Rudolfo shifted and passed the baby back to Jin Li Tam. “I should go. There is much to do.”
Jin Li Tam cast her eyes away, and he could tell that she wished something that she thought foolish. She blushed at it before she asked. “Join us tonight,” she whispered. “Join Jakob and me. It’s not fitting that husband and wife spend their first night apart, regardless the circumstances.”
Rudolfo nodded. When he finished the multitude of tasks required to make her voice resonate as his own among his people and among the Named Lands, and when he finished preparing for a journey that was impossible to prepare for, he would return. He would take his dinner in her bedchambers and sip chilled peach wine while watching his family.
My family. He’d not used those words since he was a boy. He’d not considered himself as having a family for far too long, and the notion of it now stopped him. I have a family, he thought, beyond my Gypsy Scouts and my Forest people. Tonight, he would pull off his silk slippers and climb into bed with the two of them and memorize that moment for the long days ahead of him.
Then, in the morning, he would begin his search for Vlad Li Tam.
Rudolfo stood. “I will return shortly,” he said. Bending, he kissed her, and he was surprised to find her mouth soft and hungry for his own. Bending further, his kissed his infant son upon his clammy brow.
As Rudolfo straightened, he saw the three of them reflected back in the dressing mirror in the corner of the room. For a moment, he thought he saw his father until he realized it was himself.
He left the room quickly, barking orders to the aides and servants that gathered around him as he went. But he was going through the act of preparation without any heart in it.
For Rudolfo’s heart was not within him any longer.
Instead, it lay swaddled in blankets, nursing in the arms of a glorious sunrise.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam stood at the rail and watched the sun fall below the horizon. Below him, the high iron bow cut the waves as his flagship, The Serendipitous Wind, steamed south. They’d steamed straight on for two days and two nights now, and sometime tomorrow he expected to rendezvous with his First Son’s vessel to see whatever it was he had encountered. They’d heard no further news, but with the vessel constantly moving, he had not expected to hear anything.
His grandson slipped up behind him, but Vlad Li Tam heard his soft footfalls. “Good evening, Mal,” he said, turning as the young man approached.
Mal Li Tam grinned. “I’ve never been able to trick you.”
Vlad Li Tam chuckled. “No, but you continue to try.” When he was a young boy, Mal had even carefully rehearsed the strides of those others in his life that he could observe, imitating the walk of several of his siblings, his father, and even Vlad himself on occasion. It had become something of a game.
“But now you’ve found your own stride,” Vlad said.
The young man nodded. “Yes, Grandfather.” He stepped to the bow alongside the old man. “What do you think Father found?” he asked, staring south.
Vlad Li Tam glanced over at him, then back to the horizon. “It is impossible to guess. Somewhere out here, someone is working against us.” He’d been quiet about this, giving out as little information as he could get away with. Enough to keep them engaged in the search. The close network that House Li Tam had built over twenty centuries had somehow been infiltrated and bent, though whoever had done so was a master of spycraft, leaving no real evidence behind. Not even the golden bird had borne any useful clues. The small mechanical had been a fixture in his family library for generations, and its sudden disappearance, just months before the destruction of Windwir, had been perplexing. Its sudden return was even more so. Vlad had torn it apart and restored it to its damaged condition personally before donating it to the new library. Yet someone had rescripted it, ordered it out to view Windwir’s fall, and used it to bear gods-knew-what messages gods-knew-where during the time that it was missing.
His grandson’s brow furrowed. “And you’re certain that the threat is beyond the Named Lands?”
He nodded. “I believe it is.” He paused, then added, “It’s certainly what the Order believed.” His mind played out the contents of the pouch he had delivered to Petronus on the day of the trial, with their maps and coordinates, their carefully crafted strategy to deploy the Seven Cacophonic Deaths through a choir of mechoservitors to protect the most vulnerable trade coastlines of the Named Lands. “They feared an invasion,” he said quietly.
“But what,” his grandson asked, “if it was simply a ruse?”
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Vlad Li Tam admitted. “All I know for certain is that they were frightened enough of something to bring back Xhum Y’Zir’s spell.”
Mal Li Tam nodded. “If it is out there,” he said, “I’m certain we will find it.” His face brightened in the purple light of evening. “Oh, I have something for you, Grandfather.” He reached into his pocket and drew a small pouch. “Rae Li Tam found these just before the feast and asked me to bring them to you. I wanted to dry them first,” he said with a chuckle. “Not an easy task when you’re at sea.” He passed the pouch over and Vlad Li Tam took it, tipping the contents into his hand.
He held the kallaberries to his nose and inhaled their pungent scent, feeling his heart quicken at the sight and smell of them. How long had it been? Four months or maybe five? He’d given up the pipe first by necessity, knowing the dried berries would be harder and harder to come by the farther out they sailed. But later, it had become a choice. The forgetfulness and calm were luxuries he could no longer afford to steep himself in with the work he was presently about, despite the occasional flashes of brilliance the berries offered him. Still, he’d asked his daughter, each time they made landfall, to watch out for the rare kallabush and its small crimson berries. And now that they were in his hand, he knew that he would return to his room and smoke them in the long-stemmed pipe he kept there. He smiled at his grandson. “Thank you,” he said.
Mal Li Tam returned the smile and bowed slightly. “You are welcome, Grandfather.” Then the young man turned and walked back to the pilot house and Vlad watched him go.
A sharp arrow, indeed. Someday, he thought, Mal will replace me.
Later that night, he took three of the small berries and crushed them into the bowl of his pipe. He drew a match across the rough paneling of his stateroom’s wall and held it to the berries while he drew on the stem, turning the red mash to a bubbling purple. He held in the smoke as long as he could, exhaled, then did it again.
Liquid centeredness flowed out from his lungs into the rest of him and he sighed, climbing into his narrow bunk with his pipe and matches. The room moved as he did, and initially he thought the berries were stronger than usual or that perhaps four months away from the pipe had lowered his tolerance for the berries. But when he felt his legs become heavy and then nonexistent, Vlad Li Tam knew the error in his thinking. The realization struck him, and he tried to deny it but could not.
Mal Li Tam did not knock at the door. He merely opened it and stepped into the room. His smile was wide and full of teeth.
Vlad Li Tam willed his mouth to work, but it refused him, twisting and closing off the words. He closed his eyes against the vertigo that tugged him down. Even the questions he formed were diffused by the haze of whatever had been mixed into the berries.
“You’re wondering,” Mal Li Tam said in a slow, careful voice, “how it is that the Franci conditioning of your House could fail so utterly, that one of your own could betray you.”