The only disturbing thing was coming back to his cabin to find a circle of tiny dark-carapaced bodies around his bags where the fleas and insects had come out to die. It wasn’t that Marcus had doubted Kit about the sword’s nature, but seeing it confirmed was unsettling.
Kit was looking skeletally thin as well. But as the days passed and the pair ate the sailor’s diet of fresh fish and old limes, salt pork and twice-baked bread, the flesh of the actor’s cheeks began to fill in, and Marcus felt his own strength returning. By the time the expanse of the Inner Sea began to break into islands and reefs, Marcus was near enough himself that he could keep pace with the sailors. Or at least with ones his own age.
Kort was an island city, and ancient. In the story it told of itself, Kort was the site of the last battle, where Drakkis Stormcrow arranged the death of Morade, the mad Dragon Emperor. Its bay, wide and shallow and protected by a massive chain of dragon’s jade, went by the name Firstwater on the strength of being the first saltwater claimed by humanity for humanity. The high, narrow houses that rose up the steep rise from the shore were, it was said, the first built by free men, or at least they stood where those houses had. It was not the largest of cities. Carse in Northcoast could have swallowed six like it. It didn’t claim the imperial beauty of Camnipol or the wealth of Stollbourne. Its streets were narrow, its trade restrained by the constant wars and turmoil of Pût and the Keshet, its people a rough-spirited crew. But even if the flowers of Kort bloomed tough and simple, their roots grew the deepest. Marcus might even have found himself moved by it, if he hadn’t known three other places that made the same claims.
They pulled into port near evening, the summer sun flinging gold and crimson across the clouds. At the chain towers great fires burned, a guide to ships at sea and a warning. The air smelled of brine and smoke and the subtle homecoming scent of land and stone. Marcus found himself standing at the bow and watching the city as it fell into twilight. Windows flickered with candlelight all up the side of the mountain like an army of fireflies.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you look so content in weeks,” Kit said.
“I’m home,” Marcus said.
“I didn’t know you came from Kort.”
“Never been here before,” Marcus said. “But after that, it’s home.”
The inn sat at one end of a public square so small that only the thin cistern distinguished it from a widening of the road. Seven lanterns hung around the door, the ochre wall seeming to eat as much light as it reflected. The keeper was a Yemmu man with yellowed tusks and a friendly demeanor. Marcus stood in the street, letting Kit make the negotiations. The moon above was the blue white of snow. It was summer now, and Marcus had gone a full winter without seeing snow or feeling cold. It made time seem odd. He wouldn’t have thought that a rhythm so slow and deliberate would affect him from day to day, but looking up at the moon, he felt how much he missed cold.
The room was hardly wide enough for the straw ticking, and it had sawdust on the floor instead of rushes, but Marcus couldn’t help grinning as he lay down. Kit poured a cup of water from the earthenware jug and drank it, leaning against the wall.
“I’m not going to ask how we’re paying for this,” Marcus said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m just going to be here enjoying it.”
Kit chuckled.
“I’ve proposed to the keeper that I perform in the common room. Songs. Stories. Nothing fancy, of course, since I don’t have props and the others aren’t here. But I would be surprised if I couldn’t raise enough to pay for the room and make good inroads toward a ship to the mainland.”
“Malarska?”
Kit made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “It’s farther south than I would like. I believe there are some fishing villages on the border of the Keshet that would serve better.”
“Borders of the Keshet,” Marcus said. “Didn’t know they had borders there.”
“I find the term has a more diffuse sense than they use in Northcoast,” Kit said, chuckling. “If you’d care to come down, it might not be a bad thing to have an ally in the crowd. Laugh in the right places. Quietly threaten the hecklers.”
“I’m in a real bed. I may never move again.” After a moment’s silence, Marcus moved his arm and squinted up. “No choice, then?”
“No choice,” Kit agreed.
After the cramped feeling that the rest of the city gave, the common room was a pleasant surprise. The wide wooden tables had benches enough for two dozen people, and a firepit—empty now except for a few blackened ends of logs—had enough for seven more. Kit sat by the empty fire, smiling and at ease as if he’d been there a thousand times before. Marcus took a place nearer the door, watching with admiration as Kit began speaking. There were sixteen people in the common room, men and women both, Firstblood and Tralgu for the most part, with two Timzinae huddling together in one corner. Their annoyance at the interruption lasted less than a dozen heartbeats, then, one by one, they turned, leaned elbows against the tables, and fell under Kit’s spell. The story was one Marcus had heard before about how Haris Clubhand had tamed the Haaverkin tribes and become the first Hallskari king. Kit’s retelling had more humor than most, and Marcus found himself enjoying the story for its own sake and joining in with the laughter more than leading it. There were no hecklers, and the keep dropped a plate of chicken legs and a mug of beer in front of him with a wink.
Marcus wondered, though, how much of Kit’s skill came from the taint in the man’s blood. When the actor lifted his hands, describing how Haris Clubhand walked up the mountain at Zanisstun with a mug full of Astin Look’s blood in his good hand and an axe strapped to his bad wrist, Marcus half believed it had happened. He knew he would shrug the feeling away once the tale was told, but in the moment it was hard to remember that it was only a story, and that sounded too much like the power the spiders held. Even after the performance ended, his rumination was so deep that he didn’t notice, when the door to the street swung open and four men in light armor stepped in, that he knew one.
“Well, Marcus Wester. As I live and breathe.”
The Jasuru man’s face had the lines of a map too detailed for its own legibility, the bronze scales falling into the folds of underlying skin. A white scruff of hair clung to the back of the man’s skull like frost hidden from the sun, and a black tongue lolled behind vicious pointed teeth. Scars from a life of violence seared the man’s thick arms and neck.
Marcus grinned.
“Merrisen Koke,” he said, standing and embracing the old mercenary captain. “God, but you’re looking old.”
“What I get for being the best,” Koke said. “No matter what contracts I take, I keep not dying, yeah? These are my boys. Terrin, Saut. That one’s Davian. You’ll have met him before at Orsen.”
“I remember,” Marcus said, taking the lieutenant’s hand in his own. “Good to see you again.”
“An honor, sir,” the young man said.
Kit stepped over from across the room, curiosity in his gaze. Marcus waved an open hand toward him.
“This is Kitap rol Keshmet. We’re traveling together.”