The Palace of Impossible Dreams (4 page)

“Can't sleep?” he called after Maralyce, his breath frosting in the cold rain, as she headed toward the entrance of the mine. She was carrying a bag of tools and a pick, so he guessed she was planning to be gone for a while.

“Sick of all these visitors, more like it.” She stopped, turning to face him, squinting at him in the pre-dawn light as he crossed the yard to stand before her, unconcerned by the drizzle. Rain no longer bothered him, nor the cold. His body adjusted itself now, preserving his natural body heat the same way it had made the scratches on his face disappear. That was the truth of immortality—perpetual healing.

“What about Shalimar?”

“What about him?”

“You said he needed your help. He's been getting worse for days now.”

She shrugged. “Can't be helped.”

“He's your
son
, Maralyce. You're not just going to abandon him to a horrible death, are you, just because you're annoyed at having to put up with a few houseguests?”

Maralyce looked away. Had it been anybody else, Declan might have thought it was guilt making her unable to meet his eyes. But she was immortal and he doubted guilt was an emotion that bothered any of them overly much, after a while.

“What do I need to do then?” he asked with a sigh, when he realised appealing to her better nature wasn't likely to work.

“Keep him well supplied with mead,” Maralyce said. “That should ease his pain until he dies.”

His great-grandmother's callous instructions were designed purely to aggravate him, Declan suspected. “And how long will that be? A day? A week? A month?”

Her eyes narrowed as she squinted at him in the gloom. “You can feel the Tide now, Declan. You tell me.”

That was the first time she had acknowledged it openly. He wondered why she'd waited until now—when she was planning to abandon them—to mention his ability to touch the Tide.

“So you're telling me he'll die when the Tide peaks?”

She shook her. “He'll die when he's good and ready; when his body's had
enough of being pulled every which way by the undercurrents. There's nothing more I can do for him.”

Her statement was so confident, so
final
, Declan knew there was no further point to arguing about it. “So you're leaving then.”

She nodded and jerked her head in the direction of the cabin. “Don't let them eat me out of house and home while I'm gone, eh? It's getting too late in the year to make the trek down the mountain for more supplies.”

“When will you be back?”

“When I feel like it.” She shouldered her pack a little higher and then frowned. “You gonna be all right?”

Declan shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”

“Nothing worse than a self-pitying immortal, Declan. Get over it.”

“That's your favourite piece of advice, isn't it?
Get over it.
”

“That's because it's
good
advice.”

He sighed again, wondering if there was anything more futile than trying to get a straight answer out of Maralyce. “Anything in particular you want me to do while you're gone?”

She glanced around the small clearing, her eyes resting on the towering pile of chopped logs stacked outside the cabin. “You could chop some more firewood.”

Declan glanced at the woodpile. “I meant anything
other
than contributing to your campaign to single-handedly cause the complete deforestation of the Shevron Mountains.”

Maralyce was not amused. “You'd do well to watch that tongue of yours, lad. I can stay pissed at someone for a very long time, you know.”

Declan didn't doubt that for a moment. “What did you want me to tell the others about your sudden departure?”

“Anything you like,” she said, turning back toward the mine entrance. “I ain't here to mind their tender sensibilities. That's your job.” She turned, raised a hand in farewell, and then hesitated and turned back to face him, her face creased with concern.

“Changed your mind already?”

“There'll come a time,” she said, ignoring his question, “that you'll want to know more. I ain't the one to teach you what you want to know, Declan, despite what you think.”

“Then who is?”

“Lukys, probably, although I'm reluctant to recommend his kind of aid to anyone. But before you seek him out, be damned sure you want to know
what he has to offer. You can be immortal, lad, and not be a Tide Lord. You can be like some of the others who've made peace with their immortality, like Arryl and Medwen . . . Live your life as unobtrusively as possible . . .” She searched his face for a moment and then shook her head. “But you won't. You're young and curious and no matter how well intentioned, the lure of the power you have access to now, will prove too much. Just remember, eternity is a long time to be watching over your shoulder for your enemies to find you.”

Before he could respond, she turned back to the mine, and a moment later was swallowed by the dark maw of the entrance.

Declan stood in the yard for a time, the rain dripping down on him, wondering what had really prompted Maralyce to up and leave. And her dire warning. He knew she wasn't happy with this unexpected influx of houseguests—Maralyce hadn't been shy about letting them know of her irritation—but that didn't explain her leaving now. If anything, she seemed more the type to stay, determined to keep her eye on these annoying interlopers to make sure they didn't steal anything.

Still, Declan wasn't really surprised she'd gone. There had been an air about Maralyce recently, almost as if she was mentally tapping her foot with impatience, waiting for everyone to leave her alone so she could get on with her work. He wondered what she did down there in her mine that was so damned important. Declan was fairly certain it wasn't simple greed. He'd never met another soul who cared less about the trappings of material wealth.

And what had she meant by telling him he didn't
have
to be a Tide Lord? Did that mean he
could
be one? That he commanded the same sort of power as the Immortal Prince?

He didn't have a chance to wonder on it for long, however. As the first rays of the dawn touched the mountaintops, a scream split the air. High-pitched, distressed, young and female, it came from inside the miner's cabin across the yard. Declan ran for the cabin, almost colliding at the door with Stellan Desean who'd been woken by Nyah's screams. They burst into the cabin together to find it lit by a single candle on the table. Still dressed in her borrowed nightgown, Nyah was leaning over Shalimar, who was lying in front of the fire.

“What's wrong?” Desean asked, a step ahead of Declan, looking around for the danger that had prompted Nyah's panic.

Nyah looked up, her face streaked with tears. As she let go of Shalimar his shoulder rolled to the side to reveal his eyes, open and staring and lifeless.

“He's dead,” Declan said in a flat, unemotional voice.

Stellan Desean bent down, gently pulling Nyah away from the old man's body. “Come on, lass, it'll be all right . . .”

Declan stared down at Shalimar's corpse, at his paper-thin skin and his now peaceful features, wondering if he felt nothing because he'd been expecting this or because now he was immortal, he was no longer capable of normal human emotion.

Holding Nyah as she sobbed against his chest, patting her back with a fatherly hand, Stellan glanced up at Declan. “We'll have to find Maralyce and tell her.”

“She knows,” Declan replied with absolute certainty.

The former duke looked at him curiously for a moment and then turned to Nyah. “Why don't you go outside for a breath of air, your highness?” he suggested. “Splash some water on your face. You'll feel better.”

“But . . . Shalimar . . . he's . . .”

“I know. Don't you worry about it. Declan and I will look after him.”

Sniffling loudly, Nyah, with some reluctance, did as he asked, pushing past Declan on her way outside.

“You're very good with children,” Declan remarked as he closed the door behind her.

The duke smiled thinly. “Arkady used to tell me what a good father I'd make.” Stellan squatted down to examine the corpse. “He's stone cold; must have been dead for hours. I'm so sorry, Declan.”

“He's out of pain now.”

Desean looked up at him. “Did the Tide kill him, do you think?”

Declan nodded.
The Tide
 . . .
or Maralyce holding a pillow over his face to end his torment.
He wasn't sure what made him think that, but the idea seemed plausible. Death was such a gift to an immortal; something to be bestowed with love, not dealt out as punishment. He wouldn't be surprised to learn she had hastened Shalimar's end because she could no longer ease his suffering . . .

Tides, when did I start sympathising with an immortal?

“Declan?”

He blinked, and realised Stellan Desean was speaking to him.

“Sorry . . . did you say something?”

“I said, do you want to move him outside? To the forge, perhaps? Until this rain stops and we can bury him?”

Declan nodded, and moved to pick up Shalimar's feet and together with the former Duke of Lebec, he helped carry his last remaining mortal relative outside.

Arkady woke up groaning when Alkasa poked her in the back to tell her breakfast had arrived. Mindful of her plans for suicide by faking illness, Arkady moved slowly and painfully and hoped it was enough for the others to notice. For once the stifling heat of the cabin was useful, making her clammy skin look flushed and unhealthy. It might have been better if she'd refused her food too, but she needed the gruel to make her wound look filled with pus, so she couldn't afford to turn it away.

Once she had her meal, she retreated to the back of the cabin near the bucket and sank down to the floor, glancing around at the others. Foul as it was, this gruel was their only sustenance and all the women were intent on their own meals. The sailor who'd delivered it had eyed each one of them speculatively as he'd spooned the slop into their bowls, his eyes settling on Alkasa for a moment, before moving on.

The young woman smiled at him, took her meal and pushed her way between two of the other women, and then bent her head close to the bowl as she fingered the slops into her mouth. Cutlery, besides being a potential weapon, was not considered necessary for slaves.

Trying not to be too obvious, Arkady scooped up the slops with her fingers and smeared the porridge around the burn on her breast, gritting her teeth against the pain. When she had what she thought looked like a pus-filled scab over the clean scab underneath, she pulled her shift closed and ate the rest of the tasteless porridge. Then, while the others were still distracted, she suppressed a shudder and dipped a finger into the foul-smelling bucket on the floor beside her. Trying very hard not to think about it too closely, she wiped her damp finger around the edges of the scab, taking care to ensure she didn't touch the wound itself, which struck Arkady as being rather silly. She was doing this to gain the means to end her own life, after all. She wasn't planning to be alive long enough for her wound to become genuinely infected.

After that, it was just a case of waiting for the sailor to come back to collect their bowls. She leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, trying to look ill—not a hard task when one was sitting on the moving floor of a cramped, airless cabin beside a half-full ablution bucket. She groaned occasionally for effect, until even Sharee, the oldest of the female slaves, asked her what was wrong.

“I feel sick,” Arkady said.

“We all do, you stupid bitch,” the woman replied unsympathetically. “So do it quietly.”

“Not seasick,” she groaned. “I think my burn is infected.”

The woman, who like Arkady was sitting on the floor with her back to the bulkhead, opened her eyes and studied her Glaeban companion curiously. “Show me.”

Arkady pulled aside her shift, hoping that in the gloom of the cabin, her gruel-encrusted scab would pass casual inspection.

“Tides,” remarked Alkasa, who was sitting beside her. “It smells like shit.”

Quite literally
, Arkady agreed silently, pulling a face she hoped gave the impression she was in intense pain.

“You'd better tell 'em,” Saxtyn advised. “They tend to get mighty pissed when a slave goes down for something simple like that. And they'll blame the rest of us if you die of blood poisoning.”

Arkady nodded and closed her eyes, leaning her head back, silently thanking her husband's aggravating, snobbish high-born friends for all their instruction on the proper care of slaves.
One didn't have to care about them
, Lady Jimison used to say,
or even like them, but one was wasting money if one let them die unnecessarily.

She wondered how long it would be before the sailor came back; how long after that before the ship's surgeon appeared.

And how long after that, she would be dead.

“Get up!”

Arkady knew enough Senestran to understand the order. She scrambled to her feet at the sailor's command, stunned to realise he was fumbling with the keys on his belt to release her from the chains that bound her to the other slaves. She'd expected the doctor to visit her, not the other way around.

A few moments later, Arkady found herself standing in the hall, as the sailor locked the slave cabin behind her. He shoved her forward, indicating she should precede him up a narrow companionway to the deck above. From there he led her past several closed doors, until he finally stopped at one carved with intertwined ivy leaves, the Senestran symbol, she supposed, for a medical practitioner. The sailor knocked and then opened the door and shoved her inside without waiting for a response.

He said something in Senestran to the doctor—presumably along the
lines of
I'll be back when you're done with her
—and slammed the door behind him.