The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy (7 page)

“There is no Wheel, contrary to what you believe, but only a Path that goes on and on, without turning back, and what we do on that Path determines its ending.”

I gaped, and she held out her hand. I took it, and her blouse came open a bit at the neck, and I saw the deadly yellow strangling cord of the Tovieti!

Pushing the snake cart through Nicias, I was an ideal laborer — a very strong back, and utterly no mind. I was dimly aware of the thronged streets, pushing through muttering priests, worried merchants, idling wastrels, but my brain was spinning, trying to figure out why the Tovieti had helped me. From the woman’s words, it clearly wasn’t an individual act of mercy, but a decision by someone of authority in the cult.

I didn’t understand at all. First the Tovieti had been an anarchic sect, worshiping the crystal demon Thak, strangling anyone more fortunate than they with their yellow cords and stealing their goods. They’d been bloodily suppressed, I then thought destroyed, in the riots, before Tenedos took the throne, and the Seer had personally destroyed Thak.

Ten years later, they’d reemerged, but this time without a deity or leaders, or so the emperor’s spymaster, Kutulu, had told me. They’d still promised to destroy all countries and bring down the rich and mighty, for only then could freedom and justice prevail. But this time, they worked without leaders, in small cells, saying perhaps one day a true leader would arise, but they did not need one until that day and that person came.

They’d tried to murder me twice, first at my Water Palace; the second time at my former wife’s estates at Irrigon, killing Marán’s brother, Countess Amiel Kalvedon, and our unborn child — and ending my marriage to Marán.

During the war with Maisir, I’d seen their signs occasionally — either a simple representation of their strangling cord, an upside-down U or, more often, a red circle that represented their martyrs with a nest of serpents rising from the pool of blood.

After Numantia fell to Maisir, and the emperor and I were sent to prison, I’d heard nothing more about them, nor had my warders heard of their continued existence. But clearly they were still active, and widespread as well, for how else could that huge woman have known who I was, my personal habits, and then a way to help me?

Wasn’t I their greatest enemy, after Tenedos?

In the retreat from Maisir, high in the mountains of the Disputed Lands, a bearded old man had reminded me of the prophecy at my birth, that I was the boy who rode the tiger, and the tiger would turn on me, but my life would go on, longer than I would think. But the color of my life-thread would become bright yellow and be made of silk, like the Tovieti strangling cords.

The man had finished in mystery, saying, “Why shouldn’t evil become good, if perceived good is evil?” That had been all he would say, other than his cynicism had satisfied both his duty and his sense of humor.

None of this made the slightest sense.

As the Tovieti woman had foreseen, the ferry docks at the Latane River were thronged with warders, and there were three of them stationed at the head of the gangway to our boat. The closer we got, the more Yakub muttered, cackled, laughed to himself, and, with a long feather, caressed his snakes through the cages. I began to have my suspicions about just how mad he was.

We reached the head of the line, and a warder snarled brusquely, “Names, place of landing, home?” glanced up from his tablet, saw a particularly curious cobra’s head moving sinuously back and forth, about a foot from his, screeched like a eunuch, leapt back, and almost fell overboard. Quite satisfactory.

Enraged by his show of weakness, but still terrified, he snarled incoherently, and his fellow snapped, “Get these bastards aboard, and it’ll be yer head if the cages come open,” and didn’t even glance at the tickets Yakub tried to give him.

Yakub tucked them into a pocket, murmured, “They’ll do for next time,” and told me to follow him with the cart. The ferry was crowded, but everyone made ample room for us.

“M’ beauties’ll like the center, the center,” Yakub sang happily, “no movin’, no swayin’ to upset their little hearts, don’t make ‘em angry, make ‘em want to sink their little bitey fangs into someone, don’t want that, no indeed, don’t want that ‘tall,” and we found a place for the cart tucked under the deckhouse’s overhang on the main deck, looking aft at the paddles and the empty treadmills that ran them. The belts of the mill were cut from the hides of elephants, buffaloes, oxen, then sorcerously endowed with their strength, many times magnified, so no “real” power was needed.

The cart’s wheels were on castors and came off easily. I lashed the cart securely to a stanchion. “Mild river, quiet river,” he chattered, “but we’ll take no chances, no, no, not and have the beauties slip out and play their games.”

He tugged at my handiwork, nodded satisfaction. “We’ll go inside and break our fasts, eh, soldier?”

I felt hunger, then saw four hard-faced Peace Guardians stalk into the mess.

“Uh … no,” I said. “I did eat. Earlier. Not very hungry.” Yakub looked at me skeptically. “A soldier, not hungry? When the fodder’s free?” Then he giggled. “Ah, ah, ah. You get sick, eh? From th’ water?” I tried to look embarrassed.

“Best thing,” he went on, “a sailor taught me, is t’ take a piece of raw pork, nice an’ greasy, an’ tie a string to it. Swaller it, run it up and down, then pull it back up, an’ y’ll heave ever’thing heavable an’ be splendid. But when y’ feel something round an’ hairy, swaller fast, for it’s yer arsehole.” He almost fell over, he was laughing so hard.

“But never you mind,” he said, “I’ll see y’ have some porridge or some. An’ you can guard th’ beauties, then.”

He scurried away. I wasn’t about to eat in front of the Guardians, not sure how good my disguise or the spell was, and didn’t fancy the possibility of being caught munching on my own scar.

I put on the air of a “don’t fool with me” near-outlaw, wrapped my sword belt first around the cage, then one leg, set my naked blade across my knees, and pulled up the cowl of my hood, pretending sleep but with my eyes open a crack.

Not far from the docks were steps down into the river, thronged with bathers in the midday sun. There was a rather pretty, naked woman, a few years younger than I, shepherding her flock of one little boy and his five equally nude sisters, none more than ten years old, around the shallows as they soaped and splashed. The woman had a golden chain about her waist, and I remembered years and years before, when I’d ridden the
Tauter
south to my first assignment, with the Seventeenth Lancers, when there’d been a young girl with such a chain bathing, who’d smiled invitingly. I wondered if this could be the same woman, grinned at my foolish romanticism, but wished it to be so, and that her brood marked her happiness and the more expensive chain her freedom from want.

Horns blatted from the captain’s deck, and passengers thronged the rails as the paddle wheel churned. I watched the people, marveling at how differently they all dressed, not like warders or soldiers, and once more realized the war’s effect. These weren’t the same people who’d traveled in peacetime. There were trekking merchants as always, but most of these were accompanied by guards, and their ages were quite young or well into middle age, few the normal age of men who choose danger for a life.

Here were a gaggle of nautch dancers nattering on about the far cities of Numantia, but their silks were somewhat worn, and in the style of ten years gone. There were few families on holiday, either rich or poor. I saw Delta farmers, work-hardened faces and hands, muttering in low tones about this year’s rice crop and how poor the markets were.

Boot heels rasped by my sandaled feet, and I saw gray, uniformed legs. There were two sets. My hand was on Perak’s dagger. If I was discovered, I’d kill one, bowl the other aside, and be overboard before anyone could take action.

One voice said, “Nice friends to travel with, hmm?”

I hoped he wasn’t expecting me to wake and respond and was fortunate, for the other Guardian said, “Doesn’t seem to bother
him,
now does it?” They laughed, moved on, and I began breathing once more.

• • •

In midriver, with no one watching, I took the amulet Tenedos had given me from its hiding place. I held it for a moment, considering, wondering, felt it grow warm, and hastily spun it over the side.

Let him seek me among the fishes.

• • •

The Peace Guardians disembarked at our second landing, and I told Yakub how much the porridge he’d brought had helped my stomach, and I thought I could manage a bit of solid food now.

Like most river craft, this ferry fed well, especially for travelers like ourselves who’d booked passage all the way across the Delta. I’d imagined I’d be enjoying one or another of the various roasts offered, or perhaps the smoked meats, but in fact I gloried in cascades of fresh fruit and vegetables, particularly legumes in the many variations Numantian cuisine offered. My body was telling me what it wanted, what it needed. Once my lust for green growing things was satiated, then I became interested in meat.

Yakub was somewhat appalled at my appetite, wondering what sort of a demon he’d roused. I didn’t tell him an endless monotony of prison food, no matter how skillfully prepared, will make the most ascetic into a glutton, once he has the opportunity.

Yakub had spent his … or the Tovieti’s … silver carefully, not paying for a compartment, but choosing to sleep on deck. This was hazardous, for thieves, generally members of the ferry’s crew, stalked the decks after dark, and these ferries were infamous for robberies, rapes, even the odd murder if a deck passenger fought for his purse too hard.

Once someone approached us stealthily, heard the rasp of my sword being unsheathed, and turned away. Again I woke, hearing the sounds of a struggle, saw two men struggling, one old, one young, the young one with a knuckle bow. He didn’t see me until I was on him, and I clubbed him down with the iron pig clenched in my fist. The old man stood frozen, and I tipped the would-be robber overside and went back into the shadows before the old one could recover.

I saw him the next day, going from man to man, peering into their faces, trying to identify his benefactor … or, possibly, to find a murderer to report to the ship’s officers. But he, too, wouldn’t approach my snakes, and the incident was ended.

• • •

Five days later, we reached the far banks of the Delta, put the wheels back on the cart, and disembarked in the small port of Kaldi. We stopped in a marketplace, bought a zebu and rope harness, and hitched the beast up. Outside the city, a highway ran north and south.

“Here is where we part, soldier,” Yakub said. “I go north, to where the old emperor is building his army. He’ll have magicians, and magicians need spells, and spells need snakes.” He cackled. “And I have other things he needs.”

I eyed his rags and the cart skeptically.

“Aye, aye, aye,” he laughed. “Appears like there’s nothing, doesn’t it, doesn’t it? Just as the cart can hide a traveler, so snakes, and where they shit, can hide … oh, many, many things.

“Many, many things,” he repeated, his shoulders shaking, and I bade him, with sudden fondness, fare-thee-well.

I watched him become a dot on the dusty road, wondering what lay hidden in the sawdust in the snakes’ cages. Gold? Diamonds? Secret information? I didn’t know … but I did know one thing. Yakub, the Man of Snakes, was no crazier, and probably a great deal saner, than I.

I turned away from the highway and took a winding side lane that led west and southwest.

Toward Cimabue. Toward my home.

• • •

That night, over a low fire, roasting an unwary hare and potatoes I’d dug from a field in the coals below, I repeated the words to remove the scar. For an instant, I panicked, nothing at all coming to mind, then remembered, and the scar fell into my hand, and was tossed away.

Little as I liked it, the beard I’d decided to not shave would make as good a disguise.

• • •

It was a very long way, almost two hundred leagues. But I didn’t walk the entire distance. Frequently there were caravans or just farmer’s carts heading for the next village or going home from market. Once they realized my sword wouldn’t be turned against them, they were glad for a warrior’s presence.

But all too often they saw my blade and either galloped past or else, if they had armed men of their own, told me to move away into the fields or be killed. I obeyed sadly, for I could remember the times of peace under the emperor, when it was said a virgin could cross the kingdom with a bag of gold in each hand.

Of course that was horse apples — the poor lass would’ve been lucky to make it a league beyond her village before she would’ve been both poorer and more experienced. But it was still a boast very much of the past.

War hadn’t touched these lands, at least not obviously, and the soil was still dark and rich, the irrigation canals spidering away from the rivers still bringing life to the land.

But their floodgates were rotten, the fields were all too often untilled, the canal banks sliding into the water, some of the waterways choked with weeds, as if the land was worn out and abandoned.

Fruit trees were just beginning to flower in this Time of Births, but their unplucked fruit from the previous season was rotting remnants on the ground or still dangling from the limbs.

Kites rose from the trees, their cry sounding raucously across emptiness.

The scatter of farms under cultivation were being worked by women, old men, children.

Where were the men, young, middle-aged?

The whisper ran across the land: “Gone to the army, gone to war, gone to the emperor, gone to Maisir, gone to the Wheel, never to return …”

• • •

The days passed, and the weather grew warmer, the fresh rains welcome. I traveled at my own pace, for the first time in my life not having to be somewhere at a certain time, whether to quell an uprising, take over a new command, deal with a recalcitrant baron, or to lead or train soldiers.