Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

'You'd tell me what I want to know?' challenged Kheda.

  'That depends what you ask.' Risala was unperturbed by the prospect.

  Kheda thought for a moment. 'Who taught you the poet's arts so well you could apprentice yourself to someone as notoriously choosy as Haytar the Blind?'

  'You knew of him?' Now it was Risala's turn to be surprised.

  Kheda nodded. 'I saw him perform once, when I was visiting the Tule domain. He was quite splendid.'

  'He was, and a pleasure to travel with.' Risala smiled sadly. 'Did you ever hear of a poet called Gedut?' she continued briskly. 'His particular strength was satire.'

  'The name means nothing to me.' Kheda shook his head. 'Satire's not the safest of styles to adopt.'

  'Which is why he didn't travel over much,' Risala agreed. 'So I'm not surprised you've not heard of him. Anyway, twelve years ago, he composed a scathing attack on Danak Natin, which had the additional insult of being extremely funny. Danak Natin promised the weight of Gedut's head in amethysts to any man who brought it to him.'

  Kheda saw a fondness in Risala's face. 'He was your teacher?'

  She nodded. 'Shek Kul gave him shelter. Gedut repaid him by teaching some of us children to recite properly'

  'That's quite some insult for Shek Kul to offer Danak Natin,' Kheda said frankly. 'I thought Danak and Shek were none too friendly.'

  'It's a relationship best described as "complex",' Risala said wryly. 'At the time, Shek Kul was looking to see how far he could push Danak Natin, to see if he could divorce Kaeska that was born Danak.'

  'I don't think I've heard a quarter of that story,' said Kheda with open curiosity.

  'That's more than complex.' Risala's eyes were shadowed. 'The heart of the tragedy was Kaeska was barren. She couldn't accept it, wouldn't trade for a nameless baby to raise as her own or provide Shek Kul with a chosen bed mate to beget one with her blessing.'

  'Didn't she have sisters?' Kheda frowned. 'Most women would look to their family for a baby of common blood.'

  'She was obsessed with raising a child of her own bearing.' Risala drew a shapeless squiggle in the dust with one long forefinger. 'Which led her, finally, to seek help from some enchanter from the north. Her brother Danak Mir, who inherited from Danak Natin, he'd been killed and his hold over the windward domains fell away.' She drew a spread of tiny islands in the dust before brushing them away.

  'That hold was what made it so important for Shek Kul to protect Kaeska's position as first wife, even though she couldn't give the domain a child?' Kheda guessed.

  'Danak Mir would have twisted any loss of her status into an excuse for attack.' Risala grimaced, turning to sit with her back to the stone wall once again. 'None of his allies would have dared ignore his summons. But with him and all his alliances dead with him, Shek Kul set about getting an heir with Mahli Shek. She'd been born Mahli Kaasik and that alliance, with the Kaasik domain, was enough to set other warlords wondering if there might not be an alternative to yielding to Danak might again.'

  'How did he die, this Danak Mir?' Kheda was curious.

  'Someone got close enough to cut his throat.' Risala shrugged. 'No one's sure if it was a hired assassin or some much-abused islander.'

  'What happened then?' Kheda found he welcomed this distraction.

  If I'm to ally myself with Shek Kul, it's as well to know such things. And it means I don't have to think about what I'm going to tell Janne.

  'Melciar Kir was the first to move. He knew the other windward domains wouldn't stand for him annexing Danak territory directly so he proclaimed his second son Danak Nyl. The boy's mother had been born Erazi Danak, so the people of the Danak domain were only too happy to accept him, especially with every soothsayer seeing omens in his favour.'

  'And to save themselves from being ground beneath armies fighting for domination over their islands.' Kheda could see only too easily how this had played out. 'I take it there was no love lost between Kaeska and Erazi?'

  'Erazi Melciar was determined to see her son flourish and knew conciliation was their best course. Any hint that he had ambitions to be another Danak Mir would have seen his blood shed on the same sand.' Risala sighed. 'Kaeska knew she had no one to protect her status any more. Once Mahli's baby was born, she'd be reduced to fourth wife, not even left as second or third, and soon Laio and Gar would be with child. She was so desperate she resorted to magic. Discovered, that was the death of her.'

  'I thought Shek Kul's children were very young, for a man of his years,' Kheda commented.

  Risala shrugged, non-committal. 'He wasn't blind to the advantages of his situation. He could garner sympathy from other domains for his lack of an heir, the way his hands were tied. Lesser wives in several local domains were happy to let him give the lie to Kaeska's hints that he might be to blame for her barrenness, by bringing new Shek blood into their families. And while there were no children, he didn't have that vulnerability, the danger that they might be poisoned or abducted to force his hand over something.'

  Kheda stared out over the sea. 'This time last year, if I'd heard Kaeska's story, I'd have said she must have been insane.'

  But here I am, having made a pact with a wizard and waiting to explain myself to my wife.

  'How did she die?'

  'Shek Kul condemned her to be pressed to death. On the seashore. Everyone brought rocks to weigh her down, until she couldn't breathe,' said Risala sombrely. 'Then her body was burned, along with all her possessions, and the ashes left for the sea to take.'

  Kheda shivered. 'But she was using magic against her domain. At least we're just seeking to use it against those who wield it themselves, without shame or restraint.'

  Risala wasn't listening, her thoughts still in the Shek domain. 'Kaeska wasn't all bad. I don't think anyone can understand the hunger for a child that seizes some women. Anyway, the wizard, he was using her for his own purposes, so it was said. '

  'After dealing with Dev, I can well believe that.' Kheda reached for the leather water bottle between them and took a long drink before wordlessly passing it to Risala. She drank deeply. It was hot and what little shade the tower and the wall cast at this time of day was falling on the inner side of the island.

  'You're well informed,' observed Kheda after a few moments' silence.

  'I was raised in the Shek compound.' Risala's face cleared a little.

  Kheda raised an eyebrow. 'Slave or free? Your mother, I mean.'

  'Free, one of the seamstresses.' Risala smiled fondly. 'She was no one special, except in my eyes.'

  'Your father?' Kheda thought of the anonymous little children running around the Daish residences. Some were born to servants who dutifully approached one of his wives for permission to wed. Other girls simply shrugged and kept their own counsel when questioned about a swelling belly, unable to tell which of their swains was the father or unwilling to tie themselves to him in return for a claim on whatever he might offer the child.

  I don't think I ever gave such brats a thought, beyond relying on Rekha to see them usefully trained and settled. Shek Kul evidently has a talent for using every resource within his reach.

  'A gate guard.' Risala smiled fondly. 'Shek Kul granted him the tithes of a hill village a few years back. He and my mother live there now.'

  'Reward for their faithful service or payment for your talents?' Kheda was intrigued.

  I may as well keep on asking questions until she refuses to answer.

  'A little of both.' There was a glint in Risala's eye as she ran the plaited cord of the water skin through her fingers. 'And, of course, there were the rumours.'

  'Saying what?' prompted Kheda.

  'When Kaeska did something to really exasperate Shek Kul, he would beget a child on one of her slaves. There was generally one happy to oblige him in making his point,' said Risala pertly.

  'Because bearing the warlord's child saw them freed.' Kheda nodded his understanding. 'And Shek Kul deprived Kaeska of her valuable slaves at the same time.'
>
  We of Daish may not have the Shek wealth but I'd say the peace in our household is more than a fair trade.

  'My mother was Kaeska's seamstress,' Risala continued. 'When I was born, rumour whispered Shek Kul had begotten me.' She shrugged. 'The rumours came back with the tide when he picked me out for schooling and prenticing to a poet.'

  'Do you think Shek Kul would approve of you telling me all this?' asked Khcda.

  'He'll only know if you tell him I told you,' Risala replied with that same mischievous glint in her eye. 'Not that it matters who begot me. My father is the man who raised me.'

  'He who tends the crop reaps the harvest.' Kheda quoted the old proverb. 'Whether or not he sowed the seed.'

  Risala grinned. 'Anyway, Shek Kul picks out any child with a fair share of wits so he can use us as his eyes and ears.'

  'Who looks twice at the slip of a girl carrying the poet's bags, when all they want to hear is Haytar's famous variations on The Mirror Bird's Quest,' Kheda smiled to show he meant no offence. 'You must have some tales to tell of your travels.'

  'Not for anyone but Shek Kul.' Risala glanced over her shoulder to the rolling grass-crowned dunes that hid the far side of the isle. That was where the skiff had been stowed, mast unstepped, tucked between the battered vats used in the pearl harvest. 'I must let that case dry out properly. The leather's sodden and mould's a plague on the paper in the wet season. On the other hand, I don't want to risk the sun fading the pictures.'

  'We keep little braziers alight in our observatory's book rooms.' Unexpected apprehension surprised Kheda. 'I hope Sirket's remembered to see to them.'

  If he has, I hope he hasn't set the whole place alight. That would be a truly disastrous omen. Mould in the library wouldn't be much better. How soon will all this be over, so I can spend a peaceful day in there, reading about complete inconsequentialities?

  'You can tell Janne Daish to remind him.' Risala took another drink from the water bottle.

  'As long as she arrives sometime soon.' Desire to see Janne and apprehension over news she might bring tormented Kheda in equal measure. Unable to sit, he rose and fastened his gaze on the chain of isles that would guide Janne's vessel here. All he could see were indistinct blurs of sand and greenery and distant palms waving feathery tops in the wind.

  Risala stood and brushed sand from her faded trousers before making another slow circuit of the wall enclosing the tower of weathered stone. Set away from the prevailing winds, the single door was sturdily built of wood bleached to a silver sheen by salt wind and rain. Within the wall, a spiral stair curled up around the solid core of the tower to the lofty platform rimmed by a low balustrade. The wind stirred something high above that rustled softly and then stilled.

  'Nothing to see to the east or north,' Risala reported.

  Kheda pointed. 'There's a light galley.'

  They watched the sleek boat skirting the shoals fringing these distant islets.

  'It must be her,' Kheda said with fervent hope.

  'I'll make myself scarce.' Risala shifted uncertainly from foot to foot. 'You don't think they'll search the rest of the island?'

  'She'll have told them she's here to contemplate my loss in the shadow of the tower.' Kheda shook his head abruptly. 'To see if dreams here show her what it might mean for the domain. No one else will dare set foot on the isle.'

  The lithe galley soared over the sparkling waters towards them, its single white canvas wing of a sail catching an obliging wind, foam flying up beneath the prow.

  'Until later then.' Risala disappeared around the curve of the wall.

  Kheda walked round the tower enclosure and slid through the gate. It was appreciably warmer inside the wall, with no breeze to mitigate the force of the sun beating down and barely a veil of cloud drifting across the vivid blue sky.

  Is there anything in here to guide me, any omen to be read?

  A few scraps of cloth in the drifts of dust were faded to an indefinable grey, no way to tell their original colour. Kheda picked up a scrap and it crumbled to parched threads between his fingers. There had been no one left here for the winds and weather to carry their essence across the domain in Kheda's generation or Daish Reik's. Apart from the noise and upheaval of the pearl harvest, the sea birds had this vantage point to themselves year round. There were feathers everywhere, white mostly, some tipped with black, grey or gold, some dried by wind and sun to the fragility of straw, others newer. The white stone of the tower showed streaks where the birds nesting at the top had spattered the stone with their droppings. The rains hadn't yet washed all the muck away.

  Pearl gulls, coral divers, even dawn wanderer feathers, of all sizes from down to wing pinions, A man could gather a fine spread of plumage to cast for a prediction. A man who wasn't afraid he was so deeply mired in magic any such reading would be meaningless.

  Never mind. My ability to read omens may be compromised but everything I ever learned of reading the skies holds true. The Vizail Blossom is the rising sign, symbol of femininity and hope, of protection for the home, sweet scent in the darkness. It's in the arc of marriage and all such closest relationships. The Diamond's there, for clarity of purpose and talisman against evil, powerful gem for all who rule. It shares the sky with the Opal, for faithfulness and truth, talisman against magic, at its full, at its brightest.

  This must be the right thing to do and I only have today to do it. Half the heavens will be changed by tomorrow. The Amethyst, for inspiration, and guided by the Horned Fish, that will move from the arc for honour and ambition to the realm of friendship and alliance strengthened by the vigour of the Winged Serpent. The Ruby moves from the realm of the self backed by the strength of the Yora Hawk, into the arc of wealth and possessions. The Sailfish is there, for good luck and happiness to come with the Pearl riding with it. Talisman for my house, token of inspiration, talisman against madness. This has to be the right thing to do.

  A rowboat grounded on the shore outside with a solid crunch. Kheda heard low voices then the boat pushed off in a slithering rush of water. Footsteps approached the tower. Someone walked around the circle of the wall and the latch rattled. 'Kheda?'

  'Janne.' He walked around the tower, holding out his arms. 'My love.'

  'I was beginning to think I would never see you again.' She closed the door in the wall behind her, dropping her gaze as she put back the fine shawl covering her tightly braided hair.

  'There were times when I wondered if I'd ever return.' Kheda's throat tightened.

  Not that you look much of a returning hero.

  Kheda was suddenly acutely aware of his mismatched, faded, salt-stained clothes. His hair and beard were tousled and untrimmed, his arms scored with old and new scratches, outstretched palms marked with oar calluses. 'You look more beautiful than ever, my wife.'

  Janne wore a sleeveless glossy blue gown vividly brocaded with gold and belted with a thick gold chain with hanging jewels of nacre and pearl. More pearls glistened on fine clasps threaded through her braids. As she folded her arms over the loose folds of her mantle of pale green gauze, gold and silver bracelets thick on her wrists jingled.

  She wore rings on every finger bright in the sunlight, silver and gold, their malachite bezels dull in contrast.

  A stone to heal grief.

  'What news have you brought back with you?' Janne's tone was all business. 'What plans for ridding Chazen of these savages?'

  Kheda shook his head. 'You first. I've been hearing all kinds of rumours. Why have you and Rekha taken the other children north and left Sirket at the mercy of Saril and Itrac's blandishments? People are saying Chazen guile could undermine the Daish hold on the domain.'

  'Naturally, gossip floating in the wake of merchant galleys along with the night soil and food scraps must be the truth.' Janne looked quizzically at him. 'We took the younger children north mostly for their safekeeping and also because that's our usual routine when the rains come.' She shot a hard glance at Kheda. 'They think you're dead, all of t
hem. They're still grieving. We thought it best to keep as much of their life unchanged, to give them what reassurance might be possible.'

  'Oh.' Chastened, Kheda wasn't sure what to say.

  Janne absently twisted the edge of her mantle, gold thread in the soft sage catching the light. 'Sain had a difficult delivery and wasn't really fit for travel. The baby was healthy enough, a son—' She smiled fondly. 'We're calling him Yasi. But there was always the chance that one of them would die.' Her voice roughened with emotion. 'None of us wanted the children to be put through that, so soon after losing you.'

  'I had to go,' Kheda protested.

  Janne's unconscious movement might have been a shiver if there had been any breeze. 'Sirket has done his very best by the domain. He has stayed close to Chazen Saril in an attempt to put some backbone into the man,' she added with growing asperity. 'Just as Sain is doing her duty by our people. She encourages Chazen Saril to confide in her and discovers what he's learnt from his people fleeing north, much that he's not been sharing openly with us, I might add.'

  'Such as?' Kheda demanded.

  'These savages are indeed widespread across his domain but they're certainly not present in the overwhelming numbers that first reports suggested. Of course, they don't need superior numbers when they have magic to strengthen their evil.' Janne's expression challenged Kheda. 'Have you found an answer to that? Something to justify all the grief and uncertainty your so-called death has put your family through?'

  'I wouldn't be here if I hadn't,' retorted Kheda, stung. 'What I need to know is will Chazen Saril lead his people south, to retake his domain, when my strike halts the savages' magic?'

  'Chazen Saril is fit for nothing.' Janne's tone was scathing. 'According to Sain and Sirket's reports, he can barely decide between a dish of meat or one of fish. He spends his days lamenting for his dead wives and children and bemoaning the plight of his dispossessed people without actually doing anything to improve their lot. That was something else prompted me and Rekha to go north. Whenever some Chazen islander sought Saril's advice, he threw up his hands, claiming he feared to encroach on Daish suzerainty, and begged us to absolve him of all his responsibilities.'