by Kevin Hearne
I’d like some fruits and veg
But all I have are fish heads
And a half-squeezed lemon wedge
I’d trade you all my fish heads
For an apple and a smoke
Or just take them, I don’t care,
If I have one more I’ll choke!
(Coda)
Fish heads, fish heads, they’ll rot your bloody brain,
Fish heads, fish heads, I’ll never eat them again!
“We’re going to hop from coast to coast today,” Fintan said. “First we’ll go to the west, where Abhinava Khose is about to meet the viceroy of Hashan Khek.”
The bard transformed into the plaguebringer, looking a bit dusty from his travels.
I have been walking for a while now along the bank of the Khek River, exploring a possible land-based trade route that would give both Hashan Khek and Khul Bashab a new trading partner. And it’s a very pleasant walk as long as you don’t have to worry about being eaten. Easy, too, when you have a stalk hawk traveling along with you, pointing out where one can find nuts and berries. The grasses hide clumps of bushes sometimes, and though trees rise above them, they are often difficult to identify from a distance. An airborne friend definitely makes such things easier.
But my new senses help as well. I’m learning to identify what plant life might be nearby in conjunction with certain concentrations of animals and insects. I found a small clump of khanja berry bushes, for example, because I sensed the presence of khanja caterpillars feeding on them before they slept and turned into moon moths. Hunting for plant life to sustain me in this way is much more enjoyable than hunting creatures.
The old road down from Khul Bashab to the Khek River needs plenty of work. It’s mostly overgrown from disuse, though it does swing by a few watering holes and end at a dock where one can tie up cargo barges. I’ve been counting the days and marking places along the way that might work well for waypoints. Spots that could support a fortified inn, or a trading post, or a small village someday to keep traders safe at night. I passed the spider colony that is now the current location for the Sixth Kenning and shuddered as I gazed upon it. They are larger than my head, gray and furry and no doubt capable of delivering very painful and poisonous bites. If one was to be blessed, then no doubt the poison would be neutralized almost immediately, but that wouldn’t subtract from the pain and horror of being bitten. And if one wasn’t blessed, why, then, I imagine it would be one of the most terrifying ways you could die, for it would not be quick or painless and you might still be alive as they began to digest you, liquefying your muscles and slurping them up, and Kalaad in the sky, I think I might be making myself sick just thinking about it. I’ve heard stories that somewhere in Forn there is a clan that harvests silks from spiders, caterpillars, and worms and makes their primary living from it. I hope their spiders are more sensibly sized than these.
On the positive side, it will be only a few weeks and the kenning site will shift north to the plains below Tel Ghanaz, where one can be merrily torn apart by a troop of golden baboons or else blessed by bites and maybe some hugs. I cannot speak for all, but I would take baboons over spiders any day.
Also on the positive side, I have managed not to kill anything since I left Tamhan, Hanima, Adithi, and Sudhi or do anything stupid that contributed to the death of another creature. Let Murr and Eep and all others hunt according to their nature: my nature now is to walk gently among the animals of the plains and do no harm.
I hope my fellows are safe in Khul Bashab and well on their way to creating a Beast Callers clave. Viceroy Bhamet Senesh may be unwilling to do us any favors after the mess I’ve made of things, but perhaps the viceroy of Hashan Khek will be more open to the idea. I will inquire when I arrive. Situated on the coast as he is, he might be interested particularly in what I can do for him in the sea, so I conducted an experiment: I waded into the river up to my ankles—not far at all—and stretched out with my kenning to discover if I could sense the animal life in the river. And I could! Sunfish. Borchatta. Clawbugs in the mud. Checking first to make sure no fish-eating birds were nearby, I asked a sunfish to leap out of the water briefly, and it did, blinding me with sunlight on its scales before returning safely to the water.
Impossible not to grin at something like that.
When I drew close to Hashan Khek, I noticed that the number of animals decreased significantly. They were more frequently hunted, of course, but also the city simply smelled bad. Like borchatta soup and … something worse. No wonder the animals avoided the place: humans were befouling it.
I found a small grove of nughobes well outside the walls and asked Murr and Eep to wait in the area while I visited the city, perhaps for a few days. I unhitched my horse from the cart and took both horses with me into the city to keep them safe. Murr and Eep most likely would fend very well for themselves, but two horses would be easy prey for a pack of something hungry.
The guards at the Hunter Gate could not have been more surprised to see a single unarmed man approach them and ask to enter the city.
“Who are you?” one asked. I told him. “What’s your business here?”
“I’ve come to see the viceroy if he’ll grant me an audience. I have news regarding the discovery of the Sixth Kenning near Khul Bashab.”
“What nonsense is that?” They hadn’t heard of the discovery, then. But perhaps they had heard of something else.
“They call themselves Beast Callers. They’re trying to start a clave in the city. I’d like to discuss those developments with him.”
If that didn’t work, I would bring up the missing cavalry, but the guards exchanged glances after “Beast Callers” and nodded.
“We’re supposed to bring anyone who speaks of that straight to him,” one said. He had a marker of rank on his shoulder. “Enter and follow.”
The other guard remained at the gate, and I followed the ranked soldier to the viceroy’s compound, which surrounded the Tower of Kalaad near the harbor. There were some questions from other guards about my clothes, or relative lack of them, but matters of personal appearance did not matter so much as following their orders, and I was steadily passed through a series of checkpoints, gave my horses into the care of their stables, and soon was presented to the viceroy’s chamberlain. He was a short man with a large gap between his front two teeth, introduced only as Khaghesh. I did not know if that was his first name or surname, but I did know that I did not trust him.
He did not think very highly of me either. I must have looked terrible, caked in dust and grass from days of walking on the plains. I might have smelled worse than the city—certainly like a horse. He smelled like some Fornish ideal of masculinity, all cloves and vanilla, but I think he had sprayed that on himself to disguise his fondness for onions, which I detected hovering about as well. He lived a pampered existence, wearing boots made of gut goats, and his lip curled in evident disgust. I should probably bathe soon.
“You are a messenger of Viceroy Senesh in Khul Bashab?”
“No, sir. I am an envoy of the Beast Callers.”
“An envoy only, or are you a Beast Caller yourself?”
“I am.”
His sneer communicated his disbelief. “And what proof can you offer of this rumored talent?”
“What proof would satisfy you?”
“I hardly know. There are no beasts here for you to call.”
“Oh, there are plenty, sir.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are many insects and spiders in the compound—quite nearby, in fact—and some small rodents as well. If you will agree not to strike at them when they appear, I will ask them to show themselves and do no harm to you or this guard here.”
He stared at me for a moment, then looked all around at the walls and ceilings, searching for insects and the like. They were all hidden at the moment in cracks in the salt-worn masonry.
“Very well, it is agreed,” Khaghesh said. “Make them appear. I will do no
harm to them so long as they do not crawl on me.”
I called the insects and spiders and other crawling things forth. They obliged and emerged from various hiding places in the hallway. One was a poisonous hundred-legged wheelmouth with rotary teeth that drilled into flesh and shredded it before sucking down the resulting slurry of meat.
“Ugh!” Khaghesh grunted. “I had no idea there were so many. And you said there were rodents?”
“Near the kitchen. Enjoying the food there.”
His disgust deepened, but his regard improved. Grudging respect, perhaps a small hint of fear in his eyes.
“Understood. Now make them go away again. I liked them better when I couldn’t see them.”
I allowed the creatures to return to their shelters with my thanks.
“Wait here,” the chamberlain said. “I’ll inform the viceroy.”
That left me alone in the hallway with the guard. He looked at me differently now, too.
“The Sixth Kenning is real, then?” he asked. “You control animals?”
“It’s real,” I said. “You saw for yourself just now.”
“So I could seek a kenning. Any one of us could. Just like the Raelechs or the Fornish or whoever.”
“Yes. Just like them.”
The guard shook his head. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.” His teeth flashed at me, and he laughed. “This is amazing.”
Khaghesh reappeared and waved us into the viceroy’s receiving room or whatever he called it. It was wide but even longer, with his throne, a writing desk, and a conversation table set upon a single step that spanned the room and divided the back third from the rest of the room. I still didn’t know the viceroy’s name, but Khaghesh took care of that with a formal introduction and a flourish of his hand: “The viceroy Melishev Lohmet.”
I noticed there were several guards with crossbows posted against the walls on either side. The viceroy himself looked like he could not decide between being fashionable or martial. He wore a silken tunic in red, white, and black but with a saber belted at his side and a pauldron strapped onto his left shoulder with a flared piece designed to protect his neck from blows on that side. The robe did seem bulky and suggested a body far larger than the column of his neck would point to, so I imagined he had significant armor underneath as well. He nodded at me and the guard who’d brought me from the gate, standing in front of his throne with hands clasped in front of him. His eyes narrowed somewhat as he took me in, but he made no obvious signs of disgust as his chamberlain had. Up close I could see that he was sweating, a muscle twitched underneath his left eye, and his expression suggested not calm diplomacy but rather that he was barely holding on to his sanity. I almost inquired if he was well but reconsidered. Some egos are easily bruised by the suggestion that they are anything but excellent at all times, and his might be one of those.
“Report, soldier,” he said to the guard, who stiffened at being addressed and barked out a quick summary of my appearance at the gate and what I’d said. While he did that, I called what creatures I could to collect silently inside the room, including the wheelmouth. I told them to keep to the shadows but be ready to move quickly into the light.
“Very well. Thank you. You are dismissed to return to your post.”
The guard saluted and departed, his posture painfully erect, sweeping right past the creatures scrambling through the door, leaving me alone with the viceroy, his chamberlain, the crossbowmen, and an ever-growing collection of many-legged, toothsome allies.
“Tell me, Abhinava, what were you before you were a Beast Caller?” I thought it interesting that he did not ask me to prove my powers. He accepted that I was what I said I was.
“A hunter, sir.”
“You will address him as Viceroy—” Khaghesh snapped, but Lohmet held up a hand to silence him.
“He’s been perfectly polite, Khaghesh.” Turning to me, he said, “ ‘Sir’ will do, but you can call me Melishev if you wish. Let’s not think of titles right now; I find that they slow down conversation. Is it true you discovered the source of the Sixth Kenning south of Khul Bashab?”
“That’s true.” It was now due east of him along the Khek River, but he didn’t need to know that.
“How many others have been blessed with the Sixth Kenning now?”
“Three others.”
“So three others and yourself know where the kenning site is.”
“Correct.”
“Will you tell me where it is?”
“No, sir, begging your pardon.”
I expected him to frown, but instead he grinned at me and rubbed his hands together. “Ah! Now we get to it. You have reasons. Reasons that no doubt have something to do with the behavior of Viceroy Senesh and his cavalry.”
I responded with a curt nod and tensed. Would he try to take me into custody?
“Well, you will find that he and I are very different. He is quick to see enemies in people who would be his friends. I’m glad you came to me. Do please tell me what you want.” He withdrew a journal from a pocket of his tunic below the belt and sat down at a writing desk, flipping it open to a blank page and dipping a quill into ink before looking up at me expectantly. “Please, sit. Khaghesh, bring one of those chairs over for him.” He scratched “Beast Caller” at the top of a page while the chamberlain brought over a chair for me. It was all very strange and solicitous; his polite demeanor contrasted with his sweating, twitching face, and I realized that I was being hunted. These viceroys are predators, each with his own style of hunting, and Viceroy Melishev Lohmet was every bit as dangerous as Viceroy Bhamet Senesh. Perhaps more so. Senesh wielded a heavy club that you saw coming, whereas Lohmet plunged an unseen knife in your back. I checked the position of the crossbowmen again as well as that of Khaghesh. He hovered behind me, and I stared at him until it became uncomfortable and Lohmet noticed.
“Khaghesh, come over here to my side, please. Don’t loom over our guest.”
“Thank you.” My back would be to one wall of crossbowmen, but they couldn’t shoot at me without risk of hitting the viceroy, so I sat. “I first would like to say I appreciate very much your willingness to talk, sir. This is much better than confronting cavalry from Khul Bashab pointing crossbows at me.” He was too sharp to miss the subtext there. The cavalry hadn’t come back. The corners of his mouth played in a half smile. The muscle under his left eye twitched even faster.
“I agree. This is much preferable. Like many young people, you are not fond of authority.”
“No, sir.”
He looked pleased. “So what does the angry young man want? A completely new government? Some kind of endless wrangling in committee like the Raelechs have, yearly elections?”
“Not necessarily. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. And let me assure you I do not want a violent revolution. If I wanted that, I would have done it already. I could take over this city without moving from this chair, which is not a threat, sir, just a statement of fact. But I don’t think such chaos would help people. I do think that our country must change now that it has a kenning of its own. So many laws and customs are built around not having one.”
The viceroy grimaced. “Yes. It’s going to be an uncertain time. I cannot tell you how the king will react to this. Because as you just pointed out, you’re a threat to his power, never mind mine.”
“Well, perhaps speaking with you can go a long way to ensuring that we won’t have any more ugly incidents. Let’s be as honest as we can for our mutual benefit. Here is what we want—I mean me and the other Beast Callers.”
“Go on.”
“We want to help our country but not be pressed into military service.”
The viceroy frowned for the first time but did not reply until he had scrawled something in his journal. “And if your country is under a grave military threat?”
“Then please request our services, detailing exactly what needs to be done, and negotiate terms of engagement, payment, and release from se
rvice through a contract. We address the threat and then are free to enter other contracts, just like Raelech stonecutters or Brynt hygienists. Treat the Nentian blessed, in other words, the same way you would the blessed from any other country. We will happily serve as contractors but refuse to be military weapons used to oppress the population and preserve the power of current rulers.”
The viceroy threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, the king would definitely not respond well to that.” He spared a glance for Khaghesh, whose face looked as if he had swallowed something particularly bitter. That amused him, for his mouth smirked anew as he bent to write some more. When he finished, he cocked his head at me. “Do you mean to say that other countries use their blessed to oppress their populations?”
“No. But I believe this country uses its military to do that. So I will not join the military here except on a limited contractual basis.”
“Ah! I see.” He closed his journal and shifted awkwardly in his chair to place it back into the pocket of his tunic. Khaghesh took particular notice of this, staring at it as if he wanted to possess nothing else so much in the world. “Blasted armor. I’m not used to wearing it here. Have you heard what gives me cause to go armored these days?”
“No.”
“We’ve been invaded by the Hathrim. Hearthfire Gorin Mogen has a whole city of them to the south, just north of the Godsteeth.”
I watched him to see if he was joking. He appeared perfectly serious. “The Hathrim are truly invading? With hounds and their firelords and everything?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “They’ve already killed four thousand of my men. Lost my best tactician. The king is sending a much larger army now. They should be here in the next few days, and then we march.”
“I had no idea.”
“I thought as much. Viceroy Senesh has been more worried about four Beast Callers than an entire army of giants. Between you and me,” he said, and lowered his voice to a whisper, “I don’t think he’s particularly good at setting priorities.”
“Will the king’s army be able to defeat them?”