Dirge of the Dormant, page 3
part #5 of The Mindstream Chronicles Series
“Can’t? Or won’t?” Adriel asked.
Jora shrugged. “Perhaps both. Does it matter? My joyful days are behind me. Ahead is only darkness and death.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I’ve forgotten any other way to be. The darkness inside me is growing. I’m not even sure I’ll remember who my friends are when it’s finished with me.”
“You may not believe in yourself,” Adriel said softly, “but I believe in you. Get some rest. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Jora nodded and returned her friend’s embrace. If everything went as planned, Ibsa Bervoets would be dead by noon tomorrow. Jora would most certainly find joy in that.
Ibsa huddled on a low stool beside the stove, soaking in its discarded warmth like a crust of bread soaked up rain. She gripped the bolted-down leg of the nearby work counter in the hopes of quelling her uneasy stomach. Her mouth watered, and a thick feeling grew in the back of her throat.
The cook cast an occasional glance at her and shook his head pityingly as he chopped vegetables. The way the ship rocked from side to side, it was a wonder he didn’t cut off his own fingertips. “We lost hundreds o’men. I’m sure there’s an empty bunk or two below decks,” he said in a raspy voice.
“I’m not sleepy,” she murmured.
“I’m saying there’d be blankets going unused. Get yourself one or two before there’s no extras to be had.”
That got her attention, and she looked up at him. “Where?”
“Grab them from empty hammocks. If someone’s using that bunk, he’ll take from another and so on. Eventually, someone will wind up taking from an unused bed, and everyone’s happy.”
Ibsa climbed to her feet. “Thank you.”
“Don’t get caught though. Take from someone’s bed while he’s in view and he’ll blacken your other eye. How’d you get that battering, anyway?”
She gave him a sour look as she made her way to the door, grabbing anything bolted down on her way. Until then, she’d all but forgotten about the black eye the force commander had given her for stabbing Emelia. “A misunderstanding is all.”
Ibsa made her way to the steep staircase that led to the ship’s underbelly. It was more of a ladder, really, except that it had a thin railing on one side. She stepped carefully down, slipping off her barring cuff to cast a light ball above and in front of her. The hallway was so narrow that two people couldn’t walk side by side. When a pair of approaching soldiers reached her, the three of them pressed their backs to opposite walls and skirted past. The men’s bodies lightly brushed her own, though there was no wicked or lustful glint in their eyes. Their conversation continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps they were used to traveling in such close quarters, but she was not. The touch of their bodies against her own was as unwelcome as it was uninvited. She imagined turning the opposite way, exposing her buttocks instead, but didn’t think that would be any less uncomfortable.
Again, she wondered what had become of her personal guardsman, Zyrac. Certain he’d have been aware of her presence on the ship, she doubted he would have spent these last hours avoiding her, which meant he was either on the other ship or dead. A man like him would not have let the Serocians take him prisoner. A shame either way. She’d have appreciated his company on the journey to her new life.
She passed a doorway and peeked in, noting two men swaying in their hammocks and another undressing. She looked into the next room and the next to find men sleeping, standing about, or preparing for bed. In the fourth room, three men lay in the woven rope hammocks, gently swinging from side to side with the rolling of the ship. A blanket lay wadded in the hammock nearest the door. Ibsa slipped into the room, grabbed it, and slipped out again without being noticed. She opened it and swung it around her to lay across her shoulders. It was warm and comforting, though scratchy with a dank odor. By the time they reached Hazred, she would undoubtedly relish the scent of the blanket over that of the dress she was wearing, and so she put it out of her thoughts.
As she walked back up the hallway, she realized that the boat didn’t feel the same. The sensation was different, and she didn’t have to brace herself along the corridor walls to keep from lurching every step. Had the ship stopped?
No, no, no, she thought, rushing back to the ladder stairs. They mustn’t stop. She climbed as quickly as she dared and hurried to the open deck. A group of men stood beside the railing on the starboard side, including Fistmaster Ori. She ran to them, the blanket billowing behind her like a cape.
“Why are we stopped?” She realized they were looking over the side at the water. “Did someone fall overboard?”
Ori looked at her with a mocking grin. “No. We’re transferring cargo to this ship from the other. We’ll be underway again shortly.”
“What cargo?”
“The godheart, of course.” His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “Oh, you didn’t know. We have captured the Concord and the godheart. A group of soldiers fleeing to the boats came upon him while he was healing a fallen comrade. My men had the foresight to take him with them, even if they didn’t understand at the time how valuable he is.”
Ibsa felt suddenly dizzy, her face clammy and her hands cold. If she’d had any hope at all that the Gatekeeper would let her go, that hope was now utterly destroyed. This man, this Mangendan officer who was supposed to have the intelligence to anticipate problems in times of war, had no idea what he’d done. “You’ve doomed us all,” she said. “The Gatekeeper will come for him, and she’ll leave no survivors. Listen to me. You must give me the godheart.” She would bind her hand in the fabric of her skirt and twist the screws holding the godheart in its crucible. She would force Retar to kill Jora Lanseri.
Fistmaster Ori laughed. “Give you the godheart. The woman who stabbed our last prime maga in the eye with a hairpin. The grand duke might be willing to give you a chance, but I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t understand. It’s our only hope against the Gatekeeper.”
He tilted his head back to look down his nose at her. “No, Maga. It’s you who don’t understand. My men have injured her not once but twice. The last incident you witnessed yourself. An arrow through the chest is difficult to survive, especially when the godheart and its wielder are in our custody. Even if she were in condition to fight, she would not dare come alone to rescue him. Doing so would be suicide. We are aboard a heavily armed and fully functional warship. Do you not understand what that means?”
Ibsa was not convinced. “I don’t think you understand how tenacious that girl is. She may not come by bird, but she will come, and when she does, she will bring an army of monsters, Colossus warriors, and Legion soldiers. If war is what you wanted, war is what you will have.”
“It sounds like you’re quite fond of her,” Ori said, looking back over the side of the boat.
“There is no fondness in my heart for Jora Lanseri. I’m simply warning you that you have done everything conceivable to bait her into bringing the fight to your very doorstep.” Ibsa looked over the railing as well and saw three men in a dinghy, rowing hard through the rough waters of the strait. Between the two men rowing sat a forlorn-looking bald man, clutching the godheart in its glass crucible. That’s not Gerad Druba, she thought. But who else could it be? As the dinghy inched closer, she recognized Adept Uster. Had he been a mater-bent spy working for the Mangendans all this time, fortunate enough to steal the godheart? Or was Gerad Druba wearing a mimicry inscription?
If he was the former, the Gatekeeper would come for the godheart, but if he was the latter, she would come for them both. An idea occurred to Ibsa. “Let me return to the other ship in his stead.” They could recklessly endanger their own lives if they wished, but Ibsa preferred to avoid unnecessary risk.
Ori glanced at her with a smirk of amusement. “No. You’ll stay here under my watchful eye. If you’re worried about the Gatekeeper, don’t. This ship is faster than the other. You’re safer here with us.”
She doubted it very much. She studied Adept Uster and his frail-looking frame huddled on the bench. They had nothing to fear from an old man such as he, but if he was truly Gerad Druba, he could take them by surprise. “There is something you don’t realize about the Concord.”
“What would that be?”
Ibsa fixed him with a level glare. She contemplated whether to tell him who Gerad’s father was and decided to keep that information to herself for the time being. To men like these, there was no better bargaining tool than knowledge. “He was also a decorated soldier.”
He smirked, his eyes twinkling. “As are we all.”
She peered over the railing to see the dinghy had reached the ship. The two men rowing each tossed a rope up to the men on the ship, who grasped them and tied them down, securing the dinghy. Someone on the warship lowered a rope ladder, and the two men below commanded Gerad to climb.
Ibsa wrung her hands as he climbed the ladder with one arm wrapped around the crucible. He used his free arm to grasp the ladder rungs above him, then held onto the nearest rung with his crucible-holding hand while he repositioned the other. It was a precarious way to climb.
“We should lower a basket with a rope,” she suggested. “If the crucible falls—”
“It won’t,” Ori said.
“How do you know? Look how he’s carrying it. He could drop it.”
“If it falls into the strait, he dies. He won’t drop it.”
He should have at least put it into the carrying frame she’d had made for it. Then he’d have had a handle to grip or tie to his belt. Ibsa watched him ascend, slowly and carefully. It seemed to take hours, especially when the wind kicked up and the boat rocked and bobbed, slamming Gerad on the ladder against the boat’s hull. Below him, the two dinghy rowers were trying to hold the rope ladder steady while attempting to keep the little boat from bashing into the big one, though they met with minimal success.
The bald adept’s foot slipped off the ladder, and he fumbled the crucible. In Ibsa’s mind, she saw the godheart tumble in slow motion from the glass container. One of the men below tried to catch it, and it burned through his hand, through the floor of the dinghy, and sank through the dark water, steam rising into the air above the column of boiling sea. With a hard blink, her terrifying hallucination vanished from her mind’s eye, and an age-spotted bald head peeked above the railing. The ship’s crewmen grabbed Adept Uster and hauled him over the side and onto the deck. To Ibsa’s relief, he clutched the crucible tightly against his body. The dimly glowing red gem was still inside.
Ibsa turned to leave, not wanting any part of what she thought of as taunting the Gatekeeper. She didn’t know where she could hide to escape Jora’s wrath, but standing there in the open was akin to poking an angry bear with a stick.
Ori grasped her by the arm. “Where are you going?”
“If Jora Lanseri is Observing him, she’ll find out I’m aboard this vessel. Trust me, you’ll wish you were far, far away.”
“I’m not afraid to die, Maga.”
She gave him a pitying look as she pulled her arm free. “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.”
Chapter 3
Jora crawled under the covers and lay her head down on what she’d come to think of as her bed, despite the fact that she lived as a guest in the palace. Her last thought before she closed her eyes was a vague hope that she wouldn’t be plagued with nightmares all night long. The next thing she knew, Behrendt, the head steward, was shaking her awake.
“It’s five o’clock, Minister Jora,” he said in a soft voice.
She groaned and turned over. “Go away.”
“You asked me to wake you,” he said. “The king needs your help.”
The king. Jora shot upright, her eyes wide. “I’m up.” She blinked a few times and dug the crusted sleep out of the corners of her eyes while Behrendt lit the lamps in the wall sconces, brightening the room.
“Shall I have your bath started?” he asked.
“No, I’ll bathe afterward. Wights won’t care how badly I stink.” She tossed the covers aside and got out of bed, then stripped off her night shirt on the way to the wardrobe and tossed it onto the bed. It didn’t occur to her until she happened to notice Behrendt’s reddened face that she was nude. She snorted a half laugh as she pulled on a clean pair of trousers. The old Jora would have been horrified to have a man see her unclothed. This Jora, this improved version, simply didn’t care. Well, perhaps not improved, she thought. That remained to be seen.
She finished dressing down to the boots, strapped on her flute in its scabbard, and headed downstairs.
Behrendt grabbed her coat from the hook on the back of the door and followed with his lamp. “Will you need my assistance, Lady Minister?”
“No,” she said. “Although, if you want to help, you can bring some water and hot tea to the courtyard. I might get thirsty.”
“Very well,” he said. “You may need this as well.” He offered her the coat, but she shook her head. When they reached the second story where the kitchen was located, he veered off, taking his lamp with him. Though the building wasn’t lit as brightly as usual, a wall sconce every two dozen feet burned low. The couches, chairs, and floor were strewn with sleeping men, all with shaven heads—Legion soldiers who had nowhere else to sleep.
Jora continued to the ground floor. The corridors were completely dark, and she Observed herself using the Mindstream to guide her body like a puppet to the exit. She walked past a dozen closed doors, sleeping quarters for the royal guard, though she imagined most were shared with the Legion soldiers who’d come with March Commander Rowwe in response to Jora’s plea for aid.
Jora unbolted the door and shoved it open. Struck by the cool night air, she exhaled hard and watched the cloud of breath dissipate in front of her face. The stars above twinkled brightly. The moon was still out, though it was so low in the sky that her view of it was almost entirely blocked by buildings and trees. From where she stood in the courtyard, she couldn’t see the eastern horizon, but she was certain it had begun to brighten with the coming sun. She’d find out soon enough.
“Might as well get started,” she said, drawing her flute. She raised it to her lips and played the series of notes that opened the gateway to the outer realm of perception.
A portal of darkness opened before her. Within its inky depths, she glimpsed the pale glow of light, which she assumed was the approaching sun. In a way, the outer realm felt like home. The first time she’d ever gone there was on the beach at Kaild, after her entire village had been razed and its people slaughtered by five Legion soldiers. And to think, that had been only a few short months earlier. It seemed like years.
Dawn had begun. Better get to it.
She stepped into the portal and walked along the passageway that took her from the human realm to the other, the realm of wights.
The sky there was as dark as her own was, though she didn’t see the stars as brightly. It’s the same sky, she reminded herself, seen from a different perspective. A white mist floated above the rocky ground, obscuring the tops of her boots. When she stepped into a recess, the mist reached her knees, but for the most part, it hovered slightly above her ankles.
That these wights had an uglier world than humans made her a little sad. They milled about, unable to build structures to live in or machines to help them plow the land or make war on their enemies. In a way, their simple lives were better. They had no need to hunt or forage for food, as they didn’t need sustenance the way humans and animals did in her own realm. They simply existed. Waiting.
Curious yet wary, they crowded around her, though they kept their distance. Each one looked different from the next. There were big wights and small, wights with horns and others without, creatures with fur and others with scales or feathers or smooth skin. Many had tails. Some vaguely resembled earthly creatures like dogs and birds and horses, but others were so alien, she had difficulty imagining how they’d come to be. Still others looked more or less human, standing upright with long limbs and a mass of tangled strands on their heads resembling hair, at least from a distance.
Jora eyed them all, deciding which one she wanted. She didn’t have a specific need beyond creatures able to inflict harm. One caught her eye—a little gray mouse-like one that sat upright like a begging dog on a boulder. It wouldn’t be useful for battle, though having a small critter to sneak around relatively unnoticed could come in handy. “You,” she said, pointing to it.
It let out a peep of surprise and scurried away. The other creatures shuffled out of its path as if they wished to avoid becoming involved. Though Jora couldn’t see the mouse beneath the mist, a trail on the mist’s surface showed her where the mouse had gone.
“Got you,” Jora said, throwing herself on the hard back of a completely different creature, taking it by surprise. It was about the size of a fox with short legs and a scaly tail that arched over its back. The stinger on the end of the tail looked painfully sharp, and a drop of greenish goo lingered on its tip. She grabbed the tail up close to the stinger, not caring to find out firsthand what that green substance would do to a human body. “Submit,” she commanded.
It struggled at first, but with her weight across its back, it couldn’t scrabble away, couldn’t turn over or reach her with its mouth pincers. It gave up easily, its tail going limp in her hand. “Ssssssubmit,” it said.
Jora eased her grip on its tail, and it didn’t try to sting her. She pushed herself off and sat on the ground, her legs largely hidden below the mist. “What’s your name?”
With its mandibles, it rattled off a stream of consonant sounds that Jora would be hard-pressed to repeat.
“That’s not going to work. I’ll call you Sting. What does that stuff on your tail stinger do?”
“Green for paralyze, white for blindness, black for rage, yellow for vomiting, blue for fatigue, red for confusion.”
