by Marc Turner
“Somewhere safe. They will be available when you sign the treaty.” The Keeper twittered in Eremo’s ear, and the commander nodded and added, “My friend here has reminded me of something. In our agreement the twenty thousand talents will be expressed as a loan—”
Dresk scowled.
“But a loan repayable only after a thousand years.”
The warlord stared at Eremo as if the stone-skin had started speaking in his native tongue.
“As I said,” the commander explained, “my people have strange rules when it comes to dealing with other cultures.”
“A thousand years?” Dresk said. “The treaty will have crumbled to dust by then. How will you prove the debt?”
“How indeed?”
“And the interest payable?”
“Nothing.”
Galantas struggled to marshal his thoughts. What game were the Augerans playing? Why call the money a loan if you had no intention of asking for it back? That particular question would have to wait until later, though, for a more prickly concern had occurred to him. “What about the other Rubyholt clans?” he asked Eremo.
It was Dresk who responded. “What about them?”
“I assume the commander isn’t going to want to pay our kinsmen on top of what he’s paying us.”
Eremo said, “You assume correctly.”
“But you expect the other clans to abide by this treaty, correct?”
“I expect you to control your subjects.” The commander swung to Dresk. “Is that a problem?”
“No problem,” Dresk said, with a look at Galantas that warned him to be silent. As if Eremo wouldn’t already know of the fractured relations between the warlord and the other tribes. As if he wouldn’t know the risk of dealing with Dresk alone. The stone-skins would want to pass through the waters not just of Dresk’s Spears, but of the other clans as well. And the leaders of those tribes would want a cut of the gold in return for not harassing Augeran ships. Somehow Galantas couldn’t see his father sharing, though. How typical of him to see his position as warlord not as responsibility but as opportunity—to expect loyalty from the other clans, yet offer nothing in return.
Galantas’s gaze slid from his father to Eremo. Could that be the stone-skins’ true purpose here? Widen the rifts between Dresk and the tribes before attacking? After all, when a man like Dresk was floundering, heaping gold on him just served to hasten his journey to the bottom. Hells, the clans had fought over a lot less in their time. Twenty thousand talents, they would say, meant there was plenty to go around, and who could argue with them? Not Galantas, certainly.
And yet would a conflict between Dresk and the other tribes be a bad thing? If Galantas played his hand right, might there be an opportunity to speed his father’s fall from power?
“What if another tribe breaches the treaty?” he asked Eremo.
“Then we hold you accountable, of course.”
“Meaning?”
Eremo waved the question away. “Details. We can discuss them later. First I need to know if we have an agreement.”
Dresk tossed the commander’s coin from hand to hand, making a show of considering the offer. “Twenty thousand talents,” he said.
Eremo nodded.
“For one base and free passage through the Isles.”
“Yes.”
Dresk grimaced like his arm was being twisted. “Agreed.”
“Excellent. I will bring the treaty with me when I return. Shall we say, at the seventh bell this evening?”
Bring the treaty with him? So it had already been drafted, then? So much for negotiating the details. Galantas did not voice the thought, however. Sometimes knowing when to shut up was as important as knowing when to speak.
Eremo turned away. As he did so his scarred mage, Hex, abruptly stirred and sprang from his chair as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all.
Galantas watched them make for the door. Strange, Dresk had been promised twenty thousand talents, yet Galantas couldn’t shake the feeling that the stone-skins had gotten the better of the exchange. How could Dresk lose from the deal, though? War between the stone-skins and Erin Elal—if indeed that was their target—would disrupt the trade on which the Spears preyed, but twenty thousand talents would more than make up for lost profits. And if Erin Elal should come seeking revenge when the Augerans were gone, well, they’d tried invading before. Why should the result this time be any different from the last?
Eremo stopped by the door. “Oh, one final thing,” he said over his shoulder. “We were attacked by two ships on our way here this morning. They ambushed us near some underwater ruins a league or so to the south.”
Galantas knew the spot. It was a favorite place to pick off outsiders as they exited the South Corridor. “These ships … what flag were they flying?”
“A red feather.”
Ravin, then. The clan leader of the Falcons wasn’t the sort to let a profit sail past unchallenged. “Two ships, you say. But they let you pass when you told them you were meeting us?”
“Hardly.”
Before Galantas could reply, Dresk said to his chamberlain, Talet, “Get the word out to the other clans. Make sure they don’t bother our new friends again.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Eremo said, resuming his walk to the door. “We’ve sent out our own message loud and clear.”
CHAPTER 2
STANDING ACROSS the courtyard from Romany, the priest of the Lord of Hidden Faces addressed his congregation in a wheedling voice. For half a bell he’d been dressing up his own wants and petty prejudices in the false trappings of his god’s will, and criticizing faults in others that Romany had seen him display on numerous occasions. Now he was busy rewriting history. It seemed the Lord of Hidden Faces had not only predicted the events of Dragon Day, but actually orchestrated them too, with the intention of thinning the ranks of Olaire’s elite. All in the name of the destitute and the downtrodden, apparently, so that they might throw off the shackles of their highborn oppressors and elevate their Lord to his rightful place of preeminence.
And in doing so promote the high priest, Artagina, and his brethren to the positions recently vacated by Imerle Polivar and her ilk. Though strangely the priest neglected to mention that detail.
His message seemed to be going down well with the locals, for the size of the temple’s congregations had swelled since Romany arrived in Olaire eleven days ago. And what a day that had been. The dragons released into the Sabian Sea. The Storm Lord dynasty wiped out. With Imerle dead, Mazana Creed had seized the reins of power, but her mount was proving to be an unruly one, what with so many soldiers present in the city who had served the old emira. Then there was the problem of the simmering hostility between an ever-growing number of Storm Guard factions, and the rivalry between those soldiers and Mazana’s mercenaries, the Revenants. Each night Olaire thrummed to the sound of conflict. And each night the Shallows and the Deeps emptied as their denizens took to the streets to profit from the chaos.
Sweat trickled down Romany’s forehead, but her mask prevented her from wiping it clear. Gods, how she hated this slab of wood! Its size was such that aligning her eyes with the eye slits meant that her lips did not align with the mouth slit. That in turn meant that every breath she exhaled was trapped against her face. She wasn’t the only one suffering in the heat. She could almost hear the flesh of the congregation crisping in the sun. And while a bald man at the front appeared to be swaying with rapture, it could equally have been from heatstroke. By contrast, the priest addressing them seemed in no discomfort. His sermon was evidently coming to a close, for he had moved on to the priesthood’s favorite subject matter, and the topic with which they ended every speech: donations.
Yes, the Lord of Hidden Faces was the champion of the poor, but it seemed his worthiest servants were those who gave generously.
Romany had heard enough. She started following the colonnade round toward the archway that led to her quarters. She had acquired tho
se quarters only yesterday when their former resident, one of Artagina’s lieutenants, had been expelled following a quarrel with his master. As Romany stepped around a group of worshippers, she saw the high priest, Artagina, watching the sermon from the shade of a pillar. Eleven days ago he’d been the only one allowed to address the Lord’s flock, but with the congregations growing, he’d been forced to share that honor with his deputies. As a self-made priestess of the god herself, Romany was looking forward to her turn to speak. She’d have a few choice truths to reveal when she did.
As she drew near Artagina, his head swung round. Through the eye slits of his golden mask, she saw his eyes narrow. “You, what’s your name?” he demanded.
“The same as it was last week when you asked,” Romany said, sweeping past.
At which time she’d given the same evasive answer, incidentally. For some reason it seemed to satisfy the high priest now as it had then, because he did not call her back.
She felt his gaze linger on her—a scrutiny she’d grown accustomed to since awakening in this new, much younger body. She wondered what had happened to her body’s previous occupant that it should have become … available to Romany. Who had the woman been? What was her calling? The clues were not hard to find. The muscles in Romany’s arms, and the calluses on her hands, pointed to a history of manual labor. But the scars across her torso were less easy to explain. She’d also inherited a bruise to her hip, together with a badly stitched cut to her side. Most likely she’d been a dock worker or a sailor. Or maybe even, Spider help her, a soldier. She shivered. No, the possibility was too vulgar to countenance. How about a dancer, then? That would explain the toned physique. But the scars …
A bad dancer, perhaps?
She entered a weed-infested passage open to the elements, and the voice of the priest faded behind. Of course, none of this speculation would have been necessary if the Spider had hung around long enough after Romany’s “rebirth” to answer her questions. Instead the goddess had told her simply to keep her head down, before vanishing to who knew where. There had been no explanation as to where Romany was or what she was supposed to do. The Spider hadn’t even mentioned there was a war going on beyond the temple walls—though Romany had discovered that soon enough when screams floated up from the harbor as the Revenants attacked.
Romany had heard as many different opinions of what had happened on Dragon Day as there were people in Olaire. Curious to learn the truth of it, she had constructed a sorcerous web across the city, stretching from the Founder’s Citadel in the west, to the Deeps in the south, to the palace in the north. From conversations among Mazana Creed and her entourage, Romany had learned about the attack on the control room in the Dianese citadel, as well as the Chameleons’ failed play for power and the stone-skins’ efforts to assassinate the Storm Lords. She had also heard fragments of Mazana’s plan to strike back at the Augerans. Ambitious, certainly. It was hard to generate more than a superficial interest in the woman’s machinations, though, when Romany would, Spider willing, be returning soon to the comfortable indolence of her home temple in Mercerie.
She reached her quarters and opened the door. From the smell that greeted her, she might have pressed her face into someone’s armpit. She’d yet to find time to clear her rooms of the previous owner’s detritus—or rather track down an acolyte to do so. The floor, the tables, even the chairs were covered in scrolls, clothes, and half-eaten food. And seated in one of the chairs …
Romany had to still her features against the flood of relief that swept through her.
The Spider.
With her auburn hair and her enigmatic smile, the goddess looked exactly the same as she had the last time Romany saw her—as indeed she’d looked every time since the priestess first set eyes on her thirty years ago. It had been her second day as an initiate. A five-year-old Romany had barely been able to focus on the Spider through a mist of tears. Most of the girls in the goddess’s service were orphans picked from the street, but a handful—Romany included—were sold to the priestesses by their parents. Sometimes that was done for profit; at other times, it was done because the temple promised a better life than the parents could offer their child themselves. There had been a time when it had mattered to Romany what her own parents’ motives had been. Not now, though. Now, she was resigned to never knowing the truth, because all her efforts at tracking down her parents had come to naught.
A full ten years had passed before she’d seen the Spider again. A wild soul Romany had been at that time, opinionated and irreverent. Not at all like now, then. When she was called to meet the goddess, she had assumed the Spider meant to discipline her. Instead they had spent an instructive afternoon discussing the riots in Thax and the latest political machinations of the Mercerien padishah. The Spider, Romany had come to learn, wasn’t interested in the devotion of her followers; she was interested in their shrewdness, their insight, their pragmatism. And Romany had caught her eye. At the time, her attention had been flattering. Now the priestess had a different take on it.
Seated in her chair, the goddess drummed her fingers against the pages of an open book on her lap. She chuckled as she read it.
“Ah, High Priestess, therrre you are,” she said, with her familiar trill on the “r.”
Romany shut the door, then tugged off her mask and tossed it onto the bed. “My Lady.”
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” the Spider said, glancing round. “And it seems congratulations are in order for your promotion. I could have sworn I left you with an acolyte’s mask.”
“Your memory must be failing you.” In reality, Romany had taken it upon herself to swap the mask of plain wood for a priest’s white as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Being an acolyte, with all the disdain and the … work it occasioned, was not for her, no matter that a white mask would earn her more attention from the likes of Artagina. She lifted an armful of scrolls from a chair and dropped them onto the floor before sitting. “What is that?” she asked, gesturing to the book in the Spider’s lap.
“You mean you haven’t read it? Shame on you! This is the Saradahn. The sacred text of the Lord of Hidden Faces.”
“But … you are the Lord of Hidden Faces, aren’t you?”
“Am I? Decades ago, when I first unleashed the Lord on the world, I compiled this book from the writings of a hundred dead religions from all across the globe. Writings that were carefully chosen to offer up as many inconsistencies and outright contradictions as possible. You can imagine the fun I had watching priests and scholars try to make sense of it all.”
Fun? Clearly when you’d lived as long as the Spider had, you had to go a long way to find entertainment.
“And the amusement didn’t stop there,” the goddess went on. “Never once did I appear to my disciples to offer guidance on the text. Yet within a few years, a dozen sects had sprung up led by men or women claiming to have spoken directly to their Lord. Of course, the god had confirmed their understanding of the Saradahn to be correct above all others, and the quarrels and the inquisitions and the burnings duly started. If I had appeared at that moment to explain the lie behind the faith, do you think any of those people would have believed me? Would Artagina now?” She closed the book and set it down on a table. “So, to answer your question, yes, I was the Lord of the Hidden Faces once. Now I’m not so surrre.”
A feathermoth as large as Romany’s palm had materialized from somewhere, and was trying to settle on the priestess’s arm. She waved a hand at it. “Why did you start the religion? What purpose did it serve?”
“It was necessary for a deception against Shroud, the exact nature of which escapes me now.”
“And the deception failed? Is that why the Lord’s faith died out?”
“The deception didn’t fail. The faith died out because I destroyed it.”
Romany opened her mouth and closed it. Then opened it again. “You killed them all?”
“The priests, the acolytes, yes.”
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The Spider’s half smile hadn’t slipped in the time she’d been talking, and Romany wondered if she was being made the butt of some joke. Yet the goddess’s account would explain the overnight disappearance of the Lord’s followers all those years ago. A busy night that would have been.
“Even the devout ones?” she said. “Even the true believers?”
“Believers in what? A Lord that didn’t exist? If they believed in anything, it was in a god of their own devising. A god that justified exactly what they wanted to say or do. And you think I owed them loyalty?”
The feathermoth landed on Romany’s head. She cursed and shook it off. “Do I take it then that a similar fate awaits Artagina and his crowd?” Please?
“Perhaps. For now, though, the high priest provides a useful screen for my other pursuits in Olaire.”
Romany didn’t like the sound of that, if those pursuits meant she’d be spending more time here. “I was hoping … My temple in Mercerie—”
“Your temple?”
“A figure of speech.”
The Spider’s fingers fluttered. “Why do you think I brought you back in this new body, High Priestess? For the pleasure of your company? Or as a thank-you for your efforts in the Forest of Sighs?”
When she said it like that, it did sound silly. The Spider, say thank you? Absurd!
“As I rrrecall,” the goddess continued, “it wasn’t even as if you died in the furtherance of your duties. To the contrary, your troubles started only after you stopped following my orders. A lesson in that, don’t you think? And since we’re on the subject of lessons, I trust there will be no recurrence of the … sensitivity you showed in your dealings with Mayot Mencada.”
Sensitivity? Yes, how dare Romany? “What happened after that Mayot business? Has Parolla’s mother been reborn?” After Romany had died at Danel’s hand, she had witnessed from the threads of the Spider’s web the Book of Lost Souls being destroyed, but not what came after.
