Sunmaster, page 11
She sniffed, which said 'of course' as clearly as any words could do. Irlin, expression bright with the contained amusement he was becoming accustomed to, said, "Right about what, sorcerer-child?" so dryly that Rasim was certain he was being laughed at.
Just to one side of him, Captain Nasira, who was seated cross-legged on pillows along with Sunmaster Endat, Prince Lorens, and a few of their other vagabonds, lowered her face into one hand and sighed almost inaudibly. It still cut through Rasim like a knife, and, a little too late, it occurred to him that maybe he should have brought this up to her privately before crashing into a political gathering and shouting his thoughts to the represented world.
But it was much too late now, so he shuffled forward a few steps, apologetically, to say, "About sorcery from afar. I don't know if there are foreign witches here, but…you know how to make delzjha, don't you, Spiritmaster?"
The translator spoke, their words rolling softly through the tent as Nasira, just loud enough for Rasim to hear, demanded, "What is delzjha, Rasim?"
He whispered, "The power-enhancing drug," to her as Oyun gave him a calculating look, then nodded once. Nasira hissed and sat back, and on either side of her, Endat and Lorens exchanged startled glances.
"I used delzjha in the Northlands," Rasim said to the whole gathering. "We took it off the body of a dead witch, an Ilyaran, who said someone had given it to her. We didn't learn who, though. She died in Prince Lorens's arms, first."
A thread snapped tight through his mind, like a fishing line gone taut with a heavy catch. Roscord, the lord with ambitions of uniting the Islands and conquering the continent had all but died in Lorens's arms. Then Missio had literally died in Lorens's arms, in the Northlands. That had bothered Rasim even at the time, but he hadn't known what to do with it.
Now, though, he could see a clear path all the way through. Lorens had been the last person to speak to—to even touch—Cindu, the awesomely powerful stone witch who had brought down the Moranese city walls in a fit of enraged vengeance. Lorens had given Cindu the last of his heartbreak drug, the stuff that made witchery inaccessible to Ilyaran witches, before they'd turned him over to the Moranese. And then, minutes later, impossibly, Cindu had renewed his attack on Moran, destroying even more of the city than he had the first time.
Heartbreak didn't work properly on Rasim, because he had multiple magics. In the rush of the moment, they had thought something similar might have happened with Cindu, or that, knowing he was going to die anyway, Cindu had somehow fought through the drug to bring down the city.
It made much, much more sense if Lorens had given Cindu delzjha instead, told him not to use his power until he was in the heart of Moran, and let him go to his death.
All of that fell through Rasim's mind so quickly he barely had time to take a breath, and in its wake, stiffened all his muscles so he wouldn't look at Prince Lorens. It took effort to keep talking, and he hoped his voice hadn't changed, although it sounded squeaky with nerves to his own ears. "But if delzjha comes from the steppes, then Oyun has to be right. There's some kind of sorcery, or sorcerers, from afar who are mixed up in—in I don't know what," he admitted. "Maybe Bayar's kidnapping and the attempt on his life, or maybe just trying to use Shenryalan drugs to change other parts of the world. But it all has to be tied together somehow. I'm sure of it."
In the silence that followed, Oyun said something in such a sarcastic tone that Rasim wilted. A ripple of laughter went around the tent, and the translator didn't bother to interpret, but Rasim was sure it was something along the lines of 'gee, thanks, kid.'
He wilted. He absolutely should have discussed this with Captain Nasira before coming in to yell at everyone about it. A quick look at the Shenryalans, who still sat separated by gender, told him that some of them thought he was amusing, but far more of them thought he was rude, at best. Tiresome, obnoxious, ill-mannered, and inconsiderate were more likely words for how they saw him.
Well, they might be right about all of that, but he was sure he was right about this, so he set his jaw and tried not to clench his fists as he met Irlin and Bikat's eyes. "Someone needs to look into it."
After a moment, Bikat said, "Someone will," with the gentle tone of an adult placating a child.
Embarrassed anger flushed through Rasim, but he didn't think it would help to tell the Shenryalan leader not to be condescending to him. Instead he muttered, "Thank you, King Horse," and backed up a few steps, not sure whether he should flee or join Captain Nasira and the others. Nasira glared at him when he glanced her way, and jerked a thumb toward the door.
Rasim fled.
He fled out the door, down the spiraling path toward their tent, and straight into Desimi, at a high enough speed that he actually bounced off the bigger boy, who staggered back a step. "What's your rush, Sunburn?"
"Nothing!" All the anger that came with his embarrassment burst out in that one word, and Desimi, startled, took another step back before scowling hugely.
"Well, whatever your problem is, it isn't my fault, so don't take it out on me."
"Yeah, like you're so good at taking that advice yourself." Rasim regretted the snarl as soon as it passed his lips, and deflated. "I'm sorry. You're right."
A complex combination of irritation and resignation slid across Desimi's face. "What's wrong? Bayar and Kisia are all right, aren't they? I know Bayar is. I just saw him."
"Kees is sleeping. It's not them, it's…" Rasim took a few steps off the path and sank into a crouch, folding his hands behind his head.
Desimi hesitated, then came to crouch beside him, arms dangling over his knees. "All right, well, what is it, Sunburn?"
"I just did it again," Rasim said miserably. "Stomped in and yelled at a bunch of adults about what they should be doing." He explained about the delzjha, and Bikat's bland promise that it would be looked into. "It's not that I think he's lying. I just…"
"Don't think he's taking it very seriously, either." Desimi sucked in his cheeks, glancing toward their tent, then back the direction he'd come from, where Bayar's tent lay. "Kisia's going to be laid up a while. We could look into it." He shrugged stiffly as Rasim raised his head in astonishment. "It's better than sitting on our thumbs while the masters and royalty talk it all out, right?"
"We don't speak much Shenryalan," Rasim protested half-heartedly. "How are we going to learn anything if we can't talk to anybody?"
A slow grin crawled over Desimi's face. "I think I have an idea."
Kif's granddaughters all spoke the Northern tongue, even—especially—the one who had danced with Desimi again and again the night before. She came out of their tent with a curious look when they came to call "Daará?" which was the equivalent of knocking on the door, when the doors were too soft to knock on.
She looked more like her grandfather than most of his grandchildren did, with a narrow sharpness to her jaw and a pale Northern grey to her gaze. She considered them with that pale grey gaze before smiling broadly. "I am Ūrrin, daughter of Valūd, granddaughter of Mankah. You are sorcerer-Rasim," she said to him, and, with a much more flirtatious look to the bigger journeyman, "and sorcerer-Desimi."
Desimi wrinkled his face. "Just Desimi. And Rasim. Ūrrin…I don't speak enough Northern," he said to Rasim, visibly frustrated. "Can you tell her, ask her, if she can help us with some questions and do some translating? Why don't we all learn Northern in the guild? We sail all over the continent! We should speak more languages!"
"That's what I said!" Rasim grinned, feeling oddly justified, and spoke to Ūrrin in his limited Northern. Hers was much, much better than his, which had to have taken some very deliberate effort on the part of her mother, keeping her father's memory alive after his banishment. She listened to his proposal, then nodded, but made it clear she would be talking to Desimi, not Rasim, who ended up grinning again. "You're going to have to ask the questions, Desi. She wouldn't have a rotten fish gut to spare for me."
"But you're the one who has to do the talking!"
"And you're the one she wants to talk to." It was very strange, being the translator for someone who wasn't interested in his presence at all. Ūrrin barely glanced at him, walking alongside Desimi as she led them around the camp, touching his hand or tucking her arm through his to point him in the direction she wanted him to look. Rasim didn't necessarily understand all of the words she said, but at one point he said, helpfully, "She's flirting with you, Desi."
Desimi, sounding as if he would blush if he could, hissed, "I can see that, Sunburn!" and Rasim laughed.
Ūrrin got more out of their conversation than Rasim did, he thought in the end. She knew very little about the delzjha or the poison that had been used on Kisia and Bayar, except that the knowledge of how to make them was shamanic, and therefore not widespread. But that narrowed it down far less than Rasim might have hoped, because Ūrrin was able to tell him although Oyun was perhaps the oldest and most respected shaman in the tribes, she was far from the only one. Each of the five tribes had their own shaman whose position was nearly as important and well-regarded as Oyun's.
Even that would have been few enough to work with, but there were dozens of clans within the tribes, and even some individual families within those clans large enough to have a shaman of their own. Delzjha's secrets may have been known only to a comparative few, but those few still numbered a hundred or more, without even taking into account the apprentices and journeymen who had not yet reached spiritmaster status. At a mere two apprentices per shaman, there had to be easily over three hundred people who knew, or were learning, the secrets of the drugs and poisons of the steppes.
If Rasim had learned anything over the past months of high adventure and political turmoil, it was that while it was possible every soul out of three hundred was trustworthy, it was far, far more likely that at least one of them could be bought. He thanked Ūrrin and abandoned Desimi to her, figuring they could manage to communicate anything they felt was important enough.
Oyun seemed to like him. She might answer his questions in more detail, although Rasim wasn't quite sure what to ask. Shamanic and sorcerous apprentices were chosen by being sniffed, as far as Rasim could tell. Presumably anybody who had undergone Oyun's sniffing had been found suitable.
But people changed. The thoughts came slowly as Rasim wound his way down spiral pathways, trying not to get lost among the brightly-dyed tents while also trying to avoid going back to the little part of the temporary city that he knew reasonably well. Surely people changed. Rasim couldn't imagine that sniffing a child's hair could tell a shaman how that child might react to every heartbreaking twist or uplifting turn that their lives took. He could believe that spiritmastery might show whether someone was inclined to abuse power, and momentarily wandered down a path of wondering what, exactly, the Ilyaran guilds did with people of that nature. A small and nasty part of his own mind said the answer was 'made them Sunmasters,' but as with every guild, most orphans came to the Sunmasters too young to know whether they were power-hungry or not.
The Sunmasters, though, might encourage it in a way that some of the other guilds didn't, particularly in terms of political power. Like the Great Mare had said, a person had as much magical potential as they had, and no more, but political power could be gained or lost. Rasim shook himself and tried to put that idea away for a while, but it lingered. The problem with walking around alone was it gave him too much time to think, and his thoughts sank back to the cascade of coincidences he'd realized about Prince Lorens.
He'd known that Roscord and Missio had died—conveniently, for lack of a better term. And Lorens had understood it too, to the point of mentioning it to Rasim. But there was no way at all to know for certain that Lorens had given Cindu delzjha instead of heartbreak. It wasn't like the Northern prince would admit to it if Rasim accused him, and the last thing he needed to do was make the Northerners mad at Ilyara, too. He closed his eyes, drifting to a stop in the middle of a spiral path as he tried to remember exactly what had happened on the Waifia that chaotic day when Moran had fallen.
Someone bumped into him and grunted a scolding Shenryalan word. Rasim squeaked an apology and found a quiet spot between the backs of three tents, where he squatted and closed his eyes again to think. Lorens had poured a drug into Cindu's mouth from a pouch. The stone witch had fought back, turning on his belly, and Lorens had struggled with him a few seconds before pouring more of the drug into his palm and clapping his hand over Cindu's face until the witch had been forced to inhale.
Rasim tried to replay that moment in his mind, wondering if he'd missed something. What kept coming to mind was the unhappiness, the weary resignation in Lorens's pale eyes when Rasim had insisted the heartbreak be checked. Kisia had taken a dose, and it had worked on her. She'd been unable to feel her witchery. It seemed to clear Lorens of Rasim's suspicions.
The struggle with Cindu spun out in his mind again, an imperfect recollection. Lorens, pouring the drug directly from the pouch into Cindu's mouth. Cindu struggling. Lorens pouring more drug into his hand, forcing Cindu to swallow it. Lorens standing, brushing the dust from his hands, handing the pouch to Kisia so she could take a dose herself.
Lorens pouring the dust directly into Cindu's mouth, then struggling with the stone witch, then pouring a second dose into his hand to clap against Cindu's face.
Had it been the same pouch?
There had been time, during that brief struggle. There'd been time to switch one pouch for another, if Lorens was deft enough, and the Northern prince was. He was quick with his feet, his tongue, his hands, his blade. He was quick with his fists, too, because he'd punched Cindu hard enough to render the stone witch unconscious, after he'd administered the drug.
Rasim opened his eyes. At some point he'd plunked onto his butt, no longer crouching, like it was too hard to squat and think at the same time. Wind shifted the walls of the tents around him, a steady breeze and small motion that he barely saw or felt because of the size of his thoughts.
If he had given an already-powerful witch a drug that would allow them to pull a city apart, he would have wanted to make sure they didn't start doing that until after he was safe. If he'd done that in front of a lot of other people and didn't have the opportunity to explain, then hitting that witch so hard they lost consciousness for a few minutes was as good a way as any to keep their mouth shut.
"It makes more sense," Rasim whispered aloud. He could overcome heartbreak, but only because he had so many different kinds of witchery to command. There had been no reason at all to suspect Cindu was anything other than a stonemaster. It made more sense that Lorens had snuck Cindu a dose of delzjha, knocked him out, and sent him away to wreak havoc than that Cindu had somehow broken through the hold of a drug so consistent in its efficacy that the Ilyaran guilds used it to mute the powers of those who left the guilds.
It made more sense, but there was no way at all to prove it. Rasim held on to the thought, though. Held onto it with a light, fragile touch, like it would escape if he examined it too carefully.
There had to be those among the Shenryalan people who had wanted, at some point in their lives, to become shamans or sorcerers. People who hadn't been chosen by Oyun or her disciples. People who would seek out other sources of shamanic or sorcerous power.
People who might, for example, have known that once upon a time, Kif's people, the Northerners, had borne magics of their own.
The tribes and clans and families of Shenryal rode all over their tremendous plains, and there was a land bridge between Shenryal and the Northlands. It was not impossible, Rasim thought, so gingerly that he barely dared breathe around the idea of it, that somewhere, sometime, there had been a meeting of minds and magics between the outcasts and enslaved Northern students of witchery, and the rejected and resentful sorcery-seeking riders of Shenryal. And somewhere between those two groups there almost certainly had to be at least one shaman or sorcerer whose self-interests and desire for power outweighed their duties to the tribes.
It was a tenuous conviction, so very thin that Rasim knew convincing anyone would be nearly impossible. Kisia would believe him. Desimi would join them because he hated being left out. But it would take proof before Captain Nasira or Bayar's parents would even consider the possibility that Rasim was right.
With a fierce-feeling grin, Rasim got to his feet so he could go find his friends and find a way to prove his theory to the adults around him.
He got about two and a half steps before somebody clobbered him on the back of the head and he dropped to the ground, unconscious.
CHAPTER 14
Rasim woke up to a blindfold, a gag, and a throbbing headache. It took a few seconds longer to realize his hands were also tied behind his back, but that was practically comfortable compared to the knot of cloth in his mouth. It tasted like horse hair. He was lying on his side on the ground, and there was a familiar scent in the air, almost strong enough to drown out the horsey taste. It might have been something like the golden-colored stew he'd eaten earlier, maybe, but that wasn't enough to tell him anything about where he was. From what he'd seen and smelled, people all over the temporary city ate food like that all the time. Rasim muffled a groan, then tried swallowing around the gag, which didn't work very well.
There were distant sounds that he recognized: people and horses. More horses than people, maybe. He was probably still somewhere in the Shenryalan gathering's enormous camp, unless he'd been unconscious a very long time. He thought his head hurt too much for that to be true, though, and after a slow contemplation of the rest of himself, decided he was neither hungry enough, nor had to pee badly enough, to have been out for much more than an hour or two.
