her tomorrow, and together we will try to stop this idiot’s war.”
“Maisa? Maisa lives? Gods below, where is she?”
“A place no Empress should be caught dead in,” chuckled Gregory.
“The other woman,” said Suthinia, “is the one I’ve been waiting for, all these years. When she came at last I did not know her, but I know her now. She is the hope of Alifros, and the one my boy, it seems, can’t live without. I’m speaking of your daughter, Admiral. Thasha Isiq is alive.”
The tears struck faster than Gregory’s club. He choked, and sat down hard, and the witch’s arm went around his shoulders. They were arguing (husband, wife, dog) about how Suthinia had broken the news, how she might have done it better. Isiq scarcely noticed. Before his eyes the tailor bird was flitting in the darkness, Don’t cry Isiq, she’ll find you, she’ll fly home somehow, the young are very strong. He wept, and felt the call to arms within him, and the warmth of a woman’s touch, and the swish, swish of angels’ wings against his face.
On the Hunt
6 Modobrin 941
235th day from Etherhorde
The terrible choice, stay or go, haunted many in what remained of the night. For some, deciding was the whole struggle; others reached a decision but had to argue, plead, even fight with their fists to defend it. There were the needs of the Chathrand to consider, the calculations of her officers and spies, the doubt as to whether anyone who left the ship would ever see her again and the ability of a panicked Masalym to find steeds, saddles, boots. Against all of that, a mystery: the threat to the world posed by one mage and one small black sphere. When the Upper Gate of the city opened at last and the party rode out upon the still-dark plain, its composition was a surprise to just about everyone.
Lord Taliktrum was no exception. From atop the gate’s stone arch he watched them emerging: three Turachs, eight dlomic warriors, the latter on the cat-like sicunas rather than horses. Lean, swift dogs spilling about them, visibly eager for the hunt to begin. Next came the allies: Pazel and Neeps sharing one horse, Thasha and Hercol on mounts of their own. The youths looked exhausted already, as though they had never gone to sleep. Big Skip Sunderling bounced along awkwardly behind them, a sailor on horseback. The shock on his face made it clear that no one had foreseen his inclusion less than Big Skip himself.
Two pack horses, then Ibjen and Bolutu. And what was this? The sfvantskors, Pazel’s sister and her two comrades-prisoners no longer, but still under the Arqualis’ watchful gaze.
The young lord tasted bile at the sight of the next rider: Alyash. He wore a look of foul displeasure. Sandor Ott’s curious weapon, the thing called a pistol, was strapped to his leg. Beside him rode the elder tarboy, Dastu. Ott’s servants, both, mused Taliktrum. He didn’t dare leave the Chathrand, but he’s wise enough to realize that the Nilstone, even from here, could threaten his beloved Arqual. He’s forced them to go in his stead. They’ll hate him for that, if they’ve any wisdom of their own.
There were yet two more in the party, though they might easily have been overlooked. They rode on the withers of the pack animals, holding tight, facing forward: Ensyl-Taliktrum should have expected to see her among the giants, but also “Skies of fire!”
Myett. Taliktrum’s hands tightened to fists. What possible excuse? Had she been hounded out by worshippers, by vicious expectation?
An outrage, that’s what it was. Ride away with the humans, to the Pits with the clan. And he could only watch them go. The woman who had loved his aunt, and the woman who had loved him. Indeed the only such woman, apart from the mother who had died in his infancy-and the aunt herself.
They were forty feet gone, then sixty, then as far as a giant could throw a stone. Something overcame him, and he dived on his swallow-wings and flew with all his strength, needing to touch her, command her, speak some word of fury or desire.
With five yards to go he swerved away. Coward, weakling! Who was he to question Myett? On what authority? Moral, rational, the law of the clan? He was nothing, he was far less than nothing. He was an ixchel alone.
“No sign of the great Captain Rose,” grumbled Neeps. “After all his rage and noise and don’t-you-be-lates. I wonder if he meant a single word.”
Pazel answered with stuporous grunt.
“Even this morning he acted like he was getting ready to come with us,” Neeps went on. “And it didn’t seem like a lie. Maybe he couldn’t bear to leave Oggosk, in the end. Do you think she really could be his mother?”
Pazel shrugged.
“You’re not going to speak to me all the way to the mountain, are you?” said Neeps.
“Doubt it,” muttered Pazel.
They were still in darkness, though the tops of the mountains had begun to glow. The “highway” that ran through Masalym’s Inner Dominion, from the city to the mountain pass, was really no more than a wide footpath, hugging the left bank of the meandering Mai. Fog blanketed the river, snagged on the reeds where birds were chattering, spilled here and there over the path, so that the horse’s legs became stirring spoons. Already the city lay an hour behind.
“You heard what I told Marila,” said Neeps. “I said I’d stay behind. Credek, Pazel, I tried all night to convince her.”
Pazel waved a beetle from the horse’s neck. He was glad he was riding in front, where there was no need to look Neeps in the eye.
“She wouldn’t let me stay,” Neeps pleaded.
“Did you ever make her believe you wanted to?”
That shut him up. Pazel felt a twinge of guilt for not wanting to hear Neeps talk anymore. But why should he, after a whole night lying awake, suffering for both of them, furious that they’d let it happen now.
“When was it, Neeps?” he said at last, trying and failing to keep the bitterness from his voice. “That night you almost killed Thasha, while I was on Bramian?”
“Yes,” said Neeps. “That was the first time.”
“The first time. Pitfire. Were there many?”
“We tried to be careful,” said Neeps.
Pazel bit his tongue. He was thinking how easily a jab with either elbow would knock his friend to the ground.
“Those storms on the Ruling Sea,” Neeps was saying. “We really thought we were going to die. And the mutiny, the rats… and then we woke up in the ixchel’s blary pen.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“What, from in there? Shouting through the window? Or afterward, you mean? ‘Listen, mate, I’m sorry Thasha’s taken up with that grinning bastard Fulbreech, but you’ll be glad to know that I’m-’ No, we couldn’t have done that to you. And by then it was too late. Probably.”
“But Gods damn it, you’re stupid! Both of you.”
He’d spoken too loudly; Thasha’s glance shamed them both into silence. For at least half a minute.
“You know what I think?” said Neeps.
“I never have yet.”
“I think it could have happened to you and Thasha.”
Half a dozen retorts occurred to Pazel instantly-and melted on his tongue, one after another. “Let’s say that were true,” he managed at last. “So what?”
“So try thanking your stars,” said Neeps, “instead of going on like Mother Modesty about the two of us.”
This time the silence lasted a good mile as they trotted down the dusty trail, past the fisherfolk’s mud huts, the trees with their limbs dangling low over the water. Pazel thought he smelled lemon trees. But he had yet to see a lemon or anything like it in the South.
“Neeps,” he said at last, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
