“Dia, give them to us,” Burhn said.
“Never,” I scream and spun on him as my throat warmed again.
Ghemma stood next to him, clutching his arm to stay upright. Both had been badly beaten. A blue glow lit Ghemma’s skin and a pair of sparks leapt from her hands.
“Dia, please,” he said. “Hurry. The Spirit has taken her.”
They knelt on either side of me. Burhn gathered me into a hug and coaxed the bundle from my arms.
And then she laid her hands upon them and sang. Word after word poured from her and I heard every one—cascading like water as she named all the parts of a man. Noun after noun, a list almost without end. And then came a verb. I could not hear it, but as it leapt up from her throat the darkness around us roared as if bitten. The Vesteal blood upon my children and Harmond’s face cooked away, and the sky thrashed and swirled as if the plug had been pulled from a drain and all the evil above us was dumping into her. The roaring became a thunder, her skin blazed white, and the ground shook.
A click bit me and the world became still and silent until two voices, angry and fierce, screamed at the world.
My pain was gone. The click had been my arm as her song mended it. I gathered up my children and helped them to my breasts. Clea’s arm had not been healed, and Cavim was missing a foot, but they were alive and they were hungry.
Ghemma blinked her eyes and the light in them were extinguished. She slumped sideways. No one else upon the pier was moving.
On the far side of the rocky shoreline, the gates of Pashwarmuth opened and a crowd started out toward us. The first forward was an old woman, weather-beaten and untroubled. Her dress was a bright Yentif blue and her shawl was the yellow of Urmand.
“What devilry is this?” one of the men behind her asked. “Stay back, ma’am. Someone here is a singer.”
“Was,” she said and pointed at Harmond. She strolled through the carnage, kicking at the dead until she reached us.
She gripped Ghemma’s face, turning it one way and then the other before doing the same to me. I could manage nothing more than to growl at her. “Seems his best two made it. Get them in the wagons.”
“Dump the children?” the man asked as he pushed me onto my back, and began to shackle my legs.
“Haven’t you learned anything,” she said, and cuffed him. “You don’t shackle the pretty ones. Scarred ankles hurt the purchase price, and proof of children bearing has as much value in the Kaaryon. If the children are criers you can pitch ‘em, otherwise we let the buyer decided what to do with the whelps.”
Burhn sat up and tried to take hold of the man. Another kicked him in the face and shackled his feet.
“Some in town will need to be convinced to abandon Berm,” the second man said.
“Walk them out here. Only a fool would stay while beasts like these roam the lakes. If they don’t want to pay me for a spot in one of my wagons, they can walk or stay. I don’t care much either way. If they die while we are away, we’ll own more of the town when this trouble is settled.”
Someone scooped us up, and I held my children close.
57
Sikhek Vesteal
The bull caribou looped along the rocky road toward me. It did not look at first like a thing to be worried about. It was not real, my mind said—a dream. A hawk turned Hessier was madness, a caribou was impossible. The mass was too much for a single spell to hold together.
Had Geart used a different verb? The Song the Hessier and Ashmari used the word “bind.” Perhaps Geart had learned a new song.
The impossible thing continued to puzzle me until it reached my horse, scooped it up in its house-sized antlers, and flung it aside. The horse spun high over a pair of young cheery trees and crashed into a rocky gully.
I was left to watch the bull renew its charge and I considered how well I would heal after it was done with me.
The dead thing barked a mad throaty cough, as if the man inside wished to scream. Its eyes swirled with madness.
This thing is going to kill me. I should do something. I’d thought myself clever for many centuries. Was I still? The hawk screeched, as if laughing.
Perhaps.
Crave caribou eye
The song’s magic came fast and the hawk dived. It struck the bull’s head, latched on, and began to feast.
The stupid thing didn’t think to shake the thing off until both of its eyes were pierced. It swung its weight around, grunted, and charged straight into the cherry trees. One snapped clean off at the base of the trunk, pulverizing the hawk before the bull pitched headlong into the gully.
A time later I found myself sitting down. Somewhere to my left, the bull coughed and clattered it tried to climb up the rock side of the gully.
Geart’s undead creatures would swarm this land in search of me. I could not flee across country and hope to outwit them all. Yudyith would be overrun, and Geart would render me into my parts and make from me an army that Zoviya could not stop. He needed only to catch Dia or catch me.
What the hell am I doing in Yudyith?
Geart would be wondering the same. There was nothing here but a mass of wanton criminals, chief amongst them me.
What would Barok do, all selfless and noble?
He’d warn Yudyith and get its people out of harm’s way. It was a strangely attractive option. Geart could not make an army of beasts and thralls if no one was here when he arrived.
Madness. What reason did I have to help the vermin of Yudyith?
The bull clamored over the lip of the gully, missing an antler, its stomach cavity, and the bottom half of both front legs. It sniffed the air and lumbered blindly toward me.
I laughed at it, but stopped. There would be so many more. Geart had worked out a new magic—something I’d not considered. Alone, I was doomed. I could not help but imagine Barok smiling at the choice left to me.
I turned, got my bearings, and marched back toward the city. By the time I sighted Cyaudi another hawk was circling wide around the bull caribou, so I waited until dark to find my way into the city.
The gates had been closed for the night. I spun for the guards the same tale I’d told the corsair captain and they escorted me up long streets toward estates I knew and a palace I had built.
I met the Arilas of Yudyith as he was enjoying a fine meal with his retainers, a redhead that was not his wife, and a few officers.
“Who are you,” he said as their collective smiles faded. My condition was poor. He was young, rounded by his feasting, and groomed to a fault. He set down his wine. Two of the officers stood.
The map upon the wall behind him caught my eye and I pointed at it. I’d not thought that any copies had survived my order that they be destroyed.
“Your great grandfather’s map has served your corsairs well.”
“Get this thing out of here.”
“Be still, Arilas Roto. I am Minister Sikhek.”
“And I am Admiral Soma upon the deck of a great ship. String this fool up by his toes.”
rest man
rest man
The officers slid to the floor.
“I do not have time to teach you the things your father or grandfather failed to learn. This is the only chance I will give you to save your people or I will replace you.”
“Save them? From what?” he said. “A crazed bird?”
“Hessier from the Bunda-Hith are on the move through Berm. These birds are mere scouts. When the rest arrive, every person in Yudyith will perish.”
The man sitting next to him, a colonel of the guard or some similar rank, said, “We’ve been looking for this cretin. He has been whoring and drinking since the start of the season, posing as a Roto.”
“Colonel, you offer distractions. I am Sikhek Vesteal, and I am 1,400 years old. I built the road from Cyaudi to Bessradi and I built this palace. Ten thousand slaves perished to see it done. Their bones were laid as the foundation of this palace. If you go beneath the cellar, you can walk upon them still
.”
“Phh,” the arilas said, reaching for his wine and motioning for his redhead to sit on his lap. “A story often told. Take whatever you are selling and go before we add you to the pile. I am not buying anything today.”
“And the ghosts that swirl up from the pile? They are starting fires now, I would imagine. Is that a tale often told?”
It was a guess, but I am rarely wrong. Their faces confirmed it.
“There will be more,” I said. “More foul beasts. More ghosts. Death marches across Berm. Yudyith is next. Heed this. Your people will become the livestock of the Hessier.”
“A Hessier like yourself,” the colonel said. “If you are to be believed.”
“There are other powers at play now. I am no longer the creature that ruled Bessradi.”
The Arilas lost his patience and stood up out of his chair, almost knocking the redhead to the floor. “You speak of Adanas in my presence? I have read the letter from those fools in Enhedu. A heathen religion conjured by his whore admiral.”
“That is not what I speak of. Adanas is a fiction, same as Bayen’s Church. Your hatred for both is wise.”
“Who do you serve, then, if not these?”
“Myself. I am free of these false religions. You would be wise to remain the same.”
“If I were to believe you, then what? You think we should turn tail and flee our homes? An exodus of the people of my province? To where?”
“Rally your pikemen. Call every person in Yudyith to your pennant and march north. Pillage Havish and Dahar. Taken all you find as slaves or slaughter them. Leave no person behind. March through Aneth and on to Khrim. Let Bessradi deal with the trouble broiling up from the Berm, and save your people.”
The Arilas frowned, and the colonel said, “Make him prove it. If he is Sikhek, he can rid us of our ghosts.”
“Yes,” the Arilas said. “Take him to the cellar first. I’ll wait here.”
I wanted to seize his heart with my magic and make it burn, but did not have magic enough to do it.
“Let us be quick,” I said instead to the colonel and had to suffer the chatter of the group that clamored along with us toward the cellars until we started down the gray stairs with only two lanterns to tell shadows from spiders. The long passage below was narrow and reeked of the mold.
A red light outlined the trapdoor in the middle of the last room. I was encouraged forward and wrestled with the trapdoor until it opened with a rusty growl. The room flooding with red light, and the pit below was as I remembered—a long bowl of rock filled with tortured bones. A few newer one had been added on top and the red light of the awakening ghosts came from further in.
“Go on,” the colonel said and drew his sword.
The crowd looked on with glee. They had made people jump down.
I’d sooner eat a bowl of powdered silver. I drank in the heavy touch of the Shadow and got ready to boil the colonel’s blood.
The ghosts did not care for our dispute, nor were they confined to the pit. Several rose through the floor, wearing shrouds of flame. They were naked, tortured, and scorched the ancient timbers as they came. They grew vivid—substantial.
This was not the petty apparitions I’d expected. I’d murdered these men a thousand years ago to quell a slave revolt in the fledgling province. There should have been nothing left of them after so long. Something had stirred them, and I imagined ghosts rising up from the hundred places like it where I had stacked the dead to collect my power. The bone pile below was thick with it still, the tang of the Shadow swirling like a soup.
“Sikhek,” one ghost hissed. “Murderer.”
“Get rid of them,” the colonel shouted as our audience backed away. He dropped his sword.
The ghosts slid closer. Their heat became that of an open forge and the collection of detritus in the old basement began to smolder.
“You must forgive them,” I said to them. “Wish them love and joy. You must forgive them and send their soul away to rest.”
They whimpered and groveled.
“Vermin,” I said and turned toward the ghosts. “You as well. Your misery is of no importance. Be gone.”
They hissed and swung in around me. My skin scorched, and I had to close my eyes.
The black touch of the Shadow swelled up into the room, but my useless body rejected it as fast as I took it in. But there was so much of it there. I embraced the old feeling and crafted a song that the human Geart would have loved.
men forgive
The crowd smiled and wept. They said loving things and wished the ghosts to rest. The ghost’s heat bled away, but not their hate. They gathered around me still, hissing my name. I tried to craft another song, but I’d spent the darkness there and my body would take in no more.
These ghosts could kill me. I was surrounded. Their mangled bodies and pitiful faces—I’d done this to them. It was my love they needed. It was for me to wish them to a quiet rest.
I saw my daughter’s face through the swirls of hot ash. She pled for her life. She told me she was cold while I sank my knife deeper in to her chest.
“I am sorry. I had not loved you, my darling. I used you and discarded you. Forgive me. I love you.”
The heat and red light left the room. The smell of scorched dust and mold stung my throat and eyes. I was on my knees with my wet face held in my hands. The colonel stood over me.
“Well done, Minister,” he said and kicked me in the chest. I tumbled back through the trap door and landed upon the bed of bones. I scrambled up to see him slam the trapdoor closed.
I sat down and stared across the darkness while their laughter faded.
58
Goddess Emilia Grano
Silver Coins
Six priests paced across the plaza toward the open doors of the grand foyer of the archives, eying our men upon the plaza’s walls. The senior archivist was not amongst the group, but they each had four or five white stripes upon their red hats and the heels of their wooden shoes. One of them was not a priest at all, his pace a bit off with his connections with Corneth men. All of them hated me as passionately at Evand loved Liv.
I meant to make these men our friends, which would be tricky since at least one of them meant to kill me.
Uncle Phost was sitting at the long desk next to me, and Natan and his five best men were crouched behind it. Fifty more were within a stone’s throw of the front doors.
“Can I help you?” I asked as they stepped inside. “You all know Lord Phost, I trust?”
“Young miss,” the five-striped man said. “You’ve startled us. I’d expected you to be in one of the studies.”
“Where is the senior archivist?” I asked. “I have not seen him for days.”
I knew right where he was—hiding at an estate a half-day’s ride south of the city. Others who feared that I would set fire to Alsonelm had gone, too, including the senior Corneth men that wanted me dead.
“He sends his apologies,” he replied while his soul focused on me with such intensity all of his other connection shrank to the point of disappearance. “His wishes he could have come to assist you but is indisposed. You have finished your work and are ready to depart, I trust?”
“Not yet,” I said and close my eyes for a moment to study their angry souls. “Are you here to help me?”
“Help you?” the fake priest said. “You jumped-up urchin. Enough of this. Do it now.”
The others began to sing. Their souls reached down into the vastness, and their hands and mouths began to blaze purple.
I told myself no one loved me, and the priests fell to the floor, clutching at their skin. All those with me cried out, too.
Too much, damn it.
I imagined kissing Pia along the banks of the Bessradi, and the heat subsided.
I jumped off my chair and moved around toward the priests. Natan and his men hurried to follow me, despite the blisters on their arms and faces. The Grano boys couldn’t manage it. Evand’s voice carried down the
hall.
“Go tell him I am fine,” I said to a freeman, while Natan and the rest kicked the priests onto their backs and leveled their spears at them. One of them struggled up and got stabbed upon the shoulder for his trouble.
Still their soul remained focused only on me.
“What would it take to change your minds?” I asked them.
They spat and cursed at me.
Natan said, “My Goddess, you should withdraw.”
I knelt down and touched the Corneth man’s cheek. No change.
I turned to the priests, trying to judge which of them was the best singer. The active connection they’d made with the spirits when they sang had been a surprise but perhaps should not have been. The black threads were fading fast, and I knelt next to the man whose connection lasted the longest.
“Do you know the healing song?”
He eyes were full of terror and he clutched at the spears pinned him to the carpeting.
“If one of you will sing for me now, I will let you leave.”
“Godless bitch,” he said. “We will kill you yet.”
“Will none of you sing for me? I offer a taste of real power. Who wants it?”
“I will,” said one, and it made sense that his connection had been the weakest. The rest yelled at him while I crossed and sat down next to him. Already the condition of his soul was changing. His hatred was becoming something else, and as the other priests looked on, their souls began to change, too. Two of them severed all connection with the weaker priest, while the rest became a jumble as they started to form a connection with me.
I took off the man’s red hat, tossed it aside, and stroked his forehead.
“Sing for the city,” I said. “Only a whisper though or you will burn.”
He began it, and I focused on the Corneth killer while the blast of white cooked the city through and through. The man’s soul trembled once but did not change.
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