‘Who?’
The acolyte was rudely pushed aside and a soldier in red armour strode into the room and stood immediately before Law. ‘Me,’ Hordemaster Fist declared. Three soldiers entered behind the Hordemaster.
‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ Law asked indignantly.
‘It seems we have a mutual problem,’ Fist replied, looking for a place to sit. He settled on a stool and lowered his bulky frame. ‘Sit down, Law,’ he ordered.
Law looked at the three soldiers and his cowering acolyte. ‘Should this be a private talk?’
Fist waved his right arm and the soldiers withdrew. Law nodded to the acolyte who followed in the soldiers’ wake. ‘Satisfied?’ Fist asked.
Law sat facing the man well-known to everyone as Prince Shadow’s personal protector. Fist’s bearded face was hard, blunt like his manner, and his dark eyes glittered with fearsome energy. The frightful livid scar across his nose and cheek gave him the appearance of a brutal man. ‘What is the “mutual problem”, as you described it?’ Law asked.
‘An assassin with a habit of killing princes, among other things, was seen to be helping a thief known to the Joker.’
‘Your riddling speech makes no sense to me,’ Law said.
Fist shook his head as if the Seer was an idiot. ‘You sent men to get rid of the thief who helped the Joker retrieve a certain artefact. They didn’t complete the job because the thief was helped by an assassin—the same one who killed Prince Shortear. Correct?’
‘I don’t know anything about an assassin,’ Law replied irritably.
‘Neither did your helpers. That’s why they’re dead,’ Fist told him.
‘Get to your point!’ Law snapped.
Fist glared at the Seer, took a deliberately deep and long breath, and exhaled slowly, before saying, ‘I have a source that says they’re going upriver. If your Holy Eminence wants the thief as much as I want the assassin, I will arrange for a party to follow them and kill them.’
Law had a strong desire to tell the Hordemaster that he already had matters in hand, but that wasn’t true. ‘I will inform His Eminence of your help,’ he said calmly, suppressing his anger. ‘You will be blessed for your work.’
Fist snorted. ‘I don’t want a blessing,’ he snarled. ‘I want a good supply of euphoria. Now, and when I bring back the thief and assassin’s heads.’
Law met the Hordemaster’s steady stare, but he couldn’t hold it and looked away, saying, ‘I will arrange the delivery.’
‘Good,’ said Fist, rising from the stool. ‘I don’t care for your religious bullshit, but I have a taste for the euphoria you give out to your followers. I think we have a deal.’
PART SIX
‘Plan and conspire, take risks and take care, believe that we are masters of our destinies as much as we want—in the end, we are all prisoners of fate.’
SOURCE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The boatman waiting at the bank in the Farmers’ Quarter in the evening was Wahim, the brothel strongman. Chase and Passion were pleased to see him when they boarded the small sail craft in the moonlight. ‘How did you get here?’ Chase asked.
‘Your friend sent a boy to ask me if I knew of a boat she could borrow, so I offered this one,’ Wahim explained.
‘I didn’t know you owned a boat,’ said Passion as she lifted Jon aboard.
The big man chuckled as he replied, ‘I don’t. We’re borrowing this one.’
‘Whose is it?’
‘Better not to ask,’ Wahim told her as he helped her aboard.
Chase helped Wahim pole upriver, the moonlight and occasional torch or gas light glittering on the water as they passed through the Farmers’ Quarter to the city outskirts. Jon snuggled against his mother in the centre of the boat and she whispered to him until the child fell asleep. Swift relaxed, leaning against her sister for warmth, watching the city lights and shadows pass, occasionally staring at the back of the old woman at the front, silent and alone.Meg sat in the bow with Whisper on her lap, her hood drawn to keep her face in darkness, but she could feel the night chill on her cheeks. The poles quietly plopped as the boat glided through the night and the beauty in the event moved her. She gazed at the moon low in the sky, its white face serenely watching over the world like a mother keeping an eye on her children, and the vision stirred her memories of the many different places from where she had seen the moon—in Western Shess, in Andrak, Targa, Ma-Tareshka and Kala. She remembered the moon’s silver wash colouring the misty plains and hills of Summerbrook when she spent evenings hunting possums with Sunfire. The moon hung blood-red in the sky above the city of Targa the night of the Ranu dragon egg attack and the great fires. She remembered the moon shining like a beacon on the ocean aboard Captain Marlin’s ship when they travelled the trading routes in the years after the Ranu invasion of Andrak.
She shivered. There were wasted years, strange years, years lost in the haze of euphoria and melancholy and heaving oceans. She was forty-six when she sailed from Targa with the captain, trapped in the misery of loss and the drug’s loving embrace. She was fifty-eight when she stepped off Marlin’s decrepit ship in Port of Joy, three months after he had died at sea. Alone, except for Whisper, unknown, red hair rapidly turning white from age and drug addiction, her face craggy from years at sea, endless sorrow at the loss of her children and the euphoria habit, she rented a shop at the boundary of the River and Farmers’ Quarters where she could store the treasure of books she had collected from the ports of the nations that Marlin visited throughout their travels. Book sales were pitiful and she was barely able to pay her annual rent. She had lost yet another way of life and was embarking on yet another.
For the first two years she struggled with her euphoria addiction, the lasting legacy of Marlin’s comforting gift, until she resorted to the amber gem and used its energy to bolster her fight against the drug. The dreams she endured when she came off the drug were brutal—death dreams of her children, her family, her friends—all the dreams of the real tragedies of her life. Wrapped in despair, starving, close to death, she woke one morning in the bookshop loft and knew that she was finally free of the drug. She was sixty years of age.
Whisper shifted restlessly in her lap so she stroked the rat’s broad back to soothe her companion. The rat never changed, never seemed to grow old. In Summerbrook, years after her adventure with Queen Sunset, the rat’s longevity puzzled her. Whisper came from her uncle, Samuel Kushel, and from what she knew the rat had been his companion for a long time. Whisper’s enigmatic existence had no explanation, no possibility. In the end, she accepted that the rat was far from ordinary, but she often ruminated on what lay at the heart of the mystery. One day I will understand, she reminded herself. And that thought reminded her of what Emma told her when she was given Whisper to care for shortly after Samuel’s murder. ‘One day you will realise just what Whisper has done for you.’ Meg smiled. Whisper had already saved her life several times. The rat even saved the amber from the Seers and retrieved it from the ashes of her cottage in Marella. She was remarkable.
The surrounding landscape steadily became less and less populated by the dark shapes of buildings. Meg glanced over her shoulder at the receding city lights and saw the men poling steadily, their figures outlined against the starry sky. The last thing she predicted happening to her in all the years since leaving Andrak was that she would be heading up the River of Kings at night with a tiny band of refugees to escape the tyranny of the Seers—and yet here she was, at sixty-five years of age, finally going to the east to fulfil yet another of her prophetic dreams.
The dreams never stopped recurring, not even when she was at the deepest point of her depression and drug-taking, a dispirited and almost mindless being curled against the rolling hull of Marlin’s cutter. They haunted her, tormented her, called to her, reminded her that she could not escape her fate whatever path she undertook to avoid it. Even when she rehabilitated herself in her bookshop and determin
ed that she would live out an anonymous life in Port of Joy, the dreams came as they had always come. She only wondered when and how they would be fulfilled. She listened to the rumours and the news through the city of the Seers’ missionary work among the poor. She maintained a quiet interest in the health of King Hawkeye and the ambitions of his sons. She was waiting for the sign, the moment when she would be pulled back into the vortex created by the amber and the impending threat of the Demon Horsemen. She expected that the time would come when the fate she had tried to escape came searching for her. Her dreams had promised it.
Yet the arrival of the girl assassin through her window didn’t warn her that a new phase was about to start. It was the older woman’s visit, Crystal Merchant, the drug lord, and her request to learn about the Demon Horsemen, that sparked her realisation of what was beginning to unfold. In a small way, the return of the assassin with her brother and sister, the connection with the drug lord and the princes, and the new plans of the Seers hadn’t especially surprised her when she considered events in relation to her dreams. She was only sorry that it was happening now, at a point when she was finally feeling content with her life. These things are inevitable, she mused, and returned her attention to the dark world ahead.
They travelled upriver for four days, stopping only to replenish food and to sleep. On the second day, they reached the junction of the River of Kings and a tributary, the Hills River, and took the latter, which shadowed the higher ground of the old tribal lands. Much of the third day, the boat’s sail saved them from having to pole against the current, but the wind turned on the fourth and Wahim and Chase were forced to toil again with the poles. By late afternoon, the men exhausted, they turned into the bank at a small habitation. ‘This looks as good a village as any,’ Swift remarked as Wahim moored the boat to a craggy tree root jutting from the reeds, and she climbed out of the boat and waded to the bank. Chase hoisted Jon onto his shoulder and followed Swift with Passion in his wake. Wahim helped Meg disembark, the old woman carrying her rat to the bank and releasing her on the ground, before she followed the others into the village.
The village was tiny, with barely thirty inhabitants, but they welcomed the visitors and were eager for news of the wider world while they fed their guests. Swift proved to be the raconteur of the party, able and skilled at answering questions and guiding the villagers from any matter that suggested the party were fugitives. ‘Sick of the city,’ she told the gathering. ‘Dirty and polluted. Too many people. We wanted to move into the hills and live a better life.’ The villagers loved the idea that their lives were better than the lives of the city dwellers and they pressed Swift for details of the miseries of their city colleagues, a tale she embellished with the horrors of working in a factory, to which Chase added his real experiences including his father’s terrible scalding death. Meg listened, deliberately giving the impression that she was shy and content not to be the centre of attention, while she measured the confidence of the young woman with the cropped red hair and masculine clothes and studied the mannerisms of the others.
Eating, drinking and storytelling done, the villagers began to retire and the travelling party accepted an offer to sleep in a communal hayshed at the edge of village. Meg looked for Whisper by torchlight, but the rat was staying out of sight, as she often did in new places, so Meg made a bed in a pile of straw and slumped into the enveloping comfort. ‘Are you tired?’ she heard. She looked at Passion who was settling Jon in the hay. ‘Is this where we’re staying?’ Passion asked, the lantern light throwing her face into shadowy relief.
‘You can stay here if you want,’ Meg replied. ‘It should be safe. But I have a much longer journey to take.’
‘How far?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meg said. ‘I’ve never been to Ashua.’ She watched little Jon snuggle into the hay and smiled, memories of other Jons crowding her mind.
‘Where is your family?’ Passion asked, sitting beside her.
Meg looked away, and for the first time in several years she felt a familiar sorrow yawning in her heart. ‘Long dead,’ she replied quietly.
‘Oh,’ Passion gasped, adding, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ Meg told her reassuringly, but inside, looking at the blond boy asleep in the hay, the demons of her past threatened to overwhelm her, so she turned away again in a pretence of checking what the others were doing.
‘Why are you going to—what is it—Ashua?’
Meg kept her moist eyes on Chase who was chatting quietly with Wahim. Swift was positioned at the entrance to the shed, ever watchful, a trait that comforted Meg. ‘I think that’s where I can find answers to the secret that the Seer gave to your brother.’
‘Swift said you have an issue with the Seers.’
Meg turned back to Passion. ‘Did she?’
Passion glanced at her sister. ‘She said you were interested in the canvas bag. Do you know what’s in it?’
‘No.’
‘Then why is it so important to everyone?’
‘That’s what I have to find out,’ said Meg quietly. ‘I think you should get some sleep.’ She smiled at Passion, and the young woman smiled back before she settled beside her sleeping child. Meg gazed at the image of mother and son in the flickering torchlight, her heart aching with cruel memories. That this boy carried the same name that she had given to two of her dead sons, and looked so much like them with his mop of blond hair, was a brutal irony to her, and she sat in the hay for a long time after Swift doused the lantern, listening to the murmur of the men’s voices, tears sliding down her cheeks until she fell asleep.
The old dream came. She stood in the middle of a vast ruined city, the setting sun washing the jumbled mess of stone with an amber hue. In front of her was a monolith with an inscription in the ancient Ashuak language, but as she bent to read it, anticipating what it might say, the dream faded and became another.
Now she was on the battlements of a castle and the sky was roiling thunderclouds. At the heart of the clouds, blue light flashed like sheet lightning and she could discern shapes in the light—two riders—galloping towards the city in the teeth of the storm. Beside her, she felt the presence of people she knew, but she couldn’t turn her head to look at them, as if the dream was determined that she wasn’t yet ready to know who they were. Then, for the first time that she could remember, there was a figure to her right, a tall handsome man, like a king or a prince, and he was holding a sword that glowed blue like the lightning in the distance. And the dream changed again.
Now she was face to face with a familiar person—an elegant man, dressed in the Andrak manner in a dark suit and yellow cravat, with his silver hair braided and a neatly trimmed dark beard.
‘A Ahmud Ki,’ she whispered, surprised that she could speak in a dream, and he smiled at her and held out his hand. In it he held a small Andrak peacemaker, pointing at her heart.
‘Are you all right?’ She opened her eyes to find Passion leaning over her. Morning light streamed through gaps in the hayshed roof and walls. Kookaburras chortled outside. ‘Meg?’ Passion asked.
‘Why?’ Meg asked, trying to throw off the shackles of a heavy sleep by sitting up in the hay.
‘You were talking in your sleep.’
Swift crouched beside Passion, staring at Meg. ‘Who is A Ahmud Ki?’
Meg blushed and blinked. ‘Someone I knew,’ she said quietly, trying to recover from her embarrassment. She stood. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Wahim and Chase are talking to the villagers about letting us stay,’ Swift explained. ‘It’s far enough out of the city to be safe.’
Meg looked around. ‘Have you seen Whisper?’
Passion pointed towards the corner of the shed where Jon was sitting with the bush rat curled in his lap, contentedly enjoying the boy’s attention. ‘Opportunistic animal,’ Swift remarked, grinning.
‘She likes children,’ Meg replied, but the image tore at her again and she strode quickly towards the shed d
oor so that no one could see her welling tears.
The sky was lightly clouded and the sun was refreshing. With the Ejasot cycle nearing its zenith, Meg could feel the gathering heat in the world that would take the land into the hotter and drier Varsoo cycle. She heard the kookaburras laughing again and searched the river gums until she spotted a brace of the small, stocky brown-and-white birds, with long fishing beaks, perched on a thick bough. Living in the city, sailing for years before that, it had been a long time since she’d heard the waking call of the birds. Magpies carolled closer to the village and the blood rushed through her veins at hearing the familiar sounds of her Summerbrook childhood. The tang of eucalypt made her senses tingle. This would be a good place to stay, she thought, and then felt sadness in knowing that she could not stay.
She walked to the river, driven by thirst. A small brown-and-white-spotted gecko scampered out of her way when she bent to scoop water. As she straightened, a fish leapt and dropped back with a splash, sending concentric circles rippling towards the bank. The fruitful tranquillity made her happy and she paused to gaze at the river and the trees, glad to be alive—until darker memories flowed in of the brutal Kerwyn war and the attempted genocide of her people.
Thirty-five or more years ago, this place would have been blackened, the village burned to the ground, the people slaughtered, the children marched into slavery, the river awash with blood and ash. A cloud shadow passed over her and she shivered. The world was changing yet again.
‘You’re certain then?’ Chase asked.
‘Yes,’ Meg answered. ‘It’s the only place where the answer could be.’
The young man shook his head. ‘How will you get there if it’s across the mountains?’
‘I’ve been to Shesskar-sharel before, a long time ago.’ Noticing Wahim watching her, she asked, ‘When did you come to Port of Joy?’
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