Talon (The Astor Chronicles Book 1) (23 page)

Lira sat with her back against a tree, while I strung up our shelter in a three-sided design between the trees, got a fire going, and prepared the evening meal. Sarlice brushed and fed the horses, collected water, unpacked her bedroll for Lira and created a makeshift one from blankets and clothing for herself.

‘Would you like me to set up your bed, Talon?’ she asked.

I finished licking my fingers and wiped them on my tunic. ‘All is well, I’ll do it later. Come over here and tell me if this curry is edible.’

I offered her the wooden ladle and watched with anticipation as she tried the food. Her eyebrows shot up.

‘Talon, that’s delicious. How do you do it?’

‘Ha ha. You’ve been away from civilisation too long,’ I replied. ‘Living on travel rations is not fun.’

‘Living on
your
travel rations is something else,’ she said. ‘Lira, you’re from a noble family. Tell Talon he’s as fine a cook as any.’

Lira smiled coyly at my guide and ran her fingers daintily through her black hair. In the waning light the girl’s green eyes seemed filled with shadows, but as she came closer to the fire the light danced in them. She accepted the ladle from Sarlice and scraped a bit of sauce off with her finger, sliding it slowly into her mouth.

‘It is a fine curry,’ she agreed. ‘Is that garlic and ginger I can taste?’

‘Very good,’ I responded, accepting the ladle back and stirring the contents of the pot.

Sarlice chortled in the background and patted her stomach. ‘I’m hungry now, which is a little bit unusual for me. All these years of simple food have left me with a neglected appetite.’

‘How long has it been since you first left home?’ I asked, stirring the curry to prevent it from scorching on the bottom.

‘I went to Watercrag almost four years ago,’ she replied. ‘Two years later I returned to Lyth for nine months then set out again as Lyth’s ambassador.’

Lira crouched beside me on a rock with her back to the Lythian ambassador.

‘What have your experiences as an ambassador been like?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I can learn a thing or two from you.’

‘I journeyed to Duuryn City and the Barh Oasis seeking to form an alliance against our enemies, namely Reltland and Telby,’ she began.

‘Isn’t Lyth a part of Telby?’ I asked.

Sarlice clenched her teeth and glared at the fire for a moment. ‘On any map you find in Telby, yes, Lyth is incorporated within its bounds, however we never acceded to their territorial demands, nor have we submitted to the maquis sent by King Flale. On our maps Telby ends at the Sister River.’

‘So how did you go with the alliances?’

‘The people of Duuryn and Barh took some convincing, not because they lack hatred for Reltland and Telby, but because Lyth is so small and its warriors are so few.’

‘It’s a wonder Duuryn even admitted you to their court,’ Lira commented.

We both stared at her for a moment, before I gestured for Sarlice to go on.

‘Eventually Duuryn accepted our trade agreement and a treaty of protection for travellers,’ Sarlice said. ‘They deemed it wise to ally with us, due to our proximity to their old enemy, Irin, a neighbour to both of us. I continued on to the Barh Oasis, where I sought an alliance with the exotic nomads of the desert.’

‘The savages,’ Lira said. ‘I heard nobody has been able to talk sense with them in decades.’

‘Well, I seem to have managed it,’ Sarlice replied, raising her eyebrow at Lira.

‘The king of Telby would have them wiped out if it weren’t for sympathisers in Ubu,’ Lira said. ‘There is little of value in that desert save some unique spices and a type of camel that can outstrip most other breeds. Certain merchants in Ubu have a degree of influence over my… over my king.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ Sarlice remarked. ‘Who are you, exactly?’

I shot a look at Sarlice, surprised by the sharpness of the question.

Lira turned to face her, a subtle frown on her brow. ‘I’m from a noble family that worked for its wealth for three generations.

My father’s speciality was diplomatic advice to other nobles. My grandfather was an adviser to King Aabyn of Telby.’

‘He might have known my father, Mandus,’ I commented.

‘And your uncle lives in Jesath?’ Sarlice pressed.

‘Yes, our ancestors come from there,’ she replied. ‘My father, mother, brothers, sisters and I were on our way to Jesath to escape social pressure from more ancient noble families when the wolves struck. I am now the sole surviving heir.’

‘You said “my king” before. Do you consider yourself Telbion or Jesathian?’

‘I was born in Telby,’ Lira said. ‘So I guess I have the benefit of claiming both realms as my own.’

‘What is your family name?’ Sarlice asked. ‘Perhaps I will have heard of it.’

‘Doubtful,’ Lira replied looking Sarlice up and down. Perhaps to reduce the potential for interpreting her remark as snobbery she added, ‘As I said, we are relatively new to noble circles.’

Sarlice kept looking at her, waiting for an answer.

‘Very well,’ the girl huffed, ‘but please don’t tell anyone my identity without my leave. The situation for the Demaeda family is delicate.’

‘Demaeda….’ Sarlice repeated, casting her eyes upwards in thought. ‘Never heard of them.’

‘I didn’t think you would have.’

Sarlice shrugged and turned away.

‘Your feast is ready, ladies,’ I announced, scooping curry out of the pot and serving it in wooden bowls. We only had two, so I handed one each to the girls and ate my own dinner straight out of the cooking pot.

‘What about the nomads,’ I asked Sarlice between mouthfuls. ‘How did you—’

‘They are different from other people,’ she answered brusquely, ‘but not as different from Lyth and Jaria as you might imagine.’

‘They don’t speak Telbion?’

‘Nay, it is a unique language born in the chaos that followed the Crash of the Waves. But I found ways to communicate with them, for which they respected me. We came to agree that Barh and Lyth should be allies, although it is not their custom to write things down.’

‘You really believe in that old tale about the Crashing of the Waves?’ Lira mumbled. ‘My mother told me it was just a myth.’

‘We believe it as surely as we believe the Lightmaker created Chryne in an unmarred state,’ Sarlice replied.

‘I haven’t heard the story since I was a child,’ Lira said. ‘Why is it called the Crashing of the Waves?’

‘In ages past all people used the waves to communicate,’ I replied. ‘There were thousands of sapphire trees around, so the use of the waves was far easier. It was only when people began to abuse their telepathic powers that the Lightmaker was forced to limit their access to them. He destroyed the city the people had built from sapphire tree leaves and there were earthquakes that sealed many of the underground caves where you find the trees. Only the most gifted wave-users maintained their telepathic abilities and even they needed sapphire-tree artefacts to communicate with other human beings. We call this time the Crashing of the Waves because that’s when widespread use of the waves ended and people were forced to develop spoken and written languages.’

Lira mused on this while we continued to eat.

After a while, she said, ‘I do believe in the Lightmaker. How could you not with all this around you?’

She gestured at the sky and the distant desert, both of which were blanketed in dusky hues of red-pink and gold. The river flowed gently in the background, with fishlike reflections of dusk darting on its surface. A breeze lifted sand from around some bushes to the west and it sprinkled over us lightly.

‘Is it true that Jesath is heavily populated by Relts?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it is,’ Lira replied, ‘but not all Relts are Zeikas—’

‘Those who aren’t are ostracised,’ Sarlice responded. ‘Outcasts condemned to poverty.’

‘I think you’ll find Jesath is a little more tolerant of mixed religions than other nations,’ Lira argued. ‘In fact it is forbidden for rulers and nobles to discriminate based on religious beliefs, other than to exact punishment on those who do.’

‘An absurdity in itself,’ Sarlice said with a sparkle of mirth in her eye, ‘to discriminate against those who are said to discriminate, but not against those who have less consistency than a bucket of pig slops.’

Lira cocked her head, missing the point.

‘Watercrag does not ascribe to such ambiguous rulership,’ my guide added. ‘It is a Kriite realm of course.’

‘Hard to imagine it surviving tucked inside Jesath where it is,’ I murmured, ‘with a hundred thousand angry Zeikas just across the Reltic Strait.’

‘Probably more than that,’ Sarlice corrected me. ‘And I’ve been there so I can tell you that Watercrag is constantly under attack, but it’s also well defended.’

‘A nation of weapon-bonded Kriites ought to be,’ I replied.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and I couldn’t think of a better training ground for our warriors.’

‘For a religion that advocates peaceful living, Kriites are awfully warlike,’ Lira observed tartly.

Sarlice glared at her. I jumped in before my guide could make an angry remark.

‘We have a responsibility to defend ourselves and our families,’ I said quietly. ‘No other group has come under so much persecution in the history of the world. It stands to reason that our reaction to that has been, in part, to develop aggressive means of defending ourselves.’

‘And efforts to induce more people to follow you,’ Lira added. ‘Why fight people you can convert?’

‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘but it’s not what you think. There isn’t some unified Kriite conspiracy to assimilate the masses in order to bolster our own power. On the contrary—we are servants of the people, not rulers. We believe it is our mission and responsibility to show others how to escape from the darkness that befouls this world.’

‘You don’t have to convince me,’ Lira replied with a defensive tone in her voice. ‘I told you I already believe in the Lightmaker.’

‘Even Zeidarb
believes in
the Lightmaker,’ Sarlice said. ‘But he is as unrepentant of his evil as the fools who follow him.’

Lira looked down, fidgeting with a leather shoulder bag she’d been carrying with her since we rescued her.

Wanting to change the subject for her sake, I asked, ‘What will you do when you get to your uncle’s?’

She met my eyes and held them. ‘I’m interested in starting an advisory service to nobles in Jesath who are looking to extend their holdings in Telby and Siffre.’

‘What of Tanza?’ Sarlice asked. ‘Isn’t that a realm sharing its borders with Jesath as well?’

‘It does,’ the pale-skinned woman replied. ‘You’re quite right, but Tanza is notoriously difficult to access, being in a sinkhole, lower than most of the rest of Chryne.’

‘Because they don’t have the same nobility and maquis social order as Telby and Jesath?’ I asked.

‘Yes—’

‘Nor do Reltland, Watercrag, Jaria, Lyth, Barh, Ravra and maybe others,’ Sarlice interrupted.

‘I mean it literally, as well,’ Lira replied smoothly, ‘because the land is lower than the rest of Chryne, except as it slopes toward the sea. Tanza is really one enormous canyon.

‘Even without the shield it would make it difficult for ordinary travellers to get in,’ she finished.

‘We are heading there,’ I said. ‘Before I can be declared Wave Master of Jaria I have to find out if I’m gifted in the other Astor gifts, and Tanza is the home of the Sleffion.’

‘Do you think you will be?’ she asked, curiosity burning in her eyes.

‘Nay,’ I replied. ‘What are the chances? I’m already Anzaii, Rada.’

‘I’ve met an Anzaii, Tolite, Rada before,’ Sarlice said, ‘and a Sleffion, Tolite, Rada.’

‘I have met Anzaii, Tolites,’ Lira added. ‘They make excellent advisers and guardians for nobles.’

‘One thing’s for sure,’ I began, ‘If I am Sleffion or Tolite I will have a lot to learn. I don’t know the first thing about skyearls, and my weapon abilities are limited to knife throwing and bows and arrows. Even with those, my skills are lacking.’

‘The first sign of a good pupil is the willingness to learn,’ Sarlice replied. ‘Perhaps I can teach you a thing or two about warbows.’

‘I’d like that,’ I said, eyeing her Tolite-kin resting against her packs a few feet away, ‘but not tonight.’

Lira laughed. I stood up, stretched and walked to my packs to fetch a costrel of ale. I offered it to the girls first, but only Lira was interested. Sarlice bade us good night and retreated to her makeshift bed. An hour later Lira finished questioning me about my Anzaii abilities and the two of us also retired. Exhausted from the day’s journey I fell asleep quickly and dreamed of strange winged monsters made of rose-coloured water.

In the morning Sarlice and Lira prepared breakfast together, arguing about trade and politics, female fighters, slavery and so forth. I sat half-listening, with my back against a rock, gazing out at the desert.

In my mind I explored the surrounding territory with Rekala. Rather than overlaying what my natural eyes were seeing, the vision I received on the waves from the icetiger was like part of my imagination, but far more vivid. When I concentrated this hard on the waves the things I could see and hear in the natural world faded to the back of my mind. I didn’t even notice when Lira brought me a bowl of coconut rice.

‘Hungry?’ she asked, jolting me back to reality.

She had tied her black hair back neatly and garbed herself in a tight-fitting white robe. Admiring her figure, I took another few seconds to reach out my hand for the food.

‘Sure, thanks.’

She smirked at me, collected a second bowl from Sarlice and came back to sit beside me. Sarlice ate her food out of the pot, as I had done the night before. She rested one bare foot on Kestric’s back—he was snoozing in the shade of a tree. Rekala padded into the campsite and sat to watch me eat, shivering her skin to get rid of flies.

‘This new female fascinates you,’
she stated.
‘Why?’

‘What gave you that impression?’
I retorted.

Instead of answering my question, she mused upon me and probed as deeply into my mind as she could. She soon got frustrated and declared,
‘Kestric told me about this phenomenon, but I hadn’t thought my own Rada-kin would be so self-deceiving.’