Chapter Fifty-one

2nd day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Thyrenkun, Felarati

Deseirion

Sweet grey smoke drifted up over the soothsayer’s face. The dim light allowed the incense’s cherry glow to impart some color to his wrinkled features, but mostly it made his face a spiderweb of black. His eyes—half-closed, milky white, and all but sightless—glistened wetly in the smoke. Leathery skin hung somewhat loosely, as if he had once been corpulent but had wizened through years untold.

Pyrust sat there patiently, cloaked in the darkness of a hood. The soothsayer had only been told that he was one of the Prince’s advisors. Pyrust had even donned a glove with two filled fingers to disguise his maiming. The incense’s scent calmed him even as the smoke made his eyes tear. He kept his breathing shallow when the smoke drifted over him, then sucked in fresher air when the opportunity arose.

The soothsayer’s voice sank deep, resonating with a strong timbre. “Beware, Hawk-Prince, the howls of the bitch in heat. She would rob you of all flight. Lairing in a den of earth, she would keep you from the nest and from soaring, as a Hawk must do. The Hawk thinks he understands her yapping, but his ears are made for better things.”

The skeletal man reached beneath the small table between them and produced a brass bowl and an egg. The seer moved the egg through the smoke, letting the grey vapor wreath it. He held it up with his fingertips, then opened his hand and let it rest in his palm. With his other hand, he grasped the edge of the bowl. He cracked the egg with one hand and emptied its contents.

“There! See? See?” The old man cast aside the eggshell and held the bowl up with both hands so Pyrust could peer into it. The hanging candles above and behind him did cast enough light to show him a yellow yolk shot with blood. Pyrust recoiled and the old man lowered the bowl.

His voice returned to a whisper. “That egg was laid by a chicken in Thyrenkun. The chicken drank the urine of Princess Jasai. Her evil humors are thus revealed. It is a sign the Prince cannot be allowed to ignore. To heed her brings disaster.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

“I would disagree.”

“You saw the egg. It is a sign from the gods.”

“Hardly. The gods would never resort to base trickery.” Pyrust shook his head. “You are old, slow. I saw the blood bladder in your left hand.”

The old man blinked. “I need use no trickery to see the future.”

“No? You do, however, when you are messenger to ministers.” Pyrust lowered his hood. “You know who I am.”

The man bowed his head. “Highness.”

“I shall give you one more chance to read the future.”

“Yes, sire?”

Remorselessly, Pyrust drew a very sharp, thick-bladed dagger. He thrust it into the man’s belly, then ripped to the left before pulling it free. “Read your entrails.”

The soothsayer sat there, his intestines a steaming tangle of white in his lap. “I see Death.”

Pyrust laughed. “I almost regret killing you.”

The man’s head jerked up, as if caught in a spasm. His face contorted, then he began speaking in a growled voice, his words bitten off sharply. It was not the voice he had used before. It sounded like nothing that should have come from a human throat.

“The gates of my realm gape wide for your commerce, Prince Pyrust. You will offer me more and varied fare than any before you. Shrink not from this duty, and your desires will know fruition.”

The soothsayer flopped back, gurgled, then lay still.

Pyrust sat there, the bloody dagger dripping onto the small table. My realm? The month of the Wolf: Grija, the god of Death. Did the god of the Dead speak through this dying seer? My ministers made him a tool. Why should a god not do the same?

The Prince shook his head. The world knew he set store by prophetic dreams precisely because he wished the world to believe it. As men came to accept that as true, they presented things to him in the form of dreams. It made spotting their attempts at manipulation that much easier. He often abided by what they told him, and he often manufactured a dream to explain some other decision or victory. Already people knew he’d dreamed of Princess Jasai before the battle at Meleswin.

“Are the gods as deceived about me as men, or did Grija speak to me?”

The dead man did not answer, but the Mother of Shadows appeared at his right hand and bowed. “The gods seldom speak. When they do, their requests are difficult to ignore. They are even more difficult to abide.”

Two other forms in black emerged from behind her and dragged the soothsayer’s body away. In no time, any evidence of the murder would be erased, and those who suspected anything would remain silent or pass through Grija’s gates themselves.

“Did you hear?”

“No, my lord, nor do I wish to know.”

Pyrust smiled and stood. “Do you fear the gods?”

“Only one.” The cloaked form led the way from the building and into the night. “If commanded, I will enter the realm of the gods and slay Grija for you.”

“He was not that insolent.” Pyrust fell into step beside her. “You know which ministers filled that man’s mind with their own prophecy?”

“Yes, Highness. Their death will come more swiftly than the whisper with which you order it.”

“Hold off. I will let it be known that I had a horrid dream and went to a soothsayer, but he had vanished—just as in my dream. The ministers will wonder if there is a dissident faction in their midst that wished to deny me that message. They can kill each other and save me the trouble.”

“As you wish, Highness.”

Pyrust nodded. “I will ponder what else I heard. You may not wish to know it, Delasonsa, but part of the message was for you. As the god commands, you shall not lack for work.”

 

Chapter Fifty-two

2nd day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Nemehyan, Caxyan

Before they traveled to the capital of Caxyan, Captain Gryst negotiated the release of the Moondragon crew. The negotiations proved surprisingly simple. Not only did the crew return to the ship and get started on repairs, but the artisan class of Tocayan accompanied them—to learn as much as they could and to help supplement supplies from local products.

Little substitution was required since the fleet carried ample supplies, but Anaeda accepted foodstuffs willingly. The artisans spent most of their time observing, and the Naleni learned that the Amentzutl had no maritime tradition to speak of. While they fished in rivers and from shore, they really looked upon the land as their source of bounty.

It was, therefore, not without a certain amount of trepidation that Tzihua and his entourage stepped aboard the Stormwolf for the trip north. Nemehyan had been constructed high on a bluff overlooking a natural harbor, and the reasons why the Amentzutl did not sail seemed clouded in the past—a past everyone seemed reluctant to discuss. But after reviewing maps and measuring distance, it was decided that what would have taken a week and a half on foot could be sailed in a third the time.

Jorim welcomed the warrior and his men onto the ship and conducted them belowdecks to their accommodations. He’d learned enough about their caste system to know that warriors occupied an elevated position. In preparation for the trip north, ships’ carpenters had repositioned bulkheads such that the ten men Tzihua had brought with him would share living space with the Stormwolf’s own warriors. Tzihua himself would share Jorim’s cabin, which seemed acceptable to all.

The giant had been forced to duck his head to enter the cabin, and stoop his shoulders to move about it, but this he took with good nature. It clearly intrigued him that, over the course of the trip, Shimik studied his mask, and the fur on the Fenn’s face took on green-and-gold tones. More interestingly, furred tufts grew from his forehead in imitation of the feathers.

Jorim and Tzihua spent most of the time at sea closeted together in the cabin. The initial reason was because each wished to expand his knowledge of the other’s language. Tzihua turned out to be a good linguist—perhaps not with Jorim’s skills, but intelligent nonetheless—and very eager to learn. The various castes had their own dialects and Tzihua needed to practice the maicana dialect, as he had just been elevated to that caste.

This news surprised Jorim. “Perhaps I do not understand correctly how your society works. With us, moving between castes is all but impossible. A peasant could no more become a bureaucrat than an artisan or warrior.” He hesitated. “Well, it is true that a peasant could become a warrior, but only after much training. And this is rare, so passage is rare.”

Tzihua nodded. “The maicana are what I believe you call the jaecai. When one of us learns enough and is blessed with skill that allows us to draw upon magic, we become maicana with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities.”

“And the maicana rule the Amentzutl?”

“As it should be. They shield us from the wrath of the gods.”

“Our gods are not that vengeful.”

The big man let a smile light up his broad face. “You have nine gods, we have six. Ours have more to do, so become angrier.”

“Ours do not often concern themselves with the affairs of men.”

“As long as we sacrifice, they do not either. If we have pleased them, they bless us during the time of centenco.”

“I don’t know that word.”

Tzihua tightened his dark eyes. “It is not for me to explain it, my friend. All you must know is that centenco is again upon us and the fate of the world will be decided once more.”

 

The second reason Tzihua and Jorim had remained sequestered was because a storm roughened the seas on the second day of the journey. The Amentzutlian warrior’s face drained of color, and Jorim was pretty certain he managed to vomit up half his weight. Shimik did his part by hauling off buckets and dumping them through the ship’s heads, but quickly enough began to cringe when Tzihua began to retch.

Luckily the storm passed quickly and no word of his illness leaked out to his men. Though he said nothing, Jorim understood the loss of dignity that would ensue. He had a word with the ship’s bhotcai, and the delivery of a particular tincture had the Amentzutlian warriors all vomiting the night before the ship arrived at Nemehyan. Tzihua was able to visit and tend them, which made him all the more godlike in their eyes.

If he ever suspected the deception, he said nothing to Jorim.

Though Jorim had seen Tocayan and most of the capitals of the Nine Principalities, nothing had adequately prepared him for Nemehyan. He’d carried in his head the image of a lone pyramid rising on top of a bluff, but no one had mentioned that the bluff had once had a mountain rising above it. That mountain had been leveled as if a sword had decapitated it, providing a plain roughly five miles square. Pyramids, as well as many of the roundhouses, rose from that plain. A causeway snaked up the inland portion of the mountain, crossing back and forth in an easily defensible pattern. The plains around the base of the mountain and to the north also had roundhouses and were cultivated. The nearest jungle had been slashed back north for several miles, and off to the east lay a vast marsh where workers harvested salt.

If Tocayan was home to a thousand . . . Jorim did a few mental calculations and wished he had Iesol to double-check them. This one city might have had as many as a hundred thousand people, which meant the fields would be insufficient to support it. That means trade in food from faraway places like Tocayan.

As the fleet came in, people gathered to greet it. They waved brightly colored cloth banners and sang songs. Jorim couldn’t catch enough of the words to make sense of them entirely—the singers were not from the warrior or maicana castes, so his grasp of vocabulary hindered him. “As near as I can tell, Captain, it is a song welcoming the serpent, which makes sense.”

Anaeda looked up at the purple sail emblazoned with the Naleni dragon. “I am glad they find this a good omen. I’m certain your robe will be seen as the same.”

Jorim nodded. “Tzihua insisted I wear it. Otherwise, I’d be wearing my Stormwolf uniform.”

“It matters not, Master Anturasi. We’ll still claim you. The Stormwolf will lay at anchorage here. Some of our ships with more shallow drafts will conduct a survey, and we will see how close we can get. This harbor would be perfect were a quay waiting. We will have to make do with ship’s boats. You are away first, with Tzihua.”

“I will make certain they know you just seek safe anchorage, not that you fear treachery.”

“In any other place it would not be the truth, but these are singularly peaceful people. I’m almost surprised they have a warrior caste, and one that is sufficiently trained to produce a jaecaiserr.”

“It does bear investigating. And, as per our agreement, I have communicated none of this back to my grandfather.”

Anaeda raised an eyebrow. “Does he suspect something?”

“He always suspects me of something, so I have things he can pluck from my mind after a little effort. He seems content with that now, and distracted.” Jorim shrugged. “I imagine Keles is doing well on his survey, and that’s occupying most of Grandfather’s time.”

“A blessing in disguise, then.” She smiled. “If your brother were with us, I doubt we would have gotten along as well or as far with the Amentzutl. Go now; make certain we get along even better with them.”

Jorim bowed to her, then turned to run to where the Tocayan contingent was descending into a boat. Shimik caught up with him in a bound. Not only did the Fennych have the furred tufts on his forehead, but he had grown out side locks the same as Jorim. The cartographer had braided beads into Shimik’s fur and, with Tzihua’s permission, had agreed to take Shimik along in the boat.

Lieutenant Linor ordered the boat away from Stormwolf and the sailors pulled hard. The bay remained placid and Tzihua weathered the crossing well. As they passed through the rest of the fleet, the crew and passengers raised cheers, and the Amentzutl acknowledged them with waves.

But the homage paid to the visitors by the fleet paled when compared with the greeting given them by the people of Nemehyan. The boat slid up on the beach and Jorim, riding in the bow as was his custom, leaped out and dragged it further up. Tzihua matched him, and quickly enough they had the boat high and dry. The other warriors poured out, split into two groups of five, and flanked the two men and the Fenn who, childlike, marched a few steps ahead and studied everything with wide-eyed wonder.

The people at the beach parted and, as the company passed, sank to their knees. They bowed deeply enough that many would rise with gravel still stuck to their foreheads. No one would look Jorim or Tzihua in the eye, but instead hid their faces. At the same time they all chanted “Tetcomchoa,” over and over again, in reverent and hushed tones.

As they came around to the base of the causeway, Jorim’s jaw dropped open. There were people lining every inch of the two-mile causeway. Their attire and the shifting colors as the road wound higher matched the castes. Regardless of their standing, everyone knelt and bowed, breathing “tetcomchoa.” Not only did Jorim have no idea what the word meant, but the level of greeting surprised him. Nothing of that sort had happened in Tocayan. But the people of Tocayan knew Tzihua. Here he is arriving a new member of the maicana. “Tetcomchoa” must be an honorific of some sort, though why Tzihua would not have taught it to me, I don’t know.

They ascended to the city in a slow, stately pace. Once they arrived at the plateau, the line of people extended straight down a broad boulevard and up a staircase running up the front of a stepped pyramid easily a hundred and fifty feet high. They continued their march forward, accepting the homage of those lining the route. At the base of the stairs the honor guard stopped, but Tzihua continued to ascend. The people on the pyramid did not prostrate themselves, but they did bow deeply and add their voices to the chants from below.

Up and up Jorim climbed with Tzihua, and began to wish he had remained with the honor guard. This is for him, and I sully it. As they neared the top he reached out and took one of Shimik’s hands. He drew the Fenn back to his side and smiled up at Tzihua as they reached the head of the stairs. From there, a red woven mat extended into a dark opening of the square building erected at the pyramid’s summit.

“You go on, my friend, this is your honor. Thank you for letting us come this far.”

Tzihua sank to his knees and gently tugged the Fenn into his arms. “The honor is mine, to have come this far. What waits within is for you.” Tzihua bowed and his feathers brushed the stones.

Jorim’s stomach began to roil. Much as yours must have when the sea tossed. Jorim almost looked back, but he could not bear to have confirmed what he knew lay there: tens of thousands of people with their faces in the dust. He had no idea why they had paid him that homage, and he was certain it was a mistake. Straightening it out wouldn’t be easy, but he figured the place to start would be through that doorway.

That decision didn’t make entering the pyramid any easier. He paused in the doorway’s shadow to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and relished the coolness of its interior. Large, blocky stone constructions became visible first, quickly followed by the more complex forms. The small chamber’s rear wall was dominated by a huge disk, a foot thick at the very least, with thousands of symbols inscribed in it. He recognized them all as Amentzutl script, though he had no clue how to begin to make sense of them.

But any desire to do so faded as a woman detached herself from the shadows of a stone throne and approached. Tall and very slender, with long raven hair that fell to the tops of her breasts and half hid the gold pectoral she wore, she looked at him with large eyes harboring more sadness than reverence or curiosity. The loincloth she wore was entirely black, though woven with a raised pattern and decorated with gold buttons.

After several steps forward, she stopped and looked him up and down. Her gaze lingered on his green robe, where dragons were embroidered in gold over the breasts. Her dark eyes tightened for a moment, then an expression of resolution came over her face.

“It is as you foretold. It is centenco. You have returned.” She bowed her head. “Tell me, Lord Tetcomchoa, how do we save the world this time?”

 

Chapter Fifty-three

2nd day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Opaslynoti, Dolosan

As he pulled on the protective clothing he’d been given, Keles Anturasi wondered if there was something truly wrong with him. Storm season had broken hard in Ixyll. The wild magic had begun to build to the west, raising huge walls of grey dust shot through with purple and black lightning. Even with the storms fifty miles off, the thunder cracks sent a shiver through his chest. Pressure built, and bits of rock and thaumston began to glow.

Opaslynoti became a hive of activity rivaling the Anturasi workshop when Qiro was in a rage. Half the people took to securing their homes and property against the oncoming storm. Canvas tarpaulins covered every door and window, fastened as tightly as possible. Each of them had the same mottled mushroom-grey-and-brown pattern that marked the clothing Keles had on—though only his outer layers were made of that same stiff fabric. Anything loose was taken inside or lashed down. While the young worked feverishly, older citizens with eyes that glowed to mirror the coming storm would chuckle and note that this “blow” would be the worst they’d ever seen.

The rest of the population—both workers from below and prospectors, traders, and free-miners—rushed around setting up traps. These consisted of almost anything, from funnels and old lobster pots restrung with wire, to tall poles hung with metal cable across the presumed path of the storm. Each device was guaranteed to harvest as much of the magic as possible and charge up a supply of thaumston. Eventually the storm would sweep past them and refill the Well, but those who didn’t want to pay for having their thaumston dipped took this chance at getting their samples in place.

The only difficulty with traps was that they needed to be tended. If one left samples out too early and didn’t watch them, someone else might appropriate them. Getting out after the storm had passed and claiming one’s samples quickly was a good idea as well. But both were fraught with danger, as the storms could come on too quickly or double back and catch the unwary in the open. While the protective clothing did help—or so he had been assured—it would be as effective as a wet nightshirt in a blizzard if caught in a storm.

Up until the storms had started, fierce headaches had prostrated Keles. His body had been wracked with pain, and while plenty of folks offered opinions as to why that was—the most imaginative being that a southern wind from Irusviruk had blown the stink of the Viruk over him—nothing anyone tried had managed to alleviate his condition. Almost with the first ripple of distant thunder, however, the shooting pains in his head ceased, and he felt better than he had since Rekarafi had carved his back up.

But the advent of storms seemed to have nearly the opposite effect on everyone else. For the citizens of Opaslynoti, he assumed it was because they were suddenly so busy. Those who erected traps were also preparing to venture into Ixyll as soon as the storm passed, so the anticipation of the race also heightened tension.

Some people who had been warped by the wild magic reported pains—and more sinister complaints. One man whose body was covered in tiger fur sprouted claws and had to be caged. A pregnant woman gave birth to a crystal egg—although her child seemed to be doing fine inside it. An old dray horse shed its skin like a snake, which made for quite a mess, but old-timers put all the unusual stuff down to the natural cycles of the storms. The last time storms had raged this strongly, Qiro Anturasi had been born—and thaumstoneers reported that the cycle had been building for a while.

Moraven and Ciras seemed the most affected among Keles’ group. Both of them grew a bit more distracted and cross, as if the storms were affecting their ability to concentrate. Borosan likewise became snappish, because the fluctuations in background energy made all of his little devices function oddly. He was disassembling them all rather quickly—at least the ones that could move on their own—and feeling frustrated because the new ideas he came up with could not be tested until well after the storms had passed.

Tyressa and Rekarafi were weathering things the best, but that still did not make them good company. The Viruk kept mostly to himself, refusing repeated efforts by the arena owners to fight another gyanrigot. They offered fortunes in gold and thaumston, and he rejected them all. While none of the men trying to employ him could understand, Keles had an inkling of how Rekarafi felt. After all, they were the offspring of slaves who wished to visit upon him the final indignity: fighting against toys for the amusement of people he would have whipped for such insolence millennia ago.

Tyressa, however, baffled him. While the others had gone to the arena to watch Borosan’s thanaton fight, she had stayed with Keles and cared for him. She had applied cool cloths to his fevered brow and sung soothing songs. It made her hardly seem Keru at all. He’d found himself feeling utterly lost when she went away for even as long as it took to refill the water basin, and her voice admonishing him to sleep was the only thing that eased his pain.

Once he’d recovered, though, she’d vanished. He expected she was sleeping, but when he looked around to thank her for his care—and to offer anything he could to repay her—he could not find her. Only that morning he’d learned that she’d wandered Opaslynoti and—though she would say nothing of it to him—had located the bandits.

When the others came to visit him, they tried to be cheerful, but all seemed somewhat anxious that he be able to continue with their mission. Though Moraven Tolo had not been as adamant about his mission in the Wastes as Ciras had, Keles had noticed the swordmaster had not forgotten it. Throughout the journey, Moraven had paid attention to sites that were rumored to be old battlegrounds and possible burial sites. Deathbreathers were an anathema to everyone. Any cache of weapons that had been used in battles long ago would be a threat to the Nine.

In Ixyll they would find what Moraven sought, and quite likely have to battle Desei agents to secure the weapons. Keles still intended to do survey work in Ixyll, but realized that Moraven’s quest had become more important. I will do what I can to help him.

Still, the advent of the storms revitalized Keles and emptied his head of the throbbing pains that had plagued him throughout the journey. He couldn’t hazard a guess as to why that was, though he did suppose that the wild magic might have somehow reignited the Viruk magic and completed his healing. He moved more easily, and was able to think more clearly.

He wasn’t certain why being in proximity to the wild magic should make him feel better. It clearly had the opposite effect on Moraven—though Keles figured that was because he was a Mystic. The whole concept of someone reaching that level of skill was easy to understand when it came to something as obvious as sword fighting or archery, but what would it mean in other pursuits? What would someone who was that gifted at math be able to do? Could they do things more quickly, or perhaps do more complex things? Singers, writers, artists—even cooks and farmers and courtesans—were easy to figure out. What of mapmakers, however? Could they become that good, and what would it mean?

He and his brother had spent some time wondering what that would be like, but they had always focused on other aspects of their art. Keles had always wanted to be very exact, which was why the Gold River survey had been perfect for him. Jorim liked discovering things. For him, what the land contained defined it better than any measurements.

Perhaps it was not possible for a mapmaker to know jaedunto, but that prospect did not daunt him. In some ways it was a relief, since the obvious candidate for jaedunto would be Qiro. While he did not wish his grandfather dead, the idea that magic might extend the man’s life so Keles’ sons and grandsons and great-grandsons might also labor under him was a bit terrifying.

Of course, I need to survive this survey and return to Moriande before it will be possible for me to worry about my children and theirs.

The protective clothing he’d been given for venturing into Ixyll was interesting, and explained some of the changes he’d seen in prospectors and free miners. It came in two layers, inner and outer. The inner layer often was of silk or cotton, while the outer was heavy canvas and sometimes quilted. All of the fabric had been boiled in thaumston mud until the grey dust impregnated the fabric. This made it stiff and chafing, so often folks wore a third layer of untreated material against the skin, and Keles gladly followed their lead.

The inner layer consisted of stockings, trousers, and a shirt with long sleeves that had flaps covering the backs of the hands. Some people took to wearing silken gloves over that. A silken coif went over the head, covering everything from collarbones up, save for a narrow strip around the eyes. Breathing through that fabric brought an earthy smell with a sour tinge, as if urine were used in the dyeing. Most people wore normal leather boots to complete the inner layer.

The outer layer started with stiff canvas boots laced tightly over whatever footgear had been donned. Heavy canvas trousers, which came up to the low ribs and were held up by suspenders, tucked into the overboots. Another canvas coif covered the silken one, again leaving the eyes clear. A heavy robe went over that and belted in tightly, then mittens were pulled on and tied down at midforearm. Keles’ mittens had a bilateral split in them, allowing two fingers to a sleeve, so he could nock and draw an arrow. Moraven and Tyressa just wore full mittens since it would not hamper their sword work.

The eyes, of course, were difficult to protect, and that explained why so many folks first reflected changes in that region. To safeguard the eyes, everyone wore a gauzy material slightly more dense than insect netting. It allowed a fair amount of vision, but reportedly became very hot in the summers. Many went without it, and the residual magic worked on them over the years.

In some ways, wearing the outfits was deemed unnecessary by many who saw the survey party getting ready—and Rekarafi seemed to set great store by these opinions. He chose to wear nothing more than the inner layer, and probably would not have worn that save for a certain amount of protection against the winter’s cold. The experts in Ixyll noted that for a quick survey they’d not need the protection, and that if they were caught in a magic storm, all the protection in the world would not help them. Those who agreed with that latter point were often lumpen creatures, which made Keles gear himself up all the more completely.

While others sought the safety of deep caves, levels, and rooms as the first storm came in, Keles ventured to the surface and watched it arrive. He did not do so alone, for plenty of free miners waited until the last minute to make sure their traps were left untouched. Rekarafi joined him as well, which he had not expected; but he took some comfort in the Viruk’s presence.

The storm chose to break out of Ixyll and flow down into the canyon just before sunset. The sun’s illumination backlit the towering clouds of dust it stirred up, adding purple-and-red tones to a tableau shot through with black lightning. Keles wanted to liken it to a normal thunderstorm, but the lighting shot horizontally as well as vertically. And while it sometimes resembled the standard jagged fork pattern, it also sometimes swirled through and around dust columns, wreathing them with fire. The discharges of energy built, thunder cracks echoing sharply as the storm approached the curtain, then the curtain evaporated and the storm poured into the valley.

“I suggest we leave now, Keles.”

Keles nodded, and Rekarafi led him back to the stable dome where the others waited. Tyressa’s wanderings had turned up several groups she assumed might be the bandits. With Ciras’ aid, she narrowed it down to one, then set about learning all she could. They had stabled their livestock at another dome, but were preparing to head into Ixyll the moment the storm passed Opaslynoti.

As nearly as could be determined, they had no map to provide them direction, which gave Keles heart. He himself was setting out lacking anything more definite than his knowledge of old tales and a variety of rumors in which he set little store. Jorim would have been able to ferret out the truth from the locals, or at least could have mined their stories for a useful fact or two. Keles settled for having a variety of stories from which he could draw correspondences.

Even in the dome, their protective clothes took on an unearthly blue glow—quite faint and the color of flameheart. Their horses, with canvas boots and caparison, shied uneasily as wind howled and dust rasped against the dome’s shell. Borosan held some device in his hand, the purpose of which Keles could not discern, but the gyanridin watched it intently, then looked up.

“It’s building beyond any scale I have ever heard of.”

Keles glanced at him. “Old-timers said the cycle was reaching a peak this year.”

“Yes, but it scales up arithmetically. This is building geometrically. It’s bad. It’s really bad.”

Suddenly the wind’s shrieking tightened to a painful squeak, then became inaudible. Its high-pitched vibration shook Keles’ teeth, but he felt no pain. He glanced up at the dome, expecting to see it vibrating, but instead it had become transparent. A sheet of dust washed over it, obscuring the heart of the storm for a moment, then cleared again.

Keles studied the storm, barely aware of Ciras clawing at his coifs as he doubled over and vomited. Above him, the heavens opened and revealed a silvery ball shot with black highlights, spitting out lightning and deep crimson tongues of flame. The surface roiled, becoming a network of eggshell fractures. A piece of the mirrored ball would break away, then sink beneath a viscous, bloody fluid that would then turn black. Lightning would leap away, and suddenly the surface appeared smooth again.

Then the boiling of the ball’s surface stopped and a round hole opened in it. Keles had the impression of an eye dilating in surprise. It watched him closely, then the pupil focused. Bloodred fluid filled the hole, then burned brightly before a jet of flame shot out and splashed over the dome.

The flame hit hard enough to shake the ground and topple Keles. Thunder blasted through the valley, and pieces of the dome’s interior began to fall. Keles looked up, found the dome opaque again, and quickly mapped the spiderweb of cracks in his mind. Just the inner surface spalling off. There was no threat of the dome’s collapse—and no hope of survival if it did.

The dying echoes of that blast took with them the wind’s howling. The dome’s doors no longer rattled, the shuttered windows ceased clattering, and dust slowly floated to the ground. Tyressa calmed horses, Moraven knelt at his retching aide’s side, and Borosan again studied his device. He smacked it once with his hand, then shook his head.

“The storm is over. It can’t be, but it’s over.”

Keles strode purposefully to the nearest door and threw it open.

The storm had ended, no question of it, but the dome itself glowed brightly enough to put the dying sun to shame. Thaumston dust covered everything, drifting into corners and against the door like snow. Even more impressive, the Well had been filled—and a rainbow riot of color splashed at the edges of the lowest level, threatening to flood the residents out.

Over on the other side of Opaslynoti, two dozen horsemen led a string of packhorses out and began the trek north. Among them would be the bandits looking for more weapons, corpses, and thaumston. What they had already stolen they’d likely cached, so if Moraven and Ciras could not find them and stop them in Ixyll, they had one more chance to deal with them—provided they could track them back to their hiding place.

But we’ll stop them.

Then Keles’ head came up. Did I think that? That was the sort of thing Jorim would think. Keles’ job was to find a route through Ixyll and, if possible, find burial sites others had been despoiling. Adventuring was not for him.

But why not? Ryn was his father as well as Jorim’s; the same blood ran in their veins. Perhaps I’ve allowed myself too narrow a focus. Maybe what I need and what the world needs is what Jorim does, and what our father did before him.

With that insight burning anew in his mind, he turned back and smiled at the others. “Our competition is already heading into Ixyll. If there is something out there, we’ll find it first, I guarantee you.”

Moraven nodded. “We may need more haste than your survey requires.”

“No matter, Master Tolo.” Keles waved a gloved hand to the northwest. “As you have labored to get me this far, it will be a pleasure for me to get you to your goal. I do believe it takes precedence—and, though my grandfather would not like it, I am completely at your service.”

 

Chapter Fifty-four

3rd day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Anturasikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

It had to stop. Nirati knew things could not continue to go as they had been with Junel. She looked down at her wrists, the purple bruising bleeding out into yellow. The marks had remained even though he’d been gone for half a week. She’d covered them, but she was certain the servants had noticed.

They noticed. They told my mother.

The result had been easy to see. Her mother had offered to lis-ten to anything she had to say. The invitation had come openly and even casually. She and her mother had often spoken frankly of many things, even things sexual. Her mother was the one who prepared the draught that kept her from getting pregnant. Even so, Nirati could not discuss what she was doing with her mother.

I hardly needed to, however.

Siatsi never had been a stupid woman, and her skill as a bhotadina was not inconsiderable. She easily deduced that Junel had been providing Nirati with draughts to beguile her. Siatsi added things to her own potions to counteract the Desei’s work.

That is part of it, but I also think that whatever he gives me has worn off. My body is so used to it, greater and greater amounts are needed to keep me under its influence.

Nirati knew that Junel’s potions had been losing their power over her. But she had liked that. It was not whatever drug he gave her that created her desire to be with him; the drug had only given her the fiction that she could not control herself. She was thereby freed to submit to his desires.

And his desires became my desires.

Junel held a hypnotic charm that built as his darker side was revealed. He could be forbidding and even remote, disciplining her where others would just indulge her. He showed her the limits of her endurance. He took her to the edge and held her there, teetering on the brink of oblivion, then dragged her back. The next time he would take her further, carrying her to new heights that threatened even greater crashes were she to fall, and she began to hunger for the thrill of those journeys.

She fingered the bruise on her left wrist, increasing the pressure until she could feel true pain. It hurt, but not as much as she would have thought. Certainly that pain was nothing on the scale she now knew herself capable of enduring. Junel had praised her tolerance for pain, noting that her real skill in life had been undiscovered until she began to explore. He even suggested she might be jaecaixar—capable of entering the realm of magic through pain.

Myriad thoughts had raced through her mind when he’d said that. First, she felt a burst of joy rip through her. The healing had worked. She had found her talent, and she wanted to push further and discover more. If she was good at something, she wanted to discover how good at it she was.

Flowing quickly behind that joy, however, doubts assailed her. What if he was wrong? What if she had clutched at the first thing that appeared to be a talent and prematurely ended her search? She’d spent her whole life rejecting possible talents, and if pain was not her talent, she would once again be good for nothing.

She might please Junel, much as she proved a comfort to her grandfather. That did give her some purpose, but what good would it be if it meant she never truly found her talent?

The question begged an answer. Junel had a need to control her, to make her do what he wished, to be able to do with her as he wished. And it pleased her to let him do so. She gave him pleasure by surrendering herself to his control. He showed her things about herself she didn’t know—and had not even guessed at. She certainly never would have discovered them without his guiding hand.

But is Junel guiding me to my destiny, or leading me astray?

She thought her life was simple. Junel showed her that was an illusion. She was as mortal as everyone else, but she had an inner strength. She could endure more than others, and might well reach magic through it. She might well have found her means to realize her full potential. She could be jaecaixar!

Yet her pride in that accomplishment also seemed absurd. Of what use was someone who was Mystic of pain? Would the Lady of Jet and Jade have a use for her in dealing with difficult patrons? What other possible use could her skill have? It would create nothing. Perhaps if there were a way she could take away another’s pain it would be useful, but that would treat symptoms, not diseases. Her mother’s skill with tinctures could blunt pain and even begin to affect a cure. But even at the height of her powers—if she ever attained such heights—she could do none of that.

Another darker thought raced in. Just as these last bruises had lingered longer, and Junel had given her less of his drugs to increase her ability to feel pain, so had his need to inflict pain cycled higher. He would still be tender in the aftermath and attend to her needs, salving her wounds and caring for her. His tenderness even came in inverse proportion to his savagery. At some point, he would do something he could not soothe. He might lose control—the control she ceded to him—and do her irreparable harm.

That’s why it has to stop. For the one thing the drugs could not shield her from was fear. She had been able to handle him being stern and even cruel, but when his face became a bestial mask, his eyes narrowing and face flushing, he no longer seemed human. She wondered if he might not be jaecaixar in his own right, having mastered the art of inflicting pain. The very idea sent a shiver down her spine.

Plus, the insanity of what she had been enduring had brought another insanity with it. Often in the aftermath, and more commonly now during her sessions with Junel, part of her escaped to Kunjiqui. Her own whimpers grew faint as she rested in her paradise. Cool waters soothed her flesh, and when the gentle wind no longer brought the sound of her own pleas for surcease, her physical body would slumber and she would remain there in her dreams.

Sometimes Qiro joined her, but neither of them needed to speak. Kunjiqui had somehow become their sanctuary from the world. Both of them felt betrayed: she by Junel and the unfairness of life, he by his son, grandsons, his Prince and—on any given day—a host of others. Somehow, through his visits with her—where they both dangled their feet in cool streams and let rainbow-colored fish nip harmlessly at their toes—his incipient paranoia all but vanished.

Without suspicions and hatred driving him, he was just a tired old man. It wasn’t his fault that the world had thrust upon him the responsibility it had. The two surveys currently ongoing were expanding and redefining the world, allowing him to fill in huge blanks in the map and his knowledge of it, but there was still so much unknown.

She came to understand that it was not out of fear or hatred for Jorim and Keles that Qiro acted so coldly toward them, but a fear that all the pressures he endured would crush them inalterably. To protect them, he had to toughen them. This love formed the core of his being, but he only shed the layers in Kunjiqui. Only she knew the truth.

I have to tell them. I have to live to tell them. Nirati resolved to confront Junel when he returned from talks with inland nobles. She could no longer endure his depredations. It didn’t matter if she would never learn if pain was her talent.

“I may have a talent, but I do have my responsibility. Responsibility to my family.” She raised her wrists and kissed the bruises. “They do everything for me, and I shall do no less for them.”

 

Chapter Fifty-five

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Nemehyan, Caxyan

They think I’m a god. Jorim shook his head slowly, which Shimik mimicked with all the bewilderment Jorim felt. “They think I’m a god.”

It didn’t sound any better out loud, and hadn’t sounded better no matter how many times he said it. The Amentzutl had a god named Tetcomchoa. His symbol was a feathered serpent, and he had lived with them over fourteen hundred years previously. He’d led them through what they called the Ansatl War. As near as Jorim could determine, it was a war against some reptilian creatures. At the end of the time they referred to as centenco, after the war had been won, he had gotten into a ship and sailed west.

Jorim wished Keles were there, because he could have made sense of everything, could have found a way to explain to the maicana representative, Nauana, how mistaken she was. Jorim, housed in the chamber atop the pyramid to Tetcomchoa, walked over to the giant wheel and traced his fingers along one of the circles of figures raised on the surface. Shimik climbed up on the big stone throne and crouched on the back of the seat.

Nauana had taken great pains to explain everything to Jorim—though whether or not she was convinced he needed to be reeducated in this incarnation or he was just testing her own knowledge, he couldn’t tell. The Amentzutl used a cyclical calendar based on lunar time and the interplay of the red and white moons. While the black moon, Gol’dun, was not figured into their timing, Nauana assured him that all time began from the birth of the black moon, which told him just how far apart the Amentzutl and Imperial reckonings of the world were. Things continued on for a period of seven hundred thirty-seven years with simple progressions that made very good sense. At the end of a cycle, however, as the days spiraled down into the center of the wheel, they entered centenco.

Centenco was the beginning and ending of everything. It betokened great crises and cataclysms and horrors. The previous centenco had brought years without summer, and hideous winters. A savage tidal wave had wiped out the Amentzutl fleet—ending a proud maritime tradition that had been the reason they’d been able to defeat the Ansatl in the centenco before. The centenco before that had seen a horrible plague that killed hundreds of thousands. And still before that was the birth of the black moon, whence all time for them began.

Jorim would have liked to dismiss all of this as nonsense, but when he roughly translated the dates into the Imperial system, glacial melt ran through his bowels. Their years of no summer matched up with the Cataclysm. The Ansatl war corresponded pretty closely to the rise of the Taichun Dynasty, which remained in place until Empress Cyrsa created the Nine and went off to fight the Turasyndi. The centenco prior matched the arrival of True Men to beat back the Viruk and establish the first Empire, and the Amentzutlian dating of the birth of the black moon corresponded to when Virukadeen destroyed itself and the Viruk Empire started its decline.

To make matters worse, the rise of the Taichun Dynasty was supposed to have been led by a man who fought under a dragon banner. Prior to that, none of the warlords or princes had dared use a crest of the gods, and many said that Taichun claimed to be a god, or the son of a god. He was supposed to have arrived from the east on a ship and surrounded himself with a cadre of copper-skinned warriors.

Of course, later historians had explained that away as hyperbole. His arrival from the east was meant to show he was extraordinary, since the sun rose in the east and he was the light that would banish the barbarism nibbling at the Empire at the time. His bodyguard was supposed to have been Turasynd, and Taichun’s chief skill seemed to have been to make alliances with warlords, then betray them to their enemies while keeping the loyalty of their people. And so he forged a new Empire, created the bureaucracy, and dictated a book of common wisdom that governed the lives of many down to the present.

It was the Book of Wisdom that caused the most trouble, for as Nauana would offer one of Tetcomchoa’s sayings, Jorim could complete it as easily as Iesol could quote Urmyr. She took this as a sign that Jorim was recovering his divine nature, while he was having trouble dealing with the total revision of history as he knew it.

Jorim sighed and Shimik giggled—an annoying habit he’d learned from the hordes of Amentzutl children who delighted in his company. Jorim frowned as he looked at the Fenn. “You’re not helping, you know. Half of this is your fault.”

Shimik’s eyes got big, and he smiled, showing all of his teeth, but did not look wholly contrite. “Mourna mourna sad.”

The cartographer growled at him. Jorim had tried to explain to Nauana that he was not a god and not divine, but she merely pointed to Shimik as obvious proof of his godliness. The Amentzutl did not know of the Fennych, so its very appearance meant Jorim was somehow special. Shimik had also picked up on the fact that the dragon was important, so when his fur developed a serpentine pattern, all who saw him were convinced that he was divine.

In some ways, he could have enjoyed the experience of being thought a god. There were places in Ummummorar where he was highly revered, especially after slaying Viruk. He’d been feted and saluted and offered wives by the score to breed more strong warriors like himself. He’d declined, but only because he had a taste for discovery, not power.

The problem with the Amentzutl was that they actually expected him to do something, because the world was dying. Only he could see them through the centenco cycle. The threat to the world was now the same as when he had been there before: strangers were invading, and the Amentzutl were not certain how to stop them without his help.

“My Lord Tetcomchoa, please forgive me.”

Nauana’s voice remained quiet, but filled the stone chamber, softening all edges and bringing light to even his darkest mood. She remained purposeful—and supremely confident in him—despite his best attempts to dispel her notions. She had filled his head with dire predictions about the rise of the seventh god—which could have also been a tenth god since three of their gods had tripartite aspects. He barely understood what Keles would have figured out in a heartbeat, and that thought provided him a place to gather himself.

He turned and reached out to scratch Shimik behind an ear. “Rise, Nauana. I will not have you on even one knee before me.”

“As you desire, my Lord.” The raven-haired woman rose slowly, her breath still coming a bit quickly given the exertion of the climb. “I have come to tell you that the Mozoyan Horde has come.”

“From the northeast? As we expected?”

“As you predicted, yes, my Lord.”

“And the defenses have been prepared?”

“As per your instruction, my Lord.”

Jorim nodded and gathered Shimik into his arms. “Very good. Call the people.”

Nauana nodded, then looked up. He caught fear in her dark eyes and for a moment dreaded it was fear of him. “My Lord, you will wish to see. They are as fog.”

He nodded, then walked past her to the pyramid’s flat top. He gazed north. To the northeast, slowly emerging from the jungle and filling the fields, hundreds upon thousands of small creatures became visible. He could see no banners nor crests—nothing that marked an organization, nor any leaders on horseback to provide direction. It heartened him that no giants or other monstrosities lumbered among them, but this horde of child-sized creatures was frightening enough.

The Mozoyan were not, as he had first supposed, barbarians like the Turasynd. “Mozoyan” did not mean from outside land, it actually meant from no land. The Amentzutl had no idea whence they had come, though refugees from Iyayan, a northern city akin to Tocayan, had said they had emerged from the sea almost like turtles coming up on the sands to spawn.

At Jorim’s request, Tzihua had gone out on one of the smaller ships in the fleet, slipped into the area through which the Mozoyan were traveling, and brought back dead bodies. He’d not had to kill anything, just harvested cadavers from what had been the Mozoyan line of march. He’d gotten them back two days previously, then Jorim and some of the scholars from the fleet had conducted dissections.

From the very first, Jorim realized these were not the sea devils they’d seen, but he could not dismiss some relation between them. They had rudimentary gill slits, and while their flesh was not scaled, it did resemble shark leather. Their heads were not as narrow as sea devil heads, but they did have mouths full of shark’s teeth, with several layers ready to pop up in place when one was lost. They still had webbed fingers and toes, though their feet were better suited to movement on land than were the sea devils’.

It looked to him as if these were distant cousins of the sea devils: as if the sea devils had mated with sharks and with frogs, then those offspring had been bred together. Eyewitnesses had reported that the creatures could leap prodigiously, and even their emergence from the forest showed signs of that. Their fingers ended in claws, but scratch tests on small animals showed no sign of venom, whereas the teeth could clearly deliver a nasty bite. They did use weapons, after a fashion, but only sticks and stones. They went without armor. Their numbers were their strength.

What disturbed Jorim most was that they reminded him of creatures that used to haunt his nightmares as a child. He had been two years old when his father had been lost at sea. When adults were discussing his father’s death in his hearing, they said little, but a clever boy can hear things he might only partially understand.

And such things thrive in nightmares.

He’d had them off and on for years. His mother would comfort him when he was young, listening to his nonsensical babbling as if it were revealed wisdom, then lie down with him, holding him until he fell asleep. In later years he would awaken alone, drenched in sweat, and would huddle in his bed praying for dawn.

He finally confided in Keles when, at the age of ten, he’d fallen asleep in the Anturasikun garden and been awakened when a frog had snapped a fly from his face with its tongue. Once Keles had stopped laughing at his utter terror and Jorim had explained, Keles had been everything an older brother should be.

“Jorim, you are strong and fast, and they are amphibians. They are suited to water and swimming. On land you will outrun them. And their endurance? They will have none.” Keles had tousled his hair. “Do what you do best, and you will beat them, Jorim. You’ll beat them in your dreams and they won’t bother you anymore.”

“You’re wrong there, Keles, because they are bothering me a lot right now,” he muttered aloud.

“I beg your pardon, my Lord?”

Jorim smiled and turned back. “It is nothing. I was talking to my brother.”

“I see.” Her voice had all the conviction of someone agreeing for the sake of politeness. She understood he had a flesh-and-blood brother, and she accepted that, but also knew he had no divine brother. Everyone knew that. Since his brother was mortal, he could not hear such a spoken comment, so speaking aloud was just another idiosyncrasy she would have to endure.

“Nauana, you must understand something.” Jorim pointed to the lines of the trenches that cut from the northwest edge of the jungle down to the southeast and the base of the escarpment. “My advisors and I have shaped the best defenses we can think of. Your warriors are going to fight hard, and I know the maicana will do all they can to contain the oquihui. There are no guarantees of victory, however.”

She smiled in a way that made him want to take her face in his hands and kiss her senseless. Her faith in him could not be broken, and when she looked at him like that, he didn’t want it to be.

“Your will shall be done, my Lord.”

Down below, horns sounded and those few people who remained in the lowlands—save the soldiers—retreated to the causeway and began the long ascent to the heights. The last to leave had lit fires in the buildings—all of which had been emptied of supplies well before the retreat. The breeze coming in from the ocean blew the smoke back onto the Mozoyan, and Jorim hoped that neither their gills nor their lungs would function well under that assault.

The horde came on, angling down to reach the breastworks close to the middle of the line. The trenches themselves had been excavated with magic—the maicana working at night both so enemy scouts could not see them, and so their people would not be terrified by the power they wielded. Their magics would have been enough to cast the Mozoyan back into the sea—and might have been enough to send the entire horde to the Mountains of Ice—but they would not employ it that way. Warfare was the province of the Warrior Caste, and for the maicana to usurp their place would mean the utter destruction of the Amentzutl culture.

The warriors had plenty of time to prepare for the attack. The bottoms of the trenches and the faces of the breastworks were festooned with sharpened stakes. More importantly, the warriors had studied the battleground and knew the landmarks that would indicate the Mozoyan had entered spear-casting range. Using weighted sticks to effectively extend the length of their arms, the Amentzutl warriors launched spears and barbed darts in concentrated volleys as the grey masses drew closer.

The spears, tipped with obsidian points, sliced through Mozoyan flesh with ease. Creatures clutched at shafts and flopped on the ground, soon to be crushed beneath the feet of their advancing fellows. Showers of darts cut whole swaths through the horde. Bright crimson splashed over grey flesh as the Mozoyan went down.

But the holes in their lines closed and on they came. The Amentzutl warriors impressed Jorim with their discipline. If the trench line broke, the horde would pour through it relentlessly. Those northwest of the break might be able to flee into the jungle, but that sanctuary would only last so long. While the horde had emerged entirely from the jungle to fill the lowlands, they would certainly dispatch a part of their force to hunt down fresh meat. The warriors between the breach and the causeway might be able to fight their way up toward the heights, but it would be as part of a rear guard that would eventually be worn down.

The line had to hold, and would. Already, companies of Amentzutl warriors were moving southeast to bolster those soldiers running out of spears and darts. While new missiles arced above them, brave warriors mounted the breastworks as the first of the Mozoyan leaped forward. Many fell short, and with wet thuds impaled themselves on two or three spikes. Others, hit by a dart in midair, fell into the pit to die. Those that made the leap successfully faced no less dire a fate, for the stone-edged war clubs slashed more keenly than steel. Tzihua knocked one Mozoyan back into the pit. Other devil frogs sailed past him to be dismembered by the warriors where they landed.

Despite the heroic Amentzutlian effort, the horde pressed on. Dying Mozoyan filled the trenches with bloody grey flesh. A carpet of bodies would soon cover the breastworks and their spikes. Mozoyan would be able to walk over the bodies and crest the breastworks. While the Amentzutl would be able to beat them back once, perhaps even twice, the war of attrition would end up in the Mozoyan’s favor.

Jorim looked over at the Naleni signalman stationed below him on the stairs. “Blow the first signal, please.”

The sailor raised a horn to his mouth and blasted out a low, rumbling tone that echoed from the buildings and mountains. Below, on the edge of the escarpment, Naleni soldiers stepped to the edge, nocked arrows, and let fly on command. Hundreds of shafts filled the air, then fell among the Mozoyan. As had the spears and the darts before, the arrows cut down throngs of devil frogs. The archers concentrated on the Mozoyan closest to the escarpment and as the horde flowed to fill the gap, their entire line shifted laterally. They mindlessly shortened the line along which the Amentzutl needed to defend, buying them time and allowing them to concentrate their forces.

Jorim nodded. “Well, that is a help. The question is, is it enough?”

Nauana smiled again. “My Lord, you ask a question to which you already know the answer.”

Jorim nodded. “I wish you were right.” He crouched and set Shimik down, then pointed at the signalman. “Go tell him.”

The Fenn’s eyes brightened. “Twoooo?”

“Two.”

Shimik scrambled off, taking stairs three at a bound. He howled “Twooo, twooo, twooo!” with an enthusiasm that sparked a smile on the signalman’s face. He raised the horn again and let loose with another blast, this one broken and repeated as if matching Shimik’s chant.

Jorim glanced at her. “Even that might not be enough, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

 

Chapter Fifty-six

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Ixyll

Fear possessed Moraven Tolo, and this surprised him. He could not remember the last time he had truly been this afraid. But the faint copper taste in his mouth was something he’d experienced before. He recognized the voracious thirst. He felt very cold, and even the thought of food made him nauseous.

What compounded the fear was his being unable to remember the last time he’d felt this sort of terror. He found it too familiar, and he wanted to remember when he’d been this afraid, but it wouldn’t come. It lurked beyond the veil of his amnesia, tantalizingly close, but insubstantial. And if it has no form, no substance, I cannot fight it.

The fear had begun as they set out from Opaslynoti, but the first giddy excitement of racing up the valley and into Ixyll before the tavam eyzar closed again helped him keep it at bay. Still, it chafed his psyche the way the clothes rubbed his flesh raw, and the tingle of magic grew into a torment.

They were not alone in making the trip, and studying the others did distract him somewhat. Rekarafi was not the most unusual creature in the Ixyll-bound rabble, though he was the only Viruk Moraven saw. The men they chased had ranged ahead of them, but Keles had said he didn’t think they had any more of an idea where they were heading than he did. Veteran thaumstoneers suggested that after such a fierce storm, anything that had been seen before could have been obliterated, so everyone was moving into virgin territory.

Dangers abounded, and disaster struck some of the stoneseekers the moment they set foot in Ixyll. Here and there, small cyclones of dust sprang up and danced playfully, much as dust devils would in the Nine. One lit a man on fire. Another turned a scrounger into a mass of beetles that actually managed to function as a man-shaped community for several hours. It might have survived longer, save for a hearty, congratulatory pat on the back. Moraven did not doubt that the beetles would eventually reconstitute themselves.

If they are not scattered again by a storm.

Quickly enough, the horde fragmented, as the beetle-man had. Keles pointed his companions toward the northwest. His choice made sense, as northwest was the direction of the old Spice Route, but no discernible track lay out that way. Keles’ course took them into a rumpled blanket of hills with yet higher slopes beyond. Its only virtue was that the hills had a number of caves large enough to house their entire group, horses included. Scavengers had recommended seeking shelter underground, because while storms had been known to shift whole mountains from one place to another, rarely did the wild magic penetrate the earth.

The land itself bore countless signs of just how powerful the storm could be. Giant boulders had been rolled down or even up hillsides, then polished smoother than an infant’s cheek. Trees had leaves that bled—not sap, but blood—and branches that curled around birds to devour them. Other plants grew up, blossomed, sowed seeds, and died on an hourly basis, sending circular ripples of flowers out—flowers of odd shapes and colors, with stripes and spots that shifted like oil on water, and would have been beautiful if they did not stink of swamp gas and decayed meat.

Ixyll’s wild magic clearly did not kill everything it touched. Those things that had grown seemed to thrive. Places where storms had denuded a swath of land were quickly colonized by plants, or else insects raised great mounds that pulsed with life. Rekarafi pointed to one particular mound that rose like a volcano and had streams of yellow ants running like lava up and down the sides. He said those ants had not been seen in the world for hundreds of years. They used to be considered a delicacy in Virukadeen, but no one wanted to stop and sample them.

Those sorts of things did not increase Moraven’s fear because they gave him points of reality to which he could cling. It didn’t surprise him that insects that had been extinct had suddenly appeared in the storm’s wake. Not only did he have the overwhelming sense of being elsewhere, but also elsewhen. It felt as if they were riding through a land that shifted and took form as their minds imposed order on it. Moraven had seen the shape that Rekarafi had called the mound, but it only took on definition when he named it, and the insects appeared as the Viruk pointed them out.

Would they have seen what I saw, if I had been able to point it out first? He shivered. He wasn’t certain what he had seen, but it felt hauntingly recognizable. Memories were returning, clawing their way into his mind from some abyss. The scrabbling of their talons resonated through his fear.

Where are we? His stomach clenched. When are we?

For three days they rode through Ixyll in a fruitless search for tombs or traces of the old Spice Route. While they found caves aplenty—and some with signs of habitation—they didn’t find so much as a Viruk burial, much less a catacomb full of fallen Imperial warriors. Granted, Moraven wasn’t really certain what such tombs would look like, but to find no signs of anything predating the Cataclysm frustrated him.

If I knew what we were looking for, I know we would find it.

Worse yet, they came across no sign of the bandits who had preceded them. Keles’ logic in heading northwest had been impeccable, based on history as well as tales like those of Amenis Dukao. The route northwest was well known; the Empire had outposts along it, so drawing the Turasyndi out that way would give Cyrsa’s troops a better chance. But the lack of bandits suggested they might have other information. That meant they could be heading for a tomb complex while Keles and the others blundered around blindly.

The trip and the nature of Ixyll wore on them all. Rekarafi became hypervigilant and seemed to go without sleep at all. Ciras became more irritable and slept poorly, as did Tyressa. Keles, who seemed to be fully recovered from whatever had been giving him headaches, still approached things very cautiously. Borosan became uncharacteristically taciturn and obsessed with modifying his mousers and his new thanaton—Number Fiveto guard them. Even the machines acted oddly, with the smaller ones riding on the back of the larger as it trotted along beside the horses.

All of them seemed to be waiting for something—and, in part, Moraven was as well. But for him, something felt different. They all faced a sense of the unknown and even unknowable. For him there was something out there that he knew, but just could not name. That sense of familiarity brought with it foreboding, and the foreboding came because he knew that thing was waiting for him.

But what is it?

Darkness began to fall on the third day, though dusk would linger this far north. They descended the northwest face of some hills and started across a flat, dusty expanse that might have once been a lake bed. A mile further on, already shrouded in shadows, a striated bluff waited. Despite the sun setting beyond it, however, Moraven caught sight of a flash of light—of the sort made by a signaling mirror. He pointed, but Tyressa and the Viruk had already seen it.

Is it my light they see, or had they already created it?

Keles had not seen, nor had Borosan, but that was because they were both studying the device the gyanridin used to measure the levels of wild magic. While Moraven pointed northwest, Keles swung around in his saddle and pointed to the northeast.

“There it is, Borosan, you’re right. It’s a storm, and a big one.”

Moraven turned, and could see it even through the gauze veil. Most of the storms they had seen while in Ixyll had been small and far off, but this one was neither. Already the purple-grey clouds had screwed down into a serpentine funnel that lashed at the landscape. Red-and-gold fire shot through it, and black lightning clawed out. Thunder crackled, and the storm’s roar vibrated in his chest. Ciras groaned, and Moraven reached out to steady him in his saddle.

Keles caught that. “We need to find shelter.”

Tyressa pointed northwest. “In the bluff there was light. There, again, see? Flashing.”

The cartographer nodded. “It’s not reflecting the lightning, that’s for certain. Let’s ride. I think we can make it before the storm catches us.”

The riders set spur to horse, but beneath their canvas caparisons the animals felt nothing. The horses, however, needed no real urging to flee the storm. Luckily the dry lake bed was flat, so the horses were able to race across it easily.

Moraven pushed past his own fear as best he could to keep Ciras in the saddle, but the storm would not be ignored. The winds it kicked up began to howl. An oppressive heat built, making him want to strip off his clothes. All around him, the magic was making the thaumston fabric glow. As riders moved and horses galloped, as cloth gathered in wrinkles, the edges and peaks would flash with silver or blue, while iridescent violets filled the darker valleys.

The storm would kill them, there was no question of that. But despite his certainty, it wasn’t death he feared. It was something else. It came from the deepest recesses of his mind, a black creature, hulking and reeking of corruption. It wore armor that clanked, and a mask. An armored battle mask with the scales of a dragon. Its mouth gaped open showing sharp teeth, and from its throat issued a low laugh that blended into the wind’s lupine shrieking . . .

Hoofbeats competed with thunder. Illuminated by the light of the storm’s fire, the line of a path became visible. Not too steep and fairly wide, it cut up and across the bluff’s face, leading to a large dark opening through which they would be able to ride without dismounting. Borosan’s horse took it first, and the others followed. Rekarafi cut to the right and just scaled the cliff face, lurking beneath the edge at the opening until the thanaton chased the last of the horses within.

Moraven ducked his head to enter the cave, then vaulted from his saddle. Ciras sagged away from him, but clung to the saddle. Before he could fall, Keles and Moraven were able to ease him to the ground. Tyressa herded the horses deeper in and around the corner to the left, and their hoofbeats clicked and echoed from what sounded like the walls of a massive chamber.

Moraven tore away his veil and pulled the paired coifs back to a thick roll around his neck. “We need to get Ciras deeper into the chamber. Help me.”

Keles nodded and took the young man beneath the armpits, while Moraven grabbed his ankles. They made their way slowly along the passage, relying on sound since the light from the opening faded the deeper they went. The Viruk’s shadow played along the walls, effectively blocking much of the light. Moraven could understand the fascination with the storm, and knew the Viruk would not be so foolish as to linger there when it hit.

As they reached the entryway to the next chamber, Borosan ignited the gyanrigot lantern he’d brought along. Its blue light stabbed deep into the chamber, illuminating the tall, arched opening into yet another chamber, but it penetrated no further. As the gyanridin swung it around to the right, splashing it over the chamber’s wall, it became obvious that what might once have been a normal rock formation had been worked long and hard by the hand of Man.

Moraven dropped Ciras’ ankles and straightened up mutely. He wanted to speak, but words would not come. He found what the light revealed both glorious and terrifying. He knew in an instant that he had found the source of his fear. He had found what they had been hunting, what jaecaiserr Jatan had sent him to find. His knees buckled.

Borosan’s light played over a wall that had been worked smooth, then had square chambers the height, width, and depth of a man carved into the face. Each one of these holes had been plugged by a slab of stone that had been cemented into place. On these stone slabs had been carved the names and deeds of the people entombed behind them. The lettering had been leafed with gold, so the names and legends glowed in the light.

Keles gasped. “That one there. It’s the grave of Amenis Dukao. He died with the Empress!”

Before anyone else could offer a comment, the Viruk screamed. Moraven turned, unable to make any sense of his words, but it didn’t matter.

The storm has finally caught us.

The Viruk’s silhouette filled the opening. Rekarafi grabbed both edges of the entryway and hung on as the storm hit. A cloud of dust blasted in first, lifting the Viruk from his feet. His legs trailed out behind him, then a red-gold tongue of flame jetted in, wreathing him. The rock in his right hand crumbled. Rekarafi, still anchored by his left hand, flew back and smashed into the entryway’s wall.

No longer blocked by the Viruk’s presence, a shimmering silver ball of wild magic bounced into the chamber. It floated for a moment, then sent tendrils of black lightning out in four directions. Their forks cracked and popped, moving like arms and legs as the ball crawled forward. For a heartbeat Moraven thought it had modeled itself on thanaton Number Five. Or we made it do that, with our minds.

Then a dark hole opened at the ball’s center and filled with molten magic. The red dot swung back and forth as the ball came on. It looked. It searched.

It focused on him.

Then it exploded.

An argent wind slammed into Moraven and blew him off his feet. Agony sank into him as he tumbled through the air. Every muscle spasmed and locked, then sagged. When he hit the ground he bounced limply, his momentum unabated. He slid across the chamber floor, stirring up dust, then smacked up against the burial wall.

He remained dimly aware of all that was happening to his body, but it was of little consequence. When the magic hit, something entered his mind. It thrust deep, ripping harshly, and filled that wound with contempt.

<<It’s you. You have returned. Good.>> Moraven’s sense of the world faded, until only its voice remained. <<You won’t get away again.>>

 

Chapter Fifty-seven

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Thyrenkun, Felarati

Deseirion

Prince Pyrust found Jasai of Helosunde waiting for him in his audience chamber. The hearth contained only banked coals and produced minimal heat. Despite that, she wore nothing on her feet and only a nightshirt to cover her. Woven of thick wool, the nightshirt was not so heavy that he could not see the sharp outline of her erect nipples. She had been given to wearing this type of garment for bed, but had always favored the gay colors common in Nalenyr. Now she wore the garment undyed, as did the common folk of Deseirion.

She knelt as he approached and lowered her head. Her long blonde hair slid down to veil her face, but he sensed no fear or contrition in her stance. She wanted nothing—least of all forgiveness—and had no air of remorse about her. This surprised him, but he covered his surprise by slowly reaching up to undo the clasp on his black woolen cloak trimmed with a mantle of wolf fur.

It puddled at his feet.

Ignoring her for a moment, Pyrust bent to toss several logs onto the coals. They landed with a satisfying crunch, spitting a spray of sparks that drifted up the chimney. A burst of heat washed out, then flames rose, adding light to the dark room. The fire splashed a hint of gold onto Jasai’s hair.

He drew off his gloves and tossed them onto his cloak. Holding his hands to the fire, he watched flames dance from between splayed fingers. He rubbed his hands together, then spoke, keeping his voice low.

“It is warmer over here. I begrudge you no warmth.”

This did produce the response he expected. Jasai may have agreed to marry him and accompany him to Felarati for the sake of her brother, but she had still rebelled in countless ways. The first was to complain of the cold and to keep a fire roaring in her chamber day and night. Pyrust had explained to her that his was a poor nation and that such profligate use of wood was not permitted.

This did not stop her.

He let her have four days of constant fires, then she was provided no wood at all. When she complained, he told her she’d used up her allotment. He, on the other hand, had used less than most, so had more to spare. He told her that she could join him in his night chamber and that she would be kept very warm, but she’d said she would prefer the cold.

Her resolve lasted one more day, and might have lasted longer had he replaced the furnishings she’d burned. She had come to him. And despite a new ration of wood being made available to her with the turn of the week, she had chosen to remain.

Pyrust was no fool. They’d been hastily married in Meleswin and he’d consummated their union that evening. She had accepted him that night for it was part of their bargain, but she had rejected him again until the night the lack of heat had driven her to his bed. Even then he knew she had been coerced. Yet it really mattered not at all why she shared his bed, but that she did. Hatred, apathy, unquenchable desire—all of these things he could deal with. Just not disobedience.

Jasai did not raise her head. “You have explained, my husband, that valuable resources are not to be squandered here in Deseirion.”

“But you did squander my wood until you learned I would be governed by the same laws as my people.”

“I was foolish.”

“And now you are wise?”

“Wiser, my lord.” She raised her face and firelight flashed from the traces of tears on her cheeks. “I have news for you, Prince Pyrust.”

The tears made little sense. He turned to face her and moved forward so the firelight would silhouette him.

“What news?”

She hugged her arms around her slender middle. “Your heir grows in my belly.”

Pyrust clasped his hands behind his back, left in right, suddenly aware of his maiming. What will my child think of it? That thought came to him as if it were another message from the gods, and sent a shiver through him. What he had seen as his life and his future now projected further, on through generations to come. He had always been an end, but now he was a link in a chain, and his responsibility was to make that chain strong.

He narrowed his eyes. “My heir, or Helosunde’s heir?”

Jasai’s eyes widened, then her gaze dropped to the floor. “It should not surprise me your asking that question. You promised my heir the throne of Helosunde and said I would be his regent. That is the bargain I accepted. That was the goal I had in mind as I lay with you. I knew I would make any child hate you as I hated you, and the vintage of your life would turn sour and bitter.”

The vehemence in her voice lacked the sharpness of before. Something had softened it. “If that was our bargain, why, Jasai, is he now my heir?”

She slowly exhaled. “I have been your wife for a month and a half. You told me that I would learn I could trust you, and this I have learned. You are cruel and capable of many things, including merciless murder, but you are not a hypocrite. You are good to your word. You would know the same cold as your people, the same hunger, the same dangers.

“My life has been spent in Nalenyr listening to lords and ladies proclaiming much, but their actions never matched their words. They wish to lead, but their method for doing so is to watch people, see the direction in which they move, then dash to the fore and announce they are being followed. My brother had no place being Helosunde’s prince and everyone knew it—himself included. He was told what was expected of him and complied with those expectations.”

“But now he does better because Cyron has set new expectations for him. That should give you hope for your nation and its return to power.”

“But it never will return, will it?” Unbidden, she rose to her feet and fetched his cloak, which she pulled around her shoulders. “You cannot allow Helosunde to rebel, or Deseirion will be weakened and Cyron will no longer feel threatened. And Cyron cannot let Helosunde rise for fear of losing control over it. Our child on the throne of Helosunde is his worst nightmare, since it could unify our nations and leave his border open.”

Pyrust turned and moved behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Your analysis is good. You forgot to add that your son, as Prince of Helosunde, would be a rival to your brother, and the settlement of that rivalry would doubtless be the assassination of one or the other.”

“Likely both, my lord, since the Council of Ministers will control neither.” She glanced back to the left, then dipped her head and kissed his half hand. “This is why our child must be the Prince of Deseirion. I see this and accept it. I accept other things as well.”

“Such as?”

“I must become Desei. The Council of Ministers expected to marry me off to someone—anyone. I did not matter. Being married to you, I am removed from consideration and consequence as far as Helosunde is concerned. By becoming Desei, your people will have a chance of loving our child—our children. Toward this end I shall adopt Desei clothing and custom. Like you, I shall do with less so others can have more. With your leave, I shall do things that shame other princesses into doing more for their people. If you approve, that is.”

“Approve, yes.” Pyrust lowered his mouth to her left ear and let his voice sink into a harsh whisper. “But the swiftness of your decision belies thoughtful commitment to it. You can understand my skepticism.”

She nodded slowly. “Oh, be under no misapprehension, my lord. I do respect you and even admire you, but I still hate you. I will bear our children without ever coming to love you. But I will love them, and they shall be the outlet for my love. The fact is, however, that I hate you less than I hate those who put me in this position. They discounted and discarded me. I shall live to see them regret their folly. In this, I do believe, we are united.”

He allowed himself a chuckle. “And how does this play into the gift you gave me? The promise that you would allow me to be Emperor?”

“These things are one and the same.” She shivered and pressed herself back against him. “Our children should be more than either of us, and deserve more than either of us have had. You will become Emperor, and they shall have an empire. It will be best for them and for the world.”

Pyrust kissed the back of her head. “I am pleased my children have so intelligent a mother.” He reached down and swatted her bottom playfully. “Go now, wife of mine, and warm our bed. I shall join you momentarily.”

“Yes, my husband. Then we will make our bed hot indeed.”

Jasai swept from the chamber leaving his gloves, one whole, one deformed, lying flaccid on the ground. Pyrust kicked them into the shadows, then stepped forward to warm his hands.

It did not surprise him when the Mother of Shadows emerged from the darkness, bearing his gloves in a clawed hand. “Something bothers you, my Prince?”

Pyrust stared into the flames, knowing he would barely see her even if his night vision was unaffected. “Less than a month and a half and she is already pregnant?”

“You saw she was a virgin when you took her on your wedding night.”

“Blood appears in eggs and appears on sheets by all manner of means.” He frowned heavily. “Was she pregnant already?”

“Interrogations have revealed no rumors of her having a lover.” Delasonsa’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “On the trip here she bled and has not bled again. It is highly probable she is pregnant and that you alone have lain with her.”

“So, if she is pregnant, the child is mine?”

“Yes.”

“Could learning she is pregnant be what has triggered this change in her?”

The Mother of Shadows chuckled. “It was not so much a change as an acknowledgment of reality. She seeks to make things better for her children. She is young, yes, but not frivolous. Maternity seldom changes a woman in that way; it merely awakens her to her true nature.”

Pyrust nodded. “It is an interesting future she paints.”

“Yes, my lord, but one yet unrealized.” Delasonsa’s voice came softly from within her hood. “She might miscarry, or the child could fail to thrive. Though no assassin will reach her, there will be attempts, and the least upset could trigger a disaster.”

“You are right, of course.” He turned to face her, taking his gloves in his half hand. “Rumors of her pregnancy must be quashed—and the rumor-mongers slain. Cyron would not kill her, but the Helosundian Council of Ministers would. Remind my ministers that their welfare depends on that of my wife, of whom I am inordinately fond. That will have them falling all over themselves to make her happy.”

“You see clearly, my lord.”

Pyrust sighed, tucking his gloves through his belt. “My dead brother’s bastard will become a liability once my child is born.”

She nodded solemnly. “I shall deal with Thyral.”

“Don’t kill him.”

“No?”

“Delasonsa, you may think me a fool, but I am not a heartless one. His father died because he dared listen to Naleni agents and plotted against me. He had to be slain, as did his elder siblings. The boy was but an infant and now is six years old. He does not know who he is, so now is the time to train him. Tell him that I have selected him for a very special duty. He shall be your apprentice, then my son’s bodyguard. He shall come to be the guardian of the Emperor.”

The Mother of Shadows bowed low, held it, and came back up slowly. “You honor me by entrusting me with your blood to train.”

“I dare do it, Delasonsa, only because I know you shall stand between ambition and my blood.” Pyrust smiled slowly. “This future will come to pass. We both will have much work to guarantee it, but it shall come to pass. The gods will it, and so do I.”

 

Chapter Fifty-eight

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Nemehyan, Caxyan

The trumpet blast rolled over the smoky lowlands, then from the jungle to the northwest came a return call. Though the haze and distance made them difficult to see, five hundred Naleni warriors wearing bright scarlet uniforms rode from the jungle on horseback. Large golden dragons coiled on their chests and red pennants snapped beneath the heads of their light lances. Each man bore a round shield, similarly emblazoned with a dragon, and a colored cloth strip hung from the spikes atop his helmet—a different color for each of the five companies.

Nauana gasped, and a murmur arose among the assembled Amentzutl. In no conversation with them had Jorim found any evidence that they knew what horses were. The pack animals they used—cunya and their larger cousins ayana—struck the Naleni scholars as being more camel-like. While the ayana could sometimes be ridden, the Amentzutl had no stirrups and no martial tradition of fighting while mounted.

As the companies came forward they parted, with two to the left and three to the right, forming a space for a dozen war chariots. Drawn by four horses each, the chariots had a driver in the center and two archers standing on small risers that allowed them to shoot past the driver and horses. A trio of wickedly curved blades four feet in length protruded from the axle hubs and flashed brightly in the sunlight as they turned.

Nauana looked at Jorim, her eyes wide with wonder. “My Lord Tetcomchoa, you have produced a miracle. Strange beasts and stranger things. You have given us victory.”

Jorim shook his head. “Just a chance. How good a one, Nauana, we’ll see.”

She stared back at the battlefield as the murmuring grew among her people. Not only did they not know horses but they had no practical knowledge of the wheel. Given that they lived in a mountainous land, where packing goods on beast back was more practical than building roads for wagons, relegating the wheel to their calendar and children’s toys made an odd sort of sense. Horses and chariots are as world-altering to them as discovering this continent was to us.

The cavalry moved into a trot, quickly coming across cultivated fields. The way the smoke had spread over the fields, the cavalry faded in and out of view. Jorim was pretty certain that neither the Amentzutlian warriors nor the Mozoyan could see the Naleni troops. They could hear them, however. Their hoofbeats echoed like thunder.

Arrows continued to rain down, killing hundreds of the grey legion, and the Amentzutl held their line against the fearsome press of the enemy. A portion of the Mozoyan formation furthest from the escarpment broke north and west. At first Jorim feared they were going to form up to face the cavalry, but instead they just plunged toward the Amentzutlian line. They headed for a spot where the defenders had thinned and grey bodies filled the trench. Whether by design or accident, they rushed at the line’s most vulnerable point, and in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the warriors set to oppose them.

The grey tendril charged out, but it never reached its target. The Naleni lancers burst from the smoke and slammed into the Mozoyan flank. Swift and strong, the horses crashed into unarmored bodies, snapping limbs and knocking Mozoyan flying. Lancers stabbed steel broadheads through slender bodies, then cast aside weapons weighed down by a half dozen impaled devil frogs. Swords filled empty hands, sweeping around in great arcs that scattered limbs and harvested heads. Shields batted leaping Mozoyan from the air, and steel-shod hooves scattered them.

Mozoyan surged into the gaps between Lancer companies only to face a new horror. The war chariots raced down upon them. The archers shot as swiftly as they could, and every arrow found a mark. In some cases, arrows ripped through one body to skewer another. But the Mozoyan that fell to the arrows were more fortunate than the survivors, because the wheel blades proved even more terrible. They scythed legs and chopped up bodies that had already fallen. Wheels, hooves, and Mozoyan feet churned the ground into bloody mud that spattered everywhere, coating the flanks of wheeling chariots and charging horses.

Disoriented, with no leadership, the Mozoyan on the flank panicked and fled screaming back to the main body. The alarm spread to the whole of the force. It surged away from the cavalry, like a school of fish turning from a predator, then squirted back north. The rear ranks leaped away as swiftly as they could. They disappeared into the smoke, and horsemen plunged in after them.

The grey ranks closest to the trenches turned and tried to flee, but had no room to maneuver. Darts, spears, and arrows harvested more of them. The Amentzutl warriors came up and over the breastworks and attacked the Mozoyan. Tzihua led a small knot of warriors over the filled trench and into the milling mass of the enemy. Their war clubs rose and fell, blood spraying in red arcs, carving a solid wedge from the Mozoyan troops.

The center of the Mozoyan formation remained in chaos. Some drifted northeast and the cavalry swept through them, slaughtering them in the hundreds. The war chariots did what they could, but eventually had to be withdrawn. The bloody mud became so thick it threatened to trap the wheels, and Mozoyan bodies offered little traction. Still the archers picked out individual targets, and toward the end of things challenged each other to more and more difficult shots.

The Amentzutl began to chant. Jorim could make no sense of what they were saying, as the dialects all blended, but the warriors seemed to draw strength from the words. Other warriors as big as Tzihua led their companies into the fray. The battle turned to slaughter, and the Amentzutl engaged in it with zeal Jorim had never seen before and hoped he would never see again.

Faster than Jorim thought possible, but not nearly soon enough, the battle ended. The ground nearest the escarpment lay covered two or three feet deep with grey bodies. Some Naleni and Amentzutl warriors had fallen, and more were wounded, some very seriously. But their casualties were insignificant compared to the enemy’s losses, which were beyond numbering.

He shook his head. “I wonder how many of them there were.”

Nauana looked at him. “You must surely know, my Lord.”

“I do not. I wish we could have a head count.”

“As Lord Tetcomchoa desires.”

Nauana moved to the edge of the pyramid, caressed her throat with her hand, then spoke in a voice that easily filled the valley. Jorim could not catch all of the words, for she spoke in the most common of the caste dialects. But those below understood and the chanting stopped. What seemed to be the whole of the populace began to move down the causeway to the battlefield.

As they descended, the Amentzutl warriors again withdrew behind the breastworks and formed up in their ranks. They lay their dead and wounded before them, then raised their faces and voices toward the rest of the people. They uttered a ritual chant in one voice, repeating over and over again, “Our time is finished, yours has just begun.”

The people reached the battlefield and began to spread out in groups. The laborers and slaves began to collect bodies and shift them around, not shrinking from such a grisly duty. Many paused to paint their faces or slick their hair with the blood of the enemy. That struck Jorim as odd, not only because he found it barbaric, but because their work soon had them covered in gore regardless.

They moved the bodies to areas where members of the artisan and merchant classes began to butcher them. With incredible efficiency, they stripped the skin away and piled it in one place. Others cut flesh from bone. Bones were cracked open, but were devoid of marrow, so ended up being hauled to vast piles. The viscera likewise were sorted and piled, sloshing into trenches from which the bodies and stakes had been cleared.

Most curious of all, however, was the duty performed by the politicians. At the base of the escarpment, in a huge area that slaves cleared as quickly as possible, they began to pile the heads. In no time a great pyramid of skulls appeared, and he had no doubt that a careful accounting was being made of the construction materials.

He would have his head count.

Weapons got sorted out as well. The Amentzutl recovered their own weapons, then retreated to clean and repair them. The rudimentary weapons the Mozoyan had borne were tossed into a pile, but the Amentzutl refused to touch the arrows and lances of Naleni origin. It took Jorim a moment to figure it out, but then he realized only warriors would be allowed to touch weapons. He relayed a message to Captain Gryst, and she gave orders for her people to gather up their arms and clean them as the Amentzutl were.

The cavalry and chariots had withdrawn to the northwest and stood ready to react if the Mozoyan returned, but there seemed little chance of that. By midafternoon the Amentzutlian warriors organized themselves into patrols and entered the jungle. The Naleni troops used that opportunity to return to the ships and care for their animals. By nightfall, the first of the patrols returned and reported that the Mozoyan had disappeared, which began a round of chanted prayers of thanks, all of which rose to the heights of the pyramid and the god who peered down.

 

Jorim spent a long time watching the Amentzutl deal with the battle’s aftermath. Kettles and smoking racks appeared. Strips of Mozoyan meat were boiled or laid out to be dried. Mozoyan leather was boiled and stretched. The bones, once dried, would be ground up for fertilizer. Even Mozoyan intestines would be dried and used to string peptli—crooked sticks with a net on one end that were used for an odd kind of ball game.

Nothing, it appeared, would be wasted.

The Amentzutl laughed and sang as they worked, and treated the butchery as a holiday. Even Nauana descended to the fields of carnage and helped harvest, returning at dusk, bloody and bearing roasted Mozoyan flesh for him to eat.

Jorim shook his head. “It is not a custom among my people to eat the enemy.”

She frowned. “We are not cannibals, my Lord. We would not eat manflesh, but to waste Mozoyan or Ansatl flesh would be foolish. You have seen how they laid waste to jungle and fields. They have taken from us that which we need to live. Now what was their strength will be ours.”

He thought for a moment and found her logic unassailable. He’d not eaten the Viruk he slew, but he knew their meat would make him sick. And the Mozoyan certainly were not men. He’d eaten with countless wild tribes of men in his travels who believed that consuming the heart of a brave animal would transfer that quality to them. While he really wanted nothing he’d seen in the Mozoyan, eating part of one was really the ultimate victory.

Or perhaps it will prevent me from having nightmares about them tonight.

He accepted the small skewer from her and nibbled. It wasn’t too bad. It reminded him of frog, snake, and turtle. Remembering that the Mozoyan likely had eaten people they slew did send a ripple through his stomach, but he quelled it. Certainly if he tossed the meat aside and declared it foul, those below would do the same, even if it meant they would go hungry in the future.

Jorim smiled. “Is this how it is after every battle?”

“We have few battles. When we fight men, the warriors tend to their own. Twice a year we have migrations of tohcho going north and south. The warriors drive a portion of their herds to the nearest city and slay them. The others come out and harvest them. But the Mozoyan did not require us to drive them here.”

“You have not dealt with the Mozoyan before, have you?”

“We have not seen them before this year.” She smiled and a bloody streak on her cheek cracked. “We have remained as you bid us, Lord Tetcomchoa, always vigilant. You gave us victory over the Ansatl, and now over the Mozoyan.”

“And thus ends centenco.”

Nauana’s smile died. “No, my Lord, this is how it begins. Our first encounter with the Ansatl was also a great victory, but merely presaged a war. The Mozoyan are the heralds of the seventh god.”

“What do you know of this seventh god?”

She squatted next to where he sat, his legs dangling over the edge of the pyramid. Shimik came around and squatted in imitation of her but that did not lighten her expression. “You must understand, Lord Tetcomchoa, that our powers of foretelling are greatly advanced from when you were here before, but the time of centenco brings many visions. There are many things we do not understand and cannot puzzle out.”

Jorim nodded slowly. “I accept this, and that it is no failing of yours. Centenco complicates everything.”

“It does. The seventh god has two names. The first is Mozoloa.”

“Mozochoa I would understand, for it would mean ‘foreign god’ or ‘god of no land.’ Why —loa instead of —choa?”

She sighed. “—choa does mean god. Omchoa is the jaguar god and you are Tetcomchoa.—loa means the god is dead. Omchoa ate and killed Zochoa, his shadow-twin, so has two aspects. Zochoa is now Zoloa, but is not spoken of since he is contained in Omchoa.”

“I see. So Mozoloa would be ‘dead god of no land.’ ”

“Yes. He is a dead god, not a god of death like Omchoa.” Nauana scratched at her cheek, flaking off dried blood. “His other name is Neletzatl. It means he makes things new. It is literally ‘he who names.’ As he names it, thus it becomes.”

“A homeless god who is dead and a creator. I see the confusion.” Jorim handed the skewer to Shimik to nibble. “What else do you know?”

“Mozoloa has great hatred, and it is through hatred that he gains his power. He has great anger, too. He is dead but hates being dead. He has bided his time to return, and it has not been until centenco that this is possible. His power is growing.”

Jorim arched an eyebrow. “But he has not returned yet?”

“No.”

“Can we stop him?”

“You tease me now, my Lord. When you departed, you went west, for this is where you said Mozoloa would come from.” She swept her left arm out to point at the lowlands. “You returned to save us from the Mozoyan so we could serve you. If Mozoloa is to be defeated, you will lead us in whatever action that requires. That is why you returned, is it not?”

Jorim shivered. He found it all too easy to forget she thought him a god, and his questions merely his way of testing her. Her faith in him, and belief in the destiny of her people, especially in the time of centenco, demanded he not try to disabuse her of the notion.

“Let it be enough, Nauana, that I am here, now.” Jorim drew his legs up and hugged them to his chest. “I know much about the west. If this is where Mozoloa is located, and this is where we have to go to defeat him, I know how to get us there.”

Nauana bowed low to him. “It is enough, my Lord. The Amentzutl have waited long for your return so we may serve. Lead where you will and we shall follow. We will serve to the last drop of our blood, and will not fail you.”

 

Chapter Fifty-nine

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Moriande, Nalenyr

Nirati’s resolve to tell Junel Aerynnor that the nature of their relationship had to change died in the heat of his excitement upon his return from the interior. He’d not come to her, but had instead sent a messenger bearing a note that asked her to be at an inn called Kitorun by sundown. She arrived wearing the red cloak he’d told her to wear and was served a goblet of wine—a red of upland vintage. It was not very good, but she also knew it was better than the Kitorun normally served.

The innkeeper took her cloak when she sat, and when she finished her first goblet, brought her a black cloak with a hood. She started to complain, but the cloak had a small pocket in the interior, and in it she found another note. It contained more instructions, which she followed to the letter, wending her way across the river and toward the east, into some of the older portions of the city. In her red cloak she would have been a target, but the black one let her fit in perfectly.

As she walked to the appointed rendezvous, Junel came up behind her. He kept his voice low. “Nirati, this is very important. Turn left and left again, circling the block. The third left will be an alley. Enter it and knock on the second door on the right. You will be admitted. Go up the stairs, first door on the left. Do not falter.”

“Why can I not walk with you?”

“Hush. I will watch to make certain you are not followed. They would not hesitate to hurt you to get to me.”

His hoarse whisper sent a thrill through her. She did as he requested, keeping her gait even. She cursed the hood, since it did not permit her much in the way of peripheral vision, and she resisted the temptation to turn around and see if she was being followed. She really had no idea what was going on, but had to assume the they he warned about were Desei agents. Did they get to Majiata, too?

The prospect of that knotted her stomach. She would have put nothing past the Desei, having heard all the stories of atrocities in Helosunde. Even so, what happened to Majiata was beyond anything she had heard of. Is that my fate?

Relying on Junel to keep her safe, she walked through the alley, dodging puddles and looking for any sign of his passage before her. She saw none, but in the growing night’s gloom, she had no light to see clearly in any event. She found the door and knocked. It opened and a twisted dwarf of a man admitted her. He said nothing, but pointed her to stairs, which she mounted with trepidation. She felt certain they would collapse with each creaking tread, but she made it to the top and entered the room.

Nirati had not been expecting much given the surroundings, but the room had been transformed through the legion of candles—thick and thin, tall, short, and scented—that flickered from every flat surface. Two even burned in the sconces on either side of a full-length, standing mirror. The bed had seen far better days, but the linen and bedding were fresh. A pitcher of wine and two goblets, as well as some cheese and bread, waited on a sideboard.

Nowhere did she see Junel, so she nearly jumped out of her skin as she felt his hands on her elbows. His arms slid around her and hugged her back against him. By reflex she grabbed his arms and squeezed, forgetting for the moment that she needed to have a serious talk with him.

He turned her about and smiled at her. “Oh, Nirati, I have thought so much of you since I have been gone. You are even more beautiful than I remember. Too beautiful for a place like this, and I apologize for it. But I had to see you, and this was the only way.”

She frowned, a bit afraid, and more concerned. Junel still was handsome, but he looked almost haggard, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He’d lost some weight during his journey, and he could ill afford it. His eyes had become restless, and the omnipresent hint of a grin had faded.

“What is it, Junel, what is wrong?”

“Sit, my darling.” He guided her back to the edge of the bed and fresh straw crunched as she sat. “I’ve been to see the inland lords and there is so much going on. More than I suspected—more than you did, I’m sure. Not because you are stupid—far from it—but because so much does not reach the capital.”

He crossed to the sideboard and poured her a goblet of wine. He took one himself and brought both to her, offering her the choice. She took the one from his left hand and sniffed before sipping. This wine had come from the interior as well, but south of the Gold River, and was of the finest quality. Best of all, its delicate flavor would not have hidden any tinctures, so she knew he was not drugging her.

Junel dropped to his knees before her and sat back on his heels. “There is so much I want to share with you.”

“Share with me first who is after you? Has Prince Pyrust set his agents on you?”

The Desei exile smiled. “Oh, he has had people watching me since I’ve been here. In Moriande they were hard to detect, but in the interior they were simple to pick out. They are the least of my worries, however. At least, I think they are.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You have seen the lords of the interior courting me. You so delightfully insulated me from them, and I did enjoy that. However, my accepting their invitations to visit was the best thing I have done since leaving my homeland.” His voice dropped into a whisper. “The nobles of the interior are very angry with Prince Cyron. They get no money from foreign trade and are still required to pay taxes. Cyron sends that money back west to fund projects, like the dredging of the river, but they take it and do not spend it on such things. The inland nobles see those projects as things that will continue to enrich Moriande, so they think the Prince should pay for it from trade.”

Nirati shook her head. “But these projects will make it easier for them to ship goods to the markets our trade makes available to them.”

“Yes, of course, but they don’t see that, my dear. Greed is driving them blindly.” His eyes blazed as he spoke. “They wanted me to see if I could arrange for them to invest in shipments—shipments that would escape official notice, maximizing their profits. They also dropped not-so-subtle hints that if I were actually a Desei agent, they might look favorably upon an alliance with Pyrust, pitting the interior of Nalenyr and Deseirion against Moriande and the Helosundian exiles.”

“But that is treason.”

“Very much so.” Junel sipped his wine. “If they had more forces under arms, or more weapons from Ixyll that would guarantee the superiority of their fighters, they would openly revolt. But as it stands, they need money to procure weapons, and they need a leader. A few even suggested I might fill that role, but it was flattery—and transparent at that. Each of them wishes to be prince of a new dynasty.”

“That would be horrible.”

“I agree, my dear.” The Desei noble set his cup down and twisted the gold and jet ring on his right hand. “Prince Cyron is in a very delicate position. Erumvirine is a sleeping giant, with half again the population of Nalenyr. Were their harvest to fail, a hungry horde would pour north, and even all the gold Cyron gains from trade could not supply them rice. While Nalenyr might help Erumvirine’s economy through trade, it is not enough to prevent them from acting in the face of a disaster.

“Deseirion and Helosunde create another problem. Cyron funds the Helosundian exiles and uses mercenaries to secure his northern border, but if his trade collapses, he will be without enough gold to do that. If Helosunde and Deseirion were to settle their differences and ally, Nalenyr would face an insurmountable threat.”

He looked up at her, a smile growing on his face. “In fact, it is only your family, Nirati, that keeps Cyron from disaster. Everyone is awaiting the outcome of your brothers’ journeys. If they find new treasures, the attention of the world will be diverted and Nalenyr will have enough gold to buy peace. They could even buy the inland lords, or buy those who would supplant them. Everything is balanced with an almost absurd precision, and all that will upset it is if your brothers fail.”

She smiled. “But you are forgetting something that will make the balance less delicate, Junel. You know who the inland lords are. If you go to Prince Cyron and give him their names, he can neutralize them. He need no longer fear an alliance between them and Deseirion. This is where they failed. They thought you were a Desei agent and in that error they exposed their folly.”

“It’s not their folly that is exposed.” Junel patted her left calf with his right hand. She felt a slight sting where his hand landed and jerked back. “It’s your folly, Nirati. You see, I am a Desei agent.”

He slowly stood as numbness raced up her leg. “More correctly, I am an agent of shadow, a vrilcai.”

“What?”

Junel laughed. “Really, Nirati, you should have been able to pierce my disguise. Think about it. Those who did not believe the Viruk murdered Majiata thought it was Desei agents who did so in an attempt to get to me. But would Prince Pyrust, who wiped out every other member of the Aerynnor clan, allow me to live? Of course not. Not unless I was already his creature, the one who had betrayed my family’s treason to him. Continuing in his service, I fled south, the last survivor of a butchered family, and here I was accepted most openly.

“That openness gave me entrée to Moriande society and the Phoesel family. Majiata died not to get to me, but to get me to you.” He smiled as the numbness spread to her belly and made her legs twitch. “You played your part beautifully. Your desire to rescue me from Majiata much as you’d rescued your brother brought you to me.”

Nirati slumped back on the bed, no longer able to sit upright. Her goblet fell from nerveless fingers, staining the sheets. “You . . . you killed her?”

He nodded solemnly. “Practice for you, my dear.” He leaned over and pressed a fingertip to her numb lips. “My ring injected venom of the hooded viper. Your body will become numb and will not respond, but your mind will remain aware. I know you have been taking a tincture of gallroot to counteract what I have given you before, but it merely accentuates the effects of this venom.”

Her head fell back on the mattress. She wanted to ask why, but her tongue filled her mouth thickly and her jaw would not move. He is going to kill me. All that went before was prelude to this. All I endured, all I craved, it means I can endure more as he works. And now that I am numb, I will know no pain, just the mental agony of horrors as he takes me apart.

Junel brought the standing mirror around and adjusted it so she could watch herself. He returned to her and gently released her from her clothing, stripping it off, neatly folding it and piling it in a sideboard drawer. She saw herself in the mirror, naked and beautiful. She wanted to close her eyes so that would be her last memory of herself, but her body refused to obey.

He opened another drawer and began to draw out a series of knives and a leather apron. “You’ll want to know what and why. What I will do to you will make what happened to Majiata nothing. I will begin by stripping your flesh off and hanging it from the wall peg as if it were a cloak. You will live through that. You will live through the removal of some of your organs. Not your heart, I am afraid. But, so you know, I will leave your head and face intact, and position you such that the mirror will reflect your expression to those who enter here. They will see you in the mirror first, then in all your glory. It will be exquisite.”

Junel pulled the apron on. “As for why, it should be obvious. Your grandfather loves you beyond all others, and you are the last anchor he has to civility. With you slain right here in Cyron’s capital, his loyalty to the Crown will be sorely tested—especially when your killer escapes. He never will be found, you see, for I will have tried to stop your killing and will be wounded all but mortally, but my description of the killer will be useless.”

His eyes softened. “When they tell me of your demise, I will be crushed. I hope you will appreciate that.

“In his grief your grandfather will stop creating charts, which will precipitate an economic panic. Chaos will reign, from which my master will profit.” Junel held up a sharp knife. Candle highlights glinted from the edge. “I will make you a work of art. Your death presages that of your nation.”



Nirati survived far into the morning hours, much longer than she or Junel would have guessed possible. In his intensity, he did not notice her slipping away well before she died. Nirati left that squalid little room and walked along the shore of a cool, crystalline stream, safe away in Kunjiqui. It felt good that her limbs worked again, and after a short time she had even forgotten why they had not previously responded to her commands.

She came over a small, grassy rise and found a man, strongly built with black hair, emerging naked from a pool. Mud was draining from his flesh. He laughed aloud, a joyous sound. He swept his long hair out of his blue eyes, then smiled at her. He clearly was not embarrassed by his nakedness and neither was she.

“My lady Nirati, I bid you welcome and thank you.”

Nirati shrugged her shoulders, letting the gold silken gown she wore slip from her. “Thank me, why?”

“This is your sanctuary. Your grandfather fashioned it for you, but he has allowed me to reside here.” He held a hand out to her and she took it, stepping down into the pool. “I owe you a debt, and I shall make good on it.”

Nirati slid her hands over his broad chest and around his neck. She looked up into his strong face. “How will you do that, my lord?”

“You have been hurt. I shall see to it that you are hurt no more. I shall see to it you are avenged.” He lowered his mouth to hers and crushed her to him in an embrace. She clung to him, raising her right hand into his wet hair, but he broke the kiss and murmured against her lips. “I am Nelesquin. I am come back from a very long journey. Your enemies and mine will learn to fear my return.”

 

Chapter Sixty

6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Ixyll

The explosion of wild magic knocked Keles from his feet. He dropped Ciras’ body and just barely ducked Moraven’s flying form. Horses screamed, and shoes struck sparks from the floor. Borosan had fallen and his light had rolled against the wall, showing Moraven’s slumped body twitching, his hair smoking.

Keles looked back at the cave’s entrance, but could not see outside. A crystalline lattice had capped the cave with a honeycomb pattern. Each cell in the lattice was made up of hundreds of smaller hexagons, each of a different color, all shimmering. The storm’s howl continued outside, but muted. For the moment they were safe, but Keles knew better than to expect that to last long.

The Viruk had fallen to the passage floor, but slowly gathered his limbs beneath him. He moved awkwardly, his limbs jerking and twitching, but he drew them in by dint of will alone. He hissed, but made no other intelligible sound.

Keles thrust Ciras off his legs, then scrambled toward Rekarafi. “Let me help you.”

“No!” His voice sounded hollow, tinged with the roar that a fire makes. He held a hand out toward Keles, fingers splayed, and a red light began to glow from within him. The bony plates of his exoskeleton had become black, as if they were made of night itself, but all around them this vivid red—the red of burning coals—built in intensity. His eyes filled with it, then golden highlights moved through them as if his thoughts had become a flow of lava.

“Stay back. I am not certain how much of this wild magic I can contain. Get the others away.”

Keles withdrew slowly and dragged Ciras after him. He brought him to the base of the wall where Tyressa was straightening Moraven’s limbs. “Ciras is alive. How about Moraven?”

“Alive, but barely. Shallow breath, very slow heartbeat.”

Borosan came over and knelt with them. He held his device for detecting wild magic out so Keles could look at it. Previously the square device had appeared to have red sand trapped between two thin layers of glass. The sand somehow took on other colors, running from orange to violet, as the magic intensified. Now it had nothing but swirls of blue and violet rotating very quickly around the same central point.

The gyanridin shook his head. “We are at the heart of the storm. It is centered on us and has probably moved us many miles away from where we were.”

Keles frowned. “That’s not possible, is it?”

“I’ve heard stories.”

“Borosan, shine your light at the far archway.” Keles rose and pointed deep into the chamber. The gyanridin got up and joined him, playing the light over the arch as the two of them approached it. “I could have sworn it was open when we entered.”

Borosan shrugged. “It might have been. It’s not now, though.” He reached out and ran his hand over the rock sealing the passage. “It’s different than the other rock here. We are probably buried inside some mountain.”

Keles touched the cool rock. “Limestone. It’s everywhere, and this is pretty smooth. Could be we’ve not moved at all.”

The Viruk dragged himself to the edge of the chamber. “We have moved. Can you not feel it, Keles?”

The cartographer tried to see if he felt anything, but he didn’t. “I don’t, Rekarafi. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? We don’t even know where this place is, much less where we have been relocated.”

Borosan played the light over the wall again. “It’s a burial site. The script is old.”

Tyressa stood. “It’s the Imperial script. You mentioned Amenis Dukao. You said he died with the Empress.”

“I’ve read the stories of Amenis Dukao since I was a little boy. I know he was real, but the stories weren’t. I didn’t expect to find his grave here.”

The Keru folded her arms beneath her breasts. “The grave is what waits for all living men, no matter how their lives are retold after they die.”

Keles nodded and sank into a crouch. “Your point is well-taken, Tyressa. Accepting that Amenis Dukao is here means that these graves date from the time of the Cataclysm. I think I know what we might have here. Do you see any of the names that have hereditary titles?”

Borosan and Tyressa both studied the names they could see in the light, but neither reported finding a noble among them. Tyressa frowned. “Is that significant?”

“Could be.” Keles smoothed dust on the floor and drew a diagram of the small entryway and the burial chamber. He ended it with a flat line where the stone had closed the archway. “This is where we are. My grandfather once commented that he hoped the Prince would ennoble the family; that way we would not have to be buried ‘outside.’ In Imperial times, this kind of chamber was an antechamber to a nobles’ mausoleum. Loyal retainers and brave vassals would be buried out here, while the nobles would be buried in the larger chamber. It’s not a common practice now, save with princes and some other families, but was the rule then.”

He glanced back into the shadows. “Now Rekarafi says we’ve been moved, and Borosan agrees, but I don’t. I think there is a huge burial chamber beyond that limestone slab.” He drew the chamber in the dust and erased enough of the line at the arch to make it very thin.

Moraven and Ciras twitched. Rekarafi barked out a harsh laugh. “We moved, Keles.”

“You’re wrong, Rekarafi.” He pointed back toward the entryway. “Did you forget the flashing light that brought us here? I think whoever or whatever shined that light is beyond that slab. The storm probably loosened it. It was designed to keep grave robbers out. I’m sure of it. We get through that slab and we’re in. It’s probably no more than a yard thick, and limestone can be chopped through.”

The Keru nodded. “It can be, but we have no quarrying tools.”

Keles’ heart sank. “Borosan, how about your gyanrigot?”

The inventor shook his head. “With the storm on top of us, I cannot predict what they will do. But I doubt I have enough thaumston to let them burrow through even if the storm does go away.”

The Viruk clawed his way up the wall and regained his feet. “Do not touch me, anyone. Not if you want to live.” He looked at Keles with burning eyes. “A yard you say?”

“Standard for that sort of thing in an Imperial mausoleum.”

The Viruk nodded, then shambled across the burial chamber to the tall archway. The air warmed at his passing as if he were burning with invisible flames. His flesh’s red glow illuminated the limestone slab as his fingers crawled up it. He pressed his palms flat against the stone about ten feet above the floor. His voice, still hollow, rose and fell rhythmically in words both sibilant and powerful.

The light from beneath his palms shifted from red to yellow, brightening to white, then returning to its bloody hue. Each hand’s light pulsed in unison at first and played through little spiderwebs of cracks in the stone’s surface. Those lines grew larger as the glowing fell out of synch. Red energy traced them, only to be chased out by gold. The white light flashed, then sank from view. Pulse after pulse pummeled the rock and sent a humming through the air, causing the horses to shift restlessly.

Bits and pieces of stone began to crumble. Pebbles bounced from the Viruk’s head and shoulders. Limestone dust greyed his hair. Larger pieces clipped him in the shoulders and ricocheted off his arms. The cascade of clattering gravel muted the first loud crack, but deep fissures appeared in the rock. A large, dagger-shaped piece shifted down, then began to twist. It caught for a second, then more stone came to pieces and it began to tumble.

“Rekarafi, move!”

The large stone hunk, easily as tall as Keles himself, fell forward and smashed into the marble floor. It would have crushed the Viruk, but he’d pushed off and sent himself flying backward. He slid across the floor, trailing limestone dust. Two bigger pieces of limestone fell in the other direction, leaving a ragged hole nine feet in diameter at a man-height from the floor.

Keles ran to Rekarafi but refrained from touching him. The glow had died, but his breath still rasped. “How are you? What can I do?”

The Viruk eased himself back against the wall. “You can do nothing but let me rest for a moment.”

Keles looked at the opening in the rock. “What did you do?”

“The reverse of what I did back there.”

“The crystals? You did that? How? You’re a warrior.”

Rekarafi coughed. “A warrior is what I am, but not what I have always been.”

“But what you did is magic, and only female Viruk use magic.” Keles frowned. “Sorry, I actually know nothing about the Viruk—nothing more than you have told me. Will you explain?”

“More fully, another time.” He slowly began to roll to his feet. “Suffice it to say, not being permitted to do something does not mean one lacks the ability to do it.”

Borosan pulled another light from a saddlebag and handed it to Tyressa. He then looked at his magic detection device, smacked it once against his leg, and shrugged. “Whatever you did, Rekarafi, the sand is all black now. It’s broken.”

The Viruk dusted himself off. “You will make something better. Come, let us see what Keles has found for us.”

Tyressa nodded toward the two swordsmen. “Will they be safe?”

“From all but the ghosts, Keru.” Rekarafi bent his arms and slowly pressed his elbows back until something cracked in the area of his spine. “They have nothing to fear. Come.”

The four of them approached the hole, and Keles found his stomach roiling. He had felt certain the chamber was there, and as he looked into it, he found it laid out much as he had sketched in the dust. It was as if the wild magic had given him the ability to see the chamber and record it faithfully without ever having visited it. His grandfather would be certain this was nonsense, but he saw the evidence in the glow of the blue lights.

Tyressa entered first, then Keles. Borosan and the gyanrigot followed him, then the Viruk hauled himself through last. He paused in the hole, much as he had crouched in the entryway, sniffing. “Long sealed, long inhabited.”

“Inhabited?” Borosan raised his lantern and let the light shine throughout the room. “Nothing living in here that I can see.”

“I did not see, either.” He tapped his nose. “So frail, Men.”

Keles frowned as he looked around. The chamber not only had burial spots excavated from the walls, but standing sepulchres had been arranged in rows. They all had been carved of limestone, and several had effigies of the warriors within raised on them. The warriors stood out starkly, full-bodied but white as bone.

Then one of them moved. Keles leaped back, smacking up against Rekarafi’s feet. “A ghost!”

The Viruk shook his head.

Pale as ivory and the size of a child, the creature came up into a seated position and wrapped skeletally slender arms around bony knees. The head seemed too large for the body, with the eye sockets overlarge and the heavy cheekbones slanted sharply down. Its two normally placed eyes matched the size of the third set high in its forehead. Above and below the two usual eyes were smaller ones, these of a golden color with a pinpoint black pupil—a contrast to the larger eyes, which appeared black save where gold sparks exploded in them.

Keles shivered. Seven eyes, the future spies. Spy Gloon eyes, one surely dies. The rhyme was one every child knew and accompanied stories of heroes who ventured into dark places to encounter Soth Gloons. The Soth, who had been highly valued by the Viruk Empire, went through life stages, and Gloon was the last and least common—at least as far as men knew. Their extra eyes were said to permit them a vision of the future, and to meet one was the harbinger of disaster.

“A Viruk here? This was unseen.”

Rekarafi eased himself down from the hole. “Your eyes are too small to behold a Viruk’s future.”

“The Viruk have no futures to behold.” The Gloon shook its head and closed the central eye. “You are in good company with these Men. Their futures are empty as well. In fact, death touches one of them right now.”

Keles opened his mouth to protest, but pain exploded in the center of his mind. Nirati? Nirati, no! He felt himself falling and tried to clutch at anything to stop his fall. But nothing did, and the world crashed closed around him.

 

Chapter Sixty-one

7th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Nemehyan, Caxyan

Jorim looked down on the city below and felt queasy. It was not just the Mozoyan flesh he’d eaten, or all the other things that went with it. The Amentzutl had put on a fine feast with soups and stews alternating with roasted strips of meat. The fleet had provided rice and other basics which, to the Amentzutl, were as miraculous as the horses and chariots. Even at the top of his pyramid, Jorim could hear sounds of singing and merrymaking as the sun began to peek up over the eastern horizon.

Anaeda Gryst looked toward the dawn. “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.”

“It’s not the sky or the weather I’m worried about. It’s not even being thought a god that worries me.”

“No?” Anaeda smiled easily. “I think it would concern me. I merely accept responsibility for a fleet, but you have it for all these people.”

“I am not a god.”

“How do you know?” Iesol knelt at the top of the pyramid about a dozen feet to Jorim’s left. “There are those who suppose that if one can reach jaedunto, perhaps there is a goal above that—divinity.”

“Your idea invalidates your question. I’ve not reached jaedunto, so divinity would be beyond me.”

“I would beg to differ, Master Anturasi.” The minister pressed his hands to his thighs and spoke softly. “As the Master says, ‘There is no destination that cannot be found at the end of multiple paths.’ My idea merely described one way people think divinity is accessible. They are likely wrong. What you have told us suggests that divinity is something you can realize.”

Jorim frowned. “I do not follow.”

“It is simple, Master. Tetcomchoa, the first time around, sailed west and, you suspect, might have been Taichun—he who was Urmyr’s Master. If you accept that Tetcomchoa was a god here, and a man in the Empire, then the path from god to man is open.”

“But that does not mean the reverse is true. Nor does it mean that, because we accepted him as a man, he somehow divested himself of his divinity.”

Iesol smiled. “But this would suggest that just because we have accepted you as a man you are not precluded from having always been a god.”

Jorim held a hand up. “I don’t mind semantic games, but not now. I’ve had far too little sleep and things are running riot in my head.”

Anaeda crouched at his right. “I don’t believe Iesol was playing a game. You don’t want to accept the possibility that you are a god, or that you could become one. I understand this and even applaud your humility. The fact is, however, that these people do believe you are a god. They are also of the opinion that this Mozoloa is rising in the west. As the legends are explained to me, it is Mozoloa who each night inhales the sun and exhales the stars. Each night you send a serpent that squeezes him so hard that eventually he releases the sun and it rises again.”

“We know that is not true.”

“It doesn’t matter what we know, Jorim. The point is simply this. For these people, Tetcomchoa is the god who makes all life possible. Tetcomchoa is core to their reality the same way the Nine Gods are to ours. Your problem is that they see you as Tetcomchoa and they expect you to lead them to where they can defeat Mozoloa.”

Jorim sighed. “That is out of the question. We can’t lead them to the Nine Principalities. Not only do they not have the means to get there, but they would be an invading force. For all I know they’d identify Prince Cyron as Neletzatl and make war on my home.”

“Curious.”

The cartographer glanced at Iesol. “What?”

“It cannot have passed your notice that Neletzatl and Nelesquin have similar sounding names.”

Anaeda glanced up. “The Prince lost with Empress Cyrsa?”

“The Prince who was her rival, yes. There are stories—seldom heard, and almost never in the Nine—that parallel those of the Sleeping Empress. Nelesquin is said to sleep as well, but uneasily in his grave. It has been said he will return, but not as a help.”

“Return to the Nine?”

“To what he once knew as the Empire—what he once thought he would rule.” Iesol nodded. “If he has come back, perhaps the time for Taichun’s return is at hand as well.”

Jorim frowned. “And who else will return? No, don’t answer that, Iesol, I was being dramatic.” The cartographer groaned. “I don’t believe I am Tetcomchoa. Still, every previous centenco has produced difficulties, and they match points in our history. Could it be that they are right? Is some threat rising to the west? Face it, between here and Moriande there is a lot of west, and most of it wet.”

Jorim stared down at the shadows surrounding the pyramid’s base. “If we accept that centenco has validity, then we know a threat exists. The Amentzutl know there is a threat, but the people back home do not.”

“Can you communicate it to your grandfather?”

“No. I’ve tried. Not to tell him about the Amentzutl; we agreed I would not do that. But I tried to reach him to convey some basic weather information. I got nothing.”

“How do you mean ‘nothing’?”

He looked over at her, completely at a loss for words. He had always been able to find his grandfather and convey information. He’d largely been unable to stop his grandfather from plundering whatever else he desired—though the reverse had never been true. Parts of his grandfather had always been untouchable, and Jorim had learned to armor his private memories in layers of mundane trivia that his grandfather hated.

With distance had come a weakening of the contact, but always there had been something. Yet since the battle there was nothing. His attempts to reach his grandfather had fallen into a void, and when he sought his brother, things were no better—though he still could feel Keles out there somewhere.

“It is as if my grandfather has fallen off the edge of the world.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is he dead?”

“No, I think I would know that.” He snorted. “There are times I have wanted it so badly that I know parts of me would rejoice in his death. Now I just feel isolated. Keles is still out there but not looking for me, so we are not communicating.”

Anaeda stood and began to pace, her boots rasping on the stone. “If we accept that there is a danger, we have an obligation to warn Nalenyr.”

“We also have an obligation to help the Amentzutl.”

The ship’s captain smiled down at him. “Spoken like a god taking responsibility for his people.”

“That’s not funny.” Jorim clambered to his feet as Shimik came bounding up the pyramid’s steps.

The Fenn leaped into Anaeda’s arms, then pointed back down the steps. “Nauana comma.”

Nauana was indeed coming, and at the head of a procession a dozen people long. Each of them wore feather cloaks and gold headdresses with long feathers rising from their brows. Each of them looked older than Nauana by at least a dozen years, and they ascended in age. The wizened man bringing up the rear could easily have been over a hundred and might have even been around when Tetcomchoa last walked among the Amentzutl.

The procession reached the top of the pyramid and spread out in a line. Nauana stood in front of them and bowed in the Naleni fashion. “These, Lord Tetcomchoa, are the Elders of the maicana.”

The Elders bowed together and straightened up after a respectful time.

Jorim bowed to them and held it equally as long. Iesol and Anaeda likewise bowed, but remained down longer. These gestures brought smiles to the maicana faces—probably because they were happy to have mastered this new custom.

Nauana came up last of all, but smiled carefully. “This morning is a time for many momentous decisions.” She gestured toward the north and moons glowing from within constellations. “We have much to tell you.”

Jorim nodded. “As do we to tell you.”

Nauana bowed her head. “Please, my Lord Tetcomchoa, tell us your will.”

“We come from the west, where Mozoloa will present his threat. We must warn our people of it, and summon help to defend the Amentzutl from him.” He glanced at Captain Gryst and she nodded. “Toward this end, we will be taking our fleet back west.”

The young maicana woman solemnly translated his words for her elders, but they did not have the effect Jorim would have anticipated. He expected they would be upset that he was leaving, but instead his words seemed to elicit smiles and positive murmurs. Even Nauana smiled as she looked back at him.

“This is, of course, how it should be, Lord Tetcomchoa.”

He frowned. “You know I will be going with them?”

“As we expected.”

“And we’ll be leaving inside a week.”

Nauana frowned. “We do not think that is possible.”

“There is no choice in the matter, Nauana.”

“My Lord’s resolve makes that apparent. We will work very hard, then.” She nodded solemnly. “We shall begin now, shall we, my Lord?”

Jorim watched her face for any sign of deception, but found none. “Perhaps, Nauana, you need tell me what you all came here to say.”

She nodded. “When you were here last, my Lord, and you took your leave, you shared your power with us. You created the maicana. You told us to hold your power and your art sacred. We were to learn and refine, create new things and make what you gave us as strong as we could. You said this was because one day you would return and we would have to show you our work, returning to you the vestiges of your power.”

Nauana opened her arms, her cloak slipped back behind her shoulders. “When you came, I was certain you were Lord Tetcomchoa and worthy of your teachings to be returned to you. Others were not. The miracles you wrought on the battlefield have left no doubt. The Elders have confirmed it and have agreed to return to you what is your right.”

“My right?”

“Yes, Lord Tetcomchoa. Though you give us only a week, we shall train you in the ways of the maicana.” Nauana’s face took on the expression of confidence that made his heart pound faster. “You came to us a god with the powers of a man. You shall face Mozoloa with the powers of a god. When we have returned to you what you lent us, nothing in heaven or on earth will be able to stand against you.”

 

Chapter Sixty-two

7th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Ixyll

Keles woke with a tightness on his forehead and pain throbbing in his head. Though he could remember nothing of what he’d dreamed while unconscious, bits of terror floated in a sense of contentment. It all had something to do with his sister, but the fading fragments made no sense. Pain chased thought from his mind and oblivion beckoned again, but he fought it.

He opened his eyes and it took a moment for him to remember where he was. Borosan’s two lanterns illuminated only a tiny bit of the vast chamber. In the glow of one he could see Moraven and Ciras resting quietly, with the thanaton standing sentinel nearby, and the Viruk sleeping up against the wall.

Tyressa smiled at him. “He said you would be waking up now.”

“He?” Keles tried to sit up, but his head began to swim. As he lay back down he realized he was stretched out on one of the biers, and that sent a shiver through him.

Tyressa pointed to where the Soth Gloon squatted beside Borosan. “His name is Urardsa.”

Keles nodded once, then stopped. “How long have I been out?”

“Most of the night. You slept peacefully, as did Borosan. The storm has passed, but Ciras is exhausted. Moraven is unresponsive and Rekarafi says he needs more rest.”

“How about you? Have you slept?”

She shook her head. “But I’m doing perfectly well.”

He touched the stitches on his forehead. “Your handiwork?”

Tyressa nodded. “You’ll have a scar on your front to match the ones on your back.”

“Thanks.”

The Gloon rose, leaving Borosan to tinker with his gyanrigot. “Your wits should be about you now.”

“They’re returning.” Keles forced himself up on his elbows. “I thank you for saving us.”

“What makes you think I did?” The pale creature cocked his head to the right.

“The signal light in the storm. You led us to sanctuary.”

Urardsa opened his arms and spun around, displaying himself and the dirty rag of a loincloth he wore. “What do you see on me that would cause that glinting?”

“Nothing.” Keles started to rub at his forehead, but Tyressa caught his wrist. “You’re denying you saved us?”

“Have you any proof I did?”

“No.” The cartographer lowered his hand. “Are you going to answer all my questions with questions?”

“Are you going to ask any questions for which there are answers?”

Keles looked at Tyressa. “You endured this for how long before you decided to let me wake up?”

She smiled. “How long do you imagine?”

He groaned and she laughed. Keles looked from her to the Soth Gloon again. “How is it that you are here?”

“I was entombed here with the others.” He hopped up on the bier and squatted at Keles’ feet. He pointed high up on one of the chamber’s walls. “You can barely make out where they placed me.”

A dozen questions immediately came to Keles, but he thought before speaking. If the Soth had been entombed, he clearly had been believed dead. Since the graves outside dated from the time of Empress Cyrsa, it would be logical to assume he had gone out from the Empire with the expedition. And if he has not left here since he was entombed, he’s been here for over seven hundred years.

“You were taken for dead. Who did that?”

Urardsa shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I was beyond thinking at that point. I am now Gloon, but before that I was the life stage known as Myrkal. I was larger then than I am now, though not as large as when I was Anbor. As Anbor I had come to know some of the Empire’s great fighters, and though I had become Myrkal, they invited me to join them. I could yet fight, but this was not demanded of me.”

“Yet you were believed dead and entombed with warriors. What transpired to cause all these deaths?”

The Gloon smiled and his four small gold eyes tightened. “I find this fascinating, Keles Anturasi. I am able to see the future, not the past, so I do not know the details of how I came to be here. I do know the circumstances that led to it, and I shall share them with you, but first . . .”

Urardsa reached a thick-fingered hand out and passed it in front of Keles’ face, over his head, down along his shoulders, never quite touching him. It was almost as if the Gloon were trying to catch an elusive insect. The expression on his face as he did this did not change, but the four gold eyes flicked quickly, often darting in different directions.

The Gloon lowered his hand. “When first I saw you, your future had dimmed. When you fell and struck your head, you should have been dead, but you did not die.” He looked up toward the top of the chamber. “Perhaps the wild magic had something to do with it. It matters not. Now, though, you have a number of life-lines ahead of you.”

“You see my future directly?”

The Gloon closed all of his eyes and shook his head. “You are a pearl on a chain. Your past forms links that are easily seen. For most, there is one chain into the future, and the length of it corresponds to their life. There are an infinite number of possible futures, but finite is the number in which anyone can participate. Your being here opened more futures to you when there should have been none—some great, some trivial. Unlike the others here, you may live a long time.”

Keles frowned as much as he could, given the stitches in his forehead. “You were wrong about me. You’re wrong about them. But you were telling us how you came to be here.”

The Gloon smiled easily and broadly, almost as a child might. “You don’t wish to know your future?”

Keles returned the smile. “You’ve already admitted that your vision is flawed, so why should I?”

The Gloon reopened his eyes. “It has been a long time since I have sparred with someone. My companions and their ghosts are not very inventive. Yes, my circumstances; I recall. I do not know what you have been told of the war against the Turasynd. Skirmishes raged across Deseirion, Solaeth, and Dolosan. The Empress kept drawing the enemy west, hoping that if the grand confrontation unleashed a wave of magic, it would be triggered far enough away from the Empire that her people would survive. Your presence suggests she was successful.”

Tyressa nodded. “The Time of Black Ice was not easy, but we survived. It has been over seven hundred years.”

The Gloon considered that quietly, then nodded. “Ghosts only discuss the past and do not mark the passing of time. The Empress—who is not here, nor has her ghost visited—wanted to be certain the Turasynd would not return to the Empire. She divided her force, leaving a third of it in Dolosan, hidden away. The plan was that when the Turasynd followed her onto the Spice Route, this force would come behind and catch them unawares. The barbarians would be crushed between both forces.”

Keles looked at Tyressa, who nodded. “I understand her reasoning.”

“Good, Master Anturasi. You are not alone, for all of us did, and applauded it. She was advised to put Prince Nelesquin in command of that force. What she did not realize was this: as a Prince of Imperial blood, Nelesquin resented her presence on the throne. To him and his branch of the family, she was naught but a concubine who had murdered her husband and usurped his place. That her husband was incompetent and paralyzed with fear was never believed by those with Imperial blood.”

Keles nodded. The history of that era had emphasized how decisive and brave the Empress was. While it was known that she had killed her husband and met his bodyguards with a bloody dagger in hand, this was not dwelt upon. Moreover, because she had formed each of the Nine Principalities and some were still led by the fami-lies she had picked to run them, the bureaucracy and governments had a vested interest in maintaining that her actions were justifiable and legitimate. But Nelesquin’s difference of opinion was understandable—especially as he was a contemporary of hers.

The Gloon leaped from one bier to another and crouched on the broad chest of a warrior’s effigy. “Nelesquin entered into negotiations with the Turasynd. They were led by a god-priest of considerable power. Nelesquin trailed them into Ixyll, hoping to let both sides weaken themselves so he could destroy them and return to take the Imperial throne. The Empress, worried about a lack of communication from him, sent those entombed around you to see if he needed help. Under the leadership of Virisken Soshir, we discovered him in negotiations with the enemy. We struck at him and the Turasynd leader.

“We were greatly outnumbered, but fought valiantly. I do not imagine our bodies were recovered by Nelesquin and buried thusly. So I assume the Empress proved victorious, and that both the Turasyndi and Nelesquin were destroyed.” He opened his arms. “This tomb is of Imperial style, so she must have had survivors who did this for us. It is her progeny that yet rule the Empire, is it not?”

Keles shook his head. “The Nine Principalities still exist. We are from Nalenyr and were sent to survey the old Spice Route. At least, I was. You said there were skirmishes. The dead were buried with their weapons. Would you know where those burial places are?”

“They might be possible to find. Why?”

Keles shifted around and slid his feet to the floor. His knees did not buckle, but he leaned back against the bier as Tyressa came around to steady him. “Their weapons have value back in the Nine. And we think there might be those who would use their bodies for corpse dust.”

“I can show you what I know, but this would be as nothing compared to the place where the dead from the final battle were buried. You would have to venture further west to find that site.”

Keles levered himself away from the bier and stood. “Then we need to get out of here. You said you have never been outside, but you have survived. What do you do for water and food?”

The Soth Gloon pointed toward the darker recesses of the cavern. “In there you will find seeps that suffice for water. There is also a colony of bats. I do not eat much, and they are filling when I do.”

“If there are bats, then there is a way out.”

Urardsa nodded. “There is a crack in the ceiling of a chamber through which they exit each night. I do not like heights, so I have not ventured forth.”

“I’m going to go take a look.”

Tyressa’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Not alone.”

Keles nodded, then looked over at Borosan. “Tyressa and I are going to take a look at a way out of here. We will be back soon.”

Borosan looked up from his tinkering and nodded, but said nothing.

Keles took one of his lanterns and they headed off. The finished part of the complex narrowed deeper in, but the passage remained large enough that they could move without much more than stooping. Keles had come unarmed, but Tyressa had looped her sword belt around her waist. The scabbard kept slapping at rocks and caught a couple of times, but did not slow them much.

After a steep climb that leveled out into a narrow passage, Keles sat. “Just need to rest for a moment.”

Tyressa knelt beside him and brought the lantern up to examine his face. “It’s bleeding a little, but not too badly.”

“It’s not getting in my eyes.” He glanced up at her. “What did you think of Urardsa’s story?”

She shrugged. “It sounds true, and I have no reason to doubt it.”

“But there are implications that I wonder about. The tomb complex, for example, was not easily built. Assuming the Empress survived, she must have had a considerable number of men to work on it.”

“I agree.”

“So why didn’t she come back with them?”

Tyressa’s breath caught. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think she’s waiting out there somewhere as the legends say?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really. I guess, as we go further west, we’ll find out.” He stood again. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get out.”

“And hope we find another entrance, because neither the horses nor Rekarafi are going to fit this way.”

They scraped their way along a tight passage that then opened out into a relatively steep climb about thirty yards up. At first Keles welcomed it, but then a stench hit him. Halfway up, bat guano covered rocks and deepened as they climbed. Where the passage widened, the dung dragged at their feet. Insect larvae and dying bats wallowed in it and when Tyressa raised the lantern, the cavern roof seemed to heave and ripple with bodies.

Both of them moved through as quickly as they could, but that was not nearly fast enough. They found a narrow ledge that angled up and finally caught sight of a red streak they took to be the evening sky. This heartened them, and they moved more quickly. Being smaller, Keles was able to crawl up the crack swiftly and emerged into a cold evening. But the fresh air was bracing.

The landscape stretched out, painted in bloody tones by the dying sun, and would have riveted his attention, save something more close demanded it. As he emerged, a trio of men stood up. Two held crossbows leveled at his middle. They’d been sheltered in a small hollow beyond a rock, and had a small fire burning there.

Keles raised his hands. “Easy, I’m no threat to you. I’m Keles Anturasi and this is Tyressa.” He half turned back as her right hand reached out to grab a rock. “We got trapped out here by a storm.”

The man without the crossbow nodded. “They’ve been pretty fierce. Anturasi, you say? Of Nalenyr?”

Keles nodded. “Do I know you?”

“No, not at all.” He pointed at Tyressa, half-emerged from the crevasse. “Shoot her. We’ve got what we want.”

A crossbow twanged and Tyressa grunted. Keles spun and saw her disappear back into the cavern.

The leader snarled. “Make sure.”

The two crossbowmen advanced, but before they could reach the opening, a cloud of bats exploded into the sky. Leathery wings snapped and tiny voices shrieked. The cloud became a blurred brown sheet pouring out, circling, rising into the sky. The crossbowmen yelped and dove for cover.

Keles turned and started to run, but a fist caught him behind the left ear and he went down hard. He twisted onto his right shoulder, hoping to prevent his head from hitting the rocks. He succeeded, but only at the cost of his collarbone, which snapped easily. He rolled onto his back and cried out, his left hand clutching at the break.

The trio’s leader placed a booted foot on his chest. “Be quiet. You’ll be taken care of.” The man smiled. “Prince Pyrust would be upset if we let anything happen to you, Master Anturasi. You’re safe now, under his protection. And before you know it, you’ll be able to thank him yourself.”

 

Chapter Sixty-three

9th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Anturasikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Prince Cyron felt the weight of the heavy white mourning cloak; it caught at his legs as he marched through Anturasikun. Similar cloaks shrouded the forms of the Keru before and behind him. White cloth covered painting and murals on the walls, hid furnishings, and otherwise obscured almost anything of color or interest.

Not only did mourning colors predominate, but grief pervaded the tower. Siatsi remained indisposed, and had not yet responded to the note of condolence the Prince had sent immediately upon learning of Nirati’s murder. She had, however, had the messenger return her thanks.

Qiro Anturasi had not even done that much.

Cyron himself had been told of the murder and had gone to the scene of the crime. Even if he had been as battle-hardened as Prince Pyrust, he was certain he would still have vomited. To just look into the room and see the beautiful young woman’s head perched on a mound of meat was an incongruity that offended even before one realized that the mound was the rest of her. She had been taken to pieces with incredible skill. Cyron’s Lord of Shadows had estimated it would have taken five hours to accomplish that task, though how anyone could have remained sane that long was beyond any of them.

To compound matters, Count Junel Aerynnor had been found in a nearby alley with a dagger thrust into his back. An inch or two to the left and it would have severed an artery. He would have bled to death had rescuers not come across him. He had regained consciousness on the eighth, and told a tale of being kidnapped and brought to the murder site. He had been forced to look at what they had done to the Anturasi woman. He’d broken away from his captors—Desei agents according to him—and had been hit with a thrown dagger. Why they had not killed him he did not know, but—as far as he was concerned—in killing Nirati they had ended his life.

Cyron had immediately communicated his regrets to the Anturasi clan, offering to do all he could for them. He promised his people would find Nirati’s killer, but with the murder of Majiata Phoesel yet unsolved, that promise sounded hollow even to him. Cyron had even gone so far as to promise Qiro he could leave Anturasikun to attend Nirati’s funeral, and had opened his own family’s crypt to allow her to be interred in the outer chamber.

The Prince had expected some response from Qiro, but got nothing. No doubt the man was grief-stricken. He likely was also trying to communicate with his grandsons to let them know of their sister’s death. He had hoped the offer of freedom would bring some response—likewise the honor of having Nirati buried in the Komyr crypt—but still there was no word. Even sending stonemasons to ask after what sort of stone they would like for Nirati did not break Qiro’s silence.

Cyron had been understanding, and was willing to allow the man his time to mourn, but almost immediately complaints had come from merchants who were waiting for Anturasi charts. They were slow in coming, or never arrived at all. On top of that, the captains complained that they contained no new information. If they were not getting the latest in navigational aids, they wanted to lower the percentage paid to the Anturasi family; but even their demands for renegotiation were going unanswered.

The Keru parted before the gated entrance to the tower’s interior. Beyond it, the huddled form of Ulan Anturasi waited, his shoulders slumped and his hood fully obscuring his face. He dropped to one knee behind the bars, but remained far enough back that Cyron could not have reached through and grabbed him.

“Good day, Highness.”

“Open this gate this instant, Ulan Anturasi! I must see Qiro at once.”

“Opening the gate will do no good, Highness.”

Cyron slipped the clasp on his cloak and let the snowy garment hit the floor. Beneath he wore a purple overshirt with a gold dragon coiled on it. “Look at me, Ulan Anturasi. You know who I am and what I represent. Do not play games with me. Do as I say. Open this gate.”

The old man on the other side slowly rose from his knees. Palsied hands appeared from within the cloak and fumbled with keys. “It will do no good, Highness. Qiro is not here. I did not open the gate for him. He did not take my keys. He is gone. I don’t know where, but gone.”

The panic in Ulan’s voice shocked Cyron much more than the news that Qiro Anturasi was missing. The information about Qiro’s disappearance had been delivered almost matter-of-factly, as if this was not the first time Ulan had lost track of him.

Cyron played a hunch. “How long has he been gone this time?”

The man’s head came up and red-rimmed eyes studied the Prince’s face. “You know?”

“Nalenyr is my domain. There is nothing I do not know. How long this time, Ulan?”

“Since the other night. Since the night she—”

“Since the night Nirati was murdered.” Cyron slapped the old man’s hands away from the keys, fitted the right one into the lock, and turned it. The lock clicked open. Cyron stepped through the door, relocked it, then tossed the keys to one of his Keru. “No one goes in here. Get a company of Keru and surround the grounds. Another will search it for any sign of Qiro’s passage.”

“Yes, Highness.”

Cyron started up the circular ramp. “No one heard anything, saw anything?”

Ulan wheezed as he struggled to keep up. “No, Highness, nothing. Last we knew he was working. Sometimes he would sleep in his workshop. We called to him, but got no response.”

The Prince frowned. “What did you find when you searched it?”

“Searched it? Highness?” Ulan looked agog at him. “N-no one . . . We don’t go in there unless he summons us.”

“What if he died in there, Ulan?”

The man’s lower jaw hung open and quivered. “He’s not dead, Highness. I would know if Qiro was dead. He’s not. He’s just gone.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you send for me?”

The man’s voice became a tight squeak. “You are Prince Cyron, but he is Qiro. He has been gone before, but he has always come back. I didn’t want to make him angry. You don’t know what he is like when he is angry.”

Cyron emerged at the heart of the workshop. The Anturasi paused in their work, looking at him. All seemed terrified, but Cyron thought it was less because of his possible ire than Qiro’s wrath if a visitor were found among them in his absence.

That’s it, mostly, but there is more. Some among them also feared Qiro’s absence, for it left them without leadership. They might have hated him or feared him, but at least he gave them direction.

Cyron nodded slowly, knowing what he had to do. “I am Prince Cyron. You all know this. Until Qiro comes to overrule me in this matter, you will take orders from Ulan Anturasi. Understand something very important. Qiro would not have left if he did not trust that you could and would carry on the Anturasi mission. Do not let him down.”

The Prince grabbed Ulan by the shoulder and pulled him toward Qiro’s sanctum. They passed through the blue layer of curtains, then Ulan brought his hands up and beat Cyron’s hand aside. The older man sank to his knees and bowed so low he seemed nothing but a discarded cloak wadded on the floor.

“Forgive me, Highness, striking you. Kill me if you must, but I cannot go in there.”

Cyron resisted the urge to kick him. His hands tightened into fists, then loosened again. He squatted and kept his voice even. “Ulan Anturasi, you heard me tell the others you are in charge here now. So it is. I will not kill you. I need you. Nalenyr needs you.”

The man stirred a little, but shivers still ran though him. “You mean that, Highness?”

“Yes, of course.” The waver in Ulan’s voice made Cyron doubt he would be up to the challenge. “Qiro could communicate directly with Keles and Jorim. Can you?”

“I have, in the past, but it has been so long. Qiro forbade it.”

“Can you communicate with Qiro?”

Ulan’s head came up and the Prince tugged the hood back so he could see the man’s face. Worry made it an ashen mask. “I have not for a long time, Highness. I know he still lives, but he is faint and far.”

“How far? Deseirion?”

The old man blinked, then looked down. “I don’t know direction, Highness, but I would say further. Much further.”

“Work at it. Work at reaching any of them. Now.” Cyron stood and nodded toward the interior curtain. “I am going to see if there are any clues to his disappearance in there.”

“Yes, Highness.”

Cyron steeled himself for he knew not what and slipped past the last curtain. The room remained much as it had been when last he visited, save in one very important respect. The map on the wall had been modified extensively. A chain of islands curved down to the south to the Mountains of Ice. In the northwest an incredible amount of detail had been filled in along the Spice Route. As nearly as he could see, the old road remained useful well into Dolosan, and new routes had formed through the changed landscape. Both Keles and Jorim had been successful in their quests.

“And I had no idea how much they had learned. You are a bastard, Qiro.”

These changes in the world should have warmed his heart, for these discoveries would guarantee the economic preeminence of Nalenyr through his lifetime and that of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—unto nine generations. He would be able to reunite the Empire and build it into a greater power than it had ever been before. He would make Pyrust his warlord and his domain would expand to include all of the known world and beyond.

One other detail on the map, however, sent icy dread coursing through his veins. There, in the empty quarter of the Eastern Sea, to the north of the Mountains of Ice, sat an island continent. Teardrop in shape, as if it had been wept from the mouth of the Gold River, it floated there to the southeast. Its landmass could have easily encompassed the Five Princes and Erumvirine as well.

Cyron stared at it, and the image took on definition as if some invisible cartographer were adding details. Mountains grew up and rivers flowed. Cities appeared, flourished, collapsed, and started the cycle again. Odd creatures decorated geographical features, and the name Anturasixan scrawled itself over the face of the continent in Qiro’s strong hand.

And all of it was drawn in blood—blood that dripped slowly down the wall. Cyron thought it might just run in red streaks to the floor, but the fluid shifted and flowed differently, as if it had a life of its own.

It does, just like the place it has drawn. Cyron watched as letters formed into words. His mouth went dry.

Below the new continent a simple legend appeared, as it did on so many Anturasi maps. A warning, scrawled clearly and boldly, in Qiro Anturasi’s hand. A warning to be ignored at the peril of the world.

“Here there be monsters.”