Spellbreaker

by Blake Charlton

  “That would be one of the priests my devotees have paid off to watch out for any possible child of mine,” Holokai growled. “Seems he never counted on things developing so quickly. But still, he’ll have to answer to me why he didn’t get a message to me faster.”

  “You have done this to other woman?”

  The shark god looked back to Lolo and did not answer.

  “Disgusting,” Leandra sneered. “You were going to do that to my daughter.”

  He shook his head. “She said she wasn’t in any danger of having a baby.”

  “But you knew about the danger to the other women?”

  He flared his nostrils. “It’s happened very rarely before. Most often, no child is produced or the pregnancy stops on its own.”

  “And you hid from Lea the few women whose bodies were filled with shark teeth?”

  “It’s in my requisites. It’s nothing I can help.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you can. How is it the Trimuril hasn’t found a way to stop your devotees from praying for such a gruesome thing?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “So that’s how you’re written: The demigod son your devotees pray for over anything else?”

  Again he glared at her.

  “This time silence won’t get you out of answering. Before we can talk about Lolo’s future, I need to know if you will put him before Leandra.”

  “She knows I must.”

  “But she doesn’t yet know you have a son. And we will keep it that way until I am satisfied that you can be trusted with Lolo.”

  “You have no right.”

  “That child has known me for what is a year of his life. My officers and I are already more of a family to him than anyone else. Creator in heaven, in five days he’s going to be an adolescent shark god. Do you have even the slightest idea of the trouble he could get himself into?”

  “You still have no right!”

  “I have a right to protect my daughter.”

  Holokai narrowed his eyes. “She can protect herself.”

  “If that’s so, then you’ll have your son on your island before you know it.”

  The shark god rolled his shoulders, let out a breath as if he were considering something.

  “This will be easier for everyone, including you and your son, if you realize you’ve been broken to my will. You’re a god of blood. You know when you’ve lost a fight. You’re mine now.”

  Silence.

  “You say it or I send you back to my daughter and I keep your son.”

  “Then I’m yours.”

  “Good. So, I need to know what Leandra was hiding in the throne room today.”

  “What she was hiding?”

  “Don’t make me think you’re any dumber because I already think you’d need instructions on how to drool. Lea needed to get back to the city tonight. She induced a disease flare to keep the Trimuril from finding out why. It can’t be simply to investigate the thugs attacking petty deities.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Well then, why?”

  “If I am going to do this for you, I need to know what I’m getting into. There’re things I need to know before I go back to Lea.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as what happened fourteen years ago in Port Mercy? Why does Lea hate you so much?”

  “Fair enough. You should know how to keep things from getting worse between Lea and me. But first, tell me why does she need to go back to Chandralu today? Does she know who’s behind the attacks on petty deities? Is it the empire or the Cult of the Undivided Society? Or is it some criminal organization?”

  Holokai was silent for a moment. Then he looked back toward Lolo. The boyish god was standing on the raft and periodically dodging Tam, who was trying to tickle him. At last, Holokai said, “She knows it’s not the Undivided Society.”

  Francesca frowned. “How?”

  “Because,” Holokai said with a sigh, “the Cult of the Undivided Society worships Leandra.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Leandra looked with trepidation into the chamber pot. Her gut clenched when she saw that her urine was tea-dark and foamy.

  This flare was going to be a horror.

  Her joints ached, a rash bloomed across her cheeks, fatigue weighed on her like a wet blanket, and now any deep breath flashed pain through her chest. This last symptom frightened her most. When she was eleven, a severe flare had produced the same pain. For hours, her mother had listened to her chest and thumped her back before deciding that her heart was surrounded by dangerous amounts of fluid. So Francesca had written a six-inch needlelike spell and then inserted it just below Leandra’s sternum and pushed it up to her heart. After Francesca had drained the fluid, Leandra felt a weight removed from her chest. She had drawn in long, hungry breaths.

  Ever since, Leandra had remembered her mother’s tense expression as she had pressed the needle up into her chest. Leandra had associated that cold, focused expression with the unfairness of childhood disease. But now, she wondered what it had been like to be her mother. How horrible it must have been to hold that needle.

  And yet … there was always something implacable about her mother’s love. Fourteen years ago in Port Mercy …

  Leandra forced her thoughts elsewhere. She washed up and went back to the common room of her quarters. Outside, late-afternoon sunlight was pouring down on the Floating City.

  Dhrun stood looking out the window, her back to Lea. The goddess’s upper arms were absently brushing back her short black hair and her lower arms were resting on the windowsill. She turned around. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be,” she said while gingerly sitting on her daybed. She took another deep breath and thought that the resulting pain was less than before.

  Dhrun sat beside her. “Should we get a physician?”

  “I’ve already taken a high dose of the stress hormone. There’s nothing else a physician might do.” Except, she did not say, stick a needle in my heart. But if things got worse … well … there should still be enough time to call for her mother.

  “Maybe you should let me go in your place to meet with the smuggler.”

  “Not you too.” Before Holokai had gone to search the surrounding rooms for threats, he had tried to argue Leandra into letting him do the same thing.

  “Lea,” Dhrun said gently, “things are in a bad way. Your father took down the River Thief.”

  Leandra pressed a hand to her head and then laid herself down onto the daybed. “He did, the bastard. Clever of him to lie and say he was going after the other neodemon.”

  “Maybe it’s time we approached your father? Maybe your mother as well?”

  “That’d be disastrous.”

  “Do we have another choice? The empire is threatening and there’s some unknown deity in the bay. Not to mention our lack of funds. Maybe your father would be able to limit the damage.”

  Leandra shook her head again. “He’s too committed to maintaining peace between empire and league. Everything we’ve worked for would fall apart. You’re a goddess of victory, would you ever want to concede defeat?”

  Dhrun paused. “There’s a difference between losing a point and losing a match.”

  “Besides, from what I know of my future, I am more likely to murder my father than seek his help.”

  “Why should that be?”

  “I think my father knows more about our cause than he was letting on. It might be a matter of choosing between him and our cause.”

  “Well then, at least things are getting better with your mother.”

  “Don’t underestimate her ability to drive me insane. Which reminds me … Sometimes high doses of the stress hormone can drive people mad. Literally, they can become psychotic. If I lose it, I’m counting on you to talk me back to normal.”

  “I can try, but you were never that normal to begin with,” Dhrun said, patting Leandra’s hand. It was a friendly, protective gesture. Leandra felt a tightness in her chest
that had nothing to do with her disease. She took Dhrun’s hand, their fingers interlacing. “You’ve become a good friend.”

  Dhrun only gave her hand a squeeze. Leandra closed her eyes. If only she could sleep then maybe the world wouldn’t weigh so heavily. Dhrun’s gentle touch on her hand, the distant chanting on the lake, they washed over Leandra. She felt uncomfortably hot. A flute seemed to be playing far away, the same four notes over and over. She wondered why Holokai had not yet returned. She wondered if she was dreaming.

  Then there came a sound, what she could not tell, and Dhrun’s hand left hers. A screen door slid open. “Lea,” Dhrun’s gentle voice spoke again.

  A hand gently ran across her face. Leandra groaned as she came more completely awake and aware of the pain in her gut and her joints.

  “Lea, your father is here. He wants to see you. Should I ask him to come back?”

  Groaning again, Leandra opened her eyes and saw that light was slanting into the window at a different angle. She’d fallen asleep. “No, no,” she said and tried to sit up. Dhrun helped her up. She took a deep breath and found that the chest pain was still there but less. It was a good sign. “Help me back to the chamber pot.”

  Once in private, Leandra discovered that her urine was still dark and frothy. Her ankles were beginning to swell.

  After washing up, she tottered back to her daybed and told Dhrun to bring her father in.

  As the goddess pulled back the screen door, Leandra tried to straighten out her hair.

  Her father stepped into the room, trailed by the hydromancer who had advised him for so long. He approached Leandra as if he might embrace her, but seeing her flat expression, stopped a few feet away. “Hello, Lea,” he said with a slight smile. That was brave of him, she thought, the rash on her face must look frightening.

  She nodded. “Father.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said with faked nonchalance and shrugged her shoulders, “peachy.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you about going after the River Thief.”

  “Nothing that I wouldn’t have done to you.”

  “Are you sure you’re well enough to go back to Chandralu tonight?”

  Leandra clenched her jaw. Her father only ever worried about the problem before him and what role he should fill to resolve it. He could change his personality almost instantly. Leandra had seen him shift from a placid bureaucrat to a bloodthirsty warrior, from a coldhearted assassin to a pacifistic diplomat. Now he was playing the worried father. Leandra was never sure if he had any solid aspect to his personality. It infuriated her mostly because she was so like her father.

  Leandra was about to tell Nicodemus that she was capable of making her own decisions when he added, “I brought my physician along in case you’d like to see her instead of your mother.”

  The heat building inside Leandra cooled. It was a thoughtful gesture. She looked at the physician in the blue robes. The old woman’s eyes were beginning to cloud. “You trained in Port Mercy?”

  “I did, my Lady Warden.”

  “Did you know my mother?”

  “No, my Lady Warden.”

  There followed a silence. “I do have one question I would ask you … alone.”

  “I’ll step out into the hall,” Nicodemus said and retreated.

  The hydromancer waited for him to go before saying, “My title is Magistra Doria Kokalas, but if you prefer, call me Doria.”

  “You know about my condition?”

  She nodded.

  “Once, as a girl, a disease flare put fluid around my heart? I’m worried that might be happening again.”

  “What makes you worried about that?”

  “When I take a deep breath, I have this pain in my chest.”

  The hydromancer’s eyes tensed. “Might I examine you?” When Leandra nodded, the physician listened to her chest. She thumped her back, pressed on her belly, and then spent what seemed an absurdly long time staring at her neck while Leandra took deep breaths.

  Next Doria removed a vial of water that when poured on Leandra’s right bicep formed a wide band that contracted to an uncomfortable tightness and then slowly relaxed. Mysteriously a stream of water connected itself to one of the physician’s ears.

  When Leandra had dressed again, Doria said, “You might have some fluid around your heart or your lungs, but I don’t hear the rubbing sound that commonly accompanies such inflammation. I don’t appreciate a paradoxical pulse or other concerning signs.” She gestured to Leandra’s neck as if that would make the things obvious. “If there is fluid around your heart, it doesn’t seem to be enough to interfere with your heart’s function.”

  With great relief, Leandra thanked the physician. “I’ve already taken the high dose of the stress hormone. Is there anything else I should do?”

  “Not right now. But I would want you to be near a physician in case the swelling around the heart were to worsen.”

  Leandra nodded. “Thank you, Doria.”

  The old woman nodded. “I am happy to be of service. Would you like me to call on you again?”

  “If possible. But for now, would you send in my father?”

  The hydromancer bowed and left the room. There followed the sliding of the screen door and Nicodemus returned. “Is everything all right?”

  “Better than I had feared,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He sat beside her. “What else can I do for you?”

  “You’ve already done too much, including playing whatever foolish game the Trimuril dragged you into.”

  “Lea, why did you induce this flare?”

  “I need to get back to Chandralu.”

  “Why?”

  Her gut went cold. “I’m investigating those who have been attacking petty deities in the city. If they are tied to either the imperial threat or your neodemon of Feather Island, we must know about it soon.”

  “You’re sure you’re well enough?”

  “After speaking to your physician, I am.”

  “All right, Lea, I trust you. But … there’s something else.”

  Leandra’s heart began to strike. “Yes?”

  “When I took down the River Thief—”

  “Dad,” she interrupted, her fear of what he might say next and what she might have to do rising, “could you fetch me a cup of water.” She motioned to a pitcher across the room.

  He paused as if confused before walking over to the pitcher.

  Creator, Leandra prayed, don’t let him say it. Don’t let him know. Please, anyone but him. Don’t make me kill him.

  “Here,” he said.

  When she accepted the cup, Leandra allowed the pain to show in her expression.

  He watched her for a moment and then said, “Lea, when I took down the River Thief, she was wearing your face.”

  Leandra’s heart hammered. She was going to have to kill him. There was no way out … unless … “Oh?” she asked in a voice that by some miracle she kept calm. “Was she?”

  Nicodemus’s green eyes searched her face. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Something similar happened about five years ago,” she lied. “In a village on the Matrunda … I deconstructed a rival village’s alligator neodemon, who had been terrorizing their fisherman. The local village goddess assumed my features to fool the villagers into thinking that it was she who had taken the neodemon down. I think she did it unconsciously. The villagers prayed more fervently to her and her cult grew. That is until my officers heard about what she’d done. After we applied a little pressure on her, she decided not to wear my face again.”

  Nicodemus was looking into her eyes. “You think the River Thief was impersonating you?”

  “I can’t think of any other reason why she should have looked like me. Can you?”

  “No … no. But Lea, why was the River Thief surprised when I said that she had your face?”

  “I’m sure she wasn’t aware that she had taken on my likeness. Crafty
deities alter their manifestations without realizing it. When the worshipers see the changes, they incorporate it into the god’s mythologies. And you know how deities believe in their own mythologies. If she’s been using my face for a while, the River Thief probably thought it was the other way around—that I had her face.”

  Nicodemus frowned. “She did say that…”

  Leandra knew that she was right because she had watched the River Thief slowly and unknowingly take on her likeness.

  Nicodemus was still frowning. “But, Lea, aren’t you worried that … something else is happening?”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I suppose I can’t think of anything. But, Lea, have you gotten into any kind of trouble?”

  “No more than the rest of us.”

  “And is there anything else you know that would help us?”

  “No, Dad, I wish I did,” she lied, hopeful for the first time that she wouldn’t have to kill her father after all. For that reason, she put her hand down on the bed between them.

  He looked down at her hand.

  Because of his fluency in Language Prime and his cacography, there were few living things her father could touch without giving them deadly cancer curses. Her mother was one. She was another.

  Slowly she took his hand. The pain in his face, which she had not previously noticed, fell away.

  It was the wrong thing to do. Leandra knew that. She had done worse—lied, cheated, stolen, killed—but she didn’t have many regrets. But now, she regretted how easily she manipulated him.

  He gave her a smile, mundane, paternal. She could see the wrinkles around his eyes, the silver in his hair. After everything that had happened to him, he was still just a man in middle age, a man looking at his daughter whom he had greatly underestimated and whom he did not in the least understand. Hollowness opened up in Leandra’s chest. Even so she said, “Thank you again for bringing your physician. I didn’t want to see mother.”

  “She does love you.”

  “I don’t want to discuss that now.”

  “I know I don’t understand what it’s like to have your condition, but … but well, I spent a lot of my childhood feeling like I was broken. It made it hard for me to accept help…”