Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (7 page)

Her beauty was both her curse and her blessing. She hated the effect it had on men, but without it she would be useless. Worthless.

She would be playing a dangerous game, trying to lure Lance into indiscretion with kisses and small touches and yet not get caught in the same sensual trap. She could not afford to surrender her virginity.

As plans went, it was terrible, but it was the only plan she had.

Accordingly, she had Felicia take extra pains with her deep blue gown and coiffure before the priest led them to a sumptuous private dining room. But it was all for naught: Lance was absent.

Her mood worsened when Julen sat down on the burgundy leather bench across the carved walnut table from her. A fresh-faced acolyte set steaming bowls barley soup in front of them. To avoid looking at Julen, Sara studied the large mural of Jut and Jita fording a river on horseback, just ahead of a horde of Grasslander barbarians. The artist hadn’t painted the lead Grasslander quite right—his hair should be gathered at the back like a horse’s tail, not sprouting on top of the head like a plant—but she easily recognized the scene from one of her favorite childhood stories of the god and goddess.

“Enjoying your time with the prince?” Julen asked snidely between spoonfuls.

Sara stilled, but years of Evina’s training kept her expression smooth and untroubled.

Unfortunately, Felicia spoiled it. “Prince? Lance is a prince?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” Julen almost purred. “Didn’t you know? The ambassador is the Prince of Slaves.” He touched his goblet, and the acolyte instantly refilled it.

“That’s not the correct title,” Sara said, trying to regain the upper hand. “The inhabitants prefer to call their land Kandrith and take offense at Slaveland.”

“That’s not all he might take offense at if you haven’t been using his title.” Julen’s lips twisted in malicious amusement. “Is that why he’s not at supper tonight? Perhaps I should talk to him, smooth things over.” He actually started to stand.

“Sit down,” Sara snapped.

Julen sat down, but leaned back and crossed his arms in an attitude of lordly condescension.

Sara continued, “You will not attempt to undermine my relationship with the ambassador. If asked, you will say the carriage still reeks so as to offend the delicate sensibilities of a lady—but that
you
are fine. You will not complain to him or even hint that I have treated you poorly. If you do, I will have you sent back to Temborium—in chains as a traitor.”

Julen studied her with hooded eyes. “You don’t have the authority to have me arrested. But—” he held up a hand when she would have spoken, “—I’ll give you my promise not to undermine your relationship with the prince. It’s an advantage I don’t need.”

“Advantage?” Sara frowned.

He smirked at her. “Yes. I’ve decided it won’t do to return to the capital empty-handed, as it were. I’m going discover the secret of slavelander’s magic myself.”

“And win my father’s eternal gratitude,” Sara said acidly.

“Just so.” Julen waved a hand, and the acolyte who’d been hovering in the doorway removed their soupbowls and served the second course of roast duck and vegetables.

Sara cut a bite of meat though her appetite had fled. A headache surged around her eyes. “And how, pray, are you going to accomplish this while riding in the other carriage?”

Julen shook his head sadly, as if she were a slow child. “The same way I convinced Lord Favonius to leave the capital and visit his estate: a little bribery here, a little blackmail there. The prince has been away from home for a long, lonely number of months. He’s sure to have developed some little weakness I can discover and exploit.” Julen applied himself to the duck with enthusiasm.

Sara doggedly chewed her own sage-flavored mouthful. Maybe it was her pride speaking, but she didn’t think Julen’s methods would work as well on Lance as they did on corrupt Republican senators.

Lance was an idealist. Julen would sneer at the thought that such a man could exist.

* * *

Lance had escaped Lady Sara’s distracting company by taking supper with the outriders in the common room the night before, but in the morning she tracked him down and sat across from him at the scarred oak table—much to the chagrin of the plump priest at her heels.

Despite the early hour, she looked fresh and well-rested. And far too delectable even in a relatively modest purple dress.

“Good morn, Prince Lance.”

Lance frowned at her cheery greeting. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a prince.”

Her forehead puckered slightly. “You’re not the son of the King of—of Kandrith?”

Lance sighed and put down his hard-boiled egg. “I am the king’s son, but I am not a prince.”

Lady Sara laughed, a too-sweet artificial sound. “How can that be? They are one and the same. The king’s son is a prince by definition.”

Lance shook his head. “The title prince is not used in Kandrith.”

“Then what title is used? Lord? Duke?”

“No title,” he insisted. “I’m just the king’s son. Just Lance. We don’t even use the title king.”

Lady Sara still looked confused. “What is your father then, if not the—” She broke off suddenly, staring at him, aghast.

Lance looked down and saw a small spot of gravy on his tunic, but nothing to rate her alarm.

“What did you do to your hand? It’s all swollen.” Before he could stop her, she reached across the table and picked up his hand—she was gentle, but he couldn’t prevent a flinch of pain.

Her mouth turned down even farther at the corners; she looked distressed, almost in tears, for no reason Lance could see.

“Did you hurt it that night?”

Ah. She thought he’d been injured protecting her fair self the night of the banquet. Lance quickly disabused her. “No, I didn’t.”

Her expression didn’t lighten. “It’s Vez,” she said low-voiced. “You attracted his attention when you rescued me.
God of Malice, avert your eye.
” She chanted the last like a prayer. And still she didn’t let go of his hand, cradling it.

“It’s not Vez,” Lance told her roughly, not liking the strange feelings her tenderness evoked. “It has nothing to do with you.”
It’s the Goddess.
He repossessed his hand, fighting an urge to hide it under the table.

Disbelief showed on her face. “I don’t know if there’s a Temple of Loma here, but you should at least find a physicker and obtain some mercia. It looks painful.”

“It’ll be fine in a day or two,” Lance said with conviction. “I will
not
see a physicker and drink some potion.” Just the thought of doing so filled him with horror.

She argued with him for several minutes, but Lance was adamant: no healers, not even the pitiful ones they had here in the Republic. He wouldn’t risk losing the Goddess’s favor.

Finally she gave in, only to take a new tack, a militant light gleaming in her eyes. “Well, then we shall just have to see what we can do about it ourselves. What do you think, Felicia? Hot water or cold?”

Lance looked behind her, startled. Once again he hadn’t even seen Lady Sara’s slave standing there. He’d noticed yesterday that Felicia muted herself in more public surroundings like the inn. But was it her own doing, a way to deflect unwanted male attention, or did Lady Sara order her to do it so as to cut down on the competition?

“Hot,” Felicia said, after a moment’s consideration. And the next thing he knew the fat priest had been persuaded to have a basin of hot water brought to the table. When he just looked at it, Sara raised his right hand and placed it in the water.

Grumbling, Lance allowed her to do the same to his other hand. To his surprise, the hot water soothed his joints, taking the edge off the pain. He was torn between sighing with relief and jerking his hand out. He studied the basin dubiously. It was just water. The Goddess couldn’t object to a little water, could she?

It was just for a short time, Lance consoled himself—but when he got to the carriage he discovered that Sara had arranged to take the basin with them. And when they stopped at midday, she had the cooled water replaced with hot.

She also flirted with him. As much as Lance disliked her, she was a beautiful woman and her constant touching—his hand, his knee, his arm—drove him crazy. He started to have dangerous little fantasies of grabbing her and kissing her. That at least would shut her up. The thought made him smile.

***

Sara felt much more content that evening. “Did you see?” she gloated to Felicia. They were alone in their room at another temple of Jut, this one smaller and less luxurious, but still immaculately clean.

“Did I see what?” Felicia asked, busy laying out Sara’s soaps and perfumes in front of the steaming hip bath—the temple hot springs being restricted to men.

“I made Lance smile today. Six times.”

Felicia looked arrested. “Did you? I suppose he doesn’t smile much at that.”

“He didn’t smile at all yesterday,” Sara said, as she slid into the hot water. “Praise Cepi I noticed his hands today or I’d still be arguing with him. It must be the pain that makes him so gruff.”

Felicia looked at her with curiosity. “Is that why you’ve been flirting so hard? Do you like him?”

Too much.
After so many years in the poisonous atmosphere of the capital she found Lance’s straight-forwardness vastly appealing. He had…integrity.

Sara made herself laugh. “I don’t need to like him to uncover his secret.” Liking him made everything worse. Bad enough she was attracted to him. All the flirtatious touches and bold looks that Evina had taught her that had seemed so mechanical and wrong when she tried them on Claude had had an effect on her body similar to jazoria when practiced on Lance. Even now the glide of soap against her skin felt disturbingly sensual. She scrubbed harder than strictly necessary with the washcloth.

“Ah,” Felicia said. “His secret. Of course.” She began to wash Sara’s hair.

Sara ignored the strange inflection in her friend’s voice. “Perhaps if I’m very lucky, I’ll seduce the secret out of him before we reach the border.”

From the heat in Lance’s eyes today all it would take to end up in his arms was a little privacy. Then a breathless plea that he keep her safe from his country’s magic, followed hopefully by a quick explanation of why she had no need to fear it and a timely interruption.

Sara closed her mind to the plan’s serious flaws. Tomorrow would be their third day of travel—the day her father had said the news of the Favonius massacre would reach Temborium and the long chain of consequences would be set in motion.

* * *

“I have some information for you.”

Lance stopped trying to untangle his trouser leg from a thornbush and looked up in surprise. He’d just left the outdoor privy beside the stable where they’d stopped to change out a lame horse. He hadn’t realized he was no longer alone on the overgrown path until Felicia spoke.

She stood a few feet away, wearing a plainer dove-grey version of one of Sara’s sleeveless dresses—unlike most owners Sara neither dressed Felicia to display her body nor to cover it up. In the morning sunlight, Felicia looked neat and attractive, albeit nervous.

“What?” Lance asked, not certain he’d heard correctly.

“I’ll tell you, if you help me escape to Kandrith,” Felicia said hurriedly.

So she wasn’t as content to remain a slave as she pretended. Lance sympathized. Even light chains chafed after a time.

“Of course. You have my word.” Lance refrained from telling her that he would have helped her in any case, with or without information. He only wished he could do something for the poor slaves servicing the hot springs at the temple last night. “What is it?”

“Sara wants to know about magic—that’s why she’s been flirting with you,” Felicia whispered. “Her father set her the task of learning how Kandrithan magic works. And Sara always tries to please her father.”

That solved the riddle of Sara’s, no, Lady Sara’s—and just when in the last two days had he let that title slip?—interest in a shaggy barbarian like himself. Her manipulations should have amused him, but instead he felt oddly hollow inside.

Felicia studied him anxiously, as if worried he might insist that Sara was attracted to him. He wasn’t that much of a fool. “Julen’s after it too,” she added.

Which probably explained the man’s attempt to bribe him with two slave girls last night.

Lance shrugged. “Magic is no great secret. If she wants to know, I’ll tell her.” And then she’d go back to the other carriage and stop setting him on fire.

Felicia’s eyes widened with alarm. “No, don’t.”

“The knowledge won’t do her any good. Noble types are incapable of sacrifice,” Lance said impatiently.

Felicia shook her head. “If you tell her, she’ll turn the carriage right around and head back to Temborium to report to her father.”

Lance swallowed a curse. So that was their scheme. He ought to have guessed something was in the wind when Primus Remillus so abruptly decided to send Sara after days of stalling.

He would have to be very careful of his Goddess-given abilities from now on.

“If she doesn’t learn the secret, will she cross the border?” he asked urgently.

Felicia’s eyes widened. “I—I don’t know.”

The Pact had kept Kandrith safe from the Republic’s rapacious appetite for seventy years; Lance would not see it fail now. Not even if he had to kidnap Sara and haul her across the border himself.

“What’s that noise?” Lance asked, lifting his head from where he’d been leaning against the side of the carriage, dozing.

“The river. We’re nearing Vaga Falls.” Sara had to raise her voice to explain. She understood now why Captain Marcus had been so coldly disapproving of this route. The road ran right by the bank of the fast-running Vaga River and was in poor condition. If the horses took fright and the carriage tipped, they could easily be swept downstream and over the falls.

Marcus had wanted to take the longer route through Corybdum, but she’d overruled him. The fact that seeing the falls fulfilled a chilhood dream was a happy coincidence. The detour would have cost them at least a day, and the timetable her father had outlined pressed on her mind. They could not afford such a delay—especially since it seemed more and more likely that they would not learn the secret of slave magic from Lance.

Though only a touch of redness remained on his knuckles, Lance had reverted to his former brusqueness. He’d blocked every attempt she’d made to bring the conversation around to temples, priests or magic.

The blank look on his face now irritated her.

“Surely, you’ve heard of Vaga Falls? They are said to be the most beautiful waterfall in the world, as tall as twenty-five men standing on one another’s shoulders. People from all over the Republic travel many miles to see them.”

Lance shook his head, but he kept his eyes open and leaned forward so that his knee almost touched hers. Strange to be so aware of something that hadn’t happened.

The growing noise made Felicia cringe—she’d almost drowned as a child—but Sara found it exciting. As they came closer and closer the roar of the falls seemed to thrum in her veins. The wildness called to her.

Finally, the carriages stopped. Captain Marcus poked his head in. “There’s a small shrine at the top of the falls,” he said in neutral tones. “Would you and the ambassador care to visit it or shall we continue on? There’s a good view of the falls at the bottom.”

Sara sprang up from her seat. “I would love to visit it. No, Felicia, you stay here,” she said when her maid reluctantly started to stand, looking very green.

Sara looked expectantly at Lance. His eyebrows rose in acceptance of her challenge, and he followed her out into the flashing sunshine.

Captain Marcus said something she didn’t catch and pointed. She followed the direction of his finger and spotted the temple. It stood—her lips parted in awe—out on a great slab of gray rock two-thirds of the way across the top of the falls. Torrents of water rushed over the drop on either side of the temple. A narrow footbridge connected the temple to her side of the cataract. The east side was connected only by two lines of rope, one to hold to and one to walk on.

Marcus and the other outriders looked at her, clearly expecting her to change her mind about visiting the temple.

Sara stared at the footbridge longingly. A chiseled stone beside it proclaimed: “Only two people may walk in safety”, but it looked well-anchored, the boards solid and new. The filmy dress she’d worn for Lance’s benefit might get wet, but she didn’t think she’d be in any real danger.

Aunt Evina would never set foot on it, and neither would any other noblewoman. Sara knew what she should do, but the wildness she was supposed to have outgrown urged otherwise. She hesitated.

She would probably never have this chance again.

Before anyone could stop her, Sara ran lightly out onto the bridge. Out over the rushing, foaming water.

It was like standing on top of the world. Halfway across she stopped and looked down. The falls dropped away practically at her feet.

The sheer volume of water flowing by awed her. Her heart beat faster, watching its hungry power. Impossible that anything could fight against that terrible current.
Grab you down, pull you under
, its subterranean roar seemed to say.

Her vision blurred from trying to watch the water. She looked up and caught her breath. She still couldn’t see much of the falls themselves—the view would be better from the bottom—but she could see the green valley spread out below, the river a sparkling thread winding through olive groves. The wind pressed her gown against her. This must be what it felt like to be a bird soaring through the sky… Sara felt a sudden urge to jump off and see if she could fly.

The impulse frightened her—she held tight to the guide rail to ground herself—but not enough to make her look away from the view even for a second.

The bridge swayed underfoot as Lance joined her. Conversation was impossible so Sara smiled at him, brilliantly. A reluctant smile broke through the frown on his own face and he, too, stood and looked out. A shared joy connected them.

The wind blew a strand of her hair against his shoulder. Sara brushed away the curl but left her hand on the warm leather vest, the zing of awareness heightening her senses. She breathed in deeply of the mist-laden air.

After a few moments, still in perfect accord, they resumed walking. The slab of rock on which the temple was built was only roughly square, five paces by four paces, and wet with spray. A waist-high stone wall formed a three-sided open-roofed shelter. Sara avoided leaning on the wall, worried that the constant damp might have dissolved some of the masonry.

“Whose temple is it?” Lance shouted.

Didn’t he know? Sara looked at him curiously. Felicia had a stone charm carved with the symbol of Loma—most cuores did—so it hadn’t occurred to her that Slaveland might worship different gods the way Qi did. “Mek,” she shouted. Then, again, in case he hadn’t heard her, “Mek, God of Death.” The golden mask with the oversize mouth into which the traditional offering of wine could be poured was impossible to mistake.

Actually, when she turned, she saw that while the larger temple was Mek’s, there was also a tiny cairn with a scattering of copper and silver coins in one corner dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy. She tugged on Lance’s sleeve until he bent closer to her. “Loma.” She pointed.

He nodded and, to her surprise, went to kneel at the small cairn. Why did he need mercy?

Sara gave him the illusion of privacy and fumbled in her own pocket for the emblem of Favonius House that she’d dug out of the mud of Vez’s temple. Lacking wine, she laid it in front of Mek’s golden mask and said a brief prayer for the dead.
I will not let such happen again, can I prevent it.

Not that Mek cared how one died. He was sometimes called the God of Patience, because everyone came to him in the end.

Lance hadn’t put anything at Loma’s altar. On impulse, Sara removed the pearl necklace that went with her dress and laid it down to give added weight to Lance’s prayer. To her shock he gave the necklace back to her. Oh, dear, had she embarrassed him?

But Lance’s expression remained gentle even when he raised his voice to a shout. “The Goddess has no need for jewelry or silver coins. See?” He affectionately indicated the plain-faced motherly carving of Loma.

It was true. Loma looked like the sort of woman who didn’t have time for fripperies. But Loma wasn’t a woman, She was a goddess. “What does She—” Sara started to ask.

A shout interrupted her. “Lady Sarathena!”

Sara looked up and saw Marcus crossing the bridge looking very unhappy. Did he think she was in danger of falling?

The continuous bombardment of noise made her head ache. Sara nodded to show her willingness to return to land—then realized that Marcus was pointing at something upriver. She turned and shaded her eyes until she saw what had alarmed him: a deathboat.

* * *

Esam emerged from the forest, pulled by the hunger of the dead.
This way
, they whispered.
The Defiled One is close.

The Pathfinders’ ritual had made Esam’s eyesight keener and greatly enhanced his sense of smell—every blade of grass and spot of leaf mold was now a rich feast—however, his hearing was…not worse, but wider. He had to concentrate to understand speech. If he didn’t pay attention, it faded into the background, no more important than the call of a redbird and less important than the roar of rushing water.
Danger, stay away,
that sound said.

But the pull of the dead would not be denied. They drew him toward a rope leading out over the water. Esam clung to the rope with his toes and began to cross.

The voice of the river filled his ears; he did not hear Nabeel call him back.

* * *

A chill shivered over Sara’s skin at the sight of the yellow-and-white painted deathboat: House Favonius’s colors. Its wooden sides were already dented and splintery from earlier collisions with the shore and rocks, but it floated gamely on, a hollow cylinder with no up or down, no captain, no passengers save the dead.

When the deathboat went over the falls, it would smash to flinders. Sara comforted herself that at least it would only contain the ashes of the dead, not bodies or even bones, the death rites having been performed upriver to spare the mourners the long journey to the falls. Or perhaps it was to spare Mek’s priesthood from having to live in such a lonely spot.

To meet this particular deathboat was such ill luck that Sara saw the hand of the gods in it. But which god? Mek? Hana, God of Justice? Or worse, Vez? Was it a bad omen or a warning that her time was running out?

Her father’s timetable needed to be advanced by a day. The boat would have passed through Temborium at least a day and a half ago, bringing the news of the massacre with it.

Sara faced the deathboat, ready to bear witness when it went over the falls.

A diagonal chute that stretched from a place upriver to the temple kept the boat from crashing into the footbridge. Only, she squinted, it looked like the boat was going to catch on the low-hanging ropes on the east side. And then she saw why. A man was crossing the two-rope bridge, his weight pulling it taut. His companions back on shore yelled and gestured for him to come back.

The current bore the deathboat straight toward the man as if aimed by Vez’s malice. He scrambled out of the way, but his feet slipped off when the boat hit the ropes. Sara watched, heart in her throat, while he dangled from the top rope by only his hands, both legs in the monstrous current, a terrified look on his face. He was just a boy, Sara saw, a boy who’d realized he might die, not someday, but today.

His companions on shore yelled indistinguishable words and an older burly man with a scar began the treacherous trip out to help him.

“He’s making it worse,” Lance pronounced. Apparently having finished his prayers, he joined Sara at the temple wall.

The current spun the deathboat’s far end into the rope as well, sending a shudder up its length. “Will it hold?” Sara asked worriedly. “Is there anything we can do?”

Lance didn’t reply, the answer so clearly being no.

The youth got one foot back on the bottom rope. Sara let out a sigh of relief, and then jumped as a small long-bodied refetti ran over her foot. The men must have scared it out onto the bridge, Sara decided after her heart calmed down. Poor thing. It cowered around her ankles, its wet fur tickling her skin. It was about a foot and a half long, but half of that was tail.

Marcus stepped onto the temple slab, worry and dismay etched onto his face. “Lady Sarathena, you should go back to shore.”

“Why?” Sara wanted to see how things ended.

The boy’s older companion raised the top rope above his head. Sara shuddered at the danger he was putting himself in, but the tactic worked. The deathboat slipped through the widened space between the two ropes and vanished over the falls. Sara listened in vain for its impact at the bottom. It was as if Mek had eaten it.

“Why? Because those are Qiph warriors,” Marcus said grimly in her ear.

Qiph? Sara blinked. All of them wore green and white robes and had black hair braided in rows close to their heads, as Qiph did. Their arms were a shade browner than her own. But unlike the Qiph slaves and merchantmen she was accustomed to seeing at the market, all but one of these men had scabbards hanging by their sides and carried round shields slung across their backs. The exception was a priest, easily recognizable by his extra ‘eyes’—gems glued to his forehead.

What was a group of Qiph warriors and a priest doing here so many days travel from the border? They couldn’t be coming to the shrine—Sara’s old math tutor had been a Qiph and he’d told her once that the Qiph didn’t worship gods, but followed something called The Path of the Holy Ones.

Seeing the sense in caution, Sara moved back out onto the plank bridge, but glanced back after only a few steps.

The Qiph hadn’t given up and returned to shore. There were now three of them on the ropes, crossing, their faces determined.

Marcus drew his sword. He yelled at them to stay back, but either they didn’t understand or were ignoring him. They kept coming, first sliding one sandaled foot along the treacherous wet bottom rope, then changing their hand grips, then sliding the second foot.

Sara counted nine Qiph in all. They looked fierce, angry, their faces as sharp as drawn swords and as eager for battle. The priest looked most furious of all, as if he might start frothing at the mouth soon. He exhorted the others.

Lance joined her on the bridge. “Keep moving,” he urged her.

Sara walked backward, her palms skimming the rails, unable to look away from the scene in front of her.

The leadmost Qiph, a handsome youth with numerous braids but only one green bead in his hair, had unsheathed his sword despite the awkwardness of holding it at the same time as the top rope. Marcus started hacking at the rope with his sword.

Legionnaires kept their swords hellishly sharp as a matter of pride—it should have sheared through the rope with a single blow—but this rope resisted, only a few strands parting.

“Must be wire twisted into the cable,” Lance muttered.

The Qiph youth reached the temple slab, stabbing out with his sword at the same moment that Marcus slashed down on the top cable. Both struck true. The sword pierced Marcus’s stomach. His scream was lost in the roar of the water. He sank to his knees, then fell forward into the water and vanished from sight.