Southern Fire

Chapter Eleven

Kheda stirred. Then he felt a distinct sensation of being watched. He opened his eyes to find he'd rolled over in his sleep, doubtless to escape the inexorable light of dawn. All he could see was the nut palm fronds he'd gathered to build a low shelter the previous evening.

Not that you need have bothered. When are the rains going to come? The nights are as hot as the days now. Is this delay some evil stirred up by the magic to the south, driving away the storm winds? What is that noise? There's definitely someone behind you. Who could it be? You hid yourself more than adequately.

He'd found a gully lined with thick cane brakes and well away from any game trails or the wider track running to some distant village. He'd lit no fire to risk attracting curious attention, even though his ankles throbbed with bites from the bloodsuckers hereabouts that weren't deterred by crushed perfume-tree leaves.

Besides, you had nothing to cook. Daish Reik wouldn't be too impressed, to see your efforts at fending for yourself in the forest. What excuse would you offer him, for your hunger and thirst and weariness? That you're waiting for Telouet to bring you breakfast?

Kheda rolled slowly over, doing his best to look like a man still asleep. The dry lilla branches he'd piled for a bed crackled softly beneath him. Slowly, he opened his eyes just enough to see through the lattice of his lashes. He was indeed being watched. A loal was looking warily at the sloping shelter of palm fronds Kheda had constructed, wide cat-like ears pricking towards him. It sat on its rump, long feathery tail curled casually to one side, a stick in its disconcertingly man-like hands for digging through the leaf litter. If it were to stand on feet more like hands than paws, it might be chest high to a man. It would be easily as strong as a man, its densely furred arms and legs quite as sturdy as Kheda's own. Its face had nothing that was human about it: a black muzzle sniffed the air, pink tongue startling as it licked the last fragments of some hapless lizard from long, white teeth. Any hound would have been proud to boast such fangs. It blinked slowly, eyes perfect circles, as dark as its woolly black-brown pelt. Concluding Kheda was either no threat or of no interest, the creature returned to digging, hunching shoulders bearing a broad white swathe of fur.

Which is why they call you a caped loal. I had no notion you grew so big though. The Daish domain's striped loals are half your size.

Something in the dirt caught the loal's eye and it snatched up a wriggling millipede, cramming it into its mouth and chewing with crunches audible across the clearing. Kheda cautiously propped himself on one elbow and found his belly was crying out for something to add to the shrunken hearts of a few succulent tarit stems that were all he'd been able to find before darkness had fallen. Kheda allowed himself a grin.

Poets tell of children benighted in the forest being offered ripe fruit or tasty nuts by loals. Do you have anything you'd care to share, something without quite so many legs?

In the nut palms and thick stands of red cane, Kheda heard glory birds rousing themselves to full song. As the sun rose to flood the gully with light, a deeper, more resonant note echoed beneath their trills. Looking up, Kheda saw more loals, smaller pied ones, like those he'd seen on hunting trips with Daish Reik. Sitting upright, they were facing the sun, arras raised and basking in the promise of warmth, crooning with pleasure.

'There are many reasons to despise the northern barbarians, my son, not least the way they turn the sun and the moons into meaningless gods, no better than singing loals.'

I wonder, do these southern invaders worship false gods of their own, my father?

The ceaseless urgency of his quest drove Kheda to a sitting position. A chittering in a nut palm made Kheda and the caped loal both look up. It was a smaller beast, a female clutching a delicate infant to its chest. It sounded most indignant.

This would be your lady wife, I take it, and none too pleased that you've not brought home her breakfast.

Abruptly the female stopped her cries, turning her face uphill. Her tail curled up sharply, a long fringe of fur falling across her shoulder. She barked something at the male, who abandoned his stick to climb hand over hand up the nut palm, long tail lashing behind him. With startling speed, the two beasts leapt across the void to a tall ironwood tree, propelled by the spring of their powerful legs, strong hands clasping the trunk. In the next instant they were gone, lost in the dense green canopy of leaves. The pied loals had fled too, ringing silence telling its own tale. A blue-backed crookbeak raised raucous calls of alarm in a cane brake further up the slope and a brief echo relayed the unmistakable sound of a man's cough.

Kheda reached for Telouet's sword and thrust it through his belt before crawling towards the sparse cover of a thicket of dusty sardberry bushes. He kept a wary eye on the ground, no wish to put his hand on some millipede or scorpion stirred up by the digging loal. The cough came again, cut short. Faint but deliberate, Kheda heard a crack of dry twigs and the rustle of the tightly packed red cane stems. Some hunting party was coming stealthily down the gully.

Even if they're not hunting you, you don't want to be explaining yourself to anyone who might carry word back to Derasulla, not when you're so close to the shore, not after crossing the whole width of this cursed island.

Wishing he had ears he could twist like a loal, Kheda skirted slowly around to put the berry bushes between himself and the sounds, searching the forest for any sign of waving greenery, any flutter of disturbed birds. The sounds of men coming nearer grew suddenly louder. Kheda rose to a crouch, turning to slip away down the gully as fast as he could, still bent to stay below a pursuer's natural eye line.

A cry went up, then another, higher in the gully. Kheda straightened up and ran. He reached the stream, no more than a chain of puddles around green-stained rocks. The dark soggy ground sucked at his feet. He sank to his ankles, thrown off balance, reaching out for a sapling only to find its roots so shallow, he pulled it bodily from the pungent soil.

'Want a hand?' A hunter appeared, grinning broadly. A net slung over one shoulder, he carried a sturdy spear that he levelled at Kheda. 'Come and see what I've caught,' he shouted to his companions.

Kheda studied the mire around his feet until he saw a firm place to brace the sapling and haul himself out. By the time he'd managed, six men surrounded him. Kheda kept his face neutral, eyes downcast.

Two of them on the wrong side of the stream and only armed with daggers; that's in your favour. You'll only have four to deal with in the first instance but two of them have spears, so better pick the right moment. What would Telouet say? 'Never start a fight until you can do it on your own terms'

'What have you got to say for yourself?' Swinging a heavy, square-ended hacking blade, the leader of this hunting party walked slowly down the slope to stand face to face with Kheda.

'I have nothing to say to you,' Kheda replied curtly. 'I am just a traveller.'

The hunter's fist drove hard into Kheda's belly, just beneath his breastbone. 'You'll keep a civil tongue in your head, beggar.'

Kheda dropped to his knees, struggling to regain his breath, unable to stop the hunter as he bent and pulled at Telouet's sword, ripping it out of Kheda's belt and scoring a gouge across his naked ribs with the end of the scabbard.

'Beggar or thief? Nothing to your name but the clothes you stand up in and the weapons at your belt. Honest traveller would have a wrap against the night, some goods to trade or the tools of his craft.' The man whistled with approval as he tossed his own hacking blade to a companion, the better to study the sword. 'Scum like you shouldn't be carrying a blade like this neither.'

Kheda managed to regain his feet, his side burning and his gut aching, and strove for a conciliatory tone. 'That is my sword, you have my word on it.'

'Your master's sword, slave,' the lead hunter chided as he lifted it for a closer look. 'Gilt and silver and sapphires in the hilt besides.' He slid the scabbard a little way clear. 'And a watered steel blade. No one carries something like this outside a warlord's retinue, nor wears silks.'

All the other hunters were dressed in coarse cottons, once dyed green, now faded from countless washings and marked with stains from innumerable hunts.

'Silk's no good for the journey you've been making.' One of the others smirked at the rips and filth ruining Kheda's trousers.

No, it isn't. So why didn't you find something else to wear, you fool? It's not as if you haven't seen enough clothes left out to dry on the perfume bushes around those far-flung hill settlements. Don't you think you're going to pay for those scruples now, all those worries about some innocent getting the blame, some friendship soured by suspicion?

'We've been tracking you for a day now.' Irritated by Kheda's silence, the lead hunter shoved his shoulder to get his attention. 'Since you crossed the ridge. Lost you for a while but picked up your trail this morning.'

Kheda glanced involuntarily up towards the jagged heights still lost in the morning mist. 'Then you'll know I've done no harm, taken nothing but what the forest offers.'

'You're still a fleeing slave,' sneered one of the men, leaning on his spear.

'Daish slave, I see now.' The leader nodded at Kheda's curved dagger.

Kheda couldn't help himself. His spine stiffened, shoulders squaring defiantly.

'See him jump like a startled fowl,' another hunter commented with warm satisfaction.

'That dagger's a fine piece.' The leader swung Telouet's sword idly. 'That'll tell us whose household you've fled, once we show it to someone in the know. Then I think it'll make a fine price for bringing you back, don't you, lads?'

And as soon as Ulla Safar gets wind of this, he'll send an army through the island to find the man Daish Kheda's dagger has been taken from, dead or alive.

'I am no runaway,' Kheda said quietly.

'They're saying Daish Kheda is dead, drowned no less.' The leader leant forward, breath stale, hair and beard long unwashed. 'You've made a break for it, haven't you, out to get well clear before any new warlord is proclaimed?'

Kheda shook his head but his heart sank.

Of course. Ulla Safar will be spreading the news as widely as possible, thrilled to see anyone trying to take advantage of a Daish interregnum, all the while shaking his head with dismay. And slaves always go missing whenever a warlord dies, sometimes in droves. Sirket has no legal title to anything until he's proclaimed himself ruler and decreed inventory of the domain be taken. Ulla Safar will be more than happy for Daish losses to pile up in the interim. You didn't think to consider such possibilities, while you were crossing the highlands, admiring the scenery?

'Nothing to say?' the leader mocked, still swinging Telouet's sword. 'Run out of lies?'

'Do we take him back to Derasulla?' asked the hunter who'd taken the hacking blade.

'That's a hard route overland,' one of the others said doubtfully. 'Eight, nine days at best.'

'Body slave, swordsman, whoever he is, he'll be worth his weight in silk or sandalwood,' the leader rebuked him. 'But who will deal more honestly with us, Ulla Safar or Ulla Orhan?' He looked round for opinions.

If they think taking me back is going to be so simple, these men plainly have no idea how a body slave is trained to fight. Nor yet how a warlord's son is taught to escape assassins.

Kheda punched the lead hunter full in the throat with a sweeping uppercut. The man staggered backwards, pulled up short as Kheda dropped into a crouch, snatching Telouet's sword from his numb hands. The warlord drew it in the same fluid movement, the glittering arc of steel sending the second hunter recoiling in fear. A deft sidestep took Kheda out of the path of the man's clumsy swing with the hacking blade and a full-blooded kick in his belly shoved the choking leader full into the second hunter. Both fell heavily with a crack of bone that left the man beneath yelping in sudden agony.

The hunter with the closest spear swung his net at Kheda, weights around its edge whistling through the air. Kheda stepped forward to catch the clinging cords full around his midriff, stiffening his belly to save himself from being winded. The net bruised the raw score on his ribs but ignoring the pain, he used the whole weight of his body to pull the hunter forward on to the point of Telouet's sword, ripping into his shoulder. He knocked the man's spear aside with the scabbard in his other hand, before punching upwards, fist weighted with that same scabbard, to smash the hunter's nose to bloody pulp.

As the man fell to his knees, clutching at his face, Kheda whirled around to catch the second spearman's biting blade between sword hilt and scabbard, shoving the weapon backwards to throw the startled man off balance.

As the spearman recovered himself, Kheda raised Telouet's sword menacingly. 'I am just a traveller and you have no call to hinder me.' He shot a threatening glance at the men on the far side of the stream. Both were gaping, one with a hand on the dagger at his belt but his face making it plain he didn't fancy his chances against this unexpected warrior. The other already had both hands raised in abject surrender.

'Then I'll be on my way.' Kheda kept Telouet's sword levelled as he tore away the clinging net. No one made a move towards him. The leader of the hunting party was still sprawled on the ground, struggling to draw breath, clawing at his injured throat. The second man cowered beside him; face wretched with fear and pain as he cradled a foot twisted at an excruciating angle.

'Go and may your journey be cursed,' the second spearman snarled, on his knees beside his companion. He wadded a filthy rag frantically into the wound gaping in the man's shoulder, blood already soaking the cloth slippery beneath his fingers. The injured man whimpered, tears and slime running through his fingers as he clutched at his broken nose.

'Follow me again and I'll kill you,' Kheda said with all the menace he could muster. 'All of you.'

He backed away through a spindly thicket of sardberry bushes, barely glancing over his shoulder to see what lay in his path. An impenetrable stand of wrist-thick red cane finally halted him. Pausing, he listened to the hunters' urgent shouts of argument and lamentation ringing loudly through the forest. There was no obvious sound of pursuit. Turning, Kheda ran, twisting between nut palm saplings tangled with logen vine, his immediate concern to put as much distance between himself and the hunters as he could.

Not down the gully; if they try tracking you, revenge in mind, that's where they'll look first. What will you do then? Kill them in all truth? You've probably killed their leader as it is, crushing his windpipe like that. That shoulder wound will likely fester and it's too high up to save the hapless bastard by taking off his arm, if the black rot gets into it. What did they do to deserve that, only seeking to do their duty by their lord and Daish Sirket, returning a runaway slave?

Sour bile rising from his empty stomach like acid remorse, Kheda pushed on through the lightest patches of underbrush, trying not to slide too far down the hill. He slashed furiously at tendrils of firecreeper, at frail tandra saplings, with Telouet's bloodied sword. Finally, he broke through to a narrow, overgrown track. Sweat stinging the countless scratches he'd collected in his flight, Kheda stopped, heart pounding. With all the birds and animals fled from the noise he'd made or crouching in silent hiding, the forest was tense with stillness. He counted ten deliberate breaths. There was still no sound of pursuit.

And you'd have been easy enough to follow, noisy as a raging fire. So much for all Daish Reik's lessons in stealth and forest craftiness. Now then, get yourself in hand. Where are you in relation to the shore, to the trading beach you've been making for? Getting clear of this domain is more essential than ever now, preferably before half that hunting party's village come looking to nail your hide to a tree.

Kheda walked slowly down the tortuous path, berating himself. The forest stretched out ahead of him, all around, ever changing, always the same. The morning wore away beneath his feet. Only thirst finally put paid to his recriminations, its stranglehold tightening around his throat. Belatedly recalling one of Daish Reik's lessons, he left the path to find a bristled creeper snaking up an ironwood tree. Mindful of Agas's laughter when he'd got this trick wrong as a youth, he made his first cut as high as he could, slicing an arm's length of the dun creeper free with a second lower slash of Telouet's blade. The plant's jealously hoarded water gushed free and splashed over his face as he caught all he could in his gaping mouth, stale and woody tasting as it was.

And I wouldn't trade it for the promise of a dozen flagons of the finest golden wine.

He threw the length of cut creeper aside and such idle thoughts evaporated as he glimpsed a yellowing square of old palm fronds bright through the muted green of the living trees, some little way down the slope. Moving cautiously forward, as quietly as he could, Kheda saw it was indeed what he'd guessed; the roof of a hut, ramshackle and in need of considerable repair if the imminent rains weren't to soak anyone within as they lay in their beds. The ground all around showed more recent care though, newly dug with black earth piled high along trenches waiting impatiently to capture all the precious water that the tardy rains would bring. Kheda left the path and circled round the edge of the dusty barrenness where the underbrush had long since been taken for firewood.

Long since, but none too recently. Those sardberry bushes have a good few seasons' growth on them. There's no fowl house either, ducks or geese ready to raise a commotion if strangers come too close to a hut outside the more usual protections of a village.

Behind the sparse cover of a withered perfume bush, he hunkered down to see inside the decrepit hut's splintered shutters, hanging crooked on sagging hinges. From his vantage point, Kheda could clearly see a heap of quilts were tossed all anyhow on a narrow bed. A tumble of clothes lay on the floor, together with a single lidded cooking pot and a half-unrolled length of sturdy cotton, such as any Daish islander might use to gather up a few belongings for a short journey.

Who's making a stay here? Someone not wanting to live in such an isolated hut for the present but still making use of the fertile garden until the forest reclaims it. But where might this diligent farmer be now'! Out foraging or squatting over a privy scrape?

Kheda crept closer, the skin between his shoulder blades crawling with apprehension lest the unknown gardener return. He sheathed Telouet's sword with sudden decision, driving the hilt home with a snap. Swinging himself over the low sill of the window, he grabbed the topmost quilt and a leather thong left curling across the floor. Seeing a sweat-stained tunic, he pulled it over his head, grimacing with distaste as he fought his arms through the sleeves. Cut for a taller and fatter man, it would at least help hide his own ragged trousers from a casual glance.

Going bare-chested on to a trading beach will attract entirely too much attention and I think we've had more than enough of that this morning. So what else is there, to make you look more convincing as a traveller? You can't afford scruples, not now.

Kheda knelt and made a rapid roll of the quilt, lashing it tight. His stomach rumbled, startlingly loud in the quiet gloom. He lifted the lid off the cooking pot to find a cold smear of sailer pottage, the grain long since cooked and mixed with crushed tandra seeds, some pepper pods and salt to keep it from spoiling. Lilla fruit rinds had been dumped on top of it. After a moment's hesitation, Kheda fished out the rinds and scraped the greasy remnants out of the bottom of the pot, spitting out fragments of lilla pulp and choking the humble food down over his first instinctive revulsion.

So it's come to this, eating a lowliest islander's leavings. Is this plan sense or insanity? I don't know. All I do know is, just now, food's more use to me than pride.

Then he saw the knife that had been used to cut the fruit. It wasn't much of a knife, a short length of clumsily sharpened steel stained with juice and pitted by rust. The wooden handle was cracked where it had once got wet and been left to dry without care or oil. Kheda sat back on his heels, one hand on the hilt of Telouet's sword, the other on his own dagger. Both blades marked him out, as a man belonging to some significant household. This knife would brand its owner as the lowest of the low. Everyone scorned a man who'd reached an age of discretion without a decent dagger to call his own, born to a father who'd never managed to trade sufficient goods, skills or service to be able to give his son such a gift.

Better the lowest of the low than an escaped slave, just at the moment.

Kheda sprang on to the bed. It raised him just high enough to reach up into the crudely hewn rafters. He threaded Telouet's sword carefully into the tight-packed palm fronds, twisting it sideways so it lay flat, hidden in the roof. Shoving his dagger up to join it, he jumped off the bed, caught up the quilt, shoved the paltry knife into the sheath at his belt and ran out through the open door.

Let this be a test of my judgement here, if I get clear without being called to account for this theft. That can be an omen to show me if I'm following the right course.

Tense with expectation of outraged shouts behind him at any moment, Kheda hurried down the winding path. The ramshackle hut was soon left far behind, along with any possibility of recrimination. Some way further, he stumbled upon a wider track and, following that, found it took him out along the top of a long reach of low, broken cliffs, waves lapping dark at their base. With no option but to go on, he finally rounded a corner to stand on a shallow bluff. It took Kheda a moment to realise he was looking down on the dappled stretch of sand he'd been seeking ever since he'd seen it from a vantage point high in the uplands.

Any satisfaction at this turn of events was short lived. Kheda scowled. There were only four galleys anchored in the sheltered strait between the beach and a sprawling palm-crowned reef and only a couple of smaller sailing vessels drawn up in the shallows. A few awnings fluttered bright on the beach, hiding whatever wares were on offer but there was no one passing along the sand to look or haggle. Kheda walked on a little further to see the broad space between two hospitable stands of spinefruit trees only boasted two cook fires. A warlord's retinue for a full progress could have set up camp between them without anyone feeling unduly cramped.

How delighted you would have been, not ten days ago, to learn Ulla Safar's most notable trading beaches are being scorned by merchants and the domains people alike. What pleasure it would have been, to commiserate with fat Safar, in terms carefully calculated to let him see your satisfaction.

'It's entirely permitted to take pleasure in your enemy's misfortunes' Daish Reik had always been open about such matters. 'Mindyou, it's rarely wise to let them see you doing so, unless you have their triremes sunk below hope of rescue and your swordsmen at the gates of their final stronghold.'

But now Safar's ill luck is yours as well. What would Daish Reik have to say about that? 'You can wait for your fortunes to change, or you can make a lot of your own luck by taking any opportunity that offers itself.'

Kheda watched a rowboat from one of the galleys approaching the shore, oarsmen hampered by water casks lined up between them. Sliding down the loose earth of the cliff face, he managed to reach the beach just as the rowboat grounded on the coarse sand.

'Can I be of any help to you?' Kheda stepped forward into the lazy surf.

The rowing master threw him a rope. 'Haul us in.'

Kheda gripped and pulled, the rowing master jumping over the side to join him. The boat rocked once with protest and then grounded solidly.

'I want those casks scoured and refilled and no one goes seeing what they can see until it's done.' The rowing master scowled mock ferocious at his crew.

'Doesn't look like there's much to see here on this shore anyway,' called out one of the oarsmen as the men began lifting the empty casks over the side of the boat.

'Let me help you with your barrels,' Kheda suggested a little stiffly. 'And I could take an oar with you, when you leave here.'

'An oar?' Surprised, the rowing master reached out to take his hand, turning it palm upwards to trace the red line where the rope had pulled across it with a finger callused and hard as old leather. 'Soft hands, my friend. You may be willing but you're no oarsman and we're heading for the northern reaches as fast as we can. There's no room on our benches for anyone who can't pull all day and all the next.'

Kheda forced himself to duck his head in acceptance. 'Of course.'

The last barrel splashed into the shallows as an oarsman heaved it over the boat's side. The rowing master hesitated. 'Help us fill the water casks and that should be worth some bread.'

There's a good question for a lordly discussion of ethics with your fellow rulers, over a full belly with sweetmeats to hand as you relax on silken cushions. Is it worse to be forced to steal from an islander who has nothing worth having in the first place, or to accept the charity of some good-hearted mariner, who pities your friendless and destitute state?

The realisation of how completely he was alone went down Kheda's spine like runnels of cold water. He took a deep breath. 'Thank you.'

'Here.' Someone tossed him a scrap of sacking. 'It gets scoured with plenty of sand or we're drinking green slime inside a couple of days.'

Kheda leaned to reach down inside one of the wide barrels, inadvertently clashing heads with another rower. 'Sorry.'

'Scrub as hard as you can.' The oarsman grunted with effort as he scooped a handful of gritty sand into the barrel.

Kheda did his best to do the same. It was horribly uncomfortable work, bent double yet still working at full stretch, the rim of the cask digging into his midriff. His breath echoed harsh in the confines of the wood and the man working with him didn't smell any too fresh.

He probably thinks you stink bad enough to scare fish. And you won't be finding Telouet ready with hot water, perfumed soaps and softly scented towels. The best you can hope for is a wetting in the sea and scouring yourself with sand. Ah, so be it. If I'm reduced to beggary, I can still be clean.

'That should do it!' The rower stood up with an explosive gasp. 'Let's get it rinsed and refilled.'

'Right.' Kheda toppled the barrel over and gave it a shove towards the feeble spring staining the crumbling cliff face.

'Get them refilled before they dry out too much,' called the rowing master. 'Spring one of the staves and I'll thrash you with it.'

There was precious little water in the pool at the base of the bluff so rinsing the barrels free of sand was an awkward and laborious process. The cool of the water didn't come amiss though, not with the sun sailing high overhead. Kheda was startled to realise it was nearly noon.

'That's the last, is it?' The rowing master reappeared as the last cask had its top hammered securely back on. He handed Kheda a misshapen loaf of flat sailer bread, split and filled with smoked fingerfish. 'Right, lads, let's get this lot aboard and we can be on our way' The rowers left Kheda by the meagre pool without comment, no one sparing him so much as a backward glance.

No one wants your help getting the barrels back, even if they are heavier and more unwieldy now. No one wants to raise your hopes that you might be allowed aboard their galley. That's their choice and they've made it. What are your choices? To start with, not to stand here forlorn like some abandoned hound. You're entitled to that much pride.

Chewing on the bread and pungent fish, Kheda strolled along the sand towards the camping ground between the shade trees. Those men lounging around the ashes of the burnt-out fires spared him a glance, not hostile, not welcoming, barely curious.

They've all seen beggars before, after all, scavenging around the trading beaches, no domain to claim their allegiance, no island to call home, no village to shelter and feed them.

Uncomfortable at seeing himself through such people's eyes, Kheda kept walking until he passed the far stand of shade trees and found a broken line of grey-stained rocks running across the beach, like stumps of broken teeth in a weathered jawbone washed clean by the seas. He walked down to the water and on into it, washing himself clean as best he could. Coming back on to the beach, he enjoyed a moment's blissful cool before the unwelcome hot wind that would blow unceasing till sunset dried him. The fickle tides had cast up a curious array of debris among the rocks: dull urchin shells and knobbled rusty fragments of reef crab legs, rags of seaweed dried to papery twists.

Then a hard white glint caught Kheda's eye. Crouching, he swept aside the detritus to uncover a piece of ivory. It was the broken tip of a horned fish's twisted rapier, not long enough in the water for sand and sea to dull its sheen. It was barely scuffed. Kheda closed his fist around the white spiral. It felt warm and vital in his grasp.

Ivory. Incorruptibility in its whiteness, an emblem of rank in its scarcity and its durability. Sea ivory no less; a yet more potent symbol, coming from a beast of the waters that carries a horn like some animal of the land. Learned warlords have long written treatises, debating what such a thing can denote. Every theory differs but for one thing: there must be nameless evils in the deeps, to prompt such a mighty sea beast to wield such a weapon. Sea ivory washing up on a beach must always be an urgent call to arms.

'Any portent that comes unsought and unheralded is likely to be of the greatest significance.' That's what Daish Retk told you time and again. Can you trust this sign? Are you far enough away from the taint of magic to trust your intuition for the unseen currents of present and future? How can you tell?

Kheda stowed the ivory deep into his paltry quilt bundle before turning back towards the twin stands of shade trees. As he walked, he searched the sands, bending down, picking up shells, keeping some and discarding others.

'What are you looking for?' A merchant with no customers to reward his diligence strolled over, open ochre robe flapping over brightly embroidered trousers, a thick gold chain around his neck.

Kheda nodded an acknowledgement but continued looking. 'Storm eyes, well-matched ones, ten of them.'

'Here's one.' The merchant was happy to join in the search to alleviate his own boredom. 'Oh, no, it's broken.' He tossed the creamy shard away.

'I'm looking for the ones with the darker inside.' Kheda held up a white oval, its edges curling over towards each other, serrated edges not quite meeting. A rich brown sheen spread up grooves leading down to the hidden inner face, like lashes fringing a nearly closed eye.

'How about this one?' The merchant reached for another shell; a line marking sun-darkened skin from paler flesh showed as the sleeve of his robe slid up his arm. 'What are we doing, anyway, making a necklace?'

Kheda took the shell and compared it to his current haul. 'This one's a bit too pink inside.' A pace later an unbidden thought made him grin.

'What's the joke?' the merchant asked genially, stirring the sand with a darkly tanned foot.

Kheda cleared his throat. 'Nothing, just recalling something my father once told me.'

'The darker ones are storm eyes, plain enough. The pinker ones, well, let's just say they can remind a man at an age of discretion of something else entirely. You can gather a double handful of those if you're looking for particular divinations concerning a woman's fertility or the consequences of childbirth.'

'Either of these any good?' The merchant stooped and stood up with shells in each hand.

'That one, certainly' Kheda took it. 'The other's a bit too yellow.'

The merchant looked at him, amused. 'Why so particular?'

Kheda shot the man a challenging look. 'I will be casting them for a portent.'

'You're a soothsayer?' Rapid understanding replaced the merchant's incredulity. 'Of course.'

'What else could you be, so ragged and filthy?' At least you've the good manners to leave that much unsaid, my friend. And it's true, isn't it, after a fashion? Why lie, especially when you're looking to test your skills? Daish Reik told you often enough, 'Speak the truth as far as possible, certainly when taking any augury. If you cannot govern the truth in your own words, how will you recognise the truths spoken by omens?'

'My father was a seer of sorts,' Kheda replied with an attempt at carelessness. 'I have something of his skill.'

'I've not seen you in these reaches before,' the merchant commented.

'I've not travelled much hereabouts. I had to leave my wife—' The break of anguish in his own voice surprised Kheda as his situation struck him with a brutality he'd not had to face on his resolute journey across the vast island, focused only on the path ahead, finding something, anything to eat, some shelter for the night. 'My children—' The words stuck in his throat.

Rekha and Sain, Sirket and Dau, Efi, Vida and Noi, little Mie and the unknown son or daughter that Sain is to bear. Will you ever see them again?

'I didn't mean to pry,' the merchant apologised, distressed.

'You weren't to know.' Kheda managed a wry smile as dark amusement lanced his hurt.

Let that pain bleed into your words when anyone asks and you surely won't be expected to explain yourself.

A gust of wind fluttered the nearby awning. The merchant seized on the chance to change the subject. 'I don't know where you come from but in my home reaches, we call this wind the dragon's breath. Foul, isn't it? Why don't you come and share my shade?'

'I will and gladly.' Kheda followed the man to the brightly striped canvas efficiently erected over a wide array of bells and chimes that he had displayed on a sturdy length of green cotton. Some of the bells were large enough for a village's talisman pole and the chimes went all the way down to straw-fine cylinders small enough to sew on a dancing gown's hem, for a gleaming fringe of silvery sound.

'Will those shells tell you when the rains will finally get here, before we all drop dead of the heat?' The merchant sat down on a travel-beaten chest, half covered by an assortment of drapery. He wiped sweat from his forehead with an exaggerated grimace.

'I can read the weather for you, if you want.' Kheda sat cross-legged, leaning forward to draw a perfect circle in the sand. He glanced up at the sun and then deftly notched the rim to mark the quarters and the three aspects within each quarter. 'This is looking for something else.' He felt his hand trembling so cast the shells before his apprehension could make a nonsense of any divination.

The merchant was intrigued. 'What do you see?'

Kheda looked up at the sky to make absolutely sure he had the earthly compass correctly aligned before allowing himself a look at the sand. 'Travel.'

The merchant chuckled. 'That's no surprise hereabouts.'

'And a successful journey.' Kheda felt a release going far beyond his own laugh as he studied the circle. No fewer than five shells had fallen within the arc denoting travel and all had their open sides uppermost. A most favourable omen.

'Anything else?' The merchant looked hopefully at the sand.

'Friends.' That was where four of the shells had fallen, the next most significant indicator.

'Old friends or new?' wondered the merchant, intrigued.

'New friends.' Kheda nodded with growing satisfaction. 'The shells are close to the edge of the circle. Old friends would be marked in the middle.'

'What about that one?' The merchant pointed at the last shell.

Kheda saw it had fallen on the cusp between friendship and enmity, closed side turned towards him in warning. 'I'd say that's just a reminder not to be too trusting.'

You haven't left every foe behind in Derasulla and don't forget it.

'That's not a divination that I've seen before but your face says it's offering sound advice,' approved the merchant. 'Would you cast for me?'

Kheda looked at the merchant, studying his dress properly for the first time. His embroidered trousers were striped with lines of little animals and trees, upside down from Kheda's perspective but entirely the right way for the merchant when he was sitting down. That style was a peculiarity of the furthest eastern reaches, he recalled. 'You're a long way from home.'

'Indeed.' The merchant waved a rueful arm at the all but empty beach. 'And picked a dire time to come voyaging, with all these upsets in the south.'

'You shan't make it back to the eastern reaches before the rains.' Kheda checked the horizon from ingrained habit. 'Do you have a safe anchorage to head for?'

'We're going to cut across to Endit waters,' nodded the merchant. 'And carrying a boatload of unsold goods with us,' he added apologetically, 'so we've no room to take a tame songbird on board, never mind a passenger.'

'That's all right; I'm going north, not east.' Kheda scooped up the shells and poured them carefully from one hand to the other. 'You spoke of trouble in the south. I'll trade you a reading of these for whatever you know.' He hoped the merchant wouldn't see the tension stiffening his spine into a rod of iron.

'There's magic abroad south of here, friend,' said the merchant bluntly. 'I've heard it from too many people for it to be falsehood.'

'In Redigal waters?' Kheda wondered with studied casualness.

'Nowhere so close.' The merchant shook his head with unfeigned relief. 'Chazen is all I've heard, magical fires setting the islands alight and everyone fleeing to Daish waters. Oh, have you heard the rumour that Daish Kheda is likely dead? Some people are wondering if that's just coincidence or malice working ahead of the magic'

'I heard something about that.' Kheda didn't dare look up and meet the man's eyes. 'What do you reckon to Daish Sirket's chances, if he is to be warlord?'

'If he's as much his father's son as Daish Kheda was son to Daish Reik, he should be strong enough to stand up against anything short of outright wizardry,' said the merchant stoutly. 'I shall hold to that thought next time I sharpen my blade, to sharpen the lad's luck.'

'Any portent that comes unsought and unheralded is likely to be of the greatest significance.' And how often did Daish Reik tell you truth often speaks through chance-heard words?

'Is there any word of this magic coming north?' Kheda asked, tension knotting in the pit of his stomach.

'No.' The merchant shook his head with welcome certainty. 'Not with the rains due any day'

Kheda smiled warmly at the man. 'Let's see what the shells have to say about your voyage to Endit waters.'

He threw the shells and looked up with a smile. 'I'd say you'll have fair winds to take you there and good fortune when you make landfall.'

'What are you at, friend?'

Kheda looked up to see three other men walking up the beach towards them, their attention caught by the only activity on the beach. Like his new acquaintance, they were evidently merchants who sailed as their own shipmasters.

'Having my fortune told. Our friend here's a soothsayer.' The merchant narrowed his eyes against the bright sun. 'I reckon I'll be under way before the day's end. There's no trade to be had here.'

'I'll probably follow you,' shrugged one of the shipmasters, wearing an Endit dagger with its sharply back-bent blade. 'We only had each other to deal with yesterday and it doesn't look as if we'll do any better today.' Wiry rather than muscular, his beard and hair were freshly plaited and he wore white cotton robes immaculate despite the inadequacies of the campground.

'If we all stay, we may yet tempt some of the Ulla people down from the hills,' protested a second, thickset man with grizzled hair and beard, his voice gravelly with years of shouting over wind and wave. Kheda noted a Taer blade with its deer-hoof handle at his belt. 'All we'll be sure of if we leave is sailing back home with a full half of the cargo we set out with. Where's the profit in that?'

'Endit Nai may not be thrilled to see me report such paltry trade but at least I'll be able to promise him a voyage as soon as the weather clears, with plenty of goods all ready to ship.' The dapper merchant had plainly made up his mind. 'And maybe this uproar in the south will be past,' he added with a meaningful look at the Taer shipmaster. 'I imagine that's one of the things keeping the Ulla people close to their huts.'

'There's no word of that kind of trouble anywhere north of Chazen,' protested the Taer man.

'What does the soothsayer say?' The third galley master stood, weight on his back foot, arms folded as he watched the other two argue. All three wore the same style of clothes, sleeveless tunic and trousers like any other sailor, but his were of better cloth, better cut and embroidered sea serpents coiled around his shoulders. He was also as much of a barbarian as Sain's slave Hanyad, though younger, barely Kheda's age. The sun had burnished his skin to a coppery sheen and lightened his hair to a dull gold, as unexpected among the dark heads all around as a Mirror Bird suddenly alighting in their midst.

'Can you tell us when the first rains will arrive?' demanded the Endit shipmaster.

'Can you tell us if we'll prosper for a longer stay here?' interrupted the Taer merchant.

'I can read the auguries for you,' Kheda answered calmly. 'Whether I will or not depends what you can do for me in return.'

That silenced the Endit shipmaster and the Taer merchant both.

'What do you want?' asked the barbarian, amused.

Time to test your luck, Daish Kheda.

'Passage north.' Kheda was momentarily disconcerted to see the man had green eyes, not unlike his own. 'I am no rower, you can see that from my hands, but you have my promise that I'll do my best. I can carry water to your oarsmen, take a turn for a tired man, tell you everything I see of the weather and seas ahead.' He poured the shells from one hand to the other again.

'I don't think my rowing master would thank me for you.'

Kheda wondered if the Endit shipmaster had some reason to look so suspicious or whether it was just a habit.

'I can take you to Tule waters,' offered the Taer shipmaster grudgingly.

'How far north do you want to go?' asked the barbarian. 'We're an Ikadi ship and bound for home.'

The other merchants looked at him, surprised.

'He's the closest thing we're going to find to an augur on this shore,' the Ikadi captain pointed out. 'You can go looking in the villages if you like, but even if you find someone who can read you the portents, it'll cost you dear, you know that.'

Kheda was searching his memory for any mention of the Ikadi domain.

How far north is that? Nearly all the way to the unbroken lands? This has to be an omen in my favour. You were right, my father. Seize an opportunity and you can make your own good luck.

'I'll travel as far as you are going.' He smiled at the barbarian. 'And read the weather and the auguries for you all the way.'

'You've certainly got a good trade out of that.' The Taer shipmaster looked at Kheda with disfavour. 'What will it cost me for your insights, now I can't offer you passage?'

'A pair of trousers,' Kheda said boldly. 'A tunic, not new if you can't spare them but clean, if you please.'

'We should have had our pick of four or five soothsayers on this beach,' grumbled the Endit merchant. 'Last time there was that one with the chest of crystals and a silken star map to cast them on.'

'This time, there's just me.' Kheda smiled at the man. 'And if you want any warning of foul weather or anything worse coming up from the south, it'll cost you a bowl and a spoon and a water skin.'

'If your father was a soothsayer, was your mother a trader?' chuckled the eastern merchant who'd first befriended him.

Kheda winked at the man. 'Of sorts.'

'Oh very well,' said the Endit merchant with considerable ill grace. 'It's a deal for my part.'

'If there wasn't this uproar in the south—' The Taer shipmaster broke off. 'All right.'

'Did you all share the same fire?' Kheda stood up and hitched his bundle up on to his shoulder.

'We did.' The Endit merchant looked dubious all the same.

Kheda led the three galley masters and the friendly eastern merchant towards the camping ground, stopping at the first blackened circle. 'This one?'

'And all our crews gathered firewood,' the Ikadi barbarian confirmed.

'Then we can take the augury here.' Kheda bent to pull a half-burnt stick from the ring of rocks and used the charcoaled end to score a circle on the ground. He went on to mark every quarter and arc in full, carefully drawing the signs for each constellation around the outside. When he glanced up, he saw the Ikadi shipmaster consulting a small compass.

He nodded approval at Kheda. 'You have north exactly.'

Kheda grinned. 'My father taught me well.'

'What now?' asked the Endit merchant impatiently.

'Tell us the prospects if we stay on this beach in hopes of more trade,' said the Taer shipmaster quickly.

Kheda was about to cast the shells on to the circle, when a sudden thought held his hand.

You could give them any reading you wanted. You're not Daish Kheda, whose every pronouncement will be talked over, compared with previous utterances, your words scrupulously examined in the light of whatever events might later confirm or contradict them. No one will ever see a resemblance to the Daish warlord, once glimpsed on a distant trireme's deck or in some splendid procession aglitter with silks and jewels. You're nobody, a soothsayer they'll likely never see again.

Nobody but still a man with power. Not Daish Kheda's power but power all the same. You could foretell the direst consequences if they stay here, and not only for now, but if they ever return. You could predict disaster for any ship venturing into Ulla waters between now and the return of the dragon star to signal the new year. These mariners would pass the word to their fellows; they wouldn't dare not. You could do untold harm to the Ulla domain, with just a few well-chosen words. Beggarly oracle you may be but what reason would such a man have to lie?

'Well?' The Ikadi shipmaster looked intently at him with those green eyes so like his own.

No. I won't forswear myself even for the sake of revenge on Ulla Safar.

Kheda lifted his face to the blazing bowl of the heavens as he cast the shells and then looked down.

'There's certainly no wealth in your futures here,' he said with some surprise. That arc of the earthly compass was entirely devoid of shells.

'How so?' The Taer shipmaster stared at the ground as if he expected to see words writing themselves in the dirt.

'What will the future bring?' demanded the Endit merchant.

'Travel, for all three of you. Honour, for two.' Kheda pursed his lips. 'Friendship, for the third.'

'Which of us would that be?' enquired the Ikadi barbarian.

Kheda glanced at him. 'I cannot tell, not without making individual readings.'

'What else do you see?' The Endit merchant was still gazing at the shell-strewn circle.

Kheda considered the rest of the shells. One lay within the arc that signified health, open side up, another close by within the arc of children. Without knowing more about these men, it was impossible to say whose family they might signify. Closed face up, the last had fallen into the arc for siblings. All three were at the midpoint between the centre of the circle and its outer edge.

'Your families will be glad to have you home again,' he said firmly. 'The sooner the better.'

'I hardly need a soothsayer to tell me that,' scowled the Taer shipmaster. 'Not that they'll be pleased to welcome me without my lord's favour to see us fed through the rains.'

'Better safe at home if a little hungry than drowned with a belly full of salt water. That's plain enough for me.' The Endit merchant sighed heavily.

'I suppose that earns you some cast-offs from my rowing master,' grunted the Taer shipmaster grudgingly. 'I'll wait for a better choice of soothsayer before I ask anything more.'

'Your word's good enough for me.' The Endit merchant smiled with better humour. 'I'll send your recompense to the Springing Fish, shall I?'

'If that's the galley I'm shipping on,' replied Kheda with a glance at the Ikadi barbarian, who nodded his confirmation.

'As you say, it's plain enough we'll not prosper here.' The Ikadi captain bent to gather up Kheda's shells, handing them to him with a smile. 'Bee!' His sudden shout turned heads by the shade trees. 'Let's make ready to get underway while we still have the tide in our favour!'

The crewmen from the other galleys didn't wait for their shipmasters' orders but immediately started collecting themselves and their gear, piling things on the sand by the water, a plain signal to the ships to send rowing boats ashore.

The eastern merchant nodded a friendly farewell to Kheda. 'My thanks for your reading of my path. I hope your journey prospers, and here's my payment for your augury, with my hopes that you find what you've lost.' He handed Kheda a small gold chime, the kind Janne liked to have hanging in her windows for the breezes to stir.

Startled, Kheda couldn't find a reply before the merchant moved away, calling out to his boat for his second in command to come help pack away their merchandise. All the lesser merchants were taking down their awnings now, wares packed back into their coffers and waiting to be hauled back on to their little ships.

Kheda turned the little gold bell over and over in his hands, spirits rising.

You did Ulla Safar a bad turn after all, and no need to dishonour yourself to do it either. You've passage further north than you could possibly have hoped for and a gift to give Janne on your return. What more proof do you need that you're on the right path, that your quest will prosper?

'What can you tell me of the rains, friend, if we're sailing today?' The Ikadi shipmaster looked quizzically at him.

Kheda tucked the bell securely inside his quilt bundle along with the twist of sea ivory and studied the skies. A tracery of white was spun out over the islands hiding the southern horizon but there was no hint of anything more substantial, no hint of the fine milky veil that would turn the sky the colour of mother of pearl, before the rising storms turned it the dour hue of an oyster's shell. Walking towards the shore, he looked for the run of the surf past the reef, the colour of the water out in the open seas. Turning to the land, he picked out the telltale perfume trees in the tangled scrub above the beach. Their leaves were curled, silvery undersides showing. The liquid song of a glory bird floated out over the trees, its mate joining in with a charming harmony.

'There'll be the afternoon hot wind and the evening showers but there's at least three more days before the first true storms arrive,' he said confidently.

The Ikadi shipmaster's forehead wrinkled in thought. 'Which will see us well into the main strait through Seik waters. That's sheltered enough for us to row through all but the worst weather. So, friend,' he added. 'If you're crewing on my ship, I'll know your name.'

'Cadirn.' His mother, Zari Daish, had had a body slave called that when he'd been little. The name had been close enough to Kheda's own to catch his attention most times she'd called.

'I'm Godine.' The Ikadi shipmaster walked towards one of his galley's boats, drawn up on the shoreline to load up their goods. 'We don't go much south of here,' he continued casually. 'But I wouldn't care to get on bad terms with any of the warlords. On the other hand, there are some warlords I wouldn't care to deal with, not given the way they treat their people.' He gave Kheda a meaningful look. 'Their people who don't have the choice to pack up their pots and pans and take a ship to the next island if they don't like the rule they're living under. If there's a domain where you'd better stay aboard whenever we make landfall, I'd appreciate knowing. You need not tell me any more than that.'

'My—' Kheda bit his lip, thinking fast. 'I have enemies; I will not lie to you. They think I am dead, but perhaps it would be as well for me to stay out of view until we are clear of Ulla or Endit waters, Tule too.'

'I was a slave,' Godine smiled with apparent inconsequentiality. 'You can see that much by my eyes and hair. Ikadi Nass bought me and my mother from Mahaf Coru's father. I was too young to remember much about that life, and my mother won't ever talk about it, but she has always told me we were lucky to be sold as we were. She'll carry lash marks to her grave, that much I do know.' He shot a sideways look at Kheda.

'And you rose to become master of that ship, the Springing Fish, is it?' Kheda looked at the galley to avoid meeting Godine's eyes.

'My mother bore Ikadi Nass a daughter, so we were both made free.' The mariner smiled, proud. 'My lord found me a place on his galleys and I haven't looked back.'

'Unless there's a storm coming up astern,' commented Kheda with a smile.

Godine looked at him, face serious. 'I'm hoping you'll be warning me about any storms coming up from the south, of any nature.'

Kheda looked at him. 'I will do all that I can.' That much was no lie.

'Good.' Godine gestured towards the galley's waiting rowboat. 'The first thing you can do is learn how to use an oar.'