The Silver Lake (63 page)

It happened again an hour later.

The next morning he could remember nothing more than the frightening image of Brax’s death.

Kemal and Yashar took him to see Elif at once and, after a long day of careful probing she’d managed to discover the core of his
nightmare:
Brax, standing alone on Havo’s Dance, facing a death that his immature oaths to Estavia could not prevent.

From Elif they went to Kaptin Julide, Kaptin Liel, Marshal Brayazi, and finally to the command council. After an hour’s deliberation it was agreed. Brax would make his First Oaths on Usara’s Last Day, thirteen days before he turned sixteen.

No one but Brax had seen the look of triumphant disdain that had flashed in the younger boy’s eyes for one brief instant, and Brax had no time to do anything about it. Usara’s Last Day was in eight days. The council hoped that would give him enough time to master enough of his letters to be consecrated as ghazi-delinkos.

It hadn’t been. Warrior-delinkos would have to be enough.

Leaving yet another frustratingly failed lesson with Ihsan this morning, he’d allowed Spar to draw him back to the eastern battlements, knowing that a hailstorm would not deter the younger boy from whatever high, lonely place he was currently obsessed with. At the wall, Spar had held out one hand.

“Here. This will help.” Opening his hand, he offered Brax a small, brown bead like the one in his hair, strung on a finely-braided leather cord. “Tanay gave me three on Oristo’s Last Day. The Petchan hill fighters wear them as protections against the spirits,” he explained in response to Brax’s confused expression.

“I thought Ihsan said they covered themselves in sheep’s blood,” the older boy said with a frown.

“They do that, too.”

Brax held the bead up to one eye, then raised an eyebrow in Spar’s direction.

“I don’t know,” the younger boy snapped at the unspoken question. “Maybe the color, maybe the ceramic. Does it matter? Just wear it.”

“All right, all right.” Brax passed the cord over his neck, tucking the bead inside his jacket. “So where’s the other one?” he asked.

Spar frowned questioningly at him.

“The other bead,” he expanded. “You said Tanay gave you three?”

“Oh. I wove it into Jaq’s collar.”

Glancing back at the corner sentry box, Brax could just make out the dog’s large, red nose sticking out from the shadows. “Well, at least he has the sense to stay out of the rain. Can we please go in now? I doubt this thing’s gonna protect us from the cold.”

“Not yet.”

“Spar ...”

“No. Not. Yet. There’s something you need to see.”

He stared out at the strait, his eyes gone the more normal misty-white, staring until Brax began to tap his fingers against the rain-slicked battlements, then pointed suddenly.

“There.”

“Where?”

“Just above the waves before Dovek-Hisar.”

Brax squinted past his finger. In the distance, nearly invisible in the gray, driving rain, a silvery creature, almost like a fine flying insect, flitted back and forth above the waves.

“What is it?”

“A very special kind of spirit.”

Brax frowned. “I thought the spirits couldn’t get anywhere near Gol-Beyaz,” he said.

Spar made his standard one-shouldered shrug. “It isn’t near it, not really.”

“Huh?”

“It isn’t really in the actual world yet. Or maybe It’s not actually real Itself yet. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Just remember It.”

He fell silent and, after a long time, Brax glanced over at him.

“All right. Um, is that all? Can we go inside now?” he asked.

His eyes slowly returning to their usual blue, Spar glanced up at the statue of Estavia before giving a weary nod. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s all I can do.”

Together they made their way back to where Jaq sat sentry, while out on the strait, the Godling made one final pass, then turned and sped up the Halic-Salmanak towards Gol-Bardak.

On the hillside overlooking the Rus-Yuruk’s winter encampment, Graize watched as a great mass of spirits merged and flowed over the Berbat-Dunya in preparation for their yearly assault on the Gods’ wall of power. A change in the air caused his right pupil to contract suddenly and he turned to see the Godling streaking along the surface of the lake, sending up great spouts of water in Its wake. He raised one hand, and It immediately changed course and raced toward him. Spinning about his face, It tickled his mouth and nose with power, then shot upward into the air as another figure appeared above the narrow, winding path. As Danjel joined him on the edge, Graize stared thoughtfully down as the Godling dropped toward the encampment, giving Rayne’s yak’s tail standard, bobbing above the largest of the pitched tents below them, a hearty smack before spiraling up into the air again. It was getting impatient. Sucking up a tiny spirit that had latched itself to his upper lip, he grimaced. So was he, but the next move in the game was going to be tricky.

Graize had ridden with Kursk’s kazakin all summer, harassing the shepherds and farmers from one village to another, leading the Warriors of Estavia on an increasingly enjoyable chase back and forth across the plains, then vanishing as autumn brought an end to the warring season. The winter had been a time to pause, regroup, eat, rest, mend cloth and leather, and learn the ways of his new people and their wyrdins from Timur and Danjel. Now, with spring so close the smell ‘of new, green earth invaded his dreams, it was time for the first move in the season’s new game. Laying each of his shells out in his mind’s eyes, he held up the pea.

Turning to Danjel with a wide gaze, his uneven pupils almost completely obliterated by a fine, white mist, he gestured at the setting sun.

“Drops of blood and gold,” he said, making his voice go thin and misty.

Twirling a hawk fetish between finger and thumb, Danjel nodded. “Blood and gold feed the people,” he agreed absently.

“Yes, and the people are hungry for action. Spring will be in nine days. In nine days we’ll feed that hunger.”

“How?”

In his mind, Graize set the pea under the first of his turtle shells. “By attacking Anavatan,” he answered.

“What?” Danjel stared at the other wyrdin as if he’d gone finally, truly mad, while a nearby spirit took the opportunity to knock the fetish from his grip and send it spinning down to land at Graize’s feet.

And now the shells began to move. “It’s time, kardos,” Graize said, retrieving the three-tied feathers and pressing them into the other wyrdin’s hand.

“To attack the city of the Gods? To what purpose?”

“To pay a debt.”

“Whose debt?”

“Ours.” Sucking the spirit into his mouth, Graize smiled as he tasted the hint of new spring growth in its power, then deliberately brought his attention back to the other wyrdin, making his words both clear and determined. “The Godling fought beside the Rus-Yuruk all year, asking little in return. Now It needs to bathe in the waters of Gol-Beyaz to build its strength or there can be no more fighting and the Yuruk will have lost a powerful weapon. It was the bargain we struck with It on that very first day, if you’ll remember.”

Danjel cast him a suspicious look. “I remember that you said It would be satisfied with alliance.”

“I did,” Graize agreed. “And now It needs Its allies to break It through the God-Wall of Anavatan to the shining lake of power, as It once helped them to break through the defenders at Serin-Koy,” he reminded him.

“A wall of spears about a village is one thing; the
God-Wall
is something else again. That wall cannot be broken,
kardos.
”

“Yes, it can.” Closing his eyes, Graize lifted his face to the rising wind. “We shall attack the shining city,” he murmured. “My Godling will guide us and the spirits of the wild lands will hide us. We’ll flow over the walls like a river and the spirits will flow with us. The drops of blood and gold will fall upon the cobblestones and yield a harvest of power and death the like of which no one has ever seen.”

“Horseshit,” Danjel spat. “The wall will hold as it always has.”

“No, the wall is weak and it will crack.”

“Even if it did, the Gods’ll see us coming a mile away”

Graize laughed harshly. “Of course They will. Or He will anyway, the God of Shadows and Secrets.
And a child of great power and potential will be born under the cover of Havo’s Dance.”

The Godling flitted past him in Its insect seeming, and he raised one hand to stroke Its iridescent wings as It passed. “It’s what Incasa’s been waiting for, after all,” he continued. “So, it would be such a shame to disappoint Him. He wants the child to be born and so do we, but we have to make sure It’s born in our bed, not in His.”

Danjel shook his head. “Kursk will never agree. Neither will Timur.”

“They will if we convince them of the merits of our plan.”

“Our
plan?”

“Our plan, or did you think your future greatness would come in your dotage?”

“Big word, kardos,” Danjel warned.

“Maybe, but without the Godling’s strength the Yuruk will never beat the Warriors of Estavia, and your greatness will wither on the vine.”

“My
life
will wither on the vine,” Danjel retorted. “It’s too risky. They’re too many. Most of us would never live to feed from your drops of blood and gold.”

“Yes, we would. Which one, which one, which one has the pea underneath it? Place your shine, place your shine.” Graize raised a hand to forestall Danjel’s next protest. “Remember, kardos, it’s just like a shell game, you make the mark look anywhere but where the pea really is. Last time we used a mass attack of kazakin. This time we only need a few, well chosen people. We’re not smashing the wall; we’re just cutting a tiny little hole through it to let a tiny little turtle shell inside. It’s worth the risk for the blood and the gold.” He leaned forward. “The Godling’s almost fully in the game now, kardos,” he said urgently, “almost in our very dangerous game. It only needs one more move to win, but to make it, It needs your help. Will you help it?”