The hatch to the ship’s sick bay remained intact, but also had scales at about shoulder height. Anaeda slipped a knife from her belt and slid it between door slats, flipping the latch. They forced the hatch open, sliding a trunk away from behind it, and slipped in through the narrow opening.
The sick bay had been a fairly good-sized cabin, large enough for two patient bunks and a third for the physician. Chests of various sizes were stacked against the interior wall, and the doctor’s desk was jammed back into the corner. The two far bunks remained unoccupied, but not so the physician’s bed.
It had a body in it—the body of a corpulent man. His swollen tongue protruded from his mouth, and dried white traces of spittle foam flecked his lips. The remains of a small ceramic cup lay beside the bed, and a dark stain colored the deck amid the fragments.
Anaeda touched the back of her hand to his cheek. “Dead.”
“By his own hand, it would seem.”
She picked up a paper packet from his desk and read the characters inscribed on it. “Heartblossom.”
“That could have been used for seasickness. That’s what Iesol has been taking.”
“Yes, but severely diluted. Half this packet is gone. He wanted to make sure he died, and quickly, too.” She leafed open his medical log, then snapped it shut and growled. “He was terrified enough to kill himself, but recorded nothing.”
A rapid drumbeat sounded outside the room, then Shimik leaped and caught the edge of the hatchway. His claws gouged curled splinters from the wood as he rooted himself there. “Comma comma, cappatana naeda comma. Jrima comma.” He sprang away, twisting in midair, and scrabbled across the deck back toward the bow.
Jorim and Anaeda followed him as quickly as they could, but the hammocks slowed them. Shimik waited at the stairs heading down to the next deck and crouched there, watching them, then peered down. As they cleared the last hammock, the Fenn darted down the stairs and they thundered down after him. Casting one last glance at them, he bolted for the open armory hatch.
Anaeda reached it first and stopped in the hatchway. Shimik squatted at her feet, so that she would have tripped over him had she advanced. But she seemed quite content to grab the hatchway and hang on. She leaned slightly forward, then turned and looked at Jorim.
“I believe, Master Anturasi, you may have the advantage of me in explaining this.”
She moved aside and he looked in. The only illumination came from a shaft of light poking through an open port. It clearly let him see two bodies stretched out on the floor. One, a bald man in a sailor’s robe, had a smith’s hammer clutched in his right hand. Most of his face had been slashed to ribbons and his left eye dangled from its stalk. Similarly his robe had been torn at the neck, and the congealed pool of blood in which he lay had pumped out through a torn carotid artery.
But it was the thing that killed him that stopped Jorim from going any further into the room. The creature appeared vaguely humanoid in that it had arms and legs, though they were more lozenge-shaped in cross section than rounded like a man’s limbs. This also held true for the long tail and the body, which narrowed through the chest. The head’s exact shape was difficult to discern because the hammer had clearly dented it. A number of the silvery scales that covered the creature’s body had been knocked loose and flashed in the sunshine.
The creature’s hands had webbing between its fingers. They ended in sharp claws, which had obviously killed the ship’s smith. Also visible were sharp triangular teeth, a few of which had been scattered by a hammerblow.
Jorim pointed at the creature. “Scales match. It has characteristics of a fish. I think those are gill slits.”
“I concur. So, what is it?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. I don’t even recall this from folktales or legends. They’re suited to life in the sea, whatever they are. Could they be why ships that head south seldom make it back? Possibly, but I doubt it.”
“Why would that be, Master Anturasi?”
He stood and met her stare very frankly. “If we’re going to assume that a school of these sharkmen are what killed the crew and took their bodies away, we are required to make a few other assumptions. One is that for their hunt to go as successfully as it did, they’ve had practice. That means they’ve taken human prey before. They found harvesting ships an efficient and rewarding way to hunt.”
Anaeda nodded. “Sound reasoning.”
“So, if they’ve been doing this for a long time, they would have expanded their range. Taking a settlement like the one on Ethgi would be fairly simple. We would have seen them move into deltas in populated areas. We would have had stories and evidence of their existence before this.”
“That could be, Master Anturasi, but perhaps they can only exist in cooler waters?”
“It was once said the Turasynd could only exist in their cold and dry plain, but when population pressures pushed them to expand, they did.” Jorim shook his head. “It may well be we’ve never heard of these things before, but I’m willing to bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.”
Anaeda rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Two hundred souls gone and we killed only one of them?”
Jorim shook his head. “We might have killed more, but they took the bodies.”
“So they’re cannibals, too?”
“I don’t know. If we dissect the one left here, we might find out.”
The captain posted her fists on her narrow hips. Her eyes narrowed. “Do it. I want to know what they are and what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
Shimik, rising from his crouch, aped her stance. He looked up at her, at the bodies, then shook his head. “Dungga. Bad Dungga.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
17th day, Month of the Bear, Year of the Dog
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
736th year since the Cataclysm
Dolosan
In the five and a half weeks since they killed the maned snake and its brood at Telarunde, the group made slow progress west. Keles Anturasi accepted full responsibility for their torpid pace, because he was unable to move very fast. Haste would have made his survey less than complete. Moraven agreed that while his mission to locate the source of trade in ancient weapons was urgent, the survey would be the key to his success. His agreement only slightly mollified Ciras, who clearly was in pain, but steadfastly refused to admit it.
The simple fact had been that after the battle, the six of them had needed time to recover. Though he had been physically unhurt, Borosan seemed to come out the worst. He mourned the thanaton’s destruction as if it had been a family dog. What hurt him most was that the gyanrigot had failed in its mission, and he apologized for the predicament its failure had created for everyone else. Even Moraven’s suggestion that it might not have struck because the snake and brood constituted a multitude of targets and confused it did little to mollify him. He vowed he could make a better thanaton—and while the rest of them humored him, they hoped they’d not find another maned snake to test it on.
Also, the survey necessitated several steps that kept them moving very slowly. The first was to visit settlements in western Solaeth and Dolosan. They talked to the locals and gathered information about the surrounding area. If they were able, they engaged someone as a guide to the next settlement or other points of interest. As they traveled west, the settlements became fewer, and the points of interest greater, which cut their progress yet again.
Once they’d gathered some preliminary data about the area, they explored it carefully. Keles made best-guess estimates about rates of travel and distances covered. With a practiced eye, he could measure distance just by having Tyressa ride out ahead and seeing how much smaller she got. Every scrap of information, from the location of streams and caves to the sorts of fish to be found and estimates of lumber yield per acre got jotted down in Keles’ books.
When Borosan Gryst came out of his funk, he made himse
lf very useful in the survey. He tinkered with his mouser and put together a second, smaller thanaton about the size of a wolf. He measured their paces exactly, then would send them out to certain points and back, giving very precise measurements of distance. The gyanrigot could even scale trees and cliff faces, providing data on height.
Even the Viruk helped him. Rekarafi gave him names in Viruka of mountains and rivers. He pointed out places where what appeared to be piles of rocks had once been Viruk strongholds. He was even able to show how forests had been harvested and regrown after Viruk and human occupations of the area.
When Keles had first seen him rise over the maned snake’s corpse—Rekarafi said the Viruka word for it was “etharsaal”—his heart had caught in his throat. He’d been certain the Viruk had come to kill him because of what had happened in the capital, or to avenge the Viruk his brother had killed. His stomach had knotted and he doubled over to vomit.
The warrior had indeed come for him, but not in the way Keles feared. He explained to Moraven and Tyressa that he had been sent by his consort to protect Keles. The Viruk ambassador had correctly discerned that Keles would not have been sent into the Wastes were it not for the incident at the party; therefore, his safety became a matter of honor for the Viruk. Rekarafi had anticipated their arrival at Eoloth and had been waiting there to follow them—though how he had gotten that far that quickly had never been explained. Keles assumed it was through Viruk magic, and that made him wonder how Men had ever thrown off their Viruk overlords.
But for all his helpfulness, Rekarafi was also the greatest impediment to progress. Keles could not remain in close proximity to him for more than a few minutes. One time he made the mistake of drinking water downstream from the Viruk. The water that had washed over Rekarafi made Keles violently ill—so much so that he could not be moved for two days, and remained sickly for the rest of the week. Nightmares haunted his dreams, and more and more frequently he woke unrested, with fierce headaches, his body feeling as if he’d been trampled beneath horses’ hooves.
The headaches and illness affected the way he was able to send information back to his grandfather. Many days he could not concentrate enough to make contact, and when he did it remained insubstantial and vague. He was used to his grandfather’s making demands on him, but the old man did that less and less. Keles put it down to the fact that when he did reach him, he was communicating so much information in a lump that his grandfather had all he could do to digest it. The other possibility, that his grandfather’s mind was failing with age, was not something Keles even wanted to think about.
Instead of concentrating on his grandfather’s aging and the problems it might cause, Keles grasped at the idea that the difficulty with sending him information might also have to do with the nature of Dolosan itself. Dolosan had caught the first blast of magic energy released by the battle in Ixyll. The evidence of it was undeniable. The land had broken and shifted, with vast plates of stone rising out of the earth and stabbing toward the sky. Beyond that, however, the upper edges were softened and rounded, as if melted. The magic wave had rolled out, coursing through valleys, washing over mountains, eroding stone, and changing everything it touched.
Some of the sights he would not have believed were he not taking exact measurements. In places huge boulders moved between dusk and dawn, slipping out of alignments he’d drawn the day before. When he went to see if they’d been rolled aside—by what he couldn’t imagine—he found no evidence of disturbance. He marked one of these stones with chalk on the north side, and the next morning found the mark all the way around to the south. The mark itself had migrated, but the feature he’d drawn the mark around had not.
Dolosan had been steeped in virulent magic, and even though it had retreated over the years, its effect was inescapable. In one valley a whole copse of trees had been transformed into a living copper forest. More strangely, they swayed with the languid motion of seaweed undulating beneath the waves. The party paused on the valley’s rim, uncertain if they should go down or if they would drown in some unseen liquid. When they did enter, they felt increased pressure and were forced to move more slowly. Their words came more thickly, and Keles felt the tug of currents on his clothes and hair.
Keles looked for plants and animals to see what effect living in that sort of place would have on them. Did birds breathe fire so they could mold leaves into nests? Or would they have to become more like fish to swim through the air? And would fish be able to swim around out of water? He didn’t see anything that answered his questions, but in looking for them he began to understand his brother’s curiosity about the world. For Keles, those things had always been on the land; but for Jorim, they were of the land.
As they went further west, they truly entered the Wastes. In the day, the land visibly shimmered as if heat rose off it—yet one valley would be frigid enough to frost their breath, and the next would make metal hot to the touch. Hills shifted—albeit slowly, but they shifted—as if made of blankets beneath which children crept. In places, Keles could recognize many plants, but they appeared larger or smaller than normal, and often their blossoms were out of proportion to the plant and boasted colors he’d never seen in nature.
Entering the Wastes made Borosan Gryst happier, and Rekarafi and Ciras more morose. For the gyanridin, the Wastes were a land alive with magic energy, where thaumston could be found to make his creations live. But Rekarafi looked on a land his people had once ruled, and found it unrecognizable. For Ciras, it was the womb of a new magic that threatened the art he struggled to perfect.
One evening, Ciras’ irritability increased because the day’s sun had reddened venom-stung flesh. Ciras nudged the mouser aside with his foot. “Keep that abomination away from me.”
Borosan blinked his wide eyes. “Abomination? It slew one of the maned snakes as easily as you did.”
The swordsman shook his head. “It killed with no honor, no sense of what it was doing. It is an abomination because it does what it does without consideration.”
Moraven poked a stick into their fire. “Is it not true, Lirserrdin Dejote, that the consideration is that of Master Gryst in his creation of the gyanrigot?”
“To agree to that, Master, I would have to weigh the consideration of the swordmaker as being greater than my own in using his tool. The swordmaker may have intended his blade to slay indiscriminately, but I choose when and where to employ it. I accept the responsibility for the consequences of actions.”
“And do you not think Master Gryst does that as well? Remember, he did apologize for the thanaton’s failure.”
Ciras pressed a cool cloth to the right side of his face. The venom had burned him, twisting the flesh near the corner of his mouth and his eye as if they had been touched by fire. “I remember, Master. Master Gryst takes responsibility, but there are those who would not. You have seen the thanaton. Imagine a company of them patrolling a castle or, worse yet, being sent to drive villagers from their homes. They would do this regardless of reason. They would not listen, could not be convinced that the lord who gave them orders was wrong and evil.”
Tyressa rolled out her blanket. “So you fear these gyanrigot will replace the xidantzu?”
“No. That could never happen.”
“Then what do you fear?”
“I fear nothing. The problem with gyanri is that it confers on the untrained skills that ordinarily require years of study. It will erode respect for those who have developed skills. Hard work will become a thing of the past. People will no longer respect or fear magic, and that will pave the way for the return of the vanyesh.”
Keles, relishing the sorts of discussions he used to have with his brother and sister, raised a hand. “Forgive me, Ciras, but you make quite a leap. Having gyanrigot work for someone does not make them want to become a magician.”
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“But you implied it. Freed of the need to till the earth and plant and harvest, a peasant might learn many things
. He might become a great poet or artist or a skilled potter or even a swordsman.”
Ciras’ eyes shrank. “Or a magician?”
Keles shrugged. “He could be anything. You should credit him with enough sense not to be a magician.”
“You have greater faith in common sense than I do, Master Anturasi.” Ciras pointed at the mouser. “It travels and measures for you now, but could it not do that for anyone? Training is not required. The link between self-discipline and the ability to control magic is broken. If they see magic as simple in one area, they will see it that way in another. Just as the gyanrigot scout paths out for you, they will lead others to the madness that destroyed the world.”
Moraven Tolo frowned. “Your thoughts are interesting, but your reasoning unsound.”
Ciras sat up straight. “How so, Master?”
“You see the vanyesh as purely evil, for this is how you have been taught to see them. They rode with Nelesquin, but so did many serrdin. Were the swordsmen evil for fighting in Nelesquin’s cause?”
“They must have been.”
“Or might they have been deceived?”
“That, too, is possible.”
“Which would mean, Ciras, that some of the vanyesh may not have been evil, but just deceived.” Moraven pointed at the mouser. “Just as that is a tool, so can men be. The difference is that men have a chance to control their behavior. Your concern should not be for which behaviors to allow or not, but how to encourage people to be responsible for their behaviors. Prohibition will always fail at some point. Responsibility does not have to.”
Ciras hesitated, then bowed his head. “I beg forgiveness for my lack of sufficient thought.”
Moraven, the firelight shimmering through his black hair, hardened his eyes. “The lack of thought will be forgiven this time. You allowed yourself to become as mindless as the gyanrigot. That makes you as dangerous as you claim they are. The only way you show restraint is if you actually think. All too often people confuse their being able to think with their actually having done so. A more pernicious mistake does not exist.”