Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Death in the guise of peace!” shouted Jalantri. “Monsters! Cannibals!” He pointed contemptuously at Hercol. “I need no weapon! Stand and fight me, stooge of Arqual!”

Hercol’s eyes flashed at the insult, but he made no move to rise. “Jalantri Reha,” hissed Cayer Vispek. “Sit down ere you disgrace us all.”

The young sfvantskor’s mouth twisted in fury. He obeyed his master at last, but famished as he was he did not take another bite of his meal.

“We will not harm you,” said Vispek. “But know this, men of the Chathrand: the Shaggat razed twenty townships along the banks of the Nimga, where Jalantri’s people lived. Sailors in the delta said the river was like a vein gushing blood into the sea. Jalantri’s parents met as refugees in the Babqri slums, orphans in a swarm of orphans, a generation without hope. And the Shaggat ordered many such massacres. You would be wise to tell us the simple truth of this business, and not a word less.”

“The truth is not simple, Cayer,” said Hercol. “But it is true that Emperor Magad and his servants seek the ruin of the Mzithrin, and the expansion of Arqual across the whole world-the whole Northern world, I mean, which is all they comprehend of Alifros. They are meticulous deceivers. They held the Shaggat forty years, after all, before springing this trap. But there is a subtler enemy than Arqual, and a greater threat.”

Then Hercol told them of Arunis, the Shaggat’s mage, hiding even now somewhere aboard the Chathrand; and of a certain object that Arunis wished desperately to control. “It is there in plain sight in the Shaggat’s hand,” he said. “And Arunis has meant all along for the Shaggat to have it, for by its power the mad king might not just weaken your Empire but conquer it-and Arqual as well. He has turned the conspiracy back upon its authors. But neither Arunis nor the Shaggat has yet mastered this thing, for it is an abomination. Indeed, no more deadly thing exists on either side of the Ruling Sea. It has many names, but the most common is the Nilstone.”

Neda glanced sharply at Cayer Vispek; her master’s face was guarded and still. The Nilstone! Their own legends spoke of it: an object like a small glass sphere, made of the compressed ash of all the devils burned in the sacred Black Casket, until the Great Devil in his agonies split the Casket asunder. Neda had never known whether or not the Stone was real; if it was, she had supposed it would lie among the other treasures of Mzithrini antiquity, in the Citadel of Hing, protected by arms and spells.

“You stole it, then?” she demanded.

“No, Neda,” said Cayer Vispek. “That is one crime for which Arqual bears no guilt. The Shaggat himself took the Nilstone from us, in his last, suicidal raid on Babqri.” Vispek hesitated a moment, then added: “We rarely speak of that theft. It does no honor to the Pentarchy to have lost the Nilstone, though in fact we wished to be rid of it for centuries. The Father spoke of it to me-just once.”

Neda closed her eyes, feeling a cold stab of loss. The Father. He was a great Mzithrini mage-priest, and her rescuer, her patron. He had taken her from the hands of a lecherous diplomat and made her a sfvantskor: the only non-Mzithrini ever admitted to the fold.

“What did he say, Master?” asked Jalantri.

“That the Nilstone is more dangerous than all the ships and legions of Arqual put together,” said the older sfvantskor. “ ‘We could not use it, Vispek,’ he told me, ‘and we dared not cast it away. Nor could any power in Alifros destroy it-one cannot destroy an absence, the idea of zero, the cold of the stellar void. In the end we guarded it merely to keep it from the hands of our enemies. And even in that we failed.’ ”

“Not your people alone,” said Hercol. “The very world has failed in the matter of the Nilstone. We have never fully grasped its nature. Your legends describe a thing of demonic ash. Others call it the eyeball of a murth-lord, or a tumor cut from the Tree of Heaven, or even a keyhole in an unseen door, leading to a place no mortal thought can penetrate. Our own leader, the mage Ramachni, tells us it is a splinter of rock from the land of the dead-and death is what it brings to any who touch it with fear in their hearts.”

“We’ve seen that with our own eyes,” added Pazel.

Neda turned him a bitter look. “You’ve seen many things,” she said, “but a few you’ve chosen to forget.”

Pazel looked at her, startled. “What are you talking about?”

“So many fine friends you’ve made,” she said. “Such worthy pursuits. To return the Shaggat to Gurishal, armed with such a weapon! How could you, Pazel? What have you become?”

Pazel’s mouth worked fitfully; he was biting back a retort. But Hercol spoke first. “Your brother has become what the world so sorely needs-a man without blind loyalties. Those who would restore the Shaggat to power are no comrades of ours. Pazel knew nothing of the conspiracy or the Nilstone when he was brought aboard the Chathrand, but he has taken an oath to fight these men, and Arunis as well, until we find a way to place the Stone beyond the reach of them all. That is our charge. None of us knows how it is to be done, but we would have failed already without your brother. Several times already the fight has turned on his courage.”

Pazel flushed, more from Hercol’s praise than the sfvantskors’ dubious looks. “We have some damn good allies,” he murmured.

“Like Thasha Isiq?” asked Neda with contempt.

“Yes,” said Pazel. “Haven’t you been listening, Neda? Thasha was fooled along with the rest of us.”

“And her father too, no doubt,” said Jalantri. “Tricked into leading fleets against the Mzithrin, all those years.”

“No,” Pazel admitted reluctantly.

But Hercol said, “Yes, tricked. Eberzam Isiq loved Arqual and believed everything its Emperor proclaimed. The very Emperor who sent a woman to his bed, to become his consort and confidante, and to slowly poison him through his tea. She would have killed him as soon as Thasha married your prince. When we left Simja, Eberzam remained, determined to expose Arqual’s plot to the world.”

“Nonsense!” said Vispek. “We remained in port for five days after you sailed. I myself was often in the court of King Oshiram. There was no sign of Isiq about the castle, nor any mention of a plot.”

Hercol and Pazel looked at each other in dismay. “They got him,” said Pazel. “Oh Pitfire, Hercol. Someone got Isiq after all. What are we going to tell Thasha?”

The sfvantskors made sounds of amazement. Tell her! thought Neda. She’s alive, then! They lied about her death on top of everything!

Hercol looked deeply shaken by Vispek’s words. He steepled his fingers for a moment, then pressed on: “Honored Cayer, you can see that Pazel and I speak in good faith. That we come to you defenseless, when we might simply have waited for rescue from the Chathrand, and left you here, marooned as you clearly are. I do not ask for trust-”

“That is well,” said Cayer Vispek.

“-but I pray that you will see one thing for yourselves. The world has changed beneath our feet. And none of us will survive unless we also change. Into what? I cannot imagine. But whatever is to come will try us all, and terribly. We need strength, Cayer-strength of mind and heart and hand. The kind of strength your order teaches.”

Jalantri laughed aloud. “What would you know of our order, stooge?”

“I know it forbids you to challenge another to a duel,” said Hercol, “unless your master commands it. To do otherwise”-he closed his eyes, remembering-“is to place pride above holy destiny, and anger over service to the Faith.”

Jalantri stared at him, abashed and furious. Cayer Vispek was surprised as well. “How is it that you quote so confidently from our scripture?” he demanded.