Oathen (4 page)

Kemsil fumbled with the spyglass for a few
moments before getting it aimed at the Night Beacon’s viewing
platform. His breath caught as he saw Anjoya standing at the rail
with her long dark curls flying in the sheeting wind, silently
holding a hand over her heart, then extending it toward the
Princeling
.

He watched her perform the Hyndi gesture of
farewell a few more times, then handed the spyglass back to Meena.
With his forehead creased as if in pain, he murmured, “She still
cares for me. I should have gone to see her one last
time.”

“With your condition, a passionate farewell
might have gotten her killed,” Meena replied, making Kemsil even
more glum.

“We’ll rendezvous with our other ships once
the sentries return to their posts,” Rhona called, as Salience
harbor and its cliff receded behind them. “Make yourselves
comfortable, everyone, and welcome back to the quest!” She grinned
into the wind, eyes sparkling.

“Come, my lord,” Meena said, taking Kemsil’s
arm and descending the ladder to the main deck. “I’ve something to
distract you from your heartache.”

~~~

Sanych, Geret and Salvor preceded Kemsil and
Meena into the captain’s cabin below deck. An oblong table took up
most of the first half of the room. Shelving loaded with precious
items made the room feel even smaller than it was. The further half
of the chamber was Rhona’s personal space, half-hidden behind a
pair of turquoise silk curtains.

Once they were all inside the low-ceilinged
cabin, Meena closed and bolted the door behind them, her face
tight. “We must speak quickly about the rest of our journey,” she
said.

Sanych leaned against a bookcase, as far as
she could get from Salvor, and refused to look in his direction.
Being in such close quarters with him once more brought back
painful memories, which culminated with his casual confession in
Salience of deliberately manipulating her emotions ever since the
expedition left Highnave. She’d broken off their relationship
immediately, but her mind was still filled with confusion, betrayal
and hurt.

“Shanal is many weeks’ sail to the northwest
of Juala,” Kemsil said, frowning. “What hurry do we
have?”

Meena pulled off her green head scarf,
revealing a short fuzz of fiery red hair with frosted white tips.
It gave her the look of a winter fox whose fur had begun to change
hue for spring.

Amongst the others’ murmurs of surprise,
Sanych blurted, “What happened to your hair?”

Meena shot her a flat look. “It got
digested.”

As the group stifled gasps of understanding,
she continued. “Now pay attention, and know this for truth: I
intend to destroy the
Dire Tome
, and if you come with me
now, you cannot have any other goals in mind.” She pinned Geret
with a brief stare. “I’ll keep you all alive as best I can, but I
can’t promise you it will be any less life-threatening from here on
out. In fact, it will be more dangerous by far.” She paused and
added with a reluctant shift of her shoulders, “The Cult of Dzur
i’Oth desires the key I possess more than anything else in the
world, and they’ll kill anyone they find in their way.”

Several people spoke at once. “The who?”
Kemsil asked.

“How could they possibly know you have it?”
Salvor blurted.

“You just said its name,” Sanych
breathed.

Meena put her hands on Rhona’s table and
exhaled slowly. “The Cult of Dzur i’Oth once possessed the
Dire
Tome
. They used it to bring a reign of terror to Shanal. They
want it back, but they need the key to free it from its prison,
just as I do. When I retrieved the key from the lava tunnels of
Heren Garil Sa, they soon knew of it; they’ve been tracking me ever
since. Calling it ‘the book’ isn’t going to stop them from finding
us. They’ve already done that.”

“How do you figure?” Geret asked.

“I had a few days of sun, sand and coconuts on
Agmana, while I was waiting to stow away on the weekly merchant
ship. I figured it out after I realized I’d been inside the
garrim
for only a few weeks; Scattersea legends tell of the
Deep Ones living for centuries.”

“You’re saying it wasn’t a coincidence? That
the
garrim
was killed?” Sanych’s voice was
hushed.

“How does one go about slaying a guardian of
the deeps?” Kemsil asked.

Meena raised an eyebrow. “With
magic.”

For a moment, Sanych feared that there would
be no further explanation, but this time, Meena
continued.

“There is power in the molten deeps of the
earth,” she said, standing straight. “Ancient legends in Ocula
Senmei, a mystical center in the far south of Eirant, tell us that
once, long ago, this power was more plentiful. It could be found in
the sea, the air, even within certain people. Most of that has
faded away as the world ages. Only the enduring strength of the
planet itself sustains earth magic, and it is only effective where
the surface warms from its touch.

“Dzur i'Oth couldn’t take the key from me
unless the
garrim
surfaced again. Ironic: they had to save
their nemesis to give themselves any chance at all at possessing
the
Tome
.”

“They can reach this far from Shanal?” Kemsil
asked. “There’s no warming of the surface around here; we’re in the
middle of the sea.”

“It takes powerful bloodmagic enhancements to
extend their reach that far from Shanal. With enough strength, they
can reach even to places where magic doesn’t normally work. Each
spell they’ve cast at us has cost many Shanallese
lives.”

“Each spell?” Geret’s brows
lowered.

“Heren Garil Sa’s eruption and the quake
ripples that destroyed all the ports on eastern Eirant were no
random occurrence. After Rhona found me on Agmana, the eastern
horizon was constantly filled with shearing winds or hurricanes.
Dzur i’Oth has begun driving me to Shanal. And they want me to come
alone and powerless.” Meena paused, clenching her teeth, and met
Geret’s eyes. “They destroyed the
Kazhak
because I was on
board; its passengers were a potential army for the Shanallar.
Collateral damage was irrelevant.”

“They killed tens of thousands of people with
quake ripples—blew up Ha’Hril’s volcano—just to wipe out the
Kazhak
? From Shanal?” Geret swallowed. “Do I…do I want to
know about this bloodmagic?”

“The cult’s Enforcers collect victims on
raids. They’re taken to strong pockets of earth magic and drained
dry to release the hints of earth that ride in the blood. In
Shanal, where earth magic is already active, nearly everyone
possesses latent magic in their blood. The combination of
bloodmagic and earth magic drastically improves a spell’s
performance and range.”

Geret looked pale. “I’m pretty sure, looking
back, that I didn’t want to know that.”

Meena’s expression was unrepentant. “Don’t
pretend that Dzur i’Oth is any less heinous than it is, Geret. That
attitude will get you killed.”

She turned to Sanych. “Were you too distracted
by your search for me to put it together? The Silver Hands of
Salience are descendants of those who used to wield magic. The
ability to control magic becomes active sometime during their
second decade. Yet only when they travel to Salience are they even
aware of their gifts. Can you guess why?”

Sanych frowned. Everyone looked at her. Her
blue eyes flicked back and forth for only a moment. “The harbor…its
cavern is an ancient lava dome. Salience is a volcano.”

“I knew that,” Kemsil said, crossing his
arms.

“So, why aren’t—weren’t—there magicians on
Ha’Hril?” Salvor asked. “It’s definitely a volcano.”

Meena replied, “Hrillians don’t really embrace
their magic; they’re too busy making money hand over fist from
international trade and the toothspice industry.”

Sanych recalled the sight of a dragon borne of
flame, dancing over an entranced crowd. It had been the only
remotely magical thing she’d seen in Ha’Lakkon.

“The Green Dragon in Shanal is a volcano too,”
Meena continued. “It lies just outside Cish, the capital.” Meena
looked down for a moment. “I know it well, of old. The cult will be
working their dark deeds from the Dragon Temple on its slopes, in
order to have access to the strongest power they can
grasp.”

“They’ve done this before?” Salvor
asked.

“Yes.” Meena sighed. “Dzur i’Oth has drawn me
back to them more than once in order to retrieve the key to the
Tome
. They used to assume I carried it with me; it took them
a long time to realize that the immortality of my blood gave extra
power to the key, that it could survive outside my body. I’m sure
at least part of that informational delay was due to my slaughter
of as many of them as I could find, every time I returned. But some
of them were always hiding in the natural magic bolt-holes
scattered across the ancient caldera. Looks like I get to play the
reaper once more,” she said, her eyes flat with determination. Then
she shook her head. “My failures have endangered so many lives, and
now it endangers yours. I cannot ask you to accompany us, but I
will accept your help, if you choose to continue.”

Kemsil looked around the group. “I’m afraid
I’ll need a bit more information first,” he said.

Meena fixed him with her green gaze and told
him how the cult had tried to kill her to gain immortality four
hundred years ago. She explained how their ritual had mysteriously
failed, and had imbued her with immortality at the cost of the
lives of all eleven ritualists.

As Kemsil gaped in wonder, she continued, “My
husband Arisson found me and rescued me, and we managed to steal
the
Dire Tome
as we escaped, with the help of his magic
shielding. We’d hoped to destroy it and end Dzur i’Oth’s
insurrection in the capital, but we couldn’t. Worse, the thing
would watch us whenever we studied it. The fighting only worsened
after the cult lost the
Dire Tome
; after Queen Anzadi was
assassinated, we realized the entire country would be destroyed if
we didn’t act fast.

“We took the book to the Green Dragon, and I
locked it away, creating a key with my life blood. The perverse
book defends itself from other magics: no one can locate or damage
it. So the cult needs me, and my key, to return to Shanal, if they
ever hope to get their hands on the
Dire Tome
again.”

Sanych pouted. “That’s more in ten minutes
than you’ve told me in the last three seasons!”

Meena smiled wryly. “They can see me coming
now. If you are to come with me, you need to know as much of the
truth as I can give you. Even now, I am endangering you all, and
the other ships that Rhona has brought. She has agreed to take us
straight to Shanal, through enemy Clan waters, provided Geret
agrees to continue his quest. And you know I will brook no dissent
about the fate of the book, princeling.”

Geret winced at the endearment. “I promised my
uncle that I would bring the
Dire Tome
back to Vint, if it
could be brought back,” he explained to Kemsil. “Only Meena knows
what it will mean to me to give up the hope of completing that
task.”

Salvor cut his eyes over to Geret, frowning.
“What
does
it mean?”

“Addan, my cousin,” Geret sighed, running
fingers back through his long hair. “The true prince of Vint. He’s
mad, and slowly dying, and no one can figure out why. My uncle has
charged me with retrieving the
Dire Tome
because an old
priest’s journal mentioned its healing powers. I told Meena about
it the first night out with the caravan.”

Sanych recalled that night, long past, when
she had walked into Geret’s tent. Understanding at last what she
had seen pass between Meena and Geret, she shot a glare across the
small room to Salvor, who accepted it without comment. They both
knew that his manipulation of Sanych’s emotions had begun that
night.

“If you can heal people, Meena, why didn’t you
just turn around and heal Addan?” she asked, turning away from
him.

“Because I can’t heal Addan. Not for more than
a few minutes.”

Geret looked hurt. “You told me that night
that you couldn’t help him, and I only learned about your healing
ability weeks later, when we were far from home. Why didn’t you
explain then? And why can’t you heal him?”

“I didn’t want to force you into a decision
you weren’t ready for, Geret. No one likes control of their destiny
taken away. As for Addan…” She sighed. “I slipped in to see him
before the expedition set out from Highnave. During the time Sanych
thought I’d abandoned her.”

Sanych blushed.

“If you’d healed him,” Geret said, his voice
rising, “would you have told me? Or would you have led me out here
for nothing?”

“Would it have been for nothing, princeling?
You’re an adventurer at heart. Wouldn’t you have come anyway,
knowing you were off to save the world from the merciless reach of
an evil cult?

“My healing only lasted moments on Addan. He
looked at me with stunned clarity, and whispered one word, before
his eyes became terrified and gradually lapsed back into their
staring.” She shuddered. “It was terrible to watch, and I’d not
punish him with the knowledge that he was sinking back into madness
again and again, unless I hated him.”