Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

  He sat obediently in the middle of the marble bench, itself a green and white stone that mimicked the vine's leaves. 'I gave you my word,' he reminded the slave with some asperity.

  I'm hardly likely to break it with Shek Kill's fist ready to close around me and crush me to oblivion.

  Sezarre didn't respond, turning to take the white gravelled path towards the central keep. As Kheda watched him go, he saw three women in bright dresses appear around a tall stand of swaying afital grasses.

  'Sezarre!' The tallest of the women called out to the slave and he hurried to bow low before her. She asked him something and he replied with gestures that clearly indicated Kheda's presence. All three women looked down the path towards him, all dressed in the lightest of velvets, intricate patterns scored through the richness of the nap to give the fabrics a lacy sensuousness.

  The tallest was a big-boned woman with darker skin than most in these reaches set off by the whiteness of her gown. The fine, close curls of hair dotting her scalp denoted blood from the most distant western domains. She had a broad face with a wide smile now turned to the baby she carried wrapped in a shawl bright with silken flowers. Looking up again, she spoke with Sezarre and a little boy appeared from behind her ivory skirts, taking a few steps down the path to stare at this newcomer with undisguised curiosity.

  'Nai,' the woman warned, with easy authority in her tone. The child scampered back, raising one little hand to the reassuring grasp of his mother's body slave. That man made his mistress look positively diminutive, heavily muscled and stern-faced as he gazed at Kheda.

  Don't worry, my friend. I would truly have to have a death wish to even offer an insult to Mahli Shek, first wife of this domain.

  The woman's rebuke didn't dissuade a second, younger child from wriggling between the adults to see what her brother was looking at. The little girl's head was a luxurious riot of loose black curls and her skin was markedly paler than her mother's, who skirted past the first wife to scoop her daughter up. She settled the little girl on her hip, quelling her squirms with a brisk admonishment before turning to look at Kheda herself.

  If Shek Kul had looked for abiding intelligence rather than superficial beauty in his first wife, his second or whoever she might be boasted a luscious prettiness that would grace any warlord's audience chamber. Rounded of hip and bosom, she wore her close-fitted dress of azure velvet with a conscious seductiveness even secluded thus within the Shek compound's walls.

  No wonder that tall dark body slave hovering at your shoulder has such an expression of fatuous adoration, my lady. Not that I would feel inclined to fight him for your affections, when he stands with such an expert swordsman's balance. Shek Kul's wives' body slaves are plainly acquired for more than warming their lady's bed when her husband is otherwise engaged.

  Sezarre concluded his explanations to the woman and bowed low. Mahli Shek nodded before turning her head to say something to the second wife. The two women took another path, their attendant slaves close behind them, the little boy and girl scampering ahead, giggling.

  As they disappeared beyond a stand of dark-leaved berry bushes, the third woman hung back by the feathery afital grass. Slightly built with coppery skin, her long black hair was simply tied back and her dress was a plain orange shift, unbelted given her advanced pregnancy. Sezarre caught her hands with an impulsiveness that startled Kheda and bent to kiss them. The woman pulled away and Kheda saw her brushing away a tear. He also noted that where the other women had boasted rings, necklaces, anklets and bracelets of intricate twisted silver, this woman wore only a single gold chain of lozenge links around her neck.

  'Gar, we are waiting.' Unseen, the second wife called out with a hint of impatience.

  'Coming, Laio.' The pregnant woman hurried away down the path, leaving Sezarre looking after her. A moment later he left down the other fork.

  So, Sezarre, I'd say it looks very much as if you are, formally speaking, that wife's body slave. Now, Janne or Rekha would blister my ears with their scolding if I ever tried to usurp their authority over Birut or Audit. Even Sain would be roused to protest, albeit with her endless excruciating apologies, if I started giving Hanyad orders. Not that I would dare to, and certainly not while she was so close to childbed. What have you done, my lady, which prompts Shek Kul to deprive you of your body slave's support at such a time?

  Well, that's a curiosity that I had best let go unsatisfied. I doubt such questions would be welcome.

  The little girl's giggles rang through the gardens with that unique quality indicating a child doing something it knows full well it should not. Outraged chirping burst from an unseen aviary, the disapproval of the heavily built body slave rumbling beneath it. The children's voices rose; the girl offering some hasty excuse while the boy self-righteously proclaimed his own innocence.

  A pain that Kheda had thought safely locked away deep in his heart pierced him like a knife.

  Would Shek Kul's excellent sources have told him whether the baby born to a minor wife like Sain Daish is boy or girl? Will he know how any other children of such a distant domain fare, those below the ages of reason or discretion that make them pieces to be played in the games between warlords and their wives? There's no reason to suppose he interests himself in such irrelevancies for the Shek domain. Even if he does know, how could you ask about such things without confirming his suspicions of your true past? As long as he can say he does not know who you are, you may be safe. Once he cannot deny the truth, all wagers are off the table.

  But he was threatened with magic, wasn't he? He found a path through the danger and if his first wife's brush with magic did him no credit among his neighbours, his domain prospers. He may have lived long without an heir because of her but he's wasted no time filling his quiver with a sheaf of children to safeguard the Shek domain's future. That's what you must discover, how he did it, and then you can return to enjoy your own wives and children and look to the stars for a better future for all of Daish.

  Between determination to find out just what secrets Shek Kul hid sitting in his stomach like cold dread and painful longing for his own family hot behind Kheda's eyes, he found he had little appetite when Sezarre reappeared some while later carrying a tray of covered bowls.

  'My master bids you eat.' Sezarre set the tray down on the marble bench, his gaze not on Kheda but irresistibly drawn to the sounds of the women playing in the garden with the children. Kheda saw both sympathy and resignation behind the slave's carefully maintained mask of indifference.

  Does that mean your mistress has merited the snubs her fellow wives and her husband seemed intent on dealing her?

  To distract himself from inadvertently betraying such curiosity, Kheda lifted the lids off the bowls. The selection of food, as fine as anything Janne Daish's cook would deign to set before an unexpected breakfast guest, did in fact remind him of just how hungry he had been lately. Pale curds of fresh cheese nestled in dark honey and were dusted with crushed afital seeds. Purple berries glistened atop a bowl of pink-tinged sailer grain moistened with a sweet, aromatic wine. Cloud bread, still warm from the oven, was wrapped in a snowy cloth beside a gold-rimmed pot of quince preserve. A goblet of many-coloured glass matched a ewer of clear spring water.

  'Will you eat with me?' He looked up at Sezarre. The slave hesitated.

  Of course. He heard what I told Shek Kul.

  'Forgive me, I know I've been too close to magic for comfort.' Kheda hid his chagrin by busying himself with the ewer. 'You should not risk sharing my food.'

  Sezarre surprised him by sitting on the other end of the bench and tearing himself a piece of cloud bread. 'We had a slave here once—' He paused, as he scooped up some cheese and honey. 'A good man, even if he had been born a barbarian. He denounced her that was killed for suborning magic. He knew her enchanter for what he was, because he'd encountered wizards in his earlier life. He was still a good man, even if he had been touched by such things.'

  A good man but one firmly i
n the past tense.

  'What happened to him?' Kheda reached for a spoon and began eating sailer and the unknown berries, which proved to be refreshingly tart.

  Sezarre shook his head. 'That's for Shek Kul to tell you.'

  The slave took the other spoon and joined Kheda in eating the moist sailer grain. They had nearly reached the bottom of the bowl when Delai crunched down the pebble path towards them.

  'My lord Shek Kul would speak with you again.'

  Kheda rose and Sezarre gathered up the dishes and tray. As the slave vanished, Kheda felt oddly bereft.

  'This way.' Delai did not take the path to the audience hall but instead led Kheda towards the central keep. They skirted the vast edifice again and Kheda saw he was being taken to the watchtower above the gate.

  'Up the steps,' Delai grunted. 'To the top.'

  Kheda complied and found himself in a room that took up the whole width of the tower's upper level, wide windows on every side with slatted wooden shutters fastened back. Shek Kul was waiting, looking out over the strait.

  'Thank you for the breakfast,' said Kheda politely.

  'Delai, guard the stairs. I want no one within earshot.' As the slave closed the door behind him, Shek Kul moved to sit on one of the benches that ringed the room below the windows.

  'Events that I do not propose to discuss taught me not to condemn a man merely for the misfortune of meeting with magic' He smiled without humour. 'If that were so, I would have to condemn my wives, my firstborn and myself. But I know the depth and extent of enchantment's malice and I have watched ever since for any omen that suggests that hateful episode has blighted our futures. My neighbours may not agree but I have seen no such sign, so my concern lessens with each turn of the heavens.'

  He looked at Kheda thoughtfully. 'I understand your concerns for the Daish domain. I don't know if I'd have had the courage to follow the path that I suspect has brought you here. Nor do I see any clue as to where your future path may lie, and that concerns me. You do realise that setting yourself against these wizards may well see you shunned by other domains, for even daring to risk the taint of magic, even if you save the southern reaches as a result?'

  'Unwelcome as such a destiny would be, it would be a worthwhile trade,' Kheda said quietly.

  Shek Kul's non-committal noise was an echo of his slave's. He twisted a thick silver ring around his thumb. It was set with an uncut polished emerald that could only be a talisman gem.

  'I cannot tell you how to defeat magic that openly stalks the land and sows destruction in its path,' he said abruptly. 'Good fortune as much as good counsel saved this domain from the disaster that ill-starred woman would have brought down on us all. I can set you on a course that may lead you to the lore you seek, though I make no promise of that. I will tell you what I can, if I have your word, your oath to the death, that you will never make it known to another living being that I set you on this path.'

  'I swear it,' Kheda answered fervently. 'By the skies that greeted my birth.'

  Shek Kul frowned at some memory, not at Kheda. 'The magic threatening this domain and other malice besides was unmasked by a barbarian slave, newly come from the unbroken lands. He was being used somehow, in some plot of the enchanter who had beguiled Kaeska that was my wife with promises of the child she longed for. I don't know quite how this slave was involved and I made it my business not to enquire. That much alone would have warranted his death if there had not been omens in his favour. He was alone on the shore when a sea serpent showed itself in the strait. Any such appearance is a most powerful portent for my domain.' Shek Kul's scowl deepened. 'If it had eaten him, we'd all have known where we stood. As it turned out, the sea serpent passed him by. Just to complicate any interpretation, that was the day of Shek Nai's birth.'

  Complication hardly seems an adequate description.

  Kheda stayed silent, waiting for Shek Kul to resume.

  'As the accuser, this slave was set to trial by combat against the foreigner Kaeska had brought here, the man accused of actually working the magic. She was irrevocably condemned when the wizard used his evil first to try ensnaring the slave and when that failed, to flee unseen.' Anger undimmed by the passage of time thickened Shek Kul's voice. 'So as well as the portent of the sea serpent, I saw this barbarian slave was somehow proof against wizardry, and in denouncing it had done my people and me great service. That should have won him his freedom and my order that some village of the domain provide for him for the rest of his life.' The warlord paused again.

  'I gave him his freedom but wasn't about to see him enjoy it within my islands. I took his oath that he would never return and I judged him a man of honour, for all that he was a barbarian. Even so, I made sure I had word of his travels, until he departed the entire Archipelago,' Shek Kul added grimly.

  'He did so in the company of a man whom I have long suspected of ill-dealings. He's a vice peddler, trades in intoxicants and pleasures of the flesh, sometimes with willing girls, sometimes not.' Shek Kul shrugged.

  'There are always such parasites to batten on the strong. This man is different though and not just because he's barbarian born. He trades dreamsmokes and liquor for information and shares information in turn for goods and services, as he needs them. He's not alone in that but from what I've learned, his ledgers never quite balance and, believe me, I have made it my business to learn all I can about this man since my slave took up with him so readily. What this vice peddler does do is disappear to the north from time to time and not just to replenish his stocks of barbarian vices. He trades information to someone beyond our seas but not in any of those mainlander ports that our galleys deal with, that much is certain.'

  Shek Kul twisted the talisman ring around his thumb.

  'Vice traders generally only enjoy their rewards until some fellow degenerate sticks a dagger in their back or their offences warrant sinking by a warlord's trireme. Several rivals have tried to kill this man and failed. One died in his sleep of no cause that any healer could determine. Another was knocked from his own deck by a spar that was as sound as any other yet suddenly broke for no reason. This particular man often traded his skills in diving and swimming to repair ship's hulls yet he drowned without lifting a hand to save himself. After that, his enemies went after this vice peddler in several boats together, only to all wreck themselves in an unseasonable fog.'

  Kheda saw Shek Kul looking expectantly at him. 'You suspect this vice peddler of working magic himself?'

  'I don't know what to think. I wouldn't have spared him more than passing contempt had his path not crossed this barbarian slave's in a meeting that looked suspiciously contrived.' Shek Kul shrugged. 'Now I learn that as soon as rumours of this magic loose in the southern reaches drifted north, this vice peddler pursued them like a shark scenting blood in the water. He sailed south into the teeth of the rains and the fiercest storms of the season, so plainly has no fear of magic but rather some all-consuming interest. If I were you,' Shek Kul loaded his words with meaning, 'I would want to talk to this man.'

  You're not telling me all you know. You have some definite reason to suspect this man of ties to barbarian wizardry. You cannot pursue him yourself though, not without doubling and redoubling the whispers that plague you.

  'How would I find him?' Kheda wondered aloud.

  'I make it my business to know where this man is.' Shek Kul's smile was predatory. 'I don't ever want him entering my waters unseen if I can help it. He stopped to take on water and food at the southernmost trading beach of the Jahal domain some days ago.'

  Kheda's heart sank. 'That is a long way. He'll be long gone before I can travel so far.'

  'Take passage as an itinerant galley rower.' Shek Kul narrowed his eyes at Kheda. 'A fast trireme could do it in half the time.'

  'Wouldn't your neighbour domains question you sending such a ship so far south?' Kheda tried to restrain his hope.

  'I can find reason enough to satisfy the curious,' said Shek Kul with grim finality. 'A
s for my true purpose, my travelling friend, you're not the only one keen to protect the domain of his birth from the ravages of magic. Repay me by sharing whatever you learn of the man and his true nature. His name is Dev and his ship is the Amigal,' He startled Kheda by pulling the ring from his thumb and tossing it over. 'If you're the man I think you are, you'll find the cipher key in that. Someone with a similar ring will make themselves known to you. That'll be the person keeping track of this Dev for me. That's the person to trust with your letters to me.'

  'You honour me with your confidence,' Kheda said soberly. The ring was too big for his own thumb so he pulled the leather thong over his head and began picking at the knot.

  'Do not betray my trust,' warned Shek Kul quietly. 'Do so and I will be avenged, even if it takes me or mine a full course of the Topaz through the heavens to find you.' He stood up. 'Delai will fetch you when the ship is ready to leave.'

  'I cannot thank you enough,' Kheda said impulsively. 'I only hope I may one day repay you fittingly.'

  'I'm glad to hear it, traveller.' Shek Kill's laugh surprised Kheda. 'There's a little more to tip the scales in my favour. I made it my business to find out about these barbarians tied to the magic that led Kaeska to her death. I looked for other lore besides, in case such a disaster should ever threaten us again. It turns out various warlords over the ages have wondered how to frustrate the malice of magic. Walk with me in the gardens and we can discuss their theories while we wait for Delai. I don't know if they'll be of use to you…' He shrugged and let the sentence hang unfinished in the air.

  But it won't harm you, for any spies who've insinuated themselves through your gates to hear your commitment to defending your domain against magic, even as you send a ship to the south where it's abroad.

  'I will be honoured to walk with you.' Kheda bowed low and followed the warlord out of the lofty tower room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  'Why are we anchoring here?' Risala looked anxiously around.