The Rose Sea

by S. M. Stirling

  Glorylad whickered and pranced, and Windrush nudged Karah's leg and whinnied. The horses were impatient to get going, to do something, and Karah, now that she knew she wasn't going to get out of service, was impatient, too. She hated waiting.

  The first Tykissian ships were already lifting anchor and gliding to the mouth of the harbor, oars dipping and pulling in rhythm, the spray that flew off them flashing in the sun. They flanked a bevy of the tublike Imperial transports, whose red-and-white-striped mainsails bellied out in the breeze.

  Pretty, she thought. Even for what it is, it's a very pretty scene.

  She glanced around to see what the rest of the troops were doing. The main part of the XIXth sat on the grassy knoll, their pikes and muskets and halberds tented in pyramids. Some of the new recruits nervously sharpened weapons or checked their gear; the veterans pulled their hats down over their heads and slept, or were involved in several card games and a vigorous round of dicing. Nearby, Eowlie had just caught some small animal that had crossed her path and was eating it. Karah looked away the instant she realized the animal was still alive.

  Over with the gamblers, that nasty pimp whispered something to one of the pikewomen. The woman stared at First Captain Morkaarin, her expression shocked. Karah wondered what Zeemos could find to say that any woman would be willing to listen to.

  Amourgin noticed the direction of her gaze, and after a moment, leaned over and told Karah, "Every time I've seen that bastard today, he's been whispering to someone. I don't trust him."

  Karah shrugged. "At least he's not our problem."

  "No. He isn't. But we have more than enough other problems." Amourgin had been watching the sailing ships, and frowning. "This scout unit is completely untrained. Yet we're supposed to advance into enemy territory and note positions and strengths." He sighed and leaned forward to rest his arms across his saddle horn. "I suspect we've been had."

  "Had? Karah was worried about the XIXth scouts' readiness, too, but she'd tried hard not to think about it."

  He sat up again, and held out a hand, three fingers outspread. "Either we're a decoy," he pushed down one finger, "or a sacrifice," he pushed down another, "or the person in charge is stupid beyond belief." He pushed down the third finger, then shook his head "But Willek isn't stupid—I know it for fact. So you can discount that last."

  Karah twisted her fingers through Glorylad's mane. "I don't want to be anybody's decoy, or anybody's sacrifice."

  He grinned at her. "And I do? No. I don't, either. But that doesn't change the facts." He was still watching the movement of the troops loading slops, and being loaded themselves. "Best of the ships have already moved out," he noted. "You see that. Older and smaller ships coming to the docks now. If you've been watching, you can figure out the order in which they'll reach the loading docks. And if you look at the army, you can see the order in which we'll load. You see what I mean?"

  Now that he'd pointed it out to her, Karah could see exactly what he meant.

  "Looks like we're to be last aboard," she said.

  "It does," he agreed. "And you see our ship?"

  The last ship in line for the end dock barely deserved to be called a ship. It was built in a style Karah didn't recognize, resembling neither the Tykissian nor the southron ships in the fleet. It was tiny in comparison to the warships, and looked battered and old; there were only two masts. The miserable handful of cannon on its deck were made of iron bars welded together—and even a country girl from the backwoods knew those were obsolete.

  "What sort of ship is that?" she asked.

  "It's a Shillraki fishing tub, the sort that goes out with a bunch of dories and salts down their catch. Commandeered for war service."

  She and Amourgin exchanged glances. "It seems somebody doesn't like us," she muttered.

  Amourgin coughed and said in a low voice, "Still, I've had… dreams…yes, I suppose that's what you would call them…" He looked down at the tiny ship and shook his head "No matter what it looks like, I believe we'll reach An Tiram. I just don't think we'll like what we find when we get there."

  "Dreams," Karah said She tugged absently on her braid and said, "I'd forgotten—but you got a seawater bath the same night I did."

  He stared at her. "Seawater bath?"

  She nodded "Sort of a—a ghostly experience."

  The law-speaker went pale. "You met them, too?"

  She moved closer to Amourgin and leaned over so she could drop her voice to near inaudibility. "I've seen the living dead," she said, "and some god in a jungle, and an old man with blind white eyes—although sometimes he acts as if he can see perfectly well…" She twisted the braid, and rolled one strip of leather between her thumb and forefinger. She wasn't sure if she dared tell Amourgin—but there wasn't anybody else she could tell.

  "And last night," she said at last, "the crazy old man threw me into a lake of fire, and when I swam out, I saw the Three, chained to the rock. I tried to free them, but I couldn't."

  Amourgin looked down at the ship, now only one place away from the berth and the dock. "I spent last night in the lake of fire as well," he said softly, "but I couldn't get out."

  "MO-O-O-O-OVE on down the hill!" Sergeant Ddrad bellowed. "Outta here, y' lazy bums! Pick those feet up, up, pick 'em up!"

  Karah mounted and fell into line, and Amourgin trotted Broucher behind her. They couldn't talk anymore, and she wished they could. He'd felt the lake of fire, and she wondered if he, too, had glowed when he awoke.

  I believe we'll reach An Tiram, he'd said. I just don't think we'll like what we find when we get there.

  Karah, too, believed she would arrive in An Tiram. She thought of the realms of the drowned, unresting dead and wondered if she would still be alive.

  Darkist sought out the solitude of the Quiet Room, and sent the sycophants on their way outside the door. His anger burned like poison in his belly. Both concubines—both of them—had been full of vile omens. He could no longer deny the future; his plotting and planning had hatched forth a monster that was stalking him.

  He pressed his face against the smooth stone of the One in Cleverness and prayed for the mirror of time.

  All my plans, he thought. All my many years, and all my plans—they could come to an end for this.

  He wanted to live forever. That was not such a terrible thing—to want to see the sun come up every day, to want to know that it would never come up without him. Nine hundred years he'd lived, in a succession of bodies—and nine hundred years he'd grown and learned. He was no fool, who took his time for granted. He knew the worth of a minute, and the price of life.

  And if he wanted greatness, he thought, what of that? It was the due of a man who had learned to beat death. Or at least the due of a man who had learned to cheat it and postpone it.

  He could not be sure, right then, that he would beat it after all. He felt very old, and very weak, and very tired. And his bones hurt; fingers and hips and back, knees and wrists and knuckles. The ends of his bones creaked and ground against each other when he moved, and ached when he didn't, so that, these last few years, he could find no respite from pain and no peace.

  In spite of that, he wanted to live forever.

  One willing, he would.

  "Show me," he whispered to the carved stone. "Show me where my plans have failed."

  An icy breeze blew through the grotto from nowhere, then died, and the sound of running water grew louder. Darkist broke off his embrace of the Clever One. The perpetual glow of the Quiet Room dimmed, as if a cloud had enveloped the light, and indeed, the first tendrils of dark, creeping smoke slid along the floor.

  As you will, then, voices whispered in his head. Here is the future…for a price.

  And out of the spring water that ran down the stone wall, scenes grew. Darkist saw his own ships battling the Tyltissian fleet—the fleet of the Tyltissian upstarts who'd usurped the name of Empire. The wind was freshening, setting whitecaps across the wine-purple sea.

  He alm
ost laughed with glee as the long iron-shod beak of a Tseldene galley rammed into the side of a northern tub. Gun smoke hid the scene for an instant; when it cleared the boarding ramps were down, and warriors in the fluted helmets and scale armor of An Tiram poured onto the northern ship's deck. All around warships were ramming and boarding, broadsides crashed out, powder smoke drifted like fog. Burning ships littered the waters, wreckage, spars and planks and chests, barrels and men… Off in the distance he could see the mountainous outline of the island of Meltroon, its peaks shadowed with storm clouds the color of bruises. One Tykissian ship after another was sunken, taken—

  And from where nothing should have been—enemy ships appeared, frigates under full sail. Half of Willek's fleet had circled round, and flanked him. He hissed with frustration. The storm he created to devour her moved off, unaccountably chasing after something he could not make out.

  "Not right," he snarled. "This is not as it should be. Have you deserted me, then, for these heretics?" he demanded of the Cold One. "Is it your will that my fleet be trampled, and my power crushed? Shall not their beast-god Three be at last put down? I demand an answer."

  He heard—he felt—the god laugh, and he shivered, remembering perhaps a moment too late that wise men did not demand answers from gods.

  And yet the Cold One humored him. In the crawling images on the wall, Darkist saw a demon step out of a mist, a nightmare built of wind and rage and smoke, that inhaled the sea as a man would inhale air, that stormed across the water to the place where Willek's fleet lay anchored. Counterspells and dismissals burst and popped in futility from the demon's shield of power. Willek's people were effecting repairs, and Darkist watched with unabashed delight as the fiend destroyed her fleet and her soldiers—and finally her.

  "Yes," he whispered. "This is what I long for. This is the tiling I wish to make happen. How, Mighty One? How do I acquire this demon and bring Willek's destruction to pass?"

  And again the Cold One laughed and showed him its desired sacrifice.

  Darkist whimpered. It was the way of the dark gods, he knew, to demand those things which were most loved in exchange for their favors. Yet that which the Cold One now asked, Darkist simply could not give. "Ask of me anything else, Beloved, and anything else, even though it is all I have, I will gladly give. All of my concubines I will offer up or all of my riches from my treasure house—but…"

  He felt the Cold One's amusement at the dilemma it had presented him. It asked for Darkist's immortality, in the shape of his grandson Colchob. If Darkist gave the god Colchob as it requested, and Darkist's body wore out before he could bring another grandchild to readiness, he would die. Certainly this would not be any matter of grief for the god, but Darkist didn't like the idea very much.

  The timing was bad, he thought. He'd given others of his lineage to the Cold One… but never, never so near the time when he needed them.

  Perhaps He of the Thousand Faces tires of my worship, and wishes another to take my place, he thought. Perhaps the One plots to destroy me, as my own people plot. Perhaps. But I need not fall into its schemes. I do not have to become its pawn.

  Darkist walked away from the tinkling waters of the spring, and from the lovely promise of the demon that would destroy Willek and her Northland fleet. He returned to the Clever One, and pressed his forehead against its cold stone chest Softly, he said, "Changeable One, All-Knowing, I will bring you sacrifices suitable for the raising of a demon such as this, sacrifices a thousand times more magnificent than my single, lowly grandson. I will give you lords and concubines. I will give you satraps and viziers, dancing girls and princesses. All of these I will give you to feed your demon, but my grandson I will keep. He is of little significance, unlovely and foolish, and not sufficient when I have better to give."

  The god chuckled—a subterranean rumble that shook the grotto. It did not tell the Yentror of Tarin Tseld what it thought of his plan. It answered neither "yea" nor "nay," leaving Darkist to think what he would.

  Darkist left the grotto an unhappy man. His sacrifices would be wonderful, and he felt sure he could conjure up a demon like the One of the Thousand Faces had shown him. He wondered how the One would respond to a sacrifice other than the one it had requested? Would it be angered? Would it turn against him? He didn't know, couldn't imagine.

  And if the One became angry with him, how would his magic stand up against the blows of a god?

  "Cavalry get special transports for their horses," Bren said. "Corporal-probationer," he added.

  Karah gave him a murderous glare along with her salute. He felt an impulse to say and it isn't my fault! That was impossible, of course; an officer didn't apologize to the lowest-ranking noncom in the rawest auxiliary unit in the regiment. Even when he'd been effectively demoted himself.

  Karah turned and led the blindfolded horse up the gangplank. It snorted and whickered and laid back its ears, but she kept it under control with a firm, gentle hand on the bridle and a steady murmuring. Judging by the sounds coming from further down the dock where the bigger ships were loading cavalry and guns, the horsed units were not faring nearly so easily—their mounts were going on board hog-tied and hoisted by cranes. Doubtless they'd lose a fair number from broken bones, panic and the general cursed inclination of horses to die at the least excuse. Armies in the field left a trail of dead mounts; if a campaign lasted long enough, the cavalry would end up mostly on foot.

  Karah Grenlaarin had gotten all of theirs into the pen on the foredeck without incident, so far. They'd even managed to back them down the ramp through the hatchway into the hold…

  I like that girl, Bren decided. A bit of a hell-bitch for temper, but one had to make allowances. She'd been irregularly pressed, after all—and her birth was good, too good for her rank. She had guts, too, and knew horses; even the tantrum just now had been for the beasts' sake, not her own. If she lived through the first few months, she'd make a soldier.

  Besides that, she was pretty. Not court-smooth, but she had a bright, open-air, healthy look—not fussed over.

  The transports captain came up. Bren put on his helmet and raised a brow. "Is the Sea Mare ready?" he said. The name was freshly painted on the bow; that and the tar covering her sides were the only new things about the fisher-turned-transport.

  "No," the seaman replied. He was slender and weathered, with a receding hairline, in the blue jacket and knee breeches of an Imperial Navy officer. The captain's trident embroidered on the shoulders looked much newer than the garment, but the cutlass at his side had seen use.

  His voice was bitter as he went on: "Sea Mare? She's a rucking sow. Sir. Whatever the Treasury paid for her, they were cheated. And all I've got is a scratch crew of pressed fishermen and wharf rats—only my master-gunner is Navy, him and my first mate, and the bosun, and she's recalled from reserve. We need another two weeks to get this wallowing tub in shape!"

  "Will she sink?" Bren asked patiently.

  "Maybe and maybe not; it depends on how bad the ship-worms have eaten out the hull planking—its a race between them and dry rot. Nobody's ever wasted copper sheathing on this."

  The naval officer walked down the wharf. "Look at this," he said, drawing a dagger. He probed several times at the tar-black planking, then pushed lightly. The weapon sank half its length into the spongy timbers. "Wolf Mothers tits, I'm a seaman, not a magician."

  "Do your best," Bren said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  The loading trickled down to a halt; a final cargo net full of barrels swung by overhead. Bren walked up the gangplank—it had an unpleasant flex to it, and no side rails—and made his way to the quarterdeck, beside the captain and the two sailors standing to the tall wheel. The captain raised a leather megaphone:

  "Prepare to cast off!"

  Bren looked down the deck; most of the two-hundred-odd troops were below, in the cramped and stinking 'tween-decks. The waist around the mainmast and forecastle deck were nearly covered by bundles of deck cargo. Sailors in loinclo
ths scrambled over the crowded deck and swarmed into the rigging; the bosun's pipe tweeted, to the accompaniment of cursing from the deck officers in the pidgin Tykissian-Derkinoi-Tseldene lingua franca of the Imperial Sea. Sailors loosed the heavy ropes from the bollards on the wharf and jumped back on board. Forward and to the left—starboard, he reminded himself—a rowing tug waited It was crewed by shelf-browed jungleman thralls; they were valued for such work, being four or five times stronger than a true human, if stupid. They hooted and snarled as the overseer cracked his whip.

  The Sea Mare jerked and heeled as the towline came taut. The deck surged beneath Bren's feet; he smiled as he saw Karah lurch and grab for a rope, wide-eyed. She submerged her own alarm in hurrying below to comfort the panicked horses. He squinted against the dazzling brightness of sun on water, like light reflecting off hammered copper. The great arch of Derkin's buildings swung into view as they moved out into the open harbor, white and pastel and blue and pink; sun gleamed on marble and tile further uphill, on the gilded wings that marked the Temple of the Three, on the frowning ramparts of the citadel.

  "Set main and spinnaker!" the captain shouted.

  Sailors rushed into the rigging, agile as monkeys; they looked fast enough to Bren, but the naval officer cursed them under his breath. Brown patched canvas rose, a big square sail on the mainmast, and a long triangular one between foremast and bowsprit. The cloth boomed and thuttered before the mild offshore breeze took hold.

  "Cast off forward! Set the jib!" The towing tug turned back towards the dock; more sailors heaved on a line, and another sail rose from the boom that reached back from the sternmast over the wheel. "Come two points to starboard Reef that mainsail, you lobster-eating lubbers!"