The River of Shadows (58 page)

“I have seen but one other snow heron in my life,” said Bolutu. “It stood on the harbor wall as I sailed out of Masalym to cross the Nelluroq. They were rare even then, two centuries ago. Now I understand that years go by without a single sighting anywhere in the South.”

Thasha closed her eyes. An image had burst into her mind, sudden and unsought. A sky above a marsh, full of blowing confetti, living snow.
Thousands
, she thought, as the image sharpened, and the roar of their mingled calls echoed inside her.
I’ve walked among these birds in their thousands
.

Pazel’s hand on her elbow brought her back. She opened her eyes, the vision gone. She gave him a frightened smile.

Pazel turned to Bolutu. “Someone gave Rose a stuffed cat,” he said.

“A leopard,” said Bolutu, smiling. “Of course. It was a gift from the Naval Commander of Masalym—an old fellow with a ceremonial post; he commands a fleet of sixteen hulks and derelicts. But it was a grand gesture all the same. By tradition a departing captain must hold the leopard until the last mooring-line is cast off. Then he throws it ashore, and the well-wishers catch it, being most careful not to let it touch the earth. Good luck follows any who observe the rite; but if the creature so much as brushes the cobbles—disaster. And if the captain lets it be held for even an instant by another man aboard—well, that man will be his death.” He shrugged. “Dlömic seafarers are as superstitious as any.”

“No wonder he barked at Haddismal,” said Neeps. “But why is he so upset about the leopard?”

“I guess you haven’t noticed,” said Marila, “that he’s terrified of cats.”

“All his life,” said Bolutu, nodding. “That much I have gleaned from his exchanges with Lady Oggosk. It goes beyond Sniraga; he cannot abide cats of any sort. The
sicuñas
must have struck him as horrors from the Pits.”

Thasha glanced at Bolutu. “You’ve lost your monk’s hat,” she observed.

“It is only put away,” said Bolutu, a bit sadly. “One day I may wear it again, if we indeed sail north together. But there is no Rinfaith here, Lady Thasha. Not south of the Ruling Sea, and not in my heart.”

A few sailors stopped their work and looked at him. “That’s a funny sort of faith, Brother Bolutu,” said Mr. Fegin.

“I don’t disagree,” said Bolutu, “and yet I am bound to respect the Ninety Rules, and the second of these is the call to honesty. For twenty years my body was human. Now it has reverted to its old form, and I find my old, ancestral faith contending with my adopted one.”

“But the Gods are the Gods, all the same.”

“Are they?” asked Bolutu. “We have no Gods here, Mr. Fegin. And yet we know we are observed. The Watchers, we call them: those who do not intervene, do not speak, do not instruct. One day they will be our judges. But until then they tell us absolutely nothing.”

“Well, that just beats everything,” said another sailor. “What kind of Gods—or Watchers or what have you—refuse to tell you how to worship ’em?”

“The best kind,” said Bolutu, smiling, “or so we are taught as children. There is no divine law given us, no rules, no scripture. What we are given is here, and here.” Bolutu tapped his forehead, then his heart. “Wisdom, and an instinct for the good. It is to those things we must strive to be true. As for worship, what good has it ever done? In the Last Reckoning the Watchers will judge our deeds, not our praise of them, our flattery.”

“Deeds, eh?” said Fegin, turning back to his work. “D’ye suppose they’ll like what they see?”

Mr. Bolutu looked down sadly, as if the same question had occurred to him. He walked away from the youths, trying for a closer view of the heron. The bird had not moved a feather. Thasha wondered if it would see them off at sunrise.

She drew a deep breath. “We’re really going, aren’t we?” she said.

Pazel drew her close, rested his chin on her shoulder. “Love you,” he whispered, so softly she could barely hear. Thasha wished suddenly to pull them all close, to tell them they mattered to her more than anything, more than their quest. She turned and kissed Pazel, felt his urgency, his hammering heart, and wondered just how long they had before dawn, and then Marila said, “I’m with child,” and they all looked at her, speechless. The heron lifted off, as though it had come for just this information, and Neeps covered his face with his hands.

11
. Admiral Isiq’s letters refer to the dour gentleman with the cat as “Great-Uncle Torindan, the war hero.” —E
DITOR
.

Trust

5 Modobrin 941

In the dead of a moonless night in Northwest Alifros, in the midst of the coldest spell of weather the Crownless Lands had seen in fifty years, two boats ran afoul of the same reef in the Straits of Simja. They were light, swift vessels; they had been shadowing each other with lamps extinguished; they were under orders to avoid a firefight. One was an Arquali kestrel-class frigate, the other a Mzithrini
tirmel
. Neither boat could break free of the reef, and with the first light of dawn they became visible to each other. There was shockingly little distance between them.

On the Arquali boat, a certain aging weapons officer found himself in possession of a full gun-team, a fair shooting angle and a lit cigar, but rather less tranquillity of mind than the moment called for. His cigar served as a match; his cannon boomed; a thirty-two-pound ball skipped over the water and shattered on a knob of exposed reef, just in front of the enemy ship. Coral exploded in fist-sized chunks; a Mzithrini sailor dropped, senseless, half over the forecastle rail. Before anyone could reach him the boat lurched on the incoming wave. The dazed man fell upon the reef; the weight of forty sailors rushing to portside shifted the boat’s center of gravity; on the next wave the boat pitched lethally in the man’s direction, and with it the Third Sea War of Alifros began.

King Oshiram of Simja received the news in the wood behind the Winter Keep, a day’s ride from the capital. The message, dashed off in a panic by his chancellor and delivered by a rider whose exhausted horse stood steaming beside him, flooded the King’s mind like a swiftly darkening dream. Sudden and immense hostilities. The two Empires’ fleets exchanging fire in the Narrow Sea. The Arqualis demanding access to Simja Harbor; Mzithrini battalions spotted on the beach at Cape Córistel. A plea for aid from Urnsfich, Simja’s neighbor-island to the south, overrun by land forces already.

Whose forces? The King turned the parchment over, as though something might be scrawled on the back. Who were they being asked to help Urnsfich repel?

Aya Rin
, what did it matter? He stepped back into the tent and drew the frost-stiffened flaps closed behind him. For a moment he succeeded in believing none of it, reducing the world to this canvas cocoon, where the loveliest woman who ever drew breath lay sleeping, naked, among furs and satins disordered by their lovemaking. Syrarys. The King fixed his eyes on one pale, perfect hand. The palm he had kissed and tasted rose water, the fingers that had enslaved him with a touch. Never again, never again, unless he went to her this minute—but that was out of the question. War had come. He crept forward, ashamed of his trembling, and began to pull on his clothes.

Isiq had foreseen it: general war before the year was out. Day by day the old admiral’s mind had grown sharper, his torn memories knitting together like muscle to bone, as though the tactical news Oshiram had been providing was a food for which he’d been starved. “We no longer have months, Sire. We may not even have weeks. Sandor Ott wants panic in the Mzithrin: he wants them to look like superstitious fools. Scared of the Shaggat’s return, accusing Arqual of treachery they cannot prove, striking at shadows. But Arunis only wants war, the sooner and fouler the better.”

“And my Kantri—”

“Her name is not Kantri, Sire. It is Syrarys, and she is no more yours than she ever was mine, or Sandor Ott’s for that matter, though perhaps he trusts her still. It was Ott’s wish that she poison me, but it was never Ott’s wish that my Thasha die before she could marry.”

“You blame
her
for Thasha’s death?” the King had cried, incredulous still.

Isiq had replied with devastating logic. Syrarys alone had handled the necklace that had strangled his girl. She had polished it with a salve from Arunis himself, before he cast away his disguise. And she had insisted that Thasha Isiq wear the necklace every day of her life. “She is a servant of the sorcerer, Your Majesty,” said the admiral, “and like him she has made fools of us all.”

The King stepped into his trousers, struggling not to make a sound. Her beauty like something flung at him. Like that high, crystal note at the end of the opera, the one you waited out before breathing. He had told Isiq he could not go through with it. Oh, the plan was good enough. Syrarys had to be removed from the capital, and quietly, without revealing to Ott’s other spies that her true identity was known. And only with the King and his retinue gone from Simjalla Palace could Isiq himself hope to slip away into the city.
If the Arqualis find him now, if they learn that I have harbored their rogue admiral, a war hero prepared to denounce their treachery …

Too late for regrets. He must do all he could to help Isiq escape, and certainly that meant drawing attention away from the palace. But to bring the woman here, to their special hideaway, to dine and hunt and carry on as if nothing had changed, to make love to her—

Isiq had cut him off with a gesture. “Do it,” he’d said, turning away, and of course he’d been right. She had only to step out of her riding clothes and her King was there, ready for her, calling her darling, dearest one, traveling her body with the same tongue that would condemn her, surrendering to her hands. Pretending was easy; facing the truth might be lethal yet. He had (the King saw now with perfect clarity) never before been in love.

One by one he donned his rings. They’d made a game of this for weeks, her lips moistening his fingers, slowly, languorously, until the rings slid free. But where was his coronation ring, with its ruby the size of a grape? Somewhere among the bedclothes, or under the nightstand. Well, let it stay there. He flexed his fingers, and it occurred to him that a few hard blows with these jeweled hands would disfigure her forever. Hideous thought! He had never struck a woman, nor even a man since his early youth. Better to do it through others, isn’t it, Oshiram?
Drag that torturer out of retirement; it seems we haven’t outgrown him. Do the sort of job my father used to ask of you, Mr. Ghastly-Whatever-You’re-Called, and don’t limit yourself to her face. See that she’s no longer a temptation for anyone, for me
.

Of course he would give no such order. He was soft; he was a peacetime king. Gently, he drew the sheet over her breasts.

A moment later he stood outside, surrounded by his captains, the servants, the eager dogs. “Ready me a horse,” he said, “and a small escort, whoever’s at hand. I ride for Simjalla at once.”

He gulped his tea, stole a flap of chewy lamb from the provisions tent. Wolfing the meat before his men like a savage, he heard her call to him. Then her face appeared between the folds of the tent.

“My lord, I was frightened,” she said, in that voice like a rain of music. “I woke and didn’t know where I was.”

The outline of a shoulder, through the rough canvas. She had not dressed. Her lips formed a fragile smile.

“Lady,” he said, “that is one thing you have always known.”

Her smile grew. “You tease me, my lord. And you are most unkind to leave me shivering.”

“I’ll send someone to build you a fire. There must be coals in the brazier.”

“Won’t you come back inside?”

“I cannot,” he said, swiftly turning his back. “Go, now, cover yourself.”

“You are not hunting today, my lord?”

There it was in her voice: the first suspicion, the first hint of a change.

“I must go,” he said. “You will be staying at the Winter Keep for a time.”

A silence, then: “My Lord Oshiram, have you tired of me?”

Tired of her!
The King’s nails bit into his palms. “Where is my mount, damn it all?” he shouted.

Syrarys forced out a laugh. “I don’t understand, my lord.”

“Don’t you?”

A long silence. He would not look at her again, not ever. Then, as a guard barked a warning, something small and hard struck his back. He winced, knowing instantly what she had thrown. He stepped backward until he saw it lying there, that gaudy ruby and golden band. His coronation ring.

He bent down stiffly. Was she watching? Were those eyes still on him, those lips still trembling with hope?

He put out his hand and touched the ring. But as he did so, a vision rose within his mind: Isiq’s girl, gasping, writhing on the dais in that tarboy’s arms, tearing at the necklace that was killing her.

The King withdrew his hand, leaving the ring where it lay. Then he stood and looked at her. No spell transformed her features, and yet she changed. The mask of love fell in pieces, hatred took hold. And as his boot ground the ring into the mud he found himself looking at the ugliest face he had ever beheld.

“Feed her breakfast,” he said to his captains, “and put her in chains.”

In Simjalla Palace, no one could speak of anything but war. The island was so far untouched, but few doubted that an attack would come. Warships of Arqual and the Mzithrin plied the Straits where the last war had ended; cannon fire lit up the night. Simja’s own little navy was boxed into the bay, except for the half dozen ships patrolling the coastlines, and who could say what had become of them?

Fear trickled into the palace by many paths. The cooks heard stories in the market: great Mzithrini Blodmels racing east over the Nelu Gila, bodies washed up on the Chereste beaches, a merchant vessel in flames. The blacksmith’s cousin had heard that the Arqualis were executing spies in Ormael, mounting heads on stakes. A vicious rumor spread that the King and his consort had not gone to the Winter Keep but into exile, abandoning Simja to its fate.

In the midst of this upheaval came a tragedy so small that it nearly passed unnoticed: the death of a schoolmaster. The old man had lived as a ward of the palace for thirty years, since the talking fever left him mute. He was polite but solitary, keeping mainly to his tiny room beside the library, and he died after dinner, in his sleep. As he had outlived his few friends, no particular ceremony was forthcoming. The King’s own doctor, who had stopped in by chance with a bottle of cactus spirits for the King’s lumbago, offered to prepare the corpse for burial at the Templar Clinic, where the poor of the city went to die.

A page was sent running; a coffin procured. At nine o’clock that evening, six palace guards bore the pine box into the shadowy courtyard and placed it on a donkey cart, driven by the doctor himself. The schoolmaster’s departure from the palace drew the attention of no one but a tailor bird, flitting excitedly about the ramparts.

The road to the clinic was in poor repair. The doctor leaned back and put a hand on the coffin, as though to steady it. His fingers drummed briefly on the planks, unconsciously it appeared. His face was studiously blank.

Three blocks from the clinic he turned the animals down a narrow side street. It was one of the harder moments of his life. The doctor had seen Arquali torture firsthand, and with that tug of the reins he had become Arqual’s enemy. He suppressed an urge to whip the donkeys into a trot.

The street ran south, into a decrepit quarter of the city near the port. Eventually it passed through a tunnel beneath a wider boulevard. It was a damp, shadowy stone tube, reeking of urine and mold. At its very center the doctor glanced quickly around, stopped the cart, whispered a prayer. He reached back and freed the coffin’s single latch.

The lid flew open, and Eberzam Isiq bolted upright. He wore a dark oilskin coat and black woolen cap: the outfit of a Simjan fisherman. Before the doctor could speak he squirmed free of the coffin and leaped to the ground. When his feet struck the cobbles, he snarled in pain.

“Careful, man!” hissed the doctor.

“Damn it all, my knee—never mind, never mind.” Isiq limped forward and shook the doctor’s hand. “I owe my survival to you as much as to Oshiram,” he said. “If we both live long enough I’ll try to repay that debt. Now be gone, my friend.”

“I knew you’d recover,” said the doctor. “I saw the fighter in your eyes. But Isiq, the gold—”

“Here,” said Isiq, patting a heavy pouch beneath his coat.

“And your medicine? The bloodroot tea?”

“I have everything. Go, go, Rin keep you.”

This time the man did whip the donkeys into a trot. Eberzam Isiq flattened himself against the slimy wall, watching them disappear. Two minutes, he told himself. Then the walk to the port, head down, eyes fixed. Neither too fast nor too slow. He felt for his weapons. Steel knuckles, hidden blades. This fight he would win for his murdered girl.

He rubbed his face and found it unfamiliar. Thick beard, no sideburns. Another layer of disguise. Oshiram was a good man, Isiq thought. He had done his best to grasp the danger to his island. But he was still an innocent, a civilian to his marrow. He could not imagine the extent to which the Secret Fist already controlled the streets of his capital. Ott’s men had been at work in Simja for forty years. They had surely bought everyone who could be bought, killed many who could not be. And any spy trained in Etherhorde would have known Isiq at a glance.

He thought of the old schoolmaster, old but very much alive, spirited away last night to the same tower chamber where Isiq himself had convalesced. How long would they have to keep the poor fellow there?

He left the tunnel, wetting his boots in puddles he couldn’t see. His knee still hurt, and he wondered if the jump had done it lasting harm.
No more dramatics. You’re an old man, you fool
.

Then the breeze struck his face, cold and clean off the harbor, and he smiled grimly.
Not as old as they took me for
.

He had memorized the route to the witch’s house. Two blocks south to Vinegar Street. Four blocks east to the abandoned theater, the Salty Lass, if one could believe it. Dismal, derelict streets, odors of bad wine and rancid cooking oil. Broken street-lamps, one still audibly leaking gas, loomed over him like the feelers of monstrous insects.

There were poor folk in the streets, but they barely spared him a glance. They rushed from door to door, bearing bundles, frowning and nodding to one another, exchanging a few whispered words. All so familiar. The Pellurids, before the Sugar War. The doomed settlers on Cape Córistel. Rukmast, before the Arquali retreat. The quiet of a people who have learned that disaster is coming, that they will not be spared.