The Quartered Sea (43 page)

Watching the rippling shadows thrown across the map by the swinging lantern, he had a horrible feeling he knew where this was going.

The xaan's smile had all the warmth of a curved blade. "Water listens to you."

"If we're going to take Balankanche, we have to do it now, before the Aliphat tries again." They were leaning on the bow, the xaan braced comfortably against the railings, Benedikt standing uncomfortably behind her. "The xaan who captures the island will capture most, if not all of Petayn as well. The Xaantalax has survived the years of the Tulparax's dying, in spite of having several living female relatives, because I threw my strength behind her as did the houses that follow my lead. I made sure she came to depend on my strength rather than develop her own. After the change, I would have been the second most powerful person in Petayn."

Would have been
? Benedikt wondered. He realized this quiet explanation was probably as close to bragging as the xaan ever came, but he didn't feel at all relieved to discover that even the mighty needed to be reassured occasionally about how clever they were.

"Then you came into my hands. At first I discounted your so-called powers—who wouldn't, you couldn't even save your own ship, after all—but you dealt with the flood and I began to ask myself, why second? Why not first? It isn't unheard of for houses to rise and for other houses to fall."

The matter-of-fact way she announced what amounted to a palace coup, lifted the hair on the back of Benedikt's neck. It made the tul's desire for power look like childish pique at being denied what he considered his fair share. "Peerless one, isn't the Xaantalax the earthly representative of Xaantalicta?"

She cocked an eyebrow back over her shoulder at him. "Your point?"

"Doesn't that make her almost divine?"

Xaan Mijandra grinned and scooped a handful of blowing braids back off her face. "Trust me, Benedikt, if I capture Balankanche, I'll be divine enough."

They came close enough to see interior mountains and the blurry, undefined outline of a good-sized town, then the waves began to move almost at right angles to the wind. The
Kraken's
master brought her around and, with minimum sail up, maintained a course more or less parallel to the disturbance.

"Any closer, and Sorquizic will stop us."

"You want me to Sing you through Sorquizic's barricade, peerless one?"

"No. If you can't remove it entirely, I want you to Sing my
fleet
through Sorquizic's barricade."

"Your fleet," Benedikt repeated as he walked to the part of the railing closest to the unusual wave pattern. When he leaned over the side and stared into the water, he saw what he expected to see—the giant kigh of the depths. One of them rolled to the surface, became part of crest and trough, and beckoned him in. He thought of Xhojee beckoning to him that morning and wondered if he'd known what the xaan had planned.
Don't be a fool. How could he
?

"Can you do it?"

"This isn't…" He dried suddenly damp palms on the front of his sawrap. "This isn't like the flood, peerless one."

"More difficult."

It wasn't a question, but he answered it anyway. "Much."

He heard her sigh and walk forward until she stood very close behind him. The billowing folds of her robe wrapped around his bare legs. "I can't say that I'm not disappointed." Her hand was cool where it gripped his arm. "But I understand. You're not a priest of Sorquizic, how can you undo what they set in motion."

It was
not
all right. She'd brought him out here expecting him to fail, and he was not going to fulfill that expectation. Benedikt moistened his lips, worked up enough saliva to swallow, and Sang the four notes to call the kigh. It was enough to get their attention but not enough to pull them out of their pattern.

You come to us
, they replied.

He felt himself responding, reaction to the kigh mixed up with reaction to the warm presence of the xaan, and he threw himself into the Song, away from the distraction of his body.

Caught up, thrown about, he was a pebble in a current, his rough edges worn smooth by the unceasing movement of the water all around him. He wasn't Singing the pattern the priests had set in motion with their sacrifice so many years before, it was Singing him and, had the kigh not helped him learn the Song of Sorquizic, he would have drowned standing dry on the
Kraken's
deck.

When he finally Sang the gratitude and came back to his body, he found himself pressed painfully tight against the railing. At some point, although he couldn't remember when, one of the kigh had come to him. He was dripping wet and the deck around him was soaked. Not all the moisture on his sawrap had come from the sea.

A hand touched his shoulder and he half-turned, clutching the rail for support.

The xaan's mouth moved, but he could hear nothing over a Song almost too large to be contained within one bard's head. She frowned, and spoke again. "The barricade is still there, Benedikt."

Nodding, he managed to gain control of his voice and wasn't surprised to find it little more than a rough whisper. "But now I know how it was built, peerless one, I can create a Song to remove it."

He rubbed saltwater from his eyes and considered the complexities of a pattern twenty-three priests had died for. "I don't know, peerless one."

"That's three times today. I'm beginning to dislike that answer."

When she moved toward him, he tried to step back, but his hips were already pressed against the side of the ship. There was nowhere to go but into the sea.

Trapped.

Barely back in control of his own thoughts, really not up to marshaling a defense, he asked himself what Bannon would do and didn't much like the answer. He hadn't known the ex-assassin well, but he had a feeling that if approached by a beautiful threatening woman, Bannon wouldn't have backed up.

Standing so close Benedikt's sawrap dampened her robes, the xaan stared up at him. "I must have Balankanche before the end of the rainy season. You have a limited time to create your Song."

"Peerless one. I must turn the
Kraken
now if we're to reach the harbor before sunset."

At the ship master's interruption the xaan closed her eyes and shook her head. "Of course," she murmured. Opening her eyes, she sighed. "Do it. A limited time," she repeated to Benedikt as the minimal crew raced for the lines. "Get yourself something to drink. You look like you could use it."

Completely confused, Benedikt blinked stupidly down at her. Had she just been threatening him?

* * *

Wrapped in a coloas wool blanket and sipping a carved wooden mug of honeyed wine, Benedikt followed the xaan to the stern, and together they watched Balankanche disappear from sight.

"Amazing how much power that miserable little blot on the horizon represents."

Benedikt watched the xaan watch Balankanche. He'd never seen her look so animated. Her eyes were shining, there were spots of color on her cheeks not entirely the result of the wind, and her voice had dropped to a throaty purr.

"You are as little aware of your fate as the Xaantalax."

It took him a moment before he realized that "you" referred to the island.

"Power should go to those best able to wield it." Whirling around, she stared up at him, dark eyes burning. "Don't you agree, Benedikt?"

Very glad he had no wine in his mouth to choke on, Benedikt managed a strangled, "Yes, peerless one." For the first time, she showed the kind of raw power that blazed so continually off her brother. For the first time he realized he was in just as much danger now of being burned as he ever had been with the tul.

And I still don't Sing fire.

She reached up and laid heated fingers against his chest. "The survivors will go to the mines. Perhaps I'll put Hueru in charge of the operation. He'd like that."

Survivors? When Shkoder had conquered the Broken Islands, it hadn't been entirely bloodless but neither could the losers have been referred to as survivors.

In spite of another downpour, the
Kraken
reached the harbor before full dark to find the pilot boat—her crew even more wet and miserable than they had been—waiting to take them back to the pier.

Wearing his priest's robe, thankful for the masking gauze, Benedikt followed the xaan and her guards down the gangplank and into the cart. Whether it was the same cart or a different one, he had no idea—he couldn't tell the coloas apart and he hadn't looked very closely at the groom.

He
was a survivor. It wasn't so bad.

Careful not to move his head and give away his interest, he stared at the xaan. All traces of the passion that had so nearly sucked him under were gone. She hadn't asked him if he would Sing an invasion fleet to the island. She'd assumed that if he could, he would.

The xaan said nothing on the return journey through Atixlan, leaving Benedikt free to chase half-formed thoughts around the inside of his own head. Perhaps she assumed he was already working on the Song.

The city streets were packed as the cooler evening air brought out buyers and sellers, lovers and the lost, and those who just wanted to be seen. Any other time, Benedikt would have stared in fascination at the parades of people, shifts and sawraps in incredible color combinations, heads wearing anything from one braid to a dozen, but this time he barely saw them. Sounds and images pounded against him like another cloudburst with as little lasting effect.

They reached the square just after the ending of the sunset service. Small clumps of people were heading back to the greater or lesser houses or to the heart of the city beyond. Trying to seem as though he were paying no attention, Benedikt searched the clumps for Xhojee or the tul but was unable to find either.

"Say nothing of your journey today."

Drawn from his search, Benedikt followed Xaan Mijandra from the cart and into the house.

"If anyone asks," she added just before Serasti met them, "say your mouth has been closed by the hand of the xaan."

"Yes, peerless one." From the look Serasti shot him, he realized the house master had not only heard but didn't much like the idea of him having secrets with the xaan. So she didn't trust him. So what.

The xaan had his evening meal sent to him in his room along with a stack of paper, a ceramic jar of ink, and a metal pen. Ignoring the food, Benedikt picked up the pen and turned it between his fingers. Dipped, the ink ran down a spiral path to a smoothly rounded point, similar to the glass pens of the Fienians the Bardic Hall used for writing recalls. A quill needed to be cut several times during a recall, but a glass Fienian pen lasted forever—as long as no one dropped it.

When Benedikt deliberately dropped the metal pen, it rang against the tile.

This was something he could have brought home. Something useful. Something wondrous. The paper was better too. White, smoother, and more flexible at a similar thickness. The librarians would have loved it.