The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

  Going by the moons, it was an hour later when Mourn joined us again. He stepped slow and cautious out of the shadows, giving us plenty of warning. He carried the remains of a ground bird, plucked, cooked, and mostly eaten. He offered me a large leg, which I accepted eagerly, and a few ragged bones to Nightmare.

  “Feel better?” he asked me.

  I replied after a smart nod, bird meat tucked in one cheek. “Do you?”

  The Dragon’s son looked at me and smirked, gold eyes shining in the dark in a hauntingly familiar way. He let me know he was aware of why we’d stopped.

  “Good sign,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER 11

  I could smell the Great Lake well before we saw it by dimming moonlight. It was cool and fresh, though the shore held a complex underlayer of decomposing plants and animals.

  Despite the cart trails becoming wider and well-used, Mourn led us off-road before we could meet any natives. We circled around to the view of the water and its Human port, well inside pre-dawn darkness. I volunteered to get off Nightmare and lead her, choosing the closest path to the Dragonblood while imagining how the haphazard spread of shelters might look in the day.

  “Welcome to Port Fortnight,” Mourn murmured.

  I traced the apparent boundaries. It’s a lot larger than Troshin Bend.

  Yet the Humans formed a mere dot on the shore compared to the lake which was massive. The rippling blackness shimmered with the shattered reflections of two setting moons, meeting the stars at the horizon and disappearing. I could not see any land on the other side, and the shorelines to my right and left stretched as far as I could see.

  The half-blood added, “This is a small city. Not without its charm despite the dung heaps.”

  I blinked at his straight face and sniffed. “I just smell the water. It is giant.”

  “Offshore breeze at night,” Mourn said with amusement. “A less smelly time to approach from this direction.”

  Uh-oh.

  He was right, of course; there would be plenty of dung piles, heaps of them if they consolidated it anywhere specific. I could hear rising numbers of foreign livestock; not only the docile versions of the pheasants and wolves like at Troshin Bend—chickens and dogs, I reminded myself—but I discovered they had pigs as well, far more horses, plus something like the bulky, lowing uroan down below. I detected their manure evenly spread out over tiny plots of land which grew tidy rows of plants as well. It wasn’t unfamiliar, like the mundane but necessary parts of home, although the many small, bobbing boats strung out into sparkling water kept me firmly present on the Surface.

  Mourn pointed beyond those. “Our timing is good. Those are trade ships anchored at port. High chance one of them is leaving for Augran soon.”

  Gavin grunted, noting the shapes but unable to make out as much detail as I could. Three water vessels were farther offshore, and they seemed to be made of large trees, many of them. Their wood had been sectioned and formed in the way that the Davrin formed stone, ore, and fiberstalk, not only for the bloated body but several massive poles jutting up into the night sky.

  Without the magical tools the Davrin used, it looked rough and without much attention to aesthetics. Functional and sturdy, not pieces of art to serve a picky eye. Still, I wondered how Tamuril would judge one of these things.

  Wait, we’re climbing onto one of these things to ride South.

  I grimaced, wondering how much that slow rocking would be exaggerated the moment the vessel was beneath my boots.

  Even assuming a storm doesn’t rise in the ‘archipelago.’ Ugh.

  I’d since learned what that was: a chain of numerous, small islands that cut the entire way across the Great Lake, North to South. These isles were an obstacle course when sailing on a fair-weather day, but deadly if caught in a powerful storm like that which had plunged down the Midway as we’d been crossing it. Mourn had also informed me that specific storm had first formed on the Great Lake, where we’d be traveling for a week.

  Comforting.

  While we had found useful things to discuss the last two days on the way here, Mourn and I still hadn’t reached a bargain; he had not insisted, and I hadn’t opened it with an offer. I remained baffled—and wary—that Mourn had not mentioned the Ma’ab ruby or Soul Drinker as additional payment to the saphgar I’d given him.

  Meanwhile, from conversation and actions alone, I had concluded that Mourn and Gavin shared the opinion that Jacob’s soul shard and its intended use was valuable enough on its own to warrant safe passage with the Dragonblood mercenary. As both a war tool and keen strategy, he didn’t want to let the Deathwalker out of his sight, perhaps.

  Gavin’s mistress is clever for his claim that she does not care to influence the outcome of this siege.

  Our trio had rested at staggered intervals, mostly when I needed sleep, but I hadn’t dreamt again. Not of the Desert or the Abyssal prison, nor of my buas or the Valsharess, or… of anyone else. I was glad but anxious the next time I would.

  “Have the dreams of your child come? Have you seen her face yet?”

  Innathi’s immovable certainty that I would see the face of my Daughter, and that it would be an irreducibly good thing, discomforted me.

  What was the benefit of seeing the face of someone who might die before being born, despite what I could do? If I returned to my Valsharess with Auslan’s spark burning, why should I delight to recognize exactly who was to be taken from me, likely still wet from the womb? Wouldn’t it be less painful if I didn’t know the face so well, as D’Shea knew Shyntre’s?

  There’s also that other obvious thing.

  What if I carried a son, not a Daughter? Did this matter if the mother was a Red Sister? The details, maybe, the child’s fate would have the same end of serving Braqth over anything I wanted. I heard Rausery’s terse reply in my head having stated that she’d birthed a Daughter once.

  “Dead. Somewhere in the Sanctuary. Priestesses used her up.”

  Worse for me, it wasn’t the Sanctuary who knew about and wanted the child, but my Queen who compelled me to return, now with Mourn at my side.

  When this had struck me once again on the way here, I’d stifled a groan of fear and, for the twentieth time, wondered if Mourn should not have tried so hard to save us both. He did not understand the role I served in Sivaraus; he couldn’t imagine the lack of choice I had, especially after what Cris-ri-phon had done to lessen them further in destroying my Elder’s vial.

  The fact that the Dragonblood had tried lent weight to Gavin’s assurance that I could bargain with him, while also suggesting why he wasn’t insistent in defining the terms. This still concerned me.

  If Mourn was of Davrin-blood, male, and a loner, he would not dare try to claim responsibility for my giving live birth like the Sorcerer-General. Would he? I wanted to tell this large male, as I had the sorcerer, that my baby was not his responsibility. I wanted to tell myself that I expected nothing from him.

  Yet, at no point thus far had I refused the half-blood’s help when it was in fact needed. Not after what Soul Drinker had done to try to purge it without my knowledge or consent.

  Somehow, I wanted to think I felt less threat and offense with Mourn than I had in the sorcerer’s quarters, but I also did not understand why. Perhaps I simply couldn’t refuse his help, for this helped the Valsharess’s geas?

  The compulsion I could not warn him about.

  “Wait here,” Mourn told us. “I will find my contacts and return by dawn with passage to Augran.”

  The night would be ending soon. Gavin was writing by the soft blue glow of a familiar knucklebone. I sighed.

  “How far does the Great Lake extend?” I asked in a whisper, looking out but unable to differentiate much between the night Sky and the dark horizon of the water, for the moons had set and new clouds had appeared.

  Gavin shrugged, his grimoire and ink bottle balanced on his lap, his drying sand in easy reach. He didn’t
enjoy me looking over his shoulder but did not try to block what I could see by sitting nearby. It wasn’t like I could read it.

  “I am uncertain,” he said. “I’ve heard vague tales of sailors being gone for months on a ‘tour’ following the shore and visiting various ports, but this is my first time seeing it.”

  My eyes were wide. “Months?”

  Gavin nodded. “The wind does not always favor the sails going in a circle, from what I understand. The location of the largest ports would, by logic, reflect the strongest wind streams in certain directions. At certain times of the year.” He paused again. “Or at different phases of the moons, as well. I am not familiar with the details.”

  I tried not to appear horrified at this implied complexity of sailing the Great Lake, but I doubted I succeeded the longer I thought about it. There were similar obstructions and dangers belowground when the molten hotspots changed course or tunnels simply collapsed. One learned and adapted by necessity, I knew, and no one learned it all at once.

  “At least the stars would be consistent to navigate by on clear nights,” I suggested.

  The pale man’s black, stringy hair dipped down. “There is that.”

  I paused in thought, then asked, “Could we be in danger, accepting passage on this ship?”

  “Always. I recommend making that bargain sooner rather than later. Mourn seems the type to keep his agreements.”

  Now someone decided to nudge me.

  “What is your bargain with him?” I asked bluntly “How far does it go?”

  “Only what you heard. He will guide me to an interested party within the Guild of Augran who will listen to my task and likely assist in a plan to help it succeed.”

  “What does he receive as payment?”

  “The allowance to be present during the planning.”

  Not having heard that part, I squinted. “He has an interest in going to Manalar himself? Not dropping you off with his contact and leaving to find another contract?”

  “That, or he needs more information from the Guild to decide this. He also waits on you, and you are determined to go to Manalar for a different reason yet have not spoken on it.”

  I fiddled with the fit of my gloves while I considered. “It would not be…wise to make a contract with him for mere treasure. That allows him an opening to take other contracts at the same time. I cannot aid you with the shard, find my Sister, and allow him close and in possession of the ruby used against me.”

  “Ah. I can see why you are teasing him with the possibility.”

  I scowled with searing resentment. “I am not teasing him. I have not once proposed that I might trade the ruby. It is not my doing if he still wants it. If he is that greedy for magic trinkets that he cannot think of anything else…”

  I paused there since I did not have an “else” ready to suggest.

  My scholar considered that and grunted, lightly sprinkling the fine sand to fix his letters onto his page. “You are correct. You have not made the offer.”

  If only Kurn could have accepted that the first time, or Brom the second.

  My scowl remained. “If you admit that so quickly, why did you make the accusation?”

  Gavin considered this and shrugged. “My father and the brotherhood were of the strong opinion that women held onto stolen valuables they knew they could not keep but would inevitably try to gain something in the process of giving them up. I …assumed this was your goal, as it is effective if she is also considered beautiful. My apologies.”

  Annoyance and a baffling sting roiled inside me, but I kept my lips closed, jaw tight. The death mage had assumed I knew I could not keep the ruby? Why, because Mourn wanted it?

  That makes no sense!

  It was searingly insulting, this implied imbalance on who kept powerful magic items on the Surface. What makes him the assumed owner? That he is a large male? Pfeh!

  Gavin was studying my face. “I see I was quite wrong. My error, Sirana. I did not intend to insult you.”

  I waved my hand. “It is fine. I am not angry with you.”

  He nodded acceptance.

  Although, I wasn’t fine, given where my thoughts headed next, away from the death messenger to the dark city far below my feet. I recalled many buas at Court, many I had sought to lie with, who were assumed or accused to do this very thing as the manipulative teases they were. Often enough, they did steal to tease and negotiate, proving us right.

  Or so I’d thought before I met Shyntre, who did not try to negotiate with the saphgar or those pellets, but simply made them and gave them up. Callitro had negotiated a little but without much guile; he simply wanted attention and offered to craft a ring to coax me the Tower multiple times.

  A gold ring which made a difference to me on the Surface, several times.

  What choice were buas like them given but to hold on to something they knew they could not keep, delaying and negotiating with it, or to not fight and do without it? The harassment to give it up would not end once a female thought about what he might do with it. She would take it away; as I’d told little Layne, their Mothers would not allow them to own their own land or wealth.

  And if the Davrin son was resistant, there were ways to “convince” him.

  My personal view this far outside my home city was simple: I didn’t want yet another large male to hurt or possibly break me with a magical focus attuned to me. Kerse… Kurn… Brom… Both of them together…

  How had I escaped that many times?

  I winced, already knowing the seed to my fortune had been Shyntre’s gift; a counter-focus for the psionic shard left in my mind by Kain. D’Shea had known, had been using it to help me cultivate my will, to shield my thoughts against Davrin mages. It had worked well before everything went to the Pit. I hadn’t been strong enough to face a demonblood backed by an Ornilleth prisoner.

  We all have a breaking point.

  Mourn possessed my blue gem, now. I’d given him something far more valuable in the long term for short-term survival, and I was afraid now. Did Mourn agree with Gavin, that I was deliberately teasing him with the ruby as payment? If he did, I was in ruthless danger once again. I’d watched Mourn fight against the warped cannibals; I could not go hand-to-hand with him in the same way Shyntre could not with Jaunda.

  Although, Shyntre has spells to fight for real, if he can keep distance.

  And if he could not? My wizard was defiant in his eventual domination which overwhelmed whether he had “teased” her or not.

  He had screamed at me often enough that he hadn’t. “Just give me space! Let me breathe! …You all look ridiculous wearing the Feldeu, anyway!”

  I sighed. I wondered if I could ever convince Shyntre that I’d thought about this, and he was right. After the Deathless and the Ma’ab in the kitchen, I might know what he had been talking about, and… what? Apologize for the way I’d acted?

  Too late for that. Now what?

  Offer to trade the blue stone for the red one after all? Negotiate for something I “knew” I couldn’t keep anyway. I wanted the blue stone back, but dare I explain why? Could I explain it?

  When Mourn next approached us, I recognized him only by his soft rumble and his hand sign.

  “It’s him,” I warned.

  “Oh, good,” Gavin replied, deadpan, getting to his feet.

  I stared. The Dragon’s son looked like a smaller brother of Kurn, with the raven black hair although his skin was not so deathly pale, and his face was without the permanent sneer. His clothes had changed to cover him from neck to wrists, down to his illusionary boots. He’d also taken on blue eyes.

  Is he mocking me?

  I caught my impulse long enough to ask, “How common are blue eyes in Humans?”

  “Very,” Mourn replied. “Enough that they do not remark on it.”

  “So, except for that, are you Ma’ab?”

  The false Human shook his head. “Noiri.”

 
Zauyrian, Ma’ab, Paxian, Yungian…argh.

  I folded my arms. “Noiri. Very well. Who are they?”

  “The Yungar who live in the North. They were there before the Ma’ab invasion and fought the first wars taken by surprise. They’ve interbred the most with the Ma’ab, largely through war violence and enslavement, but are numerous enough to exist apart from the Empire for now. Many Noiri sail the Great Lake, so no one would look twice at me in this form.”

  I eyed him again, not yet accustomed to Mourn being this slender. Kurn’s smaller brother with blue eyes and rosier skin was a fair description, and it made sense with that story. He was not mocking me.

  Gavin evaluated the form as well. “I do not see an aura, illusory or otherwise.”

  “I am suppressing it. If you will do the same with yours, both of you, my spell’s aura will be the only hint you are not what you seem. It will take a trained mage to look for it, and we are unlikely to be close to one for long.”

  Gavin nodded, and I smirked. “No mages on boats? Ever?”

  He looked at me. “On larger vessels. They would have a designated purpose to be there, and the smart ones do not work cheap. I have confirmed the trade ship we will be taking does not have a permanent cabin-mage.”

  Good for us, given we’d be trapped on rocking wood atop that massive, moving surface. I grimaced to imagine, looking at it now, while Gavin waited patiently for a modified appearance.

  Mourn motioned a simpler sign I did not recognize. “Jiilral ehaism…”

  As at Brom’s Inn, Gavin’s coloring changed, but his appearance did not shift dramatically in his height or form, though his facial features lost the corpse-like gauntness and filled out. The striking, black sclera changed to white, his ice-blue pupils warming to a brown that would also match his long hair. His skin became Paxian tan like Mathias’s.

  Gavin inspected his hands and forearms, noting the warm tone and clear fingernails. He looked to me in question.

  “Show me your teeth,” I suggested.

  His lips clamped tight at first; I smiled in response, showing my teeth plainly. It took the death mage actual effort to stretch his lips enough for me to see. The awkwardness was as disconcerting as when Nightmare showed her new shredders.