Skymaster, page 2
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
"I bet your Stonemaster friends have." The guard smacked a handful of signals against her palm, then lifted her eyebrows. "That's what I sent to Gontor. What did I say?"
"Friends below," Rasim said promptly, but shook his head. "I don't know the other words. What are they?"
The guard broke into a grin as she repeated the gestures. "That means scare them."
Rasim laughed. "Perfect. Thank you. What's your name?"
"Elmra."
"I'll come back and learn more, if you'll teach me, Elmra."
"I would like that, Ilyaran." The guard thumped her shoulder in the Northern salute as Rasim, still chortling with delight, ran off toward the throne room to await Desimi and Kisia's ignominious arrival.
The door itself was barred, suggesting an important council meeting going on within. Rasim sagged in fleeting disappointment, then recovered. Gontor would give them a good scare even if they didn't get dragged into the throne room and cast at Inga's feet.
A thin man appeared down the corridor, hands folded behind his back and shoulders hunched in the uncomfortable pose of worry. He never looked up from his feet as he paced toward Rasim, then turned to shuffle back down the hall. Rasim cleared his throat. "Lars?"
The former debt slave startled and looked around. His beard and hair had been trimmed since he'd come to Hongrunn, but he still had the pale, scarred look of a man only half able to believe in his own freedom. He and a number of others had pledged themselves in Rasim's service, but Rasim hoped they were having second thoughts now that they were coming to grips with being free "Lars, what's going on? What are you doing here? You look awful."
"They're in there deciding what to do about the debt slaves." Lars spoke in a low, tense tone. "About my friends, and about everybody else who has been indentured."
Rasim closed his mouth fast enough to make a popping sound and glanced sharply toward the doors. "Really?"
A smile twisted the corner of Lars's mouth. "It seems we've had an excellent advocate. And your efforts haven't hurt. Thank you, Rasim."
The pride swelling in Rasim's chest deflated. "Oh. Who else has been talking to Inga?"
The doors flew open as he asked and a blast of warmth rolled from the council room. A harried-looking courtier came out with the heat and stopped dead on seeing Rasim. Without a word, she seized Rasim and Lars both by the collars and hauled them inside the council room, thrusting them forward as if they were barriers ensuring her own safety.
Sunmaster Endat, an Ilyaran diplomat, was on his feet beneath the room's extraordinary murals, speaking passionately to a large gathering of nobles. He stopped as Lars and Rasim were shooed forward, and Inga, the tall, pale-haired crown princess of the Northlands, turned her attention to the newcomers. "Rasim. There you are. We wanted you earlier, to speak to the council. Where have you been?"
Guilt surged in Rasim. "Playing on the roof with Kisia and Desimi."
Inga smiled sympathetically. "I forget you're only a boy who never meant to tangle with diplomats and politics. It doesn't matter. You should know it has been fully agreed that unless we discover direct evidence that the slaves you freed were part of the conspiracy against Hongrunn and Ilyara, they are free to go."
Rasim let out a shout of joy before remembering he was in a council of noble and important people. Inga smiled at his outburst, though, and turned that same, gentle smile on Lars. "I'm sorry for what you've suffered. We have not yet determined how to offer reparations, but please know that it's a topic we're discussing."
Lars, stunned into silence, only nodded as Sunmaster Endat picked up the speech they'd interrupted. "We've been asking ourselves who could have studied and taught witchery underneath the noses of Northern leadership, but I believe we've been looking in the wrong places, your highness. I believe these new Northern witches have chosen only the most desperate as students. There's no visible conspiracy within your great cities because they have gone to the outliers, to the mines and wretched sea communities, to instigate rebellion from there."
Shock settled in Rasim's belly. He shot a look at Lars, whose expression was hang-dog guilty. "You knew about this?" Rasim hissed. "Did Northern debt slaves offer to study magic with someone?"
"All I heard was rumors," Lars whispered unhappily. "That other mines or trawler ships had been cleared out by slavers promising freedom to those who could learn Ilyaran magic. I didn't believe it was true, and then when I heard what had happened to your city I..." He faltered. "I was afraid if I told you what I suspected, you'd..."
"What, stop being your friend? Tell Inga to send you back to the mines? I wouldn't do that, Lars."
"I know that now." Lars was in his forties, but his heartbroken expression made him seem half that age. He had, Rasim reminded himself, spent most of his life in captivity. He had been able to take command in the mines when their freedom was on the line, but outside, with that freedom perhaps threatened again, Rasim couldn't quite blame him for keeping quiet.
He put a hand on Lars's shoulder. "It's all right. I understand."
"Your highness, I don't know what these witches are." Endat's voice broke over their quiet conversation, leaving Rasim trying to catch up with what the nobility had been discussing. "They froze our harbor, which our sea witches could not do. They set a trap beneath your lake, which is not a skill our Stonemasters have—"
"That's not necessarily true."
Dozens of pairs of eyes turned toward Rasim, who sighed. Someday he would learn not to let his thoughts leap instantly to his lips. "Before she died, Stonemaster Lusa said she didn't know how it had been done, not that she couldn't do it. And I know Milu has been trying to replicate it. He says the tricky thing is that there are so many kinds of rock in place, and some metal. Journeyman Milu is very good," Rasim explained to Inga, "but even he has a difficult time working with metal. It's like ice to sea witches. Almost but not exactly something we can work with. The point is, a Stonemaster might be able to do it, or at least think of it, and if the Northern witches have...have a...a middle magic, something that falls between ours and..."
He fell silent a moment, trying to imagine what could be opposite of the elements Ilyaran witches worked with. "A long time ago Northerners had magic too, right? What kinds of magic?"
Inga looked to at a woman old enough to rival Guildmaster Isidri's years, but considerably more sour-faced and angry. "Rekka?"
The old woman's pinched face tightened further. "My grandmother's grandmother's stories were of masters of ice and metal. The crown your own mother wears is said to have been shaped, not forged, Inga. The rest of their magic was the stuff of living things. Crops and beasts, to keep them through the hard winters. That's what my grandmother's grandmother said, anyway."
"Ice and metal are practical for the hard winters, too," Rasim said into the thoughtful silence that followed. "Witches who could shape and shift the snow and ice makes sense for survival in the Northlands. And metal to shape weapons for raids on warmer, easier cities."
Endat, fascinated, said, "Are you suggesting our own magics are shaped by our place in the world, Rasim?"
Rasim shrugged "We live on a delta in the desert, Sunmaster. Your guild mitigates the heat. Mine works the sea, where we get more than half our food. The Stonemasters built Ilyara with their magic. And the Skymasters protect us from the sandstorms in a way nobody else could. Doesn't it make sense that our magic is born from what we need?"
Endat's expression made Rasim sigh. "I guess nobody's ever thought about it that way before."
"Perhaps they have," Endat replied, almost gently. "But not for a long time, Rasim. Not since before the Sunmasters came to power within the Ilyaran palace."
Rasim shot a look toward Rekka, whose grumpy eyebrows rose in question. "It's just that the Sunmasters have been in power in Ilyara for a hundred years or so," Rasim said. "I just wondered how far back your grandmother's grandmother's memories stretched."
To his surprise, a thin smile pulled at the old woman's mouth. "Older than your Sunmasters' reign, boy. The women in my family live on and on. Closer to three hundred years than not."
Even Inga exhaled softly at that. "Witchery in the north is the stuff of long-ago stories, but perhaps those who put more stock in stories than I did have made an effort to rediscover it. But, Master Endat, your people do not rely on slavery. How, then, has treachery slipped inside Ilyara's walls?"
Rasim blurted, "Resentment. Like Captain Nasira. She left the Guild to have a family, and when we leave we're supposed to forswear our magic. Imagine—" A shuffle occurred down the table and Rasim's face turned molten as Captain Nasira leaned forward far enough for him to finally see her. Wishing he could disappear, Rasim mumbled, "Imagine you left, but didn't want to give up witchery, or that you'd been raised in the guilds but never really wanted that life. If you managed to escape—"
"Escape? Are the guilds so like indentured slavery, then?" Inga demanded.
Rasim sighed. "Not exactly. I know Des—I know some people chafe at the idea of it being the only choice they have. But it's not like the guildmasters would talk about it much if people slipped away, is it? So if there are witches who snuck off, they might want to break down the system that they escaped from."
Master Endat's face fell into neutral lines as he studied Rasim, then spoke to the room at large. "It's true, of course, that sometimes guild members disappear or are thought to have died when they perhaps haven't. Rasim, you have a devious mind."
It didn't sound like a compliment. Just the opposite, in fact. It sounded as if Rasim was causing trouble just by thinking, which wasn't quite fair. He couldn't help thinking.
"All of this is precisely why the Waifia should sail at the earliest possible moment." Captain Nasira spoke for the first time, drawing the attention of all. "There are certainly spies in this palace, just as there are in Ilyara. These witch-making slavers probably already know we're here. The longer we wait to move, the more prepared they'll be. Whether it's through witchery or by walking out on the ice and breaking it before her prow, we need to get the Waifia underway, and fast."
An eruption of debate rose up so swiftly it was clear to Rasim that Nasira had proposed this before. The idea of walking out onto the ice worried the Northerners, though the seamasters had very little to fear from doing so. Even if the ice shattered beneath their feet and sent them into the freezing harbor, it was hard to drown a sea witch.
"But the unmaking of ice is difficult, isn't it?" Lorens, Inga's younger brother and prince of the Northlands, stood to speak. "Your own guildmaster nearly died fighting the frozen harbor in Ilyara."
"It's well nigh impossible." Nasira didn't look at Rasim as she muttered, "But Desimi al Ilialio alone has nearly the strength to do it, and that one," she said, managing to point at Rasim with her voice alone, "has been blessed by Siliaria herself. Together, they may be able to rough up the seas enough to break the ice, and the rest of us can keep the Waifia afloat in their wake."
Rasim clamped his mouth shut and tried not to let his eyes bug too much. Not in a hundred years would he have expected Nasira to champion him. As quickly as astonishment came, so did a burst of pride, until he was so confused with emotion that he didn't know where to look.
Lorens cast Rasim a thoughtful glance that turned amused, suggesting Rasim had less control over his expression than he was trying for. But the Northern prince let him off the hook, speaking as if Rasim wasn't agog. "Then I think it's time we throw caution away, Inga. Counsilors, the Ilyarans have done what they came to do, and have mourned their losses in the aftermath of that great effort. They only lose time now, and time may be critical to those who might have been taken captive half a year ago, just before Rasim found his way to us the first time. We are indebted to them, and shouldn't delay the captain's mission any longer."
Nasira clapped her hands together, a sharp ringing sound that emphasized her satisfaction. "I'll waste no more time in the Northlands. We sail on the tide."
"Wait." Rasim's voice was weak with the weariness of calling attention to himself yet again. But yet again, he couldn't stand by and say nothing, not when there was something important to be said. "Wait. We can't all go after the slavers if we get free of the ice. Someone has to warn the horse clans that trouble is heading for them, too."
3
Captain Nasira's stare, bearing down on Rasim, weighed more than any sea witchery. He lifted his chin, holding his ground even as his shoulders slumped with dejection. All he wanted was to avoid infuriating his captain again, but apparently that would never happen.
"I suppose your little Captain Kisia will take you and your slopped-out Northern boat to do that?" Nasira's sarcasm was as sharp as the clap she'd made. "I may not like you, Rasim, but you're my crew and you'll go where I say."
Rasim bristled on Kisia's behalf. His impossible wish to be a captain was no secret, but Kisia was so new to the guild that she'd be ruthlessly hazed for daring to dream of such things.
Inga, mis-reading Rasim's scowl, said, "Perhaps we can send a ship, Rasim. At the very least, I think you're right that we need to make contact with the horse clans and learn whether they too have been beset with catastrophe these past thirteen years."
"I'm sure of it." Rasim dug his toes against the stone floor as if doing so would help him stand fast against questioning. "Kisia and I mapped it out, Ing—uh, your highness. Ilyara, Hongrunn, the Islands—they're compass points on a map, all the same distance from the center. And the center is Moran, the biggest slaver city of them all. I'm sure all of this is coming out of there, and we're all going to have to work together to end it."
"The Shenryalan clans are nomads, Rasim. Even their upcoming clan gathering allows very few outsiders to attend. We may not be able to work with them," said Inga.
Rasim gave Endat a ferocious glare and the rotund Sunmaster smiled. "We can but try. Your highness, if you send one of your own ships to the west in search of the Shenryalan, I will sail with it as the Ilyaran representative to this cause. Certainly building stronger bonds between nations is never a bad thing."
"Shenryal isn't a nation," someone muttered. "Just a bunch of savages living in tents and riding on horses."
"They no doubt consider our heavy stone walls and sailing ships to be equally savage," Endat replied evenly. "The world would be a dull place if we were all alike."
"Someone wouldn't be trying to poison our water supplies if we were all alike!"
"Someone," Inga said in a cool voice, "has failed in that attempt, Counsilor Kif. Failed badly, since we are now united with the Ilyarans in our attempt to discover who is behind it, and why. It's been a long time since you went west to meet the Shenryalans for my father. They may have changed."
Kif, who looked to be only a little younger than Rekka, gestured at the rough scar that cut across his nose and spliced his beard. "Anyone who does this to a man doesn't change."
Endat's eyebrows flickered up as his gaze came to land the heavy blade Kif wore at his hip. "An assumption that comes from experience, perhaps?"
Kif faltered, then flushed with anger as poorly muffled laughter rushed around the room. Lorens, still on his feet, flashed a wide grin at the older man. "We laugh with you, Kif, not at you. Your caution is noted," he said more solemnly, giving Kif a nod that acknowledged his age and wisdom. "I think Sunmaster Endat would do well to have you with him when he sails west. You spent time with the Shenryalan tribes, and may still have friends there."
Kif nodded slowly, and settled back more graciously than Rasim expected. For a man who'd just called the horse tribes savages, Kif didn't seem dismayed at the idea of visiting them again. Rasim wondered how he had come to visit in the first place, and how much time he'd spent in the west. He didn't look like a man who would answer a curious boy's questions, though. Maybe Lorens could tell Rasim the story, and maybe Rasim could learn something important about the Shenryalans by listening. His ears pricked at the idea, like he was already trying to hear and learn. Instead of stories, he caught a sharp uncomfortable sound, like stone cracking. His hands went cold and he held his breath, trying to hear more clearly, but the chatter in the chamber made it hard.
"Stop!" Rasim climbed onto the table, hands spread wide to bring the sound down. People stared at him, but he didn't care, his attention focused on the walls. Confused silence fell amongst the councilors as a broken pattern became audible.
Words. Words communicated in a secret language, a language that Rasim had only just learned a little of from the palace guard. They rattled out across the room, gaining speed and urgency:
Enemies by sea.
Rasim's stomach turned to a lump of ice, and he couldn't push his voice past a whisper. "The harbor's under attack. The crew is down there."
The words didn't carry, but they didn't need to. Most of the Northerners understood the tapped-out message. Some were already on their feet, loosening swords in their sheathes and striding—almost running—for the enormous double doors. Lorens vaulted onto the table, gripping Rasim's shoulder. "Can you fight?"
Memories of shipboard sword-fighting lessons swept Rasim in a sudden wave of heat. He looked at his hands, searching for callouses from the mock sword he'd learned with and finding the rough lines of ship work instead. "If not with a sword, then with witchery."
His own voice sounded strange to him: grim and suddenly older somehow. Lorens, eyes bright with approval, squeezed Rasim's shoulder again before leaping off the table and joining the others as they swept from the room.
Nasira caught Rasim's arm as he followed Lorens. "What's happening, journeyman?"
"The harbor's under attack," Rasim said again, knowing Nasira hadn't been able to hear him the first time. "Our crew is in danger."
"And you know of the attack how...?" Endat joined them, which sent Rasim into a dance of impatience. He wanted to act, not explain!
Getting around Sunmaster Endat was like trying to circumvent a small mountain, though, so Rasim ground his teeth and answered him. "Because a guard just taught me some of the drumming language the Northerners use to communicate over distances. It's like our ship signals," he blurted to Nasira, hoping it would clarify what he didn't have time to say.
