They were prisoners. It was clear in many subtle ways, although nothing had changed in the arrangements that the rangers made, or even in their attitudes. The members of the caravan had been their prisoners all along, although they hadn’t known it. Now they knew. Now they saw how carefully the rangers watched them.
The arborists refused the use of a spirit stone. They didn’t want the dead to be vanquished from Ibimendi. So there was no long journey into the gap. Manrie wanted that journey. She wanted the possibilities of escape, and as they rode away from Ibimendi she looked back, and the gap seemed to gesture towards her, telling her to flee, to rush into its safe arms. But Taeyaho rode beside the pantry wagon, and he looked up at her, and his stern eyes forbade her.
The caravaners all gathered in the sleeping wagon that night. All except Taeyaho, of course, who was the subject of their whispered conversation. “You’re certain, Manrie?” Cloedeya asked, and there was something so plaintive in his voice that she wanted to lie.
“Yes,” she said. “I think I understand, now. She shifted into that man Farahzin, somehow, and followed me to the farm. And then she shifted into that woman who read to me in the infirmary, and then into the scout, Taeslahbin. I should have known. His ghost rode me for many days. Of course he was dead. It was the bounty hunter who was in his body. And then she shifted into Taeyaho, at the homestead. It has something to do with wounds. Farahzin’s hand was wounded. And Taeslahbin’s. And Taeyaho’s foot.”
They were all silent. Manrie drew strength from Koenbahki’s presence beside her. At last, Melsa said, “Then Taeyaho is dead.”
“Yes. He must be. He died at the homestead. She doesn’t let them live, after she switches bodies with them.”
Big Praeda began to cry. It was surprising. Manrie had never seen her cry. Her weeping seemed to make the red spots on her skin grow, so that her entire face was subsumed in an angry flush. Manrie wondered if it would burn away, and another face would be revealed, peering through. She told herself that she was being unfair. These were her friends. They were who they said they were. If they weren’t, she had no one.
Cloedeya shifted, standing and stooping and going to Big Praeda. He sat beside her and she lay her head in his lap and wept, as if she were a child. Little Praeda was listening from the safety of Manrie’s lap, and Manrie was glad that she was there.
“But what does she want?” Melsa asked, and her wide shoulders were rigid and seemed to fill the inside of the wagon.
“She wants me. She’s been following me. Ever since Tzurfaera. Ever since Libreigia, although I don’t think she wanted me in the same way, then. I think that she was honest, on the cliffs above Tzurfaera. She chased me because the archivist of the third tower asked her to. And then I stole her needle.” She paused, considered. Then insight flooded her. “It must be the needle. I don’t think it’s from this world. I think it was part of an insect, once. It doesn’t get hot in a fire. And she wanted it back. Badly. It must be how she switches bodies. She stabbed Farahzin, and then the woman, what was her name? Graecelle. And then Taeslahbin, and then Taeyaho.” She closed her eyes. She listened to the darkness behind her eyelids. She heard Daas Draebeye’s voice, and a voice speaking back to him. “She’s been doing it for years. I shouldn’t call her ‘she.’ Maybe ‘it.’ Or maybe I should call her by her most infamous name. The Immortal of Taokeihla.”
Cloedeya reared back. Big Praeda lifted her head from his lap and stared at Manrie. Beside her, Koenbahki shifted and said, “That sounds like an eastern story.”
“You don’t know about the Immortal?” Melsa asked.
“I suppose I’ve heard the name. But I don’t know anything except the name.”
“They…It…The Immortal,” Manrie began.
Cloedeya said. “The Immortal. We should just call it the Immortal. The Immortal was…is, perhaps, the last of the ancestors. But it disappeared after Taokeihla. It’s a bogeyman, a story that parents tell to frighten their children. And wiser people tell it, too. The Immortal’s story is a parable of caution.”
“What story?” Little Praeda asked. She shifted on Manrie lap, and Manrie lowered her face and smelled her hair.
Cloedeya looked at Little Praeda. His gaze was fixed and pointed, his mismatched eyes aligning. “I will tell you, even though I don’t think it’s a story for children. But if the Immortal is truly traveling with us, you need to know. To be wary.
“The Immortal found something at a bend in the Soemohngea River where the water becomes shallow and runs over flat stones. Some say he found a wheel, and some say he found a secret spring, and some say he found a song. It is unknown. But he found something, and it drove him mad. I should say that it drove ‘it’ mad. But in the story, the Immortal is always a man.
“He had power. Followers. He entrapped them at Taokeihla, and made them dig in the river. They couldn’t dig through the stone, of course, so he made a giant drill. He had to build a great forge to make it, and he sent his minions into the Gaendolin Hills, seeking diamonds for the drill head. It was suspended on a giant wheel above the river and slaves turned the wheel day and night. He worked them to death, raving and ranting, screaming, insisting that they dig through the riverbed. Hundreds died. And then people came from Hasra. The first founders of the Sangrahalaya. The drove him out, and freed the slaves, and destroyed the drill. It was when the world first knew the tinkers. They went from town to town with their little carts, always seeking the Immortal, but they never found him. But that was six hundred years ago. And he hasn’t been heard from since.”
“He has,” Manrie said. “He visited Daas Draebeye in Libreigia. I think he visited the archivist of the Third Tower. I think that the Third Tower was created to serve him. He has been searching all of these years.”
“Searching for what?” Melsa asked.
“For a way back. For a way to return to the Previous World. The Man on the Mountain must be one of his disciples. I think that Baenlaez was one of his disciples, but was rejected. Listen. It has to be true. Taeyaho and I…the Immortal and I went to Haerahiz’s house. We got there a day after you had left. And I saw them together, speaking together, in secret. I think that Haerahiz must have sent to Libreigia. Must have called the rangers to follow us. The Lady of Hasra is also one of the Immortal’s disciples. Daas Draebeye spoke of her. She was helping his efforts. And he was working on the Immortal’s behalf.”
“But why you?” Koenbahki asked. There was a roughness in her voice, and Manrie reached out a hand for her. She was strengthened by her grasp.
“Because I can walk into the lace holes with the dead.” Koenbahki’s fingers tightened on her own. “Listen,” Manrie said, “it must be true. The bounty hunter - the Immortal - only wanted to get the needle back, when we were in Tzurfaera. But then I led the dead into a lace hole. She…he…the Immortal…had the needle. The Immortal didn’t need anything more from me, until that moment.
“I saw the Immortal in the sandstorm. Tracking us. In Farahzin’s body. It must be. Why follow me to the farm? Why take Taeslahbin’s body and lead us to the homestead? Why kill Taeyaho and take his body and follow me here? The Immortal wants something from me, and there are two things that I can do that other people can’t. Although I’m not sure that’s true. I should say, there are two things that I do that other people don’t, or won’t, do. I create shrines for the dead. And I let the dead ride me. Or I have let them ride me, although I won’t anymore. But the Jahnajeel triplets also let the dead ride them. And poor Zaelin, who was possessed by the boy under the linden tree. So that can’t be my unique trait. It has to be the spirit stones, and the shrines. He…it…asked me, when we were in Das Draebeye’s room in the cave, to go through the other door, further down the tunnel. It wants to travel with me into a lace hole, into a shrine. It thinks that it might be a door back.”
“Back to the Previous World?” Koenbahki asked.
“Yes. It’s all he wants. It’s all he’s ever wanted. He wants to go home.” She remembered the voice, speaking to Das Draebeye, saying that he barely remembered that world. “Or he just wants to escape this world. He hates it.”
“So that’s why they’re taking us to Hasra?” Cloedeya asked, leaning forward, his eyes still aligned, twinned in intensity.
“It must be. The original door. The place where we came through.” She took a breath. She allowed the fear that she had held inside of her since they left Ibimendi slip into her voice. “The Immortal wants me to walk into Hasra tomb. Into the cave. Into the darkness. It wants to walk with me. It wants me to lead it home.”
Melsa snorted. “But how would you know how to get there?”
“The Immortal thinks that death is a different world. That I walk into a different world, when I lead the dead into a shrine.”
“Well, if it’s a different world, it’s not the Previous World,” Koenbahki said reasonably.
“That’s true. Maybe I’m wrong. But maybe death is like the mountains. Or the Immortal thinks of death that way. You just have to find a way through it, like a mountain pass, and you end up in the place where you wanted to be.”
“A mountain pass through death,” Koenbahki said slowly.
Cloedeya let out a breath. “It hates this world that much.”
Manrie looked at him. “I know that you love it, Cloedeya. But the famine killed my family. And before that, people couldn’t find things that they could eat. You said it yourself. Little towns, spread out across the land, eking whatever they could to survive. Baenlaez said that the land hates us. He could be right. But…” she paused.
“But?” Cloedeya asked.
“There was that face, in the mountains. The face that the woodpeckers made. And the stone that moved.”
Little Praeda squirmed in Manrie’s lap. “That was Mama,” she said.
Manrie kissed the top of her head. “Maybe. Maybe it was your mama, and maybe it was the land, too. Maybe the land wants us to leave.”
“Why?” Cloedeya asked, and there was something dangerous and forlorn in his voice.
“Maybe the land doesn’t hate us, but we’re like…we’re like a parasite. We’re taking too much. We’re starting to kill it.”
“So you should just go with the Immortal?” Koenbahki asked, and her voice was sharp with anger.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Why would you think that?” Melsa asked. “Why would you think that the land doesn’t want us here? Why, when it feeds us?”
Manrie was surprised by the tears that rose in her eyes. “I saw his face. Melsa, I saw Aizdha’s face. When the woodpeckers were mating. They made his face with their bodies, their wings. And he was a ghost. What if they were telling me to follow the ghosts? To listen to the ghosts?”
“So the land made the ghosts? That’s why the ghosts are rising?” Cloedeya asked. “Manrie, is that really what you believe?”
She tried to explain. “It’s like the insects. They didn’t speak the land’s language. So maybe it taught them what to do. To make a key from their own bodies. That’s what Das Draebeye thought, or was close to thinking. And the land doesn’t speak our language, either. So it sends the ghosts. And they can speak to us. To me. Whatever they thought, whatever they knew, it isn’t lost. I’m like…I’m a like a book. I keep the knowledge. I might hold all the thoughts that were ever thought. And then I would know.”
“Know what?” Little Praeda demanded.
“How to get us home.”
They stared at her. Koenbahki reached out and stroked her hand down Manrie’s hair. “This is home,” she said softly.
They all seemed to agree with that statement. They all stared at her, waiting for her to speak. She closed her eyes. Then she shook her head, and opened them. “Of course it is,” she said.
But she wondered if the Immortal had poisoned her mind. Just as she had wondered if Taeyaho had been changed by a ghost at the homestead. She wasn’t possessed. There were no ghosts inside of her. But she felt Das Draebeye’s yearning, the starving girl’s yearning, the scout’s yearning. Such sad lives, and all they had ever wanted was to be somewhere else. But not Lokeyn, she reminded herself. Lokeyn, who had loved a tortoise. Who had discovered a way to exist in this world.
Was it right for them to exist here, to stay here? The wild kept coming back. As if the land didn’t want to be changed. Yet it had also made the alchemy that created its own stillness. It also spoke a language of gorpsarra and agorabehn and lightning. And Big Praeda could eat anything, and not suffer. Cloedeya had said that she changed the land through her eating.
And Taeyaho was dead. The Immortal had killed him. Taeyaho, the sweet boy, the boy who sang songs to the sunlight and the rain. Taeyaho had loved the land, had gone out into sandstorms instead of hiding from them. As she thought of him, she wondered if she could gather the cruel people of the world, the unjust, the Tafaemis and Baenlaezes and Laenrids, and lead them into the deep darkness, away from the kind and the sweet and the good. Why did everybody have to leave? Surely the land would accept some people, would delight in their presence, as it seemed to delight in the butterflies and the tortoises.
As they traveled north through the hills and came to the banks of the Dihtusahlobo River, Manrie felt as if she were in the atrium of the first tower in Libreigia, as if sunlight was moving across a page while she was studying a manuscript, but she was so engrossed in her reading that she didn’t notice it. She sat on top of the pantry wagon and allowed its movement to jolt her, and barely noted the comings and goings of the rangers. Her mind, her entire spirit, was taken up with the questions that she was asking herself.
They came to Cahntada, the ancient river city with stone plazas and high walls, and were met there by a tinker. She stood in the road just inside of the gate, poised beside her tinker’s cart, watching them enter from under the brim of a wide hat. She was the ugliest woman Manrie had ever seen. She had almost no chin, so it was hard to tell where her face ended and her neck began. Her only prominent feature was a nose that was comprised entirely of bumps, as if the topography of the foothills had been deposited between her cheeks. Even her nostrils were misaligned. Manrie recognized her immediately. She remembered this woman, the way she pushed her cart uphill, the way her blue eyes could pin you with disdain. It wasn’t Manrie’s memory, but the old guardsman’s. She looked down at the tinker and felt a flush of strange desire that could have only come from him.
“Bahdring,” Koenbahki said in her ear.
“You know her?”
“Everyone knows her in the west.”
“I don’t think the guardsman did. Not until recently.” She allowed his memories to rise within her. A battlefield. Smoke. Those blue eyes, each a different shade, regarding him cynically.
“Well, she might not be known in the palace. But the poor people of Yenceyan know her. And she came through Raesidae, when I was first there.”
“Who is she?”
“Just a tinker, I think. But she’s so ugly that she’s famous. Like being a famous beauty, in a way. I think that Pruetahna was jealous of her.”
Yoehnen was riding towards the tinker. They conversed for a moment, and something she said made him angry. She laid a hand on one of his stirrups and spoke quickly, looking up at him.
“We need to talk to her,” Koenbahki murmured.
“Why?”
“She’s a tinker. Manrie, they hunt the Immortal. Cloedeya said so.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“They serve the Sangrahalaya. The Sangrahalaya remembers.”
“The Lady of Hasra is in league with the Immortal.”
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A phalanx of the city guard was approaching the caravan, led by a keen-faced woman who bent forward at the waist. Words were exchanged, and then the guard captain turned, and the rangers led the wagons forward, following the captain and her men. The tinker stood beside her cart, and the two wagons wove past her. Taeyaho was riding beside the sleeping wagon. His head turned and he stared at the woman as he went past. As the pantry wagon came abreast of her she looked up and met Manrie’s gaze. It was a look of great familiarity, as if the tinker could see past the mask of Manrie’s face and into the memories of the guardsman.
They were detained at a guard house, and Yoehnen was angry. Yoehnen had never shown anger before. Manrie wondered what the tinker had said to him, and why it had altered his personality. As if Bahdring’s words were a ghost that he’d swallowed.
It seemed that they would be denied the hospitality of the city. Yoehnen stomped through the dust and stood beside the impatient horses, conversing with his lieutenants. Taeyaho - the Immortal - rode forward and sat, looking down at them, listening. As if he were a king, and they were his counselors. Cloedeya went forward to speak with them, but one of the rangers grabbed him roughly and pushed him back. As if he were a slave.
Yoehnen came to the side of the pantry wagon and looked up at Manrie. “Their tomb is outside the city walls,” he said. “If you are going to perform your ritual, you’ll have to do it tonight. We will camp in the hills and leave in the morning.”
“Do they want me to take the ghosts there?”
His face twisted into a grimace. “Of course they do.”
“Not of course. Some villages have asked us to take their dead somewhere else.”
He brushed this away. “We cannot be delayed. And I cannot deny them. You are very famous, it seems. But I have extracted a promise that you will be returned to me in the morning.”
“Who will sing for me if your rangers aren’t there?”
“I told her about that,” Yoehnen said brusquely. “She says that they have many charming singers here. So you will have to make do.”
“Koenbahki will stay with me here.”
“No.”
“I need her.”
“No. Your friends stay with us. You can see them again in the morning.”
Hostages, then. She turned to Koenbahki, who took her head in her hands and kissed her. “It will be all right. We’ll see each other in the morning.”
Manrie went down the ladder. Inside the pantry wagon, the spirit stones were stacked in the corner beside the bestiary. She hesitated, wondering if she should pick up the saddle bag with the bestiary inside of it. But if Koenbahki was a hostage, the bestiary would have to be a hostage, too. She selected two discs and went outside.
The guards captain was neither welcoming nor unkind. Manrie was a task for her to dispose of. As soon as the wagons had turned and gone back out of the city gates, the captain selected four soldiers and led Manrie along the wide boulevard, towards a keep that rested beside the river. Manrie felt a sense of deja vu as she walked. Her guardsman had come from here, long ago. He had been one of these men who were marching beside her. Only he and his whole company had been dismissed from their service to the king of Cahntada, and had journeyed through Ibimendi pass, seeking a purpose.
“There was a whole company that was dismissed from the king’s service, once,” she said to the captain, as if to make conversation.
The woman grunted. “That’s a dark story. Before my time, fortunately.”
“What’s dark about it?”
“They murdered another guard company. We all have our rivalries. Sometimes we hate each other. The guard of the north gate are a bunch of malcontents, even to this day. And the river guard think that they’re better than anyone else. Never mind. We don’t usually sneak into each other’s barracks and stab each other while we’re sleeping.” She hitched up her sword belt, then smoothed down the skirts of her robes. “Strange that you ask about that.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’re all walking about again, aren’t they? The murdered guard. I walked up to someone on the walls two nights ago and spoke to him for five minutes before I realized that he was a ghost. I just thought that he was a reticent sort of fellow. But when I saw, I saw. A blood stain on the front of his robes. Stabbed in the chest.”
They had reached the keep. The captain seemed to have warmed to Manrie. She turned to her at the entrance tunnel and said, softly, “Go carefully. The king had three wives. Two of them died by natural causes. Maybe. The third, not so much. All three of them come out at night.”
“To accuse him?”
The captain studied Manrie’s face. “He is very angry,” she said, and then turned away.
“I need to speak to the tinker,” Manrie told her.
The captain turned back to her, her eyes narrowed. She nodded, but said nothing.
Another phalanx of guards took charge of her. She was led through a courtyard and into a large hall. There were a great many people there. Their robes were beautiful, shining and light. Manrie had seen robes like these in the library. Scholars brought them back from sojourns in the river lands. They were spun from the webs of the alamartak, the river spiders that made their nests up and down the Dihtusahlobo. The fabric could only take certain dyes, so all the robes were variations of blue and crimson. They bore batik patterns, and you could tell a person’s importance by the intricacy of the design.
The king’s robes were so intricate that they confused the mind. Like the fleece of the Ram of Yenceyan. The man who was wearing them was tall and gangly, and he was passing a cut ruby back and forth between his wide hands as he slouched on a dais. He watched her approach, as everyone else watched her. Gazes flickered between her face and the spirit stones that she was carrying.
“You are the medium? The ghost-ridden?” The king asked in a languid voice. He was pretending carelessness, but she could see fear in his eyes.
“No.”
“No? Did they send the wrong girl?”
“I am the right girl. But ghosts no longer ride me.”
“But you’re the ghost tamer? The ghost tempter? The spirit queller?”
He sounded like Uku, and the memory of Uku gave her pause. Perhaps his ghost was wandering the Sand Hills. Would she let him possess her, if she found him again? “I can lead the ghosts back to your tomb and make them stay there,” she said.
“And you can do so tonight?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’ll start here. I’ll gather the ghosts in the keep, and then I’ll walk through the city. They will follow me. Because of the spirit stones.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “So we only really need the stones.”
Again she paused, and considered. The Immortal was outside the city walls, encamped with the rangers. But the Immortal could have spies anywhere. “Yes,” she said at last, not knowing if it was a lie. “If you can find someone who is willing to carry them into the darkness. I would happily give you the stones and take my leave of you now, if that is what you prefer.”
The king considered. “Has any other city done this? Has any other person carried a stone?”
“Not as yet. But they’re not very heavy.”
The ruby rolled back and forth between his hands. “And these dead of yours. Do they speak to you, as they walk behind you?”
“They are not my dead.”
“But they speak?”
“Sometimes.”
He nodded. “You will carry the stones,” he decided. “At dusk, you will begin. Prepare yourself.”
She was dismissed. The guards led her from the hall and down a columned passageway. They put her in a little room and brought her a plate of food. The door was open, and people passed by it and looked in at her. She saw the same faces several times. They were inspecting her. She sat very still with the discs in her lap and studied their patterns. There was a window, and a beam of sunlight fell through it and traveled across the stone wall, illuminating its crevices.
A woman came into the room and shut the door. Bahdring, the tinker. She leaned back against the door and regarded Manrie, and Manrie saw that her small eyes had long lashes, and that her skin was very clear and smooth. The skin of a child.
“You asked to speak with me?”
“You are a tinker of the Sangrahalaya?”
“Yes.”
“Do you serve the Lady of Hasra as well?”
“I do,” she said. Manrie stared at her, and she amended this statement. “The new Lady. Katemzan Prahmpara Droegee Daturi has lost the sortition. Katemzani Plaesahlet Restraed Daturi is the new Lady of Hasra.”
“I don’t know her.”
“She is quickly undoing all of Prahmpara Droegee’s works. But it is hard. Prahmpara Droegee has been the Lady for twenty-five years.”
“There is a story about the tinkers. That you hunt the Immortal of Taokeihla.”
The woman laughed. “We did, once. The Immortal is dead. Or he has disappeared.”
“He is alive. He is traveling with the rangers. The old Lady of Hasra is allied with him.”
The ugly face went blank. It was shrouded by the shadows of the room. “How do you know that?”
“He has taken the body of my friend Taeyaho.”
Silence. The small eyes watched her warily. “How does one take a body?”
“There is a needle.”
A beat. Then the woman released a long sigh. “The Needle of Despair.”
“You know, then.”
“We thought that it was lost. That the Immortal was gone.”
“The Immortal is here. Camped just outside the city walls.”
Bahdring lifted her head and looked at the patch of sky that could be seen through the window. “I am just one person,” she said.
“You serve the Lady of Hasra.”
“The new Lady. She is just establishing her power.”
“We need your help.”
The tinker continued to gaze out the window. Then she sighed and looked down. “Yes,” she said.
“The rangers have my friends. They won’t let them go.”
“Wait,” Bahdring said, and left the room.
She returned with the king. He had abandoned his ruby and shifted into a new set of robes, as spectacularly patterned as the last. Concentric circles spread out across the cloth and intersected each other, as if someone had dropped a handful of stones into the silk and let the pattern ripple out. He was carrying a torch, and its yellow light seeped across his pockmarked, sweating face and glinted in his small, suspicious eyes.
“Well?” he asked, and then snapped, “Don’t close the door!” as Bahdring moved to do so.
“Highness, this needs to be a private conversation.”
He called a guard. “Pat her down,” he said, nodding at Bahdring.
The guard was awkward in this task, a stout man with a round face who seemed unused to touching women’s bodies. Or maybe he was repulsed by Bahdring. Or attracted by her. Manrie watched his clumsy hands move over the tinker’s robes, and thought *Her ugliness is her weapon. She doesn’t need a dagger.*
“Tinkers don’t carry weapons, Highness,” Bahdring said casually as she was searched. “We don’t wield violence.”
“All people ‘wield violence,’ as you say,” the king retorted. “If you don’t wield it yourself, you ask me to wield it on your behalf. Or you ask some other king.” The small, suspicious eyes turned to Manrie.“There is a grave for swords in Hasra. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” Manrie said.
“I saw that grave once. Each sword is lined up on the floor of a cave. Left there to rust. These tinkers and their masters would like to take every sword in the land. But if they did, I wouldn’t be able to do violence on their behalf. They want to leave the common people defenseless, of course.”
“Defenseless against what?” Manrie asked.
He almost winced with annoyance. “Against the monsters. Against the land. Against the ghosts.”
“I don’t think that swords can harm ghosts,” Manrie told him.
He ignored her. He was lecturing. “There was a sword that could quell earthquakes. Did you know that? It was called the Sword of Stillness, and yielded by the great sword master, Juenit Ahsklii. The Sangrahalaya stole it, and put it in their cave.”
“We have not, Highness,” Bahdring said. There was a sigh hidden in her expression. The guard had finished searching her and was standing beside her, pretending not to listen to their debate.
“They have taken the Sword of the Three Day Dream. I saw it laying in that cave. The Seer’s Sword, they called it. Holding it allows you to see what is to come. Not to predict the future. To know the future. And it rusts in a cave.”
“We never needed swords, to fight against the monsters,” Manrie said.
“Fight? Did you fight? I remember you. You don’t remember me, though. I can see it in your face. You were just a wee girl when Aizdha brought you here. My wife took quite a fancy to you. She dressed you in the robes that she had kept after our daughter died. You were too old to sit in her lap, but her hands were always twitching at you. She wanted to pick you up and hold you like a babe.” He was studying her face. “And you don’t remember her at all,” he said with disgust.
Manrie felt a flush creep up her cheeks. She didn’t remember. She didn’t remember Cahntada. She wondered which of the ghosts had stolen the memory as it left her.
“You sound like a scholar from Libreigia, with your talk of swords,” Bahdring said, saving her from her embarrassment. “Or like one of Katemzan Prahmpara Droegee Daturi’s rangers.”
The king glanced at her. “They were good company at first. I thought that Hasra had the right lady for once. Their captain has a famous sword.” A look of glee came into his eye as he noted Manrie’s incomprehension. “The Sword of the Egg,” he said. “They build boats from eggs, you know. In Drachahda. The samhuradie comes to deposit its eggs on the beach, and the craftsmen have set molds there that the wet egg falls into. It is so soft when it falls, like a fish egg, but it hardens quickly in the air. Captain Yoehnen designed a new mold, to make his sword. They exiled him for it.”
“I have read about the egg boats.”
“But not about the sword, it seems. It is very sharp, and not at all fragile. The Queen of Drachahda could become very powerful, if her people let her.” He remembered the guard’s presence. “You may leave.”
Bahdring waited for the guard to close the door before she said, “You are right, of course. We do sometimes ask a king to use violence on our behalf. And I will ask for that now.”
The small eyes studied her. The king had a rangy face. His cheeks dropped down over his chin like the cheeks of a fat man, but he was very thin. “To what end?”
“My lady of Hasra asks that you protect this girl, and that you fetch her friends from the rangers. All of her friends, even the one who might not want to leave the ranger’s company. What does he look like, Manrie?”
“He has hair the color of pearls. He’s young, and very thin. He’s beautiful.”
The king considered. “Have you been chatting with her today?” he asked.
“Chatting with who, Highness?”
“Your mistress. The new Lady.”
“Your grace knows that such a thing is impossible. Her servants can only predict her desires.”
“It is amazing that she can rule, with so many people claiming knowledge of her inmost thoughts.”
“The new Lady has few secrets.”
He studied her, looking into her small eyes. “And what boon will your Lady give me, if I extend my protection over this girl and her companions?”
“The boon of her friendship, Highness. An alliance with Hasra. The past forgotten.”
He considered. He licked his lips. “They will be here soon,” he said, and Manrie struggled to follow his line of thought.
“Who will, Highness?” Bahdring asked softly, her tone implying that she knew.
“My three queens. One Katemzan Zinjan Bahvrue Daturi among them.”
“Much lamented, I am sure,” Bahdring said.
The king considered. He licked his lips again. “I am the victim of malicious gossip,” he said. “That is all. Hasra has offended me by listening to such gossip.”
“The new Lady will close her ears to it.”
“Will she?”
“She mourns for her cousin, of course. But she believes that you mourn as well. That you are sincere in your grief.”
“Oh yes. Very sincere,” the king said quickly. His suspicious eyes drifted back to Manrie’s face. His expression was naked in the torch light. Guilt and fear, mixed with stubbornness, with an odd glee, with a naked desire to manipulate and control. “My wife…” he began. Then he paused. He considered, licking his lips again. Manrie tried to keep herself from shuddering at the gesture. Her own lips felt dry from watching him. “My wife lost her mind, towards the end. She was much given to paranoid fantasies.”
“Of which wife do you speak, Highness?” Bahdring asked. Manrie could hear a note of humor in her voice.
“The one who matters now,” the king said. “Katemzan Zinjan. If she speaks to you, girl, you must discount anything she says.”
“She won’t speak to me,” Manrie said softly. “The dead don’t speak.”
“If she possesses you, then.”
“I won’t let her. I am done with that.”
He considered, then nodded. He turned to Bahdring. “And you, tinker. You must not let them possess you, either.”
“Possess me, Your Grace?”
“It is my price,” he said. “You must carry the other spirit stone.”
Bahdring paled. “Must I, Majesty?”
“You must. Tonight. We will see if this girl has special powers. We will see what these spirit stones are really worth.”