Tides of Rythe trt-2 Page 15

  She finally took note of things she had not had the time to notice before. The steam, the delicious warmth of the water, so different to the warmth of the muggy air of the city. She had the baths to herself, and she intended to make full use of the fact. There was no rush, no duty. She could do nothing until evening fell. Time was precious, now that events were rushing toward their climax. There would be little time to relax in the days to come.

  Few bathed at midday, being about their business. But her business was with the night, dusty tomes to be pored over by candlelight, with no one to ask questions of them. Last night had not been a success, though. She and j’ark had spent the night, till the dawn chased them back to their beds, searching fruitlessly. The Seer assured them the knowledge was in the Library of the Secessionist, and she had to believe in her. But where?

  They had studied a mere portion of a fraction of a decade of the writings of one era. The search had been narrowed, and for that she was grateful, but how were they to find even a rumour when the world was so wide? There were treatise on the origins of the nation, in which the hand of Protocrat editors was evident and she had gleaned little knowledge she could trust, journals of politicians and travellers, one bardic tale written in the old tongue of Beheth before the Cusp had been unified with Lianthre, too many scrolls which were behind cases — special permission was required to view these documents — too many epic poems of that era, some historical in nature but too vague by far to be of any real use, a pictographic, hand-drawn account of a cataclysm rumoured at in the past, depicting mountains rising from the land and a darkening of the suns, one moon covering one sun in an eclipse, leaving only a halo of light from one sun. It seemed to be the smaller that was covered. She attached no significance to it. Eclipses were common, the last having been twenty-three years ago, when she had been born. Her father had told her of it, perhaps to make her feel special. At the time she was sure it would have worked, she had longed for his approval above all else, and he had given it, every day until his murder.

  She sighed and took the soap to her legs, lathering each in turn, then washing the suds clear in the hot water.

  None of the documents she had examined gave any mention of contact with lands other than her own. There was talk of an exodus to the west, but no discussion of how this was achieved. If she was to travel to this land, this Teryithyr, she needed means. She knew of no ship which could travel such a distance, nor hold fresh food for long enough to make such a journey. But it seemed Sia had other plans for them, anyway.

  Tonight, they would move on to weightier tomes, historical accounts from before the current age. J’ark had discovered a section of the library which predated the original construction. The stone was different, the flagstones underfoot rang with a strangely hollow thrum as booted feet strode on them. Tirielle and j’ark had spent a moment examining the floors and the walls, even the ceilings, while the readers had been in other parts of the library. They had found no secret passageways, but such could easily be disguised behind one of the worn racks of shelves which covered the walls.

  It was a gamble. Tonight they would take candles and try to gain access to the old wing while the readers were otherwise occupied in their studies. They had not been watched last night. Tirielle thought it might be possible to explore undetected. If they were detected, the worst that could happen would be expulsion — but that would be bad enough. The Seer assured her the search was in the right location. It was enough to contend with, trying to find a mention of a history before history began, without having to break into the library, too.

  She had no doubt the Tenthers would not be called in the event of a break-in, or even a theft. The librarians had no love of the Protectorate. The Protectorate were the enemies of learning. They loved schools and libraries, just as long as they could control what people took away with them.

  How much had been lost? Tirielle wondered quietly to herself as she towelled her body and hair dry. What if their search was in vain, and the Protectorate had the knowledge safe in Arram, safe from human eyes, to guard until the return, when it would be too late for the people of Rythe, when the old ones would rule once again, harsher master than the Protectorate ever were.

  If the Sard were to be believed — and she had no reason to suspect a lie — the return would mean slavery of a different kind, a subservience deeper than Lianthre had known for the last thousand years, pain and suffering on such a grand scale that the Protectorate would seem benevolent in comparison. What the Protectorate could gain from the return of such powerful masters, she could not comprehend. It was not for her to puzzle out. All that matter was to save the world from a deeper darkness, to keep it in the light. It was the Sard’s cause, and now it was hers. She was committed, to the end.

  To be the Sacrifice? What could it mean, but her death? But what choice did she have other than to follow her road wherever it led? Was she fated to die in the end, before she could see the Protectorate tumble from power? Not if she could help it. She would watch, and learn, and when it came time for her to Sacrifice herself, she would…what? She switched herself mentally. There was no point in denying it, even in her own thoughts. If the destruction of the Protectorate took her own death, was she brave enough to pay the price?

  She could only believe she was, for she still followed. If she was to die, she wished to do it well, and with purpose. If that was what was demanded of her, she would give it.

  She surprised herself. She hadn’t thought on it for so long, she realised she had almost accepted it and forgotten what her quest meant for her. Now she faced it in her own mind, she felt as though an invisible burden had been lifted from her own shoulders. Faced with her own death, she felt a tumult of emotions — fear, foremost, but also anger that it should come to this. It crystallised her will. She tucked the anger away. If she could not be brave, at least she could be driven by rage. It was so much easier to maintain, in the face of all she had yet to do.

  She left the bath behind feeling clean both inside and out. She was ready, for whatever might come.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Night came all too swiftly. Tirielle still felt calm on her way back to the library. Even the thick, too hot air of the night, the refuse smells drifting from the alleyways and canals, the stagnant water and the smells of decay washed over her unnoticed.

  Too calm, she realised as she heard footsteps rushing toward them from a dark side street. She turned to see a dagger flying glinting in the lantern light, flipping end of end toward her chest. As she ducked j’ark dove in front of her, knocking the blade aside with the flat of his hand and tucking into a roll.

  Four men rushed them.

  Tirielle’s knives were in her hand before she could think to draw them. She slashed one man’s face, ducking a clumsy cudgel blow — she noted with a start the spike driven through the head of the club. These were no cutthroats. He overstepped, and she drove the dagger in her left hand into the back of his neck. He dropped like a stone. She whirled, ready to face the next man.

  The remaining three men were already down. Two silent and one gasping for air, hands clawing at a crushed windpipe.

  J’ark’s face was stormy. “I wanted to keep one alive, but I was clumsy. Now we will never know who sent them.”

  “Perhaps they were just cutthroats?” said Tirielle hopefully.

  “No, dogs of the Protectorate, perhaps. They intended death tonight, not purses. Assassins. If the Protectorate know we are here, though, why not send Tenthers? Why this amateur attack?”

  Tirielle stooped and wiped her blades on a dead man’s shirt.

  “I do not know, but I think you are right. We have been making contacts. Not all humans despise the Protectorate. Some have done well out of their masters. They have human eyes and ears, too. But if they truly knew who we are, I cannot believe we would still be breathing.”

  “Perhaps, it may be a plot of their allies. But we have made many allies ourselves. There is no knowing whose hand is behind this.
We must be gone. We must find what we seek soon. The city has become unfriendly.”

  Tirielle spun again, hearing a man dashing toward her from behind, but turning, she found it was only Disper, who had been following at a discreet distance to ensure they were not followed.

  “What happened here?” he asked, knuckling his drooping moustache.

  “Assassins,” said j’ark before Tirielle could reply.

  “Deplorable men,” said Disper with a stern frown.

  “No,” said Tirielle with a sad shake of her head. “They were just men. The deplorable men don’t live in the slums. They live in their towers and watch from afar. No matter. We can go no faster. The Protectorate must still be unaware of who we are. But this complicates matters. We must be more vigilant than a mouse.”

  The clatter of iron shod boots sounded from the street parallel to theirs.

  “Tenthers!” hissed Disper.

  They walked as swiftly as they dared to across the alleyway toward the library.

  In the distance behind them they did not heard the patrol’s reaction at finding the dead men. Tirielle could not imagine it was shock. More likely amusement, and perhaps a report to their commander. It would slow them, anyway, and give them time to reach the library. They would not search. What did a murder matter to them?

  She had hoped that no humans would lose their lives in the battles to come, but she would not wish death at the hands of the protectorate on anyone.

  “Be wary,” j’ark warned Disper.

  “Always,” said Disper, and melted back into the shadows.

  Tirielle rapped on the door. Her heart’s pounding gradually subsided, the shaking of her hands that followed sudden violence fled, and as the door was answered she managed a warm smile.

  “Good evening, Reader,” she said by way of greeting, and flashed a gold coin. She was pleased to see her hand was already firm.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Roth prowled the rooftops as Tirielle explored by candlelight. A ten passed in the street below. It dropped to the cobblestones, landing on all fours in the midst of them.

  Before it returned to sleep, only one remained, one knee shattered and the face of rahken rage burned into his mind.

  Roth slept easy the next day. For the Tenther, sleep would never be easy again.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Clouds rolled serenely past the mighty ship, pristine against cyan, cold skies. Hern’s ghost rode a herringbone trail laid in the air. Carious burnt the seas as it sank below the horizon and Dow followed its brother to sleep the night away.

  Renir and Bourninund stood at the edge of the ship, watching the great fish dancing in the calm ocean. A dark shape flashed from the water, spouting water from a breath hole. Renir smiled. He had heard of such creatures from Quef, a southlander he had met once on a trip along the Spar in search of a shallow shoal. Renir had never been comfortable in the deep seas, but Quef had claimed there were fish that breathed air and had no gills. They lived in the deep, he said, and to see one close to shore was rare. Spitting fish, he had called them, but seeing their graceful dance above and below the surface, Renir thought the name ill-fitting.

  They toyed with the air, as if dissatisfied with the sea alone. They burst from the seas, twisting playfully in the air. Seamirs, he thought to himself. It seemed more appropriate.

  They gave him comfort, as he watched their dance around the ship. A good thing, he thought, since he had seen the shadow under the water, as long as one of the seafarer’s boats, moving lazily like it was hunting, just an elongated shape under the water. He did not want to see more. He was not so curious as that. A beast that size could capsize a boat. He thought of his little fishing boat back at the village, rotting slowly. A fish that size could eat his boat, he had thought with a shudder. A leviathan, perhaps, out of fishermen’s stories, that ate the boats that strayed too far from shore, jealous that men could sail on the waves it wanted for its own. The leviathans were ever hungry, said the old fishermen, and hated men for taking their food. Go too far out, they said, and the beast will take you out of spite, and teach you a lesson. The bigger your boat, the tastier you will be.

  If it was a leviathan, what the old fishermen said was surely true. But even the greatest fish in all the sea would not be able to swallow this ship, this Diandom. He had felt fear, but it had passed on, and the Seamirs had come in the giant beast’s wake, guiding the ship ever north.

  They had been assured that it was moving steadily north. There was no tell-tale motion, though. The seas did not speed past. The ship had no prow to speak of. It was circular, but the north side of the ship always pointed north; exactly like an island. Renir could only tell by the motion of the suns, and the stars at night. Carious always set in the west, and Dow a little way north of him. The ship might seem motionless, as steady as a rock, but it was moving on, of that he was sure.

  It was such a strange vessel, so much like land but for the absence of dirt, and so far beyond any experience Bourninund or Renir had ever had.

  There were fresh water ponds, full of rainwater. Fronds grew from the depths, spreading their leaves on the surface to drink in the sunlight. Flowers in the trees, fungus and fruit growing where it should be impossible. People fishing from their boats, or with spears and nets from the edge of the ship, where it lay low in the water like a natural bay. The swimmers did not seem bothered by the leviathan. Perhaps they were too small for its mountainous teeth. There was no way Renir would swim in this sea, this sea that was new to him, full of wonder and perils that lived in the deeps.

  Some of the fishes that were brought in with the catch were marvellous, brightly coloured or strangely shaped. Some of the catch could never be called a fish. There were things that looked like cucumbers, and tentacled things, some with beaks and eyes, some translucent, or even shifting in colour to match the hand that held it, or the wood on which it lay. Renir did not try eating one of those, but everything else he sampled with his evening meal. Most he kept down, but once or twice he had hurled, green faced, in lee of the gentle wind and over the side of the ship, returning the catch to the sea. The seafarers laughed, which was fortunate, for if they had taken offence he was not sure he could have changed anything.

  Since being freed he had roamed the decks, storing away the memory. Shorn assured them that all too soon they would see land again, although Renir was not reassured. The sea could not even be seen from the centre of the ship. A man could spend his life on the ship and never see the sea, or even land should they reach their goal. And that, too, was in doubt. While he and Bourninund roamed, Shorn, Wen and Drun were in deep discussion with the seafarer council.

  Renir smarted from his exclusion, but as Bourninund said, plain men had little to offer council, and he, at least, knew his place. Renir followed his example, and instead made the most of this peaceful time between fights. It was something else Bourninund had taught him. A warrior’s life was largely made up of waiting. He resolved to be good at that if nothing else.

  Toward the centre of the ship was the hub, where most of the activity took place, and it was there that Renir had spent much of the afternoon, taking his lunch gratefully. There were tradesmen and women, although their wares were bought not with currency but by barter, and sometimes need. There was no wasted effort. As everywhere, people needed time to rest, children needed time to play. There were plays, where storytellers dressed in costumes and told stories, playing different parts after changing their outfits. It seemed a strange pastime, but Bourninund and Renir enjoyed a weekly performance. In the play, there was an evil king, and his unfaithful wife. Both were landfarers, the wife’s paramour a seafarer. He was, of course, the hero. Renir thought the blood real when the king killed the hero, but Shorn assured him it was dye. All the same, Renir found he was relieved when the players returned to take their applause. The seafarers showed their appreciation by slapping the boards on which they sat.

  Many times in their wanderings Renir and Bourninund coul
d have been in trouble. Most of the seafarers accepted that they were now guests, but on occasion they were barged in passing, or heard mutters under their breath. Renir had to stop Bourninund from thumping more than one rude youngster. Things could all too easily escalate, now that their weapons had been returned. He had no intention of spending any more time as a captive.

  How proud I have become, he mused. No longer afraid of death, just captivity. Perhaps soon nothing will hold fear for him. But he had not met the Protectorate, yet. Was it a mighty army, would it suffice for his skills? He flexed his bicep at Bourninund and roared (quietly). The bear merely looked bemused and returned his gaze to the setting suns.

  Renir didn’t think he would ever scare the bear, grizzled and scarred, hard as teak. He grinned sheepishly at Bourninund, who smiled in acknowledgement, and returned to his waiting. He was getting good at it.

  There were other things that Renir found strange. In all his meanderings, he found no old ones. He was accustomed to village life, and Turnmarket on ocassion. Since his sheltered youth he had travelled the length of Sturma, and seen many old people. People lived longer than they used to, back when war was a common occurrence. But he saw few with grey hairs, and fewer wrinkles. It was as though they had found the secret of youth — but Renir knew different, now.

  They sent their old and infirm away into the sea. They were given rafts, but no food. They called it ‘going over the horizon’ but it was culling, pure and simple. Those that could no longer work, or were feeble, or had the bone rot — all went into the sea. It was no surprise that none were seen again. The seafarers thought the old ones found ‘the peaceful land’, where they could rest their feet on dirt, and build their homes.