42: DEADLY DARK DESIRES

Kalindra’s memory Zherias

Three days after leaving Devors¹

When Kalindra arrived on the coast of Zherias, she was exhausted, dehydrated, and very badly wanted everything—food, a bath, a nap, buckets of water. She was trying hard not to think about how frantic with worry her son must be. She was trying harder not to think about the severing she’d felt on that first day out at sea, when her silent connection to Thaena had simply vanished. As though Thaena was no longer ignoring her, but had cast her out, cut the ties between them.

What a fool she’d been to think Thaena wouldn’t notice Kalindra’s defiance.

She dragged herself ashore, not much caring what happened to the boat after she disembarked. She climbed a coconut tree, cut down several nuts, and used those to quench her thirst. Then she hunted for enough wild game and vegetables to salve her hunger.

She rested a full day before she took her bearings and began hiking toward the nearest fishing village. Finding a real fishing village in Zherias was always tricky. Because most towns and cities on Zherias weren’t.

Weren’t real, that was. They were distractions, illusions, meant to fool idiots, slavers, pirates, and the Quuros navy with a nicely accessible target. The real villages and towns lay tucked away in isolated lagoons and grottoes, hidden in cave networks, or shaped along lost valleys. Most outsiders had never and would never see a true Zheriasian town. Most never wondered that they visited towns where not a single Zheriasian person actually seemed to live. It was charade and illusion on a national scale, and under normal circumstances it filled Kalindra with warm delight.

In at least three cases Kalindra knew of personally, the villages were deep underwater, and no one could go there who wasn’t more than a little Ithlané.

She dreaded returning, but she needed the resources she could command there. She just had to hope that she could do so without anyone questioning it enough to seek out Mother. Kalindra was reasonably certain that no amount of justifications or rationales would fool Khaemezra, and that would be the end of Kalindra’s little adventure.

The chapter house was, not unpredictably, a fish shop. She gave the man at the counter the pass code, which she hoped was still current—it had been when the Capital Hellmarch had occurred, the last time she’d been in contact with her goddess.

They immediately brought her into a back room and made her comfortable. They even cooked her a meal, and if said meal was predictably fish, that was hardly a matter for complaint.

The man who worked the shop out front had been Zheriasian, but the woman in the back must have been part Ithlané, wearing the veil even in private. She was hunched over, her hands to her face. Her breathing was ragged and uneven.

Kalindra frowned. Was the woman crying?

“Are you … all right?”

The woman jerked her head upward. A moment later she was on her knees in front of Kalindra, reaching out a hand only to jerk it back at the last moment as afraid of burning herself.

“Is it true?” she asked Kalindra. “Is really true?”

Kalindra had no idea what to say. She felt like she’d been slammed into the middle of a conversation with no preparation. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Is Thaena really dead?” The woman’s voice was scraped raw with grief.

Kalindra’s whole body stuttered.

“Where … what…” Kalindra bent down next to the woman, pulled her back up to her feet. Her mind refused to make any progress toward a rational thought. “What have you heard?”

The woman rubbed at her face through her veils. “There’s a rumor that she’s dead. That she was killed. One of the priestesses said she felt Thaena die…”

A dark void stretched out in front of her. Kalindra felt like she might fall any second. “When?” she finally asked. “When did this happen?”

The woman turned away. “So you don’t know either.”

“When did this happen?” Kalindra repeated. “Was it three days ago?” Three days ago, when Kalindra had assumed that Thaena’s withdrawal was condemnation.

The woman looked back over her shoulder. “You felt it?”

Kalindra shuddered, but she managed to nod. “I did. I can’t tell you … I can’t.” She tried to collect herself. She didn’t know what was worse: the impending horror at the idea that Thaena might be dead or the sense of relief that Thaena’s silence might have had nothing to do with Kalindra’s behavior after all. “I don’t know.”

The woman’s shoulders began shaking. She was likely crying again.

Kalindra grit her teeth. “We’ll find out.” She made her voice snap, wrapped herself up in authority. She wasn’t some timid petitioner. She was one of Thaena’s angels. “But in the meantime, I need to go to Da’utunse.”

The woman didn’t seem to hear her at first, but after a long, awkward gap of silence, raised her head. “Tonight?”

“It doesn’t have to be. Tomorrow will be fine.” Kalindra waved a hand. “I’ll need the usual equipment.” She added, “I’m sure there’s an explanation. She’s Thaena. She is Death. Have faith, sister.”

Kalindra felt none of that faith herself, but she knew the right words to say. She knew the words that the other woman would want to hear.

The woman trembled and bowed. “Yes, hunter. We have a small cot upstairs you can use for tonight. Unless you’d prefer different accommodations?”

Kalindra nodded. “A cot will be fine.”

---

The next morning brought with it another wagon ride, this one to the deep jungles of Zherias. There lurked one of the ancient network gates that the god-king Ynis had once built across his kingdom. The gates had been expanded; there were several more now than when he’d originally created the system. Several led to locations beyond the knowledge of even most Zheriasians. One led to the pirate haven of Da’utunse, which was a useful spot to know if you were looking to sell or buy something illegal everywhere else.

The Black Brotherhood often found themselves on both sides of that equation. And the Black Brotherhood controlled this gate.

She exited in an underground grotto on the ocean bottom, with an entry pool taking up the largest area on the floor and mage-light mimicking candles lining the coral stone walls. A Black Brotherhood agent waited on the other side, alert in case of an unauthorized access. Kalindra frowned at the sight that greeted her. There should have been guards, trained Brotherhood members keeping the gate safe. Instead, there was but a single man who seemed unsure of himself and was possibly performing his duties for the first time. Bluffing her way past him would be easy. The agent had no idea who Kalindra was. She looked the part and seemed confident, and that was close enough.

“Welcome,” the man said, stepping forward. “How may this one be of service?”

Kalindra motioned the man over. “Do we have a list of everyone who’s in port?”

“Of course.” He motioned over to the pool with the clear implication: yes, such a list existed. Such a list did not, however, exist at their present location.

Kalindra’s mouth twisted to the side. “Very well.” She held out her hand.

The agent went to the far side of the room and fished through a bowl before coming back with a token of a red fish on a gold chain. He handed it to her. “Wait at the exit. There’s an Ithlané guide who will take you the rest of the way.”

She nearly snapped that this wasn’t her first time visiting Da’utunse, but she realized there was little point in taking out her anger on the man. Bad enough that he’d already been subjected to this particular posting, which couldn’t have been much fun. She didn’t ask where everyone else was either. She suspected she wouldn’t like the answer.

She took her weapons but left her agolé. It would only get in the way.

Kalindra bowed to the man and then dove into the seawater.

The water below filled a tunnel, lit at regular intervals. At slightly larger spans, the tunnel curved up above the waterline, allowing pockets of air to linger where someone might surface if they needed to take a quick breath. None of the Ithlané would need it, but humans were a different matter.

When she finally emerged from the tunnel, she was still underwater. Spread out around her were dark waters, with the flickering hint of sunlight coming from a faraway place above. Lights filled the darkness, suggesting houses and buildings of all sorts built up from the ocean floor. But that wasn’t her destination.

A young Ithlané boy swam over to her, his hand waving to touch her. This boy was too old and the wrong race, but it was so hard not to think of Nikali. It felt like when she wasn’t being reminded of Jarith, she was being reminded of her son.

But she pushed those feelings aside and held out her hand to him and let him lace his fingers with hers. She didn’t feel him cast the spell, but she knew it had happened from the moment she felt a rush of air hit her lungs like the sweetest of daggers, a sharp, beautiful pain. Kalindra motioned up toward the light.

The boy motioned toward his neck, then pointed at her.

Kalindra showed him the necklace, and he broke into a wide grin, silver eyes sparkling. She found his concern both endearing and silly—if she hadn’t been wearing the necklace, the pressure would have already been in the process of killing her, no surfacing required. But probably the boy had been told not to take any humans down to the Everdark who wasn’t wearing a protective talisman, and he’d assumed the reverse must be true as well.

He started swimming upward, pulling her along with him.

As Kalindra rose toward the surface, fish swam lazily in the distance through kelp forests that reached toward that feeble sunlight. Enormous objects floated above, some tethered down to the ocean bottom with thick chains, while others floated on rising curtains of air bubbles, magically held in position. Not all the creatures that swam in the distance were piscine. The traffic between the Everdark and Flotsam flowed nonstop.

They surfaced outside the floating ring the boy had steered them toward, which seemed to be a guesthouse from the smell of food and the sound of people merrily drinking. She thanked the boy and pulled herself from the water. Dripping wet, she set out in search of an innkeeper.

It was indeed a Black Brotherhood chapter house. Once the owner realized who she was, everything was provided. Yes, of course she’d been expected. Yes, naturally there was a room put aside for her. Yes, her clothing would be sent up as soon as it arrived (and was pulled out of a Brotherhood storeroom). Food would be sent up, or she could eat downstairs, as she preferred.

She preferred the room.

No one mentioned Thaena, but it was impossible to miss the subdued tone. Everyone held themselves with the breathless expectation of people waiting for the army to arrive, the siege to begin. For the rumor of tragedy to become the reality of grief.

She ordered a bottle of sassibim from the bar and took it to her room, where she sat at the window and watched the floating buildings wander up and down in a lazy dance across the water. Da’utunse wasn’t a location she’d had cause to visit often, but it was soothing in its way. True, she could hear the rowdy shouts and cheers of sailors enjoying themselves in taverns and brothels echoing from every part of the floating city, but it all had a lazy feel to it. Da’utunse was a safe place. The Quuros navy had never discovered its location in over a thousand years of looking. They said no one came to Da’utunse to start a fight, only to finish one.

Most of the permanent residents were Ithlané. Indeed, Da’utunse was an Ithlané word. They took the money of pirates and traders and in turn gave them a place where they could go outside the normal searching gaze of all the naval enforcers who would otherwise hunt them down. The pirates who havened here called the floating sections of raft lashed together and anchored to the ocean floor Drift Town. The area at the bottom where the tethers hooked into the bedrock was called Lagan. Not exactly original, but it served its purpose. Da’utunse was one of the few places in the whole world where the Black Brotherhood had a known, permanent address.

She wouldn’t be using it. Maybe the woman on Zherias had been wrong. Maybe Thaena wasn’t dead. Depending on how her task here went, it would be best for everyone if her actions didn’t reflect back on the Black Brotherhood at all.

She took a few sips from the bottle, but not enough to slow her down. A human girl brought her roasted salmon and an accompanying fish stew starter, and by the time she was finished, another errand runner had dropped off appropriately piratical attire. They’d even found her a war chain. She dressed herself, an oddly satisfying task after so many years spent away from this life. But she’d left it for a reason, and with luck, once she’d gotten what she came for, she’d never have to return. Her only worry was that the Lash might not be in port—in which case she’d have little choice but to wait.

But even if that was the case, sooner or later, the Lash’s ship, the Cruel Mistress, would return to Da’utunse.

When it did, she would be waiting.

Kalindra’s reaction The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor
Just after Kalindra’s memory

Everyone seemed surprised when the vision ended. Startled, blinking, perhaps a bit confused. After all, that wasn’t so bad, was it? And yet it seemed likely to have been one of the visions Vol Karoth had triggered.

Kalindra shut her eyes and tried to push it all away. She failed. The pain and guilt welled up around her, horrible and sharp, not what she’d just seen but what she knew she would see the next time. It was like being bled out, a single cut at a time, slowly. Oh gods, she was the only person in the room who knew what the next vision would show. But even as she thought that, she saw Thurvishar staring at her …

So no. Probably not the only person. At least one other, who saw her. Who knew.

It didn’t make her feel better.

“Kalindra?” Talea said.

“I don’t like this game anymore,” she whispered. “I want to stop playing.” She wasn’t sure when she’d ended up sitting on one of the benches in the kitchen, but she’d pulled her legs up to her chest, resting her head against her knees.

“That’s nice,” Senera said. “If only what you wanted mattered.”

“Senera!” Talea scolded.

Senera shrugged.

“What’s the problem here?” Xivan asked. “That last vision seemed fine. And finding out that Thaena’s dead isn’t new, so what is it?”

“It’s not that,” Kalindra said.

“Then what? Was it the vision before that? Because again, sure, you killed those monks, but they weren’t exactly innocent. They seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of murdering you just because of some idiotic prophecies. Are you worried about your son?”

“I hope he’s safe,” Kalindra murmured. In theory, yes, her son was safe. In practice? It would depend who had told the truth and who had lied. Did that little Devoran cabal truly not care about Nikali? And would they return in time to be able to do anything about the attack on Devors? Because everyone on the island was in terrible danger. Including her little boy.

The plan had been to get him out, and that plan now tasted like ash.

“So what’s the problem?” Senera asked. “Perhaps you should talk about it now.”

“Fuck off,” Kalindra snapped.

Senera rolled her eyes. “Do you seriously think I am going to judge you? Do you have any idea some of the things I’ve done?”

“Now that the kids are gone,” Xivan said, “there’s nobody in this room who hasn’t killed somebody. Hell, we ask Talea to step into the hall, and there’s nobody in this room who isn’t a murderer. Although I suppose Thurvishar’s a bit borderline, since he was never willing.”

Thurvishar made no comment.²

Talea did, though. “You know, I would have murdered Darzin if I’d had the opportunity. Suless too.”

Kalindra started laughing. Fuck, Xivan was right.

In the end, though, Kalindra knew this had nothing to do with body counts and everything to do with trust. The real betrayal was yet to come, and Vol Karoth had set the scene for that revelation with all the tender care of a chef bringing out courses at a banquet. The people who would really understand—Qown and Talon—weren’t in the room anymore.³

It had been such an easy trap to fall into. She would have done anything to bring Jarith back. She very nearly had.

Kalindra had lived her whole life thinking the ends justified the means, and maybe that was still true, but if so …

If so, then it meant failure brought no excuses. Failure made every sin and every sacrifice an act of hubris. Failure meant it had all been for nothing.

“It’s our turn,” Thurvishar said. “So whenever you’re ready, Talea.”

Qown’s story Inside Vol Karoth’s prison An unknown time after their arrival

Qown and Sheloran had been attacked five times and still hadn’t come any closer to tracking down anyone—not Galen, not Kihrin, not Janel. They’d been attacked by fake versions of all those people, however.

The sixth time, however, when Sheloran shifted a whole mass of metal that Qown had created for her into shackles that she hurled at the group, Janel screamed, “Qown, what the are you doing? Let us go!”

“We don’t know if it’s really them,” Teraeth said.

Sheloran narrowed her eyes. Qown understood why easily enough. This group was more convincing than most. The previous groups had been a lot more inclined to just froth excessively at the mouth.

Janel immediately melted through her shackles. Which she had on previous occasions as well. It’s just that this time, she wasn’t following it up with a counterattack.

“Hey, Sheloran,” Not-Kihrin said amiably. “Remember how we met?”

Sheloran paused. “Yes?”

“You were dressed up as a dragon in that scaled red gown with metal wings, and I was dressed like a chicken?”

Sheloran stared. “Oh Veils. You’re really Kihrin.”

“We don’t know—” Qown started to say.

Sheloran pursed her lips. “No, this is really Kihrin. Can you imagine Vol Karoth willingly referring to himself as a chicken? And gods, you did look like a big chicken.” She laughed. “Prettiest chicken I ever saw.”

“Excuse me, but would you mind?” Teraeth shook his new shiny metal bracelets.

Sheloran waved a hand; the metal shackles that hadn’t already been destroyed by that point fell to the ground.

“So…,” Kihrin said, rubbing his wrists. “How have you been, Qown?”

Qown felt himself blush furiously. He … oh god. “I’m … good?”

“Glad to hear it. And back on our side, I hope?”

“Kihrin,” Janel said. “This isn’t—”

Qown rushed over to Janel. He started to take her hand, stopped, felt his face scrunch up on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry.”

Janel stopped whatever it was she’d been about to say and instead just looked at him. She didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” he continued. “I was wrong. I just … I thought … I thought he—” He felt his throat threaten to close up again.

Janel pulled Qown into her arms and held him close. “Stop it. You don’t need to apologize. This is Var’s fault, not yours. I don’t blame you.”

“Uh, you know, actually it is sort of Qown’s fault—” Teraeth started to say.

“Not. Now.” Janel growled.

Teraeth nodded as if he completely expected that response and didn’t say another word.

“He’s right, though,” Qown said as he backed away at least enough to look at Janel at arm’s length. “It is my fault. Maybe Relos Var used me, but I let him. I thought … I just thought if he was right, it would all be okay. Everything would be—” Qown looked over at Kihrin. “I’m sorry.”

Kihrin shrugged. “We all make mistakes. I mean—” He gestured around the city as if it proved his point. “Who am I to judge?”

Qown nodded. “I’m just—” He shook his head. “I can’t make this right.”

“Sure you can,” Teraeth said. “Help us fix this. That’ll make it right. We’re not turning Senera away. Hell, we’re not turning me away. You think you’re too irredeemable to join the save-the-world club? Please.”

Janel shrugged. “If you still feel bad about it when this is all done, you can help me with the rebellion in Quur. I’ll call that even.”

“Rebellion in Quur?” Sheloran questioned.

Janel looked at the Quuros royal with a smile on her face. “Don’t worry. You’re invited too.”

Sheloran paused. “Oh. That’s fine, then. I didn’t want to be left out.”

Qown felt a genuine smile force its way on to his face, but then he realized who was missing. “You haven’t found Galen yet.”

“No,” Kihrin said. “Nor Talon. Vol Karoth’s doing a much better job of hiding them from us. But we are looking.”

“We’ll find him,” Sheloran said. “Both of them.”