[fan] fourth talisman 01 - nocturne

by Kat Ross

  “What is your name?”

  The witch smiled. “What’s yours?”

  Thena tilted her head. Then she found the place where the collar joined them and gave it a hard squeeze. His jaw clenched but he made no sound. Still she felt that eerie calm. Thena probed deeper, giving him a taste of what she could do. She felt almost excited. This one would be a challenge worthy of her talents. But in the end, he would break. They all did.

  “I’ll let you think on it for a while,” she said, touching his cheek. “Andros. That’s what I shall call you.”

  She felt his wintry blue eyes on her back as she left.

  Thena had realized what he was the moment he’d snatched her jug out of the air. She’d never captured one of the witches herself and it required all of her self-control not to run away. All the acolytes carried a small pouch of spell dust, though, just in case something went wrong. Magic was wicked, but the Pythia said it could be used for very special purposes. She had taught Thena the words to take away sight and hearing, if only for a few seconds.

  The Pythia’s personal chambers consisted of two rooms, both sparely decorated. The smaller one held a bed and dressing table. The slightly larger one Thena entered now was the audience chamber, where she brought the daēvas for questioning.

  The previous Pythia had filled her suite with figurines of jade and ebony, rich tapestries and heavy, ornate furniture. But the new Pythia disdained these things and had them all carted out and given to the poor the day she assumed her office. She kept her rooms as simple as an acolyte’s. The only item she had saved was an ivory-inlaid table, which was covered with scrolls and sheets of parchment.

  The Oracle of Delphi reclined on a couch, head propped on the armrest and long black braid brushing the floor. She wore a simple length of undyed wool fastened by a brooch at the shoulder. It was in the shape of a serpent and the gold caught the firelight from a brazier in the corner.

  “Did he speak?”

  “Yes, but he still resists.”

  She nodded calmly. “I leave him in your capable hands, daughter. You say he knew the girl who escaped?”

  “Yes, he asked about her when I met him.”

  “That’s interesting.” She thought for a moment. “Bring me the Danai you call Beryl. But show her the new witch first. See how she reacts.”

  Thena hurried off and fetched Beryl. She had vapid eyes, like a cow, and looked Andros over without interest. He didn’t speak to her and Thena saw no spark of recognition in his eyes. When she returned, she reported that it was her opinion the two did not know each other.

  “Perhaps,” the Pythia said. “There are seven Danai houses after all. Let us ask the witch directly. Beryl?”

  The witch’s head snapped around. “Yes, Pythia?”

  “Do you know the name of the daēva you just saw?”

  “No, Pythia.”

  The Oracle sighed. “Let us move on then.”

  Thena started for the door, but to her surprise, the Pythia called her back.

  “I’m very pleased with you, sun daughter. You thought quickly today.”

  Thena flushed with pleasure. “I wish only to serve the god.”

  “And so you shall. I have a task I need your help with. You know how to read and write, yes?”

  “I learned at the temple when I first came.”

  “Excellent. You will be my scribe.” The Pythia rose and walked to the ivory-inlaid table. “These are records I’ve compiled on the various houses and holdfasts. I wish to map the ancestry of the witches, so we may better understand them.”

  Thena nodded, unsure what was expected of her and afraid she would fail.

  The Pythia laughed. “Don’t look so worried. I only wish you to write down what Beryl tells me. You can do that surely?”

  “Yes.” Thena nodded again, relieved. “I can do that.”

  The Pythia produced a box with ink and a stylus, and a fresh sheet of parchment. Thena took them and sat down cross-legged on the floor.

  “Now, Beryl. I want you to focus very hard on these names. Yesterday, I believe we reached back six generations, but you must go farther than that. Am I clear?”

  A sheen of sweat coated Beryl’s brow.

  “Yes, Pythia. I will try my best. But this was long before I was born—”

  “Don’t make excuses. You haven’t failed yet.” The Pythia smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “It is very important you remember. Here is the first name….”

  The Pythia began to speak, with Beryl stammering answers that Thena faithfully recorded. But her mind soon roamed elsewhere. To the room where Andros was chained, awake and brooding. She could feel him, although his state of mind remained a mystery. Why was he so different from the others? What secrets was he hiding?

  Thena wrote until her hand cramped and the parchment accumulated into a neat pile. She felt oddly happy. The Pythia favored her, and now she had Andros.

  He would be her special project.

  39

  An Unlikely Savior

  The dungeons of the Polemarch lay deep beneath the Acropolis in an area near the river. As a result, they were eternally swampy and humid. Black mold covered the mortar between the stones and pools of still water provided a lively habitat for the colonies of mosquitoes that thrived on the blood of the unfortunate souls confined there. Many were murderers and thieves, but others had simply said the wrong thing to the wrong person. With its unstable balance of powers and constantly shifting political alliances, the city of Delphi had become a swamp itself—of intrigues and back-stabbing among the Archons, the aristocracy, the philosophers and the assembly, not to mention the multitude of temples, of which the cult of Apollo was easily the most powerful.

  From his years navigating the inner workings of the Merchants’ Guild and queries in the taverns, Javid understood some of it, not that the knowledge did him any good. He huddled in the corner of one of the larger cells, trying to figure out where exactly he’d gone wrong to end up at such a pass. Had he angered the Holy Father in some way? After a happy conclusion to the negotiations with the daēvas, the trip had been one disaster after another.

  He’d had such grand plans. With his own wind ship, he’d intended to start a business dealing in lucrative black market spell dust. Javid had spent the last several years cultivating contacts with the right connections. He still didn’t know the physical source of the dust itself, but after tracing a long and convoluted chain of middlemen, he’d finally discovered who ran the whole operation: a powerful noble named Izad Asabana. Discreet inquiries revealed that Asabana had been a nobody only two decades before. Then the king had abruptly elevated him to the royal advisory council and given him a large estate on prime lands near the river—right around the same time spell dust appeared. It had to be because Asabana controlled the source. By law, only the magi and the king were supposed to use the dust, but that didn’t stop it from leaking into the black market. And there was a fortune to be made for someone with his own ship who was willing to take risks.

  Javid slapped at a mosquito and examined the drop of blood on his palm with resignation. The river barge to Samarkand was long gone. He would probably be executed, or at least horribly tortured. And he had nothing useful to tell his torturers. He figured Ashraf must be a daēva in disguise. There was no other explanation for what he’d witnessed.

  “Persian pig.”

  He looked up, squinting through the eye the Polemarch’s soldiers had blackened.

  “Turn out your pockets.”

  The gentleman who stood over him had arms like ham hocks and a bald head shaped like a lumpy potato. Javid hadn’t looked in a mirror lately, but he had a feeling this prisoner looked even worse than he did.

  “They already took everything.” He turned out his pockets with an apologetic smile.

  The man grunted. “Get up.”

  The other prisoners in the cell suddenly found something fascinating to stare at on the grimy walls. Except for one. He’d clearly been th
ere a long time. Javid thought he might be some minor aristocrat because his clothes were of a decent cut and material, though filthy. He had long, dark hair held back by a leather thong and keen grey eyes that observed the proceedings impassively.

  Javid sighed and rose to his feet.

  “I don’t have—”

  The man seized the front of his shirt.

  “Take your coat off. It’s mine now.”

  Javid’s stomach lurched.

  “It won’t fit you anyway—”

  “Take it off.”

  He tried to shove the man away, but it was like pushing a boulder. They tussled for a moment and the man yanked at his clothing, pulling the coat half off and tearing his shirt. His eyes opened wide. Javid crossed his arms over his chest and backed away, breathing hard.

  “Well, look what we got, fellows!” The giant crowed. “Maybe those bastards aren’t so bad after all. They gave us a woman.”

  The others looked up at that, wolves catching the scent of a wounded deer.

  “I’m a man,” Javid said through gritted teeth, trying to pull his torn coat together.

  “Not from what I just saw.”

  “Stay the hell away from me.”

  “She says she’s a man. Maybe we better check what she’s got between her legs.”

  Javid wildly scanned the faces of the other prisoners. He’d get no help there. They looked agitated. Excited.

  “Guards!” he shouted.

  The only answer was the steady drip of water.

  The giant lunged for him and suddenly the dark-haired man was on his feet. By the time Javid blinked, he’d crossed the distance. A flurry of kicks and punches ensued, so fast Javid could hardly follow it. When the dust cleared, his would-be rapist lay on the floor, out cold, and the other prisoners were examining the grime again.

  Javid’s heart pounded, unsure what his savior’s intentions were. But then the man simply dusted off his hands, adjusted his stained tunic, and returned to his seat in the shadows. After a moment, Javid went over and sat down next to him.

  “Thanks for that,” he whispered.

  The man nodded. “Sometimes old Aknis needs a reminder.”

  “And I’m not a woman.”

  He didn’t seem to care either way. “Okay.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ketsu.”

  “I’m Javid.”

  Javid slapped another mosquito, studying Ketsu out of the corner of his eye. His skin was the dusky shade of strong tea and unlined. He couldn’t have been more than thirty.

  “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

  “Tjanjin.”

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  “No.”

  “What are you here for?”

  Only after he asked the question did Javid worry it might be rude. He knew the titles and forms of address for every tier of nobility, both Persian and Greek, along with countless other fine points of court protocol, but he’d never been in a dungeon before and had no idea of the etiquette.

  Ketsu turned those grey eyes on him.

  “I’m a thief. What are you here for?”

  Javis scratched his head. “I’m not even sure. Wrong choice of friends.”

  Ketsu nodded as though this made perfect sense.

  “I’m from Samarqand,” Javid added. “I guess you already knew that. I fly wind ships.”

  This elicited a spark of interest.

  “I’ve heard those are dangerous.”

  “Not really. It all depends on the wind.” As Javid described what it was like to pilot a wind ship, the dungeon walls seemed to recede a little bit. He glossed over any mention of the spell dust, focusing instead on the direction and speed of the various currents and explaining the basic principle, which was simply that the air inside the sack had to be hotter than the air outside, which in turn caused the vessel to rise.

  “But how do you land?” Ketsu asked.

  “There’s a valve that slowly releases the air.”

  In theory, Javid thought ruefully, thinking of the poor Kyrenia.

  “I would like to see that sometime,” the thief mused.

  “Look me up if you ever go to Samarqand.” Javid doubted either of them would ever see the sun again, but it seemed polite to offer. “You can find me at the Merchant’s Guild.”

  Ketsu nodded. “I will.”

  They heard voices outside. The lock on the great iron-bound door tumbled open and two soldiers stomped in. They surveyed the prisoners, who looked simultaneously hopeful and terrified.

  “That one.”

  They grabbed Javid under the arms. Fear dried his mouth.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  The soldiers didn’t bother to reply, dragging him roughly to the corridor. He shared a last look with Ketsu and then the door slammed shut.

  40

  Gerda’s Globe

  Halldóra spread her hands on the stone table and glared at the two men seated at the other end. She’d been a great beauty once and still boasted high cheekbones and a firm chin, even if her hair had faded from silver to pure white. Bigger men had withered under that gaze, but these two managed to meet it steadily. Runar of Val Petros and Stefán of Val Altair weren’t easily cowed.

  “I want him found,” she said. “Daníel is my only grandson. The heir to Val Tourmaline.”

  “And we want ours, as you well know. But first we must decide what to do about Eirik Kafsnjór,” Runar said. “He’s the immediate problem. The man’s lost his wits.”

  The message from Tethys had come a few days before, conveyed by a nightjar. Halldóra could scarcely believe it. Even Eirik wasn't that reckless, was he? But she didn't think Tethys would lie about such a thing. Her clan had always been reasonably cordial toward Val Tourmaline. Hence the emergency meeting.

  “Do you think the Dessarians have any chance of taking the holdfast?”

  “Of course not,” Stefán replied easily. He was short for a Valkirin, but made up for it in solid girth. “They’re Danai.” He filled the word with contempt. “They probably won’t even survive long enough to lay siege. However, it could be a golden opportunity to put Eirik in his place.”

  Although the Iron Wars lay in the distant past, their bruising defeat had never lost its sting. Val Altair had suffered the greatest losses and everyone knew Stefán still thirsted for revenge. He also coveted the rich seams that ran beneath the mountain, as did they all. Over the centuries, their own mines had slowly depleted, forcing the holdfasts to delve further and deeper. But for some reason, Val Moraine’s wealth only multiplied.

  “What do you propose?” Halldóra asked.

  “Nothing drastic—not yet. We need to assess the situation. I don’t care what Eirik does to the Danai, but if he’s raising chimera, he could decide to turn some on us.”

  They fell silent for a moment. Not even during the bloody civil war had any side resorted to chimera. Halldóra didn’t know who had discovered their making, it was all too long ago, but she guessed it was sometime after the burning of the timbered holdfasts when the Valkirins were in desperate disarray. It was very old magic, and very dark.

  “What if we send a delegation? One from each holdfast. It might help us learn his intentions, while at the same time making it appear we’re still loyal to Val Moraine,” Runar suggested, stroking his short gold-flecked beard. “In retrospect, it was hasty to turn him away outright. Knowing Eirik, he’s probably taken the last message as a declaration of war.”

  “I like it,” Stefán said. “They can promise him anything he asks for.” He gave a thin smile. “We have no obligation to deliver, of course. Eirik crossed a line there’s no returning from.”

  Halldóra gazed at the statues flanking the square doorway. Each fifteen hands high, they depicted Tourmaline ancestors long ago consigned to the icy crypts beneath the keep. Hard, stern faces that probably looked the same in frozen death as they had in life. She wondered what they would do in her place. For Halldóra
trusted these two about as much as she trusted mad Eirik.

  “I suppose it’s the best course at this point,” she said at last. “We’re the closest to Val Moraine and I don’t much like having him at my back. Choose your agents, and I’ll choose mine. They can fly out as soon as the weather clears.” Halldóra’s emerald eyes flashed. “Now. Let’s talk about Daníel.”

  Eighty leagues to the southeast, a blizzard lashed Val Moraine. Victor Dessarian, the new master of the Maiden Keep, was already wearing all the extra clothes he’d brought in three layers, plus a leather coat he’d found in one of the empty rooms. He still felt cold. He’d always wondered how the Valkirins lived. It turned out the answer was, not very comfortably. Although certain chambers had a little radiant warmth seeping from the walls, it failed to have a discernible effect on the bitterly chill air. The keep itself was austere and unadorned, built only to endure for the ages. He had no intention of relinquishing it, but Gods, he wished for a hot bath.

  “I almost envy you,” he said to Delilah with a wry smile. “Solis has a certain appeal right now.”

  She stepped up and kissed him lightly. Victor pulled her close and deepened their embrace, until finally Delilah pushed him away with a reluctant sigh.

  “Stay another hour. I’ll warm you up. Though I may have to keep half my clothes on.”

  She laughed. “It’s a tempting offer, my love, but Lara is waiting for me and I fear our time has run out. I’ll send word as soon as I can.”

  “Bring Darius back,” Victor said, giving her a last lingering kiss. “Bring them both.”

  Delilah nodded. And then she was gone with a swirl of her dark cloak. Victor felt afraid for her, though he would never say it. Delilah might take it as a sign he didn’t have confidence in her. It wasn’t that. She’d lived in the empire and knew how to blend in with mortals. But during his long imprisonment, the memory of her was all that kept him going. He refused to even contemplate losing her again—or their son, Darius.