Moons of Carnathia, page 9
If I had more patience, I could use this to my advantage.
“Iathia,” said Overseer Argus. “Do you plan on attacking my city?”
Iathia met the man’s eye.
“That depends on what you offer me in exchange for moving on,” she said.
Overseer Argus took a deep breath, and smiled. He didn’t look frustrated, or even put off by Iathia’s blunt nature. He looked like a practiced politician, good at spinning stories and even better at finding the one thing inside each person he could use to relate to them with.
“You’ve lived a hard life for such a beautiful woman,” said Argus. “I’ve heard the stories. Your reputation travels quicker than you and your men march.”
“That’s just the way of things,” said Iathia.
“I understand the situation,” said Overseer Argus. “If you choose to hold siege against my city, the walls will outlast the warm weather. You’ll be stuck here into the late fall, probably early winter.”
“But,” said Iathia, lifting a finger into the air, “we will make it inside eventually.”
“I understand that, too,” said Overseer Argus. “Which is why I’m offering you a position on the council of Carndale.”
Iathia folded her arms and said nothing. One of the men standing next to Overseer Argus leaned into the conversation, speaking up.
“You’d be a free woman by law, instead of just circumstance,” he said. “And you’d be entitled to a house within the walls, and a plot of land for farming outside of it.”
“You’re still young, Iathia,” said Overseer Argus. “Settle here. Your men would understand. The best of them, you could hire on as guards, or servants.”
“A tempting offer,” said Iathia. Overseer Argus smiled.
“You could marry, even,” he said. “If you so wished it, we could even arrange a betrothal between you and one of the town's rich merchants, or perhaps a noble from a neighboring city. Think of what that would mean for you, Iathia. Children, a family, a life where you could sit by and have the men in your life pull their own weight for once.”
Everyone in the room laughed, except for Iathia. It was nervous laughter, and it drew on her patience.
“And slaves,” said Overseer Argus. “I could give you, say… three, as a token of my appreciation for your reasonable nature. You could do whatever you want with them. Men or women, any appearance or disposition of your choosing. We received over four dozen from the caravan that arrived just before the last trimoon.”
Iathia nodded slowly. She glanced at the window behind Overseer Argus, as though noticing something worthy of her attention. Everyone in the room turned to look on reflex.
She took down the guard first, pushing her sword through the man’s unarmored gut in a casual, practiced lunge. Iathia pulled back hard, whipping the blade out and slicing it across the neck of one of the men in the fine robes.
“You bitch!” shouted Overseer Argus. “Guards!”
Iathia severed the hand of the third man in the room, adding in a quick cut across the eyes for good measure. Then, she turned to face Overseer Argus.
“This violates the truce of negotiation!” screamed Overseer Argus. “The manners of warfare! You… you heathen! You’ll never leave here alive!”
Iathia grabbed him by the hair and kneed him hard in the stomach. Overseer Argus coughed hard and retched, purple wine and chunks of something else spilling out over the fabric of his fine white robes.
“A city, over time, grows to reflect the nature of its ruler,” said Iathia. “Fat, and blind to the truth.”
The sound of combat was already coming from outside the building’s walls. The slaves of Carndale knew what the signal was. Iathia had sent in Melch, a former slave and former spy, into the city to spread the word days in advance. The slave revolt had been primed to happen long before she and her men had reached Carndale’s walls.
“Please…” muttered Overseer Argus. “Don’t do this… My wife… My son!”
Iathia swung her sword, cutting into the fat man’s neck and spilling blood across the floor. Her blade was sharp, but the angle of the cut was off, and she had to lever her arm to make it through the last few inches of flesh.
She held Argus’s head by the hair, a bit surprised by the weight of it. The man had a fat face and fat jowls, and his eyes remained open in death. Iathia strolled out into the street. The second guard was already dead, stabbed in the back by a slave who was still in the midst of looting the body.
“Your lord is dead!” shouted Iathia. “Your slaves are free! This city is mine!”
CHAPTER 12
ZAK
“Don’t say anything, savage boy.”
Zak blinked. Iathia was standing next to him, holding a finger up to her lips. Across the floor of the dungeon was Lord Tavar, his back turned away, busily digging through a cabinet in search of something.
“Kill him,” said Iathia. “I ripped the bead out of your head. He won’t be able to stop you in time if you attack, right now.”
Zak lifted his hands up to the back of his hair. The blood was already beginning to mat, and though his head pounded as though it’d taken a good knock, he couldn’t feel the bead underneath his skin anymore.
“You don’t have any time to waste!” said Iathia. “Move! Get your shackles over his neck and strangle the life out of him!”
Zak wasn’t attached to the overhead chain. He could move freely, if he wanted to, and if he was quick enough, Iathia’s plan could work. Lord Tavar was muttering something under his breath while he fumbled to find whatever he was looking for, paying Zak about as much mind as a master to a dog.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Iathia. “Kill him!”
Zak slowly shook his head. He couldn’t do it, or rather, he wouldn’t. Despite the pain and suffering he’d experienced at the hands of Lord Tavar, it just wasn’t in him.
I’ll bide my time for now, he thought. With the bead gone, I can surprise him and escape when the moment is right.
“You’re making a mistake,” hissed Iathia, moving in close so her words fell on his ear. “You aren’t going to get another chance this good. He’s going to figure it out.”
Zak shook his head again, more forcefully this time. He was focused on Iathia, and didn’t notice that Lord Tavar had turned to face him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Zak. “I was… just looking around the room.”
Lord Tavar smiled, and took several slow steps toward him.
“There isn’t anything in the room for you to see, Zakarias,” said Lord Tavar. He lifted his ring, flared the Altreian stone to life, and…
Nothing happened. Lord Tavar blinked, staring at Zak in surprise. Zak hesitated for a moment, longer than he should have.
“You!” Lord Tavar had his dagger out in an instant. “Zakarias! You little wretch!”
He pulled the dagger back, preparing a thrust. Zak moved without thinking, spinning around the strike and swinging his shackles hard. The heavy chain struck against Lord Tavar’s hand, knocking the blade aside. It hit the floor hard and slid underneath one of the cabinets.
“I’ll kill you!” screamed Lord Tavar. He was on Zak in an instant, wrestling him to the ground. Out of instinct, Zak grabbed at the man’s wrist, holding his hand back, keeping him from making close contact with the Altreian stone, the one weapon Lord Tavar had left.
“Get the chains around his neck!” shouted Iathia. “He’ll call the guards soon if you don’t.”
Zak thrust up hard with his leg, landing a glancing blow into the other man’s groin. Lord Tavar winced, flinching back slightly. It gave Zak a few inches of room to work with, enough for him to swing his shackles like a makeshift flail.
The chains struck Lord Tavar across the face, cutting his cheek open and leaving a nasty bruise around the edges of his left eye. The man’s expression shifted, first anger, and then to a cautious appraisal as he realized how dangerous his captive had become.
Zak threw his chain up and over Lord Tavar’s neck, and then twisted his arms across one another, tightening the links. The motion was awkward, almost as though he was trying to hug his own shoulders, but it was enough to put serious pressure on his opponent’s windpipe.
Lord Tavar’s face paled. He gripped the chain of Zak’s shackles in one hand and channeled his Altreian stone, trying desperately to heat the metal up enough to give way. It was a mistake, and all he managed to do was give himself and Zak a minor burn.
“That’s it,” said Iathia. “Keep the hold, no matter what. You’re winning.”
Lord Tavar flailed about with all the desperation and anger of a man that knew the stakes of death. He slammed his forehead into Zak’s face, leaving a hard bruise against one cheek. He kneed, and scratched, and probably would have bitten too if the angle had been better for it.
Zak set every muscle in his body to the task at hand. He was scared, but the emotion was overridden by something else, a righteous fury that had been biding its time for the past day and a half. This was his revenge. It was supposed to be sweet, but really, it just felt necessary, an unseemly bit of cruel reality that had arrived at just the right time.
Minutes went by. Zak didn’t feel the man’s soul escape his body. There was no final, desperate shout. Lord Tavar didn’t get to hit him one last time, or curse his name before it happened. He was just dead, his face purple and lifeless, eyes bulging out of their sockets, fingernails bloody and torn off from where he’d scratched for purchase against the stone.
“I… killed him,” whispered Zak.
“Search his body,” said Iathia. “He should have the key to your shackles.”
Zak’s hands moved automatically, patting against the many pockets of Lord Tavar’s fine linen coat until he came across a keyring. He tried one after another until finally, the shackles came free, chiming out in protest as they fell to the hard stone floor. Zak just sat there, blinking, stunned and overwhelmed by the turn of events.
“Take his rings,” said Iathia.
“What?” Zak shook his head. “I don’t want them. I don’t want any of this.”
“Take his rings, you idiot!” snapped Iathia. “If not to use, then to sell. You’ll need the money.”
He couldn’t see her. She wasn’t in the room, and hadn’t been in a while.
She’s in my head, thought Zak. She can fade in and out as she pleases, only ever touching and interacting with me.
Zak felt too emotionally numb to argue with her. He pulled at Lord Tavar’s rings. One had a red Altreian stone, the other a blue Methrakian stone. A small fortune, except they were stuck tightly on the dead man’s fingers, refusing to come loose.
“They’re stuck,” muttered Zak. “Forget it.”
“Find the dagger he had with him, then,” said Iathia. “Chop off his fingers, and then track down his servant. There are also two guards, probably one in the house and one in the watchtower.”
Zak took a slow breath, hoping that enough air would bring some sense back to the world.
“They have to die,” said Iathia. “If you want a clean escape, everyone has to die.”
Zak’s eyes caught the iron barred window. The island had a tiny dock, with two ships tied to the mooring. One was large, brightly painted, and prominent; probably Lord Tavar’s primary vessel. The other was a tiny fishing slipper, the kind he knew inside and out, easily sailable by a single man.
“No,” said Zak. “You’re as insane as he was.”
“Zakarias, listen to me,” said Iathia, appearing in front of him. “You need those rings, and if you don’t kill the—”
“Enough.” He held her gaze for a long moment, staring down long eyelashes and into deep emerald. “Be silent.”
Iathia smiled and looked away, and Zak made his way over to the door to peer out into the hallway.
He couldn’t hear footsteps, and took that to be as good a sign as he was going to get. Zak closed the door behind him and crept forward, staying as silent as he could with each step.
There was a stone lined spiral staircase at the end of the hall. He slipped into it and began heading down. His first few steps were cautious, but as he made it further along, anxious fear began to nag at him, from the stomach up. He was taking the steps three at once by the time he reached the bottom.
Footsteps approached. There was too much going on in Zak’s mind to bother attempting stealth. He felt like he had in Lord Tavar’s torture box: trapped, and desperate to get out.
He sprinted down the hallway and threw himself through the first door that looked like it led to the outside, exalting as he spilled out into the open, sun and clear sky overhead. It was mid-afternoon, and the watchtower was across the yard. Zak heard somebody shout and immediately charged toward where he’d seen the ships docked.
“You still have a choice,” said Iathia. “Don’t be a fool. It might be easier to run now, but they’ve seen your face!”
“I’ve made my choice,” said Zak. He reached the wooden pier and ran down it, reaching the fishing ship and hopping on.
The slipper was about twice as long as he was tall, and didn’t appear to have a supply cache or food store onboard. It didn’t matter, or at least Zak didn’t have time to care. There was a sail, a set of oars for fine maneuverability, and it wasn’t leaking. He fumbled with the knot connecting it to the pier, winched up the anchorstone, and pushed himself out.
One of Tavar’s guards reached the dock just as Zak was setting off. He thought that the man was going to ditch his chainmail and swim after him, but the guard just watched, looking on with an expression of mixed fury and confusion.
“You’re a bloody idiot.” Iathia appeared on the boat across from Zak, one leg crossed neatly over the other, making the rough wooden bench look comfortable. “You’ll have an entire army after you once word gets out.”
Zak kept rowing. He waited until they were a few hundred feet out, far enough away to feel safe, before responding.
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
Iathia raised an eyebrow at that.
“I wasn’t Lord Tavar’s prisoner,” he said. “I was his tool. He was plotting treason against the Emperor, with me as his weapon. The guards and the servant won’t say a sinking thing, if they have any sense at all.”
Iathia turned his head to the side slightly, as though conceding the point.
“Maybe,” she said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.”
CHAPTER 13
The Worldmaker is the light of the sun’s rays, the grit of the dirt, and the stars in the sky. – Malakai the Chosen, Book of Stars
ZAK
The feeling of being back out at sea brought out a sense of nostalgia in Zak, with its salty air, and the gentle rise and fall of the waves. He didn’t want it, another rough reminder of all that he’d lost. His old life was gone. Bartrand, his friend, and Demetro, his Captain, were both gone. And Hachia…
I have to find her, thought Zak. She’d do the same for me.
“Where are we headed?” Iathia fidgeted uneasily in her spot across from Zak. “And when will we be there?”
“We’re headed to where we’re going,” he said, stealing one of Jonalan’s favorite bits of stale humor. “And we’ll get there once we arrive.”
Iathia glared at him, her expression almost comical in its intensity. It made Zak smile. He was holding the guide rope for the fishing ship’s boom in one hand, slowly angling it so that the ship would continue toward the setting sun, westward.
“I understand,” said Iathia. “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind, after everything you’ve been through.”
“I do,” said Zak. Iathia nodded and leaned in toward him, shifting and unintentionally giving him a bit of a view.
“We’re in this together, Zakarias,” she said. “Where you go, I go. Your problems become my problems, and my strengths I willingly give unto you.”
Zak stared at her, feeling a stab of incredulity, along with something else. He thought again about everything he’d been through, and a voice nagged at the back reaches of his thoughts.
A beautiful woman, who claims to be here to help me, he thought. And she alternates between seduction, and telling me to steal and murder.
“I have been through a lot,” said Zak. “Maybe… too much.”
He leaned back in the boat and considered everything that he knew about Iathia. None of the visions he’d seen served as proof of anything, at least not without any details he could corroborate independently.
“You said you got the bead out for me.” Zak reached back, touching the tender wound on the back of his head, praying that it wouldn’t sour. “You were… within me, for those few minutes.”
“I’m not exactly sure if that’s the phrasing I’d use, but yes.” Iathia eye’s flashed with something vaguely amused. “That’s why you can see and hear me. That’s how you get pieces of my memory.”
Zak looked out over the ocean, watching the sun as it slowly set over the horizon. He was hungry, and he’d found a single net bundled underneath one of the fishing ship’s benches. If he wanted to eat that night, he’d have to start fishing soon, unless he wanted to rely on the fickle light of the moons.
“How do I know that any of what you claim is true?” Zak asked, unable to put off the question any longer.
“What, pray tell, have I made claims of?” asked Iathia. “I’ve given you advice, Zakarias. And that’s all.”
“You said you were an immortal,” said Zak. “What was it again?”
“A remembrance immortal,” said Iathia.
“Who’s to say that’s the truth?” asked Zak. “To me, it seems far more likely that you’re just a part of me. Maybe you’re the part of me that’s dealing with the impact of everything that’s happened; a coping mechanism for my grief.”
