Dreams of Fire and Gods 2: Fire (12 page)

The Iinu Shaa extended his hand toward the dead thing and the ropes snapped and fell away, crumbling before they even made contact with the water below. Then, to Koreh’s horror, the body moved, stretching its withered limbs and lifting its mummified face skyward as it opened its mouth. The corpse opened its mouth, revealing brown teeth and shrunken lips as it let loose with one final, shrill scream, a scream that reverberated in the forest and forced Koreh to drop the Taaweh boy’s hand so he could press both his palms against his ears to block the sound.

Then the thing that had once been Dakh began to crumble into dust. But as a last small mercy, his body did not fall back into the rank water that had been his prison for so long, but blew away on a sudden gust of wind, carried upward before disappearing entirely.

Unlike the animals that had been released, Dakh’s dissolution did not fill Koreh with relief and the joy of being freed from imprisonment. Instead Koreh was overwhelmed with feelings of grief and anger and betrayal, as if it would take a very long time for these to fade. How long would it take for a creature driven insane by centuries of agony to become sane again?

The forest around the Taaweh collapsed to the ground then, long-dead trees falling into powder on the shore of the pond, sending up an enormous cloud that engulfed everything for several heartbeats. When it cleared, there was little left. Koreh and the Taaweh were standing at the edge of a pond that no longer reeked of death and decay, but merely stagnant water and mud. The landscape resembled a desert. Not a single tree or shrub adorned the dusty ground that stretched out for leagues in all directions. At the outer edge of this wasteland, the forest still stood—the part that hadn’t yet been tainted by the poison’s slow advance.

When Koreh found his voice again, he asked his companion in a whisper, “Will anything ever grow here again?”

“In time,” the boy said matter-offactly. “The magic that poisoned this place is gone, but not a single worm or insect has lived here for centuries. It will be many human lifetimes, but eventually this will be forest again.”

“Is the boy… dead now?” Koreh wasn’t certain whether the idea saddened him or made him feel relieved.

“Yes,” the Taaweh answered. But then he added, “He has gone into the mist.”

Chapter 7

 

G
ETTING
into Harleh alongside the
vek
’s party had been easy enough. Donegh merely hid his cloak in the bushes and then slipped into the procession, which included several servants on foot. No doubt they’d been forced to walk alongside the carriages for a couple of hours. Some of the
vek
’s servants had given Donegh an odd look—they knew he didn’t belong with them—but no doubt they assumed he was a local peasant who wasn’t bright enough to get out of their way. At the same time, the Harleh guards assumed he
was
with the
vek
.

Once inside the walls of Harleh, there were few guards. Donegh merely tagged along behind the procession along with nearly all the curious citizens in the city. When they reached the keep itself, it was easy enough to mix in with the stable hands. If anybody wondered who he was, they were too busy to give it much thought. Donegh eventually found a spot up in the hayloft where he could bury himself and hide until nightfall.

Since entering the forest yesterday and discovering he was cut off from the
ömem
, Donegh had been going over the layout of the keep as he’d memorized it. Normally there would have been no need for him to memorize it, or not much. The
ömem
would have provided him with eyes to see most of its courtyards and corridors, and even glimpses into the outer rooms. That would have been enough to keep out of the way of the guards. Many
samöt
depended upon this and grew lazy as a result. But those often ran into trouble when sudden storms moved in and blotted out the Eyes that the
ömem
depended upon for their Sight, or they found themselves in inner rooms without windows. It was always wise to memorize the layout of the target destination.

In Donegh’s case, he’d been contracted for this job
after
the
ömem
had lost contact with the valley, so he’d never had the opportunity to explore it in his inner vision. Instead he’d been given a blueprint to memorize, and he’d gone over that until he knew every corridor, room, and linen closet in the place. The last
samöt
to infiltrate the keep—Larekh, who’d successfully assassinated the previous
dekan
, but paid for it with his life—had scaled the outer wall with hooks and surprised the
dekan
on his balcony.

Donegh thought a more direct approach might be better—slipping right under everyone’s nose, so to speak. The front door of the keep was guarded, but since the courtyard was guarded as well and had an iron portcullis, the guards here were mostly for show. Other doors, such as the door to the kitchen and the door to the servants’ quarters, were guarded in principle, but generally had no more than a single watchman stationed nearby. If Donegh put a little thought into it, he could probably fool one of these men.

He waited until after the church bells tolled
Nemom
, when it was dark enough to provide long shadows in the small courtyard by the kitchen door, and then slipped behind the black currant bushes in the herb garden. From here he could watch the kitchen servants going in and out to retrieve water from the garden well, fresh herbs, and wood from the woodshed.

It was the latter that gave him his way in. When the shed was empty, he snuck inside and grabbed an armload of split wood. Then he waited until the guard was engrossed in conversation with one of the pretty young scullery maids who was coming back from the garden with an apron full of rosemary sprigs. Donegh walked right by them, heading for the kitchen.

The guard spoke up and said, “You, there! What do you think you’re doing?” “Fetching more wood for the stove.”

 

“Where did you come from? I never saw you come out of the kitchen.”

“’Course I came out!” Donegh answered in a voice that could pass for a local country accent, if one didn’t listen too closely. “Mrs. Mohr needs to keep the stoves burning all night, if she’s gonna feed all the keep
and
the
vek
’s men, come tomorrow mornin’.” He’d overheard several of the servants refer to the foul-tempered cook during the day. “She’s ready to skin us all alive!”

The guard chuckled at that and turned to the girl he’d been chatting up. “You know this boy?”

“Him?” she replied, giving Donegh an uninterested glance. “I probably seen him.”

“You sure? We’re supposed to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

“He don’t look suspicious to me,” the girl said dismissively. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to keep track of everybody goin’ in and out. There’s too many people runnin’ around in the kitchen tonight. I’ll wager someone’s gonna trip over someone else and make a huge mess. And guess who’ll have to clean it all up?”

That seemed to be enough for the guard. With a good-humored grin, he waved Donegh by.

And as simple as that, the assassin was inside the palace.
“T
ELL
me, Master Geilin,” the
vek
said
casually, “about this plan you have for training women to be mages.”

Sael cringed inwardly as many of the men at the dinner table snickered and Snidmot made a dramatic show of shaking his head and glancing at the ceiling. Sael should have known that his father wouldn’t let the matter drop. The
vek
had simply filed it away for another time. And apparently dinner was to be that time.

Geilin seemed unperturbed. “Your Grace, I merely suggested the possibility.”

“Preposterous!” Snidmot interjected.

“Not necessarily. There are two reasons that
vönan
have always been men. The first is entirely practical—the Stronni insist upon it. The second is traditional—because
vönan
have always been men, we feel that this must always be the case.”

“If
vönan
are the servants of the Stronni,” Snidmot said with exaggerated patience, “and the Stronni insist that they all be men, well, then… of course they must be!”

“Agreed.” Geilin nodded and took a sip of his wine. “But as we discussed this afternoon, I am no longer a
vönan
, for the simple reason that I took advantage of an opportunity to learn… an alternative form of magic.”

“A decision I find highly questionable,” Snidmot snapped.

 

“Yes, Master Geilin,” Worlen said. “Are you quite certain that was wise?” “It hardly matters whether it was wise or not, Your Grace. It is done.” “So it is.”

The others at the table seemed to find the conversation unsettling and were focusing intently on their trenchers. The food at Harleh was always magnificent, but of course the cook would rather have thrown herself off a parapet than allow anything to be burnt or underdone while the
vek
was here. It occurred to Sael that, with an assassin on the way to Harleh—if his father was correct, which he usually was—it might be wise to check the food for poison. But Worlen considered the use of food-tasters to be a deplorable practice, something the cowardly emperor might—and did—do. But not a Menaük.

In this, Sael was in perfect agreement with his father. The thought of one of his servants collapsing dead from food that was meant for him disturbed Sael far more than the thought of being poisoned himself. The guards were on alert and the keep was being searched for anyone suspicious, which was about all that could be done without the aid of
ömem
. So Sael ate his roast duck in a delicately spiced verjuice sauce and drank his white wine without a taster. The meal was delicious, and he appeared to be surviving it well enough.

Master Geilin went on, “The fact that I can no longer call myself a
vönan
does not mean that I am no longer a mage, Your Grace.” He smiled. “Indeed, the Taaweh have been ‘running me through the paces,’ as the grooms might say.”

“From
vönan
to horse,” Snidmot muttered under his breath. “Quite impressive.”

A number of the men from Worlen snickered, but Geilin ignored them.

“
Vönan
are powerless in Harleh Valley,” he went on. “And I don’t believe that situation will change for a very long time. Possibly none of us here will see the day when the Eyes shine down upon Harleh again.”

This caused a number of concerned glances to travel around the table. Though the possibility of a protracted war between the Stronni and the Taaweh had been considered in the discussions Sael had had with his father and many of those present, it was not a topic many of them felt comfortable broaching over dinner.

“No, thank you,” the
vek
murmured to a servant who was attempting to refill his wine glass. Then he raised his voice to address the gathering. “I daresay we won’t keep the
vönan
and
ömem
confined to Harleh for much longer. Once the Taaweh declare open war against the Stronni—one presumes that this is their intention—Harleh will certainly still be in grave danger, but there will no longer be a need for secrecy. Those who wish to leave may do so.”

“Even then, Father,” Sael spoke up at last, “it will be impossible for
vönan
to operate within the valley.”

“True.”

 

Geilin said, “Which is why, Your Grace, I believe we should train mages who
can
perform magic here.”

“Women,” the
vek
replied with raised eyebrows, drawing another snicker from his men.

Suddenly a voice—a woman’s voice—interrupted. “And why not women, Your Grace?”

It was Tanum, Seffni’s widow, speaking from the far end of the table, opposite the
vek
. She was the only woman at the table, and she’d kept so quiet that most of the men had forgotten her presence. Even the
vek
looked surprised that she’d spoken.

He carefully reached for his wineglass, saying, “
Vönan
or not, Master Geilin is still one of Sael’s advisors, and he is still responsible for securing the safety of Harleh. If he feels it necessary to train mages in the use of… unorthodox magic… that will be for Sael to decide.”

“Your Grace!” Snidmot began to protest, but Tanum interrupted him. “Even if they are women?”

Sael had to admit he took a certain amount of pleasure in watching his father squirm under Tanum’s questioning. The woman had been content to sit in the background over the past few weeks while she grieved for her late husband, but she had never been afraid of the
vek
.

Sael’s father lifted his glass tentatively, as if anticipating a trap. “I shall leave that to the discretion of Master Geilin.”

Geilin nodded, though it seemed to Sael the old man was uncomfortable being put on the spot like this. “As I said, Your Grace, I was merely—”

“Master Geilin,” Tanum said, turning to him, “I should like to be trained.”