“No,” said Zosia, “though if we’re lucky it will be the last.”
When not taking the narrow highway carved through the Kutumbans, walking was hard enough, and riding was nearly impossible. Many a summit and decline was traversed with the Raniputri leading their nervous animals by the bridle, boots and hooves sliding on snow and dust-slick rocks. In the weeks that followed they never hit on a way to circumnavigate the Imperial infantry, and so it wasn’t until the Cobalt Company came down in the Witchfinder Plains that the Raniputri dragoons were able to break north and come in for a parley. As they neared the end of their long hunt, Zosia wondered if she showed her nervousness as badly as Keun-ju. What did he have to sweat over? All he had to do was be reunited with the love of his life… Zosia was the one who might very well have to kick her ass.
CHAPTER
8
That Ji-hyeon girl, man. When Sullen sat down for kaldi in her tent he’d been thirteen kinds of happy, and then fourteen kinds of disappointed when the first question she’d asked him was about his hair. Not that he wasn’t proud of the high ball he’d been able to tease up with his mom’s old pick—if secretly horrified that of late only white hairs came loose from the comb, instead of the black strands of his youth. No, the thing was, ever since they’d left the Savannahs, Outlanders kept wanting to talk about his hair, and a few had even been so bold as to ask if they could touch it. Some didn’t even ask before reaching for his head, and a bar fight had erupted in some Kvelertakan shithole when a woman at the next table had reached over and tugged on it for no reason at all. The result of all this was Sullen would’ve been happier than a baby-fattened lion to talk about anything at all with this lady, except his hair.
“Nah,” he said, because technically she’d asked if she could ask him about it, in that roundabout Immaculate way. She was meeting his gaze with both of those blood-dark eyes, and he dropped his to the delicate kaldi bowl in his hands. “I mean… what about it?”
“Has it always been that way?” asked Ji-hyeon, but before he could roll his eyes at her she said something that stopped him short. “White, I mean?”
All that ivory in his mom’s pick. Without really thinking about the company he was keeping, Sullen reached up and gave a tug. The pair of curly strands he held up were as pale as everything he’d picked out of the comb. “Um… no.”
“You’ve passed through, too, haven’t you?” asked Ji-hyeon, her eagerness not at all what he’d expected from a hardened general. With that Fennec creep and the rest all booted out of the tent, she seemed… girlish, almost. “Did you keep your eyes open? I didn’t. I wish I had, now. Which one did you enter? Where did you come out?”
“Um…” What the devils was she talking about? “What?”
“That is what happened, isn’t it? To your hair? You went through a Gate?”
“Nah!” Through a Gate? There was a thought to keep you up nights. But when had his hair changed, and why hadn’t Grandfather said something? When… the Faceless Mistress. Sullen remembered the look on Grandfather’s face when he’d come back to camp in Emeritus, how the old man had just known something weird had gone down. He patted his hair. “It… it ain’t all white?”
“Oh yeah,” said Ji-hyeon, holding up the polished silver kaldi press. “Same as mine, under all this dye.”
Even in the blurred reflection he could see. His whole damn dome had gone snowy! He knew he should be freaked out, to say the least, but truth be told he thought it looked pretty swift. Glancing over the press at the general, he asked, “Dye?”
“Immaculate girls don’t come with blue hair, Master Sullen,” said Ji-hyeon, and he thought she sounded a mite sore about it. “When we came out of the Gate in Zygnema, every black strand of it was white as yours. Could be a lot worse, though, and it takes the blue better like this. I don’t know how we would’ve colored it otherwise.”
“So, um…” Part of Sullen didn’t want to know, but another part of him had to. He felt the same giddy terror he experienced whenever he really thought about his encounter with the Faceless Mistress. “What’s on the other side of a Gate? And how did you get out again, once you went in?”
“You’ve heard of the First Dark, haven’t you?” said Ji-hyeon, leaning in close and lowering her voice like she was telling a ghost story. “I know the Burnished Chain says it’s hell, and plenty of other cults agree, but I don’t think that’s what it is at all. I think it’s… I think it’s like a secret ocean, kind of? A living, breathing ocean, and the Gates are the shores? So when we went into it, I just felt… weird, really, really weird, and smelled, like, burning oil, and felt these… things, lots of things…”
Sullen felt the hairs all over his body stand up watching her tell it, her eyes closed as she reached back for whatever she’d felt in that place. The Horned Wolves definitely knew all about the First Dark, but it wasn’t any kind of ocean. The First Dark was what had been here before his first ancestor was born, before the Old Watchers who made her, before even the Star—it was called the First Dark because in the beginning that’s all there was, blackness, and from this blackness grew all the monsters of the world…
“Anyway, it was over before I knew it,” said Ji-hyeon, straightening up and shaking her hair out. “We went in the one in the Isles, and before I knew it we stepped out of the one on the Soueast Arm. It was… an experience, but not one I’ll ever repeat. I don’t think it’s very safe, passing through them like that. Fennec said he knew how to use them, but considering what happened to him, well, I’m just glad my hair was the only thing that changed. It’ll be easy to dye black again.”
“I think the blue looks fleet, fleet as a fox,” said Sullen, regretting the compliment as soon as he said it—he’d been saving it up, to use at an opportune time, but this damn sure wasn’t it. He’d gotten all keyed up, imagining Ji-hyeon jumping into a Gate, and his bowl sloshed hot kaldi in his lap from his suddenly shaking hands. To change the topic, and fast, he blurted out, “Mine must’ve changed this one time I met a god.”
Stupid, Sullen, real stupid. He wasn’t trying to show off, but how else could it come across? She’d think he was either bragging or crazy, or both.
“Which god?” asked Ji-hyeon, sipping her kaldi and tactfully pretending not to notice the mess he’d made with his.
“Faceless Mistress,” said Sullen, wondering if he shouldn’t be spreading that around just as he said it.
“Faceless Mistress?” Ji-hyeon furrowed eyebrows that Sullen now noticed didn’t match the bangs above them. “I’ve heard of spirits like that, ghosts from the Sunken Kingdom. How do you know she was a god? What’s she the god of? Does she have other names?”
Sullen shrugged.
“Where was she? Who worships her?”
“Forsaken Empire,” said Sullen.
“The Forsaken Empire?” Ji-hyeon’s tone told him she wasn’t convinced. “Nothing’s there anymore. Nothing but ghosts and devils and bad luck.”
“We were there,” said Sullen. “Grandfather and me. Didn’t see any ghosts, I don’t think. And the only devils… the only devils showed up when she did. When she went, so did they.”
“Sounds like you have quite the song to sing,” said Ji-hyeon.
“Uh…” Sullen bit the inside of his cheek, watched the woman warm up her bowl from the press. He shouldn’t trust her, not some fiery general who matched up in all but name to the descriptions of this Zosia woman he was supposed to thwart… but he wanted to trust her. Wanted to do a lot more than just trust. Who in all the Savannahs would’ve guessed he would end up halfway across the Star, with a beautiful foreign warlord asking him to sing her a song, because she sensed his song was worth a listen? If he had learned one thing from the sagas, though, it was you let your host take the first boast; that was just good manners. “After you, General.”
“After me what?” asked Ji-hyeon, nodding the kaldi press in the direction of Sullen’s bowl. Jittery as he was already from the fruity, acidic brew, he quic
kly held it out for her to fill. “And in private you can drop the ‘general,’ Sullen.”
“Yeah?” Sullen’s heart didn’t skip a beat so much as vault over a solid dozen of them.
“Yes. ‘Princess’ will do just fine,” said Ji-hyeon primly, and bizarre gods of exotic empires take pity on him, he couldn’t tell if she was being serious or joking. “Now, what should I do first?”
“Oh. I just meant that since I’m a guest in your tent, you should tell the first story. Everyone thinks you’re this Zosia,” said Sullen, and that put the seed in her beedi, no doubt, but he went on. “Me and Grandfather trekked all over the Star, looking for my uncle, and heard a hundred songs about her. Zosia, Cold Cobalt, and other names beside. You even look like what we heard about her.”
“Just like Zosia, eh?”
From the look on her face, he’d made things even worse, so he quickly added, “I’m happy you’re not her. I’m… delighted.”
Delighted? He could almost hear Grandfather snickering from halfway across the camp. But for once he’d said the right thing, maybe, because all the building irritation left Ji-hyeon in one obvious sigh.
“You’re the only one,” she said. “You can’t know the toll it takes, seeing how disappointed they all are when I lift the visor and I’m not her, just some hooligan down from the Isles to stir up trouble.”
“Hooligan?” asked Sullen, his Immaculate pretty good but maybe not what it could be.
“Yes, it means, like… a thug?”
“You don’t look like a thug,” said Sullen. “I can’t figure anyone calling you a thug.”
“Oh, they call me a lot worse things than thug or hooligan, but you probably don’t want to hear those.”
“No,” agreed Sullen gravely. “I don’t.”
She laughed, as if he’d said something clever, so he laughed, too. Why not? Something doesn’t have to be funny to laugh at it, so long as you’re laughing with good company. Just when things didn’t look like they could get any better, she slid open a drawer in her table and pulled out a small pipe packed full of red-haired skunk flowers, and even offered him first puff.
“Ah, come on,” he said, taking the pipe, “after you gave me that look for asking you to chief with me the other night?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what look you mean,” said Ji-hyeon, giving him the exact same look, all fierce with one eyebrow up near her bangs. “Now get that going, I want it to air out in here before my next meeting. Fennec is such a whiner, says it clouds my mind—unlike all the cider he puts away.”
Sullen was getting it bad for this girl; he couldn’t ask for things to be better.
“Well, isn’t this cozy!” came a voice from the back of the tent, and a dreadful, familiar shape stepped out of the shadows. This was a nightmare, it had to be—before accepting his seat on an embroidered cushion Sullen had surreptitiously looked all around the tent to make sure they were alone, and yet here stood that awful witch from the grasslands. Hoartrap the Touch.
“You!” Sullen dropped the pipe and nearly tipped the kaldi table as he leaped to his feet. “You!”
“The one, the only,” said Hoartrap, bowing low. Devils above and gods below, but the witch was even bigger than Sullen remembered, his brow nearly brushing the blue canvas canopy. “So happy to see you again, Morose.”
“His name is Sullen,” said Ji-hyeon, scowling at the witch but not bothering to stand. “I’ve cautioned you before about your sneaking and spying, sorcerer. Do you want to die?”
“I am sorry,” said Hoartrap, about as sincere in his contrition as a dog who’s stolen dinner off its master’s plate. “I assure you, my dear general, I had no intention to sneak or to spy. If I had, I would hardly announce my presence, would I? No, I have urgent business to discuss… private business, Sullen my boy.”
“You…” Sullen looked back and forth between Hoartrap and Ji-hyeon. It broke his heart that she knew this creature, trafficked with him.
“Yes, yes, you said that already,” said Hoartrap. “Now be a good pup and go back to licking your grandfather’s arse. The adults need to talk.”
Had anyone else taken such a tone, Sullen would have been inclined to educate them on proper comportment. With Hoartrap, though, he was simply relieved to have an excuse to leave. He’d left his weapons back at his tent, and Grandfather said nothing but cold metal could stop a witch…
“Treat him like that again, sorcerer, and I’ll—”
“Cut my lungs out yourself, yes, yes, I know,” said Hoartrap. “Apologies, apologies, Master Sullen, sometimes my sense of humor doesn’t translate. But we do need to talk tactics, m’dear—my little friends tell me we have a Raniputri problem to the north, on top of a possible Imperial complication, and we really should start to—”
“All right already,” said Ji-hyeon, waving the hulking monster quiet and then hopping lightly to her feet. “Sullen, I am sorry to truncate our conversation. Another time, spirits willing.”
“No doubt,” said Sullen, trying not to color under the mirthful gaze of the witch. “Whenever. I’ll be ready.”
“Give my regards to your grandfather,” said Hoartrap. “I’m looking forward to seeing him again, just as soon as Maroto returns to camp. That’s a reunion I wouldn’t miss for all the devils in hell.”
The witch was trying to spook Sullen, obviously, but the memory of their last meeting kicked up something different in his mind. Glancing to the tent pole where Ji-hyeon’s devil roosted among the folds of canvas, he said, “Mind your devil around him. He eats them.”
Ji-hyeon froze mid–parting bow, straightening quickly. She looked… frightened? Good if she was, hanging around with a witch. “Who told you?”
“I saw him do it, out in the plains. An owlbat, just like Fellwing.”
“No, no, how did you know she’s a devil?”
“Oh, our Sullen’s full of surprises, aren’t you?” said Hoartrap, and for the first time there was real anger behind his casually nasty smile. “He’s witchborn, General, or hadn’t you noticed? And more than that; since last we met he’s been peeking into dark corners best left lightless, or I’m no judge at all of deviltry. I’m also looking forward to hearing how you came by that creamy coif, pup.”
Sullen felt deadly cold all of a sudden, and said, “Call my mom a witch again. Call me whatever, but Ma? Nah.”
“A lovely woman, I’m sure,” said Hoartrap. “There I go again, with my clumsy translations. I simply meant you’ve got, oh, how do you people put it… the blood of shamans, is that right?”
“Oh,” said Sullen, too confused to stay angry. First the witch insulted his mother, now he was doling out compliments. Crazy old monster. “Yeah. Maybe. Not for me to say.”
“I happen to find your eyes very handsome,” Ji-hyeon told Sullen, which wasn’t something he had ever expected to hear. Coming from her, it burned his cheeks right up, even with the witch looming over them. “And Choi’s wildborn, too. My second. She’s with your uncle, but you’ll meet her as soon as she’s back.”
“Uncle Maroto, is it?” said Hoartrap. “And that makes your grandfather… well, I suspected as much, but those two were very cagey about the whole subject when last we met! Glad to finally know how the blood flows.”
“We’ve got plenty of other wildborn in the ranks besides Choi,” said Ji-hyeon, ignoring Hoartrap, though Sullen was unnerved by how much interest the sorcerer took in his family tree. “They’ve got more reason than many to march against the Crimson Empire. Some of the best we have. Good people, not like others in this company, who have more questionable motivations.”
“Oh, how your words sting!” said Hoartrap, clutching a burly hand to his chest. “But really, now, that kaldi’s not getting any hotter, and we do have the trifling matter of waging a war to consider. So might I bend your ear, General?”
Now that he’d gotten some licks in, Hoartrap wouldn’t even look at Sullen, but Ji-hyeon was all classy about it, as she seemed to be about mo
st everything. “I was enjoying myself, Sullen, before we were interrupted. Please give my regards to your grandfather, but inform him we may be moving on sooner than expected. If we leave before your uncle returns, you may carry on with the Company until he reconvenes with us.”
“Thanks,” said Sullen, imitating her bow. “Really. A lot. And I’d tell you again to be careful, but you’re clever enough to know that without me beating the mule. Wouldn’t leave my worst enemy alone with him, I could help it.”
As he left, Sullen wondered if her smile was triggered by his words or Hoartrap’s obvious displeasure at them. Didn’t really care much either way. It was that kind of smile.
CHAPTER
9
Ask me again, Wan, and you’ll have a different answer, I promise you that. Ask away. Please.” Domingo was in better humor than he’d been since he’d dispatched that Immaculate prince back on the Azgarothian border. After the many rump-wrecking leagues of riding over the worst country the Star had to offer, headache-inducing meetings with the Ninth Regiment’s interim colonel when they joined the Myuran force, a steadily worsening diet, and now the infuriating revelation regarding the nature of the weapon the Black Pope had given him, the prospect of stomping the anathema greatly appealed to Domingo. Adamant as Brother Wan was regarding the prospect, could he resist a final prod? If he did keep harping on the subject, Domingo would give his hideous dinnermate a final prod of his own—only by setting rules for oneself could order be preserved, after all, and Domingo had set a rule that he would not murder Brother Wan unless the witchborn stepped over one of the many lines the colonel had set before him. So far Wan had always drawn up short, but here, at last, in this miserable camp in the barren heights of the eastern Kutumbans, with a full-on engagement with the Cobalt Company a foregone conclusion and the monster’s toe hovering over this last border, maybe he would dare to take that final step and…
“Forgive me, Colonel, I meant no disrespect,” said Brother Wan, in a tone that carried plenty of what he verbally disavowed. He swirled his grappa, flicked his lizardlike tongue into the glass. “When you accepted Pope Y’Homa III’s weapon, I naïvely assumed that you intended to use it. My lack of experience with actual combat has again embarrassed me.”
A Crown for Cold Silver Page 38
