Witch King, page 16
Ashem said, “I was there once. From what I remember, the piers and breakwaters are still standing.” She tapped a point above the drawing that marked the city. “There’s a Rising World outpost here, upriver. I can send messengers there to get help for the cohort.”
Sanja leaned around Kai’s elbow to see. “Why is the city empty?” She stabbed one nail-bitten finger on the image for Orintukk, a little line drawing of onion domes and walls with water flowers and fish woven around them. “Is it all ruined, like the city on the fire mountain?”
“It wasn’t destroyed. The Hierarchs just didn’t leave anyone alive when they were done with it,” Kai told her. “Mortals might live near it, or on the outskirts, but there weren’t enough left to live in the city again.”
“No people means no shipping, no caravans, no markets,” Ramad contributed.
“But what about all the people who live through here.” Sanja spread her fingers on the map, along the river and the valleys spreading out from Orintukk, the lines where the old roads and canals ran. Her brow was tightly furrowed. “They don’t want to live in the city?”
“There aren’t many people there. Most of them died.” Kai looked down at her, watched her tremble on the edge of a terrible understanding. “The world used to be a much bigger place, with so many more people in it.”
Ashem was turning impatient, but Ramad asked Sanja, “You said you were from the Mouth of Flowers?”
Her gaze turned a little mistrustful, but she said, “Yes.”
He nodded. “Did you ever cross the bridges to the landward side, and see the walls and canals?”
She nodded, still frowning. “I saw it from the seawall. There’s nothing over there. It’s just a big garden, no one lives there.”
“They used to, when it was part of Nehush. Most of the city used to live there, in houses along the canals, and they would sail little boats across the bay into the port. Hundreds, thousands of people.” He looked at Kai, who stared back at him and said nothing. Did Ramad somehow know Kai had first come to the mortal world as a Saredi? It meant his “historical” questions yesterday had been an elaborate pretense of ignorance. But if they were, it didn’t make sense to reveal that now.
There were no empty cities on the grassplains. The scars where the great tents had burned had been scoured away by the wind and blossomed back into grasses. If you traced the courses of the rivers, followed the herds of now wild goats and horses, you might find the remnants of irrigation channels that had been dug during the Golden Light and Green Changes seasons for garden plots, you might uncover rusted tools and arrowheads, if you looked very hard.
Sanja had either taken in the idea or set it aside for later consideration. She said, “Is Orintukk filled with ghosts?”
“Is that a problem for you?” Kai asked her.
“Ghosts steal your face,” Sanja said. Then she squinted up at Kai and amended, “Not your face.”
“Not my face,” Kai agreed. Ashem watched them with a frown. He wondered if she thought it was now too late for Sanja, already corrupted by Witches and demons. He said, “We’ll stop at Orintukk and you can take the cohort off the ship. But first, Ziede is going to use the steering column’s connection to the Well of Thosaren to call an Immortal Blessed, probably an Immortal Marshall, to answer a few questions. She’ll invoke her kin-right, but depending on which Blessed comes, they may still try to kill us.”
Ashem’s frown deepened. “Wait, what? An Immortal Marshall may try to kill you?”
Kai leaned on the rail and shrugged. “You’ll know when we do.”
Ramad, who seemed committed to his role as the Reasonable One, said instead, “Orintukk is close. Can we dock there and take the cohort off first?”
“No, because I may need them as hostages.” That was a lie, but it was the lie that Ashem and Ramad would believe.
If the Immortal Marshall who answered their call wasn’t involved with the plot, but decided to ignore Ziede’s kin-right in order to kill them for old time’s sake, then the cadre and the enspelled cohort should be safe. The Immortal Blessed had never had clean hands where the Hierarchs were concerned, but they did have a justified reputation for not harming non-combatants and bystanders unless it was expedient. If the Marshall who arrived was involved in the plot, anyone who had been on the ship with Aclines would likely be dead, even if they had already landed the mortals at Orintukk.
Kai added, “If the Marshall kills us and Tenes, I’d appreciate it if you’d say Sanja is with your cadre.”
“Hey!” Sanja objected, disturbed at the idea. “I don’t want to be with their cadre!”
Ashem was not pleased with anything she was hearing. “This is exactly what I was taking about last night,” she said with heat. “This is why you—This is why people fear Witches.”
That was so completely unfair Kai couldn’t let it go. “It should be why they fear the Immortal Blessed.”
Ramad’s expression of disbelief was turning to consternation. Apparently he had thought Kai was exaggerating. “Will it really come to that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Kai folded his arms and looked out to sea.
Ziede stepped out of the main cabin, dusting crumbs off her fingers. Her mouth a grim line, she said, “Let’s get this over with.” She crossed to the steering column, pushed the metal plate up, and put her hand on the white stone mounted below. Kai felt the change in the air, the sudden tingle of heat across his skin. The Well of Thosaren wasn’t like the Well of the Hierarchs, but it was still alien, still inimical to what he was.
Ziede said, “I am Ziede Daiyahah, wife to Tahren Stargard, and I invoke my rights to formal hearing as kin to the Blessed.”
* * *
“Was this really the best plan?” Ramad studied the blue cloud-streaked sky, his expression only slightly desperate. The sun was a little higher, but Kai knew it shouldn’t take much longer.
“Ramad, I don’t care what you think,” Ziede said, patiently for her. “I’ve made it as plain as I can and I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”
Ashem, her arms tightly folded and her expression somewhere between furious and disgruntled, said, “It will serve you all right if the Blessed kill you. I just wish you weren’t planning to take the rest of us with you.”
“Cohort Leader, I don’t actually want to take you anywhere,” Kai told her.
“Believe me, the sentiment is mutual,” she said.
The more powerful Immortal Blessed could use the Well of Thosaren to transmute their bodies from one location to the other, but only if there was a Well-source on each end. Sending a summons through it with kin-right should mean the Immortal Blessed who responded would be one of Tahren’s relatives, honor-bound not to hurt Ziede. But it might also draw the attention of Aclines’ Immortal Blessed coconspirators.
Kai explained all that to Sanja, when she asked why they were looking up instead of scanning the horizon for ships. He finished, “If they could send themselves anywhere they wanted, we would never have got them out of the war. They would have been everywhere, like fleas.”
Ramad’s expression was set in grim lines. “You’re going to—What if the Immortal Marshall—” but he stopped there.
What was he going to say? Kai wondered. You’re going to die. What if the Immortal Marshall kills you? Ramad had to be worried about the fate of the cohort and cadre. Then Kai spotted the spark of light high in the bright morning air, too high and defined to be a trick of the sun or a reflection from the ship. “Run inside the cabin,” he told Sanja. “Cohort Leader, get your cadre off the deck.”
Sanja hesitated for a heartbeat, staring up, then bolted for the hatch. Ashem turned and shouted a command. Her cadre scrambled for the forward stairs. Tenes paced deliberately out of the main cabin and came to stand beside Kai and Ziede. Kai told her, “You don’t have to.”
Her gaze on the sky, she signed back, I want to.
The bright figure grew in size and detail as its meteor-like fall slowed. It was an Immortal Marshall, not just a Blessed. They wore a gold breastplate and forearm guards over a light-yellow tunic with tabard, and full pants tucked into high gilded leather boots. Their hair was cut all the way back to the scalp until it was just a light dusting of silver on tawny skin. They carried a lance tipped with the white flag of the Blessed.
“Ostentatious, condescending…” Ziede’s inaudible mutter became audible. “Oh, it’s Saadrin. Well, if we have to kill her, at least it’ll be no loss.”
From past interactions, Saadrin felt the same way about Ziede. Saadrin was related to Tahren distantly, but Immortal Blessed family lines were longer and more branching than even demon houses or Saredi clans, and Kai had no idea how.
During the war, Saadrin had been one of the Immortal Marshalls who fought for the Hierarchs. She had also been a negotiator for the treaty between the Immortal Blessed and the newly born Rising World, but then that didn’t mean much. After the fall of the Hierarchs, negotiation with the coalition had been the Immortal Blessed’s only option.
“It could have been someone worse,” Kai said. Tahren had relatives who were much more hostile.
Saadrin landed lightly on the deck in front of the steering column. Her glare passed over Kai and Tenes, skipped Ashem and Ramad entirely, and went straight to Ziede. “How did you get this ship?” she demanded, gray eyes furious. She spoke Old Imperial. It was the language the Immortal Blessed had decided to use to speak to lesser beings, and nothing had changed their minds about that, even with the Hierarchs dead and gone.
Kai said, “What, you aren’t going to greet your marriage-sister by name?”
Saadrin’s perfect jaw hardened but she said, “Ziede Daiyahah. What are you—and that demon—doing with this ship?” Saadrin couldn’t possibly recognize Kai in this new body, but she knew from his eyes that he was a demon. And there was only one demon Ziede Daiyahah traveled with.
Kai could tell from the set of her shoulders that Ziede was tense, but he didn’t think it would be obvious to anyone else. Especially Saadrin, who probably didn’t notice much of anything about the people she considered lesser beings. Ziede’s brow knit thoughtfully, and she said, “Since you ask so politely, we took it from the expositor Aclines.”
“An expositor.” Saadrin’s voice dripped with disgust and disbelief. “Bring him to me.”
“Impossible, sadly. He’s being nibbled by crabs at the bottom of the sea.” Ziede tilted her head inquiringly. “So you weren’t the one who gave him this ship?”
“Why do you say such a thing?” Saadrin’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” Her gaze flicked to Ashem and Ramad, as if noticing them for the first time. “How does this concern the Rising World?”
Tight and controlled, Ashem answered, “The expositor took my cadre and an Imperial cohort prisoner, and forcibly brought us aboard. That’s how it concerns us.”
Saadrin’s expression darkened. “Why?” she demanded.
Whatever reaction Ashem had been expecting, that wasn’t it. She made a strangled noise of incredulous rage. Ramad, who must have dealt with a lot of Immortal Blessed, said dryly, “He didn’t discuss his motives with us.”
They could have said we captured them, Kai thought, if they really wanted us dead. But perhaps they thought it was better to take the chance that Kai and Ziede would keep their promise to release the cohort at Orintukk.
“So many questions.” Ziede lifted her brows. “Like an innocent asking for instruction.”
“You might answer one of my questions.” The skepticism and suspicion in Saadrin’s gaze was growing. “Who is this Aclines? How did he get this ship?” She frowned at the embellishment above the stern cabin hatch. Kai suspected it told her the ship’s name and other information, but she didn’t enlighten them.
Ziede spread her hands. “I’ve told you all we know. I look to you for answers, Immortal Blessed.”
Saadrin’s expression turned more thunderous but she managed to ignore the sarcasm. “A mortal—even an expositor—could not steal this ship.”
Ziede didn’t argue that point. “We don’t think he did. That’s why I asked if you had given it to him.”
Saadrin seemed genuinely furious. “Why would I do that?”
With a patience designed to annoy, Ziede said, “That would have been my next question, had I ever been given an answer to my first.”
Saadrin grated out, “I did not give anyone a sacred ship of the Well of Thosaren, let alone an expositor.” She looked at the deck, her lips thinning in disgust. “This ship’s aura has been tainted. Did that abomination Kaiisteron do something to it?”
Ashem, having wrestled her own fury under enough control to regain the power of speech, said, “I told you, Aclines captured an Imperial cohort. He used them for his foul purposes aboard this ship. If any Immortal Blessed had a hand in it, the Rising World will not be pleased! The treaty is already at risk with—” Ramad touched her arm and Ashem stopped, her jaw tight. She had been about to reveal that Tahren was missing, but fortunately Saadrin was clearly not listening to her.
Ziede smiled indulgently. “As she says, Aclines created a power well with captured Rising World mortals. Possibly that’s what you sense.”
Saadrin’s face twisted in disgust. “Where is the Fallen? Is she here? Is she a party to this?”
Kai had a bad feeling Saadrin was just as baffled as she seemed.
“More questions,” Ziede said, folding her arms. Through her pearl, she admitted to Kai, She’s not that good a liar.
She isn’t, Kai agreed silently. She doesn’t know where Tahren is. It was unlikely Saadrin was the one who had given Aclines the ship. If she had, she would have been trying to kill them already, not arguing in circles. It meant they might be able to trust Saadrin’s answers, if they could get her to give them any.
“Answer me! Is she here?” Saadrin demanded.
Ziede kept the sinking disappointment out of her expression but Kai could hear it in her inner voice. “Are you telling us you don’t know where she is?”
Saadrin ground out the words, “I wouldn’t have asked if I knew where she was!”
Ziede eyed her, then made her decision. She said, “Tahren has been taken by an enemy, possibly along with my marriage-brother Dahin. I called on right of kin to the Blessed to ask if you have a way to find them.”
Saadrin’s expression turned deeply annoyed. She demanded, “Is this true? Even the Fallen would not shirk her duty at this time.”
At least Saadrin wasn’t pretending to be unaware of the upcoming coalition renewal and Tahren’s place in it.
Ziede was derisive. “Why would I lie about such a thing?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure there might be a reason,” Saadrin assured her grimly.
Ziede didn’t take the bait. “I know the rules of kin-right. You cannot deprive Tahren’s dependents of her if you know where she is.”
“I don’t know where she is. Believe what you want.” Saadrin tried to stare Ziede down, but Kai could have told her that was impossible. “I have no knowledge of Dahin’s whereabouts, either. But even you must understand the Lesser Blessed’s connection to the Well of Thosaren is not the same.”
“I understand.” Ziede paused, to let Saadrin think for a heartbeat that she might give up. Then she said, “But you must know of a way to find her. I’ve seen you do it before.”
From the tightness around her mouth, Saadrin clearly didn’t want to talk about that stain on the Immortal Blessed’s history. But she admitted, “Our ways of searching for errant Blessed are not as comprehensive as they were under the Hierarchs. The Fallen has not been considered a criminal for some time.” She didn’t sound as if this was a development she agreed with.
Ziede nodded, and prompted, “But you can find her.”
“I cannot.” Saadrin was obviously more than reluctant; the kin-right to a Witch must drag at her like an anchor stone. “But the Conventiculum of the Immortals at Stios has the finding stones.”
Finding stones? Ziede asked Kai silently. She means the finding stones that the Hierarchs used to keep track of their pet Immortal Blessed?
Probably. The Rising World would have handed them over during the treaty negotiations, Kai replied.
The Conventiculum was on an island in the harbor of Stios, the city that had been the principal port of supply and travel for the Hierarchs’ Summer Halls. It had been a sea people city-state before the Hierarchs took it, and many of the inhabitants had been killed. It had fared better than Orintukk, since the Hierarchs had moved in a new population to be the dockworkers and shipwrights and sailors. It was a trading city now in the Rising World, though not as populous as either of its past two incarnations. The wrecked hulks of the Hierarchs’ ships still cluttered the water and made navigation into its port tricky.
The Conventiculum still belonged to the Immortal Blessed; treaty agreements had allowed them continued ownership of some of the places the Hierarchs had given them. The Rising World coalition had wanted them out of the war more than they wanted the territory returned. The people who had lived there before the Hierarchs were all mostly dead, anyway, or scattered to the winds.
Through her pearl, Ziede’s mind felt bright and hard with suspicion and disbelief, though she let none of it show on her face. The Hierarchs used those stones to keep the Immortal Marshalls on a leash, and she’s just told us—us!—where to find them?
Convenient, isn’t it? Kai told her, But it’s given me an idea.
Ziede said aloud, “If we go there and ask, we can find her?”
“If they will admit a Witch or a demon.” Saadrin bared her perfect teeth in an expression that was not a smile. She obviously knew something about the Conventiculum that they didn’t, but if it was just the unlikelihood of the caretakers admitting them, it was hard to tell. Saadrin continued, “Now tell me how you will return this stolen ship.”
