The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2)

by Braden, Jill

  “A delicate subject?” she asked.

  He laughed as he shook his head. “Do you know much about Thampurian religion?”

  This was an odd turn in their conversation, but she trusted he steered the course for a reason. “Ma’am Thun made us memorize the Thampurian gods’ tales, but she never implied that they were more than stories.”

  “In a way, this is one subject where Ponongese and Thampurian beliefs are similar. From what I understand, you have priestesses who preside over death rituals, and ones for births, justice,” – he nodded knowingly at her as if he understood about the Qui – “and you have gods and goddesses, but like your priestesses, they don’t interfere with daily life.”

  QuiTai nodded.

  “We also have gods and goddesses, but they’re more concepts than actual beings with supernatural powers. But where there’s a void of power in Thampur, someone will always step in.” Hadre drained his cup of tea and set it on the ground. “Convince someone that you have a celestially ordained right to control every aspect of their life... Take a fatherless boy who loves you, respects you, worships you, and convince him that the only way to earn your love in return is unwavering obedience...”

  Impatient, QuiTai tapped her foot.

  “I’m sorry to be such a poor host, but –” He gestured to an empty rum bottle. “My tongue has been loosened. Anyway, there’s nothing angrier than a true believer when his faith is challenged.”

  QuiTai startled. Did this man somehow know she’d lost faith in the Oracle?

  “Or when warned that the person they worship means to harm them,” Hadre said.

  “Are you still speaking of your cousin?”

  Hadre rested his elbows on his knees and sunk his head into his hands. “We were brought up to worship our grandfather. That’s the Thampurian way. Not as a god, but as the ultimate authority over our lives.”

  “Grandfather Zul.” QuiTai breathed his name. So their fight over him had been enough to estrange the cousins. For a man who lived so far away, his name came up far too frequently in conversations in Levapur. She’d admire his reach if it didn’t seem to have an iron fist at the end of it.

  “I’m an apostate. Too much time as my own master and out of the cloistered family compound back in Thampur. You’d think that after spending so much time traveling around the continent, living undercover for months on end, and answering to different masters, Kyam would have come to the same conclusions I have; but instead, when faced with facts, he clings more tightly to his belief in our grandfather. I don’t understand it.”

  QuiTai began to see the origin of Hadre and Kyam’s estrangement, but she still wasn’t sure what Hadre expected her to do. What message did he want her to deliver to Kyam, and why did he think that she would have better luck making Kyam listen?

  “Such irrational behavior doesn’t sound like the Kyam Zul I’ve come to know.” She recalled the respect with which he’d spoken of his grandfather, though, and couldn’t deny that it had bordered on worship.

  “We’re speaking of religion, Lady QuiTai. Rational thought is the antithesis of faith.”

  That was too raw a subject for her to touch on lightly. “I have no quarrel with faith.”

  “Neither do I. But I do with men who claim to speak with the voice of a god.”

  He really was drunk to talk like that. “Is your grandfather mad, then?”

  Hadre snorted. “Worse. His mind is sharp as yours, and his schemes are brilliant, if you’re not caught up in them. He manipulates Kyam heartlessly for his own aims.” He shook his head. “And Kyam knows it, but the family let that old bastard sink his clutches into Kyam after his father died, and there’s no prying grandfather’s grasp loose now. Not that I’m much better off. I stand against grandfather, in my own way.” He smiled apologetically and shrugged. “And yet, he gets what he wants from me anyway. Maybe it’s better to delude yourself with faith rather than struggle against tyranny. Either way, you suffer, but if you believe in the cause, at least you feel as if your pain had a purpose.”

  As they sat in the darkened kitchen, each traveling down their own path of thoughts, she decided that she didn’t care how Hadre and Kyam worked out their problems. It was none of her business. She was hardly the influential voice in Kyam’s ear. However, as long as she and Hadre had this chance to talk, she might as well get a few answers to her own questions.

  “Are the new soldiers in Levapur real Thampurian soldiers, or are they Grandfather Zul’s private army?”

  She expected denial. She expected Thampurian bluster and an artless change of subject. Instead, Hadre slapped his thigh and laughed.

  “You truly are an amazing woman, Lady QuiTai. One of these days, you’ll have to tell me how you do it.”

  “So you know.”

  “Grandfather brought them here on the Winged Dragon.”

  She sucked in a breath. “He’s here? In Levapur?” The bigger picture unfolded before her. It was as if she were back in Ma’am Thun’s schoolhouse looking at the wall map that showed Thampur as the center of the world. The Ponong Archipelago were mere dots, almost an afterthought compared to the mass of the continent. Thampur sat in the middle of everything, with dashed lines showing trade routes radiating out from it as if it were the center of a web. While she had no proof, she was certain now that the events of the week were no part of a little domestic power struggle. Pluck Ponong’s line of that web, and the vibrations were surely felt in Surrayya.

  “Grandfather sailed back to Thampur immediately. He probably didn’t want anyone to know about his plan.”

  “He sailed back on the Golden Barracuda? At top speed, how long would that take?”

  Hadre gave her a sharp look. Then he frowned. “You can’t sail at top speed through the rock island archipelago that lies between Ponong and Thampur, and there are spy ships patrolling the Sea of Erykoli. We don’t want anyone from the continent to know about that technology, and you shouldn’t ever mention it again. Grandfather would have your neck in a noose.”

  “How long did it take the Winged Dragon to bring him here?”

  From Hadre’s expression, he wasn’t about to tell her that either. As she recalled, it had taken about two weeks to sail from Ingosol to Ponong when she’d made the trip, but Thampur was much closer. She guessed that the Winged Dragon could have crossed the distance in five or six days. That meant it had left port the day she agreed to help Kyam track the Ravidians.

  “If you can’t risk the junk at top speed in the Sea of Erykoli, what use is such power? Unless...” A broad smile spread across her face as she pictured the rest of Ma’am Thun’s map. Once a ship passed through the Ponong Fangs, it entered the vast expanses of the Te’Am Ocean. “Oh, of course. The Li Islands. How short-sighted of me.”

  Hadre’s face had gone pale. He’d covered his mouth as if afraid of what he might give away, but then he seemed to realize that there was nothing left to let slip. His hand dropped. “You are a very dangerous woman.”

  “I believe that your cousin already warned you about that. However, I gave you my word that I wouldn’t discuss anything I saw on board the Golden Barracuda, and it’s bad business to break promises.”

  “There are governments that would pay handsomely for that information.”

  “Certainly. But I wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it, and even if I did, there are some things money can’t buy.” She leaned forward, hands between her knees. “Before Grandfather Zul took it away, did you ever get to take the Golden Barracuda out at top speed? What was it like?”

  Hadre seemed reluctant to say anything, but she could tell he found her earnest interest irresistible. He shook his head and chuckled, a mannerism so like Kyam’s that her breath caught.

  “Once, on the Te’Am. You should have seen the Golden Barracuda fly.” Hadre gazed over the cooking fire as if it were the open ocean. “My navigator almost threw himself overboard when he thought I was going to try to run the Fangs at top speed. It was harrowing enough a
t one quarter speed. That contraption you saw in my cabin came in handy. We were able to plot our course –” Hadre kicked his empty bottle of rum again. “I’d make a poor spy.”

  Now that he’d given away what he thought was his biggest secret, maybe she could pry the information she really wanted from him. “A promise is a promise, Hadre. I won’t breathe a word about it. Now, about those soldiers...”

  “I’ll make a bargain with you, Lady QuiTai. You tell my cousin that he has to escape from this island before he’s stuck here forever, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know about those soldiers.”

  “Kyam might have been angry, but he heard your warning and advice. What difference would it make to hear it from me?”

  “Do you love him?”

  Why did they always go back to the unanswered questions?

  “I just lost my spouse. We might have been unable to live together, but I very much loved Jezereet right until the end, and still do. I have no desire to be in love with anyone and don’t expect to be for quite a while.”

  “Do you care for him as a friend, then?” Hadre asked, exasperated.

  “We aren’t friends. We had a business arrangement and were working together only until the terms of our agreement were met.”

  Hadre’s face contorted with fury. “Stop playing word games with me. Just tell me if you give a damn about his future.”

  “I have been trying to drive him away from this island since the first hour he set foot on it.”

  That hadn’t been out of concern for Kyam, but Hadre seemed to take it that way. His anger disappeared, and he apologized nicely for his outburst.

  “You should have seen his face the first time he told me about you, Lady QuiTai. I’d never seen him so enraged. Over time, it was evident that his opinion of you... well, it didn’t soften, but he’d come to respect you. I think he very much looked forward to your queltumonz after a while.”

  Her eyebrow rose. “Did he use that term?”

  “Never! But the Ingosolians have such a flair for summing up complex matters of the heart, and er…” Hadre coughed into his fist and glanced away. “In a single word. Don’t you think?”

  “Our arguments weren’t foreplay.”

  Hadre blanched at her rather direct language. “When I don’t like someone, I stay away from them. You two sought each other out, repeatedly. ‘Passionate’ is how witnesses described your verbal battles. And you were in his cabin, in his bed, undressed.” Hadre’s face was noticeably pink by now. “I’d hoped you’d developed some feelings for him.”

  “Most certainly. Loathing. Animosity. Repulsion.” She ticked off each word on her fingertips.

  “Lady QuiTai! Please be serious.”

  “We had a business arrangement. There’s nothing more between us.”

  “Then there’s nothing to keep you apart either. You’re a formidable woman on your own, but together, you two are a force of nature.”

  He was right, but she and Kyam simply weren’t meant to be together. One of them would have to abandon their goals, and she would never stop being the Devil for Kyam any more than he’d give up his life for her.

  “Despite what you saw in his cabin, we are not lovers.”

  “You finish each other’s sentences. He made rice-and-eggs for you and you ate it, even though he’s a terrible cook. Call your relationship by any word you want to choose – the Ingosolians probably have a term that would fit – but don’t tell me that you don’t care for him, because that would be a bold lie. So I beg of you, use whatever influence you have to convince him to escape Ponong.”

  Why did everyone believe she had near-supernatural powers? She couldn’t lie to this man and make him think she could talk Kyam into leaving the island. Hadn’t she spent over a year trying to do just that?

  QuiTai flicked beads of water off her velvet skirts. Despite the rain, the night wrapped around her with seductive comfort. Her eyelids drooped. Too many days cooped up in RhiLan’s apartment had sapped her strength. Against her better judgment, she sipped her now tepid tea. Hadre wanted something from her; he wasn’t likely to poison her tonight.

  “I see no profit in this venture.”

  Hadre rose. He ran his fingers through his hair. “If you speak with him, if you persuade him, I will tell you everything I know about Grandfather’s soldiers.” He shrugged apologetically. “I’m a Zul. I know how to bargain.”

  “Can he leave?”

  From the look on Hadre’s face, that was another delicate matter. “He has signed articles of transport, but for now, they’re useless. Don’t ask me for details.”

  “Then how would he leave if I were able to convince him?”

  Hadre wrestled with that question for a while. He ducked his head, abashed. “I hoped you had connections that wouldn’t be particular about paperwork.”

  She also rose. “I see. What if he won’t listen to me? How can I prove that I kept my end of the bargain?”

  “I trust your sense of honor. However, I don’t expect a miracle. I know who you’re up against.”

  “Kyam has faith in his Grandfather; you have faith in me. Not the best judges of character, are you?”

  “On the contrary.” Hadre escorted her to the door even though it was only a few feet away. “We can meet here, in three days. Same time.”

  “Here, tomorrow night. I only have two days left. I need that information.”

  He gently gripped her forearm. “What happens in two days?”

  “A massacre.” She stepped out of the room and crossed the dark courtyard, sure that Hadre would watch her every step until she passed the festoon gate.

  ~ ~ ~

  Report to me. TtZ

  He bristled at the demand on the farwriter roll. Even though written words had no tone, he imaged a haughty voice.

  Anyone who bought and sold information learned over time when to withhold rumors. It was essential to always have a backup for those times when talk ceased and scent trails faded. Such was the natural ebb and flow of life. Like the monsoon rains, gossip always returned. Patience was as much a part of selling information as cunning. The trick was to never panic. Those words made his heart feel as if it were submerged and struggling for a breath though.

  She has gone back into hiding.

  She has agents who can do her bidding even if she’s hidden herself. Has she spoken of retaliation against the colonial government? Did she go to the inland villages? TtZ

  She’s too canny to speak such dangerous words out loud.

  She is thinking.

  QuiTai was always thinking. It showed on her face, even if her thoughts didn’t. It was like reporting that a bird was flying.

  The reply was a long time coming.

  I, too, am thinking. TtZ

  They were like players reviewing what they held, calculating odds and sizing up their opponent. He wondered which one would make the next move.

  Chapter 15: Déjà Vu

  Kyam had walked almost all the way down slope to the harbor before he changed his mind about reuniting with Hadre. He knew the Winged Dragon was still in port as Hadre replaced the sails and tried to make the old junk more seaworthy, but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize, and he doubted Hadre would be able to either. So he turned around and climbed back up the steep, winding road to the town square.

  During monsoon, the rain seemed endless, but today the sky was cloudless. As if making up for lost time, insects buzzed loudly. The large ring-tailed lizard basking on a rock barely opened its eyes as Kyam passed. Brilliant pink flowers blooming overhead perfumed the air.

  The winding road crossed the already rusting funicular tracks. Rumor had it that it could take weeks to fix the werewolves’ sabotage. All that damage, just to kill QuiTai. How did the Devil let it happen? If he didn’t care for her – and there was no evidence that he did – didn’t he at least care what happened to the people of Levapur? Everything shipped to the island had to be hauled up the road from the harbor, but no Ponongese were a
llowed into the town square. Who would carry the heavy crates? Not any Thampurian he knew. They wouldn’t even carry their own shopping.

  It was hard to care about the funicular any more. Since he’d found Governor Turyat and the chief justice in dream at the Dragon Pearl, he hadn’t done anything to find out who’d paid Petrof to kill QuiTai. It was this damned island. The longer he stayed, the worse his apathy grew. QuiTai could take care of herself. She’d find out who wanted her dead and handle it herself. How she summoned that much energy was a mystery. Maybe that was why she kept her rage stoked like a furnace. He was angry too, but he couldn’t force himself to do anything about it.

  He ran his finger under his collar. His clothes stuck to his skin. Not for the first time he wished he could have worn a light sarong like a Ponongese man. It would cause a scandal, though, and he didn’t want to give his grandfather any excuse to keep him away from Thampur much longer.

  If only Grandfather would answer his farwriter messages.

  By the time he reached the crest of the road, he was too sapped to question why quarrelsome voices carried across the marketplace. He remembered that he was out of rice, but he saw the lines at the few stalls and decided to make do with what he could find in his apartment. That wouldn’t be much. With the humidity so high, food spoiled quickly. Like most people in Levapur, he bought only what he needed for a day or two. But if the choice was between going hungry and standing in a long line in the blistering sun, he’d go hungry.

  He decided to go home.

  The landlady’s apartment door flew open the moment he pulled off his boots in the foyer of his building.

  “Mister Zul!”

  She must have spent all day with her ear to her door, waiting for her tenants to walk into the foyer. He bounded up the stairs as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “Mister Zul! Rent!” she shrieked.

  He tried to get his key into the lock before she reached him, but she moved quickly for such a round old woman.