She was a pariah. He would not soil himself.
There were ships standing off at such and such a location, bound for Dorthar. Somehow she was with a family who had given her food and were now taking her to the ships.
She imagined entering Dorthar and throwing herself, a suppliant, at the wheels of Raldanash’s chariot as he rode by on the way to war.
“Why are you laughing?” the children asked her.
“Stop that. She’s daft, poor bitch.”
When they arrived at the shore, there were no ships. The family made off westward and deserted the lunatic, who was an ill omen.
She wandered awhile with the wandering light, then sat down on a stone.
The waves blew against the beach. But there was no peace. In the silence, she saw Kesarh and what the Free Zakorians would do to him. She had heard of the exploits of his valor, Tjis, the sea-fight off Karmiss a year ago. She was afraid she would see it in truth, the mental barrier giving way, letting his mind pour into hers, his torture and death, and she could do nothing.
She did not properly understand any of what had taken place, only its outcome. And sometimes she did not believe that either, though she knew it was so.
He had not died. Not yet. She would be aware of his death. Perhaps.
Not much before sunset, a storm cloud began to cross the water, miles off to the northeast. Ulis Anet left the stone and wandered into the surf, and stared at the blackness of the cloud until it melted away against the land. An hour after, another storm cloud, this one red, crept to the sky. At first she took it only as a vestige of sunfall. But it was the nightmare, black cloud, red—Zakorian ships, and fire.
She ran, inanely, the way the family had gone, westward, from the night.
In the blackness, she started back initially, thinking she had reached more arson. But then she perceived it was a group of torches. There was a shallow cove, with boats, rough-made, leaky things, groaning on to the waves one after another.
She came among the people there. They were few. Their lights caught her and someone said, “Look—ulis-hair. A good omen.”
She had been an ill omen before.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The island.”
She gazed at them. Karmiss was an island.
“The holy shrine,” said another.
“The Leopard took it already. He won’t bother to come back. It’ll be safe there.”
They were going over to Ankabek, in the shadow of the moonless night.
They let her go with them, for her lucky hair.
Vodon’s men had cast Her into the sea from the rocks, Ashara-Anackire, the goddess of Ankabek. Down there She lay, dreaming, as she dreamed in Ibron above Koramvis. It was said She had once dreamed the world.
A sable shell on the sable sky, aureoled with stars, the island rose from the sea.
Have I come this way before, quick, and dead? the Xarabian thought. Val Nardia had done so.
Beyond the landing, the island went up, but the village had been gouged by the Leopard. They said not one living creature had survived. Only ghosts dwelled here now, a slain priestess and her folk, but who had ventured to see?
They entered the village and did what they could with it. Bits of walls provided wind-breaks. They stretched hide across and tented them in, and lit fires. A lizard was spotted, a gray jewel on a rock, life after all. Supper was cooked. Their normalcy was genuine and glad, but here, in the haven, there was to be always the scent of things omitted, the condition of the earth beyond; they did not mention Vis.
She could not eat, thinking of Kesarh. A woman patted her hand. “Ah, you’ve lost someone, I expect.”
Ulis Anet looked beyond the earth, up into the stars, and then the stars drew her away, on to a stony path and through an uncanny wood. It was blackened, but here and there some branch or bough had survived, and put out resinous buds, sweetening the sweet air. It was an hour’s walk.
The temple stood at the island’s summit. The upright slot of the entrance was very high, the doors broken in and their machinery uprooted. There were old black markings on the walls. But, although the way had been breached below, up here the clue to ingress had not been come on. The circle of the inner Sanctuary was still shut.
Ulis Anet went to the stone and laid her forehead and the palms of her hands upon its coolness.
Val Nardia had hanged herself. Is it for some such finality I too was brought to Ankabek?
A night bird fluted in the cremated groves outside. Life in death.
But Kesarh, Kesarh—
Ulis Anet sank to her knees. She pressed her lips to the unpenetrated wall. A prayer of the Amanackire came to her, from somewhere in childhood, and she said the words aloud, not knowing why, or their significance, her tears warmer than the burned stone.
“Not what I lack, nor what I desire, but give me only what I am.”
After a moment, the stone moved. Part of the wall fell slowly back before her. The wall was like a pipe, and the pressure points that sprung the slabs were set low down and could only be come at by kneeling. They responded to breaths of differing shapes, such as were formed phonetically. There were more than a hundred keys, all prayers, of which Ulis Anet’s was merely one.
Beyond, the Sanctum was despoiled, as the pirates had left it, and without light. But she stepped into it. She was afraid, understanding the wall would close. Incarcerated, she could only then seek a way out through one of the inner doors Vodon’s men had forced, and so through the labyrinth of under-passages—
She stood in the blackness now, smashed pottery or human bones under her feet, without even the statue of the goddess to comfort her.
And yet, the goddess might be conjured. She was there for all who cried out to Her—Not what I lack or desire. What I am.
No, it was not Val Nardia’s phantom which hovered here.
It was the woman they had whispered of on the boat, Eraz, the priestess.
“Help me,” Ulis Anet said to her, in the dark.
The help is in you. You must help yourself.
“Yes,” said Ulis Anet. “The help is in me. I must help myself.”
The message of Free Zakoris to Karmiss had been terse. We have your King. Will you ransom him? The Warden of Istris sent to learn the substance of this ransom. The ransom was Karmiss. It was a witticism. Kesarh had awarded the Leopard Prince Rarmon, the Storm Lord’s brother. But the Leopard wanted Kesarh himself and now had him. Karmiss the Leopard would also have, given or taken. Already there were paw marks on the beaches.
As heat began to come into the days, the black thunder clouds poured down the seas of Vis.
In Dorthar’s north, the ballistas started their dialogue with a hostile ocean. It was not much more than an exercise, there, something to divert that eye of Raldanash’s kingdom and a portion of men and armaments. One night, a company of Dortharians swam out and fired four Zakorian ships. As the upper decks exploded, the Dortharians went on to hole the undersides and, breaking their chains, liberated most of the slaves. Gallant heroics these, worth a song. But forgotten when fifty Free Zakorian galleys sailed into the major estuary of the Okris river. For a fleet of any size, this was the road to Dorthar’s hub, and the delta garrison was seven thousand strong. It held the river mouth against the onslaught, which now gave no sign of decreasing. As further black ships drifted to join their fellows, further battalions, mostly Xarabians and Dortharian-Vathcrians, were force-marched or skulled east to shore up the blockade.
Ommos. Ships clustered black against her coast. She had been breached at Karith, that enduringly weak spot, but the Dortharian troops stationed inland against this contingency had ambushed and beaten Yl’s forces off and back into the sea.