“I arrested the Twelve for their crimes against the Hezzan and his wife,” Vor said. Tuth snapped his eyes toward Vasla Vor. “Sool Kron ushered her to the throne, with the help of the Quarto.” It was an authoritative statement from a man known to value truth and integrity above all else.
And then Huk Tuth’s eyes swung slowly back to Sool Kron.
Kron said nothing. He was trapped. Tuth had not threatened him, nor yet even stated his position on the matter. It would be cowardly to deny it. Possibly fruitless as well. He raised his chin. “It was all done according to the Rahk-Taa. The Twelve have confirmed it. She is the rightful Hezzan.”
Huk Tuth glowered at him. Then he drew his knife, a jagged thing forged for the single purpose of bloody combat. And now he asked his second question. “And who will take that power away from her?”
The pause here lasted quite a while longer. In it, both Kron and Vor saw themselves dead. Vor imagined himself hanging from the Hezzan’s rope. Kron pictured himself stabbed through the heart by Huk Tuth’s knife.
But this time it was Kron who thought quickly, and spoke first. “Why, Supreme Commander Tuth. I do believe that would be you.”
Dayton Throme stood on the shores of the “mayak-aloh.” Its name meant still waters. He had heard it used to describe other, smaller bodies of water, and so in his mind it was akin to the terms for “lake” or “pond” in Nearing Vast. All bodies of water smaller than the great sea were mayak-aloh, and all were named after this place. This was not, however, a lake or a pond. Rather it was a part of the sea, surrounded by enough islands and hidden reefs that the waters behaved like those of a great lake.
It was here, the Achawuk believed, that the great event would take place, the tannan-thoh-ah. And looking at it, this open expanse of water in an imperfect circle of islands, with its various shades of blue—from shale here at the shore to aquamarine, turning to cobalt and then a deep royal blue in the center where the waters were deepest, it seemed as though this place was in fact created for some great event, something even larger than the ritual Firefish feedings that happened here. And those were certainly stupendous events themselves. Whatever the great event was—the cataclysm, the apocalypse—whatever happened and whenever it happened, if it happened, it just made sense that it would happen here.
“Ta-hohn shayn con-grahsa.” Dayton looked behind him, saw the man called Zhintah-Hoak, Red Spirit, walking toward him. Though he was a leader among the Achawuk, it often seemed to Dayton that he treated his role as largely ceremonial, even somewhat of a nuisance. He would rather talk than almost anything else. Among the Achawuk, this was a noble trait. There was no small talk here. People spoke with meaning and of meaning. They spoke of life and what sustained it, physical and spiritual: food, the hunt, preparing meals, caring for the young, procreation. The river that flowed in all men and women, in all things. They spoke of Firefish, of death, joy, love, and friendship, and the future of the world.
Zhintah-Hoak looked like an aging dockworker who had been in one too many tavern fights, but he behaved like a combination of a friendly small-town constable and local freeloader. Like all Achawuk, he spoke slowly and deliberately, choosing every word with care and pleasure. Everyone watches you these days, he said.
“Ta-hohn shayn po,” Dayton responded in the same, slow cadence. Everyone always watches.
“No,” Zhintah responded. He paused. The fingers of his mind sorted through the fruit of his lush green lexicon, selecting only the ripest berries. These he chose to speak, one at a time, savoring each one. “Not like now. You grow restless. You sense the approach.”
Dayton studied the man’s face. It was hard and strong, but not at all unkind. His eyes seemed old and satisfied. Dayton looked again across the mayak-aloh. There was something to what he said. Dayton did feel a particular longing for home lately, and with that came a sense of restlessness. It did not seem to him that this portended anything except a personal bout of melancholia. He did not argue, however. “I hope that the tannan-thoh-ah comes soon, and that it brings with it my freedom.”
After a while, Zhintah answered with certainty. “It will bring freedom to all.”
Dayton stared at this man, as much a friend as he had here among these warriors. But he could find nothing to say in response to such an assertion.
Eventually, Zhintah spoke again. “The dreams have started.”
Dayton had never known a people who put so much stock in their dreams. “And what do the dreams foretell?”
“The tannan-thoh-ah, of course.”
“Of course.”
Zhintah nodded, content. Their conversation had been a good one. Then he looked out over the waters again. After a while he put a hand on Dayton’s shoulder, and asked in his calm, deliberate manner, “Shela hooyer taha-an?”
Do you have any dried fish?
Talon entered the Great Meeting Hall of the Hezzan, calm and erect, showing no sign of anything being amiss. Seven of the Twelve were here, in their places. Missing were Sool Kron and the Quarto. Also missing was Vasla Vor, who always sat in the visitor’s dock behind her, in part to protect her from threat of assassination. His absence was not comforting.
The four Prefects of Justice stood, as did the three Prefects of State. They looked terrified. She strode to her chair and stood behind it. She stared at each of them in turn.
“Who called this meeting?” she asked them.
No one spoke.
“Who summoned you here?”
Mouths opened, no sounds emerged.
“Guards!” Three of the Hezzan’s personal protectors entered the room. She took a pistol from the holster of the nearest one. She looked at the dregs of the Twelve. “Now. The last to answer me will die. Who called this meeting?”
The eruption that poured forth was easy to disentangle. The answer was the Quarto, and in particular, Pizlar Kank.
So, it had all come apart, just that quickly. The Quarto had made their move. They had gotten to both Kron and Vor. Talon cursed silently. She had missed her chance to turn the supreme commander, and now it was too late.
Then the obvious occurred to her. It was so obvious, she wondered how she could have missed it. The source of power was within her grasp. “Excellent, then,” she said. “Carry on.” She turned and looked at the three guards. She handed the nearest one his pistol.
“You three, come with me.” And she left the room.
Delaney rubbed the back of his neck vigorously, trying to work the crick out of it. He’d been staring up at something or other, it seemed, ever since he got off the ship. The buildings, the palace. Now he was inside the palace, with its vaulted ceilings high overhead, shining in sunlight and lamplight, mirror-finished stone and highly glossed wood, with walkways and parapets… “It’s like bein’ outside when you’re in,” he noted. “ ’Cept in here the sky is made a’ stone.”
Even the guest quarters made him feel small. The rooms were laid out on three levels, like the last three steps of some huge, cascading stairway. And in fact, each was connected with a sprawling, ever-widening open stair. Across the rail at the farthest edge of each floor, one could look down over the next. The bedrooms were on the top level. The middle level boasted meeting rooms and banquet rooms, plus a kitchen stocked with wines and cheeses, breads, and all sorts of wrapped-up goods just waiting to be sampled. The lowest level was a sprawling recreational area for parties or for lounging, with cushions and low chairs and thick, square carpets, all opening out onto a porch that stretched the length of the apartment, more than two hundred feet across, with a panoramic view of the whole city and the sea.
“Appears to be set up for doin’ nothin’ at all,” Delaney observed of the lowest level. “But I suppose those who get invited here are probably used to doin’ a whole heapin’ lot of that.” He caught himself and looked at Packer. “Beggin’ your pardon. I mean to say, others who may get invited here, and not you yourself. Sir.”
Packer laughed. “Delaney. It’s all right. I’
m your friend.” He managed to avoid adding “not your king,” but he was feeling particularly small himself. All he could think was that whatever expectations the Drammune had of him, or the Vast for that matter, he was not likely to live up to them. He was still imagining formal dinners and formal negotiations, where unknown protocols and obscure customs might any moment reveal him for the fisherman’s son he was.
Father Mooring ignored all else and went straight to the porch rail at the lowest level, and looked out over the world of Drammun and its capital. He stood there silently a while until Delaney and Packer flanked him. Then he said, beaming, “Isn’t this just the most exciting thing?”
Packer swallowed, unable to speak his agreement. It was exciting, certainly, but it was the sort of excitement he had felt once when he was visiting a distant cousin on the Nearing Plains and was chased around a pasture by a bull named Furious Floyd.
The great square door of the guest quarters was crimson, with an iron slash across it dividing it into two blood-red triangles; it was the same pattern featured on the double doors of the Hezzan’s own private chambers. In front of the door stood two guards. Flanking them were two more, four guards blocking the only way in or out of the chambers.
Talon feared the guards might already have been reached by the Quarto. She was prepared for anything as she approached. “Stand aside,” she said easily.
They did, looking only mildly worried by her presence. She took one of them by the elbow. “You will announce me to the ranking Vast diplomat,” she said.
“Your Worthiness…” he stammered. “I don’t think—”
Suddenly she was behind him with his own pistol stuck under his chin. She watched all other eyes as she asked the one in her grip, “You don’t think what?”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am. I was just going to suggest that I announce you to their king.”
“Their king?” The other eyes confirmed it. Her mind reeled. No doubt, the dark-haired one she’d seen get out of the carriage…that would be Mather Sennett. So Reynard had died, or abdicated. She released the guard. “The rest of you wait here. Let no one in. If anyone approaches, warn me. Anyone at all. Do you understand?”
They assured her they did.
“…and so, O God, please honor our meager actions,” Delaney prayed aloud, “which art as sawdust…on a plate…where we was hopin’ for meat and such. And by Thine own hand make that sawdust come round to bein’…more foodlike.” He paused, eyes still closed, not happy with the image he’d just conjured before his Creator and his king. “In a manner of speakin’,” he added, and tugged again at his collar, wishing Marcus Pile were here to say a proper prayer.
Packer Throme looked up as the great door creaked open, one level above. Bran Mooring looked up as well, closing the leather-bound book on the table in front of him, quite sure that the time for prayer was coming to an end one way or another. He saw the armed guard appear at the top of the staircase. Delaney stopped mid-prayer and opened one eye, sensing the intrusion more than hearing it. Then he looked up to where his two comrades now looked, and said, “Amen, then.” He was relieved to have wrapped that up.
“Hezzan Vastcha, Skahl Dramm rolhoi!” the guard announced loudly, stiffly, looking straight out ahead of him. “Skovah karchezz!”
Bran Mooring stood. “Here comes the Hezzan,” he said simply. Packer and Delaney rose to their feet. “Step out here,” Bran offered, gesturing for Packer to stand beside him. “No need to be shy. You’re the king.”
Packer obeyed, though his feet and hands tingled and his knees felt wobbly. He remembered how he had felt as a boy, readying himself to leap off one of the lower faces of Hangman’s Cliffs into water far below. Delaney took his place beside Packer so that the three stood in a row, with Packer in the center.
And then Talon appeared at the top of the stair.
The Hezzan Skahl Dramm descended with a dignity and grace that any observer would have sworn came from noble birth and years of privilege. Her brown robe trailed a step or two behind her, its crimson borders, its cuffs and hems, its simple lines dramatic in the daylight. Her hood was up, obscuring her face, but the three men could detect that she was a dark woman, angular, with high cheekbones and piercing eyes, and a crown of three strands, gold, silver, and brass, elegantly wrapped around her forehead. She looked like a queen. She did not look at all like a ship’s security officer. Or an assassin.
“I thought the Hezzan was a man.” Delaney whispered, loudly enough that the Hezzan could hear him.
“There’s your big news,” Father Mooring said in answer. Then he added, “Packer, you stand, we bow.” Bran Mooring went to one knee, then bowed his head. Delaney followed suit. Packer waited.
But halfway down the stairs, Talon stopped. Packer Throme she expected, but not like this. Not in this role. “Where is the King of Nearing Vast?” she asked.
“I am the King of Nearing Vast.” Packer bowed.
She considered this absurdity for a moment and then laughed. It was a cold and ringing thing, and it went through him like a bitter winter wind. He had heard it once before, below decks on the Trophy Chase as he suffered at Talon’s hands. This was that same voice. But even now, he assumed it was another Drammune woman much like Talon, another from the same nation, the same culture, who sounded like her. Talon was dead.
Bran Mooring and Delaney raised their eyes. The Hezzan was a woman; that was certainly true. But why would she laugh at the King of Nearing Vast? Then Delaney stood, and when Talon recognized him, she laughed again. Only minutes ago, she had mistaken Smith Delaney for a king!
The sailor drew his sword, Packer’s sword, and advanced on her. “You’ve laughed your last, you scarlet witch!” he proclaimed. But he stopped at the foot of the stairs, the point of his blade trembling noticeably in the air.
“Delaney!” Packer cried out. He was sure his old friend had lost his mind. “Put that down. It’s not Talon.”
“It is, sir!” Then to Talon, “If yer wantin’ to kill Packer again, then by God this time you’ll go through me!” His voice cracked on the last syllable.
She seemed amused.
Packer fairly ran to Delaney, grabbed his arm, pried the sword from his fist. “I’m sorry,” he said to the woman, looking up at her as she descended. She dropped her hood as he continued. “He thinks you’re…” and then he stopped, his heart sinking into his stomach, his hands and feet tingling numb.
Her eyes pierced his.
“Hello, Packer Throme. So good to see you once again.”
Packer raised the sword and held it straight out toward her, his body turning sideways reflexively, melting into the guard position. She walked down the final two stairs, to within an inch of the blade, its point hovering utterly motionless before her throat, as though locked there. All his training came back to him, all his experience, as though every minute, every hour of it had been packed into an open funnel and forced down into this one moment. His mind and body reacted to the sudden appearance of this threat with a thousand ways he could kill her, and a thousand and one ways she could counter. But underpinning all were desperate truths that ate away at his resolve. Talon was back from the dead. She was Hezzan of the Drammune. It was she who had had brought war on the Vast.
Talon shook her head. “The King of the Vast should not threaten the Hezzan of the Drammune. I have invited you here that we may be allies.”
More realities. She was the one who had ended the war. She was the one who wanted to learn of the Firefish.
Talon took the blade point between her fingers and moved it aside. Then she released it and walked down the stairs past him, stopping in front of Delaney. She admired his dress whites for a moment. “And you, Smith Delaney—you look almost elegant. Has the stowaway king made you a prince of your meager realm?”
The sailor’s face contorted with hatred and confusion. Mostly the latter. “I ain’t no prince. I’m a friend a’ the king! You just ask ’im! And if you want to kill ’im again, then I
mean it, I’m your man.”
“Are you? How delightful.” She paused, then added, “But please. Relax. You are a guest here. And I should tell you that I was the one who saved Packer Throme’s life. I didn’t kill him then, though I wished I had. But that’s in the past.” She walked over to Bran Mooring, who was still kneeling. He now rose, a bit clumsily, to greet her.
“And who is this charming priest?” she asked. “The father of the lovely Panna Seline, perhaps?”
“Sadly, our worthy friend Will Seline is dead,” Bran said in Drammune. “I, too, am a friend of the king. Your Worthiness.”
She nodded appreciatively at his Drammune as she noted his brown robe. She knew him by such to be a teacher. “The king has so many highly placed friends!” she replied, also in Drammune. Then in Vast, to Packer, “I am sorry for the loss of Panna’s father. Is she well at least, I hope?”
“The queen is quite well,” he answered.
“The queen! My yes, haven’t we all thrived since our last encounter. Congratulations to you both. Please give her my regards when you see her again.”
Packer looked at the weapon in his hand, its tip now pointed toward the floor. “I swore I would never take this up again,” he told her. “But I am sorely tempted to break that vow.”
She laughed once more, this time less cruelly. She seemed to actually find humor in his statement. “The swordsman has given up the sword. This is a habit with you. The last time we met you would not avenge your swordmaster, nor your girl, nor the blood of innocent villagers. Then you were but a simple sailor on a ship. Yet as king, you are sorely tempted to assassinate the head of an allied state, while on a diplomatic mission? The Vast never cease to amaze me.”
“You are guilty of crimes that a crown cannot cover.”
“Well said, Packer Throme. Yes, I am guilty of many crimes. I may have started the war between Drammun and Nearing Vast. But you, Packer, you ended it. You tamed the Firefish, and taught it to attack.” She watched his eyes, noted that he did not shrink from this assertion. This was good. Were it not true, a man as honorable as Packer would reveal it in his eyes. “Is this the glorious victory for which the Vast made you their king? The defeat of Fen Abbaka Mux and the Drammune Armada?” She said it in a slightly mocking tone, but she knew that if ever a crown could be earned for a single deed, that single deed would earn it.
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 105