Saomeji turned to Makho. “Chieftain, perhaps this man does not bring us bad fortune but good. Ibi-Khai is dead. He was the only one told of our route—without him, we will not find our way to our destination. And if we turn back, it will take us at least a moon to return to Nakkiga and find another Echo.”
“You have your Songs, little sorcerer,” said Makho angrily. “All your precious secrets, your orders from your lord and master that you have not shared with me. You can lead us where we need to go.”
Saomeji made a sign of regret. “My only real master is my duty to our queen—but no, Makho, I cannot lead us where we need to go. And unless you wish me to talk about it in front of this mortal you so distrust, the reasons will have to wait until you and I are alone.”
Makho stared at him, eyes and face empty as a statue’s. “So what are you saying?”
“This queen’s huntsman knows these lands. We do not. Perhaps after what we have just suffered—and from which we still must escape—this is a stroke of good luck we should not ignore. Perhaps this one can help us find our way, so we do not have to go back to Nakkiga in defeat and failure.” Nezeru heard a gentle increase of emphasis before “we.” What he meant was “so you do not have to go back,” and Makho knew it too.
“None of you has asked me whether I have any interest in leading you anywhere,” pointed out Jarnulf. “To be honest, I am not sure I wish to spend so much time in your company, however exalted it might seem to an ex-slave like myself.”
Makho glared at him before turning back to Saomeji. “Come to one side then and speak your mind to me, Singer. But, mortal, remember this: even if you are a freed slave, the shadow of the kuwa will be on your neck forever. Remain here until I decide what to do with you.”
Jarnulf did not reply to this, but only smiled at him—smiled yet again at an angry chieftain of the Queen’s Talons, as though he feared Makho not at all.
Nobody should ever be that brave—or that foolish, Nezeru thought. What manner of odd creature has found us?
More than twenty years in the heart of Stormspike had taught Tzoja caution, and most of that had been in quieter, safer times, when the queen still slept. Now Utuk’ku had returned, and Tzoja could almost feel Nakkiga shuddering into its old, dark wakefulness.
She opened the door of her small room and peered out into the corridor, the dark, silent corridor that sometimes made her feel she had arrived at the very end of the earth, so far from everything she had known as a child that even memories could no longer reach her. She saw no one, and what was more important, heard no one. Relieved, she ducked back inside.
She grabbed the frame of her bed, which despite not being very large took up much of the space in the room. She pulled it away from the wall, then felt for the sliding panel hidden behind it. When she found it she took the griefstone key that hung on a chain at her neck, turned it in the lock, and slid the panel open.
Inside were her most precious things—a straw doll, a colorful head scarf, a coin—all bits of her childhood and the free life she had led, although they were no longer the only secrets she kept there. She pushed them to one side and removed her candle and two carvings, one a soapstone statue of the Green Mother, Frayja, and the other a Holy Tree made of polished wood, with the upside-down body of tormented Usires upon it. Over the years, some had tried to convince her there was only one god, but Tzoja could not afford to limit the scope of her prayers.
“Please, great ones in the sky, keep my daughter Nezeru safe from harm. Do not let the shadow of death fall upon her. Do not let evil men whisper in her ear, or sing to her songs that will make her heart grow fearful.
“Reward a mother’s devotion, Lady Fray. As no one may enter your sacred bower without your permission, let nothing that means Nezeru harm approach her.” Finished, she kissed the little statue and moved on to the Tree.
“Reward a worshipper’s devotion, Lord Usires. As you gave yourself to protect us all from your Father’s wrath, protect my daughter from the wrathful ones that would harm her.”
All prayers finished, she remained on her knees for some time watching the candle flame, which stood as steady in the breezeless room as if it were carved stone. She stared until she felt almost as though she could surround herself with that flame, could wrap it around her like a magical cloak and fly away from this place. Oh, if only that were true . . . !
Tzoja fought back pointless tears, then realized with a start that she had no idea how much time she had spent gazing at the candle. The noses of her captors were so sharp that the smell of it, small as it was, might be noticed by any Hikeda’ya who entered the corridor. She licked her fingers and snuffed it, then closed the sliding panel. She was just reaching for the goatskin bundle hidden at the very back, which was now her most precious possession, when the door rattled behind her. It was all Tzoja could do to stifle a cry of fear as she tried but failed to slide the panel closed and push the bed back before the door opened.
Her master stepped in. “My shining one, what are you doing?”
She was trembling all over, her relief unable to quiet her terror. She sank down onto her bed as the high magister closed the door behind him. “Oh, my lord Viyeki, you frightened me,” she said. “I was only looking at my things, those few odds and ends you have kindly let me keep.” She prayed he would not ask to see them: she had not been able to hide the goatskin bundle.
“You have lit a candle again,” he said. “I can smell it. That is foolishness, Tzoja—dangerous foolishness.” He knelt beside her, his heavy magister’s cloak rustling. “You are shaking.”
“Your arrival surprised me. I thought it was someone else . . . that I had been found out.”
“Look at you! So terrified!” He sat on the low bed, gestured for her to come into his arms. “And yet again and again you risk your freedom—and mine, I should remind you—for a few superstitious trinkets.”
“I am sorry, my lord,” she said. “I am an ungrateful wretch, it’s true—a fool. But it gives me happiness, to remember my life before coming here.”
“Is your life as my mistress so unhappy, then?”
She pushed her head against the hardness of his narrow chest. He felt more like a slender youth than a grown man, this creature so many times her own age. Sometimes she felt his antiquity as a fatal chasm whose depths might destroy her but could never be known. He was as foreign to her as a horse or a bird, but she did not doubt his kindness. Sometimes she even loved him with the helpless, grateful love of a favored slave, but what else she felt for him she could not say: the emotions were too confusing, too strange. “No, my lord. You—and our child—are the great fortune of my life. If you had not found me I would have died in the pens with the other breeding slaves. How could I be anything but grateful?”
Viyeki leaned back and looked her over carefully. “Grateful is not happy. A pampered slave is still a slave. I hate to see you troubled, my bright gem.”
He was very clever, this immortal who had given her such extraordinary gifts of freedom, had granted her privileges far beyond what any of her kind had ever enjoyed among the Hikeda’ya. Tzoja reminded herself that whatever happened, she must always respect his intelligence. Many of his race were so steeped in the old traditions and hatreds that they could not see her kind as anything except animals, but Viyeki was different. He had thrived in the confusing years while the queen slept, discerning opportunities for useful change where others saw only destruction, failure, the end of everything.
“How can I be troubled now that you have come to see me?” she said, eager to change the subject. “Your company is a cure for all ailments.”
Instead of smiling at such a fanciful notion, as she had hoped he would, Viyeki’s thin mouth pulled into a tight line. “Ah. But I have news for you, and I do not think it will bring you that sort of happiness.”
“What do you mean?” Her heart stuttered. Had she somehow been f
ound out? “You have told me already of the queen’s anger at slaves like me living in the houses of the nobility.”
“I fear this is something different—something new.”
She suddenly felt cold as the winds that swirled around Stormspike. “New?”
“It is not certain. But my cleric heard from his hearth brother, who is a commander of the Echoes, that I am to be given an important task by the Queen herself. A journey.”
Now the cold that had seized her threatened to become something more, a deadly chill that would freeze her where she sat and stop her heart. “How can that be? How can anyone know it if you have not been told yourself?” She had already despaired of being ready to escape the house before Drukhi’s Day. If the high magister was sent out of Nakkiga now, Tzoja knew she would not live to hear nine bells ring in the great temple.
Viyeki reached out and touched her face. “Are you weeping? How can this be? Such a task from the queen will be a great honor. It will bring great credit on my house and my child, too. Our child. You long for Nezeru to achieve honor—how much easier will that be if I bring a triumph back for the Mother of All?”
“I don’t want my daughter to have honor! I want her to be happy, to be safe!” She looked at his uncomprehending face and the gap between them, the chasm, suddenly seemed not just impassable but incomprehensibly vast. “But it is not even Nezeru I fear for, it is for me. And for you!”
“I do not understand you, Tzoja.”
She rubbed the tears from her eyes. She was furious with herself. The Norns, even the most decent among them like Viyeki, did not understand weeping over such things, no matter the depth of the sorrow, the span of the tragedy. To weep was to mark herself even more firmly as other, as little more than an animal. In her misery, she said something she knew she should not. “Are you really so foolish, my lord?”
He drew back, anger visible in the subtle movements of his face. “How dare you say that to me?”
“Because I care for you. As no one else does. And I am afraid.”
He eyed her as though she might do something even more incomprehensible than crying, might sprout wings or begin barking like a hound. “Afraid? Of me?”
“No, Lord, of your enemies. Of my enemies.”
“You fear the queen’s words too much. You do not understand how things are with my people.” The shift in his tone told her that he had decided that the animal was frightened by what it did not understand, that now he would soothe her. “You live in one of the greatest houses in all Nakkiga, and we have many slaves, mortal and Hikeda’ya. I am High Magister of the Builder’s Order!”
“And that is why you have enemies.” Sometimes Tzoja could not understand how Viyeki could be so canny about the treacherous world outside his house, but so oblivious to what passed within his own walls. “My enemies are right here in this great house. Your servants. Your wife.”
“Khimabu?” Again, he was mystified. “She does not like you, it is true, but she would not dare harm you. You are the mother of my only child.”
Tzoja could do nothing to contain her despair. “That is exactly why she would kill me if she had the chance, my lord. Can you really not see that?”
He shook his head, his expression grave. “If I leave, I will make certain that you are protected. You are accredited to our household list. All is in order and my will has been made clear. Nobody will dare to question it, even if I am absent on the queen’s business. I promise you will be safe.”
It was all she could do simply to find strength to answer him. “And who will keep you safe, my lord? If your enemies destroy you, what will your promises mean then? Great Ekimeniso promised to keep his people free—what did his promises mean after he was dead?”
“Do not quote my own race’s history to me, Tzoja, especially in a way that treads close to the heretical. I allow you much liberty, but that is taking a step too far.” Viyeki rearranged his robes and stood. “I wished only to tell you important news—glad news, in fact, at a time when all is uncertain among the nobles and magisters.”
“No, don’t leave,” she said. “I’m sorry for speaking badly, my lord. Please, if you believe nothing else, believe that you, too, are in danger. Your enemies have been waiting for just such a moment.”
“I will not hear such talk, Tzoja. You may not understand it, but you demean the honor of my entire household.”
It was pointless. She bowed her head. “I am sorry, my lord.”
“You will be safe. I promise you. And when I return, if this great task is indeed given to me, you will be as much the victor as I, because our daughter will also benefit.” He moved to the door. “Do not light any more candles. If you are fearful, remember that your own mistakes can be your worst enemies.”
And with that cold comfort, Viyeki slipped from her room. Like all his kind, he moved with the silent grace of a hunting beast.
But I think it is you, my lord, who does not understand. For all the centuries you have lived, you still do not understand that when great changes are afoot, the old certainties are no longer useful.
When she had given her lover enough time to depart the corridor, she set her bench to block the door and took the hide-wrapped bundle from its hiding place, then carefully spilled the contents onto her bed. A knife, some rope, the stubs of several candles, flint and firechalk, all the things she had hidden away so long ago, as well as the gloves she had bought at the last Animal Market. But she still needed more, much more, and instead of the weeks she had hoped for she now knew she had only days of safety left.
Even if her lover did not realize it, Tzoja knew that nothing in Nakkiga would ever be the same. The queen of the Norns had awakened after her long slumber, and her shadow had fallen upon her people again. In fact, shadows were thickening all across the ancient city
She slid the bundle back into its hiding place, and though she did not dare light the candle again, she still prayed one more time to gods old and new.
Jarnulf knew that in the end, he would have to swallow his hatred of their kind and agree to lead them. The Hikeda’ya scouts he had killed the day before still lay at the far end of the valley, propped against a tree, their destruction marked with the sign of the White Hand. He needed to make sure he kept these Talons from discovering the bodies. Their recent deaths and his own sudden presence would surely seem too much of a coincidence in lands as untraveled as these.
Hiding his vengeful acts was not the only reason he had decided to guide them: whether these Norns were a war party or a scouting party, they were also one of the strangest groups Jarnulf had yet encountered. Their leader Makho was nothing surprising, a cold, practical tactician, a hard-eyed killer armored in the Way of the Exiles. His second in command, Kemme, also seemed a familiar quantity, a soldier who would die happily as long as he could do it with his teeth sunk in an enemy’s throat. But as Jarnulf watched the rest of them coming up the rocky scarp, the snow-covered plain where the diggers had attacked ever more distant below, he found he could not readily understand them. The other Talons, unusual though they might be, the halfblood Sacrifice Nezeru and the young, halfblood sorcerer Saomeji, were at least members of the usual Orders to be found making up a hand, as the dead Whisperer Ibi-Khai had also been. But the largest giant that Jarnulf had ever encountered trudged through the snow behind them, shaggy pelt curling and waving in the breeze, and the presence of Goh Gam Gar confounded him most of all.
“Up here,” he called back to them. The sky was gray and lowering and even in mid-afternoon the light was beginning to fail. He did not want to face night on the ground, not so close to a nest of Furi’a. He also wanted to keep the Talons safe as well, at least until he understood their task, however much he might desire them all dead otherwise. Jarnulf had killed many warriors of their race over the years, but the presence of the giant told him that these five were something different; until he knew what made them so and what
they were doing, he needed them alive.
When the Hikeda’ya reached the top of the rise Jarnulf pointed to a place where the horses could be tethered out of the wind and camp could be made. After Makho had given permission, Jarnulf tied up his own horse and began to build a fire in a long crevice of the rock face of their makeshift stable.
“We cannot show fire here, fool,” Makho said when he saw. “We are no longer on the Queen’s land.”
“Trust me, there is no one within miles.” Jarnulf kept working as he spoke, knowing that if he made eye contact he would be drawn into another confrontation. “Except the diggers, of course, but they hate flame. Which, I remind you, is why you are alive to complain at this moment. Feel free to thank me—I used the last of my pot of Perdruinese Fire saving you. It may be a year before I can get to a trading outpost and buy more.”
“What of giants?” demanded Kemme. “Are we safe from them as well?”
“I doubt there are any about that are larger than your friend.” He nodded toward Goh Gam Gar, who was digging himself a hole in the snow a short distance from the mouth of the crevice. Each of the giant’s hands was nearly the size of a battle shield and he was making swift work of it. Jarnulf could not have missed the witchwood yoke around the giant’s neck, a much bigger slave collar than the one he had once worn. It was clear the monster was being restrained, most likely by the red crystal Makho had been waving, and that was another interesting thing to consider.
“We Hikeda’ya are not like you sun-craving mortals,” Makho said. “We do not hide during the dark hours. We travel. We do what our queen bids us.”
“Which is? In truth, Chieftain Makho, it is hard to guide people who keep so many secrets.”
Makho only glared at him. The giant laughed, a deep rumble like someone pushing a piece of heavy furniture across a wooden floor.