Chapter Thirty-one

36th day, Month of the Dog, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Stormwolf, Archurko

Ethgi

Jorim Anturasi watched as sailors in one of the Stormwolf’s boats pulled hard for the ship. As seen from the ship, the landing party and villagers met peacefully. However, the urgency with which the sailors returned suggested something unusual. The same breeze coming in from the ocean had prevented him from hearing anything said on the island, and would likewise have stolen the sailors’ words, so they just rowed strongly.

The day after he’d been shown the copied chart at Nysant, he had been taken out to the site where the original drawing had appeared. His guide knew the way through the verdant rain forest intimately, and Jorim had a sneaking suspicion the fellow made his living searching out and looting old Viruk ruins. Several hundred years back there had been a strong market for such things in Erumvirine, but tastes had shifted away more recently. Still, the odd pieces often had magical powers attributed to them, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The last leg of the trek involved slithering through ruins until he came to a chamber that had survived the eons relatively intact. His guide, a slender, swarthy fellow with a nose which was much too large for his face, held a torch as Jorim studied the wall map. The chart he’d seen had just been an outline of the drawing, and not rendered terribly accurately, whereas the original had been painted as a mural in rich blues. Mildew had eaten away at the edges, but something in the white paint used to depict the Mountains of Ice resisted it. The chain of islands, likewise rendered in white, stood out against the blue of the ocean.

Jorim studied it carefully, then made a detailed drawing. He affected mild disinterest to counter his guide’s growing enthusiasm. Retaining his composure was not easy, however, as things that had been poorly rendered on the chart still retained their clarity on the wall, and he had worked hard to re-create them accurately on his drawing. What the other chart maker had taken as lines to indicate mountains or squiggles that were rivers were in fact Soth symbols for Viruk words, and Jorim knew them well.

The island of Ethgi, off which they were anchored, had been the largest in the chain on the original chart and the only one to have indications of a settlement. On that chart it appeared to have mountains that ringed a bay. The mural showed something different—a flat atoll with a circular reef. The Soth symbol that had been taken for hastily drawn mountains really represented the old Viruk word eshjii. For the Viruk it meant the island was home to demons and a place to be avoided at all costs.

Sailing down to it had been relatively uneventful, save that breezes came only lightly. Captain Gryst exercised her crew endlessly, drilling them on raising and lowering sails, clearing the decks for battle, and conducting a host of minor repairs. She forbade Jorim from even using the word “demon” and from trying to explain to the sailors what they might face at Ethgi—no matter that the name they were using for it was the more recent pronunciation of the Viruk word.

What eshjii truly meant in the Viruk tongue was Fennych. In all his travels Jorim had never seen more than one or two, and that was good. Singly or in pairs, the Fennych could be intelligent, amusing, even charming—displaying skills at games, singing, dancing, and even small contests of strength or dexterity. They often featured as comical characters in the stories of heroes, and Men tended to look upon their appearance as a good sign.

For the Viruk, the Fenn were not comical. Though the tallest reached no more than three feet in height, their burly bodies boasted disproportionate strength. In their most humanoid form they had sharp teeth, keen-bladed retractable claws, acute vision and hearing, and a short bristle of hair on their heads, usually grey, with dark black stripes or spots running through it. The Fenn had the ability, however, to change shape into a variety of small and medium-sized animals—never quite looking like a dog, wolf, mountain cat, bear, or badger, but a mongrel mix of any two. More importantly to the Viruk, they had an insatiable taste for Viruk flesh, a hardiness that made killing them very difficult, and when in a pack they became feral, vicious, and all but unstoppable. While they would gladly burrow into graves to eat the dead, they were not beyond coursing and killing live prey—and it mattered not to them if it were male, female, adult, or child.

Jorim had little doubt, given the animosity between Men and Viruk, why Fennych were seen favorably by Men. When they got into a pack and changed to their more bestial forms, any affection they might have had for humanity also vanished. They just became part of a voracious horde that could chew a swath through a forest, devouring anything that couldn’t get out of their way, be it plant, animal, or anything else.

The boat reached the Stormwolf and Lieutenant Geressa Toron came up on to the wheel deck to report to Captain Gryst. Though Anaeda’s opposite in size and coloration, the two of them shared a devotion to the ship and the sea that made them seem more alike than not. Geressa glanced at Jorim as if she expected him to leave, but Anaeda shook her head.

“Report, Lieutenant. Master Anturasi has an interest in this.”

The slender woman nodded, the sunlight flashing gold highlights into her light brown hair. “We were greeted warmly by the people, who are all half-starved. Most of them are fisherfolk who cast their nets outside the bay, but never beyond sight of the island. Others raise some crops at the edge of the jungle. They clear an area, farm until it produces no more, then clear another. They offer food and fish to the forest spirits. The last several years, the island and seas have produced a bounty, but this year they did not. Their fishing grounds yielded nothing, and the gardens did not get enough rain. And now they say the forest spirits are angry and have killed people who have tried to clear more land.

“We were greeted warmly because the last time this cycle took place—I can’t tell how long ago, but the oldest person there claimed to be a hundred and three, and it was before she was born—a priest prophesied that in the next time of terror, a ship would arrive to carry them away. They believe the Stormwolf is that ship.”

Anaeda walked to the rail and stared at the island. “How many did they say they were?”

“Five hundred, but I think they were lying. I saw few children and fewer women of childbearing age.”

Anaeda looked at Jorim. “What do you think?”

“I suspect the good years meant the Fennych population grew swiftly. If this is a cycle, they’ve been through it before. If the Fenn attack in a pack, the settlement could be wiped out.” Jorim sighed. “Even if their reported numbers are correct, it’s not a group the fleet can absorb. Malnourished, and not having any education or abilities beyond basic survival skills, means their chances elsewhere in the world would be small.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting we just let them die?”

“I’m suggesting nothing of the sort, but we can’t let a mythical prophecy create an obligation. If you think about it, Captain, the people there had to have sailed here—either by themselves or in the holds of Viruk ships. They know they can sail away, but they’ve not tried it. We’re a week and a half out of Nysant under calm winds. They could have saved themselves already if they wanted to. Instead, they are waiting to be saved, and had we not chanced on this voyage and that chart, we’d never have come here.”

Anaeda smiled slowly. “Your point is well-taken, but it does not solve the problem they face. We can’t take them with us, nor can we send them north to Nysant on one of our tenders. If we did take them aboard, the crew would view them as bad omens. Worse yet, they might have diseases and, at the very least, would eat far more than we can spare. To leave them behind, however, would have the crew blaming any evil that befell us on their spirits. I need something I can do to help them. Have you a suggestion?”

Jorim nodded. “I do. I’ve never seen a Fenn pack in full rampage, but villages in Ummummorar tell stories of how they manage to keep the Fenn at bay. We’ll use up some of our supplies, but I think the crew will understand.”

He glanced at the sky. “We have enough time before dusk to make the plan work. Captain, if you’ll order the Seawolf in to Ethgi’s harbor, we’ll have the problem solved in no time.”

 

Jorim waited with a contingent of soldiers from the Stormwolf at the inland edges of Archurko. The settlement was little more than a collection of mud huts and longhouses built from native bamboo. The town had dug a trench and raised a breastwork long in the past, though new slivers of sharpened bamboo had been set in place. It would not have been enough to even slow the Fennych, since many could leap to the top of the mound with ease, but the wall’s fierce appearance gave people heart.

He’d been overjoyed when Captain Gryst gave him leave to accompany the expeditionary force onto the island. While the soldiers and sailors went about their duty, he spoke with the village elders to learn more about the settlement’s history. It did not surprise him that the headman also served as a priest of Quun, the Bear. Followers of that god valued steadfastness and continuity above all else, so would easily see themselves bound by traditions and as part of cycles.

Several things did surprise him, however. He asked for and was given samples of the fish they caught. He easily recognized them, but there were far fewer species than he would have expected. The total of varieties he saw available were a third of those sold in Nysant and when he asked why other fish were not eaten, his questions were answered with a simple, “It is against our way.”

As he spoke to more people he discovered many things that were counter to their “way.” Sailing beyond sight of the island was a violation of religious law. The manufacture and consumption of alcoholic beverages was similarly banned. Religious laws proscribed many things, narrowly focusing their lives on things that were important and would allow them to survive.

Jorim slowly began to form a picture in his mind of what must have happened down through the eons. The small settlement looked to its religious leaders for direction during times of crises. A priest, or a series of them, outlawed one thing and another. It could have been that during a particularly poor year for grain, he forbade brewing. Conversely a celebration where men drank to excess and started fighting might have resulted in the same ban. Similarly, cases of food poisoning linked to one type of fish might have resulted in its banning, and the fear of ships being lost in a storm when too far from the village might have caused the laws about that to be born.

Instead of expanding and growing as a society should, this one contracted. The whole idea of a society shrinking sent a chill down his spine. His entire life, his family’s vocation was dedicated to expanding society and its horizons. Removing the people from Ethgi would not only be logistically impossible, it would destroy them. Nysant would be seen as a pit of vice and depravity—and he wasn’t sure he disagreed wholly with that—and the Ethgisti would flee back to their island as fast as they could.

Darkness had fallen and silence stolen in save for the crackling of torch flames and the flutter of bats’ wings in the night. All the soldiers remained still, their eyes and ears straining. The breeze easily carried their scent into the jungle, but it also carried another scent. And that scent drew the Fennych as fire draws insects.

The soldiers and sailors had not been happy when cask after cask of rice beer had been loaded into boats and rowed to shore. The villagers carried it through Archurko and to the forest edge, where the casks were buried to within a foot of their tops, then broken open. Jorim had no idea how many Fenn there might be, so he’d had twenty casks shipped out, and the expedition’s personnel mourned each one as if it were a sweetheart.

He had hoped rice beer would work, for in Ummummorar a variety of fruits and roots were mashed up and allowed to ferment in preparation for what was known to be prime Fennych season. When it passed without danger, the villagers consumed the mixture in an orgy of drunken joy. If danger did present itself, the potent liquor was poured into troughs made from split and hollowed logs.

True to the Ummummoraran tales, the island Fennych approached the alcohol cautiously. Jorim could barely make out the single individual crawling forward to reach the first cask. About the size of a small bear, but with a long tail and tufted ears, it dipped a paw into the rice beer, then licked. It growled, then tried a bit more, before grabbing the edge of the cask with both paws and plunging its head fully into it.

In less time than it took for bubbles to rise from the first Fennych’s splash, others poured from the forest and went for the beer. Some dived in and splashed, others crowded around, muzzles sunk deep, while yet others jostled and pushed like puppies searching for a teat. A few fought for possession of a cask, then broke apart, little harm done, to chase other interlopers away from their prize.

Snaps and snarls filled the air, followed by long howls that sounded mournful. As the din died down and the owl-moon’s face shone over the scene, furry, barrel-chested creatures lay all around the casks, twitching and snoring, staggering a few steps and falling. Several poked their unconscious comrades, prodding them to get up, but gradually succumbed to drink and gravity.

When Captain Gryst deemed all to be safe, the people of the Stormwolf left the breastworks and approached the horde of drunken monsters. Jorim made certain he was out in front and reached them first. They’d not begun to revert to their more docile form, but they hardly seemed threatening. He checked first one, then another, looking at their teeth and paws, and after looking over a half dozen, settled on the third one he’d inspected.

He rolled the young male onto his stomach, then lifted him by the scruff of his neck. “This one will do, Captain.”

Anaeda nodded. “Slaughter the rest of them, then report back to the ship.”

A sergeant with the Sea Dragons looked at her. “Begging your pardon, Captain—”

“Yes, Sergeant Solok?”

“This killing is likely to be thirsty work, Captain.” The man smiled as his men fell to butchering the sleeping Fenns. “Be a shame to waste what’s left of the beer.”

 

Chapter Thirty-two

4th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Telarunde, Solaeth

Had the situation they’d discovered in the small town of Telarunde not been so potentially explosive, Moraven Tolo might have laughed. As it was, he shot a hand out to restrain Ciras. Tyressa had the good grace to look at him before she chose to do anything. Keles Anturasi just reined his horse to a stop, then squinted and studied the town square as if trying to clear his mind of the fog that sometimes consumed him.

The journey from Asath to the coast of the Dark Sea had gone quickly. They decided to avoid Gria, so Moraven led them northeast to a cove where smugglers plied their trade. The smugglers were not choosy about cargo, and accepted their horses as partial payment of passage. They’d often transported xidantzu and did not mind having one in their debt. Moraven had employed this family before and found one of their virtues was that they had a very short memory span, save for good friends.

The passage to Eoloth went quickly and uncharacteristically smoothly. They saw no pirates and had no foul weather. The food, which was served very salty and cold, made them long for the rancid rations on the Catfish, but within three days they’d quit the ship and entered Solaeth’s largest city.

Eoloth’s buildings rose to three and four stories, despite being made of mud bricks that were then stuccoed over and whitewashed. The people actually took pride in their homes and regularly decorated them with verses scripted in bright paint surrounding doors and windows, or with painted-on ivy that could never have survived in the cool, dry climate. The brightest colors and most exotic images adorned the wealthier homes, though neither Keles nor Ciras thought much of what the Eolothans counted as wealth.

The two of them shared many characteristics born of an early life of privilege. Ciras remained very precise in action and ritual. He even continued to be well-mannered despite being hot, tired, and hungry—a state that was nearly constant in the ship’s cramped, damp quarters. Moraven admired his stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise unless there was a tactical advantage.

Keles likewise found the hardships trying, but remained game and made the best of things. Moraven had been led to believe Keles was smart, but the young man did make a number of errors. They were not consistent, but similar in nature. Part of the time he seemed to be in a fog, and several days complained of waking with a headache as if he’d spent the previous night drinking.

Tyressa intrigued Moraven because she possessed a discipline that belied her age and clearly had been well trained, but was more than willing to listen to his ideas about how they might accomplish their missions. Usually warriors associated with a nation or particular noble house looked down on xidantzu—thinking them too independent to be worthy of hire. Tyressa seemed to put that all aside, save where Keles’ safety might be jeopardized.

Once they’d bypassed Gria, Tyressa had opened the sealed orders she’d been carrying. She passed a message to Moraven, then read through the remaining documents. After a second read, she turned them over to Keles. He read them, frowned, and slumped back against the boat’s hull. “This is going to be difficult.”

Moraven had smiled. “That would be true of any mission out here. This just makes it more curious.”

The Prince’s message had expanded Keles’ mission by adding two additional tasks. First, he was to help Moraven in locating possible caches of weapons from the time before the Cataclysm. He was to make exact maps of their locations and not communicate any of that information to anyone, even his grandfather. That latter instruction had confused Keles, but he agreed to it, noting, “It just means I’ll have to have lots more things to give him, so he won’t go looking for stuff.”

The second thing the Prince asked him to do was to help find Borosan Gryst. Keles knew who that was and brightened at the prospect of meeting him. Keles started to explain about something Gryst might be carrying, but then grew quiet. Everyone in the group noticed his reluctance to explain further, but no one cared, since they’d undoubtedly learn what it was if they ever found Gryst.

The message to Moraven, penned by the Prince himself, had been separately sealed. “Gryst is paramount. All else matters not.” Moraven had read it, then burned it saying, “The Prince wishes us luck. I’ll let the gods read the message of luck in the smoke, and we shall have help on our journey.”

The others accepted his not having let them read the message themselves. He didn’t like Prince Cyron’s subordinating their efforts to the locating of one man, but leaders always put their concerns first. The implication in the message had not been subtle at all: the others could die or be murdered as long as Borosan Gryst was returned to Moriande.

Moraven felt a chill ripple down his back. There had once been a time when he’d thought of lives in such a casual manner and he was glad he had changed. Killing the men at Asath had been necessitated by the fact that survivors would have summoned more help. Their pursuit might have continued even into Solaeth or, more likely, would have drawn unwanted attention to the four of them.

The deaths in Asath will barely merit a mention to the Prince. Moraven wished Cyron would have the chance to see the true value of an individual life, but he doubted it. The scale of the problems the Prince had to deal with, and the fact that his ministers insulated him from the gory realities of life, meant he never would have that chance. It was a pity, but was also likely the only way the Prince could acquit his responsibilities to the nation.

Moraven considered this and other things as they rode. Thank the gods I’ve not been placed in those same straits. Even as that idea occurred to him, a carrion crow’s piercing cry mocked him.

 

Solaeth had only ever been a frontier province and never truly a full part of the Empire. Very little in the way of Imperial influence could be seen in the architecture or the tangle of alleys and roads that threaded through the city. Warlords had long since divided the nation, though they sent representatives to a ruling council in Eoloth, keeping up the pretense that it was a nation and that the High Governor actually ruled it.

What struck Moraven as the greatest departure from Imperial influence was the preponderance of devices created through gyanri. He had seen the blue lights that glowed at night in the larger cities and knew them to be very expensive, but here the same blue light glowed from brooches or the pommels of decorative swords. He had no doubt that the light would not last very long, for the thaumston to power it came dear, but these people used as trinkets what the finest people of Moriande could only dream of owning.

The sheer volume of gyanri product did make entering a discussion about it easy. Moraven and the others had no trouble appearing wide-eyed with amazement at the things they saw. Carefully they were able to turn the resulting discussions toward Gryst, and after a day had been pointed in the right direction. They traveled almost due north out of Eoloth, bound for the small town of Telarunde.

Telarunde had sent people to the capital to seek help. The village lay at the foot of a mountain containing the ruins of an old citadel. A creature, said to be of the Ixae Yllae, had taken up residence in the ruins and regularly preyed on cows, goats, sheep, and the occasional shepherd. It had become more emboldened in the dry summer, and carried off far more than it had before. The villagers were afraid that it might be feeding a brood.

Borosan Gryst, with a wagonful of his gyanri inventions, had headed off to destroy the beast. He’d said it was on his way to Dolosan anyway, and he would be happy to help. He’d gone with the town’s representatives, and everyone who had related the story to them in Eoloth was pretty certain it would not have a bard’s-tale ending where everyone lived happily ever after.

How true their predictions were. Moraven smiled in spite of himself as he watched the villagers working hard in the town square. They were piling bundles of sticks, bales of straw, and even the occasional broken piece of furniture onto a heap. They muttered as they worked, with an occasional sharp outburst shocking everyone to silence—a silence that was then filled with murmurs of agreement.

At the center of this pile, bound to a thick stake with thick ropes, was Borosan Gryst. At least Moraven took him to be Gryst, for he had the man’s reddish-brown hair, and his eyes did appear to be mismatched blue and hazel. He’d not been described as being too tall, and the ropes, despite being snug, did allow his paunch to show. The match to the description was enough for Moraven to feel confident in his identification, but when the man spoke, that cinched it.

Exasperation colored his every word. “No, no, why won’t you listen to me? The bundles of sticks should be closest to the stake and angled up. Point them at my knees. The kindling goes under them. You hold that other, bigger wood back because it will take much longer to burn, and it’s mostly hardwood. It will burn slowly. You want softer wood, so it will burn hotter. Listen to me. Do you want your fire to be efficient or not?”

The response from the crowd indicated their wishes ran to the contrary. His exhortations just made them work harder, piling things higher and in a most haphazard manner. Plead though he might with them, they refused to pay him any heed. “Save your breath for screaming, you fool!” one man shouted.

“Told you we should have gagged him first,” remonstrated another.

Moraven spurred his horse forward and raised his voice. “Good people of Telarunde, my companions and I are curious. What are you doing?”

“They’re building a wholly inefficient fire. This will take an hour to do what could be accomplished in tens of minutes, with less wood wasted!”

The swordsman held a hand up. “If you don’t mind, Master Gryst, I understand your thoughts in this matter. My wish is to learn how you came to be lecturing these good people on how to build a fire.”

An older man, the one who had extolled the virtue of a gag, squinted up at Moraven. “I’ll tell you and gladly. He come here and said he’d kill the monster in the mountain. He put one thing here, another there, and another until he had things all over, then he put them together into something round as a cookpot and pointed it at the fortress and sent it rolling off like it was a hound after a fox. He said that would take care of it and we all celebrated.”

He pointed at a longhouse toward the north edge of town. The northernmost third of the thatched roof was missing, and Moraven guessed much of the back wall was gone as well. “We were sitting in there, thanking him and praising the gods for our good fortune, when the monster came and ripped the longhouse open. It grabbed a man or three—full-growed men, not boys like in the fields—and hied off for its lair. Now he said it would take time, and we gave him time, but a deadline was set, and now this fire will be set.”

Moraven shook his head. “I would not light the fire yet, were I you, for Borosan Gryst kept faith with you.”

The old man’s face screwed up sourly. “You’re not from around here, and we don’t like being tricked by strangers. We already have been tricked once. Speak plain. We’ve wood aplenty.”

The swordsman gave Gryst a hard stare that silenced him. “The device he employed works in many ways. It went to the fortress. It found the beast. It realized the beast was more than it could deal with, so a message went out to me. I have come with my companions to help it complete its work.”

The villagers around the old man watched as he tried to figure out whether to believe Moraven or not. Flickers of emotion stole over his face, and for a second Moraven thought he’d won. Then the man’s expression darkened and he opened his mouth to speak.

He never said a word, however, for Keles Anturasi slid from the saddle and pointed toward the fortress. “Without a doubt, that’s the Fortress of Xoncyr. It’s just like the other one said. That’s where his sister is.”

The old man blinked. “What other one?”

Tyressa rode up and leaned forward in the saddle. “The other creature we destroyed. Borosan here is our scout. You can’t imagine we’d have come without a scout, can you? We’d have been here faster, but the last one was her older brother, and his bride had just laid a clutch of a dozen eggs, so both were very determined.”

The villagers began to murmur among themselves, but the old man refused to be fooled. “You don’t look like you’ve been in no fight.”

Ciras spoke softly. “It was not the fight that delayed us. It was laying to rest the five of our comrades who were slain. We were once nine.”

The invocation of nine had the desired effect. Some people grabbed the old man and others started tearing apart the bonfire. One even asked Borosan if there was an efficient way to remove wood, and he happily offered advice.

Moraven looked down at the village’s leader. “If you would show us the destruction done and let us confer with our comrade, we will determine how best to proceed.”

“Yes, of course.” The old man held his hands up. “You wait right here. I’ll get everything ready for you.”

As the old man ran off, Keles came closer and looked up. “We get Gryst and go, right?”

Moraven shook his head. “We bought Master Gryst’s freedom with a promise.”

Keles’ eyes grew wide. “You’re not joking, are you? You’re going to go up there and kill whatever that monster is?”

“Me, no.”

The cartographer smiled. “Good to hear that.”

“No, I’m not going to do it, Keles.” Moraven smiled. “We’re all going to do it.”

 

Chapter Thirty-three

5th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Wentokikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Prince Cyron sat on his throne, again encumbered by the suffocating robes of state. Between him and the doorway ran a red carpet, edged in purple, but barely wide enough this time for one man to walk down it. A stretch of blond wood remained visible between its edges and the pillars, which was why the two ministers who knelt on either side of it, at his feet, were allowed to be in the center of the chamber. Had either of them or their robes even accidentally touched the carpet, he could have ordered their deaths.

He did not smile as he recalled the story of an emperor who had once combed a hated and grasping minister’s robe to find purple fibers on it. Whether or not they had been there or planted by the Emperor himself in the bristles of the brush used, no one knew. Cyron doubted he would ever go to those lengths to rid himself of an annoyance, but some days he found himself sorely tempted.

His own Minister of Harmony, Pelut Vniel, knelt at his right hand. As befitted the man’s lineage and station, his blue robe had studious dragons coiled back and breast, while purple trimmed each hem. Vniel was not his most senior minister, but had risen to the powerful position of Harmony through his wiles and the fact that he seldom remonstrated with the Prince about matters of form over substance. This meeting, however, had been one of those times and had set Cyron’s temper slowly boiling.

Across from him knelt Helosunde’s Minister of Foreign Relations, Koir Yoram. Even younger than the Prince himself, Koir had the fiery spirit of a refugee who wished nothing more than the complete liberation of his homeland and the restoration of his nation. The fervency with which he wished this left him trembling whenever he was given news he did not like hearing. Much had happened since the Festival that did not please him and, Cyron was certain, he’d badgered his Master into letting him approach the throne with demands.

Pelut had given vent to his irritation in explaining things to Cyron—less to reveal his true feelings than to show Cyron why this audience was necessary. Bureaucrats evidenced odd patriotism because they fought more to protect the structures that kept them in place than they did to defend their nation against predation or outrage. Koir’s request for an audience had come far too abruptly and on too high a level to be tolerated.

Cyron had finally consented to the audience because it was expedient. He was more than happy to fund Helosundian military options, for it was better to shed the blood of mercenaries than that of his own people. The difficulty was that these mercenaries didn’t think of themselves as such. They actually thought they were a nation and should have a say in their own affairs. Moreover, they saw themselves as full allies of Nalenyr, not paupers begging alms, and therefore entitled to advise the Prince and consent on any policies that affected them.

Pelut Vniel’s hands pressed flat against his thighs. “You will find, Minister, we never intended to keep news of rice shipments to Deseirion hidden from you. Reports were communicated to your subordinates. We apologize that the incorrect cover obscured their true nature, causing them to be set aside. New reports, updated reports, have since been sent, with the correct covers and under my seal.”

Koir bowed his head. The man’s green robe had gold hounds embroidered on it, but nothing to indicate that these dogs lived at the sufferance of the Naleni Dragon. And to think that purple fibers would show up so brightly against that emerald silk. Koir had dressed to show disrespect and all three of them knew it, but they also knew that to take notice and react would be a victory for him.

“Minister, your attention to detail pleases us. The question we have concerns this aid being given to our mutual enemy, at a time when he is most weak. For the first time in enneads we are poised to drive him from Helosunde. The grain makes his soldiers stronger. And at the same time you have slowed delivery of supplies to us. We do not understand this strategy.”

Cyron consciously controlled his breathing. The Helosundians had yet to agree on an heir to the last Prince—whose only talent, it seemed, was siring children on everyone but his wife. Then again, I’ve met his widow and found her so disagreeable that I would sooner become a monk than lie with her. The bureaucrats had formed a committee to decide which of the Prince’s bastards should lead Helosunde, as much to preserve their positions as to remove any claim to legitimate rule on her part. This embittered the widow even more, making a political marriage to her yet more unthinkable in Cyron’s mind.

The Naleni Minister of State kept his voice low. “The shipments of grain are not to the Desei troops. They go to the people.”

“But, Minister, you would acknowledge that Pyrust draws from his people’s stores to feed his troops.”

“Of course. We assumed this would happen. Pallid Desei rice fills the bellies of troops, while our golden rice goes to the Desei people. Do you suppose they do not know where it comes from? They do, and they know whom to thank when their elders and their children survive. They will see Nalenyr as the land of gold.”

“Which will prompt them to join Pyrust when he commands them to move south to take what you give. They will pour through Helosunde to get it. We will be unable to stop them, for our warriors are hobbled. Our requests have been reasonable.”

Pelut nodded thoughtfully. “Reasonable, yes, but for offense, not defense. You are planning an attack against Meleswin.”

Koir’s lower lip trembled, betraying his surprise at both the information Pelut possessed and his willingness to deliver it bluntly. By rights there should have been much more time wasted peeling back layer after layer of motivation until Koir expressed his desire to drive the Desei from what had been Helosunde’s third largest city.

“Our agents have learned that, in response to demands made upon him by your own Prince Cyron, Pyrust will withdraw his troops from Meleswin. We plan to take the city back, freeing our people.”

Cyron knew that for a lie. Meleswin had long ago spawned a twin Desei city on the north bank of the Black River. Since its conquest, the Helosundian population had been driven from it and the Desei leaders had transplanted their own people. Meleswin was now more a Desei city than a Helosundian one. Any conquest of it would result in a bloodletting that Pyrust could not help but respond to.

“Minister Yoram, the court has given as much study as possible to this situation.” Pelut pressed his hands together. “It is believed that any strike against Meleswin is ill-advised. We cannot support it.”

Koir did not even attempt to control his outrage. “You mean to say you will not permit it.”

“That is your choice of words. Mine were chosen with care to their meaning.”

“Might I remind the minister that Helosunde is a sovereign state with every right of self-defense and every right to pursue its national self-interest. Reestablishing its power over territory stolen by greedy interlopers is but one of the ways in which we defend ourselves. Moreover, the stronger we are, the less of a threat the Desei pose to you.”

With a flick of his wrist, Cyron snapped open the fan in his right hand. A golden dragon on a field of purple unfurled on the crescent and hid his face from his eyes down. “ ‘And the Master said, “The dog awaits his master’s pleasure and is rewarded. Impotent barks breed only displeasure.’ ”

Koir stiffened sharply, and Pelut covered his shock as well. Had the meeting gone as scripted, Cyron would have said nothing, remaining impassive and unmoved throughout. By hiding behind his fan he was not to be noticed, and though they both heard his Urmyrian quote, manners demanded they had to deny he had spoken. At the same time they were required to heed him.

The Helosundian’s blue eyes blazed furiously, but he said nothing for as long as it took Cyron to close the fan. “Helosunde sees its duty to Nalenyr to be as sacred as it is to its own people. We have not forgotten the many kindnesses of the Naleni people. We are willing to interpose ourselves between the noble Naleni and the vile Desei, even as the Keru impose themselves between Prince Cyron and his enemies.”

Pelut allowed his eyes to half close. “Nalenyr would never forbid Helosunde from any action Helosunde’s prince deemed necessary, but this matter of Meleswin is one in which we urge extreme caution and deliberation.”

The flicker of Koir’s eyes betrayed his thoughts. Pelut had told him that Nalenyr would back the decision of a Helosundian prince. This would force the bureaucracy to come to a decision about an heir before they would authorize the attack. The wrangling over the heir might take months if not years, and the urgency of the attack would pass.

That, or all will be done in haste and disaster will result.

Cyron smothered the desire to shake his head. Had Pyrust been in his place, he’d have exploded off the throne and likely kicked the insolence out of Koir. Probably have to kick him to death to do that. While a kick or two would be gratifying, Cyron would have just as soon bribed Koir and his fellow ministers to do nothing. Unfortunately, they would have taken his gold, then used it to fund their plan, the whole time conspiring with his own ministers to keep the results of any disaster secret.

Koir bowed, but not low enough for his head to touch the carpet. “The dragon’s wisdom and friendship is the greatest treasure of the Helosundian people. I shall withdraw and share it with my leaders. May the Strength of the Nine continue to enrich the Komyr House.”

The Helosundian minister rose and backed from the room. Pelut watched him go. He then turned to Cyron and bowed. “He is where we desire him to be.”

Cyron snorted. “Committed to doing nothing, or speeding forward on a course that will create more problems? Meleswin is a disaster in the offing. If they cannot see it is a Desei trap, they are stupid. I can only hope Koir leads the horde into the city.”

“Unlikely, Highness.”

“I know, which means their brave die and their idiots remain.” Cyron again snapped open his fan, cutting off any further discussion. “A dragon weeps, not of disgust, but pity for courage spent worthlessly.”

 

Chapter Thirty-four

5th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Stormwolf, in the South Seas

Only two-thirds of a week out of Archurko and Jorim realized he’d learned far more about the Fennych than any other source in the world—at least, any human source. He had no doubt the Viruk knew a lot about them, but he hardly expected their reports to be without bias. He watched the creature carefully, keeping it with him constantly for the first three days, then letting it wander from his side once Captain Gryst became convinced it would cause no mayhem.

Jorim had encountered creatures, like the rainbow-lizard, which would shift color so it could fit in with its background. The Fenn seemed able to do so with his shape and even personality. Isolated from his species, the Fenn immediately began to adapt to life among humans. He took on more human proportions, though his head, eyes, and ears remained large. In fact, according to measurements Jorim took, his head, orbital cavities, and eyes actually grew larger.

Jorim had explained it to Iesol rather simply. “He exhibits a marked degree of neoteny—he’s modeling himself after a human child because that’s what invokes our most protective instincts.”

“But we have no children on board.”

“That’s true, but the overlarge head and large eyes are common for infants of most species.” Jorim nodded as the Fenn leaped from a squat and swatted at a cable-end being dangled playfully by a sailor. “Likewise such play behavior is common. He’s slowly being socialized in the ways of Men, and being cute means he gets attention, avoids harm, and gets fed.”

It came down to much more than simple imitative behavior, however, for fairly quickly the Fenn began to speak. He showed a preternatural ability for discerning and discriminating sounds—and Jorim thought this might have been one of the reasons his ears actually got bigger even though they were decidedly not human. Syntax seemed irrelevant to him, but he developed an insatiable desire to know the “nama” of everything and everyone. “Jrima nama,” followed by the sound of a paw patting something, became so common that Jorim found himself answering in his sleep.

The learning of language clearly was an adaptive skill, and the fact that the Fenn was able to attach meaning to more conceptual words provided a big clue as to his level of intelligence. After several days, the Fenn provided his own “nama,” by patting his chest and announcing “Shimik.” Shimik often mumbled to himself in a melodious language, but resisted any of Jorim’s entreaties to share words.

Shimik did learn very quickly what behavior was and was not allowed, such as waking folks from a sound sleep or interfering with people at work. He likewise picked up language from belowdecks and incorporated it into his vocabulary. Thus anything broken or bad became “dunga.” Being able to provoke laughter was quickly rewarded, so he became something of a clown, though he turned those antics off when he joined Jorim in his cabin and Jorim needed silence to take measurements, record data, or communicate with Qiro.

Despite having had less than a week to study Shimik, Jorim drew conclusions about the creature that explained how it could be so docile away from others of its kind, so intelligent, and yet become bestial in a community. While alone, Shimik remained so compliant that Jorim could force his mouth open, study his teeth, or expose his claws without so much as a growl. The offensive weapons that made the Fenn capable of attacking and killing a Viruk warrior were still present, just not used.

What he decided was that the Fenn were inordinately intelligent and creatures well suited to living in a society. When away from their own kind they felt extremely vulnerable, and with good cause, since a lone Fenn was unlikely to be able to defeat a lot of creatures—and certainly not a Viruk. In a Fennych mob, however, they had little to fear. Their numbers could overwhelm almost anything, and the chances of any one of them being singled out and killed dropped with each new Fenn added to the group. When a bunch of them came together, the need for intelligence fled and they just acted and reacted together.

What he assumed happened on Ethgi was simple. Under normal circumstances, Fennych probably had their own separate ranges and remained relatively solitary. They obviously found members of the opposite sex for breeding, and he wondered a great deal about the size of litters and the like. The kits, when old enough, would spread out and find their own ranges, but as more of them grew up, the population expanded and forced them into closer company with each other. A mob would form and go rambling off, killing things and pushing into a new area where they could spread out again. The whole process would begin anew, with the time between mobbing determined by food supplies, local predators, and other factors that would limit population growth. On Ethgi there was no place to go save into the village, and no prey to be had but villagers, which resulted in the situation in which the Stormwolf had intervened.

Studying Shimik and taking navigational readings provided Jorim with something to do. Had he not had the Fenn to watch, he likely would have gone mad, for there was little else for him to do. The Stormwolf sailed south, looking to catch a current running east. As they went, they looked for the islands in the chain, but had little success. This frustrated him because the Soth chart had seemed promising. They’d found Ethgi with it, after all.

Captain Gryst was more inclined to dismiss the absence of islands. She stood with Jorim at the aft rail on the wheel deck, studying the faintly luminescent wake of the ship as the sun slowly set. “There are various explanations for why the islands aren’t here, Jorim. That map was over three thousand years old. What were indicated as islands may have been atolls exposed at a time when the sea was at a lower level. And we have no indication the Viruk understood more about longitude than we do, so they could be leagues away from where we expect to find them.”

Jorim shook his head. “You might as well say some god reached down, scooped them up, and moved them somewhere else. They should be there. The arc was right on the map for a chain of islands. Maybe they were old volcanoes or something.”

“Maybe they were just legends to the Viruk, much as the Mountains of Ice are legends to us.”

“You don’t mean that.” Jorim cocked an eyebrow at her and turned to look south past the prow. “They’re there.”

“How do you know, Master Anturasi?”

“It stands to reason. If one goes north, through the Turca Wastes and beyond, you come to a land of ice. It makes sense that the same conditions would exist south. That, coupled with the legends, indicate the Mountains of Ice will be there.”

Shimik, whose fur had grown shorter and had taken on the honey-gold hue of the oak deck, loped over, then held his paws up to Jorim. “Jrima uppa uppa.” The little fingers twitched and Jorim lifted him up lest claws appear and he start to climb.

Anaeda smiled as the Fenn waved a hand at her. “I find you quite curious, Master Anturasi. You are here taking measurements so we can define the world and know it better. You are studying this Fenn very carefully and recording what you learn. You similarly sketch the fish we catch, draw birds we see, map out the constellations that are not visible from Moriande, yet you allow yourself to believe in a land where the mountains are made of ice based on nothing more than fanciful stories from a time of heroes. How do you reconcile such things?”

The sea breeze made his braids float and Shimik tried to catch one in his paws. “I’m not certain, Captain, that I need to reconcile those things. There are plenty of people who live in mountain valleys who are certain the world is flat and the sky a bowl over it. They are doubtlessly convinced that we’ve already sailed off the edge of the earth.

“But I believe the mountains are there, and I know why. In part it’s the stories I’ve heard. All the ancient maps show them. As I said before, if we have a land of ice in the north, why not the south? And the measurements I’ve taken show it’s getting colder. Many of the birds and fish I’ve seen resemble those in the colder climes to the north. It stands to reason that the Mountains of Ice exist.”

“I accept your reasoning, but where do you draw the line?” A smile twisted her lips. “There are those who believe that, beyond the mountains, there is a hole that is the entrance to the Underworld. If you venture in there, you can find all the wealth that is sacrificed and sent to our ancestors. You can bet that if we find the mountains, there will be those who want to make the trek beyond them.”

Jorim shook his head. “I know the legend, but I put as much faith in that as I do the idea that Empress Cyrsa will return from the west when the Land of Nine Princes is threatened. The idea that she and her surviving heroes are just sleeping makes no sense. There’s no information to support it. When she didn’t come back, folks started that story to make themselves feel good. Times were so bad they wanted a little hope, so they made up a savior who would return if things got worse.”

She nodded. “That very well could be what happened. Or, she is out there, waiting.”

“Why, Captain, I’d not thought you would allow yourself to believe in such superstition.”

Anaeda’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t limit yourself for the sake of making a point. You were quite clear in amassing the evidence that leads you to conclude that the Mountains of Ice exist. There is more to suggest that Empress Cyrsa existed and might yet exist. We both know that the jaecai are said to live longer lives. We know she and her warriors were present at the spawning of the Cataclysm, in which great amounts of magical energy were released. You’ve seen the changes it made in the world.

“Think about it, Master Anturasi. Outside many villages there are circles in which swordsmen engage in their duels, and where two jaecai have met, magical energy is released. In some of those circles, the ravages of winter are never seen, and in others the snow that falls never melts even in the heat of the summer. Thus magic can clearly preserve as well as destroy, so why is it not acceptable to believe she is preserved as well?”

“That’s a very good point, Captain.” Jorim looked at Shimik. “You are very heavy, and the evidence points to your needing exercise. Earn keepa, Shimik.”

With a shriek of delight, the Fenn leaped from his arms and scampered off, leaping the rail to the main deck and disappearing down the nearest hatch, bound for the bowels of the ship. One of the few reasons Captain Gryst had allowed him to travel alone was because he took pleasure in ratting, and proved far better at it than any of the dogs brought on board for that purpose.

“Again, you make a very good point. She could be out there.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Why are you bringing this up?”

She leaned against the railing and kept her voice low. “I read your reports and add bits and pieces of them to the log. I read the measurements you’re taking and compare them to my own. We agree, for the most part, on things. As much as I tell you our inability to find the islands means nothing, I find something disquieting about it.”

“Meaning?”

Anaeda exhaled slowly. “Islands don’t just vanish. We could have missed them—just sailed past in the night—but we’re not traveling so fast that we would have missed all signs of them. We’d see clouds over them, or bits of wood drifting. Something would be out here.”

“So we have no empirical evidence for having missed them, but that means nothing.” Jorim kept his voice low. “It’s something else, isn’t it? Something that isn’t as substantial.”

“I have been on a ship for over eighteen years, almost twenty-seven. I’ve seen a lot, and something odd is on the wind. There is something out there that isn’t right. It could be your Mountains of Ice, but it could be something else.”

Jorim frowned. “Do you think we’ve sailed into an area, say, where some huge, prehistoric naval engagement was fought and magic lingers?”

“I don’t know. That could be one explanation. Just as easy is that magic flows in currents just like water, and we are caught in a crosscurrent of it.” She shrugged. “It could be something else entirely. I am seeing no ill effects on the crew, and we have plenty of supplies, and our measurements indicate we are moving south steadily. It is just something I can’t explain, and, as such, it does pose a threat to the fleet. And I don’t like threats to my fleet.”

“I don’t blame you.” Jorim thought for a moment, then nodded. “I don’t think my grandfather would be much help if I asked him about this. It’s too bad my brother isn’t here. He’s the one who remembers all the folklore of old. He’d know if something had happened.”

“See what you can remember. I would appreciate any insights possible.” She straightened up and looked him in the eyes. “Needless to say, you speak to no one about this. Not even Iesol.”

Jorim smiled. “You don’t want the benefits of Urmyr’s wisdom on this point?”

“I’m not that desperate yet. We’ll see what we can come up with before widening the circle of people involved in this. Anything odd could upset the crew, and if we are looking at trouble, I want them with us.”

Jorim smiled ever so slightly. “That’s why you’re letting Shimik run around? As a distraction?”

“No, actually I like that he kills rats. And I like that the crew sees him as a good omen. They believe in these talismans of good luck and, before this journey is ended, that belief will be seriously tested.”

 

Chapter Thirty-five

5th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Telarunde, Solaeth

As they made their way up the mountainside to the shattered Fortress of Xoncyr, the irony that his brother would have gladly been trooping off to destroy this monster was not lost on Keles Anturasi. Jorim wouldn’t have needed anyone else to accompany him, and he’d come back having slain the creature as easily as a leaf falls from a tree. It would be another of his grand adventures, which would enrage Grandfather and earn him the admiration of the flower of the nobility.

He smiled, trudging behind Ciras. That he was unsuited to such an adventure was a point Tyressa had made to Moraven Tolo earlier in the morning. She’d pointed to Keles and Borosan and said, “The two of them should remain here while we take care of the creature.”

Borosan, who had spent most of the morning tinkering with a small metal ball that had been pieced together from bits and pieces in a big leather satchel, raised his head and blinked. “Under no circumstances.”

The Keru had smiled and squatted. “I appreciate that you came out here to try to rid Telarunde of this creature, but your effort failed.”

“No it didn’t.” Borosan set his handwork down and pointed to the ruins of what the locals called Dorunkun. “My thanaton is up there already. If it has not killed the creature yet, it is because it has not figured out how to do it.”

Before anyone could ask what a thanaton was, Borosan took up his ball again, pushed one panel aside, twisted something inside, and tossed the ball underhanded toward the center of their hut’s dirt floor. It bounced once, then four metal legs popped out. It scuttled to the left, turned, then a circle irised open. A high-pitched thrum sounded, then a rat squealed, stuck to the wall with a finger-length metal dart impaling it.

Ciras leaped up and half drew his sword. The small device retracted its legs and lay there, inert and unthreatening. Moraven studied the ball for a moment or two, exchanged glances with Tyressa, then bowed his head toward the gyanridin. “The thanaton you sent up there is larger?”

“Much. I built it out of parts I had in my wagon. This mouser is just a model. The real one is up there studying the creature and figuring out how best to kill it.”

The Keru slid a whetstone along the edge of a spear she’d appropriated from a local. “That certainly works well on a rodent, but that’s not what’s up there waiting for us.”

Silence greeted her grim comment. Keles again felt his brother would have been better at determining what it was they faced. In an effort to get as much information as possible, Keles had interviewed everyone who had seen the creature or had ever been in the fortress. Far more of the latter existed than the former, and he didn’t believe but one or two of those who said they’d seen it. The best description made it out to be a giant serpent that could project a poisonous vapor. It had fur and a mane and had been able to drag off three strong men the night it attacked the village.

Keles had never heard of such a creature, but if it were coming out of the Ixyll Wastes or Dolosan, it would have been bred in the wild magic. As Borosan pointed out, the creature could have a very thick hide or only be vulnerable when its mouth was open, exposing a soft palate. His thanaton, they were assured, would figure things out, but it might take some time.

Time was not something they had. No one even suggested wandering off without killing the monster—even though dying in the process was a distinct possibility. Moraven was determined to fulfill his promise to them and perhaps add to the tales of the xidantzu.

Keles had helped as much as he could with the preparations. From the initial interviews concerning the fortress he was able to sketch out a fairly complete floor plan. He actually believed it was the Xoncyrkun mentioned in Amenis Dukao’s memoirs, for the general shape and tall tower at the heart matched the description very closely. The locals called it Dorunkun after a warlord who had occupied it more recently and from whom several of them claimed descent. They denied ever having heard of Amenis Dukao, which made them somewhat more ignorant than the sheep they herded, as far as Keles was concerned.

Even so, they knew the fortress well, and shared with him a wealth of detail. The ruins certainly dated from the late Imperial period, and had been part of the chain of strongholds used to discourage the Turasyndi from attacking. Built to encompass a hilltop and use a natural outcropping as the final stronghold, the entire fortress included tunnels and rooms hacked out of the stone. The monster lurked in these dark warrens.

Moraven said Borosan would accompany the group, but Tyressa still wished Keles to stay behind. Though Keles really had no desire to be anywhere near a monster that could drag strong men off, he refused. He pointed to one of the floor plans he’d drawn. “Look, during this period there were several basic designs for fortresses. Once I’m inside, I can determine where the garbage chutes will come out, as well as other alternate routes for getting down to the stables where this thing is lairing.”

Tyressa shook her head. “It is too risky.”

“It’s too risky without me. I have a bow and I can shoot pretty well. Besides, even if you leave me here, I won’t be safe.” He jerked a thumb toward the hut’s closed door. “I’ll be taking Borosan’s place if you fail.”

Tyressa did not like that argument, but agreed it was probably right. Keles didn’t like it, either, but was happy they were going to allow him to go along. “I’ll be fine. A Viruk couldn’t kill me, so I don’t imagine this thing will either.”

After a night of too little sleep they awoke to a breakfast that was well shy of generous. The illogic of wasting food on dead men was not lost on the village. Keles didn’t mind getting a tiny serving of gruel, since it was very watery and made out of some purple-blue grain he couldn’t identify. It and the fact that several of the village cats had spare toes and even an extra set of legs reminded him they were in the land wild magic had corrupted.

His stomach soured, and it wasn’t just the gruel that did it.

The five of them set out. Keles had hoped for bright sun to warm them as they trekked two miles through golden fields to the stronghold, but instead the day started grey, and a cold rain began to fall as they marched along. Moraven welcomed the rain, noting it kept the dust down, but Keles considered that a minor benefit.

Xoncyrkun had a ribbon wall that surrounded the top of the hill in an oval just over fifty yards from end to end. The wall, which once had been a dozen feet high in places, had fallen into disrepair, and the people of Telarunde had used it as a quarry for years. The squat outbuilding in which most of the garrison would have been housed survived save for the roofs. The main keep, which crested the hill and rose another thirty feet, had once had carrion crows roosting in it. Their guano stained the grey stone white and black in streaks, but Keles saw no evidence of current occupancy. He assumed the monster had frightened them off because, even if it were twice as big as described, it couldn’t have slithered high enough to eat the birds.

A dark hole in the wall about halfway between the main gate and the keep marked where the creature came and went. Low clouds soon descended to shroud the fortress, and Keles thought this was a good thing. Every step closer emphasized just how big the hole was, and that meant the monster was bigger than any of them wanted to think about.

The clouds dropped visibility to a dozen feet. Tyressa led the way through a breach in the wall and into the central courtyard. They all moved as quietly as they could. Keles studied the interior of the ruins, then crouched and pointed to the nearest of the blockhouses. “That would have been the storehouse. There are passages down to the stables there, and over there, past the garrison, just to the left of that stone spur. That would be the main ramp down, from which warriors could ride up and out. The opening is probably as wide as the hole in the wall.”

Ciras rose and began to move toward the storehouse. As he circled left around a large block that had tumbled from the wall, a black serpent rose from behind it. Its maned head swayed easily nine feet above the ground and its body was as thick around as Keles’ thigh. The snake hissed and reared back, but before it could strike, Ciras’ sword cleared the scabbard and came around in a flat arc. The silver blur bisected the serpent as if it were no more than the fog that had helped hide it. The upper half toppled back to the stones, while the main body writhed in a gush of blood.

Ciras spun away with a greasy grey vapor rising from his blade and his overshirt where both had been splashed with blood. Keles felt a burning on his own right cheek and smeared serpent’s blood away with his fingers. They began to tingle as a result, but he resisted the temptation to put them into his mouth and suck.

Ciras yanked his overshirt off and used a corner to wipe his blade before tossing the garment away. He slid his blade back home, then allowed himself a laugh. “Well, Master Gryst, what trouble would your thanaton have had in killing that?”

Borosan frowned. “It should have had none. And it should be out here now, if that’s what it was tracking.”

The young swordsman snorted. “You should save your magic for mousing. The monster is slain; our duty is done.”

Ciras’ master dropped to one knee. “You are mistaken.”

“How? It is exactly as the peasants described it to Keles—though they exaggerated mightily. It was strong enough to carry off sheep and men.”

“Yes, but look at where you cut it.” Moraven pointed at the severed spine and, beside it, a slender tube ringed with cartilage. “It might have been able to carry men off, but it never could have swallowed them.”

Ciras frowned. “Perhaps it feeds as a spider does. It injects poison into prey and when they dissolve, it drinks.”

“Or,” Moraven said quietly as he stood, “it suckles at the breast of something a good bit larger.”

A low vibration ran through the ground, as if a big rock had plummeted from the top of the tower and struck the courtyard. Another vibration shook the stone, and another, coming faster and stronger. Unbidden, the image of something much larger slithering up a narrow passage, its coils slamming into the walls, came to Keles’ mind. He looked toward where the ramp should have come out and dug for an arrow at his right hip.

Time slowed, and every sensation registered with indelible clarity. Fingers still tingling from serpent blood brushed soft feathers and closed on hard wood. The jade thumbring refused to warm. The silver broadhead rasped against the quiver’s hide, then the bow groaned as he nocked and drew the arrow. His right shoulder began to burn, and the tip of the arrow quivered as Moraven’s blade hissed from its scabbard and Ciras sprang to his feet.

Borosan’s thanaton came rolling out of the fog first, striking sparks from the garrison building and the outcropping. Just beyond the narrowest point, its four legs sprang out with loud clicks. A curved panel slid from front to back over its dome, and a heavy crossbow emerged, twisting and locking down. Two delicate arms set a quarrel in place, while another heavy arm cocked the bow. The thanaton crouched, its knees rising above the dome.

The monster came on quickly, a black shadow undulating through the mist. It reared up as the fog parted, giving Keles a good view of a golden-scaled, blunted, wedge-shaped head. He saw no eyes and only slit nostrils in its face. The creature’s lower jaw dropped, revealing serrated ivory teeth. It hissed, and panic froze Keles in place.

The thanaton did not register fear. It shot, hitting the snake in the throat at close range. The bolt pierced the creature’s flesh, muting the hiss for a heartbeat, but clearly it was more from surprise than damage. The bolt might as well have been a wasp’s sting to an elephant.

The snake’s head darted forward and the rising hiss cut off abruptly. Crystal-clear venom streamed from within its mouth and splashed over the thanaton. The crossbow’s wooden stock immediately burst into flame and the stones beneath the mechanical hunter began to smoke. Pieces of the thanaton began to melt, with springs and wires pinging as they snapped. First one leg then another twisted and rotted away, with Borosan’s agonized screech giving voice to what his creation might have been feeling.

Keles loosed his arrow, and the shot went far better than he would have expected. He allowed himself a flash of pleasure at how well his brother’s gift worked, because the shaft flew directly where he’d aimed. His joy vanished, however, as it skipped off the snake’s flat head and raked back through the black mane. It hadn’t so much as dented a scale and, with a sinking feeling in his guts, he realized that even it if had, it would have hurt the snake less than the thanaton’s bolt.

His arrow did have one unexpected result, however. As it sped through the mane, it transfixed a snake the size of the one Ciras had killed. Two more, then three and four, then up to a dozen of them emerged from that thicket of fur, all of them hissing madly and spitting venom as their mother had. To make things worse, his arrow had not actually killed the snake he’d hit, and the way they were writhing and springing free, he doubted he could hit another.

Keles suddenly found himself detached, as if he were standing back, watching himself draw another arrow and letting fly. The observer cataloged all the details of the beast, drawing conclusions and, he hoped, somehow communicating them to his grandfather or brother, even as he died. The snake’s young clearly nested in the mane and likely took nourishment there. The mother, blind—by design he assumed, since he could see no scarring—relied on them for gathering food, which she then devoured and fed to them. He could only hope the snakes had some sort of natural predator, for if that clutch grew and reproduced, stemming the tide of their expansion would be difficult.

Moraven, Ciras, and Tyressa flew into battle. The Keru hurled her spear and stuck the mother through the lower jaw. The spear’s head lodged in the snake’s upper palate and clearly caused her pain. The viscous venom already had the spear smoking, mixing with the black blood dripping from the shaft. Drawing her sword, the Keru closed fearlessly, intent on wounding the beast even more.

The two xidantzu attacked with a spare economy of effort that should not have surprised Keles. Their command of their bodies and weapons so surpassed anything he had seen before—including Moraven’s fight in Asath—that he could do little but marvel. Swords beheaded several of the smaller vipers, then warriors leaped past writhing bodies to strike at others.

For the barest of moments, Keles believed they might actually win the fight. The smaller snakes had begun to fall and all three of the attackers had drawn within range of the largest snake’s belly. His own second arrow had stuck it in the mouth. It had not done nearly the damage of Tyressa’s spear, but the viper had reacted to the pain.

Then one of the smaller snakes whipped its tail around, sweeping Tyressa’s legs from beneath her. As she went down, Moraven leaped to her side and slew the snake that had dropped her. To his right, however, another of the small vipers breathed venom in a vapor that sent Ciras reeling back. His sword clattered to the ground as he spun away, hands over his face, coughing heavily. Keles loosed a third arrow at the snake chasing Ciras and missed, dooming the young swordsman.

Then Borosan stepped up and whipped his arm forward. The mouser spun through the air. The small snake struck at it, catching the ball in its mouth. Suddenly the legs sprang out, thrusting up through its skull. The snake flopped, writhing, but that proved to be only a momentary benefit, as the small snakes were truly the least of their worries.

Moraven stooped to help Tyressa up. The mother rose above him as the undissolved pieces of the spear fell away. Whether the snake intended to spit venom or just lunge to devour them, Moraven Tolo and Tyressa were dead.

Then a keening screech of contempt and ecstasy filled the fog and echoed from the fortress walls. Something angular and dark descended through the mist and slammed into the back of the viper’s head, jolting the creature. The attacker disappeared immediately into the mane. The viper’s head rose, nose high in the fog, to smash into the tower. It wriggled side to side as if trying to scrape off whatever had landed. It hissed furiously for a moment, then squeaked piteously. A shudder rippled through its entire length, cracking its tail against the tower’s base. The body slackened for a second, then, as if it were a piece of cable falling, it crashed to the courtyard, cracking ages-old mortar.

Keles went down, groaning inwardly as his arrows clattered onto the stone. Rising to his knees, he grabbed one and tried to fit it to the bow. His hands trembled and his stomach began to roil. The arrow fought him, refusing to be nocked. He glanced down, guiding it into place, then looked back at the head of the viper, five yards distant and twice his height.

Something rustled in the mane, then stood. Steaming viper blood drenched it and ran from elbows and hunched shoulders. A hot light burned in its eyes, then it raised clawed fingers to the sky. It shrieked again, this time triumphant, then lowered its hands. It moved forward, then crouched on the viper’s golden brow.

“Keles Anturasi. Very good.” The scars on Keles’ back began to burn as he recognized the Viruk. “The journey has been long. I have come for you.”

 

Chapter Thirty-six

14th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Anturasikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Even though Nirati had not liked Majiata, she hated seeing the hopeful look on Lord Marutsar Phoesel’s face. A small, slender man, he wore a nicely trimmed moustache and goatee which, like his hair, had been dyed to hide signs of age. His black robe had gold cranes embroidered on breast and back, and a narrow gold sash had been wrapped twice around his middle to keep it closed. Many people considered him handsome and charming—stories abounded about his legion of mistresses—but knowing Majiata had sprung from his loins killed any appeal as far as Nirati was concerned.

She quickly amended that thought. That she had come after Keles at her father’s prompting is what makes him hideous in my eyes.

Lord Phoesel’s only concession to mourning was the white undertunic he wore. It was visible at throat and cuff, and suggested to many that he was holding his grief deep inside. Nirati felt the man just thought he did not look particularly good in white. And while she did not really mourn Majiata, she would have thought her father might make more of a show of it.

The man hesitated for a moment as he came into the antechamber to Qiro Anturasi’s receiving room. When Marutsar met with Qiro before, Qiro had received him in a different room—one much lower in the tower and less intimate. This room, with its stark white walls and bare wooden floor, mocked the finery of the halls leading to it.

The room had only two adornments, and neither seemed appropriate. Most notable was the semicircular cage of golden bars that ran from floor to ceiling. It extended to the middle of the room and covered the far wall from corner to corner. Built into that wall was a doorway, similarly barred with gold, only four feet in height.

Nirati, waiting inside the cage, welcomed Lord Phoesel through the door. “If you please, enter and wait over there by the other door.”

The man nodded and looked around as he entered. “I have not been here before.”

“Few have.” Nirati moved behind him and pulled the cage door shut. It closed with a click. Another click echoed it, and the small golden door slid up into the wall. “My grandfather will see you now.”

Lord Phoesel approached the low doorway and stooped. He peered in, then glanced back at her, consternation on his face. She said nothing, so he started forward in a crouch, then yelped as his forward foot missed the step down. He sprawled forward on his belly.

As my grandfather intended.

Nirati sank to her hands and knees and crawled through, then rose inside the far room. The circular cage extended out on this side of the wall, the circle trapping visitors. She bowed to Qiro, then waved a hand toward Majiata’s father, who had risen no further than his knees. “You know Lord Phoesel.”

Qiro, who was studying a gold-plated human skull he’d brought back with him from the Wastes, nodded. “We have met before.” The old man stared into the skull’s empty eye sockets, then returned it to the small pedestal upon which it normally resided. He smiled and looked down at the merchant, but said nothing.

Lord Phoesel remained on his knees, his head craning back to take in all the treasures displayed around him. While Nirati and he were the only things inside the cage, all around it, an arm’s length past the bars, lay wooden casks and ironbound chests. Huge tapestries and paintings covered the walls. Weapons had been stacked in the corners. The scent of spices filled the room, wafting from dozens of containers piled high in pyramids. Jewels glinted from half-open boxes and split sacks had spilled out a glittering carpet of gold coins.

The skull, while a unique piece of art, was not the most unusual artifact. The heads of countless animals, from four-horned oryxes and sable tigers to the gaping jaws of a Dark Sea shark, had been mounted and hung. Hides of rich, thick fur covered the throne centered against the back wall, and plumage of unimaginable delicacy decorated ceremonial masks, armor, and fletched quivers of arrows.

The room contained items from the entire world, and if sold in the market could have ransomed a prince. But here they lay, piled haphazardly, languishing beneath a coat of dust as if they were nothing. More, Qiro was free to roam amid it all, while his visitor remained caged.

Lord Phoesel finally found his tongue. “Thank you for receiving me, Master Anturasi . . . Grandmaster Anturasi. You have no idea how much I appreciate this favor.”

Qiro sat on the throne, and ran his fingers through striped monotreme fur. “I agreed to meet you as a favor to my granddaughter. Let us have no mistaking why and how you are here. Were it up to me, you would never have been admitted to my presence.”

Majiata’s father had started to stand, but quickly went to his knees again and bowed deeply. “I have offended you somehow, Grandmaster. What can I do to make amends?”

“You have offended me, and I don’t know that you can make amends.”

“Surely I can do something. What was it that earned your ire?”

Qiro smiled slowly and Nirati felt ice trickle through her belly. She’d intervened with her grandfather for Lord Phoesel as a favor to Junel. But Qiro did not like how Lord Phoesel had used Nirati to get to him, and the man would be made to pay.

“My dear Lord Phoesel, you made a contract with the House of Tilmir to supply charts for the Gold Crane. Your ship was bound to Nysant—following curiously close in the Stormwolf’s wake.”

“Grandmaster, my ship was not following the expedition. Gold Crane will sail west to Aefret.”

“Regardless, you made a contract with a house that rivals mine. A house of inferior cartography.”

The man bowed deeply. “Yes, Grandmaster, I have discovered this, and this is why I am here. I hoped I could obtain from you new charts and have them put aboard the Swift. It will sail after Gold Crane.”

Qiro examined a fingernail. “That might be possible. There will be the matter of payment.”

“Yes, Grandmaster. I will have to pay Tilmir something, but I will yet be able to pay you your customary rate.”

The corners of Qiro’s mouth curled up. “It will be thirty percent of your total return. Your expenses are not my concern.”

“Th-thirty percent?” Lord Phoesel shook his head. “But you normally take only fifteen, and that after expenses.”

“This is an emergency, Marutsar, and you know it. Your Silver Gull was using Tilmir charts and ran into a shoal off Miromil. If you can refloat the ship, it will not be before next spring. There are other hidden dangers out there, and you can’t afford to lose Gold Crane.”

“But this is extortion!”

“Hardly. I am doing you a favor.”

“A favor?” Lord Phoesel came up on one knee, color darkening his face. “After all our families have meant to each other, this is a favor?”

Qiro shot to his feet, pale eyes blazing. “Do not attempt to manipulate me. I see so much more than you do, than you are capable of seeing. I see the world. I see beyond the trinkets here to what is true.

“You are a fool, Marutsar Phoesel, for you do not recognize a favor when I am doing you one. There are things out there, things not indicated on any Tilmir chart—nightmare things that will swallow your ships whole. I know that. I’ve known that for years. I knew you shipped without my charts. You’ve asked others and you know I have granted no one else an audience such as you have now. That is the favor. You have already made one mistake; do not compound it.”

Lord Phoesel struggled. He clearly wanted to scream at Qiro, but merely clenched his fists in impotent rage. Fear started him trembling and his restless gaze darted around the room. So much of the world’s riches lay there about him, and the lack of charts kept them from his grasp as effectively as the bars.

He came back down to his knees. “Thirty percent?”

“I feel generous, yes.”

Lord Phoesel’s head came up. “The Crane would be lost?”

Qiro canted his head to the left. “It might yet. Pray it remains becalmed at Nysant while your Swift sails south. There should be enough time.”

The merchant nodded slowly. “I shall have the papers drawn up immediately for your signature. Once they are signed, I will have my charts?”

The Anturasi patriarch frowned. “My lord, please do not insult me. I trust you. Think of the association of our families, after all. The charts are already drawn up and await your departure. Swift can leave within the hour. The papers you may have here by week’s end.”

“You are most kind, Grandmaster Anturasi.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Qiro’s eyes narrowed. “And, Marutsar, I am sorry about your loss.”

The kneeling man nodded. “The Gull, yes, quite a tragedy.”

“I meant your daughter.”

Blood drained from the man’s face and Nirati feared he’d be sick. He bowed deeply, pressing his forehead against the floor, then came back up, but not fully. “Thank you, Grandmaster. May prosperity continue to smile on the House of Anturasi.”

“It will, my lord. It most definitely will.”

Majiata’s father slunk from the chamber on hands and knees. Nirati made to follow, but her grandfather raised a hand. She waited, and when Lord Phoesel opened the outer cage door, gold bars again slid down over the small doorway.

Nirati raised her chin. “Something you would have of me, Grandfather?”

The old man sat on the throne and smiled warmly this time. “You did this as a favor to your Desei friend. Is he worth it?”

The question surprised her. “I think so. We have become close.”

“I understand he is working by brokering shipments, arranging transport, and administering trade agreements. He would find any connection to us of value.”

“He would, Grandfather, but he has asked me for nothing for himself. He feels sorry for Lord Phoesel.”

Qiro’s eyes glittered. “And you risked my ire for him. He must be special, indeed. To have survived Pyrust’s wrath and escaped south speaks well of him. Is he involved in intrigues?”

Nirati frowned. “He has met with some of the inland lords and has helped them invest in ships. I know he has warned them against trading with anyone using charts that are not of Anturasi manufacture. That is the extent of things.”

“Does he please you, Nirati?”

She hesitated, trying to hide a smile, but then let it blossom fully. Junel had been charming and very well mannered, enjoying her company as much as she enjoyed his. He had not been insistent about anything, so when they had come together intimately, it felt natural. Their trysts had the quality of a romance story about them, and just remembering his caresses puckered her flesh.

“Yes, Grandfather, he does.”

“Good. This pleases me as well.” Qiro nodded slowly. “I will ask you only one thing, Nirati.”

“What, Grandfather?”

“You are very dear to me. I know there are those who say you are not part of this family because you have no talent at cartography. But if you are happy, so am I, and so are your brothers. If you are ever unhappy, you will let me know, won’t you?”

“If that is what you wish, Grandfather.”

“It is.” He opened his arms. “I sit here amid the treasures of the world, but that which I love most dearly stands there, behind those bars. I would tear the world asunder were someone to hurt you. Remember that you are the world’s most precious treasure, Nirati. If someone is going to win you away from me, please let him be worthy of you.”

She bowed deeply. “Yes, Grandfather. Thank you.” She wanted to straighten up, run from the tower, and find Junel; but when she looked into her grandfather’s eyes, that desire drained away. He watched her with the patience she’d not seen since she was a child.

“May I ask another favor from you, Grandfather?”

“Of course.”

“Let me spend the day with you. I want to visit the workshop again. I want to see your work, and see where my brothers have gotten. It’s been so long—too long—since I have done that.”

“Yes, Nirati, I would like that.” He stood, smiling proudly. “Come to the workshop and I will share my world with you.”

 

Chapter Thirty-seven

25th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Stormwolf, in the South Seas

After two more weeks of sailing, the Stormwolf finally found one of the islands from the Soth chart. It had a small harbor into which they sailed—and none too soon, for a savage storm came whistling up out of the southwest. The island was an extinct volcano covered with jungle, barely more than three miles across, but it still protected the fleet. Only one of the smaller ships, the Mistwolf, broke her moorings and was driven aground.

In some ways the ship’s grounding was a gift of the gods, for the crews quickly scavenged bits to repair storm damage done to the other ships in the fleet. The supplies it had carried were redistributed, and the ship refloated. With only one mast it could not continue the grand voyage, so Captain Gryst outfitted it with a skeleton crew and sent it back north toward Nalenyr, bearing word of what they had seen and done so far.

Jorim had been tempted to send Shimik back with the Mistwolf for the Prince’s amusement, but the crew’s attachment to the Fenn stopped him. At least that is what he recorded in his report on the matter, further noting that he would continue to study the creature and its adaptive capabilities. The truth of the matter was that he was quite fond of Shimik and had no desire to be parted from the little beast.

Shimik continued to develop in response to life on the ship. Since he spent so much time in the hold hunting rats, his fur darkened to a deep mahogany. His fingers lengthened and developed bony ridges along their length and the backs of his hands—where he had previously shown evidence of rat bites. He also became leaner and could ascend the ship’s ratlines with the best of the sailors. He continued his comedic antics to the delight of all, but he also could have his grim moments—as if mimicking Captain Anaeda. Oddly enough, she did not seem to think he was mocking her, and more than once he’d found the two of them hunched over a chart, studying things.

While none of the other storms that blew up from the south were as savage as the one they’d weathered at what they called Byorang—Storm Island—the fleet found itself regularly lashed by strong winds and driving rain as they continued. The seas became heavy enough that even the Stormwolf rose and fell like a toy. At those times, Anaeda reminded him that he needed to use two hands—one for himself and one for the ship—lest he be lost overboard. For the most part he kept to his cabin, since the clouds and rain made attempting any positional reading of the stars impossible.

When he did venture out, he did not go far, and just watched the water in all its myriad forms. He witnessed an elemental struggle, with wind and water doing their best to destroy the vessel of wood. He watched other ships rise to the crest of waves, then disappear over them, never knowing if behind the curtain of water they had been shattered, or if they would reappear once more.

Sheets of rain assaulted the Stormwolf. Heavy droplets exploded against the deck, drumming loudly, opening holes in the rivers that washed over the deck. Waves crashed against the bow, dark water fragmenting into foam. The sails remained taut as the wind filled them. Masts creaked under the strain, and Anaeda was constantly bellowing orders to hoist one sail, or furl another. A good gust could have ripped them apart or snapped a mast, but to run without sails would be to surrender all ability to steer. The wind would blow the ship broadside to the towering waves and that would be the doom of any ship, even one as big as the Stormwolf.

Most of the crew handled the storm well, but the same could not be said of the passengers. Iesol spent most of the time frightfully sick. When calm did descend, he labored feverishly to get caught up with all his work, which left him exhausted and even less able to tolerate a lively sea. Others remained in seclusion, but kept the cooks busy preparing concoctions to fight seasickness.

The nastiest of the storms hit them on the twentieth day of the Month of the Rat and lasted for three long days. It broke around noon on the twenty-third, and the clouds vanished so quickly that one had to wonder if there had ever been a storm at all. As per orders, the fleet sailed south, cutting back and forth to the west and east every three hours, and pretty soon seven of the nine remaining tenders rejoined the Stormwolf.

Two ships had not rejoined the fleet by the twenty-fifth, and all aboard assumed the Moondragon and Seastallion had not survived the storm. But as dawn broke on the twenty-fifth, a lookout perched up among the starcombers saw a ship to the east. Anaeda ordered the Stormwolf to come about.

Jorim watched from the bow with a sinking feeling in his stomach. One of the crew had identified the ship as the Moondragon, and if he was right she had lost two of her four true masts. The remaining two only had scraps of tattered sails fluttering from yardarms, and cables snapped in the breeze. As they drew closer, he saw no signs of life on board and took as a good sign that none of the ship’s boats remained on the deck.

He commented about that when Captain Gryst joined him, but she shook her head. “That’s not really a hopeful sign. It’s possible they thought the ship was going to sink. But putting out in boats in such a storm was as suicidal as remaining on a sinking ship. Yes, there; take a look at the aft, at the rudder.”

Jorim squinted. “What rudder?”

“Exactly. It’s gone. They survived the storm, then put the boats out with cables to help steer the ship.”

“If that’s true, then where are the boats and where are the crew?”

She sighed heavily. “I don’t know.” She turned and barked an order. “Lieutenant Minan, lower my boat. Master Anturasi and I will be crossing to the Moondragon. Give us a squad of soldiers and send over another boat with a crew that can get her cleaned up.”

Minan started barking orders. By the time they crossed to midship, the captain’s boat had already been lowered. Anaeda descended the netting first, then Jorim followed, with Shimik scrambling down headfirst after them like a squirrel. Anaeda noticed the Fennych’s presence but did not comment on it, and Shimik remained quiet as the soldiers boarded and sailors began rowing them to the Moondragon.

Jorim saw no other significant damage to the smaller vessel as they approached. Anaeda had the sailors take them around the ship once, then come in close to where the boarding net hung on the ship’s port side. Soldiers went up first, and once the nine of them signaled all was clear, Anaeda ascended. Shimik clung to Jorim’s back for the trip, then leaped off and scampered across the deck and down into the bowels of the ship.

Captain Gryst strode across the deck and back into the cabin that belonged to Captain Calon, with Jorim only a step behind her. The cabin looked to be in order, showing no storm damage. “They got through the weather and were able to reorganize.”

She went to the small desk against the port bulkhead and opened the logbook to the last page. “Heading, estimated speed, and continued damage reports on the morning of the twenty-fourth. Calon had the boats out, but only two of them. No indication the other two were lost in the storm. No sign of panic, and she’d not have left this log on board if she abandoned the ship.”

Jorim glanced at the oil lamp swinging from a slender chain next to the captain’s bunk. “The oil’s all gone. It’s cold, but probably was burning since yesterday.”

“Yes, you can’t get much more than a day’s worth of oil in one of those, and it would have been filled in the morning watch.” Anaeda closed the logbook and tucked it under her arm. “Let’s go forward and check the galley.”

Lieutenant Minan and the crew arrived as they were making their way to the galley. Captain Gryst assigned them to clearing the deck of debris and getting ready to hoist sails. They fell to the tasks with some muttering. Jorim gathered, based on half-heard comments and wide-eyed glances, that none of the sailors liked being on a ship where not one of their comrades remained.

“Captain, this ship had how big a crew?”

“Two hundred.” She ducked her head and descended steps to the galley. The cooking fires had died, and a huge black kettle contained a congealed mass of rice with a wooden spoon stuck into it. She grabbed it and tried to wrench it free, but only managed to snap it in half.

She stared at the broken handle for a moment. “Whatever happened, it happened yesterday morning. Let’s keep looking.”

Jorim turned and moved past the stairs into the long area below the main deck. A hundred empty hammocks swayed there, as gently as they would have with sailors occupying them. Blankets hung from some; others had fallen to the floor. At first glance it looked as if the sailors had just been called to their stations and would soon be back to stow their bedding, set up tables, and enjoy a hot breakfast.

Jorim toed one of the blankets, but the fabric moved stiffly and clung to the floor. “I don’t like this.”

Anaeda turned. “Blood?”

“I think so.”

She nodded. “I agree. You can smell it.”

Anaeda threaded her way through the hammocks to the ship’s aft. There she looked into one cabin after another. The wooden latches and doorjambs had splintered, and the cabins showed signs of a fierce struggle. The junior officers’ cabins were liberally splashed with blood. The one that had been home to a priest of Wentiko had a bloody robe on the floor that had been clawed to pieces.

She crouched beside the robe and Jorim examined the hatch. “Look, right here about where a shoulder would hit if someone was forcing the door . . .” He reached up and tugged off a scale the size of his little finger’s fingernail. “It’s from a fish, but no fish I’ve ever seen.”

Anaeda stood. “Not many fish I know of with claws. Let’s keep looking.”

The hatch to the ship’s sick bay remained intact, but also had scales at about shoulder height. Anaeda slipped a knife from her belt and slid it between door slats, flipping the latch. They forced the hatch open, sliding a trunk away from behind it, and slipped in through the narrow opening.

The sick bay had been a fairly good-sized cabin, large enough for two patient bunks and a third for the physician. Chests of various sizes were stacked against the interior wall, and the doctor’s desk was jammed back into the corner. The two far bunks remained unoccupied, but not so the physician’s bed.

It had a body in it—the body of a corpulent man. His swollen tongue protruded from his mouth, and dried white traces of spittle foam flecked his lips. The remains of a small ceramic cup lay beside the bed, and a dark stain colored the deck amid the fragments.

Anaeda touched the back of her hand to his cheek. “Dead.”

“By his own hand, it would seem.”

She picked up a paper packet from his desk and read the characters inscribed on it. “Heartblossom.”

“That could have been used for seasickness. That’s what Iesol has been taking.”

“Yes, but severely diluted. Half this packet is gone. He wanted to make sure he died, and quickly, too.” She leafed open his medical log, then snapped it shut and growled. “He was terrified enough to kill himself, but recorded nothing.”

A rapid drumbeat sounded outside the room, then Shimik leaped and caught the edge of the hatchway. His claws gouged curled splinters from the wood as he rooted himself there. “Comma comma, cappatana naeda comma. Jrima comma.” He sprang away, twisting in midair, and scrabbled across the deck back toward the bow.

Jorim and Anaeda followed him as quickly as they could, but the hammocks slowed them. Shimik waited at the stairs heading down to the next deck and crouched there, watching them, then peered down. As they cleared the last hammock, the Fenn darted down the stairs and they thundered down after him. Casting one last glance at them, he bolted for the open armory hatch.

Anaeda reached it first and stopped in the hatchway. Shimik squatted at her feet, so that she would have tripped over him had she advanced. But she seemed quite content to grab the hatchway and hang on. She leaned slightly forward, then turned and looked at Jorim.

“I believe, Master Anturasi, you may have the advantage of me in explaining this.”

She moved aside and he looked in. The only illumination came from a shaft of light poking through an open port. It clearly let him see two bodies stretched out on the floor. One, a bald man in a sailor’s robe, had a smith’s hammer clutched in his right hand. Most of his face had been slashed to ribbons and his left eye dangled from its stalk. Similarly his robe had been torn at the neck, and the congealed pool of blood in which he lay had pumped out through a torn carotid artery.

But it was the thing that killed him that stopped Jorim from going any further into the room. The creature appeared vaguely humanoid in that it had arms and legs, though they were more lozenge-shaped in cross section than rounded like a man’s limbs. This also held true for the long tail and the body, which narrowed through the chest. The head’s exact shape was difficult to discern because the hammer had clearly dented it. A number of the silvery scales that covered the creature’s body had been knocked loose and flashed in the sunshine.

The creature’s hands had webbing between its fingers. They ended in sharp claws, which had obviously killed the ship’s smith. Also visible were sharp triangular teeth, a few of which had been scattered by a hammerblow.

Jorim pointed at the creature. “Scales match. It has characteristics of a fish. I think those are gill slits.”

“I concur. So, what is it?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea. I don’t even recall this from folktales or legends. They’re suited to life in the sea, whatever they are. Could they be why ships that head south seldom make it back? Possibly, but I doubt it.”

“Why would that be, Master Anturasi?”

He stood and met her stare very frankly. “If we’re going to assume that a school of these sharkmen are what killed the crew and took their bodies away, we are required to make a few other assumptions. One is that for their hunt to go as successfully as it did, they’ve had practice. That means they’ve taken human prey before. They found harvesting ships an efficient and rewarding way to hunt.”

Anaeda nodded. “Sound reasoning.”

“So, if they’ve been doing this for a long time, they would have expanded their range. Taking a settlement like the one on Ethgi would be fairly simple. We would have seen them move into deltas in populated areas. We would have had stories and evidence of their existence before this.”

“That could be, Master Anturasi, but perhaps they can only exist in cooler waters?”

“It was once said the Turasynd could only exist in their cold and dry plain, but when population pressures pushed them to expand, they did.” Jorim shook his head. “It may well be we’ve never heard of these things before, but I’m willing to bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.”

Anaeda rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Two hundred souls gone and we killed only one of them?”

Jorim shook his head. “We might have killed more, but they took the bodies.”

“So they’re cannibals, too?”

“I don’t know. If we dissect the one left here, we might find out.”

The captain posted her fists on her narrow hips. Her eyes narrowed. “Do it. I want to know what they are and what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

Shimik, rising from his crouch, aped her stance. He looked up at her, at the bodies, then shook his head. “Dungga. Bad Dungga.”

 

Chapter Thirty-eight

17th day, Month of the Bear, Year of the Dog

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

736th year since the Cataclysm

Dolosan

In the five and a half weeks since they killed the maned snake and its brood at Telarunde, the group made slow progress west. Keles Anturasi accepted full responsibility for their torpid pace, because he was unable to move very fast. Haste would have made his survey less than complete. Moraven agreed that while his mission to locate the source of trade in ancient weapons was urgent, the survey would be the key to his success. His agreement only slightly mollified Ciras, who clearly was in pain, but steadfastly refused to admit it.

The simple fact had been that after the battle, the six of them had needed time to recover. Though he had been physically unhurt, Borosan seemed to come out the worst. He mourned the thanaton’s destruction as if it had been a family dog. What hurt him most was that the gyanrigot had failed in its mission, and he apologized for the predicament its failure had created for everyone else. Even Moraven’s suggestion that it might not have struck because the snake and brood constituted a multitude of targets and confused it did little to mollify him. He vowed he could make a better thanaton—and while the rest of them humored him, they hoped they’d not find another maned snake to test it on.

Also, the survey necessitated several steps that kept them moving very slowly. The first was to visit settlements in western Solaeth and Dolosan. They talked to the locals and gathered information about the surrounding area. If they were able, they engaged someone as a guide to the next settlement or other points of interest. As they traveled west, the settlements became fewer, and the points of interest greater, which cut their progress yet again.

Once they’d gathered some preliminary data about the area, they explored it carefully. Keles made best-guess estimates about rates of travel and distances covered. With a practiced eye, he could measure distance just by having Tyressa ride out ahead and seeing how much smaller she got. Every scrap of information, from the location of streams and caves to the sorts of fish to be found and estimates of lumber yield per acre got jotted down in Keles’ books.

When Borosan Gryst came out of his funk, he made himself very useful in the survey. He tinkered with his mouser and put together a second, smaller thanaton about the size of a wolf. He measured their paces exactly, then would send them out to certain points and back, giving very precise measurements of distance. The gyanrigot could even scale trees and cliff faces, providing data on height.

Even the Viruk helped him. Rekarafi gave him names in Viruka of mountains and rivers. He pointed out places where what appeared to be piles of rocks had once been Viruk strongholds. He was even able to show how forests had been harvested and regrown after Viruk and human occupations of the area.

When Keles had first seen him rise over the maned snake’s corpse—Rekarafi said the Viruka word for it was “etharsaal”—his heart had caught in his throat. He’d been certain the Viruk had come to kill him because of what had happened in the capital, or to avenge the Viruk his brother had killed. His stomach had knotted and he doubled over to vomit.

The warrior had indeed come for him, but not in the way Keles feared. He explained to Moraven and Tyressa that he had been sent by his consort to protect Keles. The Viruk ambassador had correctly discerned that Keles would not have been sent into the Wastes were it not for the incident at the party; therefore, his safety became a matter of honor for the Viruk. Rekarafi had anticipated their arrival at Eoloth and had been waiting there to follow them—though how he had gotten that far that quickly had never been explained. Keles assumed it was through Viruk magic, and that made him wonder how Men had ever thrown off their Viruk overlords.

But for all his helpfulness, Rekarafi was also the greatest impediment to progress. Keles could not remain in close proximity to him for more than a few minutes. One time he made the mistake of drinking water downstream from the Viruk. The water that had washed over Rekarafi made Keles violently ill—so much so that he could not be moved for two days, and remained sickly for the rest of the week. Nightmares haunted his dreams, and more and more frequently he woke unrested, with fierce headaches, his body feeling as if he’d been trampled beneath horses’ hooves.

The headaches and illness affected the way he was able to send information back to his grandfather. Many days he could not concentrate enough to make contact, and when he did it remained insubstantial and vague. He was used to his grandfather’s making demands on him, but the old man did that less and less. Keles put it down to the fact that when he did reach him, he was communicating so much information in a lump that his grandfather had all he could do to digest it. The other possibility, that his grandfather’s mind was failing with age, was not something Keles even wanted to think about.

Instead of concentrating on his grandfather’s aging and the problems it might cause, Keles grasped at the idea that the difficulty with sending him information might also have to do with the nature of Dolosan itself. Dolosan had caught the first blast of magic energy released by the battle in Ixyll. The evidence of it was undeniable. The land had broken and shifted, with vast plates of stone rising out of the earth and stabbing toward the sky. Beyond that, however, the upper edges were softened and rounded, as if melted. The magic wave had rolled out, coursing through valleys, washing over mountains, eroding stone, and changing everything it touched.

Some of the sights he would not have believed were he not taking exact measurements. In places huge boulders moved between dusk and dawn, slipping out of alignments he’d drawn the day before. When he went to see if they’d been rolled aside—by what he couldn’t imagine—he found no evidence of disturbance. He marked one of these stones with chalk on the north side, and the next morning found the mark all the way around to the south. The mark itself had migrated, but the feature he’d drawn the mark around had not.

Dolosan had been steeped in virulent magic, and even though it had retreated over the years, its effect was inescapable. In one valley a whole copse of trees had been transformed into a living copper forest. More strangely, they swayed with the languid motion of seaweed undulating beneath the waves. The party paused on the valley’s rim, uncertain if they should go down or if they would drown in some unseen liquid. When they did enter, they felt increased pressure and were forced to move more slowly. Their words came more thickly, and Keles felt the tug of currents on his clothes and hair.

Keles looked for plants and animals to see what effect living in that sort of place would have on them. Did birds breathe fire so they could mold leaves into nests? Or would they have to become more like fish to swim through the air? And would fish be able to swim around out of water? He didn’t see anything that answered his questions, but in looking for them he began to understand his brother’s curiosity about the world. For Keles, those things had always been on the land; but for Jorim, they were of the land.

As they went further west, they truly entered the Wastes. In the day, the land visibly shimmered as if heat rose off it—yet one valley would be frigid enough to frost their breath, and the next would make metal hot to the touch. Hills shifted—albeit slowly, but they shifted—as if made of blankets beneath which children crept. In places, Keles could recognize many plants, but they appeared larger or smaller than normal, and often their blossoms were out of proportion to the plant and boasted colors he’d never seen in nature.

Entering the Wastes made Borosan Gryst happier, and Rekarafi and Ciras more morose. For the gyanridin, the Wastes were a land alive with magic energy, where thaumston could be found to make his creations live. But Rekarafi looked on a land his people had once ruled, and found it unrecognizable. For Ciras, it was the womb of a new magic that threatened the art he struggled to perfect.

One evening, Ciras’ irritability increased because the day’s sun had reddened venom-stung flesh. Ciras nudged the mouser aside with his foot. “Keep that abomination away from me.”

Borosan blinked his wide eyes. “Abomination? It slew one of the maned snakes as easily as you did.”

The swordsman shook his head. “It killed with no honor, no sense of what it was doing. It is an abomination because it does what it does without consideration.”

Moraven poked a stick into their fire. “Is it not true, Lirserrdin Dejote, that the consideration is that of Master Gryst in his creation of the gyanrigot?”

“To agree to that, Master, I would have to weigh the consideration of the swordmaker as being greater than my own in using his tool. The swordmaker may have intended his blade to slay indiscriminately, but I choose when and where to employ it. I accept the responsibility for the consequences of actions.”

“And do you not think Master Gryst does that as well? Remember, he did apologize for the thanaton’s failure.”

Ciras pressed a cool cloth to the right side of his face. The venom had burned him, twisting the flesh near the corner of his mouth and his eye as if they had been touched by fire. “I remember, Master. Master Gryst takes responsibility, but there are those who would not. You have seen the thanaton. Imagine a company of them patrolling a castle or, worse yet, being sent to drive villagers from their homes. They would do this regardless of reason. They would not listen, could not be convinced that the lord who gave them orders was wrong and evil.”

Tyressa rolled out her blanket. “So you fear these gyanrigot will replace the xidantzu?”

“No. That could never happen.”

“Then what do you fear?”

“I fear nothing. The problem with gyanri is that it confers on the untrained skills that ordinarily require years of study. It will erode respect for those who have developed skills. Hard work will become a thing of the past. People will no longer respect or fear magic, and that will pave the way for the return of the vanyesh.”

Keles, relishing the sorts of discussions he used to have with his brother and sister, raised a hand. “Forgive me, Ciras, but you make quite a leap. Having gyanrigot work for someone does not make them want to become a magician.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“But you implied it. Freed of the need to till the earth and plant and harvest, a peasant might learn many things. He might become a great poet or artist or a skilled potter or even a swordsman.”

Ciras’ eyes shrank. “Or a magician?”

Keles shrugged. “He could be anything. You should credit him with enough sense not to be a magician.”

“You have greater faith in common sense than I do, Master Anturasi.” Ciras pointed at the mouser. “It travels and measures for you now, but could it not do that for anyone? Training is not required. The link between self-discipline and the ability to control magic is broken. If they see magic as simple in one area, they will see it that way in another. Just as the gyanrigot scout paths out for you, they will lead others to the madness that destroyed the world.”

Moraven Tolo frowned. “Your thoughts are interesting, but your reasoning unsound.”

Ciras sat up straight. “How so, Master?”

“You see the vanyesh as purely evil, for this is how you have been taught to see them. They rode with Nelesquin, but so did many serrdin. Were the swordsmen evil for fighting in Nelesquin’s cause?”

“They must have been.”

“Or might they have been deceived?”

“That, too, is possible.”

“Which would mean, Ciras, that some of the vanyesh may not have been evil, but just deceived.” Moraven pointed at the mouser. “Just as that is a tool, so can men be. The difference is that men have a chance to control their behavior. Your concern should not be for which behaviors to allow or not, but how to encourage people to be responsible for their behaviors. Prohibition will always fail at some point. Responsibility does not have to.”

Ciras hesitated, then bowed his head. “I beg forgiveness for my lack of sufficient thought.”

Moraven, the firelight shimmering through his black hair, hardened his eyes. “The lack of thought will be forgiven this time. You allowed yourself to become as mindless as the gyanrigot. That makes you as dangerous as you claim they are. The only way you show restraint is if you actually think. All too often people confuse their being able to think with their actually having done so. A more pernicious mistake does not exist.”

 

Their journey took them into the very heart of Dolosan, entering the southern edge of a giant basin roughly two hundred miles from southwest to northeast, and a hundred and fifty miles wide east to west. Scrub vegetation provided sparse if colorful cover. Each of the countless gullies etched into the landscape was home to rainbow streaks of plants.

Rekarafi remained silent for several miles as they descended the gradual slope. “This was Isdazar.”

Keles spat sour saliva. “Shining waters?”

The Viruk warrior nodded. “A vast lake. I sailed here with my Ierariach in the times before.”

Moraven turned in the saddle and looked back at the loping Viruk. “Was there a large Viruk population here?”

“Once, yes.” He pointed a clawed finger toward the north. “Tavliarch was home to many. When the tavam alfel came, the water boiled. It rose in a scalded cloud that fell in black rain. What it touched died. It melted Tavliarch. The waters flowed back into the basin and boiled again and again. Finally, they drained into the land.”

Borosan nodded. “The continual process of draining and raining allowed minerals to collect in deposits. Some are simple geodes, while others are full layers. It is here that deposits of thaumston are found in abundance, though the magic in them often is weak.”

“How can it be weak?” Keles stood in the stirrups and pointed to a plant with a cluster of feathered berries. “We’re on Ixyll’s doorstep. Things should be stronger here.”

“No, Keles. You see, the water here, perhaps because of trace minerals, was a poor conductor of magic. It collected it, but transferred little of the magic to other things. What we have seen before are signs of the magic itself having touched things. Here it touched the water, which insulated the underlying area. West of here, heading to the uplands, you will see more and stranger things, especially where magic had continued to stream, but here there is only residue.

“The advantage to this thaumston is that it is concentrated and capable of absorbing a great deal of magical energy. People dig it up and set it in places where it can be charged. Once it is energized, the possibilities are limitless.”

Keles frowned. “How is it charged?”

“It’s relatively simple. You put the samples in a metal box and raise a mast above it, or spread leader lines around it; techniques differ. Then you wait.”

“For?”

“For a very special storm. You want a moderate chaos-storm. Enough to charge the thaumston, but not much more. Luckily, the basin tends to contain the storms.”

Moraven raised an eyebrow. “What if the storm is too large?”

“It would kill us.” Borosan smiled. “But don’t worry. I’m sure it would be a most spectacular way to die.”

 

Chapter Thirty-nine

3rd day, New Year’s Festival, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Meleswin (Helosunde)

Deseirion

Prince Pyrust smashed the iron edge of his shield into the Helosundian’s face, spinning him away. The man’s weapon went flying, and the Desei Prince advanced, thrusting deep into another man’s vitals. The sword came free with a wet sucking sound. Pyrust kicked the thrashing man away from his feet, then moved on.

Around him, the Golden Hawks moved through Meleswin’s main street, slashing and stabbing anything that moved. Most of the Helosundians in the city were drunk and exhausted. When they’d taken Meleswin, they had spared none of those left behind. The men died, the women were raped, and the children sent away as chattel. Delasonsa had accurately predicted what would happen, but even Pyrust had not expected to see streets littered with bodies. Rats and dogs fed on them even as raucous laughter came from windows shuttered against the cold.

The plan to divide and slay the Helosundian leadership had needed little encouragement. The Council of Ministers had been split sharply over who should be chosen prince and settled on Eiran—a minor noble with modest ambition and a comely sister to whom many looked as an avenue to power. Eiran fancied himself a military genius, having waged many wars with toy soldiers. The retreating Desei troops had offered less resistance than his fantasy armies ever did, so he and a horde of undisciplined troops had poured into the city.

Pyrust had planned to counterattack later in the Festival, but stories of fights between the factions provided the impetus to strike sooner. General Pades, who had been passed over as prince, had laid claim to the warehouse district on the river, locking up the storehouses of goods. Eiran had sent troops to open them back up, drawing them from the garrison at South Gate.

The half-trained boys and cripples left there had not even been able to raise an alarm. The Shadow Hawks slew them, then moved into the southern quarter. They went from house to house, slitting throats until there was no resistance left. The Golden Hawks, Mountain Hawks, and Silver Hawks then entered the city and spread out. The Golden Hawks, with the Shadow Hawks moving through the city on both flanks, drove straight to the city center and the mayor’s palace, while the other two units swept around east and west to contain Pades and his people in the north.

Fighters began to appear as the Desei closed with the palace. Most, it seemed, had barely enough time or sense to pull on some clothing and draw their swords. They had no idea who they were fighting or why, and some screamed that they had been betrayed by Pades. Others, limping back from the fighting in the north, laid down their arms expecting mercy.

They got none.

Pyrust strode through the streets. His shield had been strapped to his half hand so firmly that he’d lose the limb before it would come off. His black armor had a Golden Hawk emblazoned over the breastplate, and he’d even instructed that it be rendered with the two clipped feathers. His advisors thought that rather unwise, but he knew the Helosundians were unlikely to understand the significance of the ensign. But still, it gratified him to see that a number of the Golden Hawks had defaced their armor to hide those same feathers, providing the enemy with a multitude of targets.

More warriors appeared in the streets, half-naked and bleary-eyed. The wisest of them took one look at the battalion of armored Desei filling the street and fled. The Shadow Hawks would get them. The rest, with typical Helosundian belief in the virtue of their cause, shrieked out a war cry and charged.

Their cries became whimpers, then rattles and silence.

A knot of them stood on the palace steps, brandishing spears and swords. They’d set themselves for battle, but shivered like the curs feeding on corpses. If they’d had tails, they’d have been tucked firmly over their genitals and bellies.

For a moment or two, Pyrust pitied them. Prince Cyron was responsible for their deaths. And perhaps, as they faced his men, they realized it. The soldiers Cyron brought remained in Nalenyr. The best of them, the Keru, never ventured into combat. Had the Naleni Prince freed them to fight, there would have been a true battle for Meleswin.

And I might even fear what I face.

Pyrust clanged his sword off his shield’s rim. “No quarter.” He gave the order in a low voice, and word passed quickly back through the ranks. Another clang set his sword to shivering, then he took off at a sprint.

As he raced in, Helosundian spears arced out. A few, thrown weakly, landed in front of him. One spitted a warrior running beside him. The rest passed over him harmlessly. Those who had thrown them slowly began to realize, as the Hawks came on undiminished, that their spears would have been more effective had they been used to stab.

Pyrust raised his shield to intercept an overhand blow. It shivered his arm and splintered part of the shield, but the rim blunted the blow. The warrior wrenched his sword free, but by the time he had, Pyrust’s blade had cloven his left shin in two. The man screamed and fell, knocking another man down. Quick thrusts finished both of them. Their limp bodies slid down the marble steps, painting a red carpet for Pyrust’s advance.

Soldiers who had flanked the knot of Helosundians ripped the palace doors open. Bows twanged from within and men spun away, arrows through throats, arms, and legs. More poured into the building, and by the time Pyrust fought his way to the entrance, the half dozen archers lay dead.

Pyrust helped a leg-stuck man to his feet. The warrior reached down and snapped the shaft off, casting it contemptuously aside. “It is nothing, my lord.”

“It is a blazon of honor.” Pyrust mounted the stairs and marched up slowly, matching his pace to that of the wounded man. Other Golden Hawks streamed up the white marble stairs before him and spread out on either side of the brass doors to the main audience chamber. The Prince held a hand up, and the men who were preparing to draw the door open relaxed.

Pyrust approached and hammered the doors with the hilt of his sword. “Prince Eiran, I am Pyrust, come for my city. Open this door and no harm shall befall you.”

He heard no response and frowned. He spun, then waved his sword to clear the soldiers from the direct line of the door. “Do nothing for the moment.” Turning back to the door, he got out of the way, sheathed his sword, then nodded to the soldiers waiting there. “Open, now.”

They tugged on the ropes they’d attached to the handles, and the doors slowly opened like theater curtains drawing back. A rattle of arrows skipped off the doors and floor. Pyrust stooped and picked up one of the arrows, then laughed. Holding it in his right hand, he stepped into the doorway and through.

The audience chamber was too small to have ever been considered grand, but the marble and granite inlaid in the floors and forming the dais at the far end had been imported. They had been fitted together in the Helosundian dog crest, which Pyrust’s father had left intact, since the artistry did give the room some majesty. The murals on the walls had been repainted to depict glorious scenes from Desei history, and it amused Pyrust to see that the portrait of himself on the east wall had been defiled. His face had been obliterated by repeated pounding with a dented brass urn.

The sprawl of young and very drunk Helosundian nobles between the crest and the dais echoed the corpse-strewn streets outside. Out there, bodies lay in pools of blood, urine, and excrement; inside, the nobles lay in spilled wine and their own vomit. Their armor—none of it showing battle wear—had been cast aside. Whatever robes they had worn beneath now gave thin shelter to cowering women who looked up at Pyrust with haunted eyes. A half dozen of the nobles, including the new Prince, had managed to stand and shoot, but none of them had nocked a fresh arrow, and only two fingered shafts in their quivers.

Pyrust lifted the arrow he’d plucked from the ground. “Care to try again?”

Bows clattered to the ground in reply. Archers soon followed, their ashen pallor deepening. Only Eiran remained on his feet, but he wavered and swallowed. Pyrust stared at him as he advanced, slowly spinning the arrow between his fingers. With each step he took, the Helosundian’s trembling increased.

Pyrust looked past him to the woman sitting in the mayor’s chair. She could have been a Keru, were she taller and heavier, for she had the blonde hair and the icy eyes and the hardness that came with pure hatred. He quickened his pace, sweeping past the Prince and up the three steps to the throne. He threw the arrow aside and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her roughly, but she did not cry out.

Blood from his glove streaked her neck. She swallowed, and he felt it. He felt her life in his hands, the thrumming of her heart. Only the shrinking of her pupils and the slight flair of delicate nostrils betrayed her feelings.

She spat in his face.

Pyrust released her and wiped the spittle from his cheek, then flicked his hand out in a backhanded slap. It snapped her head around and rocked her back against the throne, but she did not go down. Rising redness marked her right cheek. She straightened and her eyes narrowed.

Pyrust held his hand before her face. “Don’t spit again. I would be disappointed if you could think of no new outrage.”

He turned, deliberately presenting his back to her, then stalked down the steps to where her brother still stood. Pyrust let his hand fall heavily on the Prince’s shoulder. With the slightest pressure, he could have driven him to his knees. Instead, he tightened his grip and kept Eiran upright.

He whispered in the Helosundian’s ear. “Your sister has bought your life. That is who she is, isn’t it? You could never attract someone with that much spirit, no matter the crown you wore.”

“And you, Jasai.” Pyrust spun and looked back up at the girl. “When they made your brother a prince, did they make you a princess?”

She glared at him. “No.”

“Then I shall.”

Eiran shook off his hand. “No.”

Pyrust hooked his shield arm out and turned the young Prince around. He kept his voice low and cold. “Understand something, Eiran. You are a fool and a coward. You say no, but you can do nothing to enforce it. In fact, if I chose to take your sister right now, right there, on that throne, you would hold her for me. Look, she knows it.”

Eiran’s head came up and his sister’s stare impaled him. He sank to his knees and vomited over Pyrust’s boots.

The Desei Prince nudged him onto his side, less to move him from the puddle than to wipe his boots clean. He again mounted the steps to the throne. “You, Jasai—duchess, countess, whatever they in their foolishness made you—shall now be a Princess of Deseirion. You purchase one thing immediately: your brother’s life. I’ll have his court sobered, saddled, and escorted south to where they can reach Nalenyr without incident. A second thing you purchase when we wed: a truce in this province. No more raiding against your people. No more forced resettlement.”

Jasai shifted her incendiary gaze to him and he hesitated for a moment. There could be no mistaking the fury on her face, but flickers of ambition also flashed there. Her foolish brother had become drunk with his success and the spoils of battle, but she’d remained sober. She had positioned herself to rise to power.

“You don’t think you can trust me. You’re wise in that, but you will learn you can.” Pyrust reached up and took her hand in his. “You will buy one more thing. Give me a son, and he shall rule Helosunde as your brother should have. You will be his regent.”

Her brow furrowed for a moment. “Why would you offer me Helosunde?”

“If I do not, you will hate me forever.”

“I assure you, my lord, I will always hate you.”

“But you will tolerate me to save your people. Life will be better for my people. It is not much of a dowry, but I shall accept it.”

Jasai raised her chin. “I think, my lord, you leave unnamed the greatest gift I will give you.”

“Do tell me.”

“My rule of Helosunde will free you to pursue other ambitions.” She smiled. “You make me a princess, you give me Helosunde, but I will make you an Emperor.”

Pyrust bit the inside of his cheek to kill his smile. “In a Festival of new beginnings, this may be the best beginning of all. The new year will be full of portent, indeed.”

 

Chapter Forty

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

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Stormwolf, in the South Seas

Since finding the Moondragon and the odd creature aboard it, the expedition had known little joy. In part that could be blamed on their traveling further south with the prevailing current. The seas became more hostile and the weather significantly cooler. Shimik began to grow a thick coat in response, and the treachery of ice on the decks added to the dangers of shipboard life.

Though Captain Gryst was content to leave the sea devil to Jorim for study, he quickly brought the scholars on the Stormwolf in to study the thing. They all dissected it and preserved pieces in various jars. Drawings were rendered of its overall physiology from flesh in. The claws were tested and found to contain a venom thought to be similar to a Viruk warrior’s. It caused paralysis in small animals, and the investigators suggested that many of the crew had been felled by it before they had a chance to fight.

A study of its stomach contents yielded fishbones and fingers, suggesting strongly that the rest of the Moondragon’s crew would never be found. Bits and pieces of its flesh were fed to cats and a few rats with no ill effect. The fact that cats ate it with relish did nothing to make any of the men want to partake.

But the effect of all the study proved less than satisfactory. The only thing the scholars could agree on was that they’d never seen anything like it. The reasons for that abounded, as well as stories of how the creature could have come to exist. Some decided the gods were upset with Men in general and created these things to supplant them. Others spoke of more sinister and salacious situations, in which lost sailors had committed unspeakable acts with fishwomen. Jorim still favored the theory he had advanced to Anaeda; that they were just a heretofore undiscovered race of creature. The utter lack of stories about them did worry him, but since the only logical alternative was that they were a spontaneous creation of the gods, he stuck with his theory. Divine intervention just did not sit well with him.

He did remember his conversation with Keles before they both departed. Keles had suggested Empress Cyrsa still existed in Ixyll and was out there fighting something that still threatened the old Empire. Keles had advanced the theory that perhaps the Cataclysm had opened a rift to another world, letting in forces as yet unseen by man. While Jorim considered that highly unlikely, it did serve to explain why there was no long-standing tradition of these sea devils in folktales.

In the end, he just accepted that they were what they were. It wasn’t so important to know where they had come from as it was to spot where they were and to determine where they might be going. The fact that they had been able to attack a ship and denude it of crew, leaving only the barest of signs of their passing, frightened him. He wasn’t so much worried for the Stormwolf as he was for a small island, or what would happen if the creatures passed up a river delta and began to devour villages.

In the month of the Bear, the fleet located more of the islands from the Soth chart and landed crews to examine them. They did find some signs of human habitation, but it had been years since the villages were populated. On one island they were able to harvest a lot of feral pigs to replenish their supply of fresh meat, and it provided ample feasting for the New Year’s Festival. Even better, the pigs’ presence suggested the sea devils hadn’t visited the islands, which made everyone feel somewhat at ease.

The New Year’s Festival passed without so much as a storm, which they all found welcome yet unusual. No one complained, however, and the Festival carried on with an exchange of gifts among the people of the fleet: nothing extravagant, and all of it the product of labors undertaken in spare minutes here and there. Clothes newly decorated with embroidery were exchanged, serenades were sung for the enjoyment of all, and even the cooks outdid themselves by making the normal fare extraordinary through use of spices that had been hoarded against such a time.

Shimik even provided a present to those on the Stormwolf. Alotia, one of the concubines who had been apprenticed to the Lady of Jet and Jade, spent hours teaching the Fennych a dance. Jorim had not quibbled over her constant requests for the Fenn’s company since she kept him occupied during the dissections. It was only when she dressed the small creature in a blue robe embroidered with golden tigers that he wondered what she’d been doing with him all that time.

The traditional dance, which went by the formal name Chado-ong-dae, was usually performed to greet the new year by a young woman of marriageable age who sought a mate. It had long been seen as dance of seduction, with the lithe and fluid movements reflecting the dancer’s grace and sensuous nature. Jorim had seen it performed a number of times through the years, in a variety of forms, all over the Nine Principalities and beyond.

But never had he seen it done the way Shimik did it. What for a girl were graceful and delicate motions became strong and stalking. Where she was a tigress slipping through the jungle eluding all those save for the mate she chose, Shimik became the hunting tiger. His leaps tucked into rolls from which he emerged with a flash of claw and fang. He became all muscle and sinew, his movements deliberate and menacing, his hunting turns fearsome enough to make sailors scoot back and give him room.

And then, the music and dance would end and his demeanor would shift. He’d run to Alotia and leap into her arms as people cheered. The vestiges of feline nature would vanish into an infantile hug the concubine returned heartily, and growls became delighted coos. The transformation brought another round of applause from the spectators, prompting both performer and teacher to bow most humbly and wish the joy of the Festival to all.

So well received was the performance that Captain Gryst ordered Shimik sent around the fleet to entertain all the ships. Parties from each ship visited the Stormwolf in the wake of his performances. Before the month of the Tiger dawned, Shimik had uniforms from each ship as well as a variety of trinkets with which he filled a wooden box and gleefully pawed whenever foul weather kept him in the cabin.

But where the Festival had given them respite from foul weather and ill omens, the month of the Tiger lived up to its worst potential. Chado, the tiger god, moved through shadows and visited misfortune on those who displeased him. Clouds and fog closed in with the turn of the year, making it all but impossible to discern even the lamps burning fore and aft on the nearest ships.

Information passed between ships through a laborious process of lantern signaling. Not only did it take a long time to pass any messages, but many on the ships could read the signals. Rumors based on these messages abounded, and the last remnants of joy from the Festival evaporated.

The fleet was being stalked.

Everyone knew about the sea devil; there had been no keeping that news quiet. To counteract the fear, the scholars had been charged to try to figure out what the thing actually was. Captain Gryst had labored under the vain hope that someone might have known, thereby ending all speculation. Absent that sort of victory, the plethora of explanations could have split opinions and directed folks away from worrying too much. Unfortunately, the sailors uniformly dismissed any scholarly speculation, assuming that since the sea was their home, they knew best. And what they knew was that the sea devils were nasty and had attacked a ship, hauling the crew away. This meant they would be out there waiting to take the next ship that got careless, and would continue to do so until they were all gone.

Jorim realized that, given the sailors and their opinions, there would have been stories about the fleet being stalked whether or not there was anything to it. While he didn’t want to believe in what they were saying, there was no way the stories couldn’t get into his head. He felt ashamed of falling prey to superstitions, and said as much to Captain Gryst as they sat over a game of chess in her cabin one evening.

She looked up from the board and frowned at him. “I need not lecture you on how strange the ocean can be. If you think about it, water is but a thick fog over an incredible landmass. As the air has birds, so the ocean has fish. What is down below the fish, though, we have no way of knowing—any more than we can determine what is above the clouds. If you think about it just for a moment, you might see that the sea devils have their own empires down there, on the bottom of the ocean, and they have found a way to rise into their sky, to find out what is skimming their clouds. What they have found is us.”

Jorim shifted his shoulders as a chill trickled down his spine. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“Believe? No.” She moved her Master of Shadows. “I would not waste the time or energy believing in that. But I accept it is possible. What I want is an answer, because this not-knowing is harming my crew.”

From somewhere on deck, a voice raised an alarm. Before the two of them had slid their chairs back from the table, Lieutenant Minan opened the door to her cabin. “Begging your pardon, Captain. Green lanterns off the port bow.”

“Out of the way, Lieutenant.” Anaeda pushed past him and led the way to the deck. “Keep to your duties, all of you. Helm, steady the course.”

They raced along the deck and Jorim went down once on an icy patch. He got up and sprinted up the ladder to join the captain in the bow. Cold wind cut at him, but it really didn’t matter because nothing could have warmed him.

Above, a thin crack opened in the clouds and bled silver into the mist. The moon’s light silhouetted a huge ship—one not nearly the length and breadth of the Stormwolf, but equally suited to long voyages over deep ocean. It bore the customary nine masts, but from them hung tattered sheets. Jorim could make out the crest on one of them and knew it to be Naleni, but from a time before Prince Cyron ruled.

One of the older sailors in the bow pointed. “That’s the Wavewolf.”

Jorim’s flesh tightened. “The Wavewolf was lost eighteen years ago. My father was on it.”

“No longer, Master Anturasi.”

The moonlight illuminated the creatures capering on the deck and clinging to the ratlines. Sea devils, each and every one of them. The one they’d found on the Moondragon had been a runt, for these creatures were half again the size of a normal man. The lanterns fore, aft, and hanging from masts burned with a green light that shimmered from scales as creatures spun through dances that had no accompaniment.

A million thoughts rioted through Jorim’s mind. He tried to recall what his father looked like and could not. The image of the man he’d held in his mind had been created from dozens of stories, but they all evaporated as he watched the shadowship keep pace with them. His father had filled how many bellies over there? He couldn’t imagine what he would tell his mother or grandfather, sister or brother. Will I get the chance, or will I feed them as he did?

An urgent tug on his trousers brought him back to reality. He glanced down.

Shimik raised his bow. “Twanga twanga!”

Jorim wondered for a moment how the Fenn had managed to string the bow, but didn’t let that stop him from bringing it to hand and pulling an arrow from the quiver Shimik had dragged on deck. He drew, aimed, and let fly.

The arrow disappeared in the darkness. Jorim thought he’d missed his mark, then one of the sea devils spasmed and fell from the rigging. The other sea devils paused in their dancing as he flopped to the deck, then fell on him, clawing and biting. They tore limbs free and several led merry chases over the deck as others sought to steal part of their bounty.

Jorim nocked another arrow, but Anaeda held a hand up. “It will do no good.”

“One more, Captain, please.” Jorim swallowed hard. “For my father?”

She nodded and stood back. He drew and aimed. He held his shot, measuring the distance, letting the ships rise and fall. He let the rhythm move through him, and finally shot.

The arrow hit its mark. A green lantern high on the main mast fell like a streaking star to the main deck. It exploded when it hit, spraying burning oil over the decking and back up the mast. Several of the capering sea devils became spinning torches. They careened over the deck, igniting cable and sail while the ship’s rolling spread the liquid fire further. Another lantern exploded, and another.

Whatever had been propelling the Wavewolf forward stopped. The burning ship fell off the wind and the clouds closed. But even without moonlight, the ship remained visible. It turned broadside to the ocean’s swells, rising and falling. One moment they could see the whole of it ablaze, and the next the masts showed as distant candle flames. And then even the candles went out and the Wavewolf disappeared.

Anaeda Gryst turned to him. “Shall I congratulate you on your shooting?”

Jorim shook his head. “If I thought that was the last we’d see of the sea devils, I would welcome it. I don’t think it is.”

“Nor do I.” She sighed. “In fact, I think it is highly likely that you’ve only made them angrier.”