In the center of the room sat a trunk, of the standard black-stained military-issue variety. Willek had kept it well-oiled over the years, but the dents and scars in its finish told of its hard duty. She'd placed a squat table with a round, polished-stone top beside the trunk, and bolted each thick, stubby, wooden table leg to the floor with a lag-bolt the size of a man's fist. The contents of the room might arouse suspicion, but they could not convict her. Willek was careful.
Willek went to the trunk and unlocked it, and from it removed more uniforms, all neatly folded. These she carried to one wall and dropped in a heap on the floor. Then she knelt beside the trunk, and leaned in, and slid back a cunningly hidden panel that provided a tiny key. She removed the key, then moved the first panel back into place—necessary before she could move a second secret panel, which revealed a keyhole.
The carpenter who'd built the box and made it a perfect match for ordinary military trunks had been a wizard at joinery, though he'd proved less clever at concealing his curiosity. Curiosity, Willek thought, struggling with the tiny key, is a pitiful thing to die of. But better him than me.
The key slid into place, and the false bottom of the trunk lifted smoothly, to reveal a compartment lined in thin hammered sheets of gold. The seams were gummed—the compartment was, when closed, watertight. The watertightness was a matter of life and death—it had been for the carpenter, and it could be for Willek. She regummed the seams regularly, and with scrupulous attention.
She'd packed three silk-wrapped bundles together in the bottom. They were untouched, exactly as she'd left them. She couldn't imagine them being otherwise, but the danger inherent in her activities made her worry about many things. She pulled the bundles out one at a time and put them side by side on the tabletop.
She unwrapped the first bundle, tucked the silk wrapper into her belt, and pulled out a dagger—lean and double-edged, with a narrow blade that tapered to a needle point. The dagger's grip was featureless, the handguard smooth with gently swelled knobs at either end.
She slipped the knife through her belt next to the wrapper, then rolled up her left sleeve. She opened the second bundle. It held a delicate glass tube: one end of it a funnel perhaps two thumbs wide, the other end nothing more than a hollowed stem.
Willek nibbled the side of her lip, and took a deep breath before proceeding to the third bundle.
She handled it differently than she had the first two. She untied the silk ties with extreme gentleness, and peeled the wrappings away cautiously. The closer she got to the center of the bundle, the slower she moved. She stopped once, long enough to stare at her trembling fingers. They wouldn't stop trembling, no matter how hard she tried to calm herself. She pursed her lips and continued.
The object she unwrapped was a flat disk of unpolished black stone no bigger than the palm of Willek's hand. It lay in the center of a diamond of red silk whose points reached almost, but not quite, to the edge of the table.
She took the silk cord that had bound the wrapping to the disk and wound it tightly around her left bicep, so that below the cord, her veins began to bulge. "That's it, then," she muttered She drew the dagger and winced, and lay the edge of the blade along the bare flesh of her forearm. Her muscles tensed, she averted her eyes and sucked in her breath, and quickly slashed across her flesh. Blood welled from the shallow wound and stained the blade.
Willek hissed from the pain, the shallow cut itself and the sting of sweat running into it She kept moving—wiped the blade along the old uniform shirt, dropped that to the floor, and slid the dagger back into her belt. Then she took the glass funnel, and began scooping her blood into it. She worked quickly, catching the blood and letting it drip out onto the tabletop. She worked her way around the circle once, then a second time, this time dragging the narrow point through the red drops to connect them into a single, unbroken thread. When she'd closed the circle, she took the bloody funnel and placed it on the stone disk, then stepped quickly away from the table.
"One may come," Willek whispered. Her voice broke, but she managed to continue.
"One may come,
No more than one,
No less than one.
Who sees the past,
Who sees the now,
Who sees the next."
Keeping a wary eye on the disk, she picked up the soiled shirt and untied the cord from her arm. She had enough time to use the shirt to stanch the bleeding before the surface of the disk began to bubble.
Willek's right hand twitched near the dagger grip. She knew the dagger was worthless for anything but drawing her own blood. It didn't matter. Her instincts insisted she'd be better off with a weapon in hand, and her hand kept trying for the dagger. She hated what would happen next. Her voice went hoarse as she said:
"One to trade.
One to take the gift
One to draw the mirror forth
And show the threads of time."
The blood in the funnel suddenly crawled off the glass and spread over the surface of the disk. There it bubbled and bulged, growing both up and out.
As it did, Willek grabbed her wounded arm and shrieked. She felt intense, horrible pain around the wound, as if the blood in her veins had suddenly started to bubble in tandem with the blood on the stone. The demon she'd summoned had taken its sacrifice, and was not satisfied with that. It was calling the blood that coursed through her veins to come to it—calling like to like. She fought back her fear, and forced herself to push the added pain out of her mind. She dared not lose her concentration.
"The one who comes,"
She said through clenched jaws,
"May take no more than offered,
May not cross from the circle.
Must leave when I demand."
The churning, twisting blood-demon on the table began to grow more slowly. Willek concentrated her will against it as it fought to devour her. Sometimes those who came were weak. Sometimes, they weren't very hungry, and would be satisfied with their little dollop of blood; they would give her what she wanted without much of a fight. This one was powerful. Hungry. Evil. It was doing all it could to weaken her will, to bring out her fear—and it would take her if it could.
Willek began to feel light-headed from the blood loss. Across from her, the blood-demon reached out tentacles and lifted itself up on them.
Like calls to like, she thought. I call back what is mine. She willed her blood to return to her. The demon resisted the loss—Willek fought harder—and at last, she saw the first indication that she was in control again. The demons tentacles slipped out from under it, and it flopped back to the tabletop with a squish. She felt stronger, and fought harder.
"Enough!" she snarled at last. "Show me what may be!"
The demon yielded to her. The air above it grew hazy as droplets of her blood streamed off its body and swirled into the air to form a red cloud. Within that cloud, vague shapes formed, and took on substance and definition.
Willek moved closer, and tried to make sense of what she saw.
There was a huge feast—and a man on a platter, carved and eaten by other men. The Grand Admiral wrinkled her nose in disgust. She recognized Darkist as one of the banqueters easily enough—it was through him that she'd gotten her bloodstone.
"I know about him," she told the demon. "Show me things I don't know."
The images in the bloodmist changed.
She saw an officer leading an Imperial regiment of pikemen and musketeers—saw men falling and dying all around this officer. But the regiment never faltered. The officer led, and it followed.
"A good man," she murmured, "The soldiers trust him."
The images shifted.
The same officer again, now up a rank—a commander, not a second, Willek noted, and this time she was with him—no, she knelt before him. He made a stiff, chopping motion with one hand, and Willek saw her own image sag forward. An executioner stepped up to her side, and lifted his sword.
"No!" Willek screamed, as the e
xecutioners blade fell, and severed the Willek-image's head from her shoulders.
The living Willek stared into the bloodmist, unseeing, with her hands grasped to her neck. "One of my officers," she whispered. "He would betray me if he could. I have to find him before it's too late."
The face tugged at her memory. The Grand Admiral had climbed the greasy pole of military rank on far more than her excellent birth and considerable wealth; one tool of her trade was a good head for faces and names. First Captain Sir Bren Morkaarin. The name explained it—that clan had been at feud with hers since Beltra the Great unified the squabbling Tykissian tribes who'd overrun the Old Empire. In fact, there weren't many Morkaarins left, and with the Tornsaarins so powerful they had scant hope of any advancement these days.
Put it aside. The demon would show her more.
The images had moved on again. Willek caught a glimpse of a woman whose deformed face was made notable by a lean muzzle and fangs; then of a brawny squireen girl on horseback wielding a sword. The bloodmist thinned, and Willek strained her eyes to see the final image. A jungle—trees towering toward the heavens. A river. And stepping out of the jungle, a god.
As the last of her blood dried on the table, the mist and the visions vanished and the demon returned to whatever hell it came from.
Willek stepped back and sagged against the wall, weakened by loss of blood and the life force that went with it. It was over—and once again, she'd survived.
She must not let herself get too distressed about the visions in the bloodmist, she reminded herself. They were the footprints of the could-be, not necessarily of the would-be. Armed with foreknowledge, an intelligent woman such as herself could easily bypass potential disasters—the one with the young officer coming immediately to mind. That was easily fixed, she thought.
I'll have him inconspicuously killed. Although it might not be as easy as that. The future was mutable, but trying to avert a vision might be the very factor that caused it to come true. If—if—the visions were linked, it might not be possible to kill this Morkaarin before the other figures crossed the world-line of her destiny.
There was a man Willek knew who specialized in finding people—and in eliminating them once they were found. If the usual means didn't work, he could handle it… and the others.
The other images held no real meaning yet. She would hold onto them. The bloodmist showed visions that were frequently confusing, and often deceptive—but in Willek's experience, never unimportant. Those other people, the jungle, the god—they would all come to mean something essential to the Grand Admiral. She was certain of that.
Willek took a few deep breaths and gave herself a mental shake. It was time to be getting on with other things.
The recruits finished saying the oath, and Karah lowered her clenched fist. She wished there were some way she could believe what was happening was all a nightmare. But there wasn't. Not even in her worst nightmares could she smell the stink of piss and cookfires that permeated Derkin—and citystink hung in the damp salt-sea air and wrapped itself around her like a blanket. She could also smell the other recruits; the dozen or so swept up at the tavern, and a round hundred who must have been gathered earlier that night.
"Form a line," the second-in-command ordered. He marched past her, and she suppressed the urge to trip him and smash his round, bland face under her boot. Instead, she got into line with the rest of the poor, half-drunk souls, and wished to hell she'd gone to bed early.
Someone nudged her solidly from behind. She turned, ready to strike out in the darkness, and found Konzin's face close to hers.
Konzin! He looked like salvation in human form to her.
"Ai, am I glad to see you," Karah whispered. "Get me out of here. These buggers have pressed me, by the Three. They're plannin' to make me a soldier." The line of unwilling recruits moved forward, and the sound of the master sergeant questioning a recruit for name and origin, and listing his inventory carried down the line.
"Get you out?" Konzin whispered. "I can't get you out. It took all I had to bribe my way into this courtyard for a moment, and that so I could take word to your ma and pa of what happened to you."
Of course. She should have known better than to expect a miracle. Karah gave him a quick hug. Dear Konzin—he was prickly and difficult but there when she needed him. "I'm scared," she whispered. "I'm no soldier."
"Tell 'em you train horses—they'll keep you back o' the lines that way." Konzin looked back at the entryway to the courtyard, and frowned. "The guard is giving me the sign already. There anything you want me to take home to your ma and da?"
"Godsall, yes! How could I have forgotten?" Karah dug through her pack and pulled out the bank draft. She pressed it into the herdsman's hand. "Get that to them no matter what. They need it to pay back taxes—and Konzin…" She looked into his eyes. "Tell them I love them, and that I'll be fine. Don't you let them know I was scared."
"Aye, madine." Konzin nodded, and before she could say anything else, slipped through the crowd and out into the night. Behind her, Amourgin asked, "Who was that?"
"Our chief herdsman, Konzin. He's worked our ranch since before I was born. He can do magic with horses."
"Horses…"Amourgin repeated "Karah, what did you say your full name was?"
"Maybe I didn't," she said. "It's Grenlaarin."
"Of the Grenlaarins?" Suddenly he looked impressed "The horse-master Grenlaarins?"
Karah grinned briefly. "The Grenlaarins. Champion Grenlsteeds for twenty-six generations." She nibbled at the tip of her braid and looked off to one side. "Or will be if I survive this."
"I know what you mean. I'm no soldier. And I've no wish to die on infidel soil, either."
The line moved forward again. Karah realized there were only three people ahead of her, one of them the ugly whore with the teeth. Godsall. Karah decided she would give anything for a way out of this mess.
"I know a Jawain Grenlaarin," Amourgin added. "Got my main saddle horse from him."
"True? You know Uncle Jawain?" She shook her head. Funny how people got around. "We cross stock with him sometimes. You might have a horse from our lines. What's the get of your horse?" she asked.
"The get?" He looked bewildered.
"Your horses dam and sire. You're a city boy, aren't you?"
Amourgin gave a dry little chuckle. "Through and through. Wide-open spaces give me hives." He sighed, and said, "Jawain told me. Didn't mean anything to me, but I'm sure it will to you. Ah, Broucher's dam was, um… Mountain Fancy, I think—"
"Wait." Karah cut him off. She couldn't believe the words that had come out of Amourgin's mouth. She stared at the citified law-speaker in his dandy clothes and his silly little spectacles, and very slowly, she said, "I think I must have misheard you. Uncle Jawain sold you Broucher? Big, solid gelding, six years old, seventeen hands, five gaits, mountain-trail trained?"
"Your uncle sold me a big brown horse named Broucher. Unless Jawain had several by the same name, it's probably the same horse." Amourgin's words were a little clipped—Karah supposed the tone of her question must have insulted him.
The line moved again, and she walked with it, feeling dazed. Her uncle's prize show horse, the savvy, talented gelding who ran like quicksilver and took fences like a bird, sold to a man who knew nothing more about him than that he was a big, brown horse. "Why?" she finally asked, not caring that she was being rude.
"Why, what?"
"Why in the names of the Three would he sell Broucher to you?"
"Because I paid him a lot of money. And what exactly is wrong with me?"
Karah snorted. "Broucher was never for sale. Oh, I could see Uncle perhaps selling him to someone who knew horses, who was capable of appreciating what a masterpiece he was getting—but to you—" Karah shook her head and turned away. The line moved again, and it was her turn.
"Oh," he muttered behind her. "So those of us who just want a nice horse to ride from place to place don't deserve a good one."
"Broucher isn't just good. Some day," Karah snapped back, "I'll show you what your 'nice' horsey can do."
She turned away from Amourgin, fuming.
The sergeant asked her name, her county, her next of kin, and where they could be found. She answered, only part of her mind on what she was saying. The rest was puzzling out what insanity might have possessed Great-Uncle Jawain to sell his favorite trail horse to a nose-in-a-book city boy.
"Occupation?"
"Horse breeder and trainer."
The man stopped, looked over his notes, and glanced up at Karah. "You of the Grenlaarins? With the famous horses?"
"Yes," Karah said. Good, she thought. Now that they know who I am, they won't keep me.
"That's good," he said "We got some rough horses need work. And some dancey-assed riders to put on 'em. They'll be more'n enough for you t'do. Y'got yer own mounts, I 'spect."
That was far from the response she'd hoped for. "Two," Karah said stiffly. "Both stabled here."
"Good. Got yer gear?"
"Bedroll, sword, bow, quiver, knife, cookset, tarp, two sets of clothes, tack and travel kit."
The sergeant grinned. "I'll be. Full complement. Yer the best catch we've had so far t'night. Lucky fer us."
"Not for me."
"Nope," he said agreeably. "Never is. All right, then, Grenlaarin." He waved to the priest who clamped a bracelet around her arm. Karah felt a sharp magical sting—then the band constricted until it found her measure. For an instant, the metal glowed, then fell dormant. The sergeant nodded. "Over with the other recruits and wait to go in t' get yer horses." He studied her and sighed. "And, favor t' me—don't do anything stupid—like tryin' to sneak off, maybe. With the bracelet there's no place you can go that we can't find you. An' you're more use t' everyone alive than dead, huh? Indudin' yerself."
The Rose Sea Page 4