Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  Even so, although I misliked this business of traveling on the open sea, it was exhilarating.

  Our journey had begun.

  SEA

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  On the first day, Lord Rygil issued an invitation to Zariya to join him and his sister and her father for the evening meal in his stateroom; an invitation she politely declined, as she did when it was repeated the next day.

  When the third invitation arrived, she sent word to her father that she wished to speak to him.

  I daresay I was in large part the cause. Our chamber was pleasant enough and the secluded viewing deck afforded hours of entertainment watching the seabirds and dolphins that trailed in our wake. Left to her own devices, Zariya might have been content to pass the journey in a manner respectful of Zarkhoumi customs. But I was restless at the confinement. At least in the women’s quarter of the palace, I’d had the outlet of sparring with the Queen’s Guard. Aboard the ship, I was all the more the caged hawk that Zariya had once named me; and although she urged me to fly free and explore, I was reluctant to leave her side. The Therinians seemed honorable, but I was unwilling to entrust Zariya’s life to that assumption.

  And, too, Zariya was curious.

  “I am betrothed to a Therinian lord,” she said to her father. “Men and women commingle freely in Therin, and I shall have to adopt their ways sooner or later. Is there any point in delaying?”

  King Azarkal scowled. “You’re not wed yet, daughter.”

  Zariya raised her brows at him. “Do you doubt that I shall be, Father?”

  In the end, the king acceded to her wishes, only stipulating that I must continue to attend her at all times—a stipulation with which I wholeheartedly agreed—and that Zariya must continue to wear a veil in her betrothed’s presence in a concession to Zarkhoumi modesty.

  So it came to pass that on the third evening of our journey, we dined with Lord Rygil.

  Steep ladders conjoined the ship’s decks, but mindful of Zariya’s limitations, Lady Marylis had ordered a sling devised by which attendants might raise and lower her between the levels.

  I will own, when we first emerged onto the uppermost deck beneath the open sky, I felt myself able to breathe freely for the first time since we had boarded. I craned my neck to stare up at the tall masts and their myriad sails, yearning to scramble up the rigging as I’d seen Barakhan sailors do in the harbor, yearning to flex my muscles and pit myself against something, anything.

  Knowing my mind, Zariya gave me an affectionate look. “Perhaps tomorrow, my darling. If you might trust me safe while in plain sight and attended by my father’s guards for a moment’s time?”

  I gazed fixedly at the tall masts that appeared to bob and sway against the sky. “Perhaps.”

  Between the king’s discomfort at the breach of protocol, the confounding manner of Therinian discourse, and the tall table and uncomfortable high-backed chairs they favored, it was a stilted meal; still, I preferred it to dining in the company of the House of the Ageless. I could not always tell what was said in jest and what in earnest, but at least I wasn’t forced to endure an endless exchange of false endearments between family members likely plotting murder or mayhem. And it grew easier as the evening wore on, aided by the liberal application of a tart-tasting wine pressed from a fruit called a grape. Although I partook sparingly of it, I found myself relaxing as King Azarkal lowered his guard.

  “I’d have wagered good coin that I first saw you in the arena, Khai, but my sister swears otherwise,” Lord Rygil remarked. “Yet I’m sure it can’t be true that the delightful maidservant who took pity on a party of miserable, sweating Therinians is the same dauntless warrior who defeated Granth’s champion.”

  “I assure you, we are one and the same, my lord,” I said to him. “And you claimed you did not mind the heat a bit.”

  He laughed, and beneath her veil, Zariya smiled into her wine cup. “Well, then, it seems I must believe!” Lord Rygil offered me a sincere salute. “As a son of Ilharis the Two-Faced, I acknowledge your dual nature.”

  In the days that followed, I was happier than I’d been since our time at the Villa of Heart’s Ease.

  I liked the Therinians.

  For all their confounding ways, I sensed no malice in them. Nothing about them made my skin prickle in warning. In their own oblique manner, they were kind—not just Lord Rygil and his sister and her companions, but the attendants and the sailors and oarsmen, too. Once King Azarkal consented to allow the Royal Guard to attend Zariya when she ventured to the uppermost deck, I allowed myself to partake of a degree of the greater freedom she urged me to enjoy.

  There was a viewing platform atop the second mast called a crow’s nest—a crow being a Therinian bird of some sort—that I liked best of all the places aboard the state-ship, high above the sea, reaching toward the sky like the crown of a rhamanthus tree. There the sailors kept watch for uncharted fluctuations in the counter-currents and eddies, or obstacles like patches of strangling kelp that might bring down even such a vast ship as ours. The lookouts posted in the crow’s nest seemed pleased by my company when I clambered up the rigging to join them, engaging me in genial conversation and pointing out such sights as there were to be seen.

  Once, I saw a flock of seabirds drifting on the waves take alarmed flight as a winged shark launched itself from beneath them, twisting in the air, its great maw opening like a trap and snapping shut on its prey. Vironesh had mentioned such a thing to me. I wondered where he was, what he had learned, and how long it would take him to find us in Therin, but it did not seem so pressing as it once did. Although we had not yet succeeded in drawing out the Therinians in the matter of prophecy, there was ample time on the journey and there were no strange signs or portents to trouble my thoughts in the meanwhile.

  The coffer of rhamanthus seeds resided in the king’s quarters, guarded at all times; the key resided around my neck. There were no indications that anyone meant to make an attempt on either.

  The air grew cooler, but it was yet mild enough for comfort.

  By all appearances, Lord Rygil was genuinely taken with Zariya, delighting in her quick wit and showing no signs of being troubled by her affliction or the fact that it had not been divulged to him. It seemed his sister’s reassurances regarding Therinian values held true, and I was grateful for it. Perhaps I could not rejoice wholeheartedly at the prospect of Zariya’s marriage, but her safety and happiness were the most important things in the world to me. And, too, I was the one who had advocated for him over the Barakhan prince. It reassured me to think I’d chosen wisely.

  Even King Azarkal seemed as close to happy as I’d ever seen him. The further we got from Zarkhoum, the easier his demeanor grew. Despite the onset of khementaran, he actually looked younger to my eyes, the unnaturally smooth cast of his features becoming more expressive and vibrant.

  Zariya thought so, too. We had been at sea for a week’s time and were within a day of reaching Granthian waters when she remarked upon it. Her father smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Oddly enough, I find myself remembering what it feels like to be a young man for the first time in many, many years, my heart.”

  “I’m glad,” she said simply.

  “It was not my choice to surrender to mortality, but there is a certain relief to it,” he mused. “So I was always told, and now I find it is true.”

  We were standing beside the railing of the uppermost deck, where we had been watching a capricious pod of dolphins. Zariya glanced around, but since I was with her, the guards hung back at a respectful distance. “I hope you no longer feel that you have lived too long, Father.”

  King Azarkal was silent for a moment, the wind ruffling the hair of his uncrowned head. “The thought of you being exiled from my presence broke my heart,” he remarked presently. “But this Lord Rygil seems a fine enough fellow for all his double-talking ways. If I live to see you happily wed, I have not lived too long.”

  Zariya smiled at her father.
“Then I am glad of that, too.”

  “I will remain in Therin long enough to be sure it is so,” he promised her. “And then…” He laughed, an unexpected sound. “Who knows? Perhaps I will sail the four great currents and see the rest of the world. Why return to the serpents’ den I hatched? Dozaren has proved himself an able enough ruler. Having surrendered immortality, why not surrender the throne?”

  Furrowing her brow, Zariya shot me a look, her fingers moving in a silent question. Should I tell him?

  I shrugged helplessly in response, spreading my hands. I don’t know.

  It was a calm day, the twin banks of oars two decks beneath us dipping and splashing as the state-ship wended its way along the lesser counter-currents. “Father,” Zariya said carefully, “you should know that I am fairly certain Dozaren orchestrated the attack that killed Tazaresh and arranged that Elizar should take the blame for it.”

  The king looked at her, all traces of good humor vanishing to leave his expression impossible to decipher. “Yes, I suspected it was possible,” he said in a tone as unreadable as his expression. “I’ve always underestimated him. But he wasn’t caught at it.”

  “Is that all that matters?” Zariya asked quietly. “To the lion go the spoils?”

  Her father looked back at the sea. “And who would you have me name in his place? Elizar?”

  “No.” Zariya hesitated, and I knew her sister Fazarah’s name was foremost in her thoughts. I watched her gauge whether or not it was worth her while to speak it, and determine with regret that it was not. “At least Dozaren has an ounce of kindness in his soul,” she said instead. “But I suppose at some point, you might consider persuading him to have Elizar pardoned for the crime he did not commit.”

  “At some point,” the king agreed dryly. “Elizar has plenty of other sins on his head.”

  The guilty urge to finger the back of my neck surfaced, but it passed as Zariya deftly turned the conversation to other matters.

  I thought to myself that perhaps that night I would break my silence and tell her the one secret I’d withheld from her, but when Nalah had been dismissed for the evening and we were alone, it was the conversation with her father that Zariya wished to discuss.

  “Do you think I did the right thing, my darling?” she asked me. “Should I have said more? Or said nothing at all?”

  “I think you did exactly what you could,” I said honestly. “I think you said what was needful. I do not think he would have listened to more. And I am quite sure he wouldn’t have entertained the notion of appointing your sister his heir.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Zariya sounded relieved to have it confirmed. “I tell you, this is the last I will speak of the matter. I am done with the endless intrigues of the House of the Ageless as surely as I am with tears.” Her tone turned adamant. “Tonight, here and now, I leave it behind me. I shall wed Lord Rygil and learn to be a proper Therinian wife and mother. I shall learn to speak lightly of the things I hold dear, and somberly of frivolities. I shall learn to play games of wit and guile with painted playing cards, and wager on the outcome of the most trifling of matters…”

  I closed my eyes, listening to her carry on. The state-ship rocked gently beneath us. At first the motion had disturbed me, but now I found it soothing. The sea anchors had been dropped for the night that we might not drift far astray or run afoul of another ship. In the days of old, the sailors had told me, it was said that such a thing would not be necessary, for they might continue to navigate by the myriad stars of the children of the heavens, each of whom occupied a fixed territory in the night sky. Now there were only the wandering moons to light the starless sky.

  I should tell Zariya about the Teardrop, I thought to myself; but no, now was not the time.

  Instead I let her talk and talk, her voice lulling me to sleep.

  In the morning, Lady Marylis conveyed an invitation from her brother to join them atop the uppermost deck as the realm of Granth came into view.

  The wind had picked up overnight and we were making good progress past the Granthian coast. Traveling on the counter-currents, we were too far away to make out many details except their own tall lighthouse, but from our vantage point one could see that Granth was a mountainous land with forested slopes stretching down toward the sea. Above the tree line, a great range of barren peaks towered over the interior.

  “Oh!” Zariya pointed toward the highest peak, from which a plume of dark smoke trickled into the blue sky and trailed westward. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “That would be the abode of Droth the Great Thunder,” Lord Rygil said lightly. “Belching smoke and dreaming of crushing peasants beneath his mighty claws, no doubt. Once every seven years, he awakens and descends to bind his offspring into the service of the newly victorious Kagan.”

  I was considering climbing to the crow’s nest for a better view when a shout of alarm came from that very vantage point. Glancing up, I saw the lookout pointing across the waters between us and Granth. At first I couldn’t make out what the sailor was pointing at; then I thought it must be a flock of seabirds following a fleet of fishing vessels, and wondered why he’d bothered to raise an alarm. It wasn’t until they grew close that I realized the creatures flying in a cloud above and around the ships were far too large to be birds.

  “Watery hell,” I heard myself say, my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach. “Those are stink-lizards, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, and those are Granthian war-ships.” It was a flat, declarative sentence, and I understood that for Lord Rygil, it was the equivalent of a strong curse. “We’re under attack.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  There were six Granthian war-ships angling across the great eastern current on a course to intercept us, accompanied by a flock of stink-lizards that darkened the sky; a decision had to be made swiftly.

  Lord Rygil conferred with the ship’s captain, who informed him that our cumbersome state-vessel stood no chance of outracing the Granthians on the winding counter-currents. Our choices were threefold. We could stand and fight, outnumbered though we were, and pray that the Granthians were merciful in victory. We could offer up the prize of the rhamanthus seeds and pray it satisfied them. Or we could turn tail and flee, letting the southern current carry us back toward Zarkhoum and pray that the wind shifted in our favor.

  “I am not willing to see anyone else die for the rhamanthus seeds,” King Azarkal said, his expression stark. “There is too much blood on the hands of the House of the Ageless. I say we negotiate.”

  “I agree,” Lady Marylis murmured.

  No one asked my opinion, but I remembered the hatred in the eyes of Varkas Long-Arm when I spared his life at Zariya’s behest. “I do not think we may count upon the Granthians to be reasonable, my lord,” I said. “There is one at least with a grave slight to his honor to avenge.”

  Zariya nodded, gripping her canes so hard her knuckles were pale. “The ship is under your command and the decision is yours, my lord. But I believe Khai is right, and I am loath to become a Granthian captive.”

  “This is an act of outright war sanctioned by the Kagan himself,” Lord Rygil said grimly. “I fear the odds against mercy are long.”

  So we fled.

  Even with the wind in our faces, the state-ship picked up speed when it swung into the broad path of the great eastern current and the unseen oarsmen in the lower decks bent their backs, their blades churning the water. For a time, we put some distance between us and the Granthian fleet. But the oarsmen were only mortal and it took a prodigious amount of strength and endurance to propel a ship this large; as their efforts flagged, the Granthians in their small, deft, single-masted vessels gained upon us.

  “Oh, I would that the wind would shift.” Zariya eyed the sails, slack and fluttering in the headwind. “My darling … is there any way in which you might beseech Pahrkun’s aid?”

  “And summon the wind?” I asked bitterly, clenching my hands into fists. “To fight, to see be
tween places, yes. Then, I am Pahrkun’s wind. This is different.”

  “Zariya!” her father roared at her. “Go below and take shelter!”

  “He’s right,” I said; Lady Marylis had long since done so. “The doorway to your chamber is narrow. I can make a stand there.”

  Her gaze was steady. “Ah, but for how long, my darling? Not even you can hold out forever.”

  Bit by bit, the distance between us and our attackers was dwindling. The only thing that had saved us thus far was the fact that the stink-lizards had a limited range of flight and must pause to roost on the Granthian prows and sterns from time to time. But now a shadow passed over the ship, accompanied by a raucous cry; a stink-lizard, a smallish one, darting ahead of the others. From below it, I saw the sac at the base of its throat pulsing; I saw it part its jaws and open its mouth to spew a gout of stinking acidic bile over the ship and its occupants.

  I moved without thinking, shoving Zariya out of the course of the falling bile, diving and rolling, my hands untying the cords knotted around my waist. Coming to my feet with my heshkrat in my hands, I whirled it and threw. It fouled the flying lizard’s left wing and the creature crashed onto the uppermost deck, floundering there. Sailors shouted and scrambled; someone was screaming in pain. The fallen stink-lizard rolled a baleful eye at me, its free wing flapping wildly. Drawing my yakhan, I severed its head from its leathery neck and retrieved my heshkrat.

  Oh, but there were more coming, so very many more. And the distance between us was closing.

  “Khai!” Somehow Zariya had retained her canes and gotten to her feet. “Khai!” Her expression was fierce and intent. “We are not beaten yet, my shadow, but I have need of your swift, strong legs. Go to my chamber and fetch the fate-changer.”

  I stared at her. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded. “Go!”

  I sheathed my yakhan and ran.