Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  He was beginning to think he was in over his head.

  He’d been making mistakes. Clear ones. If Litnig and Dil hadn’t overruled him in the tunnels under the mountains, the loss of Len would have hurt him considerably when he’d reached Du Fenlan. If they’d waited a little longer to enter the tunnels in the first place or taken the roads like Cole had wanted him to, they wouldn’t have encountered the tunnelworm at all.

  The errors ate at him, and he wondered how many others he’d made.

  The river galley was taking him north to sail for home.

  The behavior of the necromancers was making him uneasy. He couldn’t figure out why they were striking one at a time if there were as many of them involved as Hentworth claimed. Their actions smacked of a hidden agenda, and he was concerned that their goals might lie in Eldan City. He wanted to return and find out what was happening there in his absence.

  The galley planed elegantly over the flat blue surface of the river Derumar. Its oars dipped and rose, dipped and rose, flashing in the morning sun and sending water skyward.

  Cole and Litnig and their friends were scattered across the slender sweep of the galley. They wouldn’t speak to him.

  Quay rubbed the bridge of his nose. A trace of the scar he’d picked up fighting in Du Fenlan still lingered there, though the Aleani had been kind enough to heal the worst of it.

  Quay had Len to thank for that.

  The Aleani was watching the mountains slide by with a pained, solemn look in his eyes. The wind tugged at his dreadlocks. His skin glistened in the bright light.

  In the days since Len had secured his people’s assistance, Quay had been given supplies, money, and passage north to meet a ship in Du Nath to take him home.

  And I would have let him die.

  The thought bothered him. For many reasons.

  Quay sipped fragrant water from a pouch on his hip. The oars beat steadily. The sun pounded down.

  The members of his party were worn out. They were frustrated. They’d come to resent him.

  But he was a prince, and still they followed.

  Mother, he thought. Saen—what would you do?

  The mountains gave him no answers.

  As the Aleani galleteer had promised, the northern port of Du Nath became visible midmorning on the galley’s second day of travel. Its whitewashed, multistoried buildings sprawled haphazardly across the coastline and the ancient green delta of the Derumar. The turquoise waters of the North Sea twinkled in the sun beyond it. White beaches sparkled around its periphery. Tall stacks of dark rock caught white-capped waves in thunderous cascades outside the harbor.

  The port itself, on which the city centered, was horseshoe shaped and compact. Quay spotted close to a hundred ships crammed into the harbor behind its long seawall. Some flew the colors of Aleani ports. Some hailed from Nutharion or the Barin Isles. Others bore colors the prince had never seen. The merchants of Eldan said one could find anything in Du Nath—Aleani livestock, Nutharian spices, Islander fruits and wood, even smuggled Eldanian horses. When they spoke of its bazaar, it was in hushed, reverent tones.

  Quay entered the city of merchants’ dreams in the late morning, just as spring was awakening in the northern mountains. The outer neighborhoods of Du Nath gleamed three and four stories high to either side of him. The river’s blue waters turned green as they flowed into a deep channel lined with stone walls.

  Cole, Litnig, Ryse, and Dil watched the city. Leramis watched Ryse. Len watched the water.

  And Quay watched everyone look at anything but him.

  Not a mile beyond Du Nath’s first buildings, the river fed a wide, calm pool. At its far end, a thin yellow line betrayed the top of a gold-leafed dam. Smiling, curly-haired busts of half-Aleani, half-fish creatures thrust out below the dam’s waterline with arms open in welcome. On the far side of the dam’s arch, the Derumar plunged into a steep defile and wound through stone channels for a half-mile or so before spilling into the harbor. In the bright sun, it looked like a shining silver cord.

  The galley slid alongside one of the wooden piers along the left bank of the pool, and its captain called to an officious-looking Aleani on shore. Sailors jumped from the galley to the dock and tied the craft down with coils of thick rope. A gangplank was brought out from below. Sheepskins emerged from the hold in huge stacks, and bundles of cloth, rope, and furs went ashore under the watchful eyes of Aleani merchants.

  Quay deposited a few coins in the hand of the smiling Aleani river captain and left the galley without a backward glance.

  The prince descended behind Len and three burly porters along a narrow stairway into the shade below the dam. The others preceded him.

  In the lower part of the city, the presence of Du Nath’s bazaar was unavoidable. Tall white archways yawned into it from the main boulevard like the mouths of barkers. Beyond them lay an enormous, circular plaza filled with smoke, dust, awnings, musicians, merchants, and more. The streets thronged with Aleani and humans in bright dresses, solemn robes, airy southron clothes, rich tunics, tattered rags. The air smelled of cooking lamb and fish and saffron and anise and a dozen things Quay couldn’t recognize.

  Cole looked at the crowd as though he would’ve given anything to be within it, and needles of guilt pricked Quay’s heart.

  “Fuck you, Quay. We’re going home, before you get someone killed.”

  The words had hurt more than Quay could afford to let on. Of all his companions, Cole was the one whose voice mattered the most to him.

  And of all of them, he was most unwilling to give Cole up.

  The prince took a deep breath of salty air. His father’s library held a few accounts of the northwestern coast of Guedin, and Quay knew more or less what to expect from the coming voyage: spires of jagged rock against which the sea crashed endlessly. Huge cliffs of sheer slate. Dark forests that ran right to the edges of pebbled beaches. Breathless, primal beauty.

  He felt excited. His eyes drifted up toward the cloudless sky.

  He forced them back down.

  Our dreams die today, his father had told him long ago. The two of them had been watching the funeral procession of Quay’s mother and brother.

  He’d been right.

  Quay had a people to serve. It was in the dirt, with his mother and his brother, that his dreams of anything else belonged.

  Beyond the bazaar, hundreds of Aleani and humans buzzed along the waterfront, loading and unloading a fleet of wallowing cogs, sleek caravels, wide-decked fishermen’s boats, and tall carrack ships. Shrill whistles and flapping canvas filled the air. The harsh calls of gulls echoed over shouting, laughing, and cursing in a bubbling polyglot.

  Len plunged into the maelstrom of dockworkers. The porters followed him.

  So did Quay.

  The burly Aleani led them slowly along the docks. They weaved, bumped, and jostled their way past ship after garish ship until, as if some invisible fence had been crossed, the chaos of the merchant zone evaporated. The piers became spotless and ordered. Every knot was perfect. Every rope had been coiled impeccably. Pennants of blue and white flew from every mast.

  They’d reached the fleet of the twin thrones.

  Quay craned his neck with the others to look at the vessels they passed. The Aleani warships were dromon-style craft built to inflict or withstand heavy assault. The biggest of them boasted three masts, tall sides, and room for double banks of oarsmen.

  Eldan had few ships so expensive. Quay wondered what had possessed the Aleani to build so many—what threat they faced in the North Sea that Eldan didn’t in the south.

  Cole nearly walked right into Leramis in front of him. The necromancer excused himself for Cole’s mistake, and Quay’s mind flashed to his father and the fleet that he would be mustering in Densel.

  He dug his fingers into his palms.

  There would be accusations of treason if it was ever discovered that Quay had worked with a necromancer. The Temple and some among the Seven would call for his fathe
r to disown him, exile him, imprison him, execute him. With every step Quay took at Leramis’s side, he undermined his footing in Eldan. With every passing set of eyes, he multiplied his risk.

  But some risks had to be taken.

  The ones breaking the heart dragons were Duennin, Hentworth had said. Part human, part Aleani, part Sh’ma. Humanesque monsters cobbled together with the power of the dragon and bred to wage war on creation. They weren’t supposed to exist.

  Quay wasn’t yet convinced that they did.

  But Leramis had made an interesting case. The plan he’d outlined made a certain kind of sense—obtain help from a group of iconoclasts, then frame them for your actions. And while the world readies itself for war against them, free your people and the dragon and bring both south to burn creation.

  Quay’s visions of Eldan City in flames returned to his mind.

  Two white birds fought over a scrap of bread in the street. One of them backed into Quay’s boot as it did. The bird startled and flew off toward the merchant zone, honking raucously as it went. The other took the bread and flew in the opposite direction.

  Quay frowned.

  It was difficult for him to believe that Leramis and his order wanted to help him. He didn’t particularly like the necromancer, and he couldn’t get a handle on his connection to Ryse—Leramis seemed to spend an awful lot of time watching her, like he was trying to figure out what to do about her presence. Quay had spent his whole life believing that necromancers were amoral at best, backstabbing at worst, and dangerous above all else. He couldn’t throw all that away on the words of one person, no matter how interesting the words were.

  But he could give Leramis a chance to prove himself.

  The Aleani ships had grown smaller as the party filed east around the harbor. The massive dromons were long gone. A row of three-masted caravels filled the docks in their place. The stones beneath Quay’s feet gave way to wooden planking.

  Len stopped at the bottom of a long gangway leading up to the deck of a caravel. The Aleani shielded his eyes from the seaside sun. He looked down at a parchment in his hand, then back up.

  “This is it,” he said. His voice was passionless.

  The vessel was half the size of those around it and built of what looked like strong pine. It had been washed to perfection and painted black below its waterline. At the water’s edge itself, a sky-blue stripe ringed the vessel before giving way to the natural color of its hull. White sails hung from its three masts. They were triangular in the fore and the aft and slanted lateen style in the middle.

  Quay frowned again.

  His unvoiced displeasure was answered by a husky Aleani striding down the gangplank.

  “Small, aye, but t’ fastest in t’ fleet, my Rokwet is.”

  The Aleani was blue eyed and mostly bald. He sported shoulder-length, dirty-blond dreadlocks that sprouted from the hair around the sides and back of his head. Rings decorated six of his fingers, and his ears and nose were pierced. He had a tan, wrinkled face, and he wore a forked, red-yellow beard.

  As Quay watched, he reached the dock, turned to Len, and lifted the unmoving Aleani into the air.

  “Len Heramsun!” the Aleani sailor roared. “Hoo many yars has et been?” He set Len back on his feet with a thump.

  Gulls cried in the sky. The stomping of marching soldiers echoed off the waterfront. The wind filled the air, and the ocean lapped gently against the harbor walk. Len never took his eyes from the sailor’s, but Quay could read the message in his stare:

  If you’re still my friend, I need your help.

  “Captain Aldric Derimsun,” Len said. “Pride of the Aleani fleet.”

  Derimsun released Len with a queer, concerned look. The Aleani captain offered Quay one hand while rubbing his chin with the other. “You’ll be t’ Prince Eldani then, yeh?”

  Quay shook the hand. Derimsun had an unusual accent. His vowels were elongated. His consonants were sharp and clipped.

  The Aleani captain swept his other hand toward the ship. “Me second mate will shew ya to yer bunks. Wind blows strong out the part t’day. Sh’d be ready ta layve in twenny minutes, high.”

  Len stumped up the gangplank. His shoulders were hunched. His face looked troubled. Derimsun walked close behind him, twisting his beard with one hand.

  That something was wrong was obvious.

  What it was, Quay assumed he would never know.

  The party’s cabin was a square room belowdecks framed in dark brown timber. Eight hammocks hung from hooks in its walls. A few sea chests were bolted to its splintery floor.

  When Quay arrived, the cabin was empty except for Cole stuffing his belongings into a chest. Quay’s pack and the armor the Aleani had given him sat alone in the center of the room.

  Cole looked up when he entered, then back down. He looked a little pale.

  Quay leaned against the doorjamb and watched his friend. The ship rolled gently underfoot. Long moments passed, silent except for the sounds of rustling cloth, creaking wood, and water splashing outside the ship.

  But eventually, Cole spoke.

  “Y’know,” he said, “Dil said something to me the other day. About there being things in the world worth dying for.”

  Quay crossed his arms and waited. Cole placed the last of his belongings in the chest.

  “I disagreed,” he finished.

  Sailors called to one another and thumped around on the deck above. A high whistle blew. Seabirds filled Quay’s ears with honking.

  After a moment, Cole asked, “What do you think?”

  Quay uncrossed his arms and sighed. “You should already know that.”

  “Yenor’s third fucking eye, Quay. You used to be a lot less—”

  “I’m sorry,” Quay said. The motion of the ship had started to play havoc with his equilibrium, and he decided he would prefer to finish packing quickly and talk to Cole out on deck. He walked to his belongings, found his hauberk, and placed it into one of the chests.

  “Yes,” he said. “I think there are things in the world worth dying for. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “And worth killing for?”

  Quay turned around. Cole was sitting on the edge of a hammock. He looked a bit queasy, but the color had risen in his cheeks too.

  “Yes,” the prince said.

  “Worth getting other people killed for?”

  “Cole—”

  “Answer me.”

  Quay met Cole’s eyes. He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

  “Even those who’re depending on you?”

  Quay kept silent. Cole sat as still as he could in the hammock, glaring at him.

  “No one’s here because they have to be,” Quay said eventually.

  “Bullshit.” Cole stood up. “Where else are they going to go? Ryse ran from the Temple—”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  Cole twisted his head and looked down on him. It was a look Quay had gotten from his friend more than once, in private. A look he rarely got from anyone else. It said, I’m talking, and I’m smarter than you, so shut up.

  It wasn’t a look he enjoyed being on the receiving end of.

  “That doesn’t make it all right for you to take advantage of her.” Cole held his fingers out and counted people off on them as he talked. “Dil would have a hell of a time getting back to Lurathen on her own, don’t you think? And how would she feel about leaving, after how hard she begged to come with us in the first place?”

  Quay said nothing.

  “I could leave, but you know I won’t without my brother and Dil. Len puts up with you because he thinks you’re his best shot at finding this D’Orin Threi. Even the fucking necromancer is here because he was sent to you.”

  Quay’s stomach twisted. In his memory, his mother’s voice whispered a hundred things about being kind to those who had no choice but to follow him.

  That voice mattered to him, and he was certain that Cole knew it. His friend had been in the ro
om more than once when she’d broached the subject.

  You’re dancing on my mother’s grave, he almost said. Stop.

  But it was Cole’s job not to stop with him. Not ever.

  “And Litnig?” Quay asked.

  Cole’s face hardened. The pallor left his cheeks. He straightened up like a mother standing over her child.

  “Something’s wrong with him,” Cole said. He jabbed a finger at Quay’s chest. “And I don’t know what it is, but I’ll be damned if I let you take advantage of it. You’re using us. All of us. And it’s bullshit.”

  The wind picked up outside. The waves of the harbor slapped against the ship. Quay’s stomach churned. Cole reached for the wall to steady himself.

  “Then what would you have me do?” Quay asked. He straightened. “If we fail, Cole, the world burns. Do you understand that?”

  Cole rolled his eyes, and Quay narrowed his own.

  “I have to keep us moving. I can’t afford to be soft. I can’t afford to be nice. You think I like it?”

  Cole stared at Quay. “Then it sounds like you’re a much poorer man than I thought.”

  The words stung. Quay locked eyes with Cole. His friend didn’t flinch.

  Quay turned back to the sea chest.

  The floorboards creaked. A familiar arm hooked under Quay’s armpit. Something hard and cold pressed painfully against his rib cage.

  Quay froze.

  “Cole—”

  Cole pulled the blunt end of a dagger away from Quay’s ribs.

  “You’re not fucking invincible,” he whispered in the prince’s ear. His breathing sounded loud and fast.

  After a moment, it faded with his footsteps into the shadows of the ship’s hold.

  Quay knelt in silence. For several years, Cole had been the eyes in the back of his head, his warning when he couldn’t see the dangers he was walking into.

  Later, Quay would begin the process of heeding Cole’s words.

  But for the moment, the prince simply packed his belongings, alone, with his stomach churning and the words of his friend and his mother ringing in his head.

  THIRTY-TWO