by Karen Miller
With Zandakar leading the way they continued along the dock, past row after row of looming warships. In the distance the horizon was lightening, growing paler with the approach of dawn. The night had escaped them without him noticing. Dexterity found himself beginning to panic.
What if Sun-dao's left us? What if he's sailed away? What if we took too long in the township and he thought we'd been captured, or killed? Oh, Hettie! He didn't look well. What if he's died?
But no. Sun-dao was waiting in the cramped Tzhung boat. He watched them clamber from the dock to the gently pitching deck, fingers laced before him, the ends of his long, bone-threaded moustaches dangling down his narrow, tattooed chest. Though he still looked weak, he was also furious.
“You find the Empress of Mijak? You find her son, Dmitrak?”
Dexterity glanced at Zandakar. “Ah…not precisely.”
A sharp gust of wind stirred their boat's sail, their clothing, their hair, but did not ripple the surrounding water. “I must see this empress,” Sun-dao hissed. “I must see her son. Take me to them.”
He stepped back, unsteady. “Why?”
Sun-dao rattled off something in Tzhung. From the look on his face it wasn't anything polite. “You foolish man,” he spat. “I leave emperor, I leave my witch-men, for me to do what I must do.”
“What you must do? What we must do, surely. We came to try and stop Mijak, and I think we've succeeded. We now have an ally against its empress.”
“What ally ?” said Sun-dao, scathing.
Dexterity jutted his beard at the witch-man. “Do you know, I'm not inclined to tell you. We're not answerable to you, or to your emperor. Take us home to Ethrea and we'll tell Queen Rhian. What she chooses to tell Han is entirely up to her.”
Another, stronger gust of wind. Sun-dao's sunken eyes glittered. “You stupid toymaker. Mijak must be defeated!”
“Yes, of course it must,” he retorted. “Do you think we don't know that, Sun-dao? Set one foot in the town and you can smell the blood. I can smell it still. It's quite turned my stomach.”
Sun-dao's long, unbound hair was stirring more than could be explained by a breeze. On his arms and bare torso, the inked tattoos writhed.
Dexterity stepped back another pace, almost bumping into Zandakar. He glanced sideways again. “I don't like this,” he murmured. “Something's not right.”
Sun-dao took a painful step forward. “Take me into Jatharuj. Take me to the empress.”
Heart thudding, Dexterity stood his ground. “Why?”
“Why is not your business! Take me to them now!”
“I'll do no such thing. And don't you take that tone with me, Sun-dao.” He turned to Zandakar. “Can you believe his effrontery? I'll be lodging a formal complaint when we get home.”
“ Zho ,” said Zandakar. He sounded…dangerous. As though any complaint he lodged would be lodged with a blade. “Sun-dao. I know you, I think. You came to kill empress. Kill Dmitrak. Zho ?”
What? Dexterity stared at him. “Zandakar, what are you talking about? Sun-dao wouldn't—” And then he stopped. Something dreadful and unseen was crawling over his flesh. He turned, so slowly, and looked at Sun-dao's face.
The witch-man was snarling, his tattoos frantically alive beneath his amber skin.
Oh, Hettie. Don't tell me …“Is he right, Sun-dao? Did you come here to kill them?”
Sun-dao's eyes opened wide. Now a deep crimson glow burned in their depths. Within the last few moments it seemed the flesh had melted from his face, leaving nothing but a thin papering of skin over bone. His hands were unclasped, his arms held wide.
The salt air began to crackle with power.
Dexterity swallowed. Oh, Hettie . “This is disgraceful. Wait till Queen Rhian hears what you had planned.”
Sun-dao said nothing. The witch-man looked scarcely human. And all around them a wind was rising, cold and sharp like a winter storm filled with ice, to slice frail flesh to bloody ribbons.
He turned to Zandakar. “We have to stop him. Whatever he's planning, we can't let him—”
Zandakar wasn't listening. His hand slid inside his shirt and pulled out the scorpion knife Vortka had given him. As his fingers closed around its black hilt the blue-sheened blade leapt to life with that same surge of blue light. It seemed more…violent, this time. As though the knife and Zandakar were somehow connected. The warrior's face was ugly with rage.
“Dexterity,” said Zandakar. “ Move .”
Mouth dry, heart hammering, he stared at that dreadful knife. “What are you doing? Put that thing away!”
“ Wei ,” said Zandakar. In his hand the blade shimmered, menacing. Its blue light brightened, bathing them in a cold illumination.
“Zandakar, please ! Before someone gets hurt!”
But his words were whipped away by Sun-dao's rising wind. It had a voice now, as well as sharp teeth of ice. Keening, hungry, it rocked the crowded warships on the water and whipped the harbour to white froth. Sun-dao's eyes were nearly all crimson now, and crimson sweat stood stark on his brow.
That's blood , Dexterity realised. Rollin have mercy, Hettie. The man's sweating blood .
Sun-dao's lips peeled back in a rictus of pain, or effort, or both. After all he'd done already, it was hard to believe he could do this. The wind's voice rose, its pitch too sharp to bear. Staggering left and right until he hit the boat's side, Dexterity clapped his hands over his ears but still he could hear it. The wind shrieked in his bones and his teeth chattered with cold.
Looming above them the tethered warships of Mijak plunged like wild horses. Any moment now, surely, their little Tzhung boat would be smashed to splinters between them. They'd be smeared to red paste, dead and forgotten.
“Sun-dao, stop it!” he shouted, reaching out a hand to Emperor Han's witch-man. He wished he dared seize him, but was too afraid. “You're going to kill us!”
“ Wei , Dexterity,” said Zandakar, above the screech of the wind. He stood on the boat's pitching deck as though it were a sunlit meadow, easily absorbing its unpredictable heaves. The scorpion knife in his fist was almost too bright to look at. Power seared the salty air. “Witch-man wei kill us. Kill Yuma. Kill Dmitrak. Warriors. Chalava-hagra .” His voice caught. “Kill Vortka.”
As soon as Zandakar said the words, Dexterity knew they were true. Sun-dao was summoning a wind to howl through Jatharuj and kill Mijak in its tracks. Even as he stared at the witch-man, dumbfounded, he heard smashing and crashing sounds coming from the township behind them. Horrified imagination showed him tiles ripping from roofs and windows scattering in lethal shards of glass. Trees tearing free of the soil, houses tumbling to dust.
No, no, he can't do this! It's murder. If he slaughters everyone in Jatharuj we'll be no better than Mijak.
“Sun-dao, listen to me, stop this!” he cried. “Sink the warships! Don't hurt the people! We mustn't hurt the people, I didn't come here to kill !”
I've killed once already. Never again.
Sun-dao shook his head, riding the lurching boat with ease. He stood at the storm's cold, still centre like a man carved from ice.
“What use?” he said as the wind howled harder. “Mijak will build more.”
“Perhaps, but not overnight. Sinking their fleet will at least grant us a little more time !”
“No time!” shouted Sun-dao. “Mijak must die!”
“ Wei !” howled Zandakar. “ You die, Sun-dao!”
As Dexterity watched, helpless, blue fire leapt from the scorpion blade, streaming in an eye-searing line towards the witch-man. Save for its colour it was the same fire that had poured from Dmitrak's gauntlet in Garabatsas.
Then he let out a strangled shout, because Sun-dao did not die in that dreadful stream of blue fire. Abandoning his windstorm to its own wild devices, Sun-dao held up one hand…and the blue fire shredded to pieces in the air.
Dexterity cried out as a whirling filament of blue fire seared his hand to the bone. The pain was awful. He wanted to be sick.
Sun-dao needed both hands to save himself this time. This time he staggered backwards until he hit the small boat's mast. With his spine braced against the wood, his long, thin moustaches flailing round his face, he curved his carmine-tipped fingers into talons and screamed his defiance.
And this time the witch-man did not defeat Zandakar unscathed. One shred of the blue fire licked his cheek before burning out. Terrible blisters erupted. Blood bubbled and boiled. Sun-dao screamed, a high thin cry of agony, and his windstorm collapsed.
“ Tcha !” said Zandakar, triumphant, and leapt for the witch-man. His face was an unholy mask of murderous rage.
With a despairing shout Dexterity threw himself into Zandakar's path. Zandakar stumbled and fell, shouting now with furious surprise as he sent clay pots of that dreadful salt fish tumbling to break into shards. Panting, choking, the burn on his hand still sickening him with pain, Dexterity leaned on Zandakar's heaving ribs.
“Just you lie there and listen to me!”
The last time they'd wrestled like this, Zandakar had been sore distressed, not himself, and still not at his full strength. That wasn't the case now. With terrifying speed and strength Dexterity felt Zandakar flip him over onto his back…and then his heart stopped.
The scorpion knife was pricking his throat, and in Zandakar's blue eyes the sure promise of death.
“Zandakar, don't do this,” he whispered. “If you kill Sun-dao we will never get home.”
Had the knife's blade drawn blood? He couldn't tell, he was too frightened to feel anything. Even the pain in his hand had faded, swamped by terror at the look on Zandakar's face. He could hear Sun-dao moaning somewhere behind him.
“You've stopped him, Zandakar,” he said. “Sun-dao hasn't hurt Vortka, or your mother, or your brother. They're safe. Now let's leave Jatharuj, shall we, before somebody finds us. I'd really like to go home. Please . Let's just…go.”
Provided they could go, of course. Provided moaning Sun-dao wasn't so badly hurt he couldn't whisk them back to Ethrea with his strange witch-man's powers.
Zandakar blinked. Gradually the rage faded from his face, his eyes, until it seemed almost certain he'd decided not to kill. Then, with excruciating slowness, he eased the pressure on his knife.
“ Zho ,” he said, and uncoiled to his feet. “We go now.”
For a moment Dexterity could only lie there, feeling his heart pound, hearing the air whistle in and out of his chest. His trembling fingers felt the flesh of his neck. Was he whole? Was he unbreached?
Oh, Hettie. Oh, Hettie.
Zandakar reached down his hand, all his hot feelings penned behind a cool mask. “ Yatzhay , Dexterity.”
He let Zandakar tug him upright, air hissing through his teeth as the warrior's fingers tightened on his burned hand.
“I'm all right, it's nothing,” he said as Zandakar frowned. “It's Sun-dao I'm worried for.”
Emperor Han's witch-man was conscious, but in terrible pain. The dreadful burn on his face exposed a bloody gleam of bone and his right eye was swollen to a slit, eyelashes and eyebrow completely charred away.
Dexterity felt his empty stomach heave. “Sun-dao. Sun-dao, can you hear me? Can you—”
And then he turned, startled, at the sound of shouting from the far end of the dock, at its entrance. Many voices, coming closer. He looked round at Zandakar. “Is that—”
“ Zho ,” said Zandakar grimly. The scorpion knife was still in his hand, little flickers of blue light running up and down its blade. “Warriors come.”
So. They were discovered.
“Zandakar!” he said sharply. “Don't you dare get off this boat! Knife or no knife you can't fight a whole army!”
As Zandakar hesitated, one hand on the boat's side, he turned back to Sun-dao. “Witch-man, we need you. I don't know how it is you do what you do, and frankly I don't want to know, but unless you fancy becoming one of Hekat's human sacrifices I suggest that you do it right now !”
With a hideous groan, Sun-dao staggered to his feet. “Oars,” he mumbled. “Open water.” He was swaying, the blood sweat dried garish on his face.
“You heard him, Zandakar,” said Dexterity. “Hurry!”
Scrambling, terrified, the shouting and sound of running feet coming closer, he threw himself at the nearest oar. Zandakar, the wretched knife shoved back inside his shirt, took the other one and together they inched the Tzhung boat backwards, towards a miserly stretch of open water.
Digging his muffled oar into the harbour's still-choppy surface, Dexterity stared at Sun-dao. The man looked deathly ill.
I don't think he can do it. I think this is it. Oh, Hettie, darling, I think I'm coming to join you…
Three feet from the dock. Five feet from the dock. Ten – twelve – fifteen – twenty—
A dreadful clamouring of voices, a howling of rage. A score of burning torches, lighting up the dregs of night.
“Sun-dao!” he shouted. “It's now or never! Please !”
A pain-racked voice, commanding. A gust of wind, obeying. High overhead the fading stars wheeled…
… and the world disappeared.
Hekat raged about her chamber, godbraids swinging wildly, their silver godbells discordant with her spitting fury. “ Demons ?” she shouted. “Demons in Mijak? Demons in the harbour? Vortka high godspeaker, how did you not know this? Are you grown an old man? I think you are!”
“I have warriors dead, Empress,” said Dmitrak, boldly standing before the room's shattered glass window, standing on its slicing shards, daring those shards to pierce his flesh. “I have warriors killed by demons. How can demons be here if Mijak's godspeakers are in the god's eye?”
Hekat paused her stamping long enough to spear Dmitrak with a baleful look. Then she snorted. “Tcha! My warlord says a true thing, true words spill from his tongue. Are your godspeakers wicked, Vortka? Is the god blind to them? Is the god blind to you , high godspeaker? How are there demons in my harbour of Jatharuj? ”
Vortka met her blazing eyes calmly, though his stone scorpion pectoral drubbed in time with his heart.
“You say there are demons, Empress. I say a wind blew. There are storms in the world, we have seen them in other places. Storms are not demons. The god speaks not of storms.”
“Vortka, they were seen !” Hekat spat at him. “In the harbour. They were seen !”
He did not look at Dmitrak, he looked only at Hekat. Dmitrak should not be here, it was not right that he see a high godspeaker disrespected. Hekat's anger he could stomach, she was Hekat, she was precious. But Dmitrak was not precious, he was not godchosen, he was insolent. Behind his dark eyes insolent thoughts grew like weeds.
If he had seen Zandakar, I think he would have killed him. If Hekat had seen him, he would be dead. I was right not to show them my son.
“Empress,” he said reasonably, “demons are not seen. I am high godspeaker, I know this to be true.”
“Do you call my warriors liars, do you say they tell me lies ?” snarled Dmitrak. “My warriors saw what they saw, they saw demons on the water, they saw those demons disappear!”
He could not smile, he could not laugh, he could not show Dmitrak his smiling, laughing heart. Zandakar and the burning man of Ethrea had escaped Jatharuj in the god's hiding eye. The god protected them, they had a purpose.
I have a purpose, I must tread with care.
“Then your warriors did not see demons, warlord. I am high godspeaker, this is my word.”
Would Dmitrak challenge him? He feared the boy might. Nagarak was in him, he would challenge the god.
“Then what, if not demons?” said Hekat. She stood now, by her lounge. One hand held tightly to it, all her furious stamping had
stolen her strength. “What did they see?”
“It was a fierce wind, Empress. Perhaps they saw wreckage of a ruined boat, sinking under the waves.”
“Perhaps,” she said, frowning. “Vortka, does that storm mean the trade winds return?”
Aieee, the god see him, he wanted to say yes. But he knew that would be untrue, the trade winds were gentle. “I do not think so, Hekat, I think a storm is a storm.”
Her head came up, her eyes glittered, he did not like her look. “Then when those slaves arrive that I have sent for, I will give the god its strongest blood. Ten thousand slaves come to Jatharuj to die. I weary of waiting, it is time to leave this place.”
“Empress, the warlord should leave us,” he said. “We must speak of the god.”
“We can speak of the god in front of my warlord, he serves the god as I do. We live in its eye.”
Which meant she knew what he would say and did not wish to hear it, she wished Dmitrak to stand with her and defy the god's want. He was a killing man, in this he was her true son. Like his mother, he wanted the world soaked in blood.
Vortka felt the pain of the burning man's words sear him anew. His joy at Zandakar leaving Jatharuj safely died in that pain. His heart wept, for he had failed to hear the god's true voice.
I failed before, I must not fail now. I must tell Hekat the truth until she can hear.
“I am Vortka high godspeaker, in the god's seeing eye. I swim in the godpool, I hear its voice in my heart. The god has spoken, it does not want the world. It does not want ten thousand slaves pouring out their blood. Mijak is Mijak. We are done. We are done .”
Silence. Then Hekat laughed. Her godbells laughed with her, the chamber rang with their laughter.
But her eyes are not laughing, her eyes are cold, I think she hates me. There is hate in her heart because she does not hear the god.
“Vortka, you are weary, you have slaved for the god,” she said, so angry. “Sleep and you will hear it, what you hear is not the god.”
“Perhaps he hears demons,” said Dmitrak. “Perhaps he is done.”
Vortka looked at him. “You say this to me, the god's high godspeaker of Mijak? Do you wish to tempt a smiting, should my stone scorpion wake?”