The black roots of death crawling through him had found it, then. And now they worked on breaking that, too.
But they had not made it to his core yet. Jasen knew that. He hurt, yes, hurt terribly when the sickness came. He could hardly bring himself to stand. Yet the darkness had not eaten down to the deepest parts of him. And awful though that pain was, every second that he felt it was another second he knew he was alive, and he came another second closer to the final—he prayed—confrontation with Baraghosa.
After a long time of quiet between them, Jasen asked, “Why did you change your mind?”
“Hmm?” said Kuura.
“About fighting Baraghosa again. Why did you reconsider?”
“Ah …” Kuura rearranged himself, letting loose a long sigh. “I suppose the answer to that,” he said slowly, carefully, “is that I listened to you.”
“What do you mean?” Jasen asked.
“Your speech, to Shipmaster Burund—it was so … impassioned, so certain. You have believed that stopping Baraghosa is right ever since I laid eyes on you, of course. But to see you reduced to this … to see you dying … and still willing to stake the last of your life, the final days you could spend far, far away from this fight … how could I not listen?”
“I see.”
“There are reasons more than this, of course,” said Kuura. “Baraghosa has worked his way along the coast of Coricuanthi, sowing the discord Huanatha and Longwell and others speak of. And the destruction he laid upon Nonthen? I cannot deceive myself about that. Nor can I fool myself into believing that his cruelty will not spread. That endangers my family.”
Of course—the family he had back home. A wife, children …
“Baraghosa would kill them,” said Jasen.
“I know. Perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not even a year or two or five from now. But whatever his machinations, his malevolence is growing, spreading. I must do what I can to stop it before it reaches those I care about most.”
Jasen nodded. Then he turned. Damn, but it was difficult, pushing himself up and over—Scourgey scrambled up, claws clacking on the deck, to use her body to help ease him over.
Though the orange disc of the sun was blinding and bright behind him, just a half-inch from finally kissing the horizon, Jasen looked Kuura full in the face.
“You might die,” he said flatly.
Kuura nodded. “I might.”
“Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“Of course,” Kuura said. “But we all must die sometime, mustn’t we? Yet I ask you this: is there any better time to die than standing for what is right, protecting your loved ones, that they may live on another day without fear of evil? I don’t think so.”
“No,” Jasen agreed. “I don’t think so either.”
“Then we understand each other.”
“Thank you.”
Kuura grinned. And in spite of the way Jasen hurt, despite how the muscles ached just to move—he grinned right back at him.
*
He was in a village. It spread ahead of him, and there in the distance was a peak, all but the very tip of it obscured from view by the rows of buildings leading up a gentle rise to the village center. Out here, the houses were fewer … As he turned his head—he was in a chair, apparently, one positioned on grass strewn with broken wood—he saw there were hardly any buildings at all out here: this was the village’s very edge. Just behind lay a long stretch of grass, a carpet of it that came to knee height, rolling down a hill to a wall …
He was in Terreas.
And beside him, in this debris-strewn front yard—
“You’ve come a long way,” said a voice, a woman’s. She sounded tired.
Liquid sloshed.
Jasen turned to see Shilara Gressom. She sat in a chair dragged out from the kitchen, leaning against its high back. She didn’t look at him, just looked straight out at the village itself. In her hand was a ceramic flask—whiskey—and she gave it a little shake before upending it and taking a nip.
Then she looked over to him and held out the flask. “Want a drop? You’ve earned it, by now.”
He stared at her. How—?
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You died.”
“Yep.” She withdrew the flask and took another swallow from it. “And it bloody well hurt. Damned scourge.” Another drink, her wrinkled neck rising as she swallowed. “But it was worth it though, wasn’t it?” She glanced sideways at him again. “My, oh my. Look at what you’ve become. Jasen Rabinn, commandeered a war galley.”
“I didn’t … the war galley isn’t mine …”
“Pfft. Not in name. But that shipmaster’s following you, ain’t he? Vessel’s more or less yours. You might not be at the helm, or giving orders to all those men you’ve found yourself with, but that war galley is under your charge, I’d say.” Her beady eyes lit on him, a sparkle in them. “I’d call that pretty damned impressive for a little villager boy from Luukessia.”
Jasen could not think of what to say to that. It was not true, of course, but once Shilara got an idea in her head she could not easily be dissuaded of it, and so he kept silent, turning his gaze out into Terreas instead.
Was this a dream? It must be. He recalled having retired to his cabin last night, not long after the sun went down. His bucket, the one Medleigh had fished up for him to puke his aching guts into if he awoke in the middle of the night, had been cleaned since the morning. Good—it meant his cabin did not stink of bile.
He’d gone to sleep clutching it, he remembered, one arm looped around the metal bucket like he was cuddling a toy from childhood.
So this was a dream.
Only it had none of the wrongness of his other dreams. When he came back to Terreas in his sleep, the village and its surroundings were not quite right. It was as though the place had been rearranged, and he walked through a place that was familiar but not quite right, all of its edges out of focus, like his eyes were smeared and blurry.
This Terreas was just as he remembered it. The village was sharp, the mountains in the distance clear.
There were only two small problems.
The first, and largest: this Terreas was not buried under a layer of solidified magma.
The second: the incomplete mountain, the one with the crater at the top, the very same mountain that had unleashed the explosion of lava that had crushed Terreas—it did not breathe even a single puff of smoke.
“Am I dead?” Jasen asked with sudden alarm.
Shilara chortled. “Not yet.”
“Then how—?”
“You ask too many questions. How? Why?” Shilara sipped whiskey again. The flask was down to its last quarter, Jasen would guess, because she had to tilt it way up to get her nip of the fiery liquid. “Some things, you can’t know. Some things don’t have answers.”
He frowned at that. But he shut his mouth.
There was an amiable quiet between them, for a while. Shilara sipped at her whiskey, on and off. When she was between nips, she looked out at Terreas—the little portion of it she could see, anyway, from her ramshackle cottage with the misted windows, right at the very terminus of the village.
Jasen looked out too.
A couple of fires were burning. It must be summer, going by the warmth, but nevertheless there were still at least two fires burning, smoke pluming out of chimneys and rising in high, pencil-thin streaks in this breezeless day. One must be the baker’s; Jasen could taste warm bread in the air, sweet pastries and savory ones all cooking at once, their flavors intermingling and spreading across the village, mouth-watering and oh so inviting.
This was home.
And perhaps, if he rose from this seat and walked away … maybe, just maybe, he could find his father; embrace him; tell him that he was sorry for having left without telling him, sorry for bringing him such fear in his final days—and, most of all, sorry for the fate that would befall him—that had befallen him.
He was just about to do that when:
/> “You have the heart of a warrior, Jasen.”
He peered at Shilara. “Huh?”
“You—” she pointed with the neck of her flask, “—have a warrior’s heart.”
Jasen stared.
“Oh, don’t look so bloody baffled,” said Shilara. “It’s simple enough. You’ve heard it, I can see you have, and you’re not stupid like that old codger Hanrey, so don’t ask me to try and explain it.”
“I don’t—” Jasen began blankly. “I’m not sure …”
“Oh. I see what this is. Fishing for compliments. Putting on a dumb face so I stroke your ego.”
He looked more blank than ever. “Uhm …”
Shilara chortled. “No, I’m wrong. This is stupidity. What’s happened to your brains since we last saw each other? I know you had ’em. The sorcerer rattled them so hard that they’ve pissed out of your ears?”
She took another swig of whiskey. Closer to empty, the flask came.
Jasen had a very sudden thought: the moment that flask was empty, the dream would end. He was certain of it, so totally sure.
He needed to see his father, now, before it was too late.
He gripped the arms of his seat, pressed, lifting—
“Sorry,” said Shilara. “You’re not going anywhere.”
And he was not. He was stuck fast, unable to leave the seat, like he’d been glued by the backside to it. But, no, it was more than that. He could move—but his body wouldn’t obey. He could shuffle, could shift—but his arms would not straighten, and nor would his legs.
He was a prisoner.
Panic did not come, as it might have. Disappointment, though … that washed in.
“Don’t be so down about it,” said Shilara. “You’ll see them soon—all of them.”
Jasen’s heart skipped. “My father?” He dared to add: “My mother?”
Shilara nodded. “Ayuh.” She took another swallow of whiskey. Damn, but she was putting it away. She’d always sipped at it in life, whittling down a flask’s contents slowly. But she at least paced herself. Here, now, it was like she had one destination ahead of her—drunkenness—and she jogged toward it steadily.
“As I was saying,” she went on, “your heart. A warrior’s. No one’s really got one, not in this village.” She shrugged. “Maybe one other, but she’s a got a lot of work ahead of her to become what she’s meant to be.”
“Uhm …”
“Would you shut your mouth and listen?” Shilara said. “Didn’t your parents teach you to listen to your elders?”
They had … although the village outcast was not necessarily what was meant by ‘elder.’
“We don’t have all the time in the world,” Shilara went on. She drank again, a hearty swallow. Lowering the flask, she ran the back of her hand across her lips, coating it with a thin sheen of liquid. “Now, as I was saying. No one in this village really has a warrior’s heart at present—no one but you.”
“I—”
“You’re interrupting again.”
“But I don’t understand,” Jasen protested. “How is that?”
“How isn’t it?” Shilara pointed at him. “You went after adventure when your whole life you’d been told to stay within these boundaries. You showed courage when your whole upbringing, you were shadowed by the fear of the wider world, and what lay out there for you. That is what makes you a warrior, inside.” She nipped her drink again. “You didn’t grow into it, like your cousin is. It was in you all along.”
Was it?
He searched inside, looking for this—this warriorness that Shilara said he possessed. Surely he would feel it, surely he would know it when he touched it. He felt it exuding from Huanatha and Longwell, so he knew the sensation of it … but no matter how he looked, turning the inner parts of himself over, he could not locate it.
“I don’t—” he began.
“Of course you don’t,” said Shilara swiftly. “But you are. The people around you recognize it, I can guarantee it.”
Huanatha? And Longwell?
Shilara seemed to read his thoughts: “Those two see it best of anyone.”
But how did she know—?
“A warrior’s eyes are always open,” she went on. “They are always seeing, always looking for their foe’s weakness. They search, constantly, for what is different about them—and they utilize it to stop them.”
Baraghosa.
Jasen frowned.
“But he does not have a weakness,” he said finally.
“Of course he does,” Shilara scoffed. “He is mortal, not a god. He is strong, yes, he has powers many mortals know not—but he has a weakness.”
Jasen racked his brain. “So what is it? How is he different?”
Shilara swallowed. Very close to empty now, the flask.
She peered at him, her lips wet. “You already know.”
Jasen balked. “I do?”
Shilara nodded. “Yes. You just don’t know that you know.”
He was about to ask her how, about to question how she could be so sure … but she took one final swallow, tilting her head all the way back to empty her flask of whiskey.
“Would you look at that,” she said. “I’m all out.”
She held the open flask upside down.
One drip of caramel liquid hung at the neck. The drop elongated, gravity pulling at it.
Then it broke free. It streaked down, a tiny ruby.
It landed upon the earth at Shilara’s feet—
Jasen awoke in his bed.
Longwell stood over him, Alixa silhouetted in the corridor behind him.
“Rise,” said the lance-carrier. “We are here.”
23
The country of Muratam lay on the beach-lined coast of Coricuanthi. Its heart, the place where Huanatha had ruled until Baraghosa had usurped her, was a city called Tarratam. A port city, it lay right where Muratam kissed the azure blue waters of the sea.
Arranged upon a great, steady rise inland, the entire city was built from brown stone, but banners and parapets and rugs in rich shades of blue, green, and red hung from slit windows, like jewels scattered in sand.
At the outskirts of the city, near the port, the buildings were smaller. These were homes rather than businesses, although the city certainly had its own collection of stalls, with vendors cooking in the early morning sunlight, the scents of warm, exotic spices warring for supremacy in the air. But they were far fewer than there had been at Aiger Cliffs, even though the cities both were similar in size.
There were hardly any boats docked, too.
“This port thrived when I ruled,” Huanatha growled. Her grip tightened on Tanukke’s hilt. “Trattorias will feel my vengeance for this.”
They rode a boat out, several of the Lady Vizola’s crew manning the oars. Alixa grasped them too, matching their steady cadence as they put the war galley behind them and approached the docks. Longwell lowered his lance to take up oars too.
Jasen had tried, feebly. But he was dissuaded by Kuura and Alixa, who told him just to sit, and by Shipmaster Burund, who rode out with them, in a long shore coat—and with a sword belted in a sheath at his hip.
“You’re joining us?” Longwell had asked in muted surprise.
“I, too, have listened and heard,” the shipmaster answered. “I cannot deny the truth: Baraghosa is a threat to all. I will not risk my men, but I will help to stop him, in any way that I can.”
Longwell nodded. “Thank you, Shipmaster.”
Jasen breathed a thank you too, nodding.
Burund appraised him with a steely eye. “No. Thank you—for helping me to see what my eyes and my heart were blind to. Now, let us see this done.”
Huanatha did not row either. She stood at the very tip of the rowboat, looking out over the city. Though her back was to Jasen, he could see that she was shaking her head. She wore her anger like a cloak, and it seemed to grow longer with every stroke of the oars.
Aiger Cliffs had been a ceaseless bustle, eve
n into the night, ships still pulling ashore and vendors at stalls cooking long into the night by lamplight and the coals of their own fires. Tarratam, conversely, was almost painfully quiet—literally. As the rowboat came nearer to the dock, Jasen realized there were hardly any people. Those who moved about hurried from place to place, as though they were afraid to be out in public.
They docked in silence.
Huanatha leapt from the boat before they’d finished tying it to the piling. She marched across the empty deck, her armor clanking, her footsteps one of the few noises cutting through the day.
There were trees here, thick ones with heavy, rubbery leaves unlike those in Terreas. Jasen spied birds, perched high in them, wildly colorful creatures with long, hooked beaks.
Even they seemed afraid to sing.
The party clambered off—those of them come to fight Baraghosa, anyway. The rowers who’d come from the Lady Vizola’s crew held back, anxiety etched on their faces. They kept hold of the oars, as if they might need to use them at any moment to propel themselves and their boat back out to sea.
Shipmaster Burund parted their company with a short goodbye in their own language, perhaps a promise to return. Then he turned on his heel and stepped across the dock and into Tarratam proper.
Huanatha led them, looking surprisingly relaxed, though she swept the docks with an intense, unwavering gaze. Longwell strode after her. Kuura was next. Then came Alixa. She had a dagger tied to her belt. It looked unwieldy hanging from her hip, and unwieldy in her hands when she practiced upon the Lady Vizola II’s deck. But she had taken to it as well as she could with the time they had.
Alixa kept pace with Jasen. He leaned on Scourgey, stumbling through the city.
“You should remain at the boat,” she murmured to him.
“No.”
“At least ride on her.”
A Home in the Hills Page 18