The River of Shadows

Trust

5 Modobrin 941

In the dead of a moonless night in Northwest Alifros, in the midst of the coldest spell of weather the Crownless Lands had seen in fifty years, two boats ran afoul of the same reef in the Straits of Simja. They were light, swift vessels; they had been shadowing each other with lamps extinguished; they were under orders to avoid a firefight. One was an Arquali kestrel-class frigate, the other a Mzithrini tirmel. Neither boat could break free of the reef, and with the first light of dawn they became visible to each other. There was shockingly little distance between them.

On the Arquali boat, a certain aging weapons officer found himself in possession of a full gun-team, a fair shooting angle and a lit cigar, but rather less tranquillity of mind than the moment called for. His cigar served as a match; his cannon boomed; a thirty-two-pound ball skipped over the water and shattered on a knob of exposed reef, just in front of the enemy ship. Coral exploded in fist-sized chunks; a Mzithrini sailor dropped, senseless, half over the forecastle rail. Before anyone could reach him the boat lurched on the incoming wave. The dazed man fell upon the reef; the weight of forty sailors rushing to portside shifted the boat’s center of gravity; on the next wave the boat pitched lethally in the man’s direction, and with it the Third Sea War of Alifros began.

King Oshiram of Simja received the news in the wood behind the Winter Keep, a day’s ride from the capital. The message, dashed off in a panic by his chancellor and delivered by a rider whose exhausted horse stood steaming beside him, flooded the King’s mind like a swiftly darkening dream. Sudden and immense hostilities. The two Empires’ fleets exchanging fire in the Narrow Sea. The Arqualis demanding access to Simja Harbor; Mzithrini battalions spotted on the beach at Cape Coristel. A plea for aid from Urnsfich, Simja’s neighbor-island to the south, overrun by land forces already.

Whose forces? The King turned the parchment over, as though something might be scrawled on the back. Who were they being asked to help Urnsfich repel?

Aya Rin, what did it matter? He stepped back into the tent and drew the frost-stiffened flaps closed behind him. For a moment he succeeded in believing none of it, reducing the world to this canvas cocoon, where the loveliest woman who ever drew breath lay sleeping, naked, among furs and satins disordered by their lovemaking. Syrarys. The King fixed his eyes on one pale, perfect hand. The palm he had kissed and tasted rose water, the fingers that had enslaved him with a touch. Never again, never again, unless he went to her this minute-but that was out of the question. War had come. He crept forward, ashamed of his trembling, and began to pull on his clothes.

Isiq had foreseen it: general war before the year was out. Day by day the old admiral’s mind had grown sharper, his torn memories knitting together like muscle to bone, as though the tactical news Oshiram had been providing was a food for which he’d been starved. “We no longer have months, Sire. We may not even have weeks. Sandor Ott wants panic in the Mzithrin: he wants them to look like superstitious fools. Scared of the Shaggat’s return, accusing Arqual of treachery they cannot prove, striking at shadows. But Arunis only wants war, the sooner and fouler the better.”

“And my Kantri-”

“Her name is not Kantri, Sire. It is Syrarys, and she is no more yours than she ever was mine, or Sandor Ott’s for that matter, though perhaps he trusts her still. It was Ott’s wish that she poison me, but it was never Ott’s wish that my Thasha die before she could marry.”

“You blame her for Thasha’s death?” the King had cried, incredulous still.

Isiq had replied with devastating logic. Syrarys alone had handled the necklace that had strangled his girl. She had polished it with a salve from Arunis himself, before he cast away his disguise. And she had insisted that Thasha Isiq wear the necklace every day of her life. “She is a servant of the sorcerer, Your Majesty,” said the admiral, “and like him she has made fools of us all.”

The King stepped into his trousers, struggling not to make a sound. Her beauty like something flung at him. Like that high, crystal note at the end of the opera, the one you waited out before breathing. He had told Isiq he could not go through with it. Oh, the plan was good enough. Syrarys had to be removed from the capital, and quietly, without revealing to Ott’s other spies that her true identity was known. And only with the King and his retinue gone from Simjalla Palace could Isiq himself hope to slip away into the city. If the Arqualis find him now, if they learn that I have harbored their rogue admiral, a war hero prepared to denounce their treachery…

Too late for regrets. He must do all he could to help Isiq escape, and certainly that meant drawing attention away from the palace. But to bring the woman here, to their special hideaway, to dine and hunt and carry on as if nothing had changed, to make love to her Isiq had cut him off with a gesture. “Do it,” he’d said, turning away, and of course he’d been right. She had only to step out of her riding clothes and her King was there, ready for her, calling her darling, dearest one, traveling her body with the same tongue that would condemn her, surrendering to her hands. Pretending was easy; facing the truth might be lethal yet. He had (the King saw now with perfect clarity) never before been in love.

One by one he donned his rings. They’d made a game of this for weeks, her lips moistening his fingers, slowly, languorously, until the rings slid free. But where was his coronation ring, with its ruby the size of a grape? Somewhere among the bedclothes, or under the nightstand. Well, let it stay there. He flexed his fingers, and it occurred to him that a few hard blows with these jeweled hands would disfigure her forever. Hideous thought! He had never struck a woman, nor even a man since his early youth. Better to do it through others, isn’t it, Oshiram? Drag that torturer out of retirement; it seems we haven’t outgrown him. Do the sort of job my father used to ask of you, Mr. Ghastly-Whatever-You’re-Called, and don’t limit yourself to her face. See that she’s no longer a temptation for anyone, for me.

Of course he would give no such order. He was soft; he was a peacetime king. Gently, he drew the sheet over her breasts.

A moment later he stood outside, surrounded by his captains, the servants, the eager dogs. “Ready me a horse,” he said, “and a small escort, whoever’s at hand. I ride for Simjalla at once.”

He gulped his tea, stole a flap of chewy lamb from the provisions tent. Wolfing the meat before his men like a savage, he heard her call to him. Then her face appeared between the folds of the tent.

“My lord, I was frightened,” she said, in that voice like a rain of music. “I woke and didn’t know where I was.”

The outline of a shoulder, through the rough canvas. She had not dressed. Her lips formed a fragile smile.

“Lady,” he said, “that is one thing you have always known.”

Her smile grew. “You tease me, my lord. And you are most unkind to leave me shivering.”

“I’ll send someone to build you a fire. There must be coals in the brazier.”

“Won’t you come back inside?”

“I cannot,” he said, swiftly turning his back. “Go, now, cover yourself.”

“You are not hunting today, my lord?”

There it was in her voice: the first suspicion, the first hint of a change.

“I must go,” he said. “You will be staying at the Winter Keep for a time.”

A silence, then: “My Lord Oshiram, have you tired of me?”

Tired of her! The King’s nails bit into his palms. “Where is my mount, damn it all?” he shouted.

Syrarys forced out a laugh. “I don’t understand, my lord.”

“Don’t you?”

A long silence. He would not look at her again, not ever. Then, as a guard barked a warning, something small and hard struck his back. He winced, knowing instantly what she had thrown. He stepped backward until he saw it lying there, that gaudy ruby and golden band. His coronation ring.

He bent down stiffly. Was she watching? Were those eyes still on him, those lips still trembling with hope?

He put out his hand and touched the ring. But as he did so, a vision rose within his mind: Isiq’s girl, gasping, writhing on the dais in that tarboy’s arms, tearing at the necklace that was killing her.

The King withdrew his hand, leaving the ring where it lay. Then he stood and looked at her. No spell transformed her features, and yet she changed. The mask of love fell in pieces, hatred took hold. And as his boot ground the ring into the mud he found himself looking at the ugliest face he had ever beheld.

“Feed her breakfast,” he said to his captains, “and put her in chains.”

In Simjalla Palace, no one could speak of anything but war. The island was so far untouched, but few doubted that an attack would come. Warships of Arqual and the Mzithrin plied the Straits where the last war had ended; cannon fire lit up the night. Simja’s own little navy was boxed into the bay, except for the half dozen ships patrolling the coastlines, and who could say what had become of them?

Fear trickled into the palace by many paths. The cooks heard stories in the market: great Mzithrini Blodmels racing east over the Nelu Gila, bodies washed up on the Chereste beaches, a merchant vessel in flames. The blacksmith’s cousin had heard that the Arqualis were executing spies in Ormael, mounting heads on stakes. A vicious rumor spread that the King and his consort had not gone to the Winter Keep but into exile, abandoning Simja to its fate.

In the midst of this upheaval came a tragedy so small that it nearly passed unnoticed: the death of a schoolmaster. The old man had lived as a ward of the palace for thirty years, since the talking fever left him mute. He was polite but solitary, keeping mainly to his tiny room beside the library, and he died after dinner, in his sleep. As he had outlived his few friends, no particular ceremony was forthcoming. The King’s own doctor, who had stopped in by chance with a bottle of cactus spirits for the King’s lumbago, offered to prepare the corpse for burial at the Templar Clinic, where the poor of the city went to die.

A page was sent running; a coffin procured. At nine o’clock that evening, six palace guards bore the pine box into the shadowy courtyard and placed it on a donkey cart, driven by the doctor himself. The schoolmaster’s departure from the palace drew the attention of no one but a tailor bird, flitting excitedly about the ramparts.

The road to the clinic was in poor repair. The doctor leaned back and put a hand on the coffin, as though to steady it. His fingers drummed briefly on the planks, unconsciously it appeared. His face was studiously blank.

Three blocks from the clinic he turned the animals down a narrow side street. It was one of the harder moments of his life. The doctor had seen Arquali torture firsthand, and with that tug of the reins he had become Arqual’s enemy. He suppressed an urge to whip the donkeys into a trot.

The street ran south, into a decrepit quarter of the city near the port. Eventually it passed through a tunnel beneath a wider boulevard. It was a damp, shadowy stone tube, reeking of urine and mold. At its very center the doctor glanced quickly around, stopped the cart, whispered a prayer. He reached back and freed the coffin’s single latch.

The lid flew open, and Eberzam Isiq bolted upright. He wore a dark oilskin coat and black woolen cap: the outfit of a Simjan fisherman. Before the doctor could speak he squirmed free of the coffin and leaped to the ground. When his feet struck the cobbles, he snarled in pain.

“Careful, man!” hissed the doctor.

“Damn it all, my knee-never mind, never mind.” Isiq limped forward and shook the doctor’s hand. “I owe my survival to you as much as to Oshiram,” he said. “If we both live long enough I’ll try to repay that debt. Now be gone, my friend.”

“I knew you’d recover,” said the doctor. “I saw the fighter in your eyes. But Isiq, the gold-”

“Here,” said Isiq, patting a heavy pouch beneath his coat.

“And your medicine? The bloodroot tea?”

“I have everything. Go, go, Rin keep you.”

This time the man did whip the donkeys into a trot. Eberzam Isiq flattened himself against the slimy wall, watching them disappear. Two minutes, he told himself. Then the walk to the port, head down, eyes fixed. Neither too fast nor too slow. He felt for his weapons. Steel knuckles, hidden blades. This fight he would win for his murdered girl.

He rubbed his face and found it unfamiliar. Thick beard, no sideburns. Another layer of disguise. Oshiram was a good man, Isiq thought. He had done his best to grasp the danger to his island. But he was still an innocent, a civilian to his marrow. He could not imagine the extent to which the Secret Fist already controlled the streets of his capital. Ott’s men had been at work in Simja for forty years. They had surely bought everyone who could be bought, killed many who could not be. And any spy trained in Etherhorde would have known Isiq at a glance.

He thought of the old schoolmaster, old but very much alive, spirited away last night to the same tower chamber where Isiq himself had convalesced. How long would they have to keep the poor fellow there?

He left the tunnel, wetting his boots in puddles he couldn’t see. His knee still hurt, and he wondered if the jump had done it lasting harm. No more dramatics. You’re an old man, you fool.

Then the breeze struck his face, cold and clean off the harbor, and he smiled grimly. Not as old as they took me for.

He had memorized the route to the witch’s house. Two blocks south to Vinegar Street. Four blocks east to the abandoned theater, the Salty Lass, if one could believe it. Dismal, derelict streets, odors of bad wine and rancid cooking oil. Broken street-lamps, one still audibly leaking gas, loomed over him like the feelers of monstrous insects.

There were poor folk in the streets, but they barely spared him a glance. They rushed from door to door, bearing bundles, frowning and nodding to one another, exchanging a few whispered words. All so familiar. The Pellurids, before the Sugar War. The doomed settlers on Cape Coristel. Rukmast, before the Arquali retreat. The quiet of a people who have learned that disaster is coming, that they will not be spared.

It was because of this fugitive memory that he spotted the killer. A big fellow leaning in a doorway, too relaxed for the circumstances, and far too focused in the look he trained on Isiq. Twenty or twenty-five, and ox-strong to boot. Not one of Ott’s men-he was far too obvious, too large and surly-but that did not mean he was harmless.

The man stepped out of the doorway, grinning a whiplash grin. Oh no, he was not harmless. He took a last long drag on a cigarette, flicked the butt into the street. Deathsmoke! Isiq could smell it ten yards off. He felt the ghost of his own addiction, like jaws closing on his brain. The big man stepped into his path.

“Sir-” began Isiq.

“You shout, and I’ll cut a hole in you big enough to slide in a skillet,” said the man. “What’s in that pouch, eh? Nah, don’t tell: just give it to me, give it here.”

Isiq put a hand on the pouch. A cry for help would make him the center of attention, and that could prove as deadly as anything this man had in mind. The steel knuckles, he thought. Use them. Right now. But what he said was, “You’re bigger than me.”

“Bigger? Mucking right I am, you rotten-arsed old dog.” The man took a firm hold on Isiq’s shirt. “You’re about to bleed,” he said.

The reek of deathsmoke on the man! Isiq could almost taste it. He felt his blood responding, the sick happiness rising in his soul. “Let go of my shirt,” he said.

The man must have heard the intended threat. He backhanded Isiq with casual brutality, looking almost bored. Then he put a hand on his own belt. A glint of metal there, below a well-worn handle.

Isiq squirmed, an old man’s feeble struggle against the certainty of death. Then his elbow slashed up at the man’s neck and the stiletto did its work, burying itself to the hilt in the soft flesh below the jaw, and the man fell forward, eyes staring, lifeless. He kicked the corpse away, furious beyond reason. “You bastard, you bastard. You didn’t have to die.”

Then, like a bursting boil, the thought: He might have more cigarettes.

Isiq ran, fleeing the temptation more than the evidence of his deed. His elbow warm and sticky, his fingers cut trying to close the stiletto, his knee wrenched anew. Behind him, someone began to scream.

Go back. There’s still time. Go back and search his pockets.

Where was that mucking theater? Had they taken down the sign? He blundered on, limping, trying to keep to the shadows. People everywhere. The nearest recoiled, murmuring at his back. Already winded, he forced himself to run on. A second turn, a third. Why were there no empty streets?

Deathsmoke.

Put it out of your Deathsmoke.

He stopped, weak and wheezing, soaked with frigid sweat. If another addict passed him he would fight for the drug. Eyes on him everywhere. A shadow in a window, a mongrel dog across the street.

Isiq shuffled backward, collided with a rubbish bin. There were rats, probably, rats before him and behind. They would remember him from the dungeon. They would smell the blood.

Look, look! the street was sighing. The decorated soldier! The leader of men! The one who thinks he can stop the war!

“Admiral?”

The voice was soft and circumspect.

“This way, sir, quickly.”

Precious Pitfire, it was the dog.

Isiq stumbled across the street. “Don’t stare, please,” said the dirty, shaggy creature.

“You’re real?”

“Very much so. And we have a mutual friend.”

“I know you. Of course. You’re the dog.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.” The dog was looking left and right. “The bird lost you in that tunnel; someone should have told him what to expect. Well, we can’t stay here. Follow now, but not too close. And whatever you do, don’t stare. It’s your eyes that give us away to other men.”

He darted off down the street. The admiral drew a deep breath. Somehow the craving was gone. Strange allies, he thought. A street dog, a little tailor bird, a King. And one other, the strangest of all, perhaps, if only he made it to her door.

The dog, fortunately, had no wish to be discovered. He led Isiq through abandoned buildings, gaps in fences, grassy lots. The admiral’s knee was on fire, but he kept moving, and the woken animal never left his sight. The row houses gave way to old, careworn cottages, and the sea-smell grew. Then suddenly they were passing through a gate into a dusty garden. Facing him was a little shoe box of a cottage with peeling paint. The door was shut and the window curtained, but from between them a spear of lamplight stabbed at the yard.

“Eberzam Isiq.”

The witch! He hadn’t seen her, standing there in the darkness by the garden wall. Now she came toward him, until the spear of light touched her face. The bird was perfectly right: she was not ugly, not bent and shriveled like Lady Oggosk. She was tall, and her eyes were dark and wild, and her voice had a resonance that tickled the ear. Dark hair cascaded to her elbows. A pretty witch: imagine that. All the same he knew the moment was terribly fragile. She had spoken his name with fury.

“If we have met before you must forgive me,” he said. “I have been ill. My memories were lost for months, and they are only slowly returning.”

“You would remember me,” said the woman. “And never, ever tell me what I must forgive.”

“Very well,” said Isiq, standing his ground. “All the same, I’ve heard the name Suthinia before, somewhere. And your face is vaguely familiar.”

The woman stared at him, unblinking. He could feel her rage like a flameless fire, a pit of live coals. Then she moved closer and he saw that she too carried a knife. It was naked in her hand.

“The face you know is my son’s,” she said.

“Your son, madam? Did he serve in the navy?”

She took another step, and now he knew she was in striking range. “He served your bloodsucking Empire,” she said, “after your marines burned our city to the ground. My son’s an Ormali. So was I, for two decades.”

“No you weren’t, my dear.”

Isiq whirled. A man ten years his junior stood behind him, just inside the gate. His face in shadow. His hand twirling a club.

“You tried, Suthee. Rin knows, you did try. Pitfire, one year you even canned fruit with the neighbors! But they never did let you forget you were foreign.”

“It wasn’t the neighbors who ruined us,” said the woman. “It was this one. Because of him, and his damn Dr. Chadfallow, my boy and my daughter are on the far side of the world. They’re doing my job, hunting the sorcerer I was sent here to kill. They’ve gone to my home, and I’m stranded here in what’s left of theirs. My name is Suthinia Sadralin Pathkendle.”

“Oh, come now, darlin’.” The man laughed softly. “You don’t have to keep the family name for my sake.”

“Gods below,” said Isiq. “Pathkendle! It’s you! Captain Gregory Path-”

The club moved so fast he never saw it. Isiq was down, flat, deafened in one ear. And the woman was kneeling, pinning his head between her knees, pressing the knife-point to his chest.

The dog gave a furious bark. “Stop, stop!” it cried. “You didn’t mucking tell me you planned to kill him!”

“War’s a dirty business, dog,” said Captain Gregory Pathkendle.

“You cut him, witch, and I’ll bring every spy in Simjalla to your door. I’m not a killer, damn you!”

“I understand,” said the woman to the admiral, “that you had Pazel flogged for his cheekiness. For calling the invasion an invasion, to your face. I hear his back was torn to ribbons.”

“Yes,” said Isiq.

“He admits it,” said Captain Gregory. “Incredible.”

“I didn’t order the flogging,” said Isiq. “You’re wrong about that. But I could have stopped it, yes. Rose would have done me that favor.”

“And Pazel’s ejection from the ship?”

“My fault. My fault.”

“You sat in your stateroom, and let him be sold to the Flikkermen.”

“That’s right.”

“You never thought about it.”

“My best friend was dying. And I was drugged.”

“Oh, drugged,” laughed Captain Gregory. “With what, old man? Platinum brandy from the Westfirth?”

“With deathsmoke!” said the dog, padding in circles around the three of them. “The Syrarys woman put it in his tea. The bird told me all about it.”

“Deathsmoke, is it?” said Gregory. He marched out of Isiq’s sight and returned bearing a lamp, which he placed painfully close to Isiq’s face. Then he took hold of Isiq’s lower lip and pinched it outward, beneath a callused thumb. He squinted; then his face grew very still.

“He’s an addict, Suthee, it’s no lie.” He released Isiq’s lip and stood up. “The note said so, too. Perhaps it really did come from King Oshiram.”

“Of course it did, you clown,” snapped the woman. But the knife was still pressed to Isiq’s chest. “We are safer without him, no matter what he means to the monarch of Simja.”

“Safer, but weaker,” said Captain Gregory. “We need him on that boat tomorrow. You know that.”

“How many Arquali betrayals do you have to see?” hissed Suthinia. “Why wouldn’t they use Isiq? How else could they ever dream of getting close to her?”

“To whom?” said Isiq.

“Shut up,” said the witch. “Trust Admiral Isiq? Six years after the invasion, and still dripping blood? He could doom us in a heartbeat. He could be working for Sandor Ott.”

At the sound of Ott’s name Isiq lost all control. He lashed out, one steel-knuckled hand smacking the knife away from his chest, the other catching Gregory Pathkendle in the jaw. The woman fought him but he was not to be stopped. Before he knew it he was on his feet again, standing over them, his own knife drawn and raised.

“You dare,” he said, “after that man killed my two angels, my darling Thasha, my wife.”

Suthinia and Gregory looked up at him sharply.

“I know it was Arunis!” roared Isiq. “But it was Ott who built the trap called the Great Peace-built it around them, required them to die! And you dare suggest I serve him! I would sooner serve the maggot-haired hags in the Ninth Pit of Damnation! As for you two-”

“Isiq, Isiq!” cried Captain Gregory, his tone suddenly changed. They were both gesturing, pleading. “We had to know,” said Suthinia.

“Know what, damn you? That I did not serve that fiend of a spymaster, that creature who calls himself a patriot?”

“You were a patriot, too,” said Gregory, “a famous one, same as I used to be. That’s right, man, we had to be sure, before we told you they’re alive.”

Isiq looked from one to the other. “Who?” he whispered. “Who are they?”

Suddenly the tailor bird appeared. He whirled about them, shrilling: “Get inside, inside! A posse of men is approaching! They’re at the corner of the street!”

Seconds later Isiq found himself crouched in the cottage, the door barred and the lamp extinguished, the bird hopping ecstatically about on his shoulders, the dog still as stone beside his boots. Footsteps rang in the alley; gruff voices murmured. Isiq’s knee was in agony but he did not make a sound.

Then he felt the witch’s hand. Gently, it found his throbbing knee and remained there, cool and almost weightless. And to Isiq’s amazement the pain began to subside.

The footsteps faded, the voices trailed away. Finally a match flared in the darkness. Captain Gregory was lighting a pipe.

“Have a pull, Admiral?”

Isiq shook his head firmly.

“Relax, man, it’s only tobacco. Etherhorde greenleaf, the smuggler’s friend.”

“Do be quiet, Gregory,” said Suthinia. Isiq looked up and met her great dark eyes.

“They,” she said, “are two women who will change this world. The first is your Empress, Maisa of Arqual, the one to whom you swore allegiance long before Ott put the usurper Magad the Fifth upon the throne. We will go to her tomorrow, and together we will try to stop this idiot’s war.”

“Maisa? Maisa lives? Gods below, where is she?”

“A place no Empress should be caught dead in,” chuckled Gregory.

“The other woman,” said Suthinia, “is the one I’ve been waiting for, all these years. When she came at last I did not know her, but I know her now. She is the hope of Alifros, and the one my boy, it seems, can’t live without. I’m speaking of your daughter, Admiral. Thasha Isiq is alive.”

The tears struck faster than Gregory’s club. He choked, and sat down hard, and the witch’s arm went around his shoulders. They were arguing (husband, wife, dog) about how Suthinia had broken the news, how she might have done it better. Isiq scarcely noticed. Before his eyes the tailor bird was flitting in the darkness, Don’t cry Isiq, she’ll find you, she’ll fly home somehow, the young are very strong. He wept, and felt the call to arms within him, and the warmth of a woman’s touch, and the swish, swish of angels’ wings against his face.