The Hidden Fire (Book 2) (18 page)

Taking
his hand, she led him down the hill.  “I want to show you something.”

They
walked down the long, gentle hill to a small village next to an orchard. 
Rolirra stopped behind a large, well-made hut that had more roof than walls.  A
woman in her late twenties sat weaving a basket while a boy and a girl played a
ring-toss game.

“This
is where I live,” she said.  “Those are my daughter, and my grandchildren.  All
is well here.  I will live here and teach the young ones.”

Kyric
watched the children.  “You look older now.  What will happen to you over
time?”

“How
we look is the reflection of our spirit.  After many years have passed, I will
grow old and fade away.  It is the same on both sides.”

He
turned to her.  “I would like to come back here to see you often as I can, and
if you don’t mind, I would like you to teach me more of the lands and the
ways.”

“There
is nothing I can teach you,” she said.

He
shook his head.  “What about the way you summoned creatures to carry us?”

“You
know how to do that.  Do not forget that it was you who taught me how to
dance.”

“But
you know of places and things that I do not.  How would I have known of blue
springs and storm dragons had you not been there to tell me.”

“You
must learn the ways on your own.  The truth is, Kyric, that were I the greatest
dreamer of this land, I still would not know what to do with you.  Your power
is linked to the dreamstone itself.  But unlike most of us, you have the
ability to learn from yourself.  That is a gift.”

He
thought about it for a moment.  “Then I will visit you out of friendship.”

She
smiled, but it was a little sad.  “I would be glad for that, but you will soon be
going far away.  You will walk dreamlands that cannot be reached from here.  If
you are unable to return, I will know still that you love me.”

“But
I will come back.”

“I
know that you will want to.”

There
wasn’t much to say after that.  After facing life and death together, after
slavery and the plain of ash, small talk would have only cheapened their parting. 
She walked him back to the dream tree, and when they said goodbye he held her
as a son would hold his mother.

They
heard the lone shot echo across the open water at first light.  Kyric and Aiyan
had been about to set off in the dingy.

“It’s
Calico
,” said Lerica.  “I know the sound of her swivel guns.”

They
ran to the sea side of the island.  A thin column of smoke still hung
overhead.  They shouted and waved at the little caravel, but there was no need
as the ship tacked and came right at them.

They
used
Calico
’s jolly boat to get everyone aboard, and turned the last
bend in the river to reach the Dorigano estate shortly before noon.  The ship
had returned from Ularra the day before, and Captain Lyzuga had seen the smoke
from Rolirra’s pyre, setting sail again at once, creeping down the coast in the
small hours of the night.

Ellec
said little as they told their story, his face hardening into a mask.  Dorigano
turned red as they spoke, interrupting with shouts of “Outrageous! 
Outrageous!”  He seemed unable to think of another word.

Aiyan’s
back was a mess from the beating he had taken, and a sick room was made for
him.  He wanted a bath first.  He asked Kyric to scrub his back hard enough to
reopen his wounds and examine them for any pieces of cloth that may have lodged
in his flesh.  The Ilven had been fed and watered aboard the ship, so Dorigano set
his blacksmith to removing the remains of their shackles.  The Enari offered to
take them as guests for the time being, and Dorigano wasn’t unhappy to see them
across the river.  But he kept the man with the festering lakka bite in the
room next to Aiyan, and he sent a load of flour, sugar, and rice over to the
village.

Lerica
had been smiling and light on her feet from the moment she set foot aboard her
ship, bouncing and laughing at anything bearing the slightest hint of humor — a
human animal let out of its cage.  Kyric shook his head when she wasn’t
looking. 
How can she simply be over it?  
It seemed so easy for her, as
if all she needed was her freedom.

Varro
and his search party of Enari came wandering down from the western hills that
afternoon.  They had first looked in the swamp following their guests
disappearance, but apparently had not gone deep into it.  In the last few days
they shifted their search more inland, but they never made it as far as the
ruined city.

Aiyan
asked that they be served a supper of bread and cheese and bananas in their
rooms.  “Don’t eat too much tonight,” he told Kyric, “or you’ll likely see it
come back.”

Kyric
looked at himself.  He had become surprisingly lean in such a short time.  Despite
the endless supply of angel ray, he hadn’t been able to eat much after that
first evening.

He
at last got his night of dreamless sleep, and after a quiet morning they went
aboard
Calico
to meet with Captain Lyzuga.  Lerica served them coffee
and biscuits.  She hadn’t left the ship since they were rescued.

Ellec
looked at them with a completely different light in his eyes.  Whatever Lerica
had said about them had been good.

“You
have my thanks for your bold escape that brought my niece out of captivity.”  A
curious smile formed at the corner of his mouth.  “She tells me that she has
gotten to know you better.  I believe we can become friends as well as business
partners.  Whilst in Ularra I took the liberty of fully provisioning the ship,
and if there is nothing more you require, we may begin our voyage from here as
soon as your health permits.”

Lerica
stared at him, and he turned to her.  “Yes, I know.  You wish to set sail this
very minute.”

“I
lost all my arrows,” Kyric said under his breath.

“You
can have half of mine,” Aiyan said to him, then to Ellec, “Yes, let us sail tomorrow
if we can.”

“Tomorrow
then, soon as we’re done with the loading.  I’m bringing two tons of coffee
beans and praying that the Spice Islanders have a taste for it.”

“We’ll
be ready.”

Kyric nodded in agreement.  Like Lerica,
he couldn’t get away from this place fast enough.

He
awoke at midnight with Aiyan and Ellec standing over him.  “There’s trouble at
the Enari village,” Aiyan said.

An
Ilven man — Lioffin, who had been the cart man — stood waiting on the dock with
Dorigano.  He was wet, having swam the river.  Ellec explained as they rowed to
the village in
Calico
’s jollyboat.

“The
Enari caught a couple of the men from the slave camp sneaking around after
dark, probably looking for food or fresh water.  According to this man they
have them tied and have been torturing them.”

As
they approached, they could see firelight beyond the far end of the village,
nearer to the swamp.  They beached the jollyboat and walked past the silent
huts, stepping into a circle of light where the Ilven and the Enari stood
arguing in animated Cor’el.  Two men stood tied to tree trunks, their arms
secured over their heads.

They
had been stripped naked.  Their flesh had turned red in some places, purple in
others, and they were covered with blisters and boils.  Vines with poisonous
flowers had been set upon their heads like laurels.  Milky tubers said to have
corrosive properties lay crushed at their feet.  Theirs lips were encrusted
with little brown seeds, and a trail of dried vomit ran down their chins and
their chests.  They had been made to eat some kind of sickening fruit.

Their
faces were so black that Kyric didn’t recognize them at first, then he did.  It
was Thurlun and Pacey.

“What
is all this?” demanded Dorigano, stepping into the space between the tribes. 
They all fell quiet but no one answered him.

“This
is from the old ways,” said Ellec.  “The trial of the blossom, an act of
ceremonial vengeance.  One that I thought my people no longer performed.”

Jubi
came out of the crowd.  ‘
We have caught he who destroyed the Enari — The
Spider and one of his servants
’ he said-signed.  ‘
Even after so many
years, I knew him.  The ancestors guided him here and we have done justice upon
him
.’

Aiyan
pushed his way past everyone to stand in front of Thurlun.  His eyes were wide
and mad with pain.  Pacey’s eyes were open as well, but glazed over and fixed. 
He wasn’t breathing.  Kyric wondered if they had given Thurlun something to
keep him going, so it would last longer for him.

“I
hoped you would come,” Thurlun said with a rasping voice.
 
“Pacey dead?”

“Yes,”
said Aiyan.

“We
got caught on a cypress,” Thurlun wheezed.  “He held my head above the
floodwaters, dragged me through the swamp.  Hardly saw a croc, it was like they
made a way for us.”

His
eyes cleared for a moment.  “They poisoned me good and well.  You’ll help me
won’t you, son?”

Aiyan
answered soothingly.  “Of course I will.”

He
cut the ropes with his sword, laying Thurlun gently in the grass and kneeling
beside him.  A slight movement with the sword and there was a little blood.

“I
cut your wrist,” he said.  “It won’t be long.”

Thurlun
managed to nod.  “I knew I could count on you.  Knew that I could.”

After
they brought their gear aboard
Calico
, Aiyan and Kyric spent the rest of
the night in Ellec’s cabin, drinking coffee and saying little.

“Despite
what he had done to them,” said Ellec, “the Ilven would not see him suffer. 
Why was that?”

Lerica
had no answer for him.  Neither did Aiyan.

“They
are dreamers,” said Kyric, “and they have had enough of bad dreams.”

Dorigano
set a party to digging graves by lantern light, and insisted on reading
properly over Thurlun and Pacey when they were buried at dawn.  His wife
attended to say the traditional prayers to the Goddess.  It was only civilized.

The
morning turned unseasonably cool as the coffee was loaded aboard ship, and a
thin fog rose along the river.  They said their good-byes awkwardly, Kyric
reeling from lack of sleep.  The journey down the river passed in a dreamy haze. 
When they reached the open sea, Ellec set
Calico
on a tack heading due
east, the wind coming up and the ship heeling over.  After the stink of the
swamp, the scent of the sea breeze was a blessing.

The
four of them dined together that night, Ellec opening a second and then a third
bottle of wine, but Lerica seemed to be the only one feeling festive.  Aiyan
was quiet, and Ellec thoughtful.  Kyric had storms in his head, and would have
drank much more had he not a touch of seasickness.  At times like this he
longed for the Kyric who had been a blank slate, the Kyric who could watch a
man be killed and not feel anything.

“Do
you think any of the other slavers survived?” he asked Aiyan.

“It’s
likely that a few of them did.  An experienced woodsman with no injuries could
make it overland to Ularra in three weeks.  I can’t guess why Pacey crossed the
swamp instead of going inland.”

“I
don’t ever want to go back to that place,” said Lerica, tossing back another
glass of wine.  “Let the Doriganos flourish in that little stretch of hell.”

Ellec
didn’t say much until dinner was over.  When the plates had been cleared and
the coffee served, he met the eyes of each of them in turn.

“I
know what all of you think of Luscion Dorigano.  But I tell you this:  It is
men like him who will make Terrula into what it is not — a nation.  He has
single-handedly given us the basis of a new economy with this hybrid coffee
plant of his.  Planters all along the coast are trying Dorigano’s strain, and
once they see the yield, coffee will largely replace the sugar now being
grown.  Strange as this sounds, the coffee trade could lead to wealth for
Ularra and independence for Terrula.  I am more sad for the Enari than you can
know, and I’m sorry that their tribal lands were taken.  But it wasn’t Dorigano
who wiped them out.”

He
looked at Lerica.  “You think him to be an arrogant interloper.  You think he
treats the Enari like serfs.  One day the Enari village will be a town, with a
school and a road that runs all the way to Ularra.  A man like Dorigano isn’t
going to pay taxes and expect nothing in return.  He told me this morning he
will insist that the Ularra Council grant him a commission to form a company of
forest rangers from among the Enari.  Without men like Dorigano, Terrula will
suffer at the hands of men like The Spider.  Which do you prefer?

“Most
importantly, when the next generation is raised here, they will be Terrulans in
spirit.  Look at young Nikkin.  He was eight when they brought him here, and
his curiosity was such that he drank in everything Terrulan.  He is fluent in
Cor’el, and even speaks a little Enari.  To him, Syrolia is a distant childhood
memory.  In time, one of Dorigano’s descendants will marry a woman or man of
native blood and that will be the end of it.  They will have become Terrulans
in every way that matters.”

Aiyan
finished his wine and waved away a refill.  “What about the large Jakavian
colony in the southwest?”

“The
big treaty halted all expansion for them as well as New Kandin.  And those two
nations will be looking over one another’s shoulders to make sure.  It will
take a great deal longer, but these colonies will be absorbed by Terrula.  It
is what this land does.  We will not become another Aleria.”

“Nice
dream,” said Lerica with a touch of wine-driven surliness.  Ellec ignored her.

“No,” said Kyric, “it will work.  As long as the balance of power
is maintained.  But what happens when one state becomes stronger than all the
others, strong enough to issue new terms?”

“That’s not the question,” said Aiyan.  “The question is, what
will making Terrula into a nation cost its people?”

Ellec looked into his glass.  “The price will be high,” he said
quietly.  “It will cost us our magic.”

“Not all of it,” said Lerica with a feral grin.

Ellec met her eyes and something passed between them that made him
brighten a little.  “No.  Not all of it.”

Calico
maintained her eastward course the next day and the weather held
fair.  In their cabin that morning, Aiyan said to Kyric, “You’ll have to
practice alone for a few days.  I need some time to let my back heal.”  He
opened his second sword case.  Kyric had assumed it was for Ivestris and lay
empty, but Aiyan removed a longsword with a polished blade and a very practical
cross-guard.

“This is the sword that Master Bortolamae gave me when I was your
age.  Not being a sacred blade, it has no name, but it is sturdy and
well-forged.  It’s the kind of weapon used by professional soldiers.  And it is
yours.”  He offered it to Kyric.

Kyric could only stare at it for a moment.  He couldn’t believe
that Aiyan was giving him this sword.  He felt that he didn’t deserve it.

He was a bit nervous as he took it.  He knew it had drawn the
blood of many men.  The supple leather that covered the grip seemed to cling to
his hand as he tightened his hold.  It was heavier than it looked and very
sharp.  He felt like he could cut a man in half with it.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.

“The balance is slightly different from the practice swords.  Go
and get a feel for it — just don’t cut anyone’s leg off, especially your own.”

He sheathed the sword and made to go on deck.  Aiyan stopped him.

“Kyric.  You’re very young to have decided that there’s nothing
left for you but to carry the sword.”

“How old were you when you decided?”

Aiyan sighed.  “Even younger than you.”