“Wait,” the old woman protested as the doors to the inner sanctum opened. “That is no answer! I made a generous offering, and you have told me nothing!”
A blank look of confusion crossed the Seer’s face. Mother Julia turned away from the guards gesturing at her, realizing that she had phrased her objection incorrectly; Manwyn could not comprehend the Past, only the Future and enough of the Present to allow her a stepping-stone in Time. With a trembling hand she reached into the folds of her garments and extracted her last gold crown. She held it up; the light caught the surface and reflected in the prophetess’s eyes.
“You are not telling me anything. You will cheat me for Eternity if you do not provide me more of an answer. I will be forever a bad debt of yours.”
Manwyn cocked her head to one side, her tangled mane of flame-colored hair billowing in the updraft from the dark well; its metallic silver streaks caught the reflection of the candlelight for a moment and flashed, causing Mother Julia to wince in pain. Her lips pursed as she considered, then nodded briskly like a child.
“Very well. One more question. Consider carefully; I shall answer no more for you in this lifetime.”
The old woman shuddered, racking her brain to combine her questions into one which would suffice while the ancient Seer spun the wheel on the sextant beneath her fingers, humming tunelessly. Finally Mother Julia took a deep, ragged breath and squared her shoulders.
“Who shall tell me what the disk of blue-black steel is?” she stammered.
The prophetess looked into the sextant, then up at the crone again. When she spoke, her voice was plain and clear of madness or singsong.
“Your son Thait will tell you what you have been commanded to discover,” she said simply. “Five weeks and two days hence this night.”
From the depths of her belly the old woman sighed, relief glistening in her eyes and on her brow. She bowed to Manwyn, tossed the coin into the well, muttered her thanks, and hurried out through the heavily carved cedar door past the guards, eager to quit the temple as quickly as possible.
As the cedar door closed behind the woman, Manwyn looked up as if startled. She nodded to herself, then called softly into the darkness in the distance.
“He will whisper it to you through his tears as he sits beside your grave, arranging the stones.”
6
Indigo
Night Stayer, Night Summoner
The scent of fire in the wind was always an exciting thing, the seneschal thought, inhaling deeply. Pungent ash mixed with the tang of salt sea air was like a perfume to him, especially in the aftermath of morning, when the white smoke of the infernos gave way to the stolid gray miasma that hung like dirty wool in the wind above the smoldering coals, the dingy causatum of so much glorious flame the night before. It was an odor he had loved all his life, but in the last thousand years or so it had taken on a special appeal, particularly when laced with the olfactory undertones of human flesh, which added a pleasant causticity to it.
The previous night he had stood in the darkness of the reviewing stands, watching the burning pyres be lighted like signal flames along a giant battle wall. It had been an unprecedented inferno; the chorus of wailing, rising and falling on the summer wind, had been especially melodic, a symphony of pain that enflamed his soul with excitement.
The thrill had still not worn off, even in the bitter light of dawn observed now from the rolling deck of the Basquela on which he stood. The bonfires had burned down to seething ash, cooling, waiting for the farmers of the Inner Crescent to come and haul the detritus away, sowing it into their fields to enrich them.
The seneschal ruminated on that for a moment, the beneficial balance he had achieved since coming to power. The shipping lanes had never been so profitable; Argaut’s fleet was one of the most commanding and respected in maritime trade throughout the civilized world, plying the seas in extended cycles, braving some of the most dangerous coastlines in the process—the rocky archipelago of the Fiery Rim; the shark-infested waters of Iridu and the Great Overward, where the predatory fish could reach a hundred feet in length; the burning swells that still foamed over the watery grave of the sunken Island of Serendair in the south seas, its former mountaintops of Briala, Balatron, and Querel now making for treacherous pocketed reefs of boiling volcanic blasts.
The real danger in those places was not the natural phenomena that existed there, but the pirates who used them as hunting grounds. Privateers from deadly, centuries-old familial lines, their ships, swift and silent, plied the shoals and crosscurrents as if immune to the perils of the sea, mastering the wind with merciless efficiency. The remains of the vessels they plundered were never found, the able-bodied among the crew and passengers sold as slaves in a variety of ports around the world, most especially in the diamond fields of lower Heraat in the Great Overward, and the gladiatorial arenas of Sorbold. The old, the sick, and the weak were used as chum for the sharks.
The Brigands of the Sea Wind, as the pirates like to call themselves, were the scourge of the shipping lanes, the terror of the seas, and made the passage of travelers and the plying of trade hazardous at best. Even the nations that supplied military forces to escort their merchant vessels watched in hope that turned frequently to dismay for their return. Owning a strong, reliable fleet of swift ships that could run the privateers’ blockades, outsail them, and escape with their crew and contents intact was one of the greatest assets any merchant guild or nation could have. Argaut’s merchant fleet and navy were without peer in the world.
Because the Baron of Argaut, who owned the fleet, also owned the pirates.
It made for a perfect cycle, a very profitable way to suppress competition. The seneschal was extremely proud of the beautiful simplicity and interconnectivity of it all. The Brigands occasionally attacked ships in the waters near Northland, but by and large stayed far enough away from port to avoid suspicion. The slave trade fostered friendship in places like Druverille, the frozen wasteland to the north of Manosse, and Sorbold, a key nation in the western continent on the southern border of the Wyrmlands. The northern continental coastline of the Wyrmlands had been held in protection for thousands of years by the dragon Elynsynos, who allowed no ship to broach the misty shores. The slave traders of Sorbold were Argaut’s favorite trading partners, paying a high premium for captives who could serve in their famed gladiatorial arenas.
And so the cycle had continued, year after year, century after century. The shipping lanes filled Argaut’s coffers with the bounty of respectable trade by the merchant fleet and the booty of privateering by the Brigands. The slave trade provided an easy dumping ground for any victims of piracy who would have survived to tell the tale; the less valuable captives were accused, along with the occasional local upstart, of being the pirates themselves and were burned in great bonfires that lighted the night sky, sating the righteous indignation of the population while convincing them of the efficiency of their government. The remains of the unfortunates were sown into the fields to produce a bountiful harvest, or rendered as fat for tallow candles, both of which in turn provided more products for the shipping trade.
And, above all else, they satisfied the bloodlust of the seneschal and the baron, both of whom craved the thrill of the fire.
Indeed; I have no wish to abandon this.
The seneschal whirled, caught off guard by the baron’s voice.
“M’lord-”
Disembark. We are not leaving.
The pleasant musings vanished, leaving the sensation of acid burning in the seneschal’s eyes.