Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion)

by James A. West

  Aedran smiled. “Give me a few days to put everything in order, and I’ll give you kingdoms.”

  Chapter 2

  “We must hurry,” Thaeson gasped, as if his shuffling gait were not the reason for the company’s slow pace. “The girl must be near the Shield of the Fathers by now. We cannot allow that to happen.”

  “Yes, Essan.” Edrik spoke his master’s title with respect, but he was glad the night hid his scowl. We can hurry, but I fear we’re already too late. He caught hold of the old priest’s elbow to hurry him along.

  They traveled one of a score of cobbled roads radiating outward from Targas like the spokes of a great wheel. These roads arrowed straight and true through miles of wedge-shaped farmlands, now still and silent under the canopy of darkness. As ever, the warm night air was bursting with the scents of good rich soil and ripening crops. High above, Edrik glimpsed a faint sparkling glow from both the stars and the nearly transparent arc of the Shield of the Fathers.

  Normally that light filled him with a sense of peace, but not now. Tonight was Hanyata, one of four nights during the year set aside for the ceremonial sacrifice necessary to restore strength to the Shield of the Fathers, which in turn kept the city eternally warm and hid Targas from the corrupted world of the deycath—those folk not born within the blessed sanctuary. With the girl’s flight, all the celebration and joy of Hanyata was in jeopardy. The only good he could see was that her escape seemed to have gone unnoticed. But for how long?

  Of late, too many girls had taken to fleeing their duty to the people, Targas, and the Munam a’Dett. Betraying the citizens of Targas was a terrible and selfish sin, but standing against the benevolence of the Munam a’Dett Order of priests was a mortal sin worthy of the severest punishment. Even as a low-ranking priest of the vizien caste, and but a summer out of his acolyte’s robes, Edrik understood that dissent of any sort was more dangerous than a killing plague. Having girls flee their obligation showed a great unraveling that, in time, would upset the peace and harmony of Targas, which the Munam a’Dett had worked diligently for centuries to maintain.

  “A moment!” Thaeson stumbled to a halt, coughing, his thin fingers clutching the sigil of their order embroidered on his chest, a blue dragon encircling a blood-red lily that floated amid a knot of green vines, the symbol of life and its holy guardian.

  Edrik put a hesitant hand on his master’s shoulder, praying he would not collapse. The company’s twenty sets of eyes passed over Edrik and Thaeson, before resuming their search of the night. Edrik knew what his fellows were thinking, for it was also on his mind. They never should have told Essan Thaeson about the girl. It was true he would have found out in due course, but with him in tow and slowing the company, the chance of capturing the girl was almost lost.

  “We must hurry,” Edrik urged.

  “A moment is all I ask,” Thaeson puffed, before a fearful bout of gagging bent him double. He hawked and spat, then went back to sucking wind.

  I’ve already given you more moments than we can spare! It was all Edrik could do not to shout his thought aloud. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked askance at his master.

  Tufts of pale hair had come loose from the essan’s conical white-and-gold headdress, making him look wholly undignified. Worse still, mud covered his sandals, and more speckled the snowy hem of the ankle-length tunic hanging below his blue-and-gold quartered vestments. Edrik could not remember having seen Thaeson, or any essan for that matter, looking so rumpled and dirty.

  “All may not be lost,” Danlin said. Shaved bald like all in his caste, tall and broad enough to stretch his vizien’s vest of quilted green wool, he was a hard-faced young man better suited for armor and crushing foes. Not that the Munam A’Dett had lifted a finger to crush foes since raising the Shield of the Fathers.

  Edrik cocked his head toward the distant sound of chanting voices and pounding drums.

  “They’re beginning the ceremony,” Thaeson said, sounding as relieved as Danlin. “If that’s so, then none of my fellows have raised the alarm about the missing girl. Surely they know, but have found a suitable replacement.” As he spoke, the voices and drums merged to become a harmonic throbbing that mimicked the heartbeat of all life.

  “By Blood and by Water,” Thaeson said. Everyone around him repeated the sacred words, eyes on their home.

  How long will those words guard us? Edrik wondered, studying Targas, the Everlasting City of Light. And all alight the city was, its walls glowing like spun gold in the darkness, its crystal towers, lofty spires, and countless domes burning as if pieces of the sun had been set within each one of them. Adding to the radiance were hundreds of bonfires lit for Hanyata and the lamps set on every window sill of in the city. A far greater light shone where the Ilesma Temple stood at the center of the Targas.

  As always, Edrik’s breath caught when he looked upon the temple’s majesty. Ilesma is our true heart. The temple was a mountainous ziggurat, its terraced flanks crossed by dozens of sheer stairways. A dome of golden crystal crowned the structure, and it burned not as if a mere piece of the sun had been laid within it, but as if the sun itself had decided to take its nightly rest there. The great bulk of the Ilesma Temple towered above the tallest spire in Targas, as well it should, since it was the resting place of the sacred Oracle. Even with the distance, Edrik could make out the temple’s primary staircase, which climbed up the stepped face of the temple and ended at a sprawling terrace just below the dome.

  “There still might be time to catch the girl and bring her back,” Edrik said. “But only—”

  “—if you leave me here?” Thaeson cut in. He let out a wheezy gasp. “No! If any of you get too near the Shield, you’ll die as certainly as the girl.”

  “I intend to catch her before then,” Edrik said, voice tight, “but standing around discussing the issue isn’t getting us any closer to her.”

  Thaeson straightened. “I’m ready,” he said, but looked far from it.

  The company set off again, and to Edrik’s surprise Thaeson stepped livelier. The ponderous song thrumming out of Targas hurried them toward the Sleeping Wood encircling the vast farmlands and stretching a mile deep before coming to the Shield of the Fathers. On the far side of that nearly invisible obstacle waited a boundless land of frost and death, the realm of the deycath. The oldest tomes named those lands the Iron Marches, a barren place the ancestors of Targas had escaped long ago.

  As they neared the Sleeping Wood, a brief tremor shook the cobbles under Edrik’s feet, and soon after a short breath of frigid air washed over him. Had he not been looking for those signs, he might have missed them.

  Edrik peered ahead, but deep shadow clung hard to the trees, making it impossible to see much of anything.

  “She’s escaped us,” Thaeson said, halting the company.

  Edrik was horrified to see his breath steaming before his eyes. It was not the first time he had seen that, but it was no less shocking than before. Did anyone in the city notice the shaking and the cold? Some of them must have, and most assuredly those sneaking ingrates who whispered that the old ways were dying, those like the girl, who had chosen to run instead of to serve. But most don’t yet know what the signs mean, and they still believe in and trust the priesthood.

  For Edrik, this idea was more of hope than a belief. Too many had begun to take notice of the changes around the city, too many had begun to speak aloud questions that should never have entered their minds, and too many had begun to doubt the power of the Munam a’Dett Order and, more pointedly, the quidan, leader of the order and presiding ruler of Targas.

  “She’s lost to us,” Thaeson said, his thin shoulders slumping. Edrik knew the girl was beyond them all now, save for Thaeson.

  “Come, Essan,” Edrik said. “We must retrieve the girl’s remains, lest any of her fellow traitors chance upon the body and think to use it against us.”

  Thaeson rubbed his wizened face and sighed. “Lead on, my boy.”

  ~ ~ ~
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br />   The company marched into the ancient forest, the scent of loam and sweet sap filling the night air. Thick boughs intertwined overhead to form a leafy shroud. As the company began picking their way along a faint trail bounded by bowing ferns, Edrik noticed an unnatural quiet, as if the night creatures had vanished. Adding to his woes was the cold current of air flowing along the ground like an unseen river. He told himself he was imagining it, until Thaeson went still.

  “Something is wrong,” Thaeson warned. Without the benefit of starlight, he was just one more shadow in the company of many. “Look there,” he said sharply. “See how the mist rises?”

  Edrik cast about, wondering how the man could see anything, then stiffened in alarm. Barely seen tendrils of fog were curling up from the ground, like drowsy serpents.

  “What’s happening?” Danlin blurted, dancing back from one of those seeking shapes. “Essan, what is this?”

  The others had taken notice, and a murmur of disquiet rose from them.

  “There’s nothing to fear,” Thaeson assured them, though he looked uneasy.

  Edrik scrubbed his hands up and down his arms. The soft linen sleeves of his tunic felt damp. No, he thought, distressed. It’s frost! As added proof, delicate white feathers of hoarfrost had begun spreading over the ferns, weighing them down. More frost grew like a plague of pale fungus over nearby tree trunks.

  “We must reach the Shield of the Fathers,” Thaeson said, his calm breaking. “Quickly, now!”

  He spoke too late. The others had turned to run back the way they had come.

  “Cowards!” Thaeson snarled.

  Edrik wanted to join them, but he forced himself to stand fast beside the man who had released him from the dreary existence of a farmer’s only son, and placed him within the powerful bosom of the Munam a’Dett Order. If it came to it, he would give his life for Essan Thaeson.

  “What now?” Edrik asked.

  Thaeson faced the mist, now waist-deep off the forest floor, and silently spreading out through the trees. “First we must retrieve the girl. After, if it’s possible, we have to find out what has happened, and repair the damage.”

  Damage? Edrik could not contain himself. “What do you think happened?”

  Thaeson turned, his timeworn face nearly lost in shadow. “I … I don’t know, boy, but whatever this is, it’s not a welcome omen.”

  They pushed on, carefully wading through the fog. Roots and stones threatened to trip them, but they kept on. Edrik swallowed the dry lump in his throat. He had occasionally suffered doubts about their purpose—only a fool refused to question the consequences of his actions—but now he deeply considered that maybe the priesthood ought to let things alone, allow the malcontents to have their way, and let Targas fall. If the Munam a’Dett stayed strong and true to itself, the Order’s adherents could build another city somewhere else, attract new and faithful followers. In short, begin again.

  “Perhaps we should go back,” Edrik said, coming as close as he dared to speaking his thoughts aloud.

  Thaeson stumbled and caught Edrik’s arm to steady himself. “By the Fathers, boy, I’d not have expected you to turn back at the first sign of trouble. Maybe those other cowards, but not you. That’s why I let them run off without a word. I’ve always counted on you to stand with me.” His eyes narrowed. “Was my trust misplaced?”

  Edrik felt a surge of pride at Thaeson’s praise, but at the same time, he felt shame that the essan saw the need to question his loyalty. “I’ll stand where you stand, walk where you walk, Essan,” he said humbly, but he could not leave their ultimate purpose alone. “Yet, what Quidan Salris plans, what he expects of us, is dangerous, as you’ve often said. If he has us move too quickly, too forcefully, the faith of our people will shatter.”

  “For some,” Thaeson reasoned, “it will shatter anyway. Such is always the price of change—particularly when that change involves turning people from what they mistakenly believe they want. Trust me, what many of the citizens of Targas think they desire is nothing but a well-crafted lie spread by blind fools.”

  “Such as escaping the authority of the Munam A’Dett?”

  “Especially that,” Thaeson said, his lips turning down in distaste. “More foolish still is their belief that life beyond the Shield of the Fathers, a life spent amongst the deycath, would be better than a life spent amongst their own kind. For their sakes, we must never allow them to see the ugliness and horrors beyond our border. Targas is their home, and within the bounds of the Everlasting City of Light, they shall remain.”

  “I understand,” Edrik said. “Still, maybe we should try to show the folk that we share their concerns, convince them that the Order is still powerful, and that they can rely on us to keep their best interests at heart.”

  “Thinking like that might earn you the Staff of the Quidan, one day,” Thaeson said, speaking of the symbol of authority carried by the head of the Munam a’Dett Order. Edrik’s grin faltered when Thaeson added, “Or it might get you hunted down and killed by those who want no truck with the likes of us, the quidan, or the priesthood.”

  Thaeson said nothing else until they came out of the forest, where he stopped dead at the sight of what was awaiting them. “This is why we must press on with our plans. Time, I’m afraid, has grown far shorter than any of us feared.”

  “By the Fathers,” Edrik said, eyeing the band of white mist caught between the edge of the Sleeping Wood and the Shield of the Fathers. Beyond the trees, starlight filtered down through the barrier, turning the mist into a river of milk.

  Edrik raised his eyes, searching. He found an undulating breach in the faintly glimmering wall. With a moaning sigh, frigid air poured through the gap that should not have been possible.

  “How did this happen, Essan?” Edrik asked, having always believed the Shield of the Fathers was impenetrable.

  “Wait here,” Thaeson said in answer.

  Edrik caught his arm. “I can help, if you grant me the power to do so.”

  “That time will come sooner than you think or want,” Thaeson said, sounding regretful. “But this, my boy, I must do alone. Do not come any closer, or you will die.”

  Thaeson tottered off through the mist, leaving swirling eddies in his wake. Edrik dared not let his eyes wander. Shivering from the unnatural cold, he watched until the essan had vanished, his hand held before his face to ward against the bitter chill of the Iron Marches coming through the breach.

  ~ ~ ~

  A long time later, Thaeson came back into view, a girl’s limp figure held in his arms. He struggled closer under the burden, then he abruptly knelt down amid the restless ground fog.

  Edrik waited, tense, sure his bones were about to crack from the cold, sure that his master hadn’t knelt at all, but had collapsed. Should I go to him?

  His answer was Thaeson’s earlier admonition to stay put, lest he die from proximity to the Shield of the Fathers. Every citizen of Targas learned the same from childhood. Even without the vizien patrols that kept watch on the Sleeping Wood, most folk never considered venturing too close to the wall, for fear of a terrible and painful death.

  And here you stand, a mocking voice whispered, afraid as all your flock. Yet not an hour past, you thought of dying for your master, if he but asked it of you.

  Edrik began to step forward, but an unpleasant gurgling sound halted him. His eyes widened as the rift in the Shield of the Fathers began to close. As the gap shrank, the gurgling noise became a hissing scream, like a well-heated teapot. As soon as the fissure cut off the river of mist, nighttime silence fell.

  He was again considering taking his chances with approaching the Shield of the Fathers, when Thaeson stood up and moved laboriously toward him. The girl he had left buried in the mist. Edrik guessed Thaeson would send some others to fetch her remains. For the sake of secrecy, members of the vizien caste, perhaps even him, would bury her without ceremony. The girl’s family and friends would wonder what had happened to her, but the farmlands arou
nd Targas were extensive, the Sleeping Wood dark and deep, so it was not unheard of for people to go missing from time to time. And if she had told any accomplices she intended to flee, Edrik supposed they would assume she had made good on her word.

  “By Blood and by Water,” Thaeson said, “we are yet safe.”

  “How was the wall breached?” Edrik asked. Insofar as he knew, the Shield of the Fathers was as eternal as the Everlasting City of Light, and only those who drank of the precious Blood of Life could pass through unharmed.

  Thaeson shook his head. “All that matters is that it’s whole again, and we’re safe.” Before Edrik could press his concerns, the essan added, “The hour to act as come.”

  Edrik swallowed. “The Oracle’s foretelling?”

  Thaeson’s answer was a simple nod.

  “There is no other way?”

  This time, the essan shook his head. “Quidan Salris has waited as long as he dared. When I tell him what has happened, he’ll sanction your journey to seek the man of which the Oracle foretold.”

  Edrik imagined the endless cold beyond the wall, and how even the diluted touch of it gushing through the breach had threatened to freeze him solid. How can anyone survive out there? It was not the first time he had entertained the thought since learning of the mission he was to embark on, but now it seemed far more important. His fears got the best of him.

  “Are you sure there’s no other way—is Quidan Salris sure?”

  Thaeson put on a somber face. “We are sure because the Oracle is sure, my boy.”

  “What if the Oracle is wrong?” Edrik demanded.

  Thaeson caught his shoulders in a surprisingly firm grip. “Such questions are what have led us to the brink of calamity, boy! Do not allow such discontent to blacken your heart. You must believe what we do is right.” His face softened. “Trust in this, boy, if nothing else. After you’ve completed your mission and returned, you’ll see with your living eyes the darkness that infests the hearts of the traitors who stand opposed to us. You’ll understand the vile, filthy darkness they seek to sow into the hearts of the good folk of Targas. Keep your doubts if you must, but in time, you’ll learn that the Munam a’Dett is the only virtuous faction in our blessed city.”