The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  In his young body he was still an old man, with an old man’s memories and an old man’s fears. Young men could not conceive of doing something for the last time; old men thought of little else. Now the night that had left him behind loomed like a suspected last time.

  In his hand, the coins lay heavy and still. He closed his eyes, summoned a calm he did not feel, and let the silver fall to the worn silk surface. And then he sat there a while longer, eyes closed against the morning sunlight, because he did not wish to see what the future held.

  In the end, he looked.

  Well, this was the unpleasant travel his earlier reading had foretold—the journey that he had to take if he hoped to triumph. And that unrecognized enemy that he’d discovered was on the way to meet him. Almost surely the Dragon at the head of the army that pursued his sons, he thought darkly.

  The Duty quadrant told him that his payment would be due soon, and he found himself wondering what exactly the gods wanted from him, if he could not be seen to have done his duty yet.

  Only the godless man can know true happiness, Vincalis had written in one of his darker moments, for nothing can be asked of him that he must give to preserve his soul. Later in the Book of Agonies he had reversed that, but Dùghall found some comfort in knowing that he’d thought it, anyway.

  One part of the reading seemed to him to point directly to Kait and Ry—lovers parted by his doing as well as their own who, for the good of all, faced their own destruction . . . or not.

  The most enigmatic part of the reading that lay before him was that every outcome lay in an either-or position. Either those he loved faced utter destruction, or else they didn’t. Either the forces that had gathered against Matrin would destroy it, or they wouldn’t. Either his health would continue strong and robust and his wealth would expand . . . or it wouldn’t.

  He’d never seen such a pointless cast of the coins, he thought. And then he started trying to puzzle out the meaning of the Self coin that lay, obverse and reversed, dead center on the zanda cloth, perfectly inside the circle where all the quadrants intersected.

  The obverse of self was selflessness. And not the selflessness of conscious thought, of awareness, which the coin would have indicated if obverse but upright. No. Selflessness that came from the core, that came not from what he thought but from who he was. Unconscious openness, a thing the body knew so well it did not need to ask of the mind in order to choose its actions or follow its path.

  That was the thing that lay at the heart of the reading, that touched the outcome of every quadrant equally—that was the thing that the gods would ask of him. Soul-deep selflessness.

  And he didn’t think he knew a more consciously selfish human being in the world than himself.

  At some moment in the near future, he would be asked to make a choice. He would have to make it in a situation of great duress, and the choice he had to make was going to hurt. He was going to have to give up something he loved—the zanda suggested that strongly, though it did not point to any specific thing. If he chose one path he would be healthy and wealthy, Matrin would prosper, those he loved would survive. If he chose the other path, Matrin would fall to ruins, those he loved would be annihilated, he himself would lose his health and his wealth and probably his life.

  Or, he thought grimly, those combinations could change. Nothing on the zanda said one outcome would be all good and the other all bad. It might be that he had to sacrifice his loved ones to save Matrin, or sacrifice his wealth or his health to save his loved ones, or sacrifice the Matrin that he had served his entire life to save the people in it. The sun-touched coins gleamed up at him from the black silk—silver possibilities touched by the sun, the eternal golden fire of the universe. And for that moment he sat at the center of those possibilities like a spider at the center of its web. The gods were telling him that they intended to throw the problems of the world in his lap, that they intended to say, Here, you choose, when the choice was one that even a god would dread making.

  His fingers shook as he gathered up the coins, wrapped them carefully in the folded silk, stored them in their bag. He sat on the rock a while longer, thinking. Even refusing to choose would be a choice—and almost certainly the wrong one. He could run away from the enemies who approached. He could run away from his duty. The gods always left a door open for those who decided running was the best option. If he did, though, he had little doubt but that the worst of what he had seen on the zanda would come to pass.

  At last he rose to a standing position and lifted his face to the sun. “I am still your sword, Vodor Imrish,” he said. His voice was calm, firm, and sure. “Draw me at will, use me as you must.”

  Chapter 45

  Five days into the voyage, the K’hbeth Rhu’ute sailed through the northern edge of the Thousand Dancers and into Goft’s harbor. Ry, still mourning Jaim’s death and still stinging from the funeral at sea, was not ready for what he had to do next, but this would be his single best opportunity.

  He gave each of those who still bore loyalty to Ian a cautious signal; those who could do so without arousing suspicion would stay aboard the ship with him, while those who could not would meet with Yanth at the Coral Goddess. He and Yanth had gone over both prongs of their planned attack in the dark hours when everyone else slept, committing to memory the acts that they dared not commit to paper. If they could succeed and reach Ian and prove him alive, they would be heroes; if their plan failed, they and all those who followed them would be adjudged mutineers—they’d be hanged from the K’hbeth Rhu’ute’s mast and would not be afforded even the coarsest of burials at sea; their bodies would simply be dumped over the side like offal from the galley, food for fishes.

  When most of the men had departed for their brief shore leave, Rrru-eeth called together all those who remained. She called her first mate, who was loyal to her, her chief concubine, also loyal, her purser, who hid his loyalty for Ian, and Ry.

  Outside the room, two Keshi Scarred guards watched the door. The five of them sat at the table with a sumptuous feast spread before them—fried plantains glazed with honey butter; mounds of sugared beans; lightly sweetened cocova molded into the shapes of fanciful fish; platters of steamed dolphin on black rice and kettled tuna and baked tubers stuffed with cheeses, meats, and grapes; fingerling pastries and sour pies and sweetcakes. And to drink, water clear as the air itself, filled from goblet bottom to goblet top with spheres of lemon-flavored ice—a treat of such great rarity and such enormous cost that Ry, scion of one of the two greatest Families in the world, had only had it three times before in his life.

  “Eat and drink, my dear comrades, my beloved colleagues,” Rrru-eeth said, spreading her delicate hands expansively over the repast.

  “You feed us as you would feed kings,” Ry said.

  Rrru-eeth smiled. “We shall all be kings, my friend. Tomorrow we sail for Calimekka, and for the new life we shall win there.” She rested one palm flat upon the table and held the other to her heart. “A toast to all of us—to Bemyar, who shall sail us to our new destination and command the crew who shall keep us there; and to Kithdrel, who shall guard and dispense the funds with which we shall buy our kingdom; and to Ry, who shall teach us the ways of kings and lead us to our paraglesiat; and to Greten, who shall be paraglesa in name, and to whom all knees shall bow; and lastly, to myself, who shall be paraglesa in fact, and to whom all hearts shall at last turn with worship and awe.”

  The other four placed their hands on the table and heart and said, “To us.”

  During the meal, they listened while Rrru-eeth talked—about her dreams of the future, about the grand roles each of them would play, and about the glories and honors each of them would receive when she was paraglesa of her own Family, living in a great House on a high hill in the greatest city in the world. Ry let her feed the dreams with her words, and when he judged the time to be right, he said, “A single thought, Captain, that I offer so you can protect yourself. Calimekka is a city of rumors and tale
s, where gossip is a minor deity honored most in the highest halls. There are in the city those who are called Finders, whose entire life revolves around discovering the secrets of the powerful and selling them to the highest bidder. If any of your crew could speak an honest word of ill about you, you would be best to leave him on these shores and replace him with someone who cannot malign you.”

  “You are suggesting that I have secrets?” Rrru-eeth asked.

  “I know you have secrets. Everyone has secrets. I am suggesting that you alone know if any of them might be harmful—if someday one of your crew will be offered a thousand pieces of gold by a Finder to tell everything about you that might be worth money, and one of your crew will take the gold and tell.”

  Rrru-eeth frowned and looked from Bemyar to Kithdrel to Greten. Each of them shook his or her head fractionally, and Kithdrel said, “We are all officers, and share guilt for any decisions you might have made.”

  “But the regular crew does not,” Rrru-eeth said.

  “No.” Greten was frowning into her iced water. “They do not.”

  “You know of something that could be used against you?”

  “I do.”

  “How many know of it?”

  “More than half the crew.”

  Ry gave a low whistle and said, “You cannot count on loyalty from so many.”

  “I cannot. So I must act.” She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

  “Goft has sailors aplenty to fill out an interim crew,” Kithdrel said.

  Bemyar nodded. “It’s a good port; I’d have no trouble replacing most of our roster from here. Some of your current crew might resent being left here.”

  “Generous severance pay would prevent that,” Kithdrel said.

  “Not so generous that it would interfere with my plans.”

  “Of course not. That would be pointless.”

  Greten said, “Perhaps a message to the old crew that you have heard of sickness in the city of Calimekka, and you are going to continue on, but that you refuse to put them at risk.”

  “No,” Ry said. “The simplest stories are the best—and where no story will adequately serve, none should be offered. Simply tell them that you release them, offer more than the money they were due, and take on your new crew. If they don’t know why”—he shrugged—“well, that is your privilege as captain.”

  Bemyar nodded. “He’s right. No explanation is best. I should go over the list with you of those we’ll keep and those we’ll release.”

  “Release all of them. Let there be no appearance of favoritism.”

  Greten’s eyes went wide and she started to protest—then, without making the slightest sound, she closed her mouth and looked down at the table, her face gone pale and her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. Rrru-eeth didn’t notice. Interesting, Ry thought. With whom among the soon-to-be-departed crew did she share a secret? And how much of a secret was it? Enough to make her a possible ally?

  Ry liked Greten—and Yanth, who had found hiding places aboard the ship in which to meet with her every day since they’d sailed, adored her. Ry thought it would be happier for all of them if she were not hanged with her mistress—and if she helped the ship return to its rightful captain, she would be absolved of any previous guilt.

  Something to think on, and something to tell Yanth.

  As they finished eating, Rrru-eeth said to Bemyar, “Gather the remaining crew on deck, and tell them the whole ship is released on leave for a week. Go ashore with them, and begin quietly hiring on new crew. When we have enough people aboard to be sure we will not be overrun, we will announce that the old crew is permanently released.” She turned to Kithdrel. “At that time you will give out final pay and severance bonuses. Any who dispute you are to receive the pay, but not the bonus. Make that clear at the outset.”

  She closed her eyes. “I think, however, that I will keep my Keshi guardsmen. They owe me their lives—I can trust them as much as I can trust each of you.”

  Maybe even more than that, Ry thought, and had to suppress the smile that tried to reach his lips. He and Ian’s loyal crewmen that Kithdrel would sneak back on board, and the new crew that would do anything to avoid being tarred by the mutiny of an old crew, would have little trouble containing Rrru-eeth, the few loyalists she would retain, and two or three Keshi Scarred.

  Bemyar and Greten had already proved unwitting allies. He hoped they would prove as useful in the next stage of his plan.

  • • •

  “I can find not a single sailor who will board a ship sailing for Calimekka,” Bemyar said a day later. “The city has been devastated by plague, and all who have heard of it fear for their lives should they sail even within the harbor. They say ships lie at anchor there, some with corpses still rotting on the decks from the day that they fell. They speak of rats that pour like rivers through the streets, and of a river so clogged with corpses that the water will not flow, and of flies so thick in some places that when they take to the air they darken the sun.”

  Ry thought of the blast of magic he’d felt all the way in Heymar, the blast that told of the death of the Mirror of Souls. The Mirror had not died alone—he’d known that at some level, but had not thought through to the consequences that fact might bring. The sailors would be happy enough if they knew they were going to sail south along the coast; he would be able to get a full crew. But he couldn’t tell the first mate the truth; Bemyar was loyal to Rrru-eeth.

  Kithdrel, he thought, and smiled. “Bemyar, send Kithdrel to hire them. He knows to the tenth-piece what you can afford to pay crew. I’d bet anything he’ll be able to find some who will willingly sail into the jaws of death itself for the right price.”

  Bemyar thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. He glanced at Kithdrel, who said, “I’ll do what I can. I don’t have his confidence, but I might find enough for a skeleton crew to get us into harbor—though we may have to work double stations, and I know I’ll have to pay more than the going rate.”

  “It will be worth it.” Ry smiled at Bemyar. “The captain wants to find her way into Calimekkan society. Moving in now, while society is in confusion, will give her an edge. If she can appear and offer stability when stability is the thing the people of Calimekka most need, she’ll build a base of loyalty that nothing will later dislodge.”

  Bemyar rose from his bench and said, “I’ll go talk to her. Perhaps you should come with me, Ry, to tell her what you’ve told me.”

  • • •

  They sailed a day later, their scant new crew secretly augmented by Ian’s loyalists, who of necessity stayed hidden in the holds. All of the new crew, once under way, were told Rrru-eeth was a mutineer who had stolen the ship from its rightful captain and abandoned him and some of his crew in Novtierra. The old crew confirmed this, and added that the ship was to be returned to its true captain, who was to be restored to his rightful place—much was made of the gratitude he was sure to feel and the rewards he was sure to pay to those who helped him regain what was rightfully his.

  So when they were off the southern point of Goft, in what could truly be called open sea, Ry gave the signal, and Ian’s men caught Rrru-eeth, Bemyar, Greten, and Rrru-eeth’s Keshi guards and brought them onto the main deck at swordpoint.

  When they were assembled with the new crew gathered around them, Kithdrel stepped forward and held up a paper, and read from it. “You, Rrru-eeth Y’tallin, cabin girl of the Peregrine sailing under Captain Ian Draclas, are charged with capital mutiny, and with inciting mutiny, and with inciting the murder of crew and participating in the murder of crew by willful abandonment in a place hostile to human survival, and further, you are charged with the attempted murder of your rightful captain by the same means, and with impersonation of a deeded captain, and with capital theft of a deeded ship. How plead you to these charges?”

  Rrru-eeth looked around her, at the strangers who stood on the deck facing her, and she smiled to Kithdrel. “Is that w
hat you told them, Kith? That I was a mutineer? Do you, then, plan to become captain of the K’hbeth Rhu’ute by lying about me? You know as well as I do that I was first mate of this ship under Draclas, and that he and much of his crew were lost in battle with a Wizards’ Circle off the coast of North Novtierra. You’ve seen to it that none remain who can vouch for the truth save these you hold with me . . . but you seem to have forgotten that you have left none aboard who can vouch for your lies, either.”

  “Call the witnesses,” Kithdrel shouted.

  Ian’s loyal crew stepped out onto the deck from the holds below, and Rrru-eeth’s face went hard. “Ah. So you’ve found a few who will lie with you in hopes of gain, I see. Have you promised them riches, Kith? Have you promised them my portion of the wealth in the holds?” She turned to the new crew and said, “Beware, all of you. If you conspire with these traitors, you will be as guilty of mutiny as they are—and I’ll see you hang for your crimes. The only one who could judge the truth of this matter is Captain Ian Draclas, and if he were still alive, he would be the first to tell you of my brave service as his first mate, and my valiant attempts to save his life.”

  Ry stepped out of the crowd and gave Rrru-eeth a mocking bow. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Lady Captain, for we sail to meet up with Captain Draclas this very moment.”

  For an instant he saw raw fear flash across her smooth, dark face. Then that vanished, replaced again by arrogance. “If Kithdrel told you he knows where to find Captain Draclas, he lies. He had found someone who will pretend the part, and has convinced his witnesses to say the imposter is truly Draclas.”