Juliet McKenna - Southern Fire

'You would fight Sirket for the domain?' Janne challenged. 'You want to throw your children into the confusion of learning you are alive, when they have barely come to terms with your death? You want to bring them that poisoned joy and then have them see you try to kill their brother, your own son? You'd bring that disaster on the Daish domain, an internal war, when the people are still trying to recover from the depredations of those fled from Chazen? Barely half the crops that should have been planted by now are in the ground. It'll be a hungry end to the dry season, even if no other travails come upon us. You think any Daish people would rally to your side, after they learned you had abandoned them, when they heard you had been in the south, fighting magic with magic, no matter how noble your intentions?'

'There's a powder, it's not magic—' Kheda fell silent and looked at Janne for a long moment, the only sound the surf breaking on the reefs around the island and the mournful cries of some unseen seabird.

'It wouldn't matter what I said, would it? Any explanations I could offer, what justification, it wouldn't make any difference. You and Rekha, you'll make sure everyone sees it your way and I am condemned. What are you planning, if I refuse to cooperate? You won't poison me, not like poor Saril, that much I can promise you.' Seizing Janne by a shoulder, he forced her round to look at the twisted, soiled corpse.

'I didn't poison him.' Janne took a step forward as if to assure herself that Saril was indeed dead. 'We all ate from the same shellfish.'

'From your hands,' scoffed Kheda, incensed. 'Didn't you gather them? Didn't you know they were somehow spoiled?'

'A red tide had come and gone when I gathered them, that's true.' Janne folded her arms stubbornly. 'They could have killed us all or left us all untouched. His death is an omen that confirms me in my intentions. It tells me your destiny lies in the Chazen domain, not his. If I was in error, I would have been the one to die.'

'It's not your place to test the future with such follies,' Kheda snarled. 'Nor yet to read such omens.'

'No, it is Sirket's,' Janne said forcefully. 'He has studied the skies every night since he got word of your death and shared all he sees with me and Rekha. The Vizail Blossom, token for all wives and mothers, has left the realm of marriage and has ridden the arc of death. Now the Diamond joins it, stone for rulers, and the Opal for fidelity and harmony. There is an ending plainly told for us all. The Pearl rides with the Amethyst, jewel for new beginnings and inspirations, and both are in the arc of foes and fears where the Winged Snake twines around all people, promising new conjunctions to reward the brave. The Ruby floats in the arc for siblings and those as close as kin, offering protection against fire for the daring. The Sailfish carries it, promising good fortune and fertility. All the stars tell us the domain will prosper if Rekha and I can only bring ourselves to do this.'

'Sirket knows what you've been planning?' Kheda struggled with the notion. 'He approves?'

'No.' Janne shook her head vehemently. 'He knows nothing. He doesn't even know that you are still alive. He only told me what he read in the skies. Rekha and I saw how it bore on our situation.'

'What are you going to tell Sirket?' Now it was Kheda's turn to be cold as tears threatened Janne's composure.

'I will tell him that you have returned, that you did something, I don't know what, to defeat the sorcery that gave the invaders their strength.' She paused to swallow a sob. 'I'll tell him you see the impossibility of ever returning to rule the Daish domain, touched as you have been by magic. I'll tell him you're turning all your talent to rebuilding the Chazen domain, so that it might be a bulwark to defend Daish against any return of these savages. Are you going to make a liar out of me to our son?'

Her plea tore at his heart. Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard. 'I thought I knew you. I thought that sharing my bed and my heart and my fears and joys with you meant I knew you. I never did, did I? You kept yourself so very well hidden. All right, Janne, I won't bring all the grief you promise down on our children, or on my domain, my former domain,' he corrected himself sarcastically. Heart too full to say anything else, he threw up his hands and turned on his heel.

'Where are you going?' called Janne in consternation.

'What do you care?' Kheda threw back over his shoulder.

'Where do I send Itrac?'

Janne's unexpected query stopped Kheda in his tracks. He turned to look at her. 'What?'

'She's your responsibility now, Chazen Kheda,' Janne told him defiantly. 'The domain she was born to won't have her back, not with the taint of magic on her. I've pleaded her case but they won't yield. You can't let her loose, not till you're sure she doesn't carry Saril that was Chazen's child. If she bore such a babe, someone like Ulla Safar could marry her and try forcing a claim on the domain.'

'What will you do if I don't take her?' Kheda spat. 'Feed her some shellfish?'

Janne flinched as if he had struck her but she didn't relent. 'Where do I send her?'

Kheda gave up. 'The Chazen dry-season residence. Tell her I'll find her there.'

Who knows, by then, I might even have worked out what to tell her, how to explain what I have done and how it landed me in this mess. If it wasn't for the sand beneath my feet, the breeze in my face, I could almost imagine this was some horrible dream. But no, no dream. I couldn't dream such agony and not wake from it.

Kheda stormed down the beach to row back to the Amigal . As he swung himself up on deck, Dev and Risala were standing there, faces avid with curiosity. Kheda glared at them with challenge in every line of his body and both hastily adopted studiedly neutral expressions.

'Can't say that looked to be going well from here,' said Dev cautiously. 'Not that we could hear much, but isn't that Chazen Saril who's just died such a remarkably painful death?'

Finally, something to shake that bastard's composure. That might almost make this all worth it.

'He ate some bad shellfish,' said Kheda in as dispassionate a tone as he could manage. 'Which leaves the Chazen domain without a ruler. Janne Daish believes this is my destiny rather than returning to depose my own son. I am forced to agree with her.'

'Oh,' said Risala blankly.

'Forced?' Dev looked slyly at Kheda. 'There's a handful of ways that trireme could come to grief, before it ever comes to port.'

'I would hate to think of that happening,' Kheda said with cold threat.

'So where do we go now?' Risala tried to see past Kheda to the shore.

He didn't look back. 'I need to get to the dry-season residence of the Chazen warlords. I don't know what there'll be left of it but it's somewhere to start.' He glanced down at the little skiff bobbing at the Amigal 's side. 'Can I have this? You can take me as far as the main sea lane before you turn north, can't you?'

Dev's response surprised him. 'I'll take you all the way you want to go, never mind that.'

Kheda hesitated. 'You should go north, both of you. There'll be all manner of suspicions floating on the breezes round here.'

'Suspicions maybe, but none so many witnesses,' grinned Dev. 'No one understands that savage gabble.'

'Janne says there are Chazen islanders telling of the final battle between the invaders and some unknown mage,' Kheda said with difficulty.

'Crazed with fear and thirst and hunger, who can be sure what they saw?' Dismissing them with an airy wave, Dev limped painfully down the deck towards Kheda. 'You don't get rid of me that easily. You owe me and plenty, don't forget that. It's a good thing those savage mages weren't interested in turtle shell and pearls, otherwise you'd be hard pressed to pay me this side of the next new year stars.' He passed Kheda and went to sit by the tiller. 'You and the girl better raise the sail if we're to make Chazen waters by nightfall.'