Spellbreaker (9 page)

From the catamaran's forward center deck, Leandra regarded the broad limestone formation that was Keyway Island.

Roughly circular and a mile in diameter, Keyway looked from the outside like the bay's other large standing islands. However, wind and tide had hollowed out Keyway's center, leaving a wide pool enclosed by a fortresslike formation and accessible only through a breach in the limestone on the island's southern face. During high tide, the breach seemed nothing more than a sliver in the stone. Low tide, however, exposed a tunnel thirty feet wide and fifty feet long that led into Keyway Pool. At low tide, expert sailors could maneuver into Keyway Pool something as large as, say, a fifty-foot war catamaran. With Lieutenant Peleki bellowing orders, Leandra's crew did just such a thing.

During the careful maneuvering, Leandra again looked aft at the standing islands. As before, she saw tall moonlit limestone, but this time she glimpsed something dark disappearing behind one of the islands. It made her breath catch. Was this what Holokai had seen? It had happened so fast and seemed so small. The next moment something took flight from a nearby island, and Leandra let out a brief laugh. Some kind of seabird. Nothing more.

Relieved, Leandra turned back as the catamaran coasted into Keyway Pool and looked up in satisfaction at her secret village.

Scattered across the Bay of Standing Islands were several famous “sea villages”—small settlements carved into the limestone islands and adorned with bamboo decks, bridges, and palisades. The inhabitants were mostly fisherman, a few merchants. They were remarkable places.

The sea village of Azure Strait had been built below the ruins of Sukrapor. On the island's top stood ruined temples crowded with strangler fig trees—their grasping roots patiently tightened around temple facades and statues of the Lotus gods who had been killed in their war with the Sea gods.

Another example of a sea village was Feather Island, the southernmost and largest of its kind. The houses there climbed two limestone formations that stood so close that they were linked by several rope bridges, which swung in a slight breeze. Leandra had no great fear of heights, but once she had crossed such a bridge and found that the disconcerting sway of the blue world—tropical sky above, churning tides below—had made her stomach lurch.

Most every sea village was an exquisite sight at evening, when the inhabitants lit kakui nut lamps and the vertical villages lit up the rock faces like something from a dream.

Keyway Pool, the secret sea village built by Leandra and her followers, was nothing so picturesque. There were no buildings on the outer island walls, nothing that would identify it as an inhabited island.

But inside the island, the pool was nearly a quarter mile in diameter and surprisingly transparent. When sunlight fell onto the water, one could often look down through forty feet or so to see the bottom's bright marine life. Near the high-water mark, carved into the limestone, were the docks and stores. Above this, in a nearly complete circle, was a row of deeply cut rooms covered with wooden fronts and connected by a sturdy boardwalk, protected from sun and rain by roofs of palm frond thatch. Two more levels were built above the first and connected by rope ladders with bamboo rungs.

Farther up the walls, where they met the island's top, the limestone had been carved into expanding terraces. With divine assistance, earth had been brought from the big island and placed onto each terrace so that each grew a particular crop: rice for the Lotus Culture, taro for the Sea Culture, chickpeas or lentils for Cloud Culture. A smaller terrace, directly below Leandra's spacious quarters, held a young plumeria tree, which was slowly snowing pale blossoms onto the pool.

Presently forty souls—most human, all refugees—called the secret village home. But work was underway on another level, and given that the limestone walls ascended nearly a hundred feet farther up to the island's top. One day there could be as many as a hundred souls living in Keyway Pool. That is, if Leandra could keep her people and their cause secret and safe.

As the crew docked the catamaran, kukui lamps flickered into brightness along the second and third levels, and one of the dockworkers lit two torches, the reflections of which danced on the water and attracted the sleek, dark silhouettes of fish.

According to Sea Culture custom, Lieutenant Peleki accompanied Leandra onto the dock while brandishing the leimako to signify her status as the village's chieftain. Dhrun, manifesting Dhrunarman, followed close behind. They were met by Master Alo, a sun-wrinkled old man with a long plait of white hair.

Until twenty years ago, he had been the high priest of a Verdantine goddess of wildfire. Then the empire had deconstructed his deity and seized all of his order's lands and holdings. A few co-religionists had helped him escape to Ixos. Ever since, he had served as steward of Keyway Pool.

“Master Alo,” she said with a nod. “It is always a pleasure to return to your sunny countenance.”

The old priest regarded her with an expression that was about as emotive as a bucket.

“I trust nothing urgent happened while I was away,” she said with a hopeful note.

“News came in from Chandralu by sea canoe last night. It seems a royal messenger appeared at your family complex yesterday evening. The Sacred Regent has summoned you to his court and was distressed that you could not be found.”

Leandra winced. “What did his sacred majesty want?”

“The messenger did not say.”

“Has my father returned to the city?”

“No report of that. But there is civil unrest. Apparently a fishing boat came back to the docks yesterday after going missing for three days. Half the crew lay dead and rotting on deck and the survivors were raving about sea ghosts or the Floating Island having come into the bay.”

Leandra frowned. “That fairy tale again?”

“That's what some rumors say. The crew was mostly Sea People. Some of their relatives blamed the event on a new neodemon from the Lornish immigrants in the Naukaa District. A brawl broke out in one of the Cowry Street winehouses.”

“Any other evidence that the Lornish immigrants have formed a cult or a neodemon?”

“Just more whispers about the Cult of the Undivided Society trying to speed the day of Disjunction.”

Dhrun cleared his throat. “Ten days or so ago, I heard a rumor in the wrestling arena. A story that a young Lotus fisherman had gone kayak fishing in the Standing Islands and come back having lost his wits and raving about finding a whirlpool that sucked everything down to the underworld while a plume of smoke appeared out of nowhere sixty feet above the sea. Apparently the fisherman became feverish and died a few days later. I thought it was all a fiction.”

Leandra straightened. “Well, I always do love these creative little bits of unsubstantiated rumor and hearsay that will be a complete waste of time to investigate, but I'll add a possible neodemon in the bay to my list of concerns. Are there any other lovely rumors I should know about?”

Alo shrugged. “There's talk of crop failures in Verdant. The rice merchants are already racing each other to be the first to profit from it.”

“Typical,” Leandra muttered. Her father had discovered that the Silent Blight had started when the demon Typhon had first landed on the New Continent. The demon's metaspells prevented misspelling in Language Prime; this reduced the ability of life to diversify itself. However, Nicodemus's metaspells, which made language more intuitive and chaotic, had reversed the Silent Blight in the league kingdoms. The empress's metaspells, on the other hand, decreased error in language and so exacerbated the Silent Blight. The past fifteen years had seen three crop failures in the empire. “Is there anything else, Alo?”

“The matter of our funds.”

“Matter?” Leandra asked, more shrilly than intended. “At last reckoning, we had nearly three thousand rupees worth of uncut jade in our treasury.”

“Perhaps you recall taking half of that for your little rendezvous with the smuggler. If I ask how much jade you have brought back, will I receive an answer other than petulance?”

“Certainly, how about peevishness?”

“My lady, the going rates of peevishness are quite low.”

“Sullenness then?”

“In even less demand than surliness this year,” Alo said with a sigh. “So, you spent all of that jade?”

“Okay, now you're just begging me to go back to petulance,” she said petulantly.

“Thus swings the great pendulum of our cause,” Alo said dryly, “from great riches to near ruination. As I have previously mentioned, in three days we must pay for provisions for Keyway Island, maintenance of the catamaran, and wages for your crew. Then there are the bribes to the city watch, the bay admiral, and the treasury officers.”

“Oh,” Leandra said with a start, “and there's something else to add to your pendulum.”

“Another expense?”

“A large one.”

“My Lady Warden, may I now offer
you
petulance?”

“No, I have the market cornered.”

“How about irritability then?”

“Recently devalued from over-production. I am sorry, Alo, but I'll need the rest of the jade when I meet with the smuggler again tomorrow night.”

“Perhaps I can better explain what a precarious state we are in. We can't afford another such godspell unless it magically produces rupees from my earwax.”

“Given how much earwax you produce, that would be wondrous. But in the meantime have we any incomes? Are we expecting a payment from our allies?”

The old man shook his head. “We have had no news from the Society of the Eastern Road; perhaps your father has undone them. Vashrama's gang is again late on their protection fees. Captain Tupo's catamarans are still at sea. The shipment from the Matrupor is now ten days late, and we don't expect to hear from our allies on the Outer Islands for at least another season.”

She looked at Dhrun. “What about the wrestling arena? Our connections with the gambling houses?”

The divinity complex shook his head. “No tournament until after the Night of Bright Souls. Back when I was a neodemon, I could have arranged a back-alley match. But now that I'm officially in the pantheon…” He shrugged all four shoulders.

“Lovely,” Leandra muttered before raising her voice for those still working on the catamaran. “Lieutenant, leave a torch burning for Captain Holokai, and wake me when he returns. The rest of you, to bed. We will have an early start. Alo and Dhrun, please follow me.” She headed off of the docks and onto the village's boardwalk.

Her knees ached and there was still pain in her belly, but it wasn't as bad as before. With luck, her disease flare would burn itself out. It was time she was due a little luck. Just a little.

“Perhaps,” Alo said from behind her, “I should approach one of the banking houses—”

She stopped. “No credit. If we must, I'll use my family's funds. But credit would draw a line of inquiry and that will lead the wrong people here.”

“So you have said, but—”

“How much silver do we need?”

Without pause the old man said, “Two thousand five hundred thirty-two rupees.”

Leandra tried to keep her face impassive. “When?”

“In three days, if you want to keep the officials happily bribed and everyone on this island eating.”

“Right. I'll see to it.” For all she knew she might die in one day's time. Or maybe the royal summons would at last uncover her cause, the little game she had been playing with the universe. Maybe everything would go to one of the burning hells when she killed someone she loved. Really, there was no reason to worry about the money. Not yet there wasn't.

Alo was looking at her dubiously.

She nodded at him. “Thank you Master Alo. Sorry to wake you from your bed. Before you retire, will you see that the catamaran is fully supplied? I will be setting off for Chandralu at next low tide.”

He bowed and withdrew.

Dhrun bowed as well. “Shall I—”

“No, I need someone to talk to right now, but not anyone with … all of”—she made fluttery hands at his scruffy beard—“that.”

The divinity complex smiled as his beard fell to his feet like dirty snow. His skin smoothed, his chin receded, eyes widened; his body slipped into that of the athletic goddess of victory. “Better?” Dhrun asked once she fully manifested Nika.

Leandra nodded. “Better.” She turned and climbed up a rope ladder that lay before her quarters. These were the widest rooms in Keyway Pool, but still they were as cramped as a cabin in a Lornish galley. Leandra could see why some who had taken refuge in Keyway felt as if it were a prison.

Leandra lit a stick of incense and then stepped behind her bathing screen. Someone had set up an urn of fresh water, a bamboo ladle, and a bar of soap. Leandra carefully unbound her wallet of poisoner's needles and her throwing knives. She laid them carefully on the stool next to the screen.

“Since we've established that you are so very old and wise, and I should emphasize old,” she said to Dhrun while undressing, “perhaps you could advise me about investigating the murder I might commit sometime early tomorrow morning.” Using the ladle, she poured the cool water over her head.

“Well, you've already interrogated me and, I assume, Holokai.”

Leandra shivered as the sweat and seawater washed off of her. “Indeed.”

“So who's left to interview?”

“My father if he returns, which would be troublesome. My mother would be but she is on the other side of the ocean. Then there's my old lover—”

“The handsome lapsed wizard you mentioned that night we drank too much kava?”

“That would be Thaddeus.”

“The one who was so smart and so interested in how text can alter a mind?”

“The one and only.”

“Didn't you tell me how wonderful things were in the bedroom with him?”