Raegus held Trell’s gaze for a long moment. Then he looked back to the goblet in his hand, grimaced, and drank the rest of it down. “Gah—” he shook his head again and pressed a fist to his ribcage, “far be it from me to question you.”
“I hope you will never cease doing so.” Trell stood and laid a hand on the Avataren’s shoulder. “Thank you for your prayers. I’m grateful for your counsel. Who knows…” he cast a shadowy smile to the heavens, “Inanna may actually be listening. I hear She has a soft spot for lost causes.”
Raegus managed a grim grunt. “I think you’re confusing the Goddess of War with Her brother Shamash.”
Trell smiled at him. “We can pray to the Traveling God, too. When you’re pitting yourself against the impossible, it never hurts to have a few immortals on your side.”
***
“It did not succeed.”
The unwelcome words from the spy scalded the wielder Kifat’s mental ears. He fixed his hand more firmly around the ring he wore and focused on the spy’s voice on the other end of the bonded line. “How could you fail? You said you had the proper poison!”
“The poison did its duty,” the spy replied tightly, mind to mind, “but a Sundragon came to the aid of the company in time to save many lives. The act wouldn’t have resulted in our goal in any case, for Rolan Lamodaar gave the prince his own bowl, which his personal cook had prepared. This unfortunately could not be prevented.”
Kifat hissed a curse, which echoed back to him from the stone walls of his tower chambers. His master, Viernan hal’Jaitar, would be outraged that Trell val Lorian still lived, and the Consul was not a man who let failure go unpunished. “Do you have some other means of reaching the prince yourself?”
“Not without compromising my position.”
“But you haven’t compromised yourself with this poisoning?”
“No. I left one of the pots untouched, so a number in the company were spared any sickness. That I was among them raised no brows.”
“That was prudent thinking.” Kifat turned his ring on his finger, pondering his choices. His master had been clear on what he must do if the val Lorian prince actually reached Khor Taran, but perhaps they hadn’t exhausted every avenue yet.
Kifat focused back on the spy. “Where are you now?”
“Halted for the night while the company recovers. But we’ve kept a steady south-eastward advance thus far.”
“You’re near the mountain then?”
“Yes.”
Kifat’s lips parted in a smile. He sensed victory on the horizon after all. The Prophet’s Saldarians had left camps like boils all across Mount Attarak’s north-lying shadow. The mercenaries had proven something of a nuisance to Kifat since they arrived in the area, but now they could make themselves useful.
“Report to me tomorrow with the company’s exact location,” he told the spy. “I will have my own surprise ready for our heroic Prince of Dannym.”
Forty-seven
“Anything truly decent in life is either illegal, immoral or life-threatening.”
–The royal cousin Fynnlar val Lorian
Dawn greeted the world with a lover’s gentle kiss, sending a blush across the heavens and a sighing wind through the trees. The sunrise found Trell working the cortata in a high meadow overlooking the towering peak of Mount Attarak. The others of his council shadowed his movements—Loukas, Tannour, Nyongo, Rolan. Even Raegus had dragged himself from his sickbed to practice swords with his A’dal.
Though he hadn’t slept himself, or perhaps because of it, Trell arrived while darkness still gripped the land, and he worked the first time through his forms fast and hard. By the time his officers started arriving with the first paling of the sky, he felt energized again.
Somewhere beneath him, among the trees and the tents of his Converted, Jaya and the Healer were still tending to the ill. It had been a long night for everyone. Yet for Trell, it made those lessons in the cortata that much more vital. These were the men he’d chosen to depend upon, even as they were depending upon him. He was duty bound to offer them every advantage he could muster.
And as he taught them, he observed them.
He saw where they struggled and where they excelled. He noted the sequences that challenged them and how they met those challenges. Rolan and Raegus, both seasoned men nearly twice his age, accepted each challenge, addressing them but not combating them. If they failed to finish a form, they merely found the movement again to the best of their ability and kept going, their focus intact.
But Nyongo found grave difficulty in facing his own imperfection; he struggled any time he hit a position he couldn’t execute perfectly. He’d soon moved himself to the very back where he could accompany his practice with a steady stream of invective in his native Shi’maan tongue.
Tannour and Loukas were another matter entirely.
Every time Trell turned so as to view the men behind him, his gaze went automatically to Tannour. The Vestian worked his forms with a dexterity that was both elegant and deadly, the sinuous motion of a viper coiling to strike. One would have to know the forms intimately to notice the difference in Tannour’s technique, but Trell often saw him make a turn of ankle or wrist, a twist of his blade after he’d stabbed it—subtle shifts of motion that were the method of a man trained to strike once and make it a killing blow. And the sections Rolan and the others struggled with, Tannour sailed through. Either he was just that talented of a swordsman, or he’d studied the cortata before.
Trell couldn’t help but perceive strains of Taliah in Tannour’s motions, these flourishes that were decidedly Vestian in flair and in some way echoic of their famous curved blades. Trell thought he could see the mor’alir influence in the way Tannour worked the cortata, and he well understood Rolan’s comment about Tannour’s swordplay haunting his dreams.
He would’ve liked to observe the currents of elae, as Alyneri was learning to do, that he might see how these embellishments Tannour was putting onto each sword form were changing the cortata’s pattern, for surely they were. Instead, he admitted his fascination with the way the man moved, and he gave thanks that Tannour was fighting on his side.
Perhaps more surprising to him than Tannour—for he’d expected uniqueness from the Vestian as a result of Rolan’s comment—was watching Loukas. It took Trell at least half the sequence before he figured out why Loukas’s wary, methodical movements seemed so incongruous to him. Finally, he hit upon the understanding.
Loukas was working the cortata with slow and careful precision, staying just a heartbeat behind everyone else, struggling—not because the motions were new to him but because they weren’t; because he was attempting with his every breath to make something incredibly familiar seem foreign; because he was trying to hide the fact that he actually knew the sequence intimately…perhaps even better than Trell.
Loukas’s position as a combat engineer often put his life in greater peril than the men faced in open combat, and while the Converted teased him relentlessly over his lack of skill with a sword, they never challenged his courage. But Loukas might’ve forgone all of that by proving he knew his way around a blade.
Trell couldn’t imagine why he would rather earn their ostracism than their respect, but instinct told him it had something to do with Tannour—if only from the way the two men were studiously not looking at one another while the rest were carefully observing and learning from each other’s movements.
Trell finished the final form and stepped out of the cortata. Turning to face the others, he swept his sword to the side and bowed low.
They mimicked his motion.
Whereupon applause brought all of their heads around to the south.
Perhaps three dozen men were standing or sitting along the line of the trees. Some hardly looked capable of moving, yet their expressions all reflected that particular light that illuminates a man’s face when he fixes on a challenge he simply can’t forgo.
Plenty of jesting accompanied the appl
ause, calls to one or another of Trell’s protégés asking if they could have the next dance. Plenty of laughter, too.
Trell opened his arms to the audience of soldiers. “All right then, do you want to learn it?” A low chorus of assent came in reply, and a dozen or men so started up the incline. Trell shook his head at the rest of them. “Inanna preserve us, you’re a sorry lot. Half of you still look like Madaam Chouri’s grinding your balls beneath her pestle.”
That got the remaining ones on their feet.
“Well, all right—come up and prove your mettle. No swords. You’ll learn the sequence first.” Trell looked to Raegus. “I’m going back to camp to see about those who couldn’t make it up the hill for the show.”
Raegus looked confused. “But, A’dal, who will lead us?”
Trell looked purposefully to Loukas. “Loukas has it best.”
All of the men turned as one and stared at the Avataren. Tannour’s mouth fell open.
Loukas gave Trell a look so desperately pleading that it stabbed at his conscience, but he had to do what was best by the company. He held the Avataren’s gaze and gave the slightest shake of his head. No, he wouldn’t change his mind.
Loukas closed his eyes briefly. Then gave a forceful exhale and started towards the front. Tannour stared at him with dark reproof the entire way.
Raegus cleared his throat. “You heard our A’dal. Line up behind n’Abraxis.”
The men found their places.
Loukas visibly swallowed. He pulled at the placket on his tunic and straightened his shoulders. “So…no blades, like our A’dal said. We work the sequence. Follow my motion.” He began the cortata anew, leading Trell’s officers and three dozen soldiers through Cardinal Skims the Water and executing it perfectly.
Trell let out a slow breath and headed back to camp.
He knew he wasn’t doing Loukas any favors with this action—certainly Loukas would see it that way—but the engineer clearly had the sequence better even than Tannour and was thereby best suited to teach the rest of the company. Besides, whatever dark drama was unfolding between Tannour Valeri and Loukas n’Abraxis, Trell had no intention of playing a part in it.
Trell met Jaya as she was coming out of Madaam Chouri’s tent. Though she hadn’t slept, she looked every bit as radiant as she had upon her arrival.
“My lady,” Trell took her hands in his, “my men and I thank you for all your efforts here.”
“Your Healer is wise and capable, Trell of the Tides. See that she’s well cared for and your company will be also.”
“I surely will, my lady. I take it you’re leaving us now?”
“Before I wear out my welcome.” A brief smile lightened her mood. “My brothers call me back. I’m not sure how long it will be before one of us can visit again.”
“I understand the situation, Jaya. We all have to play our positions.”
His words for an instant gave her pause. Then she cupped his face tenderly. “Such wisdom. I confess, at first I protested Vaile’s choice to go to Darroyhan for you, but now I see she was wiser than I was.”
Trell wasn’t sure how to interpret her comment, though he thought Jaya had meant it kindly. He offered his arm to her in escort, and she took it with a smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes.
The camp was much calmer than it had been the night before. Many men were up and about tending to their gear or just breathing air that wasn’t thick with sickness and the stinking broth Madaam Chouri had ordered to ease their ills. Every man they passed bowed deeply to Jaya.
“Was it the Balance, my lady?” Trell asked. When she glanced to him inquiringly, he clarified, “The reason you didn’t want Vaile to go to Darroyhan—was it because of Balance?”
A shadow befell Jaya’s expression. “I don’t know if you will ever understand what she did for you.”
He searched her gaze. “Do you think it’s possible for me to be more appreciative than to know I owe her my life? Or to show her my gratitude more fully than to do everything she asks of me? If there’s more I can do, Jaya—I beg you, tell me.”
Jaya’s expression softened, and she leaned and kissed his cheek. “You are worthy, Trell—worthy of all she’s done, and an unworthy target for my disquiet.”
She started walking again with a gentle tug on his arm. “The creature that assaulted Vaile at Darroyhan…” she glanced to him, seeking his recollection—as if he could ever forget the moment. “Vaile should’ve been able to recover from its attack by now, even from something so foul as deyjiin channeled directly into her undefended core.”
Trell heard the hesitation in her voice. “But?”
Jaya cast him a sidelong glance, burdened with regret. “I fear she doesn’t want to.” She added tremulously, “We all fear it so.”
Trell thought back to his first meeting with Vaile and the deep melancholy she’d revealed to him. “She’s been lonely for a long time, hasn’t she?”
“Vaile wed herself to sorrow many ages ago.” Jaya offered a smile through her exhale, though it failed to dispel the shadows from her gaze. “Our thoughts are powerful things, Trell. A wielder knows better than anyone that our thoughts determine our success or our failure. Our thoughts, our viewpoints, shape our world, and we shape ourselves to conform to our thoughts.”
They passed a line of compulsively bowing Converted, and Jaya summoned a smile for their pleasure, but she drew herself closer against Trell’s escorting arm. “Immortality can be a wondrous gift, but it can also be…” she compressed her lips, “it can be a terrible curse. Some complain about the Returning and the loss of memory that accompanies a mortal’s death and reAwakening, but when you pass through the Extian Doors, you shed the mistakes of an entire lifetime—all of your errors, misdeeds, betrayals…you’re given a chance to live again, to live better, without the drowning weight of your mistakes.”
Jaya puffed a strand of golden hair from her eyes and glanced at him with a hint of irritability behind her gaze. “Mind you, Náiir would argue that one is never truly free of past deeds, but this is neither here nor there. Are you taking my point, Trell?”
“Indelibly, Jaya.”
“Good.” She considered him with kindness carving a deep furrow between her brows. “It’s important that you understand these things, for one day you…” she seemed to bite back her words, shook her head and said instead, “One day it may be something you need to consider. Immortality means never forgetting. The compounding losses of decades, centuries, millennia build until their weight becomes unbearable. You have to find a way to free yourself of them or they’ll suffocate you.”
She gripped his arm tightly, as if fearing to sink into the deep waters of memory. “One hopes…” she began more faintly, “one hopes for more moments of pleasure than pain, but they don’t equal out—no, they never seem to balance each other. The tragic memories are frequently so much more powerful than the fair and transient moments of joy—or at least they feel so when you’re suffering grief’s lasting scourge. And those memories compound and build until very soon they’re towering over us, casting their lengthy shadows so far that we cannot even see the daylight around their edges.”
Trell placed a hand over Jaya’s and gripped it tightly. “What can I do?”
She lifted a startled look to him. Then she smiled with gentle appreciation. “Nothing. Merely understand. I haven’t seen Vaile care for anyone in a long time the way she cares for you and Alyneri.”
They’d reached the edge of camp and the path Jaya had arrived on the day before. She took Trell’s hands in hers, looking down at them with the citrine stones as dazzling yellow-orange stars on her brow and her hair shining with that radiant golden glow. She seemed to want to say more, but in the end, she just kissed him on each cheek, smiled in her solemn way, and took her leave.
Trell watched the skies and listened for the wind of her departure, but she mustn’t have wanted to announce her leave as she’d announced her arrival the day before, because only a lonesom
e breeze sighed through the trees.
“A’dal…?” Rami’s hand on Trell’s shoulder woke him.
He sat up stiffly, only then realizing that he’d dozed off in his chair. On the table before him were several maps of the Abu’Dhan region, including Jaya’s diagram of Khor Taran. After he’d left Jaya, he’d returned to study the maps.
Trell pressed palms to his eyes. “What time is it?”
“They just rang the bell for dinner, A’dal.” Rami towered over Trell’s seated form, for he had the sort of lanky-limbed physique that came to boys whose bones were growing faster than their bodies or brains could keep up with. “But there is…that is, there might be a problem.”
Trell sat back in his chair. “What kind of problem?”
Rami scratched uncertainly at his head, slightly dislodging his turban in the process. “The kind it is appropriate for our A’dal to solve?” he suggested hopefully.
Trell looked him over. “I see.” He slowly pushed out of his chair, registering grave protest from nearly every part of his body, and tried to shake his mind free of the hold sleep still had on it. “Does this problem require a weapon?”
“Jai’Gar willing, I pray not.” Rami handed Trell his cloak.
Trell accepted it with a curiously arched eyebrow.
The boy gave a disarming shrug. “The night grows cold.”
“This is all very mysterious, Rami.”
“Some things are better left to the eyes than the tongue, A’dal.”
Trell cast him a smile while fastening the clasp on his cloak. “That’s quite a wise thing to say.”
“Would that it was my wisdom, but it is my mother’s.” The boy followed him outside the tent. “She says this to me most often when I am trying to take food from the table before the meal. No manner of protest or debate—no matter how logical or well thought out—can swerve her from her surety of this wisdom.”
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