by Carol Berg
What were the right words? Another apology would surely enrage her further.
“You must choose,” I said between choking spasms. “You’re not the ignorant serving girl he imagines, but a woman clever, shrewd, and determined. Consider, lady. If I teach you all I know in an instant, then what am I worth to you? I wish to live. I desire knowledge—and power. If I didn’t, I’d not be here or be able to do the things I do. If I am to be your slave, as I have been, I’ll do the least that I must to avoid punishment and continue living. If I were to be your hireling, however, and be granted some measure of freedom, then we could bargain like free people for what I will share with you. If neither plan is to your liking, you can join Dimios the Souleater in the frozen netherworld—or trust your Stones and your fortune to Iaccar, whichever suits you best.”
My mistress didn’t like a second man serving her an ultimatum in the same hour. She carefully laid a command of immobility on me and proceeded to take her turn at my already throbbing cheek. On this day she used her shoe. Once she had vented her displeasure for a sufficient time, sufficient at least for my free-flowing blood to leave puddles and trails on her fine carpet, she burst into exuberant laughter.
“Oh, you are a fine one, magus. What fire burns in you! I have the power of your life, of your reason, of your sight, of your soul, and you presume to bargain with me like some peddler in the marketplace. ‘No, no, girl. Two coppers for the fish or I’ll let it rot!’ I knew I was wise to throw in my lot with you and not with that stupid, greedy oaf and his ghost dances. He is mad to get his hands on the Maldeona. But we’ll not let him touch them, shall we? Me and my hireling.”
And while I lay there unable to move—from the beating, her command, or sheer astonishment that she had apparently accepted my bargain—she licked the blood from my lips, a kiss not filled with any lust for me, but for power and magic and all that they could give her. Then she rang her bell and my jailer herded me stumbling, trembling, back to my hole.
Along the way I did not take my eyes from the sunlight and the glories of the world beyond the palace windows. I feared, when given time to consider, that she would never let me out again.
Hosten shoved me into the hole roughly, as if my battered face were testimony of some violation of our mistress. But it was neither the beating nor the confrontation with Jacard nor the postponed shakes from my risky spellworking that disturbed me most as the dark, silent hours crawled past. It was the young man with the radiant face and the gray and gold hair. He had no place in Jacard’s illusion. I had seen him in de Cuvier’s dream of Rhymus and the world’s ruin. He had appeared in my own dreams on this long road, but I was coming to think he was neither illusion nor dream. It was easier to consider myths, legends, and impossibilities in the dark.
This time I knew the meaning of his enigmatic smile. Recognition. He understood me…and the fear Portier’s beliefs and warnings had buried deep inside me in those places thought and reason could not enter. The tall young man had tried to warn me, too. Thou’rt my worthy companion, he had said in my dream at the shepherds’ village, stronger than you know. It matters not that you were born in the dark to another fate.
This time I understood the scents that always accompanied his presence. Families sprinkled rosemary in graves to keep insects away. And on his deathbed, my father had quoted a bit of Temple script: And so will come the last battle of the War for Heaven and guardianship of the Living Realm. The Righteous Defender will rise from the ashes.…
But it was the entirety of the passage I could not shake off. The Righteous Defender will rise from the ashes and battle the Daemon. Not a daemon. The Daemon. The one portrayed on the Uravani bridge. The Daemon of the Dead.
Anne
CHAPTER 26
27 DUON
MATTEFRIESE
“We’ve ridden ten hours today,” I said. “Perhaps we should call a halt.”
As the border town of Mattefriese grew ever larger on the dusty horizon, Ilario drooped in the saddle, his face pinched. “A real bed would be a boon divine,” he said. “But I can go on.”
The brevity of his answer and the tightness of its delivery reminded me yet again that no matter what he claimed in the morning, Ilario was yet half-invalid. The speed we had made since leaving Merona had cost him dearly. But we’d spotted Temple hounds at every stop and dared not linger—a bailiff among the guards at town gates, servitors patrolling markets, even Readers lounging outside the deadhouse walls, eyeing strangers.
“Be sensible,” I said. “I’ll need my hero later.”
“We should stay here an extra day. He needs to build up his reserves again.” Rhea shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. The poor girl must have a case of saddle sores for the ages. Yet she never asked for respite. If Ilario rode, she rode.
The world felt gray and bleak, stretched thin, as if the cool, sunny weather were but a facade of no more depth than a painted screen. The travelers on the road seemed but players in a mime, their speech meaningless jabbering. I’d not been able to sleep the previous night for the dread that infused the aether, weighing on my shoulders like a cloak of lead. Yet I must have done, for I’d heard dreadful screaming that neither Rhea nor Ilario had.
I offered Ilario a waterskin, but he shook his head. “When we stop next.”
Rhea hunched her shoulders and eyed the jagged ridges spiked from the dry country, before dropping her gaze to the hard-packed road. She had never been so far from the pastures and vineyards of Challyat and Louvel. I had tried to explain what we faced when she awkwardly broached the idea of accompanying us. But for Ilario’s vigorous encouragement—a measure of his illness, I thought—I would have left her behind. He had worried that she would reap the whirlwind for his disappearance.
Ilario had dispatched a brief note to Eugenie, telling her he’d met a young woman who enjoyed travel. Eugenie was not to worry unless he decided he needed rescuing and sent her his crocodile charm. He vowed to return before her child was born in the spring. A risky promise, I feared.
The streets of Mattefriese blistered our feet through our shoes. Most shoppers had retired to somewhere shadier. We separated, Ilario off to seek beds for the night, while Rhea and I prowled the torpid market for food supplies and cooler garments. Now we didn’t need cloaks, Rhea’s green dress and apron spoke clearly of the Temple, and Ilario’s tall frame and pale hair were too noticeable. I could do nothing about his height, but bulkier clothes and a good hat would help.
Rhea had proved worth beyond her care for Ilario. She was expert at finding good food for little money, whether picking through lean markets or speaking to hostlers about what might be found in their kitchens when they claimed their pots were emptied. We’d no time or resources to cook, so we ate what we carried. Ilario, though one of the wealthiest men in Sabria, had neither coin nor weapon with him, and my purse was not bottomless.
We found nothing suitable laid out. “Meste,” I said to a wrinkled Pytharian woman, touching my brow to thank her for her help.
She crowed. “Sabrian lady knows Pythari politeness!”
“Not so much a lady.” I felt like a rag sale.
“Come, lady, friend.” She motioned Rhea and me inside her shabby wagon. “More.”
It was dim and stuffy under the canvas roof. The old woman’s gold bangles clinked as she pulled items from an ancient trunk. First, a skirt of rust-colored leather. Rather, the garment hung like a skirt but was split and sewn together in the middle like trousers. She pointed out a slit pocket in the skirt where one could sheath a knife. “Parfeta!” I said, and pulled my zahkri from my own slit pocket.
She grinned and held the skirt to Rhea’s waist. Tall and sturdy, the woman said she’d worn it when she rode the plains with her brothers chasing kingbucks. Ground-up kingbuck horn would make a man virile and a woman fertile. About my neck, she hung a leather thong with three brass disks and a bit of horn dangling from it, then waved off payment. “No coin. Make you luck.”
We rifled her t
runk and found white shirts, embroidered in red and green. Rhea gasped like a child on her birthday when she found a filmy scarf of deep rose to keep the sun off when we reached the desert. It drew out a youthful bloom in her cheeks. In friendly rivalry, we snatched up scarves and shawls, and a light mantle and woven cap of braided scraps that might do for Ilario. I pulled out a fine old-fashioned sword and a scabbard tooled with eagles. I glanced up, and the woman nodded. This meeting had been more than lucky.
She bit our coins with brown teeth and laughed in delight. “Oistra en chiano.” Go, in joy.
“And you, Mistress,” I said.
The westering light stretched across the market, as we stowed our purchases on our pack horse. Ilario trudged slowly down the alley. Sweat beaded his forehead.
“We found you a cooler mantle,” I said when he joined us. “And a hat to mask your hair. And something else you’ll need.” I patted the sword hilt, tucked into loops on the saddle.
He raised his right arm and made a sweeping gesture, only to let loose a muted, “Ow. My physician best have a poultice ready. But the gift, little seahorse”—he rested his heavy head atop mine—“is dear. Without one—and without my captain—I’ve felt naked.”
I knew that. Every time we glimpsed Temple green, his hand brushed his hip. And every night he offered prayers for gallant Calvino de Santo, who had no other family to mourn him.
As we settled our belongings in a smoky little garret in the nastiest little inn I’d ever walked into, Ilario passed me two papers, one rolled and tied with string, one a scrap scarce large enough to fold, sealed with resin. “I have a gift for you as well. Care of one Marga Tasso.”
“You found her! Oh, my beloved chevalier.”
“Ah, for that, dear Ani.” A wistful note was belied by his mocking bow.
I laughed but could scarce rip the packets open, my hands trembled so.
Lady Anne,
The man who offers to take my message frets to be off. Travelers are rare, so I must use this chance quick-like or risk waiting a month or more.
It is a sorry fact that Dante and I have parted ways. When we stumbled in here, sorely thirsty, my brother got himself into a bad sichuation, trespassing the law. He did no harm, but our difficulties required my staying here, while Dante was sent away. John Doon accompanied him, and as far as I know, they took our original course south from here to Karabayngor. I do not have the highest confidence in John Doon. I caught him traffiking with two unpromising fellows who were following us on the road.
Worse are the tales I hear from this traveler and the settlers here of a petty prince to the south. He is a sorcerer who calls himself the Regent of Mansibar and wears a great green gem about his neck on a silver chain. There are bad goings-on in Mansibar, haunts and bloodletting and vanishings. That sounds like doings that my brother might get himself mixed up in. Powerful as he may be, Dante might have need of some reliable help. It chafes me greatly that I cannot go. But I have given my bond for his life. I would not be much help to him to put a price on his head, if he were not really in danger after all!
I know not what to recommend. I must admit to having a bad feeling, but you ween more of sorcery and mysteries than I.
Here’s a map of our route with sources of good and bad water marked. Gods willing, my little brother will be safely on his way home soon with the answer to his mystery in hand.
Ever your servant, Andero
at Hoven in Kadr
Haunts, bloodlettings…and Dante with no help but Ilario’s scraggy little manservant. Certainly I knew why Ilario had kept on a servant who despised him, a necessity of Ilario’s lifetime masquerade. But in such danger…
Ilario had collapsed onto the wide pallet, his head propped on his fist. Waiting. I passed the message on to him and read the second.…
Lady Anne,
Troubling news. It is said that a cruel sorcerer now partners the Regent of Mansibar and holds “a beautiful lady of strange history” in thrall. This sorcerer comes out only now and again to fright the citizins, burning houses and shops for the pleasure of it. They name him daemon. I don’t like to believe it is Dante.
Find me at Hoven, and I will tell all I know. Again I urge caushun. Though otherwise good and generous, these people will slay any who work magic here. I am under heavy suspicion still and cannot leave without trouble. I await more news before I can judge what course to take. In short, I don’t know what to do, being unaccustomed to sorcerus adventures.
Andero
Fear settled in my bones like a leaden mantle. How had Dante gone from feared to work magic as Andero told in his first letter to burning houses and shops, holding ladies in thrall, and frightening the citizens of a remote principality?
“John Deune?” said Ilario. “By all saints! He’s never traveled more than fifty kilometres from Merona. And he loathes Dante almost as much as he loathes me.”
“You don’t think he’d betray Dante…sell him to Jacard…or the Temple?”
Ilario shook his head. “He’s never done me true ill, but you could rebuild Pradoverde with what he’s stolen from me all these years. And he’s dogged as a hungry goat. If he gets something in his mind…Trafficking with unsavory men following them? Maybe that’s why we’ve Temple bailiffs and servitors everywhere we step.”
“You need to sleep, lord. I’ve your digestive, and I should examine your urine.” Rhea forever startled me, quiet as she was and prone to shrinking into corners. How had she ever summoned the nerve to seek me out?
“Egad.” Ilario sighed deeply. “Here I’m bedding down with two lovely women, who have the combined intelligence to surpass that of the Royal Library, and my most exciting invitation is one to pass along my piss. Doesn’t seem right.”
As Rhea pulled out her medicine box, passed Ilario a glass beaker, and mixed her medicines, I took Andero’s messages to the grimy window and tried to read beyond the ink. I could not believe Dante would ever partner with Jacard. Yet he couldn’t be playing agente confide again. He’d never be able to fool Jacard a second time. What made Andero willing to believe Dante’s connivance in these crimes? Had he witnessed Temple murders, perhaps, or explosive destruction? A new fear began to creep in with the rest. Dante was so angry, so bitter.…
DEMESNE OF ARABASCA
Andero’s map was invaluable. Five days out from Mattefriese we came upon the place he had noted as shepherd village, good water, hospitable folk. Indeed we’d scarce come in sight of the place when three elders came out to greet us, offering a bed for the night and a feast in exchange for “tales of the wide world.” Hovels of stone and sod, bony faces, and the bleak, rocky plain spoke of grinding hardship. But their eager smiles and the bright weaving of the elders’ worn capes said there was more to be found here than poverty. We could all use a bit of cheer.
The letters drove me hard. I’d spent half the time since Mattefriese looking over my shoulder and half the time seeking Dante in the aether. His presence felt ever more remote.
Ilario had begun to practice with his sword in the evenings when we halted, but could not work half an hour until collapsing.
Rhea fretted that Ilario was foolish to push himself so and asked was he trying to undo all her work. On the previous night she had snapped entirely, yelling about why in the Pantokrater’s creation were we chasing after a devil mage. She was very near tears. It struck me that the plain, brilliant healer could easily be infatuated with the gallant chevalier. I debated whether to ask him, but it seemed wrong to talk about her behind her back. She had proven herself trustworthy.
“We poor travelers would be pleased to share your hospitality,” Ilario said, bowing to those who’d come out to greet us. “We’ve had good reports of your village from a friend who passed this way sometime after the turn of the year.
“Dead or living?” said one of the women.
“Living,” said Ilario, matching her serious demeanor.
“Three of them, there would have been,” I blurted.
> “Ah, you speak of the sorcerer, the giant, and the blind thief,” said a short man with eyes as bright blue as the weft of his cape. “All living. At first we thought the sorcerer was dead, and his companions just didn’t know. But then he saved Jono and his boy, and, of course, dead men cannot give life. It was beyond our understanding. Likely old Otro saw more, but he spoke to none save the sorcerer. Come, let’s see to your beasts and brew tea while the women roast a kid. Spring winds are sharp so near the stars.”
Their casual talk of death and life was curious, and I wanted to ask why they thought Dante dead, and what this Otro might have seen, and who was the giant and who the blind thief. But I could not meet such hospitality with rudeness. We sat in a crowded, overwarm house drinking tea for two hours, hearing the tally of every person in the village, those who were present and those who were out tending sheep. They told us of their flocks and weaving and dyes.
In return, Ilario introduced himself as a wounded soldier, myself as his sister, and Rhea as his physician who had recommended the desert air for his healing, as near truth as could be spoken. Then he smoothly diverted the conversation, asking about He Who Wanders the Stars, who was so often mentioned in their talk.