But that was the difference, she recognized. The Knights Eternal clung to flesh.
For ages she had trained the creatures, telling them that they had no spirits, that it was only the power of their minds that allowed them to seize a corpse and inhabit it.
But that was not true. The Knights Eternal did have spirits, powerful spirits. Crull-maldor lied to the creatures only so that they would fear oblivion all the more, so that they would cling to any flesh that they could, like a drowning man clinging to a raft.
It was true that their spirits were not whole, undefiled. As part of their preparation, before birth Crull-maldor would damage them, remove the spirit tendrils that formed their conscience and gave them their will. By doing so she made the Knights Eternal ill-suited to become abodes for the loci. Thus, the Knights Eternal could not communicate across the leagues with other loci, as Crull-maldor did. That had always been their weakness. That was why Despair had never shown them favor.
But much had changed with the binding of the worlds.
Much has changed, Crull-maldor thought, and much more shall yet change. . . .
Less than an hour later Crull-maldor trundled into the Dedicates’ Keep deep in the wyrmling fortress. She wore her cloak of glory.
The cloak was not made of material; it was fashioned from skin, Crull-maldor’s own hide, skinned from her while she was still alive. By wearing it, Crull-maldor could walk about in her wyrmling form, rather than appear as a spirit. She could manipulate things with her hands, if she so desired—bearing a spear into battle, or adjusting an ocular.
There was life in the hide still. It breathed on its own, and required nourishment. She kept it in a vat by day, soaking in blood, seawater, and various nutrients.
The skin had aged over the centuries, becoming wrinkled. Growths had formed over it—warty things—and patches of it were discolored.
The skin had eye holes but no eyes, mouth holes but no teeth. Crullmaldor could move about in the skin, but she had no flesh and bone to give her proper form.
Instead, she walked with a hunched back, barely able to hold her head up, her knuckles sometimes dragging on the floor. She was unsightly.
But the cloak of glory had its uses. The eye holes and other orifices could all be sewn tightly shut, so that Crull-maldor could inhabit her old skin and walk about in the daylight, as she had need.
Now she hoped that it would provide another use.
The Dedicates’ keep here was a vast hall where dozens of sorcerers coaxed attributes from human Dedicates and bestowed them upon the wyrmlings. Hundreds of people filled the hall—terrified human women weeping and begging to be spared, wyrmling soldiers eager to taste the sweet kiss of a forcible.
The wyrmling troops were drawing attributes as quickly as they could. Mostly they took metabolism from the humans, thus speeding up the troops while leaving the Dedicates in a magical slumber. Human workers sweated and grunted as they lugged the sleeping Dedicates off for storage.
The room was filled with the deep songs of the facilitators, the screams of pain from Dedicates. White lights flashed as forcibles came to life, and the odor of burned skin and singed hair filled the room.
Crull-maldor limped to her chief facilitator, and commanded in a harsh whisper, “Give me an endowment.”
The facilitator stared at her a moment, and a scowl of revulsion crossed his face. Obviously he did not think that her experiment could succeed, but his answer was contrite. “Which endowment, O Great One?”
“It matters not,” Crull-maldor said. “Metabolism is easy. Give me metabolism.” She imagined how it would be to speed up, to move faster than other liches, to think twice as fast as the emperor. There were so many possible advantages. . . .
So the facilitator waded in among the humans and brought back a likely Dedicate, a small young man with a weak chin. The boy dodged and kicked, trying to break away. He did indeed seem to be a child with a gift for speed.
The facilitator spoke to the boy in his own language, soothing him, calming him, promising life in return for his gift. A few slaps to the face left the boy with a bloody nose and a firm conviction that giving up his endowment would save his life.
Then the ceremony began; the facilitator picked out a forcible and began singing to the boy in his deep voice, a wordless song meant only to mesmerize the child, get his mind off his fear. Then the facilitator pressed the rune end of the forcible to the boy’s neck, and it suddenly grew white-hot at its tip. The sound of sizzling skin filled the air.
The boy whimpered then, but did not break away. Instead, he sat stoically, glaring at Crull-maldor, as if daring her to take his gift.
The facilitator continued singing, brought the forcible to Crull-maldor. He twirled it in the air, and thick white lines of light held in the air wherever the forcible went, creating a serpent of light that coiled through the room.
But when the glowing forcible touched Crull-maldor’s skin, the white hot metal did not burn it. The serpent merely hung in the air, as if waiting to strike elsewhere.
The facilitator grew nervous, tried touching Crull-maldor in various places—her belly, her neck, a healthy-looking patch of skin on her forehead.
But nothing worked. Beads of sweat began to break upon his brow as he considered how she might punish him for his failure.
“Master,” he begged, “a lich cannot take an endowment. . . . You are too far gone toward death.”
It was as Crull-maldor had feared. She had tried an experiment, and failed.
It is because I do not cling to my flesh, she realized. I am a spirit inhabiting a bag made of skin, nothing more. I have the form of a living being, but I am not like the Knights Eternal.
She thought for long seconds, and answered the facilitator. “Oh, I can take endowments. But first I must take a fitting body. . . .”
17
THE BARBAROUS SHORE
No man is a barbarian in his own eyes, but often is seen as a barbarian by others.
—Warlord Hrath
Six days later the soft cries of gulls wafted above a still, fog-shrouded sea. In the gray dawn, the water barely lapped against the hull of the Borrow-bird, looking for the entire world like molten lead.
Myrrima peered overboard, and tasted the salty air. Land was not far off. She could smell a hint of it—autumn fields and wet earth, not too far away.
Fifty-two days it had been since the family had fled Landesfallen.
Fifty-two days was a long time. Much can change.
Myrrima was filled with burning questions: What will we find in Rofe-havan? Where is Talon? What has befallen my other children?
The sea gave no answers. Myrrima was a wizardess, but unlike some who were gifted with aquamancy, she could not foretell a person’s fate by gazing into a still pool.
For a moment, she thought that she caught sight of a shadow on the water—a fishing coracle. But it disappeared through the fog as silently as it had come, and she wondered if it had been a dream.
Her ship lay as silently as a log in the water. She’d lowered the sail an hour ago, and then bade the ship be still. A small spell kept a dense fog in place. It was not hard to do. There was no wind, and it would have been a foggy morning even without her help.
Aaath Ulber stumbled up from the hold and wiped the morning sleep from his eyes. He took the rudder by long habit, though there was no need to steer.
“We’ve got land nearby,” Myrrima told him. She didn’t know exactly where they were. No one on board was a navigator. But they had known that if they sailed west long enough, they’d run into a continent. But how far north or south had they come? To the north was Internook, home to the savage warlords. That was the most likely place for them to beach. But if they had drifted south far enough, they might beach in Haversind or Toom—lands that would be more hospitable.
The giant drew a deep breath, taking a long draught of air. “There’s a port,” he said. “I can smell cooking fires.”
He has a good no
se, Myrrima thought. The warrior clans bred like hunting dogs, and they gave him a good nose with all the rest.
“Aye,” Myrrima said. “If you listen close, you’ll hear foghorns braying in the distance.” She shot him a worried look.
Aaath Ulber stood silently until a horn sounded, long and deep. “Internook,” he said softly. “We’ve landed in damned Internook.”
He gave her a worried glance. They’d had nothing but bear meat to eat for the past few days, an old boar, sour and rancid.
Myrrima said, “I think that I should go ashore, purchase some fresh supplies.”
Aaath Ulber held his tongue for a moment, peered at her from the corner of his eye. She knew that he would argue. He loved her too much to let her take the risk.
“I’ll be the first to go into town,” he said.
“Why you?” Myrrima demanded.
“I’m the biggest,” he said. “If anyone gives me trouble, I’ll be able to squash them.”
She had known that he would make that argument. “You’re the biggest—and the easiest to spot,” she said. “You’ll attract too much attention.”
“Your dark hair will attract almost as much attention. And you speak with a Heredon brogue. I’ve always done a fair impression of an Inter-nook accent.”
“Fair enough to mock the warlords at a drunken feast, but this isn’t a feast, and these are not our friends. They’ll spot you in minute!”
“Last that I heard, it wasn’t against the law in Internook to be a Mystarrian,” Aaath Ulber growled.
“Last I heard, the warlords of Internook were using Mystarrians for bear bait in the arena.”
“Let them,” Aaath Ulber said. “The last bear that I tangled with didn’t do so well.”
“Maybe we should just keep sailing,” Myrrima said. “I have an ill feeling about this. In two more days we could be in Toom.”
Aaath Ulber stood over her, put his huge hand on her shoulder. He was trying to be gentle, she knew. He was trying to ease her mind. But it felt clumsy and wrong somehow. His hands now were as big as plates. They felt like the paws of some animal. There was a distance between them that could not be crossed, and when he touched her now she felt more isolated than ever.
“We need ale,” Aaath Ulber said, “at the very least. I’ve heard that we cannot trust the water here. Ale, a few vegetables, a couple of hens. I can go to the morning market and be out in an hour. I won’t talk much, just grunt and nod and point.”
“That was my plan exactly,” Myrrima smiled.
“Mmmm?” he asked. He pointed at her, jutted his chin, and grunted, as if to say, “I want that one.”
Myrrima laughed.
“See,” Aaath Ulber said, “I’ve been practicing all month. I’ve got it down to an art.”
Myrrima didn’t agree to let him go. Aaath Ulber simply went to one of the two away boats, lowered it over the side, and climbed down in. When he settled into it, he looked far too large for the small vessel. It threatened to sink under his weight.
Rain came rushing out of her cabin at that moment. “Wait,” she cried. “I’m coming with you.”
“You?” Aaath Ulber asked.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said. “With my blond hair, I’ll fit right in.”
Aaath Ulber opened his mouth to argue, but Rain shushed him. “I’ll follow you, keep a good distance. And if there is trouble, I won’t intercede. I’ll just let the others know.”
Myrrima studied the girl. She had the right hair color, but she wasn’t big-boned enough.
Rain’s plan made sense, but a wave of foreboding stole over her.
As Rain scrambled to get into the boat, Myrrima said, “Maybe I should come, too. . . .”
Aaath Ulber said tersely, “The others need you more than I do. Keep a fog wrapped around the boat, like a fine gray cloak. I’ll be back soon.”
He took the oars and began to paddle away, toward the distant bray of a foghorn. Myrrima demanded. “How will you find us when you’re done?”
“Easy,” Aaath Ulber said. “I’ll just look for a broad patch of mist on the ocean, and aim right for the heart of it.”
He smiled up at her, then pulled hard on the oars once, twice, three times—and the mist swallowed him.
Aaath Ulber rowed toward shore on the little ship’s boat, with Rain seated in the back of the boat, doing her best to look brave.
“Don’t worry,” Aaath Ulber told Rain. “Everyone will be looking at me. No one will be looking at you.”
He considered how very little the young girl knew, and realized that Rain could use more instruction. “When we get to the dock, wait until I’ve gone a good hundred yards before you begin to follow. Understand?”
“I’ll be fine,” Rain said.
Aaath Ulber recognized that Rain seldom had to be told a thing more than once. She had a keen memory, and a good wit when she wasn’t too shy to speak. But right now, her life would depend upon how well she performed.
For a moment there was little sound, only the splashing of oars as he dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled. Then a great horn sounded off toward shore. Other than that, the only sound was the waves lapping against the boat, and the only sight was the gray fog above and the waves beneath as they lifted the boat gently and then let it fall. The water was clear, with a bit of kelp floating here and there, and some small yellow jellyfish.
“When you follow me, keep your head down, and your hood up. This may not be the largest village in Internook. The men and women of the place, they’ll think that you’re some girl from the outskirts of town or a nearby village. But folks your own age—they’re the ones you have to watch out for. They’ll mark you as a stranger.
“Don’t speak to anyone. Try not to look like you’re following me. That means that you don’t watch me. You might stop and look in the windows of a shop, or stoop over to tie the straps to your boots, or pet some stray dog. But you don’t follow me with your eyes, understand?”
He waited for Rain to nod.
“Now, tell me what you’re going to do when we get into town?”
Rain repeated the instructions nearly perfectly.
Yet he worried. Rain’s face was pale with fear. Bone-white skin was common up here in the North, and so he figured that she wouldn’t look too out of place. Her hair color and eye color were right. The folks here all had yellow or red hair.
What bothered him was the fear in her eyes, the tight lips, the way her shoulders hunched in on themselves, the way her breath came shallow.
“I want you to try not to be afraid,” he suggested. “Your fear is what will give you away. Keep your head down but your back straight and tall, your shoulders wide. When you see someone, smile as if you were greeting an old friend. And when you walk along the streets, think of better days, and happier times ahead.”
Now he had to broach the subject that most concerned him. “The warlords of Internook aren’t bad folks, if you’re one of them. But they breed like rats, and so for five hundred years they’ve been eager to hire their young men out as mercenaries. There are families here so poor that they raise children just to sell them. When a young man goes to war, he only receives wages after a campaign has ended, and if he dies in battle, that payment goes to his family. Many a father and mother have sent out their sons hoping for nothing more than to get gold from it, and to see their children all slaughtered.
“So the folk of Internook have gained repute over time for their brutality, for their warrior’s spirit. The rest of the world sees them at their worst. But I think that in their own homes, they may not be so bad. . . .”
Rain spoke up, choosing her words slowly and carefully, her voice hinting at barely subdued rage. “What the warlords did to us cannot be forgiven or ignored. Their reputation for brutality is well earned. What’s more, I do not believe that such folk could go to Mystarria and act like monsters without losing something of their souls. War hardens a man, and in Internook, their folks have been growing hard for ge
nerations.” She gave Aaath Ulber a stern look and said, “You do me a disservice by telling comfortable lies.”
Aaath Ulber was surprised by her impassioned outburst, but he was learning that there was more to this girl than met the eye.
More to the point, he could not fault her logic. The folk of Internook had grown hard over the centuries, and perhaps Rain was correct.
“Don’t worry about me,” Rain said. “I’ve taken the worst that the warlords are likely to dish out.”
Aaath Ulber peered into her clear eyes and saw something frightening there: death.
She’s been raped, he realized. Probably more than once.
Aaath Ulber felt more than a little worried. Had he known what she’d endured, he would not have allowed her to come.
So he rowed on in silence. The folks of Internook were great eaters of fish, and as the boat neared land, he saw many a fisherman’s coracle hugging the shore. The fishermen didn’t dare go far in the thick fog.
The blowing of the horn guided him to port, and at midmorning he tied up at the docks.
The port was like many here in Internook. A river had carved a channel into the bay, a channel broad and deep. But the barbarians had hauled in huge rocks and blocked most of the old bay off, forming a funnel that pointed into the shallows. The mouth of the funnel ended with several iron columns interspersed about two feet apart.
In the summer, leviathans—great serpents of the deep—sometimes came in near shore, driving large schools of fish before them: salmon and cod, mackerel and bass. The fish would swim for safety toward the shallows, and be driven down the long throat of the funnel into the bay. Once they were in, the barbarians could drop boards through slats, locking the fish in while the iron bars kept the great serpents out. Thus, the fishing grounds here in Internook were remarkably bountiful.
The fog still held, and so Aaath Ulber was shielded from faraway eyes. He got up and whispered, “Remember, keep well behind me. When you can’t see me any longer, that’s the sign to start following. I’ll take care to make plenty of noise, so that you’ll know where I am.”
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