Jala's Mask (15 page)

With a sinking feeling, Jala shook her head. “I didn't know I had to.”

“My queen.” Iliana stepped forward. “I have something. It isn't much.” She reached inside a fold in her dress and pulled out a clump of white hair. She set it down on the table. “It's from one of the prisoners. Some of the sailors have been selling it, and my mother asked for some.”

The old man picked up a strand of hair and inspected it. He smiled, and Jala was surprised to see that he still had all his teeth. “Yes, very good. This will do nicely.”

“Thank you, Iliana,” Jala said with relief. She didn't ask what Iliana's mother had wanted the hair for. She decided she probably didn't want to know. “So do you think you'll be able to tell us anything? We should hurry.”

“You can hurry if you like, but it'll take me time to prepare. And before I do that, we still need to talk about the price. Not the price the magic takes from me, but my price for helping you.”

Jala nodded. “Tell me what you want. If your requests are fair, the king will pay.”

Kade smiled. “I want spices from the mainland. Fish and birds and roots get old even faster than I do. And wine, too, anything not made from grass or coconut. Something new to wake an old tongue.”

So little? She nodded again. “Of course. We'll bring you casks of our best wines and enough spices for everyone living here, if you plan to share.”

“Then we have a deal.” He grabbed a clay jar and poured a heap of finely ground meal on a wide leaf. “Stone root,” he explained. “You can find it near the top of the mountain if you know where to look. It doesn't burn, you see. Not easily. Nasty, bitter-tasting stuff, though you get used to the taste eventually.”

“Why eat it at all, then?” Jala asked.

He grinned. “It coats your tongue and throat. An unpleasant feeling, to be sure, but the potions I make can burn away a man's voice and tongue. Because I like to talk, I put up with the taste.”

They said nothing for a while. Jala tried not to think of her throat being burned away. Suddenly the silence was broken by shouts, and then a scream. With surprising speed the old man was out of the cottage. Jala followed. Nearby, a woman held down a stick-thin man with a patchy beard on his face and leaves and grass in his hair. His skin was blotchy with scars and old burns. He struggled in vain against the woman's grip.

“I found him skulking in your garden, Kade,” the woman said.

The thin man stopped struggling. He smiled up at the old man, revealing cracked teeth. “I helped plant that garden. I have as much right to it as you, and I need supplies for my work.”

“Piss on your work, Askel,” Kade said. “You were spying.”

“Who is he?” Jala asked.

“No one. A petty thief.”

Askel snorted, then looked at Jala. His pupils were too wide, and she found his stare uncomfortable. “He lies, my queen. I can help you. He's frightened of the fire mountain, frightened of my power, of what I could do if I didn't have to spend my days in hiding.”

“Shut him up,” Kade said.

The woman pounded her fist against Askel's head. He grunted and then hung limp, his eyes glazed.

“Good.” The old man waved a hand dismissively. “Hang him over the mountain.”

The woman nodded and dragged Askel away. But before she'd gotten far, Askel twisted and slipped down through her arms. He kicked her in the stomach then ran. A few fire-islanders gave chase, but the thin man was faster than he seemed and disappeared into the jungle before any of them were even close.

Kade cursed loudly and ran to the woman to make sure she was all right. When he and the woman had yelled and cursed long enough, he returned to Jala.

“Just a thief, was he?” Jala said. “Nothing else?”

“Our island isn't your concern. Don't you have more important questions? Come.”

Jala and Iliana followed the old man back into the cottage. Kade took four jars down from the shelves along the wall and brought them to the table. Using a smooth stone and a wooden bowl, he ground the ingredients together with more stone root. He built a small fire in the brick hearth and set the bowl above it. The flames licked at the wood, the bowl smoked, and the ingredients hissed. The cottage started to reek, and Jala was grateful for the wind that blew through the uncovered doorway and windows.

Kade added the invader's hair last, then poured a dark liquid over it. It foamed, spilling over the lip of the bowl. He picked up the concoction and drank.

“Now we wait,” he said in a hoarse voice. “It shouldn't be long. The recent past is usually the easiest to see.” He coughed, then gasped and doubled over, clutching his sides. Jala dropped to her knees beside him and slid an arm around his back to hold him up. She could feel him struggling to force air into his lungs. Her mind raced. Had something gone wrong? She'd have to make him throw up. She'd seen it done before, just stick a leaf or a finger down his throat.

“Iliana, help me.”

The old man tried to push her away. “Be silent . . . I need to concentrate, or I'll forget everything I see.” He held out a shaking hand. “Take me to my bed, then leave me be.”

For what felt like a long time, Jala and Iliana sat at the table, with only the sound of his shallow breathing and the patter of rain outside for company. Captain Natari came to see if Jala was all right, and she told him she was. The old man still looked like he was dying. His skin had turned a sickly gray, and his face was sweaty and tense. Eventually he fell asleep.

“Should I wake him?” Iliana whispered.

Jala shook her head. “Let him sleep. Natari will want to wait for this storm to end anyway.” They sat together at the table. The drumming of the rain made Jala sleepy, and she found herself nodding.

A soft rustling near the door made her sit up with a start. The wind whistled as it blew through the cottage, and the sky was dark, though Jala didn't think it was night yet. Rain lashed against the walls of the cottage and sprayed in through the door and windows. The old man was still asleep. Iliana dozed as well, leaning against a wall with her knees pulled up to her chest.

A shadow crouched in the doorway. “My queen,” it hissed.

Trying to stay calm, Jala peered at it through the gloom. It was the man she'd seen them drag away, the thief the old man had called Askel. Water ran in heavy rivulets down his face and arms.

No one'll hear if I cry for help
, Jala realized. She stood slowly, feeling behind her with one hand to try to get a grip on the stool. “What do you want?” she said.

Askel lowered his head to the ground. “Please, my queen. Please help me. They hunt me day and night. I eat bugs when I can't steal anything better.” He looked up. “I have work I should be doing, great work. Take me with you. I'm a greater sorcerer than he can ever be. I'm not afraid of power the way he is. I can help you.”

Jala made herself take a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. “Even if I wanted to, how could I? I have only a few men with me. I can't risk their lives for you.”

“My life is worth a hundred of theirs, my queen. I promise you.”

“They're family,” Jala said. “No outsider is worth more than family.”

“Perhaps you need a demonstration,” Askel said. “Something to make you believe how dangerous I can be.” He grinned, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He moaned. Then he straightened, and in the dark he suddenly looked less withered than he had before. The way the shadows fell across him made his arms and chest seem to be knotted with muscles that hadn't been there, and the raindrops turned to steam when they touched him.

Next to her Iliana stood, too. “My queen, we should call for the captain.”

Then Kade stirred, and Askel ran, vanishing into the storm.

Jala let him go without protest. She'd come here for information, not to step in the middle of a sorcerer and his rival. She went to Kade. “What did you see?”

The old man took a shaking breath and blinked several times as though he couldn't focus. She thought she could see new lines on his old, weathered face.

Finally, the old man spoke. “An ocean, not of water but of sand, along a great river. There is a city there, and seven people in masks, with brown skin instead of black. I heard them in my dreams, and they called themselves the Hashon. I followed the river for many hundreds of miles, until it split off and became a brook, and then a mountain stream. And in the mountain was a hidden city overlooking a sea. The Hashon kept a book there that told of the world's beginning, but the book was gone, the city in ruins.” The old man shut his eyes and breathed deeply. “You stole it, didn't you? The book is sacred to them, as sacred as the shipwood is to you. They won't stop. Hundreds died to bring these ships here, and they died willingly. More ships will come.”

“Can you use your magic to stop them?” Jala asked.

“Can you stop a wave by throwing rocks at it? You think because you manage to steal some scraps from the mainland that your people matter, but you're nothing more than flies to them. Or you were. Now you've bitten them and they mean to swat you for it.”

Iliana bristled. “How dare you insult us like that? Our grayships are feared up and down the mainland coasts. There is nothing these mainlanders don't have that we couldn't take.”

“Shut up and listen, both of you,” Kade said. “Understand, for once, how small you are. Among their empire, your entire race could disappear. Even if I sacrificed whole islands, I would be powerless against them.”

“Then what do we do?” Jala asked.

“Don't you understand? Do nothing, for all I care. It'll all be the same in the end.”

It can't be that bad
, Jala told herself.
He's trying to scare you.
Well, it had worked. She couldn't help imagining more ships heading toward them even now, filled with living warriors instead of the dead and dying. Living warriors, or worse.
But they're not demons, not the way Lord Inas thought. They're people. Or at least they were before they sailed.
She had to remember that, no matter how much they scared her. People could be bargained with. She just had to reach them before they sailed, that was all. There had to be a way.

The old man shut his eyes, and Jala thought he was going to fall asleep again, but then he grabbed her arm. “Help me up, island queen.”

Jala pulled him up carefully. He stared out into the darkness for a minute, then sighed. “I suppose you and your people can stay until the storm passes. But after that, you'll take your ships and leave. I wish you luck, though I have no love for you, little queen. I need to be alone now. I will take you to Yambi's home. She'll stay awake and make sure that the thief doesn't bother you again.”

Without waiting for a reply, he walked out into the rain. Jala hesitated a moment, then followed him. She stumbled immediately, buffeted by the wind. One hand trying to keep her dress under control, Jala held out the other for Iliana. The woman took it, and together they followed the old man. He swayed back and forth slowly as he walked but otherwise didn't seem to feel the wind at all.

They were soaked by the time they reached the nearest hut. Yambi turned out to be the woman Askel had kicked, and she stood as they entered. She exchanged hushed words with Kade, gave them a sour look, then took up the spear resting on one wall.

“You may sleep,” she said. “I will watch over you.”

Satisfied, Kade left, and the woman said nothing more. Jala and Iliana sat down on the floor together, wet and miserable.

“I don't know how he expects us to sleep after what he told us,” Iliana whispered.

“We had to learn this sooner or later, though. If we even believe him.”

“I believe him,” Iliana said.

Jala sighed. “Me too.” She made no move to try to fall asleep, though she knew she must have drifted off eventually because she didn't remember night falling, nor the storm easing into steady rainfall. The next time she woke, it was to a sunbeam in her eyes. The storm had passed, and the new day was rising brilliant and orange out of the Great Ocean. Natari came to her and told her that they were ready to sail again.

The storm had been severe enough that they'd been forced to beach the ship and take cover on land. Now the sailors pushed it out into the water with Jala and Iliana on board. One by one they climbed into the ship, then set sail.

A cold, steady wind blew across the water. It would have made for quick sailing had they sailed with it, but it happened to blow from the First Isle, and so they zigzagged into the wind in order to keep moving. The journey back took longer than the journey there had, and the wet night had left everyone tired, but the sailors seemed more at ease now that they were putting the fire mountain behind them.

“Did you find out what you needed to, my queen?” Natari asked Jala after a while.

“I learned a lot,” Jala said. “But I don't know what good it'll do us.” She hoped Azi would know what to do.