Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 Read online

  3

  A Smudge of Light

  Marron felt that he need be scared of nothing now.

  With the Daughter in his blood and in his eyes, with Dard in his hand he could outfight any man, any number of men; with the Daughter in the air, in his sight, he could outrun man or spirit, slide between worlds as fast as sliding between one thought and another.

  With Jemel at his side, he thought that he need neither run nor fight. He thought that the two of them together could simply walk away. They could go to the east, perhaps, where there was no Sieur Anton and no holy war; if they went far enough, beyond the wide stretch of the Sands, there would be no djinn and no 'ifrit either, and even the gods would be strangers to them both. They could become traders, perhaps, dealers in silks and horseflesh among the yellow men of myth; Jemel knew horses, like all his people, and Marron supposed that he could learn. They could both learn about silks. They might even trade with the Sharai, with Outremer, sending their baggage-trains west, sending

  messages to their abandoned friends but never coming back, no, making a new home and a new life for themselves alone in distant lands.

  Or else they could be explorers, writing their names in legend as they traversed the land of the djinn and took back tales of wonder to transfix all who heard them; and those famous names could become a symbol perhaps of something greater than adventure, a sign that Patric and Sharai could live in peace together ...

  This Patric and this Sharai, at least. Others too, certainly others - but few, and far too few. He and Jemel were rare, each of their kind; or rather Jemel was rare and he was unique, and even they two had a ghost ever present at their feast, who might some time drive them apart if they spent too long in Outremer, if ever he stood physically between them.

  Even now, even as they played adventurer at Marrons instigation, standing high above the wide and golden world with a hot marvel beneath their feet - even now, Jemel was agitating for what Marron wouldn't, couldn't allow, a swift return in pursuit of what he chose to call justice.

  It had been Jemel who'd insisted that they come so far, once Marron had brought him here to the severed peak, where a whole mountain had been cut and polished like a jewel. Marron called it a mountain, at least. Marron came from a flat land, though. Jemel claimed to have seen higher in the Sands, and climbed them too. Perhaps it had been Marron's smile that had sent Jemel stalking so firmly across the shining, glittering surface, against his own good sense and Marrons warning, 'Careful! Keep to the edge, where it's only warm. It'll burn you, at the centre.'

  'And you too, but you're too fool to notice. Better I show you how far you can safely go.'

  Which had meant, of course, that he must needs lead all the way, must take Marron to the hot heart of what had been done here; and so he had, and so had danced from foot to foot like a scalded lizard on a skillet. It had been Marron who must move first, walking on towards the further rim.

  Jemel had followed necessarily, that was as ironcast as Marron's leading. But now he was dancing again, here where the rock was cooler; and unless he'd blistered his feet badly with his earlier bravado, then there must be another reason.

  'Jemel, Jazra is dead. Why are you so keen to follow him, so quickly?'

  'Jazra is dead,' Jemel said, 'and I do not mean to follow him at all. I'll wait till you are dead, and follow both. But Anton d'Escrivey I will send after Jazra, as soon as may be. It is my promise.'

  His voice was husky now, where it hadn't been before. Natural healing was taking over where Elisande had begun, Marron supposed, scar tissue forming where the throat had been so deeply slashed. His words must find their way around, and lost a little strength in doing so. Likely he would always sound so young, then, younger than he should.

  At the moment he was acting also younger than he should, dancing his impatience on the hot rock.

  'Morakh all but killed you, and Sieur Anton is a better swordsman than Morakh. I have fought them both, I know.'

  'Morakh took me with a trick.'

  'And what, do you suppose that Sieur Anton is any more honourable? In a duel with his own kind, then yes, perhaps, if he were observed or if his life were not at stake. But he will fight and kill an infidel any way that comes to hand. He has done so, you have seen. No, Jemel. He would overpower you, and you would die; and this time there would be no Elisande to save you. I think she would be angry to see all her work wasted.'

  'I should be sorry to make her angry at me - but I have other concerns than her anger. I have sworn an oath, to seek my vengeance; if God slay me instead, that is His will and must be endured. I said I would see you to Rhabat, and I have done that much and more ...'

  'What, do you want me to quit you of my service?'

  'I want you to come with me, Ghost Walker. As you know. I came with you, this far.'

  'You did, and glad I am of it. More than glad. But I am the Ghost Walker, and I can't wander where I choose through Outremer in pursuit of my friend's folly.' Though I will run with you, far and far from Outremer, if you will let me.

  'You wander where you choose here, in pursuit of some folly of your own.' Jemel's voice was sour, caustic enough to cut even the strings that had been twitching at him, so that at last he stood still and silent on the edge there. Halfway between the needle and the sea, between the construct and the inherent, the glamorous height and the unreachable depth. And actually where Jemel did stand, where they were — Marron could look north and say it was a peak, look south and say it was a plateau. He could say it was natural living rock that warmed their feet, because it was; he could say it was a thing utterly unnatural, because it was that also. He could say it was a nothing, a removal, an absence of form; he could say it was a mirror made to reflect the sky back to itself, dark rock that wasted its heart-heat in a sheen that showed nothing to nothing, to speak of the vast emptiness of this uninhabited world ...

  Except that the world was not uninhabited, and he should not think it so. Even as the thought did flit across his mind, dragging its own question after, he heard a susurration at his ear, the grate of wind on still air.

  'Djinni,' he said, a warning to Jemel as much as a greeting to the spirit. That little was all the greeting that it would have of him; whichever djinni it were, Khaldor or Esren or some happenstance stranger, it was equally unwelcome. He could almost laugh at his own arrogance - as though any djinni could be anything other than strange to him, whether he knew its name or not; as though any djinni would care for the welcome he gave it, in its own land or elsewhere -but he could not smile at the interruption, however conveniently it came.

  'Half-human.'

  That turned him, as it must have known it would. It was a shimmer, a twist, an intangible string in the air but not of the air. In his own land it would perhaps have glittered as it spun, perhaps have gathered up some dust to make itself a visible body; here it did neither, and Jemel was probably not seeing it at all. Marron's enhanced eyes could find it, but barely.

  'I have carried a few titles,' brother, squire, heretic, abomination, 'but half-human is new to me.'

  'You have that within you that is not human. I do not know the proportions, whether you master that which you carry or whether it masters you; either is possible. I could dismember you, but that would teach me only that it survives what you cannot, and that I know already'

  'Djinni Tachur.' Easy to name it now. 'If Elisande sent you to me, then I am sure there will have been a reason.'

  'There was. She required me to tell you that the daughter of the King's Shadow has been taken from Rhabat, by the Sand Dancer Morakh. I have not found them. Neither will you, but she would like to see you fail.'

  No echo of Elisande s voice surviving in the djinni's, but something of the girl's desperation came through none the less. Tell him that Julianne's gone, and how; tell him you can't help; tell him that I need him, urgently...

  'It will take us two days to come back to her, on foot.' Longer, perhaps. Time was hard to judge here, and they had n
ot hurried. They could hurry now, but not defeat the miles. He was a doorkeeper, no more than that; he could not overleap time or distance, in his passage between worlds.

  'I will take you, if you will permit it. She ordered me to fetch you whether you would or no; some orders I am prepared to disobey, though, and that is one.'

  Too proud to be a slave, it would make a captious servant. That was for Elisande to confront; he'd watch when he could, and enjoy. In the meantime she had asked for him, sent for him, whichever. Marron said, 'I will permit it, djinni,' smiling a little at his own condescension even as he reached for Jemel's hand.

  A whipping wind lifted his feet from the plateau, and he felt the sudden drag of Jemel's weight against his fingers. He tightened his grasp and hauled with easy, inhuman strength, yanking the other boy up to stand beside him on seemingly solid air, binding Jemel's body against his own with an arm wrapped around the narrow waist. Wide, startled eyes stared into his from an inch's distance; Marron smiled again for reassurance, did you think I would let it abandon you?

  Jemel turned his head away. Marron gazed at tangled black hair and the tawny neck beneath, heard a broken whisper, half chuckle and half sob. 'Look down, Marron, we are flying...'

  Obediently Marron looked, and saw that it was true. They were skimming like gulls over the flattened peak; for a moment he could see not a shadow but a dim reflection of his own body and Jemel's in the glittering gloss of its surface. Then they passed the southern edge and he saw the landscape fall away. Suddenly they were at eagle-height or higher, so high now that he lost that rushing sense of speed. They might have been soaring like an eagle indeed until the wide golden land beneath them began to fade, to lose itself behind a swirling darkness. Briefly he thought that he had Julianne's disease, an unexpected terror of great heights.

  The darkness grew to encompass them all, to block out the shimmering light. The djinni shone within it, though, visible now like a shaving of that same light, like a twisting hair of gold. Not Marron's head that was spinning, then, and not his sight that had clouded. At last he understood, this was how the djinni would make the shift from this world to their own. Unlike the Daughter, which simply ripped an open way between, the spirit was taking them out of the one entirely before it brought them to the other.

  Out of the one, and into what? Into a nothingness that had no light, no heat, nor need for either, Marron guessed, as surely nothing lived there. He was barely aware of Jemel's body pressed close against his, barely aware of his own; he wanted to feel himself pinched or punched or bitten, only to reassure himself that he could still feel something.

  If the worlds he knew were rooms standing side by side, then the Daughter would have torn a hole through stone and mortar; the djinni had brought them rather into a passageway that must connect the two. Or if the worlds were tents pitched close together, the Daughter was a blade to slice through woven walls, where the djinni preferred — through good manners or lack of strength or sheer wilfulness, he couldn't say — to give its companions a glimpse of the desert as it led them out and in.

  It was a dark and a chill and an inhospitable place, and Marron wanted no more of it. Would have preferred less, indeed, and a great deal less by the time he felt a bitter wind scour his skin, solid as a wall to lean against, stronger than Jemel though far less warm or welcoming. He turned his head upward and saw the stars like a glory, like a blaze of sparks strewn across the sky. This was his own world, they'd come back to it at night and but for the wind he'd not have felt the change from one cold darkness to another.

  There was no sign of life below them. That was no surprise, though. The Sands were wide and the tribes were scattered, unless they were still grouped somewhere near Rhabat. The Sharai were as sparing of their fuel as they were of everything; Marron thought he could pass above an army and barely be aware of it.

  He braced himself against the wind of their hurry, locked his arms around Jemel and kept his eyes fixed on the ground so far below. He could make out undulations in the sand that must be great dunes to those who had to cross them, that looked like mere ripples to him; he could see occasional breaks in the smooth still flow, that must mark an outcrop of rock; he thought he could see a glimmering mirror to the east, that ought to be the Dead Waters trapping the image of the stars above, as they had trapped this djinni that carried him now.

  Rhabat was there, on the further side of that inland sea. Marron hadn't thought, hadn't had time to think where this chase might have taken Elisande already. The answer it seemed was a great distance, and westerly. Westerly, of course, lay Outremer; almost directly west of Rhabat lay Elisande's own home. Surayon, the Folded Land, the state that hid itself... Marron thought that perhaps Elisande would not be welcoming the direction of this hunt, if it led other eyes to look towards Surayon.

  His own red eye was caught at last by the slightest gleam, a smudge of red light among the dunes. He was barely sure of it, so faint it was; the djinni, though, must have been certain because they were descending suddenly, fast and straight. As he blinked into the stinging wind, the glow resolved itself into a dying fire, with a single figure sitting huddled beside. Another lay on the ground at a little distance, sleeping as it seemed.

  The djinni brought them down to the fire, and set them lightly on the sand. The figure lifted its head and was Elisande, a blanket around her shoulders and an exhausted tension in her face, in her voice too as she said, 'Thank you, Esren.'

  'Indeed.' It said no more than that but stayed, a single golden thread in a gloomy tapestry. Its service done, it was only an observer now: curious, perhaps, if the djinn felt curiosity. This one might.

  Elisande stood, and came slowly to him. He still had one arm around Jemel, but she rested her cheek briefly against his other shoulder and said, 'You, too. Thank you for coming. Both of you.'

  'What else should we have done?' We should have stayed and left you to your own concerns, we should have broken free— but friendship was a snare, a cord that tightened against a struggle and would not break easily. Oaths he could break and had, but not this simpler binding.

  She drew breath beside him, intending perhaps to answer what he hadn't really meant to be a question. Seeming not to find the words she needed, she just sighed and shook her head, touched his arm with chilly fingers and turned back to the fire.

  'Tell us what happened, Elisande.' That was Jemel, making some little play to claim his own place here, both as Marron's companion and one among her certain friends.

  Again she took a breath, again she tried to speak. This time there were words, but weariness and worry held her spirit in defeat; she could tell them little more than the djinni had already. Julianne had been taken, on the night of her wedding, three nights since. The djinni had been unable to track Morakh and his captive; she and the King's Shadow had tried, were trying yet, but were having little joy of the hunt.

  'We've scoured the Sands, by Esren's grace,' she said, 'and all we've found is the remains of a fire here, some signs that were hard to read, and this.' She slipped something from her wrist and held it out to show him: a golden bangle studded with little gems. 'It might have been one of Julianne's wedding-gifts. Coren thinks so, at least. We believe that they are with an 'ifrit; if it took a winged shape, it could have carried them anywhere by now. We didn't find this place until this evening, and the fire was cold by days. They must have stopped to rest and eat, an 'ifrit can't fly at Esren’s speed, but

  But they were long gone from here, so much was obvious. The chase was futile; and yet Marron could understand the need for it, the urge to be doing something. 'Would they have crossed into Outremer?'

  'Coren says not, he says that the King could find them if they went within his borders. He may be right,' though her tone suggested doubt, either of the Shadow or possibly of the King himself. 'But there is endless country they could hide in, this side of the border; and Coren's so tired, we both are. Speak softly, don't wake him. He didn't want me to send for you but I had to, I cou
ldn't carry this alone

  The King's Shadow might be tired, might be worn out indeed from his own anxiety as Elisande was from hers, but Marron was suspicious of his sleeping. He could hear the man's soft, steady breathing, and thought he could sense a wakeful, listening mind behind it.

  'Why did Hasan leave the two of you,' a girl and an ageing man, albeit a djinni s companion and a man of rare abilities and rarer friends, 'to do his hunting for him?'

  Elisande smiled slightly, where in a lighter mood she would have laughed aloud. Marron missed the laughter, had been consciously trying for it; he knew the answer before he asked the question. 'Oh, he didn't. We left him, he couldn't keep up. The camels died, all of them, in the flood. Horses, too, though he couldn't have brought horses over this,' and she sifted sand between her fingers while her other arm waved at what must be dark to her despite the stars, to show him the windblown dunes that ran to every horizon. 'He went back to Rhabat, to try to keep the tribes together. He says that the theft of his bride from their own citadel is an insult to all the Sharai, not simply a matter for the Beni Rus. He says that if there are 'ifrit involved, it may need many warriors to retrieve her; he says that he will gather what camels he can from the local tribes, if he has to spend all the wealth in Rhabat to do it. Then he will follow, as quickly as may be. Esren carries messages between us, so he will know where to come. But we have to find Julianne first. If we fail, then Hasan will have his army at the gates of Outremer' — at the gates of Surayon she meant, or so Marron heard her — 'and he will not waste that opportunity, with his men hot for fighting. Even if we do find Julianne and rescue her, he will still be there, with his army at his back; I don't think even her pleading could hold his hand. There will be war, Marron, unless we can find her and rescue her ourselves before he come. That's why I wanted you, in case ... But I think there will be war.'

  So did Marron; so perhaps did the silent djinni, which would explain her hopelessness if it had been less silent earlier. A spirit with some sense of the future could spell doom to any prophet.