Orb Sceptre Throne (82 page)

Since neither the Seventh nor Lo appeared inclined to approach the villagers regarding hiring a boat, Yusek and Sall headed in to do the honours. Part of Yusek wondered why they were bothering with paying at all when they could just take one of the wretched battered old punts drawn up on the muddy shore. But another part of her understood that Lo and the Seventh had these conceits of honesty and honour that had to be observed.

‘They want coin,’ she told Sall. ‘You have any coin?’

The Seguleh lad drew a small pouch from beneath his cloak. ‘I have these. Our old currency.’

A clinking heap of shiny yellow bars, or wafers, fell into her cupped hands. ‘Osserc’s mercy!’ she exclaimed, pressing the pile to her chest. ‘Where did you get all this?’

The lad seemed unconcerned. ‘As I said, it is our old currency. We don’t use it any more. I keep these as mementos.’

Yusek shuffled them back into the pouch, which she then kept in her fist. ‘They’re gold,’ she hissed.

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Are we going to pay gold for a crappy old boat that can barely hold all of us?’

‘I see no alternative.’

‘Gods. The price of boats is about to go
way
up.’

‘Pay them – it is of no matter.’

No matter! By the Enchantress! This is part of my fortune I’m throwing away here
. ‘Sall – can’t we just threaten them? Just a little?’

The mask faced her squarely. The hazel and brown eyes grew stern. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘All right, all right!’ Yusek stalked away. ‘Can’t fucking believe I’m handing gold to these stinking hamlet-dwellers,’ she muttered. ‘They won’t even know what they’ve got in their hands …’

A short time later the Seventh pushed off one of the larger of the river boats and took the stern. Lo had the bow while Sall and Yusek sat in the middle. The boat was of hide ribbed with wood. It was without seats; one merely knelt in the fetid water that sloshed within. At first Yusek held on to a thwart, refusing to let her hide trousers touch the filth. Finally Sall reached up to yank her down.

‘And what do I do?’ she asked, wincing as the cold water clasped her knees.

Sall handed her a cup carved from wood. ‘You bail – or we sink.’

Kiska walked with Tayschrenn over the featureless dunes of black sands. Soon clouds swept in from ahead, which struck her as odd, since no clouds had ever before marred the sky here at the Shores. The shadows of the clouds glided over them, obscuring her vision, and in their wake she found herself walking a night-time landscape of blasted broken rock. Suddenly it was hard going, as the ground was uneven and the sharp stones turned under her feet. She missed the smooth sands, even if they did make walking a chore.

‘Where are we?’

Tayschrenn did not answer. He was peering into the sky. Suddenly he knelt behind a larger boulder, motioning her down. ‘Trespassing,’ he murmured. She huddled under the cover of the boulder then hissed, jerking away; it was hot to the touch.

‘What is this …’ Then she saw them wheeling in the sky and she stared, astounded and terrified. Winged long-necked beasts flying off in the distance. ‘Are those …’

‘Yes.’

‘Enchantress protect us. What’s going on?’

‘A gathering. A marshalling. Call it what you will.’

‘Is that where we’re …’

‘No. All this regards the past. I prefer to look to the future.’

‘Then what are we doing here?’

The mage struck off at right-angles. ‘As I said, trespassing. This is a short cut.’

A short cut? This? Hate to see the long way round
.

Not long after that – at least if you counted time in paces, as she was doing – the landscape changed to a forested verge. The ground became swampy as they entered the woods, and thick vine-laden trunks and ferns blocked all view. Tayschrenn slowed, then came to an uncertain halt.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘We’re being deflected. This is not where I intended to come.’

The very air felt charged to Kiska, vibrating and heavy with potential. ‘Something’s stirring here,’ she whispered. ‘Something awful.’

He glanced at her, surprised. ‘I’d forgotten about your natural sensitivity. Yes. I feel it too. But again, this is not what I have chosen. I could commit myself – attempt to guide things one way or the other. But would it be for the better? Would the outcome be improved by yet another set of meddling hands? No, I think not.’

Kiska used her staff to flick a snake away from the man’s sandalled feet. ‘Perhaps we should be going …’

‘Yes. Let us … no. It is too late.’ He turned to face the darkness between the roots of two immense trunks. Kiska whipped her staff crossways.

A figure arose from the dark. Kiska would have said that this person, a woman, stepped from the darkness, but that was not right. She rose as if she had been crawling. She was tall and wide, wearing layers upon layers of black cloth all dusty and festooned with cobwebs. In contrast, her long black hair hung down past her shoulders, sleek and shimmering. Her complexion was a dark nut brown, her eyes very dark.

Tayschrenn bowed to her. ‘Ardata.’

Ardata? Where had she heard that before? Some sort of sorceress
.

The woman stepped forward. She was barefoot and the layers of cloth trailed behind, snagging on brush and roots, unravelling in long threads.

‘Magus,’ she greeted Tayschrenn. Her voice was surprisingly rich and musical. ‘Long have I known of you.’ She circled at a distance. ‘Your acts come to me like ripples in the skein of the Warrens.’ The dark eyes swung to Kiska. ‘And who is this?’

‘She is with me.’

The eyes flared undisguised dismissal and contempt. ‘One of
her
creatures, I see. The strings are plain to me.’

‘We were just going.’

‘You are? You will not stay? There is much turmoil. Much … opportunity. Who knows what the final outcome may be?’

‘My choice is made. I will lend my strength where I believe I can do the most.’

The lips twisted into a knowing sneer. ‘And not incidentally positioning yourself very neatly.’

‘Or assuring my inevitable dissolution.’

The sorceress laughed and Kiska felt almost seduced by the richness of her voice. ‘We both know you would not allow that. You would not commit fully otherwise.’

‘No. I have found purpose, Ardata. One far beyond the mere amassing and hoarding of power.’

Kiska noted that in her pacing the sorceress had left behind a trail of black threads that now completely encircled them. Halting, Ardata cocked her head to regard Tayschrenn sidelong. ‘This does not sound like the magus of whom I have heard so much.’

‘That is true. I have … changed.’

The woman darted out a hand, pointing to Kiska. ‘And does this one have something to do with that? Is she responsible?’

Tayschrenn moved to stand before Kiska. ‘She was – integral, yes.’

The sorceress held her arms wide. The black shifting cloths hung from them like cowls, spreading. ‘Then I believe you should remain.’

Darkness swallowed them. Blinded, Kiska hunched, holding her staff ready. An inhuman snarl burst around them, enraged and frustrated. It dwindled then snapped away into silence. The ground shifted beneath Kiska’s feet and she stumbled, almost falling. Then the absolute darkness brightened in stages to mere night, but not night as Kiska knew it. Brighter, with the moon larger and two other globes in the starry sky looking like child’s marbles. One tinted reddish, the other more bluish. To her relief Tayschrenn was still with her.

‘Where are we now?’

‘Closer.’

‘That sorceress … she is your enemy?’

Hands clasped behind his back once more, the mage set off through the tall grass surrounding them. Kiska struggled to catch up. A cool wind smelling of pine billowed her cloak and dried her face. ‘Enemy?’ Tayschrenn mused. ‘No, not as such. No, her hostility was directed against someone else, yes?’

‘The Enchantress.’

‘Yes.’

‘What is the Queen of Dreams to her?’

The mage laughed, startling her. The laughter was completely unguarded, open and uninflected. She’d never heard anything like it from him before. ‘What is she to …’ He laughed again, chuckling as if enjoying the sensation. ‘My dear Kiska. Who do you think held the title of Enchantress before your patron showed up? They are rivals. Bitter rivals. Ardata is ancient. The greatest power of her age. Eclipsed now in this time of Warrens and their mastery.’

‘I see. I didn’t know.’

‘No. And I didn’t expect that you should. But the mark of the Queen is upon you, so you ought to know now.’

Yes. Her ‘strings
’. Kiska did not like the sound of that. She wondered whether they were knotted. She knew that she would do all she could to tear them off if that should be so.

‘So, just where are we?’ she asked.

‘This is Tellann. We should be safe here – for a time.’

‘
Tellann
? But that is Imass! How can we be here?’

The mage glanced at her, startled. ‘You keep surprising me with your knowledge of these things. Why is it you never pursued magery? You could have. Thyr, perhaps?’

Kiska shrugged off the suggestion, uncomfortable. ‘Too much effort.’ She slung her staff over her shoulders as she walked.

‘Too much effort? Yet you put yourself through rigorous physical training little different from torture …’

‘I prefer to act.’

‘You prefer to act,’ the mage echoed again, musing. ‘Impetuous still. Not wise.’

She shrugged beneath the staff, flexed her wrists, feeling the bones cracking. ‘That’s how it is.’

Ahead, a rumbling filled the plain. Beneath the night sky a darker cloud of dust approached from one side. As it closed Kiska heard animal snorting penetrating the din of countless hooves hammering the hardpan prairie. A herd thundered across their path. Great woolly front-heavy beasts, some boasting wicked-looking curved horns.

Movement brushed among the tall grass nearby and Kiska whipped her staff to the side to stand hunched, ready, staff levelled, facing two low eyes across a long narrow muzzle. She stared, fascinated, as those frost-blue eyes bored into her and through her. Then they released her, snapping aside as the beast dodged, loping off through the grass. She almost fell when the gaze abandoned her. She felt exhausted, her heart hammering as if she had been running all evening.
Is this the fear of the prey in the face of the hunter? Or an invitation?

Tayschrenn’s gaze followed the wolf as it bounded after the herd. He murmured as if reciting: ‘And what are the gods but need writ large?’

‘What was that?’ Kiska asked, still panting. She pressed the back of a glove to her hot forehead.

‘Just some philosopher’s musings. The wolves, Kiska. The wolves. The gods are restless. They are charging now to their destiny, for that is their role. I sense in this a welcome. Come, let us follow. I recognize the old scent now and I accept. It is time for a long overdue reunion.’

He led the way on to the churned-up trail. Kiska followed, waving the dust and drifting chaff from her face.

Picker was on watch at the front of K’rul’s bar when a knock on the barricaded door made her jump, so startled that she dropped the crossbow. Spindle jerked up from where he napped on one of the benches. Glaring at him to say anything, just one thing, she picked up the weapon then peered out through the boards.