The Key to Creation (31 page)

But even that wasn’t enough. Hannes had to be sure. He picked up a rock from the pile and hammered at the hateful letters, eradicating the symbols so that no other human eyes could ever read the falsehoods.

Sweating and exhausted—yet satisfied by the good thing he had just done—Hannes ran down the hill to the beach where the captain and his sailors were loading the last water barrel into the boats.

Captain Vora seemed impatient. “So you decided to join us after all, Prester? We’re ready to go.”

“I finished my prayers, Captain, and I’m ready to travel to our destination.” He climbed into the boat. “Let’s be on our way—we don’t want to keep Holy Joron waiting.”

Olabar

The Nunghal’s invitation had made her very curious. Istar dressed in nondescript clothes and slipped away when the Urecari went to sunset church services. No one noticed her; no one knew where she was going.

On a busy street near the harbor, she found the inn that Asaddan had described. Inside, sailors and servers filled the common room; the air was heavy with conversation, laughter, shouts, and the smells of sweat, beer, and woodsmoke. She slipped past the crowds and went up the stairs to the Nunghal’s room. He had given her precise instructions.

When she knocked, Asaddan opened the door, but hesitated before leading her inside. “Thank you for coming discreetly, my Lady. My companion has good reason to keep his presence secret, but we hope you can use your influence to arrange a meeting with the soldan-shah.”

Istar pulled aside her veil as Asaddan closed the door behind her. She saw a man sitting quietly on a stool, wearing a fishhook pendant at his throat. He had light brown hair, blue eyes…and impossibly familiar features. Her world collapsed around her.

Twenty years.
Twenty years now spooled backward and out of control like a snapped fishing line. She sucked in a gasp, and with it came the only thing she could say.
“Ciarlo!”

Her brother recognized her in the same instant, bolting upright and toppling the stool. His mouth hung open as if someone had struck him with a club. Though she was decades older and dressed in Uraban clothes with touches of face paint and fine jewelry, speaking the language of a foreign land, she was still his sister. “
Adrea!
…Adrea, this is a miracle!”

Ciarlo flung himself at her and they embraced, rocking back and forth. He began sobbing into her shoulder, and she realized she was weeping as well.
Adrea.
She hadn’t heard that name in so long. “I knew you weren’t dead, Adrea! I had dreams, and I came to find out what had become of you!”

A gulf of empty years stretched out behind her like a blank sea on a sailor’s chart. She had last seen her brother during the Urecari raid on Windcatch. Ciarlo had been at the kirk on the hill, ringing the bell to alert the town. The raiders had ransacked the houses, burned the piers. When they dragged her to one of their ships, she had caught a final glimpse of the small kirk in flames. So many people of Windcatch had been slaughtered that day. Istar—
Adrea
—had never dared believe that Ciarlo might have lived through it. With his lame leg he could not outrun the raiders, and Urecari scimitars could easily have cut him down.

The two began talking at once, spilling words over the top of each other; Adrea realized that for the first time in ages she was speaking
Tierran
.

Unable to understand what they were saying, Asaddan said in rough Uraban, “What is this? How do you two know each other?”

Ciarlo rubbed at the tears in his eyes and refused to let go of her. “This is my sister, Asaddan! The one I was searching for. She’s the reason I came to Olabar! Aiden has blessed us both—can there be any doubt?”

An avalanche of questions fell into Istar’s mind, and she didn’t know which one to ask first. Then she realized that Ciarlo had jumped to his feet and run across the room to her. She had never seen him move without pain, not since his leg had been broken. She stood back and regarded her brother. “Your limp, Ciarlo! What happened?”

Though reluctant to release his hold on her, he was eager to show off. “I am healed.” He hopped from one foot to the other, sprang up onto the bed, then back down to the floor. “I can walk and run as well as any man.”

“But how?” Not even the most skilled Saedran physician could have healed an old injury like that.

“The Traveler, Adrea! I met him, and he performed a miracle. He gave me his book of new tales, took away my pain, and made me see my mission clearly—to come here and preach the word of Aiden. And also to find you. I’ve been blessed by two miracles now.”

She was stunned, and each inquiry came with both eagerness and a commensurate weight of dread. “And…Criston? Did he ever return from the
Luminara
? Is he…” She couldn’t even finish her question. Is he alive? Is he married?
Has he found a family and happiness for himself?

“The
Luminara
was sunk by the Leviathan.” Adrea reeled, but her brother was not finished. “Criston was the only survivor. He came back to Windcatch, but too late—you were already gone. Yet he never stopped hoping for you. He still writes you letters. He seals each one in a bottle and trusts it to the sea.”

Tears began pouring down Adrea’s face. “I received one of them, a long time ago. He still…remembers me?”

“He still loves you. Criston never married again, never found another woman, but he sailed away on a new ship, the
Dyscovera
. He’ll be home—I know it.
We
have to return!” Ciarlo was so full of happiness he could barely speak.

Adrea hesitated, feeling tightness in her throat and an aching in her chest. She couldn’t simply leave Olabar and sneak off to Tierra. She was the soldan-shah’s First Wife; she and Omra had three daughters—one adopted, just as Omra had adopted and loved Saan.

Criston’s son.
The child that Criston wasn’t even aware he had.

“You knew I was pregnant when…when the raid happened. I had a son, a strong son. Saan is now twenty years old—a sailor like his father. Omra raised him to be a fine young man, and he even looks like Criston.” She hadn’t thought of that in a long time.

“The
soldan-shah
raised Criston’s son? How can that—” Ciarlo blinked, then his eyes widened as he realized what Asaddan had told him. “
You’re
the wife of the soldan-shah?” He was aghast, and Adrea didn’t know how to respond.

The Nunghal, meanwhile, watched them both, trying to decipher their conversation.

Adrea squeezed her eyes shut and wiped her face. “So much has changed. There’s so much we need to decide.” She turned to Asaddan and spoke in Uraban again so he could understand. “How can we reveal this to Omra? After the loss of Gremurr, he wants to kill any Aidenist he sees.”

“There’ll be time enough for all the explanations we need,” Ciarlo said. “Right now, by the Fishhook, I won’t let anything overshadow my joy at finding you still alive!”

Outside, a bell from one of the small harbor churches began to ring, then more bells set up a brassy clamor that echoed up and down the streets. Istar knew it should have been well past time for the summoning to sunset services. Below in the inn’s common room, the buzz of conversation grew louder, and people rushed out into the streets. Asaddan went to the second-story window and threw open the shutters, trying to see the harbor in the dusk. The bells grew louder and louder.

With her mind struggling to absorb all that she had just learned, Adrea joined the two men at the high window, glad for the distraction. They could see seven ominous vessels sailing into the harbor accompanied by dozens of smaller ships, fifty or more, all closing in toward the docks.

A man shouted as he ran up the street from the nearby docks, “Olabar is under attack from the sea!”

Olabar Harbor

Broeck had timed his sunset arrival at Olabar with great care, when all the Curlies would be at their heathen church ceremonies—probably sacrificing Aidenist captives, slashing throats and collecting innocent blood in bowls. The Iborian destrar would show them how a true Aidenist fought for his beliefs.

Aboard the
Wilka
, a flagship as beautiful as his lost wife, he led the ironclads to the harbor along with fifty small ships he had captured over the past several months—fishing boats, patrol ships, ore carriers, and more. It had been a challenge to keep the flotilla together on the voyage across the Middlesea; a big storm would have brought disaster, but Ondun was on their side, and they’d had smooth sailing all the way.

By now, he was sure that at least half of Queen Anjine’s army should be camped at the Ishalem wall, preparing for the full attack in another month. But tonight Broeck’s ships might well cripple the entire Uraban empire.

As they closed in, he could hear the city’s alarm bells ring out. The arrival of so many unexpected ships could not be hidden—but the Curlies could do nothing about it. His confidence was undiminished. Ahead, Uraban vessels of all sizes were tied up at the extended docks. He wished he had enough men to seize those ships, but he would have to satisfy himself with destruction, if not plunder.

He called across the water to Iaros, who stood excited at the bow of the
Raathgir
. “Send word down the line, nephew—tell the men in the small ships to tie down their rudders and set course for the harbor. Once they’re ready, have them light the kindling, then get back to the ironclads!” Iaros bellowed to the nearest craft, and the message echoed from ship to ship as they proceeded toward the harbor.

The captured small boats were filled with dry brush, oil-soaked rags, crates of tinder. Now his men struck sparks and jumped overboard to swim to the nearby ironclads. The flames blossomed bright and raced up the rigging and masts, devouring the sails and intensifying the blaze.

The fireships reminded Broeck of funeral barges, like the pyre for his dead daughter Ilrida, who had died from the scratch of a rusty nail, or for King Korastine, who had died of a broken heart. Somehow, Broeck found it easy to blame the Curlies for those tragedies, too. The placid harbor waters would soon reflect many fires, an orange blaze to overwhelm the sunset.…

While his ironclads remained behind, the sacrificial boats drifted without guidance among the Uraban vessels tied up to the docks. Olabar residents scrambled to rescue their ships by untying them and setting sail, but they had little room to maneuver among the fireships. Broeck watched one small merchant ship try to pick its way through the tangle of vessels, but a burning fishing boat drifted against it as if driven by the vengeance of Aiden. The fire spread, the merchant’s silken sails caught fire, and soon all of her crew were jumping overboard. Joined with the fireship in a deadly embrace, the merchant ship collided with another dock and smashed into a two-masted dromond, which also caught fire.

Though the ironclads held back for now, the destrar wished he could ram the docks and jump onto land, using his heavy Iborian sword to hack and slash at the terrified enemy. But he kept his armored ships just outside the harbor, happy to destroy Olabar without shedding a single drop of Tierran blood.

As more burning boats crashed into the docks, the fire intensified and consumed more vessels, even spreading ashore to the shacks and warehouses that backed up to the docks.

Shouting orders, Uraban soldiers rushed aboard five sleek war galleys tied up to the military pier. In rhythm with loud drumbeats, their oars extended as soldiers pulled at the shafts, and the galleys struck out like sharks, heading straight toward the ironclads.

Broeck crossed his arms over his chest. “Come right ahead. Let’s see what you can do against us.”

From the
Raathgir
, Iaros gesticulated toward the oncoming galleys, but Broeck gave a dismissive wave. Soon all the Tierran sailors aboard the ironclads were jeering and hooting, adding insults that the Urabans would not understand. Broeck laughed. “The galleys can try to ram us, but they’ll never damage these hulls. Archers, prepare to fire as soon as the enemy gets in range.”

Iaros was still calling out, but now he wasn’t pointing at the war galleys. “Uncle, look!”

In a separate part of the harbor, Broeck spotted a sturdy ironclad that was larger than any of his own ships, and he knew immediately what it was: the
Golden Fern
, the first armored vessel Soldan-Shah Omra had commissioned from Gremurr.

Her sails had been set, and the soldan-shah’s ironclad moved out to engage the invaders. Broeck let out a loud laugh and called, “Come and face me! I am ready for you!”

Olabar Harbor

Omra had faced Aidenist attackers before, but he had never dared contemplate a night like this. This was Olabar—
Olabar!

Only an hour earlier, he had dutifully attended sunset services with Naori and their two young sons, but upon hearing the first alarms he rushed to the docks. He still wore his formal clothes, a clean olba, robe, and sash, but he also carried his scimitar; though ceremonial, it did have a wicked edge.

By the time the soldan-shah reached the naval piers, his war galleys had moved out into the water, their captains shouting orders as soldiers rowed toward the invaders. “Faster! Pull for Urec!”

Without delay, Omra leaped aboard the
Golden Fern
and commanded its launch. He had barely enough crewmembers aboard to set off, but they used the full complement of oars to propel the ironclad forward. Leaving the spreading harbor fires behind, the
Golden Fern
advanced on the armored ships. Omra hoped to catch up with the war galleys and block any further attack.

“I want to see that ’Hook commander’s head on a spike!” he yelled. “All of their heads on spikes!” The men responded with angry shouts of approval.

Behind him, the devastation caused by the fireships was already appalling. Olabar’s population had turned out to help stop the spread of the flames, throwing buckets of water, stamping out fires, cutting ropes to push smoldering ships away from the docks. Kel Rovik was at the docks trying to manage the rush of disorganized helpers.