Tides of the Titans Page 19

  Leaper opened his eyes. His hands had stopped shaking.

  How is the queen going to stop the Master from taking the city?

  He tipped the oyster shells into the lime bucket. Picked up another platter of killifish and headed to Ellin and Estehass’s table. The royal physician, Unsho, sat across from them, smiling blithely at the small mountain of bones in front of Estehass.

  By the time Leaper had unobtrusively delivered the platter to them and returned to lurk in Mitimiti’s shadow, the Master had moved from the subject of his invasion to the tale of how he’d gained the scars on his chest; said scars were revealed by the parting of his black, beaded beard-braids.

  “So you see,” he boomed, “I narrowly escaped that she-Bodyguard by the turning of blade on rib. I vowed never to plunder trees from the edge of Airakland again. Then again, if my old retainers hadn’t been slaughtered by Eliligras, there’d be no room for you, little man, would there? What’s your name again?”

  “Yran,” Yran said drunkenly. “I’m not afraid of Airak. I’ve killed a queen of Airakland with my own two hands.”

  Leaper swayed like a bell cracked by the strike of its own clapper.

  “You haven’t,” he said, despite himself.

  “Oh, yes, Great Master,” Yran said fawningly, as if it had been his own superior who questioned him, “I killed her, not long before the monsoon. An embracer carried me to her palace, as I said before, and I cut her throat with a crocodile jawbone, just so I could have the diamonds in her hair!”

  “Where are these diamonds?” the Master asked sharply. “You said you had given me everything of value that you owned.”

  “Yes, Great Master, but I had to deliver those diamonds to the king of Airakland as proof of what I’d done. He’d discovered that she loved another, you see, and ordered me to do the deed. His wife had come to him from Ulellinland, a place of prophecy, so he couldn’t have done it himself. Her family might have peeped into the future and seen him with blood on his hands.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE WATER glimmered darkly, and the tide was high.

  Leaper struggled to break the mangrove branches beneath the water. To grip the freed killifish before they could escape. Each one that he brought up to the feeble light of the city lanterns resolved fuzzily into red-spotted, or even blue-spotted rarities, but those weren’t the ones he sought; he needed the brown-spotted kind.

  The deadly kind.

  Cooking the fish makes no difference, Mitimiti had said, and there’s no antidote to the poison.

  Finally, one of the slimy, thrashing shapes proved to be the kind of killifish that Leaper wanted. He’d gone into the mucky water naked, to keep his serving clothes clean. Sounds of the feast were far-off, but he’d be back there soon. He killed the fish with his shin spines, not wanting the blood of broken scar tissue showing on his arms.

  He rinsed his body with fresh water from the bamboo pipe, got dressed, and headed to the coral kitchens with his prize.

  It was King Icacis who gave the order to have Ilik killed.

  He knew about us. Yran was his tool. I’ll bring his palace down. I’ll find my way back to the forest somehow, gather Old Gods’ bones until my natural power is augmented enough to bring down one of the mightiest emergents. Unar did it! I can do it, too.

  Cooks and serving folk filled the kitchens. Any could have questioned him, but all were intent on their own tasks. Leaper kept a wary eye out for Mitimiti but ignored the others, using his windturner to block all line of sight. Double-wrapping the fish in scalded red banana leaves for roasting as he’d seen the cooks do, he waited till they evacuated on a mead delivery run before finding a coal-filled oven not packed with metal trays of fruit pies and honeyed pastries.

  Kirrik’s side was always the right side, Leaper thought, but I believed my fathers when they spoke ill of her. I believed my mothers when they said Kirrik was my enemy. I believed everyone who said that I, in my former life, had been brainwashed and led to my death by her.

  He slipped his leaf-package in the cinders.

  I should have gone to her, before Imeris took away that chance. I should have helped her to evict Audblayin’s parasitic soul from my other sister’s body. Exchanged Kirrik’s vows to leave my family unharmed for the tools to destroy Airakland.

  Serving folk, returning, called for the final sweet courses and kettles of tea. Leaper slipped under a preparation bench to hide while the cooks emptied the ovens, laughing and tasting and burning their mouths.

  How could Icacis have deceived me, though? He was too stupid to formulate a single cunning thought in that wooden head. How could he possibly have deceived Ilik? She would have seen any dimming of his adoring sun in an instant.

  He was still crouching under the bench, making sure everyone was gone, when he heard Mitimiti’s voice, coming closer.

  “If you empty the Bag of the Winds,” she argued to some unknown companion, “our sailors will have no way to counteract the wild winter southerly. How do you expect them to come home from the Far Island fishing grounds?”

  “I expect that if we don’t use the bone powder in the Bag to blow Cast back to where it belongs,” came Unsho’s calm reply, “there won’t be any more journeys to the fishing grounds. You heard the man. He intends to take the city. If the effects weren’t instantaneous, I’d put the Bag’s contents in their tea tonight.”

  So Erta does have a plan. A way to send Cast scudding back south. That explains why the Master hasn’t already been murdered.

  Mitimiti was silent a moment. Her footsteps stopped, not far from Leaper’s hiding place.

  “They must take it while aboard their own buildings,” she surmised eventually.

  “Good girl,” Unsho said. “Yes. We should’ve accepted their hospitality from the first. You must begin hinting that Wetwoodknee custom dictates the men of Cast return the favour and hold a banquet for us within a few days. The Master won’t remember the truths he’s revealed to us under the influence of this meal, but our people have heard, and whispers will spread. We can’t afford for the Blackpressers to take matters into their own hands.”

  The Bag of the Winds. That sure sounds like magic.

  Magic in the fish to find truth. Magic to fill sails. They do have magic, and they’re hypocrites to heap scorn on Canopy’s adepts.

  The physician’s voice grew fainter; she was leading Mitimiti away.

  When Leaper was certain they were gone, he sprang out from under the bench and took to the open oven with a charred wooden paddle, hoping against hope that the single serving of killifish wasn’t burned beyond edibility.

  The outside banana leaf was blackened, but its contents were still good. Leaper emptied them, steaming, onto a smaller platter and swooped back out to the banquet table, avoiding the urge to lick his fingers.

  Killing with poison wouldn’t be anything like bringing lightning down on Orin’s beast. In a day or a week, you’ll die, Mitimiti had said. Leaper wouldn’t have to watch the poison at work. He wouldn’t have to hear the screams or smell flesh burning. He’d vowed not to kill—he’d thought to return the murderer to Canopy for justice—but now he knew only death could answer for Ilik’s death, and Yran’s death was only the first; Icacis must come second.

  It’ll be like setting a trap for a rat. Not like sensing lost loves and silent sorrows, like feeling flesh crisp and curl away. Nothing like that.

  Leaper felt more like himself than he had since Ilik’s loss.

  He found Ellin and Estehass now seated with the Master of Cast. All three seemed absorbed by the chanting and strumming of a white-bearded man holding a seven-stringed, turtle-shell lyre.

  The minstrel was garlanded with even more green stone beads than his chief, these ones slightly larger and carved with tiny faces of varying expressions.

  O Oniwak, he sang. O Oniwak

  of lightning blood and bow arm black!

  Leaper recognised that name.

  As stars began to fill the clear sk
ies above the tower, not only the queen’s party but more and more men of Cast huddled closer in the lantern light, straining to hear and see the performer pacing back and forth before them, plucking in time to his poetry.

  O Oniwak of Airakland,

  the crossbow steady in his hand,

  prepared to battle, all alone,

  while cornered in Ulellin’s home,

  a beast of naked blood and bone;

  a beast of murdered Servants sown!

  The Hunt had called him, all alone

  to battle in Ulellin’s home!

  Hunched beside and behind the Master of Cast, Leaper froze with his arm outstretched, his intent to slide the killifish in front of Yran momentarily forgotten.

  All alone? Is this a mockery? A jest?

  “Is that for me?” Yran slurred eagerly, twisting in his seat, taking the fish from Leaper’s hand. “Everyone else is eating sweets, but the Master ate all of that fit-for-royalty fish you brought before. I didn’t even get a taste.”

  Leaper hardly heard him. The singer strummed and carolled on.

  The fateful arrow struck it so

  yet Oniwak endured a blow

  designed to bring him to the fold;

  designed to set him in the mould

  of mindless terror! Beast-fur grew

  but one pure purpose kept him true;

  New Gods’ power, he saw through,

  that greatest of the chosen few!

  Greatest of the chosen few?

  Leaper’s fists clenched. I was there when Orin’s beast was destroyed, and Imeris, too. One pure purpose? Airak’s teeth!

  “It’s not just that the women owned all the crocodiles and boats,” Yran complained to his empty cups in a whining counterpoint. “After my tenth monsoon, when I became a man, I wasn’t even allowed to speak to my mother. Or my sister. Can you imagine? I loved them, but they wouldn’t teach me women’s words, so I had to go and find the speaking-bones, even though it wasn’t allowed. How else could I understand them? And also—”

  O Oniwak, O Oniwak

  of lightning blood and bow arm black!

  Despite the corpse’s soulless slack,

  the demon’s claws were in his back …

  Leaper didn’t mean to hoot so loudly and derisively, but the laughter leaped to his lips.

  “—I never wanted to lie down with a woman. Don’t you sometimes not want to? Lie down with a woman, I mean?”

  “What is this song?” Leaper hissed in Mitimiti’s ear. “I thought you hated Canopy, why are you all listening to this?”

  “I was not very good with the crocodiles, either,” Yran said sadly to his cups. “Which woman would choose me to steer her boat? Without that sword I found, I’m no crocodile rider.”

  Mitimiti leaned back, answered Leaper’s question wryly.

  “Any tale of enmity to Orin finds a happy home here.” Her expression became abruptly concerned. “Lee? Are you feeling well?”

  The demon claws were in his back!

  No lightning blood, no bow arm black

  Could bring it back, could bring it back

  The soul that served the god Airak

  The demon claws deep in his back,

  Despite the courage others lack …

  Leaper felt his face flush. Energy surged through him. It wasn’t magic. He couldn’t smell anything over the stink of fish, alcohol, and honey.

  It was his ability to feel, his ability to care, coming back to him in full force. Along with the mental picture of Imeris on the day she’d set out to hunt tree bears with Oldest-Father. They have sharp claws, Ylly had whispered. I would be afraid. Imeris had laughed. Tree bears should be afraid of me, she’d declared, tossing her head.

  Men like Oniwak were always taking women’s glory.

  Men like Yran and Icacis are always taking women’s lives.

  If only he had enough of the medicine of justice to force it down every throat.

  “O Oniwak,” he shouted frenetically instead, springing up onto the banquet table in front of the queen, “perhaps your soldier’s robes are black, but there’s nothing in your small ball sack!”

  “Lee!” Mitimiti exclaimed imperatively, but Leaper was too furious to listen to her. The minstrel’s arms, bearing pick and lyre, fell to his side, and he gaped at Leaper. The queen leaned back from the table, but otherwise remained still, her expression stony.

  “O Oniwak,” Leaper crowed, “your small ball sack! Though Imeris formulated each attack, you scorned her, and you hung well back! When Orin killed you, Hunters mourned, but when the news reached old Airak, he shrugged his shoulders, ate a snack, and sent us to take your trophies back!”

  “Master of Cast,” Ellin barked, jolting to her feet, her heavy, trapezoid knives in her hands. “Have a care for your safety! I recognise this man, a Servant of Airak!”

  Everything happened at once. The Master bellowed in wordless outrage, hurling his cup of mead. Blackpressers smeared with charcoal and smelling of salt appeared from nowhere to surround the queen. Ellin lunged towards Leaper, but somehow Mitimiti stood behind Ellin, twisting Ellin’s arms into knots, restraining her. Beaded men produced strung bows and began fitting arrows to the strings.

  He’d been a fool to reveal himself, but at such a memorable banquet, at least he’d made his sister’s name heard. At least he’d shouted it over the heads of the leaders of Cast and Wetwoodknee.

  Anyway, I couldn’t have stayed. Not after poisoning Yran. I couldn’t have made the pact. Not when I have a king still to kill!

  I couldn’t have become one of them.

  And Leaper found himself running and diving, diving from the banquet table’s rim towards the edge of the platform, into the arms of the mangroves. It was too dark to see through the water. He didn’t know if he’d crack his head on the riverbed or swim to relative safety.

  A provisioned ship, hidden off the southern edge of Reeds, he remembered, right before his hands touched the surface. I’ll steal it!

  He slid into the silty, briny embrace of the river.

  Immediately, his windturner became a suffocating blanket, dragging him down, tangling him in submerged reeds. As soon as he escaped from it, it floated to the surface, spreading, and Leaper pulled himself cautiously through a tunnel of stilt-roots before snatching a cautious breath on the other side.

  Arrows thudded into the empty windturner, only paces away.

  Leaper dived again, heading south.

  No, wait.

  He surfaced again, almost out of sight of the platform where the guests of the banquet swarmed.

  First, I’ll need that Bag of the Winds. It’s the only way to get back to Canopy.

  To get revenge on that wife killer Icacis.

  Yran will be done for soon enough.

  Leaper bobbed in the water, all but naked and gasping, trying to work out where the Bag must be kept. Where would I keep it, if I were the physician, Unsho? Curlews screamed in the darkness.

  Unbidden, his eyes rose towards the top of the queen’s tower of bleached driftwood on its grey coral foundations, where the mated ospreys nested untidily atop the conical, weed-covered roof.

  * * *

  HIS HEART rate slowly settled back to normal.

  Leaper crouched in the shadows beneath another bench. This bench was in the physician’s study, in an alcove obscured by a hanging in the queen’s bedroom.

  He’d found an underwater entrance to the palace foundations. Whether by accident or design, he’d been able to crawl into the kitchens. There, he’d been able to not only retrieve his carrysack from the room he’d been given to sleep in, but to help himself to another server’s windturner and race up the spiral stair before he could be interrupted. Yanking open the door to the queen’s chamber via the fish with the seashell eyes, spotting a silhouette on the balcony, he’d thrown himself under the queen’s bed beside the brass-bound chest and curled up there, shivering, cursing himself for not stealing the ship straightaway.

 
But the silhouette had proved to be the queen’s spyglass. It was mounted on a tripod and covered in a waterproof cloth that stirred in the wind.

  Then the cross breeze blowing from the balcony into the small space beneath the hanging had revealed Unsho’s study to Leaper’s floor-level gaze. The alcove had a small arched window with a lit lantern hanging in it, which allowed the movement of cool air.

  Almost as soon as he’d stumbled into it, he’d heard light footsteps on the stair. He’d folded himself into the square space beneath the mangrove-wood bench. It smelled sharply of herbs and sulphur.

  The footsteps proved to be neither Mitimiti’s nor the queen’s.

  “Physician!” said Yran’s snivelling voice. “Where are you? I need your help. I don’t feel well! My Master says—”

  Something heavy crashed to the floor with the sounds of metal on wood and glass breaking. Leaper emerged from Unsho’s alcove in time to see Yran stumble away from the ruined spyglass, bone sword unsteady in his right hand, left hand cut and bleeding.

  Yran’s bloodshot eyes locked with Leaper’s. They widened.

  “You!” he shouted. “I saved you, but you poisoned me! I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel my face. I see the creatures from the Mooring. The winged creatures.” He slashed with the sword at the air around him, momentarily distracted. “They’re bad luck, those things.” Dark eyes sought again the man he’d pulled from the floodwaters at the edge of Canopy. “You’re bad luck, too. I should have let the Master’s men shoot you. What happened to your oath against killing? We shared the same liver, and you’ve killed me!”