Scar Felice (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 3) (17 page)

“You know something. A name. If you tell me I can bargain with it. The Ekloi owes me a life.”

“That much is true.” He seemed to ponder for a moment. “What name?”

“The Faer Karani who brought you back to Shanakan.”

“I cannot. If I betray him I will suffer greatly.”

“If you do not, then you will die.”

“Your argument is well made. I will tell you the name. It is Kalnistine.”

She looked at the Faer Karani, and saw that the threat had gone out of it. The soldiers, too, looked more comfortable, so she was reassured that she had read him correctly. It could still be a trick, of course. The Faer Karan were famous for their lack of honesty.

“It is the truth?” she asked.

“It is my life,” the creature replied.

Now she had to deal with Alder. It did not surprise her that the old man arrived ahead of the soldiers, hardly out of breath, his hand raised in the gesture that she had seen before, when the sword had grown from it. She stepped between Raganesh and the Ekloi.

Alder stopped a few feet short. He looked surprised, puzzled, angry.

“You are protecting it?” he asked.

“You said you wanted Raganesh alive. I see that you are ready to strike, and I would not have you regret a hasty blow.”

“But he tricked you. He doubled back to kill you, and now…” he gestured at the soldiers with their swords lowered.

“We have come to an understanding.”

Alder looked more angry, less surprised. “It is not your place to do deals with the Faer Karan. You do not understand what is happening. It is complicated, and any arrangement that you may have made is not binding on me.”

“It is simple enough, Aki,” Felice said, reverting to a more formal address. “I have promised Raganesh his life in exchange for mine, and he had given me the name of the Faer Karani that brought him to Shanakan. Is this not what you wanted?”

“The information, yes…”

“The alternative was my death, his death, and the deaths of any number of these soldiers, and you would not have the name.”

“I do not have the name now,” Alder said.

“You owe me a life. Will you honour the agreement? I will consider the debt paid.”

Alder shook his head. Now he seemed more annoyed than angry. “I will honour the agreement,” he said. “Now tell me what lie you have been told.”

“Kalnistine.”

Alder’s eyes narrowed, and he studied the Faer Karani for a moment.

“Why did he bring you with him?” he asked.

Raganesh did not hesitate. “We were exiled to the same place,” he said. “It was a place of moderate power, and we were able to work a spell to return. He needed someone to watch White Rock, to see if Serhan suspected anything, to warn him if anything moved to threaten him.”

“And where is Kalnistine now?”

Raganesh shrugged. “I was not told.”

Alder turned back to Felice. “It rings true,” he said. “But we will have to investigate further.” He called out instructions to the soldiers, who produced long strips of red cloth and began to bind the Faer Karani’s arms to his sides. Raganesh did not resist. The strips were decorated with symbols that were unknown to her, stitched onto its surface in black and yellow.

“What are they doing?” Felice asked.

“He is a demon. They are binding him.”

“We have an agreement,” she reminded him.

“The bindings have no power over me,” Raganesh said. “They are just a lie that the Ekloi tell the Shi.”

“Be silent,” Alder commanded, “or I will forget this ridiculous bargain and end you.” To Felice he said “We cannot simply release him. He must be taken out of this world and placed somewhere that is more difficult to flee, and where he can do less harm.”

“And then you will take me home – back to my own world?”

Alder hesitated.

“I have helped you,” Felice said. “You would have failed without me.”

“Things have become more difficult.”

“How? Why?”

“It is Inshaful. He has reported the situation to others. It is out of my hands.”

“You have lied to me!” She was angry now. After all she had gone through, all the help she had given him. Alder must have known that this would happen.

“Now you see,” Raganesh said, and there was a certain bitter triumph in his voice.

“Be quiet!” Alder snapped. He was angry, but though he glared at the Faer Karani it was not the creature that made him angry, she was certain. He turned back to her. “It is a matter of law. There must be an assessment.”

“What do you mean?” Some sort of trial, she thought, but to what end? Alder quickly answered her unspoken question.

“The Ekloi cannot harm – others – who are deemed to be of significance. Many know who or what we are, but are protected by their station. The Shan are an example. If we acted against them it would reveal our presence more than inaction.”

“And if I am not
significant
enough?”

“There are many alternatives, but more will be explained to you at a later time. I can only say that we are fair, and we abide by our law.”

“I do not care much for your law, Alder. I have done no wrong.”

“I
will
speak on your behalf,” Alder tried to reassure her.

Raganesh laughed.

Felice was surprised at how calm she had become. She sat on a comfortable bed, legs crossed, looking out of a window through thin bars. The bars were stronger than they looked, but quite unnecessary. It was thirty feet down to a stone paved street below, and the walls seemed smooth and impossible to climb.

The door was not locked. They did not consider her a danger, and she was permitted to wander freely between the rooms on the third floor of the house, but she was the only occupant and there was not much to do or see. Tall shelves held a number of books, but none were in her own language, and the windows gave mostly onto empty streets and blank walls. A man stood on the stairs to prevent her wandering further.

She was bored.

She should have been afraid as well. She was yet again on an alien world with a different people and a different language, trapped by a group of creatures whose power far exceeded any she had know, and she was on trial for being in the wrong place at the right time. Her life was in danger. But when she inspected her feelings, when she closed her eyes and looked deep down inside herself, there was no fear. In fact there was very little of anything.

She had waited here for a day, and now, surely, the wagons would have gone to Woodside, and she would fail yet again to be in the same place at the same time as her brother’s murderer. It troubled her, but it no longer seemed as important as it once had. More than anything she wanted to go home, to be part of her family again. But that desire, too, no longer burned. It had become a dull ache that she was learning to live with.

She had not spoken to anyone since they had left her in this room. The man on the stairs did not speak her language, or pretended not to, which was much the same thing. Food had been provided at regular intervals, and it was good and plentiful, so there was no taint of hardship to her captivity.

The journey here had been less traumatic than their precipitous tumble into the world where they had hunted Raganesh. It had been disorienting, and she had felt dizzy, but no more than that. She wondered what had happened to Raganesh. She could never claim to have liked the Faer Karani, but he was at least simpler in his motivations than the Ekloi. Alder and the others seemed to be subject to notions of duty that overpowered their own feeling for what was right and what was wrong.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a knocking on the door.

“You may enter,” she said. She wondered why they bothered to knock.

The door opened and a man came in. She did not recognise him, but he was an older man, like Alder, tall and thin. He wore a grey coat over black trousers, and his face was one of those quiet, closed faces that tell you nothing. When he spoke his voice was quiet, and he spoke her own language with a Samaran lilt.

“Felice Caledon,” he said. “I am here to answer your questions.”

“What is your name?”

“That is not important,” the man said.

“So what questions
are
you here to answer?”

“Those which concern your assessment.”

Felice studied the man. Here was someone who had dwelled in her own world, in Samara, perhaps. He had lived with people like her.

“Tell me the purpose of the assessment,” she said.

The man folded his hands and recited, Felice was certain, a definition that he had committed to memory.

“The assessment exists to determine the relative benefits of allowing a particular inhabitant of a world to continue to inhabit that world once a threshold of knowledge has been acquired.”

“That means nothing,” she said. “Benefits to whom?”

“It is complicated. There are certain things that I am not permitted to speak of, but a degree of benefit accrues to your own world.”

“And the rest to yours. No benefit for me, then?”

“No. You are the subject of the assessment.”

“And the knowledge – that is what I know about the Ekloi, Sinalder, the existence of other worlds?”

“Some of that, yes.”

“And you have to decide if it is safer for your secrets if I am permitted to return home or not.”

The man looked faintly surprised, his indifference wavering for a moment. “Yes, that is precisely it,” he said. “Sinalder said that you were clever.”

“How kind of him.” She said, her tone implying something entirely different. She did not particularly like the use of the word clever. It seemed to describe a shallow and self serving form of intelligence. “So if I want to go home I will have to demonstrate that I will be missed, that important people will want to know what happened to me, and will make efforts to discover the truth.”

“Yes.”

“How does the assessment work?”

“It is simple. Three Ekloi will be present. One will speak for you, one against, and you may speak for yourself.  One who is not Ekloi will be present, and he will control the assessment. The Ekloi will make the determination, and the other will make any other decisions necessary.”

“What will happen if the assessment goes against me?”

“There are options. You are unlikely to be harmed.”

“What does that mean?”

“The most likely outcome is that you will be resettled on another world where you will not be out of place.”

“Exiled.”

“If you like.”

“It makes no difference to you that I do not wish to be exiled, that I want to go home?”

“That will be taken into account.”

“I have done no wrong. Why do you wish to punish me?”

“It is not punishment. It is simply necessary that the things you know are not known widely.”

“I will not tell anyone.”

The man shrugged. “We cannot know that for certain, and these matters are best raised at the assessment.”

“Will you be there?”

“Yes.”

She understood. Alder would be there as her advocate and another Ekloi, possibly this one, would be there to speak against her. Finally she would be given a chance to speak, and then they would make a decision, probably to take her from her own world, to cast her out among other people, different people whose ways she would have to learn. It would be survival, but she would be like a mariner forced to live on land, a bird with no wings. A pointless existence.

“You can go,” she said.

“You have no more questions?”

“None that you would answer.”

The man nodded, stood and left. She was alone again. How bleak the future seemed. She tried to imagine a world without her family, without White Rock, without East Scar, Yasu, Samara, a world where there were no Kalla trees, no guardsmen, nobody to speak to her in her own tongue.

She did not think that she had ever appreciated her own world as much as she now did. The sun, the wind, the trees; the way ships were rigged and their triangular sails that scooped the wind, the dark colour of the sea, the snow that lay thick on the mountains and in winter visited them in the town, the dusty roads, the smell of baking bread. It would all be different somewhere else, could be. The people, too, would be different in ways that she could not imagine.

How can I sway them?

She relived her life a piece at a time, trying to pin down the moments of significance, but she had followed an unremarkable path until the last few months. If anything was the key it was there, somewhere in her frantic pursuit of Karnack the killer across half the world. She had met important people, people who mattered, but would any of them be bothered if she simply failed to show up again, if she vanished without trace?

She tried to think of something that tied her to these people, but nothing came to mind. She had not promised to see them again, and even if she had done so, a broken promise was not a remarkable thing in so troubled a world. They knew of her warrant, and her search for Karnack, but that was it. They might be surprised if she did not finally serve the warrant, but probably not curious enough to seek her.

The more she thought the more it became clear to her that she was doomed to exile. She was nobody. Only her family would care that she was gone, and she had run from them in her pursuit of Karnack. They did not know where she was, and could only hope that they would see her again.

She lay down on the bed. It was night outside, and she could hear strange noises carried to her on the warm breeze. Birds and insects, or whatever took their place here she thought. It would be like this for ever. Strangeness everywhere. She could not sleep for a long time, but lay on the blankets listening to the sounds and smelling the strange scents of this world, wondering why she could not weep.

*              *              *              *

She woke in the middle of the night. She did not know what had woken her, but there was a familiar phrase in her head, and she examined it.

When you look in the mirror you do not see what others see.

She did not know what it meant, but for some reason it gave her comfort, and she fell asleep again almost immediately.

It must have been hours later when she was woken again. This time it was quite clear why she had awoken. A figure was bending over the bed shaking her gently by the shoulder.

“Be quiet,” he whispered when he saw that her eyes were open. “Make no noise or we will be lost.” He withdrew to the other side of the room and stood there in the darkness.

“What is going on?” she asked. “Am I being taken to the assessment? They could have waited until morning.”

“Please lower your voice,” his was an urgent hiss. “Do not make a light. It will be seen. I am here to take you home.”

She felt a sudden surge of emotion when she heard the word, but she knew where she had to go. “White Rock,” she said. “I have to go to White Rock.”

“As you wish,” the man said. It was clearly a matter of indifference exactly where in her own world she wanted to go. “But hurry. Dress and gather your things. We must leave now.”

“Do the Ekloi know what you are doing?”

“They must never be told. Once you are back in Shanakan you will be safe. They will not move against you. But you must be true to your word – tell nobody of what you have seen and heard. To speak of it will provoke them. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

She was suspicious. By now she was naturally suspicious of anything, but she could not see a motive in this. She packed what she could into a bundle. There wasn’t much. She hadn’t brought anything with her other than a coat against the wind and a cloth to keep her hair in place.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Is it not the right thing to do?”

There was something about him. Every time she asked him a question he told her something that wasn’t quite what she wanted to know. He never quite answered the question.

“You are Ekloi,” she said.

He was still for a moment. “Yes.”

“So where are you really taking me?”

“To White Rock, on Shanakan. That is where you wish to go, is it not?”

“It is. But why are you going against the others?”

“The decision is not yet made. If you are returned home before the assessment there is no violation of the will.”

A technicality. But he had failed to answer the question again. In the end it did not matter. If he was really going to take her back to White Rock it was all that she cared about, but it would be too late. She would have missed the caravan to Woodside.

“It’s a pity you weren’t a day earlier,” she said. She tucked her bundled coat under an arm, and now she was fully awake. “I am ready to go.”

He reached forwards and took her wrist in his hand. She was prepared for the step this time. That’s what they called it, this amazing transfer between worlds – no more than a step. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on an image of home; blue skies and dusty houses, the windswept streets of White Rock town. She felt the world spin away, twisting in a dozen directions at once. She held herself rigid and focussed on the image she had conjured. The nausea was quite bearable, but her head still spun, and then there was a sensation of ground under her feet again. It was odd, but she had not felt it go, had been unaware of leaving the ground, but it was suddenly there again, and she opened her eyes, managed to keep from stumbling or falling down.

“We are here,” the man said.

She looked at him. He was revealed to her in the daylight that flooded the town. It was evening light, but compared to the night of that alien world it was brightness itself. He was shorter than Alder, and very much younger. His eyes had a strange vacant look, but without that she might have counted him good looking.

“What day is it?” she asked. She would have to make up some tale to tell the colonel if she was not to reveal what had really transpired.

“It is the same day that you left,” the Ekloi said.

She stared at him. How could that be?

“How can that be? We have been gone for two days at least. Can you travel back in time?”

He smiled. “No. Time’s arrow is fixed, but all worlds do not travel through time at the same rate. You were fortunate to travel to quicker places. You have been gone from here for seven hours, no more than that.”