But it wasn’t necessary. The crew made a pact to watch one another and not set foot on shore until the spice was sold and it came time to divide the profits. The crew worked for shares on this voyage, Lerica explained. No worthy sailor would serve on such an expedition for mere wages, and no worthy captain would ask them to do so.
The weather held fair as they continued northward on the east side of Terrula. They stayed out of sight of land for the most part, and Lerica seemed grateful she didn’t have to look at the shore where the slave camp had been, but Kyric was glad for the evenings when they bore close and the land breeze swept away the aroma of spice, replacing it with the earthy, fertile scent of the jungle.
Kyric woke with a start as Lerica stuck her head into his cabin and said, “Get dressed and come up on deck.”
Ellec’s spyglass was glued to his eye when Kyric got to the quarterdeck. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but it was light enough to see. They were approaching the Straits of Terrula, and through the morning twilight, he could see some kind of ship about ten miles ahead.
“Appears to be a whaler,” Ellec said, still looking. “But these aren’t whaling waters.”
“She could be outbound from Ularra,” Lerica said.
Ellec grunted. “She hasn’t enough canvas spread to be going anywhere. They’re loitering.”
“They could have come across a stray. You do see them around here from time to time.”
“There’s hardly any smoke. They’re not doing any rendering right now.” He lowered the spyglass and looked at her. “I don’t like it.”
Kyric grinned in disbelief. “Are you suggesting that they’re pirates? I thought those days were long gone — there are patrols from Ularra and such.”
Ellec frowned. “There is no patrol here now.”
“Well if they are pirates,” Lerica said, “changing course would be a dead giveaway. But if we hold course we’ll come close enough for them to see that we’re loaded.”
A call came from the lookout. “She’s coming about!”
Ellec raised the spyglass again. “Question answered. They’re putting on more sail and heading straight for us. Damn. If we had got here two hours sooner we would have passed them in the dark.”
That gave Kyric an idea. He turned and headed back down.
“Where are you going?” Lerica said.
“To bed.”
He rose from the floor of the cavern, inching forward until he felt rough stone. The darkness appeared to be a little less dark to one side. He went that way, coming to an opening where moonlight filtered in.
It was cold. He stood above the barren shore of a frozen ocean. The sky was still black. The coastline lay dotted with boulders and unusual rock formations. Sculpted by wind and waves, one of the larger rocks stood out clearly as a dragon, its mouth open and facing the sea.
Kyric walked down to it, circling around to stand in front it. He looked at it more closely. Its sides seemed to expand ever so slightly, like it was breathing. “Send forth your breath,” he commanded in the Essian Tongue. “Breathe, dragon!”
A blast of hot air shot out of the dragon’s mouth, spreading across the ocean of ice. A thick, churning fog rose, blotting out everything beyond the shore.
Kyric couldn’t believe he had come straight to the right place. It couldn’t have been luck. That cavern must have been like the one inside the Ilven dream tree. He still wasn’t sure about the dreamlands. Rolirra had made it clear that first you had to know your way to these places, then you could find what you needed. He found a flat boulder and sat down. There was nothing to do now but wait.
Time became indistinct, like the features of the frozen coast. The fog held steady. At length, the dragon exhaled once again and this time the fog swirled away directly in front of it, revealing a dark silhouette, a human figure. Kyric jumped to his feet and stumbled backward, afraid but unable to look away.
It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t. I drank from the fountain.
Moonlight glanced sharply off the figure’s obsidian eyes as it turned. No, it wasn’t Cauldin’s dream self. The figure glided across the fog-shrouded ice, heading towards the open sea. Kyric ran to the edge of the shore. He felt a weird impulse to follow it. Something about it seemed familiar. He had to know who or what it was.
He leapt onto the frozen sea, dashing after the figure as it merged with the fog. He couldn’t see where his feet landed, but he could feel the ice cracking and booming underneath him. He caught sight of the dream-being once again as he closed the distance, the ice underfoot growing wetter and more slick. He ran up to it, reaching out, grasping it by the shoulder and spinning it around.
It was a face he had seen many times. It was Mother Nistra, the high priestess, her eyes replaced with the cold orbs of a dragon. The same eyes he had seen in his dream with Master Zahaias.
“Why do you always come to me with her face?”
“We are her and she is us,” the dream-being answered. “We are of the Power feminine. We are the light in the darkness, the awakened within the dream.”
“You don’t represent all of the Powers?”
“We are not all one.”
Kyric threw out his hands. “So what do you want of me?”
He suddenly realized how different it was this time. He could speak. Before, he could only watch and listen. And now the Unknowable Forces answered him directly.
“It is you who has always come to us. You sought us in the beginning, and so it is now.”
“In the beginning? You mean when I held the dreamstone? I was a kid.”
“A child’s spirit may be capricious and ephemeral, but there is a place in every spirit which is the source of all its essences. This elemental instinct remains unchanged throughout his life. Yours is to seek the Unknowable, and we have accepted you. Only now have you come to see this.”
Kyric didn’t know what to say. He had a hundred questions that needed answers and he couldn’t remember any of them.
“Then what purpose is there in accepting me, as you put it? Do you have any purpose at all?”
The dream-being stood motionless. “We would have you be a thread, woven into a greater design.”
“And Mother Nistra was your agent in this? Is that why you appear to me in her form? Because it was she who made me into what I am, not my real mother. I’ve always felt that my life was my own, but now I wonder.”
“It was you who came to us.”
He blinked. He lay on his hammock, Lerica standing over him. She stared at him strangely.
“What?” he said.
“Is it that easy for you? You just laid down and dreamed up a fog so we could slip past them?”
He sat up. He still felt those inhuman eyes upon him. And he felt cold.
“No. It isn’t easy.”
It was midnight before they sighted the fires at the mouth of Ularra harbor. The wind dropped, coming around behind them, and Calico eased into port, her square sail only half full.
“I hate to tell you this,” Lerica said to her uncle. “But this ship smells like . . . oh, I don’t know . . . a ship full of spice?”
Ellec frowned. “I didn’t think of that. I guess I’ve gotten used to it. Mister Pallan,” he called. “I need you to raise a great stink.”
Pallan blinked for a moment. “Aye, Captain. I’ll have the tar pot on the fire at once. Yes sir, the ratlines are in dire need of tarring. In dire need, they are. A few other places too.”
Once they had docked, Ellec broke out the muskets and armed the watch. “Keep them under covers,” he told them, “but no one comes aboard without a fight.”
Ellec went to arrange for supplies as soon as the sun was up. Lerica begged to go with him.
“We could have breakfast at the Sevdin Arms,” she pleaded. “Eggs. Fresh milk. And those briny little kippers they serve.”
In the end he took her with him just so he could keep an eye on her. They soon returned, Lerica frowning, having been to the chandlers and nowhere
else. But later that day a fresh side of beef was delivered to the ship and they had huge steaks for supper.
A storm kept them in Ularra an extra day, but the rain held down the scent of spice. It turned deliciously cool. After nearly a year of warm climates, Kyric drank it in. He and Lerica still dined together, and they talked comfortably on deck as they always had.
“I’m dying to jump ship and go have some fun,” she told him. “It’s making me crazy. My home port is there in front of me and all I can do is look at it.”
They departed Ularra in a stiff breeze, tacking through the Straits of Terrula as the weather slowly moderated. They sailed almost due west out of the straits, with Ellec pacing the deck when they passed between the former pirate colony of Toscarbi, and the tip of Jakavia, where the ships of the costal guard were little more than privateers. The days turned at first grey and blustery, then clear and mild as they approached the shores of Aessia. They came to the harbor roads of Aeva early one morning in the third week of spring, the crimson sky mirrored on the quiet waters of the bay. Kyric stood at the rail as the sun rose and they entered the harbor.
“How does it feel to be home?” Lerica asked him.
It was something he’d never considered. He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
CHAPTER 16: An Incomplete Puzzle
Seldorven held the lantern high for the grandmaster as they followed the winding steps down, deeper into the mountain. He had no doubt that his master could see well enough in the dark, even when he wore the eye patch. Seldorven simply carried the lantern for the same reason he accompanied him. It was out of respect.
Seldorven personally looked in on the linguist every day. Often there would be no change for days on end, then overnight more than a dozen of the fragments would change position. Grandmaster Cauldin visited once a year.
A light flickered below, at the bottom of the staircase. One of Seldorven’s men sat outside the door to the chamber at all times. Not a guard, an attendant ready to fetch food or drink, or anything Galettan required at any hour. There was no lock upon the door. This was not a dungeon. It was simply the most insulated chamber in the citadel. A winter gale could be blowing outside and you would never hear it in there. Nor would you ever see the sun.
Seldorven opened the door for his master, and Cauldin stepped into a flood of candlelight. A gigantic chandelier hung from the ceiling, with smaller ones sitting on stands in the corners. This was Galettan’s only demand, that the chamber be brightly lit at all times, even when he slept. He might wake with a flash of insight, and it could fade should he not go to work at once.
The old man sat at his desk, cutting a nib into a quill, his hands in wool gloves that left the fingertips exposed. He insisted on cutting his own pens. But something was different today. His papers had been arranged into neat stacks, and all the usual clutter stowed away beneath his cot. He stood at once when he saw the grandmaster.
Cauldin held up one hand. He was in his monk’s robes, as he often was when he stayed in the citadel.
“Sit, Galettan, sit. You sent word that you must speak to me.”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Galettan said, sitting. “This is the only chair I have.”
Cauldin went to the huge table that dominated the room. He strolled its length idly, running one finger along its edge. A thousand pieces of shattered tile ran from one end of the table to the other, scrawled with bits of a lost language. Some of them could cover a large man’s hand, others were small as a fingernail.
“This arrangement has changed greatly since the last time,” Cauldin said. “The gaps are wider. The fragments are more spread out.”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you, my lord. There are more missing pieces than we had first suspected. I realized that last year. Strange, but knowing it made the work go faster.”
“You determined yourself that the weight and surface area was sufficient. That is what you told me.”
“Yes, my lord. The problem was that when they smashed the lowest row of tiles, they also broke the bottom edge of the row of tiles above. Those got mixed in by whoever recovered the fragments from the ruins. I sifted them out and this is what remained.”
Cauldin stopped and turned his human eye on the old man. “What does this mean?”
Galettan smiled uneasily. “Good news, my lord. I have completed my task. It is finished.”
Seldorven stood stunned for a moment. Twelve years. The man hasn’t left this room for twelve years, trying to decipher this puzzle inscribed in an ancient tongue. And he doesn’t have all the pieces to solve it.
“I have the translation for each grouping here,” Galettan continued, indicating a stack of pages in front of him, “with likely candidates for some of the missing words.”
The grandmaster stood very still. Seldorven knew that he always stood with one foot in the realm of power, and now it bristled around him. Seldorven could feel a storm gathering there. Whatever happened in the next moment, it would be a nexus for lines of power that went back hundreds of years.
“Tell me what you have learned,” Cauldin said. “Is it a song? Is it an instrument?”
“It is both, my lord. It is a horn, and a song — ” He shuffled his pages. “Here it is. ‘A song played on the horn of Elitass, known only by the essence of the wind.’”
“Have you any knowledge of its whereabouts?”
“No, my lord. There is a great gap in the text concerning its location. I only know that it was in Keltassia. Ancient Keltassia, before the continent was drowned in the flood. It is most likely underwater.”
Slowly, the grandmaster walked a full circle around the enormous table. He removed his eye patch and let the light of the Pyxidium fall on the broken tiles. He stared with the full power of his gaze, then turned to Seldorven.
“Send for Andemin at once.”
Galettan struggled to his feet, bowing low and averting his eyes. “My lord. If it please you, may I go home now? There is nothing left for me to do here, and I have never seen my granddaughter.”
Cauldin turned the light of the Pyxidium on him. He didn’t look up, but Galettan still cringed when it struck him.
“Not yet, Galettan. It may come to pass that we will find more fragments. For now I want you to go over the rubbings again.”
“I have examined them many times, my lord.”
“Once more will do no harm. You must understand the importance of this work. Know that you are indispensable, and that you do the highest service to the order, and to me.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
When Dragoneye arrived a fortnight later, the only snow remaining in the courtyard lay in the corners that never saw sunlight. Seldorven could taste a hint of springtime in the air. The grandmaster had spent the entire winter in the citadel, which was strange. It was well known within the order that he never stayed anywhere more than a month or two.
He wanted to see Dragoneye immediately, and Seldorven led him up the winding stairs to the grandmaster’s study. Once the iron-strapped door swung shut, Seldorven could only hear the low, muffled echo of their voices. But he had not been named Silenthand for nothing. He was commandant of the citadel, and he would know everything that passed here. Dragoneye was the grandmaster’s razor — any task assigned to him would require the most delicate violence.
In some ways, this was difficult for him, for he knew that it would displease his master to know that he spied upon him. It wasn’t that his love was weak. It was strong. But it was the protective sort, and he couldn’t protect the grandmaster if he didn’t know all that he could. He slipped into the adjacent chamber, a little-used day room, and turned the third wall sconce counterclockwise. Long ago he had a funnel-shaped hole carved through the stonework to open behind a particularly porous section of wood paneling in the study. With his ear to the hole, it was like he was in the room with them.
“One of them was a Keltassian,” Cauldin was saying. “He could have been the one who revealed my presence in the ruins.
He may serve as one of their resident watchmen. And if not him, there will be another, for they now have something to watch.
“Go to Albatas and find him, Andemin. Take him alive and bring him to the castle in Zelfinor. Have Wirren accompany you, so he can dreamspeak to me when you have the Keltassian.”
“I’ll need two more brothers of my choosing if you want him without serious injury,” Andemin said, “and even then it will be difficult. They have a way of making you kill them. But if he is one of their watchmen, the hardest part will be finding him. He will look like any common man. He will not go about with visible weapons, nor will he even carry his locket. Of course, if you wish him found quickly, I could hunt him on the plane of power, cast nets upon the weird, but he might sense it. And one of the masters of Esaiya might sense the danger.”
“You mean Zahaias. Yes, that is possible.” The grandmaster fell silent for a moment. “There is no great urgency, yet do not tarry. Find him with more passive means, get close to people and see them. But do find this man.”
“Yes, Grandmaster. How much time do I have?”
“If you do not locate the Keltassian, return in two years. I will need you then for the Baskillian invasion.”
“I mean no impertinence, sir,” Andemin said hesitantly, “but isn’t the conquest of the Avic lands dependent on the Shi’Zalin gaining the governorship of the Spice Islands?”
The grandmaster answered evenly. “No. It is not.”
CHAPTER 17: Home
It began to rain as Kyric stepped out of Calico’s jolly boat and onto the dock at the old harbor. Ellec had asked Mr. Pallan to row him ashore. He was the one least likely to forget himself and take a short liberty.
Kyric walked to the square and hailed a cabriolet. This was where he had first entered Aeva that night with Aiyan. He felt like he had closed a circle. And now he had to close another.
When he arrived at the gate to the royal residence, he was surprised to find his name on the permanent list. An officer escorted him to the house, and he soon found himself standing in a reception hall, an errant drop of water falling from his hat.
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