Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  According to Badu, the scroll was displayed in an open coffer on a pedestal in the southwest corner of the room. I worked my way soundlessly in that direction, crawling under and stepping over the bell-strung ropes, raising the thieves’ lantern to examine the contents of every pedestal I encountered.

  I found it on the fourth pedestal, a large scroll on two spindles nestled in a velvet-lined case of inlaid wood that appeared to have been made especially for the item. I examined it carefully until I was certain that the unfamiliar characters in which it was written matched the unfamiliar characters on Jahno’s khartouka. Satisfied, I closed and latched the case and stowed it in my satchel, working my way back through the bell-lines. Shuttering the thieves’ lantern, I exited the treasure room.

  In the hallway outside, I found the guard I’d garroted was awake. He was sitting splay-legged on the floor, his gaze blurred and uncertain. Until the moment I emerged, I daresay he’d no idea what had befallen him.

  Our eyes met.

  Panic and anger flashed in his; he tried to cry out, a strangled sound emerging from his bruised throat. Somewhere on a floor below us, I heard a shouted query, followed by the sound of pounding feet on the stairs.

  If the entire household was roused, it would be pandemonium. Best not to chance the servants’ quarters, I thought, else I’d find myself carving a path with the point of my dagger. I called up my memory of the map Badu had drawn and dashed down the corridor to the south.

  One turn to the left, another to the right, then yes; there was a window. Here on the third floor, the shutters weren’t even closed. I hopped onto the window ledge and fished the grappling hook from my satchel, sparing a quick glance below to see if either of the guards was patrolling beneath me. Seeing none, I hooked the grapple over the ledge, leaned back and set my feet, then raced backward down three stories of the vertical face of the manor so fast that the friction of the rope abraded my palms.

  In the manor there was shouting; lights were being kindled. I flicked the line in an attempt to free my grappling hook and failed. It was a skill that took a certain amount of practice to maintain. A pale, furious face appeared in the window high above me, and I thought it best to abandon the effort.

  “Hey!” One of the guards patrolling the grounds raced around the corner of the manor, flames streaming from his torch. “You! Stop!”

  This had not gone entirely as I’d hoped.

  Unlashing my heshkrat from about my waist, I slung it low. It entangled the guard’s legs and he fell hard, grunting at the impact. “We’ve got an intruder!” he shouted, fumbling to free his legs. “Over here!”

  Eschewing the gates, I ran down the slope of the estate toward the outer wall, dodging trees, and launched myself in a high leap. My fingertips found purchase and I scrambled inelegantly up the wall, the weight of the satchel strapped across my torso dragging on my right hip.

  “To the gates!” the guard shouted behind me. “He’s going over the wall! Cut him off!”

  Beneath the bloody light of Shahal the Dark Moon, Lirios danced anxiously from foot to foot on the cobbled thoroughfare, his narrow sword glinting in one hand. The short, lightweight cloak he had donned tonight to conceal his distinctive wings fanned around him. “Khai! Here, Khai, here!”

  “Hush!” I dropped into the shadows alongside the wall, wincing a bit at the impact. There were guards emerging from the gate; now, I wished I’d let it close behind me. Unlocking it would have delayed them a few more seconds. I pulled the case containing the scroll from my satchel and tossed it to him. “Go!” I said in a fierce whisper. “Sheathe your weapon and go, brother! I’ll meet you aboard the ship!”

  Lirios caught the case with his free hand, and obeyed, darting down the street at an impossible speed. Catching sight of him, the guards shouted and gave chase. Beneath the wall, I crouched unseen in the shadows and smiled to myself with grim satisfaction. Lord Solinus’s guards would not catch Lirios; no one could catch the mayfly in flight.

  Overhead in the night sky, the Dark Moon loomed, crimson and full.

  Behind me, I hoped, the unsavory merchant-lord was awaking to the knowledge that he had been robbed of his most valuable possession, that the treasure upon which he and the Gilded Council had placed too high a price at the uttermost worst time had been stolen from him.

  I saluted Shahal. “Thank you, my lady.”

  It took me the better part of an hour to work my cautious way back to the harbor where our ship was docked, avoiding the despondent guards returning to report their failure.

  “Gods be thanked!” Zariya gasped. “Oh, my darling, I was starting to worry terribly.”

  “I was only being careful,” I assured her. “Did we succeed? Does the scroll contain the missing pieces of the prophecy?”

  “It looks like it.” Jahno’s face was suffused with a scholar’s wonder at the discovery. “Though I still do not understand how such a thing may be. But I will not know for certain until I have time to decipher it.”

  Alongside the ship, Aiiiaii raised her dripping head and gave an inquiring trill and Kooie whistled in response. We had determined that if we were successful, it would be best not to wait for dawn to depart Tukkan. A lack of evidence notwithstanding, suspicion would fall on our company. If Lord Solinus swallowed his humiliation and summoned the Orderkeepers to search our ship, we might find the scroll and the rhamanthus alike confiscated, and ourselves imprisoned.

  There was still the matter of the barricade across the mouth of the harbor, vessels anchored for the night. Aiiiaii and Eeeio took up their bits and drew us within hailing distance of the flagship. Tarrok cupped his hands and shouted—not a thunderclap of a shout, but one loud enough to rouse anyone within. “Ho, Tukkani navy! We seek passage!”

  It took a few moments for a sleepy official to emerge and squint at us. “You can wait for daybreak like civilized folk!” he called.

  Tarrok folded his arms across his chest and the sea-wyrms raised their heads to imposing heights, sinuous necks swaying, ooalu cocoon–enhanced eyes glowing against the blood-dark sky. “It’s an emergency.” He jerked one thumb at the towering wyrms. “Do you really want to quarrel with them?”

  The official most assuredly did not. With a considerable amount of grumbling and cursing, the sailors aboard the flagship woke and emerged to hoist the anchor and man the oars, moving the vessel just enough to allow us to pass through the barricade. Eeeio and Aiiiaii arrowed gleefully through the gap, heading for open sea.

  Standing in the stern, I watched the lighthouse of Yanakhat recede until it was a single pinprick in the distance. I wondered if that was what the stars in the night sky had looked like. Zariya came to join me, propping herself on her canes in her left hand, linking her right arm with mine. I drew comfort from her presence.

  “Do you suppose that’s what a star looks like?” she mused.

  “I was just wondering the same thing,” I said. “Zariya … we don’t know exactly where we’re going, do we?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Toward the west, toward Miasmus. Toward death and destiny, or perhaps both. We’ll know more once Jahno has the chance to decipher the scroll.” She paused. “Were you able to procure it without killing anyone?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t tell her that it had resulted in discovery and pursuit, as well as the loss of my grappling hook and heshkrat. The decision had been mine and I would take ownership of it.

  “I’m glad.” Zariya rested her head on my shoulder. “The scroll was the most important thing, but killing some poor guard who was only doing his duty would have been rather contrary to the notion of avenging an innocent woman.”

  “I thought so, too,” I said. “I’m only sorry we didn’t have a chance to thumb our noses at this Lord Solinus and the Gilded Council on Badu’s behalf. It would have made his revenge a great deal more satisfying.”

  “Oh, but we did.” She smiled against my shoulder. “You recall the litter-bearer who so wisely, as it transpired, advised us in
the temple? I paid him to deliver a missive to the Gilded Council in the morning once he confirms our ship has sailed. Don’t worry, I didn’t name the acolyte as an accomplice,” she added. “I only said that Galdano the Shrewd himself provided us the knowledge we required in exchange for the offering they refused in trade, and if they have an issue with that bargain, they may take it up with the god himself.”

  I laughed. “You’ve an unexpected knack for twisting the knife.”

  Zariya squeezed my arm, then released it. “Well, I certainly saw enough of it in the women’s quarter to know how it’s done, my darling.” Her voice took on a more somber note. “You know it’s quite possible none of this will make any difference in a matter of months?”

  “I know.”

  We watched the lone point of light on the horizon vanish from sight. I was grateful to have succeeded, grateful that there was no innocent blood on my hands tonight, and grateful beyond telling for Zariya’s warm presence beside me; yet at the same time, a deep sense of foreboding filled me. We were sailing into the unknown, where death or destiny awaited us. Whether we triumphed or failed, either way, the world would be forever changed.

  That night I dreamed of stars.

  FIFTY-THREE

  When I awoke the following morning, Jahno was already hard at work translating the scroll and Zariya assisting him, jotting the notes in his journal as he murmured to her. I could not help but notice again how very well suited they were to each other, how much she enjoyed working with him; now, the thought was like a dagger to my heart. But this was no time to dwell on such matters, so I set the thought aside.

  While breaking my fast, I learned that the company had decided we would set a course for the western isle of Kerreman, the realm reported to be yet holding out against the army of Miasmus. There we would learn what we might.

  I was glad, for it meant there was a chance of reconnecting with Vironesh, assuming my mentor yet lived.

  Depending on what Jahno learned from the scroll, depending on the news we garnered from any ships we encountered on the way—for no longer would we seek to avoid others, but actively engage them—our course might change. But at least for now, it was set.

  Once I had eaten, Tarrok cleared his throat and made an announcement. “My brothers and sisters, if you would hear it, I am ready to share with you what I learned from my countrymen.”

  Not looking up from the scroll, Jahno flipped a hand at him. “Yah, tell us.”

  “The matter deserves your full attention, Seeker,” Tarrok said in quiet reproach. “Surely reality has as much bearing on the challenges we face as does prophecy?” Chastened, Jahno returned the scroll to its case, while Zariya closed the journal and stoppered her inkwell. “The sea-wyrms ought to hear it, too.”

  Kooie whistled to Eeeio and Aiiiaii, who abandoned the tow-lines and came to join us, leaning their great jaws on the railings on either side of the drifting ship, stilling it with their weight.

  Tarrok folded his hands in his lap. “The risen dead come from the sea, dragging themselves ashore. They require neither food nor sleep, and there is no obstacle that can stop them for long. They slaughter all that lies in their path, and fight onward despite receiving wounds that would kill a mortal being. They fall only when their heads have been severed from their bodies. They are human and inhuman alike, and all of them are changed, for they have not succumbed to bloat and decay, but have been hardened and preserved, like corpses in a peat bog. Creatures that should not be able to walk on land have sprouted limbs that allow them to do so.” He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then continued grimly. “And where the army of the risen dead treads, the earth itself dies beneath their feet. Grass withers, trees shed their leaves and become barren. Such creatures that attempt to graze the land, sheep and cattle, perish; such creatures as feed upon their fallen corpses perish. Luhdo the Loud could not stand against them. Trask was a land of sweeping moors and great forests,” he added. “Now it is a dead, barren place haunted by the mournful cries of its god.”

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  “How are we to fight against such an enemy?” Evene asked at length in a tone of disbelieving wonder.

  “The answer lies in the Scattered Prophecy,” Jahno said doggedly. “And we will find it.”

  I prayed it was so.

  We sailed onward.

  Deciphering the prophecy was a slow, painstaking process, and much of the information Jahno and Zariya translated proved redundant. Jahno spent a great deal of time spinning his khartouka and muttering to himself; Zariya aided him with tireless patience. I sparred with Lirios, wishing we faced an enemy I could simply kill. The mayfly’s swordsmanship continued to improve.

  Some five days after our flight from Tukkan, we encountered a vast fleet of all manner of ships escorted by the coursers of Obid, distinctive black-and-white-striped sails bobbing against the horizon. The ships rode low in the water under the weight of human cargo they carried.

  This time, it was not Traskans.

  “Kerreman has fallen,” the flagship’s captain responded wearily to our hail. “Now the armies of Miasmus assail Yaltha. We’re just trying to save whomever we might. This is no time for piracy, wyrm-raiders. If you’ve any sense, you’ll turn back and flee toward the east.”

  Hollow-eyed refugees nodded in agreement.

  “What of Vironesh the purple man?” I called. “Does he yet live to fight against them?”

  The captain nodded and pointed. “In Yaltha, yes, assisting with the evacuation effort there.”

  We readjusted our course.

  On the seventh day, Jahno and Zariya’s efforts bore fruit.

  The Koronian summoned us to a meeting. He was fairly vibrating with the excitement of his discovery, silvery eyes gleaming. “Yah, so, we have an answer!” he said triumphantly, one finger tracing the text. “Only that, too, is a riddle, eh? So let us try to solve it. Fire and wind, life and death. This portion of the Scattered Prophecy says that the defenders of the four quarters will carry a drop of ichor shed by the nameless god to the end of the world; and this Miasmus must swallow, for it is the seed of ending that is to be ignited by the seeds of beginning and bring about a new order.” He frowned at the scroll. “The seed of beginning is surely the rhamanthus, yah? It must be so. But what is the seed of ending? I can think of no nameless god.”

  My skin prickled; I touched the back of my neck.

  “What of the Lone Tree of the Barren Isle?” I whispered. “I’ve never heard it called by a proper name.”

  “Nor have I,” Evene agreed. “And the Barren Isle lies near enough to Drogalia that nigh every man, woman, and child in the realm has dreamed of being lucky enough to harvest a teardrop of everlasting amber from the Lone Tree.” She gave a short laugh of despair. “And once every one hundred years, someone is. By all the fallen stars, Seeker! You might as well ask us to pluck one of the moons from the sky.”

  “Not quite,” Zariya murmured. “My brother the collector actually had such an item in his possession, but it was stolen from him … to think it was so near! Do you suppose it could be what the prophecy means?”

  “It’s possible,” Jahno said reluctantly. “One might consider the sap of the Lone Tree to be the ichor that flows in its veins, and not a teardrop at all, as people have named it. But if that is true, Evene is right, too; at this moment, such a thing is as unobtainable as the moon.”

  I drew a shaking breath, filled with a strange mixture of elation and terror. “That’s not true,” I whispered. “I have one.”

  Everyone stared at me.

  “What?” Zariya’s voice held a tone I had never heard before, a tone like a whip-crack. She stared at me as though I had become a stranger to her.

  “I’m sorry.” My throat felt too tight; I swallowed with an effort. “I’m so very sorry, Zariya. I meant to tell you. I meant to tell you a hundred times. I never wanted to keep a secret from you. But at first, I thought it was too dange
rous; I only wanted to protect you from the knowledge. You see, it is your brother’s teardrop, the one that once belonged to a courtesan-queen of Barakhar.”

  “The one that was stolen,” she asked in a flat voice. “How do you come to possess it?”

  I closed my eyes briefly. “Brother Yarit had a vision. He Saw that I would need it. He wasn’t sure why; he thought to keep my woman’s courses at bay, perhaps. Or perhaps he did See the truth and withheld the knowledge from me lest it upset the balance of fate. One never knows with the Seer. At any rate, he had a member of the Shahalim Clan steal it for me.”

  Lirios rustled his wings. “But this is good news, is it not?” he asked plaintively. “Why are you so angry, my queen?”

  “I broke her trust,” I said to him, knowing he couldn’t begin to understand what a betrayal that was between us, Sun-Blessed and shadow. “I’m sorry,” I said again to Zariya. “I meant to tell you, I truly did. But Brother Yarit … he told me to do my best to forget about it entirely lest I give myself away, and I did just that. For days on end, weeks at a time, I never thought of it.”

  “And yet when you did, you chose not to mention it to me,” she observed. “Long after the knowledge posed any threat.”

  “It was never the right time,” I murmured. “And then the moment would pass, and I put it out of my thoughts.”

  Zariya raised her eyebrows at me. “Where have you been hiding this infamous item all this time, my darling?”

  “Here.” I touched the back of my neck. “It was sewn into my flesh when I was thirteen years of age.”

  At that, she gave a faint shudder. “I see.” She was silent for a moment. “Well, in light of this discovery, I think we may consider this particular riddle solved, Seeker,” she said to Jahno. “And it is good news, wondrous news. I am very well aware that the fate of the world might hang upon it.” To me, she said, “I am not angry, Khai, but I am hurt. From the moment we laid eyes upon each other, my soul’s twin, you have been the one person I trusted with every part of my being; and growing up in the House of the Ageless, that was no small thing. So you will forgive me that I cannot yet rejoice to learn that you kept such a grave secret from me.”