by Marc Turner
Ebon bowed to the woman. “Madam,” he said. “Forgive me, but I need to speak to the ambassador alone. I trust you will not hold it against me if I ask you to step outside.”
Vale crossed to a door on Ebon’s right. He opened it and looked through before gesturing to the woman. She sheathed her knife and stalked toward the timeshifter, her heels clicking on the mirror-bright floor.
Vale shut the door behind her.
Silvar’s trousers lay discarded on the ground. He reached for them and started dressing. Ebon looked about him. The ambassador’s house seemed too pristine to be a home. Most likely it was an oversized trophy cabinet to show off the man’s collection of ebonystone statues and patterned vases. Even the furniture was trimmed with gold.
“Your Majesty?” Silvar said.
“Majesty no longer,” Ebon replied. “My father has been reinstated to the kingship.”
“But … I thought his ill health—”
“Was overstated by the Royal Physicians. They now expect him to make a full recovery.” But only when Ebon returned to Majack to complete the task of healing him—a task he had started a week ago with the powers he’d inherited from the Vamilian goddess Galea.
“And your mother? She is well, I hope?”
Ebon ignored the question. He’d come here to get information, not give it. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said. And for Lamella, he almost added, but there was no need to complicate matters by mentioning her. If he tracked down his brother, he would doubtless find Lamella too. “Is he here?”
Silvar hesitated.
Ebon stepped closer. “It’s a simple enough question, Ambassador. Or do I have to describe your own prince to you?”
“Rendale was here.”
The relief that broke over Ebon was like a breath of wind on a hot day. Up until now, he’d had no reason to believe his brother was alive, save for a single sighting of him fleeing Majack by boat on the day the city fell to Mayot’s hordes. A week ago Ebon had left the capital seeking news of his brother in the villages along the River Amber. He’d drawn a blank, but then perhaps Rendale had feared to disembark close to Majack in case he encountered more of the undead.
That reasoning had sustained Ebon as far as the city of Mander on the edge of Galitian territory. Mander was sixty-five leagues from the capital. No Vamilians had traveled here, and thus there was no reason for Rendale not to stop in the city if he had come this way. But Ebon had been unable to find any word of him. It had been mere desperation that had made Ebon take his search to Mercerie on the shores of the Sabian Sea. In his darker moments, he’d acknowledged his brother’s death as inevitable. Now it seemed his stubbornness would be rewarded.
There was something in Silvar’s look, though, that told him to keep a check on his relief. Was here, the ambassador had said. “Where is he now?”
Silvar had finished lacing his trousers. He took a breath as if gathering his resolve. “There is no easy way to say this, Your Maj—Your Highness…” Another pause, and Ebon had to resist an urge to grab him by the throat and shake the words loose. “Your brother left Mercerie nearly two weeks ago—on a ship to take part in the Dragon Hunt.”
Ebon stared at the ambassador, hardly able to comprehend what he was being told. In Mander he’d heard stories of what had happened on Dragon Day. Stories of treachery at the heart of the Storm Lord empire, and of dragons on the loose in the Sabian Sea. Each tale had been more outlandish than the last, but there had been one thing on which they had all agreed: the Hunt had been routed, the ships smashed or scattered. Ebon’s thoughts were a whirr. But the Hunt took place at the Dragon Gate, many leagues to the south and east. Rendale shouldn’t be there. He’d come to Mercerie as a refugee, and he would have known well enough to keep his head down in what was tantamount to enemy territory. He had no ship, no crew, and no reason to go looking for either. Silvar had to be mistaken.
When Ebon met the ambassador’s gaze, though, there was no doubt in his eyes. Just disquiet … and something else the prince couldn’t place.
Ebon suddenly felt his exhaustion. Moments ago he’d been offered a glimpse of hope, but now it was snatched away again. His legs wavered. How long had it been since he’d last slept? Two days? Three? He sat down on a divan and looked across at Vale. There was no comfort to be drawn from the Endorian’s expression, but when was there ever? He ran a hand over his shaved head.
“Tell me everything,” he said to Silvar.
The ambassador collected his thoughts. “Your brother arrived here twelve, maybe thirteen days ago. Unlike you, he didn’t think to approach me privately. He came to the embassy.” From the censure in Silvar’s voice, it was plain he considered that to be the cause of everything that came after. “He hadn’t eaten for days. And he told me stories about undead armies that I confess I had trouble believing…” He left the statement hanging as if inviting Ebon to confirm or deny the truth of those stories. But the prince kept his silence, and so Silvar continued, “He said he managed to find a boat before Majack fell. Once he was clear of the city, he tried to disembark, but there were others on the boat with him, and they wouldn’t stop. Eventually they reached Mander and tried to go ashore there. But they arrived in the dead of night, and no one answered their calls for help. One man tried to swim for shore, only for the current to take him. No one else risked it after that. And once past Mander, the country is practically a wasteland, so they let the river bring them to Mercerie.”
“Was anyone with him when he came to the embassy?”
“Just some woman with a twisted leg. Miela, I think he called her.”
Miela? Either Silvar had mistaken her name, or Rendale had deliberately given a false one. That surge of relief was back in Ebon, but it quickly faded. An image came to him of Lamella aboard a ship, a dragon bearing down on her. It felt as if a weight had lodged in his chest. “Where is she now? Did she go with him on the Hunt?”
“I believe so. I thought that strange at the time.…” Silvar paused again to give Ebon a chance to explain, then went on, “When Rendale arrived at the embassy, he was in poor shape. I told him to stay here until he recovered, but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted to go home—at least as far as Mander. So I made arrangements to smuggle him out of the city.”
Smuggle? “Did the Merceriens know he was here, then?”
“I didn’t think so. But in view of your history with Prince Ocarn, I thought it best not to take chances.”
Ebon nodded. He could see where this was heading. “What happened?”
“The Merceriens were waiting for Rendale when he left the embassy. Ocarn himself, in fact. Your brother hadn’t taken even a dozen steps—”
“How did Ocarn know he was here?”
Silvar clasped his hands together. “I wish I knew. Someone must have seen him when he arrived at the embassy.”
“Someone aside from yourself, you mean.” Ebon made no effort to keep the edge from his voice. There would have been a constant flow of people entering and leaving Majack’s embassy, why should Rendale have caught anyone’s eye? There could be only a handful of people in Mercerie who would recognize his face. And what were the chances that one of them had been watching the embassy when he got here?
“I don’t know what you’re suggesting,” Silvar said stiffly. “Only a few of my staff were aware who your brother was, and I can vouch for their integrity.”
And who is going to vouch for yours? Ebon studied the ambassador. Silvar was a lifelong companion of his father’s, so his loyalty should have been beyond question. Yet the man’s unease in Ebon’s presence went beyond the discomfort of someone forced into being the bearer of bad news. It would have been easy for Silvar to act the friend to Rendale while simultaneously passing a message to Ocarn. But what would have been his motive? Money? His lifestyle here would clearly take some maintaining.
Ebon pushed the questions aside. What was the point in speculating? The odds of him proving anything against Silvar were slim, and he had better t
hings to do than hang around Mercerie to try.
The silence drew out, and the ambassador moved hurriedly to fill it. “When I found out that Ocarn had taken your brother, I went to the palace to protest. But my objections were ignored.”
“You sent word to Majack of what happened?”
“Of course. By three separate messengers, in fact. Beyond that, I don’t see what I could have done. Or what I should have done, indeed. Ocarn might count you his enemy, but he has no quarrel with your brother. Even if he did, his father would never allow a Galitian prince to come to harm.” His voice turned beseeching. “There was no way of predicting that Ocarn would invite Rendale on his ship for the Hunt. Or what would happen on Dragon Day when he did.”
The ambassador was right, of course, but that didn’t make his words any easier to hear. The improbability of it all left Ebon with a feeling of … injustice. “What did happen on Dragon Day? All I’ve heard is rumors.”
“Then you know as much as I do. Ocarn has not returned to shed light on it, nor has anyone docked here who took part in the Hunt.” Silvar must have realized how little room for hope that left, for he added, “But if anyone is going to have survived the Hunt, it is Prince Ocarn Dasuki. He’s taken part in every Dragon Day for the last dozen years, and never once has he come close to locking horns with a dragon. His ship would have been stationed far from the Dragon Gate.…”
The ambassador’s voice trailed off, but it took a moment for Ebon to register why.
Footfalls behind him—from the hallway he’d passed along earlier. He rose and turned just as the door was thrown open. It slammed into the wall and rebounded, rattling.
“Well, well,” said a voice from beyond. “What have we here?”
* * *
Karmel’s steps faltered as she reached the end of the underwater passage leading to the throne room. All about, the walls of water were bright with trapped sunlight. The priestess had tried to suppress her memories of this place, but now they came crashing in upon her like the walls had done on Dragon Day. She saw again the bubble-shot waves, heard Imerle’s bloodless voice lay bare the magnitude of Caval’s betrayal. Karmel had been a fool to think she could keep the past buried. Trying to cover it up just meant it smelled worse when it was unearthed.
For all Senar’s claims that Mazana merely wanted to talk, the priestess had expected to find the throne room filled with sword-wielding Storm Guards. Instead just three people were present. In Imerle’s old chair sat Mazana. She was holding a knife which she turned idly in her hands. This was the first time Karmel had met the woman, and she struggled to recall what she knew about her. The fire to Imerle’s ice, Caval used to say. Shrewd and capricious. Ruthless, too, for she had killed her father before taking his place as a Storm Lord.
And yet couldn’t a similar charge be leveled at Caval?
Behind and to Mazana’s right stood the executioner, his position and expression exactly as Karmel remembered them from Dragon Day. Had he even noticed what had happened since then? Or would he stir from his trance one day to discover, bemused, that the face of his mistress had changed? To his left stood an athletic woman wearing the mask of a priestess of the Lord of Hidden Faces. Unsurprising, perhaps, that Mazana had found a new patron after the Chameleon’s fall from grace. But the Lord of Hidden Faces? Hadn’t Caval said the god was a sham?
Senar Sol moved to one side of the chamber, as if he wished to distance himself from Mazana’s entourage. In the sea behind him, a briar shark paused in chasing its tail to regard Karmel with black, unblinking eyes. She drew up. Since her confrontation with Imerle, the room had changed in a handful of telling respects. The leftmost throne was gone, while the one beside it was little more than a heap of bones sticking out of a hardened slurry of melted mosaic stones, like the leavings of a glassblower’s furnace. Karmel doubted Mazana would hurry to replace those thrones; it wasn’t as if they’d be getting any use.
It occurred to the priestess that she still didn’t know the full story of what had happened on Dragon Day after Imerle dropped the sea on her. Some rumors said that Mazana and Imerle had fought each other for supremacy of the Storm Council. Others said they’d battled together against a host of stone-skin assassins, only for Imerle to fall at the last. It hardly mattered to Karmel which was true. The hunting down and hanging of so many of her friends proved that she and Caval could expect no kinder treatment from the new regime than they would have received from the old.
Which left her all the more curious to know why they had been called here.
“Caval,” Mazana said. “So good of you to come.”
Caval did not answer.
The emira’s gaze shifted to Karmel. “This is your sister?”
Karmel nodded. A coldness had seeped into her—a coldness that had started as a tingling in her fingertips and was now moving down her arms to her chest. She wrapped her arms about herself. Strange, that chill. The ceiling of the throne room had been opened to the sky, and the rays of afternoon sunshine filled the chamber with a heat the watery walls trapped like a solarium. Mazana’s cheeks were flushed, and there were beads of sweat on even the executioner’s brow.
The emira turned back to Caval. “You’ll be wanting to know why I asked you here.”
Caval said nothing. He would, but he wasn’t letting on.
“I was hoping,” Mazana continued, “that you could do something for me. Something well suited to your skills as a Chameleon.”
He blinked.
“No objections?” Mazana said. “Excellent!”
Caval found his voice at last. “You want me to help you?”
“You make it sound like such a sordid notion. If it makes it any easier, think of it as helping your fellow Olairians instead. I’d say you owe them for the chaos you unleashed on Dragon Day, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re offering me a chance to put right the wrongs?”
“Gracious of me, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
More silence. Karmel could hear the priestess of the Lord of Hidden Faces breathing behind her mask.
Mazana made a show of examining her knife, then said, “You know the part the stone-skins played in sabotaging the Hunt, of course, but did you also know the mischief they made closer to home? The killing of the Drifters. The attempted assassination of Imerle. Over the past few days, my agents have caught two of their spies stirring up trouble. Now it appears an invasion fleet is preparing to sail north from their homeland beyond the Southern Wastes.”
“Heading here?” Karmel asked. The tightness in her chest put a hitch in her voice.
“Good question,” Mazana said. “Alas, my shaman is ambiguous on that not insignificant detail, and the stone-skins we captured have proved similarly unforthcoming. All we know for sure is that an Augeran ship has docked in the Rubyholt Isles. The rest of the fleet will likely follow. For the time being, that fleet’s destination remains unclear. There are some”—she glanced at Senar Sol—“who think it would be unwise to sit back and cede the initiative to the stone-skins. For once, they may even be right. In any case, it seems some response to the Augerans’ action on Dragon Day is called for, if only to warn them against meddling further in my affairs.”
Caval said, “So you want me to spy on their fleet when it arrives?”
“No. I want it destroyed.”
Karmel waited for the punch line.
When it didn’t come, Caval said, “Destroy it? An entire fleet?”
“Surely you’re not worried about the blood you would get on your hands. After the stain they got on Dragon Day, I should think you wouldn’t notice.”
“I had a little help from the dragons in that regard.”
Mazana looked from Caval to Karmel. “And yet the hand on the tiller was yours, was it not?”
The priestess could not deny it. Perhaps the controlling hand that day had been Imerle’s, but there was no overlooking the part Karmel and her brother had played.
Mazana said, “You might be interested to
know I dropped in on the Dianese governor, Piput, recently. Just to get his take on what happened when the Dragon Gate failed to come down. He told me he invited a party of stone-skins to the fortress on Dragon Day. When they tried to wander off, they were challenged. Only one man made it as far as the control room. Piput was at a loss to explain how that man opened a locked door, and then single-handedly overpowered the twenty soldiers inside. He thought the Augerans had help, yet the one name he didn’t mention in his wild speculations was that of the Chameleons.”
“Ah,” Caval said. “And you think I should want it to stay that way.”
“Don’t you? You’ve seen the reprisals suffered by your fellow priests and priestesses in Olaire. Imagine those same scenes repeated across the League. If your deeds became common knowledge, how many would pay the price for your failed ambition?”
“Those people aren’t my responsibility anymore,” Caval said tonelessly. “I am no longer high priest. The Chameleon will pick another when he chooses.”
Mazana sat forward in her throne. “But he hasn’t released you from your vows, has he? You still have your powers. If you learned anything from Veran’s example, surely it was that one doesn’t leave the priesthood except on the Chameleon’s terms.”
The coldness that had gripped Karmel was becoming more intense. She had to grind her teeth together to stop them chattering. She knows about Veran. She knows … everything. But how? Caval hadn’t told anyone else about the mission to Dian. And aside from Karmel and Caval, the only survivor from their meeting with Imerle was the executioner. Could he have informed Mazana?
Unless …
When Caval next spoke, Karmel could hear some of her own coldness in his voice. “You have been talking to the Chameleon,” he said to Mazana.
“I would hardly seek to borrow his esteemed former high priest without asking him.”
“And he gave you his blessing?”