“Do you understand?
“Do you understand?”
* * *
“HELLO there!” the Prince called. “Are you guests of Faham Execarne?”
Despite their burden of bundles and gifts, and their obvious exhaustion, they spoke in a high clear voice, each word pronounced with thought and care. Brightly, Baru thought, they spoke brightly.
“We are,” Baru called, “we’ve come to help you up the trail, Your Federal Highness.”
“Don’t call me that,” the laman said, “and please don’t lie, either, it’s dreadful luck to lie at first meeting.”
Baru drew up short. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not a guest of Mister Execarne’s farm. You came in on Helbride yesterday, you turned over the harbormaster’s records, caused an exchange panic, and asked my spy to see me.”
Baru shot a victorious little ha at Xe: see, a spymaster! Xe shrugged.
“You came very promptly,” Baru said, “and I’m surprised you’re alone.”
“How else would I come? You only invited me.”
“With security, I’d think.”
“But then I’d betray the terms of your invitation. This way trim protects me. Not that I expect you to believe in that protection.” They smiled up at Baru, a middle-aged laman of little height but warm forceful presence, like a candle-flame still burning cheerfully in the cold. They had deep black skin, short kinky hair, a fine delicate jaw under the classical high brow. Against that skin they had set a golden khanga wrapped tight down to the waist, then loose like a skirt around wide hips. The embroidered hem of the khanga read, in Aphalone, Compassion is the surest wind if we only raise our sails. Golden chains bound their nose to their earlobes, and their throat glistened with green stars and golden lines of paint. Baru thought they were impossibly beautiful.
“I am Tau-indi Bosoka,” they said, “Federal Prince of Lonjaro Mbo.”
For once Baru had no money metaphor to deploy. The Prince Tau-indi looked priceless, unbuyable, unbendable, a person beyond market.
“Here, this is for you!” The Prince offered Baru a case of inlaid wood. Inside Baru found a gorgeous magnetic compass, the needle mounted on a clever device of steel and exotic rubber: she gasped in delight. Tau turned to Xe. “And for you, miss, I think a pearl will do.”
Xe murmured thanks. “Now,” Tau-indi Bosoka said, apparently satisfied that this gift-giving had secured them against eavesdroppers or assassins, “let’s walk and speak, if you don’t mind doing both slowly. Am I mistaken, miss, that you come from Aurdwynn? You have the Maia look.”
“No,” Baru said, “I’m from—”
But of course Tau-indi had been speaking to Xe.
“Yes,” Xe said, “my great-family is from the north.”
“The north. Very far from the sea! But your, ah, your general figure and your way of walking, do I presume too much to think you may be a diver?”
Xe nodded. “I am.”
“And you did harbor work, perhaps? In Treatymont or Welthony?”
“I did.” Baru was by now quite impressed with this Prince’s incision. They had come to the same conclusions as Baru.
“Wonderful. I’m looking for a friend who went missing in Aurdwynn during the civil war. Do you know,” Tau-indi’s voice fell as low as the wind, “a man named Abdumasi Abd? A merchant with shipping interests?”
“I do,” Xe said, “I know that name.”
“You do?” Tau-indi Bosoka stopped, whirled, and threw out their hands like a beggar. “Oh, bless you, bless you. I can’t say how much this means to me. Abd is my dear friend and I’ve been searching for him for months. Can you tell me—anything at all?”
Xe considered. “The divers who were closest to the Duke Unuxekome told me he had a new ally. An Oriati merchant named Abdumasi Abd. Abd was rich, and bold, and he hated Falcrest—he was building up the Eyota privateers into a full fleet. Unuxekome hoped he’d come to the rebellion’s aid.”
“Oh.” Tau-indi sagged in disappointment, but only for a moment. They summoned cheer and offered their hands to Xe. “Thank you so much. Thank you for remembering my friend.”
Baru was again thinking very quickly. Was this the secret Iraji and Apparitor had been keeping from her? Tau-indi’s interest in Abdumasi Abd?
But Baru had to focus on her own mission. Could this Prince help her destroy Falcrest?
“Your Federal Highness.” Baru offered her arm to help them up the cliff. “I wanted to meet you to discuss an arrangement.”
“Oh?” Tau smoothed their khanga against their hips. There was a surprising caution in their voice. “Did you?”
“I have extensive access to the ministries and faculties of the Imperial Republic. I can track down anything you might imagine.” Baru took a deep, deep breath. “I understand you are a Prince of the Mbo. I know there exist certain tensions, growing tensions, in the relationship between Falcrest and your great nation—”
“Oh, yes,” Tau-indi said, soberly, “if we can’t stop this war from breaking out, I believe it’ll be the end of the world.”
Baru blinked. It was very peculiar to hear Farrier’s words in this Prince’s mouth.
“I’m not mad,” Tau said, still quite somber. “The war’s why I have to find Abdumasi. Years ago, you see, I mistreated him. That opened a tiny wound in the trim between us. That wound has grown now, and threatens to devour the world.”
Baru had no idea what to say to this alien notion. Tau smiled at Xe. “Miss diver, do you know the properties of a wound in trim?”
“A curse, I think,” Xe said. “An evil thought.”
“Oh no, no. A curse means an ill wish—the opposite of a blessing. But a wound in trim is the absence of all that is human. It exposes the attainted to the world in its natural state, unordered by the human heart. Ha! Look at your face. You do think I’m mad.” They sighed, without self-pity, with a certain wryness. “It’s very hard to convince people the world will end. They insist it’s never happened before. But it has, it has ended many times: the Cheetah Palaces fell, and so did the Jellyfish Eaters when Mount Tsunuq erupted. Their worlds ended.”
“I don’t want a war, either,” Baru said, choosing her words very carefully. She very badly wanted the approval of this spymaster-Prince, who was so like the lamen of her childhood. “My home, my homes, would be destroyed. But if war is necessary, I have to be sure it ends the right way.”
“War’s never necessary.”
“What if that war destroyed Falcrest?” Baru said.
“I’m sorry.” The Prince laughed. “I must have misheard you?”
“Would you go to war with Falcrest if I could guarantee your victory?”
The Prince Tau-indi Bosoka flinched as if snakebitten, and dropped the bundle they’d been holding. Glass and wine shattered at their feet to soak the cloth. “I know you,” they said, in a voice soaked like wet paper with fear. “I recognize the way you think. You’re Baru Cormorant. You’re the Imperial agent from Sieroch.”
“Yes,” Baru said, retreating a few paces away from the cliff, “yes, that’s me.…”
“You baited out the Coyote rebellion. You asked Duke Unuxekome to sail against Treatymont.”
“It wasn’t quite like that—”
“Did you do all that to draw Abdumasi Abd’s ships into the rebellion? Did you spark civil war in Aurdwynn only to justify a larger war between Falcrest and Oriati Mbo?” A terrible regal power galvanized their voice, galvanized, the word for the hardening of the muscle when seized or lightning-struck. “Did you do this? Tell me the truth! Were you dispatched by Falcrest to create cause for war?”
Baru wished that she had her mask. “Wait. Wait wait wait.” She held up her hands: now she wished for gloves. “I’m making you an offer, Your Federal Highness. I have access to the very highest levels of Imperial strategy. I can tell you anything you need to know to defeat them—”
“It’s already in you,” Tau-indi breathed, staring up at Baru in
rapturous horror. They shrugged off their pack and dropped their bundles. Wonderful porcelain smashed on the rock. Wooden jars of precious stones tumbled into the sea. “The wound is in you. Oh, principles save us, it is growing now. I will have nothing to do with you.”
Swiftly they wheeled to Ulyu Xe. “Diver miss, please tell Faham that the situation has changed, and I can no longer protect him.”
“What do you mean?” Baru hissed. “Wait a moment—”
But the Prince had utterly blanked her out. “Tell Faham that despite his countermeasure he still has a mole in his station. Yesterday someone left a letter in the post addressed to Rear Admiral Juris Ormsment. I obtained a copy. It tells Ormsment that her quarry has gone to ground at the Morrow Ministry station here, on this very island. Ormsment landed yesterday. She has the letter by now.”
“What!” Baru shouted. “A mole? Who—is there any name, any sign—?”
Tau-indi seized Xe’s hands so fiercely that even the stoic diver winced. “I can’t protect you, do you understand? My people cannot allow the prisoners here to fall into the navy’s hands. You know too much that could drive your Parliament to war. Despite my protest, our Jackals are on their way to this island to take you all away.
“And now Ormsment’s marines are coming, too. If you don’t move quickly, the war could begin right here.”
17
THE MASK BENEATH THE MESA
BARU stumbled in through the farmhouse door, gasping and huffing, to ruin everyone’s day. The herbalist Yythel saw Baru first. She made a face for snakes and maggots. “It’s her again.”
“We’re compromised.” Baru gasped. “Mister Execarne. An Oriati Prince named Tau-indi Bosoka came here to tell you that you’re compromised. They said they couldn’t protect you anymore, that Ormsment and the Jackals were coming—”
“Hm.” Execarne rubbed his beard in thought. “Probably another game. They do like to rattle me. What did Tau bring as a gift? A watch, a book? Maybe another puzzle?”
“A gift? They had pearls, ointments, perfumes, bolts of fabric, this compass they gave me—”
“Shit!” Execarne dropped his coffeepot to shatter, ripped his crossbow off its hook, and began to kick the benches over, scattering Ude, Run, and Yythel in shouting protest. “Get up! Get up, we’re compromised! We have to go now! You lot, line up on that wall!”
Yawa’s eyes accused. Was this you?
Baru put up her hands helplessly: not I, not I!
General chaos. Execarne began rooting around in a bottle of drugged candies. “That many gifts,” he grumbled, “that many, it’s got to be real, got to be, but I shut up the leak, I know I did.”
“You had a leak,” Yawa said.
“Yes, but I handled it thoroughly. Jackals and Ormsment … what the fuck is Ormsment doing down here?”
“Province Admiral Ormsment’s gone rogue,” Yawa said. “She’s hunting us. Her ship arrived yesterday.”
Execarne thought about this, grimaced, and swallowed another pellet. “All right,” he said. “Do you have a ship?”
“The clipper Helbride. Offshore to the south.”
“You’d better signal her to come in, then.”
“Already done,” Iscend said. The Clarified woman moved with swift grace and authority, and she smiled. This was what she had been trained for, and she was glad to inhabit her purpose. Even the prisoners had stopped shouting to listen to her. “Execarne, where’s your line of escape?”
“Down.” Execarne slipped a bolt into his crossbow. “Into the Ministry station.”
“I thought this was the Ministry station,” Baru protested.
Execarne’s pupils grew enormously. He growled low in his stomach as some drug silvered his blood. “Of course not,” he said. “This is just a mask. A happy theater for the prisoners. The station’s underneath us. In the drainage caves.”
“Excellent.” Iscend lifted Yawa to her feet. “The entrance must be the well?”
“Just a moment.” Execarne cocked the crossbow with a grunt. “I’ve got to shoot these people. Can’t leave them to be captured. Miss Cormorant, would you hold that door shut?”
“Shoot us!?” Ake shouted. “You can’t do that—you told us we’d get a trial!”
“Probably would have, too.” Execarne took aim. “Sorry. I liked you all. Except you, Nitu, you’re an utter boor. But you could start a war, in the wrong courtroom. Hold still, now.”
“Wait!” Baru roared. These were Tain Hu’s beloved! These were the people who would rule Aurdwynn and achieve the Coyote dream! “Don’t shoot!”
The door behind Baru opened. The motion caught Execarne’s eye. He whirled.
Ulyu Xe came through.
Execarne shot her.
The crossbow quarrel went through her left eye like the fatal image of an archon and killed her instantly. Without even a cry Xe fell against Baru who caught her without any surprise. Dead, of course, of course, the day after they fucked, as predictable as the turn of the seasons.
“Hello,” Xe said, with mild curiosity. “Why did you trip me?”
Baru nearly shrieked. Execarne had never fired, Ulyu had just tripped over Baru’s foot as she whirled, and thus fell, gracefully, into Baru’s arms.
“I’m sorry!” Baru cried, and then, remembering the leveled crossbow, she whirled back to Execarne—“No, wait! Don’t shoot! I’ll get them all out safely!”
The prisoners had by now formed a makeshift phalanx in front of the fireplace. Ake led the line with chopsticks in her fist. Ude brandished an empty bottle, Nitu bellowed and waved her fists, and Run had seized a walking stick. The herbalist Yythel seemed to be going through the cabinets for anything poisonous. Dziransi stood before them with his arms open and his fungus eyes shining mad:
“Try to kill me,” he bellowed, “I am chosen! I had a dream from the hammer!”
“No one’s dying here!” Baru shouted. “Ake, please, wait. Execarne, wait. I promise I’m going to get you out.”
“Of course you are,” Yythel said. “Just like you got the duchess Vultjag out.”
“I believe her.” Xe rolled to her feet. “She did get the duchess out, remember? And all of us. It was Her Grace’s choice to come back.”
Baru was not actually sure how to proceed. She had no hope of guiding her vultjagata to safety across open ground—not against trained soldiers. And there were far too many of them to send down a well one at a time.
Baru threw away the physical solutions, and reached for her own powers.
“You’ll turn yourselves over to the Oriati,” she said. “Execarne, that’s it, that’s what we do—send them to the Oriati. Send them to the Oriati and ask for asylum in the care of Prince Tau-indi Bosoka.”
“And then what?” Nitu the cook shouted. “The tunks experiment on us? They pierce us with metals and put worms in our legs?”
“Then,” Baru said, thinking it out as she spoke, “the Prince Bosoka sends you home to Aurdwynn. Ake, please, you still have my letter? The letter with the polestar seal? Tell the Prince that the Emperor will be pleased if you’re delivered safely home. Tell the Prince that it could help avert war. Just don’t mention my name—”
“Why not?” Ake demanded.
“Just go, go, please, this is your only chance!”
A strange light cast new shadows over them.
Iscend looked out the window. “Rockets,” she said, smiling in anticipation of the new services she could perform, the extinction of fires and the mollification of wounds.
Sulane’s first volley crashed down on the farm.
* * *
FALCREST did not make explosives. Falcrest made incendiaries. Leave the fireworks and stupid guns to the Oriati, whose experimental cannon could batter a wooden ship for hours without sinking it. Why load a frigate with so much heavy useless weaponry, when a single Burn rocket could raze a ship to ribs and keel?
Flash powder was good for this and that, of course. Signal fireworks. Grenades.
&nbs
p; And the occasional dazzle.
Sulane’s rockets blew up in chains of white light and migraine noise. Shock killed the little birds on Faham’s farm. The dog barked and barked and cried. Baru hid beneath the table with her arms wrapped around her head and her heart jumping at every bang.
Someone pulled her up—Execarne. He grinned wolfishly, high as a frog-licker, and said something which looked like “Yawa’s off to the races!” Baru followed his pointing hand. Iscend Comprine had dragged Yawa outside, toward the farm well, the well, they had to get to the well.
Baru grabbed Ulyu Xe. “The well! Go to the well!”
Then she crawled to Ake, who’d maybe never seen fireworks in her life: she was pinned to the floor, mumbling and clawing at her ears. Baru grabbed her by the chin. “GET THE OTHERS! GET THEM AND GO! FIND THE ORIATI!”
Dziransi reached for Ake and drew her toward the door. The woman looked back at Baru in terror, and then, as if astonishing herself, held up Baru’s letter of governorship. This? she seemed to ask. This is real?
Yes, Baru nodded. Yes. Take it. Go home. Rule Vultjag.
“Nitu!” the herbalist Yythel shouted. “Nitu, wait!”
But the cook had decided to get as far from Baru as she could. She was feeling her way along the north wall, toward the door there. Yythel lunged after her, but she was dazed and half-blind and couldn’t reach her friend in time.
The door opened. The cook was through and gone.
Ake and Dziransi stumbled outside. Yythel, Ude, and Run went after them. Baru prayed they’d reach the Oriati before Ormsment found them.
“I should go with them,” Xe said. “They need me.”
“No!” Baru said, from her heart, and then, thinking now of the danger Xe would be in at her side, of the terrible fate that haunted her path, “Yes, yes, go, quickly.”
Xe’s lips brushed Baru’s ear. “Remember,” she said, “you are not alone.”
The Monster Baru Cormorant Page 31
