Chapter 6

I

Cathy took three blankets off the dead men and slowly, reluctantly, walked back to me. She avoided my eyes as she gave me one of the blankets. When she sat down, there was a distance between us that hadn’t existed before. It was a short distance, a closed fist could fit inside. Nonetheless, I disliked it. I let the blanket in my hand fall on my lap, too weak to throw it around my shoulders.

“Were they dead?” I asked.

“Yes.” She answered in a hesitant voice. “Are you okay? What ... what did you do?”

“Magic.” I said nonchalantly.

She eyed me. I continued, “I don’t exactly know what it is or how to use it, what I know is that it was magic.” She nodded, still obviously scared. “Cat ... Qoura knows we’re alive.”

In an instant the distance between us disappeared, her hands around me again. “How do you know?”

“She saw what I did to those men; I’m sure of it. She knows I’m alive. If my death was worth a tsunami and a hundred sunk ships ... I’m sure she will be looking.

“We’ll have to go deep into Braka, the Guard don’t dare come inside. Yayim’s taught them fear ... Atsa, aren’t you cold?”

“A little.”

She arched a perfectly formed eyebrow. “I gave you a blanket.”

I shrugged. “It’s a result of the magic, I think. After I do anything with it my body turns to mush. You remember how I was bedridden after the door incident.”

“Yes, I do. You couldn’t move for two days and all of a sudden you were fine. I also remember falling asleep when I felt perfectly rested a moment before.”

Well, her imagination may be weak, but I’d never call her dumb. Her suspicions matched mine. “I hear the words you aren’t saying. I’ve thought them all before they occurred to you.”

She appraised me carefully before speaking again. “It means you’re a sorcerer like her, doesn’t it? You were kept imprisoned because of your sorcery, and now you’re free. That’s why she came after you...” Her tongue ran along her front teeth. “What ... what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” I muttered, then gasped at the utter incredulity of the idea that slowly unfurled its glorious wings in my mind. It was ridiculous, impossible, outright idiotic at first glance. But tonight I’d killed three men, killed them in a way I’d never read about before, without any involvement on the part of the physical world. That was different than any sorcery Qoura and the other Guardians could do. Qoura broke fleets with a thought, but she had to use water to do. Her magic was dependent on her element. Stick the woman in a desert and she’d be just like any other person. Lord Tanril, the Second Guardian, the Stormwatch, could break a storm in half and make a tiny island such as Karanas safe in the middle of the Mother’s high seas. But stick him in a ... well, stick him somewhere with no air and he’d be useless too. Lady Sigurd, the Third, was the same, useless without an already existing fire. Yes, they could direct their respective elements to terrible effect, but none had any power so accurate as to surgically strike at three men without harming those nearby. This was something different, and I had an idea what it was.

The idea had come from the last surviving paragraph in Enforcers of the Ashk Empire: Betrayal at Noon. The book had chronicled the Ashk Imperial Junto’s role through the empire’s history. The Junto had been a group of seven war mages, fanatically loyal to Ashk the First. They’d served the emperor’s heirs for five centuries after his death. The last words of the final surviving paragraph had been, “The Junto served as hunters in battle, nullifying the sorcery–”

The remaining pages had been unceremoniously ripped off.

Cathy was looking at me with a grimace on her face. She grabbed my hand, squeezing hard. “Atsa, that is not a good idea.”

“But you haven’t even heard it...”

“What is it?”

“I’m going to kill Qoura, the other two Guardians, and the Prince.”

She didn’t protest. Her silence stretched on and on, making me sweat. Cathy didn’t shut up and let me do something stupid when I decided something stupid was in order, it just wasn’t her. Unless, she was thinking I’d gone mad, that it’d be better for her to leave me and run away by her–

“I’ve never told you about the Sorceress.”

“No, you haven’t. Except her name, which you told me only two days ago.”

She took a deep breath. “My father sold me into slavery when I was fourteen. He’d never liked me, and something or other ruined his boat that year. He needed gold to buy another, and my skin was white like my whore mother’s. He sold me for good gold, and the Prince’s Steward was the one who bought me. I was trained as a kitchen slave and put to work, until one day, a few month later, when the First somehow noticed me. I’d caught her eye, and she had the Steward train me as a lady’ maid. Her old maid was getting too old.”

The Prince occupied the south wing of his square-shaped palace, the three Guardians lived in the other wings. It was a symbolic thing; three wings of the palace named after the prince belonging to those who supposedly served the man. Just like it was known throughout the city that Lord Tanril could sleep with the Prince’s wife in the Prince’s bed without hearing a complaint – though I hadn’t understood the significance of that saying till after Cat explained some matters to me.

“The first few days of serving her I was awed. She doesn’t look old; I thought she was at most thirty five years old when I first saw her. But there is a presence to her, an agelessness in her eyes, a way of carrying herself that belongs to a woman far more confident in herself than she should have any right to be. I was scared of the woman; I couldn’t even understand her orders most of the time – she understands Islander Creole, but she never speaks in anything but Ashk and I was just being taught that language. Then I got used to her ways and everything became normal ... for a few years. The Guardsmen at her door were still terrified of the woman, the kitchen slaves would do anything to make me carry the sorceress’s meals up to her rooms instead of them. I brushed her hair every night and slept ten paces from her bed. She was just a woman.”

“Then why are you this scared of her?”

She sighted. “Atsa ... I’ve been waiting for years to tell this story. Could you have a little bit of patience?” She continued at my nod. “One day a black-skinned old man walked into her apartment unannounced, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her into the dining room. She ignored the indignity without a frown. Half an hour later they left the palace in a hurry. She didn’t say a word to me, and for two years no one knew where she’d went.”

She closed her eyes. “The night she returned, two men accompanied her. They killed any slave or guard that got in their way. Left a white-skinned, redheaded corpse on with a savaged face on my bed, and then cut their way out of the palace, dragging me behind them. Everybody in the city thought they knew what’d happened by morning; Ashkan assassins had entered the palace and tried to kill the Three and the Prince in preparation for an invasion. Eleven merchants from the Families died.”

I interrupted her. “They brought you to the library.”

She shook her head. “You weren’t in the library at first. There was a room somewhere in Midcity; she left me with you, explained exactly what would happen If I were to try escaping or if something happened to the baby, and left. She visited the room weekly back then, although she didn’t return to the palace for another three years. She did that a week after moving you to the cell. She always knew when I lied, and she told me she’d have me cut from cunt to neck with a wire ... if I told you anything.”

“She was trying to keep my existence a secret.” I said, falling silent. She’d given me a lot to chew on, and chew I did. Why would Qoura keep me secret?

“Do you have a plan?” She asked hesitantly a few minutes later.

“Something resembling one.”

“Will it work?”

“It’s possible.”

She moved suddenly, to straddle me again and hold my face between her hands. Her hot sex was near my thigh, separated from my skin only by two layers, my pants and her underclothing. “Congratulations, then, Lord Prince.”

She kissed me. Soft lips pressing hard, her tongue in my mouth and playing with mine. Her hands roamed on my back and came up to grab my hair near the roots in a bunch, pushing me forward into the kiss. I shuddered.

When she let me come up for air, I started giggling.

A smile tugged at her lips. She waited for an explanation.

“Have you gone mad? You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“My Lord Prince, I know who you are, and I ... know Qoura; I was with her every day for ten years. She’s old, and powerful, but in a battle of wits, I’d rather bet on you than her. More importantly, you’re my only chance of living till next year.” She looked around, “Now, we’ll need to leave this place before the sun comes up in the morning, and you’ll need to be able to walk by yourself. Would you like to fuck your first woman?”

I gaped at her. She grinned. Her hand burrowed under the folds of her dress and did something to her underclothing. The heat on my thigh doubled; fluid started to seep through the fabric. Her other hand, still grasping my hair, dragged me closer so my head was on her shoulder. She whispered softly in my ear, “I want to be a lady when you’re the Prince of Karanas. No, not a lady, no one would believe me a lady and the real ladies would laugh behind my back. But I want to order around all the lord-merchants and their bratty children. I want the power to have them whipped when they look at me the wrong way.”

I was gasping, fast, shallow breaths betraying the excitement I felt at the touch of her hand on my cock. Her words registered somewhere deep in my mind, but I wasn’t paying any real attention to them. Until she stopped, of course, then I went through her words to find out why, realizing she expected a response. “You ... seem ... awfully sure ... I’ll ... survive.”

Letting go of my hair, she kissed me again. Both her hands grabbed my pants and pulled them down far enough to release my cock. She let go of my lips, holding me steady; She rose up slightly and sat down in one languid, continuous motion, sheathing me inside her completely. I groaned.

She moved on my cock, rising up and sitting down, shallow inconsequential movements, each one giving more pleasure than I’d had at any point before in my life. She spoke, every word accompanied by one of the shallow plunges. “You will win.”

I nodded, agreeing with her to keep the peace but not believing the words. The truth could wait a while. Right now, her heavy breasts against my chest were more important. Not as important as the faint smell of fresh sweat on her neck though, and nowhere as significant as the small gasps she was making with each plunge now that she was rising higher and falling faster.

The pleasure rose and rose until I lost all control. Cat seemed to realize the end was night somehow. Her final descent ended with a grinding motion. I groaned as my semen left me to paint her insides.

I felt invigorated. She looked tired enough to sleep for a week. The magic had taken its toll.

II

The shouts began with the first rays of sunlight. They came from the north and the east. I didn’t know what they were, but the still sleepy beggars and miscreants were unnerved, quickly gathering their belongings. The first of the people running away appeared from the east, they passed us and ran towards the water. Then, to my amazement, they jumped into the water and started flailing their hands.

I looked at Cat. “Can you do that?”

She shook her head. “My father taught me to swim years ago. I’m not sure I still can.”

Huh, so that was swimming. Traversing water unaided without dying was an amazing feat and an important skill. Lord Mogedius of Moha had lost half an army and his head after his dam on the river Baser failed. Those of his men who didn’t drown died to Teman’s cavalry as they caught up with their trapped enemy. To think of it though, Duke Teman won the kingdom the moment that dam failed, regardless of how many of Mogedius’s men could swim or not. One shouldn’t attach a leader’s strategic failure to his men.

I realized I was dissembling and turned to Cathy, who’d just gotten the last vestiges of sleep out of her eyes. “Do you know why those people running towards us are so scared?”

“We both know why they’re running. She’s searching.”

She was right of course. Whatever was on the way, I was its quarry. “I think it’s time you shed your dress for something less conspicuous, Cat. One of these blankets, perhaps?”

I draped myself in another piece of tattered cloth as I watched her do the same. The number of runners was becoming significant now. We would be overrun by the fleeing crowd soon. What I couldn’t understand was exactly why there were so many homeless beggars in a city this rich. Couldn’t someone put them to work? Nonetheless, they were here, and a lot of them were walking towards us. Looking none too concerned about trampling those who didn’t get out of their way.

Some barges were being paddled nearer to the shore, to match others that were close enough to jump on. A few men were taking down the blankets hanging around their homes, making it easier for people to make the jump from the shore. It was a puzzling act; why would anyone offer their homes to the fleeing crowd?

We blended into the panicked herd and moved with them once our clothing matched theirs. Cathy’s hand on my forearm was a vise, stress and fear making her overprotective; I wondered whether it was going to leave a bruise.

By the time we reached the shore, there were soldiers visible behind us. A bridge of drowned bodies filled the shallow water that connected the land and the floating barges. We were one of the last groups to get off land as the boat owners started moving their homes away from the shore. There were calls for assistance, and people started paddling to help the entire structure move. Cat dragged me over to the next half sunk pile of wood and then past three others, until there were four lines of barges between us and any soldiers entering Braka. Beggars and boat occupants glared at us as we walked past, I didn’t understand why they’d go through the trouble of staring when most of them were busy paddling at the same time. I forgave myself for the ignorance though. It would take a while before I knew enough about people to understand strangers.