‘My guess is that the scouts have bad news,’ he murmured, jerking his chin up at Pallas. ‘Must have walked through the night to get here. Always a worrying sign.’
‘What of the scientist’s second machine?’
‘Not finished as of yesterday. We’re on foot for now, Highness.’
‘Friends,’ announced Gardan, addressing the group. ‘Apologies for the early call. I believe that Pallas here has news we should act on quickly. I will allow him to explain. Pallas, please give us your report.’
Pallas cleared his throat nervously and glanced over the judges’ heads. It was his first time coming before the quorum in Solis’ place, Samiha thought, with a twinge of pity. She remembered how she had felt the day she first stood before the judges. They had seemed a formidable crew to a twelve-year-old, newly arrived on the Freehold after her father’s death …
Samiha.
She ignored the voice. No one else could hear it, just like no one else could hear the infernal birds jabbering her name. The voice was a persistent delusion, a figment of her imagination that had bothered her now for almost a fortnight, and was most likely due to insomnia. She made a mental note to visit Doctor Shavek and ask her for some sleeping herbs, and kept her eyes trained on the young captain. Pallas was a youth of seventeen: a gangling weed of a boy with a shock of dark hair and a lump of nerves in his throat.
‘Respected ladies and gentlemen of the quorum,’ he began hoarsely then coughed and started again. ‘Respected elders. As you know, we’ve been doing a routine sweep of the southern branch-roads. The roads are almost always empty this time of year because of the weather. But this time we found refugees moving north. Single travellers and even family groups. They weren’t fleeing drought in the Fringes as we’ve seen up till now. They abandoned their homes because of a new threat.’
‘I wish you would at least acknowledge me,’ complained the imaginary voice, as the scout spoke. It buzzed in Samiha’s right ear. ‘It’s rude to ignore a person like this, you know. I’ve been trying to talk to you for two weeks.’
The Kion gave a soft sigh of exasperation. She hunched forward, leaning her elbow on her knee and cupping her chin in her hand so that her mouth was hidden. She turned away from Davil, toward what should have been the empty end of the terrace. There, bathed in early morning sunlight, sat the smiling form of Ash.
‘I ignore you because you don’t exist,’ she hissed through her fingers. ‘You’re a fantasy. Now leave me alone, I’m busy.’
‘I questioned one man travelling with his family from Donyah,’ Pallas continued. ‘He told us that they were fleeing pirates. There had been two raids near his home in the space of three weeks. He wasn’t going to sit and wait around for more. Many other people are doing the same, looking for a better life up north.’
‘Speaking of fantasies, that boy is sincere but he’s reporting a set-up,’ remarked Ash.
Samiha darted the apparition another look. The resemblance to the dead man was exact in all but one detail: the man who sat beside her had no scar on his face. The point niggled her, bothered her unduly. Not that it mattered what form the delusion took, she thought. The Ash-who-was-not-Ash smiled imperturbably in the sun as if he had every right to be there. As if she really could see spirits, like Tymon. As if she had the Sight. She decided, on impulse, to take the bait.
‘Why a set-up?’ she murmured.
‘I told him there were no jobs to be had in Marak,’ the scout reported, dutifully. ‘He said no jobs was better than being taken captive and finding himself shipped off in a Lantrian resettler vessel …’
‘Not the refugees,’ explained the vision of Ash. ‘The pirates. Their leader is after one thing only: the Prisoner. The rest is a diversion.’
‘Lantrian resettlers,’ put in Gardan, ‘pushing up as far as Donyah. That’s deep into the Argosian Domains. Either they have formed some understanding with the Council, which I doubt, or they are so strong and brazen that they no longer care what the Argosians think. It’s worrying either way.’
‘I don’t see how,’ objected Jemshet. ‘Why should we lose sleep over what the Argosians think? There’s no threat to us in all this apart from the arrival of a few hungry wanderers. Let them come, if they get this far. We need the manpower.’
‘He’s the one who lost his son in the attack,’ said the dead man quietly.
Samiha studied Jemshet’s face. It was lined and harsh, closed up and bolted down with pain. He would have little sympathy for anyone’s problems but his own.
‘Poor man,’ she mumbled.
Davil glanced at her quizzically. She smiled in embarrassment and shifted her hand over her mouth again.
‘I believe,’ replied Gardan, ‘the issue cuts closer to home than you might think, Jemshet. We no longer have the luxury of ignoring our neighbours. Be that as it may, Pallas has not yet finished his report. Shall we go on?’
‘We turned back on the eighth day,’ resumed Pallas, trapped uncomfortably between the two contending judges. ‘We came home to the northeast by way of the Old Nur road, as we had gone out by the Marak-Donyah road. There are a few homesteads along the way.’
‘Now the part where he tells us there has been an attack within fifty miles of the Freehold,’ confided Ash. Samiha shifted away from him irritably.
‘We noticed a column of smoke above the twig-line on the third day of our voyage. By the end of the fourth day we had arrived at the Almarad holding, which as you know is only fifty miles from here. We found it razed to the bark, dew-crops burnt, everyone gone.’
‘Now we’ll discuss patterns,’ beamed the apparition.
‘I wish you would go away,’ muttered Samiha.
‘The pattern of these attacks shows the pirate fleet moving steadily in our direction, sweeping northeast to northwest in an expanding arc,’ said Gardan. ‘It’s only a matter of time before they reach the Freehold.’
‘They could have reached the limit of their range by now,’ suggested Mahal. ‘They’re pretty far from where they started. I imagine they’d pick out lonely homesteads, but think twice before taking on an entire village. How many ships are there in the fleet? Three? Five?’
Gardan nodded to Pallas, indicating that he should answer. ‘The man from Donyah said upwards of twenty, sirs,’ mumbled the youth. ‘I heard twenty-five from another source.’
‘Twenty-five!’ gasped Jemshet, and there was a moment of confusion as all the judges spoke at once.
‘Time for a change, don’t you think?’ observed Ash, in Samiha’s ear.
‘We cannot,’ declared Davil, holding up his hands for silence, ‘we cannot withstand an attack force of twenty-five ships. Not in our weakened condition.’
‘There were never twenty-five!’ cried Jemshet. ‘Not unless the pirates have banded together—’
‘Which could very well be the case,’ interrupted Gardan. ‘It’s not so hard to imagine, Jemshet.’
There was a dismal pause as this sank in.
‘What do you propose to do, Speaker?’ asked Davil, respectfully.
‘We need to change our habits,’ said Gardan. ‘There used to be a system of alliances among the Freeholds, before ether became scarce. We can revive that dream with the help of the new flying machines, and meet this threat with a united front.’
The other judges nodded their approval. ‘An honourable solution,’ breathed Ash. ‘But it’s not going to be enough.’
‘Seconded,’ announced Davil. ‘I suggest we send messages by bird to each of the Freeholds. We can follow it up with a proper delegation as soon as Laska returns from Cherk Harbour or the new machine in the hangar is completed, whichever happens first. Shall we vote, sirs?’
There was another spate of assent from the judges and cries of, ‘Aye, aye, we say aye.’ In the midst of the clamour Samiha stood up as if she had been pricked by a pin.
‘It’s not going to be enough,’ she blurted out, red-faced.
‘Your Highness?’ queried Gardan in surpr
ise.
‘I mean, I think it’s a very good idea,’ said Samiha hurriedly. ‘Of course the Freeholds should unite. But it isn’t enough. Our enemies will be here long before we can make the arrangements, let alone gather the troops necessary to defend ourselves. By all means send the proposals by bird. But we have to do something else, too.’
‘What else would you suggest?’ asked Jemshet. His courtesy had a dry edge to it, as if he were humouring a child.
‘We should contact Oren,’ said Samiha in a rush. ‘We should ask him to reinstate a Focal group. The new members would be inexperienced, sure, but they could still provide an invaluable early warning—’
She was cut short by groans of protest from the other members of the quorum. Even Gardan shrugged her shoulders.
‘The Grafting cannot be relied upon in practical terms,’ the Speaker pointed out. ‘Oren did not warn us of the last Argosian attack.’
‘He didn’t warn us because there was no Focal group,’ cried Samiha, over the rising babble of voices. ‘Because singly, Grafters are far less powerful. Even if he knew, how could he warn us from prison with a government censor going through every letter he wrote? You know this, friends!’
Gardan shook her head. ‘I respect your beliefs. I was in favour of sending young Tymon to complete his studies, and still am. But I’m reluctant to allocate more of our stretched resources to this problem. As you say, we can’t send letters to Marak: they would be intercepted and only result in arrests. Someone would have to travel all the way there. The Lyla‘s gone for now and frankly we can’t spare the new machine once it’s completed. We need it to carry messages to the Freeholds.’
‘Marak isn’t so far out of our way,’ pleaded Samiha. ‘Farhang Freehold lies barely sixty miles northeast of it and you’re going to send a delegation there, anyway. With a small detour I could be dropped off at the wind-well and make my way on foot—’
‘You?’ Gardan set her mouth. ‘Please. Highness. This is no time to place yourself in needless danger. We have enough to worry about.’
‘I’m already in danger,’ sighed Samiha, sinking back down on the terrace.
But the other judges were no longer listening, talking excitedly among themselves. Being the Kion of Nur conferred no special powers or prerogatives: she had to argue, debate and negotiate her position like any other judge, or face being outvoted. The Nurians might love their sovereign in a general, patriotic way, but they did not always listen to her. She was expected to stick to her ceremonial role and leave the actual governance of her kingdom to others. The Freehold judges were practical people, shying away from all discussions of mysticism. It had been hard enough to convince them to allow for the possibility of Tymon’s talent; now, in the face of impending military threat, such concerns were far from their agenda.
‘Satisfied?’ she said to the apparition sitting patiently beside her. ‘They would never let me go.’
‘When did that ever stop you?’ answered Ash, laconically.
Samiha did not open her mouth during the remainder of the meeting, which revolved around the draft alliance with the other Freeholds. When it was over she took leave of her colleagues and plodded wearily back along the north branch toward the village meal hall. She did not walk alone.
‘The new machine is almost finished. They’ll send a delegation to Farhang sooner than you think,’ remarked Ash.
‘Go away,’ she replied, stamping along the branch-path. ‘I’m tired. You’re a hallucination. I want breakfast.’
‘Why are you so convinced I don’t exist? I didn’t have half as much trouble with Tymon.’
‘Please leave my husband out of this.’
‘Husband? I thought your relationship was only temporary. And that you hadn’t even confirmed that much.’
‘It’s not — we’re already — oh, why am I even talking with you?’ she cried, exasperated.
‘You haven’t told him about the ceremony, have you?’ prodded the apparition. ‘He has no idea.’
She walked on, gazing at the bark of the path in angry silence.
‘It’s a wonder the poor fellow even knows your name,’ continued Ash, blithely. ‘As far as I can make out you don’t talk to him about anything important. You barely touched on the prophecy.’
‘He doesn’t want to know about that. He thinks it won’t happen.’
The apparition considered this. ‘In a sense, he’s right, of course,’ he admitted.
‘You’re no help.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Well, apart from the prophecy.’ He kept pace effortlessly with her on the path. ‘It might have been an idea to tell him you could see me, too.’
‘I don’t see you,’ she snapped. ‘You aren’t there. I don’t have the Sight.’
He stared at her in surprise. ‘Such lack of faith,’ he exclaimed. ‘Cutting yourself down before you even start. How do you get through the days, tell me?’
‘Oh, for the love of the Sap,’ cried Samiha. She stopped and spun around to face him. Birds fluttered up from the twigs overhead, startled by her outburst. ‘I told you, when you first started pestering me: if you were who you pretend to be then you’d know I’m no Grafter. The old Focals were very clear about that. I think we can both admit you’re not Ash. You don’t—’ she reached up a hand unconsciously toward her own right cheek — ‘you don’t even look like him.’
He conceded the point with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘The fatigue of the battle must have done something to my mind,’ she said. ‘I can’t sleep properly at nights and in the daytime I dream of old friends. Perhaps I’ve finally lost my wits. It’s either that, or …’
She hesitated. Another possibility had occurred to her, worse than madness.
‘Or?’ prompted the apparition. The playful smile still hovered on his lips. ‘What other explanations have you come up with, Kion?’
‘Or,’ she continued, slowly and deliberately, ‘you’re an impostor. A demon,’ she qualified, using the Argosian word. The term in her own tongue — ‘lost one’ — seemed too forgiving, as if it described a reversible state. ‘I’m no Grafter, but I know what demons can do. I know about the Exchange. If you think you can manipulate me like you do the pilgrims in Argos, you’re greatly mistaken.’
The demon, or delusion, fixed her with his clear green gaze. His smile faded.
‘I have nothing to do with what happens in the city of the dead,’ he assured her earnestly. ‘And in my defence I’ve known you for far longer than two weeks. If I meant you harm I would have done it years ago. Don’t you remember, Samiha? You’ve seen me before. It’s true, I didn’t always look this way.’
Samiha frowned. Some of the other judges had exited the arena and were mounting the path up the north branch toward them; she turned away from the creature that resembled Ash and began to walk again, swiftly, as if she meant to banish him with movement.
‘Think,’ insisted the apparition, at her side. ‘You knew me well, when you were a child.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she grunted in a furious undertone.
‘You had an imaginary friend. The Green Prince. No one else could see him …’
She came to a stumbling halt, but did not answer or look up.
‘We had marvellous adventures, didn’t we?’ he said softly. ‘Chased the evil straw-men out of Nur. Rescued the sleeping princesses. Remember the old King? He was sick and nothing could cure him. Only—’
‘The fabled fruit of immortality growing at the heart of the world. I remember. I remember,’ whispered Samiha.
She felt the treacherous prick of tears and rubbed a sleeve across her face. It was painful to recall childhood memories. The old King, indeed! Poor Father, an exile in his own kingdom. They had never stayed longer than a few months in each flyblown village or garrison, never put down roots. No wonder she had resorted to invisible playmates. And now they returned to haunt her. It was somehow appropriate that the life of the twelfth Kion should end
in madness. Was it not mad, after all, to consider oneself a Sign of the End Times, a harbinger of the apocalypse?
The group of judges had caught up with them, passing Samiha on the path with curious glances. Gardan seemed about to ask her a question but she forestalled the Speaker with a wave, and what she hoped would come across as a light-hearted smile.
‘I’ll meet you in the meal hall,’ she called to her colleagues. ‘I’ll be right there.’
‘You have to find a way of getting on that air-chariot,’ resumed the apparition, when the judges had moved on. ‘We have to act quickly. I suggest enlisting the help of our conscientious scout.’
‘That’s how they think of me, isn’t it?’ mused Samiha, gazing after her colleagues.
‘What?’ The ghost seemed thrown by her comment.
‘Mad as an inbred lap-cat. Clinging to myths of redemption in order to give my life meaning. A sad, tattered, worn-out remnant of a blood-line, kept around as a sort of mascot.’
‘Grace!’ Ash peered into her face. ‘Now I know why I was sent here. You must stop this. You have a task to accomplish: this is no time to wallow in self-pity.’
‘Even Tymon. He never really believed,’ she continued, ignoring him. ‘Full of ideas about what we’re going to do together after his studies. Doesn’t want to hear about how pointless it is.’
‘Kion!’ The other’s voice was severe. All trace of amusement had disappeared from his tone.
Her eyes jerked back to him guiltily. The delusion was surveying her, stern, as if he knew her capable of much better and would not consent to mediocrity. The face was still that of her dead friend Ash, but his challenge to her, his passion, reminded her of her father. The sense of recognition was so intense that she wavered, assailed by doubt. Could it be … ?
‘You’ll never be like all the others,’ he said, echoing almost word for word the lectures she had been given as a child. ‘You are a spearhead, a turning point. You won’t be like other people and it will only make you unhappy to try. They have their individual destinies; you have a collective one. Embrace it.’
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