The Last Lies of Ardor Benn Page 12

  “That was not in Macer’s book,” Ard argued.

  Raek grinned. “How would you know? You haven’t read it.”

  “There’s that raft you were talking about,” Quarrah said, squinting through a spyglass as she left her post at the rudder. She was wearing her black thief’s garb, snuggly fit, with slim belts crossing her chest. The wind pulled a few long strands of hair from her ponytail and sent them tickling across her face. Ard smiled as she sputtered at a hair across her lips before tucking it behind her ear.

  “I was planning on hiding in the boat while Ard drew the attention away,” Quarrah said. “I didn’t anticipate a swim.”

  Raek shrugged. “Guess you should have read the book, too.”

  “It’s all right,” Ard soothed her. “You’re good on the fly. You can come ashore with me and slip away when the opportunity presents itself. After all, I’m sure Lyndel would like to see you.”

  Quarrah shook her head. “I think my presence will put her on edge. She knows what I’m capable of.”

  “You keep talking about Lyndel like she’s our enemy,” Ard said. “Just relax. We’ll talk to her for a moment and then I’ll think of a reason for you to go back to the Double Take. You can slip into the trees, raid the Ucru, and I’ll meet you back at the beach.”

  Quarrah checked through her spyglass again. “Except I don’t think there are trees on the Ennoth. Or any kind of vegetation for that matter.”

  “What kind of island doesn’t have plants?” Ard balked.

  “The kind that floods with salt water every cycle,” Raek reminded him.

  “I’m seeing lots of structures, though,” Quarrah said, still inspecting the distant island. “They must have brought in building materials from other islets.”

  Ard looked for himself. Sure enough, the only variation on the sandy atoll was a row of houses that looked like they’d been built on stilts. His magnified gaze dropped to the raft, which was drawing steadily closer over the breaking waves. It wasn’t like the flat rafts of the Mooring that sat high on the water. This one looked like a half-sunken catamaran with just a few wooden rails connecting the low-riding pontoons. A pair of strong Trothians were rowing, their bottom halves submerged, while two more swam behind to propel the vessel.

  “Last chance to wear your robes,” Raek said, offering Ard the sea-green Islehood outfit.

  “By the looks of it, I’d get waterlogged and sink with that on,” Ard said. “Lyndel will have to take my word about being a Holy Isle. Hopefully, she’s already caught rumors of it. Besides, I don’t think wearing that robe will be any more convincing. She knows we’re capable of stealing so much more than a costume. And I don’t want her to think I’m approaching her as an Isle. I’m just an old friend.”

  He’d expected the scoff from Raek, as he tossed the robe onto the rowing bench, but Quarrah’s actually stung. Of course she thought meeting with Lyndel was an unnecessary risk. Quarrah Khai would definitely choose to raid the other Ucru, far away from anyone who might recognize her. But what would that leave for Ard to do? His plan had the dual benefit of utilizing his charismatic skills, and potentially repairing a relationship with a powerful Trothian ally.

  “Hoy!” called one of the Trothians seated on the raft. They were holding their position, floating some twenty yards out.

  “Why do you come to Ra Ennoth?” His voice carried a heavy accent, but he projected well enough that Ard had no trouble hearing him. In moments like these, Ard envied the superior lungs and diaphragm of the Trothians.

  “My name is Ardor Benn,” he shouted back. “We are here to meet with your Shoka priestess, Lyndel. She should have received a message to expect us.”

  The two Trothians conversed briefly in hushed tones that didn’t reach the Double Take. “We will take you ashore!” the man called back. “Jump into the water and we will retrieve you.”

  Ard glanced at Quarrah as he unclasped his Grit belt. The clay pots were mostly waterproof, and wet Grit could still detonate under enough sparks. But the Blast cartridges he used for his guns were rolled in thin paper. Sitting half submerged on that raft would leave them too soggy to load, assuming they didn’t dissolve completely.

  Oh, well. It would probably prove his point better to go unarmed anyway. And he wasn’t totally defenseless. Ard had one little Grit pot tucked away for emergencies. He slipped out of his boots and passed them ceremoniously to Raek. If that whole island was covered in sand, then he’d be more comfortable without them.

  “What’s this?” Raek asked, awkwardly accepting the boots.

  “I want you to have these if I don’t come back,” Ard said in mock seriousness.

  “They’re not my size.”

  “Then you can wear them on your hands.” Ard eased himself over the edge of the Double Take, dropping the short distance to the water, the cold splash stealing his breath for a moment. He’d been able to keep his head from going under, but Quarrah wasn’t so lucky, plunging in beside him.

  In a moment, they were seated on the Trothian raft as the swimmers turned it back toward the Ennoth’s beach. It wasn’t a comfortable vessel, requiring all of Ard’s balance just to keep from falling between the rails and getting left in its wake.

  They rode in silence, watching the beach draw steadily closer. The waiting Trothians stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a semicircle, those on the ends standing waste deep in the lapping water.

  Quite the welcoming party, Ard thought. He knew Lander visitors were highly uncommon on the islets. The novelty must have drawn close to a hundred from their homes.

  It wasn’t long before the little raft touched sand. Ard stepped off the raft, amazed at the way the compact sand squished between his toes. It was strange and dizzying to see the water skimming in and out around his feet. To feel it pull at the sand beneath his soles. There was something rhythmic and soothing—even cathartic—about the steady undulation of the waves on a beach. How many Landers lived and died without ever touching Trothian sand?

  He shot a sidelong glance at Quarrah, but she seemed much less interested in the feel of the beach. Her wet dark clothes clung to her tense body and he realized that this crowd might make it more difficult to slip away than they’d anticipated.

  “Ardor Benn!” A familiar voice shouted his name, drawing his attention away from the soft sand. He saw Lyndel standing on the beach, the curved line of Trothians like a wall behind her.

  The priestess seemed never to change, no matter the passing years. Her black hair was tinged with gray, falling thick and straight. She wore a simple gray tunic, with a necklace and belt of clay beads. Her shoulders were bare, but her arms were wrapped in red cloth from her elbows to her wrists.

  “Omligath, Lyndel!” Ard called, beginning his charms with a warm smile. She was not smiling back as she trudged toward him, bare feet churning through the loose sand.

  “Thank you for welcoming us,” he continued when she was close enough that Ard didn’t have to shout. “I assume you received my message—”

  “Ardor Benn,” she cut him off. “You will answer for your crimes against the Trothian people. You will surrender yourself willingly.”

  Ard took a faltering step backward, a high-reaching wave kissing his heels. He wanted to laugh off Lyndel’s comments as a joke, but her vibrating eyes showed no mirth.

  “Now, wait a minute.” Ard held out both hands. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I received a pardon for my crimes.”

  “Your queen cannot pardon crimes against people she does not rule,” answered Lyndel. She reached behind her back, hand reappearing with a long knife, its hilt of polished bone.

  Sparks, Lyndel looked like she meant business! Had he really misread this situation so greatly? There’s still time, Ard told himself. Time to talk my way out of this.

  “I understand that we didn’t part on the best of terms,” Ard said. “But that’s why I am here. Why don’t you put down the knife and we can talk?”

  “You will surrender yo
urself to the ruling tribunal,” she said. “You will come without a struggle to face the consequences of your actions.”

  “Lyndel,” Ard said, his hand straying to his vest as she took an aggressive step closer. “It’s me. Whatever problem you have, we can resolve it together. I’ve come to apologize. Tell her, Quarrah.”

  He glanced at his companion, but Quarrah had slowly backed away from him, standing knee deep in the waves, hands balled into ready fists.

  “You will come with me now, Ardor,” pressed Lyndel. “Or I will gut you where you stand.” She raised the blade.

  Okay. This was quite enough. Ard slipped his hand into his vest, yanking out the single pot of Barrier Grit he’d brought with him. Leaping backward, he hurled it at Lyndel’s feet. It struck the soft sand, landing with a dull thud that wasn’t enough to crack the clay pot.

  “Quarrah!” he shouted, scrambling backward toward the raft. She stood frozen for half a second before springing to his side, catching one of the cross rails, and shoving the simple vessel back out to sea.

  The nearest Trothian—one of the swimmers who had pushed the raft—moved to intercept Ard. The man swung a hefty fist, but Ard ducked it nimbly, following with an uppercut of his own. The blow landed, Ard grimacing at the jarring crack of the man’s jaw against his knuckles.

  He reached the raft, pushing alongside Quarrah while becoming painfully aware that the half circle of spectating Trothians was folding in on them.

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” Quarrah shouted.

  Oh, really? Did she have to rub it in right now?

  They were waist deep in their futile escape when something struck Ard in the back of the head. His hands slipped from the raft rail and he fell face first into the water.

  Someone had a hold of him by the back of the shirt, jerking him upward until his head cleared the wave and he sputtered for breath, his vision threatening to go black from the blow.

  “You have made a grave error coming here,” Lyndel’s voice sounded in his ear. The cold steel of her blade touched his neck as she held him securely, his face mere inches above the water like a sacrifice to the sea.

  “Quarrah,” Ard rasped. It was partly a cry for help, but mostly it was a question for her well-being. He had brought her here against her suggestions. If anything were to happen—

  “My conflict is with you alone.” Lyndel yanked him upright. Ard could now see Quarrah clearly, the water lapping at her chest, one hand still idly clinging to the raft. “Quarrah Khai is free to go.”

  “What will you do with him?” Quarrah called.

  “We will deal with him in our way,” Lyndel answered. “He will answer for the deaths that rest upon his head.”

  Ah, flames. This wasn’t going to end well. Ard locked eyes with a startled Quarrah. “Tell Trable,” he called, talking fast. “Tell him that I’m being detained. Spread the word to everyone in Beripent. Cinza and Elbrig. Get them to stir up the people. Tell them—”

  Lyndel struck him in the back of the head again, causing the midday sunlight to flicker. His body drooped, but she held him above the water, dragging him up the beach.

  At last, Quarrah hoisted herself onto the back of the raft, retrieving one of the long oars and paddling frantically. Lyndel shouted something in Trothian—an order that sent two Trothians swimming out to propel Quarrah toward the Double Take.

  At least this isn’t falling on her, Ard thought as a dozen Trothians pressed around him. He tried to put up a fight, but his head was throbbing and his arms felt weak.

  Scratchy, fibrous ropes tightened around his wrists. In his dazed state, he considered this a good sign. If they were tying him up, it meant they wanted something. It meant he’d stay alive a little longer.

  One of the Trothian women grabbed his face, forcing his mouth open as she shoved something in. Ard couldn’t tell if it was a wad of fabric or a bunch of plants. Whatever it was, it had a distinct salty taste and effectively stopped him from saying another word. He chose to bite down instead of trying to spit it, grateful that he hadn’t lost any teeth when she’d rammed it in.

  Pushed from behind, Ard staggered, following Lyndel as she moved toward the houses. They passed into the neighborhood, Ard glimpsing between his Trothian escorts to catch a closer look at the structures.

  He had always imagined Trothian dwellings to be run-down and primitive. It was the stereotype most Landers held, perpetuated by the less-than-ideal conditions in which many Trothians found themselves after immigrating to the Greater Chain. But what Ard was seeing wasn’t primitive at all. It was different. Foreign. But there was a marked level of finesse to their construction and a simple elegance to their architecture.

  The homes were made primarily of wood, with decorative accents of seashells. Not a roof stood over ten feet high, loosely thatched with what looked like dried aquatic vegetation. Ard supposed that a race whose island flooded once a cycle wasn’t overly concerned with keeping out the rain.

  The stilt-like framework of their buildings rose out of the sand, supported by stone at their foundations. But none of the walls actually touched the ground, giving the whole village the subtle appearance of floating in midair.

  In the gap between the sand and the bottom of the walls, Ard could see blue feet shuffling—most of them hurrying to a doorless archway to get a glimpse of the passing commotion outside.

  In Beripent, Ard had always considered Trothians to be rather reclusive—even secretive. But that was certainly not the case here. There was a perplexing level of openness and a shocking lack of privacy.

  There can be no secrets among us, for our eyes can see them.

  Unexpectedly, the line from the glass testament spire on the seabed came to his mind. He and Raek had done their best to write down what they could remember from it, and that particular line had definitely stood out to Ardor Benn, who valued his secrets above anything else.

  In the context of his surroundings, it seemed completely believable that the Trothians had descended from a race like that. By comparison, Landers seemed stuffy and distrusting.

  Ahead, Ard notice a trench full of water that dissected their path. Lyndel led the way and the group trudged into it without slowing. Glancing to the side, Ard saw that the trench ran all the way across the islet, giving him a clear view to the open sea.

  This must have been one of the pats that Vorish had mentioned. A series of crisscrossing hand-dug canals that delivered salt water all across the Ennoth. They were deeper and wider than he’d expected.

  Instead of passing through the pat, Lyndel turned their course, leading Ard and the others along the canal as though it were a convenient road. In fact, it seemed convenient for everyone except Ardor Benn, who stumbled time after time, the Trothians at his side keeping him from going under.

  After a moment, the pat intersected another canal running perpendicular to the first. A pool had formed at the confluence, deep enough that Lyndel began to swim. Ard grunted a cry of help through his gag as his feet left the sandy bottom of the pat, but two of the Trothians quickly linked arms with him, dragging his floundering, wrist-bound figure through the pool until they reached the intersecting waterway.

  They continued forward, Trothians lining up along the edge of the pat to witness the processional, as though Ard were some notorious criminal—which he was. But Ard hadn’t expected his fame to have reached the Trothian islets.

  He was surprised by the sheer number of people on Ra Ennoth. He’d heard that the islets were cramped and overcrowded—a significant motivator for some Trothians to relocate to the Greater Chain when King Pethredote had finally introduced the Trothian Inclusion Act. The close proximity of their many dwellings was perhaps the only similarity this place had with Beripent, and still it felt so different. Yet somehow, despite the overpopulation, it felt spacious. Like the sky itself was bigger down here.

  All at once, the dwellings cleared and Ard saw what must have been the Ucru. It was by far the tallest structure he’d seen on t
he islet. Maybe twenty feet high and as many across. It formed a perfect dome, like an architectural representation of a Barrier Grit detonation against the sand.

  The walls of the Ucru looked to be made of thick leather, draped over a framework hidden underneath. From this distance, Ard couldn’t see a single door or window, but the very top of the dome was flat, indicating a hole.

  Water had flooded all around the Ucru like a moat, and Ard realized that it was the confluence of all the pats coming together at the islet’s center. He imagined seeing the Ennoth from a bird’s-eye view, the network of canals laid out like the spokes of a wagon wheel, with the sacred building at its hub.

  They were still a good fifty yards from the Ucru when Lyndel abruptly departed from the trench they’d been following, leading the group onto a narrow triangle of dry sand between the spokes of the wheel.

  She stopped, finally facing Ard again. Slowly, deliberately, Lyndel wiggled her bare feet until they were completely buried in the loose sand.

  She shouted a long sentence in her language, which caused all the Trothians that had escorted him to back away, retreating into the waist-deep water of the pat. Others were also filing into the canals, standing shoulder to shoulder on both sides of Ard’s stretch of dry land.

  Lyndel shouted again, only ten paces in front of Ard, but behaving like she was a world away. At her second command, a handful of Trothian women came forward. Ard instantly noticed that their apparel—specifically the red wraps around their forearms—matched Lyndel’s.

  Priestesses, Ard thought. Maybe I can appeal to their religious side.

  The five women took their places next to Lyndel, digging their feet into the sand in the same ceremonious way. They each said something, and then Lyndel spoke to Ard.

  “Do you desire a translator?” she asked flatly. Ard grunted against the gag in his mouth. He wasn’t really trying to say anything, but he wanted to remind her that he couldn’t.