[fan] fourth talisman 01 - nocturne

by Kat Ross

  She was starting to grow bored when a Marakai entered and sat down at a table. Gerda recognized him as the sea clan not only by his ebony skin and curly hair, but the graceful way he moved, like a cat slinking through a kennel of slobbery dogs. She could tell from a subtle shift of the Gambler’s shoulders that he noticed the newcomer out of the corner of his eye, but he continued to dice for a few minutes more. Finally, he rose and sat down at the Marakai’s table.

  Interesting.

  Gerda didn’t know much about the sea clan. She figured they were dim-witted, mentally unstable, or both. Who else would choose to sail the White Sea, with rogue waves a hundred paces high and denizens of the briny deep that could smash a ship to splinters with a single tentacle? Of course, as the only clan to deal with both daēvas and humans, they got rich off everyone else. That made sense. But Gerda couldn’t imagine living on the pitching deck of a ship any more than she could imagine living in the sunlit mortal cities, or the dank, mossy forests of the Danai.

  Give me stone and snow and sky, and I’m content, she thought. Preferably with the idiot’s corpse on a spike to improve the view.

  The Marakai conferred with the red-haired man over mugs of wine that neither of them touched. The Marakai looked around the tavern in a shifty-eyed manner, but his attitude toward the Gambler was deferential. How Gerda wished she could hear what they were saying! She gripped the globe with gnarled fingers, conscious that the man might become aware of her presence at any moment. He had only caught her the one time, but the look in his eyes had been enough to take care it didn’t happen again.

  At last the Gambler rose and left without a backward glance, though a small smile played on his lips. The globe followed him—at a safe distance—to a moonlit harbor where a few small fishing vessels floated at anchor. Gerda frowned. He must be on the twilight side of Tjanjin. The island straddled the Umbra and its eastern half had a reputation for bawdy houses, dust lairs and other dens of iniquity. It was where you went when you didn’t want people seeing your face too clearly.

  The Gambler stood on a sandy crescent of beach, looking out at the sea. He nodded to himself and muttered something. Hecate sat low on the horizon, casting a glimmering silver net across the bay. Then Gerda saw movement in the shadows. It was four of the men he’d been dicing with. The biggest, a stocky fellow in a sleeveless shirt and baggy breeches, stabbed a meaty finger into the Gambler’s chest. She couldn’t hear what was said, but it seemed fairly obvious they were accusing him of cheating. The Gambler looked amused.

  Gerda drew a sharp breath as one of the others, a rat-faced creature who’d been sidling around behind, suddenly produced a knife and darted in like a striking snake. Without turning his head, the Gambler’s hand shot out, seizing his attacker’s knife arm. He did nothing else, but the man’s mouth gaped in a silent scream. Gerda squinted. Was his flesh...smoking? The others stood there dumbfounded until flames started licking at the crotches of their trousers. The Gambler laughed as they dropped and rolled around flailing on the sand. Then he strolled off down the beach, lazy and lithe as a sun-warmed tiger.

  Gerda let the weaving go and sat back, sucking her teeth.

  No wonder he won all the time. He was probably using air to tip the dice.

  She poured herself a cup of wine and took a thoughtful sip. So they were loose. But why was a Vatra wasting his time in dingy taverns on the other side of the world? And where were the rest of them? Could he be the last of his kind?

  Perhaps further observations with the globe would clarify matters. Either way, no one else knew the truth and she intended to keep it that way until she saw how to turn it to her own advantage.

  Gerda smiled. The Vatras’ revenge might be a thousand years in the making, but she’d make sure Victor Dessarian got his fair share of it.

  Culach woke to someone banging on the bars of the next cell. It could have been a shoe, or maybe a piece of rock she’d worked loose. He’d been dreaming again, of the burning city and the desert and the last agonizing moments of the king’s councilor.

  “Shut up!” a woman’s voice yelled. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  “You shut up,” he growled, groping for the wall and leaning against it.

  For a moment, blessed silence reigned.

  “I thought Victor came to kill you. So why is the job unfinished?”

  “He talked himself out of it.”

  “Felt sorry for you, huh?”

  “I thought you wanted me to shut up.”

  He heard a soft exhalation and guessed she was standing at the bars. Each cell had a grill set into the door at eye level so the jailers could inspect the prisoner inside.

  “Well, if I have to listen to you muttering and moaning for another night, I’ll come over there and do it myself.”

  “Be my guest,” Culach replied wearily.

  Of all the cold cells, they had to put him next to Katrin.

  She’d never once asked what his nightmares were about. Empathy wasn’t Katrin’s strong suit. Instead, she just yelled and pounded on things until he woke up. It had become an almost farcical routine.

  “Those Danai bastards,” she muttered. “How did they get in? How?”

  Culach assumed she was talking to herself, but he answered anyway.

  “Neblis. She told Victor about some secret passage.”

  Katrin made a noise of disgust.

  “I wish you’d found her. So I could kill the bitch.”

  Culach stretched his arms over his head and winced. His ribs still ached from Victor’s vigorous kicking.

  “We’ve established why I’m here,” he said. “Blindness has its advantages. But I never figured you for the type to get taken prisoner.”

  In fact, Katrin was the best they had. She trained for hours on end against anyone willing to spar with her, man or woman. The knowledge of her superiority with a blade—and even unarmed—had never bothered him. Katrin was better than everyone.

  “The fuckers knocked me out with a chunk of stone,” she said. “I still have a lump on my head the size of…. Hey, do you remember that hailstorm we had a couple years ago? With those balls of ice that smashed right through the hull of the Marakai ship?”

  They’d gone to the shore to trade with the sea daēvas. The coastline west of the Isles was wild and barren, but there were coves where the Marakai could drop anchor. That particular day, a nasty storm had blown in from the White Sea. They’d been stupid enough to try flying the abbadax through it. Culach gave a slight smile. He’d been black and blue for days, but it still made a good story.

  “I remember.”

  “Like that.”

  “Ouch.”

  Culach stood and walked to the cell door, curling his fingers through the grill. The corridor was quiet. No other voices, not even a cough or a whisper.

  “Who else is alive?” he asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Do you think the other holdfasts will come to our aid?”

  “What do you care?” she asked bitterly. “I heard you protected our only hostage.”

  “Eirik was going to slaughter her in cold blood,” Culach snarled. “And it would have done nothing to stop the Dessarians. You’re just…” He trailed off.

  “Jealous?” Katrin’s anger turned to genuine amusement. “Oh, Culach. I think we have bigger problems, don’t you?” She chuckled. “Men have astoundingly high opinions of themselves. I hate to say it, but your cock has nothing on your ego in terms of size.”

  “Point taken.”

  “You were a pleasant diversion, but Agnes, for example, was far better at—”

  “I get it.”

  Katrin went on for a while, dissecting his manly prowess in excruciating detail and comparing it to various other lovers she’d acquired over the years. Culach mostly stopped listening. She was doing it out of boredom and frustration, and simply because she was Katrin.

  He scrubbed a hand across his mouth. His beard itched maddeningly but he doubted the Dessarians
would be giving him a razor anytime soon. They came through every quarter hour, pausing before the cells to do a head count before continuing on. No one wanted to linger amid the thick sheets of ice and vicious little drafts that crept through fine cracks in the stone walls. The cold cells faced east, toward the White Sea. When the wind hit the mountains, it picked up speed. By the time it crossed leagues of barren peaks, that wind felt like a knife to the throat. And there were no shields on this side of the holdfast, which also held the stables.

  In a strange way, Culach’s dreams—bad as they often were—had become an escape from his dire reality. Even the recurrent nightmare of being buried alive had grown familiar, though it still jolted him awake with a pounding heart. But that one came less frequently now. He still dreamt of the king’s councilor and had learned the man’s name: Farrumohr.

  Culach suspected he was reliving Farrumohr’s memories in reverse order from the moment of his death. In the dreams he rode along like a passive observer, but he felt Farrumohr’s emotions and even absorbed some of his knowledge. He was beginning to understand what had occurred so long ago that led to the sundering of Nocturne and Solis, and the downfall of the once powerful Vatras.

  As so often happens, it began with a beautiful woman.

  A dry desert wind whipped the brightly colored pennants streaming from hundreds of tents. Daēvas from every clan milled around the plaza, laughing and exchanging news and gifts with old friends. They were celebrating the annual return of Artemis. Twice as large and luminous as the other moons, she sailed high as the sun set, bathing the surrounding city in soft light that shimmered on the rooftops and spires. Some of the buildings looked like colossal, ancient trees, others like breaking waves, and still others resembled jagged mountains. Together, they created a metropolis like none the world had ever seen, a tribute to the wild and the tame, to both Nature and civilization.

  Once a year, all the clans came together in the glass capital of the Vatras, power-forged from the desert sands. The Vatras were the only clan to have built a city—clear evidence of their superiority over the other races. As he looked out through Farrumohr’s eyes, Culach felt the man’s malice. They were all parasites who exploited the Vatras’ generosity. But things were about to change.

  Farrumohr sat on a raised pavilion on the western side of the plaza, an untouched cup of wine in his hand. Culach sensed his bitterness as he watched the merrymaking, though the man maintained a frozen smile that made Culach’s cheeks ache. His gaze wandered to the area where the Danai had erected their camp. Both the ebony-skinned Marakai and the fair Valkirins mingled with their cousins, as well as a number of flame-haired Vatras. But Farrumohr’s attention rested on one woman. She stood with a knot of people, smiling at some joke. She was small, like Mina, and darkly beautiful.

  Farrumohr leaned closer to the king, who sat at his left watching the proceedings with an indulgent air. Gaius was a striking man, with sharp cheekbones and almost feline eyes. His hair spilled down his back like a river of flame. He wore no jewelry except for the serpent crown. Farrumohr had ordered it specially made when he took the throne. A reminder that even the mighty could be felled by a careless step.

  “There she is, my lord.”

  Gaius turned. “What?”

  “The girl I told you about. Caecelia.”

  Farrumohr’s thoughts were a tangle of envy, hatred and bitter longing, but Culach understood in a flash of insight what undercurrents swirled around the king and his advisor. The king needed an heir. Farrumohr had managed to find fault with every potential Vatra courtier, urging an alliance with one of the other clans through marriage. It would be a first step toward bringing the four together under a single ruler.

  “Where?” the king asked languidly.

  “Near the third tent. She’s wearing green.”

  Farrumohr watched the king search her out. Much work had gone into this particular selection. It was unusual for the clans to intermarry, though not unheard of. If she was rejected, Farrumohr would have to start his search from scratch again, a prospect he didn’t relish.

  Then Gaius paused and his features stilled. Farrumohr heard the faintest hitch in his breath.

  “She is…intriguing,” Gaius murmured, his pale blue eyes locked on Caecelia.

  Farrumohr smiled. “I’m sure she would be honored to dine with you, my lord. In fact, I’ve heard she admires you greatly.”

  This was a lie. In fact, the woman was in love with another Danai. It was partly for this reason that Farrumohr had chosen her.

  “Does she?” Reddish lashes blinked rapidly.

  “Oh, yes. You shall have your pick, of course, but I cannot imagine any woman refusing you.”

  Except for Caecilia.

  Farrumohr knew Gaius had a weakness for dark-haired women. Caecilia of House Martinec would be irresistible. She was young and lithe, charming and intelligent. Her home lay on the White Sea, near the Valkirin border. He’d heard she loved to walk the sandy shoreline in the mornings and swim in the tepid water. Even if she hadn’t already given her heart to another, she was not the sort of woman who would happy living in the desert. And she was strong-willed. Stubborn to a fault. She wouldn’t accept a marriage for political reasons, no matter how much her family pressured her. In other words, Caecilia was ideal for Farrumohr’s purposes.

  He rose and crossed the plaza, the crowds parting like he was some kind of diseased beggar. The group turned at his approach, smiles dying on their faces—even those of his own clan. His lips tightened. He had never given them cause to dislike him, but they did anyway. Instinctively.

  Farrumohr’s grin stretched wider and he made a flowery bow.

  “The king extends his personal welcome,” he said to Caecilia.

  She stared at him, then glanced at the others uncertainly. A handsome Danai with fiery black eyes took a step closer to her. That one would be trouble, Farrumohr thought. He wanted trouble but not right away. Not until the hook was set.

  “Please thank Lord Gaius for me,” she said graciously, turning away.

  Farrumohr laid a hand on her arm, enjoying her slight flinch. “Oh, I will. But he wishes you to dine with him. He would like to hear news of House Martinec.”

  Caecilia hesitated.

  “You would not insult our king in his own city, would you?” Farrumohr asked softly. “It is simply a meal. He wishes to get to know all of his…” Farrumohr nearly said subjects but caught himself. “Cousins. That is the purpose of the gathering of Artemis, is it not?”

  Her dark brows drew down. “Oh, very well,” she said carelessly.

  The black-eyed daēva opened his mouth to say something but she quelled him with a hard look.

  “Tell Gaius I would be honored. We leave tomorrow anyway.”

  Farrumohr bared his teeth. “So soon? But the gathering lasts another three days.”

  “Yes.” She made an apologetic face, the little liar. “There are…matters I must attend to. They cannot wait.”

  “How unfortunate. Still, he will be pleased to meet you. Come to the pavilion within the hour. I assure you, Lord Gaius is delightful company.”

  She nodded, clearly eager for him to be gone.

  This would not do.

  Farrumohr leaned closer, pulling her aside so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “Between us, the poor king has been ill lately. I fear…well, I shan’t say it, but I fear the worst. Your kindness would mean the world to him.”

  “Oh!” Her pretty eyes widened. “I am sorry,” she said in a softer tone. “Please tell him it would be my great pleasure to sit at his table.”

  Farrumohr sighed. “You are as big-hearted as they say. This could be his last…Never mind. But you have my personal thanks. And please, don’t mention it, especially to the king. He doesn’t wish anyone to know. He can’t stand the thought of being pitied.”

  “Of course not,” she replied sympathetically.

  He felt their eyes on his back as he walked away. The other daēv
as avoided him, but he heard their whispers. Viper. For once, it didn’t bother him. Soon enough, they would learn their place.

  Later, at dinner, Caecilia played her part perfectly. She listened when Gaius spoke, laughed at his jests and filled his cup when it grew empty. The king basked in her attention as the black-eyed daēva smoldered at a table in the very rear of the pavilion.

  Lumen crystals in every color cast the tables in rainbow hues. The porcelain was from Tjanjin, the gold-chased goblets from Samarqand. At Farrumohr’s urging, Gaius had spared no expense for the occasion. Each clan was served delicacies that would appeal to their particular palate. The Marakai dined on freshly grilled fish, the Valkirins on cold soups and stews, while the Danai devoured platters of fruit and poached bird’s eggs. Wine flowed from talismanic casks that never grew empty. Laughter and snatches of song—battle dirges from the Valkirins, lighter fare from the others—rang through the tent as the feast went on through the night.

  Farrumohr observed the proceedings with his frozen smile, though it never touched his eyes. As attendants in livery cleared the last plates, he leaned over to King Gaius.

  “Perhaps my lord should tell Caecilia he wishes to take the night air,” he hissed.

  Too much wine had flushed Gaius’s face a rosy pink. His eyes were slightly unfocused.

  “A fine idea,” he said loudly. He extended his arm. “My lady? Would you allow me to escort you to the gardens? There are flowers that only bloom in darkness.”

  She bit her lip. “I am growing tired—”

  “Just a brief stroll. You would not refuse me that? They are very close.”

  “I suppose a quick walk would be all right,” she muttered.

  Gaius grinned. His serpent crown sat slightly askew and a sheen of sweat coated his brow, but his legs were steady enough as he rose and offered Caecilia his arm. She took it with obvious reluctance, though Gaius didn’t seem to notice.

  “I know you Danai love your forests,” he said, “but you’ll find the desert has its own stark beauty.” His gaze lingered on her for a moment. “I look forward to showing you.”