Cordimancy (17 page)

Toril paled. He shook his head slowly. “I... I don’t think I can.”

“I know I’m asking a lot,” Malena said. “But you have to try. We all have to. And we have to act now, before more children die, or the trail grows cold.” She squeezed his arms, and when he opened his mouth again, put her fingers on his lips. “You think I’m being unrealistic. But if that’s your concern, then I think you ought to admit some problems with the Sotalio plan as well.” She gestured at the staff, strapped to Toril’s saddle. “Have you really thought through what will happen when you ride into Rovin’s lair with that?”

Toril’s cheeks puffed out in a sigh of exasperation.

“My sister’s married to his cousin, Toril. I hear enough gossip to know how he’s insinuated himself into every center of influence, how he’s managed potential adversaries. Not just recently, Toril—for years! He wants that staff. I think you may have underestimated the lengths he’ll go to get it. We know he’s been whipping folk into a frenzy about a border war. If you go there, I guarantee you won’t walk out again with a friendly escort, on an errand of your choosing, with Rovin’s agenda unaddressed. Or if you do, it will be after days or weeks of wrangling. Not hours.”

“I know it’s going to be ugly. But there has to be a way!” Toril rubbed a hand over his forehead, seized a handful of hair, and sighed.

“Maybe you should just give him what he wants,” Paka offered. “The staff in exchange for men to back a rescue.”

Toril looked at each of his companions in turn, gauging their reaction. “I don’t want the staff for power or prestige,” he murmured. “I took it under protest, at my father’s urging.” He took one of Malena’s hands. “His demand, really. But when I took it, I swore I’d put my people first. If I simply hand it over, men will die in this stupid war that Rovin is manufacturing. How can I let that happen?”

“You’re speculating,” said Shivi. “Maybe saner heads will prevail in the war councils. Maybe not. But the men of our clan are not helpless, Toril. These children are. They’re part of the clan you swore to protect, too.”

“
Never
forget the ‘helpless’ in the name you chose,” Gitám said. “Who is helpless?”

“Malena.”

Silence told Toril that his answer was inadequate.

“Who? Am I forgetting someone?” he asked. “What do you want me to say?”

“Keep asking that question, Toril—and ask who is not helpless, as well.”

Toril’s brow furrowed.

“A name is about choosing, Toril. You must know who you help, because you will have to make hard choices. Part of carrying your name is knowing which battles you should not fight. This is one of the trials in your ordeal.”

“
Fine
,” Toril said bitterly. “I’ll trade the staff. Now let’s go, already.”

Paka and the priest looked satisfied. Shivi was hard to read. But Malena shook her head. “I begin to see why Hasha trusted your motives,” she said, lips thinning. “Guile is not in your nature. But it
is
in Rovin’s. He won’t want to bargain with you. He’ll just confiscate the staff and throw you in a cell.”

“He’ll need to show the public that he cares for the children of the clan,” Toril protested.

“He has told everyone to prepare for war,” Malena said. “He can’t just suspend that order, on tenuous evidence, at the urging of a man that he claims is crazy. Besides, if he makes any concessions in exchange for the staff, he gives you legitimacy.”

Shivi grimaced. Toril drew breath to protest, but Malena touched him on the arm again. “We don’t need good will and unity from Rovin. We just need men. And there is a better way to get them than bargaining.”

“Such as?”

“Go after the children yourself, but spread word of the kidnapping.” She gestured at the priest. “Send a spokesman. Have him argue that any other focus is heartless. Have him call Rovin a coward for not sending men to help you. Announce that you’ll relinquish the staff as soon as he shows that he deserves it. Then see what happens.”

“I think I could do that,” the priest offered. “I’m not much for political intrigue, but my oratory’s pretty good. And I can get an audience.”

Toril shook his head. “What if Rovin doesn’t react the way we’re hoping? Then we have to pull off a rescue by ourselves. I can’t do it. We have a better chance if I’m my own spokesman in Sotalio.”

Malena cupped her palms around his chin and cheekbones. It was a gesture of tenderness and intimacy that wives and husbands sometimes used; he’d seen it often from his parents, but never experienced it himself, and he felt a quiver along his jaw at the unexpected pressure of smooth skin.

Was his wife aware of the power of such a gesture? Did she know what it meant to him? She’d been unwilling to even touch his hand since he’d found her in the stable—and now she was putting her hands on his chest, and caressing his face?

He could feel Malena’s fingertips trembling, too, as she stared into his eyes. “Remember when I said I get feelings about people, sometimes?” she whispered.

He nodded as much as her hands would let him.

“Well, Toril, I’ve got a feeling right now. The north pass, not the Sotalio road, is the way my parents would have gone as they headed home. The bandits had my sister’s horse. I
need
to go after my family and those children—
now
—if I want to live with myself later. And so do you. Trust me!” she breathed. “We can figure out how to use your magic on the way. Right now we have to go!”

Reluctantly, he worked his fingers beneath hers, pulled her hands away, and stepped back. “We’re going to Sotalio,” he said firmly. “I can’t save the children on my own. We need help. I’ll make Rovin see reason, one way or another.”

Malena wheeled around and walked back up the trail, her back stiff. But she didn’t stop when she reached Shivi and the waiting horse. Instead she pushed past, stumbling and then lurching into a trot as she recovered. The fork that turned west for Sotalio, or northeast toward the still smoking pyre, was a few hundred paces uphill, but even before Toril swung into his saddle, she was cutting right, across a switchback.

Toril turned left, the muscles of his jaw stiff.

17

enchantments ~ Kinora

As
White Hair strode toward her horse, Kinora froze. The hunger, which had twisted her stomach until even moldy crust tasted sweet, faded into a dull ache—not gone, but overwhelmed by terror. She stopped chewing.

“Do your business in the weeds!” the man hissed, stopping at the horse in front of her and seizing the rope that bound two boys together at the waist. He jerked them both out of the saddle and held them dangling for a moment, his arm showing no strain at the weight. The whites of the boys’ eyes flashed in their dirty, tear-stained faces as urine dripped from one leg. He shook the rope once for emphasis, then tossed the pair into the underbrush.

The golden warriors who’d been slinking along the edges of the trail scattered to avoid tumbling children. One huffed in irritation, which seemed to enrage White Hair. Or Gorumim—Kinora had heard the men call him that enough that the other name was sinking in.

“You have a problem?” he snapped.

As she watched the warrior mumble a response, Kinora shifted in the cold, caustic puddle that she and the girl behind her had leaked together onto their own leather seat. Would she be next to incur his wrath? She thought of the stones that she’d piled into a crude quattroglyph at their last stop, and shivered, still amazed at her own boldness in leaving the sign. Would anyone find it?

She scanned the near edge of the forest, looking for wolves. A handful of the oversized beasts were sleeping in the cart a few paces ahead, but at least one had shadowed them from the forest earlier in the day. She’d glimpsed its strange, striped coat repeatedly; twice, its knowing, bloodshot eyes had returned her gaze.

The animals did not attack—Gorumim’s most detailed commands were met with perfect obedience for some reason she did not understand—but their power and malice were unmistakable.

The only thing that stabbed deeper than her fear of the wolves was the panic she felt about Gorumim himself. She’d seen his face now a handful of times, and on each occasion, the cruelty that he radiated had become more obvious. Despite the white hair, she might have said he looked young—he had smooth cheeks, unblemished skin, and powerful, easy movements. Yet his gaze conveyed a world-weary flatness that felt old, even ancient. The eyes made him scarier in a way Kinora could not verbalize.

Crouched in a tent the other night, she’d heard a scuffle, and spied through a seam as Gorumim killed two of the bad men the golden warriors had brought. He’d done it without hurry, binding them and then nicking their throats in a sort of meticulous dance, and despite her nausea and horror, Kinora hadn’t been able to look away as the men begged and screamed and then fell silent. When he had licked the lifeblood from their throats and begun to whisper, he’d looked up—and Kinora couldn’t decide who appeared more dead: Gorumim or his victims.

“I’m not exaggerating!” Gorumim shouted, apparently even more incensed by what the osipi was saying. “Everything depends on that reaper curse. It should have worked. It
did
work, for a moment. I swear I felt her heart stop beating. But then it started again, and even my blood magic couldn’t touch it. What could stand against blood magic?”

“Magic isn’t all the plan,” said one of the golden men. “Sooner or later, it’s our kitars that’ll taste the raja’s blood—and our blades are sharp, no matter whose heart beats back in Noemi.”

Gorumim shook his head impatiently. “How foolish or craven do you think I am? You think I would watch my family be butchered, my father’s throne usurped, and that I would take a new name and serve his murdering replacements for two centuries just because I’m waiting for
you
to save me?”

He spat in scorn. “You stupid pup! You might be the greatest quiver of ahu the world has ever known, and it won’t make a shred of difference unless I can get you to the palace! You know how long I searched before I found a way in? Before I realized that Noemi sits among mountains called ‘the Crown’, and that destroying it would be perfect kindling for the fire we have to start to destroy the raja himself?”

“We’ll fight our way in, if we have to. Even at ten to one, we can make it.”

Gorumim blinked, allowing silence to provide a rebuttal. “
Hashkasi fatmokish
,” he hissed. “
Tenuso xalamúshopihm!
”

“More demonstrations of how dangerous you are?” sneered the osipi warrior. “The scum who night-caught these children might panic at your pretend pet wizard, but we won’t. I don’t care how much magic you know. I don’t care if you’ve figured out some way to keep your white hair and be your own wizard. You’re a clan brother, not my cacique, and I say your plan puts too much trust in mumbo jumbo.” He fingered the ivona on his neck.

“So kill me,” demanded Gorumim. “Right now. I challenge you,
mighty
ahu.”

The osipi looked shocked. He glanced at the circle of diminutive warriors. One—a leader of some kind—nodded to give permission. Still the warrior hesitated.

“Fight!” Gorumim urged. “You think you can take ten men in the Royal Guard? I say you can’t even make it past one.” He spit again, this time directly at his adversary.

And then, in the time it took Kinora to blink, the osipi struck. One moment he was wiping spittle from his cheek. The next, a golden arm blurred, and silver flashed as a dagger streaked toward Gorumim’s throat.

Blue sparks leapt from the blade as it swerved away from Gorumim and dropped into the dirt. Kinora felt her skin prickle. The air sizzled; she caught a whiff of ozone.

Gorumim laughed—but even as the dagger fell, he leapt away so fast that the sound seemed to emanate from empty air. A whirlwind of flashing arms and bodies moved back and forth across the road. When the two men separated a few moments later, both were breathing heavily, and the osipi had a long crimson slash across one cheek.

“Did you think the old ahu that I fought, all those years ago, exaggerated my speed in your clan lore?” Gorumim asked. “Did you think I became one of the People without earning that status? Did you think I’m just another white-haired sata?”

“You cheat!” growled the osipi, as blood trickled down his chin and dripped into the grass. From somewhere, he’d produced a second dagger; now he shifted it into his other hand and made a half-hearted feint. “The People don’t use magic as a shield.”

Like a convulsion, the duel resumed, and for a dozen heartbeats, limbs met, intertwined, and flew apart too rapidly to distinguish. More sparks flew. Dust rose. Then Gorumim’s arms slowed for an instant, the osipi cartwheeled through the air like a rag doll, and a branch cracked as golden skin collided with a tree over Kinora’s head.

The osipi crashed to the ground, lay dazed for a moment, then groaned and began to bring his knees underneath him. Kinora’s horse shied.

“You’re missing the point,
brother
,” said Gorumim, circling around the wagon where the wolves—unnaturally—remained asleep. “I’m fast, and I’m a good fighter, but I would never claim to be your equal in the dance. Not by myself.” He knelt by the warrior, who was still on his hands and knees, fighting for balance, and pushed the point of his blade into the skin between the man’s shoulder blades. “Of course, I’m
not
by myself, as you’ve no doubt discovered. Do you yield?”

The osipi froze. The ring of golden warriors, now dotted with uniformed human soldiers who’d left their horses to observe the fight, watched impassively.

“I said, do you yield?”

Kinora saw a bead of blood forming at the tip of the knife.

“I yield,” the osipi muttered. “But I still say the magic wasn’t fair.”

Gorumim rocked back on his heels, stood up, extended a hand, and waited until his opponent looked up. Then he lifted the smaller man to his feet. His expression remained intense, but the fight seemed to have blunted his anger.

“You’re right. The magic isn’t fair. But that’s what you’ll be up against if I don’t complete the symbol that I started.” He gestured toward the leader of the osipi. “Even Luim will not get past it.”

“Every shield has a weakness,” muttered another osipi.

Gorumim’s face darkened again. “I am telling you, attacking the raja is a waste of time unless the enchantments around the walls of the palace, and around him, are down.”

He drew an oval in the dust with his toe. “Tónume lives in a castle with walls taller than a tree and as thick as this road. And that’s just the inner walls. There’s a barbican, murder holes, all kinds of insidious surprises. He’s surrounded by guards who are fearless, flawlessly conditioned, and superbly disciplined. I ought to know—I trained them myself.” His boot traced other circles outside the first. “But what really keeps him safe is layer upon layer of enchantment, added by generations of the best wizardry that money could buy. You think it’s hard to slip a knife past a little spell that I cast, off the cuff, the moment before a fight? Try worming your way through magic that the most talented lips in the world have studied and planned and reinforced every day for a hundred fifty years.”

Several of the osipi were glancing at the warrior who acted as their leader, as if asking for him to serve as spokesman. The man measured the audience with his eyes, unfolded his arms, and stepped forward.

“They need to know the rest, Gorumim. They’ll keep second-guessing until they understand. You can’t pact the clan and then only scrap-feed them.”

Gorumim sighed. “The enchantments are much more subtle that just simple physical shields. If that’s all we were up against, I would have ended this the year I got to the palace, with a few drops of the right poison. Or I could have placed some traitors in the Royal Guard, and staged a coup when the time was right. Or I could have left sickness on the raja’s pillow, or used scores of other methods to take the throne.

“No. Among other things, the enchantments require absolute loyalty to the raja and his family. You cannot pass those walls without a true and undying love for our monarch burning in your heart, unless you’re bound for the dungeon. You cannot intend him harm. You cannot plot against him; you can’t even be an unwitting pawn in a plot against him. Even the rabble at the outer gates spend their days muttering praises rather than begging for bread. Why do you think Zufa has seen no patricide, no royal intrigue in living memory? All the raja has to do is invite people to the palace, and imprison anyone unwilling to come. Every member of the household staff, every last guard and kitchen serving girl is vigilant and ready to give their life in an instant to preserve the current order.”

“But you’ve lived there...”

“And I’ve served. Loyally. Like I said, I trained the raja’s guards, and I did it with utmost skill and dedication. The day that I walked up to the gates and offered my sword in Fodende’s service, a true love for his dynasty burned in my heart; I would have died gladly at his request. And that fealty has only grown as the years have passed.”

The osipi seemed nonplussed, and Gorumim chuckled.

“The look on your faces says it all. All those spell casters, working so hard for all those years. So smug. So sure their art would keep their precious tyrant safe. Yet here I am, hating Tónume more than ever. Want to know how I beat them? Want to know how nineteen of my clan brothers are going to topple the best-protected raja the world has ever known?”

He leaned against the wagon with the sleeping wolves, enjoying the interest in his audience.

“So often, it’s the obvious that you don’t see. Where are we now, while I’m talking treason? Not at the palace, you notice.” Gorumim gestured to some of the human soldiers. “Ask the men I’ve brought on this mission; each of them has spent their career out on the border. You see, the enchantments won’t let an enemy approach the raja, but they have no power over enemies who keep their distance. So I did a little magic of my own—removed just enough memories, added just enough artificial ones—to turn myself into an impassioned royalist, to strip all doubt and hatred from my heart and leave me ga-ga over Fodende. I wasn’t just hiding how I felt—I really loved him. Then I strolled up to the gates and became his right-hand man, and worked with all my heart to serve him.

“And whenever I rode out on the raja’s errands, I would come to my senses and nearly vomit in disgust that I was lackey to a usurper who wasn’t even worthy to lick my boots. Every time, I wanted to take my sword and turn around, and storm the gates and rive out the heart of the man whose colors I carried. And every time, I held my course. On each return trip, I reapplied my own spell and became another person.

“It was bitter. I remember when Fodende’s son Taxo died. I stood at his pyre and cried, and the whole realm bore witness. The taste of those tears, and the thought that I shed them in public, still sickens me. Later that month, as I crossed the southern range of the enchantments on a journey, I wept again, but this time it was hatred and frustration. An entire lifetime had come and gone, and I’d spent it in the service of the family that killed my father. Fodende had eluded me—consumption took him a few years after I arrived—but I’d promised myself I would stick Taxo like a pig and laugh as he perished. Instead, I’d let fifty years slip through my fingers, and mourned his passing!

“I almost gave up, then. I’d found a way to be my own spy, by killing the truest part of my soul whenever I entered the palace. But once near the raja, my loyalty was iron. I could not bend. I didn’t even want to!