Mena’s attack bore no resemblance to the Form. Her very first move broke out of it, a whipping motion of her blade. The tip drew a quick circle that caused Larken a moment of hesitation. Her sword bit into his wrist at an angle. The honed blade sliced up along the bones and cut free a sizable amount of flesh and muscle like it was soft cheese. His sword hand died, dropping the weapon.
Despite the shock and pain of the cut, Larken was quick enough to extend his left hand for the hilt. He would have caught hold of it, too, except that Mena circled her sword back and sliced the grasping hand. His four fingers twirled into the air, each of them dragging thin loops of blood with them. Mena would never forget the look on his face just then, nor in the following moment, when she carved a smile into his abdomen.
Before Larken had even crumpled to the deck, Mena severed the sword arm of the Punisari nearest her. A moment later she took a second one out with a jab that cut the neck artery and drained the man’s head of blood. There were two more to kill, she knew, but she had never felt more in control of her destiny. She circled away from the remaining guards, leaped up onto the railing, tiptoed along it, and came down on the other side of several crates. The move gave her enough time to speak a few words to the sailors and the servants, who all watched her with expressions of awe. She named herself and demanded-in the name of her father and in the cause of her brother who would be king-that they rise up at that moment and take the ship with her.
When a beige-skinned man from Teh shouted her name joyously from the crow’s nest in which he watched the scene, Mena knew that the ship would be hers.
CHAPTER
Hanish’s secretary returned to the chieftain’s offices in a whirl of motion, a sheaf of papers pressed to his chest, the royal stamp and wax sticks prickling from the fingers of his hand. He did not even acknowledge the man waiting for his return until this person cleared his throat. He paused, set the papers down, and sighed, as if Rialus Neptos had sorely tested his patience just by semivocalizing his presence.
“He cannot see you now,” the secretary said. “You arrived a day too late, Neptos. He sent a message, though. He departs today for the Mainland on business that cannot be postponed. He will be happy to meet with you, or with Calrach himself, on his return. A week’s time, perhaps. Maybe a fortnight. In the meantime he counts on Numrek support through the coming conflict. The Numrek are his strong right arm, his battle-ax, and he won’t forget to reward them once Aliver is squashed. Calrach should answer to Maeander, as he will be in charge of the Meinish forces. All other details he’ll specify in due course. That’s the message.”
The ambassador knew that he would regret anything he said in answer to this, but he could not help himself. “But Calrach himself asked me to put a proposal-”
The young Mein partitioned the air with a motion of his fingers, as if he were spreading out a fan between himself and the ambassador. “I said everything Hanish asked me to. You may leave now.”
The arrogant twit, Rialus thought. The twit! Don’t direct me out with a raised arm! Don’t you lay a hand on me and don’t you dare shut the door when I’ve not yet agreed to leave! He said none of this, of course, and the man did direct him out with a raised arm, did touch him at the elbow, and did shut the door firmly behind him.
A moment later he stood in the hallway outside the office in the company of a brutish guard who looked down on him from beneath a cornice of golden eyebrows. The man unnerved him slightly, but Rialus did not move away. Besides the guard the hall was deserted, nothing but a few life-sized statues that somehow made the space seem that much more desolate. Rialus, not knowing what else to do, just stood there.
Well, Rialus thought, that was a complete failure, one that was sure to cause him grief. Calrach had not just sent him to Hanish on a mundane assignment, or to clarify the details of how and where the Numrek would fight. He had charged the ambassador with broaching the subject of the Numrek receiving Quota payments. As far as Rialus was concerned, this was an absurd idea. The Numrek lived as freely as they wished. They regularly hunted the hill people who lived in the Teh Mountains. They used the captured peasants for the same purposes they would use Quota slaves. So what was the use of demanding yet more from Hanish, who had already been, to Rialus’s mind, quite generous to them?
But there was no reasoning with Calrach. He had gotten the idea into his head and none of Rialus’s subtle attempts to dissuade him from it had worked. Now, however, the relief he might have felt about not having to speak to Hanish about this filled him with dread. He’d have to return with nothing for Calrach. Maybe he could pretend that he had spoken to Hanish. The chieftain was thinking it over, he could say. He’d have an answer when he returned, something like that. But that was a dangerous deception. For all he knew Hanish would summon Calrach personally, instead of going through Rialus. He’d done so before. They would meet and in the first few seconds the Numrek chieftain would know he’d lied. If that happened, he would not put much value on his own skin. Why did it seem that every situation in his life sat squarely at a convergence of several dilemmas? Always had, he thought, and perhaps always would.
He stood there for a few minutes more-trying to remember a time when this had not been his fate-before he realized he was being watched. One of the shapes standing down the hall was not one of the life-sized statues he had assumed it was. It was a woman’s form. When she peeled away from the wall and motioned to him, he knew exactly who it was.
“Princess Corinn?” he asked, walking toward her.
She did not answer. She turned and led him down the hall, off into a side corridor, and through a small door. It all happened quickly, and it took Rialus a moment to recognize the large, jumbled chamber they had entered. It was the library, rank with book smell, lit by floor-to-ceiling windows. Judging by the silence and stillness of the air, it was empty.
Corinn led him across the room to one of the window bays. There she turned and faced him. “Nobody comes here at this time of day. The other doors are locked, so we’re quite safe. If anybody starts to enter we’ll hear them and can slip away.” She said all of this with cool assurance, but as he began to question her she stepped toward him. “Rialus,” she asked, her body close to his, “will you be truthful with me?”
Rialus inhaled the citrus scent of her breath. He had not actually spent very much time in her presence. He could not even have said for certain that she knew his name. The fact that she did and the perfection of her features stunned him. Each shape and proportion and shading was flawless, just as it was supposed to be. He stammered that of course he would be truthful.
“Then tell me,” Corinn asked, “do you ever look back with longing?”
“With longing, Princess?”
She studied him a moment. He had the feeling she was sizing him up, measuring whether or not she could say what she wished to. Despite himself, he hoped she would find him to her liking. “I mean,” she said, “do you regret the fall of the Acacian Empire? You turned on your own people, Rialus.”
“I had reason to,” he said defensively. “You have no idea what-”
Corinn stopped his words by brushing her fingertips over his lips. “Don’t be harsh with me. I know, Rialus, that you felt slighted. I know you aspired to greater things than living up in that Meinish wasteland. I believe, though, that you blamed my father wrongly. Do you know that he spoke of you once that I remember? He did. He was saddened by one of your letters to him. He said that of course this Rialus Neptos was a good man; it was the council that exiled you to Cathgergen, not my father. He said he’d have to force the council to relieve you of your post and bring you back to a worthy position in Alecia. He would have done that, Ambassador, except you did not give him enough time.”