‘Indeed.’ Kheda climbed down the ladder to discover that the water at the trireme’s stern was waist deep. Pausing to thread one arm through the rope rungs, he unbuckled his sword belt and held his blades shoulder high as he waded ashore, bare toes feeling more mud than sand underfoot. At least the cool seawater was refreshing in the heat of the day. Reaching the water’s edge, he paused to don his twin-looped sword belt and secure his weapons again, watching Dev stride through the sea towards him. ‘Finally, some privacy.’ The wizard grinned with satisfaction as he paused on the water’s edge. ‘Though there’s not much point having a password for our excursions if you can’t remember it. I thought it’d take you till sunset to catch my meaning.’
‘You’ll be spending the rest of the day polishing our chain mail after this wetting,’ Kheda pointed out with faint malice.
‘What are you going to wear in the meantime, my lord?’ Sarcasm sharpened Dev’s voice. ‘The threadbare blue silk or the yellow with the mould stain on the back?’
Kheda grimaced. ‘Let’s hope Itrac has managed to replenish my wardrobe with the necessary elegance by the time we get back. Now, what have you got to say that you don’t want Shaiam hearing?’
‘Let’s find some still water.’ Dev walked into the green gloom beneath the tandra trees. The air was still, perfumed by the yellow flowers of cat’s-claw creepers.
‘We can find Nyral without resorting to magic,’ Kheda said curtly, not moving.
Not and be sure of getting back to the residence for your new year. Isn’t that your overriding priority?’ Dev looked back over his shoulder. ‘Come on. And keep your eyes open for bird pepper,’ he added as an amused afterthought.
Kheda followed the barbarian reluctantly away from the shore and in among the taller trees where green pods were swelling in the forks of the tandra tree branches. Emerald and sapphire glory-birds were picking their way carefully around a striol vine’s vicious spines to reach a sard-beny bush’s bounty. Avid ruby butterflies flitted between the scarlet blooms while glittering beetles feasted on the fallen fruit. Beyond the dense shade cast by the mighty ironwoods, the orange-gold trefoils of fire-daggers carpeted the ground.
‘This’ll do.’ Dev halted by a hollow where some storm had scoured the soil away from the buttress roots of an ironwood tree to leave a little pool as nursery for some blithely paddling froglets, their brown and yellow mottling a perfect match for the forest floor. Would this be a sign for you?’ the wizard asked with mild derision. ‘Or shall I just get on and find some certainty for us?’
‘You may be a man without convictions, Dev, but don’t scoff at those of us who see more than the here and now.’ Kheda studied the leaf-stained water. ‘As it happens, frogs can be a sign of many things. It’s certainly a good omen to find them thriving in a pond this long after the rains, especially since the last rains were so short’ He grimaced. ‘Though a frog’s croaking can signify someone talking nonsense. They can be a symbol of foolish aspiration or a reminder to stay close to one’s home and birthplace.’ Do you talk nonsense, wizard, when you try to convince me to meet your demands? Am I deluding myself if I think
/ can make a success of ruling a domain I wasn’t born to? Would our lives have been better if we had both stayed close to home and never become entangled like this?
Dev chuckled as emerald light dripped from his fingers into the water and the frogs hopped frantically in all directions. ‘They don’t want to hang around. Make of that what you will, Kheda, while I do something useful.’ The wizard crouched by the pool, which was now suffused with a mossy light.
‘Just be quick about it.’ Kheda turned his back, trying to ascertain if anyone else had come ashore from the Mist Dove. ‘If you can see Nyral, try to find some excuse for whatever detour we’ll need to take to happen to encounter him. I want to see what he’s got to say for himself before I quit these waters.’ There was no sign of any movement by the shoreline, so Kheda searched the undergrowth for bird pepper or any other medicinal plant.
Better find something to justify this trip ashore. And curse him, Dev’s right. Horn else am I going to find out what’s afoot in these islands? But we’re not going to be doing this for much longer. Not once I’ve woven a proper net of eyes and ears to sustain my rule. Not once I’ve reinstated the beacon chains and we’ve bred enough courier doves to send the length and breadth of the domain.
Chazen will recover, surely? These people are strong and they are bound together in so many ways. They’ve known each other, traded with each other’s villages, since they were old enough to sail the waters in between. More than that, they’ve been through the sorest of trials this last year and survived, not least because every one of them lent a helping hand to anyone who needed it, in the face of the invaders’ malevolence.
Let’s hope such ties are strong enough to hold the domain together until they accept me as reader of portents, giver of their laws and healer of their sick. Let’s hope they are strong enough to defy any menace I’ve inadvertently brought into these waters through my compromises with magic.
‘I can’t find Nyral,’ Dev said slowly, but you should have a look at this. You’ve got vermin in your waters.’
‘What?’ Kheda threw aside a handful of feathery raposa stems.
‘See for yourself,’ Dev invited, hands spread palms down over the water.
Reluctantly, Kheda looked into the ensorcelled pool. An image floated on the iridescent magic. Several sailing boats scarcely bigger than pearl skiffs were drawn up on a muddy landing.
Not such unusual boats for fishermen.’ Kheda scowled dubiously all the same.
‘With enough men to crew them five times over and no sign of nets?’ scoffed Dev. ‘Granted, they’ve got women with them, but no children, no elders. And if they are honest islanders come back to Chazen, why are they hiding their boats?’
Kheda watched the minuscule figures hastily concealing the vessels under green branches hacked and ripped from the knot trees. ‘Show me those huts.’
Dev swept his hands over the pool and the image shivered, clearing to reveal the battered remnants of a village set just out of reach of tide and storm where ironwood trees offered shade.
‘There’s not a sailer seedling planted and no one’s tended those vegetable plots this side of the rains,’ Kheda said more to himself than to Dev. ‘What do you suppose they’re here for?’
‘It’s half a year since you drove out the invaders.’ Dev shrugged, unconcerned. ‘It’s a fair bet some island or other will have something worth stealing by now.’
Not in that village.’ Kheda studied the crude repairs made to those few houses still standing after the torrential rains of the wet season had added to the depredations of the invaders. Holes and burned patches in thatch and walls had simply been roughly patched with woven panels torn from the remnants of wrecked huts. Where exactly are they? They’re not staying anywhere in Chazen without explaining themselves to me.
‘Which will just mean more delay,’ said Dev with distaste. ‘You can see as well as I can that they’re no loyal Chazen folk come home to rebuild their lives.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘I can chase them off for you from here. They won’t stop rowing till they run aground on the northern mainland.’
‘You use no magic without my sanction,’ snapped Kheda. ‘And remember what I said If anyone sees you using any enchantment, I’ll behead you myself.’
The mage gazed at him, untroubled. ‘Do you think they’ll believe you when you swear you’d no idea that I could be such a foul thing as a wizard? Who knows, they might. Stranger things have happened,’ he taunted, ‘like wild men coming out of the empty ocean, following wizards who clear their path with torrents of murderous fire. And stranger still, those same wizards suddenly all starting a fight to the death among themselves, presumably to be cock of the dunghill they’ve made of the Chazen domain. And strangest of all, Daish Kheda, who everyone would swear was dead, just happens to be there to see it and to spearhead an Archipelagan riposte. Which does at least entitle him to lay claim to the domain when Chazen Sail, coward though he was, happens to die in most peculiar circumstances.’ Kheda gritted his teeth. ‘We can deal with this without your enchantments. Just show me where they are.’ Dev concentrated on the shimmering pool. ‘We can accidentally run across these people if you can talk Shaiam into cutting across to the more northerly sea lane that runs back to the residence.’ He looked up at Kheda, dark eyes unfathomable. ‘Then we set sail for the western isles as soon as you’ve seen your new year in. I don’t want to lose my chance of finding some clue as to where those invaders came from before your swordsmen slaughter the last of them. And I’ll be going looking in my own way and be cursed to your Aldabreshin ignorance and fear of magic. You owe me, Kheda, and don’t think you can settle our account with a knife in my ribs.’