The Sea of Time - eARC

by P. C. Hodgell

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Nice, but it clashes with your eyes.”

  The second languid voice was as smooth as samite drawn lightly over steel, unexpected yet familiar.

  Genjar made a petulant sound, dropped the silk, and picked up a wine glass. His hand was none too steady and his eyes were bloodshot, matching none of the treasures on which he trod.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some?” he asked. “A good vintage, this.”

  “I thank you, no.”

  Genjar’s guest lounged in one of his ornate chairs, long, black-booted legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles, elegant fingers steepled under a dark, sardonic face.

  “Then to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” asked Caldane’s heir, stumbling a bit over the formal phrase.

  “As you know,” said Caldane’s war-leader, Sheth Sharp-tongue, “I am newly come from the Riverland. On my arrival, of course I heard about your…er…exploits in the Wastes before Urakarn.”

  “Then you know how outnumbered we were. I did well to bring back as much of the Host as I did.”

  “Still,” murmured the other, “not since the White Hills have we suffered such a needless defeat.”

  “Our paymasters ordered me to go!”

  “And so you did, well enough pleased to do so by all accounts. Did no one advise you that your first duty lay in talking the Kothifirans out of such a reckless course, based on so little evidence?”

  The Caineron make an impatient gesture, spilling wine. “The Host was eager enough, at least those with any spirit.”

  “You mean the young bloods. What of the senior randon?”

  Genjar snorted. “That pack of old women.”

  “My dear boy,” said Sheth with a flickering smile. “Never underestimate old women. And then there are your losses. One in five dead, or so I hear, not to mention the entire vanguard…”

  “They went too far ahead, too eager to steal my glory! How was I to know that they were in trouble?”

  Tori remembered how their eyes had locked across that bloody cauldron.

  Yes, here we are. Remember us?

  “Scouts could have informed you, as they would have of the Karnids’ strength.”

  “They told me nothing!”

  “Because you didn’t wait for their reports. Harn Grip-hard has apprised me of that much at least. Due to a crack on the skull, he remembers little else, which is probably just as well. Ah, you didn’t know: he and three others have rejoined the Host. Many more were taken alive at Urakarn, but only they escaped. More lives lost. More bones unclaimed.”

  Genjar’s flushed face mottled mauve and white. “What else did they tell you? Liars and cowards, the lot of them. I saved the Host! Can you hold me accountable for those too weak to fight their way out?”

  “Yes.” The war-leader rose with leonine grace, and Genjar retreated a step from him. “I bring you a gift.” He laid a white-hilted knife on the table. The Commandant of the Southern Host stared at it, then gave a shaky laugh.

  “My father would never send me such a message.”

  “Nor did he. This comes from the randon under your command, alive and dead.”

  “Them! They failed me, d’you hear? Why, they couldn’t even defeat a band of desert savages. Take back your precious gift!”

  But Sheth made no move to reclaim the ritual suicide knife. “Then keep it,” he said lightly, “as a memento of honor. Good day to you.”

  A step outside the door, he encountered Tori. For a moment he looked down at the boy, then nodded to him and left.

  In a rage, Genjar stumbled across his bedchamber, kicking at drifts of silk as they caught at his feet. He poured more wine, sloshing it over his hand, drained the glass, and threw it at the wall.

  “Of all the presumption…he dares to judge me? Father will have his scarf when I tell him. No more a high and mighty war-leader, Sheth! Cut someone else with your self-righteous tongue, if you can.”

  Then he saw Tori standing in the doorway and stopped short, jaw agape. “You!”

  “Here I am. Remember me?”

  “Are all the unburnt dead coming back to haunt me? Well, I won’t have it, d’you hear me? I won’t!”

  Genjar snatched up the knife and lunged toward Tori, but his foot snagged in a silken coil and he fell. He picked himself up gingerly with more sheer fabric festooned over him in loops. The knife was lodged in his side. He pulled it out and stared at it, then at the blood staining his now ruined coat.

  “Look what you made me do, you…you bastard!”

  His legs started to give way. He stumbled backward onto the balcony, into the railing which caught him at waist height. Fabric clung to his legs. He kicked petulantly to free himself, tottered, and fell over the handrail. A bolt of silk skittered across the floor, unwinding. Its board lodged between the bars and the silk went taut with a snap.

  Tori picked up the knife and walked out onto the balcony. He looked down at the swinging figure, shrugged, and tossed the blade over the railing.

  Shouts of alarm started as he gained the stairs and descended, again unobserved. Where had he been going? Oh, yes. To the infirmary to…to see Harn. It had nothing to do with the throbbing, infected burns that laced his hands. He shoved them into his pockets. If the surgeons saw, they might cut them off. He couldn’t have that.

  The great hall was silent after Torisen finished his tale. They were all staring at him.

  “You mean,” said Kindrie at last, “that he simply tripped and fell?

  “‘Simply’ rather understates the situation, don’t you think?” Grimly said. “Why, one could say that his own vanity tripped him. Nonetheless, the story should never leave this room.”

  “But it was an accident!” Kindrie protested.

  “Did I say anything else? Think how Lord Caineron would react to it, though. As it is, the only comfort he can take out of the whole debacle is that he thinks his favorite son died honorably by the White Knife, if with embellishments.”

  “At least you kept your hands,” said Kindrie. “A healer might have prevented the scars, though.”

  “No!”

  In that snapped word, the barrier went up again between them.

  Torisen sipped his wine, cursing himself. Just when he thought he had finally overcome his loathing of the Shanir, it sprang back at him. The wine had cooled. His scarred hands hurt anew at the encroaching bite of the cold.

  “Enough of that,” he said. “Sing for us, Grimly. In your own language. I promise we won’t laugh.”

  Grimly considered. “All right,” he said, and his muzzle returned to its lupine form. He began to sing them a summer’s night in the Holt. A long howl, fading, swelling, fading again, traced the curve of a full moon. Yce rolled upright. Her soft yips were branches etched against its disc. Grimly paused and gave her an approving look. Together they traced the black lace of twig and leaf, the strong trunks between which fireflies danced. Wind stirred the grass. Sharper notes defined the bones of the ruined keep and a burble in the throat became the stream that wound its way down the broken hall, glinting under the moon.

  Yce stopped suddenly. Her growl shattered the image and her hackles rose. Grimly also stopped and leaped to his feet.

  Somewhere out in the dark, snowy night, a deep-throated howl had answered them.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Lost Children

  Winter 90

  I

  The child sat in a puddle in the middle of the road and beat at it with his small fists. He had cried himself to whimpers. Still, no one had emerged from any of the towers lining the street to rescue him. The rain had ended and a wan moon shone in the sky. A lean dog slunk out of the shadows, curious or hungry, but fled as the ten-command approached.

  Jame picked up the boy.

  He was about three years old, wearing a torn, wet smock with a row of daisies carefully embroidered around the yoke. It seemed unlikely that anyone had abandoned him, yet here he was,
a picture of misery with tears and snot running down his face. At Jame’s touch, he wailed anew and beat at her chest. She held him, dripping, at arm’s length.

  “Somebody, come and take this child!”

  The towers rang at her challenge, but all stood dark and silent, as if untenanted. However, most of their occupants were there behind locked doors and windows, praying that the wandering mobs would pass them by. One such group staggered past an intersection with a neighboring street, raucous with drink.

  “Come out, come out!” they cried, and smashed empty bottles against tower walls. “Sing with us, dance with us, drink with us! Tonight no god watches, no sin counts, no crime is punished. We are free!”

  “Yes, to make fools of yourselves,” muttered Brier. Like most Kendar, she found such civic disorder distasteful and deeply disturbing, maybe with a presentiment of what the Kencyrath might be like without the bonds that held it together. On the other hand, perhaps she was reminded of Restormir when Lord Caineron’s too-tight grip had passed on his own drunkenness and subsequent hangover to his defenseless people.

  A door opened a crack and scrawny, disembodied arms hung with wrinkled skin reached out from the dark interior. Jame climbed the stairs, but hesitated near their top. Was this the boy’s grandmother, great-grandmother, or no relative at all?

  “Do you grant this child guest rights?” she demanded.

  Knobby fingers impatiently snapped and beckoned.

  “Do you?”

  “Of course,” came the toothless grumble of an answer. “Tell ’em that Granny’s got ’im.”

  “Tell whom?”

  “’Is parents, idiot.”

  Forced to be content with this, Jame held out the boy. He was snatched from her hands and the door closed, stealthily, behind him.

  The ten-command had been on patrol since sunset, with midnight and the end of their tour approaching. During that time, they had seen considerable havoc, not all as innocent as the roving bands of drunks. The city was every bit as unsettled as Graykin had said it had been during the last Change. Looters were abroad, and arsonists, and assassins. All over Kothifir, scores were being settled.

  Raised voices sounded around the curve of the street and torchlight flared on stone walls. Jame went to investigate with her ten-command close behind her.

  Quite a crowd had gathered in front of a lit tower whose door, for a change, gaped wide open. Closest to its steps stood perhaps two dozen burly men with torches, facing a smaller clutch of men, women, and children. Jame recognized the tall, bald man in charge of the latter as the former Master Paper Crown, stripped of his apprentices by the Change. What was his name? Ah. Qrink. The rest must be his family.

  “What’s going on?” she asked a woman intently watching the proceedings while she clutched the hand of a child. “Why, Lanek! What are you doing here?”

  The Langadine boy looked up at her with solemn, frightened eyes, his thumb in his mouth. The woman stared down at him, apparently astonished that he wasn’t someone else.

  “Lanek? Where is your cousin? Where is my baby?”

  “Is he wearing a smock embroidered with daisies?”

  “Yes, yes. He’s always wandering away…” She looked about frantically but, to her credit, didn’t cast Lanek off.

  “Granny asked me to tell you that she has him.”

  “Oh.” The woman sagged with relief.

  “It’s simple enough,” the leader of the torchbearers was saying to Qrink with a broad grin. “Either swear your allegiance to Prince Ton or pay us off. Preferably both.”

  Jame recognized the patch of rose-colored velvet on his chest as the prince’s emblem. All of his followers wore it. So this was his much vaunted militia, which he had said would replace the Kencyrath as the guardians of Kothifir.

  Qrink glowered. “And if I choose to do neither?”

  “Then your tower burns.”

  The former master licked chapped lips and frowned. From what Jame could see through its windows, this was not only the family home but also the guild headquarters. Could Qrink regain his position if he let it be destroyed? On the other hand, would he if he submitted to blackmail? One consideration cancelled out the other, leaving only pride.

  “I don’t like bullies,” he said. “We can rebuild.”

  The other man scowled. “So be it.”

  The ten-command started forward, but the militia leader had already signaled two of his men who ran up the steps with their torches. They could be glimpsed inside setting fire to stacks of paper, scrolls, and books. Some smoldered, others caught quickly, throwing orange light to dance on the whitewashed walls.

  Jame had been anxiously looking over Qrink’s huddled family.

  “Where is your mother?” she asked Lanek.

  The child took his thumb out of his mouth and pointed at the top of the tower.

  “Qrink!” Jame pushed through the crowd to his side. “Your sister-in-law…”

  His quick glance confirmed Kalan’s absence. He grabbed the militiaman by the arm. “Stop them! There’s still someone in the tower!”

  The man tore his attention away from the growing blaze, but the gloating light of fire lingered in his eyes. He grinned, wet-lipped. “Too late.”

  Jame felt rage kindle in her. She barely noticed that her claws had extended.

  “You would burn someone alive?”

  He blinked and retreated a step, fire-lust giving way to uncertainty. So one might confront a small creature gone suddenly rabid. Jame stalked him.

  “Call them off.”

  “No…”

  “So you like fire.” The fragment of a master rune came into her mind unbidden. “Taste it, then.”

  Her nails sparked together under his bulbous nose, setting its nostril hairs alit. He flailed at his face, but every move only spread the flames. They kindled his greasy hair. He backed away, wailing, into a widening void as his men retreated from him in horror. Jame slipped past, up the stairs, into the burning tower.

  She was surrounded by fire. It licked at paper on all sides, orange, red, and yellow tipped with blue. Kindling inks sparkled green and gold. Pages turned in the draft, their edges blackening, their wonderful images eaten away. Charred fragments swirled past her up the interior stair as if up a chimney. The very air seemed to burn.

  Dance.

  She began to move in the fire-leaping and wind-blowing patterns of the Senetha, threading her way between flames. Blades of cool air from the open door gave her paths. Flares of heat warned her away from stacks of paper about to ignite. It was intoxicating. She could have played thus until the very stones exploded around her, but she had come here to do something. Oh yes. The Kothifiran seeker.

  The stairs were burning, but she mounted them, barely touching their charred surfaces where paint boiled in the heat. Wind-blowing upheld her. Heat lifted her. She could almost fly.

  Behind her a step cracked. Jame looked over her shoulder and saw Brier Iron-thorn at the bottom of the stair, one foot on a tread which had broken under her weight. The rushing air stirred her red hair into a fiery aureole about her face as she looked up. Her sleeve was already on fire. She couldn’t live in this inferno, but she wouldn’t retreat without Jame.

  Jame turned back. Weight returned to her with the fading of the enchantment and steps crunched underfoot. Heat caught her by the throat. She grabbed the Southron’s arm and hustled her out of the tower.

  Both of them were coughing when they reached the cool evening air.

  “What in Perimal’s name were you playing at?” demanded Brier as Rue and Mint beat out her flaming sleeve.

  “I might ask you the same.”

  Jame saw that the militiamen had departed, taking their singed leader with them. Ha. Cowards, the lot of them, when it came to a dose of their own fiery medicine. Meanwhile, Qrink’s family still huddled together on the other side of the street, staring in dismay as their home was reduced to blackened stone and ash.

  “Look!” one of them cri
ed, pointing upward.

  Near the tower’s summit, a window had been thrown open. Kalan stood in it framed by fire, holding her baby daughter. She looked back at the burning room, then down at the ninety foot drop before her.

  “Jump!” some of her relatives cried.

  Others shouted, “Don’t!”

  Kalan threw her baby out the window.

  Brier caught it.

  The next moment flames erupted out of the tower’s roof and Kalan was sucked back into their incandescent grip.

  The Southron cradled the infant in her arms, staring down at it. “She said to hold its head just so…”

  It looked merely asleep, warm and rosy from the heat, tiny hands only just beginning to relax, but it was dead.

  Qrink eased the body away from Brier and handed it to his womenfolk.

  “Brier?” said Jame.

  The Kendar turned away.

  “Look after her,” Jame told Rue. “It must be almost midnight by now. All of you, your tour of duty is over. Go back to camp. Have a drink. Sleep.”

  Rue hesitated, looking dogged. “And you, Ten?”

  “I still have an errand to run.”

  II

  Paper Crown’s tower was only three blocks from Gaudaric’s. Had the militia already been there?

  Jame was alarmed at first to see it also blazing with lights and people moving in front of it. Then someone emerged from the shadows in full armor, leveling a spear at her chest.

  “Stand. Who are you?” Then he relaxed. “Oh, Talisman. I didn’t recognize you in that jacket.”

  True, she was dressed as a cadet. It was unclear to Jame how many Kothifirans besides the Kencyr priests knew of her dual identity. She hadn’t made a secret of it in Tai-tastigon nor had she here, but people were still apt to see her either as the Knorth Lordan or as the fabled Tastigon thief.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “The prince’s bully boys have been to call, but we showed them off. Before that… Well, you should talk to Ean.”