“Hurry!” Captain Okaril bellowed. “We need to make this tide!”
“All’s ready!” Linden yelled back from the hold. “The horses are settled.”
Okaril’s face disappeared from the open hatch. “Cast off!”
Linden heard a flurry of activity from the deck. Then he felt the current catch the ship, felt it slip away from the dock.
They were on their way to Jehanglan at last.
Thirty-five
Maurynna stood with Linden by the railing of the ship, looking into the night sky. For once the mysterious fogs that swept across the straits had dissipated. The creaking of canvas and the slap of waves against the hull filled the darkness around her. Linden must have sensed her mood, for he said nothing, just watched the black water as the ship knifed through it.
Once she’d stood like this on the deck of her own ship, studying the stars, reckoning a course. But tonight that responsibility was someone else’s. For the first time, she was glad of it. She had no idea where they were.
There were constellations that she’d never seen before on the horizon ahead; she wondered, if they sailed south long enough, would these strange stars take the sky, chasing away the ones she knew from childhood? Already the figure of the Sky Sisters was half lost beneath the northern skyline. Would everything in this strange land be alien to her?
A sudden rush of longing to see Dragonskeep again took her. Unable to bear the strangeness any longer, she said, “Let’s go below.”
She caught Linden’s hand as they went down to the cabin they shared with Lleld and Jekkanadar, and wished this was over.
The next morning, there was nothing in the water that Linden could see, no reefs or rocks, yet the ship took another unexplained tack, this time heading to—Damn—which was it? Port, that was it. Left was port. He leaned on the rail and looked down into the blue water rushing past, and thought he’d have to tell Maurynna he’d finally remembered.
Lleld joined him on the rail. Her red curls blew in the wind; she pushed them back when they fell in her face.
“We’ve changed course again,” she said. “Was there anything there this time?”
“No,” Linden said, “not that I can tell in this damned mist that keeps blowing around us, anyway. I wonder if that odd globe Captain Okaril has guides him despite this fog? Maurynna said last night she’d not care to try this dodging about when she couldn’t see. Seemed to raise her hackles, it did.”
Lleld pushed a handful of curls back from her face once more, then grabbed a few of them and tugged, considering his words. “I’ll wager anything you’re right,” she said at last. “Did she get a good look at that globe thing? The captain certainly warmed up to her as soon as he realized she knew something of the sea. Clever of her to tell him she had uncles who were sailors.”
“It’s no more than the truth, after all. And she got a better look than Okaril wanted her to have. He wouldn’t let her too close to the thing, but what’s that to a Dragonlord?” he said with a grin.
Okaril, thinking they were but traveling entertainers, would not allow them any privileges, such as standing on the quarterdeck with him and the steersman. But he’d unbent a little when he’d realized that Maurynna had more than a landsman’s knowledge and appreciation of ships and the sea. So a short while ago he’d allowed Maurynna onto the quarterdeck briefly, but wouldn’t let her anywhere near the mysterious globe that the steersman watched with unnerving intensity. Indeed, when he saw her looking at it, even from across the deck, he’d hurried her from the quarterdeck. As if chastened, she’d gone down belowdecks to their quarters.
He wondered, though, why she’d not mindcalled him yet to tell him what she’d seen. So he reached out to touch her mind, tapping his forehead with the two middle fingers of one hand to let Lleld know what he did. When Maurynna answered him, she sounded worried.
What is it, love? he asked, letting Lleld “listen” in.
That blasted cough Otter picked up in the inn is worse. He has a fever now, Raven says, and we’ve no medicine.
Damn, Linden thought to himself. That wasn’t good.
Maurynna went on, Taren says that when we make Jedjieh, he can find an herbalist and get something for him. But until then, the best we can do is make him comfortable.
Lleld broke in. Find Jekkanadar and ask him if Fiaran gave him any useful herbs. We usually take some simple things like willow bark and dried mint when we travel. If we’re lucky, there’ll be some sweet elm bark in there as well. That’s good for coughs.
I’ll do that right now, Maurynna said and withdrew.
It took Linden a few moments before he realized he’d never asked about the mysterious globe. But that could wait until later. He stared out once more into the thick mist that had descended upon them two days out of Assantik and had stayed with them ever since. No matter what Taren said about there being no magic in Jehanglan, this fog had the feel of magery about it.
Then all thoughts of mist and magery were driven from his mind by two words shouted down from the crow’s nest.
“Land ho!”
As he looked, the mist parted, and before him lay the land of Jehanglan.
Shima sat at the foot of Zhantse’s pallet, tapping a soft, hypnotic rhythm on the drum he held between his knees. His younger brother, Tefira, Zhantse’s apprentice, sat at the head, making certain that the dried twists of sweet grass in their little clay bowls on either side of him kept burning.
He watched the rise and fall of his master’s chest. Most times a Seeing came upon Zhantse unbidden. Other times—such as now—the Tah’hsieh shaman went into trance to seek them. There was a tingling in the air this night, and Shima knew that Zhantse had found something, if not what he sought.
Then the twin curls of white smoke from the bowls of sweet grass swayed though there was no breeze, and the rhythm of the shaman’s breathing changed, becoming lighter and more rapid. Zhantse was close to waking.
His head turned from side to side, and he mumbled like a man talking in his sleep. By degrees, Shima changed the pattern he tapped out, then stopped. He shook his hand to loosen fingers and wrist. Tefira picked up the bowls of smoking sweet grass and took them outside. A moment later he came back in and, taking a gourd dipper from its hook on the stone wall, scooped up some water from the big glazed jar near the door and brought it to the bed.
Zhantse pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Feh,” he said, making a face. “That was not an easy one.” He drank the water.
“Did you find Pah-Ko?” Shima asked.
Zhantse looked troubled. “No. I sense something worries him, but not what. But while I was in the Grey Lands, I Saw Amura sneaking out to meet Nathua.”
Shima perked up at that. Amura was one of his cousins, and one of the many Tah’ehsieh who had slipped into the slave camp at the Iron Temple over the centuries to explore and map the caverns and tunnels beneath Mount Kajhenral. “Oh?”
“It’s done.”
Simple words to mean so much. Shima caught his breath and knew his brother did the same.
“The map? The map is done at last?” Tefira said.
The shaman sat up. “It is, indeed. I will turn it into a chant to be memorized.”
Said Shima, “Then that means—” He couldn’t finish.
“That the time of the prophecy is upon us. Now we await the one from the north.”
The skies turned dark with storm clouds as they made port. Linden looked up at the threatening clouds and wondered if this was somehow also the work of the Jehangli priestmages, or just more bad luck. He hoped it would hold off until they had the horses unloaded, for the wretched official who met the ship at the dock wouldn’t allow the others to take Otter on to the hostel that foreign entertainers were assigned to.
“No, no,” the Jehangli insisted in wretched Assantikkan. “All stay together. Not ahead does anyone travel. All stay together—is order.”
Their luck held until Taren’s gelding—the last horse—was lifted from
the hold. Then the skies opened up and the rain crashed down upon them.
“By the gods!” Lleld complained as she led Miki up the street. “Did someone up there kick over a giant’s bath? This keeps up and we’ll all have to grow gills!”
But at last they made the hostel and got Otter inside by a fire. There was another group of northern entertainers huddled by it, including a man with a little monkey on his shoulder, but they made way when they saw Otter’s red cloak and heard him coughing.
After a round of quick introductions, and the other group’s offer to help carry packs upstairs, Taren took Linden and Lleld aside.
“I’m off to look for something for that cough,” he whispered. “Quala root, if I can find it. May take a while, though. Not all the herbalists carry it.”
“Are you certain? It’s pouring out there, and that officious bastard warned us to stay in here,” Lleld said.
Taren winked and gave them a conspirator’s smile. “I’ll borrow something to wear from the porter—he’ll be willing to look the other way for a bit of coin. And don’t worry about me; I know my way around Jehangli cities. But remember—don’t leave the hostel yourselves! It’s forbidden at night.”
With that, he slipped out of the common room. Linden and Lleld looked at each other and shrugged.
“Unlike us, he does know Jehanglan,” Lleld said.
“So he does,” Linden agreed. “Let’s see to Otter and find out more about our fellow entertainers.”
Shei-Luin smiled to herself as she slipped through the tunnels of the palace. The Phoenix smiled upon her this night! Xiane gone away hunting, and Yesuin left behind.
Soon she would be with him once more … .
Her heart raced like a maiden’s on her wedding night as she turned into the tunnel that led to Yesuin’s chamber. Light streamed through the peephole from his room; he was still awake!
But as she neared the secret door, her footsteps slowed. Voices—Yesuin was not alone. Her disappointment sitting like a stone in her stomach, Shei-Luin crept up to the nearest peephole and peered through.
Yesuin sat bent over a game of ulim-choi. Opposite him was one of the many young lords of the Jehangli court. By the number of pieces still on the board, she knew that they had just begun, and that with skilled players, a game could easily last half the night.
She turned away and retreated down the tunnel, holding back her tears by will alone.
Thirty-six
The poor quarter of Jedjieh was threaded with narrow canals doubling as stinking trails through the warrens of poverty. Dressed as he was in the foul-weather garments borrowed from the hostel’s porter—voluminous grass cape and a broad-brimmed hat to hide his foreign features and clothing—Taren had no fear of being attacked or even noticed. Why should one of the numberless poor attract attention?
Still, he hurried through the rainy evening. He could not take the chance of being gone too long; the pretext of searching the market for quala root for the old bard’s cough was not to be abused. He patted the pouch hanging from his belt, running fingers over the hard lump of root he’d purchased from the shop of herbs not far from the inn. A pity they’d been out of ague bark for him. A shiver that was not from the rainy chill danced in his bones.
He found the house he sought and stopped before it. The door was the only opening at street level, no doubt heavily barred on the inside; windows in this part of Jedjieh were set high, well out of the reach of thieves. These were no different, and shuttered now against the rain. Still, he saw faint gleams of light peeping between the thin bamboo slats when he stepped back a few paces.
Taren pulled the cord. From somewhere inside he heard the soft ringing of a bell. He pulled it twice more, paused, then twice more again.
Silence. Taren wiped his forehead; the skin felt hot and dry even in this wet. Then came the sound of feet scuffling down the stairs. He heard a wheezing cough, then a scraping that told of heavy bars shifting. The door swung open, and a hand bearing a paper lantern appeared. Next came the wizened face of an old woman. “Who is it?” she demanded, squinting into the darkness.
Taren pushed the brim of his hat back so that the light of the lantern fell upon his face.
“Baisha! You’ve returned!” the old woman gasped.
“Just so. Now get out of my way, foolish one. I must send a message to Lord Jhanun and I don’t have much time.” He pushed by her and cast hat and grass cloak onto a nearby bench.
“The writing brushes and inkstone are in the first room,” she wheezed after him as he climbed the curving stairs. “There are strips of paper already prepared.”
“Good. There’s no time to waste.”
His teeth chattering now, Taren hastened to the room. By the far wall was an old lacquered table, splints around two of its legs, the pitiful castoff of some wealthy household. The poor found a use for everything in Jehanglan.
But shabby as the table was, the brushes and inkstone upon it were of the finest quality. So were the thin strips of paper cut to fit around a pigeon’s leg. There were even strips of heavier oiled paper to protect a message against weather such as this night’s. By them lay a scattering of silk threads, blue to show that the messages they tied came from Jedjieh.
Xiane rode into the courtyard at nightfall and looked up at the elaborate building that towered over him. His great grandfather had built it as a “simple hunting lodge.” Hah. It was so big, as Xiane remembered from childhood, he was afraid of getting throroughly, and frighteningly, lost in it.
Hunting lodge, indeed. Palace was more like it. Still, as far as imperial residences went, it was small, and better yet, relatively isolated and private. A perfect place for a guest that Xiane did not want everyone to know about. Not just yet, anyway.
Xiane swung down from his horse and tossed the reins into the hands of a bowing groom. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed his escort of soldiers. The house steward came to meet him.
“General V’houn is within?” Xiane asked.
“Yes, Phoenix Lord. So is your other guest. They await your coming.”
Xiane nodded. He pulled his riding gloves off and absently slapped them against his thigh, raising a puff of dust.
Phoenix knew he didn’t want to do this. But he had to; he had no choice. Squaring his shoulders, Xiane walked grimly to the door. First he would bathe, rest, and eat.
And then … He would see.
“Where the hell is Taren?” Linden said. He paused by the window for what seemed the hundredth time in the last candlemark. And as he had done every other time, he opened the shutter and looked out into the rain. “He should have been back long ago.”
“Perhaps the nearest simpler’s stall didn’t have what he needed,” Raven offered. He fed the fire in the brazier another lump of charcoal.
“Taren did say he might have to search for it,” said Lleld, “because not all herbalists have it.”
They sat in the little sleeping chamber Raven shared with Otter—in the one chair, on the floor, at the foot of the bed. The bard lay half-propped up on the bed, sipping weak tea to soothe his throat, raw from coughing.
From her spot on the floor Maurynna said, “But that was well before dusk. It’s nearly full night now.”
“Just so,” Linden said. “I don’t like this.” He jammed his thumbs into his wide leather belt in frustration.
Said Jekkanadar, “And we’ve missed our chance to look for him ourselves beyond this area.”
“What do you mean?” Linden asked, suddenly alert. “‘Beyond this area?’ We were told we were not to leave the hostel at night at all.”
Jekkanadar shook his head. “I talked a bit with Brinn, the man with the little monkey, Toli. He told me that even as outsiders we may go beyond this small area around the docks; not very far, true, and only during daylight. After dark, we’re confined here to this quarter. He and some of the others have been out, ah, seeing the sights, now and again since they got here about two tendays ago.”
Who
has the right of it? Linden wondered. Taren or Brinn? And either way, what are the Jehangli so afraid of that they confine outsiders to certain quarters?
“Linden, who told you that we couldn’t go out at night?” Maurynna asked.
He answered, “Taren. He told Lleld and me that it’s forbidden to leave the hostel after dark.” Shrugging, he said, “Perhaps it’s changed since he was last here.”
“Would the innkeeper send someone to look for Taren?” Otter rasped.
“Save your voice,” Lleld said, turning from her perch on the foot of the bed to glare at him.
“I’ll go see,” said Jekkanadar, and left.
When he returned, he reported, “Our host won’t go. Nor would he send for the city guard when I asked him to. The impression I got is that he’s somehow considered responsible for us. I’ll wager he wouldn’t want the city guard to know that one of ‘his’ foreigners is on the loose.”
Linden peered out the window again. “We’ll give Taren a while longer,” he said. “Then I want to look for him as far as we’re allowed. He may have just had to look farther afield than he thought, or he may be in some kind of trouble.”
To Xiane’s frustration, Kirano refused to interpret the significance of the giant serpent.
“In time, my lord, in time,” the old scholar said as he poured tea.
V’Choun met Xiane’s frustrated look, smiled slightly, and shrugged as if to say, humor him.
Xiane sighed, took up his cup, and leaned back on his cushions. V’Choun did the same.
At last Kirano ceased his endless puttering with the teapot and said, “So tell me, Lord of the Four Quarters, what you know of the Phoenix that you owe your throne to.”
Why, Xiane wondered, had he asked that?
Kirano settled himself more comfortably upon his cushions. He smiled gently; immediately a thousand wrinkles sprang into being. Save for his long grey mustaches and wispy chin beard, he looked, Xiane thought, like one of the carved, dried apples that poor children used for the heads of their dolls. A comforting face for a man who asked disturbing questions; questions that had earned banishment.
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