The Drowning City: The Necromancer Chronicles Book One (3 page)

He turned his eyes to Isyllt. “But if you haven’t come for the bones, what can I do for you?”

Isyllt twisted a red-gold ring off her finger and held it out. “Among blind men—” She gave the first half of the code in Selafaïn.

“The one-eyed reigns,” he finished. He reached out to clasp her hand and palm the ring in one smooth gesture.

As his calloused fingers touched hers, a shiver ran up her arm. Isyllt barely managed to keep her face still; no one had mentioned
the man was a sorcerer. The sensation vanished so quickly she almost doubted her instinct, but his eyes narrowed as he studied
her.

“Well met, I hope. I’m Izachar Teoma.”

“Isyllt Iskaldur.”

His eyes flicked briefly toward her left hand. “What is it you wish of me, Lady?”

“I want to hire your ship.”

“The
Rain Dog
can take you anywhere you need to go.”

“Actually, I want you to stay in port. We’ll be in Symir for perhaps a month—hopefully it will be a peaceful visit and we’ll
leave quietly. But it may come to pass that we’ll need to leave the city very quickly, and we’ll need a fast ship we can trust.”

“Ah.” Izachar ran a hand over his curling beard. His chair creaked as he leaned back. “I understand. But a month…My crew have
families to feed, and I’ll lose business.” A gold tooth gleamed with his smile. “And with the new import taxes, my business
is booming.”

“We’re prepared to compensate you.”

Adam slid a purse across the table. Izachar hefted it, listened to the clatter of metal and stones. He loosened the ties and
pulled out a coin. Silver gleamed smooth, unstamped.

“I’ll keep the
Dog
in port for a decad,” he said at last. “My first mate’s daughter is sick, anyway, and she’d like to spend some time with
the child. After ten days, find me again and we’ll negotiate further.”

Isyllt nodded. She’d expected no better. “A pleasure doing business with you, Captain.”

“The pleasure’s mine, Lady.” The money vanished off the table.

The door swung open and a dark, scar-faced man leaned in. “Time to go,” he said. His hand moved against his thigh, a sign
Isyllt didn’t recognize. Then he was gone.

Izachar cursed softly. “A raid’s coming. Business is booming a little too well.” He pushed off his chair and crossed the room,
quick enough for his short legs. “We’ll use the back door,” he said, motioning them on. “It’ll be clear for a few more minutes—Desh
pays his bribes on time.”

Isyllt and Adam exchanged a quick glance and followed the dwarf down the hall. From the main room she heard a door slam, then
a flurry of curses and shouting and the clatter of an overturned table. They stepped outside into a dark alley, as empty as
Izachar had promised; the last light caught his grin before the door shut behind them.

“Welcome to Symir,” he called after them as they escaped into the sticky night.

Xinai moved through her exercises by the light of one guttering lamp. The flame gleamed on her knives, shattered on their
razored edges. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth as she thrust and spun and stretched. Normally she flowed like water
from one stance to the next, but tonight tension trembled her limbs, made her movements too quick and jerky.

The smell of the canals breathed across the casement: water and waste, eucalyptus and brine and citrus-sweet champa flowers.
Beneath it her own sour salt sweat clogged her nose.

She’d thought she could do it. She’d thought she could come home after twelve years gone. On the voyage she’d told herself
that the city would have changed, that time would have made her memories bearable.

She’d almost believed it.

The exercise wasn’t calming her. She stopped, stretched, and put her blades away. Adam watched her from the shadows of the
bed as she stripped off her vest and trousers. He’d asked if she could take the job, one of the rare times he acknowledged
all the things she’d never told him about her past. In Erisín, spending the wizard’s money on food and wine, she’d said yes.
Even the necromancer hadn’t deterred her, for all the woman’s magic made her skin crawl.

She could do this. She didn’t have a choice.

She threw herself down beside Adam and buried her face in a cushion. His familiar scent was a comfort—oil and leather, musk
and iron. Nothing that reminded her of home.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “Is it so bad?”

“It’s—” Pillows muffled her sigh. “It’s the same. Things have changed, but it’s still the same.”

He knelt over her, running his hands over her shoulders. She grunted softly as he pressed against knotted muscles.

“They think they’re lions,” she muttered, thinking of the customs inspector with her expensive coat and hennaed hands, her
perfect Assari. The Sivahri soldiers in their red-trimmed uniforms. “Only dogs licking their masters’ boots.” She gasped as
Adam dug his thumbs into her back.

He worked down, calloused hands strong and steady. She forced herself not to stiffen as he brushed the scars on her back.
It had been a long time, even after they were lovers, before she let him touch them. Not until the nightmares faded and she
didn’t wake up gasping, expecting to find her skin slick with blood.

Years of partnership had left his touch as familiar as her own. By the time he reached the small of her back she could breathe
easily again, the angry stiffness gone from her limbs.

“It’s only a job.” He leaned down to kiss her shoulder. “When it’s over we’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere you like.” He caressed
the unmarked skin on her sides and she shivered. “You want to be a pirate?”

She chuckled and rolled over, stretching out the last of her tension. “You might be able to talk me into it.” But she pulled
him down and kissed him before he could try.

I
syllt and Adam crossed onto the mainland north of the Mir early the next morning and rented horses to carry them up the foothills
to the Kurun Tam. Mount Haroun loomed above them, its shadow casting a false twilight over the western hills.

The sun burned away the dawn mist, embroidered the mountain’s green skirts in gold and amber. Summer heat left leaves curled
and drooping, baked the roads cracked and dusty and withered the ferns that grew in the shade.

Ward-posts lined the road, simple charms to keep predators away and something else, a spell to hold the stones steady if the
earth shook. Isyllt wasn’t sure she understood the intricacies of it, but the implication was unsettling. Far above the canopy,
white smoke leaked from Haroun’s summit. Liquid fire still bubbled in the mountain, but it hadn’t erupted in the hundred and
fifty years of Assari occupation. The mages of the Kurun Tam expressed nothing but confidence in their ability to keep the
mountain quiet—since they’d be the first to burn if Haroun stirred, Isyllt tried to take comfort in their assurances.

The trail turned sharply and she saw the sluggish waters of the Mir below them, and the broader, gentler slope of Mount Ashaya
on the far side of the river. The South Bank was home to politicians and merchant moguls, mansions and plantations. Whatever
native families had lived there were long gone, driven out or bought off and their lands divided up for gifts to those who
pleased the Emperor. The North Bank was poorer, home to Sivahri who couldn’t afford to live in the city proper. From the ferry
she’d seen clay and brick buildings, thatched roofs and packed-earth roads.

And between the two banks and the bay, Symir shone in the morning light, all colorful roofs and gardens and glittering webs
of water.

Isyllt swallowed bitter dust and the smell of horse. This assignment was one others would have vied for, exotic and expensive.
And important.

They’d lost three agents in Assar—clever, well-trained spies. Two had simply vanished from their posts, and the body of the
third was found dumped near the Selafaïn embassy in Ta’ashlan. And in Erisín, Kiril had caught two Assari agents already—one
trying to seduce a Selafaïn inventor whose clever designs would make wonderful instruments of war, and the other worming his
way into the palace bureaucracy. The latter had fallen on a blade before Kiril could question him, but his presence was story
enough—the Emperor was growing bolder.

In the five hundred years since refugees fleeing the al Sund dynasty’s armies had crossed the sea and founded Selafai, several
Assari emperors had tried to take the younger kingdom. Assar had never established a solid presence on the northern continent,
and every other generation some general-prince with dreams of fortune and glory thought to be the first to do so. And now
Rahal al Seth sat the Lion Throne, young and greedy and itching to match his grandfather’s conquests—and backed by generals
canny and greedy enough to give him a chance.

She pressed the tip of her tongue between her teeth and tried not to scowl. What Kiril said was true—she was his best student,
his most trusted agent. And what he didn’t say was true as well, that given a job as important as this she’d die before she
disappointed him. He needed her here. But he’d sent her away, and it gnawed.

She tried to relax, but the jolt of hooves stiffened her back and shoulders. Adam rode more easily beside her, his eyes on
the trees. The jungle clamored around them, screeching and chirping and rustling. Jewel-bright lizards and long-tailed monkeys
watched them from tree branches, calmer than the birds that took flight whenever the clatter of hooves grew close. The trees
hid all manner of exotic beasts.

And bands of desperate men as well. She just had to find them. Trade gold and weapons for warriors to wield them. To die for
them. Thousands of Sivahri lives in exchange for Selafaïn ones.

She looked up and caught Adam watching her, pale eyes narrowed. She schooled her face and smiled at him. Then she shivered
as they passed through a tingling web of wards. The trees fell away and they rode into the courtyard of the Kurun Tam.

The Corundum Hall. A long building of crimson granite, pillared and domed in Assari style. Faces watched them from the wall,
bound spirits staring through stone eyes. Neat green lawns stretched within the walls, shaded by slender trees and pruned
topiaries—all the jungle’s wildness tamed.

A young stablehand appeared to take charge of their horses, and Isyllt dismounted with a wince and brushed at the dust on
her clothes. The gray-green linen hid the worst of it, at least. She breathed deep, tasted magic like spiced lightning in
the back of her throat. It tingled down her limbs and prickled the nape of her neck.

They climbed broad red steps and entered a columned courtyard. Isyllt sighed as cool air washed over them—a subtle witchery
and a welcome one. A fountain played in the center of the yard and she worked her dry tongue against the roof of her mouth.
The air smelled of flowers and incense and clean water.

Isyllt washed her face and hands in the basin beside the door, and she and Adam added their boots and socks to the neat row
of sandals and slippers. She didn’t hear the footsteps approach over the splash of the fountain until Adam spun around. She
turned as a shadow fell across the stones at her feet.

“Roshani,” the man said, bowing low. Light gleamed on the curve of his shaven head, set mahogany skin aglow. He wore robes
of embroidered saffron silk, the hem brushing the tops of his bare feet. “Or should I say good morning?” he asked in Selafaïn.
“You must be Lady Iskaldur.”

“Yes.” She lifted her ring in warning as he offered a hand. “I’m
hadath
.” Unclean. Had she been born in Assar, she would go gloved and veiled and touch no one but the dead.

“Ah. It’s not often we see necromancers here.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips; his skin was warm, his magic warmer
still as it whispered against her. His smile was wry and charming. “I’m not devout. My name is Asheris. Vasilios mentioned
that he was expecting you. I’ll take you to him.”

“Wait for me,” she said to Adam, and followed Asheris down a shadowed arcade.

Zhirin was late again. The sundial in the Kurun Tam’s courtyard told her it was nearly noon—she should have been at lessons
an hour ago. But as Jabbor escorted her up the steps, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“You shouldn’t come in,” she said as they paused on the threshold. It might have been more convincing if she’d taken her hand
off his arm.

“Why?” His smile crinkled the corners of his dark eyes. “Will your magic strike me down?”

“Hush.” She stepped inside, toeing off her sandals. Two new pairs of boots rested beside the familiar row of shoes. “You’ll
get me in trouble.”

“You’ll get yourself in trouble, you mean.” Jabbor stepped through the doorway, glancing about curiously. He didn’t take off
his shoes; Zhirin rolled her eyes but didn’t chide him. It was progress enough that curiosity overcame his distrust of all
things Imperial—politeness could come later.

He turned away from a stone face on the wall. “I haven’t been struck down yet, and you’re not in trouble.” His flippancy died
as he folded her hand in his broader, darker ones. “Zhir, are you sure—”

She shook her head sharply. “Not here. And yes, I’m sure. I’ll know by tonight.”

He nodded. “Be at the ferry by sunset, then. And thank you.” He leaned down to kiss her, then froze.

“Jabbor?”

He spun, one hand falling to the hilt of his kris-knife. Zhirin followed his gaze across the courtyard and jumped. A man sat
in the shadows beside the fountain, eyes half closed as if he drowsed. No one she recognized, neither Assari nor Sivahri.
Her cheeks stung as she tried to remember what he might have overheard.

The man blinked lazily and brushed black hair away from his face. “Roshani.”

If he spoke Assari, perhaps he hadn’t understood anything. Not that she’d said anything she shouldn’t. She’d done nothing
to feel guilty for. Yet.

“Go on,” she told Jabbor in Sivahran, shoving him toward the door. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She turned back to the man and bobbed a shallow bow. “Excuse me.” He didn’t look or feel like a mage; the cut of his clothes
was foreign, as was the line of the sword at his hip. “May I help you?”