The Hidden Fire (Book 2)

by James R. Sanford

  “I cut your wrist,” he said. “It won’t be long.”

  Thurlun managed to nod. “I knew I could count on you. Knew that I could.”

  CHAPTER 18: Open Sea

  After they brought their gear aboard Calico, Aiyan and Kyric spent the rest of the night in Ellec’s cabin, drinking coffee and saying little.

  “Despite what he had done to them,” said Ellec, “the Ilven would not see him suffer. Why was that?”

  Lerica had no answer for him. Neither did Aiyan.

  “They are dreamers,” said Kyric, “and they have had enough of bad dreams.”

  Dorigano set a party to digging graves by lantern light, and insisted on reading properly over Thurlun and Pacey when they were buried at dawn. His wife attended to say the traditional prayers to the Goddess. It was only civilized.

  The morning turned unseasonably cool as the coffee was loaded aboard ship, and a thin fog rose along the river. They said their good-byes awkwardly, Kyric reeling from lack of sleep. The journey down the river passed in a dreamy haze. When they reached the open sea, Ellec set Calico on a tack heading due east, the wind coming up and the ship heeling over. After the stink of the swamp, the scent of the sea breeze was a blessing.

  The four of them dined together that night, Ellec opening a second and then a third bottle of wine, but Lerica seemed to be the only one feeling festive. Aiyan was quiet, and Ellec thoughtful. Kyric had storms in his head, and would have drank much more had he not a touch of seasickness. At times like this he longed for the Kyric who had been a blank slate, the Kyric who could watch a man be killed and not feel anything.

  “Do you think any of the other slavers survived?” he asked Aiyan.

  “It’s likely that a few of them did. An experienced woodsman with no injuries could make it overland to Ularra in three weeks. I can’t guess why Pacey crossed the swamp instead of going inland.”

  “I don’t ever want to go back to that place,” said Lerica, tossing back another glass of wine. “Let the Doriganos flourish in that little stretch of hell.”

  Ellec didn’t say much until dinner was over. When the plates had been cleared and the coffee served, he met the eyes of each of them in turn.

  “I know what all of you think of Luscion Dorigano. But I tell you this: It is men like him who will make Terrula into what it is not — a nation. He has single-handedly given us the basis of a new economy with this hybrid coffee plant of his. Planters all along the coast are trying Dorigano’s strain, and once they see the yield, coffee will largely replace the sugar now being grown. Strange as this sounds, the coffee trade could lead to wealth for Ularra and independence for Terrula. I am more sad for the Enari than you can know, and I’m sorry that their tribal lands were taken. But it wasn’t Dorigano who wiped them out.”

  He looked at Lerica. “You think him to be an arrogant interloper. You think he treats the Enari like serfs. One day the Enari village will be a town, with a school and a road that runs all the way to Ularra. A man like Dorigano isn’t going to pay taxes and expect nothing in return. He told me this morning he will insist that the Ularra Council grant him a commission to form a company of forest rangers from among the Enari. Without men like Dorigano, Terrula will suffer at the hands of men like The Spider. Which do you prefer?

  “Most importantly, when the next generation is raised here, they will be Terrulans in spirit. Look at young Nikkin. He was eight when they brought him here, and his curiosity was such that he drank in everything Terrulan. He is fluent in Cor’el, and even speaks a little Enari. To him, Syrolia is a distant childhood memory. In time, one of Dorigano’s descendants will marry a woman or man of native blood and that will be the end of it. They will have become Terrulans in every way that matters.”

  Aiyan finished his wine and waved away a refill. “What about the large Jakavian colony in the southwest?”

  “The big treaty halted all expansion for them as well as New Kandin. And those two nations will be looking over one another’s shoulders to make sure. It will take a great deal longer, but these colonies will be absorbed by Terrula. It is what this land does. We will not become another Aleria.”

  “Nice dream,” said Lerica with a touch of wine-driven surliness. Ellec ignored her.

  “No,” said Kyric, “it will work. As long as the balance of power is maintained. But what happens when one state becomes stronger than all the others, strong enough to issue new terms?”

  “That’s not the question,” said Aiyan. “The question is, what will making Terrula into a nation cost its people?”

  Ellec looked into his glass. “The price will be high,” he said quietly. “It will cost us our magic.”

  “Not all of it,” said Lerica with a feral grin.

  Ellec met her eyes and something passed between them that made him brighten a little. “No. Not all of it.”

  Calico maintained her eastward course the next day and the weather held fair. In their cabin that morning, Aiyan said to Kyric, “You’ll have to practice alone for a few days. I need some time to let my back heal.” He opened his second sword case. Kyric had assumed it was for Ivestris and lay empty, but Aiyan removed a longsword with a polished blade and a very practical cross-guard.

  “This is the sword that Master Bortolamae gave me when I was your age. Not being a sacred blade, it has no name, but it is sturdy and well-forged. It’s the kind of weapon used by professional soldiers. And it is yours.” He offered it to Kyric.

  Kyric could only stare at it for a moment. He couldn’t believe that Aiyan was giving him this sword. He felt that he didn’t deserve it.

  He was a bit nervous as he took it. He knew it had drawn the blood of many men. The supple leather that covered the grip seemed to cling to his hand as he tightened his hold. It was heavier than it looked and very sharp. He felt like he could cut a man in half with it.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.

  “The balance is slightly different from the practice swords. Go and get a feel for it — just don’t cut anyone’s leg off, especially your own.”

  He sheathed the sword and made to go on deck. Aiyan stopped him.

  “Kyric. You’re very young to have decided that there’s nothing left for you but to carry the sword.”

  “How old were you when you decided?”

  Aiyan sighed. “Even younger than you.”

  CHAPTER 19: Crossing the Line

  “You don’t have to do that all alone,” said Lerica. Kyric had just begun his afternoon session with his new sword.

  “I’m not on duty right now if you want a sparring partner.”

  Kyric went and got the practice weapons and the nut helmets, and he was sorry as soon as they began. Without hesitation she launched a fleche attack, lightning quick, the circular pivot saving him by only a hair’s breadth. His counterblow cut only the air as she lightly leapt away.

  She had been taking lessons for years, in the linear style of course, and if she lacked anything in skill she made up for it in raw speed. He could only fend off her attacks by giving ground, and if she backed him up against anything he was in trouble. The worst part came when he tried to attack. She would dodge his stroke then nip into the opening with a quick thrust, and this was maddening because she represented everything that Aiyan was teaching him not to do — waiting for attacks and using linear movement — and also because she was just so damn fast.

  “Sorry,” she said when they were done. “I’m used to a lighter sword.”

  To whom was she apologizing, he wondered. Herself?

  He bowed and mumbled, “Good match,” partially out of politeness, but mostly to conceal his seething frustration.

  “Same time tomorrow?” she asked.

  He managed to nod and say, “Uh-huh,” as he ducked away. He ran straight to Aiyan to rail about his own ineptitude and the unfairness of being slow, finishing with, “And my reach is much longer than hers and I still can’t touch her. She’s too quick.”

  Ai
yan laughed. “This will be good for you. You will have to learn to move before she does.” He put away the book he had been writing in. “For now, try mirroring her. This is an important part of our way of fighting. You can’t win a fight in the mirror.”

  “So I try to match everything she does exactly?”

  “No, not exactly. Only enough to reflect what she’s doing.”

  When he tried it the next day Lerica stopped and said, “Are you trying to be cute?”

  “No. I’m trying not to get hit.”

  She took it as a challenge and pressed him hard. He didn’t exactly stymie her, but the session went better for him. He discovered that if he lunged at the same time as she, his longer reach would give him the first touch. But she didn’t lunge again after it worked a second time, and in the end those were the only hits he landed on her.

  He knew what his problem was — his head was too full of tactics and he wasn’t empty. In archery, and with the weird too, he was alone with himself, connected only to the Unknowable. With sword fighting he felt connected to the other person, and this threw him somehow. And there was another thing. He hadn’t been able stand in the eternal moment since the day he shot Stefin Vaust. He had begun to wonder if he could only achieve it when life or death hung in the balance.

  The winds were light the next day and the afternoon surprisingly warm. The moment came before his sparring match with Lerica had gone very far. He moved before he knew he had, not knowing what would come next even as it happened.

  They were already close. He stepped forward with his left as she stepped with her right and they came toe to toe, swords crossed and blocked as he took hold of her wrist with his off hand and she grasped his at the same time. His intuition may have been to use his size and strength to throw her, as Aiyan had often done to him, but as they locked swords so did they lock eyes, and the eternal moment came unbidden as he fell into her dark gaze.

  It was like peering into the depths of a silent forest where a shadow creature moved behind a grey mist. When the creature looked at him, he knew it was her. And he knew that somehow she was in the moment with him.

  They continued to fight, but it had become a dance of give and take, a rhythmic flow of movements one into another without end. Neither he nor she attacked or defended, and yet each of them did both. Anchored by a connection they could feel, the momentum of each step, each cut, each parry, carried naturally into the next, and the dance was all they knew. The landing or deflection of strikes became meaningless. They were lost in the grace of the unknowable.

  The spell was broken by the sounding of eight bells, the end of the afternoon and beginning of the first dog watch. Lerica suddenly looked embarrassed. This time it was her turn to hurry away muttering something under her breath. Kyric turned to find that Aiyan had been watching them, tight lipped with his jaw set. He ducked back into the companionway before Kyric could say anything.

  The four of them dined together as usual, and Lerica’s mood had certainly changed in the hours since their moment on deck. She was all smiles, and laughed easily, but hardly said more than a few words. She had no trouble meeting Kyric’s eye, catching it in fact every time she raised her glass. When he went out to walk the deck after eating, she followed, catching up with him in the lamplight near the water barrel.

  She walked once around the ship with him before she asked quietly, “What happened this afternoon? When I looked into your eyes I felt like . . . I don’t know. Was it some kind of magic?”

  “It was only eternity.”

  She smiled. “It didn’t seem that long.”

  “Because it exists outside of time.” He stopped and let the breeze wash over him. “Try to remember how it felt. I would like to know.”

  She clutched the rail and looked east, to where six bright stars were rising, the constellation known as The Hummingbird. “I was there, and you were there . . . and I wasn’t afraid of the future because it felt like this day would last a thousand years. I didn’t want that feeling to end.”

  She turned to face him. “Can you do it again, right now?”

  “I can try,” he said. “Come stand in the lantern light.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  She led him to her cabin. He didn’t know what he expected, something more nautical, he reckoned. The sabre and the crossbow hanging next to the door was no surprise, but opposite that stood an altar carved from a tree trunk. The sharp scent of cedar rushed past him. She began lighting candles — nice ones, made of wax — a dozen atop the altar and a dozen more in wall sconces, and the cabin came to life.

  An intricate pattern of teeth and claws lay imbedded in the altar. A tall ceremonial drum stood in one corner. On another wall hung a giant hoop draped in feathers, held together with pieces of antler and dried sinews. Above her bunk, a hundred woven braids of grass swung with the lilt of the ship, making a sound like leaves in the wind.

  He waited for her to finish with the candles, glad that she didn’t feel the need for chat, just to fill the silence. When she stood still, he stepped close to her and looked into her eyes.

  They were lovely. No wonder he had fallen into them. He gazed deeper, but the timeless moment never came. Then, somehow, she was in his arms and he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, not frantic and desperate and pawing like in the slave camp, but slow and soft. Kyric was shocked at how easy it was, as if they had been doing this for years.

  He didn’t know how long they stood like that, but they managed to find the edge of the bed and sat there intertwined, Lerica biting him gently on the neck and he kissing her breasts though her cotton chemise. Then she stood and began to calmly undress, with a cool look in her eyes like they were only going swimming together. It occurred to Kyric that she had done this many times and that he had not. But when at last their flesh met beneath the bedsheets there was shared knowing, and they moved as they had with the swords.

  He had come to think of her as a hard girl, tough as a sailor, headstrong, and a little vicious at times — the kind of woman who could endure the torment of captivity without buckling. So he was surprised by her tenderness, the sweetness of her kiss, and the way she yielded to him, wanting him to take the lead in the dance.

  He awoke to the ringing of a bell, silently cursing the way it sounded like the bell in the slave camp. No wonder he hadn’t slept well since returning to Calico.

  Lerica stirred.

  “Five bells,” he said, “that’s two-thirty, right?”

  “Mmm, yes,” murmured Lerica, snuggling against him, “An hour and a half till my watch begins.”

  “Maybe I should go back to my cabin.”

  “You can if you want to, but there’s no secrets on a ship this small.”

  He sat up and dug his shirt out of a pile of clothing. “It’s just that the captain of the ship happens to be your uncle.”

  Aiyan pretended to be asleep when he returned to their cabin, and didn’t say anything about his late night as they dressed for breakfast, not even a knowing look. But after they had eaten he said, “My back feels well enough to continue your training. You will practice with me today.”

  If Kyric sparked before they finished their warm-up stretch, he caught fire when they started in earnest. His slides went deeper, his cuts faster and harder, his parries more precise, and his timing was perfect. He felt like he could do anything. He could focus sharply on the sword work, feeling his connection to Aiyan strongly, and still be aware of what was happening on the ship all around him. At one point, when Aiyan had got behind him and tried to sweep his legs out from under him with the flat of his sword, Kyric leaped high out of intuition, spinning in midair and nearly catching Aiyan with a counterstroke.

  The easy smile that Aiyan always had when they practiced may have brightened a little, but he said, “We don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “We don’t jump. We always keep our feet on the ground.”

  He placed his hands on his hips. �
�Perhaps you’re ready to think about something more today.” His lessons seldom included any kind of explanation, but he always stood like that when he had something to say.

  “Not only can you move first in anticipation of attack, but you can move in such a way as to drawn the type of attack you desire.

  “This is not the same as the trick of showing an opening, then being ready with a surprising counter when your enemy attacks. Even with the little time that you’ve trained in the Way of the Flame, I know that you have begun to feel the connection with your opponent. You are learning that the connection is physical, even if you never make contact. In time you’ll learn that this is a tie that can be seen in the mirror, and that even as you reflect your opponent, you can force him to reflect you.”

  Lerica didn’t follow him on deck that night. Sure, she had been cool with him in front of the crew, but hadn’t she given him the eye all though dinner? In fact, he realized, they had chatted away without thought of Aiyan or Ellec the whole time.

  The wind had begun to rise and Pallan ordered the watch to shorten sails. Kyric had heard that girls were different, that they didn’t necessarily want to do it every night. But he was going to find out before he returned to his cabin and to Aiyan, who instead of giving lessons in Cor’el, now had Kyric teaching Baskillian to him.

  When he rapped, Lerica cracked the door, then she opened it wide. Her hair fell loose past her shoulders, and she was dressed in a very short and very tight robe of black silk. A dozen candles cast a glow over the room, and the air hung heavy with incense. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him in. Silk was soft, but she was softer.

  A little later they crossed a squall line. The ship heaved, popping the porthole open, and all the candles went out in a blast of wind and rain. So they went by touch alone, tossed in the dark, with some pleasant surprises and Lerica giggling.

  The next morning when practice was done and they sat in the shade of the foresail, Kyric asked Aiyan, “Tell me more about this knowing of moments.”