"You miss Mahudia, don"t you?"
Perhaps that was the real magic: that Lenares had been able to tap into something stronger than magic. Ah, it sounds like a bard"s tale. Love conquers all.
"Yes," Lenares replied. "She shouldn"t have died. The Daughter will have to explain to me why she ate my mother. Unless she can come up with a very good reason, I think I might end up eating her."
The meal finished, the members of the group went in separate directions to attend to personal matters. Stella found Heredrew sitting on a stump, picking at his teeth.
"Thought you would have some magical system to keep your teeth clean," she said.
He shook his head.
"No? You certainly manage to keep your robes in good condition."
"Ah, well, I spare a little sorcery for that," he said. "Do you think an evil lord would be credible with food on his robes?"
She snorted. "You"re not doing a very good impression of an evil lord at the moment. Serving the Most High, allowing annoying mortals like Conal to oppose you and live, even talking civilly to your enemies the Falthans. Why, you haven"t needlessly slaughtered anyone in days."
"Weeks, actually," he said blandly. "Don"t be fooled. You might be immortal, but you"re new at it. There are many things you simply don"t perceive. For example, do you know where I get the magic from to keep my robe clean?"
She shook her head.
"From you, of course, and the others."
She froze. "What? You hurt us just to keep yourself looking good?"
"Relax," he said, smiling. "It takes an infinitesimal amount of power to maintain my clothes. My physical sh.e.l.l, on the other hand, requires enormous strength. I get that from myself, largely, now that I am prohibited the blue fire."
"Largely?"
He shrugged. "Yes, well."
"What did you think of Lenares" explanation?" she asked him.
"I followed it easily enough," he said, "though I decided it is best to deal with her by pretending she knows more than everyone else. I followed it, yes, but I can"t say I would have thought to try it. She really is an interesting woman."
"I wouldn"t have thought you were interested in women," she said carelessly, then instantly regretted the words.
"Oh? Tell me, Stella, when did you stop being interested in men? And remember, I"ve been in your head, so no lying."
"I"m sorry, Heredrew. I didn"t have the right to ask."
"But you want to know, don"t you. I"m interested in women, but I stop short of fathering children. Why would I wish potential rivals upon myself?"
"You never thought...that you would infect them?"
"With the curse? No. It would take-is that why? All those years, you never touched him?" He turned his head away. "You are a better person than I."
Stella stood and angrily brushed dirt from her breeches. "Was there ever any doubt, Kannwar? Has there ever been a person in the history of the world who couldn"t claim to be a better person than you?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I showed you my interpretation of the Domaz Skreud. When a.s.sessing a man"s life, I don"t think you can rely totally on history written by his enemies."
She handed him a water bottle. "There"s another reason you want us to travel overland, isn"t there?"
"And what would that be?"
"I think you"re afraid of what you will find in Malayu. You"re anxious about how long you"ve been away from your dungeons and battlements. You think that in your absence one of the other snakes has slithered onto your throne. A snake powerful enough to prevent you from using your magic to take us directly to Andratan. And you think this snake might well be talking into the minds of the three voice-possessed."
The sorcerer said nothing for a moment, then grunted. "Clever girl."
"Cleverer than you think," she retorted to his condescension. "I know why you are here. Why you"ve put your entire empire at risk."
"Because we were drawn off course by the power of the G.o.ds."
"No. Well, yes, that"s why we"re here in southern Bhrudwo. But I know why you agreed to follow the Most High. Why you were in Dhauria. Why you joined us."
"Oh?" He stared into her eyes, his own hypnotisingly deep pools of pain and desire. "Oh?" He lifted his finger to her face and placed it gently on her lips, jolting her entire body. "You do, don"t you. You"d best keep the thought unvoiced, Stella, lest our enemies overhear."
She could not draw her gaze away from his. He had her in thrall, was expending his magic to keep her docile, but nothing in her desired to struggle. Instead, every part of her wished to...surrender.
"It"s not our enemies you wish to keep secrets from," she murmured, her lips moving against his elegant, illusionary finger. "It"s the Most High."
He sighed then, an exhalation of longing, and drew his finger away; then reached for her and took her in his arms, enveloping her in darkness. "Yes," he whispered in her ear, his voice the merest breath. "Clever girl."
They took the east road, and walked all that day and most of the next, until they crested a ridge and came to the sea. Huddled against the coast was a port, small when compared to some in Faltha, but unexpected all the same in such a spa.r.s.ely inhabited region. And standing in the road was the woman from the tea house that Heredrew had agreed to take north with him.
"I a.s.sumed she"d decided against the trip," Robal said quietly to Stella.
"Sadly for her, she has not," Stella replied.
So their party grew by one, now numbering ten; though Stella, listening to the persistent coughing coming from the dray, and observing the concern on Moralye"s face, worried that the number might yet decline.
The girl"s name was Pernessa, a pretty, fussy name, entirely suitable for its owner, it seemed. She carried a small harp, wrapped in oiled skins, over one shoulder, and far too much baggage over the other.
"Put that on the dray," Heredrew told her.
All very well, but who would carry the baggage once they took the forest path? Stella doubted they would be taking the pony and wagon north. For that matter, what would they do with Phemanderac?
A half-hour"s pleasant walk brought them to the seaport. Sayonae, Heredrew named it, and for once he didn"t have a bad word to say about the place. The travellers had six inns to choose from-no tea houses, sadly; Stella had come to enjoy the brewed herbs-and each seemed clean and well-run, at least from the outside. Quite a feat for a port town, Stella considered.
Heredrew chose the Silver Tankard, the best of the six inns, and they filed in. Two dozen men sat around a low central table, clearly the site of communal drinking, while others filled tables around the walls. The main room was smoky and somewhat odorous with salt and sweat but otherwise pleasant, rushes rather than sawdust lining the floor, and even sporting three faded tapestries on the walls. One, Stella was sure, depicted the Undying Man on his throne.
The sorcerer spoke with the proprietor, a youngish woman with hard features, and with her permission arranged three tables together to provide enough seating for the party.
It wasn"t until the meal was served that the trouble began. Broiled fish and baked potatoes arrived on large platters, each carried by two women. One of them dropped her end of the platter on the table, stared with narrowed eyes at the party, then had a whispered word in the proprietor"s ear.
"I"m going to have to ask you to leave," the hard-faced woman said to them in a voice loud enough to carry throughout the room. "Cylene"s been in enough trouble recently without taking up with you men. You a.s.sured me you were respectable, but my customers won"t be having goings-on like this. The girl"s antics are well known. Now, out with you."
Heredrew drew himself up. "I"m sure-"
"You"re about to go on about a misunderstanding," the proprietor said. "Don"t waste your breath. Your only misunderstanding is mistaking the Silver Tankard for a brothel. Out, before I set my men on you."
Two men with cudgels approached the group.
"I don"t want to have to call Gul and Haff onto you, but call them I will. Move."
Stella nudged the Undying Man in the ribs. "Don"t make any fuss," she said. "Let"s sort this out by talking, not by magic. We"ll speak to Pernessa and uncover her deception."
"Very well," Heredrew grated. "But she"ll not be travelling a step further with us."
"Of course," Stella murmured. "Can"t have someone pretending to be someone they"re not, can we?"
As they reached the door, having pa.s.sed through a gauntlet of dark mutterings from the townsfolk, the proprietor called out: "Not you, Cylene. I"ll be taking you home to your family. The rest of you can leave."
"And our coin for the meal and accommodation?"
"Is forfeit, tall man. Read the sign." She pointed to a small metal square on which words had been scribed. Stella certainly hadn"t noticed it. "Those who don"t abide by the rules don"t get refunds."
Heredrew snorted, then muttered, "The first place on the Fisher Coast I"ve ever seen my rules properly enforced, and it had to be here and now."
"I said stay, Cylene!" the hard-featured woman cried. Stella went to put a hand on Pernessa"s arm, but it wasn"t her the woman strode towards, a soup ladle brandished menacingly.
It was Lenares.
Stella tried reason one last time. "But she"s been with us for weeks. Why would we deceive you? We are already disgraced in the town; what do we have to gain from furthering a deception? We"re telling you the truth!"
A crowd had gathered in the town square. A misnomer: the s.p.a.ce was circular, with a scaffold in the centre, noose swaying slightly in the late afternoon sea breeze. It was as though the buildings had drawn away equidistant from the scaffold. Stella had seen nothing like this in any other Bhrudwan town, but this was the northern extremity of the Fisher Coast. Perhaps justice was more brutal here.
The townspeople weren"t quite ready to hang anyone, but they clearly could not understand why these strangers wanted to claim one of their own.
For one of their own Lenares clearly was. Person after person talked of how Cylene had been a permanent fixture in the town, growing up in a famously large family, and, with the death of her father, had learned to fend for herself from a young age. Lenares denied it all, of course, with an entirely credible look of puzzlement on her face. Stella would have believed her without question-except how could she say with certainty where Lenares had come from? By her own admission she had been deposited in Raceme by a hole in the world. Now, in the light of the townspeople"s claims, the story sounded dubious at best. Was the Daughter really held captive by this woman? Had there been, was there still, a hole in the world? Only now did Stella realise just how much of their understanding of this crisis depended on Lenares" word.
She decided to risk open conversation. "Don"t you think it might be time to ask Umu for help?" she called to the cosmographer.
"I told her not to, not just yet," Heredrew said from close behind Stella. "I wish to let this play out for a while."
One of the young men holding the cosmographer"s shoulders spoke up. "Cylene"s been gone for months. I should know, I saw her the night before she left. No, I can"t explain how she left aboard ship and then turns up with these strangers, clearly having come overland. But that"s Cylene. No doubt about it."
"Here they are!" a boy cried.
Everyone looked towards the landward gates, through which, amid a cloud of dust, rode at least a dozen people; the first mounted travellers Stella could remember seeing on the Fisher Coast.
Horse after horse drew up in the town square. The crowd waited patiently as the riders dismounted, tied their mounts to a hitching rail, dusted themselves off and presented themselves. A thin, pinched-looking woman in a florid pink dress came forward, unfurled a lime green parasol, which she held over her eyes to shade out the low sun, and peered at the people gathered there. Behind her, a few of the figures fingered large cudgels in their belts.
"What is the meaning of this?" she snapped out. "Why have we been summoned?"
In answer, the proprietor of the Silver Tankard pushed Lenares forward.
"So you have come home," the woman said to her, her voice nasal and haughty in tone. "What have you done to your hair?"
"That"s not Cylene, Mother," said one of the smaller boys standing behind the haughty woman.
"Of course it is. Well, girl? What do you wish to say in your defence? I hear you left on a smugglers" ship, serving as the captain"s wh.o.r.e. How do you justify our continued shame in Sayonae?"
Lenares stared at the woman, her face pale. "I don"t know what a wh.o.r.e is," she said, "and I don"t know who you are."
"We brought you up to speak better than that, Cylene. Is this how your smuggler captain has corrupted you, even to the extent of coa.r.s.ening your tongue? And those clothes!" The woman turned to the riders behind her. "Boon, take your sister home. The rest of you, remain with me. I"ll have a word with these strangers, to see if thanks are in order."
"The girl goes nowhere," Heredrew said. He took six swift strides to where the townspeople stood and put a possessive arm on Lenares" shoulder.
"Boys," the woman said, quietly enough.
"You don"t want to oppose the Umertas," one of the townspeople said, his voice breathless.
"I thank you for the advice," Heredrew replied, "which was no doubt well meaning. But the Umertas, whoever they are, would do well not to oppose me."
"I offer you a last chance," said the woman. "Let my daughter go, or my boys will be forced to take measures."
The crowd edged back. Clearly they expected the woman"s threat to be made good.
"Don"t hurt anyone," Stella said.
"Very well." Heredrew leaned back against the scaffold, his hand still grasping Lenares" shoulder.
Eight young men, all with sandy hair and narrow noses, made for Heredrew, cudgels drawn. The sorcerer pushed Lenares behind him and stepped forward a pace, no expression on his face.
"We require you to move," said the oldest of the young men. Mid-to-late twenties, Stella reckoned.
"No."
With no further negotiation, the man drew his cudgel and aimed a blow at Heredrew"s forehead. It struck, there was no doubt of it: the crack echoed around the square. One of the younger boys grunted and fell to the ground, while Heredrew remained unmoved.
"Take a look at your brother," the sorcerer said, "and try to figure out what just happened."
The man hissed, then ran his hand through his hair, tilted his head and struck again, this time at Heredrew"s arm.
The youngest boy, a lad no more than ten years of age, shrieked and clutched at his upper arm. The man wielding the cudgel turned at the sound.
"Nasty break the boy has," Heredrew said. "It will take weeks to heal, and all that time it means someone not helping with the horses. Three, counting the first lad you struck and the person who will have to look after them both. I don"t think your mother will be pleased."
The young man backed away, returning to the line of his brothers.
"Greenstick fracture," said a girl, looking up from the young boy"s kneeling form. The first boy remained stretched out on the ground, unmoving. One of the other boys knelt beside him.
"What did you do?" the woman asked Heredrew, her voice thinner now, a mask of fear on her face. "Are you some sort of sorcerer? You"ll be reported to Andratan for this."
"I"ll save you the trouble," Heredrew said, pulling out his seal and lifting it high. "Hear this," he said, his voice amplified somehow so everyone in the square could hear it clearly. "I"ve travelled through this ignorant and backward country for the last few weeks and have seen nothing but contempt for Andratan and the servants of the Undying Man. I have been treated with disrespect. Because I have chosen to travel with guests of the empire, I have tempered my response to this. And now I have finally heard the name of Andratan invoked-as a threat."
He took a step forward, then another, and as he did so his body seemed to grow taller: ten, twenty, thirty feet tall. The crowd cried out and pushed each other to get away from the sorcerer.