Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3)

by Leona Wisoker

  “Wonder if we’ll ever find out,” Dasin said as they passed the last of Kybeach’s scraggly cornfields, now little more than withered and rotting stalks.

  “Huh? About what?” Tank stared at the fields, thinking about what it would be like to have to farm here. It looked like poor land to begin with, and he had a feeling it had been mismanaged. Kybeach had the air of a place that had been struggling on the edge of survival for a long time.

  “That gerho merchant.”

  Tank glanced at Dasin, surprised.

  “Why do you care?” he said without thinking, then felt a flush cross his face at Dasin’s cynical squint. “It’s not like either of us knew him.”

  “No,” Dasin said, “but it matters, because the story behind it affects how the village is going to react. If it makes them more hostile to outsiders—if that’s even possible—it’s going to make traveling through Kybeach a chancy business; and we’ll be going through Kybeach a lot, if we do this back and forth along the coast for Yuer.”

  “If,” Tank said, picking on that word with a sudden surge of hope. “You don’t want to do this?”

  Dasin shook his head. “Oh, I want to,” he said. “Never mind that he says he could ruin us; I can handle myself, and so can you. That doesn’t scare me. But you don’t see what he’s offering. We’re going to be rich, Tank; we’re going to see giving gold rounds to a street thief as nothing much. And we’ll be known.”

  “I don’t want to be ‘known’,” Tank said. “And don’t forget the salt in your bag.”

  Dasin’s cheer faded. “I haven’t,” he said, more quietly. “But I don’t feel as strongly about that as you do, Tank. I wasn’t fed dasta, remember? And there’s nothing saying we’re running that, anyway. It could be something as harmless as... as dreamweed.”

  Tank blinked and looked away, watching a hawk spiral against the clouds now scudding across the sky.

  “It’s not dreamweed,” he said at last, “because aesa is always put in leather or cloth pouches, not ornate boxes. At best, it’s esthit; more likely, it’s dasta. And I won’t—” His throat closed. He dropped his chin to his chest and stared fiercely at his horse’s ears.

  “But it could be esthit,” Dasin pointed out. “It might even be something totally innocent, to test our integrity. To see if we’d break the seal. It’s the kind of game Yuer would like, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “No. Neither do I. But what he’s offering—it would take years to build up to this, Tank. I’m being offered lead spot on a caravan, with some heavy backing; he has nobles buying from him! I’d normally have to serve as junior merchant to a pack of fools for years before being offered something like this, until I was the `right age’.” He spat to the side away from Tank, bitterness edging his voice.

  Tank shook his head. “That doesn’t impress me,” he said. “My job’s the same regardless of who’s in charge or what the load contains, and money isn’t all that important to me.”

  “It matters to me,” Dasin said. His voice climbed over the next words: “Money means power. Means freedom. Means never again having to say yes to—” He stopped and bit his lip, staring straight ahead, then drew in a sharp breath and shook his head. In a more level voice, he added, “Will you stay with it—for my sake, if not for money? I’d like to have one familiar face around.”

  Tank shrugged, deeply uncomfortable with that glimpse into Dasin’s own background pain. Over, over, over, past and gone, wound through his mind like a living shield against the echoes of memory raised by that half-said sentence.

  “We’ll see what Yuer says when we get to Sandsplit,” he said roughly. “Maybe he’ll have decided I’m too rude and he doesn’t want me around after all.”

  “If he offers you the job, will you take it?”

  There was a small child’s terror lurking behind the question; just a whiff, but Tank heard it clearly.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’ll think about it. That’s the best I can give, Dasin. I’ll think on it.”

  Dasin let out a breath, his expression deeply relieved.

  “Good,” he said. “That’s—good. Thank you.”

  “Not doing it for you,” Tank said; but the echo of his own words, in his mind, sounded false.

  Dasin shot him a sideways grin, arrogance resurfacing, and said nothing.

  The blue-shuttered house on the eastern edge of Obein proved to be, on first inspection, tidy and quiet, much like the Fool’s Rest Tavern in Bright Bay. Closer, Tank saw men sitting at outside tables. During the day the tables would have been within a shady spot. Now, with evening rapidly drawing down, the men sitting there were little more than bulky shapes against the greying light.

  Closer yet, their expressions were visible: they watched Dasin and Tank’s approach with the same cool amusement as Yuer’s guards had displayed.

  Dasin dropped back a pace, allowing Tank the lead. Tank took it and strode toward the front door, ignoring the tables, as though intending to walk straight into the house. Not surprisingly, two of the men were on their feet and blocking his path before he came anywhere near the doorway. He stopped well out of arm’s-reach, met their flat stares directly, and said, “Seavorn sent us. We’re to stay the night here. We’re carrying a package for Yuer.”

  The men studied him, in no hurry to make a decision. At last, the shorter of the two, a muscular man with heavy pox scars, missing teeth, and thinning brown hair, said, “Haven’t seen you before. You replacing Baylor, then?”

  “Don’t know who that is,” Tank said, not giving any ground. “Just know what Seavorn told me to say. Do we go somewhere else for a meal and a bed, or do you let us in?”

  The man snorted, seemingly amused. “You don’t go anywhere after prancing up with that sort of talk,” he said. The wavering light of the single torch by the front door did his pitted, scarred face no favors. “Ever hear of manners, boy? Hello and please go a long way, you know.”

  “I wasn’t under the impression you were the type cared much for formalities,” Tank said. He could feel Dasin’s fear shivering along his back, and hoped Dasin wasn’t letting it show on his face.

  The man stared at him, breath hissing between his teeth, then said, “Boy, you got some nerve. If Seavorn hadn’t sent word to watch for you and let you through, I’d be wiping you through the dust right now.”

  Wisdom said Apologize and let it go; as usual, temper won.

  “Go ahead,” Tank said, stepping back and spreading his hands. “Give that a try.”

  Dasin made a vague, agonized sound. The men at the door looked past Tank and laughed.

  “Your boy there’s about pissing himself over that,” the taller one observed. “Doesn’t like the notion of you getting scratched, I’m guessing. Nah, let it go, Ger. He ain’t worth aggravating ourselves over. He won’t last, not with that attitude.”

  “Tank,” Dasin hissed, barely audible, “don’t, damnit. Not this time.”

  Tank lifted his chin, hoping the men hadn’t heard that, and said, “So, about dinner, then. Please. And a bed for the night. Please.”

  “Tuh.” The shorter one shoved the door open and jerked his thumb toward the opening. “Go on, then. Arrogant little squirt.”

  Tank kept his back straight and his head high as he went by, senses alert for a surprise attack; but the door shut hard behind them without incident, and Dasin let out a sobbing gasp of relief.

  “Are you trying to get us killed?” the blond demanded, whacking Tank’s shoulder hard.

  Tank shook his head, looking around the small room. It was similar to Yuer’s home, if rather smaller; the front door led into a large sitting room with comfortable chairs arrayed around a large table. Heavy draperies covered the walls, obscuring any exits other than two large front-facing windows.

  The room had no fireplace. Tank found that a relief. And the room was empty at the moment, another good sign; if someone had been sitting in one of the chairs waiting for them, Tank thought he
might have bolted on the spot.

  “Doesn’t do any good to show manners to men like that,” he said absently. “They’d take both sides and own the road once all’s done. Either Yuer’s name is enough protection or it’s not, and that’s something we needed to know for sure.”

  One of the draperies moved. A thin woman with long blonde hair emerged, eyeing them cautiously.

  “You’ll be wanting something?” she said. Her voice carried a heavy northern accent, and her green eyes were watchful.

  “Dinner and a bed for the night, s’a, if you please,” Tank said.

  “You wanting company?” Her gaze flicked to Dasin, assessing. “We only got one girl right now, and I’m off the duty for a few more days.”

  Tank repressed a grimace of distaste. “No. Just a meal and some sleep.”

  She nodded and held aside the drapery to reveal a door behind her. “This way, if you please, then, s’es. Bread’s done, and chicken’s almost ready. I’ll show you to your room after you eat.”

  The kitchen turned out to be a rough-plastered, low-ceilinged room, thick with the aroma of fresh bread, rosemary, garlic, and roast chicken. A trestle table filled most of one wall, easily enough to seat fifteen men. Tank and Dasin sat side by side, their backs to the wall, without a word needing to be said on the matter.

  The girl brought them each a hand-sized loaf of black bread and set down a shallow dish of oil. “Test loaves,” she said, “but I always like them better myself. And that’s walnut oil there; we’ve a good old tree out back.”

  “Thank you,” Tank said. “You run a good kitchen, s’a.”

  Her lined face broke into a cheerful smile. “That’s kind of you,” she said. “Good to hear a friendly word now and again.” She turned away toward the stove.

  “So you’re nice to her?” Dasin said in a low voice, tearing his loaf open and dipping it in the oil. “What’s the reason for that?”

  “She’s feeding us,” Tank said blandly, and grinned at Dasin’s scowl. “Never insult the cook, Dasin. That’s more dangerous than facing down those men outside.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  “Humans like pain,” his mother said.

  Idisio blinked out of grey haze and met the warm glare of late-afternoon sunlight. He stopped walking, then realized he hadn’t been walking and almost fell over from the resulting disorientation.

  His mother perched on a tree stump, watching him with uncanny calm. “They like to give pain, and they like to receive it,” she went on. “It’s one of the things Rosin taught me.”

  Her eyes seemed colorless in the bright sunlight, except for a sharp dark ring around the outer edge where the white should have been.

  Idisio turned slowly, looking around. Tangled scrub brush and feather-fringe trees surrounded them in all directions. The clearing he stood in was barely a weak stone’s throw across. The trees, from bark to branch to leaf, looked exceptionally jagged and dangerous. The air felt sharp and hard in his mouth.

  Humans like pain. He wanted to argue that assertion: couldn’t.

  “Where are we?” he said instead.

  “Near the next town,” she said. “I thought it best to have our talk before we encountered more humans.”

  Idisio looked at the lines of her face, the coloring in her eyes, and knew he wasn’t going anywhere without her permission. That alone raised his hackles. He directed his best imitation of a Scratha-severe stare at her.

  She smiled. “You’re still a child,” she said. “I’m trying to treat you as an adult, son, but I can’t do that if you stand there glaring and sulking at me.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek and reluctantly moderated his expression.

  “I understand why you’re acting this way,” she said. “You were hurt as a child, son; you were taken from me too young and put among the humans. You had to live as a thief and as a....” Her voice faltered. “I found your place. Your den. Your... your coins. And I saw—what you had to do.”

  He looked sharply back to her at that, and found her studying the ground, her face gone a dreadful grey shade. She sucked in a difficult breath, then another; the horrid color flushed into a more normal shade, and she looked up with eyes gone as black as Deiq’s.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

  The words felt hollow in his mouth, like a silver gloss over rot. He was angry, godsdamned right. He was ha’ra’hain, he had deserved better than that: and now he wanted anyone who had ever hurt him dead, he wanted to feel blood. He should have stood beside Deiq and ripped those gate guards apart; nobody could have stopped them—

  He bit his lip, hard, as the only alternative to slapping himself back to sense. His mother’s dark eyes gleamed with amusement. He’d seen that same murderous laughter in the eyes of those who heard the voices, over the years. Tank had been the only one to hear the voices and not develop that peculiar glaze to his smile.

  Ellemoa growled, deep in the back of her throat, her eyes narrowing.

  She doesn’t like that, he thought, startled by her reaction. Something about Tank—she doesn’t like him. He—scares her? It was a potential weapon. He had to remember that—

  “He doesn’t frighten me,” she snapped. “He’s a threat. He’s trained to kill our kind. He tried to kill teyhataerth. “

  “I’ve been having visions of him,” Idisio said, and a weight lifted from him, just to confess that so simply.

  She showed no surprise, no concern, which added to his relief. “Of course you have. We see the future, see in a way the human seers only dream of doing. Only our line can do that. Only you and I, now. That boy is trained to kill ha’ra’hain. He’s trained to kill you, son. Of course you’re having visions. You know he’s a threat. You know what he did to teyhataerth. “

  Her eyes flooded with black for a moment, then reverted to a dark-rimmed grey. Color washed out of her face, seeped back.

  “They killed a ha’ra’ha, these humans you think so highly of. They killed teyhataerth, and they left. They didn’t care that their own kind were trapped in those cells beneath the city. Didn’t care that I was there, starving, in a cell I couldn’t get out of.”

  That brought to mind the slick yellow walls of a sun-flooded room with no apparent exit: what would have happened if Evkit hadn’t let them out? An uneasy shiver ran up Idisio’s back.

  “Another dishonor, another hurt you’ve faced without me,” his mother mourned. She put a hand over her eyes, her other arm wrapped tight around her ribs, and rocked back and forth, breathing hard.

  Deiq cared about status. She cares about me. Just me. It made brash dismissal almost impossible. Whatever her flaws, she saw him as a son—wanted to care for him like a mother.

  It was a dreadfully seductive thought.

  I’m going to start crying. Talk about something else. Fast. “If we’re from Arason, how did we wind up in Bright Bay? And how come I never knew I was ha’ra’ha, and Ninnic’s—teyhataerth—never saw me?”

  She drew in a long breath and straightened, folding her hands in her lap. “There were evil men in Arason. Your father tried to save us by sending us to Bright Bay, but he didn’t realize that it wasn’t a safe place any longer. He had to choose—which of us to protect. He only had strength for one. He chose you.”

  Her dark grey eyes filled. Tears began streaking down her face, but her breath and voice remained even.

  “He put a protection on you that hid you from even my vision, and pushed you somewhere in the city. And teyhataerth... took me.”

  In the following silence, the drone of sandbugs seemed very loud. Idisio’s heart hammered and skipped in his chest. My father chose to save me? He threw my mother into the arms of a monster—to save me? He blinked hard, refusing tears.

  “Not a monster. It wasn’t a monster,” his mother said, her voice shrill, then modulated back down. “It wasn’t teyhataerth’s fault, what it became. It was all Rosin. All Rosin. It wasn’t teyhataerth’s fault. Rosi
n controlled it.”

  “But Rosin was human. How could he possibly control a ha’ra’ha?”

  “Rosin convinced teyhataerth that he was stronger and smarter,” his mother said. Her black-rimmed stare bored into him; then she smiled a little, a predatory expression. “That’s not important. I’ve been forcing you along this far because you wouldn’t listen to me. I can’t keep doing that. It’s not the right thing to do. I love you too much to force you to obey me. So I’m going to explain it all to you. Listen: Humans and desert lords are nothing but weak, unworthy insects out to use you for their own gain.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Will you at least listen to my side?”

  He hesitated, torn; but it was the least he could do, after all she’d suffered on his behalf. And she cared about him. She really did. This all came from how much she loved him... He could at least listen. There was no harm in that.

  She’s been forcing me along? He looked back over days filled with grey haze and confusion, of odd, velvet whispers that convinced him to keep going, and felt a sharp alarm. How do I know she’s not going to keep doing that? She’s lied to get me this far. She’ll lie to me again.

  “I haven’t lied to you, son,” she said softly. “That’s one promise I’ve held to. I haven’t given you a single lie—unlike those desert lords you admire so.”

  “Stop that,” he said, shivering. “I don’t like you just—pulling thoughts from my head like that.”

  “You’re not very good at being quiet, son,” she said. A thin smile flitted across her face, then disappeared back into a deadly serious expression. She leaned forward. “Listen to me. Listen to my side, as you agreed. Listen: Those desert lords used you as bait to trap what they saw as a monster. How is that acting as any kind of friend, or even an ally?” She paused, watching his face intently.

  “Those men aren’t good people,” she went on. “They left dozens of their own kin to die in the dark and the silence. Do you know what a human starving to death sounds like? I listened to twenty-four humans die that way—after those twenty-four had killed and eaten everyone else in their cells first. I could have given them a better end than that. A faster end.”