The Silver Lake (49 page)

Graize returned his attention to the water, casually deflecting the unfamiliar thread of power that rippled past him on the breeze, his expression drawing inward as he recognized its source. The Battle God’s seers had discovered the place of attack some days ago—as he’d known they would; they weren’t completely blind after all—but not the time nor the size of the attack force. They’d been seeking the kazakin with all their might ever since; the spirits could feel their movements and had passed their feeling along to Graize, but Danjel had led them along a secret silvery path of power, hidden from all eyes save those born to the wild lands themselves. The seers would remain blind for as long as Graize wanted them to be. After that, his only fear was that they might remain blind past the time he needed them to see, but the northern sorcerer would help him with that whether he wanted to or not. Baring his teeth at the sky in a grimace of anticipation, Graize licked his lips. The Godling had shown him that possibility hiding behind the clouds this morning. The northern sorcerer would tell Spar and Spar would tell the others. Who’d have thought he’d ever see that particular little dockyard rat again?

The memory of the younger boy, eyes wide with shock and fear as Graize was snatched away from him by a host of blood-maddened spirits, caused his thoughts to suddenly spiral down into a swirling mist of bewilderment and uncertainty. Spar was dead, wasn’t he? Sucked dry by the very same spirits that had murdered Drove? How could he be hiding behind a veil of mist and clouds if he was dead? And if he was there, who else might be hiding there beside him?

The faintest outline of a half-remembered, dark-haired figure began to take form, and Graize shook his head savagely. No. He would not see that one. The past was only necessary to drive the future and his fellow lifters existed only in the past. If Spar truly lived, then he was the only one to have survived that terrible night intact. Graize would see to it that he didn’t survive too many more.

Reaching into the pouch at his belt, he brought out his badly damaged stag beetle, stroking its cracked carapace to soothe his mind as he told the Godling to take the images away. He would not think of the others and they would not think of him. The game was all that mattered; the game and the moves necessary to win it.

As his thoughts stilled, he reached out confidently. The first move began to form in his mind with an almost painfully clear, crystal clarity, then a shimmering pattern of sun and shadow dappled across his vision, causing his thoughts to scatter once again and he snapped his teeth together in irritation.

“Now what?”

He glanced up with a frown to see Danjel standing over him, a lacquered hide and iron helmet in one hand, a wineskin in the other. Smiling at Graize’s annoyed expression, the other wyrdin silently held out the wineskin.

Graize set the stag beetle to one side with a sigh. Ordinarily, he found comfort and even focus in the older youth’s presence; however, the long trek through the Berbat-Dunya’s powerful heartland had brought Danjel closer to a truly bi-gendered form than ever before and the change was unstable. The constant ebb and flow from male to female was making it harder and harder to see him. See her. See Danjel. Accepting the wineskin, Graize fixed the other youth with a narrow-eyed stare.

“You’re blocking my view of the river, Kardos,” he growled. “Either choose a sail or stay in dock, but this back-and-forth tacking is making me seasick.”

Features shifting obligingly closer to the female, Danjel dropped down beside him, pulling off her riding boots and dipping her feet into the water before bringing her bright green eyes to bear on Graize’s face.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as the younger wyrdin took a drink, then tossed the wineskin to Rayne and opened a goatskin bag she’d been carrying since they’d left their spring encampment.

“Creating the future,” Graize answered, dumping the contents out onto the ground.

“With turtle shells?”

“Yes, with turtle shells. Caleb collected them for me before we left,” he said gesturing at the younger boy, who gave Danjel a smug smile.

“Why turtle shells?”

“Because turtles carry all possible futures with them in their travels. They carry them in their shells.” Graize stroked the pile gently with his fingertips, his expression distant. “And what are they for, Kardos?” he asked suddenly, mimicking Danjel’s modulated accent.

The older youth frowned at him. “Well,
children
use them to shovel sand,” she sneered. “Adults make them into bowls.”

“Indeed, bowls to carry shoveled sand in.”

Danjel shook her head impatiently. “Bowls to hold hummus or yogurt in.”

Graize shook his head. “Oh, no, bowls to hold the
future
in. Remember they’re
turtle
shells.” Laying each shell in a line along the water’s edge, he turned them so that the older wyrdin could see the symbols he’d etched inside each one. “Turtle shells carrying a future of sand and sea and land and stone and power and ...” he paused, watching the lights spin lazily above his head.

Beside him, Rayne jabbed him with her elbow. “And?” she prodded, passing the wineskin back to Danjel despite Caleb’s protest.

“And death, little marten,” Graize finished. Taking up the stag beetle between finger and thumb, he touched it to each shell in a parody of walking. “The death of all our enemies,” he purred.

“I like the sound of that,” Caleb chuckled, mollified by the thought of battle.

“Mm-hm. However,” Graize raised one warning finger, “there are nasty little traps everywhere that our turtle-future might still fall into,” he added, his expression darkening. “Nasty little traps with nasty little spies hiding inside them, like sneaky little crabs waiting to eat our turtle.”

Danjel paused, the wineskin half lifted to her mouth. “Spies?” she asked with a frown.

Graize nodded sagely. “Mind spies,” he answered, touching one finger to his temple.

“You mean the Anavatanon seers?”

“Them and others, too.”

“Oh, right, your northern sorcerer.” Danjel finished her drink and Graize watched as the thin rivulets of power in the wine trickled down the smooth length of her throat, wondering idly if she ever needed to shave or if whiskers were too far toward the male for her to manage even when she was ... a he. He would have to ask her someday. Some day when it mattered.

The image of another, golden-haired woman fluttered across his thoughts like a butterfly and he brushed it aside impatiently. Golden hair was not in his future. Not in that way anyhow.

“Yes, my northern sorcerer,” he agreed. “He’s spied on our plans and then he’s told someone else.” Spar’s face swam in front of his mind’s eye. “A little baby spy,” he continued with a sneer, waving his hand to banish it. “And that baby spy’s probably told the others, told the spies of Estavia. But it doesn’t matter because they aren’t the right kind of spies, anyway.” He reached up to run his fingers through his ever present host of spirits. “There are two kinds of spies, aren’t there, my shiny ones?” he crooned at them as they rubbed lovingly along his knuckles. “The first is the simplest: the kind that spies on the land and on the people.” He cocked his head to one side, his expression sly. “You’re that kind of spy, my sleek and lovely swallow-kardos.”

Danjel frowned at him but Graize continued. “Most of the Lake Gods’ spies are that kind, too. They spy on the enemy, and on the enemy’s movements. They have spies right now whose only job it is to spy on us.”

“Yes, you said they would,” she commented.

“I did.”

“And that it didn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t.”

“And that you would tell Timur why before Kursk agreed to commit our people to battle.”

“And so I will.”

“So is it time?”

“Almost.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

“Rest. Eat. Sleep.”

“I think we have that covered. And the seers, the spies?”

“They’ll likely do the same.”

“And they don’t worry you because they’re not the right kind of spies?”

“Them?” Graize chuckled, lifting one of the turtle shells up to eye level. “They don’t worry me because they’re nothing. They’re like minnows swimming behind a whale; all they’ll ever see is its tail.”

Rayne rolled her eyes at the analogy, but Graize just smiled at her. “The other kind of spy is a very special kind,” he continued. “They’re different. They don’t spy on people, they spy on the bright and bubbling streams that feed the future and they see far more than the tail. They might even see the turtle if they look very, very closely, but they don’t worry me either because they aren’t likely to tell the little minnow spies even if they do see it because most of the special spies worship the whale.”

Rayne grimaced impatiently at him. “What?”

“Incasa, the God of Chance,” Graize explained.

“I thought He was the God of Prophecy.”

Waggling the beetle in her face, Graize shook his head. “They’re one and the same says my little birth fetish here. All prophecy does is spy on multiple streams and figure out which one is the most likely. And little birth fetish says that the problem is that if these very special spies can spy on your mind, then all the streams you might consider sailing down are being watched.” He cocked his head to one side with a sly expression. “Or are they? If the mind is mad, how could they ever make sense of any of it, especially if that mad mind also has a cunning plan, a cunning little beetle’s plan.” His right pupil drew inward until it was nothing more than a tiny pinprick, then snapped back out again. “Supposing you were planning an attack but you knew the enemy would find out about it? What would you do?” he asked suddenly.

Caleb straightened. “Make it a feint,” he said eagerly. “Send the main body somewhere else.”

Graize grinned mirthlessly. “Simple, isn’t it? Just like in a shell game. Which one has the pea under it? Only the one running the game knows for sure and the trick is to make the mark look somewhere else for it. Battle tactics are no different; you make the enemy look somewhere other than where the pea is.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Caleb asked.

“Maybe.” Graize formed the turtle shells into a wide oval pattern. “Pretty little possibilities,” he whispered, “all sitting so cozy and warm around a bright and shiny center.

“The far eastern streams are out,” he said, sweeping four of them away abruptly. “How would you cross Gol-Beyaz without being seen—and the Yuruk are notoriously fearful of boats, anyway.”

Caleb bridled, his hand dropping to the pommel of his kinjal. “We’re not fearful,” he growled.

“Are, too.”

As Caleb made to argue, Rayne reached over and casually swatted him in the back of the head. “Be quiet,” she ordered, “or we’ll never get through this.”

“Besides, what kind of spoils do they offer even if we could get there,” Graize continued, ignoring them both. “Calmak-Koy is full of sick people—what use are they? Adasi and Camus-Koy are mostly pots and goats—we have plenty of pots and goats.”

“And bowls,” Danjel noted dryly.

“Shh. Caliskan-Koy’s tower, Kapi-Hisar, guards the strait from the Deniz-Hadi Sea so it’s far too strong,” Graize mused, more to himself than to the other youth. “And how would you ever take Satos-Koy with its mighty Anahtar-Hisar standing so straight and tall above the world. No, it’s out, too.” He flicked the southernmost shells away “So let’s go north. I hear Bahce-Koy’s beautiful this time of year, just bursting with fruits and flowers,” he said in a mocking voice heavy with what the Yuruk might have recognized as a Western Trisect merchant’s accent if they’d ever walked the streets of Anavatan’s many markets. “And it’s such a pretty little village and so close, so very close ...” Graize paused, one hand raised. “No.” He swept the northernmost shell away too. “It’s also so very close to the shining city with all its nasty little warriors. That leaves six.” He peered down almost myopically as if he couldn’t quite see them all. “Wait, five,” he amended, his eyes clearing. “Yildiz-Koy can’t count, can it?
After all, It’s just a feint.”
He giggled suddenly, happy to finally voice the main thrust of his plan. “Yes, pretty little Yildiz-Koy all bright and sparkly, like a pear made out of crystal. Send enough people to take a bite of it, but don’t eat the entire pear or there’ll be none left for later.” He very carefully picked up the central shell and set it to one side, away from the carelessly flung pile. “That would be greedy, especially with all those armed and ready gardeners waiting for us. So, that leaves Sardiz-Koy to the north, and Serin, Kepek, Kinor, and Ekmir-Koy to the south. All on this side of the lake, all rich, and all worth the risk.”