“He’s going to die,” she said, giving up and simply binding everything together by winding the bandages around and around his chest as tightly as she could. “Do you hear me? There’s nothing I can do. He’s going to die.”
He will not die.
“He’s mostly there already,” she argued. “I can’t save him.”
He will not die, the Siheldi voice repeated. Nor will you, when you are in this place. It is protected.
Nievfaya paused to consider the words for a moment before she reached out and touched the wall of the pit. There was a glassy smooth coating that was bitingly cold on her skin.
“Bezhaka stone,” she said, surprised. She felt a little better with that information in hand, but not enough to slow the return to her anxious work, tightening another layer of bandages around Arran’s middle as the gore started to seep through the first.
Bezhaka was nearly as valuable to the neneckt as red iron was to human men, though it had a different purpose. Shards of the milky stone could be found buried beside the scorching hot crevasses in the sea floor where the breath of the earth escaped into the ocean, and it was sacred to the sea people above all other things.
The oughon carved the crystals into secret shapes that channeled and amplified the shamans’ power. The stones could be filled with magic like jars were filled with wine, so their spells for healing or luck or love could be sold, shared, and used by those without the same level of innate skill. It was a crucial part of neneckt rituals, too, for sealing promises and oaths, celebrating births, commemorating deaths, and binding the fealty of a vassal to his lord or a slave to his master.
Most of the common uses for the stone required pieces no bigger than the hollow of a child’s hand, and finding a greater quantity through ordinary means was very difficult indeed. But every inch of the walls surrounding Nievfaya was lined with it. So much bezhaka would be immensely powerful, and it would allow the night spirits an untold influence over other living things. The Siheldi could keep Arran in a permanent twilight state if they wanted, preventing his death but holding his soul a helpless prisoner. He would dream for decades if they wanted him to. If they wanted, he would dream until the world came to an end.
During the frantic fight in the volcano’s crater, Nievfaya had thought that the Siheldi Queen required Arran’s death for whatever rite she hoped to perform, but it appeared she was wrong. It was clear enough now that the Queen wanted him alive. She wanted him pliable and suggestible; too weak to resist whatever she had in store for him, but still breathing. Nievfaya had given her exactly what she wanted, holding to the general belief that life was better than death, even for Arran Swinn.
She wondered, now, if she had been wrong to save him. She wondered if it would be better to sit back on her heels and let the pool of his blood on the ground slowly deepen – let him slip away into the darkness where he would know no more pain. It was no mercy to prolong his suffering. Not if the fate of all other lands was at stake.
The notion swam about in her head for only a moment before she pushed it aside. Death was no solution. The Queen may want him living, but so did the Siheldi’s enemies. If Nievfaya kept him breathing, at least she would keep the chance of victory alive along with him.
And the bezhaka might end up being a gift she had not counted upon. Nievfaya herself knew little about the ways of the oughon, but she did know that the stone could work a bit like a speaking trumpet, lending strength to wishes and desires and funneling them upwards towards the gods. Perhaps they would be listening, she thought as she surveyed her handiwork, wondering if there was anything else she could do with the limited resources available to her.
If they were, then Tiaraku would be listening too, she reminded herself glumly. He could see many things with his far-sighted mirrors, and even the warded blackness of the Siheldi kingdom might not be beyond his sight. She hoped she was wrong. Keeping the sea king in ignorance of Arran’s fate might be the only advantage she had at the moment, and she did not want to lose it.
Tiaraku would be watching the gateway of Sind Heofonne, but there had to be other entries and exits to the underground world, she mused. It was a prison to the Siheldi now, but it had been their rightful homeland for long, long centuries before the Queen was ever tamed.
The mechanisms of her captivity had been devised by the neneckt, the ancient legends said, and maybe her forbearers had been wise enough to anticipate a need for some communication, or some exchange of words or goods that necessitated flexibility in its design. Maybe she could use that wisdom to smuggle Arran away undetected. Failing that, maybe she could bring help down into the dark.
It would help to know how deep inside the earth she was, the less optimistic part of her pointed out, and it was clear that she would not be able to drag Arran’s limp form up from the pit where she had found him. Neither could she see or track or fight the thousands of spirits that surrounded her if she decided that she had the inclination to try.
Reasoning her way out of her predicament seemed equally destined to fail – unless she could bring back something for the Siheldi that they couldn’t get for themselves. But what did a soulless, deathless, formless entity desire from the mortal world, other than the massacre of innocent living things?
“I’m going to need more bandages,” she said, tipping the little vial of medicine into Arran’s mouth, trying not to let too much of it dribble wastefully down his chin as he sluggishly swallowed. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, exactly, but it smelled like it had torodro leaves in it, which were good for staunching bleeding. “And I need to stay with him to make sure he’s all right. Give me something to make a proper fire. He’s too cold.”
No, the Siheldi said. You will return to your place.
“Are you going to come down here and make me?” she asked, gripping the torch in one hand and putting the other on Arran’s shoulder. “I have flame and red iron. You will do as I say.”
The sound of the Siheldi laughing felt like it was going to rip her stomach from her middle and wring its meager contents out onto the floor like sponge. It was not a sound that should exist, and yet it went on assaulting her ears for some time as the spirit expressed its scorn at her boldness.
You will do as I say, it repeated, mocking her words. It only took a moment for a gust of wind to sweep down into the hole and whip away the flame of the torch, plunging her into absolute darkness again.
You will go where we tell you, the creature said less than an inch from her ear, and she instinctively scuttled backwards into the wall, but she still kept her hand on Arran for what good the proximity to the iron in his body might do her.
“I will stay with him,” she said firmly. “I am as much imprisoned here as anywhere.”
The Siheldi laughed again, but this time the brutal assault on her ears was tempered by the dolorous scraping of stone on stone.
As you wish, the spirit said as she realized what was happening. The enormous lid that was slowly moving over the top of the pit didn’t make the blackness any blacker, but the slight current of air from the long, open passageway above her faded as the slab of rock closed in.
Shouting did her no good, nor did jumping as high as she could to try to feel for any holes or cracks that might let the air in. There must be some way to breathe in the sealed cavern, or Arran would not still be alive, but the dense air was warm and clinging close and already crawling underneath her skin. She felt like a chicken that was about to be stewed in a cooking pot, and the chill of the bezhaka where it touched her did nothing to stop the nervous sweat from beading on her brow.
If anything, the cold stone amplified the horrible feeling. There was something flowing through the crackled craze of sooty veins already – the walls were humming with words of power that she couldn’t quite hear, like the gentle breathing of a sleeping predator she dare not disturb for fear of becoming its next meal.
She settled back on her heels and took a deep breath, preparing to close her eyes and concentra
te on a chant intended to calm distress, taught to her by her beloved nienna. Her great-grandmother had always been fond of telling tales that had been old when she was just a hatchling, and had spread them deeply again during her time as matriarch of the Black Salt Clan. Nievfaya hoped the words would bring back those pleasant memories of sitting by her elder’s side, rapt and eager, soaking up the ancient wisdom of her heritage.
“Sea Father, Sun Mother, Brothers Sand and Sky,” she whispered in the neneckt tongue. “Grant me your protection as I wander far from the shining waters. Lead me to the stillness past the breakers and preserve me from the anger of your brothers, your uncles, your foes. Sea Father, Sun Mother, help me…”
Help me, echoed something just on the edge of her ear, making her pause. It wasn’t the voice of a Siheldi, with its ringing sharpness and concussive woe. It was softer, and farther away, and infinitely more desperately sad. It was the voice of a child, a little boy lost to everything it knew, wandering in the dark as its tiny heart churned with instinctive, primal fear.
She had heard that voice before. It had been her voice, the day the Kitefins came. The sea light had run ruddy as the raiders devastated her home: a cluster of cool, shady kelp farms far outside the glittering glamor of Emyer-Ekvori. The Kitefins were Tiaraku’s clansmen, and a more vicious pack of cutthroats had never been born under the waves. Her nienna had died defending her land that day, along with eight of her half-brothers and half-sisters from her mother’s latest brood, and twelve more of Nievfaya’s own nest mates.
Someone had told her once that she had been lucky to survive it, but she had never been able to agree. There wasn’t much luck in being sold into servitude, orphaned, wounded, and alone. Her injuries had healed, eventually, but her heart never had. There was no hope in slavery. There was no hope for her at all – until Bartolo had found her, and offered her a chance to change her fate.
Help me, the voice repeated, and she turned towards Arran, putting a hand in front of his mouth to feel for his breath. It was still there, if barely stirring, but there was no movement to form the words.
“Sea Father, Sun Mother, Daughters Sand and Sky,” she said again, her voice shaking as the echo lingered on and on. “Grant me your protection as I wander far from the shining waters. Help me. Please, I beg all the gods. Help us all.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Hurry up, you idiot,” Bartolo hissed at Johan as the servant insisted on folding and smoothing each piece of clothing before packing it. Bartolo had already gathered everything that was important to him – mostly just his collection of ancient gold and silver coins – and now the manservant was lagging behind. “They’ll be here any minute.”
Tiaraku had a cavern full of far-seeing mirrors that he used to gaze upon his empire, and there was little doubt in Bartolo’s mind that he had been using them to watch his servant very, very closely as the last critical moments of their plan had gone awry. The neneckt king would be sending his soldiers to demand an explanation, and Bartolo didn’t particularly want to be part of that conversation.
“Just forget it,” he snapped, snatching a tin of some sort of polish from Johan’s hands and hurling it across the room. “I don’t need any of that. Let’s go.”
Johan closed the knapsack, putting it over his shoulder and following Bartolo out of the room without stopping to put together anything for himself.
Bartolo scooped up his leather roll of jeweler’s tools from the table and stuffed it into his pocket, one hand on the doorknob, before he froze under a wave of panic.
“Where’s the pendant?” he said, rounding on Johan, who looked blank. “Swinn’s pendant. Where is it?” he demanded again, thrusting his hand into every crevice of his coat, his eyes frantically scanning the room to see if the shell of tarnished silver had fallen into a corner.
“Did you take it? Did you think I wasn’t going to notice if you try to make a tidy little profit off the iron? Answer me right now, you son of a bitch,” he snarled, lunging towards his man, who took a step back and scooted around the table to safety, his face white and his wide eyes focused beyond his irate master at the doorway behind him.
“Is there a problem here, Bartolo?” asked Habur, who has silently found his way into the chamber with a trio of serious-looking soldiers at his back, their solid bulk blocking the door.
It was an unusual sight in Emyer-Ekvori. It took a lot of effort for a neneckt to fight its native element and hold together a physical form underwater. Tiaraku’s captain took pride not only in doing so, but also in making his physical appearance match the caliber of his strength. Bartolo had to crane his neck upwards to look the warrior in the face.
“Lost something, perhaps?” Habur added, enjoying the discomfort he was causing.
“None of your damn business,” Bartolo replied, trying to regain his composure as Johan silently glared at him from the other side of the room.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” Habur said. “It became my business the moment Tiaraku ordered me to mop up your mistakes. He’d like to see you, if you can spare the time. Derrol will be sure to watch your bags for you,” he said, nodding for one of his subordinates to step forward. “We wouldn’t want them to sneak away without you.”
“How very kind,” Bartolo said, trying not to let his tight smile shrink into a frown as Johan immediately poured a good measure of his master’s wine for Derrol with a suspiciously respectful bow.
“Help yourselves,” he muttered as Johan added a goblet for the second neneckt. A dwindling wine cellar would be the least of his problems now that Tiaraku knew he had been trying to flee. Bartolo would be lucky to escape with his skin intact, let alone have the opportunity to scold his servant for such unwarranted obsequiousness.
“Save some for me,” Habur called over his shoulder, smirking as Bartolo’s shoulders tightened under the hand he was using to steer him out of the room.
Tiaraku’s seeing hall was large, cool, and dark. A hole in the very center of the domed roof let a single shaft of sunlight filter down through the water to touch a line of mosaic shell inlaid into the floor, dotted with colorful glass symbols that marked the hours at regular intervals which turned the entire chamber into a massive sundial.
In a wide circle stood Tiaraku’s mirrors, each dedicated to the sight of a certain aspect of his realm. One showed the vast expanse of Emyer-Ekvori from far above the seabed, each path and road a brilliant white vein through the craggy skin of tumbled rock. Others peeked into the fine homes of his honored Kitefin clansmen, glimpsing into offices and studies, kitchens where serving staff gossiped, and bedrooms where couples sealed secret trysts, whispering love and treasons.
On land, too, Tiaraku kept his eye. A number of the enchanted portals were devoted to the palace of King Malveisin, ruler of the human kind. The Guild House in Paderborn; a prosperous farm in Cantrid where a former minister had retreated for a retirement that was no such thing; Tiaraku’s ironworks in the city of Niheba, where plain metal was transformed into fake red gold. Bartolo’s own apartments; a heavy barge lumbering across a placid sea; the harbor in Port Ravenaught, where unlabeled crates were being hoisted onto the docks.
There was one blank mirror, pitch dark and slightly cloudy, as if a frost had crept over the image to obscure it from the king’s vision. There was nothing to see, but it had nonetheless captured Tiaraku’s whole attention.
The ruler of the neneckt rarely cloaked himself in fleshly form, but he didn’t need to. The sheer force of his presence filled the room like an invisible, billowing smoke, making it clear even to the dullest understand that he was there – and that he was angry.
“Your Majesty,” Bartolo said hesitantly, “I assure you that I am -”
“A complete and utter failure,” Tiaraku rumbled, making Bartolo cringe. “Do not try to justify yourself to me. I have seen everything. You will be punished for your stupidity.”
“Please, Majesty. I will fix it.”
“Will you, now? And how will
you fix this?” the king asked with a swirl of water towards the black mirror. “Swinn is down there, somewhere, and I have no sight. Will you brave the fires of the Siheldi yourself to bring him back?”
“I don’t think it will be necessary for me to go personally, sire,” Bartolo said carefully. “I did make plans in case the situation got away from us.”
“You planned to run away and hope I could not find you.”
“No, sire. Of course not. I was merely hurrying to reach my contacts on Niheba to help me rectify the problem. They are nearly as well versed in the ways of the Siheldi as your own advisors.”
“Children,” Tiaraku scoffed. “Mewling babes toying with embers from the hearth. They have never proven themselves worth a clamshell.”
“The Divided have grown strong in the time since you came to the throne, sire,” Bartolo replied. “They brought my father to you. They brought me to you. There is no one else who has the knowledge we need.”
“You thought you did. You have been shown a liar. I can no longer trust you.”
“You must, sire. There is nothing else to be done. To leave Arran Swinn in the hands of the Siheldi is to doom your race and mine to extinction. The Queen will figure out how to get what she wants from him. I don’t know why she hasn’t done so already, but –”
Bartolo stopped mid-sentence as a memory jumped out at him. Faidal had knelt down next to Swinn’s body and made him swallow something – Faidal had brushed himself against Bartolo’s coat before taking Swinn and the Guild woman away. The pendant was gone, and the Siheldi Queen hadn’t been able to complete her plans yet.
That crafty devil, he thought, his mind working at a furious pace. He couldn’t even be angry at the neneckt’s thieving betrayal. It might just have saved them all.
“But it’s only a matter of time,” he continued as smoothly as he could, suddenly feeling much more at ease. “Give me a chance, sire. A few days. Please. I will deliver Swinn to you, as I did before. And this time, there will be no unforeseen complications.”
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