The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  #You have a place here, should you want it# #As you did in your Brotherhood#

  *As I still have in my Brotherhood* For the first time Parno spoke directly mind to mind with the Crayx, without speaking his thoughts aloud. But this was something he wasn’t ready to share with the Nomads around him. Not even with Darlara.

  #Does no one ever leave the Brotherhood then#

  Parno stopped his fast answer. Of course, there were other ways to leave the Brotherhood than death. There was that Cloudwoman who’d gone back to her tribe when a Racha bird had needed her. He had himself been asked to return to his own place, for that matter, by the new head of his House. But he’d refused. Even if he’d wished to—and he hadn’t—he was Partnered, and the decision was as much Dhulyn’s as his own.

  *Partners never leave* was the thought he sent the Crayx.

  #Of course#

  Were they aware of his unexpressed thought, he wondered. I’m not Partnered any longer.

  He shrugged the thought away as he pulled his shirt on over his head. “Off to your meals now,” he told his squad. “Left-hand drill afterward, and don’t be late.”

  He turned back toward the rear cabin, combing his wet hair with his fingers. For the last few days he’d been taking the midday meal with his squad, but today Dar had asked that he share the meal with her. He entered the cabin to find her seated with her back to the window, plates of grilled fish, stewed beans, and flatbreads already on the table. Dar glanced up and smiled as he came in, and Parno found it easy to smile back.

  “Have been giving thought to the naming of the children,” Darlara said, passing him the platter holding the flatbread.

  Parno froze with the platter in midair. “Early, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. It’s a hard life on ship, and must give them every advantage. Are there family names you would prefer to use?”

  Parno thought at once of his own father. But the form of names in Imrion—he shook his head. Too complicated, and too loaded with meaning for someone who didn’t actually live in that society. He could easily imagine the explanations that would be required if the children became chief traders or captains of a ship—as they well might—and were asked why their names came from a Noble House. Besides, he knew what he really wanted.

  “Could one of them be called Dhulyn?”

  Darlara took so long to answer that Parno was ready to be disappointed. But she was only waiting until she had chewed and swallowed the piece of honeyed bread she had in her mouth before answering. “A beautiful name,” she said. Suddenly she smiled, and rested her hand on his forearm. “Have a wonderful idea. Should name them Dhulyn and Parno.”

  Now it was his turn not to answer right away.

  Darlara tightened her grip on his arm. *It’s all right, isn’t it?* *Would be brothers, or sisters.*

  Somehow, speaking mind to mind made it easier.

  *Yes*

  The door of the cabin swung open and Malfin leaned in. “Told him yet?”

  “Just getting to it.” Darlara gave his arm a final squeeze before shifting in her seat, swinging her legs out until she was turned toward the door.

  Parno looked from brother to sister, marveling once more how alike they looked when they were both smiling. A smile began to form on his own lips. *What are you up to*

  *Hold your breath a bit* Malfin turned to look over his shoulder and made a beckoning gesture with his hand.

  “We’ve something for you, Lionsmane,” he said aloud. “Just ready now.”

  Conford came in with a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands. Parno helped Dar clear off a space on the table so Conford could put his burden down. He backed off a step, touched his forehead to Parno, looked sheepishly at his captains, and shrugged, smiling.

  Captain Mal laughed and touched the crewman on the shoulder with his fist.

  “Go on.”

  Still smiling, Conford unwrapped the cloth, exposing a Crayx-skin cuirass, identical to the ones both Mal and Dar were wearing, except that this one was a pale green with a curious coppery sheen.

  “Yours, Lionsmane,” Mal said.

  “Try it on,” Dar said. “See if it fits.”

  Parno knew what the skin felt like from helping Darlara take hers off. To the touch, it was like well-tanned leather, soft and giving. To a sharp blow, it was as hard as good steel, and would turn away a blade.

  “Why?” he said, looking up at the three smiling faces.

  “Heard from Dawntreader Pod,” Mal said. “May be in sight of Ketxan City tomorrow.”

  “Thought you could use it,” Dar added.

  Parno nodded. “What does it mean if I wear it?” he said, bluntly. “I know it’s more than just armor.”

  “Are bound to the Wavetreader,” Mal said.

  “As we,” Dar added.

  “And what does that mean?” Parno’s voice was harsher than he’d intended. The two captains exchanged worried looks, and the smile faded from Conford’s face.

  #You are part of this Pod# came the answer from the Crayx. #You cannot be exchanged to another Pod# #No matter what happens, where you are, you are part of us, of Wavetreader#

  It was like the Mercenary Brotherhood, Parno realized. You didn’t need to live in a Mercenary House, or even with other Mercenaries—you could even retire, though not many lived so long. Once a Brother, always a Brother.

  #Acknowledgment# #Agreement#

  Mal, Dar, and even Conford were nodding.

  Parno picked up the cuirass and slipped it on.

  #Satisfaction#

  There was a guard at the door the young woman led her to, and Dhulyn handed him the sword on her hip and the knife on her belt before he could ask. After all, she still had the dagger and hatchet hidden in her vest. She saw as soon as she entered the room that those, and her hands, would be all she needed, since there was no one else there but Xerwin and the Tarxin Xalbalil. As Dhulyn entered, Xerwin was on his feet, his hand on the back of his chair. Xerwin’s face was calm, there was even a slight smile on his lips. Dhulyn felt herself relax ever so slightly.

  “Ah, Dhulyn Wolfshead.” The Tarxin indicated the chair to his left. “Please, join us. Xerwin told me that he had left you just as you sent your servant for food, so I know you have not yet dined. This would be an excellent chance for us to confer informally.”

  “I thank you, Light of the Sun. It is an honor.” Dhulyn touched her forehead and pulled back her chair, taking her seat. No servants, the Tarxin’s manner of addressing her, his calling even Xerwin by name rather than by title, all emphasized the informality of the meal. Still, Dhulyn had some experience dealing with Noble Houses. So long as she kept to the minor formality of never using the Tarxin’s name, she should be fine.

  As she sat, she rapidly scanned the table, taking in the platters of fruit, fish in simple sauces, and small rolls of bread. This was the diet of a person in shaky health, she thought, perhaps with a bad heart. Was the Tarxin, then, at the point where even Healers could do little for him?

  “Tell me, my dear, what do you think of my city?”

  So that was how the horse was supposed to jump. Dhulyn offered the Tarxin a basket of warm bread before taking a piece for herself. If the man really expected small talk, he’d chosen the wrong Mercenary Brother.

  “It’s not unusual for cities of this size, located as this one is on a natural cliff face, to have no walls. But I am surprised that there is no patrol of guards at the outskirts of the Upper City.”

  “Guards?” From the look of his rounded eyes, the Tarxin was genuinely surprised. “Guards have not been needed since my great grandfather’s day. It was he who pacified the lands from the Long Ocean in the west, to the Crescent and Coral Seas to the north, and to the Eastern River.”

  For pacified, substitute conquered. Dhulyn kept her thought away from her face.

  The Tarxin spread a smoked fish paste on a thinly-sliced, twice-baked piece of bread and presented it to Dhulyn. “There are bands of so-called free slaves roving
in the southern mountains, but the Battle Wings are there to deal with them.” The Tarxin smiled at Xerwin. “The Nomads have attacked us, naturally, but only from the sea,” he said while she chewed. “It seems very unlikely that their strategies would change now.”

  “When I was Schooled, I learned that ‘unlikely’ is a highly dangerous word. One should always prepare for what can happen, not for what might happen.”

  Tarxin Xalbalil paused in the spreading of another morsel of fish paste and looked with a frown at Xerwin. “Excellent reasoning, do you not think my son? See to it.”

  Xerwin put down the leg of fowl he had in his left hand and began to stand up. His father let him get all the way out of his chair before speaking.

  “Oh, not now, Xerwin, please, we have a guest. After the meal will do.”

  “Of course, Father.” When the younger man glanced across the table at her, Dhulyn gave him her best smile, careful not to let the scar turn back her lip. He lowered his eyes very quickly back to his plate.

  “And how did you find the Marked in their Sanctuary, well-cared for?” At least the old man had waited until she’d served herself a slice of meat and filled her wineglass before he continued.

  Dhulyn drew down her eyebrows and sat straighter in her chair, as if giving the Tarxin’s question serious thought. Sun and Moon, but she hoped he didn’t think to unnerve her by demonstrating that her movements were being reported. He didn’t strike her as a fool, and only a fool would have let her—Paledyn or no—wander around unwatched.

  And since he wasn’t a fool, she had better see to it that she didn’t relax too much.

  “It was an unusual experience for me,” she said finally. “To see so many Marked in one place. It is done differently in Boravia, and in the lands of the Great King as well.”

  The corners of the Tarxin’s mouth crimped just a fraction, as if he did not care to be reminded that there was somewhere a king greater than himself, even if so far away. He was irritated enough, Dhulyn saw, that he did not notice his question hadn’t really been answered.

  “And your visit to my daughter, that was satisfactory?”

  “Indeed, my lord. She will need a great deal of support, as I’m sure you have already realized. A child so young, with such powers.” Dhulyn shrugged and took a sip of wine. “She might be easily manipulated, and you must choose the people around her with great care. The Tara Xendra might do a great deal of damage if she is left in the wrong hands.”

  The Tarxin nodded vigorously, as if he was pleased to find that they were both in such accord. Talk of being manipulated, Dhulyn thought. She glanced at Xerwin, he blinked at her, face straight. His father appeared to accept that she believed the Storm Witch was a child, but did she really trick him? It was hard to judge. Blood, what she wouldn’t give for Parno’s opinion. She did not fool herself, sharp as she was; the only advantage she had in this contest was the old man’s habit of power. He was so used to holding all the good tiles, it might well have caused him, over the years, to stop looking closely at other people’s hands.

  And he could be reasoning that he need not fool her for long. Once she supported his side in the argument with the Nomads—as she was clearly expected to do—he might well decide that he had no further use for her.

  Mouth full, she inclined her head toward the Tarxin, as if to concentrate better on his words.

  “I’m gratified that you both understand the problem so clearly, and that you feel free to advise me. Like the Paledyns of old, your presence will guide us back to the balance we have so sorely missed.”

  “What has caused the conflict between you and the Nomads? In Boravia, it is understood that your arrangement was well considered, and of long standing.”

  The Tarxin leaned back in his chair, dipping his fingers into a bowl of water to his left, and drying them on a small napkin. “We are not the same peoples,” he said in a measured tone. “We are the children of the Caids, followers of the Slain God. The Nomads are animal worshipers, following—literally—those sea creatures they call the Crayx, using them as living pathways across the ocean.” He shrugged. “I have seen them, they are magnificent creatures, supremely useful to navigation as any can realize, but they are animals. It would be as though a herdsman began to worship his cows, or the wild kinglera. Diplomacy between our two peoples has always been difficult, no treaties can be solidified with marriages, for example.” He spread his hands. “Enough. I am no priest or farmer, for that matter, to let myself be distracted by this. Their women have too much power, but for traders and animal worshipers they are honest enough.”

  Once again, Dhulyn thought he was being sincere. “What has changed, then?”

  “A year ago—or was it more, Xerwin?”

  Xerwin paused to finish chewing, and swallowed. “It was more . . . Father. Almost two years, I’d say.”

  “A pair of Scholars came to us with documents, newly translated, which you can see for yourself Dhulyn Wolfshead—can you read?”

  “I can.”

  “Excellent. Well, as I say, this was almost two years ago.”

  Dhulyn listened as the Tarxin, with the occasional help of Xerwin with details, told her the story she had already heard from the Nomads, but from the Mortaxan point of view. What a shame, she thought, that she was not actually here to arbitrate between them. Mediators were rarely given such full information to help them form their decisions.

  She learned that over the centuries, the land-based Mortaxa had tried several times to redress what they saw as their subordinate position in world trade. Attempts at formal partnerships, up to and including marriage into Nomad trading families had always been refused. As had the purchase of ships with which to follow the Crayx—and for no good reasons, from the Mortaxan point of view. Their histories told of attempts to build their own ships and to find their own herds of Crayx, but both times the ships had left Mortaxa never to be heard from again.

  And it was very clear, from what the Tarxin was saying, that they simply did not believe in the Nomads’ explanation of Pod sense.

  Since the consolidation of Mortaxa under the present Tarxin’s great grandfather, the land had been enjoying a long period of peace and stability. Stagnation, Dhulyn thought, the typical outcome of entrenched slavery. And Tarxin Xalbalil began to think that now was the time to try again.

  To make his own mark before he dies, she thought. He wanted to be remembered in the same way his great grandfather was.

  “Xerwin, as Battle Wing Commander, had been acting as liaison with the Nomads, but for what I had in mind, a greater authority was needed.” Meaning, Dhulyn guessed, that Xerwin had not agreed with his father’s ideas. “I began by putting a stop to all trade,” the Tarxin continued. “But even as that tactic was beginning to make itself felt, I was distracted by the terrible accident to my dear child Xendra.”

  Dhulyn put a solemn look on her face and nodded her sympathy. Distraction, the man called it.

  “But the Slain God and the Caids have both shown me their favor, not only in restoring my daughter to health, but by making her their instrument in my dealings with the Nomads. Not only have they blessed her with the Weather Art, but they have given her other knowledge, the knowledge of the lodestone. Do you know what this is?”

  “I have read of it,” Dhulyn said. “A device, whether magical or not I cannot say, that can be used as a guide when there are no other signs, stars, or landmarks.”

  “Or when you are at sea.”

  “The Tara Xendra awoke with this learning?” Dhulyn said.

  “This and other knowledge, yes. We saw immediately that this gave us a stronger position in our talks with the Nomads.”

  You would, Dhulyn thought.

  “We had now something to offer them, something that would free them from their dependence on the Crayx. But when we spoke to the Nomads of this, the Nomads threatened us, saying that they would destroy any ship that attempted to cross the Long Ocean, or any other oceans or seas. That these place
s belonged by ancient treaty to the Crayx, as if animals can have treaties with humans.”

  Dhulyn fought not to let her distaste and skepticism show on her face. Of course, the Mortaxa would think the Nomads were lying, she thought. Lacking Pod sense—or the ability to see even their own slaves or the Marked as human beings—it would be inconceivable for these people to believe that the Crayx were sentient. “And did you, in your turn, threaten the Nomads with the wrath of the Storm Witch?”

  The Tarxin’s expression set like stone, and Dhulyn was careful to keep her eyes wide open with innocent curiosity. After a few moments the Tarxin relaxed.

  “That would have been to answer their bad faith with bad faith of our own,” he said.

  Which doesn’t mean no, she thought. “Of course,” she said aloud. She leaned back in her chair, picked up her own napkin to wipe her hands. “So what, precisely, would you wish these negotiations to bring you?”

  “At the least, they should allow us to build our own ships, to begin our own trade routes. We are not asking them to starve. There is trade enough for all. It would be better still for us to become partners. Using the lodestones, we could extend trade to those areas where the Crayx herds do not go.”

  Partners. Mentally, Dhulyn snorted, even as she nodded in apparent agreement with the Tarxin. “Would you be willing, as an opening to the bargaining, and to show good faith, to limit your preliminary trading ventures to those areas where the Nomads do not go?”

  Just for a moment, Dhulyn saw again that telltale crimping of the corners of the Tarxin’s mouth. “We do not know what might be found there, whether there would be any profit going to new places.”

  “That might be something you could learn from the Nomads. If you show yourselves to be willing to make concessions now, you might gain all the more in the future, as the Nomads learn to work with you.”

  “Of course. I see now why the Paledyns of old had such reputations for sagacity.”

  Dhulyn was spared any need to respond by the entry of a flustered noble servant.