Leviathan's Blood (39 page)

Zaifyr plunged deeper into the water as he stretched out to another woman’s haunt.

Just as Hienka had punished Meihir, Leviathan had left her heretics in purgatory, with no chance of relief from their watery prisons. He remembered dimly stories of her dragging ships down
herself, of others sunk by her captains. The books he had read had suggested that
Wayfair
had sunk because the offer of gold and silver and whatever other riches was within its hull had
insulted the gods. A few, believing the captain to be a holy figure, wrote that the insult had been much, much worse because of that, and that accounted for the storm that ravaged the area as
well.

Zaifyr drifted to the haunt of an old sailor. He felt his awareness stretched tight, as if it was reaching an end, and he could go no further, even as the ocean filled with the faint outlines of
the dead around him.

A voice spoke, then:

You risk a lot being so deep, godling.

It was a man’s voice, deep, and with a wet echo in it. It was neither friendly, nor marked by hostility.

I am not a god,
Zaifyr replied.

I did not call you one.

The shadowed outline of a ruined ship began to form on the edges of his awareness, the hull broken, the mast snapped. Long, ugly fish moved between the broken wood, their white forms like
distorted slugs that would dart between the broken halves. It was from that space that the ancient dead emerged, his hands first, as if he could grip the wood around him. A broad and bearded face,
a smooth, bald head; one eye a solid pale colour, the other not. He wore long, tattered robes, and around his waist were the remains of a once-elaborate belt.

I have watched you flit and flutter down to me, godling,
the ancient dead said.
At this depth, you are little more than a bad thought to me.

But you are Lor Jix, are you not?

That is a real name.

If it is yours, I will pull you to the surface with it.

His laugh was rough and violent.
I am not one to make deals.

Not even against the last god?

Alone, Ayae slowly walked back to where she had stood earlier.

She felt numb. Before her, scenes of Nale passed rapidly and silently, a cartoon booklet of meaningless pages, until a table was sketched, until a podium emerged from that, and the long body of
Lian Alahn sitting on it.

Yet, in her mind, she did not see the podium where he sat. Rather, she saw the table on the top floor of Ciree, one of the finest restaurants in Mireea, the wood polished until it shone. There,
Lian Alahn’s dark eyes watched her as she sat in the chair Illaan pulled out for her. He was an older man, but not old enough for his hair to be the natural two-toned grey and white it was
dyed. She would think, later, that it revealed a secret about him, that it explained his coldness to her and to his third son. He barely said a word to her throughout the dinner, his lips a
straight line for much of the flip book of her memory. Of the few words he did say, it was those that he spoke in the middle of the meal that she remembered most. He had asked her name, again. He
had already asked before she sat, and even after she answered a second time, he had asked a third. When he asked again in the middle of the meal, she had placed her fork and knife down and said,
‘There is no more to add to it than what I have told you.’

She knew that he was asking to remind his son that she had only one name, as if somehow, the girl who was an apprentice for Samuel Orlan had need for the gold and for prestige of a
Traders’ Union official in Yeflam. But facts, she knew, had little to do with bigotry. If Lian Alahn had come to Mireea but six months later, Ayae knew that he would have found a more
receptive audience in his son. The cracks in her relationship with Illaan had begun, though she would not have been able to acknowledge it then, and perhaps neither would he. Yet if Lian Alahn had
torn himself from the Traders’ Union to present his race-driven fears to his son again, his last memory of Illaan would not be the stiff formality in which his son had told him that he had
overstepped his boundaries.

In Yeflam, the father of Illaan Alahn now rose to his feet.

He lifted his hands to quieten the crowd. A moment later, members of the Yeflam Guard cried out for silence.

‘Thank you,’ Lian Alahn said. ‘We are to resume with the trial of Qian, as held by the people of Yeflam. With the afternoon’s sun soon to be above us we begin the second
session of the day, and the judges respectfully request the presence of Lady Muriel Wagan of Mireea at the stand.’

The crowd murmured. Ayae could hear clearly only those around her – ‘She was allowed off the island?’ said one, ‘So early!’ said another – before she turned
with the rest of the crowd towards the far edge of Nale. ‘Can you see her?’ a woman asked of no one in particular, but Ayae had to admit that she could not. She was too short to see
clearly, but while she could not identify Lady Wagan, she could see Caeli’s blonde head, turned almost white beneath the sun. With a slight push against the woman who had spoken, Ayae began
to make her way through the crowd, aiming for the very front, and reached it just in time to see the Lady of the Ghosts emerge from the crowd.

After months of newspaper articles, pamphlets and rumours paid for and naturally occurring in Yeflam, it would not have been difficult for the crowd to underestimate Muriel Wagan. Certainly,
they had no respect for her, for her solitary walk to the podium was littered in jeers.

For her part, Lady Wagan did not appear bothered. She was not a tall woman, so she could not hold herself in the fashion that conveyed a sense of superiority and power. She was not young enough,
either, that she could cultivate a sense of innocence and a need for protection that would appeal to the crowd around her. No, Muriel Wagan, on the wrong side of being middle-aged, her body giving
over to a loose fat after months on Wila, could not stand before the Yeflam people in any such form of grace or innocence. So she stood before them in disregard, the hem of her green and white gown
trailing along the stone ground, the ends of it pulling and threading until she stood on the podium where others had and regarded those before her with an air of dismissal, as if she had heard what
they would say already.

‘Lady Wagan.’ Lian Alahn raised his hands for quiet again and waited for the crowds to fall silent. ‘Muriel,’ he said, once they had. ‘Would you please tell us what
happened between you and the Keepers Fo and Bau?’

‘Keepers Fo and Bau were sent to Mireea after I requested aid,’ she replied evenly. ‘We had a long-standing treaty with Yeflam regarding attacks, one signed before the first
city was complete. Without going into all the details of it, our agreement was that if one of us were attacked, the other would help in defence of the land and people. I had a similar treaty with
the Kingdoms of Faaisha and Leera. No such treaties exist between any nation and the Tribes of the Plateau, but others in regard to trade and border recognition do. We had never been forced to act
on our treaties, but we were no longer confident that the number of attacks from Leera would remain small. Over the previous six months we had seen them increase and it was the belief of myself and
Captain Aned Heast that the attacks were indicative of a larger force. Keepers Fo and Bau were sent in direct regards to that.’

‘If I may interrupt?’ Gall Bertan rose from his seat, not waiting for an answer. ‘I do not see the Captain here – will he be making himself available for us?’

‘I cannot answer that,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he no longer works for me.’

‘You have fired Aned Heast?’ Olivia Raz spoke in a dry, cynical voice. ‘Lady Wagan, you must think we are foolish to believe that.’

‘Serious allegations were made against him,’ Muriel Wagan replied without pause. ‘I believed that they were a serious threat to the political harmony between Yeflam and Mireea.
Because of this, I was forced to dismiss him from my service.’

‘He is surely still on Wila?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ Gall Bertan picked up the thread, outrage in his voice.

‘I am afraid,’ Lady Wagan said evenly, ‘that Aned Heast is his own man. He left Wila as a free man should.’

‘Thank you.’ Lian Alahn’s hand fell on Bertan’s shoulder, silencing him. ‘Muriel, you are not here to answer questions about your Captain.’

‘As I said, he is no longer in my employment.’

‘We are here to talk about Keepers Fo and Bau,’ he prompted.

‘Of course.’ A laugh ran through the crowd, but the Lady of the Ghosts did not react to it. ‘They arrived in Mireea under orders that they were observers. I had initially hoped
that they would be part of my defence against the Leerans. Both would have made the war easier, but they had been given strict orders not to take part. Eventually, I was forced to accept this. As
befitting their station, I gave them a lodging in one of my Keeps and allowed them access to what was happening on the Spine of Ger. Apart from state matters, very little was kept from them, and
even some state matters were shared. Both attended a handful of public meetings, but largely, they stayed in the tower. I was horrified to hear later that they had been requesting staff to buy them
small animals. Their superiors reported a high rate of mental trauma in the staff who had to pick up the remains of the creatures in the following days.’

‘I do not see what the studies of Keepers Fo and Bau have to do with this.’ Eira’s voice was cold. ‘Their dedication to their studies is well known.’

‘That dedication is well known,’ the Lady of the Ghosts said. ‘Even in Mireea, we heard about the plague on Xeq that had led to their arrival. In this particular situation,
Keeper Fo’s work allowed us to make the connection between the animals he killed and the plague that he was responsible for unleashing on Mireea.’

A different muttering emerged in the crowd around Ayae. To her left, she overheard a woman’s voice say, ‘Xeq’, and she heard the name of the city again and again. She could see
the flames again falling from the sky and closed her eyes to block out the image. Behind her, Ayae heard a man mutter, ‘. . . compensation to the families!’ while another said sourly,
‘We were all his rats.’

The Pauper rose from his seat. ‘You are making quite an accusation, Lady Wagan,’ he said over the crowd. ‘Do you have proof?’

‘Keeper Fo walked out of the hospital where it began,’ she replied evenly. ‘A report prepared by the Healer Reila Juloya is readily available to all here. She makes the
connection between various events in the bodies of victims to a number of diseases that have been claimed by Keeper Fo as his own. Most notably, she suggests that it was a variation on the disease
known as Divinities Facade. I am sure the name is well known in Yeflam. We found it in the remains of birds that Sergeant Illaan Alahn kept, and later in his body. Because of that, Reila Juloya was
able to make the connection quite easily.’

‘We will examine the sergeant’s body—’

‘My son’s remains,’ Lian Alahn interrupted, ‘did not return from Mireea, Keeper.’

‘The bird did,’ Lady Wagan said. ‘Benan Le’ta has it.’

The Yeflam Guard were forced to cry out for silence as the crowd erupted.

‘Why did you not bring the bird to us?’ the Pauper asked, once silence had been restored.

‘I was forced to use it as political leverage for the safety of my people,’ she replied, a hint of steel in her voice. ‘The Keepers had abandoned me on the Spine of Ger, and it
was made very clear that I could not retreat to their gates. The Traders’ Union, however, disagreed. With the bird in his hand, Benan Le’ta planned to use it in a campaign against the
Enclave. Yet there was resistance to his methods in the Traders’ Union – I would be correct in thinking that, would I not, Mister Alahn?’

‘I am not here to speak for the Traders’ Union,’ the man said in a sombre tone. ‘Sufficient to say, I did not agree with the use of my son in this matter.’

‘You had—’ Kaqua was forced to raise his voice over the crowd. Their discontent only grew and shouts could be heard at the back of the crowd, a verbal anger gaining momentum as
it rolled towards the podium. ‘You had Qian,’ he repeated, after the guards cried out again and stopped the noise. ‘And you had suffered at the hands of the Keepers Fo and Bau. No
one here denies that. That is why we are holding this trial. You need not speak ill of them unless your goal is to create a defence of Qian by doing so.’

‘Qian brought himself to Yeflam,’ Lady Wagan said. ‘He may have arrived in chains, but I had no more power over that than I had in putting Fo and Bau in chains.’

‘Remove her from the stand!’ Eira’s voice cut out sharply. ‘She is not a credible witness. She portrays Keepers Fo and Bau as if they were common criminals!’

‘No,’ Muriel Wagan replied easily. ‘I portray them as rabid dogs who deserved to die. Dogs I tried to kill myself.’

The crowd erupted into shouts.

Ayae felt a note of alarm run through her as the voices rose over Nale. The Yeflam Guard shouted out again, attempting to return order to the crowd, but they were drowned out. At the podium,
both Xrie and Oake left their position beside Zaifyr to call out orders to the guards, who were looking increasingly frustrated. Ayae saw Kaqua raise his hands in the air and shout, but his voice
could not be heard, either. She took a step forward awkwardly, the stiffness in her legs surprising her – but she forced herself to take another step, to push out of the crowd, to prepare
herself to help Lady Wagan or, should the crowd turn on him, Zaifyr. By her third step, all the judges on the podium had risen, but none of their voices could be heard over the crowd.

‘
ENOUGH!
’ The Pauper’s voice thundered across Nale, the sheer force of it silencing the crowd. ‘Lady Wagan, you will explain yourself!’

‘I will?’ At the podium, the Lady of the Ghosts stood calmly. ‘Two men released a plague in Mireea and I responded in a way that accorded with my position. Soldiers of mine,
along with members of the mercenary group Steel, and a woman you know, Ayae, were sent to kill both Keepers.’ At the mention of her name, Ayae felt suddenly exposed. ‘The casualties
were very high, but I knew they would be. In truth, I did not know that any would survive. I had little choice, though: I had an army at my gates and no time for mercy. At the time I sent soldiers
to kill Keepers Fo and Bau, Qian was near death. He had been a victim of Fo’s attack in the hospital – we believe he had followed the woman who had been the initial carrier into the
building. My healers were not convinced that he would recover from it.’