The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (15 page)

“Is it supposed to look like that?” Perie asked.

“I’ve passed this way before, and it wasn’t half-ruined. It looks as if it’s only a matter of time before Prince Ryce loses the castle.”

“How long?”

“Depends on how much gunpowder the lancers have and how much food and water and arrows the besieged have.”

“Can’t we do anything?”

There was a long silence as she considered. “That’s an army of Grey Lancers,” she said at last. “We are two people. I did think that if they were using a sorcerer we might try to even it up a bit by killing him. Now we know there isn’t one, it would be ridiculous for us to risk our lives. I can’t see any point in dying just for the pleasure of sending a handful of lancers to their Va-less death. No, we push on to the north.”

He knew she was right, but her words settled into his stomach like a greasy meal.

“
C
ome to gloat?” Bealina asked.

She’d been standing at the window of her tower room – her prison – looking out over the city of Vavala, and she’d seen in the glass the reflection of the man who entered behind her. Even with that distorted image, she recognised him. Prime Valerian Fox, now wearing the robes of a Pontifect, living in the Pontifect’s palace in Vavala, playing the part he had no rights to usurp, for all that he said he’d been fairly elected even though no Shenat cleric or shrine keeper would have supported his candidature, not even Lowmian ones.

Well, she would never give him the title.

She turned in time to see him doff his hat and bow.

“I regret I was not here to greet you on your arrival this afternoon,” he said. “I trust that my son Ruthgar acquitted himself well, looking after you.”

She shuddered and said nothing. Ruthgar Fox, dead-eyed and cold, had met her on her arrival, telling her that he was acting on behalf of the Pontifect. She’d found him even more frightening than his father, if that was possible.

“Anyway, I am here now, to welcome you to my palace.”

“Not rightly yours, I believe. It belongs to the true Pontifect.”

“Do not aggravate me, Princess. It is not wise. I wish you well and I hope your journey was pleasant.”

“I’m alive. One must be grateful at least for that much, when one travels in the company of violent and undisciplined murderers.” She’d never said a truer word. There hadn’t been a single day when she’d not wondered if the two of them would live long enough to see another dawn. She glanced over to where Garred played in the corner of the room, content for the first time in days.

“I’m glad Prince Ryce was sensible enough to allow you to leave with Prince Garred,” he said. “It would have grieved me if you had come to any harm in Gromwell, my dear.”

“So gracious of you, when it is you who have endangered us, and still do. What you have done is treason. There will come a time when Valerian Fox loses his head to the axe.”

“Madam, you have been ill-advised on the facts, I feel. I merely obey my liege lord. King Edwayn’s orders were to besiege Gromwell Holdfast until such time as his grandson is returned to Throssel – as he has charged Prince Ryce to do. It was Ryce’s choice to defy his liege lord. One does not do that with impunity.” He nodded towards the prince, who was lining up a row of toy soldiers on top of a hassock. “Prince Garred shall be returned to his rightful home, to be acknowledged the king’s heir. I assure you, Your Highness, that I have every intention of seeing the young prince on the throne one day.”

“My husband is the rightful immediate heir to King Edwayn, not Prince Garred.” She marvelled that her voice remained steady, but her hands were clasped behind her back to stop them shaking. “Customary law dictates that the king’s eldest son is the acknowledged line of succession.”

“You haven’t heard the latest decree, then? No, I’m sure you have. You just refuse to accept that King Edwayn has declared Ryce unfit and therefore Prince Garred is the heir. I do believe that is the king’s prerogative.”

“Only because you declare it so. The king’s mind, alas, is not capable of rational decisions.”
Thanks to your sorcery
…

“Come now, my dear, surely you know your husband’s failings. You will have observed Prince Ryce’s lack of interest in the governing of his nation. Why, look at Gromwell Holdfast. No cannon on its walls, and yet it has been Prince Ryce’s holdfast since he was eighteen, with the lands and income of the demesne surrounding its walls. He squandered the money, when he was obligated to maintain it as a bastion for the protection of the kingdom’s northern borders. He is not a proper candidate for the throne.”

“Indeed, I do know my husband, sir. Better than you, I think.”

He shrugged. “Prince Garred can be raised differently. He has a
mother to guide him in his education. You and I could raise him to be fit to take on the governing of Ardrone.”

“And my husband?”

“There is no reason he cannot stay there in Gromwell, living off his own estates, if he bends his knee to his king and confirms the right of his son to succeed his grandfather.”

She almost laughed in his face. Did he think she was so witless to believe that? If Ryce left the protection of the castle, he was dead.

Perhaps he already is.

No. Don’t think such
…

“If it was the king’s order to bring Prince Garred to Throssel, then why is he here, in Vavala?
You
disobey the king, Master Fox!”

“I merely do what is best for Prince Garred’s safety. The kingdom is rife with disorder and treachery, whereas Vavala is mine to guard. I think we have to come to an understanding, you and I, Princess.”

“By which you mean your understanding of what is best for yourself, not for me, nor Garred. What choice do I have? You have my promise of compliance to your wishes, if that is what you need. I am no more than a mother who wants what is best for her son, after all. As you say, one day he will reign.”

“Accept my guidance in all things and you will be there at his side. Disobedience, on the other hand…” He approached her, and it was an effort of will not to flinch. He reached out suddenly and caught her chin between the thumb and fingers of his right hand. Dropping his voice to a cold whisper, he said, “There are many castles in Ardrone, where a grieving widow might live out her days behind walls. And then there are other… beguilements of companionship for a lady of refinement to enjoy.”

She brought her forearm up and knocked his hand away, a swift angry blow. “I am aware of my position. I do not need threats to understand it. To save my son, I abandoned my husband. As I assume your ambition is to be the driving force behind the throne, I believe your legitimacy will depend on the health and longevity of Ryce’s child.” She nodded to where Garred sat in the corner, his eyes wide as he watched. “There is no one who will look after him as well as I do.”

“And you think that is enough to keep you safe? Brave words, from a powerless woman with few friends.”

He couldn’t let her have any illusions, could he? Va above, he was an evil man. She felt it again then, a horrible black tarry touch that rubbed across her soul – then it was gone. Her breathing raced, driven by her terror.

“Confine your activities to caring for your son, and all will be well. Step outside those bounds, and you will be parted from him. For ever. Do you understand?”

“Your actions speak for themselves. I will do whatever is needful to keep my son alive and well.”

“Then we understand one another, madam. I shall return.”

Without another word, he turned and left her alone with her son.

Garred ran to clutch at her skirts. “Don’t like bad man. Tell him go way.”

“He’s gone now.”

“Me want Horntail.”

“He’s not here, darling—”

“Yes, is! Me see him!”

She stilled. “Where?”

“Horse.” He pointed to the window. “There. Me show Mama.”

She picked him up. “You saw him from there?” Earlier he had been sitting in the embrasure, looking out with his nose pressed to the glass, but the tower was in the centre of the palace. A corner of the city streets, while visible from that window, was a long way off.

He nodded. “He gone now.”

She followed the line of his pointing finger, and wondered if it was possible. “I’m sure we’ll see him soon, then. But he’s a busy man, you know. He has to look after his horse, and sharpen his sword…” She prattled on to distract him.

“He’s all gone,” he said. “Like Papa.” His sadness made her heart ache. What kind of life lay ahead for him?

“I’m here,” she said. “Mama will never leave you.”

She had no idea if she spoke the truth.

S
orrel had never been to Hornbeam before. It was a port, best known for its shipbuilding and repair yards. As soon as they berthed, Lord Juster sent his officers and crew scurrying about on matters pertaining to the spice cargo, and the sale and repair of his other two ships.

As Saker and Sorrel were not involved in any of that, and Juster’s only order to Ardhi was to help the other two, they left the ship together to gather information in the town. On the docks, they separ ated, Saker to head towards the nearest chapel to renew contacts with the clergy, and Ardhi to glean the gossip of sailors and dock lumpers in the less salubrious part of the port. Sorrel, glad the two men had accepted her ability to look after herself, searched for someone with a healing witchery. Specialist healers – such as a boneknitter or a feverbreaker – might have been hard to find, but no one was ever far from a general healer. She was soon directed to a modest shop several streets back from the wharves. The young man behind the counter was selling herbs, salves and medicines and there was no faint glow about him that would have told her he was using a witchery.

“Good morrow, sir,” she said with a polite smile. The air was filled with a smell of spices, deliciously redolent of the Summer Seas, and for a moment she was transported back to the islands and the wafting scent of nutmeg flowers.

“In need of a salve, mistress? Or perhaps a philtre, a tincture, a potion, or maybe a tonic?” he asked.

She blinked, wondering how they all differed, and said, “I was told I could find a healer here.”

“That’d be my father.” He pulled aside the curtain that divided the
shop from the back of the building. “This way, mistress. Pa, patient here to see you.” He jerked his head, indicating she should enter.

The healer was a balding man with wire-rimmed spectacles perched towards the end of his nose, through which he peered at a scatter of ink drawings on the table in front of him. “Fascinating, fascinating,” he said. “Look, lass, look. Your insides! The internals! Beautiful, beautiful.”

She glanced at the drawings, and decided she’d rather not. Her only knowledge of anatomy involved sword slashes releasing ropes of foul-smelling guts on to the deck of a ship, and the horror on the face of a sailor who knew he was going to die in agony. She didn’t need to look at pictures.

“What’s the problem, lass? Indigestion? Rashes?” His gaze dropped to her waist. “Babe on the way, hm?”

“No, no, none of that.”

He took a closer look at her then. “Hm. You’ve got a witchery glow. A fellow healer, I assume, with a question.”

“No.”

“Hm.” Carefully he removed his spectacles, folded them up, and put them on the table. “I haven’t seen anyone with a witchery, other than healers, not for half a year. Not since the shrines went.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about. When that happened, I was in Karradar, on board a ship. We’ve just returned to Ardrone and I’d like to know what happened while we were gone.”

“Ah, hmm.” He slipped the drawings of internal organs into a folder, and put them into the table drawer. “Best sit, then. Your name, hm, lass?”

She sat where he indicated. “I’d rather not say.”

“Yes. Perhaps wise, given what happened to your like. Hmmm.”

She muttered something unintelligible, wondering if the length of his murmurs were somehow linked to his doubts about the subject matter, or suspicion of his listener.

“Well,” he said, “one day, all those with witcheries – except healers – received a message from their local shrine keeper, asking them to come to their local shrine the next day. Hmm. At first, most thought it was a note just to them, you understand. Even when they realised
all
the locals with witcheries, other than healers, were
at their shrine, probably they had no idea it was happening all over the land. Hmph!”

“Everywhere?”

“Ah-hmm. All over the Va-cherished Hemisphere on the same day, so I’ve heard since.”

“Lowmeer too?” She was utterly shocked.

“So I’ve heard. About the same time Vavala fell and the Pontifect was killed.”

“She died?”

“That’s the word on it. She died.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“Fritillary Reedling? Just like that? Hmm. No.”

“So, they went to the shrine, then…?”

“Whatever they was told at the time, I’m not sure. Most came hurrying back to their homes – grabbed up belongings, food, fam ilies too some of them, but then they vanished, along with the shrines. Hmph!”

“How can a shrine disappear?” she whispered. “How was it possible?”

He shook his head. “There’s just a mist there.” A tear trickled down his cheek. “I still try to enter it, every now and then. Not just the main Hornbeam shrine, but some of the smaller ones as well…”

“And what happens when you try?”

“I see things I shouldn’t. Dead people. I don’t know where I am. I walk into brambles I don’t see. Scratch my arms and legs until I bleed.” He shook his head. “Don’t ever try, lass. It’s not…
natural
in there any more. They are haunted places now.”

“And you don’t know why it happened, or who did it?”

“Hm. Mayhap the Grey Lancers worked out how to destroy shrines and witchery folk all at once, in one fell swoop, or… Or else, someone worked out how to save the shrines and the witchery folk, all at once, by making them disappear.”

“Who are the Grey Lancers? Where did they come from?”

He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Hmm, madness, I’d call it, lass. At first, people thought they were saving us all from Primordials, from the Horned Death, from Va knows what. Folk flocked to join them or support them.” He snorted. “Lost the sense
they were born with, if you ask me. Now everyone is too scared to say aught, and the Grey Lancers rule.”

“But the king? The king’s army?”

“Don’t see much o’ them round here.”

She was silent, not knowing what to ask next.

“Summat did happen recent-like, here in Hornbeam,” he said suddenly. “The fellow who led the lancers got killed in his own lodgings, right here in town. Vicious fellow he was, sickly, with dead eyes.”

“Who killed him?”

“Not sure. All kinds of tales afterwards. Some says it was a woman and her son did it, though I don’t know the truth of that, or who they were. For a while afterward, local lancers were like headless hens, flapping this way and that, killing folk for no reason, arguing among themselves like they was demented. Some of the local lads among ’em crept back home, useless featherwits plucked raw from what I saw of those brought in to see me. The rest marched away, hunting another head fellow, I suppose. They haven’t come back yet, but they will, I reckon. Hm.”

Sorrel listened, and decided there was simply nothing she could say, so she kept silent.

He lowered his voice still further. “If I was you, I’d not admit my witchery was anything other than healing, lass. Hm. In fact, I wouldn’t tell anyone you had one. Reckon any healers you meet won’t blab, either.”

She nodded. Her stomach roiled. They’d been sailing to other worlds, hoping to find a cure for Piper, when their own world was fracturing.

When she stood up to leave a few minutes later, she asked, “Your spectacles… Is there no healer here who can mend your sight?”

“Ah, ’tis only close work I need them for. I bought these from a Pashali sailor on board a trader, and they’re good enough. We did have a sightmender, but she died a year ago. I was hoping an unseen guardian would find us another soon, but now…” His words trailed away.

Now there was no access to unseen guardians.

Sorrel shivered. Without them, there would never be another witchery.

She had arranged to meet Saker and Ardhi inside the town chapel. They were not there when she arrived, so she sat down on one of the pews at the back to wait. As she looked around, she wondered why anyone could ever have preferred such a place, built of cold stone, when they could have worshipped at an oak shrine. Her closeness to Va shrivelled in a place like this. It had a clean elegance, true, but it lacked warmth; there was no vitality, no movement, nothing alive. No beauty but its artificial symmetry.

By the time Ardhi and Saker arrived, she was almost in tears just thinking about what had happened since they had left the Va-cherished Hemisphere.

What did we do wrong, Va? Did we get too complacent, too indifferent to the suffering of others? We had a wonderful land, once
…

When Ardhi and Saker arrived together an hour later, she insisted on leaving. “I want to get into the fresh air. Away from the port. I want to go to the main shrine now.”

“So do we,” Saker said. “We can swap what we’ve found out as we walk.”

She told them all she had learned and, as she’d expected, the information they’d garnered was similar. Saker added more details about divisions within the hierarchy of Va-faith. Pontifect Fritillary, forewarned, had done her best to thwart Prime Fox, but she’d failed. “None of the clerics I spoke to believe Fox is a sorcerer, or if they do they aren’t going to say it aloud. I suspect that those who did believe it went to fight for her and died in Vavala, or maybe even earlier when they first voiced their opposition to the Prime. The main problem is that the king was – and still is – on Fox’s side. So moving against Fox is treated as treason.”

He added, worried, “Everyone seems to think Fritillary died, which I don’t believe. The idiots are
pleased
Fox has taken over as Pontifect, saying he’ll do a better job of mollifying Va…” He kicked savagely at a stone on the path. “Fobbing lackwits. What did you hear in the docklands, Ardhi?”

“Complaints. People are really unhappy about the lack of folk with witcheries because it’s affecting their livelihoods. Everyone had a tale to tell. There’s a rat plague in the cargo that’s stored awaiting transport, something a vermin witchery would once have dealt with
in a day. The cooper used to employ someone with a witchery to bend his wood; now there’s no one. Someone told me a tale of a slime mould that got into the holding sheds along the river, and there was no one with the right witchery to save the root crops stored there. A carter had his horses die of a disease that folk with witcheries used to treat. The worst of it? People aren’t blaming Fox; they’re blaming shrines and shrine keepers and unseen guardians.”

Saker blanched. “How could things have come to this?” he asked in a murmur, not expecting an answer.

Ardhi glanced across at her, troubled. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Miserable,” she replied. “And angry too, I suppose. I thought I’d be working to protect Piper’s future, and her brother’s. Instead, I’m further away from her than ever, and nowhere near any solutions. Our ternion – that’s all we have. And we are faced with – with—” Words failed her.

“Anarchy,” Saker said. “I suppose as a one time cleric, I ought to be saying, ‘Have faith. Pray. Va will provide.’ And all those other platitudes.”

Appalled, she asked, “You don’t believe in that any more?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I
do
see a land curdled by misrule and an evil man’s ambition, but I also see
us
. Three people singled out – granted our witcheries and the support of the
sakti
of the Chenderawasi – for a reason. I don’t know if we’ll survive this, but I do know we can make a difference.” He looked up into the sky where his eagle sailed effortlessly overhead. “No, more than that. We
will
make a difference.”

“We don’t even know how to use the plume pieces we have,” she said, fingering the bambu pendant at her neck. “Unless we swallow them the way you did.”

Saker shuddered. “That only worked because the sea eagle ate the other half.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Although… maybe that tells us something: a feather can make a connection. A ternion connection?”

“All those Chenderawasi legends speak of holding tight to a piece of feather and asking for help in dire need,” Ardhi said.

“As long as you don’t mind what kind of help you get,” Saker added dryly.

This
, she thought,
doesn’t bode well.

“That’s it,” Saker said, and waved a hand at what lay in front of them.

To Sorrel, it was like looking through layers of gauzy mist, all of it tinged with a golden glow resembling a vague witchery glimmer.

“I guess,” Ardhi asked, in that thoughtful way of his, “that we are all seeing the same thing? No tree. No shrine. No people. It’s like looking through glowing spiderwebs…”

They both nodded.

He said, “Strong
sakti
.” He took a step forward into the beginning of the mist, but stopped abruptly. “
Adua!
That hurt! I walked into some prickles.” He shook his head. “If we can’t see where we’re going, then it’s too dangerous to try.”

Saker looked up at the eagle again, and the bird spilled air from under its wings, whiffling downwards towards them. “Let’s see what he does… I’m asking him to perch on the shrine tree.”

Which wasn’t there.

They watched in silence. The bird extended its feet, as if readying itself to land, entered the mist and disappeared.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“It thinks it’s on the tree. But when I look through its eyes, I see only mist.”

“Ask it to stay there,” Ardhi said.

“I don’t think we can just walk into that haze without help,” Sorrel said, remembering what the healer had told her. She unstoppered her bambu pendant and took out one tiny piece of golden feather. “What we have to decide is if this is important enough to use up one of these pieces.”

“We do need to discover what happened to the shrines,” Saker said.

“Perhaps we can rely on connections,” Ardhi said. “Links between Chenderawasi
sakti
and your witcheries.”

“Physical links?” she asked.

“Yes. Maybe if Saker and I both hold the dagger, and you hold Saker’s other hand with the feather between your palms. Then we’ll step into the haze and see what happens. We won’t ask for anything. We’ll let the
sakti
decide.”

That seemed as good an idea as any, so Sorrel did as he asked. Hand-in-hand they all stepped forward together. Although she could
still feel their clasp, she was surrounded by a golden haze and couldn’t see either of them properly.