Kirian was shocked. “You mean people have tried to poison you?”
“I’m not popular in Sugetre, Kirian. I am a
righ
bastard. If I’d been of common birth, I would not have been allowed to live. And some people get fixated on the idea that I’m in the direct line to the throne.”
She stared at him. “You are?”
“I won’t inherit. Don’t worry about it—I don’t.” He took a deep drink of ale and grinned at her. “Sharpeyes has a nephew, a child, son of his late brother Yarin. He hates the boy, but Ander is the heir to the throne. A promising color mage, too, I hear. Arias would have been his next heir, as oldest son of his sister, and an unCollared color mage—but Sharpeyes had to go have a fit of jealousy and bind him to Seagard. Takes the Alkirani right out of the succession.”
Kirian processed that. “Does Lord Arias mind?”
Callo’s grin vanished. “I doubt it. He’s Collared now. That binds him in a way you and I can’t understand, to Seagard and the Watch.”
“It controls him like a ku’an controls a person.”
“No, that’s different. A ku’an can project a certain emotion into a person, very strongly if he wants to. Arias doesn’t have to deal with that.”
“Why not? He’s controlled, all the time, at the mercy of this compulsion.”
Callo frowned and did not reply.
“How is that different?” Kirian asked, wondering why Callo was distressed at the turn the conversation had taken.
“A Collar is an instrument of control,” Callo said, his mouth grim now. “But Arias has his own emotions. He is under a compulsion . . .” Callo stopped. Kirian saw him frowning as he looked down at the table—as though he had forgotten her. After a moment, she spoke.
“It is not so different, I think. Maybe it is even worse, since he is always under this control, every hour of every day.”
Callo looked up at her, his face unreadable.
“Do you think there is something you could do for him?” Kirian asked.
He shrugged. “I have been wondering the same thing for a while now. That’s why I can’t just escape, leaving him there by himself. I owe him, Kirian.”
“This is the thing you decided you must do, in Seagard.”
“Yes. And then, if necessary, I’ll go anywhere else in the world with you, keep you safe from harm. But first I must see Arias.”
“He may kill you. He is a Collared Lord now. They aren’t known for their gentleness.”
“I know. Oh, yes, I know. He was different, after he was Collared—more like Mikati. But he is my brother, and I can’t abandon him to that if I think there’s a chance I can help. Arias was always glad he was in line for the throne, you know, since it meant Sharpeyes left him alone and unCollared.”
“I liked him,” Kirian said. “When we first met, that is, after he recovered from the binding fever. I am sorry he is so changed.”
“Hai! Everyone up here!” yelled Captain Modjho from the deck, a few feet away. “We have a problem.”
Kirian went to the door. Modjho stood still, staring at the western sea. Bright spring sunlight glittered off the rocking waves, making it hard for Kirian to see what he was looking at. Ha’star came up beside her, and shaded his eyes against the sun.
She looked again, and saw a thin, black line lying on the surface of the sea.
Her heart thumped. Callo, behind her in the doorway, swore. “We’re in trouble,” he said.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ha’star asked.
The line grew thicker, spreading closer to them. “Black Tide,” Callo said. “Jashan curse them.”
Modjho yelled at his crewmen and they began piling on the sail, trying to eke every last iota of speed out of the little craft. The deck heaved under them; the waves were growing higher. Kirian grabbed the rail.
“What will it do to us?” Kirian thought back to the Black Tide she had seen on Kin’s and Rashiri’s fishing boat. They had been terrified of it, trying to tack out of its way. She looked westward and saw the sea covered by a film of black.
“It looks like the ku’an’an wants us dead if he can’t have us back,” Chiss said. “The Black Tide is a physical manifestation of a ku’an’s psychic magery. It usually takes three or four of them to do something so huge.”
“Can you tell what it will do?” Kirian asked Callo. He stood staring out at the rushing blackness as if the Black Tide were a personal challenge.
Chiss answered. “They use it before a military attack. The Black Tide deadens everything in its path. Puts the enemy in a somnolent state of mind. They go to sleep, right where they are. Look at those fish.” He pointed at the few tumbling fish they could now see in the front of the low black wave. “They’re not dead. They’re stunned.”
“Then they follow it up with force,” Kirian said.
“They’ll come in after, to capture us while we can’t resist. Or they can simply let us drown.”
“Not if I can help it,” Callo murmured.
“You can’t,” she said. “What can one ku’an do, against this?”
“Not a ku’an,” he said. He stood gripping the rail, braced against the heaving motion. The black wave rushed forward. He said “Damn them,” in an intense voice. He bent his head as if he were struggling with something.
“Get inside! Get inside!” screamed Modjho. The captain abandoned the helm and raced toward the ladders that led below.
“Callo! Come on!” Kirian yelled. The sea kicked up, and a wave crashed over the rail, drenching them. Chiss pulled at Callo’s arm, but the muscles corded in Callo’s arm as he resisted, refusing to move.
“Don’t touch me,” he said.
“My lord!” Chiss yelled. “You’ll be washed overboard when it hits!”
“Just go!”
Chiss put a hand on Callo’s shoulder and, in spite of all the other sickening motion around her, Kirian could see Callo shudder. “Don’t touch me!” His voice was low and hoarse.
Kirian said, “I won’t go below without you.” His head snapped around when he heard her. “Go in, Kirian, get in there!”
The black wave crashed over the deck.
Kirian saw nothing for a moment but an intensity of dark that blotted out the brazen sunshine and the sea. All the glaring reflections vanished. She could see nothing, not even Callo or Chiss on the deck next to her, but she could feel Callo’s arm under her hand. She cried out, but could not hear her own voice. Then a massive peace descended on her, a heavy somnolence that made her loosen her grip on Callo’s arm. She took a deep breath and relaxed, then let go. There was nothing she cared about enough to make her move. She closed her eyes and felt her legs give out under her as she sank to the pitch-black deck.
Silence ruled. Darkness, like that behind her eyelids on a sleepy, dark, winter morning, reigned. She felt only a heavy lassitude. Vaguely, she felt water rushing over her, sliding her over the deck. She must be lying down on the deck; it felt pleasant. The water rushing into her ears and mouth was warm, like a womb must be.
Through her closed eyelids she saw an arrow of white light.
It was only one of those things that happened behind your eyelids just after you closed them, she thought, and smiled. Then a starburst of multicolored light glared through her lids. The darkness retreated behind it, just for a second, before swarming in again.
Kirian rested. The wool-soft Tide cushioned her. It became hard to draw a breath past all the sea water, but this was natural and it did not disturb her.
Then, a wall of brilliance hit her. She awoke a little, squinted through tearing eyes, to see that something like the sun was burning through the darkness, a fireball of intense light of all colors, thrusting upward, chasing back the Black Tide, devouring darkness where it rested in layers on the deck.
She looked away from the brilliance. It hurt her eyes. She began coughing up water from her lungs, rolling to one side as her body tried to expel the seawater she had swallowed. Then she saw Callo, standing there like Jashan himself, crashing glory flying away from him at the Black Tide. He stood with his eyes closed, braced against the deck railing. Light of all colors emanated from him like rays of sun through a gap in dark clouds.
Kirian dragged herself to her feet. Water sloshed in her shoes. Her leggings and tunic clung to her skin. She whispered a prayer to the Unknown God. She remembered the Black Tide she had seen before, how the radiant barrier from the Watch tower had defeated the dark. Looking to the west, she saw something similar—a curtain of light, pushing back the Tide.
She went to Callo and stood next to him, but dared not touch him. She saw Chiss getting to his feet, coughing. The manservant stared at his lord with an indescribable look. Then, without a sound, the energy vanished. The light was gone. No smudge of darkness remained on the western sea. The sun shone as if it had never been eclipsed, and the frothy sea slapped up and down at the rolling hull. Callo stood, shaking, on the slippery deck.
Ha’star came running from below deck with an exultant whoop. “Ku’an’s teeth, man, what did you do? Was that color magery?” He gave Callo a congratulatory slap on the arm.
Callo bit off, “Don’t touch me.”
“My lord,” Chiss said. “Are you all right?” His face was pale.
Callo walked a few steps away and turned away from them. Kirian saw his hands were shaking, as if with cold. The skin of his face and forearms was flushed. Violence clung to him; she could sense it. She and Chiss and Ha’star stood staring at him with no idea what to say or do.
Captain Modjho came swaggering onto deck. “What the hell?” he said. “You some kind of mage?” Chiss shook his head in warning but the wiry captain seemed incapable of taking a mild hint. He brushed past them and dropped his weight against the deck rail, leaning next to Callo—too close, apparently. Callo made a muffled sound and jerked around. Then his hands were around Modjho’s neck as he slammed the captain up against the rail. Red light crawled over his hands. The rail creaked. Chiss said, “No, my lord!” and Kirian cried out, and Callo’s hands loosened, allowing Modjho to tear free and stagger away. The captain hacked over the rail, swearing.
Callo turned away from them. His hands, gripping the rail again, were white. Chiss took Modjho’s arm and pulled him away. Kirian thought back to the last Black Tide. Lord Arias and Lord Mikati had required Healer’s care after defeating it. Mikati’s heart was injured by the strain. Lord Arias, as she recalled, had been full of reckless exhilaration, but shaking and weak none the less. Could this be some kind of shock?
She approached Callo, very cautiously. “Lord Callo,” she said in a calm voice. “May I come and see how you are doing?” Ha’star’s hand gripped his sword hilt as if he would defend her against Callo should he attack her.
He did not respond, so Kirian took that as a yes. She leaned near him at the rail and looked sideways at him. His amber eyes were unfocused; he stared at the waves without seeing. He still shook, and his breathing was fast, as if he had been running.
“Please sit down,” she asked. “It is all over now.”
“It’s not over,” he said. His voice was hoarse. There were gold sparks in his eyes—beautiful, she thought, but frightening. “Now I have to contain it again.”
Chiss returned from his conversation with Modjho. “Perhaps there is something we could do to help, my lord.”
There was a short silence. Kirian wondered how long Callo could hold the rock-hard tension before something snapped. Then Callo said, “My sword. Get me my sword.”
Kirian glanced at him. He was not wearing his scabbard—why should he, on board? The weapon must be with their things, in the single shed that served as cabin and mess. Why would he want his sword?
Chiss frowned and shook his head in what was, for him, a show of strong emotion. “No! You don’t need it, my lord. What would you do with it?”
Kirian first looked at Callo, then back at Chiss. She said, “I’ll get it,” and walked away from the group at the rail towards the cabin. Ha’star caught her halfway, took her elbow to stop her. “If you give that man a sword right now, you’ll be killing him,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“He’ll kill himself. He’s a wreck. All that energy has destroyed him. A ku’an and a color mage—who would’a thought?”
“I don’t think he’s a danger to himself.” She pulled her arm away and went to get Callo’s scabbard. It rested against the bulkhead, with their packs, set aside so Callo could access it easily if needed. She picked it up by scabbard and hilt and carried it out to deck. Ha’star walked beside her, grumbling but not stopping her. Even Chiss, who was speaking to his lord in a low voice when she arrived, did not stop her. He stepped back when she gave Callo the sword. She stepped away, and drew the others with her.
“Gods aid he does not hurt himself,” Chiss said.
“You know him so well. Do you really think he will?”
“No. I hope not—Ah!” Chiss lost his worried frown as they saw Callo lift the sword to the sky in a ritual salute. Then, with only a shadow of his usual grace, he slid into the first position of the ritual form.
“I remember this,” Ha’star said. “He did this in the ring in Las’ash. Often.”
Callo lifted his face to the sky. Red fire ran along his arms, and traced the sword. He began the first passes of the form. Kirian took a deep breath and said, “Let’s leave him alone.” Ha’star bowed to her, an unexpected tribute that broke Kirian’s tension and made her smile; then he vanished up the deck to talk to Modjho. Chiss followed her into the mess.
“You have my thanks,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything. You are welcome anyway. May I ask, you’ve known him all his life, right? Where did that come from?”
“There were early signs he had some sort of talent—ku’an magery, King Martan thought, not color magery. There were incidents. I doubt he remembers them—he was very young.”
“But, color magery?”
“It is in his heredity. His mother is the King’s sister, remember. And the King is the strongest color mage in Righar.”
Kirian looked outside. Callo was completing the steps of his ritual form. His movements were smoother now. He looked stronger, and the color magery that had been sparking from his hands was no longer visible. “I know that color mages train for many years to learn how to control the energy. I assume Lord Callo has not had any of that training?”