Stormseer (Storms in Amethir Book 3)

by Stephanie A. Cain

  He eased the door shut again and considered. If tonight was anything to judge by, the Voices had decided they wanted him. He would go truly insane if they began waking him every hour of every night with that command booming in his ears.

  What had he to lose if he obeyed? Orya had been the only one here who loved him. While Tish was kind, she would never think of him as a man. The rest of his family was reason to go, not reason to stay. Especially after Grandfather heard him talking to the Voices. What if he remembered what Yar said about seeing Voices and tried to learn how to use it for his killing business?

  Yar went back to his bed and knelt in the middle of it. "All right," he said aloud. "I'll follow. I'll come." He took a deep breath. I will follow.

  At once his mind was filled with images. They flew at him in a blur, faster than he could process them. He whimpered and clutched his head with both hands. The images didn't slow, but they did begin repeating themselves. He focused on each as it came at him.

  A desert land with sweeping sand dunes and harsh cliffs; a hidden valley with sweet water and rich soil; a red horse looking straight at him; a copper-skinned woman with short hair and a sword on her hip; a beautiful magic-user with green eyes and long brown hair streaked prematurely with white.

  The next time they cycled through, he noticed the desert cliffs seemed to have homes carved into them, the red horse had a black mane and tail, and the swordswoman also wore at least half a dozen daggers. Then there were more, a dove and serpent, a hawk, clouds of sand...

  Yar whimpered again, feeling his bed tilt under him. They were too much. He couldn't process them all. The images would fill his mind, taking it over until there was nothing left of him. They would overwhelm him. They would erase him.

  ENOUGH. The mental onslaught lessened immediately. HE HAS SAID HE WILL FOLLOW.

  "Yes, and I'm only mortal," Yar whispered aloud. "Give me time to get about it."

  There was the reverberation of laughter in his head, and then the Voices were gone.

  For the first time in months, perhaps years, Yar felt alone inside his head. He thought about his grandfather, but there was no answer urging Yar to eat him. Greatly daring, he imagined Tish in her bath, water streaming from naked shoulders as she lifted up, showing him perfectly rounded breasts. No admiring Voice, nor even the Voice that mocked him for feeling desire.

  With a gasp, Yar loosed the rein on his imagination. He thought of himself climbing naked into the bath with Tish, placing his hands on her breasts, pressing his lips against hers. He imagined the way she would feel against him, how their wet skin would slide together. He pictured himself slipping a hand beneath the water. No Voice commented on his fantasies or mocked him for wishing for them. Yar stuck a hand inside his sleeping pants and gripped himself, falling back onto the bed and losing himself entirely in fantasy.

  When he'd finished, he wiped his hand on the bedclothes and sat up, feeling vaguely ashamed. The first time he felt alone in his head, and what did he do? He pleasured himself. Shoving aside the disgust, he got out of bed and went to the washbasin. When he was washed and dressed, he sat down to think.

  Who knew how long the Voices would leave him alone? He needed to concentrate for as long as he possibly could.

  He had agreed to follow. He was committed. Where was he going? The desert, apparently. How was he going? Perhaps that red horse would guide him? He wasn't sure where the desert was, except that it was south, towards Strid somewhere. He would have to pack for a long journey. He didn't know how far he would be able to travel every day. And if the visions came back along the way...

  He shook himself. Don't get discouraged. For now, you can think properly. Take advantage of that. How much did he eat in a day? He wasn't sure, but he thought it was about half a loaf of bread a day, plus meat and fruits and vegetables. And he would need to carry water with him, especially since he was going to the desert. What else? Blankets to sleep. A cloak or robe. Good shoes. He wouldn't be able to forget to put shoes on if he was walking around outside.

  What else? Think, what else?

  Weapons. He shook his head. He hated violence. The smell of blood made him gag. But he would need weapons. Something to hunt with, something to defend himself with. There was a war going on somewhere out there, after all, and the Voices talked about it sometimes. It might cause him problems. Best to be prepared to defend himself.

  Oh, of course. Money. He would need money. Yar frowned. He had been to the market with Orya sometimes. There had been a period of perhaps six months when she thought getting him outside their house and visiting places that were new to him would keep his attention better. Her theory had been that he might not get caught by the visions if there were enough things to catch and keep his visual attention.

  It hadn't worked. Nothing had, until tonight. But he had loved her for trying, even as he resented the attempts.

  Still, it served a purpose now. He could remember how money worked, with the copper bits and silver sovs. He thought about Orya haggling with merchants, insulting the quality of their wares to bring the price down. He wasn't sure if he could do it as well as she had, but he thought he could do it.

  The money was the easy part. Orya had not given him any secret messages or told him any secret plans, but she had saved a large purse for him. He had never spent any of it. Orya's friends had taken care of him since she left.

  Very well. He had a mental list of what he would need. He ran through the list again, deciding an extra pair of clothes, or perhaps even two, would be good to have. Then he got up and began collecting all the supplies he had deemed necessary.

  When he was finished packing, Yar was still alone inside his head. It was amazing. He stared around his rooms, feeling as if his soul were uncurling and stretching its arms. Wings. Whatever souls had. He took several long breaths, holding them before releasing.

  Then he sat down and pulled on his boots. They would make more noise on the stone floor than bare feet, but he thought it was more important to put them on now, while he knew he could remember them, than to wait until he had sneaked out. What if a vision came on him after he left the house, and he forgot to put them on at all? He would end up with bloody feet, and that would do him no good.

  When he was ready, daggers on his belt and pack slung over his shoulder, he drew up the hood of his robe and slipped out of his rooms. He was alone in the first corridor. When he turned into the next one, a white-robed servant was walking towards him. Yar held his breath, but the servant merely bowed as he passed. How conveniently servants had been trained, Yar thought. They didn't meet one's eyes. Of course, Yar didn't usually meet one's eyes either, but he had never realized before how it limited him.

  He reached one of the house's side gates without being stopped. He paused there in the guttering torchlight, looking down at the water just two feet below the gate. Would he have to steal a boat? But no, there was a stone walkway outside. Yar hitched his pack up over his shoulder and set off as briskly as he could. He would get well away from here and wait for the sun to come up. After dawn, he could find his way to the trade market, and there he would decide what he should do.

  Chapter 10

  Arisanat wished he had never come on this journey to the desert.

  He had never had any real choice in the matter. From the moment King Marsede had decided Arisanat's presence was necessary, it had been almost a foregone conclusion that Arisanat would go. He had grounds to refuse. He had enough support in the council that he could have gotten away with refusing. He would have been spared the torture of revisiting the Kreyden without his brother if he had refused. But refusal would have created a rift between Arisanat and the king.

  No, it would have revealed the rift between Arisanat and the king.

  He huffed and flopped over in his blankets, wishing violently for his comfortable down-filled bed and the soft silk sheets and fine wool blankets that he was used to. These bulky cushions they had brought with them from Tamnen City were considered the p
innacle of comfort in travel, but Arisanat could still tell he was less than a foot off the ground, where anything could crawl up into bed with him. The desert was home to vermin of all sorts, from four-legged to eight-legged to no-legged, and Arisanat was not overfond of any of them.

  This had all been a colossal mistake.

  Spending time near Razem was reminding him of all the pleasant times he had spent with his cousin in the past. It reminded him of a childhood spend sledding in the winter and berrying in the summer, of Longnights spent singing the fire to bed and Longdays spent dancing around the Lifetree and searching for fireflowers. It reminded him of a time when neither Razem nor Arisanat were angry men who had lost those they held most dear. Most of all, it reminded him that Razem was grieving, too.

  He didn't want to feel compassion for the cousin he had vowed to kill.

  With a huff, Arisanat threw back his wool blanket and rose from his cushion. He left the tent and took a deep breath of crisp night air, untainted with the smell of banked fire or men's night farts. He stared up at the sky, wishing he'd grabbed his cloak from the trunk by the foot of his cushion. It was colder here than up north at his home. The desert was only hot in the daytime. He remembered his first time visiting the desert. He'd come to the Kreyden to see Venra, about a year after Venra had left Rivarden to take command in Dinnsan.

  Dinnsan was a fortified city at the eastern end of the Salishok River. It was at least three hundred years old, and peopled by a mix of Strid and Tamnese, with a handful of people from the Long Coast on the other side of the mountains. It had been held by the Tamnese for the past hundred and fifty years, but the Strid had held it for eighteen years before that. Dinnsan's civilian authorities were almost entirely of Tamnese descent, and Arisanat had been surprised by the relative peace of the city, since it was at the bleeding edge of the Strid-Tamnese Conflict.

  Venra had laughed at his naïveté. "Everyone here knows they're better off with Tamnen City in control, Aris," he'd said. "We have laws that provide for the least fortunate among us. We allow no religious zealots to control our policy. We have good tools for educating children regardless of class."

  "Are the Strid really as bad as that?" Arisanat had asked.

  "The Strid people are at the mercy of the Strid king's whim. I had an entire clan cross the river asking for asylum because King Harkai had decided the maker god's followers were trying to wrest power. This clan, some thirty people, left because Harkai had outlawed worship of the maker god."

  Arisanat snorted. "How do you outlaw worship of a god? A faithful man would never renounce his god, no matter what you threatened him with."

  "But in Strid, you can now be executed for worshiping the maker god." Venra shook his head. "I wonder how many blacksmiths and carpenters they'll have left in the kingdom before Harkai comes to his senses."

  "I thought the prince was the dangerous one."

  Venra shrugged. "He's reckless and arrogant, not mad. Harkai is said to be afflicted with madness that comes and goes. He'll come around eventually and probably repeal half of the edicts he issued during this period. But that will be too late for too many of his people. So they come to Dinnsan." Venra grinned, dimples making him look even younger than his twenty-three years. "And I welcome them and put them to work and tax them, so King Marsede is happy about them coming here."

  Arisanat laughed and they had moved on to another topic. But the conversation had stayed with him. They did have a good system of government in Tamnen. The king ruled, but he ruled by the good will of the Nine Families. If any of his policies were deemed unwise by a majority of the Nine, there would be mediation and compromise. It was a good system, but after Venra's death, Arisanat had realized its limitations.

  There was no mechanism for replacing a king who had gone too far down a faulty path. Dynasties changed, of course. There had been times when a king died without issue, so the rule went to the First Family, and then the entire ranks of the Nine were shifted. Once, three hundred and twenty years ago, three of the Nine changed completely because families Four, Six, and Nine were related to the old king, but not to the head of the First Family who succeeded. That was when the Corrone family moved up to First Family instead of Second. Eighty years later the Corrone family succeeded to the throne, and they had remained there ever since.

  But now, Arisanat thought, shivering in the cold night air, it was time for a change.

  Behind him, he heard rustling as someone put back the tent flap. Whoever it was made an insulted noise, presumably at the chill, and there was a bit more rustling before footsteps approached Arisanat where he stood. He glanced over as the person reached him.

  Razem was shrugging into a cloak. "H'lo, Aris. Can't you sleep either?" he mumbled. He sounded sleepier than his words suggested.

  Arisanat shrugged.

  Razem wasn't discouraged by his silence. "We'll be at Baron Arkad's estate in a week or so. At least we'll have real beds to sleep in there."

  "And it'll be warmer, I hope," Arisanat said dryly.

  Razem laughed. "You know, I'd forgotten just how cold the nights can be in the desert. Funny how the memory tricks you, isn't it?"

  Arisanat grunted. He didn't really feel like talking. He would just as soon not have company. Somewhere in the distance, a fox yipped and another one answered it. He tilted his head back and looked up at the stars. Somehow they looked closer out here, away from the city, looming over him as if they knew his secrets.

  He began counting the days. How long was it before Longday? That was the deadline he'd imposed on the Problem Solver. Both of them dead by Longday, he'd said. Had the assassin struck at Marsede yet? Perhaps the king was dead even now, the couriers searching all over for Prince Razem. When would Arisanat have news?

  And Birona—he should be working to bring the city guard over to their side. It was a delicate task, but Arisanat had no doubt Birona was up to it. The man dealt primarily in war materiel, it was true, but he also helped supply the city guard. He had influence and contacts that would prove invaluable to Arisanat's plans. Guiltily, Arisanat glanced over at his cousin, who had been unusually quiet.

  Razem must have seen the glance. He turned his head. "Aris, is there trouble between you and Hawk?"

  That was not the question Arisanat had been expecting, though he wasn't sure what he had expected. He hesitated. "I don't trust him." He drew the words out, as if reluctant to say them. "He is mild and agreeable, certainly, but he has spent six years among the enemy. Who knows what changes could have been wrought in that time? And is that agreeable person he presents himself as true, or is it a ploy?"

  Even in the light of the banked fire, Arisanat could see Razem's frown. "How do you mean?"

  "To gain your trust," Arisanat said. "To learn our secrets. You're too trusting, Raz. By the gods, after what happened to Azmei, I'd expect more caution from you!"

  As soon as the words fell from his lips, he wondered if he'd gone too far. But Razem didn't recoil. He merely stood, staring at the glowing embers. Arisanat drew a breath.

  "I worry for you, cousin. Here we are in the middle of nowhere, with only a handful of guards compared to what you ought to have." He paused. "What if Hawk intends to guide our enemies here to kill you?"

  Razem shook his head slowly. "I don't believe that Commander Ayowir would fight that way."

  "Perhaps not, but she has the damned Deranged Duke now."

  Razem pursed his lips, frowning out into the darkness. His arms were folded across his chest, and Arisanat saw his fingers tapping against his elbows. "I will take you in my confidence, Aris. But this must go no further. There is no way to prove it, for one thing. But when last I saw the duke, he all but begged my forgiveness. He knows he was—that what he did was evil. He knows he deserves damnation for it. I believe he would undo it, if he could."

  "And if wishes were fishes, we'd dine well each night!" Arisanat snapped.

  "Aris—"

  "You're a trusting fool, Razem," he muttered. "Someday
I fear that will turn on you."

  There was a long silence. Sleeping gods, that had been ill said. What if Razem took that as a confession? What if—

  "Well, now I'll be able to sleep," Razem said wryly.

  Arisanat let out a long sigh of mixed relief and annoyance. "I beg your pardon, cousin. You know I do not like what we are about here. It makes me churlish."

  "I had noticed." Razem's tone was mild.

  "Razem—"

  "Oh, let it go, you maundering lump," Razem said, and he flashed a grin at Arisanat. Arisanat's chest squeezed painfully. How could Razem still look at him with such affection? "I'll take your words under advisement and try not to be too trusting," Razem continued. "But for now, I think I could use a privy and a warm blanket."

  Arisanat swallowed. "Sleep well, then."

  "Good night."

  Razem's footsteps faded as he returned to his tent, but Arisanat didn't move.

  He was doing the right thing. Tamnen deserved a better ruler, a stronger ruler, than the Corrone family could provide. Arisanat had already proven to himself that he was capable of doing the hard things, making the difficult decisions and taking action on them. He would be able to take the war to the Strid and make them pay for all they had done.

  If only it didn't involve killing one of his friends to accomplish it.

  "If wishes were fishes," Arisanat reminded himself, and went back to his own tent, where he lay awake until morning.

  Chapter 11

  Hawk stared at the dusty village square. There couldn't be more than twenty houses in the entire village, plus a storehouse and a handful of buildings to serve as blacksmith, healer, and common hall. The village elder's house would be the closest thing to an inn. What could the prince expect to do with his entourage here? They would be lucky if the village had enough water for all the horses, let alone room to put them all. He glanced helplessly at Lord Arisanat, who was glowering at the village elder.