The Red Sea (2 page)

Gallador Rift was the hub of Gaskan trade, but it possessed one small flaw: the gigantic mountain range cutting it off from the Middle Kingdoms to the south. Historically, Gallador's merchants had three options for dealing with this impasse. First, they could detour two hundred miles to the east, take the pass at Riverway, and then swing southwest toward the bustling cities of the kingdoms' interior. Very safe, but very slow.

Second, the traders could drive their wagons west to the coast, which was exactly as far away as the Riverway, and sail south to Allingham. This was the fastest but also the most expensive option. Third, they could challenge the West Dundens directly—though in addition to the snow that only vacated the passes for a month in late summer, the routes were also snarled with the corpses of those who'd challenged the mountains and failed.

None of these options were what you'd call "good." So Dante had decided to give Gallador a gift. A way to repay its people for their aid in Narashtovik's war for independence years earlier. He would bore a hole straight through the mountains, giving the Galladese merchants a fourth option that was the fastest, cheapest, and safest of all.

Like all good deeds, however, it was turning out to be a royal pain in the ass.

First, a subset of the TAGVOG, the lakelands' governing body of trade, had questioned whether the tunnel would expose them to bandits, raiders, or invasion. Once Dante convinced them how easy it would be to destroy the tunnel if need be, the argument shifted to the passage's placement. This was a strategic matter (they needed a defensible, practical location) as well as political (the entrance couldn't be too near nor too far from the holdings of the TAGVOG's major members).

As discussion raged, Dante had grown so frustrated he'd been on the verge of calling off the whole thing. Blays saved the endeavor by asking him how
he
would handle it if someone were proposing a new route into Narashtovik, the city where Dante ruled. Would he give them leave to stick it wherever they pleased? Or would he fuss and fidget over every tiny detail?

Unfair, for Blays to know him that well.

For the sake of his sanity, while the TAGVOG argued on, Dante trekked across the mountains to the agreed-upon site of the exit and started tunneling north toward Gallador. The work would take weeks. Surely the merchants would have made a decision by the time he neared the lakes.

Now, though, he was no more than three days away from completion. And as he worked away on the tunnel, converting the stone into mud and sluicing it away, the TAGVOG still hadn't chosen exactly where to place the tunnel mouth. If they didn't decide soon, he would.

He shunted his mind away from that line of reasoning. Other than the politicking, the job was surprisingly pleasant. He was the only one between Pocket Cove and the Wodun Mountains capable of shifting solid rock in this way, which was rewarding in its own right. And the tunnel's solitude was a welcome break from his endless responsibilities administering the Sealed Citadel of Narashtovik.

Once, he'd been hungry for that role. And, admittedly, the power and prestige that came with it. But he'd been overseeing the city for several years now. While he knew his work was important—among other things, he had freed the city (along with Gallador and others) from the Gaskan Empire—there were times when he wished he had no status at all, and was able to pursue his study of the nether in peace.

Near the blank wall of the tunnel's end, his torchstone was fading. He picked the white marble up from the smooth floor and blew it out. He could have worked in darkness, but darkness was creepy. Especially when you had a mile of mountain looming over your head. He called forth the nether and shaped it into a tame, pale light.

He glanced down the tunnel. Assured there were no horrors sneaking up on him, he turned back to the blank stone wall and delved into it with his mind, finding the nether within it, the ancient death that seemed to lurk within all things. The stone flowed away, the wall retracting, bringing the tunnel another five feet closer to the squabbling, bureaucratic, but mostly charming merchants of Gallador. Dante paused to reach further into the rock, making sure there were no cracks or faults exposed by his efforts.

"Sir?" a voice spoke in his ear. It was Stedden, the monk he'd brought with him to oversee communications and scheduling. At the moment, the man was miles away in Wending, Gallador's capital.

Dante spoke into the loon affixed to his ear like a bit of jewelry. "Yes, Stedden?"

"There's someone here to see you, sir."

"Is that someone a mole?"

"A mole?"

"You know," Dante said. "Small. Furry. Freakish nose. Likes to burrow."

"Ah, no, sir. She appears to be human."

"Then she's going to be a disappointed human, as I am currently a mile underground."

"I'm aware of that," Stedden said. "But she has a message for you. She says it's from…"

"Yes, Stedden?"

"Well, sir, she claims it's from your father."

"Then she's lying."

"She says she's from the Plagued Islands. That your father's name is Larsin."

Dante's spine stiffened. "Put her on the loon. Let me speak to her."

"That's the other thing, sir. She's fallen unconscious. I tried to heal her, but there's something stopping me."

Dante scowled at the wall. He was far from drained of nether. If he left now, it would cost him hundreds of yards of work. Yet he needed the strength to help this woman. Not because it was the good thing to do.

But to find out why she was trying to deceive him—and which of his enemies she might be working with.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said into the loon. "Thank you for informing me."

He turned and jogged down the tunnel, his pale light floating in front of him. He had to run close to three miles before reaching the nearest side tunnel out to the mountains overlooking the lakes. His horse awaited, tethered in the shade. He rode down the switchbacks, descending through terraced slopes thick with tea bushes. The outskirts of most cities tended to be slums, but Wending's upper slopes were fancy suburbs: the sprawling lawns, orchards, and manors of the city's wealthy traders. Swooping roofs capped three-story buildings. Outside many, a forty-foot pole jutted from the center of a ring of cleared dirt. Personal churches, harkening back to the days Galladese wagons would gather to barter under poles like these set along the roads. Outsiders often considered this blasphemous, but in Gallador, trade was god.

He took the main boulevard through the city. Below, the massive blue lake glittered in the sun. He reached the docks, which smelled of fresh clams and not-so-fresh fish, stabled his horse, and found the ferryman waiting for his arrival. The man rowed him to the pocket-sized island where Lolligan made his home. A salt miner and tea vendor, Lolligan had been rich well before the wars. After the assistance he'd provided during the conflicts, he'd become one of the region's preeminent businessmen.

This came with a cost, though: Dante now expected the man to put him up whenever he was in town.

The ferryman docked at the island's private pier. Dante thanked him and hopped out. As he crossed the lawn toward the manor, Stedden emerged from the ground floor and dashed toward him in a flurry of black robes.

"She's still alive," the monk announced. He was a bit chubby and had a habit of staring through you, like he couldn't wait to get back to monk-work. "Still unconscious, though. And I'm not sure she'll wake up without your help."

"Show me to her."

Stedden led him inside and down a hallway to the ground-floor guest rooms. There, a woman lay in bed, dressed in a heavy coat and patchwork trousers. The woman was a few years younger than Dante and her skin was a medium brown not often seen this far north. She didn't look sweaty or feverish, but there was a faint cast to her, like a reflection in a bubbly pane of glass. A cloying smell of burned cinnamon hung in the air.

Yet for all that was strange about her, he was struck by an uncanny sense of familiarity. Like he'd met her before.

Dante reached for her wrist. Rock dust clung to the hairs of his arm. Her pulse was fluttery, weak. Her breathing was shallow. Dante pushed up his left sleeve, drew an antler-handled knife, and nicked the back of his arm. The nether flocked to the dribbles of blood, feeding hungrily. He reached out to the nether inside the woman.

And was stung as sharply as a bee. He took a step back, wincing and shaking his head. He turned on Stedden. "You idiot. She's netherburned."

The man hunched his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I've never seen a nether burn before."

"I know it's difficult to gather firsthand experiences of everything in the world. That's why they invented 'studying.' Aren't you a monk of Arawn?"

"I'm sorry," the man repeated, more softly this time.

Dante let out a long breath and leaned over the woman. "We can't heal her. Touching her with the nether will only make it worse. Give her water, if you can."

"You're sure of this?"

"Check in with Nak. He treated me for it once. But I'm afraid this is one of those annoying injuries where the only treatment is time."

Dante opened her coat and made a quick assessment for other wounds that could be treated through mundane means. Other than a few small scabs on her palms and knuckles, she looked perfectly fine—until he got to her shins. There, her brown skin was striped with finger-sized lines as black as the inside of the mountain tunnel.

"For future reference, that's what a nether burn looks like." He pulled a sheet up to cover the woman's shoulders and turned to Stedden. "Tell me everything she told you."

Apparently, the woman had been staggering down the southern foothills toward the city. Found by a small-scale tea farmer, she'd spoken Dante's name in an accent the farmer had never heard before, refusing to say anything else. Concerned for her well-being, the farmer had escorted her via ferry to Lolligan's. There, she'd spoken to Stedden, giving the same details the monk had relayed to Dante.

Dante plunked down in a chair. "I suppose she said nothing of the message itself."

"No." Stedden moved to a desk at the front of the room. "However, she seemed to understand she might not make it to your arrival. She made me swear to Arawn that I wouldn't open it. And then she gave me this."

He picked up a wooden rod and brought it to Dante. Roughly ten inches long and two in diameter, it was a piece of polished wood, bright brown and warm orange-reds. It appeared to be seamless, but it was light enough it had to be hollow. After a great deal of fooling around, Dante discovered it twisted open in the middle. It carried a rolled-up sheet of paper inside it.

He skimmed its contents. "I'll be in my quarters. If she wakes, or shows any change in her condition, come to me at once."

Stedden bobbed his head and sat down beside the foreign woman's bed. Dante exited and climbed the stairs to the much larger and nicer room Lolligan had assigned to him. He locked the door, sat on his bed, and unrolled the paper. It was a single sheet, covered on both sides. It was written in Mallish. Had his father been able to write? He couldn't remember. He could hardly remember the man's face.

He read the note in full. He let the page rest on his leg, remembering, then read it anew time, lingering on each line. He dropped the note on the bed and went to the window. Light shimmered on the lake. He didn't see it. Instead, he saw the grassy fields of a village outside Bressel.

He felt something in the room with him. A presence. The hair stood on his arms and neck. Dante gathered the nether in his hands and turned toward the door. Across the room, a blond man stood before him, a sword hanging from each hip.

"Lyle's balls," Dante said, dispersing the shadows. The bolt on the door was still firmly locked. "You walked through the wall, didn't you?"

Blays shrugged. "Like you wouldn't if
you
could?"

"What if I'd had someone in here?"

The other man folded his arms. "Like who?"

"Like, say, a woman?"

"Then I would have had a heart attack and died. Sparing you and your imaginary companion the embarrassment."

"Let's return to the antiquated practice of knocking, shall we? Unless you'd prefer that I enter
your
room by blasting the wall down."

"That would be rude. It's Lolligan's wall, not mine." Blays rocked on his heels. "So. Is it true?"

Dante eyed him. "What have you heard?"

"They say a strange woman staggered out of the mountains. And that she's here on behalf of your father. Shocking."

"I know. I haven't seen him in nearly twenty years."

"That, and I always assumed you were hatched, not born."

"I think it's real." He nodded at the note on the bed. "No one else would know some of those details."

Blays gestured to it. "Can I?"

"I'm surprised you asked first."

"It's much easier to ask for permission knowing you can always sneak in later." He picked up the page, eyes tracking the words. When they'd met as teenagers, Blays hadn't been able to read at all. The fact he was now literate in both Mallish and Gaskan struck Dante as nothing short of proof of the existence of the gods. Blays finished reading, lowered the note, and raised his eyebrows at Dante. "He knew your mom. He knew
you
. The events he mentions, they're like you remember them?"

"It was a long time ago. But yes."

"Right. So when do we leave?"

Dante laughed. "We're not going anywhere."

"But you just said this is your dad."

"And?"

"And he's sick and dying. You're one of the only people in the world who could help him."

Dante sat on the cushions of the window seat. "He's the one who decided to leave. I've done perfectly well without him. Why mess with a good thing?"

"We're only issued one father per existence," Blays said. "Most humans, when given the chance to see a parent they thought was long dead, would leap at the chance."