Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (42 page)

The enforcer gestured with his arm to the one who’d whispered to him. “Go with her, but watch her.”

Jora’s heart pounded as she walked back to the convalescence building at the point of the enforcer’s blade. All eyes were on her. The most important thing was protecting these people. The enforcers had already shown they would kill to complete their task of bringing her back to Jolver.

Jora reached for the duffel bag. The enforcer poked her with the sharp point of his sword in the back. “Put it down.”

She obeyed and put her hands up to show she was unarmed. “Po Teng, come,” she whispered.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Your presence here fills me with trepidation. I was saying a prayer to Retar.”

He opened the bag’s flap and peered inside, then pulled out some of her clothes. “These two are the only books you have?”

Why hadn’t Po Teng come? What had she missed? “Yes. How did you know to find me here?” she asked.

He appraised her with a long look. “Hoofprints on the road leading away from two dead soldiers. How’d they die?”

With a shrug, she said, “How would I know?” When she sensed his wariness, she forced a laugh. “God’s Challenger! You’re afraid of me.” If he was afraid of her, she might be able to shame him into letting his guard down. After all, she was a slight woman and he was a large, burly man.

He snorted derisively. “You? Hardly.” He picked up the duffel and turned to leave.

“Would you mind putting my clothes back? I’m going to need those.”

He stuffed the cloth back into the bag.

“Neatly,” she said, stepping forward. “You’re making a mess of things. Move aside. Let me do it.”

The enforcer responded by pressing his sword tip against her chest. “A few wrinkles won’t kill you, but I might.”

“I doubt it,” she said, though she stepped back away from his blade. “I think Elder Sonnis will be quite irate if you kill me. He’s probably looking forward to doing it himself.”

The enforcer finished stuffing her clothes and the books into the bag and shoved her flute inside as well before replacing the cover flap and securing it with the loop. “Elder Sonnis does not seek revenge, only justice.”

“Little you know,” she said. “I witnessed...” Then she realized why Po Teng hadn’t come. She had to be in the Mindstream to call the ally. She had to play the opening line of the calling, but her flute was inside the bag. The enforcer wasn’t going to let her dig it out and play it.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Let’s go.” He picked up the bag by its strap and offered it to her to carry.

She opened the Mindstream and whistled,
“Open way betwixt.”

The enforcer’s brows dipped, as if he wasn’t sure whether he should be alarmed.

“Po Teng, come,” she said.

And Po Teng came, appearing beside the enforcer with those eager eyes and clicking fingers.

“What in the—”

“Kill him,” she said.

The ally touched the enforcer with a single twig-finger, and the huge man went ashen. He thudded to the floor. His sword fell with a clatter onto the wooden floor beside him.

“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I guess the people of Three Waters are going to get a demonstration of how those assassins were killed. Come with me.” She debated taking the sword, but decided to leave it. She didn’t know how to use one anyway, and Kaild’s neighbors would find it and put it to good use.

She exited the convalescence house with the bag’s strap over her shoulder. Heads turned toward her. When she was followed not by the brute but by a brown tree-like creature half her own height, nearly everyone gasped.

“Po Teng, kill the three men wearing mail.”

Po Teng rushed to them faster than her eyes could track. One by one it touched the men with its twig-like fingers, and one by one they fell without a sound.

The people of Three Waters gaped. Some whimpered and clutched the arm of the person standing beside them; others clamped their hands over their mouths. One woman screamed.

Jora walked over to the three dead enforcers. “This is how I killed them,” she said, breaking the stunned silence. “This is my ally.”

For a moment, no one spoke. They stared at Po Teng with a mixture of awe and terror.

“What is it?” asked a girl of about twelve.

“Yah,” someone else chimed in. “What is that thing?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Jora admitted. “I only met it yesterday, but it’s from another realm of perception. I’ve learned to command one of them.”

“Gatekeeper,” said a warbly voice from behind her. Jora turned to see a frail woman of at least eighty years, hobbling from the convalescence house with the aid of a cane. “We’ve not seen a Gatekeeper in Serocia since ancient times.”

Gatekeepers. That was what Bastin had called those who’d worn the red robes.

Jora shook her head, unwilling—unable—to believe that she could possibly be a Gatekeeper. She was just a Mindstreamer with a penchant for music who’d stumbled upon something more powerful than she’d imagined. And from her experience at the Justice Bureau, she knew that how someone handled power revealed more about their character than any other measure.

Looking down at the corpses at her feet, Jora shuddered. This was how she used power. This was what she had become.

“I think it’s time you moved on, Jora,” Lylah said. The fear in her eyes belied the confidence in her voice.

Lylah was right. Not only would the enforcers and soldiers keep coming after her, putting them in danger, but she was obviously making them uneasy.

“Yes, of course.” Jora dismissed Po Teng with a quiet command. “You’ve been more than kind, and I appreciate your hospitality. I’m sorry for... for this. For leading these enforcers to your home. For the death of your guard.”

“I’m not dead,” said a swarthy fellow whose shirt was stained with blood. He stumbled into the clearing propped up by another man, each with an arm around the other. “Not yet, anyway.”

Mira rushed to his aid and took him into the convalescence home.

Jora breathed her relief, but it didn’t change anything. She had to leave before Elder Sonnis sent an entire platoon of enforcers after her and slaughtered these people for aiding her.

She considered taking the skewbald horse, but to ride on horseback would make her vulnerable to an enforcer’s arrow. The boat would probably keep her safer, as she would at least have Sundancer’s help when she needed it. “I’ve a boat beached near Kaild,” she said. “If anyone is willing to ride with me, you can keep the painted horse as well as the other four.”

“I’ll go,” said Hebb. “I need to see what these assassins wrought.”

Lylah nodded her approval. “Turro, would you go with him? If there’s anyone left alive, do what you can.”

Chapter 23

“I’ve prepared a package for you,” said Mira. She scurried forward, holding out a sack. “A bit of bread and cheese for your journey, and some jerky to keep you going.”

Jora thanked her and gratefully accepted a filled water skin from the council leader and a new hat as well. The hostler brought the painted horse, clean and saddled. With the aid of a stool, Jora strapped her satchel to the back of the saddle, mounted, and tucked the sack of food against her lower belly. Hebb and the other fellow, Turro, mounted their horses, and the three started back to Kaild.

The sun was warm on her arms and shoulders as she rode, and she was doubly grateful for the gifted hat that kept the sun’s touch off her tender scalp and neck. Soon, though, the road was protected from the hot rays by the forest, and she appreciated the cool shade.

The ride back to Kaild was uneventful, though she and her riding companions kept their eyes and ears open in case more enforcers were sent from Halder. By now, the Justice Bureau would know that the enforcers were dead, though they surely realized that to send more would mean more would die.

But the assassins who’d razed Kaild hadn’t been sent by the Justice Bureau. They’d been soldiers of the Legion. Their command of murder and destruction had to have come from one of the Legion officers. The ride from Three Waters to Kaild gave her time to consider what Boden had told the three soldiers who’d slain him.

He’d named his commander, Turounce. Was he the one who’d issued the so-called cull order on Kaild? By going first to her own past, then to Boden’s, she picked out Turounce’s thread and traced his stream backward, to a few days before Boden died.

She found him, a stern-looking man with a well-manicured goatee touched on the sides with gray, sitting in his office, signing a document to accept new soldiers into his company. That was him. She knew he had to have been the one responsible for ordering Boden’s death. There was something in his eyes, a rage barely tempered.

Another man knocked before entering, an officer with three stripes on his sleeve. Two other officers and an adept were with him. One officer handed Turounce Boden’s journal, opened to a particular page. “Two pages have been torn out,” Three Stripes said.

The adept stepped forward and handed him two handwritten pages. “He burned them, but I took the liberty of transcribing the missing pages.”

Jora looked over Turounce’s shoulder. What she read there was downright disturbing, but it wasn’t until she came to the final passage that she truly understood.

I believe the march commander and the other officers of our company are knowingly permitting the smuggling of godfruit to our enemies. If this is true, if someone within the Legion command is profiting from the deaths of soldiers in order to keep the war going, then someone needs to take the matter to the king. And if the king won’t stop it, then the people of Serocia should hear about this reprehensible business. It’s unconscionable, and it must stop.

I’m afraid to speak out to other soldiers, because I’m now Relived. My next death will be my last, and the march commander has already proven willing to kill his own soldiers to protect this secret. The returned soldiers of Kaild might have some valuable insights on the matter—especially if they knew about the smuggling and were also afraid to speak out.

She cursed under her breath, remembering what Boden had told his three killers. The Legion itself was selling godfruit to the enemy to help fund the war.

“Something wrong?” Hebb asked.

Everything was wrong, but she told him no. As a former Legion soldier, he might have known about it. Could she trust him? Or would he turn on her like those men who’d killed Boden? Jora shuddered, almost afraid to advance the stream forward again, but she already knew Boden’s ultimate fate and that of her town. What could be worse than witnessing the horrors she’d already seen?

Turounce shuffled the pages to read the second page the adept had given him. And then the commander exploded. He threw the papers down, stood, and began cursing and screaming about Boden’s foolishness, insubordination, and failure to learn his lesson the first time. He went on for a time, hollering and cursing and threatening Boden with a painful death.

Jora paused the stream to read the second page the adept had transcribed.

Jora, read the page in the front of this book with the dolphin in the top right corner, written three days ago. Hope you can put that information to good use.

Challenge the god! Boden hadn’t been killed for what he knew but for what he’d written in his journal. For what he’d told her to read.

The commander asked, “Adept Orfeo, has this Jora woman read it yet?”

“One moment,” the adept replied. The man’s brows knitted. “I... How odd. She’s a novice, and yet I can’t observe her. It seems someone has taught her the barring hood.”

“What in the hell is that?”

“It’s how Truth Sayers prevent others with the Talent from observing them. The skill is taught only to disciples. I can’t see whether she has read the journal or not.”

The commander paced for a moment, shushing the officer who started to speak. Finally he said, “Inform the Justice Bureau. I want her put down.”

Jora’s eyes flew wide. Put down. Like a sick animal. Her stomach turned. If she hadn’t escaped when she did, she might have been dead by now. She’d assumed her greatest danger was from Elder Sonnis’s wrath. No wonder he’d been so desperate to see her. He wanted her books back before he murdered her.

“Sir, there’s no way to know she’s seen the journal,” said Three-Stripes.

Turounce resumed his pacing. “It’s only a matter of time. If she sees it, she’ll tell someone. We can’t let that happen. She’d probably send a message to—” He snapped his fingers. “She’s from Kaild. Damn it. We have a bigger problem than we’d first thought. Who’s her elder?”

“That would be Elder Kassyl, I believe,” Orfeo said.

“Impress upon Elder Kassyl the danger here,” Turounce said. “If she breathes a word of what she’s read in this journal, we could be facing a civil war.”

Elder Kassyl. That meant this conversation had taken place shortly before his death. Before his murder.

She advanced the stream forward, unable to find a reply until the following day—the day Elder Kassyl had been found dead.