A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  Copelia made her way quickly to the office. She managed to strip off her soaked disguise and wrap herself in a fluffy towel provided by a maid and slip back on her casters before Sarousch bustled into the office. They were a bit mangled from the pliers but she had managed to get them nearly back to their original shapes on the carriage ride back. She dismissed the maid with instructions not to wash the clothes of her disguise but only to hang them to dry. She would need them to get back into the palace and the dirt and sweat made the disguise more believable. She huddled near the fire, trying to get warm. Sarousch, a faint blush on his cheeks from her state of undress, put his stack of reports on the desk.

  “I cannot believe a girl of your standing is traipsing around the city in beggar’s clothes, soaking wet no less. What would your father think?”

  “That I was saving him money on my wardrobe?” she asked, wickedly.

  “Do get dressed,” Sarousch blustered.

  “Deal with it, Sarousch. I am tired, cold, wet, and my hair is a disaster. I can’t handle anything more at the moment,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest, putting her back to the fire but staying close enough to feel the warmth. “I need a report on the clergy.”

  He drew himself up. “They are most unhappy to be restricted to the house and grounds. Most want to go back to the temple and start repairs. For now, they are restrained by the message I was given. The clergy from my temple are here as well to corroborate it.”

  “My message,” Copelia said spitefully. “Fine. Keep them happy for tonight. I need rest.”

  “They are beginning to insist that they speak to the head of the house. They are most insistent.”

  “Then insist they shut it. As long as they are harbored in this house, they will act at my convenience. Tell them if they don’t like it, they can go back out into the streets where the man who killed their Sybil can hunt them like rabbits!” Copelia took a cleansing breath. “Tell them I will speak to them tomorrow. And pay the healer when they are done with the priestess in my study.”

  Sarousch protested, “I must insist that the priestess be housed with her sisters. It is disrespectful for a member of the clergy to stay in the personal quarters of the daughter of the house!”

  Copelia stalked past him, one hand raised. “I can’t imagine how much it would hurt to be slapped with a caster. Pay the healer and call for my maids to bring a bathtub to my room. I need to get clean. And dinner for two.”

  He looked like he would protest again, but she just swept out the door and didn’t look back until she had made it upstairs to her room. She nodded to Ildiko, going straight through to the adjoining bedroom. The maids arrived in moments with the bathtub and set it up in her room. They filled it with hot water as the healer, a tall, kindly, elderly man walked through the door of the study. She quietly slid the hand casters off behind her back and put them on her bedside table behind a marble horse paperweight. It was a credit to the healer’s character that he didn’t find anything amiss that a young woman smelling of gutter and soot dressed in a towel came in to oversee the patient.

  Ildiko was on a cushy, brown leather couch near the fireplace in the study and covered with a blanket. The fire in that room was built up high, the light flickering over the shelves of books and little treasures Copelia had collected over the years. Two small lightfish globes were brought in to help give sufficient light by a maid who stood waiting for instructions with two other maids. Copelia leaned on the edge of her black oak desk. With gentle and knobby hands, the healer felt Ildiko’s forehead and took her pulse. The woman was shivering still and her lips were too pale.

  “Off with the wet clothes. I need a pot of boiling water, warm towels, and more blankets,” he told the maids. “Do you want her set up in here?” he asked calmly, white bushy eyebrows raised in question. Copelia nodded. “Then have a bed or pallet brought in here. It will be days before she should move much.” Copelia nodded to the maids. One of them went for supplies while one closed the door, and the other maid began helping the shivering Ildiko out of her wet things. Ildiko cringed with embarrassment when the healer admonished her to get it all off.

  He chuckled at her squeak of protest and said, “I’m a grandfather. Nothing you have is a surprise. We need to get you warm.”

  The maids wrestled her for the last of her ripped robes. They had gone from silver to brown and black over the days in the light well. He did cock a head at the garments when he recognized them.

  “Sister,” he said as he gave the bow of respect for a priestess. Copelia eyed him suspiciously, but the old man just briskly wrapped Ildiko in a blanket and turned his attention to her wounded thigh. He cut off the bandages Copelia had applied and called for hot tea to be brought. When it had steeped, Ildiko sipped the brew, fragrant with mint and pain-killing itainai, as he poked around at the wound and cleansed it.

  “How is it that a priestess of the Temple runs afoul of a crossbow bolt?” he asked casually as he cleaned.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Copelia replied steadily. “My friend here was hurt in an accident.”

  “An accident involving marine standard issue weapons? There are rumors...” said the healer.

  “What kind of rumors?” Copelia asked, trying for nonchalance.

  “A message sent by the Goddess herself. It is whispered she has returned to Aquillion,” he said conversationally as he flushed the wound with water.

  “Who do you serve, sir? You’re no priest,” Copelia demanded. She tried to look intimidating but she was still just a girl in a towel.

  “See for yourself, Lady,” he said blithely and continued to wrap the wound with a poultice. Copelia squinted at him and she could suddenly see it. The silver glyph on the back of his neck. The Goddess’s sigil. Going into her room she slipped on the hand casters again. She walked up behind him, touching a finger to the mark. It flared to light and for a moment Copelia could see the Goddess’s monkey sitting on his shoulder. It was the Goddess’s symbol for wisdom and healing, a sign that the Goddess was watching and guiding the carrier. The monkey blinked its huge silver eyes at Copelia and skittered up to sit on the healer’s head for a moment, rifling through his white hair. It thrashed its long, curled tail once and dissolved into sparks of magic that faded into the firelight from the hearth. Copelia let out a slow breath.

  “I haven’t seen a bit of pretty like that in years,” he said, chuckling. His hands had never wavered or stopped setting the poultice.

  Setting her hand warmly on his shoulder, Copelia intoned, “Tell those who remember, She wakes to Aquillion. Tell them to be ready.”

  “Yes, Lady,” he said solemnly, a hand settling over hers to squeeze momentarily. He let her go and she turned back to her own room. She closed the door and got in the bath.

  “How is the wound, sir?” She had to raise her voice to be heard through the door.

  “It should be all right. You were very lucky, Sister. The bolt went through the muscle without damaging the bones or ligaments. You should be able to walk on it in about five days. Change the dressing every day, putting a fresh poultice on it each time. It will draw out any fever. I will leave you the supplies and instructions. Here is more of the tea for the pain. Take these pills, one a day with food. You have an infection and they will fight it. Rest as much as possible, eating broth for today, soup and bread tomorrow, then meat if you want it in small amounts until your stomach gets back to normal.”

  Copelia listened to him explaining to Ildiko and the maids what amounts of what herbs went into the poultice and how to make the tea while she finished washing. A couple of servants also began setting up the pallet bed in the study, to Copelia’s yelled instructions. She dressed in a long white night gown with many gold buttons down the front, took off the casters, and went out.

  She took the healer’s hand in a shake. “How did you know about her being without food?”

  He smiled sagely. “Wouldn’t be much of a healer if I didn’t.”

>   “Thank you. Sarousch will have your fee at the door.”

  Nodding, he bowed and left.

  Copelia absentmindedly went into her room to gather one of her own shifts for Ildiko to wear. The maids helped Ildiko perform a quick sponge bath and dress, then together the maids and Copelia shifted Ildiko to the pallet with clean linens. As they settled Ildiko, Copelia’s thoughts went back to the old man. He was an old believer, a man who had survived the sleep of the religion and was still devoted to the Goddess despite his lack of magic. He was learned in the old-time healing arts of plants and maybe surgery. He was like Yupendra without the extra help of mancer’s power.

  Copelia dismissed the maids with her thanks. She grabbed her brush, sat on the couch and started brushing out her mass of dark, wet hair. “Ildiko, I’ve heard only a little about the sigils. I know the healer had one, but what are they?”

  Drowsily Ildiko pushed her spectacles up her nose. “A sigil was a contract rather than an arbitrary label from the Goddess. Once forged it could not be held without devotion. Had his allegiance wandered over the years, the mark would have faded. At least, that’s how it works with the Goddess. It takes a certain amount of power to draw the mark and to light it as you did.”

  “Do you know why I took this position?” Copelia asked quietly, looking at the priestess through the curtain of her hair.

  “You said you were called.”

  “I didn’t have a good choice.” She undid the buttons over what had been her brand, showing the complicated Goddess symbol now scarred into her skin. “I ran afoul of Califfites in a marine camp. This was going to be his sigil.”

  Ildiko looked at her with wide eyes. “Califf’s nature is burning and death. Without Her help, the only other way to break the connection with Him would have been to cut the skin from your body.”

  Copelia walked to her window, looking out on the rainy, twilit street. Setting her jaw with quiet resolution she said, “Ildiko, you never have to worry about which side I’m on.” Her eyes fell on a figure standing in the dark street. A wide hat kept the rain out of his face. He was contemplating the house while he smoked a pipe. A stab of concern went through her, but a glimmer of silver light around his neck allowed her to recognize him. It was the healer. She held up a hand in acknowledgment. At her wave, he raised his own, nodded his head like he’d made a decision and turned to walk away down the street. It warmed her, knowing one true believer moved out into the darkness, carrying the news of the Goddess’s return to the healers and the healed of Aquillion.

  ***

  Cape Miliar

  Vansainté

  The light was fading and the stars were coming clear in the night when Vansainté finally heard what he had been waiting for as he perched on top of a rock pile down the beach from the camp.

  “Hey!” It was an urgent whisper from the waves. He squinted into the dusk and saw that Anoni had snuck up close to the beach, lying on the pebbles with just enough water to cover herself.

  “Maybe I should leave you there. I told Corin that you didn’t care.”

  “You lied for me. How sweet. Now give me my clothes so I can get out of the damn ocean,” she whisper-shouted.

  “Oh, maybe I should make you stand up. It’s been a long time since I saw that glorious—”

  She cut him off, “You haven’t seen my glorious anything in four years. You aren’t going to start now. Give me my clothes.”

  Smirking, Vansainté casually dumped her shirt and pants into the water. Without thanking him, she scuttled back into the water so she could get them on.

  She was pruney and angry with herself for doing something so stupid as she gathered her weapons and boots from a neat stack by the fire. Reckless was something she did—leaving her clothes and weapons on the beach was not. Corin couldn’t know how much it meant that she had left them with him. She had been hurt and sad and had expected comfort from Corin. But he had not comforted her. He had beat her by being unexpectedly good, scared her, and then stuck his foot so far in his mouth he should be shitting laces. It was so much easier to be angry than sad, so she had pulled at it, stoking her rage high enough to block out her fear of Koseichiro. It had worked, but she was afraid she had been screaming incoherently at Corin. She had dragged up all the things that hurt and burned her most and yelled them at Corin. With deep chagrin, she could also admit what she had been saying was not so much directed at Corin as at the prince. They were connected though, she knew. Corin had admitted to her his lack of self and it was the condition she most wanted to chastise the prince for. In the imaginary rages she had constructed over the years for when she finally confronted the prince, it was the main event.

  She just had to dry herself off and get up the nerve to say she was sorry. She hadn’t wanted to drive him away. Not really. She should have explained her feelings about gowns and the ways of Aquillion. She just had to find a way to apologize for her hurtful words while stating that that was how she felt about being a Dragon. It was part of her and she couldn’t change it. She had never planned a life with a marriage and children, not since the idiotic daydreams of a steward’s daughter had died a watery death in the lower hall of the palace. She grabbed a quick meal of the fish the men had cooked and wrapped herself in a blanket as the men said their goodnights and turned in. She stared out at the waves, hoping for inspiration.

  CHAPTER 19

  Cape Miliar

  Anoni

  Wake up, came a voice in her mind.

  Anoni twitched in her sleep, rolling over.

  Wake UP.

  “Come on, Papa, five more minutes,” she mumbled, turning over.

  WAKE UP! I smell smoke.

  Anoni’s eyes popped open. “You better not be pulling my leg, Koseichiro. I don’t smell anything.”

  Lazy mortal. I’m surprised your race hasn’t died out from sheer inferiority in adaptation, Koseichiro said snidely.

  She switched the conversation into her mind to keep from waking the men. Shut up. Why did you wake me?

  I smell burning magic. Faint. The smoke of it on mortals, Koseichiro explained. She got up, struggling with the blanket wrapped around her, thinking fast. Burning magic. Califf’s magic. Followers of Califf. Marines. The men were bedded down in their blanket rolls among the trees on the edge of the forest. Giovicci sat watch, back to the beach, eyes trained on the wooded scrubland to the south.

  Anoni breathed a little easier. It was an hour past dawn. The camp looked fine, but she had to be sure. She drew on her trousers and toed barefoot in the bracken, checking the men. Corin’s roll was a little apart from the others, nearer the sea. She began to put a hand on what she thought was his shoulder and jerked back, startled when the blanket gave way under her hand. Fear rising, she tore apart the bedroll, coming up with nothing but the blanket and folded up clothes. He was gone. “Giovicci, did you see Corin go?” she asked, hurriedly throwing on her chain mail and tying her hair up.

  The slender man shook his head. “What’s up, boss?”

  “Wake everybody up. There are marines about. Full battle gear.” She saw Giovicci hesitate and said, “Now, damn it. Corin’s missing. He’s out there somewhere.” She buckled her sword and daggers on once she was sure Giovicci was going to follow directions.

  Giovicci, though not as imposing as some, had a decent parade ground voice. His shout of “Dragon wings and Dragon fire!” reverberated over the water. Vansainté was up, sword half drawn before the echoes had faded. “What is it?”

  Grimly, she sat to lace on her boots. “Marines. Corin’s missing. Get everybody on the horses. I need to concentrate.”

  Wordlessly he dove for his clothes. Anoni climbed a boulder on the bluff and squatted down. I need you to try and pin down their location, she said to the Ozuk inside her.

  What will you give me for it? asked Koseichiro.

  Anoni clenched her hands then forced them to relax. What do you want?

  I don’t know, this could be complicated...

  Stop b
ullshitting and tell me.

  Shared talking time. And better accommodations, bargained Koseichiro.

  Fine. Where are they?

  On the island. So is your man.

  Ice cold fear clutched at her. How do you know that?

  The magic on him is so strong I’m surprised he doesn’t leave a trail of burnt air behind him.

  Anoni stood and looked out at the island, terror in her throat. Morning fog was just burning off and a two-masted war barge became visible, rounding the seaward side of the island. Its sails were white, and it flew no flags, but it was standard marine craft. Squinting, she could see two rowboats loaded low with men, making fast strokes around to the causeway. Two more empty boats were moored to rocks on the island’s edge. There was silence in her heart, nothing but purpose. She leapt from the boulder. Time seemed to slow, her mind was moving so fast.

  She hit the loam, rolling and up again, shooting through camp like a crossbow bolt. “Vansainté! Your horse! Dragons, as fast as you can!” On the beach, she ran full tilt over the half mile to the causeway. Finally her steps rang on the rusted metal as she stretched her legs for more speed. She could see two figures moving on the island, carrying something between them out of the forest. The fear sang in her veins. To her left the rowboats hastened their approach, the men with oars pulling hard. Faintly, she heard the pound of hooves on metal. She realized the rowboats were delivering reinforcements. Where were the other marines? She never looked back as the hoofbeats closed in on her, raising a clamor like falling temple bells. She held out her arm. A strong arm grasped hers and pulled, the momentum tremendous as she made three impossibly long strides coming up to speed and vaulted up onto the horse using his grasp as an anchor. She was up behind him, and almost sliding off the other side of the horse since Vansainté hadn’t bothered with a saddle, but she stopped herself by sheer will and an iron grip in clinging to Vansainté.