by Martha Wells
“At least we don’t have to worry about something coming at us from that direction,” Gerard said, relieved. He started cautiously toward the gray light. Tremaine followed and as they drew closer Gerard waved the spell light out of existence. Once it was gone, Tremaine could tell that was daylight ahead, with that gray tinge of sunlight filtered through the clouds and mists that perpetually hung over the island.
It came from around a half wall probably meant to block wind and rain from the chamber; as Tremaine carefully peeked around it she saw that the wall was perched on the ledge of a large sea cave. A wide staircase curved down to a gravel beach and a rolling surf. The cave had a low opening to the outside, barely a few feet above the waves. She looked around, frowning, for a way to the surface, and saw a smaller branch of the staircase curved up, climbing the rock to a narrow doorway high in the cave wall. She could just see gray clouds through it and a cluster of the purplish creeping vines that infested the island’s jungle.
Right, she thought in relief, if we can get to the harbor cave, maybe fix one of those wrecked boats, or build a raft or something, enough to get to the mainland and send a real boat back for the others… Gerard interrupted her thoughts, saying with quiet satisfaction, “And that explains a great deal.”
“What?” She stared at him, then followed his gaze. Farther up the beach, gray wood against gray rock, was a battered little sailboat. Even sheltered in this cave, the weather hadn’t done it much good. Its anchor had kept it from washing away, but storms had pushed it up against the rock too many times, splintering the fine wood of the hull. The stained white sails lay in a tangle of lines in the bottom and the little mast had broken, probably from being thrown against the cave walls by high waves. Anchor, Tremaine realized abruptly, starting down the steps, white sails. Syprian boats used carved stones as anchors and their sails were all dyed. “That’s a Rienish boat.”
“Yes, remember Nicholas said that he and Arisilde took a small boat through their first circle, so they could reach the island,” Gerard said, following her. “After Nicholas left him, Arisilde must have been drawn here somehow and stayed to explore.”
Tremaine reached the battered boat, stumbling a little in the soft sand. There was nothing left in the hull except worn ropes. If Arisilde had left anything behind here, it had long since washed away. She nodded to herself. “So we found where he started. We just need to find where he finished.”
Ilias waited, watching the circle, arms folded to conceal the fact that his palms were sweating. It gets harder every time, he thought. Maybe he had never properly appreciated what Karima and Halian felt, or what Irissa and Amari had felt, watching him and Giliead go off into the unknown over and over again. Nearby, Giliead paced impatiently.
The older Aelin were mostly sitting around on the floor a little distance away, talking among themselves now that the only Rienish who could speak their language had gone. Balin sat near enough to listen, but didn’t speak to them. She stared at them as if they were some strange thing she couldn’t quite fathom, and they, apparently tiring of the rude scrutiny, were ignoring her. Aras stood nearby, the shooting weapon still over his shoulder, seeming more lost in thought than on guard. Cletia and Cimarus were more alert. Ilias knew Cimarus, at least, still stung from the critique of his performance as a guard that Ilias and Giliead had given him after he had let Balin walk out of the mountain caves.
Giliead stiffened suddenly, reaching for his sword, spinning to face the center of the chamber. “That circle—”
Ilias felt the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. He shouted to Cletia and Cimarus, “Gardier!” After an instant of startled hesitation, both bolted for the nearest doorways. Aras hesitated, lifting the rifle, and the Aelin stared in confusion. Ilias drew his sword, saying hopelessly, “It can’t be. Gerard broke the circle we came through.”
“It’s a different circle, it’s that one over—” Giliead started forward, just as a dozen Gardier popped into existence in a circle not twenty paces away.
Ilias plunged forward but something struck him with all the force of a charging bull. It knocked him backward and he hit the floor, losing his grip on his sword as his head banged into the stone. Dazed, he thought, They were prepared this time. It was that damn curse, the one that blasted the strength from your legs, except this time it had struck his whole body. His chest felt heavy and he could barely draw in a breath. He heard a thump next to him and managed to turn his head enough to see Giliead sprawled nearby. It didn’t work on him, it couldn’t work on him, he thought, horrified. Then he saw Giliead’s chest move as he breathed, far more freely than Ilias could; he closed his eyes briefly in relief.
Ilias heard cries of fear from the Aelin and managed to crane his neck to see past Giliead. Some of the Aelin who had been standing closer were sprawled helpless on the floor, but Aras was still on his feet; the Capidaran man had been too far away for the curse to reach him. But he held his weapon uncertainly. Craning his neck further, Ilias saw why.
The Gardier had spread out and one had caught the Aelin boy, Lomin, and held one of the smaller shooting weapons to his head. Elon suddenly started forward, speaking urgently. A shooting weapon fired, a sharp crack echoing off the stone, and Elon staggered backward and fell.
The Aelin cried out in horror. Ilias gritted his teeth as he remembered vividly what those weapons could do. One of the other Gardier had the small crystal that translated Gardier words to Rienish; he shouted at Aras, “Put the weapon down, now!”
The Gardier must not want to use their curse to destroy the shooting weapon. They think he’s Gerard, Ilias thought. They don’t want to risk killing him. Cletia and Cimarus, concealed in the shadows of the doorways, could only take two of the Gardier with the bows. The others would have plenty of time to kill several of the Aelin. Aras seemed to realize this as well; he carefully lowered the weapon to the floor, holding up his hands.
Another Gardier moved forward, standing over Ilias, between him and Giliead. Ilias saw that the man held one of the big melon-sized crystals, the ones inhabited by the dead soul of a wizard, which controlled the gate curses and the flying whales. The man holding it was young, barely older than Cimarus, with an almost boyish face. Or it would have been boyish, except for the glint of small crystal fragments embedded in his forehead and cheek. Ilias winced, his stomach wanting to turn. The flesh around the crystals was only a little green, so the boy hadn’t had them long. With a bored expression, the young Liaison looked around at the Aelin, the frightened adults, the children huddled in terrified silence; he spoke sharply, gesturing with his free hand.
What is Gil waiting for? Ilias thought in exasperation. They had to do something, whatever it was. Tremaine and Gerard could return any moment. He saw Giliead staring up at the large wizard crystal cradled in the Liaison’s arm. His face was set in a grimace of effort, as if… He’s talking to it? Ilias wondered. Oh, no, not again.
Ilias heard more incomprehensible shouting in the Gardier language and twisted his head to see Balin on her feet, hands out in a placating gesture, speaking rapidly. Another Gardier asked a sharp question and Obelin shook his head, giving back an angry answer. The old woman Eliva, obviously more canny, interrupted with a softer response, trying to seem baffled and helpless. Balin spoke in appeal again and the Gardier hesitated, looking back toward the Liaison. Ilias fervently wished Obelin would shut up and let Eliva do the talking; it looked as if the Liaison wanted to simply kill the Aelin, and that Balin was trying to stop them. He noticed none of the Aelin had pointed to Cletia’s or Cimarus’s hiding places, or to the passage that led to the room where Vervane watched over the injured Meretrisa.
The Liaison didn’t look as if he was persuaded. He started to speak, then frowned, one hand going to the crystal in his temple. His gaze swept the room suspiciously. Giliead’s eyes narrowed in concentration, and if the man glanced down at him, surely he would notice. Ilias made a frantic effort to move and just managed to heave himself over onto his
side. The Liaison made a sharp exclamation and kicked him in the stomach. Grimacing, Ilias rolled helplessly away from the blow, unable even to double up around the pain.
But it was the Liaison who cried out, staggering back suddenly, his hand going to his head, clawing at the little crystal. And every shooting weapon in the room suddenly burst into pieces, the Gardier shouting in alarm, dropping the steaming-hot fragments. The curse pinning Ilias to the floor was suddenly gone; he rolled to his feet, snatching up his sword on the way. He hamstrung the nearest Gardier and finished him off with a slash across the throat. He looked around in time to see the Gardier running, falling with arrows in their backs as Cimarus and Cletia advanced. Aras was grappling with another one. The Aelin, apparently in no doubt about whose side they were on, chased and tackled the others, shouting angrily. Giliead was on his feet, just pulling his sword out of the Liaison’s chest.
Ilias killed two more Gardier stupid enough to run from the Aelin and blunder into him, and Giliead killed another, then it was over. They had seven Gardier prisoners whom the Aelin rapidly trussed up with Cimarus’s help, Vervane hurriedly bringing rope from their supplies. Elon was alive, though bleeding badly from the stomach; Davret and Eliva crouched beside him, trying to stanch the wound. There were a few other wounded on their side, as two of the older Aelin had broken bones from being flung to the ground by the falling curse. The boy Lomin had a burned cheek and singed hair from when the shooting weapon had burst apart so close to his face, but Ilias counted him lucky.
Aras took a chunk of rock and began to rub out one of the symbols on the circle the Gardier had come through; Ilias thought it would buy them some time, but not much. He moved back to Giliead’s side, just as Giliead lifted the big wizard crystal and smashed it on the floor. Ilias grimaced, skipping aside as the white light trickled out of it, flowing across the blue-gray stone in rivulets, vanishing into the cracks. Giliead pushed to his feet, absently brushing the fragments off his hands. “I made a deal with it,” he explained. “I told it if it helped us, I’d kill it.”
“That’s what it wanted?” Ilias circled around the fragments to stand next to him. It was certainly what he would want if he was trapped bodiless inside a rock, slave to the Gardier, even if he was a wizard.
Giliead nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “I think it used to be Rienish. It wasn’t like the woman, the one in the crystal we took from the Gardier world. I think it remembered who it was.”
Ilias winced in pity. Then he took a sharp breath, looking up at Giliead. “The crystals can’t do curses on their own. You did it. You made the Liaison’s head hurt, you made the shooting weapons break. It just helped you.” He hadn’t forgotten about the judgment looming over them, but he had pushed it to the back of his mind. For the past few days he had been more worried about whether they would ever find their way back to a familiar place again.
Giliead nodded slowly. “The god can only reject me once.”
Ilias swore, shaking his head, though he supposed Giliead was right. Giliead gave him a quick smile and ruffled his hair, telling him not to worry. Ilias glared at him, planning to worry anyway.
Giliead started to speak, then flinched, turning to face the other end of the chamber. Alerted, Ilias looked back in time to see Tremaine and Gerard reappear in their circle. He took a sharp breath in relief. In the puff of foreign air that had come with them he caught the strong scent of the sea and a lingering foul odor that was oddly familiar.
“We found the island!” Tremaine called out. “The Isle of Storms. There’s a circle, hidden in a blocked-off part of the city—”
Ilias stared; he thought he had been prepared for anything. He looked at Giliead. “Did you hear that?” The island was only half a day’s sail from the mainland, from Andrien, from Cineth. From the god. Now they were nearly home, and he wasn’t ready.
“I never thought I’d be glad to see that place again,” Gerard was saying.
“Me neither,” Tremaine told him, stepping out of the circle. “Hey, Gerard and I were trying to think if we should all go to the island immediately, or wait until we can send to Cineth for some help and—” He saw her face change abruptly as she took in the dead Gardier, the live Gardier prisoners, and the wounded Aelin. “Go immediately, right.”
They scrambled to gather their supplies and Giliead carried the injured Elon to the circle, while Cimarus brought the still-unconscious Meretrisa. The Aelin, frightened and shaken, didn’t have to be persuaded to leave their belongings in the flying whale behind. Obelin spoke to Tremaine, who translated, “He says now he sees what we mean about the Gardier.”
They all barely fit in the circle. Tucking an Aelin girl in behind him, Ilias found himself standing next to Balin. Her eyes were intent, and he knew she was thinking of bolting at the last instant. “Go ahead,” he told her, though she wouldn’t understand the words. She looked at him, her pale eyes as startled as if a goat had spoken to her. “Run from the truth.” She had seen these people, heard their story, and seen what her own people were willing to do to them; she had to realize she had been lied to or she was a bigger fool than all the other Gardier put together.
Balin tensed, then subsided.
The chamber winked out, darkness closing in abruptly. Ilias winced in anticipation and the smell hit him an instant later. This is the Isle of Storms, all right, he thought in relief. Nothing produced that odor like generations of death and curses and putrefaction.
Over the startled murmurs of the Aelin, Giliead turned to Gerard. “They can hear us using these circles. They were listening for it, and when you used this one, they knew it. They weren’t sure exactly where we were, but they were close.”
Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Gerard nodded slowly. “I very much believe you’re right.”
Chapter 12
Tremaine sat on a rock on the cave’s little beach, watching Aras examine what was left of the sailboat while Gerard paced. His boots crunching on the gravelly sand, he muttered, “I don’t understand this. I can see how they’re able to detect etheric gateways opening nearby when we use the mobile gates. Opening one in the same area several times again, or moving something the size of the Ravenna through even once, will cause a huge etheric disturbance. Yet they were able to track us through the point-to-point gates.”
Tremaine nodded. “So the Gardier were at another junction, listening or whatever it is they do, waiting until we used a point-to-point circle again so they could narrow their search down.”
Gerard gestured helplessly. “At least this makes it less likely that they captured a copy of the new circle Arisilde gave us.”
“Wait, wait.” Tremaine wearily pushed her lank hair out of her face. After so many hours without real sleep she was beginning to fade, and nothing was making much sense anymore. “We know Meretrisa told Gardier spies about it in Capistown—”
Aras, thoughtfully kicking the boat’s battered hull, looked up, affronted. “We know no such thing. There is no proof against Meretrisa but your word. No one associated with the Ministry would be so disloyal.”
Gerard stopped pacing to regard him silently. Tremaine lifted a brow. Aras eyed them both, realized he had called Tremaine a liar, and said, “I meant only that this supposedly happened right before you were attacked and injured.”
Tremaine rolled her eyes, saying dryly, “Because I’m so hysterical.”
“I didn’t say that.” Aras gestured, sounding reasonable. “Perhaps she did say something of the kind to you, but it was part of a misguided attempt to draw out these Gardier spies.”
Gerard stared wearily at the ceiling, apparently unable to comment. Tremaine thought she understood Aras now. He was one of those lucky individuals for whom the whole world was painted in black and white, with no shades of gray. Meretrisa was a Capidaran and therefore on the side of right and so nothing she did could be wrong. There was no point in antagonizing her own intelligence and Gerard’s patience by attempting to discuss this with Aras. One of them wou
ld just end up killing him.
The Aelin, at least, had finally settled down after Gerard had tended their wounded. Elon was now resting comfortably, or as comfortably as Meretrisa, up in the circle chamber with Vervane. The Gardier attack and the swiftness of their escape from the fortress had left most of the Aelin stunned, though the younger ones had wanted to explore the island. Fortunately, Ilias had found a heap of howler skeletons in the jungle not far from the little stone house that sheltered the top of the stairwell, and that had firmly convinced them that roaming was a bad idea. Balin sat nearby on another rock, her head propped in her hands, half-asleep herself.
Cletia, on guard up at the surface entrance, was the only Syprian still here at the moment. Ilias and Giliead had taken one of the underground ways to scout the Gardier base, to see if there was any unfriendly activity there. Cimarus had gone for help.
“I thought it took a few hours to sail to Andrien in the big galley,” Tremaine had asked dubiously earlier in the day, standing beside Ilias on the gravelly beach. She had thought at first they meant to repair the little sailboat and send Cimarus to the shore in that. “Isn’t that much longer in a little boat like this?”
“He doesn’t have to reach Andrien,” Ilias had explained, “Just get past the mist out to where the waterpeople are. Normally they love caves and rocks like these, but the island’s too wizard-haunted for them, and the curselings kill the babies and the old ones that can’t swim fast anymore.” He scratched his beard stubble thoughtfully, looking out over the mist-shrouded water, eyes distant. “I think he will need a raft, at least to get back.”