Times assassin, p.8
Time's Assassin, page 8
part #3 of The Islevale Cycle Series
By now, Mara knew the Skate well enough to recognize her from distance, even through rain. She was a three-masted merchant ship, a good deal larger than the Kants that frequented these waters, and a few hands longer than the Dove had been. Here, among the Ring Isles and not so far from the Axle, she always flew an Aiyanthan flag.
Thunder rumbled, distant enough that Mara hadn’t noticed any lightning. She retreated into the house and added a log to the fire. Tobias and Sofya would be wet and cold when they returned, and at this point, they might reach the house before she Spanned back from the ship. She stirred the coals, buttered a piece of dark bread. When she crossed back to the door to check the firth again, a ship lurked in the gray at the mouth of the inlet.
She watched it carve closer to land, finished eating her bread while it slowed and stopped. Soon its sails were furled. She assumed the crew had lowered her anchor. She couldn’t see the flag for the rain, but she knew this was Larr’s ship.
She retrieved the sextant from beneath the bed she shared with Tobias, removed her overshirt, and stripped off the rest of her clothes. As always, she took extra care with the calibration of her device. She was an accomplished Spanner, but even a small miscalculation would dump her into the surf rather than onto the deck of the Gray Skate . She had no interest in swimming today.
Larr steered her ship to the same spot each time. Mara knew the settings. Still, she checked them twice, set her feet carefully, and, finally, flicked the release.
The gap seized her. A screaming gale. Raindrops as hard as pebbles, as sharp as needles. Water blinded her, filled her mouth and nose, making it so hard to breathe, she might as well have been Walking through the airless between. She wondered if she would drown before she reached the safety of the ship.
On it went. Combined with the gap wind, the rain leeched warmth from her body, leaving her shaking and terrified that even this small motion would throw her off course.
Then it was over, and she dropped into the chill waters of the firth. She slipped under, nearly losing her grip on her sextant, came up sputtering, and turned a quick circle as she treaded water.
She had missed Larr’s ship by some distance. Fortunately, sailors on the vessel were watching for her. Already, they had lowered a pinnace to the rain-roiled surface of the inlet and were piloting it in her direction.
Her arms and legs felt leaden, and the cold made breathing difficult. She marked the pinnace’s approach, grateful for the urgency with which Larr’s crew rowed. Before long, strong hands
gripped her arms and pulled her into the small vessel. Someone draped a blanket around her shoulders and wrapped a second around her legs. She set her sextant on the floor of the boat and flexed her cold, cramped fingers.
The blankets smelled of brine and tar, roasted fish, and stale ale. In short, it smelled like the hold of a ship, and it took her back to the turns she had spent with Tobias and Sofya aboard the Sea Dove . Their days with Larr’s crew had been fraught, perilous, marked by death and pursuit and more than a few sea-roughening storms.
Still, she missed the camaraderie of being part of a crew, the sweet air and freedom of sailing across open sea. She missed the hold, where Tobias and she had consummated their burgeoning love.
She was bound to Tobias by vow and passion; she would journey with him wherever chance or purpose took them. And if necessary, she would give her life to keep the princess safe. But if she’d had her way, even after their battle with Orzili in the Sea of Gales, she would have chosen for the three of them to remain with Captain Larr and her sailors. She found life on land...confining.
Rain continued to douse the firth as the sailors oared her back to the Gray Skate . Despite the blankets, she shivered uncontrollably, her teeth clacking, her breathing still ragged.
When they reached the vessel, two men she didn’t know helped her up the rat lines to the ship’s deck. There she was greeted by Bramm and Moth, Jacq and old Yadreg, and, finally, Captain Larr herself. Larr had added new crew after that bloody night west of the Ring Isles. Some of them Mara now recognized, others she didn’t. She couldn’t help but search the deck for Ermond and Gwinda and some of the others who died helping them protect Sofya. Only three turns had passed; each visit to this ship still felt bittersweet. Tobias couldn’t Span, and he didn’t dare board the Skate on those occasions when she made port in Duvyn. The truth was, Mara wasn’t sure he would have come aboard even had there been no danger. The wounds were too raw.
“I’m glad to see you, Missus Lijar,” the captain said, a smile softening the angular face, rain plastering dark hair to her brow. “Can I offer you hot tea, or perhaps hot rum?”
“I’d t-take b-both about now,” Mara said through chattering teeth.
Larr put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the stern and her quarters. “It’s warmer in my cabin, not to mention dry.”
Mara didn’t argue.
They retreated into her quarters and shut the door. It was comfortable within, the space bright with lamps. Larr presented her with dry clothes and turned her back as Mara dressed.
“Tobias and the princess are well?” Larr asked, speaking to the back wall of the cabin.
“They are, thank you.” She pulled on a cotton shirt. “I’m dressed.”
The captain took her seat, as did Mara.
“Do you have news?” Larr asked.
“Less than I would like. Duvyn’s duke has sent messages to other nobles throughout Daerjen. They say nothing of Sofya, of course.
They speak vaguely of opposing the Sheraighs. He’s had few replies, and no commitments of aid. So far.”
“Even from Trohsden?”
A knock at the door kept Mara from answering. The captain called,
“Enter,” and a young man stepped into the cabin bearing a cup of steaming tea. He handed it to Mara and left them. She wrapped her hands around the cup, breathed in the steam, which was redolent of black leaf and sweetpine.
“Trohsden is a long way,” she said, in answer to Larr’s question.
“We don’t know for certain that the missives have even been delivered yet.”
Larr didn’t answer, and Mara wasn’t sure she believed her own reasoning. Yes, Trohsden was far to the north, but surely by now the letters dispatched by the duke of Duvyn had reached the northern highlands. Trohsden had yet to reply. Myles, the duke there, had been a loyal supporter of the Hayncalde Supremacy, and no friend to Sheraigh. His silence was ominous to say the least.
“Daerjen’s nobles are still reeling from the Sheraigh Assertion.
They may not be ready to oppose the new supremacy.”
“They may entertain ambitions of their own,” Larr said.
Mara and Tobias had considered this. One more complication in a plan that remained unformed and dauntingly bold.
“Yes,” was all she said.
Larr considered her, sympathy in her gaze. Mara could guess at her thoughts. She and Tobias might have looked like adults—the result of their Walks back through time, which aged them some fourteen years—but they were barely more than children, she a turn or two shy of her seventeenth birthday, and Tobias a few turns past what would have been, in a different future, his sixteenth.
“Who knows of Sofya?” the captain asked. “Forgive me. Nava.”
“Only Risch. We’re not ready to trust so much in anyone else.”
“I believe that’s wise.”
“Eventually we’ll have to tell others.”
“Yes, but not yet.”
They lapsed into silence. Mara sipped her tea.
“What news from beyond Daerjen?” she asked after some time. “I take it you’ve found no chronofors.”
“I would have told you straight away if I had. No, there are none in the usual places. Belsan, Hayncalde, Fanquir, even Caszuvaar.
We’ve made inquiries—as quietly as possible, naturally. We’ve found nothing.”
“Well, one is bound to show up eventually.”
The captain gave a slow shake of her head. “I don’t think so.
It’s been too long. I haven’t seen one in more than a year now.
That’s too unusual to be a coincidence.”
Mara’s stomach knotted. “What are you saying?”
“I believe your enemies are hoarding them.” She laughed, low and dry. “That might be too strong a word. There wouldn’t be enough of them to hoard. But I suspect Orzili and his friends are buying up whatever devices appear in the major markets. They don’t want you going back in time, and so they’re doing the one thing they can to prevent it.”
This possibility hadn’t occurred to her, though it should have.
She wondered if Tobias had considered it.
“Well,” she said, voice flat, “keep searching. Please.”
“Of course.” A pause, and then, “We spotted Belvora over Qyrshen.” Larr said this in the same tone she might have used to speak of a change in the weather, or the price of baviseed in the markets. “Others report seeing them over Fairisle.”
Mara flinched at the words, recalling too many battles with the winged demons, and thinking again of Ermond, who had died fighting one in the waters near the Knot.
“I assume they’ll find us eventually.”
“Maybe. They might not think to look on Daerjen. No one would expect you to venture so close to Hayncalde, much less settle there.”
“They’re hunters,” Mara said, “and we possess magick. In time, they’ll find us.”
“And what will you do?”
Mara shrugged. “We’ll run, we’ll fight if we have to, and we’ll find a new home.”
That look again: sympathy shading toward pity.
Mara drank her tea and stared at one of the lamps rather than meet Larr’s gaze.
They spoke for another quarter bell, discussing trifles—markets and storms, Sofya’s latest exploits, and the people Mara and Tobias had encountered in Little Duvyn. Too soon, it was time for Mara to face another flight through the Spanning gap.
She stood, gripped the captain’s proffered hand.
“We’ll be back this way in another turn or so,” Larr said. “From here we head north and west, to Tirayre and Herjes, perhaps to Milnos.” She grimaced. “I usually avoid the Shield, but this time of year they have excellent oils and savory fruits.” She shrugged. “Gold is gold.”
“Of course,” Mara said. “I wish you success.”
“Thank you. Should you need help before we return...”
Mara forced a smile. “We have the names you gave us.”
Other merchant captains, men and women Larr trusted. Unknown to Tobias and her, however. She doubted they would seek such aid, even in the most dire of circumstances. Orzili’s reach was too great, Tobias’s fears too deep.
They left the cabin. To Mara’s relief, the rain had slowed to a chilling mist. Maybe she wouldn’t Span into a tree trunk on the way home.
She faced Larr. “Thank you, Captain. Again, and as always.”
The captain embraced her, something she had only done once before, the day Mara and Tobias left the Sea Dove .
“May the Two keep you safe,” the woman murmured. “All of you.”
Touched as Mara was by the display, she was even more alarmed.
Did the captain sense perils to which she and Tobias were oblivious?
Larr released her. “We’ll leave you to Span back.” She motioned her crew toward the bow and pointed to a spot on the aft deck.
“Leave the clothes there.”
Mara nodded, heaved a breath. Then she removed her clothes, aimed her sextant, and thumbed the release.
The gap swallowed her again.
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She stumbled out of the wind and cold onto dried leaves and rich loam.
“Mama!”
Sofya barreled into her, nearly knocking her over.
Tobias enveloped her in a blanket that was softer than those on the ship. It smelled of wood smoke and spruce and him. Home. He kissed her forehead.
“You must be freezing.”
She could only nod.
He walked her into the house and sat her beside the hearth. Sofya followed and climbed into Mara’s lap, telling her a story about the market that Mara struggled to follow. She gathered that a peddler had given her sweets, over Tobias’s objections, and that Sofya had eaten all of them.
“Well, that sounds very exciting,” Mara said, when she finished her tale. To Tobias she said, “Did you find fruit?”
“We did. And bread, and fowl for tonight’s supper.”
He brought her a slice of crane fruit—tart, succulent, crisp.
Guilt at her earlier longing for life at sea lanced her heart.
Notwithstanding all their precautions, and the constant fear that hung over their home, they were making a good life here in the headlands—a comfortable home, fine food, love and laughter and passion. Many passed all their years without any of these things.
Mara had them in abundance.
“Tell me about Larr,” Tobias said.
Sofya leaned back against Mara and sang a song Mara had taught her, one she had learned turns ago while at sea.
Mara related her conversation with the captain, skirting some matters so as not to alarm Sofya. She did mention Larr’s theory about the chronofors, and she asked Tobias if the possibility had occurred to him.
“No,” he said. “It makes sense, though, and it brings me back to an idea I had a qua’turn ago. I should have mentioned it to you sooner.”
She raised her brows, questioning.
He shook his head, darted a glance at Sofya. “Later.”
Curiosity, and just a touch of fear, prickled her skin. For now, she bit back her questions.
When she was warm, Mara dressed, and together she and Tobias began to prepare their dinner, which promised to be a feast. She was famished from her Spanning, and content for the balance of this day and the evening to think only of herbs and broths, fowl and tubers and greens.
The three of them sang and played and ate. After their meal, Tobias told the princess a story, or rather an installment in a saga he had been spinning for turns. Once she was asleep, Mara and Tobias took to their own bed in the candlelight and quietly, tenderly made love.
After, in the shifting amber glow of that single candle, Tobias revealed to her what he had been considering.
“We’ve been looking for a chronofor forever it seems,” he whispered to her, his breath, warm and scented with wine, tickling her neck. “And for a time, while we were on the Dove , and even after we left the ship, doing so made sense.”
Mara watched him, tracing the strong profile with her eyes.
“But?” she prompted.
“Maybe there’s another way to get a chronofor.”
She frowned. “I’m not following.”
“What if we found a Binder who would be willing to make us one, or to repair mine?”
Mara didn’t know what to say. “You want to leave here?”
“Not forever. Not even for that long. But if Larr is right—and you seem to believe she is—we’re never going to happen upon a chronofor. We only have the sextant because Droë took it from Orzili and gave it to us.”
“The risks—”
“I know.”
They lay without speaking for some time, the only noises Sofya’s soft snores, the crackle of their fire, and the rustle of wind in trees outside.
“I wouldn’t even know where to go,” she said at length. She didn’t like this idea, but she couldn’t deny that it made sense.
“There are three Binders in Daerjen.” At her look, he added, “I asked in Little Duvyn.”
“Dangerous.”
“I was careful. It was a question buried in a lengthy discussion of the isle’s most powerful courts in the wake of the Assertion.
Which houses have the biggest armies, the most gold, the most Travelers. And which ones have Binders.”
“Clever.”
He kissed her neck. “Thank you.”
“So? Where?”
“Hayncalde and Sheraigh, of course.” He paused. “And Trohsden.”
“Tobias—”
“We need to know what Myles is thinking,” he said. “He hasn’t replied to Risch’s letter, and we can’t possibly move against Sheraigh until he does.”
“I know that—”
He raised a hand, stopping her. “Let me finish. The letter from Duvyn could only tell him so much. If I go, if I can have a private audience with him, I can tell him more. Maybe everything.
He was an ally of Mearlan. Everyone agrees on that. I’m sure I can convince him. So why not make the journey and, while I’m there, ask if he’ll allow his Binder to work on my chronofor?”
Clever . She loved him for so many reasons. This was one. He was not only loving and gentle and kind, he was also smart. And since his fight with Orzili aboard the Sea Dove , which could have ended with either one of them dead, he had acted more sure of himself, more willing to come up with notions like this one. He still spoke of the assassin as an enemy, a threat to their lives, particularly Sofya’s. Orzili was someone to be respected, even feared.
Still, since that night, Tobias hadn’t sounded afraid. Cautious, yes, but the timidity she had seen in him while aboard the Sea Dove had vanished, leaving him more willing to take calculated risks. He was no less vigilant in guarding the princess, or Mara herself, she had to admit, but she believed he was a far more dangerous enemy for Orzili.
“So you would go alone?” she asked, after considering his idea.
“I think I have to. On the off chance that things go badly with Myles, I don’t want Sofya anywhere near Trohsden.”
Mara weighed this, as well. She couldn’t fault his reasoning, but she remained reluctant.
“If you think you should be the one to go, instead of me, that would be fine,” he said, filling a lengthening silence. “I just thought that because I was Mearlan’s Walker—”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Then what—”
“I don’t want you to go either.”
He watched her, his expression pained.
