by Tim Stead
He pricked the skin of her neck with the knife’s point, enough that she felt the blood running on her skin. Calaine was brave, would face any man, but this wasn’t how she wanted to die. Fear was battering at her mind, and she felt a pricking at the back of her eyes. She gritted her teeth.
“You’re death will be much, much slower than mine, Fram,” she said.
“You’ll never know for sure, though,” he smiled, and the smile froze on his face. A sword point had appeared just behind his ear, and was lifting him slowly from his position on top of her. Now one of her arms was free. She rolled again, ignoring the pain in her battered limbs, kicked, kicked again, and was free. In an instant she was on her feet.
“Give me a sword,” she shouted, and then caught sight of her rescuers, twenty men and women on horseback, armoured, long swords and white tabards. Some were archers. They were guards, and they were Ocean’s Gate. She just stared at them. It was too much to bear. She heard Fram laugh.
“Are you all right?” It was one of the guards; an officer. He sat on his horse looking young and competent. He looked concerned too, even kind. He took off a coat that he was wearing over his mail and swung down out of the saddle, walked over and hung it around her shoulders. She pulled it around her, suddenly aware that she was half naked. “You are all right?”
“Oh, well done, captain.” It was Fram. He was firmly held by two men, but he was grinning. The captain glanced back at him with an irritated expression, and then looked back at Calaine.
“Are you injured?”
“Just bruises,” she said. If she went for Fram could she get a knife into him before he talked? There were too many people in the way.
“You’ll get promoted for this, captain,” Fram went on.
“Am I going to have to have you gagged?” the captain asked.
“You don’t know who that is, do you captain?”
The captain studied her a little more closely.
“Would you lend me a sword, captain?” she asked. He shook his head.
“No, this one is going to be tried. Tarlyn Saine will decide his fate.”
“Be careful, captain,” Fram called out. “She’s a royalist. She’ll kill you if you give her a weapon.”
“Will you shut him up?” he called back to his men, and a protesting, struggling Fram was gagged. “This is getting ridiculous,” the captain said. He bowed slightly to her. “I am Captain Bren Portina, Ocean’s Gate guard, formerly of the city of Blaye” he said.
There was no hiding it.
“Calaine Tarnell,” she said. She saw a moment of mild surprise as he connected the name to his memory.
“Please,” he said. “Ride with us back to Morningside. I take it that you know Corban Saine,” he gestured to the rope still lying on the ground, and the two dead militiamen. “I thought you were Corban when we came upon you. I’ve never seen anyone else climbing up here.”
“Corban has been teaching me,” she admitted. What was the game here? She had expected to be arrested. She climbed up onto a horse next to the captain. Should she ride for it? She looked back at the archers and decided against it. She was in Captain Portina’s power, at least for the moment.
They set out along the ridge line, and they rode in silence for a while.
“I know your family,” he said eventually. “My father met your grandfather once.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Didn’t like him much,” Portina confided. “He thought him a hateful old bastard.”
It suddenly seemed very funny to Calaine, and she laughed.
“Quite right,” she agreed. “Did he really meet him?”
“Oh yes. They spoke for an hour, I believe.”
“Portina, you said? From Blaye?”
“Yes.”
“They make very good wine in Blaye, or so my father says.”
Calaine now knew why she hadn’t been arrested and bound. Portina was the family name, or more correctly the house name of the royal family of Blaye. This captain of guard was of old royal blood.
“I always have a few cases,” he said.
“Will you tell me exactly who you are, captain?”
“I have. Unless you mean in terms of extinct royalty?”
“That. Yes.”
“Since my father died last year I am technically the King of Blaye.”
“Regani…”
“If I pretended to that title I would be a poor servant of the guard. Please don’t use it. Some people in Blaye still think that way, but I do not.”
“You have renounced your throne?” Calaine was shocked.
“No. It was taken from my family four hundred years ago. We’ve kept the traditions, and even as I am I hope to serve the city in some small way, but there is no king of Blaye. Borbonil rules: it is a fact.”
“But you didn’t arrest me.”
“Forgive me for saying this, my lady, but Ocean’s Gate has no interest in you and your father. You have been a minor irritation in the past, but we have bigger problems.”
“How so?” Calaine’s interest was sparked.
“You have heard of White Rock, and Gerique?”
“Of course.”
“Have you heard of a man called Serhan?”
“Corban mentioned him. He serves Gerique?”
“Yes. He is Seneschal of White Rock. Borbonil was embarrassed by him, and seeks his downfall, but has been frustrated, even humiliated by him.”
“A man? How has he done this?”
“The strength of the guard at Ocean’s Gate is four hundred below what it was two years ago, and all that is Serhan’s work, though he has only responded to our attacks.”
“I do not understand. Four hundred men?”
Portina told her the tale of the original ruse, and how it had been reversed. He told her what Serhan had been doing in the towns and villages of White Rock, and of the trick that they had attempted, and how it had failed so badly.
“I would not willingly go against him again,” Portina concluded. “Those who faced him in battle say that he is not a man, so terrible was he, and yet he spared so many lives that he could have taken. It was hard enough when we only faced Gerique’s captain – he has a great gift for strategy - but this Serhan has something more.”
“You saw him?”
“I was there. I surrendered to him. I sat with him by his fire and took a cup of wine with him and captain Grand.”
“What did you think of him?”
“He is a bitter man, unhappy. One of the guardsmen said that he had lost someone very close, and yet he was kind to us and spared us all. It was not what we expected. If I was not still committed to Blaye I would have accepted his offer to serve White Rock. Their lands have become the kindest place to live. I believe that he is a great man, and I think that even Borbonil fears him, though it is impossible to think why.”
It was a revelation to Calaine. In just two years this Serhan had done more damage to Ocean’s Gate than her father’s line had in four centuries of struggle. Even protected by Gerique it was an impressive record. Yet some men doubted his humanity. If not a man, then what?
“You are sure he is a man?”
“As sure as I am that you are a woman,” he replied. She blushed.
They were in Morningside by now, and the streets were becoming familiar. She had been struck many times by Fram, and her torn shirt was coloured by her own blood. She must look worse even than Ella had done at that first meeting.
Yet she was proud. She had fought and not given in. Fear had come and she had felt it, and still she had fought. She had never felt fear before, not like that. She straightened her back and rode regally into the street where Saine’s house stood. They would be concerned, anxious, kind, and it was all good. She was a soldier, but it was good to feel that warmth about her. It was a thing to come back to. It was happiness.
33 Sacrifice
White Rock seemed like an empty shell. Serhan drifted through his life with eyes closed, always s
eeing another time. His memory played the past before him, and he remembered every detail of every moment. Sometimes he sat in his room for entire days, and sometimes he drank. People came to speak to him and he listened, did what they asked, and they left. Sometimes at night he walked on the walls, looking down at the plains from which White Rock rose. He would sit for hours looking down on the small settlement that was growing at the base of the rock outcrop; the place where Delf had camped the first time he had come here. A lot of the Ocean’s Gate people had settled there, and cultivation was spreading steadily from the new village.
Nothing seemed to have any depth now, and his life had slowed almost to a standstill. His work was done. The people of White Rock were happier, and growing more prosperous as time passed. His enemies were defeated, his friends were secure. He felt free to indulge his grief.
The Faer Karan still ruled, but there was no way to defeat them. The best had already tried and failed, and besides, that was Brial’s vendetta.
This night he was wrapped in a cloak and wedged in a corner where he could look to the west and see the stars set over the mountains. They filled the sky with secret shapes, and he had begun painting Mai into their geometry, finding the line of her eye in one place, and the angle of her smile in another.
There was a noise on the parapet behind him, but he ignored it. The guards patrolled all areas, but would go away again when they saw him. They did not speak to him any more.
Something touched his hand, and he felt a stinging, like a wasp. He rubbed the hand and turned in irritation to see the cause.
It was the Shan. She was dressed in the same drab hooded cloak that she had worn on their only previous encounter. She had lied for him, he remembered, called him something mythological – Frateri Moru - that was it.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Come with me,” she said. There was something odd about her voice. It seemed to reach inside him and resonate, like a string somewhere deep in his body being plucked. He unfolded from his corner and began to follow.
Why am I doing this? Do I want to do it? He tried to stop walking, to demand an explanation from the Shan, but he kept walking, said nothing. She sensed something, and stopped and turned.
“It is a drug,” she said. “A few seconds after I broke your skin you became unable to resist my instructions. It is a harmless thing, and will wear off, but you must be assured that I mean you no ill. This is quickest, and I do not have much time.”
A drug. She turned and walked on. He followed, still trying to break its hold over him, but nothing he did seemed to have any effect.
They went down, passed across the courtyard and up the stairs into the Shan’s chambers.
“Sit there,” she said, indicating a seat. He sat.
She left him for a while, working with bottles and other things that clinked together in a sinister way. He watched her closely, and after a while she came back to where he sat, dragging another chair and carrying a small glass filled with bright blue liquid. She placed the chair next to his and sat in it, holding the glass.
Her face was interesting, and though he was not sure how to read it, he thought that she looked sad.
“I am going to explain things to you, boy,” she said. “I call you a boy because you behave like one, and if you carry on like this you will never become a man, never complete your destiny.”
I do not want a destiny.
“You see, you have to listen now,” she smiled at him. It was not a very warm smile. “Makes a change, doesn’t it?”
It did. He had come to think of himself as mighty, a mage of the old school able to perform miracles on demand, restrained only by his desire to remain hidden from the Faer Karan. Now he was a puppet for a small, old Shan.
“We can see the future,” she said. “Or at least we can see things that might come to pass; likely things. It is an art, and nothing is certain. In you I saw the end of the third age of this world. You have it in you to defeat the Faer Karan.” She walked round the chair until she was in front of him and looked into his eyes. “It was a strong vision, a good chance.
“You have questions. How? When? I have no answers. I do know that you are allowing your destiny to slip away from you. This mourning has become your life. It is eating into you like a wasting disease. You must leave it in its place, move forwards, take responsibility for what you are, and what you might become.”
What is that? Is there anything that I could become that I would want to be?
“Nobody is brave enough to set you straight any more, my lord Serhan. Child though you are, you wield powers that frighten the plain folk of White Rock. Even your friends are no longer confident of your good will. I see it.
“So I have said to myself, what can I do? I am old. I had hoped to spend this time, this last precious time with my family, my friends, and when the time came for me to pass into darkness I could give the last great gift to one who was worthy.
“You do not know what I am talking about, great mage. You are still ignorant. Even Corderan, even he respected us. The Faer Karan do not respect, and we do not love them, but they have not destroyed us, and so we do their bidding, and we look for the end of them. We look for you.”
Serhan was swimming in her words. He was to defeat the Faer Karan? It was not a possible thing, and yet she had seen it, or spoke as though she had.
“I am here. I wish that I was not, but I was summoned and I came. We cannot refuse. I am old, though. Old enough to die. We are cursed, my lord Serhan, as you are not. We can see our end as it comes upon us, and choices become sharp, abrupt and fatal. I know that Gerique suspects that I have deceived him, and in less than a few days he will seek to force the truth from me.”
The Shan covered her eyes and turned her head.
“We are not good at pain,” she said. “If he asks, I will tell him everything, because it is not within my power to deny him if I am in his hand. And this is my sharp choice. I will never go home, never see my family again, but I still have a great gift to give.
“Among the Shan we have a ceremony that we perform, but it is more than just words and gestures. We call it death mating. It is the way we have of passing knowledge from one generation to another. It is our greatest gift.”
“If I die and you live there is still a chance that you will fail, but if I live and you die the world may wait another four hundred years for another chance. Either road I will die soon, far from home, friends and the dignity that I deserve.”
The Shan put a small table in front of the two seats and placed a green ribbon on it. She went back across the room and fetched a second glass. This contained a red liquid. She placed it beside Serhan’s hand on the table.
“In a sense, we live forever,” she said. “In each generation the wise and noble pass on their knowledge and even part of their personality to the worthiest of the young. You are not Shan, but in a sense you are worthy. I do not know how well this will work, because no man had ever taken the role of death mate before. It is not desired, for men are capricious and faithless by nature. They are easily distracted.
“You are unusual. There are seeds of greatness within you, but it will be many years and there will be much pain before there can be any worthy fruit. In the absence of anyone else I, the Seer Sage Rin Percan Sylbastinorette, have chosen you, Cal Serhan, Lord Seneschal of the domains of White Rock, to be my death mate.”
She took the green ribbon and used it to bind their hands together, so that his left hand was in her right.
“Take the red drink and swallow it down in one draught,” she said. He did as he was told. The drug that weakened his will was still potent. He found the taste sweet and, after a moment or two, numbing on the tongue.
“It is a mixture,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “One part of it is a sleeping draught. It is best that you sleep through this, and it will make no difference to the outcome. There is also something in it that will allow our minds to become each other’s, to mer
ge.” She shrugged. “I believe that it will work well enough on a man. This other,” she said, holding up the blue glass, “contains the same substance. It also contains a slow poison. When you awake from your sleep I will be dead, and your mind will be, I hope, somewhat enriched.”
The seer sage drained the blue glass and sat down in the chair.
“Because I do this for you,” she said, “I have a request. Protect my people. I know that you have read Corderan’s book, and that you admire him. Know that he was our protector from all the world. If you live, be the same for us. Protect my people.
“Also, when you wake take the glasses and the ribbon with you. Destroy them. Move the chairs. If Gerique thinks there has been a death mate he will suspect you and no other. Now my strength begins to fail. Sleep. Fulfil your destiny.”
Serhan felt a warm darkness closing over him, and somewhere in it he saw a house, ancient and comfortable in its seat, perched in the hot southern sun above cliffs that fell away to a stunning blue sea. Home was the word that came to him.
Then there was nothing but darkness.
34 Voices
There was light, and it hurt his eyes. He crushed his eyelids together, but it persisted so he opened them, looked up at the ceiling. His mouth felt bad. There was a stickiness and a thickness there that reminded him of a shocking hangover, but it was worse than that.
I need water.
His whole body ached. This was a feeling that he knew. Sleeping in wooden chairs is never wise. The muscles cramp and flesh is pressed between bone and wood. It bruises.
The Shan.
He started up in the chair, memory returning in a rush, and gasped at the pain. Everything hurt, but especially his head.
The Shan sat in the chair beside him. She looked still and peaceful, eyes closed and hands resting lightly in her lap. There was a glass on the table between them, and it contained a trace of blue liquid. He levered himself upright and examined her more closely, working hard to focus on the task through the pain and discomfort. She was dead.