by Karen Miller
“I have known many queens, many empresses, many …” He smiled. “Women. Do you dress like a man in the hope other men will accept your rule, or is it that being a woman isn’t enough for you?”
She looked down at her not-very-queenly clothing: leather huntsman’s leggings, a leather jerkin, silk shirt. On her feet leather low-heeled half-boots. Strapped to her left hip, a knife once cherished by her brother. Its hand-polished hilt was set with tiger eye, Ranald’s birthstone. Her fingers often found it, and touched it, remembering.
“Han,” she said, looking up again, “you must think me witless if you believe I believe you’re here to comment on my choice of attire. How can I help you? What do you want?”
He plucked a fragile pink ifrala blossom from a nearby flower bed and held it to his nose, delicate as any lady-in-waiting. Breathing deeply, he smiled. “Your mother had a sweet touch in her garden, Rhian. I remember she made ifrala perfume every spring.”
She blinked. “You knew my mother?”
“Briefly.” He opened his fingers and let the blossom drift to the grass. “Rhian, why have you not convened a meeting of the trading nations? Do you think this Mijak will change its mind? Or, like a little girl, do you hope that if you close your eyes tight the spirits and demons will not see you in the dark?”
Spirits and demons. There are no such things . “If you’re so certain I’m wrong in waiting, Han, why have you not summoned the trading nations yourself?”
“If I were the ruler of Ethrea, I would.”
She folded her arms. “Why should I trust what your Sun-dao has to say? Why should I trust you? I don’t know you, Han. I only know your reputation, and the reputation of mighty Tzhung-tzhungchai. You swallow nations as I swallow a plum. Perhaps I’m the pit you think to spit out in the dirt.”
“Rhian, Rhian …” Han sounded sorrowful. “Don’t disappoint me. The Tzhung empire has swallowed no-one for nearly two hundred years. You know that. And you know my witch-man speaks the truth. The truth rots in your dungeons. It yearns for the light. It dreams of a dead wife. Zandakar is the key to defeating Mijak. How long will you leave him a prisoner when your life, and my life, and as many lives as there are stars at night depend upon him? How long will you deny the only truth that can save us?”
“Zandakar is my concern, not yours,” she said, turning away.
The Emperor sighed. “Before Mijak is tamed you must tame your disobedient dukes. The dukes are why you do not convene the trading nations. They are why you stand before me, bound hand and foot and helpless as a child. Until the dukes are tamed your crown is in danger. Zandakar is also the key to their downfall, and you know it. There is so little time until there is no time at all, Rhian. Will you let pain and pride waste these brief moments?”
“Be quiet!” she snapped, spinning to face him once again. “Who are you to come here uninvited and tell me how I should rule and who I should see? If time is so brief, if I am so helpless, take your Tzhung fleet and sink Mijak on your own!”
Han smiled. His eyes were flat and black as obsidian. “If the wind desired it, girl, then so it would be and my empire would flood with the grateful tears of the saved. The wind does not. It blows me to you.”
“I never asked it to! I never asked for this!”
“The wind does not care,” said Han. “And neither do I. Deal with your dukes, Rhian.”
Still fuming, she glared at him. “How?”
“You ask for my help?”
“I ask for your opinion!” she retorted. “My father taught me there is no shame in seeking counsel of a wise man. You are an emperor. I assume you’ve had some experience of—of—uncooperative vassals.”
His cold eyes warmed. He was amused again. “Yes.”
“Well, then?”
“Rhian, there is nothing I can tell you that you do not already know. The wind has made you a warrior. No breathing man can fight the wind.”
Perhaps that’s true. But this breathing woman can certainly try.
“You can,” said Han. “But you won’t.”
Was he inside her mind now? Or was her face less schooled than she liked to imagine? He infuriated and frightened her like no-one else she knew. “I don’t want to shed their blood, Han.”
He shrugged. “Want means nothing. Need is all.”
Tears burned her eyes, then, because she knew he was right. Hand on her knife-hilt, she blinked them away.
“Go,” said the Emperor of Tzhung-tzhungchai. “Do what you must, Rhian. Do it quickly. And when you are done, I will be waiting.”
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Karen Miller
Excerpt from The Accidental Sorcerer copyright © 2008 by Karen Miller
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Map by Mark Timmony
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Originally published in paperback by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited: 2008
First eBook Edition: January 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04079-2
Alasdair felt a flood of relief, and was ashamed. Zandakar would push Rhian, Zandakar would bully and berate and cuff her on the side of her head until she was ready to meet and defeat the dukes. He need never say another word on it. Zandakar would say it all.
He will earn her wrath and our marriage will be safe.
It occurred to him, then, so his hot blood turned cold, that he wasn't doubting Zandakar's intentions. Wasn't doubting the man would do everything in his power to keep Rhian alive and victorious. He was trusting her life to Zandakar's bloodsoaked hands… without a moment's hesitation.
Because he loves her. This murderous man is in love with my wife. I wonder what it says about me, that I'll use his love like a weapon to shield her. That I'll use him until he's all used up.
It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Rhian prevailed.
“Come then, Zandakar,” he said, and moved to the chamber door. “Let us find Rhian a sword worthy of her, so she might take her place in history.”
CHAPTER ONE
“Dmitrak.” Dmitrak kept his gaze pinned to the conquered harbour of Jatharuj, where the warships of Mijak clustered thicker than ticks on a goat. It was the time for highsun sacrifice. Ant-people swarmed down there, gathering for blood, his warriors and his slaves and all the godspeakers the empress insisted must remain. The township was over-ripe and full to bursting. Half its surviving original inhabitants had been sent to other conquered settlements, just to make room for Mijak's warhost.
My warhost. I am their warlord, they belong to me.
He did not turn. “Vortka high godspeaker.”
“Warlord, you are absent from sacrifice.”
He shrugged. “So are you.”
A sigh. “Dmitrak…”
“Did the empress send you?”
“The god sends me, Dmitrak.”
“Too busy to come itself, high godspeaker?”
“Dmitrak!” Vortka's voice grated with displeasure. “You desire another tasking, is that why you spit your words in the god's eye, do you think the god is blinded by words?”
Dmitrak swung round sharply enough that the silver godbells in his scarlet godbraids woke from slumber, clamouring his anger. “I am weary of taskings, Vortka. I will have no more of them.”
> “It is not your place to decide who is tasked, warlord,” the old man said, severe. “It is not your place to say ‘I will not come to sacrifice’. You are the warlord. Your place is at the altar when the god receives its blood.”
He turned back to the wide, shallow harbour and the wider ocean beyond it. Yes, I am the warlord. I am the god's hammer, I can strike down a godspeaker if I wish. Be careful, old man. “My place is where I say it is.”
“Your place is where the god puts you, Dmitrak,” said Vortka, his voice cold. “By its want, you are its hammer. For as long as the god sees you and no longer than that.”
Old man. Old fool. Like the empress he clung to the hope that one day the god's other hammer would return.
“Zandakar is gone, Vortka. Zandakar is most likely dead. I am the only hammer in the world.”
He almost choked on the name, to say it aloud. Thinking the name made the world shimmer red. Rage shivered a harsh keening from his godbells. His skin felt hot, his blood surged hot in his veins.
He was my brother; he turned his face from me. How dare he do that? How dare he dare?
So much time gone by, and still he could weep and kill to think of Zandakar.
“He loved you, Dmitrak,” Vortka said. His voice was cracked and chasmed with pain. “Your brother loved you. How can you doubt it? The world saw his love. He loved you in the god's eye.”
Why would Vortka say such a thing, did he think talk of Zandakar would please Dmitrak warlord? He had never said such a thing before, they had never talked of Zandakar. Nobody dared talk of Zandakar in his hearing.
You defend him, Vortka? You defend him to the man he wronged most? Tcha, you are blind, you tell yourself lies.
Vortka's defence of treacherous Zandakar pricked him to speak, when silence would be better. “He loved his stinking piebald bitch more.”
“And for that you tried to kill him?” said Vortka, angry again. “Aieee, warlord, you do not understand. A man may love a brother and also a wife. Even if—” He sighed, a sound of sorrow. “Even if the wife was a mistake. He loved that wrong woman, he did not stop loving you. He begged I never tell the empress you attempted his life, he spoke of you every highsun he was kept by my hand. Grieving and desolate, sometimes close to losing his mind, still he thought of you. Warlord, you should have a softer heart.”
Dmitrak raised his right arm, let his gold-and-crystal fingers fist. Summoned the power so the crimson stones glowed. “You should guard your old man's tongue, I will burn it in your mouth if you do not take my advice.”
“Dmitrak…”
Vortka sounded sorry again. Sorry, but beneath the regret a thread of fear. Good .
“You cannot hate forever,” said the foolish old man. “Hate will shrivel your heart, it will poison your godspark.”
Dmitrak grimaced into the wind. The high godspeaker was wrong, hate was more potent than the date wine of Icthia. Hate filled a man's belly, it strengthened his bones.
“Tcha, Vortka, you are stupid. The god hates. The god hates its enemies and tasks me to smite them, the god hates demons and weaklings. I am its hammer born to break them apart.”
“The god hates its enemies, yes,” agreed Vortka. “If we see the god in our hearts we must hate its enemies also, this is a true thing. Dmitrak, Zandakar was never your enemy.”
Zandakar again! Was the old man eager to lose his tongue? “Did I ask you to come here and grind your teeth on that name? I think I did not, Vortka. I think you think I will not smite you. I will.”
“You smite where the god wills, you smite nowhere else,” said Vortka, once more severe. “You are warlord, you have power, you have less power than the god. I am Vortka high godspeaker, I am in the god's eye. You will not smite me, Dmitrak.”
He looked over his shoulder. “No? Then why are you afraid?”
Vortka met his stare, unblinking. “Why are you, if Zandakar is gone?”
A hot pain stabbed through him. Sometimes at night, if he was not sated with female flesh or date wine, he dreamed of his brother, of the days when they were friends. He remembered laughter and horse races and the feel of a strong, warm hand on the back of his neck. Sometimes he woke from those dreams wet with tears.
Weak men weep, I am not weak. I am Dmitrak warlord, the god's hammer, doom of demons.
He shifted till he stood sideways to the harbour. “When does the god say we must sail from Jatharuj to this island called Ethrea?”
“Not yet,” said Vortka.
Not yet. Always the same answer. “The slave sailors talk of trade winds, they say the trade winds are weak. They should not be weak. What does the god say to you in the godpool, Vortka? Why do the trade winds lose their strength? We cannot sail to this Ethrea if the winds are too weak to fill our sails. The slaves cannot row there, they will die in their chains.”
“The godpool is godspeaker business, Dmitrak,” said Vortka. “It is not for you to ask or me to answer.”
And what did that mean? Did Vortka not know? Did the god not tell him why the winds had grown weak?
If Zandakar had asked him, Vortka would answer.
“My warhost grows restive, high godspeaker,” he said, thrusting aside the sour thought. “Icthia is conquered. The lands behind it are conquered. The world lies in front of us, out there —” He waved an arm at the gently seething ocean. “My warhost trains newsun to lowsun, it knows these boats, Vortka, it knows how to sail. We are in the world to kill demons for the god, there are demons in Ethrea. Why are we still here ?”
Vortka's godbraids were as silver as his godbells, they were weighted with amulets so his head was heavy to turn. His scorpion pectoral clasped ribs bare of flesh. He was an old man, older than the empress, but an agelessness was in him, as though he could never die.
He would die if I killed him, if the hammer struck him he would die.
Vortka's sunken eyes were bright with anger. “Dmitrak, you tempt the god to a great smiting. You are its hammer, you make no demands. The warhost is in Jatharuj until the god says it is not. Do you say to me you will tell the god what it desires?” His hand lashed out. “Tcha ! You sinning boy!”
Dmitrak stared at him, his face stinging from the blow. He did not need to look to know his gauntlet had caught fire, that power pulsed from his blood to the red stones, making them glow, waking in them their yearning for death.
Why can he strike me when I cannot strike back?
Suddenly he was a child again, cowering before the empress his mother, stinging from her careless blows because he danced too slowly in the hotas , because he slumped astride his pony, because – because—
Because I am Dmitrak, I am not Zandakar.
“Dmitrak…”
The rage had died from Vortka's lined face, the heat in his dark eyes had cooled to – to – pity.
“You are the god's hammer, you are in the god's eye,” said Vortka. “You serve the god, you serve it well, do not tempt it to smiting. Do not let anger lead you astray, Dmitrak. The empress needs you. She will not admit it.”
Aieee god, the scorpion pain inside him. I am a man grown, I need no bitch empress to need me. He let the gauntlet cool, pulled the burning power back into himself. I need no brother, I need no-one. I am the hammer.
“Dmitrak warlord,” said Vortka. “The warhost looks to you, you are its father and its mother and its brother. You must come to sacrifice, you must kneel for tasking, you must be Mijak's warlord as Raklion was warlord before you.”
He felt his lips thin to a sneer. “Not Zandakar?”
“Zandakar…” Vortka looked away, to the ocean, to the horizon at its distant edge. A terrible suffering was in his old face. “Your brother lost his way, Dmitrak. He was a great warlord until he was not, and when he was not the god smote him for his sinning. There is no mercy in it for the weakness of men. Sinning men die, how many times have I seen this? Sinning men are broken, the god hammers them to pieces. Are you stupid, Dmitrak? Do you think the god will not hammer you?”
He will choose her over me, he will never see she is used up. He is blinded by Hekat. He is blinded by love. Does he think I am blind, I cannot see it? Zandakar blinded, Vortka blinded, love is a blinding thing. I keep my eyes.
“When have I not served the god, Vortka?” he demanded. “Cities are rubble because I serve the god. Blood flows like rivers because I serve the god. My blood boils and burns me because I serve the god. I sweat newsun to lowsun because I serve the god. I live in its eye, the god is all that I see. But you stand there and say I do not serve it? Tcha!”
Vortka looked at him steadily, hands relaxed by his sides. In the bright sunshine his stone scorpion pectoral glowed. “You do not serve the god if you keep from sacrifice, Dmitrak. You do not serve the god if you say ‘I will not be tasked’. Pain keeps your heart pure. Pain purges your godspark of sin. Pain keeps you in the god's eye, it sees your pain and knows your obedience. In your cries it hears your love.”
He had cried in tasking so often the god should be dead of his love by now. He had been tasked from small boyhood more times than he could count. Breathe too deeply, too often, the empress sent him for tasking. Dance too swiftly, too slowly, the empress sent him for tasking. Speak too loudly…speak at all…the empress sent him for tasking.
If I had died in the godhouse she would not have shed a tear.
That should not matter, he should not care if she cared. Yet he did care and it burned him, as the god's power burned him when he set his gauntlet on fire.
“When you kneel for tasking,” said Vortka, “your warhost sees you serve the god, your warriors know their warlord is seen, they know their warlord is in the god's eye. Can you look in my eye, Dmitrak, and tell me it does not matter?”