He shook his head. “The healing magic preserves the body a bit longer but does not calm the fever. The blue cannot cure it.”
Ryat said, “The College of Healers believes it to be a fever of the head. There was a tremendous effort some fifty years back to isolate everyone who had it—burn them, actually—in an effort to eradicate it altogether.” He had hold of one of the gilded books we’d taken from Bessradi.
“Then let’s get Lilly and be on our way,” I said.
“Lilly?” Soma asked. “Why the girl? We can’t get her mixed up in this. She is just a child.”
“I cannot learn new words as I once did. She will need to learn the nouns we need, then I will sing the song. There is no other way.”
“Wait,” Pemini said. “Geart, tell them.”
Barok held me up. “Tell us what?”
Pemini waved me on, and I said, “There is only so much more I can sing. Each time I do it, there is less of me. Soon I will be unable to sing at all. I need to stop soon.”
“Soon,” Barok said, “but not today. Gern and all the rest are at stake here. Come. Avin, fetch Lilly. Soma, make your ship ready to leave at once. Ryat, Horace, you’re coming with us, too.”
“You’re not going to the island,” Horace said to him.
“Yes, I am,” Barok insisted.
“No, you’re not,” the rest of us said in unison.
He huffed but saw he’d find no sympathy. “Very well, but get moving, all of you, would you?”
Pemini kissed me goodbye, and we were away.
It was a maddened dash filled with the yells of riders and sailors until the ship started south and all the many noises gave way to the creak of timber and rope.
I stood at the rail. I enjoyed it more than I should have.
The ship clipped through the calm sea like a dart. The clean, clear air chased off the gnats. Birds glided and careened around us. The high hills and mountains that were so often hidden by Urnedi’s forests were on display. I’d not noticed how flat a shelf of earth the town sat upon compared to the lively foothills and the sun-washed peaks. The white froth of a waterfall marked the first fold of green hills, and far off upon the horizon I could just make out the two white caps of Mount Virk stabbing up into a monstrous tower of clouds. The sun stood above this growing storm, and the rain and warmth promised Enhedu another bountiful day.
“Will you be ready by tomorrow?” Soma asked me.
I’d not known she was there. I’d not known my fatigue was so apparent. I nodded, and she withdrew.
I would not fail them.
I looked back out across the dancing water, but the mood was gone. I stared, instead, at the cedar and hemlock that crowded the rocky shore.
“What are your names?” I asked them.
The silence was profound. It was like looking at Eargram’s face. I was not trusted. The Mother Yew’s instructions had been so clear. ‘Wander the forest, Geart. Ask and learn the names of the trees and look for those who can sing.’ I’d learned verbs instead, traveled to Bessradi in search of whatever words I could find, and did my best to murder as many men capable of song as I could.
My future promised only more of the same.
I waited by the rail and counted the pegs until the trip was over.
Soma kept us aimed down the coast like a knife. She sailed us full speed through the dark of that night and had oars run out at the slightest slackening of the wind. It seemed no ship could go faster, yet she worked tirelessly at the ropes and helm. If there was a science to it, I could not see it. The thirty men who crewed the Grace did it all as though they were steering a horse at a mad gallop—all intuition and guile.
We spotted smoke upon the horizon near midday and the attitude aboard changed. The lieutenant barked his greencoats into shape below, and the crew was called on deck. The island came into view, and our ship dived toward it.
Soma kept our course close to the island as we raced between it and the nearby coast. I did not like the look of the rocks that jutted out of the waves along the shore. I pointed at them once, but Lady Soma ignored me. I caught one of the rowers smirking at me, and I resolved to keep my hands at my sides and my expression from betraying my unease.
Soma made a soft call, and we turned farther into the wind as we followed the curve of the island. A deep beach and crowded piers came into view, followed by a large bonfire that was the source of the smoke. I was glad to see greencoats aboard each of the unfamiliar ships. Up the beach from the bonfire, Gern had a hundred men in formation, and below, the village the rest of Gern’s men were behind solid breastworks of timber. Across the strait there was a town in the trees and a large number of men that looked eager to come across.
“There’s the Thorne,” one of the sailors said and pointed to the ship at anchor in the center of the southwest end of the strait. It looked like a kingfisher hovering in the breeze in search of prey. Soma signaled the Thorne, and Mercanfur started in toward us at once.
We swung in behind the bonfire, and the smell displaced all other thoughts. It wasn’t a bonfire at all. It was a giant funeral pyre. The crew coughed and swore. We docked at the very end of the longest pier while Mercanfur put in on the next one down. He approached the foot of our pier with Gern and some of their men. Their faces were wrapped against the stench, and their skin was red and swollen.
“Can we catch it from the smoke?” someone asked worriedly, and all eyes turned to Avin. He did not immediately answer.
“Avinda?” Soma called.
“Hmm? No … no. Not from the smoke. We are safe from the fever as long as we don’t touch them or things they have handled.”
“What about the sand fleas?” Ryat asked as he swatted one on his arm.
“They don’t spread fever,” Avin said, but without conviction.
Soma pointed across the strait. “They’ll be looking for a chance to cross. We’ll need to be quick, whatever the cure is. We need Gern and his boys fit to fight.”
She ordered a gangway run out and led Horace, Avin, and Ryat down. Lilly took hold of my hand and tugged me along after them.
“Stay back,” Gern said to us as we approached the white sands. “The sickness spreads quickly.”
We stopped there, and I got ready to try and sing the plural form of the healing song. There was plenty of the Shadow to spend in so miserable a place.
Avin, though, moved a few paces closer and asked, “What else can you tell us?”
“They tried us last night. We lost nine men,” was all Gern said. I doubt he could stay upright much longer.
“About the sickness, son. Can you tell me more about it or the people here?”
“We interrogated a number of those we captured. The sickness struck recently. It didn’t kill many of them at first, but it got much worse this spring. They tried putting all the sick upon the island away from the town. They call it the sand sickness.”
“Not red fever?”
Gern shook his head, and Mercanfur said, “I’ve seen red fever, Avin. This is worse. This causes blindness, searing pains, tremors, delusions.”
“Why in the world do they stay here?” Soma asked.
“Paid to,” Mercanfur said.
Ryat, Avin, and I looked at each other. I was glad to see I was not the only one confused by this.
“Paid? By who?” Soma asked.
Gern replied, “They bear a writ from the Chancellery that gives them authority to patrol the Pinnion Coast. Any ship not flying the pennant of the Cynt or Raydau is fair game. They are paid thirty-five weights of gold each season to maintain a fleet of six ready ships.”
Avin began waving his arms and urged all of us to be still. “None of which has any bearing on the illness. Could you all please be quiet and let me figure out what we are dealing with here?”
I let go of the darkness I had gathered. I was getting stupider. We would not know which song to sing until we knew what kind of sickness it was. We’d thought my song would be: heal the head of man. If the sickness was
not in the head, the verse would be wasted. And despite my first estimation, the plural form took far more of the darkness than was there. I could heal some, but the rest would die.
“We need to know more about the sickness, Captain,” I said. “I cannot heal you all without knowing more.”
“I … I don’t know,” Gern said and stumbled sideways into his lieutenant who was only just able to keep him upright.
“The sand,” Lilly said.
“What, dear?” Soma asked her.
“They call it sand sickness. The sand makes them sick.”
“Sand cannot make you sick,” Avin said. “Maybe it is the fleas. Passing it with their bites?”
Ryat began slapping furiously on his arms and neck. The men still aboard the Grace began doing the same.
“A sickness of the blood then?” I asked Avin. The Spirit used to answer me at such times.
Silence.
Lilly passed us toward the sands. She was shivering. Avin got ahold of her arm. “The sand,” she said, shook free of him, and ran out onto the beach. She went onto her knees and clutched two tiny fists full of sand. Then she collapsed backward and began to convulse.
Soma and the rest all began yelling at once. I charged out and took hold of her. She flailed like a caught fish, but I pinned her to the sand.
“Hold on, Lilly,” I said to her. “Let it come. You are learning a noun. Let it come.”
She was no bigger than one of my legs. I was terrified I was hurting her.
Her eyes focused upon mine then. Her spasms ceased. Tears broke down her tiny face, and she smiled.
“Lilly, what is it? What word did you learn?”
“She needed us to know them,” she whispered.
“Which, Lilly? Which?”
“Blood. Mercury. The Shadow loves mercury. It is in the sand,” she said. And then with a prideful smile, she whispered, “He is angry at me. Very angry at you, too, Geart.”
I sat back on my heels and looked back at the rest. I said to them, “The people here aren’t sick. They have been poisoned with mercury.”
“Lady Jayme,” Soma said and looked ready to punch someone. “This is where she was headed with that armor. She and Haton are in league with the Hessier. It all fits. The writ, the mercury, the armor. Someone means to make these people into Hessier. Is it Sikhek or the Ashmari, do you think?”
“That is the right question,” Avin said. “But one for another time, yes? Ryat, Geart, we need to figure out the song that will save them.”
“I know the song we need,” I said, and the desire to sing welled up inside me. “Lilly, can you give me the words you learned?”
Her mouth opened, and she gave voice to the thoughts of the Spirit.
blood mercury
I swelled from the touch of Her—I felt the Spirit smile. Ryat began to laugh. Avin sighed. He had missed them both.
“What is the song?” Avin asked me.
“I know all the words required: draw mercury from the blood and flesh of man, heal the blood and flesh of man.”
“Ohh, Geart. That is too complex. Can you survive it?”
“You will be okay,” Lilly said to me. “I told her to forgive you.”
I kissed her forehead. “You darling child. Thank you.”
“You need to sing now,” she said. “Mommy’s brother is sick. You will make him better. Right?”
She did not wait for me to answer, stood up, and began calling everyone in. She was ready to run up the beach when Soma appeared and collected her up in her arms.
I said to Soma, “You need to get Lilly clear. She cannot hear the verbs of my song.”
She took her back down the pier while Horace and Avin called the Chaukai down the beach. Soma’s ship slid out into the channel, the poisoned men stumbled forward, and suddenly it was time.
“Who’s first?” I asked, and Mercanfur volunteered himself. I said to him, “I suspect that this is going to hurt a great deal.”
He waved me on, and I put my hands upon his neck. “Not there,” Ryat shouted. “That would kill him for sure. Shoulder.”
“No, armpits,” Avin said.
Mercanfur said, “Boys, what exactly are you going to do to me here?”
“You’ve been poisoned,” I said. “The Spirit has given us a song that can draw out the poison, now stop mewing and take off your tunica.”
He pulled it over his head and looked around sheepishly. “Be quick, before I change my mind.”
I placed my hands under his arms and began a delicious chant of words.
draw mercury blood flesh man
A red glow shown from his flesh, and the tiniest droplets of mercury tore their way free. The heavy metal was ice cold upon my fingers. Mercanfur must have screamed, but I could not hear him. Blood poured from his many wounds, but I held him up and kept singing until there was only blood. I changed my song, and the dull red became a bright wash of blue.
heal blood flesh man
His wounds closed, and his skin lost its terrible color and swelling. He was wretched with a slime of blood and toxic mercury. When he came to and registered his state, he swore and then began to laugh. He took off at a run down the pier and flung himself into the water like the flop of a great stone. His laugh was contagious. The sight had every person upon the island moving toward me.
“In the water, two at a time,” Avin said, and I moved with him into the calm surf beside the pier.
Avin and Horace kept the crowd under control, and I stopped worrying about the details of it. The sick came naked and wretched, were tortured by my magic in the salt water of the Pinnion Ocean, and emerged laughing and growling against the day.
Over and over I sang the long songs. I became the center of a machine, turning the verse like a wheel does the mill.
It was jarring when there was no one left to sing to.
Someone fed me some bread.
The smell of smoke woke me momentarily. Across the strait, flames rose from the corsair’s town upon the hillside. The soldiers of the Spirit of the Earth were as swift as they were merciless.
Soma loaded Ryat, Horace, and some of the Chaukai aboard her ship and started south.
The rest stayed for a time, and the beach was dug away to the rocky grit beneath. I suspected they’d dump it far out to sea.
I recall being carried aboard and loaded below deck with the rest of the gear.
47
General Leger Mertone
A Warm Spring Day
I woke from a dream of a Bessradi victory parade, comfortable and warm, with the taste of wine in my mouth.
“Darmia?” I said and sat up. I was in a well-furnished room with too many open windows—an inn judging by the stiff pillows. A figure was there at the foot of the bed, but as I blinked the sunlight out of my eyes, I did not see her hair or curves. It was that rotting lieutenant.
“She is dead,” he said and handed me a small cup. “Drink this. Hurry up. You’ve only had a sip since your fall.”
I felt the need then. It rose up from behind the comfort of the bed and the healing magic that had been spent on me. I snatched the cup and sucked it down in a single gulp.
“Going to try and ration me, are you? You’re brave.”
“The surrender is being negotiated this morning, here in Moorsmoth. All the Cynt nobles sailed in yesterday.”
“Where are the armies?”
“Most of each has already gone back to their farms and their businesses. Detree and Cassin’s regulars are camped beyond the wall.”
He poured me another shallow cup. “The Oreol’s priests tried to sail out of here the day we marched in. One ship got away before your captains seized the harbor. We think that sermod was on board. The priests are holed up in their church now and are asserting themselves into today’s negotiations, claiming that they have the right to judge such things.”
“The hell they do. Where are they now, and why haven’t we mounted them on spears?”
“The Raydau an
d Cynt rely on them. It is with their blessing that they claimed the Oreol for themselves and made war upon Heneur,” he said and handed me the wine. “The captains and Haton hoped that you would have something to say about their involvement.”
“I just might. Where are my captains? Why is it that I keep talking to you and no one else?”
“They’re afraid of you,” he said. “Drink up. We don’t have much time.”
I recalled dimly the beating I’d given one man who’d tried to put his body between me and my wine.
“Who are you?” I asked and drank.
“I drove a wagon for you last year when you went south for horses. I joined the greencoats as soon as we got the herd back over the mountain. You’ll want to get dressed. Your clothes are there.”
“You are the youngest of the Kennculli boys. Pemini’s brother.”
He poured me another as he made his way across. I’d had a sergeant like him in Heneur. It had been a long time since I’d been managed. “You’ve done this before.”
“You’re not the only drunk in the world, General,” he replied and set the wine down next to the clothes.
Hide, fight, or manage—there was little more the child of a drunk could do. He and his four brothers, Pemini too, must have kept after their swineherd father day and night. Six against one. As well as the youngest was doing with me, the rest of the world might not have even noticed their father’s drinking. I’d thought they’d learned to wrestle from those pigs they raised. Maybe it was their father they’d had to contend with.
I made my way over and drank. He’d already moved to the door and opened it.
I hurried into the clean clothes and uniform. All of it was spotless, complete with the gold-threaded cuffs and collar. My leggings, sword, and helmet were there as well. My breatplate and the rest were stowed on the same cedar luggage rack in the corner. I was glad to leave the weight behind.
“The priests are already here,” he said.
“How many are they?” I asked, but he’d already moved down the hallway. He’d managed to snatch the empty glass as well.
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