The Red Sea (41 page)

Aladi stood first. "Are you back? Then you better have fulfilled our bargain."

"We found living seeds," Dante said. "And regrew the Star Trees."

Sando hauled himself to his feet, brushing papery remnants of nuts from his gut. "And the Tauren?"

"Spanked," Blays said. "Thoroughly. Between that and the return of the trees, the Kandeans are at the center of a new peace."

"A lasting one?"

"Is there any such thing? For now, though, I think this one's for real."

"And you claim to have a Star Tree," Aladi said. "You will bring me to it."

Dante looked over his shoulder at the trees and the strait beyond. "We could do that. Or I could grow one for you on Spearpoint."

Sando smacked his thigh. "You can do that? Right here?"

Aladi moved as if to brush something from her face. "Not so fast. We don't know that we can trust them."

"What are they going to do? Kill our already-dead tree? Grow us a patch of weeds and laugh at us?" He twirled his finger at Dante. "This man, he raised the land like Loda. If he wishes us harm, I'm sure he can do a great deal more than fool us about the Star Tree."

Aladi's mouth quirked. Despite her best efforts, it bent into a smile. She quashed this and gestured to the open ground at the edge of the village. "Show us."

Dante walked into the sunlight, dug a small hole, and deposited one of the starred fruit pits within it. He activated the inner chamber. White leaves unfurled from the earth. Sando laughed out loud, rocking up on his toes. Aladi kept her expression neutral. Dante had used much of his strength to form the bridge, but he poured what he had left into the seedling. When he stopped, the tree was waist high, its pale trunk and leaves shimmering with the colors of the rainbow.

"That," Aladi said, "is a Star Tree."

Dante lifted a leaf, revealing a small white flower. "They grow very slowly. But if something happens to this one, there will be others on the island."

They headed back toward the south end of Spearpoint Rock. There, Dante motioned to the bridge. "Would you like me to tear it down again?"

Sando and Aladi shared one of their looks.

"The island," Aladi said. "It was once our home. I think it's time we rejoin it."

Sando extended his right leg and bowed over it. "Safe sailing."

Blays gave them a little wave. "When you make the statues of us, make sure mine's taller."

Dante and Blays crossed back to the Joladi beach, found their sandals where they'd left them, and headed south to where Naran's two ships were anchored.

"What do you think?" Dante said. "Think they'll rejoin the island?"

Blays glanced behind them. "What, you're worried about them?"

"After Niles, it would be nice to think there's some hope for this place."

Blays was quiet for several moments. "Who knows if it'll last. For now, I think there's more hope here than most places."

After an hour of strenuous hiking, they reached the cove hiding the two ships. A longboat brought them aboard the
Sword of the South
. Naran examined them. Today, on top of his shiny-buttoned captain's jacket, he wore a two-cornered black hat sporting the long red tail feather of a local bird.

He nodded to the islands. "Is our business here complete?"

"Looks like," Dante said. "Should we go take care of things in Bressel?"

"With pleasure."

Naran called out to his crew—which no longer included Juleson, who'd elected to stay in Kandak with Nassea. The
Sword
made way past the rocks enclosing the cove, then heaved east, meaning to get beyond the worst of the Currents before turning north.

Naran seemed quite confident about the upcoming venture. Dante was less certain. For him, it would be about more than taking vengeance on Gladdic. Something sinister was under way in Mallon. They were stoking the old hostilities toward Arawn and all who followed him. In times past, these had led to purges. Wars. Centuries of oppression. Most of the prior scours had been aimed inward, at their own people. But they were now looking outward, to the Plagued Islands. And who knew where else.

If Gladdic's murder was connected back to Narashtovik, it would do nothing to lessen Mallon's paranoia.

"Not to interrupt your frowning session," Blays said. "But if you've got a moment, you might want to come see this."

He led Dante up the steps of the aftercastle. Behind them, the green blades of the Joladi Coast soared toward the blue of the sky, which was rivaled only by the sapphire tones of the open sea. Dante might live another hundred years and never see anything so fantastic.

Their worries in Mallon tugged at his mind. He knew he'd soon have to turn and face the responsibilities that awaited him. Yet before he knew it, the islands would recede beyond the horizon, as lost as last summer, or the Mist-like happiness of childhood.

He intended to hang onto them for as long as he had left.

Hopp of the Clan of the Broken Herons had never built a great cathedral. He'd never walked ten thousand miles in a row. He'd never tried to govern one of those noisome anthills that humans called a "city." Lacking these experiences, he couldn't swear to the truth of his feelings.

Even so, he was certain there was nothing more annoying and time-consuming than trying to find the right spot for a norren clan to settle down for the summer.

He walked through the waist-high grass, stirring it with the butt of his spear. At the moment, most of the clan was poking around a lake on the other side of the hill. Hopp was pretending to scout the surrounding hunting grounds, but mostly he couldn't stand to watch the clansmen fuss about their decision to plant their tents or keep looking. "I don't like the way the stream bends as it leaves the lake," one might say. Or, "This feels right—for next year. But it's not right for now." Most frustratingly of all, the clan might reject one spot, then spend the next two weeks wandering in circles, only to return to the rejected spot and declare that it was perfect.

Theoretically, as chieftain, he could order them to make camp in the middle of a latrine if he wished. But people weren't nails to be hammered down. Leadership was like flowing water. Sometimes, your people took courses you didn't expect. All you could do was follow the stream and see where it led you.

He walked on, poking here and there with his spear. Deer tracks dented the soil. There would be good hunting here along with fine fishing. Then again, this had been true of the last five spots they'd considered. Early summer—his favorite time, when the mornings and nights remained cool, and everything was at its greenest—was threatening to turn hot and dry. And still they had no camp.

He was frustrated by more than their indecision. He was a line-painter. Black paint on white canvas. A few dozen strokes, no more. Line art was his nulla, his life's calling. Some people, especially poets and philosophers whose nulla didn't involve physical, tangible creations, preferred to do their work on the march. They said the change of scenery inspired them. Besides, they didn't understand why it took him so long to complete a painting. With so few lines, surely it couldn't take more than a few minutes!

But with so few lines to work with, so little for the eye to home in on, each one had to be perfect. And yet—and this was the true beauty of the art—because these lines were drawn by a mortal hand, they were inevitably
im
perfect. With each imperfection deviating from the vision in his head, his plan for the next stroke was disrupted. He had to reconsider. See what sort of line would be correct for the mess he'd made of things.

And when he made
that
stroke, and it too was flawed, the process repeated.

So it took time. Gobs of it. Beyond that, the need to readjust his vision with each stroke meant that he couldn't plan out the entire work in his head like the philosophers and the poets. The only way for him to pursue his nulla was to settle in one place for days on end.

Paradoxically, their constant wandering was making him restless. If they didn't choose their spot soon—

The butt of his spear clonked against something hard yet hollow. It didn't have the ring of wood or stone. He bent his broad back and picked up a black object the size of a human fist. It was lighter than he expected and felt almost like ceramic. It carried a faint whiff of the sea. It was spiraled like a snail, but it was many times larger than any of the freshwater varieties he'd seen crawling about in the hills.

Logic indicated it couldn't be a seashell. The nearest sea was more than two hundred miles north at the bay in Narashtovik. Seafood, like riverfood and lakefood, spoiled notoriously fast. No one would reasonably expect a seashell to last all this way. Then again, that
was
what it looked like. The brain and its logic might rule the body, but the eyes were the body's jester, able to defy the brain without fear of punishment, and expose truths it didn't want to hear.

He turned in a circle, taking in the low hills to east, north, and west. To the south, he could barely make out the blue of the Dunden Mountains separating them from the human nation of Mallon. Just as he suspected, there was no ocean in sight.

Whatever its origins, the shell was very pretty. The ratio of each layer of its spiral to those before and after appeared perfect. And the unusualness of it, wouldn't that make a good painting? A seashell lost hundreds of miles from its home? It would be a challenge to represent the fact the shell was being seen in the middle of a prairie so far removed from the ocean that was its home, but that challenge was part of the appeal. And who or what had brought it here? A condor? A traveler who'd picked it up as a souvenir, only to discard it, deciding it wasn't worth carrying all the way home?

Hefting it in his hand, he turned around and walked back toward his clan, forgetting all about their squabbles.

* * *

Raxa Dosse stretched in bed. Daylight poked through the cracks in the shutters. That was no good. She rolled over, draped her arm over her eyes, and went back to sleep.

The next time she woke, it was dark. She would have known that by sound alone: crickets and owls weren't the only things that came out at night. Narashtovik changed, too. During the daytime, when everyone was out and a-bustling, the noise became a generic thing where no individual stood out. Like the splashing of a brook, or the steady murmur in a crowded pub.

At night, though? Most of the respectable citizens fled the streets. The honest folk still out on business went quiet. Like the mice in the fields, they didn't want to draw any attention. The not-so-honest folk, though? They were the owls. They didn't care
who
heard them. And with the murmur of daytime gone, each voice, each individual, rang out like the bells of an unholy church carillon.

She dressed, belting on her short sword and dagger, and hit the streets. She lived in an awful part of town, and despite her blades and her modest reputation, she put the eye to every man and woman she passed. After several blocks of crooked rowhouses and outdoor gambling tents, she crossed Decken Street into the Sharps. So-named because, if you stepped out of line here, "sharp" would be the common trait of the many tools you'd find yourself introduced to.

A few people nodded her way. Raxa nodded back to two of them, arriving at a six-story structure with stone walls and a roof barnacled with enough shacks and towers to host a town of its own. It looked like, and had indeed once been, the manor/fortress of a wealthy lord.

Now, it protected those who ran the night.

Gurles, who could have been mistaken for a norren if not for his bald head, barred the door. Seeing her, he nodded and stepped aside.

Raxa opened the door, greeted by a swirl of minty-smelling chander smoke. Decent crowd, mostly lowlings looking for any scrap deemed too measly for the regs. She leaned against the bar and ordered a beer and a plate of eggs and bread.

As she dug in, Blackeyed Gaits saddled the seat beside her. "Raxa. Here for work? Or did that rathole you live in finally burn down?

"It's called fiscal responsibility." She pointedly eyed his bejeweled fingers. "Something you could stand to learn."

"Why work hard if you're not going to spend it? And you haven't answered my question. Should I take that as a no?"

She stirred her eggs, which were somehow both under- and overcooked. "You know I'm not here for the food."

"Excellent. Got a grab for you. The jewel of Kade Street."

"Sonnagen House?" Raxa didn't try to restrain her eyebrows from lifting. "I'm in."

Gaits grinned, enjoying the moment. "There's a catch. You'll be working with Fedder."

She laughed, spewing crumbs. "Not if you want me on this. You know I work alone."

He shoved back from the bar. "Then I'll see if Stump wants it."

"Don't bullshit me. You know I'm the best you've got."

"At grabs? Maybe. When it comes to fostering the next generation of pups, however, you're the worst in the guild. We've been here for hundreds of years, Raxa. That's because we take an inhumanly long view of things. A mediocrity who makes the next generation stronger is more valuable than the genius who's only here for herself."

She took a long quaff and smacked the mug back down on the bar. A chip flew from the base, drawing a crooked eye from Jana lurking behind the bar.

"I'll take Fedder," she said. "But you let him know that when I speak, he hops to it."

"Why don't you tell him yourself?" Gaits gestured to the wall. A young man detached from it, smirking like he'd just grabbed the serving girl's ass. He looked the portrait of arrogance and entitlement.

Over the next few days of preparation, Fedder was proven worse than his first impression. But the job was one of the largest Raxa'd ever been in on. The Sonnagens had supposedly just cashed out two seasons of shipping receipts from the Denbank. In silver, mostly, which was too heavy to steal in bulk—but also the Torc of Dalder. The sapphires alone would be worth thousands.

The night of the grab was pleasantly cool, with a kelpy smell drifting in from the bay. She met Fedder at Torton Square.

"Ready?" she said.

He smirked. That seemed to be pretty much his sole form of expression. "Let's show them what their locks are worth, shall we?"

Initial entry was a snap; Gaits had paid off a servant to lob a line over the south wall, away from the street. They snapped on their cleats and climbed right up into a fourth-floor bedroom. The room was dark, but below them, the scrape of chairs and the laughter of guests was enough to remind even an idiot like Fedder that it was time to get serious.

The torc was in the grandiosely named Moonroost, a two-story tower atop the main house. Raxa checked the hall. Finding nothing but a lone lantern, she exited the bedroom and made her way to the stairwell. At the fifth floor landing, she peeked out. Down the carpeted hall, two lanterns illuminated the way up to the Moonroost. Guarded, of course. Two big men with bigger halberds.

She moved back into the stairwell. "Keep watch down here. I'll grab the torc."

Fedder folded his arms. "How do you intend to squeeze past the two statues?"

"Trade secret. Afterwards, I don't want to bump into any unexpected guests on the way out. So keep your eyes on the fourth floor. Got me?"

She expected resistance, but he nodded and went back downstairs. Raxa gave him half a minute, then walked forward.

Into the darkness.

The stairwell became a realm of bright shadows and ethereal, glowing outlines. Like Raxa had walked into the land of fairies and gnomes. Invisible to human eyes—though who knew about the fairies—she strolled into the well-lit hall. Neither guard looked her way. The wall was stone. She walked into the shadows within the rock, emerging in a spiral staircase that led up to a small round room.

The torc sat on a stand of black velvet. In the netherworld, its sapphires glowed like the Ghost Lights of the northern winter sky. She sacked it up, along with a double handful of less impressive but still expensive jewelry, then walked downstairs. She exited the wall into the hallway and continued to the main stairwell.

There, she smiled and returned to the mundane realm.

Fedder gasped. He was pressed tight into the corner; she'd totally missed him. "How'd you—?"

She clapped her hand to his mouth and gestured downstairs. Descending to the fourth floor, they rushed to the darkened bedroom.

"One second, you weren't there," Fedder whispered. "The next, you were. Like you'd walked out of another world."

"I don't know what you think you saw," Raxa said. "But your eyes are as bad as your ears."

"I
saw
you." He moved closer. "Tell me how you did it."

Every nerve in her body burned.
No one
knew what she could do—not Gaits, not anyone. And she'd been so sloppy she'd been outed by the punkiest of punk kids.

"There was a secret entrance," she said. "That's how I got in. And that's why it looked like I walked out of nowhere."

At last, his smirk returned. "I know what I saw. Tell me how to do it. Or I'll tell everyone what
really
makes you the best sneak in the house."

"You want to know how I do what I do?" She beckoned him nearer. "Listen close."

She grabbed his hair with one hand and cut his throat with the other. Twisting her fingers into his scalp, she pulled back; his breath burbled out the wound along with his blood. Once he was done, she dropped the body and climbed down into the dark yard behind the house.

Gaits was expecting them before dawn. Enough time to clean herself up. But not to extract Fedder's carcass. In public, the Sonnagens would
probably
claim credit for the thief's death—but they would make private inquiries after their goods. What would the black market tell them? The story there might be closer to the truth: that the thieves had taken the torc, and, for reasons unknown, left a body behind. Her story would have to match it.

She walked away from the house. Seven blocks later, she swerved down an alley. She drained half her flask, then got out her knife. She slashed the skin on her collarbone and stomach, then added several more wounds to her arms, especially the hands. As if she'd been warding someone off.

On the way back to their building, her bloody body drew so many looks she was afraid she'd overdone it. Finally, she staggered into Gurles standing watch on the front doors. He gaped, then swept her off her feet and rushed her to a room.

Gaits dashed in a minute later. "Where's the torc?"

"Glad to see your priorities are in order." She flung the bag at his feet. It landed with a heavy metallic clunk.

"The hell happened to you? Where's Fedder?"