The Palace of Impossible Dreams

by Jennifer Fallon

  As far as the villagers were concerned, Arkady had escaped justice. And now she was back, unmarked and unharmed (which they considered merely flaunting her status as one favoured by the Tide Lords) waiting for the men who were likely to invade the wetlands in force, to seek vengeance for the death of one of their own.

  “Do you think he’s all right?”

  Tiji turned from her seat by the window in the kitchen where she’d been staring out at the path that ran along the side of the house, and was the direction Azquil had gone when he left the house this morning to speak with the elders again. It was raining. It wasn’t the gentle, incessant rain of Glaeba, but a loud and violent downpour with drops that looked big enough to fill a bucket. Of course, the rain lasted a lot less time here in the wetlands than it did around the Great Lakes. It pelted down for a while and then, an hour later, the land was steaming in bright sunshine.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He’s been gone a long time. And you’ve almost disappeared.” Arkady was peeling vegetables, preparing them for lunch. Without realising it, Tiji had been sitting so still she’d taken on the colouring of the rough wooden wall.

  “The elders aren’t happy,” she said, as her skin faded back to its normal silvery sheen. “And until one of the Trinity tells them in person that you’re not to be harmed, Azquil may be having trouble convincing them otherwise.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cause so much trouble.”

  Tiji was a little surprised by the apology. The Duchess of Lebec she remembered would never have admitted fault so readily. Mind you, the Duchess of Lebec used to wear clothes too. The all-but-naked woman who stood at the table preparing a meal for herself and a couple of reptilian Crasii seemed a far cry from the restrained and perfectly proper duchess Tiji remembered from Torlenia. Tiji wondered if she’d offered to cook dinner to keep her hands busy and stop herself picking at the itchy fake slave brand.

  “It’s not your fault,” Tiji said. “You didn’t know what you were doing. Or what was in that tonic.”

  “I wonder if Jojo knew?”

  “Who’s Jojo?”

  “The feline we had with us. Cydne’s bodyguard.”

  “The feline who escaped back to the Delta Settlement and tipped off the brother-in-law about what happened here before Ambria and Medwen got to him? I’d say a resounding yes to that one.”

  “She’s Crasii, Tiji. She probably didn’t have a choice.”

  “I’m Crasii. I have a choice.”

  “No, you’re a Scard,” Arkady said. “That’s what sets you apart. You have free will. The Crasii don’t.”

  “The Crasii are only compelled to obey immortals,” Tiji reminded her. “They can defy their human masters as often as they want.”

  “Can they?” Arkady asked, putting the paring knife down on the chopping board in order to lift the parsnips into the pot of water boiling on the stove. “If you are naturally inclined to follow, why would you seek to lead?”

  Tides, this woman likes to complicate everything. What could you possibly see in her, Declan? She’s too tall, too pale, too clever for her own good, and altogether far too talkative. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “Look at the Crasii, Tiji. Feline, canine, amphibian . . . whatever species you care to name. They are slaves. Wherever you go, whatever country you’re in, the Crasii are the slaves of Amyrantha. It’s as though they’re happiest in that state.”

  “There speaks a human who’s used to owning slaves. Does it make you feel better, your grace? Believing we like to be enslaved? Is that how humans convince themselves they’re doing us a favour? By making us serve them because we’re only really happy as servants?”

  Arkady looked a little taken aback by the force of Tiji’s reaction. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I meant, the moment a Crasii has free will, they want to be free. Every Scard I’ve ever encountered wants nothing more.”

  “I’m a Scard. I was a slave in Glaeba for most of my life. I never tried to escape.”

  “Is that because you didn’t want to be free, or because you had a master who kept you on such a long leash, you didn’t feel trapped in the first place?”

  Tiji hesitated before answering, not sure Arkady didn’t have a point. She’d never rebelled at being Declan’s slave because he’d never treated her as one.

  “Look around you, Tiji. The entire Senestran Wetlands are filled with Scards who want to be free. Your people—the race the Tide Lords tried to eradicate because your species wouldn’t toe the line. Yet there are millions of Crasii the world over who would never even think to question their status as slaves. The Tide Lords created the Crasii as a subservient race, remember. You were bred to serve. They magically compelled the Crasii to make their obedience stick, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in your nature to serve, compelled or not.”

  “So you’re saying I’m doomed to be somebody’s servant, just because that’s my nature?”

  “I wasn’t talking about the Scards.”

  “No, you were justifying that flanking cat betraying Medwen and Ambria.”

  “I think Jojo did what she had to do. She’s as compelled to serve her masters as you are to defy them. I don’t think you can hold it against her, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, well I’ll try to remember that,” Tiji said, “if I ever have the misfortune to run into this feline of yours.”

  “She was Cydne’s slave, not mine.”

  “According to you, she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” Tiji glanced out of the window as she spoke and then jumped to her feet as she saw a figure bent over against the rain, heading toward the house. “Azquil’s back!”

  “You know, you turn all the colours of the rainbow whenever you mention his name,” Arkady told her with a smile.

  “Mind your own business.” It was bad enough to be lectured by this fallen duchess about the need of her race to serve. Tiji didn’t need her giving her pointers on her love life as well. She hurried down the hall and into the front room where the recently repaired door stood locked and secure against the many grieving villagers who thought Arkady still needed to pay for the lives of their lost loved ones.

  Standing on the stained floorboards in the front room that had so recently been covered in broken bottles of poisonous tonic, Tiji unlocked the door as Azquil stepped onto the veranda. He shook off the raindrops from his silver skin before he came inside.

  Tiji glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Well, you didn’t come back with a lynch mob. That’s a good sign.”

  “Not as good as you think,” the chameleon said. “Where’s the human woman?”

  “Out back, preparing lunch.”

  Azquil pushed past Tiji and headed out to the kitchen. Tiji followed him, sensing something was amiss.

  “So, do I get a reprieve?” Arkady asked when she spied the chameleons.

  “You do, wii-ah,” he said. “But only because there are other, more important, matters to take care of.”

  “They’re here?” Arkady guessed.

  Azquil nodded. “The amphibians have just brought word. There are three ships on their way from the Delta Settlement, full of marines and some very indignant humans of both the Medura and Pardura houses.”

  “How long before they get here?”

  “Dusk at the latest.”

  Arkady took a deep breath, as if she was bracing herself for the coming confrontation.

  And well she might, Tiji thought. If the immortals don’t get here before the Medura family, she may not be around to see the outcome. Certainly no Crasii in the village was going to intercede on behalf of the woman who assisted in the murder of so many of their kind.

  “Are you going to fetch Arryl . . . and the others?” Tiji asked. She couldn’t quite bring herself to believe they were relying on the assistance of the Immortal Prince. Or that Declan was planning to help him save the day by using Tide mag
ic.

  Azquil shook his head. “I’ve sent Izzy and Lenor on ahead. They can swim faster if they’re not towing me in a boat.”

  “And how long will it take our immortal cavalry to get back to Watershed Falls?” Arkady asked.

  “A few hours,” Azquil said with a shrug. “If everything goes according to plan.”

  “So we’ve got a whole evening?” Arkady asked, looking very unhappy. “Tides, they could torch the village and everyone in it long before help arrives.”

  “I believe that’s where you come in,” Tiji reminded her. “You’re supposed to stall the doctor’s family by giving them your testimony about what happened. You’re supposed to keep them busy.”

  “If Jojo’s already told them what happened, that could be a very short conversation.” Arkady put her hands on her hips. “Tides, why didn’t Cayal and Declan just come back here to Watershed with us in the first place?”

  “I believe the Immortal Prince wished to instruct the Glaeban Tide Lord in the use of Tide magic,” Azquil said. “In private.”

  “Arryl could have come.”

  “Arryl is not a Tide Lord,” Tiji reminded her. “She can’t fight off three boatloads of marines.”

  “But apparently I can.”

  “Talk them to death,” Tiji said, losing patience with her. “You’re really good at that.”

  Arkady glared at Tiji for a moment, but she didn’t respond. She turned to Azquil instead. “What’s to stop your precious village elders from trussing me up and handing me over to Cydne’s family, claiming it was all my fault?”

  “The elders fear the wrath of the Trinity more than the wrath of the House Medura. You’re not welcome here, Arkady, but the elders will do nothing to interfere with the plans of the immortals—particularly when those plans come with an assurance they will protect the wetlands from harm.”

  Arkady didn’t look convinced. “Next time I’m sold into slavery, I’m going to put my hand up for a transfer to the mines.”

  “Female makor-di have a life expectancy of about two years in the mining camps of Senestra,” Azquil told her.

  “Two years?” Arkady looked impressed. “Tides, that’s about a year and a half longer than I’m likely to survive as a flanking wii-ah for the Medura clan. What was I thinking?”

  Azquil smiled. “Don’t tell me you imagined being singled out by one owner would be safer than the anonymity of a whorehouse?”

  “Seems such a foolish notion, in hindsight.”

  “But a noble one,” Azquil said, as if he had finally found something worthy in the character of this woman who had, in his opinion, done nothing but cause trouble thus far. “Misguided and ill-informed, perhaps, but I suppose I’d have done something similar in your position.”

  “You’d never be in my position, Azquil. Your whole race has managed to stay hidden here in the wetlands for a thousand years. You lizards are too clever to get caught the way I was.”

  “I got caught,” Tiji reminded them, a little peeved to see Azquil smiling at Arkady like that.

  “You were drugged and stolen as a small child,” Azquil said, putting his arm around her. “That doesn’t count.” Tiji felt her skin flickering as he touched her, but made no attempt to move away. He turned back to Arkady and added, “Besides, we’ve had immortal help to stay hidden.”

  “You had the help of the only three immortals, as far as I can tell,” Arkady said, “who have a shred of humanity left in them. When Cydne’s family gets here, you won’t be relying on the Trinity for help. You’ll be counting on one immortal who’s suicidal and perverse, even on a good day, and another who doesn’t even understand what it means.”

  “But don’t you count both of these immortals friends?” Azquil asked.

  Arkady hesitated and then nodded, somewhat reluctantly. “Sort of, I suppose.”

  “Then we will have to rely on your friends, Arkady, and hope you mean as much to them as they do to you.”

  Arkady didn’t have anything to say to that, so she turned to the pot on the stove to stir the vegetables. They probably didn’t need stirring, Tiji guessed, but it gave her somewhere else to look.

  Tiji, on the other hand, had quite a bit she wanted to say about Declan and Cayal; however, she chose to remain silent, realising there was nothing she could add to the discussion that would help matters very much.

  Chapter 50

  “So much has changed,” Elyssa said, looking around the bluff with a frown. “The trees are different. Tides, until they found the bones, I wasn’t even sure this was the right place.”

  Warlock wondered at the strange location Elyssa had chosen for her picnic. They had been gone from the palace since before dawn to get here, and it was already mid-afternoon. They’d be lucky to see Cycrane again before midnight.

  They had finally arrived here at Deadman’s Bluff to discover what seemed to be some sort of archaeological dig. The snow had been cleared and a series of tents had been pitched across the top of the bluff to accommodate the small but busy work crew. To the left there was something that looked like a mining headframe that stretched out over the cliff with a small cage attached to ropes reaching down the cliff to the rocks some four hundred feet below. Shivering in the chill air, Warlock followed Elyssa to the largest tent where the braziers did little to warm the air and a small mountain of weathered and bleached human bones were laid out, as a number of earnest-looking young men apparently tried to put the skeletons back together again.

  “Lady Alysa!”

  Elyssa stopped and waited for the man who had hailed her to catch up. When he arrived, puffing heavily from the exertion, he bowed respectfully and then beamed at her. “You honour us with your presence, my lady. But truly, there was no need for you to come all this way. I was intending to visit you in Cycrane myself, early next month.”

  This then, was the man in charge. Warlock was a little surprised to realise he was Glaeban, not Caelish. Warlock looked around the camp with interest as the Glaeban—a balding man in his late fifties—caught his breath. He was rugged up against the cold, his nose red, his fingers protruding from fingerless gloves. He treated his unexpected visitor with such deference it was obvious Elyssa was either financing the excavation or supporting it in some other way. It was the only reason Warlock could think of to explain why she’d been welcomed so handsomely.

  What are you up to now, I wonder?

  “I didn’t want to wait, Professor Fawk. What do you have to show me?”

  “Were you looking for something in particular, my lady?”

  “I’m interested in any possessions you’ve found.”

  Professor Fawk led the way forward and walked further into the large pavilion where the tables were covered in artefacts that, Warlock supposed, had been recovered from the site.

  “We’ve counted twenty-two skulls,” the professor informed his patron, as she strolled past the tables, stopping occasionally to examine an item of interest, “ranging from children to adults. We assume it’s some sort of mass grave, although it seems some of the bodies were bound together, which is fascinating.”

  “Maybe they committed mass suicide,” Elyssa suggested, not looking up from the broken wooden doll that had caught her interest. “They could have all jumped off the cliff together.”

  The professor treated Elyssa to a patronising smile, which—fortunately for him—she didn’t notice. “My lady, such speculation is best left to the experts.”

  Elyssa put down the wooden doll and picked up a small wooden disk from a pile of several matching disks. From a distance, Warlock thought they might be old coins, but then he realised they were buttons from some long-dead human’s rotted-away-to-nothing shirt.

  “Have you found any religious artefacts?”

  The professor shook his head. “I’m not sure what you would define as a religious artefact, my lady.”

  “Icons, statues of the Tide Lords . . .”

  “Nothing, my lady, except an old set of Tarot cards.”
<
br />   Elyssa’s head snapped up. “You found the cards? Show me?”

  Warlock couldn’t help thinking this was what Elyssa had been hoping to hear. In fact, she seemed so excited he began to wonder if it wasn’t the purpose of this entire expedition. If Elyssa was the patron of this dig, if she was funding it, then it was probably because they were looking for something on her behalf.

  How had she known where they needed to look?

  Because there was a pile of bodies at the bottom of the cliff? Was she right when she suggested this wasn’t a mass grave but the site of a mass suicide?

  There was a good chance, Warlock realised with a leaden heart, that Elyssa knew where to find the bodies because she was the one who’d sent them there.

  The Glaeban professor led Elyssa to another table near the back of the pavilion. On this one lay a large deck of cards. Although they were rotted around the edges and faded with age, they’d been protected by the now very fragile leather case in which they’d been stored. The professor pushed aside the young man working on slowly peeling the cards apart, so that Elyssa could see.

  “This is it?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “How is it they’re still intact?”

  “There is a small depression at the base of the cliff, my lady,” the assistant explained. “It seems quite soon after the bodies were placed there, a rockfall sealed them in.”

  “It’s been most fortunate for us,” Fawk added. “One would not normally expect to find something made of paper wrapped in leather to have survived so long in less ideal conditions.”

  “Is the whole deck there?” she asked, eyeing the cards with awe.

  “As far as we can tell.”

  Trying to look past her shoulder without being too obvious about it, Warlock thought he might explode, trying to contain his curiosity. After a moment, Elyssa turned and beckoned him closer. “Do you know what this is, Cecil?”

  “A Tide Lord Tarot, my lady.”

  Elyssa shook her head. “It’s much more than that,” she said. “It’s a Lore Tarot.”

  Even Warlock had heard of the Lore Tarot. It was—supposedly—the true story of the Tide Lords, not the romanticised version peddled in the markets of every city on Amyrantha, which bored noblewomen used to tell each other’s fortunes. A Lore Tarot was something precious, and usually only found in the possession of a Crasii elder. Or the Guardian of the Lore, the human keeper of the Tide Lord history—one of the few in the Cabal entrusted with the truth.