Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (5 page)

Nikanor’s silence was all the answer Samsin needed. He sighed and decided the bath was over.

“I know you’ve been thinking about this, Nikanor. Tell me what you’re planning.” Samsin walked up the steps and grabbed a robe, not bothering to towel off.

Nikanor stared off into the distance, unmoving.

“What?” Samsin demanded.

Nikanor turned to him. “I’m not going to tell the Sisters.”

Of all the answers Nikanor could have given, that was the one Samsin had least expected.

“Not yet,” Nikanor said. “I’m sure of what the message said, but—well—it could be some sort of trick. We need to be absolutely sure before we involve the Sisters.”

“We?”

Nikanor ignored that. “I want to go there.”

Samsin nearly choked. “You want to do what?”

“I want to go there. We need to see if the Sharani penal colony does still exist.”

“You do understand you’re totally mad, right?” Samsin asked.

Nikanor gave him a flat look. From the solid man, it was almost a glare.

“Do you want to be the one who makes the Sisters go up into those mountains without absolute proof there is something there to be found?”

That stopped Samsin cold. No, he didn’t. The wrath of the Sisters was what kept the Dominions in line.

“You still can’t seriously want to go all the way up there,” Samsin protested. “I mean, it’s just so far. You know how many slave mines have been lost up there? There’s a reason it’s an unclaimed portion of the continental territory. Why they ever decided to build the Arena there I’ll never know.”

“So the slaves wouldn’t escape,” Nikanor said. “Or so the stories say. And yes, I really intend to go there. I hoped you would come with me.”

For perhaps only the second time in Samsin’s life, he was at a complete loss for words. Nikanor thought
he’d
want to go on some foolish quest to chase down a quasi-legendary Arena built so that the Orinai could watch the slave people kill each other? What in the seven hells had Samsin ever done to warrant that conclusion?

“You must be mad,” Samsin said. “You can’t really be serious, can you?”

Nikanor remained silent. He
was
serious, as serious as Samsin had ever seen him. It wasn’t like Nikanor to do anything rash or foolhardy. What could possibly motivate him to attempt something which so contradicted his very nature?

“Can you give me some time to think about it?” Samsin asked. He knew no other answer would dissuade Nikanor from his course. The man was typically slow to come to any conclusion, but once he did, it was almost impossible to sway him. Almost.

“Of course,” Nikanor said, turning from him and opening the door. “We will discuss this again later.”

Samsin massaged the back of his neck as the door swung shut. He knew he’d only bought himself time. Nikanor was not easily moved, but it
was
possible to change his mind, if Samsin could present a solid, logical argument. Nikanor was a decent enough fellow, for an Earth Ward. He ran a prosperous plantation, despite the enormous number of slaves he used. He’d come around. Eventually. He had to.

Samsin sat alone in his bedroom, perched on the end of his plush canopy bed. The purple silk sheets lay in a crumpled mess at the foot of the bed, the curtains tossed back on one side. A single oil lantern cast a pale orange glow around the room. A large window set into the main part of one wall showed black, reflecting the night.

Samsin reached out a long-fingered hand and gently brushed it over the mural painted on the wall near the foot of his bed. It was a crude depiction of the sea, a blue-green splash of color highlighted by a distant red sun and brown splotches of ships.

The Sisters had sent him here as part of the regular rotation of Storm Wards. If one was lucky, an entire incarnation, and entire life at the same Iteration, may pass without having to serve in one of the frontier plantations. Unfortunately, Samsin had not been one oft favored by luck. At least his tenure here would be a decade at most—not that much time in the grand spectrum of his lives as an Orinai. He longed to return to the sea, where life was simple and storms came naturally. The sea was a fickle mistress, full of rage, and emotions, and power—the perfect lover for a Storm Ward. The sea made decisions simple. Chance her waves and you would either live or die. She mastered you, or you mastered her.

But this . . .

Two days had passed since Nikanor had confronted him in the bathing chambers. The Earth Ward hadn’t brought up the subject again, not once, but he
had
gone about making preparations for a journey. The solid man had set aside rations, gathered supplies for a long journey, even sent out to the next plantation over for some woolen cloth for protection against the cold. No, Nikanor hadn’t approached Samsin since, but his intent was still clear.

The man was a fool. Nikanor had even appointed a steward among the slaves. A
steward
. What good was that going to do? Samsin would watch over the plantation. To appoint a steward to tend to the affairs of the plantation was an insult to Samsin’s honor, a jab at Samsin’s power. True, Nikanor owned the plantation and the slaves. He was their true master. Still, the slight stung. Samsin
wasn’t
going with him.

Then why can’t you sleep?
a small voice asked in the back of Samsin’s mind.

Samsin stood up. He ignored the questioning voice, though he couldn’t really deny it, and strode into his sitting room. He poured himself a glass of wine from a bottle and slouched into cushioned purple chair. The chair groaned under his weight. Samsin sniffed. The chair was shoddy work, put together by plantation slaves. Unlike the slaves in the Southern or Central Dominions, these slaves knew nothing of how to reinforce furniture to account for his greater height and girth. Nikanor preferred stone to wooden furniture, so his slaves knew little at all of carpentry.

Samsin sighed and took a sip of the wine. Flavor exploded across his tongue, a mixture of fruits and berries common to the lush orchards of Samsin’s native town. Usually, the fragrant wine made his stay here bearable and was worth the exorbitant cost of shipping. This time, it did little to lighten his dour mood.

Why?

That was the real question. Why did it matter if the Sharani Arena had remnants of the slaves and prisoners still there? Why would the Sisters even care, and why would Nikanor care that they cared? It didn’t matter.

Samsin downed the rest of his wine and walked over to his writing desk.

Of all the furniture in the sitting room, it was probably the least used. It has several drawers for parchment and ink, some others for sealing wax and various other sundry and generally useless items. Instead of a chair, a tall stool sat behind the desk. It was heavy, clunky, and not at all comfortable. This, more than any other thing, kept Samsin from using the desk much at all. But the storm was on the horizon.

He took a seat at the table and lit the candle with a striker sitting next to it. He fished out a sheet of heavy parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink and set them on the desk. Then he began to write. The Sisters had to know. He couldn’t let Nikanor run off on this foolish quest. Samsin’s family had enough influence that even if the information proved fruitless, Samsin would only get an extension on his tenure here. Nikanor, on the other hand, might end up dead or worse. He had no family to speak of and no other influence outside the success of his plantation, which was not inconsiderable.

The missive finished, Samsin set the page aside and wrote out two more copies in his thick, blocky scrawl. He then rolled the parchments up and took out the sealing wax—purple, to match the importance of the information. He set it in the flame and pulled out one of his family’s signets. They were gaudy things, even for Samsin, but it was one of the most recognizable seals within the Orinai. It was a pity his family was divided in their Progression beliefs or else they could have been the most powerful of all the families. The wax ready, Samsin pressed it to the parchment, sealing it closed with a quick press of the signet on each of the scrolls.

Nikanor would be furious with him, but that wouldn’t be much different than now. The man was like the rock, changing slowly.

A knock sounded on the door. Now, who would be up at this time of night? Nikanor perhaps? No, Nikanor slept in his stark stonework room detached from the manor itself. Samsin got to his feet and walked toward the door. He wasn’t in the mood to discuss this with Nikanor tonight. Samsin had made his decision. He opened the door just a crack, letting in the light of a lantern. A slave, Nikanor’s
steward,
stood in the doorway.

Samsin squinted against the glare to get a good look at him. “How dare you disturb—” Samsin began, flushing with irritation, but the slave cut him off. A dangerous move.

“Great One,” he said. “Master Nikanor has gone. He bade me tell you.”

“Gone?” Samsin asked, forgetting his temper in a moment of confusion. “What do you mean gone?”

The slave went to respond at the same time that cold realization drowned Samsin in ice.

“He went to—” the slave began.

“How long has he been gone?” Samsin said over the top of the slave, swinging the door wide.

The slave took a step back. Samsin realized he must look a fright, clad only in breeches and towering a good two feet above the slave, but he didn’t care. Samsin moved forward to match the slave’s step.

“He left when the sun went down,” the slave stammered. “I was to tell you when you awoke, but I thought . . .” The slave trailed off.

“What did you think?”

The slave swallowed. “I thought maybe you could save him, Great One. From himself, I mean. He’s—he’s not acting like himself.”

Samsin raised his hand, which was clenched into a fist, to strike the slave for such blatant disrespect, but then hesitated, his hand upraised. The slave faced him, not moving, back straight, jaw firmed into a hard line. Where had the fear gone?

Samsin found himself lowering his fist. “Fetch me the pack Nikanor had made up for me,” he said. “Bring it here and be silent about it.”

The slave gave a small nod—another disrespectful familiarity—and hurried away down the hall.

Samsin turned back into his room and shut the door behind him. What was he doing?
Let
Nikanor run off into the mountains on his own. Samsin couldn’t decide if he was angrier with himself for caring that Nikanor was being a fool, or with the fool himself.

Samsin pushed those thoughts aside. He had to stop Nikanor, go after him, and bring him back if he could. The idiot would get himself killed in the high mountains without a Storm Ward to warn him of coming gales.

Idiot!

Samsin grabbed some clothes from his armoire and shoved them into a satchel, before donning traveling clothes and a thick, dark green cloak. Next, he strode into an adjoining room and grabbed the spear he kept there. The weapon was almost as tall as he was, haft made of a light metal unable to be manipulated by any of the lesser magic users. The blade, as wide as his palm and as long as his forearm, was of reinforced, sea-green glass. He’d rarely had cause to use it out here, though it had seen great use aboard the ships of the Southern Dominion in his younger years. Taking it, Samsin returned to the room just as another knock came at the door.

“Enter,” Samsin barked, slinging the satchel over his shoulder.

The slave steward entered, struggling with the weight of the pack that was obviously too large for him. Samsin strode over and took it from him with one hand, then set the spear against the wall and shouldered the pack. The slave stepped back, looking anxious. Samsin turned back to his writing desk and snatched the three missives he’d written earlier from the desktop. He turned back to the slave and pushed the large scrolls into the man’s hands.

“If we’re not back in three days, send these along to the next relay point. They will know what to do with them.”

The slave nodded, but Samsin held his gaze.

“If you don’t do this, or if the missives don’t get to where they’re going,” Samsin said, “it will be your life.”

“Yes, Great One.”

Samsin nodded and, with a heavy sigh, strode out of his rooms after Nikanor.