Shadowheart (45 page)

And then Yasammez turned and walked from the tent, leaving open mouths and silence behind her.

—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”

 

 

 

F
ERRAS VANSEN COULD BARELY sit still. “Where are they? Where are the Qar? I thought we had an understanding!” The fearsome Yasammez was beyond anyone’s understanding, of course, but her councillor Aesi’uah had as much as promised Vansen that the Qar would fight side side by side with Vansen and the Funderlings—after all, what else could the Twilight folk do?

“I do not mind waiting a little while longer for them,” Cinnabar said. “It will give me time enough time to put on my armor. Where is my son, Calomel? He was going to help me with it.” The magister shook his head mournfully. “I have not worn armor since my youthful days in the warders. Even if it will still fit me, I fear I misremember which strap goes to which buckle . . . Calomel? Where are you, boy?” When the Funderling youth appeared, his father said, “Go and get it all for me, son. It’s time.” Calomel trotted off.

 

The guards brought the Qar’s messenger to Vansen and the other commanders.

“Spelter?” said Malachite Copper. “They sent you?”

Vansen glanced up in surprise as the drow entered the makeshift command post. He liked Spelter, but why should the Qar use a humble military scout as their envoy when so many others like Aesi’uah could speak the mortal tongue just as well?

The bearded man bowed, a quick downward flick of his chin. His inscrutable, vulpine face seemed even more blank than usual. “Magisters, Captain—I bring you greetings from Lady Yasammez.”

“I am glad to have her greetings,” Vansen said, “but what I need is to know what’s in her mind. She gave me to understand the autarch was her enemy, too. He is not stopping, and we are falling back to protect the Mysteries.”

“Yes, we know,” said Spelter, nodding once.

“Well, then? Is she coming? Will your mistress stand beside us as she all but promised?”

For a brief moment Vansen glimpsed the unhappiness that had been hidden in Spelter’s dark eyes, perhaps even the twist of a frown in the drow’s beard, and his heart went cold.

“No, Captain,” said Spelter. “She is not.”

“What?” Cinnabar stumbled forward, his vambraces dragging on the floor. “Not coming? But we gave your mistress sanctuary in our own tunnels—we gave you
all
sanctuary when the autarch came! And this is how she pays us back? Leaving us to fight alone?”

“I am sorry, Magister.” Spelter turned to Vansen and nodded a salute. “Captain.” He kept his back rigid and his eyes staring ahead, even when there was nothing before him to stare at; a soldier was a soldier, it seemed, even among the Qar. “I regret bearing this news. You are brave allies. I can say no more. Good luck.”

Vansen watched the drow walk back across the chaos of the breaking camp. A few of the Funderlings watched him with superstitious fear. Only half a year ago the drows and the Qar had been stories to excite and frighten young children. Now they were real.

Real, but cowardly
, Vansen thought in sudden rage. He should have known that Lady Porcupine was too proud and spiteful to be able to overcome her hatred of mortals—he should have known! Now it was he who had betrayed his allies by promising them help that would not come....

“Balls of the Brothers!” he spat, full of fury and shame. “Cinnabar, I’ve failed. I’m prepared to hand the command to Copper right now if you’ll let me.”

“You’ll do nothing like it,” said a startled Malachite Copper, coughing up some of the water he’d been drinking.

“He’s right,” said Cinnabar. “You’ll do nothing like, Captain. We hung you on the marshal’s hoist because you’re the best for the task.” He reached out blindly to take another piece of armor from his son Calomel, but his hands were shaking. “You’ve done nothing to show otherwise. By the Elders, Captain Vansen, do you blame yourself for the Qar not coming? If you had not risked your life to make treaty with them, we’d still be fighting them as well as the filthy, fracturing autarch!” Cinnabar looked upset. “Sorry, lad. Don’t tell your mother I said that in front of you.”

Young Calomel brightened considerably.

Vansen shook his head. “Do not be so quick to exonerate me, Magister. Perhaps the Qar and the autarch would now be fighting each other if I hadn’t interfered.”

“Still and all,” said Copper, “don’t be foolish. No one else would have done differently, but you were the only one who
could
do it, in any case.”

“Once more our old friend Copper speaks the truth,” Cinnabar agreed, waving his hand. “Enough. Except to say that not only won’t we let you out of your responsibilities, Captain Vansen, my people will long remember what you did for us.” A moment later, he added, “If the Elders decree that my people survive, that is.”

Vansen, who had already been mulling his own version of this, nodded. “A wise soldier never presumes that the gods will reward good intentions.” He felt about to drown in his own misery. “Well, if the fairies aren’t coming, I suppose we need wait no longer. Anything else left to finish here?”

“Me.” Cinnabar, tongue between his teeth, was busy with his high-collared chest plate.

Calomel reached up and helped his father tie the knots. “He’s almost ready, Captain.”

“And he looks very handsome, our Cinnabar,” Malachite Copper said almost cheerfully, as if they had not just been told they were fighting alone. “Not in the least like a fat townsman who has forgotten everything he learned in the warders.”

“Yes, I’m sure one sight of me and the autarch’s men will all run,” said Cinnabar, but no one had the heart to laugh.

He had become an animal, a thing of rough, matted hair and sharp teeth. He could smell her. He knew that the soldiers had taken her across the water—he had her scent and it told him everything. He could even smell the warm blood that would gush forth when he caught her and began to bite and tear . . .

Daikonas Vo shuddered and blinked. No. He was not an animal. He was a man, even if it was getting harder to remember that sometimes. He looked at the crowd of people around him. Some of them were staring. He could only guess what he looked like. But what was he trying to remember . . . ?

It came back. The girl. The girl from the Seclusion. He didn’t smell her, that was only his madness speaking, but he had seen the soldiers take her and march her onto a boat headed back across the bay toward Southmarch. He knew where she was going—to the
autarch
, the wonderful, powerful, treacherous, murderous autarch . . .

It was important to remember the truth and defend against madness. If Vo lost control, he knew he would become an animal in truth—a dead one, as forgotten as any cur left to rot by the roadside. But there were moments he did feel he could smell the girl, no matter how far away she was—he could almost picture her scent wafting behind her as she ran, trailing in the air like a broken spiderweb, dissolving slowly but lingering just long enough to coil about him like mist, leading him on . . .

He stopped himself just before he began howling. The sun was bright, and his head felt as though it had been split by a stoneworker’s chisel. The people around him had drawn back, and many were staring at him in apprehension—he must be talking to himself again.

Vo put his head down and began to walk.

She had tried to kill him. That memory helped to keep him going when the pain almost became too much. It was not the worst thing she had done, of course—in fact it was scarcely important at all except as a reminder of how slack he had been. But in trying to murder him she had poured all his sweet black medicine away, the one thing that had quieted the gnawing monstrosity the autarch had left in Vo’s guts. Now the agony grew in him by the hour. Vo had tried other remedies since he had lost his boat, wild simples he had picked in the forest and eaten, and later, when he had reached villages and small towns again, things he could get from apothecaries and healers, simply stealing when he could, killing without hesitation when he had to. But even the most learned of these country healers knew little more than the name of Malamenas Kimir’s healing liquid—they certainly did not have any. If he had not been certain beyond doubt he would be dead before he reached Agamid and Kimir’s shop he would have started back there already; instead he had only one chance to end the burning pain in his guts: he might still be able to convince Sulepis of his usefulness and be released from this endless torture.

So Daikonas Vo walked across the waterfront of Onir Beccan toward the place the ships docked, ignoring the local apothecaries because he could not afford the time or distraction. Every hour it seemed to become harder to think. Sometimes his mind was nothing but a black cave of screeching bats. Sometimes his legs cramped so badly that he dropped helplessly to the ground, but he always got up again.

Somebody was making strange noises. Growling and wheezing, mumbled words.

It was Vo himself, of course. He laughed a little through the pain. It was strange being mad, but he had been through worse.

 

Vo had been trying to ignore the pain that burned in his gut like a blazing coal while he watched the small ship he planned to board. A crane swung barrels of supplies up onto the deck as half-naked men pulled the ropes and shouted at each other. Could he manage? It seemed unlikely: to judge by the number of Xixian soldiers on the deck the autarch’s army had commandeered the Blueshore cog outright, which would make it hard for Vo to slip aboard unnoticed, especially in his present condition.

It was only after he had reluctantly decided to wait for another ship that he suddenly remembered the parchments that old Vash had given him—the autarch’s writ. The whole memory seemed strange, as though it had happened to someone else, but the documents had served him well when he commandeered the first ship in Hierosol, and could do so again . . . if he still had them....

Fortunately, Daikonas Vo had not had the wit for most of the last month even to remember the oilskin pouch hidden behind his belt, so it was still there. The documents were still there, too, although a bit smeared and hard to read after his unexpected swim from Vilas’ boat to the Brennish shore. Still, the falcon glyph of Sulepis III was unmistakable, and the bright vermilion ink showed that it was no mere copy but a document approved by the autarch himself. With the waterlogged parchments clutched tight in his fist he headed toward the cog, reminding himself not to howl no matter how hot the sun felt or how his gut burned him.

The
mulasim
, the officer who came down when the guards at the top of the gangplank called him, was one of those old hands Vo had seen a thousand times. While the
mulasim
looked skeptically at Vo’s documents, the soldiers behind him stared at Vo himself. He couldn’t even imagine what he looked like, but the part of him that could think through the pain knew it must be bad. They might not doubt the documents themselves, but they were bound to wonder if he had stolen these from the real messenger.

“Hear me,” he said, summoning what felt like a great deal of strength to speak calm, sensible words. “I have taken tremendous injury in the autarch’s service. I have critical information to give him which he needs
this moment
. I have sworn my complete loyalty to the Golden One. If you refuse to take me to his camp, I will have no choice but to kill you all, then eat your hearts and livers so that I have the strength to swim across Brenn’s Bay.”

Something about the way he said it must have been convincing. When the ship left Onir Beccan on the evening tide, Vo was on board, with a great deal of the deck to himself.