by Lucy Hounsom
Argat gave her an appraising look. ‘You surprise me. I didn’t have you pegged as a rebel.’
‘Few do,’ Brégenne said, unable to keep the wryness out of her voice. ‘Myself included. But someone had to act. Naris has a long tradition of hiding from the world and now we’re reaping the rewards. It’ll take time to earn people’s trust – time we don’t have.’
‘Because of this impending war, you claim.’
She frowned. ‘You’re foolish to make light of it. If the powers in Acre decided to invade, who would you look to for defence? Mariar hasn’t had a standing army since the Deliverance.’
‘True.’ Argat put down his fork. ‘But why must it come to war? In my experience, everyone has a price.’
‘We don’t know anything about Acre. What’s valuable here, they may have in abundance.’
‘A good point. However, we’d be stupid not to play to our strengths. Peace has made Mariar very rich indeed.’ He swept out a hand as if to include the airship’s luxurious saloon in his meaning. ‘We are masters of trade, of connections. What we lack militarily, we make up for in diplomatic skill. The Assembly may be a handful of arrogant fools, but they know business and they know people. And how best to combine the two.’
‘That’s why Kyndra went to Acre,’ Brégenne said. ‘We know we’re best playing to our strengths.’ She sat back, considering. ‘But putting all our eggs in one basket is foolhardy. It was Mariar’s – Rairam’s – wealth as a continent that made it a target for the empire in the first place. And the Trade Assembly are too greedy for their own good. The situation in Market Primus is proof that they value their gold above the well-being of their city or indeed the rest of the world.’
‘What do you think, Yara?’ Argat asked his first mate, who had thus far been silent. The tall woman wore her hair in dozens of tiny braids and she’d swapped her grease-stained overalls for a plain shirt.
In response, Yara’s eyes narrowed on Brégenne’s face. Slowly she finished her mouthful of food and swallowed. ‘You argue well, Captain. But she has it right.’ Her accent carried the husky warmth of all Archipelagans. ‘When faced with the unknown, it is better to keep your options open. This power in Acre you speak of, this empire … if it turns out they prefer the language of swords, we should try to learn it.’
‘Truly a night of surprises,’ the captain said. ‘Since when did you become an advocate of war?’
‘Not war, Argat, survival.’ Yara hooked a chicken leg. ‘I like my life, I like this ship. I have plans for both. If anything were to threaten them, well … I’d do what I had to.’
Gareth sat quietly, only picking at his food. His cheeks retained some of their earlier pallor and the dark circles around his eyes were undiminished. Argat was watching him too. ‘You don’t look well, boy,’ he said suddenly.
Gareth’s head jerked up. ‘I’m fine.’
‘When are you going to show me what you have on your wrist?’
Brégenne cursed. Did nothing slip past the man? Gareth was looking at Argat in horror.
‘You’ve been tugging at that glove since we hauled you on deck.’ The captain pushed his empty plate aside and beckoned. ‘Let’s see it.’
Gareth looked at Brégenne. ‘Go ahead,’ she said with a sigh, and so the novice laid his right arm on the cleared space in front of Argat and pulled off the glove. An unnatural cold clung to the gauntlet. Even Argat must have felt it, for his brows drew together and he retracted his outstretched hand.
‘Don’t bother to ask Gareth to remove it,’ Brégenne said a little caustically. ‘It won’t come off.’
‘Fascinating,’ the captain said, ignoring her. ‘Look at the sigils.’ His gaze moved from the metal to Gareth’s face. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘The archives,’ Gareth said. ‘The Wielders’ library in Naris. There’re a lot of things left over from the war.’ He glanced down. ‘I was curious and … I might have borrowed it without asking.’
‘I suspect we have a deal in common,’ Argat said with a slight smile. ‘Tell me – what does it do?’
‘At first I used it to throw people aside. But not like a Wielder does.’ Gareth glanced briefly at Brégenne. ‘And although it was really powerful the first few times, it became weaker. Now I don’t think it was made to do that at all.’
‘Why?’
Gareth swallowed. ‘This afternoon when we were trying to get away from the Wielders, I hit one of them. A man.’ The fist inside the gauntlet clenched. ‘I didn’t mean to … I mean, it wasn’t something I chose.’ Gareth stuttered to a halt and Brégenne thought the memory of what he’d done to Magnus would stop him from continuing. But the novice took a deep breath and looked into Argat’s face. ‘The gauntlet made his skin rot,’ he said quietly. ‘It was like dying – I’m sure if I’d kept it up, the other Wielder wouldn’t have been able to heal him. He would have rotted away to nothing.’
‘The touch of death,’ Argat mused with a dark smile. If Gareth’s story had disturbed him, he gave no sign of it.
‘And I felt cold,’ Gareth said, ‘like there was no life inside me. Magnus had life. I could take his … all that warmth. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough, it would never be enough –’ He stopped abruptly, dread in the lines of his face. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Sorry.’
The table was silent. Yara looked as if she wanted to edge her chair away from Gareth, and Brégenne understood how she felt. She remembered the dead king in his throne under the earth. Only Argat seemed unmoved. His face wore a stark and hungry fascination that made Brégenne’s skin crawl almost as much as the image in her head. ‘There’s a tale –’ the captain began and stopped.
‘What?’ Gareth said.
As they all waited, Argat splashed brandy into his glass, picked it up and leaned back. ‘It was a story I heard a long time ago,’ he began. ‘When I was a young man, shipless, impoverished, seeking to make my fortune …’
Yara gave a sigh of impatience.
‘… Travelling Mariar in search of a future, one night a storm forced me to seek shelter at a small settlement just inside the borders of the Great Northern Forest.’
Gareth’s expression sharpened and he shifted in his seat.
‘Like many young men with a belly to fill and a thirst for ale, I made my way to the tavern. Mostly there were folk of Svartas, a few clansmen up from the plains, but in a corner sat a couple of men the like of which I’d never seen. Tall they were, wearing the clothes of the forest – skins and such – with claws for pauldrons and antlered helms. They spoke with a strange accent, but I recognize northerners when I hear them.’
Argat paused to give Gareth a narrow look. ‘They were warriors from Ümvast and I asked if I might join them. The first had an unfriendly cast to his face and he told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t welcome. Disappointed, but unwilling to provoke a fight, I was about to leave when his companion stepped in. “He looks like a man of the world,” he said to the sour one. “What’s the harm?” Then he looked at me and said, “Sit, traveller. Do you know this country well?”’
Brégenne conceded grudgingly that Argat was a born storyteller. He had them hanging on his every word.
‘Now,’ Argat said, ‘the chance to see, let alone sit and share a drink with the folk of Ümvast doesn’t come along very often. So I said that yes, I was a traveller, a man of the south, and I hoped to captain an airship one day. That got them warming to me – it seems as if the northerners are as curious about us as we are about them.’
‘So where does the gauntlet come into all of this?’ Yara asked, the snap of impatience still in her voice.
Argat ignored her. ‘After a few rounds, which I bought, of course, they got down to business. They were looking for something, or somethings. Pretty tight-lipped about why they wanted them, but they told me readily enough what they looked like.’ Argat pinned Gareth with his eyes. ‘Gauntlets. A pair of them. One as dark as the grave, the other bright as the sun. Together they bestow
ed huge power on the wearer, but only together. Wearing just one would bring down a curse upon whoever was foolish enough to be doing so.’
Gareth attempted to speak, but Argat raised a hand. ‘They asked if I’d ever heard of such a thing and I said no. But I was a collector of oddities – I’d already amassed my share of things too readily consigned to history – and I said I’d keep an ear out for rumours. They told me I’d be well compensated.’
‘And were you?’ Brégenne asked. ‘Did you ever contact them?’
‘Of course not – they never meant me to. The sour-faced one was waiting out back with a knife.’
Gareth nodded. ‘Sounds like Ümvast.’
‘Being perspicacious, I’d expected as much. Some men get a glint in their eye when they’re contemplating murder. I slipped out with a caravan heading south. That was my first and last experience of northerners, but the impression they made ensured I never forgot the tale.’
The brief, respectful silence that accompanies the end of a story descended on the table. Argat nursed his brandy. Yara was looking at Gareth, her gaze darting between his face and the gauntlet. Brégenne couldn’t quite believe their luck. On consideration, perhaps she’d been wrong to insist Gareth hide the gauntlet from Argat. The captain was a fount of knowledge, after all, an active seeker of mysteries. She eyed the gauntlet – could it really be the one out of the story?
‘About this curse,’ Gareth said, ‘what does it do?’
‘Can’t help you there,’ the captain answered. ‘They didn’t go into specifics. But I’m guessing that the only way to remove the gauntlet would be to unite the pair. Then both can be worn safely.’
‘What if this is it, Brégenne?’ Gareth said. He took his arm off the table and pulled down his sleeve. ‘This is the dark gauntlet – for some reason it ended up in Naris.’
‘We don’t know for sure,’ she said at the uncomfortable mingling of hope and fear in his voice. ‘But it’s definitely a start.’
‘So the only way I’m going to get it off is to find its partner.’ Gareth’s face fell. ‘It could be anywhere.’
‘The men had a lead on it,’ Argat said, his own countenance alight. ‘If anyone knows where to find it, it’s those in Ümvast.’
Brégenne and Gareth shared a look. She knew what the novice was thinking – it was eerie when purposes aligned. ‘Then,’ she said to Argat. ‘I have a proposition for you.’
Hammering out the terms of the deal was no simple matter. Argat was the equal of any master trader and had fewer scruples.
‘Acre is dangerous,’ Brégenne said for the umpteenth time. ‘You can’t just fly casually over the border.’ Maybe he could, she amended, looking at the determined lines of Argat’s face, but it’s still a huge risk. ‘The balance of power might be delicate. Until I hear from Kyndra, I don’t know what to expect. Who knows how people will react when they see a flying ship? It’ll be all too easy for them to assume the worst.’
‘From the little you tell me,’ the captain retorted, ‘Mariar’s whole western frontier abuts Acre’s – once word spreads, you’ll not stop people from venturing across the border. And what about the rest of the continent? We’ve no idea what the geography looks like up north.’
‘If you agree to fly us there, we’ll see, won’t we?’
Argat held a lethal-looking letter opener. ‘There,’ he said and jammed it into the map spread on his desk. It pierced a spot in the Infinite Hills. ‘You tell me those mountains are gone. It won’t take long for the clans of Hrosst to investigate – their lands lie due east. They could have men and horses over there as we speak.’
He was right. She’d already delayed too long. If only she could split herself into several bodies, Brégenne found herself thinking.
‘You can’t handle this yourself,’ Argat said and she scowled at the truth of his words and at how closely they echoed her thoughts. ‘And perhaps you oughtn’t to. You saw how it was in the capital. The Trade Assembly are loath to act on anything that relies on someone else’s evidence.’ His eyes darkened. ‘I suspect they wouldn’t believe in war until an army was hammering on their gates.’
Although Brégenne grimaced at the image, it reminded her of another time – a time when the Wielders of Solinaris were too proud to acknowledge the threat of the empire. Kyndra had discussed her visions at length in an attempt to bring the Council up to date with their own history. Brégenne remembered her sitting at the table, trying to convince Veeta and Gend of the threat Sartya could still pose.
‘You may be right,’ she conceded now. ‘And the unrest in the capital made my job harder.’ Her gaze wandered across the map to the Great Northern Forest. ‘If the Assembly can’t spearhead Mariar’s defence, I can think of only one people who could.’
‘Ümvast.’ Argat stroked his stubbled chin. ‘It’s risky. They’ve not had dealings with the rest of Mariar in generations. What makes you think they’d take up arms in its defence?’
‘They’d be fighting for their own freedom as much as for Mariar’s,’ Brégenne countered. ‘Surely they can’t ignore a threat to their homeland.’
‘It makes sense when you lay it out reasonably, but the practicalities of war rarely follow the course of reason.’ Argat leaned both fists on the map. ‘If you even manage to convince them you’re telling the truth, the first thing they’ll want is information – information you insist you don’t have.’
‘I will by the time we get there,’ Brégenne said firmly, hoping it was true. She’d send another envoi to Nediah tonight. ‘At the very least, they can be warned.’
‘You’re quiet, boy,’ Argat shot at Gareth who hovered behind them. The novice looked a little queasy. ‘Aren’t you excited about a trip home?’
Gareth slowly turned his head to stare at the captain. ‘I never expected to go back,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
Brégenne knew: once you joined Naris, you left your old life behind. But, watching the lamplight flicker across Gareth’s face, she didn’t think that was the real reason. He’d already mentioned his mother – with her sinister promise lingering in his ears, what did Gareth believe he was returning home to? Not a grand welcome, she guessed.
Gareth didn’t answer and eventually Argat turned back to Brégenne. ‘So,’ he said, ‘again you seek passage. This time to Ümvast.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you prepared to pay?’ Brégenne reached for one of her coin purses, but Argat waved it away. ‘I don’t want your gold,’ he said.
She stared at him, suspicion working its way into the space between her shoulders.
‘I’ll take you as far as the borders of the forest,’ Argat said. ‘From there, you’ll have to make your way on foot. I’m not flying over Ümvast’s territory – a couple of flaming arrows to the hull and I’d be finished.’
‘Agreed,’ Brégenne said.
‘I’ll supply you with whatever you need for your journey north.’ Argat counted out on his fingers. ‘Food, water skins, tents, weapons, if you want them. In return – and bear in mind the costs involved at my expense – I want two things.’
Brégenne nodded, already sensing what would come next.
‘First, everything you know about Acre.’
‘You know most of it already, Captain,’ she replied, ‘and I strongly recommend you stay away. The other thing we know for certain about the empire is that it had access to a good deal of technology, including weapons of war.’ She tilted her head. ‘It could be they have airships of their own.’
‘A risk I’m prepared to take,’ Argat replied and the set of his jaw told her plainly that his mind was made up.
She sighed. ‘What’s your second request?’
Argat looked at Gareth. ‘If I turn out to be right about that gauntlet and you manage to find its partner … I want the pair.’ ‘No,’ Gareth said immediately. He clutched the gauntlet through his glove.
‘Think about it.’ Argat spread his hands. ‘There are a lot of ifs. Who knows whether that old s
tory is true or whether your gauntlet is even the one it describes? What if its partner is irrecoverable? You have scant chance of success – it’s likely the curse will finish you off long before you find the partner.’ He bared white teeth at Gareth. ‘But, in the unlikely event that you do find it, you will willingly hand over the pair to me. That is my condition.’
Gareth’s face had paled at the mention of the curse, but it firmed as he turned towards Brégenne. ‘You can’t agree to this. Why should Argat have the gauntlets?’
‘We don’t stand a chance on foot,’ Brégenne replied. ‘The Wielders will catch us and this time they’ll be more wary of the gauntlet’s power. They’ll take us down from a distance.’ She studied him. ‘Are you so willing to unleash that power a second time?’
The question gave Gareth pause. ‘Of course not,’ he said unhappily. ‘But I don’t like the idea of him having them either.’
The captain folded his arms, said nothing.
‘Gareth,’ Brégenne said. ‘We might never find the other gauntlet. That won’t stop us searching for a way to remove this one,’ she added hastily. ‘The sooner we get to Ümvast, the sooner we can start our search. That’s where the story originated.’ She made herself say what she’d come to suspect, but never uttered. ‘The longer you leave it on, the harder it might be to remove.’
‘All right,’ Gareth murmured. He didn’t look at Argat.
‘Excellent,’ the captain said, giving a brief clap. ‘Now that’s sorted, we can set a course north. We’ve made a few adjustments since you last travelled with us.’ He flattened his lips. ‘Not quite the revolutionary developments Yara and I discussed, but we have managed to coax a little more speed out of her. Sailing as the crow flies and weather permitting, I estimate we’ll reach the border of the forest in five or six days.’ That crooked smile reappeared. ‘A three-week journey by horse.’
Brégenne turned to Gareth. ‘Are you ready to go home?’
20
The Edge of the Beaches, Acre
