Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  “Do the wyrms obey the Elehuddin in every particular?” Zariya asked curiously.

  Essee responded to her query, her tone tinged with what sounded like mild disapproval.

  “The sea-wyrms do not obey us,” Jahno translated. “They are partners in this endeavor. Our big brothers and sisters have as much stake in this as we do. Why would you think otherwise?”

  “Forgive me,” Zariya said. “My understanding is based upon your great-grandfather’s writings.”

  “And perhaps because we are currently being pursued by the children of Droth the Great Thunder,” I added tartly. “Which suggests they have no interest in the fulfillment of the prophecy.”

  Jahno was silent for a moment. “My great-grandfather’s understanding of the relationship between the Elehuddin and the wyrms was imperfect,” he said. “As for the stink-lizards … do not be swift to assume you comprehend the mind of Droth the Great Thunder. It may be that the lizards have played exactly the role that was intended for them, with the Granthians all unwitting.”

  “By driving us together,” Zariya said softly.

  He nodded. “It is said that when Zar cast down the children of heaven, he gave them a prophecy. Miasmus, last-born of the children of heaven and the only one undeserving of his fate, would sleep for centuries beneath the waves, dreaming of vengeance and annihilation. One day it would wake and rise and seek to cover the world in darkness. The children of heaven are bound to the lands over which they hold aegis. We are the only weapons with which they may fight the rising tide.”

  “I still don’t understand why the gods don’t just tell us what to do,” Evene said with annoyance.

  If this, then that; but if this, then that …

  “It’s not that simple,” I said slowly. “Our fates hang in a delicate balance. Anything they do might upset it.” I glanced at Zariya. “Anamuht the Purging Fire decreed that you must agree to wed a foreigner, but if Lord Rygil had not given you a fate-changer, we would not be here today.”

  She nodded. “And if I had not bade you to spare Varkas Long-Arm’s life, my darling, the Granthians might not be pursuing us in fury.”

  “Well, they might have done it anyway for the prize of three thousand rhamanthus seeds,” Jahno observed. “But yah, that’s the thing. The levers that turn the wheels of the prophecy are varied and subtle. If you were not caught thieving, Evene, you would not have fled to the Nexus.”

  “Nor I, were the people of Trask not so fearful of the rising tide as to exile me,” Tarrok remarked.

  “But why us?” Zariya inquired. “If it’s true that we are the prophesied defenders, why so few to stand against something so mighty?”

  Essee spoke in answer, her yellow-gold eyes gleaming ardently in the light of the fading sun.

  Jahno smiled wryly. “She says we are not few, that we are symbols of the many who have a role to play, great or small, as your Therinian lord played a role in bequeathing you a fate-changer. It is only that the defenders happen to possess the skills or gifts that render us the tip of the spear.”

  Zariya spread the fingers of her right hand, regarding the markings etched upon it. “I should like to know exactly what those are,” she said in a wistful voice.

  “So should we all, yah?” Jahno wrapped his arms around his knees and gazed at the twilit sky. “A thousand years ago, we would be seeing the stars emerge, the bright eyes and flashing teeth and fierce hearts of the children of heaven shining far above us in the night sky. Now we have only the moons to light our way, and we cannot chart our path by them. But it is said that if the defenders of the four quarters prevail, Zar the Sun will return his children to their place in the heavens.”

  “And if we fail?” I asked.

  He turned his silvery gaze on me. “Miasmus will swallow the world in darkness and it will be no more.”

  I swallowed. “Surely that cannot be Zar’s desire?”

  His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “If it comes to pass, I believe that Zar will create the world anew.”

  Evene turned her head and spat. “Fucker.” There was a short, shocked silence in which she lifted her chin defiantly. “I mean it! It’s not fair. Why should we have to do the dirty work of the children of heaven? Why should we have to pay for the sins of the gods if we fail?”

  Unexpectedly, Zariya broke the silence with a laugh. “I cannot disagree with the sentiment. And yet it changes nothing, does it?”

  “No.” Evene gave her a grudging look of respect. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

  Nim the Bright Moon was on the rise and waxing gibbous that night, laying a shining path over the waters, while Shahal the Dark Moon was a waning sliver on the horizon, and Eshen the Wandering Moon was nowhere in sight. I was glad of it, since Nim’s silver-white brightness always seemed less ominous to me than the bloody light of Shahal or the fickle blue light of Eshen. Behind us, the Granthian fleet had lit their sea-lanterns. They would not be dropping anchor for the night, trusting to the wind and the great eastern current to bear them closer to us.

  The sea-wyrms fed, their great sinuous bodies churning the waters before us into a small maelstrom. Once satiated, they lifted their heads and one gave a questioning whistle.

  “Oh yah, that’s a good idea,” Jahno said. “Ooalu-moth cocoons,” he explained to us. “It helps them see in the dark.”

  Kooie went below deck, returning to whistle the wyrms over, for all the world like one of the desert tribesfolk summoning their hunting dogs for a treat. It was dark enough that all I could see by moonlight was the silhouettes of their heads swaying as they snapped up the cocoons, but afterward, the wyrms’ eyes took on a faint luminescent shine. Trilling thanks, they dove deep to retrieve their abandoned bits, clamping their jaws tight around them and swimming steadily, twin wakes streaming behind them.

  Once again, we began inching away from the Granthian fleet behind us.

  I gazed at the night sky, trying to imagine stars.

  I could not.

  It had been an impossibly long and improbable day and I was more tired than I knew, my eyelids growing heavy.

  “Khai.” Zariya leaned forward to touch my cheek. “Even you must sleep, my darling. And I should be ever so grateful to have you beside me.”

  “We would give you and your shadow privacy were it possible, Sun-Blessed,” Jahno said apologetically. “I know this arrangement must seem terribly scandalous to you. But though we will sleep in shifts throughout the night, sleep we must.”

  “I know.” She glanced around. “Is there…?”

  I rose, knowing what she was hinting at and glad I had already determined the answer. “I’ll take you to the privy bucket.”

  The privy closet in Zariya’s quarters in the Palace of the Sun had a door for privacy and an inlaid chamber pot of such a height that she could manage it on her own. It had been brought aboard the Therinian state-ship for her. Here, the bucket placed in the open air in the stern of the wyrm-raiders’ ship was low enough that she needed my assistance to reach it.

  “Oh, Khai!” Her voice broke at the indignity of it all, and my heart ached for her. “I could not do this without you, you know. Not for one heartbeat.”

  “That is why the Sacred Twins joined us,” I said softly in reply.

  “That you might help me squat over a bucket?” She waved away the comment. “Pay me no heed, my darling. It’s only that I’m still a bit overwhelmed. I don’t suppose there’s a washbasin?”

  “There’s another bucket,” I said.

  Zariya knelt and scrubbed her hands and face with a sliver of hard soap floating in the fresh water while I lowered the privy bucket on its long rope over the railing that the sea might sluice it clean. “You wouldn’t want to confuse the two in the dark, would you?” she observed as I helped her to her feet.

  I smiled, glad to see that her bright spirit was unquenched. “No, you would not.”

  Out of respect, the crew allowed us to descend first and settle ourselves for the night. Know
ing she was tired, I would gladly have lowered Zariya on my makeshift sling, but she insisted on climbing down the ladder herself, reminding me that she had done it earlier. “And on the morrow, I shall begin attempting the ascent,” she said firmly. “My legs may be afflicted, but my arms are hale, and they will grow stronger with increased use, will they not?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded to herself. “I have led a coddled life, but that has changed. I cannot afford to accept any more assistance than is absolutely necessary.” She paused. “Although … are we truly meant to sleep in the clothing we’ve worn all day? I know that was the practice in the desert where you grew up and I suppose being at sea is much the same. How many days in a row does one do such a thing?”

  I watched her hoist one leg and then the other over the edge of her hammock, suppressing the urge to assist her. “You probably don’t want to know the answer to that, Zariya.”

  She gave me a wry smile before closing her eyes. “You’re probably right.”

  Tired as I was, I remained sleepless for the better part of an hour. I had stowed my yakhan and kopar and belt-knife, all of which caught and tangled in the hammock, but I kept the zims lashed to my forearm, the garrote laced in my hair, and the heshkrat wrapped around my waist, unable to relax without weapons at hand.

  I heard the hatch door open, members of our unlikely crew descending the ladder, whispering to one another in hushed voices. I heard them settle into their hammocks, which creaked and swayed with the jouncing of the ship.

  The air belowdecks grew heavy with sleep and sighs.

  In the quietude, pale green glowing moths flitted here and there among the vines. One landed on the back of my hand, and when I brushed it gently away, it left behind a trace of luminous dust.

  At length I slept.

  FORTY-TWO

  In the morning, the Granthian fleet was still visible behind us, still continuing their dogged pursuit.

  Jahno and the Elehuddin conferred.

  “It’s time, yah?” he said, glancing around to see if anyone disagreed. “Half a day and a night, time enough for Therin to make their escape.”

  No one disagreed, and Tarrok suggested he might give the Granthian fleet a parting gift. “Then you will see why I am called the Thunderclap,” he added.

  To that end, we idled on the current for a quarter of an hour or so while the wyrms had another feed, gathering their strength for the coming dash. Seeing this, the Granthians took to their oars once more and redoubled their efforts, the stink-lizards rising to circle overhead.

  They drew near enough that I was beginning to feel anxious, my palms itching for my hilts, before Essee whistled to the sea-wyrms. With answering trills, they retrieved the bits of their tow-lines.

  Standing in the stern of the ship, Tarrok took an impossibly long, deep breath, his chest expanding like a bellows.

  “You’ll want to cover your ears,” Evene advised us, fitting actions to words. Zariya had to sit to do so; the rest of us remained standing, our hands clapped tight over our ears.

  Tarrok opened his mouth and let out a wordless shout.

  I do not know what else to call it. His breath-swollen torso deflated all at once like a burst bladder as the sound left his lips, beating against the air in an invisible wave: a sound like a single clap of thunder or the slamming of an immense door. In mere seconds we saw the sound break like a wave over the Granthian fleet, rocking their ships and sending the stink-lizards reeling. A couple of the smaller lizards dropped like stones, stunned from the very sky. Granthian sailors scrambled in disarray. The Elehuddin whistled, the sea-wyrms responded, and our ship made an abrupt pivot to the south, cutting across the current and bounding over the waves, leaving the Granthian fleet behind us.

  Tarrok bent over and braced his hands on his knees. His chest was heaving, but he was grinning into his beard.

  I lowered my hands and glanced at Zariya. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “That’s quite a gift, messire.”

  “Just Tarrok, my lady.” He straightened with pride. “That is the legacy of Luhdo the Loud.”

  “‘And the Thunderclap shall stun the armies of the risen and returned,’” Jahno murmured. “‘And the Shadow’s blades shall scythe through them like the wind and reap a deadly harvest.’”

  “That’s part of the prophecy?” Zariya inquired. He nodded. “What are the armies of the risen and returned?”

  Jahno shrugged in apology. “Alas, I cannot say. It is only a fragment. Fragments are all we have.”

  “What do we know?” she asked.

  Bit by bit, he laid out the pieces of the puzzle that the descendants of Koronis had assembled over the years. The rising of Miasmus would be presaged by the sign of the black star, a sign under which the prophets of Miasmus, afflicted by the dreaming god’s madness, would sow mayhem and anarchy. During this time, the Seeker would attempt to assemble the defenders of the four quarters. As Miasmus awakened from slumber, the tide of the risen and returned would grow larger and stronger, and the defenders would find no safe haven from them, but must take the battle to Miasmus and destroy it.

  The prophecy identifying the defenders, most of which Jahno had quoted on the state-ship, was reasonably clear. The specific details of exactly what we were to defend the world against, not to mention how, were lost or vague. In Trask it was prophesied that one bearing the gift of Luhdo the Loud would cleave the rock in the farthest reaches of the west if the time were upon us; what that meant, no one knew. Evene informed us dourly that no equivalent prophecy existed in Drogalia, where Quellin-Who-Is-Everywhere inhabited an infinite variety of forms at will and could seldom be recognized.

  It seemed that Zariya and I were unique in having been addressed directly by our gods, the Sacred Twins who were the best-beloved of Zar the Sun. At Jahno’s prompting, Zariya and I related our experiences with Pahrkun and Anamuht and the words they had spoken to us, which he wrote down carefully in a leather-bound journal.

  “Life and death,” he mused. “Fire and wind. Do either of you know what it means? Are you meant to be able to summon the elements?”

  I shook my head. “Not me. Pahrkun said that to bear his mark was to carry the breath of the desert within me. I can channel the Scouring Wind, especially when I fight, but it is not the same as summoning it. It is a way of seeing the spaces between things.”

  Evene made a gesture, pressing her hands together and opening them wide. “Well, I am the Opener of Ways. Perhaps I’m meant to make spaces between things, to create a path for you.”

  “Can you do that?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “I can cause a crowd to part by … well, it’s sort of impossible to explain. I just never saw much use in it.”

  “Ah, but now we are seeing possible patterns emerge,” Jahno observed, making more notes. “What of you, my lady?”

  “Can I summon fire, you mean?” Zariya asked ruefully. “You know, when Khai and I partook of the rhamanthus, there was a moment where it almost felt to me that it was possible, that I might call lightning from my fingertips like Anamuht the Purging Fire herself. But the moment passed.”

  He made a note of that, too. “We will keep seeking answers.”

  “What of the coursers of Obid?” I asked him. “My mentor told me that they had a prophecy that when the children of Miasmus sowed darkness, they would help stem the tide.”

  Jahno nodded. “Yah, that is so. Although they are not named among the defenders of the four quarters, it is clear that they have a role to play.” He looked somewhat abashed. “We, ah, do not enjoy the best relationship with the coursers of Obid.”

  “I’m not sure we can afford to let old hostilities color our judgment,” Zariya murmured.

  “No, of course not, my lady,” he replied. “But we also cannot afford to be hauled to Itarran and thrown in jail for past crimes by the self-appointed policers of the world.”

  It occurred to me that they might have given that more con
sideration before deciding to augment prophecy-hunting with piracy, but I supposed the former wasn’t exactly a profitable career. Even a company as relatively self-sufficient as the wyrm-ship needed some material goods. Later, I learned that they also used stolen goods to exchange for tales or rumors regarding the Scattered Prophecy.

  “The coursers of Obid sent a scouting party to investigate when the children of Miasmus first began to appear,” Tarrok said soberly. “It was before I was exiled. They never returned.”

  “To investigate what?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “Miasmus.”

  “The Abyss that Abides.” I remembered Brother Yarit muttering the words, Brother Ehudan telling me the tale of Miasmus. “I’ve heard tell that it’s capable of swallowing entire ships.”

  “Oh, it’s true enough,” Tarrok said. “We in the far west know better than to sail near the Maw, but there are always those foolish enough to pursue rumors of glory or treasure.”

  Zariya was frowning in thought. “So when you speak of the children of Miasmus, are you speaking of the cursed sea-spiders?”

  “Yah, for now.” Jahno nodded. “But we think it’s only the first wave. Worse is coming.”

  “Coming from where?” she asked.

  “Coming from the Maw of Miasmus itself,” he said. “It is a guess, for no one can confirm it, but it is an informed one.” He hesitated. “You asked about the armies of the risen and returned. The prophecy is unclear, but I do have a theory. I think perhaps dark-dreaming Miasmus begins to spew into the world all those creatures it has devoured over long centuries. Now it is only the sea-spiders that carry its message. That will change as Miasmus awakens.”

  “And do they seek us out, these children of Miasmus?” Zariya inquired, glancing at Tarrok. “I understand you were exiled from Trask because your presence drew them to its shores.”

  He inclined his bald head to her. “That is so, my lady. Those afflicted by the children of Miasmus spoke of end times and fomented rebellion, but they also sought to incite my death.”