Prisoner of the Iron Tower (20 page)

CHAPTER
16

Every day Andrei forced himself out onto the long expanse of empty grey sands that stretched into the distant horizon, shrouded in sea fog. And every day he managed to walk a little farther, as his damaged body slowly, miraculously, repaired itself.

One evening, much like another, Kuzko and his adoptive son sat on either side of the fire as Irina cleared away the remains of the fish-and-onion stew they had eaten for supper.

“You’ll be wanting to go find your own folks soon,” Kuzko said with a sigh, lighting his tobacco pipe.

“If only I knew where to start looking.” Andrei stared into the flames. “Or who they are . . .”

His name was Andrei. That much he remembered. But no more. There had been no clues in the waterlogged shreds of clothing that had clung to his body; the sea had washed them clean of any distinguishing marks.

“We know you’re a sailor and we know you’re from Muscobar.” Kuzko drew on his pipe, letting out a slow, reflective puff of smoke. “Otherwise we’d have had trouble understanding each other, hm? But Muscobar’s a big country with plenty of ports up and down the coast. We’re out on the farthest tip here on Lapwing Spar. Land’s end, with only the Iron Sea beyond. Far from anywhere. Nobody bothers much about us . . . and we don’t bother them.”

Andrei frowned, concentrating his gaze on a stick, forked like a stag’s horn as it glowed white-hot, and then suddenly crumbled away to ash.

His memory, like the little island, was still shrouded in impenetrable fogs. Sometimes, in dreams, he knew he glimpsed familiar, well-loved faces and he would wake, calling out to them, arms longingly outstretched . . . only to find that the elusive memories had vanished again and he was calling out in gibberish.

“Now that spring’s on its way, I’m planning on going over to the mainland for provisions.” Kuzko tapped out the tobacco dregs and reached for his pouch. “Irina’s been nagging me for days. . . .”

“You’re running out of baccy, otherwise you wouldn’t bother to make the journey, would you, old man?” called out Irina. “Never mind whether we have enough tea for the samovar!”

“I’ll get news at the tavern,” continued Kuzko, ignoring her. “Now that the thaw’s under way, the merchantmen’ll be stopping off at Yamkha again. Any wrecks, up and down the coast, they’ll know. You come along too, Andrei. Maybe someone’ll recognize you there.”

Andrei shivered. And it seemed as if somewhere deep within his mind, a voice whispered,
“No, not yet. It’s too soon. . . .”

Director Baltzar looked down at his patient. Twenty-One sat slumped in a chair, staring dully ahead. Skar stood behind the chair.

“Twenty-One?” Baltzar said crisply.

The patient did not even respond to the sound of his voice.

“How long has he been like this, Skar?”

“Since he came round, Director.”

Baltzar stroked his chin pensively.

“But there have been no more fits? No more shouting out?”

“He doesn’t seem too aware of anything.”

“Any fever?” Baltzar lifted the bandages around the patient’s skull, exposing the blood-encrusted stitches where he had sewn up the surgical incisions.

“A little oozing, a little pus from the wound, but it seems to be responding satisfactorily to treatment.”

Baltzar bent over the patient and lifted one of his eyelids. The man’s pupils were dilated.

“Gavril Nagarian,” Baltzar whispered, “can you hear me?”

Very far away, a voice calls his name. But he is lost, wandering along an endless grey road where everything is shrouded in fog and nothing is familiar. And then there is only the monotonous grinding throb in his head, a horrible sound that vibrates throughout his whole being.

Lost. Never get home. Wherever home is . . .

Never.

“Nagarian?” echoed Skar. “Is this the Azhkendi lord? The one who tried to kill the Emperor and his daughter?”

“You didn’t hear that!” snapped Baltzar. In his desperation to elicit a response from the patient, he had committed an unpardonable breach of confidentiality. “Remember the contract you signed? Everything you witness within these four walls is to be treated with the utmost discretion.”

“Understood.” Skar nodded. “But, Director, do you think the operation may have damaged him? By now, they usually show some sign of consciousness.”

“Are you impugning my methods, Skar?” demanded Baltzar. “I hardly think it’s your place, as my assistant, to question my clinical—”

“Director.” Skar pointed at Twenty-One. “Look.”

A single tear rolled slowly down the patient’s immobile face.

“He’s crying.”

Andrei waded back through the shallows, the cold, brackish tide lapping against his sea boots until he stood on the bleak pebbled shore, gazing after Kuzko’s boat, the
Swallow,
bobbing its way out across the choppy waters of the Iron Sea.

This was where it had happened. This was the place the lightning bolt from the rolling stormclouds had struck him.

That sizzling flash of blue fire had restored his powers of speech but scoured his memory clean of all except his first name. He could have a wife and children mourning him, yet he had no recollection of anyone but Kuzko and Irina.

“Why can’t I remember?” Andrei yelled to the distant horizon.
“Who—am—I?”

A bolt of lightning suddenly scored through his mind.

“Ahh . . .” Dizzy, he staggered back up the beach, one halting step at a time, until he fell to his knees, panting, clutching at his head.

It was as if something within him was struggling to escape.

Irina hummed to herself as she pegged her wet washing to the line. There was a good drying breeze today, not so fierce it would tug the clean clothes from the line. The breeze would set Kuzko and the
Swallow
on a fair course for Yamkha—and the sooner he was gone, the sooner he would return with the much-needed supplies.

A man’s voice cried out from the shore.

Above the wet sheets and shirts she caught sight of Andrei coming back up the beach, saw him stumble and fall.

Poor lad. He’d made such good progress, but he still needed more time to regain his strength. The sheet she was pegging up was left dangling as she set out to help him. Then a sudden sea mist, grey as smoke, gusted across the narrow spar of land. Bewildered, she blinked, trying to peer through the billowing fog. Andrei was still lying sprawled on the sand.

“Andrei!” she called, her voice shrill with alarm. He made no reply.

Her heart started to thud. Why must the lad have a relapse now that Kuzko was gone? She hadn’t the strength to drag him back to the hut all on her own.

The sea mist swirled about her, yet not so thickly that she could avoid seeing Andrei start to twitch and writhe.

“Another fit?” The lad needed her; that was all that mattered. She gathered up her heavy worsted skirts and hurried down the shore toward him.

Andrei lay helpless on the sands, unable to move.

“When I found you, you were damaged almost beyond repair. And so was I, cast out from my rightful lord . . .”

Patterns of light pulsed across his sight.
“But I read in your blood the trace of Artamon’s seed. It called to me. It revived me. So I have remade you, refashioned you as best I could. Yet you still resist me. Don’t fight me, Andrei, let me help you.”

Was this some kind of island spirit? It spoke of healing. What did it want of him? All he wanted was to remember who he was. Words formed in his mind—slow, clumsy words.

“Why—can’t I—remember? Tell me—who I am.”

“Andrei?” called a quavering voice.

Andrei opened his eyes to see the wrinkled face of an old woman bending over him.

“There now,” she said as if she were soothing a child. “You were having a bad dream.”

Kuzko had been gone for five days now, Andrei reckoned. Irina seemed unconcerned, busying herself feeding her chickens and working at her sewing.

“He’ll have met friends. He’ll be back when he’s ready. Gives me a chance to clean up after him, the old curmudgeon. . . .”

Sometimes she forgot herself and called Andrei “Tikhon,” the name of her drowned son. He never corrected her. It was such a solitary life for her here at land’s end. The nearest neighbors were over a two-mile’s walk away across the dunes.

A sudden shiver of restlessness went through Andrei. He set out from the cottage and walked up through the reeds into the dunes. A glimmer of pale, high cloud hid the spring sun. Beyond the calm, lapping green of the empty sea, the horizon was hazy with mist. The air felt softer today, milder. High overhead flew a skein of wild geese, honking exuberantly as they set out for their spring feeding grounds.

Two weeks ago, walking at this speed would have exhausted him. Today he felt exhilarated, hardly noticing the last, lingering stiffness in his mended legs.

“Ahoy there, Andrei!”

He spotted Kuzko’s little boat and hurried down the shingle to help Kuzko pull it out of the shallows up and onto the beach.

“Thanks, Andrei,” said Kuzko, clapping him on the shoulder and gazing intently into his face. “Andrei, lad—” he began, as though about to ask a question.

“And about time too, Kuzko!” called out Irina. Kuzko let his hand drop away, turning to face his wife as she hurried down from the hut to greet him.

Andrei was eager, desperately eager to ask Kuzko what news he had gathered in Yamkha, but there were sacks of provisions to be unloaded first and a little keg that smelled strongly of spirits.

“Careful with that keg,” Kuzko warned with a wink.

“Did you remember my thread and needles?” Irina fussed around them. “And the beeswax for polishing? And—”

“All in good time, woman,” growled Kuzko. “You can brew us up some tea.” He tossed her a bag. She caught it and sniffed it, a broad smile slowly lighting her worn face.

“Real tea!” She hugged Kuzko to her and planted a kiss on his mouth.

“Cost me a small fortune, that did. Don’t waste it, now!”

Kuzko’s weather-wrinkled cheeks were red with a glow that spoke of hours whiled away in the tavern, and his eyes were bloodshot. Irina drew away from him, tutting.

“We don’t have a small fortune. So how exactly did you pay, Kuzko?”

Kuzko shuffled from foot to foot, suddenly embarrassed.

“A little favor I agreed to do,” he muttered. “For an old friend.”

“Favor?” Irina repeated loudly.

“You remember Baklan?”

“Baklan, the smuggler? Oh, Kuzko, you promised me you wouldn’t risk it again. You’re too old.”

“It’s only a little consignment to be delivered to Gadko’s. Andrei’ll give me a hand, won’t you, lad?”

Andrei nodded, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to.

“And if you get caught?” Irina was still cross; her foot tapped against the earth floor.

“A few barrels of aquavit in an old fishing smack? Who’s going to pay attention? There’s greater concerns out there, Rina.”

Later when the provisions had been stored safely away in stone crocks and jars, they sat down around the fire with mugs of strong, black tea sweetened with Irina’s apple jam.

“So,” Irina said, “what’s the news in Yamkha?”

“Big news!” Kuzko rolled his eyes. “Seems old Duke Aleksei’s been deposed. There was a riot in Mirom and half the city burned to the ground. Some are saying the rioters collaborated with the Tielens, others that the Tielens sailed down the Nieva and bombarded the city.”

“Mercy on us,” Irina said, setting down her tea. “The Tielens?”

“They’re in charge now.” Kuzko noisily drained his tea to the dregs and wiped the last drops from his mustache with his sleeve. “We have an emperor. Emperor Eugene.”

“What does that matter to us out here?”

“Could mean more taxes. Customs duties. And there’s talk of a census. I saw Tielen soldiers—only a handful, mind you—at the harbor.”

“And what did Duke Aleksei ever do for us?” Irina said with a shrug. “What did the Orlovs care for us, the little people? They spent all Muscobar’s money doing up their fine palaces. We’re well rid of them, I say.”

“Oh we’re not quite rid of them yet, Rina my love. Eugene’s made Aleksei’s daughter his empress. Empress Astasia.”

Andrei listened, the mug of tea going cold between his fingers. The names, the names . . .

“Didn’t old Aleksei have a son too?” Irina asked.

“Young Andrei? The night of that terrible storm in the Straits, his ship, the flagship, went down, all hands lost.” As Kuzko was speaking, Andrei realized he was looking searchingly at him again as he had earlier on the shore. “They say she had too many cannons and the weight sank the ship. Truth is—nobody knows because it seems nobody survived.”

“Terrible,” whispered Irina, staring into her tea mug. “What a waste . . .”

Aleksei . . . Astasia . . . Orlov . . .

“Where did the ship go down?” Andrei demanded. “Was it far from here? And what was she called?”

“The
Sirin
.”

A shiver ran through Andrei’s body. “I know that name,” he said slowly.