by K. C. May
He was sitting with a group of enforcers, discussing a case and the punishment for the convict. She didn’t care to stay to listen to the details, and so she zipped backwards along his thread by about two weeks to put her a couple of days before they first met in Turounce’s office. He was quietly fuming, tearing a stick into bits and hurling them at an imagined target.
Jora backed through his stream slowly enough that she could tell what was happening. She watched him salute Boden as he was taken off in a wagon in shackles. Before that, he argued with an officer, a sergeant perhaps. Even earlier, she Observed him standing at attention in front of March Commander Turounce.
That might be interesting, she thought and let the stream flow forward at its natural pace.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Turounce demanded. “You don’t know those men were Mangendans.”
“They had the tattoos, sir,” Korlan said.
“Did it ever occur to that pea-sized brain of yours that these men were spies working for us? What about the possibility that they were Serocians painted with umber to look like Mangendans? Of course not. Because you’re an idiot.”
Korlan drew his brow and studied his boots. “Sorry, sir.”
“Sorry won’t cut it, Rastorfer. You’re scrubbing pots and raking leaves until I say otherwise. Breathe one word to anyone about smuggling or godfruit thieves, and I’ll break your puny neck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And stay away from Sayeg. He’s an even bigger idiot than you are.”
Korlan acknowledged the instruction by pressing his lips together, but he didn’t agree to it verbally.
“Dismissed.”
Good, Jora thought as she continued to move backwards along Korlan’s thread. She was close. The previous night was when she Observed Korlan and Boden fighting the smugglers. She paused the stream, Observing Boden’s still form as he stood with Korlan on the beach, the moonlight casting pale bluish light across his handsome face. She could see his father in the shape of his eyes and mouth, the set of his jaw, and the way he squared his shoulders. A pang of longing and grief drew a sob from her chest. Gunnar was dead. Boden was changed. The peaceful, happy life she’d once had was but a fond memory.
She used her grief and anger as a weapon, honing them as she would a knife and pointing them in the direction of those who were at the root of it all. She would find out who was profiting from the deaths of the soldiers, and she would stop them or die trying.
Back she went until she found the moment Korlan had first spotted someone suspicious unloading sacks of godfruit from a wagon. Like a spider darting across a web, she jumped to the thread of the wagon’s driver just before he sped away.
Though the moon was behind him and his face was shrouded in darkness, she could clearly see his features. Observing within the Mindstream had few limits, and light and the quality of her eyesight were not among them. He wasn’t a Legion soldier. That she knew by the dark brown hair atop his head. He had small, brown eyes set close together and a sharp nose. His narrow lips were open and stretched taut, his bottom teeth showing in an expression of determination.
He cracked a whip down on his lead horse’s rump as he sped toward the Tree of the Fallen God.
Impatient, Jora advanced the stream forward to the moment he arrived. There, under the tree, were perhaps two dozen men and women, each gathering godfruit from the ground and shoving it into a messenger-type bag that was slung across one shoulder and rested against the hip and backside. When the bag was full, he brought it to another man, and the two dumped the contents into larger burlap sacks, which were then tied at the neck and added to a growing pile. All this was done solely by the light of the moon, without the benefit of lamps or candles.
The driver grabbed a sack from the storage box under his seat, jumped down from the wagon, and ran to a woman counting sacks, a writing board clutched against her breast. She was a thick-waisted blonde with a patch over one eye.
“We were spotted,” the driver said breathlessly. “A pair of soldiers on patrol.”
As she took the jingling sack he offered, she regarded him with her brow drawn and her head cocked. “They engaged you?”
“One did. He called for his friend, but I got away before they killed Jug. Buck, Gin, and Grease were down below. There’s a good chance they got away.”
“Against two armed soldiers? We can’t count on it. I’d better let Snipe know. He’ll want to get in touch with his contacts on the other side to make sure the shipment got there.”
“Most of it’s sitting at the top of the hill,” the driver said. “I still have a half dozen bags in my wagon.”
“Retar’s bollocks,” she said. She paced across the bare earth, her one eye fixed to the ground. “Well, at least we didn’t lose the payment. Take your wagon back. We’ll split your loads between the other five. That ought to satisfy them.”
“What about those two soldiers?” he asked.
The woman shrugged. “Depends on their commander. They might get off with a warning. That’s not your concern. Be back here same time tomorrow. I’ll pass word to the captain and make sure no one interferes.”
The captain? Jora wondered. Which captain? She needed a name.
She jumped to the eyepatch woman’s thread and advanced her stream through the night. She didn’t learn the woman’s name but found out she went by the nickname Patch. In fact, it seemed everyone involved went by nicknames, probably wise on their part, in case some nosy Mindstreamer with morals found out what they were up to. All Jora had to do, if she were so inclined, was to stream far enough back to hear someone call them by their real names, but it would take time to gather the names of all the smugglers. These low- and mid-level operators didn’t concern her as much as the ones leading the effort, and so she simply waited until Patch’s shift was over to see who she reported to.
Through the night, the wagons departed loaded with sacks of godfruit and returned empty. The drivers delivered a bag of coins to Patch, who hefted it in her hands as if to judge its weight, sometimes comparing it with another.
Before dawn, the people stopped gathering fallen godfruit and the last of the wagons headed off to various shores around the Isle to meet their transporters. Jora hadn’t realized there were so many coordinated teams, each working to deliver their stolen goods to the enemy across the strait. After the empty wagons returned and their drivers delivered sacks of coin into Patch’s hands, the workers crammed into the wagons and headed back to wherever they slept to wait until the following night.
Patch piled the eleven bags of coins and her writing board into a knapsack and shoved her arms into the straps, then mounted her horse and started off toward the mainland. She rode for a couple of hours, mostly at a walk, sometimes at a trot or canter. Sometime that morning, she dismounted near a pair of boulders at the top of a bluff. She put her right foot on a boulder, leaned her forearm across her knee, and stared out over the water below. Not long after she arrived, another rider joined her.
He was muscular, like a former soldier, though by his shoulder-length, light-brown hair and matching beard, he had to have been at least thirty years old and finished with his service in the Legion.
“We’re short by one bag,” she said as she shrugged out of the knapsack. “A couple of scouts saw our men. I sent the wagon back.”
“Which crew?”
“Southeast.”
“So we didn’t deliver the entire shipment?” He took the knapsack and peered inside.
“The first shipment for that crew was lost, and so I loaded the other wagons heavy. The second shipment never happened, nor did we receive that payment. Eleven loads delivered, eleven payments received.”
He began to transfer the coin bags to the two saddle bags on his horse. “Find out about the crew. I’ll make sure those meddling bastards get their due.”
“Come on, Hammer,” Patch said. “Those boys can’t be expected to know about our operation or look the other way. We have to do
a better job of staying out of sight.”
“It’s the commanders’ job to keep their men in line. ‘Oops’ doesn’t excuse four dead. Once the captain hears about this, there’s going to be hell to pay, I guarantee you.”
Patch started back to her horse. “It was bound to happen. Only a matter of time.”
“Well, they’d better hope it goes no further. Two ignorant boys running off at the mouth could easily become a dozen dead boys delivered to their wives in shrouds. Or more.”
Jora jumped to Hammer’s thread and started to advance his stream when approaching footsteps and voices interrupted her. She closed the Mindstream quickly, throwing up the barring hood, and opened her eyes just as Korlan and Justice Captain Milad entered the room.
“You look like hell,” Milad said, one side of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Smell like it too.”
Korlan smiled dimly. “Good news. Your time is up. How’re you doing?”
It wasn’t until then that Jora realized how much pain she was in. Her shoulders, neck, and back ached, her elbows and wrists burned, her hips were cramped, her buttocks felt like they’d turned to stone, and her knees felt like they were bleeding inside. She shook her head, unable to express her pain verbally. She couldn’t think of a body part that didn’t hurt. Tears dribbled down her face.
“Should’ve used the privy before you came.”
Jora didn’t know when she’d wet herself, but she hurt too much to be embarrassed about it.
Milad pulled a key ring from his pocket and stepped closer to unfasten the shackles. His foot hit something—twang—and it skidded to a stop. He leaned down and picked up the kendern. A scowl darkened his face. “You didn’t tighten it down.”
“I did,” Korlan said. The cherry in his throat bobbed with a loud swallow. “Gruesome watched me do it.”
Milad glared at Jora while he unlocked her shackles.
She pulled her arms back to let the wooden rod fall out from under her knees.
“Put everything away and get her back to her room,” he said, then left, his boots echoing in the hallway.
“I’m so sorry.” Korlan untied the gag and pulled it out of her mouth. “Here. Brought you some water.” He uncorked a flask and offered it to her.
“Thank you,” she croaked—or tried to. Her throat and mouth were so dry, the attempt to speak only made her cough a dry, painful hack. She lifted the flask to her lips and gulped the water down desperately, unwilling to let a single drop go to waste.
“Don’t drown,” he said gently as he untied the cord binding her ankles.
She moaned in response, closing her eyes and relishing the refreshing feel as the water soothed her throat. When the flask was empty, she wanted to weep. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“It wasn’t up to you, Korlan,” she said. “I don’t blame you.”
She started to swing her feet to the side of the slab but cried out. Her hips hurt so much she could barely move.
“Here, let me help.” He took her by the ankles and swung her feet, turning her hips on the slab. She grimaced in pain, and he whispered another apology.
With Korlan’s help, she clambered down, though it took a minute to straighten her hips and knees enough to stand upright. All she wanted was to get to her room. Every step was agony, but with his arm around her, she managed to shuffle down the hallway. When she saw the stairs, she moaned with dread.
“Let me carry you up,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”
Jora didn’t have the strength or the will to argue. She clung to him as he carried her up the flight of stairs, through the halls of the justice building, down more stairs, through a dark tunnel that he assured her led to the dormitory, and up the remaining four flights of stairs to her floor. He was winded before they reached the top, but he refused to set her down until they were outside her door.
“Do you need help… um…”
“I think I can manage getting undressed,” she said with a wry grin that reminded her how sore her mouth was from the gag. “I’ll be fine.” She wanted him to leave so she could get out of her urine-soaked clothes and lie down.
“Think you can make it down for supper? The first bell rang on our way to get you, so the second bell will be along any minute.”
She shook her head as she kicked her boots off. “I’m famished, but I don’t think I can make it downstairs, and I won’t let you carry me.”
“Then I’ll smuggle some food up after the third bell.”
“No. Don’t even think about smuggling anything. I’ll survive the night, don’t worry.” A person couldn’t ache to death, after all. “Go on. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With a look of guilt and regret, he nodded and left, easing the door shut behind him.
Jora had barely enough strength to undress, clean herself up, and put on a sleeping gown, but it felt good to be dry again. She fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down.
When she awoke some hours later, her room was dark but for the moonlight, filtered by the tree outside her window. She lay abed, staring up at the shadows of leaves and branches on the ceiling, wondering if she should get up to pee or just wet herself again. Get up, she decided, though it hurt to move. I can do this. She climbed out of bed and staggered down the hall to the bathing room, where a chamber pot was shared by the novices on her floor. Back in her room, she lay down once again, this time on her belly to give her backside a reprieve.
She was pleased about the progress she’d made tracking down the smugglers, but she’d hoped to have more answers by now. At least she knew where to begin again, once she recovered from her punishment. At the moment, the last thing she wanted to do was sit up and continue where she’d left off. She’d never felt right using the Mindstream in any position other than sitting upright, or standing if necessary.
She was on the right track, though. Eventually, she would discover who within the Justice Bureau and the Legion were involved and how deeply.
It occurred to her that Elder Sonnis knew about it. How much did he remember, now that he was an ally?
She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up onto her hip just long enough to open the Mindstream and whistle the command to summon him. He faded into view, a fat, spiny worm with a sucker mouth like that on the underside of an octopus. His humanlike, green eyes gazed adoringly at her as he kissed and sucked at the air.
“You’re so disgusting,” she muttered. “But useful. Show me your human form.”
It morphed before her eyes into a man wearing a yellow, hooded robe, his bald head smooth, his face despicably handsome. He looked enough like Elder Sonnis that he could fool anyone. Even the mouth was right, with its top lip narrower than the bottom, their corners not meeting.
“Tell me about the smuggling,” she said in a near whisper as she lay down on her side, facing him.
“Smuggling.”
“Yes, the godfruit smuggling. Who else in the Justice Bureau knew about it?”
“Who else?”
Jora closed her eyes and tried to summon her patience. “Who initially told you?” she asked, enunciating every word.
“Told me,” he said, his lips curved into a smile.
“Stop smiling,” she snapped. “I don’t want to see your stupid smile.” She felt the anger and frustration building within her and took a deep breath to calm herself.
He bowed his head, the smile dissipating.
“Tell me who first approached you about the godfruit smuggling.”
“Godfruit smuggling.”
“You’re worthless.”
“Perhaps you’re asking the wrong question,” Sonnis said. His green eyes gleamed in the darkness as if they were lit from behind by tiny stars.
Jora pushed herself up onto one elbow and gaped at him. “What question should I ask?”
“Far be it from me to tell you what to do.”
She didn’t know the extent of the ally’s abilities, but carrying
on a conversation more complex than answering rudimentary questions had, to this point, been impossible. “Retar?” she whispered.
“The same.” Sonnis bowed, smiling. “And please don’t tell me not to smile. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to indulge in such simple pleasures. Monkey smiles don’t have the same feel.”
Though Jora was glad of his presence, it was illegal to speak to the god using anything but designated god vessels within a temple. She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “I didn’t know you could use the allies to communicate.”
“I didn’t either, to be honest. I saw you struggling with this one and wondered if I could help. You’re the first person to command allies since I became… what I am.”
“A god.”
“A demigod at best, though even that’s a stretch.” He stretched his arms high above his head, then turned at the waist first left, then right before bending to touch his toes. “Ahh. That feels good.” He pulled the stool out from under the dressing table. “May I?”
“Of course,” she said. “Please.” As he hiked his golden-yellow robes and sat down, she watched him, trying to see past his Elder Sonnis exterior to recognize the god within him. Was Retar inhabiting his body, or was Sonnis more like a puppet with the god’s hand up his skirt? The image of a giant hand snaking up Sonnis’s robes made her giggle.
He spread his hands. “This amuses you.”
“Yes, sorry. How are you doing that?”
“No need to apologize. Even if I could explain it, I don’t think it would help you understand.”
“You’re probably right. No, you are right,” she said, shaking her head. “Of course you are. You’re a god.”
“Demigod.”
Jora smiled, and Retar smiled back with Sonnis’s sensual mouth.
“Despite his ability to wear his old face,” Retar said, “the Sonnis you knew is essentially gone. I don’t believe he remembers much of his old life.”
