In her own chamber, Dri let the girl tear off her ruined clothes, then sat as ordered in the herring tin that served as her bathtub. She did not speak as her sophister poured bucket after bucket of cold water over her, scrubbing fiercely at the blood and insect substances. The girl had to hack some of it from her hair with a knife.
After several minutes Dri wet her lips. 'Ludunte,' she murmered. 'Didn't he make a report?'
'He tried, mistress. Lord Taliktrum was in the High Loft and would not see him. Skies above, lady, there's glass in your hair!'
That broken bottle had been a godsend. As she crept away the guards were already debating whether the death was an accident or suicide.
'But it was neither,' Dri said aloud.
'What was neither, mistress?'
She looked up at her sophister. 'I killed a human,' she said.
The girl was quiet a moment, then nodded. 'I thought so.'
'He was afraid. I don't think he'd ever seen one of us.'
'If you did it, mistress, I know it was the right thing.'
Ensyl's faith stung worse than scorn. Dri hugged herself. Surely the word on his lips had been crawlies. What else did humans say at the sight of ixchel? Surely his death was unavoidable.
Given that she had let herself be seen.
She thought of Talag. His brilliance, the mad strength of his quest. Reveal our presence and you condemn us all. If you can't kill to silence a giant's tongue you're not fit to leave the shelter of a House. Stay in Etherhorde and be hunted. Do not follow us aboard.
The man she killed had spent nearly his whole life in chains.
'Mistress,' said Ensyl, wondering. 'You're… branded. There's a wolf burned into your skin.'
Dri nodded, covering her breast. Why was this happening, what was she doing here? How could she possibly keep faith with them all?
8
Faith and Fire
8 Teala 941
The incubus hurled itself landwards through the storm. Every minute spent in this world was a torture, a pricking and burning as of a thousand acid-tipped needles in its flesh. Nothing existed here but hate: for the pale and wriggling humans, the rain that scalded, the black wind, the reeking sea.
The city loomed closer, its gas lamps hazy in the downpour. The celebrations had moved indoors, now: every tavern, temple, flophouse and cut-rate bordello had been swamped by revellers, still drunk on bad wine and universal brotherhood. The incubus lifted a ragged wing and veered north, over a corner of the wall. A figure appeared at the parapet: a sentry in helmet and ring mail, looking down on the sodden fields. The incubus did not stop to think: it let itself plummet onto the wall a few yards from the man, gasping, burning, freezing all at once, and when the man turned with a shout its bloodlust rose and it flew at him.
The sentry raised his spear, but the demon struck like a frenzied cat. It dodged the weapon, gripped the mail in its claws, shredded the hand that groped for it, then rose to do the same to the detested face. The man was still alive when he fell from the wall, but he died before his body struck the ground.
The incubus lifted away from the falling corpse. Blood soothed it. Like many creatures whose souls extended beyond a single world it suffered immense change when dragged from one to another. In its homeworld it was a passive domesticated animal rather like a sheep, though its keepers sometimes fancied they saw mischief in its eyes.
The rain stripped the blood from its body. Long before the creature reached the shrine the needles of acid were back.
A sceptre. A sceptre. A gold thing with a black crystal surmounting. The incubus could sense it ahead of him.
The Mzithrinis were feasting that night, for their visiting princes would depart in the morning, along with most of the official retinue. They had erected a great tent in the fields beside the shrine, along with brick ovens for the roasting of poultry, venison and shark. The crowd had overflowed the tent, filling the nearby pastures. At the height of the revelry the Mzithrinis were vastly outnumbered by other guests: the meat was excellent, and they were all friends now.
The tent was open-sided and the rain gusted in. Some of the guests were giving up, running for carriages back to the city. The incubus landed on the shrine's gabled roof, and scuttled crablike towards the edge, mewing and snarling with pain.
The artefact it had been summoned to steal lay beneath its feet. But to enter the holy shrine, the creature knew, would be to increase its torments beyond measure. Of course the sceptre was guarded, too. A mage, thought the incubus, feeling the throb of magic through the roof, the thing is in the hand of a mage. And for all its pain and bloodlust the little demon was afraid. I will not enter. I will not fight him in his lair. It stood shivering, moaning, gnawing its wrists until they bled.
Sandor Ott found the rain pleasant against his scars. He was rarely cold. He sat on a low bluff overlooking the shrine, beyond the glow of the sputtering fengas lamps in the tent, feeding scraps of venison to the falcon beside him, watching the cream-coloured bird swallow each piece before giving him another. Now and then he paused to stroke the animal's neck.
'The Sizzy sailors have all gone, then? The officers, I mean?'
'Every one,' said the falcon, his voice like a high cello chord.
'And Kuminzat — the admiral — he left his daughter with that elder priest?'
'She walked a while at her birth-father's side, Master. But she is a sfvantskor. There are three young sfvantskor women, four young men. The Father keeps all of them close.'
'And he never left the shrine, this old Father?'
'Not since the procession yesterday. And then only to the top of the stairs.'
'Where he knelt to King Oshiram,' said Ott, and a grin passed briefly across his face. He looked approvingly at the falcon. 'Your report is precise, as always. I shall reward you one day, Niriviel.'
'Arqual's glory and gain,' said the bird at once, as if the phrase were something it had learned to say at such moments. 'That is my reward. That is the only true reward for those who love the Empire.'
Childlike pleasure in the raptor's voice. Ott fed him the last bloody morsel. 'Are you ready for the journey, finest falcon?'
'I am, Master,' said Niriviel.
Then the spymaster took a ring from his finger. It was a simple thing of brass, much like a tarboy's citizenship ring, though the numbers engraved upon it were subtly different. He took out a leather cord and tied the ring to the bird's outstretched leg. 'Be careful with this; it is the one thing I have kept from childhood.' he said. 'You know whom I wish to receive it, I think.'
A moment later the bird was winging north towards Ormael, and Sandor Ott was circling the tent, silent as an old panther, well hidden in the dark. He could pick out his agents among the guests in the tent, one arm-wrestling a Sizzy, feigning drunkenness; another seducing a young Locostrin priestess with his eyes. Ott was especially careful to stay hidden from these men. Spying on his own agents was a part of the game.
His inspection complete, Ott walked north around the shrine and started down the narrow goat-path to the sea. Niriviel had reported a single figure there, wading in the surf, with the distracted air of a sleepwalker. A fool in love, probably. But tonight it merited a look. The Mzithrinis' own spy network, the Zithmoloch, had thus far been conspicuous by its silence. Ott almost hoped for some encounter with his rivals before their departure. It was a matter of professional courtesy.
The storm was ending, and the moon thrashed about in the thunderheads, seeking open sky. Ott crouched where the pasture crumbled into sand. He could see no one on the beach in either direction. Not a structure or a stone. He waited for the moonlight, his thoughts on the days ahead, the war he was brewing among these Sizzy savages, the dire importance of timing and tact. He had placed the fate of the Empire on a single ship, and the twitching madman who captained her. Rose! If there were anyone else but that delusional Quezan swindler and his witch!
Ott loathed magic, a province from which he knew he was barred. There
was altogether too much of it on the Great Ship. Lady Oggosk, Ramachni, Arunis. The Nilstone, a weapon he had never believed in, and could not use — yet. And Pazel thrice-damned Pathkendle, who had saved the Shaggat's life, but only by turning him to stone.
'Why don't we just knock the blary thing out of his hand?' Drellarek the Throatcutter had demanded yesterday. 'You could put a spear through the belly of that Ormali runt tomorrow. You could kill the lot of 'em. They're no more use, are they, with the wedding behind us?'
So very tempting. But a close inspection of the Shaggat proved the notion impossible. The Shaggat's hand was tight about the Nilstone: that hand at least would shatter if they sought to loosen it by force. And hairline cracks radiated down his arm as far as the shoulder — many cracks, and branching. The whole arm might go, and the madman bleed to death in seconds, when he became a man of flesh once more.
Ott shut his eyes. He was feeling his age tonight. Arqual's triumph would come, sure as that yellow orb would clear the clouds. And Rose would play his part. Whatever else he was, the old bull was always ambitious.
He stood and walked down to the beach. Someone had come this way; he could see the footprints even by the fitful moonlight. One person, barefoot, about his height. A night swim? Ott peered at the dark water; there was nothing to see but the waves.
Then the moon broke free and drenched the beach in silver. Ott looked right, left — and there, as if the moon itself had spawned her, he saw a young woman stepping naked from the sea.
She was about twenty yards from him, climbing quickly out of the surf, eyes straight ahead. Ott held his breath. The girl's hair was cut short as a naval cadet's; her limbs were pale and well-muscled. She could not have been much more than twenty but she moved with the gliding step of a warrior.
She reached the top of the beach where the grass began. Crouching beside one of the denser clumps, she pulled out a bundle of clothes. Ott watched her dress: black blouse and leggings, loose-fitting but tight at wrists and ankles. Then she bent down again and lifted a knife.
Gods of death, she was a sfvantskor! For the knife was unmistakable: the glint of quartz, the hawksbill curve at the tip. It was the ritual blade from the wedding ceremony — the only weapon King Oshiram had permitted the Mzithrinis to bring ashore. Only the vadhi, the Blessed Defenders, could carry such knives. And the only vadhi as young as that girl were the newly-trained sfvantskors. There'd been a report. Girls among them. Yes, three of the seven were girls.
What in Rin's name was she up to? The way she held the knife — as though it were burning her, but impossible to drop — told him she had blood to draw. But whose? The girl was walking back to the waves, with resolve and something like fury in her movements. Someone else in the sea? There was light aplenty now, and Ott saw no one at all.
Then the wind gusted from her direction and it carried a sob and he knew at once what was happening.
We will never belong among those who belong.
Neda set the knife to her throat. The waves striking her knees made it hard to stand still. One swift cut, long but shallow, not over the vein. She had to be strong enough to swim beyond the breakers, where the sharks would find her before she sank.
Bad blood in her. Sooner or later it had to come out.
They were out there, hungry, circling. They would come like flies to a feast. She had moved among them in another form, with her brothersNo, no, they were not brothers or sisters. They hated her, the Ormali intruder, the walking shame. They had always known she would fail, and yesterday she had. What had the Father forbidden her? To speak to Pazel, and that she had done. Someone at the wedding had noticed, and word had come to Cayer Vispek, the great sfvantskor hero who served on the Jistrolloq. Cayer Vispek had whispered to the Father. The old priest had jerked his head upright, looked at her quizzically across the shrine, and some pride or hope for her had fled his eyes. It had not returned at sunset, when the sfvantskors performed feats of strength and acrobatics for the awestruck crowd. Nor at predawn prayers, when he touched her forehead with the sceptre and pointed at the sea. Go and swim, and forget this pain. Above all forget the one named Pazel Pathkendle. She swam, she changed, she became herself again, but she did not forget. She would never forget, and the Father's look of love would never return.
The other aspirants knew she had fallen into disgrace. Malabron, big pious Malabron of Surahk, had started the gloating. Bad blood. It's not her fault, really. The faith burns right through weaker souls. Like fire through a thin-bottomed pan.
Little Phoenix-Flame, another had whispered, his voice dripping scorn. And Suridin, Admiral Kuminzat's daughter, had simply watched her with knowing eyes. She was the best of them, Neda thought, and her silent judgement hurt more than all the insults combined.
Bad blood. She had known it even as a child. Blood of Captain Gregory the Traitor. Blood of Suthinia Pathkendle, who had tried to poison her children. Look what had become of Pazel. He was no slave. He loved those Arqualis, the people who had burned their city, stabbed children in Darli Square, rutted inside her one after another for a day and a night. There were words for women like her in every tongue. Unclean. Unchaste. Damaged goods.
She knew now that the Father had only wanted to spare her pain. He had forbidden her to speak to Pazel, or even to remember him, because Pazel like their other enemies had forsaken his soul.
Tasmut. Stained. That was how you said it in Ormali. She was a stained rag, fouled, reeking, and no power in Alifros could'Lower that blade, lass.'
She whirled. An old man in a dark shirt and leggings stood behind her with his feet in the surf. Not armed, not moving. A scarred and battered face, bright with savagery and thought. He had spoken Mzithrini, but he was not one.
'Get away,' she said, in a warning tone.
The old man shook his head. 'You don't want to fight me. I can see you'd be a blary hellcat, but odds are I'd kill you. I've had more practice in the art, you see. More practice than a man ever should.'
Neda rushed him. Astonishingly he did not move. As she raised the knife for a killing stab he looked casually aside, and something in his very calm made her freeze, shocked and terrified. He turned and glanced up at the blade.
'You wouldn't mind me killing you,' he said, matter-of-fact. 'You were about to do it yourself, after all. But you're a sfvantskor, a true believer. And if I do manage to kill you, I'll carry your body back to the shrine and tell your priests the simple truth — that I'd interrupted a suicide. And I know you don't want that.'
Neda gaped at the ugly old man. Suicide was an unforgivable sin.
'Or maybe,' he said, 'you're not a believer any more? Is that what's brought you to this pass?'
'I will kill you,' she stammered. 'Monster. Who are you?'
'A spy,' he said. 'And you, lass, are a brilliant young novice with much to live for, though obviously you cannot see it. What's the matter, then? Lost your faith in the Faith?'
'No!'
'It's strange,' he mused. 'When the thing we most fear comes to pass — the thing all our will is bent on avoiding — it sometimes proves exactly what we need.'
She lowered the knife halfway to his throat. The old man watched her arm. 'Bastard!' she hissed. 'You're an Arquali!'
'Like the shedding of a skin,' he continued. 'One we'd die inside, if we didn't cast it off. Ah, but once we let it fall — new worlds, lass. New worlds await us.'
Suddenly Neda leaped back and away. 'You don't know a gods-damned thing! A spy, an Arquali spy!' She was weeping, outraged and disbelieving that he should be here, poisoning her last thoughts, coming between her and death.
For the first time he took a step, in her direction. Stiff, old, slow! He was mad, or lying. He would be easy to kill.
'I don't know why you want to die,' he said, 'but I know the sfavntskor way — better than you, perhaps. I've watched your kind for years. Go on, lass, give it up. You don't want soul-traitor for an epitaph. You don't want to be buried with the waste from the slaughterhouse.'
Such was the fate of suicides in the Mzithrin. The man knew. Perhaps he was exactly what he claimed.
'I'll kill you,' she said again, without conviction.
The man grinned — wolfish, hideous. 'Don't make threats,' he said. 'Not when I can tell your masters exactly what I saw tonight. And I saw quite a lot, lass. A privilege: I suppose no other man ever shall, until the day they strip you for the tomb. Unless the old Father's more corrupt than I know?'
Neda lunged. No man alive would slander the Father to her face. As she drove forward she tossed the blade expertly from right hand to left. Her eyes did not betray the move, nor did her right hand fall away. It was a feint she'd practised ten thousand times.
But her left hand closed empty. The man had moved like a cobra and plucked the knife from the air, and in the split-second that followed Neda learned the astonishing limits of her skills. She was face-down, choking on sand and seawater, helpless with the pain of blows she'd never seen coming.
He spoke from off to her right. 'You're the foreign-born sfvantskor,' he said. 'I've heard rumours about you. Tell me, where did the father dig you up? Where is home?'
With a gasp Neda rolled on her side. The man was holding the blade by two fingers as he studied her face. 'Do you know,' he said in a changed voice, 'I've just had the strangest — Rin's blood, the strangest — idea about you.' He squatted close to her. 'How's your Ormali, girl?'
She spat out a mouthful of sand. The old man laughed and shook his head. Then he rose and walked around her, not too close, and started up the beach.
'If you are his sister, consider this: he was smitten with the Treaty Bride. The daughter of the man who sent the marines into Ormael. He'd have died in her place, I'll warrant.'
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