Lessek's Key

THE FJORD

Mark Jenkins awakened to the sound of a gull squawking at the passing boat. The high-pitched caws reminded him of summers at Jones Beach. For a moment he thought there was something significant he was supposed to remember, something about the beach, or Long Island, then he let the notion fade. There would be time later to dwell on it.

He lay back in the narrow bow of the sailing vessel he had stolen for their covert attack on the Prince Marek, his head on Brynne’s folded blanket, ignoring everyone else. Above, the single sail was taut, but apart from the salty tang of organic decay drifting out from the inter-tidal zone – he didn’t need to look up to know that they were near the shore – he couldn’t feel the breeze which pushed the boat along. The sun was bright and warm, too warm for autumn, and as it fell across his face, Mark wished that sleep would take him again. There was perhaps no more perfectly innocent time than the few seconds after waking, when, for three or four breaths, there would be no pain, no stress, no nothing. In that brief space of time Mark sometimes forgot where he was, even who he was.

And today’s awakening would be the worst, for Brynne was gone.

Mark gazed into the near-cloudless pale-blue sky, staring at nothing, until he was jolted from his introspection by two stony cliffs coming into view. The gigantic granite gateposts stood nearly two hundred feet high, towering over the sailboat as it passed between them. Mark watched the sail flutter and collapse as the light wind was cut off and the boat slowed nearly to a stop. As the cliffs swallowed him up they cropped the expanse of cloudless sky into a thin ribbon, reminding him of an arroyo near Idaho Springs, a narrow canyon – a killing field for Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper or John Wayne in the closing minutes of any one of hundreds of westerns he had watched as a boy. He imagined this view, the stony walls, the powder-blue stripe, was one dozens of C-list actors had enjoyed moments after being thrown from the saddle with the hero’s. 45 slugs buried in their chests. But that was home; out here it wasn’t an arroyo, or a box canyon: here, it would be… what? A fjord? Good enough, he supposed, not really caring, a fjord.

Brynne was dead. Missing, Garec said, but Mark knew better. The explosion as the great ship blew across Orindale Harbour had been devastating. Gilmour hadn’t seen her on the main deck, and Mark knew she was on board – he had let her go. There was nowhere else she could have been except on the quarterdeck, stalking some unsuspecting guard, or throttling the life out of a Malakasian sailor. She would have had no chance as the planks beneath her feet disintegrated into splinters – one of which had become lodged in his own neck. Gilmour had yanked it out later; Mark had it wrapped in a piece of cloth and shoved into his pocket: a grisly souvenir.

‘I love you,’ Brynne had whispered in almost comic mimicry of Mark’s clumsy profession only minutes earlier. He had laughed at her accent: she had sounded like a German tourist. But she was perfect, for him, and for his world. They were supposed to be together. Looking down at him from the aft rail, she had looked like any other woman – any other perfect woman, a doctor or teacher, an accountant, even. That was from the shoulders up, away from the bristling array of daggers, dirks and blades she wore across her chest and at her hips, the weapons that marked her as a doomed revolutionary fighting an unbeatable enemy. It would be a long time before Mark recovered.

He ignored the looming cliffs, wrapped himself in Brynne’s blanket and ran a finger over his cracked lips. He felt his neck, where Gilmour had removed the black splinter. The wound was infected, seeping pus, and as Mark poked the swelling, discoloured fluid spurted out. He found a piece of stained sailcloth and dipped it into the salt water, then dabbed gingerly at the jagged tear. He folded the cloth into a small square, pressed it against the wound and left it there, its coolness comforting.

His wound attended to, Mark buried his nose in the blanket and inhaled, hoping to catch her aroma, but all he could smell was pungent woodsmoke. He felt tears come again and stared up between the cliffs, Heaven’s granite gate, trying to control himself. Weeping wouldn’t bring her back, and he didn’t want the others to see his weakness. The grey and white gull drifted overhead, cawing a warning. Mark felt as though he had been switched off, paralysed by grief. Would he die here? That question had bothered him for weeks, but now it no longer mattered.

Listlessness and rage warred inside his head, making him feel nauseous and exhausted. Only by shortening his breath, taking gulps of air, could he keep from vomiting all over himself. Finally, as he regained his equilibrium, he sat up and reached for a skin of water. He focused his eyes on Garec and Gilmour, who were talking quietly in the stern.

‘I wonder how far in it goes.’ Though still too pale, Garec had been getting stronger since Steven had pulled the arrow from his lung, but his face looked haunted. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes darted nervously from left to right.

‘We should continue on.’ Gilmour looked distrustful of the granite gates, as if he feared Eldarn’s own Gary Cooper might be up there, taking aim over the open sights of a lever-action rifle. ‘This fjord will shelter us while we find someplace to put ashore.’

Garec looked around. ‘There’s nowhere to land here; we’ll have to go further in,’ he said. It was the midday aven, three days since Nerak had blown the Prince Marek out of the water. Now they needed a flat bit of ground before Steven’s watch read five o’clock, for it was almost time to open the portal. ‘But we’ve lost our tail-wind.’ He nodded towards the sail, hanging flaccid from the single spar. ‘We won’t get far at this rate.’

Humming softly, Gilmour traced a weaving pattern through the air; with a turn of his hand, a gentle breeze snaked into the fjord, caught itself up in the limp sailcloth and began pushing the stolen vessel inland. With a satisfied look he asked, ‘What time is it?’

Garec looked at Steven’s watch in consternation. ‘Um, three andlet’s see, the rune four represents a twenty, doesn’t it, so three and twenty. We have almost two full revolutions of the long stalk before we have to open the portal.’

‘Two hours. Less than an aven,’ Gilmour confirmed. ‘That’s not much time.’ With another gesture he increased the wind thrumming through the narrow canyon. ‘We’ll give it an hour. If we haven’t found level ground by then, I’ll swim the portal over and scale the cliff face. I’m sure I can open it up there.’ The Larion Senator, still using the emaciated body of Caddoc Weston, the Orindale fisherman, pointed towards the top of the fjord.

‘All right.’ Garec knew better than to doubt Gilmour’s abilities – he might look like a frail old man, but Garec was quite certain he would scamper up the stone cliffs with all the agility of a mountain goat. ‘I hope we find someplace soon. Mark needs a break, some hot food… gods, Gilmour, he needs any food. Have you seen his neck?’

‘He’ll be fine. There are things no sorcery or wisdom can change, and he is in the throes of one such thing right now. Time is the only thing we can give him.’

‘And what of Steven? What if he fails to come through again today?’

Gilmour heard the growing agitation in Garec’s voice. ‘Then we will wait until his watch reads 5.00 again and we will open the portal. Each time we do, we will be closer to Sandcliff Palace, of course.’

‘What if he’s not coming back?’

‘He’ll be back.’

‘But you said if the portal in Steven and Mark’s house was closed, he could fall anywhere in their world. Is that right?’ Garec tried to remember what Gilmour had told them about the Larion Senate’s far portal system.

‘Yes.’

‘So, what if he was dropped someplace… I don’t know… inhospitable?’

‘Inhospitable?’

‘Right. Someplace frozen solid, or filled with molten rock, or rife with angry marsh adders-you know, inhospitable. You heard them: it’s a place with flying machines and self-propelled car-wagons. Why would it take him this long to get here?’ Garec’s anxiety was almost tangible.

‘I’m not sure, Garec, but I do know that it’s too early to give up hope, or to start doubting him.’

‘I am not doubting him, Gilmour, I am worried that something has happened to him.’ He sighed, and brought up the subject he knew the old man had been avoiding. ‘And Nerak went through right after him…’

‘It was perhaps five or six breaths later.’ Gilmour had obviously been pondering this question himself. ‘About as long as it would take him to get up off the deck, cast his final spell and then leap the three or four paces to the far portal.’ It had been longer than that – not much longer, just a moment or two, but time enough for the dark prince to make eye-contact with his former colleague. ‘Well done, Fantus,’ Nerak had whispered, a concession of one round lost. We’ll play again later, Nerak’s eyes had said, and in them, Gilmour had seen the end. He was not powerful enough, and failing to kill Nerak that night – Nerak could not be killed – had cost him dearly, for now Nerak knew the extent of Gilmour’s power. He had felt it in the mystical blows the old man had landed.

‘I barely slowed him down,’ Gilmour muttered.

‘What’s that?’

‘What-? Oh, nothing. What were we talking about?’ The man seemed to age before Garec’s eyes. ‘Oh, yes, Steven. It wasn’t much time, but as long as Steven remembered to close the portal as soon as he passed across the Fold, he’ll be fine. There was ample time to shut the other end down before Nerak disappeared.’

‘So, in Steven’s prolonged absence, we must assume that the portal in his home was already closed and that wherever he fell is closer to Idahocolorado than wherever Nerak fell. Because if Nerak reaches Steven and Mark’s home first…’ He hesitated.

‘Then all here is lost.’

‘What about those?’ Garec motioned towards the hickory staff and the wool-wrapped leather-bound book Gilmour had tossed into the sailboat three nights earlier.

The old man sighed and took out his pipe, then felt through his pockets for a pouch of tobacco. ‘They represent great power; that’s true, but only Steven can wield the hickory staff.’

Garec reached tentatively for the length of wood; for a moment he looked like a child caught stealing a pastry through an open bakery window. ‘Why?’ He released the tiller and took up the staff in both hands. ‘Why won’t it work for you or-’ He looked over at Mark. ‘Perhaps for him?’ He didn’t even consider that the staff might respond to his own commands.

‘That’s a mystery to me, Garec’ Gilmour abandoned his quest for tobacco and took hold of the tiller. ‘I believe Mark is correct in his assumption that Nerak has no idea what force is hidden within it, and that alone has given the dark prince reason to fear it. However, Nerak is not accustomed to fearing very much and he is… I suppose it’s best to say he is out of practice at fearing anything.’

‘So, in Nerak’s mind, the staff is something you have constructed for Steven, and therefore it falls within the expectations he has for the limits of your power?’

‘Right. Something he supposes is of little threat to him.’ Gilmour looked over at the stark granite cliff. Well done, Fantus. Nerak’s ironic words chilled his skin; he shook his head in an effort to focus on the conversation.

‘And the book?’ Garec made no move to reach for the ancient tome. ‘Can you use it?’

‘That we’ll find out soon enough.’ Gilmour pressed his lips together in a tight smile. ‘I may have made a grave mistake there.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The night I fled Sandcliff Palace, I left everything – all the writings, books, scrolls, everything. I just fled as fast as I could, with my shoulder hanging useless and my ankle flopping back and forth. I was numb, and far too scared to consider that one day I might need Lessek’s library.’ He adjusted their heading to move the little catboat around a tight bend in the fjord. ‘This book tells me that Nerak has done much more than reflect on his studies.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I have always known that Nerak spends most of his time sequestered in Welstar Palace working through spells, memorising incantations, trying to weave together all the threads he needs to operate the spell table – so he can rend a sizeable gate in the Fold

…’

Garec finished his friend’s thought, ‘But you never imagined he would use Lessek’s journals to speed up the process.’

‘I thought it had all been destroyed.’ Gilmour shook his head despondently. ‘I was there: it was a massive explosion; most everything in the library was reduced to rubble.’

‘Yet Lessek himself has sent you back-’

‘For the Windscrolls, yes. If Pikan was right that night, we’ll need the third Windscroll.’

‘So that one wasn’t destroyed?’

‘I don’t know, Garec. I honestly don’t. I thought the entire collection was lost, but when I saw this book on the Prince Marek I realised that Nerak went back and retrieved-’

‘At least this one,’ Garec broke in. ‘He went back to get this book.’ He started to point at it with the hickory staff but recoiled at the thought of the two magical artefacts coming in contact with one another.

Gilmour chuckled wryly. ‘Yes, at least this one, but I have to assume the Windscrolls are still there and that the secret to Nerak’s weakness is in their text.’

Nerak’s weakness lies elsewhere.’ Garec echoed Lessek’s cryptic statement. ‘It must be in the Windscrolls.’

‘It might.’ He spotted a satchel tucked beneath the transom and a real smile crossed his face as he pulled out a leather pouch of tobacco. ‘That’s where we’ll start, anyway.’

‘Mark seems to think this has something to do with it.’ Garec returned the hickory staff to its place beside the book.

‘We can hope, Garec. And if Steven retrieves Lessek’s key and returns here safely, we will have several very powerful allies.’ Gilmour decided it was time to change the subject. ‘What does the watch say now?’

Steven’s watch showed both the stalks on the five rune as Garec charted Gilmour’s progress down the precipitous cliff, the curiously small tapestry that was the far portal folded beneath one arm. The sorcerous breeze was stilled to a whisper and Garec had little trouble keeping the boat steady against the fjord’s southern wall. Its bow nestled snugly in a crack between two boulders and the wooden hull thunked gently against the stone in perfect time with the gentle rise and fall of the water. That drum-like beat was the only sound in the fjord and the silence weighed heavily on Garec. He felt uncomfortably warm, despite the sun dropping steadily in the distance.

Garec could make out Mark Jenkins’ lumpy form, now bundled inside several blankets, but in the shadows he couldn’t see if Mark was asleep. When the foreigner rasped at him from the semi-darkness, Garec jumped, shouting in surprise and nearly tumbling overboard.

‘Is he back?’

‘Rutting lords! You scared me!’ Garec sat back down clumsily.

Without moving, Mark asked again, ‘Is he back? Is Steven here?’

Garec frowned. ‘Sorry. Not yet.’

‘Where are we?’

‘My guess is that we’re at least two days’ ride north of Orindale. I’ve heard of these cliffs, but have never travelled far enough up the coast to see them before. We came into the fjord hoping to find someplace to put ashore and roll out the far portal – we couldn’t see anything particularly promising north along the coast, and we didn’t want to risk Steven’s return through an unopened port, so it made sense to find a beach or a flat rock before the watch said five o’clock.’ Now his eyes had grown used to the dim light, Garec could see Mark peering up the craggy wall in an effort to spot Gilmour.

‘But there was nothing?’

‘No.’ Garec shook his head. ‘So Gilmour scaled the wall and opened the portal up there.’

‘How far have we come into the fjord?’ Mark made no effort to lift his head; Garec could give him an accurate synopsis of their progress.

‘Not far… maybe a morning’s ride. Gilmour is helping out with a breeze, but it’s slow going, lots of twists and turns, too many submerged rocks.’ He peered up at Gilmour himself, then asked, ‘Are you hungry, Mark? There’s still plenty of food from Orindale: wine, beer, smoked gansel, anything.’

‘Not now, thanks.’ Mark sounded genuinely appreciative. ‘Maybe later.’

‘Right. That’s fine, later. Just let me know.’

‘Garec?’

‘What?’ He took several steps towards the bow, then, not wanting to intrude, sat on his haunches and stared into the shadows. ‘What can I do?’

Mark whispered, but Garec heard the question with no difficulty. ‘Did it hurt?’

Recalling the fiery pain that had slithered and scratched its way across his side, gnawing through his flesh like a subterranean creature armed with spindles of needle teeth, Garec was forced to take a moment before answering. ‘Yes, it did. It was much worse than I would ever have imagined.’

‘I want you to teach me to shoot, Garec. I want to get good at it – maybe I’ll not ever be as good as you or Versen, but I want to hit what I choose. Maybe it won’t be in the heart every time, but as long as it hurts, I don’t mind.’ Mark made a shuffling sound, shifting his position and leaning forward in earnest. ‘Will you teach me to shoot?’

‘I don’t know if I can,’ the Ronan bowman said.

‘What do you mean?’ Mark was indignant. ‘You’re the best archer in Eldarn. You might be the best archer anywhere, my world included.’

‘I don’t know if I can pick it up again… if I can do it anymore.’

‘You can, Garec,’ Mark murmured. ‘I’m not asking you to kill anyone. I just want you to teach me how.’ There was a long pause and Mark added, ‘I will take care of the killing.’

‘I don’t know how to explain it, but once you do it, kill someone, they never leave you alone. Each of them – and I have killed many, Mark, I regret that I have – they never leave you.’ He struggled for the right words. ‘I think that’s why, when I finally took one, right in the ribs, it was a perfect shot. I should have died. If it hadn’t been for Steven, I would have died. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Does that make sense? And with my second chance, I’m not going to be a killer. I can’t do it anymore.’

‘You’ve chosen a bad time to grow a conscience, Garec.’ Mark untangled the blankets and hauled himself to his feet. He looked dreadful. His sweater was stained a deeper red where his neck had bled, and he had a dirty piece of cloth pressed against the wound; a bloody circle marked the centre of the patch like the perfect-score zone on an archery target.

Mark grabbed Garec’s arm. ‘I am going to kill them, as many as we encounter, until one of them manages to kill me or until I go home to Colorado for ever,’ he said quietly, firmly. ‘Now, you don’t have to do anything, I am not demanding, but I am asking, as one who loved her, that you help me extract a bit of vengeance for her.’

‘You will regret it.’

‘I already regret it.’ With that Mark managed a smile, and Garec was truly afraid.

‘All right then. We’ll begin as soon as we put to shore. You can have my bow.’

‘I want to make my own.’

‘I’ll teach you how.’

Brexan Carderic clung to an oak log, her improvised life preserver, and allowed the tide to drag her north through the Ravenian Sea. She had taken to the water after coming upon Malakasian pickets around their watch-fires, burning vivid orange against the steel-grey of the gathering dawn. Turning back to keep from being seen, the former soldier had dragged the lump of wood into the water and began swimming with it, hoping to pick up some sort of current that would take her far enough to avoid detection from the beach.

The Twinmoon had passed, but Brexan, preoccupied with thoughts of Versen, the scarred Seron and the bloated merchant from Orindale, had no idea how long ago: though both moons still hung in the northern sky, they were obviously on their way south again. Now the twin orbs pulled the waters of the Ravenian Sea along fiercely enough that Brexan had to hold hard to the log. She stopped kicking, saving her strength for the long swim back to shore.

Once the pickets were far behind her, she steered the log towards the beach, watching as several large warehouses came into view. Feeling confident as the shoreline grew closer, Brexan let go of the log and began swimming towards a patch of swampy rushes bent with the morning tide. It was a mistake. She had underestimated both the distance, and the toll the cold water had taken on her. The log was already out of reach.

Brexan’s limbs felt heavy, useless; to counter the shivering she started treading water. ‘Stupid, stupid fool,’ she scolded herself, ‘you had to go and make this so much harder than it needed to be, didn’t you?’ She hadn’t eaten in days; only the sheer tenacity of her will had kept her moving so far. She hadn’t exactly determined to live yet, but there was Versen to be avenged. She had no idea how she would clothe and feed herself once she arrived in Orindale… maybe a little prostitution – though she would need to improve her appearance. She couldn’t see people paying good silver for an emaciated, sunken-eyed, starving deserter in rotting clothing and no shoes.

No, it would have to be theft: she would steal what she needed to get herself aright and after she had avenged Versen – killed, and killed again the fat businessman who had been the cause of her grief – she would try to find Versen’s group, Gilmour and Steven, Mark and the Ronan woman, Brynne. Joining their fight would bring her closer to Versen; that way she might find friendship, even if his death had denied her love.

But that was for the future: now, she needed to get to shore.

Brexan focused her fast-dwindling strength on moving east, towards the swampy area south of the wharf. She distracted herself from the encroaching cold by watching Orindale’s waterfront day begin. Military and merchant vessels moved through the harbour in an oddly regimented pattern; on the wooden wharf stevedores hauled nets and worked block-and-tackle cranes. Pilot boats bustled about, while sailing vessels and heavy barges moored up, reefed sheets and either took on or began unloading cargo.

As she drew slowly closer, she caught sight of a familiar vessel, anchored offshore: the schooner she and Versen had escaped from, the Falkan Dancer. With its sails neatly reefed, its rigging taut and its brass polished, the ship didn’t look like a death ship, a slaver, a traitor’s vessel. With sunshine on her spars and the vestiges of morning fog billowing across the waterline, the schooner seemed almost mystical, a vessel on which to escape with a lover for a Moon’s passage through the northern archipelago or a holiday cruise to Markon Isle, maybe.

But Brexan knew better, and warmth spread through her as she growled, ‘I am going to gut you, you rutter.’

The swim ashore suddenly felt manageable, but even so, it was a long time before she reached the protective cover of the rushes and collapsed in the foetid mud. Just a few paces up the eroded bank Brexan spotted what looked like a dry patch of ferns rimmed by a thick circlet of brambly ground cover, looking soft and safe: a place to rest for an eternity. But Brexan didn’t have the strength to heave even her tiny frame up the muddy slope; instead, she used the rushes to pull herself out of the water, peered around to be certain no one had seen her, and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

She woke to feel the prickle of cedar twigs alongside her face; twitching her nose, Brexan recoiled at the smell and sat up with a start. The sun had dried the exposed layers of her clothing, but she was lying on wet homespun and several handfuls of marsh mud had turned her hair into a stinking clay sculpture. Brexan braced herself with one hand and winced.

‘Oh, pissing demons, that hurt,’ she swore as she found several cedar thorns lodged in her palm. She pulled them out, looked around, and realised to her surprise that she had somehow moved up the muddy slope and into the fern bed. ‘How did I get up here?’ She searched the forest, then looked down the short hill to the marshy area where she had come ashore.

‘I guess I must have-’ she started, then stopped. There was a rustling below; and she saw a shadow, furtive and quick, moving to the shelter of a nearby evergreen bush.

‘Who’s that?’ Brexan called as she sprang to her feet, trying not to groan as over-used muscles protested. She reached for the knife she had last used to kill the scarred Seron, but it wasn’t there. She looked about on the ground, but she couldn’t see it there either.

She turned back to the stranger and, emboldened by fear and anger, shouted, ‘Come out here, right now. I appreciate the lift out of the mud, but I am in no mood to deal with this nonsense.’

Shaking, Brexan forced her hands into her tunic belt, hoping to steady her fingers. ‘Come out, now!’

A low growl emanated from the bushes and Brexan felt her stomach turn. She thought for a moment of fleeing, trying for the Ravenian Sea: few pursuers would follow her there. Instead, she thought of Versen, felt for the warm strength of his hand in hers. She almost reached for him, before recalling that she was on her own these days. She took a determined step towards the bush, picking up a tree branch as she moved. It was too long and too bulky to be much use, but it might keep her anonymous assailant from tackling her to the ground.

‘Are you one of Malagon’s men?’ she called again.

A second growl preceded another rustling of leaves and Brexan watched in horror as a hideous man took shape before her, stooped at the waist and covered head to heels in a torn and stained cloak. The stranger didn’t make eye contact at first. Instead, brandishing Brexan’s knife, he looked all around, assessing both her and the surrounding forest. His face was contorted by pain or rage – Brexan couldn’t decide which – and his clothes, splattered with mud and blood, were apparently rotting off his body. Bits of food of some sort congealed at the corners of his mouth; his fingernails were blackened and broken.

His stoop appeared to be the result of a back injury or a damaged shoulder, for though he pulled himself upright for a few moments, towering over Brexan, he soon returned to his crouch with a grunt of relief.

Brexan leaned forward, too terrified to move any closer, but still determined to get a clear view of the foul-smelling stranger. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked, timidly, her voice cracking in fear.

He looked into her face, just for a passing moment – but it was enough.

‘Sallax?’ Brexan whispered. ‘Sallax Farro? Is that you?’

A look of genuine surprise passed across his face, then, slipping Brexan’s knife inside his cloak, he was gone.

‘Wait,’ Brexan shouted, ‘come back here! You have my knife! Sallax!’ Putting fear to one side, she chased after him, pulling up short when she passed by the bush where he had been hiding. She was immediately assailed by an amalgam of smells left in the former partisan leader’s wake: sweat and swamp mud, tangy rotten meat and spoiled milk hit Brexan’s empty stomach and sent her reeling. The former soldier almost fainted, overbalancing into a soft fern-covered depression.

When the nausea wore off, she decided clothing, boots and something substantial to eat were urgent, then she could track Sallax and find out what had happened. The sweet aroma of broken ferns washed away the lingering traces of Sallax and she took a moment to savour the fresh scent, wondering why he appeared to have been so horribly afflicted – and why he seemed to be carrying the contents of a compost heap around in his cloak. Questions for later: he must be in disguise, perhaps working his way into the city via some trash barge along the river.

Less than two avens later, Brexan was pulling on a pair of polished leather boots and tucking the flared ends of her new leggings in. She used a piece of sack-cloth to dry her hair, though not very successfully, so she decided to spend the remainder of the day eating and drinking, as close to a tavern fire as she could get without melting.

Outfitting herself had been easier than she had expected; lined with waterfront pubs and shops, the Orindale wharf was such a hive of activity that few people took notice as she made her way along the plank walkway into the city. She had straightened her clothes and cleaned off as much of the mud as possible. And while it would have taken no more than a cursory look to detect the miserable condition of her tunic and hose, no one was interested.

It hadn’t taken long to find a likely victim: the number of ships moving in and out of Orindale meant finding a seaman, roughly Brexan’s size, was an easy task. The youngster Brexan chose had made his way straight into the nearest tavern, dropped his sea-bag beneath the bar and ordered a bottle of beer, a pot of breakfast stew that had smelled so good Brexan wondered if she might steal that as well, and a loaf of freshly baked bread.

After he had finished his third bottle of the cheap Falkan brew, Brexan, watching from the corner where she’d slumped in an apparent doze, decided it was time to strike. She made her way confidently through the tavern’s front room, lifted an empty tray from the mantel and collected up a number of empty bottles and mugs. As she slid the full tray onto the bar, she quietly hefted the bag from its place on the floor and moved quickly through the kitchen as if she had every right to be there.

Without slowing her pace, she hurried out the back, through the alley and back into the forest, where she stripped off the clothes she had stolen in Estrad and ran down to the sea.

While she scrubbed the dirt from her face and hair, Brexan wept. Any memory of Versen, any lasting impression from his touch, or his lips against her skin, was gone now, scrubbed clean in the bitter salt water. Finally she climbed from the sea, pale and shivering, and donned her stolen clothes, clothes not stained with Seron blood, but also with no trace of Versen’s distinctive scent of woodsmoke and herbs.

Now Brexan said out loud, firmly, ‘He’s gone. Let him go. You have things to do.’ She slumped as choking sobs took her again. It would be a long time before she could follow her own advice. For now, though, safe in the coastal forest south of Orindale, Brexan let the sadness overwhelm her again.

*

Later, Brexan sat near the fire at a tavern several streets back from the waterfront. The front room began to fill as the dinner aven approached, but Brexan barely heard the rise in chatter; it was toneless background noise. Instead, she stared into the fire, the low embers casting a glow across her table that reminded her of Pellia and her family. What would they have thought of Versen? A Ronan, a freedom fighter, he might not have made a good first impression, but the big man’s curious sense of humour and stalwart commitment to his values would have won over her family as they had her.

Behind her, a musician began strumming a few chords on a bellamir and Brexan woke from her reverie. She gnawed at a gansel bone, more for something to do than hunger. A bowl of stew and bread had preceded a brace of roast gansel legs, washed down with a bottle of good Falkan wine and followed by cheese. It had been too long since she had eaten: feeling stuffed to bursting with hot food and good wine was a feeling she had almost forgotten.

Whenever the fire died down, she summoned the barman. She was tired of being cold too.

As she took a long draught from her wine goblet, Brexan felt the warm, dizzy sensation of incipient drunkenness wash over her. Her vision blurred and tunnelled pleasantly as she stretched her feet out towards the fire, warming the soles of the seaman’s boots, padded with handfuls of sack-cloth to fit her small feet. The sailor had been paid three silver pieces for his last voyage: he had made the fortuitous – for Brexan – mistake of tucking the coins into his sea bag. With that much silver, Brexan would be able to live comfortably in Orindale for the next Twinmoon, with coin enough for a room and a new pair of boots from a real cobbler, not just some street vendor with lengths of tanned hide and a sewing needle.

Slowly, a plan began to emerge through the comfortable stupor: she would find lodgings; she needed to do that tonight, but there would be plenty of choice. Tomorrow, boots, her first pair since enlisting in the Malakasian Army… and a skirt, a heavy wool skirt, loomed wool, not the ratty homespun she had been wearing for the past Twinmoon. She would linger over the process, trying whatever caught her fancy, and then buying real women’s clothes, from a high-class city shop. If it took all day, that would be fine. She would shop and she would think of Versen and she would end the day here again, here beside this same fire.

And tomorrow evening, she would work out how to find Sallax, and the owner of the merchant schooner moored out in the harbour. Sallax she would talk to. The merchant – him, she would disembowel, then cut his heart out.

Brexan smiled to herself. She had a plan.