The Lascar's Dagger (53 page)

This time he was quick to correct Saker’s use of words. “Not steal. To take back what belonged to my people in the first place.”

Ah. So Fritillary had been right.

“The bambu and its contents were stolen by the crew of the
Spice Dragon
?” he guessed.

Ardhi glanced down at the table, where the tapboy, after taking note of a signal from Saker, had placed a mug of beer. He wrapped his fingers around the handle, but didn’t drink. “Yes, when the Lowmian ship came to Chenderawasi. First time such a ship entered our waters.” He shrugged. “They heard careless talk of Chenderawasi’mas and killed to obtain what they wanted. They slaughtered our raja.” His eyes were sombre with grief. “The ones who did it died on the voyage back.”

The gratification in his tone was clear. “You were on that ship then?”
Did he kill them? Toss their bodies overboard one stormy night?

“Yes. I followed the
Spice Dragon
to Kotabanta on Serinaga Island, and signed on for the journey to Lowmeer. I did ask the ship’s captain, Captain Lustgrader, to return the Chenderawasi’mas to our islands, but he refused.”

“Chenderawasi’mas? Are you going to tell me what that is?”

“Of course! It’s obvious you have been selected to help me return them.”

“Obvious? Not obvious to me,” he replied. “I don’t want to help. Why should I?”

“The Chenderawasi kris chose you,” Ardhi said, as if that explained everything. “I failed, and with my failure my chance of performing this task alone vanished. That day in the warehouse, Kesleer said he was sending the Chenderawasi’mas to the Regal. The spirit of the kris understood that intention. It decided that you are to be the person who will retrieve them. That’s why it left my hand and flew to you.”

“You’re out of your mind. And what is it anyway, this Chenda … Chenderawasmas?”

“Two words. Chenderawasi emas. Although we usually, er, slide them together.” Ardhi enunciated the words in full this time, then added the translation. “The Chenderawasi gold. The golden plumes from the Chenderawasi birds.”

He took a moment to digest that. Then, incredulous, he blurted, “
Feathers?”

Ardhi nodded. “Three plumes. Feathers of our guardians, the Chenderawasi, the paradise birds. The Pashali call them birds of heaven. The Lowmians say birds of paradise. Our
pulauan
– group of islands – is named for the birds.”

“So … Chenderawasi is the name of the island chain. Chenderawasi is also the name of a type of bird. Chenderawasi’mas are bird feathers from the Chenderawasi birds that live in the Chenderawasi Islands. Simple enough to understand.” He reverted to his own tongue, blurting, “What is clay-brained is that you want me to risk my life to retrieve some
feathers
.”

Ardhi’s eyes flashed with such fury, Saker found himself leaning away. His hand closed around the hilt of his own dagger, still on the table, but he didn’t pick it up. “I have offended you,” he said quietly, even as his body readied for attack.

The naked rage in the lascar was frightening. “You are an ignorant off-islander. You can be forgiven because you have never seen the Chenderawasi. You do not know our ways. But you might remember that the plumes were valuable enough to persuade the Regal to give the spice trade to the Lowmian merchant Mynster Kesleer.”

Saker felt out of his depth. Ardhi’s grasp of Pashali put his own to shame. It was idiomatic, fluent and erudite, whereas he, Saker, was having to revert to his own tongue whenever he was flustered.
Dear Va, how arrogant we are in the Va-cherished Hemisphere, to assume our superiority on so little evidence.

He frowned, thinking back to the overheard conversation in the warehouse. He remembered the glimpse he’d had of something golden. Kesleer had put a high value on the contents of the bambu.
Feathers
. An astute merchant had thought they were enough to persuade Regal Vilmar to do something he’d never done before. And the Regal had indeed granted him his monopoly. Sweet heaven.

He recalled the court ladies back in Throssel, with their feathered headdresses. What wouldn’t some of those ladies give to have golden plumes in their hair?

Ardhi said, more calmly, “The feathers are beyond price.”

“I’m not interested in their monetary value. I want to keep hold of my
life
. And what you say about the kris is nonsense. If it wanted me to do something, then it failed, surely. I haven’t stolen anything.”

“Time means nothing to a Chenderawasi dagger. The older it grows, the more understanding it has, but from its birth it has the power of the Chenderawasi within. We call it Sri Kris, or Lord Dagger, and it possesses
sakti
.
Sakti
is like your witchery.” He paused, then asked, puzzled, “Why do you believe in witchery, but not Chenderawasi magic?” He drew out the kris and put a finger on one of the gold filaments in the blade. “Look.”

Saker almost laughed, but stopped himself in time. “Those gold flaws in the metal were Chenderawasi feathers?” he asked, stifling any expression of his scepticism. As if feathers would survive the heating of the forging!

Ardhi nodded, and the muted glow around him flared.
Oh Va, witchery. That’s what I can see in him. It’s because he has their equivalent of a witchery! It’s the same thing I can now sense in Fritillary, and in Sorrel, and in shrine-keepers, since I became one of them
.

He went cold all over and had to clench his hands to stop them shaking. Chenderawasi witchery was akin to Va-granted witchery?

Aloud, he said in his own tongue, “All right. I’ll believe in your kris magic. The curdling thing followed me everywhere I went, after all, but that doesn’t alter my opinion. None of this is my business.”

“I don’t think you have a choice. You were chosen because of your possibility to become what you are now.”

He raised an eyebrow, mystified, wondering if he’d understood correctly.

“When I first met you, you were an ordinary man. Since then, you’ve been gifted with
sakti
. Witchery. The kris sensed your potential. It must have done. And so it waited and nudged your witchery into the path it chose. I don’t know what your
sakti
is, but I can sense you have it.”

Dear Va.
Birds.
The kris had made sure that his witchery was some sort of stupid connection to birds? It had twisted his gift away from the usual witcheries into something it wanted? Blister that for a noxious joke! What about the unseen guardian? What about Va? What about the Way of the Oak? Had they no say? He felt sick enough to spew all over the floor, and it took an effort to swallow back bile. His hand went to his cheek, where the brand should be.

His witchery. His stupid witchery, an awareness of birds.
And this kris had chosen what it was to be
…

Birds. Feathers. A memory of golden feathers on the clerk’s table back in Kesleer’s warehouse. The gold streaks in the kris.
Sweet Va above. What the scabrous hell is going on?

“Look,” he said, scrambling to find some explanation that made sense, “all your kris did, for months, was follow me around. When I tried to get rid of it, it always came back. Oh, and it sometimes warned me of – of danger. That’s
all
, until today, when it directed me to Uthen Kesleer’s office.”

“Perhaps it was waiting. For you to change. To come into your power. Then it brought you back to me.”

“What power? I don’t have any power!” Sensing a bird was hungry was not possessing power, dammit! And then that treacherous internal voice said,
Oh? Then what about having gulls and owls rescuing you from murderous assassins?

Ardhi laughed, and sipped his beer. “Oh yes, you do. I can feel it.”

“This is ridiculous. What’s so special about a fobbing feather anyway?”

“I can show you.”

“How?”

“I have my own Chenderawasi feather. In my room. Come, I’ll show you.”

Saker stood. His legs felt wooden. Throwing some coins on to the table, he followed Ardhi out.

The lascar’s lodging was more comfortable than he expected, and surely cost more than a seaman’s wages. His surprise must have been written on his face, because Ardhi shrugged, smiled and said, “I brought rare spices from home. Who thinks to look in a tar’s dirty kitbag for such wealth? I sold them gradually for a small fortune.”

“You should buy yourself a pair of boots.” Ardhi – of course – just grinned. It would be a wonder if that damned grin didn’t get him murdered one day. “So where’s this feather of yours?”

The lascar eased out a piece of bambu from inside the stuffing of his pallet. Carefully he extracted the contents, saying, “This plume was gifted to me, in case I needed it.”

With those words, the feather – no, never feather, for such a word was inadequate – the
plume
opened up in all its glory as it left the confines of the bambu. It puffed out in a cloud of colour, one of the loveliest things Saker had ever laid eyes on. Golden, and longer than his arm. No, not just gold: an almost liquid cascade of yellows, from pale lemon at the base to a rich, vivid orange-red at the tip. The hues shimmered and danced, even though the air was still. They glowed, casting a haze of ambient light. He reached out to stroke the barbules. They were soft, like warm water, and his hand tingled pleasantly.

He looked at Ardhi through a haze of affection. All his reservations deserted him. “It is beyond beauty,” he said in wonder. He knew he had to see the bird that produced such a thing of glory. He stroked it again and could have sworn it vibrated under his hand. His fingertips sparkled with gold. For one crazed moment, he thought it spoke to him, a soft whisper of regret, like a foretelling of death.

“It’s yours,” said Ardhi. “I gift it to you.”

He barely noticed the terrible pain in the lascar’s tone. He abandoned all rational thought, all reservation, all caution. All he could think of was that this glorious creation was his for the taking. He could own it, look at it every day. With tender care, he took it from Ardhi’s hands. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve never been given anything so – so superb.”

He raised his gaze to look at the lascar, and Ardhi smiled. There were tears hesitating on his long dark lashes, but it was the curl of his lips that told Saker more. The quiet certitude of a task flawlessly performed. His heart contracted to a hard ball in his chest and he found it difficult to breathe. He looked down at the plume, then back at the lascar. “Dear Va,” he whispered, “what have you done?”

“Not what I’ve done,” the lascar said quietly. “What you’ve done, and what you cannot undo.”

Saker thrust the feather at him. “Take it back,” he said, overriding the immense desire to hug the glorious shimmer of orange and gold to his chest and never let anyone touch it again. “I don’t want it! Take it back!”

Ardhi shook his head. “I can’t. When I took it from the one who gifted it to me, I was sent here, to the other side of the world, to perform a task and never to return until it was done. And now I have passed the plume to you. It is yours, Mynster Reed Heron. And with it comes a command. You will help me with that task: you will help me find and steal the Chenderawasi’mas now in the hands of the Regal of Lowmeer. Three plumes. And you will then take all four to Pulauan Chenderawasi.”

Saker went cold all over. He was in the grip of a magic so intense, so powerful, it left him helpless to refuse, or resist. Every breath, every thought, every instinct told him the enormity of the price he would pay for a treacherous moment of covetous craving. He had sold his future to the lascar, and put his thumbprint on the possibility of his own imminent death.

Steal something – anything – from Ustgrind Castle?
Suicidal madness
.

And there was no way he could ever say no.

“Damn your eyes!” He spat the words from between gritted teeth, his fury as useless as it was real. “Damn you to beggary. One day I’ll put a blade through your heart for this, you – you bilge scut!”

I
t was odd how the days went by, seemingly normal. But nothing was normal, not really, not for Saker. He was under a compulsion and he knew it. It crawled under his skin, a relentless itch needing a scratch. It churned his gut until he wanted to spew. Every day he would look up at the walls of the castle, and feel the insidious pull of it.

Steal me. Take me away
.
Return me to my rightful place. Carry me home…

Pickles ’n’ rot, home for a Chenderawasi plume was the other side of a heaving ocean!

For the first few days, he clung in desperation to a belief that he could overcome the coercion. It was just a matter of being strong. Of using his will. That delusion soon foundered on his increasing desire – his overwhelming
need
– to scale the castle walls.

There was no escape, not for him.

He went to work every day at the Lowmian Spicerie Trading Company, taught the factors and sailors every day, saw Ardhi every day, learned more about Kesleer and his company every day. What he couldn’t do was leave. He should have gone back to Vavala to report to the Pontifect; instead he wrote her a letter, which he gave to Loach to send with his normal reports. This time, though, he told her about the dagger, about Ardhi, about the Chenderawasi plumes and how his moment of foolish acquisitiveness had imprisoned him in a future he didn’t want. He used coded words the Pontifect would understand and couched it all so vaguely it wouldn’t do much harm if the letter fell into the wrong hands, but even so, he didn’t commit to paper his intention of robbing the Regal. He wasn’t that boil-brained. Besides, it was better she learned that
after
the fact.

Five or six days after he’d accepted the wretched plume from Ardhi, he was leaving the offices of the Lowmeer Spicerie Trading Company when he realised Ardhi was right behind him. He looked over his shoulder and scowled.

Ardhi made a regretful face. “I’m sorry about what I did to you,” he said in Pashali.

“No, you’re not,” he growled, making a point by using his own tongue to put the lascar at a disadvantage, then feeling petty and childish because he had. “You were sent to do something and you’ve handed the task over to me, so if anyone hangs for this, it’ll be me. Blister you, why didn’t you steal the fobbing feathers on board ship before you got here?”