They are trying to fan the flames of my anger.
‘We now know why our servant sought you out. Arathé, that was her name, was it not?’
Baiting me. Somehow their magic depends on my response.
‘Truly, we did not know her name until today. She was a very biddable servant. She did anything we told her to do.’ Noetos fought his rage as the Recruiter began to shimmer with power. ‘Now you have lost a son as well as a daughter. Perhaps you will be more fortunate this time, and we will decide to fashion him into one of us. Maybe this one will get to keep his tongue.’
‘Listen to them!’ Noetos shouted across the Square, unable to resist their goading. ‘They lied to you! They killed my daughter, and have taken my wife and son!’
Another thread of blue power flowed towards him, thicker and faster than before. ‘I am one of you!’ the fisherman cried desperately. ‘Help me!’
As the thread approached, a blue finger of obscenity in the mist, the Hegeoman turned to face him. ‘You are one of us no longer,’ he said in his unctuous voice. ‘The Recruiters may exact upon your body any justice they see fit to take. This is my judgment.’ Turning his back, he folded his arms.
Noetos could feel the power of the Recruiter taking a grasp of him. In some fashion the magic-wielder had the ability to seek out his emotions; yet, knowing this, the fisherman could not contain his anger and despair. He knew he had no defence against such an attack. As the blue filament hovered above him, Noetos turned and ran.
There were no roads connecting Fossa with the outside world. In ancient times, it was said, the village had been on the major north route taken by southern raiding parties, and had regularly suffered at the hands of invaders. The Fossans were never numerous enough to defend themselves effectively, and time and again those left alive were forced to begin anew. Finally a group of survivors decided that hiding would be more sensible than fighting, so erased any evidence of the cliff-side village from the farmlands above. From that time onward all that could be seen from the Fisher Coast Road were waving grasses and wheat fields. Strategically placed belts of trees kept anyone travelling the road from seeing the cliff-line. The maxim ‘out of sight, out of mind’ was adopted by the Fossans, whose farmers took a different route to their fields every day so as not to leave any permanent track. However, there were a number of narrow paths down to The Circle from the cliff-top, and it was one of these, much later that night, the Recruiters used to make their way out.
Noetos crouched behind a rocky outcrop and watched them leave. In the hours since the confrontation in Nadoce Square the bewildered fisherman had wandered the murky streets of Fossa, trying to understand what had happened to him; lurking in the shadows of the village that had been his home all his adult life, avoiding people he knew, some of whom he had called friends.
The fog lifted during his wanderings, rolling away towards the sea. Out beyond the reef it hung, waiting for a chance to creep in again should the night breeze relax. Noetos had found himself walking along the cliff-top with no thought beyond the overwhelming sorrow gripping him; at one point he stood right at the edge of the cliff looking down on the remains of Fisher House, and spent some time wondering if it should become his tomb. That the scene of his daughter’s betrayal and death could become his own resting place seemed fit, but he knew he would not let himself fall. The Recruiters had set him a puzzle, with his wife and son as the prize, and he would attempt to solve it.
Now he watched a party of seven slowly climb the stony path behind the house of the Hegeoman. They walked in single file, moving in and out of shadow, the last limping even though he used a stick. Hah, Arathé had wounded one. Two bound figures staggered along in the middle of the line. Noetos was sure his enemies would not be able to sense him from his rocky perch fifty paces away, but the last of the Recruiters turned as he reached the path’s summit, threw his cowl back and called across the cool spring night.
‘You are marked, fisherman! Wherever you go, we will know you. And think on this. Any attempt to prise your family from our grasp will end in something far worse than mere failure. We have revealed but a small part of our power. If you are a more foolish man than you have yet demonstrated, you will pursue us; and if you do, you will feel the full extent of our magic on some lonely road, far from help, far from home. Go and gnaw the bones of your grief in some other village, and try to forget you ever had a family. And pray that we do not one day decide to return for you!’
One by one the Recruiters and their captives disappeared over the top of the cliff. Within a few moments Noetos was left on his own, truly alone.
The eastern sky took on the pearly glow of dawn before the fisherman stirred from his perch. Like a monk of Hagga Rock considering his vows, Noetos had allowed his thoughts to range wide through the night, trying to hold on to his sanity, trying to force his emotions into more comfortable channels. How he hated magic! Such a filthy way of ruining the lives of innocent people. What had drawn it here, to a small fishing village? Was there knowledge he was missing, some pattern he did not see? Was this his past returning to bedevil him, as he feared? Or did it all revolve around Arathé? He thought about his daughter and her suffering, the moment when they took her tongue, her degradation since then, her body lying pierced by a kitchen knife, one he’d purchased and sharpened himself. But most of all he thought of his own past: a battlefield, a cooling body and the way a man could lose courage—not in the face of death, but in the face of futility.
He would leave the village and follow the Recruiters, as they no doubt expected he would. Futile. But first he had one further task to perform.
The Hegeoman awoke with a hand across his mouth and a sword held against his side. His struggling earned him a bleeding lip, and the ferocious face of his attacker promised more. His wife lay snoring, undisturbed by the stirring beside her. Shivering with more than the cold, the village leader eased himself out of bed and donned his nightshirt while the fisherman waited, arms folded. With this madman on the loose, why had he thought it safe to leave his house undefended?
Because he is not a madman, the frightened man acknowledged. Because he did not kill his family; because I betrayed them to the devious Recruiters who did not tell me all the truth. The village leader was nothing if not a pragmatic man, and as he searched his larder for food and drink to fill the sacks from his own kitchen, he knew he might very well die today.
He’s not mad, but he is a hothead, a man with a splinter in his soul, prickly and obstinate at best. Not a man to offend. Aside from yesterday’s events the Hegeoman knew other reasons why he might have made an enemy of the fisherman. With these reasons in mind he had handed Opuntia and her son to the Recruiters when they came to his house with their wild story—which, except for the nonsense of Arathé being transformed into some monster, turned out not to have been wild at all. He hoped Noetos did not know those reasons, or the possibility of his imminent death would become a certainty.
Relax. He knows nothing. Opuntia is a clever woman with a boor for a husband. Even if he suspects our dalliance it will serve only to distract him from the real issue.
The fisherman forced him to dress, then take up a sack bulging with provisions and walk across the cool tiles of his atrium at the point of a sword. Once the door closed behind them and they stood in the gentle early morning breeze, the Hegeoman allowed himself a little hope. Surely if he was to be killed, it would not be here, out in the open.
‘Quickly, now!’ the fisherman growled in his ear, and the two of them hurried down The Circle, past Fisher House—his captor did not spare it a glance—all the way down to Beach Lane and the sea.
‘A captive for a captive,’ said a voice behind him conversationally as they came to the beach. ‘A death for a death. You betrayed my family. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.’
The Hegeoman turned. ‘Because I don’t want to die,’ he said.
The laughter that followed this statement echoed around the cliffs. Surely someone will
hear? Surely someone will save me! But he knew how unlikely this was. He himself had ordered his villagers out of their homes last night, making them stay out in the dark to search for the man beside him. They would not be rising early this morning.
‘Ah, my friend, you are as sorry a man as I have met,’ the fisherman said. They reached the place of the boats, not a place the Hegeoman visited often. An escape by boat? Hope soared, then died. We’d never get past the Neherian fleet.
‘This is what I wish to do to you in answer to what you did to me. I wish to truss you up, put you into my boat, set fire to it and then launch you into the harbour. It would do me good to listen to your screams.’
The Hegeoman’s hope strengthened further. No one talked of what they intended to do before they did it. He’d heard that somewhere. ‘But you won’t,’ he said, ‘because you would never burn your precious boat. You are here to collect the goods you need, and then you will use me to help you escape the village.’
More laughter. ‘Half-right, Hegeoman. True, I won’t kill you today, as long as you are very careful to obey me. And I am going to use you, and not just to escape the village. We are going a lot further than that, you and I.’
‘By boat? I can’t sail.’
‘Oh, I know. What use is the leader of a fishing village who knows nothing of the sea? But we are not going by boat.’ They arrived at the Fisher’s boats as he spoke. The Hegeoman knew of them: the first, a small dory not unlike that used by the other fishermen of Fossa, paint peeling, showing signs of neglect. The second, the largest fishing craft ever to put out from Fossa, bought from the Neherians by surreptitious means—in which he himself had taken a part—and skilfully guided out of the harbour into the rich but forbidden coastal waters. One strip of colour under the gunwale, altered at irregular intervals to aid in disguise. Already a legend.
And the name of the vessel? Yes, he knew the name. After the events of yesterday, a dangerous name. He would have to be careful here, very careful, despite the fisherman’s promise to stay his hand. Death and destruction lurked behind the big man’s dark eyes.
‘This is the Arathé,’ Noetos said, his voice tight with emotion. ‘Purchased along with the right to live in Fisher House, using the gold-price earned by the sale of my daughter. Arathé is now dead. Fisher House is destroyed. It only remains for me to complete the transaction.’
He made the Hegeoman clamber over the side and into the Arathé. ‘Under the seat you will find three rucksacks. Pull out all three, then take one, roll it up tightly and put it in one of the others. When you’ve done that, toss them to me.’
The village leader hurried to do what he’d been bidden, while the fisherman gathered driftwood and made a pile beside the boat. Dawn had spread itself over the silver sky, and soon the sun would flood the village with its harsh light. The Hegeoman thought of slowing his swift movements in the hope of delaying the fisherman, but feared the sword too much to risk it.
‘Now take my tinderbox—you’ll find it under the bow seat, that’s at the other end of the boat to the stern—and light the fire I’ve set.’ He complied.
‘There is a bucket near the stern, the end of the boat facing the sea. In it you will find a sticky black substance. We will heat it, then I want you to spread it around the bottom of the boat. Don’t get any on yourself. Hurry!’
Tar. What would a fisherman want with tar?
‘Do it now, then jump out of the boat quickly if you value your skin.’
Oh.
Still the Hegeoman hesitated. This threatened his secret, the deepest secret of all. Would the Neherians, waiting these past weeks out to sea, take this fire to be the signal they were expecting?
He had no choice. The fool Fisher set flame to his boats himself. At least he could truthfully claim it had not been by his hand should the Neherians be angered by the false alarm.
The two of them backed away from the Arathé. Within moments the flames caught, and black smoke began to pour from her. They were halfway along the beach when the flames became visible. As they walked the fisherman constantly turned to watch his boats dying, his face hard. As though he had executed an enemy. The Hegeoman imagined himself lying in that boat, trussed up, while the flames ate at his skin.
They took the steepest of the paths out of Fossa, the one from Front Street up Escren Hill. Behind them they could hear faint shouts as people saw the fire; small figures poured out of Old Fossa Road as fishermen sought to prevent their own boats being claimed by the conflagration.
At the top of the cliff Noetos paused to watch the death of the Arathé. This was an ending, he knew. The last time he would look across the hated harbour, the grey-green sea, the pale beach, the shadowed cliffs. Smoke billowed from his boat, drifting out past the reef as though escorting her soul out to sea.
The transaction was complete. All that remained of Arathé now was a small sculpture tucked away in his belt.
Noetos gave his captive a slap across his legs with the flat of his father’s blade, rescued from the wreck of his home, and they plunged into the deep grass of Escren Hill. Behind them Fossa disappeared from view. No paths up here; he would have to make a path of his own.
A path of revenge.
COSMOGRAPHER
CHAPTER 3
GARDEN OF ANGELS
IT WAS SAID IN THE Great Houses, where some people knew, and echoed in the souks, where they definitely did not, that early morning was the best time to view the Garden of Angels. Certainly a visitor to the Emperor’s Talamaq Palace would not see the garden at its best in the afternoon, when the sea breeze stirred the desert dust from the streets and middens of the city and interfered with the play of light on the celebrated golden fountains of Talamaq. Needless to say, Jau Maranaya, scion of a lesser Amaqi Alliance, had not been given an early morning appointment.
Nevertheless, to be given any appointment at the Emperor’s Palace was an honour, even one at midafternoon when the broiling air addled the wits and made even a grateful man impatient. Jau stood for a moment before the great Gate of the Father, composing himself, and once again ran through in his mind what this meeting would mean. He had it down like a mantra. Preferment, patronage, prestige, profit. Especially profit. His customers and competitors knew about his appointment with the Emperor, he’d made sure of that. They would come to his emporium to ask him questions, and would buy his goods without the customary haggling. He would move up the city’s hierarchy of traders, and his fortune would surely grow. And if he was fortunate he might be invited to join one of the greater Alliances. He was young yet, and clever. Who knew how high he might aspire?
Two Omeran guards stood before the massive wooden gate, arms folded, scowls on their broad, dark, inhuman faces. ‘Health to the Emperor!’ Jau said companionably to the nearer of them, and made to approach the gate.
‘Wait, ma sor,’ the Omeran said in a soft voice, stepping a pace forward. A gelding, then. The Emperor was rumoured to have a number of them in his employ, and here stood the evidence. Two legs they had, and two arms, but no Amaqi would mistake an Omeran for human. This one had soft features to match the voice, but was menacing enough to keep Jau from questioning the order.
‘And that is good health to the Emperor,’ said the other guard, and his voice was definitely not soft.
‘Good health, yes, that is what I mean,’ Jau said, more politely than he felt. Where had they learned to speak like this? He had put Omerans to death for lesser slights, but these were the Emperor’s trained guards. Who knew what latitude they were allowed? He wanted to ask how long he must wait, but the guards seemed ready to turn aside any question he might ask. He would not lower himself to be refused by an Omeran, even one in the Emperor’s employ.
They were mind readers too, it appeared. ‘Until the shadow of the stick touches the gate, ma sor,’ the first guard said, pointing to a slender pole stuck in the ground to his left. ‘You wait.’ The words sounded as much threat as command.
Jau judged he had about a s
unwidth to endure. Frankly, he was unsure why he should wait at all. Appointments with the Emperor were by necessity punctual affairs, involving as they did the Corridor of Rainbows, and the timing of his arrival was important. The functionary who delivered his summons explained all this to him, though he knew much of it anyway; it appeared members of the lesser Alliances knew more than the Emperor suspected.
The Emperor’s Palace, the functionary had told him, the Talamaq after which the city was named, was one of the world’s wonders, with pillars of gold and glass fingering the sky. Well, everyone knew that. Prisms and mirrors took the sun’s light and shepherded it into the Corridor of Rainbows, where those Amaqi graced by an appointment with the Emperor approached the throne. The colours displayed in the corridor depended on one’s status and the level of regard in which one was held. This was also widely known. Subject to constant rumour and gossip, in fact. The corridor reflected the ineffable will of the Emperor, the court official told him, but Jau was aware how it really worked: the path of the sun was known for every day of the year, charted by cosmographers, and cunning machinery altered the mirrors and prisms to break up the light into the colours of the rainbow. The operators, Omerans painstakingly trained for the task, could flood the Corridor of Rainbows with any combination of colours the Emperor dictated, depending only on the weather—though clouds seldom obscured the sun above Talamaq—and the time of day. A triumph of Amaqi science, and a powerful political tool.
The functionary had left Jau in no doubt about the honour being done him. In fact, the tedious man had coached him for the better part of an afternoon on how he was to behave. What he was to say, where he was to stand, where he was—and was not—to look. Jau listened attentively, his nervousness increasing with every word, but comforted himself with the knowledge that this was exactly the effect the instructions were designed to produce.
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