Mercadian Masques

Chapter 11

"The new giant killers!" hissed a nobleman near the door of the magistrate's chambers. He startled from the bench where he had lain, scooped up a half-finished hunk of cheese, and withdrew among tapestries and tiles. The four women who had just entered the chambers were a forbidding sight. Sisay wore black-metal armor and an indomitable look beneath her saffron riding cloak. She was clearly the warrior of the group. Beside her strode Orim, swathed in turban, veils, and healer's cloak. She shimmered with the silvery light of a Cho-Arrim mystic. Hanna wore an artificer's jump suit-the mastermind. And leather-armored Takara was the fiery will that united them all. Swords and tridents shone naked in their hands as they marched toward the magistrate's seat.

It wasn't weaponry or armor that made nobles scurry back and guards cringe. Since the women's escape, their fame had swelled. It was said each had slain twenty giants, hoisted a twenty-ton wagon of refuse on her back, and hurled it twenty yards beyond the rim to crash down atop the cateran, Xcric. Or was it forty giants, forty tons, and forty yards? Numbers are tricky but inconsequential. What mattered was that these women were unstoppable, cheered by the rabble and feared by the soldiery.

The deadly ladies passed by broad columns and entered the round glow of the rotunda. Unopposed, they came to a stop before the magistrate's dais.

He eyed them with trembling dread, and his gaze flitted hopelessly toward the guards at the door. They made no move.

Takara spoke for the foursome. "We come to bargain."

A Kyren appeared from behind the throne and began to speak.

Takara pointed angrily at it. "Get back! We've no time for nonsense. We deal with the magistrate only!"

With grinning fear, the Kyren backed away.

Corpulent and tremulous, the man on the dais said, "We are honored by the presence of the new giant killers and would be pleased to hear whatever bargain you might offer. Do you seek your freedom?"

Takara spoke with steel in her voice. "We have already won our freedom."

"Yes," the magistrate allowed uncomfortably. "On the other hand, your friends have not won their freedom, or even their lives."

"We ask only a stay of execution while we work out our bargain," Takara said.

"Speak on."

"You have our ship, but you cannot repair it. It is useless to you. We offer this bargain-we will repair Weatherlight and fly it on a mission in service of Mercadia in exchange for our friends' freedom and possession of the ship once the mission is complete," Takara said.

The chief magistrate nodded in consideration. Behind his pursed lips lurked a smile. "Your friends would be held captive until the mission was complete? Their lives are held in security?"

"Yes. And if you wisely choose Weatherlight's mission, you can make its singular appearance have an effect for centuries," Takara said.

The magistrate nodded, jowls rippling.

"There are conditions," Orim spoke up. "You cannot order Weatherlight to assault the Cho-Arrim in any way. They have suffered enough."

"Granted."

"And we need Mercadian assistance to repair the ship," Orim continued.

Shrugging, the magistrate said, "Whatever you require."

"We require passage to Saprazzo, realm of merfolk beyond the sea."

Brow furrowing, the magistrate said, "For what possible purpose?"

"To acquire the piece needed to repair the ship-an artifact called the Matrix."

A hiss of laughter came from the dais. "Do you truly believe you can steal the national treasure of the Saprazzans?"

"No," Orim said. "We will not steal it. We will bargain for it. And that is why we must be sent as ambassadors of Mercadia. We must be entrusted with the right to bargain on behalf of the city for this object."

"Outrageous! How shall foreigners represent Mercadia?"

"Send your own delegation along with us, if you must," Orim said. "They will assure the interests of Mercadia are guarded. We will function as ambassadors only in respect to acquiring the Matrix, and we will do so only to repair a ship that will perform a great service for Mercadia."

The hidden smile behind the magistrate's lips emerged now fully. "Perhaps we will merely acquire this item without you."

Takara spoke with a near sneer, "You have no idea how to incorporate it into the ship. And should you choose to deny us, perhaps we will simply orchestrate another escape, and bring old and new giant killers here to slay you and your Kyren court, and take back our ship and strafe this city until it is rubble." She smiled a dagger smile. "It is, as they say, your choice."

An ironic look crossed the magistrate's face. "Perhaps, and perhaps not. But the bargain is agreed to. You will go as emissaries to Saprazzo, in company with true ambassadors, will secure the Matrix and bring it to Mercadia to repair the ship, then will fly the ship on a mission of my choosing- not against any Cho-Arrim targets-and thereby win your friends' freedom and your ship."

"There is one more condition," Sisay said. "And this is nonnegotiable."

"What else could you possibly want?"

"A thousand gold to the family of farmer Tavoot…"

A week later, Sisay, Hanna, and Orim set out for Saprazzo. Takara remained in Mercadia to tend her father and make certain Gerrard and the other prisoners were treated well.

Though Sisay, Hanna, and Orim had intended to ride Jhovalls to the sea, the Mercadians would not deign the dust and fur of such a transit. Instead, they rode in silk-veiled litters borne by gray-skinned giants. Retinues of servants conveyed wine and fans and cheese. The ambassadors seemed incapable of traveling more than two or three hours a day and that only in the cool of early morning. During much of the day they sat in their tents complaining about the heat, the dust, and the long hours.

At first Sisay and Hanna had ridden in the curtained litters. By the second day, however, they found they preferred to walk or ride Jhovalls. Indeed, the pace was so leisurely that at the end of the day the only aches and pains they suffered were from sitting in one place too long.

Orim did not give up her private litter. She also spent evenings in her tent, meditating on the magic and mythology of the Cho-Arrim. When she spoke with her friends, she invariably directed the conversation toward the Power Matrix of the Saprazzans-what she called the "Mind of the Uniter."

Hanna knew of the Matrix from mentions in the Thran Tome and believed it could recharge-in fact supercharge- Weatherlight's damaged power stone. She sought the Matrix as one of the final pieces of the Legacy. Orim sought it as part of the Cho-Arrim Uniter. Sisay sought it just to get her ship and crew back. Discussions of the device gave the women common ground, but outside of these conversations, Orim spoke little with her comrades.

Onward they traveled. Gradually the scenery changed. The road wound out of flat, dusty plains and into a series of low hills, covered in scrub and broken by dry channels. The earth was a deep reddish brown, and the litter bearers often slipped when climbing down the sides of the chutes. Snakes slithered along the bottoms of the channels, red and black diamond patterns on their scaly backs. Near the mountain, the travelers had occasionally passed outlying farms, struggling to wrest crops from the inhospitable land. Farther from Mercadia, all signs of settlement ceased.

Wind swept over the hills, ruffling patches of long grass. The travelers made camp as best they could each night, servants clearing nettles. The ground was covered in harsh lava-like stones that poked through the bottoms of the tents and their thin blankets. Dry stalks rattled in night breezes, creating eerie moans and sighs that made sleep all but impossible. The hills grew steeper and the knifelike grass thicker.

Impatient with the slow pace, Sisay asked a servant why they did not conjure a dust cloud to take them to the shore.

"The clouds of hassim are present only on the west side of the mountain," the man replied. "Along this way, one must travel by the road." He sighed and looked about the desolate place. "My grandfather's grandfather could have told you of the days when it was lush and green, when water flowed in abundance. Trees rose overhead. Birds and beasts filled the land. But now…" He gestured at the dismal landscape.

Sisay rubbed her red and weary eyes. "So what happened?"

He was about to reply when a harsh cry from one of the Mercadian tents stopped him. He rose and hastily answered the call of his master.

As day after day passed, Sisay and Hanna succumbed to the boredom of the trip. The scenery changed little. After journeying a few hours, they would halt, pitch camp, and sit sweltering beneath the lemon sky and the merciless sun.

At last one morning, Sisay awoke from a restless sleep, emerged, and smelled on an east breeze a soothing scent: the tangy odor of salt water. The camp lay on the side of a long, ascending slope. The caravan had been climbing out of a broad basin, the bottom of which was broken by the crisscrossing dry water channels. Far to the north she saw a low, dark line that seemed to be a stone wall.

Hanna joined her and peered ahead. "The sea?" she asked.

"I think maybe over this ridge. I can smell it, but I can't hear it yet."

"Yes, the Mercadians say we're not far now. Perhaps another two or three days' travel."

The day's journey was somewhat longer than usual, and brought the party, shortly before noon, to the very top of the slope. When they crested it, Sisay stared in ecstasy at the vista spread before her.

As far as she could see stretched the ocean. On Dominaria, the seas were blue. Here, under yellow heavens, the waves were every shade of red, yellow, and orange. Along the horizon were low banks of clouds that promised of rain. The air was filled with sound that the hills had previously blocked: the cries of birds swooping to and fro over the water; the moan of wind as it swept along the shore and over the ridge. Distantly, breakers crashed against a rocky precipice.

A short distance before Sisay, the ground fell away precipitously, ending in a cliff, with the sea a thousand feet below. The road here ran north along the top of the ridge, its seaward side bordered by a wall. Sisay slipped from the saddle of her Jhovall and approached one of the Mercadian servants.

"Where is Saprazzo?"

He gestured toward the sea. "There. Beyond the waters and within the waters."

Sisay shaded her eyes against the glare. "I can see something way off there, but it doesn't look high enough to be an island."

"Nonetheless, that is the isle of the unnatural and vile Saprazzans, may their names be cursed forever." The epithets rolled easily and unthinkingly off his tongue. "We will halt here and rest before traveling on to the great port city of Rishada."

"When will we get there?"

"It is hard to say. So many things are dictated by the gods, who may intervene in even the best-laid plans. Weather, accidents, enemy raids-"

"All right, all right!" Sisay, having had some experience with Mercadian answers to simple questions, beat a hasty retreat. She led her Jhovall back to where Hanna sat looking at the sea.

"We're camping here, evidently."

The navigator nodded.

The curtain on Orim's litter drew aside, and the healer slowly emerged. She looked about, not seeing anyone in the traveling party, only the sea. It seemed to Sisay that Orim's face was changing. The expression of irredeemable grief she had worn since her return from the settlement had been replaced by something else. The sadness was still there, but now it was mixed with joy.

"Orim!" Hanna stepped toward the healer, hand outstretched.

Slowly the Samite turned to face her. Her eyes changed focus as she looked at the tall, blonde woman.

"Hanna." Her voice sounded like that of someone waking from a long dream. She turned. "Hello, Sisay."

Sisay smiled tentatively. "How are you doing?"

The healer made no reply, turning back to the sea. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Somewhere south of Rishada-another city-state. Kind of a jumping-off place for Saprazzo."

Orim nodded, seeming to lose interest. She turned to Sisay's Jhovall, stroking its flank, patting it gently. Then she put her head close to its ear and whispered something. The beast gave a loud purr, as was its wont when contented, and arranged itself peacefully in a sitting position.

Sisay stared. "How did you do that? It took me a week of hard work and falls before I could even get the damn thing to let me sit on its back."

The healer ruffled the short fur on the top of the Jhovall's head. She turned to her companions. "It's good to see you again. I haven't said that before."

Sisay looked at her thoughtfully. Orim was more than a friend. On Weatherlight she had been under Sisay's command. "Orim," she said quietly, "tell us what happened to you."

The healer shook her head. "No, Sisay. I'm not ready for that yet. Maybe never. But regardless, I'm happy to see you and Hanna."

Next day, as they journeyed northward, Sisay, Hanna, and Orim grew accustomed to the spectacle of the Outer Sea on their left. On the third day, the road broadened. A low stone wall ran beside it, along which small empty guardhouses stood every mile or so. After perhaps fifteen miles, the road descended toward the water. Long, sweeping turns burrowed into the cliff wall, and Sisay sometimes closed her eyes as her Jhovall's claws slipped on the spray-covered rock. The travelers' view to the north was blocked by a long spur of rock that thrust out into the sea. The sound of breakers filled the air all around, and many birds nested along the cliff wall.

A tunnel loomed before them, piercing the spur, barred by a great wrought-iron gate. The party came to a halt. One of the Mercadians approached the gate and placed his hand on the intricately carved iron plate at its center. He spoke a word, and there began a musical ringing that spread throughout the cavern and echoed above the crash of the waves below. Then, with a rumble, the great gates swung open, sliding into recesses in the rock. The party moved forward into the tunnel. As they entered, lights sprang up on the walb, illuminating the way. The passageway was long and straight, carved by picks. At the far end, a similar pair of gates opened as they approached. Sisay appreciated the military advantages of an approach that could trap invaders in a narrow space where they could be disposed of with impunity.

The caravan emerged from the tunnel, lights behind them fading into blackness. Before them, a steep, cobbled causeway descended into the main street of Rishada. Jhovalls' claws clicked along the street. Mercadians nodded condescendingly at the crowds that stared at them, shouting at the few foolish enough to block their way.

Rishada was a smaller version of Mercadia, with the same profusion of market stalls, the same clamor of merchants- but all of it had a distinctly nautical flavor. Many folk roamed the streets with the rolling gait of sailors. Fresh fish were laid out on stone slabs, along with crabs, lobsters, squid, shrimp, and other, less identifiable creatures.

The Mercadian procession made its way through the confusing maze of streets, down to a broad, open square. Around three sides of the square were low stone buildings. The fourth side was open to the sea and extended outward in a long pier lined with docked ships. Most were small fishing smacks, but a few were sleek schooners.

It was beside one of these that the caravan paused. The ship Facade had been chartered to take the ambassadorial contingent. The company loaded on the ship and settled in for a night in the moorings.

One night's stay in Rishada was enough to last the Weatherlight companions a lifetime. The cabin in which they were housed was dark and narrow and smelled intolerably of fish. The beds were small, lumpy, and damp, and there was little privacy save the darkness. All three women-Sisay, Hanna, and Orim-were crowded together, and since Orim chose to speak no more than a few words, Sisay and Hanna felt constrained to silence as well. They slept as best they were able and were roused the next morning by a sense of motion.

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Sisay rose and climbed to the deck. The crew had just cast off the lines, and Facade drew away from the city. Sisay breathed deeply. It felt wonderful once again to be aboard a ship under sail. Hanna came to join her, and the women traded quiet smiles.

On the water, the Mercadians seemed abnormally silent and tense. They huddled together on the deck while Sisay and Hanna stood in the prow of the ship, watching the water.

Rishada dropped quickly behind them. Before them the sea spread out in an endless horizon. Both women found the rush of air and water exhilarating after the long, hot, dusty journey. The wind filled the sails, and the flag of Rishada, gray with a red ship surmounted with a blue crest of arms, snapped smartly from the mast.

Along the surface of the water, small fish skimmed. One suddenly rose from the waves and, spreading a pair of broad fins from its sides, took to the air with a graceful swoop and soared away on air currents. Sisay and Hanna stood openmouthed as an entire flight of the flying fish followed their leader and disappeared into the yellow sky. The water was very clear, and Sisay at times glimpsed stranger creatures moving about in the depths. When she stared hard at the distant forms, they seemed only shadows that flitted over the dimpled waves.

Gazing at the illimitable ocean, Sisay said to Hanna, "What wonders await us out there?"

Hanna's eyes too were filled with the oddly colored sea. "What wonders, and what horrors?"

Two nights hence, Orim was at the prow when the horrors began.

In the last gloaming of evening, a huge figure burst up from the distant, inky tide. It hung massively in the ribbon of dying light, and then crashed back into the wide sea-a breaching whale.

Orim gripped the rail. Through stout wood, she felt the profound thrumming of the waters across the beast, the compression wave flung from the leviathan's vast bulk, the rumble of tip vortices trailing enormous fins. Her own arms and legs remembered the blissful sensations of swimming and diving and surfacing in the lagoon. Closing her eyes, she could almost imagine stroking toward Cho-Manno…

Another tremor moved through the rail-this one violent and shuddering.

Orim gasped, opening her eyes.

A harpoon sailed out from a deck-mounted gun. Its line uncoiled with a brutal whipping motion. The barbed shaft sank into the swell where the whale had disappeared. There came a muted shriek through the deeps. Rishadan crews cleated off the harpoon line, and it went taut with the agonized thrashing of the beast.

Orim staggered back from the rail, stunned. Gathering her strength, she stalked toward the harpooners, a pair of tall, thin, tan-skinned seamen. "What are you doing?"

One Rishadan flashed a glad smile. "Harpooning!" he said.

She shook her head. "This is a chartered vessel, an ambassadorial voyage-"

The young man shrugged narrow shoulders. The short gray vest across his chest leaped up. "This won't slow us. If we can kill it, we can drag it behind us and work it in the water while we make way. If it gets away, there's nothing lost."

"Nothing lost!" Orim said angrily. "What about the whale? What about its life? Nothing lost?"

The other seaman shouted a warning, pulling in slack rope. "It's coming about! It's heading straight for us. It's going to stave the ship!"

Orim turned back to the rail.

A massive mound of water angled across the billows, heading directly at the ship. Within the water rose a low roar. Fin tips broke the surface, and a massive figure shouldered through the darkness below. The harpoon stuck stupidly from the thing's back, slack rope trailing in the water behind.

"Fire!" the Rishadan cried.

That same shuddering violence moved through the rail.

Orim caught her breath as the second harpoon leaped outward. It met the surging bulk of the whale, embedding itself just behind the leviathan's head. Red streamed in the darkling water behind that jutting shaft. The beast did not slow. It came on, straight for the ship.

More amazing, though-a vast hand rose from the waters ahead of the whale. Huge fingers laid hold of the shaft and ripped it bloodily forth.

"That's no whale!" the harpooner muttered in dread. "It's a Saprazzan warrior beast!"

From the mounding waves rose a huge head, as large and knobby as a boulder. Kelplike hair streamed behind a sloping brow, which overshadowed small, angry, and intelligent eyes. The gray-green muzzle of the thing bristled with fangs that could bite a man in half. One vast hand clutched the gory harpoon above the waves. The other took a final stroke and then surged up to seize the gunwale of Facade. With an almighty rush, the warrior beast hurled itself on deck. "Attack-!" one of the harpooners began. His warning was cut short. The beast rammed the bloody head of the harpoon through the man. His chest cracked open and gushed like an egg. He riled on the shaft, gore making the deck slick beneath him. Orim fell back. More shouts rose.

Crew rushed forward with tridents and spears. The vast beast hauled itself across the deck, clutched the second harpooner, and crushed him in an enormous fist. There was nothing left of the man but meat and bone meal. This was a Saprazzan? Orim wondered numbly, clawing her way to the fo'c'sle. An ominous sight greeted her.

The black sea all around boiled angrily with fins. They converged on Facade. More monsters climbed the gunwales to slide onto the deck.

These were smaller-man-sized creatures. Their faces gleamed like mother-of-pearl, with hooked beaks and vast, staring eyes. Great mantles of seaweed draped the heads of some, while the heads of others were encrusted as with giant barnacles. Their torsos and arms were also very human beneath their conch armor, but from the waist down they had the long, scaly tail fins of fish. Pearlescent tridents were gripped in their webbed hands. As beautiful and otherworldly as these creatures seemed, they killed with an all-too-familiar savagery.

Orim staggered back. It was just like the attack on the Cho-Arrim village, this tide of killing monsters. They slashed and impaled and eviscerated. Dead crew littered the deck. Blood covered everything. Even Facade herself was being ripped apart. Soon, the ship and all hands living would be dragged to their deaths in the destroying sea.

Orim was surrounded. Saprazzans hemmed her in on all sides. She had no weapons. As they converged, rushing in to slay her, she could only hold up her silver-shimmering hands in futile supplication.

Then, the Saprazzan warrior beast surged up from amidships, grasped her in one huge and horrible hand, and dragged her overboard. Down, down into the dark waters of night they sounded.

Twilight waters receded above. Facade was only a black shadow there, only a slender leaf lying on the evening waves. The darkling sea below was bone cold and endless. It crushed Orim more viciously than the claws of the beast.

Already, light had quit the waters, and warmth with it. In moments, the sea would shatter her eardrums, burst her sinuses, and flood into her lungs. Only the Saprazzan beast remained-its fury, its agony. Orim reached up toward the creature's shoulder, and her hand settled on the harpoon wound there. A twitch of pain went through the creature. She could tear at that wound, perhaps win free as the beast spasmed-or she could show the Saprazzan that she was Cho-Arrim, that she was kin.

Silver light appeared in an aura about her hand. Magic awoke from streaming seawater. Warmth suffused her hand in a tingling glove. It sank into the harpoon wound, coursing deep along ruptured tissues. The glow intensified, and it stitched tissues together.

The warrior beast released a great moan that might have been anger or ecstasy. It only dove deeper.

Heedless, Orim continued healing its wound. She stopped only when the cold black deeps drew her own life away.