by Jaine Fenn
That did not did mean he would drop everything and rush to her defence, of course. But perhaps he could assist her remotely. He refolded the letter. He needed to think about this.
That evening Dalent, his female Marnese guard, came to see him. She had been staying at the launderers’ house, empty now Ritek was dead and Ereket absent, dealing discretely with visitors and deliveries and guarding his hidden workroom. When she reported that Ereket had finally returned, Sadakh hurried back with her.
Ereket had changed, but not the transformation the boy had apparently undergone; she was still a shadowkin, albeit one in obvious pain from her raw, burnt skin. She kept her head down and did not meet his eyes.
Taklew, the guard who had accompanied her into the skyland, said Ereket had been happy to remain beyond the umbral all day while he watched from the shade of the forest. Sadakh asked Taklew to confirm whether Ereket had also spent time out under the open Sun, beyond the umbral clouds.
“We took the tent out into the deep skyland, being careful of the creatures and plants you warned us of, Holiness.” A slight puzzlement showed in Taklew’s tone; perhaps he wondered how his master knew so much about the skyland. “The burning on Ereket’s skin got worse and it was unpleasant for me, even in the tent.”
“You have both made me proud.”
Ereket looked up at that. Sadakh gave her a fulsome smile, then pushed the note paper across the kitchen table to her.
“How do you feel?” he asked gently.
She wrote one word. Burnt.
Sadakh nodded. “I am sorry you are in pain. I will send a salve. But is the burning just on the outside? Do you feel any change within?”
She wrote. Just out. Not in.
“I see.” Ereket’s limited writing ability had been a positive feature when she was Ritek’s co-conspirator – even if interrogated, she could give away little – but her limited self-expression was a hindrance now. “Can you tell me anything else about how you feel?”
Burns + pain outside. Empty inside.
When she said she was empty he suspected that wasn’t related to the serum. She had lost the only person she loved. Sadakh knew how that felt, even if his own loss had left him with a unique consolation.
“Taklew and Dalent will return to the priory with me, but Taklew will come back with some medicine, and will stay with you while the burns heal.”
Ereket nodded. Of the handful of trusted guards who Sadakh had taken into his confidence, Taklew was the most cultured as well as having some basic medical knowledge. And as his tastes did not run to bedding women Ereket should be comfortable sharing her house with him.
As Dalent poled the punt back to the priory isle Sadakh considered the results of the “Sun experiment” as he had come to think of it.
He had hoped the Sun’s pure light might act as a “catalyst”, another concept he had got from the enquirers. If the serum only worked fully once activated by the Sun, then Ritek’s untimely death was merely a personal tragedy for his wife, not a result of the serum.
But the Sun hadn’t changed Ereket. There must be another factor.
Or was the First truly displeased with him, as the caliarch feared? His own view of divinity was complex and ambiguous, but he was not so arrogant as to dismiss the possibility that mysterious powers could influence human destiny; after all, he had a presence in his head which did not fit with either logic or organised religion.
He spent the rest of the journey praying.
Back at the priory his secretary, Viteph, said that a messenger had arrived from the Eternal Isle. Though this was not unprecedented – the caliarch had been known to summon him for ad-hoc advice, spiritual or mundane – he kept Dalent with him when he entered the reception room. The messenger was a stranger, neither one of the handful of lay initiates who worked at the palace nor one of the few courtiers Numak trusted to run personal errands. He wore a servant’s garb and stood to give his obeisance when Sadakh entered.
Remaining near the door – and next to his guard – Sadakh said, “Do you bring a message from His Majesty?”
“I have a message from the palace.” The man reached into his tunic. Sadakh felt Dalent tense beside him. The man produced a folded note.
“Kindly bring that over and give it to my guard.” Some poisons did not require a wound to work, only touch.
Dalent took the note without hesitation despite being aware of such risks. Sadakh observed a slight reticence in the other man, though: he knew he was in dangerous territory.
Dalent unfolded the note and held it where Sadakh could read the two short lines:
If you are serious in your desire for a meeting, come to the southeastern jetty of the Eternal Isle at the fifth hour tomorrow morning. Take whatever precautions you feel necessary.
Sadakh drew a long, slow breath. Had the delay in answering been due to machinations in the palace he was unaware of? Was this gesture a result of some unknown change in circumstances? Or had Mekteph merely chosen to leave him stewing in uncertainty? And should he refuse this offer, made at such short notice with no assurances of safety?
Sadakh looked at the messenger. “I am guessing the prince wishes a prompt answer.”
“I am instructed not to leave the priory isle until I have one.” The quaver in the man’s voice confirmed he was afraid. Perhaps he expected Sadakh capable of the kind of capricious and barbaric acts the prince favoured when crossed.
Sadakh walked past the quaking messenger – this was no trained assassin – and sat at the table. Chin in hand, he went through the options and implications. He kept half an eye on Dalent in case the letter had been poisoned, but she maintained her usual expression, stoic and neutral. The messenger remained standing, trying not to shift from foot to foot.
Finally Sadakh said, “Tell the prince I will meet with him.”
CHAPTER 23
Over the next few days Dej ate a quarter of her remaining shadowkin supplies. Not everything stayed down, but she kept eating through the nausea. If she wanted to live, she had to eat.
While her strength returned, instead of getting lost in dark thoughts she got lost in the world around her: the track of the bright Sun across the silver sky, the complex jumbles of rocks, the myriad of small life on and under the ground.
When she woke after a solid night’s sleep feeling strong enough, she picked up her pack and strode away from what she had jokingly decided to think of as the cave of self-indulgent despair.
She felt like a thing new made. She lived, she was no one’s victim, and she had choices. She was done with people. She would fill the void inside her with the sights and sounds of the world. It was a lot bigger than she was.
She decided to find the world-sea. It was said to be in the north, the direction that called her, and it was something no shadowkin had ever seen.
As though to test her resolve to shed the past, her path down from the mountains crossed the valley where Kir had been killed. She didn’t pause, just noted the point where the chakaka hunt had been staged, and recalled how it had gone wrong, with a clinical detachment. Like thoughts of Min, of Kir, of Cal, of Etyan himself, she could now examine this memory without pain.
The following morning she crested a small rise to come out onto a shallow slope covered in a low tangle of bluish fronds. Ahead, a herd of pichons raised all their heads at once, then kicked their feet and fled. She would have liked to catch and eat some of the rabbitlike beasties, but with their linked senses and fast moves, hunting them alone she stood no chance.
The low hills soon flattened out into a plain, stretching to the horizon. Dej watched the clouds boil up and disperse for a while, taking in the massive skies. The ground-cover here was tangled and mossy, like so many skyland plants. When she trod on the ankleheight pinkish-mauve growth it smelled like old linen. Tracks ran through it; something small had eaten the moss-grass down to the bare earth in meandering trails. Presumably such little nibblers fed at night, away from predators.
Though t
here were no nightwings here, the possibility of becoming something’s prey herself was always present, especially out in the open. Dej had found a relative of the pus-bush before she left the mountains and smeared its sap over her cloak; so far it had seen off everything small and bitey.
As for bigger beasties, she had seen lone distant flyers, broadwinged and circling lazily but showing no interest in her. One day she spotted a herd of large cat-like things in the middle distance; when the wind changed to bring them her scent, she braced herself to run, but though the two largest animals at the front raised their heads and then, disconcertingly, jumped onto their hind legs, they dropped back down at once, and the herd carried on its way.
That night a shower of blowballs tumbled through, fist-sized gaseous balls of furry blue that stuck to the skin and burst with the smell of rotten wood when she brushed them off. Neither edible nor harmful, her animus informed her.
The next day she saw the glint of water to the east and went to investigate. It turned out to be a river, another geographical feature she’d only heard about. The fast-flowing water’s surface rippling in the Sunlight. Unless she misremembered her lessons the river would, eventually, reach the sea. She decided to follow it.
Further downstream she came across stands of dark manybranched trunks topped with clusters of turquoise fuzz. Gnarled roots trailed down the shallow riverbank like lazily draped limbs; when one of them twitched, her animus chimed in with an unspoken warning. But the trees’ fuzzy leaves were edible, so she climbed one on the landward side, away from the roots, and harvested some of the turquoise fuzz. It reminded her of overcooked scrambled eggs.
When darkness fell, tiny golden lights rose from the river, dancing in the gloom. They moved in time to the song of the water. She fumbled in her pack, digging deep to retrieve her flute, then began to play. The lights skittered away, then flitted back a moment later. They began to dance to her tune. Dej’s heart lifted. She played until her mouth was dry, then watched as the lights drifted back into the depths of the river.
The next day it occurred to her that she hadn’t thought of Etyan once as she played her flute.
After a few days she left the clumps of scrambled-egg-trees behind. The river slowed and the river-lights no longer came out.
Finally the river began to broaden out, its edges becoming marshy and indistinct. The succulent reeds growing in rich clumps here were good to eat, so she gorged herself on them, sucking the pith out and chewing the stalks.
The river widened further the next day, until it lost itself in boggy purple-grey heathland. Stands of spiky reeds edged pools covered in mats of floating vegetation; no good to eat, and sharp enough to tear skin. She sensed various forms of small but nasty life in the pools themselves. Picking a safe path through the solid ground, such as it was, was slow and exhausting work, taking all her concentration.
When night fell and she was still deep in the marshlands, she began to worry: though the knife-reeds had disappeared, for the last half day she’d been dancing across barely-thick-enoughto-support-her mats of vegetation. As soon as she stopped, she started to sink. Should she turn back? But the marsh couldn’t go on for much longer. She carried on. Rain started to fall, soft but pervasive.
By dawn she kept finding one leg or the other knee-deep in stagnant water. At some point it would be both legs, and she’d be lost to the marsh. Looked like she might die out here after all. The thought made her furious, but the fury had nowhere to go except into self-pity, and she was done with that. She put the emotion to one side, and carried on.
As the Sun passed noon, half-hidden in scudding clouds, she saw a paler, rough-looking patch in the flat purple marsh. It was smaller than her dorm bed, just a thick oval of knotted vegetation, but it was the nearest she’d seen to solid ground. She couldn’t sense anything nearby likely to eat her so she knelt, stiff-legged, then rolled out the cloak to spread her weight and lay down, curled round her backpack. Despite the damp seeping up around the edge of the cloak, as soon as she stopped moving she fell into an exhausted sleep.
She woke just before dawn, lying in shallow water. She sat up; the submerged cloak dipped under her, but she didn’t sink far. She ate a couple of hard biscuits, then extended her senses. Marsh in every direction, just like her eyes were telling her. She stood shakily and tried to pull the cloak free of the marsh, but it sucked it back.
She’d head due north; if there was no change to the terrain when she began to tire, she’d turn round and head due south to spend the night here again. It wasn’t much of a plan but it beat just giving up.
Around mid-afternoon she saw taller plants ahead, the sort that wouldn’t grow in a swamp. She thought she felt the change in the land too, though that might’ve been wishful thinking. But she upped her pace from an exhausted stumble to a purposeful stagger.
Soon, not every step sunk into brackish water. She let herself feel the exhaustion she’d been holding at bay. Shivers went through her overworked calf muscles. Not far now, not far now.
She was right, though the final few hundred yards took an age, and the last of her energy. As soon as she’d taken half a dozen steps without the land giving way under her feet she pitched forward. She landed in a damp springy tangle that gave a lime-scented puff and faint creak when she rolled deeper into it. Hopefully it wouldn’t digest her. Actually, right now she didn’t care. She sighed, closed her eyes and let herself pass out.
It was light again when she woke. Something had stung her in the night; the scales on one shoulder, exposed now she had no cloak, were sore and itchy. At least the lime-grass hadn’t had a go at her.
This landscape was a bit like that near Shen, complete with stands of lemon-spikes. She ate every one she could find, sucking at the cool pith for moisture.
Her pack had dried out a little, though it, and her skin, were ingrained with marsh muck.
As she walked farther north the vegetation clumped into growths twice her height that almost counted as trees. Their long blue-green leaves shimmered in the Sunlight.
She dismissed the first presence as an illusion, her tired mind playing tricks. Nothing but a tree-bush over there. Unless the tree-bushes had minds. Perhaps they did: she projected her senses, and caught a quick flash of something being hidden. The bushtrees did have minds. She made a note not to sleep near them. Ah, sleep. That was a wonderful thought. Soon as she was clear of these bushes–
Movement. Something behind that tree-bush. Nothing with a proper mind… or was it? It had intent, and she was what interested it. She sped up, exhausted body responding to a threat her strung-out mind couldn’t fully process. She still couldn’t see the threat, but she was sure now: something was hunting her.
Her heart was racing. Her feet tried to break into a run.
Another flash of presence, ahead. She darted to the left. Her body ran off fear alone, all energy long since expended.
Running full pelt now. Movement off to the side, and behind. Presences too, lots of them, all around. Proper minds, no longer trying to hide from her.
Something whistled overhead.
Her feet stuck together, stopping her dead. She fell, boneless, seeing the ground rush up fast towards her but unable to stop the inevitable.
CHAPTER 24
“A skykin. Here?” Sadakh frowned at Taklew.
“At the house, Holiness.”
Only one of his skyland agents dared come to the city in person, and only in extreme circumstances. “Was this individual… disfigured?”
“He has a missing eye.”
Yes, it’s him. His ghost’s disdain was clear. “Did he say what he wants?”
“Just that he had important news.”
“Well, he had better have.” The timing was appalling. “Go back, tell him to wait for me. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”
The bodyguard left. Sadakh had already summoned two others of his trusted cadre. Since taking the first office of the day he had been meditating alone in his study, centring himsel
f for the upcoming encounter, but the prospect of the unexpected visitor from the skyland had shattered his inner calm. One crisis at a time please, he silently beseeched the First.
Outside, the day was fine, though swirling breezes ruffled the waters of the lake. Approaching the Eternal Isle Sadakh noted that the prince was already standing halfway down the southeast jetty. He was flanked by two individuals who, like Sadakh’s own guards, were not obviously armed but wore unusually voluminous robes.
He had one guard, Penek, wait with the punt. Penek was his best puntsman. Also, it would be a sign of trust to bring one fewer guard than the prince himself. The other guard, the dour and unflappable Klimen, walked half a pace behind as he strode along the wooden planking. The twisted hallways and manicured terraces of the Eternal Isle rose behind the prince, the golden stone of the walls gleaming in the morning light. As far as he could see no one was looking their way from the palace, though he had no doubt this meeting was being observed.
Sadakh stopped half a dozen steps from the prince’s party. The prince did not bother with the pretence of an obeisance. For a few moments neither of them spoke.
Finally the prince raised a hand, gesturing for his guards to step back out of earshot. Then his face broke into a wolfish grin and he said, “You feel your end approaching.”
A chill gripped Sadakh’s heart. His ghost spoke in reassurance: Surely he cannot know the truth. But what if the prince did know what he truly was? With some effort, he replied evenly, “I will accept my death however and whenever it comes.”
The prince inclined his head, as though making a gracious concession. “You have done well for yourself, and will go to the First knowing this.”
What is he playing at? Despite his ghost’s suspicious tone, Sadakh made himself smile, as though pleased by the compliment and oblivious of the veiled threat. “I have done my best for god and for my nation.”
“And from such humble beginnings. Peasant to eparch. Quite a journey.”