One last thing, my patient husband, a small but odd and interesting tale.
I was called in your absence to practice physick on one of the kitchen workers, an old fellow of Hernystiri blood who had fallen into a fit on the floor of the buttery. I do not know if you know him. His name is Riggan, and he is a thin, gnomish fellow, three score years old or even more, with large, bleary eyes and rough skin. He was not badly hurt, but his command of the Westerling tongue is poor, so I asked Countess Rhona to help me. She asked him in his own speech what had happened, and he said, “I hear the Morriga talking to herself. Every night and I cannot sleep.”
Countess Rhona looked a bit startled, I thought, and told me the Morriga was an ancient Hernystiri goddess of death and battle, no longer worshipped among her people but still feared, still blamed for nightmares and other foul things. Then, before I could ask another question, this Riggan said something else in that tongue, and this is what I thought would interest you. His words were, “She summons us back. She summons us all back. She is the silver-masked Mistress of Tears.” Now I ask you, husband, does that not sound as though the Norns’ Queen Utuk’ku, once a real, living menace to all mankind, has somehow become a demon-fable for kitchen workers? The Sithi friends of the king and queen thought her power was utterly destroyed when the Storm King was defeated, and I pray that is true. If she is now nothing but a legend, a fading nightmare, then I thank our merciful God for preserving us all from her evil.
I did not want to spend long with the man Riggan once he seemed recovered, because he disturbed me more than a little, with his strange face and goggling, fishlike eyes, and it was also disquieting to see calm, wise Countess Rhona look so pale at hearing the name of the Morriga—the ‘mother of all demons’ as Rhona named her. My Aedonite sisters would call this man’s malady the work of the Devil, but my learning has been so shaped by yours, dear Tiamak, that I suppose it instead only the confusion of an illness of his mind with tales he might have heard in childhood. In fact, I deem it proof of what you always say, my wise husband, “Truth and falsehood walk a long way together before they go their separate ways . . .”
Had he received her message just a few days earlier her tale of the kitchen worker’s fit would have been a mere curiosity to turn over in his spare moments; but instead this story of a madman who dreamed of the Norn Queen made Tiamak feel like a traveler abroad at night who hears something following him through the trees. On the night the royal party had left Hernystir, Count Eolair had told Tiamak and the king and queen of Queen Inahwen’s worries about Lady Tylleth—that she and some the courtiers were worshipping the terrible ancient goddess, the Morriga, and now here was that name again.
It has to be chance, Tiamak told himself—Eolair himself had said that stories of the goddess were as old as Hernystir itself. But even as he soothed himself, his earlier chill returned, and this time without any cold wind to blame.
The silver-masked Mistress of Tears . . . A deep dread clutched at his heart. Something is coming that will threaten all, he thought helplessly—my library, the royal children, the throne. I can feel it. He took in a long, shaky breath, his heart fluttering behind his ribs like a trapped bird.
The driver flicked his whip to keep the horses together, oblivious to anything but the jingle of harness and the thump of hooves. The sky was still blue overhead, the sun still shone, but Tiamak felt as though he had stepped on what should have been solid ground and found nothing beneath him but yawning emptiness.
7
Island of Bones
The other four members of the Queen’s Hand sat silently on the beach below, waiting for the ship to come. They had already waited on the graveled strand for hours, still as statues while the wind strengthened and the afternoon died with the sun, and would likely sit that way without moving for many hours more, but Nezeru had never before seen the ocean. She had been so taken by its immensity, its vitality, its ever-changing surface and colors that she had climbed the cliffs above the isolated beach to get a better view.
It was not only the size of the ocean that fascinated her, astounding as it was: the snowfields north of the great mountain back home seemed equally boundless. It wasn’t the colors, either, as magnificent and unexpected as they were, the startling jade translucence of the waves, the grays and blues and blacks and ragged whitecaps, because to Hikeda’ya eyes the great icefields of the Nornfells were full of color, too. No, it was the alive-ness of the sea that stunned Nezeru, the constant motion in different directions, the intersection of wave against wave that could turn water into weightless froth and throw it high into the sky. And it was not just the water itself that was alive: seabirds rose and sank on every swell, or drifted above the waves in rotating clouds, their squawking cries filling her ears, filling the sky. Most of them were hunting the silvery fish that sparkled in almost every wave. Life was everywhere. Nezeru knew that if she gathered a sack of Nakkiga barley the size of a house and dumped it onto the snowy ground outside her mountain home, not a thousandth of this array of living things would come to it. There would be crows, a few waxwings, and with nightfall the rats and mice, but the land around Nakkiga could boast nothing like this chaos of noise and movement.
She crouched on the hilltop and watched the sun dive down toward the sea, where it tipped the waves with copper. As the last sliver of the daystar dropped behind the horizon it flashed green, and as that moment came and passed Nezeru happened to look down at the cliff face beneath her feet. Something pale sat only a few arms’ lengths below her, shining in the day’s last light.
Nezeru did not hesitate, but swung herself over the edge and then let herself down the steep rock face, testing each hold before giving it her weight because the sandstone cliff was old and crumbling. In moments, she was dangling by one arm and balancing on the ball of one foot beside a bird’s nest and its lonely occupant, a single pale, brown-spotted egg.
A seagull’s nest, she decided as she examined the frowsy accumulation of sticks and feathers and mud. Few gulls made it all the way inland to Lake Rumiya beside the great mountain, but those who did were of keen interest to the Hikeda’ya and their servants, whose diets were always limited by the bitter cold and frosty ground of their native land. Nezeru knew very well both the look of a seagull’s nest and the taste of the birds and their eggs.
She carefully lifted the speckled thing, testing its weight. It seemed early in the year for egg-laying, but there was no question that something warm and alive slept inside. For a moment she considered taking it—Hand Chieftain Makho was very sparing with food—but after hours standing atop the cliff, Nezeru felt almost like a guest in this place. Also, the nest held only one egg, which made it seem something to be admired rather than used. It was an odd feeling—one that most of her training refuted—but Nezeru gently set the egg back down in the nest.
The light was waning as she climbed back up the cliff, the sky above her bleeding its violet into growing black. She paused to look out to the west where the sun had sunk and the last light of day was fighting and failing. Far out on the horizon, so distant it would have been invisible to less keen eyes than those of the Hikeda’ya, she saw the pale geometry of sails. She glanced down to the beach, but felt certain that the approaching ship must still be hidden from Makho and the rest. As she scrambled to the top of the bluff, pleased to be the one bringing news, a swirl of air brought the sharp and sudden smell of danger.
Nezeru peered above the edge; a boar had appeared, out for its evening forage. It was unaware of her, at least for the moment, but she knew that ignorance would not last long. At first she thought it must be a large male, since it looked to be at least three times her own weight, with viciously sharp tusks as long as her fingers, but the scent and the time of year suggested it was an older sow, in which case it was probably protecting piglets and would be especially aggressive. Worse, to make climbing easier, Nezeru had left her sword and bow with her pack down on the beach.
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As she pulled herself onto more or less level ground she slipped her knife from its sheath, although it didn’t give her much confidence. A dying boar pierced by a heavy spear could still drive itself on sturdy, strong legs up the shaft toward its attacker and rip out a hunter’s guts before collapsing.
Nezeru had killed before, and not just animals, but wanted no part of this if she could avoid it. This creature had not sought her out. It might have young to protect. Still, the stink of the sow was powerful, even against the prevailing ocean breeze and its blend of complicated smells. If the creature had recently farrowed, it might not accept anything less than a fight to the death or Nezeru’s running for her life, and a Sacrifice did not run—especially not one of the Queen’s Talons.
It saw her. It will swing its head side to side to strike with those tusks, she thought. My knife is not long enough to reach its heart, but a well-aimed thrust might take it in the eye—
Before she had time to finish the thought, the boar scrambled toward her, back legs shoving hard against the loose, cold dirt, grunting and squealing as Nezeru dodged its first lunge. It turned on her again with such surprising quickness that she had time only to leap up and put her hands on its shoulders, hard bristles digging into her skin as she vaulted into the air. The boar threw up its snout to catch her as she went over, swinging its great head; the muddy tusks missed Nezeru’s belly by less than a hand’s breadth.
She landed and spun, knife out. The boar moved sideways, doing its best to keep Nezeru trapped against the edge of the precipice. Vegetation was so sparse here that she knew if she was forced over the edge she would find nothing to grab, nothing to arrest her fall all the way down to the stony beach. Still, leaping over the huge beast had barely worked the first time; if she tried it again, her belly or her leg might well be torn open by one of those deadly ivory scythes.
She quickly checked the distance to the cliff’s edge behind her, then crouched, knife extended now, tracking the boar’s head from side to side. Nezeru decided she would go for the animal’s eye, or perhaps if she was lucky and avoided the first slash of the tusks, make a quick attempt to rip open the belly or the throat. “Are you sure you want this, Little Mother?” she asked. “I would not take your life except in defense of my own.”
The angry red eyes gave no hint of similar sentiments. The wild sow shook her head and let out another grating bellow. An instant later the huge pig was thrown sideways to the ground as if struck by lightning. It let out a shrieking squeal that sounded like the terror-cry of a thinking being, then began to crawl unsteadily away toward the undergrowth, dragging a long spear shaft through the bloody dirt.
Kemme, one of Nezeru’s fellow Sacrifice warriors, strode forward and set his booted foot on the sow’s ribs to yank his spear free. The boar screamed again and its legs kicked, but he seemed to have torn a hole in its guts and the animal’s last struggles ended quickly.. He wiped the head of his spear on the bristling hide, then looked up at Nezeru with poorly hidden distaste. “The ship is here,” he said. “Chieftain Makho orders you down to the beach.” He set his spear on his shoulder, turned, and walked away without a second glance at the twitching animal.
“But what about the boar?” said Nezeru after a moment, when her surprised, swirling thoughts had turned back into words.
“We have enough to eat.” Kemme was clearly displeased to have to explain himself to a younger Sacrifice. “A war-hand, especially one made up of the Queen’s Talons, does not drag food around with them as helpless mortals do.”
“But there will be mortals manning the ship,” she said. “Surely they can find some use for the meat.” She did not know if she could carry the dead beast down the hill by herself, but she was willing to try. It was better than wasting it.
Kemme did not even bother to look back at her. “Leave it,” he said.
• • •
The ship was anchored far out in the bay. As Nezeru reached the bottom of the cliff a few paces behind Kemme, a longboat rowed by a half-dozen bearded men was already nearing the beach. She had no real fear of mortals, but simply seeing so many of them together lifted her hackles. Their hand chieftain Makho was speaking with Ibi-Khai of the Order of Echoes, but Nezeru kept her distance, in no hurry to be reprimanded for dallying on the hilltop. She was wondering where the fifth member of their hand had gone when she felt a presence behind her, as though someone or something was about to touch her. She whirled, drawing her knife again. The blade stopped an inch short of the halfblood Saomeji’s throat.
The magician did not blink or lift a hand to defend himself, but his pale lips curled in an expression that might have been amusement. “We could not find you,” was all he said. Unlike the rest of the Talons, the Singer did not wear his cloak with the black side out, now that they had left the snows, but continued to wear the white as proudly as if he were in the Singers’ Order-house back in Nakkiga. For someone who was as much of an outsider as Nezeru was, Saomeji never seemed to fear setting himself apart from the rest of the company.
“Thank you, hand-brother,” she said, making her words as neutral as possible. She was determined not to give him undue respect, although she feared him as she feared all his order. No, it was because she feared him that she would give him nothing. “I was only atop the cliff, watching for the ship.”
Saomeji held her gaze. He had strange, golden eyes, though his skin was as white as that of any pureblood. “Traitor’s eyes” they were called back in Nakkiga, because the eyes of the Sithi, the Norns’ kinfolk, were that same color, though the two tribes had been gone their separate ways for a very long time. Such ancient features were scorned among the Hikeda’ya, even though they predominantly occurred in the oldest clans. As another halfblood, Nezeru wondered how much Saomeji had suffered for having a mortal parent. Even to ask him, though, would be to create a kind of intimacy in which she had no interest.
As she and Saomeji joined the others, Makho stared at her so hard it made her uneasy, his eyes as unfeeling as a hunting eagle’s. Nezeru had admired him since she had first joined the Order, and had always done her best to emulate his pure-mindedness and his mask of stony indifference, but she feared that no matter how hard she tried, the human side of her heritage would keep her from being accepted by him or the others as true Hikeda’ya. Halfbloods were plentiful now in Nakkiga, and they always matured far more swiftly than their pureblood counterparts, though they seemed to live nearly as long. Nezeru had become a death-sung Sacrifice at an age when her untainted peers were scarcely ready to join an Order, let alone be granted its highest honors, but the confidence of the insider could never be hers. She was half-mortal, and her father, though important, was not even of the Order of Sacrifice; only deeds could overcome such a heritage and lift her out of the crime of her diluted blood.
The rowers pulled their longboat up onto the strand. Like most mortals who lived near the ocean here in the north, they looked to be of Rimmersgard blood, but unlike their kinfolk farther south who had long ago given up the seafaring life, these so-called Black Rimmersmen still made their living upon the water, trading along the coast and even harrying and robbing any ships of other nations that strayed too far out of safe southern waters. But that was not the only reason these people were scorned by their Rimmersgard kinsmen. The Black Rimmersmen had been bound up with the Hikeda’ya for centuries, many of them captured and kept like animals, forced to labor for their Hikeda’ya masters. Slave or free, though, they were usually hated as turncoats by their own mortal kind.
At a sign from Makho, the Queen’s Talons climbed silently into the boat and the staring, clearly frightened mortals rowed them out to the waiting ship.
• • •
The captain of the Hringleit, a gray-bearded mortal with a face browned and cracked by the elements, tried his best to act as though these passengers were nothing unusual. But Nezeru knew that there had been little direct contact between the co
astal lands and Nakkiga since the end of the Storm King’s War decades ago. These mortals might even have convinced themselves they were no longer the queen’s slaves—until Makho and the rest of the Talons appeared in the coastal village and demanded passage to the outer northern islands. The thought filled Nezeru with sour amusement.
The captain certainly seemed to know these waters well, because they sailed through the night. As the dark hours passed and Nezeru watched, the stars wheeled across the sky overhead in their familiar constellations, the Gate, the Serpent, the Lantern and the Owl, as if they had come to remind her that no matter where she voyaged, she was still beneath the protection of the Garden.
When morning came, the land had utterly disappeared and everything beneath the gray sky was water. Nezeru slept for a while without closing her eyes, letting her thoughts drift.
She rose back to awareness to find the sun higher in the sky but still far from its noon prominence. A short distance away her chieftain Makho was sharpening his witchwood sword Cold Root against a polishing stone. She had watched him do it a hundred times since they had left Nakkiga in the previous moon, and still it fascinated her, the rigor of his attention, the unshakable sameness of his actions. The sword was well worth the care, of course, a blade of impeccable lineage: fellow Sacrifice Kemme had once told her, in tones of veneration, that it had belonged to a brother of Ekimeniso himself, the queen’s revered but long-dead husband. More recently it had been wielded by one of Makho’s nearer kin, General Suno’ku, the beloved hero who had died in the Nakkiga Siege.
Nezeru did her best to watch without too much obvious staring—it was a very bad time to break their leader’s attention; Makho had slapped Ibi-Khai’s face once for coughing when Cold Root was unsheathed. As she watched the chieftain’s long, pale fingers moving across the blade, she found herself almost falling into the pattern of the witchwood, its gray lines like whorls on a fingertip, so delicate as to be almost invisible. Each witchwood sword was as individual as its wielder: the pattern of the grain differed with each tree. Even discounting ornament, no witchwood sword would ever be the same as another.