The Heir To The North

by Steven Poore

  “I told you that you would surprise yourself,” Karak said, from one side.

  “But I don’t understand . . .” Cassia trailed to a frustrated halt. If she had learned anything about scholars it was that they did nothing in a direct manner. Karak’s explanation, if he even offered one, would be high-minded and oblique, forcing her to discover the meaning herself. At this moment, aching and embarrassed, the last thing she wanted was to be taught the meaning of a bloody fight.

  Karak waited, a shadow above her, and she sighed again. “What would have happened if I had beaten Yaihl, sir?”

  “He would have made your waking hours a misery,” Karak said. “Until I ordered him to stop.”

  That gave her cause to shield her eyes against the sun and look up at him. There was no trace of humour in his features. Jests did not come easily to this man, and those he did make seldom appealed to anyone other than himself. He was too much like Baum in that way. Cassia wanted to ask him to explain further, to square her own suspicions about who really owned this ship – Karak was no mere passenger, to judge by the way Sah Ulma talked to him – but she bit down that question in favour of another that crossed her mind.

  “But you couldn’t have known that I would . . .” she lowered her voice, but the crew had scattered across the deck and into the rigging. Yaihl had disappeared below. “That I would deliberately lose. You never said anything like that, sir.”

  “No,” Karak agreed. “I did not. So you lost. Yet, at the same time, you won.”

  “Won what?” she asked cautiously.

  “Should all rewards be so immediate?” Karak said. Cassia could not tell whether she should answer, so she waited. “Very well. Your style has distinctive Galliarcan elements, and so that sword is an apposite weapon.”

  “Apposite?”

  “Fitting,” Karak said. “It once belonged to a man who was famed in his lifetime for his prowess with the blade. For the time being, it is yours.”

  She still held the sword, she realised. She passed it back into her right hand, so the hilt fitted snug against her palm. It was just the right length and weight for her. She could never have managed a weapon like Meredith’s greatsword for long.

  How many times did my father tell the tale of Gelis and the Queen of Blades? How many times did I wish I had fought alongside her?

  “Mine?”

  Karak held out a slender scabbard, the ends cased in scarred silvered metal. The stitching on it was frayed with age. “A loan. Just as it has never belonged to me, so it does not belong to you. Look after it, Cassia.”

  Startled, she could only nod, but he had already turned away. Cassia moved from her perch before someone spotted her and decided to give her a job, returning to her usual place at the prow. There she had the privacy to examine the sword more closely, to remove the thick cloth that bound the blade and hold it up so the edge, slightly pitted, and otherwise well honed, caught the afternoon light. She trailed her fingers along the blade’s length, as if she might feel some hidden truth in the cold steel.

  Why give this to me? What have I done to deserve this? The sword, unlike the one Gelis had wielded, remained mute. Patronage. Is that what this is?

  She tried to imagine herself striding the streets and squares of Galliarca with the sword strapped at her side. It seemed a ridiculous image – all the more so in that it would soon be true. Cassia shook her head and breathed out in soft disbelief. What would Baum say if he could see this? Surely the old warrior would scoff at her temerity. He had always regarded her bouts against Meredith with wry amusement, as if barely tolerating a girl’s game. And Meredith himself – what would he think?

  I know what he would tell me. He would tell me to respect it, to know it. He’d already know how to include the blade in everything he did. She felt a smile creep onto her lips as she thought of the Heir to the North. Even though he had abandoned her, he still held some power over her heart. Perhaps it was not his fault. Baum must have led him away. Perhaps he still thought of her.

  With one hand securing the sword against her lap, she fished through her old robe to find the stone carving. The figure of Pyraete resembled Meredith every time she looked at it. Strangely, the surface of the carving still felt warm. She must have left her robe out in the sunlight.

  The breeze whipped spray through the air, reminding her of her new duty of care. She sheathed the blade, making sure it was secure within the scabbard before wrapping it inside her robe along with the carving.

  “Good,” Sah Ulma said, behind her. Cassia jumped in fright, narrowly avoiding dropping the whole bundle. She tucked it safely aside before standing and bowing her head to the captain.

  “You know enough to take care of it,” Sah Ulma said. His coarse accent made his words even blunter. “Yaihl should have watched you.”

  “He was better, sir,” Cassia said, keeping her eyes lowered in deference.

  Sah Ulma spat over the rail. “No. You beat him.”

  That was awkward. Cassia did not know what to say.

  Sah Ulma was close enough to touch her bundled robe with one foot. “Do you know why he gave you this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Nor do I.” The captain’s gaze pierced her. “My father’s greatfather knew that blade. And Karak had it then. It is not his to give away.”

  “He told me that,” Cassia said. “He said it was a loan. Sir, who does it belong to?”

  Sah Ulma grunted. “Waifs and strays,” he said after a moment, seeming not to have heard her. “Always waifs and strays. They all leave him seeking magic and glory. Or they flee. You’re the first he has trusted this much, and I wonder why. It cannot be the story alone.”

  Now Cassia was growing nervous. Her mind snatched at the captain’s words, trying to make sense of them, but she was certain she had missed something important. “Flee? Surely Karak doesn’t mean me ill?”

  “You miss the point,” Sah Ulma told her. “This sword was entrusted to his care. Now he entrusts it to you. Can you live up to that, little rabbit?”

  She felt her cheeks redden. “Of course I can.”

  The captain shrugged. “Then perhaps Pelicos will be proud.”

  Cassia stared down at the wrapped shape of the sword. “Pelicos? What? Do you mean . . . ? But . . . but that can’t be true. It was a story. And he . . .”

  Her throat dried up. Sah Ulma’s silence, and his refusal to contradict her, was more potent than anything he could have said.

  Pelicos went into the Tombs of Treba barehanded. He left his sword and his pack with his companion – a sorcerer, aloof and taciturn, always the foil for Pelicos’s wit. Norrow always played him as a fool, a lucky survivor. Could it really be?

  A sorcerer. Oh sweet gods.

  “Your father’s greatfather . . .” she said weakly.

  Sah Ulma nodded. He seemed unaffected by her shock, as though this sort of revelation came naturally to him. And I have a sorcerer as a patron. Half a year ago she would have scoffed at such a tale, but that was before she met Baum, before she had seen fierce sorcery burn the flesh from Vescar’s legionaries. She covered her mouth with both hands to muffle the panicked squeak that wanted to break free.

  Sah Ulma offered her a wineskin. “This usually helps,” he said.

  It was unwatered, she spluttered on the first mouthful. I have encountered him in my enquiries. That was an understatement, if it was true. And the surging rush she had felt on the night the storm pushed the ship from its moorings on the Castaria – that had been sorcery, of course. No wonder Karak had been so pale afterwards. It all made sense now.

  “What should I do, sir?”

  Sah Ulma shrugged. “Be as Pelicos. The rest is up to you.”

  q

  “Enter.”

  Cassia lifted the latch and moved cautiously through the doorway into the cabin. As before, it was lit dimly by sunlight through the slats at the rear of the cabin, but two reflecting lanterns hung from the low beams, swaying with the ship’s rolling mo
vement. Karak was a shaded figure at the desk, bent once again over a densely scribed manuscript. He did not look up. Cassia edged over the boards until she stood before the desk. She turned the scabbard over in her hands. The leather felt comforting under her fingertips, but she was not at all comfortable.

  “Sir, I must return this.”

  Karak peered up at her. “I see. May I ask the reason?”

  She’d had time to think this over. There were as many reasons as there were sheep in the mountains, but only one really mattered. “Because it is not mine.”

  “I see,” Karak said again. “Well, I can hardly argue with that. Sit.”

  Cassia found a small stool in one corner of the cabin. She sat on the other side of the desk, the blade held awkwardly across her lap. Karak had returned his attention to the scroll, making occasional notations in the margins until Cassia finally mustered the courage to break the silence.

  “Sah Ulma says you knew his father’s greatfather, sir. And you knew Pelicos too.”

  “And you believe him. I am always interested in how so few would believe me if I told them the truth. Somehow facts have greater veracity when recounted by others. Have you never found that the case?”

  Cassia forced herself to think through that question. She had a nagging suspicion the scholar was making fun of her. “Um, yes?”

  “Yes,” Karak repeated. He scratched another note onto the scroll.

  The sword seemed to have gained weight. Cassia shifted on the stool.

  “Tell me what you know of Pelicos,” Karak said. “In brief.”

  “He was a hero. He was brave and daring. He loved wine, women and stories. He told jokes and played tricks, and he was the greatest swordsman of his day. He never stood down from a challenge.”

  Another nod. “Good. And all true. Especially the last. How many of those qualities do you recognise in yourself, Cassia?”

  He was making fun of her. “Not all of them, sir.”

  “Pelicos told me I would know who should inherit his sword,” Karak said. “Until now, I had despaired of ever possessing that knowledge.”

  “But I don’t want it!” Cassia managed to keep her voice from rising to a shout.

  Karak laid his pen aside and stared at her. “Are you certain of that?”

  “Absolutely, sir. I am a storyteller. That’s all I want to be.”

  “Then the sword is yours. Just as Pelicos intended.”

  Cassia shook her head despairingly. “But I’m a girl – just a girl!”

  Karak no longer smiled. “Just a girl? Hardly. In Hellea, you were a boy, a storyteller, a rogue who infiltrated the deepest cellars of the greatest library in the world.” He counted off each description on his fingers. “A born trickster as well. Before that, what were you? A warrior trained by a prince, a storyteller’s daughter. And more, I should think. But never just a girl, Cassia.”

  She was on the verge of tears, and she angrily pulled her fingers through her hair to obscure her face. Her ribs felt they might burst outwards at any moment. “But what if I don’t take the sword? What would happen then, sir? What would you do?”

  “Nothing,” Karak said at last. His own tone was calm. “It would wait for someone else. As would I. And as for the matter of my patronage; that would not be affected.”

  So far he had never lied to her. Not directly. She thought she could trust what he said this time as well. Although . . . “You’re a sorcerer.”

  “Naturally. Many men of my age are sorcerers.” At least his sense of humour had returned. Matters couldn’t be that bad. A teary snuffle became a stifled giggle. “That doesn’t frighten you?”

  Of course it frightened her. Not a night passed that she did not think of Vescar’s soldiers, aflame in the grass. That was sorcery. And what Malessar had done to Caenthell, laying waste to a whole kingdom in his wrath, sealing it behind a curse of eternal torment – that was sorcery at its most evil. The unnatural surging Cassia had felt when Karak stood on the hind deck to battle the elements was what even the smallest of sorceries must feel like. Only the most witless dullard would not be scared by that power. But her obstinacy flared up and refused to allow her to admit that.

  “You never spent a night watching my father taunt the crowds in Lathynak,” she said. “That would frighten you.”

  Karak chuckled. The cabin’s atmosphere lightened, and even the beams of sunlight seemed to grow in strength, as though following a storm. The scholar scratched another few lines onto the scroll. “And there is the spirit of the North,” he said. “To laugh in the face of danger, to believe that you master your own destiny. Good.”

  Should I be scared? Am I in any danger? Aside from being in the middle of the ocean on a ship bound for Galliarca, with a sorcerous master and a crew that seems to think I’m some kind of lucky charm? If she was master of her own destiny then she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. There were more important questions.

  “Sir, may I ask something?”

  He shrugged. “It is difficult to stop you.”

  She ignored the jibe and thought how to phrase her question. “Are there many sorcerers left in the world? I mean – I know all the stories of the North, and the Age of Talons, and my father said there were evil warlocks in the far south of Kebria, but they all lived hundreds of years ago.”

  “And they may yet be there,” Karak said. “We live long, Cassia. We are sustained by the energies we channel, though that sustenance is as much a burden as a blessing. The town where I was born no longer exists. My line has scattered and dissipated like drops of blood in the ocean. What would you say if I was to tell you I am older – much older – than the Hellean Empire itself? That I helped rebuild the broken walls of Stromondor?”

  “I would say you look no older than my father.” All the while Cassia thought she had heard some of this before, from Baum – she thought she already knew much of what Karak would tell her. But perhaps he knows something of Malessar. Perhaps I can learn his location and wait for Meredith there.

  Karak looked down at his hands. “I feel my years. I feel the weight of ages upon my shoulders. We all do, Cassia. It is no easy thing to live this long. There are few of us, and we seldom meet. Time magnifies all faults, you see, and we find it all too easy to fall into enmity. A fight between sorcerers is not pretty. So we live in seclusion and we keep apart from ourselves. We are never ourselves, we are always someone else. I may keep a name for twenty-five years, perhaps more, and then have to uproot and become a different man. We hang from the tails of immortality, with few of the benefits and all of the disadvantages. But that does not answer your question. If my sources are correct, and I have read news from other ports correctly, then there may be a score or so of my brethren still living in the world.”

  His lips quirked. “Does that alarm you now?”

  A whole score of sorcerers and warlocks. It did surprise her in some ways, not least that they would choose to hide themselves away. But there was something in what Baum had told her, that he could not stay too long in one place, otherwise he would risk his longevity being noticed by the townsfolk.

  “You are an unusual girl,” Karak remarked, still watching her intently. “Your reactions are quite atypical. Most ordinary people, on discovering the presence of a sorcerer in their midst, cannot hide their suspicion, fear and hatred. Armed parties sent to drive the ungodly from their towns. Poison, flames and stones. Men such as Sah Ulma and his fathers before him are rare indeed in their tolerance of my magic.”

  He seemed to have read her mind. Even if nothing else had truly alarmed her, that was enough to send a shiver along her spine. Meredith – no! Stop thinking of him! Think of yourself, girl!

  “But why would you look to be a patron, then?” she asked. “Doesn’t that only create more trouble for yourself?”

  “Capricious whim. We are onlookers at the world, though we can never be a full part of it. You, Cassia, men and women like you, are a breath of fresh air in the darkened chambers of our memo
ries. You help us recall what humanity is. Thus we live, renewed, for a short while at least.” He sounded apologetic. “It is parasitic and ill-minded. The gods are no different – in fact they are worse.”

  They sat in silence, Cassia reeling beneath the weight of his words and the black depths of the emotions contained within them. She had thought Baum’s attitude towards the world was dismissive and harsh, but Karak made his own life sound even worse. If all sorcerers are like this then no wonder the tales they leave behind are so full of anger and tragedy.

  “I have said enough. The day is still fair.”

  She recognised his words as a dismissal and came to her feet. The shaft of light that framed him looked as much a prison cell as illumination. Karak did not appear to notice her as she edged past the desk, back to the door. She felt she ought to say something – to try to lift his spirits a little – but what could she say to ease the passage of so many centuries?

  Karak spoke again as she lifted the latch. “You still have the sword, Cassia.”

  She looked down and realised that, with no conscious thought, she had slipped the scabbard through the fraying length of cord that served her as a belt. She felt his gaze on her back and she hesitated. “Yes, sir,” she said at last. “I do.”

  “Good,” Karak said. And, in a lower tone that she suspected she was not supposed to hear, he added, “Thank you.”

  q

  It was easy to tell they were approaching the Galliarcan coast. The horizon was speckled with the bright sails of fishing fleets, emerald greens, rich earthen browns and wonderful cloud-clean whites bobbed up and down at the far edges of sight. The sky was filled with gulls once more, not just the brave few who had accompanied the Rabbit all the way across the sea. A fresh vein of humour bubbled amongst the officers and crew; not quite erupting forth, ever wary of tempting fate, but unmistakably present.

  Even Karak seemed affected by the new mood, spending more time on the hind deck, talking with Sah Ulma or staring out across the waves. There was an uncomfortable distance between Cassia and the sorcerer, a barrier she was not sure how to overcome. In any event, she found herself too busy with the tasks the officers set her to spend any time with him. In some ways that was a blessing. She settled back into the ship’s routine, using what spare time she had practicing her forms, alternating between her staff and Pelicos’s ancient blade. She had added a loop of cord at the sword’s hilt, tying the other end to her wrist, in case she was clumsy enough to drop it over the side. It may not have been his to give, but she was certain Karak would not want it to end up buried in the depths of the sea.