The Seared Lands

by Deborah A. Wolf

  He had been to Min Yaarif before. As the surdus son of Wyvernus ne Atu he had been his father’s proxy. Knowing that his backside would never warm the Dragon Throne had not kept the would-be wielders of power from pressing their lips to it—figuratively speaking, of course, though many would have done so literally had he welcomed such attention.

  Min Yaarif, being a known den of iniquity, had long been the watering hole of choice of slavers, merchants, politicians, and other persons of dubious moral value. Leviathus had even been entertained in this very hall—by a former pirate king, no less, though that had been many years ago. The food had been terrible, and the place had reeked of terrified slaves and ill-gotten wealth.

  The river pirates’ current leader, having been reared somewhat more gently and educated most expensively, knew that good spidersilk lanterns sent a more welcoming message to guests than, say, severed and rotting heads.

  More welcoming—but no less threatening.

  Magical floating lamps of spidersilk from Sindan, red salt vessels from Quarabala, dragonglass goblets and a roast of blue goat from Atualon; these things spoke of immeasurable wealth and power.

  “So,” he said to his sister over the drink-induced din of the gathering, “the desert slut has decided to play at being queen.”

  The room went altogether still.

  “Why now?” he continued. “I thought you wanted no part of our father’s world. Certainly when we were together in Atualon, you could speak only of being healed and returning to your warrior’s life in the Zeera. What has changed?”

  Hannei, sitting to Sulema’s left, set her drinking horn down with a soft and ominous clack. Sulema, at whom his comment had been directed, only shook her head and smiled at him as if she could see through the bright striped silks of a river pirate, through the knives and sword of a soldier son, through the dubious honor of having been born ne Atu, all the way down to his center. In this, and in many other ways, she reminded him of her mother.

  Hafsa Azeina would see me as I truly am, he thought with a fresh pang of grief, though I hardly know myself. She would crack my dreams open like an egg and suck out the gold of my soul.

  “I would rather be a desert slut than the Dragon Queen of Atualon,” she answered, speaking to him as if they were alone in the room, or as if she did not give a horse’s fart what anyone else thought of her. In this, also, she was like her mother. “Certainly it would be a more honest—and cleaner—way of life. But our father is… our father is dead.” She took a hurried swallow of mead to wash the roughness from her throat.

  “The Dragon King is dead,” she continued, “and Pythos has taken his place—along with the dragon mask. He has the blood of my people on his hands, and he threw me in a dungeon.” Sulema scowled then, and her golden eyes flashed deadly bright. “He took my horse,” she added, as if saving the most grievous crime for last. “And we still have not been reunited!”

  “You will have her back soon enough,” he said. “As for Pythos’s list of crimes… though I grieve the loss of my father—our father—his death was not unexpected. Nor was it brought about by any machinations of Pythos, but by the hand of Hafsa Azeina.” He held up a hand to still Sulema’s protestations. “Or by his own folly, depending on your point of view. I share your sorrow, sister, but aside from leaving you to die and rot in a dungeon, which is a thing kings are wont to do, and aside from stealing your fine horse, it seems as if Pythos’s only crime was to survive our father’s attempts on his life, when we were all very young.

  “Moreover, he is trained to wield atulfah, and you are not—as yet. Our father Wyvernus was a usurper, as he wrested the throne from Serpentus, Pythos’s father. Is it not appropriate that Pythos be left to rule in Atukos, and to use the Mask of Akari to bind Sajani in her endless slumber? You could finish the task which has brought you to Min Yaarif and return to live out your days among the Zeeranim.

  “Surely you would not trade the life of a warrior under the sun for the dark path of vengeance?” he concluded.

  Hannei picked her goblet up and brought it down hard on the table again. She made a series of hand gestures which looked quite rude, and which caused Sulema to laugh.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “he did inherit our father’s endless love of speech.” She turned. “Leviathus, if only you were echovete, you could be king in Atualon—and talk the dragon to sleep— and I could go back to riding my horse and hunting. I do not wish vengeance for its own sake, and neither do I particularly desire to be the Dragon Queen. Queens do not drink usca, or play aklashi, and they spend their days surrounded by windy old men who smell of cheese.” Sulema wrinkled her freckled nose, and it made her look years younger.

  I wish we had grown up together, he thought. I wish we might do so now. But he was no longer free to choose his own path. He had never been free: born the son of Ka Atu, he now sat in this hall as king-elect of the river pirates, chosen to represent their interests among the land-loving merchants and leaders of Min Yaarif. He had been chosen by the sea serpents as well, and they spoke to him even as vash’ai spoke to their bonded warriors. None of these were honors to which he had aspired or even earned, though he did his best to live up to them.

  As does she, he realized. My sister, in truth.

  “If you do not seek the Dragon Throne out of vengeance, or a desire to rule,” he asked, “why, then, seek it at all?”

  Sulema shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable, though that might have been from the cuts and bruises she bore. She and Hannei had beaten the juice out of each other, to be sure.

  “You cannot hear it, can you?” she asked in a soft voice. “None of you can hear it. Sajani is rousing—that is the reason behind these recent earthquakes, mild though they have been. I believe that is the reason the mymyc attacked us, and probably the reason that the sea serpents have decided to speak to you, when so far as we know they have never spoken to any human. Istaza Ani once told me that such odd things happened before, when the sun dragon’s attempts to wake Sajani—and the magic of Kal ne Mur as he attempted to bind her in sleep—sundered our world. The song of Sajani grows in strength, as does the song of Akari. They seek each other, and I fear she will wake this time. We here, all of us, everything”—Sulema lifted both hands, palms up—“we are nothing more than a dream to Sajani. She will wake and break free from this world so that she can join her lover. Then none of this will matter; not you, not me, not vengeance. There will be no horses, no usca, no brothers.” She looked at Hannei. “No sisters. Nothing.”

  As she spoke, Leviathus thought he understood. “Pythos is echovete, and was trained by his father. Surely he…”

  “Pythos has the Mask of Akari, yes, and he is trained to use atulfah. He could continue the work of the Dragon Kings and keep Sajani asleep, I think, if he so chose. But I think, I feel…” She closed her eyes and frowned, as if listening to the discordant notes of a far-off song. “That is not his intent. I can hear the song of Ka Atu, I can feel the dream of Sajani, and they are… wrong.” When she opened her eyes again, they were dark with worry. “I do not think Pythos is singing Sajani to sleep, as our father was. His song is different. I think Pythos is trying to wake the dragon.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?” a woman in the crowd said, speaking unexpectedly. “The Dragon Kings have always mucked about with our lives, but why end the world? Surely he must know that it would mean his death as well.” It was the whoremistress Sharmutai, whose hatred of the Dragon Kings was one of Min Yaarif’s worst-kept secrets. Sulema looked at the woman, curled her lip as a cat might if it had smelled something particularly vile, and directed her answer to Leviathus.

  “I do not know. Outlander ways are strange, but this makes no sense to me, either. Perhaps he thinks somehow to survive Sajani’s waking… or perhaps he is mad.” She bit her lip and scowled. “I suppose ‘why’ does not matter, so much as the knowledge that we must stop him. If we do not, we are all dead, and our petty quarrels mean nothing.”

  “Yo
u wish to dethrone Pythos out of the pureness of your heart, then, and not for love of power, or vengeance?” The whoremistress did not conceal her disbelief. “The ne Atu are not known for their honor.”

  “I am ne Atu.” Sulema smiled a grim little smile. It had taken no less than the imminent end of the world to break through her stubbornness and wrest this admission from her. “But I am Ja’Akari as well. I will do as I must, as honor demands. I will go to Quarabala and retrieve the child for Yaela, as promised, and I will retrieve the Mask of Sajani of which she has spoken, so that I might throw down Pythos and sing Sajani to sleep, because no one else can.” She sighed, picked up her goblet, found it empty, and sighed again. “Because it is my duty.”

  Hannei touched Sulema’s shoulder and made a sign. Sulema nodded.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Mutaani. There is beauty in an honorable death. I will do this, or I will die trying.”

  My sister, thought Leviathus, though his throat was so tight the words would not form, refused to be named champion of her people, and will now become champion of the world.

  “I will help you, as I can,” Yaela spoke up. The shadowmancer’s apprentice sat in a far corner of the room, wreathed in shadow and mystery and her own impossible beauty, and Leviathus—as usual—tried his best not to stare at her.

  Yaela is beyond you, he reminded himself. Especially since Mariza—

  He drowned the thought with spiced rum, refilled his goblet, and raised it toward his sister. “If, as you say, Sajani is truly waking, and if Pythos is doing nothing to stop her— or, worse, if he is actively trying to rouse her—then, Sulema an Wyvernus ne Atu, sister of my heart, would-be queen of Atualon, you have my support.” He waved his hand to sweep the room. “Mine and that of my people… pending a vote, of course.”

  Sulema froze with her refilled goblet half raised to her lips.

  “Vote?”

  “I am a king, to be sure,” he said. “But I am not a Dragon King. I am a king of pirates, and we are a civilized folk.”

  The hall erupted in cheers and laughter loud enough to wake the dead.

  Loud enough to wake a dragon.

  Yet not nearly loud enough to wake his stone-dead heart.

  * * *

  “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

  Mahmouta came to stand beside him. Leviathus did not turn his face from the river, so beautiful in the light of the dying sun, silver and gold and pearl. Azhorus the serpent was stirring beneath the water—he preferred to sleep in the dark and deep during the hottest hours of day, and to hunt and sing under the moons.

  Even in his half-slumber, their bond heightened Leviathus’s senses to a near painful edge. He could hear a lizard’s belly scraping across the sand half a league away, he could taste the dying breath of a man murdered in a dark alley, he could smell blood that had not yet been spilled.

  “Long live the king, indeed.” He laughed, despite the chill in his bones and the foreboding in his heart, despite the trembling awkward state that Yaela’s presence always incited, despite the lateness and strangeness of the hour. He laughed despite everything, and because of it, and because there was no king of pirates once they left land for the sweet, clear truth of water. It was a joke older than Atualon, and perhaps the only true secret ever to be held in Min Yaarif.

  Mahmouta, whom the world thought had been queen of pirates before Leviathus came along, took his hand and squeezed. He would not consent to be her twenty-first husband, but their friendship ran deep as the swift Dibris.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “What the girl says about Sajani?”

  “Yes,” he told her, “it is true.” He did not have to wait for Azhorus to wake. Now that he knew what name to put to it, Leviathus could hear the song of Sajani as she rose up from the sea of dreams. It was a beautiful song, lovely as life, dark as the void between stars. Now that he knew its source, Leviathus found the song terrifying as the end of all stories.

  She let out a long breath. “Can you not wield the Mask of Akari yourself?”

  “No. Neither can anyone else, to my knowledge. There were always whispers that Pythos had sired a child upon this or that concubine of Serpentus, and occasionally a rumor that a child might be able to wield atulfah. I have always made a point of tracking such stories down, and that is all any of them ever proved to be. Stories. If Sulema’s suspicions are right—if Pythos is trying to wake Sajani—Sulema is our only real hope.”

  “It will not break your heart,” she pointed out, “to have a valid excuse to revenge yourself upon the usurper of your father’s throne.”

  “It will not,” he admitted, “though Pythos might no doubt say the same. Had Wyvernus not overthrown Serpentus, perhaps we would not be facing such perilous times as these. Which of us has the right of it, do you suppose?”

  “There is no right. There is no wrong. We are pirates, remember? Right and wrong are beyond the likes of us.” She squeezed his hand again. “In a pirate’s life there is only power… and profit.”

  Leviathus squeezed back, glad for the comforting strength of her grip, wishing that she were strong enough to pull him from the depth of his despair. Not even Azhorus had been able to do that, and the serpent loved him more deeply than the stars were high.

  “I suppose you are right,” he agreed. “And I suppose you are here to tell me that we must help my sister save us all.”

  “Of course I am,” she said, “and of course we must.” Her hand was warm in the swiftly cooling air. “There is no profit to be made in a dead world.”

  SIXTEEN

  He had hoped it would be easy to slip back into the world of men, as easy as slipping into an old robe. It seemed as if he should be able to just shrug his shoulders and feel the world settle around him again, light and comfortable as wormsilk and as easily forgotten.

  Yet as he rode with an entourage toward Sindan, Jian found himself shaking his head at his own naivety. It was not for the first time, he realized… and probably not for the last time, either.

  Jian had accepted the emperor’s offer, false though it might be. In truth, though he had made a show of conferring with his father and weighing every consideration, he had made up his mind well before Mardoni’s lips had stopped moving. Though his campaign against the emperor’s might had provided great satisfaction, the dark pearl Jian had long clutched to his heart had been a desire to return to the world of men, wreak vengeance for the deaths of his family, and to topple the rulers of Sindan.

  When those he loved were returned to him, as if fetched from the Lonely Road, the shock had served to enflame his desire to end a reign which kept an entire population bound in servitude, where daeborn children such as he were sacrificed to the emperor’s war machine. If those in power thought they could avert the wrath of the sea-bear prince, they were deeply mistaken.

  Jian had every intention of delivering the empire to his father. It was, he had decided, a dream worth dying for.

  He was dressed in sea-silks and silver. A circlet of silver set with moonstones and mother-of-pearl graced his brow, and at his waist he wore the sword his father had given him, the blade of bitter tears. The hilt was chased in silver and bound with sharkskin, the tang was red steel and the blade had been fashioned from sky-iron which had fallen into the ocean long ago. It shone like moonslight on dark water, rippling and changing in the light of day. Jian could hear it whispering to him of long songs and deep water. It wanted war, this blade; the world that had birthed the sky-iron must have been a warlike place, torn asunder when its own dragon had woken.

  This blade loved nothing more than the dance of death.

  Soon enough, Jian thought, but not today.

  Riding beneath the baleful eye of Akari, he blinked in the harsh light and grimaced at the jolting walk of the four-legged horse he was forced to endure. He missed his sleek and smooth-gaited palantallomir, the misted skies, the cool air of the Twilight Lands. Even the halfbreed Daechen looked too alike here, a sharp and dreary contrast to the va
ried faces and forms of those who comprised the Twilight Court.

  Still, he would not have traded this moment in time for any other. Tsali’gei rested in the carriage that jolted down the road ahead of him, with their son at her side. He would endure anything the world might offer, for their sakes.

  He would end the world, for their sakes.

  “Tell me, de Allyr,” a soft voice sang at his side, “about the world of our mothers and fathers. Tell me about the Twilight Lands.”

  Jian turned his head fractionally to smile at Giella. She was as beautiful as he had remembered—more, for being real—fierce and intense as her mother.

  “Wei xun yu,” he said, “the Twilight Lands. What have you heard of them?”

  “Only the stuff of children’s tales,” she replied wistfully. “Talking bears and eight-legged horses. People with antlers and horns and feathers.” She touched the spray of bright red feathers at her own temple. “Others who can shift their shapes to become animals. Never-ending hunts, never-ending feasts. Poems that were begun before the first human took her first breath, and which have not yet reached their endings.” Her smile was a little self-mocking. “As I said, the stuff of children’s tales.”

  “All of it is true,” he said to her in a voice hardly more than a murmur, moving his four-legged horse closer to hers for privacy. “And more. More. It is so beautiful it will break your heart. There are rivers of mist so thick you can swim in them, so wide you cannot see the far shores. Music so deep it pierces rock and bone. Colors too fierce to name, and the stars…” His voice trailed off, and he dashed a sleeve across wet eyes.

  “The stars?”

  “When this is over, I will bring you home with me,” he told her in answer, “with me and Tsali’gei. Then you will see for yourself. Your place is there, not here”—he indicated the land around them—“in the world of men. Your mother waits for you. In your absence, she has amassed an arsenal of weapons for you.” He grinned. “She is sha-rai, you know, a warrior of great renown. When all this is over, we will all go home. You will always be welcome in our house.”