“Do not touch her,” said Cayer Vispek.
Pazel jumped and shot him a look. “I was just-”
“Coddling a sfvantskor,” said Jalantri, regarding Pazel with a mixture of amusement and contempt. “Now I see why the Father did not wish the two of you to meet, sister. He knew no good could come of it.”
“Listen to me,” said Cayer Vispek to Pazel. “The one before you is no longer an Ormali, no longer Neda Pathkendle. I do not expect this to be easy for you to grasp, but know that every parent, brother or sister of a sfvantskor has faced the same kind of loss.”
“The same, is it?” said Pazel, his eyes flashing. “I haven’t blary clapped eyes on my family in nearly six years.”
“Neda has left your family,” said Cayer Vispek. “She has become Neda Ygrael, Neda Phoenix-Flame. And she has been reborn into a life of service to the Grand Family of the Mzithrin, and the sfvantskor creed. Only if you remember this can I permit the two of you to speak.”
“Permit us?” said Pazel, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “She’s my sister! Neda, is this what you want?”
Neda held herself very still. The eyes of all the men were upon her. With a ritual cadence to her words, she said, “My past is of no consequence. I am a sfvantskor, a keeper of the Old Faith, foe of devils, friend of the Unseen. The life before was a game of make-believe. I can recall the game, but I am grown now and wish to play it no more.”
“So speaks our sister in the fullness of her choice,” said Cayer Vispek. “You must accept her decision or else insult her gravely. Is that your wish?”
Pazel looked at the older man, and his dark eyes glinted with anger. But he held his tongue.
The Cayer watched him a moment longer, as though noting a source of future danger. Then, turning to Hercol again, he said, “There is more I would know. What sort of land have we come to, where men are killed under the banner of infinite conquest? Who are these black beings with silver eyes? And where are the humans? We have only met with miserable savages, hardly better than beasts.”
When the telling was done Neda felt wounded. As if some crushing harm had struck her body, some venom or germ that stole her strength and clouded her mind. She believed Hercol; his voice was too raw and bleeding to be feigned-and she had seen the men he called tol-chenni, and had thought them imbeciles from the start. But a plague of mindlessness. She squatted by the fire, clenching her fists. Protect us in this our black hour, she prayed. Defend us, that we may water Alifros with the blessings of your will. She addressed the prayer to the Unseen, the Nameless Ones, in the Mountains of Hoeled beyond the world. But did the Nameless Ones care about these strange Southern lands, or was their gaze fixed elsewhere? It was a troubling question, and probably forbidden.
Hercol looked up at the sky. “Dawn comes,” he said. “Pazel and I must return to our shipmates. And you three must make your choice, for I expect to see a boat from the Chathrand approaching by the time we reach them.”
“Choice?” said Neda, the bitterness rising in her again. “What choice is that? To return to your ship and be put in irons, or stay here and starve?”
“We’ll do neither of those,” said Jalantri, “will we, Cayer Vispek?”
The older sfvantskor pursed his lips and gave a thoughtful shake of his head. “Perhaps not,” he said-and flew in a blur at Hercol.
The attack was one of the swiftest Neda had ever seen. Cayer Vispek bore the swordsman backward off his crate, and by the time the two men struck the sand there was a knife at Hercol’s throat. Pazel surged to his feet, but Jalantri was far faster, and deftly kicked the youth’s legs out from under him. Pazel fell inches from the fire. The sfvantskor came down on him with both knees, caught his arm and twisted it behind his back. Jalantri looked wildly at Neda.
“I have him! Aid the Cayer, sister!”
“The Cayer needs no aid,” said Vispek, still pressing his blade to Hercol’s neck.
“That’s lucky!” snapped Jalantri. “Neda, you sat like a stone! What ails you? Were you afraid I might give your birth-brother a scratch?”
Pazel twisted helplessly, grimacing with rage. Neda shuddered. She recalled that look of defiance. He had shown it to Arquali soldiers, once.
“It was not luck,” said Cayer Vispek. “The Tholjassan chose to yield. Chose, I say: you saw my intention, didn’t you, swordsman? As plain as though I had drawn it for you in the sand.”
“I guessed,” said Hercol, motionless under the knife.
“You are too humble. I saw your readiness even as I struck. You might even have disarmed me, but you chose not to try. That was an error. You are prisoners now, and it may not go well for you.”
“What will you do now, Cayer?” asked Hercol.
“We will take the rescue boat, by persuasion or force, and seek the mainland.”
“If you take us as hostages on that boat, the Chathrand will know it,” said Hercol. “They can see our encampment plainly through their telescopes.”
“They will not wish to see you harmed,” said Cayer Vispek.
“You don’t know Arqualis,” gasped Pazel, turning his head painfully in the sand. “Prisoners of the Mzithrin are presumed good as dead. They’ll engage you whether we’re aboard or not. They’ll blow you to matchsticks.”
“We can take the boat alone,” said Neda quietly. “Leave them here, Cayer. The Chathrand will send another for them.”
“And for you, an extermination brigade,” said Hercol. “There are over a hundred Turachs aboard the Great Ship, and longboats that can outrun whatever little vessel they have dispatched to collect us.”
“We should have struck an hour ago,” growled Jalantri under his breath.
“Perhaps,” said Hercol, “but it is too late now.”
“Not too late for one thing,” said Jalantri.
“Cayer-” Neda began.
“Be silent, girl! Be silent, both of you!”
Their leader’s voice was tight with desperation. Neda and Jalantri held still as wolves about to spring. But spring where, on whom? The heresy of Neda’s thought appalled her.
“I fear Neda is right about the irons,” Hercol continued. “The crew tolerates our own freedom uneasily, since Rose charged us with mutiny. They will never tolerate yours. Nor can we hide those tattoos on your necks.”
“Those tattoos are never hidden,” snapped Cayer Vispek, pressing the knife tighter against the other’s flesh. “We are sfvantskors, not skulking thieves.” 2
“You may be reduced to worse than thieving,” said Hercol, “if you go alone into this country.”
Neda felt the readiness of her limbs, the killer’s focus trying to silence that other voice, the sister’s. Let me do it, Jalantri. If the Cayer commands us, let me end Pazel’s life.
“You grow careless with your words,” said Cayer Vispek. “If you truly know our ways, you know we cannot despair. For those who take the Last Oath it is a sin.”
“There is a related sin,” said Hercol, “but graver, in your teachings. Will you name it, or shall I?”
Cayer Vispek was very still. “Suicide,” he whispered.
When Hercol spoke again he did so courteously, almost with sorrow. “It is a hard thing, Cayer Vispek, but I must request your surrender.”
It was midmorning before the rescue skiff neared the Chathrand. Her crew was waiting in a ragged mob.
Some leaned out to help swing the hoisted boat over the scarlet rail. Most stood and watched. Never in all those months at sea had their spirits sunk so low, nor their eyes flashed so dangerously. The thirst! Not one of the eight hundred sailors had known such torturous want of water. The men’s very flesh had tightened on their bones. Their skin had peeled and blistered, and the blisters had shriveled from within. Their lips were cracked like old parchment.
They had watched in silence as the rescue boat tacked across the inlet, empty now of both serpents and ships. Passing telescopes, they had studied the captives, two men and one young woman (“Look at them arms, will you, she’s a bruiser, a wildcat, a hellion, why is every blary girl who comes aboard-”), and Old Gangrune the purser remarked on the way the strange young woman stared at Lady Thasha: with malice, or something very like.
The men had followed the boat with their eyes as it rounded the jetty, passed the great abandoned tower,
