A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings Book 1)

by Kevin Hearne

  “No. World.”

  That conflicted so badly with facts that I wondered if we had different conceptions of what “the world” meant.

  “World is Teldwen, yes?” He nodded, so I continued. “Places in world are Ecula and—” I stopped myself and held up a hand, opening my ink pot and scrawling out a rough map of the world I knew, an inferior copy of the professional map we’d used to establish the location of Ecula earlier. I sketched our explored lands to the left and a series of five small blobs for Ecula, leaving room on the right side of the paper in case. I’d been so focused on finding out where his country was that I never asked about other countries he might know—lands beyond his own.

  “This is world,” I asserted, thinking he would either accept it or correct me, and he corrected me, shaking his head.

  “I do not know this part,” he said, pointing to the west. “But world is more.”

  I handed him the paper through the bars in a wordless command to demonstrate what he meant. He still had his own ink and quill from our earlier language lessons.

  His attempts at cartography were even worse than mine. He merely drew three circles on the right side, each bigger than Ecula but nothing like the size of our main landmass, and assigned names to them: Joabei to the north, Omesh near the middle, and Bačiiš to the south. The last one drew my attention for its linguistic relation to the old language, but not wishing to forget our original thread of conversation, I pointed to each circle and said, “People here. All skin like yours?”

  “Yes. Most.” He pushed down with the flat of his hand once more. “Some small changes. Small differences. But not dark.”

  I gestured with my fingers to get the map back and then pointed to the three new circles to the east of Ecula. “These places,” I said, then moved my finger to point to our continent. “Bigger than here?”

  He shrugged, though I could not tell if it was because he didn’t know or didn’t care or some combination of both.

  “You go to Joabei, Omesh, or Bačiiš?”

  “No.”

  “Those people come to Ecula?”

  “No,” he said, his face twisting with impatience at my stupidity and sighing over the fact that I even had to ask. “Man-eaters in the ocean.”

  Yes, but so what? He had passed over those same man-eaters to get here. Baffling. “How do you know they are like you?”

  “Zanata Sedam.” Ah, The Seven Kennings. How kind of him to bring it up. I had it with me in a leather case containing my notes, and I brought it out so that he could see it. As before, the sight of it brought him rushing to the bars, and he stuck his hand out, demanding that I give it to him.

  “Those places—those people—are in here?” I asked.

  “Yes. Me give.”

  “They have kennings?”

  “Yes.” His hand remained out, and for a moment Reinei’s wind ceased to blow in my lungs. If they had kennings, then there must be somewhere else than the six nations where one could become a tempest or a cyclone or a fury or a tidal mariner. When I took breath again, I pointed at his holy writ.

  “But this place, my people, are not in here?”

  “No.” His fingers curled into a fist and spread out again. “Please give.”

  “I cannot give. But I can read. Any part. Any page. I would like that. Would you like that?” I thought I could manage to at least pronounce the words correctly, if not recognize their meanings.

  Disappointed, he withdrew his arm and scowled at me, resentful as I suppose any prisoner would be.

  “Any page,” he finally said. “You read.” He slouched to the back of his cell, sitting on his cot and drawing his long legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, and closing his eyes.

  I flipped at random to a spot a little past halfway and began to read in my halting Eculan. I thought I was doing well until a low growl began in the cell and rose to a roar. “You wrong are!”

  “Sorry. Please. Make me right.”

  It went more slowly after that, with frequent stops for subtle coaching on my pronunciation.

  “Must correct say,” Saviič insisted. So I concentrated on forcing my mouth to produce the sounds the way Saviič did and missed a lot of meaning; that wasn’t terribly tragic since it was dry, boring stuff about being righteous. I had no complaints; I was learning and enjoying the linguistics if not the content. I kept at it for an hour before I was feeling ready for a break, but then a sentence’s meaning broke through my basic decoding and translation to sink in and make me reread it. Even then it took me some time to untangle the syntax.

  I muttered a quick translation in Kaurian: “In the dark of the moon the Seven-Year Ship comes to take the faithful to the … land? Island? … Of the Seventh Kenning, and there they shall know the fullness of Teldwen’s … gifts?”

  I looked up with questions in my eyes, and Saviič flashed his crooked brown teeth at me. He didn’t know Kaurian, but he knew that the words were having effect.

  “Best part is,” he said.

  “Good is,” I agreed, then questioned him on the unfamiliar words to make sure my translation was accurate. Island was correct, but the word I thought was gifts was more accurately translated as blessings. That took quite some time to figure out, but once I was satisfied, I probed for an explanation.

  “Seven-Year Ship comes?”

  “Yes. My life, two times comes,” Saviič said, holding up his thumb and index finger. His middle finger flicked up, and he continued, “But this time—third time—no come.”

  “Which time?”

  He told me the Seven-Year Ship was supposed to have come last year but didn’t.

  “Where does the Seven-Year Ship come from?”

  The Bone Giant shrugged. “Here.”

  “Here? No.”

  “Somewhere here. I not know.”

  Using the map, I asked if he meant the Seven-Year Ship came from Kauria; that was an improbability if he had seen the ship twice in his life yet had never seen a Kaurian. That wasn’t what he meant: “Here” meant somewhere on our continent’s western shores. And I gasped.

  “Oh! For Seven-Year Ship you looking?”

  He nodded, and I forgot myself and spoke to him using Kaurian syntax but Eculan words. He still followed me, though.

  “Who is on the Seven-Year Ship? People with skin like yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how many faithful go on the ship to the island of seven kennings?”

  “Seventy-seven and seven. If ship come, I go. Faithful I am. But no ship. Go anyway.”

  Eighty-four, then. “Did all the faithful go anyway to find the Island of the Seventh Kenning?”

  “Yes.”

  Eighty-four religious zealots climbed into tiny boats and sailed west in search of another boat. Might as well ask him again. “What is the Seventh Kenning?”

  “I not know. To island faithful go, there discover.”

  The text could be interpreted to mean that the Seventh Kenning wasn’t a separate talent at all but rather knowledge of the other six—the fullness of the kennings. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

  The only islands to the west of Ecula were the archipelago between Kauria and Forn, the island next to the Tempest of Reinei, and the Mistmaiden Isles in the north. But the only pale people on this side of the continent were the Fornish, so the evidence pointed to this mythical island being very close to Kauria. The mistral needed to know right away. I had learned so much, and it was only midafternoon. I excused myself hastily, promising Saviič that I would return soon. Rushing out of the dungeon with the scribbled map and Zanata Sedam, my finger jammed in the pages to mark the passage, I had a cyclone take me to Teela Parr, and on the way I wondered if the Eculans might not be some mutation of the Fornish as the Hathrim were supposed to be, caused by the Rift ages ago. It would at least account for their root language if they had at one point come from Forn’s eastern shores.

  Speaking perhaps a bit too quickly, I told her that there were
three nations beyond Ecula, the site of the Seventh Kenning might be located somewhere in the archipelago, and if Saviič wasn’t lying, someone from Forn was crossing the ocean and going back every seven years.

  “Someone Fornish? How does he know that?”

  “It’s my deduction. He said the people on this ship had pale skin. And he asked me why my skin is dark.”

  Teela snorted. “Guess he doesn’t get out much.”

  “A fair assessment. But the mistral’s suggestion was excellent. This conversation blew fair because I asked him about his religion and began to read his scripture. But you know the oddest thing?”

  “It all sounds odd to me.”

  “Agreed, but now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t remember him ever mentioning the actual deity he follows, nor did any deity get mentioned in the portion I read.”

  Teela’s eyes dropped to the book. “It has to be in there somewhere.”

  “I hope so. I have a lot of reading to do.”

  She asked me to walk with her and bring the map because the mistral would want to hear everything straight from me.

  “We’re going to see the mistral?”

  “Of course. Didn’t you want her to know all this?”

  “Well, yes, but—” I looked down to see if I had any mustard stains on my tunic this time. I was blessedly stain-free but still a decrepit old scholar unfit for court.

  “Don’t worry about your clothes. She is well aware that you have other priorities, unlike her courtiers.”

  We entered the Calm from behind the throne while the mistral was receiving the Fornish ambassador. Apparently, a volcano had erupted in Hathrir and the entire surviving population of Harthrad had sailed north to land in Ghurana Nent. A serious situation, no doubt, that could trigger the Sovereignty Accords for the first time. But as those giants were on the other side of the continent, I could not muster very much worry about them. The giant we had in the dungeon was far more interesting. The mistral asked the ambassador to acquire more information about the Hathrim before committing to anything; a precipitous action against Gorin Mogen in a time of obvious crisis could damage relationships with the other Hathrim hearthfires.

  Teela Parr executed some sort of hand signal to the mistral after the ambassador bowed, and Kauria’s elected ruler requested that the Calm be cleared for a private briefing. I caught many curious and perhaps calculating glances thrown my way as a result. I thought I recognized some of the faces from my first visit, though of course they were all clothed differently now and I looked like I was only a generous step away from a pauper. One man in particular was reluctant to leave. He was a broad-nosed handsome fellow in the younger half of his fourth decade who adorned the world with the muscles in his arms and spoke in one of those deep sonorous voices that sounded heavy with gravitas. “Begging your pardon, Mistral, but if this regards the Bone Giant, might I remain to hear it?” he said.

  “Should it bear any relation to your concerns, Zephyr, I will consult you right away,” she replied.

  So that was Zephyr Bernaud Goss. He removed himself slowly not because he was incapable of speed but because there was no dignity in moving quickly. He wanted all the dignity. Or maybe his heavy voice slowed him down. Once all the doors closed, however, Teela moved with alacrity. She snatched the map out of my hand and stepped quickly toward the mistral.

  “First is this,” she said, pointing to the circles on the right before handing it over. “Three more countries we’ve never heard of before, all populated by people with pale skin. Second, eighty-four Bone Giants, Saviič included, sailed for our shores because they were looking for a sacred ship that supposedly sails from an island in the west every seven years—their west being our east. It didn’t show up on schedule, so they got worried. They call it the Island of the Seventh Kenning. And that ship is crewed by pale people.”

  Mistral Kira said, “You mean the Fornish?”

  Teela shrugged. “I don’t know who else it could be unless we have a secret population of Hathrim living in the archipelago without our knowledge. Shall I call the Fornish ambassador back to ask about it?”

  The mistral considered it, then shook her head. “No. If they have been keeping this a secret from us for all this time, we’d best not reveal that we know something about it until we know a whole lot more about it. Did Saviič tell you all this?” she asked me.

  “Most but not all. I read some of his scripture, and the discussion that ensued was quite revelatory.”

  The mistral pointed at Zanata Sedam. “Scholar Vedd, I would like you to make a complete, detailed copy of that book, including any scribblings in the margins. Then you can give it back to him and work together on translating it.”

  “Certainly. Your instincts were correct: he made no effort to pretend he was a merchant once we discussed religious matters.”

  “My thanks for your work, Scholar.” Mistral Kira shifted her eyes to Teela. “When was the last time anyone did a really good survey of the archipelago?”

  “I would have to check. Certainly not in our lifetime.”

  “It might be worthwhile to see what’s happening in there. A task to occupy the zephyr’s mind.” She smiled at me and raised a hand to the side of her mouth to whisper even though no one else was in the room but us. “I think being the military leader of a peaceful nation wears on him.”

  We all chuckled at the poor zephyr’s expense, and I did feel somewhat sorry for him. All our culture and diplomacy was determined to make sure he had nothing to do. “Well, he certainly has the ships needed to carry out the task,” Teela said.

  “Set up a private meeting with him later tonight, and I’ll get him to work on it. But not a word of this to anyone else. I don’t want everyone sailing through there looking for this and alerting the Fornish.” Her eyes flicked back to me to make sure I knew I was included in the silence order. “And say nothing about the three new countries, either, or any of it. We still don’t know which way the wind will blow. I’ll await your next report eagerly, Scholar.”

  “My pleasure to serve, Mistral.”

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  “Well …”

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps some cheese to go with that mustard you gave me?”

  U početku je bilo sedam, a na kraju neče biti jed.

  It is the very first line of Zanata Sedam, and I tremble at the translation.

  If I am correct, it means: “In the beginning there were seven, and in the end there shall be one.”

  If this refers to the kennings—and I believe it does—then it implies a very militant philosophy on the part of the Eculans, especially when taken in context with what else I’ve read. They may interpret that line to mean that they should conquer all the nations of Teldwen, taking their kennings for their own. Yet there could be other meanings: Perhaps the various sources of the kennings will cease at some point to bless those who seek magical powers. Perhaps the gods themselves will expire and the kennings along with them—an apocalyptic vision, to be sure, but also consistent with their seeming lack of a deity in their holy text, for why worship gods you believe will fall? I am still not convinced they worship no god—that would contradict Saviič’s holy fervor and his devotion to this religious text—but I have yet to see a god mentioned.

  The simplest answer would be to ask Saviič in plain terms to name his god, but I keep thinking the next sentence I translate will give me the answer, and since the mistral ordered me to complete a copy, that is what I will do. I am translating as I go, however, rather than simply copying the text. I can’t help it. I’m leaving blanks for the words and passages I’m having trouble with. My thinking is that I will be able to prioritize which sections deserve to be translated first. The temptation to return to the dungeon is almost overwhelming, and that would have been an unthinkable sentence for me to write a few weeks ago. The problem is that my progress will slow if I begin talking to Saviič. Better to continue working in my private corner of t
he university library.

  Yet the first line disturbs me so, I hardly know how to proceed. Should I recommend to the mistral that all nations look to their borders in the near future, perhaps spurring taxes on east coast peoples in advance of an attack that will never come? Or should I keep it to myself, a private fear unworthy of larger circulation? It is too large a thing for me to decide. It’s best that I pass it on to the chamberlain, like everything else, and let the people in power choose the path forward. I am merely a scholar with a taste for mustards and cheeses of a far finer quality than I can afford.

  Teela Parr was quick to see me when I relayed a request for a meeting to discuss it. But her face, initially welcoming and pleasant, crushed itself into a frown after a few steps as she took in my appearance and the dirty dishes stacked on the end of the table from past meals.

  “Sweet Reinei, Gondel, do you ever actually eat any mustard or do you just smear it on yourself on purpose?”

  “What?” I looked down at my tunic, realizing that I was more than usually stained.

  “When was the last time you went home?”

  I blinked, considering. “What day is this?”

  “It’s Feiller.”

  “Then it’s been days.” Suddenly I missed Maron. He must have thought I’d fallen into the ocean. Or that I didn’t love him anymore. Or that the government owned me now. He’s always had trouble understanding that sometimes I get lost in my work. That kind of thing never happened to him, and since it was so far outside his own experience, he never believed me when I said it was a frequent hazard. He thought instead that he was not interesting enough to hold my attention, ignoring all the times I lost myself in him and neglected my work for his sake.

  “I want you to go home after this meeting,” Teela said. “Take a day off. Maybe two.”

  “But the mistral wants this translation—”

  “And she’ll still want it when you get back. She also wants you healthy, believe me. And don’t worry about Saviič. He will be fine. Now: What have you found?”

  “The translation of Zanata Sedam is disturbing. Portions of it also conflate with my professional interest in the origins of the Rift; apparently the Eculans know of it as well but think of it quite differently than we do. But let’s begin with the very beginning. Look at this first page.” I rifled through the stacks of paper and placed my translation in front of her.