You the bone man? he repeated quietly, eyes on the master.
The tubby man drew himself up. Now, look, I I have already tithed this month. I m a devout man. But I don t do charity work on demand. I have to make a living. You ll just have to
I can pay, Egar told him. He patted the purse at his belt and made it clink.
Palpable relief washed across the doctor s face. It was like watching a man slide into well-warmed bathwater.
Oh, he said. Well, that s different.
CHAPTER 33
And how exactly did you come by that murderous little item?
Ringil reached up and touched the pommel of the Ravensfriend, where it rose at his shoulder. It was forged for me at An-Monal by Grashgal the Wanderer.
Yes actually, I was talking to the sword.
Helmsmen .He'd never much liked them, even in the old days. Too little readability in their immobile iron bodies, when you could actually see one, and in their disembodied avuncular voices when you couldn t. And too fucking impressed with themselves by half. Personally, he told Archeth, when the subject of Anasharal came up, I d trust one of those things about as far as I could carry its melted-down carcass up the street. They re no better than demons it s like keeping the Dark Court in a fucking bottle on your mantelpiece. Who knows what they re thinking, or what they want?
In truth, he was exaggerating a little for effect. During the war, he d spent time at An-Monal and conversed with Manathan on and off, albeit mostly in the company of its Kiriath handlers. The Helmsman had given him no reason to dislike it, if you didn t include the run of tiny cold shivers he felt every time it spoke unexpectedly to him out of the bedrock air. To Grashgal and the others, the creatures were part of the furniture, and over time Ringil had found himself able to cultivate a similar attitude. But it didn t change the fact that you were dealing with something as inert as a sword or a temple wall, and it still apparently had intelligence far greater than your own. And seemed to enjoy reminding you of the fact.
The Dark Court and the dwenda at least had the courtesy to appear human.
Well, you re still going to have to talk to it. Archeth, pragmatic as ever when anything other than her own life was concerned. It s the heart of the expedition, it s the reason we re going in the first place.
Yeah, makes you wonder, doesn t it?
What? They were riding back from the Shanta boatyards, side by side through noon city bustle and heat. But even against the backdrop hubbub of the streets and clop of their horses hooves on cobbles, he could hear the irritable tension clambering upward in her voice. Makes you wonder what ?
He sighed. They were long overdue for this conversation. He d been putting it off for days.
Might as well get it over with.
Archeth, come on. A watchtower city in the ocean, a clan dedicated to standing eternal guard down the centuries? That s not how people live, and you know it. Not even your people. Anasharal is spinning you a fireside yarn for children. You don t believe it any more than I do. That s not what this is about.
You know a studied calm in her voice now, a signal he knew for the warning smolder of staved-off rage I am getting a little fucking tired of hearing men explain to me what my real motivations are. If you re so sure we re wasting our time, then why did you
I didn t say that. He shifted sideways in his saddle to face her better. I didn t say we re wasting our time. Look, maybe An-Kirilnar does exist. And maybe, just maybe, it hasn t been plundered the way An-Naranash was. The Hironish are tough to get out to, true enough, those are bad waters, so maybe this place has been overlooked. That s certainly what your merchant pals have got to be hoping. So, sure, I ll break heads and keep order for you, and I ll ride along with you when you go. It s something to do, it ll keep me busy. But please don t tell me you really think we re going to find a bustling little colony of Kiriath custodians up there, keeping an eye on some wet chunk of granite with a tomb on top, cheerfully passing down their mission from father to son for the past four thousand years and acting like the rest of the world doesn t exist. I mean, is that likely ?
It isn t impossible.
He sighed again. No, it isn t impossible. Very little seems to be impossible in this world. But is it really what you think you ll find?
So, what? You think Anasharal is just making this up? The evasion was blatant, the scratchy signs of krinzanz denial right behind it in the uneven tone of her voice. To what fucking purpose, Gil? Answer me that. A cabal of misfit rich fucks, ships built and equipped, men hired and trained, an expedition to a place that doesn t exist why would a Helmsman want all that?
He shrugged. I think we ve covered this ground. You re trying to second-guess something completely inhuman. Why should its motivations make any sense to us?
They rode on without speaking, a dozen or so clopping horse strides.
Yeah, well, Archeth repeated, with evident sour satisfaction. You re still going to have to talk to it.
He was never very sure why he went armed into its presence.
There was a certain dress formality in the League cities for noblemen. War was, after all, their trade, and it seemed appropriate they should represent the fact in public. Before the Scaled Folk came, the tradition had ebbed somewhat. The more mannered among the gentry adopted flimsy court swords with more attention given to their gaudy scabbards and guards than to the plain steel sheathed within. But with the war and the subsequent upheaval, heavy blades were in evidence once more, and Ringil, on his return to Trelayne last year, had found himself unexpectedly fashionable.
But it wasn t that.
Perhaps, then, it was simply that the Ravensfriend was his link with the world of the Kiriath, his contract of passage and letter of recommendation to everything Anasharal represented. Grashgal forged it in workshops Ringil was never given admission to, out of alloys humans had no names for and containing, Ringil sometimes suspected, mechanisms the Kiriath didn t like to talk about. If, he reasoned one drunken night on the steppe with Egar, those cryptic fuckers have Helmsmen to help them sail their fireships, why wouldn t they have something like that to help them fight their wars? Something I don t know something aware?
Egar had cast a glance at the Ravensfriend where it lay on the ground by the fire. He smirked.
Yeah, thought I seen you talking to it a couple of times. Stroking it, like. You want to watch that shit, Gil.
Ringil threw a boot at him.
He put the memory away.
Talk to the sword all you like, he told Anasharal evenly. I m the one in charge here.
Well, if you say so.
It sat on a low, ornate table, set to one side of the room s ample hearth. High-angled morning sunlight poured in from the windows in the eastern wall, made odd facets and chinks in its rounded upper surface shine like jewels. Its limbs if that was what they were spread out evenly around its body like a marsh spider s legs, rising to a jointed midpoint, then dipping to sharp ends that dug visibly into the wood of the table top. Archeth had told him it couldn t move with much speed or competence, but to Ringil s uneasy eye the thing looked poised to leap or scuttle off somewhere at a moment s notice.
Actually, the Lady kir -Archeth Indamaninarmal says so. He unslung the Ravensfriend and leaned it carefully against one side of the mantelpiece. In the hard, bright light, dust motes seemed to coalesce around the weapon as he let it go. She s named me expeditionary commander. And since she has the Emperor s ear in this matter, I d say that s about as final as it s going to get.
And is the Lady kir-Archeth aware of just how popular you are in northern climes at this precise moment?
Ringil lowered himself into the armchair opposite. I d say she has an inkling.
And His Imperial Radiance?
I could give a back-alley fuck what that asshole thinks.
