by Micah Yongo
“Master V’lari teaches all of us, my king. But I’ve always had an eye for it. I’d fix my mother’s dresses for her when I was a child.”
Sidon turned from the brass to face her. She was slender, with rich dark hair that clung in soft curls to her neck like hanging baubles. She was only a few years older than him, younger than the girl he’d been promised to. Her dress was plain but clung around the hips so her–
“Sidon!”
The door to the bedchamber swung open with a thud, loud enough to make Sidon flinch. “What under the sun…” He pushed the girl aside and looked out from behind the screen to find his mother striding across the room toward him.
“What are you doing, Mother? I told you I can dress my–”
“You must come quickly,” she said. “There has been word from Gahíd.”
The doorkeeper to the throne room was a tall Súnamite with wide round shoulders that bulged from his sleeveless tunic like dark pommels. He bowed and held the door as Sidon and his mother entered.
The throne room was Sidon’s favourite chamber; he loved the lofty ceiling and the elaborate paintings of his predecessors, Arvan the Scribe and Tsarúth the Brave, that covered it. He loved too the long windows that strafed the west wall, tall oblongs of nothing open to the sky and emptying the waning day into the chamber in thick shafts of dim sunlight that bronzed the wall on the other side, illuminating the detailed murals of the red-armoured armies of Theron the Great at the Battle of the Crescent.
Sidon’s chamberlain, Elias – a small and wiry old man with large watery eyes that reminded Sidon of an owl – sat alone by the long council table. Uncle Játhon, governor of the city of Caphás and a prince of Calapaar, stood by one of the tall windows opposite, facing out to the palace court and marketplace beneath.
Elias stood and bowed as Sidon came in. Játhon turned from the window and gave a cursory nod.
Sidon noted the pair of courtiers in the middle of the room and looked at Elias as he climbed the steps to his throne.
“They have the herald’s letter,” Elias said. “The herald did not think herself worthy to enter your throne room. She made these two swear to keep the seal unbroken until you were present.”
The queen mother raised her eyebrows. She’d followed Sidon up the steps and lowered into her seat beside him.
“The herald is one of Gahíd’s own,” the chamberlain explained.
Sidon caught his meaning and smiled. “Is she? I’ve never yet seen one face to face. Is she still here?”
“She waits by the reflecting pool to deliver your words to Gahíd.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“It would be her honour, Sharíf,” Elias said. “But that Gahíd would send one of them, and not a ranger, or dove… it suggests the matter is urgent.”
Sidon nodded. “Very well. I am here now.”
Elias bowed, showing the bald tanned dome of his scalp, his white hair curved in coarse tufts about the sides and back of his head like a fluffy halo. He turned to the courtiers and slipped a palm from the warmth of one of his deep sleeves to beckon them forward.
“Open the seal and read the words.”
The younger courtier nodded. “Yes, sire.” He cleared his throat, peeled the seal from the flute and took out the thin piece of vellum inside. “It says only: The shadows sent out have turned on each other.”
Sidon saw his mother stiffen beside him. One of Elias’s horny feathered eyebrows hitched upwards. A silence stretched.
“Turned, you say…” the chamberlain said.
“Yes,” the courtier answered. “That is what the letter says.”
“Show me.”
The courtier stepped forward with the epistle in hand. Elias took it and read. He looked back at Sidon and nodded.
“Was there nothing else?” Játhon had now stepped in from the far wall, frowning. “Did the herald say nothing else?”
“No, sire. The letter was all.”
Sidon’s mother leaned her forehead against her fingers.
Játhon waved the courtier away. “Leave us.”
“No.” The queen mother spoke. “They shall stay.” She stood and walked slowly down the steps. “You have both taken the vow,” she said to the courtiers. “Let it be known that should you break it and utter anything of what is spoken here there will remain nothing of you nor those of your house that shall not be broken tenfold in like manner. Do you understand?”
The courtiers nodded. A cloud passed the sun outside.
“The herald,” she said. “How long was her journey?”
“Seven days, she said,” the younger courtier answered. “She rode from the north, through the ash plains.”
The sharífa nodded and glanced at Játhon. “It will have been a moon past at least then.”
“Yes,” Játhon said. “Unfortunate.”
She turned back to the courtier. “I trust the herald spoke of where she learned Gahíd’s tidings.”
“Yes, Sharífa. Gahíd sent her from Godswell; a small Calapaari village a few days south of the Black Mountains.”
“And does Gahíd remain there now?”
“The herald said he planned to stay, to study the place.”
“I will need to speak with her, this herald.”
“Yes, Sharífa,” the older courtier said, speaking for the first time. “I will see to it.”
The queen mother flapped an assenting palm.
The courtier bowed and exited the room, leaving the other standing alone. The sharífa went to one of the windows and looked outside. Her desire for a census had been refused by the council that morning, opposed, no doubt, by governors Sufiya of Qareb and Malkezar of Sippar, unhappy at having a boy on the throne too young to properly wield power and a queen mother who was, to them, an outsider. Chalise was a daughter of Saliph, the ruling house of Calapaar to the west and north, rather than a native of Sumeria like the late Helgon the Wise who’d widowed her. First Laws or not, for many it was the old ties they still held to. That was something young Sidon still failed to understand. Yes, he was sharíf. Yes, his forefathers had won vast territories. But to hold and wield them still required the influence of the Sovereign Council, an assembly including the rulers of every major city throughout the Five Lands, many of whom happened to be the offspring of old royal lines, with breeding and egos to match. Chalise understood it; before marrying Helgon to become sharífa she’d been one of them too, daughter to an old and noble line now reduced to bowing to sovereign edicts like an eager housemaid. Raised to rule, forced to serve, with the echo of the ancestral surrender and failure that had led to it splayed across the palace walls in celebratory murals like a constant taunt.
It took the tact of a general to avoid prodding these inherited wounds in council members whilst trying to coerce them to her own ends. To court the favour of Jashar, the king of Harán, without trampling the interests of Qalqaliman or Hikramesh. Every promise of an extra five hundred measures of grain to one city was a slight against the interests of another, every commitment to better trade for one land’s merchants along the Ivory Pass would be at the expense of another’s. Chalise had hoped the preparations for her son’s wedding would lighten her mood, and now this. Her head was beginning to ache.
“You are new, are you not?” she said.
The courtier, realizing he was being addressed, nodded. “Yes, Sharífa.”
“Phanuel, isn’t it?”
He looked up, surprised to be known by name.
“You will perhaps find all this… a little confusing.”
Phanuel didn’t answer.
“You know the tidings, yet do not understand them… Talk of shadows and so on…” She made a lazy gesture with her hand, she was still looking out of the window. “It is something to which you will grow accustomed.”
“My duty is only to obey, Sharífa.”
“Yes, obey. Of course.” She sighed wearily.
“Though… I would know my queen’s disquiet if I were ab
le to still it.”
She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Phanuel over her shoulder. Phanuel bowed his head.
“Would you indeed,” she said, then glanced at Elias at the table, and then back at Phanuel.
Again Phanuel didn’t answer, unsure now why he had the first time. Yaron, the other more experienced courtier, had advised prudence in the throne room, it was always best to let one’s words be few. Phanuel bowed his head.
“Well then,” the Sharífa said. “Perhaps you shall know it…”
She turned from the window and began to approach him.
“Your king sent wolves on an errand, Phanuel,” she said, gesturing vaguely to Sidon sitting quietly on the throne. “Expecting them to do what instinct has taught them to do.” She walked along the lengthy table toward the courtier. “Yet these wolves defied what they’d been taught, they defied their master.”
Phanuel remained silent.
“What do you think of that?”
Phanuel looked at the others in the throne room, then the sharífa again. “I know little of wolves, Sharífa.”
“Even so…” she gestured mildly, waiting.
Phanuel hesitated. “I would think a wolf without instinct is more a dog than a wolf, my queen.”
The sharífa smiled. “I would agree, Phanuel, I would agree. Yet even a dog is obedient to his master. What fate should await the one that is not?”
“Punishment, I would suppose.”
She glanced behind to Játhon this time, then smiled again. “Quite,” she said. “Yet these dogs are no ordinary beasts, they are a more savage kind than their kin, and now run free who knows where.”
She had made her way around the table and taken several further steps toward Phanuel as she talked. She stood before him now with her hands clasped in front of her, gaze fixed, like a stablehand inspecting a new bought horse. Phanuel looked to Elias but his sleepy gaze stared back, indifferent. He looked back at the sharífa. She was smiling mildly, though her eyes remained hard, scrutinising. Phanuel fumbled for an answer.
“Then perhaps a trap? I’ve known men to catch wolves with traps.”
“Perhaps these are too cunning for traps.”
Phanuel said nothing.
“Come Phanuel, speak,”
“He is young, Sharífa,” Elias answered from the table. “He does not see his impudence, but I will teach him of it.”
She smiled more broadly now. “There is no impudence, Elias. He merely desires to please his queen.” She turned to Phanuel once more. “Isn’t that right, courtier?”
“I…” he looked to Elias again, then to Játhon, who too was watching, amused. Then to Sharíf Sidon on the throne, who was peering back curiously. “I am sorry, my queen.”
“What need is there for apology? I ask only a question; you need only answer.”
“I…”
“Come, let me know your counsel. How to catch a wolf, hmm?”
The sharífa had stepped closer, no more than a foot or so from him. He could feel the warmth of her breath.
“Will you not comfort your sharífa?” Her voice was quiet, yet rising.
Phanuel looked again to Elias, pleadingly.
“How to catch a wolf?”
“Sharífa, forgive me, I–”
“How to catch a wolf?” she repeated mildly.
Phanuel was panting now. “I cannot…”
“Don’t look at him. Look at me. I am your queen.”
“Please, Sharífa.”
“Answer me.”
“I…”
“Answer me!” she erupted, eyes wide with rage.
Phanuel felt the cool spray of spittle across his cheeks and on the bridge of his nose. He shut his eyes, trembling.
“Answer me!”
“Another wolf,” he blurted.
Silence. Phanuel eventually opened his eyes to find her staring at him, her face now suddenly impassive. There was no trace of anger, or even feeling.
She spoke gently. “What was that?”
Phanuel’s chin was buried in his chest. “I… I would say, perhaps… another wolf?”
The sharífa looked on him a long while, then smiled. “Indeed.” She brought her hand to Phanuel’s face and allowed it to hover over his cheek a moment before patting it softly. “Another wolf.” She sighed happily and walked away back along the side of the table, past the tall windows and up the steps to return to her seat. “Very good, Phanuel,” she said as she settled back beside the lofty bronze and ivory throne of her son who was now watching her curiously.
It was then the heavy scrape of the doors came again and the doorkeeper ushered the returning courtier into the chamber. He came and stood beside Phanuel and bowed.
“The herald awaits your enquiry, Sharíf.”
Sidon peeled his gaze away from his mother and nodded.
“Very good,” the queen mother answered. “Tell her to send word.”
“My queen?”
“To Gahíd. She shall send word. Tell her…” She pondered a moment, looking off into the distance, smiling faintly. “Tell her, the Sharíf says to ready the pack, a wolf to catch a wolf. He will understand.”
The courtier looked at Sidon, then Phanuel, and then the others in the room, and then bowed. “Very good, my queen.”
Eleven
V A G A B O N D
Neythan couldn’t help but look over the satisfyingly plain terrain with a hint of giddiness, glad to finally be out of the forest. Ridges of dried molten rock jutted in small dune-like rises across the horizon, stretching out beneath a pale, colourless sky to signal their arrival to the famed Ash Plains of Calapaar. Or, as some liked to call them, the Black Lands, named for their endless stretch of dark shale where Theron the Great, the third sharíf, had extended the frontiers of the Sovereignty into the vast territories of Calapaar more than two hundred years ago, taking the shipping lanes along the western coastlands that would later fund his grandson’s conquest of the High East. Neythan could still remember the history lessons in Ilysia, Tutor Hamir slapping a stalk of willowcane across his knuckles every time he confused Tsarúth the Brave’s exploits with those of Kosyatin the Bloody. Not that any of it mattered now.
Both Neythan and Caleb were exhausted. Barely a word had passed between them since they’d departed the ravine, although that was as much to do with the sulk Caleb had slipped into along the way as it was the work of the journey. For the three days since leaving the forest he’d limited himself to the occasional mumble and tut. His protest against the way Neythan had abruptly fallen asleep at the waterfall. Never mind that Neythan had about as much control over that as when he’d been pricked by Caleb’s darts. Never mind that it was Caleb himself who’d persuaded Neythan to visit the fall in the first place.
Still, at least they were out of the forest, and after having journeyed a whole night to escape, Neythan was too tired to bicker anyway. In the end, he’d left Caleb to his stubborn silence and turned his thoughts instead to the encounter with what he’d now come to believe could only have been a Watcher.
Yes. A Watcher. It had to be. What else could she be but one of those mercurial spirits Neythan remembered from childhood chatter and Uncle Sol’s stories? From before the time of men, Uncle Sol had said. Too old to be marked by age. Although Neythan had loved every tale told about them he’d never thought them anything more than fodder for fables. Not until seeing her.
Already his memory of the whole thing – the way she’d looked, the things she’d said – was beginning to fade, turning foggier with the passing of each hour. But the blueness of the place he’d stood in, and beyond that, her counsel to reach Hanesda, remained clear. And that was enough. More than enough. Because the more he thought of it the more certain he became of what she was, and the more certain he became of that the more uncertain did everything else become. For if she was a Watcher then the very world was no longer what he’d once thought it to be, or more than he’d thought it to be. And if the world itself could be so differe
nt from what he’d always thought, then what else?
The questions felt dizzying and perilous. It was a feeling he’d usually have taken hold of and expelled quickly from his mind, the way the disciplines taught, but now…
“Look.”
Caleb’s voice startled him. Neythan glanced over to find him pointing ahead to a scant cluster of ruins in the distance.
“Shelter,” Caleb said. “Looks empty too.”
Neythan arched an eyebrow. “So, he speaks at last.”
Caleb didn’t answer. Neythan shrugged. They wandered slowly toward the broken structures. Three buildings, one beside the other, each built entirely of slagstone. The roofs were flat, the walls pebbly. In place of doorways there were small misshapen openings.
“Nomads,” Caleb muttered. He nodded at the bump in the horizon miles to the east. “In times past men would settle in places like this. They’d wait until the volcano had its say, then take a smoothing stone, driven by oxen or mules, to some plot like this while the ground was still soft, and ready it to be built upon.”
“Strange place to live.”
“No, child. They did not build to dwell here. This place was made by wanderers, men without country.”
“Well, if not to dwell, then for what?”
“Therein is the mystery. It’s no simple thing to know the mind of the dead. The only ones who would were priests, and they are gone from these lands.” He looked up at Neythan, squinting a little despite the dim sky. “You can thank your Brotherhood for that.”
They wandered around the plot but it was mostly plain. The terrain left little need for a threshing floor and whatever other tools or structures there may have once been had long since gone, taken by time or the roll of the wind. After a while they looked around the houses too. The floors were smooth and flat, as if paved. The first two had an opening for a door and another for a window, admitting little daylight. The last house had no window but was almost roofless, with segments of what had once been its ceiling scattered about the ground in polygonal slabs of stone. A rubbly stack of rocks sat in the corner next to the biggest gap.
“Perhaps some sort of temple,” Caleb said, standing beside the heap as Neythan stared up at where the roof ought to have been.
