Path of Revenge (33 page)

‘They raiding mines in their ships, then?’ one wag asked, a youngster, clearly not old enough to remember the ever-present threat from the south. His comment did not bring the laughter he had been expecting.

‘No. But when they have burned all the towns and villages on the coast, where will they look next? Where does the real wealth of Palestra lie?’

‘Something in that,’ the first man said, rubbing the stubble on his jaw. ‘Need to go up to Altima fer that, fetch enough men to drive off the longboats. Presume they still usin’ longboats?’

The man’s words heartened Noetos: he sounded like one who had dealt with the Neherians before. ‘Or we could hurry north,’ he said, ‘and warn the villages in their path. They could choose to fight or flee. Someone could be sent to Altima and to Tochar to raise the army, but the villages come first.’

‘Risky, that. Like as the salties have men posted on the roads t’ warn ‘em.’

‘We’ll have to go around them, approach the villages from the north,’ Noetos conceded.

‘Why? Let the fishermen take care o’ their own,’ the youth said. ‘We should stay here, git ready to face ‘em. ‘Sides, we got the mine to run. We’re due a bonus, and I ain’t missin’ it. An’ Duke Eltos ain’t gonna be that happy if we bust off t’play heroes.’

A few men voiced assent to this argument.

‘H’aint you bin lisnin?’ said a smaller, older man who looked as though he’d just been taken from a pickle jar. ‘We let these buzzards get themsel’s the coast, we’ll be next, and you c’n bet they’ll come down on us like a tunna slag. You want that, you’re more a fool than Ma named you.’ He clipped the youth hard over the ear.

‘What about Eltos?’ the ear-hair man asked plaintively. ‘He’ll be sore if we run off ’n’ leave his mine to run down.’

‘Be sorer if we let the Neherians wreck it, or take it fer ’emselves,’ said the first man. ‘Time we had a vote.’

‘Besen’t we wait ‘til dayshift come out?’ asked the stocky man. ‘Maybe some o’ them’ll be wanting t’bash Neherians too.’

The first man, clearly some sort of overseer or foreman by his words, addressed Noetos. ‘Y’reckon we can wait ‘til rimdown?’

‘Rimdown?’ the fisherman echoed, puzzled.

‘Shift changes when the sun kisses the rim o’ the pit. We go down, they go up. Good for us in the summer, good for them in the winter. About an hour from now.’

Noetos sighed. ‘We would be better to wait for morning, I think. I certainly couldn’t imagine trying to find my way east in the dark, though I’m loath to give another village away.’

‘Ah, but we miners see well in the dark,’ the overseer said. ‘Though you might be right. It’ll give us time to find our weapons, sharpen ‘em up good.’ He leaned closer to the two villagers. ‘I lived in a fishin’ village on a time. Used t’ go fish-stickin’ with a fearsome gaff. You use gaffs? Ah well, no matter. Kymos, that’s the name of the place where I lived. Got chased out by a woman I angered. Had a gaff in her hand, as I remember.’ He rubbed his chin.

‘You tellin’ fishin’ stories?’ one of the men called.

‘Just tellin’ ’em about my gaff.’

‘Gaff? That what you call it? Where you been stickin’ it lately?’

‘Kymos?’ Noetos interrupted. ‘The Neherians have already visited Kymos. I’m sorry.’

‘Have they now.’ The overseer scratched his face. ‘Best I find me a good sharp gaff, then, and see if Neherians wriggle like fishes.’

Shouts of encouragement followed this avowal.

‘Don’t need a vote,’ the stocky man said. ‘Plenty a’ volunteers.’

‘Maybe we can conscript some farmers on our way,’ Noetos added.

‘Maybe. We’ll be better at warning than fighting, I’m thinking,’ the overseer said. ‘We’ll take the mules. They’ll get us there quicker.’

‘And maybe you might help me recover my wife and son,’ Noetos said carefully, wondering how far he could push these men. ‘They’re being held captive, as are many villagers.’ No need to mention by whom, not yet. ‘My daughter…My daughter Arathè was murdered.’ Half-truth, but it would serve. ‘This is all I have left of her,’ he said as he pulled the carving out from his pack and held it up for them to see.

Immediately he knew he had done something wrong. Silence worked its way back through the group of miners, the men holding themselves absolutely still, focused on the object in his hand. Somewhere behind him a mule walked endlessly around a grinding machine, the only sound in the otherwise sepulchral pit. Noetos looked more closely at the bust of his daughter, wondering if it had transformed into something strange, capable of bringing so complete a silence to the voluble miners. A religious silence.

‘Er,’ said a man near the back of the group. ‘Excuse me, fellow, oh my, yes. Could I…could I come and have a closer look?’

Increasingly nervous, Noetos took a step backwards. ‘Why? Have you seen her? Did she come this way? What did she do?’ He imagined her, pawn of the Recruiters, casting Voice-spells on the miners, killing some, sparing others. ‘What is wrong?’

‘The stone,’ said the man at the back, forcing his way forward. ‘Oh my, the stone. I promise I won’t touch it, but could you just hold it out so I can look?’

Bemused, Noetos did as he was requested. The man came close, then stepped back and with a cry of ‘Just a moment!’ went dashing off into one of the huts, only to emerge a minute or so later with a curved glass.

‘Hold it out, sir, if you would,’ the man said.

As he did so, the fisherman took note of the difference between this man and the others: he was
clean, untouched by the dirt and dust that begrimed the rest of the miners.

‘I am an alchemist, and I should be able to tell…yes…oh my, oh my.’ He looked up from his glass, the full intensity of his gaze boring its way into Noetos’s eyes. ‘You don’t know what this is, do you?’ he whispered.

‘I would have said it was a carving of my daughter, but I am guessing that is not what you mean.’

‘Oh dear, dear me, no. This is huanu, that’s what it is,’ the alchemist said, and fifty people behind him exhaled as one.

Noetos sat on a rough wooden bench in the alchemist’s untidy and crowded hut, his head whirling like the change of tide through The Rhoos, and listened as the nature of his carving was explained to him.

‘Oh my,’ the alchemist said, running his hand through his sandy hair. ‘What you have here is a piece of huanu stone. You haven’t heard of huanu, right?’

Noetos shook his head slightly, though the word did tickle a buried memory. Beside him the Hegeoman nodded, eyes alight.

‘Understandable; most people consider it a fairy tale, if they’ve heard of it at all. Looks like your mute friend knows something.’

‘Not mute,’ Noetos admitted. ‘Just injured. He said something I didn’t like,’ he added, with a meaningful look at the alchemist.

‘Oh. Oh my. Well, if you must employ violence, please leave my hands alone, if you would. I need them for my work. Most important work, yes; though now you are here, perhaps not as important as I thought. Hmm.’ Another glare from the fisherman cut him short.

‘Hm. My, well, we mine here for iron ore, so everyone thinks, and they are right, of course. Except
in reality we seek the huanu on behalf of Duke Eltos. In every seam of ore one can find—if one is very patient, very skilled, very fortunate perhaps—a small amount of huanu stone. By small, this is what I mean.’

He pulled a set of keys from his pocket, took one and opened a heavy-looking safe set in the stone floor. After a moment of careful exploration, he pulled out a tiny glass vial filled with water, brought it over to Noetos and Bregor, and held it under their noses.

‘Huanu,’ he said, gently shaking the vial.

‘I can’t see it,’ Noetos said. ‘There are too many little gritty bits of sand…oh.’

‘My, yes, oh indeed. Let me explain. Eisarn Pit as you see it now is on the move. A thousand years ago it was just outside Altima, not as wide or deep as now, just an exploratory pit, testing the viability of the seam. We dig, following the ore, and fill the hole behind us with spoil, thus moving Eisarn gradually southeastwards. Even back then, at the northwestern edge of the deposit, it was clear that a minuscule amount of huanu was mixed with the ore. We test it, you see; perhaps we can show you.’ His face lit up, as though he were a parent on All-Gift Night.

‘Later, later,’ Noetos said, intrigued and frustrated. ‘Tell me about the huanu.’

‘Very well, yes. Well. Somewhere in the seam the huanu stone is concentrated; it is this way with every seam ever mined, though the amounts involved are still very small. Very small,’ he repeated, casting a covert glance at Noetos’s carving sitting on a small table in front of him. ‘We mine the ore, yes, and Palestra becomes rich, but we look for the huanu.’

‘Yes, oh my, yes,’ Noetos said mockingly, his patience at an end. ‘But why, Alkuon be begged,
why?
What is so special about huanu?’ Beside him, Bregor sighed and shook his head.

‘Why? You ask why? Did I not say? Oh dear. Huanu is the most valuable substance known. I’m sure I said that. Your carving there is worth all of Palestra, with plenty left over.’

What?
‘But, but,’ Noetos spluttered, his hand reflexively grasping at the bust of Arathé, ‘but why? What makes it so valuable, and why haven’t I heard of it? What does it do?’

‘What does it do? Oh my. Actually, you should know, if my guess is right. May I?’ The alchemist held out a quivering hand.

Noetos fought his reluctance to surrender the carving.
Is it more valuable now than when it was just a likeness of my daughter?
‘Of course.’ He placed his daughter into the alchemist’s hand.

‘Now, look closely. The stone is pale green, with swirls of white. But look here and here. Two tiny flecks of blue.’ The spots he indicated were so small as to be barely visible. ‘Well, this is the thing. The value of huanu comes from its ability to resist magic. Absorb it, defeat it. When magic is used near huanu, the stone draws the power in and neutralises it. Oh my, yes. Am I right in thinking you have been close to a wielder of magic in recent times?’

A shimmer of blue fire spreads over the door to his house, which collapses in a sheet of flame. The Recruiters loose their power upon him; it flares brightly against his closed eyelids. A momentary blue crackling around the carving in his hand, then nothing. Shouts of anger. A tentacle of dreadful power reaches across Nadoce Square, searching for him, striking him, crackling and vanishing, leaving him unharmed.

‘Yes, I have.’ Noetos sighed and wiped his hands on his trousers. Beside him Bregor voiced the word in a breathy echo. ‘Yes.’

‘My oh my, then I do not have to explain why this substance is so valuable, do I.’

Not a question, but Noetos shook his head anyway. A substance that repelled magic would keep a kingdom safe from the sort of sorcery regularly employed in the struggles for power in Bhrudwo. And oh, had he only known its power, he could have used the stone to help save his family. Could have attacked the Recruiters without fear of their magic.
Still could.

‘It’s my job, you know. My career,’ the alchemist continued, leaving Noetos to work through all the implications of what he had just heard. ‘Finding the huanu, that is. No one knows why the stone is found in the ore, or why it is deposited in such characteristic leads. Gantha of the Timon guild says the seams are made of the detritus of ancient seas, and that the huanu stone is the petrified remnants of a magician, or magicians, or perhaps a magical animal. Wrote a paper on it, he did, and gained the favour and financial backing of the pretender to the Palestran throne. Oh my, it didn’t do him much good when his patron was assassinated. Me, I think he was wrong. What sea have you heard of that is many leagues long and only a few hundred paces wide? And why would a magician be found in every one of these unnaturally narrow seas? No, most certainly not. I’ve even heard philosophers seriously postulate that huanu is the by-product of conflicts between the gods. Bah!’ He shook his head at the foolishness of academics.

‘My theory is that the seams are the result of stars crashing to earth. Happens, you know,’ he said defensively, as if expecting Noetos and Bregor to laugh at him. Their impassive faces left him puzzled. ‘Well, it would explain the shape of the ore deposits, that it would,’ he continued. ‘And the huanu, of course, is the remnant of the star itself, so is not of this world, according to my theory, and so contradicts the natural order. See, a perfect explanation.’ He sighed. ‘It can never be proved correct, sadly, unless I’m present
when a star falls. One always hopes,’ he finished wistfully.

‘Alkuon forbid,’ Noetos said.

‘Yes, Alkuon indeed. I know he is just a curse word to you seamen,’ the alchemist said, his words rattling in the fisherman’s brain, ‘but did you know Alkuon was originally a stone god? Oh yes, worshipped by miners everywhere. Now, I have a question for you, yes, just one.’

Noetos raised his eyebrows, not exactly an encouragement to continue, but the alchemist seemed unable to pick up such cues and proceeded to ask his question regardless. ‘Where did you find it? Can you tell me?’ He leaned forward, curiosity all over his face.

‘On a small island in the midst of The Rhoos,’ Noetos answered, ignoring the Hegeoman’s exasperated headshake and hiss. ‘There are a thousand islands in The Rhoos,’ he added, ‘so I protect my village’s interests, if there is any village remaining after the Neherians have finished with it. The Rhoos is a series of reefs beginning a mile or so offshore from the village of Fossa. Extends many miles out to sea, and hundreds of miles north and south.’

‘Fossa, ah!’ A broad grin split the alchemist’s pale, round face. He dived to the floor, grabbed a scroll—for a moment Noetos thought he sought a weapon, and flinched—and unrolled it there on the cool stone. ‘Come, come and look.’ He smiled at the fisherman’s hunched, defensive posture. ‘It’s all right, it’s only a map, maps can’t hurt.’

The two men from Fossa gathered around the enthusiastic, obsessive man.
Geological Map of the Fisher Coast
the map was labelled.

‘This line here, this is the Palestran Line, running from Altima southeast towards Ossern. The brown wash is the extent of the seam; see how the road has been built on the slag from the mine. We fill up the
hole as we go, oh my, indeed. Here is Eisarn, close to Ossern Hill. We’ve long suspected that Ossern might be the heart of the seam, the motherlode, where we would find the huanu. Now, here’s the interesting part, oh my, yes. If I rule a line here, look, an extension of the Palestran Line in the same direction, where does it cross the coast?’