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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The viziers turned to stare at Druadaen as though they’d forgotten he was in the chamber.

Bapalkas lifted his chins. “That is none of your conce—”

“Hold,” said Fasurem. “He may have something to tell us about her, too.”

“Him? About her? Surely you are—”

“Fasurem is right,” Manakon interrupted. “Clearly, the outlander was in the same place she was, shortly after her arrival there.”

“What place do you refer to?” Druadaen asked. “The ruins on the hill?”

Manakon studied him carefully. “Outlander, do you know what a haze is?”

“If so, my people must call it by another name.” Technically true, and if something involving this adventuress had happened near the Shimmer, then perhaps—

“A haze,” Fasurem said quietly, “is a doorway between different worlds. Do you know of such things?”

“There are legends of them,” he answered truthfully. “Most hold them to be nothing more than stories.” More truth, still.

“They are real. And you passed very close to one.”

“Opposite the watch post,” Manakon supplied when Druadaen affected perplexity. “The Sentinels were not there to guard a border; they were there to watch the Haze. And we believe that a person who misrepresented themselves to us here was responsible for the butchery you discovered there.”

Druadaen did not have to summon a frown; it formed of its own accord. “Do you mean to imply that—?”

“That the woman in question, and her compatriots, arrived through the Haze. Which we call the Fickle Haze. Some hazes are predictable; that one is not.”

“It is not a typical haze at all,” added the side-seated man almost testily. “Some are constant, some are periodic, some function only if you know how to properly propitiate whatever being—er, deity—is the master of it. But the Fickle Haze is just that; it obeys no master, follows no pattern.”

“And if there truly is an otherworldly group abroad in our land—” began Bapalkas.

“Let us not rush to conclusions,” interrupted Fasurem.

“Is it ‘rushing’ to be mindful that this is what it might look like if the Annihilators were returning, O Great Circline?”

Fasurem frowned: perhaps at the title, perhaps at the facetious tone. “There is much we do not know about the priestess who deceived us. Or about this foreigner’s account.”

“Well, according to your Circline powers, has he lied?”

Fasurem glanced at Druadaen. “Not that I can tell.”

Druadaen wondered if that was simply his way of saying “no” or whether he was telling his own partial truth: that he could not determine the truth of what they’d heard because he could not reach the mind of the one who had spoken. And if the latter was true, then the one named Fasurem was not eager to share that information: a fact worth remembering. “You call her a priestess. Did she name her deity?”

“She did not.” Manakon stared at him. “You ask after her deity but are unsurprised to learn that our adversary is a woman.”

Druadaen shrugged. “I have traveled in places where differences between men and women are small. Or nonexistent.”

“Well, we were stunned when she came before us,” grumbled the thin vizier. “And with a retinue of men, no less! Not only deferring to, but taking orders from her!”

As the other viziers added their own expressions of outrage and shock, Druadaen paid only enough attention to detect when they might return to matters of import. In the meantime, he needed every second possible to puzzle through how the timing of the woman’s arrival compared with his own and its possible implications.

The Sentinels’ deaths agreed with his estimate of how long the corpses had lain there: but a few weeks. That, in turn, meant that they could not have been slaughtered by the S’Dyxoi, who had plunged through the Lady’s Shimmer almost ten moonphases ago.

That did not entirely eliminate the possibility that the S’Dyxoi, arriving as naked as he, had fled the area at once, returning only after they had gathered knowledge of the world and the means to attack the watch post. But that course of action made even less sense now than when he had first contemplated it. Why would it have taken them twenty weeks to return, and why bother, at that point? It was far more likely that the Shimmer had sent the S’Dyxoi to some other world—or oblivion—and that it was an entirely different group which had slain the Sentinels and appeared at the Vizierate. Whether it had arrived from the Godbarrows or the Shimmer was not of immediate import and was unknowable, besides.

As he finished reconciling the probable timing and cause of the events at the watchhouse, the tone and volume of the viziers’ exchanges shifted. The general furor over having accorded equal respect to a woman was winding down and evolving into dismay and anger over how she had manipulated them. Manakon used that to refocus them on the more practical concern of what to do next, in part by gesturing toward Druadaen and asking, “Did you hear anything of such a woman on your travels here? You must have passed through many of the same places but two weeks after she did.”

Druadaen shook his head. “If she did, her passage did not attract enough attention to prompt remarks from common folk. Admittedly, as I was traveling alone, I avoided the roads as much as possible. And want of coin led me to avoid towns, since there was nothing there I could afford. But perhaps if you told me what you have heard about her travels, I may realize that what I deemed casual chatter about local events might in fact be related to her actions, even though she herself was not mentioned. Possibly because she was not known to have caused the events.”

The viziers agreed and the resulting description of her progress to Sarmasid was not conveyed without some heated contradictions among them. But they had become so accustomed to sharing information with him—or the need to do so—that the relevant chronicle unfolded fairly quickly.

The so-called priestess had represented her group as being travelers from a far country, well beyond where the Cloudcap Mountains bent slightly west: not too far from the region that Druadaen had claimed as his own place of origin. The viziers had little reason to either believe or doubt her; beyond those peaks was the Shun, their knowledge of which was centuries old and largely anecdotal. More recent information came from the imprecise maps sketched by bold trading vessels which had risked sailing to the other side of the landmass of which Lorn Hystzos was merely the northwestern quarter.

However, unlike Druadaen, the woman not only arrived before the vizierate with extensive knowledge of the abominations, but a proposal to undertake a journey to learn more about their recent spread and the appearance of new and dangerous types. They noted that by distinguishing new variants from new species, she had not only demonstrated familiarity with the current resurgence of the monsters, but was well versed in subtle details of their nature. So they accepted her proposal, and provided her with additional equipment, funds, and passage on one of their own ships. And that was the last they had heard from her.

But in the days that followed, they heard a great deal more about her—or more specifically, the path of destruction that marked her path from the Fickle Haze. Shortly after the approximate date of the massacre there, she appeared on the outskirts of a town more than halfway to Sarmasid. She and her companions were in possession of two wild supragants that were as notoriously difficult to domesticate as they were rare. They approached an ostler who traded in beasts of burden and exchanged the animals for swift horses and a reasonable balance of coin, leaving without entering the town itself.

Shortly after, though, the supragants became unmanageable and then ferocious, killing one handler and laming another. A later report indicated that while the stablemaster presumed she had kept the beasts tractable with alchemical compounds, farm folk were convinced it was the result of witchcraft or “wyrding.” Fasurem had agreed with the farmers, as did several viziers. However, they differed on one point: that this was not mere wyrding, but more akin to the powers attributed to the sorcerers of old.

Further evidence supporting that speculation accrued in the days that followed. The woman had inadvertently marked her route by leaving another pair of supragants behind her, but these had died from exhaustion. Shortly after, several recently missing persons who were involved in the capture and training of such creatures turned up as corpses, victims of extended and inhuman torture.

None of this came to light during her time in Sarmasid, where she found a way to completely circumvent the many-tiered vetting process that Druadaen had navigated. In an event so serendipitous that the viziers now damned themselves for having doubted it could be anything but a design, she met the son of a powerful Prince in a house of drink and pleasure. Revealing herself to be a priestess of high rank, she so impressed him with her knowledge and bold proposals that, a day later, she was standing where Druadaen was now. She was authoritative in all her responses and questions, particularly regarding abominations.

But in retrospect, many of her clever questions also seemed improbably well informed. Had she been a man, such piercing insight might have aroused suspicions, might have led the viziers to be alert for hidden intents. But they were so outraged (and yet captivated) by her decisiveness, and so unwilling to admit the full measure of their surprise and discomfiture, that she was gone before they realized that their failure to dispassionately question her motivations was not merely unfortunate. Shocking and flustering them had just been one more piece in pursuit of her greater plan—whatever that was.

The crimes she had committed to accrue such profound and pertinent knowledge was not discovered until after she had departed. The thin vizier’s frustration was palpable as he explained. “The most significant of those infractions was without logical connection to her,” explained the thin vizier, “and seemed nothing more than perverse hooliganism, at the time. Indeed, we did not realize its full significance until she left—”

“You mean, ‘until you called upon the Circle,’” snapped Fasurem.

“—at which point,” the thin vizier continued without acknowledging the other’s correction, “it came to our attention that the premises of the Principate Repository had been violated in the early-morning hours, just two days after she arrived in Sarmasid. It was an odd case, in that while quite a few references were misfiled, none had been stolen. We did not think to involve the Mystic Circle until we learned that the misfiled tomes and scrolls all discoursed upon one common theme: lands adjoining, rather than within, the region for which she sailed.”

“And what have you heard of her since then?”

“The ship has not been seen since it bore north, just beyond Barrasid’s lighthouse at Cape Hegralep. Its return to these southern waters is long overdue. Nor has the ‘priestess’ contacted us as she promised.”

Druadaen frowned. “How did she mean to report from so great a distance? And how did she master your language, having arrived so recently?” Not that I lack my own hypothesis on that point.

“Communication was effected through her translator.”

“Her mouthpiece,” the Circline corrected glumly.

Druadaen raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“She possesses the old art. She is a sorcerer or something like it. She addressed us in an unknown tongue, but the one who conveyed her meaning in Sarmese was not translating. He uttered the words in our language the same instant she spoke them in hers.”

“Was he entranced, then?”

“No. That would have been detected beforehand, and they would have been forbidden to enter this chamber. Ensorcelled individuals are more likely to be assassins than spokespersons. Rather, I believe she was in his mind, telling him what to say.”

Druadaen managed to transmogrify his sudden foreboding into an expression of wondrous awe. “That must take great power.”

“It does. Which is why we felt she and her followers were excellent choices for the task we set her.”

“Which was?”

Manakon leaned forward to answer. “The same one we mean to set you. But let us set that aside a moment longer. The coda to this tale is that many places she would have logically passed on her voyage tell of increased attacks by abominations. Almost all our coastal trade stations, from the east shore of the Sea of Hystzos to its furthest northern reaches, have made such reports. Some even insist that the monsters are acting under the direction of one of their own kind.”

Druadaen did not have to feign surprise, this time. “Could that be coincidence? It seems to follow behind her with improbable speed, does it not?”

“We were mindful of that. But since then, the agent we sent with her has not been heard from. And shortly after he accompanied her inland, the overseer he was to keep apprised—the one at Agpetkop, our northernmost trade station—fell silent, too.” Seeing Druadaen’s curious glance, Manakon answered the mystery of why the Vizierate had expected such prompt reporting. “Both our agent and the overseer have—or had—means of sending messages that were as swift as those she demonstrated to us.”

So either those two factotums were wyrdwards or given appropriate creations of wyrdcraftery. “Do you conclude, then, that this priestess has gone to seek her fortune with the power controlling the abominations, instead of working to unseat it?”

Fasurem sounded more interested than impatient. “You have an alternate hypothesis?”

Druadaen shook his head. “I would tell you if I did.” He turned to face the Circline directly. “Also, I must apologize for not knowing your role here, nor knowing the proper honorific for one of your order or creed. May I know what title you prefer?”

“No, you may not. ‘Master’ is what you shall call me, just as you should call all others above your station. Whatever that might be. And as for my creed”—a mirthless smile played at the corners of his mouth—“the Circle does not concern itself with the rites and matters of chanters and gizzard-readers. We are concerned with actions, not theology, and so, in the truest sense of the word, we are agnostic. We must be, for we represent all temples equally.”

Druadaen let the man’s arrogant disdain roll off him; his only object had been to learn more about his order. Which was baffling: no nation on Arrdanc had a comparable arrangement between mantics and temples. He turned back to the Vizierate’s speaker. “So what is her actual goal, do you think?”

Manakon nodded. “We hope you will discover that for us, that we may prevent it.” Seeing the doubtful look on the “outlander’s” face, he held up his hand. “Understand: we are not so foolish to believe that her ploys may be stopped by one man”—Druadaen noted that the word he’d used specifically meant a male, was not the equivalent of the gender-neutral “person”—“but we must learn where she is and what she means to do. Additionally, we wish you to complete the mission she took under false pretenses.”

“Which is?”

“Bringing back one of the abominations that have been attacking our trading stations.”

“Alive,” added Fasurem. Seeing Druadaen’s pause, he leaned forward. “One of the reasons we are still speaking with you is that you obviously have some familiarity with the various physical and even wyrding arts whereby altering breeds is effected. You will therefore appreciate that a long-dead corpse will be of little use to us. We need pristine and living samples for examination and observation.”

“And be cautious,” Manakon added. “Although we do not require that you bring one of the large varieties of abomination, even the smallest ones often have unexpected, concealed, or disguised traits that make them difficult to control.”

“Traits such as?”

Druadaen was not prepared for the staggering and almost encyclopedic list of known deformities of anatomical features, as well as strange amalgams of them, including some from entirely incompatible species. The latter, Fasurem explained, were, along with greater size, the two features that predicted an abomination to be much less stable.

Druadaen frowned; there’s that phrase again. “What do you mean by ‘less stable’?”

Fasurem stared at him balefully. “I do not mean it as a euphemism. They are all unstable, mentally and physically. As time goes on, abominations lose the ability to govern their behavior, just as various parts of their bodies evince increasing disunity and decay.” His smile was feral and unfriendly. “Are you still sure you wish to undertake this task, foreigner?”

“I am, but only because you intend observation of the abomination, not vivisection.”

After a moment of surprised silence, various viziers assured him that a live specimen was too valuable to kill and that they’d already had ample opportunity to study corpses. “So,” Fasurem repeated when the viziers had finished, “I ask again: are you willing to undertake this task?”

Druadaen let his requirements be his answer. “I shall need a horse and a mule, both accustomed to combat. I also require my choice of equipment, both for the journey and that which I will need to bind and sedate the abomination.” All of which will prove useful if my own search takes me in a different direction before I return.

Bapalkas sputtered indignance. “You have a horse of your own!”

“Which I have already contracted to sell, once you began assessing my ability to fight. That horse is not suited for this work. I need a steed already trained for war and accustomed to transport aboard ship.”

Bapalkas’ irritation became perplexity. “Why that?”

“Not all horses adapt to the motion of the sea, Respected Vizier. Some go off their feed and need weeks to recover. Given your urgency, I doubt you wish me to be delayed if my mount sickens. Or in the worst case, be forced to turn back because it dies.”

“Turn back? Are you so irresolute?”

Druadaen shrugged. “Proceeding by foot would take much longer and be far less likely to result in success.”

The vizier’s voice was smug and sadistic. “We are willing to accept that risk.”

“Are you? After you have paid a third of my fee in advance?”

Bapalkas had returned to full indignation, now amplified by outrage. “Extortion and insolence! Why, I’ve half a mind to—!”

“Half a mind is indeed all you have,” muttered a new voice. The chamber fell silent. All the viziers turned to look at their oldest member, the one who sat silently at the center of their arc. “The laborer is worth his wages,” he resumed. “And the outlander’s insistence that we risk treasure to secure his services—and thereby, are doubly interested in the outcome because we have invested in it—shows he is both experienced and not wanting in wits. Two of the most important criteria to seek in one who is charged with so delicate and unusual a task.” He looked at Druadaen. “You shall have what you need, that you may bring us what we need.”

Despite the layered wrinkles that almost hid his eyes, Druadaen saw them narrow and focus upon him more intently. “But I am perplexed by one thing, Outlander. Your singular accent tells what your words did at the outset: that you are from a very far land indeed. Yet you come before us on a matter of little import to your own interests, and become more focused upon it the more you hear. I wonder: why is that?”

Druadaen had encountered other oligarchs who, oldest among their peers, demonstrated the same shrewd discernment. Long experience and patience allowed them to focus on factors that younger ones missed while busied with the details and political implications of an unfolding debate. In this case, the oldest vizier had detected a disjuncture between Druadaen’s aptitudes and intentions. Specifically, the same abilities which made the newly met outlander a promising agent also made it unlikely that he went wherever the winds of opportunity and fate happened to blow him. Rather, people such as he usually tacked across those breezes in pursuit of their own ends. And now, Druadaen—for both practical and ethical reasons—had to answer the oligarch’s question without lying.

“Respected and sage vizier, the more I have heard this council speak, the more I realized that my interests may not be so different from your own. Some months ago, friends of mine contended with attackers who were not native to our region. They did not speak our language, and for no apparent reason, killed many of our people and kidnapped one whose wisdom we depend upon. Then they disappeared.”

All true; they just don’t know it refers to the Hidden Archivist.

“I resolved to follow the intruders. I do not know if the destruction I have seen in the course of my pursuit is their doing, but it is by following their path that I came here. And now, given what I have heard, I must wonder: could they, too, have come through a… a haze?” And now, a true question, as well: “Could the intruders you seek and killers that I pursue be one and the same?”

“It is possible,” Manakon muttered, glancing at Fasurem. Who shrugged.

“Besides,” Druadaen added, “my pursuit has left me alone and destitute. Most of what I now possess was taken from the bodies of those who sought to take what little I still had… including my life. So, yes, I also came before you hoping that it might lead to some manner of assignment. But now, I cannot shake the impression that my quest and your needs are linked by what feels like fate.”

The oligarch’s flesh-hidden eyes remained fixed on him a moment more. “My success lies in one thing above all others: knowing men. You do not reveal everything about yourself. But no clever man does, particularly when he is but new in a strange land.” He glanced at the Circline, who shrugged. “However, what you have said are not lies, and that is good enough for me.”

With a single gesture, he waved Druadaen to leave and for the Hazdrabar’s lieutenant to go with him. “Get him whatever he needs for his labors and a third of the measure we discussed. Make it silver talents. He should not be burdened by the weight of an equivalent value in lesser metals.”


The sky above Sarmasid’s main pier was an aerial list where graceful gulls and rakish crows jousted for scraps and dominance. Or so it seemed to Druadaen as he led an unfamiliar charger along the waterfront. He paused to glance down the length of each jetty, hoping for a glimpse of the ship he’d been told to seek. It was a mixed rig—a square mainmast and a fore-and-aft mizzen—which meant it should have been easy to find among the low-hulled xebecs, dhows, and occasional galleys jockeying for berths and room to turn. But with so many sails being furled and unfurled, and winches loading and unloading cargo, he was almost upon the object of his search before spying its pronounced quarterdeck.

As he approached, he heard a cry in heavily accented Sarmese: an accent not unlike his own, in fact. “Are you the landlubber we’re waiting to load? Well, come aboard smartly, then! We’re to leave with the last tide—unless you want to pay for the extra day’s berthing fees.” A figure at the base of the mainmast had come to the gunwale to stare down at him.

Druadaen waved his understanding and led the horse up the livestock ramp; it was calm, if a bit stubborn. Better than a high-blooded steed, though—particularly for a sea voyage. He was about to guide the charger aft when the same voice turned him around. “Here, now, let one of the hands earn their pay.”

Seen at only a few yards distance, the speaker was early middle age, lanky, a bit weatherworn, and with hair that was streaked black and silver, as if some child had set about it with a narrow paintbrush. “Welcome aboard the Oath, stranger. I hear you’re headed out to the Sea of Hystzos and up northeast to Agpetkop.”

“You have heard a-right,” Druadaen answered with a smile. Stepping on deck and getting a bluff mariner’s welcome felt… well, in many ways, it felt more like home than anything else, now.

The older man ambled closer—a strange gait for such long legs—shaking his head as he came. “Since your passage is paid for by the powers that be”—he cocked his head in the direction of the Princely City—“I’m wondering if you’re already familiar with that bit of coast?” His voice was lively but his eyes were grave.

“I’m familiar with its reputation. So I’m not going there lightly.”

The fellow nodded, looked up at the hands who were shaking out the top-main’s reef. “Aye, aye, that’s well said.” He grinned slightly. “Just wanted to make sure you aren’t as naive as you look.”

“Oh, I probably am,” Druadaen drawled. “But I always try to make a good first impression.”

The mariner’s smile widened. “A passenger who’ll take the piss out of himself: that’s a rarity and right welcome. I’m Lorgan R’Mura.” He put out a hand. After Druadaen had introduced himself, the older man started aft, nodding for Druadaen to join him. “So, youngster, what are you about, then?”

Druadaen considered how best to answer… and realized that despite all the agreements and seals and signatures that his Sarmese employers had insisted upon, they hadn’t sworn him to secrecy. So, with a few omissions for sake of privacy, a few more for brevity, and one or two to ensure his own safety, he shared his tale.

In the process of doing so, he discovered that Lorgan was an excellent listener, that they’d ascended to the quarterdeck, and had been leaning against the taffrail for some time.

After a long silence, Lorgan looked north. “I’ve seen icebergs. Sailed around them. Funny thing; there’s far more below the water than above.” He winked. “Like unto you and that tale. No, no, I’m not asking to know more! Just an observation.”

Druadaen’s awareness caught on his pronunciation of the word for “observation,” and he remembered how he and Aleasha had discovered that word. “You’re from Tyrmcys, aren’t you?”

“I am. They didn’t tell you? That’s home to the Oath and no small number of us aboard her. It’s why we’re headed toward Agpetkop at all: bound for home the long way, touching our own trade stations as we get close.” He paused. “That’s after we set you on land again; no stops on the way. By order of the Vizierate.” He shrugged. “Cost them a pretty penny. But then again, they’ve got more ‘pennies’ than they know what to do with, eh?”

Druadaen answered with a shrug of his own. “It’s a job.”

Lorgan glanced sideways at him. “Is it? Hmmm. From that tone, you know they’ve other purposes in mind.”

“I do, but I am too ignorant in the ways of these lands to conjecture what those purposes might be.”

Lorgan smiled sideways at the unlikely claim to complete ignorance. “Well, we’ve almost two weeks to touch on that.”

“Two weeks? But it’s a journey of some—”

“It’s long in miles, but short in time. We’ve the help of two coastal currents, one after the other—and some old friends who’ll speed us on our way.”

Druadaen wondered what kind of friends those might be, but before he could find a way to ask such a ticklish question. Lorgan was descending the stairs to the weather deck. “For now, let’s see to getting your gear stored.” Halfway down, he turned and looked appraisingly at the younger man. “You’ve a cabin to yourself, by the by. Your masters paid for it in—”

“My employers paid for it.”

“—Or,” Lorgan resumed, “you could bunk with us. Two to a cabin that’s half the size. Common space and a common cookpot. And I have a sneaking suspicion I could get the captain to return half the difference. He’s been known to carry a passenger or two among the crew.” He smiled. “It’s up to you.”

“I’d be honored… and you can keep the difference in coin. Besides, I’ve found a common cookpot is usually where the uncommon food is to be found.”

Lorgan smiled. “Rather expected you’d say that. I’ll talk to the purser, make sure there’s no problem splitting the difference with you.” He glanced at the way Druadaen was standing. “But the captain; he’s an old tightwad. But it might be possible to squeeze a bit more coin out of him if you can stand watch, do the easier bits of a working passage. You ever sailed as crew before?”

Druadaen couldn’t keep the grin off his face, remembering the years he’d spent as a Courier. “Yes, you could fairly say that.” Lorgan nodded approval, was about to head below but Druadaen stopped him. “I suppose there are two points I ought to square away before anything else. First, where do I stow my kit?”

“That’s where I’m taking you now. Second point?”

“I should pay my respects to the captain.”

Lorgan laughed. “You just did, you gullible sod! Now, let’s get below and get you acquainted with your bunk—and watch the coaming!”


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