoples as foreign as the fair-skins, and twice as strange.”

  “You left in the company of Sarine Thibeaux and Rosline Acherre,” Corenna said. “Who were these foreigners Valak’Ser speaks of?”

  “Yanjin Tigai, Yanjin Dao, Yanjin-Zhang Mei, and Remarin Allan-Jaad ni Yanjin.”

  Ka’Inari could as well have made gibbering sounds from his mouth for all any of that sounded like names, but the shaman wore an earnest look, the subject too serious for mockery or jokes. His old apprentice had grown in the time they’d spent apart; Ka’Inari had taken on some of Ka’Vos’s reserve, and now spoke with an air of authority and wisdom that had only ever been suggested before.

  “Rosline Acherre was with us as well,” Ka’Inari continued, “though Sarine Thibeaux and two others from across the Divide—Lin Qishan and Yuli Twin Fangs Clan Hoskar—went missing before we reached the village. The others journeyed onward, into the fair-skins’ city. I would have followed, but for the spirits’ premonitions of your return.”

  “You would have followed?” he asked. “You are back among our people, now. Surely your place is here.”

  Ka’Inari shook his head. “There is much trouble in the world. Too much for us to pretend we can live here in peace.”

  “Ka’Inari, where is Asseena?” Corenna asked. “Or Ghella, Symara, Ilek’Hannat?”

  Arak’Jur frowned. Corenna had seen something he hadn’t—but now he recognized it, too. The spirit-touched women of all the tribes, and the Nanerat apprentice shaman, were missing, seated nowhere around the longhouse, nor had they been there to welcome his and Corenna’s return.

  “He is Ka’Hannat, now,” Ka’Inari said. “And they are gone. Before my arrival, they boarded ships bound for the fair-skins’ lands, across the sea.”

  “Before your …” he began, then pivoted to, “Across the sea?”

  “I misliked it,” Valak’Ser said. “And said as much, in the steam tents. But we’ve been cursed by the spirits since Ka’Vos’s death—better to admit it, and seek redress in obeying their commands.”

  “What commands?” Corenna said. “Why did they require our women, our shaman, to leave their homes?”

  “To leave their homes and leave them undefended!” Arak’Jur said. “If they left before your arrival, then the Alliance was blind to the coming of the great beasts. How could the spirits ask such a thing of our people?”

  “War,” Ka’Inari said.

  The word chilled his skin in spite of the guardian’s gift.

  “Our people are but one of many,” Ka’Inari continued. “In my travels I came to see and know this firsthand. There are darker shadows than fair-skin empires, more terrible enemies than tribes or even spirits gone mad. On the far side of the world, I saw visions of things-to-come. Hope for our people rests in fighting the shadows, in standing with the Goddess, in wielding the mantle of the spirits’ magic for her cause.”

  “I will not allow our people to be drawn into fair-skin wars,” Arak’Jur said. “If it takes shedding my Arak name, becoming Sa’Shem, and defying the spirits’ will, I will do it.”

  Ka’Inari shook his head. His eyes were full of sadness.

  “That is not your path,” Ka’Inari said. “The spirits have shown me what they demand of you. And of you.” He said the last to Corenna, the sadness taking on new meaning as the shaman cast a glance between them.

  “No,” Corenna said. “Kirighra set me an impossible task. I’ve refused it.”

  The shaman nodded. “I’ve seen this course, and the pain it has caused you. But you are not alone in being chosen, Corenna of the Ranasi.”

  Arak’Jur waited, taking every word from the shaman as a blow. He knew what was coming; he’d seen the visions in the cave atop Adan’Hai’Tyat.

  “Mountain has chosen you, Arak’Jur,” Ka’Inari said. “They demand peace, through culling the warlords and tyrants of the world.”

  “No,” Corenna said again. “We won’t leave our son.”

  “It is what the spirits demand, if you seek ascension,” Ka’Inari said.

  “Then I don’t,” Corenna said. “And Arak’Jur doesn’t. We will remain here, defending this alliance from threats as we have always done. We will raise our son in peace, far from fair-skin wars and the concerns of other tribes.”

  Ka’Inari met his eyes while Corenna spoke, and he could have struck the shaman, for driving to the heart of the choice he’d already made, though he hadn’t known it before that moment. Ad-Shi had shown him the world in darkness, covered by ash and poison. A world where thousands died in fire and gas, driven belowground under a blackened sky. A world he would spare his son, at any price. It tore his heart from his chest, but he could not walk the path of peace in the face of war and terror.

  “I will go,” he said. “I will follow the spirits’ path, wherever it leads.”

  Corenna turned to him with shocked eyes, cradling Kar’Doren as though now she alone sheltered him from a hostile world. The image burned in his memory, searing him with guilt and pain.

  “To the fair-skins’ city, then,” Ka’Inari said. “To Erris d’Arrent, and a reckoning with her enemies.”

  Another vision came as Ka’Inari spoke the name, a memory from Adan’Hai’Tyat. Erris d’Arrent. That was his purpose: to kill those who meant to bring war into the world. Corenna’s pain, the renewed spark between them, and their shared love for Kar’Doren all faded against the enormity of his task. But it was his burden to bear, and he meant to see it through, whatever the cost.

  “South, then,” he said, ignoring the hurt in Corenna’s eyes. “Without delay.”

  61

  TIGAI

  A Private Chamber

  Council Hall, Southgate District, New Sarresant

  Dao and Remarin sat together on the opposite side of the table, each glowering as though they shared a single face. The room was well-enough appointed, with seats for fifteen, though they used only four. The silver pitcher—holding water, rather than tea—was of an odd, overly tall design, but the rest could have been a meeting room in any of the hundred cities. That they were instead on the far side of the Divide, in a land he would sooner have believed the subject of some stage-player’s fancy, mattered less to him than sharing the room with Mei, Remarin, and Dao. It seemed their surroundings mattered somewhat more to his brother. That, and the fact they’d waited well over two hours without sign of their host and guide.

  “This is a fool’s design,” Dao said abruptly. “How can we put faith in a foreigner’s goodwill? One not even sworn to the Empire? They could be assembling teams of their magi to come here and imprison us for questioning.”

  Mei glowered back at her husband, seated to Tigai’s left. She’d laid the sleeve of her dress on the table,
and he did his best to avoid noticing the severed stump of her right arm.

  “Are we going to have this argument here?” Mei asked. “You agreed—”

  “I agreed to hear terms.” Dao gestured to the empty room. “Am I listening to them?”

  “Acherre said this was their seat of government,” Tigai said. “They’d hardly take us here if their only aim was to detain us.”

  “Can you speak their tongue?” Dao said. “For all you know this is some governor’s palace, a ministry of soldiering or war. The place is poor, hardly suited to an Emperor’s seat. We have finer appointments in the family wings at Yanjin Palace.”

  “It could well be a military headquarters,” Remarin said. “I saw markings on the soldiers’ uniforms as we were led inside. Stripes and stars on sleeves and collars. Sign of at least seven different companies, by my count, with soldiers of some showing deference to others.”

  “As it happens, I can speak their tongue,” Mei said. “Or at least speak it well enough to broker these negotiations, with Rosline Acherre’s help. Not all of us were idle on the road. And what does it matter whether these people are ruled by military? All the better for us, given our contact here is an officer.”

  “I would feel better if we were home,” Dao said. “Seeing to our family’s concerns. Wind spirits know how long our estate will go unmolested, with its masters absent.”

  “Its masters are the banks, now,” Tigai said quietly.

  Even Mei winced at that, and for a moment Tigai might have believed his father had been reborn in his eldest son, a look of fury creasing Dao’s face.

  But it was true. They’d been on the cusp of losing everything even before he and Remarin had planned their raid on the Emperor’s vault. How many months had it been, spent in captivity or fleeing, with their debts gone unpaid? The bankers would have their due, and he had no illusions the spoils from their raid would have gone toward Yanjin debts when magi houses had been there at their return.

  “So, what then, brother?” Dao said. “You’re in agreement with Mei? We should abandon our home, our people, our sworn men-at-arms, our servants, craftsmen, merchants, farmers, and settle in this country? We have nothing here.”

  “We have less than nothing in the Jun Empire,” he said. “We have debt, and red targets painted on our backs by the Great and Noble Houses. You were forced to accept mercenary contracts because I couldn’t find the gold to keep us solvent. Remarin spent months in that bloody tower, because of me. Mei lost her fucking hand. At least here there’s a chance for more.”

  Mei rubbed her right forearm as he spoke, and he felt the familiar churn in his stomach, covered over by the heat in his words.

  “Tigai is right,” Mei said. “There, we’ve been used as stones in a game played by others. Here, we might find the means to leverage our talents to start again. And we do not have nothing, here. We have each other, and we have ourselves. You are a general, my husband, and Remarin a master soldier. I have my talents for politics, and Tigai—”

  Footsteps in the hallway cut her short, and the four of them each donned masks of placid calm. Yanjin business was Yanjin business. Never the province of outsiders.

  “… the courtesan turned the Emperor down,” Dao said, picking up the line midway through. “And told the doctor, ‘Beware the tinctures of the heart, where they concern the mothers of royal daughters.’”

  The rest of them laughed politely as the doors to their chamber swung wide, revealing Rosline Acherre and three more: a man and a woman in soldiers’ uniforms and another, a man in a ridiculous costume of knee-length hose, a tight jacket, and more lace spilling from his cuffs and collar than any five prostitutes would wear on their undergarments. They seemed to defer to the woman among the newcomers, who wore five stars on her collar to mark her soldiering company, while the man wore a single knot, the same as Acherre.

  Dao rose, and the rest of them followed his lead, bowing in time as he did.

  Acherre said something in their slurring tongue, half nasal sounds and half choking on the attempt to swallow her vowels. Mei managed what sounded like a serviceable reply; evidently she had indeed been spending her time wisely on the road.

  “This is their leader,” Mei said, with a gesture and a half curtsey toward the blond-haired woman with five stars on her collar. “The High Commander Erris d’Arrent.” She repeated the gesture, slightly less deeply, for the man in lace. “This is High Admiral Tuyard. The other is a servant, though he is dressed as a soldier. I believe his rank would translate as ‘Sycophant-Captain,’ though his name is Essily.”

  Tigai kept his face smooth, though instinct wanted to raise his eyebrow. They had soldiers—captains, even—whose primary responsibilities were to flatter and kiss their leaders’ asses?

  Acherre made the same introductions in the foreigners’ tongue, asking Mei’s help pronouncing some of their names and titles. Acherre’s command of the Jun tongue seemed considerably weaker than Mei’s was for theirs; an advantage, if only for giving them the standing of guiding the conversation. Yet when the introductions were complete and Acherre, Tuyard, and Essily moved to be seated at the table, their High Commander remained standing, staring at him as though he were an adder let loose in a nursery.

  D’Arrent spoke, and Mei said something back in their language before turning to him to translate.

  “The High Commander asked whether it is true, that you can move across great distances, and take others with you.”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” Tigai said. “With one of her captains?”

  “I told her as much,” Mei said. “She is demanding a demonstration, and says her time is short.”

  “Implying ours is worth less than hers,” Dao said. “To say nothing of the suggestion we are telling lies about Tigai’s abilities.”

  Mei gave an apologetic look. “She is their High Commander, and from the sound of it, somewhat more. Who can say, how an Emperor sees the world?”

  “High Commander d’Arrent is being the sight of two battles,” Acherre said in stilted, broken Jun. “Hers is the demand of la magie de besoin.” The last lapsed into the Sarresant tongue, incomprehensible and strange.

  “It isn’t like it is, on our side of the Divide,” Tigai said. “The starfield here is almost empty. I can see the points, every time I set an anchor, where at home my anchors are like releasing a pinch of sand onto a beach.”

  “I suggest we give them their demonstration,” Remarin said. “Or they’ll wonder why we can’t.”

  The fop in lace and the High Commander both were staring daggers between Tigai and his family, hardly attempting to hide their suspicions. Dao would take it for rudeness, which it was, but then, it seemed Remarin had the right of it where their hosts were concerned. Like it or no, they were here on charity. Better to show the buyers what was on offer, no matter the stain of being treated like merchants when they were not.

  He closed his eyes, finding the familiar emptiness of the starfield and the strands. Not a starfield, here, and hardly any strands to speak of. Scattered points of light, great distances apart. He could trace a trail of where they’d been since traveling through the Divide, small punctures in the blackness wherever he’d set anchors by reflex as they moved. Even the connections of familiarity—the strands running from d’Arrent, Tuyard, Acherre, and Essily—didn’t seem to be connected to stars, save for a small handful of stray connections looped around some of his nearby anchor points and a single, healthy strand connection between Tuyard and one of the few brightly shining stars a considerable distance away. No telling where that might lead, though. Instead he opted for one of the nearby points, projecting his will around all eight figures in their meeting room.

  He opened his eyes to gasps, and fresh, cold, winter air.

  They were just outside the council hall, at the center of the snow-covered ground strewn with statues and monuments of various sizes for a half league in every direction.

  “Incroyable,” Tuyard said, making c
lear the phrase was one of wonder.

  D’Arrent immediately rounded on Mei, barraging her with questions too fast for her to translate.

  “She asks …” Mei began, then went back to listening. “She asks the limitations. How often you can do it, how many you can take with you, where you can travel.”

  “Do they not have Great and Noble Houses here?” Dao asked. “Perhaps it would be better to deal with them.”

  Tigai shook his head. A magi was a magi, as far as he was concerned, but he suspected from watching Acherre work that their magi were part of their armies. A wonder their kingdoms hadn’t torn themselves apart, making magic part of every skirmish or dispute. Then again, perhaps that was why they hadn’t unified under a single Empire. And not having to operate in secret meant Mei could bid his services to this d’Arrent’s army without reserve.

  “Tell her I can move a hundred or so at once. A handful of times in sequence before I need rest. Only to places where I have a strand connecting me—places I’ve been, or places I can study that are familiar to others. And places that already have a star.” The last was an afterthought, but would prove a hindrance until he could establish enough anchors in places he wanted to go. “And tell her I want to be sure we’re all provided for, here on this side of the Divide.”

  Mei smiled. “Leave the negotiations to me. I’ll make sure we’re taken care of.”

  With that, Mei and d’Arrent began a back-and-forth, with Acherre’s help and the occasional comment from Tuyard.