The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) (5 page)

No matter what, the nation she saved—if she saved it—wouldn’t be the one she’d known.

She filled her pipe thoughtfully, her thumb tamping the leaf into the bowl with the ease of long practice. She lit it from the fire, drawing smoke deep into her chest. When she breathed out, the smoke was as grey as the snow. She had to make a plan, but she couldn’t. Not by herself. Not any longer.

The shriek came suddenly, and from everywhere. She started, her fingers snapping the stem of her pipe. It came again, louder, and followed by a rushing sound like the voice of a great fire. Her breath shuddered as she stood. She shook, fears deeper and more primal than speech could form filling her mouth with copper, but she rose all the same. The shutters were frigid against her hand as she pulled them aside and stepped out onto the little balcony.

A vast shadow passed over her, blackness dotted white by snow-strewn air. The dragon dropped to the courtyard in the center of the keep, its war-tattered wings too wide to fully unfurl. It was magnificent and awing. Its dark scales defied the cold. Its massive head turned on a serpent neck. Clara had the sudden, powerful memory of going to court for the first time. A child of eight years faced by the splendor of a king.

A black wooden door opened far below her. A thin figure stepped out into the fallen snow. Cithrin bel Sarcour walked out to the dragon, notebook and pencil in her hand. The dragon folded his wings and settled before her. Clara couldn’t hear the girl’s voice at all, and Inys’s replies were bass rumbles, like a landslide with words in it. She watched them consult, the most ancient ruler of the world and the newest.

These are the allies I’ve picked, she thought as her toes and earlobes began to ache. Please God let me have chosen well.

A
s he had been preparing for this last campaign, Geder’s father had come to see him. They’d sat in one of the gardens just within the grounds of the Kingspire, the huge tower rising up on one hand, the depth of the Division on the other. Lehrer Palliako, Viscount of Rivenhalm, had been the central man in Geder’s life, even when he was not present. Ever since Geder had become first the hero of Vanai, then Baron of Ebbingbaugh and then Lord Regent of Antea, he’d felt a little odd around him, as if his rise in court were somehow a reproach upon his father. It had struck him that day as they sat eating dried apples and fresh cheese how much older Lehrer had become.

A day would come, he realized, when he would be the Viscount of Rivenhalm himself. The idea had been both melancholy and wearying. He’d distracted himself and his father by outlining the hunt for the apostate. He’d done all he could to make it sound the grand adventure that it was, but Lehrer seemed only to hear the risk in it.

“Be careful out there, Son,” he’d said.

“I’ll be fine. I have Basrahip, and the men may not be the first pressing, but we have the goddess with us. We can’t lose.”

“Still,” Lehrer had said, “do be careful out there. And when you come back too.” Then he’d smiled and patted
Geder’s knee as he’d done since Geder had been a child. “My good boy. My good, good boy. There’s more danger in court than on a battlefield, eh? Always remember that.”

Now that the fight was done, Geder found himself wondering what exactly the old man had meant.

Killing the apostate priests in the swamps of southern Asterilhold—or what had been Asterilhold before he’d conquered it—had been the final defeat of the darkness, the birth of the light. Geder, sitting alone in his private rooms in the palace at Kaltfel, thought it might have been a little more momentous.

From the way Basrahip had described things, Geder had imagined the apostate priest as a dragon in human skin. A being of darkness and violence and rage, bent on holding all humanity in a death-grip of lies. He’d imagined the man would be tall and graceful and threatening, honey-tongued like a villain in an old song. And his defeat would crack the world like the Division in the center of Camnipol. Split the earth itself down to its bones. And afterward, everything should have been light and hope and renewal. The world made right. The allies of evil slaughtered or else, if they’d been innocent, set free. That was the way those things were supposed to happen.

Instead they’d followed a rough path into the swamp, killed a couple dozen wet, cold, angry men, and come back to the city.

Basrahip had explained that the light of the goddess wasn’t like real light. The world wouldn’t suddenly start glowing gold or some such. And of course, Geder had known that. The light of the goddess was a metaphor for purity and righteousness, only sitting by the fire with a rug over his knees, the insides of his thighs still chapped from the ride, he couldn’t help feeling that purity and righteousness might
be metaphors for something too, and he wasn’t quite sure what.

Kaltfel had been the first city to fall in the war that stretched out behind him, year after year. Dawson Kalliam had taken it and brought King Lechan to Camnipol in chains. King Lechan who’d plotted to kill Prince Aster and claim the Antean throne for some cousin of the royal line whose loyalty was to Asterilhold. Unify the kingdoms.

Well, Lechan had managed that anyway, though not the way he’d meant to. All the remaining court had sworn allegiance to Geder and Aster and the Severed Throne. And since the priests had been there when they’d done it, the ones who hadn’t meant it were all dead. The court in Kaltfel was loyal to Antea. Still, it was strange.

Lechan, the old man Geder had put to death, had probably sat in this room. In this chair. Warmed his shins before a fire like this one. Slept in the bed where Geder had slept last night, would sleep again tonight and then hopefully never again. With Basrahip arranging priestly things at the temple, Geder had thought of searching through the old man’s library, browsing the shelves and boxes for something rare and old and special. An essay that had never been translated. A poem he hadn’t seen. Speculative essays that laid out visions of the world and wild insights and imaginings he would never have had on his own. It was the way he’d amused himself on any number of evenings before he’d become Lord Regent. But the idea of pleasure wasn’t the same as the thing itself, and all during the long, grey afternoon, he’d found he didn’t quite have the will to rouse himself and go looking. Or order someone else to do it for him. Or really manage anything much besides sit and watch the fire dance in the grate and the sky go dark with the sunset.

He was tired. That was all. It was only that he needed a solid night’s sleep. Tomorrow would be better.

A soft knock came at the door, and he let himself imagine that it would be something dramatic. Assassins come to assault him or Jorey finally arrived with Cithrin in chains. Something. Anything. But it was only a grey-haired old man in the gold-and-silver filigree of the highest servants. Geder had been told his name at some point, but he didn’t remember it now, and didn’t care enough to pretend otherwise.

“Lord Regent,” the servant said. “Sir Raillien Morn requests a moment.”

“Who?” Geder asked.

“Sir Morn is the sworn protector of Asinport. He has ridden a day and a night to reach you, my lord. He says it is a matter of deadly import.”

He didn’t remember anyone named Raillien Morn, but he also didn’t recall whom he’d named protector of Asinport. He might not even have done it. There were so many declarations and proclamations and appointments and things that Daskellin and Mecelli had shoved in front of him for his signature. Or Ternigan might have appointed the man before he’d turned loyalties.

Or after. Maybe it was assassins after all. Geder felt a thrill of fear. “Is Basrahip back from the temple yet?”

“I do not know, my lord.”

“If he is, bring him. And my full guard—”

“They are outside your door, my lord.”

“I didn’t ask where they fucking were. I said bring them in here. With Basrahip. When they’re all here, you can get this Morn person.”

The servant backed out bowing. Geder turned his gaze back to the fire, but the flames had lost their charm. With a growl, he threw the rug aside and stood up. He paced the
room, his hands behind his back, his legs aching with every stride, for what seemed like hours. The windows had long since gone dark. Without moonlight, the glass became only a dark mirror that reflected Geder’s movement. When the door opened again, Geder’s private guard entered the room in silent formation. And after them, Basrahip.

The massive priest’s face was broad and untroubled. He bared his teeth in a smile. “Is all well, Prince Geder?”

“Fine,” Geder snapped, and Basrahip shook his head.

“No.”

“I didn’t really mean it to be true,” Geder said. “It’s not really a lie if you don’t mean for people to think it’s true, you know.” He was whining. He hated it when he whined. Odd that it wasn’t enough to stop him.

“What troubles you?” Basrahip asked.

“There’s someone come to see me from Asinport. The protector, apparently. Only I thought maybe Ternigan… or Dawson Kalliam…”

“You fear he is not loyal?”

“It crossed my mind. People have tried to kill me, you know.”

“And failed, for you are beloved of the goddess,” Basrahip said. “Bring this man, and let his living voice proclaim whether he is corrupt.”

Sir Raillien Morn was a Jasuru, which was odd. But the court of Asterilhold had allowed for more mixing of the races than the Antean. And even in Antea, there were a few minor nobles whose line was said to be less than purely Firstblood. The Jasuru noble fell to his knees. His scales were a deep copper color, his teeth black and sharp. It was odd, really. The Timzinae were the race that weren’t really human but a kind of lesser, debased dragonet carved into human form. But Jasuru scales were more like dragon skin
than the chitinous plates of the Timzinae. Or maybe that wasn’t true. After all, he’d never seen a dragon, only gotten reports. They might be more like great insects than the serpent scales in the old books. He’d have to ask Jorey when he got back.

As Lord Marshal, Jorey had defeated one in battle with the tools and weapons Geder had made for him. The story of that battle was one he wanted to hear. Certainly more than he did whatever the man still kneeling before him was going to say.

“What’s your name?” Geder asked.

“I am Sir Raillien Morn, Lord Regent. I am protector of Asinport.”

Which was all pretty well established, Geder thought, but he looked to Basrahip all the same. The priest inclined his great head in a subtle nod. That was true.

“Are you loyal to me?”

“Yes, Lord Regent,” Morn said, and looked to Basrahip. There had been a time that not everyone had known that it was the priest who told Geder whether things were true or lies. Everyone had held him in awe back then and wondered how he’d known so much. Now everyone looked to Basrahip and the other priests that way instead. It shouldn’t have irked him. It didn’t, only he’d enjoyed it back then and he wished he could enjoy it now too. It was like the libraries that way.

Basrahip nodded.

“Do you mean me any harm?” Geder asked, more sharply than he’d intended.

“No, Lord Regent.”

He thought about following it up with something more extreme.
Would you sacrifice your life for mine
? or
What are you most ashamed of
? Not that it would change anything,
but Geder was curious what the limits of Sir Morn’s dedication were, and prying open someone’s private self was always interesting. But he’d only have been doing it because he was feeling peevish, so instead Geder ordered his guard back out and sat again by the fire.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I have ridden through from Asinport in the north,” Morn began, and Geder cut him off.

“I know you did. They told me. What is it?”

“There have been statements, Lord Regent,” the Jasuru said. “They began appearing in the city very recently.”

Geder shifted in his chair. “Statements?”

Morn, still kneeling, fumbled at his belt. When he held out his hand, a thick paper was in it, folded in a square. Geder plucked it out and unfolded it. It was sturdy and thicker than the page of a book, the fibers that made it up coarse enough to texture the words inked upon it.

It went on down the page. The spider priests, it said, were not the voice of a suppressed goddess, but a creation of the dragons, like the twelve races of humanity or the eternal jade roads. They had two powers—to sense it when people knowingly spoke an untruth and to convince whoever heard their voices that what they said was true, whether it was or not. The page called the first “the power of the ear” and the
second “the power of the mouth,” which seemed like a particularly old-fashioned way to frame the idea. Archaic, even.

For a moment, an old fascination stirred in him. The pale ghost of his old love of speculative essays. What if it were true? What if the dragons had made a tool to sow chaos among their own servant races? How would that fit with all he’d read of the ancient past? Something like excitement sparked in his brain.

“They… began appearing?” Geder said. “What does that mean?”

“All through the city, my lord. They would just… be there. One was pasted to a wall near the port. Another, we found on a table in a common house. In all, we’ve gathered almost a hundred.”

“Are they all like this?” Geder asked.

“No, my lord. There are several versions, and people are copying them. We found a house in the salt quarter where a scribe had started making others with the same text. We questioned him before he was killed, of course, but he didn’t know where the papers had come from. He only made copies out of his own hatred and malice. But I fear he may not be the only one such.”

Geder handed the page to Basrahip, who shook his head. “Dead words on a dead thing, Prince Geder. They are less than nothing.”

“It isn’t true, what it says,” Geder said. “The spider goddess wasn’t made by the dragons.”

“Of course not,” Basrahip said with a warm, rolling chuckle. “She is the truth itself, and her enemies are the servants of lies. It is why they must use this emptiest form of words to defy her.” The priest sobered. “What is written is in no voice. Ink on a page means no more than a bird’s scratches on bark. You know this as well as any man.”

For a moment, Geder remembered another letter. The one Cithrin had written him from Suddapal. The one he had humiliated himself over. Bird scratches on bark indeed. Was this letter hers as well? It seemed likely.

It was the kind of thing she’d do. The kind of thing she’d done. Hiding behind phrases. Pretending things were true that weren’t. With a growl, he threw the Jasuru’s page into the fire grate. The flames dimmed for a moment, then brightened as the words turned to smoke.

“You did well by bringing this,” Geder said through clenched teeth. “And by killing the scribe.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Go back. Make patrols. Anyone who has one of these, take to the gaol. The priests can question them. Anyone who’s making them or passing them on is guilty of treason against the Severed Throne. As the Lord Regent, and in the name of Prince Aster, I authorize you to question them and execute them in whatever manner you think would be most likely to keep anyone else from following in their path. Torturing a few people to death in the public square’s better than being gentle and letting them get away with… with
this
.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”