Soulwoven (16 page)

It was possible. It was possible their god was bringing them together again.

The sea came into view at the end of the street. It was covered in a light skin of fog that shifted and wisped in a gentle mirror of the waves beneath it. Directly ahead, Leramis spotted one of the jagged black stacks the necromancers called the stubble yawning toward the cloud-covered sky like a broken tooth.

“Eshan and Crixine may move at any time, Leramis. Be ready.”

Leramis adjusted the lie of his satchel behind him. The ponies passed into the deep shadows between two warehouses, and the sea fell out of view.

He remembered Eshan and Crixine.
Tall.
Dark-haired and white-haired, respectively.
They’d claimed to be Duennin when they’d come to the Order, and Leramis had believed their story. There’d been something cold and vicious about them—something violent and disdainful in their eyes from the start.

He hadn’t been all that surprised when they’d left the Order. Nor when others had followed them, or when Rhan had told him that they were probably behind the destruction of the heart dragons.

The ponies found their way out of the warehouse shadows and slowed to a stop. Leramis looked at Rhan. The older necromancer sat with his hands crossed over the pommel of his saddle.

“My proposal to send our people to protect the heart dragons was voted down,” Rhan said.

Leramis grimaced.
Safeguard the River,
Faide the Wise had written when the Order of Necromancers had splintered from the Temple of Eldan.
And respect the Vision of Yenor for the World.

In recent years, the Council of Taers seemed to have taken that to mean
Do
nothing, ever.

Rhan shifted in his saddle and looked out over the water. The faint hint of a smile played around his mouth.
“As Olen of the Mind so eloquently put it this evening: ‘Sherduan is the knife Yenor gave the world to slit its own throat.
It’s not our place to stop the world from doing it.’” His eyes floated over the water, darting from rock to sea to land and back, seeing everything.

Leramis didn’t care for Olen of the Mind,
nor
for his theology. He never had.

“Incidentally,” Rhan added, “he didn’t want you serving as ambassador to Prince Quay.”

Rhan kicked his pony into motion again, and Leramis followed. He’d met Prince Quay once, long ago, at a banquet given at the Lars Dors’ School. He’d made a vow then, to protect the monarchy, and to protect Eldan.

Interesting how things could change in the course of half a young man’s lifetime.

“You’re to convince the Prince of Eldan that we’re not behind the attacks on the heart dragons and keep him from enlisting the help of the Aleani in his father’s war against us. You need do no more.”

The ponies wormed past ships tied to stone pylons along the sea walk by the docks. Near the south end of the walk, a small craft with a lateen-style mainsail and a triangular jib bobbed on the waters. Its deck was lit by oil lamps. Black-robed sailors beetled over it in the smoky orange light.

“But I’m sending
you
to Prince Quay for a reason, Leramis.”

Protect the heart dragons,
he meant. But it was hard for Leramis to hear anything other than
Ryse is with him.

Rhan dismounted when they’d gotten close enough to the little ship to see the silhouette of its captain on the aft deck. Leramis stepped down from his saddle and was surprised to note that his thighs felt sore even after such a short ride. His mind felt cottony and unbalanced.

Ryse is with him. I’m going to see her again.

Leramis’s fingers tingled. He fixed his eyes on the stubble in the bay.

“Yenor steers the world with the breath of Hir soul,” Rhan said. He handed a slip of paper to a sailor who came toward them, and he gave a sealed packet to Leramis. “Everything happens for a reason.”

Peace.
Thud-thud.
Peace.
Thud-thud.

Rhan shook his hand.

“Good luck,” the older necromancer said. “And go with the Grace of Yenor.”

Rhan the Eye tied Leramis’s pony to the saddle of his own, mounted up, and rode into the yawning darkness of the streets of Death’s Head.

Leramis gazed out to sea. He listened to the water whisper against the pylons, the sea walk,
the
stubble. He felt the breeze ebb and flow. He watched the mist move over the water and the clouds slide across the sky.

The movements of the body of the world told him nothing.

He opened the packet of papers he’d been handed. It was a rundown of the information that had been gathered on Quay of Eldan and the people Rhan’s agents thought were with him.

Cole Jin…
He recognized that name. Ryse had mentioned him as a friend more than once. His heart sped further. He scanned the pages in front of him, searching feverishly, mindlessly.

On the third page, he found what he was after.

Ryse Lethien.

Rhan was sending him forth, at last, to do great things.

Intercept the prince.

But it wasn’t great things Leramis was truly excited for.

SEVENTEEN

A hand squeezed Cole’s shoulder, and he woke with a start. The hard, smooth wood of a chair was beneath him. Open rafters soared over his head. He sat in a warm room filled with familiar voices, benches, tables,
a
fireplace. His body felt as if it had been dragged through a flour mill, and a pack lay next to him on the floor like his own personal ball and chain.

“Upstairs, Cole. We’re almost there.”

His brother’s voice.
They’d been walking for a day and a half straight. It was morning and they were in Janestown, a small, unwalled city of humble buildings and red slate roofs that was nevertheless the biggest Nutharian municipality near the border of Aleana. Cole had seen it at sunrise on the edge of the northern plains of Nutharion, where the grasses met the hills and the hills met the blue, haze-shrouded mountains.

He didn’t remember what had passed between.

The hand on his shoulder moved to his arm and helped him up. His vision was a little blurry, but he could see that some of the others had it worse.
Ryse, in particular.
She was leaning heavily on Litnig in front of him and staggering up a flight of stairs.

Cole followed, leaning on someone else.
Someone shorter than him.

At the top of the staircase, he found a hallway full of doors. Quay was fiddling with a lock on one. Litnig was moving into another. Cole stood dumbly, not sure where to go.

“Come on, this way,” whispered a voice from the shoulder he was leaning on. He was helped into a small room with a bed on
either side and
a little glass-paned window in the outside wall.

He flopped onto the nearest mattress. His helper grunted. His pack fell to the floor, and he rolled over and blinked up at the blurry shape that had been supporting him.

Dil.
Of course it had been Dil. Her face was tired and dusty, but she smiled at him anyway and pulled a strand of hair from her eyes.

The bed felt soft and welcoming, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to undress, or even to get under the blankets. And Dil was still there. He needed to say something to Dil.

His mouth opened, but he couldn’t remember the words. She patted his shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” she said. Her hand lingered, squeezed. Some time passed, and then his head jerked up and he found himself looking into her face again. “Rest up, Cole,” she sighed, and the hand left his shoulder.

“Wait,” he mumbled, though he wasn’t sure if it was loud enough for her to hear. “I need to thank you.”

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” she said. He couldn’t focus on her. “He’ll be all right?”

Cole mumbled something confused in response.

“Yeah,” said his brother. “I’ll take care of him. Thanks.”

There was a brief, caring squeeze of his knee, and then Dil was gone.

Something tugged at his boots. He looked down and found his brother yanking them off his feet. The room swam. He could do it on his own. He could.
Really.
All he needed was a little—

His head hit the pillow, and his eyelids fluttered closed, and Cole Jin went out like a snuffed candle.

***

Litnig helped his little brother lie down, and Cole was snoring before he’d even crossed the room again. The bigger Jin brother shook his head. Dil had practically carried Cole the last few miles into town. The girl was
strong
for her size.
Very strong.

The room Quay had rented for him and his brother was cool in the morning light, and he could see most of Janestown from its window. The settlement sat at the base of a long line of hills, near a fast-moving river that flowed toward Nutharion City. Litnig had seen the mountains towering endless and snow-capped and austere on the horizon that morning.

There were no walls to defend the town, no soldiers or guards to be seen. Its cream-colored, mud-brick homes ran straight into the waving sea of gardens and golden grasses that surrounded it. Pink, purple, and red flowers dotted long green vines that crawled from roof to street, from house to house. Fruit trees sat loaded and unravaged on the corners, and a public bath occupied the center of the town.

It was the kind of place he would’ve loved to stay in for a while—sleepy, relaxed,
happy
. Their innkeeper was a fat, pleasant woman who’d peeled potatoes while she took their names and laughed when she’d seen how tired they were.

A burst of cool air swept through the window, and Litnig shivered. It had been getting colder as they’d approached the mountains. The days were still warm, the air quite dry, but the nights…

He sighed and sat down on his bed to unlace his boots.
Two nights and a full day.
That was how long Quay had marched them for. Thirty-seven hours at least, by Litnig’s reckoning. His shoulders were fiery knots. His legs quivered like noodles. He tugged one boot off, then the other, poured dust and dirt and rocks from the road onto the creaking wooden boards below his feet. He had to stop and marshal his strength even for such small actions.

But he wasn’t nearly as exhausted as he’d expected to be. He’d never walked like that in his life. He should’ve felt like Cole, should’ve felt like Ryse. Instead, he’d carried their extra weight.

Why?
he
wondered.

A basin with a looking glass behind it sat in one corner of the room, and he took the time to wash his face and drink a little from a pitcher of water that had been left by it. The face that looked back from the glass surprised him. It was still black-haired, still gray-eyed, but it had grown darker with sun and a little gaunt. Stubble grew along his jawline, his upper lip, his chin. His hair sprouted greasy and unkempt from his skull like the grasping roots of a potato plant, and mean red streaks stretched along his shoulders where the straps of his pack had rested. He looked more like the human statue from his dream than he did himself.

He grunted and walked in bare feet back to his bed. The sun shone brightly outside, and he drew the curtains against it. He could still hear the rustle of people passing by in the streets of Janestown, but he didn’t think that would keep him from sleeping. Truth be told, he didn’t think anything could keep him from sleeping.

Except the dream.

He sat and pulled off his trousers. The linen softness of the inn’s sheets welcomed his body like a warm, man-sized glove. For a moment, he lay with his eyes open, despite his exhaustion, and wondered if he would have the dream again. He craved the disc and its statues as much as they unnerved him. They were something that made him special.
Something that set him apart.

He shut his eyes and let his mind drift into the sea of his exhausted muscles.

The dream didn’t come.

***

Cole woke up lying on his face. The sun had set. The moon bathed his room in dim light through drawn curtains. There was a wet spot on his pillow and drool on his cheeks.

He was hungry and thirsty, and he had to pee. But the bed was so warm, the pillow so soft, his body so sore—

He heard voices from the hallway. Quay’s, Len’s, Litnig’s. Groaning, he sat up and let his blankets fall to the floor. He didn’t want to be cut out of any more of their conversations. He’d already lost a whole day being out of it on the road.

“Holy shit,” he wheezed. His body felt like it had been run over by a draft horse. Every muscle ached. Every tendon felt tight. His feet protested harshly when they hit the floor, and he raised them and found the balls and heels of both covered in blisters.

He cursed again. There was a soft knock at his door.

“Come in,” he grunted. The door creaked open. He was so stiff he could hardly move. Walking was going to be a nightmare.

“Sleep well?” asked Dil. She was holding a taper close to a lamp on a table he hadn’t seen. He rolled his shoulders and winced.

“Like the rocks in my boots,” he said.
“You?”

The lamp flared to life, and orange light bathed the room.

Dil was already dressed for the road. She looked tired, but prepared, on top of things, ready for the journey to come. It was another forty miles to Du Hardt, Len had said at one point. Another two days of walking. Cole thought he remembered Quay agreeing to ease the pace, thought he remembered hearing something about being pushed so hard they were going to break.

“Are you ready—” Dil stopped. She looked at him wide-eyed, then blushed and turned away.

And Cole remembered that he’d taken his pants off during the afternoon.

He snatched his blankets from the floor and whipped them over his lap. His cheeks grew hot.

“Shit. Sorry, Dil. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, no, it was my—”

There was a moment of silence. He looked at the floor and fought the urge to put his aching head in his hands.

Then he heard a little laugh.

He looked up and found Dil looking back at him with mischief and fondness in her glittering, golden eyes. She held one hand over her mouth, but he could see her smile anyway.