The Gantean (Tales of Blood & Light Book 1) (13 page)

“Amatos, Allian. What did the mage say last time he checked? Costas doesn’t usually send us on such useless missions.” Already their voices faded as the boat drifted downstream.

I shrank back. Costas’s men. If I had to get found by anyone, I would have picked Costas, if asked at the outset. I’d even considered running to him at the Pavilions as he had demanded. He could provide protection, but a life in a cage is no life at all, and given a taste of freedom I was not eager to go back to my slavery, as handmaiden or mistress or whatever it was Costas wanted me to be. On the other hand, I needed my necklace, and that cord of bloodlight pulled between us. Had it been Costas himself on the boat, I would not have hesitated to reveal myself, sayantaq as the urge might be. But he wasn’t there, and his men had a mage with them. Tracking me like prey.

I dug my nails into my palms.

“You’re Iksraqtaq,” I hissed below my breath. “He’s sayantaq.”

Miki’s eyes glittered in the starlight. He cocked his head at me, but said nothing.

I remained as still as a hunted animal in the grasses.

W
e followed
the river the next day until boulders rose before us, taller than the walls of the High Palace, stern and steep. Tangled trees found purchase amongst the rocks, revealing the rise of the land. The rock face was too high and sheer to climb without ropes and tools. The river waters passed through a narrow gorge, with the slanted granite walls rising steeply on either bank.

Miki and I stood at the gorge’s edge. I thought of what the men in the boat had said the night before about cutting around to avoid this place. That would take hours and hours, maybe even days.

“The current will be with us,” I said. “If we can keep our heads out of the water we’ll make it.” I spoke with false confidence, since I couldn’t see the end. I waded in. The current tugged at my legs, belying the calm surface of the water. Miki followed.

“Lymbok! Amethyst!” I called. “Will you be all right?”

In answer, Lymbok leapt into the water behind Miki, and Amethyst laughed and called, “I learned to swim in the rapids of the Rift. This is easy.”

We kept our heads up and let the water take hold, hardly needing to swim at all. The water temperature was far warmer than what I was used to from Gante, but still cold enough to chill my skin. The river carried us through the narrow passage, spitting us out to soar before crashing us into a deep pool, nearly a lake. A stone bridge spanned the water in the distance. Beyond the bridge the ramparts of buildings scratched the sky.

We gathered on the shore between two boulders, wet and cold, but out of view of the bridge traffic. “We need a plan before we enter the city,” I said.

“Look,” said Lymbok “We got some money left, enough to get food and rooms at an inn. But it ain’t much; we’ll need more right quick. You got that fancy dagger piece. We could sell it.”

I didn’t want to sell my women’s knife. My arm retracted inadvertently against my side. “The dagger might be recognized.”

Three sets of eyes turned my direction.

“Is it so hot?” Lymbok asked. “Even if it is, I bet it’ll fetch a lot of money. Let’s have a look at it.”

Reluctantly I handed the knife to Miki. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

“It was a gift.”

Lymbok looked over Miki’s shoulder at the blade. “Ha. A gift! I heard that one before. That flower, that’s all gold. You never said you was a fingersmith, Leila.” Though Lymbok didn’t recognize the flower as the sigil of House Galatien, any knowledgeable buyer would. “And that stone is probably worth a fortune.”

“No,” I said. “The knife was a gift, truly. We won’t sell it. It’s too risky.” I removed it from Miki’s grasp.

Lymbok glared at me. “Fine. You gonna steal what we need to get by? Ain’t no fun smithin’ in an unfamiliar city.”

I shook my head. “We’ll find another way.”

“I’ll do it, then,” said Lymbok after a moment. “You all just let me go in first. I gotta scope it out.”

I closed my eyes as Lymbok departed, running through all the many concerns jumbled in my head: Costas, my necklace, my magemark, the men pursuing us, the Cedna.

Miki patted my hand. “Don’t worry, Leila. We’re nearly there.” He pointed at the sky. “And the new moon is coming. We’ll be able to meet the Gantean captain.”

L
ymbok
returned
no more than an hour after passing through Murana’s gates. “This ain’t no good city,” he said, shaking his head. “Orphans and thieves and stray dogs and slaves all over. But I found us a cheap place to stay for the night, and there’s a meal included, and it ain’t worms and buggers and tack biscuits.”

We headed towards the gates, lured by the promise of a real meal. During our journey, only Miki had put on weight; the rest of us had lost it. I missed my monthly cycle, which should have arrived over a sennight ago. This had happened to me more than once in Gante’s lean seasons. My blood would return once I ate better.

Smoke rose from Murana like steam from a geyser, obscuring the tall buildings. Grey muck even tainted the land around the city’s walls.

“There’s a thousand ships that burn coal in the harbor,” explained Lymbok “Everything’s covered in black gunk. You can feel it in your breath. It’s a bad, dirty city. We shoulda gone to Anastaia.”

Murana had none of Galantia’s beauty. The bridge that spanned the river did not resemble the majestic, glittering mage-built one that led to the High City. This one was utilitarian, made from grey stone, low and flat.

It made sense. Murana stood guard for Lethemia. To the south and to the east lay Vhimsantyr, a huge Empire that need only march an army through the Ricknagels’ seat of Shankar and across their fertile hills to fall upon Murana’s eastern bulwarks. But Vhimsantyr left Lethemia—and Gante, for that matter—alone, largely out of fear of magic. The Eastern Empire had none.

The inn Lymbok had found lay only a few blocks from the gates, and we fell into the small rented room with more relief than foxes outrunning the hunt. Amethyst and I took the lone bed while Miki curled into a corner.

Lymbok stood by the door, bouncing on his toes. “I’m going out,” he announced. “You all rest. I’m gonna scope the smithin’ scene.”

Too tired to make any argument against risky behavior, we all simply watched him go.

“
O
ranges
!” Lymbok crowed as he burst through the door a while later, dumping fruits from a burlap sack to the bare planks of the floor. “And this here they say is meat that’s gonna last a long while.” He waved sticks of jerky at us. Miki snatched a piece and tore into it with alacrity.

“You made a steal then?” I asked Lymbok.

“Well, turns out it was easy. I went to a market in this big square packed with people, and I found a mark, a real rich lady, her purse right on her hip. She didn’t even notice me, she was lookin’ so hard at some jewelry piece she fancied. And there was a lot o’ jhass in that purse. I even got some left over. ‘Nuf to get this room for another night or two.”

“You have to be careful,” I said as I peeled an orange. “If you get caught—”

“Won’t get caught.” Lymbok went back to his counting. “I never get caught.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the white magestone that he had stolen from the Brokering.

That stone had been troubling me ever since Galantia. An object imbued with magic could likely be traced. I frowned and wondered if I could use the ulio I had to cut any traceable connections. I didn’t know enough about Lethemian magic to be certain what such a bold action might provoke.

“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” asked Lymbok as he tossed the white stone and caught it again.

“That stone,” I began. “Don’t you think its owner will search for it?”

Lymbok only shrugged. “Gonna take ‘er a while if she do. Tracking magic ain’t easy. Danei assured me o’ that when I agreed to steal it.”

“His name is Rarmont,” Miki added from his corner. “Not Danei.”

“Whatever. He was a mage.” Lymbok pointed the stone in Miki’s direction. “He knew about stuff like tracking magic.”

Amethyst studied the stone with a frown to match mine. “I gathered you had stolen a magestone,” she said. “But that one is smaller than they usually are. I’ve seen enough of them; the mages always like to bring them out when they’re dropping the milk.” She stuck out her hand, demanding to hold it. Lymbok plopped the spherical stone into her palm. “It’s warm and it has its own light inside. Most magestones don’t light up unless a mage does magic with them.”

“That one’s always lit,” Lymbok replied. “It’s been all aglow since I nicked it.”

“Who did you take it from?” demanded Amethyst.

Lymbok would not meet her eyes. “Lady Siomar Ricknagel.”

“Lady Siomar Ricknagel! Lym, are you crazy?”

“Danei—I mean, Rarmont—he said he’d pay me double for the job! And I knew I could do it, even if it was risky! Don’t nobody know the Tunnels like I do. You know there’s three different ways into the Palace through ‘em?”

“Lymbok!” Amethyst’s voice had risen to a frenzied pitch. “Do you know what that stone is?”

Lymbok scrambled to his feet and tried to snatch the stone from Amethyst’s grip. “Give it back!”

Amethyst, taller and larger than the boy, held the stone beyond his reach. “It’s the Moonstone Ophira! Siomar Ricknagel is the guardian of the Moonstone Ophira. Lymbok, how could you!”

“What’s an Ophira?” I wondered.

“It’s a fancy, famous kind of magestone,” said Lymbok unhappily, subsiding from his efforts to wrest the stone from Amethyst.

“They’re much stronger and older than regular magestones!” Amethyst said. “They have something to do with how magic spread throughout the country. I don’t know the details; I’ve only heard the mages at the den murmuring about them. I do know that stealing an Ophira is a very serious matter. There are only six of them in the whole world.” She stared at the stone with a look of dismay.

Lymbok’s hand flashed and retrieved the stone from hers. “Nobody’s gonna find out I got it.” He stuffed it back into his pocket. “You all just gotta keep your traps shut, and everything’ll be fine. I never get caught.”

Lymbok paid for another sennight in our inn with the money he got from his thieving. I had feared that after the scene about the Ophira he would abandon us, but I finally gathered the boy had a deep sense of loyalty born from our shared adversity, not to mention a tendre for Amethyst.

Lymbok returned from his excursions with all kinds of items plucked from pockets: jhass, folding knives, gloves, bottles of perfume, and snacks. He often brought “Amey” a present, something pretty and useless, like a silk ribbon or a scrap of the beaded fabric so popular in Galantia for ball gowns.

Along with the goods, he brought back rumors.

“Everyone’s all excited about the wedding in the capital,” he said on our fifth day in Murana. “That’s the only thing bein’ talked about. Costas Galatien is marrying that Ricknagel daughter in a big ceremony in the High City. All the Ten Houses is sendin’ a person who’s gotta go—got some fancy name—del-e-gate. Damn, but that would be easy pickins. They usually have a parade down the Temple Road for a nob wedding, and it’s the richest smithin’ ever—”

My mind had drifted away after his announcement about Costas’s wedding. The ung-aneraq—which I had been managing to ignore for days—now heated and scratched unbearably inside my chest. I did not like the idea of remaining connected to Costas once he married Stesichore—but how might I get my necklace back from Costas if he had no reason to reunite with me? I covered my face with my hands. I feared I had made a great mistake, fleeing Galantia without the necklace. The weight of Gantean duty pressed on me, and already, I had failed.

“—They all say he’s marryin’ her so that Lord Ricknagel and King Mydon will finally agree what to do about the Eastern Empire,” Lymbok continued as he emptied his pockets. “But that’s a dumb reason to get married, if you ask me.”

I pulled Miki aside while Amethyst and Lymbok sorted his loot. Amethyst always knew which items might be safe to resell on the streets and which were too unusual.

“Miki, have you heard any news about the Gantean captain?” Like Lymbok and Amethyst, Miki went out roaming the streets of Murana every day, though he never returned with anything.

“I’ve been to the harbor every morning since we arrived. Nothing yet,” Miki replied. “But the new moon is tomorrow. It would help if you came with me. The harbor’s big. I may miss him.”

I leaned into the wall. Since we had arrived in Murana, I had been made nauseous by the bad city air and my own anxiety—about Costas and the necklace, the men who pursued me, and a general sense of disconnection that had followed me ever since the Brokering attack in Galantia. It shamed me too much to admit my concerns and weaknesses to Miki.

“All right,” I murmured. “I’ll help you look tomorrow.”

M
iki led
me through the dizzying maze of Murana. I scrambled after him, sick to my stomach but hiding it. Townhouses and tenements towered above us. Their height oppressed me; only thin patches of sky filtered down to the shadowed streets.

We walked in silence until the claustrophobic alleys relented near the harbor gates. We passed a fountain with a figure of a woman holding an urn pouring water. Miki had not lied; Murana had a big harbor. Beyond the gates, huge launches punctuated the shore. Endless docks jutted into the dark water, a vessel in every possible mooring. Fishing trawlers and sloops rocked beside foreign crafts with sharp sails that sliced the indigo sky.

Guards stood at either side of the main gate, ominous in their Galatien colors.

I froze.

Miki returned to my side. “If we want to find the Gantean we have to go into the main harbor. That’s where the news about arriving ships comes in.” He pointed through the guarded gates.

The water and oranges I had consumed earlier rose in my throat. “I—I don’t feel well. I need to sit for a moment.”

Miki scowled but helped me to the edge of the fountain.

“I’m sorry. I know you need my help, Miki. I just—I haven’t been feeling well since we arrived in Murana.”

Miki crossed his arms and glared at me. “Don’t be stupid, Leila. You can tell me.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry I’m sick.”

Miki rolled his eyes. “You’re not sick. Don’t lie like a sayantaq! It’s obvious you’re iksuruq. You don’t have to hide it from me.”

I stared at him. Iksuruq? He thought I was pregnant? I almost laughed. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not iksuruq. It’s Murana’s bad air. It makes me sick.”

Miki lifted both eyebrows. “I can see it,” he said softly. “I can see it if I touch you.” He put a hand on my arm and let his eyes blur in the trance of a Gantean shaman.

Chilling awareness shivered down my spine. I had known that Miki had such talents, but I had forgotten what that meant. He could see truths in Yaqi that others could not. I wrenched my arm from his grip and whirled, turning away from him as my stomach emptied and my heart pounded.

Miki stood behind me. “We need to find the Gantean ship,” he remarked with typical Gantean distance.

“You go look then.” If I tried to stand I’d only feel worse. “I’ll come when—when I’m ready. I need to catch my breath.”

Miki hesitated. “Wait here at the fountain,” he finally said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As Miki hurried through the harbor gate—the guards took only cursory notice of him, as he looked like a hundred other ship’s boys scurrying around the place—I wrapped my arms across my belly.

A pregnancy changed everything. Just this morning I had shakily decided to cut the ung-aneraq I shared with Costas. I’d grown hopeless about its ability to help me regain my necklace, and with the impending marriage to Stesichore Ricknagel, I couldn’t bear the thought of being bound to him while he was bound to her. The wrongness of it made me feel sick all over again, but I couldn’t cut the bind while I carried Costas’s child lest I dislodge that growing life. Ganteans never killed unborn children—to do so was considered the worst of all possible crimes. I shook with horror and surprise both—but beneath all that, one persistent anxiety that had followed me from Galantia died. I no longer had to decide what to do about the ung-aneraq. I had to keep it, and all I felt was relief.

“I want to throw a wish into the fountain,” A woman’s voice carried across the small square. She approached the far side of the fountain. A figure dressed in black followed her, obscured by her height and the volume of her crimson skirts.

I turned away from the couple and hunched my shoulders, once again overset with nausea.

“Do you have a jhass for me?” The woman’s voice rang behind me again.

Her companion answered, “I pay you well enough for your service, you should have jhass of your own.”

“So stingy, Laith!” she cried.

Laith.
She’d said Laith
.
My dread translated directly into another heave. Blackness tinged the edges of my vision.

It could be a common name, but I knew it wasn’t. That black figure, tall and lean, had struck me as familiar.

“Laith! Laith! What are you—”

He caught my shoulder and pulled me upright. “Fucking serendipity! Every time, I tell you!”

Laith’s companion rustled up behind him. A black veil fell from a tiny black hat to obscure half her face. I caught a glimpse of red lips and one wide brown eye fringed with long lashes before writhing away from the mage.

“Halt.” The command hit me in my legs. Laith had used this compelling voice power unique to Lethemian mages on me once before, at the Brokering.

I tried to make my feet move, but they remained stuck as though cast in bronze.

“What do you want with that creature, Laith?” The woman hovered behind him as he circled me. I could not move any part of my body, not even my head. He stood where I could not escape his gaze.

“I knew you were close, but I had not realized how close.” He said to me softly. “What was it they call you—Lili?”

“She’s filthy,” snapped the woman in crimson. “A filthy little street rat. Give her a jhass if you have one, and leave her—”

Laith brandished a glittering magestone in the woman’s direction. Like me, she froze, her lips open in an expression of shock, her one visible eye peeled wide in an expression of annoyed disbelief.

“My contract Source,” Laith explained to me. “The only one I could hire on such short notice, willing to travel anywhere. But gods, she never stops talking. Highly satisfying to finally shut her up, you can’t imagine. Now. Tell me your real name.”