by Ben Peek
‘Of course they do.’
—that they would be ignored.
‘What I would like to hear from you,’ Eira said, ‘is what my beloved’s final moments were like. I hear you were there. In fact, I hear that you were the reason he died. He and Bau.’
‘Why don’t you ask Zaifyr?’ Ayae said. ‘He was the reason they died, not me.’
‘I am forbidden to talk to Qian. We all are.’ Her pale hand fell to the top of the case she stood beside. In it were two large books, lying open. Between them lay heavy curved wooden blocks with handles on one end and holes for typeface on the other. The typeface, made from big pieces of metal, was set out before them. ‘He is a little like this press here. A relic that is being kept beneath glass. But he will be broken out soon. He will stand trial.’
‘He wants to,’ she said. ‘But the Mireean people aren’t on trial.’
‘They will stay on Wila or they will swim to shore,’ the other woman said. ‘They have said a number of things about Fo that simply are not true. He was not so foolish that he would let a plague out that he had designed. And he would not ignore the Enclave’s orders, not now. Not when we had so much to learn.’
‘Yet he did.’
Eira stared at her, the room growing colder as she did.
‘You want to know how he died?’ Ayae said. ‘The dead tore him open.’ The glass beneath Eira’s hand cracked. ‘The dead are everywhere, do you know that? Generations upon generations packed upon each other. Each day you and I walk through a thousand, unawares. Everyone does. Everyone except Zaifyr. He sees them. And all he did was give them enough life so that they could appear before Fo and Bau and rip open their skin. Enough life so that they could devour what was there. Be sure to print that in one of your papers so everyone can read it.’
A moment later, she was out of the door, and halfway across the street, her hands feeling as if they might ignite in anger.
Faise and Zineer were there immediately, but it was not until later, when she had gained control of her anger, that she could tell them coherently what had happened. By then, they had returned to Mesi, to the small house, and the afternoon’s sun had set. ‘There’s a meeting of the Enclave next month that I’m invited to,’ Ayae said, once she had finished. ‘I had hoped – I thought that I might be able to make some headway into getting them off that island.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Faise said, sitting opposite her.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Not, but – you know what I miss?’ she said. ‘I miss being a witch’s apprentice. I had no stomach for that blood magic, but no one said anything bad to me when I worked for Olcea. If I’d been like that war witch, I could have done what she would have and walked into that shop with you. I could have told that cold bitch what was what.’
Despite herself, Ayae laughed. ‘It wouldn’t have made a difference.’
‘Then I could have slapped Benan Le’ta and his paid soldiers around.’
That caught Ayae’s attention. ‘I’m glad that you’ve noticed that they’re there.’
‘There were at least five today.’ Faise shrugged. ‘It doesn’t bother me. We’re pretty safe, I know that. But it’d be nice to . . . well, to be powerful,’ she said, after a small hesitation. ‘To be safe because everyone was afraid of you.’
11.
On the morning that Bueralan boarded a ship to Ooila, he had not seen Samuel Orlan for over two weeks. He had changed inns twice after the time in his first room expired, and once again, a day before he walked up Bounty’s wooden plank.
It had taken just under three weeks to organize a passage to Ooila. It had been hard to find a direct passage to the country, partly because of the fighting in the east, and partly because of the rumours that were beginning to emerge from Ooila. Aela Ren’s ship, Glafanr, had been seen in the waters, it was said. The Innocent had landed. His army was preparing to follow him. The rumours were not new, but combined with the child, with Waalstan, and with some of the stories about ghosts in the Spine of Ger that had begun to emerge, it became another one of the world’s problems. He was told by a number of captains that he could book a passage to Gogair or Nmia, but Bueralan did not want to pay for half a voyage. Financially, he needed to make the trip in one booking. Eventually, after a week, the Ooilan spice trader Bounty pulled into harbour, and the young captain on it took Bueralan’s coin without a second question. He would have to wait nine days before the ship set sail, but that did not bother him. He used that time to pull himself further and further from Samuel Orlan. Indeed, the old man appeared to have made the same decision: after a few nights he stopped knocking on Bueralan’s door and when he changed inns, Orlan seemed not to know and not to care.
It was with some surprise, then, that Bueralan found the cartographer on the deck of the ship, waiting for him.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ said Bueralan bluntly. ‘I have had more than enough of your company.’
‘I sympathize with that, truly I do.’ The marks around Orlan’s throat were faint and he spoke in the voice he had had when Bueralan first met him. In fact, the weeks in Jeil had been kinder to Orlan than him, and the old man appeared before him with a neatly trimmed beard, cut hair and new clothes. Expensive, black-dyed wool trousers, a black vest over a red silk shirt and brand-new boots gave him the appearance of what he was: a rich man of considerable fame. ‘But it is a mistake to return home,’ he said.
‘It’s not your home.’
‘Neither is it yours. Do you think Zean would truly appreciate this?’
‘Don’t speak as if you know him,’ Bueralan said softly. Bounty shuddered as it pushed away from the quay. ‘You don’t know a thing.’
‘I know what a blood brother is,’ the cartographer replied. ‘I know what it means to own another man.’
‘Nobody owned Zean.’
‘It is not so dissimilar to the situation in which you find yourself.’
‘Nobody owns me.’ He took a step closer to the other man. ‘You certainly don’t.’
‘I don’t mean me.’ Orlan did not move back. ‘I mean what you are now. What it means to be god-touched.’
‘Ger helped me to help save himself, that was all.’ It would take but one push, one swift movement to force the old man into Leviathan’s Blood, to be free of him. ‘You and the child can say it all you want but it doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘It does.’ Bounty began to turn in the water, the smooth blackness broken by the dip and pull of oars. ‘You have heard the word, I’m sure. It is used in Yeflam. In Gogair. It used to be a popular term for those who we now call cursed. But the child did not say it to you as if you were one of those men and women. She used it as it was originally intended, as it was spoken by the gods so long ago. She used it with respect.’
‘She had no respect for either of us in Ranan.’
‘And then she sent you to another god-touched man,’ Orlan finished.
Bueralan frowned. ‘She didn’t—’
‘When innocence is at stake.’
His skin crawled suddenly. ‘Aela Ren,’ he whispered.
‘The Innocent.’
‘She said the same thing to you.’
‘She would,’ Samuel Orlan said, ‘but it is not true. She says it because she knows that the very first Samuel Orlan declined the offer of immortality when the goddess Aeisha offered it to him.’
‘Why?’
‘It was an offer of chains. He killed himself a day later, believing that it was the only way he could be free.’ Orlan reached up and touched the pouch around Bueralan’s neck. ‘All the other god-touched men and women were made that offer, but you weren’t. You and your blood brother have more in common now than you think. You have no freedom. Your mortality is pinned to a moment ten years from now, maybe fifty, maybe a thousand – to where Ger has decided that your death will be meaningful.’
‘Ger is dead,’ Bueralan said. ‘He has been dead for over ten thousand years. What happened beneath Mireea –
I can’t explain that, but it isn’t what you just said. There was no time for that.’
‘The world of a god is not our world,’ he said, taking a step away from the saboteur. ‘The first Samuel Orlan knew that. He has made sure that every Orlan has known that since. Whatever they think, whatever they want, they think and want. To them, we are just cattle to that end. The very thought of one returning . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Why do you think I gambled on going into Ranan to kill one that was half made?’
‘What makes you think you should go to Ooila instead?’ he asked. ‘That god you tried to kill is back the other way.’
‘But you are here,’ he said. ‘Soon enough, it will be clear what happened to you. Perhaps it will start to make sense, then.’
He walked away then, walked beneath the deck, to his cabin. He left Bueralan on the deck, Leviathan’s Blood growing around him.
12.
The midday’s sun rose over five hundred acres of recently ploughed land. Heast, his pale blue gaze on the dirt road, watched the riders approach.
He stood on the deck of a small farmhouse, alone. Behind him, through the doorway, past the rectangular table, beyond a second door, his sword lay on a narrow single bed. Yet, as the riders drew closer and closer, he made no move towards it: it would not help him against the flashes of blue that he saw, against the two score of the Empty Sky that Bnid Gaerl had sent. He knew that by the time the head of the column thundered into the yard before the farmhouse, the leader pulling heavily on the reins of his black horse.
He was young, probably a little over thirty, and he had thick brown hair cut short around a tanned, handsome and dishonest face.
‘Captain of the Ghosts.’ If he expected Heast to react to his new unofficial title, he gave no indication of disappointment when he did not. ‘It was some work to find you.’
‘I have been here for a month, Sergeant—’
‘Menan.’ He dismounted; the rest of the guards in dark-blue armour followed him in unison. ‘Is there no one here to help my men?’ Menan held the reins of his horse in his left hand; his right held the sword he had slung from the saddle. ‘You surely haven’t been out here by yourself, Captain?’
‘I am afraid,’ Heast lied, ‘there’s just me.’
The other man’s humourless smile revealed straight white teeth. He handed the reins to one of his men and walked slowly up the stairs, the spurs in his boots clicking with each step. ‘I do not want to get off to the wrong start,’ he said, ‘but you don’t seem particularly disturbed that forty well-trained and well-armed soldiers are before you.’
‘That’s not how I would describe anyone who served under Gaerl,’ Heast said.
The response stopped Menan, two steps before him. ‘Captain, there is no need to be anything but civil. Let us both talk.’ He pointed to the open door to a room with a long wooden table. ‘Surely we can act like professionals?’
‘You’re the one with forty soldiers.’
‘Exactly.’ Confidence returned, he brushed past Heast. Inside, the sergeant waited for Heast to enter, his hand on the chair closest to the door. ‘Please, take a seat.’ Menan laid the sword across the table. ‘It must hurt to stand for long periods of time.’
You’ve never been to Leviathan’s End. Wordlessly, Heast made his way to the chair at the end of the room. The sword blade pointed to him.
‘Aned Heast. Captain of the Ghosts, Captain of the Spine, Captain of the Wisal Guard and the Behani Guard. But most famously, the last Captain of Refuge. I must admit, when I was young, my father told me endless stories of Refuge and its soldiers. He had been a soldier himself and, I think, if he had not had a family, would have served in Refuge. If he could, that is. But after all his stories, I used to imagine myself in Refuge’s battles. In yours, actually. I would always imagine that I was one of the sacrificing tragic heroes.’ He seated himself in the chair in a swift, fluid motion, a contrast to Heast. ‘Youth. Nowadays, few even know the name Refuge, and even fewer know the names of the men and women who served in it. Only men like my father, who sit in bars and drink away what pittance they have, remember.’
‘It can be a cruel life for a man who seeks fame,’ Heast said. ‘Indeed, it can. Still, in your final years, you must be content that you have seen nearly all the world.’
‘There are places I have not been.’ At the mention of final, he rested his hands on the top of the table, above the ugly dagger he had hidden beneath. ‘They are not many, though.’
‘Sooia?’
‘No, I have been there.’
An honest curiosity – the first honest expression Heast had seen on Menan’s broad face – saw him lean forward. ‘What is it like?’
‘Awful.’
‘That is all you will say?’
‘The land is both drowned and burnt, the soil sown with bones and salt.’ Through the door, he watched the dark-blue armoured soldiers spread out, watched them begin to search the farmhouse and the empty fields. ‘The things that Aela Ren and his army have done will not be easily undone.’
Menan’s fingers touched the hilt of his sword. ‘It will require cooperation. As you and Muriel Wagan have been cooperating with the Traders’ Union for the last three months. Helping each other send food and clothing to Wila. Keeping your people safe. Standing up not just to the Leerans, but to the animosity in Yeflam. An increasingly difficult task now that the priests have begun to arrive in the cities and give sermons on the very topic. Sometimes it feels as if not a day goes by without a new fear expressed about Leera and Mireea. Yet we have stood beside you. We have maintained our defence of you. Even as you and Lady Wagan have been purchasing Yeflam land.’ Outside, Heast heard the sharp stamp of a horse’s hoof, the snort of another. The low voices of the Empty Sky grew as they returned to the front of the building empty-handed.
‘I must admit, it took the Traders’ Union a long time to uncover your deception,’ Menan continued. ‘From what I understand, they were aware of the purchases two months ago. It was the two hundred acres from the Galan family that tipped them off. Galan was unable to keep secret the sum that was offered. The banker from Zoum revealed little, and you cannot harm those bastards, not if you want to keep your accounts. But the trail could be followed. And it was, across Leviathan’s Blood and back.’ Menan smiled sourly. ‘Zineer and Faise Kanar. Benan Le’ta had a fit when he heard, but not enough of one to do as I suggested, and cut both their throats and toss them into the ocean.’
‘A sound plan,’ said Heast, turning his focus back to the soldier. ‘What stopped Le’ta?’
‘The two live with another woman.’ His hand tapped the straight blade of the sword in front of him. ‘A cursed girl.’
The Captain of the Ghost’s hands remained on the table, above the hidden dagger. ‘Are forty soldiers not enough to kill her?’
‘A cold suggestion.’
‘You did not answer my question.’
‘You can never tell.’ Menan flashed his dishonest smile. ‘Cursed – they’re always a problem. But she’s not a soldier. She can be made to run. She can be made to take her friends into hiding. To force them to give up everything.’
‘So you kill me, instead?’
‘I do admire how casually you are approaching it.’
Outside, far out on the vacant fields, a member of the Empty Sky toppled to the ground, the first in a violent ripple.
‘I think you misunderstand the situation,’ Heast said.
‘I am not a fool,’ Menan replied evenly. ‘It won’t be easy. Even Benan Le’ta knows that. He knows that what has been taken won’t fall back into his hands straight away. He knows he’ll have to kill Muriel Wagan as well.’
‘Greed is always very reliable, isn’t it? Muriel told me that years ago and I have not doubted it since. She told me because I asked why she was not wealthier.’ Heast had sat in her disorganized office after he had returned with Lord Wagan from Balana. His report had been short and simple, the trip uneventful. The only note of i
nterest was his opinion that Elan Wagan had left a number of financial opportunities on the floor, discarded for no reason other than lack of interest. ‘She said to me that a fortune is an empty goal. Wealth is much like a sword, she said. It is a tool to be used for an end, nothing more. The moment you begin to value it for itself, it becomes blunt and can hurt no one. I think those words will mean something to you very shortly.’
‘They won’t.’ Menan rose from the chair, his sword in his grasp. ‘Wealth is power, Captain. You and my father and Muriel Wagan, you are all the same. You all refuse to see that our world is made by wealth.’
Behind him, through the door, a short, stocky man in plate and chain mail appeared on the field. In his hand he held an ugly spiked mace, a weapon that might well have torn open the side of his face, if he had been struck with it then, if the blood that stained it was his.
A shout erupted from the soldiers who stood around the farmhouse. The cry forced Menan to turn and, as he did, men and women in heavy armour and weapons began to surge around the house, as if a dam had broken.
‘What is happening to my men?’ he demanded.
‘They’re dying.’ Heast’s hand reached beneath the table, grabbed the hilt of the dagger.
An anguished cry drew Menan to the open door of the farmhouse, ready to give an order. But it was useless. More and more Brotherhood soldiers appeared before him, each of them holding heavy crossbows that began and ended a short and ugly battle. Already, the forty soldiers who had arrived had been cut down to a dozen. The survivors were throwing down their weapons to the ground and surrendering with loud shouts.
The sword slipped from Menan’s fingers. ‘I do not wish to die,’ he said. ‘I surrender, we all su—’
His words cut off wetly as Heast’s dagger cut deep and hard across his neck.
There would be no prisoners. The Captain of the Ghosts could afford none, and did not, in truth, wish for any.
‘A lot of bodies today.’ Essa used a rag to wipe his mace clean as he climbed the two steps. ‘Be hard to keep them buried for long.’