Black Kath's Daughter

by Richard Parks

  "You don't seem as keen," Bone Tapper said.

  Marta rolled up her blanket. There wasn't much more to the camp to break up. "A debt is a debt. Dragon or king, it doesn't matter who owes it."

  Marta told herself that more than once as they made their way through the forest. When they finally came to the first place where the new spring growth showed unmistakable traces of fire, she was still saying it. Bone Tapper, for once, kept his opinions to himself.

  "Yssara's close," was all Bone Tapper said.

  Marta eyed the charred foliage. "That's what you said yesterday."

  "It was no less true yesterday. Remember that deer carcass I breakfasted on this morning? I forgot to mention it was a bit singed. It was obviously one of Yssara's meals that got away...at least until the unfortunate creature died of its injuries. I imagine Yssara was out of practice."

  "Sympathy for your breakfast? Well, maybe Yssara just didn't eat it all," Marta said.

  "Are you joking, Mistress? This is a dragon we're referring to—they swallow their prey whole."

  Marta just nodded, but the truth was she didn't know much about dragons. They weren't exactly common creatures; in fact before now Marta wasn't really sure that they existed. Even now she wasn't totally sure, since she hadn't every seen Yssara as a dragon. Still, if this was indeed its nature, how this one came to be in her mother's debt was a tale she'd like to hear, if she ever felt like enduring one of Bone Tapper's rambling narratives long enough to get the meat of the story out of it.

  Marta looked up from the burned place. "He's that way," she said, pointing north. "Fly ahead and see if you can find where he is."

  The raven hesitated. "If my feathers are burned to nothing it'll be hard to report," Bone Tapper said. "You do realize Yssara doesn't want to be found?"

  "What he wants is beside the matter, and the same goes for you. As for your feathers, I suggest you fly high enough that this doesn't happen."

  Bone Tapper took off without more argument. Marta followed north at a brisk walk, though it was nothing compared to Bone Tapper's wings. He soon returned and landed on her shoulder. "You were right. There's a cave less than a league from here. Yssara's there."

  "Did you see him?"

  "I didn't have to. He's there."

  Marta frowned, but didn't question the raven further. When they approached the line of rocky hills that held the cave, Marta saw what Bone Tapper meant; trees near the site were as charred as logs in a slow fire. The odd thing was, some of the burned traces were very old, looking more like the marks of long ago woodland fire that had since healed.

  Bone Tapper perched on a branch well away from the cave's mouth. "Here's your cart-horse," he said sullenly. "In there."

  Marta stood at the edge of the pines where they ringed the cavern entrance. Traces of charcoal and scorched earth showed the approach to the cave had not always been so clear.

  "This place has been burned before now."

  "Obviously it was his home long ago. If one has a home, wouldn't one go there? I would."

  "Did you know where he lived all along? You were with Mother when Yssara was Indebted. You could have led me here directly!"

  "I knew he was to be found here in these woods, and you knew the same, Mistress. I have served."

  Which Marta already knew to mean he would speak no more on the matter unless ordered. Marta was getting tired of giving orders for every little thing that needed doing. It was draining, and just then she felt very drained.

  Were all Mother's servants as stubborn? No wonder she always looked so weary.

  Marta took a close grip on her thoughts, reined them in, made them serve her for the task at hand like anything else that was hers by right. That was always what mattered; best not to forget. She strode out of the wood shadow like a queen before court, the sun finding red and gold sparks in her hair.

  "What was your trouble?" she demanded of the darkness beyond the cave entrance.

  There came a low hiss, then a wisp of steam appeared out of the darkness. "There are deer in the woods. My treasures are at my feet. Let me stay."

  "By birthright and the Laws of Power you belong to me, Yssara. I will have what is mine."

  Another hiss, this time followed by a jet of flame. "I want to stay!"

  Marta kept her voice level, but the strain was great. "You are in my debt, and I need you."

  "You fear me, Black Kath's daughter."

  Marta opened her mouth to deny it, but then closed it again. It was a few moments before she answered. "I am afraid of you," Marta said, and knew the truth when she spoke it, "I'd be a fool otherwise. Yet my fear won't keep me from doing what I must do, Yssara. Your strength will not keep you from doing what you must do. Do we understand each other, Yssara? What you want doesn't matter."

  "Not now. One day, Black Kath's daughter, you will find things very different."

  Marta drew herself to her full height, though it was not so very much. "You will not threaten me."

  A low chuckle that was like the fall of embers. "A threat? Say rather a prophecy. 'What Power Holds, Weakness Frees.' Oh, yes. I know that one. So do you, but I wonder about the limits of your understanding."

  "I understand this much." Marta took a deep breath. "What was your trouble?"

  Slowly, because there was no choice, Yssara answered. "Greed."

  When the ritual was done, Marta led what was now a cart horse back from the mouth of the cave. Marta had won, as she knew she must, but it didn't feel like a victory. The day barely begun and she was already tired, and if she had the right of power over Yssara she certainly didn't feel very powerful. Marta had too much sense of things beyond her understanding, and visions beyond her sight. She felt... limited.

  Marta knew Yssara was right to question her; she only knew one Law of Power, and it seemed to speak more of limits to power than potential, for all that it was fun to break rocks. Just then she was almost grateful for those limits, because the creature beside her moved slowly, every step begrudged, ears flat and nostrils flaring. Weary as she was, Marta kept a firm grip on the reins, and didn't allow the beast any slack at all.

  Will it always be like this?

  She shook her head. There was more to it. The craja in Amaet's cave had shown that. Yet that was just a glimpse of something beyond the simple destruction expressed in the First Law. A promise, really, that there was something more. Marta knew the deeper knowledge was there, but it was going to take time to find it. She hoped the superficial understanding of the Law would be enough, that and the rules of the Debt her mother had seen fit to document, because for a while that was going to be all Marta had to work with.

  "What you have is what you use," Marta said aloud.

  "Your mother was fond of that phrase," Bone Tapper said as he landed on Yssara's back. The creature shook himself, throwing the raven off like a fly. Bone Tapper settled grumpily on Marta's shoulder instead.

  "You didn't have to do that," Marta said to the horse. It did not answer. She frowned. "Yssara, say something."

  Yssara just glanced at her haughtily.

  Bone Tapper sighed. "He won't speak, now that he's a horse again. He never did."

  "Even for my mother?"

  "Your mother never asked him to. At least, never in my hearing."

  "Which probably means she never expected it of him." Marta thought about it. "Of course. Horses are good for bearing burdens, for running swiftly. Horses in war can be trained to attack and defend. Yet no one expects counsel from them. Yssara serves according to the nature of the form he's in."

  Yssara looked away. Marta had the distinct feeling that, had he chosen to speak, Yssara would have said words that had nothing to do with counsel, except perhaps suggestions for actions either obscene, impossible, or both.

  "Yet they do expect counsel of a raven?" Bone Tapper shook his head. "Not to my knowledge."

  "Ravens are known to speak," Marta pointed out. "Or at least mimic a human voice. It stands to reason more would be exp
ected because it can be expected."

  "How fortunate for me."

  "Stop complaining. We've got a long walk ahead of us before we can even begin the search for Treedle. Yssara has an appointment with my mother's wagon."

  "Fine. Then which way will we go?" Bone Tapper asked.

  Marta blinked. "Which way?"

  Bone Tapper gave her an odd look. "Of course which way! North? South? You knew which direction to search for Yssara. You knew where I was, rightly enough. Where is Treedle?"

  Marta had been concentrating so much on finding Bone Tapper and Yssara that this was the first time she'd taken a moment to think about it. She looked around her. "He's..."

  Marta stopped, and let the words trail off to nothing. Her own surprise was such that she spoke the words aloud, not caring if Bone Tapper and Yssara knew the truth.

  "I don't know."

  Bone Tapper just stared at her. Even Yssara snorted a question.

  "I said I don't know!"

  "Mistress..." Bone Tapper began, but one look from Marta and he kept silent.

  "We'll find him," she said, and that was all. They searched until the food ran out. Marta bought more in a village they passed and they searched until that ran out. They first snows held off and still they searched, but Marta knew the snows would not wait much longer. The money was running out quickly. Yssara remained sullenly fierce. Bone Tapper said as little as he could manage and Marta said almost nothing at all. Finally, because there was no other choice as winter descended on them, Marta turned her cart back toward home.

  CHAPTER 7

  "The Arrow Path is an honest transaction. Amaet gives us what we need to seek the Seven Laws and we owe her debt service in return. The Path of Solitude is a surrender. In which case the Power, whichever one it may be, uses you for their own purpose and gives nothing in return, save only that which serves their purpose. It is, bluntly put, a bad bargain."

  — Black Kath's Tally Book

  Morushe was a small kingdom nestled against the southernmost slopes of the White Mountains. Wylandia lay to the north on the other side of the mountains, Borasur to the south on the coast. Laras thought it a rather awkward place for a such a small kingdom, with greater powers to both north and south. Yet it had managed to keep its independence for nearly a thousand years, save a period when, for a few generations, it was bound after a marriage alliance to Borasur. Yet the more Laras thought about it, the more sense it made. Morushe was the gateway to both greater kingdoms, controlling the main trade pass through the mountains. Either Wylandia or Borasur would be foolish to allow the other to conquer it, and thus control the trade of both.

  The balance requires uneasy alliances and a fragile peace.

  It was the sum of the history of the twelve mainland kingdoms, so far as Laras could see. The marvel was not that there were wars; the marvel was that there hadn’t been more of them.

  The journey had taken two days longer than Laras planned; just getting a mount had taken more time than he felt he could afford, and in the end he'd been reduced to snapping a lock on a nearby stable. The mount he'd taken, though the best of the lot, was little bargain even at the price. The sorry nag cropped grass on the slope a few yards away while Laras sat on a rock and contemplated the city of Balanar in the valley below. Every now and then he would look away from the city to the book resting on his knees.

  It's a rather plain thing.

  It was well made, as most books were. Anything worth binding at all required the work of craftsmen, and the book Amaet had sent him to steal was no exception. The boards were covered with thin leather, the pages fine vellum. It was the book, no question. Amaet said he would know, and he did. The library at the Temple of Amatok was immense, well over two hundred volumes of esoteric religious practices, politics, history. Yet as soon as Laras had brushed his fingers across the cover of this particular book the image of Amaet flashed across his inner eye. She was smiling. Laras took the book and broke a lock on a side door; the priests were busy making ready for an unscheduled ceremony. Laras doubted they even remembered he was there. It was, he realized, incredibly easy.

  Getting the book into the King's Library at Karsan would be a different matter altogether. He had been a messenger of the King; almost everyone at court knew his face. He was risking life and limb letting himself be seen in Lythos again. And for what? That was the thing that Laras couldn't understand; the thing that kept him loitering in the hills near Balanar contemplating the volume on his lap.

  "I can't believe," he said for the third time and to no one in particular, "that the goddess required me to steal a wayfarer’s guide!"

  That's all the book was, despite a very clerical sounding title: "Centers of Faith in the Southern Mainland." It was just a listing of the primary shrines and temples south of the White Mountains. Basic directions, a bit of information about each, the best and safest inns to stay in on the way. All compiled by a rather detail-oriented monk some two hundred years earlier, so needless to say the accommodation advice was out of date. In all other respects as well a volume so trivial that, as far as Laras could see, no one had ever bothered to make any copies; there was just this one hand crafted volume. Handsome it was, if plain. Probably bound as a gift to some clerical patron and shelved and forgotten.

  Don't make a habit of questioning me, Laras. Laras remembered the goddess' words exactly. He shrugged, and sighed. No, it wouldn't do to question. Yet he couldn't help but wonder. Laras finally rose, gathered his mount, and put the book safely away in his saddle pack. He didn't bother to shatter the rock he'd been sitting on; in truth breaking rocks was getting a little wearisome. There was more to the First Law, he knew, and would find it in time, but mostly he wondered what glories there would be in the Second Law.

  Laras climbed into the saddle and turned the beast towards the west. It was a long ride back to Lythos. Not that Laras was in a hurry; the days of travel ahead would barely be enough time to figure out how he was going to fulfil Amaet's quest and still live long enough to collect the reward.

  There's always a catch.

  Laras knew there would be more. Getting the book had been tedious and time consuming, but easy. The next part would not be easy. It could not; there just wasn't that much good luck in the world. No matter; soon he would be able to reorder the world more to his liking. Laras's horse may have been pointed toward Lythos but his sights were on that distant, happy day. By the time Laras reached the border of Lythos he had an idea. A rather good idea, he thought, and just after he crossed the border he put his idea into practice.

  When Laras finally rode into Karsan he did so with his face covered with a black cloth, as one ill or disfigured. He got several dark scowls as he rode past the good folk, and there was much muttering. If there was a plague around no one wanted it in Karsan. Still, his former neighbors could think him malformed if they wished, or even unwelcome. Just so long as they didn't think of him as who he was. Laras heard more than a few names hurled at him, but he smiled. None of those names was "Laras."

  Funny how predictable they are.

  There was an undertone of judgment in the thought, Laras well knew, and he wasn't exactly proud of the fact even if he wouldn't deny it. Yet he was also genuinely astonished. His disguise was ludicrously simple; to his own way of thinking a child shouldn't have been fooled. Now he was beginning to think he shouldn't have bothered with a disguise at all. He had been one of the King's Royal Messengers, and if that was just a fancy way of saying "servant with a horse," it still meant something. Or at least he had thought it did. Laras was beginning to wonder if the townsfolk would have recognized or even taken any notice of him if he'd rode in at the height of the day.

  I was never very important, but surely someone would have recognized me?

  Maybe yes, maybe no. He did hope that one particular person could still recognize him. Everything depended on that. Laras found a stable willing to see to his mount once the stable keeper saw the color of Laras's silver. Laras took only the
book from his saddle, bundled in a pack that made him look like a peddler. He wasn't overly fond of that impression, but there was no help for it. He left the stable and kept walking until he reached the grounds of King Alian's castle.

  Karsan had no true palace, as did Borasur or even Morushe. Lythos was rather small as kingdoms went and even the king's dwelling had to do double duty as residence and fortress; Karsan itself had grown up partly under the protection of the old castle, partly as a pilgrim's shelter on route to the Shrine of Amaet. There was a ramshackle, hodge podge quality to the whole place that was missing in older, richer towns.

  The courtyard gates were open, as he knew they would be. One of the guards frowned at him but did not challenge him; an illness mask might mean exactly what it appeared to mean. Then again, it might mean that here was someone on the king's business who did not want his identity known. Alian's guards, in Laras's experience, were an unimaginative lot and didn't use much initiative. Absent, of course, specific and detailed instructions on when and how they should do so. Laras had no doubt they had orders to arrest him if he showed his face there; King Alian wouldn't risk offending Black Kath when the price to stay on her good side was to sacrifice a mere messenger.

  I'm not showing my face. Such a simple thing makes all the difference.

  There was a good deal of activity in the courtyard inside the curtain walls surrounding the complex. Laras found a spot near the siege well and took some water, partly to rest but mostly to try and overhear what all the excitement was about.

  The King of Junland is coming.

  Laras smiled. He'd been quite surprised, soon after his start as a messenger, to discover that even kings had kings. Or at least, Alian did. He technically owed Junland fealty for several valley farmlands near the southern border, a land grant to a distant ancestor not, at the time, in the royal line. The lands weren't worth very much, but they were a considerable buffer between Lythos and its neighbor to the south and Alian had no intention of giving them up or giving Junland an excuse to repossess by force. All Alian had to do was put up with the bother of a rare Royal Visit and pay an annual token tribute. Doubtless it was more than a little galling to Alian's pride, but if so it was merely part of the price. Alian's court was in full preparation for the impending visit of the King of Junland and the chaos and confusion would make Laras's job a great deal easier. Or was it good luck at all? Was Amaet smoothing the way for him? And if she was, was it just to make certain that her wishes were carried out. Or was it more? Was it, perhaps, a sign of Favor?