The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (32 page)

“Why didn’t you come to me, if you had a grievance against Seawatch?” she said.

“I tried to, in Skybeyond, but they said you were away on business. So I went to the Unity instead.”

“Go on.” Lisabe tried not to look at the Tureans, who were both listening intently. What Quenlin was saying should have remained between the two of them—or better yet, between none of them—so she could only hope for some discretion.

He pulled out the chair, the legs scraping across the floor, and sat down. “I think that says it all.”

“That’s why you defected?” The official word from the Council was that Quenlin had been struck insane from his unauthorized intrusion into the presence of the Unity, which was why nothing he said could be believed, but he sounded more or less sane to Lisabe. She had also wondered if some of the less tender practices in Whetstone had affected his mind—the black room, for instance—but Yerena seemed quite normal, and she was far less talented.

“I can take being ill-treated, Mother,” Quenlin said. “But when the entire foundation of our lives—”

“Don’t say any more, my dear.” She tilted her head towards the Tureans.

A look of disgust curled his lip. “You’re so invested in it, aren’t you? Seawatch’s methods of controlling animals are low enough—we turn them into emotional parasites who stay close in hopes of the next petting. But what you’ve fed to all of Denalay is worse.”

“What we’ve fed?” Contempt edged her voice in response, despite all her good intentions. “Point out one lie the Council has ever spoken.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone exactly what the Unity is?”

“Why would anyone need to know?”

Quenlin leaned back. “That, Mother, is why I left. So I could finally tell the truth.”

“Oh, Quenlin. To sacrifice so much for so little.” Lisabe sighed. “My poor boy, the good citizens of Denalay have heard it all before, every wild theory there could possibly be.” Her voice took on a light, parroting tone. “The Unity is a creature so bizarre no one could imagine it, much less describe it. The Unity is some kind of intelligent device from another world. The Unity is a trapped star that once fell from the sky. The Unity doesn’t even exist. You think any of those would have been new?” She smiled. “And if the Council of Eyes and Voices had learned you were trying to spread a more original rumor through the populace, why, we’d do the same, except we’d use more convincing stories by far.”

Quenlin smiled back. “But what you’re most afraid of, Mother, isn’t that I’ll tell our people. It’s that I’ll tell the Tureans.” In the silence, he went on. “That will give them one more reason to keep fighting. One more reason—and a damned good one—for wanting their freedom and independence. That’s not something you can counter with subversive agents and conflicting stories, is it?”

The shark drifted through the sheltered waters of the bay, tail moving in slow reflexive twitches every now and then. Other than that and the rhythmic flex of its gills, it was motionless, inert. It felt very tired. The pain was gone, replaced by a dull numbness after nerves and brain were overloaded and something deeper than both told it not to fight any longer.

It hadn’t fully fed in a long time. Unlike that of most fish, its blood was warmer than the water that surrounded it, stoked by an inner fire that demanded more fuel. Ordinarily it would have swum out from the bay in search of sea lions or porpoises with their fat-rich meat, but it didn’t feel hungry. Its senses, an exquisitely honed prey-detection system, were beginning to give out one by one.

The stench of the water around the ship was strong enough to penetrate its exhaustion, but it felt no impulse to leave. Dimly, it realized that the effluvium of the ship—and the shelter of the bay—blocked it from what it had sensed in the ocean, the leviathan which had risen from the depths. It could stay where it was, and there seemed to be nothing more to do.

Vibrations eddied out next to the ship, solid mass colliding with solid mass and transmitting tremors through the water. The shark paid no attention, but the next scent it caught was familiar enough to rouse a flicker of interest. It had smelled that blood before.

Its huge triangular head turned in that direction. Water sluiced through its gills and lapped into its nostrils. It was confused, because it recognized the faint trace of blood. That belonged to the alien-yet-familiar presence which had always been with it so far, its hunting partner, and yet there was nothing of her warm, steady presence in its mind.

Splashes of rapid swimming thrummed through the water, and were followed by sounds the shark didn’t recognize, but which spoke of panic. Unsure of what to do, it swam forward, then turned back. Normally it feared nothing and would have swum past the ship to investigate what was happening, but it knew how battered and worn down it was. And how alone.

No, not completely alone. Deep in the base of its brain, a warning sounded. Millions of years into the past, a common ancestor had given rise to two different species, and those in their turn had bred and diverged to the point where they were more different than similar. The shark’s forebears had avoided any waters where the far more powerful predators hunted, and although nearly all of the giants had died out, its instincts were still strong.

And also growing strong was the smell, the scent of a creature that outstripped the shark in length and weighed five times what it did.

The megalodon was coming.

“What’s the second reason?” Quenlin said when she didn’t reply.

Lisabe felt all of her forty-nine years, weary and drained, but she made a last effort. Quenlin wasn’t just her son, he was a brilliant man, so why couldn’t he see the sense in her position?

“Do you really think we’ll be better off, in the long run, by giving a horde of pirates what they want?” she said.

“To be honest, Mother, I don’t care. I had self-denial for breakfast and propaganda for dinner every day in Whetstone. Always placing the land and the Unity first, when it was clear the land would just use me until there was nothing left to be used. As for the Unity?” He chuckled, and there was nothing amused about the sound. “So I’ve had enough of that. What’s your second reason?”

The Council had been divided when Lisabe had explained what she intended to do. The general consensus was that her son’s shame was not hers, and she was respected enough that a Voice who hoped to ascend to her position had tried to dissuade her.

On the other hand, no one except themselves could look upon the Unity and live. Which meant Quenlin had to be dealt with, but given that he had fled to the Farflung Provinces, the expense of hiring an assassin to travel the distance and run so many risks would be prohibitive—assuming a willing assassin could be found. “However, no one would suspect one of us,” Lisabe pointed out. “And someone of my position would merit a substantial escort.”

Thankfully the matter of Lastland provided a plausible reason one ship would be ordered to sail into the Iron Ocean. Lisabe was grateful she’d had the chance to save half of the prisoners, but even if she had only bought them a little more time before the end, they were not as important as the duty she had to carry out.

It has to be me
. She had brought him into the world, and bitter though her duty was, the prospect of anyone else trying to hurt her son was unbearable. Seeing him and listening to him lodged a hot rock in her chest, but she’d had months to reconcile herself to her task.

No, what gave her pause was his mention of a megalodon. If she killed him, might it go mad as its only restraint snapped? Ships weren’t natural prey for such leviathans any more than sparrows were normal fare on people’s tables, but could she be certain it would return to its proper place after there was no one calling it?

Whether she was or not, though, she had to kill him. The Council had passed judgment, she’d come too far to change her mind, and in Turean hands she was going to die anyway. She had to take her son and his crime with her.

She started to answer his question and knew at once she’d waited too long while she considered the consequences. A frown formed on his handsome face, and she could almost see the suspicion growing behind his eyes.

Her heart beat like the thrashing of a bird’s wings against the cage of her ribs.

“I had to see you.” Only a lifetime of service as a Voice of the Unity enabled her to say that gently and steadily. “To ask your forgiveness.” She rose with as much grace as she could muster, robes whispering together like skeleton leaves on the wind, and took a step towards him.

Quenlin’s head turned slightly, as though she was no longer in focus in his vision, and his lips parted.
He suspects but he’s not sure how
. She wore no jewelry, which ruled out a convenient spike-ring, and she had been searched before Captain Morender would give her the courtesy of a private meeting. Turean hands groping inside her sleeves, patting her at the small of her back, feeling between her breasts. Just remembering it disgusted her, but they hadn’t found the single knife she carried.

She sank to a sitting position before Quenlin, knees bent and legs folded beneath her at an angle. Her left foot was under her but the right extended beyond her body. Seated, he could not have flinched away if he had wanted to, but his feet and elbows edged as far back as was possible and unease showed on his face. A Turean stepped forward, obviously realizing how unusual it was for a Voice of the Unity to kneel to a condemned traitor.

“Mother,” Quenlin began, “what are you—”

Lisabe kicked off her right shoe. Clear strands of silk bound the knife to the sole of her foot, and they broke as she yanked the blade free. The knife had no real hilt, only a strip of rough leather wrapped around its broad end—she’d limped a little but the Tureans hadn’t bothered to investigate her feet—and the blade was crusted with cobramilk. She swung it in a short hard slash at Quenlin’s leg.

He was faster. As her fingers closed on the blade, he threw himself back. His chair rocked, his center of gravity shifted, and the chair toppled away from her. His legs flew up from the floor and the knife missed him.

The Turean in her direct line of sight yelled for help—obviously he’d seen the blade—but the one behind her ran forward. She didn’t need to hear his boots to feel the thump of them against the floorboards. Quenlin’s chair crashed down as she turned and threw herself flat on her stomach. The Turean’s cutlass sheared through the air where her head had been, and before he could strike again, she drove her blade into the meat of his calf.

He shrieked and pulled away, much to Lisabe’s relief, since with her hands tied she didn’t have much leverage to free the blade on her own. Ignoring the blood, she staggered to her feet. Quenlin had rolled away from the fallen chair and pushed himself up on his hands and knees, shaking his head. The other Turean reached behind his shoulder and drew an axe, but he stayed at the door. Lisabe started towards Quenlin.

He raised his head, saw her and grabbed the back of the fallen chair. If he had thrown it at her, it would have knocked her sprawling but, dazed from the fall, he swung it instead. The chair’s legs smacked hard into her shins and she lost her balance. She fell forward onto Quenlin, stabbing down blindly, but he caught her wrists in one hand, fingers digging into the knot of ropes. The blade halted inches from his face, speckling him with blood.

Lisabe struggled to bring her knife down, with no success. Abruptly she stopped doing so, shifted her weight to an elbow braced against Quenlin’s shoulder and brought her right leg up. He twisted away instinctively to avoid her knee and his hold on her wrists slipped.

A shadow fell across her and she looked up to see the Turean with the axe—the axe raised high over her head.

The axe came down.

Quenlin rolled away, fighting an urge to vomit. He wasn’t going to be weak in front of the Tureans, wasn’t going to show them any vulnerability.

He retched anyway. The shrieks of the injured Turean had faded into sobbing gasps, and all Quenlin could think was how easily that could have been him. Spots of the man’s blood were drying on his face. He’d always expected it would be Seawatch which sent an assassin after him, not the Council and not his own mother. She had come to murder him and she had nearly succeeded. His stomach heaved again.

“What the…” Jash said.

Quenlin hadn’t heard her come in. He straightened up and turned, bile dribbling down his chin. Jash saw that, and a smile spread across her face like a widening cut as she strode in. She turned his mother’s body over with a booted foot, one of her twin shortswords held drawn and ready as she did so.

He didn’t want to look at his mother, or what remained of her. He glanced at Leff instead, only to regret that.

“She had a knife, Captain.” Wurane wrenched his axe free with an effort. “Under her—”

“You fools,” Jash said quietly, coldly, and at the sound of her voice, Leff’s moans of pain stopped. “You goddamned fools.”

Sweat trickled down the back of Quenlin’s neck, and he touched the megalodon’s consciousness, urging the beast onward. That time, he didn’t bother walling his emotions off. Let it sense his desperation and urgency; let it strike the Turean flotilla before Jash decided to kill him too. Judging by her grin, he’d be safer in the water.

“The master of that slaveship says his hold is full of hellfire,” Jash went on, each word slashing like a whip. “I think he’s lying but I have to be sure. I would have gotten the truth out of this whore one way or another. How will I do that now?”