The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  “But, Your Eminence, I have other matters to attend to.”

  Tavalisk’s plump lips turned as tough as a dried fruit. “You will stay here with me, Gamil, and that’s the last I want to hear of it.”

  Tawl watched the last mooring rope being pulled up from the quay. Carver and another crewman were winding out the sails. It was nearly dark. Soon Rorn would be a white city that glowed across the waves. A spot on the horizon, like the early moon. Who could tell what would happen between now and when they saw it next? Perhaps they might never see it again.

  Larn was the closest thing to hell on earth, and the devil always protected his own.

  Even now Tawl could feel the island. It was out there in the eastern sea, expecting them, waiting. Confident.

  Tawl glanced at Jack. He was asking Fyler why Carver had called him a green-face. Seasickness was the answer: first-timers were notorious for suffering from it. Smiling, Tawl looked away. Jack was a green-face in more ways than one. Here he was, heading to Larn, without the faintest idea of what was expected of him once he got there. Tawl knew his part was easy compared to Jack’s. All he had to do was provide the opportunity, find a way in there, clear a path, and keep the priests at bay. Jack had to do more. So much more that Tawl couldn’t bear to think about it. How could one man raze the temple to the ground? It was the sort of responsibility that could crush a man’s spirit and turn a sound mind bad. Yet, Jack was on the deck with Carver, chatting away as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Tawl made his way to the bow of the boat. He would do the worrying for both of them.

  Nabber still hadn’t shown up. Which was probably a good thing: the boy would only stamp his feet and demand to come along. Tawl would have to ignore his pleas. He would rest easier knowing Nabber was in Rorn. If anything should happen to them on Larn, at least he knew the boy would be safely back in the city he called home.

  Larn was not Nabber’s affair. It was for him and Jack alone. In a way Tawl wished it was just for him. He had earned the right to bring it down. Larn had destroyed his life, his dreams, and his quest. Its priests had made a murderer out of him, and it was time they paid the price.

  The timbers of The Fishy Few began to creak and roll, and the sails grew fat with the wind. The ship was on its way.

  Tawl moved away from the bow. He was going belowdecks. He didn’t fancy testing his sea legs just yet. As he drew back the bolt of the main hatch, Jack looked over at him. Their gazes met, and Tawl suddenly knew he’d been wrong about him. Jack was no carefree adventurer: he was a young man with fear in his eyes.

  Nineteen

  It was easy to fall into the old habits of Rorn: nodding discreet hellos to fellow pockets, keeping a safe distance between you and the pimps, pilfering hot pies from slow barrow-boys, and always keeping an eye out for friends of the Old Man.

  It certainly was the life! A boy could get right comfortable here, make a home and a living for himself. Make a boatful of coinage, too. In fact, ever since Jack and Tawl had sailed off into the sunset nearly four days back, there’d been little else to do but acquire loot.

  Now, it wasn’t that he thought Jack and Tawl were in the wrong about going off without him—a man’s life was his own and he could do with it whatever he wanted, no questions asked—but a few words of parting might have been nice. You know, “Bye Nabber, see you in a few days. In a week. In a month. In the afterlife.” Something had been called for. As it was, he’d had to figure the whole thing out on his own.

  And the fact that he was good at figuring out was beside the point. Tawl should have let him know the plan from the start. Right dishonorable it was, them taking off in the middle of the night. Another boy might have considered it a mortal insult. Another boy might just have wiped his hands of the whole affair.

  Not him, though. Grievously hurt as he was, he would do his duty by them. And it was more than either of the thankless traitors deserved.

  He knew they’d need loot when they returned. A ship as large and fancy as The Fishy Few didn’t set sail without the assurance of gold, and as far as Nabber knew, Tawl hadn’t got a penny on him, which meant that the knight had promised payment to the good captain when he returned. That was the first thing Nabber had figured out.

  The second thing was that Tawl was obviously expecting him to come up with the loot in his absence—like his own personal treasurer. Talk about taking a boy for granted!

  Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the third thing Nabber had figured out, he might well have chucked the whole thing in and gone back to work for his old friend Swift—if he could ever find him, of course. There was no one like Swift for lying long and low. But no, that was out of the question now. Jack and Tawl were in danger the minute they returned to Rorn. The archbishop’s henchmen were after them. A band of armed men had raided the Rose and Crown in the wee hours of the morning looking for them. It was lucky for Jack and Tawl that The Fishy Few had sailed some seven hours earlier, else they’d be deep in a dark dungeon by now.

  Anyway, the raid was the reason why Nabber had to stick around. Someone had to warn Jack and Tawl about the archbishop’s plan before they got off the boat. Nabber shook his head sadly. Those two just weren’t as smart as him when it came to dodging men with knives.

  Coming to a fork in his path, Nabber chose the way that looked most interesting: the dark alleyway with the foul stench and the greasy-looking cobblestones. He’d been wandering around for some time now. The first pocketing shift of the day—the market hours between sunup and two—had been nicely profitable. And the second shift—the wenching spell between eight and midnight—was still a good few hours ahead. So, he had nothing to do at the moment but kick dirt and revisit his old haunting grounds.

  Strange, but nothing seemed quite as good as he remembered. Oh, it was dodgy all right, and rife with as many possibilities as a bishop on the make, but it just wasn’t all he’d expected.

  Feeling a little disheartened, Nabber decided to head back to the market district. As he spun around, something dark and smelling of figs was thrown over his head.

  “Murder!” he cried at the top of his voice. “Pimps! Help!” He was grabbed, lifted from the ground, and the sack-thing was pulled tightly across his face. Screaming, he was carried away.

  Baralis was nervous. Tonight he would do something he’d never done before. Something so unpredictable and strength-depleting that it could conceivably harm himself.

  He was in his chambers. It was twilight, but Crope had stoked the fire to a furnace and lit so many candles that it now looked like day. The newly born calf was in a copper bath by Baralis’ feet. Barely alive, it still managed to whine for its mother. Crope had purchased it fresh in its caul this morning, yet already it was losing the special luster that accompanied a creature from the womb.

  There was power in birthing. The herdsmen of the Great Plains knew it, his teacher in Hanatta knew it, and now, as he sat but a hand’s length away from a creature who had drawn its first breath only nine hours earlier, Baralis knew it, too.

  The womb was not just tissue and muscle and blood. It was a barrier between worlds. On one side was life: fertile, abundant, decaying. On the other was existence and the beginnings of existence: vulnerable, pure, benign. When the two sides met—when water broke and young were expelled and muscles contracted like a mighty olive press—power was generated. And that power was granted to the newborn.

  Rich with the secrets of the ovaries, heavy with the blood of the placenta, nothing provided as strong a sorcery as a life taken fresh from the womb.

  During his time in the Great Plains, Baralis had seen the herdsmen harness the power of a newborn babe to create the lacus. It had taken six of their wisemen to contain it. Even now Baralis could remember the terrible backlash, feel the searing heat on his skin, and smell the burning flesh as the arms of two of the six were charred to the elbow. Baralis shuddered. Afterward the wisemen, drunk on grain alcohol and valerian root, swore the drawing had been a success.
Lost limbs were nothing compared to the value of the lacus. Wisemen’s arms were expendable—the tribe’s hunters had to be healed regardless of the cost. Baralis ran a finger across his lips. He would never dare to take a newborn child himself.

  Crope made the arrangements, bringing cup, knife, and powder. Baralis settled down in his high-backed chair and watched his servant prepare the beast.

  Debts were dangerous bedfellows—especially if they’d been accrued at Larn’s expense. The priests on that windswept isle kept short tally, and they always demanded payment in full.

  That was what tonight was: payment in full. They had told him their secrets and now he would act on their behalf. The baker’s boy had to be stopped. He was on his way to Larn to destroy the temple, and if he succeeded Baralis knew it wouldn’t be long before his former scribe headed back toward Bren. Oh, Larn was a valuable asset in the war; it fed them information direct from the gods themselves. But it wasn’t essential. He could dominate the north without the help of its seers. So tonight Baralis wasn’t only repaying a debt: he was working on his own behalf.

  Jack was the one person who could prove a serious threat to his plans. Wrapped in an ancient prophecy, he had powers that defied all reason. First he turned back time and then last summer he destroyed an entire garrison, sending shockwaves throughout the Known Lands. He had to be destroyed, Baralis knew that as simply as a child knew the sky was blue.

  Only tonight, over a certain section of the sea southwest of Larn, the skies wouldn’t be blue at all. They’d be blacker than the deepest pits in hell.

  Baralis leant forward and sliced the shaking calf. Blood spattered his face and tunic. The calf screamed like a baby. Crope hovered close with his hearth-warmed bowl. Baralis bit down on his tongue, his teeth piercing deep into the muscle to draw the tissue-rich blood. Baralis braced himself, then railed against the physical world. His body let him go. Reaching out, he caught the essence of the beast. It hit him like a jolt from a lance.

  It sent him reeling. The soul of the calf was still its mother’s, but the power was all its own. Baralis was borne upward by it. At first he was confused, disorientated, drunk with the sheer potency of the force unleashed by the blade. Then, as always, his will rose up to meet the challenge, compelling, reshaping, claiming the power for its own. Like God, Baralis fashioned the creation in his own image. He made it his alone.

  The power was breathtaking: the room could not contain it. Baralis stopped rising upward and expanded outward, instead. He stretched across the palace, then Bren, then the north. No longer a loose scattering of particles, he was a deadly force of nature. Southward he sped along the coast, causing the tides to reverse in his wake.

  “So, Captain,” said Jack, “you said this will be your third trip to Larn?”

  Quain looked at him sharply. Four days they had been sailing now, and every time the captain crossed his path, Jack got the distinct feeling he was being studied like a chart marked with buried treasure.

  This was the first time they’d been alone. Tawl was on deck, trading insults with Carver, no doubt. Either that or sharpening his knives. The knight spent a lot of time seeing to his weapons, and over the past two days had taken to rubbing grease into the blades to protect them from the damp, salty air.

  A bottle of rum was never far from Quain’s hand, and he tilted one now in the direction of two short glasses. Just as the rum level rose to the top of the second glass, the ship suddenly lurched to the side. Amber liquid went spilling across the table, where it pooled against the wooden band.

  “Swell’s rising, Captain,” said Fyler, popping his head around the doorframe.

  “Aye, man. Keep an eye to it,” said the captain. Fyler nodded then disappeared, and the captain turned his attention back to the rum.

  Jack was aware that the sea was growing restless; he could feel the boat rolling and jawing beneath his feet. But he was strangely unaffected by it: no seasickness, no queasiness, no fear. A born sailor, Carver had said. Reaching out to take his glass of rum, Jack prompted the captain again: “So when did you first visit Larn?”

  The captain managed a grudging smile. “You’re persistent, lad. I’ll give you that.”

  “Let’s drink to my persistence, then,” said Jack, raising his glass and smiling like a rogue. “And your knowledge of the sea.”

  The captain’s glass came up to meet his. “The sea.”

  They both downed their drinks in one. Quain slammed his glass down on the table. “Aah. It gets your blood running every time.” He leant back in his chair and took a while to savor the rum before he spoke again.

  “The first time I sailed close to Larn it nearly cost me my commission. Over thirty years ago it was now. I was on a big merchant ship name o’ The Bountiful Breeze. Four masts it had, and a crew of close to forty men. It was my first time out as a navigator and I was shaky as a jellyfish. Thinking back now, I’m amazed that anyone would have let me within a galley’s length of the wheel. Still, Rorn was booming at the time, and the merchants were willing to take on any man as long as he knew the stern from the prow.

  “We were due to sail up the coast to Toolay. Pick up seafood and drop off silk threads for their embroidery. Well, the minute The Bountiful Breeze left the harbor, things began to go wrong. The wind was blowing from the northeast—now, that in itself was strange, as it was early winter, and the northeasterlies never hit until spring. But that wasn’t the only thing that was odd. The ship’s compass started to play up, spinning around like a top one minute, dead as a rusty anchor the next. Then came the storm. . . . ”

  Captain Quain shook his head. The Fishy Few rocked back and forth. Outside, Jack could hear the wind picking up.

  “It was a bad one. Came out of nowhere, it did. There were waves crashing into the foredeck, water leaking into the hold. The sails were ripped straight from the masts and we lost three men overboard. It lasted three days. By the time it was over, the ship’s cat had about as good an idea of where we lay as I did.”

  As the captain spoke, Jack was forced to hold onto the table to stop himself from being thrown from his chair. The entire cabin was creaking. With every roll of the ship, glasses, books, and instruments were thrown against the wooden bands on the shelves. There was an oil lamp hanging from the wall, and it swung back and forth like a drunkard at a dance.

  Quain was as calm as ever. He continued speaking in his warm, gruff voice, and soon nothing mattered but what he said.

  “Well, I gets out my spyglass and takes a quick shifty round. On the horizon is this little rocky isle. So, I consult my charts and find no sign of it, then talk to the captain, who takes a look for himself and pronounces that the isle is Larn. ‘Best get a move on out of here, boy,’ he says. ‘Lest the devil catch us all unawares.’ I tell you, I turned that ship round as fast as if it were a rowboat—no one’s as superstitious as a sailor lost at sea.

  “Anyway, we’re just setting back the way we came when I takes another shifty from the glass. That’s when I see her.”

  “See who?”

  “The girl from Larn. She was adrift on a skiff with neither sails nor oars to get her moving. Right away I can tell she’s in trouble, for she’s just lying there, not moving a muscle. So the first thing I do is turn The Bountiful Breeze round once more. Up comes the captain cursing and yelling and orders me to turn her about. Well, we have a terrible row. He doesn’t want to pick up the girl. He says it’s bad luck and we’ll all be cursed. I says it was no coincidence that The Bountiful Breeze was blown off course, and that we were fated to rescue the girl. Soon the whole crew’s involved, and the captain has little choice but to go along. Sailor’s superstition works both ways—I managed to convince the crew that it would bring us all bad luck if we left the girl to die.”

  The storm outside was building. Jack could hear the crew calling to each other, shouting to be heard above the roar of the waves.

  “The poor thing was as good as dead when we got to her. There was nothing in the sk
iff: no food or water, no spare clothes. She was hot with fever. Delirious. She rambled on in her sleep, crying out a boy’s name over and over again. Aye, but she was beautiful, though. A slip of a girl with long dark hair. I think everyone on board fell in love with her—including the captain. You just couldn’t look at her without wanting to make everything right. We all chipped in our rations; the cook made her special broth and the captain broke out the special brew. I tended to her day and night.

  “Her fever broke the day we docked in Rorn. I asked her what she was doing cast adrift on a skiff off Larn. You know what she said?”

  “No.”

  “She said, ‘Please don’t force me to lie. What happened at Larn is between God, the priests, and myself.’”

  The lantern swung back and forth, sending shadows darting across the captain’s face. Everything in the room was moving in time with the storm: the table, the chairs, the rum. Jack’s heart raced ahead of them all.

  “Why do you think she was cast adrift?” he asked.

  “She was running away.” Quain met his eye. He searched Jack’s features for a moment and then dropped his gaze to his glass. Neither man spoke for a while.

  An ear-splitting crash broke the silence. The ship pitched sharply to port. All of the captain’s belongings smashed against the bands. A collection of rolled charts went spilling to the floor. The oil lamp slammed against the wall. Lightning flashed.

  The captain leapt from his chair. “It’s time I was on deck. Dampen the lights, then follow me up.”