The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein) (12 page)

There was still a flurry of startled movement under the low shed. Two Rienish men, Halian, Kias and a few townies all crouched behind the gate. “Where’s Giliead?” Halian demanded, keeping his voice low.

He didn’t bother to ask if they had gotten the wizard in the Arcade, knowing that if they hadn’t, Ilias wouldn’t be there. “He’s around the side of the next house,” Ilias told him, ducking under the low roof and kneeling near the gate as Kias shifted to give him room. “How many here?”

“Just one left on the roof, up there.” Halian pointed, confirming Giliead’s instinctive knowledge of the wizard’s position, though Ilias didn’t need it confirmed. “He’s got a shooting weapon and those curse crystals.”

Ilias nodded, noticing that one of the Rienish had lost his weapon and had burned hands, a sure sign of the curse the Rienish feared most. One of the townies was bleeding from a wound in the shoulder and was unarmed, but the other had a goathorn bow. “Hey, let me use that.”

The man shifted it off his shoulder, then hesitated.
Curse mark
, Ilias thought. At the moment it was more an annoyance than a kick in the gut. Halian twisted around to eye the man with grim intent, and he flushed and passed the bow and quiver to Ilias.

One of the Rienish asked an impatient question, and Ilias shook his head to show he didn’t understand, motioning him to wait. He leaned out a little to whistle a sharp signal. At Giliead’s answer, Ilias eased to his feet, readying himself to move.

Giliead leapt out of cover, shouting, firing the little crossbow at the pitch of the roof just above the Gardier’s position. Ilias saw a flash of brown clothing and slammed through the gate, darting across the open court to put his back against one of the fountain house’s pillars. He notched the arrow as Giliead loaded another quarrel and cocked the crossbow. Then he saw something dark grow in the air just in front of Giliead, an amorphous shadow that abruptly went solid and slammed his friend to the ground.

Ilias whipped around the pillar, raising the bow and firing up at the wizard in one motion. He knew immediately he had missed the chest shot, but as the Gardier swung around he realized he must have gotten him low in the belly. The man scrabbled wildly at the roof tiles, then went over backward. He struck the packed dirt of the street with a thump, lying in a crumpled heap. Ilias reached him as Rienish and Syprians appeared from doorways all over the plaza. He hurriedly kicked the crystal free of the man’s hand and crushed it under his bootheel.

Giliead was already sitting up, wiping black sticky strands off his face and chest as Ilias reached him. Relieved, he sat on his heels to watch, saying critically, “That’s a little like the curse the Barrens wizard used. Did it try to go down your throat?”

“Not that I could tell.” With a sour expression Giliead scrubbed black goo off his mouth and spit into the dirt. “And I didn’t need to be reminded of that.”

Ander slid to an abrupt halt beside them, staring incredulously down at Giliead. “You’re alive.”

Giliead, always in a bad mood when even a mild aspect of a curse worked on him, just cocked a brow at the young man and said nothing.

Ander shook his head, still confused. “I’ve seen the Gardier use that spell before, in Adera. It’s…brutal.”

“We told you he’s a Chosen Vessel,” Ilias said pointedly, beginning to take offense. He knew Ander didn’t trust them fully but he hadn’t thought it extended to thinking them liars.

“Yes, but I didn’t think—” Ander cut himself off, pressing his lips together.

Giliead got to his feet, wiping his hands off. Ignoring Ander, he said thoughtfully, “The god’s here.”

Knowing the god’s penchant for dark cool places, Ilias looked at the fountain house first. Sparks of light hovered above the surface of the well, glittering like fireflies.

T
remaine sat on the bench of the accident boat as it chugged across Cineth harbor toward the stone docks. The heavy cloud cover was breaking up, letting the afternoon sun show through in shafts and patches.

She shaded her eyes, impatiently scanning the damage. She could see the sunken boats still tied to the dock and the collapsed stalls to one side of the trading building. It had been three hours since Ander had used an electric signal from the dock to tell them that the last of the Gardier had been dealt with and that there had been one man killed, plus some injuries among the landing party. They didn’t know the extent of the Syprian casualties yet.

For Tremaine at least the wait had been excruciating, but she had known it would take some negotiating for the other Syprians to let more of the
Ravenna
’s crew land. She didn’t know how convincing Ilias and Giliead and the others had been, but at least nobody was pushing catapults out onto the docks. The god’s visit to the
Ravenna
might have had something to do with that.

It had appeared first on the Sun Deck, badly startling the refugees and crew who had gathered there for a view of Cineth. Niles and Gerard had arrived immediately and with them Tremaine had followed the god on its brief tour of the ship. It had visited the ballroom with the spell circle that allowed the ship to create etheric gateways; ignoring the strange symbols of the circle painted onto the marble tile, it had seemed more interested in the crystal light fixtures. It had finally ended up in the room outside Ixion’s cell, sparkling around the door as if it knew what was inside but either couldn’t, or chose not to, cross the wards.

Captain Marais had come down to look at it in consternation. “What does it want?” he had demanded. “And what is it, for that matter?”

“It’s just curious,” Tremaine had told him, aware she wasn’t quite answering the question. They knew Arisilde had some kind of connection with the god, either before or after he had been trapped in the sphere. When the sphere had been stored at Coldcourt, it had influenced her writing without her conscious knowledge, sending her images of Ilias’s and Giliead’s experiences from this world. Arisilde could only have gotten that information from the Syprian god, though they still had no idea where or how he had come into contact with it.

“Fascinating,” Niles murmured. He glanced down at the sphere. “Arisilde doesn’t seem to find it a threat.”

“It might be some sort of elemental,” Gerard explained, frowning thoughtfully as he watched the play of light around the door. “Whatever these ‘gods’ are, the entities provide some protection for the Syprians against sorcerers like Ixion.”

Marais lifted his brows. “Well, I wonder what it would do if we let it in to him.”

Tremaine stepped up to the door and lifted her hand, her skin tingling as the god’s humming energy briefly touched her. “Oh, I bet it could get in if it really tried.” She raised her voice, “Hey, Ixion, the god’s here. It wants to say hello.”

Ixion hadn’t replied, and after a time the god sparked more faintly, then gradually vanished.

Ander’s message to come ashore had arrived not long after. Gerard must have also told Captain Marais about the eyes painted on Syprian galleys; when the accident boat had been lowered and they were moving away from the
Ravenna,
Tremaine saw a small scaffold had been hung off the bow and a couple of crewmen in safety harnesses were putting the finishing touches on the white paint outline of a stylized eye.
It couldn’t hurt,
she thought. And from what she could see, ramming the Gardier ship hadn’t even left a dent in the bow.

“There doesn’t seem to be much activity,” Gerard said in a low voice. He was standing at the rail next to her, surveying the line of docks with a worried frown. “Wait, there’s Ander.”

“What’s he doing?” Tremaine came to her feet, grabbing the rail. Ander’s message had asked for her specifically, and she had no idea why, though she supposed he might need her for a spare translator.

“Watching us with field glasses,” Gerard told her dryly.

Finally they reached the dock, the motor coughing as the boat slowed to bump awkwardly against the pilings. The seamen scrambled out to tie it off, and Tremaine was right behind them, Gerard grabbing her elbow when her foot slipped on the wet wood.

Ander met them at the end of the dock. His shirt was sweat-stained and he had a rifle slung back over his shoulder. “You were right,” he said without preamble. “They are willing to discuss an alliance with us.” For some reason his expression was grim.

Gerard nodded, holding up a leather file case he had brought with him. “Colonel Averi had a document prepared, a letter of intent. It’s not binding until the government-in-exile ratifies it, of course, but it’ll be a start.”

Considering it was probably prepared by Count Minister Delphane and the Solicitor General, it will be more than a start,
Tremaine thought. But Ander was eyeing her as if she had done something. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

He stared at her for at least a full minute, as if expecting her to break down and confess. Tremaine folded her arms and stared back. He finally said, “They want you to negotiate.”

Tremaine frowned, not understanding. “Negotiate with them?”

“Negotiate for them,” Ander clarified, still watching her. “With us.”

“Me?”

“Tremaine?” Gerard echoed, startled.

Ander looked at him, exasperated. “I can’t talk them out of it. These people are so stubborn—it’s like talking to stone walls.”

Tremaine’s mouth was open to protest; the very idea of that much responsibility curdled her stomach. But Ander’s tone stopped her in midbreath.
He doesn’t think I can do it
. Well, she knew she couldn’t. But she could fake her way along until she found someone else who could. She told Ander, “Then you can take that letter back to Count Delphane. The Syprians are not going to sign anything without the advice of an independent solicitor who is an expert in international affairs.” A dimly remembered phrase from an old newspaper article surfaced, and she added, “And I want an arbitrator from a nonaligned nation.”

Ander stared at her, pressing his lips together. Then he said, “Perhaps we can get you a Gardier arbitrator.” He turned on his heel and strode away up the dock.

Good exit line,
Tremaine thought, eyes narrowed as she watched him go. Yelling a comeback after him would be highly unsatisfactory. And she didn’t have a comeback.

She looked at Gerard, expecting another grim expression, but he was smiling faintly. “Your father would be proud,” he said softly. “He couldn’t have done a better job himself.”

It struck her to the core and her eyes stung.
No, he wouldn’t be proud,
she thought, looking away. But Gerard was, and that was good too. She forced the emotion down, putting it away where she could examine it later. “If my father was doing this,” she muttered, “the Syprians would end up with a long lease on Chaire and most of the west coast.”

A
nder led them up the dirt path through the town, and Tremaine saw people were beginning to stir, coming out to check the damage in the harbor or gathering around the little fountain houses in the communal squares to talk. Some of them were standing on top of their roofs, using primitive spyglasses to look at the
Ravenna
. They got many curious glances, or at least Ander did; Tremaine and Gerard were still dressed in Syprian clothing.

From what Tremaine understood, Syprians had come from two different peoples who had blended together along the coast, one tall like Giliead, with brown or reddish hair and olive skin, the other smaller and blond like Ilias. Most of the young men wore their hair in long braids or queues like Ilias and the others from the
Swift,
though many of the older men seemed to cut it off at the shoulders or crop it short. Their clothes were in soft colors, with leather and cloth dyed or block-printed with designs. The women wore long skirts or dresses or the same cotton pants and sleeveless shirts as the men. Many of the people who worked on the boats or near the water wore little more than cloth wraps around their waists.

They reached Cineth’s central plaza, a large area of open ground where spreading trees shaded little markets of awnings and small tents, still deserted after the attack. The plaza was bordered by several long two-story buildings with columns and brightly painted pediments that formed a ribbon of color just under their rooflines. The large one with the pillared portico was the town Assembly, the smaller round one with a domed roof was a mint, and the one with a forbidding square façade was the lawgiver’s house. The city Fountain House was next to it, a low square structure with what Tremaine now knew were anatomically correct sea serpents winding sinuously over its pediment. There were a number of men armed with swords or long spears on horseback, making a loose perimeter around the plaza. The horses were distinctly Syprian, with rough dun-colored coats and patterns of small spots along their backs and down their hindquarters.

Heading toward the lawgiver’s house, Ander gestured warily toward the largest tree, an old oak with heavy spreading branches that had sunk to the ground under their own weight. “The god came into town during the attack. It’s settled in that tree now.”

Tremaine stopped to look, squinting to see past the shadows under the branches. She couldn’t spot any light or movement that couldn’t be accounted for by the gentle breeze. But near the base of the tree, someone had stuck up a post with a goat skull as a warning, a few colored ribbons tied to the horns to catch the eye. “It visited us on the ship too.”

Ander glanced at her as if he thought she was insane, but Gerard nodded, asking him, “Did it appear to take part in the battle?”

Ander let out a breath. “Not that I could tell. Except Giliead caught a spell that should have slowly strangled him from the inside out.” He shook his head, incredulous. “The Gardier could have done more damage hitting him with a mud clot.”