He smiled and stepped to the table, beckoning for them to join him. “I am Iro Adinfin, Overseer of Sin Medor, loyal banner of Duke Bedar Kederan as well as his Holy Grace, Lomik, the fourth of his name.” His Silone was stilted, but easy to understand, a surprise to say the least. Tek Overseers were military men, and their importance in this affair were second only to the Bishops in maintaining a truce. “Kotin Choerkin was your father, yes? A good man I hear, though I met him only once many years ago. A sadness for your loss. Please, sit. Wine? Whiskey?”
Ivin eased into the fabric seat fearing the folding contraption might buckle and collapse, but it held his weight and proved comfortable. Lelishen had warned him about his choice in alcohol the same as she suggested a fresh shave. “Whiskey, please. I appreciate your condolences. I am Ivin Choerkin, third son of Kotin, and this is Solineus Mikjehemlut of the Clan Emudar, their representative for a time. Polus Broldun, and finally, Tudwan Ravinrin.”
A bannerman poured whiskeys for the men and wine for the lady while Iro gave Solineus a scrutinizing look. “I’d heard you went under with the Resten.”
“You know me, sir?”
The man sipped his whiskey. “You’ve the look of several of your kin I’ve met over the years, though titles escape me. Your family are well known stalwarts of the Emudar, so we accept you as their speaker. But it is the lady Lelishen who has brought us here today.”
The woman saluted with her glass of wine, sipped, and cleared her throat. “First, I grieve for the loss of Postrel, as an overseer she will be missed.”
“Let’s not pretend we sorrow the prickly old woman, even if she is maybe less a thorn than the Bishop Ulmeen. Speak more on these lost people.”
“As yet I am unable to speak with you in official terms on behalf of the Edan, but at minimum, I expect a partial sanction for the Silone presence.”
“Then, with all humility, I recommend the Edan take in the unhomed tens of thousands themselves. By all means, feed and succor them. Our scouts say five thousand people, women, children, feebled by age, sit in your camp alone, while our pigeons talk of camps strewn up and down our coast. Our treaty with the Edan is sacrosanct, but there is no provision for this… this sort of tragedy.”
Ivin said, “We’ve had peace with the Hidreng for generations, there’s no need for bloodshed now. All we ask is to be left to our own.”
“Do you know why the Hidreng left your people alone? Because you had nothing we wanted on that frozen rock.”
There might be more truth in that statement than he’d care to admit, after setting eyes on the farms and villages on the road to Sin Medor this morning. The land here was rich and fertile, Kaludor offered these people little. As far as defending themselves, even if every Silone warrior made it to the mainland, a Hidreng mob would slaughter them. But Lelishen had prepared him for this conversation. “The reason the Hidreng left us in peace is that Brotna, under the banner of Thon, sits to your west, while to the southwest are the Koest and the southeast the Lœkar, all of whom would love little more than to see you waste your soldiers so they can consolidate power in the northeast of the Hundred Nations.”
Iro smiled and waggled a finger. “The woods-woman learned you good, but tell me, which will weaken we Hidreng more, the score of men lost killing your women and children, or sacrificing the hoards of fish and game those peoples will eat? I wonder.”
“We will entreat with the Edan to find a solution to the Shadows of Man, the demons driving us from our lands. We plan on returning as soon as possible.”
Iro scrutinized him, unreadable. “Shadows, demons, what are these things to me?”
“If they make these shores, everything. They take bodies, they use them until killed, and the Shadow returns to take another.”
Iro sipped his whiskey and looked to Lelishen. “I know nothing of demons, which speaks to my good fortune. So, what does the lady think of the Edan fixing this… infestation?”
“These demons are from the God Wars, if anybody knows how to end the threat it’s the Edan. They pose little worry to the woodkin, so if they come for the Hidreng, how much help would you expect? The Silone will have a favorable ear in the Mother Wood, your people would not.”
“And why not just send an army of Edan to snuff this enemy? Don’t bother, the answer is pathetic.” Fingers tapped his glass. “I’ll be honest with you, all of you. I don’t want to ride down women and children, that isn’t a warrior’s calling. I just want you gone. I’d as soon flick a flea from my hair than kill it. The Bishop of Sin Medor is of differing opinion. The Hokandit possess a grudge against things long forgotten by mortal men. The Bishop studies texts which speak of the Slavers of Sol, and how they brutalized our people in forgotten times and preaches them to her sheep. These are fables I don’t bother with, but in Nigrang, they still fear and hate your gods.”
Legends from the God Wars spoke of the Maimers and Mercies, collectively known as the Slavers. If the stories were true, they were brutal soul collectors. The horrors were written as glorious triumphs, and seen through the eyes of power and glory, but after what he’d seen in Istinjoln, Ivin admitted that perhaps the Gods should be feared more than loved or honored. “I’ve nothing to do with our gods, far as I’m concerned they’ve forsaken and betrayed us. My only concern is for our people.”
“This is true? What does the man who’s name begins with your king of gods’ name think?”
Solineus shrugged. “I haven’t stopped to consider the gods, but I reckon they’ve fallen from my favor.”
Polus Broldun said, “The heads of my clan were zealots, not me.”
Iro chuckled. “Your words give me hope, and I will relay them to the Bishop. But she is famous for saying words are smoke, deeds are iron. What can you do for her holiness that will put her heart at rest?”
Ivin scanned the faces of the other men, their faces blank. In times past men sacrificed animals and the lives of kin, or offered hostages to prove their faith. None of these options appealed to him. “We’ve nothing but our words.”
Iro’s smile was predatory. “It’s good for you, then, that I am here, a kind and generous man with insight into our Bishop’s heart. I am certain… Quite certain, that if you allowed our holy messengers to enter your camps, and offer your people a simple opportunity, that the Bishop would show her pleasure.”
Polus squinted and asked, “What opportunity?”
“Any Silone willing may come to Sin Medor and perform the Rights of Conversion. Join the Hokandit to serve Pulvuer’s will. These people are welcome to live the remainder of their lives in Sin Medor as Hidreng.”
Polus set his drink on the table. “Unacceptable.”
“Is it? You speak this with sincerity? You say you worry about your people’s lives, that your gods are nothing to you, and here I offer them their lives for the price of a kinder god. A generous offer compared to warring with demons and starvation, or bled by Hidreng spears.”
Solineus said, “I could imagine worse offers.”
Polus glared. “Easy for you, is there more than a handful of Emudar alive? This bastard wants to steal our people.”
Iro’s smile grew. “Steal? I offer food and shelter, and you call me a thief?”
Polus scoffed and folded his arms. “You steal their souls.”
“You’ve mistaken me for your own King of Gods and his Slavers. I offer life.”
Tudwan cleared his throat. “I can’t speak for the Ravinrin without consultation.”
Ivin asked, “And if we do this, you let us live free until we reclaim Kaludor?”
“This is a first offer, a gesture to earn you time. If you do this, I swear to you two months to move east before violence. I maybe could hold the Bishop off to Spring on this promise, but the Bishop, she will need appeased.”
An organized army might make a journey to Edan territory in such time, but could a ragtag group of people? Who knew how scattered they were. “Two months isn’t much time.”
“Your pe
ople made it here quick enough, yes?” Iro waved his hand, and a bannerman refilled all their glasses, even if they weren’t empty. “This is the most I can do. If it goes well between our peoples, maybe the Bishop, maybe she is well pleased, maybe she invites you into her bed.” Ivin tried to keep a straight face, and the man laughed, saluted him with his whiskey. “That notion would frighten me, too.”
Polus asked, “How long ’til you need a decision?”
“When you decide, the Choerkin may ride back to Sin Medor, and I will introduce him to the Bishop myself. If your answer is a good one, I mean. Two weeks, not much longer will I abide.”
Ivin tipped his glass, considering his words as his throat burned and his belly warmed. “I am headed for the Eleris, I’m afraid.”
Iro smirked. “Send another, I will save you from suckling the toes of the woodkin. Now, let us eat and drink, and discuss life as friends.”
Ivin took a plate and drained a spoonful of honey over bread, hoping his smile looked more real than it felt. The offer was at once generous and destructive. If warriors chose safety with their families, they would weaken the clans, and the least likely to choose the Hokandit were the godsdamned priests to blame for the Shadows in the first place. If few came to Sin Medor, it might signal to the Bishop that the Silone held their gods with a dangerous strength. If they chose not to accept, the future was less certain but even darker. But, if Polus kept his mouth shut, they’d at least survive the rest of the day.
8
Naked the Dark
The deceiver will always find those who will allow themselves to be deceived, but on encountering the keen and suspicious, it behooves the deceiver to believe their own lies. So too must this deceiver be wary of the lies of others, for once believing their own deception, they oft become vulnerable to others.
–Codex of Sol
Meliu’s shoulders, neck, and head pulsed in rhythms of pain more steady than the lurching beat of her heart. She groaned and squirmed, grinding her face across rough, damp fabric, a wafer-thin pillow perhaps, or a cheap worn blanket, before consciousness took full hold. Drool ran from her lip, her face cold where saliva smeared across her cheeks.
An addled thought crept into her brain between struggling heartbeats and huffing breaths: Worst shittin’ hangover. This single declaration gave her mind something other than pain to cling to, and in moments she found a semblance of clarity. No, she hadn’t been drinking, and the taste of sweetened lemon clung to her tongue… Cloud water to weaken her prayers. What the hells happened? She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, agony thundering through her forehead from the dim trails of light that snuck through cracks between rough-hewn plank walls and a single crooked door. The air was heavy and dank in the cramped room, and the only furnishing other than her bed was a rickety nightstand with nothing on it. She took several deep breaths to temper the pain and rubbed the knot on the back of her head.
She’d been in town, what town? A godsdamned Tek town, it was all coming back slow and painful. What’s her name’s piece of shittin’ husband, the bastard sold me. “I’ll kill him,” she muttered, but for the moment she doubted she could stand.
The sagging door opened and lantern light spiked through the dark to crash into her head. She covered her eyes until the door creaked half closed. A voice spoke in Tekite. “I thought I heard you awake.” Young and feminine, the voice wasn’t at all what she’d expected, or feared. Meliu uncovered her face and blinked into the light.
A girl stood in the doorway, no more than fifteen years of age, petite and cute, draped in a flower-patterned dress that revealed far too much skin for Meliu’s monastic tastes. The fabric was so thin the background light painted her youthful silhouette against the roses. A whorehouse, the old man made good on his threat. Her eyes shot wide and she reached a hand between her legs.
“No one touched you, they wouldn’t allow it.”
Meliu leaned back, sucked a couple relieved breaths before speaking. “Who is this they?”
The girl sauntered to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. “The Mistress Margo, who bought you. I don’t know who the men were, just street toughs.”
The girl held a skin to her lips, but Meliu sniffed, catching notes of lemon and she turned it away. “Fresh water, please. Lots of it.” The more clean water she drank, the quicker the Cloud Water would purge from her system. Or at least, so she’d read. As the girl stood to leave, Meliu asked, “What’s your name?”
“Tederu.” Her smile left Meliu with little doubt the girl earned the mistress good coin.
Meliu rose to her elbows, then propped herself against the headboard before closing her eyes and muttering a prayer for healing, but only a meager warmth eased the pounding at the base of her skull. Still, it dulled the pain a smidgen, and reassured her that the Cloud Water was weakening already. But what would prayers for Light do for her, could she blind her way out of a brothel? She could start fires, maybe make someone jump with a pathetic streak of lightning, but the strength of her prayers with Light was no real use now. If the guards were lax, or she got lucky, she might cobble a way to fight her way out.
The girl returned with a gallon jug and the pretty smile. “You speak well for a Silone.”
Meliu sniffed, then chugged from the bottle twice before responding. “Thank you.” She poured water down her throat until she felt she might burst.
Tederu leaned in and whispered, “They said you were a witch.”
The term twisted her gut, but in the end Meliu figured this whore was right: her prayers were foreign amongst the Hidreng, witchcraft of a sort. “So, Tederu, tell me, how long’ve you been here?”
“Three years, since turning thirteen.”
“No escape?”
The girl’s head rocked back, eyes wide. “Goodness, no, I offered myself to the mistress when of age, I’m not like you.” Then she gave a crooked smile, figuring out the cause to the question. “And I wouldn’t try it, neither. The mistress is kind, so long as you listen and obey, but she could as easy put you in chains and sell your virginhood to a Thonian priest, or darker folks.”
Sacrificed to Fikeze, the goddess known as the Virgin Spear, made a whorehouse sound tolerable. “I’ll remember that.” She didn’t want to consider what’d be darker than bleeding out on an altar while raped. She smiled. The Dark, she’d forgotten the strength she’d sensed in those prayers. Dark and its fear could accomplish things Light wouldn’t. No matter her plan, she needed her strength back. “Food? Something to eat?”
“Of course.” The girl nodded and closed the door behind her, the lock turning.
Meliu dumped the Cloud Water under the bed and covered the puddle with a thin blanket, then refilled the flask with fresh water, proof her thoughts were clearing. There was no promise that another girl or guard would be so foolish in the future.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, closed her eyes, meditated to ease the pain, prayed for Life to ease her aches further. The prayer’s power flowed freer, and the knot on her head shrank, the pulsing fading into an afterthought. She exhaled and prayed, first with words: Kibole, Patron of the Night and Father of Fear, hear my prayers, heed my calls, and bless me with your favors.
Her eyes eased closed and Dark came as a streak of terror, filling her body and soul, her heart pounded to bursting and she screamed, collapsing on the bed, shaking, muscles clenching to keep from wetting herself.
Meliu lay shuddering as the door opened, a man this time, an ugly ruddy skinned bastard with a blackjack in his hand. He rushed into the room, raising the lead-filled sack.
She cowered with her hands over her head. “A dream! I dozed, just a dream.”
The man twisted his black mustache as he lowered his weapon, snatched the bottle of water and tossed it on the bed by her face, before stalking from the room.
Meliu stretched and rubbed her temples, her heart slowing, chills subsiding, as the remnants of Dark faded. What the shittin’ hells was that? She glanced to her still trembl
ing fingers. Everyone in Istinjoln knew Dark brought fear, and if the power overwhelmed the soul, madness followed. Its use could turn a brilliant priest into a simpleton, but the Dark shouldn’t have come so easy. So little effort, so horrifying in its power.
Kibole favors my cause. If true, it was a fortunate thing, but if her prayers brought more Dark than her mind could handle, she might find herself sitting in a corner mumbling to herself and eating bugs for the rest of her life, like Japin of Andweth.
Her nerves needed calmed. She sat up, crossed her legs, and twined fingers with hands resting in her lap. Erginle, Patron of Life and Bringer of Light, heed my calls and bless me with your favors. A familiar warmth came with her prayer this time, a soothing heat, as if sinking into a hot bath to relax the tensions and frustrations of a day’s studies. Twin of Kibole.
Instead of forming the prayer’s energy into Light, she held it, savoring its cloud of serenity until it occurred to her to try what she shouldn’t be able to do. Not under normal circumstances, anyhow, but if the gods indeed favored her cause… She prayed again to Kibole, and the Dark hammered a spike of icy horror through her spine, but against her expectations Meliu held firm to Erginle’s Light, guarding her heart and soul from the cold, wriggling tentacles of Dark that threatened her mind with the madness of paralyzing fear.
Praying to two gods, holding their energies, was the purview of high priests, not scholars in the third year of their vows. Her body shook. Terror and tranquility, a battle of will, and as she opened her eyes she noted her steady hands. She wasn’t shaking at all, but she felt as if she should be rattling the world. A smile spread her lips, and the shakes went away, leaving only a sense of power.
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