Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“You know—” Jhiral was showing signs of real irritation now. “I’ve heard this humble-beginnings crap a few times before, Helmsman. Funny how no one can ever actually point to a living example, isn’t it? Funny how in the end they’re all legendary and dead.”

Anasharal paused, delicately. “Oh, the Ilwrack Changeling is not dead, Your Imperial Radiance. Far from it.”

Silence. Maybe it was the slow afternoon cooldown and the breeze blowing in from the river, but Archeth felt a tiny shiver creep across her shoulder blades. She glanced at Jhiral, who sighed heavily and examined his manicure. She read the little display as false. Emperor or not, Jhiral had grown up on this kind of tale like any other kid. His voice, when he spoke, could not quite shroud a tiny, chained tension.

“And… what is that supposed to mean, exactly?”

“Exactly what it says,” the Helmsman said blandly. “When the Kiriath destroyed Hannais M’hen in the last stages of the Twilight war, the Ilwrack Changeling was at the head of the Aldrain forces and their human allies. But he was betrayed—some say by a lover, others claim it was a diplomatic deceit of the Kiriath. Perhaps, in the end, it was both. At any rate, when he discovered the betrayal, it’s said he fell into a paroxysm of rage and grief, and was taken for dead. The dwenda forces fell back without his body, and vanished into the Gray Places.”

“But he wasn’t dead.” Jhiral said, leaning forward a little despite himself.

“No. The dwenda were in disarray, they apparently misunderstood the situation. But a small group of his human supporters carried the body away and entombed him on an islet in the northern ocean.”

“The Hironish isles?”

“Farther west and north than the Hironish. But in any case, the island does not appear on your maps.”

Jhiral grunted. “Convenient.”

“The story goes that the Changeling’s Aldrain lover came later, in secret, to the tomb, but could not wake him. So he—”

“He?” The Emperor’s lip curled. “He?”

“Or she,” Anasharal amended. “The story is not clear on exact identity, only that it was a member of the Ilwrack clan. In any case, this lover cast an enchantment around the whole island, sweeping it up into the margin of the Aldrain marches. But the magic was hurried and incomplete, and it’s said the island emerges from time to time and stands solid again in the ocean, though lit with witch-light and sometimes for only moments at a time.”

“I’ve read about this,” Archeth said slowly. “The Ghost Isle, the Chain’s Last Link.”

Jhiral looked at her. “You have?”

“Yes, it’s a legend of the Hironish peoples, but there are some versions in Trelayne as well. Mariner tales—an uncharted island beyond the last in the Hironish Chain; ships sight it in the midst of storms, witch-lit in blue, there one moment, gone the next.” She gestured helplessly. “It’s a legend, you know. I always assumed…”

“Quite.” The Emperor turned his gaze back to the Helmsman. “Are you trying to tell me we should be expecting a visit from this undead Changeling?”

“You’ve had some trouble with the Aldrain recently, have you not?”

Archeth and the Emperor swapped a look. The dwenda incursion at Ennishmin was a closely guarded secret. Outside of those who’d actually been there, only Jhiral and a tiny cabal of trusted court advisers and men-at-arms had been informed of the events. Two full legions of imperial levy now sat on the borders of the marshland between Pranderghast and Beksanara, ostensibly as a bar to raiding parties from the League territories to the north and west. The commander of the garrison at Khartaghnal had been apprised of what they were really watching for, but beyond that…

Of course, the creep of rumor was unavoidable. Faileh Rakan might have died in the skirmish at Beksanara, but a number of his men did not. The local population was decimated, but not wiped out. And among the survivors, some, even paid off and sworn to secrecy, even threatened with dire penalties—even Throne Eternal veterans—would drink and yarn and recall, and let loose dark hints and drunken fragments of truth.

“The dwenda were driven back,” Archeth said carefully.

“Indeed. But, you see, the legend says that the Ilwrack Changeling will return when his adoptive people’s need is greatest; more exactly, when they have been thrown back in battle from their heart’s ancestral desire, and are once more in disarray . That’s a more or less direct quote from the original Naom legend. See the corollary?”

Jhiral nodded. “Yes. What you think we should do about it is a little less clear, though. A preemptive assault on this sporadically manifesting island, perhaps?”

“That’s clearly not possible.” The Helmsman’s tone was almost prim. “I am charged with offering pragmatic solutions to your difficulties.”

“Not so far.” Archeth found some of her Emperor’s impatience seeping into her own mood. “If the Ghost Isle is inaccessible then—”

“You did not let me finish the tale, daughter of Flaradnam.”

“Well, she’s not stopping you now. Can we get on with this?”

“The Kiriath,” said Anasharal smoothly, “had no way to counter the sorceries of the Ilwrack clan, or at least none that they could bring themselves to deploy. Instead, they built for safety. A city was constructed, standing above the waves south and east of the Ghost Isle. A watch was set.”

“A city in the sea?”

There was a sudden, odd strain in Archeth’s voice. Jhiral glanced at her in mild surprise.

“That is correct, daughter of Flaradnam. Commissioned and built by the clan Halkanirinakral, manned, initially at least, by its scions. The city was named An-Kirilnar—that’s City of Phantom Hunters to you, your majesty—it was designed to shadow the Ghost Isle in and out of the Gray Places. But recently it seems to have returned to the world permanently—”

“It’s still there?”

“Yes, it’s still there, daughter of Flaradnam. Currently it stands in the ocean beyond the Hironish isles, as it has now stood for some weeks.”

“Then we have to go there!”

“Archeth—”

“Yes, I would say that’s an appropriate conclusion to draw.”

“Archeth—”

“Can you… communicate with—”

“Archeth!” The Emperor’s voice cracked like a whip. He got up from the bench and moved toward the balcony. His tone softened to a honeyed irony. “Would you be so good as to attend me within?”

“My lord.” She hurried after him. “My lord, this is an opportunity to—”

“This is an opportunity to calm the fuck down, my lady kir-Archeth.” Jhiral leaned in closer to her. In her tumbled state, she could not read it—menace or a plea for intimate confidence, the Emperor or the boy she’d watched grow up. The words came spaced. “Now walk with me if you will.”

SO SHE WENT WITH HIM.

Out of earshot—though she wasn’t convinced that was meaningful where the Helmsmen were concerned. Angfal never spoke to her outside of the study where he was hung across the walls like a nightmare in iron; Manathan would speak to you anywhere within the An-Monal keep. She didn’t know if ripping Angfal out of the fireship he had once commanded had in some way truncated a broader sense of awareness, or if the Helmsman was hiding its true reach. But she was tolerably sure that Anasharal, a being who could pluck personal details from the heads of the men it spoke to apparently at random, would not have a problem listening to a conversation maintained a few hundred paces away in the shade of the inner garden.

“If there really is a Kiriath city up there, my lord—”