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“Yes, it might, but I—”
“Do not bother to explain the techniques. This Tibran would not understand. His kind have no magic. Is this not true, Tibran?”
Stone tightened his jaw and stiffened his spine yet again. He feared no man. Nor did he fear any woman. Any ordinary woman. But this witch and her magic…how could he not fear a thing that could go crashing about in his thoughts, shredding them to bits, stealing away whatever seemed interesting?
Long moments slid away while Uskenda watched Stone and Stone watched the far wall.
“Shall we start again, warrior?” The general’s gentle voice reminded him of ease, of soft comfort in women’s quarters. “What is your name? A simple thing, your name.”
Simple, yes. But the first word spoken, the first truth told would change everything. Would the gods forgive him for failing to punish this woman’s sacrilege? Would they count his blasphemy against him for following her orders? The warrior god was a harsh one, demanding much and forgiving little. But surely he would understand about the magic.
Uskenda sighed. “Naitan—”
“Stone.” The sound of his own voice startled him. “Stone, Warrior vo’Tsekrish.”
Uskenda came to attention and saluted him. “Warrior.” She nodded at the witch. “I believe we will not be needing your services after all, naitan. But please hold yourself in readiness in case our Tibran friend changes his mind.”
The witch smiled, bowed and left the room. Stone sagged in relief, but only for a second.
“Stone, Warrior vo’Tsekrish.” Uskenda paced the floor before him. “You are a long way from home, are you not?”
“Yes, General.” He hoped all his answers would be so guilt free, but the hope was small.
“How did you learn our language, warrior?”
“I…do not know. I—after the assault, when I was taken prisoner, the soldiers spoke to me, and I understood.”
“This was after the—” She checked a paper on her desk. “After the dark scythe, the magic, was it not?”
“Yes, General.”
“You were captured in the breach?”
“Yes, General.”
“And you never advanced into the city. Is that correct?”
“No, General.”
Her head came up and she stared. “No?”
“Fox—my partner and I were in the First and Finest, those leading the assault. We took the breach, held it for the next wave, then advanced into the city.” Talking about the past, things that had already happened would surely hurt nothing.
“How far into the city?” She spread a map on the desk, obviously expecting him to come look. Stone spared a glance for his guard who grunted and prodded him forward with the pike.
Uskenda indicated the position of the breach and the high-spired temple with its colored windows. Stone pointed to a street a quarter of the way between, his shackles rattling. “Here.”
“Are you sure?” She held his gaze, the light gray of her eyes almost as unsettling as the blue of the witch’s. “Every other Tibran within the city walls was found dead.”
Stone studied the map again, letting the shivers take him. He was among witches now. He had to live with the fear. “It might have been here.” He pointed at a place a few streets to the south. “My memory isn’t good, not for those minutes—but I know we were inside the city.”
“Then how is it you were found in the breach? Alive?”
He met her gaze, held it, willed her to believe him. He did not want her to call the witch back when he was telling the truth. “I do not know. I remember the world coming to an end. And then I remember waking up in the breach. Nothing else.”
They stared eye into eye for a long moment more, until Uskenda broke contact, looking down again at the map. The guard crashing to attention startled both of them. “General,” he rapped out.
“What is it, Sergeant?”
“There is a mark on his neck.”
The general’s eyes widened and her eyes flicked from one man to the other. “What kind of mark? Show me.”
The guard seized Stone by the scruff of his neck, forcing him to his knees, shoving his head forward. He raked the pigtail out of the way. Uskenda’s gasp as she touched a finger lightly to the nape of Stone’s neck sent a thrill of terror shooting through him yet again. What was this mark? What did it mean?
The guard released Stone’s head, but held him on his knees with a foot on the chain connecting wrist shackles to leg irons. Uskenda shuffled through the papers on her desk. She found the one for which she searched and scanned it quickly.
“You say this man has been behaving strangely?” she asked the guard.
“He beats his head on the wall and claws at the stones. You see the bandages. His hands are much worse than his forehead.”
“Does he know he is doing this?”
The guard shrugged. “Who can say? All Tibrans are barmy, you ask me.”
“Are you aware?” Uskenda asked Stone. “When you do these things?”
He didn’t want to answer. But more, he didn’t want magic mucking through his mind, making things worse than they already were. “No.”
Uskenda touched the back of his head and he bent it obediently forward. She moved the pigtail aside but made no attempt to touch him again. Then she released him and stepped back, her boot heels a brisk clap against the polished wooden floor. “Make ready to take the prisoner to Arikon.” Her orders snapped out with spine-chilling authority, the corporal appearing again to take them. “I wish I had seen him earlier so I might have sent him with Captain Varyl, but no matter. He will go on the next boat, at dawn tomorrow. Inform your captain. I want him escorted by an officer and a quarto of her best soldiers.”
Once more, the guard stiffened to attention. He hauled Stone to his feet and hustled him out of the building and back to his prison. What would befall him next in this cursed land?
Torchay spent the first day of the week’s journey upriver fighting sleep. Since the night his naitan had suddenly stopped breathing, he’d scarcely slept at all, dozing off and jerking awake seconds later, afraid it had happened again. It hadn’t, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. The riverboat hadn’t enough room for him to keep moving and every time he stilled, sleep tried to claim him.
He studied the boat, hoping the mental activity would help. Typical of its class, the Taolind Runner was long and narrow with a shallow draft to keep it running when the water level dropped in late summer. The exposed wood of the decks gleamed with varnish, but the exterior hull had been stained inky black with tar before it was sealed and proofed by South magic. The single triangular sail was set well forward in the crew section, its lack of wear evidence of more South magic. A pair of North naitani wind-callers took turns keeping the blue-and-gold-striped sail filled, moving it briskly against the current.
All the magic that had gone into this boat gave evidence to the prosperity of the owner who captained the ship and served as one of the wind naitani. The four elegantly furnished passenger cabins near the ship’s stern attested to the same. On this leg of the journey, only two cabins were taken. Torchay would have expected some of the wealthier citizens of Ukiny to take advantage of the opportunity to escape the city, but the general had apparently forbidden it.
His head bobbled and he jerked his eyes open, blinking rapidly in an attempt to convince them to stay that way.
“Go ahead and sleep,” his captain said from the chair beside him under the blue-and-gold-striped awning stretched over the passenger area at the stern.
Confinement area, to speak truth. The crew did not want passengers wandering indiscriminately about the ship. Torchay had been sent politely but firmly back to the “passenger section” several times already. “I need to be alert, watch for threats.” He scanned the bank to either side, peering into the scattered trees for human shapes.
“You can’t be alert if you don’t get some sleep,” she said, sounding far too reasonable. “No one can function without sleep, and I know you’re not sleeping at night. Sleep now. I’ll watch.”
“It’s against regulations. My duty is to—”
“How can you do your duty if you’re asleep on your feet? We’ve been on this boat all day. We’re beyond the Tibran lines. There are no bandits or river pirates between Ukiny and Turysh. We took care of the last band ourselves two years ago, remember? Sleep. I’m tempted to sleep myself.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. He needed to sleep. “We should go to the cabin.” They would have more protection there.
“It’s too hot. If you’re that worried about my breathing, ask Uskenda’s courier to keep an eye out.”
“Excellent thought.” He could tell by her expression when he stood that she hadn’t expected him to take her suggestion seriously and was none too pleased that he had. But he would take no chances with his naitan.
The courier, an amiable young man, seemed surprised and not a little nervous at Torchay’s approach. Those in bodyguard’s black often evoked that reaction. Still, the courier willingly agreed with a little puffing out of his chest to move his chair closer and keep watch.
Torchay stretched out on the long wooden chair, arranged the cushions behind his back, stuffed one under his head and closed his eyes. But now that he had the opportunity to sleep, it eluded him.
Sounds intruded—the slap of water along the boat’s sides, the creak of the sail’s rigging, the murmur of voices as the boatmen talked and laughed among themselves. He could feel the hum of magic over his skin as the naitan on shift directed the pocket of winds pushing them against the current. He opened his eyes a slit to be sure his own naitan hadn’t moved. Their chairs sat side by side, wooden flanks touching, but too far for him to sense her continued presence.
“Oh for—” She took his hand, laced her fingers through his. “There. Now you’ll know if I decide to run away.”
Content, he closed his eyes again. The sounds swelled then faded away as he categorized and dismissed them. Without their distraction, his mind began to buzz. He was seriously worried. The not-breathing business was only a small part of it. Though she tried to pretend otherwise, something more had happened to Kallista when that dark and deadly magic swept through her.
She dreamed things that came true. She saw people who weren’t there and talked to them. Dead people, by her own words. Torchay felt a faint chill slide down his spine. West magic was as much a gift of the One as any other. He believed that. But it still unnerved him by its very nature. Not that it mattered. His place was by her side.
She could manifest magic from all four cardinal directions at once and his place would not change. He was her bodyguard. Her welfare, her life was in his charge. And that was why he worried. That, and the fact that he loved her, had loved her for years.
He’d loved her since she took the blame for the fiasco he’d caused, almost getting them both killed in their first year together, in his first combat. He’d been wounded, nearly gutted, spent months with the healers recovering. She’d visited nearly every day. And when he came out, she insisted he be reinstated as her bodyguard. How could he not love a woman like that?
There had been a great deal of hero worship about it at first, but after nine years at her side, he loved her for her flaws as well as her virtues. He would never inflict his emotions on her. She didn’t want it. Her highly disciplined, carefully controlled, duty-bound life had no room for anything as messy as love. But he could pour his devotion out on her without having to speak the words. It had taken nine years to gather the courage to speak of friendship. That was enough.
Shouts from the front of the ship brought Torchay bolt upright out of a sound sleep he didn’t remember falling into. The lanterns on the very back of the ship held back the night’s darkness. He had been asleep for quite some time. He still held Kallista’s hand clasped in his.
Torchay stood, releasing her hand. “I had better go see what that is. Go back to the room and wait for me.”
She gave him her “think again, Sergeant” look and followed him down the narrow walkway beside the passenger cabins.
Just past the cabin area where a passageway cut from one side of the ship to the other, half a dozen crew members were standing over a huddled figure crouched on the deck, arms folded protectively around its head.
“What’s happening?” Torchay asked.
Kallista leaned over the boat’s rail to look around him, trying for a better sight of the situation. Torchay elbowed her back upright with a snarl to stay hidden. She crouched to peer beneath his elbow. His protectiveness could be so annoying.
“We found a stowaway. A Tibran spy.” One of the sailors kicked at their find.
“Don’t hurt me. Please don’t!” the stowaway cried in the high-pitched voice of a child or woman. “I mean no harm. I’m no one. I’m not a spy.”
Kallista tried to squeeze past Torchay. She should have known better. The man could give lessons in immovable to mountains. “What are you, then?” she called past the barricade of his body.
“A woman. Only a woman.” The stowaway shuffled around on her knees to face Kallista’s direction as much as she could. She wore a torn and dirt-stained tunic. Her hair was chopped raggedly short, matted with more dirt, and her thin arms were dirtier yet.
All the crew members had stopped their abuse to stare at Kallista. Even Torchay looked over his shoulder at her until he recalled his duty and swung around to face front.
“Tibran?” Kallista said. “Are you Tibran?”
“No longer. I was born in Haav, over the sea, but I have left Tibre. I am here and here I wish to stay.” Still curled into a ball, the woman stretched her hands along the deck, reaching toward Kallista in supplication.
“Why? Why abandon your home?”
“It has never been my home.” The woman’s bitterness startled Kallista.
“Do you understand her, naitan?” one of the crew members asked. Kallista thought he was a boat’s officer since he wore a tunic rather than going about bare-chested like most of the other males in the crew.
“Yes.” She almost continued with a question but thought better of it. Setting her hand against Torchay’s taut back, she leaned forward and murmured in his ear, “Please tell me you understand what she’s saying.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Torchay turned his head slightly to reply. “No, Captain. I cannot. Is it—could you be speaking Tibran?”
Kallista sighed, letting her forehead come to rest on his shoulder. She was so very tired of waking up every day to discover some new peculiarity about herself, some new magic that had made its home inside her. She wanted it to stop. “I suppose it must be,” she said. “She says she’s from Haav. Isn’t that one of their ports?”
“I believe so, naitan.”
“She also says she’s left Tibre. She wants to be Adaran now.”
“Oh, she does, does she?”
Kallista could feel the suspicion bristling from Torchay like some prickly cloak.
“Naitan.” The tunic-clad officer spoke again. “Captain’s compliments, and would you come to the foredeck and assist in interrogating this stowaway?”
“Yes, sir, I would be happy to.” Kallista straightened.
Torchay held his position while the stowaway was hauled to her feet and hustled up the gangway to the high foredeck at the prow of the boat. Only when the party was a certain prescribed distance ahead did he follow, always keeping himself interposed between Kallista and the Tibran.
“I doubt that poor child is much of a threat.” Kallista stalked slowly behind Torchay’s broad back.
“As do I. But anything is possible, and I will not be careless of your life.”
As she rolled her eyes, he spoke again. “And do no’ roll your eyes at me.”
Mouth open in surprise, Kallista halted two steps down from the high deck. “How do you know—”
He turned and held out his hand to escort her the rest of the way. A smile lurked in his eyes and nowhere else on his solemn face. “Because you always do when I say such things.”
She shook her head, smiling despite herself as she took the hand he offered. “I think you have been my bodyguard far too long.”
The stowaway stood before the stout, stern-faced captain, shivering in the night’s warmth. Obviously a woman, now her delicate build and surprisingly full breasts could be seen, she hugged herself, head down, eyes on the deck beneath her bare filthy feet.
Kallista greeted the riverboat captain, one of a prominent trading family based in Turysh. Kallista had known a number of her children in school before the lightning came.
“Who is she and what is she doing on my boat?” The captain clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels waiting for Kallista to translate.
Hiding a sigh, she summoned military posture and took a step past Torchay to see the woman she was to interrogate. “Stand up straight,” she said, disturbed by the woman’s abject demeanor. “Have you no pride?”
