Seaborn 03 - Sea Throne

by Chris Howard

  Nikasia pulled on the chain, sliding her open hand up the side of Barenis' neck, urging her to slow down. "If dragons are...were..."

  "Dragons are Telkhines sorcerers who gave up humanity to live forever...as animals. I just did not understand what I was forsaking. None of us did, and then it was too late to warn anyone else."

  Nikasia kicked over the top of the dragon's head, grabbing one long curled horn, swinging under the jaw, in range of the thing's teeth and tusks. "But if you are human—even once human, then I can fit into your soul, Barenis."

  Hands fanned out to hold her position in the sea, Nikasia caught Barenis' big cloudy white eyes, and not finding pupils, groped her way into the monster's soul by the flashes of memory, shifting her focus right into violent racing light and teeth, and darkness reaching miles, falling fast, sleek as a needle, soul depth like the ocean itself. "Like looking into the soul of a god. It's not because you're a dragon," she whispered, realizing what she had really found. "But because you are a Telkhinos." An awed edge to her whisper, "Lords and Ladies of the sea, you really were so much more than we are."

  Recent memories slipped by. Something lit up the dark, a bold yellow glow overhead, rolling back and forth, hanging from something. Nikasia saw it through Barenis' eyes, darker wedges between some massive structure, pale circles, discs with rings of teeth, thousands of them. And glossy red ellipses like bulbs of shiny fresh blood, ringing darkness like the ocean floor. Barenis' vision blurred sideways, a shudder of fear that sprang into her muscles, tail whipping forward to roll her body back, away from whatever it was. Then tentacles as round and thick as the dragon's middle, tapering, toothed cups and mouths swinging in on the their ends. The structure closed around the dragon, long bands of muscle and blood rings eeling over each other, an angry twirling forest of sores eager to feed.

  Nikasia's thoughts screamed panic at Barenis, What in the Sea's name is that?

  Basilichalkainos, the king of troublous waters itself, the only one I have ever come upon in all my soaring.

  Her thoughts stumbled on the thought that there could be more than one. How did you escape?

  It did not pursue, but remained with the seaborn king's prison, presumably to guard it.

  Nikasia's training fired right to the front her soul. From what? Escapees? I think not. Protect the prison from someone coming in to release a particular prisoner, a captive valuable enough to protect all the lithotombs with...that. What threat would require that as a defense? One of the immortals, or the Wreath-wearer...Kassandra.

  Nikasia shoved a sour fear aside, chasing another bright shape of memory in Barenis' soul, pale fractured shapes that felt worn. Old memories. A dark haired woman held her hand out to a man in blue scaled armor, letting go, swimming away from him. She turned to face Barenis, eyes that held abyss pressure and thunder, and the glow of a crown over her long braided hair. "The Wreath-wearer." Nikasia pushed deeper into the memories, but they faded, breaking into shuddering bolts of light. "Which one? Pythias?" Who was that, Barenis?

  The dragon paused, disappointed. I do not know. Someone of importance, I know.

  Damn you. Importance! How long ago? No Wreath-wearer in any of the histories ever possessed a dragon—not even the Liar King.

  Kassandra? Does that name mean anything to you? Have you had a new master in the last five years?

  Barenis' answer was immediate. No. Not in the last twenty years.

  Then who was she? Kassandra's mother? Not Queen Pythias—but the child no one ever suspected her of having? Who was she with? She had been holding that man's hand.

  That was my old master.

  Of Rexenor? His armor places him among them. Smaller scales. Different. Not the styles among the Houses in the Nine-cities. Murder edged Nikasia's voice. And you cannot remember his name?

  A contrived friendship.

  What?

  I hated her, the Alkimides.

  Nikasia shouted indignantly, The Wreath-wearer! —never easy to shake the ancient bias and awe of the Sea's chosen.

  The conquerors. She loved my old master. I pretended to accept her to gain her confidence in order to... I cannot...

  Remember? Nikasia withdrew bitterly from Barenis' soul, kicking up over the horns, swinging back into her seat. "Let us go north, Barenis, to Rexenor." She leaned against the dragon's neck, feeling the pull of muscles through her skin. "That memory was not in the distant past, but in the last twenty years. And no Wreath-wearer, no princess of the Alkimides, no Queen of the seaborn—whoever she was, would allow herself to be seen with a Rexenor—not a living Rexenor at any rate." Thoughts churned in her mind. Who is Kassandra? She has sided with the Rexenors. Who is her mother, her father? Nikasia braced her mind against the shock.Have I just seen them? "And these two were in love?"

  With Barenis just as eager to recapture the past, they shot deep and north, rocketing through the Atlantic, following a black serrated range of mountains and broken foothills, Nikasia riding sleek, flattening her body along the dragon's neck. They climbed near the surface to feed, Barenis cutting through the bright sea in the shadows of a shoal of bluefin tuna, a crush of dragon teeth and blood, swallowing them, snapping another hundred pound fish out of the rocket flow of deep blue and gold and sword stabs of light, right angle beams of the sun.

  And Nikasia laughed and held on, dodging the snapped-off tails of bluefins flipping out of the dragon's teeth, spitting fish blood from her mouth, shaking it out of her hair.

  They slid into the north two days later, rested, fed, ready for Rexenor. Even with their cautious approach, Nikasia felt the patrols in the open water, orcas with the curse, and riding them, soldiers of the exiled Great House. She smiled, leaning in to pass directions to Barenis when she felt them in her wake, long smooth gliding killer whales and their riders, nine of them, some outsea team of guards.

  The Rexenors hunted her into the mountains, and Nikasia tried a few tricks to lose them—not trying that hard, liking this contest even more when she couldn't shake her pursuers through speed dives into canyons with Barenis' fins scraping the narrow rock walls, then through vertical climbs into the sun.

  They followed her steady zigzagging course north, cold predators, and tiring of the game, Nikasia sped into open water and pulled Barenis around to face them.

  They approached warily, three on young sleek orcas, then another two bigger, older angrier looking ones on their flanks. Two more circled, lances down, ready to charge, but unsure about their chances against a dragon of the sea. Two of the nine slipped into the deeps like lightning, north to pass on the word. Nikasia thought about turning and running, but it made no difference. If not this group of border scouts then some other. She was here for answers, information, and an old thought rolling in the back of her mind, somehow the chance to meet with the King's nemesis, Kassandra—not that she expected the Wreath-wearer—an obvious friend of Rexenor—to give up a lord of Rexenor for the revenge of someone she had little reason to trust.

  Perhaps a chance to trade something, information, how to break through the King's Protection and city wall?

  Nikasia looked up as the orcas and riders eased forward, lances leveled at her. She tasted their uncertainty in the water, choppy waves of it rolling off them, but there was something solid underneath, not the blank fear she would have expected in an encounter with an outsea troop from the Nine-cities. Rexenor had had dragons in the past, not that distant, perhaps in the memories of some of these soldiers.

  Nikasia nodded her head as if to say, well, here we are, what happens next?

  It was unnerving that the Rexenors didn't speak, demand to know her business, instead passing silent signals to each other. They just watched her and the dragon, waiting for her to state her business apparently. Some of them slid dark shields over their eyes as if they knew something of her nature and powers and didn't want her intruding on their souls.

  Nikasia let out a long release of the sea in her lungs, rolling her shoulders up and down, the muscles stiff
after the long journey. She released her hold on the dragon, stood up stretching, uncurling like an octopus. She let her gaze drift along the line of orcas and riders. Gods, they're so young.

  She stopped on one, a man much too young to be out here with responsibilities. Then she laughed. "Who commands here? What are you like seventeen? So desperate for defense, the mighty House Rexenor sends its children out on patrol. Pathetic, really. It's a shame what has become of Rexenor."

  Off on her right, a woman in scaly blue armor—who couldn't have been that much older than seventeen—scowled, swung her helmet off, hanging it on her saddle. She stood up, urged her orca forward, and brought up her a lance, three times her length, green shiny with a deadly yellow spiked tip. "I fought your half-a-soul two-bleed king, and sent his army home crying—or dead. That was me! My father fought the Olethren and survived. More than you can say, you ill-mannered song-hag. You're the Kirkêlatides' spawn. We can feel your bleed from here." She pointed south. "Go sing sour somewhere else."

  Nikasia took in a sharp pull of the sea, folded her arms, still smiling, and nodded approvingly at the woman. "Nothing can kill your spirit apparently."

  "A deathless spirit kills a deathless ancestor any time. And if you think we can't kill a dragon..."

  Nikasia lost her smile, gave the woman a cold nod. "What is your name?"

  "What is yours?"

  "I am Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, daughter of Theoxena."

  The woman squatted in the saddle, whispering something to her killer whale. Then she straightened and her voice came back proud and sharp. "I am Euxenê daughter of Thallides of Rexenor, sworn loyal to the Sea, commander of the krystalleidês far-watch."

  "The Sea..." Nikasia let half a smile come to her lips, the corners sharpening. "How old are you, Euxenê daughter of Thallides of Rexenor?"

  "Twenty-two years. Old enough to have all of my mother's bleed because your king sent the Olethren and they killed her. How much of your song hag mother's bleed do you have, Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides?"

  Nikasia clamped her mouth shut, holding in her rage, sparks of plans that could start another war. "I did not come north to shout at fools or children—nor as an agent for King Tharsaleos. I came on my own, for answers."

  "So, not just an ill-mannered song-hag, but a spy?"

  Nikasia curled in her fingers, about to kill the woman when Barenis tensed up, bent her head to one side, and in a low voice said, "Lady Nikasia. Others approach, as many as twenty orcas double-ridden."

  Nikasia slid her hand up and down the dragon's neck. "Lancers and archers, I feel them, too. You have nothing to fear while you are with me, dear Barenis." She straightened and folded her arms to hide the dance she stepped through with her fingers. She held her arms tight against the shudder of energy coursing through them, glanced over at Euxenê. "Sworn loyal to the Sea?"

  Euxenê bowed her head, whispered a hymn, lifting her gaze to Nikasia, unafraid. "I am Lady Kassandra's soldier."

  "Kassandra?" The name came out burning from her mouth, and then a magnetic click, connecting to the hymn from Euxenê. Nikasia twitched against the anger rush, her spells winding at the rim, too late to slow them down, twirling ropes of power deadly with spines, a spiral of knife blades—and she couldn't hold off the dull rhythmic thud of three sea currents unraveling, picking up more of the quiet thread of Euxenê's sea hymn, joining with it, a helix of ice and poison, slippery with someone else's power. Nikasia just managed to add a finish of vanishing ink—like having the last word in an argument.

  Then she blinked, confused, so focused on controlling the song—enough to kill them all—that she didn't know her eyes were closed until she needed to open them, and twenty new orcas and riders were circling, predatory motion, archers loading and pointing their weapons.

  That had been too close. Something that Euxene had done with her hymn.

  Nikasia held in the rage tight, but ready to release it.

  One of the new group slowed beside Euxenê's orca, a man with long graying braids and blue scaled armor decorated in spiraled gold at the throat. More hand signals, and both looked over at Nikasia, then the second team commander leaned back in his saddle, glancing over his shoulder to talk with his archer squatting in the stirrups behind the killer whale's dorsal fin.

  Nodding, he pointed at Nikasia, "That is Barenis, Lord Gregor's dragon."

  Nikasia blinked, her mouth dropping open, a shudder of understanding, and then she was clawing at her song to keep it under control again, rich fluting notes forming on their own in her throat, spilling from her mouth. A cold splash of blue light slipped oily through her fingers, and she screamed a song of rage to pull it in.

  Euxenê laughed, "So, not just ill-mannered song-hag and spy, but also dragon thief, too." Her laugh died, and she dropped into the saddle, raising her lance, chasing new motion in the water.

  Barenis jerked her neck around. Orcas closed defensively, sliding into each other, surprising their riders. A burst of light below them, ribboning bands of it, a folding nest of shadows closed over itself then vanished as the blinding glow broke over the circle of Rexenors.

  A woman with a trident and crown like the sun kicked up from the depths followed by six demons, Ochleros among them. Kassandra swung the trident in her fist, pointing at Nikasia with the end, throwing off a splatter of light, the cold metal reflecting the light of her crown .

  The demons, massive human shapes of water and claws and ice teeth, arranged themselves on the points of a hexagon outside the circling Rexenor orcas and lancers.

  Kassandra nodded, "Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, my father did not kill yours. This is a mistake, nothing but the lies of a murdering king."

  Nikasia stared, open mouthed, the water still in her mouth.

  Then she released her song, unable to hold onto it longer—forgetting to hold onto it. The bolts broke into six glowing cords tumbling with jagged edges; one thin spark spun out of her hands seeking a target and curled under to hit Barenis, who shuddered beneath her feet. The six pieces of her song fired in straight lines at the demons, smears of fire passing over orcas and Rexenors. All of the demons caught the bolts from Nikasia's song, five absorbed them, but the last allowed a shaft of it to slip through her claws, taking three fingers with it, driving through her shoulder and throat, and shooting past into the gloom.

  Nikasia jumped out of her paralysis, slapped Barenis, reaching for her horns. Suddenly she understood what that clever Rexenor bitch Euxenê had done. Her hymn had summoned the Sea herself, and the weave with Nikasia's song had included some kind of immunity to Rexenor—anything of the right blood or belonging to Rexenor, which left Barenis and the deathless ones.

  Nikasia stared at Kassandra's crown, her gaze dropping to the trident of the ruler of all the oceans, the Sea. She was just the Wreath-wearer. Kassandra was the fucking Sea herself! And the rumors from the last battle with Rexenor broke from hiding in her soul, shells of doubt cracking and disintegrating. "I didn't believe them. No one did. Shock of battle. Rexenor the tricksters playing with their sight." Her voice went into a high pitched whisper. "But it is true."

  She looked lost for a moment longer, then gathered the stray thoughts in her soul, snapped up the loose reins of her thoughts and kicked Barenis. The dragon shot straight down, a speed dive to the floor, leveling out to run the canyons along the deep mountains.

  Kassandra raised her hand to halt the Rexenors. She focused on Ochleros, hiding her crown and trident, pointing down. "Follow her." Then she turned to the injured demon, singing softly.

  Chapter 16 - The Book and the King's Trusted Eight

  Lady Ampharete, dead Queen Pythias' only daughter, winced at the baby's kick inside her and waved a hand at Zypheria to let Gregor son of Nausikrates into the bedchamber.

  He was the father, after all.

  Gregor slid sideways into the room, a set of flat decorated boards under one arm. He straightened a few kicks in, tugging at the sleeve of his armor, a hauberk of glossy near-t
ransparent plates. His black hair hung loose, unbraided, drifting in tangles around his neck. Even in the ocean's dark, his eyes were lamp-bright, a perfect mixture of blue and green like coastal shallows, a color not seen far off the earth's equator nor in depths greater than ten meters. He had an honest, boyish face, without the hunger, the gauntness that marked most of his relatives, but his eyes showed the hidden sorrow of exile, the pain of treachery. His full family name was stamped into a thick gilt plate that hung at his wrist at the edge of the armor's sleeve, held there by fine links of chain.

  "Milady." He bowed his head to Princess Ampharete, and she gave him one back. "I have just returned from Rhodes, speaking with an old Telkhinos there, and have wonderful news. I may only have two pieces of the scrolls to recover, and I am nearly certain where those lie. One in the southern continent buried in ice, and the final in the Nine-cities itself among the archives."

  "Welcome news indeed, Lord Gregor," said Ampharete softly, her voice weak with the strain of a hard pregnancy. Her eyes remained on his for a suspiciously long time, and Zypheria cleared her throat. Ampharete blinked away tears.

  "Let my husband pass, sister."

  Gregor smiled at Zypheria. She scared him more than some of his father's ten-battle soldiers. She had a bleed off somebody, nothing obvious, but enough to be able to communicate complex statements—mostly threats—with a single arrangement of the muscles of her face.

  She tapped the grip of her sword sticking out over her left hip, and gave him a hostile look that—clear as water—told him: you swim out of turn Rexenor and I'll bugger you so deep with my sword, you will be able to pick your teeth with the tip.