by Tim Stead
There she was, looking at him, no more than an arm’s length away.
“Sam.” She smiled. It was a warm smile. She reached out and touched him, as though making sure he was really there.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What for?” She stood aside and ushered him in. He looked around the room. It was somehow grander than his own new house despite being smaller than either of his front rooms.
“The investigation,” he said. “I should have…”
“Done your job,” she said, cutting him off. “And you did.”
Sam sat in an offered chair and Ishara sat next to him. “I should have trusted you,” he said.
“I’m sure you did,” she said. “But you had no choice. You acted just as I would have expected, with honesty and integrity. There is no blame.”
Arla had been right. Ishara understood. He sighed and leaned back. “I am sorry,” he said. “Sorry that you had to go through this, that you had to expose yourself to a Shan like that.”
She smiled. “Actually I quite liked Seer Jud. He has a wicked sense of humour and a bright mind.”
Sam looked out of the window. “Do you mind if I ask you one or two questions?” he said.
“Always the lawkeeper,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice. “Go ahead.”
“Manoran Fandakari – he took your name?”
“The house name – my father’s name. He would never have considered it mine.”
“Did he have friends, contacts, acquaintances that seemed secretive – men that stopped talking when you entered a room?”
“You should go and live in Sarata for a year,” Ishara said. “Then you wouldn’t ask such questions.”
“Did he have advisors, then? Men he turned to?”
“There was one,” she said, looking thoughtful. “A small man, dressed mostly in black. He smiled a lot, but he had weasel eyes, all the charm of a cold stone floor on a winter night.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Salis. Ingmar Salis. Silly kind of name. Manoran said he came from Yasu.”
“Tell me about him.”
“Not much to tell. He was quiet when I was around, but he whispered to Manoran a lot, and the fool listened and nodded. It was like he held his strings.”
That would be it, then, most likely. This Salis would be one of the Free. It would be him that put the idea into Manoran Fandakari’s head. So they had a name, as if that would do them any good. If they had men in Sarata they could watch him, but he might as well be at the bottom of the sea. If Darna was closed to his men then Sarata was openly hostile, and Sam wouldn’t send men to where they might be hung for being who they were.
“Is there anyone in Sarata that you trust?” he asked.
“One or two, but they’re no friends of Samara, sad to say.”
“This Salis, did he have friends? Did he have any place he went to – a tavern, perhaps?”
“You want him watched, don’t you?” she asked.
Sam felt a sudden stab from his intuition, almost a sharp pain in his throat. He coughed. “No,” he said.
“I can arrange it,” she said.
“Don’t.” The sense of danger was almost palpable. “I don’t want anyone you know anywhere near this man.”
Ishara stared at him in silence for a moment. “You mean it, don’t you? You really mean it.”
“Yes. I suspect your friends would learn nothing and die doing it.”
“He’s just a man, Sam. I’ve seen him.”
Just a man. Maybe.
“Please,” he said. “Trust me on this.”
“Very well.”
She would do as he asked, he knew, however reluctantly. Even though she wanted to be helpful, to be useful to him, she trusted him as he had not quite been able to trust her. He could see it in her eyes.
“There’s one thing you can do for me,” she said.
“If I can.”
She paused, her mouth twitched up into a transient smile and she leaned a little closer. “Ask me to marry you,” she said.
Her words were so unexpected that for a few seconds he gaped like a fish, staring at her. Eventually he managed to speak.
“Are you serious?”
Ishara leaned forwards, resting her hand on his knee. She kissed him on the lips. She felt like warm velvet on his mouth. Her tongue briefly touched his teeth, his lips. She sat back.
Serious, then.
He struggled to find the right words, but simple is best.
“Ishara, will you marry me?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
He shook his head, amazed. “Why?”
She laughed. “At least your modesty is consistent,” she said.
“Seriously. Why?”
“Kind, honest, trustworthy, loyal, powerful, rich…”
“Short, limps, ugly…”
“You’re not ugly, Sam.”
“I have a mirror, you know.”
She kissed him again. It was probably the best argument she had.
40 Jinari
The black door materialised in a chamber high above the main gates of Plainhold and Cal Serhan, Mage Lord of White Rock, stepped through. The room was deserted and he walked over to the tall, west-facing window. The mountains were closer here on the western plains, and loomed up out of the forest less than twenty miles from where he waited. It was warmer here than White Rock. He shed his coat and threw it to one side.
It was a barren room. Stone floor, stone walls, heavy black-beamed ceiling, thick wooden door – not even a seat to sit on, but at least the window was glassed.
The door opened.
The man that opened it was tall, broad shouldered but running to fat, and dressed entirely in scarlet silk.
“Serhan,” he said. He didn’t quite sneer the name, but it was close.
“Gin, tell your master I’m here, and promptly please.”
Gin paused insolently, then stepped outside and closed the door. Cal heard a bolt shoot on the other side.
Childish.
He gestured, spoke a word and a comfortable armchair appeared, a table beside it bearing a bottle of wine, a glass and a book. He sat down and poured himself a healthy measure. The book was one he was reading, a treatise on the making of roads. It was an ancient book, but then most of the good roads in Shanakan were ancient. He thumbed steadily through the pages, knowing that he would remember every detail. It was both his blessing and his curse – a perfect memory.
The door opened again. It was Gin.
“Follow me,” he said.
Cal put down his glass and book and gestured once more. They vanished and he followed the servant out of the room. The corridor was carpeted. The walls were bright with dozens of lamps. It was a stark, faintly insulting contrast with the reception room.
A few turns and up a broad spiral staircase and a door was opened for him to enter another room. Gin did not enter with him, but closed the door behind him.
“You should get rid of that man,” Cal said. “He’s impertinent.”
“Not to me.” The man at the other end of the room, artfully lounging by a vast open window, didn’t bother to stand. He was dressed in a confection of red and gold silk and satin that hugged his slim figure and accentuated the skeletal nature of his face. This was Jinari, one of Serhan’s first five pupils.
“You should eat more,” Cal said.
Jinari snorted. “What are you, my father? Oh no, my mistake, you killed him.”
It was true, but that had been in self defence, and the two of them had been over this ground a hundred times. Jinari would choose to believe what he wished. Nevertheless, it was a bad start to the conversation.
“I want you to do something for me,” Cal said.
Jinari finally stood, but his voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Really?”
“Yes. I want you to call off The Free. They listen to you, and they’ve gone too far this time.”
Jinari walked back into the heart of the
room and picked up a handful of nuts from a bowl on an ornate walnut veneered table. He tossed one in his mouth.
“What have they done this time?”
“They killed twenty-four people in Darna, burnt two ships.”
“Amateurs,” Jinari scoffed. “How many did you kill at Samara Plain?”
“They’re plotting to kill Calaine Tarnell and Bren Portina,” Cal said. This, finally, seemed to get through to Jinari. The young man frowned.
“Really?”
“And they’re trying to start a war between Samara and the east.”
“Are you sure?” Jinari’s tone had changed completely. He was annoyed now, his frown complimented by the hard, flat line of his mouth.
“I am certain. Several have been caught. Many have taken those little pills they kill themselves with.”
“Why would they want to kill Calaine?” Jinari asked. Cal didn’t reply. He watched Jinari stalk about the room, much as he had as a student. He seemed to think better when he was walking about. He stopped. “Do you think they’re being used?” he asked.
Cal shrugged. “By someone other than you? How should I know?”
“This is really happening?” Jinari asked, a note of suspicion in his voice again.
Cal walked over to the walnut table and allowed three rings to fall onto it, a trinity of silver witnesses. “Are these your work?” he asked.
Jinari came over and picked one of them up. He examined it. “I’ve never seen them before,” he said.
“Would you care to say that in front of a Shan?”
“The whole of Jerohal, if you like.”
It was a bluff. He’d never get Jinari to swear anything in front of a Shan, he had too many secrets, but the young man lacked the art to lie well, and perhaps the rings were not his work after all. They were not crudely made pieces. The magic that drove them was subtle and well crafted.
“They’re not ancient,” Cal said. “And the skill of them is beyond most mages.” It was a backhanded compliment, but Jinari saw it as an accusation.
“Not mine,” he said. “Where did you get them?”
“Off the dead hand of an assassin.”
“And what do they do?”
Sometimes Cal almost forgot that he was the only mage who could see and hear old magic. He had grown accustomed to the gift. In this room alone he could sense the presence of a dozen spells and with a little effort could have dissected them.
“Absence of fear, healing wounds, increased strength and speed.”
“A formidable assassin, then,” Jinari said. “And he was trying to kill Calaine?”
“He’d arranged that with a Shan poisoner,” Cal said.
“Truly?” Jinari seemed impressed. He began pacing again, and Cal waited. It was a pity about Jinari. His father – not really his father, of course, but an adoptive parent – had grown up with Cal in a small village in the distant west. He had been taught by Cal’s teachers and sent across the mountains a few years ahead of Cal to be a thorn in the side of the Faer Karan. That had not been a great success.
Jinari’s ‘father’, Rollo, had despaired. His strategy to defeat the Faer Karan had been to deprive them of their toys, of humanity itself, and they had argued. Rollo had tried to kill him, but Cal was already beyond Rollo in ability and the older man had died.
He knew that Jinari could not be Rollo’s son because Rollo was only sent over the mountains a handful of years ahead of Cal, and when Cal had first come across Jinari in Sorocaba he was too old. He had been namelessly fathered when Rollo was still in the west.
None of this mattered. Jinari thought of Rollo as his father and Cal had killed him. It was doubly unfortunate because of all Cal’s pupils Jinari had been the most gifted, the most subtle. He did not match Felice Caledon in raw power, but he was clever. Very clever and arrogant with it.
In a peculiar way Cal thought of Jinari as a sort of wayward nephew, even though he was only a few years younger.
Jinari stopped pacing.
“I will send messages to people that I know,” Jinari said. “If what you say is true then they will become aware that I wish it to cease.”
Cal nodded. “That is all I can ask for,” he said. “But if they shake off your… moderating influence they will have to be dealt with. You understand?”
Jinari glared at him. “You’ll kill them?” he demanded.
“If, as it seems, they are intent on starting a war, then yes, I will kill them. You can hardly expect me to allow it.”
Cal wondered why he let them live. They were a constant irritation, The Free. Two reasons sprang to mind. They would be difficult to track down because of their penchant for killing themselves at the drop of a hat. And it would mortally offend Jinari. The latter reason troubled him. He’d always thought of the Free as Jinari’s guerrilla war against him and his interests, but if he’d lost control…
“I’d better go,” he said.
Jinari threw another nut into his mouth and crunched it savagely. He glared at Cal. “If you kill my people…” he said, leaving the threat hanging.
That was the problem with arrogance, Cal thought. Jinari was capable of deluding himself that he was Cal’s equal – even his better. This was not true and never would be. The ability to read and comprehend ancient magic had given Cal depths of knowledge that none of the others really understood. He could crush Jinari as easily as a man might kill a rat, but he had no desire to do so. Men of Jinari’s talent – many of them – would be needed if the Faer Karan returned in force.
Besides that Cal had been somehow changed in his battle with the Faer Karan. His servant Borbonil, the only surviving Faer Karani of note, had seen that change, though neither of them knew what it might mean.
“You will do nothing,” Cal said, allowing himself, for once, to be menacing. He stared into Jinari’s eyes and the air between them grew heavy with promised violence. The younger man looked away, reminded temporarily of his place in the world.
Cal turned on his heel and left. He pushed past Gin who had obviously been listening at the door, and for a moment he was tempted to reduce the sneering servant to a stain on the floor, but Gin cringed and he relented. He had important things to do. He needed to get back to White Rock. He needed to talk to Felice. He needed a bath, a decent meal and a drink.
41 Home
She had been on deck since dawn. The Sword of Samara cut through the waves, a good, fresh westerly driving her sleek form through the sea towards Samara, spray washing the larboard rail as the hull broke each foaming crest. Calaine could not wait to see her home again.
It seemed a year since she had left, and for all its canals and trees, its charming red brick, Blaye wasn’t Samara. It lacked the greater city’s hard edge. It lacked Ella Saine and her brother Corbin. It lacked her father.
But more than anything Samara was simply home. Before this journey she had never left, and so she had risen with the first touch of pink in the eastern sky and come on deck to watch for the city, to see it rise above the horizon like a dream reborn.
The captain told her that it would be hours before she saw anything, but still she waited, standing astern of the wheel on the raised deck, waiting. She stood wrapped in a thick coat against the wind, which had a southerly edge to it.
The news she’d been sent, the letters from General Grand, had worried her. He had been quite open about it. Someone was trying to kill her, to prevent the royal marriage, and Bren was also in danger.
It was strange. She was familiar with danger. She had walked the streets of the city when the Faer Karan ruled, exchanged arrows with guard patrols. She’d killed men. But this was different. Poison was a terrible way to die – worse than a knife in the back, and she would never look at food in quite the same way again. If Darius was right about this three hands business even a food taster was no assurance.
A servant, or more accurately, she supposed, a sailor, brought her a meal on deck – a simple slab of cooked meat wrapped in bread. She had
n’t asked to be fed, but the smell of it made her suddenly hungry. The meat was mildly spiced, and not especially tender, but Calaine ate with gusto, wrapping one leg around a stanchion and leaning her hip against the rail so she could eat with both hands. She had grown up with hardship, and rough edges served only to remind her of a childhood when her companions had been hard men in armour and her toys had been knives, swords and bows. Even now she dressed, as often as she could, in a comfortable fashion – stout boots, thick cotton trousers, a plain shirt and leather jacket over which her woollen coat was draped. She had tied her yellow hair back with a leather thong to keep it out of her eyes.
“Not long now, Karana.” It was Captain Parl. He was an inch or two shorter than Calaine, but neat as a pin, standing on the rolling deck as though it were the flattest rock in Shanakan. She looked at the shore.
“You see that headland?” He pointed over the bow. “That’s Porlock Bay Head, and beyond it is the flat land that eventually runs into Gulltown. An hour or two and we’ll see the city.”
“Looking forward to getting home, Captain?” she asked.
“The Sword of Samara is my home, Karana,” Parl said. “Wherever she is, I’m content to be aboard.”
She supposed it might be so, to love a vessel so much that it became your home, to have no place ashore. But it seemed a precarious sort of life to Calaine. A misplaced rock and your home could sink beneath you. She preferred the solidity of Samara’s citadel.
“Well, she is doubtless the finest vessel afloat, Captain,” she replied. Parl smiled. Clearly he agreed.
She finished her food and remained on deck, watching the coast creep past. It was an odd sensation for Calaine. She had not travelled before, and it seemed a sort of mystery to her that the ship should race so swiftly past a languid shoreline. She understood, of course, that it was because the land was so distant, but it still seemed a wonder.
Her time in Blaye had passed by with accelerating swiftness. At first the place was alien and Calaine had been awkward. She was proud. Proud of her own city and her people. So much so that to like anything about Blaye had seemed a sort of betrayal. But time eased her into the place. Thanks to Bren’s patience and kindness she grew accustomed to the leafy streets, the strange food, and the canal borne markets that sprang up around the city from time to time. Unlike her father, Bren often walked among his people. So it was that she came to know the streets and people of Blaye almost as well as she knew her own.