The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  At last, the demon seemed to have vented its immediate rage and it retired, snarling, to its fellows.

  “Why have you called us?” demanded the demon, its voice heavy with hatred.

  “Because I have need of your eyes and your wings,” Yamuna replied calmly. “I need you to see Avanasy Finorasyn Goriainavin.”

  “What if we do see?” growled the first of the demons.

  “Then you will tell me what you see.”

  “And if we do not see?”

  Yamuna narrowed his eyes just a little. “You will see.” You will see because I can’t find the little straying cow. But she will have recalled her teacher, and where he is, she will be.

  The first of the demons snarled. He turned west, away from Yamuna and his fellows. His wide, yellow eyes stared steadily out through Devang’s gate, searching, Yamuna knew, the whole world beyond.

  “The man Avanasy Finorasyn Goriainavin sails south down the coast of Isavalta,” said the demon slowly. “He stands on the deck of a small boat. There is a woman at the tiller.”

  “Who is the woman?” snapped Yamuna.

  The demon squinted. “She has no name in this world. I know her not.”

  “What else?”

  “He is waiting for something. He speaks to the woman of it.” The demon’s sail-shaped ear twitched. “He waits for a crow. The bird is a messenger for him to his man in Isavalta. He hopes it will find them before they reach the Heart of the World.” The demon’s wings shook themselves restlessly. “That is what I see.”

  The Heart of the World! The little cow had taken shelter with the Nine Elders? Yamuna considered. It was not so foolish a move as it might first appear. The Heart of the World was well protected against both force and magic. She could not be readily reached there, and she could warn the Nine Elders and their emperor somewhat at least of what came toward them, removing the advantage of surprise. It might, in fact, be a swifter way to gain aid for her cause than sending her messengers hither and thither about her provinces trying to determine who was still loyal to her, especially if she had trusted spies still in Isavalta who could do that for her.

  Well, well, there is a brain in that head after all. Yamuna permitted a small nod in deference to the child’s scramblings. She would fail in the end, but at least she would put up a fight.

  “You will allow that crow to meet with this man in Isavalta, and then you will bring it to me along with whatever message it carries,” said Yamuna to the demons. “You will also find the sorcerer Avanasy, and kill him and all who are with him.” There would be little Medeoan could do if she were cut off from her aides and information, and now that they knew where she was, they could watch movement down the coast all the more carefully. As soon as his strength was restored, he must send a message to Kacha.

  The demons growled, a long, low noise that he felt trembling through his torso.

  “You ask too much of us, man,” said the first of them. “Take what we have seen and be content.”

  Worry rippled through Yamuna’s blood. If the demons challenged him now, it was possible they might break free from his grip. The spell was strong, but he was weak, and he did not know how much of the working he could call on. He could not let it come to that.

  “I still hold your chains,” he said coldly. “I could at this moment bury you deep in the earth and you would not be able to move until I so ordered. But I am not such a master. You will do as I say because if you do not, you will suffer, and you know this.” His mouth twitched, as though he were about to smile. “You remember other times you have suffered.”

  The first of the demons shrank back. Yamuna held himself very still. Like most of their kind, these four were inherently cowards. Terrible, powerful cowards, but cowards all the same. When Yamuna had first bound them to him, he had not done so out of immediate need, but because need might arise. He had driven them deep into the earth first, and left them there, snarling and howling. When he had finally pulled them forth, they were firmly his, cowed by fear of imprisonment in an element that was no part of their being, and so gave them no succor, only pain.

  They remembered that imprisonment now. He saw it in their eyes, and in the way they pulled their heavy wings close about themselves.

  “We will do as you say,” the first demon told him.

  “Good.” Yamuna nodded. “Then go.”

  The four demons raised their arms, and rose from the ground in a rattling flurry of wings and hot wind. In a heartbeat, they were gone and Yamuna was left alone with his exhaustion and a stark sense of relief.

  It had almost been too much. He had almost failed.

  It does not matter, he told himself, taking a long breath to purge the tremors beginning again in his limbs. I did not fail, and now I know not only that I must stay bound to Chandra for this little while longer. I know where the Isavaltan empress has hidden herself, and I can turn her shelter into her prison.

  Yamuna moved his gaze to the stone wheel again. What does it matter that I am bound for a while longer? Only the gods are truly free, and once I have that freedom for myself, nothing else will matter. Nothing at all.

  Eliisa paid off the canal boat’s pilot with the three copper coins she had carefully counted out from her stash the night before. Thankfully, he took them without comment, slipping them into his sash, and nodding her farewell. The night before he’d suggested a way she might save the fee, and she’d been afraid she’d have to fight him off before the trip was over. But it had not come to that, and now she was safe in Camaracost.

  If safe was the word for it. Even thinking the name brought a sour taste to her mouth. Camaracost was a market town, a port town. Anything could be bought here, be it a passage to Hung Tse, or a girl for the kitchens of a fine house.

  She wondered for a moment if Mother or Father still lived inside the city walls. She dismissed the idea. She could not idle here. If she was lucky it was a market day, and she could see who was about doing the buying and the selling.

  The streets by the canals were warrens of warehouses and storage barns. The best could be told the by the hired guards standing alert at the doors in their clean kaftans and broad sashes. The worst slouched in the shadows near the open drains, either unattended, or watched over by greasy men with greasy eyes that glided over her as she strode past.

  Noise and distant memory guided Eliisa’s feet. Soon, she found herself in better, if more crowded, streets. Wooden houses, some two and three stories high, with brightly painted doors and roofs, crowded up to the cobbles. They left barely enough room for three grown men to walk abreast, let alone for the carts and mule trains that tried to squeeze through the streets.

  Finally, the narrow thoroughfares opened onto the public square. The city’s gilded god house shined in its center, and around it flocked all the crowds, noise, and smell of a bustling market. Stalls and tents filled the square the way the merchant’s voices filled the air. Eliisa plunged into the crowd without hesitation. Housewives and husbandmen jostled shoulders with servants and agents for the noble houses. Men in the bright silks of Hastinapura haggled over baskets of nuts and bags of spices. Moneychangers weighed and counted. Scribes recorded bargains and set the lord master’s seal upon bills of goods and sales to show that the taxes had been duly paid. There were even men of Hung Tse here, in long coats of plain, undyed cotton with jet buttons, pacing quietly through the throng, their sharp eyes darting this way and that.

  They might be just who she wanted. If they were not, perhaps they could lead her to the ones she did.

  As in all other transactions, however, appearing eager was a sure way to get cheated. Eliisa wished she had a basket so that she would look more like she was on an errand for some mistress. But, as it was, she kept most of her attention on the stalls she passed, fingering grains and dried beans. Sniffing suspiciously at the summer’s first fruits, she was able to see the two men of Hung Tse arguing with a seller from Hastinapura over sacks of cinnamon and peppercorns, judging by the smell th
e wind brought her. Eliisa bought herself a portion of black bread and liver sausage from a sharp-eyed biddy and squeezed into a corner between a stall and a house to eat it. The foreigners argued, haggled, and dickered in a mix of languages, with much waving of hands and beating of breasts. At last, though, they bowed to each other, each in the fashion of his own country, and the shorter of the two men from Hung Tse left his partner to write up the contract of sale and see to the proper seals while he stepped back into the stream of the crowd.

  Eliisa smiled. Now, it only remained to see which ship was his. The captain, whoever he might be, would surely not be averse to a little extra money, and another pair of hands in the galley.

  Munching the last of her meal, Eliisa followed the foreigner through the crowds. He knew well the ways of below-market, and crossed the center of the square nearest the god house where the crowds were thinner. On market days, beggars with their bowls were permitted to cluster around the sides of the god house to see what charity was to be had. They smelled even more strongly than the stalls of the spice merchants in the heat. As she passed, Eliisa caught the eye of one of the god house keeper’s assistants, who frowned at her. Ducking her head, Eliisa fished one of her remaining pennies out of her girdle and tossed it into one of the brass bowls that waited at the foot of the stairs. Supposedly, it not only garnered the good will of the gods as a charitable act, but it was good luck. Eliisa was not so sure of herself that she was ready to turn down a little extra luck.

  Eliisa followed her guide to the edge of town where the canals emptied into the bay. The world took on the smell of fish. Because it was summer, the docks were a forest of masts and sails. Tiny fishing boats bobbed between huge, sharp-keeled, oceangoing vessels. It was to one of these that her guide went. Eliisa marked the ship. It had a scratched, black hull, but the knotwork paint was bright and the wind nets hanging from its sides were whole and stout, and might even have been woven by an actual sorcerer. It was a prosperous ship, and Eliisa smiled. The voyage aboard that craft might even be fun, or at least comfortable.

  “Now, then, my girl,” said a voice behind her. “You’re going to come along and explain yourself. I’ve many a question to put to you.”

  Eliisa’s throat closed and she turned. Behind her stood a soldier. He did not wear the gray-and-red livery of Cameracost’s lord master. He wore the bright blue and gold of the Imperial House Guard.

  “I don’t have to go anywhere with you,” she snapped, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “I have my papers. I am free.”

  “You’re not, and you do,” replied the soldier, darting his eyes sideways so that Eliisa could not help but turn her head to see the two other guards waiting at the end of the dock. “Come, my girl. You’re wanted.”

  “But why? They let me go!”

  “That’s not for me to say or you to ask.” His hand closed lightly around her elbow, with the clear implication that he could hold her much harder should she decide to struggle.

  Eliisa’s mouth hardened, and she knew there was something she could do about this, but she did not move. Instead, she remained quiet while the soldier, an over sergeant, by the braid on his cuffs and the brass buttons on his kaftan, walked her back to the pair of under sergeants that waited for them.

  “Next time, my girl, if you want to stay hidden, do not pay off the local gods in imperial coin.”

  Eliisa’s mouth went dry. “What do they want me for?” she asked. The over sergeant had not released her and she had to step smartly to keep up as the under sergeants marched them over the bridge and between the long tables where the fishermen unloaded and scaled their catch. The cobbles were slick with blood and the smell made Eliisa’s head spin even worse than her sudden capture did. Despite that, she could not help but note the dark hair and features of the fishers, which told her they were probably all from the island of Tuukos, as her mother had been.

  A bent man struggling under a yoke of buckets filled with fish heads and guts staggered into the road. One of the under sergeants reached out to cuff the old man and the blow knocked him off balance. The man sprawled onto the street, pouring guts and scales all across the soldiers’ boots. He mumbled his apologies, and tried to scramble out of the way, but slipped in his own mess so that one of the under sergeants tripped over the yoke and hit the ground beside him, cursing.

  “Under Sergeant!” shouted the soldier beside her, and his grip on Eliisa loosened, just a little.

  Eliisa twisted hard and threw herself sideways. The sudden motion startled the soldier and Eliisa yanked herself free and ran, skidding on the slick cobbles but keeping her feet. She had more experience on wet slates than the house guard. They must not catch her. They must not. She only barely knew why, but they must not.

  Eliisa dodged between the tables, tossing one over as she passed, earning shouts and curses from the fishers working there as she splashed fish all across the muddy street.

  Then, a fresh set of hands grabbed her. Before she could think to struggle, they shoved her into a pile of empty pickling barrels. A fishy-smelling tarp dropped over Eliisa and the barrels, cutting off all light. But by then she was recovered enough to think to hold quite still. Outside, something was piled atop her shelter, pressing the canvas down until it rested against her skull.

  Boots ran by. Voices shouted and argued. Someone brushed her canvas and Eliisa bit down hard on her lip. She tried to breathe quietly in the choking, fish-scented darkness. The sounds outside faded away, but she still did not move. The heat sent rivulets of sweat trickling down her cheeks and neck, but she didn’t dare shift herself to wipe them away. Her right foot went to sleep.

  Just as she thought she would surely faint from the heat and lack of air, a corner of the canvas peeled back to let in painfully bright light and the silhouette of a human head.

  “Come out, Daughter,” said a man’s voice, and Eliisa started. He was speaking in the language of Tuukos. No one had spoken that to her since she was five or six. Since her mother had signed her into service. It was like hearing a voice from a dream.

  Stiff, and blinking hard, Eliisa crawled out of her stinking shelter. As she straightened up, she saw how badly she had lost track of time. The sun had already sunk behind the tallest houses, and the shadows lengthened across the water, turning the bright green bay to somber gray. Eliisa’s hand flew to her mouth as her eyes sought out the water level as measured against the dock pilings. The tide had turned. Her ship might have already sailed.

  “Calm yourself, Daughter,” said a lithe little man at her side. It was only by the bright red cuffs on his rough, woolen smock that she recognized him as the man with the yoke who had tripped up the soldiers. She had thought him old, but now that he stood upright she saw he had not yet even reached his middle years. He added something more which she could not understand.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” She tried to answer him in Tuukosov, but her tongue fumbled the words badly. “I don’t understand anymore.”

  A woman nearby with a face like an old apricot spat and muttered something angrily. The only word Eliisa caught was “Isavaltans.”

  “Never mind, Daughter.” The man spoke slowly, as to a child, and patted her arm with his thick, calloused hand. “What did your parents name you?”

  “Eliisa.”

  “Well, Eliisa, and it’s no good you standing here in the street. You had best come along with us.”

  “Thank you, Father, but I must …”

  “That ship you were so intent on is still there,” he said kindly, but firmly. “You’d best come with us.”

  Eliisa swallowed her next words. The stubby woman frowned hard at her, and she remembered she should not be questioning her elders. So, she just nodded. She was too tired to do otherwise. Besides, she had to get somewhere she could be alone, and take her girdle off. It was important, but she couldn’t remember why. Thinking in Tuukosov seemed to push the Isavaltan words out of her head.

  “Good,” said the little man. “And I am Fino
n. The woman there is Ilta. We’ll see you safe, stowed among your own for the night.”

  “Then, my girl,” said Ilta, taking her arm even more firmly than the over sergeant had and steering her toward the docks, “you can tell us what the House Guard wanted with you.”

  “I don’t know,” answered Eliisa stubbornly. “I was let go. I’ve got the paper. It’s sealed. I can go anywhere in the oblast.”

  “And where in the oblast would you be going on that tall ship?” mused Finon.

  “That’s my business,” snapped Eliisa in Isavaltan. Ilta pinched her elbow hard. “Hey!”

  “Mind your manners, girl. You’ve Isavaltan blood in you by the look of you. If it shows stronger than your clean blood, we may just hand you back to them.”

  Eliisa swallowed. Here it came. Half-blood. Mother wouldn’t have given her over else.

  “Now, then, Ilta,” said Finon, his dark eyes glittering. “She’s still wearing the patterns, isn’t she? Still knows her name, doesn’t she? Give her time to remember herself. How long have you been with them, Daughter?”

  Them. The Isavaltans, with their bright hair and pale eyes. Demons who came out to the Holy Island and slaughtered the people and tried to drive out the True Ways by killing every sorcerer of the pure blood they could find. She’d heard all the stories when she was a child, and had held them close, even after Mother signed her away. “I was six when I was sold.”

  “Huh. Your Blood Father should have starved himself first,” said Ilta.

  “He was a soldier, Mother said,” muttered Eliisa to the cobbles. “Isavaltan.”

  She didn’t have to say any more. They understood how she had come into the world. Ilta spat again.

  The warm summer darkness swiftly enclosed the bay. Ilta and Finon walked her past the tall ships and the tugs and the Isavaltan fishing boats, to a cluster of boats the like of which she hadn’t seen in years. They had square sterns and dark, square sails. Each was painted red, black and green with lettering stretched out and run together until it looked like knotwork, but each pattern was really a spell written out for the individual craft, taken from its name and blessed, if not painted, by a sorcerer.