Intrigue was replaced by shocked horror. "Why?"
"To merge with the sky."
"What for?"
"That’s where the gods live. The best way to truly join the gods is to give oneself to them. Literally."
"But…" Her expression was perplexed.
"But," I agreed. "No surprise, is it, that everyone thinks they’re mad."
"How do they explain the bodies smashed to pulp all over the ground?"
"Don’t know that they bother."
"But if the bodies are smashed, they haven’t merged with the gods."
I grinned. "I think it’s considered merging in the strictly spiritual sense."
"Ah."
"Ah." I sank down so the water lapped at my chin. "No one really knows all the details of what goes on in Meteiera," I explained. "Simonides says it’s a combination of rumor, speculation, and winehouse tales. The metrioi — I found out the ’oi’ is the plural, by the way — don’t talk about it at all because it’s considered terribly dishonorable if anyone in the Eleven Families manifests this magic."
"But if they are gods-descended themselves, doesn’t this mean a few of them might be considered more so?"
"That’s one interpretation," I agreed. "Except the metrioi don’t much like it. They consider madness a flaw of a rather extreme sort."
"So they send away to ioSkandi anyone who manifests this magic."
"And promptly delete from the family histories — and the histories of Skandi — any mention of these people."
"Unfair."
"Being utterly removed from existence and any memory thereof? I would say so."
"But what has any of this to do with Nihko setting foot on the earth?" She paused. "I think that’s what the priest-mage said."
"It is. Simonides tells me that because the ioSkandics are themselves cast out of ’polite society,’ if you will, they compensate by making up even stronger rules governing the behavior of anyone living in the Stone Forest."
Del nodded. "When excluded, become even more exclusive."
"Exactly. So if a man who has already been deleted from his family then leaves ioSkandi, he is considered abomination — ikepra — for turning his back on his fellow priest-mages and the gods."
"In other words, live with us and die in a few years, or leave us and die now."
"More or less."
"So Nihko left ioSkandi and became ikepra, but so long as he didn’t set foot on the earth of Skandi itself, the ioSkandic priests didn’t care."
"They cared. There just wasn’t anything they could do about it."
"But there is something they can do about one of their own coming back here to Skandi?"
"The people of Skandi don’t want to have anything to do with their mad relatives. But they won’t kill them; they consider themselves a civilized society." I grinned derisively. "They have no problem with priest-mages coming back to the island briefly, so long as it’s only to gather up the occasional lost chick now and again."
"So they can take that chick back to the henhouse of other mad chicks."
"And feed it to the fox."
"Dead is dead," Del said.
"Exactly. As long as the mad little chicks are gone, the civilized Skandics don’t care what becomes of them, whether they die voluntarily merging with the gods, or are hurled off the spires after the Ritual of Unsoiling. Which of course means that even if the chicks don’t want to merge with the gods quite yet, they can forcibly be merged. After the proper ceremonies."
"The choice therefore lies not in deciding to die, but in deciding the time and manner."
"Hurl yourself, or be hurled," I agreed. "Of course, it’s not ’dying,’ bascha. It’s ’merging.’ "
"Semantics," she said disparagingly. "Tiger — this is barbaric. It makes no sense. There is no logic in it."
"Only if you’re mad."
"So this Sahdri has come here to gather up Nihko."
"And take him back to ioSkandi so they can clean him up and dump him off one of the spires."
"No wonder he doesn’t want to go."
"No wonder he lives on board a ship." I blew a ripple into the surface of water. "If you don’t set foot on Skandi, you’re safe from Skandic repercussions and ioSkandic retribution."
Del contemplated this. Eventually she said, "Not a comfortable way to live."
"And a less comfortable way to die."
"But so long as Nihko has guest-right, Sahdri can’t take him."
"You’ll recall Prima asked that very thing: could Sahdri take Nihko."
"Who dismissed the possibility."
I shrugged. "Nihko seems not to want to talk about any of this."
"Well," Del said, "he’s been tossed out of his family, and then tossed himself out of this fellowship of men who think they can toss him into the sky. I don’t know that I’d want to talk about it either."
"And the metri has made it clear as soon as her business with him is finished, the guest-right is revoked."
"What is her business with him?"
"I’m assuming it’s connected to this whole discovery-and-recovery-of-the-missing-heir issue," I said. "We don’t know what kind of bargain Nihko drove on his captain’s behalf before presenting me as the long-lost grandson."
"Which you are."
"Which I maybe am — but am as likely not."
"Maybe."
"Maybe." I tilted my head back, let the surface of the water creep up to surround the edges of my face. "I don’t think it really matters."
"You can’t be certain of that, Tiger."
I sighed. "No. I can’t read the woman."
"So she may well mean you to inherit."
"Maybe."
"Maybe."
"And then there’s Herakleio," I said, "who stands to lose more than any of us."
"Who’s ’us’?"
"You, because of me. Me because of me. Prima Rhannet. Nihkolara."
"Why do you include them?"
"Because the connection is there. It’s like a wheel, bascha — the metri is the hub, and everyone else is a spoke. But the spokes fall apart if there is no hub, and then the wheel isn’t a wheel anymore. Just a pile of useless wood."
"So you believe there is more to it than a simple reward for finding the long-lost heir."
"I have a theory." I smiled, staring at the arch of the dome high overhead. "And I don’t believe ’simple’ is a word the metri knows."
"What is your complicated theory?"
I had sorted the pieces out some while back. Now I presented them to Del. "That I am a threat to all of them for very different reasons."
Del, understanding, began naming them off. "The metri."
"Either I am or am not her grandson; either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s Herakleio she wants. If I remain, I’m a threat to him."
"Herakleio."
"Obvious. I repeat: if I remain, I’m a threat to him."
"Prima Rhannet."
"If I’m not the metri’s long-lost heir, Prima loses out on whatever reward it is she demanded."
"And Nihkolara?"
"The same applies to him as to his captain, but there’s more…"
She waited, then prompted me. "Well?"
"I just don’t know what it is."
"If his captain lost the reward, he’d lose his share."
"That’s the most obvious factor, yes. But I think there’s more." I shrugged. "Like I said, I just don’t know what it is."
"Maybe," Del said dryly, "it has to do with his chances of being flung off the spire. So long as you’re accepted as the metri’s grandson, he’s got guest-right. He’s safe from Sahdri and his fellow priest-mages who’d like to forcibly merge him."
"Maybe that’s it," I agreed. "But I still believe there’s a piece missing."
"And once it’s found and all the pieces are put together?"
I stood up in the water, let it sheet off my shoulders. The name for the unflagging unease was obvious now.
Expend
ability.
"Once it’s found, they’ll kill me."
THIRTY-ONE
Though clad again in the leather tunic, Del dripped all the way to the room we shared. She hadn’t done much in the way of drying off, and her hair was sopping. "We will discuss this," she declared, following. "You can’t announce they’ll kill you, then let the subject drop."
I was considerably dryer than Del and less inclined to drip, which I had no doubt Simonides and the household staff would appreciate. "I’m not expendable yet," I told her, striding along through room after room and doorway after doorway. "At least, I don’t think so. But I’m just not sure there is more to say right now."
"Tiger, stop."
I recognized that voice. Accordingly I stopped just across the threshold of our room, turned to her, and waited.
Rivulets of hair dribbled water down the leather. Her eyes were fierce as she came into the room behind me. "We have to come up with a plan."
"I’m listening."
She gestured. "Leave?"
"We discussed that before. No one will hire on to sail us off the island, even if we had the coin to hire them."
"Give up your claim?"
"I never made a claim. The metri made it for me; everyone else just assumed I wanted to be heir."
"Give it up anyway," she said urgently. "Reject the metri outright. Say you aren’t her grandson and you want to leave."
"Yes, well, there’s a little matter of this ’term of service,’ remember? The metri is likely our only way off the island, and she’s not about to arrange it for us until she’s accomplished whatever it is she wishes to accomplish, or I’ve accomplished for her whatever it is she wants me to accomplish for her."
"Herakleio?" she suggested. "Wouldn’t he help? If you said you’d voluntarily give up any claim on the metri, would he help us get a ship?"
"Can he?" I shrugged. "He has no coin of his own, remember."
Del answered promptly. "He can borrow against his inheritance."
"But could he do that, and would the metri allow him to inherit if he did?"
She glared at me. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Play the game out."
Del was annoyed. "What game?"
"The metri’s game. Give her what she wants until I see an opening."
A movement in the hallway. Del and I turned to see Prima Rhannet coming to a halt at the threshold. "I am your opening," she announced.
I looked her up and down, purposefully assessing her. "And just how is that?"
There was neither amusement nor irony in her expression. Only determination. "I need your help."
"How precisely is that our opening?" Del asked icily.
Prima shot her an angry, impatient glance, then looked back at me. Her expression was, oddly, guilty. "I have drugged Nihko."
That was pretty much the last thing I’d ever thought to hear exit her mouth. "You’ve drugged your first mate?"
She glanced over her shoulder furtively, then stepped into the room and shut the door with a decisive thud. Ruddy hair spilled like blood over her shoulders. No doubt about it; she was feeling guilty. Through taut lips, she said, "I gave it to him in his wine at dinner, while you took your ease in the bathing pool."
The imagery was amusing. "And is he therefore unconscious with his face in the plate?"
Prima, who was not amused, set her teeth so hard jaw muscles flexed. "He is unconscious in bed in our room," she said with precise enunciation, then let it spill out of her mouth in a jumble of words as if to say it fast diluted some of the guilt. "I want to get him back aboard ship as soon as possible, and I need your help for that."
"Why can’t he just walk aboard ship? — that is, if you hadn’t drugged his wine," I added dryly. "Isn’t it his home?"
Her expression was bitter. "So long as the metri has extended guest-right, he will not leave. He honors her for her courtesy." Something glinted in her eyes that wasn’t laughter. It was, I thought, a desperate pride. "You know nothing about him. You have no idea what manner of man he is — or what they will do to him."
Oh, yes, I did. "Throw him off the spire," I said quietly.
It shocked her that I knew. For a moment she stood very rigidly, staring at us both; then she set her spine against the wood of the door and slowly slid down it until she sat loose-limbed on the floor, staring blankly at the wall. I recalled the evening we’d sat so companionably upon the floor, the wall propping us up, as we shared a winejar.
"I will not lose Nihko," Prima said finally, voice stripped raw of all but her fear. "I could not bear it."
It wasn’t love, not of the sort that bound many men and women. But it was a binding in its own way: friendship, companionship, loyalty, respect, admiration, dependence on one another for the large and small things, even the dependence to not depend, but to share in the freedom to do what they would do and be what they were. The slaver’s daughter and the castrated ikepra had filled the empty spaces in one another’s souls.
"A bargain," I said.
The captain looked up at me. "What do you want?"
"A way off the island."
She nodded at once. "Done."
Del scoffed. "And sacrifice what you came here for? What you brought Tiger here for?"
Pale eyes glittered with a sudden sheen of angry tears. "My father kept me fed by selling men. I would rather starve than sell Nihko."
I sat myself down on the floor and leaned against the bedframe. "Have you a suggestion as to how this might be managed?"
Her tone was steady. "You must ask the slave to get us a molah."
She meant Simonides. "And you believe he would do that."
"For you, he will. You were as he is: a slave. He has accepted his fate; you defeated yours. He will do this thing if you ask it."
I drew in a tight breath, expelled it carefully. "You seem to think you know us very well, the metri’s servant and me."
Her smile was wintry. "I know slaves. And men who were."
"All right." Del sat down on the edge of the bed. "Let’s say Tiger gets a molah. What then?"
Prima, seeing we were not entirely dismissing the idea, spoke rapidly and forcefully. "We put Nihko on the molah and take him down to the harbor. Once on board ship, we will sail. All of us." She spread her hands. "And you will be free of the metri, and Nihko free of Sahdri."
I considered it. "Might work," I agreed at last. "There’s just one thing. One minor little detail."
Prima frowned impatiently, clearly eager to implement the plan.
I reached beneath the bed and slid out two swords, handing one up to Del. "It’s a trap," I said gently.
The mouth came open slightly in astonishment, then sealed itself closed. As color drained from the taut flesh of her face, the freckles stood out in rusty relief. Something more than anger glinted in her eyes; there was also comprehension, and a bitter desperation.
"It is not," she declared, and pressed a hand flat against the floor as if to lever herself to her feet.
She did not rise after all, because Del and I were across the room with blade tips kissing her throat.
"A trap," Del said.
Prima Rhannet did not move again, not even to shake her head.
"Well?" I prompted.
"It is not," she repeated.
"Prove it."
Her eyes were cold as a Northern winter. "Go to my room. You will find Nihko there —"
"— lying in wait for me?" I grinned, shook my head. "Do better, captain."
Her words were clipped off between shut teeth. "Then we will all go to my room, and find Nihko there unconscious in the bed."
Del read the slight shift of my weight. We moved a step away, and I gestured Prima to her feet. A second gesture indicated she was to turn around, which she did. I pulled from her sash at the small of her back the meat-knife she carried — she wore no sword — and tossed it back onto our bed, then nodded. Del sank her left hand deep into the captain’s red hair and wound a hank of it aro
und her wrist.
"Don’t want to be running off quite yet," I said lightly, and opened the door with my sword at the ready.
The corridor was empty. We proceeded down it, me in the lead and Del bringing up the rear with Prima just before her linked by hair, certainly close enough that a blade could slice through her spine or into her neck with little effort expended. It was not a comfortable position for the captain to be in, head cranked back on her neck, but she made no complaint. She merely indicated the proper door once we reached it.
I nodded at Del, who stepped against the far wall with Prima in tow. Then I stood to the side and quietly pushed the door open.
Sure enough, Nihko lay facedown on the bed, limp and unmoving.
"Just so you know," I said conversationally, "Del is prepared to cut your captain’s spine in two the moment you move."
He didn’t move. I approached slowly, blade poised. I could smell the wine, and a faint, sour tang of something I didn’t recognize.
I thought about his magic, and how I’d reacted. Thought about the brow ring hooked to my necklet. Bent and clamped one hand around his wrist. He was alive; I felt the beat of the pulse against my hand. But he did not move.
I set the flat of the blade against the back of a thigh, bared by the short tunic. "And I’ll cut your spine in two the moment you move."
No answer. No movement.
I carefully insinuated the edge of the blade between thumbnail and flesh. Sliced.
From the corridor, Prima Rhannet hissed her objection. But Nihkolara Andros did not so much as flinch. All he did was bleed.
I straightened, stepped away, glanced briefly at Del. "Take her back to the room. Keep her there. I’ll go have a discussion with Simonides."
Prima’s face lighted. "You will help?"
"I think it’s likely this may be our only opportunity to get off this island." I jerked my head at Del. "I’ll be back when I’ve made arrangements."
It was quite late when we met Simonides in the courtyard. Nihko, bowed across my back and shoulders like a side of meat, was slack and very heavy, and I thought I stood a good chance of rupturing myself before the night was through. But the molah waited for us in the deeper shadows, safe from prying moonlight, and with relief I heaved the body onto the beastie. The first mate sprawled belly-down, hands and feet dangling; I’d been hauled around the countryside in similar fashion a time or two myself and knew very well what he’d feel like when he roused: rubbed raw across the belly, hands and feet swollen, and head pounding from the throb of so much blood pooling inside the skull. And no telling what the drug would do to him.
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