‘Let me have them, and we shall see,’ Keshik said.
‘I think not,’ Nikolo said. Like his sister, he too had changed into something no longer human. He advanced towards Keshik with his claws outstretched. Keshik looked from brother to sister, trying to work out some way to get past them to his swords when the door burst open. Slave crashed through, slashing at Nikolo with his Claw.
The scream Nikolo gave was as much surprise as pain. He spun around to face Slave. Keshik took advantage of the distraction to hurl himself across the room past Ambra. He dived under her slashing claws, and slid across the table to crash into the wall opposite. As he fell, he ripped his swords off the hook. Ambra’s words about simple steel gave him an idea and he drew only the sorcerous blade.
He stood just in time to see the table hurled away by Ambra. She advanced on him with her claws hooked. He swung his blade at her but she dodged with all the speed and skill of a Swordmaster, raking at his chest. The speed of the Tulugma was all that saved him as he swayed back and out of reach. Her slash overextended her reach slightly and Keshik slammed his fist into the side of her head before she could regain balance.
She staggered and Keshik moved in closer, slashing across her ribs. The blade bit and cut, sending a fine spray of blood across him. It hissed and smoked where it landed on him, making him take half a step away in surprise. Ambra snarled and backhanded him across the face. He swayed just enough to avoid most of the blow, so her claws left only fine lines of red across his cheek and nose.
A sudden cry of pain and shock rang out. Ambra paused in her attack and looked away as her brother fell. She screamed in outrage, but Keshik was alert for the opportunity and drove his glowing sword through her chest. Her outrage shifted into shock and anger, then died away with a gurgle as she slid off his sword onto the floor. When she landed on the ground, her body shrivelled into an emaciated, doll-like figure. In disgust, Keshik stamped heavily on the body, shattering it into dust.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked Slave.
‘Looking for you,’ he replied.
‘You found me just in time. That’s good.’ He looked down at the shrivelled corpse at Slave’s feet. ‘What were they?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. But they’re dead now.’ He tucked his Claw back inside his clothes and started to look around the small house. ‘We need food and water.’
‘And anything else we can carry,’ Keshik added.
They ransacked the house for anything useful and left it in flames.
34
‘Why haven’t you told them who you are?’ Maida asked.
Myrrhini sat in the bow of the Queen’s Quest, watching as the green smudge of land approached.
‘I dare not,’ she said softly.
‘Why not? What harm could it do?’
‘I don’t know, but the last time I did that, about fifty people died.’
‘How?’
‘Slave killed them.’
‘One man?’
‘No ordinary man, I think, but yes. Just one man.’
‘How could one man do that?’
‘He was out of control. Completely mad. He killed everyone, even a woman he seemed to care for.’
A horrible thought flashed into Maida’s mind. ‘What does this Slave look like?’
‘Very dark skin, strange pale hair and the most disturbing eyes I have ever seen.’
‘Was one silver, with no pupil?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I have met him before.’
‘I hope you didn’t fight him.’
‘I did. He killed me.’
‘What?’
Maida regretted her choice of words and gave a half-chuckle, to try and make a joke out of it. ‘I mean, he beat me so badly he almost killed me. No, Keshik rescued me and we got away. But he was completely mad, almost inhuman. That eye actually seemed to glow as he fought, and that weapon, the Warrior’s Claw — I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Myrrhini shuddered. ‘I will never forget what he did with that weapon.’
‘Me neither,’ Maida muttered, unconsciously fingering the spot in the middle of her forehead where the Claw had smashed in. The dreams will be back tonight, she realised. It had been a while, but thinking about it always brought them back.
Myrrhini seemed about to say something when she stopped and sniffed. ‘What is that smell?’ she asked.
Maida sniffed. There was definitely something dead nearby. A waft of breeze drifted in from the coast ahead, bringing with it more of the smell. Something very, very dead.
Shouts came from the Agents. Maida looked around to see men pointing overboard at something in the water. She peered over the railings and went pale.
Bodies. Hundreds of bodies were drifting past. There were all kinds of domestic and farm animals, people of all ages as well as a sprinkling of wild animals. She could not tear her eyes from the macabre scene. Beside her, Myrrhini gagged at the sight and smell of so much death.
‘What happened?’ Maida gasped.
‘Got to be the Wall,’ Itxtli said from behind her.
‘The Wall?’
‘Look at the water,’ Itxtli went on. ‘See how we are floating lower than normal? That means fresh water has mixed with the sea water. Somehow, the Wall has released the Great River of Kings into the delta.’
The magnitude of what Itxtli was suggesting stunned Maida. It meant whole cities, whole farming communities could have been washed out into the Silvered Sea. The loss of fertile land, livestock and human life was incalculable. With Vogel up in flames, and the Lac’un farmlands burning, this could be a disaster of unheard-of proportions.
‘How could this have happened?’
Itxtli shook his head and leant forward on the railing to stare down at the horrible procession of bodies as it bumped and rolled past the ship.
‘I can only think of three possibilities, each one unlikely. Either the Wall has fallen, or the ancient magic that kept it operating has collapsed, or this is an act of malice by the Masters of the Wall.’
Myrrhini finally lost control of her stomach and was noisily sick into the water. Maida was not far from doing the same, so she moved away from the railings. Itxtli followed suit, leaving Myrrhini to her misery.
‘Surely none of those things could have happened,’ Maida said, more in hope than in belief.
‘I cannot think of anything else. This sort of thing is exactly why the Wall exists. Have you ever seen the floods coming down off the mountains?’
Maida shook her head. She had only heard of the monstrous wall of water that was said to surge down from the mountains when the thaws hit and how it would slam into the Great Wall and be held back from the rich delta that flowed into the Silvered Sea.
‘Have you?’ she asked.
‘Just once. I was a young Agent on assignment to the Wall when the flood hit. It filled the canyon to the east of the Wall as far as the eye could see, and that thing is more than a thousand paces deep. When they opened the Wall, the water shot out from under it like an arrow out of a bow, heading west. The thought that anyone could have simply left the Wall open to allow that sort of flood to flow unchecked …’ He did not finish the sentence.
The Queen’s Quest started to come about, swinging south.
‘Where are we going?’ Maida asked.
‘It seems there’s not much point in heading there.’ Itxtli jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the land to the east. ‘I guess we’ll make port somewhere further south.’
Myrrhini pushed herself back from the railings and took a few unsteady steps towards Itxtli.
‘How are you feeling, Onaven?’ he asked.
‘You need to ask?’ she snapped.
‘No, I suppose I don’t.’
She staggered as the Queen’s Quest heeled over further, heading south. The wind caught her sails, filling them and driving the ship away from the carnage floating all around them.
Maida looked up, away from the bodies, away from the land
now to her right, and stared out at the open sea and sky that lay before them. The contrast of smoothly rolling water beneath clear blue sky with the horror of the delta could not have been more stark.
How could something so horrible be so close to such beauty?
She shuddered and went to walk away, to head below deck, but Itxtli grabbed her arm before she reached the stairs. He wrenched her around to face him. With the deck sloping beneath her feet and her barely controlled nausea, she staggered and fell against him. He stared at her, his own face suddenly angry.
‘What do you know about this?’ he hissed at her.
‘How could I know anything?’ she snapped, mystified as much by his abrupt change of mood as the question itself.
‘I am no mayehqueh to know nothing of the Queen’s mind. I know what she is seeking, and why.’
Maida tried to pull away from him but his grip was too strong. He shook her.
‘Tell me what you know,’ he repeated.
‘How can I know anything about that?’
‘If you were what my queen was seeking, you would.’
‘And if I did, why would I tell you?’
‘You already have, if you are who Iskopra thinks you are.’
Maida suddenly realised what Itxtli was referring to — the strange words Myrrhini had called out at the end of the ceremony. He must have heard them and thought she said them.
‘If you understood what I said, you know more than you should anyway,’ she said, hoping his own mind would add the meaning she had left out. Anyone who understood a language some mystical seer spoke had to be a mystic themselves, so they would be prone to think that way. She felt vindicated when Itxtli dropped her arm and stepped back.
‘If you are her, then who is Onaven?’ he whispered.
Maida shrugged. ‘Some slag you picked up by mistake, I imagine.’
He shook his head as he stepped further back. ‘No. I don’t believe you.’
‘What you believe or don’t believe is of no concern to me.’
‘No,’ Itxtli repeated. ‘That mayehqueh achulti with his snivelling servants could never have found a pureblood.’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Itxtli, but whatever it is sounds like some internal squabble you Agents have that is none of my business.’
‘I do not believe you are pureblood. Your colouring is all wrong, and you do not stink of daven.’
‘I wash,’ Maida snapped.
‘That is not what Mixcoatl told me.’
‘Did he tell you about Patecoatl?’
‘I was there, remember. I saw what your spurre did to him, I heard the story about you being a Midacean witch, and none of any of it makes any sense.’
‘Not my problem.’
‘On the contrary, Maida. If you are not who you have now claimed to be, you will face judgement for the murder of an Agent.’
‘An Agent who was trying to rape me!’
‘We have only your word for that, witch.’
‘You have mine as well, Itxtli,’ Myrrhini said.
Itxtli looked quickly around to see Myrrhini staring at him quizzically.
‘What? Do you think Maida was seducing him in order to escape?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘If she was doing that, why would she kill him?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I will find out.’ He bowed stiffly to both women and stalked away.
‘Thanks,’ Maida said.
‘Xahnatl yatl,’ Myrrhini said.
‘What?’
Myrrhini shrugged. ‘It’s some old expression the Agents use. It means “it’s nothing”.’
‘It was more than nothing.’
Myrrhini seemed to dismiss the whole thing as she continued to head towards the stairs. ‘Let’s get below deck,’ she said. ‘Away from all that.’ She gestured at the sea with all the horror it contained.
It took several more days before they came to port. And again, Maida and Myrrhini were sitting together in the bow of the Queen’s Quest watching as the land drew near. Unlike near the delta, there was a city clearly visible here.
‘Sullito,’ Maida told Myrrhini in response to her question. ‘The city is called Sullito, and that’s about all I know about it.’
‘Sullito,’ Myrrhini repeated softly. ‘I have never seen Sullito before.’
‘I didn’t think you had ever seen any city before.’
‘I have seen three now: Venste, where I was stripped naked and leered at by criminals before fleeing in stolen clothes; Usterust, where I bought something for the first time in my life before being locked in a room with you; and now Sullito.’
Maida was struck suddenly by how different their lives had been. How little she knew about this frail-seeming woman, how strange Maida’s own life must appear to her.
‘I was taken as a baby. The Acolytes, when they talked to me at all, told me they rescued me from freezing to death in the snow, but I think they just bought me from slavers like they bought so many others. I don’t think they knew what I was when they bought me. Something they often did to young girls they bought was to feed them daven and see what happened. I saw quite a few die that way.’
Maida sighed, possibly louder than she needed to, and looked away. Let the woman wallow in her past; the future was more important than some pointless maundering recollections.
Either Myrrhini was oblivious to her rudeness or she did not care, because she continued.
‘I was mostly left alone with my books and my thoughts. My Banes only bothered me when the Guardian of the Key demanded a Seeing, but even so, I was brought up by my Banes. I owed them so much and when I left, they were all killed because of me.’ She gave a derisive snort. ‘All except Hinrik, of course, but I can only hope the Wastes killed him for me.’
Maida was only half listening and did not understand most of what Myrrhini was talking about. She looked away, towards the slowly approaching city. Already the smell of massed humanity was wafting across the water towards them.
‘I read about Sullito. It was a story about a woman who was running away from a cruel arranged marriage. She fled across Midacea only to be tracked down in Sullito. When she hid one night from her future husband’s soldiers, she met a young thief who helped her and kept her safe. They hid among the river boatmen until she realised she was in love with the young thief. In the end he was captured by the local militia and she gave herself up to save him. Ever since then, I have wanted to see Sullito.’
Maida could see no reason to comment on such silliness. She leant forward over the railings to try and fill her lungs with clean sea air to prepare herself for the onslaught that would soon be coming from Sullito. The pure air rose from the clear water that frothed as the Queen’s Quest scythed her way through the gentle swell. She was torn. The sooner she got off this ship, the sooner she could escape, but getting off the ship meant spending time in another hot, stinking city.
‘… most of my Seeings were about prosaic things like kingdoms going about their business and armies in small wars here and there,’ Myrrhini was saying, ‘but every now and then, I caught a glimpse of strange things happening. I saw you once, I think, Maida.’
Maida looked around sharply at the sound of her own name. ‘What?’ she said.
‘I saw you once, I think, in a Seeing. You were with a short man with very long, black hair. As soon as I saw you, back in that room in Usterust, I recognised you, but I didn’t know how. It’s taken me until now to remember.’
‘You had a Seeing about us?’ Maida repeated. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Probably nothing. I have had many Seeings and I wouldn’t think they’re all about world-changing events.’
‘How can you know that?’
Myrrhini had not taken her eyes off the city ahead. ‘I have always wanted to go to Sullito,’ she murmured. ‘It seems like such a romantic place.’
‘What?’ Now that she was actually listening to Myrrhini, Maida found she was beginning
to regret it.
‘I once had a Seeing about Sullito.’ Myrrhini gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Although I have a feeling it was more of a dream. I Saw, or dreamed, that I would be rescued there by a beautiful man who would lay down his life for love of me.’
‘Dream,’ Maida muttered. ‘Please let that one be a dream.’
‘Like I said, I don’t think Seeings are always about world-changing events.’
A voice cried out from the lookout station high in the rigging.
‘Ship approaching, kingside.’
Maida pushed away from the railings to look.
‘Which side is that?’ Myrrhini asked. ‘I can never sort out which side is which.’
Maida pointed left. ‘Kingside left, queenside right.’
Myrrhini looked to the left, muttering ‘kingside left, queenside right’, as she tried to commit the seafarers’ terms to memory.
Iskopra handed the wheel to an Agent and walked to the railings. ‘Whose flag does she fly?’ he bellowed up to the lookout.
‘Midacean,’ came the reply.
‘Armed or escort?’
‘Escort.’
‘Stand down,’ Iskopra called to the deck Agents. ‘Keep the heading and stay alert.’
The approaching ship was small and fast. It came up very quickly, leaving a white wake behind. For a while, Maida was concerned it would smash into the Queen’s Quest, but it came about at the last moment to run alongside.
‘Yo the ship,’ called a man in the prow of the vessel. ‘Wither bound?’
‘Sullito,’ Iskopra bellowed back.
‘Prepare to be boarded by the Sullito pilot.’
‘Not likely!’ Iskopra shouted back.
‘No pilot, no landing. The shoals of Sullito are treacherous and no one else knows their secrets.’
Iskopra sighed. ‘Ice and wind,’ he grumbled. ‘They still insist on that fiction.’ He raised his voice. ‘Very well, send your pilot aboard.’
The pilot ship pulled close alongside and ropes were tossed across to tie the ships together. When the ropes were secured, a man in a cloak and hood swung over the gap to land lightly on the deck of the Queen’s Quest. As soon as he was aboard, the Agents untied the ropes and threw them back to the Midacean vessel, which pulled away. The Sullito pilot strode purposefully to the wheel. With ill grace, Iskopra handed over command of the Queen’s Quest to him. His face was not visible beneath his hood, but he stood with the ease of a lifelong sailor as he guided the Queen’s Quest towards the shoals that guarded the entrance to Sullito’s harbour.
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