by Marc Turner
“You are referring to the risk posed by the stone-skins?”
The shaman nodded.
“And?”
“And what?”
“And what is the nature of that risk? You wish my god’s patronage? Prove your worth to him now by telling me what you know.”
Jambar said nothing.
“Why are the stone-skins here? When will they strike? Where?”
“All I see are possibilities.”
“Possibilities are of no use to me,” Romany said. “Possibilities I can get from the old wives sucking blackweed down at the harbor. Perhaps my Lord should recruit them as well.”
The shaman did not respond. He was in an impossible position, Romany knew. Say nothing, and he would receive nothing back. But answer the priestess’s questions, and he would give up his bargaining tool to get answers in return. Not that Romany would attach any weight to his predictions, of course. She could no more trust him to be honest than he could trust her to be the same. And if he did trust her, would that not prove him to be the fool she took him for?
The Remnerol tried to take another step forward, but he was already closer than Romany would have liked, and thus in the short time he’d been thinking she had weaved a few unobtrusive strands of sorcery about him. Now, as he sought to move, he found his path to the priestess obstructed. He tested the strength of the magic before settling back. The last vestiges of his sham good humor evaporated.
“Mazana Creed will hear of this,” he said, his eyes narrowing in a manner Romany assumed she was supposed to find intimidating.
“From me, if not from you.”
The shaman turned and stalked from the room.
Another day, another friend made.
Romany closed the door behind him and threw her mask onto a chair. An interesting encounter that had been, as much for what Jambar hadn’t said as for what he had. Judging by his unease, he clearly considered the stone-skins to be a threat, but a threat to what exactly? To Mazana Creed? No, the shaman had shown he cared nothing for the emira’s fate. To the League? That, at least, stood to affect him directly insofar as he might be forced to move on before the enemy arrived. Was that the totality of his interest here, though? What did he really want beyond mere survival? Until Romany knew the answer to that question, there was little to be gained in trying to read the man or determine what he was working toward.
Lying back on her bed, she put him from her mind. Her web was calling to her, and she had to admit she was curious to know how the duel between Twist and Kiapa was progressing. When she returned to the courtyard, though, she found it deserted, no sign of the combatants save a tantalizing splash of blood at the center of the square. And to think she’d missed the entertainment just so she could cross empty words with Jambar.
Romany shook herself. Entertainment? How much lower could she stoop?
She was about to return to her quarters when she sensed a ripple along her web from nearby—a ripple she recognized from the assassination attempt on Mazana.
The knife.
She flashed across the intervening distance …
… To find herself in one of the palace’s cells. Darbonna was chained to a wall, her arms shackled above her head, her feet to the floor. Her wrists and ankles were weeping from the touch of the manacles. The cell was lit by a solitary torch, but if the sweat on Darbonna’s brow was anything to go by, it was giving off the heat of a forge. Her left eye was swollen shut where she’d been punched by Mazana’s guard. Just now, though, she was probably wishing the other eye were closed too.
For in front of her stood the emira, that infernal knife in her hand. Mazana’s eyes had their customary red edge, sharp enough to make them gleam in the darkness.
Romany toyed with the idea of withdrawing. Something told her Mazana hadn’t dropped by to inquire after Darbonna’s health. Things were about to head south for the old woman, and Romany had no wish to be present when they did. Except that she had been sent to the palace by the Spider to judge Fume’s hold on Mazana. Was a conversation between the emira and the god’s former high priestess something Romany could rightly miss?
Mazana was speaking to Darbonna as Romany arrived. “… He bled out, you know,” she said. “The soldier you cut with the knife. The smallest scratch, yet the healers couldn’t stop the flow of blood.” She paused. “But you knew that would happen. Something to do with the sorcery invested in the blade.”
Darbonna did not reply.
“What else can the knife do? It is sacred to your Lord, isn’t it?”
No response. A bead of sweat collected at the end of the old woman’s nose, then stretched and dropped to the floor.
Mazana raised the knife to Darbonna’s wrist and stroked its point along her arm. The old woman shivered. “You don’t scare me,” she said.
“What’s to be scared of? We’re just talking here.”
“There’s nothing you can do to me that I haven’t done a thousand times to others.”
“And yet being on the receiving end is a telling change of perspective, I’d imagine.”
Darbonna kept her silence.
“What else can the knife do?”
Nothing.
Mazana pressed the tip of the dagger into Darbonna’s arm. A bead of blood formed and trickled down the weapon’s blade. “And as simple as that, your life is ended. Of course, it will take a while for you to bleed out.” The emira’s voice was mild, but her look was heavy with threat. “Any preferences as to how you’d like to spend your remaining time?”
Still the old woman did not reply.
“What else can the knife do?”
Tell her! Romany silently urged. What did Darbonna hope to gain by holding out? She’d talk in the end—everyone did—so why not get it over with and spare herself the suffering? Spare Romany the discomfort of having to witness it too.
The fire from the torch seemed to catch in Mazana’s eyes. She grabbed Darbonna’s elbow with her free hand. Then she slid the blade into the flesh of the old woman’s inner arm—above the elbow, just under the skin—until the weapon’s point emerged from the other side. Darbonna shrieked and thrashed, her chains clinking, but Mazana held her arm fast. Blood oozed from the cut and ran down her arm.
“What else can the knife do?”
Silence, but for ragged breathing.
Keeping the blade under Darbonna’s skin, Mazana started drawing it up toward the old woman’s shackled wrist. Darbonna gritted her teeth against the pain. She began muttering something over and over. A prayer to Fume, it might have been, but there was less reason to pray to a dead god than there was even to pray to the Spider. Then the agony became too much for her, and she screamed.
Romany’s spiritual stomach clenched. The wine she’d drunk earlier was acid in her gut. The cell felt too small. She wanted to retreat to a less graphic distance, but she couldn’t do so without passing through a wall, and so instead she half covered her eyes with her hands. Because watching the scene through her fingers was sure to rob it of its horror. The knife continued upward, passing as easily through Darbonna’s flesh as a wire through cheese. So light was Mazana’s grip on the hilt—her hand seemed just to rest upon it—that Romany wondered if the weapon would carry on cutting even if she let go.
The blade reached Darbonna’s wrist and exited there. A long strip of skin peeled away from the arm to hang down like a ribbon, revealing wet red flesh beneath. Rivulets of blood streamed past the old woman’s elbow and soaked into the short sleeve of her susha robe where it was gathered at the shoulder.
“What else can the knife do?”
No reply.
Romany closed her eyes. Her breath was coming as fast as Darbonna’s. She tried to set her heart against the old woman’s plight. Darbonna had tried to kill Mazana, she reminded herself. If the woman had approached from the other direction it might have been Romany, not the now-dead soldier, who ended up getting in her way. Plus she was a follower of Fume. His high priestess, no less. Had
n’t she admitted to Mazana she’d done all this and worse herself?
It wasn’t working.
Romany wanted to weave her threads about Mazana as she’d done about Jambar earlier. She couldn’t save Darbonna—the woman had been dead from the moment she was cut. But at least she might spare her some pain before she bled out. If she did so, though, Mazana would discover she had an audience. How long before she worked out it was Romany? How long before the executioner came knocking at her door to drag her off to this same cell? The Spider’s words in the temple came back to her: I trust there will be no recurrence of the … sensitivity you showed in your dealings with Mayot Mencada. In the Forest of Sighs, Romany had tried to spare the Vamilians from Mayot’s ill-usage, and she’d ended up with a knife in her back. Doing nothing now was the prudent thing to do. The only thing she could do.
That didn’t make her stomach sit any easier, though. Through closed eyelids, she could still see that strip of skin hanging down.…
She opened her eyes again.
Mazana was holding the knife over Darbonna’s chest as if wondering where to stab it. She was smiling at the old woman as if this were all some private joke between them, yet there was something in the set of her features that told Romany she wasn’t enjoying this as much as she pretended. The point of the knife moved up and down, and from side to side, before stilling.
“Fascinating,” the emira said. “I can feel the blade guiding my hand. It knows where a thrust would prove fatal and draws me away from that place. Does it want to prolong your suffering? Or does it wish to ensure as much blood as possible is drawn from your body before you die?”
Darbonna said nothing.
Mazana slid the knife into the old woman’s chest, and the priestess screamed again. Her throat sounded as raw as the exposed flesh at her arm. A red stain bloomed on her robe over the wound, making the cloth stick to her skin.
Enough! Romany thought, preparing to withdraw. The Spider would no doubt mock her for her squeamishness, but if the goddess wasn’t mocking her about that, she’d just be mocking her about something else.
The emira removed the knife from Darbonna’s chest and made to push it in somewhere else—
And stopped.
Romany halted with her.
One of Mazana’s fingers must have brushed Darbonna’s bloody robe, for Romany could see the emira’s skin glistening red. Then that skin started absorbing the blood like blotting paper. A stain spread through her flesh. Mazana’s eyes smoldered. “Oh,” she breathed, as if some truth had been revealed to her.
Darbonna was panting hard, wincing at each breath. And yet against all reason, her expression held a note of satisfaction. Her voice was a rasp. “Can I let you in on a secret?” she said to Mazana.
“I think the secret is already out, don’t you? You might have spared yourself some trouble if you’d shared it sooner.”
Romany’s brows drew in. If the secret was out, it was doing a good job of hiding from her.
“Ah,” Darbonna said, “but if I’d revealed it too soon, you might have been suspicious. You see, when I found you in the palace earlier I had no intention of killing you. One of your soldiers, yes, but not you. My aim was simply to deliver that blade into your hands, and to arouse your curiosity as to its powers.”
Mazana’s look was disbelieving, but a little of the glow had faded from her eyes.
“Aren’t you going to ask why?” Darbonna said. “You were so full of questions a moment ago.”
“Why?”
Romany found herself holding her breath. This was why she’d been right to stay.
Darbonna flicked her head to clear the sweat-slick hair from her eyes. “That day in the Founder’s Citadel, only a handful of us escaped alive. After our attack on you failed, we retreated to one of the chambers above. That was where I felt my Lord die.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed before continuing. “Some of us wanted to follow our god through Shroud’s Gate. Then, when we sensed you steal a part of his power, one fool even suggested we should start worshipping you in his place. I throttled that man with my own hands. But his blasphemy made me think. If you’d taken a part of our Lord’s power, you had to have taken in part of his spirit too. Only a small part, perhaps”—her eyes glittered—“but a part that might grow if you had the Lord’s own weapon in your hand. If you tasted of the blood delivered by its blade. Was I right? Can you feel his influence stirring inside you?”
“I feel nothing,” Mazana said, but her words were given the lie by the tightness in her voice.
“I sense his mark upon you. I feel his taint—”
“Silence!” the emira said. She raised the knife again and held it to Darbonna’s sternum.
The old woman’s voice rose. “You think you defeated him in the citadel, but in the end it will be his victory over you—”
The last of her words dissolved into a scream as the emira plunged the dagger once more into her flesh. It seemed Mazana was no longer concerned about inflicting a mortal wound, for she twisted the weapon before pulling it out. She stabbed Darbonna again and again, her strokes becoming more frenzied. Blood spattered her dress.
Romany fled back to her body, wishing she’d had the sense to do so sooner.
CHAPTER 6
SENAR’S MOOD was dark as he strode along the corridor away from Jambar’s quarters. The Remnerol hadn’t been home, of course; he never was when the Guardian called. Three times in as many bells Senar had tried to surprise him with a visit, but how did you surprise a man who could read the future? A man who knew Senar would be looking for him following the unexplained disappearance of a young male servant yesterday.
The Guardian couldn’t pretend, though, that it was the boy’s fate alone that had brought him to Jambar’s door.
Eleven days had passed since Dragon Day, and still Senar had heard no news of his homeland. About the Guardians. About whether his kinsmen had yet clashed with the Augerans. He’d tried showing his face this morning at Olaire’s Erin Elalese embassy, but the ambassador had claimed to know nothing. He might even have been telling the truth too. Since Dragon Day, the only ship to have arrived in Olaire had come from Mazana’s home island, and the cutting off of trade to the city had seen the flow of news end as well. And even if the stone-skins had attacked Erin Elal, how long would it take for word to reach Senar here? Weeks? Months? No, the best chance he had of finding out what was happening abroad was to track down Jambar and convince him to talk.
Of course, any information he wrested from the shaman would have to be digested with a healthy dose of skepticism. One moment the man knew the instant the Chameleons would set foot in Zalli’s house, the next he seemed barely able to foretell what day would follow this one. From time to time, Senar would see him in whispered conference with Mazana, but the emira had been no more willing to share the details of their conversations than Jambar himself. Among the snippets Senar had overheard, though, one place had come up more often than coincidence could warrant.
Gilgamar.
The Guardian’s thoughts wandered as he turned into an unlit corridor. If Jambar was interested in Gilgamar, then likely the stone-skins were too. Senar had assumed their actions on Dragon Day had been geared solely toward ensuring the Storm Lords didn’t interfere in any clash with Erin Elal. But why were their agents still active in Olaire? In the past few days, two Augerans had been hunted down by that belligerent Watchman, Kempis Parr, and more were said to be lying low in readiness for who knew what scheme. Neither of the stone-skins caught had revealed their purpose, one dying of a self-inflicted wound, the second holding out against Mazana’s questioning until his body expired. Perhaps Erin Elal wasn’t their ultimate target, after all. Perhaps their sabotage of the Dragon Hunt had merely been the opening move in a wider campaign against the League. If so, their first goal would be to obtain access to the Sabian Sea for their fleet. That meant taking Dian and Natilly—or more likely Gilgamar, so they could bring their ships through its canal.
Gilgamar. It all came back to Gilgamar.
So what was Senar still doing in Olaire? Olaire, where the heat and the stink and the flow of unfamiliar faces wore on him more each day. Olaire, where he woke each morning to a moment of disorientation before remembering where he was. True, the dragons in the sea would make sailing to the mainland a perilous undertaking, but was that enough to keep him in Olaire? Should it be?
There had been times as a Guardian when he’d been away from home for long periods, yet never before had he experienced the sense of … separation he felt now. During the fifth Kalanese campaign, he and Li Benir had spent months in the foothills of the White Mountains, raiding Kalanese spice caravans, or hunting the pashas as they in turn hunted the sandclaws spreading west across the Gollothir Plains. When food and water were scarce, Senar had had to drink blood drained from the throats of alamandra. Yet still when he looked back on that period, it was with fondness. Whereas he suspected he might spend the rest of his life in Olaire and never develop that same sentiment.
Would things be any better if he returned to Erin Elal, though? What was there in Arkarbour he was so anxious to return to? He shook his head. When he thought of home now, it was of a time when it meant something to be a Guardian. But those days had long since passed. Servants of the people the Guardians might be, yet they’d lost their struggle for power with the emperor, and everyone hates a loser. It was easy to let his current discontent color his memory of what had gone before. To forget about Li Benir and Jessca dying, and about how dark the days had been before he passed through the Merigan portal. With the stone-skins’ coming, he had felt a new sense of purpose. That purpose had leached away, though, as Senar came to realize the hopelessness of Erin Elal’s plight. When the Augeran hammer fell, what chance did his people have of resisting? What difference could he make to the outcome?
The sound of fighting was coming from somewhere to his right, but he paid it no mind. Twist up to his tricks again, most likely. He realized his steps were leading him toward the cells. Mazana hadn’t ordered Senar to stay away from Darbonna—she knew better than to try—but she’d made her wishes clear enough at the duel. Why, then, was he set on disregarding them? Because he wanted to speak to Darbonna about the library at the Founder’s Citadel, yes, but also because he wanted to know more about the god she had once served. And not out of mere curiosity, either. In stealing Fume’s power, Mazana had taken in part of his spirit. Senar had wondered at the changes that had come over her since Dragon Day. There was the redness to her eyes, but there was also the ruthlessness she had shown in sweeping aside the remnants of the old Storm Lord empire. Just putting down a marker for her enemies? Or something more—a consequence of the god’s influence, perhaps?
