Vo-olai would not meet Fava’s eyes. Instead she just stared at the ground.
Fava desperately wanted Vo-olai to come, but saw she would be a detriment to the group. “I’ll find Anorath for you,” Fava promised. “I’ll bring him back, too. You stay here, help take care of Wayan and Tchavs.”
Vo-olai nodded mutely.
Fava closed her eyes. She could feel the evil kwea of Bashevgo, the long arms of the dark god reaching for her. She was frightened.
She watched Darrissea, suddenly afraid that the evil kwea would frighten the human girl away. Darrissea had no family in Bashevgo, no kin. She really didn’t have any compelling reasons to go. It made sense that the human girl would abandon Fava, leave her in the woods. They made camp in the building, slept a few hours.
When the sun began to rise, a silver mist rose from the ground. The group ate in silence, then went outside. The morning air smelled sweet after the dry manure and moldy hay of the stable. They walked out to the road, and Fava found herself beside Darrissea, watching the girl’s “soul cloud,” the steam coming from her mouth.
“You won’t leave me on the road to Bashevgo, will you?” Fava said, almost ashamed to ask. “You won’t run away?”
Darrissea glanced at her. “No, I won’t leave you,” she answered calmly. “I swore to God to free Bashevgo before I die. I always keep my promises.” Darrissea laughed, high and sweet.
Fava nodded, touched Darrissea’s hand.
The two groups said their goodbyes and separated. Fava felt saddened to see Tchavs and the children preparing to go south, but she looked at them and told herself, They really can’t come with us to Bashevgo. None of us should be going to Bashevgo.
Mylon dragged the body of the Blade Kin guard into the barn to hide it, and Darrissea pointed at the dead man—an aging Neanderthal with silvering hair and a fierce face. The Pwi called themselves the Smiling People, but this man’s face was a mask of cruelty—a harsh beak of a nose, a wide scowling mouth, a forehead marred by creases of worry.
Even in death, the face could not relax. “Ah,” Darrissea said, “there is the inhumanity of the Blade Kin. That is the monstrosity I was searching for yesterday.” Fava looked at the face of the warrior, happy to see him dead.
Fava held Wayan till the last possible moment, then gave the boy to Tchavs. She stood on the road while Tchavs took the children and crept into the forest. Wayan waved over her shoulder. Fava waved back, wiped a tear from her eye. Darrissea rested a hand on Fava’s back. Fava smiled.
“How can you smile like that?” Darrissea asked.
Between gritted teeth Fava said, “I want Wayan to see me smiling. I want him to remember me smiling, in case he never sees me again. It will leave him with good kwea.”
***
Chapter 25: The Sorceress
Tull lay among the sweat and stench of the slave pens as the great steel behemoth of the ship beat a path between the waves. A tap to his heel roused him from a deep sleep. For a moment, he realized he’d been dreaming of Fava, dreaming of her beside him on the bed, and he wanted only to hold that image in his mind.
He opened his eyes. Chulata stood above him.
“I need a body servant for the evening,” she said. “You will come service me.” The sorceress stood alone in the shadows without bodyguards. In her black robes she seemed almost an apparition hovering over him.
“I don’t want to,” Tull answered.
“You are a Thrall, and I am Blade Kin,” Chulata said. “If you no longer wish to use your genitals, I can have you relieved of them.”
Tull looked up to the turrets, at the guards there. He had no choice.
Chulata led him from the cage, up the dark corridors. He passed several cells filled with his townspeople, and at one point, his mother cried out to him, “Tull! Tull!”
Tull stopped briefly, and in the cell he saw Chaa and Zhopila, among other townsmen from Smilodon Bay. It took a moment longer to spot his own mother.
Chulata stood waiting. He saw the disapproval in her eyes, and he stepped in line immediately.
“Good,” Chulata said, as they got out of earshot. “Those who value father or mother or brother or sister more than the Blade Kin, are not worthy of the Blade Kin.”
Tull had hoped that Chulata would take him to the ship’s deck, but she escorted him past guard rooms with their barred doors, but just below the top deck she halted.
A Blade Kin with a sword guarded a door, and Chulata winked at the guard, then took Tull into a cabin that was several times larger than his own small home in Smilodon Bay, sparsely but opulently furnished: a large bed with silk sheets, a sunken pool to bathe in, lights somehow built into pale green gems that glittered from the ceiling.
Smilodon Bay had no electricity, though Tull had seen such lights before, down at Fish Haven, and in Craal.
There were several windows, and when Tull looked out of one, he could see only the ocean, a slate-gray sea under billowing clouds. Night was falling.
“Do you like my room?” Chulata asked, and Tull wondered at the furnishings.
“It is very nice,” Tull said. “Do you come here often?”
“This is my room. I live here.”
“It does not look like a soldier’s room.”
Chulata smiled at him, and Tull gazed into her eyes. She did not seem to be wearing her mask, hiding her feelings. Instead, he saw that he amused her.
“I am highly paid. All those who achieve my rank in the Brotherhood of Carnadine Sorcerers receive a salary equal to that of a Dragon Captain.”
Tull nodded. A Dragon Captain stood just below the Cyclops in rank, but Tull could not guess how much money someone of that rank might be paid.
Chulata smiled at him. “You will undress me and give me my bath,” she said, her voice cold, commanding. “You will do it gently, as if I were your lover.”
Tull stepped forward, struggled with the thought. He pulled off her black robe, and beneath she wore a tunic of some glittering cloth. The cloth was all of one piece, like a drape, held together on her right shoulder by a platinum brooch shaped like a swan. She wore a fine leather belt wrapped around her waist.
He carefully untied it, then removed the brooch. Her tunic slipped off, revealing her full breasts, the generous curve of her hips.
The triangle of hair between her legs was a color the Pwi called oak-leaf red, dull red with a touch of brown, a color that normally showed only in those of mixed human and Neanderthal ancestry. This surprised Tull, for it was a much darker shade than the hair of her head.
Tull wore only his black cotton breech cloth, and Chulata leaned forward, put her hands on his shoulders, and sniffed at his neck. “You smell like the slave pens. Take off your dirty cloth. I do not want it to foul my bathwater.”
The breechcloth dangled between his legs, and Tull pulled off the dragon clasp that kept it tight. He looked for someplace to set it, and Chulata took it from his hand, dropped it to the floor, pulled off his cloth.
Tull felt relieved that he had enough control to keep his organ from stiffening.
She took his hand, led him into the bath. Ivory tiles were inlaid around the tub, and as he climbed down the steps into its depths, the hot water swirled up to his chest.
“The water is hot,” Tull said. “Are you sure it won’t scald us?”
“It only feels hot because you have never taken a warm bath, have you?”
“No,” Tull said. “At home, I always bathed in the river.”
“Give yourself a moment. You will get used to it.”
Chulata grabbed a bar of soap from a dish, handed it to Tull. “Lather your hair and wash yourself.”
Tull obliged, washed his hair and chest, gave the bar of soap back to her.
“You are not all clean,” Chulata said. She moved forward to grab for parts lower down, but Tull pushed her hand away.
“How old are you?” Chulata asked.
“Nineteen.”
“Four years younger than
I,” Chulata said. “Men your age are usually such animals. One woman is never enough for them.”
“As I said, you are not to my tastes.”
“Pecans yesterday, strawberries today. What would it hurt?” She leaned into him so that her nipples brushed his chest. She whispered in his ear. “I think you want to be faithful to the memory of your dead wife. No one is that strong …” Chulata kissed him under the ear.
Tull felt his desire swelling, but fought back the urge and said, “I want to go back to my cell.”
Chulata laughed. “You must wash me first,” she said, turning her back to him. “We aren’t even close to being finished.”
The perfumed soap smelled of lilacs, and Tull felt grateful that she turned away, for it allowed him time to regain his composure. He washed her hair and shoulders, her back and buttocks, her breasts and arms, her thighs and legs, all as a body servant should.
When he finished, Chulata wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest.
“How does a Spirit Walker practice his art?” she asked. “Do you use Guides?” Her hands wandered down below his waist again.
“I don’t know,” Tull said truthfully, capturing her wrists and moving her hands away. “I’m only an apprentice. How does a Carnadine sorcerer practice her art?”
Chulata looked up at him and her eyes glittered. They were eyes like Tull’s, pale green with flecks of honey, and her nose had two tiny bumps at the end. She crooked a finger, beckoning. “Come to bed with me, and I will tell you.”
“Yes,” Tull said, and he got out of the tub and dried Chulata with a cotton towel. As he did so, he wondered how far he should go with this woman.
Should he give sex to her, perhaps buy himself enough freedom to escape? In many ways it seemed a small price to pay. Tull did not believe that in her heart Chulata really wanted him; he told himself that she was only testing him, trying to learn the strength of his devotion to Fava.
Still, he could not do it and retain his peace of mind. To sell himself to a woman as contemptible as Chulata would be … a form of defilement.
When he finished toweling her, she grabbed his hand, pulled him to the bed. He lay beside her.
She gazed into his face and smiled, “What was your wife like?”
“Fava is nothing like you,” Tull said. “She is taller, and her hair softer orange. She has never slept on a bed of silk, nor bathed in warm water. I don’t think she has ever harmed anyone, either on purpose or by accident. She would never lie, or sleep with someone for gain. I think … she loves me as purely as anyone could. I suspect, she is stronger than you. As I said, she is nothing like you.”
Chulata sat up and her face hardened, all the humor and desire in her eyes turning to white-hot flame. “What do you want?” she asked bitterly. “To live in a cage like a Thrall, or to free yourself and become Blade Kin? Those are your only choices!”
The ship lurched as it suddenly slowed, and in the distance Tull heard the rumble of cannon fire. He slapped a hand over Chulata’s mouth.
“Listen, we are coming to port!” he said. He looked up at the windows. Full darkness.
Chulata struggled, tried to scream, tried to knee him in the groin, but the ship’s cannons fired in the night, growling above him like a beast.
The bed rocked from the vibrations. He held her a moment, realized that she was right. If he stayed in her world, he would be forced to become either a Thrall or a Blade Kin, with no other options.
“I’m sorry,” Tull said, striking her in the temple.
Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed. He gagged her with a pillowcase, and tied her hand and foot to the bed with strips of silk. He threw the covers over her so that no casual observer would notice.
He rolled from bed, and his wits seemed to have fled him. Licking his dry lips, he grabbed his breechcloth from the floor and wrapped it about him. He ran through the room looking for something to disguise himself with. Chulata’s robes were all he could find. Though they had looked bulky on Chulata, they were far too tight for Tull, and the red trim of the Carnadine Sorcerers would only attract attention.
Still, he reasoned that in the darkness he might escape notice.
He ripped the red rope tassels from the edges of the robe and drew the hood tight over his head. He searched the drawers of the dressers, thinking Chulata must have kept a sword, since she was Blade Kin—but he found none. He knew the guard would still be at the door.
Tull went to the wall, touched it, reached out with his mind, trying to learn where the guard would be. Yet he was nervous, and felt nothing.
Tull leapt out the door, hoping to catch the guard by surprise. But he was gone, and Tull wondered at his fortune.
Perhaps he had gone above deck to watch the fireworks. Tull glanced down the hallways. The corridor behind him was empty, and he hurried up the stairwell to the deck.
The fresh air that smote him was warm as summer air, and Tull realized that they must have sailed far to the south. The deck was relatively quiet—a few Blade Kin at each cannon—and Tull hid in a crack between two great pipes that served some unknown function in running the iron ship.
He looked out over the water for sight of land, and it seemed to be all about him, a huge sprawling city a hundred times larger than Smilodon Bay. The lights from it looked like ten thousand stars scattered across a black sky, and even at this great distance the war cry of Blade Kin carried over the water along with shouts of dismay.
Cannon fire rolled like thunder, and balls exploded near the ship.
This could only be the city of South Bay, the largest in the Rough.
That meant that the Blade Kin had captured every port from Storm Hold in the north on down. The free cities had been brought low.
The thought of it nearly stopped his heart, and he stood for one long moment, wondering what he would do if he escaped, and then he raced with all his might and leapt over the side of the ship, far out into the black water.
***
Chapter 26: A Crushed Heart
Acolytes, guards and body servants cowered aside as Atherkula stepped through the cabin door, gasping in the warm night air, and drew back his crimson hood to expose long cords of twisted hair the silvered color of dry leaves.
From deep-set eyes he looked upon the corpse of Chulata, who lay sprawled upon her bed, now covered with a ceremonial death skin, the tanned hide of a black dire wolf.
The room was dark and moist, and the ivory walls were saturated with the odor of perfumes. Beside the bed, a candle lay at both her head and her feet to guide her on her path into the Land of Shapes.
Behind Atherkula, servants, guards, and acolytes stared up at the aging shaman in horror.
“Omnipotent,” one of them called, trying to appease him, begging Atherkula to speak if only to break the silence.
Atherkula ignored him. The acolytes were terrified of Atherkula, and he could feel them, all working together to shield their thoughts, to hide their terror from him.
They fear me, he thought, because I feel no love, because it is said I am heartless and almost human.
Yet Atherkula’s heart pounded inside him, wild with grief, wild with a desire to escape this room. Ah, that I were a mere human.
Atherkula pulled the dire wolf skin off the dead woman. Chulata was naked, and lay atop her silk sheets. He could see stains on a silk pillowcase where she had vomited into her gag, suffocating.
Thankfully, the guards had already cleaned her somewhat. Atherkula lightly touched her chin, and was surprised to find the body so cold. “I thought you said she had just died?” Atherkula asked a young man.
“Yes, Omnipotent!” the guard cried falling to one knee. “I mean—I just learned she was dead.”
“Are you not her personal guard?” Atherkula demanded.
“Yes, Lord!” the young man shouted, his voice loud. “But she released me for the night so that she could spend time with the slave Tull!”
Atherkula closed Chulata’s
staring eyes, let his hands linger on her face.
“She was a promising sorceress for one so young. Perhaps in all Bashevgo, not more than three can equal her. We shall greatly mourn the loss,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “He must have caught her completely off guard.”
He turned to the young guard. “Where is Tull now?”
The guard seemed almost to wither into the floor, yet Atherkula could not feel his thoughts, could not read his aura. The man had learned to shield himself.
He has listened well to Chulata’s lessons. Wither, little would-be sorcerer, Atherkula thought, hide your thoughts from me, for as long as you can.
“We could not find him. He must have jumped ship last night when we took South Bay. We are checking the other carriers now to see if he was picked up during the battle.”
“Tull,” Atherkula said. “Now, he has claimed a second sorcerer.”
Outside, a gust of wind buffeted the ship. Atherkula stopped, listened to the wind with more than his ears.
Out on the ocean he heard a spirit walking on the water, the spirit of a man who had drowned there years before. Atherkula could tell that the man was aware of him, could feel Atherkula’s presence and was disturbed. “Leave me, with the body,” Atherkula asked, nodding toward Chulata. “Wait outside.”
The acolytes, guards, and servants ran into the night, scattering like rooks from a loft, leaving the door ajar.
Atherkula shut and locked it, then returned to Chulata, sprawled upon her luxurious bed.
For a long moment, Atherkula stood gazing at her, and tears began to moisten the old man’s eyes. Almost human, almost human they call me, for they believe I am cruel and dead inside.
Atherkula felt a cavernous emptiness, a breathtaking sting in his heart. He stroked the dead girl’s arm, let his hand caress Chulata’s flat, hard belly, finally to settle comfortably in her hand.
He knelt and kissed her lips, as he had wanted to a thousand times in life, and found them to be more than cold—they were dry and cracked, like paper. The odor of vomit clung to them.
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