The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  “So anything you swear to him or he swears to you is already meaningless if the Galweighs or the Sabirs won’t eventually approve of it?”

  Kait started to deny that.

  Then she thought about what he’d asked her, and what she’d said.

  She’d always considered her word a thing of value, and her honor as solid as the rock on which Galweigh House was built. But she realized at that moment that no matter how honest she was, no matter how hard she worked to keep her promises, her Family could make a liar of her with a single command. And if that was true, what value had her word to anyone? She stared down at the rope in her hands and said, “Yes.”

  She shook her head. People struck bargains with the Galweighs all the time. She’d always thought it was because of the Galweigh reputation for honor. Now she reconsidered. The Galweighs ruled half of Calimekka and much of the world—only a fool would dare refuse Galweigh business, and only a fool would renege on a contract with a Galweigh. But did the men and women who marked wax with the Galweighs consider the Family’s mark worthless? If so, no wonder the streets stank of fear when she walked down them. No wonder she smelled such hatred from strangers. No wonder women pulled their children from the streets, and little shops had often just closed their doors for the day, when she strode by them.

  There had to be a better way. There had to be a way to protect honor and the Family at the same time.

  Hasmal said, “Then we’re going to have to learn to use it before we reach land.”

  Kait, still thinking about her Family and the problem of honor, didn’t know what he was talking about for an instant. Then she stared at the Mirror of Souls, and shivered. Learn to use it? “I can’t read the glyphs inscribed on the buttons,” she told him. “Any of the Ancients’ artifacts can be deadly if misused. The Mirror of Souls . . .” Her voice trailed off to silence, and in her mind the bodies of dead legions scrabbled from their graves and shambled across the darkened face of the world, seeking revenge against the fools who had trapped their souls in foul-fleshed husks without restoring those husks to healthy life. She dreaded the idea of a mistake, even a small one.

  “I’ve dealt with the Ancients’ work before. I know the dangers.”

  “Have you learned to read the glyphs since I found this?”

  “No. But if Ry Sabir won’t come around to our side, we have no other choice.”

  There were always choices. “If Amalee would speak to me again . . .”

  “No. Don’t welcome her back.” Hasmal’s eyes stared faraway at nothing, unfocused. “Something was wrong about her,” he said after a moment’s thought. “She told you that the magic that destroyed your Family released her soul from captivity. But a soul held captive would race to the Veil, wouldn’t it? Beyond the Veil she could have claimed a new birth, a new life, all the things from which she’d been deprived for so long. Instead, she satisfied herself with seeing things through your eyes, hearing things through your ears, and existing as a powerless, disembodied voice that meddled in affairs hundreds of years after her death as if they affected her personally.”

  “She hoped the Mirror would raise her from the dead, I’m sure.”

  “Why?”

  She wondered if he was intentionally stupid sometimes. “So that she wouldn’t be dead anymore.”

  Hasmal shook his head. “That would make sense for your brothers and sisters and parents, Kait—they have you here, and everything from the life they’ve left behind. But if you raised her from the dead, your ancestor would have no one and nothing familiar in the world. Everything has changed. Why wouldn’t she choose to find the souls who shared her other lifetimes with her and rebirth with them? Why wouldn’t she want to return to her rightful existence?”

  Kait considered that. “I don’t know, really. She talked about helping me, about having her revenge on the Sabirs, about, well . . . She was interested in my life, in what it was like to be me. She thought it would be exciting to be Karnee—she talked about that a lot. I don’t know why she was more interested in me and now than in going on. I didn’t think about it.” She rocked back on her heels. Perhaps she’d been stupid. “I was so grateful to know there might be a way for me to get my family back, I didn’t worry about what Amalee would get out of the deal.”

  “Don’t do anything to call her back, Kait. I don’t know where she’s gone, but I think we’re better off without her. Even if she returns to you, don’t ask her to help you work the Mirror. I think she’s dangerous.”

  “She’s the reason I came after the Mirror.”

  “I know.” He rubbed his head. “That’s just one of my many nightmares.”

  “Nightmares?”

  When he looked over at her, she noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the tension in his face and realized that the serenity that had molded his features the first time they’d met was gone. “I haven’t forgotten the prophecy that sent me running from you after we first met: If I allowed myself to be entangled in your life, I faced a horrible death. Now I am indubitably enmeshed in your affairs, and the two of us are custodians of nothing less than the Mirror of Souls. And you’re haunted by a ghost, and we’re in the company of Sabirs. And I am and shall always be a coward. I sleep poorly these days.”

  “You’re still alive.”

  “That’s less comfort than you might think.”

  Heavy footsteps thundered overhead, and Hasmal rose. Kait stayed crouched, untying a knot and beginning to retie it. Several of the crew came down the gangway, arms laden with the toys and tools of the Ancients. They were laughing to each other, but they stopped when they saw Kait and Hasmal. “Up you go, both of you,” one man said. “We have work to do down here.”

  Kait nodded. “We’ve just finished.”

  Hasmal met her eyes. “The rest of what we have to do will wait.”

  Chapter 9

  A hundred awkwardnesses, a thousand embarrassments: Kait carried her few belongings into the tiny cabin she would share with Ry, conscious of the stares of the crew, his men, and her own comrades, and stopped just at the door. Ry stood beside the bunk beds, the expression on his face carefully neutral.

  “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Bring your things and come in.”

  She nodded and took the extra step that carried her across the threshold. The hatchway closed behind her with a muffled thud—a sound that echoed the beating of her heart.

  She looked around the cabin. Ry hadn’t been there long—the little room lacked his scent, and his belongings were all in his chest or a bag on the bottom bunk. “Where shall I put my belongings?”

  “You don’t have much, do you?”

  “Not much.” She was still looking around the room because it was easier than looking at him. Well-done woodwork, a washbasin built into the starboard wall with a pitcher beneath it, a tiny skylight, the two narrow bunks one on top of the other (and she was relieved that they were so narrow—two people couldn’t hope to sleep side by side in them with any comfort), a built-in armoire, a tiny table hinged to the wall and stowed at the moment, two small plank benches also hinged to the wall on one end, also stowed. The floor was clean and polished, the walls smelled of citrus and wax, the linens were clean and tucked neatly into place at the corners and smelled only of soap and sunlight and fresh air.

  “You can have the drawers beneath the bottom bunk.” He moved away from the bunks.

  She didn’t want to step any closer to him, but she couldn’t just stand there holding her bag until he left. So she took a deep breath, walked over to the bunk bed, and knelt on the floor. She gave the drawer a tug and it slid out smoothly; she was so tense she pulled it clear to the end of its run, and only the fact that the carpenter who’d built it had included stops kept it from landing in her lap. He was behind her, so close she could feel the warmth of his body, so close his scent became a drug, and her vision grayed at the edges and narrowed into a tunnel and she could hear only the rushing of her blood in her veins and the quick, sharp pa
ce of his breathing.

  She stiffened her back, dreading his touch and half-expecting it at the same time. But he kept his distance. She shoved the bag into the drawer, not bothering to unpack it, shoved the door closed, and moved away as fast as she could.

  Through the wall, she heard someone begin to pluck the strings of a guitarra. “My cousin Karyl,” Ry offered, noting her shift in posture as she listened to the music.

  His playing was sweet, his voice a mournful tenor as he began to sing.

  No, I’ll not for lads nor lasses.

  My dancing days are done.

  The bitter tide

  Is my final ride

  To the sea I am now gone.

  And I follow the rush of the water

  For the water flows to the shore

  And I have cried

  Where the pale tides died

  And wept to weep no more.

  I lost my faithless lover

  To the sea, my faithless friend—

  For the one devoured the other

  Leaving nothing but pain at the end.

  Now I hear her song in the wave

  And her voice in the water deep.

  She is gone but her music lives on

  And it’s all that I can keep.

  And I follow the rush of the water

  For the water flows to the shore

  And I have cried

  Where the pale tides died

  And wept to weep no more.

  When that song was finished, the unseen singer paused for a moment, then launched into another one, equally mournful.

  “Sad songs,” Kait said, not wanting to listen to any more wistful, yearning ballads.

  “If he knows another sort, he’s never shown it.”

  “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “You won’t have heard any of them before. He only plays the songs he writes himself. A hundred variations on the theme of grief.”

  Kait had no wish to discuss love, or longing, or grief. She said nothing, and the stilted conversation died there, and the two of them were left looking at each other.

  The silence was becoming unbearable when Ry said, “I have some things for you—I picked them up when we took on supplies in the Fire Islands.” He unlatched the doors of the armoire and pulled them open. Opulent, gauzy silks and fine linens in rainbow colors hung on the rack to the left and lay folded on the shelves to the right. She caught a glimpse of tabards and blouses and skirts and dresses, soft robes and dressing gowns, nightshirts, leg wrappings, and stockings . . . even delicate underthings. The people of the Fire Islands were famous for their fine fabrics and remarkable stitchery—and it appeared that Ry had picked only the finest of what the island markets offered.

  Kait felt her face grow hot. She could not imagine allowing herself to wear any of those things—to let the silk undergarments that he’d picked out for her touch her skin, or to pull on one of those filmy nightshirts before climbing into her bunk for the night. “No,” she said. “I have my own clothes.”

  Ry arched an eyebrow. “You have hardly anything. You’re wearing a sailor’s work clothes. A woman of your birth should wear fine silk dresses, not cotton shirts and roughspun breeches.” He smiled, and she shivered. He was too close to her, and too near Shift; from across the room his body heat was a pressure against her skin, simultaneously drawing the Karnee part of her forward and pushing the human part of her toward the door and flight and the dubious safety of the deck.

  “I have enough.” Her voice sounded husky in her own ears. She was responding to him even though she didn’t want to.

  Shield, she thought. Magic drawn close and held in place will make a wall between us. Magic will give me control.

  She offered her own energy and strength to Vodor Imrish, and with the power she gained from that quick, bloodless offering, drew the shield around herself. Instantly she could breathe easier. Although his scent remained seductive in her nostrils and his heat still touched her skin, a calm silence blanketed her racing thoughts.

  He was staring at her, astonishment evident in his eyes. “What did you do?” he asked.

  She shrugged. For the moment—for as long as her strength fed the shield, anyway—she would have peace. “Doesn’t matter. I want to sleep. Which bunk will be mine?”

  “The top one.” He moved toward her. “You seem . . . gone . . .” he whispered. “Don’t do that. Come back to me.”

  With her courage supported by the shield, she was able to say, “We are going to be nothing but roommates, Ry. Not friends. Certainly not lovers. I’ll obey the conditions of my agreement with the captain, but . . . that’s all.”

  “I came so far to find you. I gave up so much. . . .”

  She nodded. “And for the rescue, I thank you. Truly, I’m grateful. My Family will certainly reward you. But I cannot forget—and neither can you—that I am Galweigh and you are Sabir. We have our duties.”

  His face twisted with bitterness, and for the first time since she’d used herself as bait to allow Ian and Hasmal to take him prisoner, she saw both pain and anger slip across his face. “Ah, duty. The cage of cowards afraid to live. You may have your duty—I have already taken a different road.”

  He moved past her, still angry, and left the room. When he was gone she sagged against the wall and closed her eyes. She wondered how long her obligations to duty would keep her from touching him, from stroking his hair or kissing his lips.

  She built her shield stronger and, removing only her boots, climbed into her bed. Then she lay staring up at the plank ceiling and listening to the slow creaking of the ship. Sleep would be long in coming.

  Interlude

  From the eighth chapter of the Seventh Text of the Secret Texts of Vincalis:

  13Solander sat in the Hall of Wizardry and taught the apprentices, saying, “These are the Ten Great Laws of Magic, known from old.

  14“The First Law—the Law of Magical Reaction—states: Every action has an equal and opposite, but aligned, reaction.

  15“The Second Law—the Law of Magical Inertia—states: Inertia holds; spells in force remain in force unless acted on by an opposite force. Latent spells remain latent unless acted on by an opposite force.

  16“The Third Law, which you know as the Law of Magical Conservation, states: Magic, mass, and energy all conserve.

  17“The first iteration of the Fourth Law—the Law of Magical Attraction—says: Aligned spells attract, 18while the second iteration of the Fourth Law—the Law of Magical Repulsion—says: Unaligned spells repel.

  19“The first iteration of the Fifth Law—the Law of Spellcasting—says: The force of the spell cast will be equal to the energy used multiplied by the number of casting magicians, minus conversion energy, 20while the second iteration of the Fifth Law, which is the Law of Spellshielding, says: The damage done to the casting magicians by a spell or spell recoil—rewhah—will equal the energy sent minus the capacity of the buffer or sacrifice, divided by the number of spellcasters.

  21“The Sixth Law, the Law of Alignment, tells us: Negative magic begets negative reactions. Positive magic begets positive reactions.

  22“The Seventh Law, which is the Law of Compulsion, says: Every spell used to compel the behavior of any living creature against its will carries a negative alignment.

  23“The Eighth Law, or Law of Harm, says: Every spell used to inflict harm, damage, pain, or death, no matter the nature of the target, carries a negative charge.

  24“The Ninth Law, the Law of Souls, states: The mortal representative of an immortal soul carries the charge of the soul, whether positive, negative, or neutral.

  25“The Tenth Law, or Law of Neutrality, says: Anything that carries a neutral charge will be drawn to the strongest force around it, whether that force be positive or negative, for neutrality is a position of weakness, not of strength.

  26“These are the Ten Great Laws, which are the laws of the nature of magic, and which nature enforces. 27But I give you another la
w, and this is a law of the nature of man and of the nature of Falconry, enforceable only by yourselves. 28This law is: Pay for your magic with nothing but that which is yours to give.

  29“Ka-erea, ka-ashura, ka-amia, ka-enadda, and ka-obbea: your will, your blood, your flesh, your breath, and your soul. These are the five acceptable sacrifices, and acceptable only if offered freely. 30Magic drawn from your life-force, from these five acceptable sacrifices, will be pure, and free of rewhah, and will not scar lives or land. 31That you offer only these sacrifices is the Law of Ka, the Offering of Self, and I declare it the highest law of the Falcon, and the law by which Falcons will be known.

  32“For the Law of Ka is the Law of Love—love of humanity and love of life—and my greatest requirement of you is that you love all living things, and live your lives in demonstration of your love.”

  Chapter 10

  Solander the Reborn waited in the belly of his mother for his time of birth to arrive, but already the faithful reached out to him, and he reached back. From hidden rooms in forest houses, from scholarly studies, from the decks of fishing boats and the ever-moving wagons of the peripatetic Gyru-nalles, faithful Falcons drew a few drops of their own blood to form the link that let them touch him, and he reached into their souls, and gave them acceptance, and gave them love.

  He spent the stations of darkness and growth in the deep meditation of the soul, focusing not on the future, when he would at last give the people he loved a world worthy of them, nor on the past, wherein lay the pain of torture and his magical escape from his enemies at the moment of his physical death: Those were memories and thoughts that gave back nothing. He could not plan for what would come, and he could not change what had already been. But from the warm safety of the womb, he could begin his work, reaching into the souls of those he had left so reluctantly a thousand years before and showing them that hope existed, that their lives could be better, and that the secret that would bring about the new and brighter world was a simple one: Accept each others’ faults, be kind, and love one another.