Spellbreaker (62 page)

“A divinity infiltrated our fleet?”

“I strongly suspect it, but I haven't told anyone else of my suspicions. Morale is low after we saw what the Savanna Walker's smoke did to so many of our sailors and pilots. I thought you should know that the longer we tarry in these waters, the longer we might be in danger.”

“You would advise speeding up the attack on Chandralu?”

He paused. “Or reconsidering our long-term strategy.”

“Retreat when we know where Los is? Lotannu, if we leave this bay, they will sneak Los to Dral or Lorn and we won't see her again until she's a fully developed demon capable of toppling the empire. Which reminds me, I want to tell you about some Numinous constructs I've cast to patrol the Cerulean Strait to prevent Los from stowing away in the belly of a whale goddess or some other underwater deity.”

Lotannu nodded. “I'd love to hear about them. But, Empress, the longer this siege goes on, the more danger you will be in. If you contract cholera or are hurt luring Francesca away from the city, our empire will crumble into civil war. Think of what the Savanna Walker said about your metaspells removing the error from Language Prime as a cause of the Silent Blight. Maybe there's more to this conflict than we previously suspected.”

Vivian stood. “We don't know if that is true. And we can work out how to cast my metaspells less often after we've killed Los. You saw what the Savanna Walker became. How could you doubt that the demonic host is here in front of us?”

Lotannu closed his eyes. “If he was telling the truth about the body of the ancient Los, he might also have been telling the truth about Language Prime.”

She began to pace. “Perhaps, but whatever we do, we have to take our chances.”

“Of course, Empress,” he said.

“We shall try to take Leandra into custody if possible. Then we won't have made any irreversible changes.”

“I doubt she would ever allow herself to be captured.”

“Then we can't give her the option of preventing it.”

Lotannu only bowed his head.

“You may go now,” she said and turned to the window. A moment later, another thought occurred to her. “And Lotannu,” she said without looking at him, “tell Captain Alarcon that I have changed my mind; we will need his report just as fast as he can conceive it.”

*   *   *

Nicodemus paused on a switchback to catch his breath. It was past midday and he still had an hour to go before he reached the Pavilion of the Sky.

Climbing Mount Jalavata's narrow, precipitous stairs, he had to keep his eyes always on the next tall step. They were rough-cut gray stone, rusty red soil showing between the chinks. A brief rain had made the stairway's gutters run with pale red water. His lungi's hem was stained the volcanic color.

To either side of the staircase, the sheer slopes bristled with vegetation. White-feathered seabirds nested among the leaves and made the air echo with shrill complaints. Occasionally they stepped from their homes to ride the crater's contrary winds. Their graceful long wings cut a pleasing contrast with the blue sky.

As Nicodemus rested, he dared look down. A moment of vertigo made him lean forward and place his hands on the steps. But then, reassured, he stood again and studied the world below.

On the next switchback down, ten hydromancer guards had also paused to catch their breath. The poor souls had to haul gallons of aqueous disspells in case of imperial attack.

Far behind the hydromancers were two recently incarnated war gods. The prayers that had written them were inspired by the Savanna Walker's black dragon. Each had a draconic head and foreclaws. Their stone bodies were scaled, potbellied, more humanoid. Because each god stood over ten feet tall, they did not walk along the narrow switchbacks but rather stretched up to grab the recurring path above them, going straight up the slope as if it were a ladder.

Below them, the monastery of the Trimuril was a small gray patch. Doria, unable to climb to the summit, waited for him somewhere in that building. Out on the crater lake, priests and hydromancers milled about the pageantry of ships. Watching the Floating City's gentle motion was calming, like watching waves.

“What's this I see?” a thin voice creaked in Nicodemus's ear. “The Storm Petrel surveying the Pandemonium?”

“Burning heaven, Goddess!” Nicodemus said to the Trimuril. “You surprised me.”

“You seemed so peaceful. I thought this might be a good time to talk.”

“I just wasn't expecting you. I thought you would talk to Lady Warden Francesca.”

“Oh, yes, we had a fine chat about airships. Then Francesca renewed her appeal that we evacuate the new incarnation of Los to Dral or Lorn.”

“Did she call Leandra that?”

“No, no, my interpretation.”

“You are certain then?”

Ancestor Spider's wheezing laughter rattled in Nicodemus's ear. “Certain? I would never be so stupid as to be certain, but seeing the Savanna Walker left little doubt. I've known divinity on this continent in all its forms, and I have never seen anything like that black dragon. There are things about Leandra I should have seen before. She has something of the trickster about her, though she does not know it. She's made all of us, humanity and divinity, the fools. Maybe that's what she did in her last life as well.”

“I don't understand.”

“The mighty empire, the noble league, she's shown us how cruel they are. Although she is herself just as cruel in revealing the truth. I should know; I've committed the cruelty of truth upon countless Ixonian souls over the centuries. And what better way to show us our foolishness than inducing us to fight each other in a cataclysmic war?”

“But perhaps we can change the league's society so that—”

The creaking laughter returned. “Change it how, my great Storm Petrel? You want to stop neodemons from preying on the weak and poor? That should be simple. All you have to do is stop casting metaspells or convince men and women to stop praying for evil to befall each other.”

“You think it's impossible.”

“Impossible by the rules as we presently understand them.”

“But we could change the rules?”

“Nicodemus, would you like to play a game?”

“No!” he answered then quickly softened his tone. “I mean to say, Goddess, that I do not think I am presently—”

Again she interrupted with laughter. “You don't want to play because of how my last game turned out. But unfortunately, dear Storm Petrel, you are already playing a game and so am I. We are playing Leandra's game.”

“What game is that?”

“I don't know and neither does Leandra.”

A wind whipped around Nicodemus, throwing his long black hair into his face. After trying to tame it, he said, “So how do we play this unknown game? If Leandra is truly the trickster goddess who's shown our present rules to be broken and who will rewrite the future rules, shouldn't we keep her alive?”

“There is no need to repeat your wife's argument. It's a moot point. Leandra wouldn't leave the city. She told your wife that she refuses to abandon the city.”

“But—”

“Oh, don't keep playing a losing hand; it is so boring. I will not discuss this when we have just been dealt other and more interesting cards. We need to be thinking of the play that will keep us alive.”

“And what particularly interesting cards have we been dealt?”

“Let's see,” Ancestor Spider said with creaking amusement. “We are under attack from an evil Halcyon with unmatched spellwrighting ability, which she derives from a magical emerald that stole its power from the brain of the infant Storm Petrel. Since its creation, that emerald has been trying to return to its origin.”

“Oh,” Nicodemus said, then suddenly understanding, “Oh!”

“Could you?”

“Remove the spells from around my keloid?”

“It would be an interesting play.”

Carefully, Nicodemus sat down on a tall stair. “The gem will manipulate the situation to reunite itself with me. That would work to our advantage if it eventually deprived Vivian of the Emerald. But it would also open a channel between Vivian and me, one that might be manipulated. In Starhaven, Typhon manipulated that channel to destroy Fellwroth and free himself.”

“You think Vivian could manipulate you?”

“It's possible.”

“Could you manipulate her?”

“I don't know.”

“Can you think of any other interesting plays?”

Nicodemus stared down at the Floating City, its slow churning movement. Other interesting plays? “Francesca mentioned that she asked the Council of Starfall to send a support convoy with the war gods of the South. Do we have any more news as to if they were sent or not?”

“We did get a colaboris communication from Starfall. The ships set sail on schedule. But they were supposed to touch at Port Mercy before proceeding to Chandralu and there's been no report of that yet. Perhaps they are caught in doldrums or a storm.”

“No good then. Do we have any other sources of strength, perhaps closer to home? Something on the archipelago?”

“None I can think of.”

Nicodemus frowned and stared down at the Floating City. What could he do to weaken Vivian? A shadow was working its way across the lake. He looked up and saw a churning cloud advancing over the volcano. It was going to rain on him again soon. Idly he wondered if he could pray to some Ixonian wind deity to blow the clouds away.

Realizing that his mind was wandering, Nicodemus shook his head. “Vivian wouldn't be expecting me to free the keloid. At the very least, it would surprise her.”

The Trimuril did not respond for so long that Nicodemus thought she might have left him. A curtain of rain drew itself across the far side of the crater.

“Storm Petrel,” the Trimuril asked in a playful tone, “would you like to play a game?”

Slowly, Nicodemus smiled at the coming rain. “Yes,” he said and reached behind his neck to the smooth, dark scar.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY

Midday clouds tumbled over Mount Jalavata to scatter rain across Chandralu before twisting themselves into nothing. The day's heat grew even as the tropical sun slouched toward evening.

Walking back to her quarters through humid hallways, Leandra felt forward though her godspell. The majority of her future selves felt her present anxieties. A small minority felt flashes of fear or the nothingness of death; those had to be from a possible but unlikely imperial attack. Perhaps a rocket hitting the compound? Another, larger minority of her future hours were filled with profound relief. That was encouraging.

Clutching a book she had newly acquired, Leandra wondered what might lead to such future relief. But concentration was difficult; the compound's walls were thin and through them she could hear an older maid complaining to a friend, a guard snoring on watch, and from somewhere farther a faint roaring.

She stopped. It didn't make sense, this sound. At times distant shouts punctuated the roar. Other times, it fell into silence.

She turned and walked down another hallway until she reached the kitchen's exit onto the upper terrace. Just outside the gate, in a small depression between the compound and street, a circle of men had gathered. They were chanting, or at least many of them were. Their cadence was irregular, building slowly and then collapsing into a chaos of shouted imperatives: “Kill him! Kill him!” “Not like that!” “Stay low, stay low! Damn it!”

Then she understood the sound like one recognizing rot when taking a suspicious sniff. Her expression crinkled. She shouldn't investigate. This was none of her affair. She turned back into the kitchen and saw a cook at work. He was a squat man, maybe forty, a ruddy complexion, chopping vegetables with a rhythmic intensity. The shouting continued behind Leandra. She couldn't leave it alone. She had to know if it was him or—possibly but unlikely—her.

So, again clutching her new book to her chest, Leandra slipped out of the kitchen, past the men, and up the stairs to the street. Once there, she turned back to look down on the chanting men.

What she saw was familiar. It was an impromptu wrestling match. The ring of white chalk had been laid down in a circle. The kind of thing seen at a winehouse. And, indeed, many spectators shouted with an abandon that suggested intoxication. Who could blame them? An empire had, after all, besieged their city. Wasn't it every man's civic duty to raid their compound's rice wine and kava to keep them out of imperial hands?

In the ring, two combatants circled each other. Both were bare-chested with lungi folded short. The older wrestler was a tall and hulking man, light brown skin, shaved head, a crooked nose, salt-and-pepper stubble. The very picture of a bruiser, a brawler.

The younger wrestler, despite his lean muscularity, seemed insubstantial in comparison. He wore his long kinky black hair in a tight bun. His sparse, youthful beard had been trimmed close. His eyes were wide, his lips pulled back in a manic smile.

The bruiser lunged, but the younger man danced around him and slipped both his arms around his opponent's waist then pivoted his hips to provide a fulcrum over which he could throw the bruiser. But though the young man's shoulders jumped into cords of muscle, he could not lift his opponent more than an inch.

Leandra's heart felt as if it were shriveling. The younger man's maneuvers were only those of a master wrestler; once they had been those of a god. It was him, what was left of him, looking terribly and beautifully human.

Now the bruiser, bellowing into an attack, turned around in the circle of Dhrun's arms and slammed an elbow into his jaw. Dhrun's head snapped around. An arc of saliva flew from his mouth and became silver in the sunlight. Dhrun spun halfway around before collapsing. The chalk ring, and therefore defeat, lay inches from his head.