“I don’t cause these things to happen. I just want you to survive them.”
“Medric, when I was in the past time, before the extinction of my people, I did nothing to avert it.”
“Very wise of you. Also very difficult.”
“But Grandmother Ocean did the opposite. She changed the landscape to save the Essikret people.”
“I imagine it was the work of a lifetime for her to determine exactly how her people were to be saved.”
“Again and again, the ghosts of my friends and family have forced me to endure the massacre, and to walk through the valley filled with their dead bodies. They make me experience the horror of their deaths because they believe I betrayed my tribe by making peace with their killers. If they think now that I could have actually prevented what happened . . . I’m afraid that the next time they bring me into that valley they won’t allow me to leave it, and I’ll be trapped there.”
Medric had sat on the ground, with the two glyph cards in his hand and his chin on his knees. “Would that be a just punishment, do you suppose?”
“If I have gone from being the only survivor to being one of the perpetrators? Yes.”
He reached to her and patted her arm awkwardly. “If it happens, then I’ll dream my way to you and rescue you. And maybe there will come a day that your dead are reconciled with you, and will cease to haunt you.”
His statement seemed like a wish and not a prediction, yet Medric was always careful to avoid saying anything about the future at all, unless he meant it. Zanja clasped his hand for a moment. “Well, tell me your obscure command.”
He stood up. “Give your whole self to her.”
“To whom?”
He wagged a finger at her. “Your whole self. Remember!”
He left her baffled, as was not unusual. She sat quietly as the shadows of morning drew slowly away. Then a raven flapped down from overhead, and she stood up and followed it.
Karis was sitting on the edge of a dry fountain, writing a note on a scrap of paper with a carpenter’s pencil. The Paladins who had accompanied her in the hospital waited at a distance, passing a water flask from hand to hand while discussing the new Sainnese words they had learned or heard that morning. Norina also stood back, expressionless except for a clenching of her jaw. There were some astonished healers, also, and three children who had been dying in the hospital: pale and tottering, but flushed in the cheeks by the power of Shaftal. That Karis had decided to heal the children rather than require them to endure the pain of gradual recovery was no surprise to Zanja. She asked a Paladin, “Are we going back to Hanishport already?”
“Yes, Zanja.” He offered the flask, then asked about a Sainnese word the Paladins had heard but didn’t know the meaning of.
She said, “It’s a virtue the Sainnites especially value. It means something like the keeping of promises—but the promises have to do with identity.”
Karis had given her note to the raven, who flew away with it and probably would give it to Kamren or Clement, who were still touring the village.
“Like keeping an oath?”
“It’s similar, but . . . excuse me.” Karis had started walking, and Zanja trotted to her, then had to keep running in order to stay beside her. “What are we doing?”
“Getting a supply of the smoke drug for the healers,” Karis said.
Zanja began to laugh, which made her breathless, so she had to stop running. The Paladins passed her, then Norina. Zanja caught her breath and ran after Karis. “The G’deon of Shaftal—visiting herself upon—the great houses of Hanishport—to ask for some of that cursed, bloody drug—that stole so much of your life—” She gasped a breath. “It is absurd!”
Karis glanced at her sideways. “Not just some. And I’m not going to ask. The healers can’t accomplish anything in Lalali until they have smoke—more of it than they think they will ever need. Without enough of the drug, they can’t wean people from it. They can’t take care of them—they can’t offer mercy. Smoke users won’t come here for help. The hospital will fail. But Shaftal must be free of that horrible drug.”
The great houses of Hanishport had gained enormous power during the twenty years that Shaftal had no government. While most people had done all they could to sustain their laws and traditions despite the occupation, Hanishport’s great families had behaved like children alone with a platter of sweets.
No doubt those families were worried because the new government of Shaftal had set up housekeeping in their city. They would be even more worried, Zanja thought, before this day had ended.
Chapter 10
Tashar had gone out early to meet Stone Boots in Leeside to give her the forged papers she needed to collect the bales of smoke drug from the warehouse. She was a hard, terse woman, whose face looked like it had not smiled, even once, in her entire life. Tashar had been meeting her regularly for years, and knew nothing at all about her, not even her name. In a filthy tea shop, she crouched over the cold dregs of her tea and said not a word as Tashar muttered in her ear everything he had learned about the G’deon’s presence in Hanishport. “Whatever our leader wants me to do, I am willing,” he finished. It was a routine statement, but Tashar genuinely wanted something new to do: something significant and heroic.
She grunted, took the papers, and left. Disappointed, Tashar returned home to get a hat, for it was developing into the sort of day that broils the skin and dries hair into straw. As he toiled down the road, he regretted that he had worn a light linen coat so he would have a pocket for his pistol. The sight of the tree-shaded Captain’s Way made him sigh with relief. Then he missed a step, for a crowd was gathered at the Lora’s garden gate: a few children still in nightclothes, whose parents had probably pushed them out the door to find out what was happening, but also laborers, artisans, and shopkeepers from several adjacent streets, still wearing their aprons and work gloves. What could have happened, to turn the Lora into this spectacle? Tashar found himself feigning unconcern as he approached the crowd. They parted to let him through, and he saw that five people were in the garden, all of them dressed in black from head to foot, their hair in tails, daggers tied in scabbards using knots his sailor’s eye recognized that would come loose with a firm yank. Paladins. They stood in a circle around one, who knelt at the bench where low-status visitors sometimes awaited the leisure of the house, with a pen, paper, and ink stone before her, as if the bench was a desk. Stupid from astonishment, Tashar wondered what they were discussing so intently, and why they had seen fit to do it in his family’s front garden. When he finally realized what this occupation by Paladins must mean, it was too late to flee, for the one who wore two earrings had noticed him and was coming over to greet him. His boots and trousers where white with dust; his shirt patched with sweat. He had traveled a long way already, though the day was still young. “I’m Kamren Paladin,” he said.
“Tashar of Lora. Has something happened?”
“Karis G’deon is visiting your family,” the man said cordially. “You carry a weapon in your pocket?”
“What? Oh, a pistol, because I carry money sometimes. Why is the G’deon here?”
“I don’t speak for her, Tashar of Lora. You may ask her yourself. But I’ll keep your pistol until we depart.” He spoke as though he was doing Tashar a favor.
“Of course,” Tashar said. “It isn’t loaded.” He handed over the pistol. “Return it to anyone of the house.”
“Why carry it unloaded?” the Paladin asked.
“I’ve never heard of anyone who could hit anything with a pistol. I certainly can’t.” If this man were a Truthken he would recognize this. But the Paladin, amused, stepped back to allow Tashar to pass, since doing anything else would have seemed odd. Tashar went into the house.
He wished he could see what the false G’deon looked like. But it was known that the Truthken always accompanied her, and Saugus requi
red that his people never be within sight or hearing of that notorious woman. Well, it was a large house—he would avoid them.
He was met in the hallway by two cousins. “We were just going out to look for you,” said one, and the younger one said excitedly at the same time, “The G’deon is here!”
“What am I wanted for?”
“I don’t know,” said the older cousin.
“How many people are there?”
“The G’deon, two Paladins, a woman with a scarred face, and a border woman.”
“The G’deon dresses like a farmer.”
“Do any of them have shorn hair?”
“Yes, the one with the scar.”
The family had received the false G’deon in the formal parlor, of course, the most impressive and uncomfortable of their many reception rooms, which was draped with heavy, embroidered silk, furnished with chairs upholstered in brocade, and decorated with tables of exotic wood, with carved leaves and flowers like nothing ever seen in Shaftal. Tashar acted like he was going there, but turned down a side hall and stepped into the closet with the peephole. He looked through the hole, which had a lens that provided a distorted view of the opulent room.
Tashar was looking at the false G’deon. What an ox of a woman, he thought. Hitch her to a plow and she could turn a field or walk down a tow path hauling a barge. But she was a metalsmith, supposedly, a toolmaker who did things with steel that no other smith could replicate. He looked at her hands and was shocked by how dirty they were. The muscles in her bared forearms flexed, and her hands closed into fists. Was she thinking of striking Aunt? That would be a sight worth seeing!
A murmur of strained conversation could be heard. Silence fell. Tashar’s nervous uncle rubbed one cheek and then the other. His domineering aunt, smiling fixedly, said through her teeth, “You entered our warehouse?”
“No, we haven’t entered the warehouse.” The G’deon’s voice grated unbecomingly. “But I know what’s in it.”
Aunt took several shallow breaths. “Madam.”
“Karis.”
“You are offering us the opportunity to donate an entire warehouse full of smoke to the healers?”
A person Tashar couldn’t see said, “One does not speak sarcastically to the G’deon.” The voice ran down Tashar’s spine like a knife’s edge. Everyone in Tashar’s view flinched at the sound—even the false G’deon.
A woman who stood directly opposite the peephole turned her head to look at Tashar, as though she could see through the wall. It was a border woman, her hair tied loosely back except for a single braid, as thin as yarn, that looped over her shoulder, nearly to her waist. She gazed steadily at him: I know you are there.
“Excuse me,” Aunt said. Tashar had never heard her voice sound like this, not merely enraged, but shaken. “A warehouse full of smoke is worth a fortune!”
“I suppose it is,” said the false G’deon. Even in the closet, Uncle’s restless shuffling and Aunt’s panting seemed very loud. The big woman said, “In my house in Watfield, dozens of people work day and night, and gain nothing from it. Their food, clothing, and the house itself have been given to us. Our storerooms are full, but more supplies arrive daily from all across Shaftal. Yet the healers requested the smoke drug from you several times, and their requests have been answered with silence.”
The Loras stared at the false G’deon as though she came from an unimaginably distant country.
Karis said, “One of my advisors says that the trading families seem to think they’re not part of Shaftal.”
“The trading families have always been independent,” said Aunt.
“How so?”
“We buy and sell, import and export. We alone, in all this land! We are the wind in the sails of Shaftal!”
The false G’deon looked at the priceless rug, the polished floor, the toes of her own dusty, much-worn boots. “And so you think Shaftal depends upon you, while you do not depend on Shaftal?”
It was strange, very strange, to hear this woman utter criticisms, however mild and indirect, that Tashar had said and thought. But this was the false G’deon, who had wrongly taken the power of Shaftal and was using it to aid the murdering Sainnites!
Karis said, “The House of Lora used to import medicines, tea, and spices, but since the coming of the Sainnites, your ships have only carried smoke. Why is that?”
“This business is a risky one,” began Uncle. It was an explanation that Tashar had heard many times, about how much money was invested in a single ship and its cargo, which might sink or have its cargo stolen in the year that passed between leaving home port and returning.
The large woman listened patiently, but when uncle concluded this lengthy winding-up and unwinding of his lines, she asked again, “Why does the House of Lora import smoke?”
Perhaps this was how the day was doomed to proceed. The visitor would refuse to sit down or take refreshment, and also would refuse to leave. She would ask, steadily and patiently, until she had been given what she wanted.
One of the other Loras, Nevan, had the wit to answer her honestly. “The smoke drug is so lightweight that we can fill a ship from prow to stern, and every shipment earns a profit.” All this he said, with Uncle signaling him to be quiet, and Aunt hissing like a teakettle, but it certainly was no secret.
“But your warehouses are full,” the woman said. “Your business is not doing well.”
“They’re full?” someone said with surprise.
Then there was silence.
“You want the smoke drug for the people in Lalali?” Nevan asked. “You want us to give it to them rather than sell it?”
“The healers need it to heal the smoke users.”
Aunt cried sharply, “What?”
“Pardon me—my voice is weak because I was a smoke user for over twenty years. Lalali is now a hospital for smoke-users, for the healers know how to cure them.”
Smoke was a potent painkiller. Using the drug in the absence of pain not only wasn’t pleasurable, but it destroyed pleasure. Smoke users couldn’t taste or smell, often injured themselves due to lack of sensation, and died of starvation if they weren’t forced to eat. To survive for twenty years was unheard of.
Tashar looked at her more closely, curious now to know what the woman had done, or what she had known, that enabled her to survive. He noticed how blue her eyes were, and how odd they looked. Then he became aware again of the border woman’s steady gaze. Her eyes were of an impenetrable blackness, and her face was extraordinary—all planes and angles—and utterly expressionless.
The false G’deon said, “Perhaps your elders remember the old way you did business, for you must return to it.”
Tashar had noticed that the warehouses had been filling faster than they were emptied, but it had not occurred to him that the House of Lora was gradually being put out of business.
“We have buyers,” began one of the stunned people in the sumptuous parlor. She fell silent, perhaps because Aunt had glared at her.
The false G’deon said, “Smoke users will come to Lalali to be healed, or else they will die. There will be no new smoke users.” Her big hands hung at her sides, empty. The hostility and tension in that garish room did not seem to trouble her. “But we must have the smoke drug to give to the users while they’re being cured.”
Aunt said, “And put ourselves out of business?”
The massive woman’s muscles flexed again, and her empty hand became a fist. She turned to the woman Tashar could not see. “Will the historians say that the House of Lora refused my request?”
“They certainly have refused,” said the terrible voice.
“Then I am confiscating a warehouse of smoke drug for Shaftal. We’ll bring some to Lalali immediately.”
She left the room so abruptly that its occupants didn’t even understand what had happened unti
l she was gone. Then some of the Loras took a step as if to follow her, but her departing companions had blocked the doorway. Tashar abandoned the closet and ran to a window in the hall. He saw the crowd parting outside the gate; the Paladins running after Karis, one of them flapping a sheet of paper so the ink would dry, and one hurrying to the door with Tashar’s pistol.
Tashar opened it. “Kamren Paladin,” he said, as the Paladin handed him his weapon, “Does Karis change her mind?”
The Paladin’s only answer was a laugh.
Tashar said, “You must spend a large part of your day running.”
“She has a long stride,” the Paladin said, and departed.
Karis didn’t anger easily. When she knew what to do, she did it; and when she didn’t she consulted her advisors. Her anger, when it did come, was terrible, but she could usually find something to smash—a portion of Travesty, for example, which she was destroying and rebuilding one wall at a time. Perhaps they might visit the blacksmith’s yard again, Zanja thought, so Karis could relieve her feelings by whacking red-hot iron with a hammer. But no, Norina also was angry—a common occurrence—and when both of them were angry, there could be a shortage of judgment.
“Karis,” Zanja said.
But Karis was saying to Norina, “Gilly was right.”
“About what? That the sun will rise in the west before the Lalali merchants give anything away to anyone?” Norina always remembered what people said, word for word. “Or that the Hanishport people think of their city as a doorway, neither in Shaftal nor in the sea, and so the laws of neither place apply to them?”
“If that’s what everyone in Hanishport thinks, we have a lot of work to do.”
“Someone was watching us through a peephole,” Zanja said.
They both looked at her. Norina snorted derisively.
Zanja said, “That comment you made to that woman—Aunt somebody—about her sarcasm. That was you punching her in the face.”
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