The River of Shadows (6 page)

“Don’t, Macadra!” hissed the stocky woman. “He’ll just slip away again! Don’t let him!”

Arunis closed his eyes a moment. “Your servants prattle like children. I have no desire to
slip away
. Indeed I hoped to persuade you to sail with me. You could be of great help with the Red Storm—I know how intensely you have studied it, Macadra—and besides, you could keep your eye on the Stone.”

The black man laughed. “Sail with him on the
Chathrand
. Just walk aboard that spell-ridden hulk, straight into his lair.”

“With a crew that answers to your Emperor,” said Arunis. “As for the humans: simply hold them in Masalym until the charm breaks and the Shaggat returns to life. After that they are of no consequence.”

Still Macadra did not reach for the parchment. “We help you cross the Ruling Sea again,” she said. “We guide you through the time-trap of the Storm, and let you take your Shaggat to Gurishal. He rallies his worshippers, leads them into a doomed but damaging civil war inside the Mzithrin. And when the Mzithrin stands gasping and wounded over the corpse of the Shaggat’s rebellion, their old foe Arqual strikes them from behind, presumably—”

“Unquestionably,” said Arunis. “Their monarch dreams of it night and day.”

“As well he should!” shouted Macadra. “That is where your plan collapses. It will take us two decades to build a fleet that could brave the Nelluroq and seize the Northern world. How do you propose to keep the Arqualis from using that time to make a fortress of those lands?”

For a moment Arunis looked at her in silence. Then he took her arm and drew her toward the tavern door, not far from where Orfuin sat glumly, the little animal flickering in and out of sight beside his feet. Looking back to make sure the others had not followed, Arunis murmured into her ear.

“What?” screamed Macadra, breaking violently away. “Are you joking, mage, or have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Come,” said Arunis. “Don’t pretend it’s not the solution you’ve been hunting for. The South is free of humans already, unless you count the degenerate
tol-chenni
. This will merely finish the job.”

“It would finish far more than humankind,” she said. “You cannot control such a force!”

“I can,” said Arunis. “Through the Nilstone, and the puppet we call the Shaggat Ness. Help me, Macadra. I know the Ravens wish it done.”

Macadra stared at the parchment. “You speak as though we were devils.”

“That is what you are,” said Orfuin.

He rose, startling them all. “The bar is closed. I will give you two minutes to conclude your business here.”

The four mages gaped at him. “You can’t mean it,” said the black man, smiling uncertainly. “You’re famous for your neutrality, old man.”

“That and my gingerbread,” said Orfuin, “and precious little else. Goodbye, Arunis. Plot your holocaust elsewhere.”

He clapped his hands sharply. At once several dozen tiny figures, shorter even than ixchel, emerged from the vines with brooms and began sweeping the terrace before the arch. The guests within the tavern slammed down their mugs and rose, shuffling for the exits as though obeying some irresistible command. The little
yddek
scurried across the terrace and flung itself into the night.

“This is unprecedented,” said Arunis, “and if I may say so, unwise.”

Orfuin shrugged. “Neutral or not, the club is my own.”

“But we have nowhere else to meet!” said Macadra.

“Then you have nowhere to meet.”

He entered the bar and began snuffing lights. Stoman, face twisting with fury, stamped dead one of the tiny sweepers; the rest fled back into the vines. One by one, like wary dogs, the tables and chairs slid of their own accord through the archway. The wind grew suddenly louder. The four figures stood alone.

“Devils in this life,” said Arunis, looking only at Macadra, “but in the next something else altogether.”

He held out the parchment. Macadra met his gaze, snarled, and took it from his hand. She placed it inside her dress and raised her arms.

“Do not think us fools, sorcerer. We will send you a crew indeed! And when your work is done the Nilstone will return to the Ravens.”

“When my work is done I shall not need it,” said Arunis.

Somewhere a door slammed shut. Then the archway became a wall, and the vines closed in like scaly curtains, and suddenly there was nothing beneath their feet but the roaring immensity of the darkness, cold and mighty as a vertical river, bearing them away from one another and toward the lee shore of their dreams.

Brothers and Blood

22 Ilbrin 941
¹
221st day from Etherhorde

Introductions were strained. The two younger
sfvantskor
s had some Arquali, learned in preparation for Treaty Day; Cayer Vispek spoke barely a word. Pazel, on the other hand, spoke Mzithrini better than his sister. Vispek and Jalantri listened with open suspicion.

“You say you learned such diction, such grace with our tongue … from books?” the elder
sfvantskor
demanded.

Pazel glanced uneasily at Neda. “That’s how it started,” he said.

“It’s the truth, Cayer,” said Neda. “Pazel is a natural scholar. He taught himself Arquali by the time he was eight. Other languages, too. But they were mostly just nonsense from his grammar books, until our birth-mother cast the spell.”

“The one that changed him, but not you,” said Jalantri.

Neda shrugged, dropping her eyes. “It gave me white hair for three months.”

Cayer Vispek shook his head in wonder. “And made him able to collect languages as easily as a boy puts marbles in a bag.”

“Not that easily,” Pazel objected.

Neda sat between her brother
sfvantskor
s and looked at Pazel much as they did, with doubt that was nearly accusation. Of course Pazel was shocked to learn that she had become a
sfvantskor
. But how much greater had her shock been! During the invasion of Ormael she had watched Arquali marines beat him senseless, while their fellow soldiers rampaged through the family house, smashing everything they could not eat or slip in their pockets. Five years later, hidden by a mask, she had seen Pazel with Thasha Isiq: daughter of the very admiral who led the invasion.

Every Mzithrini youth learned to hate Arqualis. There were reasons of history, war stories from uncles and teachers, scars on temple walls. But few of Neda’s age had as many reasons as she.

Nine of those reasons had crowded into a single hour. Nine reasons who had dragged her screaming into a barn.

Now her brother served those same Arqualis—cared for them, loved them maybe. Neda had known about him since the morning of Treaty Day, more than four months ago. But the thought still made her want to scream.

For she too had spoken but part of the truth. Her mother’s spell had done more than change the color of her hair. It was an augmentation hex; it took an innate gift, whatever one was naturally best at, and strengthened it a thousandfold. At first Neda thought that her mother had nearly killed her only to prove that she was plain and stupid: a girl with no gifts to augment. Only years later, in training to be a
sfvantskor
, had she realized that she did possess one gift: a prodigious memory. And as she aged, and so had more years of life to remember, the spell had come into its own.

Now her memory was vast and merciless. It rarely obeyed her will. She might try for hours to summon a specific fact, and fail. But when she made no effort her memory worked on, like an involuntary organ, pumping, flooding her with knowledge she did not want. As it was doing now. The dust sculpting beams of light through a high window in the barn. The nine voices of those soldiers. The underside of each chin.

Cayer Vispek offered to share the rabbit, but Pazel and the Tholjassan man gently declined; they could see that the others were starved. Neda and her comrades attacked the meal in earnest, and as they chewed the man called Hercól Stanapeth began to speak. His Mzithrini was halting, like something remembered from a distant time, but with Pazel’s help he told his tale.

And what a tale it was: the lie of the Great Peace, the treason plotted in Etherhorde, the riches hidden aboard the
Chathrand
, the fact that the Shaggat Ness had never died.

At this last confession Cayer Vispek had set down his plate. In the darkest of voices he asked Pazel to repeat Hercól’s words. Then he put out a hand to the two younger
sfvantskor
s.

“Your weapons. Quickly.”

Neda and Jalantri were astounded, but they obeyed, unbuckling their knives and swords and placing them in their leader’s hands. Vispek closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again they were deadly.

“The Ness,” he said to Hercól. “You have harbored the Shaggat Ness, the Blasphemer, stained with the blood of half a million of our people. The one who broke the Mzithrin family, and beggared us all.”

“Arqual has done so, yes,” said Hercól.

“And he is aboard your ship even now?”

“He is enchanted,” said Hercól. “Turned to lifeless stone; but we have reason to fear that the enchantment will be reversed. He is to be returned to his worshippers in Gurishal, to provoke a war inside your country.”

A brief silence; then Jalantri exploded to his feet. “Give him a weapon, Cayer, and give me mine. The Shaggat! This has all been about the Shaggat! They mean to destroy us, to plant their flag on the ruins of Babqri and Surahk and Srag! Don’t you, cannibals? Deny it if you dare!”

“The Father was right,” said Neda, with equal venom. “He warned us that the
Chathrand
was carrying death in its hold.”

“Death in the guise of peace!” shouted Jalantri. “Monsters! Cannibals!” He pointed contemptuously at Hercól. “I need no weapon! Stand and fight me, stooge of Arqual!”

Hercól’s eyes flashed at the insult, but he made no move to rise. “Jalantri Reha,” hissed Cayer Vispek. “Sit down ere you disgrace us all.”

The young
sfvantskor’s
mouth twisted in fury. He obeyed his master at last, but famished as he was he did not take another bite of his meal.

“We will not harm you,” said Vispek. “But know this, men of the
Chathrand:
the Shaggat razed twenty townships along the banks of the Nimga, where Jalantri’s people lived. Sailors in the delta said the river was like a vein gushing blood into the sea. Jalantri’s parents met as refugees in the Babqri slums, orphans in a swarm of orphans, a generation without hope. And the Shaggat ordered many such massacres. You would be wise to tell us the simple truth of this business, and not a word less.”

“The truth is not simple, Cayer,” said Hercól. “But it is true that Emperor Magad and his servants seek the ruin of the Mzithrin, and the expansion of Arqual across the whole world—the whole Northern world, I mean, which is all they comprehend of Alifros. They are meticulous deceivers. They held the Shaggat forty years, after all, before springing this trap. But there is a subtler enemy than Arqual, and a greater threat.”

Then Hercól told them of Arunis, the Shaggat’s mage, hiding even now somewhere aboard the
Chathrand;
and of a certain object that Arunis wished desperately to control. “It is there in plain sight in the Shaggat’s hand,” he said. “And Arunis has meant all along for the Shaggat to have it, for by its power the mad king might not just weaken your Empire but conquer it—and Arqual as well. He has turned the conspiracy back upon its authors. But neither Arunis nor the Shaggat has yet mastered this thing, for it is an abomination. Indeed, no more deadly thing exists on either side of the Ruling Sea. It has many names, but the most common is the Nilstone.”

Neda glanced sharply at Cayer Vispek; her master’s face was guarded and still. The Nilstone! Their own legends spoke of it: an object like a small glass sphere, made of the compressed ash of all the devils burned in the sacred Black Casket, until the Great Devil in his agonies split the Casket asunder. Neda had never known whether or not the Stone was real; if it was, she had supposed it would lie among the other treasures of Mzithrini antiquity, in the Citadel of Hing, protected by arms and spells.

“You stole it, then?” she demanded.

“No, Neda,” said Cayer Vispek. “That is one crime for which Arqual bears no guilt. The Shaggat himself took the Nilstone from us, in his last, suicidal raid on Babqri.” Vispek hesitated a moment, then added: “We rarely speak of that theft. It does no honor to the Pentarchy to have lost the Nilstone, though in fact we wished to be rid of it for centuries. The Father spoke of it to me—just once.”

Neda closed her eyes, feeling a cold stab of loss.
The Father
. He was a great Mzithrini mage-priest, and her rescuer, her patron. He had taken her from the hands of a lecherous diplomat and made her a
sfvantskor:
the only non-Mzithrini ever admitted to the fold.

“What did he say, Master?” asked Jalantri.

“That the Nilstone is more dangerous than all the ships and legions of Arqual put together,” said the older
sfvantskor
. “ ‘We could not use it, Vispek,’ he told me, ‘and we dared not cast it away. Nor could any power in Alifros destroy it—one cannot destroy an absence, the idea of zero, the cold of the stellar void. In the end we guarded it merely to keep it from the hands of our enemies. And even in that we failed.’ ”

“Not your people alone,” said Hercól. “The very world has failed in the matter of the Nilstone. We have never fully grasped its nature. Your legends describe a thing of demonic ash. Others call it the eyeball of a murth-lord, or a tumor cut from the Tree of Heaven, or even a keyhole in an unseen door, leading to a place no mortal thought can penetrate. Our own leader, the mage Ramachni, tells us it is a splinter of rock from the land of the dead—and death is what it brings to any who touch it with fear in their hearts.”

“We’ve seen that with our own eyes,” added Pazel.

Neda turned him a bitter look. “You’ve seen many things,” she said, “but a few you’ve chosen to forget.”

Pazel looked at her, startled. “What are you talking about?”

“So many fine friends you’ve made,” she said. “Such worthy pursuits. To return the Shaggat to Gurishal, armed with such a weapon! How could you, Pazel? What have you become?”

Pazel’s mouth worked fitfully; he was biting back a retort. But Hercól spoke first. “Your brother has become what the world so sorely needs—a man without blind loyalties. Those who would restore the Shaggat to power are no comrades of ours. Pazel knew nothing of the conspiracy or the Nilstone when he was brought aboard the
Chathrand
, but he has taken an oath to fight these men, and Arunis as well, until we find a way to place the Stone beyond the reach of them all. That is our charge. None of us knows how it is to be done, but we would have failed already without your brother. Several times already the fight has turned on his courage.”

Pazel flushed, more from Hercól’s praise than the
sfvantskor
s’ dubious looks. “We have some damn good allies,” he murmured.

“Like Thasha Isiq?” asked Neda with contempt.

“Yes,” said Pazel. “Haven’t you been listening, Neda? Thasha was fooled along with the rest of us.”

“And her father too, no doubt,” said Jalantri. “Tricked into leading fleets against the Mzithrin, all those years.”

“No,” Pazel admitted reluctantly.

But Hercól said, “Yes, tricked. Eberzam Isiq loved Arqual and believed everything its Emperor proclaimed. The very Emperor who sent a woman to his bed, to become his consort and confidante, and to slowly poison him through his tea. She would have killed him as soon as Thasha married your prince. When we left Simja, Eberzam remained, determined to expose Arqual’s plot to the world.”

“Nonsense!” said Vispek. “We remained in port for five days after you sailed. I myself was often in the court of King Oshiram. There was no sign of Isiq about the castle, nor any mention of a plot.”

Hercól and Pazel looked at each other in dismay. “They got him,” said Pazel. “Oh Pitfire, Hercól. Someone got Isiq after all. What are we going to tell Thasha?”

The
sfvantskor
s made sounds of amazement.
Tell her!
thought Neda.
She’s alive, then! They lied about her death on top of everything!

Hercól looked deeply shaken by Vispek’s words. He steepled his fingers for a moment, then pressed on: “Honored Cayer, you can see that Pazel and I speak in good faith. That we come to you defenseless, when we might simply have waited for rescue from the
Chathrand
, and left you here, marooned as you clearly are. I do not ask for trust—”

“That is well,” said Cayer Vispek.

“—but I pray that you will see one thing for yourselves. The world has changed beneath our feet. And none of us will survive unless we also change. Into what? I cannot imagine. But whatever is to come will try us all, and terribly. We need strength, Cayer—strength of mind and heart and hand. The kind of strength your order teaches.”

Jalantri laughed aloud. “What would you know of our order, stooge?”

“I know it forbids you to challenge another to a duel,” said Hercól, “unless your master commands it. To do otherwise”—he closed his eyes, remembering—“is to place pride above holy destiny, and anger over service to the Faith.”

Jalantri stared at him, abashed and furious. Cayer Vispek was surprised as well. “How is it that you quote so confidently from our scripture?” he demanded.

“Every member of the Secret Fist reads the Book of the Old Faith,” said Hercól. “My copy remained with me when I forsook Ott’s guild of spies. You see, Cayer, I know something of change. So does Neda’s brother, incidentally.”

Vispek’s eyes moved slowly from Hercól to Pazel and back again. He took a long breath, then pointed at the stack of crates across the basin.

“The one on top is full of clothing,” he said. “Go and dress. Then I will tell you of a kind of change you know nothing about.”

They had numbered seven once. Seven: the Mzithrin lucky number, the standard complement of
sfvantskor
s dispatched as a team to a particular Mzithrin King, or an army brigade, or a warship of the White Fleet. The latter had been Vispek’s assignment: he was made votary to an elder aboard the
Jistrolloq
, deadliest ship in the Northern world, as famous for her speed and weaponry as the
Chathrand
was for size and age. Neda and Jalantri and several others came aboard after the murder of their teacher in Simja, and had been assigned to Vispek’s care. They were still aspirants, barely out of training; by rights they should have been returned to the Mzithrin to do just that. But their teacher had planned otherwise.