“My lady, what does this have to do with us, with my being a watchman?”
“I would ask you to be eyes for Cyndere and Partayn as well as for your people. Study the Seers’ activity, especially those closest to the queen. You know who I mean. And if you breathe a word of this, I’ll ship you off to the islands faster than you can skin a… What’s easy to skin?”
He smiled. “Shockwyrms, perhaps?”
“Faster than you can skin a shockwyrm.”
“I will not speak of it.” He was surprised to find he meant it. She was persuasive. And powerfully attractive. No wonder she had such influence in this house.
“Keep a close eye on Captain Ryllion,” she whispered. A more welcome command he could not have imagined. “He’s up to something. As the Seers’ favorite apprentice, he’s become a puppet, even as he flatters himself for the privilege.”
“You feel strongly about this.”
“It’s happening to Cesylle, my husband,” she said with sudden force and bitterness.
So there, he thought, is a thing worth knowing.
“You’re the least likely person we’d set to spy on our own chief defender. We have no reason to trust you.”
“So it would seem.”
“But I’ve chosen an advisor who already knows your people well. An advisor who has always spoken highly of you.”
“You said you would choose an advisor from among our people.”
“Partayn has a company of agents, the royal brotherhood, who serve him discreetly, just as the sisterlies serve Cyndere. My advisor is a new officer in Partayn’s brotherhood. He’ll be the one to find tasks for your people.”
In the corner a curtain parted, and a woman with short yellow hair and a gown of green scales appeared. She wore a tiny emerald in the left side of her nose and silver slippers. Realizing that his surprise had brought him, slack-jawed, to his feet, he bowed. He had no doubt this was Cyndere herself.
“Are we ready?” the woman said to Emeriene softly.
“Only if you are still certain.”
“I am.”
As questions shouted in Tabor Jan’s head, Emeriene turned and cast him a worried smile. “We will speak again soon. For now, I leave you in the care of the queen’s daughter.” With that, the sisterly set aside the tapestry screen and departed.
Cyndere stood beside Emeriene’s chair. “Please, be seated, Captain.” Startled to be addressed by his title, he obeyed. “It is an honor and a privilege.”
“I’ve come to introduce you to a friend. I want you to trust him and not to pester him with complaints or questions.”
She reached down and threw back the fangbear rug. Then she slipped her fingers beneath a hidden seam around one of the flagstones. “My mother’s ancestors were very fond of secret passages,” she said. “We didn’t want Ryllion or the Seers to trouble or threaten Emeriene’s new advisor before he met with you. So we took rather drastic measures.”
She lifted the flagstone. Cold air breezed up through the open space.
A man in a robe belted with gold ascended from the concealed stairway. He moved cautiously, as if confused. He wore armbands similar to those worn by the men who had escorted Partayn on his visit to the survivors. But despite the uniform, he had a bruised and haunted look about him, as if trying to shake off a bad dream.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“You are in good company,” said Cyndere. “Thank you for accepting my invitation, at last, King of Abascar.”
The man, realizing a presence behind him, turned to face the Abascar company.
Behind him, Tabor Jan was the first to drop to his knees. “My lord,” he gasped. “My king.”
21
ABASCAR SCATTERED
The ocean-vine apple sparkled like a green moon in the sunlight as Tabor Jan held it aloft. “Have you tried one of these?”
Cal-raven could see countless shining juice beads sealed within its translucent rind.
“They just came in on a boat from, oh, I forget which island. They’re the best.”
“The best what?” asked Cal-raven. At his side Hagah yelped in the hope that Tabor Jan would throw the apple. “Best fruit in the Expanse.”
Tabor Jan bit into the apple with such a sharp crunch that a watchman passing them on this west-facing wall looked back. “Is it one of the Coilsnake s?”
“That’s it!” Tabor Jan half bowed to the watchman, a scrap of the apple’s skin stuck between his teeth. “The island that looks like a snake all wound about. Master, you’ve seen it on the maps?”
“Stop by the shipyards tomorrow,” the other watchman called as he walked away. “They’re bringing in syrup from the Bracelet Isles.”
Cal-raven reached down to scratch Hagah’s head. “A new sensation every sunrise.”
“You say that like it bothers you.”
“How many days has it been since Cyndere gave me back to House Abascar? Twenty? And not a day has passed without the Bel Amicans chattering about something new that everyone must taste or see. These people are like Hagah as a pup—everything is their new favorite thing.” He tugged on the hound’s ear. “Isn’t that right, friend?” The dog wagged both his tail and his tongue. He had been inseparable from Cal-raven since their reunion.
Tabor Jan wiped the loose sleeve of his gold watchman’s jacket across his beard. “You don’t like puppies anymore?”
“Abascar’s gone blind with enchantment. We’ve played right into the Seers’ hands. And now one of our own has gone missing.”
“Look, I know I’m confused for lack of sleep,” yawned Tabor Jan. “But let’s remember—it’s Warney that’s gone missing. He was always a bit… unsteady.”
Hagah’s lips drew back, uncovering his fangs, and he growled. Cal-raven patted the dog’s hard browbone. “That’s just a statue, Hagah.” He knocked on the forepaw of the howling wolf sculpted on the wall. Hagah barked again, a question this time. Then he slumped, clearly disappointed that he had not just rescued his master from danger.
Lingering fog teased Cal-raven with fleeting glimpses of the world below him as he leaned against the wolf. This was one of the most spectacular wall walks in Bel Amica, for it offered views of clustered palace structures, market platforms, stretches of train rail, gardens, factories, mills, paths, and multilayered residences below.
A girl wrapped in a white cape, a white scarf hooding her head, wound her way through a crowd of builders below. As the builders hunkered over sketches they had chalked on avenue stones, she looked up at Cal-raven. He turned away and put a hand to the claw scars on his cheek.
Keeper, what now? It can’t end here.
Looking south to the inlet banks, he saw yellowed grass where the tents had been. Abascar was scattered now. Some lived in spare rooms of Bel Amicans; others stayed deep down in the rock or in bunkrooms left empty by island-bound sailors. They would repay their debts through their labor, or they’d be returned to tents, if not expelled to the wild.
Though the people bowed and still called Cal-raven king, the thought that they were incurring debt to Bel Amicans made him ashamed. The seduction of Abascar was well under way.
“When you have a plan, my king, you know I’ll be ready to move on,” said Tabor Jan.
“That’s one. Will anyone join us?”
“Jes-hawk’s ready.”
“Jes-hawk’s out riding with Ryllion.”
“Jes-hawk’s in the arrow yard, training.” Tabor Jan tossed the apple core skyward. Hagah barked and leapt, but the fruit vanished in a flurry of netterbeak feathers before it could fall.
With his fingertip Cal-raven carved a circle in one of the rugged bricks. “The last time I walked here, I was a spy. It was frightening at first. Then I began to enjoy it. I stayed longer than I had to. Once I got back to the woods, I swore I’d never come back. It was all too dangerously appealing. I wanted something more.”
A blanket of low, lavender clouds lay over the horizon as if offering the weary sun a soft place
to land. A gem of light flickered like a lost earring. Cal-raven could almost believe it was an evening star. But no, it was the burn returning to his eye, that white scar flaring like one of the beacons that shone from the rock to ships in the fog.
That young woman was still staring, peering through a glass disc to see him more clearly.
He was distracted by a line of mule-rams straining to pull a parade of wagons with their cargo of broken boulders. Their hoofs knocking hard against the path, the animals dragged their burdens toward a broad avenue that led through an open marketplace.
“Seems like you’ve got a splinter in your boot today.”
“How can I think clearly when wonders wait around every corner?”
“Forgive me, master, but not all Bel Amicans are villains. The food isn’t poison. It’s overwhelming, that’s certain. And it’s possible to lose your head in all of”—he waved his arms—“this. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to taste a Coilsnake apple. Don’t you want New Abascar to enjoy abundance like this?”
Cal-raven ignored him, more interested in a rant than understanding. He pointed down at the avenue. “And what’s worse, people keep staring!” But the white-draped girl was gone. “I’m the scarred king who lost his house, Bel Amica’s biggest joke.”
“Maybe this is a time to dream about what New Abascar will be. And what it won’t be.”
Cal-raven pounded his fist on the brick, and a flare of power went into the stone, fine-line fractures branching out. “How can I dream of New Abascar when the Old Abascar is melting into Bel Amica? These daily walks—I thought they would help me hold our people together. Instead, I’m witnessing a collapse. When they see me coming, their smiles weaken. They ask me not when we can leave but how much longer we can stay.”
Tabor Jan yawned. “What are those mule-rams hauling, anyway?”
The animals had stopped at a crossing, tossing their spiral-horned heads as cars rattled past on iron rails, drawn by a wooden cylinder that vented blasts of steam. The passing train hauled the harvest—thinstalks for carpentry, bundles of feathergrass for weavers’ looms, enormous shells tufted with moss and clusters of barnacles that spewed long lines of seawater like tiny fountains. As the freight disappeared into a tunnel, the mule-rams snorted as if insulted, then pulled on the settled weight of their load.
“They’re not mining the foundation out from under themselves, are they?” asked the captain.
“No, those stones were hauled in from the sea. The Bel Amicans break them open to dig out lodes of crystal for glassmaking. Krystor told me all about it yesternight. He was exhausted but happy. Working in Bel Amica’s glassworks is like waking to his favorite dream.”
“Abascar never had windows like these.” Tabor Jan gestured to the towers, where the afternoon light ignited hues of red, green, and gold. “Maybe New Abascar will.”
Cal-raven could not restrain a sharp, bitter laugh.
“Am I wrong? Bel Amica’s a wilderness like any other, full of dangers and ways to get lost. Lead us through it and on to the destination you’ve seen. Be our king.”
“I’ll make grudgers of our people.”
“We could have died in Barnashum, master, but we didn’t. Snyde hired killers to finish you, but you survived. We might have been ambushed getting here, but we weren’t. We thought Ryllion would give us trouble, but he’s been on patrol. We’re more fit for travel now than before.” Tabor Jan shrugged. “I’m not saying there aren’t problems. I’m just saying it’s been worse.”
“I’m not so sure,” said the king.
Twenty days earlier, as Cal-raven lay broken and losing hope, the cell door had been flung aside like a curtain at a pageant. A man with a briar patch of a beard bowed as if to a stage audience.
“Time to crawl out of the crolca and into the glory,” he announced, then leaned into the cell. “On the other hand, this really is a nice little chamber compared to that Cent Regus krammhole where I was imprisoned. My, my, a window. Luxury, if you’re comparing.”
“I wasn’t,” said Cal-raven.
The visitor gazed at the sunny spectacle, then clapped his hands sharply. “Get up, King of Abascar. Say good-bye to your favorite gulls. Come see what your patience has earned you.”
“Who are you?”
The man grinned fiendishly and seized Cal-raven’s hand. “I speak coarsely. A foul habit, I know. When I saw my mother again, she was more upset about my language than the horrors I described. Fall as deep as I fell, and you find out what’s at the bottom. It changes you.”
Cal-raven leaned in, looking for something familiar. Lines whorled about the eyes as if carved there by rivers. “Partayn?”
This hairy, muscled intruder was the sharp-nosed musician whose singing had enthralled him in a Bel Amican theater so many years ago. The one, once delicate and childlike, who had filled the stage with enough instruments for an orchestra and then proceeded to move about and play them all like a toddler with a room full of toys. After he had gone, the audience had remained seated as if trying to preserve some fragile spell.
“You could have knocked these walls down. But you followed Henryk’s instructions. You trusted him and stayed. That gave us time to prepare everything for Abascar’s protection before revealing your presence.”
“Henryk got my message to Cyndere?”
“We’ve been working hard to persuade my mother ever since.”
“Persuade her to what?”
Partayn seized Cal-raven’s arm and drew him out of the cell, into the narrow, crooked corridor. “To welcome you officially and to give you charge over your people again. With supervision, of course.” He led Cal-raven along a passage that seemed confused about its direction.
“We’ve something in common, you know,” Partayn continued. “My people thought I was lost forever. And I returned. It blew their hair back. Your people are beginning to wonder if you’re lost forever. Oh, Tabor Jan shovels so much crolca our way, telling us how you’re out there shaping Abascar’s future. I can’t wait to see his face when he learns you’ve been here all along.”
Still aching from his ordeal, Cal-raven struggled after Partayn up a steep stair. Partayn explained that this tunnel was part of a secret network laid out by the kings and queens of old to give them a way to slip through the palace unseen. “It’s the only way we can move about our own house without being spied on.”
The Seers, Cal-raven thought. Partayn distrusts the Seers.
“It’s also the only way that Cyndere could steal away to question you. She asked me to give you her apology.”
Cal-raven had already guessed, much to his chagrin, the identity of his visitor. “I appreciate your protection. We will not trouble you long.”
“Of course you will,” Partayn laughed. “Do you mean to take House Abascar back out to wander in the wilderness? As exhausted as they are?”
“We have a destination.”
At the top of the stair, Partayn led him onto a wooden platform like a lift, but Cal-raven saw no ropes or pulleys. Nevertheless, it rose, lifted by a swift and silent mechanism. Now he could see that rods along the side of the flat were embedded in tracks along the walls.
“It must be magnificent, this destination.” Partayn hesitated. “Did you know that the Seers have snatched your healer right back from the edge of death?”
Cal-raven followed Partayn into a dim chamber where heavy curtains veiled all but one window. He limped to a model of House Bel Amica, detailed down to its jeweled glass panes. “The Seers healed Say-ressa?”
“I’m willing to work toward some kind of a departure plan. But I’d advise you to let your people get their feet under them before you drag them back into the unknown. And even then, I recommend you give them a choice when you depart.”
Warily, Cal-raven studied the intricate model—its marketplaces in miniature, its winding walls made of parchment scraps, its toothpick flags and towers carved from old wooden flutes—as if it were a sleeping wolf spider nest. “Th
is is Bel Amica. They’ll choose selfishly. I have a duty to the kings and queens who came before me to defend Abascar’s people against enemies but also against themselves.”
“An honorable conviction. But why not start here? We’re establishing colonies on islands in the Mystery Sea, and there’s room for new settlers. And you and I, we share some of the same enemies. I could use your help as I try to break the hold that the Seers have on our people. What is more, we think we may be able to break the Cent Regus curse. We need allies who share this vision.” He drew back one of the curtains to reveal a sun-drenched balcony. “You don’t inspire people by telling them they’re wrong. You need to show them something extraordinary so they long to be part of it.”
He walked out into that bowl of sunlight. Drawing a deep breath, he unleashed a banner of music, a song about an archer with a magical arrow named Mercy. The melody streamed into the sky and seemed to send the clouds roiling.
Cal-raven stayed in the shadows, listening. Then he inched closer to the edge and gazed down.
Caught in the wave of Partayn’s bold voice, people put down what they were doing. Figures wandered out into the streets. People tilted back their heads and listened. They joined in. The windows resonated in harmonic tones.
After finishing his song, Partayn returned to the shadowy chamber.
“I’ve been deeper than darkness, and I can sing a stronger song for it,” he said. “You know about finding a vision in the dark. You remind Cyndere of her Deuneroi. And I can already hear in your voice what she means.”
Standing on the balcony, Cal-raven had suddenly understood the heir’s kindness. He lifted a farglass that lay on the stone enclosure and scanned the inlet’s edge where Abascar’s tents were spread. He was looking at Lesyl, who stood at a fish-bone fence gazing fixedly at the tower.