by David Hair
In all their training they had carefully avoided direct confrontation, but she clearly regarded herself as the stronger. That brief flurry of activity had taken less than a second and they’d both been acting without thought, but the winner had been clear. Ramita had never been stronger than anyone in her life – she’d not fought physically since she was about eight. She barely recognised herself.
Justina exhaled and visibly calmed herself.
Ramita watched warily for some underhand counterblow, but none came. ‘You have put us at risk,’ she stated.
Justina hung her head. ‘I know. But she needs me.’
What will I do, when my children call my name? Ramita unclenched her hands. ‘I understand. It is done now.’ She cradled her belly. ‘What do we do now? When will she arrive?’
Justina acknowledged the placatory words. ‘In a few days. They have a windskiff.’
‘They?’
‘There is a boy with her.’ Justina said the word ‘boy’ as if it meant ‘noxious parasite’.
Ramita smiled at that.
Justina scowled. ‘I am sorry for striking you.’
‘You didn’t,’ Ramita reminded her. ‘You only tried to.’
Dhassa, Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6th month of the Moontide
Huriya sat facing the circle of Souldrinkers, who were hanging on her every word. They were all Hermetic magi, the exact opposite of her. She couldn’t shape-change, but they couldn’t do the mind-work she could. Though she was jealous of their bond, she was not jealous of them. She was who she was.
‘I have been calling to Ramita Ankesharan, using Mesmerism to make the call more alluring,’ Huriya said. ‘She is hiding somewhere with Justina Meiros. I can feel Ramita listening to me, even though she doesn’t respond. She is not very skilled in Clairvoyance; she fails to realise that just by listening, she creates a link.’
‘Is it enough to find her?’ Perno asked in his deep voice.
‘Not yet. She has strong wards. But it reveals certain things.’ She glanced at Zaqri, who smiled deferentially at her, but with no warmth. She wanted him, but he didn’t want her – that had never happened to her before. Her resentment of Ghila, the leonine pack leader’s mate, deepened.
Sabele had summoned Zaqri’s pack after many days in the wild to follow up the new clues Huriya had found. They were all naked and dirty and they looked even wilder and more bestial than before. They’d ignored all other foodstuffs save for raw meat, and Huriya realised many of them were barely human now. Only the older ones had managed to find their human voices again.
She was very glad that animism was not a strong affinity for her.
She looked around the pack now and reported, ‘I get a vague impression of direction and distance. She’s somewhere north or west of here.’
The pack looked at each other.
‘Javon?’ Ghila suggested.
‘Is this reliable?’ Hessaz wanted to know.
Sabele’s cracked voice filled the circle. ‘Huriya’s gift is not in clairvoyance. She is primarily a Mesmerist. It is the hypnotic quality of her sending that is drawing Ramita Ankesharan in. I am monitoring what she is doing, as well as divining. The spirits cannot sense Ramita, but they perceive Justina Meiros at times, when she asks questions of them. Justina is not the diviner that I am – I can trace her mind in the aether. Her mental touch always moves southwards, which is consistent with someone north of here.’
‘The Zhassi Valley?’ Ghila suggested.
‘Perhaps.’ Sabele clapped her hands. ‘We will move into the mountains north of the Gotan Heights. The Rondians have advanced beyond there now and they have left only a few garrisons behind. We can move relatively openly.’
‘The Hadishah are at Krak di Condotiori,’ Zaqri put in, his bass voice making Huriya quiver.
‘I do not think the Hadishah need to know of this matter,’ Sabele replied, and Huriya filed that thought away for a later date, when she might need to drive a wedge between her mistress and Emir Rashid.
‘Well done, Huriya Makani,’ Zaqri said approvingly, making her glow.
‘She is learning,’ Sabele said in grudging praise.
*
The next day they set off on their journey north. Half of the pack flew on ahead, while the rest, mostly the younger ones, accompanied Sabele and Huriya, who travelled by camel-cart. The beast-magi moved in human form so that they could remind themselves of who they really were. Huriya wished Zaqri had stayed too. She knew full well that this was not love, just an infatuation such as she’d felt for Jos Klein, but even admitting that to herself did not help much. She had always bounced emotionally from one male to the next, even as a girl trading secret kisses for sweets in Aruna Nagar market – but that did not make it easier to take being thwarted with equanimity.
It took them two weeks to get to the Zhassi Valley, easily avoiding the occasional Rondian patrol: they were poor-quality troops with no magi, no threat at all. Near the high pass into Dhassa they found some caves, and at Sabele’s order, they set up base there. The old jadugara appeared to know the place well.
Throughout the journey, Huriya sent out her mental hooks, trying to lure Ramita in with reminiscences of their wonderful life together, professions of sympathy, of pity, of undying love, pleading for her forgiveness and offering pretend news of Kazim. She tried everything she could, and sometimes she just knew that Ramita was listening, but still she couldn’t coax a response. But every day the sense of direction grew stronger, and now other sensations were creeping in: wind, and water. She could almost feel Ramita’s hair lifting in the breeze. She could almost smell … salt.
‘Near the sea,’ she told Sabele.
After a couple of days’ rest they travelled north and hit the Dhassan coast northeast of Hebusalim, hundreds of miles east of Southpoint, in a place where no one at all lived. The pack captured and tamed wild horses, which they rode alongside the camel-cart where Huriya had to endure Sabele’s constant nagging presence. She was horribly jealous, but she had never learned to ride. Being tied to Sabele felt increasingly inhibiting … But I still need her, she told herself
The sea-coast was awe-inspiring. Massive cliffs of some white stone defended the land from the sea. Though the water thundered far below, still they could taste the tang of the spray on their lips and misty clouds billowing all the way along the coastline.
Sabele sent Perno to a secret place to retrieve a windskiff, in case she and Huriya needed to travel swiftly. Huriya’s certainty increased: Ramita was near, she knew it. But though the pack searched for miles in either direction, Noveleve waned and still Ramita and Justina eluded them.
Their frustrations grew.
Finally, they had the breakthrough they had been seeking – in a unexpected form.
Sabele and Huriya were huddled over the brazier, listening to the night air, when they felt someone’s mental voice carry out across the aether. The faint, almost inaudible cry came from the northwest, where there was only water, and it vanished immediately.
But it was unmistakeably a mage’s voice.
If they had not been so near and listening so closely in this remote place they would never have heard it. And if they’d not heard it, they would never have attached any significance to the brief flare of lightning that cracked across the northern horizon. But together, it was enough.
Sabele caught Huriya’s hand. ‘There! There! She’s not beside the sea: she’s in it!’ The old jadugara lurched to her feet in excitement and shuffled to her maps. ‘Ha! See? The Pillars of the Gods! That is the only place north of here they could be! She is hiding among the Pillars!’
*
Ramita was almost moved to take Justina’s hand, to try and calm her. The white witch was in a positive frenzy over the discovery of her daughter. She spent the days waiting for her arrival in a frenzy of cleaning, though she’d never paid the slightest attention to such domestic tr
ivia before. She flew into rages over the smallest things, and was generally unbearable.
Just after dusk on the third day came the call Justina had been awaiting, just as they were about to leave the platform and go below, fed up with the freezing-cold high winds shrieking about the pillar of rock. It was raining, and the storm-tossed sea met the low cloud that filled the sky.
Justina squawked like a startled hen. ‘It’s her!’ she announced in a flurry of excitement and raised her hand. She sent a vivid bolt of lightning into the sky, not the first such bolt that night, but the others had all been natural, and Ramita had been frightened that one might strike the very place where they stood. Justina’s bolt smote the heavens like a sword on a shield.
Then they huddled together on the balcony, shielded themselves from the rain and watched the skies. Ramita clutched her belly and tried to keep her body temperature from falling as the night came on.
Justina was clad in her usual heavy mantle. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, but other than that her porcelain face was unreadable. Ramita had put on a saree to mark the occasion of this auspicious meeting. Justina was scandalised by her naked belly, but she refused to change: a bared pregnant belly was an honourable thing at home.
I am Lakh. Let them deal with it, she thought crossly.
Then out of the night it came, a dark shape like a giant bird that soared in on the winds. Justina lit a gnosis-light in her hand, illuminating the top of the pillar, and the windskiff swooped towards them. Ramita glimpsed pale faces, wide-eyed in the darkness: a young man, wrestling with the sails, and a black-haired girl fighting the tiller. They looked terribly young.
At last they managed to position their craft over the stone circle and lower it to the surface despite the buffeting winds. Then the skiff touched the stone, and Justina flew to its side.
‘Cymbellea!’ she shrieked, and enveloped the girl at the tiller in her arms.
Ramita hung back, watching mother and daughter curiously. Justina was sobbing, but her daughter was all business. It was the exact opposite to what she’d anticipated, and it gave her a new insight into Justina Meiros’ nature. The jadugara might hide her emotions, but that didn’t mean she was without emotion; she clearly craved acceptance from someone she could call family.
The girl looked just like her mother: cool and composed, the centre of her own universe. She wondered how long it would be before they were at each other’s throats.
For now, though, Justina clung to her almost pitiably, fretting at the girl’s strangely marked forehead, patting her hair, offering her an arm, though her own legs were as unsteady as a newborn colt.
Almost as an afterthought, Ramita glanced at the boy. He was neither tall nor broad, though he was still taller than her. He looked awfully young, and he had none of the certainty that Cymbellea did. His face was pale; though it was not a weak face, it had an unfinished look to it, with plenty of baby fat in his cheeks. He looked competent enough, though, lashing down the sails firmly before lowering packs over the side. He wore a sword easily, and he managed to work without tangling it about his legs.
‘Mother, please,’ Cymbellea said after a moment, pushing out of Justina’s embrace. ‘Can we get the skiff undercover and get out of the rain?’
Justina regained enough composure to open the doors and help the two young people drag the windcraft to one side; there was not enough room to stow the skiff up here, and it was too stormy to make them fly it down to the lower landing site. Ramita went to pick up one of the packs, but the Rondian boy hurried towards her. ‘Hey, I can look after those,’ he said anxiously before his voice trailed off as if he doubted she understood his words.
He’s never seen a Lakh before.
‘Fine,’ she said shortly, let the bag drop and waddled away in a huff. They probably think I’m the maid.
In just a few minutes, they were all inside. The boy and girl had been wrapped in leather raincloaks, with scarves knotted about their throats. Justina showed them to their rooms below and allowed them time to change while she alternately fretted with her hair and wept. Ramita had to do everything: mulling the wine, seeing to the simmering curry, heating the room. Finally, the two guests reappeared, clad in loose-fitting Rondian men’s garb: trousers and long-sleeved shirts with buttons at the front. They stood awkwardly facing Justina. The boy was cradling something in his hands, a leather bag about two feet long.
‘Mother,’ Cymbellea said into the silence, ‘this is Alaron Mercer.’
Ramita frowned. The name Mercer rang bells with her for some reason, but she could not say why; the memory just would not come.
The boy ducked his head. ‘Uh, Lady Meiros,’ he said, his face colouring.
Justina frowned at him. ‘I do not know your family, young sir.’
‘My mother is – uh, was – an Anborn.’
Justina’s face flickered with interest. ‘Elena Anborn? The Javon queen’s champion?’
Alaron shook his head. ‘Tesla, her elder sister.’
Justina’s face lost some of its animation. ‘Oh. And “Mercer”?’
‘My father … Uh, he’s a trader. Not a mage.’
Justina looked at him as if to say, ‘What is a Kore-bedamned merchant’s boy doing with my daughter?’ Justina’s daughter had herself been conceived of a non-mage, but a boy of similar parentage was obviously not good enough to be with Cymbellea. Ramita felt a twinge of sympathy for the young man. Her own father was a trader, a most honourable profession, in her view.
‘Alaron is a good friend, Mother.’ Cymbellea was composure itself.
‘Do you know my Aunt Elena?’ Alaron asked into the silence.
‘Only by reputation,’ Justina replied, her face revealing that the woman’s reputation was no small thing. Ramita wondered who she was. ‘I have no news of her, I’m afraid.’
The boy looked disappointed. He shifted the bag in his grasp uncomfortably. ‘Nor I, ma’am.’
The room fell silent again.
Before the two children – which was how Ramita thought of them, although they were probably older than she was – concluded that she really was just the maid, Ramita decided she was going to have to do her own introductions. ‘Namaste. My name is Ramita Ankesharan-Meiros.’
Cymbellea blinked. ‘Meiros?’
‘I was married to Lord Antonin.’ She gave Cymbellea her most winsome smile. ‘I think that makes me your grandmother.’
*
Alaron stared about the table, not quite believing with whom he was sharing it. That Cym was here with him was amazing enough; he’d never found her less than incredible. She’d been at the centre of his heart for too long for him put his awe aside. She might not love him, but she gave meaning to his existence just by being near.
Her mother drew his eye the most: Justina Meiros, a figure of legend, if not for her own deeds, but by association. She was the only living daughter of Antonin Meiros, the Bridge-Builder himself, and that made her some kind of demi-goddess at the very least. She looked like Cym too, a glimpse of what Cym might become.
Except that he could never imagine Cym being so cold-faced and close-mouthed. Justina Meiros looked like someone who’d lost too much, until mourning what could have been had become a lifetime’s habit. Her mouth was forever pursed in silent sourness, and she seemed only to see the negatives. When Cym began to explain how she and Alaron had come to be here, Justina had only had criticisms to make. Verelon and Sydia were bleak and primitive wastes, and Pontus a cesspit. Everything was wrong, everywhere.
Occasionally his eyes went to the little woman from Lakh. At first he’d thought her plump, then realised that she was heavily pregnant. Her costume was outrageous! It looked like she’d wrapped herself in a long multi-coloured bed sheet – and it actually left her stomach bare. Quite barbaric. He felt sorry for her. She seemed pleasant enough, but way out of her depth. She must have just conceived to Lord Meiros – unbelievable in itself, given the man’s age
– only to have him die on her and now she was obviously a fugitive, quite dependent upon Lady Justina’s charity. He couldn’t place her age. She was tiny and her face was smooth, but it had a maturity and firmness that made him think she must be much older than him. It must be hard for her, a non-mage, bearing Meiros’ children.
That the mighty Antonin Meiros was dead had thrown an immediate pall over the table. Cym was stunned, although she’d never met him. She’d clearly placed great store in being of his line. Justina sounded quite lost when she spoke of her father. The tiny Lakh woman seemed on the verge of tears too, to his surprise. For himself, he’d been having enough trouble thinking of Lord Meiros as a real person; he belonged in stories, not life.
Justina explained how she and Ramita came to be here, fugitives from a broken Ordo Costruo. They had no news of the outside world, or how the Crusade progressed, and Alaron’s confidence in coming here began to wane.
‘Uh, when is your child due?’ he asked Ramita during one of the increasingly long gaps in the conversation.
‘The second month,’ she replied in her thickly accented Rondian.
‘Febreux?’ he clarified. She waggled her head side to side, a strange gesture he’d never seen before, but it appeared to mean yes. ‘Um, it’s a shame that …’ He trailed off, realising that he’d been about to say something stupidly insensitive about her dead husband. Silence filled the room again as he flushed bright red.
Well done, Alaron. Another brilliant conversational gambit.
Her voice uncharacteristically wary, Cym started, ‘Mother, I need to tell you something.’ And she launched into the tale of the lost Scytale, not naming it, just calling it ‘an artefact’.
Alaron watched Justina’s eyes narrow as the tale progressed: from General Langstrit and his trail of clues, to breaking into the Governor’s Palace, that frantic night in Norostein that had cost the lives of the general and Alaron’s mother, and their flight across Yuros and the Bridge …
Justina grew more and more agitated as she listened, and as Cym’s story drew to a close, she asked, ‘Where is this “artefact”?’ Her eyes went immediately to the bag lying on the table beside Alaron’s right elbow.
