“What about the others? Did you recognize anyone else?”
I huffed, slightly annoyed at the interruption. “Arasha Meralith, Kiraes Auridion, Taneem Kiovar,” I listed. While Peridion occupied most of my attention, I had managed to look around a bit. “They were children of the courtiers of old Peridion. Spared, like Karlan.”
And following his lead like dogs.
“And, I guess, they were of a higher class and didn’t mingle with you,” said Innam Ar-Leig acridly.
I had no problem recognizing him: he was the vessár of the First Cohort, responsible for training fresh recruits. It’d been a few cycles since I joined in, but the sheer sound of his voice still made my skin crawl.
“You guessed right,” I replied equally inimically.
My thoughts briefly turned to the surrounding area, burned to ashes. The rebels’ provenance made it clear why it had been so easy for them to destroy the livelihoods of people who called Maurir home. They didn’t give a shit about us.
There could be other reasons. They could seek revenge for old Peridion—and their own parents who had died by his side. Or wish to restore the old order—and nowhere was it as broken as on farming worlds. The Tarvissi in cities also came from the lower classes, but they were free people: merchants and craftsmen, sometimes soldiers. Us, peons, on the other hand, belonged to our lords. Leaving wasn’t an option. So, those of us who lived here, in Maurir or Nes Peridion or any other world in Meon, were either rebels or runaways. And nobles couldn’t stand that.
“Do everyone in the Mansion come from Nes Peridion?” asked the elder guy who spoke earlier.
“I don’t know, Vessár. Despite what you may think, I don’t recognize all the Tarvissi in Meon.” Belatedly I thought I should probably keep my annoyance in check while speaking to my superiors.
“No one expects you to,” reassured Myar Mal. He paused for a while, then said, “I apologize. For putting you through this. I wasn’t… familiar with the conflicts within the Tarvissian community.” He went silent, apparently awaiting an answer.
But what could I say? Everything I felt in the last couple of hours—anxiety, fear, betrayal, relief, and anxiety again—was still fresh in my mind, still raw, twisting and coiling and knotting into a big ball that seemed like sheer exhaustion.
And he didn’t apologize for lying to me.
I shifted uncomfortably. “It’s all right,” I murmured.
For a moment, he remained silent, like he expected me to say something else. Nothing came to my mind.
Finally, he started talking, pausing frequently, and if it had been anyone else, I would have thought he was hesitating. “I do appreciate what you did for us today. I know it must have been hard for you. To face your kin like that.”
The tip of the knife flashed before my eyes and I snapped them shut. I didn’t feel any particular kinship with those assholes. But truth be told, I never felt any particular kinship with anyone, save for my closest family.
“If you wish to back out now,” continued the kar-vessár, “you can return to Sfal. No one will hold it against you.”
Head spinning with anxiety, I raised my gaze to look at him. But his face was turned and I couldn’t catch his eyes.
What was he talking about? And why now? Why not before… ?
Well, it was pretty obvious why not before, I thought, with a sudden surge of bitterness.
Under the table, I clenched my fists, digging nails into my palms. I took a deep breath.
“Is that an order, Myar Mal?” I forced my voice to sound calm. At least, I hoped I did.
“No. But neither is staying here. It’s your choice. Perhaps the last one you’re going to get.”
I was tempted to ask if he meant I could die if I stayed or get kicked out if I left.
“Then I choose to stay,” I said simply.
The faces of my mother and sister flashed through my mind, sending out ripples of guilt. I just got a chance to quit, go to Tarviss, and at least try to help them. Instead, I stayed to play soldier.
But if the situation in Dahls didn’t change, I’d have nowhere to take them. So, in a way, staying there and trying to sort things out was helping them.
Myar Mal nodded across the table, then moved on to the next question so swiftly, I thought he forgot about me.
“Any estimates about the number of rebels?”
Another woman, this one with a square face and eyes so dark they were almost black, spoke, “We tried casting spying spells on the mansion, but they give us a different number each time. Sometimes it’s two thousand; sometimes it’s five thousand people.”
The Dahlsi used the dozenal system, where the base number was twelve, but we, Tarvissi, preferred the decimal, so I had to make re-calculate. A dozenal thousand was seventeen-hundred-and-twenty-eight in decimal, so the total number she proposed was between thirty-five and eighty-six hundred. Tight fit, given the size of the mansion, but not exactly impossible.
“Any thoughts?”
There was no immediate answer, and I raised my head only to realize the question was aimed at me. I shuffled awkwardly and cleared my throat. “I’d say the numbers are on the lower end. The people of Maurir were mostly of low class, and not many of them would follow nobles willingly.”
And that meant more of them were killed. Slaughtered like animals and probably tossed outside, since I doubted the rebels would bother with a proper funeral.
“Does their background tell us anything about them other than numbers?”
I took another moment to think. “They were probably trained to fight from a very young age,” I said without conviction. The nobles were different, even though my parents’ uprising strove to erase those differences. Still, old traditions were strong, even if those upholding them were young.
The problem was, as a peon and the child of the revolution, I knew very little about tradition.
“I thought you killed their parents during your revolt?” asked another man I didn’t recognize. I swore, after the meeting, I’d have to find a way to learn their names. Although I probably wasn’t going to need them ever again.
“I think they started learning earlier and just continued practicing.” Kiraes Auridion was almost an adult when the nobles were killed. And I still remembered Karlan carrying a long stick in place of a sword and waving it every day as mock practice. I doubted any of them was a swordmaster, but at least they knew which end to hold.
“What about magic?”
The question came from Tayrel Kan. He stood in what I started to think of as his usual spot against the wall, and I wasn’t sure if he had been invited to the meeting. Even if not, I doubted anyone could keep him out—he was just that kind of guy.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure if he had been included in the spying spell they cast on me before my mission.
“A few of the rebels were wearing what looked like mirror armors,” said the dark-eyed woman.
Indeed, now I recalled seeing small, oval mirrors some Tarvissi wore over their sternums.
“I saw something similar on the bandits from Csivelin,” she continued. “They are enough to disperse a direct killing spell. Not so good against swords, though.”
“Do all the rebels have them?” pried the elder guy.
“Out of those in the yard, I’d say around one-third,” answered the woman. “But who knows how many there are.”
“What about those crystal balls?” asked Tayrel Kan, his eyes fixed on me.
I had no idea what he was talking about until an image popped up before my eyes: a man with a few transparent spheres hanging from his belt like a bunch of grapes. I was pretty sure it was implanted.
“They are weapons, aren’t they?” he pressed.
I shook my head. “Probably, but I don’t know how they work.”
“You don’t seem to know very much about the military of your people,” said the half-tan, and I felt my face heating up.
“Magic in Tarviss is reserved for the member
s of the highest class,” I explained, doing my best to control myself. It wasn’t easy. My heart was hammering, and I felt like instead of blood, it was trying to pump the words out before they turned into a scrambled mess. I caught myself before my speech became too fast and too loud. People have often mistaken it for anger, and I got into more trouble for it than I could count. “My people had no access to it and, even now, primarily associate it with oppression. My family won’t let me cast cleaning spells when I’m home.”
Only when I noticed gazes filled with shock and disgust, did I realize exactly what I had just said. “We use soap and water,” I grunted, wishing I could melt under the floor.
“By higher class, do you mean nobles or sorcerers?” asked Tayrel Kan, mercifully closing the topic.
“Sorcerers, mostly. But,” I added, suddenly remembering something I once read, “I think the spheres have spells trapped in them. They are released upon shattering.”
“So, at least they’re single-use items,” remarked Tayrel Kan. “The next question is: do they have a sorcerer among them who prepares those spheres on-site, or did they get them earlier, from outside?”
“We had an answer from Veyn Ay,” said the half-tanned guy. “There was no major transport of goods from Tarviss in the last cycle.”
“They could move them in small batches,” I suggested, and the half-tanned guy sent me a condescending smile.
Heat rose in my cheeks again. Of course, they had thought about it.
Trying to save face, I asked, “But wouldn’t they need a sorcerer’s help, anyway, to close the merge?”
There was no point in asking about the defensive spells, they were sold in every self-respecting magic shop, and they came in all flavors: Dahlsian, Tarvissian, Tayani, Csivelinian, Chaarite, and so on.
Tayrel Kan studied my face for a moment. “What do you know about merges?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Not much. Only that they let us move between the worlds.”
He hummed, then raised his left hand—he was left-handed, like most sorcerers—and curled his fingers in a peculiar gesture, conjuring an image: a large, semitransparent sphere, peppered with lights, with a smaller and brighter ball in the center. A rough model of the universe.
“The Great Sphere spins around Vhalfr,” he started as if trying to narrate a story, but still unable to shake off his usual mocking tone, “but on its surface, each of the Nine Circles, and even each of the worlds, moves at its own pace.”
The outer sphere divided into nine rings moving individually.
“That’s an exaggeration, by the way; the differences are minuscule. A few seconds here and there. Anyway, as the worlds move, they get closer to or farther away from each other. Sometimes parts of two worlds may occupy the same spot on the four-dimensional Sphere, that’s where merges form. Now, some of them are pretty stable, remaining intact for centuries. But others change, shift locations, swap worlds. Some just close or fluctuate. And what do you know—the one on Maurir is fluctuating. It remains open most of the time, but twice a cycle, it closes altogether. When it happens, it’s so weak that a slight push is enough to close it. Anyone with two working brain cells and some familiarity with cosmography could do it.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said, “with the merge fluctuating, they won’t be able to keep it closed forever. And when it opens, we’ll be able to send our troops right in the middle of their fortress.”
“The merge can only accommodate one man at a time,” replied the elder woman. “Two sentries would be enough to defend it.”
Tayrel Kan shook his head. “I think they just wanted to show us they can do it. It doesn’t seem like they planned ahead.”
“Besides, if someone inside the mansion knew a thing or two about cosmography, shouldn’t they know opening the merge between Maurir and Tarviss is impossible?”
Tayrel Kan’s smile vanished as he sized me up, strangely thoughtful.
“That’s a good question. Maybe they knew… but didn’t bother telling anyone else.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Could that mean the whole rebellion was a ruse? A vain attempt to draw our attention while…
What?
“Did you scan the mansion?” I asked and immediately chided myself; it was probably the first thing they did.
“See, here’s the problem. I did… and didn’t find anything. Sorcerers are usually easy to sense, even if they shield themselves. But here, there’s nothing. So either the bastard is insanely powerful and can somehow protect himself from detection, or he’s using some form of indirect magic we can’t track.”
“Did you try sifting through the minds of the rebels?” asked the half-tanned man.
Tayrel Kan sneered. “Yes, but it’s like sifting through raw sewage. Even if there are pearls somewhere, pretty soon you start questioning your life choices.”
“Nevertheless, I have to ask you to put aside your delicate feelings and keep doing it,” ordered Myar Mal, fixing the sorcerer with a pointed gaze. “After all, you’re no stranger to questionable life choices.”
“We can’t all be perfect, Kar-vessár,” the sorcerer purred, putting his hand on the leader’s arm.
Myar Mal huffed and shook it off.
The familiarity in this gesture made me uncomfortable. Who exactly was Tayrel Kan? What was his role in Mespana? And what was his relationship with Myar Mal?
Well, the last one was none of my business, I scolded myself.
I noticed Tayrel Kan giving me a quizzical look and felt heat rising to my face. If he was still reading my thoughts, he’d have a great laugh at my expense.
“There’s one more issue we should address,” suggested Laik Var. He’d remained silent until now, but at this point, everything about him—his posture, his tone, his turned gaze—screamed disapproval. I’m not sure whether of me, Myar Mal, Tayrel Kan, or the situation. “The involvement of Tarviss.”
“We haven’t received any answer from them,” said the half-tan almost immediately.
“Of course we haven’t,” scoffed Tayrel Kan. No one seemed eager to reply, though, so he continued, “what? Didn’t we just agree the whole rebellion was a cover? And who would benefit from it more than Tarviss?”
“So, we shouldn’t expect their answer?” asked the older guy.
“I think they’re going to wait and see, then do whatever fits them best. If we yield, they’re gonna come out with their demands. If we lose, they’re gonna join the rebels and tear Meon apart. If we win, they’re gonna blame us for killing their people and attack anyway. Whatever we do, we’re fucked.”
“Provided Tarviss has anything to do with that,” observed Laik Var.
“Who else?”
“They may just be a bunch of kids with no idea of what they’re doing,” suggested the dark-eyed woman. “Maybe their plans sounded better on paper, and they’ve yet to realize they’ve made a mistake.”
“They are a bunch of kids, but someone stands behind them, pulling their strings,” insisted Tayrel Kan. “They wouldn’t come up with this on their own; it doesn’t make any sense! What outcome do they hope for? That we’ll just give them our world, let them do as they please because they say so? That’s dumb, even for some backward rubes with a superiority complex. No offense, Aldait Han.”
“None taken,” I assured him.
“That’s a provocation,” he continued, paying me no mind. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tarvissi start gathering their armies next to the merge with Dahls right now.”
“Should we move our forces there?” asked the older guy.
“No, we need all the people here to quell the rebellion,” protested Myar Mal. His face was locked in a dark, determined expression, and once again I was struck by the intensity of his gaze. “But we should warn the Directory—advise them to prepare for evacuation.”
“And we should contact Tayan,” added Tayrel Kan. Tayan was another big world merging with Dahls, and the tension between it and Tarviss was what kept Dahl
s safe for millennia; they were both too busy with themselves to pay any attention to their tiny neighbor. “The Republic of Yth, the Nine Kingdoms, Muraan country—see what they have to say about Tarviss’s supposed movement against us.”
“Sanam Il,” called the kar-vessár.
The half-tanned guy straightened his back, and I felt stupid joy at the fact I just learned his name.
“Yes, Myar Mal?”
“Send couriers to Sfal; we need to prepare diplomatic missions to Tayan. And Xin Nyeotl.”
“Yes, Myar Mal. What about the rebellion?”
“The plan remains the same,” barked Myar Mal sharply. “When is the next sun opening?”
“In sixteen hours,” replied Sanam Il.
“We attack in fourteen.”
Chapter 6
“What troubles you?”
Taneem jerked, almost slipping from the windowsill he was sitting on. He glanced nervously toward Karlan before returning his attention to the outside.
“Nothing,” he lied.
The weight of the young lord’s hand settled on his shoulder, and he barely stopped himself from flinching.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Taneem. I know you don’t approve of our actions here.”
As if any sane person could approve of them. The corpses of the peons had started rotting in the ditch they had been thrown into, belching noxious gases and feeding swarms of fat, black flies. No one had thought about moving them away or covering them with anything more than a few inches of dirt. And now it was too late. If the Dahlsi didn’t kill them, miasma would.
And the few who had agreed to serve them were locked up in the cellars, since they couldn’t even be sent out to work on rebuilding what Karlan’s thugs had burned down.
“It’s just…,” started Taneem finally, “Not what I expected.”
The Outworlder Page 6