01 - The Compass Rose
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No. It wouldn’t.
Kallista managed to doze a few hours on the passenger deck, which left her feeling groggy and cranky the rest of the day. She tried playing queens-and-castles with the courier, but couldn’t concentrate. Then the day was over and it was time to attempt sleep again with Torchay snuggled in beside her. Sheer tempting torture.
Peaceday dawned with Kallista lying balanced on the edge of the bed, staring at the ceiling. The list of questions for Belandra sat on the table, but Kallista didn’t need it. She had them memorized. They’d decided she would stay in the cabin until Belandra appeared, to keep from spooking the crew. Kallista wasn’t looking forward to the confinement.
How did one summon a ghost? Or whatever it was that Belandra was supposed to be? Like one summoned magic? She started the pull, then remembered her control problems and closed her hands into fists. She elbowed Torchay. “Wake up. I need my gloves.”
He fumbled on the table, taking so long to find them she knew he hadn’t opened his eyes. Torchay wasn’t fond of morning.
“Oh, just get out of my way.” She reached across him.
He blocked her. “I’ve got them. Here.” He thrust the brown leather gloves at her and collapsed back onto the bed, his eyes still closed. “What’s your hurry?”
“I don’t want to try calling Belandra without them.” Kallista tugged the gloves into place. It felt strange to be still lying in bed wearing them. Like going to sleep in boots. “In case I call something else without meaning to.”
Torchay’s eyes opened and he stared at her in alarm. “Like what?”
“Lightning, you idiot. Not demons.” She smacked him lightly on the head, then paused. What if she did call something else? Could she? The One only knew. Literally, given the freakish way her magic was behaving. She would have to try very hard not to call anything but Belandra and hope it worked.
“Wait.” Torchay scrambled out of bed. He pulled on his tunic and back sheath at the same time. Quickly he returned his many knives to where they belonged, the longblade sliding into the back sheath first, as always.
Kallista watched him, amused. “Do you think your blades will have any effect on a ghost, even if you could see her?”
Knives hidden, Torchay grabbed a comb and started putting his hair in order. “No. But if she truly is Belandra of Arikon, I want her to see a proper bodyguard at your side.”
While Kallista resembled a dockside slattern, lounging half dressed in the crumpled bedclothes. She wasn’t sure she cared, but Torchay obviously did. “Come here. I’ll braid your hair for you.”
He sat and presented his back to her. “Take off your gloves. You’ll never get it tight enough if you leave them on.”
“All right, but if you get shocked, it’s your own fault.” She pulled them off as she stood, taking the comb he handed her.
She’d done this hundreds of times, not as often as Torchay had done her hair, but often. Had his hair always felt so silky? Had the natural waves he hated always curled around her fingers like that? Refusing to allow herself to linger over the task, Kallista divided his hair and set to work, pulling it tight as she twisted the red, red locks over each other. Briskly she tied it off and stepped back, taking up her gloves again.
She climbed back into bed, sitting cross-legged in the middle, and closed her eyes. Concentration would be difficult enough without having to look at Torchay. She focused on Belandra as she had last seen her, filling her mind with the image of the red-haired woman. When the details were complete, Kallista called. Magic grew, filling the air with crackling power. Then it fell into an endless depth, and vanished.
CHAPTER NINE
Kallista reached, shouting for Belandra. Nothing. No answer. Not even an echo of her call from the void.
“Is she here?” Torchay’s question brought her eyes open.
Maybe she just missed the answer. But the room lay empty of anyone but Torchay, Aisse and herself. “No.”
“But I felt the magic—”
“Did you?” She gave him a sharp look. He’d said before that he could tell when she called magic. “Most people can’t, people without their own magic. Have you always been able to tell?”
“Not always. Try again.” He held his hand out. “Without the gloves. Maybe they interfered.”
“When did you start, when did you first feel it?” Kallista pulled the gloves off again and handed them over. Good thing the leather was so soft or her hands would be abraded raw by now with all the putting-on and taking-off.
“After I got out of healer’s hall, that time I was gutted. Try it now.”
“So, if there’s any magic floating around, you can sense it?” She dried her sweaty hands on the sheet and settled again.
“Not any magic. Just yours.”
“That’s strange.”
Torchay shrugged. “Maybe so. Try it. Call her.”
Giving in to his persistence, Kallista closed her eyes and went through the whole process again. And again nothing happened. The magic dropped away into emptiness.
“Well?”
Kallista sprang off the bed, snatching her gloves from his belt. She reminded herself that it wasn’t his fault she couldn’t do it right. “Nothing. It’s not working. It’s—the magic just…vanishes.”
“What happened before, when she came before?” Torchay found the tunic she hunted and gave it to her. “What did you do then?”
“Nothing.” She pulled the tunic on over the chemise. “I didn’t do anything. She was just there.”
“Are you sure? Think.”
“Of course I’m sure.” She snatched up the comb and dragged it once through her hair before Torchay took it away from her. She bowed her head to give him access. “We’d been quarreling, remember? I…” She searched her memory. “I got the ring out of my pocket, put it on, and she was there.”
Kallista pulled off her glove, removed the rose signet ring from her finger and shoved it back on, looking expectantly around the cabin. Torchay paused, holding her hair in one hand. “Nothing,” she said yet again.
“Damn.” He tied it off, combing the lower layer of hair down over the mark on her neck. “What could be wrong?”
She held on to her temper with both hands, stepping away from him. “Don’t you think I’d be doing it if I knew?”
“Yes, of course you would. I’m just trying to think.”
She hated this. Her new awareness of Torchay, added to all the rest that had gone wrong, would make her crazed. “Sorry. I just—I didn’t sleep well and—”
“Why not? Trouble breathing?”
“No, nothing like that. I—kept waking up. And I’m hungry.”
He grinned. “That always makes you short-tempered. Aisse.”
The quickness of the Tibran woman’s response said she’d been feigning sleep. She bowed and lifted her eyes to his—a feat that had taken several days’ instruction.
“Clean up,” he said slowly, indicating the cabin. “I’m going for food. Make ready.”
Kallista raised an eyebrow. “You’re trusting her with me?”
“You’re awake.” He made a show of studying their disparate heights, Kallista almost a head taller than the tiny Tibran woman. “I think you can take her if she attacks. Your blade is as sharp as mine.”
Because he’d sharpened it for her. He’d also drilled her in its use. She would never be as proficient as he, but she could hold her own against any but a bodyguard, and such a battle would never happen. Not outside practice.
Belandra didn’t appear before Torchay returned with the meal. Nor did she turn up all during the morning. Or in the afternoon. Or evening.
“I don’t understand,” Kallista complained late that night as she stripped off her gloves, boots and tunic, handing them one by one to Torchay. “She said I had summoned her. She said I could do it again after Hopeday had passed. But the newt-eating daughter of a goat didn’t tell me how I could do it.”
“You can try again tomorrow.” Torchay a
rranged her belongings to suit him and pulled off his own tunic.
“I can’t bear being stuck in this cabin again all day tomorrow. No.” She climbed onto the bed, trying her best not to look at Torchay and failing miserably. Goddess, he was lovely. “No, I’m not calling her again. I’ve called. If she wants to answer, fine. If not–I don’t need her. We’re doing just fine on our own.”
“Are we?” He sounded skeptical, and doubtless looked more so, but she turned her face resolutely to the wall.
“Well enough,” she said. “What else can we do?”
Torchay sighed as he lay down and settled his back against hers. “I wish I knew.”
Two days later, at dawn on Seconday, the Taolind Runner pulled into dock at Turysh. Kallista left the boat around noon. She’d done most of her sleeping lately after Torchay rose, not nearly enough of it. He’d doubtless sharpened all his knives to slivers waiting for her to wake. Served him right. But they were in Turysh now and she could work this itch out of her system.
Kallista took a shallow dockside breath. Same familiar reek of new tar and old fish. She turned, surveying the long stretch of docks on both banks, boats bobbing alongside in all sizes, from the big downriver boats like the Runner and the smaller upriver boats like the one that would take them on to Boren, to the rowboats for individual use. People, men and women both, thronged the piers, loading and unloading, bargaining for goods, arguing, laughing. Living. Save for the bubble of space around her own small party.
With a sigh, Kallista motioned Torchay into the lead. Aisse carried their overnight bags, trailing behind them. Porters would deliver their trunks to the upriver boat once passage was arranged. She stopped at the shipping office to take care of that matter first. Then she headed toward the barracks.
The local military presence was situated near the river, since that was where most of the trouble in Turysh arose. Of course, a great deal of that trouble was created by the passions, tempers and pranks of the several hundred high-spirited young men garrisoned there while fulfilling their mandatory military service.
Kallista entered the inn that catered to barracks traffic and bespoke a large room, one of those reserved for naitani. She sent Aisse up to deliver the bags and approve its suitability, mostly because she didn’t want to climb stairs and Torchay wouldn’t go without her. While they waited, Kallista rubbed her temples. Her head ached.
“You all right?” Torchay steered her into a chair in the inn’s spacious public room.
“Tired is all.” She propped her elbows on the table in front of her. “And Turysh always gives me a headache. I need to visit my parents while I’m here and that just fills my heart with joy.” Her voice sounded as joyous as a funeral dirge.
“You always enjoy seeing Dardra.”
“That’s true. Because my fifth mother always seems happy to see me. The twins should have finished their training by now. Maybe someone will have word of them. But let’s eat here first. We’ll go visit right after and escape before dinner.”
The twins were sedili born to Kallista’s birth mother when Kallista was twelve. She’d been one of the girls’ caretakers and when Karyl’s North magic had awakened, they’d become closer.
“Your choice. They’re your family.” Torchay signaled the waiter and pointed at the tabletop.
“Why haven’t we ever visited your family?”
“Because my family doesn’t live in a convenient spot like Turysh, but away north in the Devil’s Tooth Mountains, as you well know. Besides, I haven’t quite as much family as you. I only have four parents, not twelve. Do you even know how many sedili you have?”
Kallista shrugged. “I quit counting when I left for the academy. Temple families are different, though. You know that. The temple has to be staffed, so there’s always somebody new marrying in when somebody leaves for whatever reason. I could probably count two dozen parents if I wanted to.”
Aisse returned and looked around as if hunting a spot where she could hide. She worried Kallista sometimes with her timidity. Torchay stood, getting her attention, and Aisse, relief on her face, made her way to their table.
“That was a nice thing to do for a spy.” Kallista leaned back watching him.
“You’ve taken responsibility for her. That makes her my responsibility as well. She doesn’t speak enough Adaran to be left alone here. Especially since she’s afraid of men.”
“True.” Kallista took note of all the male eyes following Aisse across the room. Her bruises had faded enough that she was well worth following. A gratifying number of glances flicked Kallista’s way as well and she couldn’t help smiling. She would have no trouble at all hooking a man to scratch her itch.
They ate their lunch—fish cakes, fried potatoes and some kind of greens that smelled awful and tasted worse—then headed through town to the Riverside Temple. Turysh boasted six temples to serve the population. Riverside was the oldest, but the Mother Temple had been moved years ago to the city’s center, away from the noise and turbulence near the docks. Kallista had grown up in the midst of it.
Her visit went about as she expected. Her birth parents forced smiles and asked politely after her welfare, managing never to touch their eldest child. North magic disturbed Kallista’s mother. She seemed to believe the inanimate things North magic dealt with might corrupt her own East magic healing talent. Yet both her children with magic were of the North.
Only Kallista’s fifth mother, the temple administrator, seemed truly glad to see her, enveloping Kallista in a plump, fragrant hug and asking when she was going to make an honest man of Torchay. The joke fell a little flat this time, mostly because Kallista felt a tiny twinge of envy as Dardra gave Torchay his hug. Kallista vowed to begin trolling her line as soon as they got back to the inn. She needed a man badly if the sight of her fifth mother hugging her bodyguard disturbed her.
Aisse’s presence was remarked upon. She got a hug too, but was left to her privacy as Dardra caught Kallista up on all the family news. The twins were indeed through with their education and would soon return to Turysh to set up their business. Karyl was a far-speaker and Kami would manage the business end of things. They had met a pair of sedili, men who had just finished their military duty. The wedding was to be in three months. Kallista was expected to attend.
With promises to move heaven, earth and Tibrans if necessary, in order to be there, Kallista managed to escape before the rest of the current family gathered for dinner.
“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” Torchay said as they walked back to the inn.
“No, not so bad. It was good to see Dardra. But now it’s done and I intend to play tonight.”
Torchay rolled his eyes, as he always did when Kallista slipped out of harness. Aisse looked from one to the other. “What is play?” she said in hesitant Adaran.
“Children play.” Kallista grinned and picked up her pace. “And sometimes grown-ups play as well.”
“It means,” Torchay said, “that the captain hunts—you understand hunts?”
Aisse nodded, eyes wide as she scurried along.
“She hunts for a man tonight.”
“Maybe two.” Kallista winked at Torchay just to watch him roll his eyes again.
“Two?” Aisse said. “What great-captain do with two men?” She still had trouble remembering that Kallista preferred “captain” to “great lady.” But she stuck to Adaran. Not that Kallista could tell, save by the occasional missing word.
“The same thing I would do with one.” Her grin felt predatory. “Play with them. Have fun.”
“Not have sex?”
Kallista lost a step before she burst out laughing. Even Torchay had to hide a smile. “Yes, Aisse. I will have sex with them. Him. Whoever I find. To me, that is play. Fun.”
Aisse made a face. Obviously she didn’t agree, and Kallista’s laughter faded. “It is fun, Aisse, but only if everyone wants to play, and only if it’s done right. If everybody isn’t having fun, then it’s not right.”
She didn’t want him for herself. Not really. She had just gone too long without, and she’d discovered a new appreciation for his finely honed physique. He was an attractive man with all that rich, wavy flame-red hair. His nose fit his narrow, bony, familiar face. And if he wanted Aisse, or any woman, he should have what he wanted.
“How?” Aisse asked. “How you hunt for man?”
This time Torchay laughed, a short bark of laughter. “She doesn’t have to actually hunt. She just walks through the room, trailing perfume and sex, and they line up behind her with their tongues hanging out. Then she just picks the one she wants.”
“When did that ever happen?” Kallista demanded. “Maybe when I was younger, but not lately. Not for a long time.”
“You don’t see the way they look at you.” He mimicked a cross-eyed moonling. “It’s a wonder they don’t fall over their own tongues.”
“You think you are so funny, don’t you?” She shoved him and he swayed slightly, laughing at her.
“Watch,” Torchay said to Aisse, tipping his head in Kallista’s direction. “Watch and learn.”
She went up to the room, where she washed and changed out of her uniform into a long red dress tunic made to be worn without trousers. It laced up the sides to fit her shape snugly. The slits up the side seams were there for ease in movement and to show off her legs. Kallista had nice legs, or so she’d been told by more than one lover.
She changed her gloves for a pair of red kid-leather ones that climbed to her elbows, and hung a pale blue faceted stone the size of her thumb set in silver around her neck. Torchay pulled her boots off for her and she slipped on a pair of high-heeled shoes, red to match dress and gloves. She’d have to be careful. She hadn’t worn the heels in months. But a woman never forgot how to walk in heels. She brushed her hair, letting it fall free to her shoulders. She dabbed on the perfume Torchay had given her for a New Year’s gift ages ago, used a bit of red on her cheeks and lips, and she was ready.