The River of Shadows (7 page)

That teacher, the great Babqri Father, had long suspected a trap behind the Arqualis’ offer of peace. He had lived through more than a century of war and duplicity; but his knowledge was not merely that of years. He was the keeper of Sathek’s Scepter, an artifact older than the Mzithrin Empire itself, and one the Shaggat had not managed to steal. Crowning this golden rod was a crystal, and in the heart of the crystal lay a shard of the Black Casket, the broken centerpiece of the Old Faith.

Through the power of the scepter the Father had come to sense the evil approaching in the belly of the
Chathrand
. Weeks before Treaty Day, he had come to Simja with his aspirants, and taken up residence in the Mzithrini shrine outside the city walls. There he had held council with Mzithrini lords, merchants, soothsayers, spies, as they congregated ahead of the wedding meant to seal the Peace. And there, night after night, he put his disciples in a trance and sent them into the sea, and by the power of the scepter they cast off their human bodies and took the forms of whales.

“Whales?” said Pazel.

“Whales,” said Vispek. “The better to observe your approach, and your doings aboard the
Chathrand.
”

“Your crew spotted us,” said Jalantri. “We were a rare sort of whale, blue-black and small.”

“Cazencians,” said Pazel. “Yes, I saw you—but it was here, on this side of the Ruling Sea. Neda, was that
you
?”

She gave a curt nod. “We trailed you along the Sandwall.”

“Until attacked by sharks,” said Vispek. “They were vicious and innumerable; we escaped them only by hurling ourselves upon this shore.”

“And these possessions?”

Vispek gestured with a turn of his head. “Shipwreck. Three or four miles west, along the inner beach. A grim discovery, that. The bark itself was weird and slender, and partly burned; we thought it a derelict. But inside it was full of murdered creatures, like black men except for their hands, hair and eyes. Their throats were slit, all of them. On the deck where we found the bodies a word was scrawled in blood: P
LATAZCRA
. Can you tell us the meaning of that word, boy?”

He looked expectantly at Pazel, who nodded reluctantly, knowing his face had given him away. He knitted his eyebrows. “Something like ‘victory’—no, ‘conquest’ is closer. ‘Infinite conquest,’ that’s it.”

They all looked at him, shaken. “The boat was maimed,” said Cayer Vispek at last, “but only partly looted. We found fine goods—fabrics, dyes, leather boots of excellent workmanship, even gold coins, scattered underfoot. It was as if the attackers had struck in haste, or fury, intent on nothing but the death of everyone aboard.”

“They took the food, though,” said Jalantri, frowning at the memory.

“Why didn’t you return to the sea, once the sharks departed?” asked Pazel.

“We could not,” said Vispek. “The Father tried to give us the power to change ourselves back and forth at will, but he never succeeded. Once we returned to human form, only the scepter in a Master’s hand could make us again into whales.”

“And the scepter went down with the
Jistrolloq
?” said Hercól.

“I told you that we came here with nothing,” said Cayer Vispek. “Our elder changed us a final time, even as the sea flooded the decks. That is the only reason we survived.”

Neda glanced sidelong at the Tholjassan warrior.
What a sly one. He knows the Cayer avoided his question
. She busied herself with the gnawing of flesh from a bone, thinking how cautiously their leader was handling this moment, how attentive they would have to be to his signals.
Above all we must say nothing of Malabron
.

Inside her the memory blazed, hideously clear. The collapsing hull, the grotesque speed of the inrushing sea, the old Cayerad bringing the scepter down against her chest and the instant agony of the transformation, no pain-trance to deaden it. Squeezing from the wreckage, the whirling disorientation before she spotted the glowing scepter again, in the aperture where the old man was working the change on a last
sfvantskor:
Malabron. She had watched his body swell like a blister. Confused and zealous Malabron; desperate, damned forevermore. He had believed in the utterances of mystics, believed they were nearing a time of cataclysm and the breaking of faiths. And with the enemy victorious and their mission a failure, Malabron the whale had done the unthinkable: bitten off the arm of the old Cayerad, swallowing it and the scepter whole, and vanishing into the sudden blackness of the sea.

They had never seen him again, and Cayer Vispek had not speculated as to what had driven Malabron to such treason. Jalantri merely cursed his name. Neda, however, recalled his furious, quiet chatter, his ravings. In the last weeks they were almost continuous, in the hours when talking was allowed, and so much of it was outlandish nonsense that the others took no heed. But Neda heard it all, her manic memory sorting the drivel into categories and ranks. And in one category, by no means the largest, were his mutterings about “the path our fathers missed” and “those who fear to be purified.”

Neda chewed savagely.
You should have spoken. You could have warned Cayer Vispek before it was too late
. For Malabron’s words had carried a sinister echo. They resembled the heresy once preached by the Shaggat Ness.

She cringed, feigning some bone or gristle in her mouth.
I couldn’t do it. Not to any of them
. It had taken them five years to trust her, the foreign-born
sfvantskor
, almost a heresy in herself. Five years, and all the wrath and wisdom of the Father, taking her side. How could she have admitted that she did not trust them back—even just one of them? How could she have reported a brother?

“Neda?”

Pazel was staring at her.
Devils, I must take care with him!
For her birth-brother’s glance was piercing. Even now he could read her better than Vispek or Jalantri.

She was struggling for calm. With an uncertain movement Pazel reached for her elbow.

“Do not touch her,” said Cayer Vispek.

Pazel jumped and shot him a look. “I was just—”

“Coddling a
sfvantskor,
” said Jalantri, regarding Pazel with a mixture of amusement and contempt. “Now I see why the Father did not wish the two of you to meet, sister. He knew no good could come of it.”

“Listen to me,” said Cayer Vispek to Pazel. “The one before you is no longer an Ormali, no longer Neda Pathkendle. I do not expect this to be easy for you to grasp, but know that every parent, brother or sister of a
sfvantskor
has faced the same kind of loss.”

“The same, is it?” said Pazel, his eyes flashing. “I haven’t blary clapped
eyes
on my family in nearly six years.”

“Neda has left your family,” said Cayer Vispek. “She has become Neda Ygraël, Neda Phoenix-Flame. And she has been reborn into a life of service to the Grand Family of the Mzithrin, and the
sfvantskor
creed. Only if you remember this can I permit the two of you to speak.”

“
Permit
us?” said Pazel, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “She’s my sister! Neda, is this what you want?”

Neda held herself very still. The eyes of all the men were upon her. With a ritual cadence to her words, she said, “My past is of no consequence. I am a
sfvantskor
, a keeper of the Old Faith, foe of devils, friend of the Unseen. The life before was a game of make-believe. I can recall the game, but I am grown now and wish to play it no more.”

“So speaks our sister in the fullness of her choice,” said Cayer Vispek. “You must accept her decision or else insult her gravely. Is that your wish?”

Pazel looked at the older man, and his dark eyes glinted with anger. But he held his tongue.

The Cayer watched him a moment longer, as though noting a source of future danger. Then, turning to Hercól again, he said, “There is more I would know. What sort of land have we come to, where men are killed under the banner of
infinite conquest
? Who are these black beings with silver eyes? And where are the humans? We have only met with miserable savages, hardly better than beasts.”

When the telling was done Neda felt wounded. As if some crushing harm had struck her body, some venom or germ that stole her strength and clouded her mind. She believed Hercól; his voice was too raw and bleeding to be feigned—and she had seen the men he called
tol-chenni
, and had thought them imbeciles from the start.
But a plague of mindlessness
. She squatted by the fire, clenching her fists.
Protect us in this our black hour
, she prayed.
Defend us, that we may water Alifros with the blessings of your will
. She addressed the prayer to the Unseen, the Nameless Ones, in the Mountains of Hoéled beyond the world. But did the Nameless Ones care about these strange Southern lands, or was their gaze fixed elsewhere? It was a troubling question, and probably forbidden.

Hercól looked up at the sky. “Dawn comes,” he said. “Pazel and I must return to our shipmates. And you three must make your choice, for I expect to see a boat from the
Chathrand
approaching by the time we reach them.”

“Choice?” said Neda, the bitterness rising in her again. “What choice is that? To return to your ship and be put in irons, or stay here and starve?”

“We’ll do neither of those,” said Jalantri, “will we, Cayer Vispek?”

The older
sfvantskor
pursed his lips and gave a thoughtful shake of his head. “Perhaps not,” he said—and flew in a blur at Hercól.

The attack was one of the swiftest Neda had ever seen. Cayer Vispek bore the swordsman backward off his crate, and by the time the two men struck the sand there was a knife at Hercól’s throat. Pazel surged to his feet, but Jalantri was far faster, and deftly kicked the youth’s legs out from under him. Pazel fell inches from the fire. The
sfvantskor
came down on him with both knees, caught his arm and twisted it behind his back. Jalantri looked wildly at Neda.

“I have him! Aid the Cayer, sister!”

“The Cayer needs no aid,” said Vispek, still pressing his blade to Hercól’s neck.

“That’s lucky!” snapped Jalantri. “Neda, you sat like a stone! What ails you? Were you afraid I might give your birth-brother a scratch?”

Pazel twisted helplessly, grimacing with rage. Neda shuddered. She recalled that look of defiance. He had shown it to Arquali soldiers, once.

“It was not luck,” said Cayer Vispek. “The Tholjassan chose to yield.
Chose
, I say: you saw my intention, didn’t you, swordsman? As plain as though I had drawn it for you in the sand.”

“I guessed,” said Hercól, motionless under the knife.

“You are too humble. I saw your readiness even as I struck. You might even have disarmed me, but you chose not to try. That was an error. You are prisoners now, and it may not go well for you.”

“What will you do now, Cayer?” asked Hercól.

“We will take the rescue boat, by persuasion or force, and seek the mainland.”

“If you take us as hostages on that boat, the
Chathrand
will know it,” said Hercól. “They can see our encampment plainly through their telescopes.”

“They will not wish to see you harmed,” said Cayer Vispek.

“You don’t know Arqualis,” gasped Pazel, turning his head painfully in the sand. “Prisoners of the Mzithrin are presumed good as dead. They’ll engage you whether we’re aboard or not. They’ll blow you to matchsticks.”

“We can take the boat alone,” said Neda quietly. “Leave them here, Cayer. The
Chathrand
will send another for them.”

“And for you, an extermination brigade,” said Hercól. “There are over a hundred Turachs aboard the Great Ship, and longboats that can outrun whatever little vessel they have dispatched to collect us.”

“We should have struck an hour ago,” growled Jalantri under his breath.

“Perhaps,” said Hercól, “but it is too late now.”

“Not too late for one thing,” said Jalantri.

“Cayer—” Neda began.

“Be silent, girl! Be silent, both of you!”

Their leader’s voice was tight with desperation. Neda and Jalantri held still as wolves about to spring.
But spring where, on whom?
The heresy of Neda’s thought appalled her.

“I fear Neda is right about the irons,” Hercól continued. “The crew tolerates our own freedom uneasily, since Rose charged us with mutiny. They will never tolerate yours. Nor can we hide those tattoos on your necks.”

“Those tattoos are
never
hidden,” snapped Cayer Vispek, pressing the knife tighter against the other’s flesh. “We are
sfvantskor
s, not skulking thieves.”
²

“You may be reduced to worse than thieving,” said Hercól, “if you go alone into this country.”

Neda felt the readiness of her limbs, the killer’s focus trying to silence that other voice, the sister’s.
Let me do it, Jalantri. If the Cayer commands us, let me end Pazel’s life
.

“You grow careless with your words,” said Cayer Vispek. “If you truly know our ways, you know we cannot despair. For those who take the Last Oath it is a sin.”

“There is a related sin,” said Hercól, “but graver, in your teachings. Will you name it, or shall I?”

Cayer Vispek was very still. “Suicide,” he whispered.

When Hercól spoke again he did so courteously, almost with sorrow. “It is a hard thing, Cayer Vispek, but I must request your surrender.”

It was midmorning before the rescue skiff neared the
Chathrand
. Her crew was waiting in a ragged mob.

Some leaned out to help swing the hoisted boat over the scarlet rail. Most stood and watched. Never in all those months at sea had their spirits sunk so low, nor their eyes flashed so dangerously. The thirst! Not one of the eight hundred sailors had known such torturous want of water. The men’s very flesh had tightened on their bones. Their skin had peeled and blistered, and the blisters had shriveled from within. Their lips were cracked like old parchment.