Where are we? Aren asked, peering at the coast.
Its not important for you to know that right now, Syenna said in flat tones.
Aren turned to look at her as though she were joking with him. Do we have to play this game? You know I cannot swim.
Even if you could, you would never make that sh.o.r.e. Syenna shrugged. Those are the Sawtooth Mountains. Treacherous, rocky shoals and heavy breakers all along their coast. Even if you managed to make it ash.o.r.e, the mountains themselves are only pa.s.sable if you know the routes.
You seem to be familiar enough with them, Aren countered. Indeed, it occurs to me now that youve been holding back on quite a number of things from your good friend, Captain Bennis.
Syenna only gazed back at him.
Aren decided to try a different tack. So, how long was I out?
Out?
Yes, unconscious, Aren continued. I dont remember ever booking pa.s.sage on a boat, and I certainly dont remember boarding one.
Its been about four days, Syenna replied.
Four days? Aren chuckled and then winced at the resurging pain in his head. You must have hit me harder than I thought.
Well, to be honest"
That should be different, Aren scoffed.
We have an apothecary who has been keeping you in a cooperative, very still, and gratefully silent condition since then, Syenna continued, ignoring his remark. We will be arriving in another day or so at our destination, so I thought it best to get you awake and clear minded before we make landfall.
Arens head was still spinning, but at least he was able to see through the pain. He was unreasonably thirsty, although the thought of drinking anything"let alone eating"still revolted him. I dont suppose you would be interested in telling just where we are landing?
Youll know when we arrive in the morning or perhaps midday, Syenna said, if the offsh.o.r.e winds hold through the night.
Then if youre not interested in telling where we are going, Aren offered, trying to appear more casual than his head would allow. Whatever they had given him, he decided, was still playing havoc with his head and his stomach at the same time. Then perhaps we could talk about how we got here. Last thing I remember was my standing in front of you, boldly prepared to defend your honor against the enemy when you hit me from behind with something that felt rather like a war hammer.
As if I needed you to defend me! Syennas nostrils flared.
Well, all Im saying is, Aren said, pursing his lips into a slight pout as he spoke, that I was trying to behave in a courteous and honorable manner when you betrayed me.
Betrayed you! Syennas face reflected her contemptuous disbelief.
You must admit"Aren smiled at his own joke"it was hardly honorable to clout me from behind.
How dare you speak of honor? Syenna seethed. When have the Obsidians ever acted with honor?
Actually, I think on reflection you will see that the Obsidian Empire has always acted with absolute honor, Aren countered.
Their honor!
Of course its their honor! The argument was tiring Aren, but he certainly did not want to show any weakness before Syenna now. What other kind of honor is there?
An honor that does not destroy! Syenna said, anger rising in her face. Honor that does not kill does not oppress!
Do you remember what the world was like before the rise of the Obsidian Empire"what it is like still in places where the empire has yet to extend its rule? Aren shook his head in derision. Squabbling, petty kingdoms barely worthy of their name pounding one another back into the dirt before anyone could accomplish any real progress toward order. Everyone was too busy making sure their neighbor was dragged back down into the mud that no one could stand up. The world was in chaos, Syenna. The old civilizations of legend were gone in the Fall, wiped out from the face of the world. It was a chance for us to start again, and all weve done since is beat one another up over crumbs. The Obsidian Empire brings order to the chaos, honorable honor, if you like. And Id like to point out that it wasnt me who struck a friend from behind!
I didnt kill you, Syenna offered.
Well, thats a comfort, Aren said with a dark laugh.
Thats the difference between what we serve, Syenna continued, more earnestly. Men and women should act out of their desire to do what is right and just for one another. That comes from the heart, not the point of a sword. The Obsidian Order wants to enforce change with pain and death. Thats not order, and it certainly isnt justice.
You want to talk about justice? My father was a just man, Aren said, his fist balled up at his side as he spoke, his head pounding. A good man and a kind man. He was a metalsmith with a small forge. He loved my mother. He was strict with me. We lived in what was barely a village at the junction of a couple of nameless roads. But there were several local groups of brigands who fancied themselves as the masters of all they could see. Unfortunately, each of them thought that my fathers little piece of ground was theirs by some divine right. Each in turn washed back and forth over my fathers patch of ground until there was nothing left of it or my father. No one bothered about me or that patch of blood-soaked ground until the Obsidians came and put an end to the chaos. Their law was justice.
Whose justice? Syenna shot back. Whose law? Yes, the Obsidians brought order to your frenzied and confusing life, but at what cost? You know where youve been, Bennis, but you dont know where they are taking you taking all us.
I thought you didnt want to tell me our destination, Aren groused.
I wont tell you where this ship is taking us, but I can tell you where the Obsidian Empire will drag us all, Syenna said. The empire is corrupt. The Central Cabal cares only for its own status and power. They only see their growing reach and grip on the land and its people. They speak of high ideals, but all they do is pour the blood and cries of those same people back into the land. Youve seen it in the cities youve taken the lives youve cut short.
That was different, Aren said. He was having trouble following her reasoning. That was war.
Its so easy for you to put that in a little box as though it had no connection to anything else, Syenna snapped. As though the order imposed by the Obsidians was justification enough for a future of enslavement, torture, and despair.
Ive heard all this before, Aren said, shaking his head. Those words fell from the lips of every petty ruler and self-proclaimed king or priestess who saw the Obsidians coming to knock them off their little thrones and bring their misguided mobs under one law, one justice, and one empire. It may surprise you to know that I dont approve of everything the Obsidians do. Ive seen things done things that were not particularly pleasant for me, but Ive told myself every time that for all its faults and for all its mistakes and cruelties, its still better than what Ive seen of the rest of the world.
I think thats enough air for you, Syenna said, though Aren could see the muscles in her cheeks working to control her response. You want more control and order, Ill oblige you by putting you back in your chains.
So, were not that different after all. Aren smiled sadly. Show me something better, Syenna! Convince me! The Obsidian Empire gave me purpose and a solid place to stand in a world that was all shifting sands. They saved me.
The throbbing in his head reminded him that he had gotten too loud.
So, tell me, Syenna, Aren demanded. What did the Obsidians ever do to you?
Syenna gripped his arm to escort him belowdecks but said nothing more.
CHAPTER.
12.
Amanda Amanda sat, as she did each day, in the seat of the bay window of the small cottage, and looked down the street. Through the small squares of wavy gla.s.s fixed into the lead latticework, she could look over the top of the harbor town of Etceter to the docks beyond. Each day she would watch as the ships came down the coast from the northwest, or along the eastern sh.o.r.es as they navigated the fringes of the tempestuous Bay of Storms. On a good day, she might catch the dark outline of Siren Isle sitting on the horizon to the north, but far more often, the perpetual squalls that gave the bay its name would veil it from her sight.
Somewhere beyond the darkness, beyond the lightning and the fury, Amanda knew each day that Syenna would be coming.
Amanda shifted her legs painfully beneath her. Although they always ached to one degree or another, and sometimes with excruciating pain, she had been determined since her sister had last departed, to surprise her by standing on her own when she greeted her at the door.
It had now been more than ten months to the day since Amanda had watched Syenna walk down the length of the dirt road and sail away. Every day since, she had begged and wheedled Sarah, the woman who took care of her, to help her to stand and try to once more walk. Sarah had been appalled and, at first, refused. But Amanda was determined, and would not be distracted from her purpose by tapestries, needlework, or tatting. In the battle between their wills, Sarah at last succ.u.mbed to Amandas unrelenting and stubborn a.s.sault and surrendered, on the condition that Amanda continue her tatting and to never, ever let the baroness know that Sarah had ever been a party to such dangerous nonsense.
Amanda winced again, and she pushed her legs free of the blanket that covered them. She looked down at her legs, her brow furling. She tried to convince herself that they looked healthier, that they were not the same emaciated, twisted horrors that they were when last Syenna had left. Had she not seen some improvement? Had she not managed to stand on her own and nearly counted to fifty before she collapsed? And had she not, just three weeks ago, when Sarah had gone to the marketplace as she did every morning after breakfast, stood all on her own in the same bay window and taken two steps into the small room? Amanda was certain she had accomplished it before she had fainted, and she refused to believe Sarahs a.s.sertions that she had dreamed the whole thing.
No, Amanda thought, as she covered up her shriveled and misshapen legs once more, she was certain that things were getting better.
As she patted down the blanket, her eyes fixed on her hands. Her fingers were extraordinarily long and delicate, matched by her thumbs. Both were incredibly strong and capable of doing the most intricate work. Amandas tatting lace, embroidery, and tapestries were in great demand in Etceter, and the baroness herself purchased all her work. Indeed, the baroness had required that she alone was to purchase the work. Amanda saw this as a great honor, although she had begun to wonder of late why the baroness was so adamant about keeping her work to herself.
Without a thought, Amanda reached up with her perfect hands to push back her long hair behind her ears. Her locks were so light in hue as to be nearly white. As she reached back, her nearly perfect hands caught against the long tips of her pointed ears.
Her hands, it seemed, were the one thing that the Obsidian sorcerers got right that day.
Amanda closed her eyes, determined once again by a sheer effort of will to remember what had happened. The fragments of her memories spun through her mind like shards of gla.s.s that had been shattered against stone, shards she was trying desperately to put back in their original places.
She was sitting next to her father as he held the reins. The wagon swayed beneath them as her father sang a silly song for her at the top of his lungs. Mother and sister were in the back of the wagon, watching the rest of the trade caravan as it wound across the prairie, so Amanda had her father all to herself. She laughed at his nonsense song beneath the bright, sunlit sky.
Another splinter. Black night under a canopy of stars. Cries and screams tearing apart the stillness. Mother with her hand over Amandas mouth, over Syennas mouth. Whispering desperate words she could no longer remember nor understand.
Smaller shards. Running into the tall gra.s.s. Dont look back. Syenna is before her Syenna is gone. Father? Dark sounds, wet sounds. Sounds of slaughter. Turn around, Amanda. Turn around for Father.
Fragments. Bright skies and dark robes. Your obedience is required. The sunshine is a patch that gets smaller and smaller as they lead her deeper beneath their fortress. In the service of the Obsidian Cause.
We will make you better.
We will make it useful.
Again That did not work. Try it again.
Amanda opened her eyes. The peaceful light shining down on Etceter almost surprised her. She shivered despite the warmth of the sunlight through the gla.s.s. She knew that the memories were there and that they held secrets about her past. But the effort to remember them exhausted her and, as she had done for uncounted days before, she set them aside with a sigh and hoped that tomorrow, perhaps, she would remember them.
Etceter, she thought, was a very pleasant place to live, even if coming by that life was difficult. It was the sole deepwater port on the southern sh.o.r.e of the Bay of Storms, and as such, had become the gateway to the Southern Straits, the only access for the overland trade routes from Midmaer through Quel, or from the small harbor at the mouth of the River Fang. In days long past, Etceter had been a pirate haven, and the town had grown up as a wild and lawless place. Its name was even taken in those days, the word meaning and so forth, which seemed to perfectly fit a village that had grown up as something of an afterthought. Over time, however, the pirate barons discovered that trade was more profitable"and certainly better for ones health"than was piracy. The original barons transformed their trade from cutla.s.s to commerce and tried to bury their past under as much respectability as they could purchase. While all this gave Etceter a certain element of prosperity, the town itself was far removed from the rest of civilization, and kept at this distance due in large part to the inhospitable terrain of the entire region. Even around Etceter, which was built adjacent to the mouth of the River Barren, the surrounding ground was rocky and difficult to till. Farming was largely an exercise in frustration, with sheep ranching being only marginally more successful. And so, the living breath of Etceter was the constant inhale and exhale of commerce and shipping.
The result of all this was a town of moderate size sprawling out from the base of the Barons Keep, which was kept safe largely due to the fact that it was too far across the barren countryside to be worth the trouble to attack it from the land, and too dangerous to cross the Bay of Storms to be worth the trouble to attack from the water.
Perhaps, Amanda reflected, that was why Syenna decided that they should both settle here. It was a place where everyone preferred not to have too many questions asked about their past and, in their turn, offered the same accepting courtesy to others. Here, perhaps, was the only place Amanda could be settled on the steps leading into the cottage, her tatting pillow in her lap and the ever-attentive Sarah sitting on a stool nearby, and not draw unwanted attention. Roselyn, the town gossip, could stop by and, leaning across the low stone fence surrounding their yard, tell her the tales of people inside the town and all their secrets, true or otherwise. Chaox, the dockmaster, was considered by all the town to be a gruff, unpleasant man of enormous strength and temper, but he always took off his hat whenever he saw Amanda and spoke to her only in the kindest of tones. He would often stop by to sit with her and gently tell her tales that he had heard off the ships that had docked at the port. Once, when Sarah had discovered two young boys from the town stealing vegetables from their small garden, Amanda managed to calm her down, and had so charmed the boys that they returned the next day to pull her weeds. She then repaid them with some of the tales she had heard from Chaox the day before. Ever since then, the boys returned each week to do ch.o.r.es for her in return for the sound of her voice and her laughter.
All that changed, however, the week before. Marissa, the emissary of the baroness, had come up the road to Amandas cottage and, to Sarahs surprise, stepped inside at once. She explained to the two astonished women that the council of leaders had been called from many of the adjacent lands, and that they would all be converging here in Etceter for the conference. It was the specific request of the baroness that Amanda remain in her home until the conference was concluded, and to take care not to be seen until Marissa returned.
From that day to this, Amanda had remained in her home, and visits from her neighbors had stopped. Yet, as she had done each noonday since her sister had left, she returned to the seat in her window and gazed down the long street that pa.s.sed the homes, shops, and the keep that made up Etceter, to the docks and the waters beyond.
Something down the coastline to the east caught her eye. There were already a number of large ships at the docks, each square rigged and flying different flags, but the approaching ship was smaller, with a triangular sail.
Perhaps today, Amanda murmured. Perhaps today.
Syenna stood on the docks, paying off the captain of the bark they had hired. The gold had only been acquired from the baroness after Syenna had secured the prisoner in the stockade and made certain he would stay there. The bark captain now satisfied, and her duties fulfilled for the time being, Syenna turned and looked up the main road of Etceter to face the cottage near the crest of the hill.
She gnawed for a moment on her lower lip. The cottage was the one place in the world that, for months, she had longed to go and the one place she now dreaded more than any other.
Her infiltration of the Obsidian command had succeeded far beyond anyones expectations. Syennas knowledge of the land throughout the Midmaer and the Grunvald regions had proven to be too valuable an a.s.set for the Obsidians to ignore. She was soon attached to General Karpasics command, giving her advice and her guidance, while at the same time relaying, when she could, their plans back to the baroness through intermediary messengers.
And then fate had delivered into her hands an opportunity too good to pa.s.s up: an ancient relic from before the Fall. Arens discovery of an obscure sword in a lost tomb was, in and of itself, relatively unimportant. A single sword, regardless of its magical properties, would not likely turn the tide of the Obsidian expansion. But as a symbol of their cause, Syenna knew that the blade of an Avatar could inspire swords in the hands of thousands more. If she could deliver the sword into the hands of the baroness, then she, in turn, could bring it to the Council of Might"the coalition of warlords and city-states that opposed the Obsidians"and use it to raise a proper army against the Obsidian Cause.
And, of course, if the sword did have magical properties, then it was vital that such a weapon be denied the Obsidians before they could determine how to use it.
The problem was Captain Aren Bennis.
That the relic sword might actually be magically cursed struck a deep and fearful chord in Syenna. General Karpasics reaction to the sword, the news of which had run through the camp like wildfire, had only deepened her concerns. It appeared that this ancient icon of ultimate good could only be handled by a commander in the service of everything the icon stood against.
Syenna had already sent word to gather the Council of Might, and feared that the Obsidians might discover the importance of the sword at any time.
The solution was unfortunately obvious: to steal the sword she had no choice but to steal the captain as well. General Karpasic had been unwittingly cooperative in providing an opportunity. She and her a.s.sociates had moved against Aren deep in the Blackblade range and then used an old pa.s.s through the eastern peaks to cross back into the Midmaer. They stayed off the trade routes, following smaller trails along the foothills of the Blackblade, southward to the River Fang. This they followed west, to where the river emptied into the Bay of Storms. There they camped for two days until, on the morning of the third, she saw the sails of the bark Mistral approaching up the coast from the south.
Everything had gone according to plan, but she found herself increasingly annoyed by their prisoner during the journey. Other than expressing a certain amount of chagrin on allowing himself to be captured, Captain Bennis seemed remarkably nonchalant about the situation. Syenna had been braced for recriminations, anger, and disdain; she was prepared to stand against him on her moral high ground with righteous indignation. That Aren seemed only bemused was frustrating her beyond endurance. She had wanted to shout at him from her own pain, to scream into his face all her reasons for what she did and for who she was.
Now, at the bottom of the dirt street that ran through the center of Etceter, Syenna swung her kit back over her shoulder, hung her head, and started her climb. The short walk between the shops and homes that she had known in her youth seemed to be the longest journey she had ever taken.
Syenna paused before the house. The bay window was empty. She pushed through the gate in the stone wall and had barely placed her foot on the first step up when the door to the cottage was suddenly flung open.
Amanda stood in the doorway. Her twisted, misshapen legs were shaking with the effort as her long, delicate hands clung to the framework of the door. Her hair was resplendent in the sunshine, and her large, astonishing eyes were overflowing with tears.
Oh, sister! Amanda exclaimed, her voice quavering as she spoke.
Syenna dropped her bag and rushed forward, catching her sister as Amandas strength gave out and she fell. She held her sister close to her in her arms.
You are my pain, she thought. You are all my reasons. You are who I am.
Amanda sobbed out her joy and relief. I wanted to give you something when you came home again!
You have, Syenna replied as tears welled up in her eyes. You have given me everything.
CHAPTER.