Path of Revenge (40 page)

‘Take me to Captain Duon, quickly,’ she gasped out. ‘He has to warn…’
Who? About what?
Her numbers were not yet specific enough to be of any use.

‘That’s where we’re going,’ said the messenger. ‘If you would care to follow me?’

They approached a small knot of angry men. ‘Slaves come and go,’ said one man, a gourd in his hand. ‘We buried our Omeran last night. That’s why we want to use the Emperor’s pet.’

The last two words pulsed bright red in Lenares’ mind. She halted just outside the circle of men, who were gathered around a well.

‘Ma dama, we do not have time—’

‘No!’ she snapped, slapping at the messenger. ‘Be quiet!’

‘You can’t have him because we cannot find him,’ said a man in the blue robe of the Elboran Alliance. ‘We have men searching the camp for him, and when he is found he is likely to be incapacitated for a few days. So find another to carry your water.’

‘It pleases you to humble the Emperor in his absence?’ the man with the gourd asked.

‘As it would you. A small piece in an elaborate game, to be sure, but we have made the Emperor’s pet ours to use.’

Something significant was being said, Lenares sensed, but she was slow to work out what it was.

‘Or would be, if you could find him!’ The men around the well laughed.

‘Excuse me, ma sor,’ Lenares said, her tongue still unwieldy. ‘Excuse me!’ The men moved aside, thinking she had come for water.

Lenares faced the man from the Elboran Alliance. He was a big man, dark-faced and with a well-trimmed beard. She cleared her throat. ‘You are looking for the Omeran called Torve?’

‘We are, girl. What of it?’

‘Ma dama Lenares, the Emperor’s cosmographer, not “girl”, if you please,’ she said, her tone occasioning a lift in the Elboran’s eyebrows.

‘The numbers girl,’ someone muttered. ‘The one who put the wind up old Tumille.’

‘Doesn’t look so pretty without that dress,’ said a voice behind her. Lenares did not turn around.

‘As you will, ma dama Lenares,’ the Elboran said with exaggerated courtesy. ‘What is this about the Emperor’s Omeran?’

‘He is currently serving the cosmographers, ma sor,’ Lenares said, the lie coming from her swollen tongue with difficulty; but immediately it was spoken, the pulsing red light in her head halved in intensity.

‘Oh? And when will he be returned? Ma dama?’

‘Ma sor, there is no one to return him to.’ She hoped she had read the conversation correctly. ‘He is here to serve the Emperor, not any particular group.’

‘Then what claim do the cosmographers have on him?’

Trapped by her lies, Lenares tried not to panic. ‘None, ma sor. He wanted us to help him with some calculations. Have we done something wrong?’

The man pursed his lips, and made a small gesture with his hand. A smaller man next to him, attired as a soldier, bowed fractionally and left the group.

He’s going to search the cosmographers’ tents for Torve. What will happen when he is not to be found?

‘No, you cosmographers have done nothing wrong, ma dama Lenares. The status of this Omeran is still unclear. We know the Emperor sent him on this expedition for some purpose, and we are uncomfortable not knowing what it is. Without the Emperor’s protection, the Omeran suffers all manner of degradation. It is our mind to protect it. No one likes seeing animals suffer, particularly if by keeping it safe we can serve the Emperor’s interests.’

Lies mixed with truth.
Why did people persist in thinking they could deceive her? As for that, why had she thought she could deceive anyone?

Because she did not want to see Torve hurt.

‘Ma dama, excuse, me but Captain Duon is waiting…’ The messenger tugged at her robe, then looked up as the gaze of every man around the well fastened on him.

‘Are you on your way to Duon?’ the Elboran asked Lenares.

The messenger answered. ‘Ma sor, this woman has a most important meeting with Captain Duon, and I will be in trouble if she is late.’

‘Trouble?’ crooned the Elboran. ‘My, my. Are you under the misapprehension that Dandy Duon is in charge of this expedition?’ There was a dangerous undercurrent in his voice. The messenger heard it, and took a step backwards. ‘If there is anything of importance to be discussed, we will hear about it first.’

The unfortunate messenger cleared his throat.
‘With the greatest of respect, ma sor, neither the girl nor I know what the meeting is to be about.’

As the Elboran prepared to reply, the red shape in Lenares’ mind developed a second and third funnel, accompanied by a roaring sound like nothing she had ever heard. For a moment she thought everyone must be able to hear it, but since no one else reacted, she realised it was wholly within her head. It was the first time any of her visions had been accompanied by such a sound. A dry part of her mind catalogued the occasion for further study.

The noise made the next few minutes’ conversation inaudible, though fortunately none of the men appeared to speak directly to her. She began to back her way slowly through the crowd; as she did so the roaring began to fade.

How much longer until the hole in the world manifests itself here? Minutes? Hours?
It had been most of a night and part of the next morning between the time she had first noticed the hole grow larger and the arrival of the earthquake in the Garden of Angels. Would she have as much time now?

She was frightened that the hole in the world might be searching for her. She did not know what would happen if it found her.

The soldier sent to look for Torve returned before she could escape the gathering and flee to Captain Duon with her warnings. There was something Lenares recognised about the soldier, though she had never before seen his face. She dreaded what he was about to say.

‘I spoke with the cosmographers, ma sor Enui, and though I did not get to see the Omeran, they assured me it was at work in one of their tents.’ The man delivered his report in the crisp diction of a professional, yet Lenares was certain she had heard him speak prior to this. His pale, watery eyes
transfixed her, and the colour in her mind reddened further.
Why is he lying?
‘They assured me it would be available for the needs of the expedition later this afternoon. I will fetch it for you then, ma sor.’

Lenares kept her silence with difficulty. The soldier surely served the Elboran. Why had he lied? At his word she should have been exposed as a liar herself, and the hunt for Torve would continue. And why was the man familiar?

She raised her eyes to his. A face she did not know, of that she was certain.
Accept my gift to you,
it seemed to say.

A short nod from the Elboran dismissed the conversation, and Lenares turned away from the enigmatic soldier to face the messenger.

‘We must go, quickly,’ she whispered.

The Elboran was not finished, however. ‘Dryman, accompany the esteemed cosmographer to her meeting with Duon, would you, and report to me on what transpires.’

‘Very well, ma sor,’ the soldier replied.

‘But you are not invited—’ The sentence ended in a squawk as the point of the soldier’s knife tickled the messenger’s throat.

‘Take us to Duon,’ he said, with all the authority of an emperor.

Dryman the soldier continued to puzzle Lenares as they made their way along the rows between tents. In fact, he defeated her. None of her numbers were of any use; it was almost as though he was a negative, an inverse of a person. Even with the crushing pain in her mind growing ever stronger, she tried as hard as she could to penetrate his mystery as they walked briskly to Captain Duon’s tent.

The soldier was slightly below average height, with short limbs and neck. Unremarkable features capped
off a forgettable physique. He carried his head high, though, giving an impression of…not authority, exactly, but of competence. He seemed equal to anything. The perfect soldier, it appeared.

She had progressed no further in her surreptitious examination of the man when they arrived at the open space in front of Captain Duon’s tent. The captain himself stood and began to welcome her formally to the expedition.

Lenares fidgeted through the first few sentences. There was no time for this.

‘Captain Duon,’ she said, her voice cutting across his greeting. ‘There is a hole in the world. It is approaching the expedition right now. You should warn everyone.’

‘What? Hole in where? Warn them about what? Is this another of your witchy predictions?’

‘No, ma sor. Cosmography, not witchery. The world is made of numbers, and I can see the patterns they make. Something terrible is breaking through from outside the world. It has made a hole in the patterns. I can prove it to anyone trained in mathematics.’

‘Yes, I did want to talk with you about your cosmography. They say you are the best of your generation, so I suppose I should expect some…er, eccentricity along with the brilliance. I wish to consult you about the expedition; in particular, which route we should take to Marasmos and the supply ship waiting there. There is a debate, you see, among the Alliances as to which of the three main paths is best for our purposes.’

He stopped speaking. The cosmographer was bent over, hands over her ears, panting as if she were about to give birth.

‘It is too late,’ she said weakly, and sank to the ground.

She did not fully lose consciousness, though she wished she could. Her head was crammed with intense pain, her ears filled with roaring. When after a minute or so she was able to stand, the roaring continued. It seemed to come from two, no three, parts of the camp. She turned towards the nearest sound: something golden flashed across a row between tents. An animal? Whatever it was, it was the source of the roaring sound.

Or one of the sources. Behind her a second roar rose up. All fear fled in the face of the chance to put a shape, a name perhaps, to the hole. She turned and dashed in the direction of the roar.

A hand clamped on her arm. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’ the soldier said.

‘Don’t care,’ she answered. ‘Let me go, I have to see.’

‘Then come with me,’ he said, and drew his sword.

Somewhere behind them Duon was shouting orders, but no one appeared to be listening. Thousands of soldiers in the camp, yet none seemed to be organising a defence against…whatever it was, whatever they were. Duon forgotten, Lenares and the soldier raced down the path between two rows of tents, pushing past screaming people running the other way.

They arrived at an open space near the edge of the camp—close to her own palanquin, a suddenly nervous Lenares realised. As she turned to look for it, a cry of agony and fear rang out, closely followed by the sound of splintering wood. Her palanquin burst asunder and from it emerged…a golden and white shape. No. A woman screaming, her legs held fast in the mouth of a…of a
lion.

Mahudia.

A second figure, this one red, stumbled out of the remains of the palanquin. A man covered in blood. Chasico. He collapsed as they watched.

The lion was a male. Lenares had seen drawings showing the flowing mane, powerful haunches, large jaws. They had not prepared her for the magnificence and terror of the animal.

Lenares had been afraid for herself many times, and had always been able to respond with anger and aggression. This was the first time she had been really afraid for someone else, and it paralysed her.

Mahudia! M
—
mother!

Mahudia screamed again, pleading for help as the lion dragged her across the stony ground. No one rushed to her aid, though a number of men shouted, attempting to scare the animal away. The lion dropped its prey, placed a paw on her leg, and looked around, confused.

‘This is not the way lions behave,’ said Dryman the soldier in a thoughtful voice. Lenares jumped, having forgotten he was there. ‘They avoid people. Never would they attack a caravan of any size, let alone one like ours. Something is wrong.’

I could have told you that.

‘Please,’ Mahudia said, her voice surprisingly small. ‘Please, someone.’

A phalanx of soldiers marched into the open space from Lenares’ left. Four men pulled spears from a barrel, stepped forward and threw, one after another. The first two spears bracketed the lion, the third glanced off its head, and the fourth took Mahudia in the thigh. She shrieked.

The lion snarled, then lifted its head and roared. Every soldier took a step backwards; a few drew their swords. A second phalanx arrived.

‘Why won’t someone do something?’ Lenares moaned.

‘Nothing to be done,’ said the soldier, his eyes strangely avid as he took in the scene. ‘The woman is dead.’

‘No, no, she is still—’

The lion dipped its head and took Mahudia’s shoulder in its jaws. The snap and crunch of bones would echo in Lenares’ mind forever, along with the despairing cry of her only true mother. Up came the animal’s head, its prey hanging from its mouth. Another volley of spears, one lodging in the lion’s flank. Powerful muscles contracted, then released: the predator leaped forward and loped swiftly away from the caravan, Mahudia flopping awkwardly in its jaws like a tailor’s dummy and making no sound.

Torve bit his lip, unnerved. Twice now the odd children had vanished. Both times could perhaps be explained by his lack of attention, though how did the children know when to make their leave? Could they have predicted his distraction, or had they caused it? He could not accept they were either hallucinations or magical beings, though both explanations crossed his mind more than once on his walk back to the caravan. Fabrications born of his desire to discover his own past? Romantic notions of hidden resistance to the Amaqi? Or the remnants of a culture that had survived the Amaqi assault, and might one day reclaim lands and power? Too many questions and no way to find the answers.

Another issue began to intrude on his thoughts. How was he to explain his absence? No answers to this question either. He stilled himself, preparing for the beatings. They would come from a number of Alliances, as power was up for grabs and he had become a symbol. He would endure their words, their blows. What had the Emperor been thinking?