One of the men hovering outside stomped his way in. A Chaukai colonel followed him. I could not see his face from the sunlight behind him, but knew him from the blue cap he used to contain his curls.
“Good to see you King Kiel. What did you do to displease Soma that she sent you up here?”
“Do not play games with me Sikhek. What does so minor a family as the Savdi-Nuar have to do with any of this?”
“They can help me in ways you cannot. Let me eat and sleep. Tomorrow you will put me upon a gentle mule and take me to the Savdi Valley.”
“We’ll hang you from a tree,” Kiel said, but Tayler made the same small sound that Soma used to interrupt people and it stopped him in his tracks. I would have accused Kiel of being in love with our admiral but decided to save the barb for a better time.
“This family can restore you?” she asked.
“If Soma needs me to stand in for Geart and sing songs that will burn ships and kill Ashmari, then they are who I must see.”
She ended the interview there, thanked me, and left me to the view.
I fell asleep to dreams of volcanoes blooming like flowers along every mountains and hills in Zoviya and woke to the sound of riders. Tayler led them up the hill—men from Thanin and Enhedu, one hundred strong. Kiel was not there, which suited me fine.
The girl led a mule to my hut, and I limped outside. They suffered my weakness, getting me into the saddle. The mule proved as gentle as a lamb, but the ride was painful, nonetheless.
I studied the young officer while we rode. It was hard to guess at her origins, but Heneur seemed an easy wager, most likely one of Leger’s recruits from the Oreol.
“Are you Cynt or Raydau?” I asked.
“The ladder. My family drove cattle in the valley above in Moorsmoth. I joined Leger’s army the day after the accord was signed and made muster on the 89th of Spring.”
“You made muster?”
“Don’t let our yellowcoats deceive you. Everyone aboard an Edonian ship is a student of Book One and Book Two, same as those who wear blue and green.”
I almost commented on her sex. Then I almost told her that I’d authored the Manuals of the Hemari those long centuries ago. I asked instead, rather insipidly, “So, you are a landowner?”
“I am, and I hold a note with the Bank of the Pinnion. It’s a nice patch inland of Sjolandi. My mother and cousins picked the plot for me and are tending ninety head for me. I only got to spend a few days there to help get resettled. I look forward to seeing them when we get back. Where did you grow up? Before everything, I mean.”
The question scraped hard at the memories of what I was before. The girl was clever.
“Don’t go quiet now,” Tayler said. “Your turn.”
“I don’t know, exactly,” I said to her and relived the savage memories of my daughter’s death and all the details of foreground and background. “My home was upon a lake as large as Enhedu. It was a flat place without hills or mountains. I remember my daughter making soap. I would like to think that it was my family’s profession, but I have no memory of them.”
“Enhedu does love its orphans.”
“You think I am a man of Enhedu now? An Edonian?”
“Better Edonian than a slave or a slaver,” she said.
We did not speak again as we made the three-day journey through the pass and down into the vacant scrublands along the border between Aneth, Thanin, and Dahar. Those borderlands had once been home to a towering forest and grasslands, but the trees were long gone and with them the topsoil. The only feature upon the vista of sun-baked red clay was the occasional rodent, the gray fox that dug for them, and the valley that cut the range stretching to our left. We made the turn south upon a poor road, and when we reached the bottom of the valley, I was able to climb out of the saddle without assistance but feigned the same infirmary.
The Savdi Valley was a hideous place viewed from below. The long bent triangle seemed as barren and lifeless as the lands behind us, and the crimson slices of the cinnabar mines that gouged the valley’s flanks looked like bites taken from a rare steak. The only sign that men lived there was the tall walls of sandstone built across the top of the valley. Everything above those walls was hidden from view.
Tayler declined my request to ride ahead alone, and sent a troop forward instead. They were met at the walls by twenty leather-clad yeomen with spear and short bows. A man in dusty robes came out and spoke to the officer.
“What a miserable place,” Tayler said.
It was the same opinion held by all of Zoviya. I found it hard not to smile. Behind that facade of crumbling sandstone was terrace after terrace of fat green fields and an irrigation system that held every drop of the valley’s water. Behind those walls was a steel-clad army bearing crossbows and pikes and an equal number capable of song. The Savdi-Nuar had cut down the forests and salted the surrounding lands on purpose. Their valley was the richest in the world and they needed to neighbors. They were my chemists and the truest servants the Shadow had ever known. The old man was Maison, Senior Acolyte and Elder of the Savdi-Nuar. He’d stood beside me the day I made his brother and father Hessier beneath the palace hidden at the back of the valley. The chambers where they smelted cinnabar into mercury were better hidden still.
Maison and a second acolyte were escorted down. Their brown tunics and leather breaches were sewn with animal symbols and Maison’s face and body was pierced with tusks and tattooed with runes. The second was his eldest daughter, if memory served, her beauty hidden by the tattoo of a roaring bear that reached from her neck to her ears and scalp.
“Witches and mages,” one of the gray men of Thanin whispered and spit over his shoulder as if one look from her had cursed him.
Maison embraced me and kissed my hands and both of my cheeks. “Minister, it is good to see you. Zoviya has treated you roughly.”
“She has treated all of us poorly,” I said.
Tayler stepped forward. “No more words between you, Sikhek, until you tell me what you wish of the people here.”
“DO have Chaukai with us capable of song?” I asked.
“We do.”
“Tell them to beware. I would ask Maison to sing a magic they might be able learn. They can come close or withdraw—I leave it to you to decide if they can survive it.”
“What is the verb?” one of the Chaukai demanded.
“Restore. You would become a powerful healer if you could hold your soul together long enough to use it. May I ask that they sing it to me?”
They wanted to distrust me, but their greed for the word was the same as any man who’d tasted magic. The Chaukai that could sing were revealed as they crowded closer. Tayler gave her permission with a nod, and Maison’s daughter sang a well practices verse.
man heal float flesh
The disordered and nonsensical verse bathed me in an ill-green glow and tortured with confusions all those that tried to hear it. I stretched and yawned while the Chaukai labored as foolishly as the half dozen Sten that had demanded a meeting with the Savdi-Nuar of the centuries. The most any of them got from their efforts was a terrible headache.
“Did it work?” Tayler asked.
I smiled for her, stood up straight, and made my back and neck crack. Then I leapt atop my mules as though I was a new man. The Savdi-Nuar cheered and chanted.
The Chaukai did not like all the motion.
Maison said, “Minister, I am so glad we could restore you once again. Please, you must all join me for a meal. I will slaughter a goat for you. All of you, please.”
Tayler began to say no, but I saved her the effort. “We cannot. The Yud savage the Aneth coast. We must throw them back into the sea.”
“Vile folk, the Yud,” he replied with a wicket smile that made the snakes and vines upon his lips and cheeks curl.
Tayler betrayed her distain with a glance back at the tithe road.
“Before you depart though, Minister,” Maison said, “allow me to replace your poo
r mule with a horse that befits you.”
The Chaukai did not like hearing me referred to by my proper title, and were eager to be moving. Tayler waved him to hurry and a horse was brought down. It was not much better than the mule, but as he presented it, Maison described it as the finest of their herd.
A pair of Chaukai searched the animal and its saddle before allowing me to take the reins.
I bowed farewell to Maison and the company escorted me back to the road. The Chaukai with headaches were sullen and glared at me with hunger. I ignored them. I could feel the cold touch of the Shadow pouring from the spot along the horse’s flank where the Savdi-Nuar had sewn iron vials full mercury beneath its hide.
My new horse and improved condition allowed us to reach Sesmundi before the effects of the metal were noticed.
We found the once-forested foothills west of the city bald and scarred with erosion. Hundreds of longboats, barges, and sleek single-masted ships filled the streets facing the city’s river, and its streets and wall were filled with ready men. On the way up to the keep I spotted what was left of Kiel’s cavalry—no more than a few hundred men and Akal-Tak. By the looks of them, they’d ridden out countless times to fight off landings of the Yud. The Arilas was a sullen, his standing with Soma no better than last I’d seen him.
Tayler escorted me a tower that overlooked the harbor. Soma did not greet me as she saluted her sail chief. “Did they give him any mercury?”
“Yes. I am not sure of the amount. It is hidden inside a horse the Savdi-Nuar gave him. We’ll have to cut it out.”
My surprise must have registered on my human face. Had I spoken of the cinnabar mines aboard ship? My most carefully guarded secret—revealed like candy beneath a pillow.
Soma stepped close enough to snatch hold of my arm, and I would have taken a step back if not for the pair of Chaukai at my back.
She said to me, “When I call upon you, you will summon a fog in the harbor and set fire to the Yud flotilla. Make yourself ready to sing for me. In the meantime, you will be bled each day.”
Before I could respond, the Chaukai seized my arms and neck and jammed a gag in my mouth. They marched me down to a cell beneath the keep, where another group of Chaukai waited with heavy silver chains, a knife, and a bowl.
The silver they bound me with was enough to keep any Hessier quiet. None of them spoke as they cut my arm and stole my Vesteal blood.
39
Dia Vesteal
Ashmari Hessier
I’d made the trip down and back twenty times before the winter grew old. Each time I went, I’d gathered debris along the shore, spend the night in one of the watch rooms upon the guard wall, and made the trip back up the next day. None of them commented on my coming and going. My pace increased over time, which allow me longer walks along the sea-blasted shore to search the rocks for bits of home. A heavy belt, a large pine button, the broken shaft of an arrow. The collection of flotsam beside my yurt grew large and larger. Clea soon had an entire collection of the big buttons to chew on, and she got used to the gaps in feeding. The men must have taken turns tending to her while I was away, judging by the differing quality of the wraps I found her in. Everyone was happier when my pace grew sufficient to march down and back up in the same day.
The butcher made Ashmari collapsed into a pile of gray meat during one of my trips. Three more stood in his place, stronger but still gray.
Three more.
I hurried to count Clea’s digits but nothing more had been cut off her. I tried to be glad, but it wouldn’t be long before her fingers and toes were used to make one acolyte after another into an unthinking devil.
I tried to set those thoughts aside and continued my long marches, searching for any new glimpses of hope or way of escape.
Trip after trip, the eyes of the men began to linger upon my swelling belly. More than a few times they seemed worked up enough to speak to me, but kept quiet until spring grew near. The man who finally approached me could not make eye contact.
I spoke before he could. “I’m not due for another 60 days. Fuck off.”
“It is growing on toward the most dangerous time of the year. The spring winds can trick you. Do be careful.”
I would have kicked him off the tier if not for risk of getting too warm inside my coat. He left me be, and I started out.
The winds outside proved the same as any other day, and I made the trip laughing at the man’s fake concern. They wanted more bone so Aden could make them stronger. Their concern was as hollow as their guilt.
The sky did look different though. The clouds were dash, and the waves beyond the ice dashed the rock and wide ice sheet in odd directions.
I decided to spend the night in one of the rooms on the wall. The guards had not had to host me in many days but did not seem surprised.
“You be careful on your way up tomorrow,” one said before I laid down. I made no reply but noticed as he said it that even the finger-sized windows they used to watch the approach were packed tight with straw and boarded over.
I woke to rare warmth of a small fire and the gift of a bowl of hot stew. It was rich with fresh caribou liver, a bit of pepper, and some foxberry.
“Your recipe,” the man said when he saw my reaction. I thanked him for it, and almost started a conversation. His accent was different, from somewhere in the west perhaps instead of Berm. Perhaps his place at the Priests’ Home was different as well. I decided I did not care and made my way out as soon as I was able.
I was half way back up when a sudden swirling gust got hold of the loose snow. It blinded me and shoved me back. My breathing tube was snatched from my mouth and I almost fell. It was the kind of sudden happening that must kill so many. A bit of panic then was all it would take to end my life.
I dropped carefully to my knees, cinched my hood closed, and pulled my arm inside my coat to found one of my replacement tubes. Standing back up through the sudden gale was the hardest part after that, but I’d made the climb through gusts before. The slope told me which way to go, so on I marched. The fight against the wind was harder work, so kept me slower, and I began to growl against the memory of the warnings I’d been given as the day’s light began to fade. The cold began to find its way through my layers.
Where the hell was the keep? Had my steps been so much shorter? I nearly knew the count of them. On and up I went, but the keep did not appear.
I began to stomp forward, ignoring pain, hungry, and fear until the wind changed direction. I had no sense at all where the keep should be. My climb had taken far too long, and I all but ran, hoping to run into the sheet of manmade stone.
The wind did not let up, but as I climbed the amount of snow decreased. When the gale gave way for a moment, the rest of the swirling snow fell away and I got a look around.
I had gone much too far.
I’d continued up the slope along the right side of the fortress, twice the distance I was supposed to have gone. I began to turn down toward it when the rest of the view stopped me. I’d reached the crest of that high ridge and could see both west and south. The low sun painted the vista of mountains and snow before me an angry red beneath dark swirling of tall clouds. I counted twenty peaks, each as high or higher than the tallest peaks of the Daavum Mountains. I found the dark square of the keep back to the northeast through the swirling snow below me, and it suddenly seemed very small.
I was turning back to when I recognized the straight slope reaching to the west. The unbroken sheet of white extended farther that I could see. This was the route Burhn used to reach Verd. And from Verd, a tithe roads ran straight as arrows to the Kaaryon, and from their all the way to Enhedu.
“I’ll need a new sled,” I whispered past the tube, and studied the long valley as long as I dared while the dark and cold gathered around me.
It was the black of night when I found the western wall of the keep and followed it around to the stubborn door.
The men all rose when I entered, but none moved to
help.
It pleased them that I stayed in the next few days. They left me alone while I worked, but I was not uninterrupted. The growing child inside me began kicking away as though he meant to run all the way to Enhedu. A swallow of fat settled him most times, and I managed in the end to build a sled and alter my coat and clothes to better fit my increased size—in addition to my pregnancy. I could see the change in my arms, legs, and even my hands. If I had a mirror, it would be a rotund Krimish woman who stared back at me. The girl from Dagoda was gone.
Sled frame and coat finished, it was a shock to the men when I started toward the entrance the next day. Several of them approached, some with words, other with gifts I refused.
They became more and more ardent in their wishes for me to stay warm and safe until a group of them blocked the door. One of them said, “To go out there now would be to throw your life away.”
“Your concerns for me are very kind. My late return must have scared you, and I regret troubling you. If I promise this to be my last trip, will you let me go? I would like to see the ocean once more before—before it is time.”
Their guilt moved them out of my way, and I made it outside.
My plan was a fool’s errand, but I held onto the bits of it when I marched. I need the blades from the broken sled. I needed supplies. I needed a fresh way past them with Clea, when I had it all ready.
Perhaps if I set a few of the yurts on fire?
Could I go with the boy in my belly, leaving Clea behind? I cursed myself for the thought and marched down.
I reached the wall and was glad for the season and the lack of eyes watching me from the wall. It took some digging to find the blades against the wall but not enough to threaten my timing. I made it to the shore and hid myself behind a rock long enough to lash the sled frame together and bolt the blades to it with a set of fine iron fittings from Enhedu.
I hurried back into view as soon as I was able, in case any were watching.
It was then that I noticed the waves were loud. I opened my hood a bit and saw that the sheet of ice clogging the bay had given away. Huge sheets of it were drifting out, banging and breaking in the rolling sea. I searched the horizon beyond, with the fleeting hope of a ship. The blue of cloud swept skies remained the only feature upon that horizon.
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