The Merchant Emperor (2 page)

The unconscious beast settled back into slumber again.

Biding its time.

Which, given the sound of approaching hoofbeats, might be coming sooner than anyone realized.

PART ONE

A Hesitant Return to Spring

ODE

WE are the music-makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world’s great cities,

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire’s glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song’s measure

Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself with our mirth;

And o’erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world’s worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

—Arthur O’Shaughnessy

1

GWYNWOOD, NORTH OF THE TAR’AFEL RIVER

The first sign that something terrible was wrong with the world was birdsong.

The white forest of Gwynwood was a virgin wood, thick with old stands of pale-barked trees that had been growing undisturbed for so many centuries that their upper branches had become entwined, interlacing in a thick canopy through which the sun struggled to warm the ground in the height of summer. Now, in the dying days of winter’s Second Thaw, the warmth promised by a coming spring had caused trees of all heights to bud with new leaves, casting ever-changing patterns of shadow on the mossy ground below.

Melisande Navarne, mere days from her tenth birthday, reined her horse to a stop beneath those entwined branches, watching the patterns of light and shadow dance all around her.

And listened.

The air of the forest, rich and heavy with life and the lingering scent of old magic, was both sweet and spicy to her nose. The dazzling dance of the sun on the leaves filled her eyes, making her yearn for more innocent times, when she could have taken off her boots and run through the greenwood, playing chase with her brother and the father she had loved to adoration. The sweet singing of birds in the trees delighted her ears, completing the picture of tranquillity of an ancient forest in the advent of spring.

Except that in this place, if things were as they should be, no birds should sing.

All around them the woods were alive with natural music, the rustling of trees’ boughs, skittering and snapping in the undergrowth, and everywhere birdsong, a wild, almost nervous cacophony. The clear water of the stream she had been following joined in the forest song, splashing noisily as it hurried ahead of her. Melisande glanced repeatedly over her shoulder for Gavin the Invoker, feeling less than comforted, even at the sight of him following her, as he had promised to do. There was something looming in the distance, something she had been warned about from the beginning, but was still unprepared for, no matter how good a face she was able to put on.

She clicked to her mount and continued into the greenwood.

Finally, when the noise was all but deafening, she heard a soft birdcall behind her, one she had come to recognize as the Invoker’s signal. Melisande reined her horse to a halt and looked over her shoulder again.

Gavin had halted as well.

“This is where we part company for the moment, Lady Melisande Navarne,” he said seriously, gentling his own mount. “Your instructions from the Lady Cymrian forbid me from going on past this place.”

The little girl nodded, trying to appear brave, but her stomach turned to water at his words. Gavin had found her, lost and wandering aimlessly in the forest after her carriage had been attacked. In spite of his gruffness and his sparse use of words, Gavin had been a comforting presence, a staunch protector and capable guide to this place of unwelcome birdsong and the errant wind in the trees. She had grown to depend on him to keep her safe not only from the dangers that lurked in the greenwood, but from her own doubts and fears.

It appeared both of those protections were about to come to an end.

She glanced into the sky above her. The silver branches of the tall trees reached, twisting, into a sky racing with clouds of almost the same color. Melisande shivered, then dismounted.

“Are you certain, Gavin?” she asked, hating the nervousness that made her voice sound younger than she was. “You are sure this is the place? You said you have never been here before.”

The Invoker smiled. It was something Melisande had rarely seen him do in their brief time together, but she knew immediately that he had seen through her attempt to keep him with her a little longer.

“The instructions you conveyed to me were to bring you to follow the sweetwater creek to Mirror Lake.”

“Yes.”

Gavin nodded at the opening in the thicket before them. Melisande followed his gaze with hers, then tremulously ventured into the copse of trees. Beyond it, the splashing stream emptied out into an oval body of water, glistening in the morning light, its surface flat and smooth as a pane of glass. Mist clung to the clear water, hovering above it like clouds reflecting the sky.

Don’t be frightened.

Melisande froze. The words were spoken in her ear, quiet and distinct, as if the speaker had been standing a hairsbreadth away, in the unmistakable voice of Rhapsody, the Lady Cymrian.

I have a mission for you.

The little girl spun around, looking anxiously for a glimpse of the Lady’s golden hair, a shadow of her small, slender form, but there was nothing in the greenwood but the wind in the trees and the song of birds. The words could have come directly from her memory, spoken to her as they had been on a dark night, not really that long ago and a whole lifetime away. But they were not a function of memory; she could hear them as plainly as she could hear the rustling of the underbrush around her.

She thought back to that dark night, to the room in her family’s keep, in the fading glow of the evening’s candles. Melisande could feel the warmth and tingling of excitement now that she had felt then when Rhapsody had taken her hands and had begun to chant softly in the words of an ancient language, taught to her more than a thousand years before by her mentor in the art of Singing, a science known to her mother’s people, the Liringlas, called Skysingers in the common language, and Namers, when they were especially advanced in it.

Melisande closed her eyes, reveling for a moment in the memory.

The air in the room had gone dry as the water within it was stripped, and a thin circle of mist formed around the two of them, glittering like sunlight on morning dew. A moment later, the words Rhapsody was speaking had began to echo outside of the mist in staggered intervals, building one upon the other until the room beyond was filled with a quiet cacophony. Melisande had witnessed this phenomenon before; the Lady Cymrian, the closest thing to a mother she had known, often called such a circle of masking noise into being to protect their words from imaginary eavesdroppers whenever the two of them were whispering, giggling, and sharing secret thoughts. The corners of Melisande’s eyes stung with sharp tears, bitter for the loss of those innocent times.

I need you to do something for me that I can entrust to no one in this world other than you, Melly.

The voice was even closer now, clearer in her ears. At the time they had first been spoken, the words had rung with a clarity that Melisande recognized as the Naming ability of True-Speaking. Now she wondered if, besides magically ensuring their veracity, the Lady Cymrian had been planting them in her head for this very moment, to remind her of her quest, or to indicate that she had arrived on its doorstep, in this sacred place, this untouched ground where only a handful of people had ever trod in all of history.

This night I will send a messenger bird to Gavin asking him to do as you direct him when you arrive. I can only entrust this request to you in spoken word, because if something should happen to the message, it would be disastrous.

Melisande, orphaned by such disasters, had understood the full implication of the Lady Cymrian’s words.

Once you arrive at the Circle, ask Gavin to take you, along with a full contingent of his top foresters and his most accomplished healer, to the greenwood north-northeast of the Tar’afel River, where the holly grows thickest.

Melisande turned slowly, scanning the distant edges of the forest, burgeoning black with that holly, and willed herself to be calm.

These are sacred lands, and I can give you no map, for fear of what might become of it. Gavin will know where this is. Tell him to have his foresters fan out at that point, keeping to a distance of half a league each, and form a barrier that extends northwest all the way to the sea, setting whatever snares and traps they need to protect that barrier. They are to remain there, allowing no living soul to enter. They should comb the woods for a lost Firbolg midwife named Krinsel, and should they come upon her, they are to accord her both respect and safe passage back to the guarded caravan, which will accompany her to Ylorc.

In spite of being alone, Melisande nodded at the words. All had been done according to these commands; even now, many leagues behind them, the elite of Gavin’s corps of foresters guarded the holy forest lands, unseen in the greenwood. She began to tremble, recalling how Gavin had recently come upon the body of a woman being devoured by coyotes, and wondering if the first part of her mission had already ended in failure.

Gavin himself is to take you from this point onward,
the voice continued. It switched ears, making her start, and she turned quickly in the new direction of the voice to find herself facing the sparkling stream.
A sweetwater creek flows south into the Tar’afel; follow it northward until you come to Mirror Lake—you will know this body of water because its name describes it perfectly.

Yes, it does,
Melisande acknowledged.
This is the place.
Her stomach turned as she remembered the words that were to come a heartbeat later.

At the lake you are to leave Gavin and travel on alone. He is to wait for you there for no more than three days. If you have not returned by then, direct him to return to the Circle.

She stared, lost in thought, down into the glassy water of the lake, still partly frozen in winter’s grip of ice, though the spring melt had begun, leaving large pools of shimmering liquid pocketing the surface, reflecting the sky. Melisande bent over and looked into the water.

A stranger’s face returned her gaze.

The last time she had beheld her own aspect, it had been in her bedroom in her family’s keep, and a young child of nine summers with black, inquisitive eyes ringed by golden curls had looked back at her, mischievous and smart beyond her years. The face that stared at her now was much older, though it had been but a few weeks in time since then, harder, browner.

More determined.

A face that had survived the attack of her carriage on the way to fulfill the quest Rhapsody had given her, the slaughter of most of her guards, and her awkward introduction to Gavin, who now seemed about to send her on her way, alone.

How long Melisande stood, absorbing the words of the voice, contemplating the change in her face, she did not know. When a quiet coughing sound behind her startled her, she looked up to see that the sun had climbed a little higher in the sky, though the mist still clung to the water of the lake, unmoved by its ascent. She turned to see the Invoker, still atop his horse, watching her intently.

“Well, Lady Melisande Navarne?”

Melisande inhaled deeply, the cold air of spring making the bottom of her lungs cramp. Then she walked back to Gavin and his mount.

“This is the place, you are right,” she said, her young voice crisp with confidence she did not feel. “I am to go on from here alone.”

The Invoker nodded, then alighted from his horse in a movement so swift she almost didn’t see it. The golden oak leaf atop his wooden staff, the symbol of his office, caught the light as he dismounted, making it flash. It was the only thing that served to remind Melisande that she was traveling with the leader of the most numerous religious sect on the continent rather than a scruffy forester.

“You will be all right, then.”

“I will.”

The Invoker smiled again. “I know,” he said, humor in his husky voice. “It wasn’t a question.” He opened the saddlebag and pulled forth a leather pack. “If I recall, I am to wait here for three days.”

“Yes.”

He tossed her the pack. “Well, this should keep you that long without getting too hungry. There is a waterskin in there as well—best not to drink anything found in these lands unless you know it to be safe and permissible for you to do so.”