“This was Order when we saw it last,” Ilek’Hannat said. “Though it has been many ages since those days.”
“I came to you as an offering of peace,” she said, ignoring the armored figure in the smoke and speaking directly to Ilek’Hannat. “To ascertain the source of threats to our Republic, and to bind our peoples in uncertain times. We had word of an enemy army, of warriors and great beasts, and with our barrier fallen, we are at the mercy of both. With your aid, we can discern where they will come, and drive them back.”
The shaman seemed to be looking through her, his eyes gone milk-white. If he’d listened to her he gave no sign, studying her face as though she were in the way of something fascinating on the tent walls beyond.
“Paendurion,” the shaman said.
Her enemy. The girl, Sarine, had so named the enemy commander, the man behind the golden light.
All pretense of diplomacy splintered. “How …?” she said. “What do you know of him? Where is he? What is he preparing?”
“You are not Paendurion,” the shaman said. “But you work the golden threads; we sense it, in your form.”
“No, I am bloody well not that monster. Please, whatever you are, tell me what you can of his doings. Is he preparing another attack? Are these Uktani involved?”
“Yes,” the shaman said, nodding as though understanding dawned from far away. “Yes, this is a thing. We remember. Once, there were other champions. The knights of Order, with Paendurion at their head. And the serpents. Other powers, magic our children cannot touch. Order. And Balance.”
Fury rose, and frustration. She needed a plain answer. Instead the shaman dusted another powder into the fire, and without further warning a boom shook the tent, spewing cinders in a fountain that threatened to bathe the hide walls in flame.
“Yes,” the shaman said. “There are dangers lurking in the things-to-come, but not from the Uktani, who have been called toward another path. We see three. Three threats to your Republic.”
She raised a hand to ward away the heat. Was the shaman mad? She’d bloody well placed their fate in the hands of a man who would kill her, and himself, standing at the center of a tent he’d set aflame.
“Ad-Shi,” the shaman said. “She is known to us. The spirits of the marsh speak of her presence in the south, among the Lhakani.”
Cinders fell from the tent’s conical ceiling, where its wood beams had caught fire, a rush faster than any natural spread of flame.
“Paendurion. He moves among the ones called Thellan, in your Old World and here, on our lands.”
The words stung like ice amid the heat. They had to get out of the tent, but she hesitated, since neither the shaman nor Tirana had made an attempt to move. Paendurion was among the Thellan. The enemy commander had taken root there, among the third of the great powers.
“And a final threat, from one not yet ascended. Nestled at the heart of your Republic, entrusted with its protection, but—”
The fire bellowed again, a roar of smoke and cinders, and the shaman’s figure blurred. Body came as quick as she willed it, and she moved, weaving Shelter, though the blue haze dimmed to a pale white as soon as she set it in place. She grabbed hold of Ilek’Hannat as Tirana shouted something indiscernible at her, and Savac followed her lead, heading for the tent’s entrance, leaving them all singed and smoking in the dirt as they emerged into the sun.
Marquand was at her side at once. Coughing sounded around her: her lungs expelling smoke, or the shaman’s, or both.
“No,” Tirana was saying. “No, High Commander, this is a grievous offense. You have disrupted the ritual. This will anger the spirits.”
Savac began speaking the Sinari tongue as Marquand tethered Life into her, the normally red-faced captain’s expression hardening as he loomed over her, working the leylines.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Your spirits meant to let Ilek’Hannat burn, and us with him? I saved his life.”
A tribeswoman in red-dyed cloth had come to kneel at Ilek’Hannat’s side, and Aide-Captain Essily was shouting at Savac and the native translator both, with more voices adding to the din on both sides. It seemed as though a company had formed around the burning tent, her four escorts surrounded by tribesfolk who now converged on their wounded shaman even as the tent collapsed behind them in a pillar of fire.
“No, High Commander,” Tirana said. “The spirits would protect us from the flames, and you and your aide as well. Now you have offended … what are you doing?”
She’d moved to kneel beside the shaman, still lying flat where she’d dragged him, no more than a handful of strides from the fire. The shaman was a bloody madman, but he held the key to their protection from the wild. She found Life and bound it into Ilek’Hannat, along with a strand of Body for strength. Black streaks marked his flesh where the fire had bit deepest, but his right side was deep red from forearm to the side of his face. He was a dead man without her intervention. She worked threads of Life into his lungs to keep him breathing, with more to bolster his heart while the bulk of her tethers soaked into his skin.
“High Commander, you cannot do this,” Tirana said. “It is the spirits’ way, to tend to their own. We do not interfere.”
“We do not leave people to die!” she snapped back, finding a full-strength Life binding for the shaman’s scorched windpipe, using the force of the tether to prop open his throat.
The shaman coughed, and the milk-haze drained from his eyes.
Impossible. The red splotches on his skin seemed to recede, his burns bubbling with a white foam.
“Ilan ti ennikat, Tirana,” the shaman said, and he sat up, unaided. The man should have been close to death, and apart from a rasp in his breathing, he could have been no more than winded from a run or a hard day’s exertions. “Shi n’at quiral, t’a kapek ni ana.”
“He was never in danger,” Tirana said, her tone still touched with indignance and anger. “Though he insists we should bear you no ill will for your ignorance. You have brought him a powerful vision.”
“Paendurion,” she said. “Thellan.”
The shaman met her eyes, and he spoke again.
“He says our tribes will be safe here, that the Uktani have followed Arak’Jur into the south.”
“You’re certain,” she said. “You’re certain the Uktani pose no threat here in the north?”
The shaman nodded, and Tirana translated: “He says the spirits would not err in this. He is sure.”
Plans took shape in her mind. Taking down the Great Barrier would pull all her attention to the north, and west, to protect the city from beasts and tribesmen in equal measure. Was Paendurion bold enough to make such a grand gesture, only to cover his true intentions, to attack with Thellan armies from the south? She knew the answer already.
26
SARINE
A Sacred Pool
Tsassani Land
Steam rose from the surface of the water, as though the whole stream had been put to a boil. White silt seemed to pool along the edges and around rocks in the stream, and the whole area stank like a soapmaker’s shop, pungent chemicals stinging the back of her throat and nose.
“Is it safe?” Acherre asked. “The horses won’t drink it.”
Acherre’s mount stood beside her, shying back from the bank of the stream. Sarine’s own horse had taken to grazing as soon as they’d arrived, but it, too, seemed to be avoiding the water.
“It’s not safe to drink,” Ka’Inari said, after she’d relayed Acherre’s question. “The animals are wise. But it is a sacred place, and safe to enter, if you can stand it.”
“This is the place from your vision?” Sarine asked, and Ka’Inari nodded.
She didn’t wait for more. Her boots came off as quick as she could free her feet. Her leggings followed, and her smallclothes. No sense dousing her garments in water that smelled like the leavings from a munitions factory. She took care to cradle Zi as she lifted her shirt, easing the sleeves around his fragile coil
s. She held him tight against her chest as she waded into the water, leaving her clothes behind on the shore.
The water was hot to the touch, enough to sear her skin. If not for Zi she might have held back, but the beast spirits’ gift of ignoring temperature made it bearable. The soreness in her feet and legs melted away as she submerged them, blisters from walking and riding salved by the heat. It took lowering herself at the center of the pool for the water to reach her chest and shoulders, but she did, careful to keep Zi’s head above the water as she soaked the rest of him in the spring. Zi’s scales flashed red and gold beneath the water, and he met her eyes, though he said nothing.
“I take it that means he said it was safe,” Acherre said dryly.
“Yes,” she said. “Sorry.”
Translation had been the least of her burdens since they’d set off from Ka’Ana’Tyat, though the need for it had made Acherre and Ka’Inari stranger company than they might have been, if the two of them had shared a tongue in common. The burden of walking had been tempered by the discovery of a pack of horses still wearing saddles and tack; Acherre had claimed the lead horse for herself, and roped down two more, with no sign of who their owners might have been, or why the horses had been left to the wild. With the horses they’d ranged across the span of two tribes’ land and not seen another soul. If not for Zi she would have let Axerian go. She’d never imagined traveling so far from New Sarresant, so far from her uncle and the city and every comfort she’d ever known. But for Zi she would find out whether the earth had an end.
Sarine. Zi’s thoughts felt frail, as though he struggled to form her name.
“Shh,” she said. “It’s all right. Ka’Inari said this place has healing magic. It will help.”
During blinks she caught sight of the leylines twisting in strange patterns beneath the springs, leaving afterimages of green pods swarming where the water bubbled up from the ground. She’d tried tethering Life into Zi a dozen times without effect, but perhaps a different power was at work here. There had never been a healing spirit among the creatures of the wild, though it was always possible this was an older place, predating the spread of her influence in—
Zi tensed, tightening his grip on her forearm, and she smothered her thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she said, and felt a rush of shame. She hadn’t had a vision in days, but intrusive thoughts sprang up like weeds in the chapel garden. Thoughts she shouldn’t have, memories from no life she’d ever lived, and even pondering their mysteries seemed to hurt Zi beyond what he could bear.
“Exarch’s balls, that’s fucking hot,” Acherre said, and withdrew her foot from the water quick as she’d dabbed it in. Only her boot was off, piled near Sarine’s clothes, but the captain hastened to get it back on rather than shed the rest. “I think I’ll leave the bathing to you, if it’s all the same.”
A fog of steam rose all around her. Perhaps it was hot, but her skin took it in stride. “Sorry,” she said. “I should have warned you. It was only, Zi needed …”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Acherre said. “I need time to work with my mount. We’ll patrol around the spring a ways, make sure none of the natives are taking an interest in us.”
Ka’Inari had removed his footwear as well, thick leather slippers set beside a rock he’d sat atop, dangling his toes into the steam.
“You seem troubled,” Ka’Inari said as Acherre walked her horse away, leaving her and Ka’Inari alone beside the pool. “Is all well between you and the captain?”
“Yes. Acherre means to watch for anyone approaching while we bathe here.”
“Your companion, then.”
Sarine nodded, returning her attention to Zi. He was still quiet, clinging to her forearm as the heat from the pool seemed to lap streaks of red across his scales.
“I don’t think it’s helping him,” she said. “This is the place from your dream, isn’t it?”
“It is,” the shaman said. “The Tsassani pools. Not a place of the spirits, but it is known to them.”
“You said it was a place of healing.”
“Yes. But there are many sorts of wounds. Who can say, for your companion …” He trailed off, and seemed to stop himself. “That is, I’m sorry. I’d hoped this place would help.”
Zi’s eyes had closed, though his claws still held him in place. Asleep, perhaps, or resting. Best to let him linger. Perhaps the waters took time.
“What’s it like,” she asked, “hearing the voices of the spirits of visions?”
The question seemed to surprise the shaman. But it was better if they spoke of other things, something besides Zi’s sickness. If the pool was going to heal him, it was going to heal him. Dwelling on it wouldn’t help.
“It’s something I’ve known since I was a boy,” Ka’Inari said. “And not something spoken of, except to other Ka, or Ilek’Ka.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t meant to offend, but it appeared she had.
“It’s all right,” the shaman said. “I only meant I’m not used to describing it. The spirits of things-to-come speak differently than we do. They send images and sensations, memories sometimes. Dreams. It falls to us to interpret what they mean.”
“So it’s different than the others?”
“Others?”
“I spoke with spirits, when I killed mareh’et, lakiri’in, and again at Tanir’Ras’Tyat. They were cryptic, but they spoke in words, not emotions or images. Not so different from Zi, actually.”
The shaman had rolled his hide leggings up to his knees, submerging his calves into the pool, and he leaned farther forward at her mention of Zi, studying the serpentine head poked above the surface.
“I know nothing of your companion,” Ka’Inari said. “But yes, the spirits of beasts are different. More direct. As different as beasts are from the concepts of time and possibility.”
“Is that why they wouldn’t let me enter Ka’Ana’Tyat?”
“They only told me it wasn’t your place,” he said. “Typically they refuse entry to any who hasn’t performed the rituals and been foreseen by another shaman. I’d suspected it might be different, for you, given your blessings with the other spirits. But it appears it was not.”
“They said it wasn’t …” She trailed off. They’d said it wasn’t her place. Perhaps they’d only meant what Ka’Inari had said, that she hadn’t been chosen or performed the proper rituals, but it came dangerously close to the sort of talk that had been hurting Zi. Better if she changed the subject.
“Your visions,” she said instead. “When they send emotions, memories. Do you ever worry about getting them wrong?”
“Always. Even the best of us make mistakes.”
A painful reminder that they were two hundred leagues from anywhere, on little more than Ka’Inari’s promise that he saw a shadow in the west.
“You’re worried over our journey together,” he continued, and she nodded. “Don’t. One or two sendings could be misinterpreted, but I’ve had many, pertaining to you.”
“The spirits speak of me?”
Ka’Inari’s eyes seemed to flash, but he looked away again quickly.
“They are fascinated by you,” he said.
Silence passed between them. She wasn’t sure how or whether to ask for more. Strange, to consider how close Ka’Inari and his people lived to her city, yet neither knew the other’s ways. Suddenly her nakedness came to the forefront of her thoughts. Neither the shaman nor Acherre had reacted when she strode into the pool, but it was far from polite to shed one’s clothing in the presence of strangers. Was it similarly forward among the tribes? Now she felt like an ass—she hadn’t considered anything beyond the need to try to soak Zi in the pool.
She turned her attention back to her companion, stroking his neck below the water’s surface. He was getting worse. He’d hardly been able to string two words together since Ka’Ana’Tyat. His eyes seemed to be full of pain, and he spent most of the day asleep or comatose—she couldn’t tell which. She’d seen him dozing a thousa
nd times, lazing about on whatever surface was at hand while she drew her sketches. This was different. She wasn’t even sure he would tell her if he knew what was wrong, or how to fix it. It had always been his nature to protect her, and who could say what would qualify as a thing from which she needed saving? The inequality of it burned, doubly so in light of the searing pool. It was her turn to protect him, and she came up short for her ignorance of how to do it.
Light flashed in her eyes, and she was somewhere else.
An empty place.
Her body floated in the water, but even the shape of her seemed a foreign memory. She had no form, no weight, only consciousness.
She wasn’t alone.
Another spark of light, a deep purple where she was blue.
IT SHOULD BE EASIER, IN LIGHT OF THE BREACH IN THE DIVIDE, AND YET I HAVE STRUGGLED TO SPEAK WITH YOU OF LATE.
What?
The words resonated in her mind, and seemed to project outward, until she wasn’t certain whether she’d spoken it or heard it from another source. The void around her was similar to the spirits’ place, but it was different. Calmer, somehow. More empty.
YOU ARE RESTORED. IT’S DONE, THEN. MY PART IN YOUR REBIRTH.
This was hurting Zi, she was sure of it. Her thoughts again seemed to reverberate with sudden force, and she formed them into words.
Please, stop. Let me go.
SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT FORGET OUR PACT. I HAVE TRUSTED YOU BEFORE, AND BEEN BETRAYED.
Air and water sputtered through her lungs, and she coughed, lying on her back in the sunlight.
“Sarine!”
Ka’Inari knelt over her, his image seeming to blur between the man and a shimmer of blue sparks before it settled on his face, full of concern and alarm.
She coughed again, tasting spoiled eggs in the back of her throat, and sat up, her lungs burning raw where water had gotten into her chest. She was on the bank of the pool, a trail of water splashed across the rocks where Ka’Inari must have dragged her out.
Blood of the Gods Page 24