Witch King, page 11
Tahren’s smooth brow knit, just enough to be noticeable. “None that I know of.” After a moment, she added, “I was not sent to that region.”
Bashasa put his hand on Kai’s arm and said gently, “Come, we are all prisoners of the Hierarchs here, one way or another. Fighting with each other is the last thing we should do.”
Kai looked down at the hand on his arm, and wondered if Bashasa was not being manipulative and clever but that he was ill, in his mind, in a way that made him not fully aware of his actions. He looked up to meet Tahren’s gaze and realized they were both thinking the same thing.
No mortals other than the Saredi ever voluntarily touched a demon; Kai hadn’t been touched by any mortal not Saredi since waking on the upper earth. Not counting the Hierarch legionaries he had killed with his bare hands.
Apparently unaware of any undercurrent, Bashasa continued, “Could you open the door? It will be easier if we speak about this together, I think.”
Tahren’s expression indicated that she didn’t think anything would be easy, but she tapped her knuckles on the door and then opened it.
The room was octagon shaped, with narrow window slits high in the walls. There was another curtained bed, a sunken hearth, rugs, but what captured Kai’s attention first was the woman floating almost four paces off the floor.
She was in a sitting position, her legs folded under her. Her skin was a darker brown than Bashasa’s and the other Arike, and she had a gold sunburst painted on her high forehead, gold lining her eyes and lips, and her hair was woven into dozens of braids and wound around her head. She wore a red-brown patterned long-sleeved tunic and wide pants tied at her ankles, under a tabard cinched at her waist. Her eyes were closed in a repose Kai didn’t believe; the tension in her body was coiled and alert. And for the first time since he had been chained in the Cageling Demon Court, Kai didn’t feel more than halfway to dead.
He knew a Witch when he saw one. She wasn’t anything like the borderlander Witches, but a Witch nonetheless.
Bashasa coughed. “I’ve brought someone to meet you, sister.”
“Don’t call me that.” The Witch opened her eyes. Her dark gaze went to Kai first. She knew what he was, the way he had recognized her. “You chose a demon in the body of a child?”
“You haven’t told me what to call you.” Bashasa’s voice was tight. “And it’s a young woman.”
Watching the Witch, Kai corrected, “It’s a Prince of the Fourth House of the underearth, late Enna of the tent of Kentdessa Saredi.”
Bashasa turned to stare at him, startled. “Prince?”
“You didn’t ask,” Kai said, his gaze not leaving the Witch.
“You’re an idiot,” the Witch told Bashasa. Her gaze turned to Kai again, and she unfolded her legs and stepped down to the floor. She was tall, not as tall as Tahren, but close. If all her people were like that, it explained why she thought Enna’s body was a child. Enna had been a little short even for a Saredi, but her body had finished growing before she left it. The Witch said, “I am Ziede Daiyahah. What are you called on this level of the world, Fourth Prince?”
He said, “Kaiisteron. Kai.”
Bashasa looked from Kai to Ziede and back. “I apologize for my misunderstanding.”
Ziede said, “When a demon is called to the dead of the Grass Kings, they don’t bother to match age or gender. They do match rank.” Speaking Saredi, she asked Kai, “Was the late Enna from a descended line?”
Her accent gave the words an odd ring, but Kai could still understand her. He replied in the same language. “Through our mortal ancestor, who wed an Overlord of the Fourth House’s heir to seal the grassplains treaty with the underearth.” He didn’t mean to, but the words came out anyway. “She’s trapped in the underearth now, they burned her mortal body. Were you a prisoner here too?”
“No. I was a teacher in the Mountain Cloisters of the Khalin Islands. That’s the oldest convocation of Witches in the southern shelf. Or it was, I should say. Everyone there was killed, of course, when the Khalin Electors surrendered. I had been sent away as a scout and a spy, and when I heard the news I came to this city, hoping to find a way to … hurt it. Somehow.” Her gaze went to Bashasa, and she switched back to Imperial. “I got word that a man from the palace was sniffing around looking for Witches. I sought him out meaning to kill him, but I listened to him first, and here I am.”
“And lucky we are to have you with us,” Bashasa said, apparently serious.
Ziede crooked her finger and Kai went to her. She took his hand, and her skin was warm, and he felt the underearth in her veins. Not the same as it was in his, but it was the first familiar thing he had felt in ages, in forever. He wanted to wrap himself around her and cry on her chest. She said, “The other demon prisoners here will listen to you?”
Kai could lie, but there was no point. He had been as good as dead since the great tent of Kentdessa collapsed in flames, since the passage to his body in the underearth had closed, and everything now was borrowed time. “I don’t know. They’ll listen to me more than they would a mortal.”
Ziede nodded. She told Bashasa, “Then this may actually work.”
“Well, then.” Bashasa cleared his throat and turned to Tahren. “This is Tahren Stargard, called the Fallen, who has agreed to help us.”
Ziede regarded Tahren with a disdain that had razor-sharp edges. “To help us? And not to give in to her natural inclination to murder us?”
“That inclination is not natural,” Tahren said, managing to look both bored and acutely uncomfortable.
A faint line appeared between Ziede’s brows. She said, “Was that supposed to intimidate me?”
Tahren stared at the far wall. “No.”
Kai said, “I have one condition.” He instantly had their attention. “You have a cursebreaker here. Maybe more than one?” The more Tahren spoke, the more he was certain that she had been the second person with Bashasa in the Cageling Demon Court, that she had used the cursebreaker to knock him unconscious. “Destroy them.” He knew they wouldn’t do it. A cursebreaker was the most effective way to stop a demon in hand-to-hand combat; it would be their only way to keep Kai under control.
There was a long silent moment. Bashasa and Ziede both watched Tahren, waiting. Then Tahren lifted her brows briefly, in a way that seemed to be her version of a shrug. She took a long black wooden cane out of an inside pocket of her coat, and snapped it. The released power made a faint pop of displaced air, a tug Kai could feel in his bones. Tahren said, “Just the one.”
Ziede let her breath out and folded her arms.
Bashasa smiled. “Now that we’re all getting along, I’ll tell you the plan.”
FIVE
Kai said, “Ziede, murder later. We need to get moving.” The smoky air had cleared as much as it ever did in the strait of Gad-dazara. The peaks of the islands were visible again, outlined against the ash-tinged sky, the dark billows of volcanic rock lapped by the waves. Kai felt too exposed; with their luck, one of the volcanoes would go off at any moment.
Ziede’s jaw set as she eyed Ashem and Ramad. “Was it them?” she asked without looking away. “Were they the ones who did this to us?”
Wide-eyed, Sanja looked from her to Kai and back. Kai sank further into the cushions and pretended it was a casual conversation. “I don’t know. Cohort Leader Ashem says they’re here against their will. Vanguarder Ramad says Bashat sent him to look for Tahren when she failed to reach Benais-arik, and he followed two suspicious characters to Aclines.”
He had pitched his voice to carry. From the lower deck, someone snarled, “Ramad, you traitor.” The words were in the lowland Arik dialect, as if Kai and Ziede wouldn’t know that language.
It’s the forgetting, Kai thought again. That was what hurt. We were there. They have to know that. Don’t they?
Ashem’s response was a grimace of eloquent dislike. She called back, “You idiot, now they know who you are. We wanted to use you as a bargaining point.”
Ramad ignored the interruption. He said reasonably, “Even if you don’t trust our word, you must see the people in the rowing deck are innocent captives.”
Ziede hissed out a slow breath as she controlled her temper. She said, “The rowers?”
“Alive, turned into a power well,” Kai told her. He needed to decide what to do about that. “Aclines had a familiar aboard, too.”
Tenes had been listening. She stepped out of the main cabin, trembling. She had taken off the jeweled collar and put on real clothing instead of the wisps the expositor had made her wear: a long tunic and a man’s split skirt that probably came from Aclines’ wardrobe. She went to Ziede and dropped to the deck at her feet.
Ziede bared her teeth in annoyance. “Get up. What’s your name?”
“She’s sister Tenes,” Kai supplied, as she scrambled to her feet. “He took her voice and her memory up to the point he brought her aboard.”
The waves of rage emanating from Ziede’s body should have been physically visible. “Go over there, Tenes,” she ordered through gritted teeth.
Tenes hurried to sit next to Sanja, curling her feet up on the cushions. Kai leaned his head back and groaned, a theatrical gesture only partly faked. He was going to have to partially dismantle the power well in the rowing deck. If he just let it go all at once, many of the mortals might die instantly. And the survivors would need food and water and medicine, and Kai doubted there were large enough stores onboard. Some might attack their rescuers out of panic, or fear of whatever stories of Witches, or of Kai himself, had been drummed into their brains. Many could die before the ship reached a port. If he could gradually ease the drain on them, put them into a suspended sleep, it would be far safer all around. “Ziede.” Through her heart pearl, he added, We need to go. If another ship shows up with a power well full of captured mortals, I’ll lose my mind. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the ones I have now.
She cursed under her breath and lifted her hands. “Make them drop the sails.”
Kai took that for the agreement it was. He said, “Cohort Leader Ashem, I’ll release the mortals in the rowing deck as best I can, if you cooperate and don’t attempt to attack us.”
Ashem hesitated, eyeing him. Ramad told her, “I believe we can trust Kaiisteron’s word.” He added dryly, “And it’s our only choice.”
She spared Ramad a glare, but said, “Let the others on deck out of this—” She gestured at the smoke-net tangling her legs. “Whatever it is, and my cadre will sail the ship for you.”
Ramad added, “Except for those two.” He twisted, awkward without being able to move his feet, and pointed out two men: the one who had cursed Ramad in lowland Arik and another standing near him. Kai would have probably been able to pick them out anyway. They were older than the others on deck, their traveling clothes finer. The noisy one glowered impotently at Ramad, the other looked away.
Ziede’s jaw was going to crack if she couldn’t keep her temper. “Just tell them to drop the sails.” She moved her hands, shaping precise angles as she gathered the trailing threads of Kai’s cantrips. The net on the lower deck puffed out and dissipated. Released, the mortals there stumbled or stretched their legs in relief. Except for the two expositor’s men. And Ramad and Ashem on the upper deck, still wreathed in smoke from the knees down.
Ramad didn’t seem surprised. Ashem grimaced but didn’t protest, just twisted to address her cadre and instruct them in lowland Arik. She told them to do what Ziede ordered, and added that they should not be afraid and not resist.
Ziede stood like a statue while the cadre climbed into the rigging. Most looked Arike or Enalin with a few islanders, which was common now for a Rising World cadre from the vicinity of Benais-arik. All the Arike were women, which was still traditional for Arike soldiers, and they wore conventional long tunics and loose pants under light leather chest and back armor. The others wore a mix of styles, plus a few wore Enalin robes, the sides split for ease of movement. Enalin clothing didn’t differentiate gender, unlike Arike traditional clothing. In the years since the war it had been adopted by some Arike for that reason. All the cadre members were clearly working soldiers, the colors they wore soft and weathered, the leather well-worn.
Most had also obviously been on a large ship before and got the sails lowered with a minimum of shouted instructions at each other and no one falling off the rigging. The big sheets of canvas were dyed red and painted with giant gold sun signs. Kai snorted; they were making their escape in the most obvious craft on the sea.
Sanja had been watching Tenes with wary curiosity. “Who is she?” she asked Kai.
“She’s a Witch, but the dead expositor on the deck there captured her and made her his familiar. She’s free now.” Tenes looked young, but age wasn’t always easy to tell with borderlander Witches. But she could also be from one of the witchlines that had followed Bashasa to the Arik.
Sanja looked at the expositor with distaste. “Like that Menlas was going to do to you?”
“Just like that.”
Tenes leaned forward to sign to Kai to ask what Sanja’s name was. Kai told her and Sanja tried to imitate Tenes’ signing, asking, “Is this like talking? How does it work? We had hand signals in the gang but it didn’t make words.” They passed the time teaching Sanja a few basics of Witchspeak.
When the ship was ready to sail, Ashem said, “If you release me, I can steer for you.” Ramad, who seemed to know more of Kai and Ziede than they knew of him, said nothing.
Ziede didn’t even bother with a glance of contempt. Years ago she had sailed small boats all around the Khalin Islands, and commanded larger craft. She held out her hands and called the wind-devils again. Avagantrum? she asked Kai silently.
Since they didn’t know where Tahren was yet, it was the only choice. Even though they might be heading in the opposite direction from where she was being held. Yes. For now.
The sails snapped and filled with air, and Kai pushed to his feet. His clothes were almost dry and he needed to get to work.
First he searched the cooling bodies of Aclines, his apprentice, and the bodyguard. He set a few things aside to look at later, and tossed several potentially dangerous intentioned items over the side. Then he started a search of the rooms off the upper deck cabin while Tenes found the ship’s chart box and took it out to Ziede. Sanja helped him search, and he showed her what to look for and what to be wary of.
Only five of the curtained rooms off the cabin had been occupied, so the work went quickly. Aclines had left no convenient diaries explaining his plans, no letters to his masters, no documents naming Ashem and Ramad as coconspirators. But maybe that sort of thing was only done by the villains in romantic Arike novels or Enalin poetic epics.
Kai checked the lavish bathing room on the service deck just below. It had basins that could be filled with water pumped up from the ship’s cistern, and Kai took the opportunity to stick his head under a tap and quickly rinse the saltwater out of his hair. The galley was small, meant only to serve the Immortal Blessed occupying the stern cabin, but it was stocked with dry staples like lentils, chickpeas, and millet, with fresh stores of dates and figs. Provisions for Arike and the other south- and eastlanders, not the kind of food the Immortal Blessed preferred.
Aclines hadn’t looked Arike, but now, after more than two generations of refugees resettling and trade and travel, that didn’t mean he hadn’t been born in the region. And Arike food, clothes, and customs had always been popular in the southeast even before the Hierarchs, but had now spread throughout the Rising World alliance.
Finished with that part of the search, Kai sent Sanja to stay with Ziede, to give her an extra set of eyes to watch her back and to bring her anything she needed. In the stern cabin with Tenes, out of sight of Ramad and Ashem on the upper deck, he signed, Did Aclines ever speak of me or Ziede?
Tenes answered, That he wanted to find you before anyone else did. At Scarif, when we came aboard this ship, he had me help him make the intention to follow the hunter-beast. She meant the amalgam that the shell-whale had destroyed.
He didn’t brag to anyone about being the one to capture us? Kai asked. She made a negative gesture. That didn’t mean much, there were obviously secrets Aclines had meant to keep from his familiar, or he wouldn’t have taken her older memories. Did you ever hear mention of an expositor called Menlas?
She gestured no again and touched her head to remind him of her missing past. Kai chewed his lip and tried to think of better questions. Did it seem as if Aclines had this ship for some time, or if it was first brought to him at Scarif?
I first saw it near there at anchor, before we went to the Arike outpost where he stole all those mortals. She hesitated, frowning around at the cabin. But I must have been on it before then. I knew where to find things in the cooking place when he told me to make food.
“Huh,” Kai said aloud. To sail to Scarif, the ship had needed either an Immortal Blessed or a mortal crew. Or, Kai guessed, another power well of mortals in the rowing deck who Aclines had already driven to death and then dumped overboard, before taking the Rising World cohort as replacements. The most obvious answer was that an Immortal Blessed had brought the ship to Aclines at Scarif and then left. But just because it was obvious didn’t mean it was right. Giving it up for the moment, he gestured to Tenes to follow him. Come help me search the rest of the ship.
They needed to look through the secondary cabins in the deck below this one. On a normal voyage, it was where any Lesser Blessed who were traveling aboard would stay. Aclines had quartered Ashem’s cadre there, which made sense if she was telling the truth and they had been unwilling conscripts. Or Aclines was just a snob who didn’t want to share the luxurious stern cabin with common soldiers.
There was no direct connection between the service deck below the stern cabin and the secondary under the bow; Kai could have gone back down to the rowing deck and up from there, but he didn’t want to expose Tenes to that energy at any closer range than she already was. So the two of them walked down the steps and across the lower deck, past the captured cadre.
