Power's Shadow

by Richard Parks

  “Well then,” Marta said. “May we all conclude whatever business holds us here as quickly as possible.”

  Ω

  12 rockier than mountains

  “Prepare for what you know, but expect what you do not know and yes, that is a contradiction in terms. You’ll find that this happens a lot, so best to get used to it.”—Black Kath’s Tally Book

  It was three days before Marta and Sela saw Callowyn again, though news of the treaty signing had already reached them. In truth what citizens of the city they had spoken to could talk of little else. When Callowyn arrived at the dock in one of Count Maton’s carriages, she was still in Court attire, but a different one than her first foray into diplomacy. Marta and Sela could see her peering out one of the windows, but she didn’t get out.

  “What is she doing?” Sela asked, and Marta smiled.

  “I think I know. Come on, let’s go greet the conquering ambassador.”

  They walked down the gangplank and onto the dock, then down to the street where Callowyn’s carriage waited. The first words out of the Representative from the Five Isles were, “Are they gone? My crew, I mean.”

  “Yes, Captain. All out on errands, as you requested.”

  Callowyn let out a gusting sigh. “Thank the gods for that.”

  She finally opened the door to the carriage. The driver had hopped down by this time and offered to help her down, but she waved him off and reached back into the carriage to produce an elongated bundle wrapped in oilcloth. “Let’s go aboard,” she said. “If one of my men were to see me like this I’d never live it down.”

  “Would it be horrible of me to suggest that they might have to get used to it?” Marta asked.

  “Very,” Callowyn said as they went aboard. “Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind as well. Honestly, I knew the cost of losing, but I never stopped to think through all the implications of winning. That has a high cost as well, it seems.”

  “First chance I get,” Sela said, “I’m putting my armor back on.”

  “For our trip into the mountains, I’d say it’s likely appropriate,” Marta said as they entered the cabin. Callowyn put her bundle down on the small table that served as a stand for charts and logbook.

  “On that. I know we will be parting soon, and it is time I held up our end of the bargain. Here is the sword called Sunset, as agreed.”

  Sela unwrapped the cloth and pulled out the sword. It only took her a few seconds to confirm the blade’s identity. “Thank you,” was all she said.

  Callowyn frowned. “I thought the blade now belongs to Lady Marta.”

  “It does,” Sela said, “but then, my goal was never to own them, other than the one my father gave me.”

  Marta closed her eyes for a few moments and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Done as agreed. Your father’s debt to me is paid.”

  Callowyn brushed her fingers along one of the beams forming the deck above them. “You’re welcome to stay aboard the Blue Moon for the time being,” she said. “I won’t be departing for a while yet. King Elion is sending a delegation to my father’s court and I’ll be accompanying them, of course. Such things apparently take time to arrange….”

  “No more than a few days more, I promise,” Marta said. We too have a little business to take care of before we depart.”

  “I’m thinking, after this, I won’t be aboard this ship so much. I have a suspicion that my duties will be changing,” Callowyn said wistfully.

  “Say rather expanding,” Marta said. “Now that the trade routes are to be…unencumbered, shall we say, won’t your father want to explore his options? There have been reliable reports dating back many years of other lands to the south and east, but with the Five Isles controlling the sea lanes, it was never practical for the other kingdoms to reach out to them, nor was there much need for you to do so. Your privateers will need new occupations, so why shouldn’t the Five Isles explore and perhaps open new trade? Your location is ideal.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Callowyn said, and her expression brightened. “I’d love to go take a look at what’s there.”

  “You can’t be attending balls and court functions all the time,” Sela said.

  “I would if King Elion had his way,” Callowyn said, and she smiled a faint smile. “I’m on my way to another such as soon as I leave here. Bless the man, but I think he likes me.”

  “I have no advice in that regard,” Marta said. “But good luck, whatever you choose to do.”

  “And to you, Lady Marta. Perhaps we’ll meet again…though I’ll be careful not to ask any favors of you. No offense intended.”

  “Nor taken. You learn quickly,” Marta said. “I’ve always liked that about you.”

  When Callowyn’s carriage had departed, Marta turned to Sela. “I need to go speak with Count Maton. It doesn’t concern you directly, but you’re welcome to come with me.”

  “I’d like that, but I promised to meet Prince Dolan in the archives. He thinks he’s found another reference which might have a bearing on our search…I don’t know. He wasn’t very specific.”

  “Which means he chose not to be so. Or perhaps he just wants to see you again.”

  Sela scowled. “You’re teasing me.”

  “I am? It wasn’t my intention.”

  “I—oh, never mind. I’ll walk with you as far as Count Maton’s villa, if you don’t mind. His Highness better have a good reason, is all I can say.”

  “A man who doesn’t realize he’s flirting and a woman who doesn’t realize she’s being flirted with,” Marta said. “I’m sure that will end well.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Sela said.

  Marta smiled. “This time I think you’re right. Let’s be off, then.”

  Neither said anything for most of the walk toward the city’s center, though Sela kept glancing up and around as if she expected to find something, but that something never materialized.

  “I still feel as if we’re being watched,” she said finally. “I’ve felt that way almost since we arrived here.”

  “I think you might be right,” Marta said. “I would attribute it to some plot of Duke Okandis, but I’ve come to the conclusion that he has nothing to do with it.”

  Sela frowned. “Based on what?”

  “Based on the nature of the spy. We’ll know if I’m right soon enough. For now, this is where we part. Say hello to the prince for me.”

  “If I can get a word in,” Sela said. “He does tend to talk when he’s on the trail.”

  Sela continued toward the Royal Archives while Marta presented herself at the gate to Count Maton’s village. She was quickly ushered inside. She found the man in his library. Several books were open on the table beside the chair where he sat, but he wasn’t reading any of them. He appeared lost in thought, but he rose as soon as Marta entered.

  “Welcome, Lady Marta.”

  “Thank you. Pardon me if this seems to personal, but you appear to be troubled.”

  “Not troubled…exactly. More confused. I feel—“

  “As if something is missing?” Marta finished.

  He looked at her intently. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”

  She nodded. “I thought you might. What’s missing is the Debt. It created a connection between first you and my mother, then you and I, and you’ve lived with that connection for many years. That connection is no longer there, and what you feel is its absence.”

  “It’s…gone? I’m no longer—“ He stopped himself, but Marta just smiled.

  “In my service? The answer is ‘no.’ The services you’ve rendered over the last several days were of great value to me, and they have discharged your obligation. Only the Debt knows its true extent, and when it is satisfied. When the connection is broken, I feel it just as you do. That is what I came to tell you today. I felt I owed you that much at least.”

  “I hardly even know what to do now,” Count Maton said, slipping rather heavily back into his chair.
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  “Celebrate, would be a reasonable response,” Marta said. “It’s what I would do.”

  Count Maton smiled then. “My years of indenture were long, but I feel fortunate. They were by no means unpleasant.”

  “You were fortunate,” Marta said. “You were able to discharge your debt by continuing to be who you were before. Not everyone can say the same.”

  “I am all too aware of that. Thank you.”

  Marta inclined her head just slightly. “Goodbye, Count Maton. I will count you even more fortunate and me less so if we never meet again.”

  He rose, and accepted her extended hand. “Goodbye, Lady Marta. Large though my obligation might have been, I can’t help but feel that it was as nothing compared to your own.”

  “You have a kind heart, Excellency. Try not to let it get you into trouble again.”

  He frowned. “Your mother told you the circumstances of my original debt? She must have, since you weren’t even born then.”

  Marta almost smiled. “No. But I’ve come to know you a bit in our time together, which is almost the same thing.”

  Once out of Count Maton’s villa Marta paused in the street. She briefly considered joining Sela and Prince Dolan at the Archives, but decided against it. Instead she followed the road to the west gate of the city and walked out beyond the city walls.

  Curious…

  There had been no need to defend Amurlee’s walls for several hundred years. Marta had expected to find crafters and tradespeople and even private homes grown up along the land route to Amurlee’s western gate, but the countryside beyond the walls was surprisingly empty. She did see a few fishing docks and a market closer to the beach, but the road itself and the grassy, rolling hills to the west of the city were almost deserted. As the road turned northwest Marta did not turn with it, but rather kept her path parallel to Amur Bay and followed the land even as it began to rise into bluffs the farther she walked from the city. She stopped near the crest of one rise and looked out over the water. The sound of the surf below was muted enough that she could hear the sound of wings and Bonetapper flew down to land on her left shoulder.

  “What did you find out?” she asked.

  “You were definitely being followed. You’re being followed now.”

  Bonetapper pointed his beak at a flock of seagulls working the shoreline.

  “The seagulls were here when I arrived,” Marta pointed out.

  “See that one? All the others have black-tipped wings, but those are pure white. That one was in the city. Now it’s here, where you are. And it’s clearly not with the others.”

  It only took a few moments for Marta to see that Bonetapper was right. The other gulls were closer to the water, but that one held back, a little higher, a little closer to shore. A little more in full view of Marta.

  “It’s a servant,” Marta said.

  “That was my guess,” Bonetapper said dryly. “But why would another witch be spying on you?”

  “That is a very good question, one perhaps worth trying to answer. I want you to deliver a message to the gull. It likely will pretend not to understand. That doesn’t matter.”

  “What shall I say?”

  “Tell the gull that its master and I will need to talk, sooner or later.”

  Marta didn’t wait for Bonetapper to report back, but rather resumed her walk as soon as the raven took off again. As she walked, she let the question of the spying witch sink into the background of her awareness. There was something else tugging at her consciousness, a connection not unlike the Debt, but it felt more of kinship than obligation. Marta had heard the stories of a place near Amurlee that was a seat of ancient power, but also that it was something that had long since passed out of this world. What Marta had heard were just rumors and stories that her mother had once amused Marta with when she was little more than a toddler. Not to be taken seriously, perhaps, but entertaining for a child. What Marta felt now, on the other hand, that was real, even if she had no idea what it was or what it might mean.

  Is this it?

  Marta looked around at where she was. To her left was the edge of a bluff followed by a thirty-foot drop to a narrow sand beach. To her right was a grove of oaks on a grassy hillock. They seemed out of place. There were other trees scattered about the shoreline, but the soil there was sandy and poor, and most of the trees she’d seen were stunted and scraggly. The trees of the grove appeared to be no different than one might find in an inland forest. Considering that Amurlee was a ship-building port and those oaks contained good quantities of timber, she was amazed that the grove hadn’t been harvested. More than amazed, actually—puzzled.

  These trees should not be here.

  Yet they were. Marta walked up to the grove, hesitated at the first oak she came to and touched it briefly with her fingertips, and knew that this was what she had been searching for. What power had been there before at one time was gone now, or perhaps had transformed into something different than what it once had been. What Marta felt she thought of as like what a hunter might have heard as the leaves rustled somewhere in a nearby thicket but the game, whatever it might be, remained hidden.

  It was here…is still here?

  Marta wondered if she had touched on a Law, but after a few moments had to shake her head. Not a Law. Nothing, perhaps, that she was capable of understanding. She felt something close by that she had yet to grasp, but she did know that the grove was the place to look for it. She went inside.

  It was only when she’d passed the first few oaks that she realized that the grove wasn’t a grove, but rather a wide ring of trees no more than four deep. In the center were what looked like what had once been the foundation of a small cottage, now covered in weeds and vines.

  “Strange, isn’t it?”

  For a long moment the realization that she was not alone in the grove failed to sink in. When it finally did, Marta could have kicked herself for being so careless. Yet there was no one in her immediate vicinity and it took her several long moments to locate the source of the voice.

  A figure sat with his back to an old oak tree on the opposite side of the clearing. He—at least the voice sounded like a man’s—was dressed in the brown robes of an ascetic and his hood was up, so she couldn’t get more than a glimpse of his face.

  Why did I not see him?

  Marta stood very still for a moment. “Pardon me, but what is strange?”

  “This.” He waved a hand at their surroundings, including the grove and the foundations. “She’s been gone for seven hundred years, and yet no one will touch this place. Don’t you find that a bit curious?”

  “When you say she—“

  “I mean Taleera of Amurlee, of course. You’re Black Kath’s daughter. I thought you’d come here, sooner or later.”

  Marta felt a chill. “Who are you?”

  “I know you’re a smart young woman,” the man said. “You’d have to be, to get Conmyre and the Five Isles anywhere near to a civil relationship, but right now you’re asking the wrong questions. You’ll have to trust me when I tell you two things. One, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and two, at the moment who I am does not matter in the least. What does matter is that you locate Master Solthyr’s swords. As you’ve long suspected, they are critical to finding the Law you seek.”

  Marta scowled. “How do you know about that?”

  She still couldn’t see his face, but she could swear that he was smiling.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  Marta took a deep breath. “Fine. What about, ‘why am I here?’ It wasn’t just idle curiosity. I’ve felt a pull from this place since I arrived. Not a Law, exactly, but something.”

  “Very good. What you’re feeling is, I believe, your connection. What do you know about the Witch-kind?”

  “Not a great deal. Mother told me tales of people who could draw magic from the land itself, in olden times, and Taleera of Amurlee was said to be the most powerful of all. I thought they were just stories.�
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  “No, all too true. Where you’re standing now and I’m sitting was once a witch-home, and this entire area plus Amur Bay was the source of Taleera’s power. She was a real person, make no mistake, and she possessed a wild and chaotic sort of magic. Then two hundred years after her time the application of magic was something different yet again, still not the ordered system that is the Arrow Path, which of course came much later. In another hundred years, perhaps Amaet will have come up with something else.”

  “You’re saying that all these types of magic came from Amaet?”

  “No, I’m saying that Amaet is refining and experimenting with magical systems in order to get what she wants. Which, I’m both happy and sad to say, has not yet happened. Or did you really believe the obligation of the Debt, and the service of ones like yourself was her ultimate goal?”

  “I don’t care about her ultimate goal,” Marta said. “I care about freeing myself of the Debt.”

  “What makes you think they’re not the same thing? Honestly, Marta. Do you really think that your mother could not free herself of the Debt?”

  Marta’s scowl could have etched steel. “Since you won’t tell me, I don’t know who you are, or what your interest in these matters may be, but that is nonsense!”

  He cocked his head within the hood. “Really? What makes you say that?”

  “My mother would never have remained in service to Amaet if she had a way to free herself!”

  “Certain of that, are you?” he asked, calm as a glassy sea.

  “I am! What possible reason could she have to remain within the Debt?”

  “Finally,” he said. “A very good question indeed. If I were you, I’d want to know the answer to that one. By the way, you do know you’re being shadowed, don’t you? Another interested party in the Law you seek?”

  “I did. Are you saying there’s a threat?”

  “There’s always a threat. And an opportunity. The two are almost the same thing. We’ll talk again,” he said.

  “I’m not doing anything until you tell me—“

  Marta stopped, suddenly aware that she was talking to herself. The man in the hooded robe was gone, vanished utterly in the time it had taken her to blink.