Temple of the Traveler: Book 02 - Dreams of the Fallen (23 page)
Read Temple of the Traveler: Book 02 - Dreams of the Fallen Online
Authors: Scott Rhine
Worshippers in the streets were flush with excitement. All greeted him with reverence and deference instead of the usual stupor. That attitude, at least, was an improvement for the heartland of the cult.
The Imperial Minister of Protocol erected a huge tent in the empty field just outside town and laid out a grand feast. Members of each royal house filed in on opposing sides of the tent, arranged according to rank and station. At the outset of this first meeting, only the masters of the ceremony were able to communicate. They spoke in obtuse references and implication, taking care neither to commit nor to offend. Next, the heralds haggled over details of lineage and currently held titles. Then the happy couple could be introduced to the assembly, but not each other. They were carried in silk-covered palanquins from a door at the perimeter of the tent and into an empty spot in the center. The two traveling boxes lay side by side, touching, but neither dignitary was revealed. From time to time, a lackey would whisper to one through the veil, but the couple couldn’t be seen.
Normally the mothers of the couple would fight over the exact details of the extended marriage ceremony. But given the devastation of the Scattering, neither had a mother to enter the arena of battle. Lacking adequate precedent, the sides decided to mimic the wedding of the last Myron, with a few minor exceptions made necessary by geography and war. Four hours later, the chief stewards had an agreement on paper, awaiting only signatures from the heads of their houses: in this case, the couple. Then family welcome-gifts were exchanged. The more formal exchanges between functionaries and generals would take place later.
At last, everyone but the couple left the tent. Emperor Sandarac drew aside the curtains between them. Lady Humi prepared tea for him in the ancient ceremony. He knew her at once to be a woman of exotic beauty. After twenty bits of courtly conversation, he recognized her as intelligent and calculating. She wasn’t a figurehead, but clearly the will that moved the body of House Kragen. Here Sandarac took his first calculated risk and abandoned pretense. Licking his lips, he barged in. “Great Lady, I have not the time to dance about. Since you, amongst your numerous qualities, appear to be a practical woman, I shall be most blunt. I admit that your contributions to this union, both personal and political are formidable. Unfortunately, both of my primary gifts to you have gone missing.”
A beat went by before Humi announced, “We know.”
He let out a breath. The intelligence leak was annoying, but the very fact that Lady Kragen was still negotiating was a favorable sign. “I still have much to offer. I can still give legitimacy to your child and ensure it the throne of a reunited empire when I step down.”
“Him,” Humi corrected his use of the gender-neutral term for the Heir.
The revelation gave Sandarac food for thought. “Indeed. I can also guarantee to do everything in my power to extinguish both the sheriff and my former concubine, but this offering falls short of our original terms. I need to know, Lady, how this affects our deal.”
Humi lowered her eyes so he could see the elegant colors shading her eyelids. “You speak to me as an equal, Highness.”
This was like a game of plaques, reading what was not said before making the next bid. Sandarac stared at her fine tea set before playing his next card. “I’m speaking to a prospective business partner about terms and trust. Both are crucially important.”
He wasn’t getting the hint, so Humi was unspeakably forward. “Will you continue to speak to me as an equal?”
Sandarac paused. He mentally reviewed the estimated count of Kragen Honors the Viper had provided, as well as the real estate controlled by all parties. From a political point of view, this marriage would give him more legitimacy and power than the kings had. He’d be a fool to let her slip away. From a strictly personal perspective, if Sandarac couldn’t have Jolia, then an exquisite vessel like Humi might prove stimulating on many levels. “In public, I shall not converse with you directly. We shall gravitate to different spheres of activity and authority so that we might not seem to contradict each other. Your word shall be law, no less than my own. In private, you may say anything to me you wish.”
She seemed satisfied with the circuitous yes. “Then we can still do business. I’ll compromise, changing my sole requirement to one readily achievable. The coat of arms for the unified family shall be this.” Humi handed Sandarac a sample of the silk dragon banner.
Sandarac was simultaneously uplifted and puzzled. “But the history of my family . . .”
Humi moved in for the kill. “Mine has no less history. But in the present, I control half the South, the Temple of Sleep, and more yet to be revealed.”
“What happened to Zariah?”
She gave him the stack of notes recovered from the ruins. “She was captured by our enemies, and taken north. Your Hisbet will find these interesting.” While he stared dumbly at the cryptic scratching, she pressed on. “Give me this concession, and I will give you more than you asked. Provide this proof of my equal standing, and I’ll immortalize your reign. We will begin a new age of power in the world.”
She walked over and signed her name to the document atop the table. “Trust,” Humi concluded, handing him the page.
“Done,” he said, also signing, and affixing his signet ring to the wax.
“How should we seal our pact?” the young woman asked suggestively, reclining on the emperor’s palanquin beside him.
He edged away, nervously. Sandarac was unwilling to share this secret weakness with his betrothed just yet. “I prefer to keep our dealings strictly business until after the ceremony. You’re most tempting, Lady. But the ancient traditions are strong in our new capital, and I need to provide an example to the people.”
“So be it.” Humi grew cooler and more professional. “Our last order of business tonight will be a demonstration on
The Beauty
, my ship on the docks. Unfortunately, it’s not my warship; that’s at the head of my armada at Innisport.” At the word
warship
, Sandarac flinched slightly. That Kragen had managed to rebuild an Imperial war vessel and invade the largest port in the world meant that Sandarac’s decision had been the right one. Humi mistook the look on his face. “You don’t mind a few more hours travel tonight, your Highness? I assure you the display will be worth your while.”
Sandarac put his game face back on. “My betrothed, nothing could tear me from your side tonight. You can even sail your craft upriver to the capital and save our retinues the walk. I just happen to have an empty berth in my naval shipyard.”
It was Humi’s turn to cover surprise. She did a far better job. “How many warships do you currently have deployhe page.eloved?”
“Five heavy troop ships supporting an action along the north shore,” he confided. “Your generals will be briefed in a few days.”
Humi adjusted her plan. “None below the Imperial Islands in the Inner Sea?”
Sandarac decided not to mention his spy ship. He decided that he had trusted enough for one day. “No.”
“Excellent. Then come with me to the harbor where I’ll present you with my personal gift.”
He agreed. She rang the gong and servants poured back into the tent. After the celebration meal, the core of both groups traveled south to the docks. Sandarac noted a dragon banner already hanging from the mast.
Humi must’ve borrowed local birds for the message
, he reflected,
or been supremely confident in her demands
.
As his retinue boarded, it occurred to Sandarac that this could’ve been an elaborate trap. As they pulled away from the docks into the deeper waters of the Inner Sea, the air was heavy with drumbeats, and the wail of men crying out the rhythm. When there was no wind, men had to use muscle. The very timbers around them creaked with their efforts. Humi lit incense in her chambers.
Soon they passed beyond the mud bottom and into the unbroken bowl of glass, that part of the sea officially known as the Deep. All noise on the ship stopped. The calm was eerie after such frenzied effort.
The Lady of the Deep faced the emperor in her chambers. “Perhaps I reveal more of myself now than I should. Tell me now if you want to return to the shallows and send me back to the South.”
Sandarac gazed into her eyes. He could feel his heart beating as loudly as the rower’s drum. “There is only forward in a ship of war, my betrothed.”
Humi drew a white circle around the cushion where he sat on the floor and placed a few arcane trinkets in their iron brackets. She drew a black starburst on the hull of the ship with the ash of a special flower. He remained unimpressed by the ceremony until she removed her robe and stood naked beside him in the circle. Sandarac sucked in a breath but remained silent. Humi focused her attention on the star of ash. He imagined that the spot might smoke under the force of her will alone. The emperor was sweating.
“Mother of the Deep, guardian of my child, hear my cry.”
The thick incense was making it hard for Sandarac to breathe in the small room. Claustrophobia was tugging at the back of his neck, reminding him of his cell in the mountains. Had he the use of his legs at that moment, he might well have run.
“Serog, I beg a sign for my husband-to-be.” She whispered an instruction to the emperor. “Bow.”
Sandarac opened his mouth to speak and the air rushed out of the room. He fell facedown on the floor. His neck and head tripled in weight. The room was filled with a presence, but he couldn’t raise his eyes to look.
“What sign would you wish, honored daughter?”
“I pray that your great power destroy every ship on the face of the Deep south of the Throne of Heaven,” she said clearly, head also bowed.
“Shall aned. shown mercy?”
“Only those who bear the flag of my new family, the symbol of your heir and the beginning of our united reign over the mortal world,” Humi said with passion.
“So shall it be done, so you shall know me.”
Cold lightning passed through Sandarac as the goddess left the room of summoning. He collapsed into an exhaustion more complete than any sexual activity had ever left him. Humi rolled him over and covered him with a blanket embroidered with gold and purple. “Now we are truly joined, Beloved, our bond sealed by more than mere paper.”
The bodyguard she let in afterward spread rumors of a more mundane consummation. But their houses were joined from the moment Sandarac met Serog the Dragoness.
****
Anna and the men of the Togg family were on a medium-sized merchant vessel with a very nervous captain. “That large, black ship is still behind us. Even the sails are dark as pitch. I can’t see them well in the dimming light, but I am sure it is following. What kind of people would be on a strange vessel like that?”
The patriarch of the Togg clan didn’t know who was on board, but suspected their intent as the chase wore on. He didn’t think it likely that even House Kragen could have tracked him down so quickly, not with all his precautions.
“Black ships travel at night so as not to be seen. Smugglers or privateers, no doubt,” Ashok said almost to himself.
“But that carries the death penalty,” reasoned the captain.
“Yes, which makes us the witnesses that could put them at the end of a rope. Get our gear,” Ashok told his oldest boy. In truth, the ship of night was filled with the emperor’s remaining spies and Glass Daggers. But the effect was the same; there could be no survivors from the accidental encounter. The merchant understood his position perfectly.
To the panicked pilot, he said, “Aim us straight into the fog and head toward the Inner Islands.”
“That would be madness in the dark,” argued the pilot.
“Then it would be madness to follow. Pray our pursuers are not mad men,” said the merchant.
The captain of the vessel stammered. “This is too risky; I cannot condone this course of action.”
Ashok’s tone changed to that of unsheathed steel. “You agreed to this course of action the moment you took my gold, sir, quite a lot of it as I recall.”
“That gold is not here now, but the black ship is,” whined the captain.
“Aye, and if they catch us, my boys have the weapons. But you only get them if you do as I say. Into the fog now while we have a chance of losing them!” ordered Ashok.
The wind picked up dramatically over the next half-hour. The gusts had the mixed blessing of driving them deeper into the Center while at the same time dispelling most of their misty cover. “Blast, they’re closing, the crazy, persistent fiends,” muttered Kirak. “What more could go wrong?”
Anna grabbed his arm, and whispered, “I have found it best not to tempt the gods with such statements.”
Ashok and the pilot faced the flashing cloud ahead of them that had descended from nowhere and now lay directly in their paths. “I have never seen such a storm,” moaned the captain.
“Aye, none of this is natural,” Ashok said, cold with fear. “This is the anvil against which the gods would smash me and my kin, ending the line of messengers. I tell you, if you veer to one side or the other by a single degree, that warship behind us will catch us and slaughter us to the man. Head for the heart of this storm. It might have an eye where we can hide.”
“You’ll kill us all!” shouted the captain before the hilt of Kirak’s dagger fell on his head. The Togg brothers split up. Two dragged the unconscious captain below while the rest tied the pilot to the wheel.
“That may be,” mumbled Ashok. “But we’re going to take every last whoreson of them with us to the broken lands.” True to form, bound by their oaths to the Viper, the Glass Daggers did follow him into the mouth of the beast.
“What’s going to happen?” asked Anna over the raging wind.
Kirak handed her the end of a rope he had knotted around his own waist. “We’re going to find a keg in our cargo back here and tie on.”
“I meant to the ship,” she clarified.
Grimly, Kirak said, “There’s always hope. Six times, the gods have tried to end our line. One of us has always survived.”
The chase continued through insane waves, waterspouts, and hurricane-force winds. Her last thought, tied to a float in the screaming torrent, was that Baran could still be the last, fulfilling his name. When their ship hit the reef the entire keel was ripped away. The noise was horrendous. Their progress slowed as chambers flooded. Without a tiller, the pilot could no longer steer. Anna worried that the pirates would certainly catch them.
Kirak looked up and saw the enormous wave rising above their mast. He squeezed her tightly against the barrel to shield her from the terror. “Hold your breath!”
Both ships were smashed against the jagged, volcanic rocks of the Inner Islands. No one on either ship stayed conscious as the waters sucked them under.
