by Ren Garcia
Syg looked at her mug. "I don't care for Dav, Ki … I love him. He's all I think about."
"I think she had some sort of run-in with Captain Hathaline over him. That was all the gossip for a while."
"Captain Hathaline? I think Dav's mentioned her once or twice, and I hear the crew mention her name every so often when I pass by."
"Yes, I'm certain you do. She was Dav's first officer and former navigator when I came aboard and eventually took command of the Dart, our sister-ship. She was also Dav's neighbor, so to speak. Their castles are within eye-shot—within Dav's eye-shot, I should say."
"Let me guess … she was in love with Dav too."
"Yes, she was. It was a very arrogant sort of love, though. Her family, the Dursts, and his have always been allies, and since they knew each other all their lives, she felt like he should have loved her just because—like she was entitled to it. He was very close to her but never returned her love, just his friendship."
"And she took exception to Demona of Ryel?"
"So I've heard. Captain Hathaline was a stern, tough lady. As you can probably guess, I ran afoul of her many times."
"Did you end up in the gym together?"
"She was very Blue and never lowered herself to fight fair with a Brown, so our confrontations never got that far. She just put me to a hard Stare, and that was the end of it."
Syg laughed. "The Stare, huh. I'll have to remember that for next time."
Ki winked at her. "Don't you even think about it."
"Where is this Captain Hathaline now?"
"Dead … killed by Princess Marilith of Xandarr right before the First Battle of Mirendra 3. That was the first time I'd ever seen Dav completely overcome with grief. They'd had a fight … and then she got herself killed. Hasty words were spoken, I suppose. Dav was broken up over it for a long time. It tore my heart up seeing him like that."
Kilos looked hard at Syg. "What has Dav told you about Captain Hathaline?"
"Not much. I think he mentioned her by name at some point. Of course, I wasn't doing too much listening back then." She took a drink of her narva.
"I don't know if Dav's ever told you this, but you look almost just like her. By the Elders, you look exactly like her."
"I do?"
"Yes, you do. She was a bit bigger than you are, and her eyes were brighter green, and you wear your hair a bit differently, but other than that, you two could be twin sisters. I mean, at first I didn't think you looked too much like her—you had this creepy expression and all."
"I was a creepy person back then."
"That's why Dav asked the Sisters to spare you … because you look so much like her."
"He did? He's not said anything in detail."
"He Sighted you sitting in the brig and nearly died of shock. That was when he went on his crusade to save you."
Syg sat there, trying to digest this news.
Ki thought a moment. "Maybe that's another reason I gave you such a hard time before—because when I looked at you, I was seeing her. When I was punching you, I was hitting her too."
Syg sighed. "So, the only reason I'm still walking around is because I look like someone else?" She looked at her narva mug bitterly.
"Maybe at first. He was curious as to why you look so much like her—who wouldn't be? But then, as he got to know you, he found that he liked you, Syg."
"Because he thinks I'm someone else …"
"You're nothing like her. If I'm being blunt, Captain Hathaline was an arrogant ass. He's made mention of it himself, that as he got to know you he found you charming."
"He finds me charming?"
"He does. He likes you, Syg—obviously. I remember when he used to have dinner with me every evening. Not anymore—he's always with you."
Syg cheered up. "Sorry. I'll have to ask Dav about this Captain Hathaline in further detail. What House was she from?"
"House Durst."
"Maybe I'm a long lost daughter of Durst. Were they missing any children?"
"None that I'm aware of. They had seven daughters, no heirs. The Standing Durst name is done—they've all married off, except Hath."
"Looks like everybody loves Dav. He's just … so loveable I guess. Tell me, I don't understand Dav's relationship with Princess Marilith. She hates Dav, she spends her days and nights thinking up schemes to kill him, yet she still seems to care for him … if you read between the lines. And he still cares for her?"
"He does. He loved her—they fell in love. Wasn't meant to be, I guess. It took Dav a long, long time to get over her."
"He's still not over her. She has this annoying hold over him that I can't fully break, no matter what dirty, underhanded trick I try. I'll not give up, though. I'll hear him tell me that he loves me, I swear it."
"Does Dav mean that much to you, Syg?"
Syg smiled. "I'll share something with you, Ki … something I've never fully explained to him."
"What is it?"
"Before, when I was, well—"
"When you were evil, you mean."
"Yes, thanks. When I was evil, I sat in my temple, lost in a fog. I'd have this vision from time to time. I'd see a misty expanse, and far in the distance I'd see a man—a man with glowing eyes. He'd get closer and closer, his eyes shining in the night, searching." Syg exhaled. "Have you ever seen his eyes glow?"
"Yes, of course. I'm a Brown, Syg, it takes more than glowing eyes to impress me. They're pretty, sure, but…"
"No buts … his eyes, that's what pulled me out of the fog. Those were his eyes in the dark, in the distance. His was the Light. I think I've been waiting for him my whole life—waiting for him to save me … so, yes, he means that much to me."
Kilos drained her mug.
"And all because I look like his neighbor." Syg sighed.
The evening bell rang, and crewmen and officers shuffled out of the mess to assume their posts. Ki and Syg were virtually alone in the mess.
"Well …" Ki said, looking at her empty mug. "You know Dav's father was well known for wanting to make peace with the Xaphans."
"Really, tell me," Syg said, interested.
"Dav loved his father very much. His father, Sadric, dreamed of the day that the Xaphans returned home and we'd be one again. It was his greatest ambition.
"But, Sadric, unlike Dav, wasn't a doer; he was mostly an idea man—and he had little if any notion how to bring his ideas into action. Look what his big thing was—a wedding, a unifying League-Xaphan wedding. As if a stodgy League Society function meant anything to the Xaphans. No, if it's going to be done, it'll be the way Dav did it with you—one to one, face to face, right in the mouth with everything on the line, so to speak."
Kilos lamented her empty mug. Sygillis handed over hers. Kilos accepted it with a cry. Crew coming off their shifts began filtering in. Soon the mess was again crawling with life and chatter.
"Anyway," Kilos said, continuing, "Sadric was heartbroken that the marriage to Princess Marilith didn't work out, and he sulked the rest of his life away, locked in his tower."
"Zoe Tower?"
"The very one. Dav was beside himself, one because he loved his father and two because Marilith, the girl he Zen-La'ed with, turned out to be a bad, monstrous error. I think Dav has been waiting all these years to continue his father's work, and the Sisters gave him the chance to do it. The fact that you look like Captain Hathaline probably helped jump start him."
Kilos drained Syg's mug. "I've been thinking …"
"You think, Ki?"
"Shut up," she said, smiling. "The Shadowmark, the birthmark …"
"What about it?"
"I think I finally know why Sadric was so keen on making peace with the Xaphans."
"All right, why?"
"Because I think one of Dav's sisters has it."
Syg was shocked. She almost choked. She sat bolt upright, and her sandals flew off.
"What?" she said nearly speechless.
"Yes, the more I think about it, th
e more I'm convinced that's the case."
She scooted next to Kilos. "Tell me," she said. "Hurry up!"
Kilos held up her empty mug and shook it. Syg seized their mugs, ran to the bar—red hair bouncing—and soon came back with two frothing mugs of buncked narva.
"All right, spill it," she said with growing excitement, handing Kilos her fresh, cold mug.
Kilos took a huge drink. "Dav has told you that Marilith tried to kill his sister Pardock, correct?"
"Yes, because Countess Pardock wouldn't pass the baton, so they couldn't get married."
"Correct—right there in the chapel, she threw it down. If she could have broken it over her knee first and then thrown it down, she would have. See, with you—you were abducted, you had no choice, it was either be a Black Hat or die, but Marilith, she is who she is because that's who she is … and Pardock saw it. She Stared her right through. Pardock saw that she was a rotten, murderous wretch who was going to lead Dav into a long, dark night. Apparently, Captain Hathaline did something to Marilith's persona … made it look a lot worse than what it really was—but I don't believe it. Marilith is evil. Sadric was blinded by his ambition, and Marilith had charmed him into near insanity, but Pardock wasn't going to let her brother be sacrificed and had the courage to call her out. For that, Marilith was determined to kill her, and she broke into Castle Blanchefort and tried to murder Pardock with her own two hands. The way Dav tells the story, Pardock Dirged Marilith out a high window in Zoe Tower, but if you think about it—that's not possible. Marilith, short of being a Black Hat, is incredibly skilled with all the Gifts, except the Sight. Two Dirgists cannot Dirge each other, right?"
Syg thought a moment. "No, they'll cancel each other out."
"So then, what blasted Marilith out the window? And for that matter, what scared her enough to not try it again? Marilith's usually not one to quit once she has something in her head."
"Are you saying Pardock has the Shadow mark? Are you saying Pardock used Shadow tech and blasted her out the window?"
"Not Pardock … Poe."
"Poe? Lady Poe?"
"What has Dav told you about Poe?"
"Not much. She's his older sister, and she still lives in Castle Blanchefort. She never married."
"No, she didn't. Pardock married into House Vincent and became their Countess, but she outlived her husband—he was killed at the battle of Embeth—and came back. She came back with some of her younger children to help take care of Poe."
"Why?"
"Poe has always been a daunting enigma, a huge, looming Blanchefort question mark. Sometimes, on nights when I really get Dav talking, he'll relate his fears about Poe, about how he worries about her, about her health and safety. He had wanted to be rid of his castle. The Marilith thing, it holds a lot of bad memories for him there, but he kept it for Poe, so she'd always have a place to stay."
Ki thought a moment. "It's not a good thing in the League to be sick—especially to be sick in the head … to be mentally ill. Nuts, as we say back in Tusck. Poe has been mentally ill her whole life—or has she been? Maybe she's not been crazy this whole time; maybe she's been afflicted with something else. The locals of Blanchefort, in the shadow of his castle, are afraid of her, though they'll never tell Dav that…they think she's strange, haunted … possessed by something frightening."
"I believe I see where you are going with this, Ki, but it does not add up. A Shadow tech girl needs constant care, constant training, or the Shadow tech will kill her. The Sisterhood didn't declare it illegal for nothing. Besides, what about the Shadowmark? The mark is a hard thing to miss. Dav's never said anything."
Kilos shrugged. "Poe went away for a long time as a child and young woman. Some say she was in the care of the Sisterhood, some say she was out of her head with madness. Did Dav tell you all that? She was always a little strange … silent, like she wasn't all there. But other times she was a bubbly, charming lady—think of Dav, only female with blonde hair.
"And, as for the mark, I was at Castle Blanchefort for a ball with my husband a few years ago. Dav threw it to celebrate ten years of the Seeker. It was a lot of fun. The whole crew got to go. Even the Sisters showed up."
"You were at his castle with your husband?"
"Yes, I do manage to drag him away from the university every so often. We've been guests there lots of times."
"When do I get to see his castle?"
"I've no clue—ask Dav. Anyway, I was in the bathroom getting sick …"
"Go figure."
"Then Poe came in. She went to the mirror and stood there, looking at herself. She was sort of in a daze and didn't see me. I seem to recall her waving her hand, and the door locked by itself. She then took this thing off of her face, this type of flexible appliance, and there it was. I saw, reflected in the mirror, a huge black mark on her face near her right eye. I thought she'd had an accident and had been badly stitched up and was hiding the scar out of vanity. I mean, it was really big."
"But how can this be—how was she not taken?"
"Don't know. Maybe it's because there were no Shadow tech men involved—what did you call them?"
"Invernans."
"Yes, Invernans. I mean, Dav and his sisters look just like Sadric— there's no question he's their father, so there are no 'hidden genes' at work here, no midnight interlopers. Maybe the Black Hats didn't calculate on House Blanchefort bearing a Shadow tech girl and weren't watching. Perhaps it was just one of those things."
"Maybe …" Syg thought about her parents, who they were, where they might be.
"So, given that, I think Sadric protected Poe her whole life. I think from the moment she was born he saw this thing on her face, this birthmark, and went to the Sisterhood for answers. He was very friendly with them. Maybe they told him about the Black Abbess's work. Maybe that's why he was so keen on making peace with the Xaphans, for the sake of his daughter."
Sygillis gazed off into space and looked sad.
"You could be right. But what about the Shadow tech? I can tell you firsthand how it feels to let it build up inside you—it's a wrenching feeling. Poe could not go for any length of time without releasing it. Without training and discipline and frequent casting, it will kill you."
"Well, that's the kicker, isn't it, the final piece in the puzzle." Kilos took another massive swig. Sygillis sat there, impatient, her mug of narva untouched.
"I just told you that Poe oftentimes seemed a little out there, yes?"
"Yes …"
"What has Dav told you about his castle … about Castle Blanchefort?"
"Only that it's his ancestral home—an old Vith structure and that it's located in the north by the sea. I can't wait to see it."
"It's a pretty place. There is a strange phenomena that happens at Castle Blanchefort, a weird sort of thing that happens fairly regularly. The locals call it Sadric's Rain. Some call it Marilith's Tears, but that drives Dav crazy. The locals think that the castle is haunted because of it."
"What is it?"
"A strange sort of fog. It starts somewhere near the castle, probably near the Telmus Grove, and glides its way down the mountainside to the village and then into the bay where it hangs for a long time."
"Have you ever seen it?"
"I have, last year whilst the Seeker was parked in the bay for a refit. I was drinking in the village bars—"
"When are you not drinking, Ki? Good Creation."
"Shut up. Anyway, it was a cold, clear evening—Blanchefort has lots of those. All of a sudden, I see this strange, clutching sort of cloud billowing up near the castle. It obscured the castle's spires and then worked its way down the mountainside and before I knew it, I was blanketed in it. It didn't feel like fog—it felt strange, warm, crawly."
"Was it black?"
"No, it was gray—like a storm cloud. Now, remember I mentioned that every so often Poe acted like she was in a daze, and other times she seemed fine?"
"Yes."
"Well, that day
I noticed that Poe could barely talk and was stumbling around like she'd been drugged. Then there's this weird cloud event, then the next day at breakfast, there's Poe, all bright and cheerful. I like Lady Poe. She's so kind and innocent—it's hard to spend any time with her and not like her."
